The answer to the riddle meant nothing, seen in such light. I was thankful for the opportunity afforded me by the inscrutable twists and turns of fate. I had found tasks to which I was equal, burdens comparable to my strength, and a destiny glorious enough for all my ambitions.
Here on Thanator I had found the life that had never been mine back on the earth.
Here, on this mysterious and alien world, I had come home.
For hours the mighty galleon plied the skies above the trackless leagues of the Grand Kumala. We had reached an altitude considerably higher than the levels at which the ornithopters of Zanadar are accustomed by habit and tradition to fly. This was merely a precaution against any chance encounter with another of the aerial galleons of the Sky Pirates. Such an encounter would be dangerous and premature, and scouts aloft in the rigging kept careful watch against just such an eventuality.
Here we were safe from any danger. Below us, the jungle depths were rendered hideous by prowling and nightmarish predators. I had encountered more than a few of the amazing monsters that hunt in the thick gloom of the dense jungles. It was amusing to contemplate the jungle hell beneath us, while we sailed the empty skies in thorough safety. There in the shade of those curious Thanatorian black-and-scarlet trees, we should even now be fighting for our very lives against the fanged jaws of ferocious predators. But here, in the brilliant skies of Callisto, we sailed an untroubled sea of air, alone in the windy immensities.
After an hour or so, I turned over my command to the deck officer and descended to the deck where I found Koja and the old swordmaster Lukor. I hailed them as I approached.
“Well, so far so good, Jandar!” the old Ganatolian remarked. “If our voyage continues as serenely as it has begun, we should be above the towers of Zanadar in mere days and ready for the supreme contest!”
I grinned at his sparkling eyes and ruddy cheeks. The gallant old gamecock was in fine fettle and spoiling for a fight. For all his lean shanks and silvery hair, Lukor of Ganatol was young at heart―and the greatest swordsman I had ever known. I pitied the hapless opponent who crossed blades with him, thinking him an old man: with steel in his hand, Lukor could outfight half a dozen men with only half his years.
Koja surveyed the peppery little Ganatolian expressionlessly. His solemn voice was devoid of inflection.
“Best conserve your spirit, friend Lukor,” the gaunt arthopode advised humorlessly. “The contest will be upon us soon enough, and we shall need every drop of fighting courage when we are pitted against the whole of the sky navy of Zanadar―one ship against a thousand remorseless foes!”
I interrupted. “That reminds me, Koja. It still lacks over an hour before the midday meal-time enough to practice our still unsteady skills at aerial maneuvers. As Koja says, we shall need every advantage we can summon when the chips are down, Lukor, so … gentlemen, to your posts!”
For an hour we put the Jalathadar through her paces―rising, descending, circling to port and to starboard, advancing at the three rates of speed for which the aerial contrivance had been designed, and testing our skills with the Roman catapult. This last, our “secret weapon,” was the province of my friend Valkar. He had been put in charge of training a crew to man the giant crossbow, and for days he had sweated over the obstinate device until he had mastered every eccentricity of its function and operation. When the time came at last, and we faced a hostile galleon of the skies which flew the colors of Zanadar, it was the crossbow alone would prove our salvation and our ace in the hole. I wanted to be thoroughly certain the crew had mastered the new weapon, for our very lives could well depend on their facility with it.
However, we could not dare risk expending our precious store of steel darts on empty air. Once we had exhausted our supplies of the barbed bolts, the crossbow would be useless to us. And yet constant practice in aiming and firing the weapon in all winds and weathers was a prerequisite of our employment of the weapon in battle. Therefore I had bade the crewmen affix a light strand of the woven ximchak silk to the shaft of their practice arrows, so that once fired, they could be recovered without possibility of loss. The strand was made secure to the stout railing of the crossbow deck, and in this manner we ensured continuous and extensive weapon practice without depleting our copious but hardly inexhaustible supply of bolts.
By noon the crew was sweating but grinning happily, for the crossbow operated perfectly. With a few more such practice sessions we could gamble the safety of our persons and the success of our mission upon the abilities of Valkar’s crossbowmen to employ their novel weapon against the flying ships of the City in the Clouds. We trooped down to the galley with a real appetite, and the rest of the afternoon passed without incident.
Perhaps I should include at this point some description of the extraordinary aerial contrivances that are the supreme achievement of the unique Zanadarian genius. To the eye, these flying machines resemble nothing so much as ornate, fantastical galleons left over from the Spanish Armada―galleons somehow outfitted with gigantic, flapping, batlike wings.
Technically, with an eye to naval terminology, the Jalathadar was a frigate and belonged to the same class of skygoing shipping as the Kajazell, the flying ship on which Koja and I, many months before, had served our apprenticeships at the wheels. Like a regular, sea-going frigate, the Jalathadar was a light, maneuverable, very speedy scout vessel built very high in poop and forecastle, the forecastle rising to about forty feet above keel level and the poop or sterncastle to some thirty-five feet, presenting the side-on appearance of a crescent moon.
The upper works of the forecastle bulged sharply in an exposed belvedere with wide, high windows which gave a good view on all three sides. There was a flat, balustraded observation deck on top of this belvedere, which served as pilot house and from which the frigate was controlled and navigated. We call this part of the ship the control cupola. A bowsprit protruded from the fore of the observation deck just above the curved row of windows of the control cupola, with an elaborately carved figurehead set at the base of the bowsprit, depicting a swaggering, bearded corsair with batlike wings and bird claws, clutching a cutlass in one hand and a jeweled crown in the other.
Farther down the curve of the hull, beneath the control cupola, at what would be the water level, if this were truly an ocean-faring vessel, two observation balconies bulged from the hull, one to either side. The sterncastle was outfitted with a similar belvedere, pointing aft, and a vertical rudderlike fin, ribbed like a gigantic Chinese fan, was attached to its rudderstock immediately below this aft belvedere. The rudderstock was connected to the sternpost and thence to the rear steering gear.
An immense hinged wing thrust to either side of the hull, from just below the midship-deck level. Fully extended, these wings measured one hundred and twenty-nine feet from wingtip to wingtip. The portions of either wing fastened directly to the hull were fixed and rigid and one with the framework; but about a third of the way out from the hull, the wings or vans were hinged in a most complex and ingenious manner, with huge pulleys and guy stays which permitted the crew to manipulate the outboard wing-sections so that they actually flapped up and down as do bird wings. This flapping motion is powered and controlled from mechanisms in the midship deck, the “wheel deck,” as it is called. Here are located the great hand-driven wheels which communicate motion through a sequence of cogwheels-pinion wheels successively engaging ever larger cogs―the whole connecting with the guy stays, which were thin and strong and unbelievably tough-tougher, I think, than nylon cords.
There was a simple ratchet-and-pawl arrangement on the wheels which prevented any sudden reversal; else, a contrary gust of wind might have stripped the gears, with disastrous results. These guy stays were wound about gigantic winches, set high in the upper works of the wheel deck, and the stays communicated from deck winch to wing section through rows of circular ports which ran the length of the hull just above the fixed and rigid portions of the vans.