“Good,” he chuckled, “very good( Learn from your companion how not to cause me annoyance, and all will be well enough with youl Now, both of you, crawl out into the open―for I have ascertained that we are unobserved―and relieve yourselves of bodily wastes in the disgusting manner of your brutish kind. And be quick about it! We must go far this day, and time is of the utmost importance.”
The two youngsters had no option but to do as they were told, and crawled out into the open, squatted, and performed the functions of nature as best they could. Poor Tomar was scarlet with embarrassment at being forced to relieve himself in the company of the girl, and scrupulously avoided glancing in her direction. The Jungle Maid was somewhat less fastidious about such matters, although even among her primitive tribe such necessities were attended to in relative privacy. However, she felt ashamed and soiled by the act and endured her indignity as best she could. But her opinions of the creature who has forced this shame upon the two of them were so vitriolic that they cannot be repeated here.
Zhu Kor, of course, was aware of her discomfiture and of her loathing. It did not in the least annoy him: in his cold, inhuman way, he found it rather amusing.
ALL that day they continued traveling westward, after wending south for the first hour and a half of the journey. Zhu Kor had taken the lead and hobbled along with an easy and effortless stride, for all his hunched and diminutive stature. The boy and the girl followed as best they could, but found it difficult with their hands bound to traverse the sandy plain, littered with tumbled slabs of broken rock.
On more than one occasion Tomar or Ylana tripped and fell, and the strangling-noose each still wore tightened, cutting off their breathing. On each such occasion, however, Zhu Kor paused and stood negligently smiling his cold, cruel, thin-lipped smile while the boy or the girl, or both, struggled slowly and painfully to their feet again.
As it was not the custom of the inhabitants of Thanator to indulge in the midday meal, no pause in their progress was permitted until late afternoon. Weary and bedraggled, bruised and dusty, aching in every muscle, the two captives limped and staggered along, striving to keep up with their captor, who still wore the ends of their leashes fastened about his bony wrist.
To alleviate the boredom of their journey, the two conversed at times in whispers pitched too low for their captor to overhear. Doubtless, Zhu Kor was aware of this, for from time to time Tomar and Ylana were aware of the cold and alien touch of his intrusion into the privacy of their thoughts, fleeting as these intrusions were. But the contempt of the Mind Wizard for the two captives he regarded as little more than articulate beasts was such that it mattered not to him what they said to one other.
“West, and always west,” whispered Ylana after a time through dry, parched lips. “Wherever do you suppose he is taking us?”
“Only the Lords of Gordrimator know that,” Tomar breathed.
An hour or so later, a thought suddenly occurred to the jungle Maid, and she stiffened up from the exhausted slouch she had assumed and hissed to attract Tomar’s attention.
“What is it?” he asked wearily.
Excitement danced in the girl’s bright eyes.
“I believe I know where he is leading us,” the girl gasped with eagerness.
“Where, then?”
“If I remember rightly the big chart that Dr. Abziz drew up, the only geographical feature of any particular importance lying slightly south and due west of Kuur is the plateau that bears the great lake of Cor-Az, and the jungle country where my people live,” the girl whispered excitedly. “I think that’s where we are going, and, if I am right, then all may yet be well with us!”
“Oh? Why do you think that?” asked Tomar in low tones.
A flash of her old temper sparked in the jungle Girl’s heart. In much her old rude manner, she snorted, eyeing her companion contemptuously.
“You’ve about as much brains in your head as a zell,” she said impolitely, naming a flying lizardlike creature that was one of the denizens of this inhospitable country and which had never particularly been noticed for its intelligence.
“What do you mean?” whispered the boy, flushing as he always did under the lashing of the girl’s tongue.
“By the Red Moon, you scrawny lout, don’t you remember that my father, Jugrid, is the chieftain of the Cave Country, and that my mother came from among the River People, the other tribe who share that land with us, and who live near the shores of the river that drains from the Cor-Az and pours over the edge of the plateau from a precipice known as the Falls, and that she was herself the daughter of Zuruk, the chief?”
“Yes, I remember you mentioning the matter,” said the boy dispiritedly.
“Well, then l” snorted the girl. “If he leads us thereand I don’t know why he should, but I can’t think where else we could be going―then it seems to me that there’s an awfully good chance that either my father’s people or my mother’s folk would fight to free us. He’s not all that powerful, you know. He can’t control more than a couple minds at a time. He surely can’t take over the brains of the warriors of a whole tribe all at oncel”
“I see what you’re getting at,” muttered Tomar, his head down, not looking at her, as they trudged along over the rough and broken ground.
“So?”
“So I’m afraid that you’re the one whose forgotten something,” he said.
“And what is it that I’ve forgotten that’s so important?” the girl demanded.
“You’ve forgotten that your father, even though he was the chief of your tribe, had no power to go against the wishes of the Elders when it came to their wanting you to marry that warrior of the tribe whom you disliked so―what was his name?”
“Xangan.”
“That’s right, Xangan. I seem to remember that you ran away rather than be forced into this marriage with Xangan, and got yourself captured by the Flying Men, which is how Prince Janchan and I met you in the first place.”
“So what?” demanded the girl impatiently. She disliked being reminded of that episode, in which she had forgotten that which was drummed into all the children of her tribe―to be wary and cautious of capture by the dreaded winged cannibals called the Zarkoon.
“So―in case you’ve forgotten, Ylana, the Elders of your tribe just about worship the Mind Wizards of Kuur, whom they call the 'Unseen Ones,' or something like that, and if Jugrid the chief, your father, had so little authority over the Elders that he couldn’t even keep them from forcing you into marriage with a man you detested, he’s not going to be able to get you free from a Mind Wizard the Elders revere almost as a god.”
The girl said nothing, merely limped along at his side.
“And, since the Elders summoned the Mind Wizards from Kuur to come and carry off Prince Janchan and Lukor and myself, that time we managed with your help to escape from the caves of your people, they certainly aren’t going to be friendly toward us this time, with a live Mind Wizard on the scene.”
The girl made no reply to this, not that there was much of anything she could have said in rebuttal. Tomar stole a glance at her. Ylana’s head sagged on her breast and her hair, dusty and disheveled, hung so that it hid her expression from him.
“Ylana, I’m sorry.”
She said nothing.
They went forward in silence together, under the blazing sky.
AND before long there appeared against that sky a bat-winged mote.
It was Ylana who noticed it first. The Jungle Maid, tossing her damp curls back limply, glanced skyward and froze, violet eyes dilating.
“What is it?” mumbled Tomar, not noticing her attention riveted on the heavens.