“What do you think?” inquired the insectoid, showing the bit of wire to the Tharkolian.
“It looks like part of the copper ornament the savage girl wore about her arm,” murmured the young officer.
“Quite likely so,” mused Koja. “Moreover, it has not lain here for long, otherwise the moisture which bedews the floor of the cavern would have marked the metal with greenish corrosion.”
“The implication of which is, then, that the girl left it here to mark the way for any of us who might follow,” said Kadar.
“I believe that to be the most reasonable assumption to make, under the circumstances,” said Koja in his harsh, metallic voice, devoid of inflection. “Do you deduce any further intelligence from this discovery?”
The Tharkolian replied that he did not.
“They have been captured by the Kuurian,” said the Yathoon warrior with conviction in his emotionless tones. Kadar looked up at his towering height with surprise.
“How do you figure that?”
“Why else leave a bit of copper behind? The tunnel goes straight on in the direction we have been traveling since we ascended the secret stair. It does not branch off in any other side tunnel. So the bit of copper could not have been set here in order that the two young people might find their way back in the manner in which they came. I believe the Kuurian detected that he was being followed and hid here to surprise them. There is no blood on the cavern floor, hence there was no battle. He must have seized control of their minds, or forced them to disarm at swordpoint. They are now prisoners, completely in the power of a desperate creature. Forward, my warriors, with all possible speed―our friends may yet live!”
THE mouth of the tunnel was masked by a slab of stone. When they reached it, and realized they could go no further, Koja’s warriors searched about, poking and prying until they managed to discover the hidden catch that opened the door.
They emerged onto the flank of the wall of mountains which marched along the edge of the Valley of the Mind Wizards to the south. It was still daylight, therefore they were able to search the slope carefully and thoroughly. They did so, however, without finding anything indicating that the Mind Wizard or his two presumed captives had come this way.
“Search again,” commanded the Yathoon emotionlessly. “There was no other way they could have gone.”
By nightfall, they were still searching. Under the dim light of the moon Juruvad they continued to cover the ground, but eventually the failure of the light rendered further search impossible.
”We shall camp here until dawn,” decided Koja. Kadar began to protest, but the Yathoon silenced him curtly. “There is naught else to do, Kadar. We cannot hope to find footprints or a further piece of Ylana’s copper wire in the darkness. Unfortunately for our young friends, this is the Night of the Single Moon.”
“Aye, curse the luck!” muttered Kadar grimly. “And that one moon would have to be Juruvad, due to the innate perversity of things!”
Koja said nothing, although doubtless he shared the bitter emotion. Juruvad is the Thanatorian name for Amalthea, the tiny satellite of Jupiter that is the inmost of all her many moons. Because of her smallness, or her great distance from Callisto, or both, Juruvad sheds remarkably little light on the world called Thanator.
They had carried with them no food nor water, due to the haste with which they had embarked upon their pursuit of the fugitives. Hence they fasted that night. But with the first blaze of dawn, they were awake and ready to march.
The slopes that led into the Valley of the Mind Wizards they had already thoroughly covered the night before. Now the warriors turned their attentions to the further side, which led down to the rock-strewn plains surrounding the mountainguarded valley.
Almost at once, a young Shondakorian swordsman named Vargon discovered Ylana’s second token, a short length of copper wire torn obviously from her ornament, and about the same size as the first they had discovered. It marked a narrow passage across the cloven peak of the mountain, with a trail which zigzagged down the slope to the plain beyond.
“The girl has kept her wits about her,” commented Koja with approval. “They took this way down. Swiftly now, men, and watch your footing!”
As they made their descent of the further slope, Kadar wondered aloud how the jungle Maid was managing to leave clues behind to mark their trail without this being known by the Mind Wizard. Koja flexed his brow-antennae in the Yathoon equivalent of a human shrug of the shoulders..
“Obviously, there are limits to the powers of the Mind Wizards,” he observed solemnly. “To exert continuous control over the mind of another must be fatiguing, or may require a degree of concentration that the Kuurian cannot afford to exert while negotiating so precipitous a decline as this. Or, conversely, it is difficult or even impossible for him to control or even overwatch two minds simultaneously; so, probably assuming the boy Tomar to be the more potentially quarrelsome or dangerous of the pair, he ignores the girl most of the time. But let us save our breath for the climb down. Speculation on the unknown is fruitless, at best.”
At the bottom of the cliff, they spread out and searched in both directions. Before long they found marks indicating that the Mind Wizard and his prisoners had spent the night in a small cave. The warriors fanned out, searching in everwidening circles from the cave, using it as a base for their reconnaissance. Before long a third piece of copper wire was found, pointing south and west.
“They have gone in this direction,” decided Koja. Then he turned to one of the warriors, a Tharkolian named Jarak. “Jarak, reascend the cliff and return at once to report these things to Sir Lukor. It is probable that we shall require many more men to search the wilderness that lies before us, which is largely unexplored. We may require the services of the Jalathadar itself, but that is a decision only Lukor can make.”
“Yes, sir,” said the warrior, saluting smartly. As he turned on his heel to go, Koja detained him for additional instruction.
“There is, by the way, no need to retrace our path through the tunnel, for that would be wasting time, which is our most valuable commodity, under these circumstances,” the insect-man said thoughtfully. “Simply descend to the floor of the Valley on the other side of this mountain, Jarak. You will reach the encampment of our troops much more swiftly in that manner.”
The warrior nodded, saluted again, and began to climb.
Koja turned, ordered his men into arrowhead formation, and began to traverse the plain in the direction which Ylana’s token had specified.
“What if the Kuurian chooses to change the direction in which he is traveling?” inquired Kadar after a time.
“We may hope that Ylana remains unobserved long enough to mark the new direction as she has previously marked her trail,” replied Koja.
“And if she is unable to do so, or prevented from doing so?”
Koja looked straight ahead and continued striding into the southwest without further reply to Kadar’s question.
There was nothing he could say.
MANY hours later the warriors under Koja’s command were resting in the shade of a vast, rocky outcropping. Lack of food and water was beginning to reduce their strength. There was nothing they could do about this, however, but endure as stolidly as they could the rigors of hunger and thirst. The wilderness of scattered rock and sterile sands was seemingly uninhabited by men or beasts; and there was no water here.