The girl was white-faced with horror.
“Do you mean that you have been condemned to death for things that I did alone, and of which you were completely ignorant, at the time?” the girl demanded incredulously.
Her father nodded somberly.
“So much for the justice meted out by our pious and god-fearing Elders,” muttered a voice at the barred gate.
It was young Thadron, the guard. The warrior was somewhat more intelligent and better-bred than the brutish tribesmen of Xangan’s ilk. Ylana turned upon him in a mute appeal for help. He looked ashamed and distinctly uncomfortable.
“Thadron, is it not?” she asked urgently. “Thadron, I recall you were ever a warrior of honor, who dealt with me courteously and in a respectful manner. Can you not help us now, in our time of need? I am more than willing to bear testimony that it was not my father who struck down Brokar and Cadj,” (these were the names of the two guards who were felled during the attempted escape) “but that I am the guilty one.”
Thadron bit his lip and lowered his head, so as not to have to meet the eyes of Ylana.
“Daughter of the chief, I would help you if I could,” the young warrior said in low tones, “but even I find it impossible to believe that a girl such as yourself could slay two such mighty warriors as Brokar and Cadj.”
“But I did not slay them,” protested Ylana in a vehement tone. “It was Prince Jandar and the old swordsman, Lukor! It must have been they―but in all events, it was certainly not Jugrid, your chief!”
Here young Tomar stepped forward. Looking the guard in the eye the boy told in earnest tones how Lukor had persuaded the guards to open the door on a pretext, and had sprung upon one of them and had slit his throat with the flint-bladed knife that Ylana had slipped to them earlier, while Jandar dispatched the other with a blow of his fist.
Thadron opened his mouth to make, some reply to the appeal of the others when there sounded behind him the crunch of a sandal on the stony soil.
He turned to see a hulking and hirsute figure eyeing him with an expression at once suspicious and truculent. It was a warrior known as Fanga, a crony of Xangan’s.
“By orders of Xangan the chief, I am to replace you here,” grunted Fanga.
“My duty is not up until nightfall, or so I had been given to understand,” protested Thadron. The other shrugged and took up the stone-tipped spear that Thadron had left standing against the stone wall beside the entrance of the cave.
There was nothing for Thadron to do but turn away and seek out the cook-fires, where a few scraps doubtless remained for those who, like himself, had been on guard or sentry duty during the mealtime.
But he went with slow steps and a heavy heart.
TO change the subject to one less painful, Jugrid inquired of his daughter by what peculiar magic they had come flying down from the skies astride one of the fearsome, bat-winged, dragonlike predators.
Ylana and Tomar, frequently interrupting each other in their eagerness, described the recent events that had taken place. They told of the expedition of the warriors and fighting men of the distant West in their uncanny aerial ships, and of the battle for Kuur, and of its conquest and the destruction of the Mind Wizards, who were the only reality behind the weird myths of the Unseen Ones.
They then explained how they had been captured by the last surviving Mind Wizard and forced to accompany him across the hostile wilderness between Kuur and the Jungle Country.
Tomar explained how the Kuurians possessed the chilling power to read influence, and even control the minds of others, and how this could be exercised even over the beasts of the wild. He told how Zhu Kor, weary at last of traversing the barren and rocky land afoot, had called down by his eerie powers one of the great bat-winged ghastozars, which the savants of his race were accustomed to use for riding-beasts when they needed to transport themselves swiftly from one place to another.
It was by Mind Wizards mounted on a force of monstrous ghastozars that the flying galleons of the First Expedition against Kuur had been taken by surprise attack one dark and moonless night while still high above the surface of the planet, Tomar explained.
Holding the small, rapacious brain of the flying predator helpless under his will, Zhu Kor had forced the brute to take them upon its back, and they had thus flown the remaining leagues to the jungle Country more swiftly than they could have accomplished the same distance even mounted upon fleet-footed thaptors.
At the conclusion of their narrative, the two young people lapsed into silence. Both the boy and the girl had had little sleep the night before, and were greatly wearied by their long trek afoot over the rocky wastes, and their bleary eyes and uncontrolled yawns attested to their need for rest. Jugrid advised them to snatch what little respite they could before nightfall, and they needed very little encouragement. Both lay down against the wall and were soon asleep, leaving Jugrid to his moody thoughts.
NIGHT fell, and the golden skies of Callisto darkened at once as if a black pall had been cast across the world, or as if the unseen source of all radiance had suddenly been extinguished.
The immense, ochre-banded bulk of mighty Gordrimator filled nearly one-quarter of the horizon, its great Red Spot glaring down at the valley of the Cave People like an angry and baleful eye.
But the fires of the sacrifice were not lit, and the guards did not come to lead Jugrid to the place of his death.
In the darkness of the cave the chief busied himself about a small, secret task, grateful for even so brief a stay as this given him by the Mind Wizard, who held the Elders long in council, delaying the hour of execution.
Tomar had confided his opinions as to why Zhu Kor had sought out the cave country atop the high plateau. With the destruction of Kuur, and the demise of his brethren, he had reasoned Zhu Kor was the last of his race in all the world. And the country of the Cave People, who worshiped his kind and who were under the thumb of the Elders, was the last and only power base that remained to the yellow dwarf.
What use Zhu Kor might put the savage tribe to was as yet unguessable. But at least, in the cavern of the Elders, he had a place of refuge.
As the huge and luminous rondure of Gordrimator rose into the skies of Callisto, its beams struck deep into the cave where the two young people slept. The light shining into his eyes eventually awoke Tomar, who roused to find that, unaccountably, his arm was about the warm shoulders of the still sleeping Ylana, and the girl’s slim body was cuddled cozily against his side.
Flushing scarlet, the boy disengaged himself as gently as he could, to avoid waking the exhausted girl, and glanced guiltily about the cave to see if her father had noticed their position, which as a male relative he might easily have considered compromising.
Jugrid, however, was more tolerant of the affections of young people than Tomar guessed, and had only smiled affectionately, remembering with nostalgia his own youth when he noticed the sleeping pair.
Besides, he had other and more vital matters on his mind―his impending execution and the safety of his daughter and her young friend.
Seeing that Tomar was now awake, the chief beckoned the boy nearer. The boy came to Ylana’s mighty sire, and the two conversed in whispers for a time, keeping their voices pitched too low for the hulking and oafish Fanga to hear from his place by the mouth of the cave.
Jugrid informed the Shondakorian youth of his intention to escape with Tomar and Ylana into the jungle, there to perhaps seek refuge with the River People.
“I am certainly anxious to get Ylana out of here, sir,” said Tomar diffidently, “but how can we possibly get away? Prince Jandar and Sir Lukor and I, when we were imprisoned here before, examined the walls and floor of the entire cave, and the cave mouth is the only way out―and that is securely barred.”