Carter, Lin - Green Star 4 - As The Green Star Rises

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As the Green Star Rises
Book 4 of the Green Star series
By Lin Carter
CONTENTS
Part I THE BOOK OF ANDAR THE KOMARIAN
Chapter 1 ON THE BRINK OF DEATH
Chapter 2 ABOARD THE XOTHUN
Chapter 3 SLAVES OF THE BLUE BARBARIANS
Chapter 4 THE FATE OF THE SKY-SLED
Chapter 5 MAN OVERBOARD!
Part II THE BOOK OF RALIDUX THE MALE
Chapter 6 ISLE OF THE ANCIENT ONES
Chapter 7 ALTAR OF THE SERPENT-GOD
Chapter 8 NAKED FANGS
Chapter 9 FLAME FOR FREEDOM
Chapter 10 THE VAULT OF MARVELS
Part III THE BOOK OF SHANN OF KAMADHONG
Chapter 11 CASTAWAYS IN AN UNKNOWN SEA
Chapter 12 A STRANGE DISCOVERY
Chapter 13 JUNGLE LOVERS
Chapter 14 VISITOR FROM THE SKIES
Chapter 15 CAPTURED INTO THE CLOUDS
Part IV THE BOOK OF PARIMUS THE WIZARD
Chapter 16 THE DECISION OF PARIMUS
Chapter 17 THE MIND-QUESTING
Chapter 18 THE SHIP FROM THE SKY
Chapter 19 WHEN COMRADES MEET
Chapter 20 SLITHERING HORROR
Part V THE BOOK OF DELGAN OF THE ISLES
Chapter 21 THIEVES IN THE NIGHT
Chapter 22 FLASHING SWORDS!
Chapter 23 TO THE DEATH
Chapter 24 RACE AGAINST TIME
Chapter 25 AS THE GREEN STAR RISES
Epilogue
Part I
THE BOOK OF ANDAR THE KOMARIAN
Chapter 1
ON THE BRINK OF DEATH
I had only minutes to live. Soon the tides would rise, the waves of the sea would wash over the tiny
islet upon which I had been marooned by the treachery of a supposed friend, and I would drown. How
strange it was to find that I feared extinction–I, who have died once, already, only to be reborn in the
body of another!
Mine must surely be the strangest story in all the annals of human experience. Born to wealth and
social position on the distant planet Earth, I had traversed the abyss of space to become a homeless
wanderer; a savage boy, lost and helpless amid the wonders and perils of an alien world.
Chained to a cripple’s body, I had learned to burst those chains that bind the spirit to its habitation
of flesh. I had set my spirit free, to roam the infinite wilderness of stars! For within that crippled carcass
beat a warrior’s heart, whose blood stirred to the siren-call of adventure and mystery.
Across the universe I had drifted to a new life in a new body, upon a strange and marvelous planet
which revolves about a star of green fire–a star unknown and unnamed by the astronomers of my native
world. But a star under which such as I might find the life of excitement, bravery and battle for which my
spirit had been forged.
In the body of the warrior hero, Chong, I had loved and won the love of Niamh the Fair, princess
of the Jewel City of Phaolon. And in defending her against her enemies, I had fallen beneath the
treacherous blow of a coward’s knife, I had gone down to the Black Gates of Death, leaving my
beloved Princess alone and helpless in the power of her enemies.
But the love I felt for Niamh the Fair proved stronger than death itself, and from the portals of his
Dark Kingdom I had come back to dwell in a second body, that of a savage boy named Kam of the
Red Dragon people.
In this second incarnation upon the World of the Green Star I had found new friends to aid me in
the search for my lost beloved. Zarqa the Kalood was one–an alien being; tall, gaunt and
golden-skinned, nude, sexless and bewinged. The last survivor of a prehuman race which had ruled this
planet in former ages, Zarqa became my ally and my friend.
Janchan of Phaolon was another–the bold and daring young princeling who had quested through the
extremities of the world to find the lost princess of his realm.
By a strange trick of fate it had been these, the Winged Man and the Phaolonese noble, who had
set my Princess free from the temples of Ardha, and not I. For I had fallen captive to the Assassins when
fate sundered our company. But even in that grim fellowship of thieves and murderers, I had found a
friend and companion in the Assassin Klygon.
Grinning, sly, ugly little Klygon! Within his homely breast beat a hero’s heart–staunch and loyal and
courageous. Together we had fled from the treetop city of Ardha, seeking to rejoin Zarqa and Janchan
and my Princess. But among the world-broad forest of the sky-tall trees we had become irretrievably
lost. In the depths of the night-black gigantic wood, where enormous worms slither through the
unbroken gloom, among the tangled roots of the tremendous trees, we had fallen captive to a repulsive
race of albino cannibals who dwelt in noisome caverns tunneled beneath the ground.
There we had met with Delgan of the Isles–or so he called himself. A blue-skinned man of
indeterminate age, Delgan was a slave as were we. Together, we three had escaped from the albino
troglodytes and won freedom . . . but at the price of my eyesight. For, in battling the monster Nithogg,
giant worm-god of the savages, I had been blinded by an explosion of light. So intense had been that
burst of brilliance, I feared my vision would be forever impaired.
Together, riding upon an immense leaf fallen from a tree taller than any Everest, we followed a river
down to the sea. I wish I could convey the mystery of this astounding discovery to the reader this
manuscript may find. In a world where one interminable forest of mile-high trees marched from horizon
to horizon, and from pole to pole, the very existence of this immense tract of waters under the open sky
was more than a legend: it was a myth.
But we found it, Klygon, Delgan, and I, Kam.
That very night our friend betrayed us. While we slept upon a tiny islet, scarcely more than a reef of
sand, he thieved our stores and weapons from us. Striking down my faithful Klygon with a blow that
would have cracked open any skull less hard than his, bidding me a mocking adieu, he sailed off in our
leaf-boat; he left me stranded–blind and helpless, to await my death at the turning of the tide.
And so my long saga of peril and adventure drew close to its end.
I sat there, hugging my knees, listening to the rising wind and the lapping of waves. There was
nothing I could do. The isle was bare and empty; and our only road to safety had been the leaf-boat,
crisp and curled, long and narrow as a canoe. With that taken from us, we were marooned here.
Klygon, as I have said, yet lived. The coward’s blow in the dark had only rendered him
unconscious. Now roused to consciousness again, he was groggy and still partially stunned. I had
dragged him up to the highest point of land and sat there by his side, awaiting the end of our travail.
It would not be long in coming, that I knew. The wind was rising, dawn was glimmering in the east
even now (I sensed); and the water rose inch by inch, foot by foot.
The unknown sea was a very large one–bigger than Lake Superior, perhaps bigger than the
Caspian. The gravitational pull of the Green Star is strong–many times stronger than the Moon’s pull,
back on my native world. This planet revolves so closely about the Green Star that its surface would
have been seared to a lifeless desert, bad it not been for the eternal blanket of cloud-barrier which
envelopes it, even as Venus is enveloped; this alone makes life endurable here.
And, as the Green Star rises, so rise the tides of that sea!
I had failed in everything. Janchan and Zarqa, together with the incarnate Goddess Arjala, had freed
Niamh from her prison, flying off with her into the unknown. I did not know what had become of them.
For aught I knew, they might stand in direst peril at this very moment.
Their fate was as unknown to me as mine would be to them. They must often have wondered what
had become of the wild boy, Karn the Hunter, who had saved them from the clutches of the mad
magician, Sarchimus.
In another moment–or another hour–the tides would rise to drag me down. And I, who had passed
through the Black Gates once, would do so again. And those who loved me would not ever know what
had chanced, or how I met my end.
The Green Star was rising. I could not see its emerald splendor touching the clouds to fire. But I
could feel the warmth of daylight, beating on my face.
And I thought of Delgan, who had left us here to die.
Why had he first befriended, then turned upon us? Klygon, I remembered, had not trusted him from
the very first. But it had ever been my way, perhaps foolishly, to take men at their face value, to accept
them at their word. Well, now that trait had brought me down–not only me alone, but the homely, loyal,
faithful Klygon, as well.
My eyes were scaled in darkness; but I remembered the sound of Delgan’s voice–smooth,
obsequious, with a hint of mockery behind his words and the glint of cunning in his candid, innocent eyes.
If this were not to be the end, after all, perhaps we would meet again, Delgan and I. My jaw
tightened at the thought.. Oh, to have my eyes again, and a longsword in my hand, and to be brought
face to face with Delgan of the Isles! Then it would be steel against steel; my courage and skill and
determination against his cunning and slyness and treachery . . . and I would abide by the outcome of the
gamble. For Delgan would not walk away from me a second time, I silently vowed . . .
And then I felt the water against my feet, lapping about my heels.
I stood up, dragging the groggy Klygon erect and holding him up, while the cold waves washed
about my ankles. I really cannot explain why I did this, but there is something within me which refuses to
give up even when the future looks at its blackest, and my luck has reached its end. It would be wiser
not to have fought for another minute’s breath, but to yield to that which was inevitable. Well, perhaps
so: but it was my way to fight on even against the most hopeless of odds, to the last moment, the last
breath, the last drop of blood.
The waves closed about my legs; soon they would wash about my knees. And then it would be
only moments to live.
Oh, it is hard to die when you are blind! I, who have faced Death unflinchingly, eye to eye, would
do so at the end. But I could not see the face of mine Adversary, the placid face of the waters that
would be my second tomb . . .
The numbing coldness of the waves about his lower limbs must have roused Klygon from his
stupor, for I heard him gasp suddenly.
Then he clutched my arm in a powerful grip, his fingers biting into my flesh like steel hooks. He
began a senseless ullulation–a howl of agony that sounded like a cry of surprise! There were no words
to that strangled, bellowing cry, and I wondered if his reason had not given away before the shock of
awakening to the very face of death.
But then, just a moment later I heard another sound, at first inexplicable. Then, with a jarring shock,
I recognized it
The slap of waves against–a hull!
And I wondered if my reason had given way, as well!
Then, as I swayed numbly, scarcely daring to hope, there came to my ears the creak of oarlocks,
the grunt of the rowers. And in the next instant, just as the waves rose about my loins, there were hands
that grasped me, lifting me from the cold embrace of the deadly waters into the dry safety of a boat; and
Klygon beside me, sobbing and babbling. And then I am very much afraid that I fainted dead away.
Chapter 2
ABOARD THE XOTHUN
I have escaped death many times during my years of perilous adventure on the World of the Green
Star, but never so narrowly as when the Xothun pirates rescued Klygon and I from the rising waves of
the Sea of Komar.
Unable to see my new surroundings, or the hands which had lifted me from the murderous embrace
of the waters, I perforce relied upon my companion to serve as my eyes. Poor Klygon was ill-suited for
such a task, I fear. Spawn of the gutters of Ardha, denizen of the back-alleys of the Yellow City, his
rearing and education had prepared him poorly for such a situation.
Perhaps I should explain here, for the benefit of whatever reader may chance upon this narrative,
that the natives of the Green Star are wont to dwell in treetop cities built high among the lofty boughs of
their world-wide forest. Indeed, the Laonese–for so they term their race–have a superstitious terror of
the floor of the continental forest and never willingly descend to solid ground at the base of the colossal
trees. “The Bottom of the World” they call it; that black and lightless abyss, given over to the monstrous
worms and cannibal savages, where seldom does a ray of sunlight ever penetrate to lighten its perpetual
gloom.
The universal language they speak, therefore, does not even have the words to describe our
situation. Since the denizens of the treetop cities have never seen or even imagined a sea, they have no
words in their vocabulary to describe such a phenomenon. And the very concept of a ship built to
navigate such a sea is equally alien and unfamiliar to them. But by dint of patient and repeated
questioning, I drew from Klygon a word-picture of the vessel whereon we were now captive.
It was a wooden vessel of several decks and considerable length, called the Xothun, by which
name the Islanders refer to a sea-dwelling reptile unknown to Klygon’s people. The Xothun had a
high-tiered forecastle, where the captain’s cabin was situated and the bridge from where the vessel was
steered, and a pointed prow. The midship deck was railed with gunwales of ornately-careen wood, with
a high-built sterncastle and a rudder shaped like a dragon’s tail. From what I could elicit from Klygon’s
halting descriptions, the ship sounded not unlike a Spanish or Venetian galleon of the High Renaissance.
The Xothun’s design was sophisticated and its craftsmanship denoted that its builders belonged to
an advanced level of civilization. Oddly enough, however, the officers and crew-members seemed
scarcely developed above savagery. They were a loutish and ill-kempt lot, clothed in tattered and filthy
skins, fitted with scraps and bits of war-armor fashioned of the glassy, transparent metal the Laonese
employ instead of iron or steel. Unshaven and dirty, surly and disobedient, quarrelsome and often drunk,
it seemed to me that they had too recently emerged out of the red murk of barbarism to have possessed
the skills to design or build such a galleon as the Xothun.
And their unfitness to sail the Xothun was evident, even to a blind man. The ship was maintained in
the most slovenly manner imaginable, her decks and stairways littered with garbage, beslimed with offal.
Discipline was almost nonexistent among them; order was maintained only because the ship’s officers
were larger and stronger than the crewmen, and went heavily armed with dirk, axe and cutlass at all
times.
The captain of the Xothun was afoul-mouthed brute called Hoggur. According to Klygon’s faltering
descriptions, he was a towering brute, muscled like a gladiator, ugly as an ogre, bristling with weapons.
As for his vicious temper, I had evidence of that from my own knowledge; I had not been aboard the
Xothun half a day before Iloggur turned upon one of the crewmen for some fancied slur or insult, and
flogged the poor creature half to death.
Considering the low position of the Xothun pirates on the social scale, you may be wondering why
they ever bothered to save Klygon and me from drowning. It was not from motives of simple humanity
or noble altruism, I assure you, but from simple need. The gallery had masts and sails, Klygon told me,
but its masters seemed largely ignorant of their use and relied upon the oarbanks for propellent power.
So cruelly treated were the rowers, who remained chained below-decks at all times, living, working and
sleeping in their own filth, that they died like flies. This required Hoggur and his officers to find
replacements for those who died and were heaved overboard to feed the fish.
Thus, when a lookout posted high in the crow’s nest of the galley spied Klygon and me in
immediate peril of drowning, Hoggur dispatched a longboat to bring us aboard. Once we were on deck
before him, he looked us over with a contemptuous sneer and commanded that we be taken below and
chained to the oars to replace two rowers who had died the night before. Neither of us were in the best
condition, having but recently escaped from the noisome underground burrows of the troglodytes, but
that made little difference to Hoggur. Nor did the fact of my blindness interest him: an oarsman does not
need his eyesight to drag on the oars.
And so it was that Klygon and I were saved from a watery grave only to be enslaved at the oars of
the Xothun; there we toiled in reeking filth and perpetual darkness under the lash until we succumbed to
some illness, whereupon we would be unchained and dropped over the side.
Out of the frying-pan, into the fire, as we Earthlings say! Still and all, even the postponement of
certain death gives one certain latitude for hope. Better the death delayed than death at hand.
My companion at the oars of the Xothun was a young nobleman called Andar. Komar was his
country, an island in the archipelago which lay in the midst of the Komarian Sea. Although I could not
see him, I guessed from his pleasant, manly voice and the superior breeding which was evident in the
many kindnesses he displayed towards me, that he came from a more cultured society than that of the
repulsive savages who commanded the vessel.
The other men chained to the oars with us were also mostly Komarians, I gathered. Toiling at the
oars, listening to brief snatches of conversation as they whispered among themselves, I began to piece
together something of what had happened to them; why they had been consigned to so dire a fate.
The loutish crew who commanded the Xothun, said Klygon, looked very unlike the men chained to
the oars. The crewmen were hulking and slovenly, with coarse, brutish features and peculiar blue skins.
The oarsmen were slimly built, with the pale golden complexions and slanted emerald or amber eyes of
dwellers in the treetop cities. Their manner suggested culture and exquisite breeding; they were
aristocrats like Andar, while their masters were savages.
I soon understood the tragedy which had so recently overtaken these people. On the World of the
Green Star were a wandering race of azure-skinned nomads known as the “Blue Barbarians.” They
roamed from place to place; a savage, homeless horde, possessing neither culture nor civilization.
Scarcely more than brutes, their ever-swelling numbers and innate ferocity made them an object of fear
and dread to the more civilized inhabitants of the treetop cities.
For these Blue Barbarians, it seemed, were subject to unpredictable attacks of madness. This
infected the entire race at intervals, turning them into howling, berserk maniacs. During these periodic fits
of racial insanity they became monsters, attacking whatever lay in their path, destroying all who stood
before them; fighting like madmen with an utter fearlessness and a resistance to pain that made them
terrible. Doubtless, in one such berserk frenzy, they had ventured into the islands of the sea, hurling
themselves against the fightingmen of Komar; this kingdom they overwhelmed and trampled down.
Now it was their way to overwhelm, conquer and destroy, but never to rule. Having overcome one
of the Laonese cities, I understood, they had butchered its populace and left it in wreckage, wandering
away in an aimless fashion. Why, then, had they in this instance remained to occupy the cities of Komar
and man its ships? This change in the ways of the Barbarians seemed to me inexplicable and even
frightening.
I addressed my questions to the young man chained next to me, a former noble of the Komarians
called Andar. I have already spoken of his friendly and sympathetic way, under our common condition
of slavery. I had introduced Klygon and myself to Andar with few details; merely saying that we were
former captives of the cave-dwelling albino cannibals of the mainland forests recently escaped from
captivity. I had not expanded on our adventures in any great detail; of course, the account of our most
recent adventures I had given to Andar, while cursory, was no less than accurate and true.
Andar was an intelligent and gentlemanly warrior, and answered my questions without pause.
According to him there had arisen amongst the Barbarians a chieftain whose name he did not know, but
who was a man of greater cunning, cleverness and foresight than his brutish brethren. He had risen
swiftly to a position of the highest authority among the tribe, that of Warlord. Andar guessed that by
some freak of heredity, the Warlord was naturally immune to the racial madness which afflicted all the
other Barbarians. He hit upon a method of using his immunity to weld the random savagery of the
Barbarians into a weapon, directing the ferocity of the horde towards a planned and calculated goal.
In short, like some Napoleon, he strove to channel the racial energies of his people to build an
empire for himself. The first necessity of his scheme was to find a base of power secure from outer
assault; hence he had led his savages against the Komarian archipelago. The great isle of Komar itself
lies in the very center of the vast inland sea, and thus occupies a position of security, ringed about with
league on league of water, like a gigantic moat.
The Komarians, said Andar ruefully, were an ancient people largely given to peaceful pursuits and
not a warlike race. They were great merchants and traders, as had been the Phoenicians of my own
world, or the people of Minoan Crete; given to the arts and sciences and to maritime industries. Taken
by surprise, outnumbered, their central citadel had fallen; the Warlord had deposed and executed their
hapless monarch, himself assuming the Komarian throne. This it seemed, was but the first step in his
cunning plan for world empire. He had schemed to train his hordes in the tactics of naval war,
conquering isle after isle. He formed a gigantic maritime empire as the base from which to launch attacks
against the nearer Laonese cities–Kamadhong, Ardha and Phaolon being among these.
“But fate sometimes turns whimsical,” smiled Andar, “and favors the most unfortunate. For during a
routine voyage to a lesser island of our kingdom, the ship on which the mighty Warlord sailed was
attacked by one of the dreaded dragons of the deep and was lost with all hands. The whereabouts of the
Warlord are unknown, although he may have eluded the jaws of the monster and reached the coast of
the mainland. If he fled inland, he is probably dead by now, slain by one of the monstrous worms who
dwell in the unbroken gloom, among the roots of the great trees. At any rate, he has left his horde
leaderless and for many months they have merely drifted, not knowing what to do. This current
expedition is an attempt to sound out the coastal city of Tharkoon. In the guise of an embassy, the
Barbarians hope to spy on the defenses of the metropolis, as a prelude to invasion. In this, they are
exceptionally unwise; for Tharkoon is ruled by a Wizard of great power, whom only the foolhardy would
dare to threaten. However, lacking the genius of their former master, the Barbarians are mere savages.
In their untutored state, they assume all other men are as stupid as themselves, to their eventual detriment
. . . ”
“Row, purse your hide! Save your breath for the oars,” growled a thick voice from behind us. I
heard the whistle of a lash and the slap of a whip against the naked back of my companion. No sound
escaped the tight lips of Andar, but he bent to the oar and we spoke no further.
Chapter 3
SLAVES OF THE BLUE BARBARIANS
And thus it was that I lived as a slave, chained to the galleys of Komar, toiling under the lash of the
Barbarians. The life I now led was grim and ugly, almost devoid of hope. Hour after hour we labored at
the benches, five men to each oar, following the tireless beat of the oarmaster’s drum. For all his
toughness, little Klygon groaned at this unending toil; and even I, with the vigor and resilience of youth,
wearied.
When darkness fell over the World of the Green Star, only then were’ we free to rest from our
diurnal labors. We were given a wooden cup of water, mixed with wine to restore us; and each man got
a bowl of fish-stew and a chunk of coarse bread. Then we composed ourselves for such slumber as we
could gain, sprawled on the very benches where we had labored.
The stench of so many men penned together for many days in this black hell became overpowering.
Our toil at the oars raised great blisters on our hands; they broke, blistered and broke again until our
hands were raw and bleeding. Some times such raw wounds became infected and festered. When this
occurred, the hapless victim died raving of fever and was pitched overboard. Yet other, men broke
down under the misery of living in such bestial conditions and fell into despondency. For them, the end
came mercifully swift. It seemed there was no escape from the chains of slavery, save death.
It was Andar, my bench-mate, who cheered us all by his example and his fortitude. For all he had a
cheerful word; his manly and heroic endurance of our common suffering heartened all who slaved at the
oars in the stinking darkness of that hold. When men broke down, wept or whimpered under the lash of
the overseer, time and again a curt word from Andar stiffened the manhood within them, silencing their
sobbing. This I witnessed many times and it never failed to puzzle me. What authority or eminence had
this youth at my side over his fellow-captives?
One night, I learned the secret. The whip had scored my back that day and the pain of my raw
stripes prevented me from falling into the leaden slumber of exhaustion that claimed us all at the end of
the day’s toil. Thus it was that, as I lay there motionless, my head pillowed upon my manacled wrists, I
overheard a conversation between Andar and the man chained to the oars behind him.
They were discussing our present position. The man behind us, a former lordling named Eryon,
guessed they were nearing the coast of Tharkoon. Andar agreed.
“I almost could pity the ignorance of these vile savages,” Eryon grunted disdainfully. “Knew they
aught of sails and rigging, they could have ridden the wind far swifter than by the oars alone.”
“Aye,” said Andar. “But it is ever the way of savages to pretend contempt for the arts of civilization,
which they cannot comprehend. It is their way of asserting their own convictions of superiority, in the
teeth of all evidence to the contrary!”
“And their navigation!” growled Eryon. “Half a dozen times in the last two days, methought the
ignorant Hoggur would run the ship aground! Well, our neighbors of Tharkoon will have little to fear
from even a great fleet, if all other captains of the Horde prove equally bad seamen, which will doubtless
be the case.”
“Yes; they are fools to threaten the Wizard of Tharkoon with invasion, even were they the finest of
seamen,” laughed Andar. “The magical sciences of Prince Parimus will bring them down, which may well
prove to our advantage.”
“Perhaps,” Eryon grunted. “Unless the Wizard employs his arts to sink the ships, which means a
sea-bottom sepulchre for us all; conquered and conqueror alike!”
“The Wizard of Tharkoon will know by his arts that the nobles of Komar slave at the oars,”
murmured Andar, hearteningly. “And he has ever been our friend.”
“Let’s hope so. Think you, lord prince, he will also know you are concealed amongst us, unknown
to our captors?”
“Perhaps. But speak no more of this, Eryon, I beg you; do not call me by that title within the hearing
of our captors.”
“Your pardon, sire! But the guards sleep at the stair, drunk with wine, and hear us not. There is no
danger.”
After these words they slept. But I had learned an interesting bit of information:
Already I had known that the king of the Komarians died when the horde of blue savages stormed
the royal citadel. But now I had discovered that the heir to the kingdom, Prince Andar, had concealed
himself among the nobles and was hidden on this very ship, seeming to his brutal captors but another
aristocrat.
Time passed, slowly. When one is chained to the oars, the sheer cumulative fatigue of unremitting
labor, the degradation of the beslimed, filthy benches, in whose vile squalor we wallowed like beasts,
tend in time to numb the mind and anaesthetize the soul. One minute–one tour–one day becomes
indistinguishable from the one that came before, or from the next which follows. But gradually we neared
the coast, or that part of it which lay under the dominion of the Wizard of Tharkoon.
Eryon lifted his head, sniffing the salt breeze that came through the oarlock port in the hull.
“We approach the Reefs of Angzar, my comrades,” be grunted. “Nay, good Klygon; ask me not
how I can tell. I have sailed this sea all my days in the service of my Lord, the Prince of Komar; even
through the stench of the hold I can read our position on the wind.”
“Reefs, you say?” muttered the man chained next to him. “Then by all Gods and Demigods, I pray
the blue beasts know them not! Let the Barbarians steer us into the very jaws of the reef in their
ignorance. Let the Xothun founder, her hull crushed to splinters in their stony fangs . . . then will
I welcome a watery grave, and an end to filth, misery and toil!”
Andar spoke swiftly, comforting the poor man with words of hope and courage, as was his way.
And as he did so, my faithful Klygon bent down to whisper in my ear from his place on the bench behind
my own.
“Eh, lad, I’ve no taste for drowning! Shall I pick our locks and free us, to make a break for it?”
The implication of his words froze me into astonishment.
“Do you mean . . . you can?” I gasped. He grunted that he could.
“Saints and Avatars, m’boy I spent four-and-twenty years in the House of Gurjan Tor! Think you
the Assassins’ Guild teach naught but the arts of man-slaying? If the world holds a lock old Klygon
cannot pick, well, he’s yet to find one.”
Eryon, seated next to the homely little man, bad caught the import of his whispered words. He
swore with amazement.
“What’s that, benchmate? Can you truly pick the cursed locks and free us all?”
“As easy as steal a coin from a blind man’s purse-beggin’ your pardon, lad! See you this ring in my
earlobe, friend? ‘Tis cheap copper–worthless as a bauble, which is why yon indigo-skinned heathen
forebore to take it from me. But in truth, ‘tis not a ring at all, but a length o’ wire bent into a circle. Were
I but to take it from mine ear and stretch it out straight, there’s not a lock here I could not pick in two
xoles,” he boasted hoarsely. The interval of time he mentioned was about three minutes, by Earth
reckoning.
Eryon apprised the Prince of this astounding discovery; and so it was we began to plot our break
for freedom.
“There are sixty stout men and true, chained to the oars,” Eryon rumbled. “And each one would
face Death with a smile, for one chance at freedom!”
Andar chuckled. “Bare hands have little chance against drawn swords,” he pointed out. “Let us
wait for the right moment, when the God of Storms fights on our side.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled by his cryptic reference. In low, terse phrases he explained
to me that this part of the Sea of Komar we were entering was dangerous, with sudden rainsqualls at this
season. Terrific storms blew up without warning, seldom lasting more than fourteen xoles (about thirty
minutes). When such a squall hit the galleon, he said, the Blue Barbarians would panic, not being by
nature a sea-faring people; thus, with the diversion of a sudden storm, we could rise against our masters
at a time when they were off guard, busied with other things.
“Aye, perhaps so,” muttered Klygon. “But this night I plan to start picking the locks, just in case.
The Gods I hear tell, help those who help themselves. I’ve no doubt this be true of the God o’ Storms,
as well!”
Chapter 4
THE FATE OF THE SKY-SLED
I have elsewhere told of the adventures which befell my dear friends, Janchan of Phaolon and Zarqa
the Kalood, after they fled from the treetop city of Ardha having rescued Niamh the Fair and the
Goddess Arjala from the burning temple. I told how they were captured by a mysterious race of
black-skinned men of superhuman beauty and superhuman cruelty, who inhabited a Flying City in the
sky; it had been built many ages before by Zarqa’s ancestors, now extinct. It has also been explained
how the race of immortally youthful black men experimented upon human subjects, under the insane
delusion that the human inhabitants of The World Below were naught but mindless beasts; which, while
they resembled men and women, were only animals.
Of course, none of these things were known to me at this time, for Klygon and I had fled from
Ardha mounted on winged zaiphs like enormous dragonflies; I did not rejoin my comrades until long
after the events which I have described had transpired. At the time, I had no way of knowing what had
befallen my dear friends and the beautiful princess of Phaolon, whom I loved. So I must now interpose
into this narrative an account of their adventures, of which I was then completely ignorant; these details I
did not learn until long after.
About the same time that Klygon and I, together with that smooth-tongued traitor who called
himself Delgan of the Isles, had escaped from the underground cavern-world of the albino troglodytes,
my friends were also escaping from the clutches of the ebony-skinned rulers for the Flying City. One of
the black princelings, named Ralidux, had conceived a violent and irresistible passion for Arjala, the
beauteous Incarnate Goddess of Ardha. To Ralidux, who shared the madness of his race, his passion
was a bestial, loathsome thing; for he believed Arjala to be only an animal, though one shaped in a
摘要：

   AstheGreenStarRisesBook4oftheGreenStarseriesByLinCarterCONTENTSPartITHEBOOKOFANDARTHEKOMARIANChapter1ONTHEBRINKOFDEATHChapter2ABOARDTHEXOTHUNChapter3SLAVESOFTHEBLUEBARBARIANSChapter4THEFATEOFTHESKY-SLEDChapter5MANOVERBOARD!PartIITHEBOOKOFRALIDUXTHEMALEChapter6ISLEOFTHEANCIENTONESChapter7ALTAROFTH...

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