AS we clung to the timber there in the tossing waves, Loralie and I, the killer norgal swiftly surged closer and closer. There was no mistaking its purpose. It had seen us and singled us out for its prey.
Suddenly a dark shadow fell on us from above. A shot rang out, followed by a muffled explosion. Where the gaping mouth of the fish had been was only a bloody mass of flesh and bone. The mighty carcass lurched, flopped about for a moment, and then turned belly upward.
Above us loomed the great bulk of an aerial battleship, swiftly descending. It hovered only a short distance above our heads. A door opened in the side and a flexible metal ladder was lowered to us. I helped Loralie to mount, then went up after, hand over hand.
An officer in the uniform of Olba helped me into the ship. He was the mojak, or captain of the vessel.
Then he bowed low with right hand extended palm downward, as did every other man in sight. “Your name, officer,” I said.
“Lotar,” he answered, “at your highness’s service.”
“Lotar, you will find quarters for Her Highness Loralie of Tyrhana, then start immediately for the Imperial Palace at Olba.”
“I hear and obey,” he replied, and dashed off to give the necessary orders.
We mounted to the rear turret, the princess and I, and watched the two ships of Gadrimel fast disappearing from view. Why he did not fire at us I have never learned. Possibly because the princess was on board, but more probably because he feared the powerful mattorks of the mighty Olban airship.
The princess presently retired to her quarters to rest, and I went forward with Lotar, who was directing the pilot in the first turret. “How long should it take us to get to Olba?” I asked.
The young mojak consulted his charts and instruments for a moment.
“We should be able to make the palace by nightfall, Highness,” he said. “This ship is rated at a rotation.”
A rotation, I recalled, meant the speed at which Venus turns on her axis, approximately a thousand miles an hour.
“Who sent you after us?”
“Your Highness’s father has had the entire air fleet of Olba scouring the planet for you since your disappearance from the Black Tower. His Majesty assigned a patrol zone to each ship. I have been flying above this zone for many days. Attracted by the explosion which destroyed your ship, I flew over to investigate. With the aid of my glass I saw you and Her Highness in the water, and the norgal swimming toward you. As a marksman I have won many prizes in tournaments with the mattork. It was a simple matter for me to kill the norgal with an explosive projectile.”
“It was excellent shooting,” I said, “and it not only saved my life, but a life that is infinitely dearer to me. You will not find me ungrateful.”
“My greatest reward lies in the knowledge that I have saved your highness for Olba. There will be great rejoicing throughout the length and breadth of the empire when the people learn that you are alive. And greatest of all will be the joy of His Imperial Majesty, Torrogo Hadjez.”
For some time I strolled about the ship, examining her armament and admiring the luxury of her appointments. Presently, Loralie came out of her stateroom. We went to the salon, where hot kova was served to us in jewel-encrusted golden cups.
Night fell just as we flew above the great crescent-shaped harbor of Tureno, and its myriad lights flashed on as did those of Olba. I caught a fleeting glimpse of the lighted windows of the Black Tower as we hurtled past it. Then the pilot gently slowed the ship until we were directly above the Imperial Palace.
As we dropped toward the flat roof a number of guards came running toward us. Two of them seized the ladder which we dropped and held it while the princess descended. Then I followed.
A mojak in the uniform of the palace guard stepped up and tendered the royal salute. “His majesty will be overjoyed, highness. It was his command that I bring you before him as soon as you arrive.”
There was something strangely familiar about the features of this officer. I tried to place him as he conducted Loralie and me down the telekinetic elevator.
When it stopped he bowed us into a spacious hall which led to a great, arched doorway hung with curtains of scarlet and gold, at each side of which stood two guards armed with torks, scarbos and long-bladed spears.
The four guards bowed obsequiously as we came up. Then two of them parted the curtains and there stood before us another individual whose face seemed strangely familiar to me. Yet he wore the pompous uniform of a torrango, or prime minister, which I recognized from my studies, and I knew I had never met the prime minister of Olba.
As soon as he saw me, he bowed low with right hand extended palm downward. “His Majesty the Torrogo bids you welcome. Whom may I announce as accompanying you?”
“Her Highness, Loralie. Torrogina of Tyrhana,” I replied.
He bowed once more and departed. A moment later I heard him announcing our names and titles. Then a voice, which also seemed familiar to me, said, “You will conduct them before the throne.”
As we followed the prime minister into the large and magnificent throne room of Olba, more guards saluted and fell in behind us. A guard of honor, I thought.
I had never seen Torrogo Hadjez, and was curious for a look at his face, but restrained my impatience until Loralie plucked at my arm.
“Look!” she whispered. “Look who sits upon the throne!”
I raised my eyes, and the features of my arch-enemy, Taliboz, leered down at me. For a moment I was stunned as I saw him sitting there, arrayed in the royal scarlet and wearing the insignia of the Torrogo of Olba. Then my hand flew to my sword hilt and I sprang forward. But before I could take a second step strong arms pinioned my own from behind and my weapons were wrested from me.
“I trust,” Taliboz said, bowing to Loralie, “that you will excuse this poor reception, but as your coming was unexpected we were totally unprepared to greet you with the pomp and circumstance due visiting royalty.” He turned to his minister. “See that suitable apartments are prepared for Her Highness of Tyrhana at once and conduct her there, Maribo. And Vinzeth,” he said, addressing the mojak who had conducted us to the throne room, “you will also conduct Torrogi Zinlo to the suite that awaits his coming.”
“You fiend!” said Loralie, facing him with flashing eyes. “What are you going to do with the prince!”
“Have no fear, Your Highness,” responded Taliboz. “No harm shall come to him. Not now, anyway. Later, his fate shall rest in your fair hands.”
I was dragged out a side door by two guards.
They took me down a small elevator which, it seemed to me, traveled into the very bowels of the planet before it stopped. Then I was jerked out of the car and pulled along a narrow, dimly lighted passageway that seemed to have been hewn from solid rock, until we came before a door of massive metal bars.
One of the guards produced a key with which he unlocked this door, and I was flung inside with such force that I fell sprawling on a cold stone floor and the door clanged shut behind me.
Scarcely had I fallen to the stone floor of the dungeon cell into which I had been hurled, when a shadowy form darted from its dim interior and was helping me to my feet.
“Are you hurt, Highness?” the man asked solicitously. I recognized the voice instantly, though the features were still indistinguishable to me, my eyes not having become accustomed to the semidarkness.
“Lotar!” I exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“I was placed under arrest with all my officers and crew immediately after you left with the villainous Vinzeth. So far as I know, my men are confined in the cells around us.”
“But what is the meaning of it all? Where is the Torrogo Hadjez, and how did Taliboz attain the scarlet and the imperial throne?”
“At the time of Your Highness’s disappearance from the Black Tower, Taliboz and a number of his henchmen disappeared also,” said Lotar. “A short time ago he returned alone, disguised as a merchant of Adonijar and driving one of the swift mechanical vehicles which are manufactured in that country. His disguise was penetrated by a soldier of the imperial guard, who placed him under arrest and took him before Torrogo Hadjez.
“His Majesty questioned Taliboz about your disappearance, and he told a story which was believed by some and discredited by others—namely, that there was a plot on foot among the guards of the Black Tower to assassinate you as you slept. He said that he, with Vinzeth and Maribo and his men, had fought, protecting you from death, until they were driven back, and you were dragged to the tower top and spirited away by the plotters in one of the tower airships.
“As quickly as he could, so his story went, he returned to his fighting craft and set out in pursuit of your abductors. They finally crashed, he said, in the wild country of the cave-apes beyond Adonijar, where you and your abductors were killed in the crash. All of his men were killed and eaten by cave-apes, and he barely escaped with his life to Adonijar, where he had purchased a merchant’s outfit and vehicle with which to traverse the high road to Olba.”
“I have met liars,” I said, “on three planets, but Taliboz seems to be prince of them all. This, however, does not explain how the traitor attained the throne. I left him, paralyzed by a tork projectile, in a forest near the mountains of the cave-apes. That he escaped the perils of the jungle is little short of miraculous.”
“No one could disprove the story told by Taliboz,” Lotar pointed out, “as everyone in the Black Tower had been slain. Torrogo Hadjez could do nothing but thank him for attempting to save your life, reward him with costly presents, and restore to him all the honor and authority which had been his before his departure. That the Torrogo did not believe his story, however, was evidenced by the fact that his air navy continued to patrol the globe in search of Your Highness.”
Someone rapped sharply on one of the massive bars of the cell door with the hilt of a weapon. It was one of the guards assigned to patrol the corridor.
“Less noise in there, prisoners,” he growled, then passed on.
“I learned more while we were being held in one of the upper rooms after our arrest on the palace roof,” continued Lotar softly. “As you are probably aware, every man who awaited us on the roof was a henchman of Taliboz. Your Imperial father, Highness, died at the hands of an assassin several days ago. The dagger found driven in his back was proved to be that of Arnifek, his prime minister. With Torrogo Hadjez dead and your highness presumably so, there was no successor to the throne and it was necessary for a new Torrogo to be elected by acclamation. Taliboz was thus elected. He immediately had Arnifek, the supposed assassin, executed, made Maribo his prime minister, and Vinzeth captain of the palace guards.”
“Do you think Arnifek was guilty of the murder?”
“Of course not. Taliboz—or one of his tools—did it with Arnifek’s dagger. It was part of his plan to get control of the Olban government. Why he has let you live even this long is a mystery to me.”
“It is no mystery to me,” I answered. “He dropped some hint of his purpose before he sent me from the throne room, for I heard him tell Princess Loralie that my fate should rest in her hands. He will attempt to force Loralie into marriage with him by threatening my life—and have me slain once the marriage is consummated.”
“You are right, Highness,” said Lotar. “Taliboz plays for even greater stakes—to unite the only air power and the mightiest maritime nation of Zarovia, Olba and Tyrhana, by marriage. Adonijar would probably form an alliance with him because her ruler is married to the princess’s aunt. He would be the wealthiest and most influential monarch on the globe. Nor is there a single nation powerful enough to oppose such a strong alliance—not even Reabon, with her mighty army. Reabon is far across the ocean, and besides, her great warlike Torrogo died recently, leaving his daughter, Vernia, to rule in his stead.”
“Reabon,” I mused. “The name sounds familiar. Ah, I remember. That is the country to which Grandon went.”
“Grandon?” he exclaimed, puzzled. “The name has a foreign sound.”
“An old friend of mine. You would not know him. He is, as you say, a foreigner . . . Is this Taliboz so popular that the people would gladly make him Torrogo by acclamation?”
“Far from it, Highness,” replied Lotar, “though he probably persuaded some of them to espouse his cause by convincing them that he had risked his life in an attempt to save yours.”
“It looks,” I said, “as if it were impossible to escape from here.”
“I am familiar with these dungeons, Highness, as I served in the palace guard for two years. There is a way to escape—a secret way which I doubt very much whether Taliboz himself knows. But we must first get past yonder barred door and the armed guard in the corridor.”
“If that is all,” I replied, “I see freedom in the offing. Follow my instructions implicitly, and we’ll soon be out of this.”
“You have but to command, Highness.”
“Very well. When next the guard approaches on his rounds, talk very loudly. No doubt he will stop and order you to be silent. When he does this, insult him.”
“But he will only come in and beat me with the flat of his scarbo, Highness.”
“Do as I say, Lotar. I will attend to the rest.”
It was not long before we heard the heavy footfalls of the guard in the corridor. I immediately started a conversation with my companion in a loud voice.
“Silence!” roared the guard. “The other prisoners want to sleep.”
“Be on your way, you clumsy lout,” replied Lotar, “and do not in the future forget how to address your superiors.”
“My superiors! Ho, ho!” jeered the guard. “Very soon will I show you who is superior, a prisoner or his jailer.”
He took a bunch of keys from his belt pouch and fumbled among them until he found the one that fitted our door.
“Now see what you have done, Lotar,” I exclaimed, simulating great fear. “You have got us a beating with that noisy tongue of yours.”
The guard flung open the door, a grin of delight on his features. Such a man would not only welcome any opportunity to torture a fellow creature, but would seek such an opportunity.
“So, O cub of a dead marmelot, you fear a beating,” snarled the guard. “It is well that a weakling such as you can never mount the throne.”
“Were he on the throne,” Lotar snapped, “hahoes like you would be working in the quarries where they belong!”
The guard raised his scarbo for a heavy blow at the defenseless Lotar. This gave me the opening for which I had been waiting. With a single bound I was in front of him. Before he could recover from his surprise I planted a crashing right hook on the point of his jaw. He went down like a felled ninepin, nor was a second blow necessary.
I gave his tork and dagger to Lotar, but retained the scarbo myself. It took us but a few moments to bind and gag the prostrate guard with the straps of his own accouterments. We dragged him back into a corner, closed and locked the cell door, and tiptoed stealthily down the corridor, the young captain in the lead.
“Let us release your men,” I said.
“Your Highness’s life is too precious to risk for them. Still, if it is your Highness’s command . . . ”
“It is.”
Pausing before the first cell door, Lotar peered within.
“Here are six of them,” he whispered, testing his keys in the lock.
Looking over his shoulder, I saw six shadowy forms on the floor, and could hear their breathing as they slept.
When he had found the right key, Lotar opened the door quietly and stepped within. One by one he awakened the sleeping men, cautioning silence.
We went from cell to cell until we had released forty-five men—all but five of the crew of Lotar’s aerial battleship. He was opening their cell door when we heard the clatter of footsteps, the clank of weapons and the sound of talking. Armed men were approaching by way of a transverse corridor.
“Quick, into this cell, every man of you,” I ordered.
Silently our forty-five filed into the cell with the remaining five. When all were inside there was standing room only.
“Now, Lotar,” I whispered, “let us go to greet our callers.”
He whipped out his dagger and followed me to the intersection of the two corridors, where we crouched, breathlessly awaiting the approach of the enemy.