AS Lotar and I crouched against the corridor wall in the dungeon beneath the Imperial Palace of Olba we could hear our unseen enemies drawing nearer and nearer in the transverse passage way. How many there were, or how well they were armed, we had no means of knowing. But we were desperate, and had there been an entire company of them we could have done nothing but fight like cornered rats.
Two guards, fully armed, suddenly rounded the turn facing us. Out came the scarbo of the one nearest me, but before he could use it my point had found his throat. He went down with a queer gurgling sound. Lotar had, meanwhile, sprung on the other guard like an enraged marmelot, burying his dagger in his breast. Simultaneously, we withdrew our dripping weapons, thinking this was all, when suddenly a third guard rounded the corner.
This time we had no element of surprise in our favor, for he had seen us as quickly as we had him.
He quickly clapped his hand to his tork, at the same time raising his voice to alarm the guards. “Help! Two pris—”
He said no more, nor had he even an opportunity to press the tork button, for with lightning quickness that the eye could scarce follow, Lotar had hurled his bloody dagger straight at the enemy’s face. It entered his opened mouth with such force that the point protruded from the back of his neck and the hilt clicked against his teeth. With a look of amazement and horror on his twisted features, he slumped to the floor.
“Get their weapons, Lotar,” I ordered, and hurried to summon our men. With the weapons of the three guards we partly armed six of them, and once more hurried away under the guidance of Lotar.
But we had not gone far when there was a great clamor and much shouting behind us, and we knew our escape had been detected. We bounded forward now, without any attempt at silence. A moment later Lotar called a halt before a huge, cylindrical pillar about three feet in diameter, which to all outward appearances was exactly like the many other pillars which supported the stone roof of the corridor.
Whipping out his dagger, he pressed the point into a tiny crack in the floor in front of it, whereupon, much to my amazement, I saw that the pillar was turning quite rapidly, and as it turned, moved up into the rock above it like a gigantic screw. In a few seconds its base was above the floor, and beneath it there yawned a black well.
“Into it, every man of you, quickly,” ordered Lotar.
The man nearest the wall paused gingerly on the edge.
“Leap,” ordered the captain. “It is not far.”
In he went, and we could see that the spot where he had landed was scarcely seven feet below the floor level. After him, as fast as they could find room, crowded the other men. But meanwhile, the sounds from behind us told us that our pursuers were dangerously near.
It seemed an age before the last man leaped into the hole, followed quickly by Lotar and me.
Stooping down, the young mojak pressed a lever in the floor. The pillar started downward, the direction of its turning reversed, and soon we stood in total darkness. Judging from the sounds above, the thing had been accomplished just in time. The large party of guards above clattered on past without even stopping to investigate.
“They do not suspect,” said Lotar, “which is well. It may be that we shall want to pass this way again. Come, I will lead the way.”
As none of us had the means to make a light, we moved forward like blind men, following the voice of Lotar, who seemed to know the way by heart. “A steep slope ahead,” he would sing out, or, “A sharp turn here. Look out for it.” We followed him in the inky blackness.
The tunnel had apparently been hewn through the rock stratum that underlay this part of Olba. How it was ventilated I had no means of knowing, but though the air was cool and moist it seemed quite fresh.
When we had traveled for more than an hour in this fashion, I asked Lotar how much farther we had to go.
“We are but a third of the way, Highness,” he responded. “This tunnel leads to the Black Tower.”
“And whom do you expect to find in the Black Tower?”
“Friends. It is hardly likely that Taliboz has manned it with his henchmen so soon, but even if he has, some of us are armed and we have the advantage of surprise on our side.”
“Unless,” I observed, “he discovers that we have come this way and sets a trap for us.”
“It is not likely. The guards in the dungeon were completely baffled. By now I doubt not that the traitorous Taliboz is exceedingly mystified and furiously angry.”
It was nearly ten Earth miles from the Imperial Palace to the Black Tower, so that, traveling blindly as we were, it took us more than three and a half hours to make the trip.
When we reached our destination, Lotar cautioned silence and groped about in the darkness for some time. Then I heard the click of a lever and the turning of a cylinder, and presently a circle of light appeared above our heads—most welcome after three and a half hours of intense darkness.
Gripping the edge of the floor, Lotar drew himself up and peered cautiously about. Evidently satisfied that he was unobserved, he clambered on out of the hole, beckoning to us to follow. It was not long before we had our entire company lined up in a large room, the ceiling of which was supported by pillars similar to the one which had been raised to let us in. Lotar then pressed the hidden button that started the pillar rotating in the opposite direction, and watched it turn back into place, leaving no sign of the way by which we had come.
There were three windows in the room through which the first faint streaks of dawn were visible. There were also three doors. Lotar slowly and carefully opened one of these. But scarcely had he looked out ere a sharp challenge was hurled at him from the corridor.
“Move and you die! Who are you?”
“Lotar, Mojak in the Imperial Air Navy,” replied the young officer.
“What do you here?”
“That,” replied Lotar, “I will tell your mojak if you will fetch him. Who is in command here?”
“Pasuki commands,” replied the guard.
“A good and loyal soldier. Take me before him.”
He motioned with his hand for us to remain in the room. Then he stepped out, closing the door after him. Evidently the guard had not the slightest suspicion of our presence.
Not more than ten minutes elapsed ere the door opened once more and Lotar entered, followed by a tall, straight, white-bearded man who wore the uniform of Mojak of the Black Tower Guards, easily distinguished by the small replica of the tower worn on the helmet and the same device in relief on the breastplate.
The old soldier bowed low with right hand extended palm downward.
“Pasuki is yours to command as of old, Highness,” he said, “and overjoyed that the report of Your Highness’s death was false.”
I did not, of course, remember Pasuki, but it was quite evident that he remembered the former Zinlo. “You were ever a true and loyal soldier, Pasuki,” I replied. “See that these men I have brought with me are fed, housed and armed.”
After a brief order for the disposal of Lotar’s men to a mojo who waited outside, Pasuki conducted us to the telekinetic elevator and by it to my apartments.
“I’ll send for you men soon,” I told them. “Meanwhile we must try to devise some plan of attack on this wily Taliboz, and find a way to rescue Her Highness of Tyrhana.”
Pasuki and Lotar bowed low and withdrew.
After a bath and a change of clothing, I was served with the usual huge and variegated breakfast with which Zarovian royalty tempts its appetite, to the accompaniment of gold service and scarlet napery.
But ere I had completed this meal, a page came to announce that a man who had just been admitted to the tower, craved immediate audience with me. “Who is he?” I asked.
“He gave the name of Vorvan to Pasuki, who questioned him and seemed satisfied of his loyalty,” replied the page.
“Then show him in,” I answered. The name Vorvan had a familiar ring, and I was trying to remember where I had heard it before when a man clad in the conventional blue garb of a tradesman entered.
He appeared about fifty years of age, and his square-cut beard had an unnatural reddish tinge, as if it had been dyed. His eyebrows were similarly treated, and a bandage was drawn across one cheek and the bridge of the nose, as if he had been recently wounded. I could not remember ever having seen the man before, yet there was something about him that was strangely familiar.
He bowed low, right hand extended palm downward.
“I have a message for Your Highness’s ears alone,” he said, with a significant look at the three men who were serving my breakfast.
“Won’t you have some breakfast?” I asked.
“With Your Highness’s leave I will decline, as I have already breakfasted. There is much to be done, and time presses.” Again he glanced impatiently at the servants.
With a wave of my hand, I dismissed them.
“The page told me you gave the name of Vorvan,” I said when they were gone. “Both the name and yourself seem somehow vaguely familiar, yet I cannot remember having heard it, nor having seen you before.”
“Then my disguise must be effective, Highness,” he answered, with a smile which was also familiar. “I am Vorn Vangal.”
The smile and the name instantly brought a flood of recollections. This was indeed Vorn Vangal, the man who had arranged with Dr. Morgan to bring me to Venus—Vorn Vangal, the great nobleman, scientist and psychologist of Olba—the man who had welcomed me to Venus with the identical smile he was now wearing.
But at that time he had been attired in the purple and the glittering bejeweled panoply of a great noble, and his beard and hair had been iron gray. A bit of dye, a bandage, and the clothing of a tradesman had wrought vast change in his appearance.
“I’ll try to answer Your Highness’s questions in due order,” Vorn Vangal said. “I returned from Reabon one week after I left you in the Black Tower, expecting to find you here, safe and sound. You may imagine my astonishment when I learned that you and Taliboz had disappeared, that your guards had been slain, and that a number of dead henchmen of Taliboz had been found here.
“I immediately established telepathic communication with Dr. Morgan who was to keep in constant rapport with you, and from him I learned what had happened to you. Then I went to Torrogo Hadjez and persuaded him to patrol the area where it might be expected that you would be found. You were moving about so much that it was impossible for the airships to find you in any specific location I might name. Part of the time you didn’t know where you were, hence your subjective mind could not inform Dr. Morgan, and through him, me.
“Of course I knew the report of Taliboz was a lie when he said you had been killed, but I did not dare to so inform Torrogo Hadjez. He would have demanded to know the source of my knowledge, which would have forced me to disclose the fact that his son was on your world and you were taking his place here.
“I decided to personally conduct a search for you in an aerial battleship, and Torrogo Hadjez provided me with one for the purpose, but we encountered a terrific storm before we had gone far, and the ship was forced to land, hopelessly crippled, near the Olba-Adonijar border. I immediately took a motor vehicle back to Olba, but was placed under arrest as soon as I entered the city gates, for Torrogo Hadjez had been assassinated and Taliboz was on the throne.
“He condemned me to die as a traitor, and confiscated my city palace as well as my lands, estates and treasure. With the aid of a few faithful friends, I managed to escape before his sentence could be carried out, disguised myself as a tradesman, and came here, having learned through Dr. Morgan that this was where you were to be found.”
“And now,” I asked, “have you any plans for rescuing the Princess Loralie and disposing of Taliboz?”
“The only method I can think of will be a bloody revolution. Most of the men who garrison the palace and the city are men of the usurper. The men who previously filled these ranks have been sent to work on and guard the private estates of Taliboz, far to the north of Olba. If we were to proclaim your return, Taliboz would immediately denounce you as an impostor, a price would be placed on your head, and you would be hunted by every military man under his command.
“The best way, I believe, will be for you to remain here until I can arouse the patriotic citizens of Olba, secretly telling them of your presence here. You can then come to Olba in disguise, and we can make a concerted effort to capture the palace and do away with the traitor who sits on the throne.”
“But that will take considerable time,” I said, “and in the meantime, what of Loralie?”
This question went unanswered, for at this moment one of my guards entered with the statement that Pasuki and Lotar craved immediate audience as they had a communication of the utmost importance.
“Admit them,” I said.
Both saluted hurriedly as they came in, and seemed greatly agitated. “Your Highness’s presence here has been discovered,” said Lotar. “We must get you away at once.”
“I am sorry to inform you that there must have been a traitor among my men,” said Pasuki, “planted there, no doubt, by Taliboz to spy on my doings. One of my faithful servants, however, was watching Taliboz, and has dispatched a messenger to me with the information that the usurper has mobilized an army of five thousand men who are already marching on the Black Tower.”