“Enter,” I said in Patoa, eager to try my newly mastered language.
The door slid open, framing the figure of my guard in silhouette against the lighted hall. He entered and pressed a button, flooding the room with soft light. I could not see the points from which the radiance emanated, so cleverly were the fixtures concealed.
“Your Highness’s dinner,” announced the guard.
Two slaves entered, bearing a huge double-decked tray laden with at least fifty different dishes. A third followed with a small table, and a fourth with gold service and scarlet napery.
Fish, flesh, and fowl were set before me, as well as numerous dishes concocted from mushrooms and other fungi, and countless others whose origin I could not fathom. There was also a colorless, pleasant-tasting beverage which I afterward learned was called “kova,” served hot in small bowls. I found it fully as stimulating as strong wine, though with a slightly different effect.
Having dined as became a prince of Olba, I turned once more to my studies.
Late in the evening a second knock sounded at my door, and a new guard admitted a man who was evidently my valet. He busied himself in the adjoining room for a few minutes, then entered and, bowing before me, announced that my bedchamber was ready.
I entered, to behold a sleeping shelf that curved out from the wall like the nest of a cave-swallow. A scarlet canopy fringed with gold projected above it, and the downy, silken coverlets—scarlet lined with golden yellow —had been turned back invitingly.
My valet brought my scarlet sleeping garments, and I wondered at the preponderance of this color; later, I learned that throughout Zarovia scarlet is the exclusive color of royalty.
Though I had grown drowsy over my studies, the novelty of my situation kept me awake. After several hours, I managed to drift off, only to be awakened by a sharp, metallic clang.
The sound seemed to come from the direction of the battlement outside my window, and I listened breathlessly for a repetition. As it was not repeated, I decided that it could have no alarming significance, and was once more composing myself for slumber when I heard a slight rustle as of silken garments only a few feet distant from my head.
Without moving, I opened my eyes and endeavored to penetrate the pitch darkness that enveloped me. Venus has no moon, and in consequence it was fully as dark outside as anywhere in the room; I could not see the window, nor could I have seen any one entering it.
It was plainly evident that there was someone in the room. I thought of Vorn Vangal’s warning, and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead. My weapons lay on a low table only a few feet from me, yet I could not move to reach them without making sufficient noise to apprise my stealthy visitor of my whereabouts.
Another rustle, quite near me this time, was followed by the glow of a flashlight which swept the room, rested for a moment on my recumbent form, and then winked out. I sat up suddenly, at the sound of a scarbo drawn stealthily from its sheath not two feet from me.
No sooner had I sat up in bed than there was a whistling sound, followed by a thud, as the keen blade of a scarbo buried itself in the pillow where my head had lain a moment before.
I leaped from the sleeping shelf and fumbled for the light switch while my assailant, with a muttered exclamation of surprise and anger, flashed his torch on the coverlets. Then he whirled it around the room just as I found the switch and turned it.
Both of us were blinded for an instant by the glare of the light. I reached the table and secured my scarbo just in time to ward off his furious attack.
Back and forth we fought across the smooth floor, overturning furniture and tripping on rugs, while the apartment echoed and re-echoed with the clamor of our rapidly moving blades.
I found my assailant a dangerous antagonist; as a swordsman, Vorn Vangal was but a child compared with him. He was dressed in purple raiment trimmed with silver, and wore a heavy black beard.
At first his demeanor was one of sneering disdain; but when he found me able not only to parry his lightning cuts and thrusts, but to return them, measure for measure, a look of wonderment came to his hawk-like features. “Body of Thorth, stripling!” he exclaimed. “You have been practicing with the scarbo since I last saw you.”
“I am but practicing now,” I replied tauntingly, speaking slowly so that I might not mispronounce the words which came to me so readily.
His face reddened at this, and he redoubled his efforts, his keen blade flashing in shimmering arcs, alike bewildering and deadly. But his anger gave me the opportunity I sought. Whirling his blade on mine, as I had whirled that of Vangal some time before, I wrenched it from his hand and sent it clattering to the floor.
With a startled look he leaped back just in time to avoid a lunge that would have ended our conflict. As he sprang he shouted lustily, “Vinzeth! Maribo! Attend me!”
Two burly ruffians responded to his call, leaping through the window. They were armed with huge, broad-bladed spears and would probably have made quick work of me had not my own retainers burst through the door at my back, having heard the noise of our conflict.
For the moment the tide of battle turned in our favor. Then fresh reinforcements poured in from outside. The leader had recovered his scarbo, and now they cut my men down until but a handful remained. Though our attackers were not without casualties, we were outnumbered from the start.
Maddened with the lust of battle, I was cutting my way through the spearmen in my endeavor to reach their leader when my tower guards made a sudden charge in response to a sharp order from their commander. At the same instant he plucked at my sleeve.
“The tower is lost, highness,” he cried. “The traitors are too many for us. You must flee.”
“Never! Let me at these assassins!”
I succeeded in breaking from his grasp, but he seized my arm once more, calling one of the guards to assist him. “Do not compel me to use force, Highness,” he pleaded. “I must get you hence at once. To do otherwise would be treason to Your Imperial Sire.”
The two of them dragged me through the doorway which they bolted. A moment later we entered the elevator and shot to the top floor, whence we climbed the spiral stairway to the roof. Far below us I heard the door crash inward—proof that the last guardsman had fallen.
They hustled me to the largest of the three airships, opened the door of the cab, and fairly hurled me onto the cushions.
“Raboth will take you to the palace,” said the commandant. “I will bolt the door and follow in a one-man craft.”
Raboth, a lean wiry youth with a thin, ragged beard, climbed in beside me and closed the door. As soon as he was seated, the ship began to rise— slowly at first, but rapidly gaining momentum until we shot upward with amazing rapidity.
My pilot, looking downward to take his bearings, drew back with a sudden intake of breath. “They have seen us! Two of their battle planes are rising to cut us off from the palace.”
Scarcely had he spoken ere a searchlight flashed on our ship. An instant later a bullet ricocheted from our deck, tearing way part of the railing as it exploded. It had been fired from a mattork.
A terrific fusillade followed as we continued our rapid ascent. Suddenly we plunged into a thick cloudbank, shielding us from the revealing glare of the enemy searchlight. Continuing upward for several minutes more we cleared this lower cloud stratum and Raboth immediately put on our forward lights. Then he turned a switch, illuminating the interior of the cab with the radiance of a tiny bulb above our heads.
My pilot leaned forward to examine a small instrument suspended on a thin wire at the front of the cab. “I