The mob remained frozen with confusion while the floating pearl-handled blade slashed at the bonds holding the little Princess. But the female attendant with the pack of knives proved to be more quick-witted than the others. She plucked forth a terrible weapon like a serrated cleaver and lunged purposefully toward Prince Nikalon.
Shiki took aim with his catapult, using as his target one of the monster’s glaring yellow eyes. The ball of lead went home and she fell, stone dead with a missile in her brain. An instant later both children were cut free.
Then the bloody footprints raced away from the captives, through the ring of armed warriors, who were still mute with shock, to the edge of the crowd where the torches flamed. Two of the tall brands were hauled out of the muddy ground and began to whirl and thrust at the warriors, driving them back from the children. The Aliansa fell about screaming, and many who delayed their retreat were burnt. Some of the warriors slashed impotently with their swords at the invisible demon or flung spears every which way. But they struck nothing save each other. Finally the two whirling torches were flung full at the bolder Aliansa. The demon pulled more of the flaming staves from the ground and tossed them one by one among the armed aborigines. From the edge of the clearing, Shiki sent ball after leaden ball hurtling into the throng with a force that shattered bone.
Most of the unarmed Aliansa and many of the warriors now turned and began to flee through the lines of huts into the dark forest beyond. Those who stayed and attempted to fight fell prey to Shiki’s catapult, or were belabored by the demon-controlled torches and their fur and garments set afire. Shrieking in pain and bewildered fury, they stumbled about and slashed at thin air like creatures gone mad. None noticed when a small figure darted from the woods, swept up the Prince and Princess in strong arms, and made away with them.
Finally all of the torches had been uprooted and flung, and their flames sputtered out. The only light now came fitfully from the open doorways of the deserted huts and from the wanly radiant Three Moons riding high in the sky. No more bloody footprints appeared. The groans of the wounded Sea Folk made a melancholy contrast to the renewed chorus of forest creatures.
When it became evident that the invisible demon was gone, taking the young human prisoners with it, the surviving Aliansa warriors crawled and staggered into the council house to exclaim over the dire happening and bewail the murder of their High Chief. Those whose minds were not hopelessly befuddled sent forth messages via the speech without words, alerting the other Aliansa villages of Council Isle and the adjacent islands to the presence of the hated foreigners and their invisible demon. It was some comfort to know that fellow-warriors were setting out at once, by both land and sea, to attack the two ships belonging to the invaders.
But then another awful deed was discovered by those villagers returning fearfully from the forest, and this was a sacrilege so appalling that it renewed the courage of the defeated Sea Folk and inspired them to take up arms again. Every warrior who could move charged off down the trail to the shore, their earlier terrors forgotten, vowing that no human should escape the Windlorn Isles alive.
For every one of the Aliansa nation’s precious ceremonial drums was found to have its skin head slashed by the humans’ invisible demon. They would never sound again.
17
Queen Anigel, Jagun the Nyssomu, and the thirteen Wyvilo warriors who had remained aboard Lyath set off for the island shore in two small boats just as soon as the Queen concluded her brief farspoken dialogue with the sorcerer Portolanus. The plight of Niki and Jan demanded immediate action, and Anigel was convinced that Kadiya would need help to rescue the children. As the storm ended, the Queen’s well-armed party landed on the shore of the small cove adjacent to Council Bay and began to hurry down a trail toward Har-Chissa’s village.
“It is only two leagues away,” Jagun said. “Take my hand, Great Queen, and I will lead you while you continue to survey the captive children through your talisman Sight.”
Anigel stumbled along, growing increasingly agitated as she watched the resumption of the deadly Aliansa drum ceremony. “They have relit the torches and started dancing again!… We cannot possibly get there in time!… Oh, if only my sister could do something!”
When Har-Chissa seemed about to flay poor Janeel, and Kadiya finally became invisible and slew him, the Queen was so shattered by emotion that she stopped short on the trail, her eyes staring at nothing, all but paralyzed and unable to utter a sound.
Jagun and the Wyvilo gathered about her motionless form. They were stricken with dread themselves, for up until that last awful moment Anigel had given them a running commentary upon events taking place in the village. Now none of them dared speak, for they feared that little Princess Janeel had been killed—or that a fate even worse had befallen her. Jagun, still holding Anigel’s icy hand, knelt beside her with head bowed. The tall Wyvilo raised their arms in supplication toward the Three Moons, praying silently in the manner of the Forest Folk.
At length Queen Anigel shuddered, and gave a great sighing exhalation. “Friends,” she whispered. “Kadiya has saved the children.”
Jagun and the Wyvilo all cried out their relief. Anigel bade them gather closely about her so that she might share the amazing scene with them through her coronet’s magic. They beheld Har-Chissa lying dead, and the terrorized Aliansa belabored by a torch-wielding invisible presence. They watched as an unknown little man of the Folk took up the gore-smeared children and carried them safely into the shadows.
“Thanks be to the Lords of the Air and my Lady Farseer!” Jagun exclaimed. “But who was that stranger assisting her?”
“Kadiya called him Shiki,” Anigel replied. “But there is no more time for us to use the Sight. We must hurry and meet Kadi and the others before the natives recover.”
They plunged through the dark forest with creatures hooting and whistling and calling on every hand. Now and again there was a loud crashing in the brush; but the night-vision of the Wyvilo determined that only animals were abroad in this part of the island, not hostile natives. Then Anigel used her talisman to descry that Kadiya and Shiki and the children were fleeing along a side-trail nearly parallel to the one they themselves traveled. The Wyvilo took out their axes and began to hew a direct route to it through the jungle undergrowth. Jagun uttered a penetrating warbling cry that he said his mistress would recognize, and when the rescuers finally broke through to the side-trail the others were waiting.
The Queen clasped Nikalon and Janeel to her bosom, weeping for joy. Both of the children seemed benumbed, having no memory of what had happened. Janeel was wearing Shiki’s embroidered blouse, and the Crown Prince had on the Dorok’s zuch-wool undershirt, leaving the little aborigine clad only in his heavy leather trews and boots. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Anigel also embraced and kissed her sister, saying:
“The blessings of the Triune be upon you, dear Kadi—and upon your brave friend Shiki as well—for saving my little ones. But we cannot linger here. Antar is swimming ashore in Council Bay with Lummomu and the two other Wyvilo, and Tolo is also hiding in the trees down there. We must go and collect them. Part of our group will have to carry Niki and Jan back to the Lyath while the others go on to Council Bay.”
“Let Jagun and Shiki and two of the Wyvilo warriors take the children to the ship,” said Kadiya. “I will accompany you in the rescue of Antar and Tolo.” She lifted the trillium-amber on its vine-string and smiled, her bloodstained face alight with grim triumph. “My talisman may be lost to the sorcerer, but I still have my amulet’s magic—and it is formidable enough to have dealt justice to the villainous Aliansa. Sister, the two of us together will yet be a match for Portolanus!”
“May it be so,” Anigel responded in a low voice, but her eyes were somber and unconvinced. She spoke soothingly to Niki and Jan and kissed them good-bye, and in moments the children were on their way to the Lyath with their escort. Then the Queen touched her coronet, commanding it to show her the scene at Council
Bay.
When she had Sight of it, she cried out in fresh consternation: “The sorcerer is sending boats after Antar and Tolo!”
Kadiya cried to the Wyvilo: “Quickly, my friends—lead us to the shore of Council Bay as fast as you can!”
They all set off at a run, the noise made by their pounding feet drowning out the faint sounds of inhuman shouting now coming from Har-Chissa’s village.
“There they are!” exclaimed the Black Voice.
He stood in the bow of the leading boat, with four other craft following close astern. From his eyes shone twin white beams, and he spoke with the tongue of Portolanus, who had spied out the position of the fugitives with his talisman and guided the searchers to them. Rowing at triple time, the pirates had managed to overtake King Antar and his Wyvilo companions when they were less than fifty ells from shore.
Suddenly the four heads moving through the quiet waters disappeared.
“They are diving, Lord!” one of the Raktumians warned.
“The King is too weak to stay submerged for long … Quickly, you and you!” The Voice indicated two of the boats. “Move toward the shore with all speed to cut off any attempt of theirs to escape by land. The rest of you—ready the small lines with the grapples, and keep a sharp watch!”
A number of pirates in the remaining three boats took up coiled cords, at the end of which were small but fiendishly sharp gang-hooks with three points. For some minutes the only sound came from the creaking oars of the two boats that had been ordered toward the land. The sea was dead calm, reflecting the tiny Moons. A quarter of a league away to the north, the sixth pirate boat commanded by the Purple Voice neared the shore, its occupants prepared to begin searching for Prince Tolivar.
Suddenly there was a splash, and a sound of pained gasping.
“The King! There!” The eye-beams of the Black Voice picked out Antar’s sodden fair hair and half-submerged face not six ells away. One of the pirates in the Voice’s boat whirled his grapple and let it fly. The King screamed as the hooks narrowly missed his head and bit into his naked shoulder. Three more grapples struck his body, the barbs sinking into flesh. Antar’s anguished writhing only served to entangle him in the cords and bring him to the point of drowning. Soon enough he ceased his struggles and floated unmoving with his head under water. The Black Voice gave urgent commands that the King should be drawn quickly into the boat, lest he perish.
But no sooner was Antar aboard than the boat carrying him and the Black Voice began to rock violently. The pirates bellowed imprecations and one screamed: “Odd-lings in the water! They will sink us!”
Lummomu-Ko, leader of the Wyvilo, rose dripping over the transom of the Voice’s boat with his fierce eyes alight and his jaws gaping. He took hold of a shrieking pirate in each hand and pulled the men overboard, rending them with his teeth as they fell into the water. The other two Wyvilo, Huri-Kamo and Mok-La, continued their attempt to capsize the leading craft while the pirates aboard beat at them with oars.
“Swords, you imbeciles!” cried the Black Voice. “Use your swords!” He crouched over the unconscious King, shielding him from the would-be rescuers with his own body.
Again Lummomu shot up with a tremendous splash, and dragged two more pirates headlong into the black sea. Mok-La seized another. A fourth man lost his balance in the wallowing craft and fell in while trying to strike a blow with his sword. The Voice, Antar, and the two Raktumians left in the boat now tumbled helplessly about in a welter of flailing limbs and flying weaponry, and the three Wyvilo uttered howls of triumph.
But the two accompanying boats now drew near, as did the other pair that had headed ashore but turned back when the commotion began. The Raktumians in them fell to with grim efficiency, using both spears and longswords on the Wyvilo in the water. There was a howl of agony as a blade hewed off one of Huri-Kamo’s clawed hands, and he sank beneath the sea. Lummomu-Ko and Mok-La were stabbed and slashed mercilessly until they, too, disappeared. Six men from the Voice’s boat had been pulled overboard to their doom, and of the two remaining, one groaned from a wound inflicted by his own mates.
“Tow us back to the flagship,” croaked the Black Voice. “Make haste!”
The single uninjured pirate in the Voice’s boat tossed a line to the nearest craft, then settled back gingerly. “Do y’think the scaly devils are drownded, Lord?”
The sorcerer’s minion was silent, the beams from his eyes shone out over the water as his head swiveled to and fro. “They are gone, at any rate.” And to the men in the other boats: “Row faster! I must get the King to the flagship in order to tend to his injuries. If he should die, all your lives will be forfeit.”
In the other boats, the men were murmuring among themselves as they bent to the oars, and one addressed the Voice anxiously. “Lord, Yokil here thinks he sees lights out to sea. Just beyond that southern promontory.”
“Yokil has a keen eye,” the Voice said in a level tone. “It is the Aliansa, the Sea Oddlings from nearby islands, on their way to attack us. They will be upon us in less than half an hour. Now save your breath, damn you, and row.”
With that, Portolanus withdrew from his Black acolyte, whose bright eyes abruptly went dull, and turned his attention to the recapture of Prince Tolivar.
“My talisman shows that the child is hiding in this grove of trees,” said the Purple Voice to the eight pirates following him across the sand. “Spread out and listen carefully for any movement.”
The Raktumians uttered surprised obscenities as two bright stars blazed suddenly beneath the acolyte’s hood, piercing the darkness of the undergrowth. He began to speak with the unmistakable accents of the sorcerer himself.
“There is no reason for you men to be alarmed. It is I, Portolanus, acting through my Purple Voice. Keep your throw-nets handy as we go into the trees. On no account is the little Prince to be harmed—”
But before the Voice could finish, a faint sound of chanting swelled on the warm night breeze, and myriad pinpoints of dancing yellow light appeared suddenly down on the beach to the south. The Aliansa were swarming from the woods, having come from the inland settlements.
“Sea Oddlings!” cried one of the pirates, pointing. “Coming right at us.”
“And look there!” Another man pointed out to sea. “More of the ugly bastards! Lord Purple, we gotta get back to the flagship! It’s no time to be huntin’ royal brats. The Admiral will be streakin’ for the high seas before those savages turn the trireme’s hull into a sieve!”
The rest of the Raktumians muttered agreement.
“There is yet time to find the child,” the Purple Voice of Portolanus insisted. “I am going to conjure up another storm to delay the war-canoes of the lowborn wretches.”
“Plague take the canoes,” a ruffian growled. “What about that bunch comin’ up the shore? They can’t be half a league distant! I’m for gettin’ outta here!”
The other men shouted their assent, and before the Purple Voice could stop them they all turned tail and went rushing back toward the boat. The furious acolyte followed, trying in vain to rally them.
Suddenly a shrill cry came from back among the trees. The Raktumians kept running but the Purple Voice halted and whirled about. The bright beacons of his eyes illuminated a small figure that had emerged from the tangled vegetation and now dashed toward him across the moonlit sand, wailing piteously.
“They’re coming from the village, too! I hear them! Don’t let the Sea Oddlings get me! Take me with you!”
“By the Bones of Bondanus—it’s the Prince!” the Purple Voice exclaimed. “Hurry, then, lad!”
“Tolo—no!” came a faraway shout. “Don’t!”
The Prince slowed and looked back over his shoulder toward the dark forest.
“Quick, or I must leave you behind,” warned the Voice.
Tolivar put on a burst of speed and flung himself into the acolyte’s waiting arms. He clung to the man’s neck as he sprinted toward the waiting boat.
> “Hold on tight, boy!”
“You talk like the wizard,” Tolo said.
“I am the wizard,” Purple gasped. “For now.” He clambered over the gunwale, the child nearly throttling him. The boat immediately shoved off.
“You mean, you’re hiding inside this man’s body?” The Prince was fascinated.
“In a manner of speaking … but I must leave him now to see to other business.”
“Did you catch my Royal Father again?” Tolivar asked.
“Yes. And this time neither one of you will escape until your ransom is paid. But do not be afraid, Tolo. I have a feeling that you and I will become good friends.”
“Wizard?… Do I have to go home if I don’t want to?” the Prince asked softly.
But the Voice’s starry eyes were dimming, and as their radiance winked out the acolyte sighed gustily. “Sit there in the bow, Prince, and stay out of the way of the oarsmen.” His voice now had a completely different timbre.
“You’re not the wizard anymore, are you?”
“Be silent,” said the Purple Voice coldly. “You will meet my Master soon enough.”
The pirates were rowing fit to burst their hearts, and the boat seemed to fly over the glassy water. The native force downshore was fast approaching, and there were now so many torch-bearing canoes out on the water around the southern promontory that their number could not be counted. Above the noise of the chanting natives, a human voice was calling:
“Tolo! Tolo!”
Prince Tolivar stood up in the boat, straining to look back inland. The Purple Voice took hold of him with an oath.
“It sounds like my mother,” the boy said calmly. “Look—that must be her coming out of the forest. She can see me with her magic talisman.”
“Tolo!” came the despairing cry.
The boy waved. He said to the Purple Voice: “She can hear me, too … Good-bye, Mother!”