Lankar of Callisto

Now, Taran had instinctively attached the honorific of chan to my name when we first began traveling together. In itself this didn’t mean much. It was sort of like a child calling a grown-up “mister”―merely a polite token of respect. Captain Barin of the Jungle Legion and his superiors had, I think automatically, hailed me as a kytar, not knowing my social rank, but taking no chances. This label had stuck to me during my first days at the Shondakorian court, although I made certain that Darloona and her chief advisors were apprised of the fact that back on Earth I am not a member of the aristocracy. Darloona, however, with the gracious thoughtfulness of one to the royalty born, realized I would be placed in the uncomfortable position of a social inferior at her court, and surprised me one day by elevating me to the highest degree of the nobility, that of jan, or Prince of the Throne.

This bestowal was made at a private ceremony in the royal apartments, with only Darloona’s closest friends and courtiers in attendance, probably because the Princess wished to spare me the grueling ritual and tiresome ceremony of a full court function.

My new title, incidentally, did not mean I was in line to inherit the throne or anything like that. There are two kinds of princes in the Shondakorian system of

aristocracy: the first is a royal title held by the reigning monarch, his male heirs, and certain male members of his immediate family. The second variety of princeship is held by the males of one or two very ancient noble houses of quite superior rank. On one or another occasion in the past, their ancestors, then lords, had been created Princes of the Throne by royal decree, in recognition of some valiant feat of loyal service to the throne. In theory, as Sir Jastar the court herald explained it to me, the monarch of Shondakor may thus ennoble with a princely title any individual, whatever his or her rank, on whim―rather in the same way the British royalty might reward a great service to the crown with a dukedom, as Marlborough and Wellington were rewarded.

So it was that, as Prince Lankar of Shondakor, my rank in society was superior to that of almost anyone I met, which was Darloona’s tactful way of insulating me against embarrassment. As Lankar-jan, I was entitled to select my own livery (I chose silver and emerald green, in fond memory of the Oz Books), and a blazon was assigned to me by the herald. The human inhabitants of Thanator do not employ beasts, either actual or fabulous, in their heraldry, but symbolic designs. My new “coat of arms” then consisted of a green shield charged with a complicated, rather Mayanlooking sigil or hieroglyph which looked like this This symbol was promptly affixed to the breast of the leathern tunics, robes and gowns in my wardrobe, worn above the heart, and, in the form of enamel and silver badges, was attached to ornaments on my baldric and warrior’s harness and to the hilt of my dagger and sword, both of which had been gifts to me from the Princess in commemoration of my ennoblement.*

These were happy days, comfortable, lazy, and luxurious. But they were only the calm before the storm.

While my newfound friends were wining and dining and entertaining and honoring me, the clouds of war were, as you might say, thickening on the horizon. For, while I explored the byways of golden Shondakor in the company of Glypto and the others, the shipyards of Tharkol were laboring night and day completing work on the vessels of the Second Armada, which would soon be ready to depart.

Only the Xaxar had come back unscathed from the historic voyage into the unknown far side of the planet. And, since it had limped home with the news of the mysterious disaster that had overwhelmed the rest of the armada, work had been pressed on the two new ships which had long been under construction by Zamara’s shipwrights. These galleons of the sky were the Avenger and the Zarkoon, and they would by now have long since been ready for launching had it not been for the unhappy sequence of accidents Lukor had described to me.

All the while I was at the court of Shondakor, the Xaxar floated above the city, moored to a spar on one of the upper tiers of the palace. It was a breathtaking sight, floating against the skies of glowing gold, looking for all the world like a mighty galleon from the Spanish Main. Every day the sky-ship went on a training flight of some hours, in order to break in the new members of the crew to the performance of their duties. I had gone aloft several times, and it was a marvelous experience and one I shall never forget. Standing at the deck rail, the wind billowing out my cloak behind me as we navigated the golden skies, I felt like a warrior of Barsoom aloft in a great flier, or like someone in a Lemurian airboat from my own Thongor stories.