Renegade of Callisto

For hours the vast numbers of the Zajjadar nomads streamed through the mountain pass, bound for their unknown destination.

Sheer walls of unscalable black rock soared to either hand to an incredible height, blotting out the moons.

The cold became numbing in its cruel intensity. Despite the heavy furs their captors had given them, Valkar and Xara and little Taran and the others felt the bitter wind. It pierced their flesh like the edge of a whetted knife.

And then, and quite suddenly, it became warmer. So warm, in fact, that before much longer, Valkar found that he had unconsciously opened the throat of his fur garments and tossed back upon his shoulders the thick fur hood that had shielded his head and neck from the wintry chill.

The air became steamy and redolent of an odor which Valkar could not quite name. It was like (he thought, wonderingly) the smell of a stone pavement when it bakes in the simmering heat of high summer.

But how could such heat be here in these frozen and glacier-encrusted mountains near the southern pole of Callisto?

Before very long, the first mystery was solved.

That peculiar acrid odor-like that of scorched stone―was explained when they rounded the next corner.

An immense valley lay before them, cupped in the bowl of the encircling mountains. Lush, warm, and fertile it was, with groves of flowering scarlet trees and running brooks. Toward the far wall of the girdling cliffs, a many-tiered structure stood―the first building of any kind Valkar had ever heard to result from the Yathoon―if, indeed, they were the builders, and not some lost, forgotten race of the dim prime.

Between the valley and the crevice that led to it blazed a moat of liquid fire. Like a river of leaping flame it effectively blocked the entrance to the Hidden Valley of Sargol.

Shielding his eyes from the scorching heat, Valkar peered more closely. A gummy black fluid, oily and viscous, leaked from an aperture in the cliffs and flowed through a deep channel in the rock to vanish at the other side of the entranceway to the Valley of Sargol. It was a seething mass of furious flames.

Now Valkar had heard of petroleum, for the engines which now drove the great ornithopters of Shondakor and the other of the Three Cities were fueled by that distillate. And he had seen pools of natural oil which sometimes came bubbling to the surface of the planet. If this oily seepage from the world’s core was natural petroleum, which it seemed to be, then the mystery of the wall of living flame was easily explained.

And, from the lush fertility of the Valley, it was obvious that hot springs or underground volcanic fires were the source of the summery warmth in which Sargol basked. Who would ever have expected to find a fertile paradise here in the frozen southlands?

The crossing of the wall of living fire which was the bastion of Sargol was easily effected by means of a wide drawbridge of heavy wood, entirely plated with tough metal, which was lowered into place by long chains.

The caravan, by this means, crossed the flaming moat unharmed. Once they were all safely on the far side of the river of fire, the drawbridge was raised once again.

And they were in Sargol―which obviously would not be an easy place to escape from, considering its unusual defenses.

One by one the great Clans of the Yathoon converged upon the Hidden Valley. When Valkar and Xara and the others were brought into the Valley as prisoners of the Zajjadars, the Angkang and Thorome Clans had already arrived. A day after came the Haroob Clan, and then the Kandar.

The Valley was of broad extent, and areas were staked out for the use of the five great tribes. Slaves and captives pitched the tents after the immemorial fashion of the Horde, cookfires were lit, and the warriors mingled.

Valkar and the others, among the captives of the Zajjadar, saw little of this, busied with their tasks. Nor did the prince find a further opportunity to converse privately with Zothon the Arzomian.

When Koja, with Borak at his side, came riding across the metal bridge that spanned the fiery moat, evening was upon them. Under the glory of the many moons of Jupiter the Kandars pitched their tents and tethered their thaptors and the great glymphs which drew the heavy wains.

Koja, of course, had no reason to suspect that Taran and Xara were still alive. And he had no way of knowing that Prince Valkar of Shondakor, his lieutenant Kadar, and Fido the othode pup were any where within a hundred korads of the Hidden Valley. That evening, together with the other Clan chiefs, he went with his retinue of warriors and chieftains to attend upon his Emperor. They strode up a stonepaved way toward the great marble citadel built against one wall of the Valley. By the light of the many-colored moons it could clearly be seen that this structure was a survival from some forgotten age, for Time had gnawed and worried at the fabric of the mighty walls, and all but obliterated the ornamental carvings which festooned the portals and the arches.