Black Star by Carter Lin

Author:Carter, Lin [CARTER, LIN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473220874
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2019-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

iv. Dark Eyes

All morning the trim little airboat soared like a silvery, glittering bird above the central forests and plains of Atlantis. When the flaming sphere of Polinax had ascended to the height of heaven, the three travelers grew hungry. They had exhausted with their morning meal the slender store of food fetched thither by Nephog Thoon, and there was nothing to eat in the cabin, although Diodric had taken the precaution of filling the water bottles he had found stored beneath the bunks with the clear, cold waters of the mountain spring he had discovered.

The old Lemurian sorcerer became testy and quarrelsome as his hunger increased. His sarcastic remarks that he hoped his altruistic offer of service to their quest for the exiled Emperor of Atlantis was not to include the opportunity of starvation, were ignored by Diodric. The young Celt bent over the control console of the viwân, steadfastly refusing to land the craft so that they might chance to procure food in the jungles below. He was all too conscious of the fact that they were still dangerously close to the captured City of the Golden Gates and might Still be in the proximity of scattered troops of Dragon warriors. Every hour of flight he could add to their total since the departure from the mountains gave them a greater margin of security and increased their chances of success. And he was not going to jeopardize the safety of the Lady Niane simply because of the empty belly of Nephog Thoon.

The girl was singularly silent and had been thus throughout the long hours of their flight. Many times her dark eyes rested on the courageous young warrior who sat at the controls, piloting the airboat ever further into the west. She was remembering his conduct during the terrible days and nights of their imprisonment within the bowels of the Mountains of the Terror, when death had seemed so inevitable. She herself had broken under the terror and tension of those dark hours, had been reduced to a pitiable, sobbing, helpless creature. And, now that the perils were passed and they had emerged safely from the clutches of Ningg, she recalled with a thrill of admiration the calm, unshaken courage of Diodric, his unyielding strength and fortitude, and the many small acts of courtesy, of chivalry, of thoughtfulness, he had displayed toward her when she herself had been little more than a terrified, hysteric mass of trembling fear.

In her memory she dwelt again upon his quiet, reassuring words, and upon the small and tender comforts he had given. His every thought had been to relieve her of her panic, she now realized, and she inwardly castigated herself for her inability to find the words wherewith to thank him for his kindnesses.

And there was one other thing, as well. Niane would not have been a woman had not this occurred to her also: that never once, in the many hours they had spent together in the same cell, where

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