Tales of the Green Lantern Corps: Valura Tur-Thol

The Green Lantern of Kandor

by Brian K. Asbury

Founding a new world isn’t easy. Adjusting from being unable to expand from a single city, due to having absolute limits on your available space imposed by (from your perspective) immense glass walls, to suddenly finding you have a whole world to move out into, requires a massive adjustment of mindset. It was hardly surprising, then, that in the first few years of their freedom, the people of the former bottle-city of Kandor did not move out much into their new world of Rokyn from the place where their city had been restored to its original size. Besides, with so many of Kandor’s buildings having been destroyed in the expansion, there was a great deal of work to do to return the city to its former glory.

Their first few years on Rokyn had been anything but easy for other reasons, too. A succession of alien attacks, a crime wave perpetuated by former Phantom Zone criminals and other catastrophes had all taken their toll. However, the population had at last begun to move beyond the overcrowded suburbs of Kandor to found new cities such as New Kryptonopolis and New Argo, conurbations which were small as yet compared to the rebuilt Kandor, but which were rapidly growing. There had also been a massive program of landscaping to re-create some of the wonders of old Krypton, including the Jewel Mountains and the Fire Falls.

There was plenty of work in an expanding world like this for a man like Tan-Jay. There was little use in expanding if the population could not grow sufficient crops to feed itself, and that meant a reliable supply of water in the form of rain. A drought could be catastrophic for a population just starting to become established in a dozen new locations across the continent.

Krypton, of course, had had global climate control. That was a mammoth task, requiring a vast worldwide network of weather control stations both on the ground and in orbit. It would probably not be feasible here yet for decades – but on a smaller scale, it was certainly possible to regulate the climate over relatively small crop-growing areas around the new cities.

But, as with everything on this world as yet, there were problems. Resources were still in short supply and high demand, and had to be shared between many projects going on simultaneously. Which was why, Tan-Jay reflected with a sigh, the contractors who had built this weather control tower on the outskirts of New Argo had taken shortcuts with its construction, resulting in frequent breakdowns and malfunctions. Lately it had taken to delivering showers of basketball-sized hailstones, causing damage not only to the crops but to the robots tending them. The superintendent had been almost hysterical on the visicom. One more like that, he had said, and the entire operation would be ruined. Ruined!

All in a day’s work, thought Tan-Jay as his jet pack carried him up to the access panel at the summit of the tower. It’s obviously the size/temperature regulator on the fritz again. Changing a simple capacitor will put the problem right for now, but the whole regulator unit really needs to be torn out and replaced, or I’ll be up here again in another few weeks, patching up yet another minor glitch.

He flipped open the panel and extracted the offending capacitor. Taking a replacement from his utility belt, he pushed it into place – but there was a sudden bright flash!

Great Rao! he thought in a split-second. It’s an overload! There must be another component malfunctioning besides this!

That was all he had time to consider, as electricity surged through him and his equipment harness. His jet pack crackled and died.

He plummeted towards the ground, desperately hitting the controls, willing the jet pack to start again. It can’t end like this, he thought. It can’t …

The ground rushed up towards him…

And then there was a blaze of emerald light. His fall slowed and he found himself being deposited gently upon the ground. He looked up to see a young woman descending towards him. He smiled as he recognized the symbol on the green, black and white uniform that the dark-skinned, brown-haired newcomer wore. “Green Lantern!”

“That’s me,” she said, alighting beside him. “Are you all right? That was some jolt you took.”

“I’m fine,” Tan-Jay said. “I wasn’t grounded, so it didn’t do me any direct harm. Pity the same can’t be said of my equipment,” he added, releasing his harness and dropping the burnt-out jet pack to the ground.

“Never mind. I’ll give you a lift back to the city if you like. I’m sure the weather control bureau will reimburse you for your damaged equipment.”

To her surprise, Tan threw back his head and laughed. “Well, now, this is an irony, isn’t it?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Me – being rescued by you. Green Lantern!”

Valura Tur-Thol, the new GL of Rokyn, pouted in annoyance. “Why is that ironic? I’ve never met you before in my life!”

“I know you haven’t,” said Tan. “Say, would you like to have dinner with me?”

“Oh, puh-leeze!” sighed Valura. “I’ve just met you and you’re coming on to me? I don’t believe it!”

“No, no, you misunderstand,” said Tan. “You’re a very pretty young lady, but I’m a married man. I’m not trying to hit on you. It’s just that I’d like to show my gratitude for the rescue and I have a story to tell that you might be interested in. You could say that I and that symbol on your chest … well … have a history.”

“I don’t understand,” said Valura.

“Well, you know you’re not our first Green Lantern?”

“Of course,” she replied, recalling the fate of her predecessor, the tragic Todra Than-Ol, who had died bravely trying to protect New Kryptonopolis from an alien bombardment.

“Well, would it surprise you to learn that you weren’t even the second?” He pointed to himself. “I had that honor before anyone!”
***

 

Valura Tur-Thol had still not quite become used to the celebrity which went along with being an acknowledged super-hero, and she found the stares as she entered the restaurant more than a little disconcerting. She hoped she was not blushing too much. Her power ring flared in response to her thought and she had to will it into quiescence. In times of danger it tended to act without any conscious effort on her part to protect her, and the last thing she wanted was for it to REALLY cause the ground to open up and swallow her.

Mustering her dignity, she made her way towards where the dark-haired engineer she had rescued earlier in the day was sitting at a table with an attractive blonde-haired woman in her mid-thirties. They rose as she approached. “Green Lantern. Glad you could make it. This is my wife, Nenia.”

Valura shook hands with the other woman. “But I thought that … that you and I were …”

“… were going to have dinner alone?” said Nenia Tan-Jay with a grin. “You think I’d let my husband have an intimate meal with an attractive woman half my age? No fear!”

Seeing the alarm on Valura’s face, Tan-Jay said: “It’s all right. She’s only joking. My wife has a slightly warped sense of humor sometimes.”

“It’s why he married me,” said Nenia. “Now, shall we eat or are we going to spend the evening apologizing?”

The meal was well under way before Valura broached the subject which had prompted her to join them here. “Tan-Jay, what did you mean when you said you were our first Green Lantern? I never heard of any other Green Lantern on Rokyn before my predecessor, and I know that she got her ring from an alien GL who had crash-landed here and died.”

“I never said I was Green Lantern of Rokyn,” said Tan, between bites. “I took that name some years before we came here – before Kandor was enlarged.”

“That’s impossible,” said Valura with a shake of her brown locks. “Kandor never had a Green Lantern. I’d have heard of that.”

“Tan didn’t have the role for long,” said Nenia. She turned to her husband. “Isn’t it about time you put this young woman out of her misery and explained?”

Tan smiled. “Very well.” He turned to Valura. “Have you ever heard of the Superman Emergency Squad?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” replied Valura. “Were you a member?”

Tan nodded. “There were a hundred of us,” he said. “We were selected by the Council on the grounds of having similar build to Superman – the idea being to confuse any of his enemies who happened to see us in action.” He laughed. “I do know that we completely freaked out Jimmy Olsen the first time he encountered us. He didn’t know what to think – was he dreaming, or did he really see a hundred tiny Supermen? Or was it the original Superman, split into a hundred by Red Kryptonite or magic? He couldn’t figure it out at all.”

“That was cruel!”

“In retrospect, you’re probably right. But, anyway, I was one of them, and I shared several adventures with the Emergency Squad. It was a lot of fun, and a great thrill to have super-powers, if only temporarily. And we had the chance, of course, to contribute just a little to Superman’s great crusade for good.”

“He says, as an afterthought,” chipped in Nenia, wryly.

“Who’s telling this?” said Tan.

“You are, my dear. Pray continue.”

Tan’s expression became more serious. “There was growing unrest in Kandor, however,” he said. “As you know, Kandor was originally shrunk and placed in a bottle by Brainiac before Krypton exploded. For many years the bottle sat in Brainiac’s ship, until Superman found us and placed the bottle in his Fortress of Solitude for safety, vowing to find a way one day to enlarge us. But, as the years went by, a rumor had spread that Superman HAD a way to enlarge Kandor but was holding back from using it, because he was jealous of the prospect of having thousands of other people around who were just as powerful as he was.”

“That’s ridiculous!” scoffed Valura. “I know Superman! He’s the most good and noble being in the universe. He’d never entertain such a notion for an instant!”

“I know,” said Tan. “And those of us in the Squad refused to believe it. However, there were many who DID believe the talk, including a scientist called Than-Ol.”

“I know of him!” gasped Valura. “He was the father of my predecessor, Todra Than-Ol.”

“Indeed,” said Tan. “And she did a great deal to make up for the harm her father had caused. Than-Ol was a scientist, and his own researches had led him to re-create an enlarging ray in Superman’s possession, which he believed was the one Superman was withholding according to rumor. It caused a major schism within Kandor. Than-Ol’s faction actually succeeded in building their enlarging ray, seizing the bottle and enlarging the city on Earth. They hunted down Superman and came close to executing him for his supposed ‘crime’ of keeping the city in reduced form.

“However, the ray turned out to be unstable, and the entire city started to disintegrate. Barely in time, Superman saved us by turning Brainiac’s reducing ray on Kandor again and placing us in a new bottle.”

“I’ve heard this story,” said Valura. “I even remember the city being enlarged temporarily, although I was only a child at the time. That was, of course, the reason why Superman had never told the Kandorians about that ray. He knew it was unstable and would destroy us if it was used.”

Tan nodded. “That was the end of the rebellion, naturally. The ringleaders were sentenced to the Phantom Zone and that seemed to be that.”

“Those who had supported Than-Ol and his followers became pretty quiet for a long time,” said Nenia. “It was amazing how many of them couldn’t possibly have really been involved because they were ill at the time…”

“Yes. Thank you for that insight, darling,” said Tan. “Underneath, however, it did set a lot of people thinking … wondering whether there WAS some way of enlarging Kandor that had been dismissed as unworkable but could be looked at again, or that maybe there was some method no-one had ever considered.

“Anyway, I was a maintenance engineer then, as I am now. One of my jobs was to service the Earth Monitors which the Emergency Squad used to keep an eye on things when Superman was absent. It was on one of those jobs, when I was looking around Earth randomly just to test the system out, when it occurred to me that there WAS something which no-one had ever considered. And it was flying through the air over California!”
* * *

 

Naturally, [continued Tan-Jay] I told Nenia about my idea. We weren’t married then, but we were betrothed and we shared each other’s confidences. Her response shocked me, though.

“You can’t tell anyone about this!” she said.

“But … why not?” I protested. “Nenia, this could be the answer. It would work, I’m sure!”

She glared at me. “That’s what Than-Ol said. Do you want to end up like him? Am I supposed to wait while you spend twenty cycles in the Zone before we can get married?”

“Nenia, this is different!”

“Oh, really? And just HOW is it different? Than-Ol was equally sure he was right. He was convinced that Superman was deliberately suppressing a guaranteed method of enlarging the city, and now you’re doing the same thing! For Rao’s sake, Tan! The city is just healing the wounds of the divide Than-Ol caused and now you want to cause another!”

“But …”

“It’s the name, isn’t it? Tan … Than … similar names. Is it something about that sound that causes insanity? Because I don’t know what else it is. Your mother never mentioned any madness in the family …”

I took her gently by the wrists. “Nenia, will you calm down? I’m not accusing Superman of anything! The likelihood is that he’s never even thought of this!”

“Superman isn’t stupid, my love.”

“I know. But sometimes being too close to something makes it difficult to see. What’s the Earth saying – ‘can’t see the wood for trees’?”

“It’s a silly saying.”

“But you understand what I mean? What if it just never occurred to Kal-El that a friend and colleague of his may have the answer to our plight?”

“Simply because he’s so close that he can’t see it.”

“Precisely.”

Nenia considered it. “You still can’t tell anyone. For Rao’s sake, Tan, if you’re wrong you could start it all up again. Let Kandor have some peace after all the turmoil!”

I had to admit she was right. “But I’ve got to do SOMETHING,” I said. “I can’t just let this go untested. Suppose I contact Superman and suggest it to him?”

“Tan, Superman has been remarkably calm and understanding about recent events, but there are limits to his patience. Don’t provoke him with crazy theories. He has every right to be angry with us and we don’t want him refusing to speak to us at all!”

“You are very much maligning Superman by suggesting that he might take offense.”

“Maybe. But do YOU want to risk it? Because I don’t!”

Neither did I. But that night, lying in my bed, I realized that there was something I could do. I couldn’t go public, or even ask Superman (although to be honest I was more scared of offending Nenia than the Man of Steel). But maybe … just maybe … I could take direct action of my own. I was a member of the Superman Emergency Squad. That gave me certain privileges.

The following morning, I requisitioned a jet pack and logged my intention to fly up to the Stopper. I’d better explain about the Stopper. It was the only way in or out of Kandor’s bottle. Originally it was a simple seal connecting the bottle to its life-support system. This looked like an ordinary air tank, but in fact was a sophisticated system designed to feed the bottle with miniaturized air. After all, miniaturized lungs couldn’t possibly process full-sized oxygen molecules.

But I digress. After the rebellion, Superman realized there was a need to have a better way in and out than having to lift up the stopper each time. So he built a miniature airlock system in the seal to allow the Emergency Squad easy access when required. Naturally, this required occasional maintenance so, as both a member of the Squad and an engineer, I had access to it and could undertake a routine check without attracting suspicion.

I flew up into the lock entrance and alighted. We had also established a ready-room in the space to house the uniforms we wore as the Superman Emergency Squad. These contained electronic ID devices concealed in the belt buckles, and I would need one of these to get past the Fortress’s security without setting off alarms.

One thing that I couldn’t get hold of, though, was our enlarging gas. Outside of the bottle’s artificial red-sun environment, we Kandorians gained super-powers like Superman’s, but we were still microscopic in size. The gas was devised by one of our scientists to increase our size to a couple of inches in height. The effect was only temporarily, but it did make it easier to operate outside of Kandor. It was kept under strict security at the Squad’s headquarters, though, especially since Than-Ol’s rebellion. Oh, well – I would just have to do without it.

Making my way up to the outer lock, I felt a thrill go through me. If all went well, this could be the day we found a way to enlarge Kandor – and I would go down in history as our savior!

As I passed through the outer lock, I felt my body become energized by the ultra-solar rays of Earth’s sun. I was still deep within the Fortress, with thick layers of rock in between myself and the sun, and yet those rays still somehow penetrated down here, filling every cell of my body now that I was away from Kandor’s artificial red-sun environment.

Within a few seconds, I was energized enough to be able to fly. Contrary to popular belief, one doesn’t step into a yellow-sun environment and become instantly as strong as Superman – the energy takes time to build up to those levels. But even within a few minutes I was more powerful than any other being on Earth save the Kal-El himself. It was ironic to think that, were I to reenter the bottle at that moment, my new powers would be driven away in seconds by red-sun radiation. Where does the energy all go, I wonder?

But I’m getting sidetracked again. I flew through the Fortress, confident that its defenses would recognize me as a friend with authorization to be there. I made straight for the lock in the great, golden door, which seemed even larger than it had ever done before because I was much smaller than we of the Superman Emergency Squad normally were when we operated outside of Kandor. Within seconds I was outside, flying in brilliant sunshine over vast tracts of Arctic wasteland. Now, under the direct rays of Sol, I began to feel REALLY powerful. I was smaller than a grain of sand, yet I could smash down mountains if I felt so inclined.

On, I flew, ever southward, the air becoming warmer and the landscape greener as I traversed Canada in seconds and entered US territory. I adjusted my flight path, heading for California and the appropriately-named Coast City, home to the Ferris Aircraft Company. The human I wanted to find lived and worked there in one aspect of his life. Like Superman, he led a double existence.

I quickly located Ferris Aircraft, which I had seen many times on the Earth Monitor. However, as I descended it suddenly occurred to me just what a task I had set myself. I had never been this small outside of the Bottle-city before, and everything was … well, it was simply gigantic in comparison to me. You have to have been in that situation to realize just how distorted everything looks when it’s that big relative to yourself. I couldn’t recognize anything at all close up: I had to back off some distance to make sense of what I was looking at.

Fortunately, I chanced upon someone I recognized from the Monitor – a young human from northern climes whom I knew was a friend of the one I sought. He was crossing the tarmac towards a hangar, so I hitched a ride on his hat. Sure enough, in the hangar were some other people I recognized, including the female who was in overall charge of the plant – and, yes, exchanging words with her as he entered a primitive-looking hydrocarbon-powered aircraft – the man I sought. The man known, dressed as he was now, as Hal Jordan. But I knew that, when he donned a mask and a costume of green, black and white, he had another name – Green Lantern!

He was strapping himself into the seat of the primitive airplane; the cockpit was still open, so I simply flew in. At my small size I was no more noticeable by him than a mote of dust. He had not yet put on his flying gloves, so I was alarmed to note that his hands were bare. Where was the fabled power ring that he wielded as Green Lantern?

This didn’t make sense. Surely Jordan would not leave such a powerful artifact unattended elsewhere? It must be about his person somewhere!

I flew back apace and scanned him with my X-ray vision – to no avail. The ring was not visible in any of his pockets, tucked into his shoe or anywhere else on his body. Or was it? Perhaps it had the power to become invisible? My time observing Jordan on the Earth Monitor had been of necessity limited, so there were probably quite a few things I didn’t know. Maybe this was one of them!

I summoned up my other vision powers, including infrared, and suddenly there it was, sitting on his finger all along! I flew down again, still keeping that power switched on, and I alighted on the ring itself.

The gem seemed vast to one as tiny as I was – the size of a sports stadium or even bigger! I considered my next move. Should I speak to Jordan? Obviously, he would not hear my voice as it was, but I had the powers of super-ventriloquism and super-shouting at my disposal now. I had never used either of these powers before, but my ultra-solar-enhanced brain instinctively knew how to use them.

I decided against it, however. I didn’t know Jordan and he might misconstrue my action as an attack. Besides, he was not costumed as Green Lantern at the present time. I was sure that the sallow-skinned youth knew the secret of his double identity, but I didn’t know about the dark-haired woman who was talking to him, apparently giving him instructions.

So, I decided, I would put my original plan into action. I wasn’t by any means certain it would work but, if it didn’t, no-one would know about it and I wouldn’t end up looking ridiculous.

I moved to one edge of the great gem and focused my heat vision on one spot. Nothing seemed to happen, so I turned up the intensity … higher, higher, higher. Oh, come on, I thought. You can’t be indestructible! Come ON! I concentrated, willing the stone to react to my heat beams – and suddenly it happened.

A tiny chip of emerald stone, no bigger than my thumbnail, broke away from the main body of the gem. I quickly snatched it up and held it in the palm of my hand. Away from the still-invisible ring, it was now clearly visible and glowing softly.

I had done it! I had obtained a fragment of the Oan power ring – a fragment so tiny that Green Lantern would never even notice it was missing!

I couldn’t see myself, of course, but I imagine that I was grinning like an idiot as I flew up, up and away from Jordan’s airplane, out of the hangar and accelerating northward. I could scarcely believe that it had worked, and without any hitch at all! I had the thing I had come for.

I halted over a range of mountains and scanned down with my X-ray vision. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for – a small seam of platinum-iridium ore, doubtless the remains of an ancient meteorite. I swooped down, focusing my heat vision to smelt the ore, and I shaped it with my bare hands into a ring to hold my precious tiny sliver of gemstone. Slipping it onto one of my fingers, I continued on my way back to the Arctic.

In seconds, I was reentering Superman’s Fortress of Solitude and making for the room where he kept Kandor’s bottle. I had decided not to test my new acquisition until I got there, but now I alighted on the floor of that room and looked down at my hand. The ring continued to glow softly. Would it work? It had to!

I concentrated, willing the ring to bathe me in its emerald energies, and I felt my body changing … expanding … growing in all directions. Soon I was taller than the plinth on which the bottle stood. Seconds later, my head was passing the neck of the bottle itself. Then the process stopped.

I whooped with delight. It had worked! The sliver, now as big as its parent gem, had the same capabilities as the original ring. I was full-sized, for only the second time in my life – the first, of course, having been when Than-Ol had briefly enlarged the bottle-city a few months before.

It would do the trick! If the ring could enlarge me, it could also enlarge the whole of Kandor! I pointed the ring towards the bottle…

Then I drew it back. That would be crazy – I couldn’t enlarge Kandor in here! Also, it would be only fair to warn everyone first. The Council would need to decide where would be a suitable place to restore us to full size. Perhaps they would prefer it not to be on Earth at all.

It was a little frustrating, but I willed the ring to reduce me again, and flew up to the bottle. I entered the airlock in the stopper for what I believed would be the last time.

It seemed strange to be strapping on a jet pack in readiness to fly down to the surface, after soaring around the Earth under my own power, but I had felt my super-powers fade within seconds of reentering Kandor’s environment.

Now garbed in my civilian clothes again, I entered the lower lock and launched myself into space, activating the jet pack as I did so. Then I found myself laughing. I shouldn’t need this now! I reversed course and reentered the lock. Switching off the jet pack, I looked down at the ring pulsing gently on my finger. Concentrating, I willed it to alter my appearance so that I was now clothed in a uniform similar to the one Hal Jordan wore as Green Lantern – albeit with a few Kryptonian touches such as a headband.

I then launched off again, this time not activating the jet pack but willing the ring to enable me to fly – and it worked! I found myself flying through the late-dusk sky of Kandor just as easily as I had flown on the outside!

Laughing, I began my descent. Should I go straight to the Council Chamber? I decided against it as the artificial sun was dimming. The Council members would all be on their way home by now; there would be plenty of time to talk to them in the morning. No, I decided to show off my new acquisition to the woman I loved first, so I flew down to Nenia’s apartment near the Eastern Park, one of the green spaces that the Council insisted on keeping intact despite the growing demand for housing space. Not that I disagreed with that policy, as the parks were loved and appreciated by everyone and were a reminder of what we once had and hoped to regain. In fact, I was confident that we would have all the green space we needed very soon!

I landed on her balcony and rapped on the window. Seconds later, she was staring out at me in astonishment. “T-tan?” she gasped as she let me in. “Is that you?”

I nodded. “Great Rao!” she exclaimed. “You did it! You actually did it! You stole Green Lantern’s power ring!”

I grinned. “Not exactly, my love. This is just a tiny fragment of the ring – one so small that Green Lantern will never miss it. But it works just as well as the real thing!” And I demonstrated by changing my ersatz Green Lantern uniform back into my Kandorian clothes.

Nenia slumped back into a chair, dumbstruck. Well, not quite dumbstruck. “What have you done?” she whispered. “Does anyone else know about this?”

“Not yet, Nenia. I intend to go to the Council tomorrow morning.” I held up the ring. “It will work, my love. This ring is capable of enlarging Kandor, I’m certain. I tested it on myself and it worked perfectly.”

She considered this. “But there’s a big difference between enlarging one man and doing it for a whole city, Tan! And you said that’s just a tiny piece of Green Lantern’s ring. Will it have enough power to work on the whole city?”

“Why shouldn’t it?” I said, slightly miffed that Nenia didn’t seem to share my excitement. “A Green Lantern power ring can do ANYTHING!”

She got up and started to pace around. “I’d heard that it can’t affect anything yellow. There are lots of yellow things in Kandor, Tan.”

“Um.” I hadn’t thought of that. “W-e-e-l-l … all right, that might be a minor setback. It might delay the day of liberation while the Council organizes a program of repainting everything yellow in another color, but …”

“The telepathic hounds? They’re yellow, Tan. You can’t repaint them. And what about other animals and birds which are yellow? What about people with blond hair?”

I threw up my hands. “I don’t know. For Rao’s sake, you can’t expect me to think of everything! But I’m sure they could be dyed temporarily or something. Wouldn’t it be worth it?”

“I suppose. But you’re going to have to take things like this into consideration when you take this to the Council, dear. And Rao knows what they’ll say when they learn you stole that ring fragment. They might consider it dishonorable.”

“Right.” I felt thoroughly deflated.

“Oh, don’t look so disconsolate,” she said, putting her arms around me. “It’s still very clever of you to do this, and I’m sure ways can be found around these little snags.”

“You still love me, then, even though I’m a thief?”

“Of course. Come on. Let’s eat, and sleep on it. I’m sure it’ll all look clearer in the morning.”

And indeed, we did sleep on it. But if any ideas had come to me overnight, they were dashed into pieces when a piercing scream from Nenia woke me out of a deep slumber.

I leapt out of bed. “Nenia, what is it?”

She was standing by the window, pointing out towards the park. “Tan… Tan… I don’t believe this. It can’t be happening!”

“What can’t be happening?” I rushed to her side.

“A dragon, Tan! There’s a dragon rampaging around the park, and it’s burning everything in sight!”

“No! That’s impossible!” I cried. “Flame dragons are extinct! There can’t possibly be one here!”

Nenia was running from the window. “We’ll all be killed! What are we going to do?”

I called after her: “Nenia, this can’t be real!”

“Can’t it? I could feel the heat through the window, Tan. Even if the dragon isn’t real, the fire is! Get away from there before it sees you!”

She was right: I COULD feel the heat. I started to back away, but then I stopped. What was there to be afraid of? Whatever this menace really was, I had a Green Lantern power ring on my finger. There was no need for me to run when I could fight!

I willed the Green Lantern costume which I had created for myself to appear. “Tan!” cried Nenia. “What in Rao’s name are you thinking of? You can’t possibly be meaning to – !”

“Oh, but I am,” I said, giving her a reassuring smile. I willed the ring to move me through the wall. It was a bizarre feeling, but it was good to know that the ring still worked as effectively as it had on the previous day. Launching myself into the air, I flew straight towards the dragon – or whatever it was. It was more likely, I thought, that it was a robot of some sort. “Hey, scaly!” I taunted. “Try your fires on me!”

I had a clearer look at the dragon now. Five times the height of a man, it was an enormous winged dinosaur with glistening green and orange scales and a wingspan that seemed to cover half the park space. It seemed to understand what I was saying and it turned its huge, ugly head to face my direction – and breathed fire straight at me.

I really don’t know what I had been expecting to happen. Maybe I was too used to wielding Superman-type powers and I was expecting the ring to work the same way. I don’t know. I tried to dodge, but I didn’t have the super-speed that a yellow sun would have endowed me with. I was much too slow and found myself engulfed in searing red flames.

Thank Rao they weren’t yellow flames, that’s all I can say in retrospect. As the fire washed over me, the power ring suddenly flared of its own accord and surrounded me in a protective green bubble. If it hadn’t, that would have been the end of my brief career.

It panicked me momentarily, though. I flew straight up, out of reach of the dragon’s fire, and I didn’t stop until I was high above Kandor’s highest towers. Even though the ring’s automatic protection had kept me cool, I was sweating profusely.

“That’ll teach you to be overconfident,” I muttered to myself. I looked down; the dragon was flying up towards me, climbing slowly with its clumsy wings but clearly determined not to let me get away.

All right, I thought. This time it’s my turn! I swooped down to meet its challenge. It flamed again, but I formed a huge umbrella with the ring to deflect the flames away from me. Lunging past it, I willed a gigantic fist into being and ordered it to strike the dragon with all the power the ring could muster.

That was a LOT of power, I quickly found out. The startled dragon was flung back nearly half a mile by the blow, narrowly missing one of Kandor University’s science towers. It started to fall, stunned, but checked itself and struggled to gain height again, sending another blast of flame in my direction. Grinning, I overtook it and belted it again, flinging it back towards the park. Then, racing after it, I formed a second giant hand and clapped both of them together with the dragon in between.

That did the trick! It fell to the ground with a thump that could have been heard from the Council Chambers halfway across the city. I descended after it… but pulled up with a start.

The dragon was lying in an ungainly heap, its limbs at unnatural angles – and blood was pooling beneath it! “It’s real?” I breathed. “It’s alive – or was? Not a robot?”

This really WAS impossible. Kryptonian flame dragons were extinct. It couldn’t…

I gasped. The dead dragon was changing before my eyes – shrinking and turning to stone. Within seconds, there was a broken statue lying in the indentation made by the fallen dragon. I recognized it – it was one of the statues flanking the south gates of the park, the other being a Winged One.

I landed alongside it. Such things didn’t happen. Statues didn’t come to life. What in the world could have caused this?

And then I found out. A voice rang out behind me, chanting in a language unfamiliar to me, and I turned around to see a being such as I had never seen before!

The creature which now faced me was humanoid, but looked like no Kandorian I had ever seen. His skin was sallow and his white hair, balding around a pronounced widow’s peak, stuck out like a triple crest. He wore a largely dark blue outfit with maroon gloves, boots and trunks, and a very wide white belt. But it was his height that made him stand out – his features put him past middle age, but he was only the size of a child. A midget, I believed the Earthers called it.

“Who are you?” I asked. “Are you responsible for this?”

His reply was in the same incomprehensible language I had heard before. I concentrated. “Ring, enable me to understand this man’s speech.”

I wasn’t sure the ring could do that, but I was pleasantly surprised when I understood the strange little man’s next words: “So. Yet another new Green Lantern, I see. Well, it matters not. It is the uniform to which I owe my revenge, not the man who wears it.”

“Now wait just a -” I began. But he ignored me. Raising his arms, he began to chant.

“World I command, all I behold, bind my foe in bands of gold!”

“Look, are you going to explain, or…” My words petered out, as the plasticrete walkway of the park twisted, changed and transmuted into gleaming golden bands, which rushed towards me, enclosed me – and began to constrict, tighter and tighter!

“Ungh!” I moaned.

The little man came closer, laughing. “Thus may all Green Lanterns know the wrath of Myrwhydden, greatest sorcerer of the age!”

“Ungh!” I reiterated. I’m afraid I haven’t much imagination when it comes to expressions of pain. I had to get out of this – but how, if my ring was powerless against the yellow gold?

Of course! I sent a mental command to the ring. I was already microscopic in size, relative the world outside the bottle, but I ordered the ring to make me smaller still – doll-sized relative to my normal size. Shrinking faster than the bands could contract, I easily slipped out of them and rose into the air, willing my size back to normal.

Myrwhydden, as he called himself, merely smirked. By Rao, I thought, I’ll wipe that off his face! Now well clear of the golden bands, I sent a bolt of energy towards him to sweep him off his stunted little feet. However, he had been muttering something under his breath. As the bolt reached him, a faint yellow aura appeared around him and the energy dissipated.

“Do you think I do not know how to foil the green energy?” he gloated. “Trees of wood be sulfurous flies. Strike down Green Lantern till he dies!”

In response to his magic, several of the nearby trees changed form, taking the shapes of monstrous insects – but ones composed of burning sulfur! Even before they could reach me, I could smell the foul fumes emanating from them.

I took to the sky, desperately trying to think of a way I could defeat creatures like these. Again, my ring was powerless against them; Myrwhydden certainly knew how to counteract a Green Lantern’s powers. They were coming for me, though, and seemed to have quite a turn of speed. I had to outrun them, and keep them away from people at all costs. The few people abroad in the park had fled before Myrwhydden’s first creation, the dragon, but elsewhere there were thousands of citizens who could be injured or even killed if these things got loose in the city.

All right, Tan-jay, think! I scolded myself. What would Hal Jordan do? He has fought any number of foes who have used yellow against him, but he’s always won. How?

Simple – the ring could not affect yellow directly. But indirectly? That was another matter!

I swooped back down towards the park, which I judged to be the safest place for this battle. Lamps flanked the pathways on metal stanchions. The ideal weapon!

I picked up a lamppost with the power beam and, shaping it into a spear, hurled it at the nearest of the dozen or so sulfur insects bearing down on me. It impaled the monster, which hurtled to the ground in a flaming ball of sulfur and exploded! Success! What I could do to one, I could do to all – and I did, spearing every insect before it could reach me.

I looked around. This was making a real mess of the park, but that was better than putting lives in danger. I turned back to Myrwhydden.

“Is that the best you can do, dwarf?” I growled. It was time to put an end to this. I feinted with my power beam, which dissipated against his yellow aura once more. But that wasn’t my intent. Before he realized what I was doing, I flew within reach of him and attacked him the old-fashioned way: I punched him in the face!

THAT took the smirk away! He fell backwards under the blow, squealing in pain. Evidently, he wasn’t used to his enemies fighting back physically!

Right. Now to finish this. I focused my will, intent on making the ground wrap itself around the wizard, imprisoning him. I could worry about just who he was and how he got here when I’d rendered him incapable of casting any more spells.

However, as the beam shot from the ring, its glow suddenly died. I stared at it in astonishment. It was suddenly just a piece of inert gemstone on my finger. What’s more, even my GL uniform suddenly changed back into the robe I had been originally wearing. What in Rao’s name?

The smirk, however, had returned to Myrwhydden’s face. “Now I have you,” he glowered. “Creature of clay and soil and stones, grab this man and shake his bones!”

So stunned was I by the sudden loss of power from my ring that I had no time to move as a huge man-shaped mass of earth rose up out of the ground and reached out to grab me in an unbreakable grip. Not only did it squeeze me almost as tightly as the golden bands had, it started to shake me violently up and down.

Myrwhydden approached and stared up at me, gloating. “Call yourself a Green Lantern? You are pathetic! You are not fit to lick the boots of those I fought before!”

I made no attempt to reply. I was too busy trying not to bite through my tongue as my teeth rattled together. He came even closer. “So what happened to the last one, hmn? To the one who replaced Abin Sur?” He gestured and the golem, mercifully, stopped shaking me. “Answer me.”

“Other one?” I gasped, struggling to talk as my ribs were being crushed.

“The other Green Lantern. The one I fought last time.”

“You mean Hal Jordan?”

“Was that his name? I did not know that. Hal Jordan … well? Does he live? Has my revenge upon him been denied even as my revenge upon Abin Sur was thwarted?”

I glared at him. “Oh, yes. He lives. He lives, all right. You might have bested me, but if you plan to take him on, you won’t win so easily. He’ll kick your sorry -”

He scowled and gestured, and the creature started shaking me once more. What happened next I have no idea, because I blacked out from the pain.

When I came to, I found myself in a strange, vast hall. Torches burned in sconces around the walls, casting macabre shadows from hideous gargoyle-like statues. Myrwhydden sat in a golden throne, staring at me. I realized that I was bound with chains, again of gold. My power ring had run out of energy, it seemed, but he was taking no chances.

“You are awake,” he observed.

“I noticed,” I groaned. As I shifted position, my ribs protested. Several of them felt broken.

“You probably wonder why I have allowed you to live, mortal.”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

He left the chair and strode towards me. “I require information. I do not recognize this place where I find myself. It is not the world, it seems, of Green Lantern – of Hal Jordan.”

“Don’t know everything then, do you? Not as all-powerful as you seem to think…”

He kicked me in the ribs. I won’t even begin to describe the pain. “I will have none of this insolence, dog. I allowed you to live because you have unwittingly given me the true name of my nemesis Green Lantern. With a man’s true name comes power. When next we meet, the spell I will send against him will incorporate his true name, thus making it irresistible. He will die.”

He wandered away from me towards a window. I could see the towers of Kandor through it and pondered what was going on outside. If Myrwhydden’s magic had raised a castle here, surely the city’s security forces were trying to do something about it!

“I do not need to know what you are thinking to see your thoughts etched upon your face, mortal,” he muttered. “This hall is impregnable. Your pathetic soldiers batter its walls with their puny weapons, but the force of my magic renders them impotent. And when I choose to emerge from here, I will turn them all to stone and they will stand for all eternity as reminders of the futility of opposing my might.”

Well, he was certainly full of himself, this one. I couldn’t see any way to escape, but maybe I could string him along until an opportunity presented itself. “Tell me – great and mighty wizard,” I said. “How did you get here?”

He turned back to face me. “I do not know. I was imprisoned within Green Lantern’s ring for … I do not know how long. Then, yesterday, I felt a kind of … wrenching. I tried to resist, but found myself being pulled out of my prison in a burning agony. I passed out from the pain, and when I awoke I found myself here.”

Oh, great Rao, I thought. I’m responsible for that! When I used my heat vision to chip off a shard of the ring, I must have ruptured the force that was imprisoning this creature and he came along with it to Kandor!

He stared into my eyes. “I want to know where this place is. What planet is this? You will tell me.”

“Believe it or not,” I said, “you’re on Earth.”

“A lie! Earth is primitive. This place has technology far beyond anything the humans are capable of.” He raised his foot to kick me again.

“No – wait!” I cried. “This planet IS Earth – but you’re actually inside a miniaturized city from another world.”

“What?!”

“It’s true,” I said. “This city is called Kandor. It was stolen from my world by an evil space villain named Brainiac, who shrunk the entire city and placed it in a bottle. A hero of this world rescued us from Brainiac and brought the bottle containing Kandor here to Earth for safekeeping.”

“What? Is this true?”

“I swear!”

“Then… then I am still tiny? Still miniaturized as I was when Abin Sur placed me inside the power ring?”

I nodded. “It’s easy enough to prove,” I said. “Go far enough in any direction and you’ll come up against great glass walls.”

Myrwhydden glowered, his bushy white brows knitting together. “Floor of stone on which I stand, fly so I can view this land!” he intoned. A circle of the floor around us rose into the air, carrying us towards the ceiling.

“I shall see this for myself,” he growled. “And if you have lied to me, mortal, you shall die, in the slowest manner I can devise!”

The ceiling opened ahead of our flight at a muttered command from Myrwhydden, and the stone circle soared into the air at breathtaking speed. Shackled as I was, and my ribs giving me agonies, it was as much as I could do to hang on – and Myrwhydden clearly didn’t care whether I did or not.

I did chance a glance down, to see security troops swarming all over the park. I couldn’t see the expressions on their faces, but I could imagine their bafflement at the sudden appearance of a mediaeval-style castle in the middle of the park – not to mention what onlookers must have told them about the monsters that had been swarming all over the place!

It didn’t take us long to reach the wall of the bottle. “You spoke truly, mortal,” growled Myrwhydden. “I may allow you to live after all.”

He stared through the glass, trying to make sense of what, to us, seemed gargantuan on the outside. “What manner of place is beyond this barrier?” he demanded of me.

“I told you – it’s a Fortress belonging to a hero of this world.”

“Not Green Lantern Hal Jordan?”

“No. Someone else. He calls himself Superman.”

Myrwhydden considered this. “It is of no import. If this ‘Superman’ interferes with me, I shall defeat him even as I vanquished you. What is the environment like beyond the glass? Is the air breathable?”

Was he contemplating taking us outside? If he was, I could have a nasty little shock in store for him. “To someone normal-sized, yes.”

“Restoring my normal stature will be child’s play for one of my powers,” he said haughtily. “Very well. I need you no longer!” He made to kick me and pitch me from the circle. Great Rao, I thought. I didn’t know how high we were, but there was no way I could survive a fall from this height.

“Wait!” I cried. “You need me alive!”

“How so?” he asked.

“Superman’s Fortress is beset with traps and other dangers. Alone, you’d never get through them – but keep me alive and I can show you how to disarm them.”

His huge brows knitted. “What you say has merit – IF you speak truly.”

“I do, I do. I’m one of an elite force that assists Superman from time to time. We have to know how to get safely past the Fortress’s defenses.”

He thought about this for a moment. “Very well. But I shall keep you in chains. I do not trust you.”

“As you wish. But I don’t want to die. Please take me with you.”

“Pathetic,” he sneered. “And you thought you had any chance against ME? How did a worm like you ever get to be a Green Lantern?”

“If you must know,” I said, “I didn’t. Not officially. I stole the ring.”

That made him smile evilly. “A thief, eh? That explains much, mortal. Well then – you shall be my servant when I conquer the world beyond.”

He raised his arms. “Barrier vast and made of glass – part, I command you, let us pass!”

The glass shimmered and seemed to melt around a spot before Myrwhydden, which suddenly opened up into a hole big enough to allow the stone circle and ourselves through it. We passed through, and I saw the hole close up again behind us. Well, at least that resolves one worry, I thought. I had feared that Myrwhydden might leave the hole open, to leak away Kandor’s atmosphere, but perhaps he had plans for its citizens and wanted to leave them alive for now.

Whatever his motivation, the platform began to descend rapidly towards the floor of the Fortress. This time I had no problem with hanging on. Unknown to Myrwhydden, I could feel the ultra-solar rays of Earth’s sun beginning to energize me once more.

The platform reached the ground and the wizard stepped off. He seemed to be holding his breath – understandable, as the normal-sized molecules in the air around us would have been unbreathable to him. “So small no longer shall I be, restore our size, my slave and me!”

There was a wrenching feeling, and we both began to grow rapidly until we were normal-sized. The bottle-city, which had moments before seemed vast around us, now looked little more than a toy.

“That’s better,” said Myrwhydden. “And now, slave, you shall show me around this ‘Fortress’ and its secrets.”

I grinned. “I don’t think so!” Flexing my now super-strong muscles, I burst out of my chains, flew towards the wizard and gave him just the lightest of slaps with the flat of my hand. Even that was enough to send him flying back across the room.

“So much for your plans for world domination!” I said as he lay on the floor, stunned. “Didn’t expect this, did you?” I strode towards him, intending to bind him with his own chains – and gag him so he could make no further incantations.

 

But then something happened that I hadn’t expected. I suddenly doubled up in agony, my ribs feeling like they were on fire. “Oh, no!” I groaned. I had been injured in Kandor, and I was still injured out here. The super-energy coursing through my body would heal my injuries much faster in this environment, but I still had busted ribs – busted super-tough ribs.

There wasn’t much that could cut through super-powered Kryptonian body tissue, but one thing that could certainly do it was some other super-powered Kryptonian body tissue. Like bone sticking into a lung??

I felt blood welling up in my throat and I collapsed, groaning. Oh, Rao, I thought. Not now, not like this. Not when I was so close to victory!

As I keeled forward, I saw Myrwhydden struggling groggily to his feet. He was clearly dazed and in no fit state to fight; one blow would surely put him out of it altogether.

But I could hardly move for the pain I was in. I was strong enough to level a mountain and tough enough to survive a small atomic blast unscathed, but my own body was killing me. I could feel my lungs filling up with blood.

“W … well…” gasped Myrwhydden. “I do not know where you found the strength to deliver such a blow, mortal … but it would appear that the effort has proved too much for you. Not good enough.” He shook his head, evidently trying to clear the dizziness away. “Not good enough at all …”

On his feet now, the diminutive sorcerer leaned against one of the walls for support. “Do not die, treacherous one,” he said. “Do not dare to die before I have my revenge. As soon as my head is clear, I shall cast such a spell upon you that you shall rot in agony – but you will take a year or more to die. You have forfeited any right to a quick death.”

I tried to crawl towards him on my belly. One blow. Just a casual sweep of my super-strong hand. That would be all that would be needed. Yet every movement was an eternity of agony. For all Myrwhydden’s threats, at that moment I couldn’t see that anything he could threaten me with could be worse than what I was already going through.

I looked up. He was steadier on his feet now, his eyes properly focused once more and blazing in fury. “Very well. Let us begin …” He raised his arms.

“Not if I have any say in the matter, mage!”

The cavern suddenly filled with emerald light. Someone swooped in and alighted between Myrwhydden and me. “G-Green Lantern?” I croaked.

“The very same,” snarled Myrwhydden. “Well, well. So you show yourself at last, eh, ring-bearer?”

“You won’t harm this man, Myrwhydden,” said the newcomer. “Not while I’m here to protect him.”

“Indeed? Then a good think you will not be here much longer,” said Myrwhydden with an evil curl to his lip. “This fool has unwittingly given me the power to destroy you, enemy mine. He has told me your true name. And a spell cast against you with your true name will be infallible.”

Green Lantern merely laughed. He folded his arms, making no effort whatsoever to use his ring against the sorcerer. I stared at him in astonishment. I tried to call out, to tell him to strike now and not give Myrwhydden a chance to use his magic, but no words came out. I only coughed up more blood.

Myrwhydden growled. “You think I bluff, human? Then laugh at this!”

He raised his arms again. “Name of power, golden dread, kill Hal Jordan – strike him dead!”

And with those words, a terrible shaft of golden radiance flew from the mage’s fingers, striking Green Lantern squarely in the chest – and then I could see nothing but glare and smoke!

Incredibly, to my utter surprise, the smoke and began to clear to reveal the target of Myrwhydden’s attack still standing there. Parts of his costume were on fire, but he looked relatively unharmed. “Tch, tch,” he said, blowing out a small fire on his left sleeve. “Is that the best you can do?”

Myrwhydden’s eyes widened like soup dishes. “Im-impossible!” he gasped. “I incorporated your true name in the spell! It should have been irresistible. It should have destroyed you!”

“Well,” said another voice from behind him, “the trouble is, you really ought to have made sure you were aiming at the right target!”

The dwarfish mage spun around to see another Green Lantern behind him, leaning nonchalantly against the wall and grinning broadly. Myrwhydden’s head jerked back and forth between the two. “But… but…”

I suddenly cottoned on to what was going on as I realized that, where his GL costume had burned away, the first GL was wearing different colors underneath – mostly blue and red!

The second Green Lantern raised his ring to point at the confused sorcerer. “Say goodnight, Gracie!”

Myrwhydden suddenly realized what was happening and tried to raise his yellow aura to protect himself, but too late. He began to shrink rapidly and was drawn into the power ring. “N…..oooooooooo….ooooooo!”

Then he was gone.

Green Lantern then approached me. “And I think you have something that belongs to me, too,” he said. His power ring glowed once more and I felt the gem fragment leave the ring on my finger and saw it, like Myrwhydden, grow smaller and smaller as it approached its parent and merged with it.

“That’s better,” he said. “And I think you owe us an explanation, friend,” he added.

“No, wait a moment, GL,” said Superman – for it was, indeed, the Man of Steel who had acted as a decoy wearing a Green Lantern uniform. “My X-ray vision reveals Tan-Jay has serious internal injuries. We need to get him to a hospital as a priority. Explanations can wait.”

“Wouldn’t that mean taking him back in there?” asked GL, nodding in the direction of Kandor’s bottle. “I wouldn’t think an Earth hospital would be able to do much for him.”

“That’s right,” said Superman. He had removed his disguise now and was gently lifting me.

And what happened next I don’t know, because I blacked out again.
***

 

“So what happened to you in the end?” asked Valura Tur-Thol.

“Well,” said Tan-Jay. “They got me back to the hospital in Kandor, where the surgeons patched up my busted ribs and lung, but I woke up to find some very angry faces staring down at me. After a lot of questions and a fair bit of shouting, I got a severe reprimand and was expelled from the Superman Emergency Squad. There were some who wanted me sent to the Phantom Zone, but Superman spoke up for me. He pointed out that I had acted with good intent and I had kept Myrwhydden from doing any further damage to the city. It wasn’t as if I’d freed him deliberately, after all.”

“But you did steal part of Green Lantern’s ring.”

“True. And he was a bit annoyed about that, even though I explained why. Both he and Superman thought I acted foolishly – I should have explained my theory to them, not gone ahead and tried to be a hero.”

“And?”

“And what?” said Tan-Jay.

Nenia grinned. “I think she wants to know why they didn’t go for your grand plan, darling. Tell her why Green Lantern didn’t use his ring to enlarge Kandor.”

An embarrassed look came upon Tan-Jay’s face. “For the same reason that my ring had suddenly run out of power. A GL ring has to be charged every 24 hours. Mine simply went dead after its charge ran out.”

“So what … ooohh, I see!” said Valura.

“Green Lantern explained that if he changes something directly with his ring, it tends to revert back to its normal state if the ring’s charge runs down. He could have enlarged the city, and even gotten around the problem of being able to affect yellow objects within it, and it would have stayed enlarged so long as the ring had a charge. But the first time GL failed to recharge it within 24 hours…”

“Kandor would have been Smallville again,” said Nenia. “Pun intended.”

“Thank you, darling,” Tan-Jay said sardonically. “In fact, Superman had asked GL about that very possibility, the first time they ever met.”

“And got the same answer.”

“More or less.”

Valura sipped her wine thoughtfully. “What an adventure. You know, I remember hearing some parts of it before. I was just a child then, of course, as I said before, and my family and I lived across the other side of the city from the Eastern Park, but I remember the rumors, of the dragon in particular.

“A couple of questions remain, though. How did Superman and Green Lantern manage to turn up in the nick of time? And what happened to Myrwhydden?”

“Simple enough,” said Tan-Jay. When GL charged his ring that morning, it alerted him to the fact that part of it was missing, and the fact that the person who had taken it was a tiny little man who had Kryptonian-style powers. That prompted him to contact Superman, who deduced that a Kandorian must be responsible. He peeked ahead into the Fortress with his super-vision, witnessed what was going on and they decided to pull a little trick on Myrwhydden to confuse him so that GL could pull him back into the ring, where his predecessor Abin Sur had originally imprisoned him. He’s still there today for all I know.”

“So…” said Valura shortly. “So, you really WERE Kandor’s first Green Lantern! Do you miss it?”

Tan-Jay reached over to touch Nenia’s hand. “Not really. I’m much more suited, I think, to being a husband and a father than to playing hero. I’ve got to admit, though, that wielding a power ring, however briefly, was an amazing experience. If you were to offer me that ring on your finger, I’d be mightily tempted to accept.”

“Hey!” said Nenia. “You’ve already got a ring, hero. You want to accept a ring from another woman, she’s got to fight me first.”

Valura laughed. She held up her hands. “That’s one battle I wouldn’t relish, friends. But if I ever need somebody to stand in for me, Tan, I’ll bear you in mind. Who knows? Some day the Green Lantern of Kandor may need to take up the ring again!”