-----------------------------------
Omens of Kregen [Dray Prescot #36]
by Alan Burt Akers
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Science Fiction/Fantasy

Mushroom eBooks
www.mushroom-ebooks.com

Copyright ©1985 by Kenneth Bulmer

NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

Omens of Kregen

Alan Burt Akers

Mushroom eBooks

Copyright © 1985, Kenneth Bulmer

Alan Burt Akers has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work.

First published in USA in 1985 by Daw Books, Inc..

Originally published as “by Dray Prescot, as told to Alan Burt Akers".

This Edition published in 2008 by Mushroom eBooks, an imprint of Mushroom Publishing, Bath, BA1 4EB, United Kingdom www.mushroom-ebooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

eISBN 1843196832

To Larry and the Secret Seven

A Note on Dray Prescot

Lit by the red and green fires of Antares, the planet Kregen, four hundred light-years from Earth, is a world harsh yet beautiful, terrible yet alluring. There any man or woman may achieve what the heart desires, if they plan and struggle in keeping with the innate purpose within themselves. Kregen has its share of weaklings and the faint of heart; but their names are not writ large in the footnotes to the Sagas to be found under the Suns of Scorpio.

Dray Prescot, as described by one who has seen him, is a man a little above middle height with brown hair and level brown eyes, brooding and dominating, with enormously broad shoulders and powerful physique. There is about him an abrasive honesty and an indomitable courage. He moves like a savage hunting cat, quiet and deadly. Reared in the harsh conditions of Nelson's navy, he is a man driven by forces he barely understands and at which we can guess only through what he tells us of his story.

Called to be the Emperor of Vallia, he is putting the finishing touches to the reunification of the islands after the Times of Trouble. The famed and feared Witch of Loh, Csitra, has Pronounced the Nine Unspeakable Curses Against Vallia. Drawing constant strength from his consort, the Empress Delia, Prescot, together with his blade comrades, knows he must deal with the witch and her child, Phunik.

This confrontation, which the Vallians cannot guarantee to be final, they are all somberly aware will not take place under the streaming mingled opaline radiance of the Suns of Scorpio.

Alan Burt Akers

Chapter one

Concerning the crime of old Hack ‘n’ Slay

Old Hack ‘n’ Slay, caught with his fingers in the regimental funds, went on the rampage.

He hurled the first three fellows out through the windows of the tavern. The clientele huddled away into corners, including even soldiers from various regiments who knew old Hack ‘n’ Slay and like the ordinary citizens wanted nothing to do with this fracas.

In a furious melee six of his fellows poured all over poor old Hack ‘n’ Slay. They heaved up and down like men clinging to a boat in a gale.

Scarlet of face, ferocious of eye, old Hack ‘n’ Slay roared his refusal to be taken into custody.

“Calm down, Jik!” yelped the Deldar who hung onto one arm and was flapped up and down like a bird's wing. “You're nabbed."

Flagons of wine went every which way, strewing the floor with their pungent brews. The fumes coiled into the nostrils of the combatants. Yet no one drew a pointed or edged weapon. This was a strictly regimental matter. The lads of the 11th Churgurs would settle this among themselves. Old Hack ‘n’ Slay might have dipped his sticky finger into the regimental funds, he remained Jiktar Nath Javed, the regimental commander, commanding also the 32nd Brigade, of which the 11th Churgurs formed a part, and he was well known and liked.

“I'll have the Opaz-forsaken money tomorrow!” bellowed Jiktar Nath Javed, throwing a bulky soldier over his shoulder. “Lemme up!"

“No good, Jik! Grab that foot, Ompey. His arm, Cwonley, his left arm, you great onker!"

Crash went a table, and jugs and bottles smashed into vinous ruin.

“Get his feet from under him."

“I'll twist all your ears off, you horrible—"

Up and down the length of the tavern, The Cockerell Winged, the struggle blistered on. Hack ‘n’ Slay was no man to be dragged down even by six of his own hefty lads.

“Listen to me, you pack of famblys. I'll—"

“Yowp!” gobbled a churgur as an elbow nudged his ribs. The rest piled on. In the end they coiled a cunning loop of rope around his ankles and he crashed over to hit his nose on the edge of the upturned table. He let rip a rafter-shattering roar. Then they were on him like ants on a honey pot, holding him down, lapping him in rope, trussing him up like a chicken for the pot.

He kept on roaring his head off so they stuffed a kerchief into his horrendous maw and then wrapped that up in a scarf. Seeing there was nothing else for it, old Hack ‘n’ Slay quieted down and they lifted him up like a rolled carpet and took him off.

Through the pleasant evening they went, with three of Kregen's moons high in the sky casting down their refulgent pinkish light and the scent of Moonblooms filling the air with fragrance.

People out to enjoy themselves turned to stare. The soldiers just marched grimly on, their commander slung over their shoulders, conscious of the indignity of these proceedings yet not giving a damn what the passersby might think.

This was serious. Jiktar Nath Javed, old Hack ‘n’ Slay, just given the command of the 32nd Brigade, had pilfered the funds of his own regiment. Only because the division inspectorate had called and found the discrepancy—hell, they'd dumped the empty cash box out onto the parade ground for all to see—had Jiktar Javed been caught out.

Dumped down in the cells he gave up all resistance. They removed his gag and bonds, they took away all his belts and harness, all his weaponry. Sitting slumped into a corner, head on hands on knees, he gave no more trouble that night.

In the morning, after he'd washed and dressed punctiliously, they gave him slursh with red honey stirred in, three fried eggs with a huge hunk of bread, and a pottery dish of palines, whereat he swore they were trying to starve him.

Initially he was run up before the divisional commander, Chuktar Enar Thandon, a neat and dapper man, a Strom, with a clipped moustache, a mouth like a wound and eyes that could, so the swods in the ranks said, bore straight through the toughest armor around. Chuktar Thandon was flanked, in a matter of this seriousness, by the other two brigade commanders. They stared narrowly at Jiktar Nath Javed. For his part, Nath had little time for Lords.

The hearing was fully recorded by an almost silent Xaffer, who scribbled down his notes in his own particular method from which later he would write up a full report. Guards stood at the doors and windows of the commander's room, a place half office, half duty room, fully armed and armored after the churgur way.

The proceedings began with various witnesses establishing that the strongbox had been full of gold and silver coins, and was now empty. Other witnesses swore they'd seen old Hack ‘n’ Slay in such and such a place at such and such a time. The evidence bore in remorselessly.

Eventually, Nath Javed bellowed out: “I don't deny I borrowed the cash—"

“Borrowed?"

“Aye, borrowed—"

Old Hack ‘n’ Slay had risen through the full ten grades within the Jiktar rank. A Jiktar normally commanded a regiment. As a Zan-Jiktar, his next step was to become the first grade within the Chuktar rank, an Ob-Chuktar. Normally, Chuktars commanded brigades and various higher formations as required. Just why old Hack ‘n’ Slay had not received the promotion he must have counted on was not apparent then. It must have been a sore point with him, though.

“You are a Jiktar, Nath,” said Enar Thandon. “A Zan-Jiktar. Are you telling us you have amassed debts your pay cannot honor?"

“Not debts—well, not just debts."

“But,” put in one of the brigade Chuktars, Ongarr Fardew, commanding the bowmen, “you admit you stole the money?"

“No, you great fambly! I merely borrowed it—"

“Moderate your tone, Nath. We are all friends here."

“Friends?” Hack ‘n’ Slay spat it out. “I wonder. Friends would listen to what I say, by Vox, and not sit in judgment overhastily."

“We do not sit in judgment.” Enar Thandon rapped that out sharply enough. Then, with even more sharpness, he added: “Yet."

“This is merely an inquiry to establish your guilt,” said Chuktar Ongarr Fardew. He spoke in a neutral way; Nath Javed scowled and, about to roar out the obvious reply to that, was interrupted as Enar Thandon in his acidulated way cut in.

“You admit you took the money from the cash box. You admit you have debts you cannot pay. I feel it would be inadmissible in officers of honor to find you anything less than guilty."

“I didn't steal the rotten money—"

“There is no other construction we can put upon your actions."

“Agreed.” The Court of Inquiry was unanimous.

After a few further formalities, very necessary in matters of this kind to ensure that the legality of the proceedings could not be challenged at a later date, the court gave instructions for old Hack ‘n’ Slay to be wheeled out and back to his cell.

As Enar Thandon said to the others, as they stood up and prepared to go about the more mundane business of the day: “Our new emperor is such a stickler for justice under the law, one dare not put a foot wrong."

“Aye,” said Chuktar Bonn, commanding the 31st Brigade. “One gains the impression that after we smashed Hamal into the ground we have taken up their disease of laws and lawyers."

“Hamal,” said Enar Thandon, in an off-hand, sneering way. “Them. They have been our enemies for many seasons, and now our new emperor welcomes them as allies and friends."

“Some friends.” Ongarr Fardew expressed supreme contempt.

Talking amicably among themselves, the three Chuktars of the 30th Division of infantry went out into the streaming mingled radiance of the Suns of Scorpio. That glorious ruby and jade illumination lay athwart the land, drenching the world in color and light. These three were wrapped up in their own concerns, barely noticing the brilliance of the day.

All these events were witnessed by Deldar Naghan the Abstemious. A long, mournful-looking fellow with a suspicious cast to his features, he was a superb soldier and a man who served loyally. As a churgur, a man heavily armored, and armed with javelin, shield and sword, he possessed the powerful physique and bodily strength to serve in the ranks of the shock infantry.

He did not spit as the three Chuktars strutted off. But he did say to one of his swods: “They're all jumped-up, young Dolan. Mark me, when we get up north where the action is they'll sing a different tune."

Dolan, young, freckle-faced and green, couldn't help but say: “If they hear you, Deldar, they'll fritter your hide."

“They can try. I wonder what'll happen to old Hack ‘n’ Slay."

That the 30th Division of infantry was a raw outfit was manifest. They had been stiffened by a cadre of experienced swods and Deldars. Too many of their Hikdars, men who commanded the company-sized pastangs, had come in to that rank direct instead of being promoted up through the grades of Deldar. There were very many young lads in the ranks, eager youngsters, maybe, but callow and not yet hardened into the requisite toughness required of swods who went into battle and put their lives on the line.

Deldar Naghan the Abstemious wiped his mouth and went about his duties with punctiliousness. He could feel sorry for old Hack ‘n’ Slay, with whom he had served before; but then, Jiktar Nath Javed, old Hack ‘n’ Slay, had been caught with his fingers in the regimental chest. That was not like the old fellow; but it was not a clever thing to have happened in a well-regulated regiment.

What did happen to the Jiktar whose fingers had been so careless as to scoop up gold and silver belonging to the regiment was educational. With the summary findings of the court of inquiry, written out fair in the flowing hand of the Xaffer, to guide it, the court-martial could only bring in a verdict of guilty.

Nath Javed said, in mitigation, that he had expected to receive his promotion to ob-Chuktar from the moment he took over command of his new 32nd Brigade. This had not happened and he had not therefore received the increase in his pay.

“I needed the money for a personal matter and merely borrowed it to be repaid when I received my pay."

“But you were not promoted ob-Chuktar and therefore—"

“And therefore I was left stranded!” roared Javed. “No cash in the strongbox and no pay to replace the gold!"

With the verdict of guilty, the next burning question was the punishment.

In the end the Divisional commander commuted a harsh prison sentence and corporal punishment to a mere Reduced To The Ranks.

Zan-Jiktar Nath Javed, in sight of promotion to Chuktar, commander of a brigade of churgurs, now became plain Nath Javed, a swod in the ranks.

The only real expressions of regret were heard in the ranks of the 11th Regiment.

The parlous situation of the Empire of Vallia, even as late as this with most of the islands brought back under the control of the emperor, could not condone a man being discharged. He'd serve out his time in the ranks.

The 30th Division was due to march north soon to reinforce the armies up there tackling the upstart and fraudulent King of North Vallia. Enar Thandon expressed himself of the opinion that he did not really wish to see old Hack ‘n’ Slay serving, even in the ranks, in any of the regiments under his command.

He was, therefore, packed off—as a mere swod—to a depot where he spent his time training raw recruits.

The money was not recovered. Javed would not say what had happened to it, apart from the statement that he had used it to pay an unjust debt.

Under these blows of fate he withdrew into himself, becoming harder and more harsh with all those about him. As a first-class fighting man he knew how to train up youngsters, and was invaluable in the depot. He said he would repay the entire amount of money to the 11th Regiment, and every pay day he deposited what he could of his pay to that end.

He continually badgered his new superiors for a transfer to an active regiment in the field. They regarded him as far too valuable for their purposes in training up fresh troops to part with him.

So Nath Javed, old Hack ‘n’ Slay, soldiered on.

And the days passed.

Deldar Naghan the Abstemious took it upon himself to find an excuse to visit the depot where Javed labored.

The place was situated a few miles outside the capital, Vondium, and consisted mainly of huts, cooking lines, and mud. Also, the assault courses were fiendish in their difficulty.

After Naghan had watched a few coys being driven through their paces, he managed to have a few private words with Javed.

“Nath Javed!"

“Here, Deldar,” said Javed, standing at attention, hardly looking at the Deldar, who wore medals upon his chest as rewards for valor in battle. Naghan the Abstemious, long and hard and much experienced in the ways of swods, rapped out in exasperation what he felt deeply.

“Nath Javed! When you were a Deldar I was a swod, and then you were a Hikdar and then a Jiktar, and I became a Deldar. And now—"

“So it is you, Naghan. Well—and now it is as it is."

“But it needn't be!"

“You would have me appeal?"

“By Vox, I would. There must be an explanation for what you did—"

“There is; but I cannot give it. Let it be for now, Naghan. Come. For the sake of our old friendship, let us go for a wet."

Naghan the Abstemious did not acquire his sobriquet because he did not drink. Like any soldier in the new armies of the emperor, he drank in quantities sufficient to make him happy and merry and never to make him drunk. Idiots got drunk. They did not last long in the new armies raised by the Emperor of Vallia.

Settled comfortably with their tankards on the scrubbed sturmwood table between them, Naghan persisted.

“If you appeal, Nath, you must be heard. That is the law. You can appeal direct to the emperor himself and he will—"

“He is up north fighting this King of North Vallia, who is an unhanged rogue if ever there was one."

“Yes, my friend, like others closer to home I could name."

“Oh, they have had it in for me, I know that. Why did I not receive the promotion that was my due? But for that, all would have been as happy as a sennight of the Lady Soothe herself."

“You could explain to the emperor."

“What? D'you think he knows about the tribulations of ordinary folk like us? He is far away and busy and far too high and mighty to concern himself over matters like this."

“I have heard differently."

“Oh, aye! There are stories put around. Have you ever seen the emperor?"

“Well, I was on a parade once where he—"

“You see! On a parade where he was merely a glittering figure seen through a haze. I mean close up, like you and me, to talk to. He has no time for unlucky folk like me."

Naghan the Abstemious expressed himself as entirely dissatisfied with the whole affair. He tried and failed to persuade Nath Javed, old Hack ‘n’ Slay, to lodge an appeal.

“I'll soldier out my time trying to teach these youngsters the tricks of the trade. By Vox! They try my patience at times."

“Well, my friend, I will not insult you by expressing my concern and my regret. Just that—well, by the cropped ears of Vikatu the Dodger, I shall miss you when we march north."

Javed glanced up over the rim of his tankard.

“Aye, Naghan, and I you. I may have been a Jiktar; I hope I did not forget my friends."

“Would I be here, else?"

They drank companionably for a space, then a few kreutzin, training up to be light infantry, skirmishers, started a fight, and Nath Javed and Naghan the Abstemious, as befitted old campaigners, kampeons both, quaffed their draughts and took themselves off out of a common tavern brawl.

Javed escorted Naghan the Abstemious back to where his hired preysany stood with drooping head awaiting the ride back to Vondium.

As Naghan swung up into the saddle, among good wishes and remembrances, he said: “And your sister, Nath, the lady Francine. She is well, I trust?"

A spasm crossed Javed's fierce face.

“I pray you do not speak of her, Naghan, nor her husband, Fortro."

“As you wish. They had a daughter, did they not—?"

“Please, Naghan. By Vox! I do not wish to talk about little Sassy. No, Never!"

The Abstemious was not entirely blind.

“If I have offended you, Nath Javed, then I apologize. I bear you only well. And—you stubborn onker—if you will not appeal to the emperor, what more can I do?"

“Remember, you are a Deldar and command ten men or more, and I am a swod in the ranks."

“May the light of Opaz shine upon you, Nath Javed, and the keenness of sword and the cunning hand of Vox ever defend you from your foes."

“Opaz go with you, Naghan. You have my gratitude."

Riding his hired preysany under the light of the Moons of Kregen, Naghan the Abstemious, as he said afterward, felt strongly the mystery surrounding old Hack ‘n’ Slay's fall from grace. Whatever had caused him to steal the money, or borrow it, wrought significantly upon him.

Still, there seemed nothing to be done. The world would roll around and the twin suns, Zim and Genodras, would rise in the eastern sky on the morrow, and life would continue.

Perhaps there was no great mystery after all.

Poor old Hack ‘n’ Slay, there did not seem much of life left to him. So Deldar Naghan the Abstemious rode soberly back to Vondium pondering the vicissitudes of fate and the wayward turns a fellow's life took before they shipped him off to the Ice Floes of Sicce.

Chapter two

The Empress and Emperor of Vallia Dance

The marriage between Marion and Nango was celebrated with great pomp and magnificence in Falkerium, the capital city of the kovnate province of Falkerdrin. As promised, the emperor danced at Marion's wedding.

Marion Frastel, the Stromni of Huvadu, found herself in a delicate situation. Huvadu was a province right up in the northeast corner of Vallia, and was currently in the hands of the usurping and self-titled King of North Vallia.

Because of this she was low on funds. Her brand new husband, Strom Nango ham Hofnar, owned estates in the Black Hills of Hamal. He was, it was generally believed, a wealthy man. Hamal, the most powerful empire in the southern continent of Havilfar, had for very many seasons been in bitter conflict not just with the Empire of Vallia but with just about every country the Hamalese airfleets could reach.

The two had met out there in adventurous circumstances by the Mountains of the West, and had fallen in love.

Strom Nango, it was also generally believed, was financing Marion. Certainly, the splendor of the wedding brought a sparkle to life, made folk realize there was more to living than fighting and wars and sudden death.

That thought must have been in Marion's mind as she looked up at her husband. She was a short lady, and Nango overtopped her by a head and he was not one of your tall fellows.

“We do not have long, my heart. The army marches for the north so soon—” he began.

They stood by a silken-draped pillar in the dancing hall of the palace where the wedding guests laughed and chattered, danced and drank, indulging in themselves the joy they knew the happy couple were experiencing.

Marion stared up fiercely.

“And you do not think I will let you go off by yourself, Nango?"

“Your regiment of Jikai Vuvushis is committed to the emperor."

“He will release me, I feel sure, in order to go up and reclaim my lands. Think of it, Nango! To have Huvadu back again!"

“Splendid, of course. You have never visited the Black Hills? No. They can be very lovely at certain seasons."

“And we will visit them. After all, if we can find a good reliable airboat we can visit where we like when we like."

“I shall buy the best voller in all Hamal, Marion."

She stood on tiptoe in her golden high-heeled shoes to kiss him. Laughing, flushed, they kissed and then—after a pleasant period—parted. Nango picked up a crystal goblet from the side table and handed it to his bride.

She half-turned to take it, smiling, lifting it to her lips. Her gaze passed beyond her new husband's shoulder.

“Oh!” she said. And, then: “Here is the emperor now, Nango, dear. I shall ask him directly."

She and Nango stepped aside as they turned to face. She inclined her head just a trifle, as was proper in these surroundings, and Nango, who had the nonsense of slavish inclining and scraping knocked out of him in Vallia, gave a polite nod.

“Majister. Isn't it all wonderful?"

“It is all wonderful, Marion. You and Strom Nango have put on a splendid affair. And now you are skulking in corners, kissing. I claim the dance you promised me.” At that moment Strom Nango bowed again.

A charming voice, by Vox! the most charming and delicious voice in two worlds, said: “And I, my dear Strom Nango, claim my dance with you."

“Majestrix."

The Empress of Vallia looked radiant. Well, of course, by Zair, whenever did the Empress Delia not look radiant? Superbly dressed in a sheer gown of a color tending to lavender, with just two small pieces of jewelry, her hair a shining marvel, she was simply gorgeous—aye, and cunningly devious with it, too. With very little exaggeration it is true to say that there are regiments and whole armies ready to fight and die for the empress Delia. And, because she is Delia, this distresses her.

Nango was dressed in a slight variation on his usual Hamalese kit, which here in Vallia looked exotically strange. He wore gray trousers and a white shirt, over which the green cape on its golden cords did not strike a jarring note. He wore nothing of blue.

He and Delia swung off onto the floor. The music soared up, a pleasant rhythmic tune, and Marion held out her arms.

Marion was an accomplished dancer, and glided smoothly along. But, being Marion, she could not refrain from saying: “I am glad that no unfortunate occurrences have taken place at my wedding. I did feel for poor Ling-Li."

Two points were of note here: one, that that confounded and double-damned Witch of Loh, Csitra, and her ripe-for-hanging hermaphrodite child, Phunik, had indeed not sent through their sorcerous arts some vile plague upon us. They'd deluged thousands of rats upon the wedding of Khe-Hi-Bjanching and Ling-Li-Lwingling.

The second point of note was that those two were puissant Sorcerers themselves, a Wizard and a Witch of Loh, and ordinary folk always spoke very warily about them. They were good comrades and welcome in Vallia and Marion had grown a little used to them.

She went on in her way to make the casual and unthinking remarks that struck in cruelly. Csitra visited these plagues upon Vallia, and her Pronouncement of the Nine Unspeakable Curses against Vallia was directed against just one person's willpower and resolve.

“We have seen some remarkable sorceries,” chattered on Marion, dancing along with the music. “I do hope that awful Csitra witch falls down and breaks her neck."

“There is the King of North Vallia first—"

“The armies of Vallia gather against that one. He is doomed. Everyone knows that."

“Oh yes, everyone knows that. They also know there will be hard fighting before he is finished. And, after that, there is Drak and Silda to be married and proclaimed Emperor and Empress of Vallia."

She did not quite stop dancing; but her rhythm faltered.

“And you would really and truly, majister, do that?"

“Of course. I have sworn it."

“It will be a marvel in the world. And I wonder what the dear empress has to say?"

This was impertinence on the grand scale. It didn't matter. In the old days these remarks of Marion's might well have caused the removal of her head from her shoulders. Still, she was a likable soul, and, much like another grand lady I had known, always meant well.

“The moment my lad Drak and his bride Silda are married and on the throne, I shall be off. I can promise you, Marion, that if the witch Csitra's neck is not broken in a fall, then I shall most probably break it myself."

“Yes,” she said, following around in a neat double-step of rhythmic grace, “yes, you will need all the armies to go up against Csitra."

“Oh, yes,” I told her most solemnly. “All the armies."

“And my regiment of Jikai Vuvushis, who serve you most loyally, majister, will go too."

“As to that,” I said, whirling her around and depositing her safely on her feet and into the arms of Nango, “we shall see."

Delia said: “A splendid wedding, Marion. And Nango dances almost as well as a Vallian.” She laughed as she spoke; but there was truth in the remark. Vallians are a happy lot, singing and dancing far more than the Hamalese.

Nango held his new bride, and laughed at the sally. I glanced at him and felt he was not affecting amusement. We'd make a good Vallian of him yet!

“All the same, Delia,” I said. “I am a Vallian by adoption, so that—"

She took my arm and whispered in my ear.

“Only one little yellow sun. Only one silver moon. And no diffs, only people like us!"

Without a word I seized her and whirled off into the next dance. What Marion and Nango thought I didn't care. If they were a tenth as happy as Delia and I—when the damned Star Lords allowed us that freedom—they'd be more lucky than any ordinary humans beings could expect in two worlds.

As followed in any respectable function in Vallia, it was not long before the singing began.

As this was a wedding, we tended to sing more of the sentimental ballads; but as there were many soldiers and fliers here some of the old rip-roarers were bellowed out as well.

We sent the newly weds off in fine style, and managed to make Marion break down into a fit of the giggles, which was a good augury for the future.

After that a little group of us got into a corner around a table loaded with flagons and glasses and plates of palines and other fruits, and we sat, drinking and talking amicably long into the night.

These times of comradeship remain always warm and heartening memories. Zair knew, I welcomed and relished these moments among friends. They are, as anyone with an ounce of wisdom knows, precious in lives filled with the bustle and clamor of the day.

Nath Famphreon, the new kov of Falkerdrin, had given us the run of his palace. Now he sat drinking with us, a young man and still learning; but, by Krun, he had learned a very great deal in the very recent past.

Nath na Kochwold, the commander of the entire Phalanx Force, an upright man and a good comrade, wanted to straighten out the arrangements of locations for the various Phalanxes and Kerchuris.

Kapt Erndor was there, grim and yet far more at ease than heretofore. He would be taking the bulk of Turko's Ninth Army north. Turko, of course, the Kov of Falinur, would have to return to his kovnate and carry on sorting out affairs there.[1]

[1 Kov: duke. Kovneva: duchess. Strom: count. Stromni: countess. Kapt: general of an army. A.B.A.]

There were others around that table and sprawled on the sofas, some you have met before in my narrative and others who so far still have not found a mention.

Together in friendship we were good comrades all.

Despite my long seasons on Kregen, four hundred light-years from Earth, I still found myself blinking at the amazing contortions folk like Korero the Shield could perform. Mind you, he did have four arms and a tail equipped with a powerful grasping hand. He rode ever at my back in battle. Now he used any of his five hands. In this I knew I was in error; he was a Kildoi, and they, like Pachaks and Djangs, who have more than an apim's miserable allocation of only two arms, are mighty strict about which particular hand is used for which particular purpose.

Now Marion and Nango had gone, Turko could say outright what was in more than one of our minds without offending the happy pair.

“Y'know, Dray, it's a great pity good old Seg was not with us today. He's a fellow for a good wedding."

“Aye, Turko. And Inch, also."

“The truth of the matter is,” said Nath Famphreon, “and I speak as a newcomer to your circle—Marion was really only concerned that the emperor was here, with the empress."

Sharp, the new Kov of Falkerdrin. He was right, though, no doubt of it. Seg with his wife Milsi had gone across to Balkan where Seg was the new High Kov. In this he had my blessing, for Balkan was a rich province that traditionally kept out of politics. The place would give him immense wealth and a secure base. I so much valued my true blade comrade Seg Segutorio that I joyed for him in this turn of good fortune.

“I trust Seg will take the reins into his own hands without trouble,” said Delia.

“Sink me!” I burst out. “If anyone gives Seg Segutorio any trouble I feel sorry for the poor benighted idiots."

“True, my love, true."

We talked then in general terms about the condition of Vallia and in detail of the problems we faced. The island empire was now all but re-united. Once that was successfully accomplished Drak and Silda could take over, leaving Delia and me free to follow our own wishes for a change.

Kapt Erndor leaned forward and said: “The troops are in good heart, praise Opaz. The 30th Division is due in tomorrow from Vondium. They flew up."

“What,” said Turko in mock surprise. “You mean to say Lord Farris actually spared some of his precious aerial fleet? Marvels and wonders will never cease."

“With this last campaign, kov,” said Erndor, “we are much better off for air than we've ever been."

“We'll need all the fliers we can get over those damned mountains."

“What is the mettle of the 30th?” Nath Famphreon wanted to know.

“Raw,” said Erndor. “They are commanded by Strom Chuktar Enar Thandon. A cold fish. Still, they have one good regiment, the 11th Churgurs commanded by old Hack ‘n’ Slay."

At that moment my attention was distracted by what appeared to be a column of heated air rising from the opposite corner where the marble floor, of tiles in brilliant yellows and greens, supported an enormous jar of Pandahem ware. The flowers growing there perfumed the air most pleasantly.

Delia said, sharply: “There!"

Before any of us could react, the column of air thickened and coalesced and turned into the figure of a man.

For a tense moment we all stared. Then we relaxed.

That figure with its long plain robe, its massive turban about to topple in confusion over one ear, the wise, commanding and yet endearing face, told us this was an old comrade.

“Deb-Lu,” said Delia. “So you came to the wedding at last. Welcome."

“I have already spoken to Marion and Strom Nango. That is not the purpose of my visit to you."

At once my nerves quivered alert. When Deb-Lu-Quienyin, a most powerful and puissant Wizard of Loh, used his kharrna to pay calls through the occult other dimensions, things tended to happen.

He moved forward and, as was often the case, the lighting where he was—and that could be anywhere at all, by Krun—illuminated and shadowed his face and figure differently from the way the lights and shades fell in Nath Famphreon's palace.

“Lem the Silver Leem,” he began.

I surged upright, all the blood rushing to my head. My rapier was half drawn before I was aware.

“Dray,” Deb-Lu said, commandingly. “Rest easy. There is nothing for you to do—"

“Nothing to do! There will only be nothing left to do when all the stinking adherents of Lem the Silver Abomination are destroyed and forgotten!"

“Quite so,” cut in Delia. “And suppose, Dray, we allow Deb-Lu to tell us the news? Before you burst a blood vessel."

“Very well, my love,” said I, most meekly.

“The news is soon told.” Deb-Lu made an ineffective gesture to push his turban straight. “A temple was reported in Vondium—"

“By the Black Chunkrah!” I was incensed. “The foul blight tries to fester in Vondium the Proud itself!"

Delia put a hand on my arm. I put my fingers on hers, and, as ever, felt—well, never mind that. The Wizard of Loh went on speaking, taking my outburst in his stride. But we all knew the vileness of the creed of Lem the Silver Leem. Its devotees practiced the torture, mutilation and murder of young girl children. They carried out their grisly rites in order to gain preferment within their horrendous cult and glory in the sight of Lem.

“Joldo Nat-Su, the city prefect, was informed. He did what was necessary—"

“Burned the obscene lot to the ground,” rumbled Turko.

“Aye, Turko. Joldo did that. There were very few survivors from the temple. The business was done and was seen to be done and is now over with."

“But,” I said in a voice of granite.

“Indeed, Dray, but. We believe there are other temples. The blight was brought in with the mercenaries and has kept well underground."

“Damned mercenaries. I shall return to Vondium at once—"

Delia squeezed my arm; she did not speak.

It was left to Deb-Lu to say: “Hardly wise, Dray. You are about to finalize the reunification of all Vallia. No further temples have been discovered so far, and when they are they will be dealt with. I merely informed you to keep you abreast of a situation I know to be of great concern to you."

“Too damn right it's of great concern."

Delia put her finger on the nub of the problem. She said crisply: “What news of the witch, Csitra, Deb-Lu?"

“Ah,” said old Deb-Lu in his most infuriatingly wise way. “At least someone has a head upon their shoulders up there in Falkerdrin."

Turko laughed at this, and the company appreciated the justice of the remark. Quite clearly, if I went roaring back to Vondium, the capital city, to sort out the Lemmites, I would be seen and Csitra would by this time have inserted another of her agents, duped tools, to spy on me.

Then she would send another of her plagues within the ghastly scheme of the Nine Curses against Vallia.

Csitra only used a sending of horror to places where I was and where I was known to be. She suffered from the serious delusion that I could be persuaded to care for her, as she lusted after me, through cajoling force.

The most serious aspect of the situation was that folk tended to blame me for all the horrors that descended upon their heads. Well, by Krun, and they were perfectly right. If I succumbed to the witch, the plagues would go away.

As I had no intention whatsoever of succumbing to her wishes, and I did not want my people to suffer from the Nine Curses, then I had to live in places where we were sure Csitra could not spy on me.

“Very well,” I said, in a right old grumbling way. “You are right: I'll go up north and bash this King of North Vallia. But I want continuous and timely reports on the Lem blight."

Then the obvious—a horrible—thought occurred to me.

“Deb-Lu—you do not think Csitra has a hand in this latest outbreak of the Lem abomination?"

His wise old face with those crinkly lines showed a moment's hesitation. Then he spoke out fairly.

“My best intelligence suggests she has nothing to do with it, Dray. I keep up an Observation upon her and her uhu, Phunik, down there in the Coup Blag. But—and I stress the shadowy nature of all this, Dray—but I cannot guarantee this one hundred times out of one hundred."

I sat back. What a moil all this was! There was so much to be done, in Vallia, in the grouping of continents and islands called Paz, so much effort to be put into our struggle against the Shanks, that interruptions like Lem the Silver Leem and this fool witch Csitra acted like stinging insects festering around an animal's eyes.

Deb-Lu was quite right. I had to deal with the most important factors first. Csitra, by her actions, had thrust herself into the limelight as the next objective. Still—

“Deb-Lu, have you anything further on the far eastern question?"

This referred to the Shanks, those implacably hostile Fishheads, and their attack upon the large island of Mehzta over on the remotest eastern fringe of the grouping of Paz. I did not want our own people to learn of this yet, for purely selfish reasons. We had to clear up our own problems, and those of the lands near to us, before we could expend our limited strength in remotely distant operations.

And this distressed me, for my good comrade Gloag was from Mehzta. His homeland was being ravaged and despoiled so that the rest of us could use the breathing space in the Shanks’ attack to good purpose.

“Nothing, Dray."

I nodded. I noticed that here, Deb-Lu was calling me Dray instead of Jak, as was very often his custom.

With that apparently bumbling and yet active enough movement of his, Deb-Lu turned to look across to the side. We all knew he was not looking at what we could see in our comfortable corner of Nath Famphreon's palace.

What he was looking at had existed where he was.

He nodded his head with such vigor the turban toppled dangerously close to falling. He spoke. We could not hear what he said.

He swung about to face us.

“Khe-Hi has just paid me a swift visit instead of cutting into our conversation."

If anyone not a sorcerer told you he understood the protocol and the way of polite manners between Wizards of Loh—never believe him. Wizards were a law unto themselves. I could see no reason on Kregen why Khe-Hi-Bjanching should not use his kharrna to pay us a visit while Deb-Lu-Quienyin was here.

Deb-Lu went on: “You will hear the news soon enough, for a swift messenger is on the way. Advance knowledge could prove useful.” He made a dab at his turban. “The upstart King of North Vallia has pre-empted your attack. He has struck down in force stronger than would suggest a mere raid, has routed your frontier force, and is marching south looting and burning."

Chapter three

An aerial skirmish

From the air, the vadvarate province of Kavinstock looked peaceful enough.

The ruler of this province, holding the noble rank of vad, had been Nalgre Sultant. He and his son Ornol, members both of the once-powerful political party of the Racters, had vanished after their defeat and the reunification of Kavinstock with the rest of Vallia.

As the small armada sailed on through the level air, I studied the land below. It looked in good heart, although occasionally we flew over areas of decay and destruction resulting from the late war.

Far ahead over the horizon the ugly smear of black smoke rising into the air told us that death and destruction still prevailed here.

“The black-hearted cramphs,” said Targon the Tapster at my side.

“Aye, Targon,” I said, heavily. “We have come a long way since first we met. And it seems to me all that time there has been fighting and war."

Targon the Tapster, with other redoubtable fellows, had helped form the bodyguard that had turned into the First Emperor's Sword Watch. They took it in turn to command the regiments. They detested going anywhere without me, or of letting me off the hook to go adventuring on my own without them along. The same fractious desires animated as well the lads of the Emperor's Yellow Jackets. And, as I well knew, the two new regiments in my guard corps, the Emperor's Foot Bows, and the Emperor's Life Churgurs, shared that dedicated devotion to my person.

All of which, as I have said, made me feel very small, and gave me considerable qualms for the safety of the kampeons in the regiments.

We'd grabbed every flier we could lay our hands on and had flown up as fast as we could drive the vollers. With a foul wind, the vorlcas, the massive aerial ships that depended on sails and their ethero-magnetic keels to move them along, were severely restricted. They'd fly up eventually, though, Opaz willing.

Kapt Erndor, Nath na Kochwold and the other commanders would move heaven and earth to get up and into action just as fast as they could.

Targon said: “And you are confident the city of Tali will be able to hold out?"

“Tali is a sizable place, with many towers and walls sixty paces thick, for I paced them myself. Still, there is no certitude in a town holding out against a siege."

“We will distract them long enough."

“I don't want a lot of casualties,” I said.

“We are all your juruk jikai. The guard corps will not hang back in a fight."

“That's what I'm worried about."

Over the deck to where we stood in the prow, Delia walked up with that smooth grace that always catches the breath in my throat. She heard the last words of our conversation.

“I feel exactly the same about my guards,” she said. “Nath Karidge is such a bold reckless fellow."

Nath Karidge commanded the elite regiment called the Empress's Devoted Life Guard. Also, Delia had a second regiment of jurukkers, a composite regiment of bows and churgurs, a powerful force designed to operate in conjunction with Nath Karidge's First EDLG.

Even then, we hadn't been able to cram everyone aboard who wanted to fly north with us.

We did have with us a force very essential to the type of warfare carried on in these latter days in Vallia.

Although the fliers had been able to accommodate only two squadrons of aerial cavalry, we had taken those in preference to three squadrons of ground cavalry. The saddle birds were flutduins from my kingdom of Djanduin, magnificent chargers of the air. Flown by highly trained flyers from Valka, they were worth their weight in gold.

Marion's regiment of Jikai Vuvushis also flew with us; they were still without an official name and I'd managed to reduce their numbers to half. The balance would come on with the advance forces of the main body. I guessed Marion herself, off honeymooning with Nango, would have a few words to say when she found out. She would bring them up very smartly, I did not doubt.

What looked like a dark cloud over the land ahead drew out attention.

This blot of darkness covered a white road below and straggled out into the fields on either side. It did not take an old campaigner long to know exactly what we were looking at.

Before anyone could say anything, I spoke in my old hateful, harsh, intemperate way.

“The best service we can render those poor devils is to fly on and smash up the hostiles. When pursuit ends and the enemy are driven back, these people can return home."

“You are right,” said Delia. “But I feel for them—feel terribly."

The refugees trudged along. Some of them looked up and a few waved.

Our bright scarves trailing over the bulwarks, the splendor of our paintwork, the glitter of weapons and the ugly snouts of our ballistae and catapults might appear grand and lordly sailing along in mid-air. I wondered how much they would reassure those people below. It is hard to see any good in the world when your farm has been burned and your family slain.

The smoke cloud ahead thickened and grew closer.

The King of North Vallia had been clever. The fortress town of Tali had been sited on the approach road from the Mountains of the North. The stout walls and strong garrison were there to prevent incursions. This clever king had struck far to the west, almost to the coast, and bypassed Tali.

He would know that a force would march out to dispute his passage. They had done so, and had been routed.

Now he had a clear run south for as far as he wanted to go, pillaging and burning. Only when we had gathered sufficient forces to meet him in pitched battle, he would be thinking, might he expect more opposition. And, the scheming devil, he was in great strength himself. This, it seemed clear, came from new hordes of mercenaries he had recruited from overseas.

The lead voller in which we flew, dubbed Heart of Imrien, was not overlarge and I intended to use her as the headquarters ship. Aboard flew men and women close to Delia and me.

Our intelligence from the northern provinces over the Mountains of the North in what was now the kingdom of the usurping and self-styled king of those regions was sparse. The general assessment was that he did not have considerable strength in the air. Our plan therefore was to use our air and avoid a direct land battle until the rest of the army came up. That was the plan.

How many times in the past have I said: “That was the plan.” And how very very many times has that plan gone awry!

We sailed on, searching the ground ahead for signs of our opponents.

Heart of Imrien, as I have said, was not an overlarge specimen of voller. She possessed a structure corresponding to a raised forecastle of a terrestrial galleon, with a slightly higher poop. She had but the one fighting top, and this square battlemented fortress was supported by four stout masts, cross-braced and served by ladders.

There was no reason at all why, in the air, the first sightings should be made from this fighting top; the fact remains, they were.

“Fliers!” screeched down the lookouts.

Up ahead of us, whirling like autumn leaves, the forerunners of our enemy's aerial armada swept down full upon us. They came on with demonic speed, swirled along by the breeze which blew in our faces. There looked to be a lot of them. A deuced lot of them.

Our trumpets pealed out and the drums beat to quarters.

Our aerial sailors ran to their stations. The soldiers carried aboard, tough kampeons all, formed up. They were experienced enough to know when to leave one aspect of the approaching fighting to the experts.

My bowmen could shaft as well as any, and when it came to handstrokes then my lads yielded to no one in Vallia.

There was practically no time between the first sightings and the onslaught.

“Fluttrells, mostly,” said Captain Voromin.

“Aye."

The wide-winged birds bore on, a flutter of color and brightness through the air.

I said to Targon: “Make sure the lads are armored. There will be time for that."

“Aye, and time for slaying thereafter."

“Yes, And tell the proud-necked fellows to keep their fool heads down."

With a clanking groaning the first ballista loosed. These weapons were the superior gros-varters of Vallia, throwing rocks or darts, as suited the occasion and the target. I didn't bother to see what shooting was made. It seemed to me there were enough birds out there to soak up all the fire we could hammer out and still have enough aerial-borne warriors left to break through and make the attempt to land on our decks.

Delia said in her rasping voice: “And, you hairy graint, where is your armor?"

I cursed. By Makki Grodno's diseased intestines and dripping eyeballs! If I didn't trot off and don armor, Delia never would. She would stand at my side, shoulder to shoulder, and trade handstrokes with these reivers of the air.

“Very well. Come on—and for the sweet sake of Zair, let us hurry!"

For I had seen enough to know these fluttrells were flown by flutsmen, bandits of the air, mercenaries of bloodthirsty nature and heart-stopping habits.

Strapping up a breast and back I struggled with the buckles. The breast fastened up and the back refused to go easily. I nearly left the confounded thing off, but Delia rapped out: “Put it on!"

She was right. In these nasty affrays some protection for your back is more important at times than a breastplate. You don't see the blow from the rear that knocks you over. After that your head is off or your inward parts are displayed for the world to see.

Rushing back onto deck from the arched opening to the cabin we shared, I was in time to see the first of the flutsmen make their attempts to land on Heart of Imrien. Korero the Shield sprang out before us, hefting two enormous shields and a sword distributed between his five hands.

“Hai, Korero!” I said.

“This won't last long,” he said, and circled his shields to loosen up his muscles.

I confess I felt that “Hai!” a trifle overdone. I felt dull and wooden, not so much apathetic as resigned to frustration. I had no interest whatsoever in fighting bloody-minded flutsmen. They would be men and women from many nations come flying into Vallia to feast, as they imagined, on the bleeding corpse of the old empire. Some news of the new empire had traveled overseas together with startling information on the new emperor and the new armies of Vallia. This new lot of mercenaries could have come from anywhere; I had the idea they came from a long way away.

“You look,” said Korero, “as though you've lost a zorca and found a calsany."

“Aye, and I must use up good shafts on these rasts."

The great Lohvian longbow gripped in my left hand, the cunning draw as perfected by Seg Segutorio imparting immense energy into the bow, I drew and let fly. The rose-fletched shaft took a rider from the air and I didn't bother to see where he went, but drew and loosed against the next.

That first attempt by the flutsmen to land on our decks proved a dismal and costly failure to them.

Quite apart from the varters that simply blew the riders from the air, the massed ranks of bowmen picked them off with precision and finicky accuracy. As I say, it does not do to meddle with the kampeons of ESW or EYJ.

Still, as I had sourly predicted, there were enough flutsmen for some to break through and touch down on the decks of Heart of Imrien.

The Lohvian longbow went down on the deck and the great Krozair longsword went smack into my fists. Well, now...

“Dray—” called Delia.

“Yes, my heart,” I said, without turning.

The leading bunch of flutsmen tumbling from their birds leaped into action with the remarkable poise and agility of true fighting men of the air. A pity they were such a pack of desperadoes of the unholy kind fit only to be sent down to the Ice Floes of Sicce. Given a better chance in life—well who knew what they might have become?

As it was we had to chop them, and chop them fast.

Now I refer to the Lohvian longbow and the Krozair longsword as “great” more often than not. This is because they are great. There are longbows and longswords on Kregen that are not great.

The Krozair brand snicked this way and that, thrust and withdrew, and as I belted into the lead elements of the fliers on our deck I left a wake of slaughter abaft. There were others with me. In a fighting frenzy of action we belted the flutsmen across the deck and those that were not cut down just fell overside.

The vollers were not flying all that high in the air, but the fall was enough to pancake anyone foolish or unfortunate enough to try the drop.

“There are still plenty of them left,” observed Targon the Tapster. He was smeared with blood not his own.

“Flutsmen like easy pickings."

We stared out into the brightness of the day where the black dots of saddle flyers curved and pirouetted as their riders summoned the nerve for a secondonslaught. The other vollers in our little squadron had all fared as well as we had done. There was a little pause in the proceedings.

Then the lookouts perched aloft bellowed down.

“Airboats!"

“So this unpleasant King of North Vallia has a proper fleet now, has he?” remarked Delia, with an endearing tilt to her chin.

“How many?"

A pause for counting, and then: “More than twenty."

“H'mm,” I said.

Once contemptuous of the silly remark, I now saw its value in covering up the absence of thought.

The lookouts shouted down again.

“More than thirty."

“Ah,” I said.

Delia threw me a suspicious look. Casually and with what I hoped was an insouciant air, I strolled over to the bulwarks and leaning out peered ahead. Well, yes, I could see the fliers out there, bearing on, chips of rust against the light.

More than thirty? We had in this squadron sixteen vessels, a mixture of fighting vollers and larger ships designated transports for this operation. This op was, as I have explained, intended to harass the enemy from the air and hold him until our main forces could come up.

Now the devils had provided their own air, a completely new force of which we had no intelligence. Therefore, the situation had changed, the odds had altered and the stakes had been raised.

There was no question of sending our own aerial cavalry aloft. Our two squadrons, hardly more than a hundred and twenty flyers, would be hopelessly outnumbered. I did not relish the idea of a single Valkan astride his flutduin being attacked by ten or a dozen flutsmen.

“They fly on apace,” said Targon.

“So I observe,” I said.

“It will be—interesting."

The lookouts screeched down for the third time.

“More than forty!"

Now was no time for vacuous expressions like: “H'mm.” Now was no time for shilly-shallying, and most certainly now was no time for me to act like some proud intemperate and bloody stupid emperor.

“That's it,” I said. I made my voice into that rasping and unpleasant gravel-shifting voice of old, and even good old Targon the Tapster jumped.

“All out.” I fairly hurled the words at the helmsman, using the old foretop-hailing lungpower that had carried commands through many a gale in the Bay of Biscay. “Reverse Course! Speed lever hard over—full speed ahead!"

Carrying on with the bullroarer of a voice, I shouted commands to the signal Deldars to run up the flags to spell the message out to the rest of the squadron.

“You, Dray Prescot, are running away!” said Delia.

“Too right,” I told her, still wrought up. “By Zair! I'm not having all these people of ours chopped uselessly."

The small almost secret smile that touched her lips heartened me. Delia knew me well enough. She'd seen me change from a hot-headed and damned stupid fighting man into an emperor who was somewhat more cautious of other peoples’ skins. As for myself, well, I suppose had there been no one else to concern myself about, I'd have gone raging into that hopeless fight and you would not now be listening to my words as I relate my story of my life on Kregen.

The fliers of our squadron curved in the air, swinging about in graceful arcs, all their brave flags flying.

“Cap'n,” I said in a more moderate voice to Captain Lorgad Voromin, in command of Heart of Imrien, who stood like a bluff barrel girt with leather armor and with feathers in his helmet, face like a beetroot. “Cap'n, I crave your pardon. Would you kindly allow your command to fly last in the squadron?"

“With all my heart, majis."

In the violence of those moments before I'd shouted the orders to reverse course, I had been so wrought up I'd thrown overboard altogether the etiquette of ship command.

Of course, I should have requested Captain Voromin to give the actual sailing orders for his own ship. I had trodden on his toes with a vengeance. He was a bluff old sea dog, transferred to aerial duty, and I thought he would understand. We had not served together before; I had a shrewd idea he knew my mettle.

If he decided to cut up rough or to try to indicate his perfectly understandable resentment, I'd have to think on, as they say.

The clouds of flutsmen were for only a few moments thrown by our maneuver. They sensed victory and came flying in with renewed vigor.

This was to be expected.

Heart of Imrien dropped back through the squadron to take up station in the rear.

We did not sail in this position alone. On our starboard flew Pride of Falkerium and to our larboard Azure Strigicaw paced us carefully. Both ships were crammed with men, fighting vollers, and were mighty comforting, by Krun, I can tell you.

A youngster, Ortyg Thingol, all rosy cheeks and brown curls, smart in his cadet's uniform, rushed up with a signal slate. I'd seen the colors breaking from the signal yards of both Storm Rising and Nath's Hammer, the ships carrying our aerial cavalry squadrons.

Before the signal cadet had time to gasp out anything at all I snarled at him: “No, Cadet Thingol. Signal back Request Refused."

He went scarlet clear up past those fetching brown curls.

“Quidang, majister!"

Galloping off back to the signal halyards, he fairly broke the speed records. I sighed. If my precious aerial cavalry lads had their wish and took off, the squadrons would just simply be ripped apart. They would be wasted for nothing. They might buy us a few moments of time. That kind of exchange might be regarded by your puissant high and mighty emperor as a fair deal; it did not suit me.

“Here they come,” said Targon the Tapster in a matter-of-fact way.

“Shaft the cramphs good."

Bows bending, gleaming in the light of the twin suns, slender shafts flashing outwards, feathers all aglitter in the radiance. Crossbows clanging and twanging, and the cruel bolts hurtling. Varters coughing their ugly chunks of rock, or driving their long barbed darts deeply into enemy flesh. Oh, yes, by Krun, we shafted them.

Because of our hurtling onward speed the windrush drove our flags stiffly to the rear, making the reading of signals difficult for ships ahead and astern. Partially to overcome this problem, the aerial sailors of Kregen fitted up guy lines on the outside of the flags, by which means they could draw the outer edges around to make the flags more easily identifiable. This could be done for short moments only. Even then, more than one set of flags was ripped to shreds.

“Signal to the lead voller,” I rapped out. “Change course to south southeast.” We were rushing along almost due southerly.

I wanted to avoid drawing this ravening pack on our heels over the heads of those refugees.

By this time we were really shifting along. After two more abortive attempts at us, the flutsmen were left to our rear, for no fluttrell can fly as fast as a voller at top speed.

The pursuing airboats kept on after us, and I wondered if they were picking up their aerial cavalry, or if they had not yet mastered that tricky technique. We kept up a watch for what went on back there; but the distance and the haze of afternoon rendered accurate observation difficult. There were far fewer fluttrells in the sky; that could simply be because they had called it a day and flown back to their base.

The haze thickened into the outskirts of real clouds.

Captain Voromin rubbed his hands.

“If we are to run away, majis, then a few handy clouds will not come amiss; no, by Corg."

“Right you are, Cap'n."

Lorgad Voromin had been the master of one of the superb sailing galleons of Vallia. Now he had transferred to the Vallian Air Service he took, as I had instituted recently, the rank of Jiktar as the commander of a largish vessel. Still, we all called the old sea dog Cap'n still, which pleased him.

Weirdly enough, this business of running away did not distress half as much as I anticipated. Those folk who had known me in the long ago when I'd first arrived on Kregen would snort with derision at what I was now doing. Dray Prescot, they'd say, laughing, Dray Prescot run away? Never!

In these latter days, concerns over wider issues than merely my own skin motivated me.

The clouds whisked by, thickening and then thinning and then churning into a white froth that rolled back over our forecastle and along the deck like spilled milk.

Before the opportunity was altogether lost, I managed to get off further signals to the squadron. Their instructions were to bear straight on until we broke out of the clouds. We were making slightly under nine db's.[2]

[2 db's: dwaburs per bur. A dwabur is five miles and a bur is forty minutes. A.B.A.]

With the flutsmen left straggling to the rear we had the sky to play in.

There had to be a plan to fetch success out of apparent failure.

Captain Voromin, in a quiet conversational voice, said: “The clouds will thin soon, I can feel that in my bones.” Then he went on: “As the bitter blast blows the leaves away, so the wide-winged bird breasts the wind and soars."

“San Dweloin, I think, Captain. But I could not put my finger on the exact stanza,” said Delia.

Voromin let rip a pleased wheezing snort.

“Aye, majestrix, San Dweloin, who, being dead these three thousand seasons or more, is a great comfort to me."

There was no need for me to marvel at Voromin's love of poetry. I'd been thinking of him as a “bluff old sea dog.” Well, he was, to be sure; but the cliché rang hollow set against the pretty discussion of verse that ensued upon the deck of Heart of Imrien. And, as we thus discussed the niceties of poetry, so the clouds thinned and I knew the time for decision grew near.

By quoting those two particular lines, Voromin clearly indicated what he wanted to do. I gathered the quotation came from San Dweloin's poem “The Force of Human Nature,” written in his old age and extolling light and life over darkness and death.

Well, that light came very often after a damned long dark tunnel.

“Yes, Cap'n,” I said, breaking into a point of the over-use of alliteration. “If you'll kindly signal out for the flutduins to be loosed on my signal, I shall be obliged."

“Quidang!"

“Let us gain more height. Certainly I want to clear the tops of the clouds before we leave them."

There was no great ensuing bustle as the voller lifted, for the simple reason that the Deldar at the controls merely pushed over his levers and the vessel rose smoothly through the clouds. Aboard the other vessels of the squadron as we flew from cloud to cloud and passed alongside the flanks of the monstrous masses of whiteness our signals were picked up. There was no guarantee that all the vollers would read the signals; we might lose a few carrying straight on below us.

Of the various classes and types of airboats manufactured on Kregen, we had since our alliance with Hamal had the opportunity of acquiring new types. Still troubled by the destruction caused to her shipyards during the wars, Hamal was not yet back to full-scale voller production. Therefore, we had very few vollers in which the onward force contains also the air within the envelope. We had to keep our heads down behind the windscreens. The clouds when we lanced through them went past like boiling milk all streaming in long lightning flashes of vapor.

I said to Larghos Hemlok, the first lieutenant: “Fires nice and hot, Hik Hemlok?"

He smiled with a peculiarly bloodthirsty look.

“Bright and hot, majister. Bright and hot."

If I mention that the first luff's name of Hemlok had no connotative meaning with the word hemlock in terrestrial usage, that is true; he remained a fellow who could hemlock an opponent's drink in the middle of a passage of arms.

“By Corg!” quoth Captain Voromin. “We're going to have ourselves a lovely lot of bonfires!"

Well, that was the plan. Simpleminded enough; but something better than tamely running away.

Soaring and leaping through the air, Heart of Imrien sailed up between two vast expanses of white forming a chasm in which a fleet might be lost.

So mixed up and out of formation had the squadron become by this time that I was positively gratified to spy six other vollers fleeting along with us. The other ten would be haring along between the masses of cloud. Well, what had to be done would have to be done with the ships available to me now.

Higher and higher we climbed until, with the exception of a few towering cumulus pinnacles like Mount Everests piling away left and right, we broke through into the light of the twin suns. That streaming mingled radiance of Zim and Genodras bathed all the clouds in a rosy jade glory. The view was breathtaking. Still, we were not sightseers, we were warriors of the air, and we were after our prey.

Tradition means a great deal on Kregen.

Even though we flew in a Vallian Air Service flier, and for Kregen all the modern appurtenances surrounded us, still the lookouts used the time-honored words.

The lookouts screeched down the sightings in the hallowed way.

“Sail ho!"

Out from those mazy masses of clouds below and to the rear of us the first of the pursuing vollers rocketed out like avenging demons.

Chapter four

Ambush in the clouds

Captain Voromin handled Heart of Imrien beautifully. His orders to his helmsman were crisp and not to be misunderstood. Lookouts positioned along the lower fighting galleries kept up a constant stream of information regarding the movements and courses of the hostile vessels. Our ship cut tightly around in a sweet one-eighty-degree turn and pounced.

The signal to release the flutduin squadron was passed. Unfortunately, I could see only one cavalry-carrying vessel, Nath's Hammer, still in company with us. When the flyers took off the thought occurred to me they looked far more like the blown leaves in San Dweloin's poem than the “wide-winged birds breasting the wind."

They didn't bother to form up. They simply flew headlong for the enemy ships. I tore my gaze away. They had their orders and they knew their business. They would get on with what they had to do just as we were getting on with what the situation required here.

Inevitably, when fire is maneuvered and manhandled aboard ship, particularly a painted wooden ship, extreme caution and care must be taken, and some language is used.

The Ship-Deldar, purple and engorged, bashed his stick about and actually put a steadying hand to the carrying pole. The fire went below in good order contained in its pottery and metal canister. I decided against going below myself to the lower gallery. I'd done my share of setting ships alight.

Voromin's reversal of course and immediate swoop into combat left the lead ships of the enemy force no chance whatsoever. As they debouched from the clouds so we sailed above them. One, two, three, the flaming pots of combustibles went over the side. One, two, three, and then one, two, three again.

“They've caught the leader!” screeched up the last in the chain of message relayers. This was young Cadet Ortyg Thingol. His higher voice near cracked with excitement.

And, a heartbeat later: “And number two's burning!"

We circled like a hawk above fluttering prey. Alongside Delia I could look down from a perch in the bulwarks. Captain Voromin occupied a similar niche on the other side, reserved for him. I might be the emperor, but when Captain Voromin wanted to look over this side of his ship, I'd have to shift out of the way sharpish.

The view below stretched away and away, dizzy with perspective. Out from the massed and bulbous shapes of the clouds flew the pursuing vollers, popping out like fish leaping from the seabreakers. As they appeared so our flutduins whirled above them, their riders hurling down firepots. Some missed. Some fizzled out. Some were extinguished by alert fire parties on the decks of the ships beneath. But many did not miss, did not fizzle out, were not extinguished.

The pursuing ships burned.

Through the warm sharpness of the afternoon air I could smell the stink of burning below. Black clouds roiled away, smearing all that white brightness with their foulness. I do not like to see ships burn. The act is indecent in the sight of a sailorman.

For the sake of the unity of Vallia, and subsequently for the unification of all Paz and the defeat of the Shanks, these abominable acts must be committed.

Like minnows darting this way and that with the light of the suns glinting along their flanks, the ships twisted and turned in midair.

As I have indicated, Heart of Imrien was not an overlarge flier. She could not maneuver with the same agility as a sleek, fast voller of the smaller types. She could swerve well enough about in the air to perform the duty now called for. Captain Voromin handled her smartly. We had coursed clean over the three lead ships and set them ablaze before the enemy reacted.

After that it would be a matter of clawing for height and speed and outmaneuvering our opponents.

Pride of Falkerium and Azure Strigicaw swirled into action, flaming the following ships. I tried to count the numbers of the enemy, and amid all the headlong rushing of ships through the air, of smoke and cloud and of the saddle birds gyrating like autumn leaves in a gale, the task was difficult. I fancied something like eighteen ships had pursued us on this course. The others could be anywhere. So, for that matter, could the rest of our squadron.

“They do not,” commented Targon the Tapster in my ear, “they most certainly do not care for this."

“Nobody would."

Targon referred to some of the other members of the choice band who had followed me when, as Jak the Drang, I'd aspired to be Emperor of Vallia, folk like Naghan ti Lodkwara, Cleitar the Standard, Dorgo the Clis and Uthnior Chavonthjid. “They're scattered about the squadron,” he said with great satisfaction, “and those who aren't here will kick themselves when I tell ‘em, by Vox!"

“I believe Mazdo Voordun is aboard Strelviz Lancer,” I said. “And, see, there she goes plummeting down on that fellow with the green and yellow hull—ah!"

“Yes!” said Delia. “The poor ship is burning."

“Poor ship, my lady,” said Targon. “She'd have burned us if she had the chance."

“Yes, I know and, of course, you are right. All the same, when a ship burns the world is a poorer place."

Targon held his peace. I agreed with Delia; but I perfectly saw the common-sense position of my ferocious jurukker commander.

These fellows of mine in the guard corps, well, they didn't go in much for high-flown and imposing-sounding ranks. They were of the emperor's bodyguard. When they told a chuktar to jump, he jumped.

And, I hasten to add, I kept a close eye out to see that this was not abused. The last thing I wanted was to create an elite, hated throughout the army. That was not my way, and was strictly counterproductive. Targon gave a hitch to his safety belt. Since a certain disastrous accident, I'd intemperately ordered that belts be manufactured, each with its own pair of small silver boxes that gave lift, and further instructed that they be worn by aerial sailors.

Delia and I both wore these safety aerial belts, and as far as I was concerned in the hurly burly of warfare among the clouds, they were as useful as armor. By Krun, yes!

The ambush we had sprung on those hostile ships pursuing us had worked perfectly. Our six ships had disposed of the majority of the enemy forces, and our splendid flutduin squadron saw off the balance.

Now, of course, I started to fret over the fate of the rest of our squadron of vollers.

We might have been successful; the others might not have fared so well.

By Vox! What it is to be an emperor and shoulder such vast responsibilities! The quicker my lad Drak took over the better. That was the sober truth, and all the secrets of Imrien would vouch for it.

The encompassing white cliffs of cloud closing in on us in billowing massifs, the narrow alleyways of clearer air between, the swirling, darting forms of the airboats, all worked upon my sensibilities. The picture was beautiful, all a wonder of blues and whites and flowing brilliant radiance; I could still smell the stink of those burning ships, and did not like that smell, did not like it at all, by Krun.

Captain Voromin said: “Where away now, d'you think, majis?"

I had to bring my confused senses back to the issue at hand. Men's lives were at stake. Good men, my men, and the lives of loyal women, too. I straightened up, and I kept my hand gripping onto Delia's hand. The firm reassurance there was mightily comforting, I assure you, mighty comforting.

“I think,” I said with a deliberately contrived drawl, “I really do think, Cap'n, you may draw a course of sou’ sou'west."

“Quidang!"

Onward we hurtled with the air rushing past over the windshields. Visibility remained inconstant, with patches of misty cloud trailing streamers between the main masses. Below us the ground fleeted past, patched with light and shadow. We saw little sign of occupancy down there for the folk had no wish to be taken up as slaves by the soldiers of the King of North Vallia.

The outlying arm of cloud before us billowed majestically into the afternoon sky. The twin suns smote the edges into cusps of palest apple green and orange—red fire, darkening into jade and crimson. Against the floods of light and the massy heart of the clouds, were those fleeting specks the shapes of airboats twisting and turning in combat?

Bright speckles of flame fell tumbling down. Captain Voromin had no doubts.

“They've caught ‘em,” he said, lowering his telescope.

Targon, eager and looking mighty hungry, voiced the thought in our minds.

“Yes, Cap'n. But who has caught whom?"

“Storm Risinghas loosed her birds.” Voromin rattled off the names of three other ships of ours he had identified. “I think the catching was mutual."

“If all ships are present,” I said, “we will even up the fight when we arrive. Pray Opaz we are in time."

With all the speed with which our silver boxes could power us we rampaged on and hurled our vollers into action.

Because Nath's Hammer had to retrieve her flutduin squadron she was late in coming up; by the time she arrived we were in the thick of it.

Two of the ships from North Vallia closed in on us. After the initial clashes, few firepots were thrown; the action became far too close for dangerous antics of that nature.

Grappling hooks flew and their cruel iron barbs fastened like talons on bulwarks and galleries. The roaring yelling of men in combat crescendoed. With howls of rage, the enemy tried to board.

“I suppose they shout like that to keep up their spirits,” observed Targon, loftily. The ranks of ESW remained silent. The archers poured in a lethal sleet of shafts that swept away the oncoming line of enemy.

Korero's upturned shields deflected a few arrows. They had been loosed from the fighting top of the ship opposing us, for the sturdy bulwarks protected us from shots from the enemy deck. Before I could rip out the obvious command, Deldar Phanton Vimura, in command of our lads in the fighting top of Heart of Imrien, directed his bowmen onto the enemy fighting top. The contest might have been interesting—archers versus archers—but the aerial ratings handling one of the stern gros-varters angled their weapon up and let fly with an enormous chunk of rock.

Their first shot clipped a slice out of the side of the top; the next pulverized the entire wooden side facing us.

Bodies spilled out.

Targon said: “I believe they did not expect to find us so crammed with soldiers. Time now, d'you think, to go and blatter ‘em?"

“I'll—” I began.

Delia said: “I'll go with you."

I said: “Righto, Targon. Off you go."

Without waiting to listen in to the domestic row he was well aware was about to break out in the imperial household, Targon shot off to the lads. They still didn't put up a cheer as they reformed from shooters to blatterers and went charging over the bulwarks. That deadly silent and irresistible rush promised far more menace to the foe than a lot of caterwauling. When our lads did yell in the moments before they hit the enemy ranks on his own decks, they shouted. Aye, by Vox, then they shouted loud enough to blow the blasted enemy away!

“You continue to amaze me, husband."

“Why? Because I do not relish having you spiked through or fall overside?"

“I am wearing a safety belt—"

I grumped up, feeling a fatuous fool. “Aye, aye, so you are. But on the first count—"

“I am coming around to the belief, as I may have pointed out to you before, that you, Dray Prescot, are growing soft."

A tremendous racket broke out aboard the ship to our starboard with a seething commotion upon her deck. The vessel to larboard appeared to be ours already. The lads had simply gone headlong in and hurled away all opposition.

“Anyway,” I said in my best growly hairy-bear way: “It's too late now."

“Targon was right, I judge. They are an aerial fighting force and had no idea we had so many troops aboard."

We watched as the officers charged with the various duties saw to what had to be done. Some of the North Vallian fliers escaped and plunged like fleeing rabbits into the clouds. There was little chance we would catch them in those masses of vapor before nightfall, so pursuit was not carried out. Prize crews went aboard the captured vollers.

Hundreds of flags flew bravely against the twilight as we retraced our course to alight at the forward base camp established at the Well of Parting. Everybody felt elated at the unexpected successful outcome of our expedition.

“Soon the main body will join us,” said Korero. “Then I wonder if you'll give me such a peaceful battle."

“We've won a small aerial skirmish,” I said, and I own my tones were somber. “The big fight is yet to come. In all honesty, Korero, I cannot answer your question."

“As San Blarnoi says,” observed Delia, “hope alone does not sickle corn."

“Nor does it cause a change in the breeze.” I was watching the leaves of the trees growing around the well. “But, as I'm an old sailorman, the breeze is shifting. It won't be long before the Fleet is up with us. Then, my friends, we shall see what we shall see."

Chapter five

I inspect the zorca lines

My lad Drak flew up to see me at the camp of the Well of Parting. Delia and I shared a simple tent—oh, yes, true, it was a trifle more grand than any of the others; but as Deft-Fingered Minch pointed out, I was, after all, the fellow the people had chosen to be emperor and so I ought to make a bit of a show for their sakes.

Deft-Fingered Minch, a trusted comrade and a kampeon of great renown, was the man in command of the folk who cared for me on campaign. Delia's own arrangements were equally Spartan. She was aglow with happiness at seeing her son again and as they embraced I own I felt that silly but wonderfully understandable family pride in love and affection.

Drak looked tremendous. He was a big and powerful man, solidly built yet lithe and quick on his feet. I thought he was handsome, although he'd bristled up at any suggestions I made of that kind. He had that damn-you-Prescot look about him with the arrogant Prescot beak-head of a nose. Yet Delia was in him, too, giving him far more grace and poise and downright aristocratic manners than any I could aspire to.

“And, Drak, my dear,” said Delia as she released him, “where is Silda?"

Drak swirled off his cape and I put a jar of ale into his hand.

“She has gone up to Balkan to see her father. I sent a couple of regiments with her—"

“Ah!” I said.

“And what does that mean, father?"

“Just that you'll be those two regiments short when you march off against this King of North Vallia."

“Me!"

“Aye, my lad. You."

He drank and then he did not wipe his hand across his mouth; but he did say: “By Mother Zinzu the Blessed! I need that!"

I said: “The Mountains of the North stretch across Vallia from Zaphoret in the east to Kavinstock in the west, where we are now.” I gave Drak a hard stare. “There are the two traditional routes north and south, one to the east and one to the west. Two."

He drank again, looking at me, and then he put down the jar. I made no move to refill it. He put a hand to the outer buckles over his shoulder to release his armor.

“I see.” The tang of the buckle came free. “You go north from here and I take the Army of Northeast Vallia and we strike inward together."

“Precisely,” I said. “So why are you taking off your armor?"

“Dray!” said Delia. She swung to face me. “Are you such a monster?"

I humphed up at this. “Time,” I said. “It will take time for Drak to get across and organize and march."

“One night?” She gave me that old look that curled the toes in my boots. “Since I saw Drak and Silda a great deal has happened."

I went over and ripped open the other buckles on Drak's armor, snatched off the breast and back, and tossed them down on the rugs. “Of course. Absolutely."

“Now you are in a bad temper."

“Yes, and I'll tell you why. I want to go to the wedding of Drak and Silda, the soon-to-be Emperor and Empress of Vallia. That wedding must be held in Vondium the Proud, the capital city of the Empire of Vallia. Yet if I go to Vondium that she-leem Csitra will spoil the wedding."

For a moment, silence closed in on us in the tent.

“And if I go chasing off to deal with Csitra first, as I wanted to do, that could take months. I wouldn't ask Drak and Silda to wait. So the difficulty remains."

Delia, as I may have remarked before, is not only the most beautiful woman in two worlds, she is also the most clever and devious, not to say downright cunning.

“I shall,” she said, and her words and little gesture effectively dealt with the subject, “I shall have a few words with dear Deb-Lu."

“Excellent, mother,” exclaimed Drak. “And now I would like another stoup and I am ravenous. Did I tell you that Silda sends her love and respects...?"

I slouched off to a totally unnecessary inspection of the zorca lines where the swods might find me a stoup and where we could have a yarn or two before I returned for the evening meal.

If I sound like an old graint with a thorn in his foot, then, well, by Vox, I suppose I was.

The lines of the various regiments were well spread out. Sometimes too close proximity creates frictions that besides being totally unnecessary lead to internecine strife. The swods were most welcoming and a jar was produced instanter. In the nature of things I could not know all the faces around the campfires; I knew most of them, though.

They wanted to know what the future held and some of them, the newer lads, wanted to know when we'd be going home. I have expressed my views on those great commanders and captains of history who led faithful armies all around the world on gyrations of conquest. Eventually, the soldiers become tired and soured. No sane man wants a continual career of conflict.

A policy of rotation was strongly in force. So I was able to reassure them and, perfectly truthfully, say that home was distinctly on the agenda. As to the old argument about home-leave sapping a soldier's willpower and determination, if a fellow—or a girl—is fighting for their home and loved ones, that spur should surely sustain their spirits.

When affairs go well, that is, of course. When the course of the war drags and the outcome is uncertain, why then all manner of mischiefs may darken the imagination. Walking slowly between the lines of tents back to that splendid tent where the flags flew and the guards stood to, glittering and imposing figures, I tried to sort out what I really wanted for the future.

Csitra had to be dealt with. The continents and islands of Paz had to understand that they must cling together in alliance against the Fishheads, the Leem Lovers, the Shanks who raided from over the curve of the world. There were many matters outstanding between me and the Star Lords. It seemed to me the Kroveres of Iztar would find busy occupation dealing with the evil cult of Lem the Silver Leem.

Delia stepped out of the tent and said in that delightful way: “And have you found the calsany yet?"

I said: “While you are with me I could lose a million zorcas and never notice."

At once she moved forward and slipped her arm through mine. The guards stood lance-stiff—for, of course, on Kregen there are no ramrods—but I knew they were taking all this in with alert enjoyment.

In the tiny space between the outer and inner flaps of the tent she stopped and kissed me. I kissed her; by Zair! This was what mattered in life, and all the rest could go hang.

We went on through and a little party had gathered to meet Drak, as was proper. During the meal and after, we talked and many of my thoughts found expression. Drak brought up the point of what forces he would be allotted.

“You commanded the First Army down in the southwest. The Second is over in the northeast. I suggest you retain command of the First, taking up what forces you require and can be spared from the southwest. Vodun Alloran will move the Ice Floes of Sicce to make amends, so that corner of the island is now safe."

“Very well. And the Second Army?"

“You assume command of both. You're going to have a hell of a task breaking through and hooking left."

He nodded and sat back in his seat. A very tough and very hard man, this son of mine, a man destined to be an emperor, as I surely was not. Well, perhaps that is wrong. Perhaps the destiny that was forced on Dray Prescot through being a sailorman and soldier, a slave, a mercenary, a kaidur, has brought him to the ranks of various nobilities, and does also include the sentence being passed on him of being a king and emperor.

“Turko sent a lot of his Ninth Army up to help Seg,” Delia pointed out.

I'd retained the name of the Eighth Army for sentimental reasons, connected with thorn-ivy, and was using it again for this campaign into North Vallia.

“Of course,” went on Delia, “knowing Seg as we do we must not be surprised if he inspires the people of Balkan and becomes their High Kov very quickly and then marches over the mountains to help us. Yes?"

Drak said: “I hope Silda...” Then he stopped himself.

Delia and I knew what was in his mind. Well, I'd suffered enough for Delia's sake, and now Drak suffered for Silda.

Now it is not my intention to give a blow-by-blow account of the North Vallian Campaign. The broad outlines of our plan were followed through with accuracy enough to ensure that the plan worked.

Drak took elements of the First and Second Armies around the east of the mountains and I took my Eighth around the western end of the mountains after we routed the hostile advance force at the Battle of the Blue Lizdun.

Now that the end was in sight we were joined by many folk who, even in the troublous times through which we had gone, had contrived to remain neutral. Neutral, one should add, in stance, for any neutral may have to suffer armed men marching through his lands and eating his produce and doing the unwholesome things badly led armies do even if the sufferers are not openly enemies.

Maybe it is churlish of me to say that; but we could have done with the help of these people earlier on. One such, of course, was the lord of Balkan; but he had reached the end of his journey upon Kregen and had shuffled off to meet the Gray Ones beckoning on the Ice Floes of Sicce. He died without living issue. Seg's campaign up in Balkan came, in after years, to be talked about as a marvel of diplomacy, tact, firmness and plain good commonsense. He had the Balkans solidly for him in a miraculously short space of time.

The pronunciation of Balkan is not like the terrestrial “ball” but like “bat.” I mention this because Seg's Hyr Kovnate of Balkan was nothing like the Balkans here on Earth. Also the stress falls on the second syllable: Balkan.

He sent me regular letters by merker, those spry young folk who skim through the air aboard their birds carrying important messages. We had instituted the merker system in Vallia on a small scale, importing from Djanduin a useful colony of the small fast birds used there, the fluttcleppers.

I was seriously considering asking some of my winged friends who lived down south in Havilfar if they might not care to emigrate and come to live with us in Vallia. It seemed to me a flying man or woman was even more suitable as a merker.

Still, that must be for the future.

Right now we had the North Vallian campaign to fight and to bring to a successful conclusion.

The days went by in marching and flying forward until we bumped the hostiles again and then we would fight. Battles were fought of intense ferocity. Others were over after our first charge.

Drak's fortunes prospered on the east. And Seg, that astounding blade comrade of mine, Seg Segutorio, did just as Delia said he would.

The merker flew in with Seg's latest. He had gathered a goodly force and was headed through the Kazzchun Pass to create mayhem in the center of North Vallia, in the province of Durheim. As he wrote: “I have experience of a River called the Kazzchun, so it is suitable, my old dom, I learn about a pass with the same name."

I smiled as I read this. The kovnate province of Durheim lay to the east and was separated by the River of Golden Sliptingers from the hyr-kovnate of Erstveheim to the west. My Eighth had sent a corps to the south west into the finger of land containing the vadvarate of Thothveheim, and the main body of the army was now pushing hard to the northeast through Erstveheim. Drak had to negotiate the trylonate of Tremi before bursting through into Durheim.

So, like the three flukes of a trident, and those three prongs would cooperate fully, we were poised to rip the fraudulent kingdom of North Vallia to shreds—and then to repair and reunite with the homeland.

Marion said to me one day as the wind blew over our shoulders, fluttering scarves and swelling the sails of the vorlcas: “Prince Drak will surely detach a force to march north?"

At her shoulder stood her husband, Strom Nango. I could not detect avarice in either of their faces; rather Marion looked sad, and Nango concerned.

“Cheer up, Marion. I expect Drak will do so; but I will send him a direct order to that effect. After all, I am still the emperor, am I not?"

She did not rally to my feeble humor.

“Thank you, majister. To think that at last I shall return to Huvadu. I never believed it, not in my heart."

Nango said nothing.

I was a trifle perplexed. “By Vox, Marion! I'd think you'd be overjoyed."

“Oh, I am happy that Huvadu is to be mine again. Yes, that is true. But when I go there to take command of the force Prince Drak sends, I shall leave you. And I shall leave my splendid regiment of Jikai Vuvushis.” She put the nail of her middle finger under her eye. “And I shall leave the Empress Delia."

There was nothing much I could say to that.

I did say: “You have our best wishes, Marion."

Then, with a flash of inspiration that came, I suppose, from cowardly cunning, I added: “Oh, and, of course, Marion, you must take your girls with you. I won't hear of anything else."

Before she could react—and I'd no idea how she would take this stroke—Delia turned up and I was able to slope off and see about a gros-varter that had been shooting crookedly.

Chapter six

A dagger in the night

The Battle of Gwalherm turned out to be a desperate affair.

This upstart King of North Vallia cleverly drew us onto a strongly fortified position which, in the normal way, we would have bypassed and possibly masked. As it was he'd sited the line of entrenchments across a convenient line of march. We were into the battle almost before we were aware.

In the end we managed to tumble him off, and a magnificent charge by a division of heavy cavalry finally threw him out.

I call this king an upstart. Well, by Krun, and so was I.

All the same, my upstartedness was the result of the people of Vallia calling me to be their emperor. We had heard stories of the cruelty of this North Vallian king, who apparently went by a number of names. The latest name he was using we gathered was Nath the Greatest Ever. Previously, he had been known as Naghan the Mighty, and Larghos the Magnificent. What his real name might be, no one knew. That, then, is the reason I have not given his name before in this narrative. But now we were closing in, and the time for names was either approaching or was past.

Northwest of Erstveheim in a kind of slice of the coast lies the vadvarate of Venga.

Well, now. Venga. The Vadnicha of the place, Ashti Melekhi, had long since taken her way to the Ice Floes of Sicce. I wondered how she fared there, and if the fates that draw their harp strings into the long moaning sounds of destiny had yet passed her through to the sunny uplands beyond.

We had to send a force into Venga, that was clear.

I had negated the idea of splitting the Eighth Army into a drive northward into Evir as well as our eastward push to link with Seg and Drak.

Still, Venga would lie at our backs as we pressed on east. In the end a Corps was formed and sent off under the command of Chuktar Modo Na-Du, a Pachak of immense competence from Zamra. We were by those divisions weaker; but now that Vallia had, all but these northern provinces, been re-united, we had reinforcements coming in gratifyingly often.

Later on as we sat around the campfire after we'd visited the wounded and sung a few songs with the swods, Delia said to me, “You were hard on poor Marion."

“You think so? I am not sure. She was mighty proud of her girls."

“Yes. She gloried that they were part of the emperor's jurukker jikai."

“You know how itchy I get when I see girls in battle—"

“I do know.” She put her hand on my hand, and I curled my fingers and held hers. “You're a funny old stick, particularly one who is an emperor. Y'know, Dray, we ought to have had Jilian form the guard Jikai Vuvushis."

“I would have liked that. Jilian Sweet Tooth. I wonder where she is now and what deviltry she's up to."

“She has her mission in life."

“Aye."

Jilian was an old comrade. You may spell her name Sweet Tooth or Sweetooth, I gathered, either being correct. I believe I preferred the former.

Over our heads the glittering majesty of the stars of Kregen flashed and twinkled in their massed glory. Up here in the north of Vallia the nights grew frosty. The fourth Moon of Kregen, She of the Veils, cast down her golden-roseate light. All about us rose the sounds of an army encampment at night. The sentries patrolled. I lay back.

“The quicker we meet up with Seg and Drak the better."

“We will, my heart, we will. And then?"

“So much to do—"

“There always is. Drak and Silda's wedding, for a start."

“Don't remind me."

For a space we were silent, relishing the night.

Then Delia said, “This Nath the Greatest Ever may form up to challenge us again on Losobrin's Edge, or he may throw himself into the town of Erdensmot and defy us there."

I made a face. “Neither prospect charms me. I have no desire to charge up against the entrenchments he can arrange on Losobrin's Edge. I'm told the place is formidable. But then, a siege of Erdensmot will not be pretty."

“If we march around him—"

I know I sounded fretful. “If only Farris could scrape up some more fliers for us!"

“One would have thought,” said Delia with some acerbity, “that now Hamal is safe they would be able to build as many vollers as were required."

“There is continual trouble over by the Mountains of the West, as we know. I suppose that's it. Anyway, we continue to build vorlcas; but wood is getting to be a problem now."

“The Singing Forests grow wood enough, for the sake of Opaz!"

“Aye. We will have to establish vorlca yards there. And, my heart, you will notice how cleverly I am leaving all the appointments of new nobility to Drak? There are many provinces at present ruled by our justicars. Once the wars are over, we must find good faithful folk to be made up to nobles."

Delia gave me a calculating look. “Old Nath Ulverswan was the Kov of the Singing Forests,” she said.

“Yes, he was a Racter, too, I suppose. He never said much, did he?"

“Old Clamped Jaws. The point is, the Singing Forests lie due south of the Mountains of the North, immediately to the west of Seg's Bakan."

I saw what she meant at once. Also I noticed she said “Bakan,” the old name, instead of the newer “Balkan."

“You think the Presidio will agree?"

“If you tell them, they will."

“I'm not so sure. I don't want to carry on ruling by fiat. The Presidio must be seen to rule fairly. I'm thinking of starting up elections—"

“Elections? But we are an empire, Dray!"

“I was elected to be emperor."

“Oh, yes, of course; but that was different."

“Well, I'm thinking of it. I'll speak to Drak about Seg and the Singing Forests. Mind you, Seg might refuse."

“He might. But there is Milsi. She is level-headed."

Because we were who we were and clearly wished to sit by the campfire and talk, we had been left alone. If anyone wished to speak to us they knew they had only to make themselves apparent. We were accessible in a way previous rulers had not been.

A slim figure approached the fire, and stopped, and stood waiting. Delia called out: “Yes, my dear? Step forward."

The girl walked into the light of the fire. She wore half armor and carried a rapier and main gauche and looked just such a Battle Maiden as existed in their thousands in most of the armies of Kregen. Her face, rosy from the reflected fireglow, did not smile. She looked indrawn and serious. I did not recognize her.

Neither did Delia. She was not, I judged, a member of the Sisters of the Rose.

“What is it?” said Delia, and her voice was not quite as gentle as before.

“A message,” said the Jikai Vuvushi.

Now I'm no stickler for protocol or for stupid and slavish kow-towing, as you know, by Krun. Yet this girl ought to speak with more civility to Delia on more than one count.

I started to stand up.

With a shriek chillingly demoniacal, a scream of utter madness, the girl hurled herself forward, and the long slender Vallian dagger in her fist glittered in the light of the moon.

That lethal blade struck viciously down at Delia.

Without drawing a weapon, so filled with terror for Delia and hate and loathing for this murdering girl, I hurled myself forward.

Now Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains, is expert with very many of the varied weapons of Kregen, but if there is just one weapon of which she is the consummate mistress, that is the long slender Vallian dagger.

My desperate lunge forward, highly dramatic and mock-heroic, was completely unnecessary.

The silly would-be murderess had no chance.

Delia twisted lithely aside, took the girl's wrist, twisted, pulled, there was a sharp cry of pain and a glitter of starlight on steel, and the girl stood laxly staring at the blade pressed against her throat.

“Well, now,” said Delia. She spoke evenly and her breast rose and fell smoothly with her breathing. What a wonderful girl is Delia; calm, compassionate, tempestuous and passionate, she is all things in all, and then I looked at the slender sliver of steel and I shuddered all the way down to my boots.

A girl in the russet leathers of the Sisters of the Rose ran up, her bow lifted and arrow nocked and half-drawn. Following her appeared a gang of my lads, and Delia's girls. They all looked extraordinarily fierce and yet apprehensive in the firelight.

“It is all right,” called Delia.

“Had the emperor not got in the way,” said the Sister of the Rose. “I'd have shafted the assassin, clean, the instant she whipped out her dagger."

“I'm sure you would, Zandi, and I thank you. Now perhaps you'd ask the girl a few questions."

Mind you, I was still shaking; but at the same time I knew I had an enormous smile wrapped all around inside my skull. This slip of a girl, this Zandi, a Sister of the Rose and a Hikdar in Delia's personal bodyguard, knew how to cut a fellow down to size—even if that fellow happened to be the husband of the woman she served with devoted loyalty and the emperor to boot. Maybe because I was Delia's husband, this Zandi didn't think much of me, didn't think I was good enough for her mistress.

Well, by Zair, and didn't I know I wasn't!

The would-be assassin was held firmly. She lifted her head and stared at Delia. Her eyes had a blank fey look, a glaze of uncaring madness that repelled.

“You need ask no questions, tikshim."

At this the guards holding her gasped at the insolence and the insult. They shook her and one rasped out: “Speak to the empress with civility."

“Empress!” The tones jeered. “Empress of nothing! Your Vallia is doomed and you with it."

I stepped forward. Now my anger had to be controlled or I could lose all I wanted on Kregen.

“Csitra,” I said. “If you harm Delia, the Empress of Vallia, you will earn my undying hatred and enmity."

“The woman can mean nothing to you, Dray Prescot! I am your chosen mate!"

“As to that, Csitra, fate may decide some things. But not all."

“You said you would visit me in the Coup Blag."

In the drugged voice of this poor duped girl before me, was there a hint of petulance? Could the demoniacal Witch of Loh far away in South Pandahem share weak human emotions to the extent of feeling sorry for herself?

Delia said in a metallic voice: “So that's it."

“Listen, Csitra. I shall visit you, believe me, as I promised. Maybe you will not enjoy that visit. But I repeat, and you will do well to heed my words."

“Yes, Dray Prescot?"

I ground the words out as though I were spitting granite chips.

“If you harm one hair of Delia the Empress of Vallia's head, I shall surely slay you."

As I finished speaking in that stupid puffed up way, but with absolute sincerity, I caught a movement in the corner of my eye. The girl's head snapped up and she turned to glare over my shoulder.

“Who is that standing there beside you?"

I half turned to look.

Drill the Eye, one of the commanders of the Yellow Jackets, stood there looking vacant, his mouth hanging half open.

I said, “A soldier. Now, Csitra, do you hear me?"

As I spoke I wondered what on Kregen Drill the Eye, a mighty kampeon, commanding the archers, was doing standing like a loon with the hay in his hair. Odd.

“I hear you. If I do not harm this woman, then you will come?"

“As I said before, Csitra, you have my word."

The girl slumped. The guards held her up. I turned around to speak to Drill the Eye, for I thought I had it, and he spoke up in a wheezy voice.

“She has a most powerful kharrna, Dray, most. She was not sure; but she suspected."

“Deb-Lu?"

“Aye, Dray, aye. And I must apologize to Drill the Eye for using his eyes to see through."

“He'll understand. He won't mind."

“I sincerely trust so. I have been Keeping an Observation upon Csitra and am coming to learn something of her ways. But this latest attack—"

“Has failed."

“Praise under the Seven Arcades is due."

Delia put out her hand to me and said: “I think I will go in now."

At once I put an arm about her waist and we turned for the tent. I spoke over my shoulder.

“Fanshos, the incident is closed. Deb-Lu, continue with your work, for little else stands between us and disaster."

So we went into the tent and took a little wine. Nothing can shake me like any threat to Delia. I would not care to account for my actions if ill befalls her.

Just before we went to sleep, I said softly: I shall have to make that trip very soon, my heart."

“There is still much to be done—"

“Oh, yes, there always is. But, right now, nothing is more important in all the world."

Chapter seven

The Battle of Bengarl's Blight

I said, “It's pointless to call for volunteers."

“Naturally,” agreed Delia.

“So I shall just have to choose a few likely lads."

“And lasses, of course."

“Oh, of course."

She eyed me. We were taking the first breakfast, of bosk rashers and fried eggs and enormous quantities of the superb Kregan tea, and dishes of palines to follow. Her look quite clearly summed me up.

“You need not try to slip away by yourself. And I shall bring my best girls. As Dee Sheon is my witness, Dray Prescot, I'm not having you run your fool head into that she-leem's lair without—"

“I know, I know,” I groaned.

“Well, I'm going,” said Targon the Tapster, “and that's settled."

The other commanders of ESW and EYJ all chimed in saying that of course they would go.

Nath na Kochwold, Kapt of the Phalanx, just held up a paline in his fingers, stared at me, said, “I'm ready for the off right now,” and put the paline into his mouth with great enjoyment.

No one dreamed of not going to the horrendous terrors of the Coup Blag.

This situation was not quite the same as that confronting me when I'd shot off to Hyrklana to dig out Naghan the Gnat, Tilly and Oby from the Jikhorkdun. It was similar but not the same.

Korero the Shield simply said: “It's about time I went on an adventure with you again."

By this time in the campaign I had all the regiments of my guards corps with me in the Eighth Army, so there were so many kampeons about the glitter of gold and the glint of medals fairly blinded a fellow.

I said to Nath Karidge, a beau sabreur commanding Delia's EDLG: “It'll be on your feet, Nath, if you're lucky. There's no riding zorcas down there in the Coup Blag or through the Snarly Hills."

“One must make sacrifices from time to time."

I marveled.

Mazingle is the name the swods give to discipline. This crowd of people around me now were most mazarna. That is the absence of discipline, unruly, rowdy. They were that, right enough.

That afternoon, in absolute character, Nath Karidge was observed with an enormous pack stuffed with sand on his back, smothered in weapons, carrying a giant water bottle, and wearing stout marching boots, striding out across the bleak moorlands. As a rider he was getting into trim for a spot of walking. How like him!

When he came back he said to me: “By Lasal the Vakka! My legs are like putty."

I said, “You will be with the empress."

He stared at me as though I were bereft of my senses.

He managed to blurt out: “Where else?"

I shook my head. These fellows! Nath Karidge was happily married, and with new additions to his family. Yet he would cheerfully give his life for Delia. Of such mettle are the men of Vallia, who do not serve blindly.

Covell of the Golden Tongue had recently been fashioning a superior new poem cycle devoted to the heroes of Vallia. He thirsted for all the news of them available, going to extraordinary lengths to learn their stories. When he wrote, his verses carried the lilt and rhythms exactly suited to the personality and deeds of his subject. An invaluable master poet, San Covell of the Golden Tongue.

The most serious aspect of the whole affair of Csitra's attempt to assassinate Delia was simply the fact of the deed itself. The poor girl whose mind had been taken over by the witch, of course knew nothing of what had passed. She was a new arrival from Vondium, come up to join her regiment.

Delia said: “And how many more people are there from Vondium possessed by this she-vampire? She will have sent them all over Vallia looking for you!"

“Yes."

“She knows where you are now. Are we then to expect another of her horrible curses?"

“She would have done so already, if she could. I suspect Deb-Lu has managed to achieve some mastery over her powers."

“I sincerely trust so, by Vox!"

Shortly after that Khe-Hi-Bjanching and Ling-Li-Lwingling turned up, adamantly determined to go with the expedition to the Coup Blag. They were two people I really welcomed along.

With them actually with Delia, I felt a little easier in my mind about the witch.

With this—admittedly fragile—new development in affairs, I could make the decision I had trembled to make before.

To the assembled officers of the army I said: “News has just reached me that Prince Drak and Kov Seg have linked up and are approaching the River of Golden Sliptingers. Their opposition has suddenly materially weakened and they have made unexpectedly good progress."

Kapt Erndor grumped up and said: “So we know what that portends."

“Aye,” I said. I didn't like the note of grimness in my voice. “We have recently been blessed with a considerable flow of reinforcements. You'd best reform your Ninth Army, Erndor and make sure you take some of the better regiments."

“Thank you, jis, I will that. What are your orders for me?"

“Why, Erndor! To march shoulder to shoulder and bash this Nath the Greatest Ever."

“If my guess is right, and I think it is, and he has denuded his front against Prince Drak and Kov Seg, he is likely to leave his entrenchments on Losobrin's Edge and his billets in Erdensmot, and mount an attack."

“Which is precisely what we want him to do, is it not?"

“Absolutely,” said Nath Famphreon. “Although he will now inevitably be in great strength. The reports of fresh mercenaries arriving daily are explicit."

“So there's no question of us flying off to the Coup Blag until we've blattered the fellow. When his paktuns have all run back home again and the land is peaceful—then."

Well, I have said I am not intending to give a blow by blow account of the North Vallian Campaign. There were many battles, a few sieges, and a lot of marching, a damned lot of marching. But now we could brace ourselves for what we all hoped would be the last big encounter. The self-styled King of North Vallia had concentrated almost all his forces against us in the west hoping to knock us out before turning back to finish off Drak and Seg.

When I calculated out the odds I was fully and painfully aware that I was dealing in the lives of men and women. Still, for this last time—until the unholy Shanks arrived on our shores.

The two armies were in good heart. Some of the units were raw; many were hardened by this and previous campaigns into veterans, and there were the kampeons, the heroes of Vallia, men and women to be cherished.[3]

[3 Here Prescot gives the composition of the Eighth and Ninth Armies together with long lists of names. A.B.A.]

One odd fact emerged from all this, to Kapt Erndor's puzzlement. He had the 30th Infantry Division under command. As he said to me as we met for the last time before going out to our respective armies: “Odd, by Vox. The 11th Churgurs have Jiktar Nogad ti Vendleheim commanding. I was sure old Hack ‘n’ Slay had them."

Across the moorland we could see the opposing array. I nodded as Kapt Erndor said: “Well, may Opaz ride with you this day. I'm off."

“Opaz go with you, Erndor.” Then I concentrated on what was to come, all preparations over and what was not done would never be done.

The place was simply a portion of the vast sweep of moorland up there in Erstveheim. A tiny village, of no more than a dozen or so tumbledown houses, a tavern and a posting house, and a temple to their obscure local god, stood out forlornly between the lines. The village's name was Bengarl. Most unkindly, the swods dubbed the area Bengarl's Blight, and so that was how the battle acquired its name.

The aerial duels were fought out savagely. Birds wheeled and fluttered against the radiance of the suns. Many fell. Ships burned. This phase of the proceedings lasted longer than usual, and our vaward was running into contact before the air was fully cleared.

There was no doubt in any of our minds that our Vallian Air Service, and our flutduin squadrons, would do the job. Against ferocious opposition it just took longer.

The skirmishers, called on Kregen ‘kreutzin', darted in and flung their javelins, shot in their bows, then skipped away, evading with lithe skill. All the same, they did not escape entirely unscathed.

Our dustrectium[4] lashed out. The superbly trained Bowmen of Vallia, using the Lohvian longbow, ripped enemy formations to shreds. But they had Bowmen of Loh over there, too, paktuns earning their hire. The archery duel became bitter.

[4 Dustrectium: firepower as delivered by bows, slings and engines.]

Not wishing to stand my lads still under this punishment, I gave ready assent to the vociferous requests for a general advance. The air smelled damp with that mingled aroma of wet grasses and gorses, of tiny purple flowers, of wet earth. The radiance of the suns strove to pierce through layers of mist. The lines advanced.

Our Phalanxes, battle-winning weapons, sent up their paeans. Their long pikes all slanted up as one, and on the command the front five ranks’ pikes went down, pointing those small deadly heads at the enemy. The banners fluttered. The bugles sounded. With their crimson shields raised, their bronze-fitted armor glinting and their helmets all bent grimly down, the brumbytes charged.

Nothing stood before them. They swept away ranks and lines of cavalry and infantry alike. Surrounded by their Hakkodin, the double-handed sworders, the axemen, the halberdiers, they looked like the Wrath of God made manifest.

Our job was just to hold the enemy. We had to grip him and grapple him, to hold him steady. We were the anvil.

Kapt Erndor's Ninth Army was the hammer.

The onrush of the Phalanxes halted as the bugles pealed. The brumbytes remained in solid masses, file by file, Relianch by Relianch, Jodhri by Jodhri. Their chodkus of archers ran forward in the intervals to lay down barrages of shafts onto the reeling foe. And the flags! Those flags flying over the Phalanx warmed my heart, I can tell you. On what was my own personal battle standard, a simple color consisting of a yellow cross upon a scarlet field, the insignie of the brumbytes were embroidered in golden and silver thread. Each Relianch flew its own color, brilliant with the special devices which told the world just who stood ranked beneath that standard. Those colors were no longer my own personal flag, the tresh fighting men called Old Superb.

Old Superb was carried by Cleitar the Standard. Ortyg the Tresh carried the Union Flag of Vallia. Volodu the Lungs was there, his massive and battered trumpet ready to peal the calls over the battlefield. Korero the Shield, as ever, lifted his shields at my back. Yes, the little group around Delia and myself formed a party most precious to me.

Ranked away to left and right waited the solid and silent lines of the guard corps. They were all there. Delia's guard corps, also, stood awaiting the call for action.

Our heavy infantry trampled forward like a herd of elephants in full cry. The bowmen kept up their sleeting discharges. Our artillery, varters and catapults, drenched the enemy lines with rocks and darts.

Once again, and this time shoulder to shoulder with the churgurs, the Phalanxes advanced. The cruel pikeheads went down, the shields lifted, every helmet slanted forward. In crimson and bronze, as they say in Vallia, the brumbytes charged.

The mercenary forces serving this Nath the Greatest Ever recoiled. Like good quality Paktuns of Kregen they fought well and earned their hire. I did not fault them on that this day of the Battle of Bengarl's Blight.

Nath na Kochwold cantered up astride his zorca, flushed, inspired, waving his arm.

“They are magnificent! Magnificent!"

“Yes, Nath. The whole army of Vallia is magnificent."

He laughed, elated. “Oh, yes. But of them all—my Phalanx! There is the true glory!"

He rode on, passing from one wing to the other and taking the time to call on me en route.

Nath Famphreon, as the Kov of Falkerdrin, would normally expect to command a sizable force. But he had been under the shadow of his formidable mother for a long long time. He had requested that he ride as my aide, and to this I had agreed. Now he came racing up forcing his zorca on. He took off his hat and waved it wildly.

When he was fairly up with us he burst out: “The cunning cramph! He has sent a flank force of cavalry. They strike at our left flank."

“Then our left flank cavalry will see them off.” I spoke with deliberate calm. I wasn't sure, for I had not inquired, if Nath Famphreon had ever witnessed a great battle before, let alone fought in one.

The outcome of Nath the Greatest Ever's surprise flank cavalry attack was not in doubt once our Chuktars moved our own cavalry across. The mounted action was interesting as I was afterward told. Our totrixes and nikvoves backed up by a goodly force of swarths, tumbled the enemy cavalry into ruin.

We did not use our zorca cavalry in this action.

Many of them, still trained as Filbarrka had specified, shot and lanced and created merry hell with the enemy.

A flyer spiraled down above us. The girl rode a flutduin, so no one shot her out of the air.

“Majister!” she shrieked as she volplaned over our heads. “The Ninth come on! In two burs they will hit!"

“Excellent."

“Things do seem to be going rather well,” observed Delia, “although my people tell me our casualties are mounting."

There was no need for me to say anything to that last remark. Delia, I knew, shared my abhorrence for warfare. We had to fight, and when we did we fought as hard and as well as we could. Casualties—even the word has an ugly sound.

The noise from the field blew about us as the breeze shifted flukily. Our sailing ships of the air had tacked up and taken a goodly part in the fighting; now they were struggling to remain on station. One or two had been brought down by enemy shots from upturned varters.

Targon the Tapster, clearly sent by his comrades, edged his zorca over. I saw him.

“Targon?"

I knew what he wanted, right enough.

He spoke formally, in earshot of the rest.

“Jis. I have been entrusted with the mission of requesting you to let us—” Then he broke down, and burst out: “Let us get at them, for the sake of Vox and all his mailed host!"

“There is time yet."

He looked savage, but he knew my ways.

“Then let the ripe time come quickly. The Phalanx will be above itself after this day—"

The old rivalry! “They do well. So will you. Just keep the lads on a tight leash until they are loosed."

“Quidang!"

He cantered off back to where his comrades waited in a clump of palpitating expectation. They stood on foot, and their orderlies held their zorcas a little way off. I felt for the lads, felt for them deeply. If I committed them to the battle at the wrong time, they'd be the ones to suffer.

I should ride with them myself; I would not do so, for I knew damn well that Delia would be knee to knee with me.

“I rather think—” said Delia to cover over the hollowness that fell between us after Targon took himself off. “I rather do think that girl who screeched down from the flutduin was Trudi ti Valkanium. She's related to Vangar, as you probably do not know, seeing that they are from Valka and you are the strom there."

“I knew,” I said, most equably.

“She opted to join the flyers rather than the fliers. Vangar couldn't understand that."

“He will be taking over from Farris, soon, to command the Vallian Air Service. Farris, though—"

“I know. But there is nothing he will allow us to do, although I have suggested it to him."

What a bloody miserable kind of life this is when we all have to grow old and die!

And, you will perceive, we spoke thus to cover our deeply distressed feelings at the sights and sounds that so affronted us on the field of battle.

The rolling charge of the Phalanxes, for there were two full Phalanxes with us on this day, drove like battering waves against yielding rocks. Along the whole front the opposing armies clashed. Our heavy infantry, the churgurs, ran in disciplined formation forward, hurling their javelins. These bulky stuxes drove the shields in splinters from the hands of the enemy. Then the foot soldiers slapped their shields front and forward, whipped out their drexers and so, swords in fists, smashed into their foes.

Drak had brought up from the southwest the First Phalanx and the Fifth Kerchuri of the Third Phalanx. Each Phalanx was divided into two wings, called Kerchuris. Each Kerchuri consisted of six Jodhris, each of the six Relianches. The Sixth Kerchuri of the Third Phalanx had joined with their other half, coming from Turko's Ninth Army. Up in the northeast and now commanded by Drak, the Second Phalanx was driving on to meet us. Seg had with him the Fourth Phalanx. As for the Fifth, its Ninth Kerchuri still remained in Vondium, a very necessary precaution, while its Tenth was with Drak.

So, as you will perceive, Kapt Erndor, smashing down to form the hammer to our anvil, had no Phalanx with him.

Our First and Third Phalanxes were—as many said and as many vehemently denied—the two premier pike formations of the Vallian army. On this day of Bengarl's Blight they performed magnificently.

The fleeting thought crossed my mind to wonder how the new 30th Infantry Division fared, and what Erndor had meant when he'd been surprised that the Jiktar he dubbed old Hack ‘n’ Slay did not command the 11th Regiment of Churgurs. This 30th Div had been given to Erndor to allow him some substance to his rear and as cover for his forward advance. Erndor had all our mounted infantry with him. The old days when we'd mounted men on any kind of saddle animal we could find had not altogether gone. There were still regiments mounted on preysanys—and they bore the crude jokes and witticisms leveled at them with stoic bluntness.

As you may well imagine I looked forward to the day when my kregoinye comrade Pompino returned from Pandahem with lavish consignments of hersanys from the island. Despite all, I missed my Khibil comrade.

And I refrain from comment on the Divine Lady of Belschutz.

Delia lifted in her stirrups to peer across to the right. Instantly, her shield bearer, a massive and lethally dangerous Djang called Tandu Khynlin Jondermair, shifted himself astride his joat to keep his twin shields at the right angle. His movements caused his steed to trample all over the dainty hooves of a zorca ridden by a flying aide. Tandu did not notice.

Tandu's son, Dalki, held Delia's personal standard proudly aloft.

Delia said: “There is movement on the right flank."

Now anyone who describes a battle to you in graphic details concerning every portion of the field and what transpired there has received information from many people involved. No one can see it all, not even the C-in-C.

What was going on was relayed to us quickly enough by a flushed girl astride a flutduin. She landed and hared across to our command group. What she said indicated that the King of North Vallia, besides trying to be clever, fancied he had worked out a system to beat our Phalanx.

The early left flank attack of cavalry had been designed to draw off our mounted forces. We had commented that the North Vallian mercenaries did not appear to be in the strength we anticipated. Nath the Greatest Ever had held a sizable force back, and now he flung a mass of cavalry at our right flank with the clear intention of striking the right-hand Phalanx in the side.

“We are the anvil,” I said. “So we hold."

As was proper, the First Phalanx took the right of the formation. I had no doubts that they would hold.

With a division of churgurs flanking them, with their own Hakkodin and archers, and supported by our own right flank cavalry, they could grapple and grasp these paktun cavalrymen, hold them, pin them, and by that time Kapt Erndor should be up.

Well, that was easy theory, easy for me astride a nikvove at the back. For the swods in the ranks the story, although finishing in the same way, was somewhat different in the telling, as I knew, I knew full well, by Vox.

One of our casualties, a simple swod, was out of Delia's regiment of the Sisters of the Rose. She fought bravely and skillfully, and died heroically. Her name was Fruli Venarden. She had recently joined us from Vondium. In between joining us and her death, she had tried to assassinate the Empress of Vallia with a long slender dagger.

I spoke generally, so that all in earshot might hear.

“I believe this is the moment of crisis. This is the time, then.” I turned to Nath Famphreon. “Nath, would you be good enough to ride over to Targon and the rest of the rascals and inquire if they would care to ride across and blatter the flank that they can see attacking our right flank?"

“With all my heart, majister. And I shall ride with them."

“You may do so, an’ you will, and may Opaz go with you. But, Kov Nath, you ride on your own time. I am not paying you wages to get yourself killed."

He laughed at that, young, fresh, freed by the death of his mother into a world of liberty he had never dreamed existed. “I would pay you, majister, for the privilege!"

Then he was off, fleeting across to the commanders of my guard corps. They wasted no time. Old campaigners, kampeons, hardened by civil war and struggles against slavers and aragorn and reivers from across the sea, they were men habituated to victory. They were in motion at once.

Well, the noise and confusion, the horrid screams of wounded men and animals, the raw stink of blood, the taste of dust on the tongue even in the damp gorse of the moorland, the lowering mist over all turning the radiance of the twin suns in a ghostly twilight of red and green to a corpse-pallor on every face. Well, as I say, the Battle of Bengarl's Blight took place, and men and women died, and Kapt Erndor came up and between him and us we squashed the King of North Vallia's mercenary forces as a fruit is squashed in the press.

I will not dwell on it.

We won.

The battle was costly to us. There were far more casualties than I cared for, far far more, by Zair.

Our ambulance service had been strengthened over the seasons, and the somber hooded carts moved carefully among the piles of corpses seeking those with life still left. The needlemen and puncture ladies were hard at work.

Our light cavalry and aerial cavalry took up the pursuit. Now was not the time to be squeamish over making sure the victory was secured.

The prisoners—and there were very many of them—were told they would be repatriated. Even at this late date some of them were unaware that Vallia had ceased to employ mercenaries. They were astonished when they offered their services to us that they should be refused. They had fought well and earned their hire. They had honored their contracts. Why, then, should we refuse their employment?

I knew I had to think again about this policy of mine. What if, instead of Vallian citizens lying dead on the battlefield, they had been paktuns from foreign lands, paid their hire for fighting for us? Well, would not that be a better arrangement for Vallia's sons and daughters?

Delia said to me as we dismounted from our nikvoves: “Come on, you great hairy graint. Everything is being attended to. Bengarl's Blight is a great victory. Now come into the tent and have a good wash and something to eat and drink."

“Aye,” I said. “And now Vallia is whole again."

Chapter eight

Drak and Silda

Deb-Lu-Quienyin said: “Khe-Hi and Ling-Li and I have managed to fabricate what one might call a Hood of Misalignment."

We were sitting comfortably in our tent, and wine had been served. Delia looked marvelous in a robe of lavender, and her feet were bare. She did not wear toe rings. I wore a plain lounging robe of yellow, girded by a scarlet sash. As for Deb-Lu, well, he wore what was clearly a brand new robe, plain, yet contriving to look as though he'd slept in a haystack all night. His turban toppled, as ever, dangerously over one ear. Khe-Hi and his bride, Ling-Li, looked perfectly turned out in correct and expensive and yet not sumptuous robes.

“The task was interesting, if difficult,” said Khe-Hi-Bjanching. He looked at his wife. “Ling-Li was fantastic."

Deb-Lu let rip a dry wheeze of a chuckle. “By Hlo-Hli! These two lovebirds make me wonder why I never married!"

With all the sedateness of a Witch of Loh, Ling-Li said: “Dear Deb-Lu. Who'd have you?"

Delia turned her laugh into a sound that frizzled me right down to the backbone. We all knew Ling-Li, after that start that could have been so awkward, was fitting into the group easily. She and Khe-Hi shared a special relationship in sorcery that made them far more powerful as a team than they were individually.

“And this Hood of Misalignment?"

“It means, in layman's terms, that if Csitra uses her kharrna for a sending, tries to inflict another plague, it will strike dwaburs away from its intended target."

I said: “I don't want innocent folk suddenly embroiled in sorceries—frogs and insects and suchlike falling out of the sky on their heads."

“We can deflect the plague accurately enough to drop it into the sea, for example."

“Pity the poor sailors on a plague night like this."

“We can,” said Deb-Lu, “ensure that Vondium is kept clear of interference for the period of the wedding."

“That,” pointed out Delia with great satisfaction, “is splendid for us. But we cannot harm innocent people."

“We will ensure the plagues drop into an empty ocean."

One of the jurukkers on guard duty, Nath the Point, put his head into the tent opening to bellow: “Prince Drak, jis, the Prince Majister of Vallia!"

Instantly, Drak walked in, flinging his cloak off. He looked dusty and only a little tired if travel-stained. Once again, I remarked to myself his commanding figure, his air of habitual authority.

The lahals were exchanged and wine was poured and Drak slumped down into a chair and stuck his booted feet out.

“So we've done it,” he said. “At last, thanks be to Opaz."

“Where,” Delia wanted to know, “is Seg?"

“He's gone up to Evir, mother. He took a little army with him, too."

“Ah,” she said. And then: “Milsi is a splendid wife for him. But—Thelda..."

“He's all right,” I said in a gruff way that displeased me. I felt for my blade comrade, Seg Segutorio, in the matter of believing his wife Thelda was dead only to discover she was alive and married to a fine man and with children by him.

“I believe so."

“It's in my mind to offer Lol Polisto the kovnate of Evir. That would please Thelda."

“Oh, it would!"

Then we both laughed. Oh, yes, we were cruel to poor Thelda. She always meant well and disaster trailed her. Still, good friends in the northernmost province of Vallia was a seemly prospect, Zair knows.

It was left to Ling-Li to ask the next obvious question.

“She went with her father. I offered to go, too, but—well, family business."

“Very much our family, soon, Drak,” pointed out Delia. “You will have Thelda as a mother-in-law."

At this point in my narrative, pursued by the ghosts of a million music hall jokes, I will move onto the time we spent in Vondium for the wedding and what followed.

The most delicious item of gossip going the rounds, and the subject of considerable investment in the way of gambling and betting on the chances, was the simple question: “Would Queen Lush attend the wedding?"

There were at least two schools of thought, and the odds varied with each. One said: “Queen Lush turned down by Prince Drak will never go to his wedding to another woman.” The other said: “Queen Lushfymi of Lome is a great and marvelous woman of considerable powers who would never dream of insulting her hosts in Vallia by refusing to attend the wedding of the Prince Majister."

So, you took your pick and you laid down your golden talens, and you awaited the outcome. I didn't tell Delia; but I placed a small sum on Queen Lush coming to the wedding. Petulant, with a high opinion of herself, overly imperious, she still remained a fine woman through all the flattery and flummery that had gone to her head. Her tragedy was that she hadn't married a good man like Drak long since.

If fate had not thrown the ivory cubes the way they'd fallen, Delia's father would still be emperor, and Queen Lush would be empress. Had he not been killed, would Vallia have been spared the Troubles? No, decidedly not. Vallia had been marked for plunder while her citizens squabbled.

Now—the period of Drak and Silda's wedding turned into a fairy-tale time. The brilliant days moved along like acts in a play, limelit, larger than life, gorgeous with color and action and poetry. Everybody bore a smile. Old enmities were laid aside. Children received presents when it was not their birthday or a Day of Meaning, and they understood that when a Prince Majister of Vallia marries, then the days of the ceremonies are sacred and vitally important to the welfare of the country.

The guest lists filled a thick volume of beautiful Kregish script written out fair for all to see.

Who came? Far better, by Vox, to ask who didn't come!

By lavish use of our best and fastest airboats, with Delia handling a great amount of the detailed planning, folk were brought in from all over those parts of Kregen that had featured in our lives.

For the first time in many many seasons, the whole family was united and under one roof. Incredible!

Drak's twin sister, Lela, flew in with Tyfar. They could not stay long for they were embroiled in a nasty business out on the western borders of Hamal; but I joyed to see my blade comrades again. Delia was radiant with happiness. The nudges and winks, the sly comments; and still, as far as I could see, Prince Tyfar of Hamal, and Lela, Princess Majestrix of Vallia, were still circling each other like strange dogs without an idea in their heads how to resolve their love and follow Drak and Silda in the obvious course.

A particular joy to us was to see King Zeg of Zandikar and his family. They flew in from the Eye of the World, the inner sea of Turismond, and we had long talks into the night about the Krozairs of Zy, and how the Zairians fared against the green Grodnims, all of which I will relate in its proper place. Queen Miam looked more lovely than ever and the children were a joy.

Zeg's twin could not be with us. We thought of her, though, the first Velia. When the second Velia, released for the occasion by the Sisters of the Rose, walked into the private room where we talked, Zeg's face lost all its color. He did not quite sway. But he put a hand to the back of his chair, and I noticed the yellow skulls made by his knuckles.

“It is uncanny,” he said.

“No,” I said, and damned sharply, too. “Velia was lost to us, and her husband, Gafard, the King's Striker, the Sea Zhantil. And in love Velia was given to us. But this is Velia, and she is her own person and owes no debt to the dead."

This was a highly important point and one I would not have misunderstood.

Didi also was there, daughter to Velia and Gafard. From what I gathered, these two youngsters, Velia and Didi, were right hellions with the Sisters of the Rose, and we could expect mischief and adventures from them in the future.

Jaidur, King of Hyrklana, and Lildra his queen, turned up with their new arrivals. Delia said to me one evening: “I think there may be a rift in the lute there, Dray."

“They fell in love with the speed of a bird through the air. They seemed idyllically happy. If you are right I am most upset—damn it all, by Krun! It can't be true!"

“I hope I am wrong. But be prepared."

It is not all sweetness and light in romance on Kregen, oh no, not by a long chalk.

Then Ros the Claw arrived, clad in black leathers, swinging her whip, rapier and main gauche strapped around her slender waist, her fearsome Claw in its bag. As Delia kissed her and said: “Dayra! Lahal and Lahal, my dear,” I itched to find out how Dayra, alias Ros the Claw, had fared and if Jilian was with her, and then Jilian Sweet Tooth walked in, another edition although subtly different from Dayra of those splendid Jikai Vuvushis of the Sisters of the Rose.

There was much news to be learned.[5]

[5 Prescot goes on with the guest list. The only sensible thing for me to do is merely to list the names without disrespect to their importance in Prescot and Delia's lives. Nedfar, Emperor of Hamal. Kytun Kholin Dom. Ortyg Fellin Coper and his wife Sinkie. Prince Vardon Wanek and his wife Natema and family. Gloag. Hap Loder and an uproarious ferocious band of Clansmen. Pompino the Iarvin—without his wife—and the rascally crew of Cap'n Murkizon, who, I am happy to say, called frequently on his Divine Lady of Belschutz. King Filbarrka and Queen Zenobya, a splendid pair of comrades. Pando and Tilda were invited, and arrived to wonder—but that is another story. There were many friends Drak had made in his own adventures. And the same went for Silda, notably Lon the Knees. Unmok the Nets. Duhrra of the Days. Just about all the nobility of Vallia attended, as was proper. All the people of the household and those close to us. The list was apparently endless. A.B.A.]

Finally, I wonder if you can understand my pleasure as I welcomed in two rascals, who pretended to be quite unimpressed by the glories of Vallia, since they'd seen them all before, and shook their hands in a mutual explosion of glee.

“Stylor!” they crowed, and engulfed me whole.

Yes, my two favorite rascals from the Eye of the World, Nath and Zolta. Ah! What times we had seen together!

Among the greatest joys for Silda in those tumultuous days was to throw her arms about her twin, Valin, and her elder brother, Drayseg. These two had much to relate, all of which I will tell in due course.

Then Lol Polisto turned up with his wife, Thelda, and their family.

Delia was superb.

The confrontation could have been embarrassing and disastrous. Seg had had a few adventures, and, again, what transpired there is grist for another story. Suffice it to say that Seg and Milsi, and Lol and Thelda, acted with natural courtesy and politeness and, indeed, they were four fine people able to come to terms in a civilized manner with what had happened to them.

It is my experience that going through an adventure with another person, risking your life and fighting free of perils, does not automatically make you life-long comrades. It very often does. It is not mandatory.

Now—to the wedding of Silda and Drak.

Well, as you may imagine, my mind flew back to those days in Vondium when Delia and I had been married. The Proud City was vastly changed; many great buildings had been destroyed and not rebuilt. Yet we had continued with our building program, concentrating on structures of use rather than ornament. The circuit of the walls was immensely stronger now. So as Drak and Silda took the prescribed and formal routes through the city on the different days devoted to the various ceremonies, they passed through a city in the process of rebirth.

Just as I had done on that long-ago day, Drak wanted the procession to pass by that certain inn and posting house by the Great Northern Cut called The Rose of Valka. When I had been banished by the Star Lords to Earth for twenty-one miserable years, Drak had grown into manhood and had taken over the reins of the island stromnate of Valka. He had been called the Young Strom. For all my love for him, I couldn't see myself parting with Valka until they shipped me off to the Ice Floes of Sicce.

Since the Times of Troubles there were many vacant estates in Vallia. Drak would be well served in lands and wealth.

The Suns of Scorpio poured down their opaline radiance upon the face of Kregen, and the canals and avenues of Vondium glistened brilliantly in the light. Flags and banners, ribbons and scarves, massive banks of flowers, decorated all the ways. Fountains played. And the people gathered in their thousands to yell their heads off as Drak and Silda passed.

Much treasure had been spent in providing wine and food and palines for the folk. Everyone was happy. As for the presents showered on the bridal couple, they filled room after room in the palace.

What a week that was, when my lad Drak married his sweetheart![6]

[6 For a description of Prescot's marriage to Delia, see Dray Prescot #6, Manhounds of Antares. A.B.A.]

And not a single sign of the baleful influence of Csitra disturbed the joyous occasion.

What particularly pleased me was to note that among all the throng of friends and comrades, no one jostled for a better position. No one tried to pretend they were more important than anyone else. Among all the people well aware of the pecking order of Kregan nobility, the ranks fell naturally into order. I suppose, being human, among them there were rivalries. But, on this day, everything went off smoothly and without a single hitch.

Toward evening of the last day, after a procession that had wended its gorgeously barbaric way about the canals, everyone of the guests and high nobility, and as many of the citizens of Vondium as could be squeezed in, crowded into the vast Kyro of Opaz Omnipotent, Best and Greatest.

The square in its immensity could hold thousands of people, and its extent had been considerably increased by the destruction of buildings all along one side. The people perched on the rubble looked like flies.

Bands played music and the people sang. Sweet scents invigorated the evening air, and the Moon Blooms drenched everything with their perfume. The whole mass of people were intoxicated on emotion and the splendors of the occasion.

With care I had selected a Stentor Corps, men with expansive lungs and carrying voices, and these were stationed about the Kyro to carry on the words spoken from the dais to the furthest corners.

The priests performed their final rites. Various notables spoke in praise of Drak and Silda. Drak and Silda, themselves, each said a few heartfelt words.

Man and wife, they turned as I called: “Now."

Drak said: “If it is your wish, father."

“It is your mother's wish, also, my son."

Delia said: “Yes, oh, yes! And I shall say so!"

My arm about Delia's waist, my right hand at my side gripping the old Savanti sword, I stepped forward and Delia stepped forward with me.

The radiance of the Suns of Scorpio fell full upon us. We stood looking out across the Kyro of Opaz Omnipotent, and over that immense multitude fell a deep hush.

I raised that superb sword high and the light flashed upon the blade.

I made it short and brutal.

“People of Vallia! Friends! Opaz has willed this joy upon us in the happiness of Prince Drak and Princess Silda.” I twisted the sword and the opaline radiance gleamed. “The Empress Delia and I have decided. I have to tell you now that the Empress and I take our farewells of you. We abdicate.” Absolute silence in that enormous congregation. I repeated myself. “The Empress Delia and I abdicate and renounce the crown and throne of Vallia."

Delia called across: “I, the Empress Delia of Vallia, abdicate and renounce the crown and throne of Vallia."

The stentors bellowed repetitions of our words over the heads of the throne. The crowd began to stir.

I half turned, still holding Delia, to stare at Drak and Silda.

“On this happy wedding day here stand before you the emperor and empress."

The sword above my head glittered a shaft of light.

“Hai Jikai, Drak, Emperor of Vallia. Hai Jikai, Silda, Empress of Vallia! Hai Jikai!"

Then the tumultuous roars burst full-throated from the crowds.

“Hai Jikai! Drak and Silda, Emperor and Empress of Vallia!"

Chapter nine

Armada against Csitra

I, Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor, and Krozair of Zy, was no longer the Emperor of Vallia.

“By Zim-Zair!” I said. “And about time, too!"

“Well, my old dom, you always said you would, yet precious few people believed you."

Thelda chattered on, fussing away: “I can't believe it, Dray, my dear. Why, if I were empress I'd never abdicate.” Then she put her head on one side and in her funny way added: “But it does mean I am now the mother of the empress. That is very nice."

Lol Polisto gave her a look and I noticed Milsi put a hand to her mouth to hide her smile.

After we'd seen the married couple safely off, a few of us had gathered to talk over the events of the day and, inevitably, given the situation, to gape at Delia's and my decision.

The lads of my guard corps were in a quandary.

I said to Targon and Dorgo and Cleitar and the other chiefs: “You are the emperor's bodyguards. You formed yourselves at a time when the emperor's life was in danger. Your duties remain. There is the emperor to serve."

“Yes, but he's not you!"

“He is my son and the emperor."

Just before they took themselves off to sort it out among themselves in the democratic way they'd set up in the guard corps, Targon said very suspiciously: “This doesn't mean we're not going with you to the Coup Blag. Oh, no, we're not having that, by Vox!"

“No, by the Blade of Kurin!” and: “Not likely, as Jorgo of the Snickersnee is my witness!” and: “We're all going, by Bongolin!” And other similar vehement affirmations.

Balass the Hawk said, “A good sword and shield man, that's what you want down there, Dray."

Oby snapped out: “You're not leaving me behind!"

Hap Loder, who ran the fearsome Clansmen for me out on the Great Plains of Segesthes, wanted to know about this Coup Blag, and expressed his interest in tagging along. Others made inquiries; all seemed to feel a little holiday up there in the Snarly Hills would do wonders for their circulation.

K. Kholin Dora was perfectly convinced that a four-armed Djang would be perfectly at home in the mazes of the hill. Vomanus, Delia's half-brother, having recovered from his illness, said in his lazy reckless way that he was going too. And the feckless fellow still had rust spots on his sword.

“By Krun!” I said to Delia. “The wedding has made it worse. Now we're inundated with folk all clamoring to go."

“Aye,” she said in her practical, devious way: “And that might be a good thing, too."

Seeing what she meant, I agreed. All the same...!

Farris said: “I have been having a quiet word with Emperor Nedfar. There are genuine troubles which cause this lamentable lapse in the supply of airboats."

I made a face. After only a short stay, Tyfar and Lela had returned to western Hamal. They'd spoken a little of what they were up to out there. Nedfar expressed concern for their safety, and added: “But you cannot muzzle these young people for ever."

“They see their duty as bringing the production of fliers back to normal,” said Delia. She spoke bravely; but I could see her concern and suffered with her.

Just because Drak and Silda were safely married and off enjoying themselves did not mean that the rest of us gave up celebrating. No chance of that yet, by Krun!

During this time of a continuous whirl of pleasure, of dances and routs and balls, all in the best traditions of Kregen, we began to assemble forces for the expedition to visit Csitra.

Farris intimated that he could put what was a considerable force of airboats at our disposal. The armed forces of Vallia were being reduced. We had won the wars and re-united all the islands of the empire; now was a time for consolidation on all the other fronts of civilization crying out for attention; agriculture, building, canals, education, trade and commerce of every description. So, with the soldiers and airmen returning home, we could take our pick of fliers, flyers and swods.

In the end I made the sensible decision of taking just about everyone who clamored to go along. Drak had said that he would release from his service in Vallia anyone we asked for.

So I told the lads of the guard corps to work out a system by which half of them went to the Coup Blag and the other half stayed with their duty to the emperor.

Nath Karidge, commanding EDLG, in a pitiable state, came up to me and poured out his woes.

I said, “The fact is, Nath, you command the Empress's Devoted Life Guard. The empress is now Silda."

“I have no desire to affront her, or Seg, or you or Delia. But I feel I must resign."

I nodded. “And you will form a regiment? Devoted to Delia?"

“Aye."

“There is no need to tell you of my feelings, Nath. I thank you. This thing can be arranged with tact and discretion. Just make sure EDLG remains the elite and splendid regiment it has always been."

“There will be no problem with that."

There were many details involved in the handing over of power. Naghan Vanki, the emperor's chief spymaster, waxed surprisingly effusive when I thanked him for his work. He had always been cold and distant. He was devoted to Delia, and he swore to carry on his work for Drak and Silda.

The fleet prepared and the names were chosen. I will not list them all; as they appear in this my narrative so shall you meet them.

The two Wizards and one Witch of Loh—whom I hesitate to call “ours” seeing these sorcerers are their own magical people—worked hard and cunningly on fashioning defenses against Csitra's sorcerous spite. One day they told me that they had perfected devices of power sufficient to deflect a considerable amount of her thaumaturgical wrath.

“Ling-Li and I will be flying with you,” said Khe-Hi with a smile at his new wife. “Deb-Lu will cooperate at a distance."

“If we can nullify Csitra's power,” confirmed Deb-Lu, “the result will lie in the hands of the folk with you."

“I have every confidence,” I said, meaning it.

A great many events took place and numbers of important decisions were taken at this time with which I will not burden you; suffice it to say that life rattled along with not a moment to waste or to spare. And, then, finally, we were off.

The Armada against Csitra took off.

The ships were there, many of whose names you are acquainted with. We had no vorlcas, all were vollers, whose two silver boxes controlled speed and height by maneuvering them in their bronze and balass orbits. Toward the end of life the silver boxes would dull and turn black. Sometimes there was no period of grace whatsoever. Generally speaking, though, the silver boxes lasted through many a season of flying.

Great the cheering when we took off, great the uproar, and great the moaning and lamentations of those left behind. Deb-Lu waved us off, assuring us that Csitra and her uhu child, Phunik, could not observe our departure.

“Remberee!” we called down, and the answering remberees floated up, dwindling and fading as we gained height and set course for Pandahem.

“Well, my old dom, we've done it."

“Aye,” I said. “I hope the return is as happy as the departure."

“Cheer up, you hairy old graint,” said Delia.

“Yes, Dray,” added Milsi. “When this is all over you and Delia are to visit us in Croxdrin."

“I look forward to that,” I said. I was thinking of what lay between; had I known—well, I suppose I would still have gone on; but I'd have been in an even worse mood than I was.

Due south from Vondium we flew, across the coast and out over the Sea of Opaz, glinting and glistening in the light of the twin suns. Presently we angled our course south southeastward so as to cross the Pandahem coast on the Bay of Panderk. Straight across Tomboram we flew, cutting sharply east out to sea again to fly around the Central Mountains of Pandahem via the Koroles.

Looking down on those twisted alleys of water between the islands, seeing those lush green mountains rising from the sea, brought back the memories, I can tell you!

Out to our left stretched the Southern Ocean, and as we followed the curve of the coast around through south to southwest we could spy ahead of us the Sea of Chem.

Along that coast I had sailed aboard Pompino's Tuscurs Maiden. That splendid argenter had been burned by me. I could not regret the act for it had helped to gain a victory; I looked back without relish. Below us the coastline wended its way as we flew on. Soon we would reach far enough for us to turn north. We'd vetoed the idea of flying up the River of Bloody Jaws. On that river lay Milsi's realms. We did not want to attract attention and alert the bush telegraph, although all below was jungle by now.

The voller in which we sailed, Pride of Vondium, was large, splendid, immensely powerful, a skyship of Hamal. Delia said: “Milsi and I have to fly across to Rose of Valka. There is a meeting we must attend."

There was plenty of time before nightfall and our change of course. I grumped up, though, and said: “And you need not tell me what your precious meeting is about, wife. You will be back before the suns set?"

“Long before, you aptly named Jak the Sturr!"

When they'd flown off in a small voller, I said to Seg: “You know what that's all about?"

“Aye. Sisters of the Rose. But I own I am glad Milsi has joined. She is changed, yes; but I think for the better. She is lucky Delia—"

“And Delia is fortunate that you found a girl like Milsi.” I did not speak of Thelda.

“We'll show you a time in Croxdrin, my old dom.” Seg waxed enthusiastic. “Only—don't fall in the river again."

“I can still hear those jaws snapping at my heels."

Seg laughed, throwing that handsome head of his back, his wild black hair rippling in the breeze. His fey blue eyes regarded me with enjoyment. “We had a few wagers, though."

“Aye."

“I'm for a wet."

Down in the cabin with the ale before us, for it was too early for wine, we sat talking of this and that. The lookout's hail reached us, screeching like a broken violin string.

“Sail ho!"

We went up on deck; we did not hurry.

Sweeping in from the sea swarmed a fleet of fliers.

Jiktar Nogad ti Thorndax, the captain of Pride of Vondium, a stout experienced Air Service officer, rubbed his chin.

“Don't recognize ‘em, jis."

Nobody did. As the approaching airboats swept in toward us we counted them to find they were fifty to our thirty-eight.

The odd thing that struck us was that they appeared all exactly alike. They could all have been stamped from the same pattern.

“Deuced odd,” said Vangar ti Valkanium, who had flown with us despite the fact he was slated to take over the Vallian Air Service. “Never seen a fleet with every ship identical before."

And still no quiver of alarm crossed my idiot mind.

Those ships out there were garishly painted and all were of the small-to-middle size of voller, with but two decks. Their upperworks were square, chopped-off, brutal constructions. They didn't go in for fighting tops as did we; but they had fighting galleries below. They came on at a fair speed.

“What of their flags?"

Telescopes were training on those fifty ships. No one volunteered to recognize the flags.

Garishly though those awkward-looking upperworks were painted, the lower hulls were all a uniform black.

Ortyg Thingol, brown curls and bright eyes dancing with excitement, handed me a telescope. Into the circle I centered the lead ship.

So I saw and I knew.

How in the name of Opaz this monstrous thing had occurred I did not know. But I knew what I was looking at, and I knew what must follow.

In a calm, firm voice, I said: “Comrades, we have a fight on our hands. Those devils are Shanks."

Chapter ten

Nath the Impenitent

When I recall that aerial battle I am filled with horror and revulsion, and scathing self-contempt, and also a foolish fatuous pride.

Our thirty-eight had the beating of their fifty, there was no doubt of that.

Supreme though they might be on the seas, the Fish Heads had nothing like our experience in the air. Their ships were very good; most—not all—of ours were better.

We could see the Shanks crowding their upper decks, helmets and tridents arrayed in ranks. Their catapults hurled. They were far more reckless with fire than they were at sea. I saw one black-bottomed ship in the midst of the melee sling a blazing firepot at one of our vessels, and miss, and the missile smashed full into one of their own. She burned.

We lost ships. But for every one of ours lost they lost four. And, it was clear, they did not like the outcome. They were used arrogantly to winning all their sea battles. So now they fought as only Shanks can fight, vicious and deadly and without mercy. Well, and Opaz forgive us, we fought back in the same way.

To interpolate now what I afterwards discovered, as is not my wont in this narrative, I will say that the silver boxes powering the Shank vollers contained a different mix of minerals from those supplied by Hamal and Hyrklana and other nations of Paz. The Shanks used up the power of some of the minerals, and they therefore had to carry spare silver boxes to replace those exhausted. They had, in fact, to operate their power source with a fuel supply backup.

So, as I say, we were doing all right. Seg and I kept shooting anxious glances at Rose of Valka. Delia and Milsi were aboard her. She lashed out all around her and saw off her four Shanks. Then, just as we were congratulating ourselves on a smashing victory, one of the Shank vessels, ablaze from stem to stern, flew full tilt into Pride of Vondium.

I saw that awful flame-spitting mass hurtling down on us. There was absolutely no time to drag our ship out of the way.

Wearing their aerial safety belts, men and women threw themselves overboard.

Seg hitched his bow up his back and yelled to me: “Overboard with you!"

Pride of Vondium, enveloped in flame, was falling headlong through the air. The flames had burned through some control ropes, and the silver boxes must have been jolted apart. We were dropping at a frightful speed, and the flames and heat blew blisteringly about us.

I saw Ortyg Thingol sprawled on the deck in the line of the advancing flames. Blood smeared his brown curls. Seg yelled again, leaping forward: “I'll grab young Ortyg! Over with you, Dray!"

Flames spouted up from the deck around our feet.

“And leave you!” I jumped forward to assist Seg with our young cadet.

A wall of fire burgeoned directly before me. Beyond that hellish heat Seg and the lad must be trying to fight their way back to the bulwarks. I put my head down and an arm over my face and, thus looking down through slitted eyes, half-blinded, I saw a shiny scorpion clicking his feelers on that flame-reeking deck.

Through the infernal racket of the fire, his voice reached me thinly and clearly.

“We always said you were an onker, Dray Prescot. You must jump and save yourself. The Star Lords wish it."

“To hell with the Star Lords! I'm not leaving Seg—"

“Jump, Dray Prescot, or risk the wrath of the Everoinye!"

Cunning entered my soul.

“You need me, Star Lords. You have said as much. I will not leave without Seg and the boy. If you can—save us all!"

The blueness whirled up so smartly I had no time to gasp. The Everoinye could strike with appalling swiftness when they had to.

I was hanging upside down in the branches of a spiny tree and all about me squeaked and chirruped and screamed the noises of the jungle.

I shook my head and it stayed on my shoulders. With a convulsive twist I was right side up and ready to confront whatever grisly predator of the jungle might regard me as an afternoon snack.

Seg's voice called: “Ortyg's safe, Dray. What happened?"

He might well ask!

Looking carefully around, I spotted Seg on a lower branch of the tree with Ortyg in his arms.

“We must have fallen through the burned deck,” I said with some caution.

“Yes. I suppose. It was hot, my old dom, deuced hot. There was a flash of blue—curious."

“Well, we made it safely down. We'll have to try to signal the fleet. They must have won the victory by now."

“Sure to."

“So it's up rather than down?"

“You recall this jungle? Up, I'd say."

“What about the boy?"

Ortyg's high voice rang out. “I'm no boy, majister. I am a full-grown man. I can manage to climb a tree!"

“By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom, we have a leemcub here!"

So we started to climb up. The trees were stout enough to afford us ample support until we could reach along one of the lower laterals of the crown and so gaze up through a gap at the brilliance of the sky above.

There was not a single airboat in sight.

“This,” said Seg, digesting this new information, “alters things somewhat."

“Aye."

A black dot floated into view over the trees.

“Hai!” roared Seg. “Down here!"

The man suspended in air on his belt looked down and then he slowly pulled the control levers apart so that the silver boxes lowered him gently. He would, we saw, land in the next tree along. There was no way he could gain forward motion from the belt.

“So,” I said. “It's down, now."

“Aye, my old dom. Down it is."

“Meet us at the tree here!” I bellowed.

The man hollered back: “Quidang!"

“A swod, is my guess,” offered Seg. “Anyway, you have a damned intemperate way with you. He recognized—"

“The voice of command? And thank you!"

“Well, it's true, as Erthyr the Bowis my witness."

Clinging to the branch, I said: “Let's have a look at that cut in your head, Ortyg."

“Yes, majister."

I gave him a hard look, and his brown eyes widened. “Not majister, Ortyg. Not majis; not even jis. You call me Jak. Is that clear? Jak!"

“Yes, majis—Jak. Clear."

“And if you forget, Ortyg,” said Seg with deep menace, “you will be left here in this jungle alone to fend for yourself."

“Your head's all right,” I said. “We'll dress it when we reach the ground."

The climb down was arduous enough, Krun knew; but we touched the mould of the jungle floor at last.

Then we saw to Ortyg's head with the medicaments in our belt pouches. I gave Seg an inquiring look.

“You're known around these parts. King of Croxdrin. Might Seg not be a little, well—"

“I'm not that well known. But I won't be Seg the Horkandur. And—” here he fixed me with a baleful stare. “And not the Fearless, either, or any other of your so-called funny names."

“All right. We'll think of Seg the Something."

“Tell me, please,” put in Ortyg, a hand to his head. “Why are you not to be called majister, Jak?"

“Because there are plenty of evil folk around only too ready to take advantage of ransom."

Seg bore down on the lad. “That's why. We are simple koters, us."

“Very well, Seg, Jak."

A man's hoarse voice reached us. “That you, doms?"

“Hai, dom. Over here."

He joined us as we stepped away from the twined bole of our tree. His uniform was a shredded black mess, his hair was singed, his face was a scarlet blot. But that hair was good Vallian brown, and those ferocious eyes were level and Vallian brown. He looked to be an old kampeon, tough as old boots, in service for seasons.

Smoothly, Seg said, “Lahal. I am Seg, this is Jak and this is Ortyg. We are lucky to be alive."

“Lahal. I am Nath."

There are very many Naths on Kregen, seeing that the legendary Nath equates with the terrestrial Hercules, more or less. I sighed, and this Nath, seeing that reaction, managed a ferocious grimace and said, “Nath, called the Impenitent."

“Nobody else?” inquired Seg.

“Not that I saw. A chunk of rock from one of those fishy devils knocked me off Shango Lady. They were all going off to the west like stink when I fell."

“Did you see the flagship burn?"

“Aye, a grisly sight. Some ships dropped down for survivors. But that happened a long time ago."

“Do what?"

He was not taken aback. “Aye. We drove to the west in pursuit of the devils, west and north. Pride of Vondium burned a long ways back."

Seg would not understand how we'd contrived to get here, that seemed certain. The Everoinye, for their own inscrutable purposes, had dropped us down a long way from where we'd begun, and this Nath the Intemperate had been knocked off by chance to join our little band.

All about us lay the jungle of South Pandahem.

The rank stink of rotting vegetation, throat-choking, filled the miasmic air. The light was poor. Blotched whitenesses disfigured the tree boles. Vines looped everywhere. And through this labyrinth prowled the predators.

Nath the Intemperate retained his sword, a drexer. Ortyg had a Vallian dagger. Seg's longbow was not in his hand, although a quiver half-filled with rose-fletched arrows remained strapped across his back. Well, he'd built a bow before in these parts.

Seg also had a drexer. I—stupidly, stupidly—did not have my superb Savanti sword. I had no bow, no drexer, no rapier or main gauche. I had my old sailor knife scabbarded over my right hip. And I did have a Krozair longsword strapped to my back, and that was not stupid at all. Not stupid at all, by Zair!

The drexer is a superior weapon, a straight cut and thruster developed from the Hamalian thraxter and Vallian clanxer and with our attempt at the Savanti sword. I wished I had the sword I'd worn at Drak and Silda's wedding.

“We'd best make tracks,” said Seg. “Find a clearing or some civilization."

“I hear it's all jungle for hundreds of ulms,” said Nath the Impenitent. “Little villages, though, I suppose?"

“Some not so little. We'll have to go tsleetha-tsleethi for some time."

“And,” said Seg with sincere seriousness, “beware traps."

Now I have made it sound as though we'd all tumbled down out of a battle into a jungle and were all taking it as a mere matter of course. This is not so. But there was no good making a song and dance over the dangers. Our main concern, Seg and mine, was what had happened to Milsi and Delia.

We had to deal with the current situation, get clear of that, and then we'd find out.

Walking along softly and cautiously we heard from up ahead the sound of people talking, and then the cheerful clink of bottles and glasses. Ortyg started forward.

“We are saved, praise be to Opaz!"

“Hold it, young ‘un,” and Seg's broad hand fastened on Ortyg's shoulder. “I told you. Beware traps."

We parted the leaves carefully and looked out into a clearing at the center of which stood a plant with a bulbous stem and waving tendrils.

“A Cabaret Plant,” said Seg. “That'll spine you and gulp you down like a jelly."

We bypassed the plant with great respect.

After that, Ortyg stuck close to Seg. I was glad. I'd seen the way Seg had welcomed his two sons, Drayseg and Valin. He had not seen them for season upon season. Emotions aroused anew in him then must be working to make Ortyg recognize the affection Seg was bursting to display.

The Cabaret Plant with its deadly orange flower on that lashing stalk was not the only danger. There were man-made traps to catch some of the more tasty animals living here. We struck a trail. Well, now...

“Thank Opaz,” said Ortyg. “At least we can walk a little easier now."

“You, my lad,” Seg told him, “will not be walking along that trail—unless you want to wind up down a pit with stakes stuck through you, or hanging upside down in the air, or—"

“Quite,” I said, and Seg laughed and punched Ortyg lightly on the shoulder. Nath the Impenitent said nothing, but his ruby-red face squeezed into a smile.

Later on he told us that he'd been in the army but, being bored out of his skull and the wars more or less finishing, he'd transferred to the Air Service. He was an ordinary voswod, an aerial soldier; but he was training to become a more proficient crewman. He saw a future in the air he had never expected, had given up as lost.

“Wonderful things, the airboats. Never thought I'd live to see the day I served in one."

Seg said sharply: “You were unconscious in the back of a cart. But I've a funny feeling we've been this way before."

“If you say so,” I said equably.

“By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom! I do say so. And I'll wager a month's pay that just ahead of us lies the town of Selsmot. And, therein, the tavern of jungle delights, The Dragon's Roost!"

Chapter eleven

Of two kovs at The Dragon's Roost

“So you did come back,” said Mistress Tlima, wiping her floury hands on her blue-striped apron. “I always said you would return, Dray the Bogandur—although you call yourself Jak now."

“If it please you, Mistress Tlima. It was Jak Dray, anyway."

“Oh, it is no concern of mine."

“Named for that pig of an emperor, I suppose,” said Nath the Impenitent. I turned sharply. He spoke quite mildly; yet there was no mistaking the heartfelt anger in his words.

“Pantor Seg,” called Tlima, taking no notice of Nath's outburst. “Help yourself to some of our local ale. We have palines just collected."

Seg smiled that winning smile of his. “As ever, you are kind to wandering travelers, Mistress Tlima. And here is this imp Ortyg to plague us further."

“You will not, I trust, pantor, take him when you go along to The Dragon's Roost."

“He is no callow coy; he is a man with a man's spirit."

Ortyg, very sensibly, remained silent, although I admit this was partially caused by a mouthful of palines.

While all this pleasant byplay went on, I found myself brooding savagely on the greatest fresh problem presented to us in Paz. We had airboats. We had always believed we held this advantage, a kind of ace in the hole. And now—the Shanks—or Shtarkins or Shants or any one of a hundred different names for the evil Fish Heads who came reiving from over the curve of the world—also flew airboats to our mighty discomfort.

I thought to myself, stranded there in an insignificant little town lost in the jungles of South Pandahem, I thought most violently that I needed a word with the Star Lords.

That they would send for me in their own sweet time I did not doubt. By Vox! They had a deal of explaining to do.

Once again the question of priorities forced itself on me. Csitra must be dealt with. There was no question about that. The Shanks must also be dealt with, and, equally, there was no doubt about that. What the blue blazing hell were Shanks doing flying over Pandahem when all my intelligence said they were miles and miles away over in Mehzta?

The only obvious explanation was that this was a new and different bunch of the Fish Heads.

Mistress Tlima said, “We saw a boat that flew through the air yesterday. It came down just outside the town. The people in it—just ordinary diffs, mind—went to The Dragon's Roost."

“Ah!"

“Why, Pantor Seg! And do you really mean to go again?"

“I do, Mistress Tlima."

“Well, may the good Pandrite watch over you, that is all I can say."

From The Dragon's Roost inn, expeditions had been formed to go up into the Snarly Hills to the Coup Blag in search of the rumored hoards of treasure buried there. Seg and I had traveled with just such an exploration party. Now it seemed another was forming, and this bunch had their own voller. Capital!

“If they take us,” said Seg, as we walked through the dusty main street just before the rain fell.

“Oh,” I said, sounding mighty cheerful, almost cocky in my stupid arrogance. “Oh, yes, they will. We've been there before."

“True, my old dom, true."

“I'm coming, too,” said Ortyg.

“Oh?"

“Certainly, Jak. Without a doubt."

“If I'd had you to train up,” said Nath the Impenitent, “you'd have been a Hikdar in no time, and a kampeon to boot."

Once again Mistress Tlima had furnished us with the simple clothes of these people to replace our own burned and ruined garments. We had paid her, and this time in Vallian gold. She had made no comment. We approached that famous stoop leading up to The Dragon's Roost.

“Leave,” I told the other two, “the talking to Seg."

“Aye, Jak,” and: “Aye, Jak."

“Remember, we are not from Vallia. Oh, we hail from North Pandahem. They don't much care for those folk down here; but they don't hate them as much as they do Vallians or Hamalese."

“It's all Pandrite here, remember. And Armipand if you want to throw a curse at someone.” Seg sniffed and said: “Squish pie."

“Excellent. Now if—"

“But he isn't, and we are, and here is the inn."

So into The Dragon's Roost we trooped.

At the far end of the wooden stoop, bowered in greenery against the heat of the suns and the hiss of the rains, loud voices raised in argument. Two men, big and burly, stood there slanging each other rotten.

“By Krun!” in a high nasal whine. “You call yourself a lord! You're nothing better than a clodhopper with his nose forever in the mud."

“You are a kov,” came the answer in thick and impassioned tones that cut through like whetted steel. “And I, too, am a kov. That you are from Hamal causes me wonder."

“Wonder, clod-hopper? Wonder that a noble of so great a nation should set foot upon this stinking island?"

“No, Kov Hurngal ham Hortang. Wonder that my rapier has not already sought your backbone through your guts."

“You presume too much.” The nasal whine thickened. “I shall have to teach you a lesson, you Pandaheem yetch."

We stood quietly, waiting and watching. If these two idiots slew each other, what did that matter to us?

I'd be interested to see how this Hamalese kov, named Hurngal ham Hortang, acquitted himself against Kov Loriman the Hunter.

For, that was who it was, standing bulky and impassioned, wrangling with a hated noble from Hamal.

Their right hands crossed their bodies, swathed only in light clothing for the weather, and fastened on rapier hilts. Their left hands gripped the hilts of their main gauches. If Kov Loriman was killed, should I bother? He had been one of the leading lights of our trip down into the horrors of the Moder in the Humped Land where we had found monsters and magic, and some fabulous treasures that evaporated in the clear light of day. His passion was hunting. He sought out locations where he might test himself and his swordarm against monsters. That, I thought then, was why he was here about to go up against the terrors of the Coup Blag. I was wrong.

I wondered with little interest if he would recognize me, let alone remember me. What did I care? He was here, so therefore why should not I be also? I could brazen out a story.

A rich, silken-smooth golden voice called: “Why, notors! I do declare you quarrel just to spite me."

The woman stepped lithely and with a voluptuous swing of her hips out onto the stoop. She was clad in a sheer gown of sliding green silk, clinging to her body, and her form was amply rewarding to anyone with an eye for plastic female beauty. Her face remained in shadow. Her hair sheened, caught up in a net of pearls.

She addressed these two nobles as notor, the term for noble in Hamal and Havilfar. Here in Pandahem the word was pantor, as in Vallia it is jen. I watched fascinated as she set her arts of coquetry to chasten these two blowhards.

Kov Loriman did not put her down as I had seen him insultingly dismiss another fine lady. He turned and bowed.

“My Lady Hebe. I maintain my honor—"

“Of course, and I admire you so much for it, notor. But, then, so does Kov Hurngal, does he not?"

“What does he know of—"

She stepped to Loriman's side and put her hand, surprisingly brown in so fine a lady, upon his arm.

“Now, now, kov! This quarrel is over a nothing, and does credit to—well—” and here she laughed that throaty delicious laugh. “Credit to what, I ask you?"

Simmering like a volcano about to blow, Loriman glared upon the Hamalese. For his part, Hurngal glared malevolently upon Loriman. I admired the way this Lady Hebe handled the situation, for very soon she had both of them eating out of her hand. Whatever the cause of this quarrel, though, I fancied the animosity in these two ran so deep that it would not be slaked until they fought the duel they both so manifestly craved.

Well, it was no business of mine. Seg stepped up.

“Llahal, pantors!” he cried in his open cheery way. “Llahal, my lady."

They swung about as though one of Csitra's plagues had stung them up their rears.

“Who the hell are you?” demanded Kov Hurngal. “We have a private party here."

“I am glad to hear it,” said Seg in that soft way which could send shivers down the backs of those who knew him. “We have come to guide you to the Coup Blag."

Well, after that it was a matter of the Llahals and then the Lahals, and we were invited in and so we sat down in that corner alcove window seat with the polished sturmwood tables loaded with jugs and flagons. We ignored all the insults. Loriman did not recognize me. We explained that we had been to the Coup Blag and wished to return to bring away more treasure.

“Gambling, you see,” said Seg, “is a vice."

They guffawed at this and relaxed and were agog to hear all we could tell them. We attenuated the true story. I fancied if they knew it all they'd think on about going and then turn tail and run as far and as fast from this place as they could.

The voller, inevitably, belonged to Kov Hurngal.

He had ridden roughshod over the locals’ detestation of Hamalese, and had distributed much gold, so that he was tolerated.

That toleration might end with a knife between his ribs if the balance of the party did not soon arrive so that we might depart.

He and Loriman treated us with the casual, unthinking near-contempt of one kind of noble. We were pantors, and vouched for by the people of the town; we were not in their class and therefore were of value only as tools.

That we had been accepted as nobles was perfectly understandable to young Ortyg Thingol. Nath the Impenitent merely assumed we were a couple of young lords with the Vallian expedition. He appeared completely adjusted to his position in the situation. I summed him up as a doughty fighting man, one of Vallia's finest. More than once I had to nudge him to halt the habitual: “By Vox!"

“By Pandrite,” I said. And then, out of deviltry, I added: “Or ‘By Chusto!’ or, even, ‘By Chozputz.’ Brave oaths, both."

These were oaths I had invented when Dayra, Ros the Claw, and I had adventured together with Pompino in North Pandahem.

“Very well, Jak. Outlandish place, this."

“Aye. It'll get more outlandish."

Trying how the new oaths rolled on his tongue, Nath the Impenitent burped out: “By Chusto, Jak! I look forward to it to enliven the tedium of the days."

Any expedition of delvers exploring ancient ruins where they suspect treasure is buried, any expedition with plain common sense, come to that, must include in its company some form of wizard or witch. That goes without saying.

Seg and I decided that we four should stay at Mistress Tlima's rather than The Dragon's Roost. This we felt would ease friction. Mistress Tlima's husband, a quiet, obliging man, was far better company than the bunch at the grander inn.

Seg was creating merry hell that there was not a decent longbow in the town. He bought a short bow and looked at it with his mobile lips twisted up, so that I had to smile.

“The thing is, Seg, we know that Csitra took over Spikatur Hunting Sword.” SHS had been a mysterious organization dedicated to the destruction of Hamal. Well, all that was over; but now the adherents of Spikatur simply assassinated anybody who took their fancy, or so it seemed, and burned property that did not please them. Csitra had assumed control of the SHS and was using it for her own dark ends.

“My guess,” said Seg, “is that Spikatur has served its purpose for the witch."

“I tend to agree."

Now I'd regaled my comrades with tales of the Moder when we'd spend roistering evenings in that wonderful fortress palace I called home, Esser Rarioch in Valka. They'd listened fascinated to Deb-Lu and my scary adventures down the Moder of the Moder-lord Ungovich. The Humped Land, Moderdrin, the Land of the Fifth Note, lay far away in the center of Havilfar.

“So,” I said. “Is Loriman here solely for that hunting? He was of Spikatur. There is no doubt of that."

Seg gave me a look as he went on carefully polishing up that little bow.

“You mean, is Loriman a tool of the witch's?"

“Aye."

“Instead of coming here as a member of Spikatur Hunting Sword?"

“Aye."

“Either way a shaft in his guts might solve the problem."

“He's a useful man in a tight corner. I think I'll test him out and gauge his reaction."

Soon after that, having brought in supplies and prepared ourselves as best we could, and with the rest of the expedition joining, we all observed the fantamyrrh as we stepped into Kov Hurngal's voller. Up from that small speck of civilization in the wilderness of the jungle we flew, slanting up into the mingled streaming lights of the Suns of Scorpio.

With the speed lever hard over we pelted full speed ahead for the Coup Blag.

Chapter twelve

Over the Snarly Hills

Over the Snarly Hills we flew swift and straight as a lance stroke.

Below us the rain forest and the jungle reeled past. Those frightful hills up which we had toiled and then struggled down only to clamber up again, passed like models in a child's playroom. High above those clearings we soared where the pools of water, oily with poison, reflected light in a queasy way. The last pool in its clearing also carried that betraying sheen of evil. The Slaptra, the plant that struck lethally at sound, flattening the ground around the pool and gouging deep spadelike depressions in the mud—the Slaptra was gone.

“Someone's been doing a spot of gardening,” observed Seg.

Before I could reply, San Aramplo said in his haughty Khibil way: “There is evil in the water. I sense it most clearly."

“The poison killed the plants growing in the water. They were Slaptras."

“Of course. A sensible arrangement."

When Seg and I had discovered that the sorcerer going with us was a Khibil, Seg had given me such a comical look of despair I'd almost burst out laughing. A sorcerer is always high and mighty. Any Khibil regards him—or her—self as a member of the most superior race in all of Kregen, noses in the air, all hoity-toity, Khibils. Their fox-featured faces, with those arrogant reddish whiskers, their sharp eyes, their cutting ways, were very familiar to me.

This wizard, San Aramplo, was a member of the Thaumaturges of Thagramond. They were a small cult, widely spread, and reputed, as so many of Kregen's varied assortment of sorcerers are, to wield real and supernatural powers. They were not, of course, in the same class as any Wizard of Loh.

This foxy-faced Khibil mage had sensed the poison in the water, and the evil of it, as Fregeff, the Fristle wizard, had done before him. So San Aramplo had some genuine powers.

We all just hoped he would be able to handle the magics of the maze we were about to penetrate.

When he went into the purple-curtained opening to his private cabin, Nath the Impenitent gave a rolling wriggle to his heavy shoulders, and said, “Sorcerers. Never could abide ‘em."

“Ah, but,” piped up Ortyg Thingol, “they are not all the same. San Bjanching was very helpful when I couldn't understand my mathematics lessons."

This was news to me, and I listened with lively interest. It seemed Khe-Hi was helping out in the education of the youngsters training up. Very good!

“They're all too big for their boots,” said Nath. “Sorcerers, nobles, lords and ladies. They don't have time for us common folk."

Ortyg yelped: “Oh, come on, Nath! It's not as bad as that!"

“I've seen life, my lad."

There was little Ortyg could say to that, except a lame reply that, well, and, by Vox, he was going to see life too!

“By the Veiled Froyvil, Nath! You may not like the fellow; but he is going to be invaluable to us, believe you me."

No one commented that, if Seg and I were pantors down here in Pandahem, and as we were Vallians, then we were jens in Vallia. That put us in the bad graces of Nath the Impenitent; yet he treated us with unfailing courtesy, and we imagined he recognized in Seg and me fellow kampeons, fellow adventurers in the face of this life he so detested.

We flew at a moderate height and despite the wind of our passage we could smell the raw rank stink of the jungle below.

This voller of Kov Hurngal's flew well enough, and we suspected she'd been fitted with brand new silver boxes for the expedition. Her name was Hanitcha Triumph. She was capacious enough to take upward of a hundred souls as passengers, and was reasonably well-provided with varters and catapults. She had but the one fighting top and her lower fighting galleries were on the narrow side. Still, painted bright blue and green, with a quantity of gimcrack work and gilding, she looked pretty enough. She was, without the shadow of a doubt, far far better than marching through the Snarly Hills, by Krun!

Vainly, as we bore on, I kept a lookout for other fliers in the air, hoping to see some of our Vallian comrades continuing our interrupted expedition.

The idea of actually flying right up to the Coup Blag and landing before that fantastically sculptured cliff face and then marching in, somehow did not seem smart to me.

“We ought,” I said to Seg, “to land a little way off and march the rest."

“Aye. You're right."

From the cabin opening hung with golden drapes stepped the Lady Hebe. She appeared to affect a net of pearls for her hair at all times. Her gown was of blue, shorter, and girded with a broad golden belt. Her sandals were marvels of nothingness. As for her face, well, she had widely spaced eyes, dark under level brows. Her forehead was broad and tinged with that darker tone I had noticed in her hands. Her nose was short and her mouth full. She was a lady who knew her own mind, strong-willed, and quite able, as we had observed, to stoop to coquetry to gain her ends. She was a vadni, so in the pecking order of nobility she was one rung below a kovneva. And she was proud, no doubt of that. Also, I thought she was sad.

A man stepped up to greet her, smiling, smirking rather, bowing fulsomely. Some folk on Kregen will tell you a Rapa cannot smile. Well, they have predatory beaked faces, vulturine features, and their feathers come in a bewildering variety of colors—although beware those of the darker hues!—and so one has to read the expressions from experience and this fellow's beak clearly smirked.

“Tyr Rogarsh,” said the Lady Hebe.

They walked off together. The Rapa, this Tyr Rogarsh the Rattler, wore solid leather harness such as would be worn by a flutswod, with a brace of swords and brilliant feathers matching his own whiffling in his helmet. At his throat the wink of gold gleamed and scintillated and told the whole damn world who and what he was.

“He's useful,” said Seg. “I gather as a mercenary he was employed by Hamal, rose to be Chuktar, did well in a number of scraps—until he ran into our lads from Vallia."

Ortyg laughed with delight. Nath remained mute.

“So now he's tazll, unemployed, and so seeks to continue his expensive habits by plundering tombs."

“That's what they appear to believe the Coup Blag is. Just a burial mound with lashings of treasure within."

“And the bandits who used to infest the place?"

“Long gone and it's the ancient tombs story now."

“Something doesn't add up here.” I cocked an eye over Seg's shoulder. “And here's the last member of the expedition, Strom Tothor ham Hemfar. He, I judge, looks even more useful."

The numim roared out a rollicking “Lahal!” and strode up, a glorious golden lion-man, big, lithe, rolling with muscle. His ferocious face beamed upon us. He wore plain leather harness, and the weapons he carried were strictly no-nonsense practical man-slayers, none of your fancy jeweled pinkers here, by Krun!

We returned the Lahal, and Strom Tothor bellowed out his good humor.

“Have you seen that rascal Rogarsh, notors?"

“He has just gone for a tour around the deck with the Lady Hebe, notor."

“Ha! Well, I owe him a beating at Jikaida. His Pallan destroyed mine, and I want the return, and this time I shall surely crush him into the board, by Numi-Hyrjiv the Golden Splendor!"

You couldn't help warming to the lion-man. A splendid race of diffs, numims, and I counted at least one as a blade comrade. I dearly wanted to ask this Tothor if he knew Rees ham Harshur, the Trylon of the Golden Wind, lands that had now, alas, almost all blown away. Well, I'd try to elicit the information when the moment seemed opportune.

“You play at Jikaida, notors?"

“Occasionally,” said Seg, for Jikaida as the premier board game of Paz in Kregen is universal. Unless the game was completely beyond your mental capacities, you played Jikaida. For those who did not, Vajikry, the Game of the Moons, were small beer as compensation.

“The Lady Hebe is a cunning player,” went on Tothor. “You have to watch her left flank Chuktar."

I knew the ploy; but I didn't want to give anything away at this stage. We were simple block-headed lords out for adventure and fun. I said, “It would be best if we did not land too close to the Coup Blag. We must march the last dwabur or two."

“You think so? I will be guided by you in this. I'll speak to Kov Hurngal. He is, after all, in command of the expedition."

From what we had been able to make out, Kov Hurngal had been fired up by the Lady Hebe to go to the Coup Blag. She thirsted after adventure, and, with it, gold. Now the wars were over, apart from the disturbances over on the Mountains of the West, which few people seemed to take seriously, to hear them talk, there were thousands of soldiers and mercenaries out of a job. The Rapa Rogarsh and the numim Tothor had been recruited as stout companions in the venture, for they had served aforetime with Hurngal.

All these principals had with them, very naturally, a cloud of retainers, of servants and slaves. A little army was due to venture into the maze.

Kov Loriman had with him his group of tough Chuliks. I wanted to know how he had become involved with Hurngal and Hebe.

There was no love lost between the two kovs. Maybe the lady was the cause?

Where she hailed from had not been vouchsafed us yet. But if Hurngal, Rogarsh, and Tothor were Hamalese, then she might well also be. Loriman now said he came from western Pandahem, from the land of Yumapan, directly south over the mountains from Queen Lush's Lome.

One item we picked up displeased me. For all the new understanding and alliance between Vallia and Hamal, the Hamalese aboard Hanitcha Triumph still retained their enmity toward Vallians. Loriman usually evaded the subject. As for the sorcerer, he remained aloof from us all.

Seg and I had passed on a warning to Hurngal anent the saddle flyers we had encountered hereabouts. They were brunnelleys, with four scarlet clawed feet, their feathers in blue and brown and mauve. They were a good solid reliable saddle bird, and fetched their due price in the flutmarkets.

“Saddle birds?” Hurngal said dismissively. “In Pandahem?"

“Aye,” Seg told him, keeping his temper.

“Well, we know how to deal with them in Hamal."

So, as well as scouring the sky for traces of our comrades, we also kept a smart lookout for hostile flyers.

Shortly after that I began to think it would behoove us to descend. Ahead over the eternal tops of the trees rose a rounded hill. Below that would be the carved rock face, and the pool, and the entrance.

I spotted Kov Loriman leaning against the bulwark entirely alone. Some of the crew were keeping themselves busy fussing over a varter, others were scrubbing out, so I said to Seg, “Hold on. I'll test him with the oath of Spikatur. See how he reacts."

“Aye, my old dom. I'll keep an eye on you."

Moving casually I walked up the deck toward Loriman. Now the Hunting Kov might allow slaves to wash him and dress him and even feed him; in the matter of weapons he was a different personality. He had a whetstone out and was methodically sharpening up his left-hand dagger.

“Lahal, notor,” I said pleasantly. I may add that I found speaking pleasantly easy enough at the moment. “We will have to land soon. By Sasco, I'll—"

With blurring speed the dagger switched up and a single spark of fire blinded from the blade before the point pressed against my throat.

“You yetch! A nulsh of Spikatur Hunting Sword! I'll slit your throat across from ear to ear!"

Chapter thirteen

Loriman the Hunter listens to me

In that fraught moment I knew there'd be no hesitation in my blade comrade, Seg Segutorio. Not a single whisker of hesitation, by the Veiled Froyvil, no!

With a desperate twist and jerk and a cunning arm lock, I managed to swivel Loriman around sideways.

The cruelly barbed arrow from Seg's bow went thwunk! most evilly into the wooden bulwark.

“Hold on, Seg!” I yelled. “The idiot has it all wrong!"

By this time, I may say, Loriman's dagger was in my fist and he was inspecting the point with apoplectic eyes that wanted to cross.

“You rast!” he managed to choke out. “I'll have you jikaidered and then your tripes drawn and your—"

“Quiet down, Loriman.” I held him in a Krozair grip on his neck so that he could barely move and speaking cost him an effort. “Are you telling me you no longer belong to or support Spikatur Hunting Sword?"

“You are a dead man—"

“Oh, for the sweet sake of the Lady Dulshini's leprous knees! Listen, you fambly. I fought SHS for many seasons. If you are truly against them now, then we are allies."

He tried to shake his head and that was a mistake, for his face twisted in the stab of pain. “I gave my life to Spikatur. And I was betrayed—"

“So,” I rapped out, casting a shaft not entirely at random, “you go to the Coup Blag, which was infested with the rasts of Spikatur, to exact revenge."

“Aye, by the smoking blood of San and Pandiflur himself!"

“I am heartily glad to hear it. You have my admiration for seeing the light and attempting to expiate your guilt."

He gobbled at this, whereat I gave him a smile so that he flinched back. “I shall release you now. Remember, far from my being a dead man, you are if you do not stand quietly and talk in a civilized way."

When I let him go he stumbled and rubbed his neck. But he recovered with leem-speed. His right hand hovered over his rapier hilt. Then his eyes swiveled to the arrow in the bulwark.

“Look, kov,” I said with ostentatious patience. “If you stand against Spikatur, then you are my ally."

Abruptly, his look became hard to fathom.

“All right,” I rattled on in my old harsh way. “You want to kill me now. Well, you won't. I may slay you if you annoy me."

Just then a voice hailed down from the deck above the cabin roof.

“Notor? Is all well?"

The Rapa Rogarsh leaned over, feathers bristling.

“Tell him all is well, kov. For I assure you, it is. Otherwise, of course—"

The Hunting Kov shouted up in somewhat of a croak: “All is well, you great fambly!"

“Quidang, notor."

I shouted up: “Tell Hurngal it is time we landed."

By this time it was quite clear my face held that old hateful expression people call the Dray Prescot Look of the Devil. Loriman was sweating. About then he started to realize I was not someone he might trifle with.

I spoke up to take advantage of the moment.

“Look, Loriman, I bear you no ill will.” Well, that was not entirely true; but since his change of allegiance from Spikatur Hunting Sword I fancied something might be made of him. “I must tell you this fast. I've no idea what these other famblys think they're getting into in the Coup Blag. I've been in there, and so has my comrade. We got out more dead than alive, and we were lucky to get out at all.” He tried to say something, and I carried on natheless. “Shut up and listen! There's a damned Witch in there I'll hazard is a sight more powerful than our Khibil mage. It's going to be tough.” I'd summed up this Hunting Kov down the Moder. He was a man consumed with self-estimation, true; he was also damned useful in a fight against just the sort of monsters and powers we were going up against. If he were presented with a challenge, he'd accept it. I was, in street parlance, handing him a dare.

I finished up. “You'll be putting your life on the line, Loriman."

He sucked in air and his chest swelled; but I did not think there was conscious braggadocio in that, he wanted to get some fresh air into his lungs.

“You do not,” he said in a voice as grating as crocodiles on gravel, “address me as you should. You call me notor."

“I'll call you an onker if you shilly-shally about now, you great—great onker of a kov! Don't you understand what I'm telling you?"

He shook his head and it occurred to me he was suddenly out of his depth and—perhaps for the first time for a long time—unsure of himself...

He had to get it through his thick vosk skull of a head. I tried a different tack. “I'm a reasonable sort of fellow, Kov Loriman. I detest violence. I do not go in for hunting anything that moves. But if that pleases you, then so be it. You'll find targets in the maze."

He said in a dulled kind of voice, like leaden balls falling on a leaded slate roof: “I think I have seen you before."

I betrayed not a flicker of interest. After all, it didn't really matter if he did recall that I'd been along when we were down the Moder; but, as you know, I find a juvenile kind of amusement in disguises, and false names, and hiding my light under a bushel.

So, not recking what else might come of my words, I said: “Perhaps in the Sacred Quarter of Ruathytu? It is of no consequence. To defeat Spikatur we have to stick together. I am willing. Are you?"

He knew what I meant, right enough.

“I should have you killed on the spot. It is odd that I do not call at once for my guards."

“Your Chulik bully boys?” I smiled. “Your guards can try. Hanitcha the Harrower is like to carry them off."

“I believe—” he started to say and then Rogarsh yelled: “Kov Hurngal intends to land right outside the rock!"

“The stupid, stiff-necked cramph!” I burst out. Then I hauled myself up. I pondered. I felt quite certain Csitra would know we were coming, although, from what Deb-Lu had told me, she would not know I was along. So we just landed and got out and went into the entrance. That would make little difference.

Loriman must have realized I had thought the matter over when I said, in a different voice: “Very well. It is all one.” For he did not make a scathing remark about my weathercock decisions.

So, as we flew on to land outside the front door to Csitra's maze, Loriman, rubbing neck, and I, exchanged a few more pleasantries. I was not fool enough to think he would not seek revenge for the slight to his honor. So I was able to feel pleasure when he spoke out forcibly.

“You are the man known as Jak the Horkandur. Very well, Jak the Horkandur. I warn you. We may be allies in what lies ahead; but when it is over, you shall answer to me in the matter of honor."

“Done,” I said.

Then he said, “You are a fool of so reckless a rashness, I wonder..."

What he wondered I did not inquire. I spoke pleasantly, again, quoting from the bard Larghos the Lame, dead these five hundred seasons. Loriman scowled and then, amazingly, his heavy, bristly features broke into what I assumed was a smile.

“I shall enjoy venturing with you. And even more what will follow."

“If you get out alive.” I nodded at the Khibil sorcerer who came out onto the deck and stood poised by the rail staring down and forward. “He will have to earn his hire."

In what the Hunting Kov said then, I heaved up a sigh of relief. He had accepted me, and with me Seg and Ortyg and Nath, as allies in the ordeals ahead. He spoke without condescension, seriously, discussing our prospects and our resources.

Of the Khibil, he said, “He came to me highly recommended. He has worked miracles in Hamal. His power is great. Also he has a ring which protects him."

“Two items, kov. One, I put no store by rings of protection, or anything else, come to that. Two, I suspect you are the real leader of this expedition and not that blowhard Hurngal."

“Oh, I believe in rings of power. But, yes, this expedition occurred as a result of my work."

The voller slanted down. The suns were declining and their light mingled in a sheening opaline haze. Below us the lake stretched, brown and placid, with the waterfowl quarrelling on the sand spit.

“There are Spiny Ribcrushers growing there. You'll smell ‘em. Steer well clear of them."

“Tell me of this maze."

We leveled out and alighted soft as a feather. I told Loriman something of Csitra's evil handiwork, and felt amusement when he said, “It sounds like a commonplace copy of a Moder. Now, there, Jak, is a maze to destroy the stoutest hearts."

“It's bad enough. The witch is called Csitra. She has a child, a hermaphrodite called Phunik."

“Phunik? I have heard whispers that the Hyr Notor who commanded in Pandahem and was beaten in Vallia and destroyed in Ruathytu was named Phu-Si-Yantong."

I confess, when I heard that name I felt a ticklish old thump of the heart.

“The father of the uhu Phunik."

“Then I owe him death, swift and merciless."

“Excellent!"

Then Loriman said something that revealed more of his character.

“When we are with the Lady Hebe, you will speak to me properly, with propriety. If you do not, our compact is broken and I shall kill you instantly."

I said, “I am never rude to ladies unless they deserve it."

Loriman put a hand to his mouth. “I must say, despite all, I am beginning to feel regret that when this is all over, you must die."

“Oh, we'll see, we'll see."

Seg called across: “We're landing, Jak."

“Aye. The Hunting Kov here and we are allies."

“You say sooth? Well, one must sleep in whatever bed one can find. I'm kitting up."

Loriman stared as Seg strolled off.

“Another one like you, is he?"

“Oh, no.” I felt pleasure as I spoke. “Seg is far worse than I am, believe you me!"

His mouth opened and then shut with a clack. After a space, he said: “I have things to do before we venture inside."

“And I, too. I will see you there, then."

He had a mass of heavily armored guards, and slaves, and retainers, and porters, to organize. I had only to strap on my harness, sling a sack of supplies over my shoulder, and I was ready, weapons to hand.

I said to Ortyg Thingol: “You're not coming into that damned place, young Ortyg."

“Why ever not?” Since he'd been calling me Jak, the rascal had fallen away in his language. I didn't mind.

“Because I say so. And you, Nath the Impenitent, are excused the duty if you wish it."

“Oh,” said Nath in his abrupt and not quite surly way: “I'm going. There's gold. I need gold."

He would be valuable. I explained a little of what we might expect, enlarging on what Seg and I had already related to him, and he did not change his mind.

So, in a great straggling mob, we all walked up to the square and hard-cut opening in the rock. The whole face of the cliff above us, entangled with lianas, was sculptured into grotesque and obscene figures. The Lady Hebe took one look, and turned her head away. Loriman was on one side and Hurngal on the other. They vied with each other for her favors in a most pathetic way. But that convoluted rock, the tangled strings of lianas, the screams of the waterfowl, the heat and stink of the mud, the stinging attacks of the pinheads which had to be continually brushed away, all conduced to a somberness of mood no ludicrous shuffling for position by two grown men about a girl could obliterate or alleviate.

There was no sign of an inscription inviting me to enter. There were the usual ritual curses of doom upon anyone venturing in. We took no notice of them.

“That, at the least,” said Seg, “is something.” Shouldering our packs, weapons in fists, torches flaring, we entered the maze of the Coup Blag.

Chapter fourteen

Into the Coup Blag

Five minutes later I was on my way out of the maze of the Coup Blag.

Under my arm a kicking, wrestling, screaming bundle of trouble tried to trip me up, to bite me, to do anything to stop me from carrying it outside.

Brown curls writhing as though they were Medusa's snakes, Ortyg Thingol jackknifed up and down under my arm. Stolidly, I marched out into the last of the suns light.

“Why can't I go? Why? Why?"

Drak, willful as he always had been, had never reacted in quite this way. I remembered him climbing the trees in the walled garden of Esser Rarioch.

I said, “When I say a thing, I mean it. But, Ortyg, there is another reason. A most important reason, and a secret."

He gasped as I dumped him down on his feet. “What reason, Jak? What secret?"

I looked around with a highly conspiratorial glance for the voller. “Why, I need someone reliable, someone I can trust, to keep an eye on the airboat. If there's any trouble, you'll have to fly the voller and make sure you come back to rescue us."

“Me? Fly the airboat? Rescue you!” Watching him I saw the visions of glory exploding in his head. It was all there, Ortyg Thingol, air cadet, rescuing the emperor ... No. How stupid. Well, it was taking time to adjust. But Ortyg was hooked.

I consigned him into the care of a gentle Relt, with ink stains on his feathers, secretary to Kov Hurngal.

Then I turned and started back for the entrance and Deb-Lu stepped out from bushes that might have eaten a flesh-and-blood man, and said: “Hai, Dray. Delia and Milsi are safe, praise be to Opaz the Unknown."

“Thank you, Deb-Lu, thank you. I shall tell Seg. But you are very faint—"

“I do not wish to alert the witch. But I thought you should know. The fleet had repairs to carry out and all that kind of aerial business to attend to. They will sail for the maze as soon as they can."

Without a remberee, his phantom figure vanished.

Those of you who have followed my story since those first days of mine on Kregan will understand something of my feelings. Liberation, thanksgiving, a sudden seeing of the world in different colors, the stinks turned to scents, the cacophonies to melodies—all this and more. I fairly ran back into the damned Coup Blag to tell Seg the good news.

The darkness stretched up, down, and sideways past the entrance, with a lonely spark from a torch waiting to guide me. In the first stone-cut chamber Nath the Impenitent stood leaning up against the wall, the torch in his left fist. The light revealed the two doors at the far end.

“Hai, Jak,” he said in his gruff way. “Seg is leading on the rabble. I waited to tell you the way they went."

“The last time,” I said, “Strom Ornol chose the right-hand door, and that leads to passages we know. Also, Nath, my friend, in places like these it is not wise to lean up against the wall."

He pushed himself erect with some alacrity.

Then he said, “It is odd, by Vox—by Chusto. In the normal way I would have stood to attention the moment you showed up. But you and Seg are not like the real lords I have had the misfortune to know in the past."

I could still smell the betraying scent of the Spiny Ribcrushers from outside. This Nath the Impenitent had a real down on the aristocracy, and who was to say he had no right? I'd be interested to hear his story, but he remained reticent on that score. He did say he needed gold. Well, most folk do.

“Oh,” I said, moving toward the right-hand door, “there are lords and there are lords."

“Aye. And one of ‘emis this Kov Hurngal. Seg said he'd been down the right-hand door, so—"

“So the oaf chose the left?"

“Yes."

“That is the kind of lord, Nath, we really do not need."

“I've known some in my time who had a remedy for them."

“Like the Fegters, or—"

“We'll have to hurry if we wanta catch ‘em up."

Without another word on that subject we approached the left-hand door. Although I do not pretend to any vast knowledge on the proper construction of Moders and Mazes of the Coup Blag quality, I felt that I would not be surprised if the routes through the two doors joined up in the near future.

The corridor beyond the door showed gray walls flecked with striated veins of glitter. The torch cast its orange glow ahead and the walls seemed to jump in and out of focus. I spoke seriously.

“We do not have a ten-foot pole. We must assume that the party ahead tested the floor for traps. That does not mean there won't be any newly laid for us."

Nath said, “Hold on, Jak! That must mean that—"

“Precisely. Also keep a wary eye aloft for the green slime. Or the newer graygunge. That is not pretty."

From the way I spoke with an intensity of feeling that was out in the open before I realized, anyone would be forgiven for turning a little gray-green themselves. Nath just cocked a suspicious eye around, rolled his shoulders, and started out along the corridor. I brisked up. He was like to prove a good companion.

We caught up with the rest of the party as they were indulging in the usual, and tiresome, arguments on which way to go. They stood in a large circular chamber.

Seg was saying, “I really think it doesn't make much difference which way we go."

“You onker,” rapped out Hurngal. “Of course it matters, otherwise we won't know where we've been or are, will we, voskskull."

Loriman, face scarlet, wanted to argue with Hurngal, as a matter of principal, yet he couldn't understand what Seg meant, either.

There was no spiral staircase in the center of this room to lead us down into the depths. There were three doors, all looking exactly the same. The slaves were already sitting on their bundles, or stretched out on the floor—which was free of dust—and the guards were standing about looking ready to earn their hire.

Eventually, and at pretty short order, too, Kov Loriman blew up.

“By Hito the Hunter! This place is a maze, is it not? We must keep track.” The look he gave Seg indicated with absolute clarity that he'd lost a lot of faith in my comrade.

I said nothing.

Seg spoke in his disconcerting neutral voice.

“I have given you my opinion.” He spotted me. “You must make the decision between you, if you choose to disregard my advice.” He sauntered across to me, stepping carefully between the resting slaves.

With a quick word to Nath, I drew Seg aside.

“I've just had a visit from Deb-Lu. Milsi is safe—"

“Praise Erthyr the Bow! And Delia?"

“Also. Now, my master bowman, we may bend all our energies to this blasted place. I look forward to some enjoyment from Kovs Hurngal and Loriman."

“Aye. And what of the fleet?"

“Knocked about, refitting, due as soon as they can make it. No idea when that will be."

A burst of profanity made us turn, to see Hurngal stride to the center door and give it a thumping kick.

Instinctively, we braced ourselves for whatever horror might leap from that portal.

The door opened onto a corridor which the torchlights showed to be wide, high, and covered with inscriptions. No one, I ventured to think, would be able to read whatever was inscribed there.

“There! A capital way in.” Hurngal looked pleased with himself.

Quietly, Seg said: “These people are taking the whole business far too lightly. By the Veiled Froyvil! Anyone'd think they were out for a gentle stroll and a nice picnic in the light of the suns!"

“Aye. It's all a trifle unreal at the moment."

“When they get a few Lurking Terrors gnawing at their throats, they'll find out."

We all trooped along the corridor. At least they had men up front prodding the floor with ten foot poles. Even the most confident idiot could see the sense of that. A strong yellow light shone from the doorway ahead.

We debouched into a smallish semi-circular room. At the center the head of a spiral staircase cut a dark and ominous hole in the smooth floor. Just above that poised a slate slab. The shape would exactly fit the hole. The lid was upheld by bronze chains extending to the far wall. Above the chains a little balcony, something like a minstrels’ gallery, projected from the stone wall.

“Now I don't like the look of that!” exclaimed Loriman. Well, he'd been down the Moder and therefore should be expected to take this place a sight more seriously than did the others.

“It would be best,” said the Khibil sorcerer in his haughty, distant, way, “if you removed the lid."

“Exactly what I was about to say,” said Hurngal. He swung on his slaves. “Get on with it! Bratch!"

The slaves duly bratched, jumping into the work as though their master stood at their backs with his cane.

The slate lid was manhandled clear of the opening and the slaves jumped aside and allowed it to fall. Instead of shattering into pieces, as would have been expected, it remained intact. It rolled around flatly on its rim, exactly as a coin will squat shuddering onto a table. We all stared and then our attention was riveted by a cackling laugh from the balcony.

Up there a grotesque figure, all dripping greeny-black robes and tassels, waved its arms at us. Skeletal fingers beckoned mockingly. It cackled. Its hood concealed its face except for its mouth, which leered.

San Aramplo brushed up his whiskers and said, “I do not know the name of that. But I shall call it a Cackling Leer."

Loriman's reactions were predictable.

He snatched his bow from the Brokelsh who carried it, slapped an arrow against the string, drew and let fly. The shot was good. The arrow passed clean through the Cackling Leer and bounced harmlessly off the wall.

A gasp of astonishment composed of many individual expressions of fear, surprise, disbelief, rippled around the crowd in the chamber. Hurngal held up his hand ready to quell the disturbance, and the Cackling Leer glided from the balcony, passing, apparently, through the solid wall.

“Ah,” said Seg, “now maybe they'll understand a little more."

“Unhealthy, that thing,” said Nath the Impenitent.

Torches revealed the spiral stairs to circumnavigate the opening twice before reaching the floor below. Each tread could accommodate two men abreast. Strom Tothor in his bold lionman way roared out that he would go first. Sword in fist, he started down the stairs.

Seg and I exchanged glances. In places like the Coup Blag, stairs are notorious.

Seg shoved up to the head of the stairwell, grabbed a ten-foot pole from a guard, and started down to join Tothor. I own I felt jumpy, nervous, and highly wrought up. If a stair tread opened up and swallowed Seg; if one spewed a thicket of darts through his body; if a scimitar-like blade swept up between the joins to slice him—I pushed my way through the throng clustered, hesitating, around the hole. They let me through readily enough. I skipped down after Seg as he stolidly thumped each tread before trusting it.

“The damned riser, Seg. They can spit nasties."

“Aye. I'm giving them a thwack as well."

We reached the foot of the stairs and Tothor, with his numim roar bellowed: “All clear!"

The torch showed a dressed-stone passage extending in both directions. We stood aside as the people came down, two by two, and together left us to go marching up the right hand passageway flaring his torch.

At the center of the last group of guards came the Lady Hebe. She was dressed appropriately enough for the expedition, with moccasins upon her feet, the robes discarded and replaced by a chamois-skin tunic.

She reached the bottom step and went to walk past us. I was sure she intended to say nothing. She did not even look at us.

The fellow at her back loomed large even for a Chulik, and his shaven head had been coated with gold leaf. His pigtail, likewise, was sheathed in gold leaf. His armor was complete, his weapons many, and his bearing such as to convey to everybody that here was a man not to be contumed. We knew that the Lady Hebe reposed trust in him.

A laugh drifted down the stairwell.

We all looked up.

Up there the hooded form of the Cackling Leer showed, peering over and down at us. The horrid cackle scratched at our nerve-endings. The echoes bounced like a swarm of insects around the spiral stairway.

We all heard the creaking, groaning, heavy sound, and I suspect most of us guessed what it was instantly.

A round black shape appeared at one side of the hole. Like an eclipse, the lid slid over the light, making that inhuman groaning sound. The cackling faded and was gone. Gone like the light. Stygian darkness enveloped us and our sparks of torches.

“I believe,” said Seg, “that no matter how many slaves they try, they won't budge that stopper."

Chapter fifteen

Of the cost of discovery

The Chulik took his helmet off his belt and put it on, covering up the golden-covered skull of which he was so proud. Pride is one emotion Chuliks know. Trained from birth to be fighting men and mercenaries, they know little of the gentler human emotions. His three-inch tusks stuck up from the corners of his mouth and, of course, they were banded in gold.

“We will get out when we have to, my lady."

“Yes, Scancho, I do not doubt it for a moment."

At least somebody was trying to keep their spirits up, then.

The Lady Hebe went on: “It were better if the others do not hear of this at the front. Tell your men the same, Scancho. If they disobey me they know it will go badly for them."

“Quidang, my lady."

Giving Seg, Nath, and me a searching stare, shesaid: “You had best keep your black-fanged winespouts shut, too. Dernun?"

I was enchanted. She'd used a common flowery description more often found among the low-life of Kregen than among the nobs. Then, the way she'd cut that dernun out, capiche, savvy, gottit, marked her as well-habituated to command. I formed a pretty little theory regarding the Lady Hebe.

“I shall inform Kov Loriman and Strom Tothor,” I said equably.

Again that damn-you-to-hell stare. Then: “Yes."

The Chulik, who wore Jiktar markings, started to bristle up, but I started off down the passageway and Seg and Nath shouldered after. Still, the woman provided another interesting if unimportant enigma down in the mazes of the Coup Blag where the enigmas, besides hurtling at a fellow thick and fast, were important, frighteningly important, by Vox.

The others had marched past a series of doors which now stood open and I suspected they'd had a look inside each one. All were uniformly empty, some clean, some dusty, and some stinking with putrefaction still hanging on the air.

Hurngal had left a slave at the intersection of a cross corridor. The poor fellow shook on his naked feet, his bald head—alas unbuttered—shining with sweat. He directed us straight ahead and, with Hebe's party trotting along, we followed the slave to the next chamber. This was quite unremarkable save for the corpse of a man newly slain in the corner. He was apim, and, I thought, not one of our party. We hurried on through the center door of five and so, traversing a twisting passageway that turned generally left rather than right, we came to a brilliantly lit hexagonal room of considerable size. Here the expedition once again was involved in discussions on the best route.

Looking at the room, I said to Seg, “It is not the same, clearly, but it presumably serves the same function as the one we visited."

“Aye."

“In that case—"

“In that case, my old dom, I am going to broach some of this wine we are carrying outside instead of inside."

Nath the Impenitent stared at us; but he took his cup of wine readily enough. The rest joined up and the Lady Hebe stood closer to Hurngal than she did to Loriman.

Now this hexagonal room contained twelve doors set equally in the sides. Each door was of a different color.

The corpses of two chavonths lay toward the center, and just beyond them a pile of bones spilled in such disorder it would need a paleontologist to decipher to which species of diffs they had belonged. There were, also, and these I marked well, over by the black door, half a dozen hellhounds. They had been hacked to pieces. The slaves would not go near them, and the guards prodded them experimentally.

Eventually Hurngal led off through the green door and the rest traipsed along after. When the chamber was nearly emptied of our people, Nath said: “We'd best get on."

“Sit easily, Nath. They'll be back."

“Oh?"

“Unless the green door is the right one."

“I see."

I wondered if he did, but I let that pass. He'd find out quickly enough when the expedition marched back in through another door, tired and frustrated.

This they did quite quickly, to see that we three sat at our ease, drinking sociably.

“How in a Herrelldrin Hell did you arrive here before me?” demanded Loriman. “I did not see you pass."

I said, “We did not, pantor. If the leaders of the expedition had listened, we could have told you that you stood ten chances out of twelve of returning here."

“Well, you rast,” cried Hurngal. “Which damned door is it, then?"

“That, we cannot say for certain. Last time and not from this chamber although from one very like it, the turquoise door led to a banqueting hall."

“Then I shall go through the turquoise door,” declared Hurngal, as though he'd chosen it himself.

“I would really like to rest for a while,” said the Lady Hebe. Her Chulik cadade, her guard captain, glowered at her shoulder.

Loriman opened his mouth, and Hurngal snapped out, “Very well, my lady. For a short rest only, mind, for by Hanitcha the Harrower, I mean to take away the gold from this place."

After we had rested, we trooped through the turquoise door and the lead fellow with his pole, a Rapa, had time only to let out a single screech before he vanished into the hole his prodding opened up.

We looked down the hole; but the torches showed merely blank walls as far as we could see.

We edged around the trap and went on, and now the prodders prodded with divine devoutness.

All the same, a tough-bodied and heavily armored ranstak, with those hooded eyes and compressed features, staggered drunkenly. A shaft from a slit in the wall had spat out and transfixed his neck. He fell over sideways, thrashing with his tail very much as a Kataki would do in similar circumstances. The prodders now regarded every slight shadow in the walls with the gravest suspicion.

Well, they were learning, and it was taking the lives of men to teach them.

I bent down to the ranstak. From his thick waist I unstrapped one of his leather belts. This one swung the scabbard for a short sword. The blade was neat, trim, not too broad, admirably suited to the close-in work one must expect in tunnels and caverns.

Giving the ranstak a salute with the blade, I committed him to the care of his god, whose name I did not then know, and went on.

“You did not,” observed Nath, “take his armor."

“Wouldn't fit."

With the short sword at my side to add to the longsword partially hidden down my back under the brown cloak, corded back, from Mistress Tlima, I was well on the way to equipping myself. Seg and Nath would do the same, in time, for it was quite clear the expedition was going to suffer more casualties.

I knew Seg had his eye on a tall red-headed fellow who strode along lithely, his bow in his fist.

What shifts we come to when needs we must!

All the same, I did say to Seg: “Maybe in confined quarters, Seg, a compound reflex may be handier than a long. Same as swords."

“Such beliefs may fester in the minds of the feeble, my old dom. I know what I know about bows."

Well, you couldn't say fairer than that, for in my view there is no finer bowman on two worlds than Seg Segutorio, known hereabouts as Seg the Horkandur.

At the next opportunity when we were traversing a bridge over a chasm boiling with fires, smoldering with fumes that sickened us, I eased my way close to Loriman. From the vast cesspit in the floor rose a cloud of black winged figures. Their eyes gleamed red, their fangs were serrations of yellow needles, their clawed wings flapped black against the glow. With screeches wrung from hell they flew upon us in a swarm of biting, tearing, clawing terror.

At once everyone was smiting away, slashing and swirling their weapons, desperate to keep these furry little horrors off. Each was not much larger than a fairly grown crow, but their rows of needle teeth ripped flesh away; their claws fastened like grappling hooks. I had a brief glimpse of a Rapa covered with the things as though they nested on him. His feathers erupted among gouts of his blood.

The short sword proved handy, able to swat the flying horrors away as though I played at some macabre game of tennis. Loriman's blade dazzled alongside. How many of the things there might be there was no way of knowing. We all started to run across the bridge, swiping away over our heads. The slaves, as is usual, suffered badly.

Without stopping to reck that Seg stayed with me, I hung back, trying to give some protection to the half-naked slaves as they ran, using their burdens to give themselves some protection. The flying beasts stank of the cesspit below. The fires and fumes, the smoke, the dizzying swarms of furry devils, created a scene direct from an authentic portrait of hell.

San Aramplo, the Khibil mage, crawled on his hands and knees and slaves were tripping over him. I got my left hand under his armpit and hoisted him. There was not a mark on him and I just missed a swipe at a little flyer who nipped in to rip down San Aramplo's face. The needle teeth rebounded.

“No time, no time,” the Khibil stuttered. He held out his right hand and tried to make a sign, and at once he almost fell, twisting himself out of the way of a fresh attack. That one I did not miss and smashed back into the inferno whence he came.

“If they cannot harm you, stand up and magic them away!"

“It is not as easy as that, you hulu—let me go!"

I gave him a hefty shove in the direction of the tunnel mouth at the end of the bridge. “And keep out of the way of the slaves!” I bellowed after him.

Seg's sword flicked a black-winged horror from my shoulder. “We appear to have an apology for a sorcerer with us this time, my old dom."

“Aye.” And slash, swipe, blow after blow, driving the things away.

We gained the shelter of the tunnel entrance, and turned to look back at the bridge. Bodies lay there, and scattered bundles, and much had fallen into the pit.

We were penetrating deeper into the heart of this evil maze of the Coup Blag; but at a fearful cost.

Chapter sixteen

"I never was fond of skelebones!"

Among the many half-obliterated marks cut into the walls at corners and turnings, the heart, lobed, slashed through with a sword, passed as just another sign among many. That mark was the sign of Spikatur Hunting Sword.

Hurngal had one of his people busily cutting a fresh mark at points where we changed direction. He used the Kregish block script initials H.h.H. I had to smile. I wondered just how many folk there were in Hamal with those self-same initials.

Loriman cast me a quizzical look. We'd paced each other since leaving that bridge of midget flying horrors and I had lost that opportunity of talking to him.

With floor, walls, and ceiling well tested before us, we marched on through a succession of chambers wherein the magnificence of the furnishings, the grandeur of column and pediments, of frieze and gallery, might have overawed but for the decay and mildew, the damp and worms that infested everywhere. This was like walking through a palace lost for centuries.

We ran across two Bearded Phantoms, fought and slew a scaled risslaca with horned head, managed to avoid some whining Mind Leeches, and were nearly done by a pack of skeletons. These last clanked and clattered out of wall-high slots of stone. Well, I'd handled skeletons before and, Zair willing, had the knack of it and would do it again.

I unlimbered the Krozair longsword and set to work.

With Seg at my side and Nath slashing and cursing away next to him, we went at it hammer and tongs. Yellow bones flew through the air. Grinning skulls toppled. People were screaming and running, the puffing dust stank in our nostrils, we sweated and hacked and hewed and slashed the skeletons into fragments about us.

Twice I hewed down a gangling but lethal bundle of bones from before Kov Loriman. He grunted and swore and swung his sword in massive blows that sundered the sere bones like kindling.

When it was all over, we waved our open hands to sweep the clinging dust away and to gain a little fresh air. The light remained level and constant, not as brightly yellow as in some of the rooms but amply sufficient for our needs.

Seg shook his wild black hair back.

“By the Veiled Froyvil! I never was fond of skelebones!"

“They'll do for you,” ground out Loriman. “I have hunted them before. If they fasten their jaws in you—you're done for."

“I,” put in Nath the Impenitent, “have not fought these skelebones of yours before this, having always lived a rational life. By Chozputz! One does see life down here!"

“And death, if you don't jump sharp enough.” Loriman abruptly turned from being a normal decent comrade into the domineering Hunting Kov as he bellowed at his retainers: “Collect up your bundles, you lazy cramphs!"

Then he swung back to glare haughtily at me.

“I said I had seen you before, Jak, the Bogandur, although you were not dubbed the Bogandur then. I thought you dead."

“You got out past the statue of Kranlil the Reaper,” I said. “Yes."

He sucked in a breath. He stared at me as though I'd risen from the grave before his eyes just like those poor damned skelebones.

Then he said, “We did well, did we not, in the Chamber of the Flame in that Armipand-begotten Moder?"

We talked for a space about that fraught time. Loriman told me he considered this maze vastly inferior to that one at Moder.[7]

[7 See: A Fortune for Kregen, Dray Prescot #21.A.B.A.]

I said, “I have often thought of you and wondered how you fared.” Then, because I could not stop my prattling tongue from waggling, I added, “You are somewhat different now from what you were then."

“I have seen what happened to Spikatur. That would turn a saint."

I'd told Seg many and many a time a great deal of what had chanced down the Moder, so he was able to keep abreast of the conversation.

Loriman said, “That great damned bar of iron you call a sword convinced me. I did not really believe, not until you spoke."

The Krozair longsword had carefully gone back into the scabbard so cunningly hitched over my back. We walked on out of that chamber of desiccated skelebones and into another where we had a brief set to with a pack of Crippling Crabs. The next room offered the chance to get to grips with a herd of mummies, all duly linen-wrapped after one of the fashions of Balintol. Some of these we burned.

The Lady Hebe, sheathing her sword, walked over to say, “I would like a rest now, and Hurngal wants to press on."

Before Loriman could stop himself, so wrought up was he on this sore point, he burst out: “I see! When you want me to do something for you about that damned man then you ask. I see!"

“If that is the way you wish to speak to me, after all that has passed—"

“Aye, Hebe! Passed seems right. I'll tell Hurngal, d'you understand that? I'll tell him!"

On that instant a hullabaloo broke out from those in front who had just passed out of this chamber, exclamations of astonishment and cries of wonder and delight.

I believe I knew what this meant. Seg said: “Y'know what that means, Jak?"

Everybody ran off to see the new wonders for themselves. I put a hand to my chin.

“Aye. There's a big room up there beautifully furnished, with tables groaning under food and drink, and comfortable beds and curtains and everything weary delvers could require. And, Seg, y'know what that means?"

“I do."

Neither of us wanted to say the confounded name aloud. But both of us knew that Csitra had provided the repast and rest, and that was clear evidence that she had us under observation, was spying on us.

We were drawing closer to her. Slowly we were finding our way through her maze of tricks and traps, of monsters and magic. What we both recognized was that she was in control. She would allow us to reach her only when she wished, after she and her uhu Phunik had had their fun with us.

Had Khe-Hi and Ling-Li been with us, as had been planned, would there have been a difference? Perhaps this Khibil sorcerer might yet live up to his high reputation. I was confident enough to take a wager on it that had Khe-Hi been on the bridge when the little flying furry horrors attacked he would have banished them back to their cesspit before they could stick a single needle-tooth into anyone's flesh. Still, maybe the apparent lack of competence of our Khibil San Aramplo had not drawn Csitra's attention, for it was certain she'd have known if Khe-Hi and Ling-Li ventured in—unless, well, if Deb-Lu could sneak in here without her knowing, then so could his colleagues, surely...?

So with these muddled thoughts in my noggin I trailed along with Seg after the mob into the splendors we anticipated.

Seg and I sat down at one of the laden tables and began to eat and drink.

Loriman said, “Is that wise?"

Seg swallowed down and reached for a fresh bottle.

“The last time the food had no ill effects."

“By Numi-Hyrjiv the Golden Splendor!” bellowed Strom Tothor. “Save some for a thirsty fellow who's walked a wearisome way!"

Seg laughed and handed over the bottle and the lion-man upended it over his mouth.

Everywhere people descended on the food like famished warvols. The slaves ate themselves into stupors, and Hurngal had to order the guards to keep the slaves away from the drink. I wondered if these guards would stay away from it themselves for long enough to remain compos mentis. The notion of a pack of drunken slaves and guards rollicking about these treacherous passageways might seem attractive; it would be self-defeating in the end.

The pathetic way in which the Lady Hebe and Kov Loriman circled around each other, allowing far more than the usual required amount of body space, might have been amusing in other circumstances. Kov Hurngal looked to be in the driver's seat here, winning all the way down the line.

Loriman stormed over to us and threw himself down on one of the marvelously upholstered and decorated chairs, all twining vine-leaves picked out with gold leaf and pearls. His eyebrows made a black bar of baffled fury.

“That man!” Having, as it were, broken the ice with us and put his foot in it, he accepted the consequences of confidences. At that, I suspected he, being the choleric, outspoken damn-you-to-hell person he was, welcomed the opportunity he found so rarely of being able to talk to someone instead of shouting orders or insults at them.

I leaned forward on the smooth linen napery. “When I said I believed you to be the leader, I see I was wrong. But that man—"

“I am the instigator. The Lady Hebe was my friend, and she very willingly agreed to get to know Hurngal and persuade him to finance the expedition."

“Ah,” said Seg, wisely. “These things always cost money."

“And you, kov—” and here I gave Loriman a look he must recognize as shrewd “—spent all yours either for or against Spikatur."

“Aye. Both."

“We all have our own purposes for venturing here. You just picked Hurngal out of a hat?"

“More or less. He has money, connections, and he is Hamalese."

Loriman, like the fabled Spatzentarl Volcano on the lost island of Naripur, boiled and bubbled within himself and refused to allow himself to blow up. He simmered dangerously close to an explosion, though, and he wanted to talk to someone; that was perfectly plain.

“Why Hamalese?"

“Oh, I trusted he would be killed down here."

“Yet the Lady Hebe—"

“I did not intend to bring her. That was her and that cramph Hurngal's idea."

Seg said, “I had the honor and the wonderful good fortune down here to meet the lady who is now my wife, praise be to—” A tiny hesitation, then: “Pandrite All-Glorious."

Loriman was too wrought up in his own problems to take much notice of what anyone else told him. He brooded, brows drawn down, face fierce, gripping a golden chalice slopping with red wine.

“When Spikatur fought against the Hamalese, those were the days. Now, Spikatur is criminal."

I said, “You know that this witch runs SHS for her own dark ends?"

“I didn't. She will die with all the others, never fear."

“At the moment she merely toys with us. This is a kind of refined torture in which she specializes. Her uhu is less subtle. They will amuse themselves with us for a space yet, and, in Armipand's vile truth, we have seen very little of the horrors yet."

Well, Csitra did toy with us. A full record of our travels and travails on this occasion in the Coup Blag would run to many cassettes, I feel, but if you can taste the flavor of the place, the darkness and the unexpected illumination, the sense of constant pressure, of eyes watching, of ears listening and the sudden devastating onslaught of nightmare creatures, beasts of claw and fang, and insubstantial wraiths of mind-numbing power, if, I say, then perhaps you may also gather a little of the expedition's growing distress.

One item of information I did not pass on to Loriman was my belief that Csitra had no further use for Spikatur Hunting Sword, and that therefore the organization was already finished. Loriman, in the mood he was in, might not have relished that. Also, he might have decided to quit the search and attempt to march his people out.

By this time, as we wended our way deeper and deeper into the maze, Seg, Nath, and I were fully armed and accoutered. Seg had his long bow; the poor red-headed fellow from Loh had vanished head first into a giant stone flower that came alive and sucked him in. His boots and his bow were all that were left of a stalwart Bowman of Loh.

This continual drain of lives was wearing the expedition down.

Everyone wondered who would be next.

The principals of the party originally made the decision to enter the Coup Blag. Their reasons might vary; still they were responsible for themselves.

“By the agate-winged jutmen of Hodan-Set!” rasped Kov Loriman. “We must be drawing near by now!"

We slid cautiously down a slanting ramp of pure white marble, shiny and slippery under a pervasive yellow glow from the fire-crystal ceiling. I hitched the longsword and the torch I carried stuck through my belt—unlit, of course—more comfortably, and slid down with Seg and Nath. The ramp debouched into a chamber of somber magnificence.

Thirty or forty heavy iron-bound boxes stood stacked against one wall, half-draped by a green curtain with golden tassels.

“Treasure chests!” shouted Kov Hurngal, and strode across exultantly.

He touched the chests and nothing happened. We dragged them down and nothing happened. We opened the first and threw the lid back—and still nothing happened.

The chest was crammed to the top with golden coins.

Loriman's lip curled as Hurngal directed his people to transfer the gold from chests to sacks.

“At last!” cried the Rapa zhanpaktun, Tyr Rogarsh the Rattler. “By Rhapaporgolam the Reiver of Souls! It has taken long enough, but we have found the treasure."

Seg said to Loriman, “Two things, kov. One, gold is too heavy for delvers to carry out. Two, I understand the witch is capable of causing it to turn molten and burn and flow away to nothing."

“Aye,” I said, nodding. “The gold will melt, although it may not have been this witch who caused that when I witnessed it."

Loriman's heavy face showed a grimace of pleasure. “Is Hurngal then on a fool's errand?"

“Oh, there is probably genuine treasure about,” said Seg, airily.

In their manic delving the slaves were simply scooping handfuls of gold from the chests and filling their sacks, not bothering to empty one chest before passing on to the next. Nath hitched forward a wallet he'd picked up.

“Gold is something I need. If it melts, it melts. That I will risk, by Chusto!"

He reached into the first chest which had been pretty well emptied before the slaves simply scooped up the easier gold from chest to chest. I looked at him with sympathetic understanding.

A corpse-white tentacle as thick through as a man's arm whipped out of the box, lapped Nath, dragged him in.

“Nath!"

I leaped. I reached the chest and was dragging out my sword when a second tentacle slapped its corpse-white length about me. Headfirst I went into the box after Nath. The bottom of the box did not halt that hurtling descent. Neither did the floor of the chamber.

Helplessly, wrapped in tentacles, Nath and I plummeted down, clean out of the chamber into pitchy blackness.

Chapter seventeen

Concerning a toad's supper

We hit the water with an almighty splash.

Deep, we were dragged, deep beneath the surface. The tentacle constricted about me like a steel band, trapping my left arm. The short sword remained in its scabbard. There was no time now to wonder how Nath fared. In that automatic gasp as the tentacle caught me and hauled me down, my lungs had not exactly equipped me for a dive underwater.

Accounted a merman as a swimmer and a fish as a diver though I may be, I am only apim. Air! If I didn't get a breath of fresh air pretty damn quick I was done for.

The old sailor knife scabbarded over my right hip came out with oiled sweetness.

I knew where the tentacle was, all right, I could feel it pressing in on my chest. I put the knife against it and then with a burst of savage anger sawed the blade across, and across again, and then lifted it, dug the point in, and so sawed again like a manic witch stirring a magic brew.

The tentacle unwrapped and nearly took my knife with it. The blackness surrounding me was shot through with little flecks of fire. They were in my eyes, not in the water.

Something big and soft bumped against my side. There was just time enough for me to stay the automatic knife thrust. This bulky lolling object was Nath the Impenitent and I felt the thick tentacle about him. I severed that one as I had severed the one pinioning me.

Grasping Nath and queasily conscious that whatever monstrous thing had seized us with his tentacles might have more than two, I shot for the surface.

I knew that here in Csitra's maze, created for her enjoyment, at least one lake swarmed with fish and monsters all teeth and jaws. They'd chew up a school of piranha before breakfast.

Nath in my left arm, my legs kicking, I retained the knife in my right fist. Something cold hit my thigh and I struck down without thought.

Fish or another tentacle, I did not know. Whatever it was, it went away.

Just when I knew I couldn't last another heartbeat, my head popped out of the water into air that, musty and stinking of fish though it was, tasted like the best Kregen air on a headland of Valka.

I hoisted Nath up, used the back of my hand on his cheek, and looked about into that unremitting darkness.

No! Not quite! A leaching sickly green light, low on the water, just ahead. It could not be far. Using my legs easily, trying not to make a commotion in the water, and towing Nath along at my side, I persevered, and felt the shock of relief as my feet hit soft mud.

By the time I'd crawled out and pulled Nath clear, we were both covered in the evil-smelling gunk.

Nath still breathed and after I'd pumped some water out of him he spluttered and spat and choked out: “By Vox, Jak! You saved me. I thought I was on the one-way journey to the Ice Floes of Sicce then."

“We're not out of it yet, dom."

“No. But I give you thanks for my life. Now where?"

“Look there."

The green light emanated from a swarm of tiny creatures like glow-worms contained in a transparent shell dangling on a line. I noticed the creatures were not trapped, for some crawled to an opening and flew off, extinguishing their light as they did so. The line depended from a spiral extension from the forehead of a monster like a giant toad, horse size, that sat crouched and waiting with open mouth. The green light dangled before that open gaper.

As we watched, a bat-shape, all glints of orange and silver, swooped with jaws agape at the cluster of fireflies. With a single convulsive gulp, the giant frog took him, took him in whole. The wide horny mouth snapped shut, the flaccid skin of the throat bulged and swallowed, and the mouth opened again ready for the next.

We did not approach the green light bait, and the monster toad ignored us.

“Looks as though we are stuck,” commented Nath.

“I'm not prepared to peg out on a filthy bit of mud watching a toad catch his supper."

“So?"

“I've no idea."

With an enormous splashing and a sucking sound the water boiled and a tentacular shape reared upward. Green light glinted from its glistening hide. Corpse-white tentacles snaked aloft, striking unerringly for a hole in the unseen roof—a hole that appeared where it had not been before, that disgorged a shrieking man, and that closed up again the moment its evil work had been accomplished.

The massive body with one of its two tentacles fastened about the man, fell back into the water. We saw no more of that poor devil.

“Magic and monsters,” said Nath. “I see."

“We can't stay here forever,” I said, somewhat peevishly. “Let us go and explore."

The torch I carried thrust through my belt would need to be dried out before it could be used; the spare in my pack was roused out, tinder and steel were struck, and we had a light.

“When delving,” I said, “it is wise to wrap everything in waterproof oiled silk or membrane."

“I'll remember."

I quite liked this Nath the Impenitent. Laconic, he had a nice caustic way with him.

Our torch had no attractions for the orange-and-silver batlike creatures. They lusted after tender green fireflies, and were consigned to the inward parts of the monstrous toad. We left him to get on with his supper, and I wondered how long he had been there, and how long he would have to remain there in the future.

The spit of mud ahead broadened in the light of our torch into a graveled way that led into a wide shelf of rock above the water.

The going was treacherous. We were still dripping from our harness, and the leather would need some attention in the not-too-distant future. The temperature, on the cold side, was not too inconveniencing, and we made out a flight of steps leading upward into the darkness above the reach of our torch.

“Yes, Jak, I know,” said Nath before I needed to speak. “Stairways are treacherous here."

“We must go up."

“Assuredly."

Prodding with our swords, checking everything twice over, we made our way up.

Nath's sword point went clean through the apparently solid rock of a tread.

“Painted parchment. There'll be stakes under there, sharp."

“Aye."

A loose stone lay dead in the center of the top step.

I stretched out, and this time I used the longsword. A quick twist sent the stone skittering off. In the same instant a damned great set of spears slammed across the head of the stairway. They ripped across with points glittering. Those points, still glittering and unstained with our blood, tucked neatly into slots cut to receive them. The five spears formed a gate to our egress.

“Um,” said the Impenitent. “Awkward."

“If they're on springs we may be able to force them back."

“Then, by Chozputz! Let us try!"

“Stand by the points. When I have them drawn enough, slip through."

He didn't argue. I laid hands on the second and third spear haft, drew in a breath, and hauled back.

The springs were powerful. I could feel the resisting pressure; but I put my back into it and hauled with a will and slowly, slowly, with a creaking groan of protest, the spears eased back. The points came free of the slots. Keeping the movement smooth I forced the spears back and back and then Nath with his guts drawn in, slipped through.

With a smashing ripping sound the spears socked back into their slots as I released them.

“Now you, Jak."

Nath hauled. He hauled with a will and the sweat started out on his forehead. His biceps bulged. He swore and struggled and got the spearheads out of the slots and then he could force them back no farther.

“They're slipping!"

I put my fists on the hafts just beyond the shaped heads. I arched my back. I thrust. I pushed the spears back, and Nath laid on again with a surge of power, and with a final burst of frenzied energy, the spears were free and I could slide through.

“By Vox!” he said, panting. “You have the strength of a dozen nikvoves!"

I made no answer but turned around to survey what new perils we must encounter in this ghastly place.

At this point Csitra and Phunik put on a splendid show for us. At least, for the poor wights who were trapped down here.

First, a procession of mewling goblins fell on us. After we had chopped them, a crazed herd of Shrinking Phantoms gibbered and clawed to their own destruction. Three Lurking Fears nearly had us; but we rallied and drove them off with contemptuous words as well as cold steel. A handful of unnamables were hewed to pieces, and coiling vapors which stank like a fish souk in a drought sent us, green-faced, charging full on them. Then, after a few more passes with objectionable creatures both material and immaterial, we were confronted by a clacking collection of skeletons.

“Skelebones,” declared the Impenitent, highly disgusted. “We know how to deal with them!"

So, deal with them we duly did, and left bits and pieces of sundered bones strewn upon the rocky floor.

“Somebody is failing to impress, dom,” said Nath. “That I truly declare."

“You are right. But we are not out of it yet."

The passageways we cautiously traversed were still jagged; but we progressed up two more floors and the architecture of the corridors became more refined.

One room into which we peered with due precautions, for the door stood open, revealed a hideous idol of a demon god upon a throne. “No,” I said, rapping it out, sharp and hard. “We will not go in there."

Shortly thereafter we ran across a chamber sumptuously decked and spread with a banquet for two. So, down we sat and ate and drank.

“They like to keep their victims nice and fresh,” said Nath. “That suits me."

He drank, I noticed, without his habitual and automatic rationing of himself, for he was a swod of Vallia. He also did not realize the potency of some of the wines. In any event he caught himself, and threw the last flagon onto the floor. But his tongue was loosened.

In no regular order I learned he'd been apprenticed to a silversmith but had preferred to go off and learn the trade of armorer. He was the first son of parents who, having bred four fine sons and three beautiful daughters, went and got themselves drowned in one of Vondium's canals. Then the troublous times hit Vallia, and Nath had gone off to be a soldier, something hardly available to anyone of Vallia unless they went abroad to be a paktun.

He had never been a mercenary. He had fought Vallia's enemies. He had a chestful of bobs; but he'd lost the medals when he'd been knocked off Shango Lady.

“Then it all went wrong,” he said, and the mournfulness that would have been amusing at another time rang painfully true. “Those Opaz-forsaken Leem-Lovers!"

I sat quiveringly alert. Now what?

“Took her, they did, took my sister's little Sassy. Gave her sweets and a new white dress, and a bangle. My own sister, Francine, and that husband of hers, Fortro. It was their fault. If I'd found ‘em, I'd have killed ‘em stone dead on the spot, by Vox!"

I waited. He rambled on, a broad palm against his forehead, his elbow on the table.

“Bought her back, I did. Gave those stinking rasts broad red gold for little Sassy."

I ventured, “But you have paid them. Do you still need the gold to repay the debt?"

“Debt? Aye, it's a debt. They said I stole the money. Stole it from my own regiment. Well, I borrowed it and then I was disappointed of my promotion and there was no gold. I could have managed it, I could."

Now, when I used to be the Emperor of Vallia, I could not obviously know everything that went on all over the entire empire. When Nath rambled on about his court-martial and the way the nobs had it in for him, I knew I had no knowledge of that particular court-martial, although as a matter of principal I'd tried to have the records of everyone sent to me for perusal. You can't be everywhere at once. All the same, I felt guilt. I ought to have known.

“They sent me off to train up coys. And reduced me to the ranks. So I joined the Vallian Air Service when the wars at last ended. And here I am."

I took some comfort from the fact that had Nath done something for which he had received the death sentence, then I would most certainly have known fully everything there was to know about his case. I had the case of Renko the Murais as a guidelight, there.

Stating the obvious, I said, “I suppose you refused to plead guilty and so acquired your sobriquet of the Impenitent."

“Assuredly so, Jak, assuredly so."

Then his head went down plonk upon the table and he started to snore. He blew a neat little circle of bread crumbs away from his head on the table.

Such, then, it seemed, was the tragedy of this man's life. What he had said of Lem the Silver Leem remained ominous. I just hoped the temple of his sister and her husband was the same as the one the prefect had burned down.

If the evil cult ever got a grip in Vallia, bad times would follow. Then the odd and unsettling notion occurred to me that I had to think of these problems not as the emperor, but as merely another citizen. Oh, yes, I still had broad lands and many estates in Vallia; Delia and I would not starve. Drak and Silda had the imperial provinces now.

I had not asked Nath why he had not demanded the right to have his case referred to the emperor, for I had heard the way Nath contumed the said emperor.

This hairy, hard, barrel-bodied fellow snoring away with his head on the table just did not like the aristocracy. Well, I'd had a few run-ins with them in the past myself.

After a good rest and another meal we set off again. We passed through a series of uninteresting corridors where discarded flang husks crunched underfoot to reach a tall and most imposing archway. The doors were shut.

“I'm not going back,” I said, and pushed the right-hand door. It moved smoothly open.

The hall within was vast. Opulent encrustations festooned ceiling and columns. The drapes were velvet thick and wine red. The marble floor shimmered in its whiteness. The sweet scent of flowers on the air reached us pleasantly. Ranged tier on tier around three sides stretched upholstered benches. They were uniformly empty. At the center of the hall and the focus of the tiered seating lay a pool of water. Thick marble walled the water. The liquid sent gentle drifts of steam upward.

“Capital!” declared Nath. “A bath is just what we need."

I agreed. We poked all around and found nothing untoward. The water, when we tested it, was warm and aromatically scented and most inviting. We stripped off and plunged in.

Well, and—of course—we should not have done that foolish thing.

When our heads broke the surface after the dive all the tiered seating was crowded to capacity with gawking crowds—not apims, men and women, but ghouls, creepie-crawly horrors, skelebones, vampires, all creatures of horror, leering and gibbering upon us.

The croaking hissing noise they made filled us with revulsion. They were enjoying the entertainment.

And the water grew hot.

It heated up with incredible speed. In only moments it would reach boiling point.

The night's entertainment here was plain. We were to be boiled alive for these horrific creatures’ pleasure.

Chapter eighteen

Deb-Lu's boiling water trick

We both started swimming like madmen for the marble lip of the basin, and the water swirled and boiled and forced us back as though we sought to swim up a waterfall.

I was making progress; but the water grew hotter and hotter, and I did not wish to leave Nath.

Through the steam, something—and it was not a random something—made me glance toward the doors we had entered. Seg stood there, with Loriman and the Khibil sorcerer. Seg was shaking San Aramplo like a rag doll. Other members of the expedition could vaguely be glimpsed crowding up.

The sorcerer shook his head, and there was in the unhappy gesture his hand-tendered resignation, denial and despair.

My head went down, steam boiled up and I could see nothing further.

The bloody water was hot. Like the Tormenting Baths of a Herrelldrin Hell, the water scalded and ripped at us, breathing became an agony, and all the time I thrashed and splashed on and Nath spluttered away at my side.

Then, with a sudden awfulness breathtaking in its authority, the water rose from the boiling pool.

I landed with a thump on my feet on the marble floor of the bath. Nath sprawled out, gasping like a stranded fish. The water lifted, swirled, formed, became a single shining ball. Lights glinted from the glistening surface. The ball spun and rivulets of silver and red and ocher and green reflected in dazzling runnels from the surface. A single enormous globe, it hung over our heads.

I could still smell the hot steamy atmosphere of the boiling pool. The water did not drip from me. Like Nath, I was bone dry. All the water coalesced into that supernal globe above our heads.

With stunning speed the globe flattened, became a disc.

Faster and faster that disc whirled like a circular saw laid on its side to slice logs. Faster and faster. And then the flat disc spat itself in a Catherine wheel of watery destruction, spewed out to drench the tiered seating and all those macabre watchers there!

Gibbering and shrieking, those ghastly travesties fled.

The hall emptied of that blasphemous life and left only the people of the expedition crowding in, shouting to us.

Nath and I climbed out and started to put our clothes on and buckle up our harnesses.

“Jak! By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom, I thought you boiled and served up tasty then!"

Amid a babble of greetings, I told Seg that he was the greatest, grandest, most splendid fellow in all of Kregen. Then I relented, for I had been more than a trifle over the top in emotional terms, and added that I was mightily surprised to see he'd still survived some of the traps all the wagers in gold under the suns would never spot.

He responded in kind, and we started off happily slanging each other's prowess, until I said that I was glad the Khibil sorcerer had done his stuff at last.

San Aramplo shook his head. For a Khibil, and a Khibil sorcerer at that, he looked highly cast down.

“I could do nothing. Pantor Seg here tried to make me, but I knew I could not."

“But you did!” rasped out Loriman.

“Oh, aye, I did. But I felt a force through me, a force I have never experienced before in all my seasons as acolyte and master mage of the Thaumaturges of Thagramond."

I gave Seg a look. He knew. So one of our Wizards of Loh, or our comrade Witch of Loh, had reached in with their superior kharrna and, using San Aramplo as a tool, had turned the boiling water trick against those ghastly gawkers.

“You did exceedingly well, San,” boomed Kov Hurngal with all the confidence in Kregen. “My trust in your reputation was well-founded. Well, I am not surprised. I am not easily deceived in these matters. We can go forward now in better heart for the power in our midst."

Ignoring all the irony in that pompous declaration, for that was what one expected of Hurngal's character, I recognized the kernel of truth. The party should feel a little more secure now.

My guess was that Deb-Lu had been the mage to perform that trick through Aramplo. Despite the fact that the Khibil had no real idea of what had gone forward, I went up to him and warmly thanked him, expressing my conviction that his powers were awesome in their magnitude.

He merely nodded an acknowledgment, rapt in thought, obviously trying to discover what the hell he'd done to bring this result.

Nath gave him a rollicking round of thanks, also, and so, much heartened we looked around the chamber for what there might be to be found, as, for example, loot.

“What happened to you?” I said to Seg.

“Passages, rooms, traps and monsters,” he said. “There are more avenues in this maze, I swear it, than in the defiles of Mount Hlabro herself."

“It is my belief we draw near to the heart of the maze."

“You think so? Well, I believe it. But I wouldn't let Hurngal hear you. He is firmly of the conviction that we are marching along the way out."

“Yes. That is in character, too."

And we both laughed.

The ranks of the slaves had been considerably reduced; those that were left trudged along with their sacks of gold slung over their shoulders. I just hoped they had the savvy to chuck the sacks down when the gold started to melt.

These proceedings bore in on me strongly that we were an expedition without—apart from Seg and Loriman—experienced delvers in our company.

We could have done with a few of those stalwart Pachaks who made a living bringing out treasure from ancient tombs.

We wandered on through a series of well-prodded passages where we lost a fellow who so assiduously stuck his ten foot pole into the flagstones ahead of him, he failed to look up. We heard the screams and uproar. By the time we reached the place, the poor fellow had been engulfed and deliquesced by green slime. Everybody passed the spot with great respect.

I'd very much soft-pedaled my account of Nath's and my doings when I told Seg, as I knew he had his, but I couldn't refrain from telling him about the monstrous toad thing that caught his supper with the aid of a lantern of fireflies on the end of a fishing rod. Seg was enchanted.

We skirted past the green gunge, engaged in a philosophic discussion over the meaning of such an entity in the scheme of things Kregan. While we thus talked openly about arcane abstract matters, we interpolated the odd thought directly concerned with our task here in the maze. No doubt remained in my mind that Deb-Lu, Khe-Hi and Ling-Li had successfully arranged a Cloak of Concealment about Seg and me, and Nath, too, given the thoroughness of the Wizards of Loh.

There could be no doubt, either, that in a confrontation with a supernaturally powerful Witch of Loh, a simple fighting man with his sword was of little account unless he had the active assistance of friendly Wizards of Loh.

Through us, then, would the sorcery be channeled at the last. I hardly relished the thought; but it was merely a thing that had to be done.

“By the diseased and dripping pustular excretions of the Lady Dulshini's armpits!” I burst out, for the dear Lady Dulshini had perforce to stand in for Makki Grodno in these here parts. “We've just got to get to the confounded woman and her brat!"

“We will, my old dom, we will, all in her own good time.” Seg spoke in his infuriatingly cheerful way, knowing exactly how to stir me up. By Zair! But Seg Segutorio is the best comrade a man could hope to find on two planets!

Every man is a duality. He is dark and light. I detested Csitra and both feared and loathed her uhu, Phunik. Yet could I coldly slay the woman? She was possessed of the delusion that, because she harbored a passion for me, I must return her affections. Because of that she had caused great grief in Vallia, attempting by the sending of her Nine Unspeakable Curses to break me off from the people of the island empire.

Yet one could see her view of affairs, could, if not sympathize with the poor deluded soul, at least make a civilized guess at understanding her motives. How deeply was she still under the baleful influence of her mad husband, Phu-Si-Yantong, thankfully dead and gone to the hell he deserved?

Could I calmly march in, protected by comrade Wizards of Loh, and lop off her head in cold blood?

I began to think I would shirk the task. Seg would have no hesitation, but then, Seg was a blade comrade, the finest archer in two worlds, and he'd slay anybody for my sake. I wanted desperately to keep Seg out of this messy business.

In the end, of course and damned naturally, it was all down to me, plain Dray Prescot who was no longer the Emperor of Vallia, thank Zair.

Ranging up alongside me, for we were taking turns to lead, Nath said that Hurngal was confident we were nearly out of the maze.

I looked ahead down the passageway over the heads of the guards and the slaves with their sacks of gold, seeing the torches flaring in the shadowed spots. Up front Hurngal would be driving his people on, half mad with excitement over the treasure. Csitra's wiles lured the poor fellow on to a destruction that I doubted, despite Loriman's accusations, he deserved.

Nath said: “I believe, Jak, I told you somewhat of my history?"

“Aye."

“This remains in confidence between ourselves?"

“Of course!"

Then, because I fully intended to find out the truth behind his court-martial, and I wished to give him an inkling of light, I added: “Perhaps I could assist—"

“I thank you, dom; but it's highly unlikely. I know how these high and mighty ones of the world operate."

Somebody screamed up front; but we could not delay. After a time we passed a poor Rapa who had been caught in a blast of acid-breath from a marble statue.

“Yes, I know,” continued the Impenitent. “My eldest sister, Lelia, a fine handsome girl who might have made any match she chose, joined the Jikai Vuvushis. Internal politics—that's how they attempt to dignify the quarrels among the nobs—split the Sisters of the Sword, so Lelia joined the Sisters of Voxyra, who were formed from the splinter group who couldn't stomach the underhand wiles of the haughty ladies of the Sword sorority."

“A smallish sisterhood,” I said, “but they put powerful regiments into the field."

“My sister became a zan-Deldar and then an ob-Hikdar and I sincerely trust in the light of Opaz she is alive and thrives and will make it to Jiktar."

“A lofty ambition."

“The Javed family fight for Vallia!"

So that was his name. Nath Javed.

“All,” he said with genuine bitterness, “except for poor sweet innocent Francine who was so badly led astray by that worthless Leem-loving husband of hers."

One interesting fact here was that Nath's violent antipathy for the emperor and the aristocracy did not prevent him from fighting for Vallia. I wanted to probe deeper; but Loriman stalked up and we had, perforce, to stop talking about Vallian affairs.

“I swear I will do that man an injury before long!” stormed the Hunting Kov. “I can bear only so much!"

“Now what, kov?"

“They're all certain up there that we are nearly out of the maze. I am not so sure. But if that cramph speaks to me like that again, I shall forget my vow not to harm him. The Lady Hebe does nothing to help me keep my word. By Hito the Hunter! I swear she goads us both!"

Now I understood why this choleric, fleshy, full-blooded Hunting Kov had not already driven six inches of steel into Kov Hurngal's guts.

I was making a few bland placating remarks when we debouched into a colossal chamber, of tall columns, a cool green light, of a roof lost amid a myriad rustling batwings and of walls draped dramatically in alternate widths of blue and gold. The place was crammed with furniture. There was like to be treasure here!

Halfway up the wall to our left a railed balcony extended around the angle to cross the door in the wall through which we had entered. There were no doors in the side walls I could see. At the far end of this place a different floor level about a third of the way across, offered an attractive seating area. Seg, Nath and I, very carefully, made our way there and sprawled out on comfortable settees that remained chairs and did not wrap their spiked arms about us. There was on the low tables an ample supply of wine, miscils, and palines, pleasant light fare which we munched as we watched the guards and slaves rummaging and ransacking the chamber for treasure.

I relented.

“Jewels, Nath, that's what you want in preference to gold. I hope you find a chestful."

“So do I.” He sounded suspicious. “But will they melt away too, like the gold?"

“Chances, Nath, chances!” roared Seg, amused.

The Impenitent took himself off and we lost him among the glass cabinets and chests and tables covering the floor. Although markedly different, this place bore some similarity to a room down the Moder, and I wondered if perhaps Csitra had employed a Moder lord to design fresh attractions in her Coup Blag maze.

Seg swallowed his wine and said: “Interesting to see how Hurngal explains his theory of marching out. This place, big as it is, has only the one door. He'll have to retrace his steps."

“He'll bluff and bluster through. The Impenitent has a few shrewd observations to make about nobles."

“Some nobles."

“Seems Nath's only run across the wrong ‘uns."

Strom Tothor walked up the shallow flight of steps to our higher railed area roaring in his lionman way that he was parched and famished. He launched himself at the bottles. Some of his people dumped their loads on the floor below and took seats a little removed from their master. They fell to with gusto.

Kov Loriman's Chulik guards, paktuns all, were not slow to fill their bellies as well as their wallets. They joined Tothor's retainers and a kind of relaxed club atmosphere dropped over us, all sitting up in our railed area, eating and drinking and watching what went on as best we could. The whole situation, eerie though it was, held a heightened fascination in our very normalcy in these weird surroundings.

Loriman joined us from the opposite end of the area and he was chewing on a chicken leg.

Seg said, “I'll forage."

The bat-creatures remained clustered upside down from the ceiling. The chamber with its forest of pillars stretched a long long way to the far end. We saw Nath and the Rapa zhanpaktun come striding up to us, both with sacks bulging over their backs. I smiled.

Carrying a silver tray between both hands, Seg came back to our table. The tray was loaded with goodies.

“Masses of stuff back there. Enough for an army."

So, there we sat, gorging away.

Few slaves or guards were to be seen among all the furniture and treasures down there. I couldn't see the sorcerer or the Lady Hebe; but there was just a glimpse of Hurngal between two glass cases looking toward us. He turned around and went off to the far end of the chamber.

Shortly thereafter, the Lady Hebe's guard captain approached. The cadade marched smartly up the flight of steps and saluted Loriman with punctiliousness and then stood waiting to be noticed.

“Yes, Scancho?” said Loriman taking the wine glass from his lips.

“Pantor! The Kov Hurngal requests you attend him at the door."

“Oh, he does, does he?"

The way the request was phrased was bound to inflame the Hunting Kov.

And then one of Rogarsh's Rapas, feathers bristling, beak gaping, waving his arms about like a maniac, ran full tilt out from the furniture and bolted up the steps. He made no attempt at protocol or waiting to be noticed.

“We have been betrayed!” he shrieked. “Kov Hurngal has taken his people out and shut the door and bolted it fast! It is unbreakable. We are locked in. We are trapped in the maze!"

Chapter nineteen

Kov Hurngal's treachery isrepaid

When the shouting and raging and futile hammering at the door at last finished, I thought Kov Loriman was in fair case to blow up completely. The choleric face was a single scarlet blot, the eyebrows marvels of bristling anger, and he kept opening and closing his fists like claws, as though he had Hurngal's neck fast clenched there.

“The treacherous traitorous bastard!” he choked out, stuttering with the rage that possessed him.

I caught Seg's eye and nodded so we took ourselves off out of it for a space. Nath followed us. He looked downcast.

I said: “Did any of you see the outside of that damned door when we marched in?"

“No. Both leaves were folded right back against the wall.” Seg spoke quite calmly. “The Rapa says there was a bar as big as a treetrunk, and bolts of iron."

“There are ways of breaking down doors. That does not cause me concern. The effect on Loriman is unpredictable. And Hebe has been deprived of her cadade and has gone off with Hurngal."

“Scancho works for Loriman,” said Nath. “He was given the cadade's job to keep an eye on her for the Hunting Kov.” The way Nath said that indicated clearly his view of kovs, whether of the hunting variety or not.

“When Loriman intrigued to get Hurngal's cash and influence,” said Seg, “he didn't bargain that the lady in the middle would go over to the other side."

“Well,” I said, and I brisked up, “we'll burn the dratted door down and then we'll get after the witch."

Amid shouts and counter shouts, Loriman sent all his and the others’ people off to knock on the walls and uncover the secret doors that had to be here somewhere.

There were very few slaves trapped with us. They had not ventured up onto the railed area to eat and drink and they'd clustered among themselves. Now we could see that Hurngal had swept up everybody's slaves he could lay his hands on to carry his treasure. A bold confident planning kind of rogue, this, then.

I picked up a slender wooden chair and smashed it against the floor. It splintered into pieces.

Loriman ripped out: “By Armipand's black belly, Bogandur, that may do your bad temper good. It won't help us find a way out of this trap."

“On the contrary, kov."

Seg broke a wooden table up very smartly.

I said as I reached for another chair, “We'll burn the damned door down."

“Oh!” said Kov Loriman, the Hunting Kov.

The listlessness of this stranded party of adventurers, as though they labored under a doomdark fate, materially lightened when they set to work to pile inflammables by the doors. During our travels through the maze we had slept on and off, and it now seemed fitting before we set fire to the door and escaped that we should rest. Loriman would have none of that.

“After the rast! Top speed. I'll cut him down where he stands, the yetch!"

A few moments’ reflection convinced me that it was not worth tangling with Loriman over this. He was right, from his point of view, in pursuing the treacherous kov as quickly as possible.

That we had other fish to fry appeared to have been forgotten by him. Now, he lusted for revenge.

Although the sacred and magical number on Kregen is nine, there are many stories and legends current of the Secret Seven. These fabled champions, skilled, tough, quick of foot and eye, never downcast no matter how their losses mount, striving always to climb the ladder of success, provide a clarion call of honor and striving to the children of the lands of Paz on that monstrous and beautiful, terrible and lovely world of Kregen four hundred light-years from the world of my birth.

Revenge, the Secret Seven had proved in many a lusty tale of adventure, paid no dividends.

I said, “Very well, kov. We have yet to reach into the heart of Spikatur."

“We will, we will. Pandrite the All-Glorious will guide our footsteps after I have struck down that cowardly Kov Hurngal ham Hortang."

So we fired the huge jumbled pile of lumber heaped up high against the doors and retired to the railed area to await results.

The smoke wafted in flat oily streamers and the flames spat merrily. The clustered bat-creatures on the ceiling began to stir, to flutter wings, and to drop down erratically. San Aramplo had happened to mention that he believed these creatures to be Wargovols. They swooped down in droves, uncertain, disturbed, and circled and so sought to regain their perches in the ceiling. And the smoke wafted up among them and their shrill squeaking pierced through with a menace we could not avoid.

The lumber stacked up burned through in gouts of flame and the doors still burned when Kov Loriman seized an axe from one of his Chulik guards and hurled himself forward. Like a crazy man, he hacked and hewed at the door amid the smother of ashes and dust, the clouds of smoke and the spurts of flame. He burst the charred wood through and the leaves of the door creaked open.

Blackened, bloated, bold, the Hunting Kov smashed his way through the ruined doors to freedom.

“Hai!” I roared, giving him some of the accolade he deserved, for he was a spritely fellow, and yet withholding the “jikai” which was totally inappropriate at this juncture.

Seg said: “He may be a right bastard; but you have to give the old sod credit, by Vox!"

The brown breechclout I had had from Mistress Tlima was now soiled and in a distressing condition. I went across to the nearest red velvet drape and slashed a length free with the short sword. I fashioned this into a breechclout and drew the ends around my waist and up and so fastened all securely with the broad lesten hide belt with the dulled silver buckle. I own, the thought of the brave old red, even though it was more crimson than scarlet, heartened me.

Seg did the same.

We had to make a run for it at the end when the Wargovols, smoke-maddened, whirled down in a fluttering storm of wings.

They did not follow us from that chamber.

No difficulty at all presented itself to hinder us in our pursuit. The way Hurngal had taken was obvious and easy to follow. That route was marked. We simply followed along the trail of corpses.

As we pressed on so we saw that the character of the dead changed; at first they were all slaves, half-naked, weaponless and without burdens, then we saw the sacks flung down among the corpses and soon there were more guards than slaves and then no slaves at all and only fighting men lying there in their own blood.

“The witch is enjoying herself,” I said to Loriman. I'd bustled up through our people in order to get near him—just in case. His purple-veined nose had simmered down a trifle and his anger was now of that icy contained variety so frightening in a choleric fleshy fellow. “She is torturing these poor devils."

“I care nothing for them. I hope Hurngal is suffering. And if he lets any harm come to the Lady Hebe..."

Strom Tothor spoke in a most shrunken lion-roar. “They take all attention, for we are unattacked."

“Quite."

Loriman forced the pace on. “We must be close to the way out now. That is why the witch is so ferocious."

I did not disabuse him, for in his rage he was contradicting his earlier belief and agreeing with Hurngal. Among the dead littering the passageway lay many a fine hyrpaktun with the golden pakzhan at his throat, and many a mercenary with the silver pakmort. Csitra, I felt, had played with us enough and was now finishing it.

If she had indulged in another quarrel with her hermaphrodite child Phunik, both their attentions would be absorbed. Csitra had her limitations. It was possible to escape whole from the Coup Blag. There was, also, the overly handsome young man called Pamantisho the Beauty to slake Csitra's lust and keep her occupied.

We entered another of the enormous rooms in this labyrinth, of similar proportions to the chamber in which Hurngal had trapped us. By that treachery he had materially assisted his own doom, for we were a powerful fighting force.

So thinking, I strode into the chamber, and stopped, stock still, and everyone stopped with me, and so we gazed upon the hecatomb. We saw the end of it, there, in those wildly distorted bodies, in the agony and terror on those tortured faces, in the drippings and drenchings of blood splattered everywhere. They were all dead, all of them. San Aramplo the Khibil sorcerer was there in the shambles, and, as we could see, his arts had failed him.

Kov Hurngal was there. We recognized him by his armor and clothes, for his face was ripped off. A broken sword gripped in his fist told he had fought valiantly.

Near him lay the Lady Hebe.

Nobody went near Kov Loriman. We all gave him a wide berth. He knelt by the dead woman, head bowed, and knuckles on the floor, almost like a whipped and beaten curdog. He remained like that until the next phase in this ghastly maze, and no doubt might have stayed like that until he died of hunger and thirst.

Nobody said anything. We looked about like men drunk on terror.

Now the whole oppressive atmosphere of the Coup Blag descended on us. We were conscious of the weight of rock pressing down all about us. We found it difficult to breathe. Sweat started up all over our bodies. We all felt that amidst the horror and the terror we, also, must have reached the end of our adventure.

At the far end of the chamber a balcony extended the full width of the wall. How deep it might be I could only conjecture, for it was covered by green curtains and the hall under the balcony lay in deep shadow. Along the left-hand wall the balcony extended as a small gallery at a lower level. On the right-hand wall the balcony reached much farther and this extension, too, was covered by green curtains. That it projected only a couple of feet could mean that it was that narrow, or that its extent lay farther into the depths of the maze.

Green and red lights shone in the shadows under the balcony. They were not all in pairs. Some there were grouped in fours. The scuffling sound of furtive movement scraped on the marble pavement. The eyes brightened and grew nearer. Lambent green, smoky red, they leered upon us in their hundreds.

Slowly, out from the shadows of the balcony into the brilliantly chandelier-lit chamber, the horrors advanced. They wriggled and squirmed along; clawed feet rang sharply against the marble, soft and slimy pads made sucking sounds, some of the monsters flew hovering. So the host of nauseating monstrosities came fully into the light to reveal all their murderous hideousness.

“So that's what happened to these poor devils,” said Seg. He reached up for a rose-red-fletched arrow.

Nath the Impenitent drew his sword. His face was set. “We're done for, doms. But we'll give ‘em a fight."

“The last great fight,” said the Rapa, Tyr Rogarsh the Rattler. His feathers had never looked more colorful.

“Aye,” said the numim, Strom Tothor ham Hemfar. “The last battle. And, this will be a High Jikai."

Scancho the Chulik guard captain just set himself ready to honor his dark Chulik code.

So these people with me prepared for the last great fight, a struggle that would in Zair's own truth be a High Jikai.

There was no doubt that we were doomed, as the folk with Kov Hurngal had been doomed.

“What in the name of Numi-Hyrjiv the All Glorious are they waiting for?” demanded Tothor.

For the horde of unspeakable creatures shuffled and clicked and clacked and squirmed—and waited.

The green velvet curtains covering the balcony parted down the center. Slowly they pulled apart.

“I see,” said Seg. “The bitch."

On the balcony and bathed in an uncertain light reared a golden throne. Its edges were hard and defined where they were not smothered in chavonth pelts and ling furs and trailing multi-colored silks. High above the throne the monstrous head of a scaled risslaca gaped down, wedge-shaped jaws extended, forming a mantling canopy. The eyes were hooded ruby lights. To stand before the throne and gape up gave any onlooker a creepy feeling of ominous and malefic power ready to strike.

Half-naked Chail Sheom lay chained about the steps of the throne and weird men and women gripped the leashes of weirder beasts. The coiling miasmic stink of a multitude of overpowering scents wafted down.

Yet throne, scaled dinosaur canopy, the pearl-strung slave girls, the half-tamed throne beasts, and all the glitter of gold and gems paled beside the woman who sat in the chair of the throne.

Her face, as pale as the snows of the north, held no tinge of color. Severe, erect, dressed in black and green with much gold, she surveyed us with those eyes like sliding luminous slits of jade. Her dark hair swept down over her forehead into a widow's peak and was combed into long tresses over her shoulders. A small replica of the wedge-shaped dinosaur head studded the center of the jeweled band around her hair.

So she sat, her pointed chin propped on a beringed hand, arm girt with the glitter of bracelets. She brooded on us and on what would follow when she gave the word to her creatures to begin the slaughter.

We would fight. We would put up a brave show. We'd go down bellowing our defiance, shrieking the “Hai Jikai!” as our guts spilled, our faces were ripped off, or our heads rolled bouncing across her marble floor.

Seg stood calmly, bow half-drawn, ready for the end. The others waited in the same grim silence. This, then, was the end?

I threw off my leather war-harness. Clad only in the red breechclout, with the Krozair brand glittering before me, I stepped out alone.

“Csitra!” I bellowed in that old foretop-hailing roar and the echoes rang around that stupendous hall. “Csitra! I gave you my promise to visit you. Well, lady, here I am!"

Chapter twenty

The Scorpion of the Star Lords

The echoes of that shout rang and rustled and so died in the chamber.

Csitra did not move. I fancied those slit eyes of jade slid to regard me. Well, by Zim-Zair! She could hardly miss me, could she, stuck out as I was like a sore thumb before the remnants of the expedition.

What my comrades at my back were doing I didn't know; I just hoped they'd let me get on with it. Now I had to concentrate every ounce of my willpower to confront this stupendously powerful woman. If she willed, she could whiff me and all of us away in a single casual gesture of those slender white fingers, ring bedecked. At least, I supposed so.

At last she spoke, breathily, on a gasp. “I do not think I really believed you, my love."

Those last two words made me cringe.

“But you are here.” Her voice grew in strength. “You did come to see me as you promised."

“Certainly,” I said.

“But why like this? You might have been killed, for I did not know. Oh, my heart, if one of my clever traps had ... I cannot speak it. You must come up here at once, I will send...” She was fluttering like a teenager going to her first real grown-up dance. “You are here! You have come to visit me in the Coup Blag! That surely must mean—"

“Mother.” The whispering fragile voice penetrated with utter clarity into the hall and with utter horror. “It means he is here to be slain, surely?"

The green curtains over the side balcony parted. The first thing I heard sent a shudder of remembered revulsion through me. The tiny golden bells, tinkling and tintinnabulating around the palanquin, heralded the arrival of Phu-Si-Yantong, as now it heralded the presence of his brat, the uhu Phunik. The Wizard of Loh's procession came into view on the balcony.

All sliding cloth of gold curtains, massive bull-horned Womoxes to carry the chair, chained and beaten Chail Sheom half-naked yet draped with pearls, obscene beasts hardly of Kregen, a retinue of damned Katakis as evil a bunch of slavers and slavemasters as you'd hope not to meet, guards of fantastic and eerie appearance—yes, the child of Phu-Si-Yantong and Csitra could put on a show. As for the uhu, only a glimpse of a dark shadow against the red-gold and purple-black, the tilt of a small imperious head, furtive, furtive...

“That's a pity,” came Seg's cheerful voice over my shoulder. “And, my old dom, you were getting on so well with your light o’ love."

“You wait,” I said, without turning. “I think we must try a few falls for a remark like that."

“Absolutely. I'll wait. Shall I shaft the little horror?"

“You can try. I doubt—"

“Aye, you're right. Damned magic."

This pleasant byplay took heartbeats only, and Phunik's hateful voice whispered on. “You cannot be serious, mother, surely? For this man is dangerous and must die."

“No!” Csitra's gasp slapped like an open palm against a fleshy cheek. “He belongs to me!"

Now Phunik proved him, her or itself a true child to Phu-Si-Yantong. The voice scratched now like a nail against glass.

“Very well, mother, as the Seven Arcades witness the compact. You are no longer to be trusted to carry on my father's work. I shall dispose of this offal here and then you, too, must join the man, if that is your desire."

Phunik gave Csitra no time to reply. A shaft of pure white light sprang from the palanquin.

The light splashed against the floor ten feet from us, and the floor boiled and burned and melted. The sound of the uhu's laugh of pleasure was unmitigated evil. The next blast would do for us.

The corpse of San Aramplo stirred. He sat up. The Khibil's whiskers were as red as ever; but his face was the color of lead and green cheese, glistening, blank, shrunken. The eyes opened. His hand lifted, pointed.

“Die!” screeched Phunik and unleashed his power and between the uhu and the dead Khibil grew a shining disc of radiance, spinning, spitting off sparks of power, hissing with malefic energy.

Phunik strove. The uhu must have realized what went forward here. The Khibil was dead, yet he stood up and opened his eyes and raised his hand and poured forth occult power!

Between the two sorcerers, one in his palanquin and the other dead, grew the famed and feared Quern of Gramarye. Fed by the combined forces in opposition, the radiant disc of raw energy moved. Slowly at first, and then with more assured power, it surged through the air toward the balcony and the palanquin and Phunik.

How many, I wondered, how many of my three comrades were using their kharrna thus to afford us protection? Deb-Lu with his funny toppling turban, Khe-Hi with his smart alec manner, and Ling-Li with all the secrets of a Witch of Loh—yes, the three of them should have no problem in dealing with the uhu Phunik even if he was the son of Phu-Si-Yantong and possessed of great Kharrna.

The whispering fragile voice screeched.

“Mother! Help me!"

Khe-Hi and Deb-Lu between them had struggled with and overcome Phu-Si-Yantong away in the arena of the Jikhorkdun in Ruathytu, capital of Hamal. He'd had Csitra to help him at a distance; he had failed and the Quern of Gramarye had smashed his evil genius into some other and occult realm of death.

Phunik knew only too well how his father had died.

“Mother!” The screech was frantic. “Help me!"

“Remember Phunik's promise to you, Csitra!” I bellowed up.

“Phunik is my child—"

“The child of Phu-Si-Yantong and sworn now to slay you, woman!"

“Mother!"

San Aramplo's corpse jaws clacked open.

The voice was that of Deb-Lu-Quienyin.

“Your assistance would be useless, Csitra. The child should never have been born, as you well know. The Seven Arcades are not to be insulted or deceived."

The rampaging circle of liquid light roared on and over the balcony and, just at the end, it constricted and contracted and lanced like a single battering ram shaft of pure radiance, whisked the palanquin away to nothingness.

San Aramplo said: “We knew you would help the uhu, Csitra; misbegotten child or not, Phunik was yours. Do not mourn him or feel your help might have made any difference. The child was doomed from the moment of its conception."

The Khibil sorcerer collapsed, returning whence he had come, gone again to join his predecessors in the Thaumaturges of Thagramond.

“Do I believe all this?” demanded Nath the Impenitent. He glared balefully at the gibbering horde of malformed creatures under the balcony.

A shrilling vibrated the air. My eardrums pained. With the disappearance of Phunik many of the more obscene and grotesque creatures in his retinue also vanished. The Katakis glared about stupidly, their bladed tails circling dangerously above their heads. The Chail Sheom were wailing and carrying on. The Womoxes just ran away, bellowing.

The roof of that stupendous chamber split.

The floor cracked across the flames and foul-smelling fumes boiled up. Smoke black and choking began to fill the hall.

Nath the Impenitent turned to me, his face a sweating mask, and said, “Dray! Phunik's handiwork is collapsing. You must all get out at once! Run!"

Seg rapped out: “Deb-Lu knows what he's talking about. Come on, my old dom! Sprint!"

“Aye! Up there—see through the crack in the roof—the Suns!"

A whole section of wall smashed down, bringing the adjacent roof with it. Columns were toppling and spilling their drums across the floor. Like madmen we all started to clamber up the rubble to freedom. A Chulik was struck by a dislodged capital and fell, blood streaming from that shaven head. I grabbed his arm and hauled him on, and Nath seized his other arm and together we scrabbled somehow up the slope of detritus.

The gratitude with which I saw that emerald and ruby radiance pouring through the ruined roof shook me with its violence. To breathe fresh air! To walk in the light of the Suns of Scorpio! To get out of this vile place!

I cast a look back. The hall continued to disintegrate although the thrilling vibration slackened and died. My ears still sang with the reverberations. Yet the balcony whereon Csitra sat enthroned in so much sumptuous glory remained intact. Some parts of the Coup Blag had been fashioned by her. The maze still existed and only those portions designed by Phunik would be destroyed.

The Impenitent had my harness slung over his shoulder and now he said: “You'd best put this on, Jak. Scabbard that damned great bar of iron."

“Yes,” I said. “My thanks, Nath."

I took my gear without looking at Nath. She continued to stare up at me, those slits of jade startling in the pallor of her face. Around her existed the faintest haze, and I guessed she had encased herself and her throne and retainers in a Caul of Protection.

What was she thinking?

Her power had been seriously weakened. No longer could she call on the kharrna of her child to reinforce her own.

Was she still suffering under the passion for me that had so deluded her crazed mind? Or would she now hate and loathe me because her child was gone?

Balancing on the broken shards of the hall, I swung the wounded Chulik around into the path of another.

“Take care of your comrade, Chulik!” I snarled at him, and he grasped the wounded man and went scrabbling on up the slope of rubble toward the light of the suns.

“Go on! Go on!” I yelled. I motioned to Nath and Seg, savage, intemperate, not to be disobeyed. Seg wanted to come down. I said, “This I must do, Seg."

“Don't be long. That's all. Or I'll be back."

Good old Seg! So, in the end, I was left alone on that smoking pile of rubble staring down on Csitra as the Witch of Loh gazed somberly up at me.

And, in that fraught moment, as I truly believe, I did feel sorry for her.

She had been led into paths of wickedness by Phu-Si-Yantong and, no doubt, by her own willful passions. The devil had tempted her and she had succumbed. Yet, now, her husband was dead and her child was dead. I did not know if she had other children. Her dreams had vanished. She was alone.

A slithering slide of rubble smashed into the marble pavement off to the side. I ignored the disturbance. Still she stared up, and I swear the brilliance flamed from those slits of luminous emerald eyes. If she put forth her kharrna now and blasted me on the spot ... But she must have recognized the futility of that. She must have known that she could not hope to defeat three mages who would instantly hurl their kharrna through me to smash the coruscating Quern of Gramarye upon her.

With a grating metallic sound the green curtains began to close over the throne and its sumptuousness and upon Csitra, the Witch of Loh.

Just before the curtains closed to blot her from view, I heard her through all the uproar of a collapsing palace hall call out to me.

“Despite all, Dray Prescot, I do not yield my claim on you. That, I will never give up!"

She was gone, the green curtains shivering together.

A prodigious crash from the hall as though the bottom of the world had caved in at last drew my attention to what was going on out there. Smoke and dust obscured the air. Columns fell like ninepins. Kov Loriman still knelt by the body of the Lady Hebe and as I caught a distorted glimpse of him through the smoke the floor in front of him parted as though sliced by a knife. A fault line, sharp and distinct, opened and the marble floor dropped away. The Lady Hebe vanished into the depths and Loriman was left kneeling on the lip of the chasm.

He extended both arms as though in prayer.

Although the deed would not be in the character of the man, had he leaped into the gulf after the lady, I would not have been surprised.

Leaping fallen heaps of masonry, I reached him. He stood up with the stiff motions of old age. Now was no time to take chances. I had plans for this man, vast plans, and if he balked me by killing himself off, I would be mightily displeased.

So I hit him flush on the jaw and seized him and so slung him over my shoulder.

Noxious fumes boiled from the chasm that had swallowed the Lady Hebe. The balcony where Csitra sat enthroned might be the only portion of this hall created by her; all the rest, being Phunik's, was disintegrating. Hefting Loriman like a sack of potatoes, I scrambled over the rubble, feeling the floor lurching, started for the slope which led to freedom and the light of the suns.

Chunks of masonry and brick from the collapsing ceiling still rained down. Tiles skated like bats. Statues did not come to life—nothing unusual for Kregen if they had—but tottered and fell. Seg appeared at the top of the rubble slope, saw me, and started down.

Like a squall of sleeting hailstones a curtain of stones slashed down between us.

Seg's yell just reached me. “Leave him!"

“Stand fast! I can make it!"

The rubble began to slide away from under my feet. My legs pumped, and stones, bricks, broken tiles and flat chunks of plaster seethed away, sending up choking clouds of dust.

A scorpion appeared and stood on a smashed capital and waved his feelers at me. His arrogant sting curved up over his back. He spoke to me, words that drilled through the bedlam of a collapsing palace.

“You must put him down, Dray Prescot, Prince of Onkers. You must save yourself for the work the Star Lords demand."

“And this man is a part of that work, scorpion, onker yourself!"

“You must do as you are commanded."

A damned great chunk of brick came from somewhere and hit me glancingly on the shoulder. Could Csitra be hurling these brickbats at me in an occult temper?

I started off, clutching Loriman, scrabbling and heaving up the rubble.

The agile figure of Seg showed ahead as I glanced up, scrambling down to me.

Another bulky shape sprang into view abaft Seg and started down. Nath the Impenitent might hate and detest the lords he'd known in life; he found Seg and me of different mettle.

Even if a magical palace fell down about my ears, I, Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, wasn't going to be beaten by a damned heap of rubble.

The blue radiance swept in fast and sharp, bloating into the phantom form of the giant Scorpion. Coldness washed me, I was swept up and away, head over heels into a limbo of nothingness.

Well, one thing I knew. I intended to have a few hard words with the Star Lords this time when they thumped me down before them. Superhuman entities or no damned superhuman entities—very hard words, by Zair!

About the author

Alan Burt Akers was a pen name of the prolific British author Kenneth Bulmer, who died in December 2005 aged eighty-four.

Bulmer wrote over 160 novels and countless short stories, predominantly science fiction, both under his real name and numerous pseudonyms, including Alan Burt Akers, Frank Brandon, Rupert Clinton, Ernest Corley, Peter Green, Adam Hardy, Philip Kent, Bruno Krauss, Karl Maras, Manning Norvil, Chesman Scot, Nelson Sherwood, Richard Silver, H. Philip Stratford, and Tully Zetford. Kenneth Johns was a collective pseudonym used for a collaboration with author John Newman. Some of Bulmer's works were published along with the works of other authors under “house names” (collective pseudonyms) such as Ken Blake (for a series of tie-ins with the 1970s television programme The Professionals), Arthur Frazier, Neil Langholm, Charles R. Pike, and Andrew Quiller.

Bulmer was also active in science fiction fandom, and in the 1970s he edited nine issues of the New Writings in Science Fiction anthology series in succession to John Carnell, who originated the series.

More details about the author, and current links to other sources of information, can be found at www.mushroom-ebooks.com, and at wikipedia.org.

The Dray Prescot Series

The Delian Cycle:

1. Transit to Scorpio

2. The Suns of Scorpio

3. Warrior of Scorpio

4. Swordships of Scorpio

5. Prince of Scorpio

Havilfar Cycle:

6. Manhounds of Antares

7. Arena of Antares

8. Fliers of Antares

9. Bladesman of Antares

10. Avenger of Antares

11. Armada of Antares

The Krozair Cycle:

12. The Tides of Kregen

13. Renegade of Kregen

14. Krozair of Kregen

Vallian cycle:

15. Secret Scorpio

16. Savage Scorpio

17. Captive Scorpio

18. Golden Scorpio

Jikaida cycle:

19. A Life for Kregen

20. A Sword for Kregen

21. A Fortune for Kregen

22. A Victory for Kregen

Spikatur cycle:

23. Beasts of Antares

24. Rebel of Antares

25. Legions of Antares

26. Allies of Antares

Pandahem cycle:

27. Mazes of Scorpio

28. Delia of Vallia

29. Fires of Scorpio

30. Talons of Scorpio

31. Masks of Scorpio

32. Seg the Bowman

Witch War cycle:

33. Werewolves of Kregen

34. Witches of Kregen

35. Storm over Vallia

36. Omens of Kregen

37. Warlord of Antares

Lohvian cycle:

38. Scorpio Reborn

39. Scorpio Assassin

40. Scorpio Invasion

41. Scorpio Ablaze

42. Scorpio Drums

43. Scorpio Triumph

Balintol cycle:

44. Intrigue of Antares

45. Gangs of Antares

46. Demons of Antares

47. Scourge of Antares

48. Challenge of Antares

49. Wrath of Antares

50. Shadows over Kregen

Phantom cycle:

51. Murder on Kregen

52. Turmoil on Kregen

Visit www.mushroom-ebooks.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.