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Scorpio Drums [Dray Prescot #42]
by Alan Burt Akers
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Science Fiction/Fantasy

Mushroom eBooks
www.mushroom-ebooks.com

Copyright ©1992 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.

CONTENTS

Dray Prescot

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three

Chapter four

Chapter five

Chapter six

Chapter seven

Chapter eight

Chapter nine

Chapter ten

Chapter eleven

Chapter twelve

Chapter thirteen

Chapter fourteen

Chapter fifteen

Chapter sixteen

Chapter seventeen

Chapter eighteen

Chapter nineteen

Chapter twenty

About the Author

The Dray Prescot Series

* * * *

Scorpio Drums

Alan Burt Akers

Mushroom eBooks

Copyright © 1992, 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 Germany in 1992 by Heyne Verlag in German.

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.

ISBN 9781843197126

Dray Prescot

Of himself, Dray Prescot presents an enigmatic and compelling figure. He is dynamic, dominating, demanding, yet we sense in him a vulnerability completely at odds with his given character within his narrative. He has been described as a man above middle height with brown hair and level brown eyes, with enormously broad shoulders and powerful physique. There is about him an abrasive honesty and indomitable courage. He moves like a savage hunting cat, quiet and lethal. Reared in the cruelly harsh conditions of Nelson's navy, he has been transported to the savage and exotic world of Kregen, four hundred light years from Earth, under the double star Antares, the twin Suns of Scorpio.

There he has made a new life for himself. He has gained fame and fortune, has been blessed with good comrades and a family, and, most of all, by Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains. He has recently given up the job of being Emperor of Vallia, only to be pitchforked into the task of uniting all the varied continents and islands of Paz, one half of Kregen, to resist the reiving onslaughts of the Shanks from Schan, the other half of Kregen. People are beginning to call him the Emperor of Emperors, the Emperor of Paz.

Down in the southern continent of Loh he has met new friends in the task of throwing the Shanks out of Tarankar, a country on the west coast. The capital city of Taranjin, under attack by Prescot's forces, was on the point of being taken when Carazaar, a superhuman being apparently working with the Shanks, sorcerously interfered. Prescot's comrade Wizards of Loh were able to place him on Carazaar's plane where in a ferociously brief fight Carazaar decamped in confusion, leaving the forces of Paz to sweep on to victory. Prescot enters the city to assist in the rout of the Shanks and their slaving allies, the whiptailed Katakis. To his horror he sees Delia being carried off by a group of the slavers, galloping off astride zorcas. Frenziedly he charges after them...

Alan Burt Akers

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter one

The whiptails carrying Delia off were now spurring down the street, I could see no one else in view. I gave the zorca the flat of my blade and he started and neighed and then went hell for leather after the others.

I'd catch them. I'd catch all seven of them and I'd slay all seven of them. No one was going to take my Delia from me, my Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue Mountains.

The zorca ran because he understood a demon sat on his back and would unhesitatingly lash him without mercy. I hit him again. We were catching the Katakis. One looked back and yelled.

The stench of battle, the noise, the sights, all flowed away into a hollow silence between my ears. I could see only Delia and the Katakis. A blue mist hovered before my eyes. I felt cold.

I did not want to believe.

“No!” I screamed it up as I'd never shrieked at the Star Lords before. “No! Give me time, give me time!”

The blue mist thickened. I lost sight of the whiptails and Delia. All around me the blueness grew. The shape of the phantom Scorpion hovered above, gigantic, absolute, not to be ignored.

Up I went. Up and up, drawn into the blueness of the Scorpion of the Everoinye. There was no arbitration. The Star Lords wanted me.

Screaming incoherently, I felt myself flung into the gulfs of nothingness, bathed in cold, destroyed to my heart, whilst my Delia was hurried off into a captivity I could not contemplate in reason.

Delia! Delia! Delia! Ahead of me lay only a black nothingness.

The feel of the zorca between my knees remained one sensation among the many battering at my consciousness. Blueness twined about me. The Star Lords through their blue phantom Scorpion had hauled up the animal in addition and as I felt as though I was strapped to a giant Catherine Wheel that tiny touch remained a reminder of common flesh and blood.

Delia was being carried of into an all too easily imagined horror. If I went mad I could be of no further use to her. The vital necessity of keeping fast hold of all my faculties must be my sole aim now. I had to deal with the Star Lords and get back to Taranjin as fast as possible, otherwise—I must not, must not, think of the otherwise.

I, Dray Prescot, Pur Dray, Krozair of Zy and Lord of Strombor, after the first decision to retain my sanity, must think solely of handling the Everoinye and of returning from whence I had been brought.

Of course, there was a horrific chance that the fumble-fingered Scorpion might drop me as he had once before.

The blueness, a continuing symptom of my travels with the Star Lords, lasted for a very short time and then I felt myself lifted from the back of the zorca. I went tumbling headlong across a wooden deck. So I knew where I was.

I sat up. Yes. I was sitting on the deck of the narrow double-ended craft and all around stretched glittering blue sea.

Standing up I scanned the horizons. Nothing betwixt sea and the shining remote silver sky met my gaze.

The scents of seaweed and ozone and tar meant nothing to me.

“All right, Star Lords!” I bellowed up, head flung back. I was about to go on with something like: “What in a Herrelldrin Hell do you want this time, you bunch of nurdling great onkers?’ when I clamped my lips shut.

Recently I'd wondered on and off that if I'd treated the Star Lords with some of the awed respect other kregoinye treated them they might have treated me better. I seriously doubted that. All the same, it might be a clever scheme to eat humble pie, as they say in Clishdrin, and bow and scrape, kowtow to them, not arouse the anger which could fling me back four hundred light years to the planet of my birth.

So, all right, then! By the pustular eyeballs and disgusting nostrils of Makki Grodno! I'd fool the Everoinye, fool ‘em rotten.

The clanging voice rang across the boat.

“Dray Prescot!”

I took a look around the boat as she bobbed in the sea; but of course there was no one aboard but me.

Speaking carefully, as it were thinking of every word before uttering it, I said: “It is imperative that I return at once. It is vitally important. The Empress Delia—”

They interrupted then, as I said that name and felt the scoring whiplashes burning across my mind, and struggled to hold my sanity. “We are aware of that situation. There is time.”

“Time!” The sensation of heat suffused my body. The Star Lords could tamper with the time flow and had flung me about within the Time Stream. Hope burst up in me. I shouted up: “Put me back when—”

“It is not for you to tell us what or what not to do.”

“Of course not,” I said at once.

A pause followed that. These were superbeings, old beyond computation, entities who had once been as human as I. Could they truly still remember and understand humanity? I had doubted that in the past and had come to believe I'd been mistaken.

So, now, would they be deceived by my unnatural acquiescence to their wishes?

What I took to be a different voice said: “You have obeyed our orders, Dray Prescot. We knew you possessed the yrium and you have proved that you can use your gift of superior charisma wisely—sometimes. Taranjin has been cleared of the invaders from Schan.”

Instead of bellowing up that I knew that, by Krun, and what need was there for them to repeat old news? I said: “What is to be done next?”

Unmistakably, a tone of gloom tinged the next words.

“There will be more invaders.”

In my wrought up frame of mind I struggled to think what I could say to that. Previously I'd have burst out with intemperate words, a tirade of vituperation against Shanks and Star Lords. I had to think. I said: “And you will place me down to fight them?”

They didn't even bother to reply to so crass a remark.

I began to wonder if they could see right through me, for in our last meeting I'd argued and convinced them against their original wishes. I'd altered a decision of the Everoinye. Now I was acting the Yes-man with such humility I guessed they must suspect me.

So I summoned up a tiny scrap of courage and with a whisper of belligerence, said: “What about my voller? You took my airboat away. It's about time you gave her back.”

“In due time.”

“And I didn't meet a feller called Wulk—”

“He is away on another case.”

Oh, yes, that was the word they used, in its Kregish as well as Terrestrial meaning. On a case. Well, now.

“There are other pressing matters to be dealt with. We will return you to an appropriate moment—”

“I have your word?”

That was, of course, an utterly fatuous question. Of what use had these superbeings for words, and honor, and promises? They stood aloof. They played with the destinies of peoples and nations. Of what significance the life of a solitary individual?

I said: “Star Lords, do you play a game with whoever rules in Schan?”

The silence remained unbroken for a long time. I refused to break it. Sweating with desperate impatience though I was, I'd play these Everoinye at their own game. My question was deadly serious. If idle minds had the ability, might not they play games, side against side, and use us poor mortals as pawns?

The boat barely moved in the sea. The silver sky shone lustrously above and the sea sparkled a brilliant blue, shot with silken streaks. Wherever we were, we were highly unlikely to be on Kregen with its two suns and seven moons. No birds sailed through that limpid light. Occasionally a huge and beautiful fish would leap in a graceful arc and plunge back into the water.

The Star Lords were going to return me to an appropriate moment. That meant they'd plunk me down back on Kregen in the burning city of Taranjin in time to save my Delia. I had to believe for the sanity of my mind and soul.

Delia, her Kataki captors, the whole turmoil of the battle, were all frozen away there, waiting on the Star Lords whim for my return.

That, I must believe.

Towards one end of the boat rose a small deckhouse. I walked along the planking, feeling warmth on my toes, and tried the door. It was locked.

What, I wondered, lay below deck?

Two steering oars were swung up into their beckets at this end of the craft, and true to dwaprijjer fashion a second pair were lashed at the other. Either end could be bow or stern. The pirates infesting the Ivilian Keys used them with great élan, and they were known in other parts of Kregen. At the moment this particular craft had neither oars nor mast. I fancied she had a fair turn of speed. Something wet dropped onto my chest, and I realized the sweat was running down my face and dripping off my chin. Madness hovered close, close, then.

The Everoinye could manipulate time; but I was convinced their command was chancy, for they had made mistakes in the past. My ploy in asking if all the fraught happenings that shook Kregen were merely a game, and we were all merely pieces upon a giant Jikaida board, was delaying my return back through time.

Mind you, the question was not a true ploy, for I wanted to know the answer. I wanted to know for the dignity of my fellow sufferers.

At length they deigned to reply.

At their first words I felt anger and resentment, for it was clear they were as usual fobbing me off.

“It is not for you to question us on matters you cannot understand, Dray Prescot. The answer is not simple. No, we do not regard the threat from the Shanks as a game. But there are, as there must be, game elements in the handling of the situation.”

This was something. “Men and women get killed at this game.”

I must have spoken in a return of truculence, for the answer lashed out: “We acknowledge your usefulness to us in the past, Dray Prescot. The future need not follow that pattern.”

I breathed in and I breathed out.

Tsleetha-tsleethi, softly-softly! “You have, then, many kregoinye to call on? There are many men and women on Kregen serving you?”

“Few people are fitted to serve. That does not concern you.”

“I understand.” I swallowed down. “Will you return me now—please?”

“You will be returned to the appropriate place and time. There are many tasks set to your hand. But, first—”

The boat soared aloft, up and up into that distant silver sky. I held on, the breath short in my throat. Mist enveloped the boat and tendrils of clammy vapor clung about me. I knew what was going to happen next, and was ready for it. When the boat abruptly plunged down and down, shrieking through thin air, I realized I was only half prepared. My ears banged and I gulped down and hung on and waited.

We roared on down, and below a wide and open land opened up, green fields and wending rivers and scattered white-walled towns. If we tried to land on dry land we'd splinter into shivers. A tiny lake, like a little eye peering myopically upwards, flashed blue in the radiance of the twin Suns of Scorpio.

The dwaprijjer hit the water in a long splashing slide that started at one bank and brought the sharp curved end to a rocking halt in the reeds of the other. The feel of good Kregen air and the streaming mingled magnificence of Zim and Genodras all about drove me forward.

Over the sharp prow I leaped and hurled myself into the reeds. Muddy water splashed up my thighs. A few floundering steps saw me to firmer ground where I halted to take stock of my surroundings.

I was, of course, completely naked. That was the usual way when the Everoinye hurled me down somewhere to sort out their dirty work for them. I refused to allow dismay or desperation to enter my mind. I had a job to do as a kregoinye. When that was done the Star Lords would send me back to see about those slaving Katakis.

At one time I'd fumed at what I'd considered the incompetence of the Star Lords in thus flinging me down naked and weaponless. There was one very good reason for that practice. They expected resourcefulness from their agents. Clothes and weapons must be obtained in the field. If I'd landed dressed in the costume of one part of Kregen in an entirely differently-dressed region, I'd be spotted instantly as a foreigner. Perhaps the Star Lords were not as stupid as I'd bad-mouthed them. In all the dazzlingly varied cultures of Kregen a naked man, sharp and determined, might fare better than one marked down as a stranger.

When I had been dropped down in armor and wearing swords, usually, the reasons had been good ones.

There was a counter argument, exemplified by the time I'd been sent to Vienna. All the same, naked and weaponless, I started up the slope away from the lake.

The land hereabouts looked a trifle wild and untended, not a wilderness but rather a sorry land left uncultivated for too long. Rank grasses grew in swathes of green, and the heads of wild flowers, red, blue, violet, peeped above. There was a line of a track where the ground had been trodden by occasional usage. Along this track came a group of arguing and gesticulating people. Back a few ulms lay the red-tiled roofs and white walls of a small town, a fantastic spire flashing gold in the suns light.

I dropped into the concealment of a clump of grass.

The dress of this mob indicated their status and origins.

They wore plain workaday clothes of tunics and loincloths fashioned not from silks but from cottons, and a few wore woolen garments manufactured in the Walfonian style of Walfarg. All the women wore face veils of thick material, dark and concealing, quite different from the filmy sherissas worn on holiday or days of feasting. Many of them brandished meat cleavers, and rolling pins, with a pitchfork or two. They were your common or garden mob, bolstered by mob fever and capable of committing deeds they afterwards wouldn't understand how on Kregen they could do such horrible things. I had no whiff of grapeshot to disperse them. When I saw the girl being dragged along in their centre the whiff of grapeshot couldn't have been used anyway.

The argument, clearly, was what they were going to do to the girl. With the lake at my back, I had an idea of which argument would win.

So—here was the task set to my hands by the Star Lords. This was quite like old times!

When I saw the captive girl more clearly, and recognized her, I understood a little more. The first and last time I'd seen her she'd been haranguing a mob. The damned fool Scorpion had dropped me, fumble-fingered me down into a right old peccadillo. Now I saw he'd been on the way to the girl so that I could drag her away from the mob anger. She'd got away all right, how I didn't know, and I'd then followed my own destiny for a space. Now, here she was again, up to her ears in trouble.

The track ended at the lakeside about fifty paces away. By the time the mob reached the water they'd decided exactly what to do.

Moving with care I edged along towards them.

They were tying ropes to the girl's wrists and a weighted sack to the ropes. They screamed abuse all the time, and the women in particular jumped up and down in frenzied hatred. You could see their point of view and I admit at the very first I'd been surprised the Star Lords wanted this girl preserved for posterity. I edged closer.

In all the hullabaloo the girl was hoisted up and swung backwards and forwards. “Ob! Dwa! So!” the mob chanted to the swing. On ‘So!’ she flew up sideways. She didn't spin as she turned over and splashed into the water. I hadn't heard her scream once, although in the noise and shrieks of rage she might have been screaming as loudly as anyone else. Bubbles rose and broke. Ripples moved away in neat interlocked concentric rings.

The noise of the mob abruptly ceased. They clustered among the reeds and stared out across the lake. There was fascination in their faces, awe at what they had done. Only later would remorse set in—if it ever would.

The water closed around me, warm and caressing. A fat fish flicked near-transparent fins and lazed away. I finned towards the blue-tinged shape of the girl and the sack as they drifted to the bottom.

She had her mouth shut and was flailing away with her legs. Her hair twisted like a candle flame. She was hardly conscious of my presence. There was little time. She would not have long to live without breathing. I had no knife so I took the sacking material in both hands, gripping, and used my muscles. A resistance—I felt my muscles jump and bulge—the sack ripped open and a tumbled mass of pebbles spewed out.

Instantly I grasped the girl about the waist and dragged her down. Down. Savagely I thrust against the water, forcing myself along away from the bank, the girl clamped to my side.

She could not last much longer.

The dwaprijjer of the Star Lords would have flown back to wherever they garaged their conveyances. This bank of the lake was occupied by a hostile rabble, armed with cleavers and pitchforks. There was only one sensible alternative.

When I judged we'd gone far enough I rose to the surface.

She let out a huge gasp as her head broke free and whooped an enormous lungful of air. Still holding her I trod water and turned to look back. A great wet floppy stinging mass went squashily smack around my face and for a moment I could see nothing save a few thin streaks of light. Tangled strands choked my mouth. I felt choked.

The damned girl had shaken her head as one does and her hair had slapped smack about my eyes and mouth, near blinding and choking me.

I dragged the dripping hair free and snarled: “Can you swim, girl?”

It did not matter if she could not, for I'd swim with her; that was the most polite thing I felt I could say at the time.

The ropes around her wrists came off quickly enough. As I had let her go she sank down and then rose again.

The moment her head broke water she glared at me. “Yes.”

“Then swim to the other side before they run around.”

“They will not do that.”

She spoke with arrogant confidence. All the same, she turned and started a careful breaststroke, moving along in a series of sedate frog undulations. The people had seen us. They were jumping up and down and shrieking imprecations. Some started to run around the lake. Most of them stayed where they'd thrown the girl in. Very soon those who'd started to circumnavigate the water stopped, and then trailed back. She'd been right.

She had no need of my assistance as we crossed the lake. I did stay in the rear just in case, although from the little I knew of her from what I'd heard, I judged she was a capable woman.

She clambered out, all glistening and firmly brown, for she was as naked as I was. I was not prepared to let her know I knew who she was, for my own very obvious if devious reasons.

Just upslope from the bank blew a stand of trees and the land beyond was hidden by this slight eminence. She stretched her arms up, her body taut and firm, and swung them around a few times. She must have thought she was dead. Then she'd been saved. Tough though she must be, she'd need a little time and meditation to get over that experience.

“I thank you, walfger. I am beholden to you.”

The quaintness of her expression could not conceal her sincerity. I nodded. There was, it seemed to me, nothing appropriate to say.

“I am Mul-lu-Manting. Lahal. You are?”

“Drajak, known as the Sudden.Lahal.”

The last—and first—time I'd seen her haranguing the mob in the central kyro of Changwutung she'd worn fancy silken robes and curved leather armor across breast and hips, with swords and a Lohvian longbow. She had the red hair of your true Lohvian. My informants had told me a deal about her, and I had surmised more. I was not sure if she was a fully-trained Jikai Vuvushi, a Battle Maiden. She did not wear the veil which lent credence to the idea she was a Fighting Lady; she could just as easily be a Witch of Loh. Rather, had been, for she ranted against the Witches and Wizards of Walfarg, blaming them and the kings on the throne for the collapse and loss of the old Empire of Walfarg, the Empire of Loh. Her ambition, which she preached with fanatical fervor, was to recreate the old Empire of Loh, ruled as before by Queens of Pain.

She was studying me frankly. Her face, that hard strong face, womanly handsome, would not be called pretty. Like Mevancy, she drew her beauty from inner truths and strengths. To an addle-pated fellow she might be nothing; to a man with eyes to see she would hold undeniable attractions.

After a moment, I said: “Why didn't they chase us here?”

She made a brief gesture towards the tree-lined crest.

“Beyond there lies the enclosure of Scharn, an ibdrin. I knew you were a stranger when you asked me to swim to this side.”

“Ibdrins do not worry me, Mul-lu-Manting.”

“Nor me. Now I need something to eat, something to drink, and something to wear—in that order.”

I didn't smile; but I appreciated her priorities.

We walked up the slope together. She went with a loping stride, very free and lissom, and I knew I would need to discover more of her history. After all, the Everoinye had singled her out for salvation. Over the rise the land spread away in a sweep of moorland. The tall and lightning-shattered trunk of a single tree projected sternly a hundred paces ahead. This was the locus of the spirit land. Folk hereabouts believed that the souls or spirits of murdered or violently-killed people clustered here waiting for vengeance. You might never have murdered anyone in your life: you weren't fool enough to chance going near an ibdrin where a spirit might mistake you for the killer. Oh, no! By Lhun, no!

At the top she stopped stock-still, legs apart, fists jammed on hips, jaw outthrust, brow drawn down. She stared broodingly at the miserable landscape.

Half to herself, she said: “And that is Walfarg. Desolate, dun and dreary.Gone to seed.Producing no good.” She moved and a hard toe kicked the rank grass stems. “Give me the strength to go on!”

I kept quieter than a church mouse.

Her face beneath that flaring red Lohvian hair expressed bitterness, sorrow, anger. There was no scrap of resignation I could see. She became aware of my scrutiny and like a person suddenly awoken from a deep dream-filled sleep, she started. Brusquely, she said: “I am for Shamfrin, a city where I have friends.”

“As you said, Mul-lu-Manting, I am a stranger in these parts.”

“You may, if you wish, Drajak the Sudden, accompany me.”

Deliberately, I did not reply at once. Truth to tell, now I had rescued her, saved her for the purposes of the Star Lords, my interest in her was over. She was still in the throes of coming to terms with the dreadful experience through which she had just suffered. She might need a friendly shoulder on which to lean and cry. She was tough, yes; she was still a human being. And, at the same time, I did feel a personal responsibility for her. That was one of the odd, and if I acknowledged it, infuriating things about my working for the Star Lords. I tended to feel partial towards those I rescued.

The other grand discovery here was obvious. I would have said, previously, that Mul-lu-Manting had been saved for the inscrutable purposes of the Star Lords. Well, by Vox! This time was different. They'd saved her because she wanted and preached a new Empire of Loh. The word inscrutable no longer applied. Then, because I am Dray Prescot with sometimes a mind like a flea on a griddle, devious to the point of re-entry, I considered the opposite. The Everoinye had saved her because her message about a new Empire of Loh was counter-productive. People gave her a bad time when she preached a new crusade, and in their apathy her attempts merely strengthened their hostility to her and her ideas.

As for myself, there was no immediate decision. I could see advantages and disadvantages to the rebirth of the Empire of Loh. The advantages would come in our fight against the Opaz-forsaken Shanks. The disadvantages were all too familiar, by Krun!

She pointed to a small black and white speck on the western horizon.

“There is Shamfrin. Those oafs caught me as I passed through their disgusting little village.” She cocked an eye up at me. “You do not ask why they tried to kill me, and would have, but for—”

“Their reasons and your business are not mine.”

“Oh!”

“Do not misunderstand me. I have problems of my own.”

Then—then, dear Zair, then! I realized. I felt myself shaking all over. I know I must have lost color, for Mul-lu-Manting gave me a most peculiar stare, and started back. I realized! The Star Lords had promised. I'd done their job for them, completed the task, saved this Mul-lu-Manting. And here I was, still, down here, here in the same spot. I gazed around in a dazed and stupefied way. The Everoinye had promised! They'd said they would return me in good time, back to burning Taranjin, back to save my Delia from those devils of Katakis.

And I was still here. I gazed about, like a lunatic. Delia! Why would not the Star Lords return me? Why?

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter two

Madness hovered close. The Star Lords had promised! Why didn't they send down their phantom blue Scorpion as they had done so many times and snatch me up, to return me to Taranjin so that I might take all I loved in two worlds from those devilish slaving Katakis? Why?

“What is the matter with you, man?”

“What?”

“I said, what is the matter with you, man. You look awful.”

The scene around me swam back into focus. No longer were my eyes filled with the excruciating vision of Delia being carried off by Whiptails. Mul-lu-Manting was giving me that same peculiar stare, at once a look of questioning, of arrogant demands that I did not go sick on her, and of a smidgen—I believe—of genuine concern.

“It's all right.”

“Well, by Lhun, buck your ideas up. We have a way to march yet.”

There was only one explanation. There was more work here at hand. When I'd done what the Star Lords wanted with this demanding madam, then and only then would they return me to Taranjin and all that mattered in two worlds.

If that was the way of it, well, by the Black Chunkrah! I'd do it, do it damned sharpish, and then dare the Everoinye to welsh on the deal.

“Your feet are all right, walfgera?"[1]

[1 walfgera: feminine form of walfger. A.B.A.]

“I'll reach the city.”

If she was not really tough then she both acted and talked so. She quite clearly wished to be tough and appear hard and strong. I didn't know if she was. This little trip to the city on the horizon was scarcely likely to test her, although tender feet treading bare over prickly ground are devastatingly quickly rendered painful past walking.

So we set off. There was an element of the strange to me here; I'd been in similar situations before and not been truly comfortable. Oh, no. This had nothing to do with striding out without clothes with a naked woman matching me stride for stride. Nothing particularly odd about that, at least on Kregen. But, on Kregen, the true and uncomfortable oddness lay in thus marching on without a weapon, without a sword or bow, without a spear, without even a knife. That, on that marvelous yet horrific world four hundred light years from Earth, is likely to get you killed by someone who does have a sword or spear.

Then, again, that is true only of certain locations. You can find some spots of Kregen where you may walk freely and safely without a sword baldricked over your shoulder. Some spots. A few.

The moorland type ground offered precious little in the way of a stick to be used as a shillelagh or blatterer. Just for the feel of it I picked up the thickest stalk I could find and swished it about as we walked. I did not cut off the heads of the few flowers we passed. That cretinous behavior belongs to the stupid and unpleasant variety of so-called human. The same sort of sub-species who probably delights in pulling wings off flies.You meet ‘em, you meet ‘em.

Thinking of my lack of a weapon, to be fair, there are societies of Kregen who live in contempt of pointed and edged weapons. These are what on Earth are termed Martial Arts exponents. Of them all, I suppose to be honest and without boasting, the Krozairs of the Eye of the World stand in the forefront; but they do not despise weapons. For that, you must go to the people of my comrade Turko's home, the Khamorros. Many and many a poor wight has sought to stick a sword through the guts of a high kham and found his sword a hundred paces away and he himself tied in a knot with his hands and feet all mixed up. Then, too, the Martial Monks of Djanduin know more than somewhat of the arcana of facing edged and pointed weapons with only your own naked body to serve as your weapon.

We had marched some way in silence. Now Mul-lu-Manting half-turned her head as we went along and said: “You are not of Walfarg. Nor, I judge, are you of Loh.”

“That is true.”

“Well?” The single word held all of expectant arrogance.

“You have heard of Segesthes?”

“Of course.The easternmost continental mass of Paz.”

“Do you know aught of Segesthes?”

“Balintol is a mysterious place. There are many wonderful cities and strange races there.”

“The cities mostly fringe the southern coasts. To the north, inland, there are almost limitless expanses, the Great Plains.”

“Ah!” she said. “That makes sense. You are a Clansman.”

“Aye.”

I did feel a trifle of amusement. The Clansmen of Segesthes hold themselves aloof among the plains, yet their ferocious reputation had spread as far west and south as this.

She digested this information in silence for a handful of paces, then snapped out: “So, here in Loh, you are a paktun. You know why I have no clothes, for those shints of villagers stole them. But you?”

“I have been a mercenary in my time, yes.”

“A zhanpaktun, I do not doubt, a hyr paktun. And someone snatched your golden pakzhan from its chains around your neck, and stole your clothes into the bargain. Ha! By Lhun, that must have been a sight!”

“It wasn't quite like that—” I started to say when a flicker of movement from stunted bushes off to the left caught my attention. I stopped walking, and took the woman's arm into my grip, halting her.

“What—?”

“Keep still.”

“By Hlo-Hli, you onker! What d'you mean—” She was struggling to free her arm.

Curtly, I snapped out: “Look over there, and shut up.”

She looked. Whether or not she would have obeyed that more than churlish command I couldn't say; she stopped wriggling when she saw the fellow who came strutting over towards us. She gasped.

“A Kanzai Warrior Brother!”

“Precisely. And he's bad news.”

“But they don't—what's he doing—we must run! Hlo-Hli Herself have mercy on me! Run, you onker, run!”

“He will throw a Star of Death. You cannot outrun that.”

She was panting now, her breast going up and down like a gig in a seaway. Her red hair draggled forward, still wet despite the rays of Luz and Walig. She tried to twist her arm free of my grip.

“Stand still, Manting! We will just talk quietly to him.”

She moaned. “I know what is said of them...”

“Your virtue is safe, if that worries you. They are Warrior Brothers, Adepts, devoted to their Disciplines. Each has a mission. Generally, they try to rid the world of Kregen of vermin.”

“And he will consider me as vermin?”

“Unlikely.”

There are many weird and wonderful creeds and Disciplines on the equally weird and wonderful world of Kregen. Of the Kanzai Brotherhood I knew little. Their training is harsh. They are usually chosen from the more militant races. Their concept of honor may, to the ideas of an ordinary fellow like myself, seem a trifle warped. All the same, I'd dealt with them before and, Opaz willing, would do so again.

He strode on boldly, his laminated armor a mass of glinting points of light from rivet and studding. The wide brim of his helmet swept back over his shoulders, and the front was crowned with a skull. Dulled metal and polished leather clothed him. He wore swords, and he could produce an amazing variety of specialist weapons from the pouches strapped to his harness.

Holding myself as relaxed as I was able, I re-dedicated myself to the Disciplines of the Krozairs of Zy, and awaited his arrival.

He halted in a little willy-willy of dust. I could smell the oils of leather and of metal wafting from him. Added to that he exuded a strong rank odor of body sweat. His face glared at me, rather like the blunt end of a tent peg. His eyes, narrow and bright, dark with secret knowledge, sized up the girl and me.

“Lahal, dom,” I said, before he opened his rat-trap of a mouth.

“It is Llahal, dom.” He spoke harshly, rattlingly, as I expected.

He was, of course, perfectly correct. That guttural double-L makes of the Lahal with which you greet a friend the Llahal, the general greeting for a stranger.

I nodded. “As you wish, dom.”

“You have seen a shint of a Rapa with blue feathers and a double-handed axe?” It was more of a demand than a question.

Half-turning to Manting, I said so the Kanzai could hear: “Have you seen such a fellow?”

“No.” She was still shaking.

“No more have I.”

He eyed us with those bright dark eyes. In a twinkling he could snatch up a Star of Death and hurl it with unerring accuracy.

“His name is Ralafon the Kaktu.”

“I regret I can not be of assistance to you.”

He stood absolutely still, braced on those strapped legs.

Then, I suppose because although humanity had been trained out of him after a lifetime of bloodshed, simple human curiosity remained, he said: “Your clothes?”

Manting opened her mouth and I said, sharply: “Damned villagers.”

“A village? Good. Perhaps that Shuvu-forsaken Rapa has sought shelter there. They would not take his clothes from him.”

“Not until he was dead,” I said, equably.

He ducked his head in a quick, instinctive gesture.

“Yes. He is of the Tolkvar Sect.”

Who the hell the Tolkvar Sect was I didn't know.

Every day, they say, on Kregen, you may learn a new name. And, as I have said, it behooves you to remember names if you do not want your throat cut. I did not take my gaze from him, waiting.

Now, let me make this clear. I had absolutely no wish to fight him. I just wanted to get this task for the Everoinye over and get back to Taranjin and Delia. If he started something I could have no mercy, not with the burdens on my shoulders.

“We are going to Shamfrin. We would like to arrive before the suns go down.” I spoke carefully.

“She of the Blushes will be up soon enough.”

With seven moons in the sky any Kregan can tell the time and prognosticate when a certain moon is due. So why had the Kanzai said so obvious a thing unless he had an ulterior motive?

“We must get on, then.” I spoke with a tinge more hardness.

Now, as I have said, I swear I did not want to fight this fellow. He was looking at us, sharp and bright, and I knew, I just knew, that what he intended to propose would not fit in with my own plans. I suppose some imp of deviltry, I plead in extenuation, tempted me. Perhaps Hoko the Amusingly Malicious leered enticingly at me, or Khokkak the Meddler suggested mischief, both spirits of deviltry in the pantheons of Kregen. At any rate, I spoke up, and I still insist I did not want a fight.

“Kanzai,” I said, crisply. I pointed to the fancy gold-edged blue scarf slung around his neck in a most dashing way. “The lady is bereft of clothes. I would consider it a favor if you clothed her nakedness.”

He just didn't believe this. He opened his mouth, and closed it, and half ducked his head in that flaring-brimmed helmet.

“Cramph,” he got out, at last, chewing the word like a cheekful of cham, making the insult stick. “Cramph. You are fortunate. I do not dispose of you instantly because I have a task—”

Well, by Krun, I'd guessed that! And there was no time left to lollygag about. I'd just have to take him, armor and swords and all. I leaped.

He was taken completely by surprise. My fingers were gripping his throat, high above the laminated neck ring, thumbs thrusting his Adam's Apple deeply back against his spine, before he had time to gasp.

He was choking away and his eyes stuck out like gob-stoppers; but he was a Kanzai Brother, an Adept. He struggled and fought back.

His knee smashed past my side, my movement instinctive the moment I sensed his. His arms raked up and his hands clamped about my wrists. I could still think clearly for I had not slipped into that fighting mesmerism that makes every move part of a natural rhythm. My opinion of Kanzai techniques went down, if this was an example. He'd reacted to my attack in a defensive response and gone for my wrists. A Krozair Brother would have gone instantly onto the offensive, probably a gauntlet in the face. I kept my head tucked down in anticipation.

We glared eyeball to eyeball, our noses almost touching, the helmet a frame for this struggling, wriggling, constricting contest.

He kept on dragging at my wrists and trying to knee me. He was getting nowhere with those tactics. If the minor devils had lured me into this, perhaps they had one more stab at me, this time to my discomfiture. Being Dray Prescot, I am the antithesis of the boaster; equally, I detest silly showiness, Vulgar Ostentation. I have no excuse for what happened next.

I shifted grips, leaving my left hand at his throat whilst my right dropped to the hilt of one of his swords.

The silver-wire wrapped hilt was in my grasp. I gave his throat an extra dig and, suddenly, he was toppling away from me, falling over in a flail of arms and legs, and I went on over him, my left hand ripped away from his throat and my right slipping helplessly from the sword.

I rolled over three times and jumped up like a flea. The moment my feet hit the dusty ground I leaped sideways and the Kanzai's flung Star of Death hissed past my ear, a little whirring horror of silvery steel. He'd have another of these Shuriken-like killers in his fingers in the next second. I hurled myself forward—and then saw I'd never reach him before he threw.

The whole world of Kregen fined down to that single silver streak flashing towards my eyes.

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Chapter three

I did not think. There was no time to think. Only afterwards could words be found to express what occurred. Everything was instinct, an instinct trained and honed by the Disciplines of the Krozairs of Zy.

Mul-lu-Manting, afterwards, was of little help. She could only say of what happened, whispering: “It was all a flurry. Arms and legs and blood and dust. I did not really look.”

As for myself, I remember spurts and flashes of scarlet and yellow striking across my eyes, and the evil silver glint of the Star of Death flashing towards my face, and of the grunt the Kanzai made.

To recollect violence in after days is not pleasant, either.

What happened, I think, was this.

There were two options open to me as the Shuriken swooped at me. The Kregans make their Stars of Death asymmetrical, so that their flight is not in a ballistic line. The little whirring death dealers swoop cunningly, curving into face-destroying contact. So a deflection would be tricky. It could be, had been done. To obstruct the naked human arm in way of a descending blow is always painful. The Star of Death might well spin at the last fraction of a second and so stick me. The other option was to duck out of the way fast enough. The Star of Death was traveling rapidly and my movement might not carry my head clear in time.

These apparently nice calculations, of course, just did not exist in the heartbeat between throwing and reaction. This explanation may appear to lack the melodramatic blood and guts demanded by sensation-seekers. It would seem to them cold and lifeless, not blood-stirring. To the true aficionado of Martial Arts quite the reverse is true. To such a one, the super-quick and instinctive response has to be trained and disciplined into the correct reaction. Instinct tends always to try to save our necks, and sometimes that—as this Kanzai Adept had shown—is not always the most efficient way of doing what is required. This time, the saving of my neck was done as prescribed by Mother Nature.

I ducked.

The Star of Death flashed past, hissing, and I was lunging forward.

He got his sword out before I hit him. Well, he would, being who he was.

Inside the first slash I bundled headlong. Body contact shocked all through me as my naked flesh smashed into his armor.

That was the first time he grunted.

My try for his throat was blocked by a savage sideways jerk. His sword arm was in my left fist. Correction, his elbow was in my left fist. I gripped, twisted, yanked, wrenched. So much for my left flank. My right flank had to be protected from the dagger in his left hand and the first slanting upward movement of my arm forced the blow away to the side. Missing his throat, I stuck my fingers for his eyes.

He tore himself backwards, still struggling furiously to free his sword arm. Only my middle finger connected, a ramrod of bone.

I felt the jolt of contact as I caught him on the bridge of his nose, which was squat and spatulate. That didn't bother him; to some folk of Kregen it would have brought water to their eyes.

The next moment I had to deal with that pesky dagger again.

A change of tactics was called for. With his sword out of action the dagger became the focal point of the combat. I did not make an attempt to deflect or block the next blow. I twisted a trifle and took his fist into my grip. He wore the large, ornate and truth-to-tell clumsy gauntlets of his calling, and I just crushed down hard. I did not break any bones, but his hand slowly opened. I say slowly. In comparison with the rest of it, his fist opened like a flower, gently.

Once more trying to be clever I made a grab for the dagger but it fell away to the dust.

He essayed another bold move and shoved himself forward bodily like a rugby scrum forward. I went staggering back and almost lost his right elbow. To let him know he had better desist, and desist quickly, that elbow was given a right rollicking wrenching about. That was when he grunted for the second time.

Bracing myself, I halted his drive, and shoved him back.

His left hand must have been smarting; but he doubled it up into a fist inside the gauntlet and hammered a blow at my ribs. That I could parry, and curl my arm inside his, and so grip and twine and pull. Evidently, he was not aware of that particular technique for he allowed it as a novice on the mat would do. A simple pull, and a reversal, a foot tucked behind his, a roll and a lunge and he went over slantingly backwards and sideways. As he went I released his sword arm. As he sprawled I was able to jump on him.

After that, as they say in Clishdrin, it was all over bar the shouting.

I had his own sword point poised above his throat, and then I dug the steel in a little, just a little, so as not to draw blood.

That was when he grunted for the third time.

There was blood on me and it was my own damn blood.

In the ferocity of the combat I couldn't exactly say when I'd caught the little scratch; but, as Mul-lu-Manting said, there was blood.

If I make this contest sound easy—it was not. There was no primitiveness of a foot behind a foot and a push to unbalance him. Oh no, by Zair! That technique was harshly taught and painfully learned and was delicate as to balance and timing and not for novices. He lay on his back glaring up at me past the blade of his sword.

I said, and I own that although I was not panting, I took a breath before I spoke. “Do you bare the throat?”

This ritual request from Jikaida seemed appropriate.

He couldn't nod his head, not with the brand's point indenting the skin. He growled out in a surly fashion. “And if I do not?”

When I answered I must have displayed that demoniac face folk call the Dray Prescot Devil Look. He licked his lips, which were dust caked inside the helmet, and said, very quickly: “Aye, dom, aye. I bare the throat.”

“Unbuckle your harness.”

Flat on the ground he could still do that. When I let him up his two swords and the empty scabbards and his pouches remained there. I motioned with the lynxter I carried and he stepped away from his armaments.

I touched the harness with my foot. “This is an interesting sword, dom.”

He was rubbing his throat and glaring. Some saliva ran down his chin. “It is a drexer from Vallia.”

“Oh. The thraxter is from Havilfar, that I know. Where did you come across this drexer?”

If he thought my interest in a sword after such a fight was odd, he gave no indication. “It was given to me by a comrade.”

“His name?” That snapped out more sharply than I intended.

“Larghos Vom ti Ferlinsmot.”

I hadn't seen Larghos for many a season and I doubted if that crusty old kampeon had become a Kanzai Brother. If he'd given a drexer, which is a superior sword of Vallia, to this fellow, then I knew I'd done right in refraining from slaying him. I said: “Then I must ask you for the loan of the blade. You have other swords.”

He didn't answer, still chafing his neck. Now and then he let a little grunt past his thin lips.

“That pretty blue scarf with the golden edges. I must now ask you to let the lady have it to clothe herself.”

He fairly tore it off and hurled it at Manting. It fell to the dust in a crumple.

I said: “Not the action of a true walfger, although the Kanzais may have other ways of treating ladies.” I put a snap into my words. “Pick it up and hand it across properly.”

Now was his chance to grab the girl and use her as a hostage. He didn't try. By this time I believe he had the message that he wouldn't win with that gambit. He picked up the scarf and before he passed it over he actually dusted it off. I quite liked that.

“Now that scrap of red at your waist, under the armor. That will be a nice red sash, I believe. I'll have that, too, if you don't mind.”

He had to strip off some of his armor to get the sash out. It was not a brilliant scarlet, being more of a bright crimson; it would serve me well enough. When I pulled it around myself and tucked the ends in, I own I felt a new man. Of such petty symbols is morale built!

His three swords were each swung from their lockets on separate belts, so I could strap the drexer's belt around me and haul tight.

He moistened his lips again. “Your name, dom?”

“Drajak the Sudden. And you?”

“Noring the Ovoinach. Yes, you are sudden.”

“You are for the village and this Rapa, we are for Shamfrin. I would we could part in peace.”

At that time I knew little of the Kanzai Brotherhood. I had been told their humanity had been trained out of them. They went about the world on missions in pursuance of their own ends. Yet the very fact they called themselves a Brotherhood indicated feelings, one for the others. They were not, I judged, evil in the mundane meaning of the word.

He shifted a foot in the dust.

“I surprise myself,” he said in that harsh, uncompromising voice. His face had regained some of the color it had lost during and after the fight. The rank smell of sweat hung on the still air. “I would not willingly go up against you in fair combat. Peace from a Kanzai Brother is possible only to a dead adversary—or to one who does not threaten us.”

“Well, by Chusto!” I burst out. “Sink me! I don't threaten you!”

“If that is the truth in your heart.”

“It damn well is, and it is not for you to harangue, Kanzai.”

He nodded, a quick yet formal bow. “Very well. Let us part in peace.”

I didn't offer to shake hands. I moved off a little way as he retrieved his harness and sheathed the lynxter and dagger. If he threw another Star of Death I had the sword to deflect it.

He straightened up and started to march off with a swing. After half a dozen paces he stopped and turned about.

“Remberee, Drajak the Sudden.”

“Remberee,” I called back. “Remberee, Noring the Ovoinach.”

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Chapter four

To the majority of people of Paz, the Clansmen of Segesthes appear as archetypal savage barbarians. My Clansmen, I hasten to add, I hope needlessly, are not barbarians. Some of the clans farther off are a trifle hairy, I suppose. But if you wish to describe someone as savage and destructive and barbaric, you can call him or her a Clansman.

The clans of the Great Plains are nomads, of course. Nomads, in their eternal marches across the grazing lands, do not in general assist the onward march of progress and civilization. Nomads are essentially living a static way of life. And, too, something of that harsh living is caught in the very word Clansman. A girl or a woman of the clanners will call herself a Clansman unselfconsciously, for she is of the clans.

All this in explanation of Mul-lu-Manting. She had heard of the clanners and she had seen what she had seen, and she could still look me straight in the eye, her shakes forgotten. As we trudged on towards Shamfrin she resumed her normal attitude. That meant she began to try to convert me to the creed of the New Empire of Loh.

Even in the most populated nations of Kregen the land area is so extensive that vast tracts remain comparatively uninhabited. Stretches like that over which Mul-lu-Manting and I now walked existed between cities. Well aware of the sudden and ferocious habits of Nature upon Kregen I walked with a light step and a wary glance. Leem, themselves, the archetype of feral destruction, might be sniffing on our scent. At the least I expected savage hunting beasts like chavonths or strigicaws, mortils or prychans. The white walls of Shamfrin approached as the Suns of Scorpio declined and we walked only the last ulmby the light of She of the Veils.

Other cities and towns I had visited in Walfarg had given me the strong impression of weirdness. They were different from other cities in unexpected ways and therefore were strange beyond the normal strangeness of foreignness. The white walls and red roofs might well appear to be familiar; their architecture caught the eye at odd angles, leaning, overtoppling, pile on pile piled on arcades of gloom in the depths.

The light of the moon guided us the last distance through cultivated fields where the fuzzy pink and golden light caught the sleeping heads of the crops, shadowing and highlighting stalk and leaf and ear. That light was sufficient for the guards to see clearly and they had not yet closed the gates as we approached. A few stragglers moved along with us, and a Quoffa hauling an immense cart piled with nameless objects; a string of pack calsanys, and a lone rider astride a lictrix passed under the gatehouse with us.

We were not challenged.

“They are confident, then,” commented Manting.

The guards were Bowmen of Loh, so they had some right to be confident.

I said, only half to myself: “Mul-lu, you may call me an onker if you wish.”

“Oh?”

“I should have taken a little gold from our Kanzai brother. Where are we to stay tonight?”

“I have friends in Shamfrin—onker.”

I did not smile; but I own I felt relief. Being stranded in an unknown and probably hostile town without cash is an unpleasant bore I've experienced before this, as you know; but I'd cope with it somehow. With a woman tagging along the problem is more acute. If this Manting ranter had pals here, well, they might be fanatical Empire of Loh advocates. I might be in for an evening of ear bashing.

In that streaming moonlight we walked quietly along and, I can tell you, I walked lightly and with the drexer loose in the scabbard.

Manting knew her way all right and we passed massive buildings with walls peppered with lights and with many people coming and going, and carriages twinkling along and the smell of evening on the warm air. A long prospect of arcades was broken by a square, and this kyro had been set out with many small canopied stalls. Here vendors were shouting their wares in strident voices. The variety was amazing, from shoes and shirts to cooking pots and cucumbers, and idols of Vutch-Ikar with pot bellies and staring eyes. Mul-lu-Manting glanced sideways at the mass of idols’ heads.

“Vutch-Ikar.” She sniffed with vast contempt. “A male god and a false god. Yet he is not a false god because he is male.”

I moved sideways sharply to avoid a calsany loaded with sacks whose driver simply let the animal blunder on, well knowing people would jump out of the way. The sense of moonlight streaming down overhead and the scatter of stars, was entirely lost. Now I felt enclosed and shut in by walls of vendors’ booths, by shouting people, by dust and the smells of commerce.

Lanterns and torches flared in my face as Manting went on: “When the empire was lost, Vutch-Ikar was the fashionable god. People took the true Hlo-Hli too much for granted.”

I felt compelled to say: “What about Raffi of the Lightning and Thunder?” I nodded to a stall loaded with idols of the god. “She was always a goddess of the pantheon, before and after the fall. And, anyway,” I added, “those statues are rather pretty. She looks quite nice.”

She sniffed again. I hoped I was not consciously teasing her. “You pretend to know a vast deal of Lohvian history, remarkable for a barbarian clanner, Drajak!”

“Oh, we barbarians have our hidden sides too, you know.”

We pushed through the rest of the jangled confusion of the market into the balance of the arcades where quite soon Manting led off along a side street. The houses here were smaller and then we had reached the door she sought and she knocked. She rapped two, one, three. At this secret knock the door disclosed a small square aperture barred with black iron beyond which a moustached face glowered out, two gimlet eyes boring into Manting.

What she said I didn't hear; but the door opened and we went in.

A form swathed in voluminous robes like a bundle of laundry was topped by a round doughy face. The gimlet eyes sized me up. The damp mouth beneath that moustache opened and she said: “A man.”

“Yes, Nola, a man. He has been useful.”

This moustached lady, Nola, sniffed. I began to suspect this contemptuous sniffing was the trademark of these folk. She stepped aside and Manting led on along the dimly lit corridor to what was clearly a general living room at the end. Here a broad scrubbed wooden table at the centre was surrounded by bentwood chairs. The walls were covered by shelves and cupboards. A stove stood along one wall and washing facilities opposite. The smells were what one would expect—stale food, disinfectant, sweat—but mingled with them the unmistakable scents of expensive perfumes.

There were four women sitting at the table preparing a meal and a fifth pottering at the stove. They were not all alike, and they were not all the same as Manting; they were, all five of them, near enough to fool one on a dark night. I guessed this was the coven headquarters acting as the powerhouse for ideas and energy for the new Empire of Loh.

Introductions were made and I sat quietly and got on with a hunk of bread until the meal was ready, and I said very little, only politely answering questions with the most convenient lies that came into my mind and listening to what was said.

The women and Manting had news to impart and gossip to exchange. The bread had gone down nicely, thank you, and intending to display no interest in what was being said, I glanced at a couple of books on the table. One made me think back to Sosie na Arkasson, for it was The Quest of Kyr Nath. The other book made my lip twist down wryly. The first words of the first chapter were: “A foot scraped in the shadows.” Oh, yes. The tall stories of the adventures of Dray Prescot had reached here, in uncaring Loh. And, of course, thinking back to the Black Feathers of the Great Chyyan made me sweat with terror afresh for new perils endangering Delia. What in a Herrelldrin Hell were the Star Lords doing keeping me hanging about here when I should be back there in burning Taranjin and seeing off those damned Katakis and taking Delia into my arms where she belonged?

Foolish to imagine the Everoinye heard and answered my passionate internal demand. Yet one of the women, Lola the Assandra, was saying: “Yes, Mul-lu, I'm afraid we do stand in some peril since you left.”

“Tell me.”

“Ferlie was pelted with filth when she tried to speak, and she was followed back. They know where we live.”

Nola sniffed. “Let ‘em come. I have my rolling pin.” The moustache looked fierce above the damp mouth, the gimlet eyes mean.

Mul-lu-Manting looked more annoyed than apprehensive. “I had the word of the Kovneva Shernly, her personal word, that we would not be molested.”

“The kovneva shares our views.” Lola cut slices of vegetable with precise tiny cuts. “The kov does not.”

“Yes,” put in Ferlie, whose pronounced perfume was now explained. “And I'm sure he encourages the common folk against us. Because—”

“Because he is frightened of his wife!” snapped Manting.

The explanation for this state of affairs was simple enough. During the time of the Empire of Loh, the nobility, like this Kov of Shamfrin, were very much under the thumb of the Queens of Pain. A kov, which is more or less like the terrestrial duke, is the highest rank of nobility—apart from a hyr kov or arch kov—and nowadays in the relaxed atmosphere after the fall of the empire, the nobility exercised much greater authority. His wife, this Kovneva Shernly na Shamfrin, might quite like to see a return of the empire and the Queens of Pain, the kov her husband most certainly did not.

The mineral oil lamp on the table cast shadows across Manting's face, as suddenly, out of the blue, she burst out: “When they tied that sack of stones to me, and I felt the water all about me, I—” She shivered, and put her palms flat against her face. Lola the Assandra stood up at once, dropping her knife, and went around the table. She held Manting's head against her bosom, stroking her hair, soothing her.

A slightly-built, dark curly-haired girl with bright eyes, said: “If the barbarian had not been there, Mul-lu—”

“Hush, Tilly.” But Lola spoke gently.

By the time we'd washed and sat down to the meal, Manting had recovered her composure. Her cheeks were flushed. She spoke up sharply enough and between herself and Lola dominated the conversation. I felt a sneaking admiration for her. She had been through a devilishly unpleasant ordeal.

The youngster, Tilly, seemed a bright spark. She gave me a slanting look from her dark eyes, and said: “For a barbarian he has nice table manners. Don't you think, Mul-lu?”

Mul-lu-Manting did not look up from her plate. “Manners do not make the man in Loh, Tilly.”

“Maybe,” said Tilly, pertly. “But they often make a woman!”

“Tilly!” snapped out Lola, and Tilly looked quickly down at her plate. She was quite unrepentant, that was obvious.

As is my wont in these circumstances I offered to do the washing up, and was accepted for the job. In addition I was sent out with two buckets for water from the well at the cross roads at the end of the street, and then sent back for two more. After that they gave me a whole silver piece and I lugged back two bundles of firewood. I felt I'd earned my supper.

Lola held out her hand. “Where is the change, Drajak?”

In handing her the copper coins from the wood vendor I felt we'd come to an unspoken agreement. They'd trusted me with silver. I'd done what they asked, and had not run off. Had I done so, I wondered, what female trickery had they up their sleeves to thwart that dastardly male plan?

After that, amid much clanking and clanging, they brought out weapons, spread them upon cloths laid across the table, brought out oil and rags, and went to work. There were harnesses of armor, curved to fit girls, and helmets of the Lohvian quoinrin pattern. The skulls were drawn and beaten with neckflaps and nasals, and although not a devotee of the quoinrin helmet, I'd used them in my time and found them serviceable.

“Come on, Drajak, bratch!” snapped Lola, and I set to.

“Brick dust and spit,” I said. “That's what I'm more accustomed to.”

Tilly laughed at this. So we sat, talking desultorily, cleaning.

Then Manting said: “I did not think Clansmen, being nomads, knew anything of bricks for building.”

To stir her up a trifle, I said: “Only when we knock ‘em down.”

“Oh!” said one of the women, startled.

“Barbarians!” sniffed Lola the Assandra.

So, as you can see, we were getting along like a house on fire, as they say in Clishdrin.

When I felt it appropriate, I took up the drexer from the Kanzai and gave that a good clean and polish.

Despite my good intentions, and the very real necessity of not doing so, I found myself more and more fretting in the direst terror for Delia.

Like a ripsaw through knotty pine, Manting's words jolted me.

“What's the matter with you, Drajak? Has the meal upset you?”

“No, no,” I managed to say. The meal had been soup with ingredients of unknown provenance. “Very nice.” Then, speaking honestly as I had with Mevancy, I said: “I was thinking of a lady.”

“I see.” Manting's nose pinched in and her mouth clamped shut.

“A barbarianess!” said Tilly, with a little laugh.

This was no good. I had to concentrate on what was happening now. So, back to myself, I heard the sounds first.

I stood up.

Lola tilted her head.

Mul-lu-Manting said: “They know where we live, now, you said, Ferlie. Well, they have come for us.”

Outside the house the sounds of trampling feet, the chink of weapons, drifted into the quiet room. Most ominous of all the half-bestial sounds of voices raised in chanting chorus, menacing, infinitely threatening, swelled closer and closer in a dire litany of vengeful destruction.

Hastily, the women began to strap on their armor. I took up the drexer. This was going to be a nasty little fracas. If I got myself killed in the doing of the Star Lords’ wishes, and my Delia was not saved, then I'd never forgive the Everoinye, no, never!

The women all looked determined. They handled their weapons in such wise that showed they knew how to use them, even if they might not be highly skilled. Overblown sentiments like dire litanies and vengeful destructions however melodramatically infantile were absolutely spot on here. Those crowds outside were out for blood.

Mul-lu-Manting started to speak and I cut her off sharply.

“Is there a back way out of here?”

“Do what?”

“You heard.”

She was clearly taken aback. A stone rattled against the door at the end of the corridor. “You mean you'd run away, Drajak?”

“Too right! By Lhun, woman! They'll rip us to shreds!”

She swished her sword about. She only had two more strapped about her waist, so she was not heavily over-armed by Kregan standards. “Almost, Drajak the Sudden, almost, I gave you the jikai—”

“Well,” I fairly snarled back, “don't bother. I'll shove some furniture against the front door. You lead off out the back.”

“You are not in command here, man,” Lola told me, curtly.

“Well, whoever is better unglue her wings—that is, had better put her slippery shoes on—before it's too late.”

Whilst we thus stood jabbering, more stones rattled against the door and a resounding and meaty thud announced the onslaught of a battering ram.

“That's it!” I fairly snatched up the table and hurled myself along the passage. The table, jammed against the door, wouldn't hold the mob for long. It might just give us time to nip over the wall at the back. If there was any damned back exit from this benighted place.

When I returned to the living room the women were standing, rather like statues, glaring at me. Tilly giggled in nervous reaction to her own fear. “It takes four of us to lift that table.”

“Where's the back way?” I shouted. I was growing warm.

Mul-lu-Manting jumped at my tone. “Just the same,” she said, and her voice hardened. “Just as it was when we lost the empire. The women fought and the men ran away. Jikarna, the lot of you."[2]

[2 jikarna: coward. A.B.A.]

The noise outside resembled a circus of beasts just before feeding time. Now I was well aware I wouldn't run off and leave these stubborn women—and not just because the Star Lords wanted me to protect Manting, either—but they didn't know that. I started for the rear door of the living room. I exaggerated my stride to indicate I meant what I was doing.

Tilly broke the impasse. She ran after me, dropped her sword, bent to snatch it up with a beautiful flowing movement, and squeaked out: “Wait for me, Drajak! I'll show you the way!”

I looked back. Nola was running her plump hand up and down a spear shaft; but—and this is true—she did have a rolling pin thrust into her belt. Lola the Assandra was turning her head to look down the corridor and then back at me. As for Mul-lu-Manting, that fiery woman was about to march down the corridor, sword up, ready to chop the whole damned mob of ‘em out there.

“Tilly! Lead on. You others, follow and make it sharp. And watch for any of the crowd out at the back.” With that I rushed across the room and dived down the passage.

The table was jumping at each blow like a poor ill-used animal under the lash. I scooped Manting up with my left arm around her waist, feeling the lack of armor there, span about, and started back with her carted along like a roll of carpet, head first, feet last.

She started in yelling at me, and hit me—fortunately she did not strike me with her sword. I just tightened my grip on that waist of hers and hurried along. No one was left in the living room so I went through the far opening and back-heeled it shut after us. A lantern glowed ahead, and moved up and down. Someone had waited for me, then. I took a mental wager, and when I saw Tilly by the back door holding the light I won my bet.

“Mul-lu!” exclaimed Tilly, and I realized she was not horrified but amused at her companion's position. I wasn't going to put Manting down yet, no, by Krun!

“Get on, Tilly. And thank you for waiting.”

Mul-lu was raving on about a Walfargian's honor—I took no notice. If there did happen to be a crowd waiting at the back then she'd have plenty of opportunity to see how well her ideas of honor served her in a dirty street knock-down, drag-out fight.

She of the Veils and Tilly's lantern revealed a shadowed courtyard. The so-called back door of these living quarters led onto a common yard along with other back doors in the block. Moonlight splashed down over the dilapidated arch over the gateway on our left side. Tilly led us quickly over the cobbles. I strained to listen and could pick up no sounds of a waiting mob.

The wooden gate, somewhat worn away at the edges, stood half-open. In the street outside the women grouped in a huddle. They reminded me rather of a forlorn group of birds huddling on a fence in the rain. Events had overtaken them. They weren't out of the wood yet.

“Right, Lola. Which way now?”

“It is for Mul-lu to say. She is our leader.”

Mul-lu let out a squeak and a volley of oaths the burden of which was that I'd better put her down right this minute, or—

“Or what, Mul-lu? I warn you, if you try to fight this mob single-handed again I shall stop you again.”

I slapped her down on the soles of her feet—hard.

Her red Lohvian hair, dark under the moonlight, flopped about her eyes. She brushed it away savagely, as though knocking me down.

“Who appointed you my keeper, Drajak the Sudden?”

The irony of that gave my lips a twitch.

I said: “Lead on to somewhere safe, Mul-lu. Then we can discuss the mysteries of your future and fate.”

“You're a damned impertinent man!”

“For the sweet sake of Hlo-Hli Herself! Lead on, woman!”

“He's right, Mul-lu,” chattered Tilly.

Even Nola, holding her spear like a soup ladle, nodded agreement.

Well, eventually we all trailed off along the street. We kept up a sharp lookout. The bestial mob sounds gradually faded.

“They'll break in and wreck our house,” said Lola. She spoke with a deal of annoyance and regret.

A woman of somewhat vulpine looks and wearing a heavily chased breastplate, Nan-ni-Oboling, spat out: “We couldn't have gone back there again, anyway. It is our possessions I'm furious about.”

“As we were prevented from fighting for them we shall have to find more.” Manting shot the remark directly at me. I did not reply.

“We'd better go to my brothers,” said Lola. She spoke as though going to her brothers was like going to the dentist without acupuncture.

“No good.” Manting said. “He's known to them.”

Lindy-ma-Sendiyin said: “Well, where to then?” She had a florid face under the helmet brim and sounded petulant. She'd been the first to follow Tilly at the beginning of our escape.

Now Tilly perked up. “Let's go to my sisters.”

“You said she was never fond of us.” Manting gave Tilly a look.

“She thought you were silly to try to bring back the past, and she didn't like the way I liked you.”

“Jealousy.” Mul-lu-Manting sniffed.

“We'd been close, very close. You can—”

“Oh, yes. Well, then. Wenda!"[3]

[3 wenda!: let's go! A.B.A.]

So our forlorn little band traipsed along the moon-shadowed streets, past dark arcades reeking with menace under that towering architecture, until we reached a block not much different from that we'd just left.

Here, Tilly's sister, Milly, a few seasons older, let us in. From the very first it was apparent that she was more than not fond of the followers of the New Empire of Loh. Still, she brought cakes and fruits and her husband Lanlo the Plump poured wine. The general tenor of the conversation, although formal, reassured me. These two, Milly and Lanlo, were not about to betray us.

There was no striking family resemblance between Milly and Tilly. The older sister struck me as a person who thought far more about things than the younger. Lanlo was plump, true; he held within himself a strength that had to come from a source of power. I noticed among the cheap decorations of the walls, the flower paintings, the images and the draped shawls, a small oval picture. All it contained was a blue equilateral triangle outlined in yellow, point down. I'd seen that symbol before.

Lanlo saw me looking at the blue triangle.

Speaking very quietly, I said: “I see you are a Pilgrim.”

His miniscule start of surprise was well-controlled. He might be plump; his face was hard enough and his eyes shrewd. “You are a Wayfarer, Drajak?”

I shook my head. “Unfortunately, no. I have met only two Pathfinders, good people both. And I say unfortunately for I have a very great interest in finding my way through the paths to the truths that will unlock the power of miracles and magic.”

He smiled. “You say ‘will’ unlock. You do, then, believe?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you say you are not—?”

“Time, Lanlo, time. It seems I'm always in the middle of something going on, in the thick of things. Like tonight.”

“Yes. But you must also, then, believe in the New Empire of Loh?”

This put me in a trifle of a quandary. To cover my hesitation I took another cup of wine from Milly with a thank you. She said: “They will never succeed in bringing back the old Queens of Pain to Loh.”

Taking a breath I explained my meeting with Mul-lu-Manting and the subsequent events in such a way they seemed natural—and these happenings are not at all unusual on Kregen. “No, I am not committed to a return of the empire. I've not really contemplated that. I am interested in Alternative Magic and what powers for good will come of success.”

If the Star Lords, in having me protecting Mul-lu-Manting, were indicating they wanted the Empire of Loh to return, then I'd have to go along with that. Arguing with the Everoinye had cost me dear in the past. My most recent conversation with them gave a pointer to future conduct—perhaps.

“Alternative Magic.” Lanlo spoke the words almost with reverence. “This is what we strive for, so that from a man or woman's own head will stream the power to move mountains.”

“One day,” I said. I spoke quite sincerely.

“Oh, yes.” Milly spoke decisively. “Most certainly, one day.”

Then the others drifted over across the room and we began to sort out sleeping arrangements. We'd had a long day.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter five

Bright and early the next morning Milly said she had to go out for the shopping. She selected her veil with care. I knew there existed a complex system of color, design and embroidery styles marking off one Lohvian woman's veil from another's. That was one subject of research I had not pursued. These blank-walled courtyard houses were clearly the urban development of the famous walled gardens of Loh. Once I'd imagined that veils and walled gardens, mysterious though they might be, were all there were to the great continent of Loh. That opinion was in process of revision.

I told Lanlo in a quiet moment whilst the women were all chattering away in the kitchen that the two Pilgrims I'd known were San Ornol Wanlicheng and his disciple—if that was the right word—Xinthe.

“I do not have the pleasure of their acquaintance, Drajak. We are a thin community spread widely. And new members, although sought, are difficult to find and even more difficult to keep.”

“So there's no central organization?”

“Not really. We are able to send messages to those we know through a loose network. And Lisa the Forthright acts as our—mentor, guru, leader?—she is a truly remarkable woman.”

“Well, San Ornol and Xinthe live in Changwutung. I'm sure they'll be glad to hear from you. Mention me. I think they'd like that.”

“It will be a pleasure, Drajak.”

Here, then, were two more people, Lanlo the Plump and Milly, who besides being Pilgrims in search of Alternative Magic, were two more of those pleasant nice folk of Kregen.

As though to confirm that, Lanlo heaved up a sigh. “We do not hold with this New Empire of Loh, yet we cannot turn them out into the street. The damage has been done. Some way will have to be found for them to escape Shamfrin.”

These were my sentiments. Thinking that, the thought I'd toyed with recurred. The Star Lords had once been human like me. Suppose they had reached their awesome powers through the study of the Paths, through Alternative Magic? Then suppose some of the Pilgrims succeeded, and others followed the corners through the Paths. Even if the powers they gained were only a fraction of those of the Everoinye, what would be the Star Lords’ reaction? Would jealousy drive them to denying the new Star Lords? Would they destroy them? Or would they welcome them, as new companions in their aeons old designs? I just didn't know, and was most reluctant to guess, by Vox, yes!

“You look troubled, Drajak. I think it is not as bad as you imagine. We can puzzle a way for these women to leave safely.”

“The sooner the better.”

“Assuredly.”

Without undue emphasis yet not casually, I asked him if he'd heard of an evil wizard called Carazaar. I termed him evil because I'd been told he was evil and he'd certainly done some dastardly things to me.

“No, Drajak, never.”

I mentioned the Wizard of Walfarg, Na-Si-Fantong. He laughed. “Oh, yes. Everyone has heard how he was kicked out of Kothmir. Tried to steal a valuable necklace.”

“And he's not been heard of since.”

“Not to my knowledge. I'll ask Milly when she gets back from the shopping.”

The shopping duly deposited in the kitchen, where the women of the brave New Empire of Loh began to prepare the second breakfast, Milly, too, laughed as her husband had.

“Well, you hear such things in the markets. Quaenci—you know, Lanlo, her husband has the gregarian stall—well, she did tell me there was a rumor this great wizard of Walfarg had gone from Kothmir to Murn-Chem. That is a mortal long way south past the jungles.”

“Highly unpleasant,” confirmed Lanlo with a shiver.

I thanked Milly and she went on to tell us that she had contracted with Lop-eared Nath to take us out tonight in his Quoffa cart. “No one will suspect a thing. All he wants is gold.”

“Um,” I said, and I own I spoke glumly.

To my surprise the women had gold and silver secreted about their persons. Manting and I, of course, were penniless.

“We have enough,” declared Milly when the coins were laid on her scrubbed table. “As soon as the suns are gone, we move.”

So that was that.

Kregans, like Terrans, treasure favorite stories. Many plotlines run along familiar grooves. In this situation where we were trying to leave a city inconspicuously in a lumbering country cart, we were not running from the lord's brutal guards. Oh, no. This was different. The women of the New Empire of Loh were running from the people.

So that made me more than ever uneasy.

Milly went on speaking. “And, Lanlo, I saw Naghan the Boorish and told him—”

“Milly! Milly! How many more times must I ask you—?”

“Oh, you're too soft! I call that man Naghan boorish because he is boorish! I wish you could work somewhere else. He said he was most annoyed you did not go in to work today. And he was boorish when he told me, may Hlo-Hli Herself afflict him with boils.”

“Milly!”

I felt amused by this, and sobered, too, at the reflection of what these peoples’ lives were like in the normal way. Lanlo worked as a cashier in a bakery and he'd taken the day off to assist us.

The day wore on and somehow we did not all go stark staring raving out of frustration and boredom and waiting fever. Milly had more errands to run in the afternoon. When she returned she confirmed that Lop-eared Nath had his cart ready. Then, turning to me, she added: “You were asking about that fatuous Wizard of Walfarg, Na-Si-Fantong. Well, I made some enquiries.” She looked pleased with herself.

“Thank you, Milly.” I spoke gravely.

Whilst I wouldn't actually swear she preened herself as she told me her news, she was in her simple way genuinely delighted she could be so useful to a stranger, even if he was a friend of her empty-headed sister.

“He did go off to Murn-Chem according to one story. But I also heard that he had one of those flying things that so hurt the old empire. He was supposed to have gone to Notesov. Well, the funny thing is, Nanli the egg-woman and Lorca—you know, Lanlo, him with the huge wart by his nose, has a fish-stall—well, both of them heard from their children only this sennight and what do you think?”

“I, my dear,” said Lanlo, “cannot imagine.”

“Well, of course you can't! It's so funny. Well, Nanli's son—you remember, little Tonli, always had big ears—he's gone for a paktun and he was in Notesov and the wizard's not been seen there and they heard he'd gone to Murn-Chem.” She took a breath. “Fancy that! Now, what do you think—?”

Just about then I think we all got it. Still, Lanlo spoke in his quiet way to his wife, saying: “I've no idea.”

She was consumed with pleasure at the way she'd told her news. “Well, listen to this! Lorca's son is in Murn-Chem and he'd heard Na-Si-Fantong was in Notesov! There! What d'you think of that?”

“Remarkable, my dear, quite remarkable.”

“Stupid wizards,” ground out Mul-lu-Manting. “Don't believe a thing you hear about them.”

The women of the New Empire of Loh were contemptuous of Wizards of Loh—a frightening concept to the rest of Paz—because they were held partly accountable for the fall of the old empire.

Tilly spoke up in her bright way. “That means the wizard covered his tracks. He could be anywhere.” She cocked that saucy eye at me. “Anyway, Drajak, what's so special about him?”

“Well, he's a Wizard of Walfarg for a start—”

“Fumbling fools!” commented Manting with some bitterness. Anyone would think from her vehemence that the old empire had crumbled away only this minute before her very eyes.

All this passed the time to nightfall. We ate well and drank moderately. Lanlo insisted I take the loan of a short cape in a fetching shade of violet to cover me up. Truth to tell, the weather was warm enough and I am well used to wandering about wearing only the brave old scarlet breechclout. This fancy cape would serve to make me blend in more with other men wearing short capes. Mul-lu-Manting had taken the opportunity of clothing herself in a swathing robe back at the house before the attack. Her armor, like that of the other women, would mark them out. The women insisted on wearing their armor and swathing themselves in ordinary robes from Milly's wardrobe. Her sister's visit was costing her and her husband dear.

Tilly's question about the specialness of Fantong had been avoided in Manting's outburst. I did not intend to tell these women that Fantong was seeking to collect nine ruby-like gems. The whole thing was called the Skantiklar. He'd stolen the necklace in Kothmir and everyone laughed at the way he'd been kicked out and chortled over his discomfiture, for the necklace had been recovered. The trouble was, Fantong had removed the one gem he required from the necklace. I knew he had this gem. How many more did he have, and how many more were there to find? There was one in Makilorn he'd failed to get. What did he want the nine ruby-like gems for? Power, I supposed.

Mind you, then I was interested in Na-Si-Fantong only from an idle curiosity. For one thing, I didn't like his middle name. My own comrade Wizard of Loh, Deb-Lu-Quienyin, a staunch friend through thick and thin, had observed that this Fantong fellow would bear watching. We both could only speculate on the reasons for Fantong's pursuit of the Skantiklar.

With the decline of the Suns of Scorpio, Zim and Genodras, which here in Loh are called Luz and Walig, we could venture out. She of the Veils, often called down here She of the Blushes, would light our evening way; but until the Twins rose to circle each other endlessly as they circled Kregen, the fuzzy golden-rose light would not unduly discommode us. Lop-eared Nath had his cart ready.

I thanked Milly and Lanlo the Plump. There was no need to put warmth into my voice; I felt respect and affection for them, representing as they did one of the more admirable aspects of Kregen.

Then I said: “One last favor. Veils. The women will be seen as War Women without.”

Milly opened her mouth and Mul-lu-Manting cut in sharply.

“Had we wished to wear veils we could have walked out as ordinary silly women without trouble.”

Lola shook her head. “No. We do not wear veils.”

All the women—including Milly—burned spots of rising annoyance on their cheeks. They were clearly quite capable of sparking off a continuation of an old argument.

Nola patted her stomach where the rolling pin nestled under her folds of cloth. “We are not Warrior Women in the common parlance. We do not claim to be Jikai Vuvushis. But my rolling pin will deal with a man quicker than a Bowmaid of Loh can shaft him. Ha!”

Tilly sniffed. “I would have gone for a Bowmaid but Milly—”

“I was quite right, too! Still, perhaps if I'd let you, you wouldn't have taken up with this lot.”

Mul-lu-Manting opened her mouth, quite clearly to make some remark that would fuel the row, and it was my turn to cut in sharply.

“If you women stand here arguing all night we'll never get you away. Now, come on!”

They all turned their heads to stare at me. So I must have rapped that out a trifle brusquely.

“Men!” said Nola of the Rolling Pin. And she sniffed.

We said the remberees and the women made small respectful gestures to the idol of Hlo-Hli in her niche with two dips burning.

She of the Veils shone down refulgently, and Nath of the Quoffa cart did, indeed, possess lop-ears.

“Hurry up and get in,” he said in a surly tone.

“I,” I said, in what I trusted was not a lofty tone, “will walk at the side.”

“As you wish, dom.”

The women climbed in the back and heaping straw was piled over them. I made sure good handfuls concealed all the protuberances. The Quoffa with his huge patient face, rather like a perambulating hearthrug, heaved at the shafts and off we went.

We were not, I had to remind myself, escaping from the local bigwig, whether king or kov. In some of the more insalubrious places of Kregen punishments are handed out that make a rational mind cringe. For allowing prisoners to escape, for instance, a common penalty is for the offender to be castrated and to have his right eye, hand and foot removed. Life after that, to say the least, by Krun, is not to be lightly contemplated.

As we passed along the street by the light of the moon I had to contemplate the serious possibility that this Lop-eared Nath would betray us. He could sell us down the river for a handful of silver. Consequently, as usual, I marched warily and the drexer could be up and snouting forward into an opponent's guts in less than a heartbeat.

These confounded cantankerous women! Why, by the Furnace Fires of Inshurfraz, couldn't they wear veils like sensible females here? Then all this nonsense of skulking off hidden in a Quoffa cart wouldn't have been necessary. I tell you, I stalked along in a most foul humor.

Anyway, was this sniffing madam, Mul-lu-Manting, worth all the bother? The Star Lords quite evidently thought so. They either wanted the Empire of Loh re-created or they wanted it to remain defunct. To the Bat Caves of Gratz with the lot of ‘em! Why couldn't they tell me which way they wanted the monkey to jump?

Lop-eared Nath hawked up, and spat, and said in a dripping tone of voice: “Nice little lot of shemale flesh there, dom.”

I said: “I shall not hit you now. If you repeat your filthy remarks you will be thrashed senseless. Dernun!"[4]

[4 dernun: ‘do you understand?’ Not very polite. A.B.A.]

He blurted out: “By Hornli! You're damned sharp! I only—”

“I know what you only, Lop-eared Nath. Shut the black-fanged winespout. And, again, Dernun?”

He hawked up and spat again. He was only half-looking at me, eyes downcast. Then, reluctantly, he growled out: “Quidang!”

“Dondo!"[5] I walked on and I made sure I walked a little astern of this flea-bitten Lop-eared Nath.

[5 dondo!: good! A.B.A.]

Thinking in these unpleasant ways of the Black Spider Caves of Gratz, and allied unpleasantnesses, like Kov Koronin's Dungeons of Dolor and the Stromicha Senteva's Crushing Bed, I tried to cheer myself up with the reflection that, by Vox, we weren't there!

Mind you, on Kregen which, as I may have mentioned, is a world of marvel as well as horror, we could well be in far worse case at any moment. So, looking everywhere, I walked on alongside the straw-covered cart where the girls in their armor—and without veils!—huddled.

Whether or not my unpleasant spat at Lop-eared Nath made him repent of any ideas of treachery or not I couldn't say. I can say we went on without undue haste and without any hindrance through the moonlight until we reached the gates just as they were about to be closed. There was a quantity of amused jibing at Lop-eared Nath and his Quoffa cart—and then we were through under the gateway and trudging along the dusty ribbon of road. Mul-lu-Manting pushed her head out through the straw and said: “It seems we are safe now, Drajak. You have my thanks. Now we are for Chanshong, a nicer place than Shamfrin, where we have friends.”

I felt disinclined to leave the women now. My job would be done when the Everoinye said it was done—not a mur before.

There was no need for me to worry my head on that score.

There was no time for a single remberee.

Up I went, clothed in blueness, the lambency of the phantom blue Scorpion of the Star Lords blazing in my eyes. The coldness touched me and then passed by. I felt something hard smash against my thighs and instinctively, as a rider, I gripped on. I was sitting in the saddle of a zorca.

So I knew.

I heaved up a huge prayer of relief, trying to see through the haze of slowly-dissipating blueness.

My clothes and armor were with me, and quite involuntarily, without even a pause, I gripped the great Krozair longsword in my fist. The noise, the smells, the sensations of a burning city burst in on me. Smoke roiled across the street, as the blueness at last vanished. Smoke lay like a blanket over the city, a blanket splattered with blood.

Up that street I had urged my steed on, chasing after the seven Katakis who were abducting Delia. I recognized the street. I peered ahead as the smoke writhed in heat-driven coils. The Star Lords had kept their promise. They had returned me to Taranjin at the precise moment I had been taken away. I felt sensations of all manner of varieties overpowering me—I wanted to hurl mocking thanks at the Star Lords, to screech defiance, to curse the Opaz-forsaken Katakis and their slaving ways, to encourage the zorca between my knees to greater efforts, to call on Vox and Krun and Djan—oh, yes, I rode on amid a welter of powerful emotions.

Smoke wafted across my face, stinging my eyes, clogging my mouth.

The smoke cleared. I stared eagerly down the street as my zorca galloped swiftly on. I wanted to see Delia again, and the doomed Katakis abducting her.

I stared down the street.

The street was empty.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter six

The street was empty.

“No!” The cry of agony broke from me with lung-bursting horror. “No! Star Lords—No!”

Ahead of me as my fleet zorca galloped on, the street lay deserted. The smoke choked down, heat smote from burning walls, the whole terrible panorama of man's stupid inhumanity extended as though in condemnation all about. I felt numbed. I felt as though liquid fire surged through my veins. My whole body burned. Delia! Where was Delia now?

My head throbbed. I could feel my heart thundering away. Pressure swelled my wrists. Delia! Delia!

The Everoinye had betrayed me.

Well, their power over me might be real and awesome, never again would I do a single thing for them—never, ever. I could not think coherently. I know I must have been completely mad for those moments. Nothing on Kregen or Earth mattered now. The whole lot could be taken over by the Shanks. See if I'd care. Oh, no, as the zorca raced on along the burning street and my eyes stung and pained and my throat choked with a lump of agony, oh no—life was dead for me.

A shout reached me, a harsh, demanding, ordering kind of Kataki shout.

“Out of the way, cramph!”

As the finish of my life had sunk in and madness overtaken me I'd eased up in the saddle and the zorca, grateful for the rest, had slowed down. Now I was in someone's way.

I looked back over my shoulder.

Perhaps only Opaz alone knows my feelings then.

I have—metaphorically—climbed back out of the grave. I have served my time in the Black Marble Quarries of Zenicce. I have slaved in the Heavenly Mines of Hamal. I have believed my Delia dead before now, and rejoiced when she was found alive. But this time, this time a wholly new sensation afflicted me—a sensation I cannot wholly describe. To be dead and then to be alive. Yes. To lose and then to win. Yes. But more—oh, yes, much more!

She rode her zorca surrounded by the seven Katakis, and they spurred on in their vile way, ready to cut me down if I did not get out of their way.

She looked—as always—gorgeous. The spots of color on her cheeks blazed her contemptuous anger for these Whiptails.

I held the Krozair brand. What had happened was now quite clear. The Star Lords’ command of the Time Flow was chancy at best. They'd dumped me down in front of the Katakis instead of chasing them. To be honest—I fancied as I turned to look back that a fellow astride a zorca was actually chasing after the Whiptails. If I had seen him, almost an apparition, then that fellow would have been me.

The zorca span about and raised his head where the long straight spiral horn cut a shaft of ivory whiteness against the dark smoke.

“You are a dead man, shint!” The foremost Kataki swung his lynxter about his head in a gesture intended to intimidate.

When the Star Lords had tweaked me up to go off to rescue Mul-lu-Manting, I'd seen Delia unconscious across the saddle of a Kataki's animal. In the time stream muddle, time itself must have folded, so that Delia had regained consciousness and could stare with such defiant disdain upon the Jibrfarils.

In not at all the same way as the brawl with the Kanzai, this confrontation proceeded along its way with suppleness and speed. The first Kataki fell off his zorca with his head hanging by a few shreds of skin. Six. The next tried to spear me and he fell off his zorca with his guts hanging out. Five. The next swung a cunning and powerful axe-blow at my head and he fell off his zorca without a right arm. Four. His comrade thrust the wicked holly-leaf-shaped head of a strangdja, and he chose to be clever and aim at my own mount. He miscalculated and so he fell off his zorca with the back of his skull thrusting past his nose. Three. The next two were also clever and tried to work as a pair. One slashed with his lynxter as the other thrust with his spear. Both of them fell off their zorcas, separated from different portions of their anatomy and their inward parts disgorging themselves onto the dust of the street. One.

This was the fellow who held onto Delia's zorca and no doubt the same one who had ridden with her unconscious body draped over his saddle.

He said in that harsh guttural of your dyed-in-the-wool Whiptail: “Dom—you may take the girl—” His tail with its six inches of bladed steel waved over his head. “She is of value—dom.”

Whilst it was comforting to know a damned slaving Kataki was feeling terror in his guts, peril for Delia remained. If this damned fellow caught on to the fact that Delia was important to me, he could hold her as a hostage and try to bargain.

I said: “Just let go of her bridle—dom. You may ride off.”

Delia, of course, being Delia, had immediately sized up the situation. She sat and she sat silently.

The Kataki let go the bridle. He eyed me warily. Unpleasant folk, Katakis. Slavers, slavemasters and traders, they are called Jibrfarils with reason, for that more or less means lovers of pain giving. This representative of an obnoxious race of diffs sidled his zorca away, and then slapped in those cruel and unnecessary spurs. He galloped off.

Delia said: “Lahal, husband.” This, above all else, revealed her emotions. I wanted to burst out with a whole barrage of romantic declarations, of undying love, of passion, of desperate fears for her safety—all the turgid stuff of Kregan dramatic romances. Delia felt all that, and knew the right time and place.

I was facing her and she was looking at me—and past me.

“Dray, my dear, move quickly aside.”

I simply did as she ordered. The Kataki's arrow from his short bow spat down onto the cobbles.

“Well, now,” said my Delia. “How ungrateful can you get?”

I unlimbered the Lohvian longbow. “You can get dead.”

My first shaft, as Seg Segutorio would have approved—nay, insisted—hit the mark and the Kataki threw up his arms and he fell off his zorca with the red-fletched Valkan arrow through him.

“I had noted there were seven of ‘em and seven of ‘em I'd marked.”

“I do believe you marked them.”

“I must tell you where I've been—all crazy stuff about Loh.”

Her face tightened. “The Everoinye?”

“Yes.”

“Will it ever end?”

“Impossible to say. I've a theory when we've finally persuaded the Shanks not to come raiding us over the curve of the world—”

“Then it will end?”

“I very much doubt it, my heart.”

Then I pushed all this nonsense of the destinies of empires away. I dismounted and held my hand for Delia's foot—is there a foot of so dainty a fashion in two worlds? A foot that has marched all the livelong way through the Hostile Territories? She alighted and turned to look at me from the corners of her eyes. I felt—well, I am Dray Prescot, etc., etc.—I felt my ears go red. I started to say something—I've no idea what—and she put a pink finger to my lips.

So I put my arms about her and after a time we strolled across the Kataki-littered street to a house that had not burned properly and found a heap of straw. Later, I mentioned the straw, and laughed, and we wondered how Mul-lu-Manting and her straw covered Quoffa cart were getting along.

“And you really did suspect that Lop-eared Nath of something?”

“Assuredly. He was cut out for the part of a villain.”

“Well, we have had our share of villains, my love.”

“Oh, aye,” I said, comfortably, stretching back on the straw so I could admire the way Delia sat up talking. “And we'll meet a whole regiment of ‘em in the future. That's certain.”

“Yes. This Carazaar—”

“I've been told he's evil and I tend to believe it.”

“I was not at all sure—Deb-Lu said he was confident—but when you went off up to Carazaar's plane—well—”

I'd described my very very swift fight with the simulacra of Carazaar and she had shivered and hugged me and then laughed to reassure me. Now her true worries were being revealed.

Eventually—much later—we thought we'd better be making a move. After a great battle there are always many things to be done.

“If I know Nath na Kochwold he'll have teams of fire fighters out. We ought to save what we can of Taranjin.”

In the succeeding days we saved Taranjin and saw to all the multifarious problems besetting people after war. The Shanks had gone. My friends and comrades were relieved and pleased to see me safely back on this mortal plane, and it was easy to guess many had given me up for lost. As Seg said: “Well, my old dom, they say leems have more than one life.”

His wife the queen said serenely: “Only cunning old leems.”

“That, Milsi,” observed Inch with some acerbity, “is quite right.”

I knew what they were getting at, well enough. I growled out: “What happened to the damned Fish Faces?”

Sasha, almost as tall as Inch, said: “They flew off in the ships they had left. Their sailing ships were long gone.”

Delia glanced at me, and I nodded and said: “Sounds as though they'd sent their sailers back to Schan to pick up reinforcements—more vollers, more settlers. I don't like the sound of that.”

“Not one little bit,” said Delia.

During this period immediately following the Battle of Taranjin, religious ceremonies were held to mark the occasion. More than one noumjiksirn had to take place. A noumjiksirn is the Kregen form of a wake, a serious yet carousing way of remembering fallen comrades. And, believe me, there were names in the casualty lists I hated to see there.

Nath Javed, old Hack ‘n’ Slay, came to pay his respects, and stayed for a night of revelry with my lads of the Guard Corps. He did not ask to join any of the guard regiments. I did not ask him why, for I had the idea he felt if he was a freer agent he could come adventuring with us again. He praised up his Mixed Infantry Brigade and took shameless advantage of his friendship with the Emperor of Emperors to wheedle extra medals and rewards for his men. I felt any man under old Hack ‘n’ Slay's command would fight well and deserved his bob.

So, of course, there were endless parades in which the bobs were handed out, proudly worn, and whilst the flags waved and the bands played, shown to the recipients’ family and friends.

A fine healthy spot had been chosen for the erection of the rows of hospital tents. The needlemen and puncture ladies kept at work for long hours and with their techniques could alleviate pain. They could not always save a wounded person; at least he or she died painlessly. Among the wounded were a score or so of Katakis.

I issued absolutely no instructions concerning these Whiptails, rather like Pontius Pilate, and yet was gratified to find, as I had suspected, that the doctors treated the damned slavers as just more patients. When they were fit their fate would have to be determined by the courts.

In the normal way of things I would have begun to chafe at this kind of life. Surely, what we were doing was valuable and needed to be done. All the same, usually I'd be itchy to get off back home. On this occasion I fancied I was stringing fate along and hoping to be able to settle up some more scores for the Everoinye.

At least, that was how I phrased it myself, all jumbled up in my old vosk skull of a head.

Delia spotted all that without any trouble. Well, being Delia, she would, wouldn't she? She said:

“Now, you grizzly old graint, you want another chance to have a go at this Carazaar. Come on, now, admit it!”

“Don't have to, to you. Of course, I suppose that is why we're hanging about down here in Loh instead of going where we belong, back to Esser Rarioch and Valkanium and—”

“Naturally.”

“So,” I said, only now realizing the enormity of what I'd been doing, my unconscious selfishness, my unthinking brutality, “we will leave for home first thing in the morning. My Val! What a selfish brute I am! Exposing you to potential danger when Esser Rarioch—it makes me shudder. Well, my heart, my eyes are open and—”

“Fambly,” she said, and she stopped any further words with her lips. Now kissing Delia is an occupation fraught with peril for me—for I can go on kissing her and forget all about anything else. After some time we eventually disentangled ourselves and she said, very prim and proper with her hair in charming disarray: “So we shall just await what happens. And the nearer we are to the action the less distance we'll have to fly to reach it. Dernun, husband?”

I pulled her towards me again and before the world vanished once more I whispered: “I think we'd better ask Deb-Lu down here.”

“A splendid notion—”

Towards suns set of that day we were contracted to go to dinner with Queen Kirsty and Rodders. Kuong and Mevancy would be there. Some of the guard commanders had been invited. The do would be formal. “I suppose,” I said, trying to fix the high and ornate collar around the back of my neck, “we do have to wear these mazillas?”

“Oh, Dray, dear, do shut up!”

“I know, I know. This'll be Kirsty trying to show everyone how important she is. She's already starting her campaign to become Queen of Tarankar as well as Tsungfaril.”

“So that's why we have to dress formally, like Vallians.”

“I told Mul-lu-Manting I was a Clansman. With this blasted collar up at the back of my head it would have been profitable if I'd stayed a barbarian.”

“Dray, dear, do stop whingeing.”

“It's all right for you. You look marvelous! As for me, I look a right popinjay rigged out like this.”

“Nonsense. You look extraordinarily handsome and commanding. Anyone can see why you've been chosen to be the Emperor of Paz.”

“No one asked me, though, did they?”

“Because you can't refuse. There is no one better fitted.”

“Well, at least, you're the Empress of Empresses, the Empress of Paz.”

“And no one asked me, did they?”

I said: “If you really do not want to go on with this empress and emperor nonsense, I shall pack it in.” I looked at her and all I could see in all the wide world of Kregen was her face, isolated as it were from every other mundane object, serene and lovely and well—entirely useless to attempt to carry on that line of thought rationally. I finished: “I can refuse the job. A single word from you and I will refuse.”

“And the Everoinye?”

The anger welled up inside me and had to be quashed, forced back and away. Yes. The Star Lords would see to it.

“I could try.”

“The last time you defied them to the end you were banned to your funny little world with only one silver moon and only one yellow sun and no diffs at all, only apims.”

“Twenty one Earthly years. A period I hate to recall. If only there were a way to take you with me—”

“To a miserable little world like that!”

“Oh, no. Earth is a most wonderful world.”

“Well, yes,” she conceded. “You have told me wonderful stories of the marvels of Earth. All the same, to leave Esser Rarioch, to abandon the Blue Mountains, never to see Delphond again!”

“Not to be contemplated.”

“There's nothing else for it.”

“Um,” I said, a remark I considered at the time to be remarkably acute and to the point at issue. “Um.”

“So you see,” said the divine Delia, Delia of the Blue Mountains, Delia of Delphond, “we are doomed to our fate.”

“The Empress and Emperor of Empresses and Emperors.” I rolled the empty words around my mouth like bile. “Empress and Emperor of Paz. Ha! Let's hope you get some pretty frocks out of it!”

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter seven

Many airboats and flying sailing ships were employed in the constant carriage of food and equipment in and wounded and people on leave out. The land of Tarankar had been sore wounded in the recent wars and would need time for Mother Nature to repair the damage. In the interim, those countries of Paz that banded together to fight the Shanks, provided each according to the country's means.

A couple of days after Kirsty and Rodder's dinner—which had passed off very well—Seg and I were inspecting a regiment of archers due to fly off on leave.

Seg's tall handsome figure moved slowly down the lines. His black hair and fey blue eyes of Erthyrdrin marked him as a Bowman of Erthyrdrin, the best of all the Bowmen of Loh. The archers stiffened under his intolerant gaze. I say intolerant because that Seg surely was when it came to matters concerning toxophily; otherwise he was often too tolerant. That had lost him a kovnate in the past. Turko, who had taken over, had sorted things out with true rigor and justice. Now Seg reached the end of the ranks, turned to me, and with that mischievous glint in his blue eyes remarked, in a voice loud enough to be heard twenty archers off: “Reasonable, I suppose, for a rabble. Leave? They're due for leave? Well now...”

You could see the lads in the ranks rolling their eyes at this and wanting to squirm and being unable for they were standing to attention.

“Who did you say was in command, majister?”

Seg took delight in thus giving me pompous titles when on parade.

The Jiktar in command had, of course, marched two paces to Seg's rear during the inspection, as was proper. When I mention customs similar to those on Earth many of them had been introduced by me. So, of course, Hyr Kov Seg Segutorio knew very well who commanded.

“Jiktar Ortyg Vondal ti Dernsmot commands here.”

“And the brigade chuktar, majister?”

“Chuktar Nath Javed.”

“H'm,” quoth Seg, and looked down his nose, and, with the eye away from the regiment, winked at me. This was not truly pantomime. If you took it as being funny, as indeed you very well might, you could be accused of tormenting the lads. The practical approach of Seg's was always to keep the swods in the ranks on their toes.

I said: “Kov. There are three other regiments I must inspect. One of churgurs, one of spearmen and one of kreutzin.” Now churgurs are your heavily armored sword and shield men and kreutzin are your unarmored or lightly armored light infantry, your voltigeurs. Seg might inspect them with me if he cared to; his overriding concern was with bowmen.

“Quidang, majister! The regiment will pass muster.”

I nodded to Jiktar Ortyg Vondal. “Well done, Jik. Get the lads off on leave as soon as possible. Carry on.”

“Quidang, majister.” Then he turned and raised his helmet with the brave feathers flying. “Hai for the emperor!Hai!”

The regiment responded with great vigor, roaring it out, their leave passes safe. I lifted a hand in salute, touched my zorca, and with Seg at my side rode off to the rest of the brigade.

“Well, my old dom, old Hack ‘n’ Slay really has brought them to a fine pitch. I am impressed.”

“They did well in the fight.”

“Aye.”

The remaining three regiments of the 43rd Mixed Infantry Brigade stood rank on rank, immaculate, drilled, and the bobs shone upon their armor. Their chuktar nudged his zorca out to meet us, saluted gravely. His bulky figure in a kax of simple iron, unadorned, his helmet with only the regulation feathers of his rank, the rest of his war harness plain and practical, spoke eloquently of the professional fighting man, a warrior to his fingertips.

He carried the usual arsenal of weapons favored by warriors of Kregen.

“Majister!” he bellowed. “The Forty Third await the honor of your inspection.”

I knew why he'd waited like this; he wanted to let Seg get on with the archers first. Now he'd ride along with us and his eye would be just as intolerant as Seg's had been.

“Chuktar!” I rapped it out, military, sharp, demanding.

So we inspected old Hack ‘n’ Slay's brigade and, indeed, they were a formation of which to be proud. When the inspection was over, Nath Javed reined in. His face, usually the color of the setting sun Zim, flushed up even more as I congratulated him. “My thanks, majister, on behalf of my men.” He did look pleased. Whilst Seg and I took delight in play-acting at titles and ranks, we knew they carried much weight. Nath Javed, known as Nath the Impenitent, had always avowed he detested nobles and emperors. Then he'd gone adventuring with Seg and me and had changed his mind with regard to some at least of the nobility. He knew our views and shared them. But like the good commander he was he was jealous of the name of his units.

“So they're all off on leave, then, Nath.”

“Aye, majister.The whole brigade.”

“And you?”

Seg laughed. “Need you ask?”

Nath the Impenitent licked his lips. He glanced at Seg. “Well, now, Horkandur. You read my mind.” He called us Seg the Horkandur and Jak the Bogandur when formality was past.

“We missed you on our last outing.”

“I bemoaned my fate, I can tell you, by Vox!”

I said: “If anything turns up, Nath, you're in.”

“My thanks, Bogandur.”

“Now—who's for a wet?”

We raced the zorcas off the parade ground to a refreshment area set up where the officers of the brigade could wash away the dust. For a goodly time we talked and then the ships arrived, floating down like thistledown, and it was time for the brigade to ship out home. Amid the yells of ‘Remberee!” the 43rd took off.

Delia, Milsi and Sasha cantered over. All three looked stunning.

“Inch?” Seg said.

Sasha made a face, Milsi laughed, and Delia said: “We left him standing on his head trying to drink a cup of water. I do not know which one of his taboos he broke this time.”

“It was not squish pie.” Sasha had her own taboos and she'd often be found doing the most extraordinary contortions in expiation.

A voice called: “Lahal all.”

We swung about to see a fellow with a kind happy face, cheerfully lined, walking towards us. He wore a plain robe and an enormous turban that looked on the point of toppling off. He carried a plain varnished wooden staff.

“Deb-Lu!” we all said.

This puissant Wizard of Loh was our comrade who lived with us in Vallia or Valka and who could go into lupu and transmit his image like this to talk to us and advise us. He held out his hand to me as though offering a Vallian handshake. His apparition looked quite real. Jokingly, I held out my own hand to grasp the illusion and—lo!—my fingers met firm flesh.

“Deb-Lu!” I exclaimed. “You're real!”

“By the Seven Arcades, Jak! I hope I am—the journey took longer than I expected and we have only just touched down, as you saw, and I am famished and my throat is afire.”

“How wonderful!” Delia welcomed Deb-Lu-Quienyin and the others joined in as we escorted the Wizard of Loh to the refreshments.

The moment Deb-Lu had repaired the ravages of the flight, he spoke to us using Capital Letters. “A Matter we considered Light is now Highly Significant.” Whenever he spoke in those clearly audible Capital Letters we knew things were afoot. “The Skantiklar.”

“Oho!” I said. “So you've been finding things out.”

“Not Enough, Not Enough. I know How, most of Where, but the Why remains Obscure.”

“The Who,” said Delia, “being Na-Si-Fantong.” She shook her head, the suns’ light catching those outrageous chestnut tints in her hair and making of her curls a halo. “I don't like that Si in his name.”

“Brings a sour taint,” said Seg. His folk of Erthyrdrin, as we all did well to remember, possessed the Eye. Now Seg's fey blue eyes betrayed concern for the future, a concern I imagined must be linked to the past.

“Seg.” Milsi touched his arm. “You—?”

“I expect I'm just being foolish, being an onker.”

“No, Seg.” Deb-Lu sounded grave. “We must all take great care in our dealings with this Fantong. He Is Trouble.”

I, for one, and I know Delia for another, felt a chill of unease.

“Khe-Hi and Ling-Li now have more time to spend away from the nursery.” Deb-Lu chuckled a typical old sorcerer's chuckle. “They are working and between us we'll make it all come out right. Dray! You do not need to be so despondent!”

“Trouble,” I said. “Trouble follows me about like—like—”

“Like something to keep you out of mischief,” said Delia briskly.

“Now, then.” Deb-Lu rubbed his hands together. “Where's this young feller, Ra-Lu-Quonling, then? Wheel him out.”

Seg had already sent for Rollo the Runner. Only a small and select group knew that Rollo should really be a Wizard of Walfarg but had been expelled for missing lessons, dreaming after a girl who'd let him down. What he really wanted to do was to go for a Bowman of Loh. Seg had measured him and pronounced him first class material; I was going to insist that Rollo go along the path ordained by his birthright. Deb-Lu would sort him out.

I said: “Deb-Lu, Ra-Lu-Quonling is known as Rollo the Runner and few are aware of the truth. I think it best—”

“Of course, Dray, no problem. I'll just go along and start as I mean to go on. I won't shake him up too much.”

We all smiled. Rollo was in for a bit of stick from the word go. After that, as we all knew, Rollo would find himself in the hands of a kindly master of whom advantage would be taken all too frequently.

Just after that a shout attracted our attention. The shout expressed shocked incredulity. We all looked to see old Hack ‘n’ Slay pointing out to sea, his other hand resting on the shoulder of the sentry who'd shouted.

Just sailing into sight around the curve of the headland and taking the normal approach to the wharves of Taranjin, a convoy of ships ploughed steadily on. Those ships all had tall thin sails over their lean black hulls. Their upperworks were squared off, brutal, in stark contrast to the sleek streamlined hulls of Paz. Exclamations running the gamut of emotions broke from everyone. The majority expressed indignation, surprised contempt that after they'd been so soundly thrashed the damned reiving Shanks had the temerity to return.

“Well, now.” Seg looked pleased.

I wasn't so sure. Delia gave me a quick glance and then looked away.

“What's the excitement? What have I been missing—by Ngrangi and the Mystic Axe without Taboos! I don't believe it!”

“They're real enough,” grunted Nath Javed. “And my brigade not here!”

Needless to say that the chiefs of my Guard Corps were on hand. Less than one percent of the Guard had taken leave. Their lives were wrapped up with their Corps and with their emperor, their Kendur. Volodu the Lungs lifted his massive battered trumpet and looked at me. Each dent in that trumpet represented a foeman dealt with. I nodded and Volodu blew Assembly. Some of the Fifth Phalanx had gone on leave; enough remained for a sizeable force to form up. Nath na Kochwold, as ever blazing with energy, left the refreshment area at a dead run to join his brumbytes.

I turned to Vangar ti Valkanium. “Still, Vangar, despite the land forces, it's all down to you.”

Vangar's scrubbed face showed dedication to duty imposed by unshakeable beliefs—beliefs in Vallia and Valka, in Opaz. “We'll be aloft in no time. I'm an Airman, Dray; it will not please me to burn ships.”

“Not Shank ships?”

“To capture them would be more useful.”

Seg said: “I like the idea. But the execution?”

Inch said: “Execution is the correct word for Shanks.”

“It is clear,” I pointed out, “that the Shanks are unaware they've lost Taranjin. These are reinforcements. No ship must be allowed to land her troops.”

“So where did the beaten Shank aerial fleets go?”

Everybody looked at Delia as she spoke, and no one could give an answer to what was a mighty ponderable question.

Vangar snapped up a smart salute and within an incredibly short time his vollers and flying sailers rose from their berths. What the consternation aboard the Schtarkin ships must be like we could only surmise. When the Fish Faces began to burn and the sky filled with greasy smoke I own I, for one, felt regret at splendid ships burning. Even damned Shank ships.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter eight

Amidst all these tangled threads of peoples’ lives where Fate had thrown me, what gave me great pleasure was the way Deb-Lu-Quienyin and Ra-Lu-Quonling, known as Rollo the Runner, got along. Rollo might be rebellious and headstrong; he had a head on his shoulders and was quickly aware of the essential quality of Deb-Lu. Rollo said to me: “Y'know, Drajak, you made me go back to learning to be a Wizard of Walfarg. Seg told me—I wormed it out of him—that I was good enough to be a first class Bowman of Loh. Still, I'm not sorry, now, that I'm to be a sorcerer.”

“And mind you respect and take care of Deb-Lu if that should ever be necessary.”

Rollo looked at me down his nose, all the old arrogance blazing forth. “D'you think I don't know that?”

“I think you do.”

He nodded, and, head high, stalked off.

After the abortive attempt by the Fish Heads to land more troops our general feelings were that we could hope to see a reduction in raiding activity. Delia's question troubled us all. Where had the flying Shanks gone?

Deb-Lu set the task for Rollo, as training.

“Wherever the devils have gone,” growled Inch, leaning on his axe, “some poor folk are suffering.”

When I had the chance of a private word with Deb-Lu I spoke with great care. Nobody employed Wizards of Loh. They accepted you as a client—or not, if they didn't care for you. I said: “I am glad young Rollo is buckling down to the work you set for him. Please forgive me if I wonder if the task of searching for the Shanks is of importance enough—that is, Rollo always said he was not very good at going into lupu, and—”

“Jak, Jak! Finding the Shanks is enormously important, of course. And Rollo has got to sharpen up his techniques. You really are asking me why I do not try. The answer is the Skantiklar obsesses me. There lies our true danger for the future.”

“But—”

“We will find the Shanks, never fear, and send a fleet.” He pushed his turban straight and scratched his nose. “No. By Hlo-Hli, it's this Na-Si-Fantong. We have been busy discovering the locations of the nine rubies. Not that they are ordinary rubies, of course.”

“Of course.”

He perked up at my tone. “You need not feel bitter about this, Jak. The Fish Faces are, as far as we know, the greatest menace facing Paz.”

“Absolutely.As far as we know?”

“Aye, Dray. There is a mystery about this Fantong and the Skantiklar that I feel—and at the moment I've no proof—I sense strongly is of the utmost importance. If Paz is undermined, who will halt the Shanks?”

“Well, Deb-Lu, I just hope that young rip Rollo unglues his wings. We need to stop the damned Shanks wherever they are.”

The next few days passed uneventfully—or as uneventfully as you can ever expect on Kregen. Our lad Jaidur had flown off back to his Kingdom of Hyrklana. Delia and I had talked about his moodiness and the problems he faced at home and could see no sensible solutions.

The Hamalian fleet had also flown home; but their Fleet Admiral, Vad Harulf ham Hilzim, who was a loyal friend in Paz, had sworn he would be right back at the first news of fresh troubles.

Queen Kirsty and her consort, Rodders, remained with their mercenary army. Kirsty intended to be able to parade a show of strength when it came to choosing the next queen of Tarankar. I'd told her the job of running two countries separated by inhospitable desert would be difficult; she'd simply shrugged and said: “The whole of Loh—and beyond the seas—was ruled by the old Queens of Pain. I don't see why I cannot.”

If she thought she was going to get herself the job of being the next Queen of Pain—to be Empress of Loh—she had another think coming, by Krun! Whilst Mul-lu-Manting might fancy being Empress of Loh, I had by this time come to a certain decision on that score. Well, all right, then. Contrary to my usual custom I will let you into the secret—well, not so much a secret as a desired secret course of action. If the Star Lords wanted a New Empire of Loh—or even a New Empire of Walfarg—to form, then form it would. I doubted if it would be allowed to extend overseas. With the whole of Loh to be ruled by a single person, that person would have to be very good indeed. I was not convinced it would be a good idea, either. Anyway, should it all come to pass, the person I wanted to run Loh was Mevancy. So that was the great secret. And, naturally, Mevancy didn't know.

Because Delia is Delia, Mevancy could act quite naturally in the presence of the empress. They were well on the way to becoming genuine friends. I'd told Delia of this little plan and she'd laughed and hugged me and said: “Well, you grizzly old graint, so there are a few brains in that vosk skull you call a head.”

Then, on a day with dark clouds scudding over the sea, Rollo reported he'd located the Fish Faces.

The continent of Havilfar hooked a trifle west and south of Loh, the Tamish Channel, Djanduin—all memories, memories! Off the extreme south west coast of Loh lay the forbidden Island of Tambu. Beyond that, of course, were Bet-Aqsa and Ba-Domek. On the latter island was situated Aphrasöe, the Swinging City, whose Savanti had first brought me to Kregen.

Should the Shanks be foolish enough to try to land on Ba-Domek—well, perhaps they had at one time or another and what had happened to them had kept them quiet, for a long time. Rollo said they'd gone to Tambu, had picked up reinforcements sent out after those we had destroyed, and were setting up a powerful base.

Our reactions were predictable. We sent scouting forces who reported the truth of Rollo's discoveries. We called on the countries of Paz loyal to the scheme of Pazzian resistance to the Fish Heads for their contributions, in men—and women—in ships and weapons, food and gold. This would all take time.

“Now,” said Deb-Lu, scratching his nose. “Now we have what we are doing with the Fish Faces sorted out, we can get on with the Skantiklar.”

That there could be anything more important than the Shanks came to mewith a profound shock. Carazaar, Deb-Lu believed, was quiescent after his late defeat.

“I'll tell you something that ought to amuse you, Dray.”

“Yes?”

“There are nine gems. We know Fantong has the one he stole in Kothmir. There is one in Makilorn, among Kirsty's jewels. And there is one in the ceremonial regalia of Vallia. What d'you think of that?”

“By Vox!How charming.”

“And so we must have worn it, many times, all unknowingly.” Delia tinkled a laugh. “How quaint.”

“So that leaves six,” said Deb-Lu.

“Well, the rumors were that Fantong was going to Murn-Chem or Notesov. Damned jungles.”

“Yes, Dray—” and Delia fixed me with a gimlet eye “—and if you think you are running off again on your own—think again, sunshine.”

“You will recall, will you not, that I fell in the water?”

“Oh, you'll find any excuse!” And we both burst out laughing.

“All the same,” put in Seg. “The gems in Makilorn and Vallia are vulnerable to a clever thief with some magic.”

“I have placed a caul of protection about the jewel in Vallia.” Deb-Lu did not sound testy so much as impatient. “Makilorn is being attended to by Khe-Hi.” He made a quick gesture. “It may be I shall have to go across there myself. Inconvenient.”

“What of the other six?” said Inch.

“Once I fix a lead on Fantong he should lead us to the gems.”

“He is a very clever and slippery customer, Deb-Lu.” I frowned. “You caught a glimpse of him on some steps I remember.”

“Oh, yes. As I said then, a Capital Adversary.”

What I expected happened with expected rapidity. Nath Javed, old Hack ‘n’ Slay, face a brilliant scarlet, said: “The expedition against the Fish Heads in Tambu is being formed. My brigade, the Forty Third, will be coming back off leave and joining in. Now, Bogandur, what of—?”

“The decision must be yours, Nath.”

“You would release me from command of the brigade if I so chose?”

“I would.”

“Then I will delay my decision until you are ready to set off. In the meantime I will make sure that Jiktar Volans is an even better brigade commander than I am.”

“I wouldn't tell him too much, Nath. We might not go.”

He gave me that big bold confident look. “Don't you worry about that, Jak. We're going. I can smell it!”

I tended to think he was right.

Another Nath—Nath na Kochwold—was an altogether more difficult headache. He was the Kapt of the whole of Vallia's Phalanx Force and was down here in Loh with the Fifth to—as he put it—go off on a spot of adventuring. Now the Tambu affair had come up, could he bear to leave his beloved Phalanx, the brumbytes all aligned in their files driving on with pikes leveled, could he bring himself to abandon them?

When Deb-Lu, on a morning of bright suns shine and a brisk little breeze, came in to tell me he had located Fantong, only then was I brought up face to face with the problem confronting me.

With the Fish Faces busily establishing a powerful base on an island of Paz, how could I possibly contemplate any other course of action save taking the expedition over there and sorting out the Shanks?

This was the personal problem I'd overlooked. Now it rose up and gave me an almighty thwacking. “Deb-Lu! I can't go off chasing after mysterious red gems, and mysterious sorcerers! I've got the Shanks to fight!”

“Your forces will fight well enough without you. You are not indispensable—”

“I never claimed to be—”

“But you are in other circumstances. You have to go yourself.”

“Now look here, Deb-Lu! Is this damned Skantiklar really all this important? I mean—”

“By the Seven Arcades, Dray! You know the power that he will gain when he can unite all nine gems. You know what his middle name is. Doesn't that give you a clue to what he's up to?”

I sagged back. “Oh, no. No, no, he couldn't do that.”

“But he could.”

“You say you've located him?”

“Yes.”

“I'll gather the lads, the ones we need. We'll start off before the hour of mid. There is no time to lose.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter nine

Of course, it was not as simple as that.

I should have known. I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, had had experience before of organizing expeditions.

Everyone wanted to go along and let someone else go and bash the Shanks. The time we'd had this trouble when I'd needed to go down to Hyrklana to see about Naghan the Gnat, and Tilly, and Oby, the solution had been taken out of my hands. This time, too, was different because I shamelessly worked on the lads’ loyalty. “Paz!” I declaimed. “There lies our duty. Where I must go is sorcerer's work—all for the good of Paz—and your duty is to go and blatter Fish Faces.”

“But—Kendur!”

In the end we agreed that I ought to accept the First Emperor's Sword Watch, the First Emperor's Yellow Jackets, and—because Delia was going along—the Empress's Devoted Life Guard. Nath Karidge, the Beau Sabreur who commanded EDLG, commented acidly that it was about time he got to join in with an adventure. In addition, small parties of the other regiments, selected by lot, were to accompany us. I heard of enormous sums being promised to buy a lucky person's place in the expedition. There were few takers.

All the same, we were venturing up into Chem, among those blasted jungles again, and a useful fighting force might well be vital. We had no idea of what we would be facing.

Rollo told me: “Drajak! If I am not allowed to go with San Quienyin then I shall cast a most awful hex upon you.”

I said: “It lies with Deb-Lu whether or not you go.”

“I'll fix it with the san,” he said, and if he'd had a beard he'd have been muttering in it.

San Deb-Lu-Quienyin's heart was too soft to deny his apprentice.

Mevancy came to see me, very flushed of face, not beautiful to outward seeming, all her fire and spirit from within. “Cabbage! You will take us, will you not? Kuong and Llodi? They sent me to speak for them as you are so aloof in these days.”

“By the diseased liver and lights of Makki Grodno! I know I'm damned well aloof—it's all the damned work I have to do. Of course you can come along, pigeon, and my warmest welcome to Kuong and Llodi. By Chusto, pigeon, are we or are we not comrades?”

“Aye, cabbage. And you and I are kregoinye for the Everoinye.”

“Well, I've just done a job for them up in Walfarg, as you know.” I'd told her all about it as a fellow kregoinye. “If they want us again, we'll soon know.”

“The situation remains as is, then. You are the emperor; but I am the senior kregoinye and I run our affairs for the Star Lords.”

“You run the ship, pigeon.”

What the hell—I wasn't going to disabuse her of her notions.

In the end we got everything sorted out, and, by Krun, it wasn't finished by the hour of mid. Oh, no, by the time all the argy-bargying had been completed and the dust had settled down, we were well into the hour of mid on the following day. Nath na Kochwold, faced with going adventuring with us or going into a battle against the Fish Faces with his Phalanx, just dithered.

When, sweating, annoyed with himself, almost shamefaced, he came in and said: “Well, Dray, I've made up my mind. I cannot abandon my Phalanx,” I felt relief. He would be a splendid companion on an adventure; he would be far more valuable running the battles ahead. I held out my hand.

“We've been through a lot together, Nath. You will turf those Fish Heads out of Tambu neck and crop.”

“Aye. We have and I will!”

One last soul came to see me with reference to going on the adventure—Ian Vandrop, his goatee neatly trimmed, his spare, athletic figure dressed now in the yellow of EYJ, still with the pakzhan at his throat.

“Since my regiment was disbanded after the Time of Troubles, jis, I've been seconded here and there and have accomplished nothing of consequence.”

“Your value is undisputed. You are now an ord-Jiktar—”

“Without a proper command. You told me my grandfather was once kind to you, and you have been kind to me. Jis, I ask you, may I go on this expedition with you?”

Well, how in a Herrelldrin Hell could I refuse?

Jiktar Ian Vandrop departed, beaming.

The handsome black face and powerful figure of Balass the Hawk showed up as Vandrop departed. He was doing some arithmetic on his fingers.

“Now look here, Dray! That gaggle of—of—well, that bunch you foisted off on me. They're all assuming they're coming along.”

“They're all right, Balass—”

“Of course they're all right. Am I to remain their nursemaid?”

“You're so damned good at it.”

“Very well, then. And if I catch that Fan-Si without her armor again, I'll—well, I'll do something, by Kaidun!”

So the party for the expedition formed.

When the little squadron took off and sailed up into the streaming mingled radiance of the Suns of Scorpio I still couldn't believe what I was doing. Was I really flying off on some hare-brained scheme to snatch a gem before some damned sorcerer could get his grubby little paws on it, instead of leading a powerful force to smash the Opaz-forsaken Shanks into oblivion? What in a Herrelldrin Hell did I think I was up to?

So then, of course, Delia walked up with her superb swing and said: “Now, then, Dray. Brassud! Pay attention to what Deb-Lu tells us.”

“It's all so—so—”

“Yes. And will be more so if you don't perk your ideas up.”

“Deb-Lu did say how important all this is—so, obviously, it is.”

“As dear old Hack ‘n’ Slay would say: ‘Indisputably'.”

“Indisputably.”

So, as I often remark, my Delia can see through me as easily as glass.

Na-Si-Fantong's whereabouts, he had no doubt considered, had been cunningly camouflaged by misdirecting rumors. Murn-Chem and Notesov lay far enough apart, by Krun. A line drawn between the two, originating at the centers of the two respective countries offered a beginning. Deb-Lu narrowed down the area and with Khe-Hi and Ling-Li assisting, at last defined the location. All the maps showed was jungle. Damned jungle!

“It'll be hot work,” observed Inch. “Also, by Ngrangi, there will be far too many opportunities for me to break a taboo or three.”

“By the Veiled Froyvil, you broomstick—I believe you enjoy busting a taboo for the sake of standing on your head or whatever—”

“Seg!” exclaimed Milsi, trying to stop from laughing.

Sasha inclined her head. “He may be my husband, and I may have my own taboos—Inch is Inch and maybe Seg has the right of it.”

“There you go!” said Seg, cheerfully, as though he'd just won a thousand talens.

All this time the squadron sailed on through the limpid air. Trust my blade comrades not to take a little trip like this too seriously. When we got down to handstrokes they'd operate with swift and lethal efficiency; until then, why, dom, the world is wide, the suns are shining and the breeze is sweet on your face.

Now, if Seg was the Inspector General of Archers, then Balass was the Inspector General of churgurs, the heavily-armored sword and shield men. Both had a tremendous regard for the swods in the ranks, the ordinary soldier on whose shoulders the whole military edifice rested. This by way of explanation for what happened to the scouts. All the kreutzin volunteered, as was to be expected, and a party of a dozen selected, led by Hikdar Ronal the Waspish, went off to check under the trees.

They did not return.

“Deb-Lu?”

He pulled his ear where his turban had slipped. “Very strange. I can—ah—detect nothing apart from residual magic. Odd.”

Jiktar Thana ti Vincentsmot spoke up. “Another party will have to go down and find out. I shall lead it personally.”

Again, how strange this was. In the old days there'd have been no nonsense of sending in scouts first. I'd have been first, as always.

The second party did not return.

“This is becoming unpleasant.” Seg sounded grim.

“Aye,” I said. “We'll have to take a look.”

Deb-Lu shoved his turban straight. His plain varnished wooden staff glistened in the light of the suns. “Take Rollo with you.”

Rollo pushed forward in the group on the deck. “You don't have to tell me. I'm volunteering.”

At that the usual uproar of voices of folk all desperately anxious to venture down to what could easily be a nasty death caused a babble of volunteering. In the end we had it sorted out. I said: “Deb-Lu, give us two burs after we dip under the trees. Then you must do what you think best.”

In efficiently run navies captains and admirals do not go running off in landing parties every time they make landfall on an unknown coast. If they did so, promotion would be swift for those left alive. But, here you see my cunning. I was not the captain, Oby was the skipper. I refused to allow the girls to go with us.

“If you think, Dray Prescot, I'm letting you go gallivanting off—”

“We're only going to look under the trees.”

“Then there's nothing stopping me going along.”

“Or me,” said Sasha and Milsi together.

Seg said: “It's no good, my old dom. You can't win this one.”

“They'll only get into some other mischief if they stay,” said Inch.

Short of not going myself, I was stuck. We climbed into a small voller, observing the fantamyrrh, and Delia took the controls. Down we swooped, leaving the squadron hovering in the bright air, down and through a tiny gap between the treetops.

I expected the heat and gloom of other rain forests. We looked down and below us a great city spread out in granite walls and towers and battlements. Trees grew everywhere, spaced out, soaring up to spread their branches to form the canopy above. The effect was at once eerie and superb.

No one said anything for a space as Delia swung the voller in circles. I sniffed. There was very little scent on the humid air and that was odd. Then Seg said: “They can't like suns light.”

“They're all probably anemic.” Inch did not look up from staring over the side. “Look! There are people.”

Following his pointing finger I made out a shadowed avenue with a considerable crowd of people. Just what they were doing I couldn't guess. They did not move and were extremely quiet. No one looked up at us. At the end of the avenue a platz opened up and this was crowded with people. Everybody was quite obviously standing still and listening to what the nobs on the platform had to say. This was a grand occasion of some sort.

The quietness over everything remained impressive.

I'd never experienced crowds who could stand so still and quietly before. Other avenues opened from the central kyro and these held a few people. The folk here were dotted along the avenue and you'd swear they were hurrying along to the square. So why didn't they get along? Why did they halt half way? Their clothes were bright enough, swathing robes for some, breechclouts and bare chests for others.

Delia said, very sharply: “The vollers!”

Sure enough, the two vollers which had taken down the scouting parties were landed on the flat roof of a sizeable building. From there they could lift off easily. They appeared undamaged. And—the crews were still aboard, peering over the sides, just as we were.

“The first one landed,” said Seg. “And the second landed to see what happened to the first,” went on Inch. And Delia finished: “So we land to make number three.”

Rollo said: “It is clear, now. Some kind of enchantment has been cast upon this city. Everyone is in a state of paralysis. Animation is suspended. If we go lower we will be caught—”

Before he could finish a bolt of fire lanced up from a tower below. The blazing mass missed the voller by a whisker. The noise and the heat as it flashed past stunned us.

“Up, Delia, up!”

Another lance of fire, spitting and hissing—the voller started to rise—a third and the airboat rocked like a cockleshell in a gale—we were whirling over and over and the whole world filled with fire. We began to fall.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter ten

We were falling straight down, tumbling out of the air. Below us lay some damned magic which would entrap us and paralyze us. The airboat lurched as another fireball hissed past in a confusion of fire and spitting sparks.

At the controls Delia remained firmly in command. She is a brilliant pilot and she used her skill to right the voller and bring her up in a long soaring slant that was not a direct line. Only four more bolts of fire were let off, and then the shooter must have given up, recognizing that the pilot was better than he was.

Up and up we lifted. The humid air tasted sweet then, by Krun!

Up between the leaves Delia took us and then—out in the radiance of the Suns we soared with the breeze in our faces.

Milsi said: “Oh, Delia—!”

Sasha started to say: “Flying skill—” and didn't finish.

Inch said: “That rast down there couldn't hit Delia; but he needs us to go down and sort him out.”

Seg just leaned forward and gave Delia a little kiss on the cheek.

My Val! What it is to know my Delia!

Rollo said: “Deb-Lu will sort this out.” Then, probably because he was the youngest and brashest aboard, he said what really had been eloquently said already. “You fly a mean voller, majestrix.”

Delia, without the slightest sign of a smile touching her lips, said: “Why, thank you, Rollo.”

He didn't get it. We others did, though, knowing Delia was sending young Rollo up in the nicest possible way. Every now and then his habitual arrogance would break out. Anyway, he fancied himself as a voller pilot.

Back aboard, plans were made to deal with this unforeseen situation.

“Everyone is absolutely motionless, like statues,” said Rollo.

“Yes, yes.” Deb-Lu nodded. “There are many ways to achieve that.”

“And the fireballs—”

“Nasty, brutish, ignorant—yet unfortunately effective.”

I'd seen Deb-Lu and Khe-Hi hurling fireballs against a certain sorcerer and his accomplice to form that awe-inspiring if horrific Quern of Gramarye between them. Oh, yes, I didn't want anything to do with bolts of fire chucked at my head.

Delia, crisply, said: “If everyone down there is turned to stone, who is hurling firebolts?”

Rollo coughed, and said: “They only started when we began to lift up. The other two vollers went on down and weren't shot at. Could the firebolts be shot off without a living person to trigger them?”

“That would present little problem,” commented Deb-Lu.

“Or,” I said, “that could be Fantong down there already and he's got some protection against the freezing spell.”

“Quite possible.”

“Let's go down there heavy-handed and blatter him.” That was Inch.

“You can cancel the spell?” Seg turned to the Wizard of Loh.

“I shall need to know what kind it is first. I said I was aware only of residual magic below the trees. Whoever placed this glamour must have been careless. It will be most interesting to find out.”

“The power it must have taken,” said Rollo. “Surely that must show up?”

“And for how long it's been going on for.”

“Let us,” I said. “Get on with it.”

Something of the old intemperate Dray Prescot must have echoed in my words. At any rate, the plans were immediately finalized and the whole squadron dropped carefully down between the leaves.

The scene looked exactly as it had before. How long, I wondered, had this city been doomed to motionless timelessness?

The ships spread out. A firebolt lashed up when it was clear the ships were not intending to drop lower. Each pilot had been given the most explicit instructions. They were to keep on moving and weaving and on no account were they to allow their ships to be hit.

Deb-Lu-Quienyin, as always in these situations, lost all his friendly comicalness. He became remote, awe-inspiring, a sorcerer practicing his arcane arts. He held up his hands, an extravagant gesture for him. He looked with a long down-drawn stare upon the tower from which the firebolts spat. I knew what we were in for.

The moment Deb-Lu drew upon his kharrna and instigated his protection the spinning succession of firebolts spat up at us. All the other ships would be safe now. Now, we alone could be fried and crisped like best vosk rashers.

Halfway between the tower and our ship a dish of light grew. It spun in a multitude of colors, spitting sparks. And it grew. This was the Quern of Gramarye. Deb-Lu and the mage below were putting forth their powers. At first the spinning light moved towards us. Deb-Lu exerted more power, his face calm, composed, without a trickle of sweat. The Quern of Gramarye moved back through the air, approached the tower.

As the plasma of thaumaturgy overflowed so it shot off sparks and flames and heat from the disc of light. Nearer and nearer the tower it crept. With the remorseless logic of his profession, Deb-Lu knew what must be done.

Coruscating with light, shooting off great discharges of molten matter, spinning like a crazy Catherine Wheel, the Quern of Gramarye smashed back. The tower was engulfed in flame. Chunks of masonry broke off and flew through the air like crumbs from a snapped bread roll. Destruction shattered the top of the tower. Stone slagged and dripped like treacle.

No more bolts of fire lanced from that tower.

We were all impressed. Of us all, I suppose Rollo understood most. He said, in a low voice: “There is much to learn.”

“Aye, my boy,” Deb-Lu-Quienyin told him, perfectly composed after his demonstration of sorcerous power. “There always is.”

“Now,” said Delia. “We can deal with the rest of it.”

“Ask Oby to bring the ship directly over that crowd of people on the platform in the central kyro.” Deb-Lu was brisk. “And make sure we don't drop down.”

We all trooped off to the lower galleries as Oby brought the voller in over the platz. A ceremony was being performed down there—rather, a ceremony had been in process of being performed when everyone became frozen. Customs vary wildly all over Kregen, of course. But it took little nous to see this was a wedding. The man in splendid robes, the woman in even more sumptuous robes, her face veiled, stood side by side, holding hands. The priest marrying them looked a wily old devil, lined with seasons of power. Either side of the pair stood their relations and all were dressed up with gold and jewels, in swathing robes of fine silks. Represented there were money, power and prestige.

Deb-Lu said: “There. That's the culprit.”

Among all that glittering show the fellow standing on the next lower platform looked out of place. Where everyone wore grand robes for this important wedding, his clothes were a simple blue and silver breechclout and a light short cape of pale blue. He wore no weapons where the others, men and women both, were festooned with armaments in the Kregan way.

Open across his palms lay a book. He was in the act of reading from its pages. The book—it was obviously a hyr lif—was bound in skin of a pale sallow yellow, banded with gold bars and chained to his waist belt by a golden chain. Downturned, his face was difficult to see.

“Another of those idiots of Almuensis,” observed Rollo.

“Not altogether idiots, they do have real powers.” Deb-Lu's voice carried a mild note of reproval.

“They must do.” Delia spoke decisively. “If that's the fellow who's done all this.”

“A Sorcerer of the Cult of Almuensis. Yes. But Rollo is right in one thing.” Deb-Lu's wheezy voice brightened at the joke. “He, I expect, had been bribed to stop the wedding by someone who wanted to marry one or other of the parties involved. So he cast something like “To hold and detain,” or perhaps “To render immoveable.” He worked it all right. The only trouble was—patently obvious, by Hlo-Hli!”

Well, yes, we could all see that.

“I doubt if he's the fellow who set up the fireballs, then,” I said. “At the moment the fireballs remain a mystery. Once we can remove this enchantment from the city we might take a look at the remains of the tower.”

“That leaves us little option.” Deb-Lu sounded quite pleased. He always welcomed a challenge in the ethereal planes of higher thaumaturgy. “I shall try the most simple and obvious way first.” He started in giving orders and the crew sprang to do his bidding. When a Wizard of Loh asks you to do something, you bratch, you jump very quickly!

Deb-Lu's simple idea saw Oby coaxing the ship gently forward, guided by Rollo at the beginning of a chain of crewmen all passing along directions. Inch held the rope, having bagged the job before anyone else. The rest of us looked on and offered comments. Rollo, perched right forward, called out “left a bit” and “right a bit” until he had us lined up. Inch dangled the rope with its knotted-on wicker basket, trying to keep it steady.

Keeping the unease I felt out of my voice, I said: “If we bring the book aboard, won't that—?”

“No danger of that.” Deb-Lu squinted his eyes down past Inch. The wicker basket was irritatingly spinning. Inch tried to steady it. “The effect has occurred. The Almuensis Culter made a mistake, that's all.” Deb-Lu sounded much more cheerful. “A not uncommon happening.”

“Got it!” called Inch. His lanky form bent and then straightened. The book lay snugged in the basket. Inch hauled in with a will.

Nobody offered to rush forward and lift up the book when Inch swung the basket over the rail onto the deck.

Down below us the city continued to show no life or movement.

“Most Interesting,” observed our own Wizard of Loh. “A few jolly evenings of reading ahead. Excellent!”

Rollo came charging along the narrow gallery from the bows and scooped the book up. He did not close it but left it open at the page and handed it across to Deb-Lu. We all saw the sudden graciousness with which he passed the book over. Both sorcerers, the experienced mage and the apprentice, recognized the power in those pages. I looked at the paper; it was a high quality vellum, and not paper from Aphrasöe.

There was a good chance the binding was made from a virgin's skin.

I said: “How did you break the chain?”

The golden end dangled and looked half-melted.

Rollo looked across swiftly, and his teeth flashed.

Deb-Lu's wheezy voice was as modest as ever. “Not too difficult. The chain held no extra applied kharrna.”

The more you witnessed what Wizards of Loh could do without mumbo-jumbo, the more they impressed you.

“I'll just give a little study...” Deb-Lu's voice trailed off. He began to read.

Quietly, Rollo said: “There are two sorts of kharrna—at least, two to my current knowledge. There may be more, and study will reveal them when the san considers I am ready. One is passive, the other active. Passive kharrna exists in all the objects of nature. Active kharrna is that within and controlled by a wizard. This comes only from study.” He took a meaningful breath. “Hard study, by Hlo-Hli!”

I smiled inwardly at this. Deb-Lu really was taming this tearaway to good use.

Seg said: “I'm for a wet. Anybody?”

This was a highly sensible suggestion.

Emder and Tim Timutorio brought up the sazz and parclear. As we all wet our throstles Deb-Lu looked up. He nodded in satisfaction and Rollo, who was watching carefully, caught the toppling turban.

“Kharrna.” Deb-Lu's eyebrows drew down. “There is a division of active kharrna, applied kharrna, as you very well know, Rollo. Also you are aware that it is not customary for an adept to discuss his art outside.”

Rollo did not look so much put down or disciplined as uncomfortable.

“Now,” said Deb-Lu briskly. “When you wish to undo something it is always useful to know how it was done. The mistake was not easy to make; this fellow down there made it. I can redo and then undo.”

“Hold on a moment, Deb-Lu.” I rubbed my chin. “Now this fellow froze himself along with the rest of the city. We are hoping Fantong will lead us where we want to go. Wouldn't it be useful if we could walk about down there and everyone else remained frozen?”

“Now I know exactly how it was done I can reverse the—well, never mind that.” Deb-Lu pondered, the book open on the table before him. Rollo stood to one side, looking at the book. Presently, Deb-Lu lifted his head. “All right. By a combination I can do that.”

“Excellent!”

Rollo said: “But there will be an area around—”

“Oh, quite,” confirmed Deb-Lu. “If you approach near a frozen person the applied kharrna you're carrying will interact and wake them up.”

“We'll just have to steer clear of any ugly customers, then.”

Delia, who has a sharp eye when it comes to matters of cleanliness and always keeps our residences spotless said: “There's no dust down there. If they've been like that for some time you'd expect dust everywhere.”

“And the rain,” pointed out Milsi, whose realm lay along the forested River of Bloody Jaws.

“The answer is,” said Rollo, “that the aura prevents rain and dust falling.” He threw a quick glance at his master to see if Deb-Lu wished to amplify, and then went on: “The air is inanimate down there.”

“Then how do we breathe?” demanded Seg.

“By the same means you will wake up a frozen person. You will also reanimate the air about you as you go.”

“Nice to be a bit lofty, then,” observed Inch.

“Except,” said Sasha, giving her husband a look, “when you get your ears frostbitten.”

This old chestnut produced the expected smiles. Mind you, I am making all this sound as though we did not have a care in the world. The truth, obviously, was that we were embroiled with magic of a very high order.

Every step could lead to disaster. There were grim days ahead.

“How long, san, d'you think these folk have been like it?” Hack ‘n’ Slay looked meanly over the side. He and Seg and I had gone up against magic before, and we didn't relish all the memories.

“A good few seasons, I'd judge. But I can't tell exactly.”

“We'd best get on with it,” I said, rousing myself. “Let's go and get our scouts and their vollers back.”

This was accomplished. The scouts were uninjured, for the airboats had made gentle landings, and the kreutzin were astounded at the rapidity with which we'd joined them. They gaped when they were told.

After that we landed in a deserted avenue well away from the main platz. Exploration parties were detailed off with instructions not to go near enough to any living souls to awaken them. From our experiences with our scouts we were a trifle perturbed to discover that the distance varied and did not seem predictable. Deb-Lu commented that it was probably down to the person's own possession of kharrna. It appeared that everyone had one form of kharrna, at least. I got the impression, a fleeting one only, that Deb-Lu's slight hesitation as he spoke might indicate that there were other forms of thaumaturgical energy besides kharrna.

As they say—so rightly—in Clishdrin, “Anything can happen on Kregen and it probably will.”

An imposing domed building looked promising. I found myself walking up a sloping ramp with my comrades towards half-open bronze doors. Whether or not magic was abroad on the air, that air still carried the scents of the rain forest, and I guessed we brought them with us. Weird, the sorcerer's game, and not to be trifled with, by Krun!

We went in cautiously. There were no lights or windows and the interior looked gloomy and not at all inviting.

“By the Veiled Froyvil, this is a miserable dump!”

“Light up the torches,” commanded Delia.

The lights showed us a considerable area and that consisted of curved walls of dull stone and ranked statues of all manner of diffs in armor.

“A mausoleum?” Milsi sounded doubtful.

“They build them like this over in Chem of the Cataracts.” Sasha spoke with authority. “They burn the corpses, though.”

“Yeh,” added Inch. “Frightened their ibs will come out at night and chase ‘em.”

This domed building didn't appear to hold much promise to me. I swung about and headed off for the door and the suns shine. A shout reached me as I stepped outside.

“Drajak! Here—this looks interesting.”

Rollo was beckoning from a doorway farther along. I sauntered across. Other parties were foraging about in and out of doorways. For our explorations we were fortunate that almost all the citizens were congregated in the main kyro. I stepped in after Rollo, blinking. “Well?”

This was a side entrance and a few windows admitted ruby and jade streamers of light. Tall double-doors of ivory, studded in gold, stood imposingly to one side, away from the mausoleum. Above the centre of the architrave a shining golden statue glowered down on us. Its long sinuous neck thrust forward, the small head darting, as it were, at us, the jaws stuffed with needle teeth. The scaled body and tail and clawed legs were sculpted in perfect detail, and the strongly curved wings were outspread as though the xichun was about to leap into the air and descend to devour us.

“Xichun!” said Rollo, in a savage voice. “Well, we've had our fill of them, may Jallalak the Merciless be contumed!”

“He don't look a pretty sight, not with them teeth an’ all,” said a voice at my back.

Mevancy's voice said: “We'd better go in and take a look, anyway, cabbage.”

“I suppose so, pigeon.”

I pushed against one leaf and Rollo the other. The four of us stepped through into a bright blaze of light.

“Go carefully!” I snapped out very sharply.

Foolish fatuous words!

The soft sibilant hissing at our backs made us all swing about. A stone slab descended with a swift remorseless rush beyond the opened door. The two doors closed inwards, shutting with a thud followed by an ominous click.

“Caught!” I exclaimed in blazing wrath. “Trapped like a fly in a flick-flick plant!”

The floor tilted. We staggered and then slid in a tumbled heap down and down the long slope into a light of intolerable brilliance.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter eleven

My eyes were clamped shut against that brightness yet the light struck through, black spots danced among a deep and menacing redness before me. We hit bottom in a wild tangle, with Mevancy's hair in my mouth and my leg fiercely gripped by a pair of powerful fists. We rolled over and over on straw that stank like a cess pit, and eventually cracked into a stone wall.

“By Spurl!” choked out Mevancy. “What happened?”

The fists gripping my legs went away. “Jangflor alone knows, and he ain't telling, not with us down here an’ all.”

I spat and got rid of pleasantly scented hair and sat up. I kept my eyes shut; but I knew Rollo and Mevancy and Llodi with his enormous purple flower of a nose would be sorting themselves out. If we couldn't see where we were, how in a Herrelldrin Hell were we to see where we were going?

Rollo said: “Hold on a moment. I'll try—”

The rest of us had the sense to remain still and silent. After a short time Rollo let rip a snort and said: “All hold on, form a chain, and I hope, by Chusto, I'm going in the right direction.”

I got my arm about Mevancy's waist and Llodi gripped onto me. With Rollo in the lead, we staggered up and started blindly off.

I felt the coolness drop over me and the malefic red light faded before my eyes. Gingerly, I opened one eyelid.

The light beat down with a soft pulse of ivory and pearl, very soothing after the searing blast scorching our eyes. Facing me, a wall of veined marble stretched to a low ceiling. In my ears the splashing thunder of water echoed off the walls. The air smelled musky, of the earth, and cool and refreshing after the heat of the jungles of Chem outside.

“That's better!” Rollo's voice carried satisfaction as well as relief. Whatever he'd done he'd pulled us through the inferno.

“With a trapped slope like that an’ everything,” observed Llodi, “you'd expect spikes at the bottom. Not straw.”

“We are expected,” said Mevancy in a choked voice.

I swung about.

The wall at my side, built of the same veined marble, contained three doors, all closed. Over them an inscription had been picked out in gold.

The four of us, we all stood up and looked at that invitation. Beautiful calligraphy in the flowing Kregan script, it caught our absorbed attention.

ADVENTURERS! WELCOME TO THE REALM OF THE DRUMS! MAY YOUR WAY LIE STRAIGHT AND YOUR END IN FIRE!

Rollo said in a shocked voice, an exclamation jerked from him: “By the Seven Arcades! May Hlo-Hli smile on us now!”

Mevancy said: “You know what this means?”

“It is a legend, a myth from the old days—”

“The old days of the Empire of Loh?”

“Yes.”

“Well, as we're down here an’ all, you'd better tell us.”

Rollo sat down, plump, onto the floor.

We all waited until he'd gathered himself together. He wet his lips. He held both hands together, fingers entwined—and I judged that was to stop his hands from shaking.

“The city,” he said, at last, “the city above us. That is the City of Eternal Twilight.”

“Well,” observed Mevancy in a level voice. “That seems a sensible name. They live under the trees.” She was, I saw with pleasure, determined to keep on a level keel in these eerie surroundings.

“The city was built over a vast underground complex, caverns and caves and chambers and corridors. Rumors passed surreptitiously and some were written down in secret documents. A treasure beyond imagination is buried here. That knowledge was passed down from Queen to Queen, from wizard to wizard. Expeditions went forth to bring back the treasure—”

“In course,” said Llodi, “none of ‘em came back.”

“Right.” Rollo stood up. He took a breath. “The whole place is protected. It was said the people of the Realm of the Drums were not of the same stock as those of the City of Eternal Twilight. There are—”

“There will be,” I said, trying to be casual and yet positive at the same time. “Monsters and Magic.”

“Monsters and Magic.”

“Well, by Spurl!” growled out Mevancy. “Let us try to find a way back and tell the others.”

We all looked back at the opening where that intolerable light blazed down.

“The ramp will be unclimbable.” Rollo rolled his shoulders. “And I cannot guarantee to pass that awful light.”

“Then we must find another way out,” snapped Mevancy.

Now in all this, you will understand, one thought dominated my mind. I had no fears for Delia when she was with Seg and Inch and our comrades. We had a little army and a squadron of vollers up there. They might explore into the corridor with the tall double doors and the statue of the golden xichun and they'd never find the way in past the slab of stone that would look exactly like the rest of the corridor wall.

I mentioned that to the others, and went on: “We're on our own down here unless—Rollo, can you contact Deb-Lu?”

He shook his head. He looked not so much sullen as frustrated. “No, Drajak, no. Deb-Lu said there was only residual magic and he was right—for the city. Here there is magic of an order surpassing anything I can achieve. It is all about us.”

“And presumably concealed from above.”

“Yes.”

“Well, there's only one thing for it. Mevancy is right. We've got to find our way out.”

“Yeh,” said Llodi. “I just wish I had my strangdja.”

That must have been jerked out of his hand as we fell, for his had been the two fists wrapped about my legs. Otherwise, we had all our weapons. The noise of the water battered into this small room. I looked at the three closed doors. They were all painted black and looked the same.

“So that's the way of it,” I said in an extremely ugly voice.

“The inscription suggests our way should lie straight.” Mevancy's hands rubbed together briskly. “And our end a fiery one. Well, we don't take the middle door!”

“Right or left?”

“The noise of the water appears to be coming from the left,” said Rollo.

“Let's have a look.” I marched across to the left hand black door.

Now when you go adventuring into places other folk of a mean character have made as unpleasant as they can, there are certain ways of going about simple things like opening doors. I once knew a fellow who carried a large oil can with him and whenever he came to a door that opened towards him he carefully oiled the hinges. That way he could open the door silently. He was caught and devoured by some monster crab beetle going into a room whose door opened away from him.

Even at this very first door I felt back on familiar, if ugly, territory. The standard procedure was to listen and smell and be quiet and judge the opportune moment. Just how our fortunes would fare depended as much on circumstances as the way we bent those circumstances to our advantage. The black door opened silently and the pervasive pearly light showed a narrow flight of stone steps. The steps led up.

“That's a relief!” said Mevancy.

Llodi said: “I'll go first.”

I said: “You'll do no such thing. Use your bowstave to prod the steps.”

He no doubt thought me a trifle touchy, still he unlimbered his bow and prodded away at the steps. Even then I couldn't be sure if that pressure would simulate the weight of a foot. I needn't have bothered.

The third step up released a shower of darts that whistled high over our heads from slots. Mevancy said: “Oh!” Llodi sucked in his cheeks. Rollo mumbled something to himself.

The door at the top was shut and locked and there was no way we could open it.

“Solid marble by the look of it,” said Rollo, savagely.

So we trooped down and went along to the right hand door.

This opened onto a stairway leading down to a door at its foot.

“Let us at least have a look at the middle door.” Mevancy said.

Here we found the source of the noise of rushing water. The corridor led straight ahead and a spring welled up just inside the door and the water channeled along parallel to the corridor. All that appeared to be perfectly satisfactory. The oddness lay in the walls. They were formed of packed earth, well soaked by water. Long thin white lines snaked in and out of the earth. My fist gripped onto my sword hilt in instinctive reaction. The wriggling lines in the earth remained still.

“Of course,” said Mevancy. “With all the granite in the city the trees must have somewhere to stretch their roots.”

“The stasis spell freezing the people keeps rain off,” pointed out Rollo. “The trees will gain some moisture from rain on their leaves; but this underground water must exist all over the city.”

A nasty thought occurred to me then that I felt prudent not to communicate to my companions.

“Do we or do we not go straight ahead?” Mevancy wanted to know.

“If we go down an’ all we'll be deeper and it'll be harder to get back up.”

“The question is,” said Rollo with a zephyr of his old arrogance, “do we or do we not obey the instructions in the inscription?”

“Hardly instructions, Rollo. You're suggesting the words are a challenge?” I said.

“Implicitly, yes. ‘May your way liestraight.’ What does that mean? Are they wishing us well, or—”

“They?” snapped Mevancy.

“Whoever built this damned place. Long dead now, I don't doubt, although with Wizards of Walfarg you never can tell. They had treasures to guard and they knew greedy people would try to steal the treasures. So they protected them as best they could. Dead or alive, Rollo is right, we are responding to a challenge.”

“Yeh, and I don't fancy going down, not with whatever horrors an’ all you've promised us down there an’ everything.”

“But, Llodi,” said Mevancy with a hint of exasperation, “if we don't go down we'll be doing what the inscription wants.”

This situation was pressing in on my comrades and for all their good humor and courage they were, like me, ordinary human beings. Nerves were being frayed. How long would it be before words grew harder and hard words changed into blows? That I had to prevent, somehow.

“Let's take a look along the corridor of the roots,” I said. “If it's no good we can always come back and nip down the stairs.”

Mevancy's sniff was not of the same order as the sniff of Mul-lu-Manting. “Very well, cabbage. You and Llodi go and see, then, we'll—”

“No, cabbage.” I spoke gently. “We all stick together.”

“That, I think,” Rollo spoke judiciously, “would be wise.”

So off we trooped along between the roots which grew everywhere. The water was perfectly sweet and clean and safe to drink. At the far end a door admitted us to another corridor of exactly the same character. I squinted along the wall, and then turned and squinted back the way we'd come.

“Clever. The corridor is not quite straight with the last. It goes off a fraction, but that's—”

“That's enough to confuse you altogether later on!” burst out Rollo.

“Let's go along to the next corridor—”

“All right, Llodi. But that's all.”

This time the corridor ended in an intersection of six branches. The stream of water divided into five and sparkled on. Little brick-built bridges crossed the streams. I stopped.

Mevancy said it for us all. “A maze!”

“All right, by Jangflor! You win. Let's go down the steps.”

Had we, I wondered, done the right thing? Perhaps the designers of these underground ways had calculated that we would not go straight on just because of their inscription. Then I ceased to fret over that one. No matter which way we went, we were heading into trouble.

The pearly light continued to pervade the air. The walls were well-constructed of cut stone. There was, down here, some dust about, but in general the passageways were as clean as though recently swept. We saw no one. That passage opened into a wide, rough-hewn cavern. A large number of small dark objects lay on the stone floor.

“Keep away from ‘em,” said Rollo. “If we wake them up they'll be fluttering about our ears and biting our faces.”

We edged around the wall of the cavern and left the bats sleeping.

“I wonder.”

“What do you wonder, Mevancy?”

“Why, the bats have to eat. They fly out over the countryside at night, in this case the rain forest. They have to have ways in and out.”

“Probably small holes high in the roof.” Rollo made it gentle.

I was harsh. “They find their food down here.”

“Well, cabbage, it was just a thought!”

“D'you want to wake the bats up and find out an’ everything?”

“I think not.” Rollo was already walking on. “They'd flap about our ears and try to bite us to death.”

We marched on in silence after that along a short passageway that connected into the next chamber.

Two steps from the entrance we all halted sharply; very sharply, by Krun! Standing snarling at us with whiskers bristling and black gums pulled back from yellow teeth, a vorlind looked about to spring. This particular vorlind was a big fellow, with a spotted hide of orange and black, a tail that now stood straight out like a poker, and pads and claws that could remove your head as neatly as a headsman's axe.

We whispered in that cathedral like place as though the vorlind could overhear us. “How much kharrna does he have, Rollo?”

“It is impossible to say accurately. Another two steps and—”

“Get around the spotty-lind,” said Llodi in his hoarse voice, using one of the slang names for vorlinds. I wish I had my strangdja!”

Edging past the vorlind so as not to awaken him was easy enough. The danger might well come from the walls. I never do like leaning against walls in these kinds of situation. I mentioned this to the others, and we kept as much room as possible between the rock and our shoulders.

Nothing else of interest met our gazes in that cavern so we pressed on to the next. Rollo said he was trying to keep a map in his head. Llodi said he'd have a go, too—an’ everything.

This cavern stretched away and the pearly light being much reduced here meant we could not see the far end. Those shadows up there looked damned ominous. Cautiously moving forward we followed the center line. The fellow up ahead must have been doing that, just as we were. Little good it had done him. He lay in the path with his head crushed in.

“By Hlo-Hli, we won't wake him up!”

“Thassa spotty-lind done that.”

“Aye.”

“But,” pointed out Mevancy, “the vorlind isn't frozen here. So—”

“Just where the shadows cluster thickly, I think,” I said.

We advanced with great care to see the tableau revealed through the gloom as we drew closer. A man very much like the poor fellow back in the path was marching on. Like his fellow he wore only a breechclout of a mustardy color. He carried a wicker basket on each end of a yoke over his shoulders. Just in front of him marched a guard, a Rapa whose feathers thrust stiffly and whose vulturine beak curved cruelly. He was armored in banded iron and carried swords and a whip. His kind I had met very very early in my acquaintance with the peoples of Kregen. Another slave marched on ahead of the Rapa and other figures were dimly discernable further on.

To one side and only just visible in the shadows crouched the motionless form of a vorlind, tail outthrust, red eyes glaring upon the men.

“What a picture!” Mevancy was saying. “Fascinating!” Rollo sucked in his cheeks. Llodi didn't say a word, nor did I. We both heard the coughing snarl from the shadows beside us.

We swiveled about.

From the gloom the ferocious form all teeth and claws leaped full on us.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter twelve

Llodi dived one way clutching Rollo and I dived the other clutching Mevancy. Both of us clambered to our feet. The vorlind was standing with his massive head swinging left and right. His muscles must have betrayed him after the stasis and his leap failed. His red eyes glared on me and then on Llodi and then his head swung back to me.

“By Spurl!” spat out Mevancy, sitting up. She held out her arm.

“No, pigeon,” I said, quickly, jerkily, watching the vorlind and Mevancy from the corner of my eye. “Save ‘em. Later.”

Llodi was preparing to rush in with me, catch the beast from two sides. I supposed that was what we'd have to do. I hate this kind of thing, where a noble beast is only acting to his nature. Mind you, if his nature is to take my head off, then noble or not, he has to be stopped.

“Stop, Llodi! I'll shaft the poor thing.”

My sword snicked back into the scabbard and the Lohvian longbow came off my shoulder. All this took very little time. Had that spotty-lind not suddenly been woken up from stasis he'd have been chomping by now. I fitted nock to string, drew and loosed and the arrow went splunk! into the vorlind just abaft his neck. The vorlind, unlike the leem, has only one heart. He only has six legs, unlike the leem. This fellow just keeled over.

Rollo lowered his bow where he stood alongside Llodi. “No need for me, then.”

The lad had been quick, then, recovering and getting his bow ready. As Seg would have done, I took out my knife and retrieved my shaft.

“The problem is,” Rollo was saying. “Who and what are they?”

“Friendly or hostile,” amplified Mevancy.

“If we wake ‘em up we'll have more people to help an’ all.”

“A shrewd point, Llodi.”

I said: “We'll have to nobble that vorlind first.”

There was a certain sharp brittleness in our conversation. We'd just been through an experience that would affect us. Right now we had to come to terms with our emotions. Mind you, Llodi, a tough bird if ever there was one, whose profession was as a caravan guard, had seen worse sights than a poor dead hunting cat. Mevancy had been through the mill. She was employed by the Star Lords and they do not use weaklings. As for Rollo, young as he was he had seen certain sights in my company already. No, all in all, I felt that our group would retain cohesion and reason.

Regarding the vorlind, Llodi grunted: “Shaft the beast.”

“A regrettable necessity,” remarked Rollo, who had quickly picked up my scruples and foibles.

“Only if we wake ‘em up.”

“As to that, pigeon, could we walk off and leave that tableau? It's weird enough as it is. But when they unfreeze another poor damned slave is going to have his head taken off.”

Llodi lifted his bow and let fly. He might be employed as a strangdjim, he remained a Bowman of Loh. I judged the beast would not wake up.

“Before we unfreeze ‘em,” I said. “Let us scout along their line and see what manner of folk they are. We'll have to watch out for—”

“Everything, cabbage!” cut in Mevancy.

“Too right, pigeon. I was, though, talking of vorlinds.”

“Them and the rest of the nasties an’ everything.”

What I refrained from telling my companions was that although the evil institution was accepted as an everyday part of normal life down here in Loh, slavery was abhorrent to me. I'd been slave enough times, and had been mercilessly whipped by just such dominating Rapa guards. Oh, yes, by Zair! And slavery had been taboo to me whilst still on Earth.

So whoever was leading this frozen party had better measure up!

When we reached the head of the column, of course and as you would expect—how to judge the quality of a man from outward seeming? Much is revealed, of course. More is hidden. This fellow wore a black jutting beard, his face was brown and seamed, he wore expensive and fancy clothes and was girded with swords. His costume had once been white with much gold; now it was grimed and torn. Just abaft him stood a massive Brokelsh, all bristling body hair and pugnacity, carrying armor. To his side another Brokelsh carried the lord's other weapons. The lord himself carried a bow. The lead group were followed by half a dozen guards of various races, then a string of slaves carrying bundles and wicker baskets, more guards, more slaves, until the end was reached where we'd first encountered them. I fancied the slave at the tail end had a bad leg and was hobbling to keep up. In all there were some twenty guards and fifty slaves. I could not see a single female in the party.

“No spotty-linds within range, Drajak.”

“Right. Now, are we all agreed to wake ‘em up?”

Mevancy, being a woman and therefore a trifle of a schemer in these affairs, said: “I'd like to scout ahead for a way. If there are more vorlinds up there, we could warn these people.” She arched her eyebrows at us. “They ought to be grateful, by Spurl, then, surely!”

“Capital!” exclaimed Rollo. “I'll go.”

“We'll all go,” I said in what I realized was a menacing voice.

We found six more up the pathway and dispatched them all. We had been talking a whole lot lately. All four of us had waxed positively loquacious. This had to be caused by our uncanny surroundings.

“All set? Right. Let's walk in.”

Seeing that column of men come to life was amazing enough. They walked on in the first instance as though nothing had happened. Their knees moved up and down and their legs swung forward. But something had happened. Muscles had grown stiff, even though the spell mitigated the full effects. Some stumbled, some fell, all cried out in terror and despair.

Those cries told me something of their recent history.

The two Brokelsh dropped their burdens and sprang—clumsily—to the assistance of their lord. “Lynxor!” The Lohvian word for lord rang in the cavern and I tried to detect meaning. Did they really care for their master? They looked as though they meant business, for they caught him before he fell and supported him. I suppose they were fussing over him. This cheered me up in one direction and made me doubt in another. Obviously.

We four stepped forward and we all had a shaft nocked and the string half drawn.

“Llahal, doms!” I shouted in a firm, demanding voice. “Llahal!”

The reactions should not have astonished us. But they did.

A shrieking wail screeched up from the slaves, they dropped their bundles and baskets and ran madly back along the path. The guards milled about trying to form a line to front us. Bows lifted.

“We are not demons!” I bellowed. “We are travelers like yourselves!”

It was touch and go.

The lord straightened up. He held a lynxter, the sword pointed at us and did not tremble.

“Stand!” he said in a clear, crisp voice.

He'd dropped his bow and drawn his sword sharpish enough, by Krun!

“Llahal, lynxor.” I made the greeting even more demanding than before. I looked hard at him, at his pale cheeks, his dark eyes, that stiff small black beard. I lowered the bow. “We seek the way out of this maze.” I gestured with the bow. “There are beasts we shafted up there.”

“Beasts? Vorlinds, yes, we have been pestered by them.” He wasn't sure yet, not quite sure of us. He turned abruptly to the guards. “Fetch the poor people back before they run into more mischief.”

“Quidang!” rapped the lead Rapa who wore more feathers than the others among his own. He was the cadade, the captain of the guard. He belted out quick orders and some of the guard went running off after the witless slaves. I felt I could take an easier breath.

“Your name?” He sheathed his sword.

I made the pappattu, introducing us, and he announced himself as Chan Holomin, Strom of Wioldrin. Strom being roughly equivalent to a terrestrial count made him a member of the higher nobility. Where Wioldrin was I didn't know; I fancied he hailed from Walfarg.

Further to smooth over this meeting, I said: “We felt a tremor, and weakness took us. Then we saw you in like case.”

The guards were returning with the runaways and the hullabaloo quietened down. He pulled at that stiff beard. “I felt most peculiar, by Wurzam! We have traveled a long way and have not previously been troubled by sorcerers.” He gave us a sharp glance.

Before he could frame in words what he was thinking I cut in: “We suspected sorcery, too. I suppose there must be a great deal of it down here.”

He asked about our travels and we assured him there was no way out that way and in the end we agreed to cut off to the side of the cavern, wary of savage cats, and seek a fresh opening. Mevancy set herself to learn all she could. Chan admitted he was out for adventure and could not resist the challenge from the moment he first heard of the Realm of the Drums. By clever, seemingly innocuous questions, Mevancy drew forth the startling information that Chan and his party had ventured in here some five hundred seasons ago. All that time they'd stood there, clear of dust and decay, waiting all unknowingly to be released from the stasis spell.

Just how many others were there down here, all frozen?

He said he'd ventured in from an opening in the walls, sneaking in from the forest under cover of night, not wishing to let his presence be known to the inhabitants of the City of Eternal Twilight. He had a map of the way to get here; once inside he was as lost as us. Then he said: “It is told that the great and puissant Queen Satra ventured here. As everyone knows, she mysteriously vanished a few seasons ago. I am beginning to believe the rumors are correct. You could wander about down here for a lifetime.”

One minor mystery was cleared up as Chan talked on. It was clear to us he was glad of the company. He'd started with over two hundred people, so he was considerably reduced. The mystery was this—the inscription we had come across indicated adventurers were expected. The folk of the City of Twilight knew about the labyrinth under their feet and never ventured down. They usually admitted anyone foolish enough to try to descend. Queen Satra, omnipotent, had accepted the challenge and taken a huge retinue down with her. That, at least, was the rumor which Chan now believed true.

“So you sneaked in after her, on the quiet?”

He started to bristle up at the crudity of my remark; then he smiled a trifle ruefully. “You are blunt, Drajak the Sudden. Yes.”

His reaction heartened me. If he turned out to be your usual unpleasant example of so-called nobility we'd take our chances on our own. If he proved to be a reasonable traveling companion then we would, as I phrased it to myself, allow him to accompany us.

There was, indeed, a fresh opening in the side of the cave. I had a quick quiet word with Rollo. “Your map?”

“Still holding it in my head. I'd welcome pens and paper, though.”

“We'll try this Chan fellow, later on.”

“Seems a reasonable sort, I suppose.”

“Mevancy is prepared to trust him.”

“I bet friend Llodi isn't, by Hlo-Hli!”

The opening led into a rough-hewn passageway which wound round and about so that I felt sorry for poor Rollo trying to keep a track of it all in his head. I said to Chan: “Did you make a map as you went along?”

He gave an odd sideways look. He hesitated, and then said: “We began in that fashion. But Orgli, my stylor, was eaten by a syatra. After that every way we went led nowhere. I think, Drajak the Sudden, we are all resigned to our fate.”

“Nonsense!” I exclaimed, probably with more force than I intended.

Again Chan favored me with that leery look. Llodi, marching along on my heels, said in an unnaturally loud voice: “I agree with you, Prince Drajak!” He went on: “Why, the king your father would never surrender!”

Chan jumped. So that was it! Good old Llodi! He'd spotted the way this strom didn't relish the familiarity with which I spoke to him.

I said with some acerbity: “Now, Llodi, you know I am incognito.”

At once Mevancy jumped in. “Please forgive him, majister.”

Rollo joined in. “Please, majister. One has to become accustomed to calling Prince Drajak simply Drajak the Sudden.”

My comrades meant well, of course. But was I always to be encompassed around with stupid titles? Still, they'd passed the issue off and the deception might help us. Then I smiled inwardly. It was no deception!

“You are forgiven,” I said with my most imperial manner.

“Majister,” Chan started up. “Had I known, I would—”

“Now, Strom Chan. Just call me Drajak. And what is that shadow ahead, just past that buttress?”

We all stopped abruptly. Up there the pearly light dimmed. If every time we came across perils the light faded, the prospects loomed even more unpleasantly. I could see pretty clearly, though, and made out a humped shape with prongs upon its back. As we stared, four red eyes opened. Four red eyes regarded us balefully and a gusting stench wafted upon us.

“A stinkback!” Chan held out his hand. “Axe!”

One of his Brokelsh slapped the haft of the axe into his fist.

“Bowmen!” ordered Chan in a firm voice. Then, to us, he said: “They are the very devil. Armored. You have to chop through them.”

Rapas stepped up smartly enough and let fly. Some of their arrows chinkled off the scaled hide, others lodged, and one red eye vanished. At once a crescendo of screeching bellowed up, the stench increased, and the stinkback charged.

I stepped in front of Mevancy, the Krozair longsword snouting. “Get out of the way, pigeon!”

“I'll—” she began.

I glimpsed Rollo hauling her back and Llodi stepping up with his sword at the ready. He said, through his teeth: “I wish I had me good old strangdja now, what with them scales an’ all.”

The next few moments were a pandemonium of thrashing claws and smiting steel, of a Rapa staggering back without his beak, of Chan leaping with me and of us smiting together. Llodi went in low, thrusting.

He bounced back.

Blow after blow rained down. Chan staggered as a claw ripped at him. I managed to get another eye and then I smashed the Krozair brand down onto the junction of forelimb and shoulder. The leg was not severed; it dangled. Llodi was up and at my side, panting, slashing his sword down. Chan got back into the fight and a couple of Rapas edged in from the side and used their strangdjas. Huge, slashing blows hacked the stinkback to pieces.

When it was all over the place stank disgustingly.

“Move out!” yelled Chan. Then he glanced quickly at me, and I said: “Carry on, Chan.”

We hurried past the poor dead beast.

Up ahead the floor began to curve to the right and descend.

“By the nit-infested and tangled curls of the Divine Lady of Belschutz!” I said to myself. “Down!” Then I pondered as we walked on and down into the pearly radiance. We might very well have to go down again, and deeper and deeper, before we could find a way up and out. That was the nasty habit of these labyrinth builders, by Krun!

That is, if there was a way out.

As though reading my thoughts, Rollo said: “If Strom Chan came in through an opening in the walls, then surely we must be able to find that way out? Or another opening?”

“We'll find a way out.” I spoke bluffly, putting confidence into my voice. “And we'll take some treasure with us, for good measure.”

“By Wurzam! I'm with you, Drajak!” exclaimed Chan.

I gave him a twitch of my top lip to show I appreciated that.

Then he said: “I had wondered about that sword you carry. It appeared hopelessly unbalanced. Yet it did as much damage as a strangdja.”

“It is a competent weapon.” I wasn't going to be drawn on the terrible destructive abilities of a true Krozair longsword, nor its origins.

The passage continued down and the walls began to smooth out, still with the mark of cold chisels upon them. Mevancy contrived to walk alongside.

“Cabbage—you pushed me out of the way.”

“Aye.”

“I intend to stand and—”

“I know you do, pigeon.”

“Well, then?”

“Well, then, remember the Star Lords would be most displeased with me if I let you get killed. And I shudder to think what the Empress Delia would say to anybody who returned and I did not.”

Now, of course, that was a cruel and heartless thing to say to her.

Her face, always flushed by reason of her need for a high blood pressure to shoot her bindles, reddened even more. She blinked rapidly. For a dreadful moment I thought she would burst into tears—I swear I thought I saw a sparkle on her eyelids. Then she stuck a shoulder in the air and stalked off to walk with Rollo.

By the Black Chunkrah! The last thing I wanted was to become even more involved in Mevancy's emotional problems. She had enough worries over selecting a proper father for any daughters she might have so that they would be born with bindles on their forearms. She stalked on ahead with Rollo.

“You have to admire her, though, Drajak, what with her being a girl an’ everything.”

“Oh, I do, Llodi, I do.”

Now, why in a Herrelldrin Hell did that come out as though I were mocking the poor girl? I had a tremendous admiration and affection for Mevancy. She contrived an inner beauty that shone out to captivate mere men.

Llodi grunted and said: “I missed me strangdja, back there.”

Now what I said next must be heard in context. I said: “There will be plenty of fights to come. There'll be spare weapons aplenty.”

“I s'pose so, what with these monsters an’ all.”

Llodi would find his strangdja, of that I had no doubt. We were in for a stormy passage before we won free of this labyrinth. Now, if you view looting a corpse with abhorrence, you are absolutely right in general. In particular, sometimes, it is necessary or customary. As a paktun, an acknowledged mercenary of standing, would automatically take the pakai, the string of trophy rings, from a vanquished rival, so he would expect his own pakai to be taken from him. He was entitled to his trophies of victory. In the same way any mercenary, any soldier, will take what he needs from the dead. And any mercenary, certainly, and many a soldier, when dead and looking down from whatever heaven he inhabits, will nod when a living mortal in need rifles through the possessions on his dead body, and say: “Thy need is greater than mine.”

There's little use for swords and armor buried with dead warriors. Modern archaeologists welcome the fact. No respectful warrior would ransack the tomb of another—unless pressing considerations swept aside the morality of it. So if any of you following my narrative imagine I have ever advocated stealing from dead bodies here on Earth, you are sadly mistaken. That, of course, refers to civilian life. There is a strong and vibrant civilian life on Kregen, as I have said; but Kregen is Kregen, and Kregen is not Earth, by Zair!

All this by way of explanation of the dart that streaked from the hidden wall slit.

The smells were left to the rear and we debouched into a chamber that was no longer a cavern, for the walls were masonry, and many areas were covered with tapestries. The pearly light suffused the whole large area with that soft and lambent glow so soothing to the eyes. Tables and chairs stood about, and chests banded in black iron were piled against one wall.

“Ha!” exclaimed Chan, and strode forward eagerly.

Most of the chests were rotted and the black iron rusting. Chan stopped. He tugged his beard. “Worthless—or camouflage?”

“Or, lord,” said Dravka, the Brokelsh who carried his armor. “Trapped?”

The other Brokelsh, Braga, turned and beckoned curtly. The Rapa cadade was quite clearly used to this. A couple of his guards ran a slave up to the Brokelsh. The slave, a shaven-haired Gon, just stood there with eyes half-closed, mouth slack and drooling a little. The finest of trembles vibrated his limbs. He looked like a limp propped-up sack.

Two Rapa guards slapped their strangdjas into their outside hands and grasped the Gon with their inside fists and ran him forward. They intended to catapult him towards the chests and retire. It did not quite work out like that.

They thrust the Gon on so that he staggered, tangle-footed. He crashed down and his shaven skull cracked against a chest. Everybody knew something terrible would follow. One of the Rapas put a surprised hand to his throat above the corselet rim. The streaking flash of metal from the wall slit had existed for a heartbeat. The sliver of the dart stood in his throat. He looked dazed. Then he fell with a crash.

“Hlo-Hli have mercy!” exclaimed Chan.

The Gon lay there with a thin trickle of dark blood trailing across that shaven skull where already the white spikes of hair were growing through.

The Rapa guard on the floor jerked out in convulsions. He choked. Black liquid welled from his beak. Chan looked down and his face betrayed exhaustion and tension and fear. He said: “We have seen this before. Poor Rogrifor will take a long time to die—in agony. In mercy, Rhagran,” he said to the Rapa captain of the guard. “Despatch him.”

“May Rhapaporgolam the Reiver of Souls take him!” and the sword sliced delicately across the man's throat.

Llodi started to say something and I stopped him. “I will speak to Chan in the matter of the strangdja.”

The dead guard's weapon lay on the floor. I said to Chan: “You will do me a favor, Strom Chan, if you allow my comrade Llodi to take the strangdja.”

“Of course, of course.” He was tugging his beard and staring down on the dead Rapa.

So, in this wise, Llodi gained possession of a strangdja, that feared weapon of Chem with its holly-leaf shaped head of metal spikes and edges that can take off a head with the easiest of ease.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter thirteen

The chests proved worthless.

The Gon, scared past caring, slowly recovered. We had lost the life of a man for nothing. Except—one of the guards, a Brukaj very heavily built, picked up a small diamond ring. His stubborn bulldog face looked sullen as the Rapa cadade made him hand the ring over.

“This is for the lord, Benormy, make no mistake!”

“Yes, Jik.”

Chan took the ring into his fingers and turned it about.

“Magic,” he pronounced. “At least, we have salvaged something from this shambles.”

Rollo and I exchanged glances. Chan was no Wizard of Walfarg. Rollo said, quietly: “In Walfarg at the time Chan was alive—I mean, well, you know what I mean—the land was soaked in sorcery. Some artifact can be given applied kharrna and function for a time.”

“I've never put much store by magic rings.”

“Nor I. Far too chancy. Nowadays, when we wizards are hanging on by our fingernails in Whonban, Loh in general shares these doubts.”

A memory of Marta Renberg ghosted in, and I wished Korero with his shields could march at my back.

Listening, Mevancy said: “You know, by Spurl—it's going to come as a tremendous shock to Chan when he finds out the date.”

“To go down here when the Empire of Loh is the most puissant force in this part of Paz, and to come out when it is a dusty memory. Quite!”

“If he gets out.” Llodi was polishing up his new acquisition.

“Don't you start, Llodi!”

There being nothing of further interest in that cavern, we all trailed off through the far opening. The pearly light persisted.

“We must guide ourselves to a plan.” I sounded testy.

“It is not easy when the passageways turn and curve.” Chan's face held much of that depressed look of defeat. “We can only go on in the best way we can.”

This particular passageway held straight for a good long run. Some way along we passed the skeleton of a Khibil. Nothing else save the yellowed bones on the floor indicated his companions had gathered up what there was and marched on. We gave floor, walls and ceiling a thorough examination before we pressed on. Nothing startling occurred; but the tension of expected disaster crackled in the still air.

We reached an intersection where two doors in the opposite walls indicated decisions of direction were required. Chan said: “I am weary, hungry and thirsty. We have found fresh provisions down here, so I would like to rest, and my guards and people.”

Mevancy said at once: “A capital notion, strom.”

So I realized, and I suppose Rollo and Llodi likewise, that I was famished and dry. A wet was strictly in order here and now.

Chan turned to his cadade and nodded to the left hand door, which had a flaked blue paint over gray. Rhagran pointed at the door and said: “Benormy and Domesti! Check that room out.”

The Brukaj and an Och started forward. They moved readily enough, yet they weren't happy about the assignment. Well, by Vox, who would be?

They opened the door carefully and went cautiously in whilst a pair of Rapa bowmen positioned themselves ready to shoot in support. After a short interval, the Och came to the door and said: “All clear, lord.”

Chan nodded. “Dondo! Let us go in and rest.”

The room, walled in stone, looked bare and inhospitable.

I said: “I'll check the other room. It might be more inviting.”

“Yeh,” said Llodi. “Inviting to what?”

“You could be right, still—”

Mevancy stared at me, flushed. “Oh, you!” she said.

That cheered me up. The door of peeling varnished wood opened smoothly. I looked in and felt surprise. At my side Rollo sucked in his breath. Llodi said: “That's more like it, what with them couches an’ all.”

The place was sumptuously furnished with couches and chairs and tables, with tapestries on the walls. As usual, we brought the scents with us. Half a dozen tripods held amphorae. Llodi licked his lips.

“Well, now,” I said, not going in. “This could be illusion. This could be trapped to the eyeballs. Rollo?”

“No illusion. As for traps, we must test.”

Intrigued by our reactions, Chan came over. He turned to speak—over his shoulder. “Rhagran!”

This time the cadade chose a pair of strapping Hytaks. Their hard faces under the helmet brims showed no expression. Their armor and weapons, as always with Hytaks, were in impeccable condition. Not apim, Homo sapiens sapiens like me, the Hytak is a diff with only two arms and two legs. He does have a sinuous tail to which he often straps an edged blade. The backbone of many armies and many mercenary bands, hytakim are valued as fighting men and women. These two were twins. In they marched and poked and prodded, with exquisite care. Nothing happened. At length, the room was pronounced safe.

The amphorae contained a nice light yellow and I felt the smoothness as it went down. “By Mother Zinzu the Blessed!” I said, and I deliberately wiped my hand over my mouth. “I needed that!” Just how you'd judge the age of the vintage I didn't care to contemplate. As to its provenance, it could have been shipped in from almost anywhere during the time when Loh had trading links extending over most of this part of Paz.

We ate and drank, the cadade set watches, and we settled down to some much needed rest. This City of Eternal Twilight was just one of the famous Lost Cities of Chem. If they were all like this, then—!

Chan and that damned silly magic ring bothered me. I had no truck with foolishness of that kind. Yet, here I was supposedly chasing after magic rubies. Na-Si-Fantong believed in the power of the Skantiklar, and so did Deb-Lu. So how could I, a mere mortal, disbelieve?

Thinking of the powers of thaumaturgy, I wondered how Deb-Lu had got on in his investigation of the tower—or what was left of it—from which we had been shot at by fireballs. If that was Na-Si-Fantong's handiwork then that meant he had left some device or another assistant sorcerer up there. He could be down here now, and, as I surmised, he would also have negated the sleep spell. Did I want to run into him? That would bring this affair to a head; it might not be to my advantage, by Krun!

Chan would not hear of my standing a watch.

Later I said to Rollo and Llodi: “See? That's what you get for saying I'm a prince. I don't stand a watch. Ha!”

Eventually I went off to sleep with my perennial last thought. By Zair! She had to be safe with all that chivalry about her, and Deb-Lu!

In the all-pervasive light where no such thing as night existed, we reckoned that morning dawned when we were all rested sufficiently to continue.

Chan stretched. “By Wurzam! Had my mother and father treated me differently I might not have caught this disease of adventuring. When I think of my estates in Wioldrin, the plans I had for the conservatory and the rose arbors, I wonder. And there is Susy-Lee-Sarin. Ah! Hlo-Hli Herself must aid me to return, for Susy and I are to be wed.” He tugged his beard. “When I return I do not think I shall go adventuring again. Susy will rule me with a very different rod.”

“You'll return to your Susy, strom,” I said, making it positive.

He did not employ a slave overseer. Very often hired guards when in charge of slaves are heedlessly cruel. These Rapas carried whips. I had noticed that Chan appeared concerned over the well-being of his slaves, whom he called his people. That, of course, could be because they were carrying the treasures found along the way. At any rate, so far I had not seen a whip used.

Around the corner of the room where we had rested, further doors, carefully opened, revealed more rooms. This appeared to be a complex of guard rooms. Apart from the room where we had rested, all appeared uninhabited. I had to remind myself that this underground labyrinth was in use, was peopled by the folk of the Realm of the Drums. The stasis spell had caught them as well as the people of the City of Eternal Twilight. Things down here existed as they had done for at least five hundred seasons. And they were as fresh as they had ever been.

We went on. I said to Rollo: “What chance is there of you being aware of the nearness of Na-Si-Fantong?”

“In all this kharrna down here, not much.”

“Well, if we run into him—”

Rollo said with great loftiness: “We will do what we can.”

He walked on ahead, for we were at the tail of the procession. The rock walls here were rough-cut once more. A slave had cut his foot, a young quanim, with pointed ears and long chin. He carried a bundle wrapped in sacking and he dropped back. A Rapa guard stalked past. I turned to look back.

Among the slaves there were Fristles, although none served in Chan's guard. The cat-folk and the bird-folk more often than not did not get along together. There were no Pachaks, Khibils or Chuliks, either, in the guard.

The Rapa guard swiveled his head to look towards the head of the column. He had dark feathers, and looked the typical vulturine Rapa I had first encountered upon Kregen. The column turned a corner up ahead. The Rapa unlimbered his whip. He hit the young quanim.

“Up, shint!Move, or I'll stripe you! Grak!”

That disgusting word grak is a word calculated to cow, to make a slave run until he falls dead. It is a word and an idea I detest.

The quanim shoved up with his bundle. Blood dribbled from his foot. The Rapa hit him again, quite needlessly. The youngster yelled.

I went back towards them. Oh, yes, I know. This is something that Dray Prescot cannot keep his big nose out of. It was quite clear that Strom Chan looked after his slaves, his people. This Rapa would never dare act like this in the presence of his lord.

I caught hold of the Rapa's shoulder, swung him about, and hit him on his big curved beak. He was so surprised he staggered back, dropping his whip. His dark feathers bristled. “Get up ahead, beakim. Bratch!”

He stared at me for a moment, his eyes mean. Then he picked up his whip and slouched off.

The quanim looked terrified. I said: “It's all right. Your lord does not allow whipping. Now cut along ahead.”

“Thank you, master.” He hobbled off.

I took a breath. Thank Opaz! I had been fully prepared for a most ugly scene, and it had passed off this easily.

I started off. The quanim ahead disappeared around the corner with his bundle. For just those few moments I was alone in the corridor.

Reaching the corner I swung around it—and stopped dead.

I gaped.

The corridor was empty. No one. Not a single solitary living soul marched along ahead. The rocky passage stretched to another corner about a hundred paces off. There was no sound. The expedition had vanished.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter fourteen

This was uncanny. I walked on, testing every step carefully, until I reached the next corner. The corridor here went on a long way in that pearly light. There was no sign of anyone. I went back to the first corner and searched around, looking for anything that might explain this mystery.

I yelled, after a bit, exasperated. “Mevancy! Llodi! Rollo!”

Not a dicky bird. Where in a Herrelldrin Hell had they gone?

I couldn't find any signs of cracks to indicate secret doors. I banged on the walls and floor. The rock rang back mockingly.

By Makki-Grodno's leprous left earlobe and putrescent right eyeball! Where the blue blazes had they gone?

I searched around quite uselessly for some time. After that I felt my best course would be to go on. We had to meet up again, surely?

Going on alone for me is both a pleasure and a source of concern. Any adventure can be heightened by the presence of good comrades. Adventuring alone is rewarding in quite different ways. I may say I kept an excruciatingly sharp lookout, testing any and everything that did not look right.

Corridor followed corridor. There were many doors now, lining the walls. I looked in a few to find nothing. After a time I kept on and ignored the rooms, reasoning that if my comrades were in any of them I'd hear. Coming out into a larger hall in the smooth light I saw a man lying on the floor. His booted feet were entangled in a rug. I stopped.

Not being sure just how close I had to be to wake him, I waited. He did not stir. I looked closer. Then I let out a breath.

Looking all about, I walked over to the corpse. He'd had his armor caved in by a blow I judged to have been of enormous force. His body had not rotted away, so he'd been killed just before the stasis spell came into effect. Logically, then, he'd be one of Queen Satra's party.

His helmet, dislodged, revealed his shaven skull with his pigtail, dyed red and yellow, twisted at the back. One of his tusks rising at the corners of his mouth had broken off at the gold band. In death he had lost some of his color; but his skin still showed that oily yellow sheen. Although I'd evidence to suggest that Chuliks were not entirely devoid of humanity, as is often said of them, their harsh military training from birth creates a race of diffs notably lacking in humanity. In service all over Paz they are among the most highly paid mercenaries.

His usual arsenal of weaponry was missing. His comrades had helped themselves in the paktun way. A broken stux lay near his fist. The throwing spear had snapped just below the cross quillons. These were very small, almost mere ornaments, at the base of the foot-long head. Developed to be hurled in hunting for vosks, large blundering stupid—if succulent—animals, the stux might have to be used to stop a maddened creature's charge. So that is why the check pieces were fixed, to stop the vosk clawing his way up the shaft to stick his tusks into you.

I said: “Mikshu the Treacherous—or whoever—smile on you, Chulik.”

Passing on, I reflected that I'd not studied Chulik history or religion as much as I had other diffs'. Likshu or Mikshu—well, yes, there must be a difference. In the same way I knew a fair amount of Walfargian history; but detail was hazy. I walked on into another chamber. All these areas were natural caverns, I felt, and the rumble and roar of water now became constant. Another body lay to one side, a Fristle, and this catman had likewise been stripped of weapons. His armor, also, was gone.

A long thin sliver had been passed through his body from below to top. He'd been skewered from a round hole in the floor. I studied this with attention. How—he'd been marching along and triggered the trap and up popped his death. So he was probably in the vanguard. This meant that because of the stasis, no one who lived here had come along to reset the trap. Wherever traps had been let off, they were now harmless. That made me guess that Chan's party since meeting us had been lucky or we'd been traipsing along after another party.

In this chamber a few chests had been tumbled to one side, smashed open, flung down. The thought occurred to me that these caches of chests in these particular rough caverns were not window dressing, were not necessarily traps, were not even required; but they might be genuine.

The searchers had not been altogether thorough and a kick revealed an unopened lid. I kicked it open. Inside a mass of jewels flamed and sparkled like a furnace fire. Splendid gems! I looked at them, and laughed, and walked on. I did not want to be slowed down by junk.

I say I looked at them. Oh, yes, by Krun, I looked! There was not a single red jewel among them.

Further on I crossed a cavern in which a chasm emitted clouds of steam. The far opening admitted me to a corridor more gloomy than usual and with wisps of steam being sucked along with me. It grew hotter.

Somehow or other I found I could see quite well in the gloom. I stopped. I saw a marvel. A plant grew from the roof, a corpse-white plant growing from a thick stem. Venus flytrap growths surrounded that trunk, and fleshy tentacles extended out to catch its prey. The spine-barbed leaves glistened slickly. The marvel was this, the syatra grew upside down. Its roots were firmly embedded in the earth above the roof and its tentacles sought food in the passage below.

It had found some sustenance. A portion of a naked girl could be glimpsed between the spines of one of the growths.

If I approached the syatra it would unfreeze. There was just room to squeeze past against the far wall of the corridor. Clearly, this poor girl had been careless or unlucky and had been seized up. Then—and I have seen sights in my time on Kregen, I felt it, then—another portion of the girl showed between the spines of another of the growths.

Remember, I told myself, remember the frog and the scorpion. A syatra will live, therefore it will do what it has to do. What, I couldn't help wondering, did the inhabitants of the Realm of the Drums make of it?

Shoving up against the wall I began to edge past, my Krozair brand naked in my fist. If the syatra struck he'd lose a tentacle or three...

The plant awoke, the portions of the naked girl vanished as the spined lids clacked shut. Steam coiled up as the tentacles began to lash about trying to seize me up, and stuff me down in a trap adjoining the bits of the girl. I had only to lop one fleshy tentacle that groped too close. It fell to writhe on the ground. Then I had edged past and was clear.

There were three more syatras before the tunnel opened into a cavern. The air hung close and humid. Vapors rose from cracks in the floor where a rich yellow grass grew luxuriantly. Just in front of me a small hairless animal, very much like a piglet, cropped the grass motionlessly. Ahead and as far into the cavern as I could see, covering the ceiling, the corpse white syatras grew. Fleshy tentacles hung down, spined traps gaped open. More than one syatra had a piglet-beast in tentacle or trap.

The nearest syatra contained another girl in its tentacle. A second tentacle had pulled. Each sinuous length was about to deposit its bit of the girl in its trap. There was no way through there, so I would have to retrace my steps through the cavern of the chasm and take another fork. The way I had chosen had looked the best and most open way.

Until, that was, I'd run across the syatras.

So, I retreated in face of a superior force and found my way back across the steaming cavern of the chasm until I could turn off and continue ahead along a different track.

Once again the walls became squared off and tool marks showed. The light improved. Whilst I had no real idea of the design of this place I had the notion that the rougher portions existed on the perimeter. That would make sense, anyway, up to a point. The way continued on and I did not relax my caution. A glitter of gold drew my gaze. As I walked on I passed a handful of gold pieces, then a few more, then a pile, then a stream of gold. Further progress brought me to a box, splintered at the corner, with gems spilling out. Again, there were no rubies. Going on carefully, I found a sack of gems, which I checked, and a slew of precious objects—cups, trays, bracelets, necklaces—all heavily jeweled.

At a corner a woman lay sprawled in the way. The curved fangs of a lavonth had ripped out her throat. The lavonth, about the size of a greyhound, with his zig-zag of tawny and umbre, had found the woman on the ground, I felt sure. Her feet were bruised and bloody. She must have taken her boots off at a halt—foolishly—and been unable to pull them on again. She wore a deeply double-curved kax, its iron polished to a mirror brightness that had not dulled in all these hundreds of seasons. She had two swords and a longbow and quiver. Her colors were red and yellow. These were not the scarlet and yellow of Vallia but the madder and gold of Walfarg. The blood dribbling from her throat showed starkly against her flesh.

All this evidence was easy enough to read, so there was no help for it but that I must shaft the lavonth. This I did and then went on with a word to Hlo-Hli Herself to care for the woman's ib.

The next two corpses were much like the last, strong-featured women with heavily-double-curved armor. These two had died with swords in their fists, facing something that had done for them. There was not dust enough to reveal any clawprints. Again commending these Jikai Vuvushis to Hlo-Hli, I pressed on.

The next parcel of evidence appeared confusing at first; but a few moments of study soon deciphered the clues. Against the wall lay the body of a man, stripped of armor and weapons. Just beyond him lay a woman whose body had been chewed by whatever killed her. She was fully armed and armored.

All the Jikai Vuvushis so far had been apims. The man, as it happened, was a Brukaj; I did not think that had anything to do with the picture that was unfolding as I marched on.

In a cavern lay many corpses jumbled together. Again, the evidence looked contradictory. Some of the corpses had decayed into skeletons, others were in the same state as when the owner of the flesh and blood had died. Still, once more the clues were not too difficult to understand.

That particular cavern ended at the head of a flight of steps that, whilst they were broad enough, went on down a damn long way into shadows. The air of menace that breathed up the stairs hung like a palpable mist. There was nothing else for it. I started on down, testing everything.

Of course there were corpses strewing the stairs like a dreadful flung-handful of rags. They had all been stripped of weapons and armor, men and women alike. I kept a lookout for anyone still with weapons and found none.

The first one I found with weapons lay at the first corner of the first tunnel after the foot of the stairs. I could imagine the terror that must have overcome them. Even when I went into a large chamber where food jars and baskets lay overturned and in the wildest confusion, I could still imagine them shivering with fear. There was good food in there, and wine, and I stoked the inner man. I was not tired; but I rested a whick and then pushed on refreshed.

Now I do not wish to give the impression that the passageways and caverns were choked with corpses; of course they were not. There were enough, though, to indicate the horrors through which these parties were going. For some way I walked on without seeing any corpses or skeletons and I began to wonder if I'd taken the wrong fork at intersections. I was going straight ahead, as the inscription had advised, confident that the parties ahead had done the same.

By this time I was getting the feel of this Realm of the Drums. People still lived here—of course, all those hundreds of seasons ago—but there were less of them. A lot less, I judged from what I'd seen of the abandoned caverns. Somewhere far below must be the currently inhabited portions. Had any expeditions ventured that far down? How was Na-Si-Fantong's expedition coming along? And—the question I had to look at squarely—had Delia and my comrades found a way to start down here?

At the entrance to a room lay the half-naked body of a young girl. She was a Sybli; gentle, innocent, extremely beautiful girls are Syblians. The real name for these diffs is Ennschafften, and they are naive and simple folk.

She wore only a yellowish breechclout. The edges had been embroidered with a plain stitch in a lighter yellow. Around her neck hung a black bead necklace. Syblis are employed as house servants or slaves, usually, for the men are very strong and perform arduous tasks admirably. This poor girl had been a slave. I could envisage with even greater clarity the mental turmoil up ahead, the state of the party.

Proof of that came very shortly when a box, flung down all those seasons ago, revealed expensive feminine toilet articles, brushes, combs, mirrors, pots of unguents. Here lay a girl's secret beauty.

This fresh evidence relieved my mind of the concern that I'd taken a different path. If there was chivalry in this, a small jikai, I was not going to belabor that in my own mind. No, by Zair!

As is any wise old delver's custom, one keeps a wary eye upon the ceiling. In a plain corridor a dark splodge on the ceiling abruptly came to life as I passed under. A quick leap—a damned quick leap, by Vox!—carried me clear. I whirled to face, sword snouting. The thing had missed and now hung on a thread anchored in a crack in the ceiling. It was a wide flat creature, like a cartwheel of tentacles and stingers and unpleasantnesses. If that lot fell on your head you'd snuff it, as sure as Zim and Genodras rise.

Giving the thing a good look, I went on, leaving it slowly reeling itself in back up to the ceiling.

There were more of these pesky nuisances. If you were quick you could dodge. They did add a new zest to proceedings. I confess I continued to feel the eerie business of waking people and things up as you approached most uncanny. It sent a shiver up my spine. What lay around the next corner, frozen in sorcerous sleep, ready to wake up as I neared and jump on me? Yet that danger was quite different from the expected dangers in delving.

Lots of the little piglet-like creatures scuttled to life as I passed. They were usually a bright orange in color, although some were dark brown or fawn and a few were bright pink. All were hairless, with little round ears, and snouts, and curly tails. You could imagine one as a pet.

One of them had been caught by a cartwheel of tentacles dropping from the roof and was already half-digested. The scene in the centre of the corridor ahead would come to life if I passed. Yet the piglet was dead and the round tentacular monster had to eat. I would not slay that one. I passed by and the piglet was duly consumed.

I sniffed. Yes, there was no doubt of it. An expensive perfume wafted on the air. Yet we brought our own scents in with us—the answer, of course, was that in activating the air we activated particularly strong smells. The scene at the mouth of the cavern before me explained the perfume.

I stopped stock-still and studied the layout. The weirdness was that these people, this drama, was unfolding with breakneck speed to death, yet I could stand and study it with detachment. Odd, by Djan, deuced odd!

From the roof a tentacled cartwheel was dropping towards the head of a girl. She was clad in half-armor of ornate and expensive style, with much goldwork. Her helmet had fallen off. Her swords were sheathed. Her face expressed the most awful fear, a terror frozen there for hundreds of seasons. Her hair was the red of Loh with a darker infusion that brought the widow's peak down over the centre of her forehead as a challenging statement of identity. Her face was pallid to chalkiness. Her eyes were large and kohled and brilliant—brilliant with terror. Her figure in the armor was of a pleasing shape. All in all, she was a most proper Jikai Vuvushi.

Crouching with her back to this girl, another girl held a slender dagger. She was a Sybli, twin to the first I had seen. Her back was to me; I could imagine the expression on that simple pretty face.

Advancing on her stalked the crocodilian shape of a Magor. His scales reflected the pearly light. His jaws were agape and the teeth, ragged and uneven, looked capable of cutting the Sybli girl in half. His eyes glared with rhodopsin, red and mad with blood lust. Feral and lethal, Magors, in their natural swampy habitat. Down here they must be consumed by hatred. Semi-intelligent, Magors? Or brainless beasts only? No one was prepared to give an authoritative answer to that—not yet. His claws reached out.

So, this was the problem.

The moment I advanced the tableau would come to life.

The tentacled cartwheel would drop on one girl and the Magor would charge and destroy the other.

I, Dray Prescot, just stood there. I'd walked into a real juicy one this time, by Zim-Zair!

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Chapter fifteen

I'd shaft the damned Magor. One arrow wouldn't stop his mad onslaught. He'd need a quiver full to stop him, and even then he might not stopuntil he'd wrapped those ugly jaws around the girl's body.

As for the tentacled cartwheel, I could shaft him but he'd still drop on the girl's head and shoulders and his acid secretions would begin to work.

I unlimbered the Lohvian longbow and selected a shaft fletched with rose red feathers from Valka. I took up an easy stance and shot in my bow. A score of shafts slugged into the Magor. His opened jaws bristled with shafts. His eyes were gone and I'd managed to put four good shots into the high muscles of his forelegs.

I put the longbow down. I did off all my harness of war until I stood forth clad only in the brave old scarlet breechclout.

Flexing my muscles I eyed the task. Quick. By Djan Kadjiryon! I'd have to be damned quick. There'd be no second chance. In, do it, out. Still that uncanny feeling persisted that I could thus stand and size up the situation, contemplate action, when in reality those two girls were within heartbeats of mutilation and death. Weird, by Vox!

A few deep breaths, a quick consignment of my carcass to Opaz, and I sprang forward.

The tentacled cartwheel dropped on his thread. The Magor had been snarling his ferocious intent and now those sounds changed. His onward rush continued. Blood spurted from his mouth and eyes.

In a windmill of motion I moved forward in a straight line at right angles to the Magor's charge. The Jikai Vuvushi went up under one arm and the Sybli up under the other. Their legs flew up into the air. On, on! With a ferocious spurt of energy I surged out from under the thrashing mass of tentacles. They hit the ground with a squashing thud. I felt the Magor stumble past as we leaped out of his way. I didn't look back. Headlong the three of us tumbled up the passage and then I tripped and down we all came in a bundle of naked arms and legs and whirling hair.

“Thank Opaz and all the Names!” I said to myself.

The little Sybli had passed out from terror. The armored woman was yelling blue bloody murder. Both reactions were perfectly normal.

Disentangling myself from the women was startlingly more difficult than expected. The Sybli's arms flopped over my face as I tried to shift her head with its crop of dark hair—shades of Mevancy! The Jikai Vuvushi staggered up, reeling, staring about. She saw me, I think, in a daze of terror. She kicked me.

Her sandals were hard. At her second kick I took her foot into my palm and stopped her from kicking me. I glared up into her pallid face.

“You are safe now, woman.”

“You—Let me go! I shall—guards, guards!”

I said: “Sit down and compose yourself. You have no guards left.”

I tugged gently and she fell down. I pushed her back against the wall—I judged that any traps had already been triggered—and said: “Just take a few deep breaths. You have been through a terrible experience but you are safe now.”

“You are a dead man.”

Now I've heard that said before, and in exactly those same tones. So I had no need for the picture to be drawn out for me. In view of that, and because I value my hide, I decided I had to cover my tracks and organize a logical defense that would hold water. Quite obviously this little madam was an important personage. She could be a princess or something like that. Whatever she might be, she was probably in that class whose person is sacred. Any common person who touched her would be put to death in the appropriate fashion. She crouched back against the wall. Her pale face tilted up to me, her dark eyes wide, that widow's peak of hair forming a wedge of menace over her forehead. Her lips were red, glistening, pouting half open. Her teeth were very small and white.

Her fist clenched over the armor at her breast. She panted.

I started to say: “If you were to be saved—”

She interrupted without even listening to me. “I do not know you. I do not know everyone in the expedition. But,” she was looking at me as someone might look at a strange creature brought up from the depths of the sea. “But I think, had I seen you, I would not have forgotten.”

This was time for a little push of pike. I said: “You would have died if that thing had dropped on you.”

She shuddered. “The stangsi!Disgusting!” She put her left hand against the ground and pushed herself up. She staggered forward a step and recovered. She whipped out her sword. “Loathsome! Forfeit to the White Hot Pincers of Vorwal the Relentless!”

The tentacled cartwheel, the stangsi, fluttered about on the floor, no doubt recovering himself after his missed strike. Just how he was feeling I didn't know. The Sybli had fainted. This domineering girl in armor no doubt associated her feelings of release from the stasis as a part of all the unpleasantness surrounding this experience.

She stepped forward and lifted the sword. The stangsi was completely defenseless.

“Is that necessary?” I spoke in a hard, gravel-shifting voice, and she jumped. To the side the Magor lay speckled with my shafts. “The thing can't harm you now.”

In a hating voice, she said: “I'll make sure of that.” She cut down and lifted the sword and slashed again. She cut the thing to pieces.

“So you have recovered,” I said. “Now we can make the pappattu.”

She held the sword, smeared with a greasy substance, away from her. Her eyebrows lifted. “Are you a fool besides a dead man?”

I was about to make some flippant reply, when she held out the sword, and went on: “Here, clean this. And grak!”

Now I am perfectly prepared to clean the sword of a young lady. This is all a part of the mixed up chivalry in my old vosk skull of a head. Still, there are ways and ways of making the request. I did not reply. I went over to the Magor and whipped out my old sailor knife and began to retrieve my shafts. As I did this I was not fool enough not to keep an eye on her.

She started to work herself up into a temper. Again, this was all a natural reaction. I went on working quietly. She burst out: “Shint! I told you! Clean my sword!”

One of the arrows had gone in deeply and I was having to cut as deeply to ease it out. One had broken on a scale, and this annoyed me. I said: “You can see it is necessary to retrieve these arrows. There may be more Magors.”

“I shall not tell you again! You defile my person, now you defy me.” She was waving the smeared sword about wildly. “What kind of man are you?”

A soft little voice whispered up from the side. “Majestrix. He is a jikai—a great jikai.”

We both turned to see the little Sybli girl just sitting up. She was pretty, no doubt of it, as Syblians are. The yellow stitching on her loincloth and the black beads indicated a superior slave status.

“Oh, Folly, so you've decided to help your mistress, have you, instead of sleeping. Well, clean this sword, or you'll be striped.”

“Yes, mistress.”

At least, that disposed of the confrontation over cleaning the sword.

Now this Sybli slave, whose name was Folly, had been gripping a dagger, a long slender dagger, and facing the Magor. There was no sign of the dagger now. She was trusted to clean weapons, or, was she? I watched as Folly used her own loincloth to clean the muck off the blade. She seemed to handle the weapon without cutting herself.

Majestrix, Folly had called the girl in armor. Majestrix is given only to the royal females. So, unless she was a queen or an empress, this hoity-toity little madam was a princess. Another damned princess!

My logical defense in the handling of her sacred person appeared to be working, judging by the recent conversation. The cleaning of the sword had been unfortunate; but that appeared resolved. I fancied I'd better make sure.

I said: “I regret that I do not have the honor of your acquaintance. I am Drajak, known as Drajak the Sudden. Lahal.”

She stared at me, not as though I was bereft of my senses, but as though I was a buffoon play-acting or drunk.

“What d'you mean, you don't know me?”

“Precisely that.”

“You call me majestrix and bow and scrape, or—”

“Listen, woman! Haven't you realized yet that I'm not with your expedition! I don't know who you are, except a bad tempered little girl.”

She gasped and Folly squeaked: “Oh!”

The pretty face of the Sybli turned to me like a flower turning to the sun. She continued to lift her loincloth and clean the sword all the time she spoke. “Jikai, you are in the presence of Princess Licria—”

“Princess Licria, Princess Majestrix of Walfarg!” rapped out this princess, rattling it off with pride and relish.

I said: “Did you come down here with Queen Satra?”

Her nose pinched in. Her jaw thrust forward. “Will you or will you not address me properly?”

That quite clearly meant she had accepted the situation.

“I shall treat you with the respect you deserve. I do not bow and scrape. I judge you to be a brave girl in a situation of horror. Let us go forward together as allies.”

“Horror, yes, horror.” In her little paddy over titles and bowing and scraping she'd pushed aside her situation. Now it rushed back on her with stunning force. She stared about and I saw the way those red lips trembled and I was able to move smoothly forward and catch her in my arms as she collapsed.

“Jikai—” Folly looked troubled as she helped me put the princess down. “She has a terrible temper. You are in grave danger.”

“Tell me what's been going on, Folly. Where are you from?”

“It has been an awful time.” She spoke simply. There was something different about her from Syblians I'd met before, and that long slender dagger had something to do with that. “As for me, I come from Wenhartdrin. You'll never have heard of it.”

Now I had a problem. I debated for a moment with myself, and then decided I'd better stick to coming from the Great Plains. As for Wenhartdrin, an island off the south coast of Vallia, that was where excellent wine was made. Folly told me a raid had captured her and others and from then on she'd passed from hand to hand, bought and sold, slave. Polly, the other girl Sybli, had come from some part of Havilfar.

“All our guards were slain, then the Jikai Vuvushis. In the end only the mistress was left.”

“And you.”

“Oh, yes. But I'm a slave.”

What, I wondered, would Folly make of Vallia now?

When Princess Licria roused herself I gave her no time to get back in the saddle of her high zorca.

“We must march, princess, and march well. Now, let us get on!”

Her lips tightened up. She saw my face. She hitched up her shoulder, swung about and started off without a word.

Well, she had spirit, no doubt of that, by Krun!

I said: “If we're lucky we ought to find a room with somewhat of victuals pretty soon.”

Folly said, on a breath: “Oh, I do hope so. I am so thirsty.”

Without thinking over it, I said: “Me, too. I could do with a nice flagon of best Nardi's Wenyellow. That would go down like a treat!”

She gave me a quick startled look. Of course! Oh, well, if any more came of that lapse, then it would. No doubt her mention of Wenhartdrin had brought that particular wine to mind, Nardi's Wenyellow being a famous vintage of the island. Mind you, it was sent overseas.

Walking on and talking, I noticed how these two tested appearances before venturing too far. They'd been through nasty times, and it showed. Folly told me that the little group with the Princess Majestrix had become separated, she'd no idea how, and they'd been hurrying to catch up with the main expedition. This tied in with the evidence I'd followed. Queen Satra had brought down a huge expedition. Folly didn't know how many people there were; but she said: “Thousands!”

They'd been down here a long long time, and the rumors were that the queen wished now only to return. The trouble was, no way out was found.

In her position as handmaid to the princess, Folly often saw the queen. She said: “She's not like she is at all.”

Sort the pips out of that one, Dray Prescot!

Folly wanted to know about the Krozair brand. She'd given it a look when I'd buckled on the scabbard. I said: “It is a blade, Folly. You tell me about the dagger.”

“Dagger, master?” Oh, with what innocence that was said!

Her wrap around over her breechclout was long enough to conceal a Vallian dagger. I fancied she'd be slain out of hand in the normal course of events if discovered with a weapon in the presence of the princess or queen. Down here would be slightly different. She said: “You will not tell the mistress?” I shook my head. “I found it down here among corpses. It is a type of dagger I know.”

“That Magor—”

She shivered. “I thought this was the end and confided myself to Mother Delia—and then you were there.”

Delia of Delphond, the ancient Mother Goddess—she was still known and revered at this time. I felt I liked Folly more and more.

The whole situation was now laid out. When shouts ahead told us we'd at last caught up, I felt even more strongly the sense of destiny. We'd ventured down here by chance. I'd been cut off from my companions. I'd met a princess who might be a lead to the queen. Now the Star Lords had required me to save Mul-lu-Manting, who wanted a return to the old Empire of Loh, calling her schemes the New Empire of Loh. In my arrogant foolishness I'd decided that Mevancy would make an excellent queen ruling as Empress of Walfarg.

Guards approached, tough men in armor who looked as though they'd kill anything first before asking questions. They saw Princess Licria. There was a quantity of Lahalling and general genuflecting. I stood to the side with Folly, thinking grandiose schemes concocted for the Everoinye.

Licria pointed at me. “Seize up this shint! Chain him!”

There was no stopping the efficiency the guards showed. As I was lapped in chains, I was realizing the depths of the Star Lords’ schemes.

If they really did want a New Empire of Loh and needed a figurehead, they'd brush aside my choice of Mevancy. Oh, no, Queen Satra was here. Who better to be a new empress than a real Queen of Pain?

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Chapter sixteen

Wa-Te's tail hand whisked in from nowhere and caught my bicep. The tail hand hauled and I straightened up. I had been prevented from stumbling by Wa-Te's quick reactions.

“Thanks, Wa-Te,” I said in that low slave monotone that has to be learned deuced quickly if one wishes to avoid ol’ snake.

Ahead of us and to the rear in the rock corridor stretched the lines of slaves. The smells were offensive for a time; after that they went away unless some fresh scent brought back the sense of smell. The noise of shuffling feet and the clink of chains was broken only by the occasional smack of a whip or the thud of a cudgel. The pervasive pearly light shone down with ironic benevolence on slave and slave driver alike.

Over my shoulders the wooden yoke was trying to rub through the cloth padding and raise blisters. Some of the poor devils down here had shoulders red raw. A needleman had been assigned the slaves; but he could do little apart from ointment and a needle or two to take away the pain.

At each end of the yoke swung a basket. What the baskets contained I had no idea for they were covered with leather and strapped down with brass buckles.

Wa-Te's straw-colored hair hung down lankly. His two left arms could be used one to help support his yoke, the other to scratch or brush his hair. It is highly unusual to see Pachaks as slaves. For my part, I value Pachaks above many other fine races of diffs of Kregen.

“Here comes that greesh again,” he whispered.

Greesh is a term of utter contempt used by slaves and the poor folk for slavers and masters. It is formed from that infamous word grak and the word kleesh, one of the worst insults of Paz. Booted feet hitting the stone floor with an arrogant crack, crack, crack, heralded the passage of Yaka, clinking with weaponry, armored in iron, swinging a thick black whip. To his sinuous tail was strapped six inches of bladed steel.

When Yaka the Stripe passed on along the column we slaves breathed out sighs of relief. Yaka had the charming habit of taking ten strides and of then slamming out with his whip at the nearest slave. Ten more strides and another stripe, ten more and another ... We here in this little group had been lucky this time. Yaka had been overheard to say that the ten paces a blow technique smartened up the slaves remarkably.

Just how long I'd been marching now was difficult to judge. I'd eaten and slept six times. The column proceeded slowly, and then speeded up so we had to totter along under our burdens, and then we'd come to a halt. “Trouble up front,” would go the whisper back down the column.

Well, by Krun! I wasn't at the front, so the traps and the monsters up there, at least, couldn't get at me.

When we debouched into a vast cavern the slaves showed no delight or wonder at the fantastic sight. Glistening stalagmites and stalactites formed growing columns between floor and roof. The air breathed cooler and fresher. Kataki slave drivers bellowed for us to rest and we slumped down thankfully. Guards of all manner of races of diffs prowled. Quite clearly Queen Satra protected her goods. The treasures mattered, not the slaves.

A slender graceful form flitted along the rows. Folly knew where I was stationed, for she had visited me twice before. This time she brought a bundle with an onion and a chunk of moist cheese with a heel of bread. I thanked her and she put a rosy finger to her lips. “All your gear is safe, Drajak, jikai. The mistress insisted it be kept intact and separate. I do not know why.”

She glanced around, saw a Kataki glaring at her, flushed up, and ran off.

I split the food with Wa-Te. We were chained up two by two, yokes overlapping, and Folly had been cautious. No one had seen the food passed.

“I thank you, Drajak. But there is something strange here.”

“Aye.”

“I have been a paktun for many seasons. I have been abroad in the world. But I have not seen a Sybli like her before.”

I told him that Folly was the daughter of a Sybli woman and an apim father, a sea captain. Almost always such a union is fruitless; sometimes a child is born. This explained Folly's actions. As for Wa-Te, he'd been with a party attacked by Magors. They'd fought well. All the Pachaks save Wa-Te had been slain, and the lord they protected had been seriously injured. He'd lived. In reward he'd sent Wa-Te into slavery. “Trylon Ge-fu-Schian. That was his name. I shall not forget.”

“Some of the high ones of the world are not all evil,” I said.

“Ha! By Hlo-Hli! Not many!”

When we were roused out with kicks and blows and stumbled to our feet and marched on, we passed dead bodies and dead Magors.

This, together with Wa-Te's story, proved that somewhere up at the head of the column marched someone who was capable of negating the stasis spell. So, that was the problem. If, somehow, say by asking Folly, I made contact with whoever it was—well, by Vox! and who might it be?

Once I could get a glimpse of the person or persons bringing sleeping perils to life I could make a decision.

Also, a point I had neglected to check with Deb-Lu or Rollo—once we'd resurrected a person down here, could they in turn bring others back to life?

Maybe Princess Licria was creating all the dangers in front.

Material traps, of course, would function anyway.

There were a number of females of various races in the column and most wore the mustardy-yellow slave breechclout. I still wore the scarlet, although it was a trifle grubby by now and at the first stream I'd give it a good wash. Many women, though, wore the waist to knee wrap-around in various colors. I just hoped no one would find the Vallian dagger hidden under Folly's wrap-around.

Either by searching the girl or finding it sticking in their guts.

“By Papachak the All-Powerful!"Wa-Te nodded his head. “It's getting almighty dark!”

I'd noticed the diminution in the pallid light. I could see quite well; but from the way the slaves stumbled and the exclamations, I gathered they could not. Presently word came down to halt. No one sat down—unless they fell down from fatigue—for to do so would bring ol’ snake cracking about their bare backs. After a long wait we were told to sit down. The yokes were not removed, so up front they regarded this as only a temporary halt.

Now, as I have mentioned, these damned Kataki slave-drivers are experienced man-managers—and woman-managers, too, although that disgusting discipline varies—and fooling them is a specialized art. I'd had practice, Zair knows! So there were no keys to our fetters. The iron was banded around and then struck through with rivets.

We were lucky. An ages old slaving trick is to drive the rivet through a bone. That is unpleasant.

Also, because the passageways wound about and narrowed and widened into caverns, we were not yoked fore and aft, which is an exemplary way of keeping poor doomed slaves in marching order.

Treading on our heels stumbled a Gon and a Brokelsh. The black bristle body hair of the Brokelsh contrasted starkly with the thick sprouting chalk white hair of the Gon. This white hair of his plunged the Gon into the deepest shame. His eyes were lackluster and his lips drooped.

I said to them during a short break: “Doms! When I shout ‘Greesh!’ you must duck your heads very quickly.”

They stared at me as though I were bereft of my senses. Well, perhaps I was. Here I was, supposed to be the great and puissant emperor and I was chained up, slave. In addition, it was now clear that the whole train of events from the Star Lords flinging me down to save Mul-lu-Manting to now, all tended in one certain direction. And here I was, chained up like a leem in a lord's baiting pit. I mentioned Makki-Grodno and the Divine Lady of Belschutz to myself—frequently, by Krun!

Our next halt lengthened. Presently a Rapa with his beak missing and his feathers drenched in blood staggered back to find the needleman. He was a guard, not a slave. “A big one up front,” said Wa-Te.

“Aye.”

A couple more wounded came back. Then Yaka the Stripe appeared flicking his whip suggestively. He directed the tame Ochs to release our own chains from the main chain. “Single file!” he bellowed so the echoes rang. Amid much shuffling and very little cursing, for the slaves were cowed, we sorted ourselves out. The light had improved a little since the darkness in the ways after the cavern of the stalagmites. Wa-Te stood to my front, the Gon to my rear.

We shuffled on to the sound of meaty thuds and cracking whips.

The cavern which we entered was, I judged, fairly gloomy, although I could see what the fuss had been about. The air was humid and stank of decaying flesh and vegetable matter which sliced through our own slave stink. The left hand wall stretched ahead, studded with dark openings just over man height. The right hand side of the cavern was choked with syatras, this time growing up from the floor. They were reaching out to the column of people, fleshy tendrils waving. There were no bodies on the floor, for any folk snatched up would have been popped into those coffin growths. Bits and pieces of syatra scattered about spoke eloquently of the fight to clear a passage through.

We moved on and the flashing white of eyes rolling fearfully at the syatras rippled along the column as I looked back.

Well, this was ponsho and leem time.

Yaka the Stripe was walking up along the column shoving the slaves against the wall. A tendril swiped at his head and missed, and the Whiptail laughed and sliced with his blade. There was nothing wrong with the bastard's courage in this situation. He would be accountable for his slaves and he did not intend to lose any here. “Grak!” he bellowed and snapped his whip. “Grak!”

I projected a whisper to Wa-Te before me. “Ready?”

His tail hand lifted to signal he understood—and was ready.

Yaka stalked on as I turned back to watch him. He strutted past me and his whip licked out to catch the Fristle walking in front of Wa-Te.

Putting all my force into the action I swiveled my body around, legs braced, swinging to the right, and I spat: “Greesh!” The left hand basket at the end of the yoke smashed around like the arm of a trebuchet, parallel to the ground.

At that word of contempt Yaka turned back, facing to the column, and the basket hit him smash full in the chest. He catapulted bodily backwards.

The syatra scooped him up gratefully.

“Wenda!” I yelled at Wa-Te. The Pachak responded instantly and I hurled myself after him into the nearest left-hand slot of darkness.

“I'm dumping the yoke, Drajak!” he called back.

I could see him quite well and was able to hurdle the yoke and its baskets. I shoved my yoke off with a feeling of freedom.

The fetters between my ankles hindered me considerably. Hobbling, I charged after Wa-Te, plunging into utter darkness.

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Chapter seventeen

“Crack!” slapped rock against rock, and the bottom rock flew into splinters.

Neither of us felt like cursing. “Here,” said Wa-Te and handed across another sharp piece. I fitted the point against the end of the rivet holding his fetters with my left hand and brought the chunk of stone in my right down hard and accurately. The rock did not split. The rivet—I thought, I hoped, I prayed!—moved. Just a fraction, but it moved. It had to.

A soft pearly light hazed all about us in the small cavern. We'd hobbled here expecting pursuit to come baying along the dark corridor after us. No one followed us. We guessed that for the moment there was more concern and turmoil among the guards over the sudden demise of Yaka the Stripe than over checking the slaves. I struck again. Again and againI hit the damned stone, breaking some, finding more, until, at last, at heavenly last, Wa-Te's fetters fell free.

“Thank you, Drajak. Now it is my turn.”

The Pachak removed my fetters with neat methodical strokes that had less power than my smashing blows but that did the job economically. Oh, yes, as I say, I do like Pachaks.

“Thank you, Wa-Te. Now, what next?”

“Food and weapons.”

“Aye.”

“We will find a way out, as Hlo-Hli Herself smiles on us.”

He was perfectly confident. He'd been through far more than had I down here. He was a mercenary, a zhanpaktun entitled to wear the golden pakzhan on its silken cords at his throat. He'd always been a mercenary, ever since his father had trained him up and assigned him to the band. When he gave his nikobi, his pledge of honorable service, he would not break it lightly. Pachaks discharge their service loyally until death.

After that we were very lucky.

Moving forward with great care, for we were weaponless as regards steel weapons, we traversed a passage and entered a chamber where tables and chairs and tapestries indicated we were entering once inhabited areas of the complex. There was food, rough fare suitable for guards.

We ate and drank prodigiously. Then Wa-Te, using the leg of a chair, forced open the lid of a chest. There was no trap.

“This must be a guardroom,” he said. “Look at these. Rusty!”

Many of the weapons in the box were rusted together. We found five swords that would serve, and with spit and dust cleaned them up.

As I only have two arms, I took two swords. Pachaks have two left arms and a tail hand, so Wa-Te took three swords.

He flexed his right arm, which as usual was marginally stronger than his two lefts. “This feels good, by Papachak the All-Powerful!”

Swinging the two lynxters about, I agreed.

Speaking gravely, the Pachak said: “I would not use my name whilst I was slave. I am Nath Wa-Te. Lahal, Drajak the Sudden.”

“Lahal, Nath Wa-Te. I think I shall continue to call you Wa-Te.”

He smiled, there in that place of horrors. “Yes, there are very many Naths in the world.”

Pachaks form their names from the first syllables of their parent's names; if a daughter the mother's first, if a son the father's. When Nath Wa-Te had a son he would be called a first name, and then Na- and the first syllable of Wa-Te's wife's first name.

Now I faced a dilemma. Was it fair to allow Wa-Te to accompany me? He was cheerful now he had won back his freedom and supremely confident he could march and fight his way out of the labyrinth. If he went off on his own he would face only traps, apart from any monsters already awoken. If he stayed with me, I'd keep bringing perils alive which he otherwise would not encounter. He solved the problem for me by saying: “We must stick together, Drajak. It is the only sensible course of action.”

He was right as he saw it, of course. In the end, weakly, I felt we would stand a better chance together.

Just as I'd reached that dubious conclusion, a reverberation echoed through the chamber. It seemed to emanate from the walls. The plates and jars upon the tables rattled. The sound continued, hollow, echoing, rumbling on for a long time.

“By Hlo-Hli! It must be—”

“Aye.The Drums.”

The booming vibrations of the Drums echoed away to silence. We stared at each other. What did that ominous sound portend?

Well, whatever that menacing beat of drums did or did not portend, my way ahead was plain enough.

Actually reaching that destination was an entirely different kettle of fish. We went on when we'd rested. We encountered various monsters of the smaller kind and either avoided or finished them. Avoidance was by far the better plan. Here we were venturing into chambers with cut walls, draped in tapestries—mostly torn and in poor condition—with increasing signs of human occupation. The light continued evenly beaming upon us. After the slave column we were slowly recovering a proper sense of smell, and the scents that I brought in mingled with those of people long gone these many seasons. The conviction grew upon me that the People of the Drums must number very few. Every now and again the booming roar of the Drums battered at our ears. After a time it was clear they were growing louder.

Although the whole place was drenched in sorcery, as Rollo had said, we so far had encountered only material monsters and traps. Magic had been non-existent. Again, this was a puzzle.

Wa-Te, a few steps in front of me as we pressed on along a passage, abruptly halted opposite an open door. I stopped. He very very cautiously put his head around the doorjamb, ready on the instant to jump back.

He motioned with his tail hand. Silently I joined him.

The room was of reasonable size. Down the centre stood a long table. The walls were tapestry-covered. At the table men sat, frozen in the act of eating and drinking. They were all Chuliks.

Their arms and armor gleamed bright and slightly oiled. There were a couple of dozen of them, their pigtails dyed red and yellow, their tusks banded in gold and silver, and they looked a mean bunch.

“What is the matter with them?” breathed Wa-Te. “Are they all dead?”

“They're well-preserved, if that is the case.”

We went on quietly. Evidently, those Chuliks did not possess enough kharrna for me to awaken them atthat range.

After a way, the Pachak said: “Well, for good or ill, they're in our rear now.”

“Aye.”

Neither of us had volunteered to go in and check, probably to take some of the fine weapons and armor. Caution becomes ingrained when you go delving.

We prowled on and reached an intersection. One arm of the passage stretched ahead, the other to our right, and both were well lighted.

“Toss a blade?” suggested Wa-Te.

The sword came down indicating we should continue ahead.

This passage went on and on in almost a straight line. The cut walls gave way to rough rock and soon we were walking through a tunnel.

“I have an idea, Drajak, the sword lied.”

“I think you are right.” To be honest, I thought the sword had indicated the truth. It looked to me as though this tunnel might lead to an exit some distance from the City of Eternal Twilight. “There is a corner ahead. Let us—”

“I'll lead on.”

At the corner we discovered a large irregular cavern, poorly lit. Nothing moved. “Not a copper ob here. We'd better go back.”

“Right,” I said. Then I checked. “Hold on a whick.”

Wa-Te didn't ask a fatuous question like: “What is it?” He stood silently, waiting, as I peered intently at the far end of the cavern.

The far wall rose sheer. Before it bits and pieces of yellow strewed the ground. Nearer to us the vague forms of men stood, motionlessly. And, nearer still, the crouched shape of a vorlind indicated why those men had halted, and formed a line. Many had bows lifted. Quietness and death brooded over the macabre scene.

What had transpired here was obvious enough.

I took another step forward and the vorlind, lethal, sprang to life. He didn't care there were a dozen men there, with bows. His feral hunger drove him on relentlessly. Now I had started him moving I had to push on quickly so that the line of men would unfreeze and so save the lives already pawned to death.

The archers stirred. Muscles unused for a long time creaked as the bowstrings drew back. A couple of men tottered, taking unsteady steps, and one fell. The others discharged their shafts and the vorlind, riddled, collapsed.

An uproar began, men shouting, women shouting, and a voice above all, bellowing: “By Sasco! Silence!”

Now we were in for it. I advanced boldly, holding up my hand. As I passed the dead vorlind, I saw a fellow scrambling up from the ground where he'd been crouching, in mortal terror of his life. He wore a long black robe and sandals and a jeweled fillet confined dark hair. His face expressed terror to the utmost degree, a face pale and thin, with downdrooping whiskers and a small and too-red mouth. He squeaked when he saw me.

“Where—?”

The big voice battered again. “Silence! By Spikatur Hunting Sword! Must I have you all whipped, guard and slave alike?”

I'd got him spotted now. He stood in the forefront, hand on the pommel of one of his swords, glaring about with his one good eye. His left eye was covered by a diamond and emerald studded patch. Thin he was, thin as a lath with a ferret face and dark hair cropped short. Quick, active, he moved with controlled spasmodic effort. The last time I'd seen him he'd been sitting in an armchair stripping leaves from a plant and scaring Vad Noran half to death merely by his presence. That had been in Huringa, capital city of the island of Hyrklana—before my lad Jaidur became king.

The man in black at my side moved with an odd sliding gait. He ran off, away from the confusion ahead, vanishing past a buttress of rock.

Obviously in answer to a question, the big voice battered again: “I do not know! By Sasco, it is past understanding!”

He must have been wrought up to a frenzied pitch to speak like that. He was a swordfighter, a Bladesman as I surmised, and his quiet icy manner chilled those he encountered. I walked on and called out in a firm voice: “Llahal, doms!”

With Wa-Te at my side I marched up and halted. Beyond him guards and slaves were running back to the bits and pieces of yellow. Now I could see they were skeletons. The uproar continued but in a lower key after the lord's harsh words concerning whipping.

He gave me a look as though he were lunging the rapier at his waist into my guts. “Llahal. You do not address me as dom. I am Vad Gochert, and you call me notor.”

I knew his name was Gochert. That he was a vad, next step down in the nobility from a kov, was intriguing.

I said: “This is Kyr Nath Wa-Te, I am Drajak the Sudden—notor.”

His one eye sized up the Pachak, and then me. The diamond and emerald eye-patch glittered in that poor light as he turned his head.

“Can you explain what has happened? We entered a shaft and the wall closed at our back. The vorlind was about to attack a man in a black robe. We advanced, ready—and the vorlind is dead, the man in black is gone, and many of my party are now skeletons. By Sasco! It is unbelievable!”

“We have been wandering for some time, notor.”

“So you are of no help in unriddling this puzzle. My men are dead!”

I had enough puzzles of my own to keep me busy; the answer to this one was easy enough. After what Gochert had described had taken place his neat line of men had stepped forward into the aura of the stasis spell. Some slaves had been up with them. The rest had seen what happened to them. It seemed to me the edge of the spell was not a sharply defined line, so that a number of people had stepped into the aura. The ones left behind had no idea what it was about. Some had run forward and become frozen. The rest had cowered back, quite unable to force themselves forward to what they must have considered certain death. So they'd waited and waited and so died one by one and were now skeletons.

“You have my condolences, notor. You are sure there is now no way out there?”

“None. I told you. The shaft's wall closed up.”

His guards were clustering round now, listening avidly. He had a fair proportion of Khibils in his party, and Hytaks, all solid professional fighting men and women. He had no Rapas and only a few Fristles. One of the Hytaks, bulky in banded kax, stepped up.

“Notor. All the provisions with the skeletons are spoiled. Yet those with the slaves with us are still fresh.”

By this time I was looking about among this gaggle of people for a person I assumed he must have brought with him on his expedition.

When a couple of hefty Hytaks walked up carefully carrying the slender form of a girl on their crossed arms, their other arms supporting her back, I saw the answer to that also explained Gochert's fragmented responses to the situation. She wore a long blue gown girdled in silver, with soft slippers on tiny feet. Her pale brown hair was drawn tightly back in a bun to reveal a round innocent face, devoid of makeup. Her eyes were closed. She breathed shallowly. She looked as though the Hytaks could have carried a dozen of her and still not felt the weight.

“Merlee!” said Gochert, anxiously. All his icy manner fled.

She opened her eyes. They were gray-green. She tried to smile, her pallid lips soft and trembling.

“It is all about, notor, all about. So much, so very much!”

A fat high-busted woman bustled up and between them they put the girl safely down on a pile of rugs. She leaned back and licked her lips. Gochert looked down at her. His hand fondled the hilt of his rapier as though seeking the answer there.

Now girls like this Merlee do not like being called witches.

That is their proper name, of course; but it has fallen into disrepute. She was a Witch of the Demaskar Persuasion, and Deb-Lu had told me they had some very real powers. Now the sorcery drenching the Realm of the Drums had overcome her. Once she had come to terms with her surroundings and recovered her powers, she was the one very important person any party needs when they go delving.

“Bring wine!” ordered Gochert. He was making visible efforts to control himself. Once he had recovered, he'd be ice and steel.

Fristles were going around bashing the slaves back in line. Gochert, at least, did not employ Katakis for that disgusting occupation.

I couldn't see Gochert playing any part in the Star Lords’ plans; but then, by Krun! you never could tell with them. He'd be useful to Wa-Te and me in providing us the protection of his party. I would have to find out why he had come down here to the Realm of the Drums. If his reasons were merely those of plunder then he could be discounted. Often in the past I'd wondered what had happened to him and why he hadn't crossed my path again, as I had felt so strongly he was fated to do. He'd come down here and stood frozen, waiting through all those seasons to be released.

A minor puzzle was why there were any provisions to spoil left among those poor people who had not dared venture ahead to stand, as they thought, in death. What a horrible predicament that had been! At least Merlee had stepped in to escape death then. The trapped and doomed wretches could all have committed suicide, I supposed. As for Gochert, he must have flown here aboard a Hyrklese voller. He must have a map. Now, where had he obtained that map?

Gochert took a long swig of wine. His one eye fixed Wa-Te and me. “Since you have been down here, you had better lead on. We must find the Drums.”

“You'll hear them, notor, from time to time,” said Wa-Te.

“Well, by Havil! Get on with it!”

So he was regaining his composure. I gave the Pachak a glance and we started off, followed by Gochert and some guards. Merlee was carried in her litter, the slaves trailed on, and guards brought up the rear.

Up ahead, Wa-Te said: “That was a strange business. I could not see clearly, but I could swear by Papachak the All-Powerful they were all standing like statues.”

“Aye.”

He gave me a puzzled look. Then he said: “You called me Kyr.”

Kyr and Tyr are honorific titles, like ‘sir’ and carry some weight. He went on: “Kyr can only be given by a king or emperor. Tyr may be given by kovs or high nobles. So, Drajak the Sudden?”

As I say, I have always liked Pachaks. I said: “Believe me, Kyr Nath, that is in my power. But I would prefer to say no more.”

“By Hlo-Hli Herself! This is indeed a—”

“Now, Wa-Te. Please.”

“Very well. But you must promise to tell me some day.”

“When we are safely out of this.”

“Done. And this party—they are Hyrklese. One can tell by their weapons and gear. Although some is strange.”

The rapier and main gauche were newish imports to Hamal and Hyrklana. They were now known in some parts of Loh; but that must have occurred after Wa-Te's time.

We reached the intersection where we had tossed a blade.

Wa-Te said: “The sword did not really lie. That was the way out.”

I made a noise halfway between a grunt and a snort. “Yeh. But it was a way in only, by Chusto!”

Here we turned left and went on cautiously. A clanking at our backs brought Gochert's Khibil captain of his guard. He wore the insignia of a Jiktar, well enough, with armor and swords and a shield. He was a Khibil, understand, and he wasn't going to let us forget that. That, to him, was more important than being the vad's cadade. He shouldered up.

“You two know what you're doing?”

They are so damned cocksure, these foxy-faced Khibils.

I said: “If you wish to take the lead, pray do so.”

“You call me Jiktar, yetch!”

I stopped. “Quidang!”

Anyway, we went on and this Khibil cadade, hight Romano the Sharp, assigned a couple of his men to go with us. We were lucky we came across no traps, for the guards marched on with very few precautions.

Debouching onto a ledge along a vast and eroded wall, we saw we'd reached a cavern of considerable size. The ledge stopped halfway and a narrow rope bridge extended before us at right angles, strung across the cavern to a ledge and an opening on the other side. Below us spumed and boiled a river, the water rushing along in streaks and lines of green fire.

The two Khibils started across the bridge at once. Wa-Te said: “That won't take much weight.”

“No. Few of ‘em at a time.”

“Yeh.”

We halted at the edge and stopped the traffic, allowing groups of guards across. Almost at once Gochert was up with us, icy with fury.

“What is the hold up?”

The litter containing Merlee swayed and was set down on its legs. Four Brokelsh stood at the carrying poles. The cadade, Romano, bustled up.

“Go across now! There is trouble in the rear.”

Gochert snapped out: “Go on!”

If there was trouble at the back then Wa-Te and I were ready to cross right away and get out of it. We started over. The bridge swayed.

Halfway across I felt the bridge swinging even more. I looked back. Gochert and Merlee's litter were following, and a crowd of people were pressing on after with the cadade urging them on.

Wa-Te yelled: “There's too many of ‘em!”

“Make it sharpish!” I said.

We started to move as fast as we could over the rotting wooden slats between the rope supports. I suppose I guessed from the wild movements of the bridge that we wouldn't make it.

The ropes parted with brittle twangs. Everybody on the bridge was flung helplessly, end over end, into that rushing boiling water far below.

The thunderous boom of the Drums beat above the roar of the river, their sonorous tones quickening into a rataplan of mocking triumph.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter eighteen

Swirled away with eyes and nostrils and mouths filled with water we shot helter-skelter downstream to plunge into the green gloom of a tunnel. Wa-Te had his tail hand wrapped about my waist and I gripped him so that we clung together in the millrace. Bright light smote down and we sluiced out into water that gradually lost its speed. Around us stretched a lake under an unseen roof, with exotic plants growing and birds flying everywhere.

Those birds flying and chirruping away up there made me think.

Usually it is not healthy to linger in unknown waters on Kregen. There are jaws that bite. So we swam for a little pinkish beach where already some of the survivors werecrawling out onto the sand. We joined them.

The cadade was nowhere to be seen. That would probably have been fortunate for him if Gochert was there; the icy swordfighter was not present. Nor was the Witch of the Demaskar Persuasion. I felt a pang for Lady Merlee and hoped she would fare well and survive among the terrors.

The people were running about dazed, not sure what to do. I saw one slave, a hefty Rapa, creep up at the back of a guard Rapa and give him a right tasty smack over the ear. The guard fell down and the slave started to kick his rib cage in. I said to Wa-Te: “Do you wish to remain with this rabble, my friend, or shall we seek sweeter pastures?”

The Pachak swirled his wet hair back. He grimaced. “I'm with you!” This beach curved around and with the backing of green and colored foliage made a pretty picture. Wa-Te and I started to walk along towards the far end where we could just discern a black domed shape which must be a tunnel exit. We could not see where the river left the cavern, if it did. Movement across the lake caught our eye. Over on the opposite shore people were dancing up and down and waving. So that must be some more of Gochert's party.

“I really think, Drajak, that we fare better on our own.”

I was about to reply when the four Hytaks who had followed us all burst out shouting. At last one of them said: “We are very sorry to hear that, for we want to go with you.”

“What about Vad Gochert?”

“We serve faithfully for good masters. The vad has not paid us since we entered Loh.”

Wa-Te might very well get on his high zorca now, for, as you know, Pachaks give their nikobi and then serve—if they don't get paid until the very end of the contract they will still remain loyal right through.

I said: “I am able to give you employment. I will pay you the going rate, plus a bonus, when we reach my party. Agreed?”

The bokkertu thus concluded we six went on towards the exit.

All four Hytaks were crossbowmen. Their spokesman was hight Lurgan the Vandour. As we left the cavern I reflected that it was nice to travel alone, but a little more comfortable, in these circumstances, to have a companion, and much more reassuring to have four hefty fellows at your back.

We went on smartly enough and found tunnels and caves. Now Wa-Te and I had to remember that these fellows had not been down here long. They would gain experience—if they lived—but for now the Pachak and I had to look out for them like Sunday School teachers and their flock.

Also, and this I marked with an exceedingly severe mark—birds and animals were already alive as I approached.

We debouched into a vast cavern and abruptly the booming roar of the Drums enveloped us. The noise continued, filling the cavern with sound. When it ceased, my ears, for one, rang like those famous old Bells of Beng-Kishi. As for my skull, I felt as though it bounced about on my shoulders.

A vague movement ahead past some tree ferns brought my attention back in focus. No time in a labyrinth to bemoan the state of your health, by Krun! The movement was repeated and I made out the figure of a man in armor walking across the cavern at right angles to our direction. He was followed by others. Their armor and dress reminded me of those soldiers Seg had pointed out to me in the Hostile Territories, remnants of the Empire of Loh. This evidence, then, pointed to this party belonging to Queen Satra.

Slaves filed past carrying burdens, followed by more guards. At my sideWa-Te whispered: “There's that shint, Trylon Ge-fu-Schian. I don't want to tangle with him, by Papachak the All-Powerful!”

These people marched near the centre of the column, for presently sumptuously attired people strolled past as though on a picnic outing. The way had been made safe for them. I'd seen the cost of that making safe. Litters were carried past, draped with gold tassels. There was even a band with gleaming instruments; they were not playing, for which I was thankful.

“They live high on the vosk!” growled Lurgan the Vandour.

Just then, walking along with an arrogant swing, the armored form of Princess Licria drew my attention. A few paces to her rear walked Folly. They went on and the procession of nobles continued to pass by. Folly had said there were ‘thousands’ in Queen Satra's expedition. I was beginning to think she had not exaggerated.

“Look at ‘em!” said Lurgan in a choked voice. All of us understood just who and what the figures were who went by now. Some reclined in litters, others walked for a period of exercise. I counted. Dressed in a variety of robes and costumes they might be, they were all of one cloth. There were four Wizards of Loh and six Witches of Loh.

Wa-Te wasn't even looking at them.

After that a body of strapping fellows in marvelous armor stalked by and I began to fancy the queen herself must put in an appearance soon. This experience, in itself, of sitting in the front seats, as it were, and watching the entertainment, was weird.

In the next heartbeat I felt my eyes pop out and my heart give a thumping great kick. I gaped for that heartbeat like any loon; then I saw what had occurred. A great gush of relief swept over me.

A body of men marched past fore and aft of a man and a woman. Their uniforms were quite unlike those of the Lohvians, for these fine fellows in armor wore bright yellow jackets.

I stood up.

Wa-Te said: “Careful!”

Immediately I hunkered down again, the blood thrumming in my veins. But I had to think of the Pachak. I said: “Will that shint of a trylon recognize you?”

“Possibly. He was never over careful of his men.”

“H'm. Then you must adopt a name. You can be Nath ti Zanda. That's a nice little village where the apples are juicy. Now, come on!”

I stood up as Wa-Te said: “But what are you about?”

I shouted: “Hai! Hai, my old dom. What kept you?”

Seg and Milsi swung about and stared directly at me, and Seg's bow was off his shoulder, the arrow nocked and the string drawn back before he'd finished swiveling around. Milsi shouted: “It's Dray!”

The parties of EYJ fore and aft of Seg and Milsi moved towards me so that the column might proceed. They sent up a yell, a disciplined cheer, all as one: “Hai, Kendur!”

Well, this was a fine kind of homecoming! I hurried forward. Milsi kissed me and Seg said: “I bet you've been having fun!”

I said: “Where is she?”

Immediately all the fun and frolic left Seg's face. He ground out: “She is not with you? We thought she was.”

“No. Perhaps she is with Inch and Sasha.”

“No, my old dom. We all fell down a shaft together, with EYJ. Inch is up front now, for we take turns.”

So they hadn't found the way we four had entered here. There were lots of entrances, and Seg confirmed that there was a message about the fire. “She must be with Karidge and EDLG.” I felt my lips were puffy.

“Yes,” said Milsi. “I'm sure she is.”

After that the pappattu was made and I told Lurgan the Vandour to report to EYJ, knowing they'd sort him out. Wa-Te, as Nath ti Zanda, coped with the situation admirably. He was unlikely to be recognized, for his Pachak comrades were dead and in the thousands in the column—well, who would remember one fellow? Then Seg shattered me yet again: “We are engaged to dine at the next stop with the queen.”

“Queen Satra? You—A Queen of Pain?Wha—?”

Milsi laughed. “She's not like she is at all.”

“That's what a little Sybli friend of mine said.”

“We have not told her about the lapse of time.”

“Well, by Vox, she'll have to know one day. I've an idea there are plans afoot for her. It seems that there are forces who wish to reinstate the old Empire of Loh—”

“Do what!” snapped Seg. “The whole of Erthyrdrin rejoiced when the yoke of Walfarg was thrown off.”

“The idea, I think, is to create a strong central force to resist the Shanks.”

“That's sensible enough, I suppose.” Seg's handsome face expressed the utmost concern. “But I think that force should be Vallia.”

“Or, Seg,” I said, most mischievously indeed, “Pandahem.”

He gave me a withering look. We joined the column and marched on and still the notables had not all passed and still the queen's litter remained in our rear. There must be another damned army following on, too. Seg, Milsi, Inch and Sasha had missed me in the building of the dome and gone looking. With the lads of EYJ they'd tumbled down a shaft they could not climb and so had marched on into the maze. They'd either been fortunate or my companions had been unlucky, for Seg's party reached deeply down without a hint of trouble and they'd bumped into Queen Satra's expedition, and here they were.

“A damned Queen of Pain!” I said. “How d'you—?”

“You wait until the dinner, Dray.” Milsi twinkled, her face bright.

“A real Queen of Pain,” confirmed Seg.

“So that lets Mevancy out,” I said to myself.

The lead pastang of EYJ returned and their relief went up forward. Satra's forces were pleased that they'd found some other reckless fellows to take the lead. Inch and Sasha came back with the pastang and great were the reunions. “We're approaching what I think must be the centre.” Inch set his tall form down on a convenient chest, for the column had stopped and preparations for what would have been evening were going ahead. “I think so, too,” added Sasha. “And there are those Ngrangi-forsaken Drums again!”

The Drums boomed and roared and volleyed through the camp.

Milsi and Sasha insisted that I dress up in some foolishness of costume from the chests presented to them by the queen. She carried on down here just as though she were in her own court in Walfarg. In the end I found myself wearing a slashed tunic of a nice soft brown color, like mahogany. I'd told them my escapades and why I didn't have my weapons and where they were. So, of course, dressed up and escorted to the queen's tent by a detail of her guards, the first person I encountered as I stepped in was Princess Licria.

Before the polite Lahals could be made, she screamed out: “Drajak the Sudden! I'll have you! Seize him up, guards!”

With a shocking abruptness a rapier point rested against Licria's throat. The guards froze. Seg, in whose capable fist the hilt of the rapier was gripped, said: “I think you make a mistake, princess.”

She gargled something. Seg hadn't pricked her throat. If he had to, to make her see reason, he would. “Now, princess. We are honored guests of the queen. So is Drajak. You do ill to cross your aunt.”

The guard detail commander, a hikdar, cleared his throat. “Permission to speak?”

I said: “Spit it out, hik!”

He rolled his eyes at Licria, motionless under the rapier threat.

“Come on, man!” I snapped. He was a Hytak, solid and reliable, so I could do business with him. “We shall not harm the princess. There will be no blame attaching to you. Just that I do not want to be—”

“Seized up!” snarled Seg. “What kind of bitch princess is this?”

At that awkward moment the curtains over the tent's inner opening swished open and a little Och lady waddled through. She was not really looking at what she saw, wrapped up in her duties, so she squeaked out: “Please come through, the queen awaits—” Then her brain registered the tableau, and her squeak went up into bat's frequencies.

“Let us all go in to see the queen.” Seg spoke pleasantly.

The guards were not allowed past the curtained opening, and when they stopped as we went through, Seg took the rapier away from Licria's throat. I said to the Hytak Hikdar: “Don't worry, dom.”

Easy words, I know; but I intended to honor them.

The table was spread in a fashion to arouse the most intense desires. I shall not describe the details. Suffice to say that if they have banquets like that in Paradise, then Paradise is well worth striving for.

The famous silver trumpets of Loh pealed.

The curtains at the far end opened and Queen Satra walked through.

She was astonishing.

She wore robes of simple cut and style, fashioned from the most expensive fabrics. Her jewelry sparkled demurely. Her hair still came forward in that widow's peak over her forehead. That hair was pure white. Her face was a round dump, with creased cheeks, and dimples, and a little pink mouth from the left hand corner of which peeped the tip of a tooth slightly askew in her jaw. Her eyes, dark and brilliant, seemed to me to bear an emotion I couldn't fathom. She was just such a housewife as you might meet going to market with her basket on her arm. Those arms were pink and chubby. Her hands were very small and the fingernails polished. Her whole demeanor was mild, demure, modest.

This—this was a famous Queen of Pain of Loh?

Licria burst out in a blazing fury, the words pouring out in a frenzied torrent: “Aunt! This man—defiled—disgusting—whipped—sent to the Death Jungles of Sichaz—torture—I will not tolerate—”

“Control yourself, child!”

The queen's voice sounded mild, soft and a little breathless. I did not miss the hardness of honed steel in her words.

Milsi said: “Oh, majestrix, there has been some terrible mistake!”

“Yes,” confirmed Sasha. “This is our dear comrade Dray and he would never insult a lady's honor.”

“He's Drajak the Sudden, Drajak the Defiler!”

“If,” said the queen in that soft mild voice that snicked in like a rapier, “you cannot control yourself, Licria, until I get to the bottom of this imbroglio, you had best return to your tent.”

Licria gasped. She paled. And she kept quiet.

That was your power. That was your Queen of Pain!

“Now, Milsi my dear, tell me all about it.”

“Well, majestrix, it is like this.” Milsi went off into the story we five had fabricated. You see, quite clearly an Emperor of Paz was a ridiculous idea at this time. If anybody were to rule Paz then it would be the ruler of the Empire of Loh. Undeniably. Pandahem was owned and controlled by Walfarg as part of the empire. Milsi, who was Queen of Croxdrin, would be totally unknown to Satra. Likewise, any Emperor of Vallia was a potential enemy to the Empire of Loh. Havilfar defied Loh, and was about two hundred seasons after Queen Satra's time to be instrumental in the empire's downfall. Hyrklana, too, resisted. Now our equipment differed from that of these people, and so we fancied we might get away with claiming to come from almost anywhere, Donengil, Balintol. In the end we'd decided to be truthful. We acknowledged, proudly, that Vallia was our home.

Of course, Tall Inch and Sasha from Ng'groga in the south east, and Seg from Erthyrdrin in the north, were nominally subjects of Queen Satra. The institution of mercenaries included in its tenets the notion that a person could settle down in an adopted country. We were Vallians.

As the banquet proceeded Licria ate little, toying with and savaging her food, glaring at me in a way that can only be described as baleful. We all had estates and titles in Vallia, and used them. I fancied this mild-seeming little queen was trying to worm information about Vallia out of us for future use—future offensive use.

In a diplomatic way we were able to assure her that Vallia had no intentions of conquest across the sea. Holding the island was the job. The wine went around and the queen relaxed a trifle. We spoke politely of this and that and soon the queen was explaining things that puzzled me.

“Queens of Pain?” she said, her voice only slightly slurred from the wine. “Oh, yes. I was a wonderful QuoPa! Marvelous! The poor wretches I had tortured—hundreds, thousands. I rode my zorca into battle. I cut down my enemies. Oh, yes, by Lingloh, I was a true, right and puissant QuoPa!” She stared at Licria. “This princess who aspires to be a Queen of Pain is a pale shadow of what I was. She is milk and water, when I was fire and iron!”

Licria's convulsive reaction caught a glass and sent the red wine into a blood red stain across the tablecloth.

There were slaves everywhere, naturally, to minister to our every want at table. Licria snarled at the little Och girl, who shrank away from the stain, holding her cleaning cloth.

“That's right, Licria! Let the blood stay!”

Queen Satra had been downing the wine. I didn't keep count; but she had drunk deep of the grape.

She went on: “I have had ten husbands. Just think of it. Ten of the pompous fools. Oh, no. It is a woman's world, right enough.”

Milsi said: “Men have their uses, though.”

“Oh, aye, by Lingloh!All my children dead.All of them.Every single one.” I happened to be looking at Licria as the queen spoke. A tiny movement curved her lips. I felt sorry for Satra's children. She went on: “Whose child are you, Licria? I can never remember whose grand daughter you are. At any rate, you're the last of the descendants.”

Licria found another goblet and did not answer. The shaft of pure hatred that sprang from her face for a half a heartbeat only portended great evil for the queen. Satra went on maundering about her life, recounting great deeds, famous battles, territories won. Then she said: “All that is past. I am no longer a QuoPa. I have repented of my evil ways. No longer will the silver trumpets of Loh shrill out over foreign dead as our armies sweep on to victory. No, no more, no more.”

She was not sick with chivrel, so her white hair must be a sign that her life was well past the two hundred mark. Very soon now she would slip away. If the plot worked as Licria wished, she'd ship out faster than that!

If the Star Lords were serious in their intentions to recreate an empire here in Loh, and wanted Queen Satra to become the empress, maybe they hadn't quite reckoned on her change of heart. She was no longer a Queen of Pain. She was now a mild little old lady anxious to get her life right with Hlo-Hli Herself, or any of the secret pantheon known to her, before she went shuffling off to the Death Jungles of Sichaz. So that left the charming Princess Licria. She would be a Queen of Pain! By Krun, she'd be a QuoPa to outdo any QuoPa who'd ever lived!

What price Dray Prescot as Emperor of Paz with Licria as Empress of Loh?

Satra sighed and nearly went to sleep and was escorted to bed by her slaves. She was smart enough to give orders that we were not to be disturbed.

Licria flounced out without a word. We five, pleasantly filled after the banquet, our senses about us, went along to the tents given over to our use. The jurukkers of EYJ formed a comforting shield. I went off to check that the four Hytaks had settled in and found them happy enough in this new situation. “Where's Nath ti Zanda?”

“He was called out by a little Sybli. Very pretty, by Kyfar!”

“Did she wear black beads around her neck?”

“Aye, lynxor, she did.”

Now what did Folly want with the Pachak? I went off along the lines looking for them.

The soldiers of Loh were smart, no doubt of it. I remembered the army we'd seen in the Hostile Territories. ‘Great Beasts of the Air’ as we'd called them, then had destroyed that army. The downfall of the Empire of Loh was a complicated and not easily explained fact of history.

In contrast my lads of EYJ just got on with the job and were as smart as they needed to be to meet that particular situation. Should some fancy foreign bigwig come visiting and it was necessary to turn out a guard of honor to escort him or her, then my lads of EYJ or ESW would put on an eye-watering show that would make these parade ground soldiers of Loh look like new recruits with straw in their hair straight from the farm.

Turning the corner of a tent and glancing back I saw the usual activity, with soldiers lounging and slaves scuttling. I turned back and there was Wa-Te hurrying towards me. He looked wrought up.

“Drajak! Thank Hlo-Hli I have found you—the Sybli girl, Folly—”

Now I heard the first footfall, I think. I swung about and the dark cloak of Notor Zan fell and enveloped me in blackness.

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Chapter nineteen

The men in black hurried us through secret narrow corridors and down steep stairs slashed sheer through virgin rock. They did not speak. They urged us on with knotted ropes. I'd come to my senses under a treefern, with Wa-Te on one side and Folly on the other. The men in black bound our wrists with ropes, and struck us with their knotted ropes, and drove us on willy-nilly. So much for Queen Satra's orders that I was not to be disturbed!

We had been stripped naked. Now I am used to running about on bare feet, and so too was Folly. The Pachak, more used to a pair of stout army boots or studded sandals, made a few faces as stones cut him. But he was not a soft city man who never went barefoot. He could handle this.

Every now and then we were allowed a short rest. The men in black did not talk; they did not object when we spoke together.

“Well, Folly—tell me—”

“The mistress. She was demented! I heard her talking to Trylon Ge-fu—”

“That shint!” exclaimed Wa-Te.

“Oh, yes, he is a great villain. He aspires to Licria's hand and to become Emperor of Loh.”

“One of ten, I expect,” I said, amused.

“You know about that?” Folly shook her head at the evil of the world. “Most of them went into the river in a weighted sack.”

“Folly warned me, but we couldn't find you. When we did—”

“I was as slow as a ponsho attacking a leem.”

“Where, master,” whispered Folly, “are they taking us?”

The rock quivered and the booming roar of the Drums smashed down.

“There's your answer.”

Folly shivered. Then she shook herself and lifted her chin.

“I refuse to be frightened by a noise. As for the trylon, you ought to know, Wa-Te, that Licria merely uses him. It's the weighted sack for him when his days are numbered.”

“Sichaz extend its Death Jungles for him!”

Then we were knouted up and struggled on. Down and down we went.

Now and then other parties of men in black with captives joined us. I asked Folly if there were a trade in this from the column, and she could only say that often folk were missing and none knew where they'd gone. I saw no one I knew in the new arrivals. We pressed on.

All the men in black resembled the first one I'd seen transfixed with terror by the vorlind in the chamber where we'd met Gochert. Pallid of face, downdrooping of whiskers, with slack features and small, too-red mouths. They wore different kinds of jeweled fillets in their hair.

These, then, I said to myself, are the folk of the Realm of the Drums.

The noise of the Drums when they spoke did not so much grow louder as we neared as become more distinct. The sound traveled throughout this labyrinthine complex. Reasoning from that, I realized that we had not heard the drums until we'd been down for some time. That meant that someone had penetrated to the depths and aroused the sleeping men in black.

A final sharp set of stairs brought us to a tunnel stretching left and right in a circle so that the ends curved out of sight. We went to the left and reached an iron door. Over the door a gilt statue of a xichun spread his wings, and flailed his tail and stretched out his sinuous neck. His eyes seemed to regard us as we passed under, the needle teeth ready to tear the flesh from our bones.

Beyond the iron door the whole aspect of the place changed.

The walls were smooth ashlar, crisp where they were not covered by tapestries. The by now familiar pearly light took on a pinkish tinge. Soon we were walking on carpets. More doors followed, each with a xichun set above the architrave. I began to prepare plans if I had to fight one.

The Drums burst out with a rolling thunder; but the sound was no louder than it had been. As though this were a signal, the men in black plied their rope's ends and hurried us on.

The smell of sulfur hung thickly on the air.

We came out onto a ledge high above a cavern. At first it was difficult to take in all the details. A rail guarded the edge and people were filing down past it to the right. I looked over the rail. At the centre of the floor of the chamber the stone was cleared of any obstructions. A round black hole some four paces across gaped like the eye of a Cyclops. Tiers of seating were arranged in a horseshoe, the seats strewn with rugs and shawls. At the moment the stand was empty. Various small buildings stood about, columned, domed, like shrines. I looked up for a moment and saw an odd arrangement of boulders supported by an incurve of the roof. Up between the boulders a shaft appeared to go straight up; but the light failed there and details were lost.

A dais stood to one side of the horseshoe-shaped stand, supporting a throne, with steps leading up to it. A larger platform on the other side held broad tiered steps. There were no rugs there.

The ledge which we descended curved around and when we reached the bottom further details became apparent. Naked men and women of various races were pushed forward into a compound, railed in. To our immediate left lifted the throne. Under the larger platform a door was now visible, presumably leading back into a tunnel through bedrock.

There were many people crowded in so that Wa-Te put his tail around Folly and I put my arm about his shoulders. We did not feel like being separated just now. The stinks of sweat and fear rose in a miasma.

A woman wearing a black robe with a huge yellow xichun emblazoned across back and front stepped out from under the throne. She picked the mallet up from its brackets under a bronze gong. She hit the gong. The metallic sound, so different from the roar of the Drums, convinced me that the gong was not the origin of that gigantic noise.

As the reverberations gonged away to silence, men and women emerged from the door under the platform. They split left and right and climbed the steps to fan out along the terraces. They remained standing. They were dressed in black gowns, emblazoned with the xichun, and they carried Lohvian longbows.

At the same time people began to fill the seats of the horseshoe. These were dressed in a motley of colors, robes of varying cut. All had the yellow xichun somewhere about their clothing. They were talking and laughing, very animated, and many had goblets and parcels of sweets with them.

“Quite a day out for them,” observed Wa-Te.

“I must say I don't care for all this.”

“I think,” began Folly. Then she said: “I will not think what I think!”

After a wait, marshals in black led out two naked men into the area between the arms of the horseshoe. That expanse was sanded.

A deep silence fell. From the rear of the throne dais emerged a procession. Everyone was clothed in black except for the glittering figure all in gold. He walked along with his arms extended and supported by helpers. His face held all the old look of absolute authority I so much detested, as hard as the stone about him. On his head blazed a crown of many jewels, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires. There was just the one red gem. It coruscated from the centre of the crown, lustrous, scintillating, blood red.

So there was the object for which we'd come all this damn long way!

The gong sounded again. The two naked men advanced towards each other and began to wrestle. One had some skill, the other had not. Very soon the skilled forced the unskilled down and so held him trapped in a lock.

Two men in black whipped the two men up. The man who had lost the fight stared with pale hopeless eyes. One of the men in black struck him through with a sword and he fell, his blood staining the sand. He was dragged away. The victor looked about. Men in black surrounded him. He was lifted up horizontally and in a twinkling, as the gong crashed out, he was run towards the hole in the floor and hurled in. His shriek of mortal terror howled up, dwindling in eerie echoes.

The fellow in gold with the ruby of the Skantiklar in his crown held up a hand. Silence fell. We waited. Presently the fellow gestured.

Two more men were thrust out onto the sand. They looked at each other, and shook their heads. They were twins. It was clear to all that they would not fight each other.

A woman with a red patch across her black gown emerged from under the throne. She held a slate in her left hand. She looked up at the fellow wearing the crown. Some of her words were lost; but I caught: “...at least four more, majister...”

The golden-clad arms lifted. Pale hands moved in a mystic gesture. The man's eyes were like live coals, burning upon the two men. The change that overcame them was frightening in its rapidity and intensity. One moment they were staring at each other with brotherly love, the next their faces evinced the most intense hatred. Snarls broke from them. They leaped at each other, and they fought like maniacs—men possessed.

Their fists were knotted about each other's throats. So they gripped and choked. One twin must have been a fraction stronger than the other, a tragic fraction. One man collapsed and the other staggered away, hands to his own throat, retching. As before, the loser was struck through and the winner hoisted and hurled down the black shaft.

Again silence fell.

The woman wearing the red patch consulted her slate. She looked up at the throne and shook her head. Once more the gong crashed out.

This time two naked women were thrust out onto the sand. I did not care to watch, and so took more notice of the details of this hell hole.

The platform to my right contained bowmen, and no doubt they would take delight in shafting any poor crazed wretches who tried to run for it. The steps leading up to the throne on the left had rugs scattered upon them.

The woman with the slate and the woman with the gong stood just to the side. Just what title that fellow up there called himself, I couldn't know. But I bet it was a real fancy string of pomposity. As for the crowd lolling on the horseshoe shaped benches, they struck the most incongruous note in this place of barbarity and terror.

A couple of husky fellows wearing the black gown and the xichun symbol with crossed swords embroidered in yellow below it stood just below the High One in his throne. These two carried swords, not the Lohvian lynxter but an interesting double-curved sword rather like a kris. Their faces looked dull and doughy with good living. The notion was borne in on me that I'd have to do something sharpish if this imbroglio wasn't to be the end.

I heard Folly whisper: “The beasts!” When I looked back the fight between the women was over. One had been struck through and the victor was being hurried to the pit.

“The trouble is,” said a distinguished-looking man standing nextto Wa-Te. “We have no way of knowing what lies in the pit. Is it a dreadful death? Or is it an escape? Certainly, having a sword stuck through you is final enough, by Amintal the Benevolent!”

We agreed and the argument over which was preferable spread through the prisoners. We stood, as I say, near the left hand side, by the throne; prisoners were picked out from anywhere at random, it seemed, and the next pair of women were selected from the far side by the platform of bowmen.

The fact to remember here was that this was a scene that rightfully belonged some five hundred seasons ago. Then the City of Eternal Twilight was not a Lost City of Chem. It had trading links all over Loh. There was no difficulty in finding people, no mystery how all these folk came here.

The distinguished-looking man added to that by saying that he wished, now, by Amintal the Benevolent, he'd never ventured here after treasure. Like many of the prisoners he appeared unnaturally calm. I, too, felt a numbness between my ears. He finished: “As true as my name is Nath the Thirsty, I am a strom and yet this creature on his throne ignores me.”

The women struggled together, breast to breast, and I looked away.

Wa-Te said: “I think the sword will be the easier death, Drajak. Should we be chosen to fight, I shall kill you with sorrow and joy.”

“I, too, believe the shaft to be a hideous death. Therefore, Wa-Te, I shall most certainly defeat you.”

“Ha!” he said, firing up in that Pachak way. “We'll see!”

When the girl who had triumphed was hurled down the pit the silence fell. I could feel the expectancy in the air, the sizzle as of lightning through rain, the pulse of blood loud in my head.

The woman with the slate gestured and two more men were driven out by the marshals, to fight, and to lose and lose. The man who had won let rip a shriek of animal fear as he went headfirst into the pit. This time the silence pressed down like a leaden helmet.

I felt prickles all over my skin. Folly put her arm about my waist, and I reciprocated, and the touch of her skin vibrated in my fingertips. We all waited on the verge of some great catastrophe.

A red light grew in the pit. At the moment when the red light began to glow, the people sitting in the horseshoe, the bowmen and the people by the throne, gazed upwards. Instinctively, I glanced up. A shaft of light, a sparking, sizzling, flaming bolt of fire smashed up from the pit. It made no sound. Silently it licked its flame upwards. The tip of the flame struck that odd shaping of boulders high in the shaft.

The boulders swung across and clashed together, and then rebounded. Through the cavern, dinning in our ears, the sullen reverberations of the Drums rolled sonorously.

The flame soared up, striking the boulders, smashing out the roar of the Drums. The tip of the flame recurved, spread, descended from the shaft's opening to spread out in a net. That fire had changed. Throughout the gossamer of flaming filaments danced golden motes, sprites of energy that sparked and scintillated dazzlingly. The whole vibrant mass of light descended upon the horseshoe of seating and upon the bowmen's platform and on the throne.

The people there were galvanized into frenetic action. They danced in abandon, flung their arms and legs about, their mouths open and gasping as though they greedily drank wine from a spouting fountain. They were drinking the flames! Their faces shone, sweat poured from them. Crazy scenes were being enacted everywhere among the people in bright clothes. Those in the black robes, drinking in the flames, remained more sober. I caught the immediate idea that they took it in turns, thus to guard, thus to imbibe—imbibe whatever it was they were drinking from the flames!

With a last tremendous clang from the Drums, the flame died.

No one could speak. The silence now was the silence that falls upon a stricken battlefield after all the wounded have died.

The woman in the red patch with the slate was the first to rouse herself. She adjusted her clothing, and then commanded the gong mistress to strike. The gong note rang out peremptorily.

The holiday-attired people, the king's procession, the bowmen, all descended and marched off. The marshals and guards before the prisoners changed over. We waited, without food or drink. Strom Nath the Thirsty licked his lips. “These rasts buy their pleasures dearly!”

I said: “I think, doms, it is time we thought of escape.”

“If we don't get somewhat to eat and drink soon,” said Wa-Te, “I, for one, won't have the strength to lift my feet.” He was, as we all knew, exaggerating. But there was an ugly truth in what he said.

The bowmen returned to their platform, the merry-makers crowded the horseshoe, and the damned procession re-appeared, with the golden form wearing the ruby of the Skantiklar in his crown. I glared on him with some disfavor.

The gong clamored out demandingly.

Marshals were advancing to the far side of the sanded area to pick the next pair of combatants, so we over here could breathe again. The smells were not helped by the perfume everywhere floating into the still air. That damned flame that created the Drums had not been hot—at least I'd felt no heat from it. People sweated from fear, the prisoners, and expectant enjoyment, the holiday crowd.

Down on the edge of the sanded area a man walked along looking at the prisoners. He passed by a marshal and the marshal took no notice of him. This figure wore a plain gown of a crimson hue, and carried a varnished staff. He wore a turban which balanced perfectly on his red Lohvian hair.

I felt—well, I tell you, by Zair, I felt emotion course all through me! Deb-Lu-Quienyin walked on by and he did not look up; he was looking at the front row of prisoners. Presently he walked back and disappeared. Out on the arena two men fought, and died, and one was shafted by a sword and the other was just shafted.

I said to Wa-Te: “When we make our break do not be surprised if we receive unexpected help.”

“Oh?”

“You recall those lads with yellow jackets?”

“I should welcome them with open arms!”

Folly said: “Oh, yes, please!”

Wa-Te clicked his tongue and said: “You call them lads. They're the toughest bunch of hard men I've ever met.”

“ESW would question that, Wa-Te!”

“What—?”

But I was not listening to my comrade. I was staring at the sanded arena and the marshals shepherding two girls out. The women had their arms about each other's waists. They walked closely together, leg striding for leg, heads touching. The marshals tried to pull them apart and, somehow, two marshals were lying on the ground, rolling over and over.

Rope's ends thwacked down and I jumped at each blow. The women were torn apart and turned to face each other. They stood, defiantly, one foot braced before the other, arms crossed. One of those girls had forearms deeply pitted—but there were many granules still filled with bindles.

The king-like figure on his throne lifted his hands and made his gestures and—lo!—the faces of the women changed. In a heartbeat they were no longer haughty, defiant, radiating love one for the other that would not be broken—now their faces drew into animal snarls, savage downdrawn brows and writhing lips.

I didn't care how they were to die, by sword or pit; that they were to die at all mattered.

Once in hand to hand combat, Delia could easily overcome Mevancy. But Mevancy had only to shoot her bindles and Delia would no longer have a face.

With hatred disfiguring her features, Mevancy began slowly to lift her forearms, pointing at Delia.

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Chapter twenty

Red roaring madness engulfed me. I felt choked. Naked as I was I felt as though a metal helmet enclosed my head, crushing my temples, constricting my throat. All I could see in the whole universe was Delia. She stood at the centre of vision and all about her stretched nothingness. Half crouched, her hands extended, she looked lithe and vibrant, quick and lethal as any hunting cat—and across her face spread a demonic look of utter hatred.

I had to tear my whole being away from Delia. I had to control myself, I had to think. I had to—I was out on the sand and somehow the broken body of a marshal lay strewn behind me and I was running for the steps to the throne. If arrows were shot off at me, they all missed.

The two guards with their double-curved swords came down for me and I had one of their swords in my fist and they were reeling back with their guts hanging out. I kicked them aside and sprang up the rest of the steps to the platform where the throne reared. The king in his golden robes still continued to stand with arm extended.

The knowledge flamed in my head that I must not kill him.

Up to his back I leaped, gripping his extended arm in my left fist, and fitting the curve of the sword snugly about his throat. I jerked the sword. I cut him. Oh, yes, I cut the bastard!

“Cancel the hatred spell instantly or I will slit your throat.”

I spoke evenly, not panting, and my words shot out like steel darts.

He started in with some expected nonsense like: “You are already dead—let me go!”

I cut him again. I took a vicious and sadistic pleasure from that, Zair forgive me. I dare not look down on the sand. I dare not...

He yelped and I twisted his arm down. If the bones snapped, so much the worse for him.

An arrow clanked onto the arm of the throne. He yelled then, lifting his voice: “Stop! Stop shooting you shints!”

No more arrows flighted in.

I put more pressure on his arm and abruptly it snapped down. He shrieked out something I couldn't understand and tried to twist away in my grasp. He didn't succeed but his movement took his head out of my line of sight. And so I looked down onto the sand.

Marshals were running about and a bunch were starting for the steps up to the throne. So it had been quick, then.

I yelled at them: “Stop still! His head will roll off if you do not!”

Out of concern for him, or fear—who the hell cared?—they stopped.

So I could look at the two women.

Mevancy was flat on her front on the sand. Her right arm was twisted up behind her and in some mystical way her head was being hauled back. Delia was half kneeling on her, and had her in a grip that I recognized as a variation of a Krozair technique with a nasty little extra from the Sisters of the Rose flung in. Blood speckled Delia's arms.

As I gazed with the blood thumping in my temples and the feeling of suffocation nigh on choking me, Delia abruptly let go. She jumped up. Mevancy rolled over, dazed. Delia hauled her to her feet and the women collapsed into each other's arms. They hugged each other, laughing and crying and kissing. What I felt—I do not know what I felt.

Over to the side a black clad marshal suddenly went flying up into the air. He landed with a splat on his back. An enormous figure burst from the crowd of prisoners waving a double-curved sword. He went hell for leather for the next pack of marshals.

As that bulky powerful figure charged, I felt the numbness between my ears falling away. The big fellow was yelling as he charged.

“Hack ‘n’ Slay! I'll have you, you cramphs! Hack ‘n’ Slay!”

Following him leaped a rascally gang who went tearing into the black clad men. All were naked. But I recognized most of them. First Emperor's Sword Watch were in action!

The fellow in my grip was blathering on, shrieking over his broken arm, as the greasy blood dripped down from his throat. I twisted him again. “If your Bowmen of Loh shoot, you kleesh, I'll slit your throat.”

That instruction proved superfluous in the next turn of events. Everything had happened at a hectic rate. Shafts began to fall among the clustered bowmen on their platform—and each shaft was fletched with the red feathers of the zim korf of Vallia!

The lads of EYJ came running in, perfectly controlled, in tight formation, hurtling on to send the rabble of black-gowned men and the holiday crowd into a shrieking panic. How they scuttled, those drinkers of the flame of the Drums!

Seg and Inch were there, in the lead, roaring the swods on.

Llodi had a spear and was rapidly following old Hack ‘n’ Slay as they cleared their end of the arena. As for that young rip Rollo, he'd found himself a bow and was merrily shooting anything black that moved.

So engrossed was I in the fantastic scene in the cavern that I took no notice of a hissing squawk overhead. The fleeting thought crossed my mind that if the Star Lords had sent their Gdoinye to spy on what I was doing for them, he'd turned up a bit too late, by Djan!

Now guards of Queen Satra's expedition appeared, joining in.

I whooshed out a breath. Seg and Inch reached Delia and Mevancy. Scarlet and gold cloaks enveloped their nakedness. Milsi and Sasha ran across, half-sobbing, half-laughing, to be embraced. Well, then! Things were turning out well, by Krun!

The four Hytaks led by Lurgan the Vandour who had joined us from Gochert's party, together with Wa-Te, had caught the gong mistress and the woman of the red patch and the slate. They had not slain them. Being professional paktuns,they were touchy on points of honor.

Everything was on the point of being under control. Our forces fanned out to occupy the place and make sure we were secure. The fleeing mobs in black or bright attire would be scuttling away to their bolt holes. We'd have to deal with them in due course.

So, then—and belatedly, by Vox!—I bethought myself of this king fellow's golden crown and the ruby of the Skantiklar glowing at its centre.

Again that hissing squawk spat from above me. I looked up.

A golden flash, a fleeting glimpse of wide spread wings—and I ducked! The golden-feathered xichun darted his sinuous neck past my downbent head and as I rolled sideways so the xichun's fanged head snatched the crown. His wings beat powerfully and he was up and curving for the radiance of the roof.

I yelled. “Seg! Rollo! Shaft him!”

My shout burst above the hubbub. People swung about to stare. The xichun was a mere glinting golden speck, driving past the boulders of the Drum. A shadow among the cunning balance of stone took my immediate and appalled attention. There was no chance of a shot now, even a Bowman as superlative as Seg could not blast a shaft through solid stone.

Up there the xichun fluttered to a landing on the boulder. It did not move under the weight. A man appeared. There must be a tunnel leading to the Drums through the rock of the roof. He looked down.

I knew him. Oh, I knew him all right!

Deb-Lu appeared up the steps of the throne. He was real. He panted out: “He's got it, Jak! He's got it!”

The king stirred in my grip and I released him, staring up in bitter frustration. This king fellow must have recognized the end for him and his ways. He must also have been brave. With an inarticulate cry he jumped down the steps. The movement made me instinctively follow him with my gaze. He ran with his golden robes flapping about him, he ran straight for the pit of the flame. He jumped in.

His body was not enough to trigger the blast of spitting fire. The pit remained black. His last desperate fling had failed.

Deb-Lu said: “Look, Dray!”

Up there on the boulder of the Drums the bulky figure of Na-Si-Fantong worked on the helmet. He untwisted the ruby of the Skantiklar and held it aloft in triumph.

Then, with a gesture of supreme contempt, he hurled the crown down, and it bounced and trundled across the sand.

“He's gone!”

The Wizard of Loh, Na-Si-Fantong, disappeared.

With him went the ruby, went the reason we had suffered all the perils down here in the Realm of the Drums.

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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.

[Back to Table of Contents]

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.