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Scorpio Triumph [Dray Prescot #43]
by Alan Burt Akers
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Science Fiction/Fantasy

Mushroom eBooks
www.mushroom-ebooks.com

Copyright ©1993 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

Chapter twenty-one

A Glossary to the Lohvian Cycle of the Saga of Dray Prescot

About the Author

The Dray Prescot Series

* * * *

Scorpio Triumph

Alan Burt Akers

Mushroom eBooks

Copyright © 1993, 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 1993 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 9781843197171

Dray Prescot

The picture we have of Dray Prescot, as painted by himself in his narrative and by one who has seen him on Earth, is at once enigmatic and intriguing. He is a compelling figure, dynamic, dominating, demanding, yet there is in him that odd vulnerability. He is a man over middle height, with brown hair and level brown eyes, with enormously broad shoulders and powerful physique. There is an aura about him of abrasive honesty and indomitable courage. He moves like a savage hunting cat, quiet and lethal, sudden. Reared in the harsh conditions of Nelson's navy, he has been transported to the exotic and barbaric, beautiful and cruel world of Kregen, four hundred light years from Earth, under the double star Antares, the twin Suns of Scorpio.

Paz, the hemisphere of Kregen where Prescot has adventured and succeeded, is threatened by the reiving Shanks from Schan, the other half of the planet. He has been pitchforked into the job of organizing the resistance, a so-called Emperor of Paz, and has managed—temporarily—to drive off the Shanks and their mentor, the mysterious Carazaar. In all he undertakes, he is immeasurably assisted by Delia, Delia of the Blue Mountains, Delia of Delphond. Their family are now generally about their own affairs.

To his great surprise, his comrade Wizard of Loh, Deb-Lu-Quienyin, tells him he must concentrate on finding the rubies forming the Skantiklar. These have been scattered in seasons past, and if brought together will confer stupendous sorcerous power on the possessor of the Skantiklar. Down in the continent of Loh expeditions have ventured below the City of Eternal Twilight into the Realm of the Drums in search of one of the rubies. A Wizard of Loh, Na-Si-Fantong, has been collecting the rubies, and it is believed he wants them for no good purposes. He has succeeded in obtaining a ruby and vanishes into the maze of tunnels under the city. Not really convinced in the importance of the Skantiklar, Prescot has to go in pursuit. Alone, he threads his way through the labyrinth, already feeling he will never catch Na-Si-Fantong...

Alan Burt Akers

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Chapter one

I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, crawled painfully along a narrow and jagged tunnel with dust clogging my mouth and nostrils and stinging my eyes and every now and then my head would go thwack! against a damned rocky outcrop in the roof. By Makki Grodno's disgusting diseased black-fanged winespout and deliquescing dangling left eyeball! I'd wager that clever Na-Si-Fantong hadn't crawled along here. Oh, no! He'd have used his sorcerous powers to create a smooth marble avenue and strolled along without a care in Kregen.

As for me, I'd hared off after the mage when he'd snatched the ruby and—of course—a whole world of rock and rubble had avalanched down at my back, shutting my friends away and shutting me in.

All I could do now was crawl on as best I could. There was a little light, either from some fungus or perhaps some clever magical scintillant stone—I didn't give a damn which it was. I could just about see where I was going—and where that was I'd no idea at all, at all, as the song has it.

“Sink me!” I burst out to myself. “What the blue blazing hell am I doing, scrabbling about miles underground after a stupid magic red ruby when the damned Shanks are organizing a powerful expeditionary force against us?” I moved my right knee up and then my left and surged forward and—thwack! went my head against the roof. I mentioned the Divine Lady of Belschutz and forged on. Oh, no, I should be out in the fresh air and the light of the Suns of Scorpio, planning horrible retribution upon the fishy heads of the Fish Faces and their whiptailed Kataki allies.

The little kris-like curved sword I'd snatched up kept on getting in the way; but I felt disinclined to abandon the weapon. It would come in useful if I encountered any of the habitual nasties frequenting the labyrinth. I'd had no time to snatch up any clothes. In a somewhat turbulent frame of mind I pressed on along the raggedy tunnel.

As San Blarnoi says: “A day short of Eternity is still Eternity.” In the end I reached the point where the tunnel led onto a large cavern. Before I plopped out of the opening I screwed my head around checking to see what reception committee might be awaiting.

The universal mellow pearly light shone down from the overhead. The air hung still and breathless. I could hear no sound apart from my own breathing, inaudible otherwise. The floor of the cavern was artificially smooth. Set around the walls stood nine sarcophagi. I stared at them and my heart sank. Now what mumbo-jumbo nonsense was I in for?

When I was satisfied that no one else was around I stepped down from the opening. Lumps and shards of rock in a fanfall indicated that whoever had made the tunnel had broken through into this cavern.

Immediately I moved away I saw one of them. The poor devil lay alongside a sarcophagus with his head stoved in. Now—because this place, this Realm of the Drums, had been sorcerously held in suspended animation for the best part of five hundred years, this fellow might have died yesterday, or five hundred years ago.

He wore a ragged breechclout and his arms and hands were covered in scratches. He was apim, Homo sapiens sapiens, like me. In the dust at his side lay a hefty crowbar.

A foot in a sandal projected past the end of the coffin and on walking carefully around I saw another fellow, a Rapa, whose beak and feathers of his head were scrunched down between his shoulders.

Strewn across his body were portions of two other men, as best I could judge a Brokelsh and a Moltingur. Whoever had slain them must have had colossal strength.

That was the point at which I made up my mind I wouldn't try to open a sarcophagus.

In the opposite wall stood an opening. It had been bricked up with large blocks and enough had been pulled down from the centre to make a hole large enough for a person to duck through.

That looked to be, apart from the tunnel down which I'd crawled, the only way out.

Very very carefully—as you may well imagine!—I went across and squinted through.

The pearly light revealed what could only be a shrine.

Dark stains disfigured the basaltic altar block. The statue above bent its gilded wedge-shaped head forward, narrow jaws armed with rows of needle teeth, its scaly wings wide spread, its lizard-like body crouched as if to spring, its barbed tail extended. The xichun whose aerial domain lay high above the rain forest had led me on to danger before. The flying animal was clearly some kind of totem down here. I gave it a glare; it did not move.

The feeling possessed me that I'd do well to keep the corner of one eye focused on that golden xichun.

Just for the moment I did not venture into the room of the shrine. There were two doors, one each side of the basaltic block, and each had its own gilded xichun above the architrave. These two flying lizards might be smaller than the fellow over the altar; they'd bear watching with the same attention to self-preservation. A gaggle of chests half-covered with rugs to the side seemed as though they might have been used as seats. I turned back to the main chamber and broodingly surveyed the situation.

The narrow, rocky and damned uncomfortable tunnel through which I'd reached here must have been for most of its length a natural fault. The tomb robbers needed only to break through the last few paces, as the extent of the fantail of rubble indicated. To my mind, then, this meant they must have a map.

If the two doors in the shrine room were the only way out, then whoever had bricked up the opening intended the nine sarcophagi to be sealed in. There might be further bricked up doors in there. The more I looked at the situation the less appealing it became.

Deb-Lu-Quienyin had negated the spell that held everyone down here in stasis only in a local aura around us—that is, my companions and me. So when I came across a living person standing stock still in suspended animation I woke him, her or it up. So that meant these four dead tomb robbers must have died just before the spell was cast five hundred years ago. I walked across—carefully!—and looked at them again.

The apim wore a torn mustardy breechclout. The Rapa wore a green lap-lap, a thigh-length wrap-around. That was fastened by a leather belt with a cheap brass buckle. The Brokelsh and the Moltingur had also worn mustardy breechclouts. After a careful search I found no map.

Again I stared at the torn down brickwork. At first, because the brick blocks spilled into the cavern I'd assumed the wall had been pushed in from the other side. Now it began to look as though it had been torn down and pulled in. Why?

There was, undoubtedly, something highly nasty in that shrine room.

The tunnel at my back was blocked. That left the two doors in the shrine room as the only ways out.

“By the Black Chunkrah!” I said. “Trust that vosk skull of a Dray Prescot to drop himself in it!”

Well, as they say, you must accept the needle, and needs must when you come to the fluttrell's vane. If that was the only way out, then, By Krun! that was the only way out.

Before I came to push of pike I had another look at the sarcophagi. Each was about five feet high, fashioned from marble with rather pleasant patterns. Each lid was adorned with an over-life-size effigy of a warrior. There were an apim, a Fristle, a Rapa, a Chulik, a Hytak, a Pachak, a Brokelsh, a Relt and an Och.

Each one's armor was carved in considerable detail and their weapons were as carefully represented. Of those nine carvings, one of the races of diffs intrigued me by his unexpected presence.

There were no signs I could make out along the junction of lid and coffin to indicate the crowbar had been used. If whatever had destroyed these four men had emerged from the sarcophagi then it had returned and closed the lid or lids without a trace.

Or, perhaps, by Vox, it had torn the brick blocks down and escaped into the labyrinth! That was not a pleasant thought.

Well, then, it must be a damned tidy monster, for it had replaced its lid neatly enough. If one monster had risen and escaped perhaps there were eight more undead waiting for some unsuspecting wight to release them. I felt a prickly itch down between my shoulder blades.

With great care I removed the dead apim's mustardy-colored breechclout and the Rapa's leather belt. They were dusty but clean enough, so the men had died quickly. The power of the blows that had destroyed them was once again reinforced in my mind.

Picking up the crowbar in my left hand and hitching up the belted breechclout with my right, I took up the little curved sword and started for the jagged opening in the brick block wall.

One, two, three cautious steps brought me into the room of the shrine. Nothing happened. I took a breath. The air hung flat and stale. The feeling of pressure on my temples increased. Menace threatened, I could feel it tangibly, a sensation of imagined horror I had to push away.

Now, then, which door? Left or right?

Both doors were built of balass wood, hard and black, beautifully inlaid with ivory of Chem in geometric patterns. There appeared not a whisker of difference between them.

Neither had a handle, so you were supposed to push them open. If, that is, they weren't locked and bolted from the other side.

Standing midway between those enigmatic doors directly before the altar I made another careful inspection. The dark stains looked most unhealthy. The glint of gold just above the surface of the stained block in the back wall of the shrine took my attention.

An inscription had been carved there and the letters filled with gold. Instead of the beautiful Kregish script, the letters were blocked out in a style used in ancient documents for important headings. Now, of course, I must give the letters in terrestrial form, and have translated the words.

The golden inscription read:

U Q M K B Q

H L R H U O

For some time I stared at the inscription, summoning up the letters of the alphabet in my mind. Then I gave a little nod.

I'd never liked the idea of those two doors. This offered what I considered a better chance. Of course, if I was wrong, then whatever fearful thing had emerged to wreak devastation on those poor devils might well leap out to deal with me.

Anyway, the presence among the warrior effigies of that one particular race of diffs had caught my absorbed attention. I went back into the main chamber. If I was right, there was not a single sign of the person or persons who had attempted to push open the doors. Mind you, there were the stains on the altar...

This was where I had to summon up the blood and harden the sinews all right, by Krun! I positioned myself at the side of the sarcophagus I'd selected. I put my hands on the lid. I took a deep breath. The marble face with its exquisitely carved beak and surrounding feathers looked calm and relaxed, quite unlike the look of ferocious power on the marble face of the Relt's cousin the Rapa. I pushed.

The squeal of marble against marble held an unusual soft sound. The lid slid aside quite easily, and held and did not topple to the ground. I was pleased about that, not being in the business of desecrating tombs.

I looked inside.

The pearly light of the chamber was washed away and eaten up by a pale green glow. The inside of the coffin held no wrapped corpse, no skeleton. The crowbar and the sword in my fists struck me as particularly inappropriate, singularly out of place in that moment of revelation.

There appeared to be no bottom to the sarcophagus. Just that pale green glow radiating up from an immense depth.

Nothing stirred in the chamber.

“Here we go!” I said, cocked both legs over the coffin and dropped plumb into the radiant greenness below.

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Chapter two

Enveloped in radiant greenness I fell. Inevitably the comparison occurred to me. The weird parallel in thus dropping through greenness when I was much more accustomed to flying upwards enveloped in blueness, of course, rushed in on me with somewhat more than I liked of a choking feeling.

The drop did not last long. I realized I was no longer falling and that I was lying on a hard surface with no sense of having hit it with any force. The green glow which had cushioned me faded and died. I was lying full length surrounded by stone walls almost touching my shoulders. The tops of the four walls were only some three feet above my head, so I sat up, shoved up, and got my hands on the stone lip.

I pulled myself up to see where I might be.

A good-sized cavern surrounded me, containing eight other sarcophagi. The pearly light showed me the details and, by Zair, I admit it, my heart sank. I was back in the same damned cavern!

For only a heartbeat that miserable realization pressed in on me. Instead of a bricked-up opening, that doorway was now open and surrounded by a golden architrave. There were no dead bodies. The air still hung musty and stale; it smelled quite pleasant after the first shock.

“Djan Kadjiryon smiled on me then, by Djondalar!” I said to myself.

When I'd climbed out of the coffin the decision not to interfere with any of the others was automatic. I was in the business of avoiding trouble, not seeking it.

The shrine room looked exactly the same except for the absence of stains on the altar. Instead a superb golden bowl held flowers arranged by the hand of a great florist. They were perfectly preserved, fresh as the daisies of the field. I felt sorrow that in passing them I would bring them back to life, to wither away and dry into ugly brown stalks.

Hefting the sword and the crowbar I put an eyeball around the left hand door and immediately jumped back and glared up at the three xichuns.

The flying lizards did not stir.

Beyond the door lay a squared-off corridor illuminated by the pallid light. A repetition of my antics showed a similar corridor beyond the right hand door.

Which way I went had no meaning, for I was completely lost, so I went to the left. If going to the right would take me out of the labyrinth then I'd chosen badly, that was all.

The inscription above the altar, this time, read:

BEWARE THE PIT OF THE FIRE FOR THE DRUMS ENSLAVE

“H'm,” I said under my breath. “They didn't heed that warning!”

The situation now appeared clearer to me. I fancied this part of the labyrinth under the City of Eternal Twilight had been inhabited by a people before those who'd bathed in the radiance of the Fire as the Drums roared. Perhaps there had been a bloody war. At any rate, those black-garbed priests of the Realm of the Drums had taken over. We had dispersed them; I didn't doubt that some would rally and continue after we had left.

That was, I corrected myself, if we ever did find a way out and did manage to leave this damned maze.

The squared-off passage led on for some distance, turning various corners, and I went along with exquisite caution. By this time I was ravenously hungry. Well, by Krun, I've been ravenously hungry plenty of times before and, Kregen being Kregen, will no doubt be hungry again.

All these various passageways were cut neatly and the floors lay smooth and clean. Almost every door was closed. One or two that were open showed neat living spaces of a simple yet comfortable kind, and all were empty. A larger door revealed a room very similar to the room of the shrine I'd left, and a glimpse of the corner of a sarcophagus through the far opening. On I went to come out to a lobby. Here the head of a staircase with wide steps leading down did not tempt me. I wanted to find the way up and out.

Some distance on past more living rooms and two more shrines, a faint green glow ahead seeped into the pearly light.

Approaching stealthily, for I had no idea what I might wake up from a five hundred year sleep, I halted at the edge of a jagged crack across the floor. This fault was the result of an earth tremor, and I was thankful to see that I could leap the gap without difficulty.

Before I did that I stretched out on my stomach and looked down.

The scene displayed below was touching, noble and yet, given what I had run across so far, not entirely unexpected.

The crack in the floor gave me a view of an extremely extensive chamber below. No doubt originally it had been a natural cavern; these people had worked on it, beautifying it, turning it into a temple.

Hundreds of worshippers knelt with bowed heads, frozen in time in the instant of prayer. The high altar blazed with flowers. Priests and priestesses in white vestments had been caught in the act of prayer and blessing. Around the walls and stationed at the many doors stood armed guards. They were of many races of diffs, and were armed and accoutred like the effigies on the sarcophagi. The worshippers carried no weapons. Clearly, these people were concerned lest they be attacked during their devotions. Absolute stillness and silence below created a sense of awe.

These, then, were the folk who continued to live down here under constant threat from the black-garbed degenerates of the Realm of the Drums.

No one stirred, so I was not near enough to arouse them.

Standing up I consigned their fortune to Opaz, and walked on.

After half a dozen paces I abruptly halted and stood stock still.

Onker! Here was I, lord of this and that, Prince of Strombor, King of Djanduin, Strom of Valka, a fellow who had been the Emperor of Vallia and was now supposed to be—or become—the Emperor of Emperors, the Emperor of Paz. I'd had plenty of practice deciding issues, using what skill I had in imitation of the Wisdom of Solomon, acting as a judge. That I did not care overmuch for that side of being an emperor had nothing whatsoever to do with it. I should have seen the situation and its ugly outcome instantly. And here I was calmly walking on! Talk about Pontius Pilate and the washing of hands!

Without any further hesitation I turned around and went back at a run.

Reaching the lobby I went haring down the steps four at a time. The problem of traps and monsters here did not exist. The foot of the stairway led out into a cavern filled with agriculture and flowers. There were no syatras, no Spiny Ribcrushers, no Cabaret Plants, no crowpins and no slaptras in the many pleasant pools. Everywhere as I passed the gorgeous perfumes of the flowers scented the air.

At the far end a series of constructions held gardener's tools. The corridor continued and if the directions I held in my head were right then just up ahead and to the left should lie the temple chamber.

Around the expected corner I trotted and instantly broke into a rapid dash. The two Hytaks on guard at a door stood as they had stood for five hundred years, leaning on their strangdjas, the spiky-headed polearms glittering with edge and point. As each one woke up he had no time to wonder about the stiffness in his muscles, for a thumb pressed just so under his ear sent him back to sleep again.

Now it was necessary to proceed with caution, for the door led onto the balcony around the temple about fifteen feet up from the floor. The balcony was not as crowded as the nave below. A deep breath whooped into my lungs ... I set myself ... Then I was off, sprinting as fast as I could around the balcony, leaping kneeling devotees, hurtling around clumps of people, rushing on and on until I returned to the door.

The air filled with song. That hymn faltered, almost died, and then regained fullness and power. These people prayed in song. Their quality showed in their reactions. They might feel odd, stiff, with aches here and there; they went on singing their devotions.

There was no need to look back. The temple was now filled with life, with a proud people making their covenants with whatever god they had chosen. And the guards were alert and ready for any sneaky attacks from the black-robed priests of the Realm of the Drums.

Straight down the corridor and up the stairs four at a time and out onto the landing above I hurtled. Along the corridor—a quick look through the green glowing crack to confirm all was well—and then I was rushing on.

Well, now! Perhaps these people might regain the Realm they had lost. So, on I went and gradually the habitations fell away until I was finding my way across rocky caverns and through jagged tunnels, always going up.

A waterfall and a stream impeded me a trifle; but I found a way up drenched in spray to come out onto more tunnels. Still, I was going ever upward, thank Opaz.

Around then I felt as though each leg was encased in lead, weights hung on my arms, and my poor old backbone was bent double under the millions of tons of rock pressing down above. A small cave with only one entrance which could be blocked up promised a decent rest. Ignoring the protests from my inward parts I shut my eyes, thinking as always my last thought before sleep, and opened them again to the same pearly light. I must have slept for I felt refreshed. I was still damned hungry, though, by Krun.

Hungry and thirsty, and only a trifle stiff from sleeping on a rocky floor—something I have had to grow accustomed to as a slave on Kregen—I pushed on. When I saw the corpse on the trail ahead of me, at the time I was crossing a deserted cavern, I bucked up. The poor fellow had been stripped of his worldly possessions, which was a disappointment for me; but he indicated I was regaining touch with one of the parties wandering about down here. Just which bunch it would be lay in the lap of any of the many magnificent pantheons of Kregen.

Again a stream crossed my path and a long cool drink refreshed but could not satisfy those grumbling inward parts. Grass grew here with pretty white daisy-like flowers. There were going to be syatras and plenty more of the ferocious carnivorous plants of Chem up ahead. Maybe, instead of the plant eating me, I'd eat the confounded thing, by Vox!

So, in not a very happy frame of mind I came out to a clearing with the cavern roof lost in that pearly haze, to see a man sprawled between two trees. He wore a grey breechclout which was of no interest to me. But, in his hand, he clutched a small leaf-wrapped parcel. If I knew my slaves, that would be a trifle of food he had saved for himself.

Now there is no excuse for my conduct. None at all. I am supposed to be a mighty and puissant fellow, a mercenary, a warrior prince and all the rest of it. I just let rip a holler and leaped forward to grab the parcel of food. Food!

The leaf-wrappings were in my hand. I was ripping away to get at the food when a great swishing and swashing brought me up too late, far too late, and the folds of a net descended about me.

Instantly I was rolling over and over and trying to get the little curved sword out of my belt to hack at the strands. They were tough stuff. A sharp point prodded me. A boot kicked me. A hoarse voice said: “Lie still, dom, or I'll stick you through, as Havil is my witness!”

Flopped over on my back I stared up balefully at the fellow prodding me with his spear. His companion kicked me again. They were both apims, wearing armor and weapons after the fashion of Hyrklana, so I knew whose party I'd fetched up with—Vad Gochert, him with the gem-encrusted eyepatch and the icy manner, a dedicated swordsman, a man who worked for Spikatur Hunting Sword in the fight against Hamal. Well, he'd come down here to be frozen some good time ago, and the matter of Spikatur Hunting Sword had been concluded and Hyrklana along with Vallia were allies of Hamal.

He came striding up with his foxy-faced Khibil guards. So, as I say, there is still no excuse for my further conduct. Yes, I was starving hungry, I wanted to get out of this hell hole, and now I'd been trussed up like a chicken in a net and prodded and kicked. I was, I make no bones about it, in an evil mood.

“Hey, Gochert!” I yelled. “Get these clowns of yours off me. Bratch!” Now, for a start, one does not usually address a vad, the second highest rank of nobility, in quite those terms, at least, not unless you are a kov or prince or king with little sense of propriety. Also, that word bratch, meaning get a move on, jump to it, can be offensive.

His gemmed eyepatch glittered on me. As I glared up I saw a flicker of shadow on the jewels—no, rather, a flicker of movement behind the gems. His narrow ferret-like face, although he was an apim, and the spareness of his supple body, held all the suppressed energy of which I knew he was capable. He was all oiled-steel and ice.

“Don't just stand there like a loon!” I bellowed. “Get this confounded net off!”

In that oiled-steel voice, sharp and meticulous, he said: “I remember you now. I puzzled over you when we met here in the maze.”

“Well, then, you hulu, get this confounded net off!”

His expression did not change. I was still wrought up so that just what this situation was in reality escaped me. The truth was that a powerful noble was being grossly insulted by a common fighting man.

He made a sharp gesture and the two apims started clumsily to pull the net off. I struggled out, boiling with exasperation. I rapped out: “Kick me, would you, you rast!” And: “Prod me, would you, you cramph!”

One I hit on the nose and the other in the eye. They staggered back, yelping, and I swung about to see a Khibil's rapier point at my throat.

“Stand still—” he started to say. He was that same Romano who was Gochert's captain of the guard, a Khibil cadade with a very high regard for himself. That he had a rapier at all told eloquently that he fancied himself, for rapier and main gauche work were—in his time—comparatively new in Hyrklana. He started to speak, and then the rapier was in my fist and the point at his throat.

“You stand still, you yetch!” I roared. I was, as you can see, most wrought up, in a right old paddy.

He stood rigidly, and his whiskery fox-like face tightened.

Gochert's icy voice reached me.

“Your insults offend me. By Sasco! Just who do you think you are?” I jumped away from the cadade and swung about to face Gochert. He drew his rapier and main gauche with the practisedease of your true Bladesman. “You have a sword, I see. Now it is time I taught you a lesson that you will not forget.” He advanced, rapier and dagger poised.

Just then—and only then—I realized what an onker I'd been and what I'd let myself in for. Our blades met and crossed in a chingle of steel.

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Chapter three

Those first testing movements gave me time to step backwards, and backwards again as he pressed. I gave ground rapidly, flicking and flailing the rapier in a way that suggested I was more used to a heavier vertical sword rather than the lighter horizontal rapier. His men scattered away and then formed a ring. They started to shout, and even in those moments of tension, I recognized the quality in their encouragements to the lord their master. I'd known plenty of guards and retainers who'd have been overjoyed to see some stranger stick their lord, by Krun!

The ring of shouting men and women meant I had to circle to keep away from Gochert. The blades clashed and I saw he was not trying to thrust home. He was, as he had said, going to teach me a lesson. That would entail, I guessed, a considerable number of weals and cuts and dints on my body. Enough of my evil mood persisted for me to know very well I wasn't going to let that happen.

“You took that sword, and you hurled the insults.” He made a neat little passage which should have ended with his point just nicking my left side. I let my own blade flop over to ward off that stroke as though mere chance guided the weapon. His smile could only be described as thin. He went on: “Normally I am over-patient with fools. They take advantage of my good nature. But you, I think, have overstepped the mark.”

He whipped in a quick double-beat and then slashed and I had only to step back to allow his blade to whistle past my stomach.

His lips widened a trifle. “Yes, I remember you now. Jak, your name, wasn't it? You helped Vad Noran with the schrepims.”

As I have mentioned, there are swordsmen who like to chatter when they fight. That is their privilege. Usually I allow the sword to take over and so let myself sink into that mystic rhythm that enables the true swordsman to fight blindfolded. And, yet, still, the sword does not take over entirely. Always, I hope and believe, there remains enough of Dray Prescot to keep the combat on human terms. So, now, I let him chatter on. I did say: “Drajak, known as the Sudden.”

“Drajak. Well, Drajak the Sudden, when I have taught you your lesson your suddenness may be considerably lopped.”

A fresh onslaught saw me back-pedaling and keeping his brand out. His smile remained, and I guessed that was a fixed rictus of his fighting habit, a piece of psychological warfare to intimidate his foe. Two little vertical lines appeared between his eyebrows. Again he pressed and again I slipped away, letting my blade drive his down and out to the side. At that point I could have thrust him clean through the bread basket.

He saw that. He saw his error and he leaped back, rapier lifted. So far the left hand dagger had played no part in the combat. I thought I knew why. Gochert fancied himself as a Bladesman; I had the one sword, so he would use just the one.

He said: “I bear you no personal ill will. This is a matter of honor as between a noble and a commoner.”

He leaped. I slid away. This time he used both weapons, the rapier and main gauche, known as the jiktar and the hikdar.

Hung on my belt and thumping away at me the crowbar was my only other weapon, the little curved sword having been flung off with the net.

I said: “You are using two swords.”

“The lesson must be done.”

I hauled out the crowbar with my left hand and hefted it. I wondered what the Bravo Fighters of Zenicce or the Bladesmen of the Sacred Quarter of Ruathytu would say if they could see me now. Laugh? They'd rupture themselves laughing, by Krun!

Still, armed with rapier and crowbar I fought Vad Gochert with rapier and left hand dagger. By this time I'd sussed out his quality. He was very good, that followed of necessity. He would have acquitted himself well in a Bravo brawl in Zenicce, which is high praise. As always when I go into a fight I am ready to meet an opponent who is better than I am, having already had that experience with Mefto the Kazzur. This Gochert was good but not good enough. So now I had to work out what to do about him and his people.

As you can see, I was fighting objectively, and keeping a tight control on my reactions. The longer we went on the more he would see he was outclassed. Then what would he do?

Round about then I came to the conclusion that I'd have to speak up. As we fought I beat down his attacks with techniques he'd never dreamed existed and gave myself time to chatter.

“I did not think you believed poor old Noran. Did you honestly believe he had fought off those schrepims?”

He lost that artificial fighting smile. His ferret-thin face drew even thinner and longer. “You dare to speak of the noble lord Noran in these terms—!” He came in with a swingeing attack that I had to flick away and let my point leap past his side and so draw back without hitting. I said: “Just listen to what I have to tell you, Gochert. No—” as he essayed another onslaught. “No, no. Just listen, confound you, you onker!”

His icy manner and disdainful superiority were evaporating. I said: “I shall not kill you, Gochert, for I believe any man who stands for Spikatur must have some good in him. You would do well to order your people not to shaft me. There is much for you to learn.”

His retainers and guards had stopped yelling some time ago. They were talking quietly among themselves, I guessed, their eyes riveted to what was happening to their lord and employer.

Gochert did not cease in his attempts to get his point past my defense. The crowbar was acting as a splendid main gauche. Suddenly he drew back. “I found it hard to credit Noran with victory over the schrepims. I see. You are a great swordsman. So be it. I own I cannot lunge past your guard. But that is something else not touching your insults.”

“Look here, Gochert. How would you feel if you'd been traipsing through this damned labyrinth all alone and starving hungry and thoroughly lost and you found a packet of food in the hand of a poor dead slave and then nurdling great idiots drop a net on you and kick you and prod you with a spear, hey? Answer me that.”

“I will answer. Yes, I see your position.” The icy voice had regained its usual oiled-steel quality. “I would be annoyed—”

“Annoyed!”

“You were so angry you could not think straight. You knew me. You know the correct forms of address. You call me notor, lord. No, you cannot be excused your conduct on those grounds.”

“I do not need to be excused my conduct on any grounds. Do not forget, Gochert, if you are taking refuge behind rank, you are only a vad.”

His gasp was a perfectly genuine reaction of shock.

Perhaps, in that moment, I felt I might have gone too far. He could lift a hand and his people would shaft me. Oh, sure, I'd knock down some of the arrows and bolts, enough would get through to pincushion me. Now—I felt I'd taken the measure of his mettle. My very first assessment of him had been drastically modified, not least by his conduct during this recent meeting and the fight. We were now standing with our weapons ready facing each other and talking.

Before he'd finished that shocked gasp I went on in my old gravel-shifting voice. “I fought Hamal. The great empire Thyllis ruled is now justly governed by the Emperor Nedfar. Spikatur Hunting Sword fell into—”

He had spirit and fire, ice-cold though he might be. He rallied from the devastating shock of being told he was only a vad. He came back with: “You are talking nonsense. What do you know of—?”

“You ventured into the City of Eternal Twilight and tumbled down into the Realm of the Drums. You think you'd just entered when my Pachak comrade, Wa-Te, and I, met you. Yet many of your party were skeletons.”

“Magic.” He had caught the underlying seriousness of this situation now and he stood, wanting to know the answers.

“Oh, surely, there is a great deal of magic down here. And I may add that I am highly pleased to see your lady Merlee is safe. The full extent of what has gone on is remarkable and you will find it hard to credit it.” I hefted my crowbar as he opened his mouth. “No, Gochert. Just let me tell you what has been going on in the world outside whilst you have been stuck down here.”

He shook his head, not in negation but, I guessed, somewhere between astonishment and dazed resignation. I felt I had not misjudged him. Some lords I'd known would have had me shafted and finished by now. So, I told him the history of his part of Paz since the time he'd come down here, of which you have been apprized in my narrative. He listened without speaking and after a time sheathed his unmarked blades and called for wine.

He did say: “I have heard of Loriman, the Hunting Kov; I have not, to my misfortune, had the pleasure of meeting him.”

He shook his head over the sad fate of Spikatur Hunting Sword, and grunted when I related—only in partial detail—the death of Csitra.

“And she was the wife of the Hyr Notor?”

“Aye, my friend. That Wizard of Loh, Phu-Si-Yantong, and his uhu offspring, were thoroughly bad even though we always attempted to find some good in them. As for Csitra—well, she was pathetic, really.”

“But all of ‘em evil—I saw what that bastard the Hyr Notor did.”

“Yes. Although Csitra—no, she wasn't all evil.”

By this time slaves had brought table and chairs and the wine went around. The lady Merlee joined us and listened intently. A freer atmosphere gave me a feeling that I'd cracked a very tough nut. There was always the chance that Gochert, seething with fury and frustration at my treatment of him, was merely playing me along. Once he'd heard my fairy story he'd have me done away with. Still, would a high and mighty noble stay his hand from vengeful slaughter just to hear a fairy story?

Quite clearly there was no way I could prove this yarn that purported to be the history of Paz. When I told Gochert and Merlee of Queen Satra's enormous expedition into the Realm of the Drums, they exchanged a quick glance. Also, by this time, I was convinced Gochert's left eye was not lost. He looked out through the gemmed patch for reasons, possibly, of sheer devilment when facing an opponent, another example of his psychological attack, along with that fixed smile. I said: “I need to meet up with the queen again, for personal reasons. When we do so, then, of course, you'll see my fantastic fairy story is true.”

“We heard of Queen Satra when we were planning the expedition.” The lady Merlee spoke carefully. “She was reputed to come here five hundred seasons ago.”

“Yes. She believes the Empire of Loh still exists.”

On a little gasp, Merlee said: “A real Queen of Pain!”

“Oh, aye, my lady. She is as she is, as they say.”

She favored me with a quick upward glance, a slanting look that saw a great deal. “You have told us this story. We may either believe the fantastic farrago or not. If it is all true—and I make no judgment at this point—your part in this turbulent history is unclear.”

“Um,” I said.

“Yes, Drajak the Sudden.” Gochert's slicing voice held sudden new suspicion. “You have told us what would be known to the world; you have also told us things that would be known only to kings and emperors.”

In a tone I tried to make as smooth as possible, I said: “I am very willing to call you notor and to respect your rank. Suppose I tell you I was placed in a very high position in the retinue of an emperor?”

As soon as I had spoken I wished I'd said king or prince.

“This new Emperor Nedfar, you mean?” Merlee continued to stare.

In for a preysany, in for a zorca. “The Emperor of Vallia.”

Gochert put his wine cup down. “That raving Clansman Dray Prescot?”

“Aye—notor.”

“His new model army was doing well, as I heard it, against Thyllis's forces up north. And there is Pandahem—”

He was interrupted by Merlee, who touched his hand. “If what Drajak says is true, that is all over.”

“Of course.” He put his other hand over hers.

I said: “Dray Prescot is no longer emperor. His son, Drak, is emperor with Silda as empress. They prosper.”

“How did Prescot die?”

“No, he is still alive. He and the divine Delia abdicated.”

“You astonish me. That is perhaps the most fantastic part of your whole fantastic story!”

“A burden well relinquished, notor. Drak is a far better emperor than ever I—that is, than ever Dray Prescot was.”

I stared at them. Chattering on like this always drops you slap bang into trouble, by Vox! Seeing a way out, I added: “I was about to say that Drak is a better emperor than ever I gave credit to Dray Prescot; but that implies personal criticism which might be inappropriate. So I merely quoted general opinion.” The lady Merlee was giving me a real gimlet stare.

She said: “You are a mercenary, I see. You must be a zhanpaktun to have witnessed so much employed by the emperor.”

Deliberately, I put a hand to my throat. That is very often the natural gesture of a paktun, a mercenary touching the golden pakzhan or silver pakmort, when they are mentioned in conversation.

“Yes, my lady.”

Gochert, still all ice and cold steel, took his hand from Merlee's and picked up his wine cup. “I find you a remarkable man, Drajak the Sudden. If you are tazll and seek employment I would welcome you to join my guard. I fully and freely forgive you for those insults shouted under dire provocation, for I see you are a man of spirit, accustomed—perhaps overly accustomed—to the company of emperors and kings and therefore forgetful at times.”

Now you couldn't say fairer than that. I found great pleasure in the reflection that I'd judged this Vad Gochert aright.

Opening my mouth to make some suitable reply, I was stopped by Merlee in her soft breathy voice. “You said, Drajak, that the lord Gochert was only a vad. I think I see what you meant in the heat of the moment. Why don't you tell us your rank and who you really are?”

The moment hung, palpable with renewed doubts and obvious suspicions held by this little Witch of the Demaskar Persuasion that I did not relish at all, at all, by Zair!

A sharp and high-pitched voice cracked out: “Notor—!”

Another voice, booming with authority, roared: “Stand stock still, all of you, or you are all dead!”

We whipped about to see dark agile figures ringing Gochert's huddle of people, bows lifted, the light glittering off sharpened steel.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter four

No one moved. Under the threat of those bows only the biggest fool in all Kregen would have attempted to do anything at all not sanctioned by those marksmen.

A man came striding through Gochert's people. He looked neither right nor left. He wore completely plain armour. The great Lohvian longbow was held in that apparently lazy, effortless way of your true Bowman of Loh. His brilliant blue eyes beamed on us. Around his waist he wore a flaunting red sash, the only flamboyant mark about him. His face, bronzed, handsome, commanded instant obedience. He marched lithely up to the table.

“Well, my old dom, and you are still in one piece?”

“Oh, aye, majister,” I said, and stood up, and clasped his hand which, as he was a Bowman of Erthyrdrin, could grip the shaft and draw and loose before you could detect the movement. “Oh, aye, and among friends.”

“Then, by the Veiled Froyvil, that is as it should be.”

I turned to Gochert and Merlee: “You have the honor to be in the presence of Seg Segutorio, the King of Croxdrin and Hyr Kov of Balkan. Majister, may I present Vad Gochert and the lady Merlee?”

“Lahal,” said Seg. He gave me a funny old look. He and I both, we loved to play act with titles when they served a purpose. Anyway, dear old Seg, the truest blade comrade a fellow could have, was a king and hyrkov.

“Lahal—majister,” said Gochert and Merlee. They looked just a trifle apprehensive.

I said: “Majister—is—?”

“Blooming! More lovely than ever—and in a right old paddy over your whereabouts. By Vox, my old dom, you're in for a bit of stick when you get back!”

“Where are—?”

“Each is leading a party. We have arrangements to meet up again without getting lost. It is my good fortune to have found you.”

“Any news of the Wizard of Loh?”

Here I referred to Na-Si-Fantong who had vanished with the red ruby of the Skantiklar.

Seg shook his head. “Disappeared in a puff of smoke, I shouldn't wonder.”

I said: “I think, majister, the lads can relax now and we can make the pappattu with Vad Gochert's people.”

Out there the swods of First Emperor's Sword Watch would keep a very sharp eye on anything that went on around their Kendur, their emperor. So everybody relaxed and the wine was passed, and I had another enormous meal to attempt to fill the hollow between my ribs. There was little anybody could tell anyone else. Na-Si-Fantong had taken the ruby and escaped. That meant he now had at least two, and possibly more. Out of the nine rubies there was still the one in Makilorn and the one in Vallia. As for the others, well, that was up to Deb-Lu-Quienyin to discover.

Our conversation on this subject, although Seg and I tried to be circumspect, could not help but be understood by anyone who possessed the knowledge of the Skantiklar and its supposed magic potency.

So, only half surprised, I heard Gochert say: “I gather you have lost the ruby. It cannot be a secret that we came here for that, also.”

“Tell me, vad,” said Seg in his grandest kingly manner. He didn't wink at me; I knew he wanted to!

Gochert's story was simple enough, yet vastly intriguing, by Krun! Because Spikatur Hunting Sword was a loose organization—if that—of people devoted to resisting the Empire of Hamal, any assistance was desperately needed. A Wizard of Loh in Hyrklana had offered to help. His name was Phar-Si-Wyrnon. He'd said that if someone would fetch him the ruby from the Realm of the Drums under the City of Eternal Twilight, it would immeasurably increase his powers to assist Spikatur. Gochert had volunteered.

Seg rubbed his chin. “That's bad news. Another party is in the hunt for the Skantiklar.”

Gochert, sharply, said: “There is no legal right of ownership here.”

“Also,” pointed out Merlee, “you have lost the ruby.”

“Tell us about this Wizard of Loh,” I said.

“Strange, as they all are. I must admit I was not altogether certain he could be trusted. But the advantages he offered were great, very great. He was supposed to send his assistant; but at the last moment he could not come.”

“Another wizard would have been useful,” I said. Then quickly I added: “To aid the lady Merlee.”

“I didn't care for him much,” she said, with a toss of her head. “He was big and bulky and he always took a breath and nodded his head before he said anything.”

“By the Black Chunkrah!” I said. “Na-Si-Fantong!”

“Yes, that is his name.”

“And he's the mage who made off with the ruby.”

“Oh!” said Merlee, and put a hand to her mouth.

“Precisely. Spikatur Hunting Sword is gone now, so he wants the ruby for his own purposes. He already has one we know about. If what we fear is correct, then he intends great mischief.”

Gochert looked surprised. “There is more than one?”

“Nine,” said Seg. “Nine of the dratted things.”

“He waited a long time before he came down here,” I pointed out. “That could be because his master, Phar-Si-Wyrnon, held him back after Gochert's failure to return. It's my guess Wyrnon is dead now.”

“And by the hand of Fantong!” Merlee sounded quite sharp.

“Right.” Seg stood up from the table. “It's no good lollygagging about here. It's time we were off. There are people who want to know you're all right.”

Gochert and Merlee arose swiftly enough after the king. If they knew the place of underlings beneath them, they equally knew their place in the presence of royalty. I must confess, I joyed in seeing Seg receiving the proper treatment that was his due, and in that feeling of pleasure subsisted a degree of sympathetic understanding that he detested kow-towing as much as did I. Neither of us forget the times we'd been slaves together.

There was a very great need for me to march over to the lines of 1ESW and greet and be greeted as was seemly in these circumstances. “Hai Kendur!” rang out, followed by a roaring hubbub as everyone joined in and we had the beginnings of a right royal shindig. Only the swods of the emperor's Guard Corps addressed their emperor as their Kendur. As I shouted greetings to old friends, I realized anew the convenience of that. After their break out in the Cavern of the Fire they'd quickly rounded up their uniforms, armor and weapons, and gone haring off after me with Seg in the lead. Inch had taken First Emperor's Yellow Jackets. Delia, Milsi and Sasha had led Empress's Devoted Life Guard and her Jikai Vuvushis. Others of my comrades and new found friends had joined in. What Queen Satra, with whose expedition my people had been marching, had thought of all the fraught comings and goings that must have gone on before the search parties took off, I didn't know. But I fancied it had given her muchly to think.

We set off confidently with our scouts up front. Seg told me that the lads had settled into the procedures for delving down here with calm professional expertise, as we knew they would. There was not the chance of a woflo in a Herrelldrin Hell of the Guard Corps allowing me to take the lead. “We've done it,” said Seg, “and they know it, and know it's their turn now.”

“I just hope none of ‘em gets himself killed, that's all.”

“Aye.”

“I still can't reconcile myself to the idea that a stupid red ruby is so important. By Vox, Seg! I know magic is magic and all that, but it's hard to view this Skantiklar with the fear and veneration it appears to warrant.”

“Deb-Lu says it is so, and that means it must be.”

“I suppose so. I just have the itch to be about our other business.”

“Blattering Shanks. Aye, my old dom. That's our normal priority.”

“But not now?”

“Deb-Lu is convinced this Na-Si-Fantong, if he gets his grubby little paws on the Skantiklar, will do us as much, if not more, mischief as the damned Fish Faces.”

“Yes, well.” I rolled my shoulders around as we marched. “We'll just have to get after him sharpish.”

“Aye. Once we know where he's gone.”

“More wizard's work.”

Seg changed the subject, I suspected by intent to get my mind off fretting over what we were doing instead of bashing Fish Heads. “These people are wondering who you are. Drajak the Sudden won't hold up for ever.”

“Well, again, I suppose so. Although who and what I am or supposed to be won't impress Queen Satra.”

“When she finds out her Empire of Loh vanished three hundred seasons ago, she's likely to believe anything.”

“Ha! You've hit the Chunkrah's eye there!”

At that point the column halted and faintly from ahead we heard shouts and ferocious yells. Presently we started up again and Nath the Burly came back nursing a gash in his arm.

“It's nothing, Kendur,” he said as I accosted him. “A pesky vorlind insisted on trying to bite us.”

“All the same, Nath, get it seen to. Vad Gochert has a needleman.”

“Quidang, jis!”

He trundled off, a hard, human, devoted member of 1ESW.

Nothing else of importance occurred, at least to my knowledge, before we reached Queen Satra's encampment. Her tents and marquees had been set up in a sizeable cavern, and the size of her expedition meant many of her people were camping out in the corridors adjacent. We marched through, and Balass the Hawk, beaming all over his handsome black face, came up to greet me and to direct us to our camping area. The lavishness of Satra's entourage down here in the labyrinth continued to impress me. She was a woman who had wielded terrible power almost all her life. We had to break the news to her that her puissant empire was no more.

That, I felt strongly, was where Delia could exercise her charm and subtlety, and in being gracious mitigate the shock.

The rapier I'd borrowed from the cadade Romano had been handed back and I'd repossessed the little curved sword. The crowbar was hung on my belt. Seg had given that a look, and said nothing, hoping, I knew, to tantalize me by his incuriousness.

I said: “As soon as Milsi gets back, Seg, would you ask her to ask the queen for my gear? That conniving bitch Licria took it all. As a princess, she's bad news. If she knocks the queen off and becomes a Queen of Pain herself, we could be in for a great deal of trouble.”

“Milsi has sized her up. The little Licria will find herself in more trouble than she can handle if she doesn't behave.”

These few words gave me a deal of comfort. Milsi, as the Queen of Croxdrin, I felt, had experience in dealing with unruly princesses.

We reached the tent and there stood before the opening a young fellow from First Emperor's Life Churgurs. His frame was broad and powerful, his head small by comparison. He was young, the down still on his cheeks. He held himself rigidly upright, shield with the brave devices and spear at exactly the correct angles. His whole demeanor spoke of a young fellow drilled and disciplined, and anxious and willing to live up to the expectations formed of him. My lads kept the Guard Corps regiments well filled up, and this likely lad would fill in splendidly for the future.

About to pass him with my usual greeting, I stopped. I didn't know him. He'd been told about me, that I knew. I looked at him and he flushed painfully clear up to his forehead under the brim of his helmet. He'd have soft brown Vallian hair. His freckles stood out as though someone had splattered his young face with red ink.

I said: “Your name, jurukker?”

“Nath, Nath the Tumbs, if it please you, majister.”

So easily then I could have blasted his ears off. What kind of way was that for a jurukker, a tough guardsman, to speak? I clamped my lips shut and I heard Seg move at my back. I spoke in a flat and neutral tone.

“Nath the Tumbs. You are a valued member of my Guard Corps. You have certain privileges not accorded others. You do not need to call me majister. To my swods of the guard I am their Kendur. You call me Kendur, or jis.” His face was now almost all red ink. “You never speak as a slave speaks—you know damn well we do not have slaves in Vallia.”

“Yes, jis.”

I asked him a few more questions—where his home was, how long he'd been in the Life Churgurs, how his mother and father fared, simple questions. I refuse to feel shame at this shameless manipulation. I did not ask simply because I was supposed to be a great ruler, and condescended to his people—oh, no. Every single swod in the army was precious to me. At last I said: “Very good, Nath. I compliment you on your turn out. Carry on like this and very soon you'll be a Deldar, no doubt of it.”

“Quidang, jis—thank you.”

So when I went into the tent Seg said: “He'll get himself killed now because he's a Life Churgur and—”

“I know, Seg. It is necessary for the good of Paz—and that means the people, including that young Nath's mother and father—that fine young fellows like him fight the enemies of Paz.” I bashed a fist into my palm. “Don't you think I'd love to finish with all this fighting and destruction and send all the lads home and go back to Esser Rarioch with Delia?”

“You don't have to convince me, my old dom. Except—well, the old sweats in the corps have one home only, and that is in the Guard Corps.”

“Yes, and that young Nath will grow into their ways. Oh, sure, he'll willingly die for me. I'd sooner he lived for me.”

Seg started to take off his armor and we let that conversation lapse. My chiefs of the Guard Corps selected likely well set-up young lads and trained them hard, devilishly hard, by Vox. The traditions of the corps held old hares and red necks in a unity of purpose and dedication. What Seg said about the kampeons of the different regiments knowing only one home was absolutely correct. Everything they did was centered on their unit within the Guard Corps. Well, the whole impressive organization had been set up by my comrades in the first instance to keep any daggers out of my back. With the passage of time more regiments had been added to the original Sword Watch and then the Yellow Jackets, ELC, EFB, EZB, ERV, and others in the pipeline together with artillery batteries and medical and supply columns. That original notion had not been mine and for a time I'd been troubled by the creation of an elite force within the army and subsequently had done all I could to meld all the parts together. Another elite force, of course, was Nath na Kochwold's Phalanx. I had taken the decision not to incorporate a Phalanx unit within the Guard Corps. The Vallian Army co-operated well, and we had fostered that spirit of mutual help and comradeship.

The news of my return had gone out and one by one the search parties marched in. As you may imagine there were many scenes of reunion as I greeted my comrades old and new. As for Delia—I held her close, close!—and not for the first time wondered why on Kregen I was such a fool as ever to leave her. Milsi and Sasha showed their relief that I was safe and very quickly thereafter a bunch of Delia's Jikai Vuvushis stalked in led by Milsi. They carried my gear. Milsi smiled a smile that was almost a smirk.

“The queen indicated to me, my dear Dray, that she was not happy with the young madam.”

“Oh, yes,” amplified Sasha, bending her head under the tent roof. “That little she-leem needs her claws clipped.”

“That will not be an easy job.” I sounded serious, and both beautiful women lost their smiles at my tone. “She is dangerous. If she has the queen assassinated and takes over—look out for squalls.”

“This grizzly graint of a husband is right. But I think,” said Delia, “that we have a Princess's Swordsman to bring on that will surprise her most splendidly.” In the game of Jikaida the Princess's Swordsman can be brought on at the last extremity when the opponent is about to capture the princess—as the game is played in LionardDen, known as Jikaida City. My friends had been regaled by my tales of what had happened to me there—and by the missing tail hand of Mefto the Kazzur I'd been a very lucky fellow. Here in Loh, the piece called the king or princess would be termed the queen. So Delia's comment was apt, even if it brought up a few hairy memories to me.

“If you mean me—” I began.

“Oh, no, Dray!” Milsi had her secret smile back now. “Oh, no.”

“You might as well know what we know.” Delia brushed a hand through her brown hair where the pearly light through the tent opening brought out those outrageous tints of auburn. “Your friend Mevancy has a scheme.”

I looked at Delia's forearms where the pricks made by Mevancy's darts were fast healing. I shuddered, deep down, and merely nodded.

“Mevancy is a funny girl,” said Sasha. “But I think she's as nice as Milsi says.”

“Yes,” said Seg. “And now you've got your gear back, my old dom, perhaps you'd tell us—”

“Yes,” put in Inch. “That crowbar?”

I laughed and told them, whereat they laughed, too.

All the same, as I drew up the brave old scarlet breechclout and fastened the dulled silver buckle of the lesten hide belt, I did feel better for that. The drexer and rapier swung on their own belts at my left side, the main gauche went on the right and a hefty knife snugged over my right hip. The Krozair longsword and the Lohvian longbow and quiver could be snatched up in an instant and strapped on. So, by Zair, I felt equipped again. All the same, that jolly old crowbar had served nobly in the office of hikdar.

As for Mevancy's scheme, if I asked her and she did not wish to confide in me, she wouldn't tell. She considered herself the leader in our dealings for the Star Lords, and as a kregoinya she showed fire and spirit so I willingly went along with that notion.

When, somewhat diffidently, I mentioned to Delia that she might like to break the astonishing news to Queen Satra that her empire had blown with the wind, she laughed and looked affectionately at Milsi.

“Oh, I think Milsi has the queen's ear.”

“It does seem so,” said Milsi. She sounded surprised it should be so.

“If that's settled, then, thank you, Milsi.” I own I felt relieved the matter was going to be handled with tact.

“She wants to know all about what happened, Dray. I expect we'll be invited to dinner tonight. I'll go along and find out.”

“A good time,” Seg nodded. “We'll all be there and can confirm the preposterous story.”

Later on when Milsi returned she said the dinner invitation had been immediately extended. Then she added: “That unpleasant Trylon Ge-fu-Schian will also be there.”

“And,” said Seg, glancing at his wife.

“Oh, yes. The little madam will be there, never fear.”

“Well, now,” said Delia in her most charming way. “I really believe we can all look forward to a most pleasant dinner engagement tonight!”

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter five

“A most interesting tale, Milsi, dear. Absolutely fascinating.”

“But it is all true—”

“Oh, come now! I love a good fairy story. I positively dote on them. But, naturally, one cannot believe them, can one?”

Queen Satra, plump and dumpy, her white hair jutting forward in a widow's peak, leaned forward on one dimpled elbow. Her round face with its little pink mouth from one corner of which peeped the tip of a tooth bore the faintest trace of a flush. Her dark brilliant eyes sized up Milsi as she spoke so quietly and insistently.

“Whatever gods you wish me to swear on—”

“Really, Milsi! You shouldn't go so far!”

Delia said smoothly: “It is a strange story, majestrix, strange and true.”

“You all confirm what Milsi says, I hear you. But you are all Vallians. I suspect this is wishful thinking.”

Trylon Ge-fu-Schian laughed a scornful bark of contempt.

“Vallians would swear on any god or spirit and forget in the next instant. Treat them as they deserve, my queen.”

He was a well-fleshed fellow, and had eaten and drunk his fill. There was plenty of food down here in the Realm of the Drums when you knew where to find it. He wore lounging robes of dazzling cut and color, all oranges and reds, with far too much gold. Rings loaded his fingers. Yet he looked to be a fighting man, well set-up, harsh, with a sallow face and a twist to his mouth that—at least to me—indicated he didn't care how many people he thrust through or how many heads he lopped off.

He carried a curved dagger in an unwholesomely decorated sheath. We Vallians wore our rapiers and left hand daggers, which indicated the power wielded by Satra, an authority vested in her guards standing alertly by door and canvas walls.

“When we reach the surface, the facts will be proved.” Delia continued to speak calmly. She did not look at me.

“The facts of your pitiful attempts at lies!” rapped out Schian.

I said: “You and Princess Licria had me and my friends rapped over the head and carted off as sacrifices for the degenerate priests of the Pit of the Fire. I'll overlook that in the presence of the queen. You insult my wife again and I'll—”

“Dray!” said Delia, sharply, very sharply.

I glared at Schian and that old Devil Look of Dray Prescot must have flamed in my face. Grimly, utterly determined, I went on: “Very well. Just remember, Schian.”

He colored up to his hair. His hand whipped to the hilt of the dagger. “You can't talk to me like that, you shint!”

Licria, stirring the trouble, said in her hissing way: “This shint insults us, and we do nothing! Aunt! We cannot allow this.”

Queen Satra, I saw with, at first, some amazement, was enjoying this. Then I saw the reason for that. She had been one of those fabled Queens of Pain, a real true Queen of Pain of Loh. She'd probably had more people done away with than this rast Schian had had hot breakfasts. She had grown fat and indulgent, and she didn't much care for her niece. Oh, yes, she'd sit and watch, as a cat watches a mouse.

Sasha said: “Really, majestrix, this is a quarrel that is entirely unnecessary. After all, Trylon Ge-fu did have Drajak kidnapped and sold to the people of the Drums. That was not very nice.”

Inch glanced across at his wife. He nodded his head atop that tall lanky frame, but he did not say anything.

“What I do, I do!” blared Schian.

Licria licked her lips. She glanced under her eyelids at the queen. She was a cunning shrew and must by now have grown to judge her aunt's moods. She saw which way the wind was blowing.

Princess Licria with her chalk white face and her dark red Lohvian hair coming forward in its widow's peak was, no doubt, a beautiful girl. She was, I believed, a Jikai Vuvushi. The trouble was, the more you looked at her the more you saw that beauty was barely skin deep. It was more properly cosmetic deep. Her eyes, kohled, dark, brilliant, showed her relationship with the queen. Oh, yes, this little madam Princess Licria wanted to be a Queen of Pain and Empress of Loh, and she'd do more than kill to gain her heart's desire.

She said: “Perhaps the men can settle this question when we reach the surface and prove the Vallians to be liars all.”

Queen Satra just picked up a ripe plum, and bit it, and said nothing. She gave the faintest of nods.

Delia took an even breath. “When we reach the surface you will find the truth of our story. I well understand you cannot believe it now.”

Schian fairly snarled out: “When we have conquered Hamal and the rest of Havilfar falls to us, we shall march on Vallia.”

Seg, who'd been idly toying with a piece of bread and saying nothing, lifted the bread to his mouth. He and I, we do not waste food. Before he ate, he said in a voice like a whiplash: “You will march across the sea to face the Hamalese airboats and the Vallian galleons.”

Licria in her sharp way, snapped out: “We have fleets of ships.”

“Yes, but I told you,” Milsi piped up. “The Hamalese flying ships destroyed your fleets of sea going ships. They—”

“We have many Wizards and Witches of many persuasions. None can resist the power of their kharrna.”

“Yet, majestrix,” said Milsi in her calm and dignified way, “they failed. Do not ask me how. History simply says the Hamalese routed and destroyed the Lohvian armadas.”

“Rubbish!” snapped Schian, his face still beetroot red.

The queen looked slowly at Milsi. The queen had taken to Milsi. This was probably because when Seg and I had met her she'd been a trifle older, in physiological terms, than us. We'd bathed in the waters of the Sacred Pool of Baptism in far Aphrasöe and were as old, physiologically, now as we had been then. Chronologically, a great deal of smoke had blown with the wind since then. We'd all matured—even that roaring maniacal reprobate Dray Prescot had grown some sense in the thick vosk skull of his head—but we were all young. Milsi shone out as the dignified mature grand lady among us, and, to our delight, she was picking up our rip-roaring ways.

“It would be interesting,” said Queen Satra in a voice artificially small, a teasing, goading voice, “if we knew exactly why our Witches and Wizards of Loh failed. Why the detestable Hamalese won. Then—”

Licria knew when to jump in. “Of course, aunt! How clever! Then we could take measures, and stop it all.” She laughed, a metallic laugh of utter malice. “If the nonsense were true, that is.”

“If you must interrupt when I am speaking, child, pray do not do so in the presence of others.”

Licria, squashed, retired in confusion.

Satra went on: “How say you to that, Milsi dear?”

“A question for the philosophers! Could one change the future?”

Schian fairly snarled out: “The future for Loh is settled. We shall dominate all of Paz. It is our manifest destiny.”

I said to myself: “As they say in Clishdrin, by Krun!”

Just then a guard marched smartly in, saluted and shouted: “My queen! San Mar-Win-Naltong has arrived!”

Before the queen had time to nod or say anything an impressive figure stalked into the dining tent. This Wizard of Loh was clearly not going to hang about outside waiting for permission to enter. He was, in a way I found unimpressive, arrogant. Certainly, I'd never dream of keeping Deb-Lu or Khe-Hi waiting. Yet they'd come in, as it were, properly. This fellow with his lavishly embroidered robes and gold and gem-smothered turban simply exuded self-satisfaction and overweening pride. Maybe, if he was representative of the Wizards of Loh current during his time, that explained their failure.

“San Mar-Win.” The queen motioned and an attendant ran a chair up to the table. With a great swishing of his robes and angling of his jewel-encrusted staff to catch the lights and glitter, he sat himself down beside Satra. He gazed about on us Vallians down his nose.

“Magic is being used, queen. The magic within this Realm of the Drums is weakening. A new thaumaturgy has been detected.”

“Has the college any—?”

He interrupted without any anticipation of a rebuke similar to the one administered to Licria. “We are resolving the situation. There is a weak source approaching us, and a somewhat stronger locus some way off.”

I saw no reason to suggest to them that one of these might be the Lady Merlee, a Witch of the Demaskar Persuasion. If that were the case then who or what was the second?

A faint blue began to grow in a corner of the tent. A single glance at the locus of radiance told me this was not the Scorpion of the Star Lords—thank Opaz! As the familiar kindly features of Deb-Lu appeared and his figure thickened into visibility I decided that this was not the weak source. Deb-Lu was anything but weak, by Zair! So there were two other witches or wizards wandering about out there.

“Lahal, all. Pardon my intrusion. There is News of Some Import.”

He spoke pleasantly, and those clearly audible Capital Letters told my friends and me that what Deb-Lu had to tell was important.

As a matter of common courtesy we Vallians immediately stood up as Deb-Lu appeared. As for the others—instant confusion followed.

The queen's Wizard of Loh, Mar-Win-Naltong, jumped up, swinging his staff in a glittering arc before him. Licria dived away from her chair and scuttled to crouch behind Naltong. Schian kicked a couple of chairs out of his way as he followed, raving incoherent words. The queen continued to sit, shielded by Naltong.

What happened next lay on an aethereal plane beyond the ken of non-sorcerers. Deb-Lu did begin to say: “There is no need for alarm—” Then he stopped speaking and held up his free left hand. He became still. Naltong's staff continued to whirl in a flashing circle before the Lohvians. Some of the guards stood, mouths hanging, riveted. Others ran out of the tent. The attendants fell to the carpets, clapped their hands over their heads, and sobbed and slobbered, too frightened to scream.

Only moments later two more Wizards of Loh entered the tent and four Witches of Loh. They were all attired in gorgeous and flamboyant robes; their faces expressed absolute power and knowledge of that power. They ranked themselves alongside Naltong, and span their staffs. Quite clearly they were exerting enormous thaumaturgical pressure upon Deb-Lu.

I own I gave a breath of relief when two pillars of light materialized beside Deb-Lu. As the radiance coalesced there stood Khe-Hi-Bjanching and his wife, Ling-Li-Lwingling. Our three comrade Wizards and Witch of Loh stood stock still, staring at the other sorcerers. I felt a prickly itch all over my skin. Heat grew in the tent. Vast quantities of kharrna were being hurled about the tent, energies beyond our comprehension.

Fascinated, we stared upon this thaumaturgical contest.

How could one judge which way the combat flowed? No visible signs of distress appeared upon the faces of the mages at first. The looks of lofty disdain upon Satra's sorcerers slowly vanished. Our three comrade mages exhibited nothing in their faces but absorbed concentration.

Seven against three! How could our friends prevail? And what would be the price of failure?

There was some comfort in the thought that between these sorcerers of Satra's and our friends lay five hundred seasons of progress. Surely, I tried to tell myself, bolstering my hopes, surely they must have learned a few tricks of the trade unknown to Naltong and his gang? Surely?

A fourth glimmer of blue began fitfully to shine beside Khe-Hi. It thickened, wavered, died, returned, coalescing. Like a column of heated air it shimmered there uncertainly. What—or who—was this?

A face appeared momentarily, and vanished in a whorl of light. Rollo! Rollo as ever was! Rollo the Runner whose real name was Ra-Lu-Quonling, an apprentice Wizard of Loh. His form focused and he stood there, and he wavered like a blown candle flame. Grimly he stuck to his task. He said he was no great hand at going into lupu and projecting his image; but he had done so, and manfully he was trying to assist us now. Good old Rollo!

The silence remained profound for all the slaves had retreated into absolute terror. We all stood as though as petrified as the people out there still under the thrall of the suspended animation spell.

A star of light appeared under the turban of one of Satra's wizards. The light shifted and rolled down his temple. The mage was sweating! A witch's lips twisted, revealing brown teeth. She caught her lip between those teeth, and clamped them shut. Another wizard actually gasped.

Now all of Naltong's gang were sweating. What powers, what kharrna, what sheer raw thaumaturgical energies were being expended—only the inhabitants of the Seven Arcades might know.

Naltong reeled. He staggered back. He dropped his staff. A cry, strangled, awful, gargled from his throat. He fell.

The other six mages collapsed.

“Well, now,” said Deb-Lu in his cheerful old voice. “I feel they Brought That on Themselves.”

“Beastly lot,” declared Ling-Li.

“They deserved that for their own impoliteness and stupidity.” Khe-Hi sounded severe.

“All I wanted to tell you, comrades,” said Deb-Lu, “is that I am happy to report we have broken through the magic here. We can show you the way out.”

“Splendid!” I said. “What about this sorry lot?”

Noise had returned and of that noise the greatest row was spurting from Princess Licria. She was howling her head off in terror.

“They'll live.” Ling-Li was most laconic.

I said: “I was overjoyed to hear of your twins, Ling-Li. You and Khe-Hi have my deepest felicitations. It's splendid!”

“Thank you, Dray. And you know of our arrangement over their names?”

“Absolutely,” said Delia, smiling, perfectly unruffled by all this magic. “And we shall fill their shoes with gold, as is proper when babies enter the world.”

Queen Satra stood up. She was breathing heavily and her lips trembled. She started to speak, licked her lips, began again.

“I cannot believe what I have just witnessed. The college is the most powerful in Whonban and that means in all Loh and Kregen. Yet—”

“The college formed by these seven has much to learn,” said Deb-Lu in his driest way.

Rollo's form was now flapping like laundry on a line. “I think,” his voice said, faintly, “I really think I must depart.”

“You have our thanks, Rollo.” Deb-Lu half-lifted his staff. “But you really must work on lupu. You make such hard work of it.”

“Of course, san—” With an inaudible plop Rollo vanished.

The seven Lohvian mages remained sprawled on the carpets.

Seg said: “My money was on you all the time, Deb-Lu.”

Sasha said: “Not a doubt in all Paz!”

Milsi said: “It's lovely to see you all again.”

Inch said: “And you know the way out. Capital!”

The forms lax on the carpets failed to elicit any sympathy. I gave them a nod. “I was absolutely confident you'd learned some tricks of your arcane trade in the five hundred seasons separating you.”

Deb-Lu rubbed his nose and then immediately shoved his turban straight. “Assuredly, Jak. Assuredly.”

Queen Satra emitted a little puff of sound from her moist lips. “I do not believe. Oh, no! By Hlo-Hli, I cannot believe!”

Delia spoke reflectively. “It is most odd. I own to a feeling of sorrow for you. You have been kind to us down here. Yet your empire was oppressive, so we learn at school, and deserved to die.” Delia's hand made a graceful gesture before her face. “You have my sympathy, Satra.”

Just what this high and mighty queen might have made of that was not to be known, at least, just yet.

Ling-Li said in her precise voice: “There's that other locus out there, growing nearer.”

“Could it be the Lady Merlee?” said Delia.

“Too strong for her.” Khe-Hi's projected image vanished and then reappeared next to his wife on the other side of Deb-Lu. “Anyway, the mage is masculine.”

“We'd better—” began Deb-Lu. The other two nodded and the three said together: “Remberee, all!” and vanished.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter six

The new locus of magic turned out to be a Wizard of Cromal. He walked in with an altogether new expedition unknown to us. They were not in good case, having suffered considerably from the horrors down here. They had few porters left and their warriors looked grimy and battered. All the same, the leader, a one-eared Khibil called Vad Valadian, was prepared to be as haughty as any damn-you-to-hell Khibil considered he had every right to be.

The sorcerer wore robes that had once been impressive. His narrow face bore a shrewd look owing more to knowledge of the world and native cunning than arcane thaumaturgical understanding. He called himself Tse-Tsu-Luenling. He was not a Wizard of Loh. Oh, surely, he'd been born in the continent of Loh down south in Shirnlee, not in Whonban. Now it is essential in order to avoid confusion to grasp the delicate distinctions of territorial claims and magical attainment in Loh. This fellow Luenling was a member of the Cult of Stortingen. He could call himself a Wizard of Stortingen. Now if he traveled abroad and people addressed him as a Wizard of Loh, he'd make the most of that chance. There had been occasions in which I'd been astonished at the actions of a Wizard of Loh, and no doubt this deception explained them.

Absolutely no detective work was required to guess why Vad Valadian had ventured down into the Realm of the Drums.

What my comrades and myself wanted to know was—who had sent him, who was he working for, what new party wanted the ruby of the Skantiklar?

This information was not forthcoming.

There was now a whole great gang of us clustered down here, all thoroughly frustrated by the disappearance of the ruby clutched in the hot little hands of Na-Si-Fantong.

“The best thing we can do is to get out of it,” said Delia, and she pursed up those delectable lips.

“Quicker than a shaft from the bow of Erthanfydd Himself,” agreed Seg.

In the aftermath of the Conflict of the Sorcerers, a markedly different attitude was observable on the part of Satra and her people. Gochert heard all about it, and apart from a casual comment—and how typical of the icy character that was!—simply ignored the whole thing. He was as anxious to reach the surface as we were.

The Lady Merlee, so Delia told me, had mentioned in her faint voice that she was glad she hadn't been there.

“I'll bet!” I said, and twisted my lips into a smile.

Vad Gochert with his usual cool calculation had decided not to confirm we Vallians’ preposterous story. “When we reach the surface,” he said, and his jeweled eye patch glittered. “Then the truth cannot be denied.”

As I say, a cool customer and a fellow to have on your side.

Satra's seven witches and wizards had recovered and each had a headache that brought tears to their eyes and immediate recourse to the needlemen and the Puncture Ladies. What had happened to them was something like walking slap bang into a brick wall.

The concourse of tents and marquees was struck, the porters and slaves were loaded like pack animals, the guards prowled ahead—and we were off. The lads of the Guard Corps tended to form solid and bristly walls about their Kendur and his comrades. A few words in the right ears saw Mevancy, Llodi, Kuong and Rollo included along with Fan-Si's fristle Jikai Vuvushis and friends. A messenger, young Tyr Nalgre ti Mailinsmot, all pink ears and bright eyes, only just learning not to entangle his sword between his legs, trotted up to say that Vad Gochert and the Lady Merlee would like to walk with us for a time.

This was useful and they joined our party to be fully introduced and to learn more of what had gone on in the world since they'd been frozen down here.

“You are, I think,” said Gochert in his precise way, “a hyrpaktun. A zhanpaktun, rather than a mortpaktun—”

“Oh, aye, notor,” I interrupted in my growly way. “Time was when a fellow had to earn the right to call himself a paktun, a renowned mercenary. After that he could aspire to become a hyrpaktun and receive the pakzhan from his peers. Nowadays any young lad from the farm can pick up a spear and put a boiled leather helmet on and call himself a paktun without ever seeing a battlefield.”

“Times change.” Gochert said this with more than its obvious meaning.

“Despite all,” said Delia, “one has to believe for the better, surely?”

We were walking through a cavern high and vast, its roof lost in the evanescent pearly light. Somewhere up ahead Satra was being carried along in her palanquin, and to our rear Vad Valadian and his people trailed on. Now Gochert gave me a shrewd look, the light striking from the facets of the jewels covering his left eye.

“Yes, I believe you are a zhanpaktun. But you are more than that. No one can miss the way you are treated.”

This, of course, was something about which I could do nothing. My lads weren't going to have anyone—anyone!—treat their Kendur with less than the respect they considered his due. In that case, capital must be made out of it.

“We are all of Paz, Gochert. It is absolutely vital we all join together to fight the damned Shanks.”

“I concur.”

“Good. Well, it seems the people of Paz require a figurehead to be their leader. Some poor benighted simpleton to be their Emperor of Paz.”

He digested this for a time as we marched on. Then he said: “I doubt that some nations of Pandahem would welcome that.”

“The Bloody Menahem?”

“Among others.”

I told him that recently Menaham had gone on the rampage against their western neighbors and that Vallia was actively assisting in resistance. He nodded and added: “And a considerable more from Havilfar. Particularly the Dawn Lands.”

“The Dawn Lands are in a mess,” said Delia, with finality.

We'd told Gochert that many countries of the Dawn Lands, down south in Havilfar, had banded together with us to defeat Hamal. Still, his remark held weight. Some of those crusty kingdoms down there would take a deal of convincing to accept some kind of emperor to co-ordinate them. “All that is for when we escape this maze,” said Gochert in his sharp voice. “Queen Satra has accepted my invitation to dine with me when we next camp. Would you care to join us?”

The look I gave him must have resembled a Jikaidast observing a cunning and clever gambit in his opponent. I said: “Do you think you know my name, Vad Gochert?”

He waved a negligent hand. “I must needs be blind in both eyes not to.”

“Then,” I said, “as you are blind in neither, there need be no more pretence between us.”

The Lady Merlee gave a little half-stifled laugh at this. I went on: “We shall be happy to accept your kind invitation.”

That ‘we’ meant my friends; it was not a royal we.

Now, as to what followed when we did next camp—I must stress what I have repeatedly emphasized. Killing people is not the proper business of any man or woman. That killing occurs is lamentable, regrettable and explainable. Life is what counts. If a society throws up thugs who go around the streets bullying and fully prepared to murder, that is fair comment on that society. That other people in that society are entitled to protect themselves seems unassailable logic. When Vallia was attacked I had no hesitation in resisting. I may add that I have no fear of the old saw, ‘He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.’ For a start, I do not live by the sword, and for the second, when I, as they say in Clishdrin, pop my clogs, what more expected fashion could there be?

Gochert's plans for a pleasant rest period entertaining the queen were to be dashed. Up ahead the trail left the cavern by an opening wide enough for two people abreast. Bits and pieces of a crowpin lay about, some still twitching, the vegetable horror hacked to shreds before it had a chance to snatch a passing victim. Mind you, crowpins had to live, too. At the side stood an audo of Satra's personal guards, with a hikdar two paces front and centre. He saluted punctiliously, his clothes, armor and weapons impeccable after all the time he'd spent down here.

“Lord Gochert. A message from the queen.”

As the hikdar spoke, Gochert's icy face reflected nothing of his feelings. An expedition had been encountered up ahead seeking the way out. The leader was known to the queen, a certain Chan Holomin, Strom of Wioldrin. She might very well, I fancied, be a trifle cross with Strom Chan, for he had sneaked down here after her without her permission—or so I had been led to believe. Whatever the truth of that, the outcome was that the queen would receive Strom Chan at dinner when we next halted. She must therefore decline Vad Gochert's invitation and would in turn invite him to attend her entertainment.

At the end of the hikdar's recital Gochert simply nodded his head curtly and said: “Tell the queen I am engaged to entertain the King and Queen of Croxdrin and party. I shall attend with them.”

“Quidang!”

Handsomely done, I said to myself, handsomely done, by Vox!

Then I experienced a hilarious reaction at all this stuffy protocol and polite society manners—down here among the magics and horrors of the Realm of the Drums!

As to those weighty matters, though, the magics were being taken care of by the assembled mages, and the horrors by the advance guard. This included detachments of Vallians, and therefore inanimate people and monsters of the animal or vegetable creation were being awoken as we progressed.

There were other ways of dealing with the situation, and of Satra's skepticism, naturally; this happened to be the way things fell out.

When we halted to camp and the fires burned up and the smells of cooking wafted and we could take our ease, it was perfectly understandable that to us, despite the pervasive pearly glow, we should think of this time as evening.

As we dressed for the queen's dinner party, Delia said: “Gochert knows who you are, now, and yet he is pussy-footing around the subject.”

“Aye. I think the idea of an emperor of emperor's sticks in his craw.”

“If I read him aright he will come around. There will be others who will not.”

“The Star Lords are hard taskmasters. Willy-nilly, I have to sew the whole of Paz together. I shall,” I said with a bombast that amused me and brought a little smile to Delia's lips, “I really shall have to find a kingdom for Inch and Sasha.”

“They are perfectly happy—”

“Of course! But Seg feels it, I know.”

“Yes.”

As she buckled up her rapier, Delia added half musingly: “Mind you, dear heart, I doubt if we can make all our friends kings and queens.”

There was not a hint of megalomania in this conversation; there might be a touch of fear. We did what we did because the Star Lords commanded, and we knew only too dreadfully well what happened if I disobeyed. My defiance of the Everoinye had to be conducted in much more subtle ways.

Queen Satra set up a sumptuous banquet. Huntsmen had brought in plenty of game, there were still amphorae of wine untouched; we sat down to a gourmet's repast.

Gochert and his party were welcomed in and we sat at the long table. The throne-like chair at the head of the table remained empty. Across from me sat Strom Chan, his brown seamed face and stiffly jutting black beard as I remembered. We exchanged a few polite words, clearly understood between us the fact we would get together later and compare experiences. Trylon Ge-fu-Schian and Princess Licria, of course, were seated at the table, and a right unholy pair they made, by Krun!

A fanfare of the famed silver trumpets of Loh heralded Satra. Dumpy, plump and homely she might appear; she still commanded presence. We all stood up and when she was seated sat ourselves. Tiresome to recount the meal in all its sumptuousness. We ate and drank well. At one point Satra leaned on a rounded elbow and spoke quietly. We listened.

“My twin sister—oh, yes, I had a twin, as so many of us do in the world. Princess Satra and Princess Csitra.” At this name I sat up. “I loved her and she me. We were inseparable. She was the elder. When we were six we learned that one day, when Csitra grew up, she would become the Empress of Loh.” The queen took a long draught of wine and a slave girl wiped her lips. “The very next day—oh, it was sad, sad!—poor little Csitra tumbled all the way down the grand staircase. Her skull was split open. I cried at the mess.”

Delia's eyes met mine. So that was how a Queen of Pain got started!

A fat major domo, his girth swathed in a violent sash of madder and gold, waddled in and bent to whisper in the queen's ear. She gave me a sliding glance and then nodded. The major domo strutted up to me.

“There is a Lady Mevancy outside who wishes to have a word with you, my lord. It is a matter of the utmost urgency.”

A guard detail of my lads had accompanied us to the queen's camp area where the queen's retainers had taken over. I welcomed the idea of getting out of this hot-house atmosphere and having a few words with my jurukkers.

I stood up and made the necessary floridly polite excuses and Satra waved a white plump arm and I was at liberty to leave. Seg was looking fixedly up the table and I turned as I left to give a swift glance there. Schian was leaning back in his chair and wearing a look of extreme pleasure. They'd placed the Lady Merlee beside him at table and he'd been trying to win her attention during the meal, and now she was beginning to melt. Licria leaned forward sharply, so sharply she knocked over a goblet of wine.

Anyway, what in a Herrelldrin Hell did Mevancy want now? Moodily I supposed it had something to do with the Everoinye.

Two of Satra's impeccably clad guards stood each side of the tent opening, the four being armed as churgurs with blazoned shields; the two guards on the other side of the opening were Bowmen of Loh. I gave them a curt nod as I passed into the canvas-enclosed anteroom. Like any thoroughgoing crew of chamberlains and major domos, Satra's lot surrounded the queen with as many barriers to the outside world they could contrive. Without massive stone walls and only canvas to work with they still managed an impressive maze. Hitching up my rapier I went off along the tented corridor.

They really should have waited until I reached the junction of tents at the far end. There were four men and a woman and they were far too eager. Much too forward. Movement in the mouth of the cross tunnel took my gaze away from the five would be assassins. Mevancy stood there, her arms twisted up her back, her face black with fury. She was held by two more men and another woman stood at her side, holding a dagger to Mevancy's throat. So the whole picture was there to read.

All of these people wore tunics of so dark a blue it appeared black. They had the courtesy to wear black half-masks. What the quality of assassins in Satra's time might have been I wasn't sure. Probably very high, given the employment opportunities of the times. These stikitches had turned up in droves to deal with one girl and one man.

My right hand crossed my body to the left and my left hand crossed to the right. I moved slowly and deliberately. I did not draw in a showy flashing Bladesman's draw for action. The rapier and main gauche were not out of their scabbards when the first fellow gave a small and surprised grunt.

He carried a lynxter, the straightish cut and thrust sword of Loh. He dropped it. He put both hands to his chest to clutch at the long Lohvian arrow sprouting there. The fletchings were red and gold, just like the fletchings of Queen Satra's personal bodyguard of Bowmen of Loh.

Before this fellow fell to the canvas floor the man next to him, the woman, and the fellow on the other side, were all struck through with accurate shafts. I did not think these arrows had been loosed by any of Satra's guards. “Would you care to stand a mite to the side, my old dom—?”

I complied and a shaft whipped past to bury its head in the face of the fifth stikitche.

“I hope,” I said without turning my head, “I sincerely trust you did not damage Satra's bowmen.”

“Not at all! Not at all! The second one was most happy to lend me his bow, most happy indeed.”

I didn't care to ask about the first one. I was staring at Mevancy as she was forced out from the tented junction towards us. That dagger at her throat looked damned sharp—the damned sharp dagger was no longer pressing against Mevancy's throat—it was flying through the air and the woman was shrieking with an arrow through her hand.

Before I—a mere swordsman in all this—could do anything, two more arrows finished off the stikitches. They were not all dead, Seg wasn't that stupid, although it was obvious who had contracted with them for this work.

“Now we'll see the quality of stikitches they have around here,” said Seg. He stepped up beside me, giving the bow a little shake. “Not a bad little juicer, not bad at all.” From Seg that was high praise.

The woman made no attempt to pull the arrow free—that would have ruined her hand for good—instead she gripped that wrist with her other hand, sprang about, and started to run off.

Seg said: “I don't really believe...”

I said: “No more nor I.”

Mevancy shrilled out: “Shoot the vicious shint!”

The woman whipped around a canvas corner and the chance was gone.

“No need to ask if you are all right, then, pigeon.”

“All right! I—I—” She panted a bit and swung her hair up out of the way. “I tell you, cabbage, when that woman's dagger kissed my throat, it was like—well, look!” She took her hand from her throat. The fingers shone wet. “The shint cut me!”

“Not deep, Lady Mevancy,” said Seg. “Not deep.”

“Of course not! if it had been deep she'd have slit my throat!”

Although everything had taken place at such speed we could expect inquisitive guards at any moment. I said: “The guards will be here soon—”

“Of course they will,” said Seg in his bold bluff confident way. “I should hope so! Let them see the disgraceful way they take care of the queen's guests.” I felt the bubbles of amusement rising—it was not often after a fracas like this I didn't have to run off sharpish, by Krun!

Mevancy said: “They would have killed you, then me, saying they discovered me in the act. And you let her run off!”

“If we wish to find her, that should not be too difficult.” Seg wasn't going to argue ethics. “A woman with an arrow through her hand.”

“I suppose,” said Mevancy with extreme sarcasm, still panting, still wrought up, “if it had been a man you'd have shafted him without thought.”

Whether or not Seg was now prepared to argue ethics, and with them the peculiar reversal of values in the female viewpoint on certain issues, I didn't know. Across the canvas floor-covering a little reddish-brown scorpion trotted along, his eight legs going up and down like organ keys, his sting high and curved and arrogant. He cocked his head on one side and those bright beady eyes beamed brilliantly up.

I took hold of Mevancy around the waist and I shouted to Seg: “We're off now—tell Delia—”

My words died in the hollow coldness that descended as the enveloping blue folds of the giant Scorpion closed about Mevancy and me. The Star Lords had sent for us. Hurtling into a long blue void, feeling the rushing of unseen wings all about, up we went, up with the phantom blue Scorpion of the Star Lords.

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Chapter seven

Existing through the experiences of sitting down to a formal dinner with all the trimmings when I was down in the earth surrounded by monsters and magics, and having to put up with a clumsy assassination attempt, impinged on me with a high degree of Unreality. How could I take all that nonsense seriously? It was all Unreal.

Going up to see the Star Lords—I felt as though a fluid weight had sunk through my body—that was Real. I was back in Reality once again.

The cold blueness swirled all about me and the warm firm feel of Mevancy's body was gone. We had been torn apart. Head over heels I went up in the blue mist.

“And mind you don't drop me again!” I bellowed up. “You nurdling great apology for a Scorpion!”

In the next instant I expected to go tumbling across the deck of a boat to find myself alone in a broad ocean. Up and still up I went.

All right, then—if there were to be no boat then I'd see fireworks splattering all across the firmament as Star Lord argued with Star Lord, the red of what I thought of as the establishment and the acrid green of Ahrinye the rebellious trouble-maker. Still up and up in the blueness I went.

Was I, then, to be transported in a hissing chair through multicolored veils? Would I walk into the room of the three silver-framed pictures? Perhaps they would dump me down in that cool oval room with a comfortable chair and a table bearing a flagon of fine wine. The Everoinye might, as they had indicated, send me to the bacra area, a weirdly mysterious place of squared off metal boxes being eaten up by horse-sized caterpillars. Or, there must be a chance they'd hurl me to that damned freezing-cold cave of the ice winds and, if they did so, I wouldn't want to hang around in conversation too long as I'd foolishly done before. And, finally—and probably most scary of all—they might just fumble-finger and I'd wind up casually chucked down any old where and languish until I starved to death.

Still up and up in the blueness I soared.

There was no use worrying about Mevancy. The Star Lords had called us and she'd be seen just as I'd be seen—if, that was, the ancient dodderers got it right and we ever did arrive where we were going.

“By Makki Grodno's pustular—” I started to say to myself. Then I stopped. My heart wasn't in it. I just wanted to discover what the Everoinye wanted this time. The truly awesome elements of power and control had been blunted for me over the seasons; now I saw more clearly just what was really happening in this Reality. Where were these places to which the Everoinye summoned me? They were ancient beyond memory, what was their true history? Their power was so vast it must clog the breath in one's throat.

My feet hit cold hard stone.

The blueness all about swirled and swayed and parted gradually to reveal an angry crimson sky. That sky looked like the sky above a burning city. I turned about slowly on the cold stone. I had no clothes, no weapons; that was normal in places like this. I had never been here before. As I finished turning about to face my original direction a series of rounded humps began to become visible ahead. They rose slowly, black and stark against that ominous crimson. Just as the notion occurred to me they looked just like the heads of a gathering of people, in each separate shape two spots of scarlet fire abruptly flashed. Eyes! Eyes of the Everoinye, studying me like a specimen.

On my right side three humps rose, rounded, black against the red. I just stood, limp, waiting. The three shapes flashed their eyes—green! The acid green of Ahrinye, acridly shared now by two companions.

The Everoinye before me, the establishment as I thought of them, clustered the domed shapes in a way reminiscent of amphitheatre seating. Tier on tier they rose, extended from side to side. Could Ahrinye stand against this colossal display of power?

The twin scarlet eyes in each head—did the Star Lords have heads, then, as they once must have done?—lowered balefully on me.

The voice was familiar, hoarse, resonant, clanging.

“Dray Prescot! You have incurred our wrath! We are displeased with you, with your arrogance and presumption.”

The sheer volume of sound after the deathly silence preceding struck like a whiplash. I pressed my feet against the stone, and tilted up my head.

“How?”

I expected them to rant on about my own plans for Paz which included designs like making Inch and Sasha a king and queen of some suitable country which would then join our alliance. That was power-crazy, I suppose, to people unable to see past their noses.

The voice deepened, rumbling like a volcano.

“You have the arrogance to pursue other ends than defeating the Shanks. You have the presumption to put your life at risk for no cause.”

“Hold on!” I shouted up. “If you mean the Skantiklar—that's important to our resistance to the blasted Shanks, confound you!”

There ensued one of those long silences that punctuated conversations with the Star Lords. Each time I imagined details of grisly punishments they were debating. Finally the hiatus was broken by: “And your presumption?”

“My life was at risk long before I started working for you.”

“You misunderstand, as onkerish as ever! Some petty quarrel and assassins could deprive us of a kregoinye. That is your presumption.”

I could not stop myself from saying: “You mentioned before my life was valuable to you. That's pretty new! You see I have some value to your schemes. You've just found that out. Well, it's a damned pity you couldn't have found out earlier, when I was almost killed time after time chasing after your mistakes!”

The silence this time held, at least for me, a more mellow tang.

There was no doubt the lowering presence of those tiered rows of heads, brooding down on me with fiery eyes, the eerie feelings cobwebbing this place, produced most profound feelings. The violence of the sky blood-red over all, the gimlet punctures of Ahrinye's green malevolence, the very absence of sound, all were calculated to intimidate, to frighten, to cow.

These superhuman beings could fling me four hundred light years back to Earth, debar me from Kregen for ever. I'd never walk in the streaming mingled lights of Zim and Genodras, never look up to She of the Veils among the stars, never see my Delia again—never! Never! That must not happen! I must remember the scheme I'd promised myself of acting humbly before the Star Lords, of kowtowing—I must hurry to speak.

I said: “The quarrel and the resulting assassination attempt were not of my doing. I did not initiate this problem.”

The answer rapped out straight away.

“Yet you were involved. Your life was needlessly risked. The Shanks press closer. You are guilty of presumption.”

“So if some rast insults your wife you don't—” Then I hauled up, flaming with passion. The very excuse was muddled with the cause and could finish me off. Anyway, did these superhumans have husbands, wives?

“Enough! You have been called the Prince of Onkers, and we find you to be the Emperor of Onkers.” Oh, yes, the rows of them up there all hunched and glaring red-eyed down on me, oh, yes, that was a Court, a Court sitting in judgment.

“Then give him to me!”

The acidity of the words, the sheer nerve-scraping screech shattered into my mind. Ahrinye! I swiveled like a puppet to see the green eyes flaring brighter, malevolent, demanding, ruthless.

If Ahrinye was allowed to control me—run me, as he phrased it—he'd kill me off in no time with impossible demands.

“Give me Dray Prescot and you will see!”

His searing voice scythed into my brain.

I could feel my heart up in my throat. I could feel—I do not know—I could feel nothing.

A softer voice said: “I think not, Ahrinye.”

Even before I switched around from facing the green eyes of Ahrinye to stare across to the left of the tiered Everoinye I knew what I would see.

Joy burst up in me. The shape was not hunched and domed, the shape was that of a beautiful woman. All about her hung a shimmering cloud of yellow, so that she seemed to float in a shimmer of gold.

“Zena Iztar!” I fairly shrieked out her name. “Zena Iztar!”

“Perhaps you have been foolish, Dray Prescot, perhaps not. I have been away. I must go away again. But Ahrinye shall not have you.”

I tried to speak, and gargles came out, so I started over.

“Zena Iztar—there is much to tell. The Kroveres prosper—”

“Yes. Continue.” The voice changed from that soft tone to a sharper demanding note. “Is the decision made? Or must I—”

“No,” The hoarse voice interrupted. “No, Zena Iztar, you have no need. The decision is made.”

“Against me!” screeched Ahrinye.

“For the good of Kregen.”

Flashes of green light struck fanlike up from my right and Zena Iztar's yellow brightened on my left. Sparkles irradiated the air with color. The violent sky washed lambent crimson over all, yet green persisted. Yellow and green, one against the other, with red holding the balance.

Zena Iztar was a more mysterious figure than the rest of this lot put together. Regarded by the Everoinye with reserved condescension and uneasy apprehension she was treated by them with cautious respect. They had spoken ill of her, contemptuously, yet I fancied she'd have the last laugh over them.

“Very well!” With the suddenness of a slammed door on a lighted room, the green radiance vanished. The three forms of Ahrinye slowly sank down.

“The Skantiklar—” I said.

Zena Iztar interrupted: “Find it. Then destroy it.”

“Is that wise?” said the hoarse voice.

“It is of little practical value as humans weigh these things.”

“Then?”

The golden yellow halo about Zena Iztar's form flickered, began to fade. Her voice sounded as soft and warm as when she first spoke.

“Then what will happen will happen. Yes. Probably that will be for the good, also.”

The beautiful shape bathed in golden glow vanished.

“Remberee, Zena Iztar!” I said to myself.

“Dray Prescot! You have heard the judgment. Do not behave stupidly again.” The menace in the clanging voice rang unmistakably.

“I cannot hold myself responsible for fools who force quarrels on me. Surely you can see that?”

“We see you are a kregoinye. That is what to remember.”

Just then I could vividly remember Zena Iztar. Her aims for Kregen were less penetrable than the designs of the Star Lords—or, at least, so it appeared to my understanding. Zena Iztar was unique.

About to speak again I paused. A single crystal gong note rang out. The red sky flickered. The hoarse voice said: “What? Again?” The clanging voice replied: “It is necessary. Send him now.”

The blueness took me up so swiftly I still had my mouth open as I crashed headlong into bedlam. Naked and surrounded by a confused tangle of naked arms and legs and bodies I felt the ship surge up and lie over on her beam ends. Vomit washed about under foot, and the packed slaves screamed and wailed and shook in their chains. The stink of this slaveship hold took me by the throat, so that I gagged and clamped my mouth shut. The feel of the ship told me she was sinking, sluggish, her recovery slow. Water poured dark and green from the narrow gratings in the overhead.

In mere seconds she'd be gone, dragging down with her her freight of chained slaves.

The Star Lords had catapulted me here. In all this hideous confusion—who was it I had come to save?

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Chapter eight

Dark water ran across the deck underfoot as the ship rolled. The smells, the noise, the shaking feelings of insecurity coiled into a daunting sensation of inescapable doom.

“Sink me!” I burst out, fractionally aware of the very aptness of the remark in these circumstances. “I don't know—so—all of ‘em!”

Staggering as the ship lumbered back, I hauled myself up.

The slaves were chained individually to the long main chain. Forcing my way to the end I balanced with the movements of the vessel, my old sea legs back in action. The chief staple was bolted. Well, by Vox, somebody must have the key!

More water smashed down through the gratings. There must be one hell of a storm raging out there. The water in the hold was now visibly rising. If we didn't overset we'd be dragged down. The ladder to the deck was in my fists. I went up like a monkey.

A solid sheet of water slashed down at me, shining and green. Doggedly, I held on. Shaking my head free and blinking, I clawed on up.

A pair of legs and feet encased in tall boots washed over the coaming, pushed by the water. Pushing my way up past him, I saw he wore mesh link of a style I recognized. Most of his harness was scarlet. The top of his skull had been cleaved in by an axe. Crouching, I stared across the deck.

Dark shadows flitted across the vessel. She was clearly done for. Her two masts had both gone by the board and a raffle of tangled rigging encumbered the footing. The deck ran with seawater that poured in every time she rolled. The noise of the wind shrieked in my ears. This storm was a rashoon. Movement huddled against the bulwarks brought my attention to what was left of the crew.

They had discarded their armor. Naked except for green breechclouts they had given up the attempt to launch the longboat. That lay in a twisted mass of splintered timber. The wind and the waves battered at reason. The freshness of the spindrift-laden air shocked after the stench below decks. I stepped carefully over the dead fellow half-pitched down the companionway. He had dark curly hair, and moustaches that normally thrust arrogantly upwards but which were now wet and bedraggled. I stared malevolently at the men clustered by the bulwarks.

Oh, yes, I knew where I was, and who these people were.

The key! I had to find the key and find it fast, before the ship foundered.

There was no finesse in my approach. I scuttled across the deck suiting my rush to the violent movements of the ship, grabbed the first wight around the neck, shook him like a drenched rat, kicked his fellow who reeled away, shrieking. I bent to place my lips close to his ear.

“The key!” I bellowed. “The master key to the slave chain!”

“By Goyt!” he spluttered. “You're mad!”

“They key, you cramph, and fast before I snap your spine!”

Three or four of the crew were trying to lever themselves away from the side. Their eyes like white marbles rolled in their heads. I shook the fellow in my fist again and he gargled.

A pile of wet clothing lay tangled beside the shattered longboat. I ignored the clothes, the armor, the weapons. I threw the fellow away and dived at the bundle, kicking tunics and mail shirts and longswords out of the way. The key had to be here!

“Grotal the Reducer take you!” screeched one of the crew. He did not leave his post clinging to a stanchion. Seawater poured in over us. Wet clothes scattered away as I continued my frantic search. The ship's movements were now more sluggish than ever. She wallowed like a pregnant duck. Water ran in shining sheets across the deck. The shadows that flitted across were tinged with penumbras of red and green, twinned shadows, shadows flung by Zim and Genodras, the twin Suns of Scorpio.

A curve of metal took my eye. I snatched it out and keys jangled.

The key ring clutched in my hand I didn't even bother to look back at the crew as I dived headlong for the companionway. Seawater drove me on.

I practically fell down the ladder. The dead man lay tumbled in a heap at the foot and I jumped over him, and even then I remembered to say a hasty: “May Zair have you in his keeping.”

The first key—the largest—did not fit. I tried the second, twisting desperately, it turned and the lock snapped open.

The staple came free as I dragged on it with all my strength. The nearest slave lay writhing and his chains were all entangled. I gripped him by the shoulder and hauled, cleared the mess, started to run the chain through.

A huge fellow with a massive dark beard yelled. “Pur Dray! By Zim-Zair! Pur Dray as I live and breathe!”

I shouted back. “Lahal, Pur Zanad. For the sweet sake of Zair, start these people moving. Help with the chain!”

He didn't waste words. He freed his own chain and then together we went along hauling the chain and releasing slave after slave.

Another fellow with dark curly hair and whiskers shouted: “Pur Dray!” He leaped out, alert and lithe.

“Lahal, Pur Thazdon! Pitch in and help!”

Now the slaves began to sort themselves out as they always do. Those who had been slave and expected to be slave all their lives screamed and ran about and then scrambled madly for the ladder. Those who were prisoners of war, captives made slave, looked about alertly, ready to seize the best opportunities. The ladder was choked by manic scrambling bodies.

“Up for'ard!” bellowed Zanad. He started off. We followed, and I saw more than one face I knew. These men were Krozair brothers, most famed of all the corsairs of the inner sea, the Eye of the World of Turismond. Clearly, they had been taken in a battle lost.

Then I saw the figures I sensed must be the cause of my appearance here. A woman with flowing dark hair and sweet eyes, a matronly figure, stood up. Clutching her hands, two children, twins, a girl and boy, were struggling to hold back the tears. All three were obviously terrified; yet they were not panicking.

“Lady Thynzi,” shouted Thazdon.

“Give me the children,” I said, and snatched them up into my arms. “Get on! Get on!” We all hurried forward after Zanad.

There was another ladder. We went up one by one, in order, not pushing. The feel of the vessel was now so ominous that I passed up the children, waiting at the foot of the ladder.

The last man to grip the rungs and go up was Zinkardo the Stern. His face bore marks of battle, scars, a broken nose; his eyes were bright and his beard jutted, his whiskers already brushed up. He paused.

“We have not always seen eye to eye in the past, Pur Dray Prezcot. But from this day on I walk in true comradeship with you.”

“As I with you, Pur Zinkardo. By Zair! Shorush-Tish has sent us a rashoon to outdo all others.”

He went up one rung, waiting for the way to be clear. “We were outmatched, four swifters to ours, and taken. What puzzles me is how you got here, Pur Dray, for, by Zinter the Afflicted, you were not aboard my Princess of Zulfiria. No, that I swear, may Zagri take me else!”

“My ship was wrecked and I was washed aboard here. Up you go, Pur Zinkardo, and may Zair be with us all!”

Out on the reeling deck with the twin suns trying to shaft down shards of emerald and ruby fire through the massy black clouds we saw that the end was almost here. The wind shrieked through our hair. We had to grip onto handholds. Directly before us a black-fanged coast showed intermittently through spray, huge clouds of white water driven upwards and smashed horizontally by the force of the gale. Iron rocks waited to rend us.

The slaveship was now so low in the water she touched bottom before reaching the rocks. She flew to pieces on the instant. We were clinging to planks, baulks of timber, anything that would float. The Lady Thynzi clung on beside me as we went hurtling through the breakers. The children nestled between us, and Thazdon gripped on to help.

Zair had us in his keeping, for we tumbled pell-mell between the rocks. Black shining bulks swept past like stampeding chunkrahs.

Over and over we tumbled amidst the uproar, ripped from our precarious holds, scattered up onto a beach of black sand, driven and pummeled and half-deaf with the wave smash and the wind shriek.

Black shining forms were dragging themselves out of the water. We were drenched loons, gasping for air amidst the never-ending racket of the sea and struggling on wavering legs over that hostile black sand to the crest beyond the beach.

A few sparse bushes, gorse and spinzal, whipped in the breeze. The two children clung to me. Thazdon assisted the Lady Thynzi. By his demeanor he showed he held the lady in great respect. His wife, the Lady Zalfi, was a charming girl, a lively sprite. Now we all slumped down in the scant cover afforded by the bushes. We were bedraggled, panting, stained with black sand, bruised and buffeted—but we were free.

There were not as many of us now as there had been in the slave deck.

Zinkardo the Stern roused himself. He drew a deep lungful of damp air. When he spoke and I heard him easily I realized the worst of the rashoon was past. The breeze was materially easing.

“We have been saved by the courage of Pur Dray. Now we save ourselves by our own efforts. Can any of you see any Zair-forsaken Grodnims?”

No one had. Where the crew had gone we did not know. Lucky for the crew! Had any come ashore within spitting distance he'd have felt the heavy arm of Zairian justice.

“Out of green Magdag, they were,” spat Zanad. “May their bellies swell and their livers rot worse than Makki Grodno's.”

I looked at the children, sitting cross-legged and demure, much daunted by their horrendous experiences yet bearing up wonderfully. I essayed a smile and they did not flinch back. Their names, I gathered, were Zilvi and Nafren. When young Nafren became a Krozair, as he would one day if he lived, and became a famous kampeon, a corsair of the Eye of the World, he'd be honored with the zed, becoming either Nazren or Nafrez. By the cut of his jib he couldn't wait for that day. He'd carry on the great traditions of the Zairians and their Krozair brothers, fighting for the red against the green. I could not, just then, allow sensible and regretful thoughts of the folly of this continual hatred and warfare to enter my mind. I'd saved him and his sister at the behest of the Star Lords. That was the vital issue here.

We were cast away on one of the group of tiny islands to the south of the western end of the inner sea, known to us as the Seeds of Zantristar. To the Grodnims of the north they were known as the Seeds of Ganfowang. They were off the coast of Shazmoz, a Zairian fortress-city.

“Provided a damned green patrol does not sail past and spot us,” said Zinkardo, with great confidence, “we shall be picked up in no time.”

There was a certain amount of piratical activity among these islands. Inland there could be found fresh water and food. These folk could survive until rescue found them. Practical, hard-headed professional seamen, they knew their trade and how to take care of themselves. Four to one, they'd fought the Magdaggian swifters, defying the Overlords of Magdag, may Beng Marzubel twist their inward parts into cat's cradles, and now they were free once more and confident of returning home.

Zinkardo the Stern stood tall and commanding. He turned to me. He started to say: “Pur Dray Prezcot! In the name of Zair we thank you, and we give you the Jikai—”

The blueness coiled about me. I felt the coldness and the rushing sensation both of falling into a bottomless pit and of being swept up into the air. The Star Lords would contrive a natural explanation for what the people here could see in the wind and the turmoil. To my own confusion, I own another detail would be added to the legend of Dray Prezcot, Krozair of Zy.

Up I went, headlong, over and over, and so thumped down into a seat.

The chair in which I sat moved. It hissed. It carried me off, sizzling, through a long red-lit tunnel to resume my interrupted conversation with the Everoinye.

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Chapter nine

Veils of colored mist swathed the tunnel and the chair carried me hissing through them, brushing them aside like gossamer wings. There was a sweet smell of lavender on the air, most refreshing after the stinks I'd just experienced. I slumped back, still wringing wet, my hair a sodden lump. I pushed it back and my hand dripped water. Used though I was to these extremes of change, all the same, by Zair! a poor ordinary fellow needs to let his pulse settle and get his breath back!

The chair whistled up to a cross passage and slowed.

Another chair cut in from the side, sliding eerily of its own volition. I caught a glimpse of a red foxy face, fiery whiskers, and the bright twinkle of knowing eyes.

“Pompino!” I yelled. “Pompino!”

Scauro Pompino, known as the Iarvin, let his clever mouth drop open. He gave me a most hard and suspicious stare.

“Jak!” Like the Khibil comrade he was, he broke out with a huge laugh and added: “Or Majister Dray, if you wish!”

“All is well?”

“My dear lady wife has moved up three or four bottles, is all. But you—look at you! Like a drowned rat. How you manage to contrive to stay in one piece without me to guide you I cannot imagine.”

“I try.”

“Well, may the good Pandrite have you in his keeping.”

The chairs hissed as though animate and conscious of our words and dashed on again. Pompino was swept away up the cross corridor. I yelled: “Remberee, Pompino!” and the echo floated back: “Rembereee!”

Well, now! By Vox! That self-opinionated and marvelous comrade, Pompino, up here and clearly ready for an excursion for the Everoinye. I'd welcome him along with me, that I knew, when next I was flung down all naked and unarmed to sort out a mess the Star Lords had made for themselves.

The chair sizzled and burbled and dashed around a curve and so tore through hanging veils of silky mist to bring me into a room where the light glowed down warm and pink and the scents had changed to violets.

“Dray Prescot!” The hoarse voice resonated eerily between the walls. Nothing else existed in the room save the chair and myself. “We were unavoidably interrupted.”

“I saw the kregoinye you'd sent. His head was clove in by an axe.”

“Elten Ranjat. A great and sad loss.”

Almost, I burst out with: “By the Black Chunkrah! Will you express sentiments of a similar nature if I get my comeuppance?” But I did not. I kept my old black-fanged winespout shut.

“The decision is reached. You may continue the search for the Skantiklar. However, the Shanks must be dealt with.”

I rather cared for that ‘however'. It summed up nicely the predicament I fancied the Star Lords found themselves in. Well, I wanted to go and blatter Schtarkins. Deb-Lu just had to be right about this.

Just how long ago I'd been sitting at Satra's dinner party I couldn't say. I licked my lips. “A modicum of throat moistener would go down well at the moment.”

Before I'd even finished there was a soft plop! at my elbow. A small round table with a single central leg appeared from nowhere. It bore a goblet of wine, a pale yellow, and although I'd been thinking of a better beverage than wine, I took it up and sipped appreciatively.

“By Mother Zinzu the Blessed! I needed that!”

Quite deliberately I did not wipe the back of my hand across my lips as is the custom when uttering those sacred words. Instead I said: “Thank you.”

Silence existed with the fragility of a moth's wings. The Star Lords had expressed regret over the death of their kregoinye Elten Ranjat. This did not prove they still retained human emotions, merely that they appreciated the loss of a valuable servant. Or—perhaps in their dotage the Everoinye were becoming senile, entering their second childhood, regaining feelings submerged for thousands of years. Ahrinye, for one, wasn't senile. The Everoinye protected me from his coarse ambitions, and I felt thankful for that. Mind you, how long could that situation last? As these brooding thoughts swirled around in my old vosk skull of a head the Star Lords spoke and immediately negated any idea they were senile.

“The wizard Na-Si-Fantong is dangerous only to a limited extent. You have at your disposal powers to contain him. The being Carazaar is of greater consequence. His ambitions are reckless and inordinate.”

I was still sitting in the chair, still sipping wine, still in the here and now. Yet I felt the dizziness seize me. The Star Lords were actually dealing with issues in a simple practical way instead of their usual vague generalities and threats and orders. I croaked out: “Carazaar was actively assisting the Shanks—”

“He arranged for the Katakis to be employed by them, yes.”

“He did, did he?” I heard the savagery in my own voice.

“Our decision regarding the Skantiklar stands. If Carazaar should obtain the nine—gems—our task would be infinitely greater.”

I digested that. The hesitation over the word gems indicated the nine rubies were not ordinary jewels. Well, I suppose that must have been obvious from the first. And if that bastard Carazaar stepped in to collect them, as the Everoinye clearly suspected and, perhaps, feared, the Shanks would become far worse, far worse a peril for Paz.

The wine was finished. I placed the goblet on the table and instantly, quicker than the blink of an eye, it refilled.

I let it stand for a moment. “So the rubies do have a real power?”

They could have been sarcastic in response, or not deigned to reply at all. Instead the clanging voice said: “Only to those who know how to create the force. Then they must learn to control it. Carazaar most certainly will know how. It is dubious in the case of the wizard.”

The Star Lords never had had much regard for Wizards of Loh.

The voice went on: “There is a task set to your hands. It is a matter of observation. You will see what you need to know.”

As the voice rang to silence the chair rotated. I snatched up the goblet, spilling only a little of the yellow, and saw an iron-bound chest sliding along towards me. It stopped about a pace away and the lid flew up.

“Dress!”

This interview had been odd and was now growing odder still. I stood up and looked into the chest. A leather jerkin studded with brass. A tan breechclout. A pair of strapped sandals with iron studs. A leather belt. A round leather helmet with a turned up peak. A plain dagger. A spear and a small round target-like shield. There were also a pouch and a water bottle.

I made a face.

“It is not for you to argue or to question the dictates—”

“I know, I know!”

So, willy-nilly, I put on the gear and took up the equipment. I was dressed as many and many a poor wight had been dressed on many a battlefield when he was whisked off to the Ice Floes of Sicce. A spearman in the ranks—well, this wouldn't be the first time, by Krun!

“Is there no sword?”

“No.”

Any Kregan fighting man likes to carry as many weapons as is practicable. A simple spearman is always on the lookout to add to his arsenal. About to try to argue, vainly as I knew, I felt myself whirled up into a blue mist. Head over heels I went blindly tumbling into infinity.

Hard ground slogged into my studded sandals and I staggered forward.

“Whoa up, dom!” The wheezy voice breathed in my ear and a fist caught my upper arm, steadying me. “Beng Dikkane has borrowed your legs, by Quintrell the Licentious!”

My sight cleared. A white-painted wall reared on my left and an animal trough stood across a cobbled street. The fellow holding me up must have just walked around the corner as I appeared. All he'd seen was a drunk toppling into him.

“Thanks, dom—no. Beng Dikkane is beyond my means just now.”

“You're ill?”

“No, thanks to—no, not ill.”

He gave me a shrewd scrutiny from close-set eyes. He was a Hytak, very correct, grim in armor much like mine. He carried a sword at his side, and his tail was bare of bladed steel.

“They don't care who they recruit, dom.”

This was a very direct reference to my avoidance of mentioning any deity or spirit. We stood in the entrance to a side street and soldiers and townsfolk passed along the main road ahead. Shadows limned in red and green lay long over the cobbles. The Hytak fished about in his purse.

“Here, may Hlo-Hli smile on you, dom.”

He passed across four copper obs, and I took them, touched by this gesture but aware I must continue as I had started.

“My thanks, dom, may Hlo-Hli have you in her keeping.”

He stalked off, compact, a fine fighting man, a typical Hytak. Over his shoulder he called: “Remberee.”

“Remberee,” I said, and added: “Your name, dom?”

“Nath the Jarvis.”

“I am Kadar the Hammer. Remberee, Nath.”

“Remberee, Kadar.”

He went off around the corner and I looked down at the four coins.

The pouch given me by the Everoinye contained ten silvers and fourteen coppers. I made the obs up to eighteen and closed the pouch. Then I started off to find the recruiting Deldars.

An army was being formed here, and it took little time to discover I was in Tuansmot in the coastal land of Shirrendrin. This was one of the countries in southern Loh which had become independent after the fall of the old Empire of Loh. The town was all abustle as mercenaries from all over marched in to sign up and the townsfolk did their best to fleece them of their worldly possessions before they marched out. Rumor had it that Kov Sing-Lee was assembling this army to march on the neighboring land of Kronenvar. What the reasons might be for this attack no one seemed to know or care. All the talk was of booty.

The climate here was most refreshing after the compost stinks of the jungles. It was a trifle warmer than in my kingdom of Djanduin, over the sea south in Havilfar. I did not expect to see many Djangs here for they do not as a rule venture off as mercenaries. They do get considerable fighting experience, though, not least against the damned Gorgrens infesting the borders. There were all manner of diffs in the town, paktuns with the glitter of silver or gold at throat. I had not been provided with a pakmort or a pakzhan so I was a simple mercenary. There must be a reason for that.

Before I rushed off and signed up, I decided, I'd go for a wet and a meal and find out what the form was.

After the Great Hamalese Wars, as those confused conflicts sprawling across continents and islands were coming to be called in retrospect, there were many mercenaries left tazll and seeking employment. There were a lot of Hamalese in the town, a deuced lot, by Krun!

Knowing Ruathytu, the capital of Hamal, as I did, I fancied I'd be a Hamalese. That was one deception I could carry off without fear—particularly if I claimed to be from Paline Valley.

For a time after the end of the Witch Wars with the death of Csitra, I'd flown around Paz visiting those parts to which I owed allegiance. Nulty, at Paline Valley, had shown me a splendid time. As Hamun ham Farthytu, Amak of Paline Valley, I owned a real and genuine identity. I'd been to Djanduin, Strombor, visited my Clansmen, and all in all a most uproarious time had been had, not least with my two favorite rogues, Nath and Zolta in Sanurkazz. That made me wonder what mischief those two splendid imps, Zilvi and Nafren, whom I'd just taken up out of a Zair-forsaken Magdaggian slave ship at the behest of the Star Lords, were being preserved for in the future.

The twin suns were declining and a little breeze was getting up. As I walked along in search of a suitable tavern I could feel the atmosphere of Tuansmot, for the town as it were seethed with suppressed energy. Everyone could sense the onset of great deeds. There was to be war. Immense booty would flow into the town. Well, as you know, I detest and hate war with a detestation and hatred great under the suns. Why sensible people can't gather around a table and discuss their problems like civilized folk escapes me. The trouble here was, these people wanted to loot the towns of Kronenvar, their next door neighbor. If I was any judge, the inhabitants of Kronenvar would object. Their objections would be made with edged steel.

The Everoinye had sent me here on a matter of observation. When I saw what the matter was I'd know. I most certainly had no wish to get mixed up in some stupid local war. So, as I walked below the black-beamed entrance to The Squish and Queng, I felt great reluctance even to talk to a recruiting Deldar.

Now these thoughts must have cast a nasty expression over my features, for a passing Och gave me a most apprehensive glance. I straightened my shoulders and thrust dark thoughts aside, anticipating a meal and a flagon, and I put on a most pleasing and simple expression. I had no wish to attract unwelcome attention.

Had, I wonder, the Star Lords sent that scared little Och?

The last of the daylight fell through cluttered windows. The floor was wood and well-polished. The tables and chairs were not broken and not dusty. The serving girls were all pleasing and properly dressed. It occurred to me, somewhat belatedly, that I might not have enough cash to pay for a hostelry of this quality. Hesitating, standing in the doorway, I heard a chair crash over.

Instantly, I sprang about. An enormous numim was charging towards me, his lion-man features ablaze, his golden mane flying. He bellowed.

“Hamun! By Krun! Hamun!”

He seized my hand and began pumping it up and down and he clapped his other lion-man's hand about me and battered me on the back. His face was one enormous beam of gold. He went on roaring.

“Chido! Look who's here—it is beyond Havil, I swear. Chido! Where are you?”

The sound of a chair been kicked away preceded a voice saying: “Where am I, Wees? Falling over your chair, that's what. And I do believe it is Hamun, for I see him with my own two eyes. Hamun!”

“Rees! Chido!” I was engulfed by both of them and we were all talking at once, Chido's once-aimless, watery-eyed face now strong with experience beaming as Rees's lion-man face beamed. Somehow we settled at a table, the chair righted, and the wine passed. There was a great deal to talk about and news to pass.

I said: “I flew across to the Golden Winds, Rees, and—”

“Aye, I know. By Krun, I know! All blown away.”

“And I flew down to Eurys, and they told me you'd gone—”

“Gone adventuring with Wees. Aye, by Kwun—for the old fellow wefused to accept my hospitality any longer. He was for a paktun—so—”

I shook my head. “So off you both went. By Krun! What a pair!”

Rees ham Harshur, Trylon of the Golden Winds, and Chido ham Thafey, Vad of Eurys, Hamalese both, were good comrades. They knew me as Hamun ham Farthytu, for I'd lacked the courage to tell them my true identity. So we talked on in a welter of reminiscence and information. Chido, who turned R into W—although I do not always report him as such at length—called for more wine.

Cautiously, I said: “I fear this place may be a little too rich for my purse.”

“Nonsense, Hamun!” The golden numim roar shook the flagons. “We have done well in the mercenary trade. Opaz has had us well in his keeping.”

“Quite wight!” rattled Chido. “Our treat!”

So they'd now openly avowed Opaz! I felt great joy at that, knowing how dubious they'd been about Havil the Green, the official religion of Hamal.

I said: “My thanks—”

They shouted that down. Then Rees said: “I must say we noticed your dress. A spearman? In the ranks? By the Blade of Kurin, tell us, what happened to bring you so low?”

I couldn't help give a glance at the rapier and main gauche each wore. Bladesmen of Ruathytu, we were—or had been.

“Only temporary. You recall the business of the Battle of the Incendiary Vosks?” They'd both been there, I'd seen them in my capacity as Emperor of Vallia, and they had met me as Hamun. They nodded. I went on: “I've a feeling the damned Shanks are due to hit here soon.”

“By Kwun—that is wotten news!”

“This army is for Kronenvar.” Rees pulled at his golden beard. “Kov Sing-Lee is raising it at the behest of a powerful mage.” He lifted his flagon. “He will not be pleased to be diverted from that task.”

“That sounds interesting. A mage is raising this army?”

“Wight. A famous Wizard of Loh. Most mysterious feller.”

“Yes, we're going to attack Kronenvar at his command. When he gets here. But if the Shanks descend on the coast—”

“We'll have to fight the confounded wotten Shanks, won't we? Even Na-Si-Fantong must see that.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter ten

The rain beat down steadily on our entrenchments before the castle of Samral jutting out on the western side of the town of Miliksin. Everyone was wet. We kept our weapons dry as best we could. The smells of the encampments, at least, were half-washed away by the rain.

Rees walked up as I stood staring out at the grey walls of the castle. He wore a massive hooded cloak and the water ran glistening to add to the pools underfoot. Every now and then a rock or an arrow would plummet down onto our entrenchments. Rees shook himself.

“Just lost Nalgre the Foot. Arrow clean through his eye.”

“They shoot well, these Bowmen of Loh.”

“They do.”

Rees and Chido had brought a little force of around thirty men with them, now they were down to twenty two, plus me. I'd willingly agreed to join their band. Because I knew the Star Lords had a purpose in outfitting me as a spearman, I'd insisted I serve in that capacity. Chido in his best military way insisted I take a longbow, so to that I'd agreed. The reason the Everoinye had, I felt sure, was to keep me inconspicuous. They did not wish to attract the attention of Na-Si-Fantong to my presence in his army.

“Kov Sing-Lee will have to order the assault soon.” Rees didn't sound happy about that. We'd done very little against the walls, and the breach was an apology for an opening. “We'll lose men.”

I said: “He'll probably send the Chuliks in first.”

“Makes sense.”

Our army was a rag-tail affair, with little formal organization. Mostly it was composed of small personal bands, like that following Rees and Chido. A small but, thankfully, competent artillery force was provided by a contingent of Hytaks. They kept battering the walls, concentrating on the breach. The trouble was, their catapults were not powerful enough for the task. As we watched, a rock arched from our lines to crack against the grey stone masonry of the curtain wall. A stone was dislodged, and fell into the ditch. At this, a great roar of triumph welled up from our ranks. Rees made a disgusted sound.

“The first today. We'll have to take the so-called breach as it is. Our food won't last much longer.”

“I hear Startigern the Amstrad has fever in his people.”

“Aye.”

The greyness of the sky, the never-ending rain, the mud, the foul rations—and now disease. Truly, this was soldiering as it really is, and not a pretty sight at all, by Krun.

One reason why I persisted lined the road to Miliksin. Every fifty paces or so, each side of the road, a stake had been set up, and some poor wight had been impaled. This was the handiwork of the lords of the town, putting down a pathetic rebellion of the peasants that had started up as soon as the army from Shirrendrin had marched into Kronenvar.

“If only we had some air!” exclaimed Rees, thumping fist into palm. The small voller in which he and Chido had flown in had suffered the fate of far too many airboats. Her silver boxes had gone black, losing all lift and power, so that she was a mere useless hulk.

“What does the kov have—half a dozen vollers?”

“Five. Tyr Nath Ingling's broke down today. Anyway, these people of Loh don't understand vollers.”

“Well, put five in, loaded with troops. That should cause enough confusion to let us scale the breach.”

“Scale! Too right, by Krun!”

Chido walked up along the trench behind the palisade, hunched against the rain. His feet were lost in the water and mud. He greeted us glumly. “It is nearly the hour of mid.”

“Damned Kronenvars!” said Rees in an ugly voice.

Spot on the hour of mid the expected missile flew up from the walls of the town and arched over into our entrenchments. The missile was the body of a man. His throat had been slit after he had been tortured. He was one of a small band of our scouts captured in the first days of the invasion.

This time the missile screamed as he flew through the air. “So they've refined their devilish practices!” Chido sounded wrought up. “I weally do think, if the attack is not successful, we shall have to leave.”

“If the attack fails,” said Rees, a little too drily, “we might not be here to leave.”

Since leaving Hamal they'd adventured through the Dawn Lands and elsewhere. Both now expressed deep distrust of their decision to fly here and join Na-Si-Fantong's expedition. The honor of a mercenary would not be imperiled if he gave formal notice of departure in the wake of disaster. Until that catastrophe, honor compelled them to continue to serve.

I'd not seen the Wizard of Loh, and this was understandable. A spearman in the ranks might see the Kapt of the army when he rode along the ranks with the standard at the commencement of a campaign. The grey eminence at his back would keep himself—or herself—veiled.

The flap of canvas over my position vibrated under the rain and spilled waterfalls every now and again. We were adequately shielded from a bowshot here. When the rain eased I'd have to take shots at any figures moving on the ramparts. They would, of course, shoot back.

A far cry, this, from the whirling romantic dash of a cavalry charge!

So, this was the pattern as we besieged Miliksin.

Naghan the Bristle arrived to take over the watch. He carried his longbow in a round black leather case and his bristly face looked ugly.

“Lahal, Naghan,” I said. “You keep time.”

“L'al,” he replied in his surly Brokelsh way. “By Bakkar! You can take this land and keep it. Better—dump it all down in the Furnace Fires of Inshurfraz. I hate it.”

“The assault will be going in soon, Naghan.” Rees spoke with a hard edge to his voice. “You can enjoy yourself then.”

“I will, notor. By Havil, I will!”

We left Naghan to his post and went off towards the encampments. As is the nature of these things the rain stopped just then. A straggly column of ponshos wandered along towards the camp from the rear, so at least there would be fresh meat tonight. Finding food for an army is a constant nightmare to the quartermasters. Rees must have caught the same thought for he said: “Kov Sing-Lee does his best; but I could wish the Wizard of Loh would open his purse wider.”

I said: “Out here in Loh the folk have little time for their own wizards.”

“That's wight! Funny old business. They weckon the Wizards of Loh should have whacked us when we blattered them.”

“I think most of these countries were glad to see the back of Walfarg,” said Rees as we reached the encampments.

“So you give no chance to a revived Empire of Loh?” I gave Rees and Chido two swift looks as I spoke. “With or without the mages.”

“Not a chance in a Herrelldrin Hell!” and: “Sooner climb back from the Ice Floes of Sicce!”

The various subjects of these casual conversations were let lie there; but one unspoken but immensely important function of Na-Si-Fantong remained. There was a sorcerer of some kind in the castle of Samral. He or she could have played merry hell with our besieging force if Na-Si-Fantong hadn't been along to afford protection. So far, as we understood it, he had done nothing actively hostile against the castle or town, so the chances were that he was being baulked in his turn.

With the easing of the rain the shards of ruby and jade could strike through and begin to steam the ground. Just as we finished eating and were chewing our handful of palines, a messenger called Rees and Chido. Although you could not really call the army Kov Sing-Lee had raised for Na-Si-Fantong a heterogeneous mob, for the troops were all paktuns of one description or another, we were certainly a most disorganized force. There were no regiments or brigades, instead the commanders of each little warband reported to Sing-Lee and took orders direct. Rees and Chido came back from the briefing and their demeanor told me instantly that the assault had been decided on.

“At least the clever Wizard of Loh has done his job.” Chido plunked himself down and took up the tankard I had ready filled.

“He's seen off the sorcerer in the castle.” Rees did not sit but, tankard in fist, strode up and down. “We go in at first light.”

With seven moons in the sky of Kregen, very often night affords no real cover. This night, although not a pitch dark Night of Notor Zan, would see all but the three smaller moons below the horizon at dawn.

“Although that breach is an apology for a way in,” I said. “I'm glad the thing is settled.”

“Aye.”

In a somewhat sombre frame of mind, we made our preparations.

I entertained no hope that we'd surprise the garrison. The star light was bright enough for them to see our columns debouching from the entrenchments. Our ace had to be the five vollers. If they could cause confusion enough to get our Chuliks up into the breach, then we'd stand a chance. Chido and Rees's band were stationed about half way back and our mission was to push forward come what may after the Chuliks.

Silently we shuffled forward in column. I put the little round shield up slanting over my head, everybody else did the same, and we went forward like an animated flower bed. Almost at once the arrows rained down.

Men were struck, and screamed, and fell, kicking. We pushed stolidly on. Noise spurted up from the van, the grim and hideous sounds of strife.

Gradually the light brightened, crimson and emerald flooding in long mingled swathes, streaming colored shadows. Well, many a poor devil on both sides of the walls would never see the Suns of Scorpio rise again.

Now we trampled forward over bodies sprawled face down. Arrows stood thickly everywhere. The screams and shouts and the tinker-hammer of weapons clattered in our ears. Now we were stepping past the bodies of Chuliks, and for all their martial skills, they lay there as dead as any Fristle or Rapa. We approached the breach and found ladders in place and climbed up after the fellow in front and so tumbled over the smashed masonry.

Incoming arrows ceased and I was able to take a cautious glance up. The backs of the fellows going on ahead pushed up and down as they climbed the rubble slope. The brilliant deep green of small branches of vepid bushes we wore tucked into helmet or cap shone as though varnished. A recognition sign was vitally necessary in a ragtail army like this, otherwise we'd be hacking one another to pieces instead of the enemy. The sight reminded me, even then, that I'd felt no particular emotion about that hard brilliant green after my recent experiences in the Eye of the World.

With the rising of the suns the raw stink of freshly spilled blood grew on the air. Soon the stench would be nigh unbearable.

Our little band led by Rees and Chido pushed on with the rest. The orders were simple. Break in, slay the enemy, loot. Chance had not brought me to this time and place, for I was here for a reason and I knew that if I allowed myself to be carried with the tide I might miss the mark. Believing in the hand of Fate is all very well, you have to give a few hard strokes yourself to cut across the tide from time to time.

My heart leaped as I saw a tall armored form face down and sprawled in death. That quick involuntary moment of terror for Inch was unnecessary as I knew. There was no need to turn him over. A party of Ng'grogans served with the army, for Ng'groga was just along the coast. I pushed on.

Down from the walls with a maze of streets ahead and the castle to the side, the triumphant besiegers began to fan out, chasing running foes and searching for booty.

The scenes that follow an uncontrolled sack of a town are unpleasant. I stared about, wanting none of that. Rees and Chido were following orders and heading for the inner gates to the castle. The rest of our band were clearly torn between loot and duty; but Rees maintained a high level of discipline. Anyway, you could almost see them thinking, there'd be more and better treasures in the castle of Samral. I judged my objective lay there, too.

Our fliers had done their work, disgorging a surprise party, and we came up to the inner gates in time to see the last of the enemy and the victorious forward rush of our Chuliks.

We all rushed into the castle.

The place was in no wise one of the great and marvelous castles of Kregen. Its grey stone walls enclosed a sizeable area, roofed in timber and tile, and there'd be a maze of corridors and rooms, no doubt. All the same, I was not impressed by the castle of Samral.

As is the nature of these things in a confused assault, parties are split up and nice starting organizations dwindle into one or two fellows prodding ahead with little contact with their comrades. We came out to an inner ward, and the courtyard looked abruptly ominous. Deep shadows lay all along the eastern walls and the glow of red and green burned on the west.

At my side Horvil ham Vaherne gave a little surprised grunt. I did not turn to look at him but dodged back instantly into the shadows of the gateway through which we'd just walked. Another shaft glanced off the masonry, and a third pinged up off the flagstones where I'd been standing.

Vaherne collapsed. The Lohvian shaft through his neck above the corselet rim snapped as he pitched forward and rolled over. Abruptly, the assault on the castle of Samral had turned ugly, in a personal sense.

At my back Chido said: “Poor old Horvil. He was down on his luck when he joined us.”

“We won't cross that open courtyard,” I said. “Where's a door?”

In the side of the gateway a narrow door led onto a spiral staircase leading up. Chido had with him the twins, Orgren and Nath Fernon, a couple of hefty Rapas, loaded with weapons. Their grey feathers bristled, and Nath's beak was bent lopsided from an old wound. Chido rapped out: “Up with you!”

They went up willingly enough, shields high. Chido flung me a glance.

I started up after them, half-turning to ask a stupid question.

“Where's Rees?”

“Opaz alone knows. He rushed off roaring—”

“He'll be all right.”

Up we climbed to come out into a long gallery that led around the courtyard below. Narrow windows on both sides indicated the builders of the castle anticipated making a stand in this place. The defenders had abandoned it already, withdrawing to the far side from which the arrow had spat to kill Horvil ham Vaherne. We hurried along the deserted gallery.

Around the corner of the yard the gallery led into a series of rooms all deserted and very few with anything worth pocketing. Orgren Fernon said: “Where's the loot? By Havil, there must be better stuff than this.”

“Clear that Bowman away and we'll see.” Chido spoke with a rasp. How changed he was from the dear old goggling-eyed, chinless Chido I'd first met!

Now we went along with very great caution. We were approaching the point directly opposite the gateway. If the set up of rooms was not favorable—and any builder of defensive works would make sure they did not favor an attacker—then we could be in for a nasty surprise. Chido pushed forward to the front. Whilst I was not happy about that, it was a requirement of the job.

In the event we rushed into the target room to find it empty. An overturned bowl of squashed palines remained the only evidence of anyone having been here and shooting Horvil ham Vaherne.

“By Rhapaporgolam the Reiver of Souls!” spat Nath Fernon. He was strung up with nervous anticipation, and he showed his disgust forcibly. “This place is as useless as a one-handed archer!”

“Try the other door.” Chido spoke perfectly calmly.

Orgren and his twin checked the door and we went through into a room overlooking the next courtyard. Besides being deserted the place was dusty and smelled of damp. The evidence now was pretty clear that this part of the castle had been unused for some time. Chido looked through the window and gave a tiny gasp of surprise. We joined him.

The courtyard was a shambles. Dead and dying warriors lay everywhere. The slant of the suns threw up the grisly details pitilessly.

“Theirs and ours,” snapped Chido.

“Someone got here first.” I was gazing down hoping not to see the dead form of a glorious golden numim sprawled among the blood.

The two Rapas were now in an extremely ugly mood seeing their chances of loot evaporating with every moment that passed. Sounds of fighting carried to us from both left and right. Chido spoke harshly.

“You'll get your crack at some booty. Let's push on.”

We rushed back through the rooms we'd already traversed, turned at the corner and headed deeper into the castle. At the end of a long picture gallery—although all the pictures were absent and only rectangles of darker color along the walls showed where they'd been—we found a heap of dead men jamming the doors open. Past them more bodies at intervals told us we were nearing the fighting in this part of the castle as our forces pushed the defenders back. A wounded Chulik sat with his back against the wall stoically binding up his leg from which the blood dropped. One of his tusks had been snapped off at the silver band and his face shone bloodily.

“Who is leading up front?” demanded Chido.

“Likshu the Treacherous may know, notor. I do not.”

We left him and pressed on. The noise up ahead grew.

Dead and wounded littered the floor as we advanced through chambers that increased in richness. The two Rapas brightened up, although Nath did growl: “They'll be pocketing everything in sight before we get there.”

Now the rooms were sumptuously furnished, with tapestries and couches and statuary. The only treasures left were those too heavy or bulky to be snatched up as the fighting went forward. A golden statue could always be taken up after the victory. A priceless carpet of Walfarg weave could be rolled up and carried off later on.

We were still a floor up from the ground so that when we came out into an imposing vaulted chamber we could look down from a railed gallery. This place was used as a banqueting hall and must also be the room from which the lord of the castle dispensed justice, for a fancy throne occupied a dais at the far end. Across the floor men fought and died. The brilliant green of vepid leaves glinted in the light falling from arched windows. Our men were surging forward over the floor, and the defenders resisted with a desperation that suggested they intended to fight to the death. The two Rapas let out yells of rage and triumph and dashed down the stairs to join the combat. Chido looked at me. I shook my head.

“It's just about all over.”

“That's vewytwue, Hamun, but—”

“But nothing. You'll get your share as a lord when the booty is divvied out. No sense in getting killed in a stupid fracas like this.”

“It's Wees I'm thinking of.”

“I know. But he's not down there. Anyway—”

Then I stopped speaking abruptly. A bunch of Chuliks hammered into a last knot of defenders, cutting them down and scattering the few who ran. As I watched, the bulky form of Na-Si-Fantong broke from his bodyguard of Yellow Tuskers and dashed for the throne. He bent over the seat and what he did I couldn't see. In the next instant he straightened up, turning so I could see clearly. He grasped a small wooden box in his left hand. He flipped the lid open and I swear his eager face glowed with reflected redness.

So, there before my eyes, was the reason for this whole army and war and siege and conquest. Right there, and grasped in the clutching hands of the Wizard of Loh, Na-Si-Fantong!

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter eleven

At my instinctive reaction and instant movement, Chido said: “I understood you to say it would be inadvisable to go down there.”

My gaze was fixed on the sorcerer below on the throne dais with the box clutched in his hands. His Chuliks surged about him, forming a wall of protective steel. I paused on the top step and turned my head back to shout something to Chido. His appearance astonished me. He was staring up over my head and on his face was such an expression I could not put a name to it. He held his shield up in a reflex action, as though warding off a blow.

I whirled. The cause of Chido's consternation jumped into focus, and then out again, so that I blinked as though a powerful light had abruptly shone into my eyes.

High on the wall between the narrow arched windows a round black spot glowed. The ebon darkness pulsed with a radiance that emanated black light. The spot grew. It swelled like a bubble of shining inky shadows.

Swiftly it bloated and now glinting sparkles of silver shot through the blackness like fireflies on a night of Notor Zan.

The uproar in the chamber died. I did not look down; but I guessed men were standing, gaping, staring in utter fascination at this awesome apparition. Chido said something and burbled away into silence. That silence held the entire banqueting hall in thrall.

In the exact centre of the black hemisphere a brilliant nodule of green burst into existence. The nodule sparked and spat, changing into a star shape that broadened, peeling back the black like the skin of a grape.

For a heartbeat as the green star flowered I tore my gaze away and snatched a fleeting glance down at the dais. Na-Si-Fantong stood, tall and bulky, clutching the wooden box to his chest. His thick face glared up with a mad look of passion and resentment and—I could not be sure—and perhaps a touch of apprehension.

When I swiveled back the green star had displaced the ebon radiance. In a vertical line in the centre of the star the greenness thickened. Then I saw it was not thickening but that some tall thin object was forcing itself through the green—through the solid stone of the wall. As though that was a signal that released the superstitious fears of the mercenaries, shouts of terror spurted up. Some of the paktuns were running, some stayed rooted to the spot. The Chuliks clustered about their employer and, give them their due, they stuck there. Now I was able to switch my observation from the Wizard of Loh back to the green star and then back again. Na-Si Fantong lifted his right hand. He made a gesture. Instantly I stared at the wall where the tall thin object now projected high into the chamber.

Recognition hit me. It was the prow of a ship!

The bows swelled as more of the craft sailed through the solid stone wall. She was not overlarge, and her double keel quickly curved up as she eased through to flaunt up into a high stern. The vessel sailed into the air and turned and settled to the floor.

Now I could look down on her. She had a flat deck and this deck was crowded with Katakis, glittering with armor and steel. Their fierce downdrawn brows and menacing eyes glowered on the Chuliks. Then I saw who sat at the stern of the vessel, resplendent, imperious, dominating and utterly in command of this situation.

From artificially widened shoulders his robes swept away like a sullen cloud of smoky red. His scaled shirt glistened and his bone white hands grasped the haft of a double-handed axe. Bone white his face, with a thick brown beard, no moustache, a lipless mouth clearly revealing fang-like unhuman teeth, nostril slits—yes, I knew that devil face!

On this occasion he did not have with him his followers, naked and half-naked girls in chains, weird other-dimensional creatures, worm-like entities, little scurrying tailed horrors, all claw and fang. He sat in a chair of simple proportions, covered with skins, and he radiated such an aura of absolute contempt and power as to overwhelm.

I forced myself to look at his axe. Double-handed, it was not a great Saxon pattern axe such as that used by Inch. It was double-bitted and each blade curved fantastically, pierced and re-curved and each edge was serrated in sawtooth jaggedness. A very imposing and magniloquent weapon—yes, of a surety. A practical fighting man's implement? I'd bested him when he used a more serviceable axe—was this new one in a different class, possessed of magic, invincible when pitted against a mere mortal man's cold steel?

The ship settled and the Katakis, bladed daggered tails high, leaped for the dais.

My estimation of this fellow's axe play had dropped drastically when we'd had our little dust up. Now I questioned his tactical skill. His Katakis swarmed up onto the dais where the Yellow Tuskers met them with a ferocity to equal and overpower theirs. He'd have done better to have dropped down on them, with the advantage of the high ground.

He wore the helmet that could so easily confuse with its high crown-like curve of tridents, its peaked visor like a barracuda's head in gold, its centre a ferocious fish-head, all exposed needle-teeth. Again I took the fancy that a swift, scared glance would confuse all too easily—was this a man with a fish-face helmet, or was he a fish with a man's face as a neck ornament? Man or Fish, he had brought only Katakis to do his physical work; there were no Shanks with Carazaar.

Chulik and Kataki clashed in a bitter struggle. I stepped back onto the gallery and unlimbered the longbow Chido had given me.

Clean and swift the draw and loose. The shaft sped true. The long arrow struck squarely into Carazaar's unhuman face. The shaft caromed from the skin-covered chair back, splintered into the air. Again, Carazaar was an illusion, projecting his image here by his kharrna. He was in lupu somewhere, sitting in his throne, and yet he was here commanding his minions to his bidding.

And that bidding sent a trembling feeling of frustrated anger through me. The devil had at last shown his hand. Carazaar, too, coveted the Skantiklar.

What he wanted it for, what he might accomplish with it, I did not know. I did know no good would come of it, none at all.

At my back Chido let out a yell followed instantly by the scrape of steel against steel. I whirled. Four warriors hurled themselves along the gallery and Chido was engaged with two of them whilst the other two made for me. None wore bright green vepid in their helmets. With some of Seg's speed I nocked a fresh arrow and shafted the first fellow. The longbow swung back out of the way, the little round target shield snapped forward and the spear slanted up. I charged forward.

These fellows were churgurs, sword and shield men. They were absolutely confident they could knock Chido and me over and escape the disaster. They were not apims, being bulky, two-armed, tail-less zaffims. Their faces were lumpy, as it were unformed, with large brow ridges and squashed noses, and their jaws were narrow to the point of nonexistence. Yet in those sharp jaws stood snaggly teeth that could tear off a fair old chunk of flesh. This zaffim decided he'd just rush me, knock me down with his shield and trust my little targe would never deflect his lynxter as he stabbed home.

In that first flashing glimpse of them I'd decided their shields really were too large for inside work. All right for the line, yes; now I sidestepped and as he blundered past stuck him with the spear. He wore a banded corselet and the spear point snugged in above the neck rim. I withdrew with alacrity, fearing for Chido in his unequal fight.

Dear old Chido handled himself superbly. He'd wounded one of them and was tinker-hammering at the other, trying to get past that damn great shield. I rushed across and gave the wounded zaffim an almighty kick up the rear and yelled in the old foretop hailing roar: “Get off out of it, fambly, before you get dead!”

He yelped more in consternation than anything, gave me a single shocked glance and then scampered off towards the exit. I hit the other one a shrewd and unfair blow, using the butt to thump him in the back whereat he staggered forward so that Chido, quick as a leem, smacked him down.

“No need, Hamun, I judge, to kill the hulus.” Chido spoke with the slightest hint of puffing. His face was bright with passion; but he was in command of himself.

“Yes.”

The fellow I'd shafted was gone; but the other one with a hand to his neck where the blood dribbled, was staggering away. Chido hauled his man up and pushed him off. The zaffim needed no further urging and ran.

“Perhaps,” I said, with meaning, “they were not the yetches who catapulted our fellows.”

“Perhaps.” Chido was already wiping a rag along his sword. “I wish I knew where Wees was.”

I worried over our comrade Rees, but I leaped for the gallery rail and stared down into the chamber.

Many dead Katakis lay on the steps leading up to the dais, and some Chuliks were dead and a few wounded. The remaining Katakis were crowding back. Well, that was the expected outcome of that confrontation.

Chido joined me and, in that instant, he said: “Opaz!”

The Chuliks were moving slowly, more slowly, and then they stopped. They stood like statues. Na-Si-Fantong, hand high, showed a purple and congested face up to Carazaar in his seat aboard his boat, for the devil had lifted off and was floating above the floor. Na-Si-Fantong clutched the little wooden box to his chest. He shook like an aspen. The Katakis stopped retreating and a bunch moved back up the steps. The Wizard of Loh shook himself, and then his trembling fined out and he, too, stood stock still.

Chido said: “Confounded magic—”

A Kataki took the box and in the moment it left Na-Si-Fantong's grasp the lid snapped open in the Kataki's hand. A red streak lanced from the box up to Carazaar—and vanished.

In a bunch the Whiptails ran back, the boat lowered for them and they climbed aboard. There were less now than when they'd begun; but that had never upset a Kataki before and was not likely to now. They held life cheap, including the lives of fellow Whiptails.

The boat lifted and began to revolve.

I said to Chido: “I fancy that concludes the entertainment for today. Step back out of sight.”

“Is there nothing we can do? No, of course not.”

Now the reason the Star Lords had given me a little shield and a spear became crystal clear. I attracted no attention after a fleeting glance. I was just a simple spearman in the ranks. We stepped back and, just for a moment, the stern of the vessel lifted into sight as she nosed out through the green star in the stone wall. The star vanished, the black globe of radiant darkness formed and dwindled and died. Carazaar was gone—and with him another of the rubies of the Skantiklar.

I was left to contemplate the unpalatable fact that I'd failed to obtain the ruby. Worse than that, instead of Na-Si-Fantong as our chief adversary for the possession of the Skantiklar, we now had to face Carazaar, the éminencegrise behind the Shanks.

A voice roared out in triumph at our backs. “I've done it! By Krun, I've done it! Hoko has at last turned his face away and fortune has—”

“Do be quiet, Wees, old fellow. There's nasty magic down there.”

“Magic?” The booming numim voice softened. “Hanitch take it.”

Very carefully I put an eyeball over the rail. The dais was empty.

The last of the Chuliks trailed off out of the far doorway.

There was no point now chasing after the sorcerer. From what I knew of his character he'd already be planning ways and means to regain the ruby. The ugly thought occurred to me to wonder just how many of the red baubles this devil Carazaar now had in his possession. My job now was to rejoin my friends and consult with our comrade Wizards and Witch of Loh.

“Phew!” said Chido on a breath. “Can't say I've ever liked messing about with confounded magics.”

“Nor me!” agreed Rees. Then, in a light eager voice: “Look at this!”

We turned to him. He'd been in a fight all right, but his sword had been cleaned and was back in its scabbard. His shield was thrust up on the point of his left shoulder. He held out a brass-bound balass box.

“A Jikaida box,” said Chido. “Aye. And, see, look what's in it!”

The moment I saw I felt an enormous gladness for Rees well up in me. The box was jammed with gems of every description. It was a fortune.

“Splendid!” cried Chido. “Now the estates of the Golden Wind will—”

“They've all blown away long since.” Rees swelled his chest. “I'll start afresh, somewhere else. Opaz will aid me, I know.”

Now after the Battle of the Incendiary Vosks when I'd parted company with Rees and Chido I'd been exceptionally busy over the business of Csitra and the Witch War. When that dust up had finished at the hunting lodge in Yumapan known as the Eye of Imladiel there had been time to go back to see Nedfar in Ruathytu. Nedfar was a man of the utmost integrity. Where in many men to be seated on the throne of empire by another person and his armies would bring resentment rather than gratitude, Nedfar had simply thanked me and we had gone forward together as allies. So I'd put in a word for Rees. Nedfar was aware of the good work Chido and Rees had done in the battle, and before, and made immediate arrangements to find a vacant estate or two.

Since the golden lion man had taken himself off abroad, and Chido with him, nothing had so far happened. I had to be careful when I spoke.

I said: “The last time I was in Ruathytu I picked up all manner of gossip. You know how it is. I did hear that the Emperor Nedfar was mightily pleased with your actions at the Incendiary Vosks. He knew of your difficulties with the wind blowing your estates away. I think he has in mind to find you others, a vadvarate of a certainty.”

Before the numim could speak Chido burst out: “Marvelous! I've always said, Wees old fellow, you are worth more than a trylon, a vad at least and a kov for pweference. We must return at once.”

“We-ell—”

“That seems a good idea,” I put in, my work done.

“You'll come with us, Hamun? Of course you will!”

“Ah, well, now—” My future tasks lay in Loh, of that I felt convinced. I'd like to go roistering with these two in the Sacred Quarter of Ruathytu once more. The dichotomy in apparent character of the Hamalese had always fascinated me. When they'd been the enemies of Vallia we'd always seen them as a miserable folk, singing mournful songs, obsessed with their Laws. Yet the Bladesmen ruffled in the Sacred Quarter and there were many bright sparks like Rees and Chido. Oh, yes, I'd had some splendid times.

“We'll set Wees up in his new lands and then we'll—”

“I can't be certain of that until the new emperor confirms it.” Rees shook his golden-maned head. “We were siding with old Hot and Cold.”

“Oh Wees! Only because the damned Vallians poked their long noses in.”

“I suppose so. Old Hot and Cold was no good for Hamal, anyway. I saw the Vallian Emperor, on the battlefield. His people fought magnificently. He was—impressive. Funny thing, he reminded me of someone. I could have sworn I'd met him before, yet, of course, that's impossible.”

I kept my old beakhead placid and my black-fanged winespout shut.

“First thing is to collect our men and then see what Na-Si-Fantong is up to. We'll have to tell him the campaign is over for us.”

I couldn't help saying: “The fellow who became Emperor of Vallia was dragged at the tail of one of Queen Thyllis's calsanys through Ruathytu.”

“And I've told you before I considered that disgusting at the time.”

“So you did, Rees, so you did.”

“A wotten thing to do, even to a Vallian.”

I stared at dear old Chido and I knew, somewhat heavily, that even now I couldn't unburden myself, tell him and Rees I was not only a Vallian but was that self-same Dray Prescot who had become the Emperor of Vallia. What they'd say to the notion of an Emperor of Emperors, an Emperor of Paz, I just couldn't contemplate. I remained Hamun ham Farthytu, the Amak of Paline Valley.

We went out, and went cautiously, for who knew how many of the defenders lurked in the shadows thirsting for revenge.

This red ruby of the Skantiklar was gone, and that depressed me with the terrors and horrors that must follow. I tried to take some comfort from my comrade Rees's good fortune—but I made heavy weather of it, I can tell you, by Krun.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter twelve

For one awful moment of terror I imagined, as the blue glow of the Scorpion faded, that I was back on Earth.

The whitish yellow radiance falling about me did not come from a little yellow sun but from concentric rings of lamps, shining upon a pleasant glade among rhododenrons and hydrangeas. The air tasted full of the fragrance of many flowers banked in solid beds of colour. The grass shone a lustrous green. Butterflies flitted by. Above the lamps the sky remained aloof and indistinguishable. I was not on Kregen, of that I felt confident, so I stared about, alert for what might chance next.

The phantom blue Scorpion had taken me up as we rested after the siege of the castle of Samral. Rees and Chido would wonder where I'd gone. Would the Star Lords fashion another excuse for my absence?

Now I have mentioned that although it appears I spend my time with the Everoinye slanging them rotten and attempting to keep myself from being contemptuously hurled back four hundred light years to the planet of my birth, the truth, of course, is that the whole situation is so fraught with terror and the anticipation of terror that my mind is held in a kind of stasis. The Star Lords wield power of so immense a scale it surpasses normal imagination. My reflexes become automatic. Yes, there were many questions I could think of in more rational moments on Kregen, but to bring them to mind facing the Everoinye is an altogether different order of rationality.

So, now, when the clanging voice resonated through the clearing I felt once again that familiar tightening of all my senses.

“Dray Prescot! Where is that which you observed and were sent for?”

I swallowed down hard. “I expect you know. That benighted Carazaar took it—”

“Oh, yes, we know, Dray Prescot.”

A hissing at my back brought me about sharply. A wooden brass-bound chest skimmed across the grass and halted at my side.

“Replace your dress.”

It was borne in on me that I still wore the leather gear and carried the little targe and spear. Philosophically, I shrugged them off and dumped them all back into the chest. This was more normal, facing the Star Lords stark naked.

The sequence of automatic actions must in some way have unclogged my brain, or jolted it into action. I remembered a question the answer to which I would like to hear from these superhuman beings. I kept that question like a little nugget of gold in my head, hugging it, concentrating on it, ready to spring it when I judged the time right.

“We warned you Carazaar was a formidable opponent.”

“He's that, all right.”

If they thought I was going to plead guilty and beg forgiveness then they had another thought coming. Sure, I'd changed my attitude to them—or attempted to—but I felt instinctively they'd not believe a new cringing Dray Prescot after the uncouth rough with whom they were familiar.

I did feel it prudent to speak up, saying: “There was nothing I could do. The fellow has an impressive amount of kharrna.”

If I found myself back on Earth in the next heartbeat I wouldn't then be surprised. As ever, that calamity must be prevented.

I said: “Touching these ideas of a new Empire of Loh—”

Whether or not the ploy to distract their attention actually worked or not, I, of course, couldn't say. Probably they were prepared to talk on this subject in any case. I felt a genuine gush of relief when the clanging voice spoke. “You preserved the life of Mul-lu-Manting and she fanatically desires this new Empire of Loh. You have met Queen Satra who regards herself still as the Empress of Loh, a true Queen of Pain. Between them they may accomplish...” The voice paused and when the Star Lord spoke again I marveled. Did I detect a note of humor in the words, like that last bubble in a glass of champagne? “Well, Dray Prescot, the human who has the yrium. What is your opinion?”

If my mouth hung open foolishly I wouldn't have been surprised.

Well, sink me! I'd let ‘em have it, both barrels!

“There are advantages and disadvantages. Many of the people of Loh, and particularly of Walfarg and Tsungfaril, are listless, lackadaisical. One has to judge that they would not give a good account of themselves in any confrontation with the Shanks. Should Walfarg be re-united into the empire and be provided with strong leadership, resistance should follow.”

“Yes?”

“It is my view that most of the other independent nations of Loh would resent any attempt by Walfarg to impose their old empire.”

“Go on.”

“Against that one must set the unsettling effects. Should Walfarg persist, then we'd end up fighting among ourselves instead of fighting Shanks.”

“That is an eventuality you must prevent.”

I clamped my harsh old lips shut. The kind of jobs these Everoinye handed out were mind boggling in their immensity.

“How in a Herrelldrin Hell would I do that?”

“You have the yrium.”

“And that's supposed to be enough?”

Silence fell.

I broke that uncanny quietness. I spoke up brashly.

“Tell me, Star Lords, do you or do you not want the Empire of Walfarg or the greater Empire of Loh to be reformed?”

If they came back with their infernal chorus: “That is not for you to know,” I honestly felt I'd crash to the ground and start tearing up fistfuls of grass and chewing on them like a demented man.

Instead: “One balances the other. The Shanks remain the priority. Anything forwarding that end must be used.”

“All right. So Mul-lu-Manting doesn't antagonize the people and Satra gets to run her new Empire of Walfarg. Yes, we'd stand a better chance against the Fish Faces. But the unpleasant consequences—”

“That is a question for the Emperor of Paz.”

For a black instant sheer disgust overwhelmed me. Not so much despair as angry denial. How the hell was I supposed to cope with all these problems? For a start, I couldn't see Satra taking orders from anyone, let alone that she-leem Licria if she got to take over.

I got out, half-choking: “Very few folk want to know about any footling Emperor of Paz.”

“Then you must make them.”

“I've seldom been in the business of making people do anything—”

“In that, Dray Prescot, patently, you lie.”

Because they were who they were I couldn't smack a glove into their faces and challenge them to a duel or sequence of duels. Anyway, I suppose what they said was true enough. I could remember times when folk had done what I wanted—as you who are listening to my narrative can testify—without any real understanding on my part why they chose to do so. This was all bound up with that mysterious and frightening power, the charisma Kregans call the yrium. The opposite, the evil power, is called the yrrum.

The scents wafted fragrantly, a little breeze blew and the varnished leaves of the rhododendrons rustled harmoniously. The resonant voice echoed about the clearing. “As to Carazaar and his interest in the Skantiklar, all things must eventuate in each epoch. Ways will be found.”

I wondered, if the next eventuation was to take place in the next epoch, how they expected me to be still around to find any ways.

A familiar hissing spurted and I turned to see a battered wooden chest bound in black iron trundling over the grass. When it stopped at my side I didn't lift the lid. I waited.

“Dress.”

Up went the lid on the instant and I saw the brave old scarlet breechclout. Well now! Yes, my kit was there, all of it was there. The lesten hide belt with the dulled silver buckle, the heavy Bowie-type knife I persist in calling my old sailor knife, the rapier and main-gauche—I pulled them out one after the other. And then I stopped stock-still. I felt utter shock.

The Lohvian longbow and quiver were there, and the Krozair longsword. But they were placed over and half concealed another scabbard, another sword.

I pushed aside the longbow and longsword. I reached out for the scabbard.

I did not recognize the hilt. By that I mean, this sword was not one I owned, and I had only one, that of Alex Hunter, back in Esser Rarioch.

Slowly, reverently—and this is not blasphemous in connection with an instrument of destruction—I drew the blade from the scabbard. A one handed sword, this, fitting the fist and becoming a part of the body. The cunningness—the genius—is this, that when you strike with a Savanti sword which is lightness personified, in the instant of contact the lightness becomes weight, becomes heavy with devastating force. Oh, yes, there is no sword I knew of on Kregen—including the great Krozair longsword—to equal the Savanti Blade.

Did I hear a murmur of laughter, mingling with the rustle of the leaves?

“There is much for you to do, Dray Prescot. Even the Savanti, misguided though they are, secluded in far away Aphrasöe, have their uses.”

I said: “The Savanti sword is used only for good.”

“In that we would like to concur.”

Slowly, thoughtfully, I strapped on my gear. I had been thrown out of Aphrasöe by the Savanti, tossed, as I'd believed, out of Paradise. I'd found new paradises in Kregen. I suspected that the Savanti wished for all of Kregen to become the domain of apims like themselves, like me. They saw no future for diffs, the splendid array of folk who were not Homo sapiens sapiens. If the Everoinye meant that the Savanti were misguided in that, then I agreed.

“You will pursue the search for the Skantiklar and you will resist the Shanks. The two tasks are now intertwined.”

I opened my mouth and the world drenched itself in blue. The gigantic shape of the phantom Scorpion hovered and drew me up into its embrace. Head over heels, up I went, enveloped in blue coldness. Hurtling I went thumping down onto a damned hard chunk of rock that knocked all the wind out of me. I lay there, and if I mentioned Makki Grodno and the Divine Lady of Belschutz, I fancy I had just about every right in the book.

“Stop lollygagging around skulking down there, cabbage. Get up here and pitch in!”

Fighting the dizziness that wanted to turn my head around on my shoulders and twist my inward parts outward, I clawed up and stared about.

Another damned cavern! A blasted cave with hard rocks and syatras and an omnipresent pearly glow. I was tumbled down a little cleft. On the ledge above me Mevancy was swishing and swirling her sword very prettily against half a dozen fellows in black robes, with red brilliant eyes, all lethally intent on chopping my comrade into bite-sized chunks. One of them screeched and tumbled backward with his face a red pudding, so she had some of her bindles left. I levered myself up, unlimbered the Krozair brand and charged into action.

Do not ask why I did not draw the superb Savanti Sword. I just whirled up over the ledge and cut the first two down with diagonal slashes that were controlled to a nicety and I whirled to slip a blade that whirred past and then I ducked and came up with my sword snouting and so swirled after the blade thrust and withdrew into a long slicing cut that doubled-up the next. Mevancy had seen off the last and so we two stood there, staring at each other among the tumbled corpses.

Her color was high and her breast rose and fell under the mail shirt. Her forearms looked nearly empty of bindles. Oh, yes, not a great and stunning beauty, my comrade Mevancy, but splendid and great-hearted with her beauty shining from within. Oh, and, yes, she had a cutting way with her and a sharp tongue that I relished.

“Well, cabbage, and where have you been?”

“Round and about. I'll tell you—but you are all right, pigeon? We were whisked off and then you—”

“You mean you!”

“Um,” I said. There was so much to say and catch up with. She would see our separation as me leaving her. Selah! “What did—?”

“Oh, I had to go to assist a kregoinye, Strom Irvil—”

At this I burst out with a raucous bray of laughter.

Her eyes widened and she looked thoroughly shocked.

“Cabbage!”

“Strom Irvil of Pine Mountain! So he was in it again, was he? And I'll bet he called you Zaydo—”

“He did, the presumptuous onker!”

“You're here, so everything went well.”

“Yes. I arrived to be attacked on the instant and then you fell down that cleft and lay there taking your ease like a—like a—”

“Back to the old cabbage days, right?”

“Oh, you!”

So we were comrades once again and ready to face what might come.

What did come revealed itself as Mevancy gasped: “The shints!” Advancing towards us among the rocks and clearly illuminated by the pearly light, a whole bunch of men in black robes surged on, weapons glittering.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter thirteen

Firmly, she said: “We'll have to run for it, cabbage.”

Without hesitation or any stupid suicidal heroics, I agreed.

Mind you, by Zair, that brash young Dray Prescot who'd first landed on Kregen might well have gone whooping down on the black-robed fanatics brandishing his sword. Had I been alone I believe I might well have seriously considered that as an option. Running away from enemies was not a habit of mine. Discretion, as they say in Clishdrin, may be the better part of valor; but Valor, as they say in Valka, is the better part of the Person.

We hopped and skipped over the rocks and darted aside from the clutching tendrils of that damned unhealthy syatra and so went running helter-skelter into the mouth of a tunnel.

A foul stench gusted up, as of congested sewers. A partially decomposed corpse deliquesced just inside the tunnel, riddled with darts. In the wall a wooden flap dangled from a dark slot.

“Poor devil!” rapped out Mevancy and she leaped over. “Thank Gahamond he tripped that trap.”

“And thank Opaz the people were petrified and so didn't come along and reset the devilish contraption.”

What, also, this meant was clear. Some of our party had been this way already, resuscitating those held in the stasis spell. We sped on.

The slapping of leather sandals on the rock at our backs echoed eerily. The walls shone with nitre. The air gradually sweetened. We ran on and debouched into a cavern where a fountain played at the center and a pool lapped almost to the sides. The ledge was wide enough for one.

“Have a care, cabbage.”

“Oh, rest assured, pigeon, I shall. But you—I recollect you seem to like—” and then I shut up. What the hell was I thinking about to remind a lady of the time she'd fallen in the water and deadly jaws stuffed with razor-sharp teeth had bitten for her? Onker! I finished: “Two openings up ahead. Left or right?”

“When I've looked at each I will make the decision.”

“Quidang!”

The first opening led onto a featureless tunnel, as did the second.

I looked back across the pool. The opening through which we had emerged was just visible past the fountain. The fanatics following us would probably split their party here to check each tunnel. I unlimbered the Lohvian longbow, gave the string a few testing pulls and then selected an arrow.

“What the blue blazes are you up to, cabbage?”

“A spot of target practice will actively discourage them, and might knock enough off to make them change their minds about pursuit.”

“We-ell—”

Over the splashing tinkling of the fountain the sound of hurrying footfalls brought the bow up. The first fellow through the opening halted and then started to edge carefully around. I let him go and the next and the next. Four of them were walking delicately around and others appeared.

“What are you waiting for, onker? Shoot!”

“All in good time. Erthanfydd, as Seg would say, demands perfection in target selection as well as speed and accuracy.”

“Oh, you!”

The bow drew smoothly and I let fly. The shaft hit the black robe at the mouth of the tunnel. Both he and the man immediately pushing on to his rear fell, the shaft skewering both. The little knot just ahead and to the side along the ledge did not panic until two of their number pitched into the water. They attempted to crowd back, knocking another one in and yelling blue murder to one another. I shafted the rest of that bunch and turned my attention to the four originals on the ledge.

After our experiences at the hands of these people it was hard to feel sympathy for them. The rearmost one simply turned around and made a wild dash for the safety of the tunnel. He tripped on the bodies of his companions and went screeching into the water. The next one was spitted through. The penultimate black robe glared about, his head turning, and I could see the mad red glitter of his eyes. He took a shaft through his middle so that left the one who'd first emerged into the cavern of the fountain.

Give him his due. He had courage. He was nearer to us than to his compatriots. He lifted his sword and charged. Well, sympathy has its place; I fancied that here and now any loose sympathy lying about ought by rights to belong to Mevancy and me. He went over screaming.

“H'm,” sniffed Mevancy. “Very pretty.” She nodded across the pool. “They do not seem keen to follow us.”

“I wonder,” I said, putting the bow back. “Would they have gone round that ledge so readily if they'd seen me? The fountain hid me pretty well until I shot.”

“Heroes or cowards, it doesn't matter much now. Come on, cabbage.”

They could have been heroes or cowards, I said to myself; they were certainly a most unlovely lot.

We went along the second tunnel and as we walked, looking everywhere about most carefully, we told each other what had befallen us in our latest dealings with the Star Lords. Strom Irvil of Pine Mountain's problems had been straightened out and Mevancy returned. I gave her a greatly bowdlerized version of my escapades. Both of us felt the Everoinye could clearly foresee some vast and confused confrontation. “It's this devil of a Carazaar. By Spurl!” exclaimed Mevancy. “He's in need of a few bindles.”

She had indeed shot off a lot of the little darts from her forearms and she'd need to eat up well to replace them as quickly as possible. That made me think about food and a wet—and, of course, that was a disastrous thought to occur.

Around us in the sourceless light the rock walls glittered with nitre and a stream tinkled along under trees and bushes. A couple of syatras, bloated, tendril-waving, waited at the exit to the cave. Among the ordinary vegetation I could see none I recognized as edible.

I said: “I wonder what those dratted syatras taste like?”

“Probably like the soles of a calsany herder's sandals.”

“Aye,” I agreed moodily. “Probably.”

“You're not hungry, are you? I had a splendid meal just before I returned.”

That's it! I said to myself. That's bloody it! Those puffed-up Star Lords couldn't even fix me some grub! And they expect me to run about at their beck and call. Well, by the puss infected nostrils and swollen liver of Makki Grodno! Next time I saw ‘em I'd—I'd—Well, then, what would I do? Sure, I was getting back to my raucous old self; the Everoinye remained the aloof powers they had always been.

A little gasp puffed from Mevancy's lips and she stopped stock-still. I'd been walking a little to the side and rear and now, wrapped up in my complaints anent the Everoinye, I collided with her shoulder. About to blurt out something about standing in people's way, I stopped as Mevancy said: “By Spurl! I don't believe it!”

A swift glance at the exit from the cave convinced me that if Mevancy didn't believe, I did.

The vague form of a person stood by the exit and the syatras were going mad. They kept sweeping their tendrils to wrap the person up and transfer the body into the internal organs for leisurely digestion. They kept on doing that. And, each time, the tentacle simply went flailing on through the figure.

The figure wavered about so much and flickered blue and grey by turn it was impossible to recognize the face. I fancied this was Rollo. By this time I felt that Mevancy knew Rollo was a Wizard of Loh—well, all right, an apprentice sorcerer—all the same I did not call out.

For a brief instant the phantom shape coalesced into the body of a well set-up young man wearing a yellow veil across his face and nondescript clothes of some hue between fire-ash grey and bruise blue. There followed the briefest of sounds, something like a chicken's headless squawk, and the figure wisped away.

The syatras were inconsolable.

“What—?”

“Those damn plants look edible to me, pigeon.” I was being horrible to her, I suppose, in our comradeship, yet I feel strongly you will understand. Whipping out the old sailor knife I started across.

“Oh, you!” she yelled. Then: “Come back, you fambly!”

Stopping and half-turning I called: “All right. Won't be long now before someone comes for us.”

She nodded, abruptly firm and purposeful. “Yes, exactly what I thought. There are very few people who are entirely at their ease around sorcery. And next time you want to play games, cabbage, I'll play harder.”

Only moments later, there stood dear old Deb-Lu-Quienyin, leaning on his polished staff, beaming at us. His turban rested on his head exactly level; a spirit level couldn't have lined it up straighter.

“Lahal and Lahal!” he called, walking up. The syatras at his back flailed a couple of tendrils in his general direction. Then they gave up and flopped back in frustrated disgust.

“Lahal, san.” Mevancy held herself very upright. “We are most pleased to see you.”

“Yes, yes, my dear, as I you. Now, this is the way out.”

He gave us directions that would last for a couple of burs or so and promised to return then. We followed his instructions and just at the moment we were faced with three possible routes, Deb-Lu appeared and told us the correct one. The strongest feeling was born in on me that nothing else was being said and no news exchanged because they must wait until we reached the surface.

At his next appearance Deb-Lu gave us directions which he explained would last us a considerable time. So long as we went in the same general direction and continually upwards, we'd be well on the way. In addition, he steered us into a cave where fruits grew and tubers and many of the little animals darted about. So we were able to lunch along the way.

Feeling replete, we went bravely on, ever upwards. Nothing untoward occurred. Time went by. The Realm of the Drums where we'd been lay a damned long way underground, by Vox. Eventually, we entered a cave where idols of a malignant and ferocious appearance clustered around the walls. An altar block bearing familiar and horrible stains stood at the center. Over on the far side Deb-Lu appeared before an idol whose mouth leered with uneven teeth. The thing held a statue of a naked girl in his clawed hands.

Mevancy said nothing; but she drew in her stomach tautly.

Deb-Lu pointed to the girl's dangling foot. He had no need to tell us what to do. I went across, aware of Mevancy's feelings, and pulled that pitiful foot.

The statue revolved. A dim wash of amber and verdigris light spilled into the cave mingling with the omnipresent pearly radiance.

We went through and the statue revolved and closed at our backs.

A grotto surrounded us with walls packed with the most amazing clustering of small statues of an incredibly varied number of life forms. Many dead leaves lay blown across the floor. At the far end a low overhang draped with dependent foliage admitted a weak light—but that light was ruby and jade, the streaming mingled radiance of Zim and Genodras, the twin Suns of Scorpio.

Mevancy started to run across and on the instant I followed.

I need not have fretted. She was by now an old campaigner. At the mouth of the overhang she paused and stood stock-still, looking out.

Joining her I peered between the hanging vines. Jungle. Well, by Krun, and what else apart from the City of Eternal Twilight did I expect to see?

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter fourteen

Delia said: “I am glad to see you are still in one piece, husband.”

And I said, and I opened my mouth—and I could say nothing. I took her into my arms and felt the powerful grip of her arms about me, a quick passionate convulsion of energy, crushing me to her and then releasing. Oh, yes, Delia is a most fiery lady!

After a space there in the aft cabin of Vendayha Lady she let me go and, lightly, said: “And I suppose you will tell me some of it?”

We flew on through thin air and I told her some of it. Mevancy was being looked after and a flushed young subby—a sort of leutnantzurluft—was turned out of his cabin to make room for her. She'd given Delia such a look as the voller picked us up as would have curled me up inside if I hadn't known the exact score. I may say ‘Poor Mevancy!’ from time to time; for all her problems and her despairing hopes, her friendship with Delia dispelled any lingering jealousies—after all, it seems to me perfectly obvious that every woman on Kregen—and on Earth if they knew—would be jealous of Delia. It is to Delia's personality and charm and her supreme tact that she sails serenely above petty jealousies. When the big ones come, as in her dealings with Nyleen Gillois, why, then, my Delia is a lady leem!

So, as I say, we sailed on and brought ourselves up to date. I wanted to know the reactions of Queen Satra to reality.

“Her lips tightened up. She made a little sign with her fingers.” Delia made the sign in the air as we sat at ease. “Of course when we emerged into the city all the people came awake—what a sight!”

“I'd like to have seen it.”

“Licria fainted clean away. That unpleasant trylon Schian fellow went quite green about the gills. Seg laughed.”

Delia had waited for me in the admiral's aft cabin. Captain Erlik had welcomed me aboard after Deb-Lu had guided the suspended basket to where Mevancy and I stood by the grotto. Now she held onto my arm as we talked.

“Seg would. So, by Vox, would I!”

“He also expressed his opinion that he regretted he'd not put a comfortable wager on it. That made Inch laugh.”

“Those two! They're with the Tambu Force so we'll soon have news of Fish Faces running.”

As I'd stepped aboard observing the fantamyrrh, Captain Erlik had addressed me as strom, for I was the Strom of Valka. Oh, yes, I might be the kov of this and the king of somewhere else and have been the Emperor of Vallia, but to the people of Valka I was their strom and that was the beginning and end of it. To further the campaigns ahead the Valkans had made a huge collection to pay for this splendid new vessel, Vendayha Lady. She'd been built in the spanking new yards at Vondium. The silver boxes had come from Balintol. She'd been destined for Drak's forces operating in Pandahem. When news of the plight of their strom in the jungles of Chem reached Valka, they'd simply dispatched Vendayha Lady south to assist.

I said: “We can't have that, my love! Drak needs all he can lay his hands on. Much though I love the folk of Valka, they are part of Vallia, and their duty is to the emperor. If Vendayha Lady was assigned to Pandahem—”

“Hush, hush! Drak sent word to retain her. He was as worried as anyone over your—um—whereabouts.”

I gave her a damned sharp glance. She was paler than usual. I said: “Tell me.”

“It's so silly—well, it's not, really—”

I took her hand off my arm and put my arm about her, arranging ourselves comfortably on the settee, her head on my shoulder. “Spit it out.”

“We're both young still, aren't we? But—but I find it more and more difficult to—to accept—our rackety way of living.”

“The Star Lords command me and the Sisters of the Rose you.”

She remained silent for a moment and no doubt was using some choice phraseology regarding the Everoinye. Then: “Yes. I am a Red Sister. I might have been the chief of the SoR had I so wished.”

I couldn't help myself from blurting out: “So you didn't succumb!”

She did not know that I knew what I did about the SoR through the Star Lords. One day I would tell her, for we'd had enough secrets between us. “Well, husband, I shall renounce active duty with the SoR.”

“I joy over that. I can't chuck off the damned Everoinye.”

“And I cannot much longer endure our separations.” She moved restlessly. “By Mother Jinju the Possessed! I want a proper life with a husband at my side.”

You may well imagine that I felt like a samphron crushed between rollers so that the rich oil might run out. Personally, I could do nothing to halt what the Star Lords commanded; personally, I would do anything—anything at all!—for my Delia. The impasse was complete.

The need to clear my throat before I could speak did not surprise me. “Once we have stopped Carazaar, solved the Skantiklar mystery, and defeated the Shanks, I think the Star Lords might well give me a rest.”

“Until the next time?”

“I was thinking of a more permanent rest.”

She twisted around at this, her hair a tumbled glory, and glared at me, her brown eyes bright with moisture, those gorgeous red lips trembling. “That sounds dreadful, Dray!”

“Oh, I didn't mean that! Come on, let's go on deck.”

“Very well, after—” And she kissed me very thoroughly.

So it was some time later that we went up on deck.

We were flying north and still over jungle. “I thought we'd be flying westerly, chasing over to Tambu—”

“All in good time, all in good time. We've been staying with Queen Satra. The whole situation is fascinating. Deb-Lu advised, so I did.”

I grunted. “H'm, well you can't really argue with Deb-Lu.”

Then I said: “Hold on a mur. What about the people of the City of Eternal Twilight when they woke up from the enchantment? What about the wedding and that bungling oaf casting the spell—?”

Delia smiled. “They acted like the other people we woke up. The sorcerer saw his spell had failed and then he was recognized and jumped on.” She was holding onto my arm with the grip of a zhantilla's jaws. “They were most surprised and dismayed to see one of their towers with its top blown off.”

“Deb-Lu certainly did a fine job there.”

“Na-Si-Fantong had left an apprentice there, somebody like Rollo. Fantong charged him up with extra kharrna; but, of course, he failed.”

“Made you do a spot of aerobatics, though.”

“Quite exhilarating, if you must know!”

So she was getting back to her usual splendid form, thank Zair. She went on to tell me how Queen Satra and some of her retinue, flown home to Hiclantung courtesy of the Vallian Air Service, had been received. The bulk of her forces were marching. One fine day they'd arrive in Hiclantung.

“They do seem a miserable decayed lot, these Walfargians. I don't think more than half a dozen folk raised a cheer when Satra made herself known.”

Very often the habit of Queens of Pain of Walfarg when ascending the throne of the Empire of Loh was to lavish vast sums and immense labor on building a new capital. The old capital might decline a trifle but would remain a powerful city. This habit was known on Earth, obvious examples in the Middle East coming to mind. As a result, when the empire washed away great cities remained standing in various parts of Walfarg. That helped to explain the fragmentation of Walfarg after the catastrophe. Satra had simply resumed her occupation and command of her capital.

“And the incumbent king—what's his name—King Hwangin, wasn't it?”

“I notice you say ‘wasn't’ rather than ‘isn't'.”

“Oh, aye, my love. We're getting the feel of our Satra.”

“Quite. Mind you, every overlord of a great city or goodly lands calls himself a king these days, as the overladies call themselves queens.” She made a little moue with those gorgeous lips. “He vanished. It was given out he welcomed Satra and had abdicated.”

“Inside a sack in the river, I expect.” I shook myself. “Well, I don't want to know much about that.”

“His guard and soldiers—such as they are, the broken-down creatures—cheered for Satra. Gold was spent.”

“So now she'll start up a great war of re-conquest to regain her lands in Walfarg. I don't know. I admit to being uneasy about that.”

“Judging by the apathy of these Lohvians she'll have to hire paktuns.”

“So she will. I don't care to dwell on what would happen if the Shanks put in a really serious attack.”

As we talked so we walked arm in arm up and down the area of the poop immediately forward of the aft fighting tower. This was Admiral's Country and we were not disturbed. Without consciously realizing the fact, I took stock of Vendayha Lady. A fine flier, with three decks, three fighting towers, and two fighting galleries below on each beam, she represented aerial might of a kind relatively new in Vallia, for she had been built at home. Hamal continued to experience difficulties in obtaining supplies of the ingredients for the silver boxes. Hyrklana, too, could not build ships fast enough. The supplies of silver boxes from our friends in Balintol, meager though they were, were absolutely vital. King Filbarrka na Filbarrka and Queen Zenobya had worked wonders on behalf of Vallia out there in Balintol.

A smart young Air Cadet ran up the ladder and saluted with a snap.

“The captain's compliments, majestrix and majister. Would you care to join him for dinner?”

I cocked an eyebrow at Delia and she smiled and said: “That would be nice.” Her smile appeared to transfix the cadet with rapture.

I said: “Your name, cadet?”

He jumped and swallowed and stuttered out: “Jankwa, majister, Larghos Jankwa ti Fakwald.”

“From Hawkwa Country, I see.”

“Aye, majister. I have heard all the tales of Jak the Drang.”

A small rictus at the side of my mouth might have passed as a smile.

“Those were the days. Well, Larghos, there are days like those ahead.”

“Aye, aye, majister!”

He ran off, sliding down the ladder rails. One day, and Opaz alone knew, he might become the Lord High Admiral of the Vallian Air Service, perhaps taking over from Vangar ti Valkanium as he was about to take over from the Lord Farris.

We dressed elegantly and soberly and as the Suns of Scorpio declined in washes of ruby and jade went down to dinner. The rest of the quick flight to Hiclantung passed uneventfully, pleasantly, in good company and much talk. “Hiclantung,” I said to myself. “Well, Queen Lilah's city was well-named.”

* * * *

The reception committee sent by Queen Satra not only met us just outside Wayfarer's Drinnik, they accompanied us into the city, showed us around, insisted on taking care of our every want and, in short, they treated us like royalty. We were housed in a palace. You'd take all week to count the slaves and servants. Anything you wanted was at your elbow almost as soon as you'd asked. The servants moved about sharply. The guards looked alert.

“She's quite a lady, this Queen of Pain,” I said.

“She's put a fire under their tails, all right. When I flew off to get you and Mevancy out of the jungle in a basket—” At this I made a face at her and she went imperturbably on. “The people were losing their listlessness but in this short time I can see a new difference.”

We were standing on a high balcony overlooking the city with the suns slanting their emerald and ruby fires across that strange Walfargian architecture. The heavy shadowy arcades supporting their piled masses of buildings, the domes coated in green copper, the twisted spires, the sense of suffocation and yet of ease of movement throughout the city always struck me as strange. Covering the surrounding land the walled villas extended a long way, bowered in trees. This city of Hiclantung had been the greatest; it was still rich and Satra quite evidently intended to recover all she had lost.

“Yes,” Delia nodded. “She'll grab it all back. But there's more to what she's doing than that.”

“Reaction to the truth? Action to counter the shock?”

Delia tilted her head and gave me a slanting smile. She wore a loose-fitting lavender dress and the light caught radiantly in her hair—ah, well, I cannot repeat often enough, there is no one in two worlds to compare to Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains. “Trylon Ge-fu-Schian—”

“Djan rot his socks!” I put in.

“Quite, my love. He went off to his trylonate and came back with a bloody nose.”

“Haw!”

“Now he's fawning around Satra wanting money to raise an army.”

“She might. If he remains loyal to her.”

“We've not seen much of Licria.”

“Mevancy said you'd concocted a plan—”

“That's all down to your little pigeon. It'll be her show.”

“H'm,” I said, half frowning. “She's capable enough and she's as courageous as a zhantilla. You can't tell me—?”

“Nope.” Her smile sent a breeze from my heels to my scalp. “She specifically made us promise not to tell you until she was ready.”

“Yeh,” I said. “She's another right little madam!”

“Talking of your various lady friends—” As she spoke I arched my eyebrows. She just went on with that mischievous smile curving her lips. “Fan-Si. I asked her if she and her group would like to join my Jikai Vuvushis but she said she wanted to go off to Tambu with her friends.”

“Moglin the Flatch and Larghos the Throstle.”

“Yes. Seg and Inch were pleased to take them.”

“Oh, sure!” I grumped. “That's where I should be—”

“They will cope splendidly, as you very well know, my love. The pot is boiling nicely here. Anyway, Trylon Kuong and Llodi the Voice went with their people.” She gave me a quizzical look. “They're still a trifle—ah—uneasy—about...”

“Yeh, I know.” I heard the annoyance in my voice. “When I met up with you and our comrades I ignored those new friends in a most stupid and obnoxious way. Mind you, Llodi's all right.”

“He and Larghos the Throstle gave us a beautiful concert.”

“I'll bet.”

A familiar step at our backs brought us around to see Deb-Lu-Quienyin walk into the suns shine of the balcony. A moment later Rollo joined him. Both their faces were grave.

“Deb-Lu.” Delia put her hand on my arm. “Is the news so bad?”

The Wizard of Loh nodded and his turban fell clean off revealing his brilliant red Lohvian hair. He spoke harshly.

“We suspected Carazaar could summon a vast amount of kharrna to expend on a project. We are now confident he is able to do this and increase his powers enormously. Then he must rest and recuperate.”

“Makes himself better than he is for a single shot,” I said. “Go on.”

“He smashed our defenses in Vondium. The ruby of the Skantiklar in the imperial regalia of Vallia is gone.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter fifteen

Queen Satra was raising an army. She was far too busy to entertain us; but she sent a polite note in explanation with a promise of a banquet in a sennight's time. We sent back a proper reply thanking her for her hospitality. With both Milsi and Sasha away in Tambu, it was my opinion, and one I was convinced was correct, that Satra didn't care to be overshadowed by Delia. That, of course, was perfectly understandable in a powerful Queen of Pain, especially one who intended once more to be the Empress of Loh. But, then, the trouble is, as you know, no one can compare with Delia. If that brings jealousy and hatred to the bosoms of many a fine lady, then selah! Delia can handle that!

And, by Zair, in the nicest and kindest way possible on two worlds.

So, because Deb-Lu continued to insist we remained in Hiclantung, we had some time to ourselves, and time to explore the city.

Along with Deb-Lu and Rollo, Mevancy had her own quarters in the palace given over to our use. I said to Delia one fine morning: “What the deuce is Mevancy up to? We hardly ever see her.”

“Plans.”

“Oh.”

“Plans,” she repeated, with that firmness of tone that could stop a vove cavalry charge at fifty paces.

“Does Deb-Lu know?”

“No.”

Well, now, I said to myself. The little minx may be involving the Star Lords in this pretty plot of hers.

As the barracks and outlying camps filled up with mercenaries, the vast majority not from Walfarg, we had to face the unpleasant consequences of Carazaar's seizure of the ruby from Vondium. Deb-Lu explained that the attack had been almost entirely magical, only a small force of Paktuns being used once the defenses had been breached. That was a similar system to the one he'd used in the Castle of Samral down in Kronenvar.

“Once he has regained his full power, he will become a dangerous enemy again.” Deb-Lu was clearly greatly concerned. He hadn't liked the cauls of protection he and his comrades had erected being penetrated.

“And you say he can, as it were, pump himself up with extra kharrna to go out and do something similar?”

“Yes, Delia, that he can and will.”

“Makilorn,” I said.

“Naturally.” She lifted her glass, for we were at a small supper. Rollo was off doing his exercises like a painstaking apprentice should. “Is there nothing we can do, Deb-Lu?”

“Khe-Hi, Ling-Li and I are collaborating even more closely. We are sure we can defend the ruby in Makilorn—or wherever we may hide it—but that will take time.”

“So it's a race.” I spoke glumly.

Delia flashed me a brilliant glance. “Deb-Lu will win!”

On that note of whistling in the dark we retired for the night.

The next morning Nath Karidge, commander of the Empress's Devoted Life Guard, reported in that they'd caught an assassin trying to climb in through a window of the palace. Although my Guard Corps had gone off to Tambu to fight Shanks, as under the circumstances was perfectly proper, EDLG had refused to desert their prime duty.

“Unfortunately he insisted on striking Jurukker Erlon the Biceps’ rapier with his stomach.”

“That Erlon!” said Delia, shaking her head. “Still, I'm sure it couldn't be helped.”

“Erlon specially asked me to say he regretted the incident.”

“I'm sick and tired of that Schian!” I burst out. I felt hot and cold. If a damned assassin got in and Delia—"He's got to be sorted out.”

Delia flashed Nath Karidge a swift glance. I felt my blood turn to ice. I stared at them both. When I spoke, my old gravel-shifting voice had never sounded uglier.

“So this isn't the first time? The cramph has tried before—when I wasn't here?”

“Now, Dray—”

I glared at Nath who drew himself up, your splendid beau sabreur to the life. I said: “Your duty was to tell me, Nath.”

“No, my heart. I asked Nath not to.”

“I see.” Nath Karidge's life, as of his regiment, revolved about the empress. He just stood there, handsome, trim, and I could not fault him.

“Very well.” About to go on with some dangerous bombast about my going to settle this with Schian once and for all, I closed my black-fanged winespout.

“You should know, jis,” Nath said in a firm voice. “There have been three attempts on the queen's life. All failed, and the assassins were killed before they could be questioned.”

“They might all be sent by Licria, or only some,” said Delia.

“Whatever,” I said, “that little madam must be getting very frustrated. The queen's got her measure well enough.”

“I'm not sure.” Delia made a graceful gesture for Nath to help himself to the parclear on the breakfast table. That reduced the temperature of our conversation. “Licria is cunning. The queen simply does not believe she has the gall to make an attempt on her life. You can see her point of view.”

“Is that what Milsi thinks?”

“Yes.”

A paline twisting in my fingers burst and the sweet juices ran down my palm. I licked them off. “Licria and Schian! What an unholy pair!”

“The regiment is on full alert.” Nath drank his parclear.

He needn't have said that, for he'd know I assumed that after attempts on the life of the empress EDLG would be very much on the qui vive. Oh, no, Nath Karidge had been shaken by the ugliness of my reactions.

I turned to Delia. “You have your rapier and main gauche and daggers, of course. Your Claw?”

“Yes, my love.” Her voice was particularly mild.

“Good. Then keep it by.”

Her Claw, a most vicious and unpleasant instrument of destruction, would be kept in its jikvarpam instead of the balass box. That I knew.

Nath Karidge said: “With your permission, maj, I'll cut along now. Things to do.”

“Of course, Nath.”

He slapped up a salute of such smartness it nearly took his head off, and stalked out. I guessed he'd be chasing tails all morning. The use of the diminutive of majestrix as maj instead of jes was rather pleasing. I found I preferred it to jes, although I'd remain jis to our comrades.

Shortly after that a message arrived to say the queen wished to see us urgently at the palace.

We had planned on watching the quarter finals of the regimental hikchunkazzarn competition. Delia and I looked across at each other as Nath Karidge gave orders for the escort and messenger to leave. I believe we all shared the same thought.

Nath said: “I came back with the messenger, maj, studying her. As far as she is concerned, the message is genuine.”

“Well,” I said, flatly, not moving. “I think it's madam at work.”

The others nodded, and Delia said: “We'll go, though.”

“Maj!” Nath was not so much flustered as apprehensive. He'd go marching off into the jaws of a Herrelldrin Hell to save the empress; he didn't relish one single little bit the idea of her following him.

He now had two sets of twins, bonny lads and lasses, and a beautiful wife and a comfortable marriage. Delia and I, for our parts, would not readily forgive ourselves if Nath Karidge was killed.

Nath tightened up his lips and then burst out: “Very well! I'll roust out a guard detail right away.”

Delia called: “Nissa!”

Instantly a slip of a girl stood at her side. I hadn't seen from whence she'd sprung. “Maj?”

“The bag with the red roses, my dear.”

Nissa was off at once. She had pale blonde hair, closely cut, and a sweet round face that would in a few seasons blossom into a maturity of beauty to do more than one poor fellow's business for him. She wore a trim outfit of russet, and a necklace of flowers looked cool and fragrant at her throat. Also, she wore a long Vallian dagger on her thigh. Almost at once she was back bringing the sack with the red roses embroidered upon it.

“Here, Nissa, let me help,” said Nath.

I saw they'd done this before. The Claw was brought forth and strapped up over Delia's left hand and forearm. It glittered with menace. Those razor sharp talons could take a villain's face clean off.

Delia made a little helpless moue at me. She was not altogether enamored of the Claw of the Sisters of the Rose, preferring the rapier and dagger; but she well knew its effectiveness to those trained in its use from childhood.

With Delia's left hand hidden in the folds of her cape, with Nath leading and the guard detail around us, we set off through the strange avenues of Hiclantung. People gave us the occasional glance; mostly they remained indifferent. Much though they had changed from the listless lot they'd been, Queen Satra still had much work to do to turn them into a nation that would fight for her—as she thought—or fight the Shanks—as we desired.

The mid morning rays of the suns lay streaming their mingled lights of jade and ruby across the city. Green copper domes shone refulgently. Dark shadows under the arcades looked as though all the Perils of Prandar the Pernicious lurked there. Up ahead a bridge of houses crossed the avenue.

Nath halted and our little party closed up.

The lights of the suns were completely extinguished under the bridge.

Quietly, without pointing, Nath said: “Under the bridge. I caught an odd flash of movement, quickly stilled.”

“Nets,” said Delia, firmly.

“Aye, maj, my thought exactly—” Then Nath Karidge had no time to finish the sentence. Black figures burst against us from each side. They'd been waiting in ambush for us to be trapped in the nets, and we'd spotted the trap and halted, so now they were going to finish us where we stood.

They did not holler or whoop but came in with feral silence.

Instantly a swirling fight developed. Nath was not to be baulked from his position protecting the empress, not even by her husband the emperor. Screams began to racket up and the harshness of spilled blood smoked into the air. Using the rapier and main gauche I put a big feathered Rapa down and flicked a quick look at Delia. Her Claw scintillated silver in a slanting slash and swung back gleaming redly. Nath thrust a fellow away from the side and then I had to skip a blow and thrust and whirl and when I could look again Delia was just withdrawing her rapier from a bulky Brokelsh. I charged over towards her. The noise of the fight had not attracted the attentions of any passersby. Quite the opposite. Ordinary citizens simply made themselves scarce when stikitches were earning their living.

Abruptly, just as I reached Delia by way of another Rapa, a Chentoi and a Fristle, there seemed to be hundreds of EDLG swarming everywhere. The assassins were so overwhelmingly outnumbered that very few were able to escape.

To my horror I saw young Nissa in there swinging an ironwood quarter staff, and cracking the last few assassins over their heads. Her round face was no longer sweet, it was suffused with fighting rage.

“Delia!” I yelled. “What kind of mortillas are you raising now?”

She saw Nissa, and frowned, and then immediately gave me a little smile.

“We are as Opaz fashions us.” She shook red drops from her Claw. “Nissa is seconded to me as handmaiden from the SoR. She is a good girl; but I cannot say I relish this much frowardness.”

Nath Karidge, splendid in the light of the suns, wheeled up.

“They've gone. We'd better clear off, too.”

“Right,” I said. Then: “And what about all these lads of yours?”

“Ah, well, jis. I considered it a reasonable idea to—ah—as it were—ask them to follow along. Just in case.”

“H'm. I remember when you disobeyed orders at the Sign of the Headless Zorcaman.”

He brightened up. “Fine, rollicking days!”

“Aye, Nath,” I said, somewhat heavily. “Aye.”

The jurukkers of EDLG took care of their own; the sprawled corpses in the black clothes of their calling were left to rot. I looked down on one with the blood greasy from his beak. A clean sword lay at his side, his hand lax. I needed that sword, for it was a lynxter, the usual weapon of Loh. Unbuckling the dead Rapa's belt I hauled it free and scabbarded the blade. Then, on an impulse, I ripped open the black cloth at his throat. Yes, the silver pakmort, a trifle tarnished, was indeed at his throat on its silver cords. This was one paktun who, wandering the Death Jungles of Sichaz, must rue his decision to give up the mercenary life for the assassin's.

The troops were jostling into formation and Delia and Nath were waiting as I took the pakmort and stuffed it and its silver silken cords into my pouch. Now I'd made the decision I felt as though a scouring wind had blown through my old vosk skull of a head, freshening up my brains.

We marched back in good order, and Nissa twirled her quarterstaff.

Later on that day I said to Delia: “I have to go out tonight.”

She shook her head with a little helpless gesture that caught the breath in my throat. “Is there anything I can say that will—?”

“Probably, yes, there is. But we both know this nonsense has to be stopped.”

“The queen—”

“Yes. This is just the first step in a logical progression that I am the first to admit may lead to disaster. But I will not stand for that cramph Schian any longer. Once I've warned him off, and I hope in the process given him the fright of his life, then maybe the queen can help.”

Because she was Delia, she lifted her chin and said: “Then I shall go with you. Naturally.”

It took a hell of a time to convince her I'd better go alone, a hell of a time. Her lower lip trembled with passion, her blood was up and her eyes transfixed me with a brilliancy that blinded. But I held doggedly on.

She found a grey slave breechclout, which I felt would attract less attention, even, than the mustardy brown ones. A simple leather tunic and boiled leather helmet, the Rapa's silver pakmort at my throat and his lynxter at my side, sundry other possessions a mercenary would carry, and I stood up, ready for the off.

“You look the part, my love.”

I kissed her and so sealed any possible last minute pleas. Then I just ran off, feeling my heart thudding, ran off so that, just in case she called me back, I would not hear.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter sixteen

Motionless and barely breathing I waited in the shadows cast by a giant ceramic pot, growing flick-flick plants, for the double rank of guards to march past. Apart from them the corridor lay empty, for Deb-Lu, whose phantom image had guided me here, had vanished.

This corridor in Trylon Schian's luxurious villa was well enough lit, confound it. The guards were all from those who had been trapped down in the Realm of the Drums. They were smart enough to challenge a lone paktun. Once I'd got in and Deb-Lu had begun to guide me there'd been no place where I could shuck off the leather and appear as a slave. I waited for the guards to march past—and the double rank halted with a clash and just stood there.

There was absolutely no use my fuming with annoyance over this situation—but I did, anyway.

“By the hairy upper lip and pendulous belly of the Divine Lady of Belschutz!” I snarled to myself. “What in a Herrelldrin Hell are they hanging about here for?”

Although the double rank of guards faced me, they couldn't spot me in the pot's shadows if I remained still. They couldn't hear me, either. So, I just stood there quietly.

A fly buzzed along and alighted on my nose.

With the stoicism and courage of your true hero, I did not move.

The blasted thing plonked his nasty little legs up and down my hooter and I had to hold my muscles in bands of steel to prevent perfectly natural reactions. In a heartbeat or two I'd sneeze. I could feel the itch developing. A single sound, a movement, mysteriously coming from the shadows of the plant pot would bring the instant attention of the guards. Oh, I'd try to sweet talk them out of sticking me there and then, and if I failed I'd fight ‘em all, of course—a light feather touch brushed my nose and was gone.

A flashing glimpse of the flick-flick plant flicking out a tendril, flicking up the fly, and flicking it into an orange cone-shaped flower—oh, yes, all praise to Opaz the Cultivator who sent down flick-flick plants to Kregen when the world was young!

A brisk voice yelled: “Brassud!” and the guards snapped to attention. The next moment, as though the flick-flick plant had commanded them, they right turned and marched off. Now they guarded a young woman and her attendants, so I knew I was close to where I wanted to be, although not yet there.

Deb-Lu appeared, without a trace of blue shimmer. He rubbed his nose and I—I confess—I laughed.

“Esser Rarioch is maintained in so clean a condition,” he said, “you have to breed flies specially for the flick-flick plants. Is there not a contradiction in that situation, Dray?” We walked along the corridor towards a junction where the lighting, if anything, shone more brightly.

“Assuredly, Deb-Lu. But if man interferes with nature by keeping his house so clean flies can find no sustenance, then surely, as Opaz would wish, he must then care for those plants dependent on flies?”

“Only partially. They can live without—”

“But in what case!” We'd reached the junction and found no one there. For myself, I found nothing incongruous in carrying on a kind of philosophical discussion in these circumstances, and neither, I am sure, did Deb-Lu.

“Oh, I agree absolutely we must care for the creations of Opaz.” He gestured with his staff. “It's down here.”

“A flick-flick plant denied flies is like a skychunner denied purchales.”

His amused chuckle coincided with our arrival outside a door of balass with ivory of Chem inlays. “Very important little fellow, this, Jak.”

“Then I shall go in and pay him a visit.” I pushed the door open.

“Oh, he's not in. Arranging an orgy for tonight.”

The stink of stale perfume lingered on the air in this fussy apartment. The chamberlain fellow must be of some importance judging by the vulgar ostentation of furnishings and fittings. I padded across a carpet of Walfarg weave—which I judged to be of the third grade only—until Deb-Lu called: “There.”

Straight ahead of me the wall was clothed by a tapestry depicting the ritual slaughter of San Sin-Sin-Yarelving. The thing was not an object I'd even think of tolerating in any of my homes. I pushed it aside and touched the button and the secret door slid aside.

“Thank you, Deb-Lu.”

“I do not wish to use very much more kharrna at the present time. Satra's college of mages is not without some skills.”

“Quite.”

Deb-Lu winked out and I walked into the corridor beyond the secret door. As in most Kregan buildings of importance the secret ways had been provided by the architect with vision slits so that the passage, only a trifle dusty, lay barred in stripes of light. I debated whether or not to become as a slave, decided against it, and went on as a paktun. On one notable occasion I'd been betrayed by the chingle of a pakai, and although the dead Rapa assassin, who'd provided me with his lynxter, pakai and pakmort, did not have too long a string of victory rings, there were enough for me to take it off and stuff it into the pouch. Each of those silver rings had once fixed a pakmort to its silken cords. There were only two gold rings, triumphs of the Rapa over zhanpaktuns.

Each shaft of light falling across the narrow corridor allowed vision of a room or chamber, sometimes different views of the same space. We'd ascertained that Schian had an important interview towards the hour of dim and I intended to attend. Moving along quietly and cautiously and negotiating the many twists and turns and ladders and stairways, I came at last to an observation slit showing me Schian's study cum library. The place did have a few books and scrolls in it, at that. The main feature was a large couch with a table handy loaded with drinks.

Now I remembered the patience learned stalking my supper in the wild. My irritations and annoyances vanished. Composing myself, I settled down to wait.

If the Star Lords were watching me now I might expect a scorpion to waddle out of a crack in the wall. I refused to allow myself to worry over that eventuality. No doubt they'd thunder in their hoarse clanging voice that I was being impertinently impudent, or impudently impertinent in thus risking my life on a mission that did not affect their plans. Ah! I'd say in reply; if I'm assassinated, then your plans for me and my confounded yrium go up in smoke.

No little reddish brown scorpion waddled arrogantly out to confront me.

The hour of dim approached, voices sounded and the door of the study was thrown open. Four guards—fine tough Chentois—stalked in, their sallow faces and sharp eyes peering for assassins lying in wait for their lord.

When they were satisfied, Trylon Ge-fu-Schian walked in. He wore his clashing colored lounging robe, a dagger, and he was munching on a handful of palines. With him tripped Princess Licria, looking radiant in a revealing gown of silver mesh. Both of them had eaten and drunk well, that was evident.

They flopped on the couch facing me and the guards took station around the walls. Now you know my feelings about and views on hired guards. They take their pay and they do their job. I do not willingly harm them, for I have stood my turn of watches in the dark hours. There was a good chance I could burst in and deal with the guards before turning on Schian and Licria. But that would inevitably take a little too long, and the alarm would be raised. Patience, again, was my tactic here.

“If he's as good as is claimed,” Licria was saying, “something might be accomplished at last.”

“Aye, Hlo-Hli take it, at last.” Schian sounded sullen.

“He will be busy.”

“I still want that devil Dray Prescot and his precious Delia first on the list—”

“I think not, Ge-fu.” She spoke sharply. “The queen first, then some of her most trusted advisers—we know who they are well enough—and then all who oppose us will be bereft of the queen's protection.”

He shifted on the couch and reached a flagon from the table. “Well, I suppose so.” Suddenly he brightened up. “When the queen is gone, you are right, princess. Why, we can arrest Prescot and I shall have the pleasure of cutting him down. His Delia can be thrown to the Rapa guards.”

“Yes. I shall watch that.” Her tongue licked her lips.

“Of course, there are her guards.”

“A handful only. The army will crush that regiment instantly.”

H'm, I said to myself, by Vox! Nath Karidge and the lads of EDLG will have something to say about that first!

They sipped wine and presently a Khibil stalked in, magnificently dressed, haughty, flushed, clearly elated.

This Khibil sported but one ear. Licria nudged Schian, and reluctantly the trylon stood up to acknowledge the presence of a vad.

Licria, as a princess, remained seated.

Immediately, before any lahals, she said: “You have him, Vad Valadian?”

“Aye, princess. He is willing to earn his hire. I have him outside—”

“Then bring him in at once!”

On this signal the doors opened again and a smart young fellow marched in. As was to be expected he wore a plain olive-colored cloak over his black clothes. His black mask covered his entire head and the eye-holes held shadows darker than the clothes themselves. He carried himself alertly. He wore no visible weapon.

“Master Fu-Ming-Fung,” was all Vad Valadian said by way of introduction.

That name sounded idiotically ridiculous. This stikitche, then, required an alias. He bowed gracefully and stood, silent and waiting. So they discussed terms for the disposal of the queen and her chief ministers. The whole conversation was repugnant to any normal person.

The one-eared Khibil, I had ventured to believe, was not a villain. Now, it appeared, he was, and a thoroughgoing one, at that. No doubt this unholy pair had promised vast rewards for loyal service once they became empress and emperor of Loh. So he'd found a top-class assassin for them.

When the bokkertu had been concluded the vad and the stikitche left bowing and scraping. Licria sprayed perfume into the air and the place stank like a rest home for Sylvies. The glance she flashed Schian and her abrupt order to the guards to leave were unequivocal. Now was my time to burst in and tell them their fortunes.

Just at that critical moment a soft shushing footfall sounded along the secret passage. Instantly, quicker than thought, I was flat against the wall in deep shadow away from the light through the spyhole.

There were three of them, creeping cautiously along. As they passed bands of light I saw they wore dark clothes and weapons glittered. So the devils had followed me in here! They were an inconvenience. We were bound to make a noise. Still—the lynxter loosened soundlessly in the scabbard.

The three black-robed men halted before the spyhole. One peered through. At once I saw the truth of the situation, and my unwanted part in it. By the pustular armpits and infected nose of Makki-Grodno! What a mess!

Even as they burst into the room beyond the spyhole so I charged.

It was all a confusion of action and swirling capes and glittering steel, of Licria screaming and Schian swearing and trying to draw his sword and of the stikitches abruptly aware of the peril at their backs trying to switch targets. Schian did for one and I stretched the other two out. The guards smashed into the room, breaking the little bolts.

“It's all over!” I shouted, and I used all the authority I could muster. The guards halted, uncertain, and I stared at Licria who was climbing to her feet from the cover of the sofa. “Tell them, princess. Your life is safe, and so is the life of the trylon.” If she read a double-meaning into the words that was my intention.

Her face, always pale, resembled the ashes of a fire dead before dawn. She trembled. “The shints,” she mumbled, and she bit her lips, and stared at the corpses. She gestured. “Drag them away!”

Schian lifted the bloody tip of his sword towards me.

“Where—how did you get here?”

“As to that, I will tell you—and the princess. Now, do as you are bid!”

He jumped and fairly snarled at the guards. Now was another moment of crisis, this time a personal peril. If he said: “Kill him!” what would then eventuate?

He did not. Licria took a huge draught of wine, and choked, and more collapsed on the sofa than sat down. Schian looked uncertain.

I said: “You have had a lucky escape. Had I not come to talk to—”

Schian snorted his contempt. “Talk, you shint! You came to kill us.”

“Had I wanted you dead would I have stopped the stikitches—onker!”

He flushed up. He was still more shaken than he realized. I went on in my old gravel-shifting voice: “I wanted to tell you to stop sending assassins against us. I have overlooked your impertinence, your treachery and your pathetic assassination attempts. But my patience is not unlimited.” I nodded my head towards the door. “Those fellows were sent by someone who had no doubt suffered from your attentions in the past.”

Licria looked up. She whispered. “The queen?”

Staring at her, I saw the way her cosmetics were flaking and running.

“Hardly. She has no need of that to discipline you.”

That made her angry, her blood thumping in reaction to the scare. She flung her head up and opened her mouth and I cut in: “Your life has been saved by me before this. Or have you forgotten?”

She was looking up at me. She stood up, swaying only a little. In a small voice, a wondering voice, she said: “No, I have not forgotten. And if what you say is true, you have saved my life again.” She was staring at me. “I had not realized just what—what kind of man you are.”

Schian started to say something and she snapped out: “Do be quiet, Ge-fu!” With the dark stains of kohl ruining her face—a fact of which she must have been unaware—she looked at me. Now I have seen that kind of look on women's faces before. And, always, by Krun, it means trouble.

I said: “I have told you why I came to see you. Leave us alone. Now—remberee.” I started for the secret passage.

“Wait—” she called.

Schian snarled out: “I'll have that bricked up, by Hlo-Hli!”

“It's no use, princess.” I spoke hard. “No use.” I ducked my head and stepped into the passage and started off along briskly, very briskly, by Vox! If Schian sent guards after me, well that would be in his nature. Also, he had completely missed the byplay. There was no doubt at all that if ever their plans came to fruition he'd wind up in a sack weighted with chains in the river.

If this new assassin was as good as Vad Valadian claimed then Queen Satra was in trouble. Whatever she might believe about her ability to protect herself and however much she might shrug off Licria as a real threat, she'd have to be warned. The assassin looked competent. That smart, well set-up young fellow exuded menace. It hung like an aura of bright darkness about him.

In the event I cleared off out of the villa without trouble.

What Delia said when I walked in I will not repeat. After she let me go I told her what had happened. When I'd finished, she said: “They might take heed. Oh, and Mevancy is here with a friend.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. From Vallia. Caspar Del Vanian. A famous artist. He's come to paint Queen Satra's portrait.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter seventeen

Mevancy reclined in a graceful posture on a chaise longue with the radiance of the Suns of Scorpio reflecting in from the high north window. She had a filmy scarf cunningly draped about her back with the ends beautifully folded about both her forearms. Her bindles were thus concealed. Apart from the scarf she wore no other clothes.

Her usual high color burned into a brilliant rosy flush as I barged into the room. “Cabbage! Get out!”

The lively young fellow in the painter's smock had his back to me, working at his easel. He turned his head, saw me, and dropped his charcoal.

“Majister!” he said, his pleasing face with the brown hair and eyes frank and not over-awed. “You completely fooled me.”

“Are you going to go, cabbage, or are you going to gawp?”

“Now then, pigeon. This isn't the first time I've seen—”

“No! Well, you needn't assume—”

“I'll see you both at the second breakfast.”

I took myself off, and if I say I was chortling away inside, I am sure you will understand and forgive.

At the second breakfast Delia said: “Will you tell us all the news of Vallia, Caspar? We've been a little out of touch lately.”

“I'm afraid, majestrix, I too, have been out of touch. I've been—”

About to burst out: “Knocking off more targets, I suppose?” I did not. I clamped my black-fanged winespout around a handful of palines.

Caspar gave me a quick glance and went on: “Painting in the aracloins.”

Well, that was what he wanted to do, instead of painting portraits of the empty-headed lords and ladies of Kregen. I gave him a mean stare.

I said: “How'd you come to meet Vad Valadian?”

He jumped. Calmly, he said: “Mevancy arranged it.”

Swiveling to look at her I lifted an eyebrow.

Mevancy looked hard at me and then glanced at Delia.

“Pigeon!” I snapped, and I own I heard the sharpness in my voice. “The Empress Delia knows about the Everoinye. There are no secrets now.”

“Yes,” she nodded her head. “Yes, this was arranged with the knowledge of the Everoinye.”

“Well, what the blue blazes do they think they're playing at? Surely they know that she-leem Licria will be far worse than Satra?”

There ensued a little pause, and then Caspar said: “Mevancy—when did you tell Drajak—I mean the emperor—?”

“I didn't.”

“You can knock off the majister bit, Caspar. Drajak will do.”

“But how—?” they both demanded. Delia laughed.

When she'd finished telling them, Mevancy blew out her rosy cheeks. “I've read the stories about Dray Prescot and—well, now, by Spurl, I really believe every last one!”

“The queen didn't send the assassins last night.”

“One of her ministers,” Delia observed.

“Too scared to tell the queen the truth,” said Mevancy.

“All the same,” I said, shaking my head. “I don't think putting Satra out of the way is altogether a bad idea if someone worthy could be found to be empress.” I looked at Mevancy. “But Licria—”

“Drajak.” Caspar leaned forward. “The plan is to prove to the queen that Licria is plotting against her. Simple revenge ought to follow.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling faintly foolish.

Then, with a little laugh that probably sounded like the growl of a goaded zhantil, I added: “So that explains this mysterious Princess's Swordsman you women were so secretive about.”

“Caspar the Peaker—in person!”

With a fresh bunch of palines balanced on my palm I said: “So how do you prove to the queen that what you say is true?”

“No problem—”

“No, no problem when you admit you're a stikitche in private with her! She'll have the guards in and your head off so fast your feet won't, as they say in Clishdrin, touch the ground.”

“I'm sure Caspar will be convincing—”

“Maybe, pigeon. But he'll have to be convincing pretty damn quick!”

“This is not the first time this deception has been played.” Caspar moved his empty fruit juice glass on the table, making patterns. “I must claim, with due modesty—and I am not a modest person—that I know how to conduct myself in these circumstances.”

With that assurance I had to be content. Delia said that she was sure Caspar would handle the whole business admirably, and that gave me confidence.

Having to be as content as I could be with the situation over the succeeding days I turned to other affairs that pressed in. Many letters were written—a whole library of correspondence, by Vox!—and so I was able to keep my finger on the pulse of what went forward in Paz. The speed with which Queen Satra re-imposed her will on Walfarg impressed me as it awed everyone. Her activities meant she was too busy to sit for a portrait. No doubt she felt she had to accomplish much in little time—a feeling with which I was only too familiar. This meant that Caspar was not called to the palace and so the plan could not go ahead. Mevancy's portrait bloomed.

“Trylon Schian is becoming so impatient I think he'll burst a blood vessel.” Caspar wiped his brushes as he spoke, head on one side regarding his easel. “As for the little Licria—she bides her time like a syatra.”

“The queen will want the portrait soon.” Delia spoke positively. “She knows her time is drawing to a close and she will use it as propaganda. Her army grows larger every day.”

“Once she has all Walfarg,” I said somberly, “if she marches across the frontiers, that will—”

“What will happen then is in the hands of Opaz.”

“And the Everoinye.”

The very next day Satra sent for Caspar.

Just after he'd gone off with servants to carry his artist's gear and a bunch of Delia's lads of EDLG as guards, Deb-Lu-Quienyin walked in on us as we were thinking about the mid-afternoon meal. He looked grave.

After greetings he said: “As you know we have set cauls of protection about the ruby of the Skantiklar in Makilorn.”

“Not—?” exclaimed Delia, somewhat crossly.

“Not yet, thanks to the Ones of the Seven Arcades. Carazaar has been attempting to break the seals, and failing.”

“Thank Opaz—and you—for that!”

“It is evident that he has not yet rebuilt sufficient kharrna. But we believe he soon will. What he is doing is to use force.”

“Shanks?”

“Yes, Dray, unfortunately. Seg and Inch will be flying in soon from Tambu. They have fought the damned Fish Faces there and succeeded admirably in driving them off—so Carazaar is busy transferring them to attack Makilorn.”

“This is a crisis, then.” Delia slapped the hilt of her rapier. “Another one, confound all the Opaz-forsaken Fish Faces on Kregen!”

I said: “It looks as though we'll all have to go down to Tsungfaril and see about defending Makilorn.” I snorted. “What a prospect, by Vox!”

“If we can prevent Carazaar's forces from taking the city and breaking into the palace where the ruby is hidden, his kharrna may be overcome.” Deb-Lu pulled his ear. “I say may be. He will be most powerful, most powerful indeed.”

“You mean the nearer he is to the damned red stone the greater he can work on your protection?”

“Exactly.”

“Then we'll just have to stop him, blatter him good!”

Around then I would not have been in the least surprised if a scorpion the size of my hand had stalked in with his eight legs going up and down and his flaunting tail curving up, its black sting and purple sac of poison very nasty. As I've said, Kregish scorpions have these eyes on stalks, not usual, and when the scorpion of the Star Lords makes eye to eye contact, it is, I can testify, a most spine-erecting feeling. As for hunting by sound, there is on Kregen a swift little arachnoid of which it is said he can hear your muscles moving your bones about inside your body. This eenlan, all glistening brown, yellow and black, gives rise to the old-fashioned saying: “As noisy as an eenlan.”

No scorpion appeared so the Star Lords were not going to interfere—at least, not just yet—although they hovered near, damn near, by Bunje Kazar the Effable!

Caspar arrived back well pleased with the first sitting, saying that, as usual, he was painting the queen's head and her clothes would be worn by a slave or a lay figure. He saw the graveness on our faces.

“It looks as though I won't be here for you to complete my picture, Caspar.” Mevancy held down her annoyance very well.

“Oh?”

When we'd told him the news he screwed up that young fresh face, making his few remaining spots dance about. “You'll need armies, then.”

Rollo, who'd joined us for the evening meal, interjected: “And mages.”

“Quite,” said Deb-Lu.

“One interesting thing I heard,” said Caspar. “The queen told one of her ministers—that bloodthirsty vorsim, Pallan Quincing—that if any Hlo-Hli forsaken Shanks marched into her territories she'd string them up, make all of ‘em dance on air.”

“Only,” I grunted sourly, “they won't march. They'll fly.”

Delia said: “Satra has no real experience of Shanks.”

All the same, what Caspar said cheered me a trifle, for obvious reasons.

Knowing that Deb-Lu was maintaining contact with our forces in Tambu, I asked him: “When do you expect Seg and Inch and the others back, Deb-Lu?”

“Oh, now they know where the Schtarkins are going they intend to follow as soon as they've regrouped their forces.”

I cannot say I felt too pleased about that, by Vox. Regrouping of forces is usually a euphemism for a process following highly unpleasant occurrences.

Delia put her hand over mine. “Nothing frightful. We'd have heard.”

“I suppose so.”

So, as you can see, the situation was much like the curate's egg. We all cleared off for the night and sleep, for once, did not come easily. If only—if only! Well, if ‘if onlys’ were not ifs but facts, two worlds of which I know a little would not be the same places.

Here was a situation where I could do with having the Everoinye use their powers to put me in two places at once. Deb-Lu's insistence that we remain in Hiclantung was about to be proved correct in the fascinating plot cooked up by the women to defeat the charming Licria. I wouldn't want to miss that. At the same time I had to go down to Makilorn and blatter Fish Heads. If Carazaar laid his claws on the ruby there—well, by the dripping nostrils and blackened teeth of Makki-Grodno!—how many would he have then?

Although without the aid of the Star Lords I could not be in two places at once, other remarkable innovations were taking place in Loh that would have astonished almost as much. Queen Satra was actively creating a flying service. Her air service was to be modeled on that of Vallia. Delia told me how much Satra had been awed, impressed, and eventually angered by her flight aboard Vendayha Lady. Out of sheer politeness—and because Delia is the kindest person on two worlds—Delia had put Vendayha Lady onto a regular shuttle ferrying the balance of Satra's army and entourage to Hiclantung. Satra grasped the war potential in that, by Krun!

“So that means another customer for vollers in the market,” I said.

“It's all progress, my heart!” I saw she was teasing me, although the matter was serious, and I understood she was right. We had to maintain a perspective on all our diverse problems. “We have a decision to make. Caspar and the little Licria's comeuppance, or Makilorn and Carazaar.”

“No matter what Deb-Lu may say now, there is no choice, is there?”

“Of course not.”

“I just hope Seg and Inch are all right. I don't like the sound of that regrouping.”

“How many more times, you onker of a fambly! We'd have heard.”

The only answer to that was to kiss her, which I did with great zeal and thoroughness. She kissed me back with a hungry passion that spoke eloquently of her fears for the future.

When Caspar returned that evening from his painting session with the queen he stood in the doorway of the room we used as a lounge and stared at us all in the lamplights. A stray shaft of radiance caught the corners of his eyes and for a moment his eyes glittered. We all sensed the significance of the moment. Only for that instant he stood, rigid and somehow taller than his height, then he stepped forward into the room and the spell was broken.

Rollo couldn't be contained. “Well, Caspar?”

“It is done.”

Deb-Lu let out a breath; but he did not speak.

“You'd better tell us about it, then, Caspar.” Delia was brisk.

He nodded, crossed to the table to pour the evening wine for himself and began speaking at once. “As planned. There was absolutely no peril in it for me.” As to that, I wondered; there were no overtones in his voice to indicate he minimized his danger. “The proofs proved themselves, Schian's ring, Licria's order to the sentries. My part, of course, was as a humble painter enrolled as a part-time stikitche.”

“What of Vad Valadian?” I spoke in my growly voice.

“A dupe, acting out of misguided friendship.”

“And—?” said Delia, somewhat sharply for her. Of course, what Caspar the Peaker was saying was important and interesting, what Delia's ‘and’ meant was the vital issue.

“They have both been taken up. Schian will probably go in the river. Licria to an establishment of little sisters of a stern persuasion.”

“So the queen is squeamish after all!”

“Licria is,” pointed out Delia, “the last of her line.”

Who could say how much Satra had already known? High office and almost unlimited power, as I have before said, addle people's minds. Her very pride in her bloodline would keep her fanatically determined to ensure that one of her descendants ascended the throne after her. If that was Licria's daughter, Satra would be well pleased. As I opened my mouth to voice these thoughts, Delia said: “Licria will be married off and her daughter trained up. As for the little she-leem herself—I suppose one must feel for her.”

Mevancy, who up to now had been sitting twiddling her wineglass, broke out: “Feel for her!”

Her color was high and she looked charged with emotion.

“She's had her day and her race is run,” said Delia mildly.

“Yes.” Mevancy spoke slowly. “In that sense, yes, I see that.”

“Right,” I said. “Well done, Caspar. Now we're free for Makilorn.”

“I have—other plans.”

Caspar the Peaker was a kaogoinye working for the Star Lords. If he had other plans then the Everoinye were dispatching him on a new mission.

“Of course, Caspar.” Delia smiled. “Thank you.”

The evening meal ought to have been a cheerful occasion for we had cleared up one of our more pressing problems; the good friends gathered at the table were not, it seemed to me, in a celebrating mood. Nath Karidge had been invited and he responded to that atmosphere. He told me that he'd asked Deb-Lu to communicate with Vallia to request airboats for EDLG.

“The Emperor Drak is kindly sending down sufficient fliers to transport the whole regiment. I am a trifle concerned—”

“Oh?”

“Aye, jis. Suppose Queen Satra lays her hands on them?”

“A cogent point, Nath. A secret rendezvous?”

“That'll be the best plan.”

He smiled his Beau Sabreur smile and I knew he'd see to that item.

All the same, Satra's greed for vollers presented an unwanted further complication in our already complicated lives. Two problems had baffled and continued to baffle the famous Wizards of Walfarg of Loh. One—the manufacture of gold from base metals. Two—the means of levitation. Stories of flying carpets were well-known on Kregen, although naturally differing somewhat from our terrestrial versions. Flying carpets were unnecessary in lands where airboats were used, except and unless they were readily and cheaply available to the masses. There was no doubt that some mages could levitate themselves and perhaps a few followers; events had occurred strongly suggesting this theory to be correct. In general, flying remained a mystery. Of course, I felt pretty well convinced that Carazaar was using some form of sorcerous aerial navigation rather than any mechanism based on the silver boxes of vollers.

“By the silk-clad legs of the Lady Diwina!” burst out Delia. “Give us a song, Rollo, and cheer us all up.”

So he sang a little ditty, ‘The Sweet Flowing Water,’ composed by Pitir Ng'gland from Ng'groga some five hundred seasons ago. After that we had ‘Bear up your Arms’ and the ‘Lay of the Ponsho Farmer's Daughter’ and a few more of the old favorites. When we were all yodeling out: “No idea at all, at all, no idea at all!” we'd sung ourselves back into a better humor.

On parting for the night, Deb-Lu said: “Satra's banquet may well prove an interesting occasion.”

“She'll be on top form,” prophesied Delia, with a smile.

“Oh, Nath,” I said, bringing up something that had been puzzling me. “I'm surprised Drak can spare any vollers from the Pandahem campaign.”

“That's just about over now, jis. Yumapan and Lome joined in and the Bloody Menaham were well and truly trounced, aye, by Lasal the Vakka!”

“Queen Lush?”

“Kept on getting in everyone's way, so the news said—you know, jis.”

I found, to my astonishment, that I laughed. “I know.”

“She made a sensible decision in the end. Appointed a noble from Yumapan to command the combined armies. Fellow called Kov Loriman.”

My amusement increased. “The Hunting Kov! I'll bet Nath the Impenitent laughed at that one.”

“Chuktar Nath Javed. Oh, aye, jis. Trust him.”

Yes, by Vox, I said to myself. Old Hack ‘n’ Slay would never forget the time he'd had to drag and carry the Hunting Kov through the horrors of the Coup Blag. The news that the Bloody Menahem had been tamed, if only for a while, would come as a relief to all, and especially to Pando the Kov of Bormark in Tomboram. An unkind thought occurred to me—who was winning in the bottle race between Tilda the Beautiful and Scaura Pompina?

There is no need for me to relate the tedious details of Satra's banquet. It all went off in style. She was, as Delia had prophesied, in top form. She was full of her plans for the new empire. At a suitable break in the proceedings, I said to her: “And if the Shanks attack?”

“They will be dealt with, all of the Fish Faces.”

“We are leaving for Makilorn in the morning. The Shanks are massing an army there—”

She stared at me with those deep eyes, her white widow's peak, as it were, thrusting forward with determination. She summed me up, she summed up the situation. “That is in the south, past Chem.”

“Once they have conquered, their fliers will strike north.”

She knew what I was getting at. She sat quietly, pondering. When she lifted her head she said: “Let me know their strengths as soon as possible.”

She would not be drawn any further, so with that I had to be content.

It appeared clear to me that my role, unwanted and thrust on me by the Star Lords and those folk who believed in me, as Emperor of Emperors, Emperor of all Paz, was one of conciliation, of argument and of persuasion. I could not order Satra to send her army south to fight Shanks. I would have to persuade her to see that that decision would be her best course.

In the morning we prepared for the off.

To my surprise the one-eared Khibil, Vad Valadian, and Strom Chan with his beard just as stiffly jutting, came to see us off. They said they'd asked Satra if they could go with us but that she had refused permission. She'd said she needed both them and their paktuns for her new armies.

In his arrogant Khibil way, Valadian said: “I think she will come around. It is very clear to us, in any case.”

“Very clear, majister,” added Strom Chan grimly.

“I thank you both. Now it is remberee.”

“Aye, Remberee, Dray Prescot, Emperor of Emperors!”

With that, Vendayha Lady soared up into the brilliance of the Suns of Scorpio.

Some way out we picked up Nath Karidge and EDLG from the secret rendezvous and our little squadron headed south.

I feel it completely unnecessary to relate the uproarious welcome we received from our comrades when we reached the camp outside Makilorn.

They were there, the men and women whom you have met in this narrative of mine. Seg and Inch, Milsi and Sasha fell on us, laughing. Nath na Kochwold, stern and living proof of the invincibility of his Phalanx, old Hack ‘n’ Slay for whom, as Delia remarked, estates and a title must soon be found, greeted us with news that an enormous shbilliding was organized for tonight. My new friends greeted us in a much more restrained fashion, Kuong, Llodi, Larghos the Throstle all looking down at the mouth. Moglin the Flatch was not there, neither was Fan-Si.

“Tell me,” I said in the old gravel-shifting voice.

“She was wearing her armor an’ all, just like you always said. Proper mail an’ everything.”

In a heavy voice, Kuong said: “Yes. The bolt went clean through her throat above the mail rim.”

“And Moglin?”

“Went berserk. Charged and was cut down.”

I could say nothing. The little Fristle fifi, Fan-Si—gone. Moglin the Flatch—gone.

How many more good friends were to die before all these horrors were over?

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter eighteen

One has, in these latter days, to be tolerant of other peoples’ religions, unless, I suppose, you belong to one of the great proselytizing faiths of two worlds. The religion of Tsungfaril was enough to drive any preacher, fanatical or not, into hysterical action. The best I could hope to do, and I trusted Opaz Beneficent would smile, was to imply to some of the more zealous in the ranks that our first priority was dealing with Shanks. People are touchy about their faiths. I wanted no in-fighting, no bloodshed between the forces we were trying to muster to resist the Fish Faces.

Burrowed over many seasons within the escarpment fringing the wasteland and paralleling the River of Drifting Leaves the tombs of generations of the dead of Makilorn reminded me, as I have said, of Petra. I paid a visit to the tomb set aside. There were no flowers, for land is so precious in Makilorn and flowers and timber scarcer than gold pieces in a barracoon. The gods of Tarankar were not those of Tsungfaril, nor those of Walfarg, and I commended the ibs of Fan-Si and Moglin to them. Then I went back to the city.

This was on the second day after our arrival. The enormous feast and celebration had duly taken place. Any crusty old kampeon, any fighting man or woman is accustomed to the death of comrades. Death is a mere part of life.

The city of Makilorn remained as I remembered, white roofed, built after the style of the tomb of Genghis Khan, narrow along both banks of the river. You may well imagine how Lunky's heavy face brightened when he greeted me.

“I always knew, majister, there was more to you than perhaps even a Diviner could scry.” His thick lips twisted into a smile almost of self-mockery. “And you the emperor all the time!”

“And, san, still your friend, I trust?”

The narrow tired face of San Chandro broke into its attractive smile as he said: “Friends? By Tsung-Tan the Mighty! It is you who do us the honor.”

These two dikasters, the Diviner and the Repositer, guardians of the religion of Tsungfaril and of the paol-ur-bliem, the accursed, were most anxious to do all they could to help. Kuong and Mevancy chipped in to explain as we walked in the coolness of arcades. Deserts surrounded the city, yet it was now obvious to us all that the Shanks would use their airboats to fly over the barrier deserts. Already we suspected they had adapted to fresh river water. In any case, driven by the sorcerous energy of Carazaar, they could mount a sudden vicious attack, seize the ruby, and be gone back to their seas.

We turned about at the end of the arcade and the stumps of our twin shadows marched with us until we passed under the overhang. Deb-Lu appeared at the far end. He walked swiftly towards us, his brown polished staff high.

He looked animated. “Lahal, all. Dray! Astonishing!” He bent forward and peered hard at Lunky. Dressed soberly, as always, the Diviner wore the habitual fawn gown of Tsungfaril. Deb-Lu put out his hand and with a quick upward movement of his head that almost dislodged his turban, said: “May I?”

“San,” said Lunky in his heavy way. “May you what?”

“Oh, of course! You have an—ah—object on your chest. I suspect it is strung about your neck—”

“Yes. I cannot tell you—”

“Of course. That I understand. May I please see it?”

Slowly, Lunky pulled a gold chain up from the front of his gown to reveal a golden trinket. In shape it vaguely resembled a formalized representation of Tsung-Tan although fuller in the body. Instantly, I remembered a burning building, flames everywhere, and a dead and charred man, and a girl to be rescued.

Before Deb-Lu could speak I burst out: “But the drikingers took it!”

Mevancy snapped out: “Cabbage! I was right. Leotes’ men did retrieve it.”

Deb-Lu swung on me. “You've seen this before?” He almost squawked his amazement.

“If it is the same one. San Tuong Mishuro lost it in a burning building and after that bandits seized it.”

“There is only one.” Lunky held it reverently.

Deb-Lu straightened up. His kind wise old face looked triumphant. “The ruby of the Skantiklar in Makilorn is hidden among nine of the queen's necklaces. That we know—”

“So does that devil Carazaar!” flashed Mevancy.

“Agreed. What he does not know, what we did not know until we were close enough to ascertain is—there is a second ruby in Makilorn. And it is concealed within the icon of Tsung-Tan around San Lunky's neck!”

Oh, yes, there was consternation at this, pleased confusion. Then I growled out: “All the more reason to resist Carazaar.”

Mevancy gave me a demanding look and after a time we were able to have a few words in private. She said: “The Everoinye, then, must have known all along!” To which I replied: “Oh, I don't know. They weren't at all interested in the confounded Skantiklar then, were they?” And: “Cabbage! You always—” And: “Pigeon! I sometimes think they're senile!” And—a gasp of horror.

“Miscils, palines, sazz and parclear!” called Kuong. Mevancy and I gave each other two good long fighting stares, then, shoulders back, heads high—and Mevancy's face a rose of color—we marched in for refreshments.

As you will by now be aware, it was vitally necessary for me to hold an impressive parade of the army. This meant all of the Vallians present in the army, not just the Guard Corps. Perhaps you may imagine the pomp and circumstance of the occasion, held outside the walls on the flat and dusty desert. They were there—oh, yes, they were there! The swods in their disciplined ranks and files. Many of them you have met in my narrative. Many names have appeared and then vanished, good men and women gone down to the Ice Floes of Sicce, to be met by the Grey Ones and so try to make their way to the sunny uplands beyond. Before this business of the Skantiklar and the Shanks was done, many more would follow.

We were greatly cheered by the arrival of Queen Kirsty. She and Rodders had cleared Tarankar out pretty smartly. Her mercenary army had grown. Now she breathed fire and slaughter against the devil Shanks who dared to attack her capital city. Also, she was actively goading the apathetic citizens to take up arms and fight for their city.

Inevitably, as we were in Loh, questions of archery arose. There were competitions held every day. The Bowmen of Loh were skeptical of men and women of other lands who used the famed Lohvian longbow. I own I was smugly satisfied to note that many of the prizes went to my lads of Valka and Vallia.

As a matter of interest, First Emperor's Foot Bows were mainly longbows; there were a pastang of crossbows and a pastang of Valkan compound reflex bows included. All the ranks were full up. My chiefs organized a constant shuttle of fliers bringing in provisions, supplies, provender. Feeding an army is always a nightmare; feeding an army in a desert is purgatory.

Now we had two rubies of the Skantiklar, the question in the minds of all those in on the secret was—how many did Carazaar have?

Once he got his claws on all nine, all hell would break loose.

Mind you, by that time we'd all probably be dead.

Korero kept polishing up his shields, and he carried extra weaponry. Balass the Hawk had been saddened by the loss of Fan-Si and Larghos; but like us he was inured to pain of that kind without becoming callous. My chiefs of the Guard Corps, Nath na Kochwold and his Phalanx, and the Chuktars of the line moved about the camp with grim determination. Everyone knew that the imminent battle would be the big one, the culmination of all their efforts.

The Hamalian forces flew in under the temporary command of Kapt Hargon ham Hurlving, for Fleet Admiral Harulf ham Hilzim had returned to Ruathytu to attend the Emperor Nedfar. A new force commander would be sent out as soon as appointed by Nedfar.

Our scouts reported in regularly. On the day when we'd finished reviewing the Hamalese I made up my mind. We were very thin on the ground and in the air. Taking our refreshments when we could I was chewing the last of a section of vosk pie and battling my way past the chunks of gristle therein. Delia saw me chewing and smiled. In a fashion I hoped was not too surly, I said: “I'm going off to Djanduin and then to see the Clansmen.”

“I agree. All Paz is in this. I'll welcome the trip.”

In his big breezy way Seg chipped in. “Too true! All Paz has to stand as one.”

Inch nodded his head atop that lanky frame. He didn't speak for he'd broken one of his astounding taboos and couldn't utter a word until nightfall.

So, the very next day, aboard Vendayha Lady, we sailed for Djanduin.

Again, needless for me to relate the joyous proceedings as my Djangs welcomed their king and queen. Kytun Kholin Dom and Ortyg Fellin Coper, the best of comrades both, agreed instantly that the Djangs must be represented in this struggle. I particularly wanted the flyers, young men and women astride the superb flutduins, the best flyers in my view in Paz. As for the four-armed Djang warriors, they had already beaten Shanks in fair fight and were thirsting to show the Fish Faces the errors of their ways. A sizeable force was quickly mustered and dispatched aboard Djanduin vollers.

Then it was all the long way east across continents and islands and oceans to Segesthes. We stopped off briefly in Strombor which was competently run in the absence of Gloag fighting Shanks in Mehzta, and then we soared out over the Great Plains. Well! My Clansmen led by the wild Hap Loder went mad with joy and great were the rejoicings. This time I was after armored chivalry mounted on the earth-shaking voves. My clanners responded and, once again, a force mustered and flew out, this time with Vendayha Lady in company. We all met up at Makilorn.

So, now there were five separate forces here. The Armies Gathered.

Seg and Milsi, Inch and Sasha, were not in the camp. I was not in the least surprised when they turned up with another army. These were fighting men and women from Milsi's and Seg's realm of Croxdrin, reinforced with a goodly gang of bean-pole tall, axe-armed Ng'grogans recruited by Inch and Sasha.

Now there were six armies mustered on the sands outside Makilorn.

“If poor old Queen Satra gets it right,” observed Delia, “that will make seven armies.”

“And we need every single swod in every army.” Inevitably, there were rumbles, and sporadic arguments leading to quick fights between soldiers of one race or army and the others; in general the troops behaved themselves. All were only too well aware of the stern tasks that lay ahead.

In the event the seventh army turned up aboard Hyrklese vollers. Delia's face brightened up wonderfully at the thought of seeing our lad, Jaidur, King of Hyrklana. I felt for her—and, by Krun! for myself—when Jaidur turned up missing. The forces from Hyrklana were led by Vad Gochert. His eye patch glittered on me as the greetings were exchanged.

“The king entrusted me with the army. I am honored, majister.”

“Indeed,” I said in my gruff old way. If I confess to pleasure at the thought I'd read this man aright from the beginning, then I make no apology for that. “And we are honored to have you and the Hyrklese army with us.”

Later on Delia, with rather a long face, told me that she'd had confidential information from some of her people she'd earlier sent to Huringa to keep an eye on Jaidur that the marriage did not prosper. “Nothing too serious yet, that cannot be mended; but, my heart—”

“Jaidur is a right tearaway. Vax Neemusjid. Aye. Well, like his brothers he has married. As for the girls—”

“Lela—or Jaezila as you will call her—and Tyfar will be splendid! That I know. As for Dayra—Ros the Claw—she has things to do yet.”

“And little Velia, who is not little any more, and Didi—”

“They are promised to the Sisters of the Rose.”

“Aye.”

The next army to arrive gave me great pleasure. He came stamping up to our tent in his bash on, bully-boy way, full, fleshy, choleric. I said: “Lahal, kov. It is good to see you and the army of Yumapan and Lome.”

“Lahal—majister.”

Oh, yes, Kov Loriman the Hunter had come a long, long way since the days of Spikatur Hunting Sword, when we'd groped our way around among the magics and monsters of the Moder. A figure appeared at his side, wreathed in a trembling blue radiance.

Instantly, futile though the gesture was, my fist gripped the hilt of my sword.

Another blue-shimmering figure ghosted into existence, and dear old Deb-Lu, very quickly, said: “It is perfectly all right! He felt he would prefer to stand before you in lupu at first. Afterwards—”

“You vouch for him, san?”

“I do. He recognizes the situation. He appealed to Kov Loriman because they have worked together before.”

“I see!”

The astonishment I felt was tempered by caution. If Deb-Lu said a thing was so, then it was a safe bet that that thing was so.

“The requirements of the Skantiklar have changed. San Na-Si-Fantong has uncovered further information which he has shared with me. It seems that the Skantiklar's powers are uncontrollable by a single mage. The power for self-destruction is so great as to make the thing deadly. It is our view, shared by Khe-Hi and Ling-Li, that the Skantiklar had best be destroyed.”

There was no need to say that this information tallied with what I had learned from Zena Iztar and the Star Lords.

“You have the ruby safe, the one you snatched in the Realm of the Drums?” I spoke with a hard edge to my voice.

“Aye, majister.” Na-Si-Fantong, as ever, ducked his head and took a breath before he spoke. “And the other two.”

“Then Carazaar can only have four.”

After that the real Na-Si-Fantong walked in with Deb-Lu, and I found to my astonishment that my astonishment died. We were all of Paz, in this great struggle together.

“If you don't count Turismond, which is, anyway, remote and cut-off,” pointed out Delia, “we now have representatives of all the islands and continents.”

Thinking about creeping along the dusty passages of the Realm of the Drums after this clever sorcerer, Na-Si-Fantong, had disappeared, I answered a little absently, if sharply: “Loh, where the battle is to be fought, is not represented by the central power—the Empire of Walfarg.”

Milsi in her gentle way said: “Give Satra time, Dray.”

“Give her enough time and she'll be too late.”

“She has a task, though, be fair.”

“Look, Milsi, dear, why don't you and Seg nip up to Hiclantung and spell it out for the old biddy? If she fiddles about regaining all her realms and the Shanks win, then she'll lose ‘em anyway. If she comes down here and chips in, then, if things work out, we can help her.”

Seg roared out: “Why don't you finish the sentence properly, my old dom?” He was laughing at me, his handsome face beaming.

“Finish the sentence?”

“Aye, my old dom! Properly. Finish with: ‘Dernun!'”

“Oh,” I said, chastened.

“A very good idea, Dray.” Milsi was quite unperturbed. “We'll go.”

“And do be quick,” said Delia. “The Shanks’ power grows.”

“They'll wait,” grunted Seg, “for me to shaft a few of ‘em.”

We shouted up the remberees when Milsi and Seg and a bodyguard lifted off for Hiclantung. Now if from all this coming and going, with armies being wafted into Tsungfaril from all over Paz, you gain the impression that we had vast fleets of aerial ships at our bidding, I must immediately disabuse you of any such notion. An accretion to our strength came with the vollers from Djanduin, certainly. But we were short of air still. For example, most of the clanners from Segesthes were lifted in Hamalese vessels. Among these were a few brand new craft; most were battle-worn. Kapt Hargon ham Hurlving told me that the Emperor Nedfar had appointed a kov to command the land forces and that Fleet Admiral Harulf ham Hilzim would be returning to command the air. This pleased me. Harulf was a fine sailor and a good man.

During this brief period Na-Si-Fantong was much in Deb-Lu's company. Whilst I cannot go so far as to say I felt uneasy at this close association, I had a few words with Khe-Hi and Ling-Li when they arrived in the camp. They'd had to attend to their twins’ education back in Whonban so that they would in the fullness of time become a full-fledged Wizard and Witch of Loh.

Khe-Hi laughed. “Oh, Deb-Lu will get the best of anything that goes on there!”

Ling-Li agreed. “There is always something more to learn under the Seven Arcades.”

I heaved up a grunting kind of sigh. “Yeh. As in life. The more you know the more you understand how little you know.”

In the camp there were, of course, plenty of other sorcerers of various persuasions. Like the troops, they had their quarrels and, like the swods, they got over them and learned toleration under stress. My view was quite simple. In our struggle against Carazaar we'd need every damned mage we could lay our hands on.

Kuong had taken Llodi and comrades off to his estates at Taranik to maintain contact and pick up supplies of dried fruit. I made it a point of comradeship to ride out to greet his returning caravan. They trudged up to Wayfarer's Drinnik smothered in dust, dry, and many limped as they marched.

Kuong was boiling with fury.

“Damned Glitchers! By Lohrhiang of the strangdja and kazz! I'd string ‘em all up, make ‘em dangle, Tsung-Tan rot their eyeballs!” He was in a right old paddy.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” I said as we rode together.

“Oh, we shafted ‘em and drove ‘em off. But we lost good men and animals. Poor Naghan the Miserable—a most cheerful merry fellow—will never ride with us again. Tsung-Tan rot ‘em!”

“And the supplies?”

“We lost some dried berries—it's the lads that sadden me.”

The Glitch Riders, raiding down from the north, flamboyant in their sand scarves and their robes, flashing steel expertly from the backs of their mounts, sticking their slender lances with deadly precision, remained a constant threat to the caravans. We just did not have enough air to cover everywhere. So, once again, I made up my mind.

As I was issuing instructions for a small expedition, Mevancy came in to see me. My hardened jurukkers by now knew who had immediate access to their Kendur. I looked up from the list.

“Mevancy? You look—ah—”

“It doesn't matter what I look like, cabbage. May I borrow a small airboat? Please?”

“Of course.”

“You don't ask me what for?”

“If you intend to tell me, you will. If not—”

“Oh, you!”

Her color rose blooming in the tent and she wouldn't look me in the eye.

“I'm going home to Sinnalix.” As I said nothing she went on: “Oh, I'm not deserting! Just that—well—I've some business.” Her eyes looked everywhere but at me. She was acting in a most shifty fashion.

“Very well, pigeon. Take who you like; but take a bodyguard.”

She took a pace forward and now she looked at me. I felt her gaze burning on me. “Thank you, cabbage. You are—kind.” That was not, I judged, the word she'd intended to use.

The order for the voller was quickly written and signed and Mevancy took herself off. I had a damned shrewd idea what that was all about. Poor Mevancy! Still, my plans for her remained. If she married Kuong after she returned from Sinnalix, and if we beat the Shanks, and when Satra died—well, who would venture to foretell the future? I relished the sound of Queen Mevancy, Empress of Walfarg. Yes, by Zair, I liked that!

Even so, I, Dray Prescot, a simple sailorman, could laugh at myself for all these extravagant notions of queens and empresses.

The expedition was quite small, half a dozen swift vollers crammed with my lads. Delia, of course, insisted on going along, and with her Nath Karidge and some of her Jikai Vuvushis. We flew north. There is little need to go into great detail. The Glitch Riders in general stuck to their own clans and only occasionally united under a nominal leader. The first encampment we visited was thrown into panic at our arrival. We dropped a few firepots on the desert as a hint of our power. Then I landed.

The local chieftain, after a thorough talking to, was happy to co-operate.

He pointed me in the direction of the encampment where lived the fellow they'd choose as their nominal leader. Following the same procedure we quickly had him eating out of our hands.

I said: “Chief Wan-fuong. There are greater enemies to fight than are to be found guarding the caravans. If your young men are the renowned warriors they claim—and I have thrashed them in my time—you will send them to join the warriors fighting the damned Fish Faces.”

He heard me out as I elaborated. He was a dignified old soul, no doubt with the blood of many and many a caravan guard staining his past. He took a deep breath and the mass of silver chains draped over his chest chingled and caught the lamplight in the tent.

He fingered a scar running down his cheek. Slowly, he said: “We are not so remote here that I have not heard of you. You may destroy our tents with your fire from the sky. We would fight you to the death—”

“Uselessly and to no purpose. The Shanks are all our foes.”

I saw that he was already in agreement but that he must be persuaded in order to maintain his pre-eminent position here. I persuaded him. At the end he nodded that desert-hawk face. “I will send our young men and we will fight alongside the paktuns of Queen Kirsty. It is agreed.”

Standing up, for I'd been sitting cross-legged on the carpet, I gave him a nice formal answer, and praised him and his warriors. Then I cleared off into the fresh air and observing the fantamyrrh climbed aboard the voller.

Chief Wan-fuong hadn't asked about pay for his young men. He was clearly perfectly satisfied they could look after themselves in the camp of their erstwhile enemies and victims. As for pay—the Glitchers were well-accustomed to taking what they wanted from the prostrate forms—dead or alive—of those they had beaten in combat.

I knew what Kirsty or Kuong or anyone of Tsungfaril would say at this turn of events. “Let the Glitch Riders and the Fish Faces kill one another, the more the merrier, Tsung-Tan rot ‘em all!”

All the same, I felt personally very pleased at the outcome of this spot of business. If this was a sample of what an Emperor of Paz could accomplish, the game might be well worth the candle. After the battle—always assuming we won—there would be a very great need for a whole fresh look at the situation. It might well be intractable; but, by Krun, we had to try to organize life in this part of Loh so that people could live freely.

Our little expedition turned for Makilorn. Towards the hour of mid a hail rang out from for'ard, the Kregish equivalent of: “Sail ho!”

Up in the bows that young scamp, Ensign Nalgre V'ron'v pointed. The dark shape of a voller sped south west on a closing course.

Now as to names in Kregish—well, Nalgre's family often wrote their surname as Vronv. No names on Kregen, contrary to some pig-ignorant critics, are unpronounceable. Here on Earth some of the ancients wrote only consonants and omitted all vowels. When reading you simply supplied the vowels as you went along. Two or three consonants in a string can easily be separated by the briefest little vowel sounds. Although Vronv is perfectly pronounceable as it stands, you can always say Veronev. Enough of that, by Krun!

We closed the other voller which was of Hamalese build.

The little craft did not waver or change course but bore on steadily.

Side by side we sailed on. From the staffs above our heads floated our flags. The Great Union of Vallia, Delia's personal tresh, my Old Superb, other standards denoting who was aboard. From the strange voller floated two banners I recognized.

A surge of exultation welled up in me. By Krun! This was splendid!

The Llahals rang across the gulf, the challenges, and from our side roared out: “Delia and Dray Prescot, Empress and Emperor of All Paz!”

The stentor might as easily have shouted Valhan instead of Prescot, either was correct. The answering shouts lifted my emotions, I can tell you, by Krun, yes!

“Kov Rees ham Harshur, Commander in Chief of the Hamalese Army!” and: “Kov Chido ham Thafey, Chief of Staff of the Hamalese Army here in Loh!”

Rees and Chido as ever were! I turned to Delia and she saw my face and she smiled. “Very well, Hamun ham Farthytu,” she said in a whispering voice, for I had long since told her of that real identity from Paline Valley. “Will they recognize you?” She put her head on one side. “And it is time, high time, we were properly introduced.”

“If ever there was a time, my love, it is now.”

“Yet—?”

The vollers sailed on side by side.

“And it is high time I told them the truth. Mind you, I intend to keep Hamun as a real identity, that is far too useful to throw away.”

“They will keep the secret—from all you have told me of them.”

“Also, it is in my mind to play them a trick. They caught me hopping in The Squish and Queng down there in Tuansmot. Now it is my turn!”

I yelled at the helmsman. “Lofty! Lay us alongside!”

“Quidang!”

Our voller edged closer, and Nudger the Bottom, the Ship-Deldar handling the ropes on the beam opened his mouth to yell. He'd roar out: “Coming aboard! Emperor of Paz!”

“Belay that, Nudger!” I snapped, very sharply. He gave me a look, then went on flicking his ropes in and out. “Just say: ‘Coming aboard.'”

I was wearing a simple fawn tunic and sandals in the heat of the desert, with rapier and main gauche and the Savanti sword. Heavy clobber is to be avoided in these climes when the slipstream hits you like a blast from the Furnace Fires of Inshurfraz. I handed the Krozair longsword to Delia, and she said: “Mind you invite them to dinner tonight.”

“Positively.”

Nudger yelled as ordered and with my hand up to my face I moved to the bulwark. Under cover of my hand as I faced outboard I changed my features into those of Hamun ham Farthytu. That face now was a trifle hardened from the one I'd assumed seasons ago in Ruathytu, changed as Chido's had changed, despite the fact that Kregans change so little and slowly over their span of years. Experience must leave its mark.

I leaped across onto the deck of the Hamalese voller.

They saw me and they gaped.

I bellowed out: “Well, you two famblys! Have you no greetings for an old comrade in arms?”

“Hamun!” and: “By Krun! Hamun!”

In the next instant we were clapping one another on the back and fairly dancing about the deck. This was all wonderful stuff and I joyed in it—and yet—and yet! Wait for the next act in the drama!

The voller lurched.

She staggered in mid air.

Instantly Chido sprang to the controls and then ripped the cover over the shaft to the silver boxes below. He straightened. His face betrayed it all.

“Black.”

All forward motion ceased. The airboat shuddered as though trying one last time to remain airborne. She dropped. Straight down she plummeted.

We fell through thin air towards the hard desert sands waiting hungrily below.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter nineteen

“So it is Lahal and Remberee in a breath.” Rees's lion voice rang hard.

“I'm wondering,” observed Chido, “if the weather's improved along the Ice Floes of Sicce at this time of year.”

“We must,” said Rees, staggering slightly as the voller plummeted, “have a last toast.” He crossed to a side locker and gripped onto the gunwale. As he pulled out a flagon and goblets I looked up at the circling Vallian fliers. She was up there, all I ever really wanted. I'd not deserved her, of course not. One of the vollers detached itself from the squadron and plunged vertically shooting down under power faster than us in free fall. Oh, I'd tried to do my best; all those times the Star Lords had sent me off on their hare-brained schemes I'd fought, clawed, bit and scratched, to get back to her. And, then, she'd be off with the Sisters of the Rose. No, our life had not been smooth.

“Here, Hamun. By Krun, if this is the end of it all, then let's go with flagons in our fists!

“Aye, Wees! A toast!”

I gripped the goblet and stared at these two. We stood facing in towards one another, forming a triangle. We lifted our right arms up, goblets high, and—I found nothing uncanny in it—as one we roared out: “To us!”

For a few moments as the flier plunged we stood like that, goblets high, challenging the dark fates of the universe.

We drank and at the precise instant the wine touched our lips the sound of a hollow gong blasted into the hot air. The airboat kicked like a calsany. We tumbled together, clasping our free arms about one another, and, by Krun, we did not spill a drop!

Again that bumping lurch sent us reeling.

Holding on we felt the voller's mad descent checking. We were slowing! Gripping on, we drank up the toast and Rees bellowed: “I was going to throw the goblets overside in the last toast. But not now. I prize them.”

“They're vewwy handsome, Wees.”

Now we were going down still at a rate of knots but nowhere near our original speed. All the same, if we hit flat on like this we'd still be splattered. At last we condescended to take notice of what was going on. We tumbled over to the gunwale, gripping on, and looked down.

“Damned close, Hanitcha the Harrower take it,” snarled Rees.

The yellow and brown of the desert sprang up towards us. Around the outline of our little voller another flier's outline showed. The brave flags would all be broken away from their masts. No doubt the deck was in a hell of a mess. We slowed. Closer and closer—slower and slower—someone down there was doing some consummate flying. When we hit the thump was enough—at last—to topple us off our feet. We sprawled along the gunwale, laughing.

I stopped laughing damned quickly. My clever scheme had gone seriously awry. I stood up and gave them two hard stares.

“There are things I must tell you. That's why I came aboard, so as to have some time alone with you.”

Rees puffed out his cheeks and pulled himself up. “And I'm going to have a few words with the pilot of that voller. Stupendous! Whoever he is I'm going to shake his hand and stand him a bumper.”

“I believe,” I said in a flat voice, “that particular voller pilot to be my wife.”

Their mouths hung and then snapped shut. Both of them: “Your what!”

“Please do not call me Hamun. No one knows I am Hamun ham Farthytu here, except my wife, of course. Please call me Dray.”

Chido was still sitting on the deck. His face could no longer properly be described as chinless; he certainly looked a trifle vacant now.

“Dray?” He started to stand up. “That's a Vallian voller. By Kwun, Hamun, what's going on?”

Chido did not, naturally, say ‘Dray.’ He said: ‘Dway.’ The near approach of death had driven all traces of Hamun's features from my face. As I looked at them, two blade comrades, Bladesmen with whom I had ruffled it in the Sacred Quarter of Ruathytu, I felt something of that old Dray Prescot Devil Look spread across my old beakhead. I spoke brusquely. “Vallian, yes. They do not know I am Hamun ham Farthytu. I am known as Dray. By Vox! Remember to call me Dray—please.” The last I added as graciously as I could.

“Damned Vallians,” said Chido. “Dway, is it?”

“Aye.”

“Your wife flew that voller?” demanded Rees.

“Aye—so I judge by the skill.”

“You look damned different Hamun—Dway.”

“Then, by Krun, you've married a girl of parts!”

There being no suitable reply to that I started to say: “Dray it is then—” A thunderbolt burst up over the gunwale and fairly hurled herself at me. She clasped me about the waist and gripped me hard. She trembled.

“You great fambly!” she cried. “Why do you do things like this to me?”

Over her shoulder I could see other figures climbing aboard. The uproar flowered up into the desert sky. They were all clamoring about me now. Among the yells were: “Kendur!” and: “Majister!” and: “Jis!” with one or two “Drays” thrown in. I sighed. Fat chance now of breaking the news gently to Rees and Chido. I said to Delia: “It'll go hard with them.”

“Then, my heart, let us do it right now.”

At once she freed me and swung about. Among the people all clamoring about us we looked for them—and could not see them.

“Nath!” She spoke rapidly to Nath Karidge. “The two who were aboard, the numim and the apim—where are they?”

“They were rather pushed aside in the rush, maj. I trust they were not trampled down.”

He spoke in jest, I saw; but there was more than a grain of truth in what he said, by Zair!

Eventually the pair were spotted walking along side by side out across the sands. Their heads were bowed and they were clearly in deep conversation. Delia gave me a swift glance and I nodded.

I held up my hand and instantly silence fell.

“Thank you, friends. We have had a wonderful escape from death. Now prepare to proceed. Check any damage.” They'd know exactly what to do.

There was no need to assist Delia over the side. Agile as a jumping jimnu she was up and over and waiting for me. I clambered after and, arm in arm, we walked off towards Rees and Chido.

“I don't much care for this,” I said in what was really a mumble.

“I believe what you have said of them. They will handle the situation. It's their attitude to Vallia that troubles me.”

“Aye.”

They saw us coming, turned to face us, and stood, waiting.

I made the pappattu in the correct form and sequence; but I did not mention anything about empresses. Rees bowed deeply.

“We are indebted to you for our lives. I give you our profound thanks.”

“Our most profound thanks,” amplified Chido, head up. His bow had not been as deep as Rees's. He studied me. “Dway? Delia?”

“All right! All right!” I fairly snarled it out. “By the diseased and decomposing liver and lights of Makki Grodno! Yes, yes, and yes! I am that Dray Prescot and this is that Delia Valhan Prescot, Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains, of whom you have heard tell. So? Does that affect our comradeship? Well, Rees, well, Chido?”

They remained silent and I could feel sympathy for them. Into the little hiatus Delia spoke in her soft voice. “The other fliers watched. They told me you three stood together, and drank a last toast. That must have been a sight to see.”

Nath had obviously been told and had told Delia in all the uproar. The two, numim and apim, stood a little helplessly, I thought, not looking at us.

Chido spoke. “A damned Vallian all the time. And the damned Emperor of Vallia as well.” He held out his hand. “But still a Bladesman and a comrade.”

We shook hands, at which I felt remarkably embarrassed, and Rees boomed: “A Bladesman and a comrade,” and wrung my hand in his turn.

I said: “I am Hamun ham Farthytu in Hamal. I would beg the favor—”

“Yes, yes, Dway! We understand and we'll wemember.”

“Aye, Dray. That we shall.”

The double meanings there rang loudly between the words.

“So you two are kovs now. My sincere and warmest congratulations.”

Rees favored me with a leery look. “The Emperor Nedfar told us that we had been commended to him by a very close friend.”

“He did not say who the vewwy close fwiend was—now I think we know.”

“That's it. If you're going to go maudlin on me—”

“Dray!” said Delia, half laughing.

In his most courtly way, Rees bowed to her. “You have my condolences, majestrix, for having to suffer such a fellow.”

“Insufferwwable!”

The high ringing notes of a trumpet blasting into the hot air took our instant attention. The call was ‘Air Alert!’ Chido and Rees would most likely not recognize the Vallian trumpet call; but they looked up with us. They were up there, three of them in a tight vee formation, flying fast into the north west. Their black hulls cut blots of darkness in the bright sky.

“Looks as though we've arrived just in time,” remarked Rees.

“Oh, the big one's coming up, no doubt of that, by Krun.”

We started off back for the group of vollers and my lads were already fanning out across the sands in a protective ring. Others were hard at work on the airboat. Delia made a face. “What a mess I made of her.”

Then Chido made a remark that convinced me we were truly back to our old comradeship. “Splendid flying, majestrix—for a Vallian!”

Delia laughed easily, and then said: “For that, Chido, you may call me maj in company and Delia when we are with friends.” Oh, yes, by Zair, Delia knows how to sort out scamps!

Feeling much relieved I walked back with my comrades and surveyed the damage. Our voller would still fly, of course, although her upperworks were ground down. The bright flags were salvaged and rigged on jury masts.

Briskly, Chido walked over to the flier that had caused all this trouble, saying: “We'll get our gear. A salvage team can fly up from our fleet.”

Rees joined him and Delia called: “And you two are invited to dinner.”

“We accept with pleasure—maj.”

If there was going to be a running battle of wits between them, I wanted to stay out of the middle, I can tell you, by Vox!

With commendable rapidity we were all ship shape and Vondium fashion and took off for Makilorn. Rees and Chido took a last long look at their abandoned flier, alone on the deserted sands. The introductions were not long drawn out affairs. Folk came up and shook hands and said who they were. The Pappattu was made informally and gracefully.

Chido kept on shaking his head. “A damned bunch of scallywag Vallians.”

“I saw you, Dray, on the field of the incendiary Vosks.”

“Aye, Rees, aye. I was glad that Vad Garnath did not die by your hand.”

“At the time—then, afterwards—yes, I was glad, too.”

“I'd have given his corpse a kick or three,” said Chido sturdily. If he meant it or not, I didn't know. Chido had changed. I wouldn't put it past him now.

In the camps outside Makilorn the newly arrived Kapt and his chief of staff of the Hamalese forces made themselves known. They'd itched to be here and had taken the small flier without waiting for Hilzim. He turned up the next day in an enormous skyship that was a capital addition to our fleets.

“Eight armies,” I said at the second breakfast. I spoke fretfully. “Where in a Herrelldrin Hell is Satra?”

Deb-Lu said: “We could well do with her college of mages.”

“I just hope Milsi and Seg—” began Sasha, then stopped talking.

“Trust old Seg to look out, my love,” said Inch in a mild manner. As I have said, when Seg and Inch talk gently and mildly it scares the pants off anyone who even remotely knows anything about them. The strongest possibility existed that if Satra had harmed Seg or Milsi, Inch would sort her and her army and her sorcerers out first—and then start on the Shanks.

Inevitably a certain distant friendliness subsisted between my two sets of comrades. They were not exactly cool, one to another, as wary, ready to test the others’ mettle. I tried not to make the mistake I'd made with Kuong, Mevancy, Llodi and company. We all shared meals in the ornate tent my lads considered fitting for their Kendur. And—there was no word of Mevancy.

A couple of days later a squadron of vorlcas sailed in, flying argosies of sail coasting through thin air and settling gracefully to the desert. Vallians disembarked, and Valkans, tough fighting men and women. To our joy Kov Turko led them to join the Vallian expeditionary force. I shall not go into the shenanigans that followed; believe me, we held a shbilliding to rock the stars in the night sky of Kregen and make all the seven moons dance.

Nothing would satisfy Turko but he must try a few falls to the glory of Beng Drudoj, and Korero joined in, and many and loud were the falls thereof. Rees, watching, offered a wager—but of that outcome I will not speak. As you may see, despite our manifold problems, we kept fit, we entertained ourselves, and we trained for the big day.

Some of the contests that took place were stupendous in the extreme. After all, Khamster, Kildoi, Djang, Clansman—all in camp together!

And still Mevancy did not return.

One day Kuong said to me in a troubled frame of mind: “I really think I shall have to go and find out.”

“Trust her. Let's ask Deb-Lu.”

After Deb-Lu had gone into lupu in his easy way and scryed, he told us Mevancy was well and unharmed. “She has not yet completed her business.”

With that calm assurance to ease our minds, we could turn to our business. An orbat had to be worked out. Every single swod had to know exactly where he must be and what he must do. Our scouts reported regularly and we were in no apprehension of a surprise raid catching us unawares.

Each army considered it had the right to the right flank. Failing that, then the center was the favored position. These decisions were down to me.

The leaders of the various armies and their chiefs were assembled and I spelled it out to them in words that meant I brooked no arguments.

Each army and each unit of each army was told exactly where they were to form up. I went on: “We must react swiftly. It is doubtful if the Shanks under a leader like Carazaar will miss any tricks. Their object is to take the city. That is practically indefensible from the air. We resist within the city, we strike them outside, and our air will clear their air.”

As soon as the assembled chiefs left, Delia and I took Inch and Sasha and Deb-Lu to a second, smaller meeting. Present were Queen Kirsty and Rodders, Lunky, and Na-Si-Fantong. Wine was served and then I spoke.

“You have between you five of the gems of the Skantiklar. It has been agreed that the thing is too evilly powerful and must be destroyed. I would ask you, now, to destroy the gems you have.”

Lunky gasped, and automatically his hand grasped the icon on his breast. Kirsty frowned. Na-Si-Fantong shook his head. I glared at him, and he said: “It is not possible, majister. Let San Deb-Lu-Quienyin enlighten us all.”

Deb-Lu pushed his turban straight and scratched his nose. “Quite right, Jak. The whole thing must be destroyed as a whole. Single rubies will not perish by fire or any other means of which we know.”

“Confound it!” I said. “Confound and blast it!”

“We just have to win the battle to protect the gems.” Delia put a slim finger to her lips. “Even if we do not succeed in gaining the other rubies from Carazaar, he will not make the Skantiklar.”

“Then the threat will always remain.”

“As Zim and Genodras rise each morning.”

“Sink me!” I burst out. “Who'd be the Emperor of all Paz!”

Deldar Ornol the Mischievous put his head around the flap of the tent to roar: “Master Rollo requests a word with San Quienyin. Urgent.” Ornol, as the guard Deldar, bellowed like all Deldars bellow, bright of face and powerful of lungs.

Deb-Lu perked up. “Ah! That'll be about Seg. I put Rollo onto him.”

“Send him in, Ornol.”

“Quidang!”

Instantly Rollo more ran than walked in, disheveled and eager.

“Lahal—San—Seg has done it! Satra requests vollers to transport her army here as soon as possible.”

“Excellent!”

Inch stood up. “I'll organize that.”

Fleet Admiral Hilzim and Kov Loriman detached ample fliers to bring in Satra's army and we awaited their arrival with keen interest.

I said: “So that makes it nine armies.”

Nine is the magical and mystical number on Kregen. At the Gathering of the Armies, then, we had nine armies. Nine armies to fight against the Shanks and Carazaar and all his dark power.

And still Mevancy had not returned.

“Although,” I said quietly to Delia, “I fancy it is Milsi who's accomplished this great stroke of fortune for us.”

“Yes. She has a way with her.”

To our three sorcerous comrades, Ling-Li, Deb-Lu and Khe-Hi, I said: “When Satra arrives I'm going to have to try to be strict with the old biddy. Sort her and her army out. I'd rather like you to take a tough line with her mages. It would be nice if we could form a kind of super college. I am only making suggestions, you understand—”

“Oh, Dray!” broke in Ling-Li, half-laughing. “When you try to be humble you look as though you've constipation.”

The two Wizards of Loh smiled in complete agreement.

H'm, I said to myself. I suppose the confounded Star Lords can see that, too.

“We have a considerable gathering of thaumaturgical expertise.” Deb-Lu was looking chippy, and I guessed that was in anticipation of dealing with Satra's sorcerers. “A super college will be formed. Carazaar is in for one big surprise.”

“All the same,” pointed out Khe-Hi, with a glance at his wife. “He is normally very powerful. With his enhanced abilities—”

“We will check him, my dear,” said Ling-Li. “We have to.”

She said ‘We will make him bare the throat’ which is the same thing.

Again, there is little need to detail our joyous reunion with Milsi and Seg. Satra's troops landed and marched to their appointed camping grounds. She and they were received with much pomp and circumstance. A large and of necessity formal dinner was held that night, and I more or less itched all the way through the tedious proceedings. We had a great battle to fight. All the same, functions of this kind formed an integral part of the political process.

At a suitable point I stood up and lifted my glass. “A toast!” I bellowed in the old foretop hailing voice. “To the Nine Armies of Paz!”

They drank it down without, as they say in Clishdrin, any heeltaps, and Seg and Inch stood up. Seg called out: “To our glorious victory!” and Inch shouted: “Coupled with the utter discomfiture of all our foes!”

There was no hint of bad luck in this, on Kregen, and many more toasts were drunk in brimmers and bumpers.

The singing was curtailed by the earlier length of the banquet. I insisted that we yodel out ‘The Bowmen of Loh’ which we did with full throats.

After that we went to bed and the next morning the Shanks arrived.

“They darken the sky!” exclaimed young Ensign Nalgre V'ron'v. He looked up, his face flushed. I did not detect any greater fear in him than was to be expected in these frightening circumstances.

To be truthful, there were a lot of them. One hell of a lot of them.

Our preparations were all long since made. Our fleets swarmed out to meet the Schtarkin airboats and all too soon flames and black smoke gouted hideous death across the sky.

I'd told the chiefs: “We do not simply sit back and resist in a defensive role. We must go over to the attack. The Shanks will not like fighting on foot in the desert. Our biggest single problem will be a sharp and sudden raid into the city. Carazaar will probably send his phantom image to lead Shanks and Katakis. Whatever dweomer he may use, he can be foiled if his tools are eliminated.”

To that end strong guards remained steadfast about the five gems, and we placed other guard formations at strategic points so as not to draw attention to the rubies’ locations. I remained in the city with 1ESW and 1EYJ under my hand to rush instantly to any threatened spot. The balance of my Guard Corps stood under arms to give support. Queen Kirsty and Rodders had their army within the city, manning the walls in company with a good proportion of Queen Satra's troops. Nath na Kochwold and his Phalanx with associated formations were ready to march out and bash any ground troops for they would be of limited use in the narrow alleys of the city.

K. Kholin Dorn came stamping up the stairs to the high tower where I'd perched a temporary headquarters. Like any fighting Dwadjang he carried an arsenal of weapons. He pulled a bright orange kerchief from under a strap and wiped his lips where the wine shone from the goblet in his fist, he grasped a djangir, the short broad sword that is the racial weapon of Djanduin, and with his free fist he punched me lightly on the bicep. “Well, now, king—where are these Fish Faces marching in hordes across the desert whom we will show these Clansmen on their voves how to despatch to the glory of Djan Kadjiryon of the Bright Flame? Eh, where?”

Hap Loder, just as ferocious although, like me, he had only two arms, following on, said: “By the lights of Zim and Genodras, Kytun, we shall turn the lesson the other way around. All the same, Dray, where are they?”

Out over the dusty plains the aerial combats continued. The sandy floor remained barren of marching troops.

“When you are dealing with a fellow as slippery and sly as Carazaar,” I said, “It behooves you to watch every direction at once.”

“You mean they'll burrow under the ground and come at us out of tunnels?” demanded Kytun, and he took another swig at his goblet.

“That is not at all impossible for Carazaar. By Zodjuin of the Silver Spear, not impossible at all!”

That made them stiffen up their spines!

Among the vollers swirling and rising and falling and—horrendously—bursting into flames, darted swift-winged shapes like clouds of annoying insects. Delia said: “Your young flutduinim are doing splendidly, Kytun.”

He nodded, pleased. Such was his pride in his flyers, however, that he had to pass it off somehow. “That, my queen, is to be expected of Djangs. I give praise to the young people of Valka who fly quite well.”

Delia laughed. That laugh can always run spider-fingers up and down my spine. I remembered my early days on Kregen when a laugh was a rare commodity, hard to come by and harder to produce.

There was no doubt that Fleet Admiral Hilzim was holding the Shanks. A few vollers broke away, diving for the city, to be caught and snuffed out by the reserve squadrons of Hyrklese fliers. In the air, the battle was going our way. Our scouts had not reported a vast army on foot, nor had we expected them to, for had they done so our fleets would have sailed out to drop fire pots on them. The foot troops would have to land from the air.

A small airboat came whistling over the desert, close to the ground, fleeting in from the opposite direction from the battle. Instantly a pair of fast patrolling fliers swooped on her. Without turning my head, I said: “Deb-Lu! Would you kindly send a message to those patrol craft—”

“I have already done so, Jak. Look, they are escorting her in.”

Shortly thereafter Mevancy climbed the stairs to headquarters.

“Lahal all,” she said in a most prim and proper way. She was dressed in her mail shirt and her forearms were bare. Some of the little bindle sockets were empty. She looked somehow different. She'd changed in some subtle way. There was about her an aura of joy much subdued by sadness.

Delia was the first to speak. She said: “We are glad to see you safe, my dear. And, too, I see you were successful.”

Mevancy's face took on the color of the setting Zim. “Yes.”

One or two other of the folk welcomed her; I didn't say anything until she spoke to me directly. Then I said: “Kuong is somewhere along the walls, trying to run the whole defense by himself. He'll be glad to see you.”

“Of course. Thank you. When the battle is won I shall see you again.”

After she had gone I realized that neither cabbage nor pigeon had passed our lips.

Because on the beautiful and terrible world of Kregen women as well as men fight as soldiers, women rise to high rank in the military hierarchy. Many and many a Jikai Vuvushi's name is written in the histories of war. There were Lady Chuktars in our ranks. Mevancy's position was vague in our establishment order. I'd given instructions that she held the rank of Ord Chuktar, that is, she was eight grades up in the rank of chuktar which took her higher than the equivalent brigade commander and into the area of divisional command. Yet she had no command within our army. The most sensible course for her to follow would be to stand with Kuong. I hoped she'd picked that up from my few words.

The observation I'd made concerning Kuong trying to run the show by himself was not strictly true, for Rodders with vastly more experience stood in command there. All the same, I'd wanted to stir Mevancy up a trifle.

A sharp and quickly muffled cry splattered from the group of brilliantly clad officers and aides at our back. I half-turned, then killed my instinctive smile. An enormous four-armed Djang carrying Delia's shields carried on talking to Korero. He was completely oblivious of the fact his massive boot rested on Nissa's dainty foot.

She gave him a sharp nudge into his armor with the end of her quarterstaff. Korero said: “Lift your foot, Tandu, if you wouldn't mind.”

Dalki, Tandu's son, who carried Delia's personal banner, let rip a snort of amusement born of long experience of his father's little ways.

The aerial combat out there claimed my attention. The locus of the fighting drifted away from Makilorn. I refused to think of the fine young men and women burning and falling and dying in the skies above the desert. Somebody called out: “We're winning! They're flying off!”

Delia said: “I wonder.”

As a matter of common sense before a battle I'd strapped on a harness of armor although I'd not yet donned the Mask of Recognition provided by my people. I began to feel claustrophobic with all these folk clustered around. Also, it was hot.

Delia said: “Look at Deb-Lu.”

In a space apart to himself the Wizard of Loh sat on the stool we'd insisted he use. His eyes were closed and his face held the rapt look that indicated thaumaturgical processes were at work. We waited, uncertain what this might mean, and the buzz of conversation died away. At last Deb-Lu opened his eyes and looked at us. He used his staff to stand up.

“The college we have formed is extremely powerful. Under the Seven Arcades I doubt a stronger has existed in Loh.” His face looked strained. “We now have definite intelligence that the Shanks have ceased their attempts to invade Mehzta. It is certain they have flown to join Carazaar.”

No one spoke at this disastrous information.

Deb-Lu went on: “Khe-Hi and Ling-Li have located Carazaar's main force. Just below the horizon diametrically opposite from the air fight. They will hit any moment—land troops inside the city.”

“So the cunning devil has faked a withdrawal and dragged our air off. Now he has a clear run in—except for the Hyrklese and Djang vollers.”

Almost immediately screeches of alarm burst up all along the walls and towers. Like a cloud of insects the Shank fliers swarmed across the desert to hurl themselves on Makilorn.

They were cunning in their attacks. Our few Hyrklese and Djang pickets were swept aside. Fliers settled over the city like flies. Others disgorged troops onto the sands outside clearly with the intention of keeping our exterior forces engaged and so prevent them assisting in the city.

There were all manner of Fish Heads represented—Shants, Schtarkins, Schturgins and many others, including those called Vakstirns who rode any saddle animals they could steal in the lands they invaded. Instantly, the whole city was enveloped in combat.

Among the hordes dropping onto the city were many Whiptails. These Katakis would after their victory round up the population as slaves, that was their business. Until then they furnished the Fish Faces with invaluable assistance in dealing with the inhabitants of Paz, of knowing customs and of winkling out pockets of resistance and hiding places. The Chuliks in our ranks ran their thumbs up and down their tusks and promised dark deeds versus Katakis. The Yellow Tuskers were in the mood for a fight.

All over the city along the banks of the river the fighting boomed. Seg and Inch and Turko were down there, and Loriman and Kuong and Mevancy and others of my friends and comrades. I began to fret.

Delia said: “If you do, I shall.”

How I hate all this business of fighting and killing! Battles, despite their undeniable academic and intellectual attraction, are anathema to any rational person. Yet we had to resist the Fish Faces. This was a doom and a destiny forced on me and not only by the Star Lords. If only the Makki-Grodno pus-loving Shanks would leave us alone!

Thus kept summarily out of the fight I watched from the tower top. Mind you, I could see what went on and give orders and conduct myself as an emperor should. I'd always tried to be an emperor who looked after the folk in his care. Perhaps I should have employed paktuns to fight for Vallia.

I was fidgeting about and gripping onto the hilt of the Savanti sword and then feeling to make sure the great Krozair longsword was securely at my back.

“By Lingloh!” rasped out one of the aides. “We're winning!”

“I believe we are at the moment,” said Delia in her equable voice.

Certainly as the reports flowed in they were all of hurling the damned Fish Faces and their contemptible Whiptail allies back in bloody confusion.

The Shank forces outside who drove on to reinforce their fishy fellows within the walls were met by Clansmen in earth-shaking vove charges, by Nath na Kochwold's Phalanx which drove in crimson and bronze through the trident-wielding ranks like an avalanche devouring a village. Oh, yes, we were winning.

“I don't like this,” I said. At the startled looks flung at me, I went on: “That Opaz-forsaken Carazaar has something nasty up his sleeve.”

“Yes, Jak, and it has started.” Deb-Lu spoke firmly, standing up from his stool. “He is casting. Very powerful. Very powerful indeed. Our forces will be driven back unless our new college can resist effectively. We can grip and hold him for a space—”

“And then?”

“They will roll over us.”

“Then you must send me to—wherever in a Herrelldrin Hell it was.”

“Last time he ran off—escaped to another plane.”

“And that won the battle for us.”

“Yes, Jak. If you go—”

“Oh, I'm going!”

Delia put her hand on my arm. Looking at her and devouring all her gorgeousness, as it were, in one huge draught, I said: “It's the only way.”

“Yes.”

The transition was swift. In the next heartbeat I was standing swaying about on insubstantial clouds. A silver sky encompassed me.

Directly ahead across the cloudscape underfoot loomed the throne of Carazaar.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter twenty

The throne bulked as I had seen it before, stupendous, barbaric, evil. Scale-covered draperies swept away, golden ornaments glinted in the silver light. The shadows lay at angles that corresponded to my own shadow—my own single shadow. Carazaar was here, then, on the same plane as myself. He was surrounded by his retinue, naked and half-naked girls of surpassing beauty. Monstrous shapes hovered vaguely at his back. The little scaled creature chained with the silver collar crouched against his right leg. N'gil, an obscenity of fish belly whiteness and gaping crimson mouth, huddled at the side, and the corpse-rotten thing hissed at my appearance.

Carazaar himself brooded on me, apparently entirely unshaken that I had sprung from nowhere onto this private plane of sorcery.

His face, scraped chalk-white, with paper-thin skin stretched gauntly over bones, with lipless mouth revealing a twin row of fang-like teeth, jagged as those of a shark, and with narrow nostrils pulsing, remained still a countenance from nightmare. And his eyes! Blue-black, they blazed with the mad red light of rhodopsin. His dark beard rested on his skeleton-like hands folded across the haft of his impressive and gilded axe. His gaze lowered on me. He did not speak.

He had his bevy of round-faced and barracuda-sharp Bowmaids of Loh in attendance, bows half-bent, ready to loose those deadly shafts into my guts.

They were not my immediate concern, for forward waddled the macabre shape of Arzuriel—Arzuriel with his four tentacles, each tipped by a fang-filled head. This multi-dimensional creature might be real or it might be a mere apparition. I had the strongest feeling the thing was real.

Fish-man or man-fish, Carazaar leaned forward to watch the contest.

The obscene thing waddled forward on bandy legs ready to rip chunks of bloody flesh away. I intended to stand no nonsense. With the smooth practiced movements of a Krozair of Zy I drew the great longsword. Arzuriel lurched forward, grasping for me, and I struck four shrewd blows.

Four fang-filled heads rolled upon the clouds. Before Arzuriel let rip a single screech I brought the brand down vertically and cleft him. In the next instant and without thought I leaped violently sideways. Four long Lohvian arrows passed through the space I had just vacated.

Without stopping, bounding from one foot to the other, I plunged on. Another bevy of shafts whistled past. These girls were good! There was really only one answer. I might bat arrows away as I had done in the Jikhorkdun of Huringa before I hurled a bloody leem's tail in fat Queen Fahia's face; that I'd surge forward to handstrokes was most doubtful.

Arzuriel had collapsed and I swirled back to him and gave my sword two cleansing swipes on his body. Sheathing the sword and hauling the Lohvian longbow forward took a mere moment. It was vitally necessary then to deflect incoming arrows with the bowstave before I could spring aside and whip out an arrow and nock it. My first shot struck the end Bowmaid. She just simply burst. Bits of skin and bone splattered through the air, a greenly-black cloud of nauseous gas sent a disgusting stench into my nostrils. The second shot did the same for the next of Carazaar's archers; the thing exploded in a gusting stink.

By the time I'd dealt with two more the form of Carazaar and his throne and retainers began to shimmer. He did not offer to waddle down and confront me with his axe. He'd tried that before and been bested. Now he thinned above the clouds, thinned and dissipated and vanished.

Yes, I admit it. As I stood there breathing lightly, there upon the clouds, slowly releasing the pull on the shaft I'd not loosed, I felt elation. Like any simpleton I experienced a great gush of joy. We'd done it!

The return transit proved as rapid as my arrival and in a twinkling I staggered just a few unsteady steps along Makilorn's western wall. The air rang with shouts of triumph. All about me the swods of our armies were yelling their heads off in victory. Deb-Lu had not brought me back to the HQ tower; but in those heady moments with the battle won I gave that no thought. Away past the cultivations and over the desert the hosts of Carazaar fled. His fliers spiraled up and away—those who could escape the destructive fangs of our vollers. The Suns of Scorpio shone refulgently down in their glorious blazes of jade and ruby and altogether the scene made a wonderful picture.

Turning to look back into the city I saw a number of fires had been started but that our damage control parties were hard at work to contain the blazes. In the general excitement I had gone unnoticed. A ferocious bellow brought me around and a giant vove of a fellow waved one arm in my face and pointed with the other three out over the desert. I didn't know him.

“King!” he fairly erupted. “Look at the nulshes!”

A single look told me the story. The Shank vollers swarmed back into the attack and our fliers recoiled. Hordes of Fish Faces and Katakis flooded towards the city. I looked more closely—and I saw the full horror of what Carazaar was accomplishing.

A whole regiment of our churgurs swayed and toppled over. They fell lazily, like slow-motion dominoes falling. But they crashed to the desert sands, and immediately after their sister regiment brigaded with them fell.

Deb-Lu's voice at my side said: “Yes, Jak. His power is enormous. He can send key formations into catalepsy—”

“I sent him packing!” I fairly snarled out.

“Aye, Jak, aye, so you did. He has fled to another plane—”

I gave Deb-Lu a leery look. He sounded positively chirpy. “And?”

“Our new college also has power. We can send you after him—”

“Then, Deb-Lu—do it!”

As the transition swept me up I realized why Deb-Lu had not brought me back to the HQ tower. My feet hit hard stone, wreathing mists cleared, and there loomed Carazaar's damned throne. At once I skipped sideways and the Lohvian shafts whistled past. I'd no idea where we were. I shot two more of the Bowmaids so that they burst into clouds of nauseous gas. I moved diagonally and shafted the rest. That left it between Carazaar and me.

Ha!

The thing coalesced from the coils of mist. It thickened and swelled and grew into a shape I recognized. Oh, yes, I knew what this monster from a diseased nightmare had been, and was, and now was again.

This time there were no throngs of blood-lusting Ullars and Harfnars, banked on their seats, no gore-soaked sand beneath my feet, no ring of perching Impiters. This time—thank Zair!—Delia was not spread all white and naked upon a triangle of wood. And, this time, I did not swing a bunch of chains; this time I could shoot the damned Ullgishoa with a Lohvian longbow and smash in with a Krozair longsword.

Carazaar had summoned up this horror from my past and no doubt hoped to unnerve me thereby. The Ullgishoa, squamous and writhing, its upper half a hemispherical carapace of scales, its lower a contorted snake-like mass of tentacles, each tipped with an oozing protuberance, moved towards me. Its single huge eye, mucous dripping, yellow and ruby, had once been burst by the swing of chains. This time two Lohvian shafts obliterated the orb and it burst into a fountain of scarlet and yellow. I remembered, oh, yes, I remembered the barbaric savagery with which I'd dealt with the Ullgishoa. Latterly I'd tried to calm that primordial fury, gentle my own savagery. Well, if Carazaar played this game then once more I'd revert to that half-crazed Dray Prescot who'd first been transported to Kregen.

The Ullgishoa's tentacles writhed and oozed and it screeched its own death-throes—and then it faded and vanished. I stared at the throne.

For three heartbeats Carazaar's face lowered on me, the parchment skin stretched so tightly it seemed the bones must break through at any moment. Haziness engulfed the throne and the dais and its occupants. The mist concealed all before me. A swirling commotion in the fog focused above my head. I knew what thing it was that thrust through, for I'd met it among the rocks of Delia's Blue Mountains. Then I'd wielded a huge sword of war, blunt as a lead razor, and had a hard fight taking out the four eyes.

The shorgortz lumbered forward from the mist on its twelve legs. Its scales glistened with a crimson iridescence, their centers green-black, its four eyes blinked in rapid succession, and its tendrils groped forward to snatch me up so that the claws of the forelegs could stuff pieces of me down the parallel jaws. Carazaar had summoned a much more dangerous creature this time. Four Lohvian shafts were required to take out the eyes. The thing exuded a vomit-like stench, and thrashed about, seeking its prey. To get at Carazaar I must pass the shorgortz. Away went the longbow and with a subtle sibilance out came the Krozair brand.

I leaped.

Tendrils slashed and the claws raked and I struck powerful shrewd blows, almost overwhelmed by the stinks alone. The work was accomplished swiftly. I had no feelings either of compassion or hatred for the shorgortz. Driven by its own destiny like everyone else, it merely did what its nature compelled. I surged on past the limp tail out of the mist.

Carazaar's throne had vanished. In the same instant I felt the ground lurch beneath me and in the next I stood in a grassy glade surrounded by trees. Framed between mossy trunks ahead stood the damned throne.

What would be the next monster from my lurid past Carazaar would throw at me? Zair knew, there were enough of them. Two leems stalked out from the trees and stood, sizing me up. One had a black tuft to the end of his tail, similar to the second, who wore a silver collar. I wondered at Carazaar's reasoning here. Yes, leems are lethal, feral, vicious killers; they stood little chance against a fully-armed and experienced leem-hunter.

With the thought that Seg might fancy the two shots I sent two shafts from the bow. Care had to be exercised to hit the leem's main heart. Both creatures rolled over. Carazaar's face brooded on me.

I lifted the bow again ready to take a shot at him and he was gone!

So, too, was I. Deb-Lu's college hurled me in close pursuit and this time my feet hit sand—silver sand. I thought, then, I knew my next antagonist.

Mountainous, sixteen legs, eight tusks, whiplash tails, and a mouth like a river dredger lined with rows of jagged shark's teeth. Its four blackly-red nostrils quivered as it picked up my scent and its two saucer eyes swiveled to regard me. A boloth. The silver sand beneath my feet was a nice touch. Over that silver sand, once, had raced four friends of mine, bringing me help. So even as I reached up for a shaft I realized why Carazaar had put in those two leems. I knew, before my fingers touched the feathers, that I had but one arrow left.

With that last shaft from the Lohvian longbow I blotted out one eye.

Being a frugal old paktun I did not throw down the bow but slung it over my shoulder out of the way. You never knew when shafts would come your way. The way ahead now lay with the Krozair longsword.

No need to detail that combat, for I used my usual system in dealing with poor hostile creatures who, in seeking to fulfill their destiny, try in the process to eat me. Piece by piece the enormous monster was finished. By the time he was on the point of collapse I tried so to work it that I'd be as close as possible to the throne when at last the boloth fell.

The bellowings and screamings—for the boloth has no trunk—filled that pleasant glade with the sounds of horror, and the blood and stench with disgust. Carazaar sat still half-leaning forward resting on his axe. I was as close to him as I was going to get before he saw through my stratagem.

With the Krozair brand all smeared and slimed, thrusting forward, I leaped for Carazaar.

“You're an onker, Dray Prescot, an onker of onkers, a get-onker!”

The onward rush carried me forward with all the impetuosity of a numim lad chasing a Fristle fifi. His derisive shout echoed in my ears—"A get-onker!"—and I swear my blade touched a down-draped silk, for the damned throne took off and shot into the air before vanishing. I stood there like a veritable loon, like the onker I'd so often been dubbed.

“By the disgusting diseased tripes and innards of Makki Grodno! And also by the unmentionables of the Divine Lady of Belschutz! Deb-Lu—get me after him!”

I stood in a vast hall dimly lit by braziers which cast thick shadows from fat and rotund pillars. Incense stank on the air. Furtive movements filled the shadows with menace. And—there stood that confounded throne with Carazaar and his retinue waiting for me.

He hurled a couple of risslaca at me, which I bested, and strode on.

Various creatures stalked from the shadowed aisles, and I cut them down, and moved on. Syatras sought to ensnare me from the pillars, and I hewed my way past them. Animal and vegetable horrors were defeated. I marched on. The kreektizz nearly got me. When I'd fought him in what I always recalled as the adventure of the flame-haired siren he'd nearly got me then. I had to draw the old sailor knife to hack off the tail with which he'd lapped me. Most annoyingly he'd chewed up some of the leather bits and pieces of my armor. Still, I kept on moving forward towards Carazaar.

The floor tilted. It definitely tilted. A pillar crumbled across in a puff of mortar and brick dust and lunged for my head. The ceiling fell in as I dived desperately out of the way. A single flashing glance showed me a chunk of brick hitting that gaudy canopy over Carazaar's throne. Before I had time to marvel at that event the throne vanished. The floor still rocked like a swifter in a rashoon. I dragged in a breath and rolled away from falling debris and splashed into waves rolling up a sandy beach.

By this time, among all the purposeful rage I felt to get to grips with Carazaar, a tinge of tiredness crept. I know tiredness is a sin; but I had been rather leaping and prancing, hacking and hewing about, recently.

The forms of Khe-Hi-Bjanching and Ling-Li-Lwingling appeared hovering just above the edge of the surf.

“Where is the old devil, then?” I demanded. The beach lay deserted for as far as I could see in both directions. There was not a sail in sight—but the twin Suns of Scorpio flooded mingled streaming lights.

“The battle fluctuates, Dray. We are weakening him; but—”

“But what? Where in a Herrelldrin Hell is he?”

“Temporarily we've lost him—”

“Lost him!”

“We will find him. He is planning a different attack. And, as Seg would say, my old dom, you need the breather.”

“H'mf,” I grumped. “I suppose so. But for the sweet sake of Opaz find the rast fast!”

Before the last word was out of my mouth away went sea and sand and sky and with them the friendly familiar Suns of Scorpio, and in their place a great and vasty darkness lay over the land.

Into that blackness pricked dots of red fire. Oh, yes, they have been likened to the Watchfires of Hell, the red rhodopsin eyes of schrepims. There were eight eyes, four pairs of them, the same number of schrepims that had escaped in that adventure with Unmok the Nets, and if some light was not shed shortly upon the proceedings then I'd be—I stopped my maundering.

I could make out the forms of the green-scaled lizard-men. I could see them in the darkness with remarkable clarity. I recalled as I stalked on that previously I'd been surprised at how well I saw down various dungeons. Then I recalled something—this was the handiwork of the Star Lords!

Schrepims are incredibly quick and agile, they are also reputed to have the Powers of the Dark, although this I doubt. If this was a sample of Carazaar's new approach then he'd upped the scale of his attack a thousandfold. What, clearly, he didn't know was that the Everoinye, in response to my request, had bestowed that gift upon me. The Slacamen started to stalk me and I went bald-headed for the nearest and upset him a trifle and so chopped him. In that old fight I'd had a thraxter. Now—the difference resulted in the rapid disintegration of the schrepims and an equally rapid transference to another plane. So fast are these lizard men one had sliced his thraxter cunningly enough to sever the breastplate straps on one side and the thing dangled down so that I had to discard it. I threw the kax down and stared upon my new surroundings.

Familiarity, as they say in Clishdrin, breeds contempt. The awesome power wielded by these mages of hurling people through immaterial planes of existence could never be taken for granted. Each shift of scene represented vast amounts of kharrna expended. The very thought of what was taking place was enough to send shivers down one's spine. I own I felt that most strongly—the sheer overbearing awesomeness of this whole experience.

Now I must relate what have to be some of the most painful passages of my life upon the cruel world of Kregen.

I stood in the dear familiar garden of Esser Rarioch my home above the city of Valkanium in Valka. Far below me the bay glittered in the streaming mingled radiance of the Suns of Scorpio. As I gaped about Carazaar and his infernal throne reared up among the rose bushes that were Delia's particular pride. Starting off towards him I was filled with such fury that—well, it is all highly painful. There were six of them and they came at me each in his own particular fashion. Balass the Hawk. Turko. K. Kholin Dorn. Hap Loder. Rees and Chido. Comrades all, they charged forward to slay me.

Difficult—oh, aye, difficult!—to recall let alone relate. I fought them. And, yes, I slew them all, every last one. They did not explode into disgusting bits and pieces stinking to high heaven. They remained sprawled on the grass in that quiet garden, lax and limp in death, the blood bright upon them. My comrades, slain by my hand, all bloody and dead. I gazed stupidly.

“By the glass eye and brass sword of Beng Thrax!” I stared at Balass. “By Djan-kadjiryon!” I stared at Kytun. “By the Black Chunkrah!” I stared at Hap Loder. “By Morro the Muscle!” I stared at Turko. “By Krun!” I stared at Rees and Chido.

The combat had been intense and ferocious and they'd nicked me a few times and done for the rest of my armor. Blood-spattered, I stood forth clad only in the old scarlet breechclout.

Shame filled me. There had been six of them, six of the finest fighting men Kregen could boast, and I'd beaten them. Prowess—don't talk to me about prowess, think of the misery the pursuit of prowess brings. I was tired, oh, yes, tired to the bone—but there was more to be done!

Twin shadows moved upon the grass and a great glittering golden Kildoi fronted me. For a heartbeat I imagined I had to fight Korero the Shield.

Then I saw the truth.

I felt that recognition like a vove hoof in the guts.

And—the bastard had his tail hand all present and correct.

The splendid golden Kildoi with his four arms and handed tail carried shield, spear and three swords. With only one sword he had proved he could best me. Always, as you know, I am prepared to meet a better swordsman than I am. I have never claimed to be the best swordsman of two worlds. In this arrogant Kildoi I had met a better swordsman, if not, as I had been assured, a greater.

A throaty cackle of laughter gusted from Carazaar's throne.

If this was the end of my adventures on Kregen, then this was the end. He had to be played as I played a many-tentacled or many-legged wild beast. He had to be deceived by cunning other than the feints known to swordmasters. I started on him and allowed everything that is and has ever been Dray Prescot to flow into the great Krozair longsword.

Of course he was very good, he was the very best I'd ever met.

His tail hand went first, chopped as he tried to stab past the scarlet breechclout.

He was hitting me. I did not feel the cuts. All the Krozair disciplines flowed into a single continuous effort. In the end he was done for. He went down to one knee and the shattered remnants of his shield held aloft vainly tried to keep out the Krozair brand. No hatred for him and no compunction; just the last cleansing blow to allow me surcease.

His name? That, surely, is unnecessary? I spared him a grave salute with the bloodied blade. “Go to whatever gods will have you, Prince Mefto A'Shanofero, Prince of Shanodrin—Mefto the Kazzur!”

With the sword lifted so ridiculously I looked across the garden and saw, and felt—I do not know what I felt. They walked slowly towards me, splendid, lithe, clad in war harness, handsome, lethal. The shorter did not say: “Well, my old dom!” Instead he lifted his bow. The taller swung his axe.

My strength was draining away and yet I could not rest. I knew exactly what they'd do, for we'd done it a thousand times together. I might flick away the first two, even three arrows. By then the Saxon pattern axe would be carving me into pieces. There was but the one chance.

My right hand left the hilt of the sword and the haft of my old sailor knife snugged sweetly. I drew and threw. Two streaks criss-crossed. The Lohvian longbow shaft caromed off the upheld Krozair brand. The knife slugged into that strong virile face. No thought! No thought! Axe and longsword twirled and licked and then I stepped back, panting, and stared with self-loathing horror upon the two corpses on the grass.

What to say! What to think! Nothing—nothing in all the ghastly world of Kregen. If I thought I had plumbed the depths of horror the movement by the red roses showed me that horror has no depth, there is no end, there is no worse, no worst of hell and horror and damnation.

She stepped forward with that heartbreakingly beautiful swing. The rapier, the Jiktar, glittered in her right hand. Her left was covered by the wickedly sharp talons of her Claw, her jikvar. She half-smiled in the old familiar way. The light of the suns caught in bright radiance in her hair. I stood. I just stood.

The Claw swept towards my head in a cunning blow that would remove my face. Instinct alone caused me to slide away, pivoting, avoiding the rapier thrust. The Krozair brand hung limply in my left hand, dangling. I was gasping for air I could barely draw into my lungs. I must stand still, must accept the needle. She moved with that graceful undulating movement towards me again.

A voice from the air snapped: “Dray Prescot!”

Refulgent yellow light blossomed. I knew that yellow radiance. The voice went on: “Stand away. Look at your comrades.”

I looked. The pathetic twisted heaps splattered with the blood of my making lay scattered on the grass. They sloughed. Flesh dripped and bones glinted yellow and pink; then they exploded into gouts of green and black ichor stinking nauseatingly in that fragrant garden.

“They are in Makilorn, fighting Fish Faces. This is not Delia. You must make the final effort, Dray Prescot. You must!”

“Zena Iztar!”

“The battle is nearly won. Carazaar's power will be gone with this last throw. Nerve yourself to strike down Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains—so that you may save and return to her!”

The Claw hissed past my face and the rapier scorched my ribs.

This was not Delia! This was a black phantasm from the kharrna of Carazaar. I brought the great Krozair longsword up, cunningly, swervingly, brought the superb brand down in a killing blow.

The Claw flashed to intercept. Like a chunkscreetz it caught and trapped the bloodied blade. The great and superb Krozair longsword snapped.

The Krozair brand snapped clean across.

The fact registered with such a colossal shock I felt the rapier's kiss as I desperately slid aside.

Carazaar's throaty laughter echoed in the garden of my home.

The Claw ripped bloody flesh from my side.

All I had ever really wanted in life was Delia. All the rest had been thrust upon me by fate, or the Scorpion, or the Savanti and the Star Lords. I recall little of what followed. I drew the Savanti sword. I used the Savanti blade. I fought. When it was over the yellow radiance washed upon the phantasmal corpse of Delia and I closed my eyes.

Zena Iztar said: “Carazaar's power is broken. The Fish Faces are defeated. Now, Dray Prescot, you must rest.”

Yellow warmth engulfed me and when I opened my eyes and orientated myself I discovered I was back on Earth. Zena Iztar must have patched me up enough to survive. I was in Africa. I did what I could until the Scorpion snatched me up again to return to Kregen.

The Star Lords summoned me to their presence and I detected—or imagined I detected—the faintest note of approval. The Shanks had been decisively driven away. Oh, yes, we all expected their return some day. As for Delia—how can you imagine my feelings when I saw her again? I told her the whole story. “And I clawed you, my heart?”

“Aye, most damnably!”

She gave that impish laugh that betides a mischievous intent. “And my little Claw broke your great Krozair longsword?”

“Aye.”

“Still, the Savanti sword—”

“Well, that is another matter.”

Shortly after that on the way to Valka the Everoinye dispatched me off to Earth where I am now. They dropped me in Munich where I used a whole heap of cassettes to relate this section of my story on Kregen. I have also, incidentally, seen the books. And very nice they are, to be sure. I know I shall be summoned by the Scorpion soon and am glad to have had the opportunity to tidy up the events that occurred in Loh.

Mevancy, by the way, married Kuong and gave birth to beautiful twin girls, both of whom will grow bindles on their forearms.

As for me, I await the summons of the Scorpion.

There is, after all, only Delia who matters in two worlds.

We-ell, yes. That is undeniably true. But you who have faithfully followed my narrative will be well aware of other people who mean much to me.

I am sending these cassettes off to Alan Burt Akers for I feel the Star Lords looming near and I wish to complete this section of my history. To follow are some uproarious goings on in Balintol and Tarkinlass and the reckless proceedings of Joldo Ironhand, the Kov of Low Vreng, so there is still much to relate. As for the Skantiklar, Carazaar and the Shanks, well, of course they are controlled and tamed at the moment; but I know they are up there on Kregen waiting for my return.

Who can foretell the future?

As I never tire of saying, all I ever really wanted was Delia, Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter twenty-one

My name is Drak Valhan Prescot, and I am the Emperor of Vallia. My wife, Silda Segutoria Valhan Prescot, is the Empress of Vallia.

I must confess I found it extremely difficult to believe my father's fantastic stories of a world with only one yellow sun, with only a tiny silver moon, and with no diffs at all but only apims like ourselves. Now, I have to believe. For me this all began one pleasant evening as we strolled along the balcony after dinner in the palace of Vondium the Proud City.

A squawk in the air drew my attention. Up there flew a scarlet and golden raptor, a giant hunting bird of remarkable aspect. I'd thought I'd seen such a bird as a youngster; but my father pooh-poohed the idea. Now I know the raptor to be the Gdoinye, the spy and messenger of the Everoinye. In the next instant I was upended in a blue radiance, the enormous form of a blue Scorpion seized me away and I recovered my senses to find myself in this city.

The Star Lords had provided me with decent clothes and local currency and to my amazement I could converse with the inhabitants in their own language. The reason for these extraordinary occurrences must, it is clear, be that what happened to my father and mother should be made known to Mr. Alan Burt Akers, and thence to you who listen to the cassette tapes I am recording in my hotel room. I shall post them at once, and return—I trust, by Vox!—to Kregen.

There is no doubt about it, I do not think I could ever become used to living on a world with only one sun.

To begin on a personal note, I'd just returned from a long and arduous campaign in Pandahem during which we'd dealt with some severity with the Bloody Menahem. There were stupendous celebrations when the victors of the Lohvian campaign around Makilorn joined us. The religious observances continued for days, and the winding processions chanting ‘Oolie Opaz’ filled the boulevards and avenues bordering the canals of Vondium.

Subsequently and in grave conclave agreement was reached. Seg Segutorio and Milsi were to become Emperor and Empress of Pandahem. This would unite the island and ensure peace.

I well remember my father exclaiming with a sigh of resignation: “Well, by Krun, Inch and Sasha are King and Queen of Hyr-Thoth-Ghat-Loh, now Milsi and Seg have been saddled with an empire—” And my mother softly interrupting: “Oh, you grizzly old graint, we'll find an empire for them, as Dee-Sheon is my witness!” She really is the most remarkable mother anybody can have. And I now recognize that should be ‘in two worlds.’ She went on: “Very soon Mevancy, your little pigeon, will be Empress of Walfarg.”

“And,” growled my father in his gravel-shifting voice, “she won't be your detestable Queen of Pain, either, by Zair.”

When he says: ‘By Zair,’ I own it as a Krozair of Zy. ‘By Vox’ is good Vallian. I often wonder, though, about his frequent use of the Hamalese ‘By Krun.’ I really do.

He added: “All these kings and queens and emperors and empresses cavorting about me, a simple sailorman—by Zim-Zair, it's uncanny!”

In this I think his reference to a simple sailorman is a trifle—well, on Kregen we'd say “Hesink,” which is similar to ‘de trop', too much. I've seen the kings and queens reduced to a quivering jelly merely because he looked at them in his Dray Prescot way.

Trouble erupted over in Tarkinlass and there was nothing for it but that he must fly off there immediately to sort things out. Mother spoke to him most strictly. Other people pointed out various facts. In the end, grumbling like Muruaa, he agreed to let the army go and sort things out as was their duty.

“I'm becoming just like Mevancy called me,” he burst out. He mentioned Makki Grodno and the Divine Lady of Belschutz. “Just a damned cabbage!”

A nesting of new flutduins had just come to their prime. These superb birds, originally from Djanduin, were capable of easily carrying two people. I value our Vallian aerial cavalry as highly as our Phalanx, as my guard corps.

“That's it!” declared my father on a morning when the suns shone quite nicely. “A flight! Delia, my heart, let's fly aloft and get some fresh air into our lungs!”

“We'll take a picnic.”

“Capital!”

“You remember the impiter, and flying from Umgar Stro?”

“Aye. Aye, I remember. And all the rest, all the rest. Those days will never be forgotten—”

“Particularly when there are innumerable puppet shows, and plays and books, recounting the astonishing adventures of Dray Prescot.”

My father let rip that astounding noise he claims is a laugh. “Most of ‘em are downright lies!”

“Not all. Not all.”

The flutduin was brought to the high terrace. He was a truly magnificent bird, brilliant of plumage and with a spirit—perhaps—to match his passengers. They climbed aboard, laughing, and fixed the clerketers. The bird gave two enormous beats of those curved wings and soared aloft.

As, shading our eyes against the suns, we stared up, a scarlet and golden bird, small beside the flutduin, spiraled overhead.

In these latter days my father had told me of the Star Lords and the Gdoinye. Silda held my arm. Up and up soared the flutduin.

I saw it all, clearly, without hindrance, and marveled at the wonder.

Blueness grew about the bird. The shape of a giant Scorpion formed. Hovering, gigantic, the Scorpion lowered over the soaring bird. Redness shone down lambently.

So often my father had said it. Delia, Delia of Delphond, Delia of of the Blue Mountains, and Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, Empress and Emperor of Paz, were carried up in the blue radiance of the Scorpion into the scarlet infinity of the Star Lords.

I know exactly what he was saying.

“By Zair! What now!”

[Back to Table of Contents]

A Glossary to the Lohvian Cycle of the Saga of Dray Prescot

References to the six books of the cycle are given as:

SRB Scorpio Reborn

SAS Scorpio Assassin

SIV Scorpio Invasion

SAB Scorpio Ablaze

SDR Scorpio Drums

STR Scorpio Triumph

NB: Previous glossaries covering items not included here can be found in Volume 5: Prince of Scorpio, Volume 7: Arena of Antares, Volume 11: Armada of Antares, Volume 14: Krozair of Kregen, Volume 18: Golden Scorpio, Volume 22: A Victory for Kregen, Volume 26: Allies of Antares, Volume 32: Seg the Bowman, and Volume 37: Warlord of Antares.

A

Accursed of Tsung-Tan: those sentenced to live one hundred lives before admittance to Gilium.

Afflatus, Path of: one of the paths of Alternative Magic.

Alternative Magic: theory of magic which attempts to perform the same work as that done by sorcerers (magic) and by gods (miracles) solely through one's own human powers.

Ankharum: city at the western edge of the Great Salt Desert.

Annorpha Aigrette: prize in an archery tournament at the Springs of Benga Annorpha.

Annorpha, Springs of: hot springs located in the oasis town of Orphasmot.

ham Armit, Taranto: the Rango of Firthlad, Khibil Jiktar aboard Dovad Daisy. SAB

Arngalf Galfarn: a legendary warrior who was tested by the god Schnurrdun the All-seeing.

Aron the Ferry: a ferryman on the River of Drifting Leaves in Makilorn. SRB

Artifices of the Sword: Krozair treatise written some 2,500 years ago by San Zefan, Krzy.

Arzuriel: demon employed by Carazaar, with four tentacular appendages instead of arms, each having a pseudo-head at its tip, a bulb-like growth containing two eyes set beside the fanged mouth.

Asatha, Deldar Paline: Jiktar Vuvushi wounded by Shanks. SAB

“Asleep by the Desert Lily": a plaintive little tune from Tsungfaril.

autmoil: stranger.

Avenue of Splendid Arches: a street in Makilorn.

B

Bakkar, by: oath used by Naghan the Bristle.

Bargrad the Pellin: Brokelsh whom Prescot recruited in Taranjin to resist the Shank occupation. SIV

Bargray the Tumbs: a deckhand on the vessel Quaynt's Fortune. SIV

Bella Chuan-Hsei: an actress traveling with Mevancy in the Farang Parang. SAB

Beng Frust, Law of: law stating that when you urgently need an item you cannot find it.

Benormy: Brukaj retainer in the retinue of Chan Holomin. SDR

bindles: spines biologically generated in the forearms of Sinnalixi women, dischargeable at will.

Blanky: preysany ridden by Prescot.

bliem: life.

blotto: Kregish for “ditto.”

Bog: the name given to a fellow handy at bashing evildoers.

Boromir of the Ashes: place where Caspar the Peaker was sent by the Everoinye.

Borrakesh: kovnate in Tarankar.

Braga: Brokelsh retainer in the retinue of Chan Holomin. SDR

brellam: a variety of tree. They grow straight up and very tall. They spread wide branches and turn up their leaves in serried masses of cups. They prevent most of the rain and suns-light from falling to the surface, holding the liquid within their cellular structure. Consequently the ground beneath is relatively bare of lesser vegetation.

bronze boxes: the vollers built by the Shanks use bronze boxes rather than silver boxes for lift and motive power.

C

Cabbage: Mevancy's nickname for Prescot.

Caran, San: Repositer and would-be murderer of Kuong Vang Talin.

Carazaar: a sorcerer who seems to be connected with the Shank invasion. Described as having parchment-white skin, smoldering red eyes, a full brown beard, a lipless mouth with double rows of fangs, and mere nostril slits for a nose. SRB, SAB

“Carnation Pink and Iris Blue": a song of Houdondrin in Loh.

Caspar the Peaker: nickname of Caspar Del Vanian.

Chaadur na Dorfu: known as Chaadur the Striker, Kurinfaril, alias used by Prescot in Tarankar.

Chandro, San: one of the Queen of Tsungfaril's Repositers. SAS

Chang-So: helmsman of the vessel Garrus. SIV

Chang-So, San: court wizard of the Queen of Tsungfaril, who nurses a grudge against Prescot. SAS

Changwutung: town where Prescot was dropped by the Star Lords into the middle of a walled garden.

Chanshong: a city of Walfarg.

Chardaz: homeplace of Mevancy.

Chasserfic: snakelike water animal, with eight limbs, a fish's tail like an eel's, hinged jaws, and fangs all the way up to its throat.

Chem: territory of jungles and hostile inhabitants in the equatorial latitudes of Loh.

Cheng, San: Repositer of Trylon Kuong after the death of San Caran, with a sharp nose and rounded chin. SAB

Chentoi: a race of diffs.

Cheryl: daughter of the jewelsmith Hwang Tei; eloped with Naghan the Cheerful against her father's wishes and was miraculously saved by rain.

Chiako the Gut: cadade of Tuong Mishuro's guard. SRB

Chikitto the Unerring, by: an oath used by thieves in Makilorn.

Ching-Lee: female companion of Wink. SAS

Chuan-Hsei, Bella: an actress traveling with Mevancy in the Farang Parang. SAB

Claransmot: oasis to the west of Orphasmot.

Clishdrin: home of aphoristic people.

Clovang: region of Tarankar consisting of mountains and valleys.

Clovangjin: chief city of Clovang.

Coram the Flatch: a dwa-Hikdar from 2ESW. SIV

Cromal: yet another school of wizardry.

crowpin: type of carnivorous plant.

Csitra: twin sister of Queen Satra; died in childhood.

D

Dahemin: exceedingly ancient name given in southern Loh to the twin moons of Kregen.

Dalendin, Song of: song of the triumph of lovers Ornol and Vilia through adversity.

“A day short of Eternity is still Eternity": saying attributed to San Blarnoi.

Deliverance: name given to the jury-rigged flying craft stolen by Prescot and his friends from the Shanks. SAB

Del Vanian, Caspar: a kaogoinye charged with killing Queen Leone of Tsungfaril; also a painter. SAS

Demaskar Persuasion: a magical order having some very real powers.

Dien-sing the Droopeyed: character in the song of Dalendin.

dikaster: in the religion of Tsung-Tan, those trained to recognize a reincarnated paol-ur-bliem.

diviner: dikaster

Din'nagul: country in southern Loh.

Djondalar, by: oath used by Prescot.

Domesti: Och retainer in the retinue of Chan Holomin. SDR

Dondo!: a way of saying, “Good!”

Dovad Daisy: Hamalese airship sent to fight the Shanks in Tarankar. SAB

Drajak the Sudden: alias used by Prescot in southern Loh. SRB

Dravka: Brokelsh retainer in the retinue of Chan Holomin. SDR

Drifting Leaves, River of: a dry river which once flowed southwards through Makilorn.

dwaprijjers: swift piratical vessels that ply the trade along the Ivilian Keys.

Drums, People of the: Inhabitants of the Realm of the Drums. Pallid of face, down-drooping of whiskers, with slack features and small, too-red mouths. They wear different kinds of jeweled fillets in their hair.

E

eenlan: swift little arachnoid, all glistening brown, yellow, and black, which is said to be able to hear your muscles moving your bones about inside your body.

Erlik: captain of Vendayha Lady. STR

Erlon the Biceps: Jurukker in the Empress's Devoted Life Guard. STR

Eternal Twilight, City of: an ancient city in the jungles of Loh, under a time-freezing spell.

F

Fang, Ron Dang: also called Rodders; a mercenary, a Bowman of Loh, companion to Kirsty. SAS

Fansi: a Fristle serving-maid in the palace of Makilorn. SAS

Fan-Si: a Fristle member of the band of Nath the Ron and Layla. SIV, SAB

Fantong, Na-Si-: Wizard of Loh, seeking the Skantiklar. SAS

Farang Parang: wastelands between Ankharum and Makilorn.

Farantino, Orlon: known as the Rekarder, a Khibil retainer of Layla na Borrakesh. SIV

Fardo the Splitter: brother of Fan-Si, taken by Shanks.

Fariang, Laygon: a lord with a stutter who traveled with Mevancy in the Farang Parang. SAB

Fashti: a shapely Fristle maiden, a member of Rikky Tardish's troupe. SRB

Fenella: Puncture Lady who attended Prescot when he was paralyzed. SRB

Ferlie: a follower of the New Empire of Loh in Shamfrin. SDR

Fing-Na: a thief of Makilorn. SAS

ham Finral, Hangol: a Hamalese Strom, cadade of Vad Leotes’ guard, adherent of Lem, who took an intense dislike to Prescot. SRB

Finsi the Silver: a member of Prescot's guerilla force in Tarankar. SIV

Flamdi: name of slouncher on which Prescot crossed the Gleek Frankai. SRB

flamin: south-Lohvian term for a sand scarf.

flang: a type of vermin.

Flarvil: a Fristle member of 1ESW. SAB

Flesh, Path of the: one of the paths of Alternative Magic.

flitchlak: a variety of tree similar to a syatra, which uses sticky tendrils to whip its prey up to the flower to be eaten.

fluttclepper flick: hell for leather—very fast and risky speed.

Foke the Clis: Fristle whom Prescot recruited in Taranjin to resist the Shank occupation. SIV

Folly: slave of Princess Licria, frozen together with her in the underground Realm of the Drums, daughter of a Sybli mother and an apim father.

Fu-Ming-Fung: alias used by Caspar Del Vanian.

Fwang, Wei: needleman who cared for Llodi when he was wounded by Lady Pulvia. SAS

G

Gal-ag-Foroming: teacher of Ra-Lu-Quonling. SIV

Galfarn, Arngalf: a legendary warrior who was tested by the god Schnurrdun the All-seeing.

Gandil the Mak: a crony of Strom Hangol, a beetle-browed fellow with black hair and a bad skin, who habitually carried sword and axe. Killed by Prescot. SRB

Garrus: vessel on which Prescot took passage downriver from Ternantung. SIV

garsun: flour made from the roots of the gola-gola plant.

Gdoinya: sister bird to the Gdoinye.

Gdoinyi: the Gdoinye and Gdoinya.

Ge-Fu-Schian: a Trylon, original employer of Wa-Te. SDR

Ghat Gate: a gate in Taranjin.

Gilium: paradise in the religion of Tsung-Tan.

glahber: a “poor devil.”

Glarkie Dunes: one of the names given to the desert to the east of She of the Sundering.

Gleek Frankai: the Great Salt Desert in southern Loh.

Glima: a Gon girl who escaped from the Shanks with Prescot and his friends. SAB

Glinting Charm, River of: river running through the town of Changwutung.

Glitch Riders: a nation of nomads living to the north of the Farang Parang.

gola-gola: a plant whose massive roots are ground to yield flour.

gorse: a type of bush.

Goyt, by: oath used by Grodnims.

Great Salt Desert: desert found in the southern part of Loh, also called the Gleek Frankai. SRB

Grotal the Reducer: a Grodnim deity.

Guishsmot: home town of Walfger Olipen.

Gurong: a Deldar in the caravan of Vad Leotes. SRB

H

ham Thanstrer, Hamish ham Thanstrer: Kapt of the Hamalian air fleet sent to fight the Shank occupiers of Tarankar.

Hamparz, Sternum: Ship Hikdar of Dovad Daisy. SAB

Hangol ham Finral, Strom: cadade of Vad Leotes’ guard, a Hamalian, adherent of Lem, who took an intense dislike to Prescot. SRB

Hanjhin: oasis to the west of Orphasmot.

Hanshar, Ortyg: the chief priest of Makilorn. SAS

“Happy the Day of the Shearing": a Lohvian song.

Hargon, San: one of Strom Hangols’ cronies. Had Tuong Mishuro killed, and was killed in turn by Prescot. SRB

Havil Resplendent: Hamalese airship sent to fight the Shanks in Tarankar. SAB

Havil Resurgent: Hamalese airship sent to fight the Shanks in Tarankar. SAB

Heart: oft-used Lohvian term for the Chunkrah's Eye.

“Her Hair as Red as the Robin's Breast": an old Lohvian song.

“Hesink": expression meaning “de trop", “too much.”

Hiclantung: Lohvian city, home of Queen Satra.

Hien-Mi, San Nalgre: one of the Queen of Makilorn's Repositers. SAS

ham Hilzim, Harulf: Vad of Quinvarn, Fleet Admiral of the Hamalese fleet sent to fight the Shanks in Tarankar. SAB, STR

Hinjanchung: a town on the River of Glinting Charm.

Hirrume Warrior: Hamalese airship sent to fight the Shanks in Tarankar. SAB

Hlo-Hli: god of the old Lohvian Empire.

Hoban the Brows: varterist aboard Dovad Daisy. SAB

Holi and Hola: most common Lohvian name for the twin moons of Kregen.

Holomin, Chan: Strom of Wioldrin, encountered by Prescot in the underground maze beneath the City of Eternal Twilight.

ham Homath, Nath: Hikdar in the Hamalese fleet sent to fight the Shanks in Tarankar. SAB

Hondar the Frogan: ship Deldar of Dovad Daisy. SAB

Horvil ham Verherne: Hamalian mercenary in the army of Na-Si-Fantong. STR

Hosifi: see Shiang, Hosifi.

Houdondrin: a country in Loh.

Hsienu, Nath: also called Nath the Bollard, master of the vessel Garrus; addicted to Jikalla. SIV

H'siung Garden: a restaurant at the Springs of Benga Annorpha.

Huang: a contestant for the Annorpha Aigrette. SAS

ham Hurlving, Hargon: a Kapt, temporary commander of the Hamalian fleet in Loh. STR

Hwang: one of two guards who watched Prescot fall from the sky into a carp pond. SIV

Hwang, Pling-Fe-: noble of Tsungfaril whose newborn baby was supposed to receive the spirit of the assassinated Queen. SAS

HwangTei: jewelsmith whose daughter Cheryl eloped with Naghan the Cheerful.

Hwangin: king of Hiclantung. STR

hyrzim: one of two styles of scabbard for a Krozair longsword, highly decorated.

Hytak: race of diffs each having two arms, two legs, and a sinuous tail to which an edged blade is often strapped. The backbone of many armies and many mercenary bands, hytakim are valued as fighting men and women. Their armor and weapons are maintained in impeccable condition.

I

Ib, Path of the: one of the paths of Alternative Magic, in which the tenth corner is of special significance.

Ibdrin: spirit-land, where the souls or spirits of murdered or violently-killed people are believed to cluster, waiting for vengeance

Inglewong, Lady Floria: companion to Trylon Nanji Tawang. SRB, SAS

Inky: Valkan boy with whom Prescot flew a kite. SRB

Ishti!: a Shank war cry.

“It's no good crying after you've upset the calsany.": No use crying over spilled milk.

Ivory Lorn: an abandoned city in the Farang Parang.

Iwanhan, San: philosopher who suffered at the hands of well-intentioned torturers.

J

The Jeweled Crook: a lodging house in Larishsmot, where Prescot stayed when he was paralyzed. SRB

Jimjim the Randell: a slave in Shank-occupied Taranjin. SIV

K

Kadar the Hammer: alias used by Prescot in Loh. STR

Kang the Hook: a fisherman of Makilorn. SRB

kaogoinye: an assassin working at the behest of the Everoinye.

Kaopan: in the religion of Tsung-Tan, a ceremony to ensure that a dead paol-ur-bliem will not be reincarnated.

Kaour: death-dealer.

Kei-Wo the Dipensis: a thief of Makilorn. SAS

Kendur: name used for the Emperor by the Emperor's Sword Watch.

khan: a silver coin of Tsungfaril.

Kirsty: cousin to Leone, later Queen of Makfaril. SAS

Koo, Kling: a woman of Makilorn.

Koskei of the Daggered Tail, by: a Kataki oath.

krad: patriotic bronze coin minted by the Presidio of Vallia in the Times of Troubles and which forms the main part of the Vallian Freedom Army's wages.

kreektizz: a type of ferocious beast.

kregoinya: a female agent of the Star Lords.

Kronenvar: land neighboring Shirrendrin.

krosturr: one of two styles of scabbard for a Krozair longsword, plain and unadorned.

Kuong Vang Talin: Trylon of Taranik, recently come of age. SRB, SAS, SAB

Kwang: a bandit who attacked Prescot's caravan in southern Loh. SRB

L

laiker: Lohvian variety of shortsword.

Languin: see Nuong-Hi.

Lanlo the Plump: a follower of the New Empire of Loh in Shamfrin, husband of Milly. SDR

Lao-Chan the Staver: bowright in Taranjin who was killed for making defective bows. SIV

lap-lap: a thigh-length wrap-around garment.

Larghos: bosun of Garrus. SIV

Larghos Jankwa ti Fakwald: cadet aboard Vendayha Lady. STR

Larghos the Lame, Kapt: a soldier poet killed in an ambush 1500 years ago.

Larghos the Throstle: a member of the band of Nath the Ron and Layla, with a fine singing voice. SIV

Larghos the Trevoilyan: a Hikdar aboard Shankjid. SAB

Larishsmot: town at the eastern end of the Old Lorn trail.

Larrigen: see Parfang.

Lavonth: predatory beast, about the size of a greyhound, a pelt patterned in zigzag of tawny and umbre.

Laygon Fariang: a lord with a stutter who traveled with Mevancy in the Farang Parang. SAB

Layla na Borrakesh, Kovneva: fought against the Shanks in Tarankar. SIV

Leone: Queen of Tsungfaril, paol-ur-bliem, assassinated in her bath. SAS

Leone: female companion of Wink, paol-ur-bliem, one of three heirs to the throne of Makfaril. SAS

Leotes: see li Ningwan, Leotes.

by Lhun: an oath used by Mul-lu-Manting.

Licria: Princess Majestrix of Walfarg, frozen for hundreds of years in the underground Realm of the Drums by a magic spell until released by Prescot.

lictrix: a saddle animal native to Loh, related to the sectrix.

Lin: one of two guards who watched Prescot fall from the sky into a carp pond. SIV

Lindy-ma-Sendiyin: a follower of the New Empire of Loh in Shamfrin. SDR

Lingli, Mistress: puncture lady who attended to Wink when he was stabbed by a thief. SAS

Lingloh, by: an oath used by Whonbim.

Lingshi: mistress of the Jeweled Crook. SRB

Lisa the Forthright: leader of the Pilgrims.

lisehn: variety of tree from which the fine Vallian bowstaves are built.

Llodi the Voice: a guard in the retinue of Vad Leotes, known for his singing voice and splendid fissured nose. SRB

Loctrux: a deity worshipped in Tsungfaril before the advent of Tsung-Tan.

Lohrhiang: a priest of Tsung-Tan who conquered the followers of Loctrux.

Lola the Assandra: a follower of the New Empire of Loh in Shamfrin. SDR

Loptyg the Muncible: serving in the Emperor's Sword Watch. SIV

Luan-Chi the Flexible: Thanko thief recruited by Prescot in Taranjin to assist in sabotage. SIV

Lulli Quincy: proprietress of a lodging house in Makilorn. SRB

Lunky: apprentice to Tuong Mishuro, later succeeding him as a dikaster. SRB, SAS

Lurgan the Vandour: Hytak crossbowman in the retinue of Vad Gochert. SDR

Lush Bonhomie: a tavern in Makilorn where Prescot foiled a theft. SAS

Luxurious Rest, Chambers of: suite in the palace of Makilorn, the old Chemzite Chambers.

Luz: Lohvian name for the red sun of Kregen.

lynxor: Lohvian term for lord.

lynxora: Lohvian term for lady.

lynxter: variety of sword used in Loh.

M

Magor: swamp-dwelling crocodilian predatory beast, red-eyed. It is not known whether they are intelligent.

Makilorn: city of roughly a hundred thousand inhabitants in Tsungfaril.

Mangarl the Sofirst: a swod aboard Shankjid. SAB

Margon the Ron: a zhanpaktun traveling in the caravan of Trylon Kuong. SRB

Mar-Win-Naltong: Wizard of Loh in the retinue of Queen Satra. STR

Meimgarum: oasis city on the eastern side of the Gleek Frankai. SRB

Mellow Moonlights: one of the many Kregen expressions for “Good evening.”

Merkaller: a manufacturer of first-class carriages.

Merle: a member of the Sisters of Voxyra. SAB

Merlee: a Witch of the Demaskar Persuasion, beloved of Vad Gochert. SDR

Mevancy nal Chardaz, Lady: a kregoinya who befriended and looked after Prescot when he was paralyzed. SRB, SAS, SAB

“The Milkmaid's Song": a Lohvian song.

Milly: a follower of the New Empire of Loh in Shamfrin, older sister of Tilly. SDR

ming: a gold piece in southern Loh.

“The Miscil Returned": a little ditty about the farmer who paid ten gold pieces for a slave and married her and demanded the gold back from her owner as her dowry.

Mishuro, San Tuong: a dikaster, assassinated by Pulvia. SRB

Moggers: nickname of Moglin the Flatch.

Moglin the Flatch: a Fristle member of the band of Nath the Ron and Layla. SIV

Mother Molly's: lodging house where Prescot and Quonling stayed in Hinjanchung.

Mul-lu-Manting: a Witch of Loh who publicly advocated the re-establishment of the Empire. SIV

mytzer: a draft beast.

N

Nafren: son of Lady Thynzi. STR

Na-Ku, Sandar: a Pachak warrior aboard Shankjid. SAB

Na-Si-Fantong: wizard of Loh seeking the jewels of the Skantiklar. SAS

Nafty: giggle-prone assistant hired by Mevancy. SRB

Naghan: a bandit who attacked Prescot's caravan in southern Loh. SRB

Naghan the Bristle: Brokelsh mercenary in the army of Na-Si-Fantong. STR

Naghan the Cheerful: eloped with the jewelsmith Hwang Tei's daughter Cheryl against his wishes and was miraculously saved by rain.

Naghan the Chik: a thief of Makilorn. SAS

Naghan the Hammer: former assistant to Shan-lao Ortyghan. SIV

Naghan the Marbut: a slave overseer for the Shanks in Taranjin. SIV

Naghan the Omurdour: cousin of Nath Hsienu, suspected to have been killed or captured by Shanks.

Nalgre the Erkensator: crewman of Shankjid. SAB

Nalgre the Foot: soldier in the army of Na-Si-Fantong. STR

Nalgre the Frunicator: one of Strom Hangol's cronies, killed by Prescot. SRB

Nalgre Hien-Mi, San: one of the Queen of Makilorn's Repositers. SAS

Nalgre ti Mailinsmot: a messenger in the retinue of Vad Gochert. STR

Nalgre ti Mornlad: a cadet aboard Dovad Daisy. SAB

Nalgre V'ron'v: Ensign with the Vallian fleet in Loh. STR

Nan-ni-Oboling: a follower of the New Empire of Loh in Shamfrin. SDR

Nardi's Wenyellow: a famous vintage of Wenhartdrin.

Nath the Burly: a member of 1ESW. STR

Nath the Dorvenfull: the archer of 1EZB.

Nath Fernon: Rapa mercenary in the army of Na-Si-Fantong. STR

Nath the Graintjid: legendary warrior slain by Arngalf Galfarn.

Nath ham Homath: Hikdar in the Hamalese fleet sent to fight the Shanks in Tarankar. SAB

Nath the Horizons: traveled with Mevancy in the Farang Parang. SAB

Nath Hsienu: also called Nath the Bollard, master of the vessel Garrus; addicted to Jikalla. SIV

NathIngling: Hamalian mercenary in the army of Na-Si-Fantong.

Nath the Jarvis: an inhabitant of Tuansmot. STR

Nath the Lump: a guard in the employ of Tuong Mishuro. SRB

Nath the Ready: alias used by Ra-Lu-Quonling. SIV

Nath the Ron: Kov of Borrakesh, leader of a band rivaling that of Layla na Borrakesh. SIV

Nath the Rumpador: apim whom Prescot recruited in Taranjin to resist the Shank occupation. SIV

Nath the Thirsty, Strom: Prescot's fellow captive of the People of the Drums. SDR

Nath the Tumbs: a member of 1ESW. STR

Nath the Twist: alias used by Prescot at the Springs of Benga Annorpha.

Nath the Uttarler, San: chief Repositer of the Queen of Makilorn. SAS

Nath the Veins: a Deldar aboard Shankjid. SAB

Nath ti Zanda: alias used by Nath Wa-Te. SDR

Newsat, Naghan ham: Strom of Livhavil, affianced to Rangicha Taranta, an adherent of Lem. SAB

N'gil: a leechlike creature attending Carazaar, appearing to be the repulsive product of miscegenation between apim and Shank. SAB

nik-armorer: assistant armorer.

Nik-Whonban: a country in Loh.

Nikki the Lame: lookout at Clovangjin. SIV

Niliin: a wine from down the River of Drifting Leaves.

Ningwan, Leotes li: Vad of Sabiling, in whose retinue Prescot and Mevancy traveled for a while in Southern Loh. SRB

Nissa: handmaiden of Delia.

Nol the Arm: a Deldar in 1ESW, eaten by a flitchlak. SAB

Nola: a follower of the New Empire of Loh in Shamfrin. SDR

Noring the Ovoinach: Kanzai Warrior Brother encountered by Prescot and Mul-lu-Manting. SDR

Notesov: a country of Loh.

noumjiksirn: the Kregen form of a wake, a serious yet carousing way of remembering fallen comrades.

Nuong-Hi: family in Ankharum who sell animals, carts, and carriages to travelers arriving from across the Gleek Frankai. SRB

Nuong-Hi, Languin: see Nuong-Hi.

O

Oglin Vandar: a swod aboard Shankjid. SAB

“Oh for the Sword of my Lover": a sad little ditty filled with long cadences and the drawn out vowels of sadness.

Old Lorn Trail: trail running from Larishsmot to Makilorn.

Olipen: a merchant from Guishsmot.

Oneness, River of: river running south through Ankharum.

Onso the Gnat: a companion slave to Prescot in the Shank armory.

Orgren Fernon: Rapa mercenary in the army of Na-Si-Fantong. STR

Orlon Farantino: known as the Rekarder, a Khibil retainer of Layla na Borrakesh. SIV

Ornol Skobog: an old kampeon in the Emperor's Yellow Jackets. SIV

Ornol Wanlicheng: a wandering scholar, an adherent of Alternative Magic. SIV

Orphasmot: town located a few days’ ride to the west of Makilorn, site of the Springs of Benga Annorpha.

Ortyg Hanshar: chief priest of Makilorn. SAS

Ortyghan the Dagger: a Fristle member of 1ESW, prone to strapping a dagger to his tail. SAB

P

Palandi the Iarvin: Khibil who designed an incendiary device for burning a Shank warehouse in Taranjin. SIV

Paline Asatha: Jiktar Vuvushi wounded by Shanks. SAB

Pancheen Gate: a gate in the walls of Makilorn.

Pandarun: Caravan master of Vad Leotes. SRB

Paol-ur-bliem: the Accursed of Tsung-Tan.

Paramdan: homeplace of Ornol Wanlicheng.

Parfang, Listi and Larrigen: a newlywed couple of Makilorn.

Pathfinders: also called Pilgrims or Wayfarers, adherents of Alternative Magic.

peaker: a dagger with grooves for poison.

Phar-Si-Wyrnon: Wizard of Loh in Hyrklana who offered aid to Spikatur Hunting Sword, erstwhile master of Na-Si-Fantong. STR

Pigeon: Prescot's nickname for Mevancy.

Pilgrims: also called Wayfarers or Pathfinders, adherents of Alternative Magic.

Pimpim: a thick green wine from Chem, cloying as syrup.

Ping: a thief of Makilorn, a runt of a fellow with a yellow-scarred jaw and bad teeth. SAS

Pling-Fe-Hwang: a noble lord whose baby was supposed to receive the soul of the assassinated Queen of Makilorn. SAS

punklingling: a melodious musical instrument.

Pondo: surly assistant hired by Mevancy. SRB

Pondro the Pin: bosun of the vessel Quaynt's Fortune. SIV

Pontior: a man saved by Mevancy for the Star Lords.

Porstheimer: manufacturer of first-class carriages.

Prang: companion of Wink. SAS

Pride of Hanitcha: Hamalese airship sent to fight the Shanks in Tarankar. SAB

Pride of Ruathytu: Flagship of the Hamalese fleet sent to fight the Shanks in Tarankar. SAB

Princess of Zulfiria: Zairian ship commanded by Pur Zinkardo.

Pulvia the Ringlets: assassin hired by Strom Hargon. SRB

Pynsi: fickle girl of whom Ra-Lu-Quonling was enamored. SIV

Q

Quando the Iarvin: Khibil who escaped from the Shanks with Prescot and his friends, of considerable physical strength. SAB

quanim: a race of diffs having long ears and a pointed chin.

Quaynt's Fortune: boat on which Prescot took passage from Changwutung. SIV

Queen's Matrons: court ladies who provide the queen with information about her past lives unknown to male Repositers.

Quincing: one of Queen Satra's ministers.

Quincy, Lulli: proprietress of a lodging house in Makilorn. SRB

Quintrell the Licentious, by: oath used by Nath the Jarvis.

Quinvarn: see ham Hilzim, Harulf.

Quonling, Ra-Lu-: a Wizard-of-Loh-in-training who was thrown out for failing an exam. SIV

R

Rafael: a kregoinye who worked with Mevancy, killed in a fire. SRB

Rafe the Ponshim: one of Prescot's force of guerillas in Tarankar. SIV

Raffi of the Lightning and Thunder: a Lohvian goddess.

ragamo/ragama: a kind of general insult usually employed when you're not sure if the person you are addressing is a real shint, or just a hulu or a fambly.

Ra-Lu-Quonling: a Wizard-of-Loh-in-training who was thrown out for failing an exam. SIV

Ranal Shang-Li-Po, San: one of the Queen of Makilorn's Repositers. SAS

Ranjat, Elten: kregoinye killed in service to the Everoinye. STR

Realm of the Drums: inhabited tunnels and caverns beneath the City of Eternal Twilight.

reedkhansix: headdress of silver coins worn by girls of Taranik, serving also as dowry, handed down from mother to daughter.

Rendi the Keel: master of the boat on which Prescot took passage down the River of Oneness. SRB

Repositer: in the religion of Tsung-Tan, one trained to draw forth the memories of a reincarnated paol-ur-bliem.

Rhagran: Rapa captain of the guard in the retinue of Chan Holomin SDR.

riffim: a race of diffs, who had invaded and taken over Tarankar.

Rikky Tardish: master of a traveling entertainment troupe who employed Prescot as a clown. SRB

rispa: a sweet variety of fruit.

Rodders: nickname of Ron Dang Fang.

Rogrifor: a Rapa guard in the retinue of Chan Holomin. SDR

Rollo the Runner: alias used by Ra-Lu-Quonling

Romano: cadade in the retinue of Vad Gochert, captain of the guard. SDR, STR

Ron Dang Fang: also called Rodders; a mercenary, a Bowman of Loh, companion to Kirsty. SAS

Ronal the Waspish: a Hikdar with the Vallian force in Loh. SDR

ronil: a purple-red jewel of great price.

S

Samral: castle on the western side of the town of Miliksin.

Sandar Na-Ku: a Pachak warrior aboard Shankjid. SAB

Sandeater: zorca ridden by Prescot from the Springs of Benga Annorpha to Makilorn. SAS

Sardanar: town located at the mouth of the River of Glinting Charm, with massive sea walls and fortifications dating back to the early days of the Walfargian empire.

Satra: former Queen of Pain, frozen for hundreds of years by a magic spell in the Realm of the Drums beneath the City of Eternal Twilight. SDR

Scanda: a Hikdar, a member of the Sisters of Voxyra. SAB

Seeds of Ganfowang: Grodnim name for the Seeds of Zantristar.

Seeds of Zantristar: group of tiny islands to the south of the western end of the Eye of the World.

Schnooprins: a synonym for Shanks.

Schnurrdun the All-seeing: legendary god who tested Arngalf Galfarn.

Scrimshi the Sturr: A guard in the retinue of Vad Leotes. Killed by bandits. SRB

shal-armorer: assistant armorer.

Shamfrin: a city in Walfarg.

Sharn: name of an ibdrin.

Shan-lao Ortyghan: head of an armor shop in occupied Taranjin. SIV

Shang-Li-Po, San Ranal: one of the Queen of Makilorn's Repositers. SAS

Shangsha: a town of southern Loh.

Shankjid: voller sent by Vallia to fight the Shanks, rescued by Prescot from a shuckerchun and flitchlak. SAB

She of the Blushes: a name used in Loh for the fourth moon of Kregen.

She of the Sundering: river in southern Loh forming the western boundary of the desert.

Shenlitz: a variety of liquor.

Shernly: Kovneva of Shamfrin.

Shiang, Tsun and Hosifi: potters, parents of a baby supposed to be the reincarnation of the assassinated Queen of Makilorn. SAS

Shirrendrin: a coastal land of Loh.

Shorush-Tish: Zairian storm deity.

shuckerchun: predatory animal which sucks its victims below the earth.

Sichaz, Death Jungles of: Lohvian term for the Ice Floes of Sicce.

Siloni: a woman of Makilorn, mother of the reincarnated Vad Leotes. SRB

Sindi-Wang: a thief of Makilorn, a woman of enormous development casually displayed between the folds of her dress. SAS

Sing-Lee: a Kov of Shirrendrin.

Sinnalix: home country of Mevancy, south of Murn-Chem in Loh. Once advanced in culture, but now little better than barbarians; also the inhabitants of this country; the women have the ability to discharge darts from their forearms, while the men are brutish, misshapen, and ugly.

Sinnalixi: plural of Sinnalix.

Sin-Sin-Yarelving: renowned martyr of Lohvian history.

Skantiklar: a set of nine jewels yielding unimaginable sorcerous power.

Skobog, Ornol: an old kampeon in the Emperor's Yellow Jackets. SIV

Skull Charger: Hamalese airship sent to fight the Shanks in Tarankar. SAB

Slezen: needleman who attended Prescot when he was paralyzed. SRB

slikker: a boat similar to a dhow.

slouncher: animal native to the deserts of Loh, similar to a camel, but with eight legs and three humps. Will kill anyone attempting to molest their young.

Snarlendrin: a country of Loh.

snizz: to backfire, go awry.

Snuffles: lictrix lent by Mevancy to Prescot. SRB

Sooey: a thief of Makilorn, killed in the raid on Shang-Li-Po's secret villa. SAS

spinzal: a type of bush.

spotty-lind: nickname for a vorlind.

Spurl, by: oath used by Mevancy.

Squish and Queng, the: a tavern in Tuansmot.

squonch: a variety of fruit.

stangsi: predatory cave-dweller, wide and flat, like a cartwheel of tentacles and stingers and unpleasantnesses. It drops upon its prey from above.

Sternum Hamparz: Ship Hikdar of Dovad Daisy. SAB

Stinja: name given by Larghos the Throstle to his polearm.

Stinkback: beast with four red eyes, with a scaled hide, humped in shape with prongs on its back.

Stortingen, Cult of: another Lohvian school of wizardry.

strank: twin-finned shark frequenting the rivers of southern Loh.

Sundering, She of the: a river marking the western boundary of the trylonate of Taranik and the eastern boundary of Tarankar.

Suringlas: a kregoinye who worked with Mevancy.

Susy-Lee-Sarin: betrothed of Chan Holomin.

“Sweet Flowing Water, The": song composed by Pitir Ng'gland from Ng'groga some five hundred seasons ago.

Swiggletoe: lictrix purchased by Mevancy for Prescot in Ankharum. SRB

T

Takroti, by: a Kataki oath.

Talin, Kuong Vang: Trylon of Taranik, recently come of age.

Tan: the prophet of Tsung in the religion of Tsung-Tan.

Tanch, Tiny: an Ng'grogan member of the troupe of Rikky Tardish. SRB

Tanki the Stitch: saddler in the caravan of Vad Leotes. SRB

Taranik: Trylonate to the west of Makilorn.

Taranjin: capital city of Tarankar.

Tarankar: country to the west of Tsungfaril, where the Shanks launched their invasion of Loh.

Tarankar Army of Liberation: guerilla force organized to fight the Shank occupation by Prescot acting as Prince Chaadur.

Taranta: Rangicha of Firthlad, sister of Taranto ham Armit. SAB

Tardish, Rikky: master of a traveling entertainment troupe who employed Prescot as a clown. SRB

Tawang, Nanji: Trylon of Fuokane, a disagreeable fellow. SRB, SAS

Tei, Hwang: jewelsmith whose daughter Cheryl eloped with Naghan the Cheerful.

Telsi: a lady of uncertain occupation, Lunky's fiancée.

Ternantung: a town located on the River of Glinting Charm.

Thalna, Lady: one of three heirs to the throne of Makfaril. SAS

Thana ti Vincentsmot: a Jiktar with the Vallian force in Loh. SDR

Thanko: a race of diffs with a mop of dusty hair and a drooping nose.

ham Thanstrer, Hamish: Kapt of the Hamalian air fleet sent to fight the Shank occupiers of Tarankar.

Thazdon: Krozair rescued by Prescot from a sinking slave ship. STR

Thynzi: Zairian lady rescued by Prescot from a sinking slave ship.

Tighten your scabbard: slang for “Don't lose your temper.”

tikshvu: “missy"—a word often used to threaten and cow a young girl who has been rebellious.

Tilly: a follower of the New Empire of Loh in Shamfrin. SDR

Tim Timutorio: Bowman of Loh who lost three fingers and now lifts a shield at Seg Segutorio's back in battle. SAB

Tomecdrin: a country in Balintol.

Tongo the Lash: a Deldar in Prescot's force of guerilla fighters in Tarankar. SIV

Tongwan the Slow: a guard in the employ of Tuong Mishuro. SRB

True Trog: a deity of Tarankar.

Tse-Tsu-Luenling: a wizard of Stortingen in the retinue of Vad Valadian. STR

T'sien-Fu: Crebent left in charge of Taranik by Kuong. SIV

Tsien-Ting: master of the vessel Quaynt's Fortune. SIV

Tsungfaril: country in southern Loh.

Tsung-tan: universal deity of Tsungfaril.

Tuansmot: a village of Shirrendrin.

Tuco: a Brokelsh enslaved by the Shanks. SAB

Tuftytail: preysany ridden by Prescot in Tsungfaril. SRB

Tun-du-Haffyien: art master at a school for Wizards and Witches of Loh. SIV

Tuong Mishuro, San: a dikaster, assassinated by Pulvia. SRB

Twang: a bowyer and fletcher of Makilorn. SRB

U

Ul-ga-Sorming: wizard to whom Pynsi gave her favors. SIV

Umblers: a funny race of diffs, erratic, incompetent, leaving behind them a trail of accidental damage. Skilled only at raising goats.

V

Vakstirn: type of Shank who ride any saddle animals they can steal in the lands they invade.

Valadian: a Vad, a Khibil, with one ear, leader of an expedition in the underground Realm of the Drums. STR

“Valor is the better part of the Person": a saying of Valka.

Vandar, Oglin: a swod aboard Shankjid. SAB

Vangar ti Valkanium: admiral of the Vallian fleet sent to fight the Shanks in Tarankar. SAB, SDR

Vangli ti Trishnar: a Hikdar in the guard of the Queen of Tsungfaril. SAS

Vankari: a race of diffs of powerful physique, of practically no forehead, of spatulate nose, of wide gap-jawed mouth, of a stooped posture that emphasizes their brooding hunched menacing aspect. Like many a member of the poorer folk they chew Cham all the time. Reputed to be fond of Fristles, and the Fristles do not reciprocate, which amuses everyone except the Fristles.

Varankey, Slender: a juggler in the troupe of Rikky Tardish. SRB

Varnion: country known for mussels.

Vasama: fat fussy woman who controlled Yoshi. SAS

Vendayha Lady: Valkan flying ship dispatched to Loh. STR

Vengali: type of Sorcerer from Vinkleden.

Vilia: character in the song of Dalendin.

Vinkleden: home of the Vengali sorcerers.

volail: a variety of blue and white flower.

voltigeurs: unarmored or lightly armored light infantry.

Vondal ti Dernsmot, Ortyg: a Jiktar with the Vallian force in Tarankar.

vorlind: a beast with six legs, a spotted hide of orange and black, and pads and claws that can remove your head as neatly as a headsman's axe.

Voxyra: a minor and semi-secret religious sect of Vallia.

Vutch-Ikar: a pagan god of Walfarg, with a pot-belly and staring eyes.

W

Walfarg: ancient empire consisting of all Loh, Pandahem, and vast lands in the east of Turismond.

Walfarg, Wizard or Witch of: Lohvian terms for Wizards and Witches of Loh.

walfger: Lohvian term for mister.

walfgera: Lohvian term for madam.

Walig: Lohvian name for the green sun of Kregen.

Wan-fuong: a chieftain among the Glitch Riders. STR

Wanlicheng, Ornol: a wandering scholar, an adherent of Alternative Magic. SIV

Wa-Te, Nath: fellow-slave to Prescot in the retinue of Princess Licria. SDR

Wayfarers: also called Pilgrims or Pathfinders, adherents of Alternative Magic.

wegener: saddle animal with six legs, narrow flanks, and a spiky head.

Wei Fwang: needleman who cared for Llodi when he was wounded by Lady Pulvia. SAS

“The Well that Never Ran Dry": a Lohvian song.

“When a Wizard meets a Wizard, Sailing through the Air": a song of Loh.

Whonban: homeplace of the Wizards and Witches of Loh.

Whonbim: an inhabitant of Whonban.

Wielder of the Brass Rod: one Kregan expression for a slave overseer.

Wink: a young man stabbed by a thief in the Tavern of Lush Bonhomie. SAS

Wioldrin: a Lohvian province.

Winkal the Horknik: a Shank prisoner rescued by Prescot's guerillas. SIV

World, Path of the: one of the paths of Alternative Magic, in which the seventh corner is of special significance.

Wr.: abbreviation for walfger.

Wurzam, by: a Lohvian oath.

X

xichun: flying animal something like the xi of the Stratemsk, with green and gold red-edged scales, deeply curved iridescent wings, sinuous necks, whiplike tails, and small wedge-shaped heads with jaws stuffed with needle teeth.

Xinthe, Lady: student, nurse and cook to Ornol Wanlicheng. SIV

Y

Yaka the Stripe: Kataki slave overseer in the retinue of Princess Licria. SDR

Yakwang, by: an oath of Makilorn.

Yango, San: one of the Queen of Makilorn's Repositers. SAS

Yoshi: a diviner of Makilorn. SRB, SAS

Yriang: a purple-faced, jewel-bedecked Stromni who traveled with Mevancy in the Farang Parang. SAB

Ysbel: woman of Makilorn who assisted in rescuing Mevancy from the river.

Z

zaffim: race of bulky, two-armed, tail-less diffs, characterized by lumpy, as it were unformed, faces, with large brow ridges and squashed noses, and jaws that are narrow to the point of nonexistence holding snaggly teeth.

“Zair lays many a trap for the unwary feet of the boastful": a proverb of Sanurkazz.

Zalfi: Zairian lady, wife of Pur Thazdon, rescued by Prescot from a sinking slave ship.

Zamran: a pretty market town in the kovnate of Zamra.

Zamrarn: country in southern Loh, source of black pearls.

Zanad: Krozair rescued by Prescot from a sinking slave ship. STR

Zanath na Zenrik, Pur: inventor of a neat and subtle twin attack with the Krozair longsword three hundred seasons ago.

Zefan, San: Krozair author of the treatise the Seventh Circle of the Artifices of the Sword, approximately 2,500 years ago.

Zilfi: daughter of Lady Thynzi. STR

Zinkardo: Krozair rescued by Prescot from a sinking slave ship. STR

Zinter the Afflicted, by: a Zairian oath.

The Zinul and Queng: a tavern of dubious delights in Hinjanchung.

Zunida the Laudable, Lady: prayer-idol stolen from the Sisters of Voxyra.

[Back to Table of Contents]

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

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