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Intrigue of Antares [Dray Prescot #44]
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

Copyright © 1993, Alan Burt Akers

Dray Prescot

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three

Chapter four

Chapter five

Chapter six

Chapter seven

Chapter eight

Chapter nine

Chapter ten

Chapter eleven

Chapter twelve

Chapter thirteen

Chapter fourteen

Chapter fifteen

Chapter sixteen

Chapter seventeen

Chapter eighteen

Chapter nineteen

Chapter twenty

About the Author

The Dray Prescot Series

* * * *

Intrigue of Antares

Alan Burt Akers

Mushroom eBooks

Copyright © 1993, Alan Burt Akers

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 9781843197386

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Dray Prescot

With this volume, Intrigue of Antares, Dray Prescot begins an entirely new phase of his adventures on Kregen, that magnificent and terrible world four hundred light years from Earth. Since his meeting with the Star Lords, superhuman beings who brought him to Kregen to serve as a kregoinye in their schemes for the planet, he has told us nothing of what transpired. We do know that Delia, the glorious Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains, now also operates as a kregoinya for the Star Lords.

Dray Prescot has been described by someone who has seen him on this Earth as a man above middle height with brown hair and level brown eyes, brooding and dominating, with enormously broad shoulders and powerful physique. He moves like a savage hunting cat, sudden, silent and deadly. There is about him an abrasive honesty and an indomitable courage.

Reared in the harsh conditions of Nelson's Navy, he failed to find success on Earth but has succeeded in winning fortune on Kregen. He is called the Emperor of Emperors, the Emperor of Paz, but he himself regards these titles as meaningless. Paz, a vast grouping of continents and islands, is inhabited by innumerable races and nations—so why should they band together under Prescot? The Star Lords themselves have chosen him for this heavy task, for he has the yrium, that particular charisma that binds other mortals to his service.

Now the Star Lords have dispatched him to the town of Amintin in the continent of Balintol. Under the streaming mingled lights of the Suns of Scorpio, Dray Prescot must set forth on his new adventures.

Alan Burt Akers

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Chapter one

The two fellows following me down the noxious alley in Amintin made a reasonable job of skulking in the shadows. When they crossed the open mouths of side alleys through the fuzzy pink moonlight they'd fail even the most elementary examination for any Assassin's Guild. They were most likely common footpads who'd picked me up as a likely victim the moment I'd entered the alley. They might not be. They might have other and altogether more sinister reasons for dogging my footsteps. Well, bad cess to ‘em. There was a task I had to do here set to my hands by the Star Lords that overrode petty considerations like a couple of thugs or assassins.

“You will make contact with a man named Fweygo,” the Star Lords had told me. “He will inform you of your duties.”

In these latter days of my dealings with the Everoinye they still retained a flavor of their old arrogance even though my whole relationship with them had changed. This adventure was a whole new start, a completely fresh departure in my rackety life on Kregen. What the task was they had not deigned to tell me. Mind you, they had condescended to equip me with clothes and weapons and this unusual event still startled.

The hazy pink moonlight of The Maiden with the Many Smiles slanted into the unwholesome alley. The Star Lords had landed me just inside the dock wall of the river port. Some of the fortifications looked unusual to the eye of an old warrior; but this was a very foreign land. I'd chosen this dismal route to reach the tavern called The Net and Stikling as being less conspicuous than following the main street.

Amintin lay on the left bank of the river and was some ten miles from the coast. The stink of fish was not too pervasive. The two plug-uglies padding along in my footsteps probably smelled far worse.

I kept an intermittent observation on my back trail to make sure they didn't suddenly have a rush of blood to their tiny pointed heads and try to jump me.

A few massy clouds obscured the moon from time to time. Among the dingy buildings leaning over the alley no breath of wind disturbed the pools of muddy water between the cracked and ancient cobbles. Just up ahead a corner looked promising. There I could wait unseen and at precisely the right moment leap on my shadows. I had no interest in what their stories might be, not right now at any rate; I merely wished to get on with what the Star Lords had sent me to Amintin to accomplish.

The corner would conceal me admirably and I could stand without moving as the two men approached.

One of them was apim, Homo sapiens sapiens, like me. The other was a polsim with pointed ears and a narrow devil's face, with a deep vee-shaped mouth and the cunning lines of long and villainous experience engraved on his leathery skin. Still, like an apim, he had only two arms and two legs and did not have a flexible and deadly tail. Apim and polsim, they both wore raggedy garments that left their chests bare. The cudgels in their fists looked lethal enough and their knives would be sharp enough to pare skin from bone without drawing blood.

This alleyway led to the back entrance to The Net and Stikling. Dolorous though this little port of Amintin might be, one could sincerely hope that the parallel street would not be quite as narrow and sinister and the inn itself somewhat more salubrious. At the end of the next ramshackle building a blur of movement instantly stilled caught my eye.

Very well, I said to myself, that'll make three heads to knock together instead of two.

Going along silently and without any itchy feelings up my spine I saw a bulkier building thrusting a three storeyed wall against the alley. That must be the inn. A single amber light burned feebly over a closed doorway. All the windows had been pierced in the upper floors. That, to an old sea rover, was a significant factor.

This gray place was damned depressing and in my current mood I wanted none of that. By Vox! Wasn't I on Kregen, the most wonderful and terrible world where anything the heart desired might be found if you tried hard enough? Get these three rogues off my back, walk into The Net and Stikling, meet up with this character Fweygo whoever he might be, get the job done and then, by the Black Chunkrah, it was Esser Rarioch, home, and Delia!

Yes—just there where the moon-drenched cobbles faded into deepest shadows would be the spot. The smells of cooking wafted along the alley, mingled with the odors of saddle animals. Erratic clouds swathed the moon momentarily and I leaped for the shadows.

Turning to face back and stilling abruptly into motionlessness, I waited and watched and listened.

I saw only the briefest flicker of action. I heard a sharp succession of meaty thwacks. I did not see any bodies tumble onto the slimy cobbles. I did see a fellow come strolling lithely along towards me, whistling softly between his teeth.

“Hai, dom,” he said in a strong musical baritone. “You must be Dray Prescot.” His indistinct form emerged into full moonlight as the clouds passed and I saw he was a Kildoi. He shook his head. “A chicken right for the plucking. The Everoinye warned me you'd be difficult.”

“Llahal, Fweygo.”

“Llahal and Lahal, Dray Prescot.”

“Lahal—I would prefer you to call me Drajak.”

“So the Everoinye said.”

He moved closer. He wore a simple buff colored tunic belted with weapons. His tail hand rested comfortably on his shoulder. I fancied he had not drawn a weapon to deal with the two footpads. “Let us go into the inn. You could probably down a stoup or three.”

I did not sigh. I was perfectly used to this kind of attitude from other kregoinye, people who served the Everoinye, the Star Lords.

“Very well.”

We went along beside the inn away from the alley. Fweygo whistled almost soundlessly between his teeth. He walked with a lithe spring that belied his solid bulk. Those two footpads must profoundly regret they'd bumped into this golden Kildoi. That thought made me say: “You did not kill them?”

“Sore heads only. This place doesn't have much law; but I do not wish to attract any attention I do not have to.”

I did not reply. My good comrade and shield bearer Korero in all the many seasons I had known him had given only a limited insight into the psychology of Kildois. They held to themselves, private and contained. That they were fighters of extraordinary gifts I knew only too well.

The street in front of the inn was only a modicum wider than the alley, at that. A slightly brighter lamp burned above the double doors and the smells lessened from saddle animal pungency to fragrances of cooking and wines. At least, I considered as we stepped up onto the stoop and entered, whatever alcoholic beverages passed as wine hereabouts.

The place engulfed us with warmth, closeness, odors, laughter and the sense of haven. The clientele looked respectable, sitting at tables, eating and drinking, talking. The central space lay bare and I judged dancing would take place there at the appropriate times. Fweygo led me to one side and through a curtained opening leading to a stairway. He did not say a word until we reached one of the doors in the upstairs corridor. He lifted his tail hand to knock and then paused.

In the dim illumination of a single lamp his powerful face showed downdrawn brows, a thrust of chin, heavy golden eyebrows shadowing deep-set eyes. All Kildois in my experience were impressive; this Fweygo looked to be a man of parts.

“The Everoinye said you were difficult, Dray Prescot—Drajak. Those two footpads—you'll have to sharpen up. And be respectful to the princess—Princess Nandisha.” He gave me a look as though bracing me up by the sheer power of his personality. “Do not address the princess as majestrix. She is incognito. Use my lady.”

I just nodded. He bunched that sinewy tail hand into a fist and tapped discreetly, twice, on the door panel.

Almost instantly the door flew open and a massive numim scowled down, his golden fur glowing from shadowed illumination, his lion features dominating. The sword in his fist glittered.

Quickly, Fweygo rapped out: “This is Drajak, Ranaj, a friend.”

The numim, Ranaj, visibly relaxed. He stepped silently aside and we entered the room.

Of the two people sitting down as we walked in, one stood up. She was a numim, as gloriously golden as Ranaj, beautiful in that special lion lady way that makes a numim man the envy of many other races of diffs.

The woman who remained seated must be Princess Nandisha. She was apim, with a face that I judged would normally be set in a serene look of self-possession. Now her dark eyes were clouded over and her low brow showed lines of concern. Her mouth was fixed into a closed line of determination. She wore a vast dark blue traveling cloak huddled about her, and one white hand, heavily jeweled, grasped the blue cloth tightly to her chin.

“We thought, Fweygo,” she said, and stopped, and wet her lips. “We thought you had deserted us.”

“Never, my lady. Just that I had to make sure Dray—Jak—reached here safely—”

“There was trouble?” Ranaj's numim voice grated in the room.

The numim lady, who must be his wife, put a hand to her bosom.

“No, no, my lady.” Fweygo's strong voice carried reassurance. “And no need to worry, Ranaj. As soon as the animals are here we will leave.”

The princess plucked fretting at the blue cloth. “I do wish they would hurry.”

Now it appeared clear to me what the Star Lords wanted Fweygo and me to do. We had to escort Princess Nandisha and her people to safety out of Amintin. Just why the Everoinye wished this was not, of course, apparent to me. What they did stretched long results into the future. The people whom their kregoinye assisted might found dynasties, topple regimes, turn the whole world of Kregen on its ears. It was all one to me.

I said: “Where are we making for?”

“Be silent, Drajak, and speak when spoken to,” said Ranaj. He spoke evenly, politely; but there was no mistaking the authority in his words.

Well, I said to myself, they'll get on well with the Kildoi, then.

The sense of tension, of fear barely suppressed, festered in the room. Something had either happened or was about to happen to these people that caused the presence of Fweygo and myself; something we had either to mend or prevent.

A thin high-pitched cry from beyond the far door brought the numim woman around instantly. She hurried to the door, saying: “That is little Nisha, the poor dear.” She opened the door and went through.

Ranaj looked at me and said: “You are here to assist Fweygo and me. We have my lady's children, the princ—the little lady Nisha and lord Byrom to protect—”

“Also your children, Ranaj,” interrupted Nandisha. “Your twins, Rofi and Rolan.”

“Aye, my lady, I thank you.”

H'mph! I said to myself, not well pleased. Four children to nursemaid through unknown perils—and however unknown the dangers might be, I knew as sure as Zim and Genodras rose each day over the eastern horizon to shine upon Kregen, there would be perils ahead, plenty of perils, by Krun.

Fweygo, with surprising confidence in view of his disparaging remarks about me, said firmly: “Drajak will play his part.”

“We must reach the capital just as soon as we possibly can.” The princess's voice sounded choked up. “The children ... We are not safe.”

“As soon as we reach Bharang, my lady, we will find fliers,” said Ranaj.

The troubled noise of the child from the inner room stilled. The feeling of apprehension among these people bordering on incipient panic did not please me. They were frightened of something or someone. Well, then, if they expected me to lend a hand they ought to tell me just what or who, surely? But then, that was not the way of your typical lordling, your proud princess. Common folk like me were told what to do, to keep our mouths shut and to die in welterings of blood just so that the princess did not suffer.

I caught Fweygo's eye and jerked my head sideways. He frowned and shook his head, looked away. Whatever plans were afoot, he was too conscious of his obligations to the Star Lords to cause unnecessary trouble.

Because this world was Kregen where just about anything can happen, and in the words of the immortal song, probably will, the opposition menacing us could range from monsters to demons to regiments of demented archers. A soft tap on the outer door caused Nandisha to start up, trembling. Her face turned pale. Ranaj went swiftly to the door, the sword once more in his fist, and opened the panel a crack. A few words were spoken low-voiced and he turned back. “The animals are here.”

Once action was upon them these people did not waste time. Ranaj's wife, whom he addressed as Serinka, brought the children out. They were all of an age, around seven or eight, and these unusual proceedings kept their eyes half-open despite their drowsiness. The four adults took a child each, leaving me the only childless person in the room. Ranaj led off out.

We went the opposite way along the corridor, through a low doorway and down an outside flight of steps. Moonlight tinged everything a mellow ruddy pink and I kept an eye on the shadows.

Two figures held the reins of five freymuls. No one spoke a word. The freymul, a useful saddle animal often called the poor man's zorca, comes normally in a chocolaty brown hide; these were more creamy. Assisted by the silent hostlers the party mounted. I felt the animal between my knees and although I guessed I'd have the worst animal, hoped he would prove not too bad. With a soft “tchk, tchk,” Ranaj started off for the open gate of the yard. Smells of wine faded and the odors of the town strengthened.

Spots of rain started to fall. The children were swathed in the adults’ riding cloaks. I had no cloak. My tunic began to get soaked.

Riding gently we went along the side alleyway towards that noxious alley where Fweygo had dealt with the two footpads.

I rode last.

Needless to say my head kept screwing around to survey the backtrail and every pink-tinged shadow was closely scrutinized.

Ahead a wider street with a few lamps guttering and splintering the falling rain into lances of multicolored fire offered better going. Fweygo gentled his freymul alongside mine and we rode stirrup to stirrup.

The child he carried had at last fallen asleep. He spoke so that only I could hear.

“We should get a voller at Bharang. After that the trip to the capital should not be difficult. Bharang's about eighty or so dwaburs off. Keep your eyes and ears open.”

One useful thing about having four arms like a Kildoi is that you can grasp the reins, hold a child, and still have spare hands to grip weapons. In addition that cunning tail hand can give your mount a thwack or two to get him moving along smartly. Apims like me with only two arms and no tail are sometimes at a severe disadvantage on Kregen.

I said: “Who are these people afraid of? Who's chasing them?”

“Their flier broke down and they made an emergency landing here. Nandisha's uncle just died. There are dynastic problems. The Everoinye were vague on the point.”

I refused to say anything like: “By Krun! How unusual!”

Mind you, the Star Lords probably confided a whole encyclopedia of information to this golden Kildoi Fweygo. They usually didn't even bother to let me look at the first page.

Even so, even so, they had acted in a vastly different way of late. Gently gently was the way ahead in my relations with the Star Lords.

“We'll have to cross one of the bridges to head west.” Fweygo did not sound too concerned. “Unless Ranaj has organized a boat.”

Looking rearwards along the street I could make out a few people moving about and a party of riders just appearing around a corner some hundred yards off. There were four of them and they were muffled in cloaks. That, I told myself, was because of the rain. They trotted gently along after us.

Our little party turned left down a street where the overhanging wooden houses cast deep serrated shadows. The center of the roadway ran with water. Ahead the river wall showed a humped tower block guarding the gateway.

That part of the problem of tonight's expedition was down to Ranaj in the lead. I fancied he'd carry enough authority and conviction for the task. A glance back confirmed the four riders had followed us around the corner. In the lead Ranaj turned left again at a slight angle away from the bridge. Here we passed between miserable buildings, little more than tumbledown huts, sagging in the rain. Mud squelched beneath the freymul's hooves. I hunched down in my soggy tunic and watched the backtrail.

The four riders did not appear. If they were following us, and given the usual desperate nature of these ventures of mine upon Kregen, they probably were, they could have cut down a parallel alleyway to reach the river.

“A boat, then,” said Fweygo.

I said: “Four riders. They may be following.”

Fweygo instantly switched around to look back. He shook his head. We went on through the rain towards the river.

The tangle of huts ended untidily against a shining expanse of mud where the town wall reared black by the river bank. Nets were hanging up on wooden racks. Small skiff-like boats lay pulled up onto the mud. Their exit onto the river lay through a small gate of iron bars beneath an arch under the wall. The whole set up would not be tolerated in Vallia. All the same, that was our way out.

The man who shambled across to meet us was a Gon with a cloak pulled up over his bald head. His eyes were red, his nose was red, and from time to time he sneezed like one of Congreve's rockets going off.

He indicated the boat we were to use. We never used it.

Even as Ranaj had one foot on the mud, the other still in the stirrup, a most ferocious bellowing uproar spouted up. Dark figures appeared over the wall directly to our front. In the glinting pink spears of the rain other and far more lethal spears glittered. A single glance, a simple deduction, were all that were required to assess the situation.

The Gon shrieked out: “Pirates!” and dashed madly back into the shadows past the nets.

Ranaj yelled: “Numi Hyrjiv! Back, back, now!”

He regained his saddle still cradling the infant. The princess stuttered out some incoherent cry. Ranaj seized her bridle and in an instant whisked the animal about, fairly dragging freymul and rider by main force.

Fweygo snatched at the other animal, leading Serinka as her husband led Nandisha. The whole party spurred back towards the huts.

The raiders swarmed over the wall, dropping down like ripe black flies. They made huge squelching sounds. Maybe they did not expect to find this expanse of mud within the walls; no doubt I would not have, it was not usual. Whatever—the obstacle gave us time to start off. The freymul is a willing animal if not as powerful as one might wish, and these five responded. We dashed back past the nets towards the low huts.

A few arrows went flick flick past; but the rain would interfere with serious shooting this night.

The raiders must have pulled up the river after dark and were now intent on butchery and pillage. Pirates were the reason Amintin was situated ten miles up river from the coast and why no windows were pierced in the lower floors of larger buildings. No doubt the watch on the walls had been sheltering from the wet. What mattered now was that the pirates were in the town and we had not found a way out.

From squelchy sloshings to staccato raps the freymuls’ hooves traversed mud and cobbles. Uproar surrounded us as the good folk of Amintin awoke to the ghastly realization of what was about to befall them.

Of one thing I felt sure as we racketed along towards the main street: this unholy lot ravening at our heels would not be the only pack of reivers to climb the walls this dark and stormy night.

As though Pixirr the god of mischief listened to my thoughts a mob of terrified Amintins stumbled up from the next side street and pursuing them with zest and venom a whole horde of reivers barred our way ahead.

Ranaj roared: “This way!”

He yanked his animal around and dragging Nandisha's freymul hurtled straight across the muddy street. Fweygo followed with Serinka. Knowing my place in their scheme of things I, as usual, brought up the rear.

Where the arrow came from that pierced Nandisha's freymul not even the most senior and devoted follower of Erthanfydd could have told. Quite possibly the shaft had been let fly by a frenzied townsman or woman. The result was Nandisha and the child toppling into the mud and Fweygo having the dickens of a job avoiding a catastrophic collision.

The poor freymul lay kicking his legs in spasm. Ranaj was rumbling incoherently and Serinka started to climb down to attend her mistress. I was there before her. The princess started up, still clutching the child.

“You are unharmed?”

“I—I think so—”

The bedlam at our backs increased. There was no time. I lifted her, and in Zair's good truth there was not much to her, and hoisted her onto my animal. Through it all she did not relinquish her grasp on the child.

Fweygo snarled something and I hurled back at him: “Ride, Fweygo!”

I gave the freymul a thumping great thwack over his rump and he started off with Nandisha holding on like a drunk holding onto a bar stool.

“Drajak!” yelled Fweygo.

Ranaj dropped the wounded freymul's reins and sent his animal after Nandisha. Serinka said nothing. “Drajak!” shouted Fweygo again.

“Ride!” I roared up at him. “You know why!”

Even then I saw his Kildoi face twisted in indecision. Maybe he had never been disciplined by the Star Lords as I had; he certainly would not be banished four hundred light years across empty space in punishment. Running from a fight and abandoning a friend, of however recent an acquaintance, was not in his nature. But, as a good kregoinye, he understood what must be done when the Everoinye ordered.

“I'll see you later.” As I spoke I dragged out the sword furnished me by the Star Lords.

“Yes, Drajak,” he said, turning his animal and hauling Serinka along. “Yes. Make sure you do, make very sure.” Then he galloped off.

So I turned to see what the devil I could make of this perilous situation.

Pirates were, it seemed in the erratic pink moonlight, running everywhere. Townsfolk screamed and fled and were cut down. One or two houses were already alight despite the rain and there would soon be illumination enough to see how to get oneself killed with no trouble.

The reivers had to be stopped from following Fweygo. That was my job. That task was down to me.

Objects became easier to see as the fires gained and the rain eased. The smell of wetness and of burning hung over the town. Directly opposite me the mouth of the alley down which Ranaj had led the rest of our party was where I had to make my stand. I had no bow, unfortunately. Well, if this was the way of it on Kregen, and this my doom and fate, then so be it. I'd do what I could before they cut me down.

Pulling back my shoulders I started off. I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, strode off to make a valiant last stand.

My foot slipped on a patch of evilly glistening mud and over I went, twisting to regain my balance, to land smack on my back like an upended turtle.

So much for gallant exhibitionism!

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Chapter two

I stood up. I said nothing—absolutely nothing.

The tunic and breechclout given me by the Star Lords were soaking wet and clogged with mud. Glutinous mud squelched in the shoes. The scabbard, a cheap affair of thin leather, wood and green brass, was bent, shrunken and distorted. The sword, a reasonable weapon of the straight cut and thrust variety, had a wire-wrapped wooden handle, flimsy quillons, and a point that made it primarily a cutting weapon. I hefted it and looked around through a hedge of drenched and mud entangled hair.

With a gesture as much of resignation as irritation I shoved my hair back from my forehead, wiped a paw over my face, and glared about for anybody who wanted to pass by.

The situation was familiar and ugly enough. Pirates infested the coast and now the menace of the Shanks had been removed, even if only temporarily, the sea rovers ranged far and wide. People ran about crazily. The noise lifted and sank almost, it seemed, in rhythm to the drifts of smoke wafting over the roofs. Amintin was a poor enough place, Zair knew; it still had attractions for those damned renders. I knew about renders, having served with Viridia the Render, that most charming lady pirate, and my feelings were that this unhealthy lot were both the dregs and the scum of society.

Given my situation, standing like a loon in the mouth of an alley was a fine way of being chopped. Swiftly crossing into the shadows of the nearest house I checked the alley, which was now empty, and then faced the street again.

If any pirates had seen our party ride off none of them for the moment strutted along to investigate. I began to think I might pull back and scuttle along the alley and see about transport to catch up.

By this time during my life on Kregen I fought only when I had to and then reluctantly. But, like any seasoned warrior, once a fight was inevitable and joined then I'd go in with the ferocious determination to finish it as quickly as possible.

Most of the noise racketed from further back in the town. My guess was the renders had put in their surprise attack and had closed in past this spot. They'd be making for the fat and juicy targets. The people in the Net and Stikling, for instance, would be well barricaded in and ready to put up a stout resistance.

The decision made, I wasted no more time.

Padding along the alley with the sword in my fist I kept both eyes wide open, very wide open, by Krun.

The rain had appreciably lessened and the Maiden with the Many Smiles shone down her fuzzy pink light through gaps in the clouds. There were even one of two of Kregen's stars visible, twinkling away up there and vastly indifferent to what went on below.

Even then, sharply though I was keeping a lookout, they nearly had me. But I am an old leem hunter and am not easily ambushed.

Four of them leaped at me from a black-beamed doorway. They tried to degut me with spears and tridents and for a moment there was a swift and deadly series of passages, of cuts and slashes, of twists and evasions, before they all went down. The sword was a damned unhandy affair. I shook it in disgust.

From the next house along the sounds of combat spurted into the night. Your normal plunderer likes to help himself to loot with as little trouble as possible. No doubt these reivers had blood in their eye. It happens. Cautiously I padded along towards the fight.

The moon washed pink light across the house wall. Seven or eight renders were prancing about in the street trying to cut down the four men backed up against that rosy-glowing wall.

A number of bodies lay sprawled on the muddy cobbles.

There was no question of indecision here. I leaped forward.

Of course, they had their backs to me so I had no compunction in laying into the first of them to come to hand. One, two, three went down screeching before the others realized a new element had entered the equation.

A long spear with a bearded pirate at the other end of it thrust hard for my midriff. With a left hand that had hauled me up the rigging in hurricanes to daze the senses, I took the spear away. Economically I used it to clout its late owner over the head. He fell down.

Somewhere in the fracas over by the wall I heard a laugh. A light, peculiar, distinctly amused laugh, clear as a crystal chime through the hullabaloo, was not altogether unexpected. It told me someone was not taking this little scrap over seriously. Without a moment's conscious reflection, engaged as I immediately was by a fresh customer, I formed an estimate of the laugher's character and personality and—well, that you must judge for yourself.

The renders mostly wore leather armor of sorts, bits and pieces. The fellow who challenged me now, a damned Chulik as ever was, wore metal. His yellow tusks were banded in silver. His chunky body strained against metal breast and back as we clashed weapons and then drew back so that I judged the armor he'd looted from somewhere was not a perfect fit.

Someone yelled: “Watch your back!”

The advice was not meant for me, so I reasoned; but you do not stay alive for very long if you ignore the slightest warnings. I leaped sideways and swung about, instantly reversing to slide the Chulik's venomous thrust. I sidestepped and he blundered past so that I gave him a thwack and the confounded sword broke in two.

He reared up, massively competent with weapons as all Chuliks are.

They do possess humanity, do the Yellow Tuskers, a modicum. This one showed obvious delight at my predicament. His round black eyes and oily yellow skin did not differentiate him from a thousand of his fellows. But he sneered at me and said: “Come sneaking up at my back, would you! By Likshu the Treacherous, you have been rewarded!” He bored in with the sole intention of transfixing me upon his blade.

A movement to the right and a swaying reverse allowed me to use my forearm to force his sword arm away to the side. I put a fist into his snub nose and followed that by a crafty kick as taught very early on in the unarmed disciplines of the Krozairs of Zy. He yelled.

He yelled blue bloody murder.

He didn't have any metal armor there—he didn't have any armor there at all, just a dingy brown breechclout.

He doubled up so that my fist making contact with his chin received extra momentum from his own movement.

Then, as usual in these affairs, it was vitally necessary to keep low and spring away without thought.

The single-bladed axe swished down where my head had been and clanged into the cobbles. So fierce had the blow been the axe was twisted clean out of the grip of the Rapa who'd tried to cleave my skull in two.

In a matter of less than a second the Chulik's sword was in my grip and in the rest of the second was buried in the Rapa's side.

The sword possessed a strong curve to the blade, almost as much as a fancy sabre, and it slid in snugly enough doing the Rapa's business for him.

A swift glance around showed me the rest of the pirates sprawled in the mud. The Chulik lay doubled up and moaning. I confess I had kicked rather hard.

“My thanks, friend. Llahal.” The voice was light and amused.

So I stared at him as he came forward from the wall, the bloodied rapier in his fist, the left-hand dagger its match. Dandified, oh yes, in the way a predatory bird's bright coat of feathers gives it a handsome appearance, he was all that and more. He was like the cold steel of his rapier with the charming colored jewels adorning the hilt.

“Llahal,” I said.

His three friends were visibly relieved still to be alive.

He saw the Chulik groaning on the ground. One elegant dark eyebrow lifted. His lips although red were thin and firm. He stepped across and with delicate precision drove the blade through the Chulik's heart. As the Yellow Tusker was doubled up this fine amusing fellow thrust through from the back. I knew well enough the point of his rapier had struck straight past backbone and ribs and with unerring aim burst the heart asunder. That, I knew.

“Better to clean up any mess. I like to be neat and tidy.”

His face was barely flushed after the combat. Over that thin mouth he affected a thin black moustache. Once he had cleaned his weapons the first thing he would do was run a forefinger along that elegant moustache.

Other sounds began to percolate into our attention as the immediate fury of the fight subsided. A devil of a lot of noise was erupting from the town. Orange glare reflected from the low clouds. The Maiden with the Many Smiles shone down to add her pink luster to the scene.

“What are we to do now, notor?” The fellow who spoke, short and wiry and with a shock of straw-colored hair dangling from under a round leather cap, clutched a hefty short sword with a smidgeon of blood upon the blade. His face showed all the marks of dependence on another, coupled with an animal cunning in twist of lip and slant of eye.

“Do, fambly, do? Why, we shake hands with this gentleman and thank him for his help.”

The other two men who were already cleaning their weapons were clad in tough leather armor and their function in life as guards was patently apparent. They'd earned their hire, for they had killed well.

The lord eyed me calculatingly.

“Your name, my friend?”

“Drajak.” I spoke pleasantly. “And yours?”

His servant sucked in his cheeks.

Notor is how one addresses a lord in many parts of Paz upon Kregen. I'd had my fill of kowtowing to lords of late and I had no intention of beginning again right now. I had urgent things to do—like following Fweygo and the rest and trusting to all the Beneficent Spirits of Uttar Soblime they had not been slaughtered.

His eyebrows drew down for an instant and then that light amused laugh eased the situation—at least, it eased the situation for him and his servant. I didn't give a damn who he was. I wanted to get on.

“I am Amak Dagert—Dagert of Paylen. Lahal.”

“Lahal. Now, if you will excuse me I must—” He'd drawn a yellow cloth from under the short cape he wore over metal armor and was about to clean his sword. He wrapped the cloth again and stuffed it away with a gesture as elegant as a court dandy's. His voice chirred like oiled steel clearing scabbard.

“I think, Drajak, you must do something other than you intended.”

Philosophically I turned around and followed his gaze. A whole bunch of renders crowded down the alley towards us. Now the rain had stopped they'd lit torches and the lurid lights glanced and danced off wet walls and cobbles, glinted redly from the black blood at our feet.

The two guards stood very still, staring at Dagert of Paylen. Their eyes looked like pebbles. The amak's servant trembled. He licked his lips and kept flexing his grip on the short sword.

I looked around for another and possibly better weapon.

That amused low laugh, almost a self-satisfied chuckle, broke from Dagert. He looked back. The alley led off into a darkness relatively deeper than that in the opposite direction. It seemed to me as I picked up a sword of somewhat better construction than those I'd already used, that this Dagert of Paylen was deliberately tantalizing his servant. He was making the poor devil suffer. Well, that was between them.

“Notor—” The fellow's wet lips shone as he licked them again.

“Oh, you know me by now, Palfrey. When the odds are right—not otherwise. It has been pleasant meeting you, Drajak, and once more I offer you my thanks. Now it's time to depart.”

With that and without more ado he turned abruptly and darted lithely away down the alley.

Mind you, he was right, assuredly, he was right, by Krun!

One thing you noticed about Dagert of Paylen that lingered in the mind was his eyes. Liquid and dark, they hid unfathomable depths. What he said was one thing, what he thought quite another.

There was no point my hanging about here any longer. My duty lay with the charges the Star Lords had placed in my care. Swiftly I followed Amak Dagert into the shadows of the alley.

The problem now was to get out of Amintin and that meant scaling the wall somewhere where that was practicable and preferably out of sight of townspeople and renders alike. The clouds were drifting away across the stars and if the sky cleared much more many of the comforting shadows would disappear.

The pirates had entered the town across more than the one wall over which we had seen them clambering and now they infested the whole place. The unholy noise racketed on. Flames twisted against the thinning clouds. There were people running about aimlessly, desperately seeking shelter. What the Amintin Watch might be doing, what the local lord in command might be ordering, appeared to me to be completely unimportant. This dreadful night the renders owned Amintin and did as they pleased.

The nearest wall now would be the one over to the east. More than once I had to skip smartly down an alleyway to avoid roistering mobs of pirates. Their domination had been swift and sudden and was now total.

Soon I entered an area of warehouses where no doubt the goods coming in and out along the caravan trails were stored. Other, more interesting odors competed with the stink of fish and mud.

Naturally, a quarter of the town holding goodies like this was not going to be overlooked by your conscientious looter. Oh, dear me, no!

Carefully sliding along by a painted wooden wall and looking everywhere about, I spotted parties already at work hauling out Amintin's wealth. Just past the end of this warehouse and past the opened double doors from which streamed yellow lantern light an open space fronted an inland gate. Undoubtedly the gate had a name. What it might be I neither knew nor cared. I did know that it did not represent my way out of the raped town. Further along would be the place, where steps led up to the ramparts.

I did not proceed without a plan. The chances of success rested firmly on the very speed with which the renders had entered and conquered.

Moving swiftly yet cautiously I skirted the open space where during a normal working day the pack animals and the carts would muster and cut across between the two end warehouses. The wall lay only a scant fifteen paces off.

The route I had followed, dictated both by my desire to avoid pirates and to reach the east wall, channeled other fugitives to the same point. Pink moonlight momentarily illuminated agile figures clambering up the steps onto the ramparts with the oddly-cut openings of the battlements beyond. I halted. There was no doubt I expected a shower of arrows or crossbow bolts to sleet into those refugees.

Nothing happened and they ran excitedly along the top of the wall and vanished into one of the small towers erected at intervals. I frowned. That did not look promising.

“Sink me!” I snarled to myself. “In for a ponsho in for a leem!”

I gathered myself up and started at a dead run for the dappled shadows at the foot of the steps. Before I reached the wall a group of people appeared from the side, racing along with bent heads. For all their apparent blind panic, weapons snouted in their fists.

We reached the wall together.

Dagert of Paylen called: “Up, up, you hulus. Bratch!”

In a bunch we panted up the steps. Moonlight filtered down and dimmed and shone. Dagert's lean handsome face with that trimmed moustache and dark eyes looked perfectly composed. He said: “We must be swift, Drajak.” And, instantly: “Get on, get on, Palfrey, confound you!”

They started to run along in the shadow of the battlements towards the nearest small tower. I stopped and looked over the outside of the wall.

Praise be to Zair! My plan had come right! Dangling from the walls hung the rope ladders up which the pirates had swarmed to despoil Amintin. Dagert and his three followers were helter-skeltering along towards the tower. I called: “Dagert! This way is surer!”

He halted and swung about, a lithe, tense figure in that moon-dappled confusion.

I swung up into the gap and took the ropes into my fists. I wasn't prepared to hang about to be feathered waiting for anybody around here. Starting down, I called up: “Ladders, Dagert.”

His voice cracked out like two flat boards striking together in one of those Shensi plays, all puppets and buffoonery. “This way!”

Before I'd reached halfway down I felt his weight above me on the ladder. Glancing up I saw the nimbleness with which he negotiated the rungs. By the time I'd dropped into the dry moat—which was sticky with odiferous mud—he was halfway down and the rest of his party tumbled down after him.

Even then I had time to reflect on the illuminating fact that his followers had chosen the same ladder he had, the same one I'd chosen. There were other ladders dangling down. That told me a great deal.

He sprinted up to me as I hauled myself out on the other side of the moat.

“We'll have to reach the cover of those trees quickly.”

A couple of hundred or so paces off the dark mass of trees did promise shelter.

“Aye,” I said and started running over the muddy grass.

“My flier is parked to the north—” he was saying, and then stopped and saved his breath for running.

At that moment the first crossbow bolts began to whicker past our heads.

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Chapter three

Almost instantly Palfrey let out a scream—really the yelp he let out was more like a mouse squeak. The two guards ran on, heads high, chests outthrust, pacing Dagert of Paylen stride for stride. Well, that was their duty, what they were paid for. I glanced back.

Palfrey's shock of tow hair swung wildly as he danced and hobbled along, trying to clutch at his ankle and at the same time run after us.

Dagert did not turn his head.

“Come along, Palfrey, you hulu! Bratch!”

“I'm wounded, I'm wounded!” The words tumbled out all mixed up with squeakings and panting. “I'm skewered through!”

“No you're not!” Dagert hadn't even glanced back. “A scratch.”

“Mama Thehico the Healer aid me! Help!”

Not sure to be amused or annoyed I swung back and seized the servant up under the armpits and carried him along like a bundle of cordwood. He did have a long graze down his left shin and blood shone greasily black. He was babbling something to himself under his breath; but he had the sense not to struggle. The need to run as fast as possible coupled with the equally important need of dodging about randomly caused me to carry poor old Palfrey with less gentleness than was seemly for a wounded fellow creature. He yelped a bit but remained still and limp.

Thankfully the shooting became highly erratic as we opened the range and by the time the leaves of the first trees closed over our heads we were in no danger from either arrow or quarrel.

Putting Palfrey down I carefully did not look at Dagert. Palfrey lay on his back with his leg in the air and he clutched his ankle as though it was about to fall off. “Oh, oh, oh,” he moaned.

“Oh, do leave off, Palfrey, for the sweet sake of Harmonia!” Dagert's voice held a strong note of amusement, although his light laugh did not accompany his words. “Just say thank you nicely to tyr Drajak.”

“Thank you, master, thank you,” gabbled Palfrey still clutching his leg which stuck up in the air like a half-masted flagpole. “I'm shot through!”

“No you're not, you fambly. Now get on your feet and run with us. D'you want me to leave you alone here—with all those pirates?”

The flagpole leg came down like a drawbridge and Palfrey shot to his feet. “Notor! You wouldn't—”

“Don't try me, is all.” With that, Dagert of Paylen started off through the trees. Even on the uneven surface in the shadows he strode along with a lithe easy swagger, your bold adventurer, your dashing cavalier, to the life.

I bent and took Palfrey's foot in my hand and twisted it to get a look at his wound. He yelped. The gash was a mere graze with a little blood. He'd live.

I said: “As soon as we can safely stop we'll bind it up. Now come on.” And I gave him a friendly push in the right direction.

“Oh, the persecution I have to put up with!” But he trotted along smartly enough and did not fall behind.

Well, now, I considered as we threaded our way between the tree trunks, my first objective of getting out of doomed Amintin had been achieved. Now it was necessary for me join up with Fweygo and our charges. My confidence in Fweygo was already very high even in the short time of our acquaintance and with the powerful numim Ranaj to assist, the party should have won clear with the head start I'd given them. They were making for Bharang which lay over to the west. Therefore, it was necessary to cross the river, preferably unobserved. That meant this same night as ever was.

If this bright spark Dagert had a flier parked somewhere to the north, he might give me a lift.

In the general confusion of the night, of my interrupted duty, of my feelings about getting this job done and haring off home to Delia, I was fully in the mood to make sure Dagert of Paylen offered me a lift.

Palfrey kept on glancing down the backtrail as he hobbled along.

“They won't bother to follow a few fugitives, dom,” I told him. “They'll know that long before we can bring a rescue force they can be aboard their ships and vanished like ghosts.”

“Oh, master, please don't mention ghosts!” He squeaked up the scale like a mouse caught in a trap. “Especially now, at night, in the forest! It's positively unhealthy!”

Each to his own. I made myself say in a grave voice as we went on: “All the same, you don't have to worry over the renders any longer.”

Apart from his untidy shock of straw-colored hair, this Palfrey who was body servant to Dagert of Paylen possessed a round snub nose, a twist of native cunning to his lips, a feeling that he understood far more than he admitted. In the fight back there his short sword had been stained with blood, but only slightly, as though he'd stabbed at a reiver once and then considered his duty done. The half-cloak he drew about him from time to time with a nervous gesture was patched but of good quality. No doubt it was a reach me down from the Amak. I did not think you could easily pigeonhole friend Palfrey.

We spent the next couple of burs moving swiftly through the woods—they were scarcely the forest Palfrey had dubbed them—until we passed over a slanting hill tall with rough grass and descended the far slope towards the thin darkly-gleaming streak of the river. We did not speak.

At last Palfrey broke the silence.

“Notor! Can't we rest now—please? My leg burns like fire. I'm sure my foot is—”

“Your foot will do what feet are sent to Kregen to do. March!”

“Notor,” wailed the unhappy Palfrey. But he kept on going.

We were circling wide around the town to reach the river north of Amintin. The thought occurred to me to wonder why Dagert of Paylen had considered it necessary to land his flier here, when there was bound to be a vollerdrome, however small, within the confines of the walls. That action smacked of secrecy. Bright spark though he was, there was a spirit of deviltry in this fellow, of that there could be no mistake.

Southwards to our left a dull orange reflection hung in the sky. What wind there was carried the sounds away from us. Pirates are, in general and with certain notable exceptions, unpleasant vermin. Their boldness this night of terror boded ill for the coastal towns, indicating a power that felt it economical to destroy a seaport. Killing geese that lay golden eggs is not an economical proposition for thieves.

Palfrey's injured foot hit a stone or other obstruction in the grass and he staggered and fell against me. I clapped an arm about his narrow waist and hoicked him up. A gasp of pain puffed between his lips.

“Hard,” he half whispered, half stuttered. “H-Hard man!”

“The notor will rest in a moment.”

“Only when we reach the ruins and the voller.”

Judging by the fleeting glimpses of the Maiden with the Many Smiles as clouds passed overhead I fancied it would rain again before dawn. Used though I am to roughing it in all kinds of weather, like any normal person in any normal circumstances I generally prefer to be under cover and dry when it rains. These ruins would offer cover of a sort. If, that is, I could afford to waste time lollygagging about instead of being up and about my duty for the Everoinye.

Anyway, what in a Herrelldrin Hell was this fine fancy Dagert of Paylen doing hiding his flier in some ruins and then footslogging it into Amintin? Mind you, the Star Lords had flung me into the town in something like the same way. And—ruins. We were skirting the riverbank now, heading south towards the fireglow in the sky. The land looked unkempt. It has been said that when buildings grow old the English rebuild and add wings, the Americans knock them down and build new and bigger and the Irish just leave them and build new along the road. From the little I knew this was an ancient land shrouded in mystery with new peoples merely imposing a surface culture. A hardened adventurer feels many emotions at the prospect of ruins and, of these, two are pre-eminent. One: the excitement of financial gain. Two: the anticipation of danger and death.

Palfrey had called a few trees a forest. Dagert had chosen to conceal his voller in ruined buildings rather than in the woods. That presumably indicated they were both urbanites.

As Opaz in the guise of Whetti-Orbium ordained, the rain began as we reached the dark vegetation shrouded mass of the ruins. What they had been in their prime was hard to say; a monastery, a castle, a fortified villa, a series of structures at the least of considerable extent sloping down towards the riverbank. Rain pattered against ancient stone blocks. Mud slicked underfoot. One could hope that the deluge would extinguish the fiery agony of Amintin.

Dagert of Paylen did not hesitate. Between crumbled stone pillars he stalked into the half-darkness of a courtyard. Cracked paving stones surrounded what had once been a fountain. Low, jagged-edged walls surrounded the space. Here no roofs had survived. Everywhere in crack and crevice grew thistles, hardy, bright purple and lustrous green, and nettles of a richer lighter green, loaded with stingers. Ahead gaped blackness beneath an arch of desiccating brickwork. There must be some remnants of roof left over there, then.

Speaking in a soft voice, Dagert said: “Bring her out, Palfrey.”

“Yes, notor.”

Palfrey started across. The odd thing here was that he showed no apparent apprehension about wandering about sinister ruins at night yet he had expressed serious concern over ghosts in the woods. One would have thought that no matter how accustomed to city streets he might be, dark ruins would be another thing altogether.

Despite the smells of mud and damp vegetation the penetrating stink of incense irritated my nostrils before the monotonous sound of chanting reached my ears. Palfrey stopped as though poleaxed.

Dagert's fist reached down for the hilt of his rapier.

Palfrey half turned and his eyes were the whitest things in his face.

“Over here.” Dagert's voice sounded like silk drawn over a sword blade. He pointed to the ruins of the courtyard to our right.

The two guards, silent, moving like clumsy dolls, vanished into the shadows as Dagert pulled Palfrey in. Here we were completely concealed and could look out without being observed. I glanced at Dagert's servant. Poor old Palfrey, his fears of the ghosts of the forests had transferred themselves across with sudden terror to these ruins.

Despite the rain that stench of incense wafted stronger. The chanting—low, monotonous, hypnotic—grew louder.

From the darkness emerged a procession. Now torchlight spilled around the edges of the ruined walls and scythed long streaks of red fire across the paving. Cloaked and hooded figures appeared, two by two, heads bowed and hands clasped. The torchlight illuminated their robes, all a dark red, smoky and sullen. The faces were shrouded in blackness.

Water hissed and sizzled against the orange flare of the torches.

The words of the chant were unintelligible to me. One word, often repeated, dominated. Oltomek. Or, it could have been Altamek. The rain spattered down, the torches hissed, the figures chanted and moved on two by two. At their head they carried a gilded pole on which was mounted a gilded figure of some beast from nightmare. Winged, taloned, fanged, the things ruby eyes glinted and sparkled in the torchlight. The sense of primeval evil reeked from the idol.

Immediately after this gilded blasphemy followed another staff, silvered, upon which a symbol swayed and nodded as the red-cloaked figure crossed the cracked paving. The symbol looked to be a stylized representation of a pair of upflung wings, joined at the bottom, almost touching at their tips, forming an oval round.

Chanting Ultumak or Oltomek, two by two, the figures passed across the courtyard and exited on the far side. Two by two they were swallowed up by darkness. The stench of incense cloyed sickeningly, then the wash of rain cleansed the air. The torchlights died.

Palfrey, shaking, said: “Notor—”

“Madmen,” said Dagert of Paylen. His light laugh sounded more grim than usual. “Hanitcha the Harrower take them! By Krun! They're no business of mine!”

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Chapter four

“Brassud!” snapped Dagert of Paylen. “Or, as Malahak is my witness I shall burn your tail!”

Palfrey tried to brace himself up. “Notor,” he quavered, “may Kaerlan the Merciful smile on us now! Let us get out of this terrible place before the evils of Kuerden the Merciless fall upon us.”

One of the men at arms mumbled: “Amen to that, notor, by Havil the Green.”

“Go on! Go on!” ordered Dagert. “Bratch!”

Palfrey bratched, jumping forward like a startled deer into the roofed darkness. Only moments later the nose of a small four-place flier eased out and she settled on the paving beside Dagert.

Palfrey's face, showing immediate signs of indigestion, peered down from the controls abaft the tiny windscreen. The guards waited.

“Up with you!” commanded Dagert. He turned to me and in that cloying dimness his teeth cut a curve of whiteness in the gloom. “Once again my thanks, tyr Drajak. I shall not forget you. Now I must be off as fast as Wheesh-amakler, spirit of the winds, will allow.”

I said: “If you are flying westwards, might—”

But he was up over the voller's polished coaming and staring down at me with his raffish smile. He prodded Palfrey in the back.

“Westwards? Ah—no, no. We fly north.”

To this day I do not rightly know if there would have been time for me to leap up and board the craft. Palfrey was deuced quick. The little airboat lifted off soundlessly, scattering a few dead leaves, leaping straight up into the clouded sky. A faint: “Remberee, Drajak!” floated back. Then voller, Dagert, Palfrey and the two men at arms were gone.

“Remberee!” I said under my breath with great disgust. I added: “And by Makki Grodno's diseased liver and lights, you're getting slow, Dray Prescot, too damned slow!”

Oh, well, I had a sword of sorts that didn't fit the scabbard and had already split the shrunken leather and cracked wood. I had a red breechclout and a decent tunic and a pair of reasonable shoes. Many times in the past, I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, had started off on an adventure with much less. Much less, by Djan!

Without further ado I set off. The Maiden with the Many Smiles was dropping down to the western horizon. A couple of Kregen's lesser moons were whirling past low overhead but I couldn't see them through the clouds. The night would soon be gone and I wanted to be across the river before dawn.

Cutting across the slope I soon reached the river. If there were any nasties in there, then in the mood I then was I would have short shrift with them. Mind you, I'd said in a fine free way how I'd force Dagert to take me in his voller, and see where that stupid boast had got me.

He had not enquired for any additions to my name, although had he done so I'd have told him I was Drajak the Sudden. One of the men at arms had spoken to his comrade about Dagert's servant, calling him Palfrey the Pfiffer. Those two military guards had not spoken much, intent on protecting their lord and earning their hire. Truly, although conditions and customs vary widely over Kregen, as they do on this Earth, much remains almost the same wherever you go.

In the event I swam the river without problems. Wet yet heartened I crawled out on the opposite bank and started up the slope.

Zim and Genodras rose in the multicolored glory of a Kregen dawn. As I slogged along a trail between tall green crops a few birds were singing. My twin shadows loped ahead of me.

In the extraordinarily wide temperate regions of Kregen the Suns of Scorpio had little difficulty in drying up the overnight rain. The air freshened with that marvelous fragrance that is so very much Kregen's own. And I was ravenously hungry and thirsty and about ready to find a convenient spot to put my head down and catch up my missing sleep.

Better to go on for a bit yet, and look for somewhere promising, I decided. Even the Star Lords understood that mere humans, people like me, needed to sleep from time to time. The Everoinye had once been mortal human beings, so I believed. All the same, their ideas of the amount of sleep a fellow required fell far short of complete recuperation.

As I tramped on I cogitated about those red-robed figures. They probably belonged to some nutty religious cult or other. Zair knew, there were enough of them all over Kregen to fill the pages of a million encyclopedias. They'd scared Palfrey the Pfiffer all right. If I'd leaped for the flier and missed and merely got a fingernail clinging on, Palfrey would have lifted off regardless.

Not all the overnight clouds had dissipated and occasionally wide bands of shadows fleeted across the landscape. Red and green, an opaline mixture of colors, shadows and suns-light bathed the land in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of considerable charm.

The river here curved in a loop and the trail from the bank led into the concavity at almost right angles and after a bur or so brought me to what was evidently a highway. Paved, the road had been carved out in a series of straightish lines. Not quite a Roman road it bore the hallmarks of a technological level capable of transferring people, goods, and troops with celerity. Even those countries of Paz on Kregen who possess the benefit of airboats for rapid travel never have enough for everyone's needs. River and canal traffic is widespread. Here the rivers ran from north north west to south south east. The road ran west. That was my direction of travel, so I set off sturdily over the paving.

This route should lead me direct to Bharang and, considerably further on, to the capital.

Now my reading of Fweygo indicated to me he was a canny individual. He had been charged by the Star Lords with the safety of Princess Nandisha and her party. He had mounts who had to be handled carefully and nursed over long distances. He'd travel at night for safety's sake and lie up during the day. If I kept going with only short intervals for rest I anticipated catching him in the not too distant future.

Just who posed the threat to Nandisha I didn't know. It was quite likely Fweygo didn't know, either.

The news of the sacking of Amintin had already passed along the road. One might have expected farm carts on their way to the town with produce. I passed none. Twice I felt it prudent to slip off the highway and conceal myself in bushes as parties of troops marched past.

On the third occasion Five-handed Eos-Bakchi smiled on me. The Vallian spirit of good fortune arranged that I spotted a whole regiment of cavalry breaking camp and mounting up. When they had cantered off out of sight I inspected their campsite.

One item I noted mentally was that they appeared in no hurry to reach Amintin. The other was that they were a very high-powered lot for their camp was a treasure trove of abandoned items. What they'd left over would feed a poor family for a month of She of the Veils.

The regiment had been brilliantly attired and accoutred and they were riding zorcas. Their standards blazed in the lights of the suns. I found a discarded forage bag and was able to stuff it almost full of crusts, congealing porridge, a quarter-full pot of honey—real red slursh—and tumbled half under a bush a whole ham, a most splendid addition to my larder. I stuffed my inward parts before I stuffed the forage bag. Only a few ulms further on a small brook passed under a culvert and I was able to wash my breakfast down.

Feeling much more cheerful I looked about for a spot to rest. A few burs sleep would see me set up sufficiently to march all night.

This I duly did. This was the pattern of events for the next three days.

By eating just enough to keep me going I still had a splendid feast for a good few days ahead left in the forage bag.

The road passed through woods, over heathlands, and when it entered a town or village I felt it prudent to skirt around and bypass potential trouble.

Here and there the paving was cracked and a little overgrown although nowhere sufficiently so to impede progress. On the fourth day I avoided a road gang busily at work lifting and replacing paving stones.

The brilliance of the yellow sand they were tamping down as foundation indicated they knew what they were doing.

Each side of the road had trenches acting as gutters well kept and free of weeds. The cunning camber ensured rainwater would run off freely. All this told me a great deal about the societal level of these people.

On the fifth day more people were about and I felt it safe to stay on the road and offer a grave and polite salutation as we passed.

On this day, too, I saw a strange mountain configuration some way off to the north. In general aspect it reminded me strongly of Ayers Rock in Australia. The top was serrated but at that distance it was too difficult to determine if the protuberances were natural rock forms or buildings. The mingled streaming lights of Zim and Genodras struck from the face and drove deep shadowed fissures the whole sprawled length of the mountain.

Two days later I began to feel I ought to be catching up with Fweygo and the party.

In the early morning with the dew still on the grass I swung down a long slope. I felt fine. My only concern was the damned scabbard which was on the point of falling to pieces. My shoes were in perfect condition, my tunic was slung over my back and I could expand my lungs and breathe in that glorious Kregan air.

Nobody else traveled the road until I spied two figures walking slowly towards me. I kept on going, prepared for a polite: “Llahal, doms,” and nothing more.

One of the people approaching was a man past the prime of life. On Kregen this meant he was over two hundred years old. He leaned heavily on a carved staff. He wore a brown robe with the hood thrown back to reveal a narrow head with wisps of hair hanging down. His face was puckered with pain and his mouth compressed into a thin slit. His eyes were strange, hidden beneath folds of flesh, swollen and reddish.

At his side and clearly guiding walked a lad, a young lad, in a brown tunic. His fresh face was twisted with concern. He went barefoot.

The old man had cloths wrapped about his feet. I saw among the rusty brown stains disfiguring the cloth new redder stains.

As they approached the old man stumbled. His staff slipped. All his weight came down on the lad.

Unable to sustain this, the lad was forced down and despite his desperate attempts the old man slid down and tumbled onto the paving.

I leaped forward.

The old man struggled to sit up on the dusty road. He licked those thin lips and said: “I am sorry, Nath. Truly sorry. My strength is gone out of me.”

“Master!” Young Nath was close to tears. He made no attempt to try to get the old man to his feet. I stopped my foolish, useless leap, and just stopped in front of them.

Nath looked at me with glistening eyes.

I said: “Llahal.” And then hesitated, quite uncertain what to say or do next.

Surprising me—and Nath, too, by his instinctive reaction of stretching out his hands to assist—the old man gripped his staff and hoisted himself up on his bleeding feet. I was not at all sure that, looking at me though he was, he was really seeing me.

“Llahal, my friend. You see me in parlous plight. Please overlook my weakness.”

Feeling utterly helpless I just stared at them, master and lad.

Nath wiped a hand over his eyes and, sturdily, said: “This is San Padria na Fermintin. Lahal.”

“Lahal. I am Drajak. What—?”

San Padria, in his hoarse but strong voice: “We are pilgrims on the road to Farinsee.” I judged he used that voice to preach to vast congregations. “The way has been long and arduous; but we are nearly there.”

“Yes, master,” chipped in Nath. “Not far now. But your feet—”

“Are given by Cymbaro the Just to carry me about this world. Until they fail me utterly then they must carry me. Have I not taught you, young Nath, that pain is merely an extension of perception, to be treated no more and no less than any other perception?” He stood there in the dust, on those bleeding feet, leaning on his staff, and the dignity in him was a palpable force.

Young Nath's spindly legs sticking out under his brown tunic looked like sparrow's legs. His face was pinched. So was San Padria's. Struck by a thought, I said: “When did you last eat?”

“When the lord Cymbaro pleased. Sustenance is more than bread.”

“Oh, aye,” I said, and shifted the forage bag forward on its straps. I fished out two crusts, dovetailed together, and held them out in my hand whilst I lifted out the hambone. It was well-carved off by now; there was ample left to put more than metaphysical bread from Cymbaro into these two pilgrims stomachs. I looked up. They had not taken the crusts.

“Please,” I said, and added, rather chancily, I suppose: “I trust that Cymbaro will approve.”

Well, they hummed and hawed a bit but in the end they took the crusts and slices of ham and wolfed them down. Already San Padria looked healthier. It was just his damned feet.

They told me Bharang was six day's off; I judged that meant the distance would take me around a day and a bit. Farinsee turned out to be the mountain like Ayers Rock I'd passed. That meant they had at least twelve days to go at their speed. I did not hesitate further. “I own my own way of living.” I tried to speak with a solemnity I wasn't really feeling. After all, the thing was so obvious. “You will cause me distress if you do not accept that.” I took off my sturdy shoes and handed them to Nath and gave him a very hard, very domineering Dray Prescot look. “They will fit well enough, young Nath, because Cymbaro obviously has it in mind that San Padria should reach Farinsee. Help the san to put them on.” Instantly he was on his knees and at work.

The shoes did fit, and extremely well, too.

They were stout of sole and soft of uppers. Young Nath sorted out strips of least bloodied cloth to bind the san's feet. There was no doubt whatsoever of the calm power both enshrouding and exuding from this man. Whatever religion owned his allegiance benefited greatly. I acknowledged that the religion must have formed and shaped him, so that in that case the partnership was a rounded and satisfying whole.

Nath, holding the san's arm, said to me: “I thank you, master.”

Feeling the occasion called for it, I said: “No, Nath. It is for me to thank you and the san for accepting.”

San Padria turned his face to me; but his eyes, just about hidden under those puffy folds of unhealthy-looking flesh, may not have seen me at all. “That is almost a quotation from the Fifth Book of Cymbaro's earliest teachings, before he ascended.”

“Chapter ten, Verse three,” said Nath, as though prompted.

The san moved his feet experimentally on the paving stones. “Very nice. I feel their ibma welcomes me.”

Prodding forward with his curiously carved staff he took the first steps on this last stage towards Farinsee. Young Nath walked determinedly by his side. I could not stand and watch and wait for them to trudge out of sight along the road. That would have taken an unconscionably long time at their crawl. I gave a sigh. I knew with absolute certainty that those shoes were far better employed right now than they had been when I, fully accustomed to walking barefoot, had worn them.

With a last look at that odd couple I swung about and resumed my march towards Bharang and the party with Fweygo.

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Chapter five

From my considerable experience of assassins I was aware they preferred to work to a timetable. The dying moments of the fracas ahead on the road, some couple of burs after I'd said remberee to San Padria and young Nath, told me the assassins were operating under the most urgent of orders. Here they were, openly attacking a little cavalcade in daylight on the highroad.

There was, it is true, a scraggle of woods either side of the road. The twin Suns of Scorpio shone down splendidly and lit up the unpleasant scene, when more often than not assassins like to work under the cloak of darkness—preferably in a night of Notor Zan.

There were already more than enough dead folk lying about by the time I reached the scene attracted by shouts and the slide and scrape of steel. Dragging the sword from that shrunken and twisted scabbard held me up fractionally.

There were zorcas standing in an uneasy group half in among the trees. They did not like the raw stink of blood and neither did I.

By the time I reached there the assassins had just about finished their ghastly work. I did give a whoop and a holler rushing in to startle them and perhaps save some last poor wight's life before they finished him off to turn to deal with me.

“You cowardly stikitches!” I bellowed. “Hai!”

Two of them, black capes flaring, swung about from a man sprawled on the paving with his back half-propped against a decorated carriage. Three black-clad men lay face down before him and blood oozed from them. From the side an assassin swinging a short axe charged at me. The two men checked their weapons, seeing me, and swung about to join their comrade. The three of them, working as a team of long experience, closed in.

Two swords and an axe against a sword of whose provenance and reliability I had the gravest of doubts—all right, then! In the normal fashion they tried to circle me. They were not prepared for the speed with which I hurtled into them.

The axeman's weapon faltered short as I chopped him down and in the next instant as I swung about to face the other two they were caught square on. Our blades clashed just the twice. A twisting slice saw the right hand one off and after a swift leap forward a thrust to the left dealt with the other.

It had all been very quick and deadly. Had it not been I would not be here to tell you the tale.

Mind you, as I'd mournfully guessed, the sword snapped in half. The stikitche reeled back, choking blood, and collapsed with half the blade stuck through his guts.

A single quick but extremely comprehensive glance about assured me no other assassins lived. Now I could bend to the dying man.

His first words were incomprehensible. Blood fouled his lips and ran down his chin.

“Easy, dom, easy.” There was no use trying to move him to a more comfortable position. His internal injuries would only have been exacerbated and quite clearly he wanted to live long enough to tell me something.

The sword dropped from his blood-dabbled glove. He seized my arm in a weak grip. Blood oozed from under his gloved fingers.

“Strom Korden. Laha...” His voice garbled with the blood in his mouth. His breast under the bright robes and the banded armor barely moved. “Take the sword and...” A gobbet of blood gushed between his lips, to stain down with the rest. He tried again and only mumbles without meaning escaped him.

I saw him make a tremendous effort. He swallowed with a convulsive contortion of his mouth and face that trembled down along his limbs. His head rolled. He had been a strong man in the prime of life with a thick brown moustache and heavy shock of hair, exposed now that his helmet, badly dented, had fallen off and rolled under the carriage.

“To Hyr Kov Brannomar.” His voice dropped in tone and volume. He was almost gone. “You must...” His eyes closed and his lips worked together. “By Cymbaro the Just I charge you!” That surged forth with the last remnant of his powers. He coughed and the blood poured down. His words were barely understandable and they trailed off into gibberish. “Take—take the sword—take the sword and...”

I bent and spoke gently into his ear.

“As Cymbaro is my witness, Strom Korden, I will take the sword to Hyr Kov Brannomar.”

Only Opaz knew if he heard me. When I straightened up the life had gone from him and he was dead.

I sat back on my heels for a moment and mentally consigned him to the protection of Cymbaro the Just.

Then I stood up briskly and looked about.

Scenes like this, although repeated often enough upon Kregen, always have the power to disturb. What this nobleman's errand might be, to deliver the sword to Kov Brannomar, what the meaning was, I could not know. There was nothing else I could have done. Not a Krozair of Zy, not a Krovere of Iztar, not a koter of Vallia. Oh, no, I was bound by a sacred oath. I just hoped he had died with the comforting knowledge that he had done his duty as well as he could.

The sword must be the one he had gripped and used in his last fight. I bent and picked it up. There were plenty of black clothes to wipe the blade clean.

It was of that variety of sword more generally found in the easterly regions of Paz called a braxter. Nominally a straight cut and thruster it did have a slight and cunning curve to the blade. The steel rang with quality. The hilt was a plain affair of cross quillons and twisted silver wire grip. The only mark to distinguish it from a thousand other such braxters was the ruby set in the pommel. I judged the gem to be genuine although not of great value.

I took a deep breath and then expelled my breath in disgust. The sweet Kregish air lay flat and stinking on my tongue.

There was absolutely no use trying to force this sword into my shrunken and now useless scabbard. Strom Korden wore a plain leather belt about his waist, fastened by a bronze buckle. The lockets from which the simple scabbard swung were also of bronze. The whole rig was plain and workmanlike, a bladesman's harness. The sword belonged in that scabbard and no other. With due reverence I unbuckled the belt and slid it from around the strom's waist. I cleaned it up. I buckled it on and thrust the sword away. At that, by the Blade of Kurin, it felt right, far better than the rig I discarded.

Going around the dead bodies on the slight off chance one or two might still be alive, I found to my complete non-astonishment that all had been faithfully dealt with. These stikitches had known their trade and only the stout defense put up by Strom Korden had saved him for the short time left to discharge himself of his duty.

None of the armor available would fit me, that was obvious at a glance. Like any prudent warrior or paktun of Kregen who always tries to carry as much weaponry as is sensible and compatible with encumbrance and weight carried, I selected another braxter very like the sword I must carry to Kov Brannomar. I took its associated belt and scabbard and strapped on the rig. Also, I found a nice Bowie-type knife that could snug in the accustomed place I wore such a weapon, over my right hip. In addition, I availed myself of a quiver of arrows and a bow, one of the built and backed and heavily re-curved variety. No doubt my good blade comrade Seg Segutorio would have pulled a face; there were no great Lohvian longbows on offer.

As to transport, I rejected the carriage without hesitation. Still, I had a veritable remuda of zorcas at my disposal. Their spiral horns shone in the suns-light. Their wise spirited eyes regarded me warily; a clansman of the Great Plains of Segesthes knows well how to handle animals—voves, zorcas, chunkrahs—and I had no trouble.

The carriage itself had a schturval painted on the door, and this device denoting name, family, house or clan looked to be a stylized representation of a four-winged animal with a long tail and a double set of nasty looking teeth. Out of mythology, it was, and I had no idea of its name. Over its wicked head was painted a golden crown surmounting a helmet and two brailed scarves of red and blue trailed down tastefully.

There were also, I was extremely grateful to see, plenty of provisions, food and drink in good quantity and quality. There and then I tucked into a repast such as I had not tasted for far too long.

As I chewed and swallowed I reflected morosely on the injustice of the marvelous and terrible world of Kregen. Among the bodies lay six men each wearing a brown hooded robe like the one San Padria had worn. All had been chopped down and only three of them had used weapons, as was readily apparent. Also, there were bodies that made my lips thin unpleasantly.

Five of them, five young girls at the beginning of their adult lives, each pretty in her own way, each now lying dead with no future ahead at all. They wore multicolored gowns short as to hem and their legs just looked pathetic. Some had bells fastened around their ankles, and as you know I still had not made up my mind if this custom was tasteful or merely vulgar.

My feelings made me want to leave this spot immediately, yet I had at least to think about giving these poor folk decent burials. My mind was made up on the instant by the sight of more travelers approaching along the way I had traveled. I did not want to get into the inevitable hassle that would follow if I stayed around. Anyway, I had to get on and the newcomers could perform the funeral rites far better than I.

The zorcas pricked up their ears as I approached and some pawed the ground under the trees. One animal looked likely, a gray with eyes that appeared to be saying: “Ride me! I am the best!” I walked up to him, soothing him, and put my hand on his bridle. A glint of light in the dapple of suns shine beneath the trees and a hefty thwunk as the flung dagger sank into the tree trunk by my head made me instinctively swirl about and hunker down and the bow was in my left fist and the arrow nocked and half-drawn ready before I caught up with my reactions.

A shrill cracked voice screamed: “Assassin!”

In a voice that smacked back like a thunderclap I yelled: “I'm not an assassin, you fambly!” I was wrought up. “As Cymbaro is my witness, I am no stikitche!” Then I managed to quieten down a bit and finished in a less belligerent but no less loud voice: “Do I look like one?”

The voice, hesitant, choked, said: “No! But—”

“I can see you, hiding behind the carriage. Come out and show yourself or I'll feather you between the spokes of the wheel.”

“If I had another dagger you'd talk differently!”

“Here!” I fairly snarled out. I reached up and wrenched the pretty jeweled thing from the tree trunk. “Have it back!”

I hurled it so that it stuck into the side of the carriage.

“There you are!”

In a hesitating almost sobbing voice, she said: “You're stealing the strom's zorca!”

I breathed out thinly through my nose.

“I'm not stealing him! I'm borrowing him!”

“That's what they all say when they're caught.”

“By the pendulous swag belly and monolithic veined thighs of Makki Grodno!” I bellowed out. I stood up and started across. “I've had enough of this. Come on out, miss, bratch!”

With the bow and shaft gripped in that cunning archer's hold and my right fist bunched and half-cocked I must have made a daunting sight as I marched across. I own my face must have glowered out a great deal of that demonic expression folk call the Dray Prescot Devil Look.

“Up!” I said, and I snapped it out sharply, like an order rapped out on the barrack square. “Come on out.”

She wriggled her way out from under the carriage like a kitten squeezing through a narrow gap. Her pink dress was ripped all down the left side and flaps of it dangled. She made a half-hearted attempt to pull it up over her body. She stood up, breathing loudly. In her hands she cradled a bloody mess of hair. Tears stained down her cheeks and blood congealed all across the left side of her face and in her fair dusty hair. Whatever restraints had held that splendid hair were gone, smashed away in the blow that had done her damage, and despite the dust and blood her hair was truly a glory.

She saw me looking at the bloody mess she held so tightly against her, against her bare flesh where the pink dress flapped open. Some change of expression as I stared was reflected in the strange shift of color in her eyes, clear in the light of the suns, a swirl as of oil on water or silk drawn through the fingers. From green to gray her eyes mirrored my own change of expression.

“Bandi,” she said, in a small voice. “My little Bandi.” Tears trickled stickily down her dusty and bloodied cheeks.

The animal was a mili-milu, one of those small friendly monkey-like creatures women keep as pets, perched on their shoulders, quick and mischievous but delightful. This little fellow had done his duty by his mistress, for the savage blow that should have killed her outright had smashed the mili-milu and his death had softened the shock to the girl. She'd been lying unconscious and unnoticed under the vegetation-choked end of the carriage all the time.

In a voice I gentled as much as I could, I said: “Let me take Bandi and—”

“No!” she flared.

“People are coming along the road. I must leave before they arrive. They will see to the burials. Please.”

She was young, like the other girls on the threshold of life. Of medium height, she was fully formed and I saw her legs were muscled in that particular way of a dancer's training. Despite all the horror she held herself well and her head struck defiantly erect.

I said: “Whatever—Strom Korden charged me with his last breath to do his duty. That I must do. So I shall say remberee.” I gave her a hard stare and turned to stalk off to the gray zorca. Over my shoulder I said: “Your dagger is stuck in the carriage door.”

My reaction to her refusal to surrender the mangled remains of her pet clearly puzzled her. If she was a normal young girl, and I saw no reason to doubt otherwise, she'd be in shock. Normalcy in dealing with her now was vital.

My own rather overbearing first impression on her had been met and challenged by her own innate courage. She was a dancer well enough, and I was vaguely pleased to see she wore no bells around her ankles, and she was well-muscled, lithe and acrobatic without doubt. A tough little lady, then, whose toughness was all sliding muscle and rounded forms without a single unsightly bulge. I continued to stalk off as she spoke.

“At least, tell me your name.”

“Drajak.”

“You are very abrupt.”

“Some people call me Drajak the Sudden. Now, if you—”

“I am called Tiri.”

As I made no response but once more laid my hand on the zorca's bridle she flashed out with: “Tiri is short for Tirivenswatha.”

I couldn't help saying, dryly: “I am glad to hear it. I have little truck with long names.”

“I think the Lady Balsitha has deformed your ibma.”

“As I do not know who the Lady Balsitha might be, nor yet what an ibma is, you must forgive me if I do not tremble in my shoes.”

And she laughed.

“What shoes?”

I looked down, startled, and, by Krun! it was true.

As a hardened old adventurer and a sailor used to treading hard decks going about barefooted is no novelty to me. Still and all, a decent pair of shoes wouldn't come amiss. Somewhat disgruntled, I swung back.

Little time was spent in finding a good pair of shoes, tough of sole and soft of uppers as had been the others, and I hauled them on. The party walking and riding up the road were near by now. I straightened up and she surprised me again. Gravely, she handed me the red ruined remains of Bandi, her mili-milu.

Equally gravely I took the poor thing and then reverently placed it down beside the still form of Strom Korden. “They will give him a proper burial with the due observances.” I turned back to her.

She had taken a belt and scabbard and was pulling the buckle tight. The tongue went into just about the last hole about her slender waist. She stuck a braxter into the scabbard with a snap.

I nodded, half in approval half in amusement.

“Very good, young Tiri. Now it is remberee. Farewell.”

“No.”

“No?”

For an insane instant I thought she might offer to challenge me.

She picked up an embroidered bag near the carriage and walked across to the zorcas under the trees.

“No. I am coming with you.”

With that, she gave a strong athletic leap and was astride the gray zorca I had chosen and taking up his reins.

“Come on, Drajak the Sudden. What are you lollygagging about for?”

She swung the zorca's head and cantered out onto the road. Perforce I clambered aboard another likely-looking animal and chik-chikked him along. The other zorcas followed.

Resignedly, feeling something of the emotions of a fellow caught in a hurricane where he had been expecting a mild breeze. I trotted along in her wake.

Now what little she-madam was I embroiled with this time?

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Chapter six

Young Tiri did not say a word as we let our animals take us quietly along the road to Bharang. She rode with her head sunk down between her shoulders. Her slender body shook. Now and again she moaned. She was going through the agony of what had happened over and over again, reliving the nightmare. I could do nothing but let her get the shakes out of her system.

“Why,” she would be saying to herself, the agony like live coals. “Why was I spared? Why do I live and all my friends are dead? And, why did it have to happen?”

As to the last, I fancied she knew far more about that than did I.

By the time we passed between agricultural fields and the outskirts of Bharang hove in sight she had largely recovered. She sat erect, her long slim dancer's legs very fine and bronzed in the light of the suns. That was one problem if not solved then shelved for the moment. Another problem was worrying me now. Was it because Tiri would have watched and perhaps formed a certain opinion that I had forgotten? I am a longtime mercenary, a zhanpaktun, and after a fracas like the fight around the carriage any paktun worth his salt will investigate the portable property of the slain.

I had not done so. That this was remiss of me I own. Except when it is clear the possessions of the slain in battle should be returned to next of kin, any fighting man expects both to give and to take. When my time comes then certain things should be returned to Delia. The balance becomes the spoils of the victor.

This meant I had no money to care for Tiri or myself in Bharang. Oh, well, I could always hope to sell a zorca. I admit to the sin of pride in that I had muchly looked forward to relishing the look on Fweygo's face when I turned up with a remuda of top class zorcas.

In the last hundred paces or so before we reached the town gates I looked up to see a magnificent scarlet and golden bird circling above my head. He swung in lazy effortless circles, pinions stretched wide. I knew him. This was the Gdoinye, the spy and messenger of the Star Lords. He watched me with his sharp beady eye, turning his head this way and that, circling.

Tiri took no notice for she would not see the Gdoinye.

I waited. Presently the raptor flew up and up, vanishing into the bright sky of Kregen. He had not uttered a single squawk of contempt or admonition. From this I took comfort. I must still be about my business for the Everoinye. Had I not been, by the maggot-infested nostrils of the Divine Lady of Belschutz! I'd have been snatched up into the eerie blue radiance of the Scorpion and whistled off to where I ought to be, and no mistake about that, by Krun!

The walls of the city looked to be in good repair and the spears and helmets of guards were only too obvious along the battlements. Onion shaped domes rose in profusion within the city, with tall towers and a multicolored variety of walls and roofs visible through the open gateway. A caravan of calsanys was just emerging, each pack animal laden down with a fat yellow plaited-straw pannier slung each side. The escort was sizeable in number and impressive in appearance. I pulled the zorcas out of the way to let the caravan pass.

The guards on the gate gave Tiri, the zorcas and me a cursory glance and said and did nothing as we trotted into the city.

The time was just past mid-afternoon and there were certain matters to be attended to in order and with some urgency before nightfall.

The smells of Bharang were not such as to offend, rather the mingled odors of animals and dust and sweat reflected off the closely-packed walls gave one a vague feeling of safety being within the stout walls of a city. The doings of the next few burs are simply told. I found a one-eared Rapa with straggly green feathers who bought a zorca without question. Any brandings would be skillfully removed, judging by the Rapa's manner. Tiri, in a distracted way, did say: “I have some money, Drajak. One silver Bhin and seven copper obs.”

I nodded and smiled and said: “The next thing is to buy you some decent clothes. That pink dress, apart from the color, is not fit to be seen.” We found her a nice dress of a deeper rose pink, a color she said she preferred, and some solid and sensible undergarments. Then it was time to find a respectable hostelry for the night. Neither of us mentioned what had happened on the road or of the circumstances of our strange meeting and unlikely partnership.

The Fluted Hen looked promising, in a street off the main drag. Its walls were of a yellow brick and its windows shone in the last of the suns. I halted Tiri and for a moment or two we watched the clientele entering and leaving. They looked respectable burghers of the place. So, in we went and obtained two separate rooms for the night. I had made no enquiries regarding Fweygo and the party. That would come when we were settled in comfortably.

The zorcas were stabled and seen to. We sat down in the general room for an evening meal. A group of mail-clad men entered, looking important, although their weapons were sheathed. At their head strutted a youngster wearing a uniform rather too grand for him. He was apim, yet most of the men following him were Hytaks. They are warriors to reckon with, good solid fighters. I began to give my order for the meal, taking no notice of the newcomers.

Now, as you know it is not my habit to sit in a strange place with my back towards the door. Although I say I took no notice of the newcomers, that would appear to be the case to any outward observer. When a shuffling movement attracted my closer attention I realized I had to act rapidly. From the plaited-straw purse the Rapa had put the gold in I shook out half a dozen of the rhoks, still shiny although well-worn, and passed them under the table to Tiri. Moving with deceptive slowness I unbuckled Strom Korden's sword and handed belt and sword to her.

“You say nothing, you know nothing. Keep this sword safely, and do not lose it!” Then I stood up, still slowly, and looking down finished: “If you run across a golden kildoi called Fweygo—tell him.” Tankard in my fist I walked casually between the tables as though too impatient to wait for the Fristle serving girl and going for a refill myself. The proprietor, a little Och whose two middle limbs clasped together and whose right upper mopped his shiny forehead with a blue cloth, hurried forward towards the smart youngster in charge of the guard.

“Hikdar Ortyg! What a pleasure to see you here.”

“I am on duty, master Olabal.”

The Och didn't look worried; we had chosen a respectable establishment all right. The shuffling movement among the guards was repeated and the Rapa to whom I'd sold the zorca stumbled forward. His feathers were decidedly more bedraggled now. Two of the Hytaks held him firmly.

The youngster, this Hikdar Ortyg, said in his squeaky voice: “This is the man, you blintz?”

“Yes, master, yes, master—”

Ortyg put his hand on the hilt of his sword. “You will please come with me.” He was perfectly polite about it.

I still wore the second braxter. He didn't know but he could have guessed that I could stick him through and then deal with the rest of the guard before he even cleared leather. His face was shiny and officious. I said: “You have business with me, hikdar?”

Give him credit. He stuck to his task manfully.

“You will please come with me.” Then he motioned with his head and the four remaining Hytaks moved forward and surrounded me. I let them. A fracas here would serve no one's purpose. I said: “Of course.”

So we marched off out of the hostelry and down the street and along the main road and still he hadn't thought to ask me for my sword. Either he was too cocky for words, or he was a coy, a greenhorn. The Hytaks looked useful and he was not stupid to rely on them. We reached a gray stone building after a number of twists and turns and the sound of the iron bars clanging on my rear was at once a doleful and familiar sound.

The rest of the night sizzled by rapidly. I was accused of selling a stolen zorca; other zorcas had been discovered in the stables of The Fluted Hen. All bore the marks of Strom Korden.

I told them my story, omitting the sword and Tiri.

Now, again to give them their due, they didn't chuck me into the cells straightaway. They considered my case. A magistrate came in, late as it was, a rotund, grave fellow, a numim, and he sized me up.

Stroking his darkly-golden whiskers, he gave his verdict.

“You will be held here until we can verify your unlikely story. Such dreadful news, if true, cannot be kept secret. Strom Nath will deal with you as soon as the case is proven. Take him away.”

Off I went and at last they had their opportunity to chuck me into the cells.

By that time they'd taken sword and knife and the plaited-straw purse with the golden rhoks to prove my guilt.

Going to sleep in a prison cell is no new experience for me. As always, anywhere I am, my last thought was the same, then I went to sleep and dreamed, I do recall, of happy sunny days in Esser Rarioch.

Now if I sound utterly callous in this, the facts were different. I had thought of young Tiri before I slept; I hadn't really stopped worrying about the young temple dancer since I'd first bumped into her—or, rather, since she'd first flung a jeweled dagger at my head.

At first appraisal she looked to be a fresh bright-faced youngster, well-formed and beautifully graceful, full of life and spirits. That very bubbling aliveness had been dreadfully reduced by the horrific experience of seeing her friends butchered. Even her little Bandi piled horror upon horror. What experience of the wide world did she have? Temple dancers are trained rigidly and remorselessly; but there are differing varieties upon Kregen. She might simply be a dancer and nothing else until she became too old and her limbs too stiff to continue. She might graduate to higher offices within the temple. She might leave and marry and raise a family—there were some temples where married dancers were considered perfectly correct. Or, she might aspire to much greater ambitions.

Somehow or other I fancied young Tiri was destined to scale the rarefied heights of the inner mysteries, penetrate the hidden sanctuaries and participate in the most secret rites. Pure religion, fanciful cult, magical circle, whatever the doctrine of Cymbaro the Just might be, Tiri would, I could feel it in my bones, one day become the highest of the high—if she lived.

Right now, right here and now in Bharang as a young girl with limited experience still suffering from a mind-shattering horror—how could she be expected to react normally, as though life merely went on?

Oh, yes, by Zim-Zair, I suffered in that damned prison for young Tiri!

In addition to the young madam Tirivenswatha I had the problem of Princess Nandisha to concern me. Fweygo, I felt absolutely confident, was a perfectly competent kregoinye and he'd handle upsets and disasters with the same aplomb he'd handle successes and triumphs. There's an old saying on Kregen—'Don't dice with a four-armed fellow'—and I'd rolled the bones enough times with Korero to feel the truth of that, by Vox! Let alone that disgusting and yet ultimately pathetic cramph Mefto the Kazzur.

Most of the following day I spent in the cell being fed and watered and toileted with a strictness of regimen that told me Bharang did indeed belong to a civilization I could recognize. The city was the capital of the stromnate of the same name, and the strom was this Nath B'Bensarm. He was out of town and was not expected back for a few days.

The captain of the city guard turned out to be a seamed old veteran, an apim, named Mogper. He came in to see if I was all right.

“News came in,” he told me severely. “They brought the bodies in for proper burial. Poor Strom Korden!” He kept his bright hooded gaze fixed on me. But he was at ease. “You're for the high jump.”

“What about the stikitches?”

“Your accomplices, you mean?” He grimaced. “They deserved to be chucked into the ditch. Still, we don't foul our own drainage.”

I opened my mouth to bawl at him, and then I closed it with a snap. That would be useless. The conversation made up my mind.

Later on I said to one of the Hytak guards: “Send for the captain.”

“What for, apim? Are you going to confess?”

“That's between me and Mogper. Now—bratch!”

When Mogper came in still wiping gravy from his moustache with a yellow napkin, he wore lounging robes of watered blue silk, very chic, with a silver belt and fancy dagger. His slippers did have something of a curl to them. I hadn't shaved since my interview with the Star Lords and my own beard and moustaches were enough like Mogper's to pass. Dear old Deb-Lu-Quienyin, our comrade Wizard of Loh, had long ago taught me how to change the appearance of my face. Even better these days the trick did not fill my features with a thousand bee stings.

“What—?” began the captain of the city guard and then he went to sleep standing up and in a passable imitation of his gruff voice I finished: “—do you want interrupting my supper?”

I lowered him gently to the cell floor and quicker than it takes to tell I wore his blue robe, girded on the silver dagger belt, donned the slippers, and was ready to sally forth. I said a few choice words, with a couple of ‘blintzes!’ thrown in, a choice word of insult in these parts.

The Hytak outside snapped to attention as I passed and I strutted off in Mogper's heavy walk, saying: “He'll keep for the strom.”

Up the steps and corridors down which I had been brought I went. My face was the face of Jiktar Mogper. No one challenged me. A Hytak guard opened the outer gate for me and I stepped through into the very last crimson rays of sunset, for Genodras had already set. I walked out and along and took a good hefty sniff of the evening air. By Zair! That tasted as sweet as wine of Jholaix!

The feeling of successfully pulling off the trick buoyed me up. It did not always succeed. That time when I'd assumed the face of a diff of the race of Quavens, folk with apim-looking faces but bodies of very strange configuration over in Sharver's End, still rankled. They'd taken a good look and then jumped me. Oh, well, that was back in my lurid past on Kregen.

Now—now I was out and running free.

Letting the contorted muscles of my face relax a trifle I set off with brisk determination for The Fluted Hen.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter seven

Up the back wall of the Fluted Hen I clambered with the aid of a trellised vine. The blue gown was wrapped up around my waist. I dug bare toes into crevices and heaved up and so tapped softly on Tiri's window.

Very quickly—remarkably quickly, considering the circumstances—the window opened outwards and I ducked my head to let it pass above me and then with a single muscular heave hauled myself over the sill into the bedroom. It was in darkness save for the tell-tale fan of light from a lamp with a metal hood shielding the flame. I heard heavy breathing. There was a loud rustling noise. Then a woman's voice, a rich, fruity, passionate voice, said: “Oh, my darling Ferdie! I knew you'd come to me after all my encouragement.”

The metal shield was snatched away from the lamp by its wooden handle and light flooded the room.

The woman turned from the lamp table by the bed. Her nightgown hung in what she must fondly imagine to be enticing folds about her, parted from neck to hem. She was gross. Immense folds of fat rolled between deep creases horizontally about her non-existent waist, bulged her thighs and stomach where the white scars of stretch marks looked like a map of hell. Her face bulged with passionate longing and her moustache rivaled Mogper's. “Darling Ferdie! Your little Mimi longs for you so!”

In that heartbeat of time carved from apprehension, laughter and pity I slapped on a face of imbecilic incomprehension. She turned and saw me.

Whatever I expected I did not expect her to fling herself forward, fat arms outspread to engulf me, her nightdress draggling away over all that vast expanse of shining skin. “You're not Ferdie—I know, my darling, I know! But—you'll do!”

“Madam! You misunderstand—”

“You need not be coy, my little heart's-ease. You have seen me and Ferdie and you long for me! I know! Come to me!” Her lips were plum-colored in the light, spittle-flecked, her squashed nose a flower of passion. She lurched forward and I skipped away, looking desperately for the door.

She lumbered after me and tripped over the nightgown and toppled and almost fell. The sight was awe-inspiring. Demolition workers pulling down temples must experience that sensation of the mass of the world collapsing. I reached the door.

She made a convulsive effort to regain her balance, everything quivering like jelly. “Don't go! Don't go! Little Mimi needs you!”

“I assure you, madam, I am sensible of your most gracious offer. But I am otherwise engaged and must therefore with deep regret decline.”

You couldn't say fairer than that, by Shansi, the Sprite of Love, who sends her loop of flowers down to entwine lovers.

“Please—” Spittle ran down her several chins like artificial waterfalls. I thought she'd start to cry in a minute and I didn't want that on my conscience. I wrenched the door open. “Madam Mimi, your devoted servant. Remberee.” And I fairly scuttled off.

By the disgusting diseased liver and lights of Makki Grodno! What a turn up! Good luck to Ferdie, whoever he was.

If the whole hostelry awoke in an uproar I'd be done for. Where in a Herrelldrin Hell was Tiri's room?

I heard footsteps advancing along the passageway. A thin shaft of light from a lamp on the corner threw shadows into a door alcove and illuminated the rest. I ducked into the shadows.

A man walked along clad in a blue lounging robe not unlike Mogper's. He was tall and thin, although not a Ng'grogan. If Mimi could get her fat arms about anyone, she'd manage with skinny Ferdie. He saw her fat moonshining face around the edge of her door and he started to run, arms outstretched. “Mimi! My little turtle-dove!”

They went inside and the door slammed. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and Tiri put her head out of the next door along, puzzled, not so much alarmed as intrigued.

I stepped out and put a finger to my lips, remembering to lose the imbecilic face that had so enchanted Mimi.

In a trice we were in her room and the door shut silently at our backs. She wore a nice short nightdress and looked marvelous.

“Drajak!” she said in an accusing whisper. “Where have you been? What happened? The city guard—?”

“A matter of Strom Korden's zorca. I thought I could trust the rascality of that Rapa Rindle. Maybe he was careless. Anyway, I felt it prudent to get away, particularly after the news came in.”

“It is all over the place. It has ousted the news of the death of the king's son. What have—?”

“I need to get out of this lounging robe and find some decent clobber. You have Strom Korden's sword safe?”

“Yes. Of course.”

I studied her face carefully. She looked tired. There was no mistaking the jut of her rounded chin, the defiance with which she held her head erect. Her fair hair was brushed back and gleamed golden. She was a girl of parts, all right, struggling to come to terms with what had happened, facing head on the horror that had engulfed her world.

In that moment I felt I could rest more easily where young Tirivenswatha was concerned.

“Did the city guards question you?”

“No. I have kept very quiet. But—”

“But what?” We spoke in tense whispers.

“I should go to them and explain. That would soon—”

That had always been and possibly still was an obvious course of action. I had set my face against that from the start of the business.

“I want you kept out of it, Tiri.”

“Oh, I know they worship Tolaar here in Bharang. Cymbaro is recognized as merely a cult. But, all the same, I am a dancer before Cymbaro and they will listen.”

“I really do not think that a good idea. There'd be too many explanations.” I was thinking of Strom Korden's mysterious charge to me which I fully intended to honor.

“But you're a fugitive! A leemshead!”

“I've been that before and, no doubt, will be so again. Now, young lady, bed time for you. I'll kip down on the floor and in the morning we'll think better with clear heads.”

She climbed up into the bed and hauled the covers up. Her gray-green eyes regarded me thoughtfully. “Don't think you will always be able to tell me what to do, Drajak. I can only return to Oxonium and seek comfort and advice at the shrine.” She sounded positive. “San Paynor will make everything clear.” And, with that, she snuggled down and in no time at all was fast asleep.

Oh, yes, I told myself, young Tiri was indeed a fine spirited girl of parts.

During the course of the following morning things fell out quite other than I had anticipated. Tiri ventured out with some gold rhoks and silver bhins and returned with clothes. I had specified a length of scarlet cloth for a breechclout and she brought with that a garment called shamlak, a tunic-like vestment which was worn with a gap of at least a hand's breadth down the front, from neck to hem. Shades of Mimi's nightgown! It fastened across the front with cords stretching from button to button, rather like a hussar's dolman. Both men and women wore the same fashion. Below it women wore skirts of a tiered style and men wore short kilts. The whole was designed for lightness, airiness and comfort in a climate mild and hospitable most of the time.

Also, a little breathlessly, she said: “And, Drajak! What do you think!”

Smiling, for smiling came easily where young Tiri was concerned when dark thoughts of the horror in both our minds could be pushed aside, I said: “Well, young lady. What do I think?”

“You can never guess. I saw Princess Nandisha!”

“Oh,” I said, and remained dumb thereafter.

“I did! She was as close as you are. It was strange, though. Her golden numim was there, as they passed by, and the princess I am sure was trying to conceal her face. It was most odd. Everybody likes her.”

“You didn't happen to see a big Kildoi?”

“No.”

“Look, Tiri, you'll have to go out again and find Nandisha and then find Fweygo. Tell him what happened. All of it.”

“But—?”

“It'll be all right. You'll see.”

Although I was not at all sure that, indeed, it would be all right, I sincerely hoped so. Fweygo would fathom a way around the problem.

So, stuck in Tiri's bedroom, I waited. Some time elapsed. When at last she returned she waltzed in and, lo! in came Nandisha and Ranaj and Fweygo. They were not looking particularly overjoyed and relieved at finding the lost member of their party. Ranaj had a scowl all across his features. Fweygo, alone, look undisturbed.

Before I'd even had a chance to get out a polite lahal, Ranaj started up: “Thanks to you, Drajak, and your onkerish behavior, the princess has had to reveal herself. Now—”

“It isn't all that bad.” Nandisha sat in the only chair, looking far more relaxed than when we'd parted. “To obtain a lifter it would have been necessary, I suspect.”

For my part, I suspected that now she was going to fly all the way to Oxonium, the capital, and safety, she felt the danger had passed.

Fweygo said: “You should have seen the guards jump when the princess spoke to them. They fell over themselves to please. You're in the clear now, Drajak. Stikitches did that foul deed.”

“What about Strom Nath B'Bensarm na Bharang?” I used the full name because it intrigued me.

“He apologized for the over eagerness of his people.” Nandisha spoke graciously.

Fweygo said: “I laughed.”

I gave him a look. He sounded a likely partner.

Nandisha stood up. “If we are all ready, then we must fly.” That was an unmistakable command.

As we went out the door, Ranaj said: “All the same. I do not like the thought of the princess being known to have been in Bharang.”

Fweygo glanced at me meaningfully. Both of us knew probably for sure what Ranaj only suspected. The peril encompassing the princess and her children had not passed. We were still here. The Star Lords had not released us from this contract.

Just before we all walked out into the streaming mingled lights of the Suns of Scorpio, I said to the landlord, Olabal: “You'll find a blue silk lounging robe, a pair of curly slippers and a silver belt and dagger in the lady's bedroom. See they are returned to Jiktar Mogper at the city prison.”

“Of course, master, of course. And thank you.”

All his puffy chops lolling, all his four upper limbs working together, he kept on bowing to the princess. She nodded her head in that lofty regal way these grand folk of the world have. Oh, yes, every now and then even I, Dray Prescot, can relish the doors that influence can open!

On the streets a busy traffic went on. There passed and re-passed the astonishing variety of peoples of Kregen, races as distinct and diverse one from another as chickens are different from cats. We walked steadily towards the voller park where everything would be ready waiting for us.

A pastang of Undurkers marched past, their long borzoi faces high and most supercilious, their bows slung. Following, a pastang of Chuliks marched with their peculiar solidity of purpose, Yellow Tuskers, with long pigtails and shiny yellow skin, superb fighters and trained from birth for the mercenary trade.

The fellow in charge of the voller park was a Xuntalese whose handsome black face with its chiseled features reminded me of Balass the Hawk. All his assistants came from the same island of Xuntal. They produced a nice little eight-place airboat with a narrow-framed cabin of varnished wood and real glass windows. The craft reminded me muchly of those dainty steamers that ply the lakes, tall of funnel and gleaming of brasswork, going ‘Toot-toot!’ at every opportunity. We all climbed in and Fweygo took the controls.

There was little ceremony and absolutely no paperwork. Ranaj and his wife Serinka sat in the middle with the children occupying the central deck space and Nandisha and Tiri sat side-by-side in the stern. The princess and the dancing maiden had their heads inclined one to the other. It was perfectly clear they had struck up a new if unlikely friendship. I sat next to Fweygo.

“A trim craft,” he said, and that was all.

Up we soared into the fragrance of a bright Kregan day. I quite relished the sensations of once more flying through thin air under the suns. Fweygo turned our heading to the west, pushed the speed lever full forward and when we had reached a comfortable cruising height leveled off. We settled down to the journey to Oxonium.

Presently Fweygo and I began a desultory conversation in tones low enough so that we could not be overheard. Anyway, the children were playing with one another in an unaffected way that indicated that for them, at any rate, the rank distinctions between princess and prince and retainers did not matter. Their noise effectively covered our talk.

As I had guessed, Fweygo had gone cautiously at night time and I'd passed him somewhere when he'd been off the road. He repeated his delight at Strom Nath's discomfiture when the princess had spoken to him with her eyebrows raised. My gear was all present and correct and I wore the sword kept safely by Tiri. Then Fweygo said: “I've been working for You Know Who for some time now and my judgment is we're on an inheritance mission. The old king's son and grandson died some time ago and the great grandson was therefore called the king's son. He's just died, him and all his family in a wretched accident.”

“And you think this Nandisha is in line for the throne?”

Fweygo pursed up his lips. “Difficult to say. That's what all the fuss will be about. She's the daughter of a younger brother of the Prince Majister who's just died, Prince Nazrak, with all his family.”

“So?”

“Her father was Prince Vanner. Their sister, Princess Shirree, sister to Nazrak and Vanner, that is, is still alive and like them a direct descendant of the old king. Her son is in line.”

I sensed an application of the Salic Law here. I said: “A woman cannot inherit the crown and throne?”

“Right. By law.”

“But the line can descend through a female?”

Again Fweygo pursed his lips and started to whistle softly through his teeth before saying: “There's the rub. No one seems to know. There is argument.”

“Well, if there's argument that must mean somewhere there is a descendant in the direct male line.”

“Ha! Direct? That's what Hyr Kov Khonstanton would like everyone to believe. But, again, there is serious doubt about the legality of one of the unions in his ancestry. He comes down from a younger brother of the old king. That younger brother, Naghan, had a son and daughter. There was no chance of their inheriting whilst a direct male line existed from the old king. Now—”

Fweygo checked and gently steered the voller around a mass of white cloud, drenched with rose and viridian glory, before he resumed.

“The doubt is that whilst Khonstanton claims the son was his father, general opinion says that the daughter was.”

“Um,” I said. “An interesting knot.”

“Oh, there's more. There are other siblings queuing up in the wings.” He grimaced. “It is a knot, and you and me, Dray Prescot, are right in the middle of it!”

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter eight

There was much to dwell on in what Fweygo told me. At first glance the presence of two kregoinyes assigned to protect this party must indicate the Star Lords wished one of Nandisha's children to succeed to the throne when the old king died. That was the way they operated.

Nandisha and her children were in danger, their lives at stake. Ergo, someone was out to kill them and thus put them out of the running for the crown. With the catalogue of deaths and accidents mentioned by Fweygo in the royal family tree that someone had already been busily at work.

Over the slipstream, for Fweygo had the flier cranked up to a fair old clip, and the racket of the children, Nandisha's voice cut clearly and sharply with that refined yet devastatingly puncturing regal voice. “Mabal and Matol are nearing the horizon, Ranaj. We will go down and eat and rest.”

“At once, princess.” The numim growled at Fweygo: “Take the lifter down, Kildoi. Gently, now.”

Fweygo didn't deign to respond. He put the voller's nose down and we started a long fast descent. He pulled back on the speed lever. We went on plummeting down. Fweygo gave the speed lever an impatient tug. Still, on we went in our headlong plunge.

“The thing's jammed,” he said in a disgusted voice. “Take a look at the silver boxes.”

“Right. Perhaps you had better—?”

“Naturally.” He hauled back on the height lever.

There was no difference in our rate of descent. We were plunging towards the rapidly closing surface of the world, helpless to cut our speed or check our height.

Without wasting a second I ripped open the cover to the black box compartment housing the lifting mechanism. A vivid memory of the first time I had done this flooded into my mind. Delia and I, drifting over the Great Plains of Segesthes, and she, the mischievous minx, letting us drift and both of us sick with love one for the other and with no way to express our tumultuous emotions—oh, yes, I remembered!

In the intervening seasons refinements had taken place in airboat construction, for technology in Paz on Kregen is not stagnant. The controls were more elegant, more precise these days. The problem was immediately identifiable.

A sharp nail had been driven into the balass orbit so that when the sturmwood carrying frame passed over it, there was no obstruction. When the frame was brought back the bent over pointed-head of the nail stuck into the wood and prevented the silver boxes from being drawn apart. The second nail in the speed orbits stopped the boxes revolving each about its own axis. The arrangement in this voller, what these folk called a lifter, was somewhat different from that found in the vollers built in Hamal and Hyrklana. I understood the system. The boxes were positioned one abaft the other, fore and aft. Drawn close together the flier lifted, pulled apart she sank. Each box tilted around its own axis so that when they were horizontal the speed built up to rapid. When they revolved and assumed a ninety-degree position, upright, all forward motion ceased. The whole mechanism was encircled by the orbit that revolved laterally to change direction larboard or starboard.

“Hurry!” called Fweygo at the control levers above me. “The ground is coming up fast and it looks hard.”

Somewhere in the background I heard high excited voices raised in alarm. I bent to the task, taking out the heavy knife I'd possessed at the scene of the massacre. There was no way I was going to lever the nails out.

“Ease forward,” I shouted up. “Release the orbit, a nail is sticking in it.”

He understood at once and the orbit inched forward, and with my help pushing, the sharpened nail-head came free. Now, using the point of a knife for this kind of work is a sure recipe for breaking off the knife's tip. That had no meaning now. I forced the blade under the bent over head of the nail stuck in the lifting orbit. That, first!

Levering with a desperation fuelled by the grim thought of the ground leaping up to smash us to firewood, I bent the nail up and then smashed it flat the other way. I didn't wait for Fweygo to pull the silver boxes apart. As I had done with Delia over the Great Plains of Segesthes, although then there had been no confounded treacherous nail in the way, I smashed the boxes apart. The wood checked and I felt the resistance, then I used my shoulders and strained and the sturmwood orbit slid over the balass, over the nail.

Whether or not our mad descent was checked enough I didn't know, nor did I stop to find out. The knife point was under the second nail and I heaved, the knife tip broke off and we hit the ground.

Everything flew to flinders.

Head over heels, with a cracking smack of shoulder against a control lever, up I flew. Up, over and over, and so down splat! flat on my back in damned stinging nettles and thorns tearing at my flesh.

I just lay there, winded, gasping for breath and if all the Bells of Beng Kishi were not ringing in my head, then, by Vox, most of them were donging away like a crazed collection of insane monks all tolling and clanging the end of the world.

Somebody sounding like Nandisha was screaming away and Ranaj was forcibly expressing himself on his opinion of clumsy, onkerish, useless Kildoi lifter pilots. I rolled out of the thorns and I did not say a word. The little numim girl, Rofi, was just sitting up close by. Her dainty lion maiden face expressed alarm and she pushed herself to her feet and ran off to the side. Thank Opaz at least one passenger was unharmed. I stood up to see Rofi helping the little princess, Nisha, to stagger up, gripping the numim girl. Ranaj stopped yelling and Nandisha stopped screaming. Serinka was cradling the princess to her bosom and making soothing noises. So that left the two lads, Fweygo, and Tiri.

As I might have expected, the numim lad, Rolan, was attending to the young prince Byrom and calming him down. I let out a breath. Where had Fweygo got to? Inspecting the interior of Cottmer's Caverns, perhaps? Or, the thought occurred darkly to me, on the long road down to the Ice Floes of Sicce? And the young madam? Was she smashed like the voller?

Looking about in a state of more alarm than I cared for, I saw we'd crashed into the side of a valley sloping down to a stream. No buildings were in sight and the ground was rough moorland. The last long rays of the suns spread ruby and emerald shadows among the trees by the river.

“Fweygo!” I bellowed in the old foretop hailing voice. “Tiri!”

No answer.

Bits and pieces of varnished wood lay about in confusion. Shards of glass lay like emerald and ruby daggers along the ground. I looked every which way, growing more and more apprehensive. The lightly-built lifter had blown to pieces like a child's toy under a careless adult foot.

We'd come to grief on the slope down to the river and that incline had saved us, appreciably lessening our angle of impact. Wreckage strewed itself downslope among the trees towards the river as though a giant had emptied his rubbish bin haphazardly. Once, twice, three times I screwed my head around in the fast-fading light looking away from the trees and along the moorland slopes and back again. And I yelled. Oh yes, I yelled. “Fweygo! Tiri!”

Ranaj looked across and snapped angrily: “Stop that noise, apim, you'll arouse Tolaar knows what.”

I went on shouting and scouting downslope.

The thought crossed my mind with the speed a shiftik pounces on a flying insect and is gone that the splendid golden numim Ranaj could go shove his orders where they'd do the most good. My comrades could be lying dead or injured. A few lusty shouts were most definitely in order. The generous thought then occurred that the lionman was only doing his duty to the princess as he saw it. I went on bellowing.

A whole deck section had been hurled into the branches of a tree. Further on more deck and planking and broken glass in a fantail downslope looked pathetic in the gathering gloom. Three spots of fire popped into existence about fifty paces down. Lambent yellow, in a triangular form point uppermost, they suddenly appeared and hung man height in the dimness beneath the trees. I stopped and shut my mouth.

Ranaj, then, had been right, confound the numim.

Ahead between the spots of light and me the trees thinned out and as I stopped the lights advanced. They moved gently up and down and grew larger and brighter and then in the very first of the pink rays of The Maiden with the Many Smiles illuminating that small clearing, revealed themselves as three eyes set in a countenance from hell.

What the thing was I didn't know. It looked big and unhealthy. It walked on four clawed legs and it waved four clawed forelimbs about before that nightmarish head where the three eyes glowed. And, in that selfsame instant as the moon's beams brightened between the trees a slender figure rose up like a shadowy wisp and there was Tiri, standing over a formless lump on the ground.

My bow had been snapped in the crash and had vanished somewhere. I drew both swords. I ran down like a madman to hurl myself before Tiri. She said in a simple small voice: “I didn't want to shout because of that. Fweygo is not dead.”

“Can you drag him away?” I snarled it over my shoulder.

“I will try.” The calmness in her had a steadying effect on me.

I set myself. There have been many times on Kregen when Dray Prescot has had to fight monsters and techniques have, as you know, been developed. I whirled the swords so that the moonlight flashed. The thing advanced remorselessly. It moved in silence. That was an unnerving experience, I can tell you, a great ugly monster with claws and fangs advancing soundlessly towards me in the moonlight.

Unpleasant to relate combats with animals, however ferocious they really are and however terminal their intentions. He had his way of life and things to do to eat and live. I had friends to protect, a mission to perform—and I had to stay alive for the sake of Delia. So, I fought the poor thing, and cut him up, and took my lumps—a long grazing slash of claws that left a red welt along my side ruining the new shamlak—until thankfully he turned away. By then he was missing two eyes and blood spattered over his hide and a forelimb dangled loosely. I lifted the strom's sword in salute as he lumbered off.

Tiri had dragged Fweygo a good distance off. Despite her attractive slimness she had muscles and was a tough young lady. She said—and I could not judge, could not judge at all, by Krun, what she was really saying, “I'd give you the jikai if I wasn't too busy dragging Fweygo off.”

The blood fouling the sword blades could be wiped off on the ripped up shamlak. Not so easy, not so easy by a whole world of violence, by Krun, to wipe away the results of the taking of that blood. As if to ram home the somberness of my thoughts, Princess Nandisha called out.

“Why didn't you kill it, Drajak?”

“Yes,” I said, wiping the swords and walking up the slope towards the others. “Yes, he had only one eye left and was sore wounded. Perhaps it would have been more merciful to have slain him than to have let him live.”

“A stalking Obachnin,” rumbled out Ranaj. “They terrorize the neighborhood. Better for them to die than live.”

I bent to Tiri. “How is he?”

“Oh, he'll live. He must have a skull as thick as a lenken door.”

Together we carried Fweygo back up and made him comfortable and before we'd had time to fuss his eyelids fluttered and his musical voice, roughened by dryness, said: “Wha’ hoppon'd?”

“Just lie still.” Tiri's youthful firmness was most impressive. The interesting fact here was that despite our predicament and all Fweygo's natural Kildoi assertiveness coupled with his race's aloof consciousness of self-value, he accepted the young madam's ministrations meekly, recognizing in this area her competence. I kept my black-fanged wine spout fast clamped shut.

When at last we had settled our ruffled emotions down and rubbed some of Serinka's magic ointment on the children's bruises we took stock of our situation.

“We're in the middle of nowhere here,” said Ranaj. Most of the countryside hereabouts tended to wildness between the centers of population. The highroads were kept in good condition. Other trails were merely tracks or non-existent. “Beasts like that Obachnin prowl where they can. We have a difficult march ahead.” Ranaj sounded not so much defeated as resigned to an unpleasant experience.

Nandisha said: “Make a fire, will you, Ranaj.”

At once the numim jumped up and then paused, as it were in mid-jump.

Before his hesitation could be translated into words, the princess went on in what was a highly pettish voice for so exalted a lady: “There is plenty of firewood from the lifter.”

“Ah,” said Fweygo as Ranaj said nothing. “Ah, princess, would that be wise? You might attract unwelcome visitors.”

“The fire would frighten the stupid beasts away.”

“I was not thinking of stupid beings.”

“Oh!” she said, and put a hand to her breast. “Oh, I see.”

At this latitude the night would not be cold. The Maiden with the Many Smiles would provide ample light. If it rained as it was likely to do we'd all get wet—well, Serinka would see the children were sheltered. We'd all had a busy day and were tired and so would sleep easily enough. Ranaj arranged watches. Fweygo and I wanted to talk to the lionman about those two deadly nails in the orbits of the flier.

Our voices rumbled low as the others stretched out on the ground beginning to fall asleep. Ranaj expressed himself as horrified and then ferociously angry. He had the grace to apologize to Fweygo for calling the Kildoi an incompetent lifter pilot.

“Who dunnit?” I said.

Ranaj lifted his hand helplessly in the pink moonlight. “It is all of a piece. I felt the lifter that failed and dumped us in Amintin should not have done so, even allowing for their fractious ways. The friends of Princess Nandisha are determined to see her son Byrom nominated as the legal heir to the throne; but—”

“But friends of other interested parties want their principals to be thus exalted.” Fweygo's words carried, at least to me, a strong note of cynical amusement, as though this were all a game. Well, in one very real sense it was. Fweygo's hint of sarcasm was perfectly justified in view of our task of keeping these folk alive. Beyond that, just who aspired to the throne was up to them and of no interest to Fweygo or me.

Ranaj grunted a sullen assent. “Aye. Other blintzes think they have a right. But they have no right to try to kill us.”

Fweygo opened his mouth, shook his head and clamped his lips firmly. I could guess his reaction. Right is what you make it, even within the strict parameters of a stern religious creed. Ranaj, for example, would claim the right to stop anyone trying to stop him. So we stood our watches and slept as well as we could and with the rising of Mabal and Matol took stock of this new day upon fair Kregen.

Whilst Ranaj and Serinka busied themselves with their charges and prepared breakfast from provisions foraged from the scattered wreckage, I said to my companions: “We must find the silver boxes.”

“Oh?” with two pairs of lifted eyebrows.

“Of course. I'll build a new lifter. If the boxes are intact.”

“Oh!” this time with two pairs of wide-open eyes.

In the event Tiri found the vaol box and Fweygo the paol box. They were both unbroken. I heaved up a sigh of relief and a quick thank you to Opaz, and set to work.

Construction of the hull was not difficult using the wreckage. All that was needed was a simple raft-like shape. The silver boxes would power the craft in lift and movement. The problem arose in their mounting. The balass, bronze and sturmwood orbits were a mere trash of splinters and distorted metal shapes. I could, of course, have held the boxes one in each hand and physically moved them up and down and around. The aura of effect operated in a kind of shroud about the boxes so that no one point had to sustain the weight of balance. Provided the boxes were fastened to the object they were lifting no heavy pressure bearings were required.

Eventually I decided to construct a simple sliding arrangement of wooden struts to provide lift and forward momentum. There was no fancy operation possible. We would go up and forward. Fweygo whistled near-soundlessly through his teeth and nodded.

“I can fly that.”

The theory that there are areas of the human brain that lie as it were dark and unused has been challenged from time to time. Why did God provide them if they are of no use? Then, why did God provide an appendix? It has been suggested that once human beings could use telepathy, could teleport, use telekinetics, all the mysteries of psionics. Now we cannot and the dark areas of our brains are like the appendix. Again, it has been proposed that these dark areas are lying dormant waiting for the time when we have the knowledge to use them for such marvels as psionics. A further theory is that they are used and we simply do not have the knowledge or instruments to measure and discover what they do.

Looking at the Kildoi as he worked on the wreckage to build a voller gave me an inkling that on Kregen at least some of those dark areas of the brain are in active use. Fweygo picked up a length of wood with his tail hand and passed it across to his hand to position it exactly where I told him it needed to go, holding it against the upright held there by his hand. He picked up a nail that Tiri had straightened and knocked it in with the hammer in his fist. A tail hand and four hands hard at work and all beautifully co-ordinated. His brain could control his limbs in ways that folk with no tail hand and only two arms must envy.

How often has a poor girl with a brood of babies, the washing and ironing to do and the dinner to cook cried out: “Oh for another pair of hands!”

So the jury-rigged airboat was completed. We all piled in and Fweygo lifted us off for Oxonium the capital and Opaz-alone knew what fresh perils we must face.

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Chapter nine

“Well, I'm going,” said Tiri, her chin defiantly up. “I'm going right away. And that's final.”

We stood, the young temple dancer and the two kregoinyes, on a high terrace of Nandisha's palace overlooking Oxonium. The princess and the children were in the inner apartments resting and recuperating after their ordeal. Fweygo glanced sideways at me.

“One of us must stay with the princess.”

“I'll go with—” I started to say.

Tiri cut in fiercely. “I am quite capable of going myself. I do not need to be nursemaided.”

I looked out over the city bathed in the streaming mingled lights of the twin suns. Oxonium was an intriguing place, full of interest and contradictions. The inhabitants lived in some luxury and splendor on the flat tops of a number of steep-sided hills. In the runnels between the hills, some marshy, some drained and filled with the hovels of the poor and slaves, some allowing the rivers to flow to their conjunction by the grand central hill, the suns struck only around the hour of mid.

Perhaps the most striking facet of Oxonium had to be found in the interconnecting lines of cable cars running from hill to hill. The cables were supported at intervals across the valleys and at my softly-voiced query: “Why don't the poor or slaves who hate the rich burn the supports down?” the answer was a simple and brutal: “Because we would go down there and burn and destroy their hovels with them inside.”

A balance was thus formed, as is often the case over Kregen.

A few lifters, not many, flew over the city. By far the larger number of airboats sailed past with their multicolored sails agleam in the suns light. Hooking keels of ethero-magnetic forces into that mysterious substratum of power furnished by five of the minerals in the silver boxes, these ovverers could lift up into the air. Lacking the remaining four minerals of the powered lifters they had no forward motion apart from that provided by the breeze. The ovverers sailed on their courses over the sinuous lengths of the cables from hill to hill and they came and went over the walls and rivers in a busy commerce. The whole panorama at once delighted and intrigued. There were many questions raised by the different systems of transport on display.

Fweygo said: “I think it wise for Drajak to accompany you, Tiri.”

She pouted. “All I have to do is take a calimer.” She referred to a cable car. “It will cost a few coppers, that is all. I do not even have to change cars, for the princess's palace is right next door to the grand central. I am not a child.”

“Cymbaro forfend!” I said, and I own, humbly, that I did, in truth, half mock her. She flushed up.

Had she been my kregoinye comrade Mevancy, that flush would have rivaled the sunset glow of Zim and she'd have said: “Oh, you!”

Tiri did say: “If you insist on going with me, have the courtesy to remember I am a lady.”

Fweygo whistled softly through his teeth and said nothing. I said, instantly: “Then as a lady accept a gentleman's honorable escort.”

It was all petty and pretty and irrelevant—or so I thought.

She nodded. “Very well. Let us get started.”

I took a great interest in the cable car system. The winding mechanism was situated in a small structure on the edge of the cliff. Where I had half-expected to see a gaggle of sorry-looking slaves being whipped to work, with the hateful cry of ‘Grak!’ in their ears, I found instead a neat brick-paved circle where calsanys moved endlessly around the windlass. A few people waited as the car climbed up the graceful curve of the cable towards us. The impression of height was conveyed vividly. The car clunked into its retaining slot as a car at the far end exactly balanced it. There were two other calimers spaced along the cables, both going and coming. Everything looked to be functional and efficient. We stepped aboard and the aerial trip began.

The experience was delightful. We soared out over the squalid collections of huts and hovels below, like favelas, and at that height the stinks down there did not reach us. The wheels ran smoothly and almost soundlessly and a little breeze swayed us just a trifle from side to side.

Grand central was indeed grand. This hill, the largest in Oxonium, contained the palace of the king, temples and courts, grandiose buildings serving a busy and important capital city. The cables themselves, so I was told, were fabricated from immensely long and tough vines strengthened by windings of treated reeds from the Lakes of Thrushness to the north of the country. In addition, strands of strung bronze further reinforced the cables. Breakages were rarer than snow in the Yellow Deserts of Caneldrin, the country to the north.

Like any gallant gentleman squiring a lady I carried Tiri's embroidered bag in my left hand. I could not help noticing that from time to time she would absently put up her hand to her shoulder and, just for an instant before she remembered, make gentle stroking movements. Oh, yes, young Tirivenswatha had undeniably lost more of her youth over the recent horrific occurrences than the death of her pet mili-milu, Bandi, yet that was the one horror that must have struck the keenest. That, despite all the other terrible deaths and the blood.

The young temple dancer shared with me the deep conviction that the death of innocence is just about the most dreadful of all deaths.

The terminus where we alighted was carved more elaborately than that on the hill where Nandisha's palace had been built. A paved open kyro extended before us, flanked by imposing buildings. People moved everywhere. The square buzzed with activity. The gorgeous array of Kregish diffs passed and repassed. Slaves slipped in and out of the crowds as slaves do on errands for those who own them. Many of them instead of wearing the almost universal—and hateful—gray, wore dingy brown.

Tiri marched on, head high, a pace or so in front of me. This pleased and amused me enormously.

Had she dragged along astern I'd have been worried about her state of mind. Of course, she could still just be putting up a brave front that would collapse the instant she was safely in the shrine.

Enquiries of Ranaj earlier had informed me that the laws relating to weapons were lax to the point of non-existence. Men and women wore all manner of racial and national weapons. With the constant frictions of the frontiers leading to open warfare at distressingly frequent intervals, folk tended to be well-equipped in the arsenal department.

As in Bharang, among the many and splendid varieties of diffs in Oxonium there were large numbers of Chuliks, Undurkers and Xuntalese.

Although most of the hills of Oxonium were flat-topped, either natural configurations or the patient handiwork of laborers over the seasons, some were more hilly. In the center of Grand Central reared the hill bearing the royal palace. This was the ancestral seat of the T'Tolin family. The name was hallowed. Nandisha's husband, Nath, now dead, when he'd married into the royal family had naturally taken the name T'Tolin and regarded that as the singular favor it was.

What Fweygo and I assumed was that we were here to assist Nandisha in her claim for her son Byrom to sit on the throne of the T'Tolin palace.

Yet, despite all this bustle and glitter of a busy day on Kregen, one great difference stood out starkly.

From flagstaffs protruding from every roof and balcony, from poles erected at intersections, flew somber drapes. The flags were white, with a white center surrounded by a black ring. This flag is the kaotresh, the flag of death. Around my arm I wore a white band containing that black ring encircling the white center, the symbol of death.

The whole city was in mourning. Had not the king's son just died?

The people we passed may not have been laughing and cheerful; all the same they were not weeping openly, devastated by this news. Life had to go on. The old king would choose a new successor and in the fullness of time, when the old king went on his long last journey down to the Ice Floes of Sicce, why, then a new king would wear the crown. For my own part I did not care who that was, Byrom or any other of the contenders. I have seen far too much bloodshed over royal successions. Still, even so, it did appear Fweygo and I were pitchforked into the middle of the controversy surrounding the rightful heir. Oh, well, I said to myself as we rounded a corner of the Kyro of the Fanciers, the old king would make that decision.

Nandisha's people had found fresh clothes for me, a smart dark blue shamlak with black broidery and loops. Tiri had a new dress, a pale shamlak of pale blue broidered in silver. She looked very nice.

A Rapa with canary yellow feathers had been hanging about the landing stage as our cable car docked, and as we turned the corner I caught a glimpse of him slipping along in our wake. He wore an arsenal of weapons girded around his olive green shamlak and his feet were cased in cracked sandals. I kept a weather eye out for him.

Thinking about the moil in which we two kregoinyes found ourselves, I was just recalling a more somber saying of San Blarnoi, when Tiri spoke up. San Blarnoi's words are: “That the governance of a country should be left to blind heredity!” Tiri said: “Don't look back now. There's a villainous-looking Rapa following us.”

The yellow-feathered beaky? Aye.”

“You knew!”

“If you wish to stay alive you have to know these things.”

“Yes, well.”

Further along we passed the overly ornate facade of a temple whose massiveness could not make up for its overall lack of taste. Tiri's head went up even higher as we walked past and she hurried her steps. Her sweet young face was set in rigid lines of distaste. I said nothing and at last, when we had put some distance between us and the dominating pile she burst out with: “They worship the false idol Dokerty.”

I glanced back in time to see a small procession of priests entering the portico up the wide shallow steps. They carried no flags or emblems. They walked two by two. They were clad all in deep somber red.

Soho! I said to myself. They have this grandiose temple on Grand Central of the capital city; why then do they need to skulk about secretly in ruins?

“I thought Tolaar was the religion—”

“There are many faiths. Tolaar is probably the largest.” Tiri spoke in a tight, hard voice. “There is always trouble between them. Sometimes there are fights. It is ugly.”

The shrine of Cymbaro turned out to be a very small and insignificant structure. Tiri explained that this shrine on Grand Central was merely there because of the necessity of maintaining a presence in Oxonium near the royal palace. “Sometimes the king listens to us.”

We went into a cool courtyard where a fountain splashed. There was no doubt whatsoever that I felt a strong sense of peace, of a tranquility that rose above the petty problems of the city or the state. I guessed these folk were great metaphysicians. There was nobody about. Flowers gave off pleasant perfumes. I suppose it is possible that the custom of burning incense in temples began because the worshipers were an unwashed smelly lot. In these latter days the stink of incense is far worse than that of honest sweat.

Tiri led off between columns into another courtyard surrounded by cloisters. A youngish man wearing a brown robe advanced to meet us, smiling. “Tiri! We heard the dreadful news—you are well?”

“Perfectly, thank you, Logan. This is—ah—Drajak. He has been a power in the sight of Cymbaro. Now—I would like to see San Paynor.”

“Of course.” Logan spread white hands. “At the moment he is closeted with a visitor. I cannot disturb them. But I'm sure they won't be long. May I offer you refreshment?”

So down we sat on a bench and parclear and sazz and miscils were brought out and we waited. We waited some time.

Occasionally priests walked past, each one inclining his head to Tiri. A couple of excited girls danced up, all rosy faces and flowing drapes, to pester Tiri to tell them of her adventures. They became most subdued at the first mention of the deaths of their dancing friends. They started to cry. I, Dray Prescot, stood up and took a stroll around the courtyard, checking doorways, feeling in the way.

Presently Logan reappeared and beckoned, and Tiri and I followed him along the cloisters to a narrow doorway. We went through into a dimly lit passage and so into an anteroom. The door in the opposite wall was just opening and the sound of voices floated through. In the anteroom half a dozen sturdy looking fellows stood up at once. They wore armor, were well-armed and looked useful. All wore a badge of a leaping zhantil.

From the inner portal emerged two men, their heads together talking intently. The audience might be finished; what was being said was clearly not settled. One man must be San Paynor, not at all unlike San Padria, with that same selfless devotion to what he believed in. The other was a young fellow with a fine open face, smooth pale hair, with that habitual turn to his mobile lips indicating he laughed a lot. He wore a shamlak of a blue color very similar to that I wore but with gold loops. He had a rapier and main gauche belted to his waist. I noticed that both weapons were fastened to the same belt.

What they were saying was drowned in the smash of the door at our backs and the hullabaloo that began immediately.

I swung about.

This young fellow's guards jumped to protect him, as I immediately placed myself before Tiri.

Three brown clad priests staggered back, their robes slashed, blood spattering them. The wooden staves in their trembling hands were pitifully useless against the might that stormed in.

A swarm of men roared into the room, brandishing weapons, their faces dark with the lust for blood. Each wore olive green.

At once the anteroom echoed to the sound of combat.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter ten

I, Dray Prescot, of two worlds, tend to use anything that comes to hand as a weapon. In my left hand Tiri's embroidered bag whistled around in a vicious arc and smashed into the side of the first would-be killer's head. What the young madam kept in that bag I didn't know. It weighed enough, by Krun. Clunk! The fellow went over sideways, yowling. I kicked him as he went down and in a swooping motion snatched the sword as it toppled from his lax fingers.

Talk about the flailing handbags of little old ladies! The mop heads would have been proud of me then, not a doubt of it.

The two Rapas following on the heels of the first jumped forward with every intention of spitting me and Tiri. A twirling twinkle of blades followed by a stop thrust took care of the first. I was fully conscious of the uproar all about us in the anteroom; that was pushed aside as information only. The second Rapa swung savagely and a sliding deflection of my borrowed brand left him open. I hit him precisely where neck joined head in a ruffle of yellowish feathers. He went down all right; but the confounded Krasny-work blade snapped with a mocking ping.

Tiri yelped: “Your back!” but I was already ducking and swinging around. The Brokelsh quite clearly thought he had me at a disadvantage. His black-haired face showed pleasure. I threw the sword hilt into that plug-ugly countenance and, instantly drawing the braxter taken from the victim of the ambush, put the uncouth Brokelsh out of the fight.

A swift glance showed me Tiri with her sword clutched in her fist flashing away at the lumbering Brokelsh on her side. For a single heartbeat I watched, studying, before hurling forward. She could handle a blade, that was clear.

As is the way with a scrappy sort of combat of this nature one must concentrate on what immediately threatens. At the same time one is generally aware of the trend of the proceedings. I suspect most soldiers keep this cautious weather eye open to show them whether they should bravely fight on or run. In this instance the young lord's guards although surprised were battling back and the attackers were not having it all their own way. The young lord himself was dragging San Paynor back and the priest was struggling to break free of his grip.

My forward movement caught Tiri's Brokelsh totally unprepared and between us the dancing girl and myself knocked him down.

“Get over to the san, Tiri.”

She said tartly: “Yes, that is best. And if you've broken my Besoulon I'll have your hide.”

Apart from not knowing what a Besoulon was although understanding it must be something fragile in her bag, I could not help seeing the difference between her now and the girl I'd found on the road.

In the space our attacks had provided we pushed up beside the lord and the san. Paynor stopped struggling and said: “Tiri!” He sounded as though he did not know if he should be glad or sorry to see her.

“San! This is dreadful!”

“Oh, aye,” said the young lord. “And you will help me take this wonderful but stubborn san to safety—now!”

Some of his guards were down and one staggered towards us with a spear through him. The rush of attackers that followed was most ugly and we had a quick bout of duck, parry and lunge or slash before we cleared our front. One overlarge Fristle charged towards us yelling for others to support him. His olive green clothes were liberally bedecked with tatty gold lace, his whiskery cat's face blazed with fury, and he slished and sliced a monstrous sword like a falchion about ready to lop heads.

The young nobleman wielded his rapier with some dexterity; but I saw he possessed none of the higher arts of skill in the usage of that exacting weapon. At least, he was not exhibiting them now.

A flung spear hurtled towards Tiri's head and in that same instant my sword flashed angling upward to deflect the deadly weapon. The Fristle's blade sliced down at my body. Tiri thrust her braxter at the catman from the side as I drew myself away. I felt a stinging pain down across my left hip. “Get on! Get on!” screamed the Fristle, his armor breaking the force of Tiri's thrust. “Get the blintzes!”

For that instant of confusion everything became distorted, vague, as though these events were happening to other people. The Hytak in command of the lord's guard shouted: “Away, notor! Hurry!”

By this time San Paynor had had enough. He started for the inner door calling to Tiri. She refused to move and I gave her a shove so that for a moment the young lord and I faced the mob together. Only for a moment, though. As the attackers surged forward, he snapped out: “Go through the door. I will cover you. Bratch!”

Now it is not my custom to obey those who yell ‘Bratch!’ at me, even though this young spark's intentions were highly honorable. Also, as you must be aware by now, Dray Prescot runs away from foes sometimes; but, I venture to think, does not do so very often if comrades are left. Oh, yes, I know...

So, puffed with stupid pride, I said: “Do you go first, dom.”

In the same instant it was necessary to deflect another spear. Everything had taken place at breakneck speed. I turned my face on the lord and realized he was not a youngster after all, but a man matured into the earliest portion of his Kregish adult life. I snarled out: “Go, fambly!”

We were interrupted in what might have turned into an acrimonious discussion by having to skip and jump and fight off another attack. His guard commander reached us, cutting down a polsim on the way. “Notor!”

The lord said: “This is no time to pursue this further. But I—”

From the open doorway through which Tiri and the priest had gone a scream knifed clear through all the hubbub.

I was through the doorway and running down the passage and to hell with the niceties of who scuttled off from the enemy first. Two men were trying to kill Tiri and the priest and the temple dancer was whirling her sword about splendidly. San Paynor had screamed. Sensible fellow. I simply roared into them, these two apims, and took no chances.

Tiri panted out, a lock of hair falling across her forehead: “They came through the inner court.”

A yell from the lordling drew my instant attention. He and his guard commander were hurtling through the doorway and along the passageway towards us. His face was contorted. “Go!” he yelled.

The thought, instantly rejected, occurred to me that we might have attempted to barricade that door. Muscle, weight and axes would quickly have smashed a way through. San Paynor was already scuttling off and Tiri and I followed, the lord and his henchman tailing on.

The inner court showed the angled light of the suns among small trees whose leaves glowed like lambent green coins. Their perfume formed an incongruous backdrop to the reek of blood that must surely stench this pleasant court out shortly. More men—apims—wearing the olive green were dropping from the left hand wall.

“They have worked this well,” said Tiri in her tight little voice.

“Useful to know your way around this place,” I said with considerable sarcasm. I made my voice irascible. “Tiri! You and the san! I don't know what these rasts want but if it's you and the san they're going to be unlucky, by Krun. San Paynor! Take Tiri off to safety—now!”

“But, Drajak—”

“Now!”

This direct appeal to the priest of Cymbaro to do something positive worked like a treat. He seemed to grow in stature. He took Tiri by the hand, saying: “Your friend is right, my dear. Come.”

They hurried off towards the right under a colonnade of lemon-colored marble where vines heavy with fruit hung down gracefully. I, your rough tough uncouth fighting man par example, faced the foe ready to fight to the death to secure the safety of my friends. Oh, well, that is often the way of it on Kregen.

The affray flickered into existence with a few dead bodies tumbling about and blood spouting. The lord's guard commander was a good fighter, as one would expect from a Hytak, and we performed well. But press of numbers forced us back.

“D'you know the layout of this place?” I said to the Hytak during one of these pauses that occur in combats of this nature as each side draws breath for a fresh round.

“No, dom.” He was wiping the blood off the blade strapped to his tail. “You're a bonny fighter. I am Chulgar ti Daster. I earn my hire and fight to the death for my master and—”

“And you chatter too much, Chulgar, my friend,” broke in his master. Chulgar fell silent and went on wiping his tail blade. But I knew what he was about to say. Now the reckoning of pay and service was due.

“I'm Drajak. We need to find a way out of this mess. And if that means we run off—” Here I turned towards the lordling and bent my brows on him, giving him a most devilish look, “then we run off.”

“I am not in the habit—” he began, very stiffly.

“Nor am I, dom,” I choked him off. “But—” I paused. I'd been about to say: ‘Since I've been on Kregen.’ That wouldn't do. I said: “But I've lived long enough to learn when to fight and when to—ah—disengage, fall back and reform.” Then I added in a softer voice the word for ‘D'you understand?’ that, harshly spoken, does upset people. “Dernun?”

He gave me a hard look, trying to meet my glare. Then he turned his head away, looking into the courtyard. So he was quite able to cover any discomfiture he might have felt by snapping out: “Here they come again, Cymbaro rot ‘em.”

A bunch of Rapas and polsims mixed up with the apims advanced cautiously towards us. A sound at our backs brought my head around to see brown clad priests emerging into the light of the suns. They carried weapons and moved purposefully; but I could place no great reliance on them as fighting men. Naturally, the young madam was with them.

Amid a deal of shouting the two sides met and it was all hack and thrust and skip and jump and the fight sprawled across the courtyard. Mind you, by Krun, I was determined to grab Tiri and run off as soon as the opportunity afforded. Just what these olive green clad ruffians wanted I did not, as I had said, know. But the quicker Tiri and myself were off out of it the better.

Things did not turn out quite as I expected. Well, that is the way of Kregen, as I should have learned by now.

The ugly Fristle with his damned great falchion was there, knocking over priests and yeowling like a maniac. He had a nasty great hairy wart to the larboard of his nose. For a moment in the melee we faced off; then he rushed off to the side towards some priests who were doing remarkably well. I charged after him, a swirl of the fight engulfed us and I was surrounded by olive green-clad killers.

The pain along my hip where that confounded whiskery cat-man had hit me had been pushed away in the needs of getting on with the fight. As I battled against half a dozen of them, doing my best not to get spitted, I understood what else had happened when the Fristle sliced me with his falchion.

Knocking down a Brokelsh and clearing a space I pulled back to rejoin the priests. I heard, sharp and distinct over the hullabaloo, a pinging sound. Something like a lasso locked my knees together and over I went, sprawling helplessly along the tiles. My legs pulled free and twice I rolled over and over to come up spitting with fury. The warty-faced Fristle let out a scream of triumph and leaped.

He did not leap on me. He scooped up an abandoned scabbarded sword, gripping the hilt. I understood. I roared up to hurl myself at him. He ripped Strom Korden's sword from the scabbard to face off against me, falchion in right hand, braxter in left. That hit on my hip, besides nicking me, had sliced far enough through the strom's swordbelt to snap it after my frantic exertions. He yelled again and, turning, ran nimbly off.

Other attackers were in the way. The fury I felt was all mixed up with annoyance at my own stupidity. The courtyard rang and echoed with the clang of steel. The olive green-clad bodies were all retiring, were pulling back, and into the courtyard raced more men, men in armor and not an olive-green shamlak or tunic in sight.

The newcomers had swarmed over the same wall the attackers had used. The fight banged and caromed away and Amak Dagert of Paylen, very suave, strolled up to me, wiping his rapier.

“Hai!” he said. “I fancy my debt is paid, my friend.”

I said: “Doubtless.” I picked up the empty scabbard and slung it over my shoulder. The strom's sword was going back in there, or I'd know the reason why. Then I recognized the foolish pomposity of the boast. “I am glad to see you, amak. Those blintzes were becoming pests.”

“All pests go down to the Ice Floes of Sicce in Hanitcha's good time. Now, what brings you here?”

Palfrey the Pfiffer walked up then. His shortsword was suspiciously clean for a loyal retainer in a fight with his lord. “They all ran off, notor.”

“Palfrey,” I said, acknowledging him. Then: “As to my presence here, it was a matter of temple business.”

Paylen wasn't interested in me. In a sharp hectoring voice he demanded: “They were followed?”

“Oh, aye, my lord.” Palfrey sounded injured. “Nath the Iarvin and his party.”

Dagert nodded. He finished wiping his rapier and thrust it away. Then, characteristically, he ran a delicate forefinger over that black pencil moustache.

I started to say: “They took something of mine—” when the sound of running footsteps, a rushing swirl of skirts and a breathless voice all added up to Tiri gasping out: “Thank Cymbaro! I thought it certain sure you'd be dead!”

She still clasped her sword and there was dark blood upon the blade. Rather dryly, I said: “I am glad to see you are still in one piece. The san and the young lord?”

“Safe. Thanks to—” Her gaze dwelled on Dagert.

Making the pappattu to introduce them I wondered, idly, if it were possible for a temple dancer to marry an amak. What if? It was no business of mine. I said to Tiri: “It seems you are not safe even here in the shrine.”

Dagert said: “This young lord is safe?”

Tiri nodded. “Yes, notor.”

All I was conscious of rested on two items. One, Tiri had to be carted off back to Nandisha's for her own protection. Two: I had to get off after Strom Korden's sword sharpish. Its loss rankled.

With the loud trample of iron-shod boots the courtyard abruptly came to life with a new act in this drama. Men in the panoply of armor, brightly attired, girded with weapons, their faces bronzed and hard, surrounded us. A hikdar stepped forward, very formal. He addressed me.

“You are Drajak known as the Sudden?” At my nod he went on: “You will place yourself at my disposal.” To his men: “Bring him!”

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter eleven

“Well, Drajak known as the Sudden, where is it? Hand it across immediately!”

I stood in a hall of parquetry, surrounded by armed guards of a most particularly impressive appearance, facing a tall throne in which sat a noble who could have my head off by a mere gesture of his little finger.

I was, as they say in Clishdrin, well and truly paddleless up that famous creek. The armed men had turned out to be a mixture of the City Guard and a certain noble's retinue. You could tell the difference by their badges and insigne. I'd been marched past the sumptuous architecture of Oxonium where the kaotreshes flew in the breeze. There had been no need for us to leave Grand Central, for the palace of the noble lay hard by that of the king. Between two towers, one on each of their outer walls, king and noble had a private cable car system, spanning the branch of the artificial moat that surrounded the royal palace. Indeed, I was in powerful company here.

The hikdar of the detail, Tygnam ti Fralen, went to give me a poke with the chape of his scabbard. The noble held up a hand.

“Give him time to answer, Hikdar Tygnam.”

“Quidang, notor!”

I relaxed. This anxious hikdar had treated me perfectly correctly and fully prepared though I was to give him a crafty kick where it would do the most good, I had no pleasure in it. As for the problem of the moment, I could see no way around it. No way, at least, in which I might come off with a whole skin. The habitual use of authority in this place was marked by humanity. That I had deduced from what I'd seen and heard. All the same, failure would not be tolerated.

Of course, I could lie and deny ever having had the blasted thing. But that wouldn't square with what I saw as a sacred promise to Strom Korden. In addition, the lie would be immediately punctured by the information these people had of me, my name and deeds on the road.

Could I claim the assassins had made off with it? Don't, Dray Prescot, I said to myself, be childish. Tirivenswatha knew.

So, I stared full on this puissant lord, this Hyr Kov Brannomar.

In the middle part of life, I judged him, although that is always a difficult assessment on Kregen. There is on that planet this rather rare condition—if it be a disease the savants and doctors have not yet discovered or decided—in which a person's hair, instead of retaining its full color over most of the span of years, turns gray or white relatively early on in life. Kov Brannomar's hair was a silvery cap. His beard and moustache were silvery in color. With his bronzed powerful face, hard etched with command, with bright dark eyes and thin but mobile mouth, that silver poll gave him the formidable appearance of your true lord of the ages. The scar slanting down his left cheek, brilliant against his skin, added rather than subtracted from that aura of omnipotence.

“Kov,” I spoke up. “Notor. The sword was taken in the affray in the Shrine of Cymbaro.”

A little ripple of a sigh escaped the lips of the man who stood on the steps of the dais immediately below the throne.

Him, I felt instinctively, it would benefit me to watch. He must be the kov's chief adviser, a pallan with powers almost as autocratic as those of Brannomar himself. He wore robes as ruby red as those of his master, although more ornate, for Brannomar's rig was as austere as the man himself. As to his face, this posed an enigma to which, at the moment, I did not have the answer. Like the kov, he was apim; but the darkness of his features, although not the true and velvet black of a Xuntalese, must indicate some of that island people's proud blood flowed in his veins.

“What, Hikdar Tygnam, did you see in the Shrine of Cymbaro?” The words were soft yet unmistakably they carried the stamp of authority this man held under the hand of the kov.

“There was great confusion, Lord Jazipur,” responded the hikdar at once. “When I saw this man Drajak the fighting had ended and he was talking to his companions.”

Kov Brannomar leaned a little forward. “Tell me, Drajak.”

So I told him. I ended: “This Fristle who took the sword can easily be identified. With your leave I will—”

Lord Jazipur said: “He will be among the runnels by now.”

Speaking up boldly, for, after all, I was well aware I was arguing for my liberty, if not my life, I snapped out: “Then I will follow him there!”

The kov leaned back. One firm brown hand, without rings or jewelry, touched his chin. “Enquiries will be made. Yes, Drajak, known as the Sudden, I think you will go down into the runnels between the hills and find this man. And I think you will bring me back the sword.”

He didn't say what might happen if I didn't. He didn't have to.

This decision on the kov's part did not really ease the tension in the situation. The guard stood alertly. A number of people, all dressed according to their rank and position, waited each side of the chamber. Tall windows shed that mellow Kregish opaline radiance upon us.

Then the kov said: “Why, Drajak, when you arrived in Oxonium, did you not bring the sword to me immediately?”

This was the question I'd anticipated and had not relished. There were other pressing questions he could ask, and no doubt would, now. The very importance of actually getting his hands on the sword had been the big question, driving the others to wait their turn. I spoke harshly.

“It was necessary for me to see a lady to the shrine.”

“And that was more important? Your paramour?”

I was curt. “No.”

He gave absolutely no response to my rudeness. Hikdar Tygnam spoke up. “My lord, there was a temple dancer there.”

Silence ensued for a moment in which, no doubt, one was supposed to imagine all manner of awful retributions. The next question, also, was obvious. “What did Strom Korden say to you?”

“He was dying, in pain and was almost incoherent. He simply said that I should take the sword and take it to Hyr Kov Brannomar.”

“That is all?”

“It was difficult to understand. I took him for a gallant gentleman and was sorry to see him in that condition. That was all.”

“Take the sword and take it to Hyr Kov Brannomar?”

“Exactly.”

“Strom Korden was a gallant gentleman. I mourn his loss. I hope I shall not have to mourn the loss of his sword.”

“If it can be found, then I—”

“Do not boast,” cut in Lord Jazipur. “Or promise what you may not accomplish.” His ice cold eyes looked at me as though I was a fish on a slab. “Your head is on it.”

Kov Brannomar's hand half lifted, and then fell back. Was that a reflexive gesture in protest? Now that his chief pallan had made the threat, the kov, too, would be bound by it. At least, so I guessed.

“You will send someone with him, Lord Jazipur?”

“Assuredly, my lord. One of my best men.”

In a soft voice, Brannomar said: “Make it your best man, Lord Jazipur.”

Jazipur didn't say ‘Quidang!’ but he might as well have done by the way his back shot up. I did not smile.

With that the audience was over. They wheeled me out.

As though released by a spring, people moved in the chamber, going about their business for the kov. By the door as we passed under the archway a knot of people moved aside for the guard still surrounding me with military precision. Among the clerks and functionaries a man dressed in a shamlak so dark it was black looked across.

He saw me. He started to laugh, so that great shining tears rolled down his fat red cheeks.

We marched out through the halls and corridors to the main gates.

Now what, by the pustular armpits of the Divine Lady of Belschutz, was Naghan Raerdu, Naghan the Barrel, doing in Oxonium?

Naghan was just about the best of my personal spy apparat. Some of the network had been passed over to my lad Drak when he'd become Emperor of Vallia. Some, like Naghan, I'd kept on my personal and secret payroll. Well, now! By Vox, what a turn up! We marched out and there was a fresh spring in my step. Things were looking up.

Things were, indeed, looking up.

Tygnam was going to take me off to meet the folk detailed by Jazipur to keep an eye on me in the runnels between the hills. A man, very sure of himself, stepped up to the hikdar, halting our progress.

“Hikdar!” His voice cut like sharpened steel, yet there was that lazy careless tone to it. “I'd like a word with that man.”

“Only for a moment, notor—”

Ignoring that, Dagert of Paylen walked up to me, casual, raffish, one hand on the hilt of his rapier.

“I hear you're going after that Fristle.”

“That's right.”

How he knew so quickly was easily explained by gold and people listening and going out before me. Intrigue is a fecund plant.

“Palfrey thinks he knows the feller.”

“Indeed.”

If he could play this cool casual game then so could I.

He stroked his moustache, and his eyes for a moment gleamed white as he glanced up at my face.

“I owe you a favor, my friend.”

“Which I thought you had reclaimed.”

“A mere trifle.” He twirled his right hand gracefully in the air. “Palfrey and I—we'll go with you. Bit of fun. Do a spot of rabble chasing down in the runnels. Show ‘em who's master.”

A whole new dimension opened up about Dagert of Paylen. Oh, I do not mean because of his distasteful references to poor folk. Anyway, even that could be pretence. He wanted to go after Strom Korden's sword. I felt that strongly.

“Thank you. Done.”

He nodded, nodded to the hikdar, and stalked off. He made no remark about the way I addressed him. Any nonsense of notor this and notor that between us had been ditched, and he'd simply let that happen. Why?

Why? He wanted that damned sword, that's why!

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter twelve

Give them their due, they did not stint on me.

They furnished a slap up meal of local produce with a great variety of vegetables and fruit, and to drink a light local beer—or, at least, a brown fluid they called beer—rather flattish and with a miniscule head as though it had been watered. There were palines to follow. We sat in the guardroom annex for the meal and later on as the suns were thinking of declining beyond the western hills Lord Jazipur's man entered.

Hikdar Tygnam greeted him cautiously, standing up to do so. I remained seated, enjoying the palines’ juiciness and freshness after the meal.

The fellow was of that breed that can insinuate itself into the crannies of society and sniff out gossip and tidbits of valuable information. He wore a drab tan tunic and a three-quarter length cape thrown back. He did not wear a shamlak. He did wear three swords and a plethora of daggers. As to his face, he was apim, clean-shaven, and narrow as to feature, with deep lines running from the corners of his mouth to the sides of his chin. His hat was perfectly in character, being wide and floppily down-drooping. It did not sport a feather.

He gave his name as Naghan—Naghan the Ordsetter.

“My men are waiting outside. Let us get on with it.”

There was genuine relief visible in Hikdar Tygnam that he did not have to venture down into the warrens between the hills.

He bade me a courteous remberee and we stepped outside into the haze of jade and ruby dusk. It had rained earlier and up here on Grand Central the air tasted sweet.

“Amak Dagert and his men have offered to assist us.” This Naghan the Ordsetter possessed a strange squeaky voice. “He will be useful if his man knows the whereabouts of the Fristle.”

There was no answer called for. Dagert of Paylen and Palfrey joined us with a group of men at the cable car terminus. We were headed north, to the hill known as Rondjas's Hill. Apart from Palfrey saying in a quick excited voice that from there we must go to the Hill of Sturgies, we were a silent party as we boarded the car. The wheels whispered along the cable and the breeze blew in from the open cabin windows. The other cars passed us, swaying gracefully in their looping arcs from hill to hill.

Lights were springing up everywhere all over the city. Their sparkles were much like fairy lanterns. As we swayed through thin air suspended by slender cables the very trance-like air of this enterprise forced itself on me most strongly.

A lifter swooped down, passing us closely and flew on towards Rondjas's Hill. It showed only riding lights. The car began to climb the last looping curve of cable towards the terminus.

Whilst this structure was nowhere near as ornate as that upon Grand Central, it had its architectural charm. A small knot of people waited to board our car. We alighted and, in a bunch of dark cloaked men, walked swiftly across the kyro and along a broad avenue towards the northern terminus. Here we would board the calimer for the Hill of Sturgies.

Palfrey started to chatter and Dagert of Paylen snapped: “Quiet!”

The clouds had mostly blown away and the stars glittered, high. The next leg of the journey was a replica of the first. The cable car swayed through the nighted air and the lights of the city passed away each side, scattered and dim along the runnels far below.

The next landing stage looked deserted under a single string of lamps. The car touched the guide ramps and bumped to a standstill. The door opened and we stepped out, keeping in that tightly bunched formation.

Something loud went Bang! The first noise was followed by others. Instantly we were enveloped in a cloud of stinging, choking black smoke. Just before all vision clamped down I saw a ceramic jar come flying through the air and go smash onto the stone slabs, letting out a searing spurt of evil black smoke. At once all was confusion as men shouted and fanned their hands against the smoke. A body collided with me and I braced myself and whoever it was bounced.

A hand gripped my upper arm. About to turn intemperately and bash my attacker, I heard a breathy voice, hoarse with urgency, whisper in my ear: “Majister!” At once this was followed by: “Jis—this way!”

I knew that voice. I relaxed. Whatever was to happen now, best to let it happen and then reckon up the consequences later. The hand guided me unerringly through the smoke. The noise of men swearing and shouting receded. That damned smoke was truly pungent, getting right up the hooter. It spread to encompass the whole landing area.

My eyes were streaming tears that felt hot, by Krun. I was pulled, staggering, along and presently, although I could barely see for the water in my eyes, realized we were out of the landing area and out of that pestiferous smoke.

“Jis—you are unharmed?”

“Aye, Naghan, apart from my eyes which burn fiercer than the Furnace Fires of Inshurfraz.”

“Better that than being parted from your head. This way.”

Other bodies surrounded me as we ran along a street I sensed led around the lip of the hill, a narrower street, judging by the echoes. Not that there were many of them. These fellows wore soft shoes. Naghan Raerdu had seen me as a prisoner. Ergo, he had put in hand a plot to rescue me. This was nothing less than I would have expected from such a master spy. What he would say when I explained the situation I could only guess at. I did know, by Vox, that he would laugh!

In no time at all we halted and I was guided up a set of wooden steps, told to duck my head, and then seated in a padded chair. My vision remained blurred. Men were talking quietly some way off, in another room, I judged. Naghan said: “There is an ointment, jis; but the wizard said it is better to allow the eyes to recover naturally.”

“How long?”

“A bur, maximum. We have masks with eyepieces that allow us to see and filters that allow us to breathe. Useless to put one over your face once the smoke was out of the pots. It would have merely trapped the smoke against your face.” He let a low laugh rumble up from his belly. “Those cramphs coughed their lungs up! The gold was well spent on the mage.”

I felt a familiar movement under me, a feeling of pressure and then of lightness. “This is the voller that passed the cable car?”

“Aye, jis. We've had an eye on you ever since I saw you in Kov Brannomar's hall.”

“And who's the we?”

“Oh, a few of my Vallian fellows and some locals. I've set up a network in Oxonium. The locals are a strange lot. The wizards are not like the sorcerers at home. And the blood feuds and vendettas festering among the poor folk in the valleys are staggering. It is not easy to organize from one runnel to another between the hills.”

“D'you know of a gang who wear olive green?”

“No, jis. I'll ask.”

“That can wait for my eyes. There are other questions.”

“Oh, yes. Tolindrin has been seeking an alliance with Vallia. They're in a peculiar position regarding the production of airboats, as are their neighbors to the north, Caneldrin and beyond them, Winlan and Enderlin. The other nations of the sub-continent are more client kingdoms than anything else. There is constant friction on all the frontiers—its a way of life. But if all out war erupts—who does Vallia consider? The Empress Delia considered it appropriate that Vallia should know more.”

I admired his primness in thus talking of his mission. But how sweetly the sound of Delia's name fell on my ears! By Zair! Yes.

I said: “And the empress?”

“Blooming as the rose the last time I saw her, jis. Your eyes—?”

“Smarting like the devil. Is there a drink—”

Almost before the words were out of my mouth a goblet was at my lips and a tartish wine sparked up my tongue. It was just the drink to clear my mouth of the stinking taste of that damned magical smoke.

Naghan the Barrel went on: “It is still necessary for us to buy airboats from one country or the other in Persinia and Balintol. If we judge wrongly in this, bang go our supplies. Now the old king's son is dead here in Tolindrin the choice of a successor becomes of vital importance.” He let rip one of his tear-jerking wheezing laughs that made him shake all over. “May I ask, jis, what brings you here?”

So I told him about Strom Korden's charge to me. I added that I was bound to protect Princess Nandisha, although I did not tell him why. I finished: “That cramph of a Fristle has the sword. I now believe this fellow Dagert of Paylen is after it. I am determined to honor my pledge to Korden and take the confounded thing to Brannomar.”

“Dagert of Paylen? A strange one, that. No one knows who he is working for; but it is certain sure someone pays him.”

“Now you understand, Naghan, why I must somehow work my way back to the party with Naghan the Ordsetter and Dagert. That unhanged rogue Palfrey says he knows the Fristle.”

“I can arrange that. Also, it seems sure that the sword contains something of value, if it is merely a common braxter.”

“Aye. A hollow handle and a few lead weights to balance the feel.”

“A paper, then?”

“More than likely. It could be a ring, any trifle of jewelry.”

“Then it must be of great value, have significance of authority, be a religious symbol—or it is magical.”

“Aye.”

“H'm.” I could imagine his scheming brain turning wheels. “Then it will be worth while taking a look first.”

I moved uneasily in the chair. Slowly, I said: “Yes. But I feel that to be unethical after my promise to Korden.”

“As you say, majister. Unethical.”

There was no mistaking good, loyal Naghan the Barrel's feelings.

Items of the lifter's cabin were becoming clearer and the sting was ebbing from my abused eyes. Naghan wiped my face. He said: “I'll find out about this falchion-wielding Fristle in the olive green.”

“He has an Opaz-forsaken hairy wart alongside his nose.”

“He might as well shout who he is from the rooftops.”

“The Hill of Sturgies. That's where Palfrey was headed.”

“A moment only, jis. Here is more wine.”

He was gone for the time I could take three leisurely sips. “One of the locals, Lingurd, a narrow-faced polsim, knows. We're headed there.”

“I'll have to rejoin alone, Naghan.”

“Oh, aye, jis. But we'll be around.”

And, I own, by Krun, that was comforting!

On a thought, I asked: “Who's consul in Oxonium now?”

“A fine smart gentleman, by Vox! Elten Larghos Invordun na Thothsturboin. He's a high flyer, and no mistake.”

Larghos Invordun, I remembered, had won his title of Elten at the Battle of Vendalume when we'd fought the perfidious Layco Jhansi. Since that fateful day he'd gone into the diplomatic service. One day he would become a fully-fledged ambassador. He was a career man now.

I nodded. “Well, no need to let him know I'm here.”

“As you say, jis.”

Out of the haze of darkness surrounding me the fat red friendly face of Naghan the Barrel swam, as it were, like a fish in a tank before my eyes. I blinked and felt the tears run and Naghan wiped them away.

“Now, jis, names. Are you Jak the Something? Chaadur?”

“Drajak the Sudden.”

“Very good, Drajak.”

With some feeling I said: “By Vox, Naghan, it was a damned lucky co-incidence you happened to be there in Brannomar's hall just then.”

“Co-incidence, Drajak? Hardly. I haunt the places of power. Brannomar is the most powerful man in the kingdom after the old king. He holds the reins. He is utterly incorruptible. His wealth is fabulous.”

“So if the old king were to die this Brannomar the Incorruptible might strike for the crown?”

Naghan's rubicund face, floating like a balloon before me, swayed from side to side as he shook his head. “No, Drajak, not in a million of the months of She of the Veils. He would abide by the old king's wishes as to the successor. It could be Brannomar would become regent. In that case there is no doubt whatsoever he would hold the authority in sacred trust and relinquish power when the new king came of age. No doubt at all.”

“You confirm what I read in him. A trifle cold, though. Austere.”

My spymaster's laugh bubbled up like the volcano of Muruaa. “I have enjoyed his companionship in a shbilliding that gave even me an echo of Beng Kishi's Bells between my ears.”

“I am relieved to hear it. It makes him a whole man.”

We talked more then as my eyes cleared, questions and answers and information exchanged. Naghan gave me one piece of news that saddened me.

Won Dimeholl, who was famous for his knowledge of illuminated scrolls and manuscripts, had a great interest in antiquities; his greatest fervor was for books of prophecy and prediction. He had been attacked many times but had always resisted stoutly. Now, at last, he had succumbed, and was gone from our lives. His loss distressed me grievously and I could only take what comfort there is in knowing he would have said get on with life. He was dead; we had to get on with life. Naghan's face showed in its downdrawn grimness a reflection of the sorrow at his passing that all who had known Won Dimeholl felt.

After a moment Naghan spoke up more forcefully than perhaps he intended. “Y'know—Drajak—you're running a pretty desperate risk.”

He was accustomed to the odd idea that the man he had known as the Emperor of Vallia could be found turning up at different parts of Kregen engaged in skullduggery. He accepted the same behavior in the man supposed to be the Emperor of Emperors, the Emperor of Paz. Although, by Zair, that was a mere joke at the moment, despite its fulfillment being ordained by the Star Lords. As a masterspy, Naghan the Barrel was steeped in skullduggery, disguise and subterfuge. He knew I was, too.

“The Empress Delia asked you to come out here, Naghan. But what about the official spy network of Vallia run by Naghan Vanki? Has the Emperor Drak organized anything there?”

“Yes. Vanki sent the Voidal twins.”

“Oh, well, I expect Drak and Vanki will sort something out.”

“The Voidals have been concentrating on the old king. He is officially in mourning and no one has seen him for days. By the way, the Voidal twins, and Vanki for that matter, do not know I am here.”

I found my lips moving in a smile. “They don't even know of your existence!”

“Pray Opaz that is the way it remains.”

One other question I asked before, with Lingurd in the lead, we moved off into our night's adventure.

“This Dokerty religion, in opposition to Tolaar. Red robed priests two by two and damned great idols on poles. Is anything known? Why should they skulk about at night in ruins when they have tasteless and over-imposing temples to prance around in?”

He rolled his bulky shoulders. “The Dokerty cultists are an unwholesome lot. I do know that. As to the rest, no, nothing is known. I'll find out.”

“Good.”

I washed my face before we moved off and the bowl when I'd finished looked like black ink. Naghan had wiped my old beakhead once or twice during our conversation. During all that time he must have been busting a gut to laugh his incredible laugh at my appearance.

The lifter touched down on a darkened slope of rubble leading from the Hill of Sturgies. A short distance away dim lights tried to pierce the runnels with wan illumination. Clouds obscured the moons. We hitched up our weapons and descended into the darkness.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter thirteen

Torchlights flared smokily here and there along the narrow street between wooden and brick buildings which shared a common rundown appearance. What went on behind those ramshackle walls was best not dwelled on too long. People moved along the muddy way trying to steer a path between the filthy gutter in the center and the sides where any kind of evil fluids might be emptied upon their heads. As Lingurd the polsim and I moved deeper into the runnel between the hills, the torchlights grew in number and doors stood open, revealing mysterious interiors, filled with subdued lighting and shifting shadows.

“They call them taverns,” said Lingurd, his thin polsim face twisted in contempt. “Traps for the gullible. Dopa dens. Head crunchers.”

“Patronized, though,” I observed, for dark-cloaked figures moved in and out constantly. More than one poor wretch was thrown out to land on his nose in the gutter this early in the evening's entertainment.

We moved on together. “Unwholesome, they are. Yet the young lords and the bloods venture down here for excitement.” Lingurd's attitude conveyed exactly his feelings. “They find it, Tolaar knows.”

This place down between the lofting hills pulsed with its own dark life. At almost every corner booths with ramshackle awnings offered all manner of commodities, tidbits of food, hot drinks, roasted nuts, trashy jewelry, fortune tellers with facile stories for the guileless, young lads importuning the passers by with delectable delights to be found in dubious dark alleys and hovels. Impoverished, desperate for the next bite, rogues all, yes, these folk were all that. But down in the runnels life pumped red and raw and uninhibited.

Our drab cloaks and floppy hats blended perfectly with the surroundings. We picked our way along, avoiding cutpurse and pickpocket and the attentions of those who wished to deprive us of money—and life, if necessary—in other less obvious ways.

Lingurd said: “I grew up not far from here. The gangs’ territories have changed; but we're safe up to The Brass Lily.”

One could imagine only too readily the gang fights over territory with its various incomes of devious and unlawful nature. The polsim went on: “The Lord Nath Shivenham has treated me well and I am glad to work for him.” He referred, of course, to Naghan Raerdu. Naghan the Barrel, like me, was too canny to use his real name on desperate ventures like this.

Shortly thereafter we reached a building of somewhat greater pretensions than its neighbors where many torchlights threw their wavering orange light across the muddy street and stained walls. Over the door a glinting brass representation of a lily told the name of the establishment.

“Round the back,” I said, brooking no argument.

We cut down the side alley, our shoes squelching in mud and pools of water from the recent rain. Refuse lay piled here and there. The smells had not yet resurfaced in force from the cleansing showers.

Give Lingurd the polsim his due. Of course, he had lived here and knew well what to expect. He caught my arm and drew me into the shadows of a projecting buttress. “Quiet, dom.”

Instantly, I stilled. I heard the tramp of ironshod boots along the main street and had no need to be told to keep still. I watched.

With lamplights held high on metal-bound poles casting flickering illumination all about them, they passed the mouth of the alley. I knew their type. Rough, bearded, clad in a semblance of uniform and armor taken from their victims, they strutted along. Their weapons were bared and glittered ominously. They were representatives of many of the races of diffs of Kregen. In the lead marched a Kataki, bulky and ferocious, the dagger blade strapped to his tail flaunting high. Damned Katakis, I said, under my breath.

“Aye, dom,” whispered Lingurd. We waited until the band had gone. Lingurd wiped a hand down his face. “They're bad news. And they have the authority, that's the pity of it.”

“Authority? A Tolaar-forsaken bunch of slavers?”

“Oh, no, dom. Rather, yes, they deal in slaves. They're the Watch—”

“The Watch!” I was astounded. Katakis rarely take up any job other than slaving when they go abroad. “You mean the king has appointed that mob of masichieri—stinking bandits who call themselves mercenaries—as the Watch, to keep order down here?”

“That's right. He appointed Trako Ironbelly as Captain of the City Watch. A blintz of a Whiptail. Down here, in the runnels between the hills.”

“And that indicates the regard the people on the hill have for the law and order they impose here. By Chozputz! It stinks!”

The contrast between the City Watch down here, composed of the lowest dregs of so-called military men and officered by Katakis, and the smart and resplendent City Guard on the hills was painful.

“In here, dom.” Lingurd indicated a narrow doorway. “You wait.” He was gone, silently, along the corridor and around the far corner. Perforce, I waited, hand on my sword hilt. When he came back his sharp-featured polsim face bore a smile. “I looked in the tavern's main room. They're all there, the ones we took you from in the sorcerer's smoke. They're waiting, pretending to be young bloods out for fun.”

“And the Fristle?”

“Fonnell the Fractious is as cunning as a leem. He has a private snug at the back of the premises.”

“I just hope he's still around. If he's parted with the item already I'm in more trouble than I am now.” I could guess the way of it. After my disappearance Dagert of Paylen and the others, recovering, must have decided their best course was to come on to the Brass Lily. Palfrey knew the Fristle, Fonnell; none of them knew what the sword looked like. They were waiting for me to turn up, I suspected, as a forlorn hope. Failing that, Dagert would have Palfrey point out Fonnell and then they would question him. That would be a risky course of action, given the circumstances that the Fristle was on his home ground and surrounded by his olive-green clad cronies.

“If Fonnell's here, he'll be in his snug.”

“Lead on.”

We went cautiously along the passage and turned the other way from the main room of the tavern. Lamps burned low. Closed doors either side hinted at unlawful goings on inside. We padded on. At the end a door led onto a courtyard across which a brick building showed lights at narrow windows. “That's it.” Lingurd wet his lips.

Silently we crept across the courtyard. A woman laughed shrilly in the night. Up against a window we cautiously peered within.

The room was well lit and comfortably furnished. The warty-faced Fristle sat at a table. On the table rested Strom Korden's sword. I let out a silent sigh of relief.

Whoever he was working for had not yet arrived to take the trophy. Then a voice spoke from inside the room beside the window and I realized I was wrong. “You have done well, Fonnell. Now it is time for payment.”

A man moved into my view. His back was turned towards me and he stepped with sinuous grace towards the Fristle who reached across the table for a goblet. Fonnell lifted the goblet and the second man thrust him clean through. He used a rapier. He used it with a skill I recognized.

Swiftly, the man bent and snatched up Korden's naked sword.

Softly, I whispered to Lingurd: “That is the item.”

Lingurd was no more moved by that sudden treacherous murder than was I. “He's almighty quick with that rapier of his.”

“Yes.” Well, he would be. I knew his type although, when he turned in the lamplight to leave the room by the door to the side, I did not know him. His like were to be found strutting the avenues and canal-side walks in Zenicce. He was your proper Bravo Fighter. A rapier and dagger man of exemplary skill, cunning and delicacy. He could spit you like a chicken, turn a fine phrase, and exquisitely wipe his blade clean on a shiningly white lace kerchief. Oh, yes, I sized him up. I did not know his House for on his pale gray clothes he wore no colors to distinguish him.

Whoever had employed Fonnell the Fractious to take the sword employed also, at a much higher level, this Bravo Fighter. There would be no traces left. Korden's sword had to be the key to a puzzle. Only—I didn't know what that puzzle could be.

The door made only the slightest of noise as the Bravo Fighter stepped out into the courtyard. In the next instant he took a single step forward and stopped, snatched upright before he fell by the dagger protruding from his eye. Lingurd said: “But not as quick as my dagger.”

There was no use berating the polsim. He had seen the situation and reacted. The man from Zenicce would not now be able to tell me what I wanted to know. Swiftly I ran forward and scooped up Korden's sword.

About to consider the night's work just about over I turned away. Then I stopped. “Here,” I snapped, handing the sword to Lingurd. “Hold this a moment and don't lose it.” I bent to the dead man.

He wore his weapons, the Jiktar and the Hikdar, on separate belts as is proper for a rapier and main gauche man. Rapidly I unbuckled the belts and strapped them about my waist, hauling them up, for he had the beginnings of a bulge. Maybe he was growing too fat and slow for Zenicce and like many another before him had sought employment and wealth in foreign lands.

As I straightened up a tremendous racket burst out from the tavern. Yells and screams and the clash of weapons spoke eloquently of a rip-roaring fight going on in The Brass Lily. Women were screaming. A double-door a few paces along the wall from the door Lingurd and I had used broke open. A woman ran through, her hands clutched in the air, screaming and screaming. Her petticoats dragged around her waist. Following her two men ran, laughing and taunting, out for a spot of fun that had gone sour.

Lingurd called: “Dom—the Watch!”

I heard yet I didn't hear. Yes, I should not have done it. I freely admit I committed a grievous error. The woman had blood on her face, bright in the lamplight from the open door beside us. What else could I, Dray Prescot, onker of onkers, do?

I leaped forward.

The woman saw me and shrieked. Clearly in me she saw another attacker. She stumbled away, almost falling, staggering into the far side wall. The two men howled in triumph and I ran towards the woman.

She vanished. One moment she was there, the next she was gone, dropping into the ground.

And so I, Dray Prescot, like any zany coy, tumbled headlong and crashed down past the flapping trapdoors of the cellar, went head over heels into the hard stone floor beneath.

The only things in the world of Kregen were the black wings of Notor Zan enfolding me in his dark embrace.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter fourteen

Only four prisoners died of their injuries during the night and in the morning the gaolers dragged the bodies out with iron hooks.

Many of the rest of us were in bad case and all night the prison guards shouted at us miserable scum of the gutters to keep quiet. The place was much like an undercroft, low of arched roof, spacious and separated by massive hunched pillars. What little straw there was stank damply and verminously. I'd found a stone wall against which I propped my back and nursed my head where not only all the Bells of Beng Kishi persisted in ringing but Jen Jorah's ice drills pierced pitilessly from temple to temple.

Along with the other miscreants, drunks, petty thieves, and brawlers dredged from the gutters of the runnels of Oxonium I waited for my doom to be pronounced by whatever lord held my fate in his hands.

The last thing I remembered hearing was Lingurd yelling: “Dom—the Watch!”

Their acquaintance I had made. I still had a bruise or two to testify to that introduction. All my weapons and gear were gone. The dark blue shamlak I'd been given was, very very luckily, made from a cotton stuff and not silk. This part of Kregen is world famous for its silk. There were few silk garments in the prison, and those were hand-me-downs on the last frayed thread before being discarded. There was nothing, really, to mark me as being any different from any of the other fifty or so miserable wights arrested during the night. Tunics predominated over shamlaks; that was all, apart from short breeches-like nether garments in place of kilts.

Broken-down slaves brought us a meal that might laughingly be called the first breakfast. A cracked pottery bowl of water with half-a-dozen unidentifiable lumps floating in the greasy liquid, and a hunk of bread that demanded a hacksaw to address, comprised our repast. Still, always look on the bright side. Even under the Kataki-run City Watch we had been fed. There were no women in the prison. I'd kept myself to myself, nursing my bruises and my aching head, and pondering the best way of breaking out.

After the pottery bowls had been collected by the tame slaves the iron bars clashed open once more. A Kataki entered, whip coiling and curling and looking for targets. He was backed up by a formidable collection of so-called City Guards, unshaven, grimy, flamboyantly dressed with a deal of tatty embroidery and lace. The prisoners scrambled away, some on all fours, some gibbering in fear, all dreadfully aware of the doom that awaited them.

A most incongruous note was struck by the young, naive Relt stylor with them. He wore a clean white shamlak and kilt, with the belt of pouches containing the quills and ink and papers of his profession. His pointy-beaked face and his bright eyes were quite at variance with the horrors of this place. He kept putting a scented handkerchief to his beak.

“The Brass Lily?” growled the Kataki. “We'll soon sort them for you, stylor.”

The guards moved in among us, ungently. They knew who their captives were and where they'd been picked up. I was hauled out with a dozen or so men and pushed and shoved into a double rank. The whip cracked.

“Grak!”

A visible shudder rippled through the prisoners at this hated word.

We grakked and stumbled along and as the whips whistled I took a couple of cuts. This was not the time or place to make a break. If we were being taken out of this dolorous dungeon then a time would come.

Among the men marched off along with me I saw not one wearing olive green. That would easily be explained in the gutter politics of the runnels; no doubt the City Watch had arrangements with certain gangs. I saw no one from the party with Dagert of Paylen or of Brannomar's men with Naghan the Ordsetter. These poor wights had been the patrons of the Brass Lily and had been swept up in the chaos of the fight when the City Guard swooped. And—I'd been scooped up with them.

Lingurd the polsim was not here. I just had to trust he'd had the sense to take Korden's sword straight to Naghan the Barrel.

Up we went along stone steps and corridors and archways and iron-barred gates. Prisons are like prisons. The stylor kept well ahead. Some of the stinks faded the higher we went and the air freshened.

In what was probably the charge room, formalities were concluded, the stylor signed for us, and we were placed under the charge of a guard of an altogether different description. These fellows of a variety of races of diffs wore half-armor with a deal of black and red trimmings. Their weapons were workmanlike and they marched like men who had once been soldiers before being taken on as some lord's personal guard. At their head a Deldar with a stomach and many feathers kept up the pace. We stumbled along between the ranks of guards. They took no chances with us.

The prison doorway in a long featureless gray wall led onto a kyro. Some of the passersby turned to stare at us; most ignored the unpleasant sight. We were crammed into a cable car a batch with guards at a time and transferred across two further hills. At least the sensation of swinging through the air and feeling the scented breeze came as a relief after the stenches of the dungeon. On the final hill we were gathered up and marched rapidly along broad avenues and under a low archway into a courtyard. This was the back entrance to a splendid palace. Through corridors of increasing splendor we stumbled and marched, checked by even more ornately dressed guards at various doors, ushered through until we entered a sizeable hall where the streaming mingled lights of the early morning suns fell athwart gilding and marble and tapestries. This, then, was where whatever was to happen would take place.

We were herded into the central space where we stood, shuffling our feet and gawping about. A dais in front supported the type of throne-like chair I'd seen occupied by Brannomar, backed by deep plum-colored drapes. Presently a party of servitors came in carrying sacks which they emptied onto a side table. A wonderful collection of wicked weaponry was displayed, an arsenal of muggery and mayhem. Among the coshes and daggers and swords I spotted the rapier and dagger I'd taken from the Bravo Fighter, alongside the braxter. They, then, were evidence.

As a matter of simple common sense I'd given my name as Nalgre the Unster. If Princess Nandisha wanted to repeat her trick of getting me out of gaol then Fweygo or Tiri would quickly ascertain the truth. So, among a miserable mob of miscreants, I, Nalgre the Unster, waited.

Next to me a shambling and untidy gauffrer looking rather like a pile of sweep's brooms trembled with uncontrolled fear. His eyes rolled whitely. “Khon the Mak,” he mumbled. “He is death itself. Mak Khon.”

Just how much religion there might be in this unholy crew I didn't know; but the next fellow, a Gon whose shaven head glistened in the lights, only slightly bristled from the night's growth, said: “Tolaar save us now.”

He entered without a fanfare of trumpets although the instinctive reaction was that that would have been appropriate. He advanced after his retinue had positioned themselves about the dais and seated himself in the throne. So I looked at him. Well, now. If these whole proceedings resembled those in Hyr Kov Brannomar's palace, why, of course, they would. Great nobles live in palaces and sit in thrones and hire retainers to be at their beck and call. Also, with their own powers within the current laws, they are quite capable of lopping off the heads of rogues like my unfortunate companions and myself. In fact, many of them quite enjoy giving that grim order.

He was apim, with a face pale like death itself. His hair was very dark, blue-black like, as they say in Clishdrin, a raven's wing. His clothes were black with a little gold lace and red trimmings. He wore a deal of jewelry with fingers crusted with heavy rings. There was armor under the ornate if somber robes. His eyes pierced and he knew how to put an expression of implacable resolve on those pallid features. Oh, yes, he was impressive in that evil showy way, was Hyr Kov Khonstanton.

The Hyr Kovs of Kregen—the nearest terrestrial term is High Duke—are given the Hyr, as I have said, usually because they have that distinction of nobility or run a kovnate partitioned between different races. In Mak Khon's case the additional meaning applied, like the arch dukes of Austria-Hungary, betokening his blood relationship to the royal house.

This was one of the fellows Fweygo had warned me of, very possibly in contention for the inheritance to the throne of Tolindrin.

Had he, then, employed Fonnell's olive-green clad gang?

He brooded on us miserable wights, a beringed hand supporting his white chin. His lips were thin and almost bloodless. I must confess I was at once repelled by his appearance and manner. Mind you, that could have been because I found myself in the position I was in, by Krun, yes!

A fat black and red swathed major-domo banged his golden-banded staff on the carpeted stone flags. “Shastum! Silence!” His words came out all mealy-mouthed. Sweat glittered on his cheeks and forehead. “Which one of you is called Drajak known as the Sudden?”

The prisoners craned their heads about, looking at one another, silent, wondering who the condemned might be. I stood still.

“Speak up or it will go ill for you.”

I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, known as Drajak the Sudden and presently as Nalgre the Unster, said not a word.

Mind you, I could see all manner of unpleasant eventualities, and I was not at all impressed by this situation, not one slightest bit, by Zair!

It was perfectly clear they did not know what I or Korden's sword looked like and they were far too canny to dismantle the lot for fear of destroying what they were after. They'd find a way of discovering the truth. That way could be exceedingly painful and unpleasant.

A word from Khonstanton and a sharp command from the Hikdar saw half the guards unlimber their crossbows. They spanned them with the firm positive movements of men who knew what they were doing. The major domo, sweating, organized the prisoners into a single file. One by one under the threat of the crossbows we approached the table to select our own weapons.

Among the coshes and blackjacks lay a number of swords of various descriptions—everyone had a dagger, of course. Two other pairs of rapiers and main gauches besides the pair I had filched indicated that I had a chance to get away with them alone. One pair was acknowledged by a tall gangling Rapa who looked ill at ease, and the other by an apim who had a dejected look about him, both attitudes I surmised being over and above everyone's normal apprehension of Mak Khon.

When it was my turn I picked up the Jiktar and the Hikdar and turned away from the table.

So, at the end, my braxter lay in lonely splendor.

The major domo started to shout but Khonstanton waved him to silence. His parchment-like face cracked into a meaningful smile.

“It would seem,” he said in his thin voice, “we have our sword.”

Get on with it, sunshine, I thought to myself, and bad cess to you.

Of one thing there could be no doubt. Khonstanton had been quicker off the mark than Brannomar and had used his authority to have the prisoners transferred from the care of the City Watch to his own charge. There seemed no doubt, also, there would be bitter enmity between the two. That I sensed in the characters of the two men as I had observed the pair.

The major domo was called up to the throne and a gaunt, gray-faced individual carrying a staff carved with runes and wearing flowing robes of rusty black garnished with red symbols joined them. The three put their heads together and spoke inaudibly. We all waited.

The gauffrer, who had taken a nasty-looking blackjack, shivered. Of course, we had not been allowed to keep the weapons we had chosen; they had been returned to the other end of the table far away from my lonely braxter. The crossbows did not waver, trained on us.

Presently the Hikdar received his orders and we were all marched off. The visible signs of terror were slow to part from the prisoners.

“Khon the Mak's as bad as a Kataki,” said the gauffrer.

“Worse,” growled the Gon.

The menace hanging over us had not passed. All my companions regarded us as lost men. Mak Khon or the Kataki run City Watch, either way we were doomed.

Carefully though I looked at the people gathered in Khonstanton's hall there was no sign of a fat friendly face with a blob of gristle for a nose and with tears squeezing from under closed eyelids as a gut-wrenching laugh erupted. Naghan the Barrel must be quietly going frantic at my disappearance. I could rely on him implicitly; could I rely on him to rescue me once again?

Along splendid corridors and down stairs and so into lesser passageways we were marched. Khonstanton's dungeons were dungeons; as you know I have had considerable experience of a variety of chundrogs on Kregen and no doubt the future holds further instruction, so I just slumped in a corner, and tried to think. The gauffrer, Nath the Solarkey, and the Gon, Nath the Nose, wanted to chatter on in their fear. I rolled over and let them get on with it and shortly thereafter the guards stamped in, brave and bold in their black and red, armed and armored. Lanterns threw long shards of light into the dungeon. The miserable wretches clawed up, white of eye and shaking of lip, staring in awful fascination at the guards. We all awaited our fate.

A man was dragged up between the guards and hauled upright. He looked ghastly. He'd been hauled along into the cell and now he was forced to stare at us prisoners in the light of the lanterns. He wore an open-necked white shirt and blue trousers. Both garments were liberally spattered with blood. Blood stained his face and was already seeping through the bandage around his head. His eyes were mere black smudges. He shook.

Even then, even then, with the guard's hands under his armpits, he tried to pass a trembling finger along his thin black moustache.

“Well, blintz?” growled out the Deldar. “Which one of the vermin is it?”

And so Dagert of Paylen pointed one shaking finger directly at me.

“Him.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter fifteen

The bully boy guards marched us off and they were not particularly gentle with us, not at all, by Krun. Dagert and I were dragged into a small square room with a single tiny window high up, and tied down with bristly ropes in chairs that were clamped to the floor. Neither of us spoke a word.

The room contained another chair, this one with a cushion, and a table along the side wall. Four lanterns burned. One of them needed to be trimmed and gave off a thin trail of black smoke. The guards waited.

He strutted in, this Khon the Mak, very brisk and businesslike. A couple of his retainers brought in two rapiers, two main gauches and the bits and pieces of a braxter. These exhibits were placed on the table. Khonstanton sat on the cushioned chair and regarded us balefully, one hand supporting that sharp, pale chin.

“I do not need,” he said when he fancied his silence had cowed us enough, “to remind you that you are dead men. Unless, of course,” he waved his other beringed hand negligently, “you tell me.”

“I know only that this is the man.” Dagert's voice sounded painful in the small room. “I own my shame that—”

“Yes, yes, amak. We share your regrets. You—” His eyes were not unlike two currants in a bun. “You tell me.”

I looked at the table. They'd taken the braxter to pieces. They'd dismantled it, blade, quillons, hilt, bindings, the lot. I said: “I know nothing of the sword.” There was little more I could say. I was not looking forward to my immediate future, I can tell you, no, by Krun!

Khonstanton stood up. “I am a busy man. I shall leave you two here to think about your situation. When I return I shall expect answers.” With that he nodded to the guards. They all went out and left us alone.

“My dear feller. I'm sorry. How can I express it—”

“Don't try. Pain loosens lips.”

“Yes; but by Havil the Green! Oh, Hanitcha take the yetches!”

He winced as he spoke. Red dripped from under the bandage around his forehead and trickled down his cheeks and so fell, drop by drop, onto the wreck of his white shirt.

“I am an amak and so they hauled me out. But I was hit on the head, as you see. Where the devil that rogue Palfrey got himself to only Hito the Hunter knows.”

There was no reply I cared to give to that.

Dagert licked his lips. “You'd think they'd give us something to drink. But, oh no! Kov Khonstanton is a hard man, my friend. We are in bad case here. If I knew about this Malahak-given sword I'd speak up. Hanitcha take it, I would!”

I wondered how long it would take him to get around to asking me how I'd found my way to the Brass Lily. I'd have to invent some fancy tale. He did not ask that or any other of the questions he might have been expected to ask. Instead he kept blaspheming against Khonstanton and his pack of cronies, laying his tongue most roughly against them. A clicking, brittle snapping sounded from the locked door.

The door slowly opened. It did not crash back on its hinges. A round, snub-nosed face topped with a shock of untidy straw-yellow hair poked around the jamb.

“Notor!”

“Palfrey, you hulu! Get in fast and shut the door!”

Dagert's manservant sidled in, almost gliding. He held a lockpick in his fingers and his face, with that twisted mouth, expressed great fear. “The guard outside—I had to—I did not kill him, but—”

“Well, before that, you rogue, unfasten these ropes.”

The lockpick vanished and a dagger appeared and slashed and the ropes fell away. Palfrey eyed me.

“Get on with it, you onker!” Dagert rubbed his wrists.

When I was free and swinging my arms about my first thought was to repossess the rapier and dagger. Dagert took up his. He gave me a shrewd stare. “Not your weapons, I think, my friend.”

“No. They came to me by way of a flung dagger.”

“Ah! Well, let us depart. Palfrey!”

“Yes, yes, notor.”

Palfrey scuttled for the door. I picked up the dismantled parts of the braxter hilt. Dagert looked startled.

“That is—?”

“No,” I told him. “But if that rast Khonstanton believes these bits and pieces contain whatever secret he is after—well, that may give him something to think on.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Dagert of Paylen. “I like your style.”

Outside a guard slumbered peacefully. I bent and took off his belt and sword. It was a munitions quality braxter.

“Yes.” Dagert nodded knowingly. “That is more your weapon. The Jiktar and the Hikdar are hard taskmasters in learning the arts of rapier and dagger work. Years to grasp the higher points.”

Without replying I set off along the corridor perfectly prepared to spit any guards who got in the way with braxter, rapier or dagger. I glanced back impatiently. Palfrey was already padding along but Dagert had stopped to pluck at his shirt. His face expressed the utmost distaste as he pulled the blood-stained fabric away from his skin. He looked at me.

“Ruined a perfectly good shirt. People here don't seem to know what a proper shirt is. All right, my dear feller, I'm with you.” And Dagert of Paylen hitched up his rapier belt and followed along the corridor.

Palfrey the Pfiffer whispered: “I spent your gold, notor. A lesser chamberlain—squeaky little Och—good idea of the layout.”

The relish in Dagert's reply could either amuse or repel a listener according to their sympathies. “I see, you rogue. If you contrive to extricate us from this Havil-forsaken palace safely I might think about not docking the gold from your wages.”

I did hear Palfrey's reaction, mumbled under his breath. “When I do get paid, by Atchel the Usurer!”

Oh, yes, by Clichol the Covetous, master and man ever at loggerheads!

Our surroundings were those, I surmised, halfway between dungeon and the kov's quarters high above. Carpets clothed the floor, tapestries adorned the walls and the lamps burned with sufficient light for us to see all we needed. The scent of jasmine sweetened the air. We saw no guards. Palfrey hesitated occasionally at corners; but he led on with confidence.

“Where's the confounded door, you hulu?” demanded Dagert.

“Near, notor, near.”

The atmosphere of this place had to be held at bay. It oppressed unpleasantly, and the knowledge that if we were recaptured we could look forward to torture of an extremely ferocious kind did nothing for our peace of mind. The rumble of voices from ahead made us jump swiftly into the shadows of a draped archway. We stood, still and silent, as people passed by.

A small knot of guards led, clad in the black and red with the addition of purple trimmings. They looked healthy and well fed and supremely assured of themselves. There followed a group of handmaidens, all pretty and adorned in feathers and pearls in the best traditions of the old stories and legends. The woman at the center of the party took my instant intrigued attention. Her face was bright and bold and like a hawk's, yet she was as apim as I. Her clothes were sumptuous with a wide cleavage down her shamlak. Everything about her bespoke eloquently of power and authority and yet, in the downdrawn set of her painted mouth, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, I detected dissatisfaction, a resentment of something that preyed on her mind.

When the rearguard passed out of sight and earshot Palfrey let out his breath. “The Lady Vita. Pray to Kaerlan the Merciful we do not fall under her hand for judgment.” He licked his lips. “She leads her husband, the Lord Jazpur, a merry dance.”

I was astonished. Was I, then, so outrageously wrong in my summation of the animosity between Brannomar and Khonstanton?

Dagert of Paylen, clearly, shared my own bewilderment. “Now what does she want here in Khon the Mak's palace? She was not a prisoner?”

“Didn't look like it,” I agreed.

“Let us hurry, notor.” Palfrey led off again. He did not exactly run; but we scuttled along to keep up.

Moving on side by side we followed Palfrey through a hall hung with brocades of the Hunt of the Nine Veiled Witches and into a narrow corridor where Dagert moved ahead. As he passed he turned his head to stare at me. “One thing puzzles me, Drajak. If the sword Khon the Mak took to pieces was not Strom Korden's sword—and you had it, everyone knows that—where is the real sword now?”

I said: “As Havil is my witness, I have not the slightest idea.”

“Fonnell had it. We know that. And the Fristle is dead. So what did he do with the sword?” Now Dagert was ahead and he looked away, padding after his manservant. “D'you think those thieving Katakis of the City Watch filched it, the evil Whiptails that they are?”

“If they have, they will sell it to the highest bidder.”

His low amused laugh sounded odd in these circumstances. “Yes, there are plenty of them, by Krun.”

We reached a crossway and Palfrey hesitated. “Well, fambly?”

“Let me think, notor—”

“Ha! Think! As well let a calsany into a boudoir!”

“This way.” Palfrey padded off.

“I've had him since he was a stable lad with straw as yellow as his hair stuck to him all over. I took him into my personal service and trained him and mollycoddled him and cared for him.” Dagert breathed in and out. His nostrils pinched. “And this is the way he repays me.”

“By Krun, Dagert!” I said, stung. “He rescued us and now he's leading us out of this infernal place. What more d'you want? Blood?”

“If necessary.”

As I made no reply but forged on silently, Dagert went on: “And I notice you apostrophize the name of Krun.”

“I've lived in Hamal for a time.”

“Ah! D'you know Ruathytu?”

“The capital? I was there once.” I did not elaborate.

Palfrey stopped and motioned us to join him. We peered over his shoulders. I was telling myself to keep my black-fanged winespout shut. I didn't particularly want Dagert of Paylen to know I'd roistered with the Bladesmen in the Sacred Quarter of Ruathytu. Information of that kind would do me no good here. We saw before us a wide stone-flagged hall lit by tall windows. A double-door stood at the far end. The place was deserted.

“That's it, notor.” Palfrey sounded self-satisfied.

“The devil take it!” exclaimed Dagert. “There's no cover.”

“The quicker the better then,” I said, and started off at a run.

Their footsteps padded after me. I outdistanced them and reaching the doors flung them open. Oh, yes, it was reckless. But I was tired of this palace reeking of evil. Mingled sunslight streamed in and I stepped through. There was time to glimpse a courtyard with baltrixes being led along by hostlers past stables at the far end. The blueness swooped in.

One moment I was ready to leap forward; the next I felt as though I'd been upended and was flying through the air, coldness chilling me through to the bone. All about me the gigantic form of the phantom blue Scorpion enveloped reason. Up I went, up and up to my confrontation with the Star Lords.

A final glimpse of the twin Suns of Scorpio dripping blood and verdigris down the sky flashed past my vision and I was hurtling headlong into that macabre mingling of ruby and sapphire, red and blue twining all about me. A soft springiness cushioned my body. I was sitting in a comfortable armchair, the scent of lavender sweetened the air and the world turned red in whorls of patterned color, falling away like the last leaves of autumn in whispering clouds of gold. I was sitting in a fashionable room with pictures of flowers and birds adorning the walls, with long purple-red drapes framing elegant windows, chandeliers shedding mellow radiance upon exquisite furniture, chairs and tables and chaise-longues of impeccable taste, and the last blue dregs of the phantom Scorpion's wings faded away and were gone. I drew a breath. Now my audience with the Star Lords would begin.

There was no delay.

“You have been brought here, Dray Prescot, to answer certain questions.”

“Willingly.” I spoke with measured deliberation. My relationship with the Everoinye had so far changed recently that I could speak to them normally—well, almost normally. They had once been human and I knew they still possessed a sense of humor. In truth, only a sense of humor could save their sanity, given their awesome powers that without the leaven of a good laugh must inevitably have driven them into the final darkness of ultimate madness. “And there is a question I would ask you.”

“She is well and thrives.” The hoarse remote voice brightened. “As a kregoinya, the Empress Delia is proving one of our finest. What she sets out to do, that she accomplishes in style.”

“Of course,” I said. “She is Delia.”

“We had hopes that her husband might share that aptitude and mend his ways. Sadly, you remain a rebellious miscreant.”

The voice from thin air did not threaten or bully; but there was no mistaking the old sharpness of condemnation so familiar from seasons of arguing with the Everoinye and of cautiously slanging them. I sat up.

“What have I done wrong now?”

“Once again, Dray Prescot, you presume.”

“Oh, come on!” I said, baffled. “Princess Nandisha is safe. Fweygo and I have—”

“You have abandoned your charges to go about other pursuits.”

I breathed in and then out. I did not want to get back to the old familiar relationship with the Star Lords, of the soul-shaking fear of being hurled back four hundred light years to Earth. I said: “All I did was honor a promise to a dying man. Anyway, it looks as though this confounded sword has a great deal to do with Nandisha's kids and their aspirations to be next in line for the throne. Is that right?”

If they'd gone on in the old hateful way of: “That is not for you to comprehend,” I would not have been surprised. As it was, there followed a silence, and silences between us I was very used to, then the hoarse whispering voice said: “You misread the situation, Dray Prescot. We had thought your onkerish days over. It does seem you remain an onker of onkers, a get-onker and—” Here another voice took over the chant of condemnation. “Not a prince of onkers any longer. A veritable Emperor of Emperors of Onkers!”

“You dumped me down in Amintin and the princess is safe.” I had wanted to chew another complaint over with them, so I went on forcefully: “You gave me a Krasny-work sword for the useless thing broke almost the first time I hit anybody. I do appreciate not being hurled naked and unarmed these days—”

“Perhaps you would prefer to return to that state of affairs?”

Before I answered I reflected that, indeed, over the seasons I had developed a technique for handling an argument with the Star Lords. I changed the subject of conversation and—more often than not—they followed up the new train of thought and left off avenues of enquiry I did not wish to pursue. So now with all the business of the onkers out—as I fondly hoped—of the way, I said: “No. On Kregen a weapon is vital, as well you know. I've had to skip and jump over the seasons to fend for myself—as again well you know.”

“Yes. And because you have the yrium which gives you power over others you have always managed.”

“That's as may be,” I grumped. “But I don't like swords breaking in my fist when I hit a villain over the head.”

“Dray Prescot, you are being tiresome. You know very well that Tolindrin has difficulty in forging steel of quality.”

“They have money, do they not? Gold and silver? Let them buy swords from Zenicce where they know how to make them.”

“You were sent to Tolindrin equipped as an ordinary fighting man. If you require superior weapons not easily come by you must provide them yourself. As you have always done.”

“I will, I will. Fweygo and I will see Nandisha is safe so that her kids can have the inheritance of the crown—”

Was there a tinge of irritated tartness in the disembodied voice? Impatience at stupidity? “We told you you misread the situation.” So they had; but I'd changed the subject of conversation.

“You do want Nandisha—?”

“Who succeeds to the throne of Tolindrin now is of no concern to us. You have been told that you, Dray Prescot, are to be the Emperor of Emperors, the Emperor of all Paz. That includes Tolindrin, does it not?”

Not for the first time talking to the Star Lords if I'd been wearing a hat I'd have torn it off and flung it down and jumped on it.

I managed to control myself enough to burst out: “And I've told you that the task is well-nigh impossible! By Zair! A whole parcel of continents and islands and all to be ruled over by one mortal man? It's insane!”

“Not so. You say only it is ‘well-nigh’ impossible. You have the yrium. It will be done.”

There was no profit going on with this argument. My own views of maniacs who crave power and wish to rule over vast territories they'll never visit are well known. Still and all, I'd have to do what I could. Otherwise—I checked my thoughts. No, I would not think of that horror.

I growled out most ungraciously: “I'll try.”

“Good.”

Then what they had said sparked in my brain. “Not Nandisha? You do not care who? Then, who are Fweygo and I caring for?”

“The numim twins, Rofi and Rolan, of course. Who else?”

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter sixteen

“Where have you been?” said Fweygo. “You look in a hell of a mess.”

“I'll tell you.” I slumped myself down in a chair in the room in Nandisha's palace given over to our use. The phantom blue Scorpion of the Star Lords, this time, had dumped me down in a quiet corner of a street on the same hill as the palace and I'd had only to walk along the Avenue of Musk and so cross the Kyro of Perfumers to reach here. “First of all, by Beng Dikkane, I need a wet.”

Fweygo put down the sword he had been fiddling with and handed the jug across and I poured a healthy dose and took a huge swig. I wiped my hand across my mouth. “By Mother Zinzu the Blessed! I needed that!”

Fweygo didn't smile. He saw enough of my mood to allow me to explain in my own time. He took up the sword again and extended it. “Your opinion, Drajak?”

The blade was a drexer, that particular pattern of sword developed by Naghan the Gnat and myself. It had been made in Vallia. The hilt bore more ornamentation than I cared for. Weapons are made for a purpose. Embellishment seems to be either redundant or in bad taste. Still, the auction rooms of Earth are filled with examples fetching inflated prices. Back in the seventeenth century they'd stopped using bone for inlay and began decorating weapons with mother of pearl. This sword I knew to be a fine fighting arm; all the mother of pearl in the world would not make it better. I gave the brand a few swishes and slashes. “Very fine.”

“Picked it up in the aracloins. It cost gold; I believe it worth every last copper ob of the price.”

The Star Lords had mentioned that in Tolindrin the forging of quality steel was difficult. Fweygo had a bargain here all right. He went on: “I see you are wearing a rapier and dagger for the left hand. I assume you know how to use them—they're called the Jiktar and the Hikdar.”

“I've used them before.” As I spoke I heard the ungraciousness of my tone. I had to rouse myself, get to grips with this new situation.

Fweygo eyed me and took a sip from his goblet. He put that down and said: “My father always took a walk through the forest, swishing at dead flowers with the cane he always carried. I felt that cane, too, from time to time. He was a good man, stern and upright. He never decapitated a flower in bloom. Never.”

“I've been up to see the Everoinye. D'you know why we're here?”

The Kildoi whistled soundlessly through his teeth.

“I expect, my Sudden friend, you will inform me.”

“Oh, aye.” I handed him back the Vallian drexer. “It's not Nandisha. The numim twins, Rofi and Rolan.”

He sucked breath through his teeth, did not whistle, and said: “The Everoinye charged me with the whole party. They have their ways of doing the great affairs on which they are engaged. I understand.”

I glowered. As a good kregoinye he'd work for the Star Lords and never remotely think of questioning their motives. There was in him an undercurrent of feeling that differentiated his attitude from that of Pompino or Mevancy. They stood in awe of the Star Lords—and, by Krun, wasn't that a sensible thing to do!—and so did Fweygo; but he showed far less of the almost adulatory worship in other kregoinyes. I wondered how they'd recruited him. No doubt he'd tell me in his own good time.

“That being the case,” he said, sliding the drexer away in its scabbard strapped among his arsenal, “protection of the princess makes very great sense. She extends her power over her retainers.”

“I agree. It's just nice to know where we stand.”

“All the same, I often ponder, as I am sure you must do also, on the ultimate reasons for the Everoinye's choices. Will the future be changed because of these numim twins? Will they affect the destiny of nations?”

As you will have realized I was in an odd mood. So I let my black-fanged winespout blabber on. “I once saved a young man and girl, at the command of the Everoinye, and they married and had a son. Seasons later that son, who was then a mighty king, murdered my own daughter.”

His eyes widened and then his face remained expressionless. Kildois are not emotional folk as a rule. He said: “I am truly sorry.”

I took another drink. My hand did not shake. Fweygo went on: “I trust you sent the blintz down to the Ice Floes of Sicce?”

“He went there all right. But not by my hand. My daughter's husband saw to that necessity.”

“So be it. You, I think, my friend Drajak, are somewhat in need of different air.”

“Somewhat.” I suppose, truth to tell, the mention by the Star Lords of Delia was affecting me. She was headstrong, resourceful, utterly determined. If the Star Lords hurled her into situations similar to those they had so callously tossed me into then I had to believe she would be Delia, and would handle herself and the problems with her own vital spirit. She'd come out smiling and glorious and wonderful and—I felt my fingers gripping the goblet so that the knuckles gleamed like white skulls.

“As to your other activities, well, you'll tell me or not according to their relevance to our task here.” His tail hand waved gracefully. “I own I am not too enamored of Oxonium.”

There was no reason not to tell my comrade of Korden's sword and the misadventures attendant upon its loss. He pulled a whisker. “And you believe the sword to be important enough to neglect—”

“Oh, come on, Fweygo. You're here and you're worth a regiment.”

He had the grace to smile at this. “Depends on the regiment.”

So I smiled, too, and felt the better for it and one of Nandisha's servitors walked silently into the room to say: “Horters, your pardon. There is a man asking to see Horter Drajak the Sudden.”

The use of the Havilfarese word for lord—notor—here in Tolindrin was paralleled by the use of the Havilfarese name for gentleman—horter. I nodded. “If he looks safe, Tafnu, send him in by all means.”

Tafnu bowed and went out. Fweygo, idly, said: “Expecting anyone?”

“No. Hardly. Don't know anyone in Oxonium.”

“It might be wise to keep your blade loose in its scabbard.”

Thinking of my recent experiences I heartily agreed with Fweygo. At the same time I had every hope that this was Naghan the Barrel, or perhaps one of his men, bringing me back the sword that had caused me so much grief. I stood up and looked at the door.

Lightly, with enjoyment running behind his words, Fweygo said: “If it's an irate father with a loaded crossbow—count me out!”

The fellow who walked in with a peculiar gliding gait I recognized as one of Naghan's men from our escapade, Nalgre the Ron, for his hair was ginger and although it was not your true Lohvian red hair probably owed its color to a distant ancestor from Loh. “Horters,” he said politely, and swallowed, and said no more. Fweygo drew himself up.

“No loaded crossbow, then. Right. I've a few errands.” He went out and it was gracefully done. I eyed Nalgre the Ron.

He wore a brownish-yellow shamlak with black cords, one loop of which was broken. There was a nasty bruise on his left cheek. As Fweygo had well known when he made his jocular remark, there was no chance of a loaded crossbow, for Nalgre wore no weapons. Nandisha's guards had seen to that long before Nalgre even saw Tafnu. He spoke quietly.

“Horter. I am to take you where you wish to go.”

“Was anyone hurt—killed?”

“Wounds only.”

“I see. I am ready. Wenda!” I said. “Let's go!”

Outside I said to Tafnu: “I shall not be long, please tell the Kildoi. A matter of some urgency.” As Tafnu bowed, Nalgre and I hurried along the corridor to the entrance hall. Here he was given his weapons back by the guard detail on duty. A dagger, of course, an essential item of wear upon Kregen, was slipped away followed by a chunky short-hafted axe. He had also one of those blades in length between braxter and shortsword called slikkers, much favored where steel is overly expensive. The day was warm so I took no cloak or cape. Nalgre did not speak until we had left the palace and were walking rapidly across the Kyro of Perfumers. Mabal and Matol, the twin Suns of Scorpio, shed their refulgent lights of jade and ruby across the flagstones and shot a glitter from dome and cornice above.

“Lingurd was cut up, and Roidon the Riscus lost a few feathers and had his beak knocked askew. That devil-spawned Kataki, Trako Ironbelly, should be sent down to the Ice Floes of Sicce with his tail lopped off.”

We went along Ferndown Street and then turned again and came upon the cable car terminus from the opposite direction. A few people waited and when the next car docked there was no trouble. We paid our copper obs for the journey and swung and swayed across to the next hill. Eventually we crossed the Hill of Sturgies and Nalgre led me along unfamiliar streets to a small but respectable-looking house in a back alley. He knocked.

A bristle-haired Brokelsh, Tarbak the Sohan, answered. He, too, bore bruises. “By the Resplendent Bridzilkelsh! You took your time. Lingurd is nearly dead.”

Naghan the Barrel rolled up from an inner room, his fat face grave. “This way.”

In the darkened room poor old Lingurd the polsim lay on a bed and coughed blood down his chin. He had been stuck through and the bandages across his chest were soaked. A little Och lady was trying to change the dressings. She had dotted the various parts of his anatomy with her needles to ease the pain. Lingurd spoke through a bubble of blood.

“Do not worry, Mother Ivy. I'm done for, may Impolimar receive me at the end.”

“Your sacred Impolimar will be vexed with you, Lingurd the Obstinate, if you do not let me attend you.” As she spoke her left upper held a cold bandage to his forehead, her right upper held him down and her two middle limbs expertly re-dressed the wound. “There. Just lie still, you stryler.”

Staring down on Lingurd I reflected he was in no real position to be obstinate, what in Kregish is called stryle, not with this brisk little Puncture Lady attending him. The wound looked bad; I judged he'd live.

“Speak up, Lingurd.” Nalgre the Barrel's voice, fruity as ever, held just the edge of testiness.

“I waited for the notor,” Lingurd said, with difficulty. “The trust—and the Watch—but I did not fail.”

“I'm sure you didn't, Lingurd.” I made my tones pleasant.

“They were on us. The item—I hid it.” He tried to move restlessly and Mother Ivy soothed him. He went on in that weak voice: “In a barrel—you remember, notor, the barrels?”

I nodded. “Which one?”

“A chalk mark—yellow.”

“I recall they all had a yellow mark.”

“Yes. The sign for She of the Veils. And the figure ord.”

The mark meant the eighth month of Kregan's fourth moon, She of the Veils.

Before I could answer Raerdu spluttered out: “You could have told us before this! I'll have some men go down there at once—”

“And,” I cut in. “I shall go with them.”

“But—”

“But, as they say in Clishdrin, me no buts, my friend. I am going.”

Naghan Raerdu knew me of old. He ceased his protestations. Our venture would have to be carried out this night and so for the short time remaining I ate and drank and presently Nalgre the Ron started in humming a tune, some others joined in, and a spritely little sing-song was in progress. I felt these ruffians were not singing in an attempt to keep up their spirits for the night. Most, not all, Kregans love to sing and seize any opportunity to caterwaul the old favorite tunes. We had, I remember “The Maiden with the Single Veil” and “Zakryst's Great War Horse” among songs current over most of Paz. A comical song of Tolindrin, funny and at the same time, to a foreigner, pathetic in its wish-fulfillment is “Nath the Iarvin among the Clouds.” This tells of how Nath the Iarvin, a simple candle-maker's son, sought his fortune in Caneldrin, the nation immediately to the north of Tolindrin. He found himself one day on one of the volgendrins that circle in the air in that country and by calling upon Tolaar the Mighty sailed the flying island all the way south to Tolindrin. The song finishes with Nath the Iarvin's joyous reception at home. As to why there are no volgendrins soaring in the air in Tolindrin—well that is another and altogether more painful truth of geography.

At last Naghan Raerdu stood up and the sing-song was over. A couple of his men went out to scout the neighborhood. If any spies had followed Nalgre the Ron and myself here they were far more expert than those two back in Amintin whom Fweygo had seen off. I had not been conscious of anybody tailing us and Nalgre confirmed that as his own feelings.

They found me another floppy hat and a short cloak and so, disguised as a right tearaway ruffian of the runnels, off I went with this band of cut-throats. The new rapier and left hand dagger were concealed by the cloak; the sword I'd taken from Palfrey's unconscious guard was buckled up in a handy position so that my fist could haul hilt fast.

We did not use the lifter but descended the rubble-strewn slope carefully. Occasionally the Maiden with the Many Smiles peeped out from the clouds but in general we had darkness to cloak our nefarious activities. This gang led by Naghan had followed me to The Brass Lily. We all knew the way along the dolorous runnels among the stews, avoiding the piles of refuse and the thickly clinging mud that never seemed to dry out. The smells choked up our nostrils once again and the weird cries that echoed among the buildings spoke eloquently—and hideously—of all manner of deviltry going on here.

At the penultimate block we halted. The tavern was visible through a thin mist that hung about damply. A gyp lolloped across to a pile of rubbish and started to ferret about. Cautiously we skirted around to arrive at the rear of The Brass Lily. The sounds of revelry flowed muted from the front.

“This is the back entrance to the yard,” grunted Naghan in my ear.

“And that's Fonnell's snug,” I whispered, pointing to the building where the Fristle had met his death. “Not that he needs it now.”

“So where are the damn barrels?”

“Right alongside the snug where poor Lingurd was standing. You can't see ‘em from out here. Still,” I nodded my head. “You can see that confounded trapdoor where I went down like offal down a mincer.”

Naghan's laugh wheezed as he stifled his amusement. Here in Tolindrin the barrel of Northern countries was used as a container alongside the amphora of Southern lands. Both barrels and amphorae traveled the wide world of Kregen. The trade of coopering is demanding in its exactitude—but then, so is throwing a pot—and as a consequence barrels were cared for. This stack consisted of the empties, ready to be picked up and returned to the merchants.

Naghan moved forward, bulky and determined. He whispered over his shoulder. “Liftu, you and Nath the Nose keep watch out here.” He passed me and said: “I'll just go in and—”

I took his arm. “Not so. It's down to me to go first.” I added and even as I spoke, knew I shouldn't: “You should know me by now, my friend.”

He grunted his wheezing snort. “Oh, aye, I know. I remember The Headless Zorcaman.”

So, in I went, peering every which way in the erratic illumination.

As you know, although I was not absolutely sure, I had an inkling the Star Lords had given me the ability to see rather better in gloomy situations than a person with normal eyesight might expect. Certainly, the details of the yard were easy enough to make out. Noise from the front of The Brass Lily spurted through the night. I slunk in and turned towards Fonnell's snug and the stack of empty barrels. All bore yellow chalk markings.

The barrels were piled up differently from the way I pictured them in my mind. If the sword had been discovered ... Rapidly I searched for the yellow chalk mark of the eighth month of She of the Veils.

There were many kinds of marks, many of them half obliterated and washed away by rain, some with new marks over old. What I sought was not visible in the first or second tier of barrels. The top two tiers leaned crazily out like projecting house fronts. There was nothing for it but to climb up.

At my elbow Naghan whispered: “I don't see it.”

“Give me a leg up.”

So, with Naghan's brawny fist under my shoe, up I went. I clawed at the lip of the top barrel and with a squirming wriggle like an eel hoisted myself onto the top. I lay there for a moment, hoping not enough noise had been made to attract attention through the racket from the tavern.

The yellow marks danced like abandoned sarabandas in a pagan temple. I blinked and cleared my eyes and looked and there the mark was, plain as a pikestaff, the eighth month of She of the Veils.

The empty barrel top came off easily and I reached in and the whole pile erupted like an avalanche and in an infernal thundering uproar the stack of barrels collapsed. Barrels bounced and rolled everywhere across the yard. Down I went like a skier whose somersault has come to grief. Smack flat down on my back I flopped like a landed fish, gasping. The barrels were rolling and booming and careening about all over the yard.

“Krug take it!” yelped Naghan as he went toppling over knocked flying by a maniacal barrel. I tried to sit up and was rolled flat again by a demonic booming monster plunging from the top rear tier. This was like being in the way of a vove cavalry charge. Gasping, I clawed up once more and stared in horror at the trundling devastation across the yard.

You couldn't have aroused more attention by beating a battalion's massed drums. The rear door of the tavern flew open, lamplight flowered across the tiles, and men bearing weapons tumbled out.

“By the leprous left ear and disgusting decayed right nostril of Makki Grodno!” I fumed away as I leaped up. “What a way to conduct a silent secret nefarious operation!”

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter seventeen

All the same—by Krun! you had to laugh!

One crazed barrel was spinning on its axis like a Whirling Dervish. A fellow from the tavern loosed at it and the bolt caromed from the revolving staves and steamed off into the night. The uproar bellowed splendidly in the back yard of The Brass Lily.

Uproariously amusing though this imbroglio was, time was dropping inexorably away, grain by grain, drop by drop. Where in a Herrelldrin Hell was that Djan-forsaken sword?

The men from the tavern were in no doubt that some rival gang had chosen this very night to stage a surprise attack on The Brass Lily. They stormed into the yard shooting at anything that moved. Bolts and arrows feathered into barrels or caromed away under the stars. Yells of order and counter-order spurted as they tried to discover what exactly was going on.

Then—and for the sweet sake of Opaz I let out a yelp of pure delight—a barrel swung on its last revolution and halted beside me and there, plain as the nose on your face, gleamed the yellow chalk mark I sought. I dived headlong.

The double-damned empty barrel was empty!

“Oh, my Divine Lady of Belschutz!” I ground out through my teeth. “You and Makki-Grodno were created one for the other!”

Now Naghan's men had been inordinately patient during all this furore. True, they were at the gate keeping watch. True, they were hired hands. But, equally truthfully, they had been paid good red gold for a task to their liking and so now when they were shot at it irked them. They shot back.

The result was instantaneous. In the flickering uncertain light as the moon shed her radiance down through the ever-shifting clouds the men from The Brass Lily let out yells of consternation. They turned and rushed back into the tavern. So much for their brave advance against the enemy!

Looking about this way and that, and I can tell you I was in a right old state by this time, I searched for that miserable sword. Try to do someone a good turn, try to fulfill a promise to a dying man, and look where it gets you ... Caught up in a diabolical mess like this.

Kicking barrels out of the way and heaving them rolling in the general direction of the tavern, I peered about like a beggar searching for scraps in a refuse dump. A gleam from the end of a tub, a quick heave of my shoulders and—there it lay. The confounded sword caught a stray flash of light and winked, as it were, insolently at me, laughing at my concern.

I snatched it up and yelled: “All out! Wenda!”

In a tumbling mass we rollicked out of the yard and hared along up the alley. The Maiden with the Many Smiles took pity on us then and allowed drifting clouds to cover her roseate glory. In pungent gloom we hurried along.

Naghan the Barrel, wily as ever, called softly: “This way,” and led off down a narrow-gutted alley even more dark and forbidding than the last.

That cross-way led into another. Naghan's sense of direction did not fail and I, a stranger here, sensed too the way we were heading. We pressed on. Naghan held up a hand and we all collided in a chain, bump, bump, bump, and so came to a halt. Ahead a wider street lay pooled with light from lanterns hitched thinly to corner buildings. The ominous tramp of iron-shod boots echoed into the night air.

There was no need for Naghan or anyone to say: “Shastum! Silence!” Like fearful mice we waited, suppressing our breathing, our eyes gleaming muddily like bad eggs, our weapons clutched in grimy fists. The Watch stalked past.

The Kataki Hikdar who led them was not, of course, Trako Ironbelly; no doubt he was a collateral relation and almost as bad. Itching though we might be to leap out and drub these licensed villains, we kept still and silent.

We gave the Watch ample time to march off—march! That was a laugh. They strolled along in no kind of step or order, masichieri, the lot of ‘em.

“They're gone,” whispered Nath the Nose.

“Aye,” rumbled Naghan. “Gone to Cottmer's Caverns I hope.”

After that we were able to negotiate the rest of the drab and festering warrens and so reach the rubble slope and climb back up to the fresher air of the hill. “Anybody could climb up here,” I said to Naghan. “Don't the folk on the hills worry? Keep guards?”

“The rabble can climb up—to do what? The guards exist at points where they are needed. It would take half a dozen armies to guard every way up from the warrens to the hills.”

“And,” added Liftu, “they know if they do climb up a force will descend and wreak vengeance. Not a pretty sight, that.”

“I can imagine,” I said. And, by Krun, I could.

Nalgre the Ron, who despite his bruises had insisted on going with our expedition, brought up the rear of the party. He kept a wary eye out and, to our relief, was able to report that no one followed us.

We regrouped at the inconspicuous house and our immediate enquiries regarding Lingurd were answered by Mother Ivy saying he was in a deep sleep. No one questioned her further. Kregen, after all, is Kregen, and there the doctoring process very very often includes a magical element. We all went into the side room for a wet.

Although our adventures down at The Brass Lily seemed to have lasted an eternity, little time had elapsed and the night was still young. Time for me at last to rid myself of the sword and my obligation to Strom Korden. Taking my leave with due formality and an expression of thanks I advised Naghan Raerdu I could be reached at Princess Nandisha's palace. Then I set off for the palace of Hyr Kov Brannomar.

Naghan would not hear of my traversing the nighted streets of Oxonium alone, even though they were safe enough what with the Guard alert. A group accompanied me to Grand Central and I could hear them muttering questioningly among themselves at the downright foolish action on my part of boldly marching into the Hyr Kov's palace. I thanked them all again and promised to see them later. So, into the palace I went.

Brannomar ran a tight ship. The guards halted me under the first portico. They were polite about it; but the crossbows did not waver as they centered on my midriff. Their swords might be munitions quality, they'd be good and sharp within the quality of the steel.

“The lord is in a meeting,” I was told by the Deldar, sharp, correct, his uniform immaculate, his Deldar's rank badges glittering in the lantern lights. He was a Pachak and his yellow hair showed a neat trim under the rim of his helmet.

“Please send a message to the Hyr Kov. Tell him Drajak the Sudden has that which—”

“You are Drajak known as the Sudden?”

“Aye.”

Instantly a transformation occurred. The guard surrounded me, a Hikdar appeared, wiping his mouth with a yellow napkin, and off I was marched into the courtyard. Clearly, I was expected. A number of carriages stood about with grooms and coachmen in attendance. We went through the various passages until we reached those I recognized from my previous visit.

The inner guard, already alerted by a runner, took over here and in further I marched. I held my left hand on the hilt of Korden's sword nestling in the scabbard Naghan had provided. The brand had cost me a deal of sweat, toil and trouble—not to say pain—and the thought of losing it now at the last moment was not to be borne.

There was no hesitation about my introduction to the meeting. Double-doors were thrown open and the guard ushered me into a comfortable withdrawing room, furnished with couches and chairs and side tables. There were drinks on the tables together with light refreshments. From the faces of those in the meeting I judged this was no pleasant evening's entertainment.

Carefully, I looked at them all as Brannomar came forward, extending his hand. “You have it?”

“Aye, notor.” I drew the blessed thing and, smartly reversing it and resting the blade on my arm, extended the hilt towards him. He took it into his fist with the grip of a devotee of Kurin and a little sigh escaped his lips. “Thank you.” As I say, a polite noble, thank Zair!

Now the others in the room stood as though immersed in wax, absorbed in what was going on. Of them, Nandisha and Ranaj wore puzzled frowns. The spritely young fellow I'd met in the Shrine of Cymbaro with whom I'd had an argument about precedence through a door, and the faded woman sitting next to him, also looked puzzled by my entrance and the sword. Not so Khonstanton. His face drew down in a heavy frown. The young man standing in a pose of irritation near him almost started forward, and then halted, and so joined the rest in immobility.

Looking at Khonstanton I was minded to say something; but common sense held my lips sealed. Bad cess to him—he'd lost the precious sword!

The Lord Jazipur stared at Brannomar and the sword and his desire to leap forward and grasp the sword was written clearly on his face.

Brannomar turned away towards a table with the sword in his left hand. He drew a knife with his right. Now, I fancied, I'd find out what poor old Strom Korden's last dying words meant.

The atmosphere in the room breathed of tension. You could taste it. My entrance had interrupted a discussion that quite obviously was a full-blown argument. Passions boiled in these people's brains. You could almost see them bubbling and steaming ready to break out uncontrollably. Even Nandisha showed her puzzlement at my appearance and Brannomar's reaction tinged with a ladylike acerbity. ‘What,’ she was saying to herself in extreme annoyance, ‘does this man Drajak want here?'

That, I thought to myself rather ungraciously, I want to find out too, my lady!

Apart from the numim Ranaj they were all apims in the room. The youthful looking man standing and fidgeting away wearing the hard black shamlak with double-looped gold cords wore his weasel face, it seemed to me, in an unpleasant frown that was a permanent disfigurement. Now, unable to control himself any longer, he started forward towards Brannomar. My own thought was that if this pipsqueak wanted to tangle with the Hyr Kov Brannomar he was as big a fool as he looked to be an unpleasant character. Still, you cannot always tell a zorca by the length of his horn and I could be dwaburs wide of the mark.

The very fact that these high-ranking nobles had gathered here during the night must indicate their business was of the utmost importance. As Brannomar went at the sword with his knife and everyone stared like a piranha in a blood-hungry shoal I stepped quietly away to stand with my back against a tapestried wall. Such was the intentness with which they all followed the Hyr Kov's every action they simply forgot all about me, a mere hireling paktun whose duty was now accomplished.

Anyway, who were the ones in here I didn't know?

The young man at whose shoulder I'd fought in the Shrine of Cymbaro had given me a single surprised look when I'd walked in, and then had concentrated on Brannomar and the sword. The faded woman must be his mother for the family resemblance was striking. And the other unhealthy-looking whippersnapper? My best guess was that they were the other princes I had heard of in line for the succession.

So that meant one was Ortyg and one was Tom. Which was which?

Weasel-face halted when he reached the table. Evidently the idea had belatedly occurred to him that Brannomar was no man to be hustled. Now the others crowded closer, the principals closer and their retainers or helpers craning over shoulders. My young friend from the temple assisted his mother to rise and allowed her plenty of space before him. Weasel-face positively exuded the sweat of anticipation. As I say, you cannot judge a sword by its decoration; all the same, the contrast here was painfully obvious.

Brannomar ran his knife point around the sword handle just below the pommel. As Naghan and I had surmised, a hollow handle would be the place to conceal whatever it was that so violently exercised these grandees. His knife slit around the bindings. He cut with precision and care and his hands had not the slightest quiver or shake. My impression of the kov as a tough customer, despite his white hair, were confirmed the more I saw of him.

The pommel came off and fell to roll away somewhere under the crowding feet. Brannomar upended the sword and shook. A chunk of lead plopped out.

“Ah!” exclaimed the Lord Jazipur. “Now we're getting somewhere.”

The young fellow I had taken the instant and, to be honest, almost irrational dislike to shoved in further. He jostled Khonstanton.

Mak Khon twisted and looked down and his face showed a heavy flush of anger. “Have a care, Ortyg!”

“There is no chance for you, kov!” flared this fellow Prince Ortyg. “It is you who should have a care!”

“We shall see what the Red One brings, prince. You would do well to bear that in mind.”

“As should you bear in mind the fate of all traitors!”

What might have occurred then Opaz alone knows. Brannomar shook the sword. Everyone expected something to pop out of the hilt, and my guess was Khonstanton and this Prince Ortyg had known what it was some time ago. Nandisha and the other young prince, who must be Tom, I equally judged had only recently found out—probably at this very night time meeting.

Brannomar shook the sword. He shook it violently. Nothing slid out of the hollow handle. The scar slashed down the kov's left cheek blazed a white line down his bronzed skin.

“Well, kov?” ground out Khon the Mak. His heavy blue-black hair formed a striking contrast to the pallor of his face, intent, dominating, demanding.

Ordinary folk had always to remember that the principals in this room were high-born and high-flown nobles, choleric of temper, impatient if their every wish was not instantly fulfilled. They were used to having their own way. That, I knew from previous harsh experience on Kregen, applied to them all, every last one.

“Here, let me,” rapped out Ortyg. He reached for the sword.

I did not let a little regretful sigh escape my lips, although I might well have done. This was like a vicious leem tangling with a zhantil.

“I am perfectly capable, thank you, Prince Ortyg.” Brannomar's words came softly from those hard thin lips. Then: “Do not presume too far, boy.”

Ortyg's face and shocked reaction spoke eloquently of the boiling passions, the vaunting ambitions devouring him. But he had the sense to remain silent.

“These Dokerty-contumed priests of Cymbaro,” broke out Khonstanton. “They have played us false!”

“On the contrary,” spoke up Prince Tom, firmly, his own passions well in hand. “They are to be trusted absolutely.”

“The old king thought so,” said Nandisha, “from what you have told us.”

“The old king was in his two-hundred and fiftieth season dotage!” snarled Ortyg.

Brannomar did not deign to reply; but Khon the Mak took the opportunity to take another crack at Ortyg's presumptions. “The old king was half-dead when he arranged this stupid and pointless charade. But he could still take you and spit you out before breakfast!”

Young Ortyg's face resembled those little squirmy beasties that creep and crawl about through the eyesockets of the skulls piled in the Mausolea of Trannimora. Despite his appearance and manner to the contrary there must be in him some shreds of nobility through his inheritance, surely? Or was that just wishful thinking on my part? Here he was, a young and ambitious prince openly desirous of being selected as the legitimate successor to the old king and he was being put down left and right by his elders. Any youngster of spirit detests the know-it-all attitude of the senile oldsters who tell her or him just what to do and think. Oh, yes, despite the dislike for him I had to acknowledge as unworthy on my part, I could feel for him.

Just look at them, gathered at this secret nighttime conclave!

Four strands weaving a net of deception and treachery, they seemed to be to me. Nandisha, devoted to her children. Prince Tom, a little apart from the others in their naked greed for the crown. Prince Ortyg, craving for power and all that goes with it. And Hyr Kov Khonstanton so much more purposeful and deadly even than the others, the outsider, the dark rider, the one whose machinations would brook no interruptions whatsoever from anyone. As well for Dray Prescot if he remembered that that included him.

Brannomar shook Strom Korden's sword again. He upended it and tried to look into the handle. He prised in with his knife but the blade was too wide. On the instant a long thin poniard appeared in Ortyg's fingers. That slender lethal blade was not to be seen and then was there in a twinkling. “Here,” he said, curtly. “Try this.”

Brannomar took it, grunted something, and slid it into the sword hilt. He twisted about without success. Everyone stared in rapt fascination.

Ranaj looked on, stroking his golden whiskers, a part of all this because of his allegiance to Nandisha and yet further removed than the Lord Jazipur and Tom's mother. Nothing, it seemed, was to be discovered in the hollow handle of the sword.

If looks could kill the room would have been filled with dead bodies, by Krun!

The avarice and mutual hate driving these people filled the place with an almost palpable aura. The suffocating sense of violent passions barely suppressed choked the atmosphere. It made the spine tingle I can tell you! They might seem like small children squabbling over the exact division of a fruit cake; the powers each wielded made them antagonists to be feared. No mercy, none whatsoever in whatever pantheon any of them believed in, would be shown by them or to them. And may Opaz have mercy on the hindmost!

Brannomar looked up, the frustration on his bronzed face twisting the scar into an ivory serpent. “It has to be here, in Strom Korden's sword! It has to be!”

“Then let me,” rapped out Khon the Mak. He reached out and to my surprise Brannomar handed the sword across.

“I suspect treachery here.” Hyr Kov Brannomar took a breath. “If it is not to be found before the Feast of Beng T'Tolin then I shall sign the treaty with Vallia.”

Khonstanton, who had been prodding and prying around in the hilt, jerked upright. “You! Only the king may sign a treaty of such significance to the well being of Tolindrin!”

“I am well aware of that, kov. But if there is no king then I—”

“Not so fast!” Ortyg stepped forward, pent-up with baffled rage. “I have the best claim and therefore I should sign!”

“Nonsense, boy.” Khonstanton simply snarled it out without any deference to rank. “It needs a man with experience, a man like me.”

Nandisha put a finger to her mouth, eyes wide. Prince Tom said nothing at all but merely watched, a half smile on his lips.

If the bunch of them had drawn swords and gone at one another tooth and nail that would not have surprised me in the mood they were. I was fascinated by the reference to a treaty with Vallia. My lad Drak must have decided in Tolindrin's favor after all. As the Emperor of Vallia he could call on the advice of the various pallans and the Presidio of Vallia. In addition he had the inestimable advantage of having Silda, the daughter of my blade comrade Seg Segutorio, at his side as the Empress of Vallia. Vallia's need was for airboats, vollers that did not break down. The lifters of Tolindrin must have weighed in the balance, even against the airboats of the three other nations here who built lifters.

I had been learning a good deal of the entangled politics of this land. What had been said here had opened my eyes to a great deal of what had been going on since my arrival in Amintin. There were still pieces of the puzzle missing. Those, I felt sure in the martial benevolence of Djan, would come my way soon.

Again the sword that lay at the core of all this was shaken. Nothing fell from that hidden secret recess in the handle.

“Two days!” Khon the Mak snarled it out. “May the ibma of Slissur take it! Two days to the Feast of T'Tolin.”

He would have said more; but Brannomar interrupted incisively.

“Two days in which to settle the inheritance.” He glanced away from Khonstanton. “We shall settle it, never fear. Until then I remain in the position I hold and—”

“Oh, no!” Ortyg's narrow face was now distorted with the ambitions driving him. He was past the reckoning that had so far held him in check. Before he could go on Khonstanton's voice blattered him down.

“For once I agree with the whippersnapper. Nothing will be settled by this, Brannomar. You must recognize that now. I have reached the end of my patience. This means one thing. War!”

Brannomar snapped around to face Mak Khon. “If you are so foolish—”

Ortyg got out through his distorted mouth. “War!”

Brannomar lifted a hand. “And the very worst kind of war there is. Civil war.”

“Aye!” Khon the Mak drew himself up. “A just war to gain the inheritance that is rightfully mine!”

“You prattle idly, kov.” The fingers of Ortyg's left hand reached down for the hilt of his missing poniard in a gesture betrayingly automatic. “The people detest you, Khon the Mak. They look to me, to youth, to the future—”

“My twins,” said Nandisha breathily, “have the direct line—”

“Not so!” and: “Rubbish!” from Ortyg and Khonstanton.

Prince Tom half-turned away, raising his shoulders in a helpless little gesture, at once amused and disgusted. “I want nothing of it.”

“Then leave the business for those with the stomach for it!” Mak Khon shook the sword savagely. “All your schemes have come to grief, Brannomar. My troops are ready. We march on Oxonium—”

“As are mine!” flared Ortyg. “We shall see who can march faster—”

“You fools!” roared Brannomar. “You will destroy the nation.”

In a display at once arrogant and repulsive, Khon the Mak turned to Nandisha. He looked down on her, and he tried to make that harsh face smile. “Your twins have always been near my heart, Nan. Join me and—”

Ortyg brayed a laugh as contemptuous as any calsany's.

What might have happened then Opaz alone knows. By sheer force of personality Brannomar brought them to silence, hand upraised. He ground his words out as the Mills of the Dahemin grind out the fates of mortal humanity. “If you must fight then Tolaar must have decreed it. But there is one thing you must see. Vallia! The treaty must not be jeopardized. Delay your criminal war until after the Feast of T'Tolin.”

Through all the red-roaring passions of greed and anger and pride rattling away in these stiff-necked nobles’ heads, the sheer commonsense of Brannomar's words struck through. Like fighting cocks stalking one another, although they stood in artificial poses of hauteur, they appeared to circle around, weapons ready, seeking the opening that would lead to the kill.

“Yes.” Khonstanton spoke at last, nodding his head. “Yes. Ortyg—”

The ferret-face turned and a half-shadow fell across the thin features. “Yes. We may curse the name of Vallia; but the haughty shints are necessary. Yes, Khonstanton, to the Feast of T'Tolin.”

Whether or not Mak Khon believed him I didn't know. I did know I wouldn't trust any of ‘em as far as a baby in a cot could throw a longsword.

“No word must get out.” Brannomar spoke with quiet emphasis that contrasted forcefully with the previous passionate upheavals. “If Vallia—”

“They will not find out from me!” snarled Mak Khon.

“Nor from me. But—” Here Ortyg swiveled so that the shadow turned his face into a mottled mask. He stared at me. “No one must know.”

“That is no problem.” Khonstanton drew his sword.

Nandisha's little gasp broke from her painfully. “No!”

“The shint means nothing.” Ortyg's sword was in his fist.

Prince Tom swung back, clearly uncertain. Whatever he or Nandisha might feel, whatever regret might stir Brannomar, nothing was going to stop the other two from trying to chop me down and seal the lips of the only witness to their schemes.

Ortyg and Khonstanton, swords lifted, rushed straight for me.

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Chapter eighteen

I went through the flung-open double-doors faster than a hare avoiding a hound. The two guards outside were left gaping. Straight down the corridor I hurtled and the furious and baffled shouts of Khonstanton and Ortyg spurred me on. Oh, yes, surely, I could have stayed in that close room of secrets and fought them and no doubt I'd have done for ‘em into the bargain. But that would have been utterly foolish and stupidity of that kind formed no part of my plans.

Around the first corner I sprinted, skidding on a rug, regaining my balance and tearing on headlong.

Once I was fairly away from this high echelon area and among the maze of corridors and passageways and halls I could lose myself. These grandiose palaces of Kregen in general are honeycombed with secret passages and I'd used them before in my lurid goings on in that world four hundred light years from the planet of my birth. Now I had to use what skill I'd gained over the seasons to find a hidden entrance. And, by Krun, I had to find the damn thing quickly, very quickly indeed!

The state architect of the great deren in Vondium had taught me much and I'd developed the knack of looking out for the extra thickness of wall here or the oddly angled buttress there. Down half a dozen passages further on a door leading to a medium-sized chamber with dolphins as decoration was guarded by a Rapa leaning on his halberd. Before the feathered fellow had time to squawk he went to sleep standing up and as I eased him to the marble floor the thickness of the wall in which the door was set attracted my immediate attention.

Various protuberances in the carved and gilded foliage architrave merited further inspection. It was no use looking for a worn away knob. If you have a secret passage and wish to keep it secret then you do not advertise its presence. After a deal of pushing and pulling and pressing a nicely rounded dillope fruit, a juicy form of satsuma, yielded. There was no loud click; but a stem and branches revolved to disclose a narrow dark opening. Quick as a ferret down a rabbit hole I was in and the panel revolved shut at my back. Even without the Everoinye-bestowed lack-of-light vision, I could see by the aid of the pencil-thin shafts of radiance falling from various spyholes. Immediately I felt quite at home.

Although this was in the middle of the night the palace was astir like a disturbed ants’ nest. That, by Vox, was my doing!

Well, bad cess to all of them. I knew what I had to do. The how of it was the problem. Hyr Kov Brannomar would be well guarded.

In addition, and on Kregen it is a weighty matter, by Krun! I was in need of sustenance, both food and drink. Particularly a wet. Off I set along the runnels between the walls, looking out, going silently, directing my cautious steps in the general downward direction of the kitchens.

When by the smells I knew I was close it was also borne in on me that whilst food was prepared day and night, for guards, servants, slaves, this level of activity meant the whole place was aroused—aye! aroused and searching for me.

After a succession of store rooms I at last peered through a small hole into a kitchen. I say a kitchen, for undoubtedly there were more than one in such a large establishment. A rotund, buxom, sweating woman was unmercifully thrashing a scrawny knobbly-kneed lad who yelled blue murder.

Nonplussed I just stood for a moment, watching. Had that been a big man thrashing a young girl there would have been no problem. Oh, yes, I am well aware of all the contradictions in the contradictory nature of the fellow known as Dray Prescot. The girl or the lad could have done something so heinous that the punishment on the cruel world of Kregen was richly deserved. This strong woman with the bulging biceps was laying it on a bit thick, though. The lad was a mere bag of bones. The rolling pin being used on him would have laid out a zhanpaktun with a five-foot long pakai. So, being Dray Prescot and unable to stop putting my big nose into other people's affairs, I pushed the lever and jumped into the kitchen.

My foot landed on something greasy and off I went, skidding across the floor with my arms waving about like a manic orangutan. A desperate clutch at a table served only to overset the lot and a cascade of pots and pans clattered to the floor.

“Lawks ‘a mussy!” screamed the woman. She used a round Kregish phrase; the meaning was the same and then I'd skidded all the way and was wrapping my arms about her massive frame to try to keep my balance.

She dropped the lad. She did not drop the rolling pin.

The boy let out a single bellow and was off like a greyhound.

The rolling pin went up and came down and bounced most tellingly off my ear. So, to be in the fashion, for the uproar was splendid, I let out a tremendous yell—the confounded rolling pin hurt!—and span the woman about. She collapsed and then we were tumbling to the floor.

“Murder!” she screamed. “Help! Guards! Help!”

The lad was well away by now. There was nothing left here for me to do except try to avoid the frenzied flailing of the rolling pin.

Somehow or other, all mixed up with greasy and smelly aprons and voluminous petticoats, I staggered to my feet.

“Get off! Get off! Murder! Help!”

I, Dray Prescot, emperor, king, prince, lord of this and that, just ran.

Now I may only be an apim, a Homo sapiens sapiens, with a mere two arms and hands. In like circumstances my kregoinye comrade Fweygo, a Kildoi, would have done much better. As it was, I regained the shelter of the secret passage in the kitchen wall with a thick ham in one hand and a flagon in the other. The panel was closed by a smart doubling up so that my rear end clacked the door into place. I did not hang about.

These passageways were uniformly dusty, with spiders’ webs festooning everywhere and flang skins littering every nook and cranny. Perhaps Brannomar had no use for hidden corridors. I had. When I was a goodly distance away from the debacle in the kitchen I slumped down with my back wedged comfortably into a corner and started on the provisions.

What a night this was turning into! First it was rolling barrels and then it was rolling pins. What next in the rolling menagerie awaited me?

The ham was good, the wine poor. After a time I stood up and started off again. This time my way led upwards.

There is no need to detail all the passageways and crevices I essayed in my search. Suffice it to say that towards morning I at last reached my goal.

Breathing silently, I stared through a chink in the wall into Kov Brannomar's retiring room. The place was furnished like a study, with well-filled bookshelves, desk, a comfortable chair, a lounging sofa, and a table at which sat Brannomar in person. I was unable to see the other end of the table from my point of observation and there were no other slits in the walls. I stood quietly watching and listening. Brannomar was speaking in a decisive, intolerant, almost menacing way.

“...you deserve to be calsany-whipped around the palace for your stupidity. Do you fully realize the damage you have caused?”

A woman's voice answered. As she spoke she advanced into my view.

“For my children, kov! Only for them—please, you must believe me!”

“But I do not believe you.”

She wore a lounging robe of deep blue, gold trimmed with much lace. Her bright bold face, so much like a hawk's, was now set in lines of desperation. She was pleading for her life. Her hands clutched the lace at her breast and her hair fell to straggle across her shoulders.

“Please, notor, I meant no harm to you! I swear it!”

“You may swear on all the gods in creation, my lady Vita; all the same, what you have done has created much mischief. The kingdom is like to fall. By Beng T'Tolin, woman, your selfish meddling has brought war!”

“But I did not want—”

“I know what you wanted, Vita. The Lord Jazipur was good enough for you when you married him. He is a fine upright man—”

“Yes!” she flared at him. “So upright he has no ambitions left!”

“He serves me and my kovnate and through me the kingdom. He well understands his position. I value him as a friend. But you—”

“I did not know that they would do such dreadful things!”

“Had you taken counsel of your husband you would have understood more of the realities of politics. As it is, your ambitious meddling is past the point where anyone may intervene. The die is set. There will be war, woman, a war you have created!”

She shrank away, seemingly at last conscious of the enormity of her treachery. I'd seen her in Khonstanton's palace. It was not hard to guess what she'd been up to there. Any woman has the right to ambition and the right to want her husband to prosper. Destinies have been played out, empires risen and fallen on the desires of women. Men and women have no rights when they are born save those that lineage and civilization confer. Misuse brings tragedy. Poor Lady Vita had vaulted with her ambitions, and they had undone her.

They went on in much the same vein, arguing, recriminations and passionate defenses alternating, and the sense of much of it came clear.

Truth to tell, after a time I grew impatient with the pair of them. Brannomar was actually wrangling with the woman. This surprised me completely. Then, from what they said, I gathered the Lady Vita had once harbored ambitions to marry Hyr Kov Brannomar. He had refused her. She already had two children from an early marriage and this first husband had died. There was every reason to wonder if his death had not been accelerated by Vita. So she had married Brannomar's trusted right hand man. Jazipur had Brannomar's confidence and so far I judged that confidence not misplaced—save in this one instance of Jazipur's marriage.

At last the hyr kov stood up. He placed both hands flat on the table and so stood, glowering down on the Lady Vita.

“I shall not decide your fate yet. I must speak with the Lord Jazipur. You must add to your crimes of treachery the pain you have caused a good and honorable man. Guards!”

In they came in their bronze and iron and they took the Lady Vita away. To her credit, the last I saw of her then, she stopped her sobbing and wailing. She stuck her chin out and that bold hawk-like face up, and she stalked away surrounded by guards armed and in armor.

And then, confound it! Brannomar took himself off after them.

I was left fuming in my hidey-hole.

The trouble now was—would the Star Lords regard all this intrigue as a legitimate part of the task assigned Fweygo and me? If they did not, then I could face being hurled four hundred light years back to languish on Earth until either they relented or were in need of my services once more.

As they say in the jargon of Clishdrin, I reviewed my options. Eventually I came to the conclusion my best course of action was to hang on here until Brannomar returned to his study. He must work in private in this comfortable snug on his state papers, and the situation now with war looming meant he would carry a heavy work load. I stayed put.

Naturally enough, being fallibly human, I fretted over this decision debating with myself if I wasn't making a dreadful mistake. I shifted incautiously and a whole flood of dust and cobwebs fell about my head.

The clinging powdery dust got right up my hooter. I could feel the mother and father of a sneeze overtaking me. Scuttling like a demented crab I rushed off along the dark passage and then let rip with an almighty atishoo! Tears sprang to my eyes. I sneezed again. I sneezed half a dozen times, and then I swiped at my eyes and nose and felt better and so gingerly made my way back to my spyhole.

Brannomar was just turning around in my vision as I peered in. If he'd heard those gargantuan sneezes he gave no sign and in my agitated state I didn't pick up just what he was doing. I reached for the lever and pulled, the secret panel slid open, and I tumbled through.

He was quick. Oh, yes, Hyr Kov Brannomar was no slouch when it came to swordhandling. The braxter ripped free of the scabbard and the point snouted towards me.

I opened my mouth ready to say something like: “All right, kov. Stand easy.” I opened my mouth all right and the sneeze roared up from the soles of my feet and through my shaking body and just erupted like a coruscating volcano. I sprayed everything in the vicinity. Water clouded my vision. Shaking my head and trying to get things in focus I was ready to try again when a gasp of utter astonishment burst from the side of the room I had not been able to see. Hands in the air I swung about.

The man who had just been ushered into the room, for the door was just closing at his back, wore sturdy buff clothes, the wide-shouldered jacket, the buff breeches and tall black boots I recognized immediately. His hand clasped the wide-brimmed hat with two slots cut in the forward brim and the jaunty feather was red and yellow. I knew him. He stared goggle-eyed at me. He knew enough not to go into the slavish full incline. That indignity had been done away with during my early days as Emperor of Vallia. He drew himself up to his full height.

“Majister!” said Elten Larghos Invordun na Thothsturboin. “By Vox! Majister!”

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter nineteen

“Majister?” Brannomar's sword thrust forward. “What nonsense is this?”

“I have to tell you, kov,” said Elten Larghos in a direct metallic voice, “if you try to harm this gentleman I shall kill you, immediately, without reck of the consequences.”

Brannomar swung to face him and it was quite clear he'd never heard Larghos speak in that deadly tone of voice before.

“Now, now,” I said. “Lahal, Larghos. There's no need of killing among friends.”

“Majister!” spluttered Brannomar. “What the hell is going on?”

Elten Larghos in his usual diplomatic voice said: “Hyr Kov Brannomar, you have the honor to be in the presence of Dray Prescot.”

Brannomar opened his mouth, shut it, and still carrying his sword he crossed to his chair and sat down. Rather, he collapsed into the seat. “Dray Prescot! Emperor of Vallia!” And then, of course, he realized the enormity of the disaster that he assumed had blighted his plans. “You heard everything!”

Ignoring the kov, Larghos said: “You are well, majister?” He eyed my dust-covered clothes with the cobwebs entangled in my hair. Now because of the many books and plays and puppet shows about Dray Prescot in Paz that portray him leaping about Kregen wearing the brave old scarlet breechclout and wielding the great Krozair longsword, no one is very much surprised when I turn up in unexpected places—like now. Larghos was not amazed at seeing me after the first moment; now he wanted to know if all went well with me in view of my deplorable condition.

“Perfectly well, thank you Larghos. Now I believe we have some explaining to do to the good kov here.”

Looked at unemotionally—which could not, of course, be done—this whole situation was totally unreal. Here was a great and puissant noble in his own snug in his own palace suddenly confronted by a dust and cobwebbed figure leaping out of the wall at him. Then this lunatic turns out to be the ex-emperor of the very country with which the good kov so desperately needs to become allied. No wonder Brannomar with his white hair abruptly looked so haggard.

The Vallian ambassador to Tolindrin gave me a wry smile. “Aye, majister. I came in here to tie up a few loose ends in the treaty. Now I believe I need to know a great deal more before I sign on behalf of the Emperor Drak and Empress Silda and Vallia.”

“Indeed, and so do I. There's skullduggery afoot in Oxonium. I know some of it and can guess more. Much of it is simple-minded. But there are one or two items of interest outstanding.” I spoke directly to the hunched figure slumped at the table. “Brannomar! Perk up, man!”

“Dray Prescot.” He spoke half to himself, whispering. Oh, surely, he'd read the books about that roaring desperado Dray Prescot!

Larghos fulfilling an ambassadorial function in a most diplomatic way poured a glass of parclear for the kov. Brannomar took it and drank and placed the glass down precisely before him. He looked up. He visibly took control of himself. Some of the old hard look of resolution returned.

“I believe you to be Dray Prescot. You now know how important the treaty is. I work for Tolindrin. I could summon guards and no more would be heard of you or the Vallian ambassador—”

Elten Larghos did not bother to draw his rapier or main gauche. He said, almost off-handedly: “But you would be dead first, kov.”

“You boasted just now, Elten. Like you, do you think I reck the cost of service to my king and country?”

I sighed and said: “I could do with a wet right now, Brannomar. And, also, your old king is dead.”

His head snapped up. Then his lips curled back. “You listened to us. It was not difficult to understand what was going on.”

“True. By the Feast of Beng T'Tolin, when the old king was due to show himself to the people, you must have a new king.”

“And you, of all people, had to be the one to bring the old king's will!” He shook that white poll. “Well, you know the will was not in Strom Korden's sword. The succession is not known. The old king trusted the priests of Cymbaro and they have played him false.”

“Would the contestants have abided by the old king's will?”

“Yes.”

“And, kov, you have no idea who it was he chose?”

“No.”

“It is a moil. I gather the Lady Vita sold out—”

He was past being surprised at new revelations of what had been revealed of the intrigues festering away in Oxonium. “The Lady Vita is a lady of spirit, too much spirit, perhaps. I refused her, and am thankful for that. Poor Jazipur got a bad bargain there. She was discovered in her treachery by Naghan the Ordsetter. Ironic that Jazipur's spymaster should catch the wife of his employer. She planned well, one must say that.”

It occurred to me to reinforce the impression he had of Dray Prescot by a piece of arrant boasting. This, I plead in my defense, was not pompous pride but calculated for effect.

“I saw the Lady Vita in Khonstanton's palace.”

He just took that in with all the rest. “She has a granddaughter. She told Khonstanton about the will in the sword in return for a promise that Khon the Mak would marry the granddaughter to his son. Vita has absolute power over her children and grandchildren.”

“So that's how that devil knew. From what I've seen of Khon Mak she was a fool to trust his word.”

“She was blinded by ambition.” He made a weary gesture. “Her grandson was to marry the infant daughter of Prince Ortyg—”

“By Krun!” I burst out. “So she played both ends against the middle! Whoever inherited, she thought she'd be running the show.”

“Ortyg employed the Fristle, Fonnell the Fractious, and his olive green clad scum. He imagined they could not be traced back to him because—”

“He used a Bravo Fighter from Zenicce as a go between.”

Oh, well, it was all adding up now. What Nandisha's chances in all this imbroglio were I couldn't tell. They looked slimmer by the moment. Then Brannomar added another piece to the puzzle.

“Prince Tomendishto has plans to do with the Shrine of Cymbaro. He has no interest in the throne. I believe him.”

“And if the old king left the crown to Prince Tom?”

“I am not sure. It was through Tom that the old king took an interest in Cymbaro. For secrecy and safety they thought the priests could carry the new will after the king's son died and keep it in Farinsee.”

Farinsee, from what I had seen from the distance, looked to be a stronghold of some importance, perched atop that strange mountain like Ayer's Rock. Even if the priests and their guards were only indifferent fighting men you'd need a good few regiments and engineers to take the place.

“Strom Korden was entrusted with the new will naming the heir, and then the old king died so the will became enforceable. It had to be returned to Oxonium at once.” He spread his hands helplessly. “You, Dray Prescot, witnessed the first result of the Lady Vita's blind treachery.”

“Yes.” I spoke with an ugly voice. “Good men and young girls dead.”

“And no will,” said Larghos who had kept his silence throughout.

Brannomar said dully: “No will, no heir, and Civil War.”

Silence fell in that comfortable study in the heart of a mighty palace. The inevitability of what the hyr kov prophesied weighed upon us all. Larghos cleared his throat and said: “The treaty, then, will not be made between Tolindrin and Vallia.”

Brannomar looked up wearily, the scar almost invisible, his thin mouth curved downwards. “That would appear to be so. But I would implore you to reconsider—”

“It's not up to me,” I said. “My son Drak and daughter-in-law Silda run Vallia now, thanks be to Opaz. But they are reasonable people.”

Larghos nodded sagely. “If there is Civil War in Tolindrin then Vallia cannot look to receive, among other things, very much in the way of baltrixes, silk or lifters.”

“We need good Vallian weapons, among many other trade items.” The hyr kov spread his hands.

“And there's another ugly aspect to all this.” I spoke harshly, for I felt warm upon the subject. “In addition to the theft of Korden's sword there have been attempts upon the lives of the Princess Nandisha and her children and upon Prince Tomendishto. Opaz alone knows how they've escaped death so far.”

This information appeared to shake Brannomar. He stood up. “I assure you, majister, that this is not how affairs usually are in Tolindrin. Not in the days of the old king.”

“That's how they are now.” Larghos's diplomatic manner fell away to reveal the fighting man of Vallia. “Trust is forfeit.”

I recalled the troubles through which poor old Nandisha and her kids had gone. They were not my immediate concern according to the Star Lords. All the same—I said: “I do not doubt Khon the Mak and Ortyg will try again. I would like to think they would fail through the efforts of loyal Tolindrese. As for the succession, it would be convenient if Nandisha's twins inherited—the boy, that is—and you, Brannomar, continued as Regent.”

“The succession follows at the hands of the king.”

“Yes, but—”

“That is how the matter lies, majister. If the will is not found then the inheritance will be decided by force of arms.”

By the lice-infested hair and maggot-infested intestines of Makki Grodno! All I wanted to do was discharge my obligations to the numim twins placed in Fweygo's and my care and then head off home to Esser Rarioch. All this skullduggery gave a fellow a pain in the skull.

His mention of the old king's will festered away in Brannomar's thoughts. He thumped a fist down on the table. “If only we could find the will! Strom Korden must have hidden it safely. It is not in the sword. So where in the name of Tolaar is it?”

Elten Larghos stepped forward. He'd been a warrior for the Liberation Army of Vallia, a Freedom Fighter in the Times of Troubles. Now he was a diplomat. His mind was now attuned in different ways. He said softly: “Majister. You were there. What did Strom Korden say to you. Exactly.”

My thoughts went back to that hideous scene on the road from Amintin. The dead men, the dead girls, the blood and stink. And young Tiri hiding behind the carriage. What had the dying man said?

“It was all indistinct. His mouth was filled with blood. He said: ‘Strom Korden. Lahal. Take the sword and take it to Hyr Kov Brannomar. By Cymbaro the Just I charge you.'”

“That is all, majister?” demanded Larghos, sharply.

“Aye, Larghos. All. He repeated some of it in his desperate urgency to fulfill his mission.”

“Take the sword and take it to Hyr Kov Brannomar.”

“Just so. After a few scrapes I did that.”

“And he was dying at the time? Able only to say a few words?”

“As I have said.”

Then, of course, the understanding hit me. Oh, yes, it is very easy in hindsight. Hindsight confers a most remarkable access of understanding in all manner of arcane matters hidden before. No doubt you who listen to my narrative as the tape spins through the heads of the little recording machine must have been writhing at my blindness. Well, all I can say is that I'd had to hop, skip and jump to avoid sword points and keep my head—and others', by Krun!—on my shoulders. It was all so easy and clear now. Poor old Strom Korden, dying with the dreadful knowledge that he had failed in his charge to the old king, trying with the last few breaths left to him to make this uncouth fighting man bending over him grasp the supreme importance of what he must do for Tolindrin, would not waste precious words.

“Take the sword and take—” he'd managed to gasp out through the blood. “Take the sword and—”

There had been no second ‘take’ following that ‘and'. I knew what he'd been trying to say. I understood now.

There was no doubt that if Khon the Mak or Ortyg laid hands on the will and discovered it did not name them that they'd destroy it. Better, perhaps, because they'd have clever people who had the skills, they'd have the will altered in their favor. Forgery for gold is not confined to Earth. Either way, if the will was not found and made public, the two antagonists would continue their intrigues right up to the moment war broke out. That must not be allowed to happen—for the good of Vallia if not for the benefit of Tolindrin.

My face felt stiff, as though stuck in hardened putty. Nothing of my turbulent thoughts registered in my expression. Larghos was looking at me with one eyebrow raised. As for Kov Brannomar, he was still caught up in his own mental turmoil, agonizing over the whereabouts of the old king's will, aghast at the prospects for his country. His concentration slipped past what Larghos and I had been saying to bring his thoughts to a point that he must consider central to the issue. I knew it was not; but when he spoke I did not contradict him.

“Majister. I see the will is vital to the interests of both Vallia and Tolindrin. Tolaar knows, it must be found. But you, you show yourself as Drajak the Sudden and I have read enough about Dray Prescot to understand that. Will you now step forth as the emperor and deny Tolindrin the treaty?”

“My son Drak is the Emperor of Vallia now. As you know I am called the Emperor of Emperors, the Emperor of Paz. Well, we will talk of that later. Right now I remain Drajak the Sudden. I would wish you to remember that, Brannomar.” My tone hardened.

“Drajak the Sudden. Of course, majister.”

Larghos, who had not stopped staring at me, said: “Very good, majister.” He hitched up his sword belts. “Let us go and get the confounded will, and, by Vox! get this conundrum over with.”

“Elten?” said Brannomar, suddenly all at sea.

“Oh,” I said, and felt my lips curve into the semblance of a smile. “I've no wish to give Larghos a swelled head, but he wasn't picked to join the Vallian Diplomatic Service because he was slow on the uptake.” I did not intend to elaborate on that blabber-mouth effusion; but further speech was chopped off by the abrupt slapping open of the door. A strange figure entered, bent over, seeming to be surrounded by a whirl of rags, shaking what looked like a morntarch.

Brannomar simply called out: “Sister. You find us at an awkward moment. Is this important?”

A female face stared from under the piled and drooping mass of hair. Brilliant eyes appeared inturned, the sharp nose, as it were, sniffing into corners, the mouth—so much like Brannomar's—firmly clamped. She took no notice of any of us. She prowled around the study, shaking the morntarch, its shaft wrapped in ribbons, only three small skulls rattling from silken cords to make that eerie, chilling sound that only the sorcerers who use morntarchs in their thaumaturgy may comprehend. She smelled all right; but she smelled sweetly of lavender water.

Around the study she circled. Larghos and I remained motionless. Most Kregans are mighty careful when it comes to dealing with the practitioners of the arcane arts. Brannomar's scar stood out pulsating against his bronzed skin. “Besti!” he said, an edge to his voice. “Sister!”

Completely ignoring the hyr kov the sorceress pried into every cranny. The atmosphere in the study suddenly choked in on me oppressively. Brannomar sucked in his cheeks; he said no more. When it was clear this strange female apparition was satisfied with whatever she'd been doing she gave Brannomar a sidelong, calculating look.

“You always were a credulous fambly, Bran.” She shook her morntarch at him in a gesture at once annoyed and resigned. “Yet your credulity does not extend to what your dear twin sister can do—”

“The king's views prevail in Tolindrin, Besti. You and your ilk are tolerated if you behave. No wizards may—”

“Well, brother, I do! I know the old king is dead. And so do others. You prattled on here and that spineless, lily-livered, damned-to-Sicce wizard Wocut listened to you. His traces are plain here.”

At once Larghos said: “Drajak—Wocut is a sorcerer who serves Khon the Mak. He is reputed to possess powers—”

“Ha!” spat this remarkable witch Besti. Her voice was not a cackle, as one might expect. It sounded like the chuckle of water over rapids. “Powers he stole from gullible San Nath the Farseeing.”

This Wocut had to be the mage I'd seen in conference with Khonstanton and his fat major domo. If he'd been listening—just how much damage could he cause? Larghos was saying: “They do not have the powers of Wizards of Loh—well, who has?—but best be wary of them, Drajak.”

“Nice to have met you, Sana Besti,” I rapped out. “Come on! To the guardhouse, Larghos. Brannomar—tell your guards we're on our way.” The hyr kov jumped up from his chair and started for the door after us, calling: “Wait for me, confound you!”

That's better, I said to myself. He's remembering he's a hyr kov.

The first couple of guards who tried to stop our headlong rush were open-handed off. By then Brannomar was yelling at the top of his voice, a Hikdar fell in to run with us, and we had no further interruptions.

We reached the entrance to the palace guardhouse. Racing inside I headed at once for the corner where I'd sat down to eat the meal they'd provided. A jolly-faced apim who strained the banded iron of his armor and who was stuffing palines into his wide mouth spluttered in protest as I hauled him out. My hand dived down into the crevice of seat and back of the bench. This was where I'd left the damned thing. My fingers scrabbled around like a crab after morsels of food. Dust and breadcrumbs, a sliver of moldy green cheese, some disgusting gunk that stuck—but not that which I sought. Desperately I reached further in, pulling the wood. More and more frantically I hauled away, tearing the bench to pieces. Nothing!

It had been left here when I'd gone out to venture down into the runnels. By the hairy pendulous protuberances of the Divine Lady of Belschutz! Why did I get myself into these diabolical scrapes? I'd been called an onker enough times in my giddy career on Kregen, and in truth I was, an onker of onkers. I glared about, knowing the damn thing was not here. Hikdar Tygnam ti Fralen had walked into the guardroom and was speaking with Kov Brannomar. Brannomar nodded and called to me: “Drajak. All Strom Korden's possessions have been taken to his villa.”

As I digested this information a new and horrible realization hit me.

“That pair of double-dyed villains! If we can work it out then so can they. And I've been too damn long about it.” By this time I was wrapped up in this business and desperate to get it over with. If the Star Lords took it into their little pointy heads to decide I was neglecting my obligations to them I could find myself hurtling through the void back to Earth. “Where away is Korden's villa? I must get there at once, before they do.”

Brannomar's sorceress sister, the Lady Besti, put her hand on his arm. “Yes, they know enough to go to the strom's villa. You will be too late—”

“I have to try!” I fairly snarled at her.

“There is a way. I can—”

Brannomar jumped. He reacted with a physical convulsion of his shoulders. His scar shone as though newly branded on his skin. “Besti! You know the king's ordinance. And it will drain you—”

“The old king is in no case to interfere, brother. The cost is worth the result. This—Drajak—is the man.”

From my experiences with the arcane glamor of Deb-Lu-Quienyin and the college of mages I guessed what Besti meant. I stared at her, trying to put stern resolution into my features and knowing some of the old Dray Prescot Devil Look must have flashed across my face, for she lifted her morntarch involuntarily and gave it a tiny shake. The skulls rattled once.

“I understand, my Lady Besti. Please be quick.”

“Yes. You are indeed the man. But do you apprehend the peril?”

“Yes. I have dealt with Wizards of Loh.”

Her eyes widened at this. I wanted to scream at her in frustration.

She licked her lips. “You will be disoriented—”

“For the sake of your brother, for the sake of Tolindrin. Lady Besti—do it!”

Her eyes closed, her arms lifted, the skulls dangling from the morntarch rattled in frenzy—and I was off.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chapter twenty

Have you ever slipped on a banana skin? Have you ever tobogganed down an icy slope out of control? Have you ever been kicked up the back end by a fractious mule? Have you ever lost the path and fought your way back through thick snow-covered bushes? Have you ever walked in the dark slap bang into an unlighted lamp-post? Experiences of that order, multiplied by googol values, tried to tear me into little pieces.

By Zair! I tell you, that was a whole lifetime of diabolical experiences crammed into a few hectic moments I wouldn't like to have to do every morning before breakfast!

Completely disorientated, half-blind, the sound of Niagara in my ears, feeling pains as though my insides were being torn out and plastered all over my outsides, I arrived wherever it was the witch Lady Besti had flung me. And, yes, going over Niagara Falls in a barrel was in there somewhere, into the bargain.

These experiences were totally unlike those associated with going up to see the Star Lords, or being sent across the planes by Deb-Lu-Quienyin. Vastly different, by Krun!

A gray haziness hung before my eyes that was nothing like dusty spider-webs. Bright little sparks of spitting fire darted at me. I was firmly convinced I stood on my head at the same time as I stood on my heels. And all the time I was going up and down and around and around in that gut-wrenching roller-coaster that made Montezuma's Revenge—the best, or worst, ride in California according to the pundits—appear a ride in a chauffeured limousine along smooth blacktop.

This catalogue of dire impressions is mentioned in this way for two reasons. The actuality was far far worse than I care to recall. My arrival in Strom Korden's villa occurred in a fashion not at all in the Dray Prescot style.

The Yunivils, a race of diffs startlingly unlike apims but nice people, believe that they must be buried with their arms behind their backs and their hands grasping their heels. If they are not they will not be received into their heaven, instead they will be hurled down to their hell, Makchun, peculiarly theirs, which lies deep below the Ice Floes of Sicce. Executed criminals are buried with their hands on their heads. They stand no chance at all of entering the Yunivil paradise.

Now I knew what a poor condemned Yunivil felt like when he knew he was to be interred with his hands on his head.

I just didn't know what was going on. The Lady Besti must have transported me using her arcane arts. I must have arrived, for now I could feel hard floor under my feet. The miasma swirling about me writhed mockingly. I couldn't see a damn thing. A hand grasped my arm and a gruff voice blasted into my ear.

“You're done for, shint.”

Another voice, hard, commanding, rattled out: “Stand fast, Larghos! I want that man! Drag him over here.”

Another pair of hands helped by tugging my hair and away I went across the marble, dragged up towards the owner of that hard voice—Khon the Mak, as ever was.

If only I could get my hands off my head and grab my heels they might let me into heaven—no, no. I was an apim, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy. Oh, no! I could not allow myself to be done for yet, oh, no, not by the pustular armpits and festering nostrils of Makki Grodno. Desperately I tried to peer into the mist.

Still badly disorientated I was slapped down on my knees and my head was forced up and back. The unmistakable kiss of cold steel touched my bared throat.

My eyes stung as though filled with freshly ground black pepper. Was that an indistinct outline forming before me, or only my fevered imagination presenting phantasms? The shape moved. It thickened and took on outlines. Ink-black hair, parchment-white face, oh, yes, there he stood, staring down on me in triumph.

With agonizing slowness my senses returned to near-enough normality. My surroundings, as it were, created themselves about me. I was in an atrium-like space of a comfortable villa, with columns and statuary and potted plants. Fish leaped in a small pool. The smells of jasmine cooled the air. And this confounded rast Khonstanton held all the aces as his bully boys held me down before him and a dagger was laid across my throat.

If I got out of this scrape I'd have a word or three with the good Lady Besti. Yes, by Krun! What a way to deliver a fellow!

The voice of Khonstanton's wizard sounded out of my sight as he said: “The man smells of sorcery, notor. He was dispatched through—that is—”

“Get on with it, San Wocut, if it is important. You are merely delaying this shint's death.”

“I was going to say, notor, through thaumaturgical arts frowned upon by the late king. Power to bring him here has been used, there can be no doubt of that.”

The Lady Besti's power might be kharrna I did not comprehend, I did know it put a fellow through torture worthy of the old Hanitchik in Ruathytu or of poor fat Queen Fahia in Huringa. My eyes unglued a little more. This fellow Larghos held his damned dagger close. In those first bemused moments I might well have imagined that the Vallian ambassador held the blade. Squinting up I saw he was a Chulik. His golden-banded tusks gleamed in the light; he enjoyed this kind of work.

“Slissur take the how of it.” Mak Khon's voice grated. “The how of it is easy enough to guess. That dignified prig Brannomar! Before this scum dies he will tell us exactly.”

Digesting that interesting item of information I came to the conclusion that I really could not hang about any longer. The dagger was cutting in unpleasantly. There were two of them holding me and although I couldn't see who it was dragging my head back by the hair he would be the first to go.

With an extremely sharp movement, a very sharp movement, by Vox! I laid the back of my heel into the space I knew he must be occupying. In the same instant an equally rapid jerk of the head took my throat away from that officiously sharp dagger. The fellow at my back yelped shrilly confirming the accuracy of my blind aim. In that tiny space that opened between dagger and throat I twisted. The Chulik doubled up, gobbling, and I span to finish off the other one.

Speed alone saved me. Two more savage blows followed by a charging run at Khonstanton saw me past. The kov staggered away from my shoulder, mouthing incoherently. I didn't stop to kick him as I took off, much though he deserved it, and the shadows of the columned arcades swallowed me up. No one even loosed or threw after me.

Running flat out under the arched roof I went with great speed through several archways and along more corridors. This place was not in the same architectural league as the great palaces of Oxonium, it still was a splendid villa with many rooms, passages and stairways. Reluctant though I might be to deal harshly with Strom Korden's folk, the desperate situation gave me no latitude. The first servant I grabbed just gibbered.

Pushing him away I hared off until a rotund Gon turned a corner to be gripped and held. My face glared into his. His shaven head shone with lavish ministrations of butter; his eyes goggled.

“Where are the strom's private apartments, oh Gon?”

He stuttered and shook and spittle ran down his chin.

“The strom is dead.”

“As will you be,” I said, unkindly, “if you do not show me the way.”

He wore a decent yellow tunic and soft sandals so he was an indoor servant and would know his way about. I gave him a shove. The sight of my face convinced him. Sobbing and whining under his breath he led off.

Yes, I hate this kind of behavior; but so much depended on my getting to the strom's possessions first there was no time for niceties. That pack of killers would be hard on my heels by now.

The Gon did not play me false. Opaz alone knows what I would have done had he done so in the frame of mind I was in. We hurried along and I kept a sharp lookout.

The debilitating effects of the Lady Besti's sorcery wore off as we climbed higher in the villa to reach a series of tastefully furnished apartments overlooking the atrium where I'd landed. A few servants who saw us cowered away. I got the impression certain people had been here before me asking questions and not getting any answers.

Indeed, a Hytak guard stood at the door to the inner rooms; but he went to sleep peacefully before he had time to challenge us. I shoved the Gon through and in we went.

“All the strom's possessions that were brought here.” I gave him a look. “Take me to them—now.”

“Yes, yes, notor, yes. Please do not kill me.”

“Your name, Gon?”

“Affleck the Wine, if it please you.”

So I laughed as we bustled through. “A trifle of a wet would please me greatly, Affleck the Wine. Perhaps afterwards.”

He gave me an odd look; but he stopped shaking. We entered the strom's bedchamber. Strom Korden lived the simple spartan life of the warrior and the practical furnishings of his bedroom confirmed that. Looking about it was easy to see his lifestyle before Khon the Mak or Prince Ortyg had him foully murdered. An iron-bound chest at the foot of the bed looked promising and I released the Gon with: “Stand still, Affleck!” He jumped and stood like a wooden hitching post. I threw the lid of the chest open.

Pitiful—pitiful—the garments, the harness, the boots, the brave helmet with the feathers—tumbled in here as Strom Korden would be placed in his tomb out in Kaodrin past the hills of Oxonium. Masons were already at work out there building the vast and awe-inspiring sepulchers to house the king's son and the old king when—in the eyes of the populace—he in his turn died. Strom Korden's tomb, although of far less magnificence, would hold the remains of a man of just as much, if not greater, worth.

I picked the thing up and buckled the belt around my waist.

A light, amused laugh came from the doorway followed by: “By Krun, my dear chap, you really are a fellow for getting into things.”

The braxter was in my fist, for the moment the belt was buckled up I intended to transfer the blade. So, slowly, sword in hand, I turned to face him.

He took one pace into the strom's bedchamber and so stood, right leg a little advanced, gloved hands on hips, head thrown back and chin jutting. He was well aware of the dashing picture he made. He'd at last changed his shirt for a Tolindrinese shamlak, very suave in a rich silvery-gray material, and silvery-gray trousers were stuffed into black boots. He was what he was, what nature had intended him to be from the moment of his birth, no more and no less. Like him? Oh, yes, I had quite a fondness for him by this time. His light, peculiar, distinctive laugh bubbled through his words. He lifted one hand and stroked a forefinger along his thin black moustache.

“The game has been well worth it, Drajak, my friend. But, now—”

Like anything else in life he wasn't taking this seriously. He held out his hand. “I'll take it now, old feller, if you please.”

There was absolutely no appreciation on his part of the incongruity of the request in these circumstances, no understanding of a viewpoint other than his own. He was self-centered to the point of sublimity.

Cautiously, I said: “I rather think—”

Before I could continue, a hullabaloo of shouting and smashing noises spurted up from outside. Moving swiftly sideways I looked out of the wide bedroom windows onto the atrium.

What looked like a whole damned army of fighting men poured into the space below, spreading out and prodding and prying. There was no mistaking the man intemperately directing their efforts. You couldn't miss that weasel face, the frenetic movements. I swung back to Dagert.

“Prince Ortyg. He'll cut out our livers and fry ‘em—”

“Highly dramatic, don't you know—but all the same I think it best if you handed it across. I'll feel more reassured.”

“There's no time for that now. We have to get away.”

He gave an abrupt nod. He was handsome in his own dark and raffish way and now those clear-cut features set impassionately. “Of course.”

“Affleck!” I called, swinging about. The Gon was gone. Affleck the Wine had taken the opportunity to scuttle back to his vats.

I glared at Dagert of Paylen. “D'you know your way around this confounded place?”

“Come on.” Without hesitation he started for the door. I followed. I did not scabbard the braxter—just in case, by Djan!

Together we ran along corridors and through pleasant rooms. We reached double doors before which a wounded Hytak lay, blood seeping from his side. He lifted one hand painfully. Dagert went headlong through the open doorway and I almost trod on his heels.

The moment I saw the assemblage in the room and realized the tables were turned I skidded to a halt, frantically backpedaling. Dagert hauled up in front. Beyond him the chamber was filled with men wearing the badges of Hyr Kov Khonstanton, another whole damned army of ‘em.

“Whoops!” I yelped. “Come on, Dagert. This is too unhealthy for us.” Dagert swung back towards me. That handsome face showed pleasure. For an instant I imagined he was happy to take this bunch on single handed. He ripped out his rapier and main gauche in the practiced motions of a Bladesman. Then Khon the Mak walked forward from the ranks of his men.

“Well done, Amak. I was sure I could rely on you.”

So we faced each other, Dagert of Paylen and Drajak the Sudden.

“You see how it is, my dear chap. Better hand it over right away.”

“You,” I said, foolishly. “You've damned well been working for Mak Khon all the time.”

“As it happens, yes. It is to my advantage, as I'm sure you'd be the first to recognize.”

The moment hung, poised. A number of incidents came clear.

“You drove those confounded nails into Nandisha's lifter controls.”

“Not me, Palfrey. And he caused her to land in Amintin.”

“And Strom Korden?”

His rapier made a graceful gesture. “Had that sorry affair been in my hands the resolution, I assure you, by Krun, would have been different.”

“I believe you.” And, by Vox, I did!

“Well now, don't delay any longer. I assure you—”

What all these assurances of his might have amounted to might well not have weighed against a feather. I shook my head like any onker and he flung himself forward, blades glittering.

Like a leem, he was, quick and lethal. The braxter switched across to block a lunge and a twist of the body avoided the dagger. I gave a sharp cut, his blade slammed across in immediate defense—and the blades met with a harsh and brittle crash. Good Ruathytu steel versus metal of munitions quality of Tolindrin—the braxter snapped across.

Furiously I hurled the hilted stump in his face, swiveled and ran.

He'd have no difficulty in avoiding the throw. He'd be after me instantly. So, I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, ran.

Straight back down the passage I hurled, leaping over the poor devil of a wounded Hytak, haring on with Dagert of Paylen in full chase.

Room after room, chamber after chamber we kept up that mad race.

After a time I knew by the sounds that Dagert alone pursued for we outdistanced the pack. At last we reached a wide, low-ceiled upper room where benches and tables showed this to be a dining area. Man-high windows stood along one wall. At the far end a narrow door led—where? I didn't know and I was tired of running off. Once I had thrown Dagert of Paylen off my track I'd high tail it out of here. I hauled up and swung about to face him.

“Ah, at last, my dear chap.” He didn't sound the least bit breathless. His blades snouted up. “Look here, why not hand it across and we'll say no more.” His gloved left hand lifted the main gauche and a forefinger stroked along the pencil thin moustache. “The kov's folk will not be so understanding.”

Without fuss I drew the rapier and left-hand dagger.

His face suddenly expressed comical surprise. “What! Surely—my dear fellow, I do assure you, I bear you no animosity whatsoever—surely you must understand. You have no chance with the Jiktar and the Hikdar.”

“You tried to murder Nandisha and her children—”

“Hardly murder! I do draw the line somewhere, you know. Just a device to bring them down, that is all. Now, come along—”

“If you want the damn thing you must take it.”

“Then, as they say in Clishdrin, on your own head be it.” He leaped.

Our blades crossed in that soul-searing scrape and chingle of metal. Of two things I was firmly convinced. This fight had to be over quickly. And Dagert of Paylen would be a first-class Bladesman of Ruathytu. The fight was quite interesting. As you know I am always aware that one day on Kregen I may meet another Mefto the Kazzur who is my master with the sword. I do not now and never have claimed to be the best swordsman in two worlds. After a few passes I knew Dagert of Paylen was not another Mefto the Kazzur. His face, at first nonchalant with a tiresome chore to be done, slowly assumed a more sober expression. His attitude changed.

His first attacks were simple enough, designed, I truly believe, to disarm me. My responses brought a more determined onslaught. After a few more flourishes, when the blades met in cunning angles, he drew back.

“I see I misjudged you, my dear Drajak. It seems you have some skill, after all. Well, that is all one now, smoke blown with the wind. If you are pinked or stuck through—”

And on the words he was in with leem-like speed. A twist, the dagger angled just so, and I thrust. He skidded sideways, blades all askew. His face went white.

Pressing him, I forced him back. His skill was considerable and there was no taking chances. Around the room we went, leaping onto benches and tables, thrusting and riposting, the blades blurred slivers of deadly light.

As I say, this fight was an interesting one.

Eventually he realized he would not best me.

Eventually, too, I knew I would not thrust to kill. He was far too engaging a character.

He ran a few paces off and swiveled to face me. His bare chest beneath the shamlak moved more rapidly now.

“Yes,” he said. “I see I have seriously misjudged you. The devil take it! Hyr Kov Khonstanton must do his dirty work himself.”

With a sleight of hand I admired the rapier snicked up to tuck under his right armpit. The dagger appeared in his fingers, as it were, from nowhere. He flung full at me.

With the instinctive reaction of one versed in the Disciplines of the Krozairs of Zy I flicked the rapier up and the dagger chingled away to spin in a twinkling of light and embed itself in a table.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, whirling his blade back and scabbarding it and in the same motion sheathing the left-hand dagger. “A veritable prodigy!”

With that he turned suddenly, leaped for the man-high window nearest and plunged through in a welter of smashing glass and splintering frame. He vanished.

Running to the ruin of the window and looking out I glimpsed him leaping like a gazelle over the rooftops. He kept up that cheeky role to the end. At a chimney stack he paused and turned back. He gave me a wave of his gloved hand, almost an ironic salute. Then Dagert of Paylen, swordsman, killer, dandy—yet hardly a forsworn villain—disappeared.

After that the whole affair dwindled. Fresh uproar greeted me as I stared out and amidst the intermingled shouts I made out the cries of: “Khonstanton!” “Ortyg!” and, thankfully: “Brannomar!”

Cautiously making my way back to the atrium and wary of the slightest shadow, I found the place seething with armed and armored men. They were all there. With that charismatic presence at full blast, Brannomar sorted out the hubbub. People milled. Khonstanton, Ortyg and Brannomar stood together talking heatedly. Little would be required to set all these warriors at one another's throats. Prince Tom and Princess Nandisha appeared and walked towards the others. Abruptly, Fweygo and Tiri stood at my side, chattering away like magpies.

“I don't know what you've been up to—” began Fweygo.

“Drajak! You're safe, thanks be to Cymbaro!” Tiri grabbed my arm.

“Fweygo—the numims—?”

“Safe.”

“I'll tell you all about it directly. First I have a duty to discharge.” I pushed through the people towards the principals.

Brannomar saw me. I nodded. I made the nod significant and he understood at once. An expression of relief flickered across his bronzed face. I walked up to him and he spoke urgently.

“Not here. All of you, come. Let's have it done with.”

In only a few moments the principals gathered in Strom Korden's best reception room. Nandisha looked agitated and I tried to give her a smile. Tom, as ever, seemed distanced from all the excitement. As for Ortyg, his thin face wore the various expressions associated with greed and ambition and self-pride. Khonstanton stuck his hands on his hips.

“Well? Drajak the Sudden, you—”

“Don't worry, notor,” I said. “Everything is under control.” And let him chew the pips in that one, bad cess to him!

Brannomar extended his hand. “Drajak?”

I unbuckled the swordbelt I'd taken from Strom Korden's iron-bound chest and handed it across.

This was the article that had caused so much pain and bloodshed and pure bloody-minded grief. This, and not the sword, lay at the core of the intrigue.

Brannomar took it, his knife was out, and he went at the stitching with single-minded purpose. Layer by layer it unwrapped and its secret was revealed. Korden and the priests of Cymbaro had taken the old king's will, an imposing document—as well it must be—of solid parchment and had used the will itself to form the scabbard. Around it they'd stitched the outer cover and had lined it correctly. Now the stiff yellow pages unwrapped before our fascinated gazes.

“Forget the bequests,” snarled Khonstanton. “The heir!” When a king died he left munificent bequests so there would be clause after clause. Ortyg shoved up to help hold the will flat. He was consumed. He was aflame with greed. If the old king had known anything about his descendants, as I guessed he would have, why then—I felt a pang of pity for this presumptuous prince.

Nandisha held her lower lip between her teeth. Well, yes, her son would do well to inherit, and Brannomar run the country as regent. That would suit Vallia and me nicely. As for Khonstanton, he'd be worse than Ortyg. Who, in a Herrelldrin Hell was it, then?

Brannomar read. He moved his head, and read again. He looked up.

“Come on, man!” ground out Khonstanton.

Ortyg tried to read the upside down will.

Hyr Kov Brannomar slowly turned. He looked directly at Prince Tom.

“Long live King Tomendishto!” he cried in a loud, firm voice. “Long live the king!”

Nandisha collapsed in a dead faint.

Ortyg swore and grabbed the parchment, feverishly reversing it and gobbling out his words as he read what he hated to see.

Khonstanton started to speak, said nothing, and stalked from the room.

The new king said, hesitatingly: “But—” and said no more.

What I said, to myself, was: “For the disgusting sake of the putrescent inward parts and festering outer parts of Makki Grodno! Thanks be that's over!”

I went over to give what assistance I could to Nandisha. As far as I was concerned, this affair was dead. Now the future must concern the fate of the numim twins, Rofi and Rolan. The Star Lords had shown much forbearance in allowing me to gad about in the regal affairs of Tolindrin. Now Fweygo and I must ensure that the numim twins were safe. And how long would that take? By the Black Chunkrah! All I wanted to do was go home to Esser Rarioch and live peacefully with Delia.

“There is a great deal to be done,” declared Brannomar.

He was talking about Tom's accession and the coronation and boring formalities of that kind. I agreed with him for reasons he would never know, reasons to do with the Everoinye and four hundred light years of empty space. Carrying Nandisha I went out to find Fweygo and Tiri.

All the same, I wouldn't quickly forget the Amak Dagert, Dagert of Paylen. He was a bit of a card, more than a bit of a lad, by Krun!

Nandisha was beginning to stir as I went out into the atrium. Fweygo and Tiri saw me and hurried over. Overhead the twin Suns of Scorpio, Zim and Genodras, here known as Mabal and Matol, shone down their streaming mingled lights. I looked at my friends and tried to smile.

By Zair! I didn't know what my destiny might be on the beautiful and terrible world of Kregen. What I did know with great certitude was—I needed a wet! Delia forgive me.

By Mother Zinzu the Blessed—yes!

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About the Author

Alan Burt Akers was a pen name of the prolific British author Kenneth Bulmer, who died in December 2005 aged eighty-four.

Bulmer wrote over 160 novels and countless short stories, predominantly science fiction, both under his real name and numerous pseudonyms, including Alan Burt Akers, Frank Brandon, Rupert Clinton, Ernest Corley, Peter Green, Adam Hardy, Philip Kent, Bruno Krauss, Karl Maras, Manning Norvil, Chesman Scot, Nelson Sherwood, Richard Silver, H. Philip Stratford, and Tully Zetford. Kenneth Johns was a collective pseudonym used for a collaboration with author John Newman. Some of Bulmer's works were published along with the works of other authors under “house names” (collective pseudonyms) such as Ken Blake (for a series of tie-ins with the 1970s television programme The Professionals), Arthur Frazier, Neil Langholm, Charles R. Pike, and Andrew Quiller.

Bulmer was also active in science fiction fandom, and in the 1970s he edited nine issues of the New Writings in Science Fiction anthology series in succession to John Carnell, who originated the series.

More details about the author, and current links to other sources of information, can be found at www.mushroom-ebooks.com, and at wikipedia.org.

[Back to Table of Contents]

The Dray Prescot Series

The Delian Cycle:

1. Transit to Scorpio

2. The Suns of Scorpio

3. Warrior of Scorpio

4. Swordships of Scorpio

5. Prince of Scorpio

Havilfar Cycle:

6. Manhounds of Antares

7. Arena of Antares

8. Fliers of Antares

9. Bladesman of Antares

10. Avenger of Antares

11. Armada of Antares

The Krozair Cycle:

12. The Tides of Kregen

13. Renegade of Kregen

14. Krozair of Kregen

Vallian cycle:

15. Secret Scorpio

16. Savage Scorpio

17. Captive Scorpio

18. Golden Scorpio

Jikaida cycle:

19. A Life for Kregen

20. A Sword for Kregen

21. A Fortune for Kregen

22. A Victory for Kregen

Spikatur cycle:

23. Beasts of Antares

24. Rebel of Antares

25. Legions of Antares

26. Allies of Antares

Pandahem cycle:

27. Mazes of Scorpio

28. Delia of Vallia

29. Fires of Scorpio

30. Talons of Scorpio

31. Masks of Scorpio

32. Seg the Bowman

Witch War cycle:

33. Werewolves of Kregen

34. Witches of Kregen

35. Storm over Vallia

36. Omens of Kregen

37. Warlord of Antares

Lohvian cycle:

38. Scorpio Reborn

39. Scorpio Assassin

40. Scorpio Invasion

41. Scorpio Ablaze

42. Scorpio Drums

43. Scorpio Triumph

Balintol cycle:

44. Intrigue of Antares

45. Gangs of Antares

46. Demons of Antares

47. Scourge of Antares

48. Challenge of Antares

49. Wrath of Antares

50. Shadows over Kregen

Phantom cycle:

51. Murder on Kregen

52. Turmoil on Kregen

Visit www.mushroom-ebooks.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.