Bladesman of Antares [Dray Prescot #9]

by Alan Burt Akers

  So I had to harden my heart.

  If you think that was an easy task, then I think you have not read me right...

  Like any fashionable gentleman of Hamal I walked abroad with my thraxter belted to my waist. The other non-Havilfarese weapons were safely stored away with our other belongings, under my bed. I looked a perfect Horter of Hamal—if I say a perfect gent, you will understand. I continued to wear the short white tunic with the embroideries, the gold-and-scarron beads, and I practiced smoothing out that old devil look on my face.

  Nulty would say to me, “You feel sick, master?"

  And I would growl back, “No, you mutinous fambly! Can't a man put on a pleasant expression for a change?"

  “Oh, Notor,” he would say, “was that what it was?"

  Still, I persisted.

  I was put to a stringent test.

  The Thraxter and Voller stood in a quiet street beneath the upflung face of one of the sheared-off hills between the two rivers. Higher terraced houses were bowered above the inn in bushes and vines and flowers. The street was lined with high-class shops, although not of the very highest class, which were to be found within a smaller enclave at the very point of the V-junction of the rivers. It was not unusual to see clums crossing the end of the street where a main thoroughfare crossed on the northwest axis of the city, halting, and turning, and venturing a little way down our street, their hands open and cupped.

  Shopkeepers would send out assistants to beat them off.

  I saw a young girl of no more than five or six, dressed in a single filthy garment, ragged and falling to pieces, pulling her brother who might have been a year older in a little wooden cart on wooden wheels. He had no legs, and his body was wizened and lopsided. He drooled.

  “Spare an ob, master,” the little girl was saying, as she pulled her brother along.

  What good was an ob, one of those universal bronze coins, to her?

  To give her a silver sinver, or a golden deldy, would have been foolish.

  I turned out my vosk-skin bag and found seven obs. Seven. The Kregish word for seven, as you know, is shebov.

  “Here,” I said. The correct word to use in addressing her completely escaped me. “Here. Here are shebov obs."

  She looked frightened.

  “I only asked for one, lord."

  “Take the seven, and hide all but one. Go on."

  “Yes, lord."

  She took the money and I turned away, for the sight was beyond my bearing, when a Rapa, his fierce birdlike beaked face furious, rushed from a shop doorway. He brandished a broom. He wore shopkeeper's clothes, and an apron spotted with preserves and jam and marmalade.

  “Get away, vermin! Clear off or I'll beat you."

  The girl cowered back, then tried to run, and so, stumbling, tripped over her brother's cart.

  The Rapa started to bring his broom, a sturdy implement, down on her prostrate form. A crowd had gathered. I stepped forward and caught the broom. I did not break it, either in my hands or over the Rapa's head.

  “Let her get up and go in peace, dom,” I said.

  He started to yell at me, saw my clothes and the jewels, saw the thraxter at my side, and so, suddenly bowing and rubbing his hands together, he backed away.

  “Certainly, Notor, as you command. A mere nothing—a clum where she should not be.” Then, because he knew I was in the wrong, he plucked up courage to say: “My broom, Notor?"

  I threw it at him, not hard.

  A coarse laugh spurted at my back.

  I turned around slowly.

  The Strom from The Thraxter and Voller stood, eyeing me in great derision, laughing, taking a bellyful of delight from my antics.

  “By Krun!” he bellowed. “A dirty little clum-lover!"

  The Horters and Horteras in the crowd laughed at this.

  They were all well-dressed, fashionable, well-off Hamalians, although not the racy, sporty set of the sacred triangle by the two rivers. Now they jibed at one of their own wealth and class going out of his way to assist a clum.

  I did not say anything.

  I put that idiotic smooth bland look on my ugly face and, I suppose, it succeeded only in infuriating the Strom further.

  “You idiotic cramph!” he shouted. He waved his fist at me. “You encourage these vermin into our streets! They bring filth and disease with them! If you love clums so much, take your precious perfumed self down to their hovels."

  This, I could bear.

  I turned to walk away.

  A woman in the crowd, vastly excited by the spectacle, shouted: “Is that all you can do, coward? Stinking clum-lovers!"

  Again, I would take no notice. I would not jeopardize my mission for the sake of these fools.

  The Strom laid an elegant hand on my shoulder. He pulled me around to face him. He was a big, limber man, well set up. He carried his thraxter swung low on workmanlike lockets. His dress was gray, foppish, but practical when it came to leaving his sword arm free.

  “Coward!” he shouted full in my face. His breath was unpleasant. “Rast! You do not walk away when the Strom of Hyr Rothy speaks to you!"

  I said, “I have nothing to say to you."

  Looking back, I recall that scene vividly, and also I experience again my shame: my shame at not holding steadfast to my purpose but, instead, of allowing the ordinary, arrogant, intemperate Dray Prescot, who is—alas!—perhaps the only real Dray Prescot, to overwhelm this new meek and mild image I had sought so hard to attain.

  “Well, I have something to say to you, you insolent rast!” He shook me. “I am Lart ham Thordan, the Strom of Hyr Rothy. You do not turn your back on me, yetch! I have seen you, Amak, and I know what sort of repulsive vermin you are! You will crawl to me, and beg my forgiveness! You will—"

  At that point I leaned on my arm. My arm pushed forward my hand. My hand happened, for some reason, to be doubled up into something you might call a fist if you were uncharitable. The leaning arm and fist somehow found their way to this Strom's belly. It was not a hard lean.

  He choked a little, and his eyes filled with water. He had a naturally high color—these people so often do—and his apim face turned deeper red and the veins on his forehead glowed like coiled serpents.

  I walked away.

  I was followed by boos and yells and catcalls.

  Well, as Nulty said, reproachfully: “You broke your own promise, Notor!"

  “Aye, Nulty, I did.” I threw the thraxter on the bed in my room and stretched. “I think I know what the rast will do now."

  “He is a Strom. You are an Amak. He will consider his dignity so soiled he—"

  “Confound these stupid ranks!” I bellowed, “I don't give a lead ob for them!"

  He looked at me with what I took to be a reproachful glare, and I knew he was thinking of the old Amak. A loyal man, Nulty.

  “For shebov obs, Notor,” he said.

  “I know!"

  “He will challenge you."

  The laws in Hamal are strict and multipurpose and, as in so many countries where the wealthy also flaunt their power, blatantly favor the moneyed of the land. Dueling is still a recognized social phenomenon, although hedged about with regulations, and in all due formality a challenge would be presented from Strom Lart which I must answer.

  “He will challenge you, Notor, and you must answer. How will you maintain your deception then?"

  “I do not think that possible."

  I'd humbled myself and then, when the first real test came along, I'd failed. Ignominiously failed.

  To my surprise Nulty brightened up remarkably. He started singing that old risqué song about Fanli the Fristle fifi and her regiment of admirers. I looked at him. He caught my eye, and stopped singing, and then with a dirty chuckle said: “I shall be heartily glad to see you acting the real part of the Amak of Paline Valley!"

  By his lights, it was clear, I had not been truly honoring my promise to Amak Naghan. I had tried to explain, but full explanations were impossi
ble. A few tentative inquiries had shown me that to discover the secrets of the vollers I must penetrate not just into the buildings where they were manufactured here in Ruathytu—for I guessed they would be little different, if on a larger scale, from the works at Sumbakir—but past them and into the inner secret places where the silver boxes which gave lift and propulsion to the fliers were filled. This, as you will hear, was only half the truth.

  The challenge was brought by an Elten and a Kyr, both very stiff and formal, and I agreed to fight Strom Lart on a morning two days later in a hall of his choosing. These occasions often attracted visitors, and the owner of the hall would charge admission to defray the expenses of rental.

  The Elten said, “Amak Hamun. My principal directs me to inquire if you have knowledge of the rapier and the left-hand dagger. He is desirous of sharpening his skill."

  “Is he aping the ways of the young bloods, then, Elten? Is the Havilfarese thraxter no longer good enough for him, then?"

  “Fashions in these things change, Amak. The nobility has taken up the rapier with great enthusiasm. It is fashionable. If you have no knowledge of rapier work—"

  “I care not what weapons the fool chooses—"

  “Amak!"

  “Go back and tell the onker I'll kill him even if he chooses wooden spoons."

  “Brave words!” The Elten spoke with a pronounced sneer. He did not look at my face, and I made a great effort to smooth out that old devil's expression I knew must be disfiguring my features. When he did look at me he saw a man who, in his eyes, was a weakling trying to bluster. “I think, Amak Hamun, you will be very sorry you crossed words and swords with Strom Lart."

  Because of this stupid quarrel I had to cancel a planned expedition to the small coastal town of Denrette, which stands where the River Havilthytus empties into the Ocean of Clouds. The river mouth opens out to the sea just to the south of the island of Arnor. At Denrette lived the Todalpheme who calculated the tides and the movements of the great waters.

  Nulty said, “You will not travel now, Notor?"

  “No, Nulty, may Havil the Green twist the eyeballs in the sockets of this onker Strom Lart. No, I will not travel now."

  Truth to tell, much of that old urgency to go and find out from these Todalpheme—who might be the very ones I needed to talk to—just what they knew of the Savanti and the Swinging City of Aphrasöe had left me. I would find out one day. Right now my life on Kregen had taken turns that would have astounded me in those days when my main desire on the planet was to find my way back to the Swinging City of Aphrasöe and the Savanti...

  The day of the duel arrived and Nulty saw to it that I had a fine breakfast of fried vosk-rashers and loloo's eggs and after the last of the superb Kregan bread—done in a Hamalese fashion quite pleasant—smeared with honey had been eaten, a delicate china cup of Kregan tea and then a silver dish of palines to munch finished the meal. He checked my clothes. I had chosen to appear in very rich, sober style, with a subdued flash of ruby in place of the scarlet. I belted on my thraxter, and the straight sword of Havilfar seemed to me the proper instrument with which to show a Hamalese Strom the error of his ways. We stowed all our gear away safely, paid the lodging bill, and then went down to the hall of duels.

  The scene presented itself at once as macabre and exciting.

  The seats surrounding the flat central space were filled with citizens. The betting was light. Everyone gave the Strom every chance. This was more in the nature of an exhibition than a duel, and many of the bets were on just how the Strom would humiliate me before the final stroke.

  The due ceremonies went ahead. Judges and referees were appointed and a doctor was in attendance. So far everything went along coldly and with formality. The Hamalese system of dueling bears some resemblance to encounters here on Earth, with the system of seconds standing in for the principal if he is absent. Since I had no seconds, and no one volunteered, and Nulty was only a servitor, the Strom waived some of the protocol. Instead, he sent the Elten across with a rapier and dagger, with the injunction that he, as the party to choose weapons, chose these. Since it was clear I did not possess rapier or dagger I might be allowed the loan of these.

  Well, the fool would find out soon enough the truth. I have already told you of my beliefs in this vexed question of sword-fighting. One day, I think, I will meet a man who is better than I am. Or, perhaps, a woman. Then I shall face the greatest fight of all. Each time I fight I am aware that this may be the last time. I am not so egomaniacal as to imagine I am the best swordsman of two worlds. Besides egomania and megalomania, that would be plain sinful pride and stupid into the bargain. This Strom Lart looked strong and quick and clever; he might best me.

  Expectancy caught up everyone. The crowd grew impatient. The high-ceiled hall rang with muted echoes. Lart glanced across at me, and flicked his rapier about as though he knew how to use it.

  I heard men talking in the nearest seats, saying that I was doomed, that the Strom would cut me up into fancy shaped pieces and feed me to the dogs.

  Opening off the main hall of challenge were a number of smaller rooms, for dressing, for religious observances. A plan occurred to me whereby I might get out of this with a whole skin, not slay the Strom (for this was a duel to the death), and at the same time preserve my image as a weakling and no true fighting-man.

  “I will spend a few murs in seeking the assistance of Havil the Green,” I said. That was obscenity to me, then, enough to make me wince. Of all the multiplicity of gods and godlings on Kregen, only Zair and Opaz had made any real impact on me, and, then, mainly for their parallels to my own inner beliefs. Havil the Green could go stew in his own juice for all I cared.

  Perhaps, to be fair, I should add Djan to that short list of Kregan gods; for Djan was dear to my people of Djanduin. As for the beliefs of my wild clansmen of the Great Plains of Segesthes—that crazy harum-scarum bunch is enough to drive the bravest of men to the nearest dopa bottle. This list, I hasten to add, refers to my religious evolution on Kregen up to this time. Krun, of whom I have not spoken, was to come.

  “Very well.” Strom Lart's acquiescence was relayed to me by the Elten. “But, for the sake of Havil, do not take long."

  There were two meanings to that. I frowned. Then I took myself off, out of the central space, between the seating, and so through a short corridor to the room which had been furnished in green, with all necessary things provided, as a shrine to Havil the Green. The state religion of Hamal was safe, at the least, if nothing else.

  Fully intending to spend a few moments in mock prayer and then return to disarm in some clumsy fashion and wound sufficient to halt the bout, I turned into the shrine. So fast, it came! So rapidly and without the slightest warning! No giant scarlet-and-golden-feathered bird of prey swooped over me. No slow growth of a blue radiance appeared to suck me down into emptiness.

  I saw the scuttling form of a reddish-brown scorpion.

  It stood with its arrogant tail upflung, perched on the very nose of the statue of Havil the Green with its encrustations of precious stones. Samphron-oil lamps cast gleams that broke and splintered from the brilliance of diamond and emerald and many another gem. The idiot face of Havil the Green stared down on me, and squatting on that Rapa-beaked nose of his—a scorpion! The wagon-wheel of eight arms stretched from the statue. Its face showed that admixture of racial traits, a morphology that, at least in this ten-foot-tall statue, betrayed only idiocy to my intolerant eyes. This statue was insignificant compared with that enormous and truly gorgeous statue of Havil the Green which Delia and I had encountered in the fortress of Hakal in Huringa in Hyrklana. That statue had seen us beset by neemus, those black-furred cats of vicious temper and sadistic power.

  Far rather would I have faced a dozen deadly black neemus than that single solitary scorpion!

  So fast it was. One moment I saw the scorpion, the next the reddish-brown form vanished and the world turned a radiant blue.

  In my helpless falling I had
time for one thought, one thought only, as I was pitched out of Kregen and back to Earth.

  Delia!

  * * *

  Chapter Seven

  The Scorpion brings travels and discoveries

  There was no sense in it!

  No sense at all. That Opaz-forsaken cramph of a scorpion! One day I'd put my foot on the foul red-and-brown thing and twist and crush and so squash the thing flat! So help me!

  Even as I raged thus to myself, and looked about the planet of my birth again, I knew the day would never dawn. I thought so then. I am not so sure now. If I did smash my foot down on the scorpion, and so deal with it in such wise as would kill a normal scorpion, would this messenger of the Star Lords die? If I loosed a shaft at the scarlet-and-gold raptor, would that superb bird die?

  I did not know ... I do not know ... All I knew then was that for some reason I had been flung back to Earth.

  Oh, yes, I landed in a peck of trouble and sorted it out, and then haunted the night beaches, forever looking up toward that glinting spark of light upflung so arrogantly in the tail of the constellation of Scorpio. Up there, on a planet circling that twin star, four hundred light-years away, rested all I wanted in two worlds. Call me selfish, if you will. I do not care. Take the Prince Majisters, the Kovs, the Stroms, all the gaudy panoply of rank and wealth and privilege I had earned there on that perilous and profitable world of Kregen—take them all away. I hungered only for Delia, for my Delia and our twins, Drak and Lela.

  A ghost of remorse would overtake me as I considered my friends there: Seg Segutorio, Inch of Ng'groga, Hap Loder, Prince Varden Wanek, Gloag, Turko the Shield, Kytun Kholin Dom, my friends of Valka and Djanduin, and Korf Aighos, and even Nulty; and there was my stepbrother-in-law, Vomanus of Vindelka, who wanted, I knew, to be a good friend and yet whose reckless ways took him off to the far corners of Kregen where he might swing a rapier with that raffish carelessness of his. Oh, yes, remorse would overtake me as I realized I would forgo all their friendship if I might once more clasp in my arms my Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue Mountains.