The milky fluid closed around my arm. I felt—well, I wondered if I did feel anything through the bite of agony. Then the warm comforting sensation as of a soft mouth kissing me, a million tiny needles pricking my skin, rather, pricking the shreds of skin and fragments of bone. The rags would all be melted away. I waited, feeling the warm glowing sensation increase and expand. I managed to shift around so my shoulder dipped.
If I ventured any more I would fall in. Then it would be Earth for me...
Weird, to think I thus hung over a drop of four hundred light years...
Presently, in due time, I withdrew my arm.
The arm was whole.
I flexed the muscles. I gripped that iron hand of mine into a fist.
Well!
So I pushed out over the water, gripping the stone lip of the rim with two strong hands, and dipped my head. I dunked my head in and held my breath and all the pains of Kregen flowed and dissolved and washed away as the snows of the Heart Heights of Valka vanish when the full glory of the Suns of Scorpio pours upon them.
When I withdrew, a vast shape moving slowly in the milky waters drew back at the far end of the pool. Vanti...
It was not bravado, not pride, not foolishness, that made me stand up and walk away without dipping my side. I knew enough of the powers of the milky liquid in the pool. My side, which was ripped and torn and poking crushed ribs through in a bloody crust, would heal of itself.
Over at the far side the Guardian grew restless. A vast smooth bulk humped beneath the water. Waves of the liquid flowed outwards in smooth rolling rings to luminous reflections. I walked away, a whole man once again, and I will not attempt to speak of my feelings, for they poured in a hot jumbled tide, irrational, thanksgiving, angry, shamed, glorious. I had sinned grievously and I had been reprieved. Now, there was work to be done.
A voice whispered through the still air.
“Oh, unfortunate is the city—"
“You have no powers over me, Vanti!” I bellowed back. “Return to your hole, hide away from me—for I warned you I would return.” Then, I added: “I return in friendship."
The powers of the Guardian of the Pool could hurl me four hundred light years through space back to Earth. Had done so.
I must be an old vosk-skull, for I turned and cupped my hands and splashed the liquid over me, letting it run down over my body and legs.
Yes, an old onker—for as Zair is my witness, I knelt down and took a long swigging drink.
Foolhardy? Of course! But then, that is me, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor, Krozair of Zy...
I stood up, tall and straight once more, a fighting man, ready to face what must come on the wild and beautiful, savage and horrendous world of Kregen.
I licked the last moisture from my lips.
“By Mother Zinzu the Blessed,” I said, wiping my mouth. “I needed that!"
* * *
Chapter Seventeen
Gifts from a Savanti nal Aphrasöe
The magnificent black zorca trotted along the path above the waterfall. Proud, high-tempered, a stallion, this zorca was a mount fit for a king. I had formed the impression that he had not been well treated by his Kataki owner. This is no novel thing. Some races on Kregen, as on Earth, care nothing for the suffering of animals, as other races care nothing for the suffering of women and children. For me, the stallion responded nobly, and I think he understood very quickly the difference in attitude between his old master and his new rider.
Mind you, Katakis have no feelings for the suffering of animals, women, children or men. They enslave them all.
Once again back to full health and strength, for my side healed with wonderful alacrity after I had taken the swigging, impudent drink, I jogged along on Shadow. I had decided to call this muscular and elegant steed Shadow because he moved like a ghosting shadow across the land. What lay ahead of me I did not know; but the broad outlines of what I had to do remained clear. What was I going to do. The light-headed exultant feeling persisted.
But, of course, Kregen would always come up with frustrations, and plans gang aft agley under Savage Scorpio.
The way opened out and I stared across a plain of brownish grasses studded by a few wilting trees here and there. My eye was caught by a scrap of white high in the firmament. I stared up, eyes narrowed against the glare, and cursed.
Certainly, surely, the white dove of the Savanti flew down and circled, eyeing my zorca with quick intelligence manifested in every movement, an intelligence far past that of any mortal bird.
So, feeling truculent as well as foolish, I shook my fist at the white dove.
“What d'you want?” I bellowed up. “Sink me! I'm not going to the Swinging City, much as I'd like to. I have work to see to that will not wait."
The Gdoinye, the gold and scarlet raptor of the Star Lords, had spoken to me before, as had the Scorpion—I wondered if the representative of the Savanti would deign to open his beak and speak in human terms using a human voice.
He did not. He swung about and then dipped away, going at right angles to my track.
He flew on, with my watchful gaze on him, swung back with a beautiful lift of white wings, soared high again. Again he circled my head and flew off at right angles. Three times he did this before I understood he wanted me to follow him. I had never observed this conduct in the dove before.
I pondered.
The plain remained bare. No purely human enemies threatened. If the Savanti wanted to take me they had powers to snatch me up no matter where I was—so I thought.
Gently easing Shadow around and jogging along after the bird we followed as he circled and rose and fell, pacing his eager flight to our more sedate progress. That after all these years on Kregen I had phlegmatically turned my back on Aphrasöe struck me not so much as odd as highly practical and a sensible course of action. Opaz knew what might happen in Aphrasöe. And Vallia called.
I knew now where the island of Aphrasöe was situated. When my affairs in the Outer Oceans had been settled, why, then, it might be time to return to the Swinging City. I hoped I might return as a friend.
So I followed the beckoning white dove. In for a zorca in for a vove, as my Clansmen say. Soon a little copse came into view half hidden in a field in the ground. The dove fluttered and settled on a branch. He cocked his eager head. I halted Shadow and stared.
Around the dove's neck a thin brilliant scarlet ribbon glowed against the white feathers.
I had never seen that before.
The dove fluffed around and then dived off the branch, almost striking the ground where dried leaves were heaped into a pile before zooming up. Three times he dived. So I dismounted, with a quiet affectionate pat to Shadow's neck, and walked across and kicked the dead leaves away.
Well. Looking down I stood for a few moments and did not move.
Neatly wrapped in a length of scarlet cloth lay my own Krozair longsword with the plain strong strappings, the short sword in the lesten hide and golden scabbard given me by the Clansmen of Viktrik, the greenwood longbow of Erthyrdrin made by Seg and a full quiver of clothyard shafts, each fletched with the glowing blue feathers of the crested korf of the Blue Mountains. In its worn old sheath snugged my sailor knife. The lesten hide belt with the dulled silver buckle was drawn up around the bundle. Well, indeed...
These things had been left by me in the stateroom of Delia's voller. There could be one and only one explanation of how they had come to be here pointed out by a dove wearing a scarlet ribbon. So Maspero had known I was in the cave! I remembered his words—he would not wonder what had happened to me on Kregen. He had a dove to send to spy on me. I surmised that perhaps each Savanti tutor operated his own individual dove.
Also there was a filled water bottle and a satchel containing bread and meats, fruit and nuts. Eating, I realized I was hungry; but that formed a tithe of the burden of my thoughts. I had not touched the water bottle I had filled with the milky liquid from the pool. Did Maspero know I had that?
Evidently Maspero had experience of the Spitballs...
After I had eaten I picked up the length of scarlet cloth, and not without a twinge or two, as you may well imagine. It was far finer than humespack, and Delia had been at pains to secure it at some cost. Although silk and sensil are regarded as superior they do have this infuriating tendency to slip. So I wrapped the brave old scarlet around and drew it up between my legs and tucked the end in and cinched it all tight with the broad lesten hide belt. My old knife snugged at my right hip. The quiver went over my shoulder. I hesitated and then, philosophically, slung the Krozair brand there, also. The short sword buckled up scabbarded at my right side. The longbow, unstrung, could slip into the harness at my left side, leaving my hands free, and the case of strings and the satchel could fasten at my belt.
There were no sandals, or shoes or boots.
The spaces for a rapier and a left-hand dagger were left bare.
Just about then a pack of lurfings showed up, lean-flanked, low-bellied, grey-furred scavengers of the plains. Their probing snout-like faces reminded me unpleasantly of the Khirrs.
It was time to mount up and ride.
The Savanti dove had vanished. I took a good look around for the Gdoinye. Evidently, the Star Lords had no interest in me at the moment.
There was no real reason for it; but I said, aloud, looking up and scowling: “By the disgusting diseased tripes of Makki-Grodno, Star Lords! There is a settlement overdue between us!"
That the settlement would come I had no doubt. If I welcomed or dreaded it I did not know. But, in Zair's good time, it would come...
And, now, there was Zena Iztar to add to the reckoning.
Cantering off and feeling extraordinarily wonderful, clad once more in the brave old scarlet, weapons about me, a superb zorca between my knees, I felt the whole of Savage Kregen might take up arms against me and I would win through. Ah, my Delia. Soon, now, I would find my way back to Vallia and Valka.
Maspero, as I was sure it must have been Maspero, had included in the bundle beautiful Savanti leather hunting gloves and arm-guards, and these I donned, with pleasure.
There was, of course, no shield.
Like the Dray Prescot of yore, I rode on, singing lustily through the streaming mingled suns shine of Zim and Genodras.
I sang The Bowmen of Loh, and I sang every verse, every last stanza of that rousing song, and I thought of Seg, and I roared. Then, with a different emotion, I yodeled out The Daisies of Delphond. I knew the Delphondian Daisy I coveted. Mind you, the Princess Majestrix might not favor being called a Daisy ... I decided it was high time I found out.
The journey progressed in grand style. I suppose, looking back, I was drunk on physical fitness. The horror of my experience in crawling like a half-crushed beetle across this savage land had profoundly affected me. By Vox! I'd been as near death and the Black Spider Caves of Gratz as I care to come—although I was to come closer, as you shall hear, and more than once—and so this ride in the brave old scarlet astride a magnificent zorca, well, it turned my head a little.
Shadow carried me surely and safely across the land of Ba-Domek and we avoided habitations and took the back ways and we did not tangle with the Khirrs, save for a little fracas in which three or four of them burst in black slime, and my face mask was smeared, and I washed us all and my longsword most carefully afterwards. For a space the longsword was carried swinging cleanly in the bright air, for I was reluctant to return it to the scabbard Delia had made for me until it was purified, for all I had scrubbed the glittering blade clean with sand and spittle.
Vomanus of Vindelka, with his slapdash ways with weapons, would have to smarten himself up if he tangled with the Spitballs of Antares, that was for sure. Assuming he won free of the hairy black horrors, of course. All along the way expectations of what I would say to all my comrades enlivened my thoughts.
So, on a day with some cloud rolling up to haze over the glory of the suns, I rode out of the last of the foothills beyond the mountains and down through pleasant shallow valleys and along winding river courses and so found myself faced, at last, with the final long haul to the coast. Although I had used Seg's bow I still carried a full quiver; an old paktun always retrieves his shafts when he can.
If I dwell with what must seem a fey fondness on that journey, I think you will understand. I felt reborn. I could taste the glory of Kregen's air and smell the sweetness of the grasses and revel in the warmth of the suns.
On and on we trotted and the plains widened and the sky lifted high above and the clouds rolled and dissipated and I lifted up my head and sang. Silly songs, bawdy songs, stirring war ballads and battle chants, songs of the swods. Vast herds of animals grazed everywhere and the lean forms of the carnivores passed between them, mutually indifferent until the time of hunting. At that time I saw to my weapons and kept a sharp lookout. A massive herd of chunkrah grazed and I gazed at them with the sharp knowing eye of a Clansman, built from wild skirling days on the Great Plains of Segesthes. The chunkrah is perhaps the most superb cattle animal of Paz, deep-chested, horned, fierce, impressive, and his russet coat gleams splendidly. I would not slay one of those magnificent beasts for my supper for that would be wanton waste. Each night I camped and made a fire and slept well away, so that I might espy whoever or whatever sought me by the fireglow.
A sennight later, along with herds of ordel and other cattle, another prairie-darkening herd of chunkrah came in sight, clear proof of the fecundity of the land. Rain fell in due season and the grasses thrived. I skirted the herd, admiring the craggy strength of the chunkrah, giving them no cause to take alarm.
With my old sailorman's knack I had been steering by the suns and the stars and I'd kept on a course that I hoped would be the reciprocal of any vollers out scouting for me toward Aphrasöe. I just accepted with thankfulness the fact—for it is an undeniable fact—that when I am lost and wandering on the face of Savage Kregen my Delia will find ways and means of searching for me. No beautiful idol in a niche, lit by a golden lamp, Delia of Vallia. By Vox, no! She is vibrant and energetic and confoundedly cunning and femininely shrewd. Delia is no stay-at-home dowdy, nor is she a hard and bitter would-be-male chauvinist. She is a woman, and glorious in her womanhood. Also, she casts a too-perceptive eye on me, from time to time, seeing straight through my most artful wiles. So I knew there was a good chance I'd spot an airboat.
Thinking decidedly hot thoughts, I trotted gently over the brow of a hill, a long rolling swaying of the land, and automatically looked for a voller, and all around for potential foes.
A wheeling cloud of Katakis—away in the distance around a scattering of broken rocks beside a broad river Katakis were spurring their zorcas with fiendish cruelty. I stopped at once and pulled Shadow around and rode smartly back over the brow of the hill.
Dismounting and with a pat to Shadow I dropped on all fours and crept up the hill low to the ground and stuck my head out alongside a small chansi bush, its tiny round bottle-green leaves rustling musically in the little breeze. I trusted at the distance that to any sharp eye among the Katakis my shaggy head would look merely like another chansi bush. The wild animals of the plains like thechansi, for it moistens their mouths and chews for a long time, like cham.
The grey rocks out there had fallen in long ago. They lay scattered and broken, weather-beaten. The muddy river humped along and many wildfowl scattered and squawked and commotioned there, a myriad wings against the brightness.
A glint among the rocks took my attention. A careful look, a scrutiny through narrowed eyes—and I let out a sigh of exasperation.
A voller—stuck down among the rocks. She had come down hard. Fastened to a twisted scrap of her prow, upflung, a flag flew bravely—a flag of
orange and grey.
Well, it made sense.
Djanduin was the land nearest here to which any of the trespassers at the pool would have been flung. So it would naturally be Kytun and his fellow four-armed tearaways who would reach Ba-Domek first in search of me.
And their voller had crashed, as vollers did on Kregen.
No thought entered my head of rushing down and getting into the fight. Although I will not be pedantic or intractable on the subject, in my view there is no finer fighting man than a Djang, except a Clansman. But—but, again, that must wait. As I stared down I had no concern for the safety of my Djangs man to man with the Katakis.
Katakis are fierce and vicious with their two powerful arms and steel-bladed whiptails. They are excellent if dirty fighters. But Djangs have four arms, and they are better—and dirtier—fighters, when it behooves them to be.
As now, I saw, peering carefully. For there were not above ten Djangs, and the Katakis numbered over a hundred, shrilling around on their zorcas, shooting arrows into the rocks, charging in only to haul around and pull back, taunting the ferocious Djangs to follow them out to be chopped.
On the ring of plain between the Katakis and the rocks lay many bodies. Most were Kataki. There were Djang bodies there, whereat my face grew grim and I ceased from my careless pleasure in once more seeing my Djangs.
I do not forget I am the King of Djanduin.
The simple brainless course would be to mount up and send Shadow flying down there, to burst through the ring, and to join my people in mutual defiance. Then we could fight it out to the end. Oh, yes, there would be joy in that, perhaps some of the tinsel glory that appeals to the boneheads among military men of two worlds, as among berserker warriors. But I was Dray Prescot, not a stupid thick-headed nincompoop, not a simpleton in these things, even if I am an onker in others. The picture of the leem, stalking the two young elopers, stayed with me. But even the old Dray Prescot, he who had struggled so intemperately in his early days on Kregen, might have thought on before charging down there to the last great fight.
Savage Scorpio [Dray Prescot #16] Page 18