Talons of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #30]

by Alan Burt Akers

  I gave Twayne Gullik few odds if he tried to stand in the way of Scauro Pompino the Iarvin. The Ifts might scorn and play tricks where tumps were concerned, the two races of diffs detesting each other to the point of obsession; a Khibil's feelings of superiority stood in quite another league.

  A couple of Fristles marched past, trailing their spears, their armor reasonably bright and cared for. They were hurrying, leaving the barracks, and we guessed they were late for guard duty. They gave us a quick nod of recognition as we passed.

  “Humph,” said Pompino, staring after them. “A right couple. Like ‘em all here, slack, damned slack."

  “You going to blame Gullik for that? Or for the state of the people in the city?"

  “If I've a mind to, I will. I expect the citizens of Port Marsilus are a spineless lot, undermined by the war and the absence of a strong authority. Oh, yes, I know.” He went on speaking quickly. “I know this Kov Pando is a friend from your past. And so is the Lady Tilda. But, all the same—"

  “All the same, Pompino, I think you are right."

  “As I said. And this Twayne Gullik is no better than a damned masichier, a confounded bandit masquerading as a mercenary. I own I have itchy fingers when he's about."

  “Don't forget, my friend, that he will have itchy fingers, too."

  “Ha!"

  The north corridor contained a long row of tall windows, not quite slit windows affording cover for archers; but windows that were not particularly good at admitting light. They overlooked the north courtyard and the battlemented gate which, as the palace faced west, opened onto a side road. The noise of hooves and the clash of iron-rimmed wheels on cobbles attracted our attention, and we hauled ourselves up on the narrow windowsills to peer over and down. Green slate roofs spread beneath us and, far below, the hint of the north courtyard.

  The polished roof of a carriage, partially concealed by a brass-bound traveling trunk, was just disappearing under the archway, the rear of the vehicle and its wheels concealed by a mounted escort whose lances slanted in ungainly fashion. From this angle we could make out few details. The escort, a dozen totrix men in mail, clattered out and the courtyard lay empty.

  Pompino said: “The jutmen carried no colors on their lances."

  “By their flags shall ye know them,” I quoted. “And, so, we do not know them."

  “When,” said a mocking voice at our backs and below us, “you are quite finished, the kovneva will see you."

  We let go the windowsills and dropped to the floor. The fellow who spoke held a golden-bound balass stick, ivory-topped. He wore long blue robes with a plentiful supply of silver, and his hat—flat, wide, puffed—supported a bunch of cut feathers of so inordinate a height one felt he would take off in a breeze.

  “Who the devil are you?” demanded Pompino.

  The fellow's puffy face, all pouched eyes and purple nose and sagging jowls, quivered in outrage.

  “I am the kovneva's grand chamberlain, Constanchoin the Rod. She has graciously condescended to see you now, and you had best not keep her waiting."

  “And,” Pompino said, in a brittle voice, “not a horter in all this farrago."

  I'd been thinking that a chamberlain, grand or not, would use the simple polite term of horter to a couple of gentlemen, here in his mistress's palace. Mind you, by Krun, most of the time it is difficult to take me for a gentleman, and I do not pretend to be a member of that ilk. I am content to be a plain sailorman, a fighting man or, when it comes to it, an emperor.

  All the same, folk called Pompino and me horter out of simple politeness.

  The grand chamberlain banged his black staff on the stone floor.

  “There is no time to waste. Follow me."

  I put a hand on Pompino's arm.

  “It would be a sensible idea if we are to see Tilda to take Lisa the Empoin or the Lady Nalfi—"

  Pompino's forearm bunched under my fingers, quivered, and then relaxed.

  “Agreed.” He spoke with some stiffness. “But, if they go, it is certain sure Quendur and Larghos will wish to accompany them, and if Larghos goes, Cap'n Murkizon will—"

  “Quite. And, why not? After all,” I said to this Constanchoin the Rod, “the kovneva will be glad to see all of them, seeing they risked their lives to bring her to safety."

  Three flunkeys in a sillier version of the grand chamberlain's attire stood at his back. Constanchoin flicked the pomander on the end of a stick he carried in his left hand. If the gesture was a mere command, or signified what he thought of us, I neither knew nor cared.

  “Planath,” he said to one of the flunkeys. “Go to the barracks and summon these people. Tell them to hurry in our footsteps."

  The flunkey mumbled a reply—not the military quidang—and trotted off, banging his balass staff—bound with silver—against the shins of a slave who almost fell over getting out of the way. A number of slaves passed and repassed, most of them carrying water, for that is a never-ending task in Kregan palaces. Other people had stopped to allow the grand chamberlain to go about his official duties and, also, to watch and enjoy whoever might be discomfited.

  Followed by Pompino and me, Constanchoin the Rod started off back the way we had come. Four slaves with a carved lenken box strapped with bronze pressed against the wall to allow us to pass. Just beyond them a girl with a fluted vase of flowers—where she might be going was anybody's guess—waited. She wore a decent gray slave breechclout, and her hair was bound with a grass fillet. Apart from that she wore nothing else, and her feet, besides being dusty, showed a trace of blood. I had to walk on. But, by Zair, the maggots festered, believe you me.

  Then I stopped dead.

  The fellow who stood like an ale barrel against the wall wore a pale blue tunic, and dark blue trousers, with black boots. He did not wear a hat and his brown hair was cut short. He stood short, stout and robust, on thick legs that waddled when he walked. He wore a pallixter, the Pandahem form of thraxter, belted to his waist—and the word waist was merely a euphemism for his girth. His nose was a mere chunk of gristle, and the redness of his cheeks vied with the sunset of Zim, the red sun of Scorpio.

  Pompino swung to look at me in surprise.

  I walked on a few paces, as though in thought, and then said: “Do you go on, Pompino. I'll catch you up in a moment."

  “But—"

  “Hurry!” called the grand chamberlain. His flunkeys pressed close.

  “Go on, Pompino. Tilda is, after all, a kovneva."

  “What's going on? By Horato the Potent, Jak—you—"

  “Something I must do—I'll be along with the others in no time."

  Now Pompino is no man's fool. His frown did not lift; but he nodded and swung back to follow Constanchoin and the flunkeys. I breathed out.

  There was no danger, I estimated, that the barrel-shaped fellow by the wall would throw himself into the full incline and start majistering me. He was too sly for that.

  He started to walk off and turned into the first cross-corridor. I followed. Not too fast, not too slow, walking as though needing to go on an errand of purpose, I followed Naghan Raerdu along the cross-corridor and so into a small room stuffed with dusty barrels and boxes. He closed the door after me and stood back, looking at me.

  Then he said: “Jak, is it, majister?"

  “Aye, Naghan. And well met. I am glad to see you."

  “As I am surprised to see you here: The Prince Majister's latest intelligence is only that you left Ruathytu in the devil of a hurry. But, of course, I have had little news myself in the past few sennights."

  I answered in order. “I am not surprised to see you, Naghan, but I am pleased that my son chose you to spy for us here in Pandahem. I've been some way since leaving Ruathytu, and am now engaged in rooting out temples of Lem the Silver Leem. And, although any secret agent must be kept informed, it is his job to gather intelligence."

  “Assuredly, Jak, assuredly."

  Here Naghan Raerdu shut his eyes and the tears squeezed
out from under the lids. He quivered. His red face became even more startlingly colored. Naghan Raerdu laughed in his own special rib-crushing way, spraying tears. When he laughed no one took much notice of what else he was doing.

  This, of course, made him a very dangerous man and a first-class wormer out of secrets.

  Presently he told me that his cover was a simple ale tradesman—and this fitted, for Naghan Raerdu seldom passed a bur or two without a glass tilted to his lips. Drak wanted to find out all there was to know of the people organizing the opposition to the warmongering factions here in Bormark. Armies were being sent across to the southwest of Vallia to support Kov Vodun Alloran—as I had learned aboard Insur ti Fotor's galleon—and my lad Drak felt we should assist those here in Bormark who stood against this plan.

  “And there are such people, people who do not wish to fight against Vallia? You have contacted them?"

  “Tsleetha-tsleethi,” quoth Raerdu. “Softly-softly. There was a group I had just contacted when half of their number turned up in the River Liximus with slit throats and the other half vanished."

  I looked sternly at him.

  “If you turn up in the river with your throat slit, Naghan, I shall be extraordinarily annoyed. Not as much as you, perhaps. But remember! If you take stupid risks and such a fate should befall you, the ale would never reach your stomach."

  He glared back.

  “Few men call me stupid, majister."

  “Sink me! If you were stupid you'd be dead twenty times by now."

  I was not prepared to go into a long, involved and probably incoherent explanation of my feelings over sending men and women into danger and the risks of nasty deaths. They fought for Vallia, as did I. I'd had my share of risks, and, by Vox, a hell of a lot more lay ahead, as you shall hear. But, as always, I fretted at the unwholesome necessity of sending men and women into dangers I could not share.

  “I'm still alive, Jak. That must prove something."

  Although in the end we're all going shuffling off to the Ice Floes of Sicce and, if we are fortunate and of stout hearts and hew to the right path, make our way to the sunny uplands beyond, we all feel we wish to push that time off for as long as possible. I've been around Kregen under many assumed names, as you know; I believe I have only once been called Davy Prescott. Amusing as an indication of scholarship though this is, for me it is merely another prod in the direction of staying away from any Alamo, unless something stupid like honor gets in the way. It was in my mind that Naghan Raerdu would never let the stupidity of honor betray him, for all that he was loyal and courageous. He gave me further news—which does not concern my narrative at this time—and he reassured me that those people for whom I had a particular care were still in one piece.

  Then he said: “The Princess Dayra was down in the southwest. I was not assigned there, until later, and so cannot vouch for the rumors—"

  I congratulated myself on my iron control.

  I did not leap forward and seize Naghan Raerdu around his neck and choke him, screaming: “Rumors? Princess Dayra? What rumors? Spit ‘em out or you are a dead man!"

  No. My self-control was admirable.

  Naghan Raerdu jumped, staring at me in that dusty room. His color patched into white and pink.

  “Majister...” he stammered, and licked his lips, and said quickly—very quickly—"A colleague said that the Princess Dayra was actively assisting Vodun Alloran..."

  I put a hand on a barrel. The dust lay thick.

  “And?"

  He swallowed.

  “As I said, majister, I cannot vouch—"

  “Tell me what the rumors are concerning my daughter Dayra."

  He straightened, for he saw the crisis had passed. A large number of people knew how much of a trial Dayra was to her family. She was known as Ros the Claw, having been through Lancival where she had been taught the secret Disciplines of the Whip and the Claw. The Sisters of the Rose had taught her, and her mother had loved and counseled her; but during the time of her growing up there had been no father in her life. That great rogue had been banished to Earth, distant four hundred light-years, by the Star Lords. For that I had, I thought, forgiven them, for they and I had reached a tatty kind of agreement in these later years. But, as now, the hideous results of that parting from my family came home to me with deadly remorse.

  The truth was, of course, that even had I been around like any normal father, Dayra would still have gone off the rails, although perhaps not to quite the extent she had. She had been lured off course by bad companions. Some of them were due a hempen necktie—when they were caught.

  Dayra's mother, the incomparable Delia of Delphond, had herself been constrained by duty to the Sisters of the Rose. It was perfectly reasonable to suggest that the SOR themselves, as much as any other factor, had contributed heavily to Dayra's wildness.

  Naghan's rubicund composure returned. Sweat glimmered on his red forehead.

  “The usual things, Jak. Smashing up wine shops, wrecking restaurants. But she was seen riding with Alloran when he led an armored host to war—"

  “But he was fighting the Prince Majister! Do you think I am to believe that my daughter Dayra would go out to fight her brother?"

  “There were no reports of her presence on the battlefield."

  “Thank Opaz for that. Is there more?"

  “This fellow Zankov was also seen in her company."

  “Him,” I said, and drew a breath. “I tell you this, Naghan, for your information. Zankov is a young devil, spurned by his family and out to make himself master of whatever he can lay his hands on. He is the man who slew the emperor, the Princess Dayra's grandfather. I do not think she can know this."

  Naghan's brown Vallian eyes widened. “I did not know this. By Vox! What a coil!"

  “Oh, the coil is tighter than that. For the Princess Dayra hates and detests her father, Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia.’”

  All Naghan said was: “That I knew."

  An emotion, and I hardly care to call it pride, for it was more a kind of affronted despair, a desperate call for a fraction of self-esteem, made me say: “Although when she thought she could slay me, dubious though the chance was, she did not strike, and held back the blow. It is in my mind that, perhaps, her hatred and detestation are not the powerful forces in her life she thinks they are."

  Naghan Raerdu said: “I pray Opaz you are right."

  I shook myself. The dust was getting up my nose.

  “We have spoken long enough for now. We shall meet again. Now I'm on my way to see the Kovneva Tilda, for there are temples to be burned."

  “The kovneva?” Naghan looked puzzled. “She left the Zhantil Palace very early this morning, Jak. She took a large escort, and no one knew where she had gone."

  * * *

  Chapter nine

  How a blood-stained switch changed hands

  The problems of my family and particularly of Dayra had to be pushed aside—yet again. The Star Lords overlooked my actions here in Bormark, even if they had not directly commissioned Pompino and me. Because I had defied them in the past they had banished me to Earth for twenty-one years. In those years Dayra and her twin brother Jaidur had grown to maturity. Useless to harp on what might have been...

  I found Constanchoin the Rod in a small, black-hung chamber, superintending the chastisement of a slave girl. The under-flunkey I dragged along by an ear had let me know that I was sealing my doom by my actions. But he led me where I wanted to go, even if he dragged along after, his ear stretching.

  The slave girl, naked, hung suspended by her ankles from a cross beam. She was past the shrieking stage, and blood ran down to drip from her forehead into her hair and so onto the iron floor. The Rapa who, stripped to the waist, wielded the switch, halted his blow as I bundled in.

  Two Rapa guards immediately rushed across, their spears ready to degut me. I threw the junior flunkey at them and took time to take the switch away from the Rapa and hit him a belt across the head. His be
ak bent. I kicked him as he went down, thus proving the grand chamberlain at least half-right when he'd omitted to address me as horter.

  The two guards disentangled themselves from the flunkey and heaved up. The grand chamberlain was shrieking out something about kill him, you fools, kill him. They charged with their spears low. They'd have killed me, too, I believe, even before anything had been sorted out. As it was I whipped the thraxter out, swished left, cut right, ducked away, got inside the second spear and thrust.

  Two Rapa guards lay on the iron floor, bleeding messily.

  Three naked and chained girls at the side did not scream. But their eyes were as wide as the Sunset Sea.

  No doubt they were next in line for punishment. There had been enough time since the grand chamberlain had summoned us to the kovneva for just the one girl to be chastised.

  The tendril-like antennae growing from her forehead and shrouded by her soft dark hair looked limp and woeful. Her small pinched face with the bruised eyes and the full yet small mouth made me kick the Rapa switch-wielder again, hard, and say to him: “Be thankful you are still alive, dom."

  The only other person in the chamber, a little six-armed Och in a brown tunic, crouched beside the chained slave girls. Mutely, he handed me the keyring. I did not take it.

  “Unchain them,” I growled, and then dived for the grand chamberlain who was attempting to scuttle out.

  “C'mere, grand chamberlain,” I said, and lifted him up by his fancy silver-worked blue robe so that he squeaked. I stuck my ugly old beakhead of a face into his and said: “Where's the kovneva?"

  “I don't know!” He chittered it out, swinging with his toes scraping the floor. I shook him.

  “You summoned me to see the Kovneva Tilda. She has left the Zhantil Palace. She had left long before you spoke to me. So, dom, where is she?"