Talons of Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  The sign said, simply: “If you are of impure heart you are welcome, stranger, for purity exists only with the Dahemin.”

  Without pulling the bell cord I pushed the low door open and we all trooped through into a flower-bowered courtyard. The Dahemin, the twins, the god Dahemo and the goddess Dahema, had fallen out of favor when the green religion of Havil was new. The pious women here, the Sisters of Impurity, kept up the old mysteries and beliefs. I felt I could appeal to them for help. If I could not, there was nowhere else as far as I knew in all the city.

  The Sisters oohed and aahed over the children and, fluffing clear yellow kerchiefs around their noses, led the girls off to be bathed. This bathing would be of an entirely different order from that in the Silver Leem’s temple. The Mother Superior — to give a bowdlerized form of her title — made me sit down to a glass of parclear and a plate of miscils. As the tiny cakes melted on my tongue she asked me and I told her. I told her that the adherents of Lem the Silver Leem would seek out the whereabouts of the girls to take them back for sacrifice. I did not expect her to keep them here in her house of seclusion. I did not tell her where I intended to take them.

  She said her name was Mistress Mire. She was not old, clad in a severe gray gown with a rope girdle and bare feet, a flap of gray cloth over her hair, which shone most beautifully. The Little Sisters of Impurity ministered to any who sought their services, and the small charges they made sustained them in their frugal way of life. I refused to pass any judgments.

  Pompino’s gold spilled out of the purse onto the table between us. I’d take up a loan from Pando next, if necessary. Sister Mire smiled her sweet smile.

  “We can offer you a refreshing personal service—”

  “I am in need of keeping an appointment, sister. I hope I do not offend by this refusal?”

  “When you feel the imperfections of the spirit and the flesh, you will call on us. We are here to minister to your needs in the supernal name of the Dahemin, man and woman both.”

  “Quite. I give you thanks. I will make arrangements to collect the children later when the Suns have gone.”

  There was clear disappointment on her face. No doubt she was hoping I’d just leave the girls and clear off. They’d make a capital addition to her house of seclusion when they were a few seasons older.

  When I left I started to make the rote farewell along with the remberees — “May Pandrite have you in his keeping.” I halted myself. These women followed a religion old before the religion of Havil, which here in Pandahem had been materially supplanted by that of Pandrite. She might have considered that I blasphemed her. In impurity are all hearts as one.

  As they say in the inner sea, the Eye of the World: “Only Zair knows the cleanliness of a human heart.”

  Bidding Mistress Mire remberee I hurried off to the Awkward Swod, keeping a sharp lookout. Naghan was still waiting. He’d secured a side table under a wide black beam, and ale stood upon that table, and a meal which, covered, was still edible.

  “Trouble, Jak?”

  Eating, I told him. “I’ll have to arrange tonight to—”

  He lifted a hand. “Leave all that to me.”

  “My thanks.”

  “It is now certain that Kov Pando follows Strom Murgon as fast as he can. It is said that when they meet one will die.”

  Naghan would have messages carried by relays of merfluts, or possibly some other form of Kregan homing pigeon. Merfluts are exceptionally fast and reliable.

  “And Pompino is not back yet, I’ll warrant.”

  “He is not.”

  “And no message from him?”

  “None I’m privy to.”

  I didn’t say that if Naghan Raerdu knew of no message it was certain sure no message existed. But that was so near the truth as to convince me Pompino had sent no message. Or, rather, no message had been received at the Zhantil Palace.

  He drank and then said: “I must tell you that this morning someone unknown burned down the Vallian embassy here.”

  Quelling my annoyance was not difficult; after all, with the temper of this place it was a wonder they hadn’t burned our embassy before this. I said: “Was anyone hurt?”

  “No, thankfully enough. The ambassador sought refuge in the palace. It adds another complication.”

  “Too right it does, by Chusto! I don’t want him catching sight of me up there.”

  “Strazab Larghos ti Therminsax knows you well enough, I’d think, seeing he received the title of Strazab at your hands.”

  One of the Vallian diplomatic corps, Larghos ti Therminsax was an earnest, serious man who, loyal in the Times of Troubles, had made a career in the diplomatic. As a strazab, an imperial creation on a level with a strom in the regular nobility, he was of the right rank to be ambassador to Bormark. In fact, ambassadorial status was high for a mere kovnate within a kingdom, and that was because of my personal feelings regarding Pando. I frowned. I’d been using the Zhantil palace as a base; I didn’t really fancy poking around to find a new.

  With a squeezing shut of his eyes and a copious flow of merry tears, Naghan said: “It may be that Strazab Larghos will happily return to Vallia. If it is suggested.”

  In rather too sour a voice, I said: “Well, you can’t suggest it to him, and neither can I.”

  Naghan Raerdu was not discomfited.

  “I will go down to see Captain Linson and have a messenger return with word from Vallia. It can be arranged. Strazab Larghos can be recalled.”

  “H’m. It might work. Although Linson’s a stickler, and you’ll have to cross his palm with gold, not silver. And that reminds me. I paid all the gold I had to the Little Sisters of Impurity—”

  Naghan Raerdu laughed so much he almost choked.

  “—so, my friend, I shall crop your ears for a loan.”

  “Done, Jak, done!”

  If Strazab Larghos believed a Pandahem argenter brought the signal for his recall from Vallia, it would be a wonder. But honest and loyal though he was, he’d be in the frame of mind for a recall. Then I expounded my scheme to Naghan, and he listened, growing grave, although every now and then whetting the throstle with a glug or two.

  At one point he said: “I refrained from setting anyone on to keeping an observation on you. I surmised you would object.”

  “I’d have been glad of some help when those poor girl children were running about all over the street, I can tell you!”

  “Just so. The riding animal is easily obtained — a totrix, or hersany—?”

  “No. A freymul, I think, the poor man’s zorca. That will suit the style.”

  “You’ll see to providing the robes and badge yourself?”

  “Oh, aye,” I said. “I’ll see to that.”

  “Until you spoke so freely to me I had taken little interest in this Lem thing. There has been little time. But I fancy, with some help from Opaz, that I can insinuate a fellow into—”

  I looked sternly at this unlikely-looking secret agent.

  “I caution you most strongly, Naghan. The Leem Lovers have their rigmaroles of secret signs and passwords. If you try to put any poor fellow in without sure knowledge, he’s done for.”

  He rubbed a finger around his blobby gristle nose.

  “I believe I have paid good red gold to just such a one. A little questioning more, a little suggestion — and the fellow has a girl, too. She might be the more useful.”

  “Just don’t get good people killed on my behalf.”

  We were sitting comfortably in a tavern, the Awkward Swod, and drinking and eating and taking our ease, and we plotted dark doings and nefarious expeditions. What we decided could cause many deaths, could cause riots and conflagrations, and not always to the evil ones of the world. We had to step with great caution.

  Naghan said: “Just in case, then. Tipp the Kaktu. Monsi the Bosom.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  As I may have remarked before, a number of times, if you want to stay alive and in one piece on K
regen you have to remember names.

  “My information contains nothing on Zankov, Jak.”

  “Confound it! By Chusto! I was hoping — still, no matter. He’ll turn up like a hole in your sandal.”

  “Strom Murgon will be coming in through the west gate. The Inward Gate is not grand enough for him, it seems.”

  “As they say in a place I know — when the chavnik’s away the woflo will play.”

  “I’ll meet you there in three burs.”

  “Capital.”

  Naghan rose on his stumpy legs, puffing, finishing the last of his ale. He plunked the jug down, lifted his purse and unlatched it and thunked it down on the table. I picked it up. It weighed.

  “My thanks, Naghan.”

  His laugh was a marvel of compression and of explosion. The one of his eyelids, the other his tears.

  “You paid it to me, Jak, you paid it to me.”

  “Aye. And you’ll have it all returned, with interest. I’ll see you at the west gate in three burs.”

  On that, with the remberees, we parted.

  Going out of the Awkward Swod into the streaming mingled radiance of the Suns of Scorpio, two thoughts made me reflect that, one, it was a grand comfort to a fellow to have loyal helpmates, and, two, it was just as well that Pompino the Iarvin was still not with me. By Krun! I’d have had one hell of a job keeping his itchy fingers off a tinderbox!

  Chapter fourteen

  Strom Murgon puts on a show

  Pando’s chief city of Port Marsilus was set into a cup-shaped indentation of the coastline on the western edge of the Bay of Panderk. Consequently, the north and eastern sides were washed by the sea, and the southern flank, being walled off by a ridge of ground the locals called the Spine of Lhorcas, the road wound in and around this ridge and so fetched up with the main gate of the city, the west gate.

  There were other gates; but I fancied, along with the judgment of Naghan Raerdu, that Strom Murgon would choose to ride in through the chief gate of the city.

  Murgon Marsilus, Strom of Ribenor, cousin to the Kov of Bormark, stood no nonsense from anyone. A powerful man, dark of temper, an adherent of Lem the Silver Leem, he was not content to lord it over his little stromnate within the kovnate; he lusted after greater power.

  If Pando was in trouble with King Nemo — and why hadn’t he burned up with his damned palace? — Murgon would step forth more openly in his ambitious designs.

  They both craved this Dafni girl to increase their domains and power. When two men want the same girl, and the girl has a mind of her own, empires may totter and fall. I did not know how much credence to put in Tilda’s words when she’d told me that Dafni Harlstam had settled on Murgon and then Pando had happened along to upset the arrangements. If he had, it could mean that Dafni Harlstam herself had wanted that. Otherwise Pando’s suit would have fallen.

  But, then, he was a kov. Dafni was a vadni, and her vadvarate of Tenpanam marched border for border with Pando’s lands. It was a coil. Maybe I’d have to wring the answers from each of them in turn. As to why it concerned me, that was obvious. One, Pando was a friend. Two, I was the Emperor of Vallia. And, if you cared to admit it, Three, we hadn’t much liked Murgon Marsilus, even though he had put himself in jeopardy to rescue us from a scrape.

  He’d done that because he thought Pompino and I were adherents of Lem the Silver Leem.

  Three burs exactly saw Naghan Raerdu trot gently up in the shadows of the west wall. He rode a freymul and he led another on a headrope. Both animals were fine examples of their breed. He saw me and halted and dismounted. His face, in the shadows, short still in mid afternoon, looked a mere splodge. I guessed he was laughing. He tied the second freymul to a hitching ring stapled into the wall. Plenty of people were about, going about their business, with the gray slink of slaves gliding unnoticed through the throngs. Then Naghan mounted up and trotted off. I ambled over.

  The freymul had a scrap of paper tucked into his harness. One word — FRUPP.

  “Hai, Frupp,” I said, knuckling in behind his ears.

  He bowed his head and twisted it around. Freymuls do not have the single spiral horn of the zorca, and they are, although willing in their fashion, limited in performance. This Frupp had curly amber streaks below and a chocolate-colored coat. His eyes were bright. I liked him instantly.

  Along the wall beside the gate sat a line of beggars, cripples, folk in buckets, folk on crutches, folk hideously disfigured, women exposing themselves to show deformities and scars and the tied ends of amputations. By this time in my life upon Kregen, that wonderful if horrific world four hundred light years from Earth, I had become, if not inured to sights like these, at least understanding of them. This was one unpleasant facet of life. Some of these people were in the begging profession. As small children they would have been mutilated by their parents, all in the name of earning a living. As usual, I distributed a few coins; but too great generosity, harsh as this may sound, was a mistake.

  Among those pitiable morsels of near-humanity, I wouldn’t mind taking a wager, squatted one of Naghan’s people.

  The noise burst all about me, chaffering people, the beggars whining, saddle animals jingling, the discordant music from the juggling troupe. Outside the gate lay the main Wayfarer’s Drinnik, the wide space where caravans formed up or disbanded. Although this scene was wildly familiar in many aspects, and even although the Star Lords — as I thought — had for their own purposes imposed some uniformity upon peoples and customs, there was no doubt I was in a foreign land. This scene before me was not one that would be enacted in Vallia, or even in Havilfar. The elements might appear to be the same; the underlying structures might appear to share the same rules; but the effects were totally different. Kregen is a world of violent contrasts, and of uniformity, and of a never-ending wonder.

  An armored man astride a hersany clip-clopped in through the gate, followed by a string of calsanys, all laden with straw baskets, two each side, lolling along held by the guide ropes. Guards prowled. This was a caravan destined for some specific destination and pleased to be within the walls before sundown. The juggling troupe carried on, and now they were rivaled by a group performing some kind of primitive play, full of bladders and false tails. A musician with all his instruments lashed about him jigged up and down and, I found with pleased surprise, producing a not unattractive melody — punctuated, of course, by many bangings of the drums and the cymbals between his knees.

  I mounted up on Frupp and gently guided him out through the gate when space permitted. I wished to attract no attention. Outside, and past Wayfarer’s Drinnik, the land opened out. Here all the trees had long since been cut down. Any lord with any sense does not allow cover for hostile archers within bowshot of his walls. The track stretched away, rounding the curve of the Spine of Lhorcas. I ambled along astride Frupp. Presently the forests began, closing up to the road. This made me fret over Pompino and that rascally Ift, Twayne Gullik, and the fate of the Kovneva Tilda. What I was doing riding out like this had seemed to me to be a sensible idea. I’d catch sight of Strom Murgon early on.

  That wouldn’t help. Not really. I was riding to still the quiver in my nerves. So, incontinently, I turned Frupp’s head and rode back. He did not complain.

  I needed to find my turkey; that would be more fruitful.

  Riding easily about the streets might not prove to be the best plan. But it was no use leaving it too late.

  I needed somebody not too unlike me. The obvious problem would be that the fellow would be well-known. How to legislate against that concerned me; apart from asking him, there was no way I’d find out. Eventually, I found a likely recruit to my nefarious plans just leaving a tavern, the Boiwink and Clooke, reeling just enough to betray him to my grasping fists...

  This happened down the side alley into which he’d reeled to relieve himself. He made not a sound. I didn’t particularly want his clothes, which were not greatly different from my own — or, rather, Pando’s — or his mone
y or weapons. I took his waist-length cloak, which, gray on the outside, was brown on the inside, edged with silver lace. His badge — that I had. The silver leem was finely chased, the tuft of brown feathers rampant. I trusted this fellow was not too high up. His pouch yielded what was perhaps the most important necessity of all — his silver leem mask. I’d worn these things before. It fitted up on leather straps, a snarling vicious countenance all whiskers and fangs. Once a Leem Lover wore his or her silver leem mask, all restraints vanished.

  The mask went back into the velvet-lined pouch and was hooked onto my belt. His purse was one of those vainglorious items you could buy in the flash zouks, a thing of stringed netting so that the gold within could glint through and proclaim your wealth. It fastened with a jeweled clasp. Vainglorious, yes, and foolish, too...

  As I straightened up from the fellow’s unconscious body the first shafting ray of ruby radiance of Zim shone down the alley as the great red sun of Antares dropped beyond the corner building. A party of tumps trudged past the end of the side alley. No doubt they’d come into the city to spend their gold for new tools to dig more, and for ale and provisions. They lived in their mines and caves in the countryside, and quarreled with the Ifts and anyone else. They saw the bright wink of gold, they saw me crouched over the body on the ground. Instantly, on their stumpy legs, their heavy-headed hammers raised and their beards flying, they charged.

  Without any self-consciousness I jumped up and ran.

  Bashing a posse of pint-sized tumps over the head was not on the agenda this evening...

  Also, and this I freely concede, short and stout though they are, and massively bearded, if a tump hits you over the head with his hammer you’re likely never to hear the famous old Bells of Beng Kishi. Those hammers are reputed to stove in vosk skulls, although this I doubt.

  Mounting up on Frupp I nudged him and obediently he trotted off and out onto the main street. I turned toward the west gate. There could not be much time left now...

  You had to say this for Strom Murgon Marsilus. He knew how to put on a show.