Talons of Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  First of all trotted a posse of trumpeters mounted on gray zorcas. They tootled away, the golden notes blasting into the warm evening air and proclaiming the imminent arrival of a great lord. A strom is not ordinarily a great lord, just a lord of the upper middle rankings. But Murgon had great plans.

  There followed a troupe of dancing girls, scantily clad, who scattered flower petals. Unquestionably they had been brought along in wagons from Pomdermam, and would have alighted and begun their flower-strewing dance just before they entered the west gate. Onlookers crowded up, forming a lane along which the procession wended its colorful way.

  A half-pastang of hersany lancers rode next, and then the first of the infantry, kreutzin in light equipment and little decoration. A yell broke from the crowd at the next sight to lumber through the gate. Murgon had brought a pair of thumping great dermiflons, lurching, idiot-headed, ten-legged, their blue skin glistening like olive oil under the Suns. They were often a favorite with the ordinary folk; some nations could not abide them. There was no doubt the people of Port Marsilus considered them a rare treat.

  More cavalry and infantry followed, the sword and shield men, the churgurs, and — which interested me more than a trifle — a whole regiment of swarthmen. These cavalrymen rode their two-legged reptilian mounts with almost, almost, the confidence of well-trained jutmen. I fancied the swarths were new to their riders. Certain sure it was, the riders were new to swarths.

  Music of a tin-banging, rattling kind was provided by splendidly attired bands which marched along at ear-splitting distance. Murgon would have positioned his baggage wagons at the tail of the procession, with a rough-rider band to look after them. Folk might still hang about admiring the number of wagons in a rich lord’s entourage. If Murgon was as rich as this show attested, he would have a sizable train. If he was as rich as Pando had implied, he could never in a thousand seasons afford all this.

  The strom himself rode a black zorca, whose spiral horn, adorned with silver, nodded up and down in a fretful way, for Murgon held him on too tight a rein. The animal was superb. Murgon, too, clad sumptuously, looked superb.

  His black beard, cut short, his sharp and haughty features, the level arrogant unseeing stare in his dark eyes, all stamped him as a notor of Tomboram. I did think that there was about him more than a hint, a definable impression, of defiance. Pinned to the front of his tunic, partially concealed by the massed gilt-lacing to the edge of his cape, he wore a device. From this distance what it might be was problematical to all save those who would know.

  He wore the imago of the silver leem, with its brown and silver ribbons. Openly, the strom wore the badge of Lem the Silver Leem. Many a man and many a woman in the crowd wore their own silver leem badge, with the tuft of brown feathers or the brown and silver ribbons. They would know, and, knowing approve...

  The cheers that greeted Strom Murgon bellowed to the evening sky. They depressed me, by Vox, they depressed me.

  I remembered how, in the cabin of Tuscurs Maiden, I’d discussed with Pompino the chances of Murgon or of Pando reaching Bormark first. It seemed that Murgon had won. He clearly had the people with him. He did not harm his chances or his popularity by the lavish handfuls of silver men dressed in fantastic costumes scattered from wicker baskets. Murgon was displaying his wealth, his largesse, and thereby his power. Again, I pondered — where was all this hard cash coming from?

  Pando, in the nature of a kov, would be rich. The king was displeased with him, his cousin was buying his people — Pando was getting the cold shoulder, the Big E.

  This, I believed, must tie in with the enterprise against southwest Vallia. I’d be hitting two birds with one shaft this night, I fancied.

  Discreetly, after the great man had passed, I guided Frupp through the throngs, following on. Jollity broke out, Murgon’s silver being immediately put to useful purposes.

  Now I knew just how many Stromnates and eltenates and other of the lesser nobilities existed in Pando’s Bormark, for I had made it my business to know. I knew, also, who did and who did not keep up villas in the kovnate’s capital city. Murgon maintained a modest villa along the Avenue of Miscils... The procession did not make for the villa of Ribenor. Oh, no, they headed for a certain tumbledown old theater.

  Gradually, the bands ceased playing, the soldiers parceled themselves off to seek billets, the dancing girls disappeared, the men had emptied their baskets of silver.

  With only a small escort and retinue, Murgon reined up before the old theater. People still followed him, and I was not at all conspicuous.

  The twin Suns were almost gone. In the flaring light of torches his face showed, dark and brooding. I caught the fierce impression that he dearly loved to order his men: “Clear me this rabble away!” Instead, he called a courteous remberee and then headed into the side street. One of his aides, a Gon whose bald head shone butter-bright in the torchlight, shouted: “The strom bids you all a restful night and he wishes you well and your wonderful families and now he wishes to be alone and will quarter in the Speckled Gyp and remberee one and all.” All on a breath.

  The high-class tavern and hotel called The Speckled Gyp did lie in the next avenue across. I did not think Murgon would reach there. He’d be in that side door like a leem after a ponsho, going through the dusty corridors, making his way to the chambers reserved for him. He’d be attending the rites of Lem after he’d eaten and freshened up.

  Now that I knew his location I could see about my own inward hollowness. As Kregans are fond of telling you, there is nothing like six or eight square meals a day.

  Trotting gently back to The Awkward Swod, I attempted to put the pieces of this puzzle together.

  On the face of it, a kovnate like Bormark, or even a kingdom like Tomboram, would stand little chance of invading a still-powerful empire like Vallia. Oh, yes, Vallia was still rent by factions. The empire remained partitioned. There was a king in Evir in the far north, there was a king of Womox Island to the west, and now there was this King Vodun Alloran in what he called Thothclef Vallia. Also, there were dissidents still resisting unification in the northwest of the island of Vallia. But with our capital at Vondium, and our armies and air cavalry and vollers, we were no pushover.

  If Alloran made an alliance of convenience with this King of Womox, for instance... He’d taken Katrin’s kovnate of Rahartdrin. He was attempting to march to the northeast, which would bring him into immediate conflict with loyal provinces. My lad Drak resisted; but that blob-nosed Deldar, Tom the Nose, had merely confirmed what I suspected, that Drak did not have the best regiments with him. We’d all have to rally around: Delia could get regiments from Valka, Seg could send men up from Hamal — although, confound it! Seg was off somewhere lost in the jungles of Pandahem south of the central mountains. I’d call on Inch in the Black Mountains, and Korf Aighos and Filbarrka, and anyone else. We could not afford to allow a fresh collapse of our hard-won hegemony.

  But none of the thoughts in my old vosk-skull of a head as I dismounted and hitched up Frupp revealed to me who might be financing this latest enterprise against Vallia.

  Once the first bites were taken in the southwest, once the swarms of tazll mercenaries learned what was afoot, we’d be swamped with the rogues, reivers, flutsmen, aragorn, all the vile batteners on human misery that had before tried to ruin our land and whom we had thrown out. We’d be right back to the Times of Troubles again...

  So, troubled myself, I went into the tavern and ordered up whatever first struck my appetite, and ate almost without tasting. I went sparingly with the wine.

  Vallia had been invaded before. No doubt Vallia would be invaded again in the future. However much a part of life that might be on a turbulent maelstrom of a planet, it remained damned unsettling, by Vox, highly unwanted.

  However important my mission here was to destroy the evil cult of the Silver Wonder and not destroy but attempt to convert back to decency its adherents, maybe my responsibility to Vallia should come first. Once
the island empire was whole and healed again, once the old empire had been reestablished and the people lived together in harmony, these constant invasions would no longer take place. The reivers and flutsmen and aragorn of the world would think more than twice before they set out on an enterprise against Vallia.

  Into the equation I must add the promise I’d made that I’d hand over everything to Drak, let him be the poor bewildered emperor, as soon as the empire was whole. Well, Deb-Lu-Quienyin, a famous and mystically powerful Wizard of Loh and a good comrade, had advised me to let Drak handle affairs down in the southwest. Drak was the intense, serious, level-headed one of my sons. He’d make a splendid emperor. But maybe, just maybe, I ought to have gone back home and sorted things out myself, first...

  I quaffed the last of the wine — I’ve no idea what it might have been — and tossed down two silver dhems, and then added a third to pay the reckoning. A Fristle fifi with a yellow apron and a green bow to her tail had been attentive and had put up with my absent-mindedness. She deserved recompense for my ill humor and reward for her smiling service. I stood up and she handed me my cloak and I found some sort of skull-faced smile for her.

  The hostler had seen to Frupp, and I tipped him a few coins, and so mounted up and turned the willing and well-fed freymul in the direction of that infamous theater.

  Under the archway at the end of the deserted yard, the hostler having taken himself off with his hand clenched on the coins, a lamp burned in a crooked holder. The iron bars shed bars of shadow across the yard. The scent of moonblooms hung heavily in the air. Under that crumbling archway a woman appeared.

  She stood with her head bowed; but not bowed enough that I did not realize she studied me. Her auburn hair caught some of the lamplight; it did not shine in quite the way it should have; the angles and the shadows threw projections in the wrong places. Her long pale blue gown draped in a circle about her feet, and her hands were folded into the sleeves of the gown.

  She stood, silent, unmoving, her head just that tiny bit bowed, her nose and her high cheekbones washed with a light I swore did not come from the lamp above her head.

  Abruptly, she moved.

  Her figure wavered, as objects swim beyond heated air.

  I started forward on Frupp, anxious to question her.

  She looked up, and then she looked around. I saw a face that, piquant and dainty as it was, yet held a darker and more profound power than any elfin face might hold. She looked at me, and her eyes took in my senses, and she lifted a hand as though to ward off a blow.

  Then she vanished.

  She vanished.

  I was not discomposed — well, not overly so.

  Apparitions and ghosts, these are not unknown upon Kregen.

  Only a moment ago I’d been thinking of Deb-Lu-Quienyin. I would not have been surprised, I’d have been overjoyed, if he had appeared under the archway. Wherever he was, in Vallia or Valka, or down in Hamal, he could put himself into the trance state of lupu and using his kharrna send out a ghostly image of himself to survey what might be of interest in distant places. Good old Deb-Lu! But he did not appear, and the lamp under the archway shone on stone and cobble.

  Frupp’s ears pricked up. He reacted uneasily to these weird comings and goings. I patted his neck, bending forward, soothing him.

  Now if, I said to myself as we trotted out under that haunted archway onto the street beyond, now if I knew whose side you supported, mysterious witch-lady in the pale blue gown, that might be more than useful.

  One fact was absolutely certain and without doubt.

  On Kregen it is a far far better state of affairs to have a witch or a wizard on your side than opposing you.

  By Vox, yes!

  Chapter fifteen

  Dafni

  When I contemplated what might lie ahead I had half a mind to go along and torch the temple of Lem the Silver Leem. The temptation was very great. Mind you, as I may have remarked on previous occasions, many of my blade comrades would agree with vast enthusiasm that, yes indeed, I did have only half a mind.

  If I wanted to find out the truth behind the enterprise against Vallia, it behooved me to proceed with far more caution than I would have done if it had been a mere case of burn, hack and run, or if Pompino were here with free advice.

  The excitement engendered by the strom’s arrival lingered on in the streets and squares of Port Marsilus. Folk would be up late this night, roistering. Everyone bore an eager look, as though they all knew exactly what was going on, had a hand in it, and couldn’t wait for the off. That this was a totally misleading impression was beside the point. They were merely caught up in the atmosphere. But, with the problems I had, that impression was galling, I can tell you, damned galling.

  Going along gently on a slack rein I neared the abandoned theater that was now a hidden temple. The sound of hoofbeats astern and a chorus of shouts warned me, and I nudged Frupp into the side, out of the roadway. I reined in and sat, hunched, my face down under the hat, watching.

  A party of zorca riders rattled past. They conveyed the impression of flaring cloaks, feathered hats, the dark glimmer of weapons, a bunched group of riders on an errand of importance.

  They clustered about the figure of a girl, for as she passed me the light of a torch fell across her face under the hat. A girl, then, surrounded by armed men. Escorts are of two kinds — those that protect you and those that imprison you.

  The impression I’d taken, fleeting and as swiftly gone as a snowflake falling into flames, was of a fine pallid face with wide dark eyes. The look, and I could easily have been mistaken, on that face was of absorption, a kind of rapt inner awareness that denied exterior objects. I shook Frupp’s reins and walked him on toward the temple.

  The party of zorca riders turned into the side alley.

  By the time I’d reached the mouth of the alley they had vanished.

  People who had moved aside to let the cavalcade pass now resumed their apparently casual evening strolls. About half of them were mounted, so I attracted no attention as I allowed Frupp to go easily with the drift. We circled the building, and on the farther side the people moved into the shadows under an overhang where an arch, much weathered, supported a flying wing of the place. I went along.

  A row of stalls to the side accommodated the riding animals, and hostlers in brown tunics took charge as the people alighted and entered the building. Without a word I dismounted, handed the reins to a villainous-looking fellow and followed on. Casually, I turned the waist-length cloak inside out so that the brown side showed, the silver bullion thick along the edges. Around me the flowering of brown and silver glinted menacingly under the light of torches.

  In the random and erratic shafts of light we all went through into the foyer where debris and splintered beams told anyone looking in that this was a deserted and abandoned place. As we went along, the silver masks came out of the pouches. The light flicked from silver eye-holes, silver whiskers, snarling silver masks of primeval savagery.

  I put the silver leem mask on, thankfully, over my face. At least, I would not have to suffer the bee-sting agony of holding a different face for too long a time.

  Beyond the portal in the far wall where guards stood ready to deal with any unwanted intruders, the congregation turned left and right to enter the auditorium. Lights spattered the curtains concealing the stage. The floor was swept. People stood in clumps, talking in low tones, waiting. I eased along to the side, taking as my aiming point any one of the small exits under the side balconies. What struck me most forcibly was the casual lack of real secrecy. Despite the guards, despite the obvious attempts to make the old theater appear as merely an abandoned building, the Leem Lovers were arrogant in their use of the place. They congregated here, and if any outsider observed them then he knew what he could do — keep silent or suffer the consequences.

  Voices suddenly lifted in what was a coarse way over by the other side of the auditorium. People moved in an agitated way. I stopped und
er a balcony and looked back.

  Presently the cause of the disturbance reached the group of men and women nearest and they turned to one another, gesticulating, obviously annoyed, and yet, even so, subdued.

  “It is so disappointing,” a woman protested.

  “Tomorrow, my dear. We shall come back tomorrow.”

  People were now leaving the hall.

  Walking quietly up to the group I had no need to ask what had happened, for the woman’s husband turned to me and said: “The strom has canceled the ceremony for this evening. He gives no reason; but quite clearly he is tired and we hear important developments have taken place.”

  “Quite,” I said, and went back into the shadows under the balcony as though mightily disappointed. Well, by Krun, I was and I wasn’t. The auditorium cleared of people; before the last of them went I slid through the side exit and found myself in a long dusty corridor. Down this I went, padding light-footed.

  The first door, half-open, showed a room full of dancing girls. They were taking off their jeweled bangles and beads, unpinning their feathers, and putting their clothes on. Among the apim girls and Sylvies and Fristles were three lieshas and a couple of numims. I was surprised to see the lion-girls, for numims are generally above that sort of occupation.

  Two doors along I found a room full of guards, also standing down from duty, coughing and spitting and stacking their spears and looking forward to a night off drinking. I scuttled past there rapidly and went on.

  More rooms lay empty, dusty and cobwebbed. Here I was on the other side of the building from where I’d found the girl sacrifices and their bathing establishment. I prowled on.

  The fellow who’d turned and told me the ceremony was canceled for this evening had referred to Murgon as the strom. This, alone, was intriguing. Normally the Leem Lovers concealed their identities under a farrago of nonsense names, all high-flown and pompous. This, surely, must be just another example of the power and eminence the cult had reached here in Bormark.