Captive Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  The Vallians glared at him. He was a mercenary, a hyr-paktun with the pakzhan glittering golden at his throat.

  Softly, the emperor said: “And Chuktar, when you capitulate in all honor and take service with our foes, what becomes of us?”

  “That is the way of the fall of empires,” said Chuktar Bartong. Again he licked his lips. “It is all one in vaol-paol.”

  The wrangling went on. These men were like children whistling in the dark to keep their courage up. All except the emperor. There was about him a spirit I had not expected. He was far from cowed, disdaining defeat, eager to resume the struggle. A calm and supreme confidence radiated from him.

  In those burs in his private sanctum as we planned against catastrophe, I understood how he could be the father of Delia.

  The Chuktar of the Crimson Bowmen would from time to time shake his head and repeat: “We had no chance. All our movements were known in advance. No chance at all.”

  “And the northwest?” demanded the emperor briskly.

  “Racter country,” said a pallan with the exhausted and yet vicious air of a rast trapped in a spring cage. “The last reports remain unmodified. The Black Mountains and the Blue Mountains are bathed in blood. What will happen no one knows.”

  I felt the pang of that. The Black Mountains was Inch’s kovnate, and the Blue Mountains — I forced myself to ask for details. All that was known was the northwest had tried to raise a host and the Blue Mountain Boys and the Black Mountain Men had barred the advance. After that, silence.

  So the schemes of the Racters had not gone as they planned, then. . . The black and whites were waiting quietly in other areas, waiting to step in and take up the pieces after the holocaust. Well, the onkers, they did not know that Phu-si-Yantong was there to forestall them.

  For, make no mistake, I felt, I sensed — I almost knew — that Phu-si-Yantong was this minute employing other agents to wreak his will in Vallia quite apart from the duped tools of his I had so far encountered.

  So far there had seemed no good purpose in telling the emperor the truth of this Wizard of Loh. He would be best employed fighting each threat on the ground uncluttered by an overall fear. And, anyway, it was most likely he would not believe me.

  “All known Racters have left the city,” said Lykon Crimahan. His jaws rat-trapped shut, and his thin fuzz of dark beard below his chin, the prominent cheekbones, the malicious intelligence of his dark eyes, all conveyed the seething frustration and despair in him. At times of troubles before, he had contrived to be away on his estates. This time he was here, in the capital, Pallan of the Treasury; and this time the trouble was likely to be the biggest of the lot and final. That, at the least, was good for a laugh.

  Now he opened that rat-trap mouth again to say with some evil satisfaction: “The Fegters rose to loot and burn and many of them were killed.” He looked at me. “Your trip to the northeast was fortuitous, prince majister.”

  “Had I been here,” I began. And then stopped. To boast would be criminal and foolish — and also useless; Kov Lykon saw my hesitation, and misconstrued it. I had been about to say something entirely different from what he expected.

  But I wouldn’t tell this bright malicious rast that concern over my daughter Dayra might have cost an empire. It might have. And, again, it might not have; for could I have done any differently from what the emperor and his advisers and the Presidio had done? The forces arrayed against us were too strong.

  As I suspected had been the case with all the war councils the emperor had been holding, we broke up with nothing decided.

  Only one thing remained clear. We would go on fighting for as long as we could. But that time was short and was growing shorter with every bur that passed.

  Just before we rose to leave, with the emperor already turning to Queen Lush and smiling at her, holding out his hand, I said: “I’d like you to consider certain — speculations — I shall lay before you.” I’d been about to say facts; but that would put their backs up too firmly. I stared around the gathering as they paused, some half-risen, some in the act of finishing their wine, others gathering their cloaks and weapons.

  “Consider the plight of Vallia. A puissant empire and a strong emperor who yet must manipulate the factions within the empire. Consider the ambition of another, someone of equal or greater stature, someone with — extraordinary powers. Someone who can extend his tentacles of power over vast distances and subvert the good and use the evil for his own ends. Someone who will take Vallia and rule it through his puppets.”

  “How can there be any such man?” demanded Crimahan.

  I went on doggedly, wondering, to tell the truth, just how much to reveal, and knowing they would hardly believe.

  “All these risings are connected. There is a master plan. Where, emperor, is your personal Wizard of Loh, Deb-sa-Chiu?”

  Queen Lush gasped.

  The emperor smiled at her, patting her hand, and turned to me.

  “He was ill. He craved leave to return home.”

  “And you let him go?”

  “One does not easily ignore the reasonable requests of a Wizard of Loh. Their powers are — are strange.”

  “Quite.”

  I’d bet a first-class zorca against a broken-down calsany that Deb-sa-Chiu, who had sought out Delia for me, had been made ill by the conjurations of Phu-si-Yantong. It was one more carefully arranged part of his plan. Even though no other Wizard of Loh might be as powerful as Yantong — with the possible and hoped for exception of Khe-Hi-Bjanching — that devil would take no chances and had got rid of Deb-sa-Chiu.

  “What has a Wizard of Loh to do with—” started Crimahan in his spiteful way.

  But the emperor was not Delia’s father for nothing. His smile for Queen Lush altered, subtly, as he said: “And, Dray, you think—?”

  “Aye. And not think. Know.”

  Queen Lush put a hand to her breast. She was very pale.

  “Rest easy, my queen,” said the emperor, and I noted the form of address. “Here, a glass of wine. This news, if true, is very dreadful. But you have been a comfort and a support to me. I could not have gone on without you at my side. Do not fail me now.”

  “I shall stand with you. I swear it!” She looked distraught and this was no wonderful thing, for the idea of having a Wizard of Loh pitted against you is unnerving, to say the least.

  The others in the room looked shaken. Even if, later, they would pooh-pooh what I had said, at the moment they were a badly rattled bunch.

  Well, I had told them some of it. Maybe that was a mistake and I certainly would tell them no more. But the black pall over Vallia needed men and women now who would fight to the end even when they knew the end would be evil and filled with sorrow, people who would rend that black pall even though the end was doom-laden horror.

  A somberness held them all as they departed to go about the petty business of supply and reorganization we had decided. Not a one knew a whisper of the whereabouts of Delia. As for my inquiries about the islands of Vallia, they were out of it. Nothing from Rahartdrin, Ava, Womox, all the others, not a sound or sign from Veliadrin or Zamra or Valka.

  Deciding to make myself useful I took a tour of the sentry posts and found all quiet. There was time for a yarn and to chew a handful of palines with the Pachaks. Then I crawled off to our wing of the palace hoping to get in at least a few burs sleep before the alarums and excursions of the morrow.

  Queen Lushfymi waited for me in my bedchamber.

  Of slaves there were none here, they had all run off. Even the emperor’s apartments were served only by a few slaves left to him. I gaped at her. Magnificent, she looked. Sheerly clad all in white that threw the ebon glory of her hair and the long passionate violet eyes into startling contrast, she sat up on the bed and clasped her hands together over her breast.

  “The emperor—?” I said.

  “He sleeps. I must talk to you.”

  “You make that plain.”

  If I expecte
d another wearisome scene after the fashion of those I had endured at the hands of willful, passionate, lovely women in the past, I was swiftly disabused of the notion. She was no new candidate to be spurned after the style of Queen Lilah, and Queen Fahia, and all the others.

  “The Bowmen of Loh were most wroth at their defeat.”

  I poured her wine and took some myself — in chased silver goblets — and sat beside her on the bed. Her perfume scented with a mysterious power I ignored. She appeared to radiate a light and a warmth in the dim chamber.

  “They would be, seeing they are proud fighting men.”

  She was nerving herself to say something. It hovered on those full voluptuous lips, and would not come forth. So, to ease the situation, I sipped my wine and offered palines, and tried not to be too much amused by the ludicrous affair.

  Then, seeing she was having this difficulty, I said: “You and the emperor are very friendly. You have got on like a house on fire—”

  “I love him.”

  She said this simply, unaffectedly. I sipped wine. She was a cunning, devious queen. She had brought her country of Lome to a position of immense wealth and power in Pandahem. She was possessed of witch-like powers — or so it was said. Why did she tell me this? Was it even true?

  “It is true, Dray Prescot.”

  I sat up.

  “No, I cannot read your mind. But I can divine much that is in a man’s heart. So I would not attempt to seduce you, for I know of your passion for Delia, the Princess Majestrix.”

  I said nothing.

  Then, out of deviltry, I said: “And if that were not so and if you loved the emperor as you claim, would you try to seduce me?”

  Frankly, her violet eyes bearing down on me, she said: “Yes. I would. If by doing so I could help the emperor. Believe me.”

  I rubbed my chin. I needed a shave. I said: “When we met — when I fell through your palanquin awning, you did not much like me and, I confess, I did not much care for you. Why do you seek me out to tell me this?” Then, thinking I understood, I added: “I shall not stand in your way. I should be glad if the emperor wed again and brought forth a whole regiment of princes and princesses—”

  “It is not that.”

  “Perhaps, Queen Lush, you had better tell it all to me.”

  I used the name without thinking — and she amazed me by smiling. “From you, Dray Prescot, that comes as a declaration of intent.”

  “There is nothing wrong with the name Queen Lush. Anyway, it suits you. Names are more important on Kregen than most folk care to admit—”

  “Yes. Oh, yes!”

  That surprised me. So, ignoring a sudden wash of unease, I told her to spit it out and have done.

  “It is not easy. Promise me you will remember that I truly love the emperor?”

  “If you like.”

  “I know you, Dray Prescot, know far more of you than you can possibly dream — so that answer will suffice. I know of you—” She held up her hand to stop me asking her how she thought she knew so damn much about me, and she rushed on now, in full spate, getting it all out. “The Crimson Bowmen. Their defeat was horrible. How do you think their enemy from Hamal knew the plans, knew what the Vallian army would do? How was it that the Hamalese lay in wait and slew and slew?” She nodded and I reached over and gripped her wrist. Her flesh was like ice. “Yes, Dray Prescot, yes! I told them. I, the Queen of Lome, through my occult arts, I told the Hamalese all the secrets of the emperor’s plans, and the army was destroyed and the blood flowed, and—”

  I slapped her face.

  When she calmed down — but only a little, for the situation was fraught and she was in a sprung-steel state of nervous excitement and remorse, I told her to tell me the rest.

  “The Hamalese conquered Pandahem as you know and Queen Thyllis slew my father. But at the Battle of Jholaix the Vallians conquered and Pandahem once more threw off the yoke of Hamal. But new enemies arose. Far more powerful.” She wrenched away and stood up. Her long white gown glimmered in the dim, tapestry-hung room. She began to walk up and down, jerkily, her hands now clasped together, now raised to heaven, her lovely face passionate with remembered terror, a drugged horror that turned her violet eyes into shadowed deeps. “I must tell you, for you are the man to support the emperor now and the southwest will rally to him, and the islands, and we can still win, still win against—” She faltered, and that lissom body drooped.

  “Who made you betray the Vallian army?”

  “I think — I think, Dray Prescot, you know.”

  She turned away, half-fainting with her emotions; but I made no move to assist her. A shadow moved in the doorway at my side and I held up my hand to the emperor, a commanding gesture that would ordinarily have sent him flying into a rage; but he looked long at Queen Lush and listened to her, and the old devil remained silent, a shadow among shadows of the bedchamber.

  Speaking in as soothing a voice as I could manage, I said: “Lome has become rich and splendid since you took the throne. Is this also the work of he who now owns you?”

  Her shoulders trembled. “Yes.” The whisper barely reached.

  “In return for all he has done for Lome, with you as queen, he demanded you come to Vallia, seduce the emperor, gain his confidence — and then betray him?”

  “Yes.”

  The emperor moved and I reached out my hand and grasped his forearm, and gripped enough so that he understood. Truly, the times had wrought on him. He stood, a bleak dark statue, in the shadows of the bed at my side, and, together, we listened as Queen Lushfymi of Lome choked out her confession.

  Phu-si-Yantong.

  She had never met him. But his agents and his own lupal projection had convinced her. The terrors she felt were reflected palely in her stammering voice. Yantong had moved into Pandahem in the wake of the dissolution of the Hamalese armies and in his own surreptitious, cunning, devious ways had exerted his own authority. His puppets now occupied the thrones of the kingdoms of Pandahem.

  A fleeting twinge of guilt at thought of Tilda and Pando passed across my mind; but that was of and for another time. Here and now the dark and treacherous scheme to destroy Vallia was being revealed to us.

  “See!” cried Queen Lush, her laugh too close to hysteria for my liking. She drew from her sleeve a black feather. “See! I was prepared to make the emperor a convert to the Great Chyyan; but you, Dray Prescot, destroyed that scheme. Now my master sends warriors to do his work.” She blew the black feather from her. It gyrated and was lost in the shadows. She laughed again, the hysteria hideously near, so near as to be madness. Her glimmering form moved in the shaded lamplight of the bedchamber. Silently, the emperor stood at my side, watching and listening.

  Queen Lush drew from the bosom of her dress a dagger, sheathed, ornate, crusted with gems, the style of weapon a queen might carry. She waved it wildly. “Look upon the death of the Emperor of Vallia, the man I love, the man I was forced to betray, the man for whom I would give my life — the man for whom I will give my life!”

  The stiletto flashed clear of the scabbard. Twin deeply cut grooves marked the shining blade.

  “This blade is poisoned. One nick and the emperor is dead. I am to stab him, when my task is done — but I cannot, I cannot.”

  Moving with a purposeful slowness I reached out across the bedclothes and hooked my hard old fist around the hilt of the rapier that hung by the bedpost, angled so as to be drawn in a twinkling. I had vaulted ahead in my thoughts. Khe-Hi-Bjanching had shown me what gladiomancy could do and although I did not know if a Wizard of Loh could manipulate a sword or dagger over immense distances, I wouldn’t put it past that Wizard of Loh who had contrived our downfall.

  I said sharply: “And will the death of the emperor make so much difference to the schemes of Phu-si-Yantong?”

  “He must die. The master has said so and must be obeyed.”

  “This evil man is no longer your master, Queen Lush. Do not think of him as your master ever again.�
�

  She turned her head, slowly, tilting, peering at me with her head on one side, half over her shoulder. She looked quite mad. “No. He is my master—”

  “He is not your master. He is a real right bastard and a kleesh — a damned Wizard of Loh. But he owns you no longer.”

  The poisoned dagger looked mightily unpleasant.

  Now the emperor was an emperor and anyone who forgot that deserved to have their heads off; but, far more important, he was the father of my Delia. That was the fact that gave him character in my eyes, and now he proved himself.

  Without faltering, he moved past the bed, stood upright in a patch of light thrown by the shaded lamp. He stared at Queen Lush, who regarded him with a bright, avid look that made my hand jump on the rapier hilt.

  “Queen!” declared the emperor. “You say you love me as I love you. We have meant much, one to the other, in these dark times. Will you stab me? Can you slay me? I am here — see, I lift my arms. Stab, Queen Lush — if you can.”

  As they stood, facing each other, frozen, I wondered if the old devil realized how he had called his queen.

  She took a tottering step. Another. The dagger lifted. I eased the rapier out and stood up.

  With a shriek of virulent fury or of hysterical triumph — a shriek of such violence that the emperor jumped — Queen Lush hurled the dagger to the floor. It thwacked into the floorboards through a priceless carpet of Walfarg weave, thrummed with the gems glittering in its hilt, the poisoned slots dark and sinister along the blade.

  “No, my emperor—” Then they collapsed into each other’s arms.

  A sharp and chilling tang struck through the close air of the bedchamber. Queen Lush screamed. The emperor, still holding her, swung about. We all stared at the far wall.

  In a ghostly swirl of color and shadow, a mist of madness, a shape formed in thin air against the wall. Hunched, that dire form, hunched and malicious, malefic with power as the two dark eye sockets abruptly glittered with twin spots of light. The ghostly form thickened and solidified and yet remained insubstantial, unreal, a projection of the mind.