Fires of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #29]

by Alan Burt Akers

  “No."

  This meeting had not gone as any rational man might have expected it to go. The recriminations—yes, they were expected. After all, as far as Pando and Tilda knew, I'd simply walked out on them. They didn't know that treacherous King Nemo had had me drugged and shipped off like a bundle of washing to slave at an oar in a swordship.

  And I was pushing away the central and most dire concern—Pando—Pando was an adherent of Lem the Silver Leem.

  That did not bear thinking of.

  My three companions had remained silent, and if I suggest this was an awed silence, that would not be too far from the truth. Now Pompino drew a breath and said: “We'd better—"

  “Silence,” said Pando, and ignored my comrade Pompino and addressed himself once more to me.

  “What happened to Inch?"

  This did not surprise me. When Pando had been nine or ten—a goodly time ago now—he'd met us and we'd helped him and his mother and secured his kovnate of Bormark for him. Then I'd disappeared, and then Inch had disappeared. Inch had been around longer than I had. Pando, a young rip, would not forget these events of an impressionable youth so indelibly imprinted on his memory.

  I said: “I have not seen Inch for a long time."

  This was true, Zair forgive me. I went on: “Your King Nemo, the old King Nemo we woke up out of bed with a dagger at his throat—you remember?—had me chained and sent to the swordships—"

  Pando flinched.

  “Aye! And, after me, he had Inch likewise packed off to slave. Inch escaped, praise be to his Ngrangi. D'you think, lad, I'd have so callously abandoned you or your mother?"

  “You should have said sooner—"

  “Is all well?” Strom Murgon's voice floated in.

  Pando's face took on a dark and hateful aspect.

  “My cousin takes good care of me.” He shouted back: “All is well, Murgon. We shall be out presently.” He spoke without a quiver, a strong young man's voice, used to command. Then, to me: “Very good care. There is a matter between us I do not think can end but with steel."

  “You will tell me when you want to, Pando. Now, I would like to see Tilda of the Many Veils—"

  That down-droop to his face drew lines around his mouth.

  “Yes, you are right, Dray—Jak. She does drink."

  “And you do not blame me?"

  “I did!"

  “I thought so. But—"

  “If King Nemo were not already dead and wandering the Ice Floes of Sicce, crying despairingly to find the way to the sunny uplands beyond, I think I would have sent him there."

  “There is a new King Nemo, now, they tell me."

  “A flat slug. He stands with Murgon against me."

  “So you're in trouble—as usual."

  At this he gave a small, half-smile that changed his face some way toward the impish look I remembered.

  “And you! I need not be surprised that you're in trouble, that is endemic with you. I owe you much, and I have never forgotten. But, now is no time—I have to see the king and discharge tiresome business. Murgon will take care of you. I assume you have talked your way out of this predicament."

  “A matter of punishment for a justified chastisement, and the Silver Wonder—"

  “Ah! I own I am surprised that you..."

  For a moment we stood silently, staring one at the other.

  Then he said, “We will talk more on this.” He raised his voice: “Cousin Murgon!"

  The strom slid in through the doorway, his sword half out of its scabbard. The shadow of the Chulik bulked at his shoulder.

  “I am satisfied that you have acted correctly. I shall wish to see these people later. See to it."

  Murgon's lips twisted above the beard. But he got out a polite reply. Pando swirled up that short cape, slapped his sword down hard, and took himself off. He strode out, to be exact; but that would convey an impression that was absent. Pompino glanced at me. I shook my head. So—out we all went and climbed once more into the waiting carriage.

  This meeting with Pando had gone in a strange, almost eerie, way. What would the meeting with Tilda be like?

  * * *

  Chapter nineteen

  Tilda

  “But I am not ill!"

  “Yes, you are."

  “No, Horter Jak! I am not ill—"

  “Lisa looks all right to me,” said Quendur. “She is a remarkable woman—"

  “I agree,” I said. “I hold Lisa the Empoin in the highest esteem. Yet she is ill—or, she will say she is ill."

  “Ah!” said Pompino the Iarvin.

  “I'd never seen the sea until they took me away to be slave.” Lisa sat next to Quendur, very close, and his arm lay around her shoulders. “Then Quendur took the ship I was in, and threw overboard the disgusting wretch I was slave to. Quendur saved me—"

  “As you have saved me a hundred times!"

  These two looked at each other, and Pompino looked at me with an expression that said they'd forgotten anyone else existed. We were waiting in the carriage by a gateway where Strom Murgon had alighted to see about his business. I wanted to get Quendur and Lisa away, for Pompino and I would have to skip and jump before we burned Lem's temple. For Lisa to pretend to illness after the experience she had endured would be perfectly in keeping and understandable. By Krun, yes!

  “They swear by the Gross Armipand up in these parts,” observed Pompino in a musing way. “This mass of corruption is the very antithesis of Pandrite the All Glorious. Or so I am told. I think, Lisa, you will have to call most groaningly upon the Witch Mipanda, vile wife of the Gross Armipand, when you are ill. And that will be in short order, believe me."

  Lisa half-turned from Quendur's clutch. “Yes. I will be ill.” She smiled a pale smile. “That will not be difficult."

  Pompino brushed up his reddish whiskers and looked pleased with himself. He was not named the Iarvin for nothing. “Then I shall take it upon myself to blatter this strom with some severity. Yes. By Horato the Potent, yes!"

  “Ah...” I said. The caution in my tone brought Pompino's head around very smartish.

  “What, Jak?"

  “The plan is for us to continue on with the strom."

  He looked disappointed.

  “So it is, so it is. Well, there is always another tide."

  “The Tides of Kregen roll forever,” quoted Quendur. “And you have to pull into your moorings sharpish to catch the right one."

  “And when this one rolls in, it will not extinguish the fire we shall set.” Pompino bristled this out, all red and whiskery and his fierceness quite betraying his shrewdness.

  I looked out of the carriage window and then, turning back, said: “As San Blarnoi says: ‘Every inch a gentleman and every foot a rogue.’ That sums up our Strom Murgon."

  “Aye!"

  “If it was not for Lisa—” began Quendur.

  “We know."

  “No one knows much of this cult of the Silver Leem. It is spoken of only in whispers, among sure friends. I know nothing of it. But I have been told not to ask questions.” Quendur had been a pirate, a ferocious render of the oceans; he looked sweaty and uneasy as he spoke of Lem the Silver Leem, knowing nothing of that debased religion. Humanity fears the unknown and we all know we fear the unknown, and knowing it is unknown and we fear it doesn't help at all.

  A noise of footsteps and distant voices and the shake of the carriage as the coachman roused himself took my mind away from the habitual way Quendur and Lisa had avoided any recognition of the name of Lem when we'd used it before. Not allowing unknown and therefore unpleasant facts into your sphere of cognizance is one defense. The door opened and Strom Murgon climbed in. He looked murderous, as one might expect, and the carriage jolted into movement at once. We rolled out and ground across cobbles, lurching to the right as, I guessed, we negotiated the archway.

  No one spoke. The sound of half-suppressed breathing filled the coach with the effect of underground bat caves, geysers of fury, exh
alations of menace. I found, as is all too often the case, Zair forgive me, that I couldn't take all this overly seriously. The comic aspects came through too strongly. We were all into a desperate adventure; but it was a real laugh, all the way along...

  Then, as we rolled through the streets in the darkened carriage, I fell into an introspection about our motives. Pompino just believed in bashing on and burning the temples of Lem. That would show ‘em, he'd claim. The Star Lords would be pleased and would reward him. But—but was this going to do any real and lasting good? The temples could burn; the Leem Lovers could build more. If someone hit you over the head and said: “Stop loving him—or her—and love me instead!” would you switch your love? If something in which you believed was destroyed, would you give up—or would you build again, and stronger?

  We believed that Lem the Silver Leem was an evil cult. They tortured and killed little children, and this was reprehensible. But in a slave society where a child was mere property, like a chicken, an otherwise normal and decent person would see nothing remiss in these actions. If you could kill and eat a chicken for the gratification of your physical appetite, then to sacrifice a slave for the benefit of your spiritual wellbeing, to give worship to your god, was a perfectly normal act. It could reflect only credit upon yourself, gain you luster, store up treasure in heaven against the day of judgment.

  We, Pompino and I, were committed by the Star Lords to oppose Lem the Silver Leem. We would burn the blasphemous temples and scatter the worshippers. But we had to do more than this. We had to do more than this. We had to set something better in view; we had to show the adherents of the Silver Wonder that they erred. That was the true task laid on us. That, then, was the battlefield where our future strife would be fought.

  Yet, doubts remained. As I'd once been told, oligarchy was giving way to oligopoly. In religion, self-interest in worldly affairs overwhelmed self-interest in spiritual affairs. Once, Phu-Si-Yantong had attempted to obtain domination by his evil and pseudo cult, artificially created, of the Black Feathers of the Great Chyyan. That had failed. Always, the question remained: were the followers of Lem slipping into this materialistic method of gaining power and of retaining it?

  Then Lisa the Empoin went into her fainting act, and I was once more in action. Well, by Vox, action is a great anodyne to thinking. And, as they say, wicky-werka.

  “What is the matter with her?"

  “She is overcome, pantor,” said Quendur, grabbing at Lisa who flopped all over Murgon. He drew back, sweaty, looking offended even in these circumstances that someone of the lower orders had touched him. Lisa let out a beautiful groan and clutched at Murgon.

  “Stop!” he bellowed, and banged a ringed hand against the carriage roof. The carriage lurched and halted. The door opened and the loose-lipped face of Dopitka the Deft appeared.

  “Pantor?"

  “The woman is ill! Get her out of here—"

  Lisa furnished up a superb slurping hiccough, quite clearly the prelude—at least to Murgon—of being violently sick all over him. Quendur was shouting out a string of nonsense, and Pompino joined in and managed to nudge Murgon along into Lisa. She retched. She brought up an enormous throat-clearing belching roar and opened her mouth wide—right over Murgon.

  “Out!” he shrieked and pushed her away. Dopitka caught at Lisa's shoulders and she slid sideways. Quendur, still bellowing incoherently, poised and then pushed alongside Lisa. Together they more fell than stepped from the carriage. Shaking with disgust, Strom Murgon took out a yellow silk square and flapped away at forehead and beard.

  The door slammed shut.

  Just before the wood hit wood and the lock caught, I heard another bang from outside. Murgon flailed away with his silk. Outside a voice—I did not think it was Dopitka's, but it could have been—shouted: “Drive on, coachman!"

  The carriage started. Murgon looked up.

  I said: “It is all taken care of, pantor. She was clearly unwell.” Then, steeling myself, I rattled on: “It is very kind of you, pantor, to take care of us."

  “Humph,” he said, or something like that, and wiped away sweat. “Dopitka is not such a fool as he looks. He will make sure they are safe."

  If that thump I'd heard was what I thought it was, Dopitka would be in no position to take care of anyone—least of all himself—for some time.

  It began to rain, the drops spitting against the roof and hissing at the closed windows.

  The sound of rain did not muffle the grinding of metal-shod wheels on cobbles. That changed to a softer slurching as we rolled along a rutted way. Presently the rain stopped. Or, as the door opened and torchlight flared, to be more accurate, we had entered into a roofed enclosure. We alighted.

  I looked back through the gateway. Stark against the lowering sky rose a pinnacled, turreted fantasia, a castle glimmering in the rain, frowning down. Between the gateway and the entrance to the castle the rain hung a sheeting curtain of glancing silver. The smell of damp ferns floated from the gate and the drops bounced like sprites.

  “The king's palace,” said Murgon, shaking his shoulders. He still clutched his square of yellow silk, as though to be ready in case Lisa swooped down on him from the rain, mouth open. “The Chun-el-Boram. I must say it makes a splendid sight in the rain.” A stroke of lightning stitched blindness across our eyeballs; the thunder rumbled moments later.

  Hostlers saw to the horses and the carriage trundled away. Murgon led us to a narrow door in the far wall. What the building in which we were might be I had no idea. There was no sign of Dopitka, or of the Chulik; Murgon made no comment. I guessed they were expected to be quick about looking after their lord. I did not think Dopitka would be so quick.

  The place appeared to be a deserted palace. The rooms were large and well-proportioned, full of dust and cobwebs, and echoing our footsteps in a chancy fashion.

  The Chulik, Chekumte the Fist, marched in after us carrying a torch. The light in its swirling illumination did ghastly things to the shadows to anyone of a nervous disposition.

  “Where is Dopitka?"

  “I do not know, master. He was not with the coach when I arrived.” The Chulik's face and pigtail glittered with raindrops.

  “That tiresome woman,” said Murgon, and waved us to follow. Pompino glanced at me, and essayed a cheeky smile, and winked, and I kept my battered old beakhead graven as a heathen idol, and we all trailed off along the dusty corridors after Strom Murgon.

  We went down stone stairways into the bowels of the earth.

  Well, the adherents of Lem the Silver Leem habitually hid their temples. And the bowels, as I may have remarked before, are conspicuously correct for the adherents of Lem. The torch light fleered ahead of us, driving away the shadows, which clustered again at our backs. We shuffled along, heads down; but there was little need. This way had been traversed many times, and I would not have been surprised to learn the dust was carefully scattered by slaves after each secret meeting.

  At the closed leaves of the entranceway ahead of us stood a single Chulik. He was armored, clad in brown and silver, and made a most respectful salute when Murgon appeared. The doors opened. Inside lay the temple.

  The layout, all flash and glitter and dread horror, was much the same as in previous temples I had seen. Pompino nodded. He knew, too. Murgon led us to a side door, past the iron cage and the altar and the slab. He motioned for us to enter.

  “Wait here. I will see the Hyr Prince Majister and tell him you are craving an audience. I do not know how long I shall be. You will find refreshments."

  “Thank you, pantor."

  Murgon and Chekumte went and we looked at the waiting room. “Refreshments?” said Pompino, perking up.

  The viands were typically Kregan, fresh fruit, crusty bread, a selection of cheeses, light wines and parclear, palines. A Sybli woman smiled nervously, wiping her yellow apron, and ready to wait on us; but we sent her away and she was pleased to be let off lightly. We slumped down in chairs and set to.
>
  I picked up a round and juicy onion and bit. Splendid!

  Pompino went straight for the important business and poured two goblets of yellow wine—a middling Pantuvan—and we drank companionably. A small wooden door under a groined overhang opened and a cloaked figure stepped into the room.

  The two lamps on the table flamed upon the blades of two swords that instantly menaced that unexpected figure.

  “Who are you?” demanded Pompino. “What d'ye want here?"

  “Put up your swords, gentlemen,” said a woman's voice; mellow and yet bloated with a breathiness I thought might have been occasioned by treading down steep and narrow stairs. “I mean you no harm—"

  “I crave your pardon, madam,” said Pompino, ever the gallant where women except his wife were concerned. “Pray, sit down. A glass of wine?"

  “Thank you, horter—parclear, if you please."

  This was a pantomime. I just stood there, glowering, as Pompino did his fussy man-looking-after-woman routine. Mind you, he was naturally graceful and good at the task. The dark blue cloak hood concealed the woman's face; but there was a lot, a damned great lot, of cloak swathing her.

  She pushed the hood back only as far as it had to go to enable her to drink. The parclear went down in one gulp and she held out the glass again. “Now, horter, if you please. Wine."

  When two glasses of that middling Pantuvan followed the parclear, she held out the glass again. Pompino poured.

  So I said, “The kov has not yet arrived, kovneva."

  The glass in her beringed hand shook, and some slopped.

  And, despite all, she drank that third glass of wine before she spoke.

  “How do you...? Who are you...?"

  The lamp cast me in shadow, and I was grateful for the space it would give me. Pompino smiled. “We are waiting while Strom Murgon—"

  “Him!"

  She tried to stand up, and her bulk dragged at her, so that Pompino put a hand under her elbow. He grunted as he felt her weight. I felt the weight of the years crushingly upon me.

  “I must see the kov!” Her voice indicated no trace of drunkenness. She spoke with that breathlessness habitual to her. I guessed she was never truly drunk: just permanently in a state of lushness.