“We see you are a kregoinye. That is what to remember.”
Just then I could vividly remember Zena Iztar. Her aims for Kregen were less penetrable than the designs of the Star Lords—or, at least, so it appeared to my understanding. Zena Iztar was unique.
About to speak again I paused. A single crystal gong note rang out. The red sky flickered. The hoarse voice said: “What? Again?” The clanging voice replied: “It is necessary. Send him now.”
The blueness took me up so swiftly I still had my mouth open as I crashed headlong into bedlam. Naked and surrounded by a confused tangle of naked arms and legs and bodies I felt the ship surge up and lie over on her beam ends. Vomit washed about under foot, and the packed slaves screamed and wailed and shook in their chains. The stink of this slaveship hold took me by the throat, so that I gagged and clamped my mouth shut. The feel of the ship told me she was sinking, sluggish, her recovery slow. Water poured dark and green from the narrow gratings in the overhead.
In mere seconds she'd be gone, dragging down with her her freight of chained slaves.
The Star Lords had catapulted me here. In all this hideous confusion—who was it I had come to save?
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* * *
Chapter eight
Dark water ran across the deck underfoot as the ship rolled. The smells, the noise, the shaking feelings of insecurity coiled into a daunting sensation of inescapable doom.
“Sink me!” I burst out, fractionally aware of the very aptness of the remark in these circumstances. “I don't know—so—all of ‘em!”
Staggering as the ship lumbered back, I hauled myself up.
The slaves were chained individually to the long main chain. Forcing my way to the end I balanced with the movements of the vessel, my old sea legs back in action. The chief staple was bolted. Well, by Vox, somebody must have the key!
More water smashed down through the gratings. There must be one hell of a storm raging out there. The water in the hold was now visibly rising. If we didn't overset we'd be dragged down. The ladder to the deck was in my fists. I went up like a monkey.
A solid sheet of water slashed down at me, shining and green. Doggedly, I held on. Shaking my head free and blinking, I clawed on up.
A pair of legs and feet encased in tall boots washed over the coaming, pushed by the water. Pushing my way up past him, I saw he wore mesh link of a style I recognized. Most of his harness was scarlet. The top of his skull had been cleaved in by an axe. Crouching, I stared across the deck.
Dark shadows flitted across the vessel. She was clearly done for. Her two masts had both gone by the board and a raffle of tangled rigging encumbered the footing. The deck ran with seawater that poured in every time she rolled. The noise of the wind shrieked in my ears. This storm was a rashoon. Movement huddled against the bulwarks brought my attention to what was left of the crew.
They had discarded their armor. Naked except for green breechclouts they had given up the attempt to launch the longboat. That lay in a twisted mass of splintered timber. The wind and the waves battered at reason. The freshness of the spindrift-laden air shocked after the stench below decks. I stepped carefully over the dead fellow half-pitched down the companionway. He had dark curly hair, and moustaches that normally thrust arrogantly upwards but which were now wet and bedraggled. I stared malevolently at the men clustered by the bulwarks.
Oh, yes, I knew where I was, and who these people were.
The key! I had to find the key and find it fast, before the ship foundered.
There was no finesse in my approach. I scuttled across the deck suiting my rush to the violent movements of the ship, grabbed the first wight around the neck, shook him like a drenched rat, kicked his fellow who reeled away, shrieking. I bent to place my lips close to his ear.
“The key!” I bellowed. “The master key to the slave chain!”
“By Goyt!” he spluttered. “You're mad!”
“They key, you cramph, and fast before I snap your spine!”
Three or four of the crew were trying to lever themselves away from the side. Their eyes like white marbles rolled in their heads. I shook the fellow in my fist again and he gargled.
A pile of wet clothing lay tangled beside the shattered longboat. I ignored the clothes, the armor, the weapons. I threw the fellow away and dived at the bundle, kicking tunics and mail shirts and longswords out of the way. The key had to be here!
“Grotal the Reducer take you!” screeched one of the crew. He did not leave his post clinging to a stanchion. Seawater poured in over us. Wet clothes scattered away as I continued my frantic search. The ship's movements were now more sluggish than ever. She wallowed like a pregnant duck. Water ran in shining sheets across the deck. The shadows that flitted across were tinged with penumbras of red and green, twinned shadows, shadows flung by Zim and Genodras, the twin Suns of Scorpio.
A curve of metal took my eye. I snatched it out and keys jangled.
The key ring clutched in my hand I didn't even bother to look back at the crew as I dived headlong for the companionway. Seawater drove me on.
I practically fell down the ladder. The dead man lay tumbled in a heap at the foot and I jumped over him, and even then I remembered to say a hasty: “May Zair have you in his keeping.”
The first key—the largest—did not fit. I tried the second, twisting desperately, it turned and the lock snapped open.
The staple came free as I dragged on it with all my strength. The nearest slave lay writhing and his chains were all entangled. I gripped him by the shoulder and hauled, cleared the mess, started to run the chain through.
A huge fellow with a massive dark beard yelled. “Pur Dray! By Zim-Zair! Pur Dray as I live and breathe!”
I shouted back. “Lahal, Pur Zanad. For the sweet sake of Zair, start these people moving. Help with the chain!”
He didn't waste words. He freed his own chain and then together we went along hauling the chain and releasing slave after slave.
Another fellow with dark curly hair and whiskers shouted: “Pur Dray!” He leaped out, alert and lithe.
“Lahal, Pur Thazdon! Pitch in and help!”
Now the slaves began to sort themselves out as they always do. Those who had been slave and expected to be slave all their lives screamed and ran about and then scrambled madly for the ladder. Those who were prisoners of war, captives made slave, looked about alertly, ready to seize the best opportunities. The ladder was choked by manic scrambling bodies.
“Up for'ard!” bellowed Zanad. He started off. We followed, and I saw more than one face I knew. These men were Krozair brothers, most famed of all the corsairs of the inner sea, the Eye of the World of Turismond. Clearly, they had been taken in a battle lost.
Then I saw the figures I sensed must be the cause of my appearance here. A woman with flowing dark hair and sweet eyes, a matronly figure, stood up. Clutching her hands, two children, twins, a girl and boy, were struggling to hold back the tears. All three were obviously terrified; yet they were not panicking.
“Lady Thynzi,” shouted Thazdon.
“Give me the children,” I said, and snatched them up into my arms. “Get on! Get on!” We all hurried forward after Zanad.
There was another ladder. We went up one by one, in order, not pushing. The feel of the vessel was now so ominous that I passed up the children, waiting at the foot of the ladder.
The last man to grip the rungs and go up was Zinkardo the Stern. His face bore marks of battle, scars, a broken nose; his eyes were bright and his beard jutted, his whiskers already brushed up. He paused.
“We have not always seen eye to eye in the past, Pur Dray Prezcot. But from this day on I walk in true comradeship with you.”
“As I with you, Pur Zinkardo. By Zair! Shorush-Tish has sent us a rashoon to outdo all others.”
He went up one rung, waiting for the way to be clear. “We were outmatched, four swifters to ours, and taken. What puzzles me is how you got here,
Pur Dray, for, by Zinter the Afflicted, you were not aboard my Princess of Zulfiria. No, that I swear, may Zagri take me else!”
“My ship was wrecked and I was washed aboard here. Up you go, Pur Zinkardo, and may Zair be with us all!”
Out on the reeling deck with the twin suns trying to shaft down shards of emerald and ruby fire through the massy black clouds we saw that the end was almost here. The wind shrieked through our hair. We had to grip onto handholds. Directly before us a black-fanged coast showed intermittently through spray, huge clouds of white water driven upwards and smashed horizontally by the force of the gale. Iron rocks waited to rend us.
The slaveship was now so low in the water she touched bottom before reaching the rocks. She flew to pieces on the instant. We were clinging to planks, baulks of timber, anything that would float. The Lady Thynzi clung on beside me as we went hurtling through the breakers. The children nestled between us, and Thazdon gripped on to help.
Zair had us in his keeping, for we tumbled pell-mell between the rocks. Black shining bulks swept past like stampeding chunkrahs.
Over and over we tumbled amidst the uproar, ripped from our precarious holds, scattered up onto a beach of black sand, driven and pummeled and half-deaf with the wave smash and the wind shriek.
Black shining forms were dragging themselves out of the water. We were drenched loons, gasping for air amidst the never-ending racket of the sea and struggling on wavering legs over that hostile black sand to the crest beyond the beach.
A few sparse bushes, gorse and spinzal, whipped in the breeze. The two children clung to me. Thazdon assisted the Lady Thynzi. By his demeanor he showed he held the lady in great respect. His wife, the Lady Zalfi, was a charming girl, a lively sprite. Now we all slumped down in the scant cover afforded by the bushes. We were bedraggled, panting, stained with black sand, bruised and buffeted—but we were free.
There were not as many of us now as there had been in the slave deck.
Zinkardo the Stern roused himself. He drew a deep lungful of damp air. When he spoke and I heard him easily I realized the worst of the rashoon was past. The breeze was materially easing.
“We have been saved by the courage of Pur Dray. Now we save ourselves by our own efforts. Can any of you see any Zair-forsaken Grodnims?”
No one had. Where the crew had gone we did not know. Lucky for the crew! Had any come ashore within spitting distance he'd have felt the heavy arm of Zairian justice.
“Out of green Magdag, they were,” spat Zanad. “May their bellies swell and their livers rot worse than Makki Grodno's.”
I looked at the children, sitting cross-legged and demure, much daunted by their horrendous experiences yet bearing up wonderfully. I essayed a smile and they did not flinch back. Their names, I gathered, were Zilvi and Nafren. When young Nafren became a Krozair, as he would one day if he lived, and became a famous kampeon, a corsair of the Eye of the World, he'd be honored with the zed, becoming either Nazren or Nafrez. By the cut of his jib he couldn't wait for that day. He'd carry on the great traditions of the Zairians and their Krozair brothers, fighting for the red against the green. I could not, just then, allow sensible and regretful thoughts of the folly of this continual hatred and warfare to enter my mind. I'd saved him and his sister at the behest of the Star Lords. That was the vital issue here.
We were cast away on one of the group of tiny islands to the south of the western end of the inner sea, known to us as the Seeds of Zantristar. To the Grodnims of the north they were known as the Seeds of Ganfowang. They were off the coast of Shazmoz, a Zairian fortress-city.
“Provided a damned green patrol does not sail past and spot us,” said Zinkardo, with great confidence, “we shall be picked up in no time.”
There was a certain amount of piratical activity among these islands. Inland there could be found fresh water and food. These folk could survive until rescue found them. Practical, hard-headed professional seamen, they knew their trade and how to take care of themselves. Four to one, they'd fought the Magdaggian swifters, defying the Overlords of Magdag, may Beng Marzubel twist their inward parts into cat's cradles, and now they were free once more and confident of returning home.
Zinkardo the Stern stood tall and commanding. He turned to me. He started to say: “Pur Dray Prezcot! In the name of Zair we thank you, and we give you the Jikai—”
The blueness coiled about me. I felt the coldness and the rushing sensation both of falling into a bottomless pit and of being swept up into the air. The Star Lords would contrive a natural explanation for what the people here could see in the wind and the turmoil. To my own confusion, I own another detail would be added to the legend of Dray Prezcot, Krozair of Zy.
Up I went, headlong, over and over, and so thumped down into a seat.
The chair in which I sat moved. It hissed. It carried me off, sizzling, through a long red-lit tunnel to resume my interrupted conversation with the Everoinye.
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* * *
Chapter nine
Veils of colored mist swathed the tunnel and the chair carried me hissing through them, brushing them aside like gossamer wings. There was a sweet smell of lavender on the air, most refreshing after the stinks I'd just experienced. I slumped back, still wringing wet, my hair a sodden lump. I pushed it back and my hand dripped water. Used though I was to these extremes of change, all the same, by Zair! a poor ordinary fellow needs to let his pulse settle and get his breath back!
The chair whistled up to a cross passage and slowed.
Another chair cut in from the side, sliding eerily of its own volition. I caught a glimpse of a red foxy face, fiery whiskers, and the bright twinkle of knowing eyes.
“Pompino!” I yelled. “Pompino!”
Scauro Pompino, known as the Iarvin, let his clever mouth drop open. He gave me a most hard and suspicious stare.
“Jak!” Like the Khibil comrade he was, he broke out with a huge laugh and added: “Or Majister Dray, if you wish!”
“All is well?”
“My dear lady wife has moved up three or four bottles, is all. But you—look at you! Like a drowned rat. How you manage to contrive to stay in one piece without me to guide you I cannot imagine.”
“I try.”
“Well, may the good Pandrite have you in his keeping.”
The chairs hissed as though animate and conscious of our words and dashed on again. Pompino was swept away up the cross corridor. I yelled: “Remberee, Pompino!” and the echo floated back: “Rembereee!”
Well, now! By Vox! That self-opinionated and marvelous comrade, Pompino, up here and clearly ready for an excursion for the Everoinye. I'd welcome him along with me, that I knew, when next I was flung down all naked and unarmed to sort out a mess the Star Lords had made for themselves.
The chair sizzled and burbled and dashed around a curve and so tore through hanging veils of silky mist to bring me into a room where the light glowed down warm and pink and the scents had changed to violets.
“Dray Prescot!” The hoarse voice resonated eerily between the walls. Nothing else existed in the room save the chair and myself. “We were unavoidably interrupted.”
“I saw the kregoinye you'd sent. His head was clove in by an axe.”
“Elten Ranjat. A great and sad loss.”
Almost, I burst out with: “By the Black Chunkrah! Will you express sentiments of a similar nature if I get my comeuppance?” But I did not. I kept my old black-fanged winespout shut.
“The decision is reached. You may continue the search for the Skantiklar. However, the Shanks must be dealt with.”
I rather cared for that ‘however'. It summed up nicely the predicament I fancied the Star Lords found themselves in. Well, I wanted to go and blatter Schtarkins. Deb-Lu just had to be right about this.
Just how long ago I'd been sitting at Satra's dinner party I couldn't say. I licked my lips. “A modicum of throat moistener would go down well at the moment.”
Before
I'd even finished there was a soft plop! at my elbow. A small round table with a single central leg appeared from nowhere. It bore a goblet of wine, a pale yellow, and although I'd been thinking of a better beverage than wine, I took it up and sipped appreciatively.
“By Mother Zinzu the Blessed! I needed that!”
Quite deliberately I did not wipe the back of my hand across my lips as is the custom when uttering those sacred words. Instead I said: “Thank you.”
Silence existed with the fragility of a moth's wings. The Star Lords had expressed regret over the death of their kregoinye Elten Ranjat. This did not prove they still retained human emotions, merely that they appreciated the loss of a valuable servant. Or—perhaps in their dotage the Everoinye were becoming senile, entering their second childhood, regaining feelings submerged for thousands of years. Ahrinye, for one, wasn't senile. The Everoinye protected me from his coarse ambitions, and I felt thankful for that. Mind you, how long could that situation last? As these brooding thoughts swirled around in my old vosk skull of a head the Star Lords spoke and immediately negated any idea they were senile.
“The wizard Na-Si-Fantong is dangerous only to a limited extent. You have at your disposal powers to contain him. The being Carazaar is of greater consequence. His ambitions are reckless and inordinate.”
I was still sitting in the chair, still sipping wine, still in the here and now. Yet I felt the dizziness seize me. The Star Lords were actually dealing with issues in a simple practical way instead of their usual vague generalities and threats and orders. I croaked out: “Carazaar was actively assisting the Shanks—”
“He arranged for the Katakis to be employed by them, yes.”
“He did, did he?” I heard the savagery in my own voice.
“Our decision regarding the Skantiklar stands. If Carazaar should obtain the nine—gems—our task would be infinitely greater.”
I digested that. The hesitation over the word gems indicated the nine rubies were not ordinary jewels. Well, I suppose that must have been obvious from the first. And if that bastard Carazaar stepped in to collect them, as the Everoinye clearly suspected and, perhaps, feared, the Shanks would become far worse, far worse a peril for Paz.
Scorpio Triumph [Dray Prescot #43] Page 7