Scorpio Triumph [Dray Prescot #43]

by Alan Burt Akers

  Deb-Lu's voice at my side said: “Yes, Jak. His power is enormous. He can send key formations into catalepsy—”

  “I sent him packing!” I fairly snarled out.

  “Aye, Jak, aye, so you did. He has fled to another plane—”

  I gave Deb-Lu a leery look. He sounded positively chirpy. “And?”

  “Our new college also has power. We can send you after him—”

  “Then, Deb-Lu—do it!”

  As the transition swept me up I realized why Deb-Lu had not brought me back to the HQ tower. My feet hit hard stone, wreathing mists cleared, and there loomed Carazaar's damned throne. At once I skipped sideways and the Lohvian shafts whistled past. I'd no idea where we were. I shot two more of the Bowmaids so that they burst into clouds of nauseous gas. I moved diagonally and shafted the rest. That left it between Carazaar and me.

  Ha!

  The thing coalesced from the coils of mist. It thickened and swelled and grew into a shape I recognized. Oh, yes, I knew what this monster from a diseased nightmare had been, and was, and now was again.

  This time there were no throngs of blood-lusting Ullars and Harfnars, banked on their seats, no gore-soaked sand beneath my feet, no ring of perching Impiters. This time—thank Zair!—Delia was not spread all white and naked upon a triangle of wood. And, this time, I did not swing a bunch of chains; this time I could shoot the damned Ullgishoa with a Lohvian longbow and smash in with a Krozair longsword.

  Carazaar had summoned up this horror from my past and no doubt hoped to unnerve me thereby. The Ullgishoa, squamous and writhing, its upper half a hemispherical carapace of scales, its lower a contorted snake-like mass of tentacles, each tipped with an oozing protuberance, moved towards me. Its single huge eye, mucous dripping, yellow and ruby, had once been burst by the swing of chains. This time two Lohvian shafts obliterated the orb and it burst into a fountain of scarlet and yellow. I remembered, oh, yes, I remembered the barbaric savagery with which I'd dealt with the Ullgishoa. Latterly I'd tried to calm that primordial fury, gentle my own savagery. Well, if Carazaar played this game then once more I'd revert to that half-crazed Dray Prescot who'd first been transported to Kregen.

  The Ullgishoa's tentacles writhed and oozed and it screeched its own death-throes—and then it faded and vanished. I stared at the throne.

  For three heartbeats Carazaar's face lowered on me, the parchment skin stretched so tightly it seemed the bones must break through at any moment. Haziness engulfed the throne and the dais and its occupants. The mist concealed all before me. A swirling commotion in the fog focused above my head. I knew what thing it was that thrust through, for I'd met it among the rocks of Delia's Blue Mountains. Then I'd wielded a huge sword of war, blunt as a lead razor, and had a hard fight taking out the four eyes.

  The shorgortz lumbered forward from the mist on its twelve legs. Its scales glistened with a crimson iridescence, their centers green-black, its four eyes blinked in rapid succession, and its tendrils groped forward to snatch me up so that the claws of the forelegs could stuff pieces of me down the parallel jaws. Carazaar had summoned a much more dangerous creature this time. Four Lohvian shafts were required to take out the eyes. The thing exuded a vomit-like stench, and thrashed about, seeking its prey. To get at Carazaar I must pass the shorgortz. Away went the longbow and with a subtle sibilance out came the Krozair brand.

  I leaped.

  Tendrils slashed and the claws raked and I struck powerful shrewd blows, almost overwhelmed by the stinks alone. The work was accomplished swiftly. I had no feelings either of compassion or hatred for the shorgortz. Driven by its own destiny like everyone else, it merely did what its nature compelled. I surged on past the limp tail out of the mist.

  Carazaar's throne had vanished. In the same instant I felt the ground lurch beneath me and in the next I stood in a grassy glade surrounded by trees. Framed between mossy trunks ahead stood the damned throne.

  What would be the next monster from my lurid past Carazaar would throw at me? Zair knew, there were enough of them. Two leems stalked out from the trees and stood, sizing me up. One had a black tuft to the end of his tail, similar to the second, who wore a silver collar. I wondered at Carazaar's reasoning here. Yes, leems are lethal, feral, vicious killers; they stood little chance against a fully-armed and experienced leem-hunter.

  With the thought that Seg might fancy the two shots I sent two shafts from the bow. Care had to be exercised to hit the leem's main heart. Both creatures rolled over. Carazaar's face brooded on me.

  I lifted the bow again ready to take a shot at him and he was gone!

  So, too, was I. Deb-Lu's college hurled me in close pursuit and this time my feet hit sand—silver sand. I thought, then, I knew my next antagonist.

  Mountainous, sixteen legs, eight tusks, whiplash tails, and a mouth like a river dredger lined with rows of jagged shark's teeth. Its four blackly-red nostrils quivered as it picked up my scent and its two saucer eyes swiveled to regard me. A boloth. The silver sand beneath my feet was a nice touch. Over that silver sand, once, had raced four friends of mine, bringing me help. So even as I reached up for a shaft I realized why Carazaar had put in those two leems. I knew, before my fingers touched the feathers, that I had but one arrow left.

  With that last shaft from the Lohvian longbow I blotted out one eye.

  Being a frugal old paktun I did not throw down the bow but slung it over my shoulder out of the way. You never knew when shafts would come your way. The way ahead now lay with the Krozair longsword.

  No need to detail that combat, for I used my usual system in dealing with poor hostile creatures who, in seeking to fulfill their destiny, try in the process to eat me. Piece by piece the enormous monster was finished. By the time he was on the point of collapse I tried so to work it that I'd be as close as possible to the throne when at last the boloth fell.

  The bellowings and screamings—for the boloth has no trunk—filled that pleasant glade with the sounds of horror, and the blood and stench with disgust. Carazaar sat still half-leaning forward resting on his axe. I was as close to him as I was going to get before he saw through my stratagem.

  With the Krozair brand all smeared and slimed, thrusting forward, I leaped for Carazaar.

  “You're an onker, Dray Prescot, an onker of onkers, a get-onker!”

  The onward rush carried me forward with all the impetuosity of a numim lad chasing a Fristle fifi. His derisive shout echoed in my ears—"A get-onker!"—and I swear my blade touched a down-draped silk, for the damned throne took off and shot into the air before vanishing. I stood there like a veritable loon, like the onker I'd so often been dubbed.

  “By the disgusting diseased tripes and innards of Makki Grodno! And also by the unmentionables of the Divine Lady of Belschutz! Deb-Lu—get me after him!”

  I stood in a vast hall dimly lit by braziers which cast thick shadows from fat and rotund pillars. Incense stank on the air. Furtive movements filled the shadows with menace. And—there stood that confounded throne with Carazaar and his retinue waiting for me.

  He hurled a couple of risslaca at me, which I bested, and strode on.

  Various creatures stalked from the shadowed aisles, and I cut them down, and moved on. Syatras sought to ensnare me from the pillars, and I hewed my way past them. Animal and vegetable horrors were defeated. I marched on. The kreektizz nearly got me. When I'd fought him in what I always recalled as the adventure of the flame-haired siren he'd nearly got me then. I had to draw the old sailor knife to hack off the tail with which he'd lapped me. Most annoyingly he'd chewed up some of the leather bits and pieces of my armor. Still, I kept on moving forward towards Carazaar.

  The floor tilted. It definitely tilted. A pillar crumbled across in a puff of mortar and brick dust and lunged for my head. The ceiling fell in as I dived desperately out of the way. A single flashing glance showed me a chunk of brick hitting that gaudy canopy over Carazaar's throne. Before I had time to marvel at that event the throne vanished. The
floor still rocked like a swifter in a rashoon. I dragged in a breath and rolled away from falling debris and splashed into waves rolling up a sandy beach.

  By this time, among all the purposeful rage I felt to get to grips with Carazaar, a tinge of tiredness crept. I know tiredness is a sin; but I had been rather leaping and prancing, hacking and hewing about, recently.

  The forms of Khe-Hi-Bjanching and Ling-Li-Lwingling appeared hovering just above the edge of the surf.

  “Where is the old devil, then?” I demanded. The beach lay deserted for as far as I could see in both directions. There was not a sail in sight—but the twin Suns of Scorpio flooded mingled streaming lights.

  “The battle fluctuates, Dray. We are weakening him; but—”

  “But what? Where in a Herrelldrin Hell is he?”

  “Temporarily we've lost him—”

  “Lost him!”

  “We will find him. He is planning a different attack. And, as Seg would say, my old dom, you need the breather.”

  “H'mf,” I grumped. “I suppose so. But for the sweet sake of Opaz find the rast fast!”

  Before the last word was out of my mouth away went sea and sand and sky and with them the friendly familiar Suns of Scorpio, and in their place a great and vasty darkness lay over the land.

  Into that blackness pricked dots of red fire. Oh, yes, they have been likened to the Watchfires of Hell, the red rhodopsin eyes of schrepims. There were eight eyes, four pairs of them, the same number of schrepims that had escaped in that adventure with Unmok the Nets, and if some light was not shed shortly upon the proceedings then I'd be—I stopped my maundering.

  I could make out the forms of the green-scaled lizard-men. I could see them in the darkness with remarkable clarity. I recalled as I stalked on that previously I'd been surprised at how well I saw down various dungeons. Then I recalled something—this was the handiwork of the Star Lords!

  Schrepims are incredibly quick and agile, they are also reputed to have the Powers of the Dark, although this I doubt. If this was a sample of Carazaar's new approach then he'd upped the scale of his attack a thousandfold. What, clearly, he didn't know was that the Everoinye, in response to my request, had bestowed that gift upon me. The Slacamen started to stalk me and I went bald-headed for the nearest and upset him a trifle and so chopped him. In that old fight I'd had a thraxter. Now—the difference resulted in the rapid disintegration of the schrepims and an equally rapid transference to another plane. So fast are these lizard men one had sliced his thraxter cunningly enough to sever the breastplate straps on one side and the thing dangled down so that I had to discard it. I threw the kax down and stared upon my new surroundings.

  Familiarity, as they say in Clishdrin, breeds contempt. The awesome power wielded by these mages of hurling people through immaterial planes of existence could never be taken for granted. Each shift of scene represented vast amounts of kharrna expended. The very thought of what was taking place was enough to send shivers down one's spine. I own I felt that most strongly—the sheer overbearing awesomeness of this whole experience.

  Now I must relate what have to be some of the most painful passages of my life upon the cruel world of Kregen.

  I stood in the dear familiar garden of Esser Rarioch my home above the city of Valkanium in Valka. Far below me the bay glittered in the streaming mingled radiance of the Suns of Scorpio. As I gaped about Carazaar and his infernal throne reared up among the rose bushes that were Delia's particular pride. Starting off towards him I was filled with such fury that—well, it is all highly painful. There were six of them and they came at me each in his own particular fashion. Balass the Hawk. Turko. K. Kholin Dorn. Hap Loder. Rees and Chido. Comrades all, they charged forward to slay me.

  Difficult—oh, aye, difficult!—to recall let alone relate. I fought them. And, yes, I slew them all, every last one. They did not explode into disgusting bits and pieces stinking to high heaven. They remained sprawled on the grass in that quiet garden, lax and limp in death, the blood bright upon them. My comrades, slain by my hand, all bloody and dead. I gazed stupidly.

  “By the glass eye and brass sword of Beng Thrax!” I stared at Balass. “By Djan-kadjiryon!” I stared at Kytun. “By the Black Chunkrah!” I stared at Hap Loder. “By Morro the Muscle!” I stared at Turko. “By Krun!” I stared at Rees and Chido.

  The combat had been intense and ferocious and they'd nicked me a few times and done for the rest of my armor. Blood-spattered, I stood forth clad only in the old scarlet breechclout.

  Shame filled me. There had been six of them, six of the finest fighting men Kregen could boast, and I'd beaten them. Prowess—don't talk to me about prowess, think of the misery the pursuit of prowess brings. I was tired, oh, yes, tired to the bone—but there was more to be done!

  Twin shadows moved upon the grass and a great glittering golden Kildoi fronted me. For a heartbeat I imagined I had to fight Korero the Shield.

  Then I saw the truth.

  I felt that recognition like a vove hoof in the guts.

  And—the bastard had his tail hand all present and correct.

  The splendid golden Kildoi with his four arms and handed tail carried shield, spear and three swords. With only one sword he had proved he could best me. Always, as you know, I am prepared to meet a better swordsman than I am. I have never claimed to be the best swordsman of two worlds. In this arrogant Kildoi I had met a better swordsman, if not, as I had been assured, a greater.

  A throaty cackle of laughter gusted from Carazaar's throne.

  If this was the end of my adventures on Kregen, then this was the end. He had to be played as I played a many-tentacled or many-legged wild beast. He had to be deceived by cunning other than the feints known to swordmasters. I started on him and allowed everything that is and has ever been Dray Prescot to flow into the great Krozair longsword.

  Of course he was very good, he was the very best I'd ever met.

  His tail hand went first, chopped as he tried to stab past the scarlet breechclout.

  He was hitting me. I did not feel the cuts. All the Krozair disciplines flowed into a single continuous effort. In the end he was done for. He went down to one knee and the shattered remnants of his shield held aloft vainly tried to keep out the Krozair brand. No hatred for him and no compunction; just the last cleansing blow to allow me surcease.

  His name? That, surely, is unnecessary? I spared him a grave salute with the bloodied blade. “Go to whatever gods will have you, Prince Mefto A'Shanofero, Prince of Shanodrin—Mefto the Kazzur!”

  With the sword lifted so ridiculously I looked across the garden and saw, and felt—I do not know what I felt. They walked slowly towards me, splendid, lithe, clad in war harness, handsome, lethal. The shorter did not say: “Well, my old dom!” Instead he lifted his bow. The taller swung his axe.

  My strength was draining away and yet I could not rest. I knew exactly what they'd do, for we'd done it a thousand times together. I might flick away the first two, even three arrows. By then the Saxon pattern axe would be carving me into pieces. There was but the one chance.

  My right hand left the hilt of the sword and the haft of my old sailor knife snugged sweetly. I drew and threw. Two streaks criss-crossed. The Lohvian longbow shaft caromed off the upheld Krozair brand. The knife slugged into that strong virile face. No thought! No thought! Axe and longsword twirled and licked and then I stepped back, panting, and stared with self-loathing horror upon the two corpses on the grass.

  What to say! What to think! Nothing—nothing in all the ghastly world of Kregen. If I thought I had plumbed the depths of horror the movement by the red roses showed me that horror has no depth, there is no end, there is no worse, no worst of hell and horror and damnation.

  She stepped forward with that heartbreakingly beautiful swing. The rapier, the Jiktar, glittered in her right hand. Her left was covered by the wickedly sharp talons of her Claw, her jikvar. She half-smiled in the old familiar way. The light of the suns caught in bright rad
iance in her hair. I stood. I just stood.

  The Claw swept towards my head in a cunning blow that would remove my face. Instinct alone caused me to slide away, pivoting, avoiding the rapier thrust. The Krozair brand hung limply in my left hand, dangling. I was gasping for air I could barely draw into my lungs. I must stand still, must accept the needle. She moved with that graceful undulating movement towards me again.

  A voice from the air snapped: “Dray Prescot!”

  Refulgent yellow light blossomed. I knew that yellow radiance. The voice went on: “Stand away. Look at your comrades.”

  I looked. The pathetic twisted heaps splattered with the blood of my making lay scattered on the grass. They sloughed. Flesh dripped and bones glinted yellow and pink; then they exploded into gouts of green and black ichor stinking nauseatingly in that fragrant garden.

  “They are in Makilorn, fighting Fish Faces. This is not Delia. You must make the final effort, Dray Prescot. You must!”

  “Zena Iztar!”

  “The battle is nearly won. Carazaar's power will be gone with this last throw. Nerve yourself to strike down Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains—so that you may save and return to her!”

  The Claw hissed past my face and the rapier scorched my ribs.

  This was not Delia! This was a black phantasm from the kharrna of Carazaar. I brought the great Krozair longsword up, cunningly, swervingly, brought the superb brand down in a killing blow.

  The Claw flashed to intercept. Like a chunkscreetz it caught and trapped the bloodied blade. The great and superb Krozair longsword snapped.

  The Krozair brand snapped clean across.

  The fact registered with such a colossal shock I felt the rapier's kiss as I desperately slid aside.

  Carazaar's throaty laughter echoed in the garden of my home.

  The Claw ripped bloody flesh from my side.

  All I had ever really wanted in life was Delia. All the rest had been thrust upon me by fate, or the Scorpion, or the Savanti and the Star Lords. I recall little of what followed. I drew the Savanti sword. I used the Savanti blade. I fought. When it was over the yellow radiance washed upon the phantasmal corpse of Delia and I closed my eyes.