Gangs of Antares

by Alan Burt Akers

  “Down here.” I led my party into the narrow left-hand alley. The ladies were bearing up in a wonderful way. I found a niche for them at the end, against the face of the cliff, and told Dimpy, in most stern and measured tones, to stay on guard. He nodded, started to speak, changed his mind, and nodded again.

  Then I took myself off to pluck my chicken.

  In my present condition, naked save for a brown breechclout, I’d never be let into Nalimer’s Iridescent Faerling, even if I had the money to pay the entrance. The proprietor, Nalimer, hired plug-uglies to stand on the door and throw out people like me.

  The uncomfortable feeling was that my friends in the alley were more than likely in for a long wait.

  Now down here in the gullies life might be red raw and gang-ruled; the fact remained these were real people. I couldn’t just hit somebody at random over the head and steal his clothes and money. That antisocial and criminal activity might suit a fairy story or an improbable romance, it did not suit me. Maybe at times in the past something like that had happened; then I was young and new to Kregen, hot-headed and intemperate, and desperately put upon by the Star Lords and various slavers of several evil kinds.

  Mind you, by Krun, if I ran across a Kataki...!

  The dandies allowed their guards in to see the show. They’d have high seating at the back, to be sure; but they’d be in and part of it all. One has to keep one’s guards happy, you know.

  When the noise burst up in crescendos of beast roars the fight had begun. Idly I wondered what the muzzilla was fighting. A couple of beautifully-dressed men came out to visit the house at the side and a single look told me they’d be useless. I didn’t like the cut of their jibs one little bit. Eventually a fellow came out and I decided that this was it, now or never. He was a cadade, kitted properly in armor, wearing swords, a Hytak.

  One can tell a great deal about an employer by the condition of his guards and particularly his guard captain.

  “Llahal, dom,” I said politely, standing beside him. “I’m in a spot of difficulty.” I spoke precisely, hardly, as a noble would speak — not as a slave or commoner. He was attentive at once.

  I explained that I’d been down to buy servants, had concluded the deal, and had then been hit on the head and robbed of everything. The servants remained with me. I wanted to know if he thought his employer could guarantee me safe passage aloft, as, in my present condition the Katakis would—”

  “Aye, dom. They would, the blintzes.”

  He gave me a good hard stare under a lantern. I returned his gaze, hard, unyielding, but not unfriendly. He seemed satisfied. He was Jiktar Zonder ti Rannellden. He had the pakmort at his throat.

  He seemed in no hurry to return. Taking a chance I commented on the beast fight. His remarks were choice. He found the spectacle degrading and disgusting. Before I gave him my name I needed to know who he worked for. This turned out to be a Strom Logan. I’d not heard of him. Clearly I as yet didn’t know all the nobility of Oxonium, let alone Tolindrin.

  “Drajak the Sudden. I work for Princess Nandisha.”

  I held my breath. But he smiled. “Old Ranaj, eh? He’s a bonny lad in a fight, by Hartagas the Marvel.”

  So, that was all right, then.

  Jiktar Zonder had heard of Nandisha’s troubles. He confided in me that Strom Logan had all along supported Tom. He’d be glad when the coronation was over and out of the way. We talked about the ghastly murders of young girls. Without any embarrassment at all I touched him for a silver or two to buy some food and a wet at a stall under its swaying lanterns. I was famished. When Zonder went back into the amphitheater to resume his duty I took the food round into the alley and we had ourselves a little feast. I reassured my new friends that everything was going well and a little more patience and we’d be off and out of it.

  “And then what, Drajak?” sighed Velda. “What will happen to us on the hills?”

  “Oh,” I said, firmly. “Don’t worry over that. I’ve plans you can’t dream of.” Dimpy gave me a quick almost hostile stare. I wasn’t yet going to tell him that Esser Rarioch was where they were bound for.

  This section showed no signs of the earthquake, although Zonder mentioned that there had been damage on Grand Central. I concluded that the quake shocks had not been succeeded by the big one, for if they had I would probably not have still been around in the land of the living. I just hoped my friends up there were all right. The numim twins most certainly were; the Star Lords would have had something to say otherwise, by Vox!

  After that everything went off without a hitch. Strom Logan turned out to be a portly Hytak, an old paktun who’d served his time and saved his money and been rewarded with a small stromnate. Soberly dressed, he was accompanied by a couple of dandies for whom he had the same politeness as he showed my party. The young bloods were up from Laconden and in his care, to be shown the sights. We went up in the basket from the watch tower, hoisted to the waiting cable car. Whisked through the clean upper air under the stars we went our separate ways with my thanks and promise to repay Zonder.

  As I had expected, there was surprise in Nandisha’s palace that I was still alive. I’d fallen into the bowels of Kregen and the devil fires had swallowed me. That was swiftly sorted. I was not tired enough to miss what the news in the palace was.

  Ranaj, on my solemn promise that Dimpy’s family would be gone in the morning, found them sleeping quarters. Fweygo just stared daggers at me. Nothing, I gathered, had been heard from the Everoinye.

  We sat to a proper meal before we slept.

  Ranaj said: “Whilst you have been away, Drajak, we have had a visitor.” He brushed his golden whiskers. “Rather, a visitation.”

  “Oh?”

  Fweygo said: “A damned sorcerer. Probing and prying about the palace. Scared the princess and the children half out of their wits.”

  “Yes.” Ranaj looked wrought up. “A damned weasel-faced fellow, sharp-nosed, thin-lipped. Red hair. Blue lights all about him enough to bring out any honest man in goose-pimples.”

  Fweygo finished: “A spying Wizard of Loh!”

  Chapter fifteen

  “And will Drajak make us slaves?” Samphron gave a decisive jut of her rounded chin. “If he does I shall kill myself first.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly!” said her twin.

  “You’re going to a land where they don’t allow slaves.”

  Dimpy laughed. “There’s no such place in all the world.”

  Very drily, Fweygo cut in. “There is. It’s called Vallia.”

  “Never heard of it!” quoth Melly defiantly.

  “The first thing you two misses will do in Vallia is go to school. Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.”

  “Oh!” in a chorus.

  “And geography.”

  When I spoke to Dimpy about his plans I already half-guessed what his answer would be. Much though he longed to be with his family, the thought of Tiri obsessed him. I gave him absolute assurances that his family would be safe, well-cared for and happy. He elected to stay in Nandisha’s palace, working for Ranaj.

  “After,” he said in his truculent way, “I’ve been to Cymbaro’s temple and seen Tiri.”

  “What’s left of it,” I grunted. “And Tiri’s gone away.”

  I didn’t tell him I thought the young madam had gone to Farinsee because I wasn’t positively sure. It was most likely.

  So that all turned out well. Without revealing who I was, arrangements were made by the Vallian Ambassador. There was a tearful farewell. The remberees were called as the Vallian voller lifted off. It was quick and sudden, a clean break, which was absolutely the best thing. Then, with Dimpy, I went off to Cymbaro’s temple. Duven was not there. I’d wanted to congratulate him on his actions. Workmen were already trying to make sense out of the mess. The giant cleft in the ground had closed in the subsequent shock. The temple would be rebuilt. San Paynor was positive on that point.

  When I mentioned the mysterious Wizard of Loh he looked grav
e but had no information.

  The interrupting noise of banging workmen hammering and smashing away distracted the conversation. Workmen love to make a hideous noise. I don’t doubt they’re all deaf in no time. Have you noticed how workmen on a building site always shout at one another? It makes trying to work extremely difficult. By the disgusting dangling eyeballs and lacerated liver of Makki Grodno! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if workmen were issued with rubber hammers to do their banging with!

  Collecting my gear, which had been saved, I bid remberee and Dimpy and I took ourselves off.

  We stopped off on the way back at a little corner shop for refreshment. Naturally enough, and there is probably no need to mention it, with a voller flying direct to Esser Rarioch I’d taken the opportunity to write letters. One of them requested one of our resident Wizards of Loh to contact me as soon as possible.

  Watching the busy bustle all about I was once again struck by the vivid contrast between here and down there. There was bustle down there, all right; the differences remained startling.

  Naturally enough the twin topics of discussion were the earthquake and the coronation. One affected the other. Oh, yes! Many people were openly saying that the quake was a bad omen. Should not prince Tom delay his crowning? In a religious community the wills of the various gods are considered to be expressed by forceful happenings. Natural disasters have to have an origin, surely? And who else but the gods possess the powers?

  Sorcerers?

  Don’t make us laugh! the folk would scoff. That’s why the old king practically banned wizards from the kingdom.

  As you will readily appreciate, the earthquake had a profound and immediate effect on the course of history in the making, and of my plans in particular. Any delay in the coronation, I believed, meant continuing peril for Princess Nandisha. That, in turn, meant the numim twins remained in danger. And, by the pelvic monstrosity of the Divine Lady of Belschutz, that meant I had to lollygag around in Balintol instead of shooting off home to Esser Rarioch and to Delia.

  As if to point up the somberness of my expectations, a nasty brawl broke out along the road before us. Many people had come into the city for the coronation and Oxonium was bursting at the seams. Cudgels rose and fell. Women screamed and stumbled away.

  Dimpy half-rose. I put a hand on his shoulder and pressed him back into his seat.

  “Let ’em get on with it, the hulus.”

  Differently colored and stylized badges marked the combatants. What they were brawling about could be anything. It was no business of mine. At the moment, unfortunately, at the behest of the Everoinye, Fweygo and I had to look out for the numim twins. That was my business. So I’d better get back to the palace and get on with it.

  Naturally, as this was taking place on Kregen, it wasn’t as easy as that.

  The brawl spread. Half a dozen struggling men sprawled across the ground before us and another battling group crashed into the pile. They were all yelling blue bloody murder and calling on their respective gods and goddesses and patrons. The tumbled mass hit our table, upended it, and bore Dimpy and me over backwards.

  Makki Grodno’s blessed name escaped my lips as I struck out and fought for air and space. Dimpy’s fist hit a squat nose which burst and sprayed claret. I chucked a polsim away, staggered up and brushed off a Fristle who was trying to bite my legs.

  My fist gripped under Dimpy’s armpit and, struggling like a newborn Wersting, he was hoicked up out of the ruck.

  “Come on, Dimpy. Let’s get out of this!”

  We span about, ready to run, and a damned great Rapa, his feathers all bristling, jumped in front of us from nowhere and hit me over the head with a monstrous great wooden billy.

  I let out a yell — by Krun, I yelled! — and staggered back and tripped over an unconscious form on the ground. Dimpy fell all asprawl on top of me. I caught a frenzied glimpse of the Rapa lifting his club to smash Dimpy in the back of the head.

  There was just time to haul Dimpy out of the way and so make this cramph of a Rapa miss with his savage blow. There was a familiar feeling of wetness on my forehead. Lumbering up as the billy swung for another blow I slid the descending strike. The wood was hard and polished with much usage and it slipped easily away off my right arm. I reached out and took the Rapa’s scraggy vulture neck in my left fist. I clenched my fingers and thumb. I shook him.

  His beady eyes popped and his beak clacked up and down like a pair of fool’s clappers. I shook him some more, hit him between the eyes, and so threw him away. I was, as you will perceive, a trifle wrought up.

  Dimpy screeched: “Look out!”

  I ducked.

  The flung knife went zzinngg! past my head.

  Another Rapa charged at me. He was bigger, uglier and altogether more unpleasant than his comrade with whom I had just passed a few fraught moments. He tore out his sword, a slikker, and bore in with every intention of skewering my guts.

  The petty brawl had, on a sudden, turned deadly.

  Dimpy yelped out: “Come on, Drajak. Let’s go!”

  I wasn’t prepared to turn my back on this rast so I didn’t bother to reply. The slikker, halfway between a shortsword and a braxter, was held in a fighting grip and the Rapa was clearly skilled in its use. My reluctance vanished and I unsheathed a braxter and put up my blade.

  The noise of the brawl all about spiraled, as it were, into another dimension. The stinks, the noise, all vanished into a single all-encompassing concentration upon the Rapa’s eyes and sword.

  All the same, fine though that is in swordsmen’s jargon, I remained Dray Prescot, a cunning old leem-hunter, a fellow who’s had more fights — to his shame — than most. So, centering my attention on the Rapa and the fight to hand, I still had a wary eye open for anyone else likely to jump me. It is a knack, and it keeps one alive.

  The Rapa was good, a solid fighting man, and I determined, however base he might be, not to slay him. We foined, I did this and that, sent him one way, flicked his slikker out of his hand into the air where it span and glinted in the light of the suns, and put the braxter’s hilt into his beak.

  He fell down.

  “Now you’ve had your fun, Drajak, will you come on!” The clear young voice was sharp above the clamor.

  I scabbarded the unbloodied sword. I walked stiff-legged over to the young imp. I glared into his eyes.

  “Fighting is not fun, Dimpy, not fun at all.”

  “Well, you could have fooled me.”

  Cheeky young scamp!

  The idiots were still hard at it as we left, still yelling for their gods and goddesses and patrons, knocking hell out of one another.

  By the time we’d reached the cable car terminus the City Guard were descending on the brawl in force. Putting all that nonsense out of my head, once again I mused on the people festering in the warrens below as the calimer passed so grandly by high above. There was time as we sailed along suspended from the cable over thin air to ponder on what had transpired over the past few days. The great nobles in contention had not given up their hopes of placing the crown upon their own heads. Those poor folk down in the canyons below were being used as mere pawns in the game. Prince Ortyg had his olive-green clad bully-boys. Khon the Mak would be busily at work recruiting for the showdown to come. All Oxonium, all Tolindrin, could run red with blood.

  The car jounced into its retaining guides and we alighted. There was another call to make before I could get back to the numim twins and try to explain it all to Fweygo.

  At least Fweygo supplied funds. A careful choice had to be made between one wine and another, for in our conversation Zonder had mentioned in passing that his favorite wine was Xalanx, a perfumed vintage out of Xuntal. Finding a satisfactory vendor I purchased a case of a dozen, hired a porter, and sallied off to Strom Logan’s villa.

  In his comfortable quarters beside the guardhouse in Logan’s relatively modest residence, I said to Zonder: “Yes, I was badly robbed on the road and lost my pakzhan. Employment with Ran
aj was most welcome, as you will understand. Replacement is most difficult.”

  He said: “There is no need to repay the silver, Drajak — the wine alone—”

  “Is a paltry attempt to say thank you. I tell you, dom, it is most unhealthy down there in the stews.”

  He nodded in his Hytak way. We drank a little parclear. Dimpy kept a most unusual silence. The conversation was of the coronation and the earthquake. There had been no more murders of young girls, although deaths through street fights had increased.

  Presently we said the remberees and just as Dimpy and I went out, Zonder called after us: “And you will be most welcome to visit again.”

  Walking quietly along, Dimpy suddenly came out with: “You know why he wants to see you again, Drajak? It’s obvious. He wants you to leave Princess Nandisha and go work for him and Strom Logan.” He cocked his head up. “Will you?”

  “Nope.”

  We walked along thereafter in a pool of silence between us.

  The disparate events that had been happening all about me were, I felt, interconnected in some mysterious way. The very absence of interference from the Star Lords pointed up the seriousness of the present situation. The long-term plans of the Everoinye must look many seasons into the future. Their concern was for the numim twins. They’d said they had little interest in who won the crown so long as the lion maid and lion lad lived.

  Just what was to be their role in the future of Kregen? As always, I had no way of knowing, and only the passage of the years would provide the answer.

  A blare of trumpets on the warm air, harsh and commanding, drawing closer, was followed by a scattering of the crowds. They flew apart like chickens in the farmyard when a horse and carriage thundered through. Dimpy and I hopped off to the side where, perched on a plinth, we saw what was toward.

  In front of the trumpeters marched armed men who made sure no one was left gawping and standing in the way. The trumpeters were gorgeously attired; over-decorated jackanapes was the thought that jumped immediately to mind. Next marched a bevy of men carrying standards and flags. Mostly the colors were red and combinations of red. My face did not move a muscle as I stared. Young boys pranced along distributing perfumed water in graceful jets, glinting rose red in the lights of the twin suns. Whatever this procession was in aid of, it had its own Perfume Patrol.