Fliers of Antares [Dray Prescot #8]

by Alan Burt Akers

  The activities of the youngsters, which could be viewed with ease from this high verandah outside the headman's house, came to a climax with much shouting and hullabalooing, and at last a group of about fifty youths and maidens, their dusting of yellow fur bright in the declining rays of the twin suns, clustered together, entwined with wreaths of flowers. Something of the sadness of Rorpal of Podia must have affected me, for these circlets of flowers could scarcely be wreaths. They must be the victors’ crowns.

  And yet the flowers, so brilliant, so beautiful, were linked together in long chains, so that the fifty were in very truth entwined about, bound, almost.

  Masses of people moved away from the open space, laughing among themselves, and yet their laughter struck chill. I glanced at Rorpal.

  He stood up. At his side a young man with as aggressive a cast of feature as any Lamnia might aspire to handed the headman his spear of office. Around the spear had been entwined flowers. Rorpal lifted the spear, and the gathering crowds below fell silent and shuffled into place before the verandah and the group of village elders, leaving the fifty bound in their flower chains some way off, isolated.

  Rorpal was about to say something that might explain these proceedings. A woman ran urgently up and past the crowd's outskirts, pushed vigorously past the aggressive youth, who made no real attempt to halt her. She stopped in front of Rorpal. She looked agitated and yet determined, and her face, pleasant and mellow in the Lamnia way, set itself in lines of unfamiliar hardness.

  “Rorpal! I call on you—Paesi—she it was—and it is decided that Polosi shall go!” She was stammering so much through her assumed hardness that she made no sense. At least, she made no sense to me. But Rorpal of Podia understood what she wanted.

  He struck the butt of the spear on the wooden flooring three times. The silence became absolute, except for the evening breeze in the trees and a few dogs howling from the compound where they had been herded during the ceremonies. I noticed particularly, from my already vast experience, that no babies were crying.

  “Very well, Mother Mala. Paesi it was, we all agree to that, it is attested."

  “It is!"

  Rorpal gestured in a way that might have embraced this woman, Mother Mala, the crowds, the fifty youths in their flowery chains, the elders on the verandah—or me—and he banged his spear down again, four times. Abruptly everyone burst into shouts and cheering. But, even then, that cheering struck a somber note, there on the dusty compound of the little village of Podia. I noticed that most of the cheering came from the young men and women mixed in the crowds before the verandah. The fifty bound in flowers remained silent, although everyone looked toward the elders on the verandah.

  Then—one of those fifty burst into hysterical shouting. A young man broke the flower chain by a single movement of his hands and ran and ran and so was swept up into the arms of Mother Mala. I saw the girl Paesi, who had found me on the shore, also hugging and kissing both the boy and his mother.

  Lamnias passed among the crowds carrying large gourd-shaped vessels of pottery that are sometimes called amphorae, although they are not strictly of that shape or form, for they have a stoppered spout, and their more proper name is holc. They were mounted on wicker carrying baskets upon the men's backs and it was remarkable with what nicety and skill the men could tilt the holc and direct a stream of wine into an outstretched cup without so much as spilling a drop. Fresh wine in fresh goblets was produced for the elders upon the verandah, and I took the goblet offered me. Rorpal of Podia banged his spear butt again, twice and a third time, and the silence fell.

  Rorpal lifted his goblet.

  Everyone raised their goblets or cups high into the air.

  “Let us drink the parting toast!” called Rorpal. “The toast of da'eslam! The farewell and the greeting! Da'eslam!"

  “Da'eslam! Da'eslam!"

  We all drank.

  Then, as is the way with Lamnias, everything was over and the people shuffled away. I put the goblet down and looked for the fifty—no, the forty-nine—and saw they were gone from their places.

  Only the coiled chains of flowers lay there, abandoned, their petals wilting and losing their color.

  One function of the meaning of da'eslam, as I knew even then, rather like the vaol-paol, is the end and the beginning, and equally the beginning and the end. But whereas the circle of vaol-paol encompasses all things, da'eslam contains a narrower vision connected almost always with a person's fate and destiny.

  The Lamnias had summed me up shrewdly.

  In the last of the light streaming and mingling from the emerald orb of Genodras, which is called Havil in Havilfar, and the ruby orb of Zim, which is called Far in Havilfar, I saw a small group of men walk from the stockade past the last of the houses and so come out onto the open space before the verandah and the elders and the headman.

  I saw their faces, and instinctively my right hand crossed my waist, groping for the hilt of a sword that was not there.

  Yes, the Lamnias understood men, even apims, even apims like myself.

  The newcomers stood in the opaz radiance, their shadows long upon the packed dust where the feet of the Lamnias had so lately shuffled. I saw those damned faces. Thick black hair, greased and oiled and curled, hung about their evil faces. These beings were not apim. They were of a race of diffs I had not encountered before, and they were beast-men and men-beasts of so forbidding an aspect I truly thought that a Chulik might think twice before offending one of their number.

  Low were their brows, low and wide, above flaring nostrils and gape-jawed mouths in which I saw snaggly teeth bared in grins of anticipation. Their eyes were wide spaced, brilliant, yet narrow and cold. These halflings wore armor, scale armor that was as commonplace as any I had seen. They wore close-fitting helmets which I then thought were brass, and only later discovered to be gold over iron. They carried weapons of the fighting-man of Havilfar—thraxter, stux, shield.

  Apart from the impression of evil upon their faces, they would not have occasioned in me any further interest outside my usual fascination with the myriads of types and species upon Kregen, but for their tails. I saw at once that these tails were probably their most formidable armament. Long and whiplike, the tails were carried high and arrogantly, curved over the right shoulder. And every tail ended in a razor-sharp curved blade. The glinting light from the twin suns caught the serried blades, upflung on the flaunting tails, and glittered like a field of diamonds.

  The faces of diffs are passing strange in the eyes of a man from this Earth. Some are beautiful, some are ugly, some misshapen in our estimation, others quite unremarkable. Yet how difficult it is to say with complete surety that a certain expression upon the face of a man who is not apim—is not a member of Homo sapiens—means exactly what you think it means. I took the gloating faces to portray evil at that moment, and although I was proved right—to my cost!—the assumption was made so rapidly, so much from instinct, that immediately I forced myself to relax and to believe that an alien's face cannot show what a man's face of this Earth would show and necessarily mean the same thing.

  Below the scaled corselet each man wore a brilliant scarlet kilt. I stared. I suppose that, too, influenced me, like any onker. The diffs wore the old brave scarlet, the color that had in so many ways become associated so closely with me and mine upon Kregen.

  They advanced with a steady step and I saw that they kept in step and to a wedgelike formation. The leader, broad and bulky, wore a multitude of feathers and silks, not on his helmet but about his person. He halted below the verandah and looked up. Once more I had to control myself, to make myself relax. Was I not learning the ways of quietness and peace upon Kregen under Antares?

  “Is all ready, Rorpal?"

  “All is ready, Notor."

  “Then bring them out, you rast, or I'll sink my stux in your belly."

  I straightened up at these words, for I understood a little of the thinking behind such uncalled-for insult and arrogance. As
I straightened, I felt a hazy qualm or dizziness pass, as though my brain had moved within my skull, fractionally later than I had intended.

  So then it was that I understood how easily the Lamnias had read me, how shrewdly they had taken stock of me, and what they had done. I understood now what had transpired here. There was no need for Rorpal of Podia to lean regretfully toward me as I stumbled, and clutched at the railing, and so, stupidly, collapsed to the wooden floor, and for him to say: “We express our deep regret, Horter Prescot. But we are driven by devils. We must send fifty of our youths and our maidens, and the aragorn will welcome you exceedingly in place of Polosi, the son of Mala and sister of Paesi, who found you and so had claim upon you."

  Then Rorpal, who had the good of Podia at heart, called to the aragorn leader: “This apim is a great warrior, a Hyr-paktun. In him you will be well pleased."

  Then the drug in the wine felled me utterly and Notor Zan engulfed me in blackness.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWO

  Delia begins a story

  It seemed to me that Delia was telling young Dray, the Strom of Balkash, a story. The Strom of Balkash was the son of Seg Segutorio, Kov of Falinur, and Thelda, the Kovneva. Delia sat curled up in a heaping pile of cushions whose glowing silks and embroideries could not compare in any way with the glory that was my Delia. The story was well loved in Vallia, and Delia, herself, enjoyed the retelling of it.

  “Under a certain moon,” she began, which is a way of saying Once upon a time, “a great and cruel Vad ruled a country and all the people groaned and were unhappy. Now it happened that in that country, at a place where a wooden bridge crossed a stream and silver fishes leaped into your hand, lived a poor man who had a beautiful daughter whose name was Ama of the Shining Hair. It chanced that the great and cruel Vad went a-hunting leem, which had been troubling the ponshos of the people in those parts."

  Something tickled me in the ribs and I stirred and moved and then sank back on my cushions to listen to Delia. As for young Dray, who was Seg Segutorio's son, his little face was puckered up in absolute concentration and he was holding all his body tightly with expectation and glee at this marvelous story from this marvelous aunt.

  “But one of the ponsho farmers was a young man who could talk to his ponsho-trag and who loved nothing better than to sport all day in the fields with his friend, as you would with your friends. Now this ponsho farmer's name was—"

  The nudge in my side was less gentle, far from gentle. It was a positive kick. I rolled over, ready to find out who would thus dare to desecrate the enjoyment of the Prince Majister of Vallia's entranced absorption in a story told by the Princess Majestrix of Vallia, and a thudding kick bounced off my ribs, and a course and unlovely voice roared in my ear.

  “Get up, you rast! Yetch! On your feet!"

  I opened my eyes.

  An aragorn drew his booted foot back ready to drive it into my ribs again. I rolled away, feeling a terrible pain in my gut, and tried to catch that wicked boot. I could not move my hands.

  “Nulsh! On your feet!"

  The kick landed. I got my feet under me. The pink-lit shadows of the Kregan night lay between the loom of trees, and I heard the susurration of the night wind. My hands were bound.

  “You cramph,” I said. “I wanted to hear that story."

  My voice slurred horribly and I could feel the solid ground going up and down like the deck of a swordship in a gale off the Hoboling islands.

  The aragorn brought his whiplike tail around and laid the flat of the curved blade against my head. That thick skull of mine rang as though all the bells in Beng-Kishi sounded off with maniacs at the clapper ropes.

  “Get into line or I'll flay your hide off!"

  He was genuinely annoyed. The pink moonlight from She of the Veils flowed over his gold-on-iron helmet, scaled armor, and brave scarlet kilt. I could see the vague shadows of Lamnias all about and I could hear the harsh orders to move, and so I understood that no great time had elapsed since Notor Zan had taken me entire. The aragorn were taking the young Lamnias selected for them, and, shrewd in their way, the Lamnias of Podia had saved one of themselves and thrown me in as a prize specimen of a slave.

  Under the conjoined forces of the tail-blow on the head and the surgings of the solid earth beneath my feet and the rumblings of my gut, I staggered half a dozen paces beneath the trees. They had had the forethought to bind my wrists with thongs and had carried me out and dumped me among the forty-nine sacrifices.

  The thongs were not lesten hide.

  I broke them with a single savage surge, twisted, got the aragorn around the throat, and, ducking my head beneath his instinctive slash of the tail-blade, started to choke a little respect into him.

  I had no desire to kill him. I was still ensnared in the repression of my savage and intemperate nature; but enough was enough. He garbled and choked trying to yell. Others of the slave-masters came running, and so I threw this specimen at them and turned to dash into the moon-shadowed trees. Oh, yes, I was perfectly resigned to leave them unharmed and to run away. I had some of the most important aspects of my life worked out now; as you would say today, I had my priorities almost right.

  Delia would not welcome a dead husband lying rotting beneath the mud of some putrid island of the Shrouded Sea.

  But these aragorn were cunning in the ways of man-management. Twining iron links whirred through the air and snagged my arms and legs, brought me down with a crash. Once the thongs had proved useless to hold me, they merely clamped chains upon me. I tested the iron. It would take long and long—if ever—for me to break the weakest link.

  After that it was a question of being prodded along the track between the trees. The aragorn I had maltreated took some delight in prodding me with his stux. I clashed my chains at him, but he laughed evilly and avoided the swinging bight and struck me again.

  “Leave off, you onker, Reterhan!” The leader strode up, and his anger made of his ugly face a devil's mask very like the face of the Devil of the Ice-Wind who guards the north shore of Gundarlo.

  “He attacked me, Notor!"

  “When he is sold—when we have golden deldys for him—you may take your own payment, then, Reterhan. Until then, by the Triple Tails of Targ the Untouchable, you will care for the merchandise as you care for your tail!"

  “I obey, Notor.” Reterhan shrank back from his lord's anger.

  We marched again through the forest, and I guessed we went to another village of the island where more people would be rounded up. I trudged on under the weight of the iron chains until gradually my senses returned and my gut stopped rumbling. I was now ready to pull a few tails.

  “That was nobly done, Horter Prescot."

  The young Lamnia looked like them all, yellow furred, meek in appearance, slightly built. I could barely envisage him hurling javelins so well as to out-throw some of the other Lamnia youths of Podia.

  “These aragorn,” I said. “They need to be cleansed."

  “Aye, Horter Prescot. But we of Podia are not destined for that great work. We are too few and too weak."

  The youngster said his name was Fanal and as we walked along he spoke to me softly, and I answered with a guiding grunt or question. I learned more, then, of the tangled politics of the Shrouded Sea, and of how these aragorn of Sorah wreaked their horrors upon the islands. They were of the race of diffs called Kataki, and they held their tails in especial esteem. I was not surprised at that. I saw the fashion of helmet they wore, close-fitting and smooth, without embellishment or ornament. They could whip their tails about over their shoulders and around their heads, lashing forward in lethal sweeps. They would make interesting antagonists. I wondered why I had not encountered any in the Jikhorkdun, the arena, of Huringa; but Fanal explained that the aragorn took good care that they themselves were not sold into slavery and thus avoided the fate of fighting in the arenas of Hyrklana or Hamal.

  The Katakis gave most of the islands a bad time. The Canops, of w
hom I have told you, had forged themselves into a fighting nation of soldiers to resist them. My estimation of the Canops changed once more. And now I understand a little more of the fear-filled lifestyle of the Lamnias of Podia.

  Forced to live as slave-fodder, they had worked out a modus vivendi with the Katakis of Sorah, and with their accustomed Lamnia shrewdness had agreed period by period to supply a stipulated number of slaves, both youths and maidens.

  The games I had witnessed sorted out the strongest and fittest young men, and the most beautiful and graceful of the young maidens. But then—and I admit I ricked my lips up in what might have passed as the semblance of a grin—the Lamnias sent as slaves to the aragorn their failures, the least agile young men, the least graceful young women. All the winners, the best athletes, the most beautiful girls, were hidden away out of sight. This made so much sense that I marveled it had not occurred with more frequency, given that those willing to take the risks of fooling aragorn must be shrewd and smart and cunning bargainers.

  “And what is to become of you, Fanal, once you are a slave?"

  “I do not know.” He looked apprehensive, as well he might. “I pray the eye of Lomno-Niarton may never close over me, so that I am spared the Jikhorkdun or the Heavenly Mines."

  This Fanal had been a loser, one who had not been able to keep up with his fellows in the races, who had not hurled his javelin as far, had not jumped as agilely, with the consequence unfortunate for him that he had been packed off as slave. I did not envision him coming out well from his experiences as a coy in the arena; as an apprentice he would not, I judged, last long. His reference to the Heavenly Mines I then took to be an oblique way of talking about death. I was wrong in that, as you shall hear, dreadfully wrong, and the word heavenly embodied a great deal of that typical Kregan aptitude for mockery and deadly sarcasm.

  The gale that had wrought my original destruction had blown itself out and She of the Veils rode free of cloud wrack. The trees swayed gently and the night breeze blew cool. Very soon we were ordered to halt and to wait while the Kataki aragorn went about their business.