Bladesman of Antares dp-9

by Alan Burt Akers

  The best way of winnowing the wind, I discovered, lay in scattering golden deldys with a lavish hand. The astrologers of this Earth consider that a person born under the sign of Scorpio is not only strong, silent, courageous, and passionate — claims I admit I could only regard with a surprised amusement -

  but is also an intriguer, fond of all that is disguised or secret. If that is so I was a sorry specimen of my sky sign.

  All my heavy-handed espionage had come to nothing, leaving me with dirt and air only. So I took that other course I had been planning for a time before I sold the voller. With that capital sum, and with much else I won in the frenzied gambling of the sacred quarter, I coldly bribed my way to the information. What price honor and romance!

  Down in a dopa den where slimy walls dripped and cheap dips flared in cracked crocks, where the dregs of the gentry slouched in crude wooden settles, drinking dopa, driving what unimaginable phantoms from their brains I knew not and cared less, I talked to rat-faced, nervous men, men who twitched and kept one eye always roving, looking over their shoulders. I did not take any pride in this work. This dopa den had been constructed out of one of the ancient guardhouses along the waterfront walls, where they were rotting away after the new walls had been built in a wider cincture around the city. I sat and listened as Jedgul, with his cloak muffled to his ears, his eyes two bright spots in the shadows, told me he knew a man who knew another man who knew a gul who might be able to provide what I sought — and so on and so on. It was an unsavory business.

  Suffice it to say, by spending a great deal of money and by beating down with harsh words and cruel threats, I was promised a meeting with a man who understood the composition of the minerals in the silver boxes, and would tell me — for a price.

  I think you will understand that although I would far prefer to have done this business clad in my old scarlet breechclout, my rapier in my fist, leaping over the rooftops beneath the whirling moons of Kregen, to do it at all was the imperative driving me on. A single thought of Delia, and my twins, in far-off Valka, awaiting the onslaught of the Hamalese invaders, was more than enough to make me understand I would do anything — anything — to ensure their safety and happiness. On a night when Notor Zan had swallowed up the moons, I huddled by the wall of a manufactory in the sensil quarter of the city. Although silk was still being turned into sensil in some of the buildings, this massive block had been turned over to voller production — specifically, the filling of the amphorae from the various minerals from mines all over Hamal.

  The man I knew as Ornol let me in, a finger to his lips. He was apim. We crept through the darkness, he leading, for he knew the way well from his daily labors here. When at last he let fall a crack of light from a fireglass lantern and I saw the amphorae, the scoops, the scales, and measuring devices, the troughs filled with minerals and sands and earths, I swallowed down hard. This, I felt sure, must be success!

  He showed me, speaking in a low throaty whisper, what I had struggled so hard to discover. I think you will understand if, at this moment, I do not tell you of all the technical matters of the silver boxes, reserving them for a later and much more suitable occasion in my narrative. One thing, though, of interest: five minerals resulted in one kind of voller, nine in another. One flier might be pushed willy-nilly by the wind; the other might not. The only means of describing the effect I had then, with my brushed-up mid-nineteenth-century science, was to say that a voller could seize on to the subetheric forces, could lift itself against the pull of gravity, and yet lean against those forces as though leaning against an infinitely resisting fence along the line of its own direction.

  Enough. The fireglass light cast weird distortions of light and shadow over Ornol’s evil face. My own face, too, was as evil, even more so, hard and ugly with the unholy passions of a long-contested victory. When I had assured myself that I had mastered the minerals, their names, their proportions, the results that would accrue from mixtures of different strengths, I tucked packets of the various earths into the pouched belt I had worn to that end. I was dressed in dark blue trousers, shirt, and cloak, and wore shoes. I carried no rapier and dagger, instead a Hamalese thraxter was belted to my waist.

  “Is that enough, Bagor?” whispered Ornol. His eyes in the fireglass glow gleamed like a leem’s.

  “No, Ornol. What of the other silver boxes?”

  He shivered. “I know only of the vaol-boxes, Bagor. That is my work.”

  “You must know something, Ornol!” I gripped his shoulder, shook him. “They are empty — and yet they cannot be empty!”

  “They are not empty! Even I know that- For the sake of Kuerden the Merciless, let go of my arm!”

  I pushed my ugly figurehead close to his face. “What do the paol-boxes contain, Ornol? Tell me, or by Havil the Green I’ll-”

  “No, no, Bagor!” He writhed, but I did not let him go. In this close sweaty darkness with the light gleaming weirdly and the shrouded shadowed forms of amphorae and troughs and scales all about us, here the destiny of nations was at stake.

  The vaol-boxes contained minerals, and I had the mix and the composition, at last. The paol-boxes contained — nothing! No, for Ornol said they were not empty! I shook him again.

  “By Krun! Ornol — what do the paol-boxes have in them?”

  “My arm! By Kaerlan the Merciful, Bagor! My arm!”

  “If I am sure of one thing, Ornol, you onker, it is that the paol-boxes do not contain your arm! Speak, or I’ll have your arm off and see if it will fit!”

  But I eased the pressure, and he gasped, and his fingers moved like a crab’s legs.

  “Cayferm!” he said. “Steam!”

  It made no sense to me then. The common Kregish word for steam is kish. I’d never heard of cayferm. With a sobbing grunt, Ornol twisted free as I pondered what he had said. The wooden door of the fireglass lantern smacked shut. Through the abrupt darkness I thought I caught a glimpse of him, silhouetted like a bat against a high skylight, but that was illusion: it was a night of Notor Zan, and he was gone.

  I let him go.

  The names of the nine ingredients were imprinted on my brain. For good measure — and ill luck as it turned out — I took up three of the scales they used here, for I recognized the workmanship of them and knew they would be invaluable in Vallia. After all, Vallia was going to be drawn into a war against Hamal, despite all our attempts to prevent it.

  The way back through the darkness took me little time. I felt uplifted. I had done more tonight than in all my long sojourn in Hamal. And I had a clue, a single slender thread, it was true, to the contents of the other silver boxes. I felt very good then, I remember, as I made for the massive iron-bound lenken door that had opened so easily for Ornol.

  He had known what cayferm was. I would seek him out again and give him more money, and ask again. Truly, as I put out my hand to draw the door open, I felt I had succeeded at long last. The door creaked uneasily as I drew it back stealthily.

  I had to be sensible. I had not succeeded yet. Almost; not quite. A few more hours’ work — and then I would succeed!

  A torchlight flared in my face.

  A voice, a hateful voice, thick and rich and giving commands that gave pleasure, bellowed: “Take him!”

  The net descended about my head and shoulders with wicked entangling folds. I half drew the thraxter, still near blinded by lights that glared all about me. If skull-bashing was necessary, then I would skull-bash with a will!

  The thraxter caught in the net.

  Iron-studded sandals scuffled at my back, and like a leem I ducked and sprang and fell, the net wrapping me as a fish is wrapped, and whatever they bit me with landed precisely under my ear. Notor Zan. .

  Chapter Eighteen

  Queen Thyllis outfits Bagor ti Hemlad

  The twin suns of Kregen burned down harshly on my naked back as I swung the pickax, smashing granite, and so I was not at all displeased when Matoc Fokal hauled me out of the sweating line of slaves.[8]


  Fokal wasn’t a bad sort, really, for a Hamalian slave overseer. He carried the balass, that black and uncomfortably hard stick of office, and would thwack us about, but he seldom bashed our heads, unlike some of the other overseers.

  “What’s afoot, Fokal?”

  We walked along the lip of the ramparts. Ruathytu’s walls were being strengthened and the slaves broke fingernails and sweated their guts out over the fortifications. We were all chained up, and Fokal had to summon Deldar Nath the Whip to come with the key before I could be released. I still clashed my own chains, though, swinging between my legs and my wrists as I walked. Everything done according to the law, in Hamal. .

  “I do not know, Bagor, you wild onker. A summons for you to go with a party of guards.” He spat. “It is not the Jikhorkdun, though.” Then he let rip a bellyful of laughter. “Not that I wouldn’t pay my sinver to see you facing a wild leem, by Beng Thrax and his glass eye!”

  Around us the busy work went on. Among those poor devils who were slaves for the rest of their lives were men like the man I was supposed to be, a common criminal. I did not know whether to pound granite to dust in anger or to howl to the suns in glee — here was I, spying against Hamal, and they had caught me stealing three valuable scales, and had tried me and sentenced me as a thief! A laugh, I suppose, even for Dray Prescot, could be the only correct response.

  The guards turned out to be ordinary swods under the command of an ord-Deldar.[9]We marched off with me in the center, all their iron-studded sandals crashing down in time, a left-right-left of brutal power, their stuxes all aslant, the suns gleaming from their helmets and loricas, their shields brave with the painted insignia of their pastang and regiment.

  Matoc Fokal was a slave overseer with a sense of humor as well as a balass rod. “Treat him gently,” he bawled after the guard detail. “That Bagor is like a wild leem if you upset him!”

  Not for the first time I blessed the conceit that had led me to use again that name of Bagor when dealing with the underworld of Ruathytu. No possible connection could be established between the naked slave in his chains sweating along among guards, and the effeminate Hamun ham Farthytu, Amak of Paline Valley. My friends who had not gone off to war with the Trylon Rees’s regiment of zorcamen would think I visited Paline Valley.

  My hair had grown, too, although the slave overseers saw to it that we were cropped and bathed at regulation intervals.

  Bundled into the back of a cart drawn by two calsanys, and the canvas awning let down, I was trundled off I knew not where.

  The guards’ harsh footfalls paralleled the cart. All for one miserable slave? I began to wonder if, perhaps, my disguise had been penetrated. But then, by how much? How deeply into my multifarious deceptions had they penetrated? It was no good worrying; I would find out in Zair’s good time. The calsanys halted just after the hollow echoes told me we had entered a stone courtyard bounded by high walls. The moment I was dragged out a great blindfold was whipped about my eyes. Prodded and pushed, I went where I was directed, up stone stairs, along passages, then into corridors where carpets felt soft and luxurious beneath my toughened soles. Coolness dropped about me, and the tinkle and splash of fountains sounded most refreshingly. I heard girls laughing. I heard the deep-toned voices of men in conversation, their worlds clearly far removed from that of slaving. A feeling of soft pressure against my shoulder explained why no one appeared to have taken any notice of a party of armed guards and a naked slave in chains; some form of pierced screen, of wood or ivory, probably, shielded us from their observation. I was led into a room I knew by the echoes to be relatively small. A door clashed. The guards remained, for I heard their suppressed breathing, the creak of their harness.

  After a moment a fat and unctuous voice said: “Is this it?”

  “This is the slave Bagor, Notor,” said the Deldar.

  The abrupt feel of soft fingers prodding my muscles, digging me in the belly, poking about in my mouth, sickened me.

  I bit.

  The resultant shriek was most instructive. The blow that sent me reeling until brought up by the chains was also intended to be instructive.

  “The nulsh!” The fat eunuch — it had to be — sounded anguished. “Take it away! Wash it! Clean it!

  Perfume it! Do not bring the offensive carcass before me again until it has been tamed.”

  The Deldar’s voice hid a quaver. “We were told the slave Bagor was a wild leem, Notor.”

  They carted me off and I went through a caricature of the baths of nine. At least, I washed off the sweat and the dust. They dressed me up in a mocking suit of colored clothes, all bright yellows and greens and reds, with feathers, bells, and ribbons. I knew I looked an imbecile; I would endure, for by now I was intrigued.

  Again the blindfold was wrapped about me. This second time the journey was shorter, and involved getting into and out of a boat. The soldiers pulled the oars and by the splashings I knew they were an unhandy lot. I was prodded up a steep and slippery flight of stone steps, very narrow, and the guards lumbered after, swearing by their soldier gods.

  More chambers and corridors and stairs followed. At last, and not before time, I was told to incline. I did so. I wanted to know what was going on. The incline involves the prostration of the entire body, head down, rump up, a stupid and undignified position, one used by slaves for princes. Or princesses. The blindfold was whipped away, many lights blinded me, and a harsh voice bade me crouch. I crouched.

  Then, blinking, I could see through the tears in my smarting eyes.

  She sat on a throne fashioned from crystal, a block of multifaceted crystal that must have weighed tons. The delicate gilding of arms and backrest could not disguise the power of that throne. Many brightly hued rugs bestrewed the throne and the dais. There golden-chained Chail Sheom simpered in attendance. Giant Womoxes waved faerling fans on each side of her. She looked — and I’ll give her her due -

  mighty impressive.

  “So, Bagor ti Hemlad. You are nothing better than a common thief.”

  She no longer wore all black. Her body was smothered in silver tissue, with a gold-tissue vest. Her jewels scintillated with a sparkle from the ranked lights so that she appeared a glittering statue — and, yet, no statue, for now the blood burned in her cheeks, and those slanting green eyes leeched fiercely upon me, a corner of the rich red lips caught up between white pointed teeth.

  “You do not answer! Speak, onker.”

  I was staring past the massively muscled man in the half-armor of gilded steel and the brilliantly feathered helmet, who stood by her left side, leaning on an arm of the throne and fingering his rapier, and I stared and stared at the familiar, horrible forms that crouched at her feet. Poor silly fat Queen Fahia of Hyrklana had attained a kind of surrogate dignity with her pet neemus, those vicious and treacherous black-furred cats. This woman, who had called herself the Kovneva Serea of Piraju, had gone at a bound far past fat Queen Fahia.

  I looked at the jiklos.

  I knew them, these manhounds. I had been chased by them through the jungles of Faol, had faced them with a wooden stave, had seen them rip shrieking victims to pieces. Apims, are the manhounds of Faol, apims trained to run on all fours and with their jagged teeth seize upon their prey. This woman of the blazing green eyes kept jiklos as her throne-step pets!

  To give the woman her due she gave me time to answer. Not so the man in half-armor. He left off fingering his rapier. He bounded down the dais steps, his face congested, roaring at me.

  “No stinking cramph of a slave insults the Majestrix while King Doghamrei stands ready to defend her honor!”

  Just before he reached me with every intention of knocking me headlong, I said, quickly and icily, “So King Doghamrei would soil his lily-white hands on a slave?” and then I sidestepped, clanging my chains, and tripped him and trod on him as he fell.

  Bedlam!

  The guards yelled and dragged me off and this buffoon King Doghamrei shrieked as I put a
foot into his ribs and the Queen — for obviously this icy woman who had traveled incognito as the Kovneva Serea was Queen Thyllis of the Empire of Hamal — gave curt orders that in surprising time sorted out the rumpus.

  I was dragged up and then flung down before her.

  Doghamrei — the king of one of the kingdoms within the Empire of Hamal — was being sick and hustled away by his slaves. Oh, yes, that had been quite refreshing. Quite like old times. I thought the Queen would now release me, seeing that I had saved her life, finding a regal pretext to overturn the law and the sentence, and then I could get on with finding out what this mysterious cayferm was that went into the paol-boxes.

  Of course — Dray Prescot, as ever, was as stupid as an onker, a get-onker!

  Speaking in a low level voice that flayed like one of my clansmen’s skinning knives, she told me that her routine perusal of the criminal lists had revealed the name of Bagor. My personal effects, taken from me and docketed, revealed the violet-and-gold-zhantil brooch. She had had me brought here to inspect me. Here she took her green eyes away from my face, which must have been looking diabolical. When she continued I detected a quiver in her voice. “Only chance brought you to me in the first instance. Chance saw to it that I was apprised of your imprisonment. You, Bagor, whom I dignified with the cry of Jikai, are a common criminal.”