Fires of Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  I took the opportunity of writing letters, many of them, for Nath Periklain to deliver when he returned to Vond.

  “An argenter?” he said at one point. “But, majister — I mean, Jak — my ship is at your disposal.”

  “Thank you, Cap’n Nath. But you have your duty and your living. I have my own duties to perform.” I sipped the wine, a splendid Gremivoh. “Our foes thrive in north Pandahem.”

  “May Opaz in his glory strengthen your arm, maj — Jak — as you strike them down!”

  “I do have a request—”

  “Name it!”

  I did not smile; but these crusty old seadogs dearly love to display their adaptability, and their capacity to produce miracles. “All I would ask is a length of scarlet cloth.”

  He called in his steward and in no time a length of high-quality scarlet cloth was produced. I nodded, pleased.

  “My thanks, Cap’n Nath.”

  “And is that all?” He nodded to my waist where the thraxter hung. “A rapier and main gauche?”

  “We-ell...” I was tempted.

  They were brought in by the steward, a matching pair in a balass box. They were fine work, balanced, sprung, elegantly finished. My resistance crumbled.

  “A gift, majister, a token of esteem.”

  To refuse would have insulted him. So with a single guilty twinge, I strapped them on. They felt good.

  “More wine?”

  So we talked and drank companionably and the suns descended across the land and the lamps were lit. Presently I rose.

  “It is time for me to go, Cap’n Nath. I give you my thanks for your hospitality and your gifts. I shall not forget.”

  “And you are for Tomboram? Bormark? I have been there but once. The folk do not much care for Vallians.”

  “Unfortunately, that is so. But do you not think that after we helped eject the Hamalese they will look more kindly upon us?”

  “By Vox! They should!”

  “Well, that I shall soon find out. Remberee, Cap’n Nath.”

  “Remberee, majist — Jak!”

  He’d told me a little of his history, for he was known as a captain among the Captains of Vallia. His eldest son, having gone for a mercenary, had been lost to all knowledge until the Times of Troubles. Then he’d returned to take up sword in defense of his own country. He was now, this strapping son of his, said Nath Periklain, a shiv-Hikdar in the 2EYJ — the Second Regiment of the Emperor’s Yellow Jackets.

  “A rapscallion bunch,” I said. “And with the ESW the best fighting fellows an emperor could have around him.”

  Examination of the rapier revealed the neatly incised mark of the Brudstern, that magical flower shape, on the forte close to the guard. Magical or not, many a fighting man of Kregen will not handle a weapon that does not bear some such mark to draw mysterious forces into the blade.

  “By the Blade of Kurin!” exclaimed Pompino when he saw the matched set of the rapier and left-hand dagger, the Jiktar and the Hikdar. “A fine weapon, indeed, and the dagger also.”

  We had talked of the fashion — new to these parts — of rapier fighting, and Pompino was aware that up north the fashion had been well-established over the seasons. “All the same, I doubt these rapiers in the midst of a battle.”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “It depends on the battle and what your opponents are using and doing. A rapier can be extremely useful. But, of course,” I added with some judiciousness, “it is always a sound principle to carry a second battle sword.”

  “Oh, aye.”

  My suggestion that I’d picked up the matched set from a sailor down on the docks who had no real idea of the true worth passed muster. Pompino merely indicated that, if it pleased me, he would like to foin a little and see how this rapier went compared to others.

  We only got into two fights during that short stay in Matta, and they were scrapes, hardly worth the mentioning save for the fact that in the second Pompino used the rapier and main gauche. Afterwards, as we strolled along in the moons light with the scent of Moon Blooms in our nostrils, he confided: “A handy weapon, if a trifle long. I think I may take it up, for I have seen, and you have told me—”

  “Sometimes a rapier is perfect, sometimes it is a fool’s weapon. Just be prepared for all eventualities.”

  “We sail with the tide on the morrow. So?”

  “So a further wet would seem to be in order.”

  “By the pot belly of Beng Dikkane, you speak sooth.”

  We found a tavern smothered in Moon Blooms, the sign cracked but still with enough paint to tell us this was The Spotted Llancrimoil. In we went. The ale was good and the wine a trifle better, all imported and not cheap. We sat back and stuck our feet out and surveyed the company. These folk were mainly seamen, a few merchants and the sprinkling of rogues.

  Captain Murkizon found us there.

  He had been drinking. His red face looked like the monstrous countenance of Zim witnessed through a sandstorm. He blurted out the words he had evidently been storing up in his heart.

  “Horters! I am being sent back in Blackfang in disgrace! I hew to my own convictions. If events prove me wrong, that does not dishonor me! Horter Pompino! I crave your forbearance.”

  I remained very quiet, pushed back in my seat against the paneled wall. No one took any notice of us, and a fight was developing further along where a thief had been caught with the coins between his fingers.

  Speaking quite mildly for him, Pompino said: “We sail with Captain Linson in Tuscurs Maiden, as you know.”

  “Very well! Let me sail in her. I will serve as Ship Hikdar, Ship Deldar — I will hand and reef and steer!’”

  “Captain Linson—”

  “Oh, I know!” Murkizon vented his bitterness. “He dislikes me. He considers me a loud-mouthed buffoon. But I know what I know. Let me sail with you, Horter Pompino. You will not regret the decision.”

  Pompino hesitated and cast a look in my direction. I leaned forward. “It is a matter of honor,” I said, and sat back.

  “This means, Cap’n Murkizon, that Larghos Standur, who was Ship Hikdar in Blackfang and has been acting Captain, must now be confirmed in that rank. You understand that?”

  “I understand, Horter Pompino. I agree!”

  So the deal was concluded. Murkizon would sail with us. Pompino exhibited his customary Khibil skill and avoided any argy-bargy over-position by taking Murkizon on as supernumerary.

  During this whole interview, Captain Murkizon had not once called upon any part of the anatomy of the Divine Lady of Belschutz.

  Chapter sixteen

  Of the recantation of Quendur the Ripper

  One Kregish word for coward is Jikarna. This is a compression of the universal word Jik for martial matters, and arna, which means the absence of. Captain Murkizon by his manner clearly realized and feared that the imputation that he was jikarna would be made against him. I, for one, and Pompino for two, knew he was no coward. He had been right. But he was in that truculent, bellicose mood in which he might do anything foolish and reckless to redeem himself in his own eyes.

  “I shall go with you, Horter Pompino, and you may rest assured that—”

  “Queyd-arn-tung,” said Pompino, and the brick-red-faced barrel of muscle had the sense to know when enough had been said and to shut his black-fanged winespout.

  So Tuscurs Maiden joined a local convoy and sailed north.

  Having formed an opinion of Captain Linson I was not at all surprised that however sharp-tongued he was, however cutting, and however amused at Murkizon’s expense, he did not make any capital out of Murkizon’s clear inner turmoil. Linson, like us all, respected the red-faced barrel of a swordship captain and understood the reasons for his conduct vis-à-vis the Shanks. He and Larghos the Flatch spent a deal of time in each other’s company. The argenter sailed on and with various ports of call astern of us we rounded the northeastern corner of Pandahem. We sailed along the coast of Jholaix.

  Ah, Jholaix! No need t
o elaborate on the thirsty comments made by the hands as we watched the land draw near, and headed the moment we made port for the nearest tavern. Jholaix!

  Here it was that we had put a first check to the crazy ambitions of the Empress Thyllis of Hamal. She’d started up her insane schemes again, of course, with the help of the Wizard of Loh Phu-Si-Yantong, whom she knew as the Hyr Notor. Well, both of them were dead and gone to the Ice Floes of Sicce. There was the uhu, the hermaphrodite, Phunik, to concern the future. We had not heard the last of her, him or it.

  Because even in the lowest taverns of Jholaix the wines were superior — except for the dopa dens, of course — the hands might reel back to the ship yodeling their hearts out yet never have a black-dog the next morning. Hangovers were bad for trade, said the folk of Jholaix.

  Due north of where we now sailed lay the island of Valka.

  A mere miserable thousand miles or so away — Valka! No, I would not think of my paradise island stromnate, and always I thought of that jewel island, of the high fortress of Esser Rarioch, of the gardens and calmness and the joyousness, the laughter of my friends and family. No. Those days would come again, they must, in the belief of the light of the Invisible Twins made manifest in the glory of Opaz.

  “Dreaming, Jak?”

  And, sunk in thoughts, at first I did not recognize my chosen name, and so turn to smile at Pompino.

  “Dreams? Aye, Pompino.”

  “Well, you are lucky you have no wife to get away from.”

  I turned away, sharply, and concealed the expression on my face.

  But willy-nilly, the days passed. We passed the border between Jholaix and Tomboram, and the port city and capital of Pomdermam lay ahead. We had been shuffling along in convoy and doing the usual business of tramp ships, picking up cargo here and discharging it there, hiring our carrying capacity and earning a living. For Pompino and me, this chartering was mere cover to our deeper designs.

  For Captain Murkizon, this chartering and carrying and chaffering — not to mention chattering — seemed an affront, a mere matter of base business to a swordship captain.

  For Captain Linson, master, this was how he made his living, and he was sharp at it. For every copper ob that was recorded in the accounts meticulously kept by the Relt stylor Rasnoli and which would, after necessary deductions, arrive in Pompino’s coffers, perhaps as much as a quarter ob reposed with Captain Linson. This was not to do him an injustice. He, like any sensible skipper, looked out for an early retirement.

  Expressed in latter-day terms, twenty percent was a fair rake-off.

  Pompino was as well aware of this habit as any other shipping owner. He closed that eye. He had to. So we sailed on westwards. The northern coast of Pandahem had been a fairy-tale place to the reivers from Vallia. In the old days the galleons and swordships prowled these coasts, snapping up prizes, and the enmity smoldered between the two islands, to break into flames of violence and hatred when interests clashed.

  At the least, the ambitions of Hamal and their frustration had brought a cessation to most of the hostility between Pandahem and Vallia. I say most. Men and women do not change their ways overnight, in normal life, very easily.

  Westward lay the country of Menaham, and its people, the Bloody Menahem. They posed problems for the future. They had welcomed the arrival of Hamal, had cooperated, had sought to conquer and enslave their neighbors. Their next-door neighbor to the west, Iyam, had suffered. Beyond them, in the northwest corner of the island, lay Lome. Now there reposed a puzzle for me personally.

  Queen Lushfymi of Lome, known as Queen Lush, had sought our aid and protection in Vallia after she had managed to throw off the yoke of Phu-Si-Yantong. She was quite clearly determined to marry my son Drak. Delia did not approve. We would like Drak to marry Seg’s daughter, Silda. Well, the future held some thorny projections there, assuredly...

  At the moment my attention must concentrate on trying to rid Pando’s kovnate of Bormark of the vile Leem Lovers of Lem. If the cult was widespread in Pandahem, then that would be a beginning of a clearance. And you may well and easily guess at some of my dark thoughts and apprehensions. Pando, whom I had known as a young imp, might so easily have been swayed, turned, drawn into practices that in other circumstances he would have spurned. If Tilda the Beautiful was drinking as heavily as rumor suggested, Pando would receive no support from his mother.

  Captain Linson was anxious to get into Pomdermam, the capital and chief port city of Tomboram. Tuscurs Maiden was in need of an overhaul. She had sailed a goodly distance and her bottom, although not as foul as would have been the case on Earth, was still in need of cleaning. Pompino pulled his moustache and frowned at the news.

  “Does that mean there will be a delay, Captain?”

  “A careen will take time, horter.”

  “I see.”

  I wondered if Pompino did see. Shipping magnates tend to move the colored markers on their maps and expect their ships magically to move from spot to spot about the globe. Mere fiddly details like fresh rigging and clean wood and careening to scrub the bottom somehow often fail to become integrated into the calculations.

  “We can take passage in a coaster to Bormark,” I suggested.

  “Four days, perhaps,” said Linson. “To take off the worst.”

  Difficult to judge. That, to me, indicated a reasonably thorough job, given the area of the ship’s bottom. I kept my mouth shut.

  Most of the pirates we had rescued from the Shanks had disappeared in the port of Matta. But Quendur the Ripper and three of his fellows had elected to join us. Their swordship had been burned. They had nothing else. Captain Linson, in his acid way, had sniffed and acquiesced, and appointed Nath Kemchug among others to keep a damned sharp eye on the renders. During a long life on Kregen a man or woman might do many things between birth and the Ice Floes of Sicce — hoping as ever to advance to the sunny uplands beyond. Quendur had once been an honest sailorman, and he fitted in, having been severely shaken by his experiences with the Shanks.

  Now he stepped forward on the deck to speak.

  “Four days, horters. It is not long. And a coaster is subject to many perils here.”

  “You would know, indubitably, by Horato the Potent!”

  “Aye, horter.”

  The odd fact about Quendur, known as the Ripper, was his continuing perplexity in the face of life. One took the impression that life had rushed on him, taken him unawares, driven him into deeds and adventures that were as much a surprise to him as a challenge. He’d explained how he’d become a render, a familiar story of unjust oppression and the lash, of chains and starvation, and of a breaking out and a lusting after revenge.

  He conceived he owed Pompino and me, as well as the company, a debt of gratitude. Well, he did, after a fashion. That we had not had him strung up in Matta was no doubt a weakness on our part. But he proved himself a good fellow, once he’d got the dark bitterness out of him. The bloodlust died after his experiences with the Shanks. Only the bloodlust against the Leem Lovers remained.

  Salvation does exist.

  A great shock, a traumatic experience, the realization that one has thrust one foot over the abyss, this can haul a person up short. It makes them look afresh at the situation, makes them take stock. Salvation? Well, in Quendur the Ripper’s case he forswore his old ways, vowed with a sincerity we took as genuine to hew to the ways of honest commerce upon the high seas and among the islands. He was transformed.

  The three who elected to stay with him, two men and the woman, Lisa the Empoin, appeared to share his views. Lisa, in particular, clearly relished this fresh chance at life as an honest woman. And, make no mistake about it, they were useful about the ship and excellent seafarers.

  Lisa and Quendur made plans to earn enough to buy an old ship and so go into the merchanting trade themselves. I fancied they would receive substantial, if surreptitious, help.

  So we drew near the port of Pomdermam. One of the two lighthouses lay in ruins. The p
haros had the appearance of having been struck by lightning. This was not the pharos built and operated by the Todalpheme, the wise savants who monitor the weather and the tides; but the one owned by the king. Its ruins depressed me as we glided past.

  Was this an omen, a reminder of what had happened in Tomboram, a portent of a future dark and ominous?

  Pompino’s own view of his achievements here I knew would be harsh to himself, strict in his ruthless disparagement of any performance less than perfect. He had had a temple burned and scattered the worshippers. He’d told me enough for me to grasp at what he had achieved, and, also, at what was left to do. Down in Tuscursmot the adherents of the Silver Leem were in confusion; up here they still needed attention.

  How many more were there? How many others of the abominable temples were there scattered about Pandahem, about the other lands of Paz? Now that I believed the Star Lords had turned their faces against the Silver Wonder, it seemed to me I stood a good chance of finding out, a damn good chance, by Krun!

  “Brassud, Jak! Brace up! You look as though you’ve lost a zorca and found a calsany!”

  “Finding the calsany,” I said in a voice far too heavy, “would be a triumph.”

  “Oh!” Pompino put his crafty Khibil head on one side, very foxy, very bristly red, very shrewd. Ahead of us the dock area of the port opened out. “Oh? You’re a close-mouthed fellow, all right, full of secrets. So you won’t tell me—”

  “If there was anything substantial to tell, I’d tell.”

  “Just a feeling, is it? A deliquescence of the bowels?”

  “A hollow insides, Pompino, hollow.”

  “A breath of the Ice Floes has touched you, my friend.” Pompino spoke briskly, perking up, his whiskers arrogant. “You need a long draught and a laugh — although a laugh would, I think, crack your face to pieces.”