Pompino led. He called back: “Those poor devils of Womoxes never carried this lot down a spiral staircase.”
“Keep your eyes open.”
The scorching feel of the fire still lay on me. I felt as though the insides of my lungs had been scraped out. I still kept coughing to get rid of smoke. My eyes stung. But we tramped on, carrying Tilda, and presently Pompino called: “Stairs!”
The flight of stairs was just wide enough. I got the poles up onto my shoulders, and Pompino kept his end low, and up we went. It was like pushing a boulder up The Stratemsk.
By now the chair and Tilda weighed three tons.
At the top we paused for a breather. I looked back, saw nothing but the dim reflection of the fire, and went to stand by Pompino. Ahead of us the corridor extended left and right, a little dusty, high-vaulted, bare. A few torches here and there lightened the gloom. Pompino jerked his head to the left.
“Is that daylight?”
In the distance, faintly, a wash of light lay across the wall. I squinted. My eyes hurt.
“Probably. Possibly. There is nothing the other way.”
Without another word we picked up the carrying chair and started.
The light was not daylight.
Along this left-hand corridor the light glimmered against the far wall to starboard. We reached the cross-corridor where the ruddy light reflected from the wall and looked to our left. We saw what we expected to see, what, in a real sense, we had dreaded to see.
Fire.
Against the orange glow which reached as high as we could see under the roof, distant some two hundred paces, the black imp-like silhouettes of people ran with frantic movements. The effect was like peering down into a demon-haunted inferno.
“That,” said Pompino with great satisfaction, “is this flat slug Nemo’s palace burning.”
“Aye.”
“I hope he crisps up with it in bed.”
“Any king whose basement catches alight is not going to hang about, now is he? He’ll be off out of it. Like us.”
The corridors below and above ground had brought us to an exit of the dusty old palace not too far from the entrance Strom Murgon had used. A dozen paces along we were able to assure ourselves that the door really was a door out. Pompino put his end of the gherimcal down. Tilda began to slide to the front until I slapped the rear legs down hard.
“What—?”
“Guards. Why, Jak — did you think we’d just stroll out of here carrying the kovneva?”
You had to hand it to my fellow kregoinye, my comrade Pompino the Iarvin. He had a fine cutting way through all his smartness and fierce whiskery attack on life. I did not smile; but I inclined my head in acquiescence.
“The thought had crossed my mind as a pious hope.”
Then he struck a serious note through all the nonsense.
“Pious hopes are for the gods. And if all the Gods of Kregen were against you, and the Everoinye for you, you would succeed.”
This remark brought up such a storm of doubt and confusion in my stupid old vosk-skull of a head, I just shook that offending object, and blurted out: “Probably. Come on. Let’s knock the poor devils over and take to our heels—”
“I like your sentiments. But I do not think I shall run, taking heels or no taking heels, carrying the kovneva.”
In that, he was right, by Krun!
We peered cautiously around that corner. The distant fires as the palace burned limned the space between king’s castle-palace and this dusty and abandoned palace with radiance. The rain still wanted to fall, and wetted the stones before us; it would be struggling with the fires, quenching some, over others turning to steam. The smells were a wonderful compound of charring, of wetness, of pungencies released by this commingling of fire and water. And the guards out there were keeping back the crowds who ran up, all agog to see the sight of the king’s palace burn.
This scene contained the ingredients of a Walpurgis night, people gyrating around a fire, screeching, some attempting to extinguish the flames, others trying to rescue property, others just gawping, and some making surreptitious efforts to impede the fire fighters. We saw a party of guards in the king’s livery dragging two poor wretches screaming away, caught red-handed. This explained the guards’ activities. King Nemo the Second was not universally loved by his people. But the guards bore down with hard ferociousness on anyone who stepped out of line.
“There is a way,” I said. “Tilda’s blue cloak is large. Torn down the middle it will cover both you and me. We can carry her out as just a couple of calsters—”
“Right. But you had better tell her and get the cloak.”
“Of course.”
When we’d entered this dusty little palace Murgon had commented that the sight of the king’s palace, dominating across the way, looked splendid in the rain. Now that palace looked infernal in the rain and fires. Nemo, as the Hyr Prince Majister, kept this palace dusty and empty so as to use it as the entrance to the subterranean temple beneath his own palace. That way he kept the secret of the Silver Leem. Also, it afforded others besides ourselves the means of egress.
“Watch it!” called Pompino in a hushed penetrating whisper. I let my hand whip away from the carrying chair curtain and looked back. Dark figures spilled out behind us.
If we would have attracted their attention, if they would have attacked us, I do not know. A creaking sound from the carrying chair heralded Tilda’s head as she forced her body up and opened the curtains.
“What is it now, Jak?”
The glowing reflections of the fires played across her face. That hot light pitilessly revealed the grossness and the wrinkles, the ravages of drink.
A bulky figure rushing up bellowed.
“The kovneva! It is the Kovneva Tilda!”
Another voice, sharp, vicious: “Kill her! Kill her and all with her!”
So that settled that...
With a movement not noteworthy for twinkling speed, Pompino drew his rapier. Then he drew the main gauche. He grasped the weapons and fell into a fighting crouch. I sighed. The fellows rushing upon us carried bludgeons, or stout swords, or pallixters, the Pandahem thraxter. Chekumte the Fist, who urged them on, wielded a thraxter. The big Chulik bulked in that erratic firelight and at his side the slimmer lethal shape of Dopitka the Deft hurried on, the long dagger a glimmer of steel in his fist.
I said, “I won’t say ‘Is that wise?’ for that would be to invite ridicule.” I had to step with exquisite care here where the fiery honor of a Khibil was concerned. “But I had hoped that, as a fellow kregoinye and my comrade, you would take care of my back. I see that to be no longer so.”
“Oh?” He started to bristle up.
I nodded at the rapier and left-hand dagger. “The work will be brutal stuff, Pompino—”
“Aye, Jak. Aye, you are right.” He fetched up a sigh. He slammed the rapier and dagger, the Jiktar and the Hikdar, away into their scabbards, and drew his thraxter. “But I had hoped to get in a few shrewd whacks with my new rapier before they ship me off to the Ice Floes of Sicce.”
I did not say, although the thought occurred to me, that he might yet do that if his thraxter snapped.
So, in the lurid glow of a king’s burning palace, we fought in the rain.
In the first dazzling onslaught, Pompino hit Chekumte such a wallop with his hilt as sent the massive Chulik over sideways, slipping on the wet pavement, to crash smack onto his nose. Dopitka the Deft, oddly enough, was not in the front rank. We foined them off and split a few skulls, and kept them away from the carrying chair. Tilda took one look, withdrew her head, slapped the curtains to, and — I had no doubt whatsoever — fished out her private bottle and lay back to await the outcome of the fight, however it went.
There were a lot of them, more than I’d thought. They kept scurrying up out of the firelit shadows like glinting ants. Pretty soon the regular king’s guards would run over to find out the cause of the fracas, and a very few words would
bring them in against us. And yet — we couldn’t run off. We couldn’t carry the chair and fight. To carry Tilda over my shoulder and continue to fight was something that, although I did not want to do, I could do. Trouble was, she could be killed as she acted all inadvertently as a shield.
The incendiary roaring and spittings of the furnace fires spouted to the dark heavens as the rain fell, soaking everyone and doing nothing to quench that enormous conflagration.
I began to think that this was going to be the last fight of all. Regret touched me that I’d not measured my blade again against Mefto the Kazzur. But that was all a foolishness, dreamstuff fit for the nursery. Here and now on wet slick stone, with a bonfire to light us, the fight was to the death.
“There they are!”
The sound of that voice, so hoarse and menacing, did not reassure me one bit. I was kept busy hopping and skipping in dealing with a couple of fellows, one of whom, armed with a sword and a bludgeon, was intent on either spitting or braining me. It was clear he didn’t mind which he did, so long as he did one or the other quickly. I dropped his companion, a bristly Brokelsh, and heard that fruity bellow break out again.
“Hit ’em! Knock ’em down! Trample all over ’em!”
Pompino yelped. “Cap’n Murkizon!”
“Aye,” I said, avoiding my man’s bludgeon, catching him on the chin with the hilt as I straightened my arm to take another man rushing up. He went down yeowling like a degutted cat. “The gallant Cap’n Murkizon — and him—”
“The ship’s company! It is glorious, glorious!” sang out Pompino.
And, I suppose, he was right, in a way...
Various delectable portions of the anatomy of the Divine Lady of Belschutz were remarked on with considerable freedom. Quendur the Ripper was there, yelling, driving on to put a hedge of steel between us and Murgon’s followers. These shrank back, at first, at sight of these formidable and high-smelling reinforcements. High-smelling... Quendur and Lisa had marked where Strom Murgon had taken us, had stolen zorcas, and brought up the crew of Tuscurs Maiden. They hadn’t stopped to wash off the muck. Bilge-scrubbing, careening and scraping, lend men and women a certain effluvium. We sniffed. But for all that it was a bonny fight while it lasted.
Rondas the Bold, his Rapa beak savage, his feathers whiffling, launched himself into the fray, screeching. Larghos the Flatch, running fleetly at Captain Murkizon’s side, loosed but the once before getting stuck in with cold steel. The two girl varterists, brilliant, effective, raced swiftly on, Wilma the Shot and Alwim the Eye, battling with superb élan. Chandarlie the Gut thrust that pronounced object into a yelling Fristle and knocked the catman head over heels; someone else kicked him and he did not rise again. Pompino’s Chulik, Nath Kemchug, in rushing forward trampled all over the fallen form of Chekumte the Fist, and barely noticed. Oh, yes, it was a fine free-wheeling shindig as the men and women of Tuscurs Maiden stormed up to help the Owner.
The rain pitter-pattered down in lines of silver and the fires roared and glinted orange-red in the stalking drifts of rain. Steel flickered and clashed and the uproar was prodigious.
“By the profuse moustache of the Divine Lady of Belschutz! Blatter ’em into the mud! Knock their heads together!”
“This,” said Pompino, ducking a wild bludgeon swing and clouting the fellow over the head. “This cannot go on much longer. The king’s guards—”
“Get four of your stoutest fellows onto Tilda’s carrying chair — then we’ll make a run for it.”
“Aye!” Pompino yelled orders. His people, caught up in the bedlam and rapture of a knock down, drag out fight, were slow to respond. But, eventually, we sorted things out and having disposed of the immediate threat of Murgon’s retainers, were able to pick up Tilda in her gherimcal and go bundling off into the rain. We splashed along, and were stopped only once, and that briefly, by a posse of king’s men who melted away very rapidly when we leaped on them. No one wanted any more trouble, that was clear.
We halted just before we reached the jetty to look back.
The whole sky blazed and roared with the conflagration. The palace of Chun-el-Boram burned. And, under the palace, the temple of Lem the Silver Leem would now be a charred and blackened shell. Bad cess to it.
“I trust,” said Pompino with a devout mien. “I sincerely trust the palace will fall and collapse into the temple.”
“Rely on it.”
“By Horato the Potent! I do!”
“I just hope Pando’s not foolish enough to get himself trapped in the holocaust. You can still feel the heat from here.”
“We will have to let him know his mother is safe.”
“Yes. We’ll have more dealings with that young rip. And, this time, I’ll make sure he understands a little more of what being a kov entails. It’s not all wine and palines.”
“Quite.” And here Pompino favored me with a quizzical look I had to ignore.
Chandarlie wanted to know what to do with Tilda’s chair. They’d manhandled Tilda herself into the boat in which they’d arrived. Pompino opened his mouth, and I said quickly, “Chandarlie — if you can bring the gherimcal in the boat, do so. Otherwise the lady will require a formidable amount of carrying.”
Captain Murkizon, coming up, roared his merriment. “Aye! I swear the lady here and the Divine Lady of Belschutz have a deal in common!”
Give or take a few anatomical vagaries, you couldn’t say fairer than that.
Turning around so that his gut projected magnificently, Chandarlie bellowed: “Quidang!” and bustled off to supervise the loading of the carrying chair. Eventually we all clambered into the boat and pushed off. If there was pursuit, we saw no sign of it.
The hands bent to the looms of the oars. Chandarlie took the tiller up in the little kiosk at the extreme stern. Cap’n Murkizon sat in the stern sheets, and Pompino and I sat a little farther forward where we could talk low-voiced.
“We have accomplished much, Jak. The temple in Pomdermam burns. The Everoinye should be pleased.”
“On a private excursion, too. But,” I said, “but if Pando’s kovnate is infected—”
“Oh, it is, rely on that. Bormark festers. It is nowhere finished yet.”
“Nowhere near.”
“Unless the Everoinye call us to some other task.”
“By the Black Chunkrah! They’re unpredictable enough to do anything.” With the breeze on my face and the scent of the sea about me, and alive with the satisfaction of a task accomplished, I should be feeling if not happy at least some way fulfilled. As Pompino the Iarvin said, the Star Lords ought to be pleased with us. By Zair! That was a new and strange concept to me in these days.
But, pleased or not, the Star Lords would have other tasks for us. That was not a case of probably, but of certainty. If the Star Lords had turned their superhuman faces against Lem the Silver Leem, then we would be used to the full in that campaign. We had, as Pompino said, accomplished much. Much remained to be done, and I hankered after continuing along the lines my fuzzy thoughts had been taking me. Fire cleansed, but there had to be other ways than by fire...
The oars came in and a scrap of sail ran up the mast. The boat swayed rhythmically and we creamed along. Tilda snored. The hands found their own bottles. I would not — not just yet — think of Delia. In the morning I would think what to do next.
There was Seg to be contacted. The future of Ashti of the Jungle had to be settled to her best advantage. There were the problems of Empire to be considered, there was the next meal to dwell on.
I knew with joy that, despite all, there was just one person I would think of all night, sleeping or waking.
Over all, dominating all plans for Lem the Silver Leem, ousting all my commitments to the Star Lords, dissipating the problems of Empire, the single most important fact of my life remained always and forever as a guiding light my devotion to Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains.
Notes
[i] Shindi: wait.
About the author
Alan Burt Akers was a pen name of the prolific British author Kenneth Bulmer, who died in December 2005 aged eighty-four.
Bulmer wrote over 160 novels and countless short stories, predominantly science fiction, both under his real name and numerous pseudonyms, including Alan Burt Akers, Frank Brandon, Rupert Clinton, Ernest Corley, Peter Green, Adam Hardy, Philip Kent, Bruno Krauss, Karl Maras, Manning Norvil, Chesman Scot, Nelson Sherwood, Richard Silver, H. Philip Stratford, and Tully Zetford. Kenneth Johns was a collective pseudonym used for a collaboration with author John Newman. Some of Bulmer’s works were published along with the works of other authors under "house names" (collective pseudonyms) such as Ken Blake (for a series of tie-ins with the 1970s television programme The Professionals), Arthur Frazier, Neil Langholm, Charles R. Pike, and Andrew Quiller.
Bulmer was also active in science fiction fandom, and in the 1970s he edited nine issues of the New Writings in Science Fiction anthology series in succession to John Carnell, who originated the series.
More details about the author, and current links to other sources of information, can be found at
www.mushroom-ebooks.com, and at wikipedia.org.
The Dray Prescot Series
The Delian Cycle:
1. Transit to Scorpio
2. The Suns of Scorpio
3. Warrior of Scorpio
4. Swordships of Scorpio
5. Prince of Scorpio
Havilfar Cycle:
6. Manhounds of Antares
7. Arena of Antares
8. Fliers of Antares
9. Bladesman of Antares
10. Avenger of Antares
11. Armada of Antares
The Krozair Cycle:
12. The Tides of Kregen
13. Renegade of Kregen
14. Krozair of Kregen
Vallian cycle:
15. Secret Scorpio
16. Savage Scorpio
17. Captive Scorpio
18. Golden Scorpio
Jikaida cycle:
19. A Life for Kregen
Fires of Scorpio Page 19