Masks of Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  And the Vallians roared out with gusto, particularly those stanzas that often have their words subtly altered to fit circumstances.

  Dayra glanced back at me. Her color was up and her eyes were bright. I nodded. For that moment, I, too, could not speak.

  The slave flunkey could. He said: “There will be guards with swords, masters. They will kill you, and me too. Let me go, I beg you—”

  “We will not harm you, dom,” I said truthfully. “Just bide quietly and see what will be.”

  There were guards, four of them. They were just about to bang on the door to stop the singing, and then, for the Vallians would not stop for that, more likely than not go busting in to crack a few heads. Dayra leaped. There was a steely, diamond-bright glitter before her. One of the guards fell back, trying to scream through a wrecked face. His companion staggered drunkenly sideways as Dayra’s rapier licked back. The other two were barely aware of what was going on until they slumped, and Dayra took one of them, also...

  The fattest held the key ring at his belt. Dayra stooped. I stepped back a pace, half-turning, listening.

  “Tell them to keep singing, but softer. You go on, Ros. I will see if — yes!”

  Around the corner behind us came five more guards, big beefy fellows carrying stuxes as well as swords and spears.

  Dayra gave them a single comprehensive glance.

  “Come to change the guard. Very well — father!”

  She leaped for the door, the key in her fist.

  I swung back to face these five who ran on, shouting.

  Now if I say I was pleased to see them, you may wonder. I was. The reason, simple enough, was that they carried weapons. My folk of Vallia would need those weapons.

  The guards ran up, hurling their javelins. These stuxes flew with varying directions and power, for two of the fellows were apim, one was Brokelsh, one a Rapa and the fifth a bleg. He’d be difficult to knock over. Now it was vitally necessary that I allowed not a single stux to pass me. If one flew over my shoulder it could strike into Dayra’s slender back as she bent to the prison lock. So — I caught the first one, deflected the next and the next and the fourth, damnably, nicked me along my left forearm. I used the stux in my fist to swat away the last one — that hurled by the bleg who came from a race of diffs not noted for their hurling ability — some of them — and then I was able to roar on and get to handstrokes.

  The tinker-hammer stuff could not be allowed to last. It was all charge, knee-up, dirty stuff, bash and tromple on. And, as I’d guessed, the bleg with his four legs arranged rather like the legs of a chair took the most knocking over. That he was half-dead when at last he slumped had little to do with it.

  As he hit the floor a raspy voice at my back said: “Hai, Jikai!” and a bulky body crashed past, diving for the fallen weapons. Others of the Vallians crowded up. The singing, which had faltered, now resumed.

  Dayra joined us. It was all very quick, like gears meshing smoothly. No time for lahals; we had to fight our way out.

  There was only one place for us to go, of course.

  With Dayra and myself in the lead we raced off. The slave flunkey lay in the angle of the corridor; he was not dead, he had fainted clean away. I commended him to his patron spirit as we dashed past.

  Dayra spat out as we ran: “The Pandaheem have been cruel to them! Young Paline Vinfine has been killed. I do not think the crew of Vol Defender will have much mercy.”

  “Can they all keep up?”

  “Yes. The worst wounded are being carried.”

  “Good. Is Jiktar Nath Fremerhavn alive and with us?”

  We skidded out onto the verge of the parade ground where the forlorn lump of wreckage that was a proud flying ship of Vallia lay abandoned. We stared calculatingly out across the open we must cross to reach our goal.

  “Jiktar Fremerhavn was posted into command of Val Neemusjid,” said a firmly built woman who halted at my side and stared keenly out, not looking at me. “Jiktar Vanli Cwopanifer was posted to command Val Defender. He — is not with us.”

  “Guards,” rasped the bulky fellow who’d been the first to scoop a weapon. On the rags of his uniform he wore the rank badges of the Ship-Deldar. “By Vox! I am going to enjoy blattering the rasts!”

  “Hold, Edivon! Do not let your rage blind you. We hit them when they reach the shadows.”

  “Quidang, Hik!” rasped this Deldar Edivon.

  So the woman was the Ship-Hikdar, her first lieutenant. I gave her a single searching look. Her face was taut, naturally, hard and lean, with a prominent nose and cheekbones. Her eyes and hair were good Vallian brown. There was about her a calm competence and yet an eager blaze. If I say that one could easily visualize her with a whistle on a cord about her neck, calling: “Now, come along, girls!” I indicate the admirable qualities. If anyone is foolish enough to regard the comparison as in some way derogatory, even sexist, then all I can say is, let ’em rot in their own effluvium.

  The guards reached the shadows. The people of Vallia pounced. Then we were up and racing across the open toward their ship.

  I felt the fierce leap within me as Dayra was first up and onto the deck.

  Magnificent, she looked, wild and free, the silly skirt thing ripped away, her legs long and lithe as she clambered up. The crew followed her and they went raging over the bulwarks and the shattered watch of Pandaheem were overwhelmed. Dayra’s Claw slashed and her rapier twinkled, and there were no more enemies holding a ship of Vallia.

  Without even thinking about it, the Ship-Hikdar took command. Her orders cracked out. Deldar Edivon attempted to moderate his bellow. Folk dived below to assess damage, and an urchin wearing a rag around her waist came up and slapped up a cracking salute and said: “The silver boxes are unharmed, hikdar.”

  “Very good, Pansi. Get to your station.”

  “Quidang!”

  That young ragamuffin, that grimy urchin, was probably a high-born-noble lady of Vallia learning her craft as an aerial sailor. This woman, this Ship-Hikdar, knew her business. I watched as everything that should be done was done. Walking slowly across the deck I looked down on the opposite side. At once I was galvanized into fresh action.

  Down there, snugged in alongside the vorlca, the slender petal-shape of the voller lay quietly waiting for me to leap down and take her into the air.

  “Ros!”

  She ran up. “Yes?”

  I nodded over the side. Dayra looked.

  “Oh, yes!”

  The flying sailing ship moved under me. Duty personnel were at the levers of the silver boxes, drawing them closer together so that the power inherent in the minerals in one box and the mysterious substance cayferm in the other could exert their force and lift all that solid bulk up into the air as light as thistledown.

  The raffle of masts and rigging clattered and groaned as it swung inward and upward as we rose. That could all be cut away later.

  Without hesitating I jumped onto the bulwark and took a flying leap out into thin air.

  I hit the deck of the voller and staggered and was up, sword in fist, searching for guards.

  Dayra landed beside me, fleet, sure-footed, her Claw a diamond-glitter.

  “No guards.”

  We were alone on the voller — then half-a-dozen folk dropped down. A lad looked about wildly. I said to Dayra: “We’d better—”

  She was into the small steering cabin amidships before I’d framed my thought. The aerial sailors might know how to fly a sailing ship; they might not know how to pilot an airboat.

  We lifted away as Dayra manipulated the control levers. Down below on the parade ground soldiers were running out, many of them. They were foreshortened figures, glinting with steel and bronze, and they could not touch us.

  A girl wearing a Claw came across to me. She wore precious little else; but on the scrap of red cloth over one shoulder the embroidered representation of a rose glowed in colored silks.

  “I can fly an airboat,” she said. There was no
blood on the talons of her Claw. “Do you know Ros the Claw?”

  When folk ran below to sort out their possessions and to make sure the ship was sound, this girl had seized up her Claw from its hiding place. No doubt she was sorry the fight was over before she could use it.

  “Yes. You do?”

  She drew herself up.

  “I am the lady Royba ti Thamindensax.”

  “Then Llahal and Lahal, lady. Pray, tell me the name of your Ship-Hikdar and what happened to your Jiktar.”

  She eyed me. That she felt puzzlement was clear. I did not know her. Of her town, yes, I had heard but never visited. By Vox! An emperor can hardly visit all his towns in one lifetime. We were lifting up now, matching speeds and courses with Val Defender. The breeze had veered in the night and we floated along splendidly. Then Dayra popped out of the steering cabin, and through the ports I could see a lad at the controls. I hoped he knew what he was doing! Dayra walked up to us, and she was smiling.

  She began unstrapping her Claw. She nodded to the lady Royba’s steel bright Talons. “I see you didn’t have a drink, Royba.”

  “That Sosie!” Royba was obviously in a truculent frame of mind. “She beat me to a weapon — but I did kick a damned Pandaheem where he will be sore for a sennight!”

  The ships sailed on, suspended between earth and sky.

  Royba gave me that puzzled look again. “This great hulk tells me he knows you, Ros. Is that—?”

  “Jak? Oh, yes, he knows me — or thinks he does.”

  I said, “I was inquiring after the name of the Ship-Hikdar and what happened to the captain—”

  “That lady was Vylene Fynarmic of Fallager.”

  I knew of Fallager, it was a prosperous town up in Turko’s kovnate of Falinur.

  “As for the captain, Vanli Cwopanifer was — was—” Here Royba glanced around as though seeking the right words. “We were caught in the gale and a spar fell and crushed his head. He was — he was insistent upon maintaining command. Yet it was clear to all of us that he was makib, and this insanity led him into strange actions.”

  This is, as any first lieutenant, any ship’s officer will tell you, a horrible predicament. Cwopanifer had kept up a string of orders, the gale had broomed upon them, the ship had lost her spars and her masts, and then the damned Pandahem voller had leaped on them. It had all been over before most of the crew were aware.

  Looking up to the rearing side of the flying sailing ship, I could see the hands already hard at work. They were carefully cutting the tangled lines and hauling spars and yards inboard. If I knew my sailors of Vallia, they’d be jury-rigged in no time. I turned to Dayra.

  “Ros. Can you take command here? I must go across to have a word with the lady Vylene Fynarmic.”

  “Of course. And tell Sosie from me she is getting fat.” Dayra laughed. “No. Better not. Her Claw is ferocious!”

  “This Ship-Hikdar,” I began. “Is she—?”

  “No.” Ros shook her head. “She is a Sister of the Sword.”

  “And they’re a right tearaway bunch!” I said, whereat Dayra looked at me as though demanding to know how I presumed to such knowledge of any secret society of women.

  She went into the steering cabin to conn the voller herself as we rose above Val Defender’s deck. I slid down a rope and dropped exactly plumb less than three feet from Vylene Fynarmic.

  She looked at me calmly.

  “I believe we owe our escape to you and to Ros the Claw,” she said in that firm hard voice. “You have my thanks, sincerely. Although,” she added matter-of-factly, “we were ourselves maturing plans for a break. Those cramphs would not have held us for long.”

  “That is true, lady—” I was saying.

  She interrupted. “I am told you are called Jak. Can you hand, reef and steer? We can use you aboard.”

  “I am not exactly at liberty at the moment—”

  “Nonsense! You’re a Vallian. Well, then. That is settled. Report to the Ship-Deldar. He will post you to a watch.”

  “But—”

  “That is enough, Jak! We are an emperor’s ship!”

  It had to happen, I suppose, sooner or later.

  A strapping fellow clad only in a red breechclout was lustily hauling on a spar as it was angled inboard.

  The jagged end lashed and he staggered back into me. I caught him and stood him up on his feet. He turned, already shouting his thanks. He was florid, handsome, with bright eyes. He saw me. He knew me.

  I knew him.

  “Majister!” At once, crack, up he went into that rigidity of attention the old hands can always muster.

  “Majister! Lahal and Lahal!”

  “Lahal, Nath the Cheeks,” I said. And then, and I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t help it, I said: “And now I suppose everyone will know I’m the blasted emperor.”

  Chapter six

  “The Emperor of Vallia is aboard!”

  “The emperor!” The buzz went around faster than the wine cups on pay night. “The emperor — the Emperor of Vallia is aboard!”

  You had to give this lady, Vylene Fynarmic, full credit. Oh, she was a splendid person! A Sister of the Sword, first lieutenant of a proud sailing ship of the air out of Vondium. She looked me straight in the eyeball.

  She said: “I give you the lahal, majister.” Then, still in that same hard voice: “So you are Dray Prescot.”

  She stood there on her own deck, in command, and I had some inkling of what must be in her mind. She saw Nath the Cheeks standing as stiff as a lance at our side.

  “You! Nath the Cheeks! Get the lead out! About your business, you fambly, and no lollygagging!”

  He was about to rap out a reply when I said in a carefully neutral tone: “Oh, Nath the Cheeks and I are old campaigners. We were together in Vela at the Battle of Jholaix. Nath was a nipper, then.”

  He bellowed: “Quidang, majister!” and fairly bolted back to putting his weight into shifting the splintered spar... Vylene looked after him with a grim set to her jaws.

  She turned to me. “You had best come below, majister. They are fixing my cabin last, when we are airworthy once more. But I can find you a stoup.”

  “When,” I said as we descended the companionway, “did you last eat?”

  “Just before we were captured.”

  “Then everyone is starving?”

  “When the ship is ready to fly, then we will eat.”

  I had to agree. But my insides were railing at me like a pack of bloodthirsty werstings.

  She found a bottle, and at least I could slake my thirst. She wore the rags of her once-proud uniform.

  The breeches were tattered, and the bodice was ripped. There were bruises on her shoulders. Her rank insignia had been torn off.

  “What grade of Hikdar are you, lady?”

  “Ley-Hikdar, majister.”

  She was four rungs up the ladder of promotions within the Hikdar grade; when she reached zan, ten, she might become a Jiktar. Now we had latterly amended the rank required to command the larger ships of the air. Once an ord-Hikdar could command a large flier. This had bothered me, used as I was to the idea of a person commanding a regiment of soldiers being of the same rank as a person who commanded a goodly sized ship. So, now, Jiktars commanded the great sailing fliers of Vallia.

  I said: “I cannot promote you immediately to Jiktar, lady, much though I would wish to do so. The Lord Farris has final jurisdiction in the Air Service. But I can and do right gladly promote you to ord-Hikdar.

  At once.”

  She took that calmly, with a grave nod of her head. Strong-willed, resolute, she knew what she was about.

  “Thank you, majister.”

  She told me a little more of the terrible time when the late captain had gone insane, and the Pandahem voller had bounced them. Any sailing ship, whether of the sea or the sky, has always to be particularly cautious of a powered vessel. I tried to lighten the tone of these proceedings.

  “Well, you can see now that
I am unable to sign on with your ship’s company. I have things I must do here.”

  “Of course.”

  “I would be grateful if you would furnish me with pens and paper. Now I have the opportunity, I will write letters. I would ask you to deliver them for me.”

  “With pleasure.”

  So, down I sat at her desk, with pens and much of the superior Kregan paper, and wrote. To whom I wrote and what I wrote will, in general, be obvious. I wrote cautioning Drak that armies were being raised in Pandahem against him in southwest Vallia, which he knew, and went on telling him much of what had occurred, and that he could rejoice that his sister had... At that point I fell to chewing the end of the pen and staring vacantly about the ruined cabin. That Dayra had reformed, seen the error of her ways, rejoined the fold? That was not quite as we saw it.

  In the end I wrote that Dayra worked actively for Vallia and that the great rascal Zankov had suffered a broken back, and if he was not dead then the spirits of Hodan-Set had missed their mark. Also, I told Drak that he must summon regiments of our best from Hamal. Down there we had been triumphant; now it was up to the Hamalese to work out their future. I would write, as well; but if Drak was to be Emperor of Vallia — as he was, as he was, the stubborn prideful fellow! — then he had to show Vallia and the world that he was the emperor.

  After a dozen or so letters Vylene came in to see how I was getting along. She carried a pewter plate on which reposed four exceedingly hard and gritty biscuits. She put the plate down with a clatter on her desk.

  “I decided we should all take a short breather and have something to eat. Some of my girls are faint with hunger.”

  With perfect composure, I said: “I give you thanks, lady.” The way I spoke, the cut of my jib — both gave me intense pleasure. I’d remained calm, cool, perfectly polite. By Djan! That, I tell you, was a great victory!

  In one corner of the cabin stood a brightly painted wooden tub with an earthenware inset, filled with good rich earth of Vallia. A pathetic-looking stump stuck up from the middle. She saw my glance.