Masks of Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  Then Pompino — my good comrade, my kregoinye companion, Scauro Pompino the Iarvin, stepped out and spoke.

  “I believe what this messenger, Bargal the Ley, says. The army here and in Menaham is paid for in gold that can only be used for that purpose for which it was intended. Pay the army from Murgon’s treasury.

  Set them forward in the venture against Vallia. For, kov, if you leave them idle around here they will prove a permanent and costly threat.”

  “Aye,” rumbled Pando. “That is sooth.”

  At my side, Dayra whispered: “Nice friends you have.”

  “Pompino is a Pandaheem. He is right. If the army out there contains very many officers loyal to Murgon they can walk in here and we’ll never stop ’em. Pando’s best bet is to pay ’em and ship ’em out—”

  “Out — against Vallia!”

  “Aye.”

  “So much for your wonderful Duurn the Doomsayer!”

  The movement among the throng indicated that Pando had made up his mind. Murgon’s treasure would be distributed to the army and the ship-masters. The armada would sail for Vallia. Win or lose for that army, Pando would come out ahead.

  I looked out over that bright and busy bustle as folk ran to do Kov Pando’s bidding. Oh, yes, he’d come out all right, sweet and smelling of violets. But what of the country that was my home, what of Vallia?

  “Very well,” I said, and although Dayra listened, I was really speaking to myself. “Sink me! If it’s got to be done it’s got to be done. And let Opaz take care of my conscience.”

  Chapter twenty-one

  Of one broken leg

  Having made up his mind, Pando was all blaze and eagerness to get the thing done and over with.

  Murgon’s treasure — that same hoard of wealth we in Tuscurs Maiden had seen melt and run fuming into the sea — being distributed to the army and the ship masters delighted all of them. There was no talk anywhere of pulling down Kov Pando in the name of the dead Strom Murgon. Kovs, after all, are kovs.

  Pompino and the crew went about looking over their shoulders in momentary expectation of the ghastly apparition of the white-haired witch. Had she turned up and blasted us all no one would have been vastly surprised.

  From a dusty and hidden portion of the palace a figure that was surprising emerged, blinking in the suns’

  radiance. Cap’n Murkizon, axe aslant, sent immediately for Larghos the Flatch.

  Stumbling, her clothes in ruins, her face streaked with dirt and tears, the Lady Nalfi was caught up and clasped close to Larghos. He could hardly believe his good fortune.

  We left them to their reunions, and later Larghos and Nalfi joined us where she was able to tell her story.

  Dayra watched, a comically quizzical little frown denting in between her eyebrows.

  We gathered in a little outdoor arbor furnished with cane chairs and striped awnings and wobbly-legged tables. In a siege the place could be converted to take a catapult. Nalfi professed to bewilderment, loss of memory, misery, fear. Yes, she remembered the flying boat and watching Lisa and Ros Delphor leaving her alone. She had been terrified.

  Here Dayra pursed up her lips.

  Nalfi had hidden somewhere within the voller and only hunger had been enough to conquer her terror.

  She had crept out to find herself back in the Zhantil Palace, and had somehow slunk out of the airboat and found a succession of hiding places. That part was easy enough to believe, on Kregen where most of the palaces are stuffed to bursting with slaves and retainers and very few people know all the souls under the same roof.

  Pompino expressed our general pleasure at seeing the Lady Nalfi alive and well. He congratulated her on her courage in adversity.

  Dayra said to me, sotto voce, “Huh!”

  “It is true, though. Nalfi possesses great courage, and resourcefulness.”

  Dayra glanced at me as though I had straw sticking out of my hair.

  Looking out over the sea the eye was caught instantly by the assemblage of shipping. Seabirds wheeled and cawed amid the forest of masts. Nalfi expressed herself as most pleased that Menaham and Tomboram were cooperating. For two countries of Pandahem to act in this way was a fine augury for the future. I’d have been more inclined to agree with these pious sentiments had the target of the cooperation not been my home of Vallia.

  The departure of the fleet could not now be long delayed. To no one’s surprise, Pompino and the crew decided to sign on for the expedition. As Pompino said, twirling up his right whisker and gripping his sword hilt with his left fist: “Those rasts of Vallians are bound to worship Lem and their evil land be teeming with temples to burn.”

  Dayra said, a trifle too sharply, “The cult of Lem was once brought to Vallia. I hear the emperor was most severe with them—”

  “I wonder,” sniffed Pompino. Then: “This is sooth?”

  “So I heard.”

  Making some excuse, I managed to drag Dayra off. We spoke alone out on the battlements.

  “All right, father — I know!”

  “Forget that. We have to try something interesting before... Duurn the Doomsayer failed. I think we have a more sure tool to our hands.”

  She was a true daughter to Delia, Empress of Vallia. Quick, by Zair! Sharp and devious and intelligent and altogether lovely. “Yes. You have seen how Larghos the Flatch goes about these days since Nalfi returned? Like a puppy that has lost his favorite chewing slipper.”

  “You were quite right when you said she had no affection for him. I think that was the key that unlocked the rest of it for me.”

  We had regaled Dayra with the tale of how Nalfi had joined our company back in Peminswopt along the coast. We’d cleared out the Devil’s Academy where they trained up the priests to torture and butcher children to the greater glory of Lem, and Nalfi, all naked and alone and held captive by a Chulik, had calmly taken his dagger from his belt and slit his throat. He had been standing in front of her, ready to fight Larghos and Cap’n Murkizon as they broke in. Dayra saw.

  “So she slew the Chulik who was trying to protect her.”

  “What better recommendation?”

  “So she’s a Brown and Silver, then.”

  “A most courageous and resourceful Lemmite, as I said. She saw she’d be for the chop; she joined us and ever since has been a spy in our midst. When we rescued Dafni — Murgon knew. Nalfi was missing, and joined us with some excuse — and more than once.”

  “And the scrap of brown and silver ribbon that would have betrayed our escape, down in the sewers—”

  “As I said. Courageous and resourceful.”

  “Maybe I should have a word with her with my Claw.”

  “Perhaps over the matter of Larghos, at some later time. Right now, Dayra my tiger-girl, we must go in for some theater.”

  I admit it with great pleasure — we arranged this little piece of live theater exquisitely.

  Fortune favored us to the extent that Larghos and Nalfi indulged in a real row in a small room, almost a broom cupboard, off the snug withdrawing chamber where Dayra and I sat. They exchanged wearily familiar accusations and disclaimers. The truth is, like marital infidelities, one side seems to wander around as though struck blind. Larghos stormed off in the opposite direction without seeing us, and before Nalfi could follow, Dayra spoke up in her clear voice.

  “I feel for poor Larghos; but he will cheer up wonderfully when we reach Menaham. When he takes his part in the sack of Memguin — and that’s just for starters! — he’ll have so much gold—”

  “Ros Delphor! Careful! You speak of secrets, and you do not know who may be listening.”

  “No one. They’ve gone.” She laughed in a conspiratorial way, almost giggling. “Because you knew Kov Pando when he was a young boy means he trusts you above many others. I think his scheme to gull Kov Colun Mogper with messages that we sail to Vallia, and then to march straight to Memguin and seize the place when Mogper is away—”

  “Oh, yes, Pando is mighty cl
ever. Colun Mogper will suspect nothing. His army will be cut up in that heathen Vallia, and probably never return, and we’ll be busily burning temples to Lem the Silver Leem.

  Any Lemmites left are likely to find themselves in small pieces. Very small.”

  “Like the pieces of their sacrifices.”

  A tiny, birdlike sound from the smaller room...

  Dayra said, “I am for a wet, Jak Leemsjid.”

  “And I am with you, Ros Delphor.”

  Later on Twayne Gullik, the castellan of the Zhantil Palace, reported in great annoyance that some cramph or cramphs had stolen two zorcas. Fine animals, they were worth much gold. If food had been stolen, as it would have been, by Vox! then it would not be missed among the mounds of forage produced at all hours in the kitchens.

  Dayra told me with great satisfaction: “She’s well on her way to Memguin to report the terrible news to Mogper.”

  “May he have joy of it, by Zair!”

  “Being what he is, he’ll start at once his riposte.”

  “We have to move before they start loading the ships here. I’ve organized Naghan Raerdu, our local Vallian agent—”

  “Naghan the Barrel, the Nose, the Ale! I know him!”

  I sighed. “He is a most remarkable and trustworthy man. He made it possible for me to penetrate the Lemmite temple, where we met—”

  “Hanging in bonds on the wall and that rast Zankov—”

  “That is past. We look to the future.”

  “Aye, by Chusto!”

  Naghan Raerdu, a most adroit spy within the emperor’s private apparat, spluttered and wheezed and laughed his way into providing all we required. He employed tools who, I am sure, had no idea they worked for Vallia.

  “Why, majister,” he choked, laughing, his face as scarlet as the radiance of Zim, his eyes shut and streaming happy tears. “These poor folk of Pandahem cannot tell one airboat from another. The work will be finished before the Suns set, aye, and the paint dry!”

  He was right. If you do not understand aircraft you’re not likely to spot the difference between a Bf109

  and a Mustang when there is only the flick of a wing to see. If you don’t understand ships you will not spot the subtle differences between the t’gallants of a Johnny Crapaud Seventy-four from a British Seventy-four, pitching off there just above the horizon rim.

  Naghan Raerdu had the work completed in a clearing in the forest at a distance removed from Port Marsilus. He ensured there were no nosey Ifts about. His people splashed on the blue and green paint, rigged awnings, fabricated the many flags. These treshes were all the same; blue and green diagonal stripes separated by narrow strips of white. This was the flag of Menaham.

  When Naghan Raerdu said what I expected him to say, I replied: “No, Naghan. Absolutely no.”

  “But majister! Princess — I appeal to you—”

  “Look, my friend. As a purveyor of best ale, as the emperor’s most valued secret agent, you are far too valuable where you are, doing what you do. If you risk your neck with us—”

  “Majister! If I thought there was a risk, well, I am not sure I could agree to you both going. Also, I would not be very keen to go myself...”

  Dayra laughed delightedly. Even I smiled.

  Naghan Raerdu, as a Vallian spy in a hostile land, ran his neck into plenty of risks every day.

  He fussily superintended the stowage of the earthenware pots, making sure they were well packed down in straw. His cover as an ale merchant well qualified him for this task.

  Despite all the jollity and the coarse remarks, I was decidedly unhappy about what we set out to do. Of course, it was obvious. Painfully obvious. All the same, much of the pain was experienced by me, for, do not forget, I am a plain sailorman. I do not profess to be an honest sailorman, by Zair; but this destruction saddened me.

  Well, they say men sow corn for Zair to sickle.

  We stood, Dayra and I, to watch Naghan Raerdu and his people ride off aboard their lumbering wagons, pulled by patient Quoffas like perambulating hearthrugs. For a treacherous moment we waited as the last wagon vanished into the surrounding forest. We were very late. From the opposite direction a scurry of zorca-mounted warriors broke from the screen of trees. They hared for us as we stood like a pair of loons on the grass, the mass of the voller at our backs.

  We heard their war cries as they charged.

  “Rasts of Lemmites!” And: “Charge, for the Golden Zhantil!”

  Each warrior wore a golden zhantil mask.

  “By the disgusting suppurating eyeballs and putrescent fingernails of Makki Grodno!” I yelled. “Up with you, my girl!”

  Dayra sprang for the voller and began to clamber aloft to reach the controls. I stepped onto the fighting gallery and turned, watching the rush. One man led out, whirling his sword, low over his zorca’s neck.

  The airboat did not move. The zorca fleeted nearer.

  The leader outdistanced the rest of his cutthroat gang. He roared in, the zorca a splendid sight, all flashing hooves and wild eyes and tossing horn.

  The voller moved. She shifted from the grass and lifted a hand’s-breadth. I let out a sigh, knowing that in the next instant Dayra would slam over the controls to full lift and we’d skyrocket aloft.

  In that instant, this ferocious warrior in the glittering golden mask leaped from his zorca. He hurled straight at the fighting gallery below the airboat. His clutching fingers scrabbled, caught a purchase and as we went whisking aloft so he flopped over and dangled by one hand, suspended over thin air.

  I had no quarrel with him. I could not let him fall to his death. His companions were left far below, dwindling dots in the clearing, brandishing their swords. I looked down.

  The voice within the golden mask puffed out, muffled.

  “Jak! Jak Leemsjid, you great fambly! What are you playing at? Haul me aboard, for the sweet sake of Horato the Potent!”

  I jumped forward, grabbed Pompino by the wrist and hauled him inboard, all tumbled in his war harness along the fighting gallery. His head clanked into a straw-stuffed box filled with pots. He sat up, ripped the mask off, and glared at me, filled with fury, reddish whiskers bristling.

  “What the hell are you playing at, Jak!”

  “And what the hell d’you think you’re doing?”

  He sat up and rubbed his head. “Mindi the Mad scryed out and managed to tell us a mysterious airboat skulked in a clearing in the forest. But you — what’s going on?”

  “Damned half-Ift witches!” I said, most grumpily.

  “Well — and what is it, Jak. Tell me!”

  This, as you will readily perceive, was not part of the careful plans at all. Not at all...

  The voller lifted and turned and steered for Port Marsilus.

  I eyed Pompino. He looked bewildered and wild. At least he’d lost his thraxter; but a rapier and left-hand dagger swung at his belts. I took a breath.

  “You always were a mysterious fellow, Jak.” He began to gather himself. He shook his head, and rubbed it again. “Boxes of pots — and I know little of airboats; but this looks remarkably like Golden Zhantil.

  Have you—?”

  I said, “Look down there, Pompino the Iarvin.”

  “Do what?”

  I pointed down, over the side. He turned around and leaned out to look down and I put my thumb under his ear and he went to sleep. I caught him as he fell and eased him to the deck of the fighting gallery.

  What a mess!

  When he was thoroughly tied up and unable to move, I went up to see Dayra and told her. She looked cross.

  “He would have to come poking his clever Khibil nose—”

  “Yes. Well, he will not stop us.”

  “Of course not!”

  The blue and green voller bore on, flaunting the flags of Menaham. She roared on over the forest and out over Port Marsilus as the suns declined in the bright sky. Down below, crowding the roads, tied up to every wharf, the ships of the invasion fleet lay. First thi
ng in the morning they’d begin loading. Some of the troops would go aboard before dawn.

  That armada could not be allowed to land in Vallia.

  Dayra spoke and I saw she spoke diffidently. “Father — do you want to fly the voller? Would you like me to go below and—”

  “Thank you, Dayra. No. I abhor this, but I’ll do it.”

  “Very well. I’ll cover every last one.”

  “I won’t miss.”

  So, down below I went, back to the fighting gallery below the keel of Golden Zhantil. Pompino had been tied up so that he couldn’t move, as I thought. He was a crafty, great-hearted, fighting Khibil. He’d wriggled himself into a position from which he could look down through a grating.

  I said nothing, ignoring him. I took a torch from its becket and set it afire with flint and steel. He looked on and his Khibil face drew down.

  “Jak! What—?”

  I had to say out of compassion — for myself, mark it, for myself! — and not very prettily: “This had to be done.”

  I set the first firepot ablaze and poised with it in my hand. Pompino looked from that horrendous incendiary device down to the glinting sea. He writhed and stared back at me.

  “Tuscurs Maiden is down there, Jak! My ship! A vessel you have sailed in and loved, as anyone could see. Jak! You would not burn Tuscurs Maiden!”

  “And perhaps you should not have told Captain Linson to offer your ship to Kov Pando for his fleet.”

  I hurled the firepot down.

  As we passed above and the next firepot hurtled down Tuscurs Maiden was well ablaze.

  Well, I, Dray Prescot, sailorman, cannot coldly chronicle the burning of that magnificent fleet. The ships burned. The ships burned...

  I’d burned ships before; the Eye of the World had witnessed a burning. Many enemies had perished in flames of my setting. But this — no, I cannot draw that horrendous picture for you. I threw the firepots and there was a red blaze before my face and a scarlet haze in my eyes. The smoke, black and evil, drifted off before the wind.

  I did not miss a single ship.