Secret Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  My first fears vanished the instant I clapped eye on that scene. Gathered in a mass at the end of the room a crowd of people were in the act of rising from a deep genuflection — we had chosen our time well, the chance swiftly and surely taken — and the priest himself, clad all in black vestments, lifted his arms high, leading the congregation in the opening bars of a chant. The chant proved to be a moaning, miserable, oafish thing, and most of the people did not know it. But the priest raised his voice to lead them. At all this I glanced with the swift calculating eye of the fighting man, seeking to weigh possible odds. The words of the chant came so garbled they were practically impossible to make out. Over it all I glanced up and to the wall behind the priest. And I let out a soundless puff, and felt vastly relieved.

  For, set against that back wall draped in its rich cloths and golden tassels, there stood no pagan silver idol of a leem.

  A calmness came over me. Whatever vileness this new creed of Chyyan might bring, I did not think it could be as vile as that of the cult of Lem the Silver Leem.

  Against the rich cloths of the back alcove lifted a bold image of a heavy-winged bird, an image as tall as a man, with feathered wings spread to encompass a full twenty feet. All a rusty black, this bird, save for its scarlet eyes and scarlet claws and scarlet beak. Four wings the chyyan possesses, like its distant cousin, the zhyan. The four wings were undersize in this image for the body size, but the whole effect was at once impressive and ominous.

  At once surmises sprang into my brain. Native saddle-birds were unknown in Vallia and Loh, being, at the time, generally confined to the hostile territories of Turismond and to Havilfar and islands thereabouts. The mighty continent of Havilfar, south of the equator, was the home of zhyan and chyyan. I frowned. This bore a little more investigation. Havilfar boasted as its most powerful nation the Empire of Hamal, and the mad Empress Thyllis was sworn to destroy the Empire of Vallia. Was this creed of Chyyan a gambit in that game?

  Incense rose, stinking and abominable. The chant ceased. The crowd stood to listen as the priest spoke. As I listened I watched their faces as well as I could, and some lapped up the ranting words, but others were more critical. A couple of trident-men near the door came as close as may be to openly jeering. I marked them.

  This priest had journeyed to Veliadrin from Vallia, and no doubt Autonne was his marked target town. I tried to size him up, wondering from which city, country or continent, even, he hailed. A full-fleshed man, with the bright staring eyes of the fanatic — or the diseased — he presented an imposing figure. His robes were all of black, relieved by embroidered motifs in golden thread and imitation jewels, motifs mainly of chyyans doing unmentionable things to their victims.

  Chyyans have not yet been generally tamed to the saddle. They remain unbroken, wild, flying freely over the wide spaces of Havilfar, a dread and a terror to lesser animals and to man. The white-plumaged zhyan is notorious for the uncertainty of its temper, for all that the bird is valued above ten fluttrells, and yet the zhyan in its power and mastery has been curbed to the rein and the bit and the flying harness.

  Not so the chyyan. Its rusty black plumage shares none of the brilliant sheening highlights of the impiter of the hostile territories of Turismond. The chyyan is a bird to steer well clear of when you ride the level wastes of the air, astride a saddle-bird, or piloting a small model voller.

  So this priest, who may have come from Hamal to wreak the Empress Thyllis’s vengeance upon Vallia, lifted up his voice and harangued the simple fisherfolk of Autonne, which is a town under my care.

  “It is not for the distant future when you are dead and gone to the Ice Floes of Sicce! No, my children, I tell you in the sacred name of the Great Chyyan, upon whose black breast is taken every arrow that seeks your heart, I tell you that the Great Chyyan brings hope and comfort, delight and joy, prosperity and wealth to you in this life. Do not wait until you are dead to enjoy yourselves! Listen to my words, for they are words from our leader, he who has been chosen in the divine twinning by the Great Chyyan to lead us into the new darkness of the Black Feathers, in which is there light beyond our meager understanding.”

  At this guffaws broke from the two trident-men. Not for them the finicky parsing of metaphysics. They heard words that appeared to contradict, and they brayed their derision.

  “By the silver flukes of Shalash the Shining!” bellowed one, clapping a bronzed hand onto his thigh. “Your riddles make no sense to a coy, Himet the Mak!”

  “Hush!” and “Quiet, impious onker!” broke from those standing near the two trident-men, who I guessed were brothers.

  The priest, this Himet the Mak, lifted a hand. I saw his black robes stretch over the hilt of a sword belted to his waist.

  “The blasphemers speak their own destruction! The word of the leader twinned with the Great Chyyan is to be obeyed. The leader is the spirit of the One made Two, spirit and flesh, spirit made manifest to men. Our leader and the Great Chyyan are in duo, twins, radiant with the Black Feathers, leading us to light. And the word of our leader tells us we must wait for a sign. He will come among us. He will tell us when to lift the banners of the Black Feathers. Then, my children, then all that you do not have will be yours. When Makfaril our leader gives the divine word you will gain all, not when you are dead and rotting in the ground, but here and now, in this life, soon!”

  People were dancing up and down and the two trident-men had fallen silent. It was mumbo jumbo, but the promise, the passion, the pride of purpose, these drove home keenly into everyone present.

  “Listen to me, my children, to Himet the Mak, who comes to tell you of the Great Chyyan and of our leader, Makfaril. You must do all the things necessary and pray for guidance, that in the Black Day you will be spared and live to enjoy the fruits of luxury handed to us by him of the four wings, Chyyan of the Black Feathers. In that glorious day will you find resurrection in the here and now. All will be yours. Only believe! Believe and pray to our leader that he may intercede for you with his divine twin, in spirit and in flesh, pray for your salvation in the day from the Great Chyyan.”

  One or two shrill yells broke from the embryonic congregation. Again and again the priest harped on the desirability of achieving one’s heart’s desires in the here and now. He gave only a sketchy metaphysical plan for life after death, for salvation, for the delights of paradise, of being reborn higher in the circle of vaol-paol, or for the joys of Valhalla; he hammered home his message that the Great Chyyan and Makfaril the leader sought to reward their devotees now.

  When he reverted to supernatural arguments they were all cant phrases, rolling rodomontade mixed with elements culled from many minor creeds of Kregen. I have made a little study of the beliefs of Kregen — vastly edifying! — and could recognize this curious mixture as an artificial construct, alien, almost thrown together. The priest had skill. I wondered who had trained him.

  And yet, despite his skill, despite the lure of grabbing it all now, the two trident-men grew restive, so that Himet the Mak was forced to take notice of them.

  From the resplendent cloths draped over the alcove at the back of the statue of the rusty black chyyan stepped forth armed men. They appeared, suddenly, between the tall drapes. I eyed them.

  First I looked at their faces and the way they stood and held themselves, next at their weapons and then at their uniforms.

  They were all apims, like me, and their faces were all of that low-browed, brutal cast that does not in any way invariably mean brutality in the possessor. I rather fancied these men would be hard and merciless and take more than a trifle of joy in sinking their weapons into the guts of any who opposed them. They stood alertly, poised, and I knew that at a signal from Himet they would kill and go on killing until he called a halt.

  Their weapons remained scabbarded. They wore rapiers and daggers, but as I looked at the way they were belted up I frowned. It seemed to me the thraxters and the parrying-sticks belted to their waists were their prime weapons.


  Their uniforms were black, beneath boiled leather armor, well oiled, and they wore profuse ornamentations of black feathers. Their iron helmets carried tufts of rusty black feathers from chyyans. All in all, they looked a formidable bunch. I judged them to be masichieri mercenaries who had never aspired to the quality of paktuns — for paktuns are in general finicky about questions of honor — and who combined a little thievery and assassination and slaving into their mercenary way of life as the opportunity offered, without reaching the power of the aragorn. There were twenty of them, led by a hikdar.

  My instinctive reaction was that I wished I had taken up my Krozair longsword when we’d first ventured on this escapade.

  The two trident-men eyed the guards uneasily, and their taunts fell away. They were tough and wiry, but they carried only their fishing tridents and degutting knives in their belts. They wore old buff breeches with frayed and unlaced ends, singlets of a coarse weave, and they were barefoot.

  Balass the Hawk at his crack in the boards began to stir himself around, reaching for his sword. I turned my head toward him and he stilled. Of us all, perhaps, Balass was less accustomed to stealth in his fighting, being a hyr-kaidur and master of the ritual combats of the arena.

  Silently Oby drew his vicious knife. Seg had already strung his bow, all done simply and silently and with enormous professional skill. Inch’s ax glittered in a shaft of the orange light. If there were to be handstrokes, we were ready.

  Turko, who could rip a fully armed man to pieces with his bare hands, had grumbled and cursed when I’d told him to leave the great shield. Now Turko the Shield flexed his muscles. Oh, yes, if it came to a fight those twenty hard men down there would be in for a surprise.

  But I wanted no fighting.

  I wanted to observe, to fathom out just what lay behind this new and evil creed of Chyyanism, and then to withdraw and debate, calmly, what best to do.

  With a tiny gesture of my left hand I indicated to Roybin that he should retire, and we would follow, one by one.

  No one questioned my right to leave last.

  Himet the Mak was shouting again, lifting his voice, and I detected a strained hoarseness there, very surprising to me considering the circumstances and the clear power he had been exercising over these credulous people.

  “I speak to you and tell you the great words, the great words given to us from Makfaril, the leader, directly from the Great Chyyan. Yet you seek to mock me, to deny the great words. Do you not desire salvation and wealth and luxury in the here and now?”

  His voice sharpened, took on an undisguised note of contempt and anger — and a tinge of fear? My comrades withdrew from the little rickety gallery, but I stayed, listening.

  “You two, trident-men, brothers, you have been tainted with the falsehoods put about in the island. You know your island is called Can-thirda. Whatever it was called in the ancient days of the kingdom, ever since your island has been part of Vallia it has been called Can-thirda. Yet now you must call it Veliadrin. Why?”

  A certain grumbling rumble from his listeners brought a wolfish smile to his lips.

  “Aye! I well tell you why! Because the power-mad incubus, the Prince Majister of Vallia, decrees it! That is why. Some unknown master from no man knows where tells you your fate. He holds your future in his hand. Has he visited you? Have you seen him? No, and you have not seen his bitch of a wife, the Princess Majestrix, either!”

  My muscles jumped. I took a breath. But I remained lying still, watching and listening. Yes! Well may you who have followed my story marvel. But I remained still and did not leap down and choke this fellow’s throat a trifle to induce him to show proper respect for the most perfect woman in two worlds. And, I confess, I not only marveled at my own iron self-control, I actually relished it, as showing how I had matured and grown wise.

  “Some forgotten child they had, spawned from their evil union, this Princess Velia, dead and abandoned in some foreign country debarred from honest men’s knowledge. Who knows where she died? Who cares? Why should your island be called after the slut?”

  My fists gripped and my muscles trembled as a leem’s flanks tremble in the instant before he charges. But, despite all, I remained still.

  Through the confusion roaring away in my head I understood that my own private problems, my own petty pride, must not interfere or injure the interests of my people, their lands or the intangible debt I owe all those who look to me. If this is pride, so be it; if it is duty, so be it. To me, a simple sailor and fighting man, it was and remains a mere matter of common decency.

  So I battened down the hatches on my anger and made myself listen to what this fellow was saying. After all, there was more than a grain of truth in his rantings. . .

  If, because this priest of Chyyan insulted my Delia and our dead daughter Velia, I acted as I was wont and hurled myself down to choke him a little and bash the skulls of his ugly-faced guards, then I would forfeit the advantage of listening and learning in secret. Whoever had sent him would know that much of their designs were privy no more. I must force myself to swallow all that intolerant choler which makes of me a laughing stock, a fighting man and, sometimes, makes me do the right thing.

  “Look around you in your island of Can-thirda! Where are the slaves that once did your bidding, that worked for you and made the days light? Gone, all gone. And why? Because your new High Kov, this high and mighty Prince Majister of Vallia, this Strom of Valka, this Kov of Zamra, decrees that you honest working people shall no longer run slaves. Is this fair? Is this justice? Why should a man do his own hard labor, why should a woman slave in the kitchen when she might buy and thrash a slave to do the work for her? Tell me, brethren in the Great Chyyan, if this is a sample of the usage to which this so-puissant Dray Prescot puts you, then will you lie down beneath it? Will you give the tyrant the full incline? Will you be slave?”

  They yelled it back at him.

  “No!” And, “No! We will not bow down to Dray Prescot!”

  I fumed up there on the gallery. I didn’t want the famblys to bow to me. I’d already cut out all this fawning and inclining nonsense in Valka. But, equally, I did not want them buying and selling and flogging slaves either. This is the old conundrum, with an answer, and I brushed it aside as I peered through the crack between the sagging boards.

  The mood of the embryo congregation had turned ugly. They were sucked in. They saw a hope before them that not only might they return to the slave-holding of the past but might aspire to a seizure of the goodness of life, now.

  Useless for me to condemn them. Had I spent more time in Can-thirda, had I even consulted some of the people about the change of name, had these folk seen me more clearly, instead of hearing about their High Kov only by hearsay, then, perhaps, I might have prevented all this, have nipped in the bud the horrors to come. For I knew well and made no mistake that far more lay behind this artificial religion of Chyyan than ever Himet the Mak would tell these poor famblys.

  “If he were here now! If this infamous Dray Prescot, Prince Majister of Vallia, were standing before you, what would you do?”

  The answering yells bounced in ugly echoes in that tall net-room below the gallery.

  “Chop the cramph!” “Cut the rast down!” “Feather the tape!” And, “Make him slave and run him for the good of us all!”

  Things had gone to rack and ruin indeed, in Veliadrin, since I had been away. Seg Segutorio spoke the true word. I swiveled an eye back. Seg’s face showed in the crack of the doorway. He looked vexed. Clearly, since we had obtained information, he was wondering why I did not join the rest of the party.

  I made a face at him, and he smiled, amazingly, in return, as I looked back at the scene below. The people were waving their fists and many brandished degutting knives and tridents. The leather-clad guards in their black feathers stared watchfully on. Himet the Mak gesticulated for silence. “Not so! It is the express command of the leader, of Makfaril himself, that only in the last resort shall P
rescot be slain. Make him slave at your peril also. Deliver him up to me so that I may take him to Makfaril. Yes, my children, leave the fate of the wild leem to me and my guards here, my bonny masichieri, to take him to the leader.”

  One of the trident-men shouted, his voice shrill and cutting through Himet’s words to the listening people. “Dray Prescot has a fearsome reputation as a fight—” No doubt he was going to say as a fighting man: Himet chopped him off with, “A fearsome reputation! Yes. Truly, by the Great Chyyan, a horrendous reputation!” That is true, by Vox.

  Howls spurted up, execrations against the name of Dray Prescot and dire promises of what would befall him should he be foolish enough to fall into their hands. Himet bellowed.

  “You would do well to heed my words and deliver him up for the judgment of Makfaril! Hearken! The torments Prescot would then suffer are beyond mortal men’s comprehension.”

  They had not missed the neat turning of what reputation I had in Vallia from that of a warrior prince to that of a villain. Oh, yes, I am a villain. But only in certain matters.

  There was little more to be gained here. We would have to think on what best to do about this new creed of Chyyanism. We were now acutely aware of the problem and its methods.

  I cast a regretful glance at the two brothers, the trident-men who stood near the far door. Although uneasy, they showed no more signs of being cowed by words. But their glances at the guards, the masichieri, spoke eloquently enough. One brother shouted above the hubbub.

  “And if the Prince Majister were here, among us now, who would know him?”

  “Aye!” bawled his brother, red of face. “Who would know?”

  Himet quieted conflicting answering yells. He smiled, a slow evil smirk that informed his listeners of his own importance.

  “I have seen his representation. I would know. I would know the evil-hearted cramph among a thousand!”

  The way the priest phrased this interested me. But it was time to go. The two brothers were scarcely likely to come to serious harm. The thought occurred to me that perhaps Himet had planted them, shills to give him arguments from which to strike sparks. If so, they were consummate actors.