Bladesman of Antares [Dray Prescot #9]

by Alan Burt Akers

  And, hungering as I did, could I ever forget that I, Dray Prescot, was also a Krozair of Zy?

  The days on Earth passed in gray despair. I had cleared up the trouble here. (I will concern myself in these tapes mainly with what transpired in my career on Kregen, except when something I believe will interest you occurred to match). Then partly to give myself something to do, thereby driving away the insanity that threatened, and partly because I was genuinely interested in finding out what I could of the Savanti, I set out on a little detective work.

  The Star Lords, the Everoinye, seemed to me to be above inquiry.

  The Savanti, those mortal but superhuman men and women of Aphrasöe the Swinging City, seemed subject to investigation.

  I went hunting Alex Hunter.

  Rather, since he was dead on a Valkan beach on far Kregen, decently buried by me with two prayers said over him, it was his memory I hunted, what there was to know about him in the minds of those who had known him.

  Money matters were carried on for me by the descendants of that man, whose name I will not mention, whom I had met on the field of Waterloo. I was now remarkably rich. It meant nothing, of course; it still means nothing compared to the greater glory of Kregen. But my Earthly wealth gave me the means to carry out my search.

  The trail began in Paris and took me to New York. After a month of inquiries, of checking public records, of following up leads in school and college and U.S. Army records, I felt I had indeed discovered the Alex Hunter who had been employed by the Savanti in their crusade to cleanse the world of Kregen.

  As a grim old Army major said: “He was posted missing, Mr. Prescot. There was Indian trouble. There always is. But we had high hopes of the boy. You say you knew him?"

  I dissimulated; but the picture became clearer. Alex Hunter had been a young shavetail whose career seemed marked for high command. Eager, alert, efficient, he had made a first-class officer. I remembered his fair hair, those keen blue eyes, the supple strength of him. How he had been recruited by the Savanti nal Aphrasöe, I did not know. But he had been taken to Kregen, and no doubt had passed his test down the River Aph with flying colors, as I remembered, as I remembered! Then the Savanti had appointed him a tutor, given him a genetic language pill, trained him in the martial arts. They had no doubt explained to him in full their plans for Kregen, plans at which I could only guess, for the Savanti had booted me out of the paradise that was Aphrasöe, the Swinging City.

  What I did know without doubt was that Alex Hunter had appeared on a beach in Valka, charged by the Savanti to rescue a shipwrecked party of political prisoners from their guards. He had been doing well. He had fought gallantly; as he had said of my fighting, so I could say of his, that he had fought merrily. But his lack of experience had betrayed him. A cruel javelin had smashed its steel head through his body.

  Either the Savanti themselves, employing me out of desperation, or the Star Lords with their infinitely more devious ways, had flung me onto that beach to save the situation. I had done so. And I had won my island of Valka. But the strangeness of walking a New York street, and of seeing all the wonders of mid-century America growing before my eyes, made me ponder long and long the reasons that most surely existed for all that the Star Lords did.

  The Savanti, I felt sure, wished to make Kregen a civilized world. This is a laudable object.

  Just what the Star Lords wanted, I did not know. But it was clear their plans were long-term. The people I rescued from death at the behest of the Star Lords would be growing up now, and their fates must influence the fate of the world.

  Here, on this Earth, how many people who vanished had been taken to Kregen by the Savanti to join their great crusade?

  And I, Dray Prescot, had been found wanting and had been kicked out.

  Thoughts such as that would send the claws of madness striking through to me. Was I to remain for the next thousand years, left here to rot on Earth, to destroy myself in futility on the world of my birth?

  I left the Western frontier, where I had felt strangely at home in the harsh conditions so similar to many of the Kregan frontiers, and I took a southeasterly swing and was in Virginia when the blue radiance took me—blessedly—back to Kregen.

  Opening my eyes, I saw that I was naked. That was normal. I think the Star Lords knew of that tickling feeling I had that I would think the less of them if they provided me with a handy sword, or shield, or helmet, when they brought me to Kregen to untangle the latest problem hurled at me.

  The problem I had to sort out this time was so absurdly simple that I was sure the situation had been contrived by the Star Lords merely to bring me once more to Kregen. Maybe, I thought, as I stood up and stretched in the glorious mingled opaline light, maybe they required me to be here on Kregen. Certainly, facing a little four-armed Och, for all that he carried the small round shield of the Och, and a spear, and a thraxter belted to his waist, was not of the order of problems I had previously encountered.

  The Och was a slaver and he was driving a heavily chained coffle of Djan girls to the beach where a low two-masted vessel waited. Now the Djangs are an especial joy to me, as you know. They are apim, just like Homo sapiens, but they have four arms apiece. They are the most ferocious fighters. Their girls are exceptionally beautiful. They are much prized. They do not travel very far from their own country of Djanduin, which is situated in the southwest of Havilfar.

  I am the King of Djanduin.

  The ten girls would have given the Och guards a nasty time if they came too close, and the Ochs were driving them along well out of arms’ reach. I thumped the nearest Och over the head. An Och has six limbs, the central pair used indiscriminately as either arms or legs; a lemon-shaped head with puffy jaws and lolling chops; and he is not above four feet tall. Agile, determined fellows, Ochs are cunning and dirty fighters, and used over many parts of Kregen as mercenaries—although, to their constant annoyance, they are not ranked in the top class. Consequently, they may be hired more cheaply. I had had experience of Ochs. The second one flew at me now and I slid his spear and thumped him, too. I picked up his spear, flung it at the third Och. The fourth and fifth hurled their spears and then rushed with their thraxters low, their little shields low, and daggers in their middle limbs’ dual-purpose hands.

  I swirled a trifle with the dead Och's thraxter, caught their blades, swirled some more, and then—flick! flick! they were down and I could run across to the girls.

  One of them, whose name I afterward discovered was Rena, recognized me. She yelled. Her shout was one of absolute joy.

  “It is the King! It is Notor Prescot, the King of Djanduin!"

  Seldom have I had a homecoming to Kregen like that!

  The chains could be unlocked with keys taken from the Ochs. Rena said: “Those other Djan-forsaken Ochs will be upon us.” She snatched up a thraxter. “By mother Diocaster! Let us serve them finely chopped into a Herrelldrin hell!"

  “Are there other slaves already aboard, Rena?"

  “Aye, Majister."

  “Then we must free them, also.” I had to speak cleverly. “Where is your home, Rena?” I could not ask with cunning if she expected help, and thus gather some idea of where we were, for she might think I was reluctant to fight without the promise of help. I know, now, that my people of Djanduin would not think that of me; but in those days I was a new king in Djanduin.

  Before she could answer, another girl, brandishing a spear, shrilled: “The rasts of Ochs! They run to attack!"

  So we went to. Of that smart little fight I need only say that two of the girls were lightly scratched; none was, thanks to Djan the All-Glorious, killed.

  We went down to the ship and released the prisoners there and as we all came up onto the beach, rejoicing (and I had flung a scrap of orange cloth about me to hide my nakedness), a skein of flutduins, those special and superb flying birds of Djanduin, soared over us and we were surrounded by a patrol of Djang warriors. We were on the north coast of Djanduin, and the water t
o the north was the Lohvian Sea. No one was at all surprised that the king had turned up to rescue his people from the slaving Ochs who had slipped in to raid by night, and were about to push off for their foul nests on the Lohvian shoreline across the sea.

  Amid great rejoicings and much singing and laughing and drinking of toasts, the freed people were conveyed back to their village. I promised to have money and supplies and food sent down to restore the place after the attack. Then, surrounded by Djang warriors, astride our flutduins, we flew for the capital city of Djanguraj.

  Kytun Kholin Dom, that true friend and mighty warrior, greeted me with quick and affectionate happiness. He grasped my single apim right hand in his two djang right hands, and with his upper left hand he clapped me on the shoulder, and with his lower left he punched me in the stomach with the abandon of reunion. I punched him back, for these things mean much, and then turned to see the Pallan Ortyg Coper hustling in, his gerbil-like face twitching, squeaking his excitement.

  “We saw you off in the voller, Dray,” he said. “And, now, here you are back again! Lahal and Lahal! Welcome indeed!"

  Before I had time to greet him I was engulfed by a squeaking and crying mass and there was Sinkie, Ortyg's little wife, kissing and sobbing and vowing that, by all the flowers of Djanduin, she was the happiest woman alive to see me again.

  Well, you can imagine, we had a reunion, and my friends who were in the capital came hurrying into the palace and that night we enjoyed a sumptuous feast. The country prospered. Wise government by my regent, the Pallan O. Fellin Coper, backed by firm and fair authority of K. Kholin Dorn, ensured that the ravages of the civil wars were being repaired. After my sojourn on Earth, to come back to Kregen in such style as this! It all seemed too marvelously perfect for me—except that Delia was not at my side. The desire to see her again overpowered me. But there was work still to be done in Djanduin. And as I was so relatively near to Migladrin, I could fly there and see if our work was bearing good fruits. So, in due order, these three things were done by me...

  The news of Kregen rushed upon me in a great nostalgic flood of remembrances. But there were new and uneasy signs abroad. I was told that the supply of vollers had dried up. Hamal refused to sell any further examples of fliers to anyone. Hyrklana, that island realm which was the second chief supplier of fliers, was now able to see profit in selling to Hamal, its deadly rival. I wondered what Queen Fahia of Hyrklana was about, selling to her enemies, but guessed she needed every last ob she could scrape up for the glory of her Arena in Huringa.

  All the rumors, the uneasy speculations, had their center of origin in Hamal.

  As Kytun said, drinking in his luxuriant way: “Those cramphs of Hamal are at the bottom of it, Dray! They are power-mad. With all their laws you'd think they'd have more sense."

  “It is true,” said Ortyg, brushing his beautiful white whiskers. “Their path of conquest seems to be ordained to them by their Havil the Green. They are spreading south of the River Os—"

  “Oh, Ortyg, dear, they have been doing that for seasons!"

  “Yes, wife, yes. But they are now striking west over the mountains—and Zodjuin the Stux knows what they'll find there—and also are attacking South Pandahem."

  These things I knew.

  But then, very gravely, Kytun said: “They have taken most of South Pandahem. That is the last information.” Pandahem, the large island northwest of the continent of Havilfar, is split into north and south by mountains. I sat up as Kytun went on: “They are now invading Yumapan, in the far west of Pandahem. It is certain they will swing north into Lome—"

  “Iyam lies east of Lome,” I said. “And then Menaham—The Bloody Menahem!—and if I know them and their rulers they'll seek to conclude an alliance.” I frowned. I knew these countries, and I knew that to the east of Menaham lay the country of Tomboram. The damned Hamalians could bring in troops by sea or air to hit Tomboram from the east as their victorious armies, with The Bloody Menahem as allies, swept in from the west. Well, all that would take time. I had my job to do in Hamal, which was now of even greater importance.

  I knew people of Tomboram. I knew Pando, the boy Kov of Bormark, and his mother, Tilda the Beautiful, Tilda of the Many Veils. I would not stand idly by if they were attacked.[4]

  [4 See Swordships of Scorpio, Dray Prescot #4. [A.B.A.]]

  So, and not without a sense of desolation at what evils the price of friendship in high places can bring to the simplest soldier, I made cunning question of my Djang friends. Would they fight the Hamalians if I were to ask it, fight them on behalf of a boy Kov and his mother in far Pandahem? It was obscene of me to suggest this; and yet I knew with a heavy heart there would be much fighting before Kregen was made a world where a mother need not fear for her daughter, a father not fear for his son, where the slavers and the power maniacs had been banished. In this, no concern for the requirements of the Star Lords or the Savanti swayed me; this was necessary if those parts of Kregen I loved were not to be overrun and enslaved.

  For North Pandahem lies perilously close to Vallia.

  Vallia and Pandahem were enemies, through forces which were as much ironically stupid as through any other rational reason, for their maritime and colonial and economic rivalries could be adjusted given compassion and tolerance, and even though I was Prince Majister of Vallia, still I would fight for Pandahem against an outside invader. This might bring the two islands closer together in concern. I would like that. The Hamalians would not sell vollers to Pandahem. Was that because they wished to keep from them this means of aerial warfare, and, thus weakened, be easy meat for invasion and conquest? But then—Hamal was now refusing to sell Vollers to Vallia, a traditional market.

  This, surely, was the preliminary to attack!

  “You look thoughtful, Dray,” said my chief minister and now my regent, Pallan O. Fellin Coper. “Djangs are a bloodthirsty lot, as you know. I am a civilian and I—"

  “Aye, Ortyg!” said Kytun, lifting his flagon. “You leave the fighting to us! And very sensible that is, to be sure. Dray,” he said, and he quaffed and set the emptied goblet down. “Djangs survive only by fighting well. If you have enemies we will fight them—aye! Even beyond the Ice Floes of Sicce!"

  “Good Kytun, I don't think we need to go there, just yet."

  I had discovered what I had already known to be true. These fearsome Djangs would fight for me, if they clearly saw my cause was just. I had little doubt that could be made plain. Deliberately, I steered the conversation away.

  In the high-arched banqueting hall of my Palace of Illustrious Ornament in sprawling, arcaded, windy Djanguraj, the noise of laughter and singing brought aching memories of nights of carousing in the high fortress of Esser Rarioch overlooking Valkanium. It brought memories of those luminous nights with my clansmen on the Great Plains of Segesthes under the seven moons of Kregen. And, too, and with an especially keen nostalgia, it brought flooding back vivid memories of roistering away in Sanurkazz on the inner sea with my two favorite rascals, my two oar comrades, Nath and Zolta.

  Ah! Time is a relentless monster that devours us all.

  And sometimes the thought of a thousand years is insupportable to me, and then I think of Delia, and I know the thousand years will be all too short...

  So I turned the conversation and I talked of affording better protection to our northern shore against slaving raids from Loh. I had at that time never been to Loh save for a short stop at Seg's country, Erthyrdrin, when I had thought him dead ... I would go there, one day.

  “We are still a long way from the kind of land we would like to see,” O. Fellin Coper said, and we plunged into discussions of ways and means and where the money was coming from and all the problems of managing a country.

  Oh, yes, I acted the part of the King of Djanduin, and, as is the way of these things, acting was not necessary. At this time on Kregen the lands of Strombor, Valka, and Djanduin meant most to me, for the peoples of those lands looked to me not only as their l
eader and the man who would guide them and devote his life to them, but mostly, I like to think, because they regarded me as their friend. I do not make friends easily. I had been blessed and doubly blessed on Kregen with true friends ... I had also picked up a few enemies on the way. A goodly number of those were dead, and of those who remained there were some who were to do me great mischief, as you shall hear...

  Because I was the King of Djanduin there was no difficulty in finding me a flier in which to travel to Migladrin. Any guilt I might have felt about depriving my country—a country, remember, of which I was a relatively new king—of a precious voller was more than overcome by the attitude of the Pallan of the Vollers, who would have taken amiss a decision to fly to Migladrin astride a flutduin. The Pallan of the Flyers—an office created by me to foster the breeding of first-class strains of birds—kicked a trifle; but he could see that long journeys went faster with vollers than with flyers. I sorted out a few last-minute problems and took my leave. At the last moment it was decided that a small group of Djangs, of both racial stocks, would accompany me to establish friendly relations with the Miglas. This suited me very well. I was now consciously beginning that wide-ranging system of establishing friendly relations between the various countries of this continental grouping. Of this I will have much more to say later. For now I flew to Migladrin, saw old Mog—called Mog the Mighty—and met my friends there again. Then, leaving the Djangs to diplomacy, I took off for Valka.

  All this high-level politicking was intensely interesting, but I hungered to hold Delia in my arms again.

  In Valka I was greeted like some hero returning home, which embarrassed me mightily. After the junketings, which, you may well imagine, went on for a long time and embraced a continual round of banquets and feasts and entertainments, I had to confess to Delia, rather miserably, that I had failed.