Rebel of Antares

by Alan Burt Akers

  Instantly, before any of them could reach down to grasp me, I was rolling. Like a bundled-up heap of laundry I rolled over and over across the stone floor. The internal torturers were at work. They inserted a red-hot needle into every joint and muscle, they trailed white-hot streams of agony through my veins. Still I had to keep on rolling. I hit the pot of boiling oil. It tipped. It overturned. Boiling oil foamed out in a broad flood. That was useful. In the abrupt yelling and shrieking, it was not yet enough. On I went, shaking and trembling, feeling as though I were being stretched out on the rack and being turned inside out on that fiendish device, on and toward the braziers. Slaves ran.

  A black-clad tormentor jumped in the way, raking down to grab me. I hit him in the knees and he staggered and fell into a brazier. He screamed. Burning coals flew. The next brazier could be hooked over with a foot which felt nothing — there’d be a burn there the size of three deldys — and I had a wooden handle of a red-hot iron in my grip. I swung it about like a sword, and already I was beginning to overcome the cramps and the constrictions and the fresh surge of blood. I felt like a single scarlet bloom of agony, but I was getting back into action. The red-hot iron cleared a space.

  The bedlam rang and boomed confusing echoes in the dungeon. Dungeons are called chundrogs on Kregen. Chun means jaws, and my jaws were tightly clenched so that their ache struck through as a welcome relief to the torments tying me up in knots. I caught a torturer an almighty thwack across the face with the red-hot iron and, branded, he shrieked and fell away. Others were running up, but I was getting back to being myself again. It was quick, thanks to the Krozair Disciplines. Without those I would have been a mere mewling bundle of agony writhing on the floor.

  Fahia went nowhere these latter days without her guards. Now they clattered down from the observation area. They’d settle my hash too damn quick — if Fahia let them. The chances were she would order them to take me alive, for later attention. I slashed about and ran and dodged, clumsily, looking for the way out.

  The boiling oil held up the guards. Fahia was shrieking at them: “Hurry, you rasts! Seize him up! Oh, my heart, my insides!” And then, in a veritable scream: “No! Babb! Do not go down to face him — he is a wild leem, a monster — Babb! Come back here!”

  “I’ll pull his insides out, mother—”

  “He will chew you up and not spit out the pips! Babb! I am your mother and the queen! Do not go down!”

  The red-hot iron went sizzling through a torturer’s eyeball and I yanked it out and slashed away at another, and sent the pack of them running. I was becoming a little heated. There had to be a way out of this foul place. I saw Fahia, leaning on the shoulders of two of her courtiers. Her face was ghastly. Smoke lifted and the place smelled of oil and stink, and I jumped aside with something like my old agility as crossbowmen loosed.

  The bolts whistled past. Everybody was shouting. The guards ran on. I whirled the iron which was cooling and blinked away sweat. Where was the confounded exit?

  Up behind the observation area a door opened. It was opened from the other side. That, then, was my way out. I started to run for it, skipping past the edges of the spreading pool of oil. A man appeared in the doorway. He held a small earthenware pot. He threw the pot. It arched in the air, trailing smoke, and landed full among Fahia’s guards. It burst. Fire vomited forth.

  I looked up.

  “Norhan the Flame!”

  “Chaadur! Over here!”

  Other men ran down into the dungeon from the doorway, kaidurs, men of the silver sand, men running with skilled weapons to destroy the queen’s guards and those with her. She was screaming and screaming and nothing, it would seem, would stop her. Babb went down with a stux through his guts.

  Frandu the Franch cut the wizard’s head off. It was a quick and clever blow. The head bounced amid the feet of the slave damsels, and they shrieked and cowered away. It rolled among the black neemus and they devoured it, hissing and chomping. The great golden-bound book of power tumbled in a flutter of dried pages from the wizard’s hands. So much for Fahia’s hopes of sorcerous aid, stilled and stillborn by a Fristle’s sword!

  These courtiers in their silks and jewels had mocked and laughed as kaidurs bled and died. They paid gold to their mercenary guards to beat and humiliate the men of the silver sand. The kaidurs did not spare courtiers or guards. As for the neemus, golden-eyed, pricked of ear, they died, every one, struck through by stuxes hurled by experts. The damsels in their gauzes and pearls were not slain, being but poor deluded slaves, chattels just like the fighters of the Jikhorkdun. The dungeon fell to a sudden and eerie silence. I ran up to Frandu, who picked up the golden-bound book and shut it quickly. Smoke hung laced with the smell of charred flesh. The oil bubbled quietly.

  Norhan came back with his sack of pots and his wicks and flame equipment and looked at Frandu and then at the dead wizard.

  “He’s headless!”

  “Aye,” said Frandu. “From the neck up.”

  “Well,” I said, most unkindly, “it would be wise not to look into his eyes, which the neemus spat out, even though they had no head and the head no body.”

  Then the babble of reunions took place. The rebellion had begun and the kaidurs were running wild through the city. Ordinary citizens had retired to their houses and shops and barricaded them to await the outcome of the revolution.

  “And our people outside?”

  “They have begun their attack. We are assisting from within.” Hundal the Oivon sweated the good news out. “We came to see what had happened to you. Our fanshos are fighting the mercenaries, and Cleitar Adria leads them on. The rasts are caught between two forces now.”

  “Then we will go up and help our comrades.”

  I looked about before we left. The dungeon presented a welcome sight with overturned and smashed torture equipment and dead tormentors in their black clothes lying twisted here and there. I gave thanks to Zair and Opaz and Djan that I had been spared.

  Norhan the Flame said, “I thank Sarkalak we got here in time, Chaadur — although you had them worried; you had them worried.”

  As we went up through the chill stone corridors, Frandu laughed and stroked his whiskers and said, “Oh, we were much too smart for them.”

  Huringa roared to the skies with the noise of combat. We hurried to join the kaidurs who had attacked the mercenaries from the rear, and I was minded of my thoughts about dropping airborne troops here if we wished to take this city. Instead of warriors flying down astride saddle birds, or jumping from airboats, we had struck with a force already within the city, pent-up, trained, expert with arms and passionate with hatred for their oppressors.

  Vollers-sailed up against the brilliance of the sky, and we learned they carried the regiment of Hamalese. Those professional fighting men of Hamal knew when a battle was lost. Let the Hyrklese fight it out among themselves, the swods of the iron legion would have said, by Krun, let them kill themselves off so there are fewer to resist when we return. I wondered if their conduct would have been different if they’d known Vallia had taken a hand in this struggle.

  Sandwiched between two forces and yet still fighting bravely, the mercenaries were worn down and hemmed in and, finally, forced to throw down their arms. There was a certain amount of revenge killing, but our chiefs, acting on the most stringent orders from the Princess Lildra, managed to restrain indiscriminate butchery. The paktuns might take service with Lildra, or leave Hyrklana.

  The battle was over, our two forces met and the rejoicings began. The celebrations would thunder on for days.

  Jaezila and Jaidur were safe, as were most of the chiefs. Nath the Retributor had taken a trifling wound, and Hardur Mortiljid had broken three swords in the fighting. Orlan beamed as his dreams began to be realized, and Princess Lildra was radiant. I asked after Gochert, the one-eyed man of mystery, and was told he had left the city after Vad Noran’s failure, fearing he might be taken up as an accomplice. Of course, it had been Jaezila who had betraye
d Noran. I could see that now, and the way she had attempted to save Tyfar and me, and would have, but for that damned stupid net. As for Ariane nal Amklana, it was rumored she had flown to Hamal to throw herself at the feet of the Empress Thyllis.

  “Much good that will do her,” said Jaezila.

  “It is not over yet.”

  “No, it is not,” said Jaidur. “But it is a beginning!”

  I said, “Where is Queen Fahia?”

  Huringa was searched, the high fortress of the Hakal, the villas of her adherents, everywhere. She was not found. Those of her pet neemus not slain in the dungeon, penned in luxury in one of her high palaces, looked sleek and well-fed. Well, it was a thought, and an interesting one. A brooch was found in the pen, a brooch slaves swore was Fahia’s. But, for all that, no one in all Kregen ever saw Queen Fahia of Hyrklana again.

  Chapter twenty

  A Wedding and a Promise

  The high fortress of the Hakal in Huringa contained within its grim walls a palace of splendor and magnificence. I stood on a costly carpet of Walfarg weave and I said, “You may be desperately in love and willing to consign the world to oblivion to satisfy your passion, but you are not getting married without your mother present.”

  “But—”

  “And there are no buts about it, Jaidur!”

  “Queen Lildra—”

  “She has not been crowned yet. But that is beside the point. Your mother didn’t even know your sister Velia was married until after she was dead. D’you think I’ll let you get married and not have your mother share in the joyous day?”

  “Father—”

  “Now, Jai, do listen,” said Jaezila. “Look, I’ll fly back home and tell mother.”

  “It might,” I said, “be more becoming for Jaidur to fly himself and tell his mother he is going to be married.”

  Jaidur’s nostrils pinched in. Jaezila looked at me and laughed. I stared back, no doubt wearing that grim old face of mine that, seemingly, had no power to arouse resentment in Jaezila.

  “You said you wouldn’t tell your children what to do or order them about, father. Well?”

  I breathed hard. We’d won a resounding victory, the rebellion had been a triumph. Queen Fahia was gone no one knew where, and I doubted many cared. Prince Babb was dead. The wizards had fled the country. We were going to see that Lildra was properly crowned and seated on the throne and then we were going to turn our undivided attention on Hamal and mad Empress Thyllis. All this we would do. But here and now, my concern was for Delia. It was unthinkable to me that she should be deprived of the day of her son’s wedding. And I’d said so.

  About to state what seemed to be an obvious fact, that I was not ordering my lad about but merely pointing out to him what was seemly conduct, I was interrupted.

  Lildra stepped forward. Jaidur watched her with the simmering violence of a volcano about to erupt.

  “Majister,” she said to me in her firm voice, “you are right and yet you are wrong. Jaidur owes love and respect to his mother, but it is we who are to live our lives together. We wish to begin aright, but we cannot allow the past to rule us.”

  That seemed fair enough, by Vox. But, all the same... Delia’s half-brother, Vomanus, who had always seemed to us to be a feckless adventurer, had married in what amounted to secrecy. Valona, who was not Valona the Claw, was Vomanus’s daughter. That explained the nagging feeling I’d had that she reminded me of someone I knew. But Delia had been — for her — put out that Vomanus had not told us of his wedding. If her own son Jaidur acted in what was to me a thoughtless fashion, then Delia would be hurt. And I couldn’t allow that, if it was possible to prevent that damage.

  I said so.

  In the end the marriage was postponed for long enough for a fast flier to reach Vallia and return. I could well understand the urgency. The Queen of Hyrklana had to be seen to be firmly seated on the throne, and a powerful husband as king would give the added reassurance. There would be other factions besides ours still in the field. Vad Noran, for one. I wondered how he would view his new sovereign, and if he would take up arms against her. If he did — by Harg! — I’d chop him finer than best mincemeat. At least, that is what I said to Lildra, in reassurance.

  Finishing the discussion, there in that sumptuous chamber in the palace of the high fortress of the Hakal, I said, “It is settled. I will fly to Vallia and tell the empress myself. I think she will put aside whatever is afoot to attend your wedding, Jaidur. But if she is absent about business for the Sisters of the Rose—”

  “That will be all right.” Jaezila spoke firmly. “I will come with you, Jak — father — oh, by Vox! Jak it is going to be.”

  That pleased me. We made quick preparations for the trip, choosing a voller of speed and comfort. “At least she will not break down, as the Hamalian vollers do,” I said. We had still not settled that score with Hamal; now that we had Hyrklana as an ally we had circumvented that problem. The rankle remained.

  Among the many urgent tasks to be done in Hyrklana, two very close to my heart would be extraordinarily difficult to deal with. I was a guest in this country. I had no power. All I could do was trust that Jaidur would carry out, not just my wishes, but actions I considered necessary and actions suited to the son of the Emperor of Vallia — even if those actions might not be regarded as expected of a King of Hyrklana. The young devil would find out a little of what being a king meant, then. I thrust aside the contemptible thought, that Jaidur’s ascension to the throne, where he would co-reign with Lildra, might transform him into a tyrant. Zair forfend!

  Quick and practical, Jaezila organized the flier and we took off for Vallia. I did not much like leaving Hyrklana at this moment, when rival factions might seek to oust Lildra before she was even crowned, but I was determined that Delia should be at her son’s wedding. The voller was sleek and fast and superbly equipped, for she had come from Fahia’s private flierdrome and was accounted a zorca of the skies. We flew for Vondium.

  The reception was tumultuous. I will make no attempt to describe the crowded events of that brief visit. Suffice it to say that before I realized it I was up to my eyebrows in work — as usual. This time I had no intention of being waylaid by affairs of state. My return to Hyrklana was an affair of state. Let my pallans chew on that, by Vox! That a whole retinue of people should elect to accompany Delia, Jaezila and me seemed only natural.

  Delia, after a first quick flash of an emotion I could identify and did not mention, was enraptured at the idea of Jaidur being married.

  “He’s always been a wild young tearaway. Marriage should steady him — although he has been splendid in doing what he has for the Sisters of the Rose.”

  “There are dark debts still outstanding...”

  “I hate to think of them, but yes, my heart, there are...”

  “It is in my mind that Vallia is entering a great period of prosperity. Our comrades do well everywhere.”

  “The whole island will be reunited soon. Events move on apace.” Then she laughed and I felt the world give its topsy-turvy tug at my heart. “And another thing, Dray Prescot. Lela tells me you informed her you were married to some woman or other called Thylda. Well, husband, what have you to say to that?”

  I groaned. “By Zair! You had to find out!”

  Then, for a space, we shut out the grim world of Kregen and devoted ourselves to each other, and, later, Delia stretched like a drowsy cat before a fire, purring, and said, “Anyway, Thylda is not such a bad name, after all.”

  When we went down to the voller, Unmok the Nets limped up, out of the watching throngs. He cradled his middle left stump. He looked happy if a trifle dazed. He had been treated famously.

  “So, Jak the Shot, your secret was a secret after all.”

  “Unmok! You Och rascal — and what are you doing now?”

  It turned out he was, as he put it, “Still looking around.”

  I laughed. He looked surprised that I could laugh like that. I glanced at Delia. “Un
mok will astonish us all one day, when he has decided what he will do in life.”

  Unmok made his peculiar Och grimace. “There is a nice little bangles and beads shop in the Kyro of Drak the Munificent I have seen. But also, I have been offered a part interest in a fancy mazilla silk works. As Ochenshum is my witness, I am not sure—”

  “Well, just remember we are still partners.”

  “Partners! With the Emperor of Vallia?”

  “Of course. I may be only a hairy apim, but I do not forget my debts.” We talked for a space and then it was time to leave and we moved toward the voller. Unmok yelled the remberees.

  Delia smiled. “I find Unmok absolutely charming!”

  How gloriously superb she looked! Radiant, glowing, absolutely wonderful, the most fascinating, clever, willful, shrewd, the most absolute woman in two worlds. And she said to me as we walked toward the voller, “I’ve missed you, my heart. And now Jaidur is off and running. Drak manages things well. I own to no qualms for him. And Dayra—”

  “Ros the Claw.”

  “Aye, Ros the Claw. Those villains she calls friends have been in hiding, lying low. But we have not heard the last of them. And now, you have told me nothing about this Princess Lildra.”

  “I told you of Princess Lilah, her mother, and the manhounds. Lildra is — rather nice. There is a lot she does not know, owing to her peculiar education and upbringing—”

  “She gets on with Lela?”

  Jaezila, our daughter Lela, walked ahead of us, swinging along in her russet leathers, her rapier cocked up, her brown hair brilliant in the lights of the suns. I nodded. “Yes. They get along famously.”

  “And do you think Lildra—?”

  I laughed. We observed the fantamyrrh climbing into the airboat. And I laughed. “Silly woflo! She will love you as all men and women love you.”

  Delia turned to look at the half-ruined palace spread out beneath us and the proud city of Vondium below. She sighed.

  “I do hope so, Dray. I really do hope so.”