“There!” screeched Oby, pointing, the wind in his hair.
A collection of yellow-green onion domes rose from the edge of an inlet. Ships lay moored and signs of activity from what were clearly dockyards showed that these people kept themselves busy, an impression heightened by the size of the town strung along the water's edge. The low yellow fortress guarding the mouth of the inlet was not lost upon us. These folk trafficked upon the sea, and yet they built defenses. We all thought we knew for whom those stout walls had been built.
The Akhram stood aloof from these mundane pursuits, the cluster of onion domes glistening in the limpid air.
How far we had come! Right to the edge of the known world—over it, for all we had previously known of these foreign parts. Where one might have expected to discover an uncouth half-savage people, it was clear there was wealth down there, industry and commerce—and, for sure, a deal of loot from the coasts of Havilfar, including Djanduin.
I had argued with my friends and overborne them.
Delia said: “But I should go with you! I have been to Aphrasöe before. Therefore—"
“Therefore you will stay here, with the fleet."
She pouted at me, making a mockery of my heavy-handedness. But I would not be swayed. I had brought a fleet and a large body of fighting men, for that is the best way to travel on Kregen when you are in a hurry and will meet foes—and carry a bedridden, dying emperor. The very best way, of course, is alone, like a savage clansman in hunting leathers—and, truly, better even than that, is just the two of you, just the two, alone in the whole wide world of Kregen...
So I would not be swayed now. Nath the Needle said he dare not leave the emperor. The poison wasting away the once stalwart frame was insidious, and any cure that might once have been possible was long since too late, by far. All he could do was administer what antidote he could. Every bur the emperor had to take a teaspoonful of the nauseating mixture Nath prepared, swallowing it down past clenched teeth we had gently to prise open with silver levers. Also, acupuncture needles had to be used, carefully inserted in the right nodes and along the correct lines to ease the increasing pain. I had studied assiduously with Nath the Needle as well as other eminent doctors to discover all I could of the arcane mysteries of the needleman's art. I could insert a needle now and know with sure certainty that it would do the work intended.
Making preparations as the fleet hovered over the Akhram, I gave my last instructions. “I go alone and hope to win through with gold and peaceful talk. If I am not back within three burs then, Seg and Inch, you'd better fly down and see what is keeping me. I trust you will bring a few sturdy fellows with you, and, as well, leave another pack of sky-leems up here to guard our return."
They nodded. They were not joking, even if I tended to treat this whole escapade as just that. They didn't like me jaunting off by myself. Even I had to admit that that was because they cared for my leathery old hide, and not, as I dearly loved to believe, because they fancied I was hogging all the action.
All my experiences on Kregen so far indicated that the Todalpheme were quiet, studious, peace-loving men who wished only to get on with their tasks of tracking the course of the moons and the suns and of predicting the tides. They kept up a force of brown-clad workpeople who were not slave, superintended by the Oblifanters, answerable directly to the Todalpheme. The Oblifanters and their work force were not cloaked by the universal acceptance of the sanctity of the Todalpheme. They might be entrapped, made slave, killed. So they were a rougher bunch. Their methods of work I had seen at the Dam of Days.
The voller spun away and I was lunging for the cluster of greenish-yellow onion domes within the long walls.
While it is not true to say that one Akhram is very much like another, they must all share a deal in common as to the purpose of their architecture. They each possess an observatory and a library and a refectory. As I expected, after a wait, I was shown into a small room where Akhram would see me. Gold, even among the Todalpheme, sometimes eases the way. But the Todalpheme welcome students visiting them, and within the framework of their vital occupations will delight in conversation with visitors, seeing that they are usually cut off from normal human intercourse. As a rule they lead solitary lives, at one with the waves and the winds and the tides. I anticipated only the problem of convincing the Todalpheme of Bet-Aqsa that I was genuinely in need of secret information.
Some thought had been taken as to my dress.
To go with the orange favors of the Djangs would be to excite instant suspicion if not hostility. To go as a Vallian would mean little, except to create wariness almost as much as a Hamalian. Finally I donned a simple short russet-colored tunic, edged with a deep yellow, belted with lesten hide and a great golden buckle—petty ostentation, this last, but designed with a purpose. A rapier and dagger swung at my sides and the old longsword jutted up over my shoulder. I hung a long white cloak around my shoulders, clear of the hilt of the longsword, and fastened off the bronzen zhantil-head clips. The unworldly combination should provoke interest, at the least.
“And are you a prince, dom?” said Akhram, coming into the chamber and sitting down. He was a fat and fleshy man, with pursed lips despite the fat jowliness of his cheeks, and pouchy eyes. I did not like the sound of that “dom” which is common among ordinary folk as a greeting name, and among friends as a mark of affection. For the first time I felt unease, that I had blundered.
“That is not of importance.” I put to him the reason for my visit. I opened the lesten-hide bag and showed him the contents. As I did this I watched his eyes. My hackles rose. He was a Todalpheme; I do not deny him that. And, also, I knew there was much and much I did not know about Kregen. But he was like no other Todalpheme, least of all an Akhram, that I had met before.
“Pretty baubles,” he said, lifting the golden chains. But his face betrayed far different emotions from his words.
“All yours, Excellency.” I used the word deliberately. “The man is very sick. Only the Savanti can cure him."
He looked up quickly, the golden chain swinging from his soft plump ringers. “So you know their name? The brothers grow careless. And you have come far?"
“A goodly way.” I pushed the heavy bag nearer. “Tell me where lies Aphrasöe and these are yours and I will leave at once."
No strangeness afflicted me as I considered what I said, what I demanded. The search for information had upheld me for long periods of my life upon Kregen. It was a secret I had hungered for, suffered for, something I had thought meant more to me than anything else in two worlds. Paradise! I had been thrown out of the paradise that was Aphrasöe, the Swinging City. I had asked and asked and always to no avail, and then real life had taken me in and the Swinging City had dimmed. And now, here I was, calmly offering gold to buy the secret. Weird!
So the strangeness of it all did affect me, after all.
“I think, dom,” said this Akhram, touching his lips, which shone, moist in the lights through the open windows. “I think the bag of treasure is mine, whether I give you the secret or not."
“How so?"
“We do not impart this to everyone who asks. It is a high trust placed in our hands."
Again, I blundered.
“I do not believe that. You came by the information by chance—"
“Do not presume!” He flared at me, shaking already with an anger he did little to control. This Todalpheme showed a petty emotion. “We have sent our men before. Good men. In vollers that cost a great deal of money in far Havilfar."
By saying “far” Havilfar, he sought to entrap me into some kind of reaction by which he might judge my place of origin.
Stony-faced, I said: “I need the information and I need it in a hurry. I do not quarrel with anything you say of your acquisition or trust of the secret. The man is like to die. You will tell me."
“And if I will not?"
I put my hand on the bag.
He sneered. “We have sent brothers to Aphr
asöe and often they do not return. Gold will not buy their lives."
“I do not ask any escort."
Then he said the revealing thing I had sensed and which had caused my blundering, my stiff-necked talk.
“No,” he said. “No, we are not as other Todalpheme."
He wore a fine sensil robe of yellow. His thick waist was girded by a scarlet rope. He was, in truth, one of the Scarlet-Roped Todalpheme, men I had sought over the face of Kregen. And now I had found one of that brotherhood and he was proving two-faced, obstinate, greedy, attempting to cheat and defraud me, attempting, also, to browbeat me.
He reached out a hand and touched the bag of treasure.
“I think this is mine, already. I think you had best be gone before worse befalls you."
I said: “Do you consider yourself sacrosanct?"
His astonishment was genuine.
His eyes glittered through abruptly down-drawn lids. Yet he answered obliquely. “You wear swords, dom.” He paused. His use of the word dom continued to offend me. I saw quite clearly in it a patronizing sneer; dom is the word between friends for friend, or the kindly word indicating no hostility. Except, of course, when it is used in irony, and then the circumstances are perfectly plain. There are subtleties in the use of words. Here, this Akhram was baiting me. Why? He thought he could take the treasure and kick me out. He had guards, powerful armed men at call.
He put his hands together and continued, heavily. “You wear swords. Only a madman would offer violence to a Todalpheme."
Yes, on occasion I am mad. But I was not as yet mad enough to risk everything on a cheap retort, something like: “I am mad, dom, mad enough to do your business for you if you do not speak up—quick!"
Instead, I said: “What impediment is there to telling me? Surely the gold is not all there is to it?"
He hesitated again at this. I can judge time passably well. The three burs were drifting away through the glass.
“We have been warned by the Savanti. They do not relish strangers visiting them."
This sounded likely. I remembered the vexation with which Maspero, my tutor, had greeted the arrival of the flier carrying Delia. With her had been three yellow-robed, scarlet-roped men—and they had all three been dead.
He leaned forward. “Perhaps, if you told me the name and identity of the sick man...?"
Now it was my turn to pause. Information. The Todalpheme were avaricious for news of all kinds. A mistake now—in all sober truth the fate of Vallia trembled on what I said, hung there, stark and brutal before me.
I said: “It is the Emperor of Vallia."
“Ah.” He pushed back in his carved chair and smiled. He glanced at the bag of treasure. “One bag of gold is an insult."
“So that is it. You are greedy."
He flushed. “Take care, rast, lest you regret hasty words."
All I had learned as a good Kregan warred within me with myself. I have a nature. My nature has to be quashed. The Todalpheme are sacrosanct; no sane man will raise a hand against them. But what of tradition, what of the truth of the question when a great empire may run red with blood? Where lay my duty now?
He watched me slyly. He saw the twitch of my hand toward the rapier hilt. He smiled wetly. “The fate of a man who raises a hand against a Todalpheme is awful—awful."
Was my just punishment if I violated the basic tenet of this solemn Kregan belief worthy payment for saving the life of an emperor, of preventing the torrents of blood that would follow? Would my Delia thank me for destroying myself in saving her father?
The decision was mine.
* * *
Chapter Ten
"In Aphrasöe You Will Find Only Death!"
Everything so far had gone with such amazing ease I should have been warned. Khokkak the Meddler should have been heeded. Trip the Thwarter should have been propitiated. We had spirited the emperor away from his would-be murderers. We had arrested the insidious work of the poison so that he still lived. We had tracked down the clues and found our way here to where the secret would be told. And now we were thwarted by this cunning, greedy, deceitful onker of a man.
He was after the gold, surely, and information, and he did not intend to let me leave alive, I fancied.
What could I say to move him in a spirit of conciliation?
If it was a mere matter of gold...
“If you require gold, then you must know it is yours for the asking. Vallia will pour out her treasures for the life of her emperor."
“Yet you bring one miserable bag."
The answer to that was easy.
“It is but an earnest."
“Ah!” The avariciousness in him was plain now, plain and ugly and degrading. “How soon can you bring more? Much more?"
“As soon as the emperor is well—"
“Not good enough."
“There is no time to be lost. You have my word."
“Words are cheap among the canaille.” He used another word; but that is what he meant. I kept my seat. For the moment I had postponed the decision that would destroy me.
“What more do you want of me—treasure—?"
“You could start by showing proper respect and by calling me master, or san, or Akhram."
I nodded. I'd have to force the words out as a constipated man forces himself; but for the sake of Vallia I'd eat humble pie. And, not really for Vallia. For my Delia...
“Listen to me, Akhram. Tell me plain. I can have as much gold as you can imagine brought to you. But it must be clear to you that it is not with me now. Yet the emperor must be treated at once.” Then I put a little snap into my words. “If you do not tell me and the emperor dies, you will get nothing."
He put a hand to his mouth at this, pondering the truth.
I gave him no chance to bluster on. I blustered a trifle myself. “Take the gold we have. Save the emperor. Then you will have the reward of a good deed well done, besides the treasure.” I leaned a little closer and my hand dropped to the rapier hilt. “You say you are not as other Todalpheme, and I see that to be true. You have threatened to kill me. But I am not as other men of Kregen. A Todalpheme has little respect from me if he does not act as a Todalpheme is expected to act. If the emperor dies, I think you may die, also."
He started up, pushing away from the table, his heavy face red, from shock or indignation or fear, I did not know and didn't damned well care. I had made no conscious decision; I still sought to sway him with words, even if the words were brutal and barbed and vicious.
“I am sacrosanct!"
I ignored him and he sat down, shaking his hands falling from my sight beneath the table edge. “You know of Vallia. I am aware of that. You know that Vallia has beaten the Empire of Hamal. I do not think you would relish a great armada from Vallia wreaking just vengeance on you."
He had regained his composure. “You would not find the swods or the officers who would lay a hand on a Todalpheme!” He sneered the words, getting his courage back, vicious.
So I saw the answer.
I stood up and glared down on him and all the old intemperate evil power must have flooded into my face, for he started back in his chair, unable to rise, all his new-found bravado fled.
“Listen to me, Akhram! If you do not instantly tell me where we may find the Savanti and so save our emperor, then a great armada will come from Vallia. They will not attack the Akhram. They will leave the Todalpheme alone. But they will utterly destroy your island of Bet-Aqsa. All your people will be slain or enslaved—save a few. Save a few who will know why this calamity has fallen on them. They will bear hatred in their hearts for those who caused their destruction. Who do you think will receive that enmity? Whom will they blame for the calamity that will have fallen on them? Who by refusing to help a sick and dying man wrought such terrible retribution upon the heads of an innocent people?"
I glowered down, hard, horrible, hateful. “Think on, Akhram. Your people will refuse to work for you, to support you. They may not kil
l you; but they will not lift a finger to help you. What will your life be like then? Think on, old man, and be quick about it."
He pointed a trembling finger at me. “You—you devil!"
“Aye! Believe it. And tell me."
“There will be a reckoning ... But I will instruct my people. Your emperor must be blindfolded and we will take him—"
About to bellow a vicious: “No! We will take him!” I paused. I had pushed. There would be another way, now, than that of violence, which I abhor.
“The doctor cannot leave his side."
“Our doctors can attend him."
“Then ready your flier and hurry."
The commotion that broke outside the door made my lips rick back. The cunning leem probably had a bell-push hidden beneath his chair. Various combinations of rings gave his instructions. Even an onker could guess what he had rung his minions and his guards for.
“You have boasted and threatened, cramph.” His heavy flushed face ran sweat. He descended to insults, also, which is not the way of your true Todalpheme of Kregen. He had waited his time, and now: “Now it is my turn! My people will deal with you utterly. You are alone and although you wear swords I do not think you will stand against my Oblifanters and their swods. Whatever the truth of your story, no one in the whole world will ever see you or hear of you again."
“You make a mistake."
“My mistake was in listening to you. Yetch!” He was suddenly shaking in a paroxysm of fresh rage, bloated, purple, rising to confront me. “You dare to threaten me! Calling yourself a devil! Should the Empire of Vallia lay waste to the whole of Bet-Aqsa and the stupid canaille refuse to bring their offerings to the Akhram and to work for us, why do you think that would concern me? Do you think there are no other places I might go? An Akhram? Sacrosanct?"
“The Ice Floes of Sicce for one."
“Now my people are here—listen to them and the clink of their steel. You are doomed, rast, and I shall spit; but not on your grave, for no mortal man will know where that is."
Savage Scorpio [Dray Prescot #16] Page 11
