Prince of Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  They carried her, those men of mine, they carried her proudly as befitted a princess. And no princess in two worlds ever had so proud or gallant a party so to carry her. My men! They carried my Princess in triumph before me, and over all waved the old flag of mine, Old Superb, as men called that flag, waving in the streaming mingled light from the twin Suns of Scorpio.

  I heard Vomanus smother an exclamation. Then he and Seg were running, and in a twinkling they, too, were carrying that precious burden high before the Emperor of Vallia.

  That Emperor, that proud man, looked at me most uncertainly.

  “They shout a name, I think,” he said. “Do you not hear the name they shout, Strom Drak?”

  “Oh, aye, Majister, I hear.” I would not take my eyes off my Delia to stare at him.

  His voice reached me, whispering. “I am the Emperor, the Emperor of Vallia, the greatest power in Kregen.” He might believe that; I did not, not when Havilfar provided airboats and those mysterious ships raided up from the southern oceans. “I keep my word,” said Delia’s father. “And, in truth, I believed myself already dead, and the promise of no great value.”

  Delia was smiling at me. I stared back, entranced.

  “What promise was that?”

  “I said that if you rescued me I would make you Prince Majister, Strom Drak.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember.” I lifted my voice. I shouted to my men as they drew near bearing the dear form of my Princess. “Hai! Jikai!” And I hailed them, High Jikai, every one, by name.

  The High Jikai is not lightly given on Kregen.

  It came to me then in those tumultuous moments that nothing is purely perfect. There were two more faces I would fain have seen in that throng bearing so high and proudly my Delia, my Delia of Delphond. I would dearly have loved to see Nath and Zolta, my two oar-comrades, from far Sanurkazz. But that could not be, and I doubted not but that the Star Lords by their prior designs had thwarted that accomplishment, which would have been very great and wonderful indeed.

  The dinosaur-bone litter lowered. Then I saw how my Delia was dressed as the great yellow and red flag lofted away. She wore the scarlet breechclout of Strombor. And over her shoulders gleamed those magnificent silky white ling furs I had won for her on the Plains of Segesthes. Lithely, her long lissome legs very wonderful to behold, she stepped down from the litter and ran to me.

  My Delia, my Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue Mountains! She ran to me and threw herself into my arms and she was laughing, sobbing, and crying my name, over and over.

  “Hush, hush, my darling,” I said. “And tell me how you did it.”

  It was superbly simple. Her airboat had been driven by that westerly gale and sent wildly toward the east, so that any hopes of her summoning rescue from the Blue Mountains had vanished. So — she had flown on to Strombor! And in their regular visits during the season Hap Loder and my Clansmen of Felschraung and Longuelm had been there, also. They had scoured the whole of Zenicce for airboats, and by gold and thievery — and here Nath the Thief hopped about from leg to leg in his excitement — they had drummed up the great armada, and had flown here as though all the glaciers of the Ice Floes of Sicce were calving around their necks. They hadn’t bothered overmuch with food or drink, so as to cram every last fighting-man in, and now they were about to raid the rebels’ camp. “And, Dray, my puissant Lord of Strombor, I have been paying regular visits to Zenicce season by season. Great-Aunt Shusha and all the others send you their love.”

  “Sink me!” I said, laughing. “I have a managing female to contend with!” And I hugged her close.

  My men swaggered around us, for they knew the great Jikai they had performed, and as the song whose title I will not tell you says, great was the performance thereof.

  Then I stood her off from me and said: “Your father—”

  “I will treat him gently, Dray.”

  And I had feared and hesitated all this time!

  We stood before the Emperor of Vallia in his ragged robes, and at my back bristled the weapons and the colors of my men, victorious in battle. I said softly, “Kiss him, Delia, embrace him.”

  She did so. And, watching them, I saw the real affection there. Delia looked back at me from the crook of her father’s arm.

  “I heard a name, Strom Drak — Strom of Valka — a name . . .” the Emperor said.

  “Aye,” I said. “You ordered my head chopped off. Do you think that a great jest now, Majister?”

  He licked his lips. I believe that many men there expected me to order his head off, on the instant. That would have been the justice Kregen understands. Crude, violent; something I, not only for my own sins but for the purposes of the Savanti, wished to change.

  He walked with his daughter toward me. He slid a great ring from his finger. He held it out. His hand did not tremble.

  “By this ring you are now legally and heritably Prince of Vallia, Drak—”

  And Delia said with her brilliant laugh: “Call him by his name, Father dear. For this is Pur Dray Prescot, Krozair of Zy, Lord of Strombor, Zorcander of Felschraung and Longuelm, Strom of Valka — and what else besides I shouldn’t wonder. And, my father, know also that he is the man I shall marry, no matter if the whole of Kregen, let alone Vallia, stands in the way!”

  She had placed Krozair of Zy in the prime position. I know my Delia understood.

  “I am plain Dray Prescot,” I said. I took Delia’s hand. “And this is the woman who is my wife. We belong to each other.”

  He braced up. He was, after all, the Emperor.

  “Dray Prescot. Dray. You are, as far as I and Vallia are concerned, Prince Majister Dray. And” — he swallowed and his hand closed on the sacred emblem strung on a golden chain about his neck — “and you have my blessing, both of you.”

  The hullabaloo racketed skyward, enormous, booming, uproarious. “Hai! Jikai!” The swords flashed skyward, glittering, shining, a forest of flashing blades. “Hai, Dray Prescot, Prince Majister of Vallia!”

  Yes, they know how to do things with style in Kregen.

  The sacred ring, emblem of the Majister, flashed and scintillated on my finger. I detest rings; this would go with the ring of Valka, safely sealed away to perform its duties on the days set apart. I held my Delia and I could not let her go.

  Quietly, I spoke to the Emperor. “The third party has set Vallians against Vallians. But now that you are safe we can set about repairing the damage. I think Kov Furtway and Jenbar, no less than Trylon Larghos and the others, will fly for safety overseas. We can put Vallia back to rights.”

  And, I promised myself, with Delia’s help we’d eradicate the obscenity of slavery from the place. That would take time. But we would do it. Had that been the reason for the Star Lords’ manipulations of me?

  I looked up, but I could see neither the scarlet and golden raptor of the Star Lords, nor the white dove of the Savanti. They would make further appearances, this I knew, during my life on Kregen. The Savanti might have thrown me out of paradise, and I would now prosecute diligent inquiries to find the scarlet-roped Todalpheme who might show me the way back to Aphrasöe; they had also thrown me upon the mercy of the Star Lords. For how long would I remain a Prince of Vallia at the side of my Princess?

  I held her close. The wedding ceremony would be performed very soon. Korf Aighos whispered to me, and I laughed, and said to Delia: “Certain friends of ours discovered a king’s ransom in wedding presents hidden in a gorge in the Blue Mountains. They think it proper they should be given to you, my Princess.”

  We felt a stroke of sadness that Vektor, Kov of Aduimbrev, had died of heart failure occasioned through fear as he ran for the palisade of bones; but death is cheap on Kregen, and life is for the living. Those wedding presents were fit for a princess, so a princess should receive them.

  There was great feasting and great drinking beneath the Suns of Scorpio. Then we all took the airboats and flew for Vondium. I stood very close to Delia. How to believe that, at last,
we had won each other? I was hers as much as she was mine. She looked up into my eyes and searched my ugly old face, and she sighed, and snuggled closer to me.

  From the airboat floated the flags of Vallia and Prescot; the yellow saltire on the red ground, and the yellow cross on the red ground, and I saw what must be done with those.

  “Are you content, Dray, my darling?”

  “With you by my side, how could I not be?”

  “With all these old comrades, Hap Loder, Gloag, Prince Varden, with Inch and dear Seg and all the others, I believe you think of your two rascals, Nath and Zolta.”

  Delia had never met those two unlikely specimens, but she understood. “Aye,” I said. “And of Zorg, who is dead.”

  “Do not speak of death, Dray, not now! Now we have everything to live for! All of Vallia!”

  “Yes.” I hugged her and then said, “You did not mention Vomanus.”

  “No?” She looked around. “There should be no secrets between us. But this is a high state secret, so mind it! I think you believed Vomanus would marry me, was a rival, as those fool racters thought—”

  “Well, woman?”

  She chuckled, a silver tinkle of merriment against the swift passage of the flier.

  “Vomanus is the son of my mother, before she married my father. He is my half-brother.”

  “No wonder,” was all I could say. “He said Kovs were Kovs and Kovs to him!”

  She laughed again, and so we stood there, together, with my fighting-men at my back, sailing under the twin yellow and red flags, as we sailed beneath the twin Suns of Scorpio casting down their mingled opaz radiance, sailing for Vondium and marriage and happiness.

  I, Dray Prescot, of Earth, had found my home.

  A Note on Prescot’s Map of Part of Kregen

  The map of a part of Kregen, that cruel and beautiful planet four hundred light-years away under the Suns of Scorpio, appearing in this volume, number five, of the Saga of Prescot of Antares, presents a new and strange turn of events in the fascinating story of Dray Prescot. The paper appears to be a completely ordinary white bond, the outlines are drawn with a blue felt-nibbed pen, apparently freehand, and names and features are inserted in pencil. There is a red-lined border, and towns and cities are indicated by small red dots.

  Various distances and bearings Prescot has mentioned from time to time in his story are now supported by this map, and we are now able to grasp more fully at an understanding of the topography of this savage world and where his adventures have taken him. In the bottom right-hand corner appear the letters D. P. Krzy faintly written in pencil in an old-fashioned script.

  Dray Prescot is a man above medium height, with straight brown hair and brown eyes that are level and oddly dominating. His shoulders are immensely wide and there is about him an abrasive honesty, and a fearless courage. He moves like a great hunting cat, quiet and deadly. Born in 1775, he presents a picture of himself that, the more we learn of him, grows no less enigmatic.

  Through the machinations of the Savanti nal Aphrasöe, mortal but superhuman men dedicated to the aid of humanity, and of the Star Lords, he has been taken to Kregen many times. In his early years he rose to become Zorcander among the Clansmen of Segesthes, and Lord of Strombor in Zenicce, and then a member of the mystic and martial Order of Krozairs of Zy. During this period he was guided by the single purpose of making his way to Vallia and there claiming his beloved, Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains. Able to afford assistance to Pando, boy Kov of Bormark in Pandahem, Prescot was abruptly flung back to Earth in the moment of triumph. He passes over that stay on Earth with a few brief sentences and welcomes wholeheartedly the summons of the Scorpion once more. His thoughts are clearly fixed on Kregen, that savage and beautiful, marvelous and terrible world of headlong adventure. He takes up the story when he is once more summoned to plunge at once into new and chilling danger, and that is where Prince of Scorpio begins.

  This volume, Prince of Scorpio, then, brings to a satisfying conclusion the story contained in the first five books of the Saga of Prescot of Antares. The forthcoming volume, tentatively entitled Manhounds of Antares, begins a new cycle. I have taken the liberty of calling the first five books “The Delian Cycle,” and with the next volume we are launched on “The Havilfar Cycle.”

  I have worked up a glossary which, through the kindness of the Publisher, Donald A. Wollheim, who suggested it, is appended to this volume. This should prove of great value to all those who have — as I have myself — followed with such thrilling fascination the Saga of Prescot of Antares.

  Alan Burt Akers

  A Glossary of Persons, Places, and Things in the Saga of Prescot of Antares

  References to the previous Scorpio books are given as:

  TT: Transit to Scorpio

  SU: The Suns of Scorpio

  WA: Warrior of Scorpio

  SS: Swordships of Scorpio

  A

  Aduimbrev: A province of Vallia, of which Vektor was Kov.

  Aighos: A chieftain of the Blue Mountain Boys, nicknamed Korf.

  Akhram: A castle and observatory at the eastern end of the Grand Canal in which the Todalpheme of Akhram carry on their work.

  Angia, Kotera: Mother of Anko the Chisel.

  Anko the Chisel: Cabinet-maker rescued from the bagnio in Vondium.

  Aph, River: Great river down which Prescot sailed on his first visit to Kregen (TT).

  Aphrasöe: The Swinging City. Built among giant plant-forms in a lake on the River Aph and inhabited by the Savanti (TT).

  aragorn: Mercenary reavers and slavers.

  Archbold: A leader of any of the Orders of Chivalry dedicated to Zair.

  argenter: An oceangoing ship of Pandahem, broad and comfortable.

  Arkasson: A city in the Hostile Territories.

  Arkhebi, Hikdar: Captain of Katrin Rashumin’s airboat.

  Armipand: One of the devils in the pantheon of Pandahem.

  Askinard: A land famed for its spices.

  Atvar, Ark: A Jiktar of the Clan of Felschraung (TT).

  B

  balass: A wood similar to ebony, from which is made the balass stick, the title of authority of the petty overseers of the workers of Magdag.

  Bargom: Young Bargom, son of Old Bargom, a Valkan, proprietor of The Rose of Valka, an inn and posting house in Vondium.

  barynth: A large monster of great sinuousness and length, a hideous head, and four forward-grasping limbs.

  beng: A saint.

  benga: A female saint.

  Benga Deste: Hot springs and a place of pilgrimage in West Segesthes.

  Beng-Kishi: These famous bells are said to ring in the skull of anyone hit on the head. This happens frequently on Kregen.

  Berran: The Vadvar of Rifuji, an estate in Vallia.

  Black Chunkrah, By the: A clansman’s oath.

  Black Mountains: A range of lesser heights extending northward from the Blue Mountains.

  bloin: A cultivated crop plant with a tall brittle green stem from which the fruits hang like golden bells.

  Bloody Menahem, The: Name given by the Tomboramin to their neighbors of Menaham on Pandahem.

  Blue Mountain Boys: Ruffians, bandits, mountain men, dedicated to Delia, the Princess Majestrix.

  Blue Mountains: A small though lofty amphitheater-shaped mass of mountains in Western Vallia. The foothills and plain forming part of the province are famous for zorcamen and zorca-breeding. Delia’s inheritance.

  bokkertu: Legal business.

  Bold: A Krozair Brother, generally one serving permanently in any of the fortresses of the Orders.

  Borg, Ven, nal Ogier: A canalman of Vallia.

  Bormark: A Kovnate on the western border of Tomboram.

  bosk: A smaller form of vosk, a specialty of Valka.

  Bowmen of Loh, The: A notorious song.

  box: Small spined animal of the Segesthan plains.

  Brokelsh: A squat-bodied people with much black bristle body hair. bur: The Kregan
hour, approximately forty Terrestrial minutes.

  C

  calsany: A beast of burden.

  Can-thirda: Large island to the east of Vallia.

  Canticles of the Rose City, The: A myth-cycle at least three thousand years old concerning a half-legendary, half-historical man-god named Drak.

  Careless Repose: Renders’ hideout in the Hoboling Islands.

  cham: A juicy rubbery fruit much chewed by workers.

  chanks: Sharks of the inner sea.

  Chem: The central tropical rain forests of Loh.

  chemzite: A precious stone of great value.

  Chersonang: A city of the Hostile Territories in opposition to Hiclantung.

  Cherwangtung: Area of the Hostile Territories from which nocturnal primitives raid.

  Chuktar: Commander of ten thousand. Military ranks have become nonspecific on Kregen now and do not denote the actual number of men commanded. There are many and various subdivisions of the four main ranks.

  Chuliks: An extremely fierce and manlike race of people with oily yellow skin, the head shaved so as to leave a long pigtail, two three-inch-long tusks thrusting upward from the corners of the cruel mouth, and round black eyes. The training of the males from birth is designed to produce high-quality mercenary soldiers; they are employed all over Kregen and they generally command higher fees than other races.

  chunkrah: A very large cattle animal, deep-chested, horned, fierce, with a russet coat, the mainstay of the clansmen of Segesthes.

  clerketer: Leather harness attaching the rider to impiters or corths or other flying birds or animals of Turismond.

  Company of Friends: Organizations of nobles and businessmen for trade in Vallia.

  corth: Large saddle bird, splendidly marked in a variety of colors.

  cramph: Term of abuse.

  crested-korf: Large iridescent-blue-feathered bird of the Blue Mountains.

  crofermen: Men-beasts — savage, untamed, cruel, and suspicious — inhabiting the outer portions of The Stratemsk.