Secret Scorpio [Dray Prescot #15]

by Alan Burt Akers

  Without attempting to imply any false modesty, it seemed to me they were anxious to get me out of the coming conflict because they feared my influence. They must have some apprehension of what I could do. Otherwise the terms would not have been so generous. Whether or not they'd keep their side of the bargain would be in the laps of the gods.

  Had I been acting only for myself, for the old impetuous Dray Prescot who thumped before he thought, I'd have roared out some obscene suggestion at them and then gone swinging into action. I felt a keen regret that I could not do this. I needed the exercise. But more than mere gratification of my injured ego hung on this. The fate of Vallia depended to a very great deal on what was decided here in this conservatory. It was in my interest to appear to go along with them, giving them rope, so that I might more surely bring them down into ruin.

  So I said, “Let me think about this. There is the Princess Majestrix to be considered."

  Ered Imlien burst out with: “Do not worry your head over her, you onker. The Princess Dayra occupies her mind."

  Furious, Natyzha Famphreon rose from her wicker chair. “Speak not of things of which you know nothing, you fambly!” She would have gone on. But I took a few steps toward this Ered Imlien and clutched up his buff tunic in my fist and shook his head a little and I glared into his eyes.

  “But you had best speak to me, rast! And quickly!"

  * * *

  Fifteen

  Of Natyzha Famphreon's chavonths, and her son

  “Speak up, cramph!” I loosed my grip a little and some air flowed down with a great whooping gasp into his lungs. His face was a bright purple, like a rotten gregarian. He wheezed. I thought his eyes might roll out of his head. So I shook him again, just to keep him in the right frame of mind.

  He choked out: “The Princess Dayra, she is nothing more than a—"

  I hit him before he could say whatever he was going to say.

  I suppose I was oversensitive about my daughters because I had held my Velia in my arms as she died. I could never forget that—what father could? So I hit him again and said, “Speak carefully, Imlien, speak very carefully."

  “I do not know!” he blubbered out, his face already beginning to swell, a trickle of blood down his chin from a split lip. “I hear only that she—"

  “Careful!"

  “She runs wild! I cannot tell more for I do not know!"

  I became aware of the conservatory again, and of the others frozen in postures of horror. The Chuliks had trotted out from behind their glass screen, their weapons ready, and the kovneva waved them down. If they wanted a fight, by Vox! I was in the mood now, right enough, to my shame.

  “He speaks the truth, Dray Prescot! No one knows what your daughter Dayra is up to. That is where the Princess Majestrix has gone. More than that no woman knows."

  I let Ered Imlien fall to the floor. I glared at the kovneva. “You are not of the Sisters of the Rose?"

  She drew that gorgeous body up and her lean crone-like face sharpened. “No."

  She made no offer to tell me which order owned her allegiance. I did not ask. She would not have said if she did not wish to.

  “It seems,” I said, “that if we make a deal I shall have to watch this lump of offal."

  “I will answer for him. He is a trylon. Thengelsax is too close to the northeast for his comfort. His estates are raided. He is foolish only in his concern for his estates."

  “And his people?"

  “They fight for him as is their duty."

  The idea that Dayra had something to do with the raids from those hard folk of the northeast crossed my mind. But it seemed too preposterous. And, anyway, was not all the island one? Was not Vallia Vallia? Perhaps there were no raids at all, and this was an invention of this miserable Ered Imlien to his own dark ends. I looked at him. He was drawing himself up and quite automatically reaching out for his riding crop. If he'd attempted to hit me with it I hadn't noticed. But it was broken in half. Had I done that?

  “You have shamed me, Prince,” he said, and the words gritted out through his teeth.

  “Not so, Imlien. Not so. You have shamed yourself."

  “One day—"

  “Ered! Keep silence!” Natyzha Famphreon glowered on the miserable trylon and Ered Imlien turned away, muttering, but he kept silence as far as I was concerned.

  To the kovneva I spoke and I admit with some trepidation. I was astounded at the quality of my voice. It hardly sounded like the bull-headed, vicious, intemperate Dray Prescot I knew.

  “And can you tell me nothing more about my daughter?"

  She shook her head. I thought, but could not be sure, that a dark gleam of triumph crossed those arrogant features.

  “Nothing more is known."

  There was nothing more I could find out. Whatever it was that Delia had gone to sort out, I could only hope that she and Melow would be successful and return swiftly to me.

  They had to be successful! We had lost one daughter. We could not bear to face the anguish of the loss of another.

  I forced myself to calm down. I could trust my Delia. She was supremely competent in these matters. I had a job to do here and that I must do. There was one other matter I wished to discuss before I left here, either walking out with all due civility, battling my way out with the Krozair brand in my fists or carried out feet first.

  So I smashed myself out of that fearful frame of mind. One must, as they say on Kregen, accept the needle.

  “We have ranked our deldars in this matter of the emperor,” I said. “And we agree I shall think on it. Tell me, Natyzha Famphreon, what know you of the Black Feathers?"

  Her arrogant old head went up at this. She started to walk between lines of potted plants, twirling the green fronds. We all walked with her, although Ered Imlien kept well clear of me. The onker was swishing his broken half of the riding crop about and trying to bash his boot and hitting his knee, whereat I was minded to laugh.

  “The Black Feathers? Ah, you have heard of them?"

  I said in a nasty voice, “If I had not heard of them I would scarcely be able to ask you."

  She had the self-consciousness to flush up at this, at my suggestion, at my tone. She snapped a twig from a sweet little loomin, and twitched the flower about, not gently.

  “The provinces are full of rumors. Nothing certain is known, as nothing is certain about anything in this life."

  “The provinces, but Vondium?"

  “I gave orders to my crebents of my estates to root out the priests. They did not catch one. Here in Vondium I have heard nothing.” Then the sly old besom glanced at me and drew the mauve and white flowers down her cheek. “Perhaps you, Prince Majister, are of the Chyyanists?"

  “I have no time for slallyfanting in this, kovneva. I too have attempted to root out the evil and now, I think, it is time for stronger measures. You are aware of the creed preached by the priests of the Great Chyyan?"

  She flicked the flower. “I care not. They are not of Opaz and therefore are damned beyond redemption."

  Had this old biddy been a commoner she would undoubtedly have formed one of the people in the long chanting processions that wound through Vondium. “Oolie Opaz! Oolie Opaz!” they chanted, up and down, singsong after singsong cadence. “Oo-lie O-paz! Oo-lie O-paz!” On and on and on.

  “I know they wish to break our heads and take all that is ours,” said Nalgre Sultant. He looked vicious and mean, a very natural expression for him. “Red revolution! Aye! That is what these Chyyanists want."

  I did not think these nobles had penetrated as far as we had in discovering details of the Chyyanists. I pondered. It might be advisable to tell them more than they already knew. I detested the racters. They had the power and the money. The Chyyanists wanted to take that money and with it the power, in the here and now. Those ends were admirable, in one sense, if they could be achieved reasonably. But red revolution is not reasonable and I have had a hand in more than one red revolution. Once you start to sweep away t
he old, the process can get out of hand. If Vallia ran red with blood from any cause, I would sorrow. And I did not believe the designs of Makfaril were simple honest revolution. How, once a little power is put into your hands, the evil and corruption grow!

  So I told them what we had discovered. They took these revelations seriously. They would. They were experienced people with much at stake.

  “Then the Chyyanists present a present threat.” The kovneva had stopped twiddling with her flower. “Once the temple is brought to Vondium and the priests begin to suborn the masses ... Slaves too, I hear, are sometimes present in the congregations."

  “They aim to enslave the racters,” I said with some satisfaction.

  “That has been tried before and was ruthlessly put down. Once the temple is erected in Vondium the evil will gain a greater hold. We must watch every entrance and stop these priests. The idol you describe is not an easy thing to move."

  “I'll get my men down to the docks,” said the kov, the kovneva's son, and we all turned to look at him, shocked, as though a ghost had spoken.

  “Yes, my son.” The kovneva spoke in a soothing tone. “You do that"

  No real surprise could be felt by me that these highly placed nobles should know of the Chyyanists. This kind of information would flow into their bureaus all the time. Now they would take more concern over the Black Feathers. This all added up. It all made sense. But I was banished from Vondium. I said, “I am banished from Vondium. I shall leave now, unless you have any other ideas, and see what I can do in the provinces. I am concerned over the Great Chyyan.” I had told them that Hamal could be the basis of the new creed, but they indicated that did not signify. They'd smash Hamal when the time came. Even Nath Ulverswan was almost reconciled to that view. The main threat, as they saw it, was against themselves.

  There was no point in my telling them that my chief concern, a concern almost approaching a guilty anguish, was for the poor deluded people who believed this evil creed and imagined they might indulge in all the goodness of Kregen, at once, in the here and now. These noble racters would never comprehend that point of view.

  Further talk and a little more bargaining more or less sealed the compact in the view of the racters. If they suspected I merely toyed with them, for I was scrupulous in not giving my word, they did not reveal it. If I was going to have to fight my way out, that, too, did not appear on the surface. The Chuliks had gone, dismissed by a wave of the kovneva's hand. We walked through the farther recesses of the conservatory. It was a remarkable place. Cages had been positioned about in which were kept examples of many kinds of wild animals, so the place was also a miniature zoo.

  I said, “We are now talking in circles. I will leave.” I gave a hitch to the cloak and brought the hat up ready to clap it on my head. I was ready, also, to whip out longbow or longsword and swirl the cloak back out of the way for action.

  On the way in here I'd observed the fantamyrrh as was proper. It occurred to me I might not be in the mood to observe it on the way out.

  Intrigue and dark secrets flourished here as the exotic plants flourished in their heated glass houses. The passions and the feral viciousness here were scarcely matched by the savage beasts penned in their cages.

  A number of the kovneva's Chail Sheom, her pretty little slave girls in their silks and bangles and silver chains, trailed after her carrying her fan and her perfumes and the gewgaws inseparable from a great lady of high rank. Two hulking fellows carried her chair. I had given these slaves a casual glance and saw their hangdog expressions. They brightened up with smiles and laughs when the kovneva looked at them, which is the way of slaves. It sickened me.

  Now, as we stood there with the intrigues between us and the secret passions held down, as we made our plans and no doubt made alternative plans to deal more effectively each with the other, so the realization struck through to me that I, that same Dray Prescot who had so ruthlessly driven the slavers from Valka and had fought them over the fair surface of Kregen, was in reality standing here and plotting with Zair-forsaken slave masters and slave profiteers.

  I moved away, gripping the hat, stood by a cage in which a graint shambled upright to grip the bars. The others moved with me and I didn't give a damn if they saw my face and guessed my thoughts. At that moment I'd have cheerfully seen them all consigned to the Ice Floes of Sicce.

  A scattering screech and a ripping, tearing, chopped-off scream from the cages we had just passed brought us all around to stare upon a scene of horror.

  Two feral beasts leaped from the blood-streaming wreckage of a half-naked slave girl to smash a second away with a splintered skull and to spring on two more. The beasts were chavonths. Past them I saw the two chair men running. Someone had deliberately opened the cage. Someone who hated the Dowager Kovneva Natyzha Famphreon had released these savage killer beasts upon us.

  The scene etched itself on my brain. The parallel lines of cages with their heavy iron bars. The maddened beasts within, scenting freshly spilled blood, joined in the savage chorus. The slave girls huddled, naked arms upraised, silks splashed with blood, feathers and fans and jewels spilling across the floor. The chavonths chewed up their victims and turned, their muzzles smeared, to glare with venomous fury upon us.

  And the nobles, these racters, screamed and clawed and ran past me screeching their fear, to find their way blocked by a stout iron grille at the end of the row of cages. Whoever had planned this had schemed well. I fancied the chair men were the culprits. They had run free, arguing a pre-knowledge. But they had so arranged affairs that the chavonths penned us in against iron bars. We were the caged, the chavonths the masters now!

  Chavonths are known as treacherous beasts. They are six-legged hunting cats, powerful, and their fur is patterned in hexagons of blue, gray and black. Their fangs may not match those of a leem, their speed not equal that of a strigicaw, but they can smash a man's head in, their claws can disembowel a poor naked slave girl.

  Nalgre Sultant pushed past me and ran for the end of the alleyway and stood, shaking the iron bars that blocked him off, screaming, screaming. Ered Imlien swung away, his red bloated face green. Nath Ulverswan gripped the arm of Natyzha Famphreon and they stood, crouched with their backs to the bars, glaring with awful horror upon the death that snarled at them.

  The chinless nincompoop, Natyzha's son, Kov of Falkerdrin, stepped forward. He drew his rapier and main gauche. I could see the side of his face, see the sweat dripping there, the way his teeth caught his upper lip. His body trembled. But he stepped out before his mother and the twin blades he held caught the fireglass glow and gleamed.

  The dowager kovneva husked out a word. “Jikai!” she said.

  This would not be a Jikai—well, perhaps a little one—but it would prove to be highly instructive, that was for sure.

  I said, “This is not work for a rapier, kov."

  His voice panted. “That I know. But it is all the weapon I have, that and my dagger."

  I threw off the swathing buff cloak and unfastened the golden zhantil heads and tossed down the gold-laced crimson cape-cloak. Then I drew the Krozair longsword, for the time for bowmanship had passed. Seg might not have agreed, but I knew what I knew about the Krozair brand.

  “When they leap, Prince,” said this young kov, “do you take the left hand one and I—"

  “Give them no time to spring,” I said, and took the Krozair longsword's hilt into both my spread fists and so charged forward, swinging the brand up in a deadly arc of steel.

  Through all the hubbub I heard the gasps of horror at my back. What I looked like Zair alone knows. I hurtled forward. The chavonths had given me no time to smash forward to save the slaves; all were dead or fled. Everything had happened with shocked speed, a few heartbeats separating the first scream and the instant I sprang.

  This was what living on Kregen was all about, this horrific transformation, in an instant, from peaceful living to berserk toy, from graciousness to terror.

  This mu
st be done right the first time, and quick, damned quick...

  The two chavonths did not leap exactly together and so I was able to position and slash at the first. The gleaming blade of the longsword swept in that vicious chopping circle as my hands and wrists and forearms rolled over, and the muscles of my back ridged and extended and I felt all the old pull and power. The steel sliced through the chavonth's furred hide just above his left forequarter—his left foresixth—and I went with the blow and rolled away and the slashing claws razored past. A single roll brought me up and a single twist turned me and a single leap brought me from the side against the second chavonth. The Krozair brand licked out like a bar of blood. I drove it point first into the lean furry flank. A blue hexagon imploded. The onward rush of the great beast almost snatched the sword from me, but a Krozair knows how to hold onto a sword hilt. I gave a vicious twist and then withdraw, swirling the blade instantly into an overhand chop that crunched down on the chavonth's backbone just abaft his center pair of legs.

  The yelling shrieking of the wounded chavonths erupted in the iron-barred area, the stink of freshly spilled blood poured out in a warm effluvium. There was no time to stop. This beast was done for, although he spat and clawed futilely at the air and at his ruined back.

  The chinless kov was trying to get in at the first chavonth, trying to dart his slender rapier in past the wicked claws of its remaining legs. I hurled myself forward in a desperate rush and almost, almost I saved him completely.

  But a wickedly tipped claw swept in from the side and gashed all down his ribs and he shrieked and fell back and then I was on the chavonth and the terrible Krozair longsword rose and fell, rose and fell, and three blows took the poor chavonth's head clean off.