Avenger of Antares [Dray Prescot #10]

by Alan Burt Akers

  What could I say?

  I do not make friends lightly. I value those I have.

  I gently pressed his shoulder back to the pillow. I stared down into his lion-face.

  “I will go, Rees. I will tear the rast to pieces if necessary."

  “Saffi..."

  So, I had to say it.

  “I will bring Saffi home, Rees, safe and sound, if she lives.” Then I saw the pain in his eyes, and so I added quickly: “She does live, Rees. Believe in that."

  He nodded and a last whisper came from him just before Larghos thrust in the Notor Zan needle that would put him into a deep sleep. “I trust you, old fellow. Saffi..."

  I stepped back from the bed.

  I had given my word. I would break my word to Lem the Silver Leem, to an overlord of Magdag. But not to Rees, not to a friend.

  Tonight I was to go to seek Ornol, and in some foul dopa den bribe him to the secret Vallia would need. I had perjured myself in this fresh promise. Delia would understand and forgive me, but I would not forgive myself. What was the life of the daughter of an enemy of Vallia worth? Nothing? Nothing!

  This brilliant golden beauty, Saffi—she was Hamalian. I owed my loyalty and devotion to my Delia, to her father the emperor, and to my lands of Valka and Vallia. If I failed, and the Hamalians attacked Valka, and all my wonderful island was laid in black ruins...? Would not the ravished land, the widows and orphans, all shriek aloud to Opaz for just vengeance upon me?

  But—Rees was a friend and I had given my word.

  Perhaps there was yet a way. Hamal might yet have her hand stayed by events. There might yet be time. So I tried to convince myself as I went to the room allotted to me in Rees's villa.

  I donned my old scarlet breechclout. Over that I drew a dark blue shirt and a pair of dark blue trousers. I strapped on Delia's rapier and dagger. I hung a quiver of terchicks over my right shoulder, the small and deadly throwing knives snugged to hand. On my right hip went the ever-faithful sailor's knife. Then I swathed my gray cape about the whole and went out—and had to return to put on my Hamalese boots. I am accustomed when hunting to go barefoot.

  Rashi sat by her husband's bedside and I did not disturb her. I saw Roban. What could I say? Contenting myself with all that could be said, bidding him lift up his chin and stop crying and remember he was now and for a time the head of the household, I gave him a fine left-hand dagger, which I had brought from my room with this in mind.

  “Roban. Now you must become a man.” He was only twelve. I had seen young Pando, at ten, so I knew. Had I not myself served in the horrific conditions of a powder monkey? “Take this dagger. Protect your mother and your father. If all goes well I shall return before the suns rise."

  “Yes, Hamun,” he said. His words were like flat stones beneath a calsany cart. I turned, my cloak flaring, and left.

  I knew where Vad Garnath lived.

  I am no great believer in revenge. It saps the spirit of a man. But, equally, I am no believer in the slaying of seventeen-year-old young men and the kidnapping of their beautiful seventeen-year-old sisters.

  Garnath's opulent villa lay in darkness save for one window, shuttered and bolted, through the chinks of which showed the harsh light of an oil lamp. I forced the bolt. I smashed the window. I leaped through.

  A gray-haired old crone met me, screaming, her wrinkled face working. She wore a night-robe, and she thought I brought her death.

  “Listen to me, old woman. Where is the Vad?"

  She could not speak for a moment. Then: “Gone, master, gone!"

  “Aye, I know that. The villa is in darkness and there are no guards."

  “There are werstings in the grounds."

  “I saw none.” I glared at her. “But if I see them when I go they will be dead. Now, tell me. Where is the Vad?"

  “I do not know, master! He is gone, gone!"

  She was half paralyzed by fear. I said: “Have you seen anything of a Numim girl brought here?"

  She shook her head, but by that gesture I saw she lied. I shook her, gently, for I feared that she would break to pieces.

  “Where did they take the Numim girl?"

  She hesitated, and then burst out: “The Vad took her with him. She was bound. She wept."

  “She wept,” I said. My anger was horrible, even to me.

  But I saw this poor old crone knew no more. There were no guards left, which meant Garnath trusted to the werstings to protect his property. The watch would also keep an eye out, as they did under the laws. There was nothing more here. I went back. On the way I was forced to slay a wersting. I kicked the black-and-white-striped carcass out of the way and ran swiftly into the shadows. Above me floated She of the Veils, casting sharp and pink-rimmed shadows in the moonlight.

  The blood thumped through my body. By Zim-Zair! It had been too long since I had indulged in exercise of this kind. But there was a gorgeous Numim girl to be saved, and a foul Vad to be dealt with. I had no time to exult. The dismal truth was that I had no clue whatsoever. Saffi could have been taken anywhere, for a girl of her beauty would find a ready market anywhere in Havilfar.

  An acquaintance of Vad Garnath's might know where the rast had taken himself off to. Even if he had had the girl sold by an agent, I would choke him until he told me the name.

  The streets of Ruathytu lay golden and pink under the moon. Soon the Maiden with the Many Smiles would lift above the horizon and pour her golden light down along the waters of the River Havilthytus. People glanced at me as I passed; they must have seen enough of my face not to offer to halt me. No sounds of beasts or howling slaves reached me as I pulled the ornate bronze bellpull at Elten Nath's door. I hammered and banged, and drew my dagger and clanged and clattered the heavy steel wrap-over guard against the iron-headed nails studding the lenken door.

  A sleepy slave with a lamp opened the inspection grille.

  “Open quickly, man of little sense! Open quickly that I may not tell Elten Nath of your mischief and your insolence!"

  But he wasn't going to open the door on that bluster.

  “The master sleeps, Notor. Go away!"

  There just was not time to argue. There was no time, either, to smash the door down. Every mur I delayed meant that Saffi was being taken farther and farther into degradation and slavery. I ran around the side of the building and a patrolling Rapa, attracted by the uproar, had the misfortune to appear and the greater misfortune to go to sleep standing up. I did not ease him to the ground, but ran on. The first feasible window I came across would have to do. It was narrow and barred. I took the bars in my fists and bunched my muscles, compressing all the blocky power of my back that had pulled an oar in a damned Magdaggian swifter, and I wrenched. The bars did not bend. They ripped shatteringly from their stone sockets. Into the window I went and through the room into the corridor where half a dozen lamps showed me doors and the layout. To find the bed chamber of Nath na Maharlad was the work of throwing open every door until I looked in on a naked girl half draped across a bed, her silver chains in the style called nohnam, her silks flowing upon the carpet. The Elten Nath lay asleep. In his night attire his pudginess was revealed by the swell of his stomach. His thin, lank hair lay untidily upon his skull, and his flabby lips were parted as he snored. I took him around the throat beneath the lowest of his chins and lifted him up and shook him.

  His eyelids snapped up.

  I let him see my face.

  I loosened my grip and I said: “Tell me where Vad Garnath is or you are a dead man."

  “You maniac!” he started. But I squeezed and his eyes popped. I released him a little and he said, choking, “I do not know!"

  A flutter of movement at my side caught the tail of my eye. I half turned. The Chail Sheom, her shoulders naked, her chains glittering in the samphron lamp's gleam, was about to plunge a curved jeweled dagger into my side. With the old defender's kick I let her have the side of my foot across the throat. She catapulted across the room and lay still. I looked back
at the Elten.

  “If you wish to die I will accommodate you, Nath. Tell me: where is Garnath?"

  “You are crazed, mad, Hamun! Let me breathe, for the sake of Lem—for sweet Havil's sake!"

  So, given the opening, I said in a voice I forced into a solemn tone: “It is vitally important I find Garnath, in the name of he of the silver flanks."

  “Let my throat go, you onker! I will tell you all I know. For the sweet silver sake of Lem. Hamun! My throat!"

  I let my constricting fingers loosen.

  “May Ghoomshah the Lubricious moisten my throat, Hamun! You have a grip like a jiklo!” Unsteadily, Elten Nath reached across the bed for a silver goblet on a side table, poured himself wine. I let him. He drank, making wet slobbering sounds, swallowing convulsively. He eyed me. “If you have done Gilda a mischief"—he nodded at the girl, collapsed in her chains, her hair falling about her naked shoulders—"I will charge you."

  “Send the bill, Nath, but, for the sake of the Silver Lem himself, where is Vad Garnath?"

  He worked his throat muscles. “I do not know.” He winced back automatically. “I swear it! Is this Lem's business?"

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You are not of our lodge, Hamun. Vad Garnath as Hyr-Majister has ingress and privileges over many of the lodges of Ruathytu."

  “Yes,” I said again. “But where is he now?"

  The impression came over me, sinkingly, that this fat Elten was not lying. “I do not know, Hamun. He mentioned a business deal, he mentioned a trip into the country, yes, that is true. Also, he mentioned Rosil na Morcray. You know, Hamun, the Chuktar Strom—"

  “Yes, yes, I know that Kataki. Tell me, Nath!"

  “I do not know! They are gone—the Vad and the Chuktar Strom, together. They did not confide in me."

  As I decided that this fat lump had nothing to tell me my face lost all semblance of the inanity that had characterized it as Hamun ham Farthytu.

  “By Lem!” whispered the Elten Nath of Maharlad. “You look a very devil! Do you seek the Vad to slay him?"

  Common sense came back.

  “No. It is on Lem's business.” Then, thinking he might know more, I added: “I am not of your lodge, Nath, being from the Lodge of the Thoth. But it is important for you to tell me."

  He shook his head. I had to swallow my disappointment.

  “I will let myself out of the front door, Nath.” He contented himself with a nod and a grunt and began to get out of the bed to see about his slave girl, Gilda. This house, like many built in the sacred quarter, was possessed of windows onto the street. Many, instead of having a blank outer wall, contained arcades of shops along the outer walls, which the wealthy occupants of the villas let out to guls. This system paid good dividends all around. Now I padded to the door. The doorman, unnerved, I think, by my apparently nervous habit of half-drawing the rapier and thunking it back into the scabbard, rapidly unbolted and unbarred the door. I walked out into the pink-lit night.

  I might as well have done nothing for all the good I had done in chasing after Saffi, the golden lion-maid. The truth of the matter was, I was a completely useless get-onker. As the Gdoinye, the golden and scarlet raptor of the Star Lords would shriek offensively down at me, I was a stupid onker of onkers, and deserved all the misery I laid up in store for myself. There can be no worse feeling, I imagine, than this sense of self-insignificance, in the world of ordinary emotions. Had hubris at last given me my death blow?

  Who can say where the thought came from? I do not think the Savanti had anything to do with it. Perhaps the Star Lords sent the stray thought into my blockheaded skull, to save me from myself and so preserve my miserable carcass for their future requirements upon Kregen; in any case, the thought ghosted in.

  On the instant I went haring through the alleyways, rushing headlong, not caring what the passersby might care to think.

  Memories of that mad dash back to Rees's house remain vague. A sense of urgency bloated me, the feeling that I would fail if I did not exert the last breath in my body. I recall a stocky, gorgeously clad noble, arrogant with self-importance, failing to get out of my way in time. Somehow the fool tumbled head over heels, amid the yells of his retainers, into one of the sunken cesspits whose cover, alas for the wretch, splintered under the impact of his gross body. I do not think any one of his party followed me. At least my rapier blade was not fouled with blood.

  I entered Rees's house in a whirl, and Rashi, the tears dried upon her cheeks, and Roban, manfully clutching the main-gauche I had given him, and the slaves, walking small, looked at me in alarm.

  Jiktar Horan, Rees's guard commander, had just returned—to horror. He tried to get some sense out of me, and I began to put pieces together from what he told me. Jiktar Horan and a strong party of his men—lion-men all—had been decoyed away on a pretext, and the guard thus reduced had no chance against Vad Garnath's stikitches (assassins). From Horan I learned something that redoubled, if that were possible, the anger consuming me. Rees's own guards had gone on an errand similar to that when they had rescued me earlier, answering Nulty's desperate plea. And Rees had said nothing! He had not reproached me! Clearly, he must have realized far too late it had been a trick. The anger that consumed me—how natural it must have been at the time, how human, and yet, looking back, how futile and shameful a thing it was.

  I spoke rationally, as I thought, to Rashi. “Give me a small garment of Saffi's."

  She thought a moment, then stammered, “A scarf, Hamun? One of Saffi's scarves?"

  “Excellent, Rashi. I will take it now."

  They all jumped as I said the word “now"—yet I thought I spoke most gently.

  The scarf slipped sensually into my hands, sensil, that superfine form of silk, and with golden threads artfully woven into it so that it glittered. I tucked it down into my old scarlet breechclout, under my shirt.

  They all clamored to know if I had found Saffi or a clue, and I said, again rationally, that I had not, but that I would find out before Far and Havil rose in the sky in the morning.

  Then, with my weapons about me, I raced into the moonshot darkness. I headed directly for the massive pile of the palace on its artificial island in its artificial lake in the River Havilthytus. Directly for the queen's palace of Hammabi el Lamma I ran, and I felt no sorrow for any who sought to bar my way.

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A golden scarf serves destiny

  The moons of Kregen cast down their pink-gold light upon the uprearing many-pinnacled bulk of Hammabi el Lamma. A soft night wind whispered among the towers and eaves, and ruffled the ocher waters of the River Havilthytus. I stared with intemperate and yet, thankfully, still calculating eyes upon the night scene along the waterfront. Most of Ruathytu's commerce is carried on at night, with the huge, overloaded quoffa carts bringing in the produce of the countryside and taking out the refuse. Gangs of slaves work by the light of the moons repairing roads and bridges, cleaning the streets, seeing to it that when Far and Havil rise and cast down that glorious opaline radiance of the Suns of Scorpio the city is sweet and clean for the day—as demanded by the laws of Hamal.

  I gripped my rapier hilt. In that evil palace ruled by the iron hand of tyranny lay the answer to my quest. The evil was certain, for Queen Thyllis ruled here. The answer was not so certain, and I begged Zair for help in my search. Nothing was certain, save that I must break into the palace before anything else might be done.

  You who have listened to these tapes will by now have a fair-to-middling grasp of the layout of Ruathytu, and will know that not a single bridge connected the artificial island of the palace of Hammabi el Lamma to either bank of the river.

  The rulers of Ruathytu preferred this system. A riotous mob would be put to some pains to take boats and row to attack the palace, whereas they would easily stream, shouting and raving, across the stones of a bridge.

  Gangs of slaves in the gray slave breechclouts worked here; but easy though it might
have been for me to have exchanged my clothes for theirs, and disguised myself and joined them, I did not want to enter the palace unarmed and disadvantaged.

  With a quick thought to Zair—and, to be truthful, to Opaz and Djan, too—I lowered myself noiselessly and without a ripple into the water. I swam gently across the Havilthytus out of observation, to land on the island at its westerly point. Water dribbled from me as I cautiously prowled along the rocky foreshore, half in water, half hopping from rock to rock, to make my way to the wicket gate from which King Doghamrei had had his lackey Derson Ob-Eye carry me, drugged, to what both thought would be my death.

  The wicket was closed fast.

  “By the Black Chunkrah!” I said viciously. “I'll rouse some rast within, else sink me!"

  The Hamalese boots slung about my neck for the swim and the clamber along the rocks thudded against the door. After a bit I pulled them on and then kicked the door, hard.

  “Come on! Come on!” I bellowed.

  The night scent of moon-blooms wafted down from dirt-filled crevices in the rocks. The water at my back gurgled and splashed as it ran past to the sea. The moons shed light enough to see the raised venous wood of the door, and the iron bolt-heads, lacquered against rust. I kicked again, shouting.

  The door groaned.

  This postern was heavily defended by murdering holes let into the overhang of rock above. A crack of light shafted out past the edge of the door. I took the lenk into my hands and pulled. The cautiously pushing guard gasped as he was yanked forward by the door.

  “Rast!” I bellowed, swirling my cape. “Must the Queen's merker wait for offal like you?"

  He cringed. The torch quivered in his hand, producing distorted shadows.

  “I crave indulgence, Notor—” he began.

  “You will hear more of this, onker,” I said, and I strode past. I made of my words and of my striding imperious gestures, for this was the way I planned to return and I must impress the guard.

  I brushed past him, seeing the thraxter naked in his right hand, the torch uplifted in his left. Over the slimy stones I strode where I had once waited, drugged and paralyzed, for King Doghamrei to give his last evil orders to Derson Ob-Eye. Up the flang-infested corridors, where streamers like Spanish moss caught and clung, I barged on with absolute confidence until I rounded a corner of the stairs. Then I paused to consider. I had only the vaguest idea of directions. A merker, as you know, is a Kregan messenger who travels swiftly through the air astride a fluttclepper or volclepper. It was not too outrageous for such a one to use this quiet postern gate. If the guard gave a thought to the absence of a saddle-bird and my wet clothes he would put two and two together and snigger at the thought I had fallen off into the river.