I said: “Ten, I think.”
It wasn’t a case of thinking; any bowman worth his salt knows how many shafts he has left in the quiver. But I didn’t want to be unkind.
“And there are thirteen of the shints left.”
“I don’t think they will continue to pursue if we reduce their numbers a trifle more.”
“You’re very damned confident, Drajak! I wonder your arm has the muscles to pull a bow.”
In all the uproar I’d forgotten I was supposed to be a weakling.
“It’s a knack, I suppose.”
So, of course, my next arrow missed.
“If,” she said, fairly spitting it out. “If those shints up ahead stopped and we all shot together—”
“We’d still have to come to handstrokes. And there’s Lunky.”
“And he can only think of Telsi. What a mess!”
“There’s no discredit in a man wanting to look after a woman,” I said, somewhat more tartly than I’d intended. “Nor a woman looking after a man. Even if the person being looked after somehow fancies it demeans their self-respect.” I felt the way her back went up; but she didn’t interrupt. “I don’t forget how you cared for me, pigeon.”
“And you don’t think I did that just because the Everoinye—?”
“No, I don’t. Oh, sure, the Everoinye tasked you with saving my skin. I think you’d have acted as you did in any case.”
Then she showed her spirit and my stupidity. In an even voice she said: “You’re getting maudlin, cabbage.”
My Val! And wasn’t she right!
I turned around, feeling her back against my side, and loosed a shaft with considerable venom. Another Glitch Rider hit the sand.
The folk up ahead were drawing steadily further and further away. A quick glance in their direction told me that and also showed me Lunky leaning around and looking back. As I swung back to let another shaft go at the devils pursuing us, Lunky seemed to me to wave his arms around. My arrow hit and I reached up for another shaft.
The whole desert tilted, the world of Kregen went upside down and around and around and I went up with it and came down smack and just managed to roll and break the violence of the fall.
Mevancy let out a muffled shriek. She landed on top of me.
Sand in my eyes and in my nostrils, sand clogging my mouth. I spat and clawed up. I shook my head and the famous old bells of Beng-Kishi clanged a single gong note in my skull. A furious swipe across my eyes and I could see the Glitch Riders roaring on, sand kicking away from their mounts’ hooves, their weapons glittering, their sand scarves streaming in the wind of their onrush. They looked a ferocious bunch. Mevancy rolled off me and struggled in the sand like a fish in a net. The longbow was not broken — thanks be to Opaz! — and I snatched it up and nocked a shaft.
One — two — three — and then it would be handstrokes.
In the event I managed to loose off four — and had a flashing notion that Seg would take delight in his old mocking way — and then it was time for handstrokes.
The longbow pitched into the sand. The leading rider leaned far forward over his mount’s ungainly neck, his spear held low. The point looked decidedly nasty.
Abruptly he reared up, shrieking. His face was a mask of blood. I caught a glimpse of Mevancy at my side, her arms extended before her. Her face, flushed with blood, held such a look of concentrated fear and loathing I began to feel a mite sorry for these importunate Glitchers. The following rider collided with the first and the wegeners sprawled sideways, sand spurting, and went down in a tangle of limbs.
There was no point in hanging about for the next one to get a clear run at us, so I let out a shrieking kind of yell, an incoherent screech, and leaped forward.
A fellow who wore a leather helmet under his riding hood tried to spit me and I slipped his spear, grabbed it with my left hand, jerked, and as he somersaulted out of the saddle, slit his throat.
Mevancy was yelling. “No, Lunky, no! Keep away!”
There was no time to see what the hell was going on there. I could guess, though, by Vox!
The next rider hauled up, and the wegener’s hooves slashed sand in a flat arc. He pulled away and started to gallop around to the side and I swiveled with him. As he did so the next in line hauled out to the other side. So that was to be the way of it!
They’d ride circle about us and shaft us as we stood. I might down some of those remaining; they’d get us in the end. It was quite clear these Glitchers came from a society that did not overvalue human life, their own or other peoples’. They’d kill Lunky and me and take the girl.
I stuck the sword in the sand and dragged up the long bow.
“Lunky! You fambly! You’ll be killed!” Mevancy sounded more cross than frightened now, so I guessed her reactions had settled down. She’d let rip with her bindles, the deadly darts from her forearms, and she’d got one of them; the others would stay out of her range.
Lunky said: “I could not ride off and see you slain, Mevancy.”
He came up and slid off his zorca. Poor old Sandeater struggled on the sand beyond us, an arrow through a hindquarter. If we could get him to a vet he’d recover well enough. I eyed Lunky’s zorca.
“Pigeon! You and Lunky must ride off! Now!”
“But—”
“By the Black Chunkrah, girl!” Then I let rip. “If your everlasting Everoinye knew what they were doing they’d send their damned great Blue Scorpion to hoick us all out of it!”
“Drajak! Have a care how you talk of them—!”
“What, now?” I snarled a choking kind of laugh. “Now when we’re all about to get the chop?”
The Glitchers swung about us, kicking sand. They presented targets they no doubt considered difficult to hit. We were in the open. “Get yourself up by the zorca. Make Lunky go as well.” The old devil flamed in my voice, for she grabbed Lunky and shoved him up against his zorca. I stepped before them. Now we had only one side to worry about, from incoming arrows, and we’d have to watch out for a sneaky attacker creeping up beyond the zorca.
The Glitchers took a fatalistic approach to life and death. No doubt the remainder of the warband circling about us had not spared a single thought for their dead comrades. Whilst the girl was there for the taking each one would fight for her. As they rode about us, and the first shafts came in, I considered this was neither bravery nor stupidity but simple cupidity.
The old Krozair techniques of knocking arrows out of the air would preserve my life in this situation. I could use either sword or bowstave in those cunning twists and deflections. So I’d be all right. Mevancy and Lunky — well, now, I had to save them and so would have to leap about in front, and I’d have to be mighty careful that a deflected arrow didn’t hit the zorca. So whilst I was doing that an arrow could all too easily come flying in and go thwunk into me. I set myself and began knocking arrows out of the air.
Lunky was having none of this.
He stepped up beside me, sword in fist swishing about and making me skip out of his way.
“Lunky!” yelled Mevancy.
She pulled him back and he shook himself like a dog shaking off water. An arrow went whick! into the sand at his feet as I knocked it down.
“Let me at ’em!” he was shouting, waving the sword, foaming.
What a circus! Each time I deflected a shaft I could see the picture we made. Also, I was glad some of my comrades couldn’t see that farcical scene. Turko! My Val! He’d never let this choice example of Dray Prescot idiocy rest. Not likely!
Quite clearly this could not go on much longer. Either I’d miss an arrow and one of us would get killed, or Lunky would break free from Mevancy and go charging out to be feathered. In the event the ending turned out to be so mundane I felt all that humor boil over. The Glitch Riders stopped circling us, turned tail, and galloped off. Shortly thereafter a troop of cavalry charged past in pursuit. Trylon Kuong and his retinue halted before us. He was vastly surprised to find us in the dese
rt like this and as he dismounted and greeted us he said: “I have come to fetch you, San Lunky Mishuro. The college is assembling.” His voice sounded bleak. “The queen is dead.”
Chapter twelve
Lunky took his duties as a Diviner with the utmost gravity. This was what one would expect both of him and of a Diviner. Together with the other two Diviners, they must now discover the queen in the body of a new born baby.
The funeral ceremonies, given the beliefs in reincarnation of these people, were lavish. Not one but two bundles of wood were used for the queen’s cremation fire, and the coffin, which was painted tastefully with scenes from Gilium, actually had a corner quite badly burned.
I, for one, did not miss the irony of the paintings of Gilium on a coffin containing a paol-ur-bliem, a person accursed, sentenced to return a hundred times to Kregen before being allowed into the heavenly paradise of Gilium.
Trylon Kuong, well-recovered, proved himself worthy of taking up a political position in the life of the city during this time. He was going to prove a most likely and useful person to have on our side in the struggles to come. For there was no doubt that the dikasters were split, in opinions and beliefs. Even more importantly, when it came to push of pike, they were bitterly and personally opposed to the extent of murder — as we had seen.
A new Repositer would have to be appointed for Kuong, to replace Caran. Kuong would have a considerable say in the selection and he spent a considerable amount of time interviewing candidates from the college’s training academy. The position was slightly complicated by the need for a Repositer to replace Hargon for the instruction of Leotes, and here continuity was not, of course, possible.
As for myself, I decided on a bold course in dealing with San Chandro. He’d seen me off into the secret passageways of the palace, and then I’d turned up in the retinue about Kuong and Lunky.
Mevancy went off with Lunky and Telsi and they would take up residence in the Mishuro villa. I went off to report to Chandro.
Because I had the entry permit I was able to see him, and he was more than anxious to see me. We met in the small room where we’d first played Jikaida, and the board lay on the table, set for a game. Chandro greeted me eagerly. There was no smile on his narrow face and he looked more gaunt than ever.
“So you see, Drajak.” He spread his arms. “Even the queen.”
I nodded, for clearly I couldn’t say: ‘May her soul rest in peace,’ for her soul was being reborn in an infant.
He gave me a sharp look. “And where have you been?”
So I played it, as I said, boldly.
I made an expansive gesture. “San, I do not understand much of what passes here in Makilorn. I know of the power of Tsung-Tan. All I have learned tells me the wizards are mighty in power.” I paused for effect, and went on in a hushed, heavy voice: “I can tell you only this. From being in the secret passageways I found myself in the desert.” I held up a hand as he opened his mouth. “I do not understand. I may have been knocked unconscious and carried there. But, san, you will know. I believe the might and majesty of Tsung-Tan drew me from the palace out into the sands of the desert.”
I put an awed look on my face. Even if I do say so myself, I fancy I put on a fine performance. And, anyway, in a society riddled with the kind of beliefs they had here in Tsungfaril, my story ought to be swallowed hook, line and sinker.
Poor old San Chandro put a hand to his mouth, his eyes widening. Then: “This has happened to you? Yes, yes. It is a miracle vouchsafed of Tsung-Tan, highest in heaven. It has been known, it has been known.” He was working himself up into a frenzy of religious fervor now, his narrow face flushed and glittering with sweat. “Praise be to Tsung-Tan!”
He’d said that this kind of experience had been known before. Could, my natural thought prompted me, could the Star Lords have had a hand in that one, too?
Or, as was perfectly possible on Kregen, had a wizard exercised his command of thaumaturgy? And, the experience could have been what Chandro believed — a purely religious phenomenon.
He ordered up parclear and sazz and miscils and palines. For a few moments I think he even forgot the queen had been murdered.
I ate and drank with relish, thankful that my ruse had worked.
Reality could not be kept at bay for very long. Chandro heaved up a sigh and said: “What I feared happened. The queen and her handmaids were all slain.”
“Were the—?”
“No. They got clean away for no trace of them was found.”
“Professional stikitches.”
“Yes.”
I took a paline. “And their employers?”
He moved his lean shoulders irritably. “I can guess. But we cannot know for sure.”
Two things I recalled. One, Chandro saying the death of the other Repositers now would destabilize the college and government, and, two, my vengeful promise to myself if the queen came to harm. Vengeance is a thankless task, anyway. Sometimes there is a dividing line between Justice and Vengeance. Opaz knew, I’d had to tread that line often enough in my career on Kregen. So I made up my mind how to handle both sides of this equation, and used patience to bide my time.
“You look,” said Chandro, rather sharply, “you look as though you contemplate murder. That is—”
“I know, san, I know.”
“There is no proof.”
“As you say, there is no proof.”
He gave me a queasy look so I changed that conversational subject.
“I believe San Lunky will prove a first class Diviner.”
“Oh, yes, that is certain sure.” He stirred the few remaining palines in the bowl. “Yoshi and Vasama are good, no doubt of it; Lunky will prove superior. Tuong always said so.”
Yoshi was the fat fussy man and the fat fussy woman was Vasama. I believed Yoshi to be controlled by Vasama. Right then I couldn’t see any problems in tracking down the queen. Which just goes to show. Kregen is a wonderful and terrible world and infinitely capable of complicating the simplest issues and causing mayhem over just about anything.
An enquiry about Leone elicited the news that she, with Wink, Prang and Ching-Lee, were still dazed with horror at the queen’s murder. Their positions in the palace hierarchy were secure, for under the guidance of Chandro they would serve the same queen. But the horror remained.
Each of the queen’s Repositers was responsible for a small cadre of youngsters like this, and Chandro said that fights between them were becoming distressingly more frequent.
I said: “And because San Nath the Uttarler is weak he fails to moderate between you and San Nalgre on our side and Yango and Shang-Li-Po on the other. So who will train and guide the queen as she grows up?”
“I hope I remain unbiased enough to say I pray to Tsung-Tan it will not be Shang-Li-Po.”
That seemed a fair enough comment to me. “My spying efforts proved a disaster. They never once discussed anything except the work they’d met to do. If they plotted then they did so elsewhere.”
“Oh, they plotted all right.”
“So—”
“I stand in danger, as does San Nalgre. Yes, I accept that.”
He remained calm but the glitter of sweat on his face came now not from wonder and joy at a miracle but from a more sinister reason.
How long, then, could I wait?
With the care habitual to me now in talking to him, I said: “Lunky has dismissed that buffoon Chiako the Gut and his crew, and rightfully so. I thought criminal proceedings would be brought against them for not honoring their contract. They—”
“They have already applied to me for employment.”
“And?”
“Oh, I refused. I told them had Lunky been killed they would all have been guilty.” He managed a half-smile. “Anyway, Llodi mends each day and he is anxious to get back into harness. No, Chiako and that juruk are disgraced and Lunky feels that is punishment enough.”
Chiako, as cadade of the juruk, would have to take them off so
mewhere else to find employment. That might not be easy. Scandal spreads.
“So you are going to take on a few more guards?”
He nodded, a reluctant nod. “I fear so.”
“Lunky is probably right; but he is a trifle soft-hearted.”
“The teachings of Tsung-Tan,” he began, and went off into a short sermon, to which I listened politely. That brought him back to my transit from the palace to the desert. He waxed eloquent. It was, in very truth, a marvel. “You are not of Tsungfaril; but I believe you stand high in the estimation of Tsung-Tan. The Godhood has looked upon you and smiled.”
Obviously, there was nothing I could say to that.
He went on: “We face perilous times. With the queen still in the body of a child, needing to relearn everything, strong and ruthless people seize their opportunity. I just hope Lunky can sway Yoshi to choose aright. It is certain sure Vasama stands with the other camp.”
We talked further, and then, I suppose with a flash of that old leem-hunter intuition, I said: “Would you expect Tsung-Tan, whose name be praised, to transport me about again, san?”
He pursed up his lips in that lean face. He looked judicial. “It is not beyond the bounds of possibility.”
How many times people say that when they don’t know and want to play both ends against the middle!
“So if I suddenly disappear then you’ll know.”
“To you the honor, for you have been selected.”
I’d been selected all right. By the disgusting putrid nostrils of Makki Grodno! I’d been selected, but not by his Tsung-Tan, oh, dear, no. The Star Lords had more work for me to do down here, that I knew with a dark foreboding, as though my old sailorman’s nose had sniffed out a coming gale.
Chandro left for a meeting and when the Blue Scorpion appeared, impossibly huge in that room, and seized me up in cold and vertigo, I experienced the weird and trembly sensation that I had foreseen this occurring just that moment ago. I’d anticipated this happening before it happened.
There was grist for the mills of the mind here.
Head over heels, up I went, as the phantom Blue Scorpion flowed over me, and heels over head I went down, splash! Warm water engulfed me. For an awful instant I thought the Star Lords had thrown me into the River of Drifting Leaves to let the stranks get their teeth into me. I was naked. That had been usual up until recently. Still, for the moment it didn’t matter as, rising to the surface and flinging the water from my eyes, I saw I was near the edge of a sizeable pool filled with naked people all splashing and swimming and enjoying themselves.
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