Beasts of Antares

by Alan Burt Akers

  And, as all good Kregans know, you can flavor your reconstituted mergem with all manner of tasty fruit juices.

  Delia burst into my room as I shoved the mergem file away. She looked marvelous, rosy of face, brilliant of eye, quivering with passion.

  “Dray! You sit here! What are you about? Why haven’t you done something?”

  I stood up. I think — I am not sure — Enevon killed a smile. I searched for meaning, and for words.

  “Come on, Dray! We can’t just do nothing! We must hurry!”

  “Yes,” I said. And I tried to put a snap, a ring of decision into my voice. “We must act!”

  “At once!”

  “Of course...”

  Now my Delia is the most wonderful person in two worlds. That goes without saying, although I have said it, will say it and continue to say it. But, all the same — what in the frozen wastes of the Ice Floes of Sicce was she talking about now? By Zim-Zair! It was enough to make a plain old fellow like me jump up and down on his hat.

  And here came Jilian, recovered of her wounds, roaring into my little study, shouting that we must hurry. Jilian with her black leathers and her pale face with those dark brilliant eyes brought a heady wash of action wherever she went. Jilian, with her whip and her claw.

  “Don’t just stand there, Jak!” she called.

  Delia said, “Oh, you have to take a two-handed sword to stir him up when he gets like this. Come on, Dray!”

  I swallowed. Venturing all, I said in a voice that was little more than a husky croak, “Where to?”

  Both women — both gorgeously beautiful women — stared at me as though I was bereft of my senses.

  “Well, I don’t know!” said Jilian.

  “I’ve no idea,” said Delia. “But we must hurry!”

  Now I shut my mouth most firmly. I put both hands flat on the desk. I closed my eyes.

  Enevon coughed. “I think, majis, this matter touches the business of Ortyg Voinderam—”

  “An imbecile I’ll sink my claw into if—” began Jilian.

  Now I grasped what was going on — well, some of it. Ortyg Voinderam had eloped with the Lady Fransha, and Delia as Empress of Vallia no doubt knew far more about the affair than anyone could guess. From this knowledge I judged that young Idiot Voinderam had not obtained an opinion from the empress. Delia would not interfere in matters of the heart. But, as she was the empress, these were matters that were of concern to her.

  After all, in the mating of noble houses coalitions formed and business was transacted and heads could be parted from shoulders.

  I ventured again, attempting to sound as though I was fully apprised of the situation. “So no one knows where Ortyg has gone?”

  “Where he has taken poor Fransha!”

  “Now, Jilian,” I said in my reasonable voice. “Perhaps she went willingly. Perhaps they are in love—”

  “Of course they’re in love! That’s why she went! And that’s why we have to get her back!”

  I shook my head. I reached for the glass of Vela’s Tears. I sipped the strong red wine that comes from Southern Valka. I was all at sea again. These women...!

  A kind of brain wave occurred to me then, and I spoke up with a firmer voice. “Call all the members of both households. Call all our chamberlains. Contact Naghan Vanki. Order a fast voller. Saddle a dozen zorcas and two dozen totrixes. Have the Emperor’s Sword Watch stand to arms — No.” I felt I’d gone far enough. I didn’t want the Emperor’s Sword Watch given unnecessary burdens, turned out of barracks at all hours, their training program interrupted. “No, cancel that last order.”

  Delia saw through all that nonsense on the instant.

  “You may think it all very funny, Dray. But it is serious. Ortyg and Fransha are passionately in love and the match is generally regarded with great favor—”

  “Well, why—?”

  “Because if they run off like this the families will never agree, old Larghos of Mavindeul, Fransha’s father, will turn against Ortyg Voinderam and make his daughter wed that Fridil Goss. Then you know what will happen.”

  I did. My old antagonist, Natyzha Famphreon, with the wizened face and lush body would rub her hands with glee when she heard the news. She was a leading member of the Racter party, once the most powerful political force in Vallia, able to dictate to the emperors, and now sadly fallen away and confined to their locus of discontent in the northwest. After Turko had regained Falinur we had to deal with Layco Jhansi who fought the damned Racters to the north of him. Many men expressed the pious hope that they’d kill each other off before we had to march against them.

  I looked down at the cluttered desk. A paper protruded from a file — a thin file, just opened — and on the paper two names were written out fairly. Weg Wegashtorio. Nath Karidge. The next file concerned the state of our airboats. We could buy none from Hamal, seeing Hamal was at this time our mortal enemy. We could not manufacture airboats ourselves, only our flying sailing ships. Embassies had gone down south into the Dawn Lands in the hope of buying fliers. I had to go to Hyrklana not just to find our friends; making deals to buy fliers was also on the agenda there. I sighed.

  All these pressing problems of empire, and I was being entwined in the passions of lovers. A world might shiver and shake and empires totter and fall, but two foolish young people in love must take precedence.

  Well, there is a justice in that, I suppose...

  The other three people in my study were well aware of the network of agents — spies — I had set up distinct from the empire’s chief spymaster, Naghan Vanki, and his organization. Enevon had been an active participant in our plans.

  So now Delia could burst out hotly, “We have worked hard up there in Mavindeul. The stromnate is ready to declare for us if they are guaranteed support. And old Larghos has no love for Natyzha, despite he holds his stromnate at her hands.”

  A strom, the equivalent of an Earthly count, has certain powers. We had promised to make Larghos, Strom of Mavindeul, a strom in his own right with his own province if he threw in with us. The marriage of his daughter Fransha was a part of this, for young Ortyg Voinderam was the son of the Vad of Khovala, and Khovala’s southwestern border marched with that of Mavindeul. If everyone agreed, Mavindeul would rise, Khovala would march and we would send troops across the Great River to join in the attack from the imperial province of Thermin, whose governor just happened to be the father of Nath of Kochwold. It all fit perfectly.

  And now passions could not wait, and the couple had eloped.

  Enevon coughed. “If the Lady Fransha is married off to Fridil Goss, a puppet of Natyzha Famphreon’s, Mavindeul will not dare declare for us, for they will get no support from Khovala.”

  “I suppose,” I said in a vague way, “Khovala will not support, anyway, seeing their vad’s son has the girl he wants?”

  “It will not rest with them. Mavindeul holds the key.”

  A vad is the rank of nobility below a kov, which roughly equates with a duke, and a vad is very high on the tree of rank and power and prestige. Old Antar Voinderam wasn’t going to stick his neck out for nothing, and nothing would be all he would get if he tried to march against Natyzha Famphreon without the support of Mavindeul. Rather — he would get something — a great many dead soldiers in his forces.

  The situation was perfectly simple. It was not at all complicated. After all, this was just the kind of problem your real emperor would tackle and solve twice a day before breakfast.

  But — I wasn’t a real emperor — at least, not in my own eyes. I was just plain Dray Prescot, tackling a colossal task with all the wits and cunning I may be blessed with. The sooner I could wrap up this business of liberating the Empire of Vallia and hand the lot over to my son Drak in working order, the better.

  By Zair, yes!

  And together with that, there was no denying the fascination of handling these problems. How did you perform the balancing act necessary to gain your ends? How did you please everybody? Well
, that can’t be done, of course. There is a pull, a dark tide in men, that urges them to meddle with the lives and destinies of other people. We felt that we were acting for the right reasons in attempting to free Vallia from the hordes of mercenaries and slavers who had descended on the islands in the Time of Troubles. We believed that these people gathered together under the new flag of Vallia. The moment I suspected the tiniest suggestion of corrupting power — I’d be off, by Vox, off and away and out of it.

  It is not necessarily true that absolute power corrupts; it does do so, lamentably, but it is not a rule that it must.

  Anyway — how many men-in history have possessed real, true, genuine absolute power? Perhaps it is having only the illusion of absolute power that corrupts. I did know that the passions of young lovers were, if not more important than, at least certainly as important as, the devious political maneuvers we were forced to in our struggle to clean up the mess in Vallia.

  Rather heavily, I said, “Send everyone suitable to try to trace Ortyg and Fransha. We can hope they have left a trail. I’ll go and see Antar Voinderam if he is still at his villa here. And I shall try to catch Fransha’s father, Larghos, before he departs.”

  I closed the next file on the desk. It concerned the Opaz-forsaken zorca horn rot, a frightful business.

  “I don’t like the idea of Larghos sending to Drak’s City to hire assassins.”

  Chapter four

  Concerning the Power of Phu-Si-Yantong

  “See to it, Vanki,” I said to the empire’s chief spymaster.

  “Yes, majister.”

  His flat and chilling voice was just the same after all this time. His face, pale, composed, held that containment of himself, that inscrutable knowingness, that perhaps he did not realize revealed so much. This was a man who lived in the shadows and was of the darkness. And in contact with people in the everyday run of rubbing elbows they would regard him and know that this man lived within himself. He had proved a master of his trade. Also, and for this I forgave him much, including his part in dumping me under a thorn ivy bush in the Hostile Territories, he was devoted to Delia.

  Anyone who tries to run a country, even a ramshackle kind of place as Vallia then was, cannot do it all alone.

  You have to learn to delegate.

  “And remember, the welfare and happiness of Ortyg and Fransha are more important than a possible advantage on the fringe of Racterland.”

  Naghan Vanki still wore his trim black and silver clothes, cut in the latest fashion and inconspicuous. Black and white are the Racter colors. He moved his hand over the papers on his desk, the same kind of damned papers that cluttered my desk.

  “Once I thought the Racters held the chief hope for the country. Events have altered my appreciation.”

  With a quick look at his clepsydra — the time was flying by! — I turned to leave. “If Mavindeul does not throw in with us and rise, we’ll soon be in a position to attack the Racters from the south, anyway, as soon as Kov Turko has cleared his Falinur.”

  “My sources inform me that Antar Voinderam will not risk an attack on the dowager Kovneva of Falkerdrin until he is assured of success.” Had Naghan Vanki been in the habit of smiling, or of allowing any expression on that chilling face of his, now he might have smiled. Old Natyzha Famphreon, the dowager Kovneva of Falkerdrin, was a holy terror. No one — but no one — could ever be assured of success against her until she was battened down and on her way to the Ice Floes of Sicce.

  “We’ll do our best to accommodate him.” I opened the door, and then thought that Vanki might profit from a little jolt. “You know there is zorca horn rot in Thoth Valaha. We are going to be short of saddle animals if we’re not careful. I want a full report of our negotiations with the countries in the Dawn Lands we have approached to purchase airboats.”

  Vanki said, just a little quickly, “We continue to try in the Dawn Lands, majister.” Then he halted himself, about to say something and checking himself. Oddly, I had the clear impression that he knew something, had thought I knew, and had suddenly realized that I did not know.

  “Yes?”

  He was very smooth. “I will have the report on your desk before the suns rise.”

  It would have been childish of me to have said, “In triplicate!” as I almost did. We were operating on a level a little above that kind of pettiness.

  “We desperately need vollers,” I said. Vanki, like most Vallians, called airboats fliers. Voller was the Havilfarese name, coming from the places where they were built. “And we need saddle and draught animals. I shall be going to Hyrklana as soon as I can shed some of this work load. Not that we will get much joy out of fat Queen Fahia. But we must have transport!”

  He saw that I was seized by the urgency of this problem. It was vital to the continuing struggle.

  “Much of the mergem crop has been planted where the forests were cut down for the sailing ships of the sky.”

  “We’ll just have to forage wider for lumber.”

  “Yes, majister.”

  About to burst out, as the old intemperate Dray Prescot would certainly have done, I held my tongue. Spymasters may become two-edged weapons. If that happened Vallia would be in for much bloodshed before we righted the ship of state, so to speak. He watched me with that calm stare as I went out. Our parting remberees were polite, that was all.

  But, for all that, Naghan Vanki was an invaluable servant to Vallia.

  * * * *

  The urgency of everything was enough to drive a man wild with baffled impatience.

  Both Antar Voinderam, Ortyg’s father, and Larghos Eventer, Fransha’s father, had left the city before I could contact them. Messengers were on their trail. After seeing Vanki, there was one more man I would see, perhaps in this case as in so many others, the most important man of all.

  Riding back through the nighted streets of Vondium, passing ruins still sprawled in ugly decay but bright with wild flowers, grim and yet glowing reminders of the Time of Troubles, I relished the scent of moon blooms. She of the Veils sailed the sky above. Her fuzzy golden and rosy glow illuminated buildings and avenues, glimmered molten on the still waters of the canals. Truly, even half in ruins, Vondium was still the beautiful city, proud in her beauty.

  At my back rode the duty squadron of the Sword Watch.

  Formed out of loyalty to the emperor, formed at the beginning by my blade comrades without my knowledge to protect me against the cunning and viciousness of assassins, the Emperor’s Sword Watch kept guard. This was a squadron from 2ESW, for 1ESW was away up north with my son Drak. With him, also, was the Emperor’s Yellow Jackets, 1EYJ, helping to finalize our campaigns up there against the clansmen. With them were Seg Segutorio and Inch, and I hungered to see my blade comrades again and talk and carouse and sing and generally forget that I was supposed to be a puissant emperor.

  The two second moons of Kregen, the Twins eternally orbiting each other, lifted over the serrated rooftops, and the night brightened with a confusing crisscross pattern of pinkish shadows.

  On such a night assassins might stalk abroad. I would have to go and see the Hyr Stikitche in Drak’s City, the haunt of thieves and vagabonds and assassins, and see what he would tell me of Larghos Eventer’s doings. Not damned much, for old Nath the Knife, the Aleygyn of the Stikitches, was touchy concerning the honor of assassins.

  All the same, he had sent many of his fine young men to serve with 1EYJ, and they had fought passing well.

  These thoughts as we hurried along brought up the business interrupted by this passionate elopement. The stray thought did occur to me of that horrendous time when Delia had, by mischance, been abducted. “Shades of the Lady Merle and Vangar Riurik,” I said to myself. Well, that affair had turned out all right in the end, and I hoped that this one would as well.

  Despite the urgency of our ride, the beauty of moons-drenched Vondium, half in ruins, could not fail to stir me. If working for mere artifacts of brick and stone is not simple foolishness, it wa
s in my mind to believe we did right to struggle for the well-being of this city.

  New schools had not only to be equipped and staffed and funded, they had to be built...

  * * * *

  A flurry of alarm shook a patrol of the Sword Watch forward, their zorcas running with upflung horns as they passed me, grim-faced men surging up to ride knee-to-knee in a compact body around Shadow, my beautiful black zorca. The staccato crack of hooves, the creak of leather and clink of harness, were punctuated by brief shouts, of interrogation and answer, as the forward patrol sorted out the pother.

  Jiktar Rodan had the command of the duty squadron this night. His iron-hard face beneath the brim of his helmet looked like a mere mask, carved as one with the helmet itself.

  Shadow slackened speed. Rodan rode level with me. Swords glimmered in the light of the moons. Up ahead the shouts lifted.

  A zorcaman came hurdling back, pelisse and feathers and plumes flying. He bellowed it out.

  “A party of drunks, Jik! Shall we round ’em up?”

  Rodan looked annoyed. He had quite clearly mentally braced himself to meet a savage attack upon the person of the emperor he was sworn to preserve with his own life if necessary, and all it was was a parcel of drunks. Yes, one could sympathize with Jiktar Rodan.

  He started to say, “Round ’em up—” and no doubt would have gone on to order them thrown into the nearest dungeon and forgotten.

  I said, “Who are they?”

  The zorcaman bellowed, “Citizens, majister!”

  “Then let them fall into the gutter and sleep quietly, we have urgent business ahead of us tonight.”