Mazes of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #27]

by Alan Burt Akers

  They were not pots of combustibles.

  “What?” said Nedfar, and he halted.

  A man leaped from the parked flier.

  He flailed his arms around his head. He danced like a crazy man. Another followed him, and then a third. They swirled and beat their arms. Around their heads a hazy shadow drifted, joining and parting, a grayish shroud lapping them together in a cloud of torment.

  “Wasps,” said Seg. “Or bees."

  “Aye."

  We started to run. Seg and I raced over the silver sands, and as we ran so we drew our swords.

  No thought of the incongruousness of all this armory could stand now against the stark reality of the trick by which we had been fooled.

  Pancresta stopped. She looked up. She held up her arms.

  There was tremendous triumph in the gesture.

  The voller sweeping through the air dived low, flew above her and a net spun out, a mesh of glinting silver.

  The net grasped Pancresta as she grasped the strands.

  In a twinkling she was drawn up.

  She vanished over the coaming of the voller and the air-boat pivoted, rose and stormed away. She disappeared over the lip of the amphitheatre.

  The whole thing was over in the time a rapier takes to pierce a man's lung.

  Seg stuffed his sword back into the scabbard and I did the same. There was no need for us to exchange words.

  Both of us knew what had happened.

  We belted in a straight run for the abandoned flier.

  Corruption had been at work, bribery, force. The Hamalese guards had been got at. Pancresta's friends had been in communication with her in her dungeon cell. A guard had acted as a go-between. The chances were strong that he was himself a secret member of Spikatur Hunting Sword. Whatever the truth of that, the result was plain. The patrol had been outwitted, a flier had snatched up the woman, and the guards were reeling about, screaming, stung and bitten and tormented.

  Seg and I bundled into the voller.

  She went up with Seg at the controls like a stone from a catapult.

  Low Seg hurled her, low over the topmost tier of seating. We scraped across and shot away.

  “There,” said Seg.

  Ahead of us, speeding into the sunset fires of red and jade, the dark shape of the voller flitted like a moth against a lantern.

  As we watched she turned northward, swinging in a wide arc.

  Instantly, Seg swung the levers of the craft over and we hared off to cut the corner.

  “We won't lose them now,” I said.

  “They have a fast airboat. It will be a long chase."

  “Aye."

  Below us, glimpsed and lost as we sped on, the smoking wreckage of a guard voller appeared and disappeared. She had obviously been burned by Pancresta's friends.

  “Just put your foot down to your left, will you, my old dom?"

  I glanced down and then did as Seg requested.

  The crunch did not please me.

  “I'll check if there are any more—"

  A few more half-drunken wasps were disposed of.

  The strange thing—and I make a particular note of the strangeness of it—was my complete lack of emotion when I saw the brown and red scorpion. He waddled out from under a fold of a flying fur. I just squashed him.

  I was so wrought up with mortification at the simple way Pancresta had tricked us, I just did not have time to dwell on the propensities of the Star Lords for sending scorpions to whisk me off to other parts of Kregen, or to send me packing home to Earth, four hundred light-years away.

  And, anyway—home?

  My home was on Kregen.

  Seg said, “Cleansing finished?"

  “As far as I can see. Do we keep up with them?"

  “Just. The vollers are well matched."

  I glanced back over the stern.

  “There is no one following us."

  “Ha,” said Seg. “We did get away smartish."

  “Yes."

  We were two old campaigners and we worked together as a team. We did not waste words, unless we jested. I know Seg was as affronted as I that we had been so easily sucked in.

  Even in the rush of wind the voller held the tang of spilled wine. The Hamalese guards had started their drinking early. I found a simple earthenware jug that might contain ale or water or oil, and prised the stopper out and sniffed.

  “A middling Stuvan, Seg. You will join me?"

  “The Spikatur rascals used pots of stinging insects and scorpions. They did not, I fancy, poison the wine. Yes, my old dom, I will join you."

  As I poured I reflected that the Spikatur people had been clever. They had burned a guard voller outside the Jikhorkdun. They had dropped their little stinging allies on the airboat inside the arena. No doubt the guards were rushing to the burning flier, and Nedfar was having some difficulty in finding guards and fliers to obey his orders inside the amphitheatre. Had they burned the voller that had brought Pancresta, the flier in which we now pursued them, they'd have been swamped by patrols.

  As it was, Seg and I were just two people to chase them out of all the patrolling guards.

  Ironic.

  Yet for me, and I thought for Seg, also, this was just what the doctor ordered, as they used to say.

  There exist on Kregen as well as Earth bone-dry pundits who scorn tales of adventure. If these people lack the breadth of imagination to encompass an understanding of the pressures on, condition of, illumination of and triumphs and failures of the human spirit then that is their loss, not ours. The unwillingness to accept defeat tamely does not brand a person as a monster—it may, of course. But then, that is what adventure tends to do, sort the sheep from the goats, the ponshos from the leems, make people face themselves, shorn of pretensions, and—perhaps, if they are lucky—grasp at a little of what the human spirit exists at all for...

  Seg and I were off, and we were off on adventure-bent, and Spikatur was only half the answer and hardly any of the reason.

  * * *

  Chapter five

  The Hissing of the Star Lords’ Chair

  How terrible to live in a world without color!

  Or, rather, given the universal prodigality of Nature's palette, a world in which you could not see and appreciate color. To live in a monochrome world...

  The sheeting lights, rippling and undulating across the sky, the streaming mingled radiance of the Suns of Scorpio, jade and ruby, illuminating everything in fires of crimson and emerald—nothing. You'd see nothing of this in a world without color...

  You'd see a pale ghost rising in the sky as the first of Kregen's seven Moons, The Maiden with the Many Smiles, lifted over the horizon. Her pinkish radiance flooded down, adding to the lighting of the world. Soon she was joined by her sister, She of the Veils, whose more mellow golden and rose light mingled and softened the pinkness. The surface of Kregen wallowed in color and light.

  And, high through the air, the two vollers bore on.

  “We just keep pace,” observed Seg.

  “The suns will soon be gone—"

  “Aye. But we have moons for the whole of tonight."

  Not for a single mur this night would real darkness fall. On some nights when not a moon shines in Kregen's sky folk say that it is a Night of Notor Zan. And when all seven moons form their intricate dances into a single configuration of brightness, a line of radiance, folk say that it is the Scarf of Our Lady Monafeyom.

  No moon would be at the full tonight, and so Our Lady Monafeyom's Scarf would not be seen.

  But there would be ample light for us to track and follow the fleeing airboat.

  Like a flitting black bat she darted ahead, fleeting, wispy, a phantom under the Moons of Kregen.

  Seg and I took watch and watch, turn and turn about.

  We flew North.

  The land of Hamal passed away below.

  In the small hours the wine ran out.

  Seg said, “Soup?"

  “I'm with you,
Seg."

  The Hamalese guards had provided themselves with rations, not being entirely stupid, and in the Kregan way taking care that they were victualed against a long spell of duty. Seg brought out the crockery pot of soup, and undid its linen cover. He shook the pot and sniffed.

  “Vosk and Taylyne—"

  “Excellent."

  Now we were used to drinking this soup hot, whereas many Hamalese drank it cold. We were flying up north toward the equator, and although fairly high in the air, and at night, we were not too cold. All the same, Vosk and Taylyne soup is, in our opinion, best drunk hot.

  Taylynes are pea-sized vegetables, scarlet and orange, and they blend with Vosk, which is one of the most succulent meats of all Kregen, to form a truly splendid soup.

  Seg found the slate slab and the box of combustibles and then fished around in his pouch and brought out his tinder box.

  Fire may be produced by many different methods, on Kregen as on Earth, and the tinder box Seg happened to have was one of those little devices the Kregans call januls. He struck flint and steel with unthinking skill, and the tinder caught and flared. In no time the combustible box perched on its slate slab was chucking out the heat.

  The soup pot went onto the holder, and Seg sat back, rubbing his hands.

  “Any bread?"

  He rummaged around in the linen bag and came up with a squat, round, flat, brown loaf.

  He sniffed.

  “It is leavened, but only just."

  “Munsha bread, from one of those shops along Baker's Alley, I'll be bound. Well, it may not be done in the bols style, but it will go down a treat."

  “Aye."

  The soup began to warm up.

  We had covered the forward angles with a flap of cloth, both to protect the combustible box from the slipstream and to conceal the glow. A narrow chink of light escaped aft where the box was beginning to corrode and break down.

  The shaft of light, smoky orange, fell on the deck.

  It glinted from the chape of a sword scabbard, and threw the grain of the wooden deck into relief. I sniffed the aroma of the soup as Seg broke the bread and looked for butter.

  Into that narrow bar of smoky light waddled a scorpion.

  “I thought,” I said in some disgust, “I'd cleared all the dratted things away."

  Seg took no notice.

  He sat, half-bent, and the yellow butter on his knife remained unmoving just above the munsha bread.

  I stared.

  “Seg!"

  The scorpion waddled forward.

  He was russet and black, banded in glisten, and his sting curved up over his back, arrogantly.

  I threw a frantic glance at the controls.

  The levers were hooked up with their ropes onto a straight northerly course so that we could prepare our meal and eat in comfort. The voller would fly on. I stared back at the scorpion. He halted on the edge of that narrow band of orange light, glaring at me.

  I felt sick.

  I knew that my foot could not crush this scorpion.

  He waved his sting over his back.

  “Dray Prescot,” the scorpion said to me, “you are summoned to an audience of the Everoinye."

  I swallowed.

  At least, this was new.

  The Everoinye—the Star Lords—actually telling me they wanted to see me! Damned odd. Frightening, too, for usually the Star Lords just sent their damned scorpion, or their equally damned but hugely large blue Scorpion, and whisked me off.

  I said, “Scorpion?"

  “You are ready?"

  I took a breath.

  “You mock me, you must do so."

  “Perhaps. It is not for you to inquire into my—"

  “Save it, you miniature monster, save it. I know all about my own ineptness and stupidity and how I must not pry into things far beyond my intelligence."

  The stinger curled and uncurled.

  If that showed the scorpion's anger I did not know or care.

  “Get on with it, scorpion. Summon your big blue brother. Let's get this thing over and done with."

  And, all the time, Seg remained frozen. He poised, static, and the yellow butter slicked on the knife.

  That splendid yellow color took on an unhealthy green tinge. The world turned blue. Blue radiance fell about me.

  Waiting for the cold, and the rushing wind, and the endless fall into emptiness, my main emotion was one of irritation. This surprised me. Oh, yes, there was fear in there. I was scared practically witless.

  These unknowable people, the Star Lords, possessed awful powers. I was well aware of that. They could hurl me about Kregen, naked and weaponless, to fight for them. They could more dreadfully contemptuously fling me back to Earth, where I was born, four hundred light-years away. They could ruin my life—again.

  I waited as the blue radiance dropped about me and the leering form of a giant Scorpion reared above me.

  Irritated.

  That was it. Through all my panic, irritation with the interruption to my own plans was my main feeling.

  Deuced odd.

  Usually I was mad clean through, filled with anger, roaring and raging against the Everoinye and their Scorpion, or their messenger and spy, the gorgeous bird, the Gdoinye, in his scarlet and golden feathers. As it was, I just felt like hurling my hat to the deck and jumping on it.

  The blueness brightened and cleared. The cold ceased. The fall ended.

  I stood on a crimson tiled floor. Crimson walls curved up all about me, arching overhead into a crimson vault in which the brilliant white glitter of stars formed constellations unknown to me.

  This chamber, I thought, I had visited before.

  I tried to swallow and my mouth was as dry as a pauper's tankard.

  The voice whispered in from nowhere and everywhere.

  “Sit in the chair, Dray Prescot. Sit."

  I licked my lips.

  “What damned chair—?” I started to bluster.

  The chair sizzled out of the enveloping crimson. It rushed toward me like a runaway totrix, flapping draperies, rippling fringes, lurched to a halt touching my knees. I twisted and fell into the seat. The arms reared up and lapped across my chest like the tentacles of an octopus and the chair hared off, hissing, racing away into the crimson shadows.

  This was not madness.

  No draught animals pulled the chair. It just went howling along across the floor, hissing, and when it careered around an invisible corner neither it nor I leaned over.

  Expecting the light to turn from crimson to green and then to yellow, and to finish up in an ebon chamber with three oval pictures on the walls, I did not close my eyes.

  No shimmering veils of gossamer brushed my cheeks.

  Pungent scents stung my nostrils.

  My eyes watered.

  My nose ran.

  I tried to clean myself up and the straps held my arms fast locked.

  So, then, irritated beyond measure, I yelled.

  “Everoinye! Star Lords! What footling nonsense is this?"

  They heard me all right. I did not doubt that.

  But they did not deign to reply.

  After a space I gave up raging at them and calling them all the foul names I could put tongue to, and sat in a dull stupor waiting for what nonsense they would bring on next.

  Abruptly, the chair stopped.

  There was no sudden jolt. My insides did not give a forward lurch as we halted. One moment we were spinning along, the next we stopped. The transition, abrupt, made no difference to my posture or feelings.

  The chair hummed to itself.

  I looked around.

  If I was not deceiving myself in the pervasive glow, the crimson walls curved away to each side as well as fore and aft. The chair and I waited in the center of a great cross, an intersection of crimson vaults.

  A green oblong appeared to my right side.

  The size of two men, it shone a refulgent greenness into the lambent crimson glow.

  I bel
lowed.

  “Is that you, Ahrinye?"

  Ahrinye, a younger Star Lord, had made his opposition to the older Everoinye known. And younger and older...? What meanings did those words have to beings whose life spans must run into the millions of years?

  With a whining hiss another chair shot out of the green oblong.

  It rushed past me.

  It hurtled away along the crimson floor, heading the way I had come.

  One glance was all I had, one look at the occupant of the other chair.

  He, in his turn, had had one good look at me.

  His numim roar lashed out as he whistled past.

  “Zaydo! You no good rascal! Skulking again, are you—"

  And then he was gone, Strom Irvil of Pine Mountain, gone whirling away. His glorious lion-man's face was in full flower, all his wounds healed. His fur, his hide, glowed more brightly than I had seen it before, when he'd been trapped in the bowels of the earth and sorely wounded. His bristling lion mane was a tawny umber. He roared with the righteous wrath of a great lord chastising a lazy body slave.

  The body slave had been me, Zaydo, and Strom Irvil had been taken up before my eyes, taken up by the Everoinye.

  Well, he'd come belting out of that green door.

  I did not think he'd gone in there by choice.

  Was it my turn next?

  The chair moved.

  Hissing, it curved past the green oblong. The greenness dimmed, dwindled, was gone.

  I sucked in a breath.

  Nothing like this had happened to me before.

  The Star Lords had told me they were growing old. How old that might be was beyond my guessing. Were they becoming senile? Were they fumbling? They had made mistakes before. They had made a mistake with a time loop, and dropped me down into the wrong time, and, correcting that mistake, had given me all of Djanduin. Perhaps their powers were failing?

  Anyway, they hadn't given me the Kingdom of Djanduin. That wonderful country had come my way first through boredom and then through duty. I was the King of Djanduin.

  The chair passed on along the crimson floor, and the vaulting rolled past above, and the whitely glittering star constellations changed and glowed and shone with supernal fires.

  Another chair passed, going by in a flicker of movement.

  The occupant was a man, an apim like me, a member of Homo sapiens. I add the sapiens in deference to our old friends the Neanderthals, who in these later times have become far more exciting than of yore. He sat hunched, looking ill. He was, as he would have to be to be a Kregoinye and perform the will of the Star Lords, a big strong fellow with a powerful face. His hair was long and blond and confined in braids beneath a steel helmet. His face bore the scars of battle. He wore a badge upon his chest, a thing of gold and silver threads in the form of a rampant graint. The ferocious crocodile-headed bear leered at me as the man whisked past.