Mazes of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #27]

by Alan Burt Akers

  He was gone, and I twisted my head around to stare after him.

  He stared back at me, turning to look aft. He smiled.

  I returned his smile.

  This man, this blond warrior with the graint badge, was the third Kregoinye I had seen. The second was Strom Irvil. The first was Pompino, that foxy-faced Khibil of unusual talents, with whom I had shared many adventures. Would I encounter Pompino here? I looked forward to that meeting with genuine joy.

  As for this third Kregoinye—his hard warrior face bore marks of illness, deeply indented lines, and a pallor that floated his tan like scabbed paint. What, I wondered, had happened to him? Then I banished all other thoughts, to concentrate on what was happening, as the chair bore me, with horrible suddenness, into total blackness.

  Somewhere a loon laughed like a demented creature.

  Or, more likely, someone screamed in torment.

  Or, that horrendous noise could more likely be merely the hissing rush of the chair, screeching as it bore me on into the unknown.

  Sparkling motes of light danced before me, thin and scattered at first, but thickening, dancing in clumps and gyrating nodules of fiery brilliance. We rushed on and through them, motes of diamond dust, brushing them aside in whirls of sparkling specklings. I drew a breath. The dots of light swung away from us. Rather, we swung away from them, surging out to hiss along an ebon floor, with all the sparkles massing and banking away to the left.

  The chair stopped.

  I turned my head away from the sparkles and looked to find what I expected to see.

  Framed in their thick silver rims, three pictures adorned the far wall. Oval pictures, three of them in a line along the blackness, each showed a different face of the planet Kregen.

  Silence dropped down. I could hear my harness creaking as I breathed, and that displeased me, a professional fighting man.

  Each silver-framed picture showed an aerial view of Kregen. That on the extreme left showed the familiar outlines of Paz, the side of the world I knew.

  There were the outlines of the continents of Havilfar, and Loh, of Segesthes and Turismond. The islands, too, showed clearly, Pandahem and Vallia—I stopped for a moment to dwell on Vallia. That small island at the eastern seaboard was Valka, with Veliadrin to the west. Valka! Well, my home was a long way off now, farther off even than from the flier taking Seg and me north across Hamal.

  Funny. Here was I, looking down on a picture of Havilfar, and Seg and I were flying across that land.

  He would be gripped in a stasis, unmoving, the butter knife in his hand, all unknowing of where I had gone.

  But would he?

  Perhaps he merely moved and had his being in normal time. Perhaps it was I who was speeded up in some weird way, sent spinning into the gulfs of superhumanity?

  I shifted my gaze away from Paz and looked at the center picture.

  This showed sea, with the hint of land at each horizon.

  The extreme right hand picture showed a pattern of islands and continents I did not know—although a few of the ancient maps in the Akhram had hinted at such configurations.

  I knew I was looking at a map of the other side of Kregen. I committed what I could to memory, as I had tried to do before, and a voice spoke in words and also in my head.

  “Yes, Dray Prescot. Look well on the world of Kregen. It may be that you will have little time left to look on the world you call home."

  * * *

  Chapter six

  The Everoinye Speak of the Savanti

  By this time I was past caring about how scared I was.

  I said, “I suppose, Star Lords, you will as usual not bother to explain what you mean."

  No answering laugh, a bubbling chuckle, hung on the scented air. I had thought that perhaps the Star Lords retained still some elements of a human sense of humor. But the feeling of coldness drove out laughter.

  “We do not need to explain, Dray Prescot. It is not acase of bothering."

  Well now...!

  “Why do I have little time? Do you intend to send me...” My voice trailed. I did not want even to put into words the thought that I might be dispatched back to Earth.

  The voice, in my ears and in my head, said, “We do not have a task for you to perform at the moment. We summoned you here to acquaint you with our desires for the future. Also, Dray Prescot, we wish you to know that we are well pleased that you have driven back the Shanks."

  There was so much astonishing information in those few words. I sat back in the chair. The straps confining my arms had fallen away, and I had not noticed.

  “You—” I said. Then: “You are thanking me?"

  By Zair!

  The Everoinye, omnipotent superhuman overlords, descending—condescending—to give a mere mortal human being a word of thanks!

  Astonishing!

  The Shanks, who by a variety of names were bad news, came raiding up over the curve of the world from their unknown homelands. They festered along the coasts of Paz. And they had tried to invade and settle, and we had beaten them and driven them back in the Battle of the Incendiary Vosks.

  The voice whispered, “Yes, Dray Prescot. You beat the Shanks. But the Fishheads are not finished."

  “That I know only too well."

  “We thank you—and your astonishment offends us. Much has happened since you were first brought to Kregen by the Savanti. We are pleased that we discovered you and took you into our service. You have performed well. But if you think that your days of toil are numbered—"

  “No, Everoinye,” I said. And I let rip a gusty sigh. “I know I am a fool, an onker of onkers, but I'm not onker enough to believe that."

  “We do not dispute your self-judgment that you are an onker."

  I just let that ride by. At least, it did show that the Everoinye might still have a shaky grasp on a shoddy sense of humor.

  “We said we were pleased you beat the Shanks. We did not thank you."

  So that was one in the eye for me. I had presumed, and had presumed wrong.

  “But we do thank you, as you pointed out by your astonishment. We are offended at ourselves, that we have fallen away from a humanity of which once we were proud."

  “Once?"

  The voice sharpened.

  “We will not say—'still.’ We are no longer human."

  “You can say that again."

  “We are not, Dray Prescot, less than human. We are superhuman."

  Some note, some timbre, something, made me say, “You poor devils."

  For a time, then, there remained silence between us.

  At last the voice whispered: “Look at the—"

  The word used meant nothing.

  “Look,” said the voice, and there was strained patience in its tones. “Look at the pictures on the wall. The right-hand picture."

  I looked.

  Whatever word the Everoinye had used to mean the pictures, I did not know it and couldn't reproduce it. Afterward, when I discovered alternative meanings for the word “screen,” that still was not the word. That came much later. So I looked and the continents and islands of the antipodes swam before my gaze.

  “That configuration of lands is very like Paz. We call it Schan. It is a use name. The Fishheads who raid you in Paz sail from the coastal areas. There are many other peoples of the islands and continents. Unpleasant people. Now look at the center picture."

  The sea sparkled blue, almost as though it moved and struck the suns light from wave tops.

  I peered more closely and then, miraculously, the sea seemed to swarm away around each side of the picture. It was as though I were falling down into the oval frame.

  I jerked back in the chair.

  The sea came very near. It was clear and sparkling.

  A fleet sailed that sea.

  A fleet of squat, square, unlovely ships, with high poops and chunky bows, bristling with armaments. I knew the waterline would be sweetly curved, the underwater parts marvels of naval construction. The
masts, tall, after the fashion of poleacres, bore the tall, narrow, slantingly curved sails of the Shanks. They did not so much catch the wind and belly out, as on ordinary vessels, as take the wind and plane it over their curves as the wind planes over a gull's wing.

  “I see them,” I said. “Fishheads, Leem-Lovers—"

  “Yes. They sail to Paz. They follow the advance guard which you defeated on the sands of Eurys."

  I shook my shoulders.

  “I did not beat the Shanks alone. There were many with me, men and women, all brave and valiant, and all who shared in the victory—"

  “Yes, yes. Paz turned out its finest."

  “I would not forget that."

  “The Shanks have been driven out of some of their homelands. They intend to take yours."

  I put my fingers to my forehead, and rubbed.

  By Krun! I was tired!

  “I, for one, cannot condemn them for that."

  “If you understood more, you would—"

  “Mayhap. All the same, if they try to steal what belongs to Paz, they must be stopped. Or,” I added, hoping for a miracle I knew would not be vouchsafed, “perhaps, they could be assimilated, somehow—we have lands they could settle."

  “They intend to slay you all. They do not believe in half measures."

  So the ugly business persisted, the desires of men that drove out all feeling, that blinded to all save personal gain.

  “And,” I said, and the weariness slurred my words, “in the half of the world you call Schan there are many more nasties behind the Shanks."

  “Very many."

  “Is there an end? Will it ever stop?"

  “Yes."

  “How?"

  “When Kregen becomes as the Everoinye and the Savanti wish it to be. Those desires clearly conflict at the moment; when they are as one, the business will end."

  “I thought the Savanti merely wished to make the world over—"

  “The Savanti wish to make the world of Kregen a world for apims alone. We believed you understood that."

  It had been there, a black thought in my mind, to be driven out and banished. Much had pointed to that reading of the way the Savanti operated. They sent their Savapims out into the world to preserve an apim way of life. They had recruited me from Earth, to be a Savapim, and I had failed them and been driven out—rather, I'd told them to keep their paradise and had escaped with Delia. Now I saw the truth. And I sorrowed, for I had loved the Savanti and their Swinging City of Aphrasöe.

  I took a breath.

  “This is bad news. Tell me, Everoinye, why do you open up these secrets to me now—?"

  “We grow old, Dray Prescot."

  The fear in me took a strange turn.

  If the Star Lords could grow old, perhaps die, how would that affect the fate of Kregen?

  “I have a thousand years of life because I bathed in the Pool of Baptism in Aphrasöe. You, Star Lords, must have many and many a thousand years of life—"

  “If we have, you would do well to think that perhaps those thousands of years are not to be devoted to Kregen alone."

  I felt shattered.

  Then a thought came to me that might be connected.

  I said, “You told me that the Savanti objected to what the Curshin did on Kregen—"

  “Stop, Dray Prescot!"

  The voice almost knocked me over with its power.

  “You are a rogue, a miscreant, a man with a charisma that can rouse whole nations to do your will and bidding with joy and gladness. But you may not speak of things that you cannot understand. We told you there are Others of whom we do not speak. The Curshin are not of these. But you do not speak of them."

  Somehow, I managed to keep my mouth shut.

  The Star Lords went on speaking.

  “There are forces driving on the Shanks, as we have told you, obvious forces. But there are Powers that drive on the forces that impel those that drive the Shanks. In these things, Dray Prescot, you may not meddle."

  I burst out: “By Vox! I don't want to meddle in any of it! I just want to get the business finished!"

  “And that is your task to perform. If you do it well, you may remain on Kregen."

  “I'll do it,” I raged. “By the disgusting diseased left nostril of Makki Grodno! I'll do it or get chopped in the doing—as you damned well know!"

  “We know, Dray Prescot. We know. And—we know far more than you think we know of yourself; because you do not understand yourself at all."

  By Zair! That was true—confound it...

  The arms of the chair began to writhe up. I guessed there was to be an end to this audience. I got a deep lungful of air and said in my old harsh way, “How long do we have before that enormous fleet of Shanks reaches us? And, where will they touch land?"

  “As to the latter—that you must wait and see. As to the former—” Here the arms clamped me tightly. “You have a few seasons yet."

  “Enough to—?"

  “Enough to do what you want to do, what you know you must do. When the time is nearer, we will call on you again—if we do not call on you before that."

  Was there that incongruous note of laughter that I have likened to the last bubble in a forgotten glass of champagne? The Star Lords, were they laughing at me?

  The chair gripped me. The blackness swirled. All the stars of the galaxy went around in my head and Seg said, “Here, my old dom, catch hold of this bread, will you. The soup is almost done."

  * * *

  Chapter seven

  Into Pandahem

  The pursuit continued all through the night.

  The Moons of Kregen sailed majestically overhead, the stars massed into a pervasive glitter that reminded me uncomfortably of the spanning star-glitter in that crimson curved chamber, and Seg and I in comradely fashion took watch turn and turn about.

  As we both half expected, the fleeing voller swung sharp left-handed after passing the northern coast of Hamal. She fleeted westward. Here we were practically on the Equator.

  “Pandahem,” said Seg. “Has to be."

  “I agree. So there's no wager there."

  Seg screwed up his face.

  Our voller was making a speed equivalent to just under eighty miles an hour, a pretty fast clip for an airboat, but slow in comparison with some of the swift vollers in existence. We continued to head due west. Seg sniffed the breeze, and looked around from south to north.

  Then he said, “No wager on Pandahem, that is true. But a wager on which part?” He laughed, his fey blue eyes very merry. “And any loon would suggest we are making for the southern half, I'll wager you we're headed for the northern."

  That thought had been in my mind.

  “Very well. I had a hankering for the north. They'll turn north, probably, and aim to bypass the Koroles. A due northwest course would suit them. So, I'll wager on the south."

  “A gold double-talen?"

  I nodded.

  “Done."

  Past Skull Bay and due west over the sea fleeted the voller. The day passed. We saw no signs of any other aerial traffic, although twice we passed above argenters, their fat sails bellying and their fat hulls punching into the sea.

  We sat and talked and fiddled with our equipment and eyed the fleeing airboat.

  “He makes no signs of changing course."

  “He is well aware we are following."

  “Of course. And,” said Seg, “I'll wager he doesn't care!"

  “You think he wants us to follow into a trap?"

  “More than likely.” Seg ran an oiled rag down a sword blade that had been polished to a blinding reflection. “He knows you're aboard."

  “Maybe,” I said, deliberately ignoring Seg's suggestion that if I were around then everyone would be setting traps for me. Mind you, by Vox, it was uncomfortably near the truth ... “I'd suggest he's a cautious navigator. He hugs the coast."

  “Well, no one is stupid enough to fly northwest from Ruathytu, over the Western Hills and across whateve
r lies beyond. The wild men out there are plain murder."

  “Yes. But it looks as though he's going to fly along the coast and then turn due north for Pandahem. Cautious to a degree."

  “It could be,” said Seg, looking up, “that he has one of the old Hamalian vollers that always broke down."

  I nodded, realizing the justice of the suggestion.

  Now that we had formed bonds of friendship with Hamal, we did not have to buy inferior airboats that continually broke down. But there were still a lot about, despite the losses of the Times of Trouble and the wars.

  “If his flier does break down, we're nicely situated to go down and haul him out of the drink. And Pancresta."

  But the voller we pursued did not falter in her onward rush through the air of Kregen.

  Even at ten db[iii] the journey took a goodly time and I said to Seg, fretfully, “You'd think the Hamalese would provide the fastest vollers for their guards. Nedfar evidently overlooked that."

  “Had they done so, that flier up front would be going as fast as we are."

  Good old Seg! Trust him to sort out the idiotic remark and upend it for all to see. In this case the all was me.

  Then Seg stuck his face up, staring ahead.

  “Hullo. He's changing course."

  I joined Seg and we watched as the flier up ahead swung gently around, not losing distance over a too-acute turn, and headed into the northwest.

  “That course will—” Seg paused, and then went on “—take him between Wan Witherm and the Koroles. It looks like South Pandahem, after all."

  We turned to follow.

  “It's all jungles and stuff there, I believe."

  “Well, he may fly on over the Central Mountains."

  Settling down again to this stern chase, we brewed up, and ate some more of the rations. We estimated we could eat them all by the time we arrived at the south coast of the island of Pandahem. If the Spikatur people up front escaped from us over a simple matter like the lack of provender, we'd be looking silly.