Mazes of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #27]

by Alan Burt Akers

  He leaped for the controls and threw off the guidance ropes. He shoved the levers down and the flier's nose dropped and we fell out of the sky like a brick.

  A flashing glimpse of a bird, upside down and with a broken wing where we'd struck him—a man slashing with his long flexible aerial spear—another fellow loosing and his bolt splintering into the coaming under my nose—and then we were hurtling down and down toward the ground.

  We had no flying safety belts. We'd have to ride the voller down.

  “Hold on!” bellowed Seg.

  A gusting mass of smoke and flame billowed up, a choking confused mass, orange and scarlet and black, coiling and hot—damned hot!

  The spectacle we must have made from higher up as the men astride their brunnelleys looked down surely convinced them we were doomed.

  I wasn't too sure myself...

  “Seg!” I bellowed.

  My comrade towered amid the filthy smoke, enveloped in flame, a titanic figure of myth, of the time when men walked among volcanoes and leaped the fire-filled chasms in the earth.

  He yelled back, and the words blustered past, lost amid wind and smoke and flame roar.

  The trees reared up.

  What Seg did with the controls was what any competent aerial pilot would do. He set them for a slanting impact, slowing the speed as much as he could, and then fastened the guidance ropes back on. But, being Seg Segutorio and a wild and fey fellow, he set the voller to a steeper angle than any more circumspect flier would risk.

  We went skipping through the tops of the trees.

  Tree branches thwacked at us, ripping canvas and gonging against wood.

  Leaves fluttered up into our faces, birds squawked and flew for safety, a horde of little red spiders wafted off on balloons of silk. A leafy bough slashed at my head and I ducked and my helmet reverberated as though the Bells of Beng Kishi were all cracked and dissonant.

  We toppled out of the last hoary heads of the trees and pitched for the brown river below.

  The voller was now a roaring combustible mass and Seg and I crouched in the stern, shielding our faces, waiting for the moment of impact.

  Seg gasped out: “I thought—the river—douse the flames—"

  Before I could cough out an answer we hit.

  We felt as though we'd leaped off a roof onto a brick factory. The thump rattled through the flier, through our backbones and shook the teeth in our jaws.

  Water fountained up around us, like a flower's petals, brown and silver, and we were hurled headlong into the water. Even then the hem of Seg's tunic caught alight and hissed madly as he went under.

  We splashed to the surface, blowing suds, winded, blinded, singed, our heads ringing and ringing. I felt as though a torturer from the Empress Thyllis's dungeons under the Hammabi el Lamma had been at work on me for a sennight.

  Seg whisked the water from his eyes and glared about.

  “Back to the bank, sharpish!” I yelled.

  We started splashing back.

  The flier, burning, drifted away, and the flames flared for a long time before they were doused, as we could see by the reflections.

  Over arm we crawled for the bank. Only two fang-jawed creatures had a go at us, and we managed to get a sword down in time to poke them off. They were not harmed. Their scales glistened in the light of the Suns and the licking fire reflections from the burning voller. The smell of the river began to get up our nostrils to replace the stink of smoke. That smell was all dark brown.

  Rotting vegetation, slimed mud, bursting gas bubbles all joined in an infernal soup of aromas.

  Seg reached the bank first. He grasped at a root sticking into the water and the damned thing came alive and tried to bite him.

  He yelped and drew back and swiped at the thing.

  It screeched and scuttled off on a hundred or so bandy legs. It turned its flat head as it went, and its eyes promised that it would be back.

  We crawled out and flopped face down on mud.

  We breathed in and out, and we were alive, and that was miracle enough.

  Up aloft against the bright haze there was no sign of the flyers astride their golden-adorned brunnelleys.

  The first thing Seg said was, “I regret losing that stave that cast crooked. I would dearly have loved to find out why."

  I said, “All I know is that shot gives me three gold pieces."

  “We will work the reckoning as soon as we can. I do not recommend swimming in harness—although you, Dray Prescot, are half fish in the water."

  “And you—half waterlogged tree trunk?"

  He laughed and tossed his head and the water spun from his helmet. We believed in wearing armor, and we believed in wearing as much and as little as would protect us and let us move. I stood up and my foot went into the mud knee deep. A stink gushed.

  Hauling my leg out made a loud sucking noise.

  “Inland a bit, and then head for the town?"

  “Aye."

  We lay sprawled for a few moments longer, getting our breath. Our equipment carried on our persons was still with us. That in the voller was gone past redemption.

  Eventually we crawled off the mud and onto the first of the less squelchy ground. Trees struggled for existence and the light dimmed to a watery greenness. Rain forests can be gloomy places. The noises of hunting animals—those who hunted by day—echoed among the trunks and from the masses of leaves overhead. There was no real undergrowth. Walking was a matter of selecting a good line, of keeping the eyes wide open and of constantly rotating the head. Seg fussed with his bow, spanning a new string from the watertight pouch. I carried a drexer in my hand. We marched.

  We spoke little. Sounds carried even among the maze of trunks. And we walked softly.

  If I say without either pride or humility that we two pacing through the forest were probably more dangerous than any animal we were likely to meet, I believe you will understand, and realize that that is the way of it on Kregen—if you wish to survive.

  * * *

  Chapter nine

  Jungle Cabaret

  Attacks from nasties of the forest came at infrequent intervals. Hereabouts the going was only really difficult where a tree had fallen, taking others with it, and so opened a gap in the canopy of leaves above. Here sunshine could pour down—and with twin suns the extent was measurably greater—and produce a twisted tangle of undergrowth.

  Negotiating these places was really cutting a way through jungle.

  Here it was—slashing with swords to carve a path, ducking vines and treacherously looping strands of animate vegetable killers—that the risslacas, the dinosaurs, attacked. Their smaller brethren also came panting after our blood.

  We did not make a fuss about it.

  As Seg, drawing out a fresh arrow and fitting nock to string, said, “They're only doing what Nature intended and trying to fill their bellies."

  “Aye. It is their misfortune they choose us for dinner."

  “I feel sorry for them. But..."

  And he loosed and blotted out the yellow glaring eye of a risslaca whose fanged jaws would, had they closed over either of us or both of us together, have chopped us in half for a neat midday snack.

  I loosed to take out another, smaller, dinosaur.

  They humped along between the tree trunks, adapted to this environment either by nature or by genetic engineering, and we jumped down into a ravine, choked with vines. The emerald and ruby light lay across the clearing, and the dazzle above precluded looking at the sky.

  In this slot of jungle-choked forest we encountered a couple of hairy crachens, and managed to drive them off, their mandibles waving, without killing them. Their faceted eyes regarded us. I took from them the same impression I'd taken from the multi-legged pseudo tree-branch on the bank.

  Those eyes said—We'll be back.

  Tiny pinhead stingers wrung blood from us, and we had to beat them off, nickering, clinging, clouding wings gauzy in the dim light. Their life span might only be a d
ay or so; they lived it up while they could, and drank their blood off with the best.

  Although had it happened it would not on Kregen have been at all unusual, I have to report that we did not find a single princess to rescue from a dinosaur. Or find a single princess, come to that. We plunged on, through the rough areas and going as fast as we could with caution between the aisled trunks of the trees. Old, those trees, old and anciently hoary, festooned with parasitic growths, lush with tree-borne life, and of a normal human scale in height. But they were growing on the island of Pandahem, alongside the River of Bloody Jaws—on Kregen—and, although like jungly trees of Earth, they were different, very different.

  When we reached a recognizable trail we halted.

  From the cover of a tree trunk we looked out.

  His voice pitched so that it would reach me and not listening hostile ears, Seg gave his opinion.

  “Well—I'm not walking along that!"

  “No."

  He cocked his head at me.

  “Ten gold pieces I spot a trap first."

  “Done."

  In his home in Erthyrdrin, at the northern tip of the continent of Loh, Seg had lived a pretty wild life before going as a mercenary to earn a living. Out there feuds rankled and a fellow had to keep his wits about him. Seg would probably spot a trap first—unless my own training with my clansmen, and with my Djangs and sundry other rascals and ferocious warriors of Kregen could aid me.

  We paced the trail, well away among the trees, following its line. It was headed for the town.

  Where it went the other way we did not know, for we'd come across it almost at right angles. It struck inland away from the river.

  In any event we both said, “There!” and pointed together.

  Instantly, we were both flat on our faces, alongside each other and head to tail, glaring out.

  But nothing stirred.

  After a time—a goodly time, for to rush in these matters is to court disaster—we stood up and inspected the trap.

  “A tie, I think."

  “Aye."

  “Although I fancy your finger pointed after mine—"

  “Never in a month of She of the Veils!"

  Wrangling happily, we checked out the trap.

  It was a simpleminded enough affair, a pit covered with leafy branches and positioned where enough sunlight dropped through an ancient and almost covered gap to give life to a little lower vegetation around. Simple it might be. It would be effective if anyone—be it animal or idiot human with no right to be wandering around in the jungle—should try to walk across it.

  We went on.

  A species of medium-sized vosk—larger than a bosk—lived here in the forest, rooting around, and no doubt the trap was laid for them.

  They were wild, not domesticated, and they flourished a set of tusks that would part stomach from backbone in a trice.

  We debated.

  “Not worth it,” I said.

  “We-ell,” said Seg. “I'm sharp set."

  “The town cannot be far. They'll have vosk all ready cooked, crisp and golden and with momolams, too..."

  “I'll grant we wouldn't have to cook the meal. If the town doesn't show up in a bur or so, I shan't wait."

  “Momolams?"

  These are the splendid small round golden vegetables, rather like brand-new potatoes with mint and steaming with flavor, that can melt the saliva from granite.

  “I tell you, Dray Prescot, if we reach this town and order up a meal of vosk and there are no momolams, I shall seriously consider marmelizing you."

  “I am surprised to hear you voice so uncouth a word."

  “Yes, it is fit only for savages. But, in these circumstances—"

  And then we both held, stark still, poised, as voices floated in from the trees. Laughing voices, shrilling, and with the voices the sounds of bottles and glasses—surely, bottles and glasses?

  Cautiously, we crept forward.

  The funny thing is, and I was well aware that we might at any moment be fighting for our lives, I was thinking that the golden-yellow tubers, these famous momolams, are more often eaten with roast ponsho than with vosk. We reached a crusty-barked tree and hunkered down, and slowly, cautiously, looked around, one each side.

  The trail lay nearer to Seg than to me. I saw a small clearing, uncluttered with undergrowth except for a strange plant rather like a large gourd, from the top of which extended a thick stalk crowned with an orange flower.

  From the gourd section came the sound of voices and the rattle of bottle lip against glass.

  Perhaps Seg made more noise than I did. Perhaps because he was just the nearer of the two of us ... As lean and tough as I was, he would have been no juicier...

  I stared out on the strange plant.

  Certainly the gourd was of a size to hold two or three people. But I did not think two or three people were inside having a party. The stem bearing its orange flower lifted some fifteen feet from the top of the gourd, swaying gently five meters or so up, and as I took all this in, and realized what this was all about, so I was yelling my head off and jumping forward, sword raised.

  “Seg!"

  The stem lashed.

  The orange flower opened, revealing massed spines.

  It struck. It struck full at Seg's head.

  I roared in, just bashing in a full-shouldered charge at the stem, and with the sword slashing and hacking, cutting through the fibrous vegetable growth. Thick green liquid gushed. The flower writhed. It twisted in on itself, blindly seeking its tormentor. I took a tremendous swing and the steel bit and then the flower hit me a thwack across the shoulder and head over heels I went into the muck.

  It seemed to me only a moment or two later that a woman's voice said, “Well, pantor Seg, your friend is alive, it seems."

  And Seg's voice, as though from a distance: “For which I give thanks to Erthyr the Bow, and to all the Lords of Creation.” And, then, because he was Seg Segutorio, and the truest blade comrade a man could ever hope for, he added, “And, anyway, he has the skull of a vosk and the hide of a boloth, the speed of a leem and the strength of a zhantil."

  The woman laughed.

  “I see you two get on together."

  “I owe him ten gold pieces for this one—"

  I tried to open my eyes, and the woman's voice sharpened.

  “You would pay him ten gold croxes for saving your life? Is that what you value yourself at?"

  “No, mistress Tlima, it is a bet I lost."

  “I see—"

  But, it was clear, she did not see at all.

  The glue holding my lids down parted with some pain and light flooded in. I blinked, and Seg said, “About time."

  Just to keep him going, I said, “Ten gold crox pieces, and not clipped, either."

  He laughed.

  His laugh rang out, joyous, full.

  I sat up.

  When my shoulder returned and attached itself to my body, I went to give it a rub, and the woman put a hand out and stopped me.

  “Leave it, pantor. It is bandaged."

  She was apim, full of face and figure, wearing a dark blue gown with white lace, and her features were those of a woman who has fought through life, and sees some comfort before they ship her off to the Ice Floes of Sicce.

  We were in a tavern, with a thatched roof and wooden beams, with wooden walls and wooden floor, and the furniture was plain and simple and clean. I ached all over.

  “The poison. A single spine struck past the edge of your armor.” Seg shook his head. “Well, you cannot armor every inch of your body and still prance about."

  “No."

  The orange flower in striking back at me, so Seg related, hit my shoulder where the armor stopped the poisoned spines dead. But a petal flapped up and that solitary damned spine ripped in past the rim of my corselet, past the mesh, and so nicked me in the neck.

  “You'd have had your head fall off if I hadn't kissed your neck as though you were a luscious sylvie
."

  “I trust you enjoyed the experience."

  “I am not a fellow for sylvies, as you know."

  “You suggested it."

  “I was merely trying to be vivid in describing what could have been more awkward if that damned flower thing had upended you."

  “Oh? I see."

  The woman, this mistress Tlima, looked on in a bewildered fashion.

  She addressed us as “pantor” which is the Pandahem way of saying lord. It equates with the notor of Hamal and the jen of Vallia. She called Seg Seg. She did not name me.

  By this time Seg knew that I had a whole arsenal of names on which I could call. And for the Emperor of Vallia to be swanning about in a jungle on Pandahem could be awkward for said emperor if avaricious minds got to work.

  The gourd emitting its party noises and the orange poison-spined flower formed a symbiosis of plants dedicated to catching and eating people. They grew in handy spots. The Kregish name can most easily be given as the Cabaret Plant.

  Cabaret, I think, has the air to suit what they were up to.

  Mistress Tlima bent and solicitously pulled and punched at my pillow in the way women have. A tinge of color glowed across her cheekbones.

  “The Cabaret Plants are evil to us, for they delude poor drunken folk. Otherwise they live on small animals and their roots."

  “Evil?” said Seg, raising one ferocious eyebrow.

  “Yes!"

  “As to that,” I said, and rolled aside to avoid a sharpish straight left to the pillow and then rolled back to dodge the following right hook. “As to that, if a poor deluded folkim is drunk, perhaps he shouldn't be?"

  “I shall fetch a meal,” said mistress Tlima. The small room in which I lay was furnished as I have said, and was clearly one of her superior guest rooms. Seg had paid her in good gold deldys, which are Havilfarese coins. The local gold coin, the crox, was named after the local king. He, I was to learn, was busy causing the dickens of a stir and an uproar that was to embroil Seg and me willy-nilly. So, I lay back on the severely mauled pillow and smiled up at my blade comrade.

  “So you brought me in on your back, hey?"

  He looked shifty for a moment, did Seg, and then he hauled out his purse and dished out the ten gold pieces.