Mazes of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #27]

by Alan Burt Akers

  “I'll hand it to you, Dray. You spotted that trap first."

  I took the gold and let a big smirk contort my features. That rubbed the salt in. Seg suddenly burst out laughing. He gazed down on me as the door opened and mistress Tlima came in with the tray that, quite clearly, had been already prepared. Still laughing, Seg burst out: “You can smirk all you like, Dray! I'm only thankful to have lost the ten deldys! By the Veiled Froyvil! I thought I was consigned to the Ice Floes of Sicce then."

  Mistress Tlima placed the linen-covered tray on the side table. She stared reproachfully at Seg.

  “Pantor Seg! How could you?"

  “Well,” said Seg, and that shifty look returned, “you can't afford to give this comrade of mine a knuckle."

  “Pantor Dray? He saved you, and you tell him you brought him in all the way through the forest on your back!"

  “Oh?” I said. I was enjoying this. “Oh ho?"

  “You can oh ho, and oh ho ho, my old dom—I'lltell you—Mistress Tlima's husband came across us and we brought you in flopped out over the back of his cart."

  So, I laughed.

  By Zair! But it was good to be alive!

  The food was good. It was roast rashers of vosk, juicy and crisp, all at the same time. And—momolams. Also there was a pottery dish of palines, and this sovereign berry, cure for melancholy as for dyspepsia, grew just as luxuriously in the rain forests of Pandahem as in the sweet lands of my own Valka.

  When she had gone, and the door was closed, mistress Tlima remained Seg's chief concern.

  “I had not realized—"

  “It is of no consequence."

  “But—"

  “Perhaps, Seg, I have had my fill of running around under a score of different names. I am Jak—true. But also I am called Dray. And so I shall be."

  He sniffed, resigned.

  “By Vox! I am glad I don't have to keep track of all your names."

  But we both knew the old truth that if you wanted to stay alive on Kregen you had to remember names. If you didn't, you were like to get killed pretty sharpish.

  By the next day I was recovered enough to venture on a gentle stroll around this jungle town of Selsmot. I commented that calling the place a smot—meaning town—was rather grand. The stockade kept out the forest, and there was really, all things considered, a fine area maintained free and growing vegetables. The houses of wood and thatch and leaf were open and airy and a surprising number of them crowded within the stockade. But, all the same, the place was rundown and apathetic.

  Seg said, “That's because old King Crox has gone missing and no one has the heart—"

  “Gone missing?"

  We walked along the dusty street—when it rained the dust became a quagmire—and Seg told me what he had discovered.

  A band of most unhealthy bandits—drikingers—hung out in the bend of the river among those rolling tree-clad hills over which we had flown in pursuit of Pancresta. King Crox had taken in a strong expedition to deal with them once and for all. Nothing had been heard from him since, and that was two seasons ago. So—he had gone missing.

  “Chopped,” I said. “Poor fellow."

  Then, sharply, I swung about to face Seg, saying, “And a band of drikingers in the jungle—that adds up to—"

  “Perhaps. Pancresta and Spikatur—"

  “It has to!"

  “Except that although the king has gone missing, the drikingers have stopped plundering the trails and the river. He must have been successful."

  “Very well.” I could see from Seg's manner there was more. “Go on, you great infuriating—bowman—"

  “The queen was determined to find the king. There was no love in it, so I am told, rather pride. She was married off for political reasons and the king rode off that night and—"

  I smiled. “Not all women are beautiful nor all men handsome."

  “This Queen Mab went after the king with her own expedition and—"

  I cocked my head up. “She's gone missing too?"

  “Aye."

  “And some fat regent will be running the country to the benefit of his pocket."

  “Kov Llipton—"

  “And that gives me even greater assurance that it has to be Spikatur Hunting Sword in the jungle. This Kov Llipton is probably in league with them and the drikingers."

  “You, Dray Prescot, have a tortuous and mistrusting mind."

  “Useful, at times."

  “Oh, aye, useful."

  Still there was a hint of mischief about Seg, a bubbling enjoyment of tantalizing me. I did not scowl—Seg was fully entitled to his bit of harmless fun. And, anyway, I did not feel the same urgency. I was feeling slothful. That, mistress Tlima had warned Seg, was the inevitable result of being poisoned by the Cabaret Plant, the final outcome of which was death. Seg had sucked out the poison, there had not been a full flower-freight of spines to strike me, and I was alive. But I was tired.

  “Go on then, you will tell me as and when—"

  He nodded toward a tumbledown building standing a little back from the line of the other buildings. The place leaned comfortably against an enormous tree, a single intruder from the jungle. Small agile forms sported among the branches. A warm friendly smell wafted from the building, and a hanging pottery jug outside proclaimed the nature of its business.

  A few drops of warm rain fell.

  In mere moments the deluge would thunder down, and the dusty street would squelch not just underfoot but halfway up our legs. People walked briskly for shelter.

  “The Dragon's Roost,” said Seg.

  “Very good. I need a wet inside me more than outside."

  Starting off for the tavern with its low leafy roof and leaning walls of solid trunks, I made Seg step out smartly to follow. There was more to this. He caught me up and we ducked our heads to pass under the curved beam over the open front door. The sound of people talking and the gusty smell of a variety of drinks met us, mingled with the odors of rich cooking and the tang of woodsmoke.

  “There is a party of adventurers here, in The Dragon's Roost. They may be braggarts, they may be fools, they may be heroes, but they are determined to chance their fortune among the hills."

  The low door gave onto a long enclosed stoop, bowered in greenery, a place sheltered from the heat of the Suns and the rain which, hot and thick, hissed down outside.

  We looked at each other.

  Seg beamed and I nodded, pleased.

  “Right, Seg. They are out to make their fortunes in the hills. They know something, then, that we do not. And we will go along with them. It seems to me that they and us—we all have the same objective, I'll wager."

  “That, my old dom, is one wager I'll not take on!"

  * * *

  Chapter ten

  At The Dragon's Roost

  If we imagined we had only to march up the shallow steps to the stoop and enter The Dragon's Roost and join up with the expedition, we were quickly disappointed.

  The obstacle stood, four square at the top of the steps, and glowered upon us.

  He appeared to be apim, at least, through the hair that sprouted from every possible point, although his apimishness was not certain. His eyes, most merry and bright, belied the scowl twisting his hair-girt mouth. He showed uneven teeth, yellowed and missing biting chompers here and there, giving him a mouth like the side of one of Nelson's frigates.

  “Clear off! Schtump! We've had enough rascals like you to stuff a vosk pie for the feast of Beng Hravimond!"

  Our clothes had been in a state of wreckage after our burning and river adventures, and the trek through the jungle, so we had borrowed ordinary clothes from mistress Tlima. These were simple brownish tunics, reaching to above the knee, and open at the throat, Seg carried his bow and a quiver, and I my drexer. We looked, I suppose, ruffians.

  “We are not masichieri,” declared Seg, somewhat heatedly.

  The mass of hair within the leather and metal harness did not give him time to continue.
/>   “Masichieri, thieving rascals, rogues—schtump!"

  Seg sighed

  “I do not want to teach this hairy flea-bitten mass a lesson. But, by the Veiled Froyvil! He leaves me precious little alternative."

  “Tsleetha-tsleethi,” quoth I, which is to say, softly-softly. “If he serves his belly, he merely does his duty."

  The bright eyes regarded us more closely.

  “Comedians, are you?"

  “Your name, dom?” I said.

  “I should be angry—but you amuse me. I am Hop the—"

  “Hairy?” cut in Seg.

  “Fambly! One more crude remark and I shall be forced to come to handstrokes with you—I am Hop the Intemperate."

  “Ah!” I said wisely.

  “What does that mean?"

  “It means,” said Seg, “that you are well named."

  A girl's laugh intruded. We all turned to look along the stoop, and Hop the Intemperate immediately went into the full incline, his nose rubbing the floorboards, his massive bottom upended.

  This kind of bowing and scraping has never pleased Seg or me, so we merely gave the girl a slight polite nod, more, I fancy, in acknowledgment of her beauty than anything else at that time.

  She was pretty, rather than beautiful, with a pert nose and red lips. Her hair, of a light corn color, fell in a loose mass to one side, gathered in by a silver band. She wore a green tunic, simple in cut, girt by a silver belt. She carried only a dagger as a personal weapon; but I had no doubt that her other weapons had done the business for many a fine upstanding young fellow. She looked—winsome, I suppose is a good way to describe her. She was not, I judged, the queen of these parts.

  “Stand up, Hop, for the sweet sake of Pandrite and his holy mother!"

  Hop gathered himself, rather like a sheepdog shaking after a dip in the millpond. He glowed.

  “Lady Ilsa!"

  She looked at us.

  The little dip between her eyebrows darkened.

  That—and I sighed to myself—that was a familiar sign.

  Her voice, cool, distant, commanding, reached us with the touch of a stroking feather over an open wound.

  “And you are?"

  Seg spoke up.

  “Llahal, young lady—"

  “Have you noticed,” I remarked in a casual conversational way, “how they don't bother with a polite Llahal as a greeting in this benighted place?"

  The girl gasped. She drew herself up, not flinching as much as expressing distaste and hauteur. Hauteur, a comical concept to an honest sailorman, ill-suited her.

  Hop the Intemperate blew out, hard, making his whiskers shiver in the breeze.

  “Now, then, you rogue—"

  “All right, Hop. You have a job to do. This girl—"

  She shouted, cutting off my undoubtedly hot-headed and foolish comments. She screamed. She shrieked for the guards and for Hop to take off our heads—Well, it was a silly vapid scene. Poor old Hop the Intemperate went to sleep, very gently, on the warped boards of the stoop. The first guard, a Gon whose shaven head glistened with butter-shine, jumped onto the stoop waving a spear and Seg's bow lined up—exactly.

  The second guard crashed into the first, who was trying to run backwards, and the pair fell over.

  Lady Ilsa stood, her fists jammed into her mouth, her eyes goggling.

  I did feel sorry for her. Sincerely.

  Seg said, “We are here to join the expedition. If these guards are going along, maybe we'd better think again."

  “Lady Ilsa,” I said, and I own I spoke rather sharpish. She jumped as though goosed. “We are friends; at least, we want to join the expedition. You'd better tell your guards to stand down, and quickly, before they are hurt."

  She took her fists away from her mouth. She was shaking.

  “You—!"

  “We are honest fellows needing a job—"

  A young gallant, dressed all in a glittering blue, with much gold embroidery, stepped out. His fists were thrust down on his hips. I noticed he was wearing a rapier and left-hand dagger, still unusual at that time on Pandahem. His face was of that pale, aristocratic, hollow, blot-faced self-possession which conceals homicidal characteristics from those who do not wish to look closely upon wealth and position.

  “Ilsa? You are safe?"

  He kicked the two guards who were groveling away around each other, trying to stand up, their harness in some unfathomable way inextricably intertwined. They made mewling noises. The young dandy kicked them again. He enjoyed that.

  Seg started to say, “Llahal, notor. We wish to join—"

  The young lord said, “Do not speak to me until I speak to you, offal."

  He turned back to the girl, cutting Seg and me out of the world's existence. It was handsomely done, if overdone.

  Seg glanced at me, and I smiled, and then we both laughed.

  A new voice, a mellow, full voice, not quite a fruity voice, said, “At last. Some excitement to liven things up."

  We looked along the stoop.

  The owner of the opulent voice half-concealed his face with a large—a very large—yellow kerchief. He was dressed in a simple tunic of dark blue, so dark as to be called black save for the artfully inserted panels of royal blue. He carried no weapons. He sneezed. At once the woman at his side jumped forward with a sprig of the lapinal plant, already smoldering, and waved it under his nose. Coughing and spluttering, he inhaled the aromatic fumes. He sounded like a wine-press at full blast after harvest.

  “Oh, oh, by Beng Sbodine, the Mender of Men! I am dying! My lungs burn—"

  “A sip of wine, master—"

  The woman in some magical way while brandishing the sprig of lapinal produced a spouted wine jug. This the man seized and upended and glug-glugged. We could see his nose was of a splendid size and proportion, a ripe glowing plum color. His whole face partook of pleasure, ripe cheeks, full lips, merry eyes, now squeezed shut as he drank. He enjoyed the good things of life, did this one.

  As for the woman, fussing over him, she was not slave, for she wore a decent blue gown, with a bronze-link belt, and the comb in her long dark hair glittered. Her face held a look that might take many years to fathom, and then, when you had descried what she thought, you would be back with your first impressions of half-humorous but dedicated service to the man. And to say she fussed is to do her a disservice. She handled the man well, insuring that what he called for in the way of medicaments and wine and comfort was instantly available.

  After he regained his composure, he said, “Why do I risk my health by venturing out here when the rains fall?"

  He shivered. Then he said, and his voice no longer whined, “Strom Ornol, it seems you have no use for these two men, therefore I shall take them on."

  The noise of the rain on the roof had not ceased all during this farcical scene. Now, in the silence after the words spoken by the man whose glowing nose was once more concealed by the yellow kerchief, the rain beat down. To a fainthearted soul that thunderous rolling barrage might well have sounded like the knell of doom.

  “They are of no concern of mine, save that they must be punished for striking my servants."

  Seg started to boil up at this, and I put a hand on his forearm. He lowered the bow. The yellow kerchief twitched, so the man had witnessed that little byplay.

  “As they are now in my employ, I would not take kindly to their punishment by another hand."

  The young lord, pale-faced rigidity personified, reacted in a way that half-surprised me. I fancied I had some, at least, of this particular relationship worked out.

  “Very well, Exandu. The matter does not touch my honor. Just see they are punished."

  “But, Ornol—” said the Lady Ilsa.

  Strom Ornol took her arm. It was a familiar gesture.

  “It is a nothing. And you should not have embroiled yourself with the lower orders. Come inside."

  I bent down and helped heave Hop the Intemperate to his feet. He rubbed his chin through the
hair, and winced.

  “You have a fist, dom,” he said.

  “You have my apologies, Hop. The blow was unexpected. Otherwise you would never have—ah—fallen down."

  He rubbed again and shook his head.

  “As to that, I am not sure."

  So, you see, somewhere along the way the world had turned and I could use the words “I apologize” to someone other than Delia. A thought worth ruminating on, that...

  Exandu sneezed again, and the woman went through the pantomime, and the spluttering volcano subsided. He blew his nose, hard, and sniffed, and wiped his eyes.

  “Here am I like to catch my death, and all because of two rascally paktuns. Well, Hop, see to them, there's a good fellow. I must find a warm corner and a potion. Shanli! I shall need a double potion of your Special Blood Warming Lightning. As Beng Sbodine, Mender of Men, has turned his face away from me!"

  “Now, now, master,” soothed Shanli, taking his arm with one hand and waving the aromatic smoldering sprig of lapinal under his nose with the other. “I shall take care of you. I have a warm shirt in the oven, and Old Mother Babli's hot honey punch, with three measures of Harnafon's Fortified—"

  “Three measures! Shanli, you do look after me. You are a treasure."

  They walked off, and Hop wheezed and sniffed, and rubbed the hair over his chin, and jerked a thumb.

  “Come on. If master Exandu wants to take you on, you're in luck."

  We disentangled the two Gons, and helped them on their way inside. Their uniforms were of the grand style, with many dangling ribbons and straps, and, somehow, Hop wound up with a goodly length of gilt wire in his fist.

  Seg laughed.

  “A boon comrade, I swear it!"

  “Maybe. You'd do best to keep a watchful eye on that lord. Strom Ornol.” Hop looked about. “A right nasty package, that one, due for the unraveling one fine day."

  “All the same,” said Seg to me as we started off along the stoop after Hop. “All the same, we strolled along here to join the expedition, not to be hired on as paktun guards."

  “So we're in luck. We go along—and we get paid—"

  Seg's look would have melted down the finest gold coin in all of Kregen. “You're a mercenary hulu, you really are—"