The Tides of Kregen dp-12

by Alan Burt Akers

  I gripped the rail. I shouted over their noise: "And if I did hear the Call, am I not here? Have I not answered? I was in the world of Kregen outside the Eye of the World. It has taken me many months of travel to reach you here."

  I was prepared to plead anything to avert the horror.

  The Adjudicator placed a forefinger to his lips as he spoke. "So you did hear the Call?" I would not lie.

  "No. I did not hear the Azhurad. But I am here now!"

  "It is known that it is impossible for a living Brother not to hear the Call. You stand condemned on two counts: if you did hear and did not come, you are condemned; if you did not hear that can only mean you were never properly a Krozair of Zy. You were not pure enough of spirit, your ib remained befouled with the dross of everyday life, so you stand condemned on that count, also, to be banished, Apushniad." A thought occurred to me so despicable I winced at my own vileness. I lifted my head again and jutted my jaw out like the rostrum of a swifter.

  "My son Drak! Prince of Vallia! He was to join the Krozairs of Zy! And my second son Segnik, he who is now Zeg, he was also to join the Krozairs of Zy!"

  I could not go on. Not for myself could I use my sons.

  The Adjudicator hissed between his teeth.

  "Your sons answered The Call! They came with great gallantry and they fought with joy for Zair! But you-"

  "They are safe?"

  "They live still. It was they who told us you were not dead, as we had believed. They did not know where you were. Had you been dead it would have been better for you." Now Pur Kazz, the Grand Archbold, lifted his golden rod. Everyone fell silent and turned to the Ombor Throne.

  "When you did not answer the Azhurad, cramph, you were tried and condemned in your absence. Now you have the effrontery to arrive here crying and mewling. The sentence of that trial will be carried out. We stage this trial now in order to show you, who deserve nothing, that the Krozairs of Zy do not punish vengefully, out of spite, but out of law and order and love of Zair." I stared at him. His voice slurred. His hands trembled. I remembered him as arrogant and brash and filled with vigor. The disfiguring scar must have addled his brains. Besides, he had called me cramph, which is a term of abuse. Not one other of the Brethren had descended to insults. I shouted at him. "And my Delia! The Princess Majestrix of Vallia! She is here! I demand to see her!"

  "You demand nothing!"

  The Adjudicator’s quick words were chopped by the bellow of rage from Pur Kazz. I could not understand what he said, and I do not think anyone else could either. But we were all fully aware of the passions of anger and enmity blazing in him.

  "Let the sentence be carried out."

  Pur Ikraz, the man to speak in my defense, started to plead in mitigation, but Pur Kazz waved his golden rod and brought it down with a crash and bellowed. My defense withered away. I do not fully recall what happened next. I have memories, lurid, black, lightning-shot, of men coming forward and speaking ritually above me. Of others ripping the bright insignia from the white surcoat. A dull realization of why they had clothed me in the emblems of the Krozairs of Zy shook me then. I had been clothed so that I might be stripped, in humiliation and shame.

  My longsword was lifted from the scabbard. I could see three different reflections of myself in tall mirrors, the Three Mirrors of the Ib, positioned to reinforce what went on in the mind of the accused, to make him see himself in all his shame.

  As the sword whispered from the scabbard I swung back. I saw Pur Kazz leaning over the golden rail of the Ombor throne. I saw the torches and the lamps, the massed faces of the Brethren; I heard the chanting as they exorcised the evil; I heard and I saw and I do not remember anything else until I found myself standing in that cleared space below my pulpit, the sword grasped in my fists in that cunning Krozair grip, cocked. I heard myself yelling — wild, strange, mad words, tumbling out pell-mell — and saw the ring of watchful Krozairs, bearing their swords in grips like mine, waiting, circling, ready to destroy me.

  I saw my reflection in the Three Mirrors of the Ib.

  I saw a madman. I saw the huge rent in the breast of my white surcoat. I saw the face: that devil’s face with the furrowed brow and the snarling ugly mouth, the eyes like leems’, glittering, maniacal, mad. I saw a man I did not recognize.

  But I knew the truth.

  The maniac brandishing a sword here in the Hall of Judgment, who would not accept the dictates of his onetime fellows in the Krozairs of Zy, that man who had reverted to all the old intemperate ruthlessness I had tried so hard to overcome, that devil incarnate here in the seat of wisdom and learning and great devotion — that madman was me, plain Dray Prescot.

  I threw the sword down with a clang.

  "You cannot understand why I could not answer the Call! If I said I was in a place where the Call did not reach, you would not believe! If I say I prize being a Krozair of Zy above all else on Kregen, you would sneer! I have failed you in your terms! But I have always kept the faith, I have not failed! It is you, who do not believe in Krozair Brother. ."

  But I could not go on. How could they believe my wild stories about living on another world? How could they conceive of a world with only one sun, a world with only one moon, a world with only apims?

  Then, truly, my reason left me.

  Only vague and rending impressions remain.

  Someone must have picked up my sword. It hung before me in the air, the lamplight striking a star from the tip, the blade gleaming straight and true. A crazy thought afflicted me: how would Naghan the Gnat relish what was being done to his handiwork?

  For the sword was placed across the twin Stones of Repudiation. Basaltic blocks, hard and bleak and unforgiving, they hunkered like extensions of the very earth itself. The sword glimmered. I saw the Hammer of Retribution lifted. It rose high, poised in the muscular hands of a Krozair Brother whose title I will not repeat. I saw his naked arms flex. They bunched. I wanted to look away. I could not. The Hammer of Retribution smashed down. My longsword rang once, with a gong note, twisted, echoing, lost in the crash of sundering metal and the hammerblow against the rock. In shapeless shreds my sword lay on the floor.

  I cannot tell what happened next. I can only piece together those earlier memories of seeing a Krozair of Zy receive the Apushniad. It is painful. It is so painful I will leave that scene of desolation and horror. I was finally led away, head hanging, and although chains were placed on me they were unnecessary. I do remember the hissing and vindictive voice of Pur Kazz, Grand Archbold of the Krozairs of Zy, shouting at my back.

  "So goes he who once was Pur Dray, Krozair of Zy. Apushniad! Let no Krozair Brother’s hand be lifted to help him. He is accursed. He is banished from our midst, as his sword is broken and his banner burned, and all the goodness of our hearts and faces is turned from him. Apushniad!" It was finished.

  Chapter Twelve

  Conversation in a fish cell on the Island of Zy

  No, I do not wish to dwell on those moments in the Hall of Judgment, nor on the days that followed. You who have listened to my story know how I would willingly, gladly, have given up all the tawdry, tinselly titles I had accumulated, every one, to remain a Krozair of Zy. Apushniad!

  Outcast, leemshead, I was thrust from the warm circle of the order, and yet there was still work I might perform, still a use to be found for my unworthy body.

  I was not to be executed.

  Oh, make no mistake, the Krzy would think no more of executing an Apushniad than they would of lopping the head off an Overlord of Magdag.

  They knew my strength. Many in that small Hall of Judgment had fought with me in the long-gone past. They knew I had slaved as an oarsman in the galleys of Magdag. Now one of the minor points of the Zairians I had been forced to slide away from and overlook and condone was brought home: the men of Zair also employed slaves in their swifters.

  So I knew my fate.

  Down and down we went, the guard surrounding me with ready swords. They were expert swordsmen, a
s indeed they must be to become Krozairs at all. It would have been a great and bonny fight. It would have been a fight to warm a man.

  But I knew as we went down the stairs with the water dropping milkily about us and the torches hurling black-bat shadows ahead, that I could not fight those who had been my Brothers merely because they would not understand my wild talk of an earth with one sun, one moon and only apims. No, I had found, as I caught that dramatic reflection of the devil-figure who was me in the Three Mirrors in the Ib, that I could not strike out in hatred at a man who was a Krozair Brother, who wore the hubless spoked wheel within the circle as his emblem. Maybe there were other reasons. Perhaps, after all, I had grown weak and flabby, lacking the will and the old cutting edge. I do not think I felt fear. If anything my feelings had been the reverse and I would have joyed to leap forward to my death.

  Even then, though, even then I knew that I was still the old Dray Prescot, a stubborn onker who would never give up the fight but would always struggle on against despair and defeat. They thrust me into a narrow cell whose walls glistened wetly and the iron bars clanged with that soul-destroying sound of finality.

  Then they went away and left me to the darkness and the emptiness of self. How long did I spend in that cell? It is of no consequence.

  I was fed at intervals, washed, shaved, given a gray slave breechclout. My chains were checked and I was at last led out and up those long slippery stairs in the heart of the rocky Island of Zy beneath the gracious living areas of the extinct volcanic throat. Straight to the small harbor within the immense rocky arch I was led. It was night. The stars shone in spattering reflections on the water. There were no moons in the sky.

  Among the guards I heard a muttering, as of a low-voiced discussion that could not easily be resolved. Ahead I could see against the quay a long, low, impressive shape of power. There had been no swifters when I had flown in. There was no sign of my voller. Perhaps I would still not have made a break for it even if I had seen the airboat. I was down, beaten, face-first in the muck of life. The moored swifter possessed two banks of oars and was lean and powerful. Despite everything, I found myself noticing that she was bereft of much of the ornate panoply to which I had become accustomed in the swifters of the Eye of the World. She had been stripped for action with a vengeance. I heard one of the guards, a tough old bird with a scarred face, speaking hotly.

  "To the Ice Floes of Sicce with him! He is Apushniad!"

  And another, younger, with a strong determined face, spoke out.

  "And yet she is very beautiful."

  I reeled. I gripped the nearest Krozair and he grunted and shifted his sword hilt out of the way. Mercy is a commodity in relatively short supply on Kregen. Zair does not teach mercy to a Grodnim. And Grodno teaches only implacable hatred for all Zairians. Even in my kingdom of Djanduin the pantheon of warrior gods led by the divine Djan must have the case for mercy argued and won before they deign to nod their heads in merciful acquiescence. For the religion of Opaz, the Invisible Twins, mercy is a guiding light, but that too is a mercy tempered with forethought for the welfare of those of Opaz. As for Lem the Silver Leem — they should receive the same mercy they show and they would all be extinct. For old Mog, the high priestess of the religion of Migshaanu, away there in Migladrin, mercy was a known and valued component of the religion, used with care as a precious unction. I could expect no mercy from these men who had been my Krozair Brothers, men for whom I would have fought and men who would have given their lives for me in like manner, before I had been tried and judged and condemned.

  I would not plead.

  But through all the agony of spirit I felt the fire in my blood. The agony refreshed itself at the wellspring of a new agony.

  I knew.

  We hustled toward the rock of the side wall. The guards spoke in harsh whispers. "Keep quiet," and

  "Careful with the light," and "He should be thrown to the chanks." I stumbled along. A lenken door opened and closed, silently. An iron bolt dropped into place, silently. A pitchy darkness confronted my groping fingers. My chains clanked. I heard a panel squeal and a voice, hoarse, say, "One bur only, my lady. Not a mur more." A form moved. A soft pearly light shone across a littered floor of discarded impedimenta, fishing gear, a broken trident, crumbling floats, a scattering of canvas, wooden tubs and withy baskets. The light wavered.

  I looked up.

  It is a long time ago, I was in torment, I do not recall — I remember her soft arms, her lips, the touch of her hair, the thrilling whisper of her voice. Oh, I felt as poor and downtrodden and useless there as ever I have felt. That it should come to this! A beaten man, chained, thrown out of all he held dear, yet daring to clasp in his arms the most wonderful woman in two worlds!

  "Dray, oh, my heart. ."

  No, I cannot tell more.

  Delia — my Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue Mountains.

  Of all we babbled I remember little. She said these terrible Krozairs of Zy were incapable of being bribed. Nothing would move them to deny their duty. I could have told her that. There was no easy escape through gold here. She was well. She held a great pride in her sons and daughters. Krozairs, Sisters of the Rose, Princes and Princesses of Vallia. I could hardly talk. She wanted to talk of the youngsters, but I kissed her and we clung together, warm, warm, and again she wailed that there was no way of contriving my escape.

  I do remember, in a pale pathetic reflection of my old arrogance: "I will win free, my Delia. I will. And I will tell you why sometimes I go away even if you do not believe."

  "If you tell me I will believe."

  I was charged afresh with a ludicrous determination. ’I will win free. I will prove I am a true Krozair." She held me. "Yes, yes, that is what you will do. I know. They are wrong. ."

  "It is a thing I must do. I must."

  How different this, from all my grandiose expectations! I had waited twenty-one dreary years, and all for this! My Delia, the most perfect woman of two worlds, how cruel that she should thus be tormented on my account. I held her close and my thoughts were clouded. I remember. . I remember little then. No, I cannot tell more.

  The panel scraped and the pearly light strengthened. I held her close, but she was gone, gone, and the panel closed and the light darkened and I was alone.

  The outer lenken door was flung back and rough hands grasped me and, with my chains clanking about me, I was led down to the stone quay and up the gangplank. So once more I entered on the life of a galley slave of the Eye of the World, which is the inner sea of the continent of Turismond on Kregen, spinning beneath the Suns of Scorpio.

  A galley slave may survive if he can last out the first week.

  My memory of that time remains hazy. I recall that the work came as a shock; I had grown slothful. My strength remained, but it was not as easy as I might have been forgiven for thinking. It took me some time to regain all my old toughness and hardness, to endure the incessant toil, and all that time I remained sunk in a spiritless slough. I cared little for anything. I even came to regard that dark meeting with my Delia as an hallucination. Had I really once more clasped Delia of Delphond in my arms? Could it truly have been my Delia of the Blue Mountains? Or was I gripped by the Drig-driven phantasms of the madness I know claimed me?

  Reason had fled. I pulled my oar. I lived like a vosk sunk in swill. I endured. Even thoughts of Zorg of Felteraz, and Nath and Zolta, my two oar comrades still living, penetrated like a nightmare, so that often and often I would call their names, thinking them laboring at the loom at my side.

  As for the five other wights on the loom with me, I knew nothing of them nor cared how they regarded me. I was the madman of the benches. I shouted for Zorg when the swifter went into action, yelling for Nath and Zolta, cursing the Overlords of Magdag, pulling with frenzy so that I could drown out the blackness of a despair I had forgotten tormented me, or why, or how, sunk in the blazing mania of madness.

  When I had been a slave in the Magdaggian swifters
I had gradually surfaced from near-insanity. I had taken an interest in what went on, noting the galleys, their construction, their methods of working and sailing and fighting. Now I cared for nothing. I pulled. When the lash fell on me I yelled out in abandon, uncaring, all pride forgotten.

  It is all a fragmentary scattering of scarlet memories.

  One time we were rammed and the apostis crumpled in deadly splinters and the side caved in and three of the poor devils chained with me were crushed to red pulp. One time arrows sought down into the slave benches, for this craft was rigged anaphract, and I saw a shaft sprout suddenly from the back of the slave in front of me. I saw with perplexity and no sensations of pain an arrow pinning my foot to the deck. I wrenched the thing out with a jerk of my leg, seeing blood, feeling nothing, pulling, pulling, pulling. I must have been sent down to the sickbay and recovered of the wound. I remember nothing of that. There was a space when I felt the rain and the wind on my face, and the heat of the suns, and then a space when I did not. Now I realize I must have been transferred from the upper bank to the lower; it made no difference to my madness.

  Once, I dimly recall, I awoke to look up and see the immense arch of the rock harbor of the Island of Zy above my head and I cried out "Krozair!" in a terrible voice. I strove to rise and could not, for I was chained and manacled and the chains were stapled to the deck.

  Now, later, I know it was after that experience that I was vaguely aware of people bending over me, of shadowy forms, of a shielded light, of whispers.

  I recalled these fragments of the night as I labored at the oar by day. The suns scorched my back, my hair grew wild, I fined off the excess weight that being a prince and king brings. I know I was as hard and tough and enduring as ever I had been.