Avenger of Antares

by Alan Burt Akers

  The party of zorcamen must have flinched back at their very first sight of us. And, indeed, we must have made an alarming spectacle.

  From a voller that swooped from the sky like a pouncing volleem sprang three black-furred creatures who suddenly threw off their glistening black furs and charged, naked and brandishing weapons. One of these apparitions was a Brokelsh with a singularly pugnacious way with him. The second was an uncouth, ugly-faced desperado of a fellow, the very sort to steer well clear of down a dark alleyway at night. And the third was a vicious manhound, her red lolling tongue and sharp jagged teeth calculated to strike terror into the hearts of these fine, fancy courtiers.

  Incontinently they put spurs to their zorcas and tried to flee and as impetuously we were upon them and had thrown them to the ground. There were seven of them. While Bartak the Hyrshiv stood over two, describing in the most pungent tones what he intended to do to them if they so much as blinked, and while I glared at my two and let them listen, Melow merely walked around and around her three. The three wights huddled together, clinging to one another, their eyes huge and rolling as they watched the horrific form of the jikla as she paced around and around them, her claws glistening in the light of the suns.

  Round about then, I think, I saw the funny side of all this. I started to laugh. Bartak cast a single frozen look at me, turned to glare at Melow, and then he too started to rumble like an earthquake in the Shrouded Sea.

  Melow said in her raspy voice, “Why do you not slay them all?”

  But I would have none of that. Dead men tell no tales, that is true, but I wanted them to tell me tales.

  Yes, Notor, they babbled, we will tell you all you wish to know. The Numim girl is why we are here and why all the other great crippled ones are gathered. We are Vad Quarnach’s men. Yes, Notor, he is Quarnach Algarond, the Vad of the Dudinter District of the great city of Ba-Marish. He is a most wealthy man and will pay much if you spare our miserable lives. Yes, Notor, his marvelous airboat is parked beside the stream. We will gladly tell you how many men he has and maidens also.

  I swear I saw the glimmer of a smile rick up the thin lips of the manhound.

  The whole episode passed off rather like a fever-dream.

  We took their clothes. Fancy clothing, these young popinjays wore, parti-colored, so that I found myself wearing half orange and half yellow, and Bartak wore half blue and half silver. I had to slit the tunic up the back to get it over my shoulders, but I slung a jacket with the coloring reversed over my left shoulder and drew it up with dudinter cords.[6] Their weapons were those of the mighty hunters who go upon the Great Jikai with the Manhounds of Faol, hunting human beings.

  As I say, everything proceeded as in a dream. We found the airboat and a marvel she was, too: massively decorated, lavish as to cabins and awnings and promenades, and yet with a fair arsenal of varters disposed advantageously. I think we laughed every time we tripped up a wight, or gently bashed a skull. We laid them out alongside each other, bound and gagged in their own clothing. The maidens took one look at Melow and, clanking their dudinter chains, collapsed in faints that were the genuine ground-thunking article. We laid out these poor Chail Sheom, too, but I did spare a fraction of a mur to strike off their pretty and vile chains.

  I had the feeling these folk from Ba-Marish were not so much decadent as merely self-indulgent. Loving pretty things, scented and powdered, wearing fine silks and linens, overeating the finest foods and guzzling the best vintages of Havilfar, they clearly set the highest store by the good things of life — the good things in their view — and were determined to live and die hedonists.

  “Ba-Marish, Bartak,” I said. We stood by the airboat looking at the last fellow who slumbered with a bruise on his skull, wrapped in brilliant blue silks. “I know of the city, of course, about a hundred and fifty dwaburs south of Ba-Fela, on the west coast, opposite Ng’groga. But I have not visited the place. Can you tell me of it?”

  Bartak grunted and bit into a juicy chunk of beef so that the juices dribbled. He chewed mightily for a space. Then he said, “All those free port-cities consider themselves the saviors of Havilfar. From the old days. When they fought and resisted the Lohvians and their Bridzilkelsh-forsaken invasions.”

  “They appear sadly fallen away from their old ways, then.”

  “They live in the past. Their pastimes are gorging, drinking, and wenching — and making money.”

  “Reasonable objectives in life, I’d say — if there were not others.”

  Melow padded across. I had told her to take what clothing pleased her, and added that she need never wear the gray slave breechclout again, as far as I was concerned. Now she had decked her plump body in a gaudy array of sensils, silks, and linens of the brightest colors, a confusing glittering mass of jewels and dudinter about her. Her hair was cropped so that it fluffed about her head, the massive matting of crest-hair all shorn away. She looked different. I can safely say that. It is an old story.

  “Why care about the past, Dray Prescot? What is this Ba-Marish to you?”

  “A great deal, Melow. You have your freedom. Take whatever you desire from these possessions. These evil people who hunt humans for sport will seek protection at my hands in vain. They forfeit their pretty things as they have already forfeited their rights of humanity.”

  For a moment I thought I had been clumsy in my speech, exposing a subject on which the jikla would be sore; but she gave again that yowling hiss and that ricking grimace to her lips, from which I surmised she laughed and smiled.

  “These people told us the hunt will begin on tomorrow, Dray Prescot, so your precious Numim maiden is safe for one more night.”

  ‘True. And we use that night to our advantage.”

  Then I paused.

  I had been instrumental in rescuing both Bartak and Melow, but there was no reason on Kregen why either should go with me to Smerdislad. And — did I want them with me?

  “I shall go into the city,” I said. “I would wish you, Bartak, and you, Melow, to do as you desire. There is much wealth here. You could be rich.”

  Melow said, her voice as harsh as ever, “I shall go with you, Dray Prescot.”

  I sighed. I had heard that before, in other places. Bartak hesitated. He had finished the beef and now he took up a dudinter bowl of gregarians and began to munch. I did not press him. The two of them would present problems the next day. But they had been of the utmost use so far.

  But this brief interlude of solemnity, in a situation that remained both dreamlike and hilarious could not last. We prodded the Vad into consciousness again and sat him in his great ivory chair, with the sensil cushions stuffed with down from the breasts of baby zhyans, and the dudinter supports and canopy, and we stood before him, glaring. Quarnach Algarond, the Vad of the Dudinter District, could not walk. He must be transported everywhere by slaves carrying his luxurious palanquin. He sat nervously, for he was a cowed man. Naturally, he was fat, with a silly, fat vosk face, dripping with sweat, and a fuzz of blond hair slicked back beneath his dudinter coronet. We glared at him, and he sat back, and his pudgy hands, ringed on every finger, plucked at his thick purple lips.

  “You may take all you see, if you do not slay me.”

  Bartak, being a Brokelsh and therefore somewhat coarse of manner and mind, said, “We may slay you and take all we will.”

  The Vad couldn’t answer that. He sat, plucking his thick, shining lips, and his obese body shook.

  “Vad Quarnach,” I said, putting the old devilish bite into my words, “are you known in Smerdislad?”

  “No. No one there knows me. You may rely on that. I would not betray you if you release me.”

  He had mistaken the reason for my inquiry. I pressed him further, and learned all I wished to know. The Kov of Faol occasionally arranged extra special hunts for extra special guests. One such hunt began the next day and was designed for those would-be mighty hunters who could no longer stalk through the jungles on foot after their quarry, or w
ho were too fragile to bestride fluttrell or mirvol, or to shoot from a speeding airboat. Truly, this was the cripples’ Jikai.

  The carrying poles for Vad Quarnach’s palanquin, much decorated with spiral carvings and embossed plaques of this dudinter of which he was so proud, were so arranged that sixteen slaves or four preysanys might convey him. This fanciful airboat of his, something of the style of a pagoda of the air, contained stables with half-doors along its lower sides. Here his men’s zorcas were kept, and half a dozen preysanys for the palanquin. I eyed the gorgeous finery of the palanquin with a lively interest.

  The men we had surprised in the jungle had gone riding off after a slave who had thrown herself overboard. She had been observed to strike the heavily foliaged branches of the trees, and because the airboat was flying at a low altitude, escape serious injury. When I asked why she had not been brought back, my face hardened at the answer. She had sought to escape, knowing the fate in store for her, and the brilliant courtiers had soon found her, naked and running, and tripped her by her dudinter chains. But, in subduing her and bringing her back to her master, she had forced them to overcome her struggles, and, as they said, shrugging, she had died of it.

  This girl had been intended as Vad Quarnach’s offering for the Jikai. Each member of the hunt brought a beautiful girl for the pool. Now Quarnach had lost his.

  Bartak the Hyrshiv spat.

  “I say take off his head now, Dray Prescot, and have done.”

  This Bartak the Brokelsh came from a rural community in Hyrzibar’s Finger, that long promontory dividing the sea from the Gulf of Wracks in southeast Havilfar. He had gone wandering, as so many young men did, and after various adventures, including a spell as a flutsman, had been captured by the aragorn. The mercenaries had sold him to the Kov of Faol for sport in the Great Jikai of the manhounds. I shook my head. Bartak would be a useful man in a fight, as he had proved; I could not accept his advice on more cerebral matters, such as the decision that needed to be taken now.

  “I have never been to Hyrzibar’s Finger, Bartak. Are they all like you, there?”

  “Aye. And what of it?”

  That Drig-driven breeze must have wafted from the Faolese jungle then, for I laughed. Hyrzibar, as a shishi exclusively serving the minor godlings of mythology, had a long and vivid series of poems and stories clustered about her name. Her Finger was notorious, and I gathered that not only geography had fastened the name upon the southeastern promontory of Havilfar above Quennohch.

  “It is no matter. Bartak, I think you would be well pleased to take all these wonderful possessions for your own, and fly this airboat back to Hyrzibar’s Finger with them.”

  “I admit it is a fair prospect.” He stroked a thick thumb down his bristles, regarding me. “Would you then, take nothing for yourself?”

  “Weapons and a zorca only, I fancy.”

  “You never cease to amaze me.”

  Melow the jikla let out a hissing screech at this, from which I gathered she sniffed that subtle breeze too.

  “And, Melow the Supple,” I said. “What am I to do with you?”

  “Nothing, Dray Prescot. For I have said I will go with you.”

  “Into Smerdislad? Then how can I accomplish my errand?”

  The sudden viciousness of manhounds and their ferocious tempers are things spoken of with awe on the parts of Kregen where the jiklos are known. I stood calmly, looking at Melow, prepared for that feral outburst of fury to launch straight at me. I could feel the warmth of the late afternoon suns upon my neck, and the smell of the jungle reached me as I waited for Melow the Supple to make up her mind.

  Melow had no tail to twitch. But her gaudy new clothes rustled about her, and the dudinter chains clanked as she moved with stiff arms and legs, clanked in mockery of the iron chains she had always worn before.

  “Very well, Dray Prescot. When your errand is done I will be waiting for you outside the dark walls of Smerdislad.”

  “You would be known in Smerdislad, Melow. You would be taken and punished. Is that not true?” I said.

  “This is so, Dray Prescot.”

  “Then if you wait for me, I will come back for you.” I wanted to burst out into roaring laughter as I spoke, and yet I felt only a deadliness upon me, there in that devil-haunted jungle. “Although, what I am to do with you after, Opaz alone knows. And,” I added with an acerbity fully justified, “he isn’t telling me.”

  The Brokelsh was eating again and I joined him despite his distressing habit of hurling half-eaten chicken legs, bones from chops, stones from fruit — everything with which he had finished — over his shoulders in what appeared a never-ending fusillade. I ducked a sizable vosk bone from which Bartak had sucked the marrow and picked up a nice-looking piece of cold glacéd vosk, and sank my teeth into it and set to with a will. Bartak had routed out bowls filled with masses of the most delicious fruit. I do not think it necessary to have to tell you of what metal Quarnach had had his bowls fashioned. Melow dragged down a whole cooked half-ponsho and settled down to devour the succulent meat. Well, we feasted after our various fashions.

  Presently I freed two of the slave girls. I half drew my thraxter and slammed it back into the scabbard so that the poor creatures jumped. “Feed the people and the animals.” I glowered on them. “If you try to run away the jiklo is still hungry. She will chomp on your bones.” They shrieked and shuddered at this, and hurried about their tasks, very nervous and with constant apprehensive glances toward Melow, who sat breaking up juicy bones and sucking out the marrow.

  Why, then, did all this make my mouth twitch and threaten to send me into convulsions of laughter? I am still not sure, but I fancy there must have been some potent mirth-producing perfume wafting from the jungle.

  Even this bubbling if concealed hilarity could not blind me to the evil intentions harbored by Vad Quarnach for the hunt the next day. He would cheerfully shoot his arbalest at Saffi, the golden lion-maid, and at other beautiful girls, all in the name of sport. I would talk to Bartak, and caution him; I could do no more.

  My preparations were made most carefully and in different fashion from those I had intended. The first thing was to turn Quarnach Algarond, Vad of the Dudinter District of Ba-Marish, out of his palanquin. His fat body quivered like one of these modern plastic sacks filled with oil. He spent no time in pleading, but I did see that he was settled into a lesser chair with carrying poles handy. Then I inspected the palanquin.

  As I have said, it was a gorgeous affair, and the dudinter, being noncorrosive, and of a greater hardness than gold by reason of the silver mixed with it, gave the whole affair a weight and a dignity most becoming to the stature of a Vad, which is a rank very high in the listing of nobles, being merely one step below a Kov. The cushions were soft, the embroidery excellent, the backrest solid, so that an arrow or knife would not bite through. With that as a starting point I felt confident of success.

  Throwing off the parti-colored clothes taken from the courtiers I ransacked Quarnach’s private lenken chest. He had an amazing quantity of fine clothes, and I dressed myself so that I almost resembled a whistling faerling, or myself as I had been dressed by Queen Thyllis, although with much greater taste and style. From all the weapons available I selected the two best thraxters. Two of the sportsmen’s crossbows with their close-grained herm-wood stocks went into the capacious flapped pockets outside the palanquin. Inside there were shelves, and these I stocked with a considerable plunder of jewels and money. Bartak looked on, not exactly glowing, but with an expression that said: “Have a care, my impetuous friend, for you take what is mine.”

  I retained the stuxcal, for it might prove useful. In addition I fastened one of the guard’s shields upon the roof. The guards were nearly as effeminate as their masters, and they had given us no trouble. Quite the contrary, for they had seemed glad to surrender. Their uniforms were foppish, with too much flashy show and not enough hard soldierly leather. The men were Tryfants, diffs not much larger than Ochs,
and if well led the Tryfants may carry out a wild enough charge, full of panache; I will not speak of them in retreat. There are many strange and different diffs upon Kregen of which I have not spoken yet, as there are many races of apims. I have no great feelings one way or the other for Tryfants.

  A sack of provisions completed all I required of the Vad’s possessions apart from the two preysanys and the zorca. The preysany, that superior form of calsany, is a much more even-tempered animal than the calsany, and harnessing up two fore and two aft in the carrying poles presented no difficulties. I led the zorca to the rear and knotted a long leading string to the palanquin. Then I turned to my companions, Bartak and Melow.

  “You will reach the city after the suns have gone, Dray Prescot,” said Melow in her hoarse voice. “I will await you by the tomb of Imbis Frolhan the Ship Merchant three ulms from the gate. You cannot miss the tomb, for it bears a ship upon the marble, a marble argenter, and that is rare among the nations of Havilfar.”

  “True, Melow. So be it.”

  The jikla was right, for most of the Havilfarese are not seafaring people. Vessels from other nations come to trade with them. Much of their own merchandise flies. I fancied I would have little trouble picking out a marble-carved argenter among the lines of tombs along the road to Smerdislad.

  A great deal of money was spent, season by season, by honor-conscious families to keep back the encroaching jungle from the tombs.

  Having satisfied myself that my projected mode of conveyance was satisfactory, I untied the zorca and mounted up. Bartak laid a squat black-bristled hand upon the bridle. “I bid you Remberee, Dray Prescot.” He stared up at me. “I have told you I come from Hyrzibar’s Finger, near to a town called Brodensmot. You have not told me where you come from.”

  I sighed. Where to tell him. Strombor? Valka? Vallia? Djanduin? Would Paline Valley suffice? Could I say I came from Hemlad, as Bagor, that instantly invented fellow who had rescued Queen Thyllis, had claimed? Where?