Renegade of Kregen [Dray Prescot #13]

by Alan Burt Akers

  She of the Veils had risen clear of the roofs now and as we reached the end of the Alley of Weights and saw the dark water before us a jaggedly rippling ribbon of pinkly golden light stretched, as though to welcome us back to the sea. Lights shone from the taverns and alehouses, for sailors’ work is thirsty work. Again I fancied business was slack. The tavern I wanted, known to be the favorite of the Vallian seamen who had sailed here all the weary way across the Outer Oceans, was called The Net and Trident. I knew little of it, for, as you know, my former residence in Magdag had been once in the slave warrens and once in the Emerald Eye Palace.

  In those old days I had spied out a deal of Magdag, as I have mentioned, with a true Krozair's eye for weaknesses in the defense against the great day when the call rang out and we of Zair went up against the hated men of Grodno.

  Well, the call had gone out, and I had failed to answer the Azhurad, and so had been ejected, was no longer a Krzy, was Apushniad. I'd been on Earth at the time, banished for twenty-one terrible years; but how to explain that to a man of Kregen?

  A couple of drunks staggered past. Our sectrixes let a silly snort escape their nostrils, and I kicked the flank of mine to remind him his work was not yet done. The third sectrix with our dunnage strapped to his back tailed along in the rear.

  There were damned few ships tied up. I saw an argenter, one of those broad, stubby comfortable ships, probably from Menaham, although her flags were not visible in the harbor. Beyond her lay three of the broad ships of the inner sea, dwarfed by the argenter. Seeing both types of ship so close together gave me a true idea of the impressiveness of the ships of the Outer Oceans. The little merchant ships of the Eye of the World would never brave the terrors outside the inner sea.

  There was no galleon from Vallia moored up.

  I looked hard as we reined up outside The Net and Trident. No. No, it was sure. I could not see a single Vallian ship.

  Well, I was annoyed. It meant I must wait until one sailed in from the Outer Oceans, sailing in through the Grand Canal and along to Magdag. I would wait. There was nothing else to do.

  We tied the sectrixes to the rail, at which they showed their spite. Later, when I had asked the questions boiling in me, we could stable them properly. We pushed into the tavern and stood for a moment adjusting to heat and light and noise.

  The place was not overly full, and the patrons were mostly sailors of the inner sea, with a mercenary guard or two, and at a table beneath the balcony of the upper floor a group of men who might be merchants in a small way of business.

  A few serving wenches—I dislike the name of shif commonly given to these girls—moved among the tables and benches. We moved farther into the room, letting the door swing shut at our backs. My right hand hung at my side, ready. The sawdust on the floor showed itself to be old and in urgent need of replacement. The odors of old grease and burned fat and sour wine clung about the room.

  Nodding to a table in a corner where no one was likely to get at our backs, I went over and Duhrra followed. His right arm was buried in his green cloak. We wore the mesh mail beneath our green robes, but we had removed our coifs earlier. We sat down and stared about, rather as two hungry and thirsty travelers might do. And, in truth, that was what we were.

  One of the girls hurried over, plastering a smile on her face. She was apim, and not happy, worn out and tired already even though the night's drinking had barely begun.

  Duhrra began an argument about the wine she might serve, and he went dangerously near perilous ground by asking if they had any Zairian wine recently come in from a prize. She tossed her hair back tiredly and said they had none, and she could recommend the local Blood of Dag which, she said, as a wine was, as was proper, a bright and beautiful green. Duhrra's face did not express his distaste. But he started to speak.

  “Excellent!” I said loudly. “And a rasher or two of vosk with a few loloo's eggs. And pie to follow—malsidge, if possible, or squish."

  “Malsidge?” said Duhrra, not too pleased. “Make mine squish."

  “We are taking a long sea voyage,” I said. “Malsidge."

  “Malsidge is off,” said the girl. She wiped her mouth and smeared the red stuff over her cheeks. “Huliper pie today."

  “Very well.” I put my hand in one of the pockets of the robe beneath the cloak. I made a habit of carrying money spread out over my person. I let a little silver chink show through my fingers. Her brown eyes fixed on the silver as a ponsho fixes his eyes on a risslaca's eyes.

  “Tell me, doma, what is the news of the ships from Vallia?"

  She would know all the gossip, I guessed. Whether she willed it or not her life would be bound up with the men of the inner sea and their vessels. She would hear them talking.

  “Vallia, gernu?"

  Her tone had changed markedly since the gleam of silver between my fingers.

  “Ships from Vallia sail into Foreigners’ Pool. When is the next one due? Has she been signaled yet?"

  She shook her head. She looked frightened. Still she had not taken her eyes away from that gleam of silver.

  “No, gernu. Not for a long time. The ships from Vallia no longer sail to Magdag."

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  The flash of a Ghittawrer blade

  As I have said before, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the color green. It is a charming, restful color. Our green vegetation makes of our Earth a marvelous place. I know that if green suddenly vanished from the spectrum we would all be immeasurably the poorer for that. But as I sat there, in that squalid tavern on the waterfront of Foreigners’ Pool in Magdag, so overwhelming, so bitter, so malefic a hatred for all things Green overcame me that I shut my eyes and gripped onto the inferior earthenware pot so that it smashed into shards and the bilious green wine ran and spread over the table.

  “Gernu!” cried this poor serving wench.

  Then sanity reasserted itself. Of course! She did not mean that Vallian ships never came to Magdag. The inner sea lies at the western center of the continent of Turismond. It is separated from Eastern Turismond by a devilish cleft in the ground from which spurt noxious and hallucinatory vapors, and also by The Stratemsk, so monstrous a range of mountains that men believe their summits reach up to the twin glories of Zim and Genodras, the red and green suns of Antares. There was no way, as all men knew, across The Stratemsk on foot. And—there were no airboats in the inner sea. Equally, it needed a ship of the Outer Oceans to navigate in those stormy seas, all the way from the Dam of Days in the west, south and so past Donengil, and then north up the Cyphren Sea, sailing with the Zim Stream and so passing the northern extremity of the continent of Loh, and so at last due east for Vallia.

  No. No, this girl did not mean the galleons from Vallia no longer sailed to Magdag.

  She meant the seamen from the galleons no longer came to her tavern, The Net and Trident.

  I told her this, in a gentle voice, but still she flinched back.

  “Indeed, no, gernu. I speak sooth. Since King Genod, may his name be revered, told them not to sail here, they have not come back."

  “He did what?"

  “Gernu...” Her voice sounded faint.

  The door opened and on a gust of fishy, fresher air, men bulked in, apims, diffs, laughing and talking, scraping chairs and tables, bellowing for wine.

  The girl cast one last longing look at the silver between my fingers, and fled.

  I sat like a loon.

  Of course, I could take passage in an argenter. Sail to Pandahem. But—but there was no other answer. That is what I would have to do. I did not like it. There was no other way.

  Pandahem, the large island to the south of Vallia, had always been in trade and military rivalry with the empire of Vallia. Pandahem was divided into a number of different nations. I had friends—rather, I used to have friends—in Tomboram. This new and evil king Genod Gannius here in Magdag had arranged a treaty with my enemies in Menaham in Pandahem. He wanted to buy airboats f
rom Hamal and use the Menaheem to transport them to Magdag and so gain an invincible sky force to crush the Zairians. I had put paid to that scheme, at least for now. No doubt he would try again. By then I would be well out of the Eye of the World, back home in Valka, my island off the coast of Vallia. But ... in order to sail home I would have to ship in an argenter from Menaham.

  By Vox! How the Bloody Menahem would crow if ever they discovered they had the Prince Majister of Vallia in their hands!

  Duhrra was looking at me.

  He put that moonface of his on one side, and a frown dinted in the smooth skin of his forehead. His scalp was bald and gleaming, with that small pigtail dangling down his back.

  “You show nothing on your face, Dak. Yet is not this news bad? It is not what you expected."

  “No. It is not."

  “Then you cannot return to your home in Vallia. You will have to return with me to Sanurkazz—or Crazmoz, which is my home—and we will have fine adventures on the way."

  I could not answer.

  This Duhrra, whom I had dubbed Duhrra of the Days, did not know all there was to know of me, even here in the Eye of the World, where years and years ago I had been a Krozair Brother and the foremost swifter captain of the inner sea. Those cramphs of Magdag had trembled at my name. I knew it to be true. Nursing mothers lost their milk, strong men blanched, maidens screamed, if they thought themselves in danger from me, from Pur Dray, Krzy.

  Duhrra called me Dak, for that was a name I had adopted in all honor, even though I believed he had heard me addressed by my real name. He never referred to it. The Krozairs are a remote and exotic breed of men, even among their own countrymen who have not aspired to the honor and glory of becoming Krozairs.

  The serving girl bustled about seeing to the ribald and vociferous demands of the newcomers. They were mercenaries, and even seated at table they swaggered and boasted. Presently she brought our vosk and loloo's eggs, and the huliper pie, together with a fresh jug of that ghastly green wine, the Blood of Dag.

  I flipped the silver oar up. It glittered in the lamplight.

  “You forget this."

  She bobbed a quick curtsy, the same kind of submissive dipping of the head and bending of the knee as one saw on Earth, and caught the silver coin and dropped it safely down her blouse.

  “Thank you, gernu. May Grodno smile on you."

  Another man might have thought, Zair certainly is not. But I thought only of a scheme to return to Vallia and Valka and once more clasp my Delia in my arms, my Delia of the Blue Mountains, my Delia of Delphond.

  “Eat,” said Duhrra. “Eat, my master, and afterward you will feel better."

  He was partially right, of course. I ate. The stuff tasted foul. I took up a handful of palines, for they are usually—although not always—to be found in a dish on every tavern table, and I munched moodily. Palines are sovereign cures for a headache, cherry-like fruits of exquisite taste, sweet firm flesh, and are an item sadly lacking on this Earth, this Earth of my birth four hundred light-years from Kregen under Antares.

  This disastrous news had shattered me.

  I had been through horrific experiences before, many times. But this feeling of being trapped numbed me. I had been trapped when the Star Lords had banished me to Earth for twenty-one years. Then there had been no possible way for me to do something and return to Kregen. I had made attempts and had scared up some response from the strange woman who called herself Madam Ivanovana on Earth and Zena Iztar on Kregen. But now I was actually on Kregen, my duties for the Star Lords for the moment discharged, and willing and able to travel at once to the only woman who means anything to me—and I was prevented by mere geography. Distance and time separated me, as I then thought.

  So be it. I remember I sat up and found myself looking at one of the mercenaries at the adjoining table. I would make my way back to my Delia, as I had before, and I would do so come hell or high water.

  With that decision made and already plans for that damned Menahem argenter forming in my mind, I was aware of the mercenary rising from the table.

  Duhrra sucked in his breath.

  The mercenary was a Fristle. His powerful humanlike body was clad in the mesh mail. His catlike head, with the striped fur and the slit eyes and the bristling whiskers, lowered on me most evilly. He advanced from his table and he loosened his scimitar, which all Fristles use no matter what other weapons they chance to be issued with.

  “You are looking at me, dom,” said this Fristle, very menacingly. He was vicious and tough, that was evident. “I do not think I like that."

  I knew what had happened. So wrapped up in my thoughts had I been I had allowed some of my anguish and my anger to show on that iron-hard face of mine, thereby destroying any illusion I might cherish of being an iron-hard man. The Fristle had seen this and with his quick catlike temper had taken this as a deliberate affront, a challenge.

  I sighed.

  “You are mistaken, dom,” I began. “I was not—"

  That was a mistake, to start with.

  “You are calling me a liar?"

  “Not at all.” I searched around for words. This situation was not quite unparalleled. I had acted the coward and the ninny as Hamun ham Farthytu in Ruathytu, the capital of Hamal. Now I wanted to avoid trouble. For Duhrra's sake as much as mine, I wished no brawling here. “No, dom. I would not call you a liar—unless you were, of course."

  “Cramph!” he said. Even in the simple word cramph he insinuated a cat's hiss into his voice. Then, splendidly, hissing out into the tavern room and bringing everyone's attention to center on us: “Rast!"

  A rast is a six-legged rodent disgustingly infesting dunghills. I have used the word a few times in my life.

  I stood up. I stood up slowly.

  “I was not looking at you with intent. In that you lie. You call me a cramph. You lie. You call me a rast. You lie.” My right hand slowly crossed my waist toward the sword hilt. “It seems, dom, you are a chronic liar."

  “By Odifor, apim! His scimitar flamed. “I must teach you your place!"

  His comrades lolled back in their chairs, laughing, mocking, catcalling, telling this mercenary, whom they called Cryfon the Sudden, to be gentle with me and only knock one eye out and not to stick more than two fingers’ breadth of steel into me and so on.

  He had no fear of my longsword. In these confined quarters with tables and chairs to entangle legs, the quick and deadly scimitar would do its work wonderfully well. His Magdaggian longsword, no doubt with the initials G.G.M. etched into the blade, hung disregarded, scabbarded from a baldric.

  I moved to one side so as to give myself room and whipped out the longsword. The lamps cast their glow upon the blade, for it had been newly cleaned and it shone lustrously.

  The mercenaries at the table suddenly fell silent.

  The Fristle, who a moment before brandished his scimitar with every intent of giving me a good thrashing, short of slaying me, stopped stock still. His breath hissed between that catlike mouth.

  “By the Green!” he said.

  Duhrra moved at my back and I guessed he was swathing up his stump again.

  “Gernu!” said this Fristle mercenary, Cryfon the Sudden. “I did not know—I had no idea. Your pardon, gernu, a thousand thousand pardons."

  Where before he had been calling me rast and cramph, as well as dom, which is a friendly salutation, now he called me gernu, which is the Grodnim way of saying jernu or lord.

  One takes one's chances on Kregen.

  “I was not staring at you with intent."

  “Indeed not, gernu. In that I lied. I lied most foully, as Odifor is my witness."

  One of the mercenaries, a bulky numim whose golden fur glowed gloriously in the samphron oil lamp's gleam, called, “You always could pick the wrong ‘un, Cryfon.” The numim rose, bowing to me. “Gernu—you will pardon the poor onker and take a sup of wine with us?"

  He was a Deldar, and the leader and spokesman of this little gang. I turne
d to face him and realized I still held the looted Grodnim longsword. I swished it in a little salute and sheathed it. Its flash was scabbarded. But in that movement I caught at some of the meanings here. The device! The lairgodont and the rayed-sun emblem. At the time I'd picked it up on the Dam of Days, with its headless late owner sprawled by the valve wheels, I had considered the problems of that device. I'd chipped out the emeralds and given the device a rub with a rough stone, but the quick eyes of these men had picked it out, and recognized it—and, too, no doubt, they had seen the condition, the lack of jewels, and had drawn conclusions from that consonant with a Green Brother patronizing a low-class drinking tavern like The Net and Trident.

  Even a Green Brother, a Ghittawrer of Grodno, down on his luck was a man not to be trifled with. And, too, it was not only because of the longsword, which they now knew would have chopped the Fristle mercenary, Cryfon the Sudden, very surely, scimitar or no scimitar, close quarters or no close quarters. Also, there was in these men's shocked deference to a Ghittawrer Brother the subservience to power and authority vested in mystic disciplines, the force of religion, the aura of invincibility.

  I had seen similar, although not so violent, reactions in Sanurkazz when an unthinking carouser came face to face with a Krozair Brother. But the Zairians are a ruffianly lot anyway, and they tend to joke more and to make rough good humor out of the mystic disciplines—making very sure first that no Krozair is within earshot. These Grodnims, in line with their religious character, took a more narrow view. They believed more fanatically. They were more fervent in their observances. For them the Green was all.