Captive Scorpio dp-17

by Alan Burt Akers

  Queen Lush gasped.

  The emperor smiled at her, patting her hand, and turned to me.

  “He was ill. He craved leave to return home.”

  “And you let him go?”

  “One does not easily ignore the reasonable requests of a Wizard of Loh. Their powers are — are strange.”

  “Quite.”

  I’d bet a first-class zorca against a broken-down calsany that Deb-sa-Chiu, who had sought out Delia for me, had been made ill by the conjurations of Phu-si-Yantong. It was one more carefully arranged part of his plan. Even though no other Wizard of Loh might be as powerful as Yantong — with the possible and hoped for exception of Khe-Hi-Bjanching — that devil would take no chances and had got rid of Deb-sa-Chiu.

  “What has a Wizard of Loh to do with-” started Crimahan in his spiteful way. But the emperor was not Delia’s father for nothing. His smile for Queen Lush altered, subtly, as he said:

  “And, Dray, you think-?”

  “Aye. And not think. Know.”

  Queen Lush put a hand to her breast. She was very pale.

  “Rest easy, my queen,” said the emperor, and I noted the form of address. “Here, a glass of wine. This news, if true, is very dreadful. But you have been a comfort and a support to me. I could not have gone on without you at my side. Do not fail me now.”

  “I shall stand with you. I swear it!” She looked distraught and this was no wonderful thing, for the idea of having a Wizard of Loh pitted against you is unnerving, to say the least. The others in the room looked shaken. Even if, later, they would pooh-pooh what I had said, at the moment they were a badly rattled bunch.

  Well, I had told them some of it. Maybe that was a mistake and I certainly would tell them no more. But the black pall over Vallia needed men and women now who would fight to the end even when they knew the end would be evil and filled with sorrow, people who would rend that black pall even though the end was doom-laden horror.

  A somberness held them all as they departed to go about the petty business of supply and reorganization we had decided. Not a one knew a whisper of the whereabouts of Delia. As for my inquiries about the islands of Vallia, they were out of it. Nothing from Rahartdrin, Ava, Womox, all the others, not a sound or sign from Veliadrin or Zamra or Valka.

  Deciding to make myself useful I took a tour of the sentry posts and found all quiet. There was time for a yarn and to chew a handful of palines with the Pachaks. Then I crawled off to our wing of the palace hoping to get in at least a few burs sleep before the alarums and excursions of the morrow. Queen Lushfymi waited for me in my bedchamber.

  Of slaves there were none here, they had all run off. Even the emperor’s apartments were served only by a few slaves left to him. I gaped at her. Magnificent, she looked. Sheerly clad all in white that threw the ebon glory of her hair and the long passionate violet eyes into startling contrast, she sat up on the bed and clasped her hands together over her breast.

  “The emperor-?” I said.

  “He sleeps. I must talk to you.”

  “You make that plain.”

  If I expected another wearisome scene after the fashion of those I had endured at the hands of willful, passionate, lovely women in the past, I was swiftly disabused of the notion. She was no new candidate to be spurned after the style of Queen Lilah, and Queen Fahia, and all the others.

  “The Bowmen of Loh were most wroth at their defeat.”

  I poured her wine and took some myself — in chased silver goblets — and sat beside her on the bed. Her perfume scented with a mysterious power I ignored. She appeared to radiate a light and a warmth in the dim chamber.

  “They would be, seeing they are proud fighting men.”

  She was nerving herself to say something. It hovered on those full voluptuous lips, and would not come forth. So, to ease the situation, I sipped my wine and offered palines, and tried not to be too much amused by the ludicrous affair.

  Then, seeing she was having this difficulty, I said: “You and the emperor are very friendly. You have got on like a house on fire-”

  “I love him.”

  She said this simply, unaffectedly. I sipped wine. She was a cunning, devious queen. She had brought her country of Lome to a position of immense wealth and power in Pandahem. She was possessed of witch-like powers — or so it was said. Why did she tell me this? Was it even true?

  “It is true, Dray Prescot.”

  I sat up.

  “No, I cannot read your mind. But I can divine much that is in a man’s heart. So I would not attempt to seduce you, for I know of your passion for Delia, the Princess Majestrix.”

  I said nothing.

  Then, out of deviltry, I said: “And if that were not so and if you loved the emperor as you claim, would you try to seduce me?”

  Frankly, her violet eyes bearing down on me, she said: “Yes. I would. If by doing so I could help the emperor. Believe me.”

  I rubbed my chin. I needed a shave. I said: “When we met — when I fell through your palanquin awning, you did not much like me and, I confess, I did not much care for you. Why do you seek me out to tell me this?” Then, thinking I understood, I added: “I shall not stand in your way. I should be glad if the emperor wed again and brought forth a whole regiment of princes and princesses-”

  “It is not that.”

  “Perhaps, Queen Lush, you had better tell it all to me.”

  I used the name without thinking — and she amazed me by smiling. “From you, Dray Prescot, that comes as a declaration of intent.”

  “There is nothing wrong with the name Queen Lush. Anyway, it suits you. Names are more important on Kregen than most folk care to admit-”

  “Yes. Oh, yes!”

  That surprised me. So, ignoring a sudden wash of unease, I told her to spit it out and have done.

  “It is not easy. Promise me you will remember that I truly love the emperor?”

  “If you like.”

  “I know you, Dray Prescot, know far more of you than you can possibly dream — so that answer will suffice. I know of you-” She held up her hand to stop me asking her how she thought she knew so damn much about me, and she rushed on now, in full spate, getting it all out. “The Crimson Bowmen. Their defeat was horrible. How do you think their enemy from Hamal knew the plans, knew what the Vallian army would do? How was it that the Hamalese lay in wait and slew and slew?” She nodded and I reached over and gripped her wrist. Her flesh was like ice. “Yes, Dray Prescot, yes! I told them. I, the Queen of Lome, through my occult arts, I told the Hamalese all the secrets of the emperor’s plans, and the army was destroyed and the blood flowed, and-”

  I slapped her face.

  When she calmed down — but only a little, for the situation was fraught and she was in a sprung-steel state of nervous excitement and remorse, I told her to tell me the rest.

  “The Hamalese conquered Pandahem as you know and Queen Thyllis slew my father. But at the Battle of Jholaix the Vallians conquered and Pandahem once more threw off the yoke of Hamal. But new enemies arose. Far more powerful.” She wrenched away and stood up. Her long white gown glimmered in the dim, tapestry-hung room. She began to walk up and down, jerkily, her hands now clasped together, now raised to heaven, her lovely face passionate with remembered terror, a drugged horror that turned her violet eyes into shadowed deeps. “I must tell you, for you are the man to support the emperor now and the southwest will rally to him, and the islands, and we can still win, still win against-” She faltered, and that lissom body drooped.

  “Who made you betray the Vallian army?”

  “I think — I think, Dray Prescot, you know.”

  She turned away, half-fainting with her emotions; but I made no move to assist her. A shadow moved in the doorway at my side and I held up my hand to the emperor, a commanding gesture that would ordinarily have sent him flying into a rage; but he looked long at Queen Lush and listened to her, and the old devil remained silent, a shadow among shadows of the bedchamber. Speaking
in as soothing a voice as I could manage, I said: “Lome has become rich and splendid since you took the throne. Is this also the work of he who now owns you?”

  Her shoulders trembled. “Yes.” The whisper barely reached.

  “In return for all he has done for Lome, with you as queen, he demanded you come to Vallia, seduce the emperor, gain his confidence — and then betray him?”

  “Yes.”

  The emperor moved and I reached out my hand and grasped his forearm, and gripped enough so that he understood. Truly, the times had wrought on him. He stood, a bleak dark statue, in the shadows of the bed at my side, and, together, we listened as Queen Lushfymi of Lome choked out her confession. Phu-si-Yantong.

  She had never met him. But his agents and his own lupal projection had convinced her. The terrors she felt were reflected palely in her stammering voice. Yantong had moved into Pandahem in the wake of the dissolution of the Hamalese armies and in his own surreptitious, cunning, devious ways had exerted his own authority. His puppets now occupied the thrones of the kingdoms of Pandahem. A fleeting twinge of guilt at thought of Tilda and Pando passed across my mind; but that was of and for another time. Here and now the dark and treacherous scheme to destroy Vallia was being revealed to us.

  “See!” cried Queen Lush, her laugh too close to hysteria for my liking. She drew from her sleeve a black feather. “See! I was prepared to make the emperor a convert to the Great Chyyan; but you, Dray Prescot, destroyed that scheme. Now my master sends warriors to do his work.” She blew the black feather from her. It gyrated and was lost in the shadows. She laughed again, the hysteria hideously near, so near as to be madness. Her glimmering form moved in the shaded lamplight of the bedchamber. Silently, the emperor stood at my side, watching and listening.

  Queen Lush drew from the bosom of her dress a dagger, sheathed, ornate, crusted with gems, the style of weapon a queen might carry. She waved it wildly. “Look upon the death of the Emperor of Vallia, the man I love, the man I was forced to betray, the man for whom I would give my life — the man for whom I will give my life!”

  The stiletto flashed clear of the scabbard. Twin deeply cut grooves marked the shining blade.

  “This blade is poisoned. One nick and the emperor is dead. I am to stab him, when my task is done — but I cannot, I cannot.”

  Moving with a purposeful slowness I reached out across the bedclothes and hooked my hard old fist around the hilt of the rapier that hung by the bedpost, angled so as to be drawn in a twinkling. I had vaulted ahead in my thoughts. Khe-Hi-Bjanching had shown me what gladiomancy could do and although I did not know if a Wizard of Loh could manipulate a sword or dagger over immense distances, I wouldn’t put it past that Wizard of Loh who had contrived our downfall. I said sharply: “And will the death of the emperor make so much difference to the schemes of Phu-si-Yantong?”

  “He must die. The master has said so and must be obeyed.”

  “This evil man is no longer your master, Queen Lush. Do not think of him as your master ever again.”

  She turned her head, slowly, tilting, peering at me with her head on one side, half over her shoulder. She looked quite mad. “No. He is my master-”

  “He is not your master. He is a real right bastard and a kleesh — a damned Wizard of Loh. But he owns you no longer.”

  The poisoned dagger looked mightily unpleasant.

  Now the emperor was an emperor and anyone who forgot that deserved to have their heads off; but, far more important, he was the father of my Delia. That was the fact that gave him character in my eyes, and now he proved himself.

  Without faltering, he moved past the bed, stood upright in a patch of light thrown by the shaded lamp. He stared at Queen Lush, who regarded him with a bright, avid look that made my hand jump on the rapier hilt.

  “Queen!” declared the emperor. “You say you love me as I love you. We have meant much, one to the other, in these dark times. Will you stab me? Can you slay me? I am here — see, I lift my arms. Stab, Queen Lush — if you can.”

  As they stood, facing each other, frozen, I wondered if the old devil realized how he had called his queen.

  She took a tottering step. Another. The dagger lifted. I eased the rapier out and stood up. With a shriek of virulent fury or of hysterical triumph — a shriek of such violence that the emperor jumped — Queen Lush hurled the dagger to the floor. It thwacked into the floorboards through a priceless carpet of Walfarg weave, thrummed with the gems glittering in its hilt, the poisoned slots dark and sinister along the blade.

  “No, my emperor-” Then they collapsed into each other’s arms.

  A sharp and chilling tang struck through the close air of the bedchamber. Queen Lush screamed. The emperor, still holding her, swung about. We all stared at the far wall. In a ghostly swirl of color and shadow, a mist of madness, a shape formed in thin air against the wall. Hunched, that dire form, hunched and malicious, malefic with power as the two dark eye sockets abruptly glittered with twin spots of light. The ghostly form thickened and solidified and yet remained insubstantial, unreal, a projection of the mind.

  “Master-” croaked the queen. She would have fallen but for the emperor’s arms. The lupal projection of Phu-si-Yantong writhed in my bedchamber. What forces he was employing to overcome or bypass the sealings placed there by Khe-Hi-Bjanching I could not know; but the lupal projection wavered as sand wavers on a stream bed, as the mirages dance in the burning deserts. An arm lifted. Clawed finger pointed. The queen screamed as though tormented with red-hot pincers. The emperor shouted, an agonized bark of pure horror.

  I saw the tableau hold for a heartbeat; then the sorcerous image of the wizard shimmered and faded and I thought I heard the distant sound of golden bells, tingling and tinkling in a dream, fading, dying, gone.

  “Dray!” gasped the emperor.

  His face looked gray in the patch of lamplight, gray and filled with a horror so great he could barely stand.

  The woman slumped in his arms, the white dress strangely loose.

  He turned her so I could see her face.

  Queen Lushfymi — so glorious, so darkly glittering, so regal with beauty and voluptuousness — hung slackly on the emperor’s arm. Phu-si-Yantong had smitten her with chivrel. Her white hair straggled in brittle strands, her shrunken face bore a spiderweb of cracks, the wrinkles destroying all the purity of that face. Spittle slobbered from brown and leathery lips.

  Hideous, a hag, Queen Lush whimpered feebly and clung with skeleton arms to the Emperor of Vallia. The decaying smell of her stank in our nostrils.

  Nineteen

  Vondium Burns

  The moment of doom for Vondium the Proud could no longer be delayed. The day dawned with a particularly brilliant flood of jade and ruby lights, pouring in commingled beauty from the Suns of Scorpio. But this day would see the end of the empire, the death of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people, the enslavement of hosts, the shedding of blood to stink rawly into the shining benign sky.

  We did what we could for Queen Lush. An aged crone, trembling, shaking, her white hair brittle as dried leaves, she gasped with the effort of breathing, her eyes filmed, her mouth slack and drooling. The devil-cast chivrel had not much longer to run for her. Old before her time she was doomed as the Empire of Vallia was doomed.

  The emperor was stricken.

  “My strong right arm,” he said, clasping his head, his strong handsome face ashen. “Stricken down -

  torn from me when I needed her most”

  I was torn, also, at sight of this great and puissant emperor in these straits. I had little cause to care for him save only that through him I had been blessed with Delia. He had ordered my head off — had banished me — I do not to this day know whether he hated me or merely tolerated me. Certainly from time to time, when he recollected, he showed he appreciated a little the services I had rendered him. But now all that was mere tawdry tinsel. The empire was doomed, Vallia was rent asunder and Vondium burned.

  The
manner of the burning was strange, for we could seethe boiling black smoke clouds from one section or another of the city rising into the bright air, and then they would dwindle away and die. Fresh smoke would rise elsewhere and we would hear the distant clamor of mobs, and then the smoke would die away. Chuktar Wang-Nalgre-Bartong had the explanation.

  “The mobs burn and loot, led by the Lornrodders, and someone else is putting out the fires to preserve the city. And, I think, seeing we have had no sight of the Hamalian skyships, it must be the Hamalian army.”

  That made sweet sense. Phu-si-Yantong had no wish to preside through his puppets over a destroyed city. He was methodically taking control. His men were putting their new house in order. Only the imperial palace and the great kyro and the webwork of surrounding canals remained to be taken. It seemed the Hamalese high command was in no hurry.

  Two probing attacks were made and were flung back with ease but not without loss to us. We had the remnants of the Crimson Bowmen, a handful of Chuliks and Khibils, a few Rapas and Fristles, mercenaries all, and the Pachaks. Of artillery we were woefully short, having but five pieces, two catapults and three varters. Of cavalry we had the two squadrons of totrixes and they were in sorry case. At the first real attack despite our determination to fight we would be overwhelmed. Kov Lykon Crimahan told the emperor: “You must flee the city, majister. There is no other way to preserve your life.”

  “And where should I flee?”

  A babble of voices answered this, all proffering different destinations. I felt the ugliness in me. In these circumstances I would not care to chance any of the provinces on the main island and even, dare I say it, even Valka might not offer any sanctuary from the avenging hosts determined to do away with the emperor.

  “If only,” said that great man now so shrunken, “if only the queen could advise as she used to do.”

  I turned away in disgust. To go to Lome now would be to go to certain destruction. There seemed but one thing left.