The Suns of Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  “By Zair the all-merciful!” said Zolta. “No Grodno-gasta will stop me enjoying a maiden tonight on Isteria!”

  Now the hundredswifter was half-hidden before us by our own palisade stretching across the foredeck aft of the outreaching beak. We ran forward and waved a quick encouragement to Nath, who was keeping his two varters on the bows clanging away with a speed and precision his crews never reached in all the practice I made them sweat through.

  I was in command of my own ship; I had been in command now long enough just to have reached a time when organization was beginning to go as I wanted; no mangy Grodno-worshiping sea-leem would cheat me of that now!

  Then Nath, high on the varter platform, let out a shrilling shriek of triumph.

  “May Mother Zinzu the Blessed be praised! Their drum-deldar lies like a squashed paline!”

  Immediately the beat of the hundredswifter’s oars faltered. Even as the thought: Lack of training! flashed through my mind I turned and, funneling my hands, yelled aft: “Now!”

  Zorg swung viciously to starboard.

  Our larboard side oars went in with a speed that clearly told of the slaves’ knowledge of what would happen if they were caught with their blades extended. I saw the cruel beak of the Magdag galley lurch away. It opened out a glimpse of her bows where the varter crew labored at the windlass. I saw the cat head disappear beneath our beak and felt the jolting crunch as our bronze-clad proembolion, fashioned into the head of a charging chunkrah, ripped it away.

  Then we were roaring down the larboard side of the galley, tearing away the oars in a vast and horrible splintering of wood, shaving her side as clean as a Magdaggian harbor barber shaves the head of a slave.

  I knew what was happening to those two banks of slaves aboard the hundredswifter. They were men of Zair, fellows, comrades: they would understand what we were doing now, and regret it, and feel the bitterness, but their acrid hate would be for Magdag.

  We shot past the upflung stern of the galley and not a single mailed man of Magdag had got aboard us.

  After that we lay off on our oars and shot the galley to pieces.

  When we boarded, the shambles, blood, and filth had no power to sicken me. After that it was like any other successful action on the inner sea.

  Of the eight hundred slaves aboard some three hundred and twenty-nine were either dead or so badly wounded, crushed, as to surely die. Of the Magdaggians we were able to chain to our oar benches a paltry twenty-two. But we outfitted the captured hundredswifter and, with all our reserve of oars used up and many splintered together, we set course for Holy Sanurkazz.

  I did all that was necessary in the burial of the slaves at sea. Our decks were scrubbed, our wounded cared for, the rescued slaves happy, now, to labor for just a little while longer at the oars to take us into home waters — and this time with the threat of the whip on their naked backs removed.

  We sailed past the pharos over by the outer wall of the sea defenses of Sanurkazz. Zolta had, indeed, enjoyed his maiden on the island of Isteria, where we had passed the night. How often I have spent in that snug anchorage, the last before Sanurkazz herself, a night thinking of my return to Felteraz!

  The people of Zair welcomed our return, as they always welcomed the return of a successful venture against Magdag. The four fat merchantmen we had taken would provide me with a substantial increase to my fortune. I had my eye on a gown all of gold and silver thread, silk lined, that I felt sure Mayfwy would admire. And, too, after this Zenkiren could no longer keep from me the command of a double-banked swifter, a hundred-and-twentyswifter! She would be called Zorg, of course, the moment I assumed command.

  I knew the very ship. She had been reaching completion as we had set sail. Now, she must be ready, brand-new from the shipwrights and fitters, lying waiting for me in the arsenal. Zo, the new king, a man whom I quite liked, would surely not refuse a request from Zenkiren that one of his sea captains should take the command. The high admiral might grumble and Harknel of High Heysh would be sure to interfere and try to prevent me from any success, but intrigue would be met with intrigue. I, too, now had powerful friends in Holy Sanurkazz.

  Was I not, after all, the Lord of Strombor, the most successful corsair captain of the Eye of the World?

  The formalities were quickly over. The freed slaves, with many expressions of thanks, went to recuperate in Sanurkazz.

  My crew was paid off and roaring for a well-earned leave. All the flags of gold, silver, and scarlet floated in the bright air above Sanurkazz and carpets of brilliant color and weave hung from hundreds of balconies smothered in flowers. My agent, wily old Shallan, with his wisp of beard, lined cheeks, and merry eyes, who would charge fifteen percent on a loan and chuckle with merriment as he did so, would see to the disposal of the prizes after the required dues had been paid to Zo, the king, the high admiral, Zenkiren, and to Felteraz.

  I sat in the stern sheets of my personal barge, with a crew of sixteen free men to row, Zolta at my side, Zolta’s girl acting as drum-deldar, and Nath steering a precarious course as he upended a bottle at the rudder, as we rounded the curve of coast from Sanurkazz to Felteraz. As we glided into the harbor I contrasted this arrival with that first time when we had rolled up roaring on the asscart.

  Zenkiren was waiting for me in a tall cool room of tapestries and solid furniture with another man, a man who might have served as a model of what Zenkiren would be like in another hundred years. Mayfwy kissed me on the cheek as her maids brought in wine in chased silver goblets.

  “Mayfwy!” I said. Then, “I have a cedar wood chest for you—”

  “Dray!” she said, her eyes dancing, her cheeks flushed with my return. “Another present!”

  “As I recall,” said Zenkiren dryly, “he can never keep his hands off Magdag gold and silver. If he didn’t bring you a present I would think my Lord of Strombor had sailed a lonely sea.”

  “As for you, Zenkiren,” I said, unwrapping the blue-etched and gold-mounted Fristle scimitar I had picked up off the deck of that damned Magdag pirate, “I thought this toy might amuse you.”

  “It is magnificent!” said Zenkiren, running his fingers along the curved blade. “I thank you.”

  “And now,” he said, and a note of solemn seriousness entered his voice, “I wish to present you.” He turned to the other man, who had remained calm and cool, his old strong-featured face composed, his simple white apron and tunic immaculate, the long sword at his side scabbarded in the fighting-man’s style.

  “May I present the Lord of Strombor.” He turned then to me. “I have the honor to present to you, my Lord of Strombor, Pur Zazz, Grand Archbold of the Krozairs of Zy.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Krozairs of Zy point the path

  I can remember, even now, vividly, unforgettably, the zephyr of anticipation that blew through my whole being.

  In the seasons I had been hunting with the corsairs of Sanurkazz I had heard a hint dropped here, a casual snatch of conversation there, and I had picked up information that must have been the sum total, or nearly that, of what the ordinary idle, happy, careless folk of Sanurkazz knew of the Krozairs of Zy.

  Now this tall, aloof, calm-faced man was here, in the familiar room of the citadel of Felteraz, at the express desire, as it seemed to me, of Zenkiren — and he was the Grand Arch-bold of the Krozairs!

  What followed must have been very familiar to him, for he had been master of the Order for a very long time. From hints I picked up I gathered that Zenkiren himself was in line for the succession, that my friend Zenkiren would become Grand Archbold. Pur Zazz sized me up with a cold and level stare. Instinctively I straightened up and squared those inordinately broad shoulders of mine. He looked me over. I felt that he was stripping my flesh away, was paring my very self down to the essence beneath. I had been roistering and going pirating on the inner sea, I had been living life to the full, I had been amassing wealth, and I had made friends. All that seemed to me in that moment to be petty, a mere pre
liminary to what this man would require of me.

  If I do not go too deeply into what happened to me in the year that followed on that interview it is because I am bound by vows of silence I do not wish to break, even to an audience four hundred light-years distant from the scenes of that rigorous training and selection and adherence to the principles of dedication to Zair and to the Krozairs of Zy.

  The Order maintained an island stronghold in the narrowing strait between the inner sea and the Sea of Swords, that other smaller dependent sea opening off southward from the Eye of the World. Like the Sea of Marshes it covered an extensive area, but it lay westward, something less than halfway along the curved southern shore. The island had once been a volcano, but through the geological aeons its crater had smoothed and filled, the subterranean fires stilled, and fresh water had found its way up to rill out in pleasant springs. The outer jagged scarps rose harsh and rocky beneath the suns; within a habitation had been built very little less harsh. The Order took its vows seriously. They kept themselves aloof from other orders of lesser chivalry like The Red Brethren of Lizz; they were dedicated to the succor of destitute people of Zair, to the greater glory of Zim-Zair, and to the implacable resistance to Grodno the Green and all his works.

  After the novice had served his novitiate he was ranked Krozair, given the titles and insignia of his station, a man fit to stand in the forefront of the ranks of Zim-Zair in the eternal struggle against the heretic. Only men of worth were ever approached. Many refused, for the disciplines were harsh. Many fell by the wayside and never reached into the inner knowledge.

  Once a candidate had become a Krozair, he was entitled, as other orders also conferred the privilege, of prefixing his name with the honorific Pur. Pur was not a rank or a title: it was a badge of chivalry and honor, a pledge that the man holding it was a true Krozair. Then the newly-fledged Krozair might choose a number of paths that opened before him. If he chose to become a contemplative, that was his privilege. If he chose to become a Bold, one of the select brethren who manned the fortress isle of Zy and other of the citadels maintained by the Order throughout the red sections of the inner sea, he would be welcomed. Should he desire to return to the ordinary ways of life, he might do that also, for the Order recognized its mission in the world. But a stricture was laid upon that man, that proved Krozair.

  Whenever he received the summons to join the Krozairs, wherever they happened to be in need of his aid, then, wherever he happened to be, and whenever it might occur in his life, he was bound by all that he held most holy and dear to hasten as fast as sectrix or swifter might take him to join his brothers of the Order.

  “There have been a number of famous and immortal calls in the past, Pur Dray,” Pur Zenkiren told me one time as we came from the salle d’armes where we had been knocking the stuffing out of each other with morning stars. “I have been privileged to answer one such summons, some thirty years ago, when the devils of Magdag came knocking on the very doors of Zy itself. From all over the inner sea the brothers gathered.” He laughed, a faraway look in his bright eyes. “I tell you, Pur Dray: we had quite a fight of it until the Order gathered and the long swords sang above the hated green.”

  I had been on Zy long enough to answer, with sincere meaning: “I pray that the summons will come again, and soon, Pur Zenkiren, for the Order to go up against Magdag itself.”

  He made a face. “Unlikely.” He smiled and clapped me on the shoulder. “We are few. Finding men, as it is phrased in the Discipline, of the right caliber, is difficult. We have our eye on men as soon as they don sword and coat of mail. We are a lazy sun-loving lot, we men of Sanurkazz.”

  “Agreed.”

  The disciplines were strenuous, difficult, and extremely demanding. The use of weapons had become of itself almost a religion. Sword practice was carried out as a religious observance. Every move was sanctified by religious ardor. Like the Samurai, we dedicated our wills and our bodies to the pursuit of perfection, the facing of an opponent without seeing him as though he were there. We tried to make our opponents transparent, as though they were far off. We could sense a blow, the direction of a cut, the movement of a slash, by an intuitive process beyond reason, allied to our sixth sense. We could move into a parry almost before our foe instigated his attack.

  Always, even as a young seaman aboard a seventy-four, I was accounted a good cutlass man. I have spoken of the need for such physical prowess, such good healthy cut-and-thrust, to enable me to survive when I first entered Kregen. Since then I have been in many situations where swordsmanship was vital, and I have been accounted a good man with a blade. But I freely admit that I learned from the disciplines of Zy a dexterity in swordplay that turned me into a different kind of swordsman entirely.

  Only in my own inner feelings about the superiority of the point to the edge could I teach the Krozairs much; and the knowledge was unnecessary, for they fought armored men in mesh iron, where the thrust from a sword would be stopped, where the way to dispose of your man was to slash his head off, or lop a limb, or break in his ribs. The disciplines were, in their way, too far advanced for the style of sword fighting practiced on the inner sea. Breathing, isometrics, arduous and prolonged exercises, continuous dedication, long hours of contemplation, hours of drawing on the will and making of the will itself a single central instrument whereby a man might know himself and thus see his enemy as transparent and removed, a foe he could outwit and outmaneuver and eventually triumph over, endless hours of instruction and devotion — all these were my daily portion during that year on the Krozairs’ lair, the isle of Zy.

  I will not speak of the mysticism.

  Then came the day when the Grand Archbold put me through the final ceremonies, and, purified, uplifted, I was pronounced a fit Krozair, worthy to hold the honor of Pur prefixed to my name.

  “And now, Pur Dray, what will you do?”

  I believe they knew what my decision would be. The Order maintained its own small fleet of galleys, and I had now made up my mind that I would aim for the command of the finest of these. This would take time. In the meanwhile, I intended to return to Felteraz, to a swifter command under the aegis of Zenkiren, who was now commodore in the king’s fleet, and to my previous life. I did not want to give up Felteraz.

  Any thoughts of becoming a contemplative, or one who actually tended the succored, was, I knew, to my shame, perhaps, not for me. Equally I did not wish to become a Bold, even though this was a sure way to the Grand Archbold’s position. But Zenkiren, a roving brother, was to become Grand Archbold. And, perhaps, the greatest reason for my decision to go again into the inner sea — I had almost said outside world, thinking of my young self in those days, so gullible, so (if Zair will pardon) so green — was that I had never forgotten the Star Lords and the Savanti. I knew they still had plans for me. I knew they would manipulate me whenever it suited them.

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

  Could I forget her?

  “I have sent for Zorg,” said Zenkiren to me as we stood on one of the lookout posts near the crest of one of the long steep slopes of the island. A surprise.

  “It has meant a lot to me, Zenkiren, to know that he was here, in these halls, these chapels, these salles d’armes. I sometimes think I can sense his presence here, as we perform the same observances as he performed.”

  “They have been observed by the Order, not here, necessarily, but in our many abodes, for hundreds of years. And they will go on, through the years, being thus observed.”

  When Zorg made landfall and nosed under the colossal rock arch that led into the inner harbor under the island, I was waiting. I donned my white surcoat with its circled emblem with the hubless wheel within. I saw Nath and Zolta on the beak, perched like gulls on a rock face, ready to jump ashore at the first practical moment. As it was, Nath jumped too soon and would have fallen with a splash had I not hauled him up.

  They were all grins and grimaces, dancing around me, prodding me to see if
I could still withstand a gut-punch, like in the old days. To them the idea that I was now a Krozair, and they must call me Pur — on top of the “lord” bit they had been unable to swallow — came as ludicrous nonsense with which I thoroughly agreed.

  “Nath! Zolta! You disgusting ruffians! Why, Nath, your gut is so swelled with wine a season on the benches would trim you down to man-size again! And you, Zolta — I could scabbard my long sword in those pouches under your eyes!”

  “Stylor!” they crowed and we wrestled affectionately.

  Zenkiren stood to one side, his arms folded and one hand stroking his chin. The Grand Archbold, Pur Zazz, made a sound that might have been “harrumph” if that silly way of speaking had penetrated here. There were five other newly-fledged Krozairs, and we were all to go back together on Zorg, which was now under the command of Sharntaz. They, too, didn’t quite know what to make of these two bearded rapscallions in the dedicated, austere enclave of Zy, even if the two specimens of hardy and iconoclastic inner sea sailors were only standing on the outer jetty wall.

  But the essential dignity and purpose and a breath of that mystery overawed even Nath and Zolta eventually, so that they quieted down. The laymen kept to the outer courts, those opening off the harbor, of course; only Krozairs and lay brothers, the so-called Zimen, were allowed past the iron doors into the interior of the island. Not all of Zy was austere and given over to the pursuit of the inner light; there was great beauty there, for the Krozairs of Zy believed that Zair was just as approachable through beauty as through devotion and dedication in war.

  When the time came for our departure, Zenkiren told me he would be staying on in Zy for a time.

  “Pur Zazz is old. There are many weighty matters to be discussed, chapter by chapter, langue by langue, in council. You will come to these in your turn, Pur Dray, one of these fine days.”

  I knew that the Order was in general maintained by Krozair contributions from all the free cities of Zair along the southern shore, and they therefore would have their say in council. Back along the Sea of Swords lay large salt pans, as there were off the Sea of Marshes, and Zy gathered much of its revenue from the salt as did Sanurkazz. But without the continuous support of the brothers of the Order scattered throughout the Zair portions of the Eye of the World, the Krozairs of Zy would be in parlous state.