Prince of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #5]

by Alan Burt Akers

  If you think I came to hate these slave-guards—you are right.

  The red and black bands on their sleeves burned into my brain.

  But I said I would not dwell on this unhappy period of my life. I would prefer to forget it, although I do not believe I ever will.

  At last we came to the flight of locks leading to the inner network of waterways of Vondium. We locked through and finally came to a long low stone warehouse where more guards waited for us.

  The regular haulers were taken away to their barracks. We criminals were rounded up, loaded with chains—whereat many a man screamed as the harsh iron bit into his open wounds—and dragged off.

  All I could see was the stone beneath my feet. The guards were mere blurs of dark crimson in the corner of my eyes. I heard them whistling as they strode along—a tune I knew, surely—The Bowmen of Loh. That did not belong to any part of my life now; that came from a distant and dimly-remembered time when I was fit and well, with clean clothes on my back, a full belly, laughter and wine, kind faces about me ... I trudged and stumbled on over the stones, done for.

  Down dank stairways we went, into dark dungeons where the leepitix darted and scrabbled, where the rats gnawed dead men's bones, where the vermin clustered in the corners waiting for fresh meat. We were chained to the wall.

  I slumped down. I did not think I could raise a little finger to bash a guard, as I would customarily have struck with my fists until either the guards were dead or I was out like a light. I tried to rest and sleep, but phantasms thronged my brain, and I moaned. Chains rattled and clanked dismally. We were not fed. Guards came for us, men wearing the red and black, and we were hauled out. We were starving, for we had not eaten for two days. There were ten of us, I saw, ten starved lean scarecrows, all hairy, filthy, and covered in sores. We were moaning as we were dragged along, our chains rattling on the stones.

  Up we were dragged, half throttled in the chains. Up and up. We were in the Emperor's palace in Vondium. We were pulled out onto a wide and shining floor. Sunshine lanced down, emerald and crimson. There was a great throng of people, courtiers, guards, Air Servicemen, women gorgeous in fine clothes. All was a dazzlement to me. I could barely stand. I was weak, I tottered and fell, and a boot kicked me up. Korf Aighos fell and was dragged. I fell and was dragged. We left a bloody trail across that shining floor.

  I looked up. All distorted, on its side, a throne soared, it seemed to the ceiling, that shattered the light into a myriad shards like diamonds. A figure sat on the throne, a blaze of gold and crimson. A second throne stood at the side, gorgeous, splendid, not of the world I inhabited.

  I was aware of the hum of conversation, and stray words spouted up, like black ice breaking free of the pack. We were the assassins, the murderers, the bandits, who stole and raped and killed.

  The guards moved back. A wedge of dark crimson gave a backdrop to the thrones. I saw the white blurs of many faces. Jewels winked into my brain like fire and ice. I was down, done for, finished.

  A voice boomed close.

  “Here, my lord Emperor, are the malefactors for your justice!"

  No trial, then—

  I tried to stand up. I, Dray Prescot, wouldn't show these scum anything other than defiance, contempt; I tried to stand up, my chains dragging me down. I staggered. I fell. The hard polished floor came up cruelly. I lay, drugged with fatigue. Hunger was no longer noticeable, except that I couldn't stand up and call these people and this Emperor a pack of kleeshes.

  Of what use any further struggle? I had failed. I had failed to do what I had so vaingloriously boasted. I had said I would stride before the Emperor and demand from him the hand of his daughter Delia in marriage.

  And here I was, before the Emperor, swathed in chains like a wild beast, bearing the scars of floggings, the red blood running from open sores, covered in vermin, filthy, with my hair stinking in my own nostrils, bathed in repulsiveness.

  Oh, Dray Prescot, how are the mighty fallen!

  I heard a cry and then a shout of horror.

  I struggled to stand up and could not.

  They would take me out now and cut off my head.

  I heard a rustling, and then a great soughing sobbing from a thousand throats around the enormous throne room. I felt that rustling close. I felt a breath of wind and then I smelled a clean, sweet, fresh scent—I felt warm soft arms go around me, all white and rosy, naked, taking me up as I was, as I was in my filth and degradation, clasping me to her beast.

  “Oh, my Dray! My Dray! I have found you at last!"

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  "The man who kills Dray Prescot I'll have burned alive!"

  My Delia!

  Some resource then, some last vestige of—not pride—love, some last remnant of love for my Delia forced me up onto my knees. She held me close and she was sobbing in a way that gave me a deep hatred for anyone or anything who could make her thus break her heart—and knowing that person was me. I stood up. She would not let me go.

  “Dray! Oh, Dray, I have been frantic! Dray!"

  “Delia,” I managed to say. The throne room whirled about my head. I staggered dizzily, and she held me, her dear body firm against me. “I love you, my Delia. I shall never stop loving you."

  She kept sobbing my name, over and over, and hugging and clasping me to her. I could see very little. Hands drew us apart. Soft, anxious, gentle hands of court ladies, noblewomen, tugging my Delia away. And harsh, fierce, cruel hands of slave-masters and guards dragging me away, with a blow from a whip-handle across the face to speed my going.

  Delia screamed.

  I struggled.

  I do not know where the strength came from.

  I took the whip-handle between my teeth and I jerked. I brought my head back and snapped it forward and the lash whistled. I forced myself to see, forcing my eyes to open and to tell me what was going on.

  A blow smashed against the back of my head and I staggered forward. I spun clumsily. I reached up against all that dead weight of iron, took the whip from my mouth, and brought the handle down across the fellow's face. He toppled back spouting blood, shrieking. I lashed the whip at the guards, and one was caught around the neck. I dragged him toward me, broke his neck, and threw him aside. I was ready to do this as often as was required.

  I heard a shrill scream—and recognized Delia's voice, the voice of the Majestrix. The first time I had ever heard her use her voice like that: “Do not kill him! The man who kills Dray Prescot I'll have burned alive!"

  “Daughter, daughter!” The testy voice—the Emperor!

  I flung back my head.

  “I am Dray Prescot! I claim your daughter Delia! She is mine! Before all the world, she is mine!"

  The guards pounced then, and I smashed and slashed them back. I yelled again, shouting into that golden haze.

  “She is mine—and I am hers! There is nothing you can do, Emperor, nothing!"

  A guard coiled his lash across the blood-fouled shining floor and tripped me. I bent, dragged the lash in, and before he could let go I kneed him, and then brought my fists down on his neck. His head hung strangely before he pitched to the floor.

  I knew Delia was struggling in the hands of the nobles, who would be outraged at her behavior. I caught another guard and dispatched him. I felt nothing. I was a shining figure molded from blood. The Emperor was cursing; I could tell his voice and would not forget it.

  “Take him away! Guards! Take him away and execute him. Now! Now!"

  “You will gain nothing by my death, Emperor! I will win; my Delia will win; you can only lose! Fool! Think of the daughter you love! Think of Delia!"

  "Take him away!"

  I do not know how many guards leaped on me. The whip was smashed from my grasp. It seemed a hundred hands gripped me. I was twisted over, picked up like a rolled carpet. My head lolled. But I could see the shining golden haze where stood the father of Delia, and I shouted, high and strong and with great venom: “You fool,
Emperor! You have lost!"

  The grim words followed me as I left that throne room.

  “Take off his head—now!"

  To relate what I have is to make me sweat and throb and relive once again all the passions, the desires, the despairs of my youth. How my love for Delia shone upon all—and how her love for me transcended everything! Had any two lovers in two worlds ever loved as we did? I do not know: all I know is the depth and passion and greatness of our love; and I tend to think not.

  Out of the throne room hurried the knot of guards. I was surrounded by a wall of dark crimson, a wall moving and flowing with powerful legs clad in dark scarlet. These were not the slave-guards, nor yet the aragorn, nor yet the warders with their red and black sleeves.

  Some red roaring feelings were surging back now. I was aware of the infernal aches of my body. Well, my head would soon leap from that abused body and I could rest. My Delia—oh, how I would miss my Delia!

  I could look up at groined ceilings. Around corners we went, along corridors. How many carrying me? Six? I heard a curse, and then another. We had reached a small antechamber; in the ceiling an octagon of light cast down the colors of the Suns of Scorpio. A man beside me coughed. They dropped me. I fell to the floor and rolled. My head rang, but I got to my hands, and tried to get my feet under me.

  A man shrieked: “What are you doing—aaagh!"

  I forced my eyes to take in what they saw, and transfer that information to my brain. I saw five dead men, all clad in the dark crimson. I saw a sixth with a bloody rapier in one hand and a bloody main-gauche in the other. He advanced on me and I thought this was the end. And—

  “By the Veiled Froyvil, Dray! They were good men, all, and I slew them!"

  My brain reeled.

  I knew that voice.

  I knew—I knew!

  But—it could not be.

  It was impossible.

  I was dead already and treading the path toward the Ice Floes of Sicce.

  The impossible voice spoke again.

  “By all the shattered targes in Mount Hlabro, Dray! Perk up, my old dom!"

  I shook my head. My hands trembled. I could see them, there before me, on the floor, shaking and beating against the marble where a trickle of blood flowed from a corpse slain by a corpse.

  I lifted my head. I looked up. I whispered.

  “Seg?"

  “In the name of all the windy heights of Erthyrdrin, Dray! Get up, dom, and let us get out of here before the Froyvil-forsaken cramphs come arunning."

  “Seg."

  “Well, who else—” Then that old familiar voice, that well-loved voice, altered. Seg—for it was he, it was Seg Segutorio—came to me, knelt, and put a hand under my chin, and lifted. He looked into my face, and I smiled.

  “Dray! You're in a bad way!"

  “No, Seg. No—for you are alive, and I have mourned you long and long. Oh—Seg!"

  He picked me up then, hoisting me high to his chest, and he carried me out and away, through corridors that led from and to I knew not where in that great palace of the Emperor of Vallia. Presently he brought me to a small space where he lay me on a trundle bed; there he carried water, bathed me, and ministered to my wounds.

  “Seg—” I reached a trembling hand up and grasped his forearm. “Thelda?"

  He smiled and continued bathing my wounds. “She is a proud mother now, Dray. A fine boy.” Then a look of furtiveness crossed his face, and I could guess, and I said feebly: “He has my blessing. I will bring the Yerthyr shoot—"

  “You're the same Dray, my old dom! The same Dray Prescot!"

  “But—” I said. I still could not believe. Out there in the Hostile Territories when the army of Queen Lilah of Hiclantung had been defeated by the Harfnars of Cherwangtung, Seg, Thelda, and I had raced with the remnants of Hwang's proud regiment, and I had seen what I had seen. “You went down, Seg. Thelda and you. The nactrixes boiled over you like chanks in a bloody sea."

  “True. By the Veiled Froyvil, but they were a ferocious bunch! I slew them until I could slay no more, and their corpses heaped above us. They left us to chase you. I thought you dead, then, Dray."

  “But—"

  He smiled and tilted a glass cup to my lips. It held water of an iciness I usually find disagreeable, but now it tasted like the best Zond wine.

  “I heard what happened with you and Delia. You did not think, after you were missing from Lorenztone, that she would calmly fly off and leave, did you?"

  I looked at him.

  “Little you know Delia of Delphond, Dray Prescot, if you think that! Chuktar Farris of Vomansoir was ordered—and I can imagine your Delia telling him!—to return and search for you. They did not find you. They found Thelda and me."

  “Thank God for that,” I said. I said “thank God"; I did not say “thank Zair", or Opaz, or the Invisible Twins, or Pandrite, or use any of the colorful expressions of Kregen.

  “So we came back to Vallia and I do not like to think what Delia went through then. Thelda and I were married—"

  “And you have a son called Dray."

  He started to look uncomfortable, then the old fey wildness broke through, and he glared at me. “Of course! What better name in all the world is there? Tell me that, you stubborn old onker!"

  “And how did you come to be here?"

  “Why, I am a bowman, or had you forgotten? I am a private Koter in the personal bodyguard of the Emperor, the crimson Bowmen of Loh—"

  I tried to sing a certain stanza of that song, and although my voice cracked and wheezed like a leaky set of bagpipes, Seg got the message. The stanza is a particularly mocking one. It is often omitted. Seg threw back his head and laughed.

  “Now, by Vox! I can live again, Dray Prescot!"

  After that a confusion set in, and I was aware of shadows moving, and then of a woman sobbing and crying and laughing and holding me in her arms, whereat I grunted and pretended to be much more soggy than I was. Poor Thelda! She meant so well, with her pushy ways, and her constant exhibited concern for everyone's welfare. But, as I was to discover, she had changed enormously from the plump sweaty earnest girl who had marched with us across the Hostile Territories and tried to suborn me away from Delia on the orders of the racters.

  I did say, itching an old sore: “Where are the fallimy flowers for my poultice, Thelda?"

  At this she burst into a torrent of tears, all wet and sticky. I heard Seg chuckle, and Thelda went away, crying. Seg bent over me. “You must rest now, Dray. A doctor is coming. Then we will get you out of the palace."

  I opened my mouth to say what I so desperately longed to ask. Then I shut my mouth. I was well enough aware of the situation and what had happened. I dare not ask for Delia. I knew people were risking their lives on my behalf. Seg was a private Koter in the Emperor's bodyguard, a crimson Bowman of Loh, and thus had been able to dispose of the men carrying me out to execution. They had been his own comrades; he had slain them for me. I felt the shame of that, the fierce leap of pride, and the dark agony of remorse, but it was done, and, in truth, for my Delia's sake I would wade through oceans of blood, as I have said. I am not a nice man.

  “Don't take chances, Seg. Clear up all traces. For your sake, and Thelda's—and little Dray's."

  “Do not fret, Dray. Erthyr the Bow is with me now."

  At this I felt more reassurance, for Seg seldom called on the name of that puissant and powerful spirit, the supreme being of Erthyrdrin; that he felt like that, and I knew it was a genuine emotion, proved he was satisfied.

  Later I discovered more of the reasons for that satisfaction. But, even now, Delia will toss her head, grow very hoity-toity, and refuse to discuss just what was contrived. I know a body was found and substituted for me, and a convincing explanation put forward for the absence of five bowmen, four private Koters, and a Jiktar. At dead of night, with only two smaller moons hurtling low across the sky, I was conveyed out of the palace and secreted in a hidden room built into the attic of a lopsided h
ouse leaning crazily at the end of a maze of alleyways well away from the canals. The Presidio, the high council answerable only to the Emperor, confirmed his haughty actions in condemning me to instant execution. Korf Aighos and the other eight Blue Mountain Boys were put on trial. I asked about them, and Seg nodded, his face alive with all the old fey qualities, the strengths, the joyousness, the sheer love of life of his character. His black hair and blue eyes looked dearly familiar to me.

  “They have been found guilty—as they were, Froyvil knows—but Delia knows your feelings, she's known you long enough to read you like an illuminated scroll of my childhood, and we have plans to rescue them."

  And, in due course of time, they were rescued and secreted in another safe house in Vondium.

  The doctor came. A dried-up little stick of a man with tallow-yellow hair and a wispy moustache, he was competent enough. His first action was to snap the locks and open his velvet-lined sturm-wood case of acupuncture needles. His name was Nath the Needle. Doctor Nath the Needle. Well, there are many Naths in Kregen.

  “I don't know how you survived, my lord,” he said, sniffing. He wore a somber dark-brown suit of clothes, a decrepit old cloak, and a hat in which the two slots over the eyes had worn into a gaping hole, like two gun-ports smashed into one by a thirty-two-pounder roundshot. “The infection from a shorgortz is generally reckoned to result in a terminal disease. But, there, medicine is improving every day in Vallia, and no doubt the Blue Mountain men have acquired an immunity unknown to us. I must look into it, indeed, I must.” He babbled on like this, but he gave me some foul-tasting gunk, and, indeed, I began to mend very quickly.

  Delia, of course, was kept under strict surveillance.

  I had an idea.

  She would seek to find a way to throw off her servitors and guards and visit me, but danger lay there, for all she was the Princess Majestrix. Seg told me that as far as he could tell the Emperor cherished a very real affection for his daughter, but that his ideas on the majesty and aura of an emperor kept interfering with that ideal. He was determined she should marry. She was his only child, and his doctors had told him he could have no more. I had never heard Delia mention her mother, and I assumed she was dead. Now, after Delia's displays of temper, as the court gossip went, she was to be held on a very tight rein until the Kov Vektor provided a fresh king's ransom in wedding presents.