Prince of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #5]

by Alan Burt Akers

  “Strom Drak?” said Trylon Larghos, coming forward into the patch of mingled sunlight by the windows. I did not rise. I was in the act of placing rich yellow butter upon a chunk torn from a crisp Kregan loaf, and that is an important operation. I did look up. I saw Larghos then, and I can see him in my mind's eye now. A big man running to fat, but with the muscles still supple and bulging on his arms and across his shoulders. He wore a Vallian tunic of leather, but instead of the decent buff, the leather had been dyed in a pattern of black and white. His sword hilt glittered with gems. His face, bearded and bewhiskered, contained a pair of close-set shrewd eyes, and his mouth was a rat-trap if ever I saw one. A man of whom to be wary. I summed him up instantly; dangerous, like a leem.

  Before I could answer he went on: “You astonish me, my dear Strom, that you are not occupying your villa here in Vondium."

  “The place has been deserted for many seasons."

  “So? I am sorry to hear it. I was pleased to make your acquaintance yesterday, with the Emperor. He seemed to find you genial company."

  The Emperor had been laughing a lot more, I recalled, when I took my leave. I did not offer Larghos a seat, but he sat down anyway. Maybe he thought that being a Trylon gave him the edge over a Strom.

  There had certainly been no desire in my actions or stories to charm the Emperor—quite the reverse—but from the Trylon's expression he was clearly accusing me of toadying to the Emperor. I wanted to correct that impression.

  “Many men have done so. And many others have not."

  “I trust, by Opaz, that we shall get along together, Strom."

  Whatever he was after, he would get from me only what I chose to give. However, there seemed no point in antagonizing him just yet, despite that I didn't like the look of him.

  “Have you breakfasted, Trylon? Would you care to join me?"

  He waved the suggestion away with a very white and plump beringed hand. I fancied, though, he could use a rapier.

  “Thank you. I have. We are up early in Vondium."

  “Do you then not often visit the Black Mountains?"

  If that was a nasty remark he didn't react. “When I have to. The black rocks offend me. My life is here, in the capital, where politics are!"

  We talked for a space until I had breakfasted and then he joined me in a cup of Kregan tea. He worked his way around to the purpose of his visit. He was a racter. The white and black would have told me that. I was an unknown. Oh, yes, he had heard of the panvals and what had happened in Valka, but that was in the past. Now we must face the new realities. The Emperor must have an heir who is not a willful girl; the racter candidate must be the one.

  “And who is that, Trylon Larghos?"

  He studied me a moment. I had sidestepped his more direct questions, but I had appeared to satisfy him that if the racters could offer me more than the panvals, then I was their man.

  “Kov Vektor of Aduimbrev is the Emperor's choice,” he said. He spoke with care.

  He wore leathers dyed black and white. He was a racter and flaunted that. The racters were a party, composed of many people from all walks of life—except, I thought with bitterness, those who walked the canal towpaths. They were a power in the Presidio. They had the strength to banish panvals on trumped-up charges, but there were still many panvals who wore the green and white colors. A man might choose to flaunt his color allegiance, as Larghos did. Or, as Pallan Eling, the minister responsible for the canals, did, wear merely a small black and white ribbon tucked into a buttonhole. I guessed Larghos’ servitors would wear sleeves banded black and white, and the colors of the Black Mountain—appropriately enough black and purple—would appear elsewhere on their jerkins.

  The older a lineage the less colors in the insignia, in general. Some men, like Tobi ti Chelmsturm, with five colors to their name very often preferred the dignity of using merely two colors for their men, and these would be colors of their party. Humans and halflings, we share the same failings.

  I said, “I do not support Vektor in this."

  “Good. He is a weakling, a sop. You can smell him coming a dwabur downwind, like a woman's hairdresser."

  “You have a candidate for the Princess Majestrix? Who is that, Trylon?"

  He made up his mind. When he spoke the name I felt the blood rise and sing in my head.

  “Vomanus of Vindelka."

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Ill news of Vomanus of Vindelka

  I felt outraged, betrayed, soiled.

  I spoke before I thought.

  “I understood that Vomanus was—ineligible to marry the Princess!"

  He stared at me narrowly, and lowered his cup. “Now where would you have heard that?"

  Collecting my thoughts, I said, stumbling and bluffing my way through: “I am not certain—it seems it was a drunken evening, somewhere, men talking and boasting. But, clearly, it cannot be true."

  He leaned back, sizing me up afresh, but he neither confirmed nor denied what I had suggested.

  Back there in hated Magdag where I had intrigued and fought for my slaves and workers I had last seen Vomanus. I had sent him with a message to Delia. He had always treated me as a comrade, and although he was a young man whom I delighted to call “my lad,” there had been a mystery about him. He had said, once: “Just take it from me, Drak, my friend, Kovs are Kovs and Kovs to me.” No, he could never voluntarily seek Delia's hand in marriage, not when he knew the passion that flames between the Princess and me. Then—he must consider me dead! Yes, that could be the only explanation.

  And then, of course, I felt the guilt and the remorse—emotions I always try to quell out of perversity—when I remembered how finely he had always supported me. And all the time he had loved Delia himself!

  Trylon Larghos said, “Young Vomanus was willed the estates and lands of Vindelka. The Emperor approves. As to what happened to Tharu, out there in the wilds of the inner sea, who knows? Who cares?” He was too sophisticated a man to say, as many would, of the inner sea: “wherever that is.” He knew well enough where it was, although he'd never travel that great distance all his life. “Tharu was an Emperor's man. He was a great power behind the throne. Now he is gone, Vomanus is one of us."

  I felt the sadness and the sorrow, but if young Vomanus really loved Delia, then he would use whatever levers came to his hand. He would move heaven and hell, in Kregan terms, to win her. I could not blame him. What would he say when he learned I was still alive!

  I decided to test that. Speaking casually enough, my cup at a jaunty angle, I said: “What of this hairy madman I have heard of—this wild clansman—"

  “Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor?” Larghos laughed, and his laugh was most evil. “Whether the Princess loved him or not does not matter. Prescot is dead. And the devil can go to the Ice Floes of Sicce with my boot in his rear. He has caused far too much trouble. But now the time is ripe for the racters, for Vomanus, for me—and for you, too, Strom Drak!"

  Just then Young Bargom trundled in with fresh tea. He said in his blunt Valkan way: “There is a Koter below, asking for you, my lord Strom. He does not give a name.” Bargom glanced at Larghos. “He wears green and white, my lord Strom."

  “A rast of a panval!” exclaimed Larghos. He had half drawn his rapier before he recollected himself. “If I can force an argument on him as I leave I'll do so, and spit his guts! Aye, by Vox! And laugh as I do it!"

  He took his leave, promising to speak with me again, and he was well pleased with his morning's work. When he had gone Young Bargom shook his head and leaned out of the window.

  “Hai! A racter is on his way out! I don't want trouble in my inn—hey, you there!"

  He turned back to face me. “Your pardon, my lord Strom, but Trylon Larghos is a noted duelist. He says he'll spit this onker's guts, he'll spit them, mark my words, my lord Strom."

  Suddenly it was borne in on me—what the blue blazing hell was I doing fiddling about with politics in Vondium? I had ag
reed to abduct my Delia, we would fly together to Valka, to Strombor—we would finish with Vallia and begin a new life, together.

  Whoever the panval was, he took the threat seriously, for he did not show up. Bargom busied himself clearing away the breakfast things. He liked to talk.

  “They say the headless zorcamen have been seen, my lord Strom. They were riding within sight of Vondium last night.” He shivered. “They mean ill, mark my words, my lord Strom."

  “You believe in them, Bargom?"

  He straightened up, the tray balanced easily on one hand. “Of course, my lord Strom! They are evil, supernatural! They set fire to buildings, they abduct people—and a two-headed chunkrah was born only last week. Mark my words, my lord Strom, evil days are coming to Vondium!"

  Ghosts and black towers and bats and apparitions, all these things, then, were believed in by Bargom. How many others in Vondium believed? If they were racters dressed up, why were they doing these things here, where the racters were all-powerful? Again I thought of this mysterious third party, but Bargom, who had heard whispers of them in his pot room, knew nothing solid about them.

  They were called the third party, not because there were only three parties, but somehow people realized that they must rank as a force at least equal with the failing panvals, and possibly with the racters. The other parties—generally owning allegiance to territory as well as belief—were too small to be counted.

  Just to the northeast of Vondium rises the strange height known as Drak's Seat. The two main peaks, when viewed from the center of Vondium, look uncannily like a great throne, lowering over the city. Drak's Seat. Snow and ice are found there—as Jenbar had told me—which last longer in good condition than a man might believe, when packed in the Kregan way in sawdust of sturm-wood. I detest ice in drinks, for together with worry it is a prime source of ulcers. And no truly civilized man relishes having the taste of a fine vintage destroyed by great chunks of frozen water floating in his glass.

  Young Bargom chattered on telling me the gossip of Vondium. His life was here, now; with a wife from the city, and children, and his father's bones buried in the Opaz-sacred cemetery a dwabur beyond the eastern gate, he had nothing to draw him back to Valka. His talk told me much, and I saw how useful he could be to me. TheRose of Valka was situated on the eastern bank of the Great Northern Cut, a respectable house to which Koters could bring their ladies in complete confidence of a pleasant evening. He loved to chatter, and this talk sparked up confidences from his guests, particularly when their bellies were filled with selections from Young Bargom's cellars.

  Of the third party he could tell me only that men whispered behind their hands that dual allegiances were involved. The great nobles were all playing for themselves. The Emperor sought for allies and friends. Evil days were coming to Vondium. The headless zorcamen were one symbol of that, a presentiment and a sign of terror.

  Why should Nath Larghos, a Trylon with power that placed him extremely high in the councils of the racters, seek out a lowly Strom and attempt to win him over?

  My own plans must come first. There was much to do. An airboat, it seemed to me, was the obvious choice; indeed, the only choice. Once I had abducted Delia we would have no peace until we reached Strombor in Zenicce.

  Even then the Emperor might fit out a mighty expedition and dispatch his powerful fleet with thousands of mercenaries to bring his daughter back. I did not fancy myself in the part of Paris, and Delia could occasion the launch of many more than a thousand ships, aye, and fliers, too, for I knew without question she was far more beautiful and passionate and willful than Helen could ever have been. But I would not bring upon Strombor the fate of Troy; the Emperor and his Vallians would never be the Greeks in this tragedy. If necessary Delia and I would fly to Sanurkazz and go to Felteraz, where I knew how welcome we would be. Mayfwy would welcome us. That was certain. If the Emperor followed us there through all the long and perilous dangers, then where would we go?

  I jumped up and overset the teapot.

  “Goddamnit to hell!” I said. I would make a start, and go with my Delia to the ends of this strange world of Kregen, and let the fates play with their silken strands as they would.

  Young Bargom came in somewhat rapidly, to investigate the overset teapot I thought. But in his hand he held a heavy knife, not quite a shortsword, something like a cleaver—a weapon he could with perfect truth say he had picked up from his kitchen—and his face held a down-drawn, savage look that surprised me. He saw me standing there, composed, he saw the teapot, and he didn't know where to put the knife.

  “The teapot thought itself a flier, Bargom,” I said. Then, “What troubled you?"

  He blurted it out: “I thought some Vox-spawned rast had crept in here, my lord Strom, to do you a mischief."

  The incident passed. But it added up. Bargom said there were many expatriate Valkans living in Vondium. They were anxiously desirous of paying their respects to their Strom. They had heard what had been done on Valka and many of their friends had left to return home. Many of those still remaining intended to return. Meanwhile, here in the city was their Strom, the man who had cleansed their home and made of it a place worthy to be lived in again, a place of which to be proud.

  With a callous cynicism and a calculating appraisal of the advantages I could wring, I saw these people. They came in, in ones or twos, sometimes a family, and they brought little gifts, tokens of their esteem. All went on about how Valka was no longer merely a slave-province, of which there were more than two or three, and the letters they had had telling them of the great things being done there. Some of the women even kissed my hand. I began to feel the greatest cheat and impostor in all of Kregen. I have said I love the island of Valka. This is true. I believe in that upper room of the inn The Rose of Valka, I came to feel completely the same about the people.

  One young lad there was, tall, strong, upright, with the glowing features of hero-worship about him I found most distasteful, whose name was Vangar ti Valkanium, told me he was a Deldar in the Vallian Air Service. He had come in mufti, the buff tunic and the wide-brimmed hat with the red and white colors in feathers and in a great cockade over his left shoulder. I told Vangar ti Valkanium something of my admiration for the Air Service people, and we talked very pleasantly. When he left I knew that I would feel a pang at abandoning my island of Valka.

  But I would abandon any and everything in two worlds for the sake of my Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue Mountains.

  Sitting at the black-wood table in the window I felt a softly caressing touch stroke feather-light across the nape of my neck. It was there and gone in an instant. I took no notice. In the window on its own special pedestal stood a flick-flick. The plant has many names on Kregen, and as an example of the closeness of the Vallish to the Kregish, the fly-catcher is fleck-fleck in the Vallish and flick-flick in the Kregish. Its six-foot-long tendrils uncoil like steel springs, their honey-dew stickiness certain death for flies. The flowers are cone-shaped trumpets of a pale and subtle peach color, and they gobble flies like a starving elephant stuffing down buns. Most homes like to have a flick-flick, usually near the kitchen. Flies, as I have said, get everywhere.

  The break made me stand up and stretch and look out of the window. Across the patio, with its tables and chairs and Young Bargom's clientele drinking happily, the canal ran along between meticulously upkept banks. And a great straggly gang of haulers passed, their gray slave breech-clouts filthy, the whip marks jikaidering their backs, bloody and filthy, hauling a huge gray barge with a cargo that brought the gunwales down to within a knuckle of the water.

  I frowned.

  Delia detested slavery as much as I did.

  I had thought I had been brought to Kregen to help stamp out slavery. My own plans called for the fulfillment of my own selfish ends. To hell with the Star Lords and the Savanti! Delia was all I cared about.

  Many times, as you have heard, I had been deflected from my intentions. Now, again, I was p
revented from putting our plans into operation that day, as I had wished, by the distraught arrival of Kta. Angia.[2] A plump, homey, beeswax kind of woman, she sobbed out her story. Her son was a proud and headstrong youth, but they were in debt, for he was a cabinet-maker and had had words with his employer and could not find fresh work. He would not ask friends of the Valkans here in Vondium for help. And now he had been dragged off to the bagnios. She was desperate. Could I help?

  [2 Kta., Kotera, the female equivalent of Koter, of Kr. A.B.A.]

  The story is quickly told. Quickly—in that I went with her to the bagnios and found her son, Anko the Chisel, and paid off his debt, and in the process being arrogant and insulting to the guards with their red and black sleeves. But not so quickly—in my discovery of the bagnios themselves. I have seen many slave barracks, and barracoons and bagnios, and those of Vallia were no worse than many. Here criminals, debtors, hostages, prisoners, those who had forfeited their liberty in any way, were kept for dispersal among the slave farms, or the haulers, or the mines, or in any of the many places that slaves were employed. We took Anko the Chisel out of that place and his mother, Kta. Angia, fell on her knees before me, whereat I felt all the nausea of myself rising, and I bid her get up and take her son home, and start again in the search for work.

  The point I had had thrust upon me I did not want to face, would not face, refused even to countenance.

  Delia. That thought alone was all that mattered.

  * * *

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A certain Bowman of Loh comments on the Archers of Valka

  That evening everyone crowded in and The Rose of Valka rocked with the roistering songs of Kregen. And, chief among these, sung for all its seven hundred and seventy-eight stanzas, was The Fetching of Drak na Valka.

  Among the Valkan revelers, dressed like them in the flaunting red and white, sat Seg Segutorio. I had told him, swiftly, not to start singing The Bowmen of Loh.