Scorpio Reborn [Dray Prescot #38]

by Alan Burt Akers

  This tended to create a lack of interest in the here and now much beyond satisfying immediate needs.

  The folk of Tsungfaril appeared to Mevancy and me to be gripped by a lassitude that extended into every aspect of life.

  Foreigners bustled and got things done, in employment or on their own account. I'd tackled Mevancy on the subject of paol-ur-bliem, conscious that I trod painful ground in talking of Leotes. Yet he bustled, and he was of Tsungfaril. She'd put me off. “I expect one day I'll tell you, cabbage."

  Some of the foreigners in the city were from Walfarg. Walfarg had once conquered all Loh, Pandahem, vast lands in the east of Turismond. Now all that sprawling and splendid Empire of Loh was swept away. Pockets of culture and custom survived here and there. Tsungfaril showed a few evidences. But their religious beliefs and isolation maintained a distinct and different culture. I saw women walking with veils of many patterns and colors covering their faces, women from other parts of Loh. In the city there was an enclave of houses built in the Walfargian style with hidden walled gardens where these veiled women might rest and relax.

  The idea that Mevancy might need to wear a veil struck me as comical.

  The Old Lorn Trail continued on to the west and arrangements existed at the southern end of the city to provide a proper ferry service. The area which in a normal city would be the Wayfarer's Drinnik had here been grudgingly provided, just like the dirt in the flower pots. If you couldn't grow food on any piece of ground it was worthless; if you could then you grew food. Oh, no, the folk of Makilorn understood this. They charged sky-high rates to cross the River of Drifting Leaves. You could quite see their point. Mevancy didn't, and got into a heated shouting match with the ferry operators.

  I wandered across and leaned on the stone wall and looked over the river.

  “Outrageous!” Mevancy was leading off. “Just two people, with no baggage, and returning this afternoon, a guaranteed double passage? And you try to charge me a whole ming! Are you mad? A whole gold piece?"

  “You may swim if you wish, lady."

  The ferryman wore a lopsided turban of some grayish cloth; he was not slave. The slaves tailed onto the lines with which the ferries were hauled across. Flat bottomed rafts, really. When a vessel wished to sail up or downriver past the ferry the lines were slackened off and dropped to the bottom. There was a fair amount of traffic, and slikkers were racing one another just for the dare of it, their sails billowing.

  Mevancy choked and pointed to the water. “Swim? With them?"

  The twinned black fins cutting the surface did not look inviting. There were not a lot of them; one of them would have jaws enough to make swimming a one way affair.

  Shades of the River of Bloody Jaws! I stopped myself thinking of Seg and Milsi and adventures along the Kazzchun River.

  Mevancy snapped out: “And how much for a single person, you black-hearted drikinger?"

  He didn't look in the least discomposed. His brown face, seamed and cunning, sized Mevancy up. “You need not lay your tongue to me, my lady, for I am Aron the Ferry, son of Aron the Ferry, and my belief in Tsung-Tan is unshakeable.” Then, like a striking risslaca: “Forty five silver khans."

  I thought Mevancy would have a stroke. Her face bloomed with blood. She shook her fist under Aron the Ferry's avaricious nose. She stuttered and spluttered. “There are sixty silver khans to each gold ming!” she raved. “You are a—” She whooped in a breath and waved her arms about. She whirled about and stared balefully at me, leaning on the wall.

  “And you needn't stand there looking smug, cabbage!"

  I had the sense to say nothing.

  The last of the carts and animals and passengers for this trip of the ferry were crowding onto the flat deck only a foot or so above the water. Aron the Ferry stretched and hitched his fawn robe about himself. He had a nasty-looking curved dagger at his belt, somewhat after the fashion of a Havilfarese kalider. That could slide in your guts and burst your heart.

  “You must make up your mind. We cast off now."

  The flat and ugly crack of a whip smacked into the hot air. The slaves groaned and got themselves together and laid onto the lines.

  I had to remove my sensibilities quickly. There was absolutely nothing I could do, here, about the detestable institution of slavery. One day, Opaz willing, my friends and I would eradicate it everywhere in Paz.

  “Oh, by Spurl! Very well, then. You robber!” With that, Mevancy fairly hurled a gold ming at Aron and pushed roughly past. I followed.

  I said to Aron: “Will it be a ming to return?"

  “Assuredly, walfger.” He did not address me as lord, walfger being one of the Lohvian words for mister, equating with the Havilfarese horter and the Vallian koter.

  I wasn't fool enough to threaten him, or to say I'd make enquiries about the ferry prices the other passengers were paying. I'd find out.

  The west bank differed subtly from the east mainly, I fancied, because there were fewer temples and more laboring areas. There did exist the maze of narrow streets and alleyways that are to be found in most cities; but here this tangled confusion of living and working accommodation hardly merited the description of the aracloins, the all-embracing term for the warrens and souks.

  We found the address, a large lodging house with almost as much style as Lulli Quincy's establishment, and as we went in I pondered on this fresh revelation of Mevancy's character. She must be paying very near the top price for our lodgings; she protested at a single gold ming for the ferry. Mind you, I felt pretty convinced Aron the Ferry, spotting a likely pigeon, had swooped.

  I knew all the people on our little list—or I should say Mevancy's list—from the days spent with the caravan. Mevancy had told me that she and Rafael had herded most of them out in one parcel, finding a way through the fire which, so far, had been mostly smoke. Later the flames had bitten.

  A large slatternly woman chewing cham told us that that hulking great brute of a paktun had taken himself off and good riddance. Now I own here that I was vastly satisfied at this news.

  Not sure just what Mevancy intended by this visit I'd envisaged a nasty scene. I mean, did the girl intend to mount a day and night guard on Hargon the Ron? She stood there watching the woman's fat cheeks go round and round with the cud of cham. At last, quietly, she said: “Thank you, walfgera,” and walked away as calmly as you please.

  I said: “Strike one off."

  “I assume so. He's gone. Had he been the target we'd have been sent after him by now."

  “Yes."

  About to continue with a casual: “Who do you fancy now?” I was interrupted by a sharp: “The Parfangs. Listi and Larrigen. They are newly married and their resources are slender. They lodge this side of the river."

  With that comical caution that was becoming habitual when I suggested something to this hoity-toity miss I fancied she'd overlooked, I said: “They will not welcome busy bodies watching them all the time."

  “I would imagine the honeymoon is over by now."

  Cynical with it, then, this young lady!

  “Lots of marriages founder, do they, where you come from?"

  She simply ignored that and walked on with her lithe swing towards the narrow street where the lovebirds were lodging. What this Larrigen Parfang did for a living, I'd been told, suited his mild temperament. He was a stylor who organized the lading of vessels plying the river. He'd been to Larishsmot to see his bride's parents. I sensed a romantic story there, given the distances involved. Caravan masters demanded and obtained high prices for their services, and then there were all the gear and animals to buy or hire. No wonder the newlyweds were living in reduced circumstances. Could they be our target? The answer to that was: very easily! They could have a child who could revolutionize some aspect of this civilization, cause destruction and the death of millions, turn the course of history.

  They were out when we arrived, and Mevancy bit her lip.

  Cruelly, I said: “What now, my lady?"

&
nbsp; “Oh, you!” she snapped; but the snap lacked fangs.

  “Think I'll take a stroll down to the wharves. Might find them there."

  “Very well.” Her head went back. “I shall go and—"

  I interrupted. “I think it would be best if we stayed together."

  “Cabbage, I've told you, I do the thinking."

  There was no shifting her. I suppose I should not have gone down to the riverbank by myself; at the time I felt that a little time on my own would prove productive. As they say, “the selfish sow sour seeds."

  Because Makilorn was accustomed to the sight of strangers as they passed through, I was spared much of the xenophobia found in many parts of this Earth, although noticeably less so on Kregen. The Suns of Scorpio glittered off the water. Further along there was considerable activity around the fishing sheds. I turned to look back up the bank; there was no sign of Mevancy. I went along to the fishermen and without any unseemly haggling soon arranged that Kang the Hook would be happy to take us across the river in his boat for a silver khan.

  “The ferrymen are a bunch of grasping stranks,” he said, jerking a brown thumb at the twin fins cutting the water. “I've known ‘em push folk in who wouldn't pay the fare."

  “It's the carts, d'you see,” said a whiskery fellow smothered in the net he was repairing.

  “Aye,” confirmed Kang. “It's the carts and animals."

  “I'll be back in a bur or so,” I said, and went off to find Mevancy.

  The bank here, just before the fishing sheds, had been raised with trimmed stone blocks. The fisherfolk, despite their importance to the city, had been relegated to a muddy patch fronting the sheds. That made launching their boats easier, of course. My views were that the Star Lords would make sure we were in the immediate neighborhood of the person we had to protect if that person ran into trouble. Running about all over the city was fruitless, in my view. But how to get that point across to madam?

  A number of people moved about their business, and back from the raised bank the warehouses lofted brick built walls. In one of those places Larrigen Parfang spent his days writing down the ladings of the vessels.

  I kept a sharp eye open.

  Presumably Mevancy had seen the fatuity of her intended course of action for here she came, stepping smartly down towards the stone bank. I watched her, admiring the lithe swing of her walk. Then I yelled.

  “Mevancy! Behind you!"

  She whirled about instantly. The three plug-uglies who broke from a passing group of warehousemen lifted cudgels, blatterers of heavy wood. They were dressed in clothes little better than rags, and their faces were filthy. They leaped for Mevancy, alone there on the stone bank.

  She stretched both her arms straight down her sides. Then she lifted them up to forty five degrees. I saw the latchings of her sleeves burst open. The leading thug reeled back, screaming, clawing at his wrecked face. Blood spurted everywhere. The second tried to dodge and his face, too, was ripped into red ruin. What looked to be a mat of needles covered their faces as the blood and puss flowed. The third thug bundled down and on and crashed headlong into Mevancy.

  She tried to dodge that frenzied attack.

  Almost she swerved away. The thug tried to grab her and I saw how his right eye vanished in a wash of shining crimson. But the effort overbalanced her.

  The plug ugly was screaming, clawing at his face, stumbling about bent double.

  I ignored him.

  Mevancy stumbled, tottered, tried to regain her balance and failed.

  Without a cry she tumbled headlong into the river. Immediately two pairs of twin fins cut the water towards her.

  * * *

  Chapter thirteen

  My old sailor knife slid out of its oiled sheath and I was running along the stones of the bank and taking a long flat dive slap bang into the water.

  Well, yes, I am accounted a fine swimmer and can stay underwater for what seems an incredible length of time to onlookers. I went in and at once saw Mevancy rising to the surface flapping her arms and legs.

  Beyond her in the brilliant water the lean lethal shape of the strank showed dappled gray and green and pink, twin fins stiff, jaws agape.

  The second was a mere blue farther off.

  I corkscrewed my legs, dived under the strank seeing his two black eyes like marbles fixed on the thrashing form of the girl. Up in a ferocious kick and the sailor knife went in and along slitting his belly. His scaly skin was tough; the blade was keen and my muscles were impelled as much by fear for Mevancy as evil joy in using them again.

  Blood spilled into the water.

  There was no time to waste on that one for the second was finning in and aiming directly for me. He'd hold on to his course. The blood in the water would affect him, that was true; but that would be after he'd chomped me.

  After that his brothers and sisters and cousins would turn up...

  Again, I swirled under him as he made his pass. He tried to thrash back but the sailor knife went in abaft his gills. I hewed the knife about. He rolled away and blood stained spreading in the water. I wrenched the knife free and kicked savagely for Mevancy.

  I came up under her and caught her about the waist, lifting her. That was, of course, not only foolish, it was asking for trouble.

  She tried to hit me about the head and then we broke the surface.

  I whooped in a gargantuan breath, yelled: “Rope!"

  The stone face of the bank lifted before me, green and slimy. Up there, foreshortened, a row of torsos and heads peered down. Somebody had the nous to throw down a line.

  Before I did anything else I ducked down and peered back through the water. There was no sign of a strank—yet.

  I hitched the line about the girl as she spluttered and tried to speak. “Shut up, girl, and hold the line.” I lifted my old foretop hailing voice. “Haul away, handsomely now!"

  Mevancy went up in a wet clinging smother.

  Again I didn't hang about. Another huge breath and I was under the surface, knife in hand, looking for stranks.

  This time a cousin turned up and I dealt with him as I had the first two.

  This time when I stuck my head up through that dancing silver sky I saw the rope dangling against the stones and so gripped it in my left fist. The sailor knife went between my teeth, my right fist got a purchase on the line, I shoved my feet flat against the stones and went up there like a mountaineer.

  I swear to this day I heard the snap of strank jaws just abaft my heels.

  Mevancy was flat out on the stones and a girl was jumping up and down on her and driblets of water were coming out of Mevancy's mouth.

  The clamor surrounded me as the people expressed surprise and horror. I looked for the three thugs. Their bodies were missing.

  With a noise like a blocked sink freeing itself of a month's garbage, Mevancy got out: “You! Oh, you!"

  The girl stopped jumping up and down on her.

  I said: “Thank you, walfgera."

  She wiped a strand of hair from her face, her mouth pursed. Then she said: “It is always difficult to know what to do best. But you are foreigners."

  “They might,” shouted a crone with a shawl about her head, “have been converted to the glory of Tsung-Tan, Ysbel—we don't know."

  Ysbel snapped back: “No, we don't know, mother-in-law."

  I said: “Walfgera Ysbel, you did right, and I give you thanks."

  Mevancy whoofled a bit and shook her head and spat and swallowed and generally regained the centre of attention. When she stood up the crowd considered the entertainment over. No one commented on what had happened.

  Very soon they'd all gone back about their business, leaving Ysbel and her mother-in-law staring at Mevancy.

  “Your arms—” said Ysbel, at last.

  Mevancy had pulled the broken-open sleeves over her forearms; but the wet cloth could not conceal the pitted state of her skin.

  “Oh,” said Mevancy, tossing her head. “It's just the water.” Sh
e turned on me like a chavonth. “Well, cabbage? Are you going to stand lollygagging here all day? We have work to do."

  I spoke directly to Ysbel. “I thank you again. There should be gold between us, I think.” Then I added: “To the glory of Tsung-Tan."

  Ysbel's mother-in-law cackled.

  Mevancy ripped open her purse and shoveled mings at Ysbel. I turned away. I was beginning to appreciate the problem Ysbel had faced when confronted with the apparently drowned corpse of a stranger.

  Looking up quite frankly, Ysbel said: “Thank you, lady. Now had you been a paol-ur-bliem you would not be thanking me at all!"

  Mevancy's lips tightened. She did not reply.

  With the polite remberees between us we parted and as we walked along the bank Mevancy said harshly: “Hangol's work, I judge."

  “Probably,” I said. “We can't be sure."

  “Ordinary footpads, those?” She shook her head. She had recovered with feline speed and grace. “No, I do not think so."

  When I conducted her to Kang the Hook's boat she tossed her head, said not a word, stepped aboard and paid over the silver khan without so much as a blink of her eyelids. All that was equivalent to her: “Oh you!"

  The pull across the water took little time, and Kang burbled on about my foolhardiness in diving into the water, and how much the lady must be loved and how much she must love me in return. I could see Mevancy would explode like a stoppered kettle soon; thankfully we reached the opposite bank and disembarked before that catastrophe occurred. Still and all! It amused me.

  As we walked along to the lodgings she said: “Tomorrow is the funeral."

  I wasn't stupid enough to ask her if she was going.

  I said: “Probably the others from the caravan will be there."

  “Possibly."

  “Yes. I think I will mingle with the crowd."