“Yes, my Delia of the brown eyes, we will!”
“But I wish to be called Delia of Strombor—for are you not Lord of Strombor?”
“Aye—and you will be Queen of Felschraung and Longeulm, Zorcandera and Vovedeera!”
“Oh, Dray!”
There is not much more to tell.
We were sitting in a room with the sunshine from Zim flooding crimson all about us waiting for Genodras to pour its topaz fires into the room. At the far end were all my friends, laughing and talking and already the bokkertu for our betrothal was taking place. Life had come to be suddenly a precious and golden wonder to me.
As the green sunshine slanted in through the window and mingled with the crimson I saw a scorpion scuttle out from under the table. I had never before seen one on Kregen.
I jumped up, filled with a frenzied, sick loathing, a foreboding, even a knowledge. I remembered my father lying white and helpless as the scorpion scuttled so loathsomely away. I leaped forward and lifted my foot to bring it down squashing on the ugly creature—and I felt a blue tingling of fire limning my eyes and penetrating into my inmost being—I was falling—and Delia was no longer a warm and wonderful presence. I opened my eyes to a harsh and yellow sunshine and I knew I had lost everything.
I was on the coast of Portugal, and Lisbon was not far off and there was some trouble before I, naked and with no explanation of my appearance, could break free and try to make some kind of a life at the beginning of the nineteenth century on Earth.
The scorpion had stung once more.
For hours I would stand, gazing up at the stars, picking out Scorpio. There, four hundred light-years away, on the wild and beautiful and savage planet of Kregen, beneath the crimson and emerald suns of Antares, was all I wanted on any world, denied, it seemed to me, forever.
“I will return!” I shouted, over and over, as I had shouted once before. Would the Savanti hear and take pity on me, return me to Paradise? Would the Star Lords once again pluck me across the interstellar gulf to be used once more as a pawn in their inscrutable plans? I could only hope.
So much—so much—and all lost, all lost.
“I will return,” I said fiercely. “I will never give up by Delia of the Blue Mountains, my Delia of Strombor!”
I would return, one day, to Kregen beneath Antares.
I would return.
I would return.
Scanned by Highroller.
Proofed by unsung hero.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Transit to Scorpio Page 20
