I made a sign to him in the wind-rushing darkness and I saw his wild head nod against the starlight. Swerving my corth back toward the tower of Umgar Stro I began my final preparations. No normal landing was possible. So the abnormal became necessary.
All my old sailor skills surged up afresh as I knotted the leather thongs. The Hiclantung leather was good, even though I considered it not so fine as that of Sanurkazz. The corth’s reins were extended in length. From the flying saddle I unwound the already-prepared thongs and dropped them to swing madly in the rushing wind of our flight. At their ends the trapeze and the loops did not look particularly inviting. I took a breath and then unfastened the flying straps and bands that held me to the saddle and slid over the side. My feet kicked wildly for an instant, then I had control and was able to lower myself down until I sat astride the trapeze, my hands in the loops above me and gripping the ends of the long extended reins that ran over crude blocks on the saddle bow.
An overwhelming nostalgic sweep of memory carried me back to my days in Aphrasoe, the city of the Savanti, and to the swingers. How I had joyed then in swinging in wild free hurtling flight from plant to plant! Now I was swinging again — although this time I clung beneath the hooked talons of a giant flying bird and swung not from pleasure but to save the life of the girl I loved. The cold struck at me shrewdly, but I took no notice.
Umgar Stro’s tower seemed to me to swing and sway before my eyes. I fought to make my reeling senses understand that the tower remained still, that it was me, Dray Prescot, swinging so sickeningly. Long practice over the years in straddling out along the topgallant yardarms saved me, then, and I could estimate distance and force my senses to compose themselves.
Seg’s corth billowed in from the side, the fingerlike wing-tip feathers altering angles and curvatures as with superb aerial control the great bird matched velocities with my own corth and the led bird. Seg would have to grab the reins of my mount — somehow — and keep it ready for our departure. The roof of the tower spiked up toward me.
I pulled on the reins gingerly, and the world tilted; then the tower became perpendicular and I could see the fans of cruel iron spikes, the trip wires, the slanting lines of tiling that gave no secure perch anywhere. I inched forward on the trapeze as the wind bellowed past my head, whipping my hair back, lacerating my eyes and cheeks.
Closer — closer — would the corth never haul up?
At the last moment to the savage jerking of the reins the bird abruptly fluttered his wide vulture-like wingspread. His body reared up into the air exposing his underside, his legs and claws stabbed forward and down. The trapeze hit the tiles with an almighty thump and I pitched off and rolled. As I rolled and slithered to the sheer drop to the cliffs beneath, the corth, without alighting, fluttered hugely and was airborne. The led corth followed and the two birds wheeled away. I had no time to hope that Seg would catch them.
The lip of the slanted roof was coming up at me with frightening speed. If I went over that there would be nothing anymore — no Delia, no Vallia, no Aphrasoe. .
My hand smashed numbingly into an iron fan spike. My fingers curled and gripped without conscious volition. I hung there, spread-eagled on the roof, blatted at by the wind, seeing only the faint star-shot shadows all about me.
After a moment I had breath enough to draw myself up into a posture less exposed. The trapdoor through which inspection parties must come to check the roof defenses opened after I gave it a taste of my long sword. I dropped down, bent-legged, my sword in my fist. Only dust, cobwebs, litter. . From the attic I found the ladder leading below and descended wondering, for the first time, at the silence of this place.
So far the information given me by Naghan, the spy, had proved correct. But he had not penetrated here. From now on I entered unknown dangers. For me, Dray Prescot, that is not an unusual hazard. It seemed to me that the stone wall and floors of the chamber within the tower still reeked faintly of the distinctive Rapa odor. I padded on, guided from one dim pool of illumination in the palpable darkness to the next where torches guttered low. Desperately I sought to convince myself that my mission had not already proved in vain. But the atmosphere here smelled of abandonment — and then I tensed. Voices, ahead of me, talking lazily, in half grumbling, half resigned accents brought all my senses alert as I crept stealthily upon the two Ullar guards.
“By the violet offal of the snow-blind feister-feelt! I swear my throat is more parched than the ripe-rotten south lands themselves! Nath! Fetch me a pannikin of that Chremson.”
The voices were those of Ullars, fierce, resonant, the voices of men accustomed to shouting across the windy gulfs as their impiters crossed the sky. But — Nath!
“Aye,” answered he who was named Nath. “And I’ll drink you swallow for swallow, Bargo, and see you carried out heels first.”
I crept closer in the gloom. The guardroom had been situated within a circular enclosure jutting out from the main bulk of the tower, and from this aerie the guards could obtain an unimpeded view. My sword did not tremble in my hand. The sound of wine gurgling from a leather wine-bottle reassured me.
“When they left us on guard they did us a mortal mischief, my cloth-headed dom.” More drinking sounds. “I’ve not missed a sack since we left Ullardrin-”
“No more have I, Bargo, no more have I.”
A gulping and then a resonant belch. Now I was up to the corner, ready to swoop in through the half open door of lenk. I could just catch a glimpse of them, or one of them, with his indigo-dyed hair flowing from that blunt head, that square mouth pursed to the upended blackjack. The handle of a pannikin showed, moving up and down, up and down, as the other Ullar drank. They were so nearly men, so much more like men than the Rapas they had chased from this tower. They wore leather studded with bronze and copper, and as I moved in, slowly and more slowly to bring them both into view, I could see how much alike they were, fierce, belligerent, habitual conquerors and masters of the sky. Each had a bundle of leather thongs cunningly draped and knotted about his waist, and, although I knew little of the ins and outs of their mystique then, I knew enough to know this was the clerketer, the meticulously maintained harness with which they fastened themselves to their impiters and on which their lives would depend in the air.
“More wine, Nath, by the ice needles of Ullarkor, more wine!”
I had feathered shafts into men like these and seen them screech and swing out to dangle from that restraining harness, the clerketer.
Each of these — Nath and Bargo — carried himself with a swagger, that was clear enough. On a bench near them lay the leem pelts with which they kept warm in flight. Their long narrow swords were tucked up, thrusting, important, intended to scare and impress by their very angles of attack when seen against the chunky body, the blunt head and those close-set narrow eyes, that luxuriant mane of indigo hair. I judged the time was ripe.
I entered the room very fast, and struck Nath upon that mane of indigo hair with the hilt of my sword, so that he dropped to the stone and blood burst from his nostrils and mouth. To the one called Bargo I showed the sword point, pushed against the leather over his heart. I leaned on the blade and it punctured leather and skin. Bargo’s square harsh mouth clamped down. He glared at me, and there was death in my face, and he read it there, and he scowled back in savage defiance.
“Where is the prisoner, Bargo?” I spoke roughly, yet in a normal voice. I believe that frightened him more.
He gave me back look for look; then he lowered indigo-stained eyelids over his eyes and said:
“Below-”
The wild leap of my heart must be quelled, instantly. .
There were no other occupants of the guardroom. Leaning against the wall behind the opened door stood two of the bamboo-hafted, gladius-bladed, and single-edge bitted toonons, the personal weapon of the Ullars, favored by them over all others when in the air. Each bamboo haft was twelve feet in length; with a two-handed grip on that, well-spaced, an Ullar could wie
ld a wide swath of destruction about him in the air. The idea of carrying a short sword aloft was incongruous and ludicrous; what the Ullars had done was to mount the short sword upon this extended haft, reinforce it with a single ax-edge, narrow and deeply curved, and thus bring swordplay into a semblance of possibility aboard the back of a bird, albeit they had in reality constructed a kind of halberd.
Bargo’s narrow and deeply-set eyes were focused upon my sword as its point thrust against the leathers over his chest. He wore a brave gold-laced sash about his waist. His legs, clad in the bound leather and cloth that gave him protection when in flight, were quivering. I knew that a moment’s relaxation of watchfulness with him would be enough; he would be upon me like a plains leem.
“Lead, Bargo.” Again I spoke almost normally.
The only precaution I took with him as I shifted the sword so that he could precede me from the guardroom was to relieve him of his sword. The blade was exceptionally long and thin. It was steel, flexible, keen, suited to the kind of blows a man must deliver if he fights from impiter back. I threw it down into a corner. I fancied my Krozair long sword would overmatch these impiter blades. Bargo’s torch sputtered redly.
As we walked steadily down the winding stairs noises hitherto unheard became audible at the lower level. The distant sound of laughter, shouting, music from the single-bagpipes and the wilder, melancholy strains wrenched from the triple-bagpipes; I could even hear, I fancied now and then, the chink of bottles and the rattle of the dice cups, the tinkle of money. We went down the stairs in perfect silence. Bargo understood that his life meant nothing to me.
So confident was I of success that I could worry about Seg now, and hope he could keep clear of the impiter patrols the Ullars would have flying about Plicla.
The stones were old with that distinctive Rapa odor upon them still. We entered a corridor where dust lay thickly, marked by a central trail of darker footprints. At each cell door the dust lay undisturbed, at each one — save one!
To this Bargo unhesitatingly led.
“Open it, Bargo.”
This he did, in silence, with the keys from his belt; great clumsy wooden keys they were, each a good nine inches in length, cunningly cut from lenk. The door opened, creaking. I looked inside, my emotions held tightly under, and-
An old man rose from his filthy bed of straw, gazing up with weak eyes, blinking, his near-lipless wrinkled mouth working, trying to distinguish us in the torchlit gloom.
“I have told you, and told you,” he said in a voice that quavered as much from age as fear. “I cannot do it — you must believe me, Umgar Stro — there are some things forbidden and some things impossible for the Wizards of Loh.”
I took Bargo by the front of his leather tunic and I lifted his feet from the floor. My sword point nestled into his throat. He was very near death, then, and he knew it.
“Where is she, you fool? The prisoner, the girl — tell me, quickly!”
He gargled. He managed to spit out words. “This is the prisoner! By the snow-blind feister-feelt, I swear it!”
“There is another, rast! A girl — the fairest girl you have ever seen. Where?
He shook his head weakly, and his blunt snout wrinkled with his fear. His indigo hair hung lankly down his shoulders.
“There is no other!”
I threw him down and my sword struck like a risslaca; but in the instant of striking I turned the blade so that the flat took him across the head and he pitched forward and lay still without uttering a sound.
“You are not of the Ullars, Jikai.” The old man stood more firmly now, clutching his rags about him. His eyes in the random light from the fallen torch caught reflections and glowed like spilled wine drops in the wrinkled map of his face. His nose was long and narrow, his lips nonexistent, and the hair that wisped about his temples was still as red as any man of Loh’s. It looked blue-black in that half light, but I knew it was red.
“Have you seen another prisoner, old man, a girl, a girl so wondrous-”
He shook that head and I wondered why it did not creak as the cell door had creaked.
“There is only me, Lu-si-Yuong. Have you means to escape from this accursed tower, Jikai?”
“Yes. But I do not go without the girl for whom I came.”
“Then you will spend eternity here.”
In all the clamor of thoughts echoing in my skull I think I knew, then, that Delia was not here.
“You have been here long, old man?”
“I am Lu-si-Yuong, and you address me as San.”[3]
I nodded. The title of San was ancient and revered, bearing a meaning akin to master, dominie, sage. Clearly, this representative of the Wizards of Loh not only considered himself an important personage, but was indeed truly so. I do not mind using a title when it is earned.
“Tell me, San, please. Have you any knowledge of the girl captured by Umgar Stro and brought to this tower?”
“I, alone, of the prisoners was spared. The Ullars know of the powers of the Wizards of Loh and they thought to avail themselves of my services. All the other prisoners were slain.”
I stood there, I, Dray Prescot, and heard this old sage’s thin voice whispering words that meant the end of everything of importance to me in two worlds.
I wanted to leap forward and choke a denial from his narrow mouth, to grip his corded throat in my two hands and wrench words I must hear from him. I think he saw my distress, for he said, again: “I cannot help you in this, Jikai. But I can help in — other — ways if you will rescue me-”
For a moment I could not answer him, could not respond. My Delia — surely, she could not have been so wantonly killed? It did not make sense — who could callously snuff out so much beauty?
San Young was whispering again, bending stiffly to pick up Bargo’s spluttering torch. “They revel tonight, below. There are many of them, fierce, bold barbarians of the skies. To fight your way through them, Jikai, is a superhuman task-”
“We go up,” I said, and I was short with him. All my instincts clashed there, in that cobwebby tower cell of Umgar Stro, torturing me with indecision, with doubt, with a mad and futile rage. She must be here!
She must! But everything pointed to the opposite being true. This Wizard — why should he lie? Except, to cozen me into rescuing him!
I faced him. He had recovered his composure now, had drawn himself up so that the torchlight flowed over his gaunt features, over those wine-dark eyes, that long supercilious nose, that near-lipless mouth. He looked at me, clutching his rags, and he was well aware of the horror and superstitious awe in which common folk held the Wizards of Loh.
Indeed, there was power about him in an aura no one could overlook. Many and many a time have the Wizards of Loh performed deeds any normal man would dub impossible, and what their secrets may be are still a mystery to me. They demand and obtain instant obedience from the common folk — of whom, Zair be praised, there are many sturdy souls — and for the lordly of the land they reserve a kind of watching, cynical and amused tolerance, an armed truce of checks and balances of interest. Umgar Stro, for instance, could torture this old man to obtain his services, and his men might murmur but, being barbarians, they would not react in the same way that a man of Walfarg might. Once having obtained his services, Umgar Stro would have to kill him; for, judging by all the stories I had heard, if he did not then a retribution as horrible as it was inevitable would overtake him as surely as Zim and Genodras rose with each new day.
So it was that this Wizard of Loh, this Lu-si-Yuong, thought he could now safely dictate what was to occur.
He stared at me and I saw the torchlight flicker over his grimed yet pallid face. He took a step backward.
“Listen to me, San. If you speak true, if there is no girl prisoner here, then swear it be so by all you hold sacred of Loh. For, Lu-si-Yuong, if you lie to me then you will die — as surely as anything you know of in your world!”
His tongue rasped those wrinkled sandpaper ed
ges of his mouth.
“It is true. I swear to you by Hlo-Hli herself and by the seven arcades, I am the only prisoner here.”
We stood facing each other for what seemed a long time.
I was scarcely aware when I lowered the sword point from his shrunken breast.
“Very well.” I could not break out, not now; I could not allow myself to despair and to abandon myself to my grief. Not now, not when faithful Seg orbited outside awaiting me, in mortal danger. “Come, old man. Pray to all your pagan gods you have spoken the truth — and yet, and yet I wish you lied!”
We left the cell and walked on the footprinted way between the dust and so up the spiral stairs, past the guardroom and up to the attic. For me, Dray Prescot, this was a skulking, an undignified way, of tackling my foes.
Thelda had told me Delia had dropped into a tarn and been drowned. San Yuong told me she was not here. Did they both lie?
I told Lu-si-Yuong to wait and went back to the guardroom and took up the two toonons. The bamboo was not a true bamboo but came from the Marshes of Buranaccl. I wondered what Seg would make of the weapon. My mind was beginning to function again.
Seg was mightily joyed to see us. He brought the corths in with supple skill and I bundled up onto the trapeze with the fragile form of the Wizard tucked under my arm. We swung away into the Kregan night and the glow from the twins rolled across the eastern horizon laying pink icing across the towers, battlements, and roofs of Rapa Plicla.
The strong vulturine-shaped wings of the corths beat up and down, up and down, and we rode the sky levels away from the fortress of Umgar Stro until we could alight in a clearing among tuffa trees and so rearrange ourselves for our flight back to Hiclantung.
Seg was very quiet.
He did say, savagely: “I would have welcomed an opposition back there. We need a fight, Dray.”
“Aye,” I said. And let it lie there.
Warrior of Scorpio dp-3 Page 15
