Mazes of Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  The first bottle emptied.

  We both felt fine.

  We started in on the second bottle.

  On Earth, where I was born, and which was some four hundred light-years away, a tavern like this would have been wreathed in tobacco smoke. Thankfully, there were no smokers on Kregen.

  At least, not tobacco smokers...

  A nasty little fight broke out two tables along, and a fellow was carried out feet first and hurled on his head onto the cobbles outside.

  The victor, breathing hard, sat back at his bench.

  “Stupid tapo! As though one could not see his dice were obviously loaded.”

  Another man joined them, flicking his little rods of many colors. If he cheated, he was not discovered as the game of Flick-Flock proceeded with much swearing and bangings of the tables.

  Seg looked at the clepsydra perched on a shelf above the door. The water dropped steadily. It was a dark lustrous green.

  “If he does not come soon, my old dom, my tongue will begin to crawl about seeking sustenance among the tankards.”

  “Maybe we could discover, with cries of joy, another few silver pieces?”

  “Why not?”

  In the manner of old campaigners we had automatically appraised the metal of the roisterers and swaggerers in the wide main room of The Ruby Winespout. Rough artisans, mostly, with tradespeople sitting together along the angled wall to our corner. Three tables along, past the gamblers at Flick-Flock, the five men sitting with their heads together had not escaped our notice. We kept a quick glance on them from time to time. They were not artisans or tradesfolk; they carried weapons and three of the five wore brigandines, the other two wore jacks.

  “Hey, Landlord!” exclaimed Seg, half-rising and extending his hand. “Lookit that! A real beautiful silver sinver graced with the head of the Empress Thyllis, no less.” He puffed his cheeks, and added: “The late Empress Thyllis.”

  The little Och trotted over, looking pleased.

  “Late or not, horter, it is all good silver.”

  “Aye! Another bottle!”

  From the corner of my eye, my attention centered amusedly on Seg’s antics, I caught movement approaching from the tradespeople’s tables. Seg was bellowing: “Caught in the lining! Foul stitching by a half-blind wight, I don’t doubt, but I’d kiss his bald pate for him now!”

  The movement from my side abruptly manifested itself.

  An exceedingly large and extraordinarily hairy man fairly hurtled at me. He knocked over an intervening table. He was purple of face, bulging of eye, foaming of mouth, and screeching something like: “I’ll have your tripes out and strangle your scrawny neck in ’em, so help me Uldor the Mighty!”

  There was time to observe he wore a shaggy old pelt-like garment, by its bulk probably concealing armor beneath, before he hit our table. Seg toppled away, with his catlike grace recovering instantly. I leaned away from the blow of a ham-sized fist. I dodged. I shouted.

  “What the—?”

  The hairy mass shoved the table away. The remains of our bottle splashed. The fist swung again, and the maniac roared out: “I know you, Planath the Sly! Now you have reached the reckoning.” He lashed out again.

  I dodged.

  “I’m not—”

  “Stand still, Planath, rast, yetch! I am going to scrunch your scrawny neck between my hands! I, Dahram the Bold! Accept your just punishment like a man, cramph!”

  He got himself entangled in the wreckage of the table. He kicked out, stumbling, windmilling his arms. He had just the two arms, and was an apim like me, a member of Homo sapiens. But he was large, and hairy, and wrought up. There were precious few options left open to me, by Zair!

  His purple face and bulging eyes bore down again. He did not have three black pigtails, his nose was not bent to larboard and his ears were both present and correct.

  “Now as Uldor the Mighty is my witness, I have sworn to take payment out on your hide, Planath the Sly! Now is your hour of doom—”

  He stopped bellowing rather suddenly.

  This was mainly because I placed a hand around his throat and pressed a little. My other hand caught his left arm and bent it back — not cruelly, not viciously, just enough to make him stoop very smartly and rub that squashed and fiery nose against the edge of the overturned table.

  I spoke into his ear.

  “I am not Planath the Sly, Dahram!”

  He grunted. I eased the pressure.

  He spluttered. “I know you are not Planath the Sly! He could never do what you have just done! My apologies, dom, sincere apologies — but that physiognomy of yours—”

  Seg laughed.

  “That’ll teach you to monkey with nature!”

  Seg knew that I could make subtle adjustments to my face, after a fashion, taught me by a famed Wizard of Loh. I’d altered my own fierce features into what I thought would be a face that would not upset Seg too much. I must have put in too much of the sly look.

  I let Dahram the Bold up.

  He rubbed his throat and eyed me. He was a fine tall bulky man. There was indeed armor under the pelt. His sword was scabbarded into a plain leather sheath, bronze-bound.

  The little fracas had loosened the shaggy pelt at his throat. I caught the glitter of gold.

  I said, “Cover your pakzhan, Dahram. We do not wear ours here—”

  “Aye,” said Dahram. “But I sold my pakmort when I became a hyr-paktun, sold it to the brotherhood.”

  We righted the table and, as though he’d been waiting for the outcome of the little fracas, the Och landlord appeared with the bottle paid for with Seg’s sinver he claimed he’d found lodged in his lining.

  Dahram the Bold cocked a bushy eyebrow at me.

  “Join us, dom, and tell us your story. I own I would not relish being in the shoes of this Planath the Sly.”

  We were fated not to drink that third bottle of Farfaril.

  The five men at the table we’d been casually observing chose that moment to make their move.

  As I have said, only one dagger had flashed in the fights so far.

  These five men descended on us with naked steel.

  The patrons of The Ruby Winespout drew themselves away. Some looked. Most went on with what they were doing, only sparing a glance to see how the fight would go, making their wagers on the outcome. Murder and mayhem occurred too commonly in The Ruby Winespout to raise an alarm.

  And, all this in defiance of the strict Laws of Hamal...

  I did not think Dahram the Bold was the betrayer, delivering the metaphorical kiss of betrayal by his antics. The five opened out as they rushed along the cleared space before the tables. One of them pushed his enveloping hood away from his face in order to see better. And, lo! He had three black pigtails, and a nose bent to larboard, and only one ear. And, lo! again. One of the five men was a woman, with coiled hair under a steel cap, and a sword which was now a bar of glitter in her gloved fist.

  “So that’s the way of it!” quoth Seg.

  Dahram the Bold didn’t waste time. He ripped his sword free of that plain scabbard. The sword was the straight cut and thrust weapon of Havilfar, the thraxter. The swords swinging against us were thraxters, also. There were no rapiers and no main gauches in evidence in this tavern brawl.

  Seg and I drew. Now we happened to have strapped on drexers, the superior sword type developed in our home of Valka, a blend of the best aspects of the thraxter, the native Vallian clanxer, and the superb and mysterious Savanti sword. Without another word, we set to.

  Chapter two

  Of Beggars and Emperors

  In a tavern fight of this brawling nature you don’t have to be too choosy. You don’t stand on ceremony. The romantic flicker of glittering blades is all very well, but...

  The broken bottle rolled at the side of my boot.

  I picked the bottle up, noticed that the end was broken into a satisfyingly jagged array of teeth, and gestured with it in my left hand as though I were about to th
row it.

  The leading wight rushing upon us dodged. He moved his head and shoulders back to avoid the throw. I waited until he’d moved, was fixed at the end of his balance — and then I threw.

  The jagged end chewed up his face.

  Dahram the Bold hurled himself forward, all bulk and hair, yelling. His sword flickered.

  When you are a brand new young prince, or a brand new young emperor, you will find many people only too willing to patronize you, suck up to you, toady, flatter, all in the best interests of your good self, of course. I had a quick feeling of regret that, for all this hairy magnificence, there had not been a few more men like Dahram the Bold about some of the emperors and kings I’d known. He had assaulted and insulted me; now he did not waste words but just got stuck in to help to redress the balance.

  He fought with a panache that overbore the next two assailants. He foined with the thraxter, using the blade as though it were a pea stick. The man with the three black pigtails lost two of them, and half his face with them, as Dahram slashed. The woman turned and ran. The last of the five stood looking with stupid, bewildered eyes at the hilt of the sword. The blade was through his neck. Seg can throw a blade, too, as well as loose a shaft...

  As a fight, it was all over almost before it had begun.

  “Friends of yours, doms?”

  “No, Dahram. Never seen ’em before.”

  Seg said, “It would seem our journey has been in vain. And the bottle is broken—”

  “Yes,” I said. “All right, we’ll go.”

  Seg hitched up his belt.

  I said to Dahram, “You will take a stoup with us at a more salubrious tavern? We are in your debt.”

  “For that little bit of knockabout?”

  “For disconcerting those damned assassins.”

  Seg hauled his sword free. He had to put his foot on the dead man’s face. “You’ve seen them before?”

  “No,” said Dahram. “No. I don’t know ’em. I’m tazll at the moment, looking for a job. I heard a merchant will hire guards here.”

  “There are many taverns where guards are hired.”

  “True. Very well. And the first drink is on me.”

  “Are there any sweeter words in any tongue?” quoth Seg.

  On that cheerful note we left The Ruby Winespout. No doubt the little crippled Och would have regular arrangements for disposing of dead bodies.

  My thoughts became grim. My two spies had been disposed of, their bodies found in the river...

  We told Dahram we were called Nath the Hammer and Naghan the Fletcher; but he did not believe us. That did not bother me. Dahram, as I thought, was a chance acquaintance, fine company for an evening on the town away from the Sacred Quarter where the nobles and the gilded youth of the city played. He would sign on as a guard with a merchant and be off in a couple of days...

  We swaggered across the square where the jugglers had performed their tricks during the day. We kept a very sharp lookout for the woman who had run off. The way I saw the situation was spelled out by Seg.

  “The pigtail fellow Dahram chopped and the woman hired the three thugs to deal with us. Pigtail is dead. Will we ever run across the woman again?”

  Dahram boomed. “Aye, doms! She had a nasty mean look about her, did that one.”

  “All I really saw was that coiled hair and a sharp pointy nose like a witch.” As I spoke my gaze probed about among the shadows under the walls where the lights of torches did not reach. “And a ring on her finger the size of a loloo’s egg—”

  “You exaggerate, dom! As big as a walnut, yes!”

  “That’ll be a poison ring,” said Seg sagely. “She can flip the lid open and pour enough poison into your goblet to shrivel the toes of a regiment of heroes.”

  “As I remarked,” said Dahram the Bold, “a nice class of friends you have.” He roared at his own words — a trick some people have that doesn’t really offend if you think about them as humans — and then sputtered out: “There’s the Calsany and Flea. They hire guards there.”

  “They sell drinks there,” we said together.

  Thirsty work, swording.

  Although the maniacal wars of the late Empress Thyllis had now ceased, and the civil war was over, there still remained urgent need of fighting men.

  The old iron legions of Hamal were being rebuilt. There was still need of mercenaries. Every person, every man woman and child old enough to understand, was aware that the danger from the Fishheads, the Shanks from over the curve of the world, had arrived in full force.

  We could only expect this “full force” to become fuller and more powerful in the future.

  Dahram the Bold would find a merchant eager enough to hire him.

  We settled to our goblets in a quiet corner of the Calsany and Flea.

  “Oh, yes, doms,” said Dahram, putting his goblet down and wiping the back of his hand across the hair over, below and surrounding his mouth. “I’m from Theakdrin, of which you will never have heard, seeing it is a small kovnate tucked in a bend of the River Os. We were independent for as far back as anyone could remember; then the Hamalese took us over. That was when I was a little shaver. So, I fought for Hamal. Well, it seemed the right thing to do at the time.”

  “And then?” said Seg.

  “Oh, I went for a mercenary. Hyr-paktun. Although you might not believe it—”

  “We do.”

  “In these recent troubles I started off hired out to a kov of Hamal and ended up fighting against him. That’s the way it goes in the paktun’s trade.”

  Also, as we saw, though Dahram the Bold might be a hyrpaktun wearing the pakzhan, he had achieved that rare distinction through his own prowess. He was not a leader. He would not control his own band, and hire and fire, seek contracts, conclude deals. He would be in the forefront of the battle, always, earning his hire, fighting with swirling sword, and the pakzhan glittering gold at his throat.

  He wanted to know all there was to learn of the black sorcerer and the unholy thaumaturgy that had destroyed the old empress and her followers. We were able to tell him a little of the Wizards of Loh — some of whom are my friends and in no sense black sorcerers — and how the arch-devil had been blown away in a flame of Gramarye. He shivered.

  “I am a fighting man. Sorcery — no, doms, not for me.”

  Mere mortals are not allowed the privilege of looking into the future. If it be a privilege, that is. So Dahram the Bold spoke thus, quaffing his ale, with no conception of what fate held in store for him in the way of sorcery...

  We were pestered by a Rapa with one arm, whose feathers were mostly bristled off his birdlike face. His beak was dented. He wore rags, and stank.

  “Masters — I was once like you — I fought at the Battle of the Incendiary Vosks — masters — an ob, a copper ob, for the sake of Havil the Green—”

  Seg threw a few copper obs. The miserable creature scuffled for them. His feathers rustled. He stank.

  “I was at that fight,” said Dahram, offhandedly.

  “Oh?” we said, firing up as your fighting man does at promised reminiscences and soldiers’ yarns. “So were we.”[i]

  After we decided to leave, Dahram said we were welcome to share his lodgings. A widow woman was most hospitable. We thanked him; but we had our own pads for the night.

  So, with the shouted “Remberees!” we parted.

  I said, “I must talk to Nedfar about the ex-soldiers. It is cruel that they should be reduced to begging. That Rapa may have stenched worse than a slave-whipmaster’s armpit, but he had fought.”

  Seg has this astonishingly practical turn of mind to set against the fey qualities of his nature. He surprised me yet again.

  “Mayhap, Dray. And mayhap he had his own arm chopped off and singed his feathers. The rest is mere play-acting.”

  “Self-mutilation!”

  “Successful begging is an art form. It goes in families. You get your trade, you learn it early, you accept your mutilation, and you are
set up as a working beggar for life.”

  “I don’t care for that, by Vox!”

  But care for it or not, it was true and it went on. We had obliterated all traces of the self-mutilation bit in Vallia; but, for all our careful planning, we still had our beggars. They diminished, season by season; but they were a blot on our so-called civilization.

  For some reason I had no desire to retire to bed this early. Sitting at the desk in a small study, part of the luxurious suite of apartments in the Alshyss Tower, I wrote to various people, counseling, inquiring, giving news, occasionally issuing direct orders. I wrote to Djanduin, and Valka, to Zamra and to Veliadrin, to Zenicce and to my wild clansmen of the plains of Segesthes. The burs passed as the water dropped in the clepsydra, and I did not notice. From this small study I could feel in direct contact with all those places in the world of Kregen that are especially dear to me.

  I could not, of course, write to Delia.

  Where she was, only the Sisters of the Rose knew.

  So, and with strokes of the pen rather harder than softer, I directed a letter to Katrin Rashumin in the pious hope she would see that the SoR forwarded it to Delia.

  Then I took a fresh sheet of paper, and hesitated.

  Drak.

  He still was not the Emperor of Vallia.

  Finally, I wrote a letter couched in general terms, inquiring particularly after the trouble in the southwest of the island. I also wished to know the progress of our movements in the north and northwest, where Inch and Turko were involved.

  Having written to Drak, I could write to my youngest son, Jaidur, who was the King of Hyrklana, and bring him up to date with the news and inquire what went forward in his realms.

  And then I went to bed.

  The first person I saw the following morning was cheerful old Ortyg ham Hundral, the Pallan of Buildings. He wore a loose round cape and a close-fitting cap they call a havchun. He beamed at me, sipping the hot milk my people had prepared for him.

  “Majister! We have discovered the plans of the Temple of Havil in Splendor!”

  “This is splendid news, Ortyg,” I said, enthused at once.

  “We can rebuild houses to fresh patterns; the priests have been insistent that their temples be restored in toto.”