Masks of Scorpio

by Alan Burt Akers

  It was in my mind that I ought to do something about the Lady Scaura Pompina, just to give my comrade the sight for which he yearned. But then, being a haughty Khibil, he’d resent at once the implication that he was accepting charity.

  That reminded me of something I had to tell Dayra. I drew her a little off and we sat down as Pompino selected off the unfortunates to take the watch.

  “Well,” she said. “I am disappointed. But, at least, the enemies of Vallia do not have the gold. They cannot pay their soldiers or for their ships to invade us at home.”

  “True. There is something that may make you smile, although I am always heartsick when I recall—”

  “What?” She cut into my maundering. I braced up.

  “Barty Vessler—”

  “Oh. Him!”

  I felt the rage mounting, and quelled it. Barty Vessler was one of your true koters of Vallia, a gentleman in every sense, filled with notions of honor and duty and with a sense of proportion in everything except risking his own neck. Delia and I had both liked him immensely, for he was upright and honest and if foolhardy of his own person in pursuit of his ideas of honor was always considerate of those with whom he came into contact.

  “Barty was a fine—” I began.

  “Oh, yes. He told me he loved me and I believed him, I think. But he was so — so — and, anyway, he wouldn’t come out with the companions and—”

  “Smash up a few taverns? Terrorize a few innkeepers?”

  “And so?” she flared. “Life was so boring!”

  I wasn’t going to get into the strict parent bit at this stage. I held on doggedly to what I wanted to say.

  “I shall speak of your antics later, my girl. Now I must tell you what Barty has done for you—”

  “Done for me? He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  I felt the pang.

  “Aye. Barty’s dead. When your mother was hung up in chains by that rast Zankov, Barty roared in to the rescue. Kov Colun Mogper of Mursham killed Barty, treacherously stabbed him in the back. It was...” I held my breath for a moment and Dayra had the sense to say nothing. Then I went on heavily. “Jilian Sweet-tooth has a personal score to settle with Mogper. I believe she has come here to Pandahem—”

  “Jilian in Pandahem!”

  “We are hardly likely to meet up with her. The island is as large as Vallia.”

  “I have had words with Jilian. You know her well?”

  “We have fought shoulder to shoulder — but she is her own woman and your mother’s good friend.

  Now, Barty said in his Will that you were to have his stromnate of Calimbrev—”

  “He did!” She stared at me in genuine surprise. “Barty Vessler left me his stromnate! But — but there must be relations to claim the title and the lands, surely?”

  “No.”

  “But I was not there. You know that tenure must be established. Inheritance has to be fought for.”

  “I know. I sent good men there to hold Calimbrev for you.”

  “Oh, yes, I can see that.” She tossed her head. “The great high and mighty Emperor of Vallia would send an army to gain land for his family.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  She looked away.

  “So — you are the Stromni of Calimbrev, Dayra.”

  “You won’t be calling me Stromni here — and do you forget I am Ros Delphor?”

  “No—”

  “I suppose you are so accustomed to being the emperor now that grandfather is dead. No doubt you are majister this and majister that — it makes one sick—”

  This, clearly, was a part of what had gnawed away at Dayra when she was younger. I said: “My friends at the palace usually just call me majis. And there’s an interesting development in the services, where they’re using jis to address superiors.” I couldn’t say that this use of jis was similar to our Earthly use of sir in that context. Some time would have to elapse before Dayra learned her father had never been born on Kregen, but on a funny little world four hundred light years off with only one yellow sun and one silver moon and not a diff in sight.

  We spoke on for a space and the hurt in Dayra hurt me, also. I hewed to my purpose. Tsleetha-tsleethi, softly-softly, as the saying goes.

  Pompino came across looking put out, as he had every right to be.

  “This is a fine mess! By Horato the Potent, Jak! I believe the gods have aligned themselves against us.”

  “Not the gods, Pompino. Just a witch.”

  “Just a witch!”

  “I’d like to know her interest in all this.”

  “I,” said Pompino the Iarvin, “am not often wrong in anything. But I own that when I said this would be simple, I erred.”

  I didn’t laugh; but you had to hand it to my comrade.

  “You said, if I recall, that we would recruit a fine gang of rascally fellows, go across and bash Strom Murgon, burn all the temples to Lem the Silver Leem, sort out who married who, and then go home.” I counted off the points on my fingers. “We have a few fine fellows; we could do with more. Strom Murgon more bashed us than the contrary. We have burned one temple here, and there are more hungry for the flames. And as for who marries who—”

  “Tell me,” said Dayra, “about that.”

  “Oh,” said Pompino. “Kov Pando and Strom Murgon both lust after the same girl, the Vadni Dafni Harlstam. Both want her estates. There are the Mytham twins, Poldo who himself yearns for Dafni, and Pynsi who wants Pando to marry her.” He gave his whiskers a fierce upward brushing movement. “It is all very simple, as I said.”

  Dayra put a finger to her lips and regarded Pompino calculatingly. “Simple?”

  “Of course.”

  “And the rest of it. You really do go around burning temples of the Silver Wonder?”

  “The quicker they are all burned the sooner the air will smell sweeter.”

  I made a small sound, a hesitant beginning to an expression of my personal doubts that burning the temples of the evil cult would change the minds of the worshipers.

  Pompino glared. “Oh, yes, Jak, I know your views! But if there are no temples—”

  “They will build more,” said Dayra.

  “Then we’ll burn them and perhaps deal more harshly with the cramphs who chant the praises of torturing and cutting up small girls into smaller pieces, may Armipand take ’em all into his black jaws!”

  As he spoke so my comrade looked at Dayra. His foxy face showed a shrewd scrutiny. No fool, Pompino the Iarvin, as his name testified; I thought he would not penetrate very far into her secrets. He waited a moment, and as neither of us spoke, he nodded. He was about to go on when I interrupted his train of thought.

  “We may burn temples as much as we desire. We must win over the credulous fools who believe the nonsense they are told. And that means—”

  “That means,” said Dayra, interrupting in her turn, “finding who gives the instructions.”

  By the way she used the word we understood she meant instructions to imply far more than simple orders.

  “The priests, the chief priests,” said Pompino. “Aye, we’ll find them. And I, for one, know what to do with ’em!”

  He spotted Captain Linson approaching, and finished: “Well, we’d better see about sailing again. Now we’ve lost the treasure these sea-leems will be a fine cutthroat crew, I think. Anyone who crosses them will rue the day.” He went off to speak with Linson about resuming our interrupted voyage.

  Dayra said: “Jak — when mother was chained up, there at the Sakkora Stones. And Barty died—”

  “Was treacherously stabbed in the back with a poisoned dagger, girl!”

  “So you say—”

  “So it was!”

  “I had to go off — if you were there—”

  “Oh, yes, I was there, with a damned great arrow through my neck. You were concluding the legal wrangle about marrying Zankov—”

  “I do not think I ever really wanted that, for all my words at the time. At any rate, I never
did.”

  She looked splendid with her heightened color and the spirit in her; I remembered how she had warned Zankov not to harm Delia. As they say in the Eye of the World, only Zair can tell the cleanliness of a human heart. She spoke in a rush, emptying herself of this particular emotion.

  “And Barty? I know it sounds stupid, banal; but tell me, for I must know. Did Barty suffer at the end?”

  “The poison worked swiftly. He might well have died from the blow alone; he did not suffer, thanks be to Opaz.”

  She made a sideways, empty gesture. Down by the water’s edge they were hauling a boat out, and splashing, and calling to one another. The camp site was being broken up, and we were due for the off again.

  “We had to fly from the Sakkora Stones. I found out at once that mother still lived. I did not hear about Barty until much later. I didn’t know.”

  “And you had no feeling for him?”

  “Oh, yes, I liked him, as one would a puppy.”

  As though it had no bearing on what we were saying, I said: “I was slowly curing him of his ideals of honor. They killed him before I could—” I couldn’t go on. I turned away and stomped off and got my shoulder to a boat and so shoved her savagely out into the water.

  “Come on, you lubbers!” I roared. “We’ve lost one treasure! Let us go and find another!”

  Chapter three

  A hairy fighting bunch

  Precious little chance we had of finding any more treasure for that day; we sailed between the islands, each one floating on its twin reflection, and entered the mouth of the river, and we saw not a living soul, on the sea, on the land or in the air.

  We might have only rudimentary charts of the north coast of Pandahem, and nothing at all detailed of the navigational hazards here; but we knew where we were well enough. Quite a number of the folk aboard had knowledge of the kingdom of Tomboram outside as well as inside Pando’s kovnate of Bormark.

  The gale, moderating overnight, had not disturbed us once we’d passed into the shelter of that massive uplift of rock, the Sentinel of Bormark. The river was known by two names. This was just another example of the infuriating way in which even simple agreements failed to be reached by two folk, both living not only on the same island but in the same kingdom. Pando’s Bormark to the west called the river She of the Mellifluous Breath. Apgarl Superno’s kovnate of Malpettar to the east called the river He of the Bright Face.

  Fishing villages had to be carefully sited because of the infestations of pirates. Here there had —

  inevitably! — been two, one each side of the river. Both lay in blackened ruins. We sailed past silently, not caring for the ugly memories those heaps of overgrown refuse brought to mind.

  A few birds hopped about mournfully. No doubt the woods were still filled with game. No doubt the insects still sang. We sailed past that desolate scene and if only a few of us reflected on the waste of man’s intemperateness to man, most of us were affected by the sight.

  Captain Linson said to Pompino: “I cannot take you past Pettarsmot, horter.” He’d had that information from one of the slaves we’d freed. The town stood at the end of navigation.

  “Well,” said Pompino with cheeriness that didn’t sit ill on him, “by Horato the Potent! We’ll march the rest of the way!”

  The traitorous thought occurred to me that we’d hired on these mercenaries in Pompino’s home port of Tuscursmot. Most of them were from South Pandahem. We’d picked up a few more folk along the way.

  But everyone served one end only; each and every single one of them. Oh, yes, we burned evil temples and we rallied around the Owner; but — but! The crew had thought the fortune made each one dreamed of. We’d lost the gold, sorcerously melted into slag that burned our pockets and skins. The salve had gone around, believe you me. So, now, why should any of them follow Pompino into the heart of Bormark? Why should they go to Plaxing to find Kov Pando and all the troubles we expected there? For pay — oh, yes, for their silver sinver a day. But when all is said and done, money has its limitations.

  I said to Dayra, whom I carefully addressed as Ros: “Care to take a wager on those who will go and those who will stay?”

  She sniffed.

  “Typical! You know them far better than do I—”

  “Ah, yes, but you have the eye to search out their hearts.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing. That barrel of a fellow, Cap’n Murkizon, will go. And if he goes Larghos the Flatch will go. You won’t keep Quendur the Ripper away, and that means Lisa the Empoin will go. Nath Kemchug, Pompino’s Chulik, will go, and so will Rondas the Bold.”

  “You pick a hairy fighting bunch, Ros.”

  “The two girls, the varterists, they have not yet accepted me. That is understandable. But they’ll go and I think it worthwhile to try to gain their confidence.”

  I refused to be surprised at her words.

  “The ship’s company will be split, then. For the crew will mostly stay, I think. Linson will insist, and rightly so.”

  “I’ve noticed you do not have many Hobolings—”

  “Oh, Hobolings are extremely fine topmen; but Tuscurs Maiden is from South Pandahem—”

  “True. But Hobolings travel the world like anybody else.”

  “So that leaves Naghan the Pellendur and his guards.”

  “They’re paid by this Pando fellow, aren’t they? Surely they’ll earn their hire?”

  “Some, I fancy, will not.”

  “You make me wonder if I should bother to accompany you—”

  “I noticed you did not include the lady Nalfi when you mentioned Larghos the Flatch among those who would go. Why was that?”

  Dayra put a hand to her hair — that hair so like Delia’s, brown and free and gorgeous — and said airily:

  “Oh, she has no affection for Larghos the Flatch!”

  I was startled.

  “But they are inseparable! Larghos dotes on her!”

  “A man may dote on a woman; that does not mean she is duty bound to have anything to do with him—”

  And then, as our thoughts flew to Barty Vessler, Dayra stopped herself. We stood for a while looking over the bulwark as the green banks drifted past.

  You had to admit that a girl as sharp as Dayra would spot anything amiss in that sort of relationship. Zair knows, it made me wonder. The lady Nalfi was now a part of our band, generally respected. She kept herself aloof, true; but that was perfectly natural on two counts — one, for the love we supposed she bore Larghos, and, two, for the rascally band we were.

  The breeze turned fluky and the river’s confined waters meant we had to turn out and put our backs into it. The longboat lowered, and lusty fellows settled at the oars to pull. For a relatively clumsy sailing vessel like an argenter the river, wide though it was, represented confined waters. The fluky winds ruffled the surface and rippled the tops of the trees. Higher up low-flung clouds went racing past, driven by a breeze that scourged inland.

  The small cock boat had just brought me back to the argenter from a stint at the oars, hauling upriver, when Pompino let out a yelp. Other people, all staring up with astonished expressions, joined in the exclamations of wonder.

  I looked up.

  Among the driving masses of cloud a sailing ship of the sky plunged on, driven helplessly. She had once possessed three masts; their wreckage dangled overside in a tangled confusion that merely assisted the wind to propel her onward. She was considerably larger than our vessel Tuscurs Maiden, with four decks and high-lifting fore and after castles, with fighting towers above and fighting galleries below. The snouts of varters showed in serried ranks. A single flagstaff reared at her stern, which was squared off and blunt, like the end of a house rather than the stern of a ship. Being of the air she had no need of the robust construction necessary to withstand the shock of the sea.

  I recognized her.

  She was Vol Defender, registered in Vondium, the capital of the island empire of Vallia.

  On that si
ngle flagstaff floated two flags, and each tresh whipped and snapped in the breeze. One was the yellow cross and saltire upon a red field that is the Union flag of Vallia. The other was a solid blue, with a quombora at its center, the flag of Tomboram. The blue flag floated above the red and yellow.

  I stood on the quarterdeck and looked up and I held my face in a stasis of emotion, as though sheathed in ice. A Vallian flying sailing ship, captured by the Tomboramin! Dayra started to say something, and I said, harshly: “Can you see anyone up there?”

  “There are a few heads peering down,” said Pompino. “If they drop firepots on us—”

  The breeze blustered the shattered aerial vessel over our heads. Very few of the folk aboard had seen one of these flying sailers before. They were not vollers. Vollers contained power derived from their two silver boxes that could drive them through thin air, up and down, forward and backward, soaring immune to gravity and the bluster of the wind. The flying sailing craft, which we in Vallia called vorlcas, did not possess in their silver boxes all the necessary magical mix of minerals. They could lift up against gravity and by exerting power on what the wise men called the lines off ethereal magnetic force, could tack and make boards against the wind. The vessels of this kind were known as famblehoys in Havilfar.

  We in Vallia had made great use of them in our wars against the Hamalese.

  “Bad cess to her,” said Naghan the Pellendur. “She is Vallian and up to no good here.”

  “Look!” called Quendur the Ripper, pointing. “There is an airboat!”

  Lying alongside Vol Defender and in her shadow, revealed as the vessels flew past, a voller snugged tightly. She was not an airboat built in Hamal or in Hyrklana. From her lines I fancied she’d been built in one of the countries down in the Dawn Lands; I could not be sure.

  Dayra said, “But the Pandaheem do not have vollers!”

  I looked at her and spoke up quickly: “Pandrite the All-Glorious has seen fit to provide us with one at least, Ros.”