Omens of Kregen [Dray Prescot #36]

by Alan Burt Akers

  Now, when I used to be the Emperor of Vallia, I could not obviously know everything that went on all over the entire empire. When Nath rambled on about his court-martial and the way the nobs had it in for him, I knew I had no knowledge of that particular court-martial, although as a matter of principal I'd tried to have the records of everyone sent to me for perusal. You can't be everywhere at once. All the same, I felt guilt. I ought to have known.

  “They sent me off to train up coys. And reduced me to the ranks. So I joined the Vallian Air Service when the wars at last ended. And here I am."

  I took some comfort from the fact that had Nath done something for which he had received the death sentence, then I would most certainly have known fully everything there was to know about his case. I had the case of Renko the Murais as a guidelight, there.

  Stating the obvious, I said, “I suppose you refused to plead guilty and so acquired your sobriquet of the Impenitent."

  “Assuredly so, Jak, assuredly so."

  Then his head went down plonk upon the table and he started to snore. He blew a neat little circle of bread crumbs away from his head on the table.

  Such, then, it seemed, was the tragedy of this man's life. What he had said of Lem the Silver Leem remained ominous. I just hoped the temple of his sister and her husband was the same as the one the prefect had burned down.

  If the evil cult ever got a grip in Vallia, bad times would follow. Then the odd and unsettling notion occurred to me that I had to think of these problems not as the emperor, but as merely another citizen. Oh, yes, I still had broad lands and many estates in Vallia; Delia and I would not starve. Drak and Silda had the imperial provinces now.

  I had not asked Nath why he had not demanded the right to have his case referred to the emperor, for I had heard the way Nath contumed the said emperor.

  This hairy, hard, barrel-bodied fellow snoring away with his head on the table just did not like the aristocracy. Well, I'd had a few run-ins with them in the past myself.

  After a good rest and another meal we set off again. We passed through a series of uninteresting corridors where discarded flang husks crunched underfoot to reach a tall and most imposing archway. The doors were shut.

  “I'm not going back,” I said, and pushed the right-hand door. It moved smoothly open.

  The hall within was vast. Opulent encrustations festooned ceiling and columns. The drapes were velvet thick and wine red. The marble floor shimmered in its whiteness. The sweet scent of flowers on the air reached us pleasantly. Ranged tier on tier around three sides stretched upholstered benches. They were uniformly empty. At the center of the hall and the focus of the tiered seating lay a pool of water. Thick marble walled the water. The liquid sent gentle drifts of steam upward.

  “Capital!” declared Nath. “A bath is just what we need."

  I agreed. We poked all around and found nothing untoward. The water, when we tested it, was warm and aromatically scented and most inviting. We stripped off and plunged in.

  Well, and—of course—we should not have done that foolish thing.

  When our heads broke the surface after the dive all the tiered seating was crowded to capacity with gawking crowds—not apims, men and women, but ghouls, creepie-crawly horrors, skelebones, vampires, all creatures of horror, leering and gibbering upon us.

  The croaking hissing noise they made filled us with revulsion. They were enjoying the entertainment.

  And the water grew hot.

  It heated up with incredible speed. In only moments it would reach boiling point.

  The night's entertainment here was plain. We were to be boiled alive for these horrific creatures’ pleasure.

  * * *

  Chapter eighteen

  Deb-Lu's boiling water trick

  We both started swimming like madmen for the marble lip of the basin, and the water swirled and boiled and forced us back as though we sought to swim up a waterfall.

  I was making progress; but the water grew hotter and hotter, and I did not wish to leave Nath.

  Through the steam, something—and it was not a random something—made me glance toward the doors we had entered. Seg stood there, with Loriman and the Khibil sorcerer. Seg was shaking San Aramplo like a rag doll. Other members of the expedition could vaguely be glimpsed crowding up.

  The sorcerer shook his head, and there was in the unhappy gesture his hand-tendered resignation, denial and despair.

  My head went down, steam boiled up and I could see nothing further.

  The bloody water was hot. Like the Tormenting Baths of a Herrelldrin Hell, the water scalded and ripped at us, breathing became an agony, and all the time I thrashed and splashed on and Nath spluttered away at my side.

  Then, with a sudden awfulness breathtaking in its authority, the water rose from the boiling pool.

  I landed with a thump on my feet on the marble floor of the bath. Nath sprawled out, gasping like a stranded fish. The water lifted, swirled, formed, became a single shining ball. Lights glinted from the glistening surface. The ball spun and rivulets of silver and red and ocher and green reflected in dazzling runnels from the surface. A single enormous globe, it hung over our heads.

  I could still smell the hot steamy atmosphere of the boiling pool. The water did not drip from me. Like Nath, I was bone dry. All the water coalesced into that supernal globe above our heads.

  With stunning speed the globe flattened, became a disc.

  Faster and faster that disc whirled like a circular saw laid on its side to slice logs. Faster and faster. And then the flat disc spat itself in a Catherine wheel of watery destruction, spewed out to drench the tiered seating and all those macabre watchers there!

  Gibbering and shrieking, those ghastly travesties fled.

  The hall emptied of that blasphemous life and left only the people of the expedition crowding in, shouting to us.

  Nath and I climbed out and started to put our clothes on and buckle up our harnesses.

  “Jak! By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom, I thought you boiled and served up tasty then!"

  Amid a babble of greetings, I told Seg that he was the greatest, grandest, most splendid fellow in all of Kregen. Then I relented, for I had been more than a trifle over the top in emotional terms, and added that I was mightily surprised to see he'd still survived some of the traps all the wagers in gold under the suns would never spot.

  He responded in kind, and we started off happily slanging each other's prowess, until I said that I was glad the Khibil sorcerer had done his stuff at last.

  San Aramplo shook his head. For a Khibil, and a Khibil sorcerer at that, he looked highly cast down.

  “I could do nothing. Pantor Seg here tried to make me, but I knew I could not."

  “But you did!” rasped out Loriman.

  “Oh, aye, I did. But I felt a force through me, a force I have never experienced before in all my seasons as acolyte and master mage of the Thaumaturges of Thagramond."

  I gave Seg a look. He knew. So one of our Wizards of Loh, or our comrade Witch of Loh, had reached in with their superior kharrna and, using San Aramplo as a tool, had turned the boiling water trick against those ghastly gawkers.

  “You did exceedingly well, San,” boomed Kov Hurngal with all the confidence in Kregen. “My trust in your reputation was well-founded. Well, I am not surprised. I am not easily deceived in these matters. We can go forward now in better heart for the power in our midst."

  Ignoring all the irony in that pompous declaration, for that was what one expected of Hurngal's character, I recognized the kernel of truth. The party should feel a little more secure now.

  My guess was that Deb-Lu had been the mage to perform that trick through Aramplo. Despite the fact that the Khibil had no real idea of what had gone forward, I went up to him and warmly thanked him, expressing my conviction that his powers were awesome in their magnitude.

  He merely nodded an acknowledgment, rapt in thought, obviously trying to discover what the hell he'd done to bri
ng this result.

  Nath gave him a rollicking round of thanks, also, and so, much heartened we looked around the chamber for what there might be to be found, as, for example, loot.

  “What happened to you?” I said to Seg.

  “Passages, rooms, traps and monsters,” he said. “There are more avenues in this maze, I swear it, than in the defiles of Mount Hlabro herself."

  “It is my belief we draw near to the heart of the maze."

  “You think so? Well, I believe it. But I wouldn't let Hurngal hear you. He is firmly of the conviction that we are marching along the way out."

  “Yes. That is in character, too."

  And we both laughed.

  The ranks of the slaves had been considerably reduced; those that were left trudged along with their sacks of gold slung over their shoulders. I just hoped they had the savvy to chuck the sacks down when the gold started to melt.

  These proceedings bore in on me strongly that we were an expedition without—apart from Seg and Loriman—experienced delvers in our company.

  We could have done with a few of those stalwart Pachaks who made a living bringing out treasure from ancient tombs.

  We wandered on through a series of well-prodded passages where we lost a fellow who so assiduously stuck his ten foot pole into the flagstones ahead of him, he failed to look up. We heard the screams and uproar. By the time we reached the place, the poor fellow had been engulfed and deliquesced by green slime. Everybody passed the spot with great respect.

  I'd very much soft-pedaled my account of Nath's and my doings when I told Seg, as I knew he had his, but I couldn't refrain from telling him about the monstrous toad thing that caught his supper with the aid of a lantern of fireflies on the end of a fishing rod. Seg was enchanted.

  We skirted past the green gunge, engaged in a philosophic discussion over the meaning of such an entity in the scheme of things Kregan. While we thus talked openly about arcane abstract matters, we interpolated the odd thought directly concerned with our task here in the maze. No doubt remained in my mind that Deb-Lu, Khe-Hi and Ling-Li had successfully arranged a Cloak of Concealment about Seg and me, and Nath, too, given the thoroughness of the Wizards of Loh.

  There could be no doubt, either, that in a confrontation with a supernaturally powerful Witch of Loh, a simple fighting man with his sword was of little account unless he had the active assistance of friendly Wizards of Loh.

  Through us, then, would the sorcery be channeled at the last. I hardly relished the thought; but it was merely a thing that had to be done.

  “By the diseased and dripping pustular excretions of the Lady Dulshini's armpits!” I burst out, for the dear Lady Dulshini had perforce to stand in for Makki Grodno in these here parts. “We've just got to get to the confounded woman and her brat!"

  “We will, my old dom, we will, all in her own good time.” Seg spoke in his infuriatingly cheerful way, knowing exactly how to stir me up. By Zair! But Seg Segutorio is the best comrade a man could hope to find on two planets!

  Every man is a duality. He is dark and light. I detested Csitra and both feared and loathed her uhu, Phunik. Yet could I coldly slay the woman? She was possessed of the delusion that, because she harbored a passion for me, I must return her affections. Because of that she had caused great grief in Vallia, attempting by the sending of her Nine Unspeakable Curses to break me off from the people of the island empire.

  Yet one could see her view of affairs, could, if not sympathize with the poor deluded soul, at least make a civilized guess at understanding her motives. How deeply was she still under the baleful influence of her mad husband, Phu-Si-Yantong, thankfully dead and gone to the hell he deserved?

  Could I calmly march in, protected by comrade Wizards of Loh, and lop off her head in cold blood?

  I began to think I would shirk the task. Seg would have no hesitation, but then, Seg was a blade comrade, the finest archer in two worlds, and he'd slay anybody for my sake. I wanted desperately to keep Seg out of this messy business.

  In the end, of course and damned naturally, it was all down to me, plain Dray Prescot who was no longer the Emperor of Vallia, thank Zair.

  Ranging up alongside me, for we were taking turns to lead, Nath said that Hurngal was confident we were nearly out of the maze.

  I looked ahead down the passageway over the heads of the guards and the slaves with their sacks of gold, seeing the torches flaring in the shadowed spots. Up front Hurngal would be driving his people on, half mad with excitement over the treasure. Csitra's wiles lured the poor fellow on to a destruction that I doubted, despite Loriman's accusations, he deserved.

  Nath said: “I believe, Jak, I told you somewhat of my history?"

  “Aye."

  “This remains in confidence between ourselves?"

  “Of course!"

  Then, because I fully intended to find out the truth behind his court-martial, and I wished to give him an inkling of light, I added: “Perhaps I could assist—"

  “I thank you, dom; but it's highly unlikely. I know how these high and mighty ones of the world operate."

  Somebody screamed up front; but we could not delay. After a time we passed a poor Rapa who had been caught in a blast of acid-breath from a marble statue.

  “Yes, I know,” continued the Impenitent. “My eldest sister, Lelia, a fine handsome girl who might have made any match she chose, joined the Jikai Vuvushis. Internal politics—that's how they attempt to dignify the quarrels among the nobs—split the Sisters of the Sword, so Lelia joined the Sisters of Voxyra, who were formed from the splinter group who couldn't stomach the underhand wiles of the haughty ladies of the Sword sorority."

  “A smallish sisterhood,” I said, “but they put powerful regiments into the field."

  “My sister became a zan-Deldar and then an ob-Hikdar and I sincerely trust in the light of Opaz she is alive and thrives and will make it to Jiktar."

  “A lofty ambition."

  “The Javed family fight for Vallia!"

  So that was his name. Nath Javed.

  “All,” he said with genuine bitterness, “except for poor sweet innocent Francine who was so badly led astray by that worthless Leem-loving husband of hers."

  One interesting fact here was that Nath's violent antipathy for the emperor and the aristocracy did not prevent him from fighting for Vallia. I wanted to probe deeper; but Loriman stalked up and we had, perforce, to stop talking about Vallian affairs.

  “I swear I will do that man an injury before long!” stormed the Hunting Kov. “I can bear only so much!"

  “Now what, kov?"

  “They're all certain up there that we are nearly out of the maze. I am not so sure. But if that cramph speaks to me like that again, I shall forget my vow not to harm him. The Lady Hebe does nothing to help me keep my word. By Hito the Hunter! I swear she goads us both!"

  Now I understood why this choleric, fleshy, full-blooded Hunting Kov had not already driven six inches of steel into Kov Hurngal's guts.

  I was making a few bland placating remarks when we debouched into a colossal chamber, of tall columns, a cool green light, of a roof lost amid a myriad rustling batwings and of walls draped dramatically in alternate widths of blue and gold. The place was crammed with furniture. There was like to be treasure here!

  Halfway up the wall to our left a railed balcony extended around the angle to cross the door in the wall through which we had entered. There were no doors in the side walls I could see. At the far end of this place a different floor level about a third of the way across, offered an attractive seating area. Seg, Nath and I, very carefully, made our way there and sprawled out on comfortable settees that remained chairs and did not wrap their spiked arms about us. There was on the low tables an ample supply of wine, miscils, and palines, pleasant light fare which we munched as we watched the guards and slaves rummaging and ransacking the chamber for treasure.

  I relented.

  “Jewels, Nath, that's what you want in preference to gol
d. I hope you find a chestful."

  “So do I.” He sounded suspicious. “But will they melt away too, like the gold?"

  “Chances, Nath, chances!” roared Seg, amused.

  The Impenitent took himself off and we lost him among the glass cabinets and chests and tables covering the floor. Although markedly different, this place bore some similarity to a room down the Moder, and I wondered if perhaps Csitra had employed a Moder lord to design fresh attractions in her Coup Blag maze.

  Seg swallowed his wine and said: “Interesting to see how Hurngal explains his theory of marching out. This place, big as it is, has only the one door. He'll have to retrace his steps."

  “He'll bluff and bluster through. The Impenitent has a few shrewd observations to make about nobles."

  “Some nobles."

  “Seems Nath's only run across the wrong ‘uns."

  Strom Tothor walked up the shallow flight of steps to our higher railed area roaring in his lionman way that he was parched and famished. He launched himself at the bottles. Some of his people dumped their loads on the floor below and took seats a little removed from their master. They fell to with gusto.

  Kov Loriman's Chulik guards, paktuns all, were not slow to fill their bellies as well as their wallets. They joined Tothor's retainers and a kind of relaxed club atmosphere dropped over us, all sitting up in our railed area, eating and drinking and watching what went on as best we could. The whole situation, eerie though it was, held a heightened fascination in our very normalcy in these weird surroundings.

  Loriman joined us from the opposite end of the area and he was chewing on a chicken leg.

  Seg said, “I'll forage."

  The bat-creatures remained clustered upside down from the ceiling. The chamber with its forest of pillars stretched a long long way to the far end. We saw Nath and the Rapa zhanpaktun come striding up to us, both with sacks bulging over their backs. I smiled.

  Carrying a silver tray between both hands, Seg came back to our table. The tray was loaded with goodies.

  “Masses of stuff back there. Enough for an army."