Fliers of Antares dp-8 Page 14

  Now I said to Ortyg Coper, “Is the realm faring well, Ortyg?”

  And he said, “The realm is doing well, Majister, and will do better than it has ever done in the next two years.”

  “By Djan!” said Kytun in his fierce way. “That is so!”

  “I find it extraordinarily strange,” said Coper. “I was attacked as often as other Obdjangs by the leemsheads led by Nath Jagdur, and yet my life was spared. Soldiers could never find him or his leemsheads after the attacks; but I did not die. Others of my friends died.”

  We were silent for a space, remembering. The Obdjangs had been returning to Djanduin and the country really was set fine. Prosperity was just around the corner.

  “There was a reason, Ortyg.” I looked at him as I spoke.

  He munched a paline. “I am alive — Sinkie and I live.”

  “Yes, Ortyg. And I will tell you why. But, first, let me ask you, Kytun, once more, the question -

  would you become king of Djanduin?”

  He didn’t even think. “Not I, by Djan!”

  “Would you loyally support Ortyg if he were king?”

  Before Kytun could begin to reply Ortyg had reared up, agitatedly brushing his whiskers.

  “Now, wait a minute! Here — my dear Majister — I mean — hold on!”

  I tried to keep my face composed; it was a struggle.

  “I am going on a journey. I cannot avoid it, nor do I wish to do so. I want the country to prosper and to remain fruitful and peaceful. The young men get enough fighting in the eternal games, and the merezo has been enlarged for even bigger and better zorca races. There is nothing now for which I am needed. You, Ortyg, are the next king of Djanduin, arid Kytun will give you all his loyal help, as he does us both.”

  Kytun spat out a mouthful of palines, which is a terrible waste.

  “You do not have to go, really, Dray! You are King! By Zodjuin of the Rainbow! You can’t desert us!”

  I sighed. “I feared you would regard this as desertion. But it is a task laid on me. I must go. Ortyg will be-”

  “No, Majister.” Ortyg Coper stood up, and abruptly he was formal and deadly serious. “No, Majister. I will not be king. But I will stand as regent for the throne.”

  And with that I had to be content. I would return here, I promised that; but as to when. . That, in truth, partly lay in the inscrutable hands of the Star Lords. Had they two hands apiece, I wondered, or four?

  Ortyg Coper was fully invested as regent, and Kytun was the first to lift his djangir in loyalty. I was as satisfied as I am ever satisfied about anything, that I had done all that I could do. Everyone knew I was taking a journey laid upon me, and the news traveled that the task was a reward given to me by the Glorious Djan Himself, He whose figure was not to be sculptured upon stone along with the warrior gods of Djanduin. As far as mortal mind and hand could contrive, I left the kingdom of Djanduin, of which I was sovereign, in good heart and good hands, and looking forward to golden days. The airboat I had bought and had provisioned was a small two-place flier. Over in my island of Hyr Khor I had found a strange and scarcely self-comprehending willingness to help. As their new Kov I was both suspect and welcome, for the old Kov, besides being a violent man, much given to breaking heads, had been impious and a leemshead, and a ravisher of the young girls of the island. I convinced the people of Hyr Khor that although I was no angel, and no simpleton, either, I was prepared to let them make their own lives, saving that they must always remain friends with the people of Uttar Djombey. There was some grumbling, I have no doubt, but on the surface the scheme worked well. So it was to Hyr Khor I went for a last farewell and to collect my flier.

  My plan was simple. I would fly from Djanduin, across Gorgrendrin, over the back hills of Migla, and out over the Shrouded Sea to the place where I had last seen Delia. I fancied the Star Lords would permit this.

  It was with a light heart I called Remberee to the people of Hyr Khor. They waved their great swords of the islands, and I took off into the morning suns-light.

  “Remberee!”

  “Remberee, Kov Dray Prescot, King of Djanduin!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The scorpion

  The little flier lanced through the bright clean air of Kregen.

  There is a coolness and sweetness about the air of these latitudes of Kregen. Because of that extraordinary width of the temperate zones of Kregen beneath Antares the climate as far south as Djanduin is perfectly suitable for comfortable living, not as hot as, for instance, northern Havilfar, by any means, but nowhere near as cold as the gray waters south of Thothangir. Between the Yawfi Suth and the Wendwath and the back mountains of Migla there lies a broad tract of country, sometimes fertile, sometimes less so, seldom truly inhospitable. The western areas are the ancestral homes of the peoples of Herrelldrin and Sava. The Gorgrens in their aimless meanderings over the vast inner plains had come down to the west and had occupied Sava and Herrelldrin and Tarnish, which lies to the south of the Tarnish Channel. Between the somewhat undefined eastern limits of the Gorgrens’ lands and the back hills of Migla lies the country of Yanthur.

  It was over this area, in a place where spiny hills made of the landscape a miniature tree bark in appearance, that the flier chose to go wrong.

  I cursed.

  I was well used to airboats breaking down in Vallia and Zenicce; I had formed the opinion that they were built with some kind of weakness which was obviated in those models built for sale in Havilfar. This was a voller purchased from a Hamalian yard and delivered to express orders of the King of Djanduin. For this airboat to go wrong boded ill for someone.

  And that someone was likely to be me.

  I touched down in a lonely valley where a narrow fast-running stream poured in a silvery tinkle over sandstone rocks, and where violet and yellow flowers clustered. The lower slopes of the hills on every side were covered with trees, and their crests, too, were tree covered. The voller touched down and skidded wildly across rock and grass and ended up embedded in the low-sweeping branches of the tamiyan trees. The shaking released a cloud of yellow petals that pirouetted in the air and spread, shining in the suns.

  I just sat there for a moment, and thought of the journey ahead of me. Until I reached a place where I could hire or buy fresh transport, I must perforce walk. I had walked before to reach Delia; I would do so again.

  A laccapin, one of those monstrous flying reptiles of Havilfar, cruised by high above, its tail extended well aft and looking barbed and angry. I was about to climb down from the flier by way of the tamiyan branches, keeping my eyes open for any unwelcome beasts, when I saw the gorgeous gold and scarlet bird come flying into my view, just beyond the edge of the tree branches. All the time of my enforced exile in Djanduin I had not seen the Gdoinye, the magnificent scarlet-and-golden-feathered hunting bird of the Star Lords. The remarkable bird is the spy and messenger of the Everoinye, and I know that great things are afoot when it heaves in sight. It perched on a branch and squawked at me.

  I rubbed my hand over my chin. This was a period, in Djanduin, when I had shaved carefully, leaving only my fierce old moustache.

  I smelled trouble.

  “What do you want, bird of ill omen?”

  “An onker, Dray Prescot! As ever was!” the bird shrieked in jovial abuse at me. I prepared to argue my case to the Star Lords through the bird’s mediation. “I do not seek to break your interdiction upon me,” I said. I spoke firmly, as though I meant business, which I did, Zair knows. “I shall meet my comrades in the voller after they have searched for me, and they will suspect nothing, for this voller will be sunk in the Shrouded Sea.” Then I cracked a fist against the wooden-framed hull. “If, that is, I can get the Makki-Grodno beast to working again.”

  The Gdoinye cackled.

  “An onker, Dray Prescot! There is work for you to do-”

  I froze.

  “No,” I said. I spoke calmly. Remember, I had been a king for three Terrestrial years. “No, I canno
t work for you until I have seen my friends again.”

  “You dare not argue with the Star Lords, Dray Prescot.”

  “I think I shall.”

  The scarlet and gold raptor ruffled up its feathers and dug its vicious claws into the tamiyan bark.

  “To refuse would bring down great wrath on your head.”

  I had a bow in the voller, along with food and supplies and other weapons. Now I lifted the bow, and with a practiced jerk strung it, for it was the familiar compound reflex bow, and nocked an arrow. I aimed the steel head of the arrow at the Gdoinye.

  “Once, a man called Xoltemb, a caravan master, said he might cut down any man who raised a shaft against you.”

  “Onker.”

  “If I loose, would the arrow slay you, Gdoinye, or would it merely pass through air? Are you real?”

  “There is work for your hands in a place to which you would wish to go. This voller you bought — and others — do you remember Tyr Nath Kynam ti Hippax?”

  “I remember,” I growled, for the memory was still sore in me. Tyr Nath Kynam had been a valued member of the Djangs who had been rebuilding the country. Coper, who as Pallan of the Vollers, had bought the flier, had been pleased he had secured a brand-new specimen for Nath Kynam, and although it was of the minor sort, it was new and smart. Nath Kynam was short and squat and a dynamo of a man, always working at top speed, always ready to talk energetically, and a good friend. Yet he had personal problems, and was always anxious to have acupuncture needles in him, soothing and calming his restless energy.

  Well, the brand-new flier had failed him, or his heart had burst the bonds of mere flesh. He had crashed and been killed. Yes, I would not forget Tyr Nath Kynam ti Hippax.

  “I remember Nath Kynam. And Tyr Man Dorga ti Palding, who would have saved him if he could. I do not need you, bird of ill omen, to remind me of my good fortune in true friends on Kregen; so what is this to the Star Lords?”

  “A year, Dray Prescot, onker of onkers. A single year is all the Everoinye require of you.”

  If I knew what the raptor meant I would not allow that awful knowledge to crowd into my brain.

  “The Star Lords are so far above you, Dray Prescot, as you perhaps may be above a nit on a calsany. But they have been watching you with an interest you may — or may not — warrant. Beware lest you be cast forth!”

  Almost, I let the arrow loose.

  But I held it fast and shouted, “By Makki-Grodno’s diseased left armpit! Tell me straight, you nurdling yetch!”

  “A year, Prescot.” The bird stretched those gorgeous pinions wide and with a spring he was airborne.

  “A single year. Then you may — for a space only — imagine yourself a free man.” Then, with what I can only describe as a derisive howl, the raptor winged away into the blue, a scarlet and golden splash of color that rose and darkened into a black blot and so vanished in the suns-glow. I lowered the bow.

  Damned uppity bird!

  Sinkie had cried when I bid her and her husband, Ortyg Coper, who was now Regent for the King of Djanduin, Remberee.

  Yet she could have no knowledge of what dangers and what terrors I would face upon the beautiful hostile face of Kregen.

  No manifestation of a blue scorpion arose before my eyes, no blue radiance engulfed me to suck me into emptiness. Remember, it was a full ten years since I had last experienced the summons of the scorpion. Then the Star Lords had clearly missed their target in time, although they had found it in space, for they had dumped me down by the inn and the crossroads after the time I should have been there. We had heard that one of the leemsheads had been hung up in chains on the tree; so all was explained about what I had seen — the repaired roof, the different season. But perhaps the Star Lords were waiting for my violent protestations, which they assumed I must make with such vehement anger. Perhaps if they transmitted me during my burst of rage they were, in some way unknown to me, dislocated in their calculations.

  Certainly, I had defeated their purposes before this.

  Could it be that a mere mortal man might thwart the Everoinye not merely in an underhand way, as I had done, but in a straight contest of wills? I thought it hardly likely.

  “Why do you wait, you puissant Star Lords?” I bellowed out, there beneath the tamiyan trees, perched so ridiculously in my broken-down voller in the land of Yanthur. “Where is your powerful and venomous blue scorpion?”

  I thought then to look to see if by chance the white dove of the Savanti might not be circling overhead, watching me, and watching the Gdoinye of the Star Lords, too.

  But I saw nothing of the white dove of the Savanti.

  This was becoming ludicrous. I had been learning a little of the fliers and their idiosyncrasies. Ever since the time Delia had told me to move the silver boxes so as to bring our runaway flier to the plains of Segesthes I had been fascinated by all vollers. I held the Air Service of Vallia in great esteem. So I thought it prudent before I girded myself up for a long trek to see if I might not be able to fiddle about with the cantankerous voller and get it into the air again.

  I stood up in the small two-place flier and rested my hands on the wooden-framed hull. It was a shallow, petal-shaped craft, with a small windshield and a pit filled with flying furs and silks. I was putting my leg over the side to crawl out on a branch of the tamiyan trees, when the blueness came down with such speed and force that I gasped. I felt a giant rushing wind and I struggled for breath. I shouted something, anything, I know not what, and went pitching out and down.

  One thing I recall; I hit my head on something extraordinarily hard. So it was that with the bells of Beng-Kishi ringing in my skull and the hovering presence of Notor Zan about me that I was pitched headlong into the next adventurous task I must fulfill for the Star Lords.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Muruaa speaks

  Stark naked, weaponless, and with a thump on the head that left me dizzy and half senseless, I struggled to open my eyes to find out where on Kregen I had been flung.

  I could hear shrieking and screaming.

  That was normal enough.

  Also I could hear a strange hissing sizzling, as though a thousand giant vosk steaks fried upon Notor Kanli’s forge.

  That was odd.

  Someone crashed into me and knocked me flat.

  The air was warm — very warm. Even as I scrabbled around with those damned bells of Beng-Kishi clamoring in my skull the heat increased with throat-drying speed. I managed to get an eye unglued and peered about on a scene of terror and panic. The rumblings of hell shook the ground. Sulfur stank. An exquisite girl with long lithe legs ran toward me, screaming. Her clothes were on fire. Her hair blazed terribly. She was apim; soon she would be a burned corpse.

  I jumped for her, knocked her down, smashed at the burning clothes, ripping off the coarse gray dress, smothering the blazing hair. She screamed and screamed.

  Around me people were running and screaming. Some were on fire. Some had pitchers of water which were soon expended. They ran from a village of mud huts with wooden roofs, and the roofs blazed to the sky. I followed the streaked tracks of the smoke and looked into the sky. Up there, towering over the world, poured the mouth of hell.

  Fire. Fire and flame. Fire and destruction. Burning and smoking and roaring, the volcano pumped out its fiery breath and its destructive vomit and smothered the village in terror and horror. Huge, that volcano, towering, high, and cone-sided, and the lava ran down swiftly in glowing orange and red spuming gouts over everything in its path.

  Evilly swirling in wide writhing tentacles from a violent smoky orange through a snarling ruby-red to a pure fiery white, the lava raged downslope and through the village. The heat grew. The noise battered as the lava poured and slipped over the steep edge of an embankment to fall into the blue and placid waters of a lake. Trees burned before they fell to be consumed utterly. The waters roiled near the shore and the waves spread out in wide ripples so that the placid surface grew congested a
nd turbulent in a wide and swiftly growing circle.

  Terraces of neat agriculture had been hacked in alternating wide and narrow steps down the flanks of the low surrounding hills. But the monster of fire poured down over everything, and a village was dying and a people was being destroyed — and, as usual, Dray Prescot was there, naked and disoriented, expected to select the right person to save.

  The girl was burned, but she was still alive and she would live.

  I bent to her.

  “Muruaa!” she moaned. “Muruaa!”

  “On your feet, girl, and run! Past the slide and into the lake! Move! ”

  She saw my face and she flinched, all burned and naked and in pain. But she staggered to her feet and ran off. I had taken stock of the situation as I saw it. The village was doomed. But below, down the steep slope, lay a sizable town, neatly mud walled and wooden roofed, in a cleft between the low, terraced hills. I could look down and see the peaked roofs of sturm-wood, and the mud-brick walls, the enclosures, and the little backyard chimneys smoking with preparations for one of the many daytime meals of Kregen. The suns were rising in the sky, and they blazed through a crown of smoke. The land lay lit in ghastly orange and lurid vermilion from the fires of the volcano. The fugitives from the outlying village vanished below. Some staggered, burned; others crawled; but one or two young men lifted the old folk, and in a bunch they disappeared below the brick-wall of a terrace. The girl whose clothes I had wrenched off and whose blazing hair I had put out ran with them. I stood alone.

  If I refused to imperil my life? It was the Earth of my birth for me, then, and no mistake. So, like the puppet I swore I would someday cease from being, I ran. One day, please Zair, I would cut the strings that held me puppet-slave to the Everoinye.

  As I ran I studied the landscape. There is much to be learned from the landscape of a people. Here there was no wide aa. I know that is the volcanologists’ term. Also I have walked over the uneven lumpy lava fields below Etna, which the locals call sciara, and shuddered at what they hide. But here the ground was fertile and the crops grew lushly, vine and gregarian, paline and many another luxurious plant of Kregen. So the last eruption must have occurred more than, say, a hundred years ago. These people might not know what to do — or what to try to do.