Warlord of Antares Read online

  At the far end of the landing zone a large collection of carriages rested, poles up, and lines of zorcas, krahniks and other animals were being exercised. The smell of lavender hung pleasantly on the air.

  We were met by a fussy rotund chamberlain, all in blue and gold, with an honor guard of Chuliks. Every Chulik tusk was banded in red gold and their pigtails hanging from their shaven yellow heads were all plaited with blue and gold threads. No carriage or conveyance was provided for us; but the distance was not far and we walked along proudly enough.

  I noticed an odd puzzling little shimmer about the parked carriages and the animals and put it down to heat haze rising from the gravel. The surface had been well-cared for and recently raked for not a single wheel-rut showed and only a few small tenacious weeds grew here and there.

  “This way, excellencies!” chirruped the chamberlain, waving his ivory wand like a bandmaster, and obediently we followed him along a tapestry-hung corridor to the black balass doors with golden risslaca handles at the far end.

  A trumpet pealed and the doors swung open.

  Now at this point I ought to mention that, as I deemed the occasion ceremonial and important, if only of a semi-official nature, I had outfitted myself with some thought as to the proper appearance of an ex-emperor on a delicate mission. It goes without saying that I wore the old scarlet breechclout. But, over that I had donned a fashionable white half-robe, and over that a glittering golden cape. The thing was remarkable, really, I suppose, with a tall Vallian mazilla, and this collar, too, was all of cloth of gold. The cape was the genuine article and was reputed to be at least two hundred seasons old. It was still in reasonably good repair, and although I knew I looked a jackanapes in my own eyes, in the eyes of foreign princes I would look a proper prince.

  Al-Ar-Mergondon, of course, dressed as a Wizard of Loh dresses, so that all the world may tremble.

  In its own architectural fashion this long arched chamber was as remarkable as my foolish cape. Both held magnificence integrally within themselves; both suggested oldness gone to seed and carefully repaired. An odd shimmer along the walls and pillars frazzled at the eyesight.

  Down the right-hand side, ceiling-high windows were draped in deepest purple. Each window was closed by a heavy horizontal bar of balass wood. Before each window stood a man dressed in green and black livery, with a steel chain in his fists. At the end of each chain hunkered a wersting. The vicious black and white striped hunting dogs, each with only four legs, opened jaws to reveal fangs they’d be only too happy to sink deeply into your flesh. I guessed they came from the islands of Nycresand off the east coast of Loh.

  The other side of the room contained a series of enormous mirrors of polished silver, and that strange little shimmer clung about their surfaces, distorting the images within.

  At the far end beneath a golden canopy, a reception committee awaited us.

  The Chulik guards’ iron-studded war boots did not ring upon the marble underfoot. They made dull thudding noises. My own ankle-high moccasins, soft and supple, made no sound at all.

  As we approached the waiting group, I tried to throw off this stupid sense of oppressive stuffiness ailing me.

  Here we were about to enter into important talks with the Emperor of Yumapan concerning the future well-being of Pandahem and of Paz. I stuck my chin in the air and stalked on. I could not stop my left fist from straying to the rapier hilt and I forced the constricting fingers to relax.

  Curtains of that same deep purple hung against the end wall. Torches threw orange streamers into the mingled radiance of the Suns of Scorpio falling across the marble floor.

  There were no flowers I could see blooming in this vaulted chamber, yet the air smelled of that raw rank pungency of damp vegetation, muddy stems rotting gently into a vegetable decay.

  A further double rank of Chulik guards stood at attention in rear of the hosts. We drew closer over that shining marble floor. To the right stood a figure cloaked in blue with silver and golden moons and suns and comets emblazoned about his person, carrying a skin-bound tome chained to his waist. His bearded face peered gauntly from under the peaked hood of the robe. His eyes appeared mere white crescents.

  To the left stood a woman, shapely in a deep purple gown that brushed the floor and left her shoulders bare. Hair of a blue-black coiffed high and threaded with pearls gave her an imperial air, yet her face, painted and kohled, denied that suggestion. Her lips were wide and thin and too red.

  In the center stood a man in harness of war, metal and bronze, girded with swords, decked with feathers, hard, domineering, implacable. His powerful face looked shrunken to me, robbed of much of its inner strength and his eyes were far more pouched than I remembered and cloudy as though he had yet to recover from some grievous wound.

  I did not think that Kov Loriman the Hunter was really Emperor Pelleham of Yumapan.

  Perhaps he would think that Jak the Bogandur was not really Dray Prescot, ex-Emperor of Vallia.

  We halted and the thudding of feet echoed to silence.

  “Lahal, Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia,” said Loriman. His voice slurred as though weary beyond bearing.

  “Lahal, Kov Loriman.”

  The woman started at this, and the magician turned those uncanny crescents of whiteness toward me.

  “You are—” he paused, and then, swallowing, went on: “You are most welcome, majister.”

  “I give you thanks. Where is the Emperor Pelleham?”

  Perhaps he just did not recognize me. He had failed to do so before. The eye sees what the brain expects. He expected to see Dray Prescot, and not Jak the Bogandur.

  Mind you, I was glad to see he had escaped from the Coup Blag. He might be a mighty hunter in most of the wrong ways; but he had been useful and I wanted him alive to further my schemes. The loss of his lady, which we had considered him over, must have treacherously struck again at him, in reflex, as it were, and reduced him. He was not as mindlessly numb as he had been; but it was clear he was not himself.

  “The emperor?” He gazed about blankly, as though Pelleham might abruptly appear through a trapdoor in the floor. Then: “Oh, she will be here at once now you have arrived.”

  So, I suppose, thinking back, it was then that I was sure, and realized, and didn’t even bother to begin cursing myself for the most credulous fool in two worlds.

  I said, instead: “She?”

  “Of course.” He half turned that massive head: “Blow!”

  The six Chulik trumpeters in the front rank blew the peals.

  Their comrades leveled crossbows. Even all the Disciplines of the Krozairs of Zy would not give me the skill, speed or luck to swat away those dozens of bolts.

  The purple curtains lifted on golden cords.

  She walked in as herself. There were no tintinnabulations from golden bells, no pacing ferocious creatures from nightmare, no chained chail sheom, no hulking armed guards. Just a single woman in a dress of sheer white.

  “Lahal, Dray.”

  “Lahal, Csitra.”

  Chapter twenty

  Csitra

  Now that Csitra the Witch of Loh considered she had at last won outright, she was prepared to be all condescending graciousness.

  She glowed with health and vitality. Her appearance was probably what she really looked like. Her hair, for example, was no longer jetty black, but the flaming red of the true Lohvian. Her face, hawkish, resolute, possessed that fragile off-center lack of perfect beauty that is the hallmark of pure beauty. She wore not a single gem, not a single adornment. The slippers that showed the tips of toes beneath the white dress glinted gold. That was the sum total of show.

  Her arms were bare. The white dress was cut deeply to her navel. No diamond glittered there and I did not expect to see one.

  She lifted those bare white arms and said simply:

  “You are most welcome, my dearest Dray.”

  “Oh, I dare say. Why all the flummery to trick me here?”

  “P
lease.”

  “We have really nothing left to say to each other. Except that—”

  “Yes?” She put both hands to her breasts.

  “Except that while I do not regret his passing, I feel sorrow for you as a mother that your uhu is dead.”

  “It were better we did not speak of Phunik — now.”

  “Yes. I suppose so. Well, and what do you propose, Csitra?”

  The situation was perfectly clear, of course. She had probably experienced not the slightest difficulty in putting poor old Kov Loriman the Hunter under her spell. He was like a zombie now, obeying without question. I’d have to see what could be done about him. She’d tricked Mergondon into believing it was Deb-Lu who spoke through him. A clever ruse that, so that true voices were not heard.

  I just hoped Mergondon had had the sense to shoot off an occult message for help to Deb-Lu. The truth is, I counted on that elementary scream for succor.

  Then Al-Ar-Mergondon, Wizard of Loh, said: “What are your orders for me now, sana?”

  Thus easily was my stupid bubble of hope burst.

  I gave him a look.

  He flinched back.

  “Yes,” he said, and he fairly spat the words. “You have been finely caught, you onker, and by Hlo-Hli, I am glad I had a hand in it.”

  “What,” I said. “What harm have I ever done you?”

  “None that I can think of, save that the sana dotes on you...” Here he hauled himself up sharply. If he’d been about to criticize Csitra, he sensibly thought better of it.

  And, too, another strand of the plot came clear. This idiot Mergondon was enamored of Csitra; ensorcelled by her or not, he lusted after her and would do her bidding just as readily as poor old Kov Loriman.

  The whole situation looked a damned sight blacker than it had at first, by Krun, damned blacker!

  Those ranks of crossbows all leveled at my guts represented an argument I couldn’t counter.

  I squinted casually at the purple drapes concealing the rear wall. A door there? Not necessarily. Csitra might have any sorcerous methods of effecting an entrance.

  Hell’s bells and buckets of blood!

  There just had to be a way out of this mess!

  And Csitra put that way to me, cooing sweetly as any turtledove, and twice as venomous as the deadliest snake in two worlds.

  “Why are we standing here like this, so stiff and formal? Come along, my dearest, and we will share a bottle and talk together.”

  I had to say: “I take it you’ll bring all the guards and their crossbows, too?” and the moment the stupid words were out of my mouth I wished I hadn’t uttered them.

  “Why, of course, my love! For our protection.”

  She was wise enough to know how to keep a fellow down.

  Instead of leaving that somber purple-draped chamber with the werstings and the Chulik guards, we were waited on by scantily-clad slave girls who brought in table and chairs, flagons and glasses, bowls of fruits and palines. I sat down. There wasn’t much dratted else I could do.

  Loriman and his magician and the black-haired blue-gowned woman retreated a few paces and stood with Mergondon in a group looking surreptitiously at us.

  “Kov,” said Csitra in a voice like brass bristles brushing down steel. “Tell Ban Urfenger and the Lady Lara to look away.”

  “At once, sana.”

  “And move further off.” And she waved an elegant ringless hand, shooing the four away.

  Mergondon shot me a nasty look.

  “He will not harm you, my dearest. For one thing, he does not have the kharrna. And for another he knows what will happen to him if he made any attempt.”

  “You have them well-trained.”

  “Anyone who serves me, yes. And — anyone who stands in my way.” She put her hand on mine upon the table.

  The shock struck through with repugnance and yet — and yet... Like the shocks played with at Electric Parties at the turn of the century, it thrilled through me, there was no doubt of that. The thrill of repugnance? Certainly there was nothing of the lure of the forbidden here. I’d see her dead and consigned down to the Ice Floes of Sicce, and probably spare her one salt tear. On reflection, no, I’d waste even a single tear on the witch.

  “You are not drinking, my sweet.”

  These endearments grated on me. I detested them. Poor, stupid, foolish, evil woman... Well, she wasn’t all evil, I truly believed. As you know, I strive ever to find the good in people. Very few people, if any, are totally evil. Perhaps Phu-Si-Yantong had been the nearest to total evil I’d known, and his unwholesome influence had created the monster Csitra the Witch out of whatever kind of girl she had been aforetime.

  “I find I am not thirsty, and my appetite has deserted me.”

  “Oh, come now.” And she started to wheedle me with a paline, like any doting mother trying to get her baby to eat.

  All this told me in the most eloquent terms that she considered she had won, had really and truly won. Only a little time and effort, she obviously believed, were needed to conquer me completely.

  And — what the hell could I do?

  Her own personal protection must give her confidence that a brainless blow of a sword would not hurt her.

  In a different situation her confidence would have amused me. She worked busily at maintaining this cozy teatime atmosphere. The crudity of a sword blow in this situation, quite apart from its uselessness, would inject a coarseness very far from what she was attempting to achieve.

  Very well, then. A sword blow? A slashing stroke of the great Krozair longsword?

  I am not sure if something of the Hamlet syndrome affected me. Poor, silly, confused woman, she might well be better off dead. Yet I did not relish that task despite all that had passed. Her powers were real: that I did know.

  She made no attempt to influence me as she had once before and I believe she understood that that failure would be repeated here. She went about her task with other weapons and using other means.

  The little chamberlain joined the four onlookers. The Chulik guards remained impassively alert. And the rank smell of damp vegetation hung perplexingly in the air of that splendid chamber.

  I shifted around on the chair so that I might easily whip the Krozair brand free of the scabbard.

  Just how long I would have before the sleeting storm of crossbow bolts tore me into fragments I did not know. If they were to destroy me, then destroy me they would. The idea persisted that the steel would bounce from Csitra. She was her own best protection and the crossbows represented mere gloss within her occult realm.

  I said: “You tell me that you love me and want me for yourself. How long, do you think, that would last?”

  Her startlement, I judge, was genuine.

  “I do not understand you, my love.”

  “A plaything? For you? Is that all you want?”

  She flared up.

  “You do not comprehend the depth of my passion for you, Dray! There are no words, there is not room enough in all the world to squeeze in half of my feelings.”

  “Maybe in two worlds?”

  “What—? Do you mock me?”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, in two worlds?”

  “I don’t think you would understand, Csitra. And, if you did, you would recoil.” I went on in a hard and most unpleasant tone. “At least, that has been my experience with other Wizards and Witches of Loh.”

  She favored me with a look that was like the blinds being drawn up on the glory of the Suns. She licked her lips. “So you know of the Sunset People? Is that why—?”

  “I know of the Savanti, yes. That is not why.”

  “Then am I truly blessed! I am proved! There is between us an unbreakable bond, Dray, and you cannot deny it!”

  I was about to burst out with: “By the Black Chunkrah, woman! Of course I can!” But I held my tongue. This deluded witch lusted after me, and that, besides being her misfortune, was highly inconvenient for me. There was a
name, a person, not mentioned yet. All my own sorrows were nothing beside the terror tearing me apart that Csitra would harm her.

  I thrust those ghastly thoughts aside in panic lest Csitra, or Mergondon, could truly read another person’s mind.

  Khe-Hi and Ling-Li were away in Loh. I found myself tensing up in anticipation that good old Deb-Lu must put in an appearance soon. He had the power to thwart this witch. Working together, with Deb-Lu handling Csitra and I taking care of the Chulik archers, we could escape this moil and I might come out alive and whole.

  And, still, the idea persisted that perhaps, just perhaps, I overrated Csitra’s powers and a steel blade could finish her.

  This farce had to be played along further. If I made the stroke and it failed, she must finally understand that she could never win me. After that, well...

  That risk could not be taken until all else failed.

  “I have labored long and successfully for this outcome,” she prattled on. She was amazing. She was acting like a blushing maiden with a strapping lad at the farmyard gate. “I find I am a little weary. We must rest and then we will have a lovely banquet and talk and you will see.”

  “Very well.”

  She had deluded herself into believing what she wanted was true and had occurred. Like any trapped animal I must wait my chance. We made a macabre pair, to be sure.

  She stood up and out of simple politeness I rose also. She smiled that calculating witching smile and walked off, swaying, and the purple drapes fell into place and she was gone.

  Kov Loriman came over and said: “You are a most fortunate man, majister.”

  Following the kov, Mergondon spat out: “Undeservedly. If I had my way there would be short shrift for you, Prescot.”

  I ignored the mage and said to Loriman: “You do not recognize me, Kov Loriman?”

  “We have never met to my certain knowledge.”