A Life for Kregen Read online

  So, for a space, we stood there, locked in psychic combat.

  And then — by Zair! — and then the horrifying numbness began to eat at my brain and the anteroom spun dizzily about me and I staggered, brought low as a tree is brought low when floods eat away its roots.

  Chapter Four

  Rovard the Murvish, Sorcerer of Murcroinim

  The stink of smoke clinging in the anteroom mingled with the stench from Rovard. My head felt unscrewed, ready to lift off as a voller lifts off, and spin away and up into the vasty reaches beyond the stars. I had traveled between the stars, carried along by the Star Lords, and the queasy sensation in my guts acted as an unpleasant tonic to afford me an antidote to that drifting, rising, floating sensation of helplessness.

  If the Star Lords who held such potent sway over my affairs on Kregen had given me protection, if Zena Iztar to whom I looked for help had spun a dazzling net of defense for me, I needed that help now.

  One of the troubles with me, I often feel, is that I am not flesh, fowl or good red herring. I hover and drift between roles and if, as friends have assured me, that is a part of strength, it’s a peculiar form of strength when compared with the single-mindedness of those who know exactly what they want and go hell for leather for it and devil take anyone who gets in their way.

  Probably that feeling, dredged from the hidden themes fundamental to my nature, is why I take such joy in adopting disguises and assuming different names. My story so far will make much clear; I do know that when Rovard sought to dominate me and thrust his will power down over mine as a man cloaks a beast before he slits its throat, he aroused such a storm of rejection that I have the nasty feeling that even if the Star Lords and Zena Iztar had not pressed the sign of their protection upon me I might have resisted him.

  And — I had sworn to myself not to lose my temper.

  I staggered and almost fell. The waves of psychic power beat upon me as the tides of Kregen beat upon the rocks of the sea shores. I staggered; but I did not fall.

  I glared back. My hand did not grope toward the rapier hilt. I made no physical move save to plant my feet firmly on the rugs. I battled. I used that same will power I had sought to use against the Star Lords and so prevent them from hurling me back to Earth. I struggled. It was done.

  Do not ask me how it was done.

  I was standing up, tall, wide-shouldered, and Rovard was vomiting all over the rugs, a vile stream as he retched and choked.

  Norgoth let out a howl of pure frustration.

  And Ralton laughed.

  The woman screamed.

  The Rapa touched a secret latch and the steel hoop sprang open and then, poor fool, he stood gaping witlessly as nothing sprang foaming and clawed in death toward my throat.

  Norgoth glared around, his eyes rolling up as his sorcerer vomited and vomited upon the rugs.

  “There is a greater sorcery here,” he said. He looked wild, frightened and yet still bolstered by remnants of his own imagined strength. “A Wizard of Loh. There is a Wizard of Loh near and he thwarts all.”

  I shook my head. I was amused.

  “Not so.”

  As though he took my words as a signal, for they were true as far as I knew, Norgoth acted.

  For all the magical powers I believed assisted me, I remained a mortal man still. Maybe there were no sorcerous powers. Maybe my dip in the Pool of Baptism was enough. Perhaps the Savanti nal Aphrasöe had exerted some influence. But, for all that, I was a mere mortal man and could be slain by steel.

  On those spindly legs Norgoth leaped.

  He did not lack courage. His hand closed on my rapier hilt and I realized with a shock that the sorcerer’s attack had left me weak, weak and slow.

  My own hand clamped on his before he could draw. He would have done better to have tried for the left-hand dagger. For a space we struggled. He struck me in the face with the brass-studded back of his glove, and I took the blow and felt the sticky wetness and so gave him back the buffet. He sprawled back. His gross body balanced wonderfully upon those thin and ludicrous legs and he did not fall. But he collided with the woman. She pushed him off with a curse and tried to stick her nails into my eyes. I swayed and tripped her and I did not hit her as she went down.

  Ralton remained standing, steadfast, unmoving.

  The sorcerer now held his guts under the stinking pelts and groaned and gagged and rolled his eyes, which had reappeared from wherever they had been during his demonstration of sorcerous powers. The Rapa kept fiddling with his steel chain and collar and made no move against me.

  I hauled the woman up by the collar of her tunic and stood her on her feet and pushed her at Norgoth. The two clung. Well, they were fit partners, I judged.

  Then, with a fine swing and panache, the guards threw open the door and the anteroom filled with twinkling steel.

  “Hold!” I bellowed. “All is in order. See that the deputation from Layco Jhansi is assisted on its way back. They are returning — now!”

  At this, Ralton Dwa-Erentor took a step forward, his face strained, puzzled, and his right hand half extended.

  I looked at him, a straight, level, demanding glare.

  “My thanks, Ralton Dwa-Erentor. I recall your sleeth — Silverscale, I think — gave my zorca a fine run. But sleeths will never best zorcas. Go back to Jhansi and remember this.”

  He took my meaning.

  “I will, majister.”

  So I stood aside as the guards, tough, no-nonsense Pachaks, saw the embassy out. The woman favored me with a long look of loathing. The Rapa held the steel collar open, and his vulturine face with the arrogant beak exhibited expected joy at once more beholding his pet, whatever ferocious beast it might be. The sorcerer, Rovard the Murvish, had to be assisted out. Green foam-flecked slime dribbled from his beard. And, I swear it, his eyes were crossed as he left.

  The last to leave was Malervo Norgoth.

  He said, “I shall carry your words to Kov Layco. But I do not think he will be discomfited by them.”

  “Words won’t hurt you,” I said, most cheerfully, “unless a Wizard utters them, and then only if you are credulous. Tell him there is a length of rope waiting for him, with a loop at the end. I fancy it will snug right tightly up under his ear when the time comes.”

  “When the time comes, Dray Prescot, the rope will be around your neck.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt I deserve it. But Jhansi will be there first to show me the way.”

  So they left and there was no Remberees between us, and I was told that they did not observe the fantamyrrh — except Ralton Dwa-Erentor.

  Taking myself off to the Sapphire Reception Room I reflected that there was little in this to please. The exhibition to which I had just been treated ruled out the possibility of thinking about the offer of alliance from Jhansi. But then, could the offer have been genuine? My reactions in more or less having the embassy slung out must have been right, instinctively right. And I had promised myself not to flare up into that old intemperate rage. Almost, I had broken that promise. I tried not to feel smug as I went back to the people waiting for the news.

  “So, majister,” said Nath, somewhat heavily. “Does this mean you ally us with the Racters now that Jhansi is once more foresworn?”

  “I don’t see why you had to let the kleeshes go!” burst out Barty. He was furious, and, in his eyes, rightly so. “They betrayed their embassy, all their talk of heraldic immunity was a mere base trick. String ’em all up, that’s the way of it — or should be.”

  Delia regarded him, for she favored him as a son-in-law when our daughter Dayra returned to the fold. Barty spluttered and splashed and covered his face drinking a cup of good vydra tea. Oh, yes, a right hellion our Barty Vessler in matters of chivalry and honor.

  My people knew our ways well enough by now to talk freely among themselves discussing the offer from the Racters. Also, they knew that while I would take cognizance of what they said, the final decision was down to me. That was what being
an emperor was about. I felt inclined to hear what Delia had to say. She was an emperor’s daughter. But in all this idle chatter about emperors, I never forgot what I had promised myself on Voxyri Drinnik. The ways of emperors were not for me.

  The talk flowed. The tea was quaffed. The food was eaten. We all had busy lives to lead with much to do and the few murs we could spare for this kind of pleasant interlude had already been exceeded. By ones and twos the company began to leave and the clepsydra on the shelf would have collapsed if worried stares carried physical force.

  Nath Nazabhan and Barty Vessler were talking to Delia and I crossed to them, having had a few words with Jago De-Ka, a Pachak Jiktar who had come in from Zamra with news. The island was almost clear of the reiving mercenaries and flutsmen, he reported, and the Pachaks who had made a part of the island their home were now more than ever wedded to their new way of life. I expressed myself as satisfied, keeping a grave mien, as was seemly in so important a matter to a Pachak. Pachaks are a race of diffs with whom I delight in doing business.

  Barty was still rather high on indignation, and Nath was as grimly ferocious as ever when I joined them.

  Archolax the Bones, the deep lines in his face more pronounced than ever, walked across to us with a most determined air about him. I sighed. I could guess.

  “...until they dangled for two sennights!” quoth Barty.

  “But you have friends up there, do you not?” inquired Delia with that devastating simplicity that snicks in like a rapier between the ribs.

  “Friends? Oh, aye, friends. But if they wear the white and black these days, how can they be friends?”

  Old Archolax sneezed. With great ceremony he withdrew an enormous square of yellow silk and blew. While the stentorian bellow was still echoing through the room he spoke up, swirling the yellow silk about grandly.

  “Majister! The treasury is scraped to the bottom so hard I swear you would not get a single stiver out of the dust in the vaults. The Racters are all the grievous things we know them to be. But, majister! They have money. They are rich. Their estates up there are fabulously wealthy. An alliance there would fill our coffers. We could hire mercenaries and throw the damned mercenaries from Hamal out of Vallia.”

  He did not finish with: “I have spoken.” Had he done so it would have fitted perfectly.

  Delia’s face bore that knowing, half-mocking, teasing smile.

  The way these old buffers use their sneezing and their kerchiefs always amuses me — and causes me some facetious admiration, too, seeing that they thereby cloak their own highly individual designs. Old Evold Scavander, the wisest of the wise men of Valka, could always get that haughty and promising Wizard of Loh, Khe-Hi-Bjanching, going by a few splutters and sneezes and a whisk of bright cloth.

  “I hear your words, Pallan Archolax, and they are indeed worthy of note. The embassy from Jhansi revealed their true purpose, and have left, with a zorca hoof up their rump.” One of the Kregish ways of saying with a flea in their ear, that charming expression, and the others smiled. “But that does not tilt the balance down in favor of the Racters.”

  “Their gold tilts the balances.”

  About to give what I considered a stiff reply, Barty saved me the trouble, saying what was in my mind.

  “But honor will tilt the balance back!”

  So we wrangled for a space, and I think they could all see already the way my mind tended. Finally, I said, “We have the resources if we plan carefully. Gold to buy mercenaries will not set Vallia free. Our country must be set free by her own efforts. This is a cardinal principle.”

  Archolax opened his mouth ready to sneeze, saw me watching him, and merely swiped the yellow silk over his nose.

  “Your commands, majister,” he said. And then he added: “My fingers itch to feel Racter gold. But my heart would not be in it.”

  “Of course,” put in Nath Nazabhan. “We could take the Racter gold, anyway.”

  “What, Nath!” exclaimed Barty. “Double deal ’em?” He screwed up that incredibly naive face, and one could almost see the wheels whizzing around in his head as he once more confronted the thrill of skullduggery in action.

  The idea was intriguing; but it would not do, and we all saw that. Nath’s flyer remained unsaddled.

  Pallan Myer walked over from the door, and coughed, and stood waiting. He was youngish, stooped over from long hours of reading, with always a book or a scroll tucked under his arm or, to be honest, more often opened as he walked along reading, a constant terror to anyone else who did not look where they were going. I had put him in charge of education, the Pallan of Learning, and I was due to go with him to see about a group of new school buildings being fashioned quickly from materials left over from a slave bagnio, after it had burned, and many of the poor devils inside it, too.

  Acknowledging Pallan Myer, I said: “Educating the children of Vallia is more important than wrangling. Nath. Do you go and see Strom Luthien and give him our word. And, Nath. Try to be gentle with the rast.”

  “Aye, majister. I will try.”

  Barty chuckled. “That’ll be a pleasant surprise for him.”

  Myer started in eagerly talking away about the plan to give each child in the new building his or her very own desk. That way, he said, they’d do a lot more work without the jostling and larking you always found when the children sat on long benches, all scrunched up. I nodded, agreeing, and figuring out where we could find the artisans and the wood. Barty fell in with us as we went. Delia called across, saying she had work to do, and I smiled at her as we went out.

  His face shining like one of those fabulous polished apples of Delphond, Barty Vessler strode along with us out into the suns shine. I saw Delia looking after him as I turned to give her a parting smile. Barty was deeply in love with Dayra and she was off somewhere adventuring on her own account and had been numbered in the ranks of those who opposed us. She had been or was still, for I did not know, a boon companion to Zankov and that crowd of cutthroats. Now that the Hawkwa country had declared for Jak the Drang and I was emperor in Vondium, now that Phu-Si-Yantong had withdrawn from this area, what in a Herrelldrin Hell Zankov was about posed a prickly problem.

  Zankov had slain the old emperor. That emperor was Dayra’s grandfather. I wondered if she knew that her comrade Zankov had murdered her grandfather.

  Attitudes are easy to strike and damned difficult to un-strike.

  Barty burbled on about the coming campaign as we mounted our zorcas to ride out to the new schools. We had already traveled a fair bit of the road in freeing all Vallia and we looked forward to riding side by side to finish the task. Every day Barty grew in stature, in wisdom and cunning. Of courage there had never been any doubt. You will perceive, I think, that I was looking with increasing favor on Barty Vessler, the Strom of Calimbrev. I knew practically nothing of my daughter Dayra. Yet the hope, barely formed and certainly not articulated, was that Barty would match up to Dayra, who was also Ros the Claw.

  Ros the Claw. The suns slanted their radiance down about us and the day smiled with promise, and I thought of that wicked steel taloned glove she wore on her left hand. Those cruel curved claws could have your eyes out in a twinkling. A real right tiger-girl, Ros the Claw, a she-leem, clad in her black leathers hugging her skin tight, all grace and lithe lissomness and striking feline beauty. And Barty had no idea that Dayra was Ros the Claw.

  My own feelings muddled my thinking. I had not been on Kregen when Dayra and her twin brother, Jaidur, had been born, and Delia had shouldered a heavy burden — two heavy burdens. And there were the other children, also. The Everoinye had banished me, then, and I had now firmly made up my mind not to cross them again in any open way. The feelings about Dayra made me itchy, fretful, tearing open tender wounds I had thought long since scabbed over.

  No matter where Dayra might be in Vallia, no matter what she was up to, it seemed to me right that I should talk to her in friendship and love. She hated me. I had had proof of that. And, also,
I thought I had proof that she did not hate me, for she had drawn back and had not struck me from the instant she understood that I had at last recognized Ros the Claw as my daughter Dayra.

  That gave me hope.

  Emotions and feelings run all tangled, like disturbed water in a stream choked with fallen rock. We must have reliable news of Dayra soon. We must.

  So I rode in the suns shine to see about facilities for educating the young, and I realized with a sober chill that I had few and contemptible qualifications for the task.

  Chapter Five

  Justice

  Plots and counter-plots. Masks and disguises. The shadow in the night and the swift glitter of a blade. Well, they are all a part of Kregen, just as much as the pomp and grandeur, the armies, the brilliance of nobility and the shining of courage.

  There was the matter of Renko the Murais.

  Where I rode I noticed that the members of my choice band, those fighting men who were veterans now although so short a time ago being simple tradesmen or farmers, had strengthened their number by mustering more of the old comrades. They formed a powerful little mounted squadron riding at my back. And, with them, rode a formed and formidable body of upwards of fifty Pachaks. While welcoming this, I was puzzled. I mentioned the matter to Nath as we rode forward along the gutted Avenue of Hope and out into the virtually untouched Kyro of Taniths. This kyro was a particular pride of Vondium, being graceful in architecture, bright with color, a perfect place to take one’s ease after the strife and turmoil of the day. The luxurious and headily perfumed trees and bushes growing in a profusion of beauty like a woman’s hair and trailing splendor along the tessellated walks and cool colonnades always offered a welcome and a surcease. A man could expand his lungs here, and yet relax, safe and with the feeling he had come home. I smiled at Nath as I asked him, and he merely answered with a casual comment that, by Vox, a man needed friends at his back.