Gangs of Antares [Dray Prescot #45] Read online

  Passing an ale house, open, with lights shining and men and women entering and leaving, some staggering, I reflected that ale was a food. This ale was thick and sweet and dark. Once they put hops in it and turned it into beer it became bitter and pale. I went resolutely on. Something was always going on through the night down here in the abyss and I was importuned for many a weird and wonderful product or service. Vibrant life, energetic and raw, pulsed all about me. The fighting was remembered but was now a thing of the past—until the next time.

  Despite the dubious pleasures being enjoyed down here, you surely could feel sympathy for the folk trapped in the stews between the hills—but! But never forget these people owned slaves too.

  Although Balintol is a nice warm continent, the temperature drops a few degrees down in the slots, naturally—one reason why the exposure of the wide-cleavage shamlak is not popular. Apart from the pestering peddlers no one offered to halt my progress and very shortly the end of the street came in sight sketchily illuminated by hanging lanterns. The next square had its cable car tower; there was a significant difference between this masonry construction and the last.

  Here a guardhouse was built into the base. Here the notorious Kataki City Watch maintained what amounted to a police station, a precinct house, from which they could sally forth on raids and to which they could return for safety. A chair lift could hoist them to the platform at the top, where they could pick up a cable car.

  There were quite a few of these Watch guardhouses situated in the runnels; most of the time the Whiptails would sail down in lifters to go about their nefarious activities and return to their barracks above.

  I ignored all that and turned to survey my target.

  The place was not a tavern as I had expected—oh, yes, there was a drinking saloon on the ground floor—but the lanterns and signs proclaimed the four-storey solid-looking building a house of ill-repute. It was well patronized and probably never closed its doors. Everything about it indicated it was a high class house. Some of the olive-green bunch had done well, then, and Prince Ortyg must be well satisfied.

  Round the back, find a window, reach the top floor—that was the ticket. By the sticky nostrils and pendulous lips of Makki Grodno! The things a fellow has to do in this life!

  The dolorous alley at the back, running in liquid filth, was lit only by a single lamp. This showed a window drowned in shadows. A cloth screen obscured the interior; but a cautious lifting of one corner allowed me to see a room piled with mattresses and bed frames, stools and benches. As I went in I just hoped that Naghan the Barrel was ready to play his part in this night's affair as arranged.

  Out in the dim corridor the stair well showed me the way up.

  The first floor landing above the ground floor had carpets and two doors. One must lead to the front and the rooms above the drinking saloon. I took the other and found the expected passage lined with rows of doors. Judging by the sounds most were occupied.

  They hadn't built the stairs going straight up, the flights were staggered. The end of the passage brought me out to a landing with a balcony on one side I had not expected. I looked over cautiously.

  The room below was well-furnished, elegant in a tatty way, and there were even a few drooping palms in pots. Music played softly. Girls of different races of diffs in various states of undress sat or walked about and the customers were being looked after by an ancient and stunted little Och lady. Just as I started to move back and be about my business all hell broke loose.

  The double doors to the room burst open. Three men flew through the air to land with bone-crunching crashes among the ornate furniture. Immediately the girls began screaming. When I saw what had flung the men through the doors I didn't blame them. Blind panic broke out in a bedlam of shrieks as everyone tried to run. I stared down, fascinated by the thing that smashed into the lounge.

  It wore long robes of a deep and sinister red. It carried no weapons. But the face! It had once been apim, Homo sapiens sapiens, like myself. No more. That engorged face, bloated, distorted, the eyes like branding irons, the jagged, fang-like teeth, radiated such an aura of immanent evil I recoiled, physically revolted.

  What on all of terrible Kregen was this nightmare?

  The thing's hands were twisted into obscene claws, raking the air in uncontrollable anger. Spittle ran whitely down its chin. It was clearly insane, obsessed with the maniacal desire to kill and go on killing. It threw heavy furniture about like matchsticks. Its strength was colossal. It kicked anything in the way out of its path.

  Those baleful eyes turned up, white crescents under bloodlust. It saw me. Instantly, the thing, snarling incoherently, started for the stairs leading up to the balcony and to me.

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  Chapter nine

  I, Dray Prescot, Vovedeer, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, turned and fled along the balcony and went up the next flight of stairs like a mountain zerzy pursued by a mountain leem. Too true, By Krun!

  Whatever that monstrosity from hell was, I wanted nothing of it, not one little tiny bit, by Vox!

  On the next landing, four men, armed and armored, must have heard the uproar from below. As I belted off the top step I bellowed: “Trouble, doms! A customer's gone berserk! He's smashing the place up!”

  “We'll sort him,” snarled the leader with the golden sash about his waist. “By Salinchez, we'll have him. Come on!”

  The four rushed off down the stairs and I didn't hang about but pressed on rapidly, very rapidly, by Vox! I had a single stab of pity for those four finely-dressed bully-boys, then I got on with my own business. Well, that was not strictly true. My business concerned the Star Lords, not rescuing kidnapped young princes, although this kind of affair is, as you know, unholy common on wonderful Kregen.

  A Rapa popped out of a door in the corridor at the end and seeing me yelled: “Get away from here, you blintz!”

  Continuing my charade I shouted: “There's trouble downstairs! A customer's gone berserk—”

  The Rapa whistled his trident about. “That's nothing to do with us. You go and sort it.” A second Rapa appeared, drawing his sword. His rusty black feathers bristled. “Schtump! Clear off!”

  They both wore olive green, in addition each had a badge of a flame spouting triangle. I tried again. “They need all the help they can get. I've come to get everybody—”

  The noise from below increased. Horrified screams knifed up. That must be those four unfortunates who had gone so uglily down. All the time I spoke I walked steadily forward, spreading my left hand in a gesture of appeal, my right gripping the braxter down at my side.

  “For the last time, you blintz! Schtump!”

  Now I was up level with them and they didn't mince matters. The one with the trident thrust viciously at me. The other Rapa's sword swished down in a lethal blow. I swerved avoiding the trident, slid the other's blow and hit him cleanly with my sword. The confounded blade broke close to the hilt. He was down but I did a foolish thing. In that split second I reflected that, knowing the poor quality in the steel of the munitions braxters, I shouldn't hit so hard.

  In that fraction of time the first Rapa thrust again with his trident. One of the flank tines pierced my leather and I felt the smooth point stick into my flesh.

  Instinctively I grabbed the shaft. I growled out in my old gravel-shifting voice: “I'll take that, dom,” pulled the trident out of me, reversed it smartly, and struck him through his gizzard.

  Both Rapas were down, and I glared back down the corridor. The unholy racket persisted. There was little time left before that apparition from hell raged up here. I looked into the room.

  A Sylvie, all tinsel and tissue and curves, stared back at me with wide horrified eyes. On the truckle bed lay Byrom, just sitting up, his tousled hair over his eyes, his face streaked with tears.

  Those Rapas were his guards, all right, and had tried to do their duty. I motioned with the bloody trident. “I shall not h
arm you, Sylvie. Byrom! Get up, do not make a noise, and follow me!”

  There was no doubt I'd have to carry the boy. I wanted to have to do that as late as possible. If that red-robed monster got up here...

  That was a fatuous thought. There was nothing between him and us to stop him. That was as sure as Zim and Genodras rose each morning.

  The Sylvie remained absolutely still. She was, as they say in Clishdrin, scared stiff. Although far too over-the-top and voluptuous in their sensual female fashion, Sylvies are human beings and I couldn't leave her here with that uncanny monster lusting upwards. I grabbed her arm, and her scent gusted overpoweringly. “Come on!”

  Byrom was a princeling; he behaved well. He was up off the bed and running out the door with me. Up I went, climbing the last flight of steps to the roof. So much noise boomed up from below, the echoes rang in my head. The Sylvie's tissue garments billowed revealingly about her figure as we ran. She was panting and her eyes remained wide and staring. Byrom concentrated his little legs on running as fast as he could. We tumbled out the trapdoor onto the roof and immediately I was searching the night sky.

  Naghan Raerdu the Barrel had not been chosen by me to be my chief spymaster here without ample good reasons. A dark cut-out shape against the stars moved. The airboat turned and smoothly lowered down. She hovered and a dimly-discerned face peered down.

  “Lahal! Swifter?”

  “Lahal! With no Kink!”

  With the password and countersign duly established, the airboat landed. Strong arms hauled Byrom in and there were plenty of volunteers to assist the Sylvie lady. I didn't smile. I vaulted up and Naghan snapped to the helmsman: “Take her up!”

  As though arranged by some signal, the Maiden with the Many Smiles shot her first fuzzy pink rays over the lip of the hill. The radiance illuminated the roof. From the trapdoor exploded a titanic figure of malevolent fury. Red robes flailed in the violence of the thing's movements. It clawed its hands aloft, clear silent imprecations. It danced with foiled fury. Everyone felt the full blast of horror, of blood red violence, of chill foreboding, a maelstrom of terror.

  Some of Naghan's crew called on their gods and spirits.

  “What was that thing? Evil, evil...”

  I said to Byrom, holding his shoulders: “You're safe now. Don't worry about any of that nonsense.”

  Naghan's helmsman swung the lifter up and away and we left that gibbering creature from hell raging far below. If I sweated easily I'd be running with it. Now we had to get on with our mission. Naghan had brought a needle lady with him, a nice Hytak woman, who cooed over Byrom. She took his head between her hands and massaged his scalp, turned his head this way and that. Naghan nodded.

  “Yes, Drajak. Nessve is a larvan as well as a needle-woman.” The best way to translate larvan is to say: ‘A Layer On of Hands.’ They can ease aches and strains by head manipulation, reducing tension.

  I found I was still grasping the Rapa's trident. Well, he had no further need of it. It was not a Shank weapon. The tines were long and well-set and damned sharp. On the cross bar letters had been punched into the steel. I recognized them through the magic of the Savanti's language gift. They were Lohvian, ancient Lohvian. The word they spelled out was ‘Prodigal.’ I set the trident down in a corner and went to make sure Byrom was all right.

  The horrendous experience through which we'd just gone affected me profoundly. By Opaz! That—thing—was the living embodiment of the worst nightmares imaginable. The inevitable reaction among the crew of the lifter set in and Byrom looked decidedly queasy. The puncture lady had stuck him and the Sylvie with her cunning needles. The Sylvie's name was Salarnie and eventually the puncture lady gave her a draught and sent her to sleep.

  The flight back did not take long. Naghan had the lifter descend in moon-drenched darkness among shadows and I carried Byrom off to his mother's palace, calling a soft: “Remberee.”

  Well, as you may readily imagine, there was uproar and confusion, much running about and the flaring of torches, and bright tear-filled eyes as young Byrom was delivered back to his mother's arms.

  When we were alone, Fweygo, in his calm Kildoi way, said: “You were lucky, Dray Prescot. The Everoinye have not spoken to me.”

  I just grunted.

  “You—”

  I interrupted. “All I want right now is some food and then to get my head down for a month of She of the Veils. I'll see you in the morning.”

  He flicked his tail hand by way of reply. So—I ate and slept. In the morning a new day dawned with all its anticipated evils.

  They wanted to make something of a hero of me, and that I very quickly brushed aside. This was no fairy story. To add a grim and nauseating point to that, another poor young girl had been found overnight, disgustingly ripped to pieces in Cutler's Alley. Noni Seng, that had been her name. She'd been a sempstress, very respectable.

  “The City Guard can do nothing,” Ranaj told me, very somber.

  The thought occurred to me that, should Tiri's bloody body be discovered in a gutter by her temple, I would not be surprised on Kregen. But I'd be angry. I'd be so angry that I would do something foolish in the best tradition of Dray Prescot, vosk skull, onker of onkers.

  As for young Tiri herself, Dimpy had duly delivered her to her Temple to Cymbaro. She'd made him promise to make me visit her soon. There was something important and serious she wanted me to do. Dimpy shook his shock-haired head. No, he'd no idea what that could be, by Dromang.

  There was no doubt that the succession of horrific murders made everyone jumpy. Girls were warned not to roam the streets alone. The City Guard announced they had doubled their patrols. There was even talk of employing some of the City Watch to patrol on the hills.

  General opinion was divided on the reasons behind the murders. Bloodlust as a cause had its adherents. Sheer sexual frenzy was advanced by other people as the reason. Many whispered that the killings were ritual, that a maniac religious cult was at work in this ghastly fashion.

  Dimpy said: “You know what I think of these stupid religions. Yes. Well, if it is one of them it won't be Cymbaro.” He looked decidedly defiant. “Tiri wouldn't have anything to do with this stuff.”

  From what I knew of Cymbaro I fully agreed. From what I surmised of the cult of Dokerty, well, then, yes, it could be the maniacs in their red robes who killed and mutilated young girls to the glory of Dokerty.

  The cult of Lem the Silver Leem must still exist, driven underground in places, but still disgustingly killing very young girls to the greater glory of Lem and their salvation.

  I did not care to face the implications that these murders in Oxonium were the work of the Leem Lovers. They did not fit the pattern. The girls torn to shreds here were grown up into young womanhood. If this ghastly work was the foul hand of Lem the Silver Leem then my work here was ordained. The Star Lords abhorred the Leem Lovers as much as I.

  Trying to think the problem through, I came to the tentative conclusion that the murders were not carried out by that monstrous—thing—encountered in the rescue of Byrom.

  I certainly wanted to know more about the gibbering manic thing. Somewhat reluctantly I broached the subject with Fweygo. He just shook that golden head of his and indicated he knew nothing of anything like the thing I described, although he added that there were plenty of other hideous monsters on Kregen. That, I knew.

  The problem of Dimpy was partially solved when, as Fweygo had suggested, Ranaj took the lad on in Princess Nandisha's household. I felt keenly for the rapscallion. Up here on the hill he could be near the object of his affections. Down in the warrens he could look after his mother and sisters. The dilemma was acute. As Fat Lardo said: “We can't bring every tatterdemalion and his family up here.”

  Asking Ranaj for the loan of a messenger, I sent word to Tiri at her shrine that I awaited her commands.

  That evening Dimpy was not to be found in the palace. In addition a pair of braxters had gone missing from the armory. The Armory Del
dar, scarlet, bristling, sweating, gave it as his considered opinion that young brats should not be allowed in the place at all and that he'd lose a swingeing great chunk of his pay in paying for replacements for the two swords gone from his charge.

  Fweygo allowed himself a mocking smile when I paid up for the weapons.

  I told him: “Dimpy will be back. Tiri's got her hooks into that young sprig of the warrens.”

  Princess Nandisha's puncture lady gave me a very annoyed look, tut-tutting with a most reproving click of her sharp little tongue. “An onker—that, indisputably, is what you are, Drajak.”

  “That I have been called many times. In this, though, I believe I'm right. Dimpy's passion for Tiri is—”

  “Onker!”

  I stared at her in puzzlement. “Mother Firben?”

  A short, stout woman, she shook her head in perennial female disbelief at men's stupidity. She bustled forward. She whipped out a particularly long and vicious-looking needle and—snick!—in it went. At once the pain vanished.

  She nodded with satisfaction and went to work on my wound. Mother Firben could not know that thanks to my dip in the Pool of Baptism in far Aphrasöe any wounds I collected adventuring around on Kregen healed with incredible speed. And, anyway, in my line of work pain is something you have to turn to your own advantage. Given a few days the wound would have healed of itself, and the pain would have vanished. I said, meekly: “Thank you, Mother Firben.”

  She just clicked that needle-sharp tongue around against her teeth and finished tying the yellow bandage.

  As to the leather brass-studded jack, one of Ranaj's men had already taken that off to the armory for repair.

  That, of course, made me think of the two swords that had broken in combat. Think, I may add, very darkly indeed, very darkly indeed, by Krun!

  “The Kurin-forsaken blades,” I growled. “I just hope the two braxters Dimpy took don't break so easily for him.”

  The steel of the trident that had wounded me was of good Lohvian quality, apparent at once. The name Prodigal within a frame of chiseled decoration, I recalled, appeared a mere part of that decoration and unreadable to any but those who had studied the old manuscripts out of the Empire of Walfarg—and to me equipped with the Savanti gift of languages. A kind of half-regret passed over me. The trident was lying about somewhere, unless, as was far more probable, one of Naghan the Barrel's people had picked it up as a likely weapon. At least, Prodigal wasn't going to snap in two at the most awkward time of a fight.