Alan Akers - Savage Scorpio

My Delia, the fate of Vallia, set against an eloping lion-lad, a pretty Fristle fifi — no, never!

Of course, remembering so little of that horrific journey, I can only surmise what happened. No doubt I greatly exaggerated my own importance.

After all, why should the fate of all Vallia hang on me? So what if I had been nearly killed and had my arm just about ripped off? That would affect me and my family — but Vallia? I detest affectation. So I guessed with a somber foreboding that no matter how much I sought to evade the future I did not want and responsibilities that would be thrust upon me, the weight of Vallia would be mine. Only a foolish notion would uphold me. For Valka and Strombor and Djanduin and Azby and my Clansmen — and also to a lesser degree Paline Valley — I not only admit my responsibility and indebtedness, I struggle to prove myself at least half worthy of the trust of my own people.

Some of these thoughts must have collided in my aching head along with the infernal never-ending clanging of the Bells of Beng Kishi as I found a pool and washed myself as thoroughly as I could. The zorca washed, also. Frequently, bouts of emptiness closed in when the enveloping cloak of Notor Zan dropped over me with the silent rush of black wings.

But, in the fullness of time, with the dawning of whatever day it was — for all track of time had flown along with much else in that dreadful journey across the hostile face of Savage Kregen — I found myself riding alongside the river. I seemed to have awoken from a bad dream. I must have found rabbits and edible shoots and roots, and the blessed palines were always there to comfort the ailing. I must have crossed a high pass of the mountains — a vague memory stirred of cold and snow and of hard riding, the frosty breath glittering. But, on this day — which could have been any of the named days out of any moon, any sennight, all with their own different names and attributes — I saw the river and the gorge and heard the titanic uproar of masses of water falling bodily through thin air to crash into the stone basin beneath. Blearily, I peered around.

If I was where I thought I was, where I ought to be, then I’d struck into the River Zelph. I’d avoided many dangers. The last time I’d been here I’d been clad in russet hunting leathers, bearing a Savanti sword, in full health and strength, helping along the beautiful crippled girl who was to become everything that mattered in two worlds.

But all that had been a long time ago.

Delirious, off my head, with a mangled side and a skeletal thing that might have been a bit of arm dangling all green and black, I knew that if I was not where I wanted to be I wouldn’t be anywhere else anymore, save the Ice Floes of Sicce.

The sight of spider-beasts dangling from the rocks, the clicking of beetle-beasts as they crowded close, reassured me. Aye! By Zair! These monsters seeking to shred me, to scatter me in pieces, to devour me, these ravening furies reassured me and gave me a fresh confidence.

I was here! The waterfall dropped into the stony basin and bubbled all plum-colored from the sandy amphitheater. As the beasts descended on me I looked for the overhang of crystal rock and the dark entrance to the cave which led to the pool. I staggered and held onto the zorca. He responded nobly, a proud stallion, full of fire and spirit.

The first spider-beast was dispatched with a straight cutting slash. A beetle-beast was hacked so that he stumbled back, his legs clashing, and fell into the river. Forging on, I led the zorca without holding his reins and he followed because he trusted me and stayed with me. The narrow stony path curved around the last bend and with the thunder of the falls beating up, the mouth of the cave formed a welcoming darkness ahead. The fuzzy pink radiance all about blurred as I remembered. Yes, the remembrances of that journey are vague and phantasmal, patchy, illuminated by the cutting shafts of recollected horror, misted by things I am thankful to forget. This path must have led into the amphitheater among the rocks along the narrow way avoiding the majority of the guardian monsters. The route for the candidates and their Savanti tutors lay up from the river. I suppose I must have cut and hacked my way through and swung the sword one-handed, for I arrived; but it is all misty and dim and dream like.

The zorca followed me into the cave and without ado walked daintily over to the far side and beyond a ledge out of sight began to crop gently at fronds that grew there. The wet, fragrant herbs would not hurt him if he ate a few; but I would not allow him too many for the safety of his insides. Odd thoughts kept spurting through my brain. My arm hung twisted and shredded and horrible, my side bit numbly, the rips and claw-gouges were certain death for anyone without the protection afforded by the balm of the place. The Bells of Beng Kishi clamoring in my head continued and I guessed I had been injured there, also, in the battle with the leem. If I did not drop into the pool and bathe in the milky liquid very very soon I, too, would be dead.

And then — noises, the clatter of disturbed rock, voices, cheerful and excited now the danger of the trail was passed, relieved and yet tensely expectant voices — the noises and the voices echoed from the cave entrance.

So close to victory I was not prepared to be beaten.

There was no time to dive into the water. I sank down painfully behind a screen of rocks and, truthfully, that small respite felt wonderful.

Men and women entered the cave. They did not see either the zorca or myself. They were absorbed in the reasons why they had ventured here through perils that were to them novel and ghastly and out of all the previous experience of their worlds.

Events jerked ahead, I heard and saw in snatches; what I record is far too continuous a narrative. The single searing lump of agony that was me suffered there in hiding among the rocks. There were eight people — as customary. Four tutors and four aspirants, four fine young people who would one day be Savapims and work for the great plan of improvement for Kregen. There were two women and two men. They wore the Savanti hunting leathers and carried Savanti swords and they were upstanding, stalwart, brilliant people, picked, chosen, of the elite to be. One of the tutors was Maspero. Maspero, he who had been my own tutor; from the concealment of the rocks I watched and I longed to reach out the hand of friendship, to hear him greet me, to hear again

“Happy Swinging!” But I remained dumb and silent, hidden in my rocks, for I was not the Dray Prescot that Maspero had known. Too much had passed and I had learned more, even, I think, than Maspero could teach.

The four aspirants stripped off their clothes and waded down the stone steps. They remained submerged for the time they could hold their breaths, and when they emerged they were transformed, irradiated, made glorious in the name of the Savanti nal Aphrasoe.

I swallowed down hard. The scene kept flickering and blurring, the stone walls swooping sickeningly. I heard what they said, their awed exclamations, the expression of the realization that they were each possessed of a thousand years of life. They talked animatedly, donning their clothes for the journey back down the River Zelph to the Swinging City.

Listening I picked out the scraps of conversation that held meaning for me and I wished them away. My life was ebbing. The leem had worked cruelly upon me. I have fought leems; this time I had been unlucky as well as stupid. So I listened, hearing some things clearly, and one said: “And they were all dispatched, Harding?”

“Yes,” agreed the tutor called Harding, a lean, competent man who looked as hard as his name. “They all profaned the Sacred Pool. Vanti, as is his duty, banished them all back to the places from whence they came.”