Alan Akers - Secret Scorpio

While it would not be proper for me to reveal all the circumstances of the meeting, I can say that through it all I had no sense of being ridiculous, of acting the fool. Here was I, a fearsome fighting warrior, renowned swordsman, savage clansman, told to strip off, to wrap a piece of white cloth about my loins, to stand meekly in a room with two samphron-oil lamps shining up, leaving the end of the room partitioned by a pierced ivory screen in absolute darkness.

From the screen the soft rustle of feminine garments told me that the chief lady did not wear hunting leathers or the grim panoply of war, as many of the Sisters did. And this was fit and proper. The Sisters of the Rose, after all, is a female order, and girls do not have to ape the ways of men. Although when they do, by Zair, they often are very good indeed.

“You wished to speak with me, Kadar the Hammer. Your request was put most forcefully; a very strong case was made out for you. Why do you plead to see me?”

I said, “I think, lady, you know my name.”

“Kadar the Hammer.” A light tinkle of laughter. “Is that your question? You had forgotten your name?”

“I can never forget. I do not know yours. In that, you have the advantage, lady.”

The laughter stilled. Then: “I know you. I can tell you nothing.”

I flared up. “This is not good enough! I must know where my Delia is. Is she safe? Is Dayra safe? Just that, just that to put my heart at rest.”

If this powerful and secret woman decided to obey the emperor’s orders and handed me over to him, there would be a few broken skulls. That I knew. But that was a trifle.

“A man’s heart, aye! Now there is a wonderfully elastic object.”

“I did not come to bandy words. Tell me, for the sweet sake of Opaz.”

“Your Dayra has been. . is causing. .” A hesitation and then, in a sharper tone: “Your Dayra is proving a true daughter of a wayward father.”

“And if I am wayward that I do not quarrel with. But you have educated Dayra! I have been away and I own my fault in that. But Dayra-”

“Do not blame the SoR for all! We teach chastity and humility and pride. We teach a girl that she is a girl, and in this world a girl must be as good as a man. Not better. As good. We are all people in the sight of Opaz, the manifestation of the Invisible Twins. Dayra could not exist without a man and a woman.”

“And I am that man!” I bellowed, despite my promise to myself to behave. “And I ask about the woman!”

An indrawn breath. Would I be hurled out? Would a steel-tipped shaft drive through? Would — exotic thought — a bevy of half-naked damsels seek to destroy me by women’s wiles?

Then: “I shall tell you, Kadar the Hammer, that the woman of whom you speak is alive and well and reasonably happy. She goes with her eldest daughter in search of her wayward daughter. When they are successful they will return.”

So that explained why Lela, as well as Dayra, had not visited their father in Vondium. “Suppose they are not successful?”

“That may well be. The task is difficult. But Opaz is all wise. If that should be her will then so be it.”

Naturally Opaz, being the twinned life-force, could be either male or female. “If so, your lady and her elder daughter will return.”

“And is that all you will tell me?”

“There is nothing more to tell. You are supremely fortunate even to have spoken with me, Kadar the Hammer. The emperor is looking for a smith to sharpen up the edge of his headsman’s ax.”

That was as clear a warning as you could desire, or not, considering. The rustle of clothes told me she was leaving. There were a thousand questions buzzing in my stupid head, but I could speak none of them. I was led out by competent girls who carried their bows nocked and their rapiers naked in their hands. Of what use or value my knowledge that I could have fought and beaten them all? Would that bring my Delia any closer? Of course not. Only half reconciled to what I considered a fobbing off I dressed and, once more clad in the old brown blanket cloak and with my bamboo stick in my horny fist, I was seen off into the moons-shot darkness. I have said nothing of the rites surrounding this interview or of the room itself. Or of what I observed. Quite so.

One thing I believed with all my heart: my Delia was safe. And Lela and Dayra — whatever that little minx had been up to — were safe, also.

So, and not as easily as I may make it sound, I could go back to the more congenial task of mayhem and murder and smashing up these Opaz-forsaken rasts of the Great Chyyan. The last thought I allowed myself about the Sisters of the Rose was the reflection that a fellow had to brace himself up and keep a brave face on it when these scheming women put on that kind of show. Many a man would have been half dead with fright at all the mumbo jumbo, and his knees would have knocked together when he stood in the dread presence of the chief lady of the SoR. Before I went back to see Natyzha Famphreon and try to shake some sense out of the dealings — or apparent lack of them — of the racters, I’d have to nip back to the Iron Anvil. I had no real desire to investigate her warren of a villa with only a bamboo stick, despite the concealed sword, although if it came to the fluttrell’s vane I would do so.

“By Odifor!” spat a Fristle who balanced an enormous load on his head. He staggered against the doorway of a house whose overhanging balcony dripped vines and moonblooms. I was scarcely aware of bumping him. “Look where you’re going, you apim rast!”

I turned my head away and walked on. There were far more important demands at work this night in Vondium than a stupid affray with a Fristle. His cat-face looked fierce and his whiskers shone in the light of torches. I supposed then that I might some day learn to rub along with Fristles. Walking thus in a heightened frame of mind, to put my frame of mind in a certain light, I realized that all Vallia could go hang to the Black Feathers just as long as Delia and the girls were safe. But then I reconsidered. That was only a half-truth. It is often easy for the outcast — and I had been chucked out of Vondium — to look at himself in the role of poor Pakkad. No one of Kregen could say with certainty if Pakkad had been a real person of if he was a figure from myth. He had been cruelly treated by the arch devil, Mitronoton, the Destroyer of Cities, the Leveler of Ways, and nowadays, although seldom referred to, Pakkad stood for the image of the pariah and the unwanted. As for Mitronoton, the Bane of the ib, the Reducer of Towers, he was a devil of horror that no sane man would approach. The Fristle snarled some obscenity or other and hitched his bundle straight; a string snapped and the bundle burst, and a glittering shower of trinkets and trashy bangles and rings cascaded to the cobbles. An uproar began at once as, from nowhere and at this time of night with the moons shining above, a torrent of children burst out and fell upon the gewgaws.

Young girls and boys were scrabbling along the cobbles, snatching up the rolling bangles and rings, stuffing little ornamental figures into their breechclouts. I realized in my half-blind wanderings I had blundered into a net of poor alleys off one of the jewelry souks. The hullabaloo was rather splendid. The Fristle was frantically attempting to preserve his wares, yelling threats and trying to bash kids away and being tripped up and — it was all over in a twinkling — standing up and shrieking his anger and casting about upon the empty cobbles.

He found one trashy little figure of Kyr Nath made from cast brass and he flung it down so hard it bounced and hit a laughing fellow in the eye. That started more trouble. I ambled off, deliberately not going fast.

Of such trifles are the destiny of empires made.