Alan Akers - Secret Scorpio

The last I heard of that incident — as I thought, as I thought — was a fat apim with an apron yelling:

“The Fristle stole this stuff! Thief! Thief!”

The Fristle let out a yell and raced off. The apims followed all a-yelling and a-screeching and the whole pack vanished into a side alley, even more odiferous than this one. So, going on, I came out at last into the silversmiths’ wharf running alongside a canal that gleamed limpid and pinkly golden in the night. I saw the Fristle running across an arcaded bridge. He saw me too, for the moons-light picked me out brightly. Only a handful of other people were walking near. He knew me. He vanished into the shadows. I dismissed him — thieves would have to be treated as rulers usually treated the devotees of Diproo the Nimble-Fingered — and walked on to the Iron Anvil in the smiths’ quarter. My surprise was complete when I found the Wizard of Loh Khe-Hi-Bjanching waiting for me in my room. As I came in he started up; the steel in my fist winked at his throat and then I recognized him. I drew back.

“Dangerous to do that, San.”

He laughed a nervous laugh and felt his throat.

“All right, Turk.” As he spoke the curtains over the window shook and Turko the Shield climbed in. He was followed by Balass the Hawk. Then Oby wriggled in, most fierce, slapping his long-knife into his sheath.

Well!

It turned out that Khe-Hi wished to obtain a piece of my skin, a hair and a piece of toenail. I do not give these things lightly, for although it is all stupid superstition, there is no doubting the power of the Wizards of Loh.

“Phu-si-Yantong has been searching for you, Prince,” said this wizard who had followed me. “I need to create a new and somewhat different. . ah. . arrangement to hold him off. He has let you slip out of his range of observation. But he has been in lupu and spying a very great deal lately. I think” — and here Khe-Hi chuckled in a very down-to-earth and unwizardly way — “I really think the old devil is worried.”

“Amen to that.”

I had noticed that Khe-Hi did not mention that he was creating a spell or an enchantment. They were for the lesser sorcerers.

So needing the simple artifices of that trade, he had come to find me. And the others would not let him go alone. I asked, “And how did you know where I was and my name?”

“We had a flier letter from Seg, from Falinur, and-”

“And from now on I’m staying where I belong,” said Turko the Shield truculently. “By Morro the Muscle! At your side with my shield lifted.”

“That will not be very practical in Vondium.”

“Well, my long-knife will arouse no comment,” said Oby.

We all told him coarsely that his long-knife would not arouse comment anywhere — except Khe-Hi, who was above that kind of nonsense, of course — whereat he grew most enraged and lively and started swinging his arms about.

Balass the Hawk butted in with: “I know most about the Black Feathers so I am the one to go with the Prince.”

While they wouldn’t have started in on each other with the weapons each knew so well how to use, they waxed exceedingly warm. I said, “No one goes with me. This is a lone task. Balass, what of the Black Feathers?”

His story confirmed what I had seen. Someone had brought a temple into Vondium. Wandering priests had gathered. The city was like an overripe shonage, ready to burst and spray every which way.

“By the brass sword and glass eye of Beng Thrax!” I used the old arena oath talking to Balass, the hyr-kaidur. “When will your spies find this Opaz-forsaken temple! By Kaidun! Time grows perilously short.”

“We have men out everywhere. The racters also search.”

A thought occurred to me and I turned to Khe-Hi. “If Phu-si-Yantong has missed me and is searching, will not your visit here put him on my trail once again?”

“No, my Prince. I can cover myself and those with me. He cannot find you through us.”

“That is some comfort. But if he really is this Makfaril, and there is no proof, what chance is there he will come to Vondium himself?”

Khe-Hi pursed up his lips. “Very little. He can work his mischief through his agents.”

“Quite so. Well, be off with you then, the pack of you.”

They wanted to contest this, but I would have none of it. So they climbed out through the window, agile as monkeys, even Khe-Hi, who had done a little climbing with me on Ogra-gemush. Working swiftly, I donned my familiar scarlet breechclout and strapped and buckled my weapons about me. This time, to be on the safe side, I shrugged on a close-fitting coat of mail, a mail shirt presented to me by Delia, one of those superb harnesses of mesh mail manufactured in the Dawn Lands around the Shrouded Sea in Havilfar. The value of that single piece of armor would leave a rich man breathless. I swirled the big buff cloak over all as usual, but this time hung the Krozair longsword scabbarded at my left side. I picked up the faithful old bamboo and went to place it safely in a cupboard when those confounded Fristles arrived to ruin that particular scheme.

The Fristle thief, no doubt calling on Diproo the Nimble-Fingered, had rustled up some of his friends. The door burst in with a smash and they catapulted into the room. For the tiniest fraction of time I thought they were my comrades, come back this time to insist on going with me. Then I saw the fierce snarling cat-faces, the up-pricked ears, the lean jaws and the furry hides. Spitting their fury, they charged straight for me.

They carried long-knives and wharf-rat knives, and two had stout staves tipped with bronze. The bamboo switched up and deflected the first stave, bounced off the skull of its owner, lined up and prodded deeply into a furry midriff. Two Fristles staggered out of the fight. But the others, three or four, bored in. A flung knife whistled past my head as I moved and smashed into the horn window. A stave swirled down at me and I ducked and stepped back, making no attempt to strike with the bamboo. I was annoyed. I was quite unsure whether to bash them over the head with the bamboo or to whip out rapier or djangir and settle their hash.

So stepping back, I trod on a forgotten gregarian and skidded. I skidded across the floor, flailing my arms to remain upright. I lost my balance and staggered back.

With shrieks of feline glee the Fristles flung themselves on me. They had no compunction. The thief had lost his night’s swag and he wanted to take his revenge out on my hide. I rolled, ready to spring up and bash them all properly, when a great booming numim voice roared joyfully: “Now, by Vox! What a pretty pickle!”

And in rage Rafik Avandil waded in, his clanxer deftly cleaving down a Fristle skull and slicing back to chop another. The other Fristles screamed now, screams far different from those shocks of savage fury of a moment ago.

“If I make a habit of this, Nath the Gnat, blame only yourself!”

And the golden numim, Rafik Avandil, joyfully dispatched the next Fristle and kicked the last headlong out the door and down the blackwood stairs.

The way I extricated myself from the possible little embarrassment of this golden numim’s discovering all my arsenal of weaponry buckled up about me, when I was a mere wandering laborer, amused me at the time. Afterward, well, as they say, no man or woman born of Opaz knows all the secrets of Imrien. I gave an almighty yawn and covered my mouth, palm out, and said, “I crave your pardon, Koter Avandil. I am for bed. I have had a plaguey day. How did you find me here?”

If he thought I shot the last question out a little sharply, he gave no sign.

“I heard the commotion and ran up, hoping for a little exercise. It seems I was in time, once again.”