Alan Akers - Warrior of Scorpio

“Speak more plainly, Jikai. Do you mean Thelda, whom you would rescue from the Queen, or do you mean the woman you love?”

I started violently.

Fool! Why had I not thought of this myself — and before!

I gripped his thin shoulder. He did not wince but stared up at me placidly. I began to speak, but he shook his head.

“Is this woman you love as beautiful as you say?”

“Yes.”

“Incredibly lovely?”

“Yes.”

He moved my hand away. I let him. “I cannot find her for you, for I have no means of location, as I had with Thelda, who was with the Queen.” He started back at my movement. Pink moonshine runneled along his jaws. “But, if she is as beautiful as you say, I believe she still lives. Umgar Stro values beautiful objects.”

“Delia of the Blue Mountains is not an object!”

“With Umgar Stro all women are objects.”

I turned away from him. Old as he was, cocksure as he was, weird as he was, if I had not turned away I believe I would have struck him down.

“By the veiled Froyvil, Dray! Let us get on!”

San Lu-si-Yuong went through his pantomime again. I call it a pantomime, for that is how I thought then when I was under tremendous strain, tensed up, desperate and weary and vengeful. Yuong did, however, play fair by us.

“She is with the Queen even now, in the Paline Bower-”

“I know it!” said Seg.

“I shall humor you,” went on Yuong, “and go into lupu in the morning when the gates are open and we may enter the city.”

Seg started violently.

I said: “You do not think Seg and I are men to wait tamely out here for them to open the gates for us, do you?”

He nodded that stringy lipless head with the wine-dark eyes somber and yet full of a spritely malice.

“What else will you do, Jikai?”

Seg laughed.

I do not laugh easily, as I have said; I simply stood up and went across to my corth — the one with the trapeze and the thongs — and readied him for flight. Seg followed me. When the corth was ready I turned to Yuong.

“You had best fly with us — there are leems hereabouts-”

He shook his head.

“Nay, Jikai. If you lend me one of those thick anachronistic flint-headed spears, I will fare well enough.”

“As you wish. The spears were unnecessary, after all. They were a failure, like my plans.”

“Dray!” said Seg. “All is not yet lost.”

“Come!” I said, and I was abrupt with Seg. So we left the Wizard of Loh, San Lu-si-Yuong, there with a flint-headed spear to await the dawnrise of the twin suns of Scorpio and the opening of the gates to Hiclantung.

We rode the same corth for the short journey and by taking turns we both dropped off the swinging trapeze onto the trip-wired and fan-spiked roof of the Queen’s palace and let the corth go where he willed. I fancied that sharp eyes peering out in the pink light of the twins would have spotted us from one of the many watchtowers rising in the city. That did not concern me as yet. We padded down stairs carpentered from sturm-wood and opened lenken doors with our swords. We did not kill the guards we encountered, for these were, after all, our hosts.

No incongruity of repetition struck me as we crept silently down past the guards, for this time I carried no high palpitations of hope and fear for my Delia; now we were merely attempting to do the right thing by a comrade — and then I remembered the way Seg felt about the callous and shallow Thelda, and I sighed, and wondered just what I did wish for this baffling comrade of mine. Truth to tell, I felt a queasy sense of responsibility for Yuong; how could his frailty stand up against the awesome ferocity of a wild leem, flint-headed spear or no?

A young Hiclantung guardsman very smart in the ornate robes of a Queen’s spearman with the gold and silver buttons and buckles in place of workmanlike bronze or bone was very pleased to assist us when Seg placed his dagger at the lad’s throat. We were led past a doorway into an area of dust and cobwebs. It was a long narrow passage and every now and then thin slits let lamplight fall across the floor, so I knew it to be one of those seemingly essential items to certain palaces — the place of observation hidden behind the walls of the chambers. I have used these observation galleries many times, and no doubt will do so in the future. For some reason the minds of many rulers on the world of Kregen are obsessed with this desire for secrecy and for hidden observers ready to leap out in surprise and deal with the slightest hint of treachery or assassination. I have used these galleries many times — but not for the purpose for which they were built.

Seg tapped the lad lightly on the head when he indicated we had reached the correct loophole and I caught him in my arms and eased him silently to the dusty floor. Then Seg below and I above looked through the slit.

This was a small chamber within the Paline Bower which nestled securely beneath a wing of the palace. The first thing I noticed — before either of the women — was the chased silver dish containing a pile of palines, luscious, full-bodied, juicy, invigorating, and I licked my lips thirstily. Seg whispered: “The Queen has a dagger in her hand!” The mellow light from the samphron oil lamps shining through wafer-thin scraped-bone shades splintered back in hard-edged reflections from the jewels in the dagger hilt. A star winked and dazzled from the dagger’s point. That point hovered over Thelda’s breast.

I felt for the edges of the crack that would reveal the doorway. Seg was breathing loudly, almost gasping.

That secret chamber was furnished in casual unostentatious luxury, with ling furs upon the low couches, silks and satins scattered here and there in a riot of colors between the tumbled cushions.

“You forget that I am the Queen!”

“And you forget that I am a Lady of Vallia!”

“Vallia! I spit on your Vallia!”

“What is this miserable dung-heap called Hiclantung? My country is a great nation, united under an all-powerful emperor! The power of Vallia is like a leem compared to the puny rast-city of Hiclantung!”

“By Hlo-Hli! You will pay for this insolence!” I sighed. The girls were at it again. But poor Seg was taking it all in with a very visible distress.

Lilah wore a long scarlet gown, very tight as to the bodice, slit up the sides to reveal her long legs. Her hair and bosom and arms were smothered with gems. Much of that satanic look about her that came from the widow’s peak and her upslanting eyebrows and the shadows beneath her cheekbones was absent now as she argued and wrangled with Thelda. Thelda — poor Thelda — another man than Dray Prescot might have chuckled at her now, knowing what I knew about these two. Thelda was clad in a short and raggedy brown shift that left her thick thighs naked, that hung lopsidedly on her shoulders, sagging, and her wrists were bound behind her back with golden cords. Yet she lifted her head defiantly, and I had to admire her, despite all the ludicrous scenes that had passed between us.

“I know why you’re so much of a female cramph!” spat Thelda now, her face flushed, her eyes bright, her breast heaving like the seas of the Eye of the World after a rashoon has passed. “It’s my Dray! My Dray Prescot you covet!”

“Your Dray!”

“Yes! You know nothing of what we mean to each other. I love him and, now the Princess Majestrix is gone, he will love me! I know-”

“You know nothing, rast! What can you offer him? I am the Queen, a Queen in all her glory, Queen of a great city and a great nation-”

“Surrounded by enemies waiting to tear your heart out!”

“They may wish to — but they will never succeed. I can offer Dray Prescot everything — you-”