Masks of Scorpio (20 page)

The trick would be in finding out how to do it.

“Some people, you know, majister, really want to be slaves — well, not exactly slaves, I don’t mean grak-fodder — I mean—”

Hikdar Naghan Veerling stumbled to a halt occasioned not by my questioning look as by his suddenly apprehended inability to sort out his thoughts. He had been a staunch supporter when we’d cleared out the aragorn and the slavers from Vallia. He knew my views. So he was being honest and trying to put across a point of view sincerely held.

“I know what you mean, Naghan, even if you have it twisted up.” I didn’t laugh as we flew swiftly through thin air toward Port Marsilus. Naghan had easily been persuaded to drop me off outside the city before resuming his flight to Vallia. “Some people do seem to be born to be slaves, and cruel men and women just enslave them. But that is not the truth of their birth or inclinations. It’s simply that some folk are less able to come to terms with life and need help and support. To enslave them has been the universal answer for seasons and seasons. The correct response to their plight is sympathy and then a program of education with an ibmaster.”

“But, majister, surely you would agree that Opaz has fashioned some folk to lead and others to be led?”

“You can lead many people without making them slaves.”

He glanced up quickly from the controls.

“Do not misunderstand me. I abhor slavery for what it does not only to the slave but to the slave masters.

But I fell into the habit of debate during my time at the University of Bryvondrin. And, as I say, Opaz in his wisdom has seen fit to make some people — as you aptly put it — unable to comprehend what life can mean. They are the weak flock.”

“Quite so. The abolition of slavery in Vallia will not miraculously give these bewildered people the capacity to handle the problems of living. We’re working on that.”

The Kregan scientific and religious mind functions in ways somewhat at a tangent if you take Earth as a norm. To their philosophies, Kregan thinkers bring the concept of mind and body as twins. All that is not corporeal is of the ib. This subsumes mind, soul, spirit. Yet the divisions are more subtle than a simple division; it is realized that, for instance, when a fellow is bashed over the head and his brains gush out they are the physical home of his ib, along with residual pathways in his body. But you can be “broken from the ib” and wander as a ghost. And, again, in various parts of Kregen, entirely different philosophies struggle to understand and explain truths that — well, perhaps — mere mortal man was never meant to grasp. Perhaps...

“Look,” Naghan broke in. “Up ahead. Voller.”

Any airboat flying over Pandahem was news.

We scanned the airy reaches ahead, the clouds low to the ground spinning away beneath and reflecting back a tumultuous glory of radiance from the suns.

I caught a quick glimpse of the voller before she flickered past an upflung pinnacle of cloud.

“D’you make her out?”

“She was gone too fast.”

I frowned. “It might be—” I began.

“I always said so,” quoth Naghan Veerling, and he laughed out loud. “If one travels with Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia, one is in for adventure — without a doubt!”

“Maybe an adventure not to our liking,” I grumped.

“What Opaz wills Opaz wills.”

“That’s truth, by Vox! And any new vollers in Pandahem have to mean mischief.”

We had flown out over the sea to avoid observation on the trip from Memguin in Menaham to Port Marsilus in Bormark of Tomboram. Maybe the fellow up front had the same idea. Moments later the voller popped out of the cloud. I stared narrowly. Then: “By Zair! She’s
Golden Zhantil
!”

At once a sickening host of tormenting emotions hit me, swarmed all over me, drained me, left me shaken and haggard—

“Majister!”

“You will have to fly as you’ve never flown before, Hikdar Naghan Veerling.”

At my tone he braced up with a snap, immediately aware that the time for this adventure he craved had arrived.

“I hope, I am confident — hell, I pray! — that that voller is piloted by a lady, the Lady Ros Delphor. She is very dear to me. I would give my life for hers. If she is in danger, trouble, under duress in that flier—”

“Majister! We will rescue her — who can stand against Dray—”

“Plenty, Naghan, plenty. Now let’s go down and see what the position is.”

As we went whistling down I had time to reflect that my habitual regard for aliases and secrets, and the desire to protect Dayra’s identity, must have an odd repercussion here. Naghan might well be wondering why a puissant emperor would be willing to give his life for some unknown lady. Well, if he found out, he found out. I stared ahead as the gap narrowed with the windrush blustering past.
Golden Zhantil
leaped up to meet us.

Among the embassy guards had been three Valkan longbowmen and they’d been blazingly anxious that I should choose their best bow. Strom Ortyg had outfitted me, of course, and provided me with an armory. Any Kregan will have a plethora of weapons if he can. Each Valkan longbowman was confident that his choice weapon was the best. I did not wish to burden myself with three bows, and so I’d chosen the finest and then attempted to cheer up the other two crestfallen Valkans. Being of Valka, they naturally called me Strom and regarded me as pertaining especially to them.

Which was proper.

Now I lifted the bow and nocked a shaft. I had the usual fleeting thought of regret that Seg was not here...

“There is a slave woman at the controls, majister. That is damned odd, by Vox!”

I had to control the furious burst of anger that threatened to deluge me in scarlet hatred. I had to concentrate on the loose.

Golden Zhantil
turned below us. Her decks appeared deserted, although anyone could be below. At the controls the slim figure of a woman in slave gray was partially surrounded by four hulking great Chuliks looking up at us. Their weapons were drawn.

“Bring us in sweetly, Naghan. I’ll shaft two and then it’s handstrokes.”

“Aye!”

We plunged down.

Naghan Veerling handled his little Courier craft superbly. As we came in I leaned over the coaming and loosed twice. Each shot struck. Then I was over the side, my sword in my fist, slamming into the two remaining Chuliks.

I was quick, nasty and the result was very messy.

She said: “I am well aware of all your bad habits. This is one of your better habits. I approve.”

Then — and, by all the Names — this should have happened before, I took her in my arms and she hugged me and so for a space neither could speak.

A footfall on the deck heralded Naghan Veerling. He’d parked the Courier flier on the deck of
Golden
Zhantil
. Now he stumped up as we turned to watch him. His face was furious.

“By Vox!” he burst out. “This is terrible! What will I say? It is too much, majister! Damned unfair!”

“What...?” said Dayra.

“Why,” went on Naghan passionately, completely ignoring any conventions of meeting and of lahals, “I dare not tell a soul I went on an adventure with the emperor! They’ll ask me: ‘Wonderful, Naghan! And how did you fare?’ And I’ll damned-well
not
say that I did nothing! That it was all over before it had hardly begun! And me gawping from the back like a loon—”

The bubbling relief that Dayra was safe burst up inside me. I laughed. I, Dray Prescot, roared with merriment.

I spluttered and managed to get out: “You did well, Naghan—”

“Who is this young man who is disappointed he didn’t give a Chulik the chance to degut him, father?”

I turned and Naghan said: “Father?”

So I made the pappattu between them, and Naghan was suitably quieted down and impressed. Dayra was a princess when she wanted to be, by Krun!

Her story was soon told. After leaving Lisa the Empoin she’d returned to the flier. Nalfi was missing.

Then, as Dayra said in a resentful tone: “I made a mess of it. That bastard Strom Murgon caught me prettily, a point at my throat and nowhere to turn. He made me fly him away. Since then he’s used the voller nonstop. It is amazing how much work there is for a lone flier in this country.”

“I give thanks to Opaz you are safe, Dayra.”

“Oh, they didn’t harm me. I could fly the voller. They couldn’t. I’m on my way back from dropping a party of spies in Vallia—”

That explained why the voller was empty apart from the Chuliks set to guard her. I said: “Give Naghan all the information you can. When he reaches Vallia a party will have to pick up these spies as soon as possible.”

So that was arranged.

When Naghan was ready to leave, Dayra said: “I knew a Nath Veerling once. We were in Bryvondrin at the time—”

“My twin. He is regarded by the family rather as the zorca with the splintered horn.
[iii]
But we got along.

I have not heard from him in many seasons.”

Dayra smiled, the color in her cheeks, her eyes bright. By Zair! She’d taken her rescue mighty coolly; but I guessed what she was feeling now. She masked all that by saying: “Yes, we had some rollicking times.”

That, of course, was in Dayra’s madcap days when she and her gang of cronies went around wrecking restaurants for fun. Out of that had grown the darker evils of Zankov.

Hikdar Naghan Veerling, a Courier for Vallia, lifted away.

“Remberee, Naghan!”

“Remberee, princess, majister.”

We were left on the deck, Dayra and I, and I could feel a warming of my blood, a treacherous feeling of contentment. There was so much to do, by Krun, and yet the clouds about us seemed to me to take on a roseate tinge.

Now with Dayra safe, surely we would win through!

He brushed up his reddish whiskers under that smart foxy nose and his bright eyes appeared almost crossed, so shrewd were they.

“If we steal away the treasure again — which we could do, by Horato the Potent, which we could do!

— that misbegotten, white-haired she-witch will melt it all back.”

“Let us take the treasure, anyway; then, by the oozing sores and desiccating limbs of the Divine Lady of Belschutz, if the witch does, she does.”

Other voices lifted in passionate argument, each demanding to go down and seize Strom Murgon’s treasure and let that damned frizzle-haired witch try to do her worst.

We were all sitting or lounging in the main saloon of the voller
Golden Zhantil
. After that beautiful reunion with Dayra, I had, instead of going on to Port Marsilus, flown to seek out Pompino and our comrades, finding them marching not particularly happily down the trails to reach civilization. They were overjoyed to see Dayra and me — and, I truly think, far more in
Golden Zhantil
. These Pandaheem were very rapidly acquiring the taste for flying.

As I saw it, this particular situation was both comical and alarming.

I had to prevent that army sailing to Vallia. We had already taken the army’s treasury, and that damned witch had retaken it. If we just swingled in again to repeat the process, would the lady-necromancer not do the same?

When we had chance for a private conversation, Pompino, with natural quick eagerness, wanted to know what the hell had happened to me when the Everoinye snatched me away.

“They left me behind, Jak. Ignored me. They chose you—”

“Only because I was there and you had gone back to the campfires. If I had gone, you would have been chosen.”

“You think so?”

“I’m certain sure.”

“Hmph,” he sniffed. “Well, and what happened?”

A considerable degree of caution had to be employed in my recital. He’d be vastly energized to discover just how I’d inveigled a party of soldiers from the Vallian Embassy to assist me. So, I confess, it seemed like boasting when I ran it all together and rescued Carrie and burned the Lemmite temple all in one coup de main. One day, I supposed unhappily, Pompino would have to know I was this puissant and frustrated Emperor of Vallia. Then he’d change. Then I might lose a comrade.

Pompino possessed this exaggerated respect for the Star Lords that would, inevitably, spill over into his dealings with emperors and kings. Even so, even so, he was well up to liberating an emperor’s property if the chance came...

“We will have to find another way of stopping the army,” I said to Dayra when we, in our turn, had the chance for further private conversation. “Pompino and the lads would go for the treasure again; but that, I am convinced, would be merely a waste of time. And they would think twice — even those hairy rascals

— of taking on the entire army to strike at supporters of Lem the Silver Leem. It’s not so much a puzzle of what must quite clearly be done—”

“That’s obvious, father.”

“Quite so. But the doing of it will upset a number of people.” I looked at my daughter. “It will not please me, Ros Delphor, and can you understand that?”

“You are just an old romantic.”

“True.”

“Although I wonder which will displease you most; the cause or the effect?”

“The cause will be objects, the effects people.”

“And in this wicked world that does not answer the question!”

And, by Zair, she was right.

“We will have to contrive some excuse to get the lads off the voller. All of them, without exception, have no reason to prevent an attack on Vallia.” I sounded sad and tired even in my own ears. “On the contrary. Despite all we in Vallia have done to create friendships with them here in Pandahem, they’ll approve of an attack on us.”

“Even Pompino?”

“Of course. He’s a good Pandaheem, from the South, maybe, like most of them. But I’ll wager young Pando would rejoice to go and swing a sword in our land. Despite all.”

“Then,” she said, and her lovely mouth tightened into a resolute bar. “They must be taught differently.”

I did not reply to that. Dayra was still very much of an enigma to me, to my sorrow. Any sensible father takes an intense interest in all the doings of his daughters; but he does not pry. He worries his guts out over them; but they go their own way. I was not fool enough to make a stupid blunt inquiry as to Dayra’s feelings for Pando. I had the strongest hunch that that young man would not measure up to what Dayra fancied she wanted, and I also felt even more strongly that Dayra would remain free from emotional entanglements for some considerable time. She wouldn’t even think of marrying yet; she might never marry.