Omens of Kregen (21 page)

Chapter twenty

The Scorpion of the Star Lords

The echoes of that shout rang and rustled and so died in the chamber.

Csitra did not move. I fancied those slit eyes of jade slid to regard me. Well, by Zim-Zair! She could hardly miss me, could she, stuck out as I was like a sore thumb before the remnants of the expedition.

What my comrades at my back were doing I didn’t know; I just hoped they’d let me get on with it. Now I had to concentrate every ounce of my willpower to confront this stupendously powerful woman. If she willed, she could whiff me and all of us away in a single casual gesture of those slender white fingers, ring bedecked. At least, I supposed so.

At last she spoke, breathily, on a gasp. “I do not think I really believed you, my love.”

Those last two words made me cringe.

“But you are here.” Her voice grew in strength. “You did come to see me as you promised.”

“Certainly,” I said.

“But why like this? You might have been killed, for I did not know. Oh, my heart, if one of my clever traps had... I cannot speak it. You must come up here at once, I will send...” She was fluttering like a teenager going to her first real grown-up dance. “You are here! You have come to visit me in the Coup Blag! That surely must mean—”

“Mother.” The whispering fragile voice penetrated with utter clarity into the hall and with utter horror. “It means he is here to be slain, surely?”

The green curtains over the side balcony parted. The first thing I heard sent a shudder of remembered revulsion through me. The tiny golden bells, tinkling and tintinnabulating around the palanquin, heralded the arrival of Phu-Si-Yantong, as now it heralded the presence of his brat, the uhu Phunik. The Wizard of Loh’s procession came into view on the balcony.

All sliding cloth of gold curtains, massive bull-horned Womoxes to carry the chair, chained and beaten Chail Sheom half-naked yet draped with pearls, obscene beasts hardly of Kregen, a retinue of damned Katakis as evil a bunch of slavers and slavemasters as you’d hope not to meet, guards of fantastic and eerie appearance — yes, the child of Phu-Si-Yantong and Csitra could put on a show. As for the uhu, only a glimpse of a dark shadow against the red-gold and purple-black, the tilt of a small imperious head, furtive, furtive...

“That’s a pity,” came Seg’s cheerful voice over my shoulder. “And, my old dom, you were getting on so well with your light o’ love.”

“You wait,” I said, without turning. “I think we must try a few falls for a remark like that.”

“Absolutely. I’ll wait. Shall I shaft the little horror?”

“You can try. I doubt—”

“Aye, you’re right. Damned magic.”

This pleasant byplay took heartbeats only, and Phunik’s hateful voice whispered on. “You cannot be serious, mother, surely? For this man is dangerous and must die.”

“No!” Csitra’s gasp slapped like an open palm against a fleshy cheek. “He belongs to me!”

Now Phunik proved him, her or itself a true child to Phu-Si-Yantong. The voice scratched now like a nail against glass.

“Very well, mother, as the Seven Arcades witness the compact. You are no longer to be trusted to carry on my father’s work. I shall dispose of this offal here and then you, too, must join the man, if that is your desire.”

Phunik gave Csitra no time to reply. A shaft of pure white light sprang from the palanquin.

The light splashed against the floor ten feet from us, and the floor boiled and burned and melted. The sound of the uhu’s laugh of pleasure was unmitigated evil. The next blast would do for us.

The corpse of San Aramplo stirred. He sat up. The Khibil’s whiskers were as red as ever; but his face was the color of lead and green cheese, glistening, blank, shrunken. The eyes opened. His hand lifted, pointed.

“Die!” screeched Phunik and unleashed his power and between the uhu and the dead Khibil grew a shining disc of radiance, spinning, spitting off sparks of power, hissing with malefic energy.

Phunik strove. The uhu must have realized what went forward here. The Khibil was dead, yet he stood up and opened his eyes and raised his hand and poured forth occult power!

Between the two sorcerers, one in his palanquin and the other dead, grew the famed and feared Quern of Gramarye. Fed by the combined forces in opposition, the radiant disc of raw energy moved. Slowly at first, and then with more assured power, it surged through the air toward the balcony and the palanquin and Phunik.

How many, I wondered, how many of my three comrades were using their kharrna thus to afford us protection? Deb-Lu with his funny toppling turban, Khe-Hi with his smart alec manner, and Ling-Li with all the secrets of a Witch of Loh — yes, the three of them should have no problem in dealing with the uhu Phunik even if he was the son of Phu-Si-Yantong and possessed of great Kharrna.

The whispering fragile voice screeched.

“Mother! Help me!”

Khe-Hi and Deb-Lu between them had struggled with and overcome Phu-Si-Yantong away in the arena of the Jikhorkdun in Ruathytu, capital of Hamal. He’d had Csitra to help him at a distance; he had failed and the Quern of Gramarye had smashed his evil genius into some other and occult realm of death.

Phunik knew only too well how his father had died.

“Mother!” The screech was frantic. “
Help me!
”

“Remember Phunik’s promise to you, Csitra!” I bellowed up.

“Phunik is my child—”

“The child of Phu-Si-Yantong and sworn now to slay you, woman!”

“
Mother!
”

San Aramplo’s corpse jaws clacked open.

The voice was that of Deb-Lu-Quienyin.

“Your assistance would be useless, Csitra. The child should never have been born, as you well know. The Seven Arcades are not to be insulted or deceived.”

The rampaging circle of liquid light roared on and over the balcony and, just at the end, it constricted and contracted and lanced like a single battering ram shaft of pure radiance, whisked the palanquin away to nothingness.

San Aramplo said: “We knew you would help the uhu, Csitra; misbegotten child or not, Phunik was yours. Do not mourn him or feel your help might have made any difference. The child was doomed from the moment of its conception.”

The Khibil sorcerer collapsed, returning whence he had come, gone again to join his predecessors in the Thaumaturges of Thagramond.

“Do I believe all this?” demanded Nath the Impenitent. He glared balefully at the gibbering horde of malformed creatures under the balcony.

A shrilling vibrated the air. My eardrums pained. With the disappearance of Phunik many of the more obscene and grotesque creatures in his retinue also vanished. The Katakis glared about stupidly, their bladed tails circling dangerously above their heads. The Chail Sheom were wailing and carrying on. The Womoxes just ran away, bellowing.

The roof of that stupendous chamber split.

The floor cracked across the flames and foul-smelling fumes boiled up. Smoke black and choking began to fill the hall.

Nath the Impenitent turned to me, his face a sweating mask, and said, “Dray! Phunik’s handiwork is collapsing. You must all get out at once! Run!”

Seg rapped out: “Deb-Lu knows what he’s talking about. Come on, my old dom! Sprint!”

“Aye! Up there — see through the crack in the roof — the Suns!”

A whole section of wall smashed down, bringing the adjacent roof with it. Columns were toppling and spilling their drums across the floor. Like madmen we all started to clamber up the rubble to freedom. A Chulik was struck by a dislodged capital and fell, blood streaming from that shaven head. I grabbed his arm and hauled him on, and Nath seized his other arm and together we scrabbled somehow up the slope of detritus.

The gratitude with which I saw that emerald and ruby radiance pouring through the ruined roof shook me with its violence. To breathe fresh air! To walk in the light of the Suns of Scorpio! To get out of this vile place!

I cast a look back. The hall continued to disintegrate although the thrilling vibration slackened and died. My ears still sang with the reverberations. Yet the balcony whereon Csitra sat enthroned in so much sumptuous glory remained intact. Some parts of the Coup Blag had been fashioned by her. The maze still existed and only those portions designed by Phunik would be destroyed.

The Impenitent had my harness slung over his shoulder and now he said: “You’d best put this on, Jak. Scabbard that damned great bar of iron.”

“Yes,” I said. “My thanks, Nath.”

I took my gear without looking at Nath. She continued to stare up at me, those slits of jade startling in the pallor of her face. Around her existed the faintest haze, and I guessed she had encased herself and her throne and retainers in a Caul of Protection.

What was she thinking?

Her power had been seriously weakened. No longer could she call on the kharrna of her child to reinforce her own.

Was she still suffering under the passion for me that had so deluded her crazed mind? Or would she now hate and loathe me because her child was gone?

Balancing on the broken shards of the hall, I swung the wounded Chulik around into the path of another.

“Take care of your comrade, Chulik!” I snarled at him, and he grasped the wounded man and went scrabbling on up the slope of rubble toward the light of the suns.

“Go on! Go on!” I yelled. I motioned to Nath and Seg, savage, intemperate, not to be disobeyed. Seg wanted to come down. I said, “This I must do, Seg.”

“Don’t be long. That’s all. Or I’ll be back.”

Good old Seg! So, in the end, I was left alone on that smoking pile of rubble staring down on Csitra as the Witch of Loh gazed somberly up at me.

And, in that fraught moment, as I truly believe, I did feel sorry for her.

She had been led into paths of wickedness by Phu-Si-Yantong and, no doubt, by her own willful passions. The devil had tempted her and she had succumbed. Yet, now, her husband was dead and her child was dead. I did not know if she had other children. Her dreams had vanished. She was alone.

A slithering slide of rubble smashed into the marble pavement off to the side. I ignored the disturbance. Still she stared up, and I swear the brilliance flamed from those slits of luminous emerald eyes. If she put forth her kharrna now and blasted me on the spot... But she must have recognized the futility of that. She must have known that she could not hope to defeat three mages who would instantly hurl their kharrna through me to smash the coruscating Quern of Gramarye upon her.

With a grating metallic sound the green curtains began to close over the throne and its sumptuousness and upon Csitra, the Witch of Loh.

Just before the curtains closed to blot her from view, I heard her through all the uproar of a collapsing palace hall call out to me.

“Despite all, Dray Prescot, I do not yield my claim on you. That, I will never give up!”

She was gone, the green curtains shivering together.

A prodigious crash from the hall as though the bottom of the world had caved in at last drew my attention to what was going on out there. Smoke and dust obscured the air. Columns fell like ninepins. Kov Loriman still knelt by the body of the Lady Hebe and as I caught a distorted glimpse of him through the smoke the floor in front of him parted as though sliced by a knife. A fault line, sharp and distinct, opened and the marble floor dropped away. The Lady Hebe vanished into the depths and Loriman was left kneeling on the lip of the chasm.

He extended both arms as though in prayer.

Although the deed would not be in the character of the man, had he leaped into the gulf after the lady, I would not have been surprised.

Leaping fallen heaps of masonry, I reached him. He stood up with the stiff motions of old age. Now was no time to take chances. I had plans for this man, vast plans, and if he balked me by killing himself off, I would be mightily displeased.

So I hit him flush on the jaw and seized him and so slung him over my shoulder.

Noxious fumes boiled from the chasm that had swallowed the Lady Hebe. The balcony where Csitra sat enthroned might be the only portion of this hall created by her; all the rest, being Phunik’s, was disintegrating. Hefting Loriman like a sack of potatoes, I scrambled over the rubble, feeling the floor lurching, started for the slope which led to freedom and the light of the suns.

Chunks of masonry and brick from the collapsing ceiling still rained down. Tiles skated like bats. Statues did not come to life — nothing unusual for Kregen if they had — but tottered and fell. Seg appeared at the top of the rubble slope, saw me, and started down.

Like a squall of sleeting hailstones a curtain of stones slashed down between us.

Seg’s yell just reached me. “Leave him!”

“Stand fast! I can make it!”

The rubble began to slide away from under my feet. My legs pumped, and stones, bricks, broken tiles and flat chunks of plaster seethed away, sending up choking clouds of dust.

A scorpion appeared and stood on a smashed capital and waved his feelers at me. His arrogant sting curved up over his back. He spoke to me, words that drilled through the bedlam of a collapsing palace.

“You must put him down, Dray Prescot, Prince of Onkers. You must save yourself for the work the Star Lords demand.”

“And this man is a part of that work, scorpion, onker yourself!”

“You must do as you are commanded.”

A damned great chunk of brick came from somewhere and hit me glancingly on the shoulder. Could Csitra be hurling these brickbats at me in an occult temper?

I started off, clutching Loriman, scrabbling and heaving up the rubble.

The agile figure of Seg showed ahead as I glanced up, scrambling down to me.

Another bulky shape sprang into view abaft Seg and started down. Nath the Impenitent might hate and detest the lords he’d known in life; he found Seg and me of different mettle.

Even if a magical palace fell down about my ears, I, Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, wasn’t going to be beaten by a damned heap of rubble.

The blue radiance swept in fast and sharp, bloating into the phantom form of the giant Scorpion. Coldness washed me, I was swept up and away, head over heels into a limbo of nothingness.