The Tides of Kregen (12 page)

Dealing with the religious beliefs of Kregen, it was in the pure and life-enhancing teachings of Opaz, the embodiment of the Invisible Twins, that I wished my family to be brought up. But nowhere else could the skill, the powers, the self-control, the mystic self-knowledge of the Krozairs be found than here, in the Eye of the World. To be a Krzy is a great and precious gift.

Then a twitch afflicted my grim old lips. Among all this high-level occupation of my brain the tickling thought emerged that I would see friends here who would bring me down to earth — or Kregen — with a bump.

I would again see Nath and Zolta, my two favorite rascals, my two oar comrades. By Zair! We’d roister all night in Sanurkazz! We’d have the fat and jolly mobiles falling over their feet as they tried to arrest us, dancing through the streets, a flagon of drink in one hand and a pretty tavern wench in the other! What a fool I had been not to return here sooner!

And there would be Pur Zenkiren to see, that upright, grim, but scrupulously fair Krozair who had been a good friend to me and who must by now be the Grand Archbold of the Krozairs of Zy, for Pur Zazz, who had then held that exalted post, had clearly almost run his long life on Kregen when I had last spoken with him.

Then, too, there was Mayfwy. All my pleasant thoughts of anticipation clouded as I remembered with great affection and pride my oar comrade Zorg of Felteraz. He had died under the lashes of the whip-deldars of Magdag. His widow Mayfwy, her son Zorg and daughter Fwymay had made Nath and Zolta and myself very welcome at the estate of Felteraz. Yes, I would like to see Mayfwy again. So there were many places and people I must visit. But first I must assure myself that Delia was safe. To look back was agony. Twenty-one infernal years!

Because people of Kregen live to two hundred years or so, once they reach maturity they change only slowly. I held a vision of my Delia in my brain that could not have altered in any great particular. Our thousand-year promise of life meant a great deal to me, quite apart from the obvious, for twenty-one years’ separation on Earth would destroy in time’s remorseless flow the joys we knew. How I hated the Star Lords when I allowed myself to brood on their high-handed usage of me!

That, along with all the rest of the unprofitable pining, had to be thrust aside. I would go on in my old way. I knew what I was about. If Zair was with me — and Opaz and Djan too, to be sure — I must succeed.

I am cruel to Mayfwy of Felteraz

Brilliant, glittering, filled with color, the waters of the Eye of the World rolled before me. The twin Suns of Scorpio hung in the western sky, drenching the world in color and radiance. The air smelled sweet, sweet with the fragrance of Kregen. Below, the tended fields passed in neat checkerboards of cultivation. Here there could be habitation close to the shore of the inner sea, for ahead the massive frowning fortress guarding the careless city of Sanurkazz offered sure protection. As I looked ahead over the windshield, I saw that smaller but no less dominating fortress of Felteraz rise into view. Felteraz, with its lush estates and its town and its fortress, was built into the sheer rock over the sea. Memories of the view from the high terrace there swam into my mind. How alike and yet how vastly different was the view in Felteraz from that dizzy prospect over the Bay and Valkanium from Esser Rarioch! Yet I loved this place. As my course took me over the gray battlements with their freight of banners, a sudden shaft of cunning pierced me through so that I trembled with my own deceit and struck the levers that sent the voller swirling down through the bright air. There was no impediment to an aerial landing in the lands of the inner sea, for they knew nothing in their daily lives of aerial armadas and saddle flyers. The cities of the hostile territories were festooned with anti-flyer defenses. I was able to make a swooping landing, still the voller, and step out onto a broad platform just below the highest terrace. People came running, astonished at the apparition of a man falling from heaven. I dare say many of them took the commonsense view that I was a visitor from Zim. Bronzed faces surrounded me. I saw again the mesh link mail of the men of Zair, the white surcoats blazing with a device I knew. That symbol, stitched in red and gold, with a lenk-leaf border, represented a pair of galley oars, crossed, divided upright by a longsword. Oh, yes, I knew that symbol. Hadn’t I proudly worn it myself as a Krozair captain of a swifter of the Eye of the World, that device of Felteraz?

I knew none of the faces.

A longsword’s point hovered a knuckle before my breastbone.

"Your name and your business, dom."

"My name is Dray Prescot. My business is with the Lady Mayfwy of Felteraz." Only after I had spoken did it occur to me that Mayfwy might be dead, another here in her place as chatelaine of Felteraz.

The few murs of hesitation before the guard Hikdar spoke caused me great uneasiness, which vanished in a flood of relief as he said: "The Lady Mayfwy is at home. I think I have heard of you, Jernu,[3]from my father."

He looked at me doubtfully and did not lower the longsword. I would have faulted him in his duties had he done so. And from his father! Well, it had been a half-century by Earthly reckoning since I had been here last. I do not smile easily, as you know, so I looked at him and said, "Probably, Hikdar. If you will inform the Lady Mayfwy—"

"At once, Jernu."

He dispatched a swod of the guard and remained on the alert, watching me. The ring of people, joined now by women and girls, kept respectfully back and none offered to go anywhere near the voller. That was a marvel. I saw a movement in the pressing ring of people, in the direction opposite that taken by the guard swod, and I looked, seeing men and women moving quickly aside. A woman stepped out before them, holding a long silver wand in her hand with which she had no need to touch anyone who lagged in moving. I did not know her. I stared at the girl — the woman — who followed through the opened path. She did not look quite the same. There was about her sweet face a graver air, a shadowed resignation to life that greatly pained me. In all else, though, she was the same lively, spritely, elfin girl who had first welcomed Zolta and Nath and me as we drove rattling up in our ass cart. Her dark, curly hair gleamed in the slanting rays of the suns, her pert nose uptilted and that small, soft sensuous mouth trembled and opened on a gasp. Her eyes widened and fastened on me a look that thrilled me through, a look compounded of pain and gladness, of joy and abiding sorrow.

With not the slightest holding back, with not a heartbeat of hesitation, she ran forward, lifting her arms.

"Dray! Oh, Dray! You have come back!"

And then she was in my arms and clasping me close and I looked over her shoulder with the scent of her in my nostrils and I felt the weight of Kregen crush in on me and knew myself for the most evil of devils imaginable — as I truly was.

She would not cry. Even with the emotions filling her she would not break down before her people. She stood back and held my hands and looked at me. I saw the brightness of her eyes, the tremble of that soft mouth.

"You have not changed, my Lord of Strombor!"

"And you," I said. "Mayfwy, you are the same dear Mayfwy."

"Oh, no. No, I know better than that." She glanced at the robed woman with the wand. "We will go to the terrace, Sheena, and be alone. Bring refreshments, Zond wine, for Pur Dray, the Lord of Strombor."

"At once, my lady."

And so there we were, Mayfwy and I, alone on the terrace as the sulking suns painted opaline radiance in the air and drowned the cliff face in color. I saw and I ached. How long it had been, how foolish I was! Fifty years — and then some of the iron returned, for twenty-one of those damned years had been wrenched away from my power by the Everoinye. Mayfwy took up a goblet of wine, laughing, handing it to me, and yet I saw the deep pain in her eyes. I gravely drank to her.

"Dray, there is so much to tell."

"Aye, so much."

"But first there is news that will gladden your heart . . . strange news to come from us here . . ." So I knew.

"Delia! She has visited here? You have seen her?"

A shadow nicked across Mayfwy’s elfin face and passed, then she lifted her chin proudly and smiled.

"Yes. Delia has been here. She sought you."

I looked at her. My relief was obvious, for Mayfwy went on: "Yes, she crossed the Stratemsk in safety. There was a beast, a horrific beast, with her, that I swear would tear a leem to pieces. My men were uneasy until your Delia reassured them."

"Melow the Supple."

"That was the name."

"She will not harm you, Mayfwy. But tell me of Delia!"

How cruel that was, those words of mine, my whole demeanor, to this girl!

"You treat women harshly, my Lord of Strombor." She paused and lifted her goblet. Its ruby decoration in chains around the gold caught the light and blazed blood-red. "You say you love them and you leave them, for seasons on end. And should I call you Prince Majister now? Or even King?"

"You call me Dray Prescot, as you always have. It is not of my will that I left Delia — or you — without saying remberee. There are dark and evil forces in my life — but enough of this. Is Delia well? Did she speak of the children? Where did she go? Tell me, Mayfwy, for the sake of my dear friend and oar comrade, Zorg."

"Zorg." She drank then, and it was a benediction. "She is well and she says the children are well, although wild — well, we all know how wild our children are."

"Forgive me," I said quickly — me, that Dray Prescot who never apologized except to Delia. "Young Zorg and Fwymay. They are well?"

"Yes. They are well. Zorg is now a Krozair of Zy, which is as it should be, I suppose. He captains a swifter. He has much of his start to thank you for, Dray."

"Nonsense! A lad like that will forge his own way on Kregen." She looked at me oddly. Well, not so long ago I had been standing in a Parisian hospital with the Prussian guns thundering and Kregen was four hundred light-years away. So I said: "The Zairians will always need men like young Zorg. And Fwymay?"

"She has made me a grandmother twice, the minx. She married Zarga na Rozilloi, who is a Krozair Brother, and a very pleasant young man."

I knew that this Zarga na Rozilloi must be of importance to warrant the
na
as his connective term, but he was not a Krzy. Had he been, Mayfwy would have said.

"He is a Krozair of Zimuzz." She was looking at me.

"A fine order," I said. But we both knew there was no other order as fine as the Krozairs of Zy. Now the suns were almost gone. The purple shadows dropped across the terrace. Soon the Twins would be up, eternally revolving one about the other, to cast their mingled pinkish light down on Kregen. We moved into the inner room where we had often sat and talked and listened to the music provided by the citadel singers. The room looked just the same, except that a full-length portrait of a splendid-looking man had been added to the other portraits. This must be Zarga, for he wore the symbols of the Krozairs of Zimuzz. I ignored this new son-in-law and walked across, planted my feet on the thick rug and stood firmly looking up at the portrait of Zorg of Felteraz. Mayfwy moved silently away and left me. I looked at this painting of Zorg and I remembered, I remembered the warrens of Magdag and the rowing benches of the Magdaggian swifters, with Zolta and Nath, and I remembered our shared agonies and perils, the onions we had divided up, the lashes we had taken and, finally, Zorg’s death, there in the stench and filth of a Magdaggian swifter. I remembered. And when I turned back to Mayfwy she put a hand to her mouth and did not speak for a moment. I suppose a great deal of what I felt showed on that ugly old face of mine.

Then, as though what she said had been jolted out of her by this reunion, by my abstraction, she said: "I used to hope I could place your portrait there, my Lord of Strombor." I shook my head.

Then she cried.

Afterward I gave her another cup of wine and wiped her eyes with a clean cloth — she wore no makeup and had need of none — and said: "I must press on to find Delia. You know that. It is a fate I cannot — would not — deny. Until I know she is safe I cannot rest."

"I do understand. But please forgive me for saying . . . and for crying." She tossed her head back so that the clustered dark curls glistened in the samphron-oil lamp’s gleam. "What young Zorg would say I do not know. No Krozair’s mother cries!"

"I do not believe that. And Zorg, if he is a true Krozair as I know him to be, does not believe it either."

"If only he would get himself married and have children, they would be a comfort to me here." There was more talk after that, and a fine meal which I knew had been especially prepared for me, and more wine — that smooth splendid Zond wine that Nath was so fond of — and Chremson if a difference in the tickle of the palate was needed. But Mayfwy could see the impatience burning in me. Truth to tell, I felt that Delia would understand when I told her that I had broken my journey to see Mayfwy, more so now that these two had met. How I had both welcomed and dreaded that encounter, for I desperately wished for them to be friends. But sober reality would seem to indicate the opposite. I would have to see what my Delia had to say.

I stood up.

Mayfwy rose, lithe as a neemu, her gaze wide on me, a hand to her breast. She wore what I remembered as being her favorite costume, a sheer gown of shimmering silk, white, simple, deeply cut, fastened at her shoulders by golden pins encrusted with rubies. They must be the same fibulae. They would be the same when we were all rotting in our graves or shivering in the Ice Floes of Sicce.

"You must go? So soon?"

"When I find my Delia we will return, Mayfwy. I shall not again be such an onker. Do you forgive me?" As I said the word that must have cut her, that simple "my" Delia, I cursed myself again. It seemed I could bring nothing but pain into the life of this girl. And girl she seemed to me still, despite all the lonely length of time she had lived, for she kept up her appearance out of her pride in being the widow of Zorg of Felteraz, a Krozair of Zy.