Witches of Kregen (20 page)

The black walls rose about me instantly. The colors cleared. Millions of luminous motes danced away to my left, receding into infinity. Along the opposite wall three pictures, framed in heavy silver, showed views of Kregen. I had seen those pictures before and guessed that movements had taken place in the world, perhaps movements that would shatter empires.

A spindle-legged table stood in the room. Upon the table rested a costly golden goblet.

I stared and then I laughed, I, Dray Prescot, in those superhuman and awesome surroundings, laughed.

“You do not waste much on hospitality, Star Lords!”

For that goblet belonged to the Emperor Nedfar of Hamal. I had toasted him in best Jholaix and then the Everoinye had brought me here, and I’d drained the cup and placed it on the mushroom-shaped table. And it was still here. I crossed to the table, ready to make some scornful remark, and looked down and — loh! the goblet was filled to the brim with best Jholaix.

The voice whispered in, sounding in my ears and in my head.

“Things are not as they were, Dray Prescot.”

First things first...

“The Shanks—?”

“Look!”

The oval silver-framed picture that showed the familiar outlines of the continental grouping known as Paz swirled and appeared to radiate outward. I felt that odd sensation as of falling into the picture. The focus swept up to the northeast, past the enormous continent of Segesthes, up to the large island of Mehzta.

From Mehzta came my comrade Gloag, who was not apim, and who ran Strombor for me in the city of Zenicce. Now his homeland ran with fire and blood.

“The devils...”

The Shanks, fish-headed, quick, tridents gleaming, ravaged the island of Mehzta. Men fought back.

“They will conquer Mehzta; but the task will take them a few seasons yet.”

“How—?”

“Questions are not to be answered by us, Dray Prescot, as you know.”

“Aye! I know!” I shouted back into the echoing emptiness. “But if things have changed, then why not tell me so that I can aid the fight against the Shanks? Surely—”

“The fight against the Shanks is only one of our concerns. Kregen is not the whole.”

Unknowable, the Star Lords, as I thought then; but in the words, through the lethargy and tired despair, could I detect that note of humor, as of the last bubble in a forgotten glass of champagne?

The voice whispered, “Let us ask you a question, Dray Prescot, and will your overweening pride afford you the answer?”

“What pride? I own to no pride — as you damn well know—”

“Why do you think, Emperor of Vallia, that we permitted you for so long to go about your affairs? You will soon reunite Vallia. You will deal with the Witch of Loh, Csitra. You
must
unite all of Paz. Why, Dray Prescot, do you imagine we have chosen you when for so long you were just a stupid onker, a get onker, an onker of onkers? Well, tell us.”

I didn’t know.

I’d been whisked up to Kregen by the Savanti and by my own intense longings. Then the Star Lords had taken me over to run their errands for them and do their dirty work. I’d resisted as best I could. I suspected the Everoinye were not only growing old, as they’d told me, and tired; I felt they were failing seriously in performing what they wanted to do on Kregen — and elsewhere. I own to being a rogue and a rascal, a paktun, a leem-hunter; that I was also an emperor of this and king of that and kov of somewhere else was beside the point. I was a plain sailorman, a fighting man, a warrior — could I be more to the Everoinye than merely a strong sword arm?

“Well,” I said. “Perhaps because I get things done.”

“After a fashion.”

Again — that champagne bubble of tired amusement?

Then the acrid voice of Ahrinye broke in, fiercely, so far different from the husky whisperings of the other Star Lords.

“The man has the power, the yrium — then let us use him to the full! Why delay—?”

This squabble among the Star Lords affected me deeply. If Ahrinye won this argument I could say good-bye to liberty and more probably than not to life.

“Because he has the charisma,” the whispering voice said without hint of impatience. “He can unite Paz.”

“Well, you bunch of onkers!” I bellowed up, so scared my throat hurt. “Isn’t that what I started off to do long before you ever suggested it?”

Silence.

Then: “So you believe you created the thought yourself?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

A voice that perhaps by the thickness of a butterfly’s wing was different from the first husked out: “The man believes he speaks the truth. There is merit in his belief.” He sounded as though he might be a million years or so younger than the first. Still, what was a mere million years of age to superhuman beings like these?

“I’ll unite Paz,” I said, “given half a chance. That sounds willfully boastful in my ears. The task is bedeviled by what I sorrowfully imagine is Savanti-inspired animosity by apims toward diffs—”

“They have their beliefs, which we have failed to alter.”

By this time I’d found a weird acceptance of the way the aloof and dispassionate Star Lords were prepared to talk with me. Not just to talk to me. We weren’t bandying words; but I felt I might open up a few other locked doors while the opportunity presented itself.

“Tell me,” I said. “What of Zena Iztar in all this?”

Ahrinye’s hateful voice burst out. “She is a mere woman who has everything backwards, as is normal among them, and refuses to understand and learn—”

Despite its apparent weakness, the whispering voice had no difficulty cutting in and blotting out Ahrinye’s spiteful tirade.

“Zena Iztar has not grown up, Dray Prescot. She is as once we were. She believes she has a mission and she will do all in her not inconsiderable powers to further her ends.”

Well, now!

“What is her mission?”

“Onker!”

Well, I suppose the question was foolish not on the grounds of the Everoinye’s refusal to answer questions — they’d been forthright enough now, by Zair! — but on the grounds of Zena Iztar’s actions. Yes, her mission was obvious enough in all seeming; I just wondered if that was all there was to it.

I said, “Zena Iztar commands my loyalty—”

“We are aware of that. Where there is no conflict it is of no concern to us.”

“The Kroveres of Iztar, I believe, will materially assist in the ideal of uniting the people of Paz.”

“That is why it still exists.”

I felt the chill.

By Krun! Was there really no limit to the power of the Everoinye? Or were they failing? Either way, I was in for a damned hard time.

Often and often I’d pondered the question of the questions. Wherever I happened to be on Kregen — in the thick of a bustling city, out under the stars at night, prowling through some unhealthy jungle — the tantalizing thoughts would flood in to mock and bedevil me. Why, I’d ask myself the question, why don’t I just damn well ask the Everoinye the questions? Then some flashing slice of action would occur and I’d be far too busy swinging a sword, or double-dealing villains in chicanery, or — as recently — climbing up some horrendous crag on a damn-fool errand. All questions outside those demanding immediate answers for survival went out of the window then, and sharpish, too, by Krun.

And, as so often happened before, just as it was now, I’d ask questions of the Star Lords and they’d come back in their aloof way that such concepts were beyond my understanding, competence and business. Except for this time. Except that now they had deigned to give me some direct answers.

Of course, I reasoned, some of my sheer scared witlessness leaving me, I could only be paddling around in the shallows of the secrets they kept.

I licked my lips, and then out of braggadocio or simply because my throat was dry I picked up Nedfar’s golden goblet and took a good swig of the superb Jholaix.

I swiped the back of my hand across my mouth.

“By Mother Zinzu the Blessed!” I said. “I needed that!”

Ahrinye’s acrid voice lashed in, dripping venom.

“You are a kregoinye and you are in the presence of the Everoinye! Show more respect. You are not in some stinking tavern where you might meet Zena Iztar in Sanurkazz.”

Respect! Since when had I ever shown respect for the Star Lords? And I was a kregoinye, one who worked for the Star Lords, willy-nilly. But! But I’d learned a little more about them from that single outburst.

Ahrinye was probably a good few million years younger than the others, and he still hadn’t learned the value of deviousness in dealings. The Everoinye could see that Zena Iztar by giving her patronage to the secret Order of Kroveres of Iztar would substantially assist me to do the Star Lords’ bidding. Zair preserve me from that unpleasantly impetuous Star Lord!

Further to needle them, I said, “When do we expect the main onslaught from the Shanks to arrive?”

I’d seen that enormous armada of Shank ships sailing across the ocean. That force would demand a very great deal of effort and dedication to defeat.

“Mehzta will detain them for a few seasons yet, Dray Prescot. You still have time to carry out our designs. Vallia must not obsess you.” Then, they gave me another little jolt of surprise. “Your dealings in Hamal met with our approval. Continue thus.”

I was sensible enough to say nothing in reply.

After a space of what might have been uncomfortable silence, I said: “This will take time.”

“If necessary, we will manufacture time.”

They could, as I knew.

“But we must insist that this occurs only as a last resort. We have no need of explaining to you; just believe.”

“Oh, I believe all right.”

And, almost, like the veritable onker I was, I added, “You’re growing too old and past it.” But I held my tongue.

That they could read another person’s thoughts I knew, for I’d had the trick performed for me on my comrades. They passed no comment. They told me again what they required, that Paz unite to stand against the Shanks, which I knew, and I tried them with more pertinent questions which were ignored.

The way I saw it then was that the Star Lords recognized I possessed the yrium, thatis the special Kregan form of charisma which blesses or curses its owner with the capacity to lead other people, to influence them, to create bonds of loyalty unbroken by death.

Fretfully, I said: “And Mehzta? Is there nothing to be done?”

The soft voice said, “A kregoinye has been dispatched.”

Soho, I said to myself. I just hoped they hadn’t sent my comrade Pompino the Iarvin. He was supposed to be bringing us saddle animals from South Pandahem.

When I asked I was brushed aside. Still, with this new rapport between us, I fancied the Star Lords would have given me a better answer had Pompino really been the kregoinye dispatched off to Mehzta to help repel the Shanks.

A new voice which was by a double-thickness of a butterfly’s wing different from the others, spoke up. That voice spoke in what were urgent tones for the Star Lords.

“An emergency — end location — running...”

The center picture on the wall, which usually showed the oceans of Kregen between our group of continents and islands of Paz and the other grouping called Schan on the other side of the planet, cleared. Mist formed and coiled, and then in an odd perspective I was looking at an angle at a flight of wide marble steps leading up to an imposing palace.

No sound issued; but one did not need sound to wince at the soggy blows being struck by the knobbly cudgels of the ruffians belaboring a man in a black coat and trousers.

Another man wearing a tall black cylindrical hat and black coat ran up. Moonlight washed the scene. This second man lifted an ebony cane with silver bands. He muffed it.

He tried to hit the ruffians in their nondescript coats and flat hats, and sending the first one reeling back down the steps, he was instantly set on by three others and fell beneath the rain of blows.

One of the Everoinye said something I had no possible way of understanding.

When they operated, these mysterious Star Lords, they operated fast.

Blueness just swelled up around me.

I yelled.

“No! I will not go—”

That moonlight... That was the most important factor in that fracas.

That moonlight gleamed silver upon the marble.

Head over heels, the icy cold washing me, I soared up and away.

A voice followed me, a whispering voice cutting through the lambent blueness.

“A short time only, Dray Prescot. This we promise you.”

Headlong, tumbled head over heels, away I flew, hurled back to the planet of my birth four hundred light-years away.

Chapter nineteen

The Everoinye play a jest

Well, of course. I was there. I was the one on the spot. All the Everoinye had to do when their stupid kregoinye fouled up was ship me off, head over heels, to pick up the pieces.

They’d done exactly this trick upon me before, many times.

This time I landed with a thumping great slam upon the icy steps. Moonlight fell about me. Silver moonlight!

Gone was the warm fuzzy pink moonslight of Kregen.

Gone, too, were the scarlet breechclout and the Krozair longsword.

I was not naked.

I wore a black coat and trousers identical to those worn by the poor devil of a kregoinye who lay bleeding on the marble. I could feel a ring pressing down on my head, and guessed I wore a top hat. In my hand, in place of the longsword, I held an ebony cane.

Beneath my fingers I could feel a catch in the wood, a metal latch familiar to me. I pressed. There was no time to dilly-dally with the gentry intent on lulling the gentleman screaming upon the steps.

I came up fast and silently and hit one of the ruffians over his head. He fell down.

His companion swore. I caught a ‘Verdammt!’ and he caught the cane and dragged it toward him, intent on finishing me with his cudgel.

The wood slithered off the metal with a chingling evil sound.

The poor devil stared sickly at the sword cane.

I did not slay him; just stuck him a little and then instantly slashed at another would-be murderer who came a rush at me from the side. He staggered back, shrieking, an eye hanging out, blood everywhere.