Secret Scorpio (26 page)

About to step forward and say, “And what brings you here, Rafik Avandil?” I saw the slinking shadows at his back, stealing up from the dimness between torches. I saw the black and silver and the quick glitter of weapons, and so I cried, “Your back, Rafik! Beware!”

He swung about like the great lion-man he was, and the first leaping shadow slashed and clanged a great gong note from Rafik’s helmet. A gigantic buffet sent the man sprawling back. His comrades recoiled. They gathered themselves. Without thought, I flung myself forward to stand back to back with Rafik Avandil. A noose clung about my leg and I tripped headlong.

A figure bent over me. Hands gripped my throat. A harsh, husky voice said, “Not another word, dom!”

I could not speak. I levered up and other hands bore down on me. I was lifted like a log of lumber. A crazy vision of Rafik running fleetly along past blasphemous statues — he vanished with a wink of bright armor quenched by the shadows — the sound of men breathing hoarsely by me, a sudden exclamation.

The keen edge of a knife hovered under my chin. I could just see it. It was a thick, heavy long-knife, and it would slice through my windpipe as a butcher cuts up chops.

“Hold!” The men carrying me upended me and slammed me on my feet so my neck snapped my head forward and stars flew. I dragged the right-hand man around and smashed him into the left-hand one and a very hard, very sharp point came from nowhere and rested against my throat.

“Stand still, Prince! By Vox! You’ll have us all killed!”

I stared owlishly.

In the erratic illumination I saw Naghan Vanki standing before me looking charged with rage, emotion almost making his features unrecognizable. Always before he had been smooth and bland and unremarkable.

“The cramph got away, jen,” said one of his men, coming up. They all wore the black and silver, hard and supple leather, with steel bands and bracers. Vanki kept the point of his rapier at my throat. His men hung onto my arms.

“Keep silence, Prince. May I tell you something? You are a dead man unless—”

“I thought you served the racters, Vanki. Don’t you know they are leagued with me now?” It was a ploy.

He started and then his face assumed that blank, indifferent look. This was the man I suspected had drugged me and thrown me into a thorny-ivy bush to perish miserably in the hostile territories. I had the desire to know, if I was to die now.

I asked him.

“You may be a prince now, the Prince Majister; then you were a savage clansman with ideas beyond his station. No one wanted you to marry the Princess Majestrix.”

“In that you lie, Vanki. The Princess Majestrix wished it with all her heart.”

“Aye! That is why when the other wanted to slit your throat there and then I counseled moderation. You owe your life to me, Prince.”

“Alone, in the hostile territories, on foot, with the Klackadrin to cross?”

“You are here, alive, now.”

“And for how much longer? How much is the cramph Makfaril paying you.” I stopped suddenly. Then I gasped more than I liked as I spoke: “You, Naghan Vanki, are Makfaril!”

Without any change of expression, he said, “You are a prince, yet you are a clansman still, aye, and an onker!”

“Someone comes!” said one of his men, hissing from the shadows. In a bunch we melted into the darkness beyond the pillared chapel. Black and silver clothes, black and white for the racters, black feathers for the Chyyanists. I felt then that if Naghan Vanki, who on his own admission had connived at my death, was not Makfaril, then he was very high in the hierarchy and in all probability knew who the leader of the Chyyanists was.

It was pointless for me to call out. The masichieri would be less merciful than Naghan Vanki. They’d have slit my throat and gleed in the doing of it, back there in the hostile territories.

Without binding me in iron chains or stout lesten-hide ropes a man can only hold me for so long. There will come a time when he may be taken. I gave no thought to the silent ferocity of these hired men of Vanki’s. They kept a perfect stillness. Perhaps Rafik Avandil had brought men with him down the rope ladder. So, taking my chance, I slipped the rapier point and dealt each of the wights holding my arms a most gruesome mischief with my knees, then ran fleetly into the darkness of the Cavern of Abominations.

In the maze of tumbled stonework and fallen rock, the pillared chapels and the half-ruined warren of rooms beyond, there was little chance Naghan Vanki and his men or the masichieri would find me. But, equally and frustratingly, I had as little chance of finding Himet the Mak or one of the other priests of the Black Feathers.

A sensible idea would be to get out of the place and rouse a strong body of loyal soldiers, from Natyzha, from the emperor, from my own Valkans, and return here with fire and sword. That would be the sensible course.

In matters of this nature I am woefully lacking in sense. I no longer had the faithful old bamboo sword-stick. The rasts had not taken my sailor knife, and I drew this now and held it ready as I padded through the semidarkness. The shafting light from above probably came from a higher cavern whose floor was fitted with fireglass crystal. How far above that lay the surface I did not know, for we had descended that slimy spiral stairway to a considerable depth. However, far into the bowels of Kregen we were, I had no mind to return to the surface without a priest of the Great Chyyan to prod along before me.

The grotesquely carved pillar around which I edged screened off what lay beyond. Tumbled walls and toppled arcades, all built within the cavern, surrounded me. I rounded the corner. . .

The masichieri were surprised and sprang out under the flaring torches. There was only one thing I could do: I charged headlong for them. I bellowed “Hai!” and raced in with the knife held point up and thrusting for them.

I saw the slinger. I saw him unwind. I skidded on a fallen rock and tried to duck and then . . . The stone must have struck me fair and square between the eyes. I dropped headfirst into the deep dark cloak of Notor Zan.

Twenty

Makfaril’s sacrifice

Someone was saying from a great distance: “The yetch is the Prince Majister of Vallia? It is difficult to believe.” The words boomed and went up and down as though echoing in a gigantic sea shell. “What did he want creeping about down here?”

And the coarse answer: “By the Black Feathers! Whatever it was he will never find it now. Makfaril has ordained his death.”

I opened my eyes. Well, cells are cells. This one cut from the rock boasted a barred window through which torchlight streamed, so I crawled across with all Beng Kishi’s tinkers hammering out their bells in my skull, and listened as best I could.

“Come the Black Day and all the princes and Princesses will dangle-o!”

“Aye, dom. And then you’n me’ll be princes.”

They sounded apim. Masichieri. Hired killers. My head resonated and nausea clutched me. But escape must be attempted at once. Strike while the iron is hot. I tried to stand up and my legs buckled and I slumped back again. The guards talked on outside.

“Course, most of us will grab what loot we can and hightail it back home. Vallia is rich. By Havil! The plunder!”

So the cramph was from Havilfar somewhere, Hamal probably.

“Yes. You’re right. But I’m going to sit in the throne for once, aye, and if any princes or kovs is about I’ll use ’em for a footstool before we cut ’em up.”

A hawk and a spit and: “Once they get this meeting over the priests can go and spread the word. I’m tired of waiting. The quicker they learn the day and go home and tell their people the better. Then, dom, then our swords will drink blood and our pockets will be filled!”

“Aye, may Armipand rot ’em all!”

My legs wavered. I leaned against the wall and shoved upright. I panted. I did not touch my forehead. The blow from the stone must have left a ghastly mess up there and if the blood had dried I did not wish to disturb it. Only my thick old vosk-skull of a head and the dip in the Pool of Baptism in far Aphrasöe had saved me. I stilled the trembling in my limbs. Talk about David and Goliath. That flung stone had nearly done for me. But I felt my strength coming back. I dragged deep lungfuls of air. I forced myself to stand free of the wall and pace about, grunting, working my muscles back to life.

“. . . Beautiful piece. A waste to sacrifice her first.”

I stopped and listened again.

“One of ’em got away. But the man’s safely mewed up.”

“Bitch women. Why can’t they attend to women’s affairs and leave men’s to men?”

Thank God, I said to myself, Delia and Dayra and Lela were safe dwaburs away from here. Although nothing had ever been said about where they were going or where they were adventuring, I had somehow assumed it was in the north midlands of Vallia.

Well, this was getting me nowhere. While there was no way of telling just how professional these two masichieri were, they were mercenaries, and therefore I must give them the benefit of hard professional competence. If I made a single mistake they’d not wait for Makfaril to implement his ordinance on my death, whatever gruesome affair that was to be.

A trampling of iron-shod sandals in the corridor was followed by jocular remarks from the two guards to others of their ilk who passed, giving me a little time.

“What a beauty! Treat her gently!”

“Ah! Makfaril’s girls will see to her!”

“What I wouldn’t give. . .”

I waited until the guards passed. Apart from the old scarlet breechclout I was naked. Simplicity, that was the only way. Simpleness in plans can defeat the most cunning of experienced professionals.

I leaned against the door and spoke through the iron bars. “Tell Makfaril I have vital information for him.
Bratch!”

When Makfaril came I’d fling everything into one wild lunge and so finish the cramph.

But these two were incompetent professionals. One looked through the bars, saying, “How do we know you speak sooth?”

“Fetch Makfaril and you will soon see.”

So, poor fools, they swung the door open to make sure of me. They were armed. I was naked. It made little difference.

I stood up and slid the thraxter from its scabbard. I took the other one’s short compound reflex bow and his quiver of arrows and slung them over my shoulder. A knife, too, would be useful. . . The two masichieri slumbered on the floor. I shut the door on them and shot the bars and bolts.

A short corridor lit by a single torch led onto a wider cellblock. Probably the sacrifices had been kept here in the old days. At the corner I halted as a screech of metal sounded. Cautiously, ready to fight or run — I was annoyed and did not wish to waste my strength on masichieri when Makfaril was here — I peered around the corner.

The scene was arresting in its action and before I could sort it all out in the tricky light it was all over.

A guard screamed and spun away from a door. I saw a girl drive a long thick poniard into his neck, saw her as a fleeting black-clad sprite, her long limbs splendid as she sprang to the door. The sheening black leather stood out against her white skin. Her mass of brown hair obscured her face, but she was not Delia. She was not Delia. The door opened to her quick fingers and a man staggered out, looking ghastly, with blood dried upon his face and his dark hair draggling with caked blood and his left arm all broken and dangling awry. Quickly the girl dragged him along, taking no notice of his broken arm. She moved with feline grace, like a hunting cat — all the old images sprang into my mind. Like a tiger-girl she dragged the shambling man along and together they vanished around the corner.

I loped along the corridor and looked after them. The next set of cells lay dusty and deserted and of the panther-girl and the man she had rescued remained only a double line of footprints in the dust.

I wished her well. But I had my own zhantil to saddle.

Up. I must go up. Without doubt these cells for the sacrifices would be low down in this pestiferous place. So I hunted stairs and upward-sloping corridors, and only four guards died on the borrowed thraxter. The straight cut-and-thrust sword of Havilfar is keenly adapted to this work.

At the end of a long corridor which by its width and height indicated I must be leaving the deeper warrens, the figure of a girl moved across from one side passage to another. For a single instant I thought she was the girl who had rescued the bloodied, broken man. But this girl’s black clothes riffled with black feathers, and she carried a wide silver bowl steaming with fragrant water. She vanished and I padded on. That splendid girl who had used her poniard so ruthlessly, she reminded me of Sosie ti Drakanium, Delia’s messenger. Her gleaming tanned white skin and her long lissom legs — yes, well, there had been a sight more skin than black leather on view. All the same, had I not disposed of the two guards at my cell door, of whom she could have had no knowledge, her rescue would have gone awry.

Still, she could not know that.

As I prowled on, very much like a leem among ponsho pens, the absence of people made me realize that the time was much later than I had thought. The palaces of Kregen — and there is an evocative phrase for you! — of which I had knowledge all contained runnels of secret passages and concealed doors. This ancient temple of abominations followed that pattern. I was perfectly confident I could find my way out to the surface and probably emerge through some hidden opening an ulm away from the ruined tower of Hjemur-Gebir, but I wanted to leave dragging a rascally priest of the Great Chyyan with me.

The deserted stone corridors, the decayed barrenness of it all as I wound my way back to the giant cavern of the idol of the toad-thing, convinced me the first meeting was already being held. The other meetings for later on, one of which I had arranged to visit, now meant nothing. This meeting, here, was the vital one. For Makfaril would tell his assembled priests the date of the Day of the Black Feathers. The priests would return to their congregations all over Vallia. They would scatter like a loathsome pestilence all over Vallia and prepare their followers and, come the Black Day, they would strike!