Talons of Scorpio (7 page)

Inwardly I was laughing — chuckling, really — over Insur’s audacity. The likeness on the coin was of a remarkably ugly fellow, all chin and beard and beaked nose. No one, seeing that indifferent portrait, was going to recognize its subject as me, plain Jak. This had been in my mind when old Larghos Valdwin had carved the original, and I’d told him to make me look as ferocious and unlike myself as possible. He’d made the expected sly remark on that. The other side of the coin, which I regarded as the more important, showed the glory of Delia, beautifully fashioned and, yet, again, a portrait from which it would be difficult to recognize her.

Self-advertisement for your ordinary everyday emperor and empress is no doubt a worthwhile objective. For folk like Delia and myself, adventuring off around Kregen as we did, a trifle of anonymity paid handsome dividends.

Linson gave his orders and Chandarlie the Gut, the Ship-Deldar, bellowed them into action.

Pompino sniffed.

“You were given up for lost, Jak.”

I did not reply. The breeze had backed a few more points and now we could sheet home our full spread of canvas.
Tuscurs Maiden
bowled along merrily. An altogether different air now pervaded the ship’s company. It was as though we had come through a dire experience far worse than that through which we had really gone. Such is human nature. Men sang about their tasks. The coast lay ahead, and Port Marsilus, and taverns and dopa dens, no doubt, and a golden zan-talen nestled securely in the Owner’s strongbox, to find its way down the thirsty throats of the crew.

“I am glad you were not chomped by that Styrorynth. Ugly customers, with jaws like the black gullet of Armipand himself, Pandrite rot him. No doubt he snapped up some other victim, for there was blood.”

“No doubt.”

“And, Jak, just think. If you’d been killed, would the Everoinye have held me accountable? The thought has often plagued me.”

At once I felt contrition.

“Look, Pompino, as I have told you, I do not think the Star Lords hold me in very high esteem. I curse at them and attempt to evade what they order when it conflicts with what I desire. But I serve them more willingly now than I once did. All the same — if you were killed, I think that perhaps they would frown most unkindly upon me.”

“Well,” he said, brisking up and giving a twirl to his moustaches. “As we are not about to allow ourselves to be sent off to the Ice Floes of Sicce, let us push these doleful thoughts aside. I’m for a wet.”

“I am with you. Port Marsilus is not far off, now. There we can start our deviltry. If the Leem Lovers were other than they are, it might be in my mind to feel sorry for them.”

“You may begin being maudlin after they are all safely howling in Cottmer’s Caverns!”

Chapter five

Aye

“Look!” said Pompino as we sailed in for Port Marsilus. He did not point as one might expect a man to point as he indicated the object of his interest. “D’you see him?”

“Aye. I see him.”

As
Tuscurs Maiden
ran on with the bluffly blown spume from her round bows breaking and her canvas drawing as full-bellied as a noble after a feast, and the coast of Tomboram neared with the pinnacles of Port Marsilus already in sight, I stared up.

Up there circled a giant raptor, a golden-and-scarlet-feathered bird with sharp black talons extended. He was the Gdoinye, the spy and messenger of the Star Lords.

“They keep watch upon us, Jak.” Pompino spoke in a low tone, for we leaned on the quarterdeck bulwarks and Captain Linson and his officers and men on watch stood close.

“You can see the Gdoinye, and I can see him. But, of late, I remark that no one else sees him—”

“Of course not! Why, only a kregoinye, one who has been selected by the Everoinye, can ever see—”

“Yes. But I have known a few people in the past who have seen him.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

The spoken Kregish tongue is modulated by many tonal variations, so that Pompino’s simple words, by being given different inflections, could mean that he was calling me a liar, to an amazed agreement with my statement. This latter meaning he now intended.

“True, Pompino. I believe a certain innocence of mind has an influence, for a lad I know saw the bird, and a caravan master from Xuntal, a true child of the Great Plains. Also, this Kov Pando Marsilus, when he was a youngster, saw the Gdoinye.”

“So that is behind your remark. But he is no longer a coy, young and fresh and green and innocent.”

“Ha,” I said in a kind of grunt. “If ever he was, poor lad.”

Pompino let that by.

I did not say that the lad I knew who had seen the scarlet and gold raptor was my eldest son Drak. Pompino was under the impression that I was fancy free and unencumbered by a family. Just why I’d allowed that impression to remain might seem petty and obscure; it saved a quantity of explanations.

The bird circled, a menacing silhouette as he passed beneath the Suns of Scorpio, a glittery glory as the streaming radiance touched his feathers.

“He can only report that we are on our way to carry out our duties,” said Pompino.

“Aye,” I said in an ugly voice. “And we are on our own time in this.”

“True. But I think the Everoinye are now completely involved with us, and we can—”

“We can expect no help from them!”

Pompino let his lips compress. That was true, at least for me, and despite Pompino’s attachment to the Star Lords, I suspected for him, also.

There was no sign of the white dove sent by the Savanti. Even Pompino couldn’t have seen that bird.

It occurred to me to wonder if he’d ever seen or heard of Zena Iztar, who as a superhuman woman exercised mysterious powers. She had assisted me in the past, and although I might suspect she stood over in opposition to both Star Lords and Savanti, I was not certain of that. She it was who had helped us when the Brotherhood of the Kroveres of Iztar fought their early sacrificial battles. Now the Kroveres with Seg Segutorio as their Grand Archbold were dedicated to righting wrongs, uprooting slavery and injustice, and of countering the Shanks. Naive ends for an Order, you may think — all except the last — but of such naiveté are new and fairer worlds formed.

Continuing his train of thought, Pompino went on: “Here in Bormark we will have to go about the business in a rather different fashion from Memis and Pomdermam.”

“Oh?”

“Aye! Look you — I burned a temple to Lem here. No doubt others have sprung up to take its place. But now we have the Lady Tilda with us.”

He used the general word for lady — shiume — which has so many gradations of rankings Kregans more often than not omit all these subtle shadings, and say simply “The Shiume” and then the lady’s name. This applies from Kovneva to Kotera. I know my Delia has trenchant opinions upon this subject of lick-spittling fawning. Pompino and I, when we did not call Tilda the Beautiful, Tilda of the Many Veils, Kovneva, we addressed her as Shiume, my lady.

I agreed. Then, with a note of caution, I said: “We are duty bound to see her safely to her palace. This may lay us open to observation. It is certain sure that Murgon Marsilus will have spies, no less than the Leem Lovers.”

“Then we proceed under cover.”

Any Kregan knows the nightly tally of Moons. Tonight we were due the Twins, the two second moons eternally orbiting each other, and the largest moon, the Maiden with the Many Smiles. The fourth moon, She of the Veils, would appear wanly toward dawn. As for the three smaller moons, they hurtle past in their headlong courses, casting little enough light, in so much of a hurry Kregans have a whole repertoire of jokes about them and their resemblance to the energetic hyperthyroid types of people to be found everywhere.

We agreed the best time would be a couple of glasses before the hour of dim, just before the Maiden with the Many Smiles put in her appearance.

All details of entering the harbor and of finding a berth could be left to the captain. We roused out the four hefty fellows selected to carry Tilda’s sedan chair, the luxurious palankeen in which, besides cushions and pillows and fans and toiletries and other essential requirements she would have a considerable quantity of interesting bottles stashed away. Everyone knew that the Lady Tilda drank, and was usually a fraction on the other side of lustiness and yet was never ever drunk — or, at least, never intoxicated to make it noticeable or herself a nuisance. The chair swung up onto the deck and settled on its clawed feet. The curtains were drawn.

“It might,” observed Rondas the Bold, his red feathers whiffling in the breeze, “have been easier to have hauled the gherimcal up with the lady seated inside.”

One or two of the hands laughed.

As a serious suggestion it was perfectly sensible. To have dropped the gherimcal back down and put Tilda inside and then have hauled the pair up would smack of the undignified now the damned chair was actually on deck. Tilda, despite the drink and her grossness, was, after all, a kovneva and a lady.

Pompino said, “I, for one, am having nothing to do with getting the lady on deck.”

Chandarlie the Gut stepped forward. “Leave it to me, horters.” His stomach swelled in its magnificent bow shape; he and Tilda would make a likely pair.

“And handsomely, mind,” I said.

It is worth mentioning that of the four men selected to act as calsters and carry the chair, two were apims, Homo sapiens like me, one was a Brokelsh and the other a Brukaj. It has often been said that apims make the best sailors on Kregen, and Fristles among the worst. Brokelsh are found in surprising numbers following the nautical profession. A captain usually has a crew consisting of a mixed bunch of races under command and it is up to him to knock them all into shape.

Tuscurs Maiden
negotiated the buoyed channel and we tied up alongside a stone quay with long black-painted sheds across the cobbles. The port officials descended like warvols and these were left strictly to the master and to the Relt stylor, Rasnoli. They knew how to handle these fellows.

The declining suns threw long radiances of jade and ruby across the houses and water, casting umber shadows against the terraces and towers, limning in light the opposite cornices. Gulls winged looking for last minute morsels for supper. The air held an evening tang.

The argenter’s new first lieutenant, a shambly man with a pebbly skin, one Boris Pordon, went about his tasks with a worried expression. I could fully sympathize with the tribulations of the Ship Hikdar, by Vox. And, as we went down for a final meal, I suddenly realized that I might be leaving the sea for some time. What we faced with such casual ease was likely to be exceedingly fraught and filled with the clangor of swords. This was very much a case of frying pan and fire.

Pompino must have shared much of this foreboding. As we sat to Limki the Lame’s latest creation he chewed thoughtfully.

“We had best take a goodly supply of weapons with us.”

“Aye.”

“And Captain Linson will spare us enough men.”

“Aye.”

Pompino eyed me. He took a forkful of Limki’s roast quindil and paused, opened his mouth to speak, and then stuffed the quindil in instead. I am not overfond of poultry, and the quindil, a kind of turkey, however beautifully roasted and stuffed, scarcely merited comparison with the vosk chops Limki had prepared for me.

When he had swallowed, Pompino said: “Superb! Limki lost no time in buying fresh foodstuffs — yet you stick with those giant chops — and we will need to take provisions with us, also, I think.”

“Aye.”

He slammed his knife down hard.

“You are infuriating, Jak! Is that all you can say — aye!”

“Anything else would appear superfluous.”

“We are likely to have Murgon Marsilus, King Nemo, the Pandrite-forsaken imps of Lem, and who knows who else, all buzzing about our ears and trying to part us from our heads — yet all you can do is chomp down Vosk chops and say Aye.”

“I forbore to point out the facts you have just related with such fervor out of respect for the delicacy of your stomach during a meal.” He might have blown up then; but I went on in what I hoped was an imperturbable tone: “However, if you wish me to add from all we have unearthed and what we can surmise, my own observations, why, then, I will willingly do so.”

Then he had me. He said: “Aye.”

I almost laughed around a mouthful of vosk chop.

“Well, then: Firstly — and there may not be a secondly — the Kovneva Tilda wishes to return to her palace here in Port Marsilus for a number of reasons. She wishes to consult with this mysterious Mindi the Mad, whoever she may be. She wishes to see the twins Pynsi and Poldo Mytham. Also she feels safer in her own palace.” I took up a glass of wine, a full-bodied red — a Jeu O’fremont, I recall — and watched Pompino. He sat munching his bird and watching me. I went on: “The Leem Lovers have committed themselves too deeply in the attempt to kill her and must continue—”

“Ha!” said Pompino. “We’ve blattered ’em once — let ’em try again, Pandrite rot ’em!”

“Quite. As I was saying. She must have friends in her own capital city, and in her palace... Surely?”

“One would judge so, yes.”

“Once we can place her safely in their hands we can breathe more freely. And we can get on with burning temples.”

“Aye.”

“It also strikes me that young Pando got in over his head. He joined up with the Leem Lovers in order to strike at his cousin Murgon. I think that association with Lem the Silver Leem was too strong for his blood. People get to know about these things — people who count, in responsible positions, who run things. The old values wither. The whole of this kingdom of Tomboram is in a mess, and the kovnate of Bormark is in the worst mess. And Pando is at his wits’ end.”

“With that reading of the matter I concur.”

So, inevitably, I said: “Aye.”

We drank a little in silence for a space.

Then Pompino said: “This young lady, the Vadni Dafni Harlstam, whose lands adjoin those of Pando. Murgon designs to marry her to aggrandize himself. So does Pando. One is allowed to wonder, I think, if she, too, is an adherent of Lem.”