Golden Scorpio (2 page)

“Yes, I know it sounds a silly notion. But I’m asking you to examine the idea. After all, it’s not impossible, is it?”

“Impossible — one sun and one moon — we-ell — I suppose not.”

“Look, Delia, my heart. Try to imagine a world very much like Kregen — well, something like — but instead of Zim and Genodras shining down in glory there is only one sun, a little yellow sun.”

“But Opaz! The Invisible Twins visibly vouchsafed us in the fires of Zim and Genodras, the Eternal Spirit of Opaz — how could that be if the world did not have two suns?”

“That’s a poser, all right. But say that the Eternal Spirit is manifest in some other form — that is possible.”

“You would run into charges of heresy at many of the religious colleges for that, Dray. People have been burned alive for casting doubts like this. And talking of only one sun in the sky is blasphemy—”

“To some people. But the Todalpheme could discuss this as a proposition. The wise men, the Sans of the world — the Wizards of Loh.”

“Oh, yes, as a theory. But it runs dangerously close to blasphemy against Opaz, and that is something no honest person can possibly tolerate.”

I wanted to burst out into a roar of laughter, I wanted to shout aloud in frustrated fury, and I wanted to cringe away and have no more stupid talk of planets orbiting solitary stars. But I owed Delia an explanation, and so I ploughed doggedly on. This was one eventuality I hadn’t bargained for, that religion would rear its beautiful head to deny the possibility that I came from such a crippled world.

“Instead of the seven moons of Kregen there is just the one—”

“Oh, Dray, Dray — if I didn’t know you I’d think you were determined to blaspheme. So — there is only one explanation. You are making fun of me.”

“No.” I was about to go on by saying I was in deadly serious earnest; but I paused. Tsleetha-tsleethi, as Kregens say, softly, softly. “No, I would not do that. But what I have said merits thought...

This business about a world possessing just a single sun and a single moon was only the beginning. What would Delia say when I tried to explain to her the concept of a world that had no diffs, no splendid array of peoples, no enormous variety of morphology, no halflings; but only had a single sort of human being, apims, like ourselves? How could she accept such an absurdity?

For a space we were silent as the airboat sped on through the level air and Vallia passed away below. Poor Vallia. That was where our thoughts lay. Poor, proud Vallia, an island empire torn and savaged by implacable foes, by power-hungry maniacs, by coldly ambitious men and women — and we flew in all haste from a shattered city and a burning palace which provided a funeral pyre of somber magnificence for the body of Delia’s father the emperor. Yet it was precisely at this point that I chose to begin this my late and lame explanation. I tried to talk to Delia of Earth, of that strange planet distant four hundred light years from Kregen, and hoped these transparent means might provide the anodyne she needed. Mysteries partially revealed, I thought, might exercise her mind. But I miscalculated the power of Opaz, the pure religion that, I felt sure at the time, was one certain way to raise Kregen from its barbarity and savagery. Perhaps I was being selfish. All I know is that I was savaged by grief for Delia, whatever may have been my ambivalent attitude to her father, and I was desperate to ease her suffering.

Up front the Lord Farris, Kov of Vomansoir, piloted the flier and left Delia and me to talk in privacy. He had witnessed the death of the emperor, for I had not been there, and had struggled with blood-stained sword to prevent that deed. Now he, like us, was a hunted fugitive.

Lykon Crimahan, Kov of Forli, had also been there at the emperor’s death. He had never liked me, being bitterly opposed to my schemes to create a strong Air Service to withstand the attack from Hamal we knew must one day come across the sea. Well, that day had come and gone. Even if the whole power of Hamal had not been thrown into the battle, as I judged, the maniacal Wizard of Loh, Phu-si-Yantong, who controlled through his puppets all of Pandahem and plenty of other spots besides, had gained enough strength to do the work. And, as well as the Hamalese marching against Vondium, there had been traitors from Vallia herself. Layco Jhansi, Udo, the various factions, they were fighting and gnawing at the bones of empire, seeking to snatch the richest portions for themselves.

The Hamalese army that Phu-si-Yantong had somehow got out of the Empress Thyllis had possessed no aerial cavalry of any strength that I had seen. Maybe the flyers were away in another part of Vallia engaged in the campaigns that Yantong must surely carry out to bring us much of the island empire under his heel as he hungered for.

If there were no aerial cavalry mounted on fluttrells or mirvols flying over the corpse of Vondium, there would certainly be plenty of red meat there for the warvols, those vulture-like carrion-eaters. The thoughts and images rose into my mind, most unprettily, most pungent.

All over Vallia as the days passed there would be slaughter. Vallians are accounted a rich people, and most of their wealth comes from trading. They are great seafarers. Inland they are farmers and stockmen and woodsmen. When Vallia needed an army to fight some war or other she would hire mercenaries, and the mercenaries would be secure in the knowledge that Vallia could transport them safely in her fleets of galleons. But as for indigenous fighting men, warriors, they were few and thin on the ground.

That enormous wealth existed within Vallia herself was undeniable. The forests, the mines, the broad cornlands, as the emperor had once told me, they are the sinews of wealth and the muscles of power.

At Lykon Crimahan’s request we dropped him off near his provincial capital of MichelDen. MichelDen lies a hundred dwaburs northeast of Vallia’s capital Vondium. The provincial capital of Forli stands on the River of White Reenbays, an eastern tributary of the Great River. The kovnate of Forli extends from the Great River to the eastern coast opposite the Thirda Passage between the islands of Arlton and Meltzer to the north and Veliadrin to the south. We had taken a dog’s leg passage to Valka in order to let Crimahan off at MichelDen.

He stood with one hand on the coaming of the flier, looking up at us before he jumped down onto the grass. The stars glittered. She of the Veils cast down a sheening diffused golden light and the night was very still.

“I give you the Remberee, Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia. I—” And here Crimahan paused, and swallowed.

I own it, the sound of my name coupled with the emperor’s landed with a strange sound in my ears, a leaden sound of doom. But Drig take me if I would let this fellow see all the hesitation and indecision tormenting me. I nodded; with a hard and curt gesture of my hand I hoped he would not mistake, I ground out in the old hateful way: “If I am the emperor, Kov Lykon, then your fealty I take and welcome. Now you will do what you can against these cramphs. I shall contact you.” His face bore that pained expression of unwelcome comprehension. I finished, surly and domineering: “And mind you don’t get yourself killed. May Opaz go with you. Remberee.”

The others called their Remberees as Crimahan dropped from the airboat and vanished into the uncertain shadows.

“Up,” I said to Farris. “Valka.”

The voller rose into the air as Farris hauled on the levers. “He may be going to his death, majister—”

“Very likely, Farris, very likely. But he wanted to go home and I forbore to prevent him. I know how he felt.”

“As do we all. I do not need to be told what has overtaken my kovnate,” went on Farris in his dogged way. “Vomansoir, like your estates, like Lykon’s, must have been marked down for destruction. All those about the emperor and who gave him their loyalty will find only grief in their homes. Once the structure of empire creaks and bends, once the first blows succeed, the collapse is swift.”

“There will be fighting and bloodshed all over the land,” said Delia, and her lovely face shadowed with the horrors we had seen and the fresh horrors to come.

“Not always,” I said in my intemperate, vicious way. “Sometimes an empire will hold out tenaciously. But, Farris, I hope you are right in your estimation when we return.”

I said this, and all the time I was totally unsure if I had the right, the moral right, to return to Vallia. But I went on speaking in that old savage way.

“So,” I said, only half-believing my own words. “Before we can do anything we must secure a base and see about men and resources — and that means Valka.”

The voller rose against the stars and sped eastward.

“Only,” I told Delia. “You will take Didi and Velia and Aunt Katri and fly to Strombor. The continent of Segesthes is far enough away from Vallia and these troubles. There they will be safe.”

“But—”

I shook my head. Delia did not like the idea of leaving Vallia at this time, even for a short period and even for so important a mission; but she saw the sense of it and agreed to go.

Below us under the glinting moonlight the coast passed away. We struck out across the sea.

We flew across the Rojica Passage that separates Vallia from Veliadrin. We flew along the Thirda Passage, eastward, to the north of Veliadrin. We did not fly over the land. To the south we could see fires burning in the night.

Delia took my arm and I could guess her thoughts.

“Veliadrin is attacked, like all our lands. No doubt the Qua’voils have stirred their prickly selves again. But there are good men down there, as well as evil. Our duty lies elsewhere this night.”

It was hard. No doubt of it. We could only guess at what deviltry was going on down there to the south. But little imagination was required to understand that all of Vallia was in turmoil, with old grudges being paid off and with rapaciousness leading men and women on to blood-soaked excesses.

From MichelDen to Valkanium is about two hundred dwaburs in a straight line, what the Havilfarese call ‘as the fluttrell flies’. But we circled around over the sea to the north and so took longer over the aerial journey. The Maiden with the Many Smiles joined She of the Veils and although the night was cloudy the two moons shed their fuzzy golden pink light upon the sea.

In the sheening water sparkle below in the light of the moons the dark shadowed mass of Valka rose before us out of the sea. Valka. Valka, the place I had made my home on Kregen. The place that, along with Strombor and the Great Plains of Segesthes and Djanduin, meant more to me at that time than anywhere else. Valka...

“Dray—”

I held her gently, for I knew what Delia intended to say, what pained her to say, how she had struggled and sought for the right words.

“Dray — Valka. All our lands have been attacked, we know that Phu-si-Yantong would not overlook Valka.”

I spoke cheerily, and with a certain confidence, for Valka was not quite as other lands of Vallia, because the island had fought its battles and won. “I would not expect that villain to do so. One day he will be chopped. But Valka is not the same easy prey to mercenaries and aragorn and slavers as the rest of Vallia. We have regiments of strong fighting men—”

“But Phu-si-Yantong is a Wizard of Loh. He will have employed sorcery—”

“Yes.”

That was, indeed, an unpalatable thought. This damned Wizard of Loh sought to make himself the supreme lord of Paz. He didn’t care what he did to achieve that insane ambition.

“If only Khe-Hi-Bjanching was with us — or had been in Valka.” Delia’s hand trembled against mine. I did not think she trembled in fear. “But he will have been sent to Loh as all our other friends were sent home from—”

“There are other forces of superhuman help,” I said, cutting in briskly, over-riding Delia’s words. I did not want Farris — or anyone who need not know, for that matter — being apprised of what had happened to our friends. They had all been incontinently hurled back to their homes from the Sacred Pool of Baptism. So far they had not found their way back. That was a contributory cause to the misfortunes that had overtaken us; but we would have been overwhelmed even if all my friends had surrounded us. That I knew with a somber chill.

The dawn would soon be with us, and I suggested that Delia try to sleep. It was not so stupid a suggestion, for she was exhausted and despite her feelings, despite the grief for her father, she did sleep. I could soldier on for a space yet.

I fancied, in thinking of Yantong, that the cramph no longer cared if I lived or died. I had to examine the notion with great care. He had given orders that I was not to be assassinated. I did not know if he had canceled those instructions. Yantong had contrived the death of an empire. His tools fought in Vondium and over the land against the armies of other men, highly placed nobles and demagogues, who sought the throne for themselves. Of all those ambitious and greedy would-be-emperors, I fancied Phu-si-Yantong would be the eventual victor.

And, among his instruments, numbered in the ranks of those who fought for him, was our own daughter Dayra. Unwittingly, perhaps, she served the Wizard of Loh, thinking in all honor that she fought for the rights of self-determination for the North Eastern section of Vallia and this damned fellow Zankov; but she had served Yantong well. Dayra. I would have to tell Delia about her, tell Delia about Ros the Claw, and of her entanglement with Zankov, that same cramph Zankov whose bloody brand had struck down the emperor, Dayra’s grandfather.

This was a tangled web, and there was more, and I could not see a clear path to steer.

“Well,” I said to myself, and if I had spoken aloud my voice would have cracked out harsh and ugly under the moons, “we will take Didi and Velia and Aunt Katri out of Valka if the place is closed up as tight as a swod’s drum. We will see them safely to Strombor. And then—” And then — what?

If I did what I had said I would do, speaking in the heat of the moment and out of anger and foolish pride, there would lie seasons of campaigning ahead. Vallia would run as red with blood as ever it had. How could I justify this? I had pushed these thoughts away before, but they recurred. What moral right had I, what morality was there in it, if I raised armies, fought the usurpers, destroyed their armies, restored the throne of Vallia to its rightful heirs? Did my honor demand that? Can honor ever justify the deaths of thousands of honest people?