Secret Scorpio (8 page)

Once again what had begun as a drama, as tragedy, ended in farce.

“Khe-Hi!” I said, and at my tone he stiffened up, looking woebegone in his ruined finery, but nonetheless still retaining his dignity as a Wizard of Loh.
“Well?”

We went back to the laboratory and Khe-Hi pointed out what was left of the idol.

Bits and pieces of black stone were scattered about the chamber. The windows were blown out. The tables were overturned. The place was a shambles.

“Khe-Hi!” squeaked San Evold. “You’ve ruined my chamber!”

“Not me, old man. Rather this Makfaril of whom the prince speaks.”

“I’ll do more than speak about him,” I said, very nastily. “You said you had spelled them.”

“So I did, my Prince.” Here Khe-Hi pulled himself together and became again a famous Wizard of Loh. “Had I not done so we would have been beset by full-size chyyans.”

Turko whistled. Jiktar Larghos Glendile nicked his tail-hand about.

I said, “So you did well, wizard. Did you seek to open the idol before I arrived?”

“No. No, my Prince! The eyes lit up again as you described when my preparations were almost complete. I understand what happened. A wizard was controlling the idol and saw what I intended. He released the hidden sealing spells and there was a sound as of thunder and a blue-green light as of leprous lightning.”

That was as good a way as any to describe an explosion to those who did not know of gunpowder.

The spell I had set reduced whatever was in the idol in stature and power. So the eggs—”

“Eggs?”

“The idol was packed with chyyan eggs that would hatch into full-sized chyyans instantly, bypassing normal growth. It is a trick some wizards employ. My counter-art reduced the size of the chyyans.”

“Lucky for us,” said Glendile. He had four weapons to clean, and was hard at work even as we stood talking.

“And the light was blue-green?”

“Yes.”

That did not square with a gunpowder explosion.

“Damned sorcery,” I said. “I don’t hold with it. Another wizard?”

“A most potent practitioner of the arts.”

I looked at Khe-Hi-Bjanching. We all knew of whom we thought.

It was left to Delia to say, in a calm, even voice, “Do you think, San, it was this infamous Phu-si-Yantong?”

Khe-Hi scowled. “I do not know. By Hlo-Hli, my Princess, I do not know!”

This was a poser. I was prepared to credit Yantong with any evil you care to imagine. Once a fellow has run into evil of that nature he tends to see his opponent as more black than a night of Notor Zan, until, with wisdom, comes the understanding that character shades into gray and purple and bilious green. All the same, Phu-si-Yantong!

“I have told you of the Wizard of Loh, Que-si-Rening, kept by the Empress Thyllis in Hamal. Do you think it could have been him? After all,” I added, trying to appear casual and making a dismal mess of it, “after all, everything about the Chyyanists points to another ploy from Hamal.”

“I swear by the Seven Arcades, my Prince! I cannot tell. The sorcery was sealed by great power. It is possible among high adepts to conceal ego-traces, to hide the personality patterns. I can do this to an extent. There are few wizards, I venture to think, who would discover what I did if I did not wish them to, but of course there could be a few who would have the power.”

This was mighty humble pie for Khe-Hi, I saw.

I nodded, not satisfied, but unable to do anything about that dissatisfaction for the moment.

A clatter of dislodged stones and debris from one of Evold’s smashed tables turned our attention to Balass, who straightened up lifting a dusty round object from the jumble. He blew on it and dust flew.

“Now what is this?” he said, turning, walking across with the round plate balanced on his upturned palms.

I was aware of Khe-Hi at my side, of the way a tremor shook through him. I shot a swift searching glance at him. The wizard’s face looked strained, a deep furrow dinting down between his eyebrows. He sucked in his breath.

“Whatever it is, Balass,” I sang out cheerily, “our potent wizard knows!”

“Aye, my Prince! By Hlo-Hli. I know!”

“Well, then, tell us.”

He took the plate from Balass, by which I judged the thing exerted no immediately dangerous evil influence. He turned it over. We all craned to look. The plate was fashioned from bronze, as thick as two fingers, as wide around as an Och’s shield. Inset around the edge were cabalistic signs; these Khe-Hi ignored and I judged them decoration. Nine sigils surrounded a blank center. That center either had once had or had space left for five further signs. Each of the nine signs was different and I recognized none.

“Well?”

“This was secreted in the compartment in the back of the idol.”

“Well,” exclaimed Balass. “Anyone knows that!”

“Go on, Khe-Hi,” I said. Balass shut his jaws with a snap.

“The wizard controlling the idol is able to observe at a distance without the necessity of forcing a representation of himself to the needful point and looking through his own immaterial eyes. This saves psychic energy.”

Delia was looking carefully at the disk and its nine emblazoned signs, and Turko lifted it from Khe-Hi’s hands so the princess might view it more easily.

I said, “You mean when the eyes light up with that baleful green fire this damned wizard is spying out of them?”

“Yes, my Prince. I also think this is a sign for the priest, in this case Himet the Mak, to open the back in safety.”

“But the confounded thing blew up when the eyes lit up!”

“Yes. Because the wizard observed what was happening and knew that in the next few murs I would have reduced his sorceries and rendered the chyyan eggs harmless.”

“Hmm,” I said. “And these signs? Nine of them?”

Nine is perhaps the most magical number on Kregen. There was a fanciful touch about this round plate and the nine symbols that reminded me, vaguely, of the Krozairs of Zy and their sign, the hubless spoked wheel within the circle.

“Each sign, I think, is a location. Probably where a temple of the Great Chyyan is situated. When the sign lights up, it must be a signal to meet there.”

Every symbol lay flat and dull and lifeless.

“The first thing,” I said with enough acerbity in my voice to make them understand the seriousness of all this and my inflexible determination to rise above the farcical element that had been dogging us lately, “the very first thing is to read the symbols. We must find out where these damned temples are.”

Evold peered at the plate. “They mean nothing to me at the moment. But mayhap I have books. San Drozhimo the Lame may have somewhat to say on these signs. And there is the
Hyr-Derengil-Notash.
Also I have hopes of the hyr-lif of Monumentor ti Unismot.”

There were one or two small smiles in the group. We all knew old Evold and the lore he culled from his musty books. All the same, he did come up with answers to problems. No one could deny that.

Khe-Hi sniffed. “This is wizard’s work, San. The
Hyr-Derengil-Notash
was compiled by a great wizard two thousand five hundred seasons ago. I know it well. If whoever is controlling the idol used it, you may find what we seek. I doubt it.”

San Evold did not look disgruntled. He was used to this kind of deprecation from Khe-Hi.

The
Hyr-Derengil-Notash —
the title means, very roughly, the high palace of pleasure and wisdom — is used by philosophers and in its pages they can find whatever they seek. It is read as the heart commands. If, and I did not savor the thought, if Phu-si-Yantong was the wizard controlling the idol, I did not think he would have recourse to that hyr-lif. Only very important books on Kregen are called lifs, and only the most highly important of all receive the appellation of hyr-lif.

The signs meant nothing to me. One looked like a mess of worms. Another like a ship of no recognizable type, with a fork of lightning joined to the mainmast. Another seemed merely a formal angular maze. Delia looked up at me, and at the look in her eyes I jumped.

“I think,” said Delia slowly, her face more flushed than usual, “I think I know where is the place one of these signs refers to.”

Five

The Stromni of Valka explains

The plate, with its outer ring of nine symbols and its inner ring of five empty places surrounding the blank center, was very heavy, being fashioned of bronze. The idea, undoubtedly, was to make it difficult to steal. Khe-Hi-Bjanching told us that this kind of plate with symbols, used by the wizards as a means of conveying information, was called a signomant, employing signomancy to give instructions that could not be misunderstood by those who had the key.

I refused to allow Delia to speak until we had all left the laboratory, Turko and Balass taking turns to carry the signomant, and until we had all settled down in an airy upper chamber after we had washed the muck of the explosion from ourselves. A light white wine was served, for the suns were almost gone, and the birds flitted about the grim stone face of the castle. Wearing a delicious cool laypom-yellow gown, Delia sat in her comfortable chair, gazing upon us in some delight, her cheeks still rosy and her eyes bright with the secret revelations she was about to tell us.

No one was fool enough to mumble some sycophantic nonsense about not being at all surprised that the Princess Majestrix should understand the signs. We all sensed that only some local knowledge had given the clue to Delia. This proved true as she spoke.

“I am called Delia of Delphond,” she began. “My estate of Delphond is very dear to me and I have studied all that I can find about it.”

Now I am aware that I have said very little about Vallia. One reason is that its puissant empire tended to stifle coherent thought in me. Also, much of my adventuring on Kregen has taken place in countries outside Vallia. But, all the same, as I go on I must tell you of important facts. In the long ago the main island of Vallia and the surrounding islands were all separate, petty kingdoms and kovnates — and some not so petty — and it was only after long-drawn-out and bloody wars that finally the empire drew together with its capital at Vondium.

Delphond is situated on the southern coast of Vallia, not too far to the west of Vondium, and it had been a kingdom in its own right, small and tight and sweet. When the empire-builders advanced from Vondium, the kingdom of Delphond retained an individual identity for much longer than anyone might have expected. There was much trouble with the far southwest, and Rahartdrin resisted stubbornly. Also the northeast maintained a hostility to Vondium that persisted for centuries. So it was that when at last Delphond was incorporated into the empire the final capitulation was swift, with little damage done to the ancient monuments of the past. The old history twined with passion and intrigue — just as these times of which I tell you now hummed with plot and counterplot — and Delphond, when at last she entered the empire, was given over to the empress and her descendants, alternating the generations with other estates of Vallia.

Now Delia pointed to one of the nine symbols ringing the bronze plate.

“The Temple of Delia,” she said, and looked up at me like a small girl embarrassed at picking the largest fruit in the bowl.

I laughed.

Now I understood the meaning of the flush in her cheeks, the brightness of her eyes. She may be a princess, a Princess Majestrix, but my Delia is a woman with a mature and yet girlish heart that derides pomp and circumstance, that makes mock of titles, that understands that if Opaz has seen fit to burden her then she must brace up and shoulder those burdens.

Old Evold nodded with quick understanding.

“You are right, my Princess!” That, of course, was a silly thing for anyone to say to some common princess, for whenever can a common princess be accused of being wrong? But Delia is no ordinary princess and we were all friends here, eager to seek out the devil’s work threatening our people.

“See,” said Delia, her slender fingers busy tracing the lines of the sign. “Here are the pillars, and this is unmistakable.” Two dots surrounded by twin circles and with a V-shape joining them had been linked with the architrave. “This has always been taken to be the sign of Delia in her manifestation as Mother Goddess. It is scarcely known outside Delphond. When Delphond lost her kings and became a province of Vallia the religion of the time sought to stamp out all-knowledge and memory of the Mother Goddess.”

“That was before we were blessed with the knowledge of Opaz,” said Evold. He pulled his nose, blinking. “That would have been in the time of Father Tolki the Almighty.”

“Yes.” Delia knew all about this. “The fearsome warriors in their bronzen mail trampled down all Vallia, bringing with them their own belief in Father Tolki. They were hard days. The old records show that Delphond escaped lightly, for we are cut off there, a backwater, out of the stream of events.”

“But a mighty pleasant backwater!” I said, incensed. “I am particularly fond of Delphond, and I have read of how the mailed hosts of Father Tolki ravaged the land. But they did institute the first Empire of Vallia.”

“Which broke up, as empires do. There were many religions and many new peoples and kingdoms and empires before the Light of Opaz guided. . .” And then Delia hesitated, and stopped. How could she go on to say that her family had taken the ragbag of Vallia and shaken it into an empire, that her family had taken the power thrust upon them by Opaz — or by greed and cupidity and sheer downright cunning and skill and ruthlessness?

“It is a story not unknown in Havilfar,” said Turko. “The ancient mysteries of the Mother Goddess, and then the newer, harsher, military religions of men. We Khamorros have fought against oppression for all our history.”

“We rejoice in the Invisible Twins,” said Delia seriously. “For in them made manifest through Opaz we see the fusion of male and female, of mother goddess and warrior god, and all the other aspects of godhood.” She looked around and added not so much tartly as with finality, “As it should be.”

How this brought home to me the ancientness of Kregen! Civilizations had risen and fallen, cities built and vanished, kingdoms waxed and waned. And, far back into the past, the Sunset Peoples had lorded it over a young Kregen with the freshness of dawn. Now all that was left of them were the Savanti, locked away somewhere in their Swinging City of Aphrasöe. One day I would return to Aphrasöe, and with a purpose. But that day could not be now, for there were too many other pressing problems in Vallia to occupy me.