So that although Delia was safe and well, I hankered to get back to my island empire of Vallia and try to unify the place and make the place a real empire again, as it had been in the old days before the Times of Troubles.
“One sun, one moon,” Seg said to himself, half disgustedly, half with the pleased confrontation with a new idea that sounded impossible.
“And no diffs.”
“I can’t see how a world can have only apims like us. It is against nature.”
“Yet the apims of Earth might call the diffs of Kregen menagerie men—”
“Bone-skulled idiots! Ask your pal Unmok the Nets about that. He’s in the beast-catching business.”
“Probably,” I said, cautiously. Unmok the Nets would for a surety be on a dozen different schemes at once, if I knew him. A small animal broke cover ahead of us, and darted away to vanish into the greenery to our right. A thin screen shielded the lake here, the carved wall of the mountain lay to our rear, and ahead stretched the way we must go to win free.
“You are a kov without a province to govern,” I said. “There are provinces in Vallia. Will you take the Lady Milsi there — if she wishes to go?”
“If she wishes it — yes. I regard Vallia as my home.”
“As do I...”
“But I shall have to fight for my province.”
“Would you wish it another way?”
He heaved up another sigh and slapped his bow up and drew the arrow already nocked, and let fly. The rumbling bulk of the dinosaur that broke the screen of bushes and started for us took the shaft clear through one yellow eye.
Before the enraged beast’s bellow crashed out again a second shaft followed the first. Seg loosed a third time. Blinded, stuck through the pulsing skin of his throat, staggered, the dinosaur — all scales and fangs and claws — screeched and turned tail and blundered back into the bushes. A tremendous sloshing splash sounded. After that a succession of sucking noises, and splashes, and a screech or two, indicated where the denizens of the lake were feasting.
“Quick,” I said.
“No. The first shaft hit before I loosed the second.”
“True. Slow, then.”
“No. The third was in the air before the second struck.”
“True.” I cocked my head judiciously. “There was no wager on it, though. Had there been—”
“One, two, three,” said Seg.
And I laughed.
More than one person had judged this little foible of ours — of gambling on the outcome of shots in battle — as degrading, decadent, altogether horrible. In truth, it was some of those things. But, also, it served a deeper and more fundamental purpose in the horror of battle. My daughter, Princess Majestrix of Vallia, the Princess Lela whom we called Jaezila out of love, had instantly perceived the inner truths we men so clumsily sought to express by this betting on shots.
We had gone adventuring across the face of Kregen, Jaezila and I. Now, as Seg and I walked along the path leading to the camp where the rest of the party waited for us, I reflected that I was like to do much more of this adventuring than of ruling as an emperor. And, I would have it this way. My son Drak, the Prince Majister, would run the Empire of Vallia, and run it well. We had superb advisers, men and women we could trust.
Echoing my thoughts, Seg said: “So we’ll be off adventuring again, then?”
“We will, Seg, if the Star Lords do not demand some fresh service from me. There is no way, as yet, that I can stand against them, for they are superhuman. But I am working on some few ways of attempting to resist them. One day, I hope, I shall be able to take charge of my own destiny.”
The smell of woodsmoke reached us. In daylight, away from the jungle, the air was freer, we could talk, and not feel the pressures of instant destruction all about us.
Seg laughed. “It seems to me you’ve run your destiny pretty much as you willed it. By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom! Look what you’ve accomplished!”
“Titles, ranks, some property here and there. They mean little, all save one. I count as far more important the family and our blade comrades.”
Pursuing his thoughts, Seg said: “And you’ve no idea where you will be sent by the Everoinye?” He used the word Everoinye, Kregish equivalent to the Star Lords.
“None whatsoever. If I disappear, do not think harshly of me. Just remember I do all in my power to rejoin my family and friends.”
“There is a great deal still to be done in Vallia—”
“Yes. But the Star Lords pursue their interests over all of Paz, over all of this side of the world. To them, Vallia is no more important than this island of Pandahem, of the continent of Havilfar, or any of the others.”
“They must be a right weird lot. And you’ve never seen them?”
“Not one. They are superhuman. But not, I judge, immortal.”
“I wish,” said Seg, “I wish they’d take me along with you—”
“So do I!”
“A scorpion, did you say?” Seg pointed. “Look!”
He strutted out from a rock beside the path, reddish brown, glitteringly black, his stinger held arrogantly aloft, waving from side to side — waving at me.
I felt the familiar constriction in my throat.
The scorpion of the Star Lords — would he herald the Scorpion, the phantom blue Scorpion so huge he encompassed the world?
He did.
Blueness caught me up in a chill embrace. Unseen winds howled. I was falling. End over end, stark naked, winded, I was seized up by the Everoinye, tossed end over end and dumped down blinded and gasping upon some other part of Kregen to sort out a problem for the inscrutable purposes of the Star Lords.
If... if they had not contemptuously tossed me back through four hundred light-years of space to the planet of my birth.
Of the donning of a Silver Mask
The sea bellowed and roared less than a hundred paces off across a sandy beach, spuming in white foam fountains against jagged rocks that stuck out into the surf like the teeth of a Clawsang. Inland the jungle began where the beach ended, its greenery lush and profuse and deadly. Was I, then, still on the island of Pandahem?
The Star Lords make no great fuss over the people they select to do their dirty work for them. As usual, I was stark naked. The scarlet breechclout and the Krozair longsword were gone. No doubt Seg was even now stooping to pick them up, bewildered by my disappearance. Well, now he knew who had taken me up and why I was gone...
Farther along the beach a headland walled off what lay beyond and the jungle dripped over the beach. In the shadows lay an upturned ship.
She was an argenter, a broad comfortable trading vessel, and clearly she had been there some time. Her upper works were vanished away — I did not think they extended down into the sand — and her keel was well-covered with green growing things. A group of people clad in brown robes hurried toward the ship and vanished into the dark opening cut into her side.
Feeling exposed, I ran swiftly up the beach into the treeline. The vegetation here based on sand was sparse; I wondered which would win this eternal natural battle, the sand or the jungle.
A pathway opened out onto the beach a few paces along and a further group of people walked out from the trees into the radiance of the suns shine. They talked together quite naturally, their voices a mere rumble, so that I judged they had no fear either of hostile denizens of the jungle or of enemies lying in wait for them.
Now, being dumped down naked and unarmed to sort out a problem for the Star Lords has been my lot for a long time. I was not prepared to take it for granted. An order of precedence had to be established. First — just what was it that the Everoinye required of me this time? Second — I had to find a weapon. Oh, I am privy to the Disciplines and can throw people about in unarmed combat; but on Kregen a man without a weapon in his fist remains at a disadvantage. Only last would I worry about clothes.
Edging closer to the trail, I stopped as three people walked along, deep in conversation. Their words came muffled. But, clearly, striking out as a risslaca’s tongue licks out, the words hit me.
“My Flem! It is not to be borne!”
And the quick answer uttered in temper: “You are right, By Glem! We will tell Pudor and have done.”
“I am with you, in the name of the Silver Wonder!” said the third.
I felt sick.
Now I knew what I was up against. These people were worshippers of Lem the Silver Leem, an evil cult — evil as judged by ordinary people with ordinary morals and outlooks on human life — a cult dedicated to the overthrow of every other religion and the enslavement of all those who did not bow down to Lem the Silver Leem.
The three men wore brown robes, decked with silver.
They carried weapons.
In that upturned ship they had set up their secret temple. Their confidence was plain. No one was likely to interfere with them here. And, also, if they were acting as they always acted during their religious observances, they’d have a baby in there, a child, and they’d slit its throat and disembowel it and offer up its heart to the blasphemous silver image of the leem.
The task of stopping them from indulging in their other obscene practices and their orgies could wait. Right here and now I had to get that child away to safety. If this was not the task the Star Lords had set to my hands, then it was the task I set myself.
And, as usual, this would be a task of the most difficult and dangerous nature.
Once I had rescued the child and restored it to its mother — it, of course, because the baby could be male or female and of any race of diffs or apims — then I could set my face to the north and start off for home.
The three men stepped out onto the sand and began slurping their way toward the ship temple.
Belted to their waists they carried swords. A glance showed me these weapons were the Pandahem pallixter, a straight cut and thrust weapon very much like the familiar Havilfarese thraxter. More often than not these swords were called thraxters. It seemed to me that I would need a sword in the immediate future.
The chance of cutting these three down had gone. They were in sight of anyone watching from the ship. I turned quietly back to the jungle. Some more of these perverted worshippers of a vile creed would be along soon.
The next two worshippers came in sight along the trail not long after, and of the two one was a woman. Well, as women claim equality in most things and more than equality in the rest, that made no difference.
The man went to sleep most peaceably, and the woman followed him before she had time to cry out. I dragged them off the trail into the bush. They would slumber for some time but I judged it best to tie them up. The brown robes ripped easily enough — I used those from the woman — and I gagged them for good measure. Pulling on the robes and adjusting the fastenings and the silver tassels, I quelled a feeling of distaste. From a leather pouch I drew out the man’s silver mask. This was a quality item, stamped and fashioned into the likeness of a leem’s snarling face and covering forehead, eyes, nose and cheeks and sweeping down to cover the jaw bones. It was held by leather straps. I put it on. I fancy my eyes glared as madly from the eye slots as those of any leem.
The suns shine lay warm and mingled in radiance across the sands, mocking what went forward in that upturned ship. There would be guards, heavy men, sweaty in leather harness, and well-armed. They would have to be dealt with.
The woman carried a canvas bag of provisions — white bread, cold meats, cheeses, fruits, and the man a straw-wrapped flagon of a middling Stuvan. Their purses yielded golden deldys and silver dhems, and a mixture of other coins, so what with the Pandahem pallixters, I judged I must still be on the island of Pandahem.
From the position of the suns I was on the south coast of the island, and the jungle at my back confirmed that. Where I’d left Seg at that Opaz-forsaken mountain was in the southeast corner of the island, so I was farther along to the west. So, very well. After this little lot I’d simply walk along toward the east. If I could find a riding animal, even better. I would not, I fancied, find an airboat very easily. They were still rare in Pandahem.
Sounds reached along from the trail. More worshippers were hurrying to their blasphemous rituals. I heard a heavy voice saying: “And after we’ve conulted him, we’ll sew him in a sack and dump him in the sea.”
“Agreed!” cried a second voice.
If they were talking about this fellow called Pudor the first group had been contuming, he was in for a bad time. Conulting someone is to deliver him a tremendous buffet about the heart, either physically or psychically. It is not a pleasant experience.
Conulting, though, was just the kind of experience that would suit these worshippers of Lem the Silver Leem.
Letting this next batch go past and keeping well down, I waited until they were well out across the sands. With a most careful check of the backtrail, I rose to my feet, stepped out onto the sand and started off for the upturned ship.
She had once been a fine craft, broad and bluff-bowed and high-pooped, able to breast the waves and send the white spume scudding. Now she was just an upturned keel. It seemed to me there was another sacrilege going forward here, that a once-fine ship should have sunk into so low and degrading a function.
The followers of Lem have themselves branded upon a sensitive portion of their anatomies. Down south in the city of Ruathytu, capital of the Empire of Hamal, I’d once been dragged out of a nasty situation by Nath Tolfeyr. At that time he was still a figure of mystery to me. He’d hauled me into a secret temple of Lem, and there I’d perforce gone through the disgusting rites to make me an initiate. The brand I’d suffered had long since worn away, owing to my immersion in the Sacred Pool of Baptism in the River Zelph. That was in far Aphrasöe, the Swinging City of the Savanti. If anyone asked to see my brand — and I much doubted anyone would — then the action would begin that much sooner.
The thought occurred to me, as it had done off and on, that perhaps Nath Tolfeyr was a Kregoinye like me, a person doomed to serve the purposes of the Star Lords. I did not think so. But he could be...