Dimpy, of course, wanted to go to the Temple of Cymbaro. The cable cars were down so I asked Nalgre to take Dimpy when he got back. I wouldn’t put it past the young scamp to persuade Nalgre to take him all the way to Farinsee. He was really missing Tiri.
Now this may sound farcically out of proportion in a normal man’s perception of importances. But, by the Blade of Kurin! To me, plain Dray Prescot, Vovedeer, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, swordsman, the feel of the great Krozair longsword handed to me by the ambassador felt like — felt like — well, by Zim-Zair! I felt that perhaps now I might fight in the old wild Dray Prescot way without having blades snapping left and right under my blows.
As we flew over the city Oxonium presented a wretched sight. The fires were out but smoke still hung sootily here and there. I experienced a vivid flash of recollection of the time Delia and I flew out of the blazing pyre of Vondium the proud city. Still, we’d rebuilt. I did not doubt that the Tolindrinese would rebuild too.
They were digging out dead bodies. Rubble was carried away by the cartload. Provisions of all kinds were coming in, for the country folk had rallied to help the city dwellers. We swooped across Grand Central. The cable car between the king’s and Brannomar’s palaces was down. Both structures, apart from the loss of a tower or two, looked intact. Nalgre brought us down onto a lawn where the fountain stood dry and the garden walls lay strewn across the flower beds. At the moment no one was about.
Nalgre shouted down the remberee and took off. The landing of the voller would not have gone unnoticed and guards would be along at any moment. I had my story ready and had no doubts of seeing Brannomar quite easily.
Ahead stood a lenken door adorned with bronze chavonths. I pushed it open and went through. The entrance hall was wide, flanked by black marble pillars. Black beams stretched across supporting the ceiling. The floor was a blinding white. I started off striding along. A faint trace of jasmine perfumed the air. The silence was profound. This entrance hall was hugely impressive and it went on and on. All this, I marveled, inside a hilltop palace!
Eventually in the lamplights shining between the pillars a door showed up at the far end. Golden animals of mythological significance that escaped me writhed upon the ebon surface.
Beyond that door the silence struck ominously. There was absolutely no one about, not a living soul to greet or challenge me.
The room was octagonal, draped in crimson, lit by golden lamps. Gilded furniture stood here and there on the faerling carpet.
I knew what this was all about in the instant before the ghostly voice with the edge of steel rustled in the air all about.
“Come in, Dray Prescot. Sit down. There are refreshments and wine.” I looked at the wine bottle regretfully. It was a top quality Jholaix.
“It is too early for me for wine. If you have some sazz—”
On the word a bottle of sazz shot into being alongside the Jholaix. Pale rose, sparkling, it was delightfully refreshing.
“So this is where you attempt to discipline me?” Even as I spoke those foolish words of bravado I could feel my heart thumping.
“Your duty to the numim twins is finished.”
Quickly, I shot out: “They are safe? Fweygo—?”
“Safe. Another kregoinye has been appointed. Your duty, as you know full well, is to become the Emperor of All Paz.”
The nonsensicality of this did not warrant a reply.
“The Shanks have left Mehzta. They strike south. Many Chuliks are returning home in anticipation of an attack. The Shanks will bypass the Chulik islands. They will strike Balintol.”
“That is grave news.”
“Your duty, Dray Prescot, is to unite all of Balintol to resist the Shanks’ invasion. You must use your powers. This task is laid upon you. You will not fail.”
I sat silently. Not fail? The Star Lords must be going completely senile — or insane. “I recall Phu-Si-Yantong, the Empress Thyllis, King Genod Gannius — and others. They were mad with this phantasm of world conquest.”
“You will use your powers, Dray Prescot.”
Although I had this new relationship with the Star Lords, I still had to be circumspect. So I did not say aloud what was in my mind. “Whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”
The rustling voice of the Everoinye that could be millennia old went on to give me details of the movements of the Shanks. Those fish-headed reivers from over the curve of the world were recovering from the reverses we had inflicted on them. And I, plain Dray Prescot, had to unite the sub-continent of Balintol to resist them. And that was only the first step, for I then had to unite all of Paz. Dear old Makki Grodno’s gross appearance flowed unhappily in my thoughts.
The mystery of the serial killings of young girls entered the conversation when the Star Lords informed me that my suspicions about Duven were, indeed, correct. His motives were quite clear. He sought to discredit the Dokerty cultists. I felt sorry for the idiot and also angry at him. His actions were just as mad as any real maniac who went about mass murdering without any lofty ideals. This also meant the Dokerty people were not as bad as was thought.
When the blue radiance dropped down about me and I looked up, there, hovering, immense, the Scorpion took me up into cold and darkness. The sensation of madly rushing through space, of being hurled down blindly into danger — oh yes, by Vox, these were the familiar sensations of my transactions with the Star Lords.
I’d had my fill of being an emperor. I’d been the Emperor of Vallia. Delia and I had abdicated in favor of our son, Drak, and his wife, the lovely Silda, daughter of our blade comrade, Seg Segutorio. The Star Lords were damned demanding. Of course, by Krun, they could afford to be. Their powers remained unknown to me; I did know they could banish me back to Earth, four hundred light years away, and there let me rot.
Mind you, making myself some kind of puffed-up emperor was one thing. Uniting the various countries of Balintol to resist the Shanks was quite another. That was a deed worth the doing.
My feet hit marble. The giant Scorpion disappeared. The blue misty radiance cleared.
I stood in an entrance hall with white marble floor, flanked by black marble columns. Jasmine blew on the air. Lamps burned mellowly. Ahead a lenken door stood ajar, near enough to be reached in a dozen strides.
On the floor at my feet lay the ripped body of a guardsman. Screaming in a futile effort to scrabble away across the marble, a woman shrieked for help. Savaging her was a black and white striped wersting, snarling, fangs dripping, shaking his head from side to side.
The Krozair brand ripped free. A single precise blow took the Wersting’s head off. It span away trailing blood.
Lifting the woman tenderly I saw her legs were torn and bleeding but that she was otherwise unhurt. She was Sana Besti, Kov Brannomar’s sister.
She shrieked again, unintelligibly; but what she was trying to say was abundantly clear by the racket roaring from beyond the door. Through her pain and fear she gestured impatiently towards the door.
The scene beyond the door was ugly. I hardly took notice of the elegance of the chamber. Brannomar’s guardsmen were being ferociously attacked by a wersting pack. The black and white striped hunting dogs, snarling, yellow fangs lethal, leaped and bit, were cut down, and writhed in agony — but more and more leaped. The guardsmen were going down in the welter of their own blood.
To the side the controllers of the pack were taking no part in the combat. They were laughing and urging their dogs on. Whips in right hands and the leashes coiled up along their left arms, they were thoroughly enjoying this hideous spectacle.
The werstings first. Then the controllers. Chief among them the florid face and bulky shoulders of Jiktar Nath ti Fangenun stood out. That cramph saw me and his laughter changed to mean hatred. He had no whip. He drew his sword. I ignored him — for now, by Krun, for now! — and went hell for leather into the werstings.
Laying about me with a will I cleared a way through the black and white bodies towards Brannomar. The scar across his bronzed face looked like a vivid weal. He fought well, keeping his footing, using his sword with skill.
The noise of snarling dogs, of screaming men, the stink of blood, the raw choking stink of the whole combat, all blended into a bloody turmoil.
Brannomar was a great noble. In all the ferocity of the combat he saw me and panted out: “Lahal, majister. You are well met.”
“Lahal, kov.” I sliced the Krozair brand into a dog’s body and he shrieked and dropped. Like our hyenas of Earth, these werstings’ jaws could exert a pressure on their rear teeth of seven hundred pounds per square inch. They crunched bones into splinters. If they fastened those fangs into you, well then, by Krun, you were in deep trouble!
Slashing and slicing away, keeping the ring, we formed a group about Brannomar. His guards fought well. The numbers of dogs lessened. These poor beasts by nature and training were intent on killing. Pity for them, oh, yes, I felt that. They were like the scorpion and did what they did because that is what they did.
They were not going to chomp me up, no, by Vox, and whilst I stood they weren’t going to savage Brannomar.
Fangenun and his wersting handlers saw which way the fight was going with my entrance onto the scene. Weapons in fist they closed in to finish what their dogs had begun.
Well, then, if this was the last great fight then so let it be, so let it be. A Krozair of Zy knows how to die.
The clash of blades grated in that ugly menacing scrape so familiar to me. Fangenun joined in the fight now, thinking it won, instead of hanging back as he had in Nandisha’s solarium. He struck with savage force, streaming sweat, scarlet of face, bulging of eye.
The paid swordsmen fighting alongside him were professionals, stikitches, and their style of fighting was altogether more compact and economical. I just managed to interpose the Krozair longsword between a guardsman and a braxter seeking his internal organs. A twist and an instant thrust and the stikitche went down with his guts instead of the guardsman’s hanging out.
Shouts ripped through the chamber. Calls for assistance, brittle warnings of backstabbing, screams as the steel brutally slashed down, all jumbled into a cacophony of death.
I began to think we might prevail. Most of the werstings had crawled off, dragging bleeding bodies on trembling legs. The men pressed and we fronted them. The grating clang of steel on steel, the screams of anguish, the spouting blood, the stink of it all, sickened me.
A voice ripped through the turmoil.
“Notor! Hold on!”
Lord Jazipur, Brannomar’s right hand man, led a rush of new combatants from the door. Immediate confusion embroiled us all as stikitches tried to switch their weapons around to meet this new peril, we hurled into them with vengeful brands, and the newcomers sought their targets.
After that the fight did not last long. An eerie silence fell.
We gazed around stupefied on the hideous scene of carnage. A few bodies twitched and writhed. Slowly the shrieks and moans of the wounded splintered into our consciousnesses and we realized the silence had only been in our heads, a reaction from the battle clamor.
Some of the survivors sank down, panting, white-eyed, overjoyed still to be alive. Brannomar stood straight and tall and splashed with blood. He stared levelly at Lord Jazipur.
“You are welcome. I expected you before this.”
Jazipur made one of his gracious gestures. He indicated the men he had brought to our aid. They were a patrol of the City Guard.
“There was no one else, notor. I was fortunate to find a patrol so quickly. I am happy to see you alive.”
Brannomar nodded. “Where is that scoundrel Fangenun?”
A Jiktar spoke up smartly, still wiping his sword. “He is not among the dead or injured, notor. He must have escaped.”
“His day will come.”
I said: “He is Ortyg’s man. The young prince is a fool if—”
Brannomar interrupted very gravely. “Yes. But he has outrun his patience. His palace falling about his ears decided him.”
“And Khon the Mak?”
“He was forced to leave the city after the disastrous earthquake he and his sorcerer initiated. He has at last shown his hand.”
So — events were moving swiftly. My task for the Everoinye remained. At Brannomar’s next words I felt a deathly chill grip into my blood and choke up my breath.
“Hyr Kov Khonstanton has gone to the Chulik Islands to recruit an army. Prince Ortyg has treacherously thrown in his lot with the King of Caneldrin in return for his aid. Both of them will lead armies against King Tom, against me. They have taken the final step to outright war.”
I felt the horror of an undeserved fate crushing me into a darkness like the cloak of Notor Zan.
Southern Balintol was about to be ripped apart as armies and factions clashed in a megalomaniac desire for power. Wars and Civil Wars promised a ghastly red-lit future.
And the Star Lords had ordered me to unite the continent! Failure would send me hurtling back four hundred light years — no. Oh, no! By all the deformities and defects of Makki Grodno and the Divine Lady of Belschutz! I wasn’t having that.
Somehow, I, plain sailorman Dray Prescot, had to save this situation. These idiots must be talked to, their heads knocked together to make them co-operate instead of feud. A way must be found.
My Val! My future was one of near impossible tasks that must be accomplished. For my sake, and, supremely, for the sake of Delia without whom everything was dust and ashes, whatever might be needed, that must be done.
“Selah!”
Alan Burt Akers was a pen name of the prolific British author Kenneth Bulmer, who died in December 2005 aged eighty-four.
Bulmer wrote over 160 novels and countless short stories, predominantly science fiction, both under his real name and numerous pseudonyms, including Alan Burt Akers, Frank Brandon, Rupert Clinton, Ernest Corley, Peter Green, Adam Hardy, Philip Kent, Bruno Krauss, Karl Maras, Manning Norvil, Chesman Scot, Nelson Sherwood, Richard Silver, H. Philip Stratford, and Tully Zetford. Kenneth Johns was a collective pseudonym used for a collaboration with author John Newman. Some of Bulmer’s works were published along with the works of other authors under "house names" (collective pseudonyms) such as Ken Blake (for a series of tie-ins with the 1970s television programme The Professionals), Arthur Frazier, Neil Langholm, Charles R. Pike, and Andrew Quiller.