Transit to Scorpio

Chapter Eighteen

Hap Loder was overjoyed to see me.

Truth to tell I had expected some stiffness about this reunion.

But Hap danced about, shouted, thumped me on the back, grabbed my hand and threatened to wring it off, bellowed for wine, hugged me, roaring and hullabalooing so that all the wide camp of the clan came arunning.

They were all there, Rov Kovno, Ark Atvar, Loku, all my faithful clansmen. There was no business to be transacted that night. Immense fires blazed; chunkrah were slaughtered and the meat roasted to its gourmand’s delight of tastiness, the flesh perfect, the fat brown and crisp, the juices more heaven-savory than all the sauces of Paris and New York put together. The girls danced in their veils and silks and furs, their golden bells and chains ringing and tinkling, their white teeth flashing, their eyes ablaze with excitement, their tawny skin painted exotically by the firelight. The wine goblets and wineskins and wine jugs passed and repassed; the fruits of the plains lay heaped in enormous piles on golden platters, the stars shone and no less than six of the seven hurtling moons of Kregen beamed down on our feasting.

Oh, yes, I had come home!

In the morning Hap rolled into my tent declaiming he had a head like the hoof of a zorca, thump, thump, thump across the stone-hard plains during the drought.

I threw him a branch from a paline bush and he began to chew down the cherry-like berries. They were near-miraculous when it came to hangover time.

The awkwardness I had expected arose from my presumed death. Hap Loder would now be Zorcander, Vovedeer. There was a step in rank between the two, the Vovedeer being the higher; but my clansmen of Felschraung and Longuelm regarded me as a Vovedeer, anyway, even though strictly speaking the name applied to the leader of four or more clans. But Hap was explaining that they were not sure I was dead, that they believed I would return, that he was a Half-Zorcander. I put a hand on his shoulder.

“I want you to be Zorcander of the clans, Hap. If I ask the people to help me in this it is as one of them; not as their Zorcander and commanding them.”

He would have been insulted if I’d given him the chance.

“I know you will help, Hap; but I want you to know that I do not order it, and I do not take it for granted. I am truly grateful.”

“But you are our Zorcander, Dray Prescot. Always and forever.”

“So be it.” I told him the plan and then the others came in, my Jiktars, and I was pleased to see Loku among their number. A Jiktar does not necessarily command a thousand men, or the other ranks their multiples of ten; the names are names of ranks and, like the centurions of ancient Rome, command whatever numbers the current military organization demands.

Loud were the shouts of glee when the plan was spread out for inspection. It was childishly simple, as most good plans are, and depended on surprise, stealth and the awesome fighting prowess of the clansmen for success.

Loku jumped up, laughing. “We can find that little thief, Nath. He will help, for he knows the city like a louse knows an armpit.”

“Nath?” I said. “Why, Loku, you mean you didn’t slit his throat?”

Loku roared with merriment.

“It will be very good,” said Rov Kovno with fierce meaning,

“to return there with weapons in our hands.”

“Bows, mainly,” I told them, once more their Vovedeer. “And axes. I feel you would be at a disadvantage if you opposed your broadswords to the citizens’ rapiers and daggers. The shortswords, though…”

There were wise nods. These men well understood the difference in techniques required for fighting astride a vove in the massive cavalry charges of the plains, and those required by close fighting in the streets of a city. They possessed the sheer speed and striking ability to beat down a rapier and dagger man, and I knew, because I had insisted on the art being continued, that they could wield a shortsword in the left hand as they used broadsword or ax in the right; but they would be slow. Maybe it would be best to rely on the techniques they knew, and so I did not suggest that each man carry a main gauche. I did, say, however, tentatively: “Of course, a particularly long broadsword wielded as a two-hander might tickle a rapier man before he got at you.” I freely admit I was desperately worried at the thought of my nomadic warriors going up against the sophisticated rapier men of the city. After all, a rapier is a hefty weapon, quite unlike the small sword with which the French style of fencing is done. Maybe sheer weight and muscle would carry my men through.

“If only you’d consider carrying shields, then your shortswords would be deadly,” I began; but their reaction choked the idea off. I sighed. In a clash of cultures the newer usually wins; but then, the clansmen were no babes-in-arms, no novices. I can see now, what I could not see then, the comical reactions of myself to the coming conflict when so much was at stake, that my main concern was with the well-being of as rough and tough and fearsome a bunch of fighting men as I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet.

Originally I had intended only to spend a single night and day with my clansmen. Already I had seen how effective was the control exercised by Hap Loder, and if a great deal of his success in handling the clans sprang from the tuition he had imbibed as my right-hand man, I took little credit for that, for Hap is a marvelous man at absorbing obi. As a matter of interest he absorbs it like he absorbs the clan wines. He can drink from a flagon with his left hand and swing his razor-sharp ax with his right, in the midst of a battle. I have seen it. I’ve done it myself, of course; but I doubt if I do it quite with the panache of Hap Loder.

So it was that I spent the next night with my clansmen also, wherein we drank hugely, cheered and clapped the girls as they danced for us-they were never dancing girls, and the man who made that mistake would have a terchick in him before he’d finished the last syllable of his mistake-and roared the clan songs to the hurtling moons above.

“Remember,” I said, pulling out the suit of powder blue from my saddle bag. “This color is for us. If you see emerald green-stain it crimson with its owner’s blood.”

“Aye!” they roared, “The sky colors were ever in mortal combat.”

At last, and not without a last ten or eleven stirrup-cups pressed on me by my Jiktars and the crowding clansmen, I bade them all farewell and began my ride back to Zenicce. The plan was for me, some miles from the city, to find a caravan and change into my powder blue and thus enter the gates without notice. As a clansman, of course, I would have been an object of deepest suspicion.

The caravan was large and slow and colorful and ablaze with the panoply of Kregen. It had come safely through the prairie limits of the clans, and as well as Chulik guards, there were mercenary clansmen serving in the long lines of pack animals. My powder blue mingled easily with the chiaroscuro of colors. As well as the indefatigable calsanys, and long strings of the plains asses, there were many pack mastodons. These goliaths could each carry two ton loads, slung a ton each side, and they lolloped along like true ships of the plains. I admired their rolling muscles and massive tread. I hoped that when they reached their destination they would not be slaughtered for their ivory and hides, as often happened, and would once more be able to plod so tirelessly along the untracked pathways of the Great Plains. The discovery by chance that much of the pack mastodons’

burdens consisted of paper-reams and reams of it all beautifully packed-excited my intense curiosity. I recalled the mystery surrounding the manufacture and distribution of paper from Aphrasoe. Coins had, since I had taken up residence in the House of Eward, now formed part of my transactions with life. The Savanti used no form of monetary exchange and the clansmen cared for coins only as booty from plundered caravans, which they might melt down for the metal, or use to barter with the city. As a slave, there had been no time for me to acquire the small copper coins that often came the way of slaves. Now by the suitable distribution of some silver coins with the face of Wanek finely executed upon one side, and the Kregish symbol for twelve on the other, plus a bottle of the fiendish drink called Dopa, I was able to make an inspection of the paper.

It was fine, smooth-textured from super-calendering, tough with a rag fiber base, and, I judged with a rush of blood to the head, milled in Aphrasoe. Questions elicited the dismaying information that it had come already packed and wrapped in these very bundles, from ships plying into Port Paros, over across the peninsula three hundred miles away, the last port of call before Zenicce. I had heard of Port Paros, a minor seaport serving a hinterland remote enough from Zenicce not to bother that great city. Port Paros was not a great city and did not count; but I wondered why the paper-carrying ships had docked there and not Zenicce. The merchants winked their bright eyes and laid fingers alongside their noses. They would by this mean avoid the iniquitous port taxes levied by the House of Esztercari on foreign ships. Paper, particularly, was ruinously taxed. Alas, no, they had no idea from which land ships had sailed.

Also, they bought the paper at ridiculously low prices and could look forward to a thumping one thousand percent profit in Zenicce.

One unsettling event took place as we made the last few miles to the city. I do not count the cutthroat who tried to stab me that night having seen the silver Eward coins I had disbursed. I rolled away from his blade and took him by the throat and throttled him a little and then broke his blade over his head, lifted him up and kicked his rump with some force, and sent him stumbling, yelling, into the lines of calsanys, which did what they always did when excited all over him. I did not feel inclined to stain my steel on him.

The event was simply the sight of a gorgeous scarlet and golden raptor, floating high in hunting circles above the caravan. That magnificent bird, I felt sure, must come as a sign that the Star Lords were taking a further interest in me. Undoubtedly, they had been instrumental in bringing me to Kregen for the second time, and, I surmised, with a complete faith in my own reasoning, they had not consulted the Savanti as to their action. The Savanti, I often had to remind myself with surprise, the memory of their warm goodness and fellowship so strong upon me, had kicked me out of Paradise. The Star Lords, I reasoned, would regard me as a very suitable tool if they wished to work against the Savanti. The caravan-master, a lean, chisel-faced black man from the island of Xuntal, an experienced and honest farer of the plains, looked up with me. He dressed in amber-colored gear and cloak, and carried a falchion, and his name was Xoltemb. “Had I a bow with me now,” he said in his slow voice, “I would not lift it. I think perhaps I might cut down a man who lifted a bow against that bird.”

Questions convinced me he knew nothing of the bird; that only its scarlet magnificence awed him, and the stories told around the camp fires about that serene and lofty apparition. I paid him the fees he had earned by the protection, as he supposed, his caravan had extended to me and my four zorcas. The fee was reasonable and I had not traveled far with them. He did say, as we saluted and parted: “I would welcome your company if you travel the Great Plains again. I am always in need of a good blade. Remberee.”

“I will bear that in mind, Xoltemb,” I said, “Remberee.”

Prince Varden, and his father Wanek and his mother and Great-Aunt Shusha were most pleased and relieved to see me returned safely.

“The plains are never safe,” scolded Shusha. “Every year I must make my pilgrimage to take the hot springs of Benga Deste. I sometimes wonder if I do not fret away all the good they do me on that frightful journey.”

“Why,” I said, “do you not take an airboat?”

“What?” Her old eyebrows shot up. “Risk my poor old hide on one of those flimsy, scary things!”

Then they all suddenly looked extraordinarily grave. Varden stepped forward and put a hand on my shoulder.

“Dray Prescot,” he said-and I knew.

I can remember that moment as vividly as though it were but this morning, when-but never mind now. Then-then I knew what he was going to say and I believe my heart turned to ice within me.

“Dray Prescot. Delia of the Blue Mountains took your airboat and left us. She did not say she was going, or where. But she is gone.”