said?
That had hitherto seemed a nonsense to me.
The Everoinye did what they did out of reasons far beyond the comprehension of a man. They had brought the fantastic array of diffs and strange animals to Kregen, upsetting the order established by the Savanti, who had lived here millennia ago. Why they had done this I did not know. But, clearly there was a reason.
“You cannot refuse my will, mortal.”
“I do not accept that.” As the blueness shimmered like shot silk waved against a fire, I went on quickly:
“I cannot obey your orders if I cannot fight — for that, I take it, is what I must do for you?” And then, from somewhere, the words sprang out, barbed and sarcastic. “For I assume you Star Lords are incapable of fighting your own battles on Kregen?”
“Whether we can or cannot is of no concern of yours. We choose to use mortal tools-”
A voice broke in, a thin, incisive voice that yet swelled with power. “Ahrinye! You have been warned. This man is not to be run by you, young and impetuous though you may be.”
I felt the draining sense of relief. When one Star Lord called another young he probably meant the Everoinye was only four or five millions years old. A wash of deep crimson fire spread against the blueness. The Scorpion remained; but I sensed he was removed in that insubstantial dimension inhabited by these superhuman beings.
“I have a damned great arrow wound in my neck,” I shouted without sound. “And a fever. And bed sores, too, I shouldn’t wonder. Let me get on with my tasks in Vallia, that you, Star Lords, promised me I might undertake. Of what use am I to you now?”
“Your wound,” the penetrating voice said, “is of no consequence. You may remove your bandage, for your neck is whole once more and your fever dissipated.”
And, as the words were spoken, damned if the aching nag in my neck didn’t vanish and my whole sense of well-being shot up wonderfully. I ripped the bandage free and explored my neck. The skin felt smooth and without blemish where a jagged hole had been left when they’d taken out the arrowhead.
“My thanks, Star Lord.” And, if I meant that, or if I spoke in savage sarcasm, I could not truly say.
“We are aware of the emotion called gratitude. It has its uses.”
“By Vox,” I said, “d’you have ice water in your veins?”
Even as I spoke I wondered if they had veins at all. I was not unmindful of the enormous risks I ran. These were the beings who had brought me here and who could banish me back to Earth. They had done so before now, to punish me, and on one occasion I had spent twenty-one miserable years on Earth. I was not likely to forget that.
The next words shocked me, shocked me profoundly — although they should not have done.
“We,” said the Star Lord, “were once as human as you.”
Well, now….
This bizarre conversation with superhuman beings had lulled me into a false idea of my position. With genuine and I may add fervent interest I asked the question that had long burned in me, gradually losing its intensity in my realization that the Everoinye, being superhuman, had no need to care over my welfare.
“Why, Star Lords? Why have you summoned me? Why have you demanded I save certain people?
Where is the sense in it all?”
With lightning-strokes of rippling crimson bursting through the blue radiance, I was rapidly reminded of my true position and disabused of the notion that I might speak with impunity to the Everoinye.
“What we do we do. Our reasons are beyond your understanding. The Gdoinye carries our orders. We speak with you only because you have served faithfully and well. There is another task set to your hand. We will apprise you nearer the time. The warning you now receive is in earnest of our benign intentions toward you.”
If I say I found it extraordinarily difficult to swallow I think you will understand me. Yet I could not in all caution make the kind of impudent and insulting reply I would surely have hurled at the Gdoinye as he whirled about me on flashing wings, all scarlet and gold, superb, a hunting bird of the air. So, instead, I took a different tack.
“Very well, Star Lords. You seem to be implying a compact between us and one I will honor if you honor it also. I will do your bidding and rescue the people you wish saved. Although,” I added, and not without resentment, “I might take exception to your habit of plunking me down naked and unarmed-”
“This we do for reasons beyond-”
“Yes. As a mere mortal I cannot be expected to understand.”
Then I hauled myself up to standing. Softly softly! I dare not infuriate these unknown powers or I would find myself banished back to Earth. And Vallia called. And — Delia… What had happened to Ahrinye I never knew nor cared. But the greenness withered and died, and the blueness of the Scorpion faded. The crimson washed all over my vision, there in the sickroom, and I looked in vain for the mellow flood of pure yellow light that would herald the presence of Zena Iztar. That the Star Lords respected her powers I knew. Just what the relationship was I did not know. But Zena Iztar, I fervently believed, worked for other ends than those sought by either the Star Lords or the Savanti, and they were ends, I fancied, that we Kroveres would find most congenial. There in that close room the sense of the infinite moving about me dizzied my senses anew. The thin whispering voice attenuated as though withdrawing across the vasty gulfs of space itself.
“Go about your business in Vallia, mortal. But when you receive our call — be ready!”
With an abruptness that left me sprawling blinking and still dizzied on the bed, the blueness returned, the crimson vanished, the Scorpion faded and, with a final swirl as of the wings of fate closing, the blueness dimmed and was gone.
Despite my feeling of physical well-being I felt like a stranded flatfish. Momentous events had passed, of that I felt sure. Never before had such a conversation been held between the Star Lords and myself and, guessing they did nothing without good reason, I wondered what the reason could be. It would take a little time before I got over this little lot. Then the door burst open and Nath the Needle and Master Hork were there. And, with them, Delia, her face strained and worried, hurried in ready to fuss over me as only she can. Despite all my protestations Nath insisted on a full examination, and when he pronounced me fit and well and the wound healed, I, for one, was heartily glad to be rid of the sickroom aroma.
“I have work to do, and work I will do!”
“But, my heart — so soon?”
“Not soon enough.”
“The wound has healed with remarkable rapidity,” said Doctor Nath. He shook his head. “Your powers of recuperation, majister, are indeed phenomenal, as I have observed before.”
Well, he did not know that I, along with Delia and our friends, had bathed in the Sacred Pool of Baptism of the River Zelph in far Aphrasoe. That little dip, besides giving us a thousand years of life, also conferred great recuperative powers. But that would by itself not account for the complete disappearance of all traces of the arrow wound. The Everoinye had accomplished that. I said, “There is work to do. I am going to do that work and you, good Doctor Nath, have my thanks for your care and attention. As for you, Master Hork, I do not think I shall have the pleasure of your instruction in the more arcane aspects of Jikaida from now on.” I stretched, feeling the blood beginning to find its way around my body and go poking into long disused corners. “And for that I am truly sorry. But with Vallia as the Jikaida board, well…”
“My help is always at your command, majister.”
“And valued.” I bellowed then, a real fruity old-time bellow in my best foretop hailing voice. “Emder!”
When Emder came in, smiling at my recovery, he very quickly organized the essentials. A most valuable and self-effacing man, Emder, what you might call a valet and butler and personal attendant — I disliked to call him a servant — a man whom I valued as a friend.
Enevon Ob-Eye and his corps of stylors were soon hard at work writing out the orders. The Pallans were seen and their doings checked up on. The Presidio met and agreed on much, and disagreed on a number of points, also, which was healthy.
It is not my intention to go into details of all the work that had to be done, and that was done, by Vox. But being an emperor, even an emperor of so small an empire as I then was, takes up more time than Opaz hands out between sunrise and sunrise.
The news from Seg was that he was keeping the clansmen in play, baiting them with Filbarrka’s zorcamen. The zorcas, being so close-coupled and nimble, could ride rings around the more massive voves with their eight
