Umgar Stro.
With the legacies left by Walfarg — the long well-constructed and surfaced roads, a common currency, the use of arms, a common law that the barbarians naturally disrupted, a religion based on worship of the female principle in life and the interesting ramifications following on that — all these elements of existence held in common had in an ironic way helped rather than hindered the dissolution and conquest of the land by factions. A raiding army could move rapidly down the roads, but they would be exposed to attack at known places by the flying hosts.
Umgar Stro.
“Once I am inside Umgar Stro’s tower,” I told Naghan, the spy, “I shall be satisfied.”
He looked at my face, and turned away, and fidgeted with his sword.
“What is the name of this barbarian nation that flies its impiters against Hiclantung?”
“They come from Ullardrin, somewhere north of The Stratemsk and they are called the Ullars.”
“We’ll need to fly, Dray,” said Seg.
“Yes,” I said. “I hear the men of Hiclantung do not really relish flying — the corths are few and far between in the city.” This was true. Corth-flying was in the nature of a sport for the nobles and the high councilors; the ordinary people and the soldiers hated all flying beasts, and one could well understand why. Their ancestors had waged ceaseless war against the aerial barbarians, and it still went on today. They had developed effective tricks and weapons they could deploy against impiters and corths and only through Forpacheng’s treachery were they deprived of them on the day of the army massacre. We hurried back to the city.
Thelda with tears and protestations tried to stop me from going. She had seen Delia fall into the tarn and if I went to this dreadful Umgar Stro’s high tower I would surely be killed. There was much to be learned about riding a corth and I put her aside and shouted for Seg. Hwang had insisted on putting his two best birds at our disposal, and we went along to fat Nath the Corthman to find out all we could.
Everyone treated us as though we were mad, and everyone was careful to make full, polite, and emotional Remberee of us before they let us go.
I told Seg I did not want him to accompany me.
He laughed.
“I’ll grant I’ve never seen a swordsman like you, Dray — no, and never likely to! But I know that however good you may be with the longbow, you cannot best me; and bows will be needed, you will see. Consequently, I shall come with you.” He stared at me and I warmed to the look on his lean, tanned face, the light of understanding and resolution in his blue eyes, the wild mane of black hair. “And,” he said, offhandedly, “I, too, value your Delia Majestrix.”
I couldn’t speak for a moment, and grasped his hand. I was not fool enough to say what I had been about to say, namely, that I had thought he would welcome the opportunity to stay with Thelda. She had been worrying me, and I wished she would turn to Seg, although I wouldn’t have wished her on my comrade for the world — either one — had he not devoutly wished that disaster for himself. In the confused tangling of politics going on all around me as Queen Lilah sought for strength and allies against the menace of the Ullars, I was conscious only of one objective: I had to reach Umgar Stro’s high tower and bring my Delia safely back to me.
I called her “my Delia” and she called me “my Dray” but neither one of us regarded it as selfish possession in thus speaking; rather we recognized we were but halves of a complete whole. To add to our normal weapons and accouterments we took warm flying furs and silks, extra quivers of arrows, and a couple of heavy flint-headed spears. I packed a complete set of warm clothing for Delia. I had no doubts, now.
That evening I went up to the palace — imposing but, because of the absolute necessity not to allow any perching place for birds or animals, somehow spiritless and without that fantasy of architecture so beloved by the builders of Kregen — to pay my respects to the Queen. Lilah received me in a small withdrawing room in which the lamps picked out the sumptuous furnishings, the furs and rugs, the weapons on the walls, the leather upholstery and all the crystal wink and glitter, the golden glows and the silver sheen of absolute luxury. The Queen of Pain, men called her, behind their hands. I had heard dark stories about her wayward manner with men; how she used them and tossed them aside. I had met, as I then thought, women of her stamp before. Those fabulous Queens of Loh, notorious, sadistic, cruel, had a devoted disciple in this tall woman with the widow’s peak of dark red hair, the upslanting eyebrows, the shaded cheekbones, and the small firm mouth. She welcomed me kindly and we drank purple wine of Hiclantung, and munched palines. She wore a jeweled mesh of clothes so that her white skin gleamed through the interstices. Lovely and desirable she looked; and yet, hard and remote, a true queen with destinies and cares above the mere carnal satisfactions of the flesh. I had the thought that my Delia, however greater an empire she might one day rule, would never take on that hard, polished, ruthless look of despotism.
“You have saved my life, Dray Prescot, and now you rush off to risk that life, precious to me, in the wayward service of another woman.”
“Not any woman, Lilah.”
“And am I not any woman! I am the Queen — I have told you; my word is law. You flouted my wishes, there in the windlass room of the corthdrome. Many men have died for less.”
“Mayhap they have. I do not intend to die for that.”
She drew in a breath and the gems about her body winked and flashed in the lamplight. Gracefully she stretched out a white arm and lifted her goblet. The wine stained her lips for an instant, turning them purple and cruel.
“I need a man like you, Dray Prescot. I can give you any thing you desire — as you have seen. Now that the Ullars are forcing themselves on us, I need a fighting-man to lead my regiments. They are well-disciplined, but they do not fight well. The barbarians scorn us.”
“Men will fight if they believe in what they fight for.”
“I believe in Hiclantung! And I believe in myself!”
I nodded.
“Sit upon my throne alongside me, Dray! I implore you — and there could be a great sweetness between us — more than you can imagine.” She was breathing faster now, and her mouth opened with the passions she felt. I — what did I think, then, when every fiber of my being shrieked to be off and away in search of my Delia of the Blue Mountains?
“You honor me, Lilah. Indeed, you are beautiful.”
Before I could go on she had thrown herself upon me, her arms were about my neck, and I could feel the gems upon her person pressing into my flesh beneath the white robe I wore. Her mouth, all hot and moist, sought mine. I recoiled.
“Dray!” she moaned. “If I were a true queen I would have had you quartered for what you did! So bold, so reckless, so impious — you defied me, the Queen of Hiclantung. And yet you live and I am prostrate at your feet, imploring you-”
“Please, Lilah!” I managed to disengage, and she slumped to the floor on the gorgeous rugs and stared up lustfully at me. She was breathing in great gasps now, her body convulsed with her own passions.
“Please, you are the Queen and a great one. You have wonderful deeds to accomplish for your city, and I will help you — that I swear-”
“You-?”
“I must go to Umgar Stro’s tower, Lilah. If I may not do that then I will not do anything else.”
She jumped up, her eyes murderous upon me, and I knew that in an instant I might be struck down on that carpet before her, my head rolling and spouting blood over her pretty jeweled naked feet. She opened her mouth and a palace slave — a pretty girl with the gray slave breechclout edged in gold lace, and a pair of enormous dark eyes that fairly danced in a goggling kind of amazement at the scene within — put her curly head in at the door and started to say: “The Lady Thelda of Vallia-” when she was pushed aside and Thelda marched in.
The tableau held. It held, I confess, until despite all my lack of laughter I wanted to roar my mirth at these two.
For these two were standing up very straight and erect, bosoms jutting, chins up, hands held quiveringly at their sides, their eyes darting and flashing like rapiers crossing, so charged with emotion were these two ladies — and over a hulking great brute of a man with an ugly face and shoulders wide enough to have encompassed the pair of them — a man, moreover, who wanted nothing so much as to be rid of the pair of them and wing into the night to seek his true love.
