be.
The bottom of the voller did not smell as pleasantly as I suspected a voller should smell, although for a man like myself who knows what an eighteenth-century seventy-four’s bilges smelled like after eighteen months on blockade, smells are usually merely information clusters. This voller had been carrying gregarians, squishes, and malsidges. I saw no reason, now, to wait before freeing myself.
“Avec!” I said, not loudly, but not whispering, either. “Is your crime so serious?”
I wanted to know if he was just a petty criminal who was always in trouble, or if he had just done one thing wrong.
“Serious?” He chuckled, there, tied up in the malodorous hold of the voller. “Had I not left to go to Sumbakir I would have challenged him earlier, for although I am not a Horter neither am I a slave! Elten Lart is corrupt. I told the cramph what I thought of him, then I threw slursh at him — slursh with best red honey stirred in, too!”
Slursh is a remarkably fine porridge, which may be cooked in a number of different ways according to taste, and is so common on Kregen that if I have not mentioned it previously it is surely for that reason. Slursh and red honey, now — superb.
“Slursh wouldn’t hurt him, Avec. Not enough to flog you-”
“I did not trouble to take it out of the pot, Dray.”
“Ah!”
“The pot was that cheeky shishi Sosie’s, a brave iron pot exceedingly thick and heavy, with the story of Kov Logan na Hirrume and the two Fristle fifis molded around the rim.”
“What will they do to you?”
“For thumping a Notor? The Jikhorkdun, for sure. The Strom has jurisdiction, I think. The law is very strict. That rast Lart Lykon must bow to the Strom, as he bows to the king.”
“You do not appear to me to be worried, Avec.”
“No. Ilter Monicep is a clever lad, schooled, and no more of a fambly than I am. He will get me out. He is my sister’s son.”
“I had thought, Avec, I might break out soon.” I did not wish to enter the Hamalian Jikhorkdun. I moved my wrists and the thongs burst. “About — now.”
He could barely see me in the reflected glow of oil lamps shining through the hatchway from the deck above. “You have freed yourself of your bonds? By Krun! That is a deed!”
I reached over in the dimness, found his wrists, said, “Hold steady if they cut, Avec,” and jerked his thongs apart.
He rubbed his wrists for a few murs in thoughtful silence. Then he belched. Then he said, “I have read you, Dray, I have read you. You are a paktun. A Hyr-paktun, in all probability.”
I have been called a paktun before and, by Zair, I supposed I was and am. A paktun is a name given only to a mercenary who has achieved considerable fame — or notoriety. I would not lie.
“If you think that, Avec, I shall not quarrel with you. Shall we go up?”
“Aye — with all my heart.”
We crawled up the ladder cautiously and came out onto the lower deck. Above us the upper deck showed a rectangle of night sky. We crept up there and Avec put the watch to sleep, and we slunk down off the voller. Avec padded ahead of me in the pink-lit darkness. I heard his voice, and an exclamation. From the trees of this terrace two figures tangled together, flailing. Then-
“By Havil the Green, you fambly! You make more noise than a pair of calsanys!”
“Onker! Can’t you look where you’re going!”
I sighed. I had a right pair here — and, instantly, flooding me with nostalgia, warm and wonderful memories of Nath and Zolta, my own two oar-comrades, my two favorite rogues, leaped into my mind. There was no love of Hamal in my heart. But although these two, Avec and Ilter, might be of Hamal, I did not care about that impediment in them.
I said, “If you shout a little louder you might wake the guards. I don’t think they can hear you — yet.”
They came closer, dark shadows between the pink shafts of moonshine beneath the trees. Ilter said, “You are something of a wild leem, Dray Prescot. Avec tells me you burst your bonds, and his. They are regulation thongs, manufactured by the government, to government regulations. It is a marvel.”
I almost said, “They were not lesten hide.” But I did not. Hostages are given to fortune all too often for my taste. I would not add to the blabbermouths of Kregen.
We had found odd scraps of clothing after we had diverted some of Muruaa’s lava, and the night was warm enough, up here in Hamal, although in the Hamalian deserts of the altiplano one finds freezing temperatures almost every night. We walked on in the pink darkness, arguing about what we should do. Rather, they argued, and I listened until we reached the soldiers and their mirvol lines. Then I said, “I am not of Orlush. I shall take a mirvol and fly out.”
They stopped whispering, and turned on me together, saying, “Where will you fly to?” and “I am with you!”
“I welcome you, Avec. I know not, Ilter. Where the flyer takes me, I think.”
“He’ll take you straight back to the Strom’s stables.”
“I do not think I would like that.”
Avec said, “I left Orlush many seasons ago, and did well. I return for a visit, to see the onkerish son of my dead sister, and Yurncra the Mischievous clutches me in his talons so that the cramph Lart has me flogged and now the Strom will sentence me to the Jikhorkdun. I shall not return to Orlush again.”
What Ilter’s plans were we never did discover, for we never did ask him. At that moment from beyond the encampment among the trees a soldier appeared bearing a torch which scattered its light upon us. He shouted.
He recognized both Avec and Ilter, for he called their names before my flung stone knocked him down. Ilter said, “It seems, Uncle, I shall have to accompany you, and that is a fate no well-deserving young man deserves.”
The shout would arouse the sleeping camp. We made great speed to select three fine mirvols with full saddlebags still attached, and to release the restraining ropes and hobbles of the others and to beat them into the air. We took off in a veritable welter of wings.
All that night we flew north and east.
The capital of Hamal, Ruathytu, situated on the River Havilthytus lies almost midway between the northern coast and the southern border of the country bounded by the large and impressive River Os, often called He of the Commendable Countenance. Ruathytu is an inland city, situated approximately sixty dwaburs from the eastern coastline. It stands at the junction of the River Mak, known as the Black River, with the River Havilthytus. It was this latter river we followed now, winging through the pink-strewn darkness and seeing the moon’s reflection upon the dark and gleaming waters. The Black River is well named, for when it discharges its inky waters into the Havilthytus they run side by side for a surprising number of dwaburs before at last they mingle and merge.
Ilter waved his arm and pointed down. We let our mirvols plane through the sky and came to ground on a yellow bluff above the Black River. Above us two of the lesser moons of Kregen hurtled past, always in a hurry.
“I do not wish to travel all the way to Ruathytu,” said Avec, his Kregish thickening a trifle more with the local accent. “But I wish to escape those cramphs on our necks, now we have started. What in Kaerlan the Merciful’s name do you want, Ilter?”
“I thought you intended to fly to Ruathytu, the way you were going, by Krun! Had you done so, better to call on Kuerden the Merciless than Kaerlan the Merciful, my onkerish uncle.”
“I’ll strap you across my knee, nephew! By Krun, I’ll-”
I said, “You may fight all you wish. Just give me some idea of a suitable place to find rest and food and I will leave you.”
They glared at each other, chests heaving, faces angry and puffed, hands half raised. I was interested to notice that they did not clench their fists or adopt an unarmed-combat discipline posture. They were like two bantam cocks.
“Rest? Food?” Ilter slowly let his hands drop and looked at me. “Where I want to go, of course, is to Dovad, if only this onkerish fambly uncle of mine will allow.”
“You ingrate! That your father, my dear sister’s husband, is dead! I come to visit you, dwabur after
