his men were convinced they had me trapped in here, and they would no doubt seek to keep the werstings away from my throat so that their famous laws of Hamal could pronounce upon me. What did the law prescribe for the murder of a Kovneva?
Maybe the Jikhorkdun would be too merciful.
I was absolutely certain that Kov Ornol would go to the full rigors the law allowed in his punishment of me before I was hanged.
All this meant nothing.
All I could think of was that I had failed. I knew no more of the secrets of the fliers than when I flew one over Valka and the damned thing broke down.
There had to be some answer, somewhere. .
Like a maniac I began to overturn amphorae, smash at silver boxes, run through the shed slicing and slashing with the thraxter, turn over the piles of dirt, slewing it about as we had slewed the fiery vomit of Muruaa. But nothing more was vouchsafed me in understanding of the ways of a voller. So sure I had been that I would discover the secret here! Deldar Naghan the Triangle had told me that here in Sumbakir we built only small vollers, two-and four-place fliers, sometimes a six-place job for a special order. Over in Conelawlad, he said, they built larger vessels. The Air Service had their ships built in a number of yards, some near Ruathytu, the capital itself, some near Hollalalad, others at Malathytu. Maybe, there, I would find the answers I sought. .
“Come out, you Kovneva-murdering rast! Come out so that I may plunge my hands into your guts and rip out your evil stinking heart!”
I didn’t bother to reply.
If the answer was not here, then here was no place for me.
I thought of Avec Brand the Niltch, and of Ilter Monicep, and I knew I would miss them in the future. They were a right pair, and no mistake. Even though they were Hamalese and swore by Havil the Green, and called Opaz vile, they had been good friends. Now, I must bid them a farewell they would never hear.
The double-doors shuddered as a beam thumped against them. Those doors would stand considerable maltreatment before they would give. There would be time.
“By Hanitcha the Harrower! You yetch, Chaadur! As Malahak is my witness I will hang you by the heels over a slow fire and watch your eyeballs sizzle! You nulsh! Rast! I will carve you into strips for the werstings!”
Still I did not reply. The door shivered and a panel smashed through. The snarls and howls of the werstings now concentrated into one area, off to one side of the door, and I guessed the Deldars had leashed them up. The Kov wanted to get his own hands on me. The werstings had done their work well. Now in the business of tearing me to shreds the Kov would take over. The werstings were snapping and screeching in a frenzied way. Kov Ornol yelled viciously. “By Hanitcha the Harrower! Keep those nurdling werstings quiet! I want the nulsh to know what I shall do to him.”
The werstings quieted down. I pulled the glowing ashes from a fire where the soldering equipment lay on the benches, and blew upon it, and fed it shavings from the grooves cut for the silver boxes in the flier’s control apparatus, which looks not unlike a series of wheels a spider might construct, pivoted and swiveled. In fanning a little blaze, I built the fire. The yells outside, the thumpings on the door, all added a macabre note of chaos to the orderliness within.
I took the fire and spread it in the bottom sections of smashed amphorae like scoops. When the preparations were ready I stood back and surveyed the pink-lit gloom of the place with the red glowing eyes of the fire-crocks positioned by the fliers.
Where could the answer I so eagerly sought be hidden?
There was nothing here. I had to steel myself to that. The door splintered and the holding beam groaned and sagged. A few more murs and it would give. The doors would swing open and the Kov and his soldiers would rush in.
A fight would be a diversion. I had more important tasks to do. I knew from my private calendar that I had a few days left, and that was all, to the time of my disappearance from the voller over the Shrouded Sea.
The flier I had selected, a fast two-place craft with the lean and rakish lines of a racer that had been built, as we knew, to the special orders of a famous voller-racer in Ruathytu, lifted me easily to the roof. I eased in the down-dropping flap of the skylight and its sturm-wood lattice fell free, allowing a flood of pink light from the Twins to illuminate in fuzzy rose and wavering black the interior of the shed. I dropped to the floor again and hopped out of the flier, ran swiftly around the shed tipping the fire-filled amphorae crocks over. Some smoldered; one or two caught at the canvas or hide of the coverings and burst instantly into flames. Back in the two-place voller I rose into the air as the door at last caved in, with a smash, and soldiers leaped into the shed.
They did not see me at first. They saw the flames.
“Fire! Fire!”
After that they would be busy for a while. I shot through the opened skylight and set the controls for up and forward, and raced away into the night.
It had been so easy. If I felt regret, that was as natural as the regret I felt over my failure. And, I was to meet the Kov of Apulad, Ornol ham Feoste, again, as you shall hear. . The Star Lords had given me a year as a second prison sentence on top of the first. I had served my time — eleven years which had taken the space of ten. Now I was free! I was racing through the pink-lit night sky of Kregen for the Shrouded Sea and the airboat and my friends — and Delia!
If they pursued me I did not know then. The racer was swift, a fine craft; I was confident it would have won many important trophy challenges in the fliers’ races of Ruathytu. Now, she carried me fast and far toward the southwest, over the River Os, broad and calm far below, over the settled and industrious lands beyond, past the areas in turmoil where the legions of Hamal sought to extend their empire’s sway. On and on I flew, and into the daylight, and with a pause to hunt up a little food in one of the pockets of wild country found in even the most densely developed countryside of Kregen, I flashed over Methydria and so came at last to the shores of the Shrouded Sea.
All my regrets were put behind me. To the Ice Floes of Sicce with concerns over vollers for the moment! Ahead, only a day in the future, lay all I cared for or wanted in two worlds. I looked down at the pile of silver boxes I had brought, carefully separated — those from the red-walled room at one end of the voller, those from the black-walled room at the other. I would get around to those in the fullness of time.
No stormclouds, no lightnings, no supernatural phenomena prevented me carrying out my designs. The Star Lords had no objections to my rejoining Delia just after I had tumbled out of the voller in the storm, instead of waiting until I had been transported from the Heavenly Mines. Perhaps the Star Lords were, at least, taking notice of me as a human being and not as a mere puppet to obey their august wills. I did not know. I do know that I rode the little voller high above the Shrouded Sea and watched the storm bursting and roiling far out across the waters, and the feeling I had, that in the storm an airboat flew, with me aboard, chilled and exhilarated me.
Surely, the Star Lords could see that I could be trusted not to do a foolish thing? I would not seek out of overweening pride or curiosity to investigate the storm, to see if I might in fact see myself. I would see only my damn fool self smash the stanchion and tumble overboard, like a veritable coy!
With that seaman’s instinct reinforced by my years of wandering the Great Plains of Segesthes I found the island of Shanpo in the Lesser Sharangil Archipelago, the islands black formless splotches against the pink glitter of the water. I swung down. Below me the Kataki were at their evil trade, the aragorn and the slave-masters arrogant in their vileness. Well, their day would come. With the dawn I took the racer on to the far side of the island. I knew exactly what was going on in that small fishing village on the other shore, right at this minute, right now. . The slaves were rubbing their eyes, I among them, and cursing at the poor quality of the food, and being beaten. An aragorn would be running into the square and yelling and the Katakis would be beating the slaves into cover, and the fishing village would be in the process of being made to look innocent as the airboat flying Old Superb cruised into view.
All that was happening, over the hill, even now, as I waited. . I felt my breathing quicken and I cursed and I spoke aloud, wrathfully, to myself.
“By the diseased intestines of Makki-Grodno, you great nurdling onker! Calm down!”
With what emotions I lifted the little racing voller into the morning air and guided her up past the trees and held her there and then — oh, yes! And then-!
That magnificent flier flew into sight, over the trees, picking up speed, heading to make another desperate
