Fliers of Antares

He could not fail to understand that this flier and these men were a most formidable opposition. All surprise had been lost. A shower of crossbow bolts now would do little damage, and then the varters would loose and the return arrows would come in. .

To give him his due, he preferred to go around terrorizing the villages and taking plunder and slaves without trouble. Much though the Katakis liked a fight, they would not fight if the odds were against them. There was no profit in tangling with this powerful adversary — or so I read his thoughts.

“You’re sure you do not require assistance?”

That was Seg Segutorio, leaning over the rail, his black hair brilliant in the suns-glow.

“We do not, Notor.”

An incredibly tall figure with waist-length yellow hair stood beside Seg. Inch lifted his battle-ax.

“You have food? Wine? Can we not help you, old man?”

“I thank you, Notor. But we have what little we need.”

And then Delia stood on the quarterdeck. I could stare up and see her, there, above my head, leaning over the rail, radiant, glorious in her beauty, the true princess of an island empire, and yet, as I well knew, so softly firm and tender and filled with love for me and for our twins.

“Have you seen a man washed up from the sea?” She called down. “A man-” She paused then, and whether it was sob or laugh I did not know. “A strange man with brown hair and brown eyes, with shoulders that — with broad shoulders — a man of power, a man with an aura. Have you seen such a man — who would be very violent, I am afraid, if you or anyone tried to maltreat him.”

“Is this man a Hyr-notor, my lady?”

“Oh, yes, and a great villain besides. He is my husband and I search the Shrouded Sea for him-”

“I have seen no man as you describe, my lady.”

I was writhing in my chains and trying to break the iron links, trying to roll out into the open, trying -

oh, trying to send my passionate thoughts winging from my mind into the mind of my beloved as she stood above me, looking down, her lovely face troubled and darkly shadowed by her grief — her grief for me!

Reterhan had assured himself his tail was still attached to him. He stood up in the shadow of the huts and the trees, and he strutted toward me, holding his tail in his left hand. So close! So near at hand were my friends, just a tiny distance away! That just one of them might see me! I rolled and clashed my chains and Reterhan stood over me, his greave-clad legs wide-spread. He took out his thraxter. If I was to die now, then in what a fashion I was to go! This was no way that my Anglo-Saxon forebears would relish as dying well. I rolled onto my back and glared up murderously. The gag stifled me. I saw Reterhan lift the thraxter and I saw his wrist turn so as to bring the flat alongside my head.

The twin suns of Kregen and the seven moons all spurted up and were gobbled down into the blackness of Notor Zan.

The last thing I saw was the glorious and divine face of my Delia as she stared out, so woefully troubled, over the quarterdeck rail.

If I was to go down into the great darkness and find my way to the Ice Floes of Sicce, then I would take with me that last look of longing that contained all of love. So I fell into the blackness, and the darkness was irradiated for me by Delia, Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains.

CHAPTER FOUR

The ways of the aragorn

I, Dray Prescot, Krozair of Zy and Lord of Strombor — and much else besides — came back to consciousness sluggishly packed among my fellow slaves in an open flier. The stink and the groans and the shrieks were all familiar to me, not from this Earth but from Kregen, and I knew I must endure. I was still alive, which surprised me only a little, for slaves equate with money. We were worth many golden deldys and silver sinvers almost anywhere in Havilfar.

A dead Och lay at my side, his four little arms shriveled and wrapped around his wasted body. The flier remained firm and solid in the sky with that peculiar way of a certain kind of voller which travels independently of the wind, and there was no pitching and rolling to add to our discomfort. The flier was of that kind I was to come to know well later, but which until then I had not encountered. She was long and wide in the beam, but shallow, being open and without a deck. A tiny cabin had been perched amidships to house the controls and crew. The slaves lay jammed like logs. They call these barge-like vollers weyvers in Havilfar, and sometimes they refer to them as Quoffas of the Sky. They are designed simply to cram as much cargo as possible into a flat space, without niceties of careful loading in tiers. The slaves were mere lumber.

Fanal lay miserably at my other side.

He would not meet my eye when I stirred.

He understood what I had asked of him, back there in the fishing village, and he had failed. I could not blame him. All men are not built in the same way, and Kregen, let alone the Earth of my birth, would be a strange place if all men were alike. And as for all women. .!

Presently he said in a whisper, “I am glad you are not dead, Horter Prescot.”

“What happened to the flier?”

“The Kataki Notor convinced them he was a harmless old fishing man, who needed no assistance with the plague. They flew away.”

They flew away.

Well. It was a disappointment, but also it was a relief. I had, in the instant of awakening, been horrified that I would turn and see my people, my Delia, wrapped in chains and thongs and wedged in among the mass of slaves.

“The flier flew well?”

“I have not seen many vollers. She flew low away to the west, as though she were searching for this Hyr- notor — this man with the yrium — of which the lady apim spoke.”

He looked at me then, a real Lamnia look, shrewd, sizing me up anew.

“You are the man they sought, Horter Prescot?”

“Yes, Horter Fanal. I am the man.”

“I think perhaps if the aragorn realize this they will sell you for ransom.”

“It would be paid,” I said. I did not boast. I knew what I knew. To my shame, I knew that the coffers of Valka and Can-thirda, of Zamra and Delphond and the Blue Mountains, would pour forth gold and jewels and treasures if by those means my Delia could once more clasp me in her arms. And if they were not enough, then Seg’s Falinur and Inch’s Black Mountains would bring more gold and jewels. And, if necessary, Delia would go to Strombor, my enclave in Zenicce, aye! and to the Clansmen of Felschraung and Longuelm to take of their treasures for my release. These thoughts brought me no elation. I knew that the treasure of a country is not bought without sweat and blood and the labors of the working people who are the real originators of wealth. The comfort was that I could perhaps give of myself in after days so that my people, and my friends’ people, could quickly recoup their losses and once more live comfortable lives, as I wished. No mention of ransom was made then or thereafter, and maybe the aragorn of Sorah had no real belief in it, not recking of lands so far away across the equator as Vallia and Valka, of which they had barely heard.

Sorah itself was a large and prosperous island of the Shrouded Sea. Canopdrin lay not too far to the north. The weyver touched down inside the cleared central area of a vast barracoon, and we were herded out and given more revolting fish gruel. Then after washing in water lightly sprinkled with vinegar, our hair was cropped, and, stark naked, we were prodded into lenk-wood cages. There was much shouting and cursing and belaboring with balass sticks. The Kataki also used their tails upon us most vilely, but in all this brutality they were careful not to mark or cut too severely the merchandise by which they made their evil living.

Rumors swept the barracoon as was to be expected.

A Rapa said positively that he would slit his throat with a sharpened flint before he would go to the Jikhorkdun of Hamal or Hyrklana. He refused to discuss the possibility of being sold into the Heavenly Mines or the