I did not answer.
The cloaked figures moved closer. There were half a dozen men in bulky armor beneath their cloaks, with naked thraxters in their hands. They were Katakis. Their bladed tails curved above their heads. Blood shone thickly on four of the blades. There had been four guards on duty in this deep inner cell. These Katakis I ignored. I stared at the man, powerful, hard, arrogant, who led them. Strom Rosil na Morcray, the Kataki Chuktar.
I looked with a swift searching stare for his employer, Vad Garnath, for that cramph would know me as Hamun ham Farthytu.
This Kataki Strom would not know my face, for when we had clashed in Smerdislad I had been wearing the Dudinter mask and he had thought me to be Quarnach Algarond, the Vad of the Dudinter District, of Ba-Marish. I knew this man to be violent and dangerous, a lethal tool in the hands of unscrupulous men, a man who would turn on them to his own profit. The Katakis are slave-masters, expert in the manipulation of slaves, as I have said.
He spoke again, harshly, impatiently, flicking a whip against his boots.
“You are the man they call Dray Prescot?”
“If you watched my little promenade today you would not need to ask the question.”
He drew in his breath with a hiss.
“I see the wizard was right!” He gestured to his men. “Unchain him.”
I rubbed my wrists when I was freed. They were raw.
“There is no time to dillydally. We have bribed and killed our way here. Grak!”
There it was again, that slave-driving word. .
So they shepherded me along the runnels and the corridors and we met no one except the four guards they had slain to gain ingress. We came out under the light of the moons at that very same postern where King Doghamrei had sent me off with Ob-Eye to set me alight and dump me overside from a skyship. A voller was waiting. We clambered aboard and the flier leaped aloft.
“You do not ask why we rescue you?”
“No doubt you have your reasons.”
Again he drew in his breath with a hiss.
“I was waiting for my supper,” I said, just to keep him on the boil. “Do you have anything aboard?”
They rummaged out a wicker basket and I set to on bread, cold vosk, and palines. They did not know what to make of me, and that suited me. I of course could have no idea what their plans were. For sure, the wizard, this certain Phu-si-Yantong of whom I then knew nothing, must consider me vital to his mad schemes of taking over Hamal and through me controlling Vallia. It seemed to me as I ate and thought that he must no doubt consider me the only man in Vallia who could hold the empire together after the old Emperor’s death. If I died, he would be faced with the task of controlling many splinters. Through me he could run the entire place. As I say, I did know this of the Wizard of Loh, Phu-si-Yantong, even then: the man was a megalomaniac of the highest quality.
The notion crossed my mind that if he was a megalomaniac for wanting to run Vallia, what did that make me? I had no desire to run the place, however, and I wished Delia’s father long life.
“You will be required to do certain favors for your rescue,” said the Kataki Strom in his hissing voice.
“But for me and my masters you would be unpleasantly dead on the morrow.”
I munched vosk, swallowed, and took a fresh bite.
“You act very coolly. When the wizard has dealt with you you will fly a different wing.”
“As to that,” I answered, “I am my own man.”
“No longer!”
He wore a thraxter. His tail was bladed. There were five others similarly armed with him. Their shields ranked around the coaming of the voller. I was not feeling on my top form. Zair knows, I had been through much. But the old Dray Prescot began to struggle and fight his way through all the good intentions I had been trying to impose on myself. I had been kicked around and tortured — only the beginning of that, I grant you — and hung in chains. I was feeling mean. Very mean. The only gratitude I felt to these Katakis was that I wouldn’t slay them unless they forced me. Over our heads the Maiden with the Many Smiles and She of the Veils shone down lambently. Their gold and pink light fuzzed the edges of the voller and shone on the close-set helmets of the Katakis and their bladed whip- tails.
I said, “You rescued me. For that I give you thanks. But you did not rescue me because you were sorry for my plight. If you have a quarrel with Thyllis I am not your pawn.” That should make them think I did not know the fuller plans of the wizard.
“What are you talking about, Prescot?”
“I have given you thanks. Now you had best set the voller down and let me go about my business.”
Strom Rosil laughed. His Kataki tail lashed above his head, very deadly in the golden pinkish light. Ruathytu fled past below. The familiar streets and kyros vanished with the domes and towers into the pinkish haze.
“You are coming with us to receive your instructions.”
“I think not,” I said, leaning forward, very smoothly, very fast, and drew his thraxter from the scabbard. They are man-managers, the Katakis. But they had none of their damned iron chains with them now. We fought.
The tails of the Katakis are superb weapons, but they have their limitations. Against my thraxter their thraxter-work could not stand, and the straight sword chunked into the throat of the man who threw himself at me in front of his leader. Rosil staggered back. The voller bored on. The next came at me and I ducked his tail, slashed it off so that the bladed tip spun far out into the void. He screamed. I stuck him through the throat, also, for these cramphs wore armor. The next two sparred for a moment and I leaned to avoid their thrust. I took a tail blade on my sword and so slashed across and down. Then, shortening the sword, I drove it in low and deep enough on the second one. That left two of them with Rosil raging to get at me. He snatched the thraxter from the hand of his man and the blades crossed and twinkled in the pink moonslight.
“You ungrateful cramph! Is this how you repay our guile and cunning in freeing you?”
To confuse him further, I said, “Thyllis probably paid you well to lay this trap, kleesh.”
He did not like that.
His man flung himself at the controls and the voller lurched and swooped down. Trees flicked past, dusky golden blobs in the shifting light.
“Get behind him, onker!” bellowed Rosil.
He was a fine fighter, and his tail was a marvel. I missed a slash at the tip and had to jump, weave, and parry to avoid his counter. The voller skidded along the ground, a cornfield going past with a loud hissing of broken stems. The last man tried to obey his leader and brought his tail up through his legs in that deadly stabbing thrust. I swirled the blade down, lopped the tail, and swung back to Rosil. He looked around. The voller came to rest. He had four dead men and one holding a bladeless tail, looking stupidly at the blood gushing out of the stump. The Kataki Strom was a cunning and resourceful man. I did not doubt his courage. Evidently the Wizard of Loh, Phu-si-Yantong, had studied the Prince Majister of Vallia most carefully, but he had not discovered that I could be an onker when it came to taking orders. He must have realized I was some kind of fighting man; Strom Rosil knew that, now. With a baffled yell he sprang over the side of the voller and vanished into the moons-shot darkness. He yelled back:
“Your day will come, Prince. The wizard will cut you down to size!”
His tailless man followed.
I had command of the voller.
I threw the thraxter down into the blood-reeking pit and hauled the bodies out, tossing them overboard. I kept all the weapons, and I chopped all the tail blades off, too. Then I set the controls and up we went, the silver boxes performing their usual uncanny function, sending us fleeting over the surface of Hamal.
I set the course.
Peacefully, equably, feeling a lot better, I sent the voller speeding north to Pandahem and Vallia.
Chapter 20
“You have done wonders, Majister!” I said, for the hundredth time, feeling the breeze on my cheek and joying
