Gafard screamed it out, foaming, as I hurled him into the chair.
'The king has taken Velia, Princess Velia, daughter to Pur Dray, the Lord of Strombor, Prince Majister of Vallia!'
Everything blurred.
I remember colliding with Grogor on my way to the door and knocking him flying. There were stairs. There were people shouting and milling. Men stood in my way and were suddenly not there. There were softnesses under my feet. The air was suddenly cool and fresh. Stars blazed. The moons were up, gliding silently through the starfields. The sectrix stalls lay shrouded in darkness. Harness — no time, no time -
bareback! A sectrix beneath me. A vicious kick, more vicious kicks. The lolloping six-legged gait. Hard, merciless kicks, the flat of my sword, then sharper, more urgent bounding. The dark flicker of tree branches overhead. The dazzlement of the moons. The harsh, jolting ride, the clamor of hooves, the rush of wind, the pain, the agony, the remorse-
Velia!
My little Velia!
Fragments, I remember, of that night ride with the horror gibbering and clawing at me, the ghastly specters obscenely taunting me, mocking me-
I knew what this kleesh of a King Genod would do when he discovered he held in his hands the daughter of Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor, the notorious and dreaded Krozair of Zy. I would consign all the Krzy to Sicce to save my daughter.
What would Delia say? What would be her agony?
I galloped and galloped and I galloped as a man who has no heart, has never had a heart, and is never likely to find a heart in this wicked world.
Velia. . Velia. . The sectrix hooves beat out her name on the hard forest paths, over the rippling grasslands silver and pink and gold beneath the moons, the breeze swaying them as a breeze ruffles the inner sea.
Years and years ago I had last seen her. I had not recognized her, and she had not recognized me. Yet — was not that strange feeling I had suffered now explained, the weird compulsion in me to do nothing to destroy the happiness of the Lady of the Stars? Now I knew why Gafard, the King’s Striker, was not bundled in a blanket and safely in the hands of the Krozairs upon the fortress isle of Zy. If we had not recognized each other’s faces, and our names had been strange and false, had not the blood called, one to the other? Oh, maybe that is sentimental nonsense, maybe it is mere wishful thinking; but there
I recognized Grogor.
I smashed at my mount again and he responded. We flew out into a clearing of the tall grasses and splashed across a stream. On and on — the stikitches would take my daughter to the king at the Volgodonts’ Aerie. There was every chance he would have flown here in the little two-place airboat. If he had I would take his voller. Somehow I did not think I would bother to take him back to Zy. Looking back now, as that mad ride brought me raving across the wild country to the Volgodonts’
Aerie, I recognize my headlong foolishness. I had been denied many of the best years in which a father may see his children growing up. Velia had been three when the damned Star Lords had whirled me back to Earth for a miserable twenty-one years; she would be twenty-five now. What had her life been like?
Fragments, impressions, the jolting of the sectrix, the blustering of the wind, the pain in my jaws, and over all the moonshine, streaming gold and pink and glorious upon the nighted face of Kregen, mocking the blackness upon me. For every moon shone in the sky, full and gleaming, in that tiny period when the three smaller moons in their hurtling passages coincide and form with the Maiden with the Many Smiles, and the Twins, and She of the Veils; that magic time of the Scarf of Our Lady Monafeyom. Brilliant the light, brilliant and yet soft with the exquisite delicacy of moonlight. The land lay as though enchanted.
And through that magic midnight splendor I rode with the devils gibbering at me and ghastly phantasms tormenting my mind, for I knew that this genius king planned no pleasure for my Velia. Through a screen of trees I flung the sectrix, striking away branches and leaves, silver and gold and rose in the radiance, and bore out onto a meadow where a stream ran, liquid bronze under the moons of Kregen — and there lifted the Volgodonts’ Aerie.
Stark and many pinnacled, it rose against the stars like a stretched and piercing claw of a volgodont itself.
The sectrix was not as fine a mount as Grogor’s. Now Gafard’s second in command was up with me. The two animals galloped neck and neck. I did not speak. I could not speak. I stared ahead as a leem stares, entirely vicious and feral, without mercy.
Grogor shouted. 'We will never save her — only us two! The lord follows. Gadak, this is madness!' I did not answer him, but hit my failing beast with the flat of the sword.
'The lord bid me say he would forgive you, Gadak, only if you humble yourself to him — he follows -
Gadak!'
Still I did not answer. We raced on. I feel sure that you who listen to my story will long ago have realized who the Lady of the Stars was, that she was my daughter. Now, with hindsight, it seemed obvious. But, to me, plain Dray Prescot who had so little experience of daughters to go on, how could that stunning truth possibly be easy? I had not known, had had no remotest idea. How could I?
Sectrix riders trotted out into the clearing to front us.
I saw their green cloaks, weird in the moons’ radiances, and the blackness of their clothes. Pinkly golden glitter reflected from their steel facemasks. They wore mail.
Grogor saw and cursed.
I did not halt the laboring sectrix. The animal lunged straight ahead, gasping in convulsive effort, the steam jetting from his nostrils. The stikitches lifted their swords. There were six of them, I believe. I did not count. I recollect the jar of blade on blade, the quick and deadly cut, and the vicious thrust. I lopped and chopped. I spitted. The facemasks splintered in shards of flying metal. I whirled that Ghittawrer weapon and I sliced those damned assassins, and there was no real time or reason in it beyond the swirling madness in my brain, the crazy viciousness of insanity driving me on. The six of them, if there were six of them, lay sprawled upon the grass of the meadow, their black and shining blood dribbling in pools from their mutilated bodies. I did not spare a single look, but hit the sectrix and galloped on. I did hear Grogor screaming: 'You are a devil!' That was true. Why remark on it?
'We are too late!' Grogor was yelling and hauling his beast up. He almost collided with me, the six-legged animals struggling together and staggering sideways.
'Get out of my way, rast!' I said, hauling my mount up, driving it to stand and run although it was almost done. 'Look!' Grogor pointed. He pointed up. I looked. If the king was away in the voller it would be over.
A great winged shape lofted from the top tower of the Volgodonts’ Aerie. Against the radiance of the moons the fluttrell soared up, his wide pinions beating in that long, effortless rhythm of the saddle bird. Grogor yelled in openmouthed disbelief. The truth was plain. More argenters had arrived from Hamal and as well as vollers they carried saddle birds. The fluttrell was the most common saddle-mount of Havilfar. Thyllis had spared a few to please the whim of King Genod and he had mastered the knack of flying and had come here, in person, to show off his prowess to his new conquest, the Lady of the Stars, who had once been the lady of Gafard, the King’s Striker, and was now the lady of the king — for a time.
'The devil from the bat-caves!' yelled Grogor. My sectrix staggered with exhaustion. Grogor hauled out his bow, drew and nocked an arrow, lifted and let fly. I reached out to him, dropping the blood-choked Ghittawrer sword. But his fingers released the string and the shaft flew. If he hit Velia. .!
The fluttrell winged up, its pinions beating. I did not see the arrow strike. I saw those wings suddenly flap limply; they beat off-rhythm; and the bird swerved in the air.
