emperor, then a great armada will come from Vallia. They will not attack the Akhram. They will leave the Todalpheme alone. But they will utterly destroy your island of Bet-Aqsa. All your people will be slain or enslaved — save a few. Save a few who will know why this calamity has fallen on them. They will bear hatred in their hearts for those who caused their destruction. Who do you think will receive that enmity?
Whom will they blame for the calamity that will have fallen on them? Who by refusing to help a sick and dying man wrought such terrible retribution upon the heads of an innocent people?”
I glowered down, hard, horrible, hateful. “Think on, Akhram. Your people will refuse to work for you, to support you. They may not kill you; but they will not lift a finger to help you. What will your life be like then? Think on, old man, and be quick about it.”
He pointed a trembling finger at me. “You — you devil!”
“Aye! Believe it. And tell me.”
“There will be a reckoning. . But I will instruct my people. Your emperor must be blindfolded and we will take him-”
About to bellow a vicious: “No! We will take him!” I paused. I had pushed. There would be another way, now, than that of violence, which I abhor.
“The doctor cannot leave his side.”
“Our doctors can attend him.”
“Then ready your flier and hurry.”
The commotion that broke outside the door made my lips rick back. The cunning leem probably had a bell- push hidden beneath his chair. Various combinations of rings gave his instructions. Even an onker could guess what he had rung his minions and his guards for.
“You have boasted and threatened, cramph.” His heavy flushed face ran sweat. He descended to insults, also, which is not the way of your true Todalpheme of Kregen. He had waited his time, and now: “Now it is my turn! My people will deal with you utterly. You are alone and although you wear swords I do not think you will stand against my Oblifanters and their swods. Whatever the truth of your story, no one in the whole world will ever see you or hear of you again.”
“You make a mistake.”
“My mistake was in listening to you. Yetch!” He was suddenly shaking in a paroxysm of fresh rage, bloated, purple, rising to confront me. “You dare to threaten me! Calling yourself a devil! Should the Empire of Vallia lay waste to the whole of Bet-Aqsa and the stupid canaille refuse to bring their offerings to the Akhram and to work for us, why do you think that would concern me? Do you think there are no other places I might go? An Akhram? Sacrosanct?”
“The Ice Floes of Sicce for one.”
“Now my people are here — listen to them and the clink of their steel. You are doomed, rast, and I shall spit; but not on your grave, for no mortal man will know where that is.”
The door opened. It did not burst in. It opened, all the same, with a pretty smash. The Oblifanters and the guards would tramp in, now, and we’d have a right merry set-to. All my plans had gone wrong-
“Where d’you want these, my king!” bellowed an enormous voice.
Kytun bounced through. In his lower left and right arms he carried two squirming soldiers, almost crushed against his massive ribs. His upper left arm was lifted and his broad hand gripped a writhing Hikdar, his fancy uniform flying, kicking and yelling aloft in the air. In Kytun’s right hand a djangir gleamed. The very short very broad sword of Djanduin shone brilliantly, clean steel, without a trace of blood.
Over Kytun’s head an Oblifanter sailed up, to land with an almighty crash on the floor between us, so I knew Turko was busy out there. Seg and Inch pushed through, their faces grim.
“Todalpheme!” said Seg. He looked disgusted. “We kept out of sight and sailed in on time. By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom, this place stinks!”
“If these are Todalpheme, judging by what I saw,” put in Inch, “stink is too mild a description.”
“Aye,” I said. “This man here, this Akhram, will show us where away lies Aphrasoe. He has been told what will happen if he does not.”
At the ruination of his plans Akhram shrank. He shook.
“You would not lay a hand on me!” He shrieked, in mortal fear, for the first time in his life, no doubt.
“Defilers!”
“Not on you,” I said. “Remember. Ponder what I have said.”
I was not proud in a loose sense of what I had done. I remembered other Akhrams I had known, and their worth did not excuse my treatment of this worthless example. But he, like the scorpion, only followed his own nature. But, being a man and not a scorpion, and being bound by vows, and being in a high position of trust and privilege, he should have made better attempts to curb his own villainy, and acted his part as an Akhram.
So I leaned, as I used to lean, a little, to my shame.
“And do not think there is a single place in the whole wide world of Kregen where you could scuttle that the arm of Dray Prescot, Prince Majister of Vallia, could not reach out and find you — and, finding, punish!”
Well, it was petty, I’ll allow. But the fellow had mizzled me. Delia’s father lay dying, and this kleesh had done what he had done, despite my earnest endeavors at conciliation. Ends and means, means and ends, they are all the same according to the wise divines of Opaz, for one creed alone, and so I stand branded as an evil-doer. But, would I not take upon myself all the evil of two worlds for the sake of Delia?
So, after naked, brutal force had been used, and not against the Todalpheme, to overwhelm them in the person of this Akhram, by the threat of violence only, he gave us the directions we coveted. I did not think he lied. Lying would bring upon his head his total destruction. He knew this. If the emperor died because of his treachery in giving us the wrong directions, he knew we would return and great would be our fury.
All the same, as we soared up, the malicious cramph had the last word. He tilted that heavy face back, and the redness staining his forehead and cheeks glistened in the waning lights of Antares. He shouted up, gloating, crowing, cocksure we were doomed.
“The Savanti will not welcome you! You will never return! If you go you are dead men!”
Then, with a triumphant cackling screech, he shrilled:
“In Aphrasoe you will find only death!”
Chapter Eleven
“In Aphrasoe you will find only death!”
Threats of that kind had little effect on our company — By Krun! they had no effect whatsoever. We were a roughneck, reckless, harebrained bunch, and with the end of our long journey in sight, any tension that might have been expected did not show itself as these tough warriors — old and young — skylarked and joked, treating the whole expedition as a giant escapade put on for their especial benefit. Concern over the life of the emperor had sensibly diminished now we were so close to the Pool of Baptism where he would be cured.
No doubts or thoughts of failure entered anyone’s head.
The laggard burs flew past. The large island on which Aphrasoe was situated rose out of the sea before us as the Suns of Scorpio rose, blinding in their opaz radiance, streaming their mingled lights of jade and ruby across the sea and the black mass ahead. What perils awaited us there, in that mysterious island?
No sense in anticipating problems; they would find us quickly enough. So, thoughtfully, competently, like the old professional fighting hands we were, we prepared for what the future might bring. Over the coast we soared. The sea and the land looked like any sea and land ought to look — and yet, and yet this was the island of the Savanti!
Somewhere on this island I had for the very first time been dumped down on Kregen. Floating along the Sacred River Aph in a leaf boat, with only an enormous scorpion for crew. That was long and long ago, by Zair — before I even knew of Zair, or the Krozairs — or Delia.
The powers of the superhuman Savanti were immense, unknown, frightening. I made up my mind for the
