The six-legged saddle animal, a gnutrix, walked along with that awkward swaying gait of the six-legged, and I tramped on alongside. The two young people made nothing of my nakedness and, partly, I suppose, that was because I was apim and they diff.
Their story was soon told. Miscegenation is not the true word for this kind of marriage across diff-boundaries, where the people in question are closely related. All the same, their own people were not happy; a chance meeting at a fair, the growing realization that a genuine love existed between them, the hostility of their families and, finally, elopement, all added up to this flight across the barren land to the sanctuary of Great Aunt Melimni’s house — a fine villa with fountains and arbors, Naghan confided with pride — situated in the best district of Lowerinsmot. This town, he said with just the hint of doubt, was situated perhaps a little too close to — and here he paused, and ran a hand around his collar. I asked more questions in a general way, and gathered that Naghan knew a fair amount of the geography of this part of Ba-Domek, being a traveling salesman of a sort. I gathered as much from what he did not say as the information he parted with that Aphrasoe did indeed lie at the center of the island surrounded by the ring of sheltering mountains. He confirmed that the island swarmed with animals and birds and diffs. There were few apims. No city of Homo sapiens like me was known. And, of course, of those within the Swinging City itself, nothing would induce Naghan to venture there. He knew what apims were, of course, and regarded me with a lively interest as the representative of a strange and exotic breed. Always before when I had been summoned by the scorpion and been flung head over heels pell-mell to Kregen I had awakened stark naked, faced with the immediate problem of rescuing someone or other from pressing peril. So, this time, I kept an eye on these two elopers. I did not think I had been dragged from the voller for nothing; equally, I was aware that the circumstances this time were greatly different from anything that had gone before.
“As soon as you reach Lowerinsmot all our troubles will be over.” Fimi clung to Naghan, speaking with perfect confidence.
They wore simple tunics of a flaxen color, and Fimi’s was trimmed and hemmed with bright embroidery. They had a satchel with dried meats and fruits. Their only weapon, apart from a bronze knife, was the stux, and he handled the spear smartly enough but not, I judged, as a warrior. Traveling salesmen, he said his family were, going from village and town around the countryside. Sometimes there were fights; but few people like to pick a quarrel with a numim.
But for the two suns in the sky — and a fellow gets used to those pretty quickly — and the cat-girl and lion- man riding a shambling six-legged mount at my side, this dusty plain with its willy-willies and its scraps of thorny bushes might have existed on Earth. I might be trudging along on the planet of my birth. But that was dangerous nonsense. I was on Kregen. At any moment deadly danger could spring at us, seeking to rend us into bloody shreds. The wild animals of Kregen would make an Earthly tiger, or elephant, or crocodile turn tail and flee. Those savage beasts of Kregen would look on us all as tasty morsels for dinner. Three appetizers and a couple of mouthfuls, with blood running and white bones splintering. So, as we walked, we kept a sharp lookout.
“I do not fear the strigicaws,” said Naghan stoutly. “And we can outrun the graints. As for leems-” He pursed up his lion-mouth, and gripped his stux.
Fimi shivered. “Leems are terrible,” she whispered. “But if we meet the Khirrs-”
Looking back as I surveyed our rear and observed the track of our march, I said: “Whatever these Khirrs may be — there are riders following-”
Both Naghan and Fimi let out cries of consternation. The riders behind spurred on fiercely. I could make out the ungainly forms of gnutrixes like the one ambling beside me. The wink of weapons told plainly what was in store.
“Your family, Fimi!” shouted Naghan. “They have tracked us — they will not let you go.”
“Ride on.” I spoke calmly. So this was the reason I had been dumped down here. Useless to rage. Useless to question the value of these two young people against the value of the emperor of Vallia, The Star Lords kept to their own purposes and to them an emperor might weigh no more than a Fristle fifi. But, was not that a part of my philosophy, also?
Already I had seen the result of similar handiwork. Had not my rescue of two young people at the commands of the Star Lords produced a great genius king, a mad king, who sought to rule all the world he knew?
I gave the gnutrix a slap on its hairy hide and it bounded away. What future lay in store for the child of these two, this Naghan ti Sakersmot and his Fimi, what veiled destiny?
Scattered about on the brown plain at my feet lay stones. Rough, sharp-edged stones. There were four riders. Stooping, I took up four stones of suitable size and shape.
Always a show-off, I suppose, the old onker Dray Prescot.
The riders slackened speed a trifle as they came within range. That fancy showing off was like to cost me dear, for the fourth stone missed its mark. The last rider, seeing his three companions slipping senseless from their saddles, let out a great roar and lowered his head — whereat my rock missed him
— and charged, his sword whirling.
Now, the racial weapon of the Fristles is the scimitar. I hopped and skipped and ducked the sweep of the blade. His booted foot slipped at first through my clutching fingers and I had to roll under his beast, taking an infernal banging from the middle pair of hooves, before I could rise wrathfully up on the far side and so grab his leg and hurl him from the saddle.
“You great onker!” I bellowed. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He came up on a knee. Quick and vicious, Fristles, particularly in anything touching the honor and well-being of their women folk. Their family would be shamed by Fimi’s elopement. He retained his scimitar. The long curved blade glistered finely in the streaming radiance.
“Nulsh!” he screamed. He jumped in, recovered from his fall, scything his blade wildly. I was not deceived.
At the last second that savage swashing would abruptly turn into a smooth thrusting drive as the scimitar revolved around the center of its artful curve — and the blade would carve me neatly through. Turko the Khamorro would have relished the situation.
Armed with the Disciplines of unarmed combat instilled by the Krozairs of Zy I was able to feint one way, go the other, and then — very nastily — rake back and so tweak the scimitar from his grip and, instead of running him through or bashing him over the head with his own blade, present the point smartly at his throat.
He lay on his back, hands gripped into the dust, glaring up in murderous fury. The little exercise was not worth a “Hai Hikai,” the unarmed man’s equivalent to the swordsman’s “Hai Jikai.” I had given Duhrra, who had then been called Duhrra the Mighty Mangier, the Hai Hikai after our first encounter, for I recognized in the gigantic wrestler a true man. I had given Duhrra the “Hai Hikai!”
not the swordsman’s “Hai Jikai.”
This is important upon Kregen.
If this Fristle flat on his back wished to make of this little spat a Jikai, he was welcome to try. I told him so. I finished: “But although I do not wish to slay you, and will not do so unless provoked beyond reason, I must warn you that Naghan and Fimi will depart in peace.”
Three heavily armed Fristles slumbered in the dust and a fourth glowered up at me, flat on his back. I own it must have made a pretty sight. But I was in a hurry.
“Choose, dom. Let them go — or your life answers for it!”
He believed me. I suppose, looking back, I must have appeared to him a dark malignant demon, broad- shouldered, naked, sweat and dust molding those muscles of mine, ridged, iron-hard, turning me into the semblance of a man of iron. I felt only the need for speed.
In the end, believing me, he took himself off with his three companions. The four rode off on two gnutrixes, and one of them had fewer clothes than when he’d started and all had damned fewer weapons. So, mounted up, rejoined with the two elopers, accoutred with scimitars and stuxes, we rode on. Also, we had a filled water bottle and that, you may be sure, I kept under my hand.
“I shall return all these things, the gnutrixes, the weapons, the clothes, to you, Fimi, when we part. After all, they can be regarded as a wedding portion from your family.”
Naghan laughed at this. “You are a strange man, Dray Prescot.”
“Aye.”
When the wind got up and blew devilish stinging sand into our faces we were glad to pull up the sand- scarves, although when I referred to my sand-scarf, calling it a hlamek as we do in South Zairia, my companions
