the prefix often carries the meaning of small, for Zamra was by many times more than twice the size of Small Zamra, Nikzamra, Nikzm.
“The Elders and people of the island have decided and issued the necessary patents and the bokkertu has been concluded to call the island Drayzm. Drayzm. So, my old dom, we are also the Kroveres of Drayzm.”
So, as you can well imagine, I was not overly pleased.
I passed it off; but Seg gave me a hard look, and said a word or two about thick-headed, vosk-skulled ingrates, and how Delia was muchly pleased-
“Did Delia know about this, then?”
“Oh, aye. You don’t think we’d go behind your back without consulting Delia, do you? You’ve told me how they made you Strom of Valka — well! This is no new title — and I know how you feel about them, as I do. They are useful in this world.”
“That is sooth, by Vox!”
And Inch leaned forward to say, waspishly: “And if the Kov of Falinur lost that one, he’d not give a damn, hey?”
“Too right!” snapped back Seg. He had had great trouble in his kovnate of Falinur. “Except — except Thelda would-”
“Aye,” I said. “Thelda likes mightily to be a kovneva. And so she should. She deserves it.”
Inch laughed and chick-chicked his zorca and we rode on. But I began to think how best to relieve Seg of Falinur and find him a kovnate where he was not regarded with hatred, through no fault of his own but because of the ingrained animosity of the people to anyone who deprived them of slaves. Then, of course, the problem would arise that the new kov would almost certainly approve of slavery, as did most ordinary men and women of Vallia. Slavery, Delia and I had sworn, was going to be rooted out of Vallia. I looked beyond that, as did Delia, I know now, until it was finally uprooted from all of Paz. As we rode back this kind of talk naturally led on to the problems of Vallia, the huge island Empire. Delia’s father, the emperor, had once more gained a breathing space with the destruction of the Chyyanists; but there were always fresh factions seeking to drag him down and install the puppet of their own choice as emperor.
“Mind you, Dray,” said Seg, reflectively as we cantered gently into a defile ready to begin the last ascent to Arial’s Mound in the last of the suns shine. “The nobles loyal to the emperor remain loyal, or most of them. He couldn’t rule without them.”
“But the opposition parties still continue, also,” pointed out Inch. “They keep changing alliance and pattern; but they are still against the emperor, the whole family.” Here he looked at me. I nodded somberly. Vallia is an enormous patchwork of many different sized estates, run by nobles -
by kovs and vads and trylons and Stroms and all the others — and there are many parties and factions, not all of whom seek to destroy the emperor. At this time the main party was the Racter Party, and the second the Panval Party. The Fegters were growing in strength and there was always the North East of Vallia, an area traditionally troublesome. But when Inch mentioned the family of the emperor, he was thinking of Delia and me and our family.
“And, to cap it all,” said Seg, “there’s this Queen Lush. Thelda is still captivated by the woman. I fancy this queen has her eyeballs firmly set on the emperor. You’ll have to have a say there, Dray.”
“Sink me!” I burst out. “If the old devil wants to get married again I won’t stop him.” I added, nastily:
“Give him something else to think about.”
“Well, my old dom, you’re still banished from Vondium.”
I grumped in the saddle, and we rode on. By Zair! But I was anxious to see Delia again and find out about our erring daughter Dayra. And even Lela still had not put in an appearance. I’d not seen them for years and years. It was just not good enough. So I was not in the happiest of moods as the final rites were gone through, the Kroveres of Iztar dispersed to their homes, the island was renamed Drayzm, and, at last, at blessedly last, we could take off for Valka and home — and Delia.
Chapter Three
The airboat swung in a wide graceful arc over the glittering sea and the dancing wavelets of the Bay of Valkanium threw back splintered shards of ruby and emerald, merging into a deepening golden-speckled radiance as the Suns of Scorpio sank beyond the bulk of the Heart Heights of Central Valka. The sight was gorgeous and nostalgic and always, invariably, awakes in me vast and moving memories. I slanted the boat down toward the high palace and fortress of Esser Rarioch, and joyed that I was coming home. There was much work to be done. With a premonition I tried unsuccessfully to shake off, I faced a future in which the harsh clangor of strife, the wicked scrape of assassins’ steel and the devious and vicious intrigues around an emperor’s court held no lure for me whatsoever, and to the Ice Floes of Sicce with the headlong adventure of it all. But I would face danger and the most deadly peril, as I knew, as I knew, and as you shall hear.
The world of Kregen, four hundred light years from Earth, is indeed a beautiful world. It is also a horrific world. It is real. And yet I was more and more convinced that the beauty and horror cloaked far deeper truths. If the Star Lords, who had brought me here from Earth many and many a time, alone were responsible, as I had once thought, with the Savanti attempting to combat them, then how could I either resist or support so powerful a group of — a group of what? Were they men? Were they superhuman beings, divine in origin, godlike in power? I did not know. The Savanti, the superhuman but mortal men of the Swinging City of Aphrasoe seemed, at least to me, to have more easily understood aims. The Savanti wanted to make of Kregen a better and more civilized world, and they supported apims to do that work for them. Apims, that is, people like Homo sapiens, formed a goodly proportion of the various peoples I had so far met on Kregen. But whose word was it? Did it belong to diff or apim? Or neither? I did not know.
These wider problems of Kregen stayed with me as the flier landed on that high upflung landing platform and we stepped down to be greeted by my High Chamberlain, old Panshi. He looked grave. He bowed formally, his wand of office held just so in the prescribed position of welcome and warning.
“My prince! Messengers from Vondium came for the princess; they left sealed packets and have departed these three days.”
Well, Delia was off with her Sisters of the Rose, hunting up information on our wayward daughter Dayra. I trusted she was being assisted by our eldest daughter Lela.
“Thank you, Panshi.” We walked swiftly in the last of the suns sets glow toward the outer chambers. “I will see the packets. First I will see the princesses — Velia and Didi.”
As I stood by the cots and looked at the two tiny forms, cherubic, sleeping, tiny fists closed, puckered mouths breathing gently, I sighed. What future lay in store for them, on this harsh and hostile planet of Kregen? Delia and I had been blessed by our daughter Velia, when our first daughter Velia had been so cruelly slain. But she had given us little Didi, the daughter of Velia, my Lady of the Stars, and of Gafard, the king’s Striker, Sea Zhantil, renegade and man. I sighed again and bent and kissed them and so left them to the capable hands of the nurses and of Aunt Katri, who shooed me away with a fine air of hustle. As the emperor’s sister, she spent more of her time with the emperor’s daughter and her children than she did in the capital of Vallia, Vondium the Proud.
Panshi handed me the packets as I sipped the first light wine of the evening. Heavily sealed, they bore the stamps of Lord Farris of Vomansoir, Chuktar in the Vallian Air Service, a great man, utterly loyal to the emperor, who looked upon Delia as a daughter. With a brutal tug I broke the fastenings and took out the letter.
It was circumlocutory, filled with respect and devotion; but its message was more brutal than the gesture I had used to unseal it.
Briefly; the emperor was gravely ill. No one could fathom out the nature of his illness. There were new doctors who promised much but could find no cure. The presence of the Princess Majestrix was requested.
Turko walked in and saw my face.
“Aye, Turko. Bad news. The emperor is like to die.”
“Delia-” said Turko, on a breath. His magnificently muscled body and his handsome face reassured me. He
