Krozair of Kregen

A note on Dray Prescot

A note on Dray PrescotDray Prescot is a man above medium height with brown hair, and brown eyes that are level and dominating. His shoulders are immensely wide and he carries himself with an abrasive honesty and a fearless courage. He moves like a great hunting cat, quiet and deadly. Born in 1775 and educated in the inhumanly harsh conditions of the late eighteenth-century English Navy, he presents a picture of himself that, the more we learn of him, grows no less enigmatic.

Through the machinations of the Savanti nal Aphrasöe — mortal but superhuman men dedicated to the aid of humanity — and of the Star Lords, the Everoinye, he has been taken to Kregen many times. On that savage and exotic, marvelous and terrible world he rose to become Zorcander of the Clansmen of Segesthes, and Lord of Strombor in Zenicce, and a member of the mystic and martial Order of Krozairs of Zy of the Eye of the World.

Against all odds, Prescot won his highest desire and in that immortal battle at The Dragon’s Bones claimed his Delia, Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains. And Delia claimed him in defiance of her father, the dread emperor of Vallia. Amid the rolling thunder of the acclamations of Hai Jikai! Prescot became Prince Majister of Vallia and wed his Delia, the Princess Majestrix. One of their favorite homes is Esser Rarioch in Valkanium, capital of the island of Valka of which Prescot is Strom.

In the continent of Havilfar, Prescot fought as a hyr-kaidur in the arena of the Jikhorkdun in Huringa. He became King of Djanduin, idolized by his ferocious four-armed warrior Djangs. In the Battle of Jholaix the megalomaniacal ambitions of the empress Thyllis of Hamal were thwarted, leading to an uneasy peace between the empires of Hamal and Vallia. Then Prescot was banished by the Star Lords to Earth for twenty-one miserable years. He caught up with his education and learned a great deal during this time.

His joyful return to Kregen was marred by his ejection from the Order of Krozairs of Zy. On Earth he had been unable to answer their Call to Arms, when the fanatics of Green Grodno swept all the Red of Zair before them in irresistible conquest. Determined to forget the Krozairs of the inner sea and return home to Delia and their children, he is told by Zena Iztar, who saves him from being banished back to Earth, that he must again become a Krzy before he can return home to Valka.

The genius king Genod of Magdag, using a new army modeled on one created years ago by Prescot, is sweeping victoriously across the inner sea. Gafard, the king’s right-hand man, was — unknown to the king and to Prescot — married to Prescot’s second daughter, Velia. Now, in order to escape on a wounded saddle-bird, King Genod has callously hurled Velia to her death. Prescot, using the name Gadak, is left holding the dead body of his daughter in his arms as the overlords of Magdag ride up to take him.

This is where the last volume, Renegade of Kregen, finished. Still known as Gadak the Renegade, Prescot picks up the story as he is dispatched to the horrific fate of an oar-slave in the swifters of Magdag.

This volume, Krozair of Kregen, brings to an end the “Krozair Cycle” and with the next volume, Savage Scorpio, Prescot is confronted with a monstrous challenge on the planet of Kregen under the Suns of Scorpio. Because most, but not all, of the action takes place in Vallia, I have called the next cycle of Prescot’s headlong adventures on Kregen the “Vallian Cycle.”

Alan Burt Akers