The Krozair Cycle

“Wizard of Scorpio”-3

Using that subtle and deadly Krozair two-handed grip I flicked the brand left and right, brought it back with just the right amount of force and smashed it down squarely upon the jeweled hilt of the rapier. The rapier blade snapped across and the hilt shattered, spraying jewels. The blade dropped to clang against the floor. Over that sound I heard a gasp. Without a pause, instantly, the superb longsword slashed down in a short and wicked arc and served the main gauche in similar fashion.

The beautiful rapier and dagger lay in shards upon the stone.

I lifted my head, and I know my face must have shown all that evil and ugly malefic power that so transfixes those upon whom I gaze in that diabolical fashion. I shouted:

“Come out, you miserable cramph! Come out before I cut your heart from your body and tear your liver smok-ing from your guts!”

A slither, a scrape, the sound of pebbles falling, and into the shaft of moonlight stepped a young man with a face expressing the most extreme surprise. No fear, no horror, just surprise.

Decently clad in a white robe cinctured by a crimson cord, with sandals upon his feet, with golden bracelets about his arms, and a face of great handsomeness, he might pass as any noble idler in the more riotous quarters of any city of Havilfar. But I saw his hair and I knew. For his hair shone with that peculiar gleaming red-black in the pinkish light of the moons. I knew him and what he was.

“A damned Wizard of Loh!” I shouted. “By the disgusting diseased intestines of Makki-Grodno! What are you trying to do?”

His surprise increased. These famous Wizards of Loh are accustomed to receiving the most perfect respect from men, respect and fear, for, indeed, they do possess weird and uncanny skills — as, by Vox! — I had just witnessed.

“I am Khe-Hi-Bjanching,” he said, in a voice like chiseled steel. “I have great powers — you had best be-ware and—” Here the rapier scraped evilly against the stone. “Swordomancy.”

“I’ve heard of your damned swordomancy, or gladio-mancy, call it what you will, wizard. It has not served you well.”

“And I have awful powers to blast the eyes in your skull!”

“You’re not skulking in these ruins for nothing!” I bel-lowed at him. I made the longsword tremble so the moon-light snaked down the patina. “Tell me where the voller is, cramph!”

He shook his head in amazement, and half lifted a hand.

“You are a strange man, of a kind new to me. What is your name?”

I did not hesitate.

“I am Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor, and if you do not answer, your head will skip about right merrily on these stones.”

“Yes, I brought the fliers to earth. I caused a cloud — oh, only a small one, a mere nothing—”

I put my left hand on his throat and I lifted him and glared madly into his eyes. The longsword poised above his head.

“Where, wizard? Where?”

One should address a Wizard of Loh with all rever-ence as San, a sage or dominie, a master. He gobbled a trifle and choked and his cheeks took on a dark plum color in the moons light. I let my gripping fingers relax a trifle — not much.

“By the Copper Cylinder—” he squeaked. I let him breathe. I am a humane man in these things. “It is ruined — but the flier went down by the Copper Cylinder.”

“Then we will go there now, together.” I dragged him along, running through the shadows with the last of the moons light falling about my heels, with the promise of dawn and the rising of Zim and Genodras in my face. The Copper Cylinder reared ahead, sliced off diagonally some hundred feet from the ground. As we ran over those ancient stones the first brilliance broke through the eastern horizon and a single copper gleam, red-gold, burst like a star against the upflung jagged point of the Copper Cylinder.

My own rapier and main gauche were back in their scabbards; we had left this Wizard Khe-Hi-Bjanching’s smashed weapons on the stones. I had no fear of him stabbing me in the back as I hauled him along.

Shadows still clung darkly about the base of the Cylin-der; but now that shaft glowed, the light slowly running down the copper which gleamed red-gold with no trace of green patina. I saw the wrecked voller. I let out a yell, a furious joyful shout: “Delia! Delia of Strombor! Delia of Vallia!”

For answer a shattering roar reverberated from the mil-dewed stones. The very ground seemed to tremble be-neath my feet. I ran on; the voller lay on her side, crumpled, and a body clad in the black leather trappings and metal of a flyer lay sprawled alongside, his head a mere mass of clotted blood and brains.

“Delia!”

The roar smashed out again and into the rising glory of the Suns stepped a tralk, his six legs scrabbling against the stones, his horse-sized armored body glowing brick-red in the light. His wide horny mouth designed to crush ar-mored monsters like himself opened. Before his flat head his two enormous pincers opened and closed in deadly menace, their serrated edges able to rip and puncture the armor of his natural enemies. I sought no fight with him; but again that angry roar smashed out. The pincers, each as large as a kitchen table, clashed. Down went his head, the six legs bunched for a swiftly savage charge, the horny crushing mouth opened — and with a last and stone-shattering roar the tralk charged.

“Run, man, or you’re done for!” screamed the Wizard.

It was nice of him to worry over my safety. I’ve fought worse monsters than a tralk before and, no doubt, Kregen being the marvelous and wonderful, terrible and horrific world it is, will fight many more before I take the last journey to the Ice Floes of Sicce.

The longsword snapped into my fists. The Wizard ran, screeching. I poised, ready to deal with the tralk as he deserved. The only enmity I bore him lay simply in that he delayed me in my search for Delia. The tralk, for all his fierceness, and he is a fearsome risslaca among risslacas, acted merely out of his nature; what he was doing was what he was born and intended for.

That first rush with the intention of seizing me up in one of his iron-hard pincers and so crushing me into that horny mouth was met by me in the old barbaric ways of Kregen. I skipped to the side at the last minute and that superb longsword swished and bit deeply into the joint abaft the pincer. It did not cut through. The tralk’s armor was thick and horny. But I knew what a real Krozair longsword would do; now I was testing what the sword Naghan and I had made would do. Again I slashed and got an eye. The thick pus and mucus ran out. The tralk screeched; but pity him though I might, my mind hun-gered to press on, filled with horror for the fate of Delia. Nothing in two worlds can stand against the well-being of my Delia. I have waded through lakes of blood, as you know, and would see two worlds mere oceans of blood to preserve my Delia. This makes me a sinner. I am. But then, that is me, Dray Prescot. As for this poor dinosaur; he lasted no time at all after his second eye burst like the first.

He thrashed about, his pincers clashing open and shut with a pathetic sound. Then he screeched, as though un-derstanding, and lumbered away, crashing into walls and stones as he went, for his two remaining eyes were both on the left side of his head.

“You are a devil!” panted the Wizard. “By Hlo-Hli! A very devil!”

“Aye!” I said, snatching up a handful of ferns to cleanse the sword. As you know, I do not like thrusting a sword fouled with blood into a scabbard given to me by Delia. “Aye, wizard. I am a very devil. You brought the voller to ground. The woman I seek is not here. If you do not go into lupu and tell me where she is — now! — I swear you will find out your ideas of a devil are a pallid nothing beside the reality I’ll show you.”

This was not empty boasting. Boasting is for fools. I simply told this Wizard of Loh, Khe-Hi-Bjanching, what I would do to him if he failed me. He believed me. When I wish, I can have that effect on people. As I say, I am not a nice man.

And then, after all this arrogant display of petty power, I heard the slither, and turned viciously, and the whole world of Kregen fell on me and even Notor Zan had time for only one swirl of his cloak before I fell into the deep darkness.

* * * *

“Dray!” said my Delia, her voice making me curse myself for the greatest onker in two worlds. “Dray!”

“Sink me!” I said. “I don’t like making the acquain-tance of Notor Zan so often, by Zair!”

We were chained up in a dungeon with the lady Merle and the Wizard. I have spent some interesting times in dungeons, Kregen being a world where dungeons are a way of life to some kings, and I detest them all. I looked about for the way out. The chains would not be broken had I ten times the strength I have, which is not incon-siderable. We were all naked save for our breechclouts. Delia and I wore the brave old scarlet. That cheered me, at least.

“I thought you would never — they must have hit you hard.”

“I have a vosk skull for a head, as you have told me many a time. So Strom Vangar was not with the kid-nappers. I’ll have a word to say to that young man, by the Black Chunkrah, yes!”

Whilst we waited to find out what this King Wazur in-tended for us, we talked. This Wazur was exceedingly rich and wielded a despotic power on his own island. There are many absolute despots in many places upon Kregen. What he was going to do would not be opposed by any of his people. His hired mercenaries would see to that.

“So your brother is a Wizard to this maniacal king?” I said.

“I have been training in the arts in Loh.” Khe-Hi-Bjanching was the very first very young Wizard of Loh I’d run across. He told me he sometimes still muffed a chance, and could produce a marvelous effect of making a per-son’s hair stand on end when he’d really been trying to wither their nose off. He told me these things with the air of one waiting to die. He’d come from Loh to join his brother, hoping for employment, being a young Wizard, and his brother — of whom he spoke slightingly — had chased him off and he had taken refuge in the ruins, bring-ing down the fliers imagining them in chase of him. In any event, King Wazur’s mercenaries had found us and a crossbow bolt had caressed my head and I’d awakened in the dungeon.

The lady Merle, sprightly still but with trembling lips, held up wonderfully well. “And I truly love Vangar, but my father said I was to marry the old Kov Foke. He’s funny. And poor Vangar arranged this; I didn’t know, and this horrible King Wazur wants to put us to the test, and look at us—”

“Test?”

Bjanching made a strangled noise. “The two doors.”

“Oh, that test,” I said. “Well, two doors is a fifty-fifty chance. Usually it’s three doors.”

So we waited to see what Wazur intended in this test. I had the shrewdest of ideas what the cramph was really up to in giving an apparently even chance. It is not new. It is still lethal.

So, as we hung there in the damp and the cold and the silence with the water dripping slimily from the roof and streaking our naked bodies, I saw the lissom form of the lady Merle droop, and the tears falling from her eyes, the soft red lips shaking.

I said, “We will sing The Bowmen of Loh. It is Seg’s favorite song. Now, I rather fancy I like the idea of Seg, and Inch, and Turko, coming walking through that door, over by the torch in its iron becket. Now, that would be grand!”

“Dear Seg,” said Delia. “And Inch. As for Turko — he’d tear them limb from limb.”