Talons of Scorpio

Chapter one-2

“Can I go, horters? My family are starving—”

That might be true, it might not be. I fingered out a golden deldy with the face of a King Copologu on one side and a proclamation on the other suggesting that Copologu the Great was responsible for wealth, health and happiness. Where his kingdom might be I wasn’t sure, somewhere down in the Dawn Lands, probably. I tossed the golden coin to Renko.

The gold did not wink a glitter of splendor in the air. A shadow fell about us and a chill gust of wind rattled between the pillars of the archway. Clouds piled in, shadowing the glory of the Suns of Scorpio.

Captain Murkizon said: “B’rrr!” And then: “Are you letting this miserable specimen go free, Horter Pompino?”

“His punishment is being what he is,” observed my comrade, twirling his whiskers and obviously enjoying making a profound statement of eternal truth.

Renko the Iarvin snapped up the golden deldy and it disappeared into his rags. He shivered. He was, in truth, a sorry specimen, and I felt for him. Not everyone, on Earth four hundred light-years from Kregen, as on that marvelous and difficult world itself, can be a hero forever swashbuckling about with a sword.

“Be off with you!” bellowed Pompino.

No doubt Renko imagined these rogues would repent of their leniency and produce the rope instanter. He ran. He scurried off along the quay and vanished into the throng of folk all preparing for the coming rain.

“He’ll empty a few pockets before he goes home,” quoth Pompino. “But that is no affair of ours. Hai, fanshos! Are you for this wet we promised ourselves?”

So, laughing and ahurrying against the rain, we took ourselves off. Through the gate the streets presented a cobbled, close-set, pointy-roofed-houses impression of huddlement. We found a swinging amphora and a sign that read The New Frontier, and in we went.

Someone wanted to know what the sign might mean, and Cap’n Murkizon rumbled out, with a reference to his Divine Lady’s anatomy, that this brave new frontier was off across the ocean in the continent of Turismond, where many nations had established ports and trading stations. The ale passed and we quenched our thirsts and watched the rain sparkling on the cobbles.

The landlord, a cat-faced, bright-furred Fristle, came over with a fresh jug. He wore a spotless blue and yellow striped apron.

“The new frontier did very well for the kov,” he told us, pouring carefully. “His father, Kov Pando na Memis, made a fortune over there in Turismond. The dowager kovneva, the Lady Leona, brought the young kov back home and now he lives in great style.” He wiped the lip of the jug with a clean yellow linen cloth. “Of course, Kov Pando being in the army had to go and get himself killed fighting those Pandrite-forsaken rasts of Hamalese. The wars, they spoiled everything.”

“They’re over now—”

“Aye, thank all the gods. But we hear tales of those Shtarkins who raid and burn. No coasts are safe, it seems, these days.”

He had his worries, we had ours. That is how the worlds roll on. We drank and waited for the rain to stop and took little notice of the company in Fandarlu the Franch’s The New Frontier.

Cap’n Murkizon, anxious to put right what he considered a slur upon his honor, wanted to know more about the plans to burn the accursed temple here in Peminswopt.

Pompino explained enough, and little at that.

“This hateful cult of Lem the Silver Leem—” and he kept his voice low — very low “—appears in different guises from country to country. The king here, this flat slug of a King Nemo the Second, supports the religion. It is spoken of a little more openly, and more people know of the Brown and Silvers. But they like to keep their secrets. They use passwords and secret signs. And they torture and sacrifice little children.”

Murkizon drank ale, and his fists clenched on the jar. He said nothing.

Quendur the Ripper, raffish and reckless and almost a reformed character, said: “When I was a render adventuring for my own profit and leading a band of bloodthirsty pirates, we never did that. It would not occur to any civilized man.”

“Draw your own conclusions.”

Larghos the Flatch poured more ale and pushed the jar across to Murkizon. “Civilized people might think to raise a Great Jikai against this evil cult.”

“Many do not believe what they cannot grasp. The secret powers of the Leem Lovers are great; men and women disappear in the night, others are assassinated. The followers of the Silver Wonder have friends in the highest places. The Jikai against them is difficult—”

Murkizon looked at the jar Larghos pushed across, down at the one in his fists and saw that it was empty. He exchanged the jars, drank, wiped his lips, and said: “Anything worth doing is difficult. This is not anything like the fight against the Shanks.” He clamped his heavy lips shut. No one said any more about that fight, in which Murkizon had been absolutely in the right to suggest we should not fight, and when we had fought he had taken his part right royally.

Outside in the rain a file of soldiers wended past, hunched in their capes. Their flag hung wet and shining. This was the flag of Tomboram, a solid blue with the symbol of a quombora, a fabled beast all fangs and spits of fire. Tomboram utilizes the system of having a simple national flag which is differenced by each sub-use, so that the Kov of Memis charged the blue with a silver full-hulled argenter, and Pando over in Bormark where we were bound had a golden zhantil emblazoned in the center of his blue flag. This is an interesting tradition of a number of nations on Kregen. I looked at what trotted along after the soldiers.

Sleek and shining in the rain, the lethal forms of werstings appeared to undulate like a river in spate, so close their backs were packed. Black and white striped hunting dogs, werstings, vicious and trained to hunt and kill. Yet they have only four legs, and not over-large jaws or fangs. The pack humped along, chained together, and led by their Hikdar, who carried his switch tucked under one arm.

“Werstings,” said Quendur. “Now those I do not like.”

“Out in the rain?” said Pompino. “Some poor devil is for the chop, then, that is sure.”

The landlord, Fandarlu the Franch, came back to our table. He looked after the last of the werstings, loping along with tucked-in tails, and made a face. When he offered to refill our jars, we refused, for the rain was easing and the first hints of ruby and jade across the street gave evidence that the twin suns of Kregen, Zim and Genodras, once more deigned to smile upon the world.

“Thank you, landlord,” said Pompino, standing up. “Here is the reckoning.” He put a handful of coins on the table. The others nodded and smiled, pleased that the Owner had treated them. We went outside where the air held that freshly scrubbed after-rain tang. Water ran in the gutters. People began appearing on the street. A few birds climbed away from the eaves where they had sheltered, heading out for the fish quays. They were gulls and small birds, not saddle flyers.

“A nice place, The New Frontier,” commented Pompino as we walked along. “Clean and respectable.”

I felt like stirring Pompino a little. Now the landlord’s nickname of Franch means a fellow who thinks a lot of himself, and is able to prove it. It is not in the same category as Iarvin. So I said: “His nickname suited him, no doubt. Perhaps they are all cut from the same cloth hereabouts.”

He stopped and glared at me. He took my meaning. Then he laughed. Pompino Scauro ti Tuscursmot, called the Iarvin, can laugh as only a Khibil can. For Khibils are a mighty supercilious folk, highly hoity-toity in their ways and when they laugh they relax from that high posture and let it all roll out.

“And there,” he said when he stopped laughing, “is the fellow we need.” He nodded his head.

Indeed, there was the man. He strutted along the street pompously, swinging a golden-headed balass cane. His clothes ballooned splendidly, laced with gold and silver, wired with gems. His hat glistened, the arbora feathers flaring. A few paces to his rear trotted along a Brukaj, patient, docile, carrying a satchel which no doubt contained all the fussy necessaries this puffed-up personage required from time to time.

The object which unmistakably told us that this was, indeed, the man we required, was pinned to his lapel. A small silver brooch, fashioned in the form of a leaping leem, and with a tuft of brown feathers setting it off.

“They are more open, up here,” I said.

“They are safe, the cramphs. If you do not know what the silver leem and the brown feathers mean, then you do not matter. And if you do know, then you had best walk small and keep a still tongue in your head, otherwise you’re likely to find yourself in the gutter with a slit throat.”

“Aye. You have the right of it.”

Murkizon said in his thunder-growl voice: “Shall I twist his arm a little?”

“When we are safe from observation. And the poor Brukaj slave will have to be attended to.”

“I,” said Quendur the Ripper, who had once been a pirate, “will treat him with great courtesy.”

We followed this glittering popinjay in an unobtrusive way among the growing crowds. His slave carried the furled-up rain-shedder, a kind of umbrella, over his shoulder, and looked miserable. The popinjay himself carried a multi-colored kerchief in his hand, with which he made much gallant play to passing ladies and acquaintances. He also carried strapped to his waist a rapier and main gauche. For all his dandified looks, he’d be able to use the weapons. On Kregen weapons are carried for a purpose, and those that carry them are expert in their use. Those that are not are dead.

As the suns shone down and we dogged our quarry, I qualified that thought. Not everyone on Kregen is a roistering rapscallion of an adventurer, and, in addition, there are those who carry weapons and who have only a modicum of skill in their use. Usage and custom dictate where the twain shall meet, if they do, and how they shall conduct themselves.

“He is making for the zorcadrome, I believe,” said Pompino. “The thought of a fine dainty zorca saddled to support that bulk offends me.”

“You are right, and you are wrong.”

“What, Jak? What in the name of—?”

“You are right to say he is no zorcaman, despite they are sturdy and strong and always willing. You are wrong to say he is going to the zorcadrome. Look. That is his destination.”

The fellow we followed in our unobtrusive way lumbered up the steps of a building that gave no indication of its use. It was simply a three-storeyed structure, one of a row in this street, with a fantastical array of pointed roofs and toppling spires and chimneys. The slave Brukaj followed and the door closed after him.

“How long is the ninny going to stay in there, wherever he is?” demanded Murkizon.

Before Pompino had time to speak, I said: “Well, I for one do not intend to hang about to find out.”

They looked at me. To give my comrade his due he grasped my meaning before the others. Larghos the Flatch started to say: “What, Horter Jak! Giving up so soon!”

Pompino broke in. “And I am with you!”

“Good,” I said, and wasted no more words. Across the street, dodging a smart carriage drawn by freymuls, up the steps and a thunderous tattoo on the door, I gave Pompino no chance to dart in front. He was at my side as the door opened.

A small Och woman — and Ochs are small in any case — turned her head up to regard us. She wore a decent black dress and a yellow apron and her hair was covered in a white lace coif. Pompino spent two heartbeats staring vacantly down the brown-varnished hall with its side tables and vases of flowers before he looked down at the little Och lady.

“Yes?” Her voice held the timbre of a saucepan struck by a carving knife.

“Ah...” said Pompino.

He stared at me with the same vacant look.

I said in as cheerful a voice as I could manage: “Pray pardon, madam. Is Horter Naghan Panderk at home?”

The name just jumped into my head — Naghan as one of the more common Kregish first names, Panderk for the bay of that name.

She looked me up and she looked me down. Her nose wrinkled just a trifle.

“There is no one here of that name.”

I looked suitably flabbergasted. Pompino picked it up at once.

“Surely there must be, madam? This is where he lives.”

She shook her head and made shooing motions.

Maybe Pompino had picked up more than he ought to have done. Maybe this place was not a house where people lived at all. As though confirming that notion a hulking great Chulik of a fellow hove into view along the passageway. His yellow-skinned face and the upthrusting tusks at each corner of his mouth bore down on us, together with his beetling brows and his thin lips and his iron armor and his sword.

Perfectly normal to have a watchman, a sensible precaution in a chancy world, of course — but this fellow bore down with so evident an intention of picking us up by the scruff of our necks, of smiting at us with his sword, of doing us a mischief, that the normality of the custom vanished instantly.

He wore brown and silver favors, and that condemned him in our eyes.

“Out!” he roared. “Schtump!”

“Now this,” said Pompino, and he spoke almost gratefully. “Is more like it!”

At that instant the terrified scream of a child rocketed up through the house, bounced along the corridor in a shriek of agony.

“Devil’s work!” yelled Pompino.

Together, shoulder to shoulder, we charged past the little Och woman and slap bang into the raging Chulik beyond.