The Spectre Cycle

Chapter four

Chapter fourThe shell-covered door crashed open abruptly, so brutal had been my shove, and smashed back on its hinges. Some of the shells fell off. They made a pleasant little tinkling in the echo of the door’s opening. The stinking fish smell wafted away. Two steps into a pallid green light and the fish stench vanished completely to be replaced by the perfumes of flowers.

A rapid glance around revealed an octagonal chamber four of whose walls were covered with shells, and four with varieties of wooden flowers sculpted and painted quite attractively. That little critical appreciation of flower-arranging in these eerie circumstances made me perk up. By Vox, yes!

Weird disembodied voices speaking from thin air were no novelty to a fellow who went adventuring on Kregen. This was one favorite method to talk to me used by the Star Lords. If all these goings-on were the work of the Everoinye then I had the disastrous feeling that I knew just which one of the pack was in charge. That stopped my improving feelings in their tracks.

My thoughts were about to twine around a Makki-Grodno concept when the voice spoke again.

“Close the door, onker!”

Now I did not really believe the Everoinye could read my inmost thoughts. Their skill, I fancied, lay in reading body-language. Quite probably also they had the knack of, as it were, tapping into a person’s aura and by some super-empathy understanding their more superficial thoughts. Whatever the truth, they so often spoke just as I was about to. This, they no doubt planned, would throw me off balance in our conversations.

So, I went back and kicked the door shut.

Some more shells fell off.

The instant the door slammed closed the whole room gave a lurch as though we were at sea in a gale. The floor pressed up against my feet.

Letting my knees bend a trifle I swallowed down. Even on Kregen lifts are used here and there. This one, though, was no bucket or willow basket on a rope and pulley. The thing quite possibly ran on sorcery. The wizards of Kregen would consider that a much more sensible solution.

One particular problem I’d not allowed into my conscious thinking had been stuffed away, not to be contemplated. Now I could take it out and look at it and know the problem did not exist.

As the lift rose the air pressure remained constant.

Underwater diving on Earth had taught me the rules of pressure. So, now, I guessed the seaweed tunnel had formed a kind of airlock, like a membrane at the interface of water and air. There was no need to worry that I’d been under pressure and this rapid rise would give me the bends. Thank Opaz! Then, grimly, I rephrased that. No, oh no! Thank the Star Lords!

The rise seemed to me very rapid, although, of course, I’d no idea of the actual speed. The ascent continued long enough for me to surmise I’d gone up a long way. My breathing remained steady. Good Kregen hunger and thirst had to be ignored.

The octagonal lift stopped. The shell door opened.

Waiting quite deliberately I stayed where I was. I wanted to hear that damned acidic voice again — to make sure.

“Step out, Dray Prescot, onker of onkers.”

Yes. Confound it all! There could now be no doubt whatsoever. The owner of that cutting voice was Ahrinye, perhaps the youngest of the Star Lords by a million years or so. He wanted to run me, as he inelegantly phrased it. He wanted to employ me to the fullest of my mortal abilities, and run me past them, too. So far, thank Zair, the other Everoinye had managed to keep his rebellion against them in check. For how much longer?

Obediently I stepped out of the lift into the entrance to a corridor. A chair stood directly before me. The chair was fashioned from metal, with spidery legs and slatted seat and back.

“Sit down!”

I sat.

Immediately, with a loud hissing, the chair started off along the corridor. The walls of a dun ochre color blurred past.

I sat back, crossed my legs, and waited, stony-faced.

No other moving chairs passed. The temperature remained constant and pleasant. The perfume of flowers hung in the air. I mention these observations to illustrate the way I attempted to control my emotions. Apart from hunger and thirst, I acknowledge that fear twined around rage in my feelings.

The chair hissed past a screen of hanging vegetation and slid to a halt just inside a small oval shaped room. The walls were hung with ivy. There were no furnishings.

“Out!”

So, out of the chair I got and the thing hissed and whistled back from whence it had come. I stood there, waiting. By this time exasperation was bubbling uppermost in my reactions. Despite my attempts at self-control I found myself gripping the hilt of the drexer scabbarded to its own belt. My Krozair brand was gone, stuck through some damned and hell-bent Kataki. I could hope that Seg and Inch had retrieved the sword before chucking the Whiptail overboard.

A tiny zephyr brushed my cheek and was gone.

From somewhere, from the air, from everywhere about me, a sound like the breeze through trees began. This particular sound held that quality of people talking in an adjacent room, half-heard.

So, being Dray Prescot and being in a perilous situation, I bellowed out: “So where’s a little something to eat and drink, then?”

The distant rumble of voices stopped instantly. The thin scratching voice of Ahrinye said: “Very well. We do not want you damaged, mortal.”

Mortal! I said to myself, with an inward snort. That wasn’t the style of the Star Lords. That was self-important, bombastic Ahrinye, for sure.

A single-legged round table rose up from the floor. The table carried a flagon and a jug and a plate. On the plate reposed bread and cheese and onions. That was fare for an oar-slave, if he was lucky enough to be fed. It was also very good and welcome in a tavern after a long day’s march.

Without more ado, as they say in Clishdrin, I took up the jug, poured the ale — not wine! — and quaffed it off.

Then — ah, then! I passed the back of my hand across my lips and said the immortal words: “By Mother Zinzu the Blessed, I needed that!”

The hollow murmur of voices began again and I could make out that Ahrinye was talking to someone — or something — called Razinye. Not all the conversation could be fully understood. The definite impression was gained that Razinye was reluctant to join in some scheme and Ahrinye was pressurizing him. “They are all dotards,” he said, “not fit to run these important affairs.”

That was his view of the other Everoinye. Now he had a recruit to his plans. I ate some bread and cheese and listened.

Razinye wanted absolute proof — of what I didn’t catch.

“Show me you have chosen the right tool. Then I will join you. There are, after all, many weapons available.”

“Not like this one.”

“Yes, yes, I am aware of the reports. But it remains to be proven.”

Emptying the jug, I filled it again from the flagon. Both vessels were handsomely made in some soft metal resembling hammered pewter. The rim felt cool against my mouth. The bread and cheese and onion went down satisfyingly enough. The two Star Lords carried on their half-heard conversation.

At length Ahrinye, his acrid voice positively corrosive, said: “Very well. Watch!”

A noise scuffled at my back, so I turned around to look.

Immediately, I swallowed the last of the bread, swigged off the ale, placed the jug back on the table, and drew my sword.

The thing slobbering towards me was a true monster from nightmare, no doubt about that. It crawled on a number of scaly legs, its four jaws gaped into a cross of yellow fangs, dripping slime, a clump of tendrils waved like undersea fronds seeking to draw me into those fangs, and its hide glistened greenish gray.

Eyeing the thing, I began to work out the best way of dealing with it. That I felt sorry for it goes without saying. This shint Ahrinye just hauled out anything to do his dirty work without a single thought for their welfare.

The voice that belonged to Razinye made a sound that can only be described as: ‘Tut, tut!’

“What?” demanded Ahrinye.

“The Scompeto is hardly what I had in mind. Here.”

A blue radiance grew about this monstrous Scompeto. A halo of light formed about it. It shrank. It dwindled to the size of a cat and then — puff! — vanished.

I let out my breath. My next act, carried out with stupid bravado, was to sheathe the sword. With even more onkerish behavior, I took up the flagon and jug, poured more ale, and so stood there, jug in fist, glowering.

A four-legged rectangular table grew into existence by the near wall. The surface was covered with symbols, letters and numbers. From the opposite wall, at a point just above my head, a pipe jutted. Water began to flow from the pipe. Its splashing would normally have been quite pleasant. Right now, though, by Krun, it carried only menace and the promise of final termination for one foolhardy adventurer called Dray Prescot.

Razinye called in a mocking voice: “Solve the puzzle on the table and the water will cease to flow.”

I stared down on the table. The puzzle looked hopeless. With that gentle splashing sound in my ears, I glared at the problem. All the time as I stood like a loon the water rose up about my legs. Soon it would close over my head.