“And have you looked into the future, old man?” I said.
“Dray!” Seg’s outraged cry affected me not at all.
San Yuong looked at me. I think, even then, he did not know how to size me up or to read me in the context of those people with whom he was accustomed to deal. I do know now, and admit it with only the slightest diffidence, that I must have been in a state of shock still, and hardly recking of what I did or said. In any event Yuong decided to treat me with caution. For this I was later duly grateful; at the time I merely remarked to myself that I must be wearing that old devil’s mask of a face again — and joying in it, Zair help me, joying in my pain.
“The future does not concern me at this moment, my friend. I shall thank you properly for rescuing me at a suitable time. What I have been discovering is how I will be received by Queen Lilah—”
“She does not blame you for the defeat of her army in the massacre,” I said. “At least, she did not mention you in that context — or at all.”
“She would not.”
“What have you discovered, San?” asked Seg.
“The Queen will need my guidance and advice in what is to come. But she was cold — distant and cold. There is a woman, another woman, they have fought bitterly—”
“Thelda!” exclaimed Seg. He stared at me in dismay.
I was intrigued. Could this old man in some way have seen what was even now happening in Hiclantung? Impossible! But, remember, then I was young and new to the ways of Kregen and especially to the wiles of the Wizards of Loh.
“The Queen has imprisoned this woman, this Thelda, and she weeps for her lost lover.” Yuong canted his head so that his supercilious nose aimed itself over my right shoulder. “Perchance she dreams of you, Jikai?”
“If she does,” I said, “she does so without my permission.”
“Since when has a maid required permission to long for a man?”
I didn’t want to continue this, not with Seg looking and listening, so I went across to my corth and inspected its harness.
“Let us go,” I said. “If Queen Lilah has flung Thelda into prison we must get her out again. We owe her that much, at least.”
Seg vaulted into his saddle. His fist gripped into his rein knot — and his other hand made sure his great longbow was in position, handy as to bending and loosing, the feather of his arrows protruding from their quiver past his right ear.
I could see the irony in this situation; more than irony, deadly mockery of all I held dear. Here I was setting out to rescue my Delia from the clutches of a malevolent monster and instead was hurrying back to our friends to rescue a tiresome woman.
How all the Clansmen would have roared their appreciation of the joke — until I silenced them with my upraised sword!
We soared aloft with those initial convulsive rippling movements of the corths’ wide wings driving us low across the clearing until we had picked up enough speed to rise and bank out past the trees. I scanned three hundred and sixty degrees as I would have done the moment I stepped onto the quarterdeck of
Roscommon
back on Earth — only now I had to sweep again below as well as above the level of our flight height. It was almost with regret that I saw no pursuing impiters, no vengeful corths, no varter-towing yuelshi.
Had I been of the stuff from which the romantic heroes of Kregan legends are constructed — all manliness and pride and stoicism and lofty indifference to personal pain — I would not have felt then as I did, all the agony and the remorse clawing and tearing my spirit. I knew only that I must go on — somehow.
We alighted on the outskirts of Hiclantung.
“If Thelda truly has been imprisoned by Lilah,” I said, “then it would be foolish simply to fly back when day dawns.”
“Yes,” said Seg.
I knew how he felt. His constant cheerfulness with me both heartened and saddened me, for Seg had tried most desperately to interest Thelda in himself and had as desperately failed.
The corths snuffled around, ruffling their feathers, giving clear indication they wished to rest. I looked at Yuong.
“Tell me, San. Can you reach out with your mind and find the woman I seek?”
“Speak more plainly, Jikai. Do you mean Thelda, whom you would rescue from the Queen, or do you mean the woman you love?”
I started violently.
Fool! Why had I not thought of this myself — and before!
I gripped his thin shoulder. He did not wince but stared up at me placidly. I began to speak, but he shook his head.
“Is this woman you love as beautiful as you say?”
“Yes.”
“Incredibly lovely?”
“Yes.”
He moved my hand away. I let him. “I cannot find her for you, for I have no means of location, as I had with Thelda, who was with the Queen.” He started back at my movement. Pink moonshine runneled along his jaws. “But, if she is as beautiful as you say, I believe she still lives. Umgar Stro values beautiful objects.”
“Delia of the Blue Mountains is not an object!”
“With Umgar Stro all women are objects.”
I turned away from him. Old as he was, cocksure as he was, weird as he was, if I had not turned away I believe I would have struck him down.
“By the veiled Froyvil, Dray! Let us get on!”
San Lu-si-Yuong went through his pantomime again. I call it a pantomime, for that is how I thought then when I was under tremendous strain, tensed up, desperate and weary and vengeful. Yuong did, however, play fair by us.
“She is with the Queen even now, in the Paline Bower—”
“I know it!” said Seg.
“I shall humor you,” went on Yuong, “and go into lupu in the morning when the gates are open and we may enter the city.”
Seg started violently.
I said: “You do not think Seg and I are men to wait tamely out here for them to open the gates for us, do you?”
He nodded that stringy lipless head with the wine-dark eyes somber and yet full of a spritely malice. “What else will you do, Jikai?”
Seg laughed.
I do not laugh easily, as I have said; I simply stood up and went across to my corth — the one with the trapeze and the thongs — and readied him for flight. Seg followed me.
When the corth was ready I turned to Yuong.
“You had best fly with us — there are leems hereabouts—”
He shook his head.
“Nay, Jikai. If you lend me one of those thick anachronistic flint-headed spears, I will fare well enough.”
“As you wish. The spears were unnecessary, after all. They were a failure, like my plans.”
“Dray!” said Seg. “All is not yet lost.”
“Come!” I said, and I was abrupt with Seg. So we left the Wizard of Loh, San Lu-si-Yuong, there with a flint-headed spear to await the dawnrise of the twin suns of Scorpio and the opening of the gates to Hiclantung.
We rode the same corth for the short journey and by taking turns we both dropped off the swinging trapeze onto the trip-wired and fan-spiked roof of the Queen’s palace and let the corth go where he willed. I fancied that sharp eyes peering out in the pink light of the twins would have spotted us from one of the many watchtowers rising in the city. That did not concern me as yet. We padded down stairs carpentered from sturm-wood and opened lenken doors with our swords. We did not kill the guards we encountered, for these were, after all, our hosts.
No incongruity of repetition struck me as we crept silently down past the guards, for this time I carried no high palpitations of hope and fear for my Delia; now we were merely attempting to do the right thing by a comrade — and then I remembered the way Seg felt about the callous and shallow Thelda, and I sighed, and wondered just what I did wish for this baffling comrade of mine.
Truth to tell, I felt a queasy sense of responsibility for Yuong; how could his frailty stand up against the awesome ferocity of a wild leem, flint-headed spear or no?
A young Hiclantung guardsman very smart in the ornate robes of a Queen’s spearman with the gold and silver buttons and buckles in place of workmanlike bronze or bone was very pleased to assist us when Seg placed his dagger at the lad’s throat. We were led past a doorway into an area of dust and cobwebs. It was a long narrow passage and every now and then thin slits let lamplight fall across the floor, so I knew it to be one of those seemingly essential items to certain palaces — the place of observation hidden behind the walls of the chambers. I have used these observation galleries many times, and no doubt will do so in the future. For some reason the minds of many rulers on the world of Kregen are obsessed with this desire for secrecy and for hidden observers ready to leap out in surprise and deal with the slightest hint of treachery or assassination. I have used these galleries many times — but not for the purpose for which they were built.
Seg tapped the lad lightly on the head when he indicated we had reached the correct loophole and I caught him in my arms and eased him silently to the dusty floor. Then Seg below and I above looked through the slit.
This was a small chamber within the Paline Bower which nestled securely beneath a wing of the palace. The first thing I noticed — before either of the women — was the chased silver dish containing a pile of palines, luscious, full-bodied, juicy, invigorating, and I licked my lips thirstily.
Seg whispered: “The Queen has a dagger in her hand!” The mellow light from the samphron oil lamps shining through wafer-thin scraped-bone shades splintered back in hard-edged reflections from the jewels in the dagger hilt. A star winked and dazzled from the dagger’s point. That point hovered over Thelda’s breast.
I felt for the edges of the crack that would reveal the doorway. Seg was breathing loudly, almost gasping.
That secret chamber was furnished in casual unostentatious luxury, with ling furs upon the low couches, silks and satins scattered here and there in a riot of colors between the tumbled cushions.
“You forget that I am the Queen!”
“And you forget that I am a Lady of Vallia!”
“Vallia! I spit on your Vallia!”
“What is this miserable dung-heap called Hiclantung? My country is a great nation, united under an all-powerful emperor! The power of Vallia is like a leem compared to the puny rast-city of Hiclantung!”
“By Hlo-Hli! You will pay for this insolence!” I sighed. The girls were at it again. But poor Seg was taking it all in with a very visible distress.
Lilah wore a long scarlet gown, very tight as to the bodice, slit up the sides to reveal her long legs. Her hair and bosom and arms were smothered with gems. Much of that satanic look about her that came from the widow’s peak and her upslanting eyebrows and the shadows beneath her cheekbones was absent now as she argued and wrangled with Thelda. Thelda — poor Thelda — another man than Dray Prescot might have chuckled at her now, knowing what I knew about these two. Thelda was clad in a short and raggedy brown shift that left her thick thighs naked, that hung lopsidedly on her shoulders, sagging, and her wrists were bound behind her back with golden cords. Yet she lifted her head defiantly, and I had to admire her, despite all the ludicrous scenes that had passed between us.
“I know why you’re so much of a female cramph!” spat Thelda now, her face flushed, her eyes bright, her breast heaving like the seas of the Eye of the World after a rashoon has passed. “It’s my Dray! My Dray Prescot you covet!”
“Your Dray!”
“Yes! You know nothing of what we mean to each other. I love him and, now the Princess Majestrix is gone, he will love me! I know—”
“You know nothing, rast! What can you offer him? I am the Queen, a Queen in all her glory, Queen of a great city and a great nation—”
“Surrounded by enemies waiting to tear your heart out!”
“They may wish to — but they will never succeed. I can offer Dray Prescot everything — you—”
Thelda threw back her dark brown hair and opened those plump lips and laughed. “You!” she spluttered. “A skinny rast-bag like you! Dray Prescot needs a woman, a real woman!”
Lilah’s hand trembled and the dagger shot sparks of fire into the corners of the room. “You great fat lump of lard! Dray needs a woman of fire and passion who can meet him, breast to breast, spirit for spirit!”
Seg put his hand on the secret panel. I suffered for my comrade during those minutes.
A sharp rap on the door opposite brought Lilah around, catlike, the dagger upraised. The knock also halted Seg’s pushing hand. The door opened and a little slave wench with golden bands upon her gray slave kirtle skipped in, bending and genuflecting, showing in Councilor Orpus. His powerful bearded face was filled with extreme animation and the many rings on his fingers flashed in the lamplight. He swept his embroidered robes to one side as he inclined deeply. When he straightened up, he said: “Forgive this intrusion, oh Queen! But — great news! We think we have discovered the location of Umgar Stro.”
“What do you mean — you think?” Lilah replaced the dagger in its sheath at her waist. She advanced on Orpus like a leem. She was all queen now, all regality, lofty and cold and demanding, merciless to failure.
“The scouts report—”
“Wait.” Lilah beckoned. “Guards! Take this miserable creature to the cells; let her rot there until my pleasure is known. Come, Orpus. We must go to the council chamber — summon the scouts, my generals, and my councilors. We must plan — now!”
As Orpus stood aside to let the Queen sweep past him, her long scarlet gown trailing, her naked legs strong and thrusting before, her guards inclined, their helmets low. They moved into the chamber, and their Deldar prodded Thelda with his spear point. That spear point was steel, as befitted a spearman of the Queen’s guard.
“Up, little one. We have need of playthings such as you in the cells!”
They closed upon Thelda and dragged her away and as she went she screamed most piteously.
Seg put his hand to the secret panel, but it was my foot that kicked it open.
Together, Seg and I, we burst into the empty chamber. Our swords were in our fists. Shoulder to shoulder we started for the door.
Seg, Thelda, and I stand before Queen Lilah
On the way across to the door I used my left hand to scoop up a great mass of the palines. Juice dribbled through my fingers.