Fires of Scorpio (20 page)

Lisa spoke in her turn, hushed but tart with it. “As San Blarnoi says: ‘Blowing the frothy head off is one thing.’”

Quendur let out his gurgling groaning laugh and Pompino sniffed with audible affront. I did not laugh. By Zair! This was no situation in which to break down. There were things we could do, one of which was to pray, which we did fervently; the other was to work on our chains, which we abandoned very quickly. Apart from that we could only think and talk.

Each country of Kregen has its own peculiar little ways, in large things as in small. Customs strike across geographical boundaries irrespective of creed or race. As in this devilish business of flogging. Ol’ Snake appears in many hideous guises. The Cat’s claws are variously unsheathed. Over in the Flower Country in Balintol they pronounce ferocious sentences larded with intimidatory inventories of thousands of lashes. The victim is stripped and tied up. The whip-deldars use what they call the lintash or the tashlin depending on who wields the instrument. This lash consists of a bunch of full-petalled flowers of many varieties. When the victim is struck the petals caress his body. Each petal is counted as one stroke. The velvety flowers do not break the skin, do not sting, do no physical harm whatsoever. But the victim is shamed and chagrined, scored by mental blows far more savage than any lacerations of the skin. The Flower Country of Balintol is a peace-loving, gentle land, with its own concepts of integrity.

Here, in North Pandahem, we were to be flogged jikaider, criss-cross like a chequer-board, and we’d be lumps of raw sausage meat at the end.

The lord who was to oversee our flogging turned up and we were dragged out into a courtyard where the stone walls overhung in menace and the suns did not shine. The flogging frames awaited their human freight. There were many guards.

We were tied to the flogging frames, mother naked.

The lord appeared. Well, he was a notor of Tomboram. His black beard was trimmed short, and pebbled sweat drops studded its edges against his skin. He looked just a man, an apim, handsome in a cruel way, sharp of feature, haughty of demeanor, sumptuously clad. Something about him reminded me of Pando, a mature version of the Pando I had last seen as a bedraggled young man dragged from under the feet of calsanys.

This was the way Pando would look in these latter days...

Pinned to the front of the lord’s ornate robes a small silver device glinted. I looked closer, squinting. A silver leem, a small imago of a silver leem, and with brown and silver ribbons...

Well, now...

Clearly, he was there in his official capacity as overseer of the king’s justice. In this, Tomboram aped the ways of law-ridden Hamal.

The Rapa and the Brokelsh, wearing black breechclouts and stripped to the waist, rippled their lashes. Big, burly men, powerfully muscled, they took up their positions one a side to strike alternately. I looked at the lord, magnificent in his plumage and gold lace, and wearing that silver leem with the brown and silver ribbons. Just an ornament? I did not think so.

I turned my head a little and spoke to him gently, putting meaning into my words.

“By Flem! This is a poor pass. The rast Pamcur Ovin spoke against the Silver Wonder. He was justly chastised, by Glem—”

The great lord allowed a single ripple of surprise to disfigure his face. He did not look at me. He lifted a beringed hand.

“
Shindi
!”
[i]
He pointed at the whip-deldars and the guards. “Retire. I will interrogate the prisoners. Move!”

The guards and the two floggers stiffened up. With habitual unthinking obedience to a great lord’s commands they obeyed instantly and trotted off. The lord turned a hard eye on me.

He used a formula I had heard in the temple in Ruathytu. I was able to give the correct reply. He said: “You are not of Tomboram?”

“No, notor. From Hyrklana and about the business of the Silver Wonder. I am honored to meet you. Llahal and Llahal, my name is Jak.” If lying would prevent my back being bashed into mincemeat I’d lie like a trooper.

“Llahal. I am Murgon Marsilus, Strom of Ribenor, Pallan of Prisons.”

“Ah!” I said, with a wise air and foolishly. This did explain a great many items. It did not, for the moment, get us down off the flogging frames.

“In Hyrklana the man I wish to see is called the Hyr Prince Majister—”

“As here.”

“Good, notor. Apart from fraternal greetings there is a message I carry—”

“Tell me.”

“Well, notor—”

He gestured in an irritated way. “You are in Pandahem. You call me pantor, not notor.”

“Yes, pantor. But if you are not the Hyr Prince Majister then you will appreciate my difficulty.”

He may have been hard, a trifle vicious in his overweening authority; he was not a fool. He saw the situation.

“Agreed.”

I said, “You will see, pantor, that we are in a somewhat unfortunate predicament here through no fault of our own.”

He did not turn his head. He simply called out: “Lart!”

A Relt came running in, ink-stained, fluffy of feathers.

“Yes, master.”

“The punishment has been carried out. So enter it in the records. Dismiss the guards and the whip-deldars. Bratch!”

The Relt stylor bratched, and this Murgon Marsilus took out his dagger and cut us free. Pompino would have jumped on him there and then. Luckily for Murgon Marsilus, he cut me down first because I was nearest, and so I was able to trip Pompino up and tip him onto his Khibil nose.

“He is wracked by cramp, pantor,” I said, swiftly, and took a good grip on Pompino’s shoulder and so held him.

“Traitor!” he said with an evil look.

“Keep your black-fanged winespout shut, you fambly! We are in with a racing chance here.”

Marsilus cut down Quendur last. Quendur and Lisa were well up with my scheme, empty-headed though it might be. We chafed our wrists and ankles. Lisa made no attempt to cover her nakedness; anyway, it would have been ridiculous after what we had been through. Marsilus marched us off through a tunnel doorway and into a square stone-walled room empty of everything save a table. On the table stood a jug of parclear. We drank — thirstily, damned thirstily, by Krun!

“You will have to pay the fines,” said Marsilus.

Pompino started to bristle up again at this; but I managed to stick an elbow into his ribs and he whoofled for a space. I sighed. “My comrade is still feeling the effects, pantor.” Holding down Pompino was like trying to stop a starving cat from a bowl of meat and milk.

“If you cannot pay—”

“We can pay, pantor.”

“Then that is settled.”

I did not think, then, what he was going on to say.

Our clothes were brought in by a small fellow, an apim, with a loose, wet-lipped mouth, whom Strom Murgon treated as a part of the furnishings. He was called Dopitka the Deft. With him came a hulking great Chulik wearing armor and weapons, breathing hard, his trunk a barrel of muscle, his tusks gilded and polished, his pigtail a dangling length of brilliant blue. His name was Chekumte the Fist, and he looked it, too.

“You may strap on your weapons,” said Strom Murgon. “These men are to be trusted, seeing they owe their livelihood to me. We shall go up to the temple and I will make the arrangements.” He looked around on us, brilliant and commanding. “And walk small. I risk much by my actions here.”

“They will not go unrewarded, pantor,” I ventured to say. I ventured successfully, for he nodded briskly and marched us out of the door. We entered another courtyard where a closed carriage waited. The driver sat in a blue cloak, hunched, his whip over his shoulder. We entered the carriage and Dopitka the Deft closed the door.

Just as Marsilus sat down opposite me, I glanced out of the window. A man passed across the courtyard, walking fast, short cape billowing. He was dressed grandly, more grandly than Strom Murgon. The strom’s face drew down into a black scowl.

“A friend of yours, pantor?” said Pompino, before I could kick him.

Murgon Marsilus, Strom of Ribenor, Pallan of Prisons, did not react as I expected. He continued to stare from the carriage as the man crossing the courtyard swung away and vanished in the arched entranceway.

“Friend? He is my cousin, Pando Marsilus, Kov of Bormark, and I shall surely kill him if he does not kill me first.”

Chapter eighteen

“Dray Prescot! Let me go and I will surely kill you!”

Strom Murgon opened the door and jumped out. He bellowed up to the coachman: “Shindi!” and went loping into the entranceway after Pando.

Pompino looked at me. His look would have curdled steel at a hundred paces.

I said, “At least your back is not diced up.”

“You degrade my honor, Jak! Why, I would have—”

“Quiet. Coachmen have ears as well as whips.”

Quendur leaned forward.

“I did not understand all that went on. But whatever it was, horter, I thank you. I could not bear to see Lisa flogged.”

“It’s about time you called me Jak, like everyone else. As for what is going on, it is why we came to Tomboram. Now, Quendur, and you, Lisa, will take off as soon as we can get free of this handsome young Strom Murgon.”

Pompino scrubbed up his whiskers.

“If that was the Kov of Bormark, he has changed mightily since I last glimpsed him.”

“But we cannot leave you now!” protested Lisa.

“Your quarrel with Pamcur Ovin may have smoothed our way, Lisa the Empoin. Now you must not run more needless dangers.”

“But—!”

I said: “Quendur, you must take care of your lady. We thank her. But this is our affair.”

Quendur sat back. He looked suddenly raffish, like a pirate about to pounce. He looked — cocksure.

“Your affair it is and may be, Jak. But I will take thought about that.”

“Mightily changed,” said Pompino. “He looked as though his best friend had died and his worst enemy had gained a crown.”

My own view from the opposite direction had been of Pando’s cape flowing out as he almost ran. Now what had that young imp of deviltry been up to?

We four sitting in the darkened carriage were still recovering from the shock of our recent experience. I took heart from Pompino’s clear determination to push that aside and to concentrate on the future. Quendur suggested we do a mischief to the coachman — “Blatter him good and proper” — and take the coach and disappear into the city.

“Pompino and I have business with this Strom Murgon. He will prove of great use to us. We will play him along like a salmon.” We four spoke in conspiratorial whispers, there in the half-darkness of the carriage.

Pompino the Iarvin was not a crafty Khibil for nothing. He favored me with a quick bright glance of those shrewd eyes.

“Aye, Jak, we can do that. And then we burn the abominable temple. Then—”

“Then,” I interrupted with some warmth. “Then we see what this flat slug of a King Nemo can do. Is that your plan?”

“Aye.”

Quendur and Lisa were listening with rapt attention.

“This Strom Murgon must be the son of Murlock Marsilus, brother to Marker Marsilus, who was Pando’s father. Murlock usurped the kovnate; but Pando won it back.” I did not elaborate on the part played by Inch and myself in that. “I would guess this Murgon hankers to take the kovnate and succeed where his father failed. He is a strom of some potty little stromnate or other, this Ribenor. That will not satisfy him.”

They stared at me as I whispered.

“He is a villain, then,” said Pompino.

“Probably. Certainly, if he is mixed up with Lem.”

No reaction from Quendur or Lisa convinced me that Lem the Silver Leem was able to conceal the activities of his devotees from the ordinary folk. We were privy to the secrets only because we already had information enough to let us pry past that initial veil of secrecy. “If we destroy the temple and scatter the devotees we will materially aid Pando against his cousin.”

“He seems,” said Pompino, “this Pando, Kov of Bormark, to mean a great deal to you.”

How reply? I cursed my loose tongue and then attempted to brazen it out. “A great deal? Only as a tool to crush Lem.”

Pompino sniffed. “You said you knew him—”

“When he was small. He would not remember me.”

“It’s always a chancy business dealing with great lords,” said Lisa.

Given the nature of lordship on two worlds, the instability of power, the corroding effect of authority, this often — too often — was Opaz’s Literal Truth.

“And I’ll tell you what this strom’s face reminded me of,” said Quendur. “It was just like a sculpture in our temple of the demon face of the Devil of the Ice-Wind who guards the north shore of Gundarlo.”

Something in this Strom Murgon’s actions made me say: “Oh, come now, Quendur. He is not much like a Kataki, is he?”

“No. But the likeness was there, all the same.”

“Each sculptor has his own ideas,” said Pompino, impatient at this talk. “Why do we wait? I agree with Quendur. Let us blatter—”

“Here he comes now,” said Lisa, quickly. We quietened.

Indeed, if the strom’s face did not quite remind me of that of the Devil of the Ice Wind who hoots so mournfully and menacingly along the north shore of Gundarlo, he most certainly did bear a marked resemblance to any one of the host of minor demons whose portraits are so faithfully recorded from the bad dreams of artists all over Kregen. This was a trick of the indentation of his eyebrows over his nose. He breathed heavily.

“May Armipand take him!” he said, more to himself than us but not giving a damn if we heard. “You! Out! The kov wishes to inspect you. Bratch!”

This, I felt, was shouted as a sop to his own esteem. At his shoulder the Chulik, Chekumte the Fist, scowled down, hand on the hilt of one of his swords.

Pompino breathed in my ear. “Let us deal with these now, Jak, and get clear away—”

“Tsleetha-tsleethi,” I said. “Softly-softly. We must remember to maintain the aim. We play this fellow and use him to our ends.”

Breathing as heavily as Strom Murgon, Pompino stomped out of the carriage. We followed and trooped back into the small bare room. The strom halted his Chulik outside and did not offer to go in with us. We halted in the center of the room. Pando waited for us.