Masks of Scorpio (23 page)

“No one. They’ve gone.” She laughed in a conspiratorial way, almost giggling. “Because you knew Kov Pando when he was a young boy means he trusts you above many others. I think his scheme to gull Kov Colun Mogper with messages that we sail to Vallia, and then to march straight to Memguin and seize the place when Mogper is away—”

“Oh, yes, Pando is mighty clever. Colun Mogper will suspect nothing. His army will be cut up in that heathen Vallia, and probably never return, and we’ll be busily burning temples to Lem the Silver Leem.

Any Lemmites left are likely to find themselves in small pieces. Very small.”

“Like the pieces of their sacrifices.”

A tiny, birdlike sound from the smaller room...

Dayra said, “I am for a wet, Jak Leemsjid.”

“And I am with you, Ros Delphor.”

Later on Twayne Gullik, the castellan of the Zhantil Palace, reported in great annoyance that some cramph or cramphs had stolen two zorcas. Fine animals, they were worth much gold. If food had been stolen, as it would have been, by Vox! then it would not be missed among the mounds of forage produced at all hours in the kitchens.

Dayra told me with great satisfaction: “She’s well on her way to Memguin to report the terrible news to Mogper.”

“May he have joy of it, by Zair!”

“Being what he is, he’ll start at once his riposte.”

“We have to move before they start loading the ships here. I’ve organized Naghan Raerdu, our local Vallian agent—”

“Naghan the Barrel, the Nose, the Ale! I know him!”

I sighed. “He is a most remarkable and trustworthy man. He made it possible for me to penetrate the Lemmite temple, where we met—”

“Hanging in bonds on the wall and that rast Zankov—”

“That is past. We look to the future.”

“Aye, by Chusto!”

Naghan Raerdu, a most adroit spy within the emperor’s private apparat, spluttered and wheezed and laughed his way into providing all we required. He employed tools who, I am sure, had no idea they worked for Vallia.

“Why, majister,” he choked, laughing, his face as scarlet as the radiance of Zim, his eyes shut and streaming happy tears. “These poor folk of Pandahem cannot tell one airboat from another. The work will be finished before the Suns set, aye, and the paint dry!”

He was right. If you do not understand aircraft you’re not likely to spot the difference between a Bf109

and a Mustang when there is only the flick of a wing to see. If you don’t understand ships you will not spot the subtle differences between the t’gallants of a Johnny Crapaud Seventy-four from a British Seventy-four, pitching off there just above the horizon rim.

Naghan Raerdu had the work completed in a clearing in the forest at a distance removed from Port Marsilus. He ensured there were no nosey Ifts about. His people splashed on the blue and green paint, rigged awnings, fabricated the many flags. These treshes were all the same; blue and green diagonal stripes separated by narrow strips of white. This was the flag of Menaham.

When Naghan Raerdu said what I expected him to say, I replied: “No, Naghan. Absolutely no.”

“But majister! Princess — I appeal to you—”

“Look, my friend. As a purveyor of best ale, as the emperor’s most valued secret agent, you are far too valuable where you are, doing what you do. If you risk your neck with us—”

“Majister! If I thought there was a risk, well, I am not sure I could agree to you both going. Also, I would not be very keen to go myself...”

Dayra laughed delightedly. Even I smiled.

Naghan Raerdu, as a Vallian spy in a hostile land, ran his neck into plenty of risks every day.

He fussily superintended the stowage of the earthenware pots, making sure they were well packed down in straw. His cover as an ale merchant well qualified him for this task.

Despite all the jollity and the coarse remarks, I was decidedly unhappy about what we set out to do. Of course, it was obvious. Painfully obvious. All the same, much of the pain was experienced by me, for, do not forget, I am a plain sailorman. I do not profess to be an honest sailorman, by Zair; but this destruction saddened me.

Well, they say men sow corn for Zair to sickle.

We stood, Dayra and I, to watch Naghan Raerdu and his people ride off aboard their lumbering wagons, pulled by patient Quoffas like perambulating hearthrugs. For a treacherous moment we waited as the last wagon vanished into the surrounding forest. We were very late. From the opposite direction a scurry of zorca-mounted warriors broke from the screen of trees. They hared for us as we stood like a pair of loons on the grass, the mass of the voller at our backs.

We heard their war cries as they charged.

“Rasts of Lemmites!” And: “Charge, for the Golden Zhantil!”

Each warrior wore a golden zhantil mask.

“By the disgusting suppurating eyeballs and putrescent fingernails of Makki Grodno!” I yelled. “Up with you, my girl!”

Dayra sprang for the voller and began to clamber aloft to reach the controls. I stepped onto the fighting gallery and turned, watching the rush. One man led out, whirling his sword, low over his zorca’s neck.

The airboat did not move. The zorca fleeted nearer.

The leader outdistanced the rest of his cutthroat gang. He roared in, the zorca a splendid sight, all flashing hooves and wild eyes and tossing horn.

The voller moved. She shifted from the grass and lifted a hand’s-breadth. I let out a sigh, knowing that in the next instant Dayra would slam over the controls to full lift and we’d skyrocket aloft.

In that instant, this ferocious warrior in the glittering golden mask leaped from his zorca. He hurled straight at the fighting gallery below the airboat. His clutching fingers scrabbled, caught a purchase and as we went whisking aloft so he flopped over and dangled by one hand, suspended over thin air.

I had no quarrel with him. I could not let him fall to his death. His companions were left far below, dwindling dots in the clearing, brandishing their swords. I looked down.

The voice within the golden mask puffed out, muffled.

“Jak! Jak Leemsjid, you great fambly! What are you playing at? Haul me aboard, for the sweet sake of Horato the Potent!”

I jumped forward, grabbed Pompino by the wrist and hauled him inboard, all tumbled in his war harness along the fighting gallery. His head clanked into a straw-stuffed box filled with pots. He sat up, ripped the mask off, and glared at me, filled with fury, reddish whiskers bristling.

“What the hell are you playing at, Jak!”

“And what the hell d’you think you’re doing?”

He sat up and rubbed his head. “Mindi the Mad scryed out and managed to tell us a mysterious airboat skulked in a clearing in the forest. But you — what’s going on?”

“Damned half-Ift witches!” I said, most grumpily.

“Well — and what is it, Jak. Tell me!”

This, as you will readily perceive, was not part of the careful plans at all. Not at all...

The voller lifted and turned and steered for Port Marsilus.

I eyed Pompino. He looked bewildered and wild. At least he’d lost his thraxter; but a rapier and left-hand dagger swung at his belts. I took a breath.

“You always were a mysterious fellow, Jak.” He began to gather himself. He shook his head, and rubbed it again. “Boxes of pots — and I know little of airboats; but this looks remarkably like
Golden Zhantil
.

Have you—?”

I said, “Look down there, Pompino the Iarvin.”

“Do what?”

I pointed down, over the side. He turned around and leaned out to look down and I put my thumb under his ear and he went to sleep. I caught him as he fell and eased him to the deck of the fighting gallery.

What a mess!

When he was thoroughly tied up and unable to move, I went up to see Dayra and told her. She looked cross.

“He would have to come poking his clever Khibil nose—”

“Yes. Well, he will not stop us.”

“Of course not!”

The blue and green voller bore on, flaunting the flags of Menaham. She roared on over the forest and out over Port Marsilus as the suns declined in the bright sky. Down below, crowding the roads, tied up to every wharf, the ships of the invasion fleet lay. First thing in the morning they’d begin loading. Some of the troops would go aboard before dawn.

That armada could not be allowed to land in Vallia.

Dayra spoke and I saw she spoke diffidently. “Father — do you want to fly the voller? Would you like me to go below and—”

“Thank you, Dayra. No. I abhor this, but I’ll do it.”

“Very well. I’ll cover every last one.”

“I won’t miss.”

So, down below I went, back to the fighting gallery below the keel of
Golden Zhantil
. Pompino had been tied up so that he couldn’t move, as I thought. He was a crafty, great-hearted, fighting Khibil. He’d wriggled himself into a position from which he could look down through a grating.

I said nothing, ignoring him. I took a torch from its becket and set it afire with flint and steel. He looked on and his Khibil face drew down.

“Jak! What—?”

I had to say out of compassion — for myself, mark it, for myself! — and not very prettily: “This had to be done.”

I set the first firepot ablaze and poised with it in my hand. Pompino looked from that horrendous incendiary device down to the glinting sea. He writhed and stared back at me.

“
Tuscurs Maiden
is down there, Jak!
My
ship! A vessel you have sailed in and loved, as anyone could see. Jak! You would not burn
Tuscurs Maiden
!”

“And perhaps you should not have told Captain Linson to offer your ship to Kov Pando for his fleet.”

I hurled the firepot down.

As we passed above and the next firepot hurtled down
Tuscurs Maiden
was well ablaze.

Well, I, Dray Prescot, sailorman, cannot coldly chronicle the burning of that magnificent fleet. The ships burned. The ships burned...

I’d burned ships before; the
Eye of the World
had witnessed a burning. Many enemies had perished in flames of my setting. But this — no, I cannot draw that horrendous picture for you. I threw the firepots and there was a red blaze before my face and a scarlet haze in my eyes. The smoke, black and evil, drifted off before the wind.

I did not miss a single ship.

That once-proud armada sank in rinds of grimy ashes.

Long and long afterwards I learned to my great joy that not a single sailor was lost, and some poor fellow called Slow Mando broke a leg. That was the only injury — to men.

The injury to the ships was great. It was no greater than the injury to my feelings. Sentimental nonsense to feel this way about mere creations of wood and canvas? Of course. Even though they would have carried an army to ravage my home; still, I could not remain unaffected. So, I spoke half aloud.

“As I said, let Opaz take care of my conscience.”

Pompino glared up. “Opaz?”

The voller steadied on course and I knew Dayra had put on the ropes to control the levers and in a moment or two she appeared in the fighting gallery. She was smiling.

“I did not see you missed one!”

“I do not think there are any left.”

“By Vox! What a day!”

Pompino swiveled to look at her. “Ros Delphor? Vox?”

I said: “Poor Pompino lost his famous
Tuscurs Maiden
down there.”

Dayra, it was evident, shared my sentimental nonsense about ships only so far. “So Pompino lost a ship.

You can always find him another—”

I nodded. “That is true.” I looked at Pompino. “How would you like a real Galleon of Vallia, Pompino the Iarvin?”

Now Scauro Pompino was a Khibil. He was smart, shrewd, quick. His foxy face congealed. His shoulders twitched where the ropes bound him, and I knew he wanted to brush up his whiskers. I unsheathed my sailor knife and stepped forward.

“You have always considered yourself the leader in our partnership, Pompino, and that has seemed to me to be just and useful. But when I cut you free, if you attempt to fight me, I think both you and I know you will come off worst.”

The ropes fell away.

He stretched and shivered. He put a hand to his whiskers, and then stopped himself. He spoke with an effort.

“I think—” He swallowed and started over. “The Everoinye — they would not be deceived. Perhaps I have known for a long time and would not admit what seemed impossible.”

“Now look, Pompino. You and I are good comrades. We’ve been in plenty of tight scrapes. We’ve each fought for the other. You like to get away from your lady wife because of reasons. And, I can tell you this, you don’t get much fun being a stay-at-home emperor. Believe me.”

“Oh, yes, Jak Leemsjid — Dray Prescot — I believe you!”

I eyed him warily. Would he start the full-inclining and bowing and scraping? Had I lost a good comrade?

He was a smart and foxy devil. He said, “When do I get the Vallian Galleon?”

Dayra let rip an almighty guffaw.

“I’m going to repaint this airboat and destroy the Menaham flags. Then I’m going down to Pando and make sure he sets his army in motion against Kov Colun Mogper. After that I’ll probably have time to nip across to Vallia. If you can wait until then, why, then, I’ll find you the best galleon the yards of Vallia can build.”

“If I can’t wait?”

“I think you will. But there will be time for Ros Delphor to fly you across to Vallia. You’ll have to make up your mind—”

“Oh, I’ve made up my mind already. I know when I’m on to a good thing. If we continue as we have, burning temples to Lem the Silver Leem, following the dictates of the Everoinye, then I see no reason for a drastic change.”

Well, as they say, don’t expect a river to change course just because you throw in a boulder. Even a boulder of the size I had just thrown.

I nodded. “Good. And remember, Pompino, it is Jak Leemsjid, as ever.”

“As ever.”

Moving away ready to go aloft and resume control, Dayra passed me, and whispered, “He hasn’t really taken it in yet. When he does—”

“He isn’t called the Iarvin for nothing.”