Avenger of Antares by Alan Burt Akers Page B

demand all her skill. In the event, she contrived it, beautifully. Lars Ehren jumped the first grade within the Jiktar rank, becoming a dwa-Jiktar. This pleased me when it was told me, later . . . much later . . .
    Between that happy time and now there lay a great many adventures, and foolish escapades, and much danger, as you shall hear.
    Preparations were made, the route planned, the vollers checked. I wished to leave before sunset. This was accomplished. If you do not understand that I fully appreciated how selfish I was being in this distribution of favors, then you have listened with half an ear to these adventures. I drew a great and selfish satisfaction from giving favors and promotions to my friends. I do not make friends lightly, and I value them. Time has little of consequence in this matter. Perhaps this delight in assisting those who assist me is a weakness, a kind of insurance, a fear, deep and inexpressible, that they may turn and rend me. I do not know. But I like to think it pure selfishness on my part, and not dread of the unknowable future.
    Captain Ehren expostulated, red in the face, waving his arms.
    “But, Prince! Surely you will return to Vallia with us!”
    “Not so, Captain Lars. You have what I have already discovered about the vollers, safely stowed away in the pouch. But that is only the half of it. I must discover what this cayferm is. I think, maybe, the wise men of Vallia may not know, either. And it is essential that Vallia build her own vollers. You have seen what these vast and marvelous skyships of the Hamalians can do. Well! When they attack us in Vallia — and I say
when
and not
if — we
must be ready for them. You must fly to Vondium and lay all before the emperor. For me — it is Hamal and a little bladesmanship.”
    Puzzled he might be, loyal he most certainly was.
    “If this is your command, Prince, then may the Invisible Twins witness it is my duty to obey. I do so.” He took himself aboard the patrol flier. “Remberee, my Prince. Remberee!”
    “Remberee!” I called back. “Remberee!”

CHAPTER SIX
    Hamun ham Farthytu returns to Ruathytu
    I, Dray Prescot, of Earth and of Kregen, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, trod once more the marble paving stones of the great city of Ruathytu, capital of the Empire of Hamal.
    Once more I was Hamun ham Farthytu, Amak of Paline Valley.
    Yes, I have borne many names, for good or ill, but I confess that this alias of Hamun ham Farthytu, despite the promise I had given to the dying Amak, old Naghan, weighed on me. For one thing, to act the part of a simpleton, a weakling, never came easily. I had to put on an imbecilic expression, and force my corrugated old features into smiles, and never once let that fierce dark passion surge to the extent even of laying my hand upon the hilt of thraxter or rapier. I went directly to my inn,
The Kyr Nath and the Fifi.
    The Lamnian merchant, Lorgad Endo, had responded with a warm generosity, if an untypical merchant’s way, when I had applied for the loan of three deldys. He had passed over six of the golden coins of Havilfar at once, without demur. I had insisted on giving him a piece of cloth on which, with cuttlefish ink, I had scribbled a note to Delia, telling her to repay the six deldys and to reimburse Koter Endo for the sinvers he had expended in the Yuccamot village on our behalf. This she did.
    So it was that I had been able to buy a decent gray shirt, a blue pair of trousers, a pair of somewhat cheap leather boots, and a flamboyant green jacket, with a scrap of dubious fur trimming, to sling like a hussar’s pelisse about my shoulders. My rapier and main-gauche were by now familiar weapons in the sacred quarter of Ruathytu, where the young bloods had taken up this foreign style with the same bungling enthusiasm they had taken up sleeth racing.
    Well, you may imagine some of my mixed feelings when I turned into that narrow alleyway in the sacred quarter, the Alley of Cloves, and so walked