Captive Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers Page B

the shaft.
    Sarfi slowed down. The uproar subsided and we turned right-handed into the Boulevard of Yellow Risslacas and so sat staring at the message written on the paper. The writing was in that beautiful flowing Kregish script. A cultured hand had penned those lines. But the paper was ordinary Vallian paper, of good quality, yes — but it was not that superb and mysterious paper made by the Savanti nal Aphrasöe.
    The message was addressed: “Dray Prescot, Prince Majister of Vallia, Hyr Kov of Veliadrin, Kov of Zamra, Strom of Valka.”
    I give all this gaudy nonsense of titles because they at once afforded two clues to the identities of those who had had a bowman deliver the message.
    One: the island of Veliadrin was called that and not Can-Thirda, which had been its name until Delia and I changed it in memory of our beloved daughter.
    Two: only Vallian titles were listed. Not one of the razzmatazz of titles in the rest of Kregen I had acquired appeared.
    The salutation read: “Llahal-pattu. Prince Majister.”
    Llahal with the double L is the usual greeting for a stranger — the usual friendly greeting, that is — and when written the pattu is appended because Kregish grammatical and polite conventional usage demand it.
    The message went on: “You, as the kitchew in a properly drawn-up and witnessed contract, the bokkertu being ably written and attested, are appraised of an irregularity. It is needful that you, Prince Majister, have an audience of Nath Trerhagen, the Aleygyn, Hyr Stikitche, Pallan of the Stikitche Khand of Vondium.”
    “By Vox!” exploded Barty. “The nerve of the rast. I have heard of him. Nath the Knife. Quoting his spurious and stupid titles at us!”
    “Stupid they may be, as most titles are,” I said mildly. “But spurious? I doubt it. Is he not the most renowned assassin in Vallia?”
    A Pallan is a minister or secretary of state, and this assassin — a high and mighty assassin — was the chief man of his khand, or guild, brotherhood or caste. I guessed he had some fugitive lawyer drafting out this rhetoric for him.
    I was to meet him at a tavern called The Ball and Chain (as I have said, Kregans have a warped sense of humor which can greatly infuriate those not attuned to its niceties) and this unsavory hostelry was situated a stone’s throw from the Gate of Skulls.
    “The Gate of Skulls,” said Delia. “Well, you aren’t going there. That is inside Drak’s City.”
    “I’ve never been there. It might prove instructive.”
    “But, majister!” said Barty. “You can’t just go walking in on a bunch of rascally assassins just because they send an invitation! It—” He spluttered a little, his cheeks red. “It just isn’t done!”
    Delia was looking at me with that look upon her face that gets right inside my craggy old skin, coiling in my thick vosk-skull of a head, itching me all along my limbs, making the blood pump around fast and faster. But she knew.
    “I think, Barty . . . No — I know — that there is nothing you can say. The prince is going and that is all there is to it.”
    That was not all, and well she knew it. If Delia said to me you are not going, I would not have gone. But, all fooling aside, we both knew that there were weighty reasons for acceptance of the summons from the assassins. Had they wished to slay me the arrow would have driven straight.
    “Well, prince,” said young Barty, and his fist gripped around the hilt of his rapier. “In that case, I shall go with you!”
    So ho, I said to myself — maybe Dayra has found herself a man here. Well, the proof of that would not be long delayed.

Four
    Knavery in Drak’s City
    There are many Naths on Kregen, partly because of the affection felt for the myth hero Nath, who bears to Kregen much the same kind of physical prowess as the terrestrial Hercules does to us here on Earth, and among that number are good men and rogues, heroes and cowards, ordinary folk and men with the charisma about them that