“We, Amak,” he said, “are not the scarlet-roped Todalpheme. You will find them. They know the secret. We can but point you in the right direction.”
He called me Amak because I had, naturally, assumed my secret identity of Hamun ham Farthytu, the Amak of Paline Valley. I use the overly dramatic word secret. As Hamun ham Farthytu I was a real person, with a real identity, able to move freely about Hamal, the mighty empire in deadly opposition to my own country of Vallia. But that is what comes of being a spy.
He understood my intense desire for speed, for the person dearly beloved by me — and others, I added significantly — was a most highly placed personage and it would not be too much to say that a deal of Hamal’s future depended on the recovery. Thus he said, with a small, deprecating smile: “We have given this information before, for a price. There is a tortuous route to follow; but we have learned ourselves shortcuts. I think-”
“For Hamal, Akhram,” I said, most seriously.
“Yes.” When he told me I understood why no one I had spoken to hitherto had heard of Todalpheme wearing scarlet ropes about their waists. The old color had come back again to haunt me. I did not smile; but I took up the map Akhram showed me, and with my old sailor skill committed it to memory. Right over to the west, west of the Tarnish Channel of Havilfar, out below the forbidden island of Tambu, the island of Bet-Aqsa. Bet-Aqsa.
There we must go, and at once, to inquire of the scarlet-roped Todalpheme the whereabouts of Aphrasoe.
Listening as Akhram spoke in his quiet voice in the high-vaulted library of the observatory where we had gone to find the map, I had the suspicion he did not truly know how the secret had come into the hands of the Todalpheme of Hamal. As a puissant empire, the strongest power in Havilfar — if, in my arrogance, you excepted Djanduin — it seemed logical for Hamal to come by strange shreds of knowledge, secrets gathered from the four corners of the continent. Maybe some of the Todalpheme down in the Dawn Lands might also know that the Todalpheme of Bet-Aqsa knew of a place where miracle cures might be effected. All that concerned me now was to take my flier as fast as she would fly to the rendezvous up among the Risshamal Keys.
More and more I was determined to avert the consequences of the emperor’s death. For the streets of Vallia would run red with blood, the alleys pile with stinking corpses, the crops would burn, the livestock starve, thousands of hapless wights would be branded and herded off to slavery — all these atrocities would happen — might happen, would probably happen — if the Emperor of Vallia died. Making all due observances as I took my leave, giving them Remberee, I took myself off and walked smartly back down the stony path to the waiting flier.
The Risshamal Keys are merely a number of long, fingerlike extensions of small islands, rocks, cays, shoals and reefs running out in a northeasterly direction from the northeastern corner of Havilfar. I had been shipwrecked there in the old Ovvend Barynth. In setting up the rendezvous we knew the certain men who could aid us. As I took off and flew up into the streaming radiance of Antares I wondered who it would be who would guide my friends to the island of the Yuccamots along the Risshamal Keys. Flying eastward out over the sparkling sea I cleared the coast and then headed north. The Island of Arnor passed away astern. The suns poured their floods of opaz light upon the sea, and I saw a few ships sailing there — not many. A number of vollers passed; but none offered to stop and search me. The simple precaution had been taken of painting out the Vallian recognition signs, and the voller might have come direct from Ruathytu or Paline Valley for all anyone might know. I flew northwards and Bet-Aqsa lay to the southwest. I had always harbored an inkling that Aphrasoe might lie upon some island in the Outer Oceans, and had favored the easterly direction. Maybe — and I hoped most fervently that I was wrong — maybe the Swinging City was situated on the other grouping of islands and continents on the other side of Kregen, around the curve of the world. Kregen runs a longer mileage in the equator than does Earth, for all the fractionally lesser gravity, and there is a damned lot of ground to cover. The continental grouping in which, so far, all my adventuring had taken place, is called Paz. From the other continents and islands around the curve of the world sailed the fearsome Fish-Heads — call them shanks, shants, shtarkins, shkanes, it makes no difference to their viciousness — to plague and harry us. Every so often their marvelous fleet ships would sail upon an unsuspecting shore and there would follow horror and desolation. I had fought the shanks before the Jikai with the Kroveres on Drayzm, and would fight them again. Always, like any sailor of Paz, one eye was always roving the far horizons to catch the first glimpse of those tall wing-like sails of the shank ships.
And then, as I plunged on through the thin air toward that brave company of friends awaiting me at the Risshamal Keys, I looked up and saw a giant scarlet and golden bird, flying high, circling, watching me with bright black beady eyes.
I swore.
I shook my fist.
By Zair! Not now, not now!
The great hunting bird circled. The raptor was a familiar sight, a hateful sight. This was the Gdoinye, the spy and messenger of the Everoinye, the Star Lords.
Through their malign agency I had been flung about space between worlds like a yo-yo. When I had so intemperately refused to obey their orders I had been chucked back to Earth to rot for twenty-one infernal years. If the Gdoinye was spying on me, all well and good, for I knew the Star Lords kept an eye on me from time to time. But if the Opaz-forsaken bird was warning me that I would be required to perform again for the Star Lords. .
I sweated. I clenched my teeth and stopped myself from shouting up insults, as I usually did when the golden and scarlet raptor hove into sight.
If the bird did swoop down and speak to me I would try to be conciliatory, be the new Dray Prescot, refrain from hurling abuse and calling the thing a cramph, a rast, a kleesh. But it swung about up there, glinting magnificently in the opaz radiance, and then calmly flew away. I let out a great gusty breath of relief.
What a time to be dragged away from Kregen!
Chapter Eight
Thinking that, with the appearance of the Gdoinye, the Savanti might have sent their white dove to spy on me, I cast a good look around. I could see no sign of the dove. Well, that meant little, although, to be sure, it made more sense for the Savanti to spy on me now, seeing that my intended destination was their secret island.
The long low straggle of islands of the southern fingering of the Risshamal Keys showed as an extended yellowish grey stain upon the water ahead. The Yuccamots inhabited many of the little islands and gained a precarious living fishing and trading, in communication with the local sailing craft. I had no fear of them, for they were a simple folk and had shown us kindness before. They are, I am glad to say, enormously proud of their broad thick tails, and of their webbed feet.
The Hamalian Air Service was another matter. They maintained a string of stations along the Keys, and it behooved me to avoid those.
What did happen, with the blinding speed of precipitate action upon Kregen, whipped up a nice little froth to send the blood thumping through the veins and open the pores, a trifle. Out of the roseate glow of the red sun Zim, shot the dark forms of riders urging on their saddle flyers. With my fingers up against my eyes I peered into the dazzlement even as I thrust the control levers hard over and up.