Mazes of Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers Page B

vosk, juicy and crisp, all at the same time. And — momolams. Also there was a pottery dish of palines, and this sovereign berry, cure for melancholy as for dyspepsia, grew just as luxuriously in the rain forests of Pandahem as in the sweet lands of my own Valka.
    When she had gone, and the door was closed, mistress Tlima remained Seg’s chief concern.
    “I had not realized—”
    “It is of no consequence.”
    “But—”
    “Perhaps, Seg, I have had my fill of running around under a score of different names. I am Jak — true. But also I am called Dray. And so I shall be.”
    He sniffed, resigned.
    “By Vox! I am glad I don’t have to keep track of all your names.”
    But we both knew the old truth that if you wanted to stay alive on Kregen you had to remember names. If you didn’t, you were like to get killed pretty sharpish.
    By the next day I was recovered enough to venture on a gentle stroll around this jungle town of Selsmot. I commented that calling the place a smot — meaning town — was rather grand. The stockade kept out the forest, and there was really, all things considered, a fine area maintained free and growing vegetables. The houses of wood and thatch and leaf were open and airy and a surprising number of them crowded within the stockade. But, all the same, the place was rundown and apathetic.
    Seg said, “That’s because old King Crox has gone missing and no one has the heart—”
    “Gone missing?”
    We walked along the dusty street — when it rained the dust became a quagmire — and Seg told me what he had discovered.
    A band of most unhealthy bandits — drikingers — hung out in the bend of the river among those rolling tree-clad hills over which we had flown in pursuit of Pancresta. King Crox had taken in a strong expedition to deal with them once and for all. Nothing had been heard from him since, and that was two seasons ago. So — he had gone missing.
    “Chopped,” I said. “Poor fellow.”
    Then, sharply, I swung about to face Seg, saying, “And a band of drikingers in the jungle — that adds up to—”
    “Perhaps. Pancresta and Spikatur—”
    “It has to!”
    “Except that although the king has gone missing, the drikingers have stopped plundering the trails and the river. He must have been successful.”
    “Very well.” I could see from Seg’s manner there was more. “Go on, you great infuriating — bowman—”
    “The queen was determined to find the king. There was no love in it, so I am told, rather pride. She was married off for political reasons and the king rode off that night and—”
    I smiled. “Not all women are beautiful nor all men handsome.”
    “This Queen Mab went after the king with her own expedition and—”
    I cocked my head up. “She’s gone missing too?”
    “Aye.”
    “And some fat regent will be running the country to the benefit of his pocket.”
    “Kov Llipton—”
    “And that gives me even greater assurance that it has to be Spikatur Hunting Sword in the jungle. This Kov Llipton is probably in league with them and the drikingers.”
    “You, Dray Prescot, have a tortuous and mistrusting mind.”
    “Useful, at times.”
    “Oh, aye, useful.”
    Still there was a hint of mischief about Seg, a bubbling enjoyment of tantalizing me. I did not scowl — Seg was fully entitled to his bit of harmless fun. And, anyway, I did not feel the same urgency. I was feeling slothful. That, mistress Tlima had warned Seg, was the inevitable result of being poisoned by the Cabaret Plant, the final outcome of which was death. Seg had sucked out the poison, there had not been a full flower-freight of spines to strike me, and I was alive. But I was tired.
    “Go on then, you will tell me as and when—”
    He nodded toward a tumbledown building standing a little back from the line of the other buildings. The place leaned comfortably against an enormous tree, a single intruder from the jungle. Small agile forms sported among the branches. A warm