A NOVEL OF ADVENTURE
BY JEFFREY BLAIR LATTA
The Earth tal-stone
remained clenched in his fist. In a way, he wished the princess had
maintained her pretence and never given him the damn thing. Now that
he had what he had been seeking, he was no longer sure what his next course
of action should be.
Logically, he knew
what he should do -- use the stone to bid goodbye to this mad world and
return to Earth. But now, with the ability to return literally in
the palm of his hand, he was no longer certain.
What about Shyrin Shas?
He knew he could never leave her to die in the heat and darkness of that
stifling vat. But it was more than that. In spite of her hatred,
Seagrave found it harder and harder to imagine returning home without her.
He had begun to develop a definite fondness for the tangerine princess.
She was a pretty bauble,
to be sure -- a supple trinket any pirate captain would have heartily stretched
on his cot. But was that all there was to it?
Details of her played
relentlessly in Seagrave's thoughts: the deep dimples when she smiled,
the vivid flash of her emerald eyes, her amazed laugh as he taught her
to swim. Even her sudden changes of mood, her angry back, rigid shoulders,
tossing head, bitter tears...
Seagrave frowned in
disgust. She had worked her way into him like a subtle poison, and
now there was no turning back. He had to return to Earth -- but,
equally, he couldn't conceive of going back without her. Somehow
he would have to convince her to come with him. Given that she had
been prepared to die rather than leave Miraya, he knew that might take
some doing.
First though, he would
have to save her -- a miracle in its own right.
Conceivably he might
pretend to accede to Jyleesha's demands. But would that secure Shyrin
Shas's release? Obviously Jyleesha wanted more than Seagrave's companionship
-- she wanted his unflinching devotion. So long as Shyrin Shas lived,
Jyleesha could never be sure that his thoughts were of the Trayken captain
alone. Jealousy would gnaw at her. If Seagrave recognized that
fact, Jyleesha must recognize it also.
No -- simply agreeing
to be her lover would not be enough.
Somehow he had to rescue
the princess himself -- and soon.
With no means of measuring
time, Seagrave had no way of knowing how long he waited in the musty stable.
Suddenly, though, he heard booted feet on the boards of the room at the
head of the ladder. A moment later, a Trayken clambered down, his
wings folded down his back like a closed fan.
He eyed Seagrave with
a nervous hesitancy, his beady black eyes glinting under his furrowed brows.
Crossing the stable, he entered the pen and, kneeling, held out a pointed
cup.
"Jyleesha sent me to
bring you water," the sailor explained, speaking in halting Kamir.
"The captain thought you might be thirsty after so long without a drink
-- the Kamir, we have observed, need water more often than ourselves.
You seem closely related to the Kamir."
A dark smile played
over Seagrave's lips. "Tell your captain she can go to hell," he
growled, momentarily straining at his bonds.
The sailor frowned,
puzzled. "I don't understand. You aren't thirsty?"
"Sure I'm thirsty,"
Seagrave replied heatedly. "But your damn captain doesn't care about
that. She just sent you with water to torment me. The water
is just to remind me that Shyrin...that the slave girl is still out there
dying of thirst. Tell your captain I don't intend to touch one drop
until she frees the slave girl."
The Trayken was distressed
by Seagrave's obstinance. His bottom jaw worked anxiously from side
to side, and he seemed to be pondering a weighty problem. Finally,
he cast a furtive glance over his shoulder, then studied the pirate with
a searching stare.
"Do you not recognize
me?" the Trayken asked.
"Recognize you?"
For a moment, Seagrave scowled, perplexed by the question. Then,
abruptly, his eyes widened and his breath hissed. "Damn me, but you're
the Trayken I saved from the manatyr!"
Fretfully, the sailor
glanced at the ladder, urgently gesturing Seagrave to keep his voice down.
"Yes," he acknowledged quickly. "My name is Nas Klarak. You
saved my life when I was hanging from the beak of the manatyr. You
saved me when no one else dared to. I did not understand then why
you would risk your life to save mine -- "
"You risked your neck
to protect your ship," Seagrave countered. "I saw the way you tried
to fight off the manatyr with your leister. It was a stupid thing
to do, but you did it anyway."
"But that was this
vessel, the Empress of Shek," Nas Klarak explained, still puzzling.
"If this ship had been destroyed, instead of simply surfaced, I would have
lost my livelihood."
"You don't expect me
to believe you tried to ward off that beast just because it might have
put you out of a job?" Seagrave scoffed, with a harsh laugh. "I don't
believe it."
"No," the sailor agreed.
"There were the lives of my crewmates to consider as well. But they
are all Trayken -- except the Lan'lans." Nas Klarak pointed at the
pirate. "You are obviously an enemy of the Trayken, else why would
there be a price on your head? This is what puzzles me: why would
you save an enemy?"
"I don't consider all
Traykens to be my enemies," replied Seagrave; "just the Traykens who threaten
to torture me. I saved you because you needed saving. Where
I come from, that should be reason enough."
Again, Nas Klarak's
fang-rimmed jaw worked distractedly as he grappled with his imponderable
dilemma. Finally, in a brooding tone, he explained: "You have placed
me in a difficult situation. You saved my life, and so I owe you
a life."
It was a moment before
Seagrave realized what the sailor was telling him. When he did, his
teeth shone in his spreading grin. "You mean to say, you have to
save my life because I saved yours?"
Bleakly, Nas Klarak
nodded. "It is the way of our people. I am honour-bound to
save your life, if I can."
Seagrave swore amazedly
under his breath, unable to believe his luck. "Well, then, what are
you waiting for," he demanded, twisting at his cords. "Untie these
damn ropes --"
"Now is not the time."
The sailor held up a hand, gesturing for patience.
"What do you mean,
now isn't the time?" Seagrave's eyes narrowed, half-wondering if
this wasn't some torment engineered by Jyleesha.
"There is no point
in untying you unless you can escape this ship," Nas Klarak explained imploringly.
"Otherwise you would simply be recaptured."
"I'm willing to take
that chance." Angered now, Seagrave jerked at his bonds.
"But I cannot."
The Trayken eyed Seagrave's struggles nervously. "To repay my debt,
I must save your life -- not merely free you."
"Damn ye --"
"Please, you must listen."
The Trayken waited for Seagrave's anger to subside, then, in a quiet voice,
he continued: "There is only one way for you to escape the Empress of Shek."
His black eyes swept the many scarlet narse-heads swaying like wind-teased
flowers in the gloomy shadows. "Tonight I will sneak a narse up onto
the deck. On narseback you can reach the island of Ayskar, one of
the seven belonging to Jimnyr."
Of course! It
hadn't even occurred to Seagrave that he might use the narses to fly off
the ship.
"Why wait until tonight?"
Nas Klarak frowned
as if Seagrave's question should not have needed to be asked.
"With a man on its
back, a narse would tire long before you could reach Ayskar, if you were
to leave now. Tonight Ayskar will be close enough for you to just
reach it on narseback."
Seagrave's irritation
boiled over again. "I can't wait until tonight," he gritted.
"There's a girl locked in one of your vats who will die if I don't get
to her soon. Just free me and we can call your debt paid. I'll
take my chances on a narse. Maybe with a little encouragement, those
things can fly farther than you think."
But the sailor refused
to be swayed. Shaking his head, he straightened and backed toward
the ladder. "I will return tonight," he promised.
"Damn ye!" growled
Seagrave, twisting and tugging at his cords. "The girl can't wait
until tonight!"
The Trayken frowned
in perplexity. "I don't understand what the slave girl has to do
with any of this," he said. "My debt is to you and you alone.
I must save your life, not hers." The sailor cast a quick glance
up the ladder, then repeated: "Tonight."
Seagrave cursed again
and his voice dropped menacingly. "Look, ye dog -- either you free
me now or I'll call for Jyleesha and tell her about your plan to save me."
The sailor's eyes dilated,
revealing fearful rims of white. "You cannot do that," he gasped
in horror. "She would have me killed. And, if I were dead,
I would have no way of saving your life."
Seagrave could only
gape in stupefied amazement. The Trayken seemed obsessed with saving
the pirate -- even if that meant saving him from himself. This was
honour carried to a ludicrous extreme. Still, if that was what it
took to get through to this Trayken...
"Aye, that's right,"
nodded Seagrave. "So you untie me, or I'll spoil your plans to rescue
me. You'll go to your grave knowing you still owed me for saving
your damn --"
Before Seagrave could
complete his sentence, Nas Klarak rushed back into the pen. In a
single motion, he struck the pirate across the head with the water-filled
cup. For a moment, Seagrave blinked dazedly, shaking his head so
that silver drops rained from his bangs.
"Why you crazy..."
But the thought whirled
away on the crest of a black tide...
Back below decks
in the narse pens, Seagrave was tied the same as before, seated on the
hard boards with his outstretched arms trussed to a plank at his back,
his ankles tightly bound with thongs. This time, though, his captors
had been careful to secure him to a sturdy plank which no amount of exertion
might hope to shatter.
He blinked dazedly as his eyes adjusted to the dazzling gemstone glow after the stifling darkness of the catacombs. His skirt fluttered in ragged tatters from his hips, his purple skin smeared with green and brown laced with countless orange scratches.
For a time, he hadn't thought he would make it back alive.
The Rayvers had been thick as bizama in the forests atop the islands. Whether they were searching for the princess or for Jakar Jet himself, the Kamir could not say; but it had required all his cunning to avoid the search parties, oftentimes forcing him to abandon the air and seek concealment on the ground where the tangled verdure scoured his hide and tore his skirt. His heart still raced after so many narrow escapes.
Damn them, he thought.
Then, more darkly: Damn her.
He paused and slumped heavily against the gem-crusted wall, the varicoloured glints mottling his skin. His eyes stared blankly as his mind lovingly recalled how Shyrin Shas had sobbed under his ravishing caresses in the glade. His fingers constricted unconsciously, claw-like, the shuddering feel of her anguished strainings still fresh in the nerves and sinews of his hands...
He closed his eyes, inhaling, imagining he could smell her subtle scent wafting from those hands, as if he had taken part of her with him. She was so beautiful. So achingly beautiful, with her wide emerald eyes and liquid tangerine skin, her lush lips and soft ripe earlobes.
There were times when his unbearable hunger for her threatened to drive him mad with longing, crowding out all reason, all rationality.
At such times, he desired her with an appalling mania that too easily transformed into black vengeful jealousy. The princess did not love him, he knew that well enough. Neither, though, did she hate him. Her arousingly vulnerable mind was infertile soil for true hatred to take root. Pout she might, but never hate. So, if Jakar Jet could provoke neither love nor hate in her gorgeous breast, he was content to settle for something else.
Fear.
It was a poor substitute, to be sure. Where he would have preferred her sweet cries of exquisite pleasure, instead he relished her choking sobs of despair. Where he would have embraced her with a lover's gentle hands, instead he ravished her.
Certainly this was not the first time he had made Shyrin Shas cry with the shame of his lustful caress. Try as she might to avoid him, their relationship rendered her necessarily vulnerable to his advances, woefully impotent to do other than accept his cruel attacks with fatalistic endurance, to submit. As the proud princess of Eukara, she told no one, and so no one sought to intervene.
Until now.
Jakar Jet's eyes snapped open and his thin lips curled in silent rage. That wingless, brown-skinned stranger! That alien savage with his ludicrous clothing and weird flashing stick! How dare he come between them!
For a moment, the memory of his humiliating retreat in the glade made Jakar Jet's blood boil, his opalescent wings flaring as if again carrying him beyond the reach of Seagrave's deadly cutlass. With effort, he mastered his fury, his wings refolding down his spine.
He drew in a long slow breath.
As if only just recognizing where he was, Jakar Jet's gaze glided over the jewelled chamber with its frosty-pink chrysalises. Orienting himself, he straightened and crossed the room. His fingers groped amongst the lush, burning gemstones caking the wall, searching intently, his brows furrowed.
"Ah!" He snatched back his hand and avidly studied the faceted jewel shimmering magically in his palm.
It was the Lin tal-stone, left where he had hidden it after switching stones with Shyrin Shas. The gem was a rich lavender laced with sharp flecks of glittering gold; a very distinctive tal-stone. He had been fortunate to find another gem so much like it. The Earth tal-stone had been virtually identical.
An ironic sneer twisted his sharp features as he reflected on the unfairness of his fate. He had offered the Lin tal-stone to the Traykens, only to have them threaten him with torture to make him reveal where it was hidden. They would kill him if they caught him now. But, after what he had done to the princess, he was a fugitive from his own people, too. He had banked everything on the success of his venture -- and he had lost. In his cruel mind, there remained only one purpose left, one goal.
Revenge.
To avenge himself on the Trayken, he would deny them the Lin tal-stone, the only means by which they might have invaded the distant moon, Lin. They should have paid his price; now they would have nothing.
But to avenge himself on his own people required something more substantial, more hurtful. It required robbing them of something they cared about deeply, something they loved with all their hearts.
Something infinitely precious.
Again Jakar Jet closed his eyes. He inhaled a deep, savouring breath, a lean smile curling his crafty lips.
Yes
-- he could smell her on his hands...
