Read Online Avenger of Antares by Alan Burt Akers - Free Book Online

up to the inn, where it leaned in a bower of trees below the scarped embankment above. That large tree by the balcony of my window had seen many surreptitious nighttime exits and entrances, when I had been spying in Ruathytu seeking the voller secrets.
    The last time I had left here, discreetly clad, acting the part of Bagor ti Hemlad, I had not envisioned that before I returned to this lodging so much would come to pass: that I would find the secrets, be taken up as a thief, work as a slave, and then be taunted and tortured and made mock of by that she-leem, Queen Thyllis of Hamal. She was one queen who had opened an account with me for which the final reckoning remained still to be made.
    I turned in at the door and went up to my room. As I pushed the door open I saw a pretty little Fristle fifi, her silvery fur electric with passion, her eyes blazing, her arms about a hairy, bulky, bulbous-nosed, shambling barrel of a man, writhing and tossing on the bed.
    “Nulty!” I bellowed so that the drapes fluttered.
    Absolute turmoil!
    The Fristle girl flew off the bed, her long legs flashing, her blouse, of apple green, snapping even more buttons. She was remarkably pretty, as to their fame are so many of these young cat-girls, with their slanting eyes and pretty fur and delicate whiskers and delightful feline outlines. “Master!”
    Nulty was beside himself, and prostrate on the floor, and shooing the fifi away, and dragging the bedclothes straight, and tidying the room, and dragging up a sturm-wood chair, and bringing out a brass tray with a bottle of Malab’s Blood and remembering I did not care for that deep purple wine and so rushing in with a fresh squat bottle of Yellow Unction and pouring a glass, and offering me a brass dish of palines, and—
    “Stop!” I roared. “Nulty, you rascal! Stand and let me look at you!”
    “Master!” said Nulty. He came up to my chest, was broad and bulky, with a nose so bulbous I had to restrain myself from seizing for a shonage, a great shambling fellow with shock hair — and yet with shrewd sharp eyes for all that. He knew I was not the Amak of Paline Valley, for he had served old Naghan, and his son, Hamun. Rather, he knew I was not Hamun ham Farthytu. He knew my name was Dray Prescot. But by the right of a dying bequest and a promise, he knew I was, in very truth, the Amak of Paline Valley.
    “Your friend, Nulty,” I said. “I have no desire to stand in the way of a beautiful friendship. But I am hungry and thirsty for better fare than wine! Fetch a meal from the landlord. And, Nulty — tea! Tea!”
    “Aye, master,” said Nulty, the manservant I had acquired as Amak of Paline Valley. He scuttled off, and I caught a few choice phrases about how Havil the Green ran this world and how someone else could run it a damned sight better; that someone, he let Havil the Green remain in no doubt whatever, being none other than Nulty himself. I felt my lips move, and realized I was smiling. Nulty, this shambling barrel of an apim, was my body-servant and my friend. Also he was a Hamalian and therefore, as I was Prince Majister of Vallia, a most powerful and dangerous potential enemy.
    What rot these nationalities are, to be sure!
    He brought in the tea — that glorious fragrant Kregan tea — and a plate of choice vosk rashers, and momolams, with taylynes, and a vast squish pie with thick cream. I set to, and bellowed to him to draw up a chair and tuck in as well, and so between mouthfuls he had the story I wished him to know.
    “No, Nulty. I have not been back to Paline Valley.” And: “No, Nulty, I did not go to the place where I went after the duel.” And: “More tea, Nulty, you great fambly, for I’m parched!”
    I told him I had been off on a holiday during which I had lost everything gambling. That was so eminently believable it answered all his queries. I had set the stolen flier onto a due eastern course and let her go free and by now she would be well out into the