Read Online Fires of Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers - Free Book Online
Authors: Alan Burt Akers
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sums designing gravel gardens, and contractors earn vast sums laying them out. When it comes to the slave who goes around uprooting the weeds, vast sums are conspicuous by their absence.
So Pompino did all right for himself. By the word “ti” in his name, meaning “of” he was a man of importance.
I walked up the gravel path through the gravel garden, and an enormous one-eyed, one-tusked Chulik stood up from the porch and glowered one-eyed at me.
He was taller than me, yellow-skinned, his pigtail hanging down his back dyed blue. He had only one tusk thrusting up from the left corner of his mouth. I judged he’d taken a back-handed slash in some old fight. There was a scar above the gap in his jawline. His piglike eye regarded me solemnly. The missing eye was decently covered by a blue patch on a string around his ear. He wore a leather kax and pteruges, and looked uncomfortable in the warlike costume.
“Llahal, dom!” I called, getting in with the friendly greeting early. “I am a friend to Pompino the Iarvin.”
He said: “Go away, master. You can do no good here.”
I felt the astonishment. The Chulik spoke as though I had come forewarned of some disaster. All I wanted to do was pass the time of day with my fellow kregoinye, Pompino, chew the fat about old times in Jikaida City, and then take off. I also, I must admit, hoped I’d get him to help in the way of transport. So I said: “I just want to have a word with him. We have not seen each other for some time.”
“Best leave now, master.”
He carried a short spear and that was all in the way of weapons. Now I knew he’d be expert in the use of the spear, for Chuliks on their islands are trained up from birth to become mercenaries and to handle any kind of weapon. They usually adopt the weaponry of their employers. But this little spear which looked as though it would snap the moment the Chulik put his strength behind it?
Despite all the comicality of getting through locals and their clannish close-mouthed remoteness, I suddenly began to fancy there might be something amiss, after all.
“Are you servant to Pompino, Chulik?”
“You had best leave, master. Go — now!”
He was speaking in a hoarse penetrating voice, as though desperate not to be heard. And, he did not sound like your true overpowering Chulik would sound like, telling a mere apim to do something. He sounded like a slave. I judged that if Pompino was as important a man as, suddenly, I conceived him to be, he would have Chulik servants, and, also, that very much could be amiss with him and his family.
Thinking that perhaps my kregoinye comrade Pompino was in serious trouble, and prepared to go barging forward to sort it out, I became aware of an absence.
I looked about, sharply.
“Ashti! Ashti!”
But the girl was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter six
Puzzles for the Brown and Silvers
No sign of Ashti in the gravel garden... The left side of the path was walled off by a profusion of flowering shrubs twice man-height... To the right the path led around the side of the house. That way, then...
The Chulik regarded me somberly. I started off, going along the path right-handed.
“Hold!” he called in a stronger voice. I looked back. He hefted the little spear as though about to cast.
“For a little girl, dom?” I said. “You would not try to stop me, surely?”
His one good eye rolled in its socket, making a hideous grimace. He rolled that eye toward the solid door. In the door and at about eye-level for a well-built man the slot of darkness suddenly winked silver. I paused.
The Chulik, in his small un-Chulik-like voice, said:” Aye!” Then: “You are a friend to Pantor Pompino?”
“Yes.”
I have said many times that Chuliks are ferocious fighting men, and their women as well. I have also said that they know little of humanity. Well, I’d met a Chulik in a wrestling booth on the south coast of Pandahem, in Mahendrasmot, who approached a good long way to humanity.
So Pompino did all right for himself. By the word “ti” in his name, meaning “of” he was a man of importance.
I walked up the gravel path through the gravel garden, and an enormous one-eyed, one-tusked Chulik stood up from the porch and glowered one-eyed at me.
He was taller than me, yellow-skinned, his pigtail hanging down his back dyed blue. He had only one tusk thrusting up from the left corner of his mouth. I judged he’d taken a back-handed slash in some old fight. There was a scar above the gap in his jawline. His piglike eye regarded me solemnly. The missing eye was decently covered by a blue patch on a string around his ear. He wore a leather kax and pteruges, and looked uncomfortable in the warlike costume.
“Llahal, dom!” I called, getting in with the friendly greeting early. “I am a friend to Pompino the Iarvin.”
He said: “Go away, master. You can do no good here.”
I felt the astonishment. The Chulik spoke as though I had come forewarned of some disaster. All I wanted to do was pass the time of day with my fellow kregoinye, Pompino, chew the fat about old times in Jikaida City, and then take off. I also, I must admit, hoped I’d get him to help in the way of transport. So I said: “I just want to have a word with him. We have not seen each other for some time.”
“Best leave now, master.”
He carried a short spear and that was all in the way of weapons. Now I knew he’d be expert in the use of the spear, for Chuliks on their islands are trained up from birth to become mercenaries and to handle any kind of weapon. They usually adopt the weaponry of their employers. But this little spear which looked as though it would snap the moment the Chulik put his strength behind it?
Despite all the comicality of getting through locals and their clannish close-mouthed remoteness, I suddenly began to fancy there might be something amiss, after all.
“Are you servant to Pompino, Chulik?”
“You had best leave, master. Go — now!”
He was speaking in a hoarse penetrating voice, as though desperate not to be heard. And, he did not sound like your true overpowering Chulik would sound like, telling a mere apim to do something. He sounded like a slave. I judged that if Pompino was as important a man as, suddenly, I conceived him to be, he would have Chulik servants, and, also, that very much could be amiss with him and his family.
Thinking that perhaps my kregoinye comrade Pompino was in serious trouble, and prepared to go barging forward to sort it out, I became aware of an absence.
I looked about, sharply.
“Ashti! Ashti!”
But the girl was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter six
Puzzles for the Brown and Silvers
No sign of Ashti in the gravel garden... The left side of the path was walled off by a profusion of flowering shrubs twice man-height... To the right the path led around the side of the house. That way, then...
The Chulik regarded me somberly. I started off, going along the path right-handed.
“Hold!” he called in a stronger voice. I looked back. He hefted the little spear as though about to cast.
“For a little girl, dom?” I said. “You would not try to stop me, surely?”
His one good eye rolled in its socket, making a hideous grimace. He rolled that eye toward the solid door. In the door and at about eye-level for a well-built man the slot of darkness suddenly winked silver. I paused.
The Chulik, in his small un-Chulik-like voice, said:” Aye!” Then: “You are a friend to Pantor Pompino?”
“Yes.”
I have said many times that Chuliks are ferocious fighting men, and their women as well. I have also said that they know little of humanity. Well, I’d met a Chulik in a wrestling booth on the south coast of Pandahem, in Mahendrasmot, who approached a good long way to humanity.
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