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Authors: Alan Burt Akers
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Immediately I knew I was caught once more in a time loop cast by the Star Lords. Once again I had been thrown into the past. I could take great comfort from that, for my Delia was not waiting for me now in trembling apprehension, and whatever I had to do here — wherever here was — could be done and I might then rejoin my beloved and she would not have spent a single extra day in sorrow over my fate. Also, I knew, and the knowledge brought a shivery feeling of insecurity over me, that somewhere on the face of Kregen, I, Dray Prescot, was at this very minute fighting or drinking, slave or free, struggling on or living it up in luxury. At this very minute somewhere over the horizon a Dray Prescot that was me was walking and talking, fighting, and, perhaps, loving, and I own I found it all most weird, to be sure.
Then — why then the obvious thought occurred. If I was back to certain times past, there might be
two
Dray Prescots battling on the surface of Kregen!
In Valka I had been thrown into a time loop.
I could be in the Hostile Territories right now, fighting on in our long journey with Seg, Thelda, and glorious Delia at my side; and at the same time I could be in Valka, fighting to free my island from the aragorn — and, at the same time, here I was, naked and weaponless as usual, ready to undertake some great new task.
I shivered a little at the power of the Star Lords.
I, Dray Prescot, who called them onkers and rasts and cramphs!
From my experiences in the Heavenly Mines I had emerged in reasonable condition, completely hairless, for the Hamalians with their rigid adherence to the rules shaved the slaves once a sennight, and without the brands on chest and back. I had to acknowledge that forethought to the Star Lords, although as I knew my dip in the Pool of Baptism in the River Zelph of Aphrasöe as well as giving me a thousand years of life and phenomenal powers of recuperation also enabled my skin to slough off brand marks. Sometimes, as when I had been a hauler for the Emperor’s barges, that had not been too comfortable an attribute.
Unlike most of my previous transitions to various unfriendly locations of Kregen, this time I had not landed slap bang in the midst of danger, action, and headlong adventure.
Around the Heavenly Mines stretched the Barrens, a deadly waste of desert and near-desert. All food had had to be imported. I stood up slowly, taking stock of my situation. Around me now extended broad fields, heavy with corn, with brilliant flowers blooming in the hedgerows alongside narrow lanes. A house or two showed red-tiled gables, and smoke drifted lazily from tall twisted chimneys. A flock of birds — ordinary Earth-like birds — swooped and squawked about a clump of trees remarkably like elms. Had the two brilliant suns of Antares not blazed down from the sky above I might have thought myself back at home, in a rich and golden autumn with all the goodness of the harvest to be gathered in.
This situation, then, was like no other that had confronted me on arrival on Kregen.
I could see at once the dangers here, the difficulties. Perhaps, if the truth was told, more danger for me existed in this apparently peaceful scene than in the damned Heavenly Mines of Hamal.
Did I tread the soil of Havilfar? Had I been taken back to Vallia, or to Turismond? Segesthes, perhaps? Or, a continent I had touched only at the tip of Erthyrdrin, Loh? The thought crossed my mind that I might have been deposited in one of the remaining three continents; but I had no information of value on them, and no one of the people of this grouping knew much of them; they were foreign and strange beyond the understanding of ordinary men and women.
A mirvoller flew out from the trees and passed across the sky and, without having to think, I took cover in a hedge. The mirvol flew effortlessly, and I caught the wink of weapons from its rider. The flyer passed out of sight.
As far as I knew mirvols were found only in
Immediately I knew I was caught once more in a time loop cast by the Star Lords. Once again I had been thrown into the past. I could take great comfort from that, for my Delia was not waiting for me now in trembling apprehension, and whatever I had to do here — wherever here was — could be done and I might then rejoin my beloved and she would not have spent a single extra day in sorrow over my fate. Also, I knew, and the knowledge brought a shivery feeling of insecurity over me, that somewhere on the face of Kregen, I, Dray Prescot, was at this very minute fighting or drinking, slave or free, struggling on or living it up in luxury. At this very minute somewhere over the horizon a Dray Prescot that was me was walking and talking, fighting, and, perhaps, loving, and I own I found it all most weird, to be sure.
Then — why then the obvious thought occurred. If I was back to certain times past, there might be
two
Dray Prescots battling on the surface of Kregen!
In Valka I had been thrown into a time loop.
I could be in the Hostile Territories right now, fighting on in our long journey with Seg, Thelda, and glorious Delia at my side; and at the same time I could be in Valka, fighting to free my island from the aragorn — and, at the same time, here I was, naked and weaponless as usual, ready to undertake some great new task.
I shivered a little at the power of the Star Lords.
I, Dray Prescot, who called them onkers and rasts and cramphs!
From my experiences in the Heavenly Mines I had emerged in reasonable condition, completely hairless, for the Hamalians with their rigid adherence to the rules shaved the slaves once a sennight, and without the brands on chest and back. I had to acknowledge that forethought to the Star Lords, although as I knew my dip in the Pool of Baptism in the River Zelph of Aphrasöe as well as giving me a thousand years of life and phenomenal powers of recuperation also enabled my skin to slough off brand marks. Sometimes, as when I had been a hauler for the Emperor’s barges, that had not been too comfortable an attribute.
Unlike most of my previous transitions to various unfriendly locations of Kregen, this time I had not landed slap bang in the midst of danger, action, and headlong adventure.
Around the Heavenly Mines stretched the Barrens, a deadly waste of desert and near-desert. All food had had to be imported. I stood up slowly, taking stock of my situation. Around me now extended broad fields, heavy with corn, with brilliant flowers blooming in the hedgerows alongside narrow lanes. A house or two showed red-tiled gables, and smoke drifted lazily from tall twisted chimneys. A flock of birds — ordinary Earth-like birds — swooped and squawked about a clump of trees remarkably like elms. Had the two brilliant suns of Antares not blazed down from the sky above I might have thought myself back at home, in a rich and golden autumn with all the goodness of the harvest to be gathered in.
This situation, then, was like no other that had confronted me on arrival on Kregen.
I could see at once the dangers here, the difficulties. Perhaps, if the truth was told, more danger for me existed in this apparently peaceful scene than in the damned Heavenly Mines of Hamal.
Did I tread the soil of Havilfar? Had I been taken back to Vallia, or to Turismond? Segesthes, perhaps? Or, a continent I had touched only at the tip of Erthyrdrin, Loh? The thought crossed my mind that I might have been deposited in one of the remaining three continents; but I had no information of value on them, and no one of the people of this grouping knew much of them; they were foreign and strange beyond the understanding of ordinary men and women.
A mirvoller flew out from the trees and passed across the sky and, without having to think, I took cover in a hedge. The mirvol flew effortlessly, and I caught the wink of weapons from its rider. The flyer passed out of sight.
As far as I knew mirvols were found only in
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