Read Online Fliers of Antares by Alan Burt Akers - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alan Burt Akers
Ads: Link
Havilfar. So I felt reasonably sure I was still in Havilfar. If this was a game the Star Lords were playing with me, I knew only too well it was a deadly game, and failure would result in death or a fate worse than death, if you will pardon the expression, in my return to Earth.
Perhaps, the treacherous whisper crossed my mind, perhaps I was still in the rock hut of the Heavenly Mines, and I had imagined I had seen and spoken with the scorpion, and all this was pure hallucination.
A quoffa cart rumbled along the road, and the apim sitting in the front with a straw in his mouth and a wide hat pulled low over his forehead looked real enough. Naked as I was, I must accost him. He wore a shirt and trousers, a fashion quite often seen on Kregen, and I would face some quizzing, I felt sure. But it had to be done.
The white dust of the road puffed under the six pads of the quoffa, and his huge, patient, wise old face cheered me as I stepped out. This was a crossroads. A tall tree stood in one corner of the cross, and a blackened
thing
hung from a branch, chained and gruesome. I perked up. Directly across the angle of the road stood an inn, whose white walls and red roof leaned lazily against the sunlight, the windows winking in the sun. A table and a bench stood outside. I fancied I might find information there, if I could not stand a drink and a piece of vosk pie.
The red roof of the inn was new, for the tiles were unpitted and still full of color, but the far end gable roof showed older tiles, darkened and cracked here and there.
This was a mystery, this whole occurrence, so unlike anything that had happened before. The peacefulness of the scene, the calmness of the surroundings, even the
thing
in the gibbet to indicate that law was upheld and troubles past, all drew together to make me believe that
something
strange was happening.
I stepped out and opened my mouth to shout to the apim in the quoffa cart — and a blue radiance swept about me and a violent wind seemed to whirl me head over heels. I was still standing upright and on the same spot, but my impressions whirled chaotically. I saw the quoffa cart spin around, the tree bend and sway, the fields ripple and run as though a great and silent wind scored them flat.
I struggled to draw breath in that glowing azure radiance.
I gasped.
The quoffa cart had gone. The tree had changed, for its foliage was now of early season, and not of autumn. And the inn! Its roof was now old all over, darkened cracked tiles where before had been new tiles. The fields had shrunk, for instead of ripe and golden grain they now showed the beginning shoots of new garden growths.
The Star Lords sent their blue radiance about me and I felt myself falling; I thought in my terror that I had failed to accomplish what I had been sent here to do. And I knew the Everoinye would punish failure with instant dismissal. I was on my way back to Earth!
“No!” I screamed out. This was not fair! This was to set a task without clue, without sign, without hope.
Then I could scream no more. For the solid ground returned once more under my feet, the old inn, the new shoots in the fields, the burgeoning tree, all flashed again before my eyes.
But now there was a change, a drastic change.
The inn was on fire. Flames shot from the roof, cracking and tumbling the tiles away as beams fell. The windows glowed with the violence of the fire within. All about me rose that horrid screeching of men locked in mortal combat.
I had no time to thank Zair. For this — this horror, this screaming and screeching, this clang of iron weapons on armor, this noise of battle — this scene was my scene, may Zair forgive me. Now I knew I was where I must be in order to fulfill my destiny on the world four hundred light-years from the world of my birth.
Diffs were attacking the inn.
They pranced about it, shooting quarrels into the fire through the smashed windows, running and laughing and cutting down other diffs who
Perhaps, the treacherous whisper crossed my mind, perhaps I was still in the rock hut of the Heavenly Mines, and I had imagined I had seen and spoken with the scorpion, and all this was pure hallucination.
A quoffa cart rumbled along the road, and the apim sitting in the front with a straw in his mouth and a wide hat pulled low over his forehead looked real enough. Naked as I was, I must accost him. He wore a shirt and trousers, a fashion quite often seen on Kregen, and I would face some quizzing, I felt sure. But it had to be done.
The white dust of the road puffed under the six pads of the quoffa, and his huge, patient, wise old face cheered me as I stepped out. This was a crossroads. A tall tree stood in one corner of the cross, and a blackened
thing
hung from a branch, chained and gruesome. I perked up. Directly across the angle of the road stood an inn, whose white walls and red roof leaned lazily against the sunlight, the windows winking in the sun. A table and a bench stood outside. I fancied I might find information there, if I could not stand a drink and a piece of vosk pie.
The red roof of the inn was new, for the tiles were unpitted and still full of color, but the far end gable roof showed older tiles, darkened and cracked here and there.
This was a mystery, this whole occurrence, so unlike anything that had happened before. The peacefulness of the scene, the calmness of the surroundings, even the
thing
in the gibbet to indicate that law was upheld and troubles past, all drew together to make me believe that
something
strange was happening.
I stepped out and opened my mouth to shout to the apim in the quoffa cart — and a blue radiance swept about me and a violent wind seemed to whirl me head over heels. I was still standing upright and on the same spot, but my impressions whirled chaotically. I saw the quoffa cart spin around, the tree bend and sway, the fields ripple and run as though a great and silent wind scored them flat.
I struggled to draw breath in that glowing azure radiance.
I gasped.
The quoffa cart had gone. The tree had changed, for its foliage was now of early season, and not of autumn. And the inn! Its roof was now old all over, darkened cracked tiles where before had been new tiles. The fields had shrunk, for instead of ripe and golden grain they now showed the beginning shoots of new garden growths.
The Star Lords sent their blue radiance about me and I felt myself falling; I thought in my terror that I had failed to accomplish what I had been sent here to do. And I knew the Everoinye would punish failure with instant dismissal. I was on my way back to Earth!
“No!” I screamed out. This was not fair! This was to set a task without clue, without sign, without hope.
Then I could scream no more. For the solid ground returned once more under my feet, the old inn, the new shoots in the fields, the burgeoning tree, all flashed again before my eyes.
But now there was a change, a drastic change.
The inn was on fire. Flames shot from the roof, cracking and tumbling the tiles away as beams fell. The windows glowed with the violence of the fire within. All about me rose that horrid screeching of men locked in mortal combat.
I had no time to thank Zair. For this — this horror, this screaming and screeching, this clang of iron weapons on armor, this noise of battle — this scene was my scene, may Zair forgive me. Now I knew I was where I must be in order to fulfill my destiny on the world four hundred light-years from the world of my birth.
Diffs were attacking the inn.
They pranced about it, shooting quarrels into the fire through the smashed windows, running and laughing and cutting down other diffs who
Similar Books
