Read Online Scorpio Invasion by Alan Burt Akers - Free Book Online

gasp almost of physical pain, Ra-Lu-Quonling staggered to his feet. The shaking of his body ceased. His arms lifted until they were horizontal and like a scarecrow caught in a wind he began to revolve, faster and faster, a whirling dervish spinning in the mud. Abruptly, his whirlwind motion stopped. He flopped down onto his haunches and put his hands flat on the mud. His head tilted back.
    Both of Ra-Lu-Quonling’s eyes opened, not together, but one after the other. He stared balefully at me. I recalled the first time I had seen this process by which a Wizard of Loh went into lupu, when I had derided the whole notion, back then when with good old Seg I’d searched so desperately for Delia. The frail and not very competent Wizard of Loh Lu-si-Yuong had been unable to find her for me — and I struggling against what everyone said, that she was dead! — but he had warned us about Thelda’s danger. He had been an old man; this young whippersnapper was young. Yet both used almost identical methods of attaining lupu. Deb-Lu or Khe-Hi would go into lupu and wander around Kregen through the various planes as you or I might open a door and walk from one room to another.
    That very expertise in thaumaturgy ought not to disguise the weirdness of it, the spine-tingling uncanniness of what these mages could perform.
    Although, to be sure, Deb-Lu had been experiencing difficulty in getting through down in South Loh. Still, I had every confidence that this self-named Nath the Ready could reach Khe-Hi. After all, although I’d no idea where Whonban was situated in Loh, it couldn’t be all that far away from here, could it?
    Quonling stared at me. He ought now to be coming out of it, having sent the message. He began to shake. I frowned. This, I did not remember. He opened his mouth.
    A harsh rattling voice, deep in the bass register, issued from the lad’s mouth. “I see him. So that is the fellow.” The boy’s eyes were fixed burningly upon me. “After you treat your instructors with contempt you have the impudence to attempt to utilize your imperfect learning! You should know by now the way back for you is hard, very hard. Now go—”
    All Quonling’s young features writhed and his tongue darted out to lick his lips and I realized he was trying to speak to the owner of that harsh and merciless voice.
    “I am a Whonbim!” His own voice gasped the words. “I am merely trying to do a favor for San Khe-Hi-Bjanching. He will vouch for me!”
    “San Khe-Hi does not know of your existence, outcast!”
    So I saw what had happened. My Val! Young Quonling was doing his best in lupu to contact Khe-Hi and his message had been intercepted by this interfering, officious, overbearing jumped up Wizard of Loh teacher!
    “Please — san — San Khe-Hi-Bjanching will—”
    “Enough! By the Seven Arcades! Am I to waste my time prattling to a rebellious youngster who has no respect! You—”
    I stepped forward and grasped the lad’s shoulders. I stared deeply into his eyes. On my face, quite without my own volition, that Devil Mask flamed out, that evil domineering look that has quelled many a proud spirit. Do not think I take any pride from that, quite the contrary; but the demon look of Dray Prescot has proved useful from time to time. As now.
    “You do not give me a Llahal,” I said in that gravelly menacing voice of Dray Prescot. “You are a teacher who has failed with Quonling. I think it will go ill with you if you fail to pass my message to Khe-Hi.”
    There was no immediate response from the harsh rattling voice. I was prepared to wait only for a certain number of heartbeats for a reply.
    He clearly couldn’t know that; but he timed it so there were but three heartbeats to go.
    “If you are who we believe you to be, your message will be passed.”
    I said: “It is not for you to quibble. I am not in the habit of repeating myself, even for Wizards of Walfarg. I will say to you, you without a Llahal between us, you know what