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Authors: Alan Burt Akers
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persuasion may then earn their keep.”
Nath rumbled a huge guffaw from his stomach, highly impressed by the indubitableness of the proposition.
Not for the first time — and assuredly, by Vox, not for the last — I found myself rejoicing in the company and companionship of good comrades. Yes, yes, I love to go off adventuring alone, wearing the brave old scarlet and swinging a great Krozair longsword; but equally I joy in adventures shared with boon comrades.
And here I pulled myself up sharply and with a most unpleasant jolt of guilt.
What the hell was I doing contemplating going off adventuring when all of Paz demanded my utmost exertions? We had to escape from this damnable Coup Blag, Witch of Loh or no damn Witch of Loh, and then I had to see about organizing the countries to fight shoulder to shoulder. And by countries one always means the people of the nations. There would be no easy ride trying to convince some of the rulers in the lands of Paz to work together. The task which, in the early days, I had considered to be just another problem set to my hands, was altogether far greater and fraught with bristling difficulties I had not foreseen.
The simple answer and the one I had at first thought to be the one the Star Lords intended was just to go around to these various lands and gain control.
That meant conquest, naked war and conquest.
Or, it would mean that if there were no subtler way I could take over the running of a nation.
Now I saw that for one man to go around making himself king of this and prince of that was paranoia of a sublime madness. It was megalomania on a grand scale.
No. There had to be other ways, and just at the moment I had no idea what those ways might be.
Oh, yes, assuredly, I had a scheme dreamed up for Pandahem which I intended to put into operation the moment we were out of here and running free. But that was but a small chunk of the main problem.
“You look, Bogandur,” said Nath, “as though you have lost a zorca and found a calsany.”
“Rather, Nath,” I said with feeling, “found a woflo.”
“That you cannot ride.”
“Unless the one shrinks or the other grows.”
“Most profound,” put in Seg. “And I’m starving.”
Nath rumbled up a grunting cough.
“I wish you hadn’t said that, Seg. Now I am reminded that my guts are like the last flagon at dawn.”
“And,” shot back Seg, “I wish you hadn’t mentioned anything to do with flagons.”
The little sally-affray gave us some tithe of amusement. I stood up and stretched and looked around.
Seg stood up as well and said: “Yes. Time to go.”
Nath rolled off to get the ladies moving.
Again Deb-Lu appeared, shimmering and ghostlike.
The jagged opening into which he beckoned us did not look inviting. But trusting the Wizard of Loh absolutely as I did, I had no hesitation in heading directly into that Stygian blackness.
The sound of rushing water rustled and echoed about us, bouncing from the walls and drumming in our ears.
Feeling cautiously ahead, probing with the longsword, I made slow progress. Here, safety was far more important than speed.
Just rushing blindly ahead would get you killed stone bonkers dead, no doubt of that, by Krun!
The eeriness of this alien underground maze must not be allowed to affect our nerves. Yes, we were deep underground, walled by millions of tons of rock, creeping along in total darkness, prey to all the imagined fears the human mind can invent. Yet we had to hold onto our courage and press on and front the dangers and terrors as they leaped upon us.
The faintest iridescent shifting of mingled colors from a rockface far far ahead indicated the presence of distant light. With that faint and far off glow ahead the whole feeling to this cautious crawl through darkness altered. As we went on so the light strengthened. Our angle to the rockface shifted and gradually the predominant color emerged as an eye-searing viridian.
“Shades of Genodras,” I said to
Nath rumbled a huge guffaw from his stomach, highly impressed by the indubitableness of the proposition.
Not for the first time — and assuredly, by Vox, not for the last — I found myself rejoicing in the company and companionship of good comrades. Yes, yes, I love to go off adventuring alone, wearing the brave old scarlet and swinging a great Krozair longsword; but equally I joy in adventures shared with boon comrades.
And here I pulled myself up sharply and with a most unpleasant jolt of guilt.
What the hell was I doing contemplating going off adventuring when all of Paz demanded my utmost exertions? We had to escape from this damnable Coup Blag, Witch of Loh or no damn Witch of Loh, and then I had to see about organizing the countries to fight shoulder to shoulder. And by countries one always means the people of the nations. There would be no easy ride trying to convince some of the rulers in the lands of Paz to work together. The task which, in the early days, I had considered to be just another problem set to my hands, was altogether far greater and fraught with bristling difficulties I had not foreseen.
The simple answer and the one I had at first thought to be the one the Star Lords intended was just to go around to these various lands and gain control.
That meant conquest, naked war and conquest.
Or, it would mean that if there were no subtler way I could take over the running of a nation.
Now I saw that for one man to go around making himself king of this and prince of that was paranoia of a sublime madness. It was megalomania on a grand scale.
No. There had to be other ways, and just at the moment I had no idea what those ways might be.
Oh, yes, assuredly, I had a scheme dreamed up for Pandahem which I intended to put into operation the moment we were out of here and running free. But that was but a small chunk of the main problem.
“You look, Bogandur,” said Nath, “as though you have lost a zorca and found a calsany.”
“Rather, Nath,” I said with feeling, “found a woflo.”
“That you cannot ride.”
“Unless the one shrinks or the other grows.”
“Most profound,” put in Seg. “And I’m starving.”
Nath rumbled up a grunting cough.
“I wish you hadn’t said that, Seg. Now I am reminded that my guts are like the last flagon at dawn.”
“And,” shot back Seg, “I wish you hadn’t mentioned anything to do with flagons.”
The little sally-affray gave us some tithe of amusement. I stood up and stretched and looked around.
Seg stood up as well and said: “Yes. Time to go.”
Nath rolled off to get the ladies moving.
Again Deb-Lu appeared, shimmering and ghostlike.
The jagged opening into which he beckoned us did not look inviting. But trusting the Wizard of Loh absolutely as I did, I had no hesitation in heading directly into that Stygian blackness.
The sound of rushing water rustled and echoed about us, bouncing from the walls and drumming in our ears.
Feeling cautiously ahead, probing with the longsword, I made slow progress. Here, safety was far more important than speed.
Just rushing blindly ahead would get you killed stone bonkers dead, no doubt of that, by Krun!
The eeriness of this alien underground maze must not be allowed to affect our nerves. Yes, we were deep underground, walled by millions of tons of rock, creeping along in total darkness, prey to all the imagined fears the human mind can invent. Yet we had to hold onto our courage and press on and front the dangers and terrors as they leaped upon us.
The faintest iridescent shifting of mingled colors from a rockface far far ahead indicated the presence of distant light. With that faint and far off glow ahead the whole feeling to this cautious crawl through darkness altered. As we went on so the light strengthened. Our angle to the rockface shifted and gradually the predominant color emerged as an eye-searing viridian.
“Shades of Genodras,” I said to
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