“Here, my lord Emperor, are the malefactors for your justice!”
No trial, then-
I tried to stand up. I, Dray Prescot, wouldn’t show these scum anything other than defiance, contempt; I tried to stand up, my chains dragging me down. I staggered. I fell. The hard polished floor came up cruelly. I lay, drugged with fatigue. Hunger was no longer noticeable, except that I couldn’t stand up and call these people and this Emperor a pack of kleeshes.
Of what use any further struggle? I had failed. I had failed to do what I had so vaingloriously boasted. I had said I would stride before the Emperor and demand from him the hand of his daughter Delia in marriage.
And here I was, before the Emperor, swathed in chains like a wild beast, bearing the scars of floggings, the red blood running from open sores, covered in vermin, filthy, with my hair stinking in my own nostrils, bathed in repulsiveness.
Oh, Dray Prescot, how are the mighty fallen!
I heard a cry and then a shout of horror.
I struggled to stand up and could not.
They would take me out now and cut off my head.
I heard a rustling, and then a great soughing sobbing from a thousand throats around the enormous throne room. I felt that rustling close. I felt a breath of wind and then I smelled a clean, sweet, fresh scent
— I felt warm soft arms go around me, all white and rosy, naked, taking me up as I was, as I was in my filth and degradation, clasping me to her beast.
“Oh, my Dray! My Dray! I have found you at last!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
My Delia!
Some resource then, some last vestige of — not pride — love, some last remnant of love for my Delia forced me up onto my knees. She held me close and she was sobbing in a way that gave me a deep hatred for anyone or anything who could make her thus break her heart — and knowing that person was me. I stood up. She would not let me go.
“Dray! Oh, Dray, I have been frantic! Dray!”
“Delia,” I managed to say. The throne room whirled about my head. I staggered dizzily, and she held me, her dear body firm against me. “I love you, my Delia. I shall never stop loving you.”
She kept sobbing my name, over and over, and hugging and clasping me to her. I could see very little. Hands drew us apart. Soft, anxious, gentle hands of court ladies, noblewomen, tugging my Delia away. And harsh, fierce, cruel hands of slave-masters and guards dragging me away, with a blow from a whip-handle across the face to speed my going.
Delia screamed.
I struggled.
I do not know where the strength came from.
I took the whip-handle between my teeth and I jerked. I brought my head back and snapped it forward and the lash whistled. I forced myself to see, forcing my eyes to open and to tell me what was going on. A blow smashed against the back of my head and I staggered forward. I spun clumsily. I reached up against all that dead weight of iron, took the whip from my mouth, and brought the handle down across the fellow’s face. He toppled back spouting blood, shrieking. I lashed the whip at the guards, and one was caught around the neck. I dragged him toward me, broke his neck, and threw him aside. I was ready to do this as often as was required.
I heard a shrill scream — and recognized Delia’s voice, the voice of the Majestrix. The first time I had ever heard her use her voice like that: “Do not kill him! The man who kills Dray Prescot I’ll have burned alive!”
“Daughter, daughter!” The testy voice — the Emperor!
I flung back my head.
“I am Dray Prescot! I claim your daughter Delia! She is mine! Before all the world, she is mine!”
The guards pounced then, and I smashed and slashed them back. I yelled again, shouting into that golden haze.
“She is mine — and I am hers! There is nothing you can do, Emperor, nothing!”
A guard coiled his lash across the blood-fouled shining floor and tripped me. I bent, dragged the lash in, and before he could let go I kneed him, and then brought my fists down on his neck. His head hung strangely before he pitched to the floor.
I knew Delia was struggling in the hands of the nobles, who would be outraged at her behavior. I caught another guard and dispatched him. I felt nothing. I was a shining figure molded from blood. The Emperor was cursing; I could tell his voice and would not forget it.
“Take him away! Guards! Take him away and execute him. Now! Now! ”
“You will gain nothing by my death, Emperor! I will win; my Delia will win; you can only lose! Fool!
Think of the daughter you love! Think of Delia!”
“Take him away!”
I do not know how many guards leaped on me. The whip was smashed from my grasp. It seemed a hundred hands gripped me. I was twisted over, picked up like a rolled carpet. My head lolled. But I could see the shining golden haze where stood the father of Delia, and I shouted, high and strong and with great venom: “You fool, Emperor! You have lost!”
The grim words followed me as I left that throne room.
“Take off his head — now!”
To relate what I have is to make me sweat and throb and relive once again all the passions, the desires, the despairs of my youth. How my love for Delia shone upon all — and how her love for me transcended everything! Had any two lovers in two worlds ever loved as we did? I do not know: all I know is the depth and passion and greatness of our love; and I tend to think not. Out of the throne room hurried the knot of guards. I was surrounded by a wall of dark crimson, a wall moving and flowing with powerful legs clad in dark scarlet. These were not the slave-guards, nor yet the aragorn, nor yet the warders with their red and black sleeves.
Some red roaring feelings were surging back now. I was aware of the infernal aches of my body. Well, my head would soon leap from that abused body and I could rest. My Delia — oh, how I would miss my Delia!
I could look up at groined ceilings. Around corners we went, along corridors. How many carrying me?
Six? I heard a curse, and then another. We had reached a small antechamber; in the ceiling an octagon of light cast down the colors of the Suns of Scorpio. A man beside me coughed. They dropped me. I fell to the floor and rolled. My head rang, but I got to my hands, and tried to get my feet under me. A man shrieked: “What are you doing — aaagh!”
I forced my eyes to take in what they saw, and transfer that information to my brain. I saw five dead men, all clad in the dark crimson. I saw a sixth with a bloody rapier in one hand and a bloody main-gauche in the other. He advanced on me and I thought this was the end. And-
“By the Veiled Froyvil, Dray! They were good men, all, and I slew them!”
My brain reeled.
I knew that voice.
I knew — I knew!
But — it could not be.
It was impossible.
I was dead already and treading the path toward the Ice Floes of Sicce. The impossible voice spoke again.
“By all the shattered targes in Mount Hlabro, Dray! Perk up, my old dom!”
I shook my head. My hands trembled. I could see them, there before me, on the floor, shaking and beating against the marble where a trickle of blood flowed from a corpse slain by a corpse. I lifted my head. I looked up. I whispered.