A gust of wind blew the dust cloud away, treating the astounded throng to an even more fantastic sight. For now, instead of blindly clinging for his very life to the back of the whirling, frenzied monster—the minstrel was actually riding the dragon like a bucking horse! Flapping his plumed cap against its heaving flanks and beating his skinny heels into the thard’s ribs, the little minstrel rode, clinging with one hand to the beast’s pig-like ear.
It was then that someone in the crowd—Drask never knew who it was—cried out in a loud, ringing voice, “Free him! Life for the juggler!”
In a moment, other voices took up the lone cry. The crowd, its brutal admiration for pure bravery touched by the gallant spectacle, burst into a thunderous roar of approval. Whistles, cheers, war-cries, cat-calls—a wild cacophony of noise applauded the minstrel’s feat.
“Free him!”
“Life! Free the piper!”
“Amnesty, Warlord!”
Drask rose to his feet, stilling the mob with lifted hands. When all was silent in the arena, save for the muffled thunder of the wildly raging beast—he shouted his answer.
“The voice of the Rovers has spoken! I give life to the little man, and free amnesty for his crimes—if he can get out of there alive!”
An explosion of laughter followed his words as he sank back into his seat with rare good humor. And far below, still riding the maddened jungle-dragon, the tattered jester himself answered in thin, reedy tones:
“A thousand thanks, my Lord Conqueror! And behold— Perion comes!”
With those words, the minstrel sprang to his feet, hopped down from the tharc’s shoulders to the sands. The slow-witted reptile continued, for a time, its dance of rage, as Perion, unnoticed, ran across the arena to a spot against the curving wall and just below the royal box where the Warlord and his girl-slave sat. Then, stooping, Perion doubled like a coiled spring and flung himself into the air. It was a fantastic leap; only a trained acrobat could have accomplished it, or a man with the steely, disciplined muscles of a dancer—and even so, the lithe juggler almost failed. His fingertips just grazed the rim of the wall—grazed—slipped—and for a moment that lasted like an eternity, he hung, dangling suspended by the fingers of one hand— “It sees you!” the Rovers shouted.
Indeed, the slow-witted thard had only now spotted the motley-clad form of its tormentor as it clung, spider-like, against the arena wall. With golden eyes that flamed with the madness of frustrated rage, it flashed across the full length of the field, to crash against the massive wall of yellow Argionid granite like a giant battering-ram of living flesh—just as Perion, with one last supreme effort, drew himself up over the brink, tumbling into the box to huddle panting with effort at Lord Drask’s booted feet.
Then, his maddening quarry completely escaped, the jungle-dragon went mad in very truth. It battered against the wall again and again, a hissing, clawing, squalling Fury, screaming like a steam whistle, raking the wall with razor-claws that ripped long, raw grooves, cut deep in the solid stone.
“Guards! Drive the beast back from the wall!” Tonguth bellowed.
Rovers stationed along the arena’s brink to keep order beat the infuriated, squalling thard back with their electric whips. The throng went wild. Women screamed and ran for safety; Drask shouted commands that went unheard in the confusion; whips cracked and sizzled across the monster’s tautly up-stretched neck, spitting foot-long sparks of blue flame and cross-hatching its hide with a black grill of burned scars that filled the air with the stifling stench of charred reptilian flesh.
Finally there came the dull, droning whine of the Rover’s dread coagulators. Beams of dim violet light speared down, fixing the monster in their vague glare. With a hoarse, almost human scream of agony, the dragon’s hold slipped. In its fury it had half climbed the wall and was nearly in the royal box, but now it slid thrashing down, hitting the sand with stunning force. Dazed it half-limped, half-dragged its wounded bulk away, then collapsed, dead from the beams that still played over it. The stench of ozone and burned flesh was nauseating.
An exhausted silence fell over the tiers of stone benches. Drask sank back into his chair.
Then the bundle of rags between his heels unfolded and merry brown eyes set in a hard, wizened, swarthy and pinched elf-face twinkled slyly up at him. He gaped, astonished.
“Good time of day unto my gracious Lord,” said Perion the Piper.
2.
A FEAST OF KNIVES
NIGHT HUNG over Argion City, a murky pall lit by no moons but dimly illuminated by the fainter, smaller of the two suns low on the western horizon: a dim blur of yellow luminance drawn along the sky’s edge. A chill gust of wind whipped the lithe, slim rossiter trees along the verge of the River Temera, ruffling its dark mirror and setting aflap the stiff, silky banners that adorned the palace towers.
Within the great hall where the Argionid Lords had reigned for centuries past and gone, since the collapse of the mighty Carina Empire had given this stellar kingdom its independence, the Conqueror of Argion feasted and made revel with his clan-leaders amid a scene of fantastic and barbarous splendor.
Torches of resinous wood flared from brackets of blackened iron set in niches along the walls of smooth lime-green Vegan marble; they guttered as the cool night-wind tossed their flame-plumes, light flickering over the rippling, bright-colored war-banners and gorgeous tapestries stiff with silver wire and gilt threads. Sprawled on rich cushions beside long, low tables of mellow harpwood, the chieftains of the Star Rovers fed gluttonously on the fruits of their conquest. Argion was a traders’ world, and the rarest delicacies of a hundred planets loaded the long benches. Bearded pirates drank down the cold green wines of Shazar and Bellerophon, the rich red-golden ales of Netharna and Chorver and the fiery purple liquors that the far Eophim vintners distill from the wine-apples of Valthome … gulping the princely vintages from crystal cups, tankards of noble metals and horn goblets encrusted with glittering gems.
Great platters of chased gold, electrum and chaya bore smoking meats: succulent roast moon-ox, broiled shynx with Vegan cloves, crisp infrared-fried cave-fish from the cold, subterranean rivers of Argion’s Silver Isles. And there were fragrant stews and heaps of glistening, exotic fruits, and flaky mounds of dainty pastries.
As the conquerors gorged and drank, native musicians in feathered cloaks played for their pleasure, striking gay festival tunes and strumming heady, heart-stirring battle-themes from a dozen worlds with pipe, lute and tambour. Sleek-limbed, ripe-breasted dancers veiled in floating lucent gauze wound sinuously between the long, low tables in a graceful, weaving rhythm.
On the dais above the hall, beneath canopies of spun-gold cloth, sat the Warlord, Drask. The ancient Seat of Argion had been flung aside, and in its place the age-blackened King-bench of the Star Rovers stood as throne chair. And by the Warlord’s side, the slim daughter of the last of the Argion-Lords sat, pale, silent, with haunted face and downcast eyes.
When he had at length eaten his fill, Drask summoned before him Perion. The barbarian warchief looked him up and down with amused, appraising eyes as he stood at the foot of the dais. The piper was a little man, slim as a boy, spindle-shanked and bony, with mischievous brown eyes and a mocking, yet servile, grin that lit his sharp-featured, swarthy face with elfish wit. He was still garbed in the soiled and ragged motley he had worn in the arena—a comic patchwork of green, yellow, red and black. His battered multi-pipe of worn, cheap metal was thrust through his girdle like a sword. Thus: Perion of North Hollis.