Free Secret Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers Page A

dissatisfaction for the moment.
    A clatter of dislodged stones and debris from one of Evold’s smashed tables turned our attention to Balass, who straightened up lifting a dusty round object from the jumble. He blew on it and dust flew.
    “Now what is this?” he said, turning, walking across with the round plate balanced on his upturned palms.
    I was aware of Khe-Hi at my side, of the way a tremor shook through him. I shot a swift searching glance at him. The wizard’s face looked strained, a deep furrow dinting down between his eyebrows. He sucked in his breath.
    “Whatever it is, Balass,” I sang out cheerily, “our potent wizard knows!”
    “Aye, my Prince! By Hlo-Hli. I know!”
    “Well, then, tell us.”
    He took the plate from Balass, by which I judged the thing exerted no immediately dangerous evil influence. He turned it over. We all craned to look. The plate was fashioned from bronze, as thick as two fingers, as wide around as an Och’s shield. Inset around the edge were cabalistic signs; these Khe-Hi ignored and I judged them decoration. Nine sigils surrounded a blank center. That center either had once had or had space left for five further signs. Each of the nine signs was different and I recognized none.
    “Well?”
    “This was secreted in the compartment in the back of the idol.”
    “Well,” exclaimed Balass. “Anyone knows that!”
    “Go on, Khe-Hi,” I said. Balass shut his jaws with a snap.
    “The wizard controlling the idol is able to observe at a distance without the necessity of forcing a representation of himself to the needful point and looking through his own immaterial eyes. This saves psychic energy.”
    Delia was looking carefully at the disk and its nine emblazoned signs, and Turko lifted it from Khe-Hi’s hands so the princess might view it more easily.
    I said, “You mean when the eyes light up with that baleful green fire this damned wizard is spying out of them?”
    “Yes, my Prince. I also think this is a sign for the priest, in this case Himet the Mak, to open the back in safety.”
    “But the confounded thing blew up when the eyes lit up!”
    “Yes. Because the wizard observed what was happening and knew that in the next few murs I would have reduced his sorceries and rendered the chyyan eggs harmless.”
    “Hmm,” I said. “And these signs? Nine of them?”
    Nine is perhaps the most magical number on Kregen. There was a fanciful touch about this round plate and the nine symbols that reminded me, vaguely, of the Krozairs of Zy and their sign, the hubless spoked wheel within the circle.
    “Each sign, I think, is a location. Probably where a temple of the Great Chyyan is situated. When the sign lights up, it must be a signal to meet there.”
    Every symbol lay flat and dull and lifeless.
    “The first thing,” I said with enough acerbity in my voice to make them understand the seriousness of all this and my inflexible determination to rise above the farcical element that had been dogging us lately, “the very first thing is to read the symbols. We must find out where these damned temples are.”
    Evold peered at the plate. “They mean nothing to me at the moment. But mayhap I have books. San Drozhimo the Lame may have somewhat to say on these signs. And there is the
Hyr-Derengil-Notash.
Also I have hopes of the hyr-lif of Monumentor ti Unismot.”
    There were one or two small smiles in the group. We all knew old Evold and the lore he culled from his musty books. All the same, he did come up with answers to problems. No one could deny that.
    Khe-Hi sniffed. “This is wizard’s work, San. The
Hyr-Derengil-Notash
was compiled by a great wizard two thousand five hundred seasons ago. I know it well. If whoever is controlling the idol used it, you may find what we seek. I doubt it.”
    San Evold did not look disgruntled. He was used to this kind of deprecation from Khe-Hi.
    The
Hyr-Derengil-Notash —
the title means, very roughly, the high palace of pleasure and