Free Renegade of Kregen by Alan Burt Akers Page A

times, Madam Ivanovna, Zena Iztar. Do you not yet understand I am an evil man?"
    "Yet were you chosen by the Savanti and after they cast you off, by the Everoinye, the Star Lords."
    "That was not of my seeking."
    "Yet were you chosen."
    I wasn’t fool enough to ask why I had been chosen. The Savanti, those superhuman men of Aphrasöe, the Swinging City, selected many men from Earth and subjected them to a test and so, accepting them, trained them to become Savapim and go forth upon Kregen to uphold the dignity of apims, of Homo sapiens. I had been found wanting and so had been kicked out of paradise. I had fought and worked and created my own paradise upon Kregen. All I held dear lay with my Delia. The Star Lords used me when they willed for their own ends. The reasons behind the selection of myself were obvious; the ramifications of the conflicting desires of others were the causes of the way my life had gone upon Kregen. I had no stupid delusions that I was in any way special, destined for a great and glittering fate in this world four hundred light-years from Earth.
    "I warned you, Pur Dray," said Zena Iztar, "that you would not be allowed to leave the Eye of the World."
    "I am no longer Pur Dray."
    "That is sooth. But I would like you to become Pur Dray again, once more to take up your rightful place as a member of the Krozairs of Zy."
    "I’m finished with all that!"
    "You will never leave the inner sea until you do."
    All along, all during the time of my boasting and planning, when I had ridden to Magdag, when I had taken the argenter, all the time, I must have known — had known — that I could not leave the Eye of the World. Those vast and implacable forces operating outside of the time and space I knew held me fast caught. Until what they desired occurred I must remain here, a free man within the confines of the inner sea, but imprisoned here as I had been imprisoned on my own Earth.
    "The Krozairs of Zy mean nothing to me now. I am Apushniad. Had you forgotten?"
    "I do not forget important things so lightly."
    "It’s not important! Not any longer!" I was shouting. "I have put the Krozairs behind me, cast them off, shed them as a snake sheds a skin. There are other places of Kregen I hold more dear."
    She bent her gaze upon me. "As a snake, you said. . ."
    "Well, then? I am evil, so a snake will serve. Although I detest the things, even though they live according to their natures."
    "The man of your Earth called Shakespeare had a word for your conduct now, Pur Dray."
    "He had a word for everything."
    "And I have a word for you. You are held here. When you are once more a Krozair of Zy, then perchance you may return to your Valka—"
    "And Delia?"
    She put one long white finger to her lips. Those lips, red and soft, parted and I caught the gleam of white teeth. She cared for herself, this Zena Iztar. "You know your wife. You know her mettle. She is safe, as happy as she will ever be without you — poor soul! — yet will she risk all to find you again."
    "And you condemn her to that!"
    She was very brisk about that. "I condemn no one to anything. Men and women have suffered since the beginning and, assuredly, will suffer until the end."
    "You told me I would face a choice, a hard choice—"
    "Not this petty business, serious though it may be." She brushed my words aside. "The choice will come later. Also, I said that even Grodno might play a part, that stranger things have happened."
    "I remember. That was the first time, in my chambers in London, before the séance—"
    "And when I saw you for the second time, by the banks of the Grand Canal, I warned you afresh. You have a part to play. I would you would play it with all your heart."
    "When I am parted from Delia, that I cannot do."
    "I see that, and I believe it. Then I say this to you: you must pursue the path with every part of you that you can. Put as much of yourself into your struggle as you can possibly spend. I know whereof I speak. I salute you as Pur