The Curios

Chapter 7 of the science fiction novel Elis Royd

Elis Royd

Chapter Seven

The Curios

Three Raun: two males and a female.

The males shot execution-style; a single round to the backs of their necks. The female stabbed, strangled and bludgeoned. The Elder grimaced--and apparently violated. He used a poker to turn them on their tethers: all the displayed royds were hung upside-down; stinking, oozing, crawling with grymps.

An elderly mahgl’n, all but quartered…a pre-pubescent female, butchered in her sleep…sloppy, sloppy work…a dangling pair of hrmpts: difficult to determine the gender; badly lashed and only partly skinned--swarming with grymps, heads to hooves.

Farther down, the earlier displays were now smothered in grymps--they’d become drooping, shapeless, pallid, wriggling mounds suspended some three feet off the ground.

“Glove,” said the Elder. His aide held up a black leather hand-and-forearm cover. The Elder slid in his arm and rolled the poker’s tip inside a hrmpt’s split belly. Instantly the tip was squirming with pus-colored grymps; winding around the shaft, working their way toward his protected fist. Taking his time, he pulled the poker away and held it upside-down. He kicked his aide. The aide immediately pushed up a little wheeled keg half-filled with scalding oil. The Elder dipped in the poker and stepped back.

The oil frothed wildly, emitting a protracted shriek that petered erratically before blowing away in the pale Sirian sunlight. The Elder pulled out the poker and wiped it on his aide’s cloak. They moved along, pausing on either side of an obviously pregnant marsh sprenk, now decapitated and hanging low between a pair of horribly maimed, terrified royd youths.

The Elder turned with a frown. “Whose kill is this?”

A man kicking back on a wagon pushed himself to his feet. “That would be me,” he said. “Sir.”

The Elder pointed the poker right between the offender’s bloodguilty eyes. “You can’t spot a pregnant royd? The deal was five Eagles for a healthy--meaning living--preg. You just screwed yourself out of four Eagles, pal, and you’re lucky to get the one.” He looked around. “Drawer!” A thin man in his wake raised an eyebrow. “Give this fellow a single Eagle. And don’t make it too shiny.” He and his aide continued down to the end of the line, where the grymps were clumped so heavily they completely obscured the hanging dead. The Elder repeatedly slammed his poker on the ground. “I can’t see a thing! Why weren’t these kills properly dressed?”

A small group of men rose in concert, pushing forward a spokesman. “We’ve been waiting,” this man mumbled. “I mean, very patiently. Like all day.”

“But you could have kept them clean!” the Elder barked. “Couldn’t you?” He shook his head. “Drawer, I’m not paying good Eagles for these casualties. Give each of these men a dozen Alexanders for waiting. But that’s all.” He looked at the milling Earthmen half-filling the courtyard. “That goes for all of you! Clean kills only!” He hammered the poker on his aide’s shoulder.

The aide immediately splashed oil on the cadavers. The Elder backpedaled as the aide dipped his brand in the remaining oil, lit the brand, and torched the corpses.

The dead royds erupted in smoky clouds of immature grymps, desperately beating their gossamer wings. Before they’d managed a foot they’d become thrashing, spiraling sparks. The drooping kill shimmied and swayed with dying adult grymps.

The Elder felt a hand on his shoulder. He raised the poker and paused, recognizing the Administrator’s sepulchral bass baritone:

“I have something you surely want to see.”

They walked back to the complex and into the Grand Hall. “Don’t tell me…” the Elder moaned; “is it green and scaly and smelly all over?”

“Pretty much. It is in very bad shape, to be sure, but I am certain you will recognize it.”

They strolled into Chambers, where a filthy tramp lay on his face, apparently dead. So dirty and mangled were the robes and cassock that they came off as completely unfamiliar to the Elder. He hooked the poker’s tip in the man’s collar and yanked the head around.

The Elder dropped the poker in amazement. “No! He’s back!”

“What little remains,” said the Administrator.

Every visible inch of the Commander’s flesh was pocked, puffed, scarred, and inflamed. His eyes and cheeks were sunken and bruised, his purplish lips bloated and split. He’d been stung and bitten, made sick by radioactive water and poisonous roots, and served as a shambling mobile home for too many intestinal parasites to enumerate. Tympanic rot showed above his lobes, walking eczema made a matted disaster of his scalp. Truly he seemed dead; an appearance belied only by the slight flaring of his scab-filled nostrils.

The Elder went down on one knee. “Get him some clean water. Make him speak.”

“He is beyond that.” The Administrator used his boot’s toe to pry open the Commander’s mouth. The black tongue was so swollen it completely blocked the airway.

The Elder looked up. “What did he tell you? Did he find it?”

“As to your first question: he is beyond even delirium. He could not speak, and was indeed unconscious when the sentries dragged him in. You may check my word against theirs. As to the second--” and he reached under his cloak to draw out the long magnificent sword. The jewels in the hilt gleamed like party lights.

The Elder’s jaw fell. He reached down, snatched the rigid Commander by the lapels, vigorously and repeatedly slammed his head on the floor. “Where did you get this, damn you? Where! Friend! Good Counselor! Commander of the Guard, to the fore! Remember your vow!”

The Administrator grabbed a bicep. “Cease. You are too late.”

The Elder stared at that dead face, grimaced, and wiped his hands of the man. He stood and caressed the sword top to bottom, his fingers resting longest on the gem-studded hilt. His eyes were distant and glazed, and when at last they dreamily rose it was as if the flecks in his irises had been replaced by stars.

“You were wise and good to bring this to me--you are a true friend and compatriot.” He leaned the sword’s tip on the Commander’s chest while gradually applying his weight. “The Triad is dissolved. We are now two.” He plucked out the sword and offered his arm. The Administrator clasped it. “We will groom a puppet commander for the Guard, we will renew our vow in blood, we will be richer than--” the Elder passionately shook the Administrator’s arm. “He has brought us the proof we need! The Royd Hoard is real!” They stood like that for a long awkward minute, locked in a private salute, nodding and studying each other’s expressions. At last the Elder segued: “What of the boy? That little monster who accompanied him?”

It was aloofness by tacit agreement; the men let go and relaxed.

“The good Commander,” the Administrator intoned, “returned alone. The royd youth must have succumbed en route.”

The Elder polished a gem with his sleeve. “Our one lead. Gone. Yet his father can’t know.”

“Worth a try,” said the Administrator. He turned to lead the way and stopped. “And the sword? It cannot be split in half.”

The Elder brushed off the insinuation. “Sure it can. Figuratively, anyway. We’ll melt it down and split the jewels fair and proper.” They sauntered to the interrogation crypt’s hidden stairwell. “I’ll take it to the smithy straightaway.”

The Administrator cocked his head. “Uncanny that I happen to be going that way.”

“Y’know,” the Elder parried, “‘uncanny’ is just the word that’s been eluding me. How royds can withstand every form of physical torment developed by man, and still maintain their common vow of secrecy, is a staggering puzzlement.”

“Oh?” countered the Administrator as they wound down the stairs. “You are privy to such an encyclopedic knowledge of torture? And where might you have come by this information?”

“Oh, you know;” the Elder said, “here and there.” He unlocked the crypt door and they walked in among the cells. The Elder was indeed well-schooled in pain. “I and the carpenters have been busy,” he boasted, “while you were juggling facts and figures.”

A pair of racks held a pair of royds, both too far gone to acknowledge their visitors. A number of others were slumped chained to the walls, starved by the looks of them. There were prisoners bound upright and supine; flogged, burned, stabbed, gouged, tormented to the very limits of their endurance.

“Amazing,” the Administrator breathed. “I will admit to being impressed.”

“Not yet, you aren’t. Allow me to present the ultimate marvel.” The Elder indicated the main cell, where the Cept boy’s father hung impaled through the back by a huge, freshly-chiseled iron meat hook. The implement was in fact an instrument: a single piece attached to a chain and incorporated into a wheel and pulley system. Over the days the hook had torn through so much muscle that the Cept was now only a few inches from coming apart at the shoulders.

The Administrator leaned in. “Does it yet breathe?”

“Oh, he’ll puff soon enough.” The Elder splashed a bucket’s worth of foul water on the Cept’s hanging head. The prisoner shook languidly. After a moment the bloodshot eyes rolled up.

“Hey there!” the Elder called pleasantly. “Top of the mornin’ to ya, snakepuss! I’ve brought you some company. You remember the Administrator, don’t you? Well, he’s been off leading a search party for our dear departed Commander, who brought us this fine weapon as proof of the elusive Hoard Of Maldea. Along with this sword, and along with that very dead Commander, the Administrator here also retrieved one healthy young royd, who bears a remarkable resemblance to you. That was not a compliment. Anyway, he’s upstairs, right now, and boy, is he ever dying to see you.”

The Cept found the strength to raise his head for an aborted appeal. The Elder slipped the sword between the cell bars until its point was supporting the chin. “Tell me the treasure’s location, you ugly royd b*****d, and I’ll let him live.” He pushed the tip upward, breaking the hide. “Hold out on us now and we’ll torture him in ways that make this room look like a pleasure dome.” The Cept gagged. A long shudder ran up his frame, causing his broken arms to flap about and his head to kick back. A dry heave doubled him up, and a moment later he was hanging limply. In a weird anticlimax, the hook slowly tore out his back with a wrenching spray of blood and gristle. The Cept dropped in a heap.

“What!” The Administrator stepped back. “Muted! We are in the dark!”

The Elder appeared stunned. He looked around: nothing but shadows and stains, nothing but wrack and ruin. And silence. “So close…” he whispered, raising the blazing blade directly before his eyes. “We’re wasting our time rooting around at the bottom. There’s only one party who can give us the hoard’s location. And the day I pull out my first cartful will be the day I see her squat crowned head mounted on the tip of this bright eager blade.”

* * *

The Curio brothers never missed a beat.

They were indefatigable trackers; relentless in their study of vestiges and patterns, merciless in their persecution of prey. Add to this the restlessness of youth, the natural bully-dummy give-and-take, and the fact that their father would whip them raw at the first scent of disappointment, and you had a team that wasn’t about to come home empty-handed.

Right now they were sitting in a field, sharing the membranous shade of an imported cross-evolved ghritchn-willow. The boys had been scouring the horizon for anything moving, but the singing quiet of the dull outdoors produced a swollen, soporific effect. It was a sleepy scene. A twigfrigger poked up its rump, gawked at the brothers, and popped back in its burrow. The tedium grew.

Finally the younger Curio boy rolled his head.

“What would you do with a solid gold Elis Eagle?”

Wiles didn’t bat a lash. His eyes remained twin periscopes over an alien sea. “Shut up, Dickie. You asked me that a thousand times, and I told you the same answer a thousand times: Pops says he wants the big money, not the pickings. We’re Curios; we’re coming back with the Queen or we ain’t coming back at all. Now shut up, Dickie.”

The younger boy let his head roll back. While digesting this thousandth answer for the thousandth time, he noticed a tiny figure run skipping along a ridge and vanish. “Wiley!”

“Shut up, Dickey.”

“But Wiley, you said I was to sing out if I seen something. Well, I seen something, Wiley.”

Wiles rolled onto his stomach. “Talk to me, Dickie.”

Dickie imitated his brother’s posture and pointed. In a minute the little figure again showed against the skyline and disappeared.

“On the other side of that ridge,” Wiles whispered. “We can’t see what’s going on from here.” He rose to his fingers and toes like a sprinter and spat, “Go!” The boys scurried across the field in the manner of commandos, swinging northeast as they ran. They sprawled on their bellies and looked down.

It was a bowl-shaped depression peppered with little structures created of crisscrossed branches and marshpillows. Maybe two dozen royd children were occupied therein, tumbling and climbing and rolling and wrestling.

“Gosh…” Dickie drooled.

“Don’t zone out on me now,” Wiles said. “You know the game plan. Let’s go!” They leaped to their feet and charged.

The royd children, picking up on the sound of running, threw up their arms and scattered.

“Earthboys!” they screamed, “Earthboys!”

The Curios raced along just behind, puffing and cursing; Wiles in the lead, Dickie pulling up the rear. One of the smaller males, a kryml, had been defecating in his sand pile, and was literally caught with his pants down. Wiles hit him running--the two went rolling like a tumbleweed in a gale. By the time Dickie came loping up, Wiles already had the child in a headlock and was vigorously punching his snout. Dickie took the hindlimbs.

“Quit crying!” Wiles snarled. “You’re just gonna make it worse for you. Now stop wailing and tell us what we want to know.”

“Where’s the Queen?” Dickie panted. “Where is she, you little punk?”

“Shut up, Dickie. Where’s the Queen, you little punk? Where is she?” The royd child was screaming out of his mind. “Shut up!” Wiles grabbed the child by his tail and hammered him against the ground like a man beating out a rug. At the same moment there came the sound of an adult calling nearby. “Cripes!” Wiles said. “Let’s get the heck out of here!” Dickie scooped up the child and took off full-tilt, but Wiles caught up and punched him twice on the ear. “No, you moron! Leave him here!” Childless, the boys dashed back the way they came. They scrambled to the other side of the ridge, dropped on their bellies, and watched as a female royd rushed onto the scene and began soothing the wailing kryml.

“Strike one!” Wiles whispered bitterly. He slapped Dickie hard across the face. “When I say ‘run’, that means run! It means the caper’s up, okay? Don’t try to stretch it out.”

An hour later they were watching a different group of royd children, unsupervised like the last, in a very similar setup.

“I’m gonna circle around to the other side,” Wiles explained. “I’ll throw a rock as a signal. That’s your cue to come out like before. But this time I’ll be waiting, and I’ll snag the first little devil what comes running by.” He crept around a boulder and vanished. In a minute Dickie was watching him wriggling snakewise through the underbrush. A stone came zipping by his head. Dickie jumped up and stomped toward the closest children. He chased a whole bunch straight into his brother’s ambush, and when Wiles came out of his crouch he was bowled over by the sheer brunt of their panic. Dickie, grabbing a child in each hand, was unable to control two hysterical forces at once. He ended up on his butt in his brother’s lap, watching the little crowd stampeding to safety.

“Earthboys!” they screamed. “Earthboys!”

Wiles bit his brother’s ear until Dickie howled. “Serves you right!” he shot. “That’s strike two, thanks to you. I should of brought along a dog instead. At least then there’d be two brains working on this.” He smacked Dickie upside the head. “Now think about it: what’s the good of all my cogiplating if you’re just gonna mess things up!”

“Ow,” said Dickie. “You don’t gotta hit me all the time, Wiley.”

“If Pops was here he’d whup you all the way home.”

They were quiet for a time. Finally Dickie said, “That was a playground those kids was in, wasn’t it, Wiley? How come they was doing that? I thought royds wasn’t supposed to play.”

“Something,” Wiles said absently. “Maybe picked it up from watching people.” He stabbed a warning forefinger. “Now this time I want you to get it straight!”

An hour later they were standing in a clearing, not far from a just-observed group of royd children.

“You messed us up for the last time!” Wiles shouted. He kicked Dickie in the shin, bringing down a fist on his crown when the boy bent over. Dickie yelped and curled up in the dirt. “I’ve had it!” Wiles hollered, kicking any soft spots he could reach. “I mean it! I hate your guts!” The louder Dickie cried, the more savagely Wiles responded. Finally Wiles snapped, kicking and punching with a ferocity curtailed only by exhaustion. Dickie retched and wept as Wiley caught his breath. In a minute the older boy yelled, “I’m serious! I disown you! You’re no brother of mine!” and stormed across the clearing and down an embankment.

“Wi--” Dickey sobbed. “Wiles. I’m sorry; really I am. Please, Wiley. Don’t leave me. Wi--” He broke down entirely; a pathetic, heartbreaking pile of pummeled and forsaken humanity. So wrenching were his cries that the hiding royd children poked their heads up one by one in the underbrush.

“I can’t take it,” whispered a wide-eyed knurt. “He’s dying.”

A little Cept shushed him. “Are you crazy? You wanna get beat up too?”

“But the bad boy left,” the knurt insisted.

Dickie howled to the heavens.

“Don’t be a total zobb. He could come back any minute.”

A tiny sprenk leaned her muzzle in between them. “I wanna go.”

Dickie wailed from the bowel.

“I have to go!”

“Maybe we should call someone.”

Dickie flopped up and down and back and forth, shrieking like a banshee in labor.

“I have to go! I mean it!”

“No more,” the knurt boy whined. “I’m gonna try and help him.”

Dickie screamed bloody murder.

“Don’t look, don’t look! I’m going!”

The knurt boy stood up. With his friends whispering urgently behind him, he crept over to blubbering Dickie and leaned down. “Is there--is there anything I can do?”

One eye opened. “My tummy,” Dickie gasped. “I think he broke it.”

The knurt’s face fell. “What should I do?”

Dickie’s expression twisted into one of unbearable suffering. “I…” he tried. “I…oh, please…I…”

“What?” The knurt boy knelt nearer.

“Blubduh,” Dickie coughed. “I…I…I mumsa hebe diwa…”

“What?” The boy turned his head so that his ear was almost on dying Dickie’s mouth.

In one move Dickie threw an arm around the boy’s neck and legs-clutched the midsection in an unbreakable scissors hold. “Wiley!” he howled. “I got him, Wiley, I got him!”

The hiding royd children threw up their arms and ran.

“Earthboys!” they screamed. “Earthboys!”

His brother came stomping across the clearing. With Dickie maintaining his hold, Wiley beat the holy tar out of the child until he was plumb tuckered out. He rocked back on his haunches and wiped his forehead with an arm. “You done good for once, Dickie. Now just conk him on the head and we’ll get on with this. Conk him proper, but don’t break him, you got that?”

The little knurt stared up out of pleading eyes. Dickie grinned into his face, picked up a fist-sized stone, and smashed it on his scaly head. “What should I do now, Wiles?”

“Shut up, Dickie.”

* * *

Although Council Chambers was closed for the weekend, its two highest members were more than happy to be working overtime.

The Elder and Administrator sat at opposing sides of a small, cloth-draped table, like men playing cards. In the center of the table were two tiny piles of cut gems, two tiny piles of cubed metals, and, in the very center, a small weighing scale. They might have been buddies divvying up a dope deal.

Each man’s actions were being covertly overseen by a group known as the Inner Guard--a newly recruited body designed to take over the late Commander’s hush Triad functions. This Inner Guard consisted of four of EarthAd’s biggest, dumbest, and most venal soldiers, sworn to serve up their lives at a moment’s notice to protect the Elder and Administrator. Additionally, they were given vital duties in the interrogation crypt; duties too gruesome for even the seasoned stomachs of their bosses. They took to their tasks with a will, sometimes working deep into the wee hours, savagely competing for the dangled rewards of extra meat, an occasional strumpet, and pretty badges of no value to anyone other than the wearer. They were utterly without sympathy, conscience, or higher aspiration: excellent men to have around. They even spooked their puppet commander.

Now the Elder neatly placed his equal share on a silken black handkerchief. He lifted and pinched the corners, knotted it up with a bit of string, and drew the bundle into the harbor of his arms. He turned to face an Inner Guardsman. “What the hell are you looking at?”

“Half,” the Administrator commented, “has a far nobler ring than third.”

The Elder turned back. “Half…half of what? How many lost nights--calculating the size of a fable…and now that I know the Hoard is real I dare not dream too large.”

“Rumor, hearsay, talk…” the Administrator placed his property in a wooden jewel box. “Fables, my friend, are not without foundation. The Lore of the Hoard concerns not a minor trove--it speaks of an underground mountain of wealth, deposited generation upon generation by countless royds of every species. It speaks of riches inconceivable to those born behind walls.”

“Inconceivable…”

“Save by she who rules over it.”

The Elder drummed his fingernails. “Just so. But good news at any moment…her headquarters are by now certainly stormed, the witch captured, the command on its way back. I’ve been preparing a room for her.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve had the executive suite cleaned out. Just go on with your paperwork and rabble-rousing.”

The Administrator chuckled. “You, sir, are the most persistent man I have ever known. And you shall find the knowledge we require. Why, I will wager that--” He was cut off by footfalls in the Hall.

“Speak of the devil.” The Elder waved aside the Inner Guard.

The acting Guard Commander, still too intimidated to enter directly, knocked meekly and waited.

The Elder’s voice was the crack of a whip. “In!” The end Guardsmen swung open the doors and the new Commander stomped up with due click and wiggle.

The Elder sighed. “At ease. Where’s your prisoner?”

The Commander remained at attention. “Her headquarters at the Maert’n Inn: quickly surrounded and taken, without a single casualty to my command. All royds inside: immediately sequestered in the inn’s kitchen. Those escaping: promptly rounded up and brought in with the rest.”

The Elder smacked down his palm. “Fantastic! And then you thoroughly torched the inn and cremated the bodies.”

Sweat was creeping round the Commander’s hairline. “Actually, sir, we did burn down the building, but the prisoners were not burned with it. The men felt, you know, that with the bounty for royd prisoners still current and all…”

The Elder wagged his head dismally. The Administrator nodded gently, reached out a hand, and patted his forearm. The Elder double-clenched a forefinger. “Bring in their queen.”

Now the Commander was really sweating. “I’d like to, sir, but she was nowhere to be found. I can only assume she was tipped off.”

“Get out of here,” said the Elder.

“There were three pregnant royds taken with the children and adults.”

“Go!”

“Sir!” The Commander did an about-face and marched out.

“You may console yourself,” the Administrator said, “with the knowledge that our map is yet alive. She has certainly relocated, and it will only be a matter of maintaining a vigil on her followers.”

The Elder shifted the precious bundle directly over his heart. “Only one thing will console me.”

* * *

The knurt boy carefully peeped through the one-way shields of his eyelids.

He’d spent the last fifteen minutes exploring his circumstances, using only his inverted periscopic ears and sensitive down-like scales, and knew before looking that he was alone with the resting Curio boys. The eavesdropping was disheartening; he now understood that the brothers were some kind of bounty hunters, that the object of that hunt was an older female royd, and that his potential for attaining adulthood was the equivalent of something called Ten Gold Eagles.

He was in a small aboveground cave, peering at a jagged window of daylight. It was chilly. The Curios were stretched out on either side, staring at nothing in particular. Finally Dickie said, “We can buy us a playground when we get back, huh, Wiles? Do you think Pops’ll go for that?”

Wiles considered him disdainfully. “Aw, you’ll get your danged playground, Dickie. Now just shut up, willya? I’m trying to exercise my thinker here. We’ve got to get going before it’s too dark, and we’ve got to make sure this kid’s on our side.”

“Maybe I should twist his tail? That oughta wake him up.”

“Aw, for the love of--oh, go ahead then.”

The knurt peered out at Dickie’s dully grinning face as long as he could. The instant he felt those clammy hands on his tail his eyes popped open and he cried out.

Immediately Wiles scooted over, his expression intense. “Hey, kid! How ya feeling? Sorry about my dumb brother here--remember; he hit you on the head, not me.” Wiles snarled at Dickie and socked him flush in the eye. “There! That’s for hurting this poor kid, you big stupid! How you expect to make friends like that?” Dickie rolled away, yowling and nursing his swelling eye. Wiles turned back. “Don’t trust him for a minute. If there’s anything you need, or anything you want to tell us about, just talk to me, okay? What’s your name, kid?”

The boy sobbed quietly.

“Well?”

“Fyrtyl--” the boy sniffled, “Fyrtylym.”

“Cool. Well, we’ll just call you ‘Farty’ for short. That’s what friends did way back on Earth--they gave each other neat nicknames, and, doggone it, what was good enough for them is good enough for you. I’m Wiles, and this idiot’s my little brother Dickie. You can call me Wiley, and you can call him anything you want. If he busts you on the head again, you just tell me right away. I know exactly the best place to do him. So-o-o-o-o…Farty! How’s they hangin’, a*****e?”

“I’m…I don’t--”

“That’s an old Earthman expression. It’s how friends talk, and we’re all friends here, right? Aren’t we buddies? Okay. Now, because you’re our friend, we want to cut you in on a straight-up deal that no one else is even close to. The good folks over at EarthAd have set up a special reward for bringing in the queen of royds. They just want to treat her to dinner and a chat. Everybody knows you royds don’t keep secrets from each other--c’mon, Farty, you know where she is. The reward’s all the candy you can eat, right out of our warehouses. How’s about that, Fartster? All you can eat--when’s the last time you ate something you didn’t have to gnaw? Well, let me tell you: melts in your mouth, man, melts in your mouth. So. What do you say?”

“I…um…”

“Take your time.”

“Well, I…um. No.”

Wiley’s fist came at him like a rocket. “You punk! You led me on!” Then both brothers were all over him, beating him into a squealing pile. At last Wiley sat back. “If you don’t wanna listen to reason we’ll have to do this the hard way. But don’t never say we didn’t never give you no chances. Dickie, hold him down good.” Once poor Farty was restrained, Wiley whaled on him until his arms went dead. “Now,” he panted, “are you gonna take us to your queen, or do I have to start all over?”

But the boy was hyperventilating so rapidly he couldn’t get a word out. Dickie sank his teeth into his neck. “Yes!” he screamed. “Yes! I’ll show you, I’ll show you!”

“It’s about time. Now, Dickie’s gonna hang onto you, and I’m gonna walk in front just to make sure there’s no ambushers waiting. When we get there, you can have some candy: that’s a promise, and a Earthman’s word is all they talk about in this here galaxy. But if we don’t find no queen, we’re taking you to meet Pops, and he’ll whoop your sorry royd butt from here to Alpha Centauri. And that’s a promise too. Dickie, stay behind me, and don’t give Fartface too much stretch-room.”

“What about me? Do I get some candy too?”

“Shut up, Dickie. Which way, Farty?”

The boy pointed southeast. He wept as Dickie prodded him along, making enough noise to compel an occasional tail-stomping. They hiked into a deepening twilight; over a bog and fields, and so came to a low line of craggy hills.

“You’re sure this is it?” Wiles said.

“Yes,” Farty whined. “It’s the royd gatherplace. Everybody knows. It’s famous.”

“I don’t see nothing.”

“Caves,” Farty mumbled.

Dickie’s face lit up. “The treasure!”

“Shut up, Dickie. Is this the treasure?”

Farty shook his head.

“Do you know where the treasure is?”

He shook his head again.

“That’s okay,” said Wiles. “Half a million gold Eagles oughta be good enough for now. Show us how to get inside.”

Farty led them to a hidden crevice in the hillside.

The opening was well concealed, but it didn’t matter; there were enough foot/hoof/paw prints to make its location obvious. Once they’d wormed through, they found the hill’s innards highly illuminated by torches and lanterns set into wall niches. The whole hill, like much of the asteroid, was honeycombed. This particular cavern had been further worked to form a vast convention hall, with several corridors leading off into living quarters. The place was packed, and the Curios’ timing impeccable--Emra was poised for one of her many revered mustering speeches.

“Wow!” Wiles whispered “That’s her; I just know it! Oh, man-oh-man-oh-man, if Pops was only here!” They inched through the shadows. There must have been two thousand royds jammed inside, all eyes fixed on their regal leader. Emra’s speech-stage was a squared rock platform, lit all around by torches.

The knurt squealed as Dickie stepped on his tail.

“Dang you!” Wiles whispered, and popped little Farty a good one. “Dickie, you keep him quiet!”

Dickie embraced the boy from behind, clamping a hand on his mouth. The more Farty struggled, the tighter Dickie made his hold.

“She’s gonna give a speech,” Wiles hissed, motioning for the two to keep low. Dickie sank to his rear, pulling Farty’s head down between his knees. He squeezed and squeezed until the boy went into convulsions. Finally Wiles turned around and kicked Farty savagely. When he saw that his brother had suffocated the boy, he kicked Dickie too. “Dang you, Dickie! Having you along is worse than getting grave roach fever! Now let’s go. Just leave him there. Like I told you before; don’t you try to stretch it out!” They crept from hollow to hollow, approaching their quarry in as roundabout a manner as possible. When they were in the crowd’s line of view they got down on their bellies and slithered, a few inches at a time, until they’d reached an eaten-out rock wall almost directly behind the platform. Here it was possible to view Emra in half-profile, through a narrow ragged aperture now serving the brothers as a peephole.

“Half a million Eagles!” Wiles marveled.

“That’s a lot of candy.”

“Shut up, Dickie.”

“‘The Great Royd Coalition’,” Emra intoned. “A noble title for a great people--a great people who were once scattered tribes with allegiances to nothing higher than their base appetites. I actually see this war, this outrage, as a boon. It has wakened us, and determined us to make the sum greater than its parts.

“We are becoming organized: we have built us a chain of command. In the matter of personnel, we outnumber the Earthmen a thousand to one. But we are no army; we don’t possess their training, their arsenal, their technology, or their fortifications. What we do have is diversification. We have many abilities, imported from many worlds, that must seem altogether strange to the army of EarthAd, and this will be to our advantage. Tonight I want you to pay close attention to our field commander, Mhendu, who will describe plans for an assault on the walls and fences of Earth Administration, and for an ordered internal takeover once those walls and fences have been breached. Every one of our unique abilities will be of paramount importance, so please listen attentively. Mhendu?”

A strapping royd stepped up on the platform, bowed to his queen, and turned to address the crowd. Emra had chosen well; every aspect of his appearance and manner radiated trust and command. The Queen stepped to the wings, so to speak, and watched from the partial cover of a perforated half-column.

“Jeez!” Wiles hissed. “Would you look at that? She’s close enough to put in my pocket.”

“What you want me to do, Wiley? You want I should conk her?”

“Shut up, Dickie. What I want you to do is conk her. But this time I don’t want you to just hit and run. Can you handle all that information? Do stretch it out this time. Conk her, grab her, and sprint like Pops is after you. I’ll be way up ahead, making sure the coast is clear.” He took off, running almost soundlessly on his hands and knees.

Dickie selected a rock and snuck up on the Queen with one arm outstretched and his back scraping the wall. When he was inches from exposing himself to the light, he drew back his arm, pulled himself up to striking distance, and almost knocked her head off.

There were gasps and shouts from the audience. Dickie scooped up the little queen and lurched along the wall, burst through a fence of startled royds, and scrambled back up the way they’d come, bashing her up and down as he went. In a minute he saw Wiles waving frantically. Snarling and gnashing, Dickie dragged the queen from one foothold to the next while mobs of mortified royds formed in his wake. When he reached his brother he handed over an arm and a leg, and together they swung her through the opening.

With their precious cargo manhandled into a workable bundle, the Curios leaped out and raced through the dark like rats.

* * *

“Begging your pardon.”

The dirty unshaven man stank of cheap bourbon, old sweat, and homemade deodorant.

The First Hall Guardsman ignored the newcomer completely, but his dead-steady eyes burned into those of Number Two, facing him directly across the Grand Hall.

“Name’s Archibald Curio,” the dirty man said. “I believe I have a ’pointment with anyone in the Council, the higher the better.” He leaned in and whispered, “It’s about the reward. You know, the Big One.”

The Guardsman’s professional stare remained unbroken. Curio followed his gaze across the Hall to Number Two. His own eyes narrowed. He looked one to the other, then quietly turned and tiptoed over to Number Two.

“Begging your pardon. Name’s Archie Curio. I come to collect my reward money, and I might be peculiarly generous to anyone wants to, let’s say, help pave my way.”

The Hall was silent as a tomb.

Curio’s eyes shot back and forth down the twin lines of rigid sentinels. He silently crept back to the great open arch, went into a crouch, and signaled furiously to his waiting sons. The boys picked up what looked like a knotted body bag. Fighting for lead position, they dragged it up the final flight of steps, banging the sagging center all the way. When they reached Pops they dropped the whole bundle outright. All three went into a huddle.

Wiles popped his head up and down. “What’s with them?” he whispered.

“I dunno,” said Pops. “Seem to be under some kind of spell.”

“Spooky.”

“Shut up, Dickie.”

“Don’t rile ’em!” Pops warned. “Keep cool and nonchylant. Act like you does this ever day, and we just might pull it off. Now pick her back up and don’t drop her back down!”

The boys heaved the bundle to their shoulders and walked two paces behind their father, who smiled and nodded personably to each passed Guardsman.

Their greeting at the Chambers archway was not so static--here the four burly members of the Inner Guard swung to block their entrance with crossed rifles.

“Good mornings, sirs,” Pops said affably, “and begging your pardons. Me and me boys here would like a word with your boss or bosses, as it were, concerning a matter of the highermost importance.”

“Council Chambers,” boomed one Guardsman, “is closed to all but official business.”

Curio bowed to the waist. “Well, I’ll be begging your pardons again, sirs, but this is busyness of the most official nature. It respects a present we’ll be bringing to the High Council Hisself, and it respects half a million Eagles what’ll be coming right to my person straight and proper.”

“The Council is in Session,” rumbled the Guardsman. “Leave.”

“I’m bringing ’em the Queen!”

“Get out of here!”

“The Queen!” Pops called. “I gots the Queen!”

“Shut up, you!” The two end Guardsmen made to close the huge double doors.

“Queen!” Pops screamed. “Queen! Queen! I gots the Queen!”

There was a bustle behind the Guardsmen. “What’s that?” called an elderly voice. “Out of the way, you lummoxes. Who said something about a queen?”

The Inner Guard parted.

The Council Elder peered out; scarier than Pops and the boys had ever imagined.

“The reward,” Pops fumbled. “The bounty money.”

“Yes, yes,” the Elder fumed. “Yes?”

“Here!”

Pops smacked Wiles, who smacked Dickie, who immediately untied the lead knot and lifted the rear so that Emra slid out headfirst.

The Elder grabbed the doors and hollered, “Guards forward!” Those Hall Guards caught peeking instantly faced their counterparts. He gestured irritably. “In, damn you! Drag her in!”

The brothers did so. Pops waltzed around the big room alone, wringing his hands. The Administrator watched closely.

“Lock the doors, you idiots!”

The Inner Guard obeyed with robotic precision.

The Administrator joined the Elder beside the unconscious Royd Queen. Pops and the boys squeezed into the huddle.

“Looks good, don’t she?” Pops tried. “Hard to keep her fresh as you might like, being as we had to tote her halfway across the grounds and all, but I’d say, all being done and fair and all, that we upkept our part of the bargain.”

“Bargain?” The Elder cocked his head, as though noticing him for the first time. “Oh yes. You’re making your claim.”

“That I am, sir, and that we are!” Pops draped an arm around either son and smiled humbly.

“Oh, you’ll get your reward, all right,” the Elder said. “Guard! Take these three gentlemen downstairs for their reward.” He handed the head Guardsman the crypt’s keys. “Make sure they feel right at home.”

Still embracing his sons by their shoulders, Pops was escorted across the room to the secret stairwell. As the Guardsman worked the key in the lock, Pops looked back and smiled uncertainly. The Elder returned the smile and nodded. The Inner Guard ushered them through and locked the door behind them.

The Elder and Administrator bent to their task. “She must have air,” said the Administrator, fanning Emra’s puckered face. “Those buffoons nearly suffocated her.”

“She’ll live.” The Elder stepped to his desk and brought back a glass half-filled with water.

“Do not splash it!” the Administrator warned. “A little on the lips, and by degrees on the tongue.”

“In we go.”

Emra’s mouth contorted at the water’s kiss. Her expression twisted and her head slowly lifted from the floor. The men brought her round with staggered applications of irrigation and ventilation, eased her to a sitting position, helped her to her feet. They walked her twice around the room before making her comfortable on a bench seat.

The Elder pouted. “Let’s get some ice on that lump.” He cracked the doors, spoke a few words, and a minute later came back with a full ice bag in a little wooden bowl. The Administrator applied the bag to Dickie’s handiwork, clucking all the while.

The Elder leaned back on a bench, his hands folded against his lap. “Well, then. Our little war’s first casualty. In you come. Out you go. In you come…really, Madame Queen, maybe for once you’d like to just hang a while.”

Emra fought her spinning head. Her lips peeled apart. “I find your accommodations…wanting.”

“You haven’t seen the whole floor plan. I’m hoping you’ll find the basement particularly enchanting.” He sat squarely on the bench. “Now let’s get down to business. No one is interested in your silly war, though, I must say, I certainly admire your pluck. Perhaps your world’s ancestors and mine existed in a state of concordance, in philosophical equipoise, ah, so very long ago. Tell you what, Emra, if your cause is so central to your being, we’ll sign any accord you wish. I’m ready to turn over the keys to the whole damned city, right now, for directions to that one place central to my being.”

“The entire Hoard,” Emra retorted, “would be entirely valueless without that ‘whole damned city’.”

“Where is the treasure, Queen? You must understand that you will tell us, one way or another, sooner or later. Visualize these words ‘sooner’ and ‘later’ as opposite ends of a pain endurance scale. The sooner you divulge the treasure’s whereabouts, the less agony you will be obliged to withstand. Speak it now, and you are free to go, with our blessings. There is absolutely no point in needless suffering. How do you serve your people as a martyr?”

“How do you serve yours, as a tyrant?”

“Bah! ‘My people’ wouldn’t live--no, not for a minute; not like these maggots! ‘My people’ dance on stars and neon.”

“Interesting,” said the Administrator.

The Elder shot him a glance. “Help me with her. Take an arm.”

Emra put up no resistance as they escorted her to the stairwell; she was a bitty thing gripped by two determined men, and her head injury was playing tug o’ war with her equilibrium. The small party of three passed the ascending Guard on the steps. The Elder flicked a cursory salute. All four Guardsmen, sweaty and disheveled, flattened against the wall to make way. Just inside the crypt proper were the waiting Curios. The Guard, using shelved carpenters’ tools, had nailed Pops and the boys to a set of standing wood I-beams; by the fingers, by the toes, by the ankles and wrists. They shuddered like icicles in the sun.

“We’ve taken the liberty,” the Elder explained offhandedly, “of admonishing your kidnappers for you.”

Emra almost heaved at the horror sprawling throughout that room: dozens of dead and dying, torn and strung on every cruel device imaginable.

The Elder swung open the main cell containing the enormous iron meat hook. “Only recently vacated,” he apologized. The stench of death and suffering was overpowering. “He was one tough lizard, I’ll give him that; didn’t leave us a clue.” He waved an arm around the room. “As well as the rest of your kind. Now, Royd Queen, you can spare your subjects needless suffering by just being up front with us. Believe me, I possess the tenacity to squeeze every living royd on this asteroid until the last is wrung dry.”

“I believe you.”

“Get in there.” He and the Administrator each took an arm and walked her back. The Administrator tied her hands and pulled the hook down to just above her wrists. The Elder grabbed her dress at the throat, said, “Pardon me,” and ripped it to her knees. “Now--where is the treasure, Queen?”

* * *

No getting around it: war fever had definitely left the cavern. The crowd, made numb by their loss, seemed to be taking the bad and the ignominious as their due.

Mhendu’s abashed investigative party laid it down plain--the Queen had indeed been abducted from right under their noses, and a knurt child murdered in that very cavern. What was considered a secret fortress had in fact been breached by a pair of dysfunctional human children. Their trail was followed two miles through the fields and bogs, and no one was less surprised than Mhendu to find it led straight to West Gate.

Once the royds were out in the open air--milling without direction, seeing each other as useless victims--the hard truth of their passivity sank in, and from that shameful realization erupted an outrage held in check for years. The vanguard aspect of the Queen’s battle plan--all they had to go by--became the blueprint for her rescue. Suddenly they were in no mood for tomorrow. Mhendu, now de facto Coalition Commander, realized he had to lead immediately or risk everything in a general rush--archers and marksmen were already mounted by the time he’d ridden a wave of passion to his own steed. A dizzying rally, a mustering of locals and vagrants, and then they were off as an unruly force, carrying torches and spears, clubs and slings, any old weapons they could improvise. The mob hurried down the beaten way to Administration, all their old rivalries now far outweighed by their common hatred for humans.

And it was in this spirit that they broke as a unit upon the broad haze of Earth Administration, prepared to do in one clean sweep what should have been accomplished time out of mind before.

* * *

The Elder’s personal enthusiasm for the technological could at times be a real threat to his professionalism. But guys do love their gadgets. “The beauty of this device,” he told Emra, “is that it works on a notched pulley system. By that I mean it can be regulated so as to raise the hook itself, one inch per application, by pressing down on this lever.” He demonstrated with a single gentle depression, nonchalantly observing her controlled grimace. There came a clean click as the first tooth found a notch. “As your body becomes suspended, more strength must be applied to the lever to meet the additional strain. Eventually this chiseled iron tip will split your cervical vertebrae--assuming royds are thus equipped--causing exquisite torment to radiate throughout your central nervous system. The tip will then enter your midbrain and work its way, very slowly, through the gray matter itself. I’ve no idea what outrageous effect that will have, but I can guarantee you the Administrator here will be taking notes. Where is the treasure, Queen?”

“Why are--” she grated, “why are Earthmen so infatuated with the possessions of others?”

“Y’know,” the Elder said ruminatively, and he gave the lever another press, “I’ve actually given that considerable thought. There’s a vast compendium of digitized literature describing the history of Earth, including the biographies of her many movers and shakers. And all my research indicates a persuasion of single-minded covetousness in those born to lead.”

The Administrator raised an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

“Absolutely. There were great men--Atilla, Croessus, Nero--men who risked everything and stopped at nothing. Additionally, there were specimens capable of tremendous undertakings. Alexander the Great, for example, the namesake of one of our minor coins, razed cities and massacred whole populations. A fellow named Hitler nearly extinguished an entire race. Calhoun, Eighth Emperor of the Outer Giants, sold half the Martian Third Wave into slavery--then blamed their disappearance on a dynastic rival! McMillan, using only sixty-two regiments of kidnapped mothers and their explosives-wired children, was able to--are we getting light-footed yet, Emra? How do we reach the Royd Hoard?” His fingertips danced on the lever, sending augers of torment up her spine.

In her quivering squeals’ echoes, the Administrator said, very quietly:

“I believe it was actually the Fourth Martian Wave.”

The Elder froze. He didn’t budge for an excruciating half-minute. Then his head turned slowly, an inch at a time, until he was looking the Administrator dead in the eyes. A peculiar breed of animal electricity arced between the two, powered by the sudden shared realization of each man’s sneaking rendezvous with knowledge--knowledge they both understood to be the ultimate key to mastery over their backwater world. Little by little, the Elder’s grim frown worked its way into a savvy smile. The Administrator offered his arm. The Elder clasped it in their private salute. No more need be said. The Elder returned to his pupil.

“This notch should be the one that gets your attention. Ah! I see your pointy little toes have begun to twinkle. Not long now, and you’ll be virtually airborne. Where is the treasure?”

Emra’s scrunched expression fought to relax. Her pinched eyelids opened and she shook her head.

“Where!” The Elder pounded down on the lever. “Where? Where! Where, where, where!”

Now the little royd queen was hanging six inches off the stone floor, flapping like a fish out of water. The Administrator placed a hand on the Elder’s shoulder. “You will go too far!” He stepped out the open gate and returned with a coiled horsewhip. The Administrator tested it against the cell’s bars and stepped back. “Now.”

The Elder hurled a bucket of water on the prisoner and moved aside. The Administrator gave a tentative snap to the forehead before really laying into her. When her hide was raw and bleeding, he crouched to catch his breath. The Elder stepped over curiously.

“Emra? Queen?” He moved his ear close to her mouth and listened a bit before turning to the Administrator and nodding. The Administrator composed himself while the Elder went for another bucket of water. When he’d returned and the water was poised for hurling, the Administrator nodded back and grunted,

“Now.”

* * *

By the time the Coalition reached the stony ring surrounding Earth Administration they’d come to resemble a genuine fighting force. The approach was essentially a broad phalanx, with Mhendu and selected representatives of each species at the center fore. Archers rode the green-spotted plains ponies in identical groupings left and right, while sharpshooters on larger mounts wove in and out of the Coalition’s midst. There were, additionally, makeshift battering rams for the Gate and an assortment of ladders and grappling hooks. But the Coalition was more than a simple medieval assault operation--its real genius lay in its broad extraterrestrial prowess:

The whoopseem are a clambering species; it was their job to scramble up the walls once the actual battle for West Gate was in progress. Tumtams are known to withstand a dozen rounds off a medium-bore rifle and still retain the energy to take down an opponent. They were to be the first wave once the fortress was breached. The Rauna, mentioned earlier, are precognitive; as sensitives, they’d never been tested in an electric situation such as battle, but Mhendu figured they just might prove an ace up the sleeve. And zobbs are always good for shields and general-purpose projectiles.

It was now a black, black night. West Gate’s main searchlight played back and forth over the advancing army, bright floods burned round the base of the fortress wall. Along the bulwarks scurried crouching soldiers. Marksmen knelt every fifteen feet. The Coalition vanguard was restrained by Mhendu at its head; he was still going for an opening gambit of diplomacy-over-gauntlet. Torch in one hand and spear in the other, he paced his horse ahead and called out for the immediate release of the Royd Queen.

In a minute the soldiers atop the bulwark shouldered their rifles and stepped back.

There was a confused exchange beyond the searchlight’s pool. The Council Elder parted the standing Gate Guard, moved up to the parapet, and threw wide his black-cloaked arms. He appeared very energetic and commanding for such a scrawny old man, and his voice, while it may have piped during Chambers outbursts, carried well in the night. He used his Reaper-like mien to his immediate advantage--seizing a light and turning it upwards under his chin, lending his face a quick Halloween countenance.

“Don’t you freaks know how to petition? Can’t you voice your demands by emissary? Can’t you produce some legitimate evidence before you stampede all over the place with your specious claims? Watch how we work once in a while. You might learn something.”

“We,” Mhendu called, “come seeking the release of our Queen. We don’t need an emissary, and we have all the necessary proof as to her abduction and whereabouts. You are in no position to be critical. Open this gate or we’ll open it for you.”

“Freaks,” the Elder repeated. “Freaks and one-eyed fools. Ah--but what is a circus without an act that’ll wow ’em in the aisles? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Amazing Emra, High-Wire Queen.” And with that he stepped aside and motioned furiously to a glare-obscured team. A long pole, festooned with multi-colored streamers, peppered with burning brands, and guided by four strong men, peeked over the bulwark. The Elder himself commandeered the searchlight to illuminate the spectacle.

Gleaming in the light was Emra’s flayed and naked body, hung dangling by the feet, torn practically in half from the small of the back to the rear of the skull.

The whole Coalition gasped as one. Mhendu fought for voice. “You…you are--”

The Elder nodded. “Indeed I am.” With a savage kick he booted the pole out of the guards’ hands. The entire apparatus, dead queen and all, plummeted spiraling to the ground and crashed in a mini-explosion of twisted streamers and billowing sparks.