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rearrange ourselves for our flight back to Hiclantung.
Seg was very quiet.
He did say, savagely: I would have welcomed an opposition back there. We need a fight, Dray.
Aye, I said. And let it lie there.
I did not believe my Delia was dead. Not after all we had been through. Only when I held Umgar Stro s
throat in my fists and choked the truth from him would I believe. And, even then, even then, I would go
on hoping. . .
Chapter Fourteen
It is my Dray! My Dray Prescot you covet!
One of the strange and, if the truth be told, weird, aspects of the Wizards of Loh was revealed in that
grove of tuffa trees as we rested our corths and rearranged our flight program. Lu-si-Yuong, without a
word of explanation to Seg or myself, squatted himself down on the ground in the pinkish light from the
twin moons, composed himself and, lifting his veined hands to his eyes, threw his head back and so
remained still and silent and unmoving.
Seg whispered: I think, Dray, he is in lupu.
Oh? I really hardly cared.
Yes. They say the Wizards of Loh can see into the future
A simple story for simple minds. The credulous will believe any mumbo jumbo and it puts a copper into
the hands of clever tricksters.
Seg glanced obliquely at me, his mouth open. He shut his mouth, and looked back at Yuong, and did not
say what he so clearly thought. I had a mind to speak more kindly toward him, for he was of Loh, but I
forbore. Delia! I remembered my anguish when among the tents and the wagons and chunkrah herds of
the Clansmen of Felschraung I had heard my Delia was dead, and I recalled my determination to remain
alive and fighting strong so that if, as I truly believed, she was not dead, I would be able to render her
what aid I could. Now, as the Wizard of Loh went through his mumbo jumbo I made the same solemn
vow.
Quietly, I said to Seg: I came away from the tower tonight, Seg, for there were reasons why I should
do so. I cannot believe that Delia is truly dead. I shall go on until I find Umgar Stro, wherever he may be.
I think he was lucky not to be home tonight, and yet more unfortunate, too.
How is that, dom? asked Seg in a neutral voice.
I would have killed him tonight, stone dead. But if it takes me long to find him then there will be that
amount more time in which to store resentment, and to think of ways of making him talk and pay!
Seg turned his eyes away from my face.
Lu-si-Yuong began to tremble. His thin shoulders shook and over all his scrawny body beneath the rags
he shuddered and then he began slowly to draw his palms from before his eyes. His eyeballs were rolled
up, displaying the whites like a bird-befouled marble statue s, and his breathing had practically ceased.
Lupu, I said. Is that it?
Aye, Dray, that is being in lupu. He is having visions. Who can tell where his mind is wandering now
Get a grip on yourself, Seg!
All the fey characteristics of his race predominated in Seg Segutorio now, all the dark and hidden lore in
his native hills of Erthyrdrin pulsed and answered the weirdness of this old man, this San, this Wizard of
Loh.
As the streaming pink moons-light fell upon that gaunt upturned face and turned those blind eyes into
cracked yellow pits I looked about the grove of tuffa trees and at the three corths uneasily picking and
pecking their feathers, and I, Dray Prescot of Earth, wondered at the faces of Kregen I had not yet seen.
A gargling cry wailed from Yuong. His trembling ceased. Unsteadily, waveringly, he tottered to his feet.
He opened his arms wide, the fingers rigid and outspread. Like some blasphemous cross he gyrated, like
a cyclone-torn scarecrow, like a whirling dervish in the last stages of exhaustion. Then, as abruptly as he
had begun, he sank down, resumed his contemplative position, and so lowered his hands flat to the
ground and opened his eyes and looked on us.
And have you looked into the future, old man? I said.
Dray! Seg s outraged cry affected me not at all.
San Yuong looked at me. I think, even then, he did not know how to size me up or to read me in the
context of those people with whom he was accustomed to deal. I do know now, and admit it with only
the slightest diffidence, that I must have been in a state of shock still, and hardly recking of what I did or
said. In any event Yuong decided to treat me with caution. For this I was later duly grateful; at the time I
merely remarked to myself that I must be wearing that old devil s mask of a face again and joying in it,
Zair help me, joying in my pain.
The future does not concern me at this moment, my friend. I shall thank you properly for rescuing me at
a suitable time. What I have been discovering is how I will be received by Queen Lilah
She does not blame you for the defeat of her army in the massacre, I said. At least, she did not
mention you in that context or at all.
She would not.
What have you discovered, San? asked Seg.
The Queen will need my guidance and advice in what is to come. But she was cold distant and cold.
There is a woman, another woman, they have fought bitterly
Thelda! exclaimed Seg. He stared at me in dismay.
I was intrigued. Could this old man in some way have seen what was even now happening in Hiclantung?
Impossible! But, remember, then I was young and new to the ways of Kregen and especially to the wiles
of the Wizards of Loh.
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