Chapter one

One intriguing fact about young Veda was her incredible ability to discard her clothing at the slightest opportunity. Here we were, fleeing for our lives through the twilight streets of Prebaya. She’d put on the clothes we’d borrowed during our escape from the temple. Now she ripped off and flung the skirt aside impatiently.

“Run better.” She spoke curtly, sensibly saving her breath for running.

A few steps abaft, I bent and snatched the skirt up as I ran. Her long bare legs looked splendid in the last of the suns’ radiance; skirts to cover them might not be so easily found later on.

The mob baying at our heels by this time had attracted all manner of riff-raff. The Katakis leading the pursuit might be hated and abhorred by most folk; the mob could sense blood and fun and so joined in the chase. Unless we outdistanced them or found a safe refuge we’d be done for.

We’d crossed the river by one of the many bridges and were now entering the aracloins where deviltry was a way of life among the narrow crooked streets. The smells of sour wine, of ancient cooking, of the sewers that were mostly above ground, assaulted our nostrils. The twin suns slanted down the sky and the mingled ruby and emerald shadows lay long. The evening’s entertainments were beginning.

Leaping a festering gutter, Veda sprinted on and then at the junction of three alleyways halted. Grimy buildings leaned each side, lamps already throwing pools of yellow radiance into the red and green tinged shadows. Noise spurted up from a tavern on one side, and music sounded across the alley. Veda, poised, looked about.

Well, she knew this city far better than did I. She must know where she intended to go. From our rear the dull roaring of the mob neared.

The tavern door swung open spilling orange light. A fellow reeled out, checked himself, straightened up, saw Veda.

Already this early in the evening his breath reeked of the devil drink dopa. His bulbous nose glowed, hair sprouted from under a flat leather cap, his clothes were grease-stained. He lurched towards Veda.

“My lovely!” he croaked. “You’re mine. Come here!”

What he must have thought, seeing a superlatively beautiful girl just standing, poised, as though waiting for him, is anybody’s guess. Those legs of Veda’s, alone, must have dizzied him with lust.

He reached for her.

Oh, well, I said to myself, you might feel sorry for the idiot drunk; but we can’t hang about here. We’ve a mob chasing us. I took a step forward ready to drag him off.

I needn’t have bothered.

Veda’s toes were very hard. Her legs were long and muscled. She kicked. She put those pretty iron-hard toes where they would do the most good.

Myself, I think the drunk felt more surprise than any other emotion. He just let out a: “Zhunk!” stood for a moment like a gate hit by a battering ram, and then he quietly doubled up and rolled over onto his side.

Here in Balintol we were nearer to the equator than was Vallia and so the Suns of Scorpio descended rapidly and the twilight did not last