A Sword for Kregen Read Online Free Page B

emotion called gratitude. It has its uses.”
    “By Vox,” I said, “d’you have ice water in your veins?”
    Even as I spoke I wondered if they had veins at all. I was not unmindful of the enormous risks I ran. These were the beings who had brought me here and who could banish me back to Earth. They had done so before now, to punish me, and on one occasion I had spent twenty-one miserable years on Earth. I was not likely to forget that.
    The next words shocked me, shocked me profoundly — although they should not have done.
    “We,” said the Star Lord, “were once as human as you.”
    Well, now... .
    This bizarre conversation with superhuman beings had lulled me into a false idea of my position. With genuine and I may add fervent interest I asked the question that had long burned in me, gradually losing its intensity in my realization that the Everoinye, being superhuman, had no need to care over my welfare.
    “Why, Star Lords? Why have you summoned me? Why have you demanded I save certain people? Where is the sense in it all?”
    With lightning-strokes of rippling crimson bursting through the blue radiance, I was rapidly reminded of my true position and disabused of the notion that I might speak with impunity to the Everoinye.
    “What we do we do. Our reasons are beyond your understanding. The Gdoinye carries our orders. We speak with you only because you have served faithfully and well. There is another task set to your hand. We will apprise you nearer the time. The warning you now receive is in earnest of our benign intentions toward you.”
    If I say I found it extraordinarily difficult to swallow I think you will understand me.
    Yet I could not in all caution make the kind of impudent and insulting reply I would surely have hurled at the Gdoinye as he whirled about me on flashing wings, all scarlet and gold, superb, a hunting bird of the air. So, instead, I took a different tack.
    “Very well, Star Lords. You seem to be implying a compact between us and one I will honor if you honor it also. I will do your bidding and rescue the people you wish saved. Although,” I added, and not without resentment, “I might take exception to your habit of plunking me down naked and unarmed—”
    “This we do for reasons beyond—”
    “Yes. As a mere mortal I cannot be expected to understand.”
    Then I hauled myself up to standing. Softly softly! I dare not infuriate these unknown powers or I would find myself banished back to Earth. And Vallia called. And — Delia...
    What had happened to Ahrinye I never knew nor cared. But the greenness withered and died, and the blueness of the Scorpion faded. The crimson washed all over my vision, there in the sickroom, and I looked in vain for the mellow flood of pure yellow light that would herald the presence of Zena Iztar. That the Star Lords respected her powers I knew. Just what the relationship was I did not know. But Zena Iztar, I fervently believed, worked for other ends than those sought by either the Star Lords or the Savanti, and they were ends, I fancied, that we Kroveres would find most congenial.
    There in that close room the sense of the infinite moving about me dizzied my senses anew. The thin whispering voice attenuated as though withdrawing across the vasty gulfs of space itself.
    “Go about your business in Vallia, mortal. But when you receive our call — be ready!”
    With an abruptness that left me sprawling blinking and still dizzied on the bed, the blueness returned, the crimson vanished, the Scorpion faded and, with a final swirl as of the wings of fate closing, the blueness dimmed and was gone.
    Despite my feeling of physical well-being I felt like a stranded flatfish.
    Momentous events had passed, of that I felt sure. Never before had such a conversation been held between the Star Lords and myself and, guessing they did nothing without good reason, I wondered what the reason could be. It would take a little time before I got over this little lot.
    Then