Vikings of Scorpio

I began working with Sygar regularly, as often as I could. The first order of business was to establish mutual communication; I had to learn Kregish, and he English. We spent the next couple of weeks working together, learning each other's languages. I had a distinct advantage, having the Dray Prescot books to draw upon for vocabulary.

The hospital began operating under the notion that Sygar was a delusional who thought he was a character from the books. However, gradually I realized that there had to be more to it than that; his language was too complex and detailed for him to have simply made up the words that he did not know from the novels. Little differences began to occur to me about the Kregish language, and I started to realize that if he did invent the language, he did not simply create Kregish words for English ones; rather many of the Kregish words he taught me have no direct equivalent in English, and vice versa.

The hospital staff, particularly Dr. Mortenhoe, who was supervising the case, assumed that this meant that Sygar was extremely intelligent; that his creation of the Kregish tongue indicated a certain genius. But while Sygar did seem intelligent to me, he did not exactly come across as Einstein.

While the hospital officials were unsure as to whether I was helping Sygar, on the grounds that I might be "reinforcing his delusion", ultimately they began to give me a freer rein with Sygar, because after starting to talk to Sygar the violent incidents involving him shrank to virtually nil. Although I may not have been helping him psychologically, it certainly gave the hospital a great deal less headaches. This especially became the case when I was able to explain to Sygar that the reason he was in the hospital was that they thought he was "makib", which is Kregish for "mad" (though interestingly I discovered that the derivation is from an idiom; translated literally it means "black soul").

Gradually we reached the stage where some sort of communication became possible. Our speech became aggravating for others to follow, since we drifted back and forth from English to Kregish seemingly at random; the patchy vocabulary we had acquired of one another's language required us to improvise heavily. But I was able to begin to get a picture of just what had transpired to bring Sygar here.

Sygar had claimed to have been on Kregen when he was caught up in a glowing blue mist. He found himself in the stairwell of the building where he had killed the two businessmen. Apparently, the teleportation effect that brought him here was one he was familiar with; it had occurred to him on several occasions prior to this one. Since this is a typical motif in the Saga of Dray Prescot, I took this in stride; Dray Prescot is repeatedly teleported by powerful aliens into yet another adventure. However, he wasn't expecting to end up where he ultimately found himself.

He was naked. Everything seemed strange; the odd lights hurt his eyes; the walls were made of some sort of strange seamless stone, and seamless metal rails were at the edge of each stair. There were doors with strange markings on them. He looked down and up, and it seemed that the stairs went on forever. Was he underground?

He heard the sound of a woman's scream far below, and the laughter of some men. Even though they were speaking in a foreign language, he understood what must have been happening. Well, at least he knew what it was he was supposed to do here. He crept down the stairs slowly, looking about for some sort of weapon. Soon he found a glass-faced panel with red-painted edges in the wall, with a number of strange things inside; metal piping, bolts of some sort of canvas, and so on. But the one thing that he did recognize was an axe.

It seemed to him to be more like a wood axe than a proper war axe; it was heavy and a little unwieldy, though it was of very sturdy make. It was not very sharp, but sharp enough.

Quickly but quietly he continued down the stairs, until he was able to peer around a corner and see the situation clearly. Three men dressed in strange clothing were harassing a woman who was also dressed in similar clothing. She was backed up against the wall, and the three men had her surrounded. Her clothes were torn, and the men were pawing at her and talking to her in derisive tones. Sygar knew that the men were warming themselves up to the task of assaulting the woman, and it was only a matter of time before they did so.

Wasting no time, with a "Hai!" Sygar roared down the stairs swinging his axe. I can only imagine what the three men thought when presented by a hairy naked man swinging an axe. According to Sygar, one of the men ducked out of the way, while the other two just stood and goggled. That was the end of the first one, who took a backhand swing of the axe in the face. His head crunched against the wall, and practically exploded. The axe also embedded itself in the wall. The girl screamed and covered her face with her hands.

The man who had ducked lunged at Sygar, tackling him. Sygar remembers that the man smelled very strange, like some kind of perfume. Sygar kneed him in the groin and threw him onto the stairs. He punched him in the face a few times, and heard the cracking of bones in the man's face. He got up and wrenched the axe out of the wall. The third man was still just standing there, while the woman was now huddled in the corner, sobbing. Sygar turned to the man on the floor, who was now struggling to rise. He hefted his axe and swung downwards. The man attempted to roll out of the way; the axe caught him in the side. The man screamed. Sygar hefted the axe again; the man raised his arms to cover his face, and then there was a sound like a thunderclap.

It was very loud, and echoed throughout the stairwell over and over again. Sygar's first thought was sorcery. He felt a burning sensation on his left thigh, and the air reeked of brimstone. With an ugly grimace, he brought the axe down on the man on the floor. Perhaps the man was making some sort of arcane symbol with his hands; who knows. Either way, Sygar could not allow him to continue; the first stroke bit into the man's chest, and there was a splintering sound as the man's ribs cracked. He struck again, and again; the man's arms no longer protected his face, so Sygar clove in his skull.

He stood up, trembling; his stomach was in knots. He was letting himself go berserk, and knew that he did not need to do so and could not afford to do so in such a strange place. He looked across at the third man, who was still standing there with a frightened look on his face. Only now the man was holding a shiny metal object before him; he held it with two hands as if it were some sort of talisman, and Sygar were some sort of demon who could be warded away.

Only then he realized that the talisman the man held had a hole in the end that was oozing smoke, and the man was trembling all over. Sygar realized that this man must have been the sorcerer, and clearly his attempt to cast a spell had drained him greatly. As Sygar straightened himself out and glared at the third man, the man began jabbering away nervously. Sygar still didn't understand the man's language, but it dawned upon him that this might be some sort of secret sorcerer's tongue; perhaps the scene he stumbled upon was not some sordid rape scene but instead was something even more sinister; some kind of ritual magic that required an unwilling victim.

Whatever it was that the man was saying, Sygar certainly wasn't about to let the man cast another spell. Sygar threw the axe, and the man raised his arms, shielding his head. The axe bit into the man's arm, and he stumbled back, dropping the talisman on the floor. The man fell down the flight of stairs, coming to rest at the next landing. He sat up, holding his wounded arm; blood was already seeping out though his thick clothes. Sygar casually picked up the axe and stood at the top of the stair; the third man looked at the talisman for a moment, which was clearly out of reach. He then bolted down the stairs.

Sygar let him go. No sense picking a fight with a sorcerer. He turned to the girl. She was still trembling, and looking at him with wide eyes. He approached her, saying that everything was all right now. She shrank against the wall, and gave out a pitiful little cry. Sygar stopped. He looked at himself; here he was, a naked hairy man, covered in blood and holding an axe smeared with gore. Of course the woman was afraid. He put down the axe and tried to speak softly to the woman. Her eyes glanced about, and fell on a small bag on the floor that looked like it was made of chunkrah-hide. She scuttled over to the bag, and began rummaging through it, ignoring Sygar. Sygar was a little mystified, but is seemed that she could not understand him either.

She produced a small object out of the bag, which she held before her; another talisman, it seemed. Sygar wondered why she hadn't used it on the three men, and decided that it couldn't have been much of a threat. He continued to try to reassure her, using calm soft words, and she began replying with more frantic jabbering. He held up his hands before him, and took a step forward, trying to be as non-threatening as possible; suddenly his head was shrouded in a cloud of stinging fog.

It burned! Sygar shouted and covered his eyes; it felt like she had just sprayed acid on his face. He staggered back, choking, and he could hear the sound of the woman running up the stairs. Perhaps she was a sorcerer too. His eyes burned; not knowing what to do, he rubbed them, but that seemed to just make it worse. He fumbled with the door handle, trying to get clear of the stairwell, but it seemed to be locked. A few quick blows to the hinges with the axe and the door was hanging open awkwardly. He stumbled into the room beyond.

The sight that met his stinging eyes filled him with dismay; he emerged into a room filled with strange furniture; the room was broken up into little boxes, with desks and chairs made of some strange resin. Papers lay about the desks, with some sort of fine writing upon them; the room was dark, and he could not make out what they said. The desks had strange boxes with glass faces on them; most of these were dark, but a few were strangely luminous. Other strange items on the desks also seemed to have little lights upon them; sometimes they just blinked on and off, and other times they formed strange symbols.

Sygar figured he must be in some sort of wizard's laboratory, and decided not to touch anything, for fear of releasing some sort of demon. Gone were the days when he might have smashed one of the boxes with the axe to see what was inside. His eyes were clearing now, and he looked around; little hallways branched off the main room, and what looked like a metal curtain made of long narrow scales covered the far wall; a strange orange light seeped from behind the scales. He padded over; the floor, he realized, was carpeted rather comfortably, and although there was no pattern to speak of, the carpet seemed to cover the entire floor of the room; it must have cost a fortune!

When he got close enough to the scale wall covering, he realized that they hung from the ceiling in a manner similar to curtains. Assuming that was what they were, he took hold of one, and it seemed rather flimsy. He pulled it aside, and his jaw dropped once again.

He was looking out a huge glazed window, upon an enormous city. Wherever he was, he was in a tall building; the ground looked like it might be half an ulm away or more. Though the city was in darkness, the ground was shrouded in lights, like jeweled necklaces strung out on the ground below. Some of the lights stood still, while others flowed next to them like rivers. A huge spire stood off to the left, and below it was a wide dome, shrouded in green light. Other tall buildings clustered around, clawing up towards the sky. The sky itself was quite strange, a sort of ruddy orange glow suffused it.

Where in Sicce was he?

Perhaps the whole place was run by sorcery, he thought. He didn't see how such a place could exist otherwise. Perhaps he was in the hidden city of the Zanikim, of which he had only heard rumors; they were mostly sorcerers of one sort or another, and for all he knew this is what that city looked like, though the bizarre grandeur of this place exceeded all his expectations. That strange ruddy glow in the sky might be the ceiling of a giant cavern; the whole city might even be underground.

He was not sure how long he had spent gawking at the spectacle before him, but after a while he heard a very soft footstep. Suddenly he realized that someone was trying to sneak up on him; he whirled around, and saw a shadow move from behind one of the strange partitions. Without a thought, Sygar charged towards the sound, and caught a man coming around the corner quietly creeping along. Before Sygar could even see the man clearly he was swinging the axe, and it landed with a crunch, landing in the man's abdomen. The axe didn't cut cleanly, though, and the man was knocked over and to the side with a grunt. Sygar raised the axe to strike again. The axe blow had not drawn blood, and the man lay on the ground groaning. Perhaps the glossy vest he wore was some kind of breastplate.

This man looked more like a warrior to him, he was wearing a harness with a variety of strange objects on it, though none of them looked like weapons, exactly. He was dressed all in black, and was even wearing a face mask that looked like it was made of wool. Perhaps this is a local stikitche, Sygar thought. After all, who other than assassins would want to conceal their face?

The object that the man had been carrying with both hands now lay on the floor. It was a rather bizarre object made from black metal, with a variety of little parts that looked like they moved around. It did have something that was clearly a handle, and a trigger that looked a lot like a crossbow trigger. But it had no visible means of doing anything, aside from a small hole in a nozzle at one end. Perhaps it was another sorcerous talisman like the one the man in the stairwell had, but this one looked much more businesslike.

Sygar realized that the man on the floor was looking up at him, quietly, waiting for Sygar's next move. Sygar looked down, wondering what to do.

"I mean you no harm", Sygar said, somewhat stupidly. I'm sure the ache in the man's guts will testify to that, he thought. "I have no quarrel with you," Sygar continued. The man just stared up at Sygar, intently but blankly.

Getting a little frustrated, Sygar said, more loudly this time: "Did the sorcerer hire you to kill me?"

Once again, the man lay silent. Perhaps he was mute; he knew that sometimes Stikitches had their tongues cut out so they could never confess to anything. Nevertheless, it was getting pretty infuriating; was the man deaf as well? About to start shouting, Sygar looked up as another stikitche stepped around the corner. Seeing Sygar, the man raised the device in his hands, pointing it at Sygar...

Sygar was somewhere else. Thinking fast, Sygar ducked down a corridor as he heard a loud report, and saw a flash behind him illuminating the walls. It figures there would be more of them, he thought. Who knows how many. Wonderful. A team of magical stikitches, chasing me through a strange building in an even stranger city.

Whatever the assasins carried seemed to be desgned to blind and deafen an opponent, he thought. They had produced a flash of light, and a loud report. That at least meant something. If these things were meant to stun an opponent, then that meant they were trying to take him alive.

Not likely, Sygar thought.

Naturally, the idea of being captured by wizards did not appeal to Sygar.

The corridor Sygar had ran down had twisted a couple of times, and now Sygar was a little disoriented. He found himself in another room with strange cubicles; a number of doors led to other unknown rooms. Somehow, Sygar had to get out of this building. But he was obviously pretty high up. That meant two options. He could either go down to the bottom floor, and leave at ground level. Or he could smash a window and climb down.

Well, with no idea how to navigate through the building, Sygar decided to give the window a try. The first blow cracked the glass, causing spiderwebs of cracks to spread away from the impact point. With a crunching sound the second blow did a little more damage than the first, making a little hole in which the axehead was wedged. Yanking it out, Sygar hit the window a third time, and the window shattered, shards of glass flying in all directions. A jagged gaping hole led outside, and a cold wind blew into the room, then out again. Papers on desks fluttered wildly.

Leaning outside, Sygar looked down, and a sense of vertigo nearly overcame him. The ground seemed so far away, and the side of the building looked virtually sheer, as if the whole building were made from glass. Climbing down did not seem like a good idea. An uncommonly bad idea, actually, particularly naked as he was, with no rope or tools.

Sygar could hear footsteps coming from several directions at once, and realized the sound of breaking glass had allowed the assassins to locate him. Well, bring them on. If all they've got are the little flash devices, then they'll find out how hard it is to take Sygar Sygarhan alive.

Two of the stikitches came out from behind one of the partitions, and upon seeing Sygar they pointed their devices and started shouting. They both seemed to be repeating themselves, but they were not talking in unison and even if Sygar understood their language, he doubted he would be able to figure out what they were saying.

Sygar wiped his hand across his mouth. His stomach was in knots again, and his mouth was drying. His jaw clamped.

Another Stikiche arrived, this time coming from the opposite hall, and he started jabbering too; another was not too far behind him. Fine, Sygar thought. Have it that way. His grip on the axe tightened, and he could feel the smooth grain in his hand, as if it were some sort of lined Hyrgon map that he could read by touch. His feet were placed apart, and he stood, ready for one of them to rush him. But they just stood there, shouting.

Unwilling to wait any longer, with a shriek Sygar rushed forward, raising his axe. There was a sound like a thunderclap, and a flash, and Sygar found himself thrown back against one of the desks. Not sure exactly how he got there, Sygar goggled for a moment, reeling. The stikitches came into focus again, and they no longer spoke. Not sure what just happened, exactly, but not willing to wait and find out, Sygar rushed forward again, this time with a deep growl. The devices in the hands of the stikitches began flashing, and Sygar heard another bunch of thunderclaps as the cloak of Notor Zan enfolded him.