A Fortune for Kregen (6 page)

In many playhouses of Kregen the slaves beat three gongs at the end of the intervals. The first is to tell you to order your last drink; the second is to tell you to sup up and put your glass down; and the last is to say that you have only a few murs to reach your seat and if you are not there in time, then, by Beng Lomier the Blessed, patron saint of every strolling player, the slaves will bar the curtains on you.

The first gong note clashed out over the taverna.

“A Stuvan for me,” quoth Pompino.

“A light yellow, Jak,” said the lady Yasuri.

I fetched the drinks. The flagged area emptied as the people returned to their seats, anxious to be settled in time and miss nothing, and the second gong had not struck. The Hamalese were arguing about just who had ordered what, as tiresome people do in bars.

The curtains over the doorless opening to the entrance parted and four men walked in. They did not look, even at a cursory glance, like devotees of the stage. They wore dark clothes, dust-stained, and furry caps under which, I was prepared to wager, they had iron skulls. Their faces were grainy, hard, with lips thinned with purpose. Pompino looked, and said: “Hai!” and eased himself back from the little table at which he and Yasuri sat.

Do not forget, Pompino the Iarvin was a Khibil. What is more important — he had been chosen by the Star Lords to be a kregoinye and act in moments of emergency for them.

The newcomers looked around, orienting themselves. They saw the Hamalese, who were still squabbling about the drink order. A group of locals went out, and the place looked very empty, and the four men turned their slate-gray eyes on us.

One said something to his companions. He was bigger than the others, bulky with power, and his gloved hands made quick, hard gestures. He advanced toward us.

He bowed. His words were perfectly civil: but he did not smile as he spoke. Nor did he remove his hat, which is a mark of respect not quite as common on Kregen as on Earth, but which would have been perfectly proper in the circumstances.

“You are the lady Yasuri, Yasuri Lucrina, Vadni of Cremorra?”

Yasuri put her hand to her lips. “Yes...”

“Then I have to tell you that the king is dead, that the kingdom is overrun, that your vadvarate is gone—”

Yasuri let out a high shriek at the words. She fell back against the chair. Her face was stricken. Pompino looked at her in alarm.

The hard-faced man went on speaking, and as he spoke he moved like a scuttling tiklo of the desert.

“The king is dead, and King Ortyg the Splendid reigns in glory. He commands instant obedience, lady

— and he commands your death!”

The messenger of this ill news sprang even as he spoke.

His sword cleared scabbard and, twinkling like a bar of light, slashed down at Yasuri’s unprotected head.

My own thraxter was there, the two blades clashed, and thrummed with the vibration of the blow. My blade turned and his slid along and so I turned with the coming thrust and he leaped away, yelling in anger, and the point fell short.

There was no time to give him room to get set. His three comrades were rushing upon us, bared steel aflame. I leaped the table that had impeded my thrust, and crossed swords with the fellow, forcing him back, angling him away from Yasuri.

He fought viciously and well, shocked to find opposition preventing him from carrying out a mission that had seemed so easy of accomplishment. He shouted insults as he fought, and I saw the first of his bully-blade comrades hurling on, and so I was quick.

They both went down, skewered, and the third was engaged even as Pompino roared in at my side to take the fourth.

We were rather sharp with them. Pompino stepped back, his blade held up. With his left hand he smoothed his whiskers.

“What rubbish they choose to send,” he said.

“They nearly did it.” I bent to wipe the thraxter on the clothes of the first. “Had they just done the deed instead of parlaying around...”

Yasuri put her hand on my arm. She was shaking. “King Ortyg,” she whispered. “I am lost, lost — he hates my family dreadfully. They but gloated on my misery—”

“And they paid the price,” Pompino said, and snicked his blade away.

“You wish to continue with
Jögen
?” I said as the gong sounded.

She shook her head. “No — no, I cannot—”

Then Prince Nedfar and the other Hamalese with him was there. He was smiling. He held out his hand.

“Let me shake the hands of two brave men who know how to protect a lady. Cramphs like this deserve to die a thousand deaths.” He bent his stare upon Yasuri. “You are well, lady?”

“Yes — yes, thank you.”

He introduced himself, and the chief personages of his retinue. In that number he included his daughter, the Princess Thefi, but not, I was intrigued to notice, Lobur the Dagger.

“I am a connoisseur of swordplay. I have seldom seen two Bladesmen do their work so finely. You must visit me—”

Pompino’s face began to stain red and his foxy features bristled up uglily. He was going to burst out with shatteringly rude and impolitic remarks about rasts of Hamal and stinking Hamalese — and so I stepped in quickly and said all the right things, and thanked this damned condescending prince for his kind words on our swordplay, and smirked and smiled, and so got us out of it with the promise to visit him on the following day at The Montilla’s Head.

Yasuri was almost overcome.

“Now you see, Jak,” Pompino whispered as we escorted her back to The Star of Laybrites. “Now we can see the hand of the Star Lords clearly!”

“Oh, aye. We were sent here tonight to save Yasuri’s life. And it is useless to question why the Star Lords want her hide saved. She isn’t a bad old biddy; just the result of bad breeding. Let us hope we can retire gracefully now.”

We saw her safely home and then went back to our inn.

“And, Jak, if you think I’m going to see that rast of a Hamalese tomorrow, then you can think again.”

“I have no love for the folk of Hamal while they continue to obey mad Empress Thyllis. But they are not evil of themselves.” I yawned. “Anyway, think of the chance! Now we can get into the hotel without skulking there at night. Now we can smile and act graciously, and get up on the roof, and then—”

Pompino looked up. He nodded.

“To steal their voller I will act like a craven. One must dare all things in service to the Everoinye.”

I did not confide to him my feelings on that score.

“We are off to see Execution Jikaida this afternoon, Jak, Pompino. You will join us?”

Lobur the Dagger spoke cheerfully, because Kov Thrangulf stood with the group smiling and nodding.

No one cared much for Kov Thrangulf; but he performed some mysterious function in Prince Nedfar’s entourage. Also he was a kov, which is by way of being a terrestrial duke, and so was a man of power of himself.

“I think not, Lobur; but thank you all the same.”

Lobur had not recognized me as Drax, Gray Mask — well, by Zair! had he done so I would have been mortally chagrined.

We had taken to visiting the group around the prince and we sensed that they were glad of company, being isolated in this city where, although LionardDen was neutral in the wars Hamal was waging within the Dawn Lands, there were many who hated Hamal and all things Hamalian with blind hostility. We spent time here, and joked and laughed around; but we had not had a single chance to get up on the roof and steal the voller. The airboat was kept under heavy guard, and we had not, so far, been able to get away from our new-found friends. Of course, the slightest suspicion that we were interested in the voller with the view to her purloining would bring disaster. We had to take it easy, tsleetha-tsleethi, and await our opportunity.

As for Prince Nedfar, after the debacle of the alliance with Prince Mefto, he had remained here to indulge himself in Jikaida. So he said. I began to entertain uneasy suspicions that he had ulterior motives.

The treaty that was supposed to have released many powerful armies to fight against Vallia might still be concluded — with some pawn other than Prince Mefto.

This business of going to witness Execution Jikaida was a nuisance. The so-called game was ordinary Jikaida, played to the rules, and with living men and women as pieces — just as they do in Kazz-Jikaida.

But these pieces were condemned criminals. The moves were made and the piece being taken would be cut down, there and then, on the spot, and the game proceed. This was not my idea of fun.

It was not Lobur’s, either, as I could see, and the prince himself had made an excuse. This fat, hard-breathing, smelly Kov Thrangulf was the one panting to go. And Lobur, perforce, as a mere aide to the prince, had to acquiesce.

The oldest families of Hamal hold especial pride in their lineal descent from the ancients, and mark this by including the name ham in their own names. Thus I was, as you know, in all honor Hamun ham Farthytu in Hamal. Paline Valley and Nulty and those skirling times seemed long and long ago now; but such is the accumulation of tradition and the weight of incumbence, that I knew if I turned up at Paline Valley now I would be received as the rightful Amak. Unless, of course, a usurper had managed to arrange the bokkertu and through legal means taken the title and the estates. Then, the cramph, he’d have another fight on his hands.

Lobur the Dagger was a mere Horter of Hamal, a simple gentleman. He was in the prince’s service and joyed in that. But I discovered his name. This was Lobur ham Hufadet, and his family were honored citizens of Trefimlad. He was madly, overwhelmingly, besottedly in love with the prince’s daughter, the Princess Thefi. A match did not seem in their stars, by reason of their station. But on Kregen all things are possible as, by Zair, had I not shown? This fat and unpleasant Kov Thrangulf did not have the honor of placing the ham in his name. He was a kov, a powerful and wealthy man; but he did not own to the ham.

Yes, you will say — a common, a conventional, situation. Agreed. From it all manner of devilments and schemes might spring. And — they did. But, as is my wont, I will hew to the path of chronology and relate to you what happened between Lobur the Dagger and the Princess Thefi and Kov Thrangulf, when what happened impinged upon this my own story. Suffice it for the moment, there in Jikaida City, I had my heart set on that voller. Failing the voller, then I might have to walk out. Either way, I had no wish to linger in LionardDen.

Pompino said, “I trust you enjoy yourselves this afternoon. I am for the merezo where they are racing for high stakes.”

As we walked off, shouting the remberees, I knew Pompino lied. He was serious, deadly serious, on a sudden.

“I have had no chance to tell you before, Jak — we are altogether too chummy with these yetches of Hamalese. But — I have had a communication from the Star Lords.”

“The Gdoinye spoke to you?”

“Yes. We are quits of our work with Yasuri—”

“
We are
!”

“Aye. If that assassination attempt was all it was about, well and good. What matters now is we will not be prevented from leaving.”

Whatever the situation might appear to be on the surface, I knew well enough that the Star Lords planned long and darkly into the future. What they did they did with fell purpose. Yasuri was important in ways we could not comprehend. But, we were quit of her. I joyed in that, and spared a thought for Yasuri and wondered what she would do now. But that was her business — aye, hers and the Star Lords’, no doubt.

“Most of that lot from Hamal are watching Execution Jikaida,” I said. I spoke lightly as we walked along in the streaming mingled lights of the Suns of Scorpio. “We are known in the hotel now. Why should we not—?”

“Capital. I am with you.”

So we turned around and retraced our steps.

Well, now... If the old blood thumps a little faster around the body, and the sweat starts out on the brow, and the palms grow damp and the throat dry — at memory, mere memory? We were not working for the Everoinye now, we were working for ourselves and for all the help we had ever had from the Star Lords that made not the slightest difference, or so I thought. I recall as we walked along in the suns shine that I contemplated hiring out as a caravan guard and trekking back over the Desolate Waste, as we had planned. But the idea of the voller obsessed us. The speed of a flier is phenomenal compared to a saddle animal.

The caravans continued to ply, one had only just arrived today, and the last had brought in the company of strolling players and the four stikitches who had so signally failed to earn their hire.

Pompino hitched his sword belt.

“Let us have a wet first — in honor of Dav Olmes, for example, or Konec, or—”

“Let us take a drink, anyway, you procrastinating fambly!”

I wanted to give the Hamalese time to get to the Jikaida deren, those massive central blocks where the bloody games of Jikaida were played, before we raided the hotel.

Any hostelry would do, provided it was of the better sort, and not a mere dopa den. The jade and ruby brilliance fell about us. The sweet scents of Kregen intoxicated us with life. Ah, Kregen, Kregen — well, we found a tavern and were about to enter when a man came flying through air and almost brought us both down. And, as far as I know, they don’t play exactly that kind of Rugby on Kregen. The fellow hauled himself up. He was a Brokelsh, squat and hairy and gibbering with rage. He shook his fist at the tavern and then lurched off, rumbling and cursing, swearing about a Havil-forsaken Kildoi.

I chilled.

We went in. I am well aware how foolish, how superficial, it is to say, “I chilled.” But, by Vox, that is exactly right. I felt the cold clamp around me. I did chill, and you may cavil all you wish at the expression.

It is apt and it is right...

The Kildoi was instantly visible, surrounded by a gang of roughs. They were not attacking him, but they were not friendly. Now Prince Mefto the Kazzur was a Kildoi. He had bested me in swordplay — oh, yes, I had cut off his tail hand at the last — but he had proved the superior swordsman. Kildoi have four arms and a powerful tail with a hand. Korero, my comrade who carried his shields at my back in battle, was a Kildoi. They are marvels — and this specimen, although sporting a beard darker than the golden blaze of Korero or Mefto, was just such a one, bronzed, powerful, superb in physique, cunning and most proficient with his five hands.