A Sword for Kregen (25 page)

The lady Yasuri had changed her accommodation to a better class of hotel called The Star of Laybrites. The name tells you it was situated in Yellow City. There had been some business of a Rapa attempting one of her handmaids. If it had been Sishi I fancy the Rapa was nursing a dented beak right now. Happening to be taking a short cut through Yellow City — and when I say happened I found, when I was there, I wasn’t quite sure why I should be — I passed the hotel and gave a quick glance for the circlets of yellow painted stars along the arcade above. Why I had come here was made immediately plain to me.

People were passing along the avenue and giving me no attention, for I found I was wearing a blue favor. A figure staggered suddenly from a side alleyway that led to the rear of the hotel. He was stark naked. He was smothered in dust and unpleasant refuse, and straw stuck out of his hair. I recognized him at once. With a huge guffaw, and a quick snatch at the cords of my cape, I slung it off and swung it about his broad shoulders.

“By Horato the Potent! Of all the infernal—! Jak!” He grabbed the cape and pulled it about his nakedness and, at that, it only just hung down enough to be decent — just about. I still laughed. I knew exactly what he was thinking and the furious sense of frustration seething in that sharp foxy face.

And then, well, it was strange to experience this with someone else who experienced it, also.

A gorgeous scarlet and gold bird flew down the avenue and with wide spread wings cut in over the heads of the people who walked stolidly on with not so much as a single glance at the Gdoinye. Well, why not? They couldn’t see this supernatural messenger and spy of the Star Lords.

Pompino the Iarvin looked up, and his face slackened off wonderfully, so that all the fury lines vanished, to be replaced by an expression of obedient wonderment.

“Pompino! Pompino!” called the bird, perching with a great feather rustling on one of the circlets of yellow stars. “You have been given no leave to abandon the Everoinye.”

“But—” began Pompino.

“You know your task. You must hew to your path—”

“You stupid great onker!” I bellowed up at the bird. “What are we waiting on that stupid woman for? Let us depart from here — give us a fight, if necessary — you brainless bird!”

Pompino said something like: “Awwkk!” And he looked at me as though expecting me to be struck down in a blaze of blue fire.

Well, I might have been. But the way the Star Lords had been treating me and my recent thoughts on all the pressing work that needed to be done on Kregen braced me up powerfully.

“Dray Prescot! You onker of onkers! Hearken to your fate and submit—”

“Ask Ahrinye about that, fambly!”

“He is young and without caution, as you are. You fret on your Vallia. Rest easy on that score—”

“Rest easy! There is work to do there.”

“And it is being done. Your cause prospers. But the Star Lords will not be baulked and they call upon you for a higher service.”

Pompino was goggling away at me and at the Gdoinye. He’d been flung back here, just as I had been flung back to the scenes of my labors for the Star Lords when I had taken myself off. He must be annoyed; yet he could only goggle away at me as though staring at a demon from Cottmer’s Caverns.

“Tell me about Vallia, you bird of ill omen.”

“Why do you struggle against the Star Lords when they seek only your good? They have treated you with great kindness and you repay them with abuse and you miscall me most devilishly. Yes, your Vallia is safe as you left it. Nothing has gone wrong—”

“Has anything gone right?”

“Of course. Do you think you are irreplaceable?”

“No.”

Pompino put a hand to his eyes. He was swallowing nonstop.

“Do the business here and ensure the safety of the lady Yasuri. The business of Mefto is yours alone.” The scarlet feathers riffled. People were walking past all the time and no one cast so much as a glance in our direction. The Gdoinye lifted into the air. His wings beat strongly. As he had so often done he squawked down at me most rudely. And then he screeched out: “Dray Prescot, get onker, onker of onkers.”

Well, we shared that, at the least. We’d established that kind of comradely insult between us, and I pondered his words.

Pompino gathered himself together. He pulled the cape more tightly about himself. It was green, I noticed, with yellow checkered borders. He stopped swallowing. He straightened his shoulders. The Gdoinye lifted high, flirted a wing, swung away and vanished over the rooftops across the avenue.

“The damned great fambly,” I said.

“Jak.” Pompino stopped shaking. “Jak — to talk to the Gdoinye like that — I’ve never heard — you might have been — I do not know...” He shook his head, goggling at me. Then: “But, Jak, he was talking about someone called Prescot. It seems to me I have heard that name—”

“Some other fellow,” I said. “More likely, two other fellows. And the Gdoinye and I have an understanding. We rub along. But, one day, I’ll singe his feathers for him, so help me Zair.”

There, you see... Stupid intemperate boasting again.

We sauntered away and Pompino looked halfway respectable. He said, “How did you come to be so close when I was brought back?”

“Thank the Star Lords for that. I had no intention of walking this way; but I am here. And the cape; it is not mine.”

He shook his head and I marveled at how quickly he had once again reconciled himself to the Star Lords’ demands.

“This lady Yasuri,” he said, pondering. “What is so special about her that she is so cherished?”

“She may be an old biddy, but she’s not too old to have children if she wills it.”

“I’m not sure—?”

“I once rescued a young loving couple out on a spree and they had a child who overturned cities and nations. He is dead now, thankfully, along with many others.” How Gafard, the King’s Striker, a Master Jikaidast, would have joyed to be here! And how I would welcome him, by Zair!

When Pompino heard of the Sword Jikaida coming up with Mefto he put a lean finger up and rubbed his foxy face. He looked wary.

“I do not think this thing touches my honor.”

“Agreed.”

He stamped his foot. “You are infuriating! What in Panachreem—?”

“Look, Pompino; you must carry out the duties of a kregoinye and that does not include being chopped. The Gdoinye gave me leave to deal with Mefto, if it is possible. That can only mean the Star Lords have an eye in that direction. But your duty lies toward the lady Yasuri.”

“Duty to her! Ha!”

“She looks like a little wrinkled nut, true. But if she took off that stupid wig and let her hair loose, and washed her face with cleansing cream, and wore shapely clothes, why, many a man would delight in proving his duty to her.”

“With a nose and a tongue as sharp as hers?”

“They could both be blunted, given love.”

“Well, if that is what the Everoinye plan, we are in for a long and tedious wait!”

So, half-cross and half-laughing, we strolled back to the Blue Rokveil.

“As San Blarnoi says,” observed Pompino as we went in to find Dav and ale. “The heart leads where the eyes follow.”

The incoming caravan was due to arrive the day before the game and, expressing a wish to go down and see the entrance, I was joined by Bevon and Pompino. The others all declined. I pressed Dav; but he excused himself. He had a girl to attend to. Well, that was Dav Olmes for you, big and burly and fond of ale and women and fighting. A combination of great worth on Kregen.

The scene when we arrived presented just such a spectacle of color and noise and confusion as delights the heart. Many cities of Paz boast a Wayfarer’s Drinnik, a wide expanse where the caravans form up or disperse, and we stood under a black and white checkered awning and sipped ale as we watched. The Quoffas rolled patiently along, the calsanys and unggars drew up in their long loaded strings, men dismounted from totrixes and urvivels and zorcas, all thirsty, all glowing with their safe arrival. The wagons rolled in. A group of Khibils dismounted from their freymuls, that pleasant riding animal that is often called the poor man’s zorca, a bright chocolate in color with vivid streaks of yellow beneath. Willing, is a freymul, and as a mount serves well within his abilities. Pompino eyed the Khibils and then strolled off to pick up what news there was. The dust rose and the glory of the suns shot through, turning motes of gold spinning, streaming in the mingled lights of Zim and Genodras. I sipped ale and watched, and at last saw a man I fancied might be useful.

He was apim, like me, limber and tough, and as he dismounted and gave his zorca a gentle pat I caught the fiery wink of gold from the pakzhan at his throat. He was a hyr-paktun. His lance bore red and blue tufts. I rolled across carrying a spare flagon.

“Llahal, dom. Ale for news of the world.” He eyed me. He licked his lips. His weapons were bright and oiled. He stood sparingly against the light of the suns.

“Llahal, dom. You are welcome.” He took the flagon and drank and wiped his lips. “Now may Beng Dikkane be praised!”

“The news?”

He told me a little of what I hungered to hear. Yes, he had a third cousin who had returned from up north. Told him that paktuns were being kicked out of Vallia. He’d never been there — fought in Pandahem, though, by Armipand’s gross belly, nasty stuff all jungles and swamps down to the south. Yes, Vallia was, as far as he knew, still there and hadn’t sunk into the sea. They’d had revolutions, like anywhere else, and a new emperor, and there had been whispers of new and frightful secret weapons. But he knew little. His third cousin had been hit behind the ear by a steel-headed weapon he’d claimed was as long as four spears. Clearly, he was bereft of his sense, makib, for that was laughably impossible.

“Surely,” I said. “My thanks, dom. Remberee.”

This third-cousinly confirmation of what the Gdoinye had told me had to suffice for my comfort. Bevon and Pompino reappeared and we prepared to leave Wayfarer’s Drinnik. And then the slaves toiled in.

Well. The slaves had struggled over the Desolate Waste on foot. They wore the gray slave breechclout or were naked. They were yoked and haltered. They stank. They collapsed into long limp straggles on the dust and their heads bowed and that ghastly wailing rose from them. The sound of “Grak!” smashed into the air continuously, with the crack of whips. The slavemasters were Katakis. We caught a glimpse of this dolorous arrival of the slaves and then a protruding corner of the ale booth shut off the sight.

“No,” said Bevon, and there was sweat on his pug face. “No.”

Pompino and I knew what he meant.

“I had news from home,” said Pompino. “Well, almost home, from a town ten dwaburs away and they’d heard nothing so it must all be all right.”

Such is the hunger for news of home that even the negation of news is regarded as confirmation of all rightness. We did not hurry back and stopped for a wet here and there and admired the sights. We wore swords, of course, and our brigandines, and if Bevon tended to swagger a little in imitation of Pompino, who is there who would blame him over much?

The avenue on which stood the Blue Rokveil was blocked by a line of cavalrymen, their totrixes schooled to obedience, their black and white checks hard in the brilliance of the suns. People were being held back, and a buzzing murmur of speculation rose. We pushed forward, puzzled.

“Llanitch!” bellowed a bulky Deldar, sweating. At his order to halt we stopped, looking at him inquiringly. He shouldered across and people skipped out of his way. Just beyond the line of cavalrymen the hotel lifted, its ranks of windows bright, its blue flags fluttering. People craned to see. The Deldar eased back to his men, keeping them face front. We moved to a vantage point and so looked on disaster.

They say Trip the Thwarter, who is a minor spirit of deviltry, takes delight in upsetting the best-laid plans. We saw the dismounted vakkas hauling out their prisoners. There were many swords and spears in evidence, and no chances were being taken, for these men being taken up into custody were notorious and possessed of fearful reputations. We saw Kov Konec being prodded out, dignified, calm, his hands bound. We saw Dav turn on a swod and try to kick him, snarling his hatred, and so being thumped back into line. The swords ringed in the important people of Mandua, Fropo the Curved, Strom Nath Resdurm, Nath the Fortroi and others. Only the lesser folk were not taken up.

We stared, appalled.

“Treason against the Nine Masked Guardians,” a man in the crowd told us.

“A plot to murder them all in their beds,” amplified his wife, a plump, jolly person carrying a wicker basket filled with squishes in moist green leaves.

“Lucky for us Prince Mefto discovered the plot in time to warn the Masked Nine. By Havil! I’d send ’em all to the Execution Jikaida, aye, and put them all in the center drin!”

We stood as though frozen by the baleful eyes of the Gengulas of legend.

Konec saw us.

With a single contemptuous jerk he snapped the thongs binding his wrists. He stuck both arms out sideways, level with his ears. Then he drew them in and thrust them out again level with his hips. He brought his hand around to the base of his spine and swept it in a wide circling arc up over his head. The pantomime was quite clear. Then — then he drew his forefinger across his throat, forcefully, viciously.

I remained absolutely still.

The guards leaped on him then; but he did not resist as they tied his hands again. He had delivered his message, a chilling and demanding message. His eyes blazed on me.

Between files of the totrix cavalry Konec and his people were led away to imprisonment.

The plot against Mefto the Kazzur was stillborn.

“What—?” said Bevon. He looked bewildered.

“It is all down to you, Jak,” said Pompino.

We were alone and friendless in Jikaida City, and it was all down to me to halt this glittering Prince Mefto the Kazzur in his ambitions and to prevent the total destruction of Vallia. As this thought struck in so shrewdly there rose up before my eyes the phantom vision of Mefto, brandishing his five swords and beating down in irresistible triumph.