At that, Cleitar’s slashed lips curved into a mocking smile.
“Don’t they all, by the brass sword and glass eye of Beng Thrax!”
My reactions might have puzzled me had I dwelled on them. I did not feel the biting sense of frustration I ought to have experienced. I was desperate to get away; and yet I felt that in a remote, disinterested fashion. It was not just that I was caught up again in fighting for the ruby drang. That was far below the worth of my feelings. But undoubtedly, although conscious of my duty to get away, I felt nothing was being lost.
“You were a hyr-kaidur once, Chaadur, when you fought under the name of Drak the Sword.” I had known, then, that Cleitar Adria resented the bestowal of that name on me. “And you say you escaped by the queen’s connivance? Then, why—?”
This, I had foreseen.
“Doing the queen’s bidding is a hard road, Cleitar. I must get out of here and see her, for I do not think she can know I fight for the ruby drang again.” That was true, by Vox! If fat Queen Fahia knew that Dray Prescot fought in her arena, she’d nigh choke herself laughing. Then — then she’d probably be highly unpleasant. She must by this time know who I was. It was not all gloom. Cleitar took in news of the outer world, and I learned that, yes, there had been a conspiracy against the queen, the latest in a long series, and the plotters had been taken up, except the ringleaders. They had escaped. It was known that Vad Noran was the chief criminal, and he was being sought over all Hyrklana.
“And the others?”
“There is a rumor, denied from the palace, which says that the visiting prince of Hamal was involved. It is a story not believed.” Cleitar moved his shoulders. “I do not believe it.”
“It is not very likely.”
“No. Anyway, this prince has returned home.”
My first and only genuine feeling was one of relief. Tyfar had gotten clean away, and that helped to make my own capture and incarceration and combats worthwhile...
He promised to do what he could to secure me promising contests. When I pointed out that, if Beng Thrax turned his glass eye favorably upon me and used his brass sword for instead of against me, Cleitar could pick up easy winnings, he merely smiled and tapped his nose and laughed, the scar glistening.
“That is what friends are for.”
While not necessarily agreeing with that, I had to admit that friends are vital to both an emperor and a man trying to stay alive in and get out of the Jikhorkdun. Now I will pass rapidly over the ensuing period, for it was a simple round of combats in which I was concerned to keep a whole skin, and to pick up every scrap of information I could. By this time I was nowhere near the flamboyant fighter with the sword I once had been, although always preferring neatness and economy. Since my encounter beside the caravan with Mefto the Kazzur I had taken great thought to sword fighting. I was better than ever, but, as always, the thought remained with me that I could easily meet a man far superior to me out on the silver sand. If I did, if I met another such as Prince Mefto, then all my plots and stratagems would go for naught.
So I did not take this period lightly.
Norhan said, on one day of madness filled with the shriek of sword and the ragged swellings of death, “Chaadur! You are the simplest swordsman I have ever seen. You seem to do nothing, and yet you do everything.”
I turned away. I remembered another man who had said that to me, laughing, bright, eager — Barty Vessler, who was dead. I turned back. “Better to be quick and safe, than showy and dead.”
“True. I prefer a pot of combustibles, myself.”
The guards were herding in a bunch of miserable felons, men and women shackled together and doomed. They were to be turned out with a short sword between two of them to face wild beasts. It would be horrible and unpleasant. And yet many had chosen this death to life in the Arena...
“That must be why they call you Norhan the Flame.”
“Smart with a pot of the right stuff, and a light, that’s me.” His high opinion of himself, I saw, extended to his skill with combustibles. All the same, it was difficult not to respond to his brashness, for there was nothing repellent in it, nothing to make a dour old fighting man like myself dub him an empty braggart.
A woman fell among the chained ranks and was hoisted up and prodded on. This hideous aspect of the arena gave me always the chill of revulsion and of death. It was not necessary for me, one of the new and upcoming kaidurs, to interfere. As I stepped forward I was surprised that Norhan the Flame stepped up, too. We remonstrated with the guard, a burly Brokelsh, and although anything we could achieve in these circumstances was of ludicrous insignificance, as we turned away, Norhan said, “I don’t think he’ll prod a poor chained woman so quickly, next time.” The Brokelsh sat up on the dusty ground, his mouth bleeding. Norhan sucked his knuckles.
And then I stopped dead in my tracks.
A man beside the woman, chained to her, attempting to help her, said, “It will not be long now, Mina, and, by Spikatur Hunting Sword, it cannot come too fast for me.”
I looked back at the coffle. The chains clanked. The man looked exhausted, and his arms were broken and strapped up across his chest, so that he could do little for the woman Mina. A single step I took, and another, and then the furious form of the guard Jiktar roared down, purple of face, protuberant of eye, and the coffle whisked away between ironbound doors that thudded dolorously together.
“What is it, Chaadur?”
I swallowed. “A nothing, Norhan. Let us—”
“Aye, by Sarkalak! Let us go for a wet.”
That had not been in my mind; now that Norhan mentioned the subject it seemed the appropriate thing to do.
Chapter ten
Of Spikatur and Princess Lilah
The first really hard information I obtained about the secret society calling itself Spikatur Hunting Sword came from a strong-faced swordsman who had parried a trifle too late, and taken a nasty thrust through his side. He had recovered and gone on to beat his man, a Rapa of the blues, but in the barracks he lay in pain on his pallet waiting for the needleman. I stayed at his side. He called for water and I fetched it. Helping to prop up his head so that he might drink more easily, I heard his sunken whisper of thanks. “By Sasco! I think I am done for.”
“Nonsense, Pergon. The needleman will have you right in a trice.” I bent closer. The stubble on his chin glistened. “Tell me about Spikatur. I do not think you are going to die, but—”
“I feel my death on me.” His eyes rolled. We were alone in the barracks. He sweated with a chill that would be deathly if the doctor did not come soon. Norhan had gone for him and I had faith enough in the Flame to leave that in his hands. I knew that men who were involved with Spikatur used the oath “By Sasco!” In Pergon’s weakened condition, near, as he thought, to death, he talked freely, telling me what he knew. What it boiled down to was not a lot. People had banded together into a hunting society, devoted to Spikatur, the mighty hunter, and they met in secret places in many parts of Hyrklana.
“And in the Dawn Lands, and in Pandahem. I cannot speak for the wild lands to the west of the central mountains of Havilfar, for that is remote and unknown. But Spikatur grows in strength—” He paused, and I gave him more water and wiped his forehead. I thought that he was going to die.
“All these lands,” I said, “Pandahem, the Dawn Lands, Hyrklana where we are now—”
“Aye.” He choked and blood dribbled down his chin, so that I thought the end had come and he would die before the needleman arrived to ease his pain. “Aye, Chaadur! We surround! We build. Soon we will strike!”
“Who leads you?”
“No leader.” After that he became incoherent so that what he said was impossible to understand. He mentioned Faol and Ifilion, other countries of Havilfar. The doctor arrived toward the end. He was a crotchety old fellow, with a stoop, and he thumped his bag down and glared at Pergon as though the dying man had done him an injury. “This kaidur is dying. Nothing can save him.
Why was my time wasted?”
I stood up. I looked at the doctor. I said, “Open your bag and take out your needles. Use them. Ease his pain.”
He chomped his jaws in offended fury. He did not understand the situation. “I am a doctor! You are just a kaidur! Stand aside and let me pass, there is nothing I can do for this man.”
“There is. I am a kaidur, and have nothing to lose. You are a needleman and have a deal to lose. I do not think you would relish inspecting your own backbone. Ease Pergon’s pain, now.”
“You are mad—”
“Do it!”
He did it. He inserted his acupuncture needles so that Pergon could die in peace. He kept muttering to himself. Norhan ran in with the basket of fruit he had stopped to fetch, and I shook my head. What had just occurred gave me no pleasure. It was symptomatic of the bestiality with which we were surrounded.
So Pergon died and was taken outside and buried along with the rest.
He was dead; but what he had said about Spikatur Hunting Sword lived on.
Norhan rubbed his jaw, which was lean and blue. “As San Blarnoi says,” he observed, quoting a saint whose aphorisms are trotted out to confuse and offend, “‘It is a flinty heart that is not softened by a fist in the jaws.’ That needleman will ply his skill more freely in future, I think.”
“Like the Brokelsh you took to task for hitting the woman? I wonder. Mayhap it will make them more savage.”
“If they are they must be made to rue it!”
“You cannot run people’s lives by fear, Norhan—”
He stared at me. “Fambly! How do you think the world turns?”
In no mood for argument, I let the subject drop as we went into the kaidur’s drinking den and, avoiding dopa, which is the drink of fools, sat down with tankards of ale. Norhan knew nothing of Spikatur Hunting Sword. But two days later another man mentioned Spikatur — before he was chopped, so I guessed that a group of Spikatur’s adherents had been taken up for the Arena. This made me realize that Fahia might know. Perhaps all the great ones of the world knew, and took steps to crush the Spikatur conspiracy. I might be the Emperor of Vallia, but I would not regard myself as one of the great ones of the world, for that way lay megalomania. All the same... If all I had to do to find out was ask one of my people in the Imperial Palace in Vondium...!
Somehow, I did not think it was like that at all.
By judicious arrangements, Cleitar assured that I met top-class opposition, and so rapidly made my way up the ladder. This was dangerous. Not just because I might get myself killed — that is an occupational hazard of those who step out onto the silver sand. But aficionados might cast their minds back and remember Drak the Sword. I had been a hyr-kaidur, yes, but my time here had not been too long, and perhaps the most spectacular fight at the end would be the fight that would be remembered. All the same, I fought along all the time expecting some well-meaning idiot in the stands to bellow: “Drak the Sword!Kaidur!” Then Queen Fahia would sit up on her silks and furs and peer down, and her fat jowls would quiver like those of her damned spotted strowgers as they chomped on portions of people’s anatomies.
Talk about tightropes and razors’ edges!
During these days the ruby drang lifted up the red totem on the victory pole so that we no longer rested in the lowest position. The blues still lorded it over the others, but the greens were giving them a hard tussle. Hundal the Oivon, our cheldur responsible for our barracks, had money laid out on us reds overtaking the yellows — which we had done and he had collected — and he reinvested his winnings on our taking the greens. He found many folk willing to take his wagers. The odds against the reds were quoted at variously high figures, for the strength in the ongoing tussle for the moment lay with the blues and greens. This continuing fascination was a part of the Jikhorkdun’s aura, the partisanship that led to incredible feats of bravery in the Arena when the stands went wild. I had pledged myself I would have none of it, none of the blood and death and degradation; that meant I would have none of the high striving and the passion to excel and the sacrifice. I would have none of it. I was the Emperor of Vallia and I had a job to do, a daunting task to bring Hyrklana in against Hamal and then to subdue Hamal so that we might all stand shoulder to shoulder against the reiving fishheads from the other side of the world.
So be it.
But the passions of the Jikhorkdun got into my blood, and I rattled my blade along the iron bars, and shrieked out with the others when the reds triumphed, and roared and screamed when the reds went down to bloody defeat. So the days passed and I got to know Norhan a little more, against my inclinations, and Frandu the Franch. Frandu was a Fristle with a very high opinion of himself — hence his nickname — equipped with a sharp tongue. But he was a doughty fighter on the silver sand.
Because we were kaidurs of the middle rankings, we no longer had to face some of the more primitive horrors in the arena. We had fought our way through those perils. Now we were reserved for the professional combats, skills against skills, in which the most educated and knowledgeable of the Jikhorkdun aficionados delighted. We returned one day from an interesting confrontation with a group of Khibils of the yellows. We had bested them, even though the foxy-faced, reddish-whiskered Khibils are fine fighters. Queen Fahia had not been present, and at the end of the fights the crowd had been uncharacteristically generous, and the victorious reds had been allowed to give the beaten yellows their lives. That rarely happened when the queen graced the games with her presence.
“It was a bonny little ding-dong, by the Golden Splendor of Numi-Hyrjiv himself!” quoth Frandu, spitting and taking an immense gulp of water. We sprawled on the benches waiting to return to our barracks. “And I recognized one of the Khibils and would have been loath to slay him, onker though he is.”
“Not as smart as us, Frandu?” said Norhan.
“Not as smart as me, Norhan. I took him with the same cut I gave the Chulik who tried to spit him on the stairs when they tried to slay Princess Lilah.”
I looked across. Names — well, there are many men and women on Kregen, and many of them bear the same names, as they do on Earth. I listened, saying nothing.
Norhan guffawed. “What do you know of princesses, Frandu?”
Now, the miserable folk herded into the arena seldom spoke of the reasons that brought them there. Sometimes, if they allowed themselves the foolishness of making friends, they would exchange confidences. Not often. But Frandu felt his honor impugned. He wiped water drops from his whiskers. His cat’s face screwed up, all abristle, and his eyes looked dangerous, slitted, catlike.
“I guarded the Princess Lilah for many seasons, onker.”
Norhan, offhandedly, taunting, said, “If you mean the Princess Lilah who was twin sister to Queen Fahia, then you surely jest. She has been dead and gone for many seasons.”
“You are the onker!” Frandu was wrought up. “She was kept in a tower with her husband for season after season. I can talk of these things now, for we are all dead men. At the time I was sworn to a vow of secrecy, which I kept.”
Norhan didn’t believe the Fristle, and said so. Frandu’s whiskers bristled. “She came back to Hyrklana seasons ago, and the queen immediately imprisoned her. Well, she would, wouldn’t she?”
“Lilah is dead, onker.”
“Yes, now. The Chuliks saw to that. And I am in the Arena.”
I leaned forward. “Who married the Princess Lilah?”
“Who? Why, that silly fellow Arrian nal Amklana.”
I sat back. It seemed to me that the clouds parted above the Jikhorkdun and the mingled rays of the red and green suns struck through, illuminating everything they touched. Here was the key. Here was the key to turn the lock — if nature’s natural course had followed. I had rescued Princess Lilah from the Manhounds and she had flown home and no one had heard of her from that day to this. And now...!
I said, “And the child?”
“Her?” Frandu shook his head. “I am a Fristle
and she is an apim, but I own I have seldom seen a fairer girl in all the world.”
“She lives?”
“Aye. The Chuliks slew Lilah and Arrian, and I nearly came by my death. But little Princess Lildra lives safely.”
A somber feeling of sadness for the senseless death and, from what Frandu said, the even more senseless life, of Princess Lilah kept me silent as the crowd roar burst out as the pairs on the silver sand battled down to a finish and the blues’ victory notched up their totem yet again. Lilah had been marked, it seemed to me, for a woeful destiny, and yet — and yet — could I have done anything else than I had done? No — and the Star Lords had kept me working hard for them at the time. I would have liked to have spoken to her again. But — she had a daughter, Princess Lildra.
So, as we walked back to the barracks carrying our armor and weapons, the red towels draped over our shoulders — for we were not yet far advanced enough to warrant slaves to carry our armor — I said, “And Ariane nal Amklana hired Chuliks to murder Lilah, and Ariane’s own twin brother as well?”
“She did, the bitch.” Frandu nodded vehemently. “And they nearly did for me, too.”
I pondered the inhumanity of woman toward man. By these dreadful means Ariane hoped to prove a spurious legitimacy to the throne. She would use the old means of force and coercion to gain lawful ends, what Kregans call the steel bokkertu. Her twin brother was married to the sister of the queen — was not that reason and proof enough, Ariane would claim, to take the throne, seeing that Queen Fahia was dead? Well, it hadn’t worked out like that. I made up my mind to find Princess Lildra.
One other point needed to be resolved, although I doubted if Frandu would have that knowledge.
“Do you know what the queen did about the bitch of Amklana?”
“We rescued Princess Lildra and took her to a safe place. I worked for the queen for many seasons and obeyed her in all things. But then I—” He glanced at Norhan, who was not overly interested, and hitched up his armor. “If you laugh, Norhan the Flame, I will singe your rear with one of your own pots! A charming Fristle fifi and I were very happy and she got me drunk and I was late reporting. There was a great hullabaloo. There had been an attempt to rescue the young princess. I was instantly suspected of plotting — well, I hadn’t been, but I was—”
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