As the games were played and the positions on the league tables changed leading to the final tournament, the patterns of the final opponents emerged. We were at last advised of the day on which we would meet Mefto, for both he and ourselves had fought through successfully. The lady Yasuri, too, was well positioned with a handful of nobles and royalty from various countries. The play-offs would sort out the final positions. The wealth at stake in this session of games was breathtaking. As Konec remarked, dourly, “Let them keep their gold. We fight here for higher motives.”
Yes. Yes, I know that sounds banal, juvenile almost, but if you had seen the burning determination of these people of Konec’s and understood what they were prepared to sacrifice for what they believed in, I do not think you would mock.
One of the questions to be decided before a game could begin was the notation to be used. A simple grid-reference, or the English notation where squares are named from their superior pieces, were in use, as was the typically Kregan system in which each drin, having its own name, gives drin co-ordinates. Well. As you may imagine, Mefto in the preliminary planning stages insisted on using his system. Konec, who in other times might well have argued with the authority of a stiff-necked kov, gravely assented. We didn’t give the chances of an arbora feather in the Furnace Fires of Inshurfraz what rules were used, just so we could get our swords at the cramph. But Dav screwed his eyes up.
“Do not agree too hastily to everything, Konec. The rast will suspect. I have the nastiest of itches that tells me he guesses we harbor plots against him-”
“You say so?”
“I do not say so. Just that I have this itch.”
By this time I had formed enough of an opinion of Dav Olmes to respect his itches of intuition. During this period when we all fenced consistently in the sanded enclosure at the rear of the Blue Rokveil I took much delight in bouts with Bevon. We used the wooden swords, the weight and feel nicely balanced to simulate the real article. With the rudis Bevon and I dealt each other many a shrewd buffet. He was a strong swordsman, blunt and workmanlike. His skill improved daily as he learned the tricks, his dogged face clamped with effort, the grip-jawed look lowering and determined. Some of his history, clearly, he had not revealed, although he did mention that his uncle had been a paktun. I caught a glimpse of many a warm summer evening when uncle and nephew would steal away down to the bottom pasture and then go at it, hammer and tongs with their wooden swords; and, later, of the tall stories the scarred old mercenary would tell the boy. But, all the same, Devon’s main interest then and now lay in Jikaida, the purity of the game, the disciplined concentration that drove out every other thought, the sheer intellectual challenge.
“You hit a man shrewdly, Jak,” he said once, after we desisted from a session and sought ale, wiping our foreheads with the yellow towels. “By Spag the Junct,” he said, having picked up that beauty from Dav.
“I swear your sword obeys your inmost spirit without thought. I never saw the last passage at all.”
“It is a pretty one.” I sliced the wooden sword about. “Look, like this. And, as to the sword and the spirit being one, yes, you have the right of it. Thought is too slow.”
Although, I said to myself, I had thought when fighting Mefto the Kazzur. Aye, and the thought never put into practice…
Bevon looked troubled as we drank. “This so-called plan. It is suicide, and that I do not like. Yet it seems I can see no other sure course.”
“Well, there has to be. Or, as some of my friends would say: We must saddle a leem to catch his ponsho.”
He eyed me. “Aye. And I have noticed that Kov Konec and Vad Dav Olmes speak with you in a way they do not with others. Me, they expect miracles from in Jikaida. But you, I think they see in you something that perhaps-” He paused, and drank.
I made no direct response. But it was true. For the simple paktun I appeared to be, these powerful men handled me with great attention. I know Konec listened to Dav. Perhaps they, at the least, could see something in this Jak the Paktun that was a faint and far off echo of Dray Prescot, Krozair of Zy. I prayed Zair that this was so.
Some of the party from Mandua went to see Execution Jikaida. Most of us stayed away. When criminals were sentenced to death, as opposed to being sentenced to take part in Kazz-Jikaida, there still remained a chance. They took the part of pieces on the board. When they were taken, their execution happened, there and then, the taking piece striking them down. The Bowmen of Loh maintained order. And there was the chance that they might not be taken in a game. They could go onto the board, with many a wary glance to the position they had drawn, and hope. After all, many a game has been settled in just a few dramatic moves…
One aspect of Execution Jikaida most unlikely ever to be found in Kazz-Jikaida was that, despite the blood-letting, real games of Jikaida still could be played. And one aspect of Kazz-Jikaida most unlikely to be found in Execution Jikaida — although sometimes this, too, was enforced — was the sight of the player taking his place on the board. Usually he or she would take the part of the Pallan, sometimes of the Princess. Mefto had taken part, gleefully, as we had seen.
When the player stood upon the board his professional adviser must be near him for consultation. So the Jikaidast was carried about the board in a gherimcal, a dinky little palanquin with a hood and padded seat and carrying poles. Too much ornamentation was generally considered vulgar; but there were examples finely decorated in precious metals and ivory and silks. Each would contain a conveniently slanted board with holes in the squares and pegged pieces for play so that the Jikaidast might keep track of what plans were afoot. Also there would be reference books, and, most important, shelves for food and drink. Slaves carried the gherimcal about the board, always keeping in close contact with the player and the pretty girls who carried the orders for the moves to the pieces. In the game for which so much anticipatory apprehension was felt by the people from Mandua, there was no question but that Konec would play and act on the board. He would take the Pallan’s part and Dav and Frodo would be Kapts. There was still some uncertainty as to the size game we would be playing, and Strom Nath might, if the game was a large variety, be a Kapt also; otherwise, he would be a Chuktar. They told me I would have to be a Chuktar, and I said that, by Havil, that was rapid promotion in any man’s army, whereat they laughed.
Our nerves were fine drawn during this period. Men would suddenly laugh, and clap a fist to sword hilt, and so guffaw again, for nothing, and then turn away, and be very quiet. Nothing was heard of the man the flier from Hamal had brought in; but Konec told us that he was confident that unless Mefto was stopped the alliance would go through and the countries of the Central Dawn Lands would fall like ripe shonages. I was not a party to the quarrel that occurred between Mefto and Konec when they met to finalize the bokkertu for the game; but the upshot was that Konec returned to tell us that it had been agreed the game would be Screetz Jikaida. We pondered the implications.
On balance, we felt little had changed. We would have to hire men from the academies to take the places of our pieces, and they would be trained to the sword. In Screetz Jikaida all the pieces are armed with sword and shield alone, as the name suggests, and are naked but for a breechclout. There would be no spears or axes or different shields. Screetz Jikaida holds its own charm, as different and as bloody as Kazz Jikaida of the usual run.
Bevon was pleased. “Swords,” he said. “Aye, that will serve.”
But, all the same, we had deciphered no other plan in the mists ahead than the one which would encompass all our deaths.
In the last sennight before the game was scheduled zorca riders came in with news that the caravan that had arrived at the fort on the River of Purple Rushes would soon reach the city. One messenger rode straight to the Blue Rokveil and was closeted with Kov Konec.
When we met that evening for our usual lavish meal and general good-natured horseplay, Konec’s mood was at once jovial and grim, as though he must plunge his hand into sc
alding water to snatch out a bag of gold.
“I have had word, certain word. Our spies have done well. If Mefto can be placed back in the velvet-lined balass box all Shanodrin will rise and expel his puppets and followers. The country is held in an iron grip; but with the threat of Mefto removed, the people will strike. Then Khorundur and Mandua will breathe easier, and the smaller states, the kovnates of Bellendur and Glyfandrin. We here, in Jikaida City, hold the key.”
“We hold the sword, Konec!” growled Dav.
“Aye!” they chorused.
This news from the outside world affected me in a way different from these men of Mandua. I hungered to know what was happening in Vallia. I had not fretted over this absence, for there were good men there to run things, and Drak had returned. But, all the same, I wanted to know what was going on. There was a chance, a slender one, true, that some news of that distant island empire might have filtered down here, particularly as the people of the Dawn Lands must be aware that Vallia, far away in the north, stood shoulder to shoulder with them in the struggle against Thyllis. Dazzling schemes of a great combination of forces marching from north and south on Hamal and crushing that empire until the pips squeaked rose in my mind. But they were dreams, dreams… Dreams, yes. But, one day, all of Paz, this whole island and continental grouping, must unite. It must. That was the task that, more and more clearly, I saw set to my hands — and as I often thought, with the blessing of the Star Lords and the Savanti. There must be a reason why I had been brought to Kregen. Oh, of course — the Star Lords employed me as a useful tool to pull their hot chestnuts out of the fire; but they had other kregoinye I had now learned. And the Savanti, those aloof and superhuman but mortal men and women of Aphrasoe, the Swinging City, had first summoned me to Kregen for their purposes to civilize the world. And, because I had not done as they wished, I had been thrown out of Paradise -
well, that was no Paradise for me now nor had been these many seasons. But, I felt with a conviction I could not justify in view of what had happened and yet clung to with stubborn will, I was here on this marvelous and terrible world of Kregen for a purpose. I had to be. If not, then it was all a sham, all of it, save Delia and the family with whom I seemed to be at such odds, them and my friends. And then, well, they say don’t dice with a four-armed fellow.
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 ol
d 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.
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