"Gernu. What do you think would happen were the king and Pur Dray to meet, face to face?" He did not let me finish. A little shiver marked his shoulders and he put a hand to his face. Then he rallied. "It would be in the manner of their meeting. Were it blade to blade, or sectrix to sectrix, or in council chamber, or wherever it might be, I-" He pulled down his moustaches, for, like the Zairian moustaches they were, they insisted on growing upward and jutting out arrogantly, like mine. "I would give everything I own both to be there and yet never to have to witness that confrontation." Around about then he remembered he was a rog and the King’s Striker and a great overlord of Magdag, and I was a mere renegade looking to him for everything. He bade me clear off and make sure my Genodder was sharp for the night, just in case.
My orders were simple, for I was to open the doors and then make myself scarce. Gafard knew as well as I that the king’s kidnappers might seek to slay me to silence me. My own plans called for a somewhat more ambitious program. That plan, however, would go into operation only if the king himself came with his men. There was little chance of that, but this Genod was a man of mettle, even if he was an evil rast, and the adventure would appeal to him.
Stealth and secrecy and wild midnight journeyings by the light of the seven moons of Kregen — yes, they have all been my lot on that wonderful world. I had spied in Hamal. I had made friends of Rees and Chido. Now they had left in an argenter, going back to Queen Thyllis with a story of the inefficiency of King Genod’s guards, no doubt, and I regretted I had not plucked up the strength of will to confront them and so joy in a reunion I felt they would relish as much as I. This night might see me once again in action, taking a king and his favorite back to Zy.
The emerald and ruby fires of Antares slipped below the horizon past the jumbled roofs of Magdag, casting enormous, elongated shadows from the megaliths across the plain. The guard details changed as usual. The life of the Jade Palace went on normally. The thought of Rees and Chido calmly setting sail and leaving the Eye of the World, sailing back around the world to Hamal, filled me with the kind of baffled fury the prey of the Bichakker must feel when he unavailingly tries to climb the sloping sandy sides of the cone, and slips down into the hideous jaws waiting for him below. I was not sure who had created the sandy slopes that kept me imprisoned in the inner sea. But imprisoned I was. Any argenter in which I sailed would never pass through the Grand Canal, never reach the Dam of Days. Gafard remained aloft with his beloved when the king’s men came. The doors were open. I watched them through a chink in the inner door and saw them carry their logs and wedges to hold within any guards I had not poisoned thoroughly. This time there were no less than ten of them. Five remained to guard the escape; five went aloft. They returned very quickly bearing the shishi wrapped in a black cloak. She had ceased struggling. I saw with relief that no one carried a bloodied sword; all the blades remained in their scabbards. Silently, the black-cloaked men fled into the moon-shot darkness. After a time Grogor came down and opened the door for us, kicking the logs and wedges away.
"It is done," he said. The evil smile on his face made me think of him in a much warmer light. So we went back to our regular guard duties, for there were many other perils in Magdag besides the lusts of the genius king Genod.
The next day I went along to the rendezvous to pick up the balance of my pay, the other forty golden oars. No one turned up. I waited some time and then, with a fold of green cloth over my face, went back to the Jade Palace.
Nodgen the Faithful had proved himself damned faithless, the cramph.
Chapter Eighteen
At the Zhantil’s Lair
Of course, it had been obvious from the first that King Genod would not do his own dirty work. He would never descend to padding about one of his nobles’ palaces snuffing out a girl for himself. He was the king. He had the yrium. He would never come to me. So I had to go to him. That was settled.
I am sure I have not adequately conveyed my feelings of desperation and frustration during this time when I was Gadak the Renegade. My heart felt sore and bruised. My mind shrieked for me to be free of this evil place and to leave the Eye of the World and return to Valka and race up the long flight of steps from the Kyro of the Tridents and so burst shouting joyously into my fortress palace of Esser Rarioch and once more clasp my Delia in my arms, my Delia of the Blue Mountains, my Delia of Delphond. Before that devoutly longed-for resurrection could take place I must once more be accepted as a member of the Krozairs of Zy.
A High Jikai seemed to me to be the only way.
Truth to tell, as the days passed in Magdag and suns arched across the heavens and the duties came and went, I felt I cared little for the Krzy. I wished merely to use them to escape. If this is brutal, callous, mean, and vengeful, then this is also me, to my shame. Sometimes I would see my Lady of the Stars riding in the grassy park expanse, for the Jade Palace is large and sprawling among the buildings and palaces of Magdag, and she would graciously incline her head as I stood respectfully looking at her. She invariably wore the green veil. Then I would feel the tiny gold and enamel valkavol on its golden chain about my neck. I detest chains and strings and beads. They give a foeman a chance to grip and twist and so drag your head down ready to receive the final chop.
I wore the little valkavol, except when on duty, for then danger and instant action might occur at any moment.
Occasionally Gafard would foin with me in the exercise yard. He was very good. He was a skilled man with the shortsword, and his Genodder work made me use all my skill to let me lose to him gracefully. Although it seemed to me in my frustration and misery the time sped by superhumanly fast, as time is measured on Kregen very little elapsed before the announcement of the excursion was made and busy preparations immediately got under way.
We were to form a happy holiday party and visit Guamelga, Gafard’s enormous estates up the River Dag forming his rognate.
I said to Gafard that if he could spare me I would wish not to travel with the party. It was not that I was reluctant for a holiday. Truth was I wanted to stay in Magdag and work on my plans to take this evil king Genod and pitch him facedown in the muck and so, binding and gagging him, lug him off to a safe place. Then, I fancied, it would be comparatively simple to do the same to Gafard.
"What, Gadak the Renegade! Lose the chance of a holiday!"
"If it please you, gernu."
"It does not please me. My Lady of the Stars will go with us. She travels as she has before. But I need all my loyal men. Has Shagash got at your guts, and you are sluggish and bilious?" So there was nothing for it. I decided I would have to take Gafard and then see about the king. It would be more difficult that way around.
One thing I felt sure of. This time there would be no Chido and Rees to halt me in my tracks. Although at the time of our taking of the one-pastang flier I’d felt annoyed we’d missed the little two-place voller, now I saw the enormous benefit of that. The small flier remained in Magdag. Once I had the king I’d put the voller to good use. It would carry the three of us. I’d make it damn well carry the three of us. Its lifting and propulsive power, carried in the two silver boxes, would be ample. If necessary I’d hang the two devils in straps from the outside and let them freeze in the slipstream. . With that decided I put a bold face on the matter. I would have to act as a man delighting in the excursion, the picnics and the hunting parties. Everyone meant to enjoy every moment. We all surmised this was a last holiday before Gafard, the King’s Striker, was dispatched on new missions for his master the king.
Before we left Magdag I carried out the last of my reconnaissances of the king’s palaces. He possessed many residences in Magdag, the largest and most gorgeous of which, the Palace of Grodno the All-Wise, he used the least. This was reserved for official functions and contained the reception chamber where I had been received as a Grodnim. Two things must coincide for my plans to work right. The voller was seen over the city from time to time and people would look up and shout and no dou
bt think how mighty and powerful was their king. Sometimes a green-clad arm would wave. I had been unable to discover at which palace the damned thing was kept.
If it was moved about, then that made my arrangements just a little more difficult, for — by Krun! -
they were difficult enough as it was. The voller and the king must be in the same place at the same time. Anything less would be not only suicidal, but downright stupid.
This genius king was very highly security conscious. I knew that after he had successfully won his battle against the overlords of Magdag and taken over here there had been plots against him. The overlords are a malignant lot. But he had weathered the troubled times and now kept his apparatus of guards and watches and sentinels and werstings in full order, for his genius, no doubt, told him this was a prudent course.
The next palace I reconnoitered, the Palace of Masks, looked promising. It was small, or at least small as any building of a palatial kind could ever be in Magdag of the megaliths. It hugged the crest of a hill to the east of the city just within the walls, built of yellow stone and yellow bricks. I say that it looked a charming spot, and I say that genuinely. There were more flowers and blossoming trees here than is usual in bare Magdag. I hung about looking at the guard posts and the sentry boxes, eyeing the roof with an evil glint, figuring angles and possible places for climbing and descent. If voller and king coincided here, I would strike.
Walking back to Gafard’s Jade Palace I found myself wondering how that little shishi was faring with the king. If she kept her head — and I meant that figuratively, although it had as much force literally — and maintained the fiction that she had been with Gafard for some time as his Lady of the Stars, she might become a person of extraordinary importance in Magdag. Even the princess Susheeng might have to look very carefully before she struck back.
As for Susheeng — if I never saw her again on Kregen it would be too soon. That night all was bustle and laughing preparation within the Jade Palace. Opaz knows, the overlords of Magdag were a vile, villainous bunch; but even for them, and more particularly their women, a holiday ranked as a capital time to slough off all cares. We, the men of the loyal squadron, would ride our sectrixes fully armed, armored, and accoutered. I had had a small piece of good fortune one day in the Souk of Trophies, one of the open-air markets that should, by rights, have been called the Souk of Loot. Here the stalls were heaped with booty from Zairian prizes. I recalled when I had bought a piece of cut chemzite, a handsome trinket, to take to Vallia, and the princess Susheeng had thought it for her, and of my dark knowledge later that when she discovered it was not for her the scene had saved my life. Well, I found there not a piece of jewelry but a South Zairian hlamek, a wind-and-sand mask used by the people living on the skirts of the vast South Turismond deserts. It consisted of a metal skull, a finely crafted piece of hammered iron, well-padded with soft humespack, to which were appended four long and wide white humespack panels. From the upper side of the left-hand panel a broad square of silk was hinged in such a fashion that the left hand might take the top corner and hook it to the right side. It would cover all the face below the eyes, crossing the bridge of the nose. As a protection against wind and sand it was first rate, loose and soft enough to keep the wearer comfortable. All the brave scarlet stitching had been stripped away, but the basic fastenings remained intact.
As a facemask it offered opportunities I could not refuse.
So the hlamek went into the saddlebag along with my toilet necessities, the book I was reading (How the Ghittawrer Gogol Gon Gorstar Conquered Ten Kingdoms of Zair to the Glory of Grodno), my eating irons, and the golden drinking cup, one of the set presented to all those who had rescued her by the Lady of the Stars. We drank deep and long to her health in her golden drinking cups, for she had had the forethought to include a notable quantity of wine with her gift.
In a glittering procession we rode out of Magdag early on the following morning only murs after Zim and Genodras cleared the eastern battlements of the city. Each sectrix had been rubbed down, its mane curled and decorated with green ribbons, its hooves polished. The harness burned in the light. Green banners fluttered. Following the lord came his staff and retinue, his aides, his loyal squadron. The overlords who owed him allegiance rode with their wives and families. Following after came the long lines of wagons stuffed with good things, their krahniks in the shafts and hauling on the traces as scrubbed and shining as the sectrixes and hebras of the escort. After them came the calsanys, loaded down with enormous swaying baggage packs, linked head to tail by caravan ropes dyed green. Yes, we made a goodly spectacle as we rode out of evil Magdag.
Although the slow-moving River Mag was perfectly suitable for river navigation, Gafard had chosen to ride. We could cut across the vast lazy curves of the river and cross by the ferry services provided on this, the direct route to the north. Once free of the delta we could swing to the northwest and so leave the river entirely and march through fertile country, past the chains of factory farms run in so meticulous a fashion by the overlords of the second class and journey on until we reached Guamelga in its loop of the river.
Hikdar Nath ti Hagon received special permission to leave us to ride to the east to his home town for a visit. He would rejoin us at Guamelga later.
Among our bright company there rode the Lady of the Stars, accoutered like a warrior. Gafard rarely left her side where they jogged on at the head of the column. Perforce, I was left to trundle along in the ranks and meditate on my plans.
A hunting party of a similar kind in Havilfar, if they did not fly by voller, would have flown astride any of the marvelous saddle birds or animals of that continent. With a mirvol under me, or a fluttclepper, I could have breasted into the breeze and the slipstream would have blown the cobwebs from my mind. I do not think, as I have said, I would choose a zhyan, for all that Zena Iztar had appeared to me astride one of those snow-white birds. Best of all is the flutduin in my opinion, the flyer of my warrior Djangs, and a magnificent flying creature I had introduced into Valka. It seemed to me, jogging along toward Guamelga and a holiday that would be a farce, that King Genod would very soon receive another consignment of vollers to replace the ones I had smashed up in the tide released from the Dam of Days. If the empress Thyllis meant to do a thing, she did it come hell or high water — and she’d had the high water, by Vox!
So I would have to provide the hell. That, in my mood, seemed a singularly pleasant prospect. Still and all, during my enforced imprisonment on Earth I had missed the high enjoyment of sweeping through the sky astride a giant flying mount. Even a fluttrell with its ridiculous head vane would have been like water in a desert to me then.
The city of Guamelga itself was small, gabled of roof, of no particular distinction, walled — for it was near enough the lands of the Ugas for raids to be counted on — and dominated by the harsh stone bulk of the castle, the Goytering. We did not stay in the castle or the city for long, Gafard being anxious to get away from all cares, and so we went deeper into the countryside away from the cultivated areas to one of the hunting lodges he kept up. The one he chose was the Zhantil’s Lair. A comfortable enough place set in woodlands with wide-open prospects of tall grasses beyond, it would not accommodate all his people and of those he kept with him I was one. I was pleased about this. I wanted the rogue under my eye.
Days of hunting followed. There was all manner of game, and there were leems and chavonths and, once, a pair of hunting lairgodonts. The hunting party was in sufficient strength to dispose of them. The trophies were brought back in triumph.
The Magdaggians do not go in greatly for singing. Oh, yes, they do sing, of course, and we had a few sessions around the fires of an evening. It is an odd fact that the Magdaggian swods when they sing on the march habitually bellow out only two or three songs, not caring for many others. Of these the most common is a song I find tiresome, going as it does with the beat of the studded marching sandals — "Ob!
Dwa! So!" — One!
Two! Three! — followed by a doggerel verse about Genodras or Goyt or Gyphimedes or Grodno. Ob, dwa, so, as intellectual subject matter for a song, seems to me somewhat below what is necessary. Still, it takes all kinds to make a world, particularly the world of Kregen. As was to be expected, this song was known as the "Obdwa Song." When some idiot started up this song in the wood-paneled dining room, I stood up, swaying a little to color my appearance of fuddlement. "Ob, dwa so," they sang. "We’re a bloodthirsty lot, as Gashil is our witness. Ley, waso, shiv, we’ll slit throats and empty purses. Shebov, ord-" I wandered out into the paneled hall and made my way to the kitchens in search of a drink of fresh water from the pump.
The room was brilliantly lit at the far end, down by the ovens and the preparation tables, but where I had come in to get at the hand-cranked pump, shadows fell. I heard a noise and instantly, for the noise was a slither, I put my hand on my shortsword and padded forward silently. I heard a low voice, a very low voice, singing a song I knew.
It is impossible to translate the song as a poem from the Kregish to the English, as I have already mentioned. But the meaning of the words was something like: "If your swifter’s got a kink, my lads, your swifter’s got a kink. You’ll go around in circles, boys, in circles around you’ll go. Your ram will pierce your stern, old son, your ram will pierce your stern. You’ll vanish like a sea-ghost, dom, a sea-ghost you’ll become-"
At this point the soft singing stopped and I heard the evil scrape of steel on steel as a blade cleared scabbard.
A harsh voice, kept low and penetrating, bit out: "Weng da!" At the formal challenge of Weng da I said, "It is only Gadak the Renegade." For I knew who this was and I knew the next words of the song, that famous old Zairian song, "The Swifter with the Kink," were highly uncomplimentary to the Green of Grodnim and most satisfyingly urbane about the Red of Zair.
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