A Sword for Kregen

by Alan Burt Akers

  “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.

  Chapter Twenty

  Death Jikaida

  “You must be a fambly, of a surety,” said Nath the Swordsman, screwing up his scarred face in hopeless wonderment. “But if you wish to act against Mefto, that is suitable for me. I do not give the lady Yasuri more than one chance in ten.”

  “You are finding the pieces for the lady Yasuri. Put me down on the list.”

  “And me,” said Bevon, at my side.

  Pompino had disappeared. I harbored no grudge; this was no affair of his and he was mightily conscious of his duty for the Star Lords. We stood in Nath the Swordsman’s room that looked out upon the inner square of his rambling premises. Men and women were being put through their paces out there, and the quick flitter and flutter of sword blades filled the dusty area. The room was plainly furnished and contained as its centerpiece a finely executed picture of Kurin, delineated as some long-dead artist of Jikaida City had visualized him, blade in hand, in the guard position and, as this was Havilfar, covering himself with a shield. The picture served as the focus of a kind of shrine, with flowers and atras and incense burning, which exuded a stink into the room.

  “The lady Yasuri was fortunate in the misfortune of Konec,” said Nath. His gaze seldom left the people practicing out there, and he would suddenly leap up and go striding out, yelling, to reprimand some poor wight whose clumsy technique had aroused Nath’s displeasure. The women out there were all strapping girls, of course, for they fight hard in Vuvushi Jikaida.

  “Yes,” said Bevon.

  The league tables led up to the final tournament and Yasuri had placed third, because she had already lost to Konec. That was her only defeat. With the absence of Konec, who was due to play Mefto in the final, Yasuri had been switched in. We were here to act as two of her pieces. Neither of us could see any other way of getting to Prince Mefto.

  I had, in my old intemperate way, started to make a sally toward his hotel and had fought a few of his folk trying to get through. I had not succeeded and the darker the veil drawn over that chapter of misfortunes the better. I had had the sense to wear a mask. Now we presented ourselves at Nath en Screetzim’s premises and he welcomed us like water in the Ochre Limits.

  Once we had been accepted, the formalities went through like sausages on a greased plate and very quickly we found ourselves joining the lumpen gaggle Yasuri had been able to find. We waited in a long, wide, tall hall with arrow-slits for windows far higher than a man could jump. We were in the heart of the Jikaidaderen. The game was to be a private one. The public would be able to see most of the other tournament games; but they would not be permitted here to see the final. That they were prepared to accept this indicates something of the obedience rife in Jikaida City. We rubbed shoulders with criminals, with men who had been delegated this duty, slaves fighting for their freedom and few, very few, men who fought for the lady Yasuri.

  The atmosphere in that anteroom to the games clogged on the palate, the stink of sweat, the stink of fear — and the silly bravado men put on in times like these to mask their deeper feelings. Well, Bevon and I endured.

  We studied the Jikaida pieces waiting to go on. We tried to pick the stout from the weak, the brave from those who would be unable to perform adequately through fear — everyone knew the penalty for running. I said to Bevon: “One or two will run, I think, and welcome a Lohvian shaft through them rather than a chopped-up death at the hands of Mefto’s bully boys.”

  “Yet some look capable. That Chulik, he’s here for slitting the throat of a Rapa. And that group of Fristles, and see those Khibils? They will fight.”

  Rumors and buzzes swept through the men. There was weak ale to drink and no wine. There was ample food. We understood that the lady Yasuri had obtained the services of a lady Jikaidasta whose name, we gathered, was Ling-li-Lwingling, or something like that. Bevon listened to the swift gabble of a Fristle, and turned to me. I did not know if he was laughing or cursing.

  “Who do you think Mefto has as his Jikaidast?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, Bevon, now you have a personal grudge in it doubled.”

  “Aye.”

  Och slaves at last brought in the equipment. These formalities differed markedly for us from our previous experiences. Then we had been part of a noble’s entourage, playing for his honor and glory; now we were assembled from the academies of the sword and from the prisons and stews. The bagniossupplied their freight. The lady Yasuri apparently relied entirely on the resources of Jikaida City for her pieces, for we saw none of the small bodyguard she kept up. As for the equipment, that was simple. A blue breechclout, a thraxter and a shield. Plus a headband decked with varying numbers of blue feathers and, for some of the superior pieces, blue favors on sashes. Bevon and I each received a reed-laurium[6] with two blue feathers. This marked us as Deldars.

  The swords were thraxters and Bevon and I, by arrangement as volunteers, received our own weapons. The shields were laminated wood, bronze rimmed but not faced, and were smaller than the regulation Havilfarese swod’s shield, being something like twenty-seven inches high by sixteen inches wide, and were rectangular.

  The shields were painted solid blue with white rank markings as appropriate, and a fellow would take the shield fitting his position as a piece when he left the substitutes bench.

  The lady Yasuri had been obliged to play blue, as she was filling in and, no doubt, overjoyed at her own good fortune. She was a Yellow adherent, I
knew; but the glory and profit of winning meant more to her, and it is proper that a Jikaida player should take either color for the experience of the different diagonals of play.

  Wrapping the blue breechclout about me and drawing the end up between my legs and fastening it off with the blue cord provided reminded me, with a pang, of the times I had gone through this first stage of dressing with the brave old scarlet. But now there would be no mesh steel, no kax, no leather jerkin; now the blue breechclout was all. Well, by Zair! And wasn’t this what was required? Wasn’t it high time I went swinging into action wearing just a breechclout and with a sword in my fist?

  “By the Black Chunkrah!” I said. “I think Mefto—” But I did not finish the thought. Black and white checks filled the room and we were being herded out. The smell of fear stank on the air, and, also, the sweat of men determined to fight before they died.

  We all received a goblet of wine — a thick, heavy, red variety like the deep purple wine of Hamal called Malab’s Blood. I do not care for it; but, by Krun! it went down sweetly enough then, I can tell you.

  The preliminary ceremonies went as usual, with the prayers and the chanted hymns and the sacrifices. When we came out of the long stone tunnel from the gloom onto the brilliance of the board, the brightness of the light smote our eyes. Ruby and jade radiance drenched the playing board. This was a very select, very refined Jikaida board. There was no noisy hum from an excited crowd of plebs. Around the board and raised on a plinth extended a broad terrace, shielded by black and white checkered awnings. The thrones facing each other at either end were ornate. On the terrace were set small tables and reclining couches, and the high ones of LionardDen lolled there, waited on by slaves, sipping their drinks and daintily picking at light delicacies. They had chairs which could be carried around the terrace by slaves so that they might watch the play from the best positions. No action would begin until the representative of the Nine Masked Guardians was satisfied that all the spectators were in position for the finest view.