That was their plan.
I said, after I closed my mouth and swallowed and so opened my crusty old lips again: “The Bowmen of Loh will not tolerate so flagrant a breach of the rules. They will shaft you all."
“Of course,” said Strom Nath. “But Mefto will be gone and our country will face the future with hope."
“And you would all give your lives—?"
“If there was more we could give, that, too, we would willingly pay,” said Konec, and there was no mocking his dignity as he spoke—although I wanted to mock this so-called plan. By Zair! What a lot! And what I had got myself into!
They were standing, all looking at me with a hard bright regard. Konec said, “You look—You are not willing to give your life to save your country?"
“Only if there is no other way. But I have as tender a regard for my own neck as I have for my country."
At that they would have grown angry; but I said: “Let me think. There has to be another way."
“You disappoint me, Jak,” said Dav. And, in truth, he looked cast down. “I had thought you a man among men."
The time was not suitable for me to make the classic rejoinder to that one: “I'd sooner be a man among women.” But, by Vox, there had to be another way!
Then I saw Bevon the Brukaj, drinking quietly to himself in a corner. He had acquitted himself well today and proved himself a fine swordsman, for that, he had said, was his weapon.
“Bevon,” I said. “He was by way of becoming a Jikaidast. Let me speak to him. He has a head on his shoulders."
The arguments went on a long time; but they were tired and wrung out, and the drink was working on them, and, truth to tell, although I did not doubt for a single instant their burning determination to give their lives, they would welcome another and better way in which they did not face certain death. So we parted, amicably, with my promise that if we could not discover a method of dealing with Mefto, I would join their party and take part in their suicidal plan.
The clincher came when I said, “Your force has been reduced. You are too few to get at Mefto in a body and fight off his men; and they will fight, mark it well."
“D'you think we don't know that!” said Dav, and the agony in him twisted in me, too, for him ... “And there is no one here we may ask or trust—save you, Jak the Nameless."
“And yet you would still have gone on?"
“Aye!"
After we left the Noumjiksirn with the bokkertu of the ransom of the Yellow Princess duly finalized, I met Pompino. He came into the room we shared looking the worse for wear. He threw himself on the bed, and yawned, and said, “By Horato the Potent! If I had a golden deldy for each copper ob I spent tonight I would be a rich man."
“Lucky you."
He regarded me, sharply enough, and sat up. “I have to see Ineldar the Kaktu first thing. He has kept open two places, but he will not hold them past the Bur of Fretch.” That was two burs after the suns rose. “We must be up betimes."
“I shall not be taking a place in Ineldar's caravan guard."
“What?” He scowled at me as though I'd sprouted a Kataki tail. “You don't mean that? What of the Everoinye—"
“There is a task I must do—"
“You said you were desperate to go home—back to Hyrklana."
“I was. But now—"
“You are going to act as a piece in Kazz-Jikaida!"
“Yes."
“Fambly! Onker! You'll be chopped. What in Panachreem can?"
“There is a duty I owe which must be honored. A task has been set to my hands and I must do it."
“Ah!” He suddenly understood, or thought he did. “The Gdoinye has visited you. You have a service for the Everoinye—?"
“No. What I do is not for the Star Lords."
He looked shocked. “There is nothing in Kregen more important than laboring for the Star Lords!"
“Yes,” I said. “There is."
* * *
Chapter Eighteen
Of an Encounter in an Armory
Pompino shared my view that the Star Lords had acted in a way far different from their usual abrupt course when they had set us the task of protecting the lady Yasuri. For one thing; we had both been aware that the threat of the Ochs was more apparent than real. I had been warned of the impending mission in a new way, although Pompino told me that he usually received some prior notice. We felt that the Ochs had been laid on in some way so as to introduce us to the lady Yasuri and secure our employment with her.
“Her escort under that rascal Rordan the Negus returned in time. We did a good job, but—"
“Yes, the escort would have just been in time. So the Star Lords set that up for us. Not like most of the times I have been dumped down unceremoniously right in the thick of it."
Pompino was intrigued. I told him a little of some of the occasions when I had done the Star Lord's bidding, and he expressed astonishment. We were up early and making his preparations to leave. I would be sorry to see him go, and I felt he shared that opinion of me; but nothing he said could make me change my mind. We drank early-morning ale companionably together as we watched the suns rise.
“So you actually arrive when the action has begun?"
'Too right. Usually I have to scout around pretty sharpish for a weapon."
He shook his head, his foxy face surprised.
“When I am called the Everoinye place me carefully, and I can size up the situation and take the best course."
“Ha!” This, of course, merely confirmed my own early opinion of the Star Lords that had been changing over the seasons. “If I don't get stuck in pretty sharpish I'd be done for.” Then, to be fair, I added: “Well, most of the time."
We talked around this puzzling fact—puzzling to Pompino although to me merely a part and parcel of my life on Kregen—and then he came out with a sober observation that shook me.
“I had a comrade once, a fine man, a Stroxal from a town near us in South Pandahem. We never went on a task together; but we talked. One day he just disappeared and never showed up again. He was, I feel sure, slain on a task for the Everoinye.” Pompino looked shrewdly at me. “I think, Jak, that sometimes the Star Lords send a kregoinye to work for them and he fails. He is slain and does not do their bidding. Then, it is an emergency. They have to throw someone in as a last desperate attempt—"
“By Zair!” I burst out. “So I am the forlorn hope!"
“When all else fails they put you into the ring of blood."
I felt the seething anger boiling away and I held it down. After all, wasn't this just another reminder of my powerlessness? And then a thought occurred. “Hold on a mur, Pompino—the Star Lords have thrown me back in time, into a time loop, so that means they can choose the moment to put me into the action."
“I think that after the action has begun they cannot affect the course of time—I, too, have been through a time loop."
“Well, that is possible."
And, too, I had felt this so-called powerlessness ebbing of late. There was the rebel Star Lord Ahrinye to be taken into consideration. The Star Lords were not infallible, as I knew from my arrival in Djanduin. If what Pompino said was true, and it made good sense, I had another weapon against them.
“Well, Jak, time to be off."
He gathered up his gear and hitched his belt. He smiled at me, his fox-like face suddenly looking remarkably friendly.
“I have greatly enjoyed your company, Jak, by Horato the Potent. I grieve we will not travel the Desolate Waste together. Will you not come? There is still time..."
“I thank you, Pompino, and I have enjoyed our time together. You are a good comrade. But my allegiance is with—is with another area that—"
“Hyrklana?"
I smiled. “Think it, dom, and do not fret."
Companionably we went out and through the crowded streets and past the boulevard tables where folk were already hard at Jikaida, the ranked armies of miniature warriors marching and counter-marching
in frozen brilliance, and so came through the Kyro of Calsanys to the dusty drinnik where the caravans formed. The pandemonium was splendid. The colors, the brilliance, the movements, the stinks, the shouting and bawling—Kregen, ah, Kregen!
Ineldar had a go at making me change my mind; but he was in a hurry to get his motley assemblage into sufficient order for them to move off. There'd be confusion for a couple of days yet before he got them drilled. The Quoffas lumbered off, rolling, their patient enormous faces calmly considering the state of their insides, probably, indifferent to the pains of the journey before them. The calsanys were given a wide berth and their drivers wore bright scarves wrapped around their faces. The carriages and the wagons, the vakkas riding a wide variety of the magnificent saddle animals of Kregen, the swarms of people afoot, all moved along, jostling to find a good spot in the procession. A slave brought up Pompino's totrix and strapped his gear aboard. I shook hands. Pompino mounted up and stuck the lance into the boot. He shouted.
“Remberee, Jak! Come and visit me in Tuscursmot. I shall make you a great bargain from my armory."
“Aye, Pompino the Iarvin. I shall look forward to that.” I waved. “Remberee!"
“Remberee!"
And Scauro Pompino ti Tuscursmot, known as Pompino the Iarvin, cantered off to take his place among the caravan guards.
With a deep breath that some folk might dub a sigh I turned away and swung off through the departing crowds. The dust hung. The stinks prevailed. Well, a little wet and then a trifle of business with Friendly Fodo...
People were looking up. Pointing fingers strained skyward. I looked up.
An airboat fleeted in over the twin cities. She was a large craft with a high upflung poop and fighting castles amidships and for'ard; but she was not as large an airboat as the enormous skyships of Hamal. But she was from that nation. Her purple and gold flags flew proudly, and in the Kregan custom she flew as many flags as she could cram flagstaffs in along her length.
So I knew who had arrived—not who, as far as name and rank and dignity went—but who in the sense that this was the great one of Hamal who came to talk the Dawn Lands into destruction with Mefto the Kazzur—and, with them, Vallia.
Some faint spark of the old Dray Prescot flared up then. Something that made me say, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy. There was now a voller in Jikaida City. So, perhaps, if I was lucky and bold enough and lived long enough, I had me my means of conveyance back home to Vallia.
Feeling ridiculously cheerful I slaked my thirst and then saw Friendly Fodo. I showed him the thraxter I had bought from him. The rivets of the hilt had frayed through the bindings. He made a face and stroked his shiny whiskers.
“Oh, a trifle, dom, a mere trifle, why that can be fixed for you in the shake of a leem's tail."
“No doubt. But I have a little more gold now—"
“Ah!"
The cupidity of him was transparent. Well, he had a living to make, and I had a weapon to buy on which my life would depend.
For a hoary old fighting man this dickering over weapons is always a pleasant business, and Friendly Fodo, assured of my gold, entered into the spirit of the occasion. A table was brought and laid with a purple cloth, and tea, ale, miscils and palines appeared, brought in by a slave Xaffer, distant and remote; but willing enough. I sat in the chair and partook of the goodies as Friendly Fodo paraded his wares.
No thought entered my head other than that I would buy a new thraxter. Fantasies are for fairy stories, sometimes for grim businessmen of the world, occasionally for poets. The thraxter, your hefty cut and thruster of Havilfar, is adapted to do its work. It is superior, even Vallians will tell you, to the Vallian clanxer. The drexer we had developed in Valka is far superior. I looked at the glittering and lovingly polished blades on the counter. I said, “You are cut off from the world, here in Jikaida City, behind the Desolate Waste—"
“Oh, yes, cut off. But the caravans bring in many strange articles from Havil knows where."
“There is a new fashion in Hamal,” I said, and immediately added, “That pestiferous rast-nest. They have taken up fighting with a longer, more slender blade—perhaps—?"
He nodded, interested in talking shop.
“Aye, I have heard from the brethren in my craft. Rapiers, they call ‘em. Whether they be as quick as they say—” He lifted his shoulders. “But I have not seen one, so cannot say."
“A pity."
We talked on, and I ate palines and examined the weapons. The Kregish for sword is screetz. I seldom use it in this narrative, for, like the Kregish for sea and water, it is not adapted to terrestrial ears. The same goes for princess. There are other Kregish words I do not use here for the same reason.
At last, seeing I was determined, Friendly Fodo brought out his better wares, blades he valued. These stood in a different class—and their price accordingly. But a fighting man does not care to set a price on the weapons of his trade; how to value your own life in terms of gold?
The best—that is the cardinal rule—the best you can afford.
In the end I selected a thraxter with a finer blade than most. The fittings were plain. There were secret marks on the blade, and Friendly Fodo claimed it had belonged to a kov slain in Death-Jikaida, although he did not offer any explanation of how it had come into his possession. The shop pressed in about me, hung with weapons and armor and glinting with steel and iron and bronze. The air hung heavy with the scent of the violet-yellow heasmon flowers. I took another paline, savoring the rich fruity flavor. The Xaffer brought forward a sturmwood box containing a blade; but a single gentle twirl told me the balance was untrue. This is, despite all, a weakness of the Havilfarese thraxter. When I say the blade of the example I chose was finer, I mean the lines were slightly more slender, the fullering that much more exact. I made up my mind.
“Fodo, can you have this blade fined down a trifle—I can draw you the lines. The curve of the cutting edge, so—” I traced a thumbnail down the blade.
He nodded, twitching his whiskers. “I can have that done in my workshop which is, as everyone knows, the finest in all Jikaida City."
“Good. If you will bring paper and pen I will draw it out."
Following my usual custom I had turned the chair as I sat down so that I faced the door. This is a habit, as you know. A shadow moved beyond the panels, and the brass bell chimed. I caught a glimpse of a hard bright yellow tuft of feathers vibrating ahead of the helmet beneath them, and I was out of the chair and back into the shadows of the shop past the counter, pressing up against a reekingly oily kax wrapped about a stray dummy.
The two Shanodrinese swaggered in, throwing their short capes back, laughing, making great play with the rings on their fingers. They wore armor. They guffawed, between themselves, talking of their prince in terms that betrayed respect and obedience but little affection. The two were masichieri, well enough, little better than bandits masquerading as paktuns.
“Hai, Fodo, you lumop! Where is the dagger you repair for me, eh? You useless rast!"
Not, as you will instantly perceive, a pleasant way to talk.
Fodo's Xaffer bustled forward in that indifferent way that strange race of diffs have, and produced the dagger. It was minutely scrutinized and reluctantly passed as serviceable. It would not have surprised me if these two specimens of Mefto's guard refused to pay, and broke Fodo's nose for him if he objected. But they rustled out the coins and made a great show of it, and then turned to leave.
I heaved out a sigh of relief. Oh, yes, I, Dray Prescot, hid and ached for these cramphs to begone. You will easily see why. Dav Olmes had cleared up the mess after the death of the four would-be stikitches and nothing further had transpired; but Mefto's men would still be wondering what had happened to their comrades. They had followed me, and therefore were obeying orders; but Mefto's men could not know I served Konec, at least, not yet, not until we met.
So they turned to leave and then one of them, the apim with the black m
oustaches and the lines disfiguring his mouth, saw the spread table, and the miscils crumbled on their plate and the dish of palines. He halted and, idly as I thought, picked up a paline and, as one does, popped it into his mouth.
His companion was a Moltingur, one of that race of diffs who, of the size of and not unlike apims, yet are diffs with a horny carapace across their shoulders, atrophied relic of wings, so it is believed. Their faces would be looked on as hideous on Earth, with an eating proboscis and feelers, and faceted eyes that loom large and blank and frighteningly ferocious. His tunnel mouth opened to reveal its rows of needle-like teeth that tore his food for the proboscis to masticate and swallow down. His words were hissed, as all Moltingurs seem to hiss whatever they speak, chillingly.
“You have a customer, Fodo. An honored customer, I think."
“Aye,” said the apim. “By Barflut the Razor-Feathered, you are right, Trinko.” So by these words I knew he had been a flutsman in his time.
“Just a customer—” began Fodo.
Now it was plain these two thought highly of themselves, as members of the entourage of Prince Mefto of Shanodrin. The clear evidence of the rapid departure of Fodo's customer must either have puzzled them and aroused their suspicious nature or piqued them because of the fancied slight. Either way, with gentlemen of that kidney, it did not matter. They were insistent on meeting this mysterious customer.
If I say, again, in the old way: I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, I would add only that I would say those great words with a kind of sob, a despairing feeling of emptiness. Oh, yes, Dray Prescot could leap out and with drawn sword confront these two cramphs. Dray Prescot would have done that. The Dray Prescot who had not, as Jak the Nameless, fought Prince Mefto the Kazzur—and lost.
A Sword for Kregen [Dray Prescot #20] Page 18
