A Fortune for Kregen

by Alan Burt Akers

  Dressing ourselves with some thought — for we were going into a shadowy borderline where the Watch would venture in strength and not at all if they didn’t have to — we donned simple drab-colored clothes, of which we had a supply, and strapped up our brigandines, and hitched on our weapons. The feel of steel about me came with not so much a shock as a kind of surprise; I had skulked abed too long.

  The twin suns were just sinking as we walked quietly along the avenues and headed for the poor quarter where the inn was situated. Far and Havil, they call the red and the green suns in the continent of Havilfar.

  It is a point well worth remembering. The Jikaida players were packing up their boards in the sidewalk restaurants and taverns as we went by. The brightly painted and intricately carved pieces were being laid tenderly away in the velvet-lined balass boxes. Pompino looked at me, and his foxy face bristled brilliant and russet in the last of the light.

  There was no need to ask him what he was thinking.

  Perhaps, this night, we two would be laid to rest in the velvet-lined balass box.

  The inn called Nath Chavonthjid leaned against the evening, and the leaded windows spilled yellow light upon the rutted path. A miscellany of animals was tied to the hitching rail. We walked in. I know my hand rested on my thraxter hilt. The fumes of wine reached us and, mixed with them, the stink of dopa, that fiery liquor of Kregen guaranteed to drive a fellow fighting mad. Nobody with any sense has any truck with dopa, as nobody who values life touches kaff, the virulent Kregan drug that wafts to a heaven and a hell.

  “Nathjairn?” said the portly Rapa behind the bar, his beak twisted askew from an old fight. He wiped a flagon on his apron and nodded to where men in leather aprons were hauling something toward the rear door. “There he goes, may Havil take him into his care.”

  We walked across.

  Nathjairn the Rovard was being carried out, sightless, his throat a single crimson wound from which the blood dripped thickly.

  Chapter Four

  I Refuse to Fight in Kazz-Jikaida

  Pompino switched his wooden sword about and thunked me prettily on the shoulder. I nodded to him, saluted and disengaged. The flagon of ale invited from the table and I drained it all down thirstily. In these practice bouts I had hitherto always attempted the difficult task of fighting with the object of losing with superior skill, that is, of seeming to give of my utmost and yet contriving to let the other fellow win. This is, as I have remarked, difficult.

  Pompino took a swingeing draught of his own ale, and wiping his reddish whiskers where the foam clung, said, “I don’t see how you lasted half a mur against Mefto the Kazzur, Jak. I really do not.”

  “He is the best swordsman I have ever met, Pompino. But, I repeat, he is nowhere near the greatest.”

  “You make the distinction?”

  I threw the rudis onto the bed and pulled a chair forward into the space we had cleared for the practice bout. Fighting men must practice their art. If they do not, and grow slack, the fierce clangor of battle is no time to find out they are out of practice.

  “Oh, yes. Swordplay is more a matter of the spirit.”

  “Horato the Potent is my witness you speak the truth. But how may a man attain to greatness without this spiritual quality?”

  “He cannot. Witness Prince Mefto—”

  “I could wish it in my heart you had slain him.”

  I did not wish to pursue a sore subject. “I shall make another attempt on Prince Nedfar’s airboat.”

  He nodded. “I shall come with you—”

  “And, my Pompino, you have heard no more of the Humped Land?”

  He swore, a resounding oath that rattled the rafters.

  “No. Men talk about it, slyly. But Nathjairn was prepared to take an expedition out. Now another one may be seasons—”

  “We could always strike out southwestward ourselves.”

  “All men warn against such foolishness.”

  “The dangers are not so great as across the river and among the great lakes.”

  “True. Unless we go with an expedition, it is foolish to think of it. We go by caravan across the Desolate Waste, or we take the voller — and that may be the best answer.”

  LionardDen, called Jikaida City, was cut off from the rest of the continent of Havilfar. Vallia always called me, that beautiful island always would, and I missed Delia badly; but she had her own life to lead with the Sisters of the Rose. I confess Pompino’s wild talk of treasure and sorcery intrigued. And that brought up another question.

  I gave him a look as he refilled his flagon.

  “You were all for going home to Tuscursmot in South Pandahem. You had, you said, spent enough time parted from your wife—”

  “True.” He drank and wiped his whiskers. “But the old girl will survive without me. We rub along. And while there is gold and wizardly powers — why, dom — just think of it—”

  “Having heard of the Humped Land, now we must wait until someone puts an expedition together — is that it?”

  “You mean — you’d go?”

  I twirled the rudis. The heavy wood was dented and splintered from the force of our blows. The flick-flick plant satisfied another small segment of its appetite, and a fly vanished from the ken of men. “I may — I do not know. I am in more than two minds. But all is mere conjecture while we must care for the lady Yasuri, under the orders of the Star Lords.”

  “True. Damned true.”

  If a weathervane may be blown by the winds of heaven in any direction, then I was a weathervane, right enough.

  “Y’know, Jak,” said Pompino, carrying on a thread of thought begun by our remarks. “It is strange the Everoinye, if they are so tender for the welfare of the lady Yasuri, allow us to stay here, instead of at her hotel, the Star of Laybrites.”

  “The Star Lords are a bunch of onkers, of get onkers, and deserve to be stewed in their own juices.” At his stricken face, I added, hurriedly, “Yes, yes, my Pompino, I know. But they have understood me, over the seasons. They know what I think of them. Until they prove themselves as being as good as humans, I cannot take them seriously as gods.”

  “You—” His reddish whiskers bristled, his dark eyes stood out, he looked as though he would choke.

  “Jak, Jak! They’ll strike you down.”

  “Not them. That’s not their damned way.”

  “Their ways pass the understanding of mortal men.”

  “If a being, an entity, cannot show the same decent qualities one expects of a fellow human being, why should any man be expected to worship and give praise to such a being?”

  “I do not know. No one knows.”

  A knock at the door heralded the chambermaid, a little Fristle fifi with brown fur and a delightful smile, who told us the landlord had a visitor for us.

  “Show him up,” said Pompino, and we laid aside the wooden swords and took into our fists steel thraxters.

  But it was only Onron, the lady Yasuri’s Rapa coachman and chamberlain, decked out in a fine new livery, who told us with some condescension that the lady wished us to accompany her to the play this evening.

  “The play?” said Pompino, laying aside his thraxter. “Since when has the lady ever wanted us to go with her to Jikaida?”

  “The play, I said, you imbecilic Khibil!” The Rapa fluffed up his red tribal feathers, his beak polished and shining.

  Pompino started up, bristling, but we sorted it out.

  Between some members of some races of diffs there does exist an immediate, top of the head, instinctive antipathy, varying in intensity from diff to diff, that has over the seasons become formularized and lacking any intensity of conviction. The slanging becomes mawkish or merry, not taken seriously, a peg to hang a mental hat on, a way of release from other tensions, a little banter to lighten up the day.

  In that spirit the Rapa Onron could say with a spit, “They should send you both to Execution Jikaida.

  That would make you skip about, believe me.”r />
  “I,” said Pompino, “have no wish to hear another word about Execution Jikaida. We don’t admit foul smells in here.”

  Before he could add the obvious and, perhaps, liken Onron to some particular stink, I butted in and got the details, as Pompino would have done after a little more enjoyable wrangling.

  As popular entertainment, the theatre lagged a long way after Jikaida in Jikaida City. But there were playgoers in the city who demanded and obtained the best plays, and tonight’s offering at Dottles Playhouse was to be given by a traveling company who had just come in with a caravan across the Desolate Waste. Pompino and I prepared for the evening, at the lady Yasuri’s instructions wearing brigandines under our lounging robes, and with thraxters belted to our waists — well, they went outside the robes, for no sensible Kregan willingly parts with his sword unless he knows that the company he will keep and the haunts he will frequent will prove friendly.

  The play was to be a great and famous old favorite of all those Kregans who love true theater and not the mindless singsong baubles dished up on the popular stage. We were to see Jögen , Part One, which comes from the fifth book of The Vicissitudes of Panadian the Ibreiver , the sublime cycle of plays by Nalgre ti Liancesmot. I was looking forward to it, and even Pompino, whose tastes were attuned more to the mass media — to use that oft-abused much later descriptive — gave his opinion that Jögen was always worth seeing and that he hoped this newly arrived company were of some quality.

  There was the obvious aphorism to quote him — from Panadian, to be sure, “The empty grave proves the armor’s worth.” To which, it is interesting to remember, a later playwright, En Prado, adds the rider:

  “The gallows dangle proves the armor’s faults.”

  There is debate over the latter, and as we went with the jostle of the crowd toward the theatre, Pompino was attempting to sway me to the school of thought which says that En Prado really wrote armorer’s faults and not armor’s faults. Either way, as we went in under the mineral-oil lamps’ flare to find the lady Yasuri, either way makes sense. It is a pretty point of a particularly fascinating and useless kind of academic lore.

  The fellow who tried to slip a dagger into my ribs so that he might more easily steal my purse was jabbed away with a fist in his mouth and then a boot in his guts. The crowd parted around him, and only two women squealed. Pompino wanted to put a knife between his ribs.

  “Leave him be, good Pompino. He but practices his trade — and poor pickings he will get tonight, with a broken tooth and a bruised mouth marking him for a brawler.”

  The would-be thief picked himself up. His clothes were neat as they must be for his trade here. “By Diproo the Nimble-fingered,” he spat out, spraying blood. “You are damned quick.”

  “Schtump!” shouted Pompino angrily. “Clear off!”

  He went away, then, as the theater’s hired guards stalked across to sort out the disturbance. I noticed the thief walked with a limp, and felt sorry for him, and then we pressed on into the lighted area where people waited and we saw the lady Yasuri.

  She saw us too, and her little body drew itself up. Her lined old nutcracker face had mellowed wonderfully of late; but her nose and her tongue were as long and sharp as ever.

  “You are late, you famblys.”

  She wore a deep-maroon cloak over a severe black bombazine dress, as we had first seen her. Her small body was decked with gems so that she glittered like a stalagmite. She was continually being looked at and pointed out as the reigning Jikaida champion, and she lapped up the fame and the applause. I shook my head. She had cared for me wonderfully after the final game in which she had taken the championship; but it had only been because I’d fought a crazy man’s fight that she had won. It was clear that she owed me. It was also clear to me that she was now more wealthy than ever. And, with equal clarity, it was borne in on me that I could no longer tolerate the acceptance of charity in lieu of payment.

  Pompino started to bumble about being held up on the way.

  I said, “We are not late, lady, for the play has not yet begun.” Then, as she flinched back, I added, “I am pleased you are keeping so well. What business do you have with us?”

  But she was not a great lady for nothing. She was a Vadni, which is very high up the rank tables of Kregan nobility, and after that first surprised flinch, she flared up. Her tiny face screwed up wrathfully.

  Her sharp nose stuck up toward us like the beak of a swifter. Blood suffused her thin cheeks.

  “I should have you whipped jikaider! Insolence — who is paying for you to lie abed in idle luxury?”

  “If it is gold you want, lady, gold you may have.”

  She sneered at this. “And where would you two brave buckos put your hands on gold enough.”

  “Mod—” began Pompino. I trod on his foot and said, “We can hire out to someone else, lady. Do not forget, you discharged us, turned us off in the city, and when I fought I did not fight for you.”

  That had rattled her. She waited until a chattering pack of empty-headed girls fluttered past, all silks and draperies, and then she said: “No. No, Jak, you told me that. Who, then, were you fighting for?”

  “Better ask the Witch of Loh, Ling-li-Lwingling.”

  She gave a petty gesture, annoyed. “She has left the city.”

  “To be truthful with you, lady, I do not know what she knows. But she hinted that she knew much—”

  “Oh, that is the way of a Witch of Loh. If they do not know they will always pretend they do.”

  “So you summoned us here tonight. Here we are. Again — what is the business you have with us? If it is to demand we pay you back for your—”

  “No, no, you great lumop! Only your last fight with Prince Mefto — it was wonderful and awful and frightening — only that — but I am champion and, indeed, I never expected it, did not dare to dream—”

  She pulled a scrap of lace, so that the threads snapped. “But I am champion and must play again, soon, in the Mediary Games. Will you—?”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “I will not fight again in Death Jikaida.”

  “Jak—”

  Pompino was breathing extraordinarily hard at my ear. He’d refused to act as a piece on the board when they played Kazz-Jikaida, Blood Jikaida, and had cogent reasons for that. The plan in which I had become embroiled had succeeded, against all expectations. I wanted nothing more of stepping out onto the blue and yellow checkered sand and of fighting at the whim of a player, fighting for my life for nothing.

  “As the reigning Champion you cannot have any difficulty in finding men anxious to act as your pieces.”

  “True. But I want you as my Princess’s Swordsman—”

  “No.”

  A brazen gong note signaled that the play was due to begin. A few late-comers hurried past, heads down. We went toward the curtains which slaves held open for us.

  “I have not finished with you, Jak!”

  Through the curtains the waiting tiers of seats, the stage in its magic semicircle below, the lamps, the smell of theater, the muted hum and sway — we entered the magic world and, for those moments, could forget the world of Kregen as it was now and revel in the spiritual thoughts and the acts of passion and foolishness, of cowardice and heroism, springing from the mind of a man long dead.

  This traveling company of players turned out to be top quality, and the audience sat enthralled. Jögen was given a splendid performance. As for the eponymous hero of the piece, Jögen himself, well, what can one say? Yes, he should have known better. He should not have trusted the woman. But human nature is human nature, and we are supposed to progress through life and learn by our mistakes. Poor Jögen! We all laughed at the right places, and the women cried — some of them, not including the lady Yasuri — at the appropriate moments. At the first interval the wide stone-flagged taverna area, softly lit by shaded lights, filled with the talk of playgoers discussing the play.

  I saw Lobur the
Dagger, laughing, brilliant in evening dress, talking animatedly to a lovely girl with dark hair, all in shimmering green, and they were oblivious to anything else.

  In that group of Hamalese stood a man with a shock of dark hair much like the girl’s in color, with a craggy and yet noble face which was the male counterpart to her vivid femaleness, so I guessed they were father and daughter. By this man’s dress, impeccable and with a minimum of jewelry, by the deference shown him by his compatriots, and by his own superb poise and sense of being, I took him to be Prince Nedfar. He wore a rapier and main gauche, whereat my brows drew down.

  A scheme that was not as foolish as it appeared at first sight occurred to me; but I pushed it away. It was audacious, and that was a merit; it was also chancy, and while I have taken some pretty long chances in my time, here and now it seemed to me was not the time or place. I’d steal the fellow’s flier, and curse him for a Hamalese as I flew away.

  In many playhouses of Kregen the slaves beat three gongs at the end of the intervals. The first is to tell you to order your last drink; the second is to tell you to sup up and put your glass down; and the last is to say that you have only a few murs to reach your seat and if you are not there in time, then, by Beng Lomier the Blessed, patron saint of every strolling player, the slaves will bar the curtains on you.

  The first gong note clashed out over the taverna.

  “A Stuvan for me,” quoth Pompino.

  “A light yellow, Jak,” said the lady Yasuri.

  I fetched the drinks. The flagged area emptied as the people returned to their seats, anxious to be settled in time and miss nothing, and the second gong had not struck. The Hamalese were arguing about just who had ordered what, as tiresome people do in bars.

  The curtains over the doorless opening to the entrance parted and four men walked in. They did not look, even at a cursory glance, like devotees of the stage. They wore dark clothes, dust-stained, and furry caps under which, I was prepared to wager, they had iron skulls. Their faces were grainy, hard, with lips thinned with purpose. Pompino looked, and said: “Hai!” and eased himself back from the little table at which he and Yasuri sat.