A Sword for Kregen dp-20

by Alan Burt Akers

  Because the prospect was both exhilarating and forbidding, making our fingers tingle, we swaggered and strutted, I can tell you, on our way to one of the six or eight square meals a day any Kregen likes to fuel the inner man. Pompino was more than a little put out by the unspoken imputations. His red whiskers bristled. But he was in the right of it. Our business was not taking part in blood games; it was in getting out of here.

  As we walked along he kept rotating his head, looking, as I alone knew, for that magnificent scarlet and golden raptor of the Star Lords. He regarded the Everoinye with none of the scorn and hatred I had once shown them; they had treated him well and fairly and he repaid them in loyal service. In addition, he was possessed of a species of religious rapture at the idea that he was so closely involved with the doings of the gods.

  Everybody in the twin cities talked in terms of the game, of course, and someone made a remark as we crossed into Blue City, that we had crossed a front. The Jikaida board is divided up into drins. Drin means land. Or, if you will, a number of drins are joined together to make the board. In general games a drin consists of a checkered board of six squares a side, making thirty-six in all. Six of these drins make up the board for Poron Jikaida, two by three. At the meeting of drins the line is painted in thicker markings. Some pieces have the power of crossing from drin to drin across a front on their move; most must halt at the front and wait until the next turn to cross.[5]

  On the day appointed, Konec led us to the Jikaidaderen where we were to play. The lady Yasuri had hired herself a Jikaidast off the top of the tree. Konec, in his turn, had taken into employment for this game an intense, brooding, nervous Jikaidast called Master Urlando, who wore a blue gown with yellow checked border. For the professionals blue or yellow meant only the angles of the game, for the opening move was decided by chance and not by tradition.

  The game was an ordinary one and open to the public and the benches and covered arcades were filled. In the event Pompino gave in as much to his own estimation of himself as a fighting man as to outside pressures and took up his position as a Deldar. As I had expected, I was to act the part of a swod. The game was not distinguished. We ranked our Deldars after the impressive opening ritual, where prayers were spoken and the choirs sang suitable hymns and the incense was burned and the sacrifice made. The ib of Five-handed Eos-Bakchi here in Havilfar was represented by the ib of Himindur the Three-eyed. For the first time I realized, with a pang, that five-handed really did have a strong and terrible meaning. So, with due propitiation made and the fortunes of Luck and Chance called upon, we took our places upon the blue and yellow sanded squares.

  For a considerable period of the game I stood with a Deldar on an adjacent square and a swod — a Pachak with a brisk professional air about him, determined to get on — on the square to my left diagonal. He could not attack me by reason of the Deldar. We fell into an interesting conversation, although this was against the tenets of the game, and I learned of his history. I like Pachaks with their two left arms and their absolute loyalty in their nikobi to their oaths. Luckily for both of us we did not fight, the main action sweeping up the left hand side of the board and then, as Konec plunged, angling directly to the center and the Yellow Princess. Konec was a bold player, ruthless when he had to be. Dav was acting as Pallan. He was thrust forward, crossing a front, plunging into a direct confrontation with the Yellow Pallan. The fight was absorbingly interesting; Dav won, the right wing Kapt and Chuktar swept in and, with a Hikdar angling for the last kaida, the triumphant hyrkaida was made by Dav, sliding smoothly in and, challenged by the Yellow Princess’s Swordsman, defeating him in a stiff but brief battle. The various shouts of acclaim went up, the Blue prianum, the shrine where the victory tallies were kept, notched up another win, and it was all over. I had neither struck nor received a blow. I bid a shaky remberee to the Pachak swod and we all went back to the hotel.

  Anticlimax — no. For I had seen what went on in Kazz-Jikaida, and was not much enamored of it. Konec said, “In two days’ time I meet a fellow from Ystilbur. You will be a Deldar, Jak.”

  I nodded. There was little I felt I could say.

  Pompino, who had had to beat a swod, told me he was not going to act again. We were standing in the shade of a missal tree growing by the wall of the courtyard and the shadows from the walls crept over the sand. The sounds of the twin cities came muted. The air smelled extraordinarily fresh and good.

  “Ineldar is forming his caravan. I shall be one of his guards. You, Jak?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Excellent. By Horato the Potent! I cannot wait to get out into the Desolate Waste!”

  A shadow moved among the shadows.

  Our thraxters were out in a twinkling.

  A voice said, “Jak? Pompino?”

  Pompino pointed his sword. “Step you forward so that we may see you. And move exceeding carefully.”

  A dark form lumbered out into the last of the mingled light. Jade and ruby radiance fell about him. His hunched shoulders, his bulldog face, all the gentle power of him was as we remembered from the nights under the stars.

  There was blood on his right hand.

  Bevon the Brukaj said, “I have run away from my master. He abused me cruelly. And I struck a guard

  — I do not think I killed him; but his nose bled most wonderfully, to my shame.”

  “Well, by the Blade of Kurin…” whispered Pompino.

  “Will you help me? Will you take me in?”

  The sound of loud voices rose from the street, approaching, and with them the heavy tramp of footsteps and the clank of weapons, the chingle of chains.

  “Inside, Bevon. Pompino, find Dav. Explain. We cannot allow them to take Bevon.”

  “But-”

  “Do it!”

  Pompino took Bevon’s arm and guided him into the inner doorway. Fixing a blank look on my face and sheathing my sword, I turned to the gate and stood, lolling there and picking my teeth.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kazz-Jikaida

  Over the seasons I have taken much enjoyment and indulged in merry mockery and silly sarcasm from that fuzzy look of blank idiocy I can plaster all across my weather-beaten old beakhead. But as the guards and the Watch strode up, clanking, I felt the pang of a realization that, perhaps, this stupid expression was truly me, after all.

  “Hey, fellow! A slave, a damned runaway slave. Have you seen him?”

  I picked my teeth. “Was he a little Relt with a big wart alongside his hooter?”

  “No, you fambly-”

  “I haven’t seen anyone like that.”

  “A hulking stupid great oaf of a Brukaj-”

  “Best look along by the Avenue of Bangles — they’re all notors in here.” I screwed my eyes up. “D’you have the price of a stoup of ale, doms? I’m main thirsty-”

  But, angry and waving their poles from which the lanterns hung, flickering golden light, they went off, shouting, raising a hullabaloo. The black and white checkers vanished along the way and I, still picking my teeth, went back into the rear quarters of the hotel. They had given me no copper ob for a drink. They had cursed me for a fool, unpleasantly, and had there been time they’d have drubbed me for fun. Not nice people. I would not like Bevon to fall into their clutches. After a quantity of shouting and arm-waving we persuaded Dav that Bevon wouldn’t murder us all in our beds. As a runaway slave he was a highly dangerous person to have on the premises; but Dav’s good nature surfaced. He was a man who knew his own mind, and he summed Bevon up shrewdly. Runaway slaves are not tolerated in slave-owning society for the bad examples they set. It was left to Bevon to say the words that got us all off the hook.

  “Here in Jikaida City,” he said in his pleasant voice, having got his breath and composure back and washed off the guard’s nose bleed, “I am told that a slave may gain his freedom by taking part in the games.”

  “That is true, Bevon. But he has to act the part of a swod and he must survive a set number of
games. It has been known — but is rare, by the Blade of Kurin.”

  “Enter me in the next game, and I shall be safe from Master Scatulo. My blood-price will be paid by the Nine Masked Guardians, for they always welcome anyone willing to take part in Kazz-Jikaida as a swod. You know that. I cannot be touched by the law until I am free or dead. That is the law.”

  Kov Konec, when consulted, agreed to Dav’s proposals, and it was settled. I own I felt relief. Bevon seemed to me to be far too gentle a fellow actually to take up sword and fight; but as he said himself, rather that than being slave any longer.

  The day of the game against the player from Ystilbur was set as Bevon’s introduction to Kazz-Jikaida, and the authorities were notified. Also, this day coincided with the decision about the caravan out of here. Pompino was in no doubt.

  “If we do not give our undertaking to Ineldar by tonight and conclude the bokkertu, he will have to employ other guards.” Pompino stood with me watching as Dav stood facing a table on which a huge ale barrel was upended. The spout gushed ale into an enormous flagon. Dav stood there, hands on hips, his head thrust forward, licking his lips, and, I am sure, feeling the tortures of the damned. There was no ale for Dav on the day of Kazz-Jikaida.

  Rather, there was no ale until we had won.

  “I have promised to fight-” I said.

  “Well, I shall not. They have been good friends to us, yes, I agree. But our duty lies elsewhere.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t get enough time away from your wife?”

  “True. But I’ve had enough time, now, by Horato the Potent!”

  By just about any of the honor codes of Kregen there could not really be any faulting of Pompino’s logic. I said, “I’ll just play in this game for them and then I’ll come with you to sign on with Ineldar.”

  “You might get chopped.”

  “Then the problem wouldn’t arise.”

  Dav rolled across, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth just as though he’d demolished a whole stoup, and told us that the cramph from Ystilbur had hired the best the academies could offer. “Those rasts up there have gone in with the Hamalese, may Krun rot their eyeballs.”

  Very carefully, I said: “They are a small nation. They were overrun by the cramphs of Hamal, just like the folk of Clef Pesquadrin. D’you know what happens when a country is subjected like that, Dav? Put in chains?”

  “Aye. And not pretty, either. But this Coner is half Hamalese, I’m told. There is a plot in this, and I don’t like it.” He frowned and shook his shoulders. “I’ve tried to warn Konec; but he sees this as merely another step in the games.”

  The many games of Jikaida all served to enhance or not the prestige of the various participants. There were league tables. This was the Two Thousand Five Hundred and Ninety-Eighth Game, and they played a Game a season, so that shows you. The champions went away from Jikaida City far wealthier than when they arrived; but also they took with them the intangible aura of the victor. The twin cities lived and breathed Jikaida. That cannot be emphasized enough. Everywhere, in the taverns, along the boulevards, in the parks, people sat all day playing. Those who could visited the public games of Kazz. The highest nobility of Havilfar and anywhere else who were apprized kept strictly to their own private games, where Death Jikaida ruled. These were the games in which the highest honors were conferred. Everyone gambled, of course. I had heard stories of whole kingdoms being staked on the outcome of a single game. People bet on the results, on just which pieces would survive, how long it would be before certain positions were reached, how many pieces would be wounded or slain. They bet on anything.

  Pompino said, “Plot or no, Dav, I’d put ten golden deldys on you; but no one will give me reasonable odds.”

  Dav said, “I’ve been lucky so far.” The truth was, he was a fine fighting man, clever and quick with his blade, and the betting public had seen that and he commanded odds to gamblers. Remembering how I had met a flutsman of Ystilbur in peculiar circumstances, a Brokelsh height Hakko Bolg ti Bregal known as Hakko Volrokjid, I reflected that the Hamalese had all Ystilbur in their power. Perhaps some of the schemes of Konec also were known to them? Certain sure it was that the Hamalese, despite recent setbacks in the Dawn Lands, were intent on further conquest there. So Konec led us off to play Kazz-Jikaida against Coner, and Pompino got himself a seat in the stands to watch. The day was fair. The preliminaries were gone through as before, with the rituals and the choirs chanting and the sacrifices and the libations, and mightily impressive it all was. Konec and Coner seated themselves on the playing thrones, one at either end, and we pieces marched out to take up our places on the board.

  As a Deldar in this game I carried a shield of wicker and a five-foot spear. I had a leather jerkin. Dav, massive in his mesh, gave me a cheery word. Fropo the Curved, acting as a Kapt, strained his bulk against his lorica. Each piece was equipped according to the rules prescribed in the hyr-lif known as the Jikaidish Lore. I settled myself. Extremely beautiful girls, clad wispily in draperies of white and purple, danced about the board to carry the commands of the players to their pieces. Up on the throne dais each player had his Jikaidast at his side. The feeling of ages-old ritual, that this was the way the game should be played, the way it should be run, held everyone fixed in complete absorption. The fascination was there, like a drug, a dark compelling pull drawing on the deep tides of the blood. Golden trumpets blew. The banners broke free. The first move was made. Well, I will not go into it. It was a shambles.

  We ranked Deldars and started off in fine style, and then we ran into disastrous trouble as a whole rank of swods was swept away. Red-clad slaves with litters and stretchers carried off the casualties. Other slaves raked the blue and yellow sand neatly back into the squares, and fresh sand was sprinkled over the blood. But Yellow surged on and on, triumphant, and we were pressed back, losing men like flies in winter.

  The fighting men trained in the academies had been taught all the tricks of fighting in the admittedly limited space of the Jikaida squares. If a warrior stepped outside the square he was adjudged the loser, of course. If he stepped out too smartly, without giving of his utmost, if he shirked and sought that way out of the horror, then black-clad men ran onto the board. What they did ensured that pieces would fight, grimly and with thought only of victory.

  Three swods I fought and dealt with them. Each little conflict took place on two squares, by virtue of the fact that the attacker and the defender occupied adjacent squares and the whole of these two squares could be used. Then a Hikdar came at me, whirling his axe, and I had a sharp set-to before I got my spear between his ribs.

  Konec swung the play across to the other wing then and I had time for a breather. The game had rapidly degenerated from the classical simplicity of the Aeilssa’s Swod’s Opening into a blood bath. Well, we Blues fought.

  With consummate skill Konec made a space for fresh development in the center and a diagonal of pieces formed leading to Yellow’s Right Home Drin. That would be Blue’s Far Left Drin. Every drin has its name; everything has a name; I was concentrating on what I could see coming up. At the far end of the diagonal of pieces stood a Yellow Chuktar. The Yellow Pallan had been busy and was absent; the Yellow Aeilssa stood, just for the moment, vulnerable. But the Chuktar barred the way. An enchanting little Fristle fifi danced across from the Blue Stylor. He was positioned level with the board and beneath the player’s throne to pass on the move orders. Konec moved a Blue swod onto the end of the diagonal line of pieces, and into the square diagonally off from me. So that meant I was sure what was going to happen.

  Yellow made his move, a nasty threatener down the right wing, and then the fifi, who had been given my orders all ready, for Konec was a shrewd player, said to me: “Deldar to vault and take Chuktar.”

  I hitched up my belt and put my spear into my left hand. I spat into my right, not having an orange handy, and then took up the spear. Calmly, I started to walk along beside the diagonal line of men. T
his simulated the vault. What a sight it must all have been! The twin Suns of Scorpio blazing down into the sprawled representation of a Jikaida board, the blue and yellow squares a bright checkered dazzlement, the brilliantly attired figures of the pieces, the color, the vividness, the raw stink of spilled blood — and the tension, the indrawn breaths, the hunching forward of the spectators. The passions were being unleashed here. I walked gently along, and I held my shield just so, and the spear just so, for the moment I put my foot into the square occupied by the Chuktar we would fight. Because I was coming down off the end of a vault, having leaped over a line of pieces, there was no empty starting square. I would come down slap bang on top of the Chuktar. We would contest the square in its own narrow confines.

  The man representing the Chuktar was a Kataki. Unusual to find a member of that unpleasant race of diffs doing much else besides slaving, for they are slavemasters above all and know little of humanity -

  although Rukker had given certain glimmerings of humanity, to be sure — and this fellow was clearly in Kazz-Jikaida because of some ill deed. He was licking his lips as I approached. He wore an iron-studded kax and vambraces, and carried a good-quality cylindrical shield. His thraxter caught the light of the suns. I walked up to the right of the diagonal line of pieces, which surprised him, for any shielded man likes to get his left side around.

  One thing was in my favor: that hyr-lif the Jikaidish Lore specifies what weapons may be used; the Kataki was not allowed to strap six inches of bladed steel to his tail. His lowering brows, flaring nostrils and snaggly-toothed gape-jawed mouth complemented his wide-spaced eyes. They were narrow and cold. His thick black hair which would be oiled and curled was stuffed up under his iron helmet. Formidable fighting men, Katakis, known and detested — and steered clear of. As I marched up with my wicker shield and the spear, wearing a leather jerkin and helmetless, to face this armored man with his professional sword and shield, I reflected with some amazement that I must be very like a wild barbarian facing an iron legionary of Rome. So — act like a barbarian… When I got within three squares of him I launched myself forward in a bursting run, wild and savage. I went straight in, the spear out thrust, the shield well up. I saw his ugly face go rigid with shock and the thraxter begin to flick into line. But I was pretty desperate and I had to banish a phantom image of Mefto the Kazzur that sprouted shockingly before my eyes. Straight at him I sprang. His sword clicked against the wicker and a chunk flew off, sprouting strands of painted wood. The spear went straight on, over the rim of the iron-studded breastplate, punched into his squat neck. He tried to shriek; but could not make a sound with sharp metal severing all his vocal cords. He flopped sideways and I hauled the spear out and lunged again and he went on down and stayed down. We were playing Kazz-Jikaida, the ordinary game and not the Death Jikaida — we might as well have been for that Kataki.