A Victory for Kregen

by Alan Burt Akers

  He laughed. Some princes I knew would have called on their retainers to spit me there and then.

  So, because I did not wish to drop into a maudlin scene, I took up the thought that had been in my mind when this scene began.

  “We would all like to know that our families and friends are safe.” I addressed myself to Quienyin directly. “You know what I talk about, San. It is nothing new. But we have no rights to your kharrna, no claims—”

  “Come now, Jak — do not belittle what we nine mean one to the other!”

  I nodded. “So be it. If you go into lupu you can tell us what is happening far off. I think Tyfar would more than welcome news that his father and sister are safely out of this desolate place.”

  We all sat, still and silent, looking at the Wizard of Loh.

  He stared at me. I could guess what he was thinking. He had sustained a nasty accident and had lost his powers and now he had recovered them, or most of them, in the lowest zone of the Moder. He had explained that the Wizard of the Moder had no real conceptualization of what awful powers he had locked up in the lowest zone. An ordinary wizard, one Yagno, a sorcerer of the Cult of Almuensis, mightily puffed up with pomp and pride in his own prowess, had ventured down into the lowest zone and had never returned. This was not so much a useful gift to us in telling us what we wanted to know. This was much more the testing moment for Quienyin himself.

  And he saw that very clearly.

  How strange, thus to read the riddle of a Wizard of Loh!

  They are rightly feared and respected; but they are mortal, human men, and many a mighty warlord and king has his own Wizard of Loh to serve him as he sees fit. My own Wizard of Loh — although it is foolish, really, to call any Wizard of Loh as a normal retainer — had been sent back to Loh. No man unless he has other powers will willingly cross a Wizard of Loh. They are rumored to be able to do terrible things. And, in Zair’s truth, I have seen wondrous deeds. And, here we were, calmly realizing that a Wizard of Loh was on trial with himself.

  What other proof could be required to show how our experiences had made of us nine a special band of brothers?

  Speaking with all that old bumbling hesitancy completely banished, Quienyin said, “Very well.”

  Very carefully, he made his preparations.

  Some Wizards of Loh I have known were able to go into lupu very quickly, with a minimum of fuss, and so send a spying eye out to reveal what transpired at a distance. Others go through a rigmarole of mental agility, physical activity, and magical mumbo jumbo to achieve the same result.

  Deb-Lu Quienyin was, as it were, starting from scratch. He was like a novice wizard, seeking to insert his mind along the planes of arcane knowledge. Very sensibly, he went back to basics and set about going into lupu with all the trappings that thaumaturgical art form required.

  Equally, just as Tyfar’s attitude to us had been tempered from princely choler by our mutual experiences and new-found comradeship, so Quienyin’s wizardly contempt for ordinary mortals had been modified.

  We watched him in no sense of judgment whatsoever; rather we actively sympathized with him and wished him well and in however minor a way sought to partake of his struggle. But, when all is said and done, the ways of Wizards of Loh of Kregen are passing strange...

  We could only sit and stare.

  Deb-Lu-Quienyin composed himself. He sat cross-legged, his head thrown back, and his eyes covered by his hands. I noticed how the veins crawled on the backs of his hands; yet his hands were plump and full-fleshed. He remained perfectly still, silent and unmoving.

  Respecting Quienyin’s preliminary insertion of his kharrna into unspecified but occult dimensions, we also sat still.

  Quienyin began to tremble.

  His whole plump body shook. His shoulders moved. He brought his hands down slowly from his face.

  His eyeballs were rolled up, and the whites of his eyes glared out in a sightless blasphemy of a gargoyle head. Hunch choked back in his throat. We sat, enthralled, knowing how Quienyin battled himself as he sought to hurl his kharrna through realms unguessed of by ordinary men.

  Breathing almost at a standstill, Quienyin appeared to gather himself, as a zorca gathers himself at an obstacle. With a wavering cry he rose slowly to his feet. His arms lifted, rising out from his sides, lifting to the horizontal. His fingers were stiffly outthrust. Gently at first, and then faster and faster, he revolved, whirling about, his arms razoring the air.

  As always, my mind conjured the vivid impression of a whirling Dervish, a maniac cyclone, a hurricane-whirled scarecrow.

  Abruptly, Quienyin ceased to whorl about so madly. He sank to the ground and resumed that calm pose of contemplation. Both his hands rested flat on the ground.

  And then he looked up at us and was ready to answer our questions.

  Rather, he was ready to speak to Prince Tyfar.

  What the Wizard of Loh had to say reassured the young prince. Had it not done so, I own, I would have found the subsequent confusion inconvenient.

  Yet, even as I relate these events, I am touched by the weirdness of it all. Here Quienyin sat, and he was aware of and could tell us of events transpiring dwaburs away across the land. Just how far a Wizard of Loh can see in lupu is a matter of serious conjecture. They, for sure, give nothing of their secrets away to the casual inquirer. True, in conversation with Quienyin I had learned much. But, then, that was before he had recovered his powers. I wondered, as he spoke to Tyfar, if he would recall with displeasure what he had said, and seek in some nefarious and occult way to rob me of the knowledge.

  “Is it possible, San—?” began Modo Fre-Da.

  “May we crave, San—?” began Logu Fre-Da.

  Both spoke together.

  So Quienyin told them what they wished to know. I listened, for I needed to learn of my comrades, bearing in mind what I half-purported toward them. They asked for their mother, for their father was long dead, having met his end gallantly on an unmarked battlefield. She lived in Dolardansmot, whereaway that was I did not know, and they were very tender toward her. They made inquiry about no other person.

  Nodgen and Hunch, Barkindrar and Nath, all received news, good or bad — Barkindrar’s younger brother had died of a fall down a disused well, which depressed him for a space, until he reflected, half aloud, that what the Resplendent Bridzilkelsh ordained must be accepted as one accepts the needle —

  and they all turned to look at me.

  “Well, Jak,” said Quienyin, kindly, although he looked tired, “and where in the world of Kregen shall I seek for your loved ones?”

  Chapter three

  The Bonds of Comradeship

  Before replying, I pulled off the boot taken from a dead Muzzard and chucked it down. The boot was not so much either too tight or too loose as badly fitting; it was well enough for riding, but walking in it and its mate would be agonizing. I wriggled my bare toes. The eight pairs of eyes regarded me expectantly. I scratched under my anklebone.

  “Well, Jak? And is there no one in the whole wide world?”

  “Without disrespect, San — you are clearly tired. Your exertions have exhausted you.” I pulled off the other boot and wriggled those bare toes in turn. “And, you are quite clearly possessed of very great powers indeed, for you have been able to give us news of our relations, people you have never met or seen. This, I know, is unusual—”

  “Yes, Jak. Although I do not think I am fully recovered, I am able to do more in lupu than many Wizards of Loh.”

  Deb-Lu-Quienyin spoke simply. There was no boasting here. Also, in the comradeship forged between us nine in the horrors through which we had successfully fought, Quienyin’s own history had been, at least partially, revealed.

  “Come on, Jak,” spoke up Tyfar. “If San Quienyin is willing, then surely you must long to know.”

  Interesting how, when the Wizard of Loh displayed his supernatural abilities, we’d all resumed calling him San.

  “Or is it that you do not hav
e any blood relatives still alive?”

  Again I scratched my foot.

  “There is a man whose whereabouts I would like to establish. If I know him aright he will be tossing people about like split logs. He is a Khamster, A Khamorro, a high Kham. No doubt he will be in Herrelldrin now.”

  “And he cannot then be any kin to you.”

  “No. A good comrade. As we are down—”

  And then I hauled myself up, all canvas flapping. By Krun! I’d been about to say, “down here in Havilfar,” which was a perfectly logical thought to a Vallian, or anyone from the northern hemisphere of Kregen. But if I claimed Hamal, which was the most powerful empire in Havilfar, the southern continent, I’d hardly talk about being “down here.” So I scratched my foot again and reached over for a small piece of meat clinging to a leaf platter, and said, “down not too far it will be convenient for me to go to Herrelldrin and seek him out. If he is there. If you can scan him, San.”

  “No blood relation?”

  “No.”

  He sat quite still for a moment, looking on me. He had put his ridiculous turban aside after the last items of news had been passed on in lupu, and his red Lohvian hair stuck out like the feathers of the rooster with the wind up his tail. His old face had lost many of the lines and wrinkles, and had filled out, and his clear and piercing eyes looked astonishingly young. And I felt he was looking at me as though I were a glass of crystal-clear water.

  Sink me! I burst out to myself. I had too much at stake in Kregen to allow a tithe of my secrets to be spilled here, even despite the special comradeship we nine felt.

  “No blood relation, this fearsome Khamorro. I suggest you sleep now, Quienyin, and then we can talk on this matter later.”

  “You are very desirous of finding this man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I will sleep for a space. Wake me at the hour of mid, when the suns burn in the zenith. I may be able... Well, no matter, Jak the Sturr. I did you a pleasant repose.”

  And with that Deb-Lu-Quienyin rolled over onto his side on the spread cloths and seemed immediately to fall into a deep slumber. I chewed my morsel of meat and gazed at the Wizard of Loh. I did not mind if he read some of my riddles. And the six retainers, also, were men amenable to reason of one kind or another. But Prince Tyfar, this brave, bright, bonny princeling of Hamal, my country’s bitter enemy?

  What would he say, what do? No. I must continue with my deceptions. And, by Krun, they were not petty deceptions, either!

  Tyfar shook his head, smiling.

  “I am mightily glad my father and sister are safe. I thank Havil the Green for that. The news for you will be as good, Jak — and did you notice the sudden formality of Deb-Lu-Quienyin? He called you Jak the Sturr, which you claim is your name.”

  “And, Tyfar, I notice you do not give a warm thanks to Havil the Green. Mayhap, Krun of the Steel Blade merits a greater gratitude?”

  We trod thin ice here.

  He eyed me.

  “Aye, Jak the Sturr. Aye.”

  “So be it.”

  Havil the Green presided as the chief god of many lands of Havilfar. He had, in the past, represented to me all that was evil and to be destroyed. I was over those impulses now, and could even come out with a good rolling Hamalian prayer or two addressed to Havil the Green. All the same, fighting men tend toward Krun... as must be clear from the conversations peppered with his name.

  “And also, Jak, the Sturr — I do not think your name can be Sturr. It does not fit.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. Sturr is the slang name given to a louche fellow, a morose, silent, boorish kind of chap who is all left feet and ten thumbs. “No? I thought it suited me.”

  “The Lady Ariane nal Amklana dubbed you Jak the Unsturr.”

  “She — let us not talk of her.”

  “Willingly.”

  The Lady Ariane nal Amklana, of Hyrklana, had not turned out quite as we’d expected during our recent adventures. I had thought Tyfar was inclined to become romantically attached to her. Now I knew he was not. He deserved a far finer mate than Ariane.

  “Let us take up the question of your name, Jak.”

  “Before that, I will just say that one should not be too hard on Ariane. She was sore pressed. By Krun!

  But she does have fire—”

  “A fire that is inwardly directed only.”

  “Let us talk of our plans to get out of here—”

  “The Sturr — or the Unsturr?”

  I just looked at him. We sat in the grateful shadow and the watch was set and the others were lying back and no doubt reviewing what Quienyin had told them and, an ob would bring a talen, wishing they were out of Moderdrin and safely back with their loved ones. Although — well, there were arguments about that, also...

  Once a young man sets his feet on the mercenaries’ path and seeks to become a paktun and then a hyr-paktun, he must banish foolish longings for home. He will return in the fullness of time, bearing his scars and the choicest items of his loot — if he is lucky — and take a wife and settle down and raise more fine young men to go off adventuring across Kregen. But daydreaming of home is weakening.

  Thanks to Opaz — men are weakened every day doing that!

  “Should, Jak, I call you—” said Tyfar. He was half-laughing. “Should I dub you Muzzardjid?”[1]

  “I think not.”

  “It is a fairly won name.”

  “Maybe. Not for me.”

  “I just do not like Sturr. I am a prince and empowered to confer names upon the worthy. You are —

  although you have not said — I guess, of a middling rank of nobility?”

  The name of Hamun ham Farthytu had been conferred upon in all honor; it was not just another alias.

  And the rank of Amak is at the bottom end of the higher nobility; there is the wide range of the lesser nobility, of course. But caution held me. Even in this, the old harum-scarum, rip-roaring Dray Prescot who would go raging into a fight without an ounce of sense in his head, would have held back. The Amak of Paline Valley was an identity, a real identity, that I did not wish to reveal as yet.

  So, leaning back on an elbow, I said, “It is of no matter, Tyfar. What concerns me is the slow progress we make.”

  He looked as though he was going to carry on with his thought; but he must have changed his mind, for he contented himself with, “Very well, Jak. But as soon as the time is ripe I shall dub you with a name more fitting. So you have been warned.” He wiped his lips with a cloth and closed his eyes in the heat.

  “As to our making better progress, I think it still too risky to travel in daylight. But, if we must—”

  “Think of Quienyin.”

  “I am.”

  “Given an opportunity, we can change our mode of travel. But it will be chancy—”

  So we talked, low-voiced, and then ceased this prattling and sought the deeper shade and tried to sleep.

  We had ample water, thanks to the stream from the Moder, and our swarths were cared for. We had food, meat, and fruits. But we all felt the screaming need to get out of this damned place.

  Promptly on the hour of mid Quienyin woke up and, reaching for his turban, looked around our little camp. He saw me. He opened his mouth and I spoke quickly, quietly.

  “Tyfar is asleep. I would prefer not to awaken him.”

  He nodded and then caught his turban and slapped it down, hard. The blue cloth was dusty and cracked, and many of the fake pearls and brilliants had been lost. But it still gave him that aura of omniscience so necessary for the credulous folk.

  “Do you wish...?”

  “When the suns are gone down a little more.”

  “We will see what a Wizard of Loh can do, then.”

  “Remember, Quienyin, I do not ask this of you, do not beg or plead. I know nothing of the cost to you; but, I—”

  “There is no need to go on. Of course I shall do all I can. Are not we all comrades?”

  This was, truly, a most str
ange way for a feared Wizard of Loh to talk. But, by the insufferable aroma of Makki Grodno’s left armpit — he was right.

  “You have never been to Loh, Jak?”

  “I paid a fleeing visit to Erthyrdrin, and—”

  “Well, they are a strange, fey lot up there, and hardly call themselves Lohvians at all.”

  “That is sooth. You have traveled widely?”

  “Mainly in this continent of Havilfar. I, I must confess, regard travel as a means of arriving somewhere.”

  “As we did in that caravan across the Desolate Wastes?”

  “Grim though it was, the time had its pleasant moments.”

  “You have been to Hamal?”

  “I shall not return to that empire.” His gaze twitched to the sleeping form of Tyfar, and then away. I would have to ask Deb-Lu-Quienyin what had chanced in Hamal. I felt he did not care for the place. “I did make a quick trip to Pandahem; but that was not successful.”

  “And Vallia?”

  He glanced up at me.

  Was there a special note in my voice, a tremor, an inflection, as I spoke the name of the country of which I was emperor? Did he truly see so much more than ordinary mortals?

  “Vallia? No, Jak. I have never been there.”

  I took a breath. Tyfar slumbered. The others were either asleep, dreaming, or standing watch. I summoned my courage.

  “I think, Quienyin, if you visited Vallia you would be received with proper respect. You would like it there.”

  “Oh? You speak with — authority — of the empire at war with the empire of Hamal.”

  “You remember I asked you about the Wizard of Loh called Phu-Si-Yantong?”

  “I do. San Yantong is a most puissant adept — I was sorry to have missed him.”

  I jumped, startled. “You mean — he was there — in Jikaida City?”

  “I thought so. I am not sure. His kharrna is very powerful, superb, superb. I did not press too hard.”

  I swallowed down. By Vox! That devil Phu-Si-Yantong, so near! Yet — could he have been and not struck a blow at me?

  “When I asked you of Yantong before you said he was marked for great things. You expressed the hope that he would prosper. You also said nothing about his little difficulty.” I know my old beakhead of a face had grown grim and like a leem’s mask as I spoke, and I could do nothing about that. One cannot always hide emotions behind a placid countenance. I went on and the words ground out like vosk skulls being crushed in the grinders. “Do you still harbor good wishes toward Yantong? Have you learned nothing of him since we spoke?”