“I accept, Nath Jagdur. I take upon myself the title of Kov of Hyr Khor and release you from that burden. Now, I will see to your wounds, and bind you up, and care for you-”
My men were lax.
I do not blame them, for the drama had been compelling, there in the torchlight of the sacred court of the warrior gods, as the warrior gods themselves seemed to parade around the friezes above us. Out of the torchlights flew a stux. I had sensed its flight instantly, like any Krozair brother, and could do nothing. Straight for the heart of Nath Jagdur, who had been Kov of Hyr Khor and King of Djanduin, flew the stux. The spear penetrated and such was its force it staggered him back and threw him to the ground. He had time to look up at me, his handsome face drawn with the bitter knowledge of failure. The blood gushed from his mouth and he died.
I heard a chunking meaty
Kytun said, “It was that Nundji-lover Cleitar! He could not believe his master had done what he had done. Truly, loyalty and revenge are entwined plants.”
After that Coper’s people could organize everything. I have learned to live with and to defeat fatigue for long periods, and, truly, I believe, my immersion in the sacred Pool of Baptism in far Aphrasoe confers on me the ability to stay awake and alert long after other people have fallen in stupor. But the tiredness would not be denied now. My wounds were bound up, the court was cleared, the mosaics scrubbed and washed. All through that night of Notor Zan we worked on, and men stumbled away, to collapse with exhaustion, as we started to put Djanduin back on its feet. It had taken me seven years since I had come here. Well, there were three more to go in this enforced prison of time before I would be free. In those three years we accomplished much. I ordered the coronation to be a serious affair, swiftly done and yet seen to be done. Food was unearthed from its caches. We were blessed by good harvests, in the due time of harvesting for every crop, rotation by rotation. Gradually in the first two years we hauled Djanduin back. Then the army mobilized and we marched up against the Gorgrens. By moves that outfoxed that unpleasant people we swarmed down out of the Mountains of Mirth, defeated three separate armies in three separate battles, and drove the Gorgrens clear back to the Yawfi Suth and the Wendwath. We did not really care if they were sucked down by the bog and quagmires, or if they succumbed to the wiles of the Maidens of the Dreaming Lake, just so long as they left the soil of Djanduin. Once we were back where the frontiers had for so long been placed I was content to halt. We might gather our strength, plan, and arise to strike into Gorgrendrin itself, but that must come later. I hankered after releasing Herrelldrin from the yoke of the Gorgrens. Turko the Shield would welcome that, for he had spoken so little of his home, out of shame, as I believed. There was no doubt but that the Djangs would follow. For one thing they loved a fight and wished to teach the Gorgrens a sorely needed lesson; and, two, by this time they regarded me as a king who could do no wrong, and would have followed me to the Ice Floes of Sicce if need be. The only pleasure I could take from that was that the country was recovering, people could look up and laugh again, the good days were returning. As for the Lady Lara, I had with great cunning avoided whatever she might have thought, and the issue was now clearly joined between Felder Mindner and Kytun Dom.
I visited the Kovnate so uncannily thrust upon me by a bleeding man near to death, and found it to be rugged and wild as to country, and even more rugged and wild as to people. Kytun had clapped me on the back and roared out that — by Zodjuin of the Glittering Stux — he had a good neighbor now!
I agreed with him, for I meant to make this gift of a Kovnate into a place to be proud of; but that, too, had to take its turn in the round of days.
On Hyr Khor I was taken to see a marvel of the island, a marvel, indeed, of all of Djanduin, and whose fame had spread eastward to the Shrouded Sea.
This marvel was the Kharoi Stones.
An enormous area covered with the time-shattered wreck of an ancient city, stones tumbled in indescribable confusion, columns, shafts, arcades, walls, towers, hanging gardens now slithered into pyramids to dwarf those of Egypt, channels cumbered with chipped marbles and vast tessellated areas, all smothered with vegetation and the home for wild beasts of many descriptions, this, then, was the eerie place called the Kharoi Stones. I have seen Karnak, and Angkor Wat, and other famed relics of the past on our own Earth, and I have seen other of the ancient monuments of the Sunset People on Kregen; the Kharoi Stones holds a mystery and a deep secret all its own. At this time, as you know, I had not seen the Dam of Days, which controls the tides through the western end of the Grand Canal of the Eye of the World. But I walked among the tumbled masses of the Kharoi Stones and I marveled. Everywhere was to be seen, sculpted boldly in relief or in the round, the magnificent representation of the Ombor, the mythical flying monster of immense size and fiery heart, who dying is yet reborn, whose breath scorches cities, whose tears water the oceans, whose hearts beat for all humankind, and, as I knew, for whom my enclave in Zenicce had been named.
Coupled with this plethora of ornamentation was the symbol of the double-ax — not the Minoan double-ax but an ax double-bitted yet narrow of blade, eminently suitable for the sweeping blow and the lethal chop from the saddle of a vove.
You may well believe I promised myself much future exploration of the Kharoi Stones. On a day in Djanguraj after I had been up all night by the light of four of the moons, reading reports, dictating answers and orders to my stylors, planning for the well-being of the country, I met for breakfast by prearrangement with Ortyg Coper and Kytun Dom.
We sat drinking that glorious Kregan tea and eating crisp vosk rashers, and eggs, and finishing with palines from a silver dish. Food, transport, law, education, security, all were now practically back to normal in Djanduin, and I had but a single sennight left of my prison sentence. The Todalpheme had been explicit, and my own calculations confirmed their findings.
Now I said to Ortyg Coper, “Is the realm faring well, Ortyg?”
And he said, “The realm is doing well, Majister, and will do better than it has ever done in the next two years.”
“By Djan!” said Kytun in his fierce way. “That is so!”
“I find it extraordinarily strange,” said Coper. “I was attacked as often as other Obdjangs by the leemsheads led by Nath Jagdur, and yet my life was spared. Soldiers could never find him or his leemsheads after the attacks; but I did not die. Others of my friends died.”
We were silent for a space, remembering. The Obdjangs had been returning to Djanduin and the country really was set fine. Prosperity was just around the corner.
“There was a reason, Ortyg.” I looked at him as I spoke.
He munched a paline. “I am alive — Sinkie and I live.”
“Yes, Ortyg. And I will tell you why. But, first, let me ask you, Kytun, once more, the question -
would you become king of Djanduin?”
He didn’t even think. “Not I, by Djan!”
“Would you loyally support Ortyg if he were king?”
Before Kytun could begin to reply Ortyg had reared up, agitatedly brushing his whiskers.
“Now, wait a minute! Here — my dear Majister — I mean — hold on!”
I tried to keep my face composed; it was a struggle.
“I am going on a journey. I cannot avoid it, nor do I wish to do so. I want the country to prosper and to remain fruitful and peaceful. The young men get enough fighting in the eternal games, and the merezo has been enlarged for even bigger and better zorca races. There is nothing now for which I am needed. You, Ortyg, are the next king of Djanduin, arid Kytun will give you all his loyal help, as he does us both.”
Kytun spat out a mouthful of palines, which is a terrible waste.
“You do not have to go, really, Dray! You are King! By Zodjuin of the Rainbow! You can’t desert us!”
I sighed. “I feared you would regard this as desertion. But it is a task laid on me. I must go. Ortyg will be-”
“No, Majister.” Ortyg Coper stood up, and abruptly he was formal and deadly serious. “No, Majister. I will not be king. But I will stand as regent for the throne.”
And with that I had to be content. I would return here, I promised that; but as to when. . That, in truth, partly lay in the inscrutable hands of the Star Lords. Had they two hands apiece, I wondered, or four?
Ortyg Coper was fully invested as regent, and Kytun was the first to lift his djangir in loyalty. I was as satisfied as I am ever satisfied about anything, that I had done all that I could do. Everyone knew I was taking a
