This was Ortyg Handon, a young Jen[1]of Crimahan’s retinue. We all knew what he was: a professional bully, a man kept to provide sport for the Kov, a man who delighted in thrashing other men who lacked his strength and his skill at arms. I had to tolerate him in my home for the sake of his Kov, who was high in the councils of my father-in-law.
Balass the Hawk, a hyr-kaidur, had marked this Handon and mentioned him to me with a few belittling words. I had had to say most sternly to Balass, that fierce man: “Do not cross swords with him, Balass! I don’t want a corpse spouting blood over my carpets of Walfarg weave.”
So Balass had kept out of his way, and I had given the word to my chamberlain, old Panshi, to pass along to Kov Lykon’s chamberlain that the professional swaggerer, Ortyg Handon, must behave himself or else he would be guested in the dungeons for his visit here. I meant it, too. I was about to step forward and make myself known when I saw a shadow cast in the pool of torchlight above the last step leading up from the great Kyro of the Tridents. A black, deformed shadow leaped the steps, and then a young man appeared, walking forward into the lights. I looked at him and felt a strange
— a weird! — sensation in my throat. I had never seen him before. I knew this to be so and it was true. I did not know this young man.
But something about him — the way he held his head, the way his open, ruddy, handsome features broke into a genuine smile as he advanced, all the clean limber strength of him — caught at me. I was in shadow and I remained there, staring at the young man, feeling this uncanny sensation and not liking it one little bit.
“Lahal!” called the stranger in greeting. He wore a beard, which I thought heavy for him, and mustaches which jutted arrogantly above his upper lip. He wore a rapier and a dagger, and his clothes were clean although poor and patched, the decent Vallian buff. He wore sandals, not boots. The effect of what I call his open and handsome features, as I have recounted it, was purely subjective. For he wore the usual Vallian hat with the wide brim and the two slots over the eyes. There were no feathers in the hat.
“Lahal,” said Jiktar Exand, no doubt experiencing relief at this excuse not to talk further to the bully and rapier-rattler Handon.
“I have business in the fortress,” said this young man.
“Your name?”
“I am called Zando-”
Before he could speak further Kov Lykon burst in with anger trembling his voice.
“We are talking about your dereliction of duty, Jiktar! Tell this scum to clear off before he is treated as his sort deserves.”
Still I did not intervene. There are uses for lengths of rope if allowed to lie around.
“But my business is pressing,” persisted Zando. His face, as I have indicated, lay mostly in the shadows of his hat and the beard concealed the rest; yet I clearly received the impression of a genuine smile. “I must speak with the Prince Majister.”
“Ho!” said Exand. But he knew me and knew I would speak with anyone, given the correct procedures.
“I think we have had enough of strangers seeking to speak to the Prince this day. Your business?” The last lashed out like a risslaca tongue.
“That I am not at liberty to reveal to any living soul but the Prince. But I can give you messages for him that will-”
“Enough!” Kov Lykon swaggered forward. His day had not been the best, for the Emperor had heeded my words on the Hamalian question and Lykon Crimahan still smarted. “Schtump, you cramph! Schtump before I have you flogged.”
This young man Zando put his left hand to the pommel of his rapier. His back went up. Clearly he did not relish being thus addressed with
“I do not have the pleasure of your acquaintance,” he said. “But I assure you, sir, I do not take pleasure in being addressed in quite that way.”
Lykon gave a half-snarl and swung to his toady Handon.
“Unsheathe that blade of yours, Ortyg, and teach the cramph manners!”
“With the greatest of pleasures, Kov.” Ortyg Handon stepped forward, sleek and feline like a leem, and drew his rapier and dagger with that slow languid grace of the professional Bladesman thirsting to draw blood.
Even as Ortyg Handon stepped forward, clearly about to take the utmost pleasure in killing this young man, the rapier and main-gauche appeared in a twinkling in the fists of Zando. I saw that draw, and I sucked in my breath.
“I cannot allow brawling here,” protested Jiktar Exand.
Kov Lykon said, “Keep a still tongue in your head, rast. I shall deal with you later.”
Kornan the Thief withdrew into the shadows, so near he almost touched me; his hoarse breathing rasped with his terror. If Exand wondered why I did not step forward, he knew enough about me to know I would never allow him to suffer unjustly at the hands of this popinjay from Vallia. Young Zando spoke softly. “I do not wish the blood of any man upon my blades. Put your sword up, Koter, and let me be about my business.”
“I shall cut you up first, you who call yourself Zando, and then I shall spit you through like a side of vosk!”
“I wish you all to witness that this is upon this man’s head.” Zando spoke firmly. Then, to Jiktar Exand, he said a few words that made the whole of Kregen spin about me, in a whirl of disbelief and impossibility:
“I would take it as an honor if you, Jiktar, would inform the Prince Majister that one called Zando wishes to speak to him. Say to the Prince, this Dray Prescot, say to him that I am a messenger from a Krozair brother who needs his assistance at this moment. Remember that, Jiktar, a Krozair of Zy.”
Chapter 6
I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy — I stood there like a loon. About to step forward, I saw the quick and deadly glitter of the rapiers and the daggers as they crossed and clashed. If I stepped forward now, I knew only too well what would happen. This young Zando would put up his blades and that kleesh of a Handon would spit him as he stood.
So I stood, with all the wild surmises hurtling about my head. What an onker I am! I should never have allowed this to go so far. Fully prepared to stop it at that moment, I had been halted, stone cold halted, in my tracks by those few quietly spoken words.
Only a few people of the most close relationship with me — Delia and Seg, Inch, Turko, and Korf Aighos, too, and some others who knew more than most about me here in the island empire of Vallia -
knew that I was a Krozair of Zy. They did not fully comprehend what being a Krozair brother meant. Long and long had I yearned to return to the inner sea, the Eye of the World, far away on the western side of the continent of Turismond. But quite apart from the long months of sailing, quite apart from the awesome mountain ranges of the Stratemsk and that hideous crack to the very bowels of the planet exuding its noxious vapors, the Klackadrin, there had been no time in my desperate adventuring for any return to be possible.
So how could a stranger come walking out of the night and talk about the Krozairs?
It could not be.
But he had said the words. And now he was hotly engaged with a noted Bravo fighter, a Bladesman who would laugh as he skewered home his final thrust.
This Zando was not a Krozair. He had not used the words in speaking of those mystic and martial orders which would identify him as a Krozair and, if he wished, the order of which he was a brother and, further, if he so willed, the rank in that order he held. I was a mere Krozair; I was Pur Dray, not a Bold or any other of the adepts, yet to me, as you know, being a Krozair of Zy is the most important fact of my life on Kregen — apart from my Delia, my Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue Mountains. I could only hold my passions and watch to see how quickly young Zando would dispose of this Handon. He was not a Krozair, those superb fighting men who use the
