him.
He wore mail, which altered his appearance; but over that he wore russet hunting leathers, and leather harness, and a short red cape descended from his shoulders — just to be on the safe side, I assumed. He wore a helmet over his coif. His face was hard, dedicated, filled with the knowledge that had been denied me.
I did not say, “Happy Swinging, dom.” I wished to preserve my anonymity here. I said, instead, “You wear a strange sword, dom.” I held out my hand.
He was a proud, fine upstanding young man, as they all are. I heard him say something, half under his breath. He spoke in English. “They warned me,” he said, half complaining, half rueful. “They are barbarians. But this fellow — not even a thank you.”
I held out my hand and I did not move a muscle of my face.
He let me take the sword. Again I held in my grip a real Savanti sword. Oh, well, it is a long time ago, now, and we were in the middle of a siege and I was in dire trouble with just about everyone except the new comrades with me in the siege. I held the sword and felt that marvelous grip and the subtle cunning of the blade, the balance, the sensuous feel of it, and abruptly I thrust it back at the Savapim.
“You have our deepest thanks for your assistance. The gate would have been lost but for you.”
He looked at me oddly.
“You do not ask me where I come from?” He, also, had swallowed one of those magically scientific genetic pills and so could converse in languages. He spoke well and forthrightly.
“No.” I eyed him severely. “Do you intend to stay to fight at our side in this siege?”
“Who are you? You speak as though — but, no. . Who are you?”
“I am Dak.”
“And I am Irwin.”
I wanted him off-balance. “Irwin what?”
“Irwin W. Emerson, Junior.” He shut his mouth, suddenly. Then, slowly, he said, “The name must mean nothing to you, Dak.”
“No,” I said. “I do not know anyone of that name. But it is a fine name. It has a ring to it. You come from a proud line.”
“I like to think so.”
Duhrra loomed up then, still cleaning the blood off his blade, to tell me a Deldar was dying and wanted to talk to me before he went. I nodded to Irwin and clattered down off the wall. Ord-Deldar Nalgre the Twist lay in the dust, his left arm missing, the rags stuffed to his stump stained in a most ugly and dreadful way, his face white and drawn. I knelt at his side.
“Dak — Dak — I’m on the way to the Ice Floes.”
“You are a fine helm-Deldar, Nalgre. I trust you. As an ord-Deldar you have standing; but I would like you to go as a Hikdar. Does that please you?”
His face regarded me gravely, white and suffering, yet understanding I did this thing for myself, not for him.
“Thank you, Dak. In the brotherhood I was known. . I shall go to Sicce as a Hikdar. It may help me there.”
“You will sit on the right hand of Zair in the radiance of Zim. Take the Hikdar and lift up your head.”
“Zair-” he said.
He died then, and I hoped being a Hikdar would aid him as he sought his seat among the millions sitting on the right hand of Zair in the radiance of Zim.
When I looked up to the walls again, Irwin had gone.
After that we split the paktuns up, as I should have done in the first instance, and set them with men we knew to be loyal, so that thereafter we had no further trouble from the mercenaries. The interesting fact was that all the diffs among the paktuns had elected to go with Starkey, the ex-king Zenno. They were as well aware as anyone else of the dislike for diffs of the apims of Zairia. Among the Grodnims who had scaled the wall in treachery there had been a goodly number of diffs. It had been a Chulik who had taken Deldar Nalgre’s arm off and broken up his insides as he fell. I saw an omen in this, something very obvious, really. The Savanti, those awesomely mysterious supermen of Aphrasoe, the Swinging City, had sent one of their agents, a Savapim, to assist in the vital moment when the city might have fallen. I knew this Irwin would moments before he landed here in Zandikar have been in Aphrasoe, being briefed for his mission. The Savanti had sent a Savapim to protect apims from diffs in a tavern brawl in Ruathytu. They must be taking like hands in many places of Kregen. I decided then that the Savanti were definitely fighting on the side of Zairia against Grodnim. This cheered me. Our preparations continued. As I worked and checked and issued orders so I kept a lookout for Irwin, and sent messengers to find him. They returned empty-handed. I fancied he’d been whisked back to Aphrasoe — wherever the Swinging City was — his mission accomplished. I could have used a regiment of Savapims just then.
Any fighting lord could use Savapims at any time.
That night we had the inner wall, built in a square against the weakened outer main wall, up to head height.
“We must build high enough so the cramphs of sectrixmen cannot jump the wall,” I said. “All night we go on. Use wood for the walkways. Tell the archers to get some rest. They will be vital on the morrow.” My orders were obeyed.
I made a point of asking Miam, who was now Queen Miam and a trifle dazed by events, to dress in her finest and to ride a milk-white sectrix — an unusual beast, an albino and somewhat weak — around the fortifications with me. She made a superb impression on the minds of all who saw her and the rolling thunders of the acclamations followed wherever she rode.
I told my son Vax to go always with her, as her protector and my liaison with her. He was not loath. I liked, more than I had expected I would, his devotion to his brother Zeg. Most young men in a like situation would have tried a little pelft on their own behalf — or almost most. But Vax, I saw with pleasure, had imbibed notions of honor from somewhere, as well as from his mother Delia. They had not come from me. The Krzy had most probably done a thorough job on him before my Apushniad had driven him away in shame from their august ranks.
When the lambent blue spark of Soothe appeared in the sky and the stars twinkled out to follow, we began to take down the outer wall. The job had to be done with exquisite care, so that nothing showed from the outside. We carried the blocks of stone and raised our new inner wall with them. The inside of the main wall was eaten away, leaving a mere shell. Zandikar, as I have indicated, was just the same luxury-loving, indolent, careless city as most any other of Zairia. Her people had built a good strong wall around the city and then had knocked off to sing and dance and quaff wine. Well, if Zandikar had been my city I’d have had three walls, at the least, knowing the damned Grodnims as I did. Sanurkazz boasts seven walls in places.
The Twins rose and by their light we labored on.
Vax, rubbing his eyes, found me bellowing in a whisper, a most fearsome way of putting hell into a workman, on the inner wall. “Dak,” he said. “The queen would like to talk to you.”
“That’s the style, Naghan,” I said to the naked workman who was guiding a new block into place, whip in hand, directing the line of sweating naked slaves. “You’re building well.”
Then I went with Vax to the Palace of Fragrant Incense to crave an audience with the new queen. I put it like that, for the whole affair smacked of the grotesque to me, so conscious of the ravening leems of Grodnims beyond the walls. She received me in all dignity, superbly clad, wearing a crown, the torches smoking down, lighting in flickers of orange fire the gems and the gold and silver, the feathers and silks. Yet she looked imposing and grand in an altogether human way. I could not smile at her; but I did not, at the least, frown overmuch.
She did not waste time on preamble.
“On the morrow we beat the accursed Grodnims. I am the queen of Zandikar. I shall stand on the wall so that all my people may see me.”
“And get a quarrel through your pretty head.”
She flushed. “If Zair so ordains-”
“Zair would ordain nothing so foolish. Anyway, I forbid it.”
“You! I am the queen!”
“You are the queen. You have responsibilities. If you are slain, and slain so stupidly, what will happen to the loyalties of your people? Could you care for them then? And what of my — what of this man Zeg you prate of? Is he
