A Sword for Kregen

gleefully, as we had seen.

When the player stood upon the board his professional adviser must be near him for consultation. So the Jikaidast was carried about the board in a gherimcal, a dinky little palanquin with a hood and padded seat and carrying poles. Too much ornamentation was generally considered vulgar; but there were examples finely decorated in precious metals and ivory and silks. Each would contain a conveniently slanted board with holes in the squares and pegged pieces for play so that the Jikaidast might keep track of what plans were afoot. Also there would be reference books, and, most important, shelves for food and drink. Slaves carried the gherimcal about the board, always keeping in close contact with the player and the pretty girls who carried the orders for the moves to the pieces. In the game for which so much anticipatory apprehension was felt by the people from Mandua, there was no question but that Konec would play and act on the board. He would take the Pallan’s part and Dav and Frodo would be Kapts. There was still some uncertainty as to the size game we would be playing, and Strom Nath might, if the game was a large variety, be a Kapt also; otherwise, he would be a Chuktar. They told me I would have to be a Chuktar, and I said that, by Havil, that was rapid promotion in any man’s army, whereat they laughed.

Our nerves were fine drawn during this period. Men would suddenly laugh, and clap a fist to sword hilt, and so guffaw again, for nothing, and then turn away, and be very quiet. Nothing was heard of the man the flier from Hamal had brought in; but Konec told us that he was confident that unless Mefto was stopped the alliance would go through and the countries of the Central Dawn Lands would fall like ripe shonages. I was not a party to the quarrel that occurred between Mefto and Konec when they met to finalize the bokkertu for the game; but the upshot was that Konec returned to tell us that it had been agreed the game would be Screetz Jikaida. We pondered the implications.

On balance, we felt little had changed. We would have to hire men from the academies to take the places of our pieces, and they would be trained to the sword. In Screetz Jikaida all the pieces are armed with sword and shield alone, as the name suggests, and are naked but for a breechclout. There would be no spears or axes or different shields. Screetz Jikaida holds its own charm, as different and as bloody as Kazz Jikaida of the usual run.

Bevon was pleased. “Swords,” he said. “Aye, that will serve.”

But, all the same, we had deciphered no other plan in the mists ahead than the one which would encompass all our deaths.

In the last sennight before the game was scheduled zorca riders came in with news that the caravan that had arrived at the fort on the River of Purple Rushes would soon reach the city. One messenger rode straight to the Blue Rokveil and was closeted with Kov Konec.

When we met that evening for our usual lavish meal and general good-natured horseplay, Konec’s mood was at once jovial and grim, as though he must plunge his hand into scalding water to snatch out a bag of gold.

“I have had word, certain word. Our spies have done well. If Mefto can be placed back in the velvet-lined balass box all Shanodrin will rise and expel his puppets and followers. The country is held in an iron grip; but with the threat of Mefto removed, the people will strike. Then Khorundur and Mandua will breathe easier, and the smaller states, the kovnates of Bellendur and Glyfandrin. We here, in Jikaida City, hold the key.”

“We hold the sword, Konec!” growled Dav.

“Aye!” they chorused.

This news from the outside world affected me in a way different from these men of Mandua. I hungered to know what was happening in Vallia. I had not fretted over this absence, for there were good men there to run things, and Drak had returned. But, all the same, I wanted to know what was going on. There was a chance, a slender one, true, that some news of that distant island empire might have filtered down here, particularly as the people of the Dawn Lands must be aware that Vallia, far away in the north, stood shoulder to shoulder with them in the struggle against Thyllis. Dazzling schemes of a great combination of forces marching from north and south on Hamal and crushing that empire until the pips squeaked rose in my mind. But they were dreams, dreams… Dreams, yes. But, one day, all of Paz, this whole island and continental grouping, must unite. It must. That was the task that, more and more clearly, I saw set to my hands — and as I often thought, with the blessing of the Star Lords and the Savanti. There must be a reason why I had been brought to Kregen. Oh, of course — the Star Lords employed me as a useful tool to pull their hot chestnuts out of the fire; but they had other kregoinye I had now learned. And the Savanti, those aloof and superhuman but mortal men and women of Aphrasoe, the Swinging City, had first summoned me to Kregen for their purposes to civilize the world. And, because I had not done as they wished, I had been thrown out of Paradise -

well, that was no Paradise for me now nor had been these many seasons. But, I felt with a conviction I could not justify in view of what had happened and yet clung to with stubborn will, I was here on this marvelous and terrible world of Kregen for a purpose. I had to be. If not, then it was all a sham, all of it, save Delia and the family with whom I seemed to be at such odds, them and my friends. And then, well, they say don’t dice with a four- armed fellow.

The lady Yasuri had changed her accommodation to a better class of hotel called The Star of Laybrites. The name tells you it was situated in Yellow City. There had been some business of a Rapa attempting one of her handmaids. If it had been Sishi I fancy the Rapa was nursing a dented beak right now. Happening to be taking a short cut through Yellow City — and when I say happened I found, when I was there, I wasn’t quite sure why I should be — I passed the hotel and gave a quick glance for the circlets of yellow painted stars along the arcade above. Why I had come here was made immediately plain to me.

People were passing along the avenue and giving me no attention, for I found I was wearing a blue favor. A figure staggered suddenly from a side alleyway that led to the rear of the hotel. He was stark naked. He was smothered in dust and unpleasant refuse, and straw stuck out of his hair. I recognized him at once. With a huge guffaw, and a quick snatch at the cords of my cape, I slung it off and swung it about his broad shoulders.

“By Horato the Potent! Of all the infernal-! Jak!” He grabbed the cape and pulled it about his nakedness and, at that, it only just hung down enough to be decent — just about. I still laughed. I knew exactly what he was thinking and the furious sense of frustration seething in that sharp foxy face. And then, well, it was strange to experience this with someone else who experienced it, also. A gorgeous scarlet and gold bird flew down the avenue and with wide spread wings cut in over the heads of the people who walked stolidly on with not so much as a single glance at the Gdoinye. Well, why not? They couldn’t see this supernatural messenger and spy of the Star Lords. Pompino the Iarvin looked up, and his face slackened off wonderfully, so that all the fury lines vanished, to be replaced by an expression of obedient wonderment.

“Pompino! Pompino!” called the bird, perching with a great feather rustling on one of the circlets of yellow stars. “You have been given no leave to abandon the Everoinye.”

“But-” began Pompino.

“You know your task. You must hew to your path-”

“You stupid great onker!” I bellowed up at the bird. “What are we waiting on that stupid woman for?

Let us depart from here — give us a fight, if necessary — you brainless bird!”

Pompino said something like: “Awwkk!” And he looked at me as though expecting me to be struck down in a blaze of blue fire.

Well, I might have been. But the way the Star Lords had been treating me and my recent thoughts on all the pressing work that needed to be done on Kregen braced me up powerfully.

“Dray Prescot! You onker of onkers! Hearken to your fate and submit-”

“Ask Ahrinye about that, fambly!”

“He is young and without caution, as you are. You fret on your Vallia. Rest easy on that score-”

“Rest easy! There is work to do there.”

“And it is being done. Your cause prospers. But the Star Lords will not be baulked and they call upon you for a higher service.”

Pompino was goggling away at me and at the Gdoinye. He’d been flung back here, just as I had been flung back to the scenes of my labors for the Star Lords when I had taken myself off. He must be annoyed; yet he could only goggle away at me as though staring at a demon from Cottmer’s Caverns.

“Tell me about Vallia, you bird of ill omen.”

“Why do you struggle against the Star Lords when they seek only your good? They have treated you with great kindness and you repay them with abuse and you miscall me most devilishly. Yes, your Vallia is safe as you left it. Nothing has gone wrong-”