said about Tyfar’s father, Prince Nedfar, was true.
What a plot it would be to depose Thyllis and set up Nedfar as emperor of Hamal! I fancied I could talk to him, get him to see reason, see that all the countries of Paz had to unite to face the menace of the shanks, who raided and spoiled from over the curve of the world. For I felt sure their depredations, raids at the moment, would develop into a mass migration, a gigantic attempt to invade our lands. And that, we of Paz could not in honor allow. The fish heads would not be satisfied until every one of us, diff and apim, man, woman, and child, was exterminated.
We made our selections of weapons and armor and equipment and stuffed ourselves with the food in the saddlebags. Then we decided to let our meal go down and set off astride the fluttrells in exactly two burs. Sitting with my back propped up against a folded cloak on a rock, I popped palines into my mouth, chewing the luscious berries contentedly. Quienyin sat down by my side and I offered him the yellow berries, extending the dish.
He chewed. Tyfar walked across and we passed the dish around. We felt relaxed, comfortable, perfectly confident that now that we had flying steeds we would be out of Moderdrin in no time. Quienyin coughed.
“Prince Tyfar. This war between you and your neighbors, which has extended into Vallia-”
“Yes. Vallia is recalcitrant. The Hyr Notor has the command there. But the news is — odd, to say the least. We have had to recall a number of regiments.”
“So I believe. They have a new emperor up in Vallia now, do they not? Tell me, Tyfar, what are your views on this new and fearsome emperor of Vallia, this Dray Prescot?”
Chapter five
One of the tethered fluttrells let out a squawk, and Hunch gentled him with quick, sympathetic skill. A small branch broke and fell from the fire. Nath and Barkindrar suddenly laughed, and I caught a coarse reference to Vajikry. The light of the moons shone exceedingly brightly upon the dusty land.
“The Emperor of Vallia?” said Tyfar, Prince of Hamal. “Well, now. A hyr-lif might be written about that great devil.”
“Tyfar,” I said, “did you see this great devil Dray Prescot paraded through the streets of Ruathytu lashed to the tail of a calsany? In the Empress Thyllis’s coronation procession?”
“Aye, Jak, I did.”
“And, Tyfar,” said Quienyin, and he looked at me as he spoke to the Prince, “your thoughts on that occasion?”
Tyfar poked at the fire with a stripped branch.
“This Emperor Dray — it was just, that he should be brought down and humbled, but the way of the doing of it…”
Quienyin took his penetrating gaze from my leem’s-head of a face and stared questioningly at Tyfar.
“Yes?”
“By Krun! The rast deserved what he got, did he not?”
“He deserves all he gets,” I said.
“But, all the same…” And, again, Prince Tyfar did not complete his sentence. I wondered if he was unwilling to face the consequences of his own thoughts, or unwilling to reveal them to us. He pulled his shoulders back and threw the branch on the fire.
“Anyway, Quienyin. Why do you question me, now, about the great devil Dray Prescot?”
The nasty suspicion gathered in my mind that I knew the answer to that. But, then, why was it nasty? If Deb-Lu-Quienyin had discovered the truth about Phu-Si-Yantong, then surely he would understand the horrendous problems confronting Paz? Yantong’s insane dream was to encompass all of Paz, to take over and control and dominate all of the grouping of continents and islands on our side of the world of Kregen. He had made a start with Pandahem and other places, was destroying Vallia even now, even though we Vallians fought back, and had, under the alias of the Hyr Notor, achieved much with Hamal. If Quienyin knew all this, as I now suspected he did, then of a certainty he must see the justice of the fight being waged by those opposed to Phu-Si-Yantong.
One of the chiefs of that opposition to the maniacal Wizard of Loh was Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia. This, I believed, was what Quienyin was leading up to, what he was telling me in this way. And, cunning old leem-hunter that he was, he had his reasons.
“Well, Quienyin? I fly to join my people. We have been through much together, surely you can find a more enjoyable subject of conversation?” Tyfar stood up and stretched his legs. “By Krun! When Princess Thefi hears what has been going on-”
“Will you join the army of Hamal, or the Air Service, and fight in Vallia, Tyfar?”
Quienyin’s question drew a down-drawn and hesitating look from Tyfar.
“We are comrades, Quienyin, and therefore — for anyone else to question me thus would touch-”
“Your honor?”
And then, characteristically, Tyfar laughed. “I do not know! My whole view of the world has changed. What is honor? It can get you killed, that is sure, certain sure.”
I said, “But that knowledge would not stop you from acting in honor, Tyfar? You would not let those vakkas be hounded to death by the flutsmen without an effort to help them.”
“That is true. It was foolish. But Jak, and you know it, I would do it again.”
“Then,” said Quienyin, “as your comrade — and thus taking full advantage of being rude or overweening to you — I would counsel you most seriously not to go to Vallia to fight.” He shook his head and his turban did not so much as quiver. “No, Tyfar. I am a Wizard of Loh — and I say to you with all the force at my disposal, do not go to fight the Vallians.”
“Why?”
That was your Prince Tyfar for you. Straight out, direct, to the point. It was a damned good question and a damned hard one for Quienyin to answer.
I studied their faces by the lights of the moons and the erratic flickers of ruddy light from the fire. Quienyin and I were wrapped up in what underlay our words; Tyfar was in the middle and slowly becoming aware of what was not being openly spoken of. He could become exceedingly angry, a prince being treated like a child. But he was Tyfar. He spoke evenly.
“You have no answer for me, Quienyin? I think you are being mysterious on purpose — but what is your purpose?”
“It is simple. It is to save you much grief.”
Tyfar sucked in his cheeks. Then: “So it is true. You Wizards of Loh can see into the future?”
“Perhaps.”
At that I smirked. No Wizard of Loh was going to reveal any of his secrets, and the worse that was thought of them the more their power and the dread they invoked in the hearts of ordinary folk.
“You spoke of Dray Prescot, the vile emperor of a vile empire. Why should I not go up there and chastise him for the evil he has wrought?”
“Do you know of this evil? Can you show it to me?”
Tyfar spread his arms. “Well — all men know-”
“All men hear tales. Dray Prescot has the yrium, he has that special power, that charisma that marks him out among men and-”
“The yrium!” Tyfar was incensed. “Rather he has the yrrum, the evil charismatic presence, the vile leading the vile, rotten clean through, decadent-” He was panting. I said, and I spoke gently, “I think the Empress Thyllis would joy to hear you speak thus, Tyfar.”
That sobered him.
He stared toward Quienyin and then toward me. I say toward. I don’t think he saw us, not then, for he was looking with his inward eye at past events and conversations and trying to grapple with the problems he now saw more clearly than, probably, he had ever seen in his life before. At last he said, and his words were still breathless,
