I refused to be amazed.
“You know much. I accept that, and I respect your still tongue and your friendship. Yes, I mean Turko.”
“He quitted Herrelldrin. You will not be surprised if I tell you he attempted to reach Vallia-”
“Attempted?”
“He is down in South Pandahem. As a Khamorro he works in a booth in a fairground-”
“My Turko!”
“It is a common occupation for the Khamsters-”
“Aye, it is. And they do not like anyone but themselves calling them Khamster.”
“So I believe. He is well, and seems to be resigned to his fate. There is a girl and a man — but they veil their emotions.
If you go to South Pandahem you will find him at the Sign of the Golden Prychan in Mahendrasmot.”
“I’ve never been there. But I shall go.”
Quienyin shifted around. He licked his lips. If he weren’t a Wizard of Loh I’d have thought he was nerving himself to ask something. We spoke a little, then at random, waiting for the burs to pass so that we might resume our flight. At last he said, in a straight, fierce voice, “And if I went to Vallia, you believe I would be well received?”
If he wasn’t going to come out with it, neither was I.
“Yes. Go to Vondium. Go to the Imperial Palace. You have the presence to gain audience of the empress. She will receive you kindly, if you tell her — certain things she will wish to know.”
“Thank you — Jak. The prospect pleases me.”
“You will be right royally welcome, Quienyin.”
Tyfar was moving about down by the fluttrells and a general animation stirred our little camp as we prepared to carry on.
“Of course,” I said. “The empress may not be in Vondium. She is often away about her own affairs. Then ask to see the Prince Majister, Drak. Or Kov Farris. You will, I am sure, know just who best to see.”
“I shall — Jak.”
I stood up. I stretched. Then, sharply, I said, “And my friends in Hyrklana?”
“I shall attempt to obtain news.”
“Good. Now it seems we are moving on.”
Chapter six
We reached Astrashum, the city from which expeditions set out for the Humped Land. In this place Hunch, Nodgen, and I had been auctioned off on the slave block. The man who had bought us, Tarkshur the Lash, a Kataki, had ventured into the Moder filled with avarice. He had been left with his tail fast gripped in the uncuttable tentacle of one horrific kind of Snatchban. The decision seemed to me sound to banish memories of the Moder from my mind.
Prince Nedfar and his party had gone on to Jikaida City. The other principals alive of our expedition had taken their leave and gone home. Kov Loriman, the Hunting Kov, was reported as being in fine fettle. Ariane nal Amklana had set off for Hyrklana with her small imperious head lifted in regal disdain. Folk in Astrashum expressed themselves as vastly surprised there had been as many as three survivors from the original nine. Quienyin and I kept very low, and we set off at once for Jikaida City. Nedfar, Quienyin warned us, had left immediately for Hamal. Fresh airboats from Hamal had been flown in for his party. Their passage home would be swift.
“I joy that my father and sister, and all the others, are safe,” said Tyfar. But he bit his lip, and added:
“But I view with alarm what the empress will say. My father did not conclude the embassy with Prince Mefto and we have no great store of armies on which to call. She knows he does not see eye to eye with her war policy. I call on Krun of the Steel Blade to watch over him.”
“And I, too,” I said. “We follow?”
“As fast as our fluttrells can fly.”
“Prince,” said Nath the Shaft, respectfully, “flyers are scarce, as we all know. We must take care of them, lest they are stolen away from us. Their value is above price.”
“That is the war-”
“Aye!”
“Can you tell why Thyllis entrusted your father with the task of making the alliance with Mefto?” I wanted to know.
“He is known to be above party politics, seeking only the welfare of Hamal. If we can win the war quickly, then much grievous loss will be spared us. Thyllis knew this.”
Well, that made sense in a nonsensical world.
Honest men are used by the cunning of two worlds — as I know, having been used and user in my time. Flying over the Dawn Lands of Havilfar reveals their haphazard splendor. They are like a patchwork quilt of countries. There are scores of tiny Stromnates and trylonates, larger vadvarates and kovnates, and broad princedoms and kingdoms. Here was where the first men to reach these shores settled, around the Shrouded Sea. Now all this wide land was in ferment as the looming monster of Hamal, to the north, sent tentacles of force to rip them apart and take all. Truly, the Empress of Hamal, this Thyllis, was besotted with a crazed ambition.
In this she shared the maniacal notions of Phu-Si-Yantong. Always, as you know, I wavered and hesitated over my own role in these great affairs of state. For, was not I, this new Emperor of Vallia, also caught up in these mad power politics?
To reach Hamal we flew something east of north. I was content in this, for to fly direct to South Pandahem would have occasioned flying over the Wild Lands of Northwestern Havilfar, and no man, unless he be mad, a fool, or uncaring, willingly ventures there. Once we hit Hamal I’d bid remberee to my comrades and fly on out over the sea and then take a sharp left turn along the northern shore of Havilfar, by the Southern Ocean, and skirting the island of Wan Witherm, reach Pandahem. That was the theory, one of those famous theories I had been promulgating and failing to perform just lately.
Mind you, had I not been with this band of eight comrades, I would probably have flown westward, visited Migladrin and Djanduin, and then flown north to Pandahem up the South Lohvian Sea between Havilfar and Loh.
I am glad, now, that I did not…
Prince Tyfar was eager to press on.
“I wonder what Princess Thefi took from the Mausoleum of the Flame,” he said. “As for that scamp, Lobur the Dagger — he and I will buffet each other when we meet.”
“And,” I said, turning the blade in the wound, “do not forget Kov Thrangulf.”
“No. Who could forget him — save the entire world? He is hard put upon and there is something in the man finer than the world sees, struggling to get out. I wish Lobur was not so hard on him.”
“We will soon be in Hamal and then your worries will be over. Also, it is there that our ways will part.”
“I grieve for that, Jak. Cannot you stay in Hamal? After all, it is your country.”
“I am under duress — wen, you know I may not talk of that, save to assure you as I have.”
“If ever you need a friend in Hamal — you know where they are.”
“Aye. Thank Krun I do, Tyfar!”
The southern border of Hamal is marked off by the majestic River Os. This wends its regal way from the Mountains of the West which spine the center of the continent there, to the Ocean of Clouds in the east. Its mouth divides to run around the country of Ifilion, which is fiercely independent and had not been overrun by the iron legions of Hamal.
South of the Os the countries had been invaded and subjected and Clef Pesquadrin, Ystilbur, Frorkenhume, had all felt the oppression of the iron legions. And still Thyllis’s ambitions were not slaked, and she sent her iron legions farther to the south still. And, down in the Dawn Lands, the opposition to her and her schemes grew.
