retainers ran up bearing the mesh steel and the armory. “Into the voller with them!” I snapped it out, and they obeyed. I wondered why no one had challenged that dagger at the throat of the lord. Surely, some one of all these folk would wish to see the trylon dead?
But I climbed into the voller gripping Orscop by the neck.
He slumped down and his gaunt face turned up, pleadingly.
“You said…”
I looked over the side. The landing chains were cast off. I moved the control levers and the voller lifted a couple of feet into the air. I nodded, satisfied.
“Over you go, Orscop. And thank whatever gods you pray to that I spare you your miserable hide.”
He clawed up, gibbering, and as he went over the side I assisted him with an ungentle foot. Then, roaring with laughter, I sent the voller skimming into the night sky, racing away under the Moons of Kregen.
Chapter twelve
Why is the air of one continent or island so different from that of any other? Each country’s air holds its own essences and aromas. Does the air over Valka smell sweeter than the air over any other part of Vallia? I believe so — but to ask me to explain it — ah, there you should better question the Todalpheme, the wise mathematicians and meteorologists of Kregen.
I know that as I breathed in the air of the island of Pandahem, I tasted the difference, and vivid memories of Pando and Tilda rose up to torment me. Yes, at that time on Kregen I still owed dues to many people. I gave thanks that Deb-Lu-Quienyin had eased my mind on the score of Que-si-Rening. But, when I went to Hyrklana this time, I vowed, as well as seeking out Balass the Hawk, Oby, and Tilly, I would make more strenuous efforts to discover what had befallen the Princess Lilah. All the agents I had sent off to make inquiries had reported a total absence of news. All that was known then, all I had heard here and there, were merely rumors. Rumors of the “tragedy” that had overtaken Princess Lilah of Hyrklana.
So I marched down from the jungly foothills where I had hidden Trylon Nath Orscop’s voller. And, of course, he had not lost on the deal. The airboat I had left in the clearing, the one of the three we had liberated in Khorunlad was fair recompense.
The island of Pandahem, between Vallia to the north and Havilfar to the south, is divided into two halves by a massive east-west chain of mountains, variously named along their rambling length. Kingdoms divide up the northern portion of the island, lands some of which I knew well. The southern half’s kingdoms were virtually unknown to me, and were mostly smothered in thick, lush, hot, and mostly inhospitable jungles.
Walking along the overgrown path toward the town of Mahendrasmot I fell into conversation with a lanky Relt. He was clad decently in loincloth and sandals, with his rolled coat over one shoulder. Looking like skinnier replicas of their distant cousins the fierce and voracious Rapas, the Relts do have beaked faces, but these are of altogether a gentler aspect. He carried a hollow bamboo filled with pens, and a scrip with paper and three bottles of ink, bamboo bottles, swung at his girdle. He was a stylor, and so we fell into easy conversation, as I had been a stylor at one time, working for the Overlords of Magdag. He, this Relt called Ravenshal, knew nothing of the inner sea of Kregen, of course.
“The fair, Jak?” he said, striding along easily, with the deep green of the foliage each side of the path framing his eager birdlike face. “It is a dire place, dreadful, sometimes. There are a large number of seafaring folk who go there, and, well, you know how rough they are.”
“Yes, Ravenshal. They lead a rough life.”
“People come from a long distance to the fairground. The sailors from the swordships are almost as bad as the renders they chase.”
“Do pirates frequent these coasts?”
“Naturally. Commerce is brisk.”
“Of course. And do you know the Golden Prychan?”
He gave his beak a brisk rub with his fist. Then: “I would not wish to know the place. It is infamous.”
Well, I commented to myself, that sounds a capital place to hoick Turko out of. In Trylon Nath’s airboat I had stumbled on a bundle of clothes, and so had selected a plain brown tunic and a short blue cloak. I had without any regrets laid aside the splendid mesh steel. That was like to get me into trouble where I was going, among wrestlers. But I carried my weapons. They, of course, would attract no undue attention.
Ravenshal told me he had been up to take a deposition from a tree-tapper who lived up in the hills. His wife had run off and he wanted the lord of Mahendrasmot to send men to find her and had offered a reward of a hundred silver dhems.
“He must care for her-” I said.
“Perhaps.” Ravenshal, belittling his nervous ways, had seen most of it. “But it is lonely up in the hills.”
“That’s why she ran off, then. Some young spark from the city, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“If Notor Pergon lays hands on him, he will wish he had not seduced another man’s wife away.”
“Strict, is he, this Notor Pergon? And with this notorious fairground in his city?”
Ravenshal fisted his beak again. “Yes, strict. He is a strom, and proud of that. The fairground brings in money. But Notor Pergon will take the hundred silver dhems for his trouble, and take his pleasure out on the hide of the young man.”
“If he catches him.”
“He will, he will, if such a man exists. He runs his city as the suns cross the sky, does the notor.”
So as we walked down the overgrown track to the city we talked and I learned a little something of the place my Turko passed his life away in a fairground booth.
The mild Relt stylor was anxious to get back to his wife and children, saying he lived in a pretty little house near the men’s quarters of the steel works. “There is a modicum of regular work to be had there, Jak.” And then, with that gracious little lift to his beak that Relts have, he said, “I do not know why you go to Mahendrasmot, but you would do me honor if you supped with me and my family this night.”
Well, now…
I said with a gravity that was not assumed, “It is you who do me the honor, Stylor Ravenshal. I shall be delighted.”
So that was how I, a desperado of desperadoes — as you know only too well — entered this strict city with its gutter side discreetly hidden in the fairground, in the meek company of a Relt stylor. His house was delightful, small and cheerful, his wife was charming, and the kids splendiferous, a squeaking bunch of charming mischief. We ate well, wine was brought, the lamps were lit, and when I broached the subject of going to see about finding an inn for the night, nothing would halt them in their protestations that I must use their guest room and welcome, seeing it was now little used after Rashenka’s sister had moved so far away, fully fifty dwaburs along the coast, with that husband of hers. Rashenka brought the lamp to the guest room, neat and tidy, and fussed only a little, and Ravenshal came along to bid me a good night’s sleep with Pandrite, and gently drew his wife away, and they went off full of smiles.
I slept with my usual caution, weapons at hand.
In the morning they greeted me with smiles, and a cup of superb Kregan tea, and small octagonal biscuits they call sweet Ordums. I stretched. After the toilet we sat down to a fine breakfast of crisp vosk rashers, and loloo’s eggs, and more tea, and red honey and palines. You see — there are good simple folk on Kregen, just as there are on this Earth. The mention of payment would have been insulting.
I went out and found a tiny Banje shop in the nearest souk where they sold baubles for children, and candies and knick-knacks of that kind, and went back to Ravenshal’s little house, and insisted they take the trifles I had brought. The children squealed, tiny bundles, all beak and feathers, and fell on the candies.
“And again my thanks. Remberee!”
“Remberee, Jak — and you have brought us luck. I have a commission today that will bring in at least five dhems. Five whole dhems! You have brought us good luck, praise to Pandrite.”
