Shaking my head and wondering about the way of the world, I took my hulking old self off to the Golden Prychan.
Had I saved Ravenshal from footpads on the road he and his wife could not have been more attentive. And they were diffs and I was apim. Truly, I thought, as I passed along the crowded streets where people shouted and jostled and the mytzer carts clattered by without thought for the unwary pedestrian, truly, that was the spirit and attitude sorely needed in all Paz to confront the menace of the Shanks. The fact that the stylor had been able to walk down that lonely, jungly road and not be attacked by footpads also gave a good idea that this Strom Pergon, strict as he was reputed, kept an iron control on his stromnate. That could work for me, in some areas; but it was far more likely to make any mayhem more difficult. Just what had Turko got himself into here?
The notorious fairground of Mahendrasmot was not what I expected. For a start, it was fenced in by a tall lapped-wood barrier, and uniformed guards patrolled outside and stood sentry at the gates. This early in the morning the place held a lackluster look. Marquees and tents flapped a trifle in the early morning breeze; but the pennons hung limply. The ground was still soft and puddled with the marks of last night’s feet. When the daily rain came drenching down only the boardwalks gave pedestrians a reasonably mud-free walk. I went in. That was not difficult. The corollary came to my mind, to be pushed away. The Golden Prychan looked a formidable inn. It stood four square just inside the eastern gate. Many riding animals of the lesser kind stood hitched to rails; but there were three totrixes and just the one zorca.
The walls were built of baked brick. The roof was tile. The chimneys were twisted brick. And the windows were glazed. All these signs of affluence were emphasized by the sign swinging at its grandest on a tall pole. The prychan, which is the tawny-golden furred version of the black neemu, showed up there in bold style, painted by an artist of imagination. The neemu again brought my thoughts back to Hyrklana, for fat Queen Fahia loved to have her pet neemus, fierce, independent four-legged hunting cats, lolling on the steps of her throne.
Standing with my head cocked back studying the sign, I became aware of a shadow at my side and then a voice, saying: “You stare overlong at the prychan, dom. Do you wish to have your ribs crushed? Or would you prefer a broken arm — only the one, since you have only two?” I looked down. He was big. He was burly. He smiled with his lower jaw swinging like a jib boom in a gale. He wore a pair of tights colored bright purple, and a wersting breechclout. Otherwise he was naked — naked and hairless. He was a Chulik. I drew in my breath.
“Llahal, dom. I was admiring the sign. You are a wrestler?”
“Come now, dom. Do not refuse my offer. I am sharp set, for I bested Tranko last night, and I owed him that.”
This Chulik’s tusks had been sawn off close to his gums. That is a cruel and horrendous thing to do. Much as I deplore the activities of Chuliks, I had grown to a better understanding of them and their ways. Trained to be mercenaries from birth, they are superb paktuns, demanding high rates of pay. With their merciless black eyes and pigtails, their oiled yellow skins, their fierce three-inch tusks thrusting up from the corners of their mouths, they earn their hire. But — this one, tuskless — a wrestler in a fairground?
Oh, my Turko!
As I did not reply immediately, the Chulik said in a less friendly voice, “You are impolite. I am Kimche the Lock. I shall have to teach you manners.”
“Look, Kimche the Lock, I do not wish to fight you-”
“I did not say fight. I said wrestle.”
“Why should I? By the Blessed Pandrite! Why?”
“Why?” Now that really puzzled him. He shook that bald yellow head. “Why? You mock me. Me! Is this not the Golden Prychan?”
“So I believe.”
“Well, then! Onker!”
So, of course, very late in the day, I fell in.
“Oh — the Golden Prychan — you are all wrestlers here-”
“Take up your guard. It is the third syple of the Hikaidish. Protect yourself!”
“I,” I said, “carry weapons.”
Now he was truly puzzled, puzzled and angry. His chest swelled. The yellow skin, oiled and glistening, stretched like a drum.
“You talk of weapons, here? You are decadent or mad.”
If I’d had a hat I’d have taken it off and jumped on it.
By Zair!
“I am not a wrestler. I came here seeking someone-”
“If you are frightened witless to try a fall with Kimche the Lock, why, dom, you should have said so. There is no shame in fearing to grip wrists with me.” His face broke into an oily smile. He clapped me on the back. “Now I understand!”
“If that is how you will have it.”
“Of course!” His bad temper evaporated. “There is no shame in it, dom. By Likshu the Treacherous! I understand!” And then he stuck his thumbs into his mouth and began to massage those pathetic stumps. I looked about. Nothing much was happening, save a couple of gyps starting an interesting friendship. Kimche took his thumbs out of his mouth, spat, and said with a wistful air, “All the same. I could have gone a fall or three with you. I am fair set for it.”
“Perhaps you know the man I seek?”
“There is such a man?” He looked puzzled again and I guessed he was considering the reason he had found for himself for my lack of response to his genial challenge.
“There is. His name is Turko-”
He looked about at once, and put a finger to his lips.
“Ssh, dom! Have you no wits! Caution!”
He drew me out of the streaming mingled radiance of the Suns of Scorpio into the shadows under the eaves. He looked about again, with much eye rolling. For a Chulik he was evidencing much non-Chulik behavior. But, then, his tusks had been sawed off, and that must profoundly change the mental attitudes of any self-respecting Chulik.
For a start, how could one call him a Yellow-Tusker now?
The dependent fronds of a brilliantly green tree, a fugitive from the jungle — or the advance guard of the jungle returning — concealed us from prying eyes out along the boardwalk. Kimche stared at me, and his tongue crept out to lick his lips.
“I did not take you for Hamalese. If you are, I shall surely fight and slay you — you do understand that?”
“I do.”
One factor I had not overlooked was the simple problem of the island of Pandahem now being in the vulture- like grip of Phu-Si-Yantong. With the duped help of the iron legions of Hamal he, under his cloaking alias of the Hyr Notor, had conquered the various and separate kingdoms of the island. Queen Lush of Lome had been his tool, coming from Pandahem, and was now with us of Vallia. Other rulers had been subjugated or slain. Yantong ran the island working through human tools. If there was a resistance to Hamal, then Turko would be up to his Khamorro neck in it, that was for sure.
“I am aware of the problems you Pandaheem face-”
“Tell me your name, rank, and station, dom.”
He had no fear of me or my weapons. In a twinkling he would have my back across his knee, and, snap!
— one more Hamalese cramph gone to the Ice Floes of Sicce.
“I am Jak the Sturr. And I fight against Hamal.”
He stared at me with those feral black Chulik eyes.
He nodded. “Very well. And Turko is in trouble. Do not think you can deceive him, for he is a man among men.”
“When can I see him? Where is he?”
“Early this morning, before dawn, he went to Black Algon’s marquee to reason with him once again. I do not think he was successful.” Kimche screwed up his mouth. “I think Turko must take my advice and break the yetch’s back.”
I sighed.
