Copyright © 1979, Kenneth Bulmer

Alan Burt Akers has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work.

First published by Daw Books, Inc. in 1979.

This Edition published in 2007 by Mushroom eBooks, an imprint of Mushroom Publishing, Bath, BA1

4EB, United Kingdom

www.mushroom-ebooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 1843195909

A Sword for Kregen

Alan Burt Akers

Mushroom eBooks

Dray Prescot

Dray Prescot presents an enigmatic picture of himself; reared in the inhumanly harsh conditions of Nelson’s Navy, he has been transported by the Scorpion agencies of the Star Lords, the Everoinye, and the Savanti, the superhuman yet mortal people of Aphrasöe the Swinging City, to the demanding and fulfilling world of Kregen orbiting Antares, four hundred light years from Earth, where he has made his home.

He is a man above middle height, with brown hair and level brown eyes, brooding and dominating, with enormously broad shoulders and superbly powerful physique. There is about him an abrasive honesty and indomitable courage, he moves like a savage hunting cat, quiet and deadly. He has struggled through triumph and disaster and has acquired a number of titles and estates, and now the people of the island of Vallia, which has been ripped apart by ambitious and mercenary invaders, have called on him to lead them to freedom as their emperor.

His story, which he records on cassettes, is arranged so that each volume may be read as complete in itself. There have been many questions about the role of Prescot on Kregen and particularly about the nature and purpose of his antagonists. I am firmly convinced he does see far further ahead than perhaps he is given credit for. His words inspire our belief, particularly in what he has to say about the Star Lords. He implies they are not as malefic as at one time we might have been led to believe. Whatever the outcome for Dray Prescot, we are aware that he is conscious that he struggles against a far darker and more profound fate than is revealed in anything he has so far told us. Alan Burt Akers

Chapter One

Jaidur is Annoyed

“Do you bare the throat?”

“Aye, my love. I bare the throat.”

The brightly painted pieces were swept up and returned to the silver-bound box. I had been comprehensively defeated. The game had been protracted and cunning and fiercely contested, filled with shifts and stratagems on Delia’s part that wrecked my cleverest schemes. I leaned over the board awkwardly from the bed and picked up my right-wing Chuktar. He was the only piece of high value my remorseless antagonist had failed to take.

“You held him back too long,” she said, decisively, her face half-laughing and yet filled with concern for the instinctive wince I failed to quell as that dratted wound stabbed my neck.

“I did.”

He was a marvelously fashioned playing piece, a Chuktar of the Khibil race of diffs, his fox-like face carved with a precision and understanding that revealed the qualities of the Khibils in a way that many a much more famous sculptor might well miss. Delia took the Chuktar from my fingers and placed him carefully in his velvet-lined niche within the box. When you play Jikaida, win or lose, you develop a rapport with the little pieces that, hard to define or even to justify coherently, nevertheless exists.

“You will not play again?” I leaned back on the plumped-up pillows and found that smile that always comes from Delia. “I am mindful to develop a new ploy with the Paktuns—”

“No more games tonight.” The tone of voice was practical. There is no arguing with Delia in this mood.

“Your wound is troubling you and you need rest. We have won this battle but until you are fit again I shall not rest easy.”

“Sink me!” I burst out. “There is so much to do!”

“Yes. And it will not get done if you do not rest.”

The invasion of the island of Vallia by the riff-raff of half a world, and the onslaught by the disciplined iron legions of Hamal, Vallia’s mortal enemy, had been checked. But only that. We held Vondium the capital and much of the northeast and midlands; from the rest of the empire our enemies pressed in on us. I’d collapsed after this last battle in which we had successfully held that wild charge of the vove-mounted clansmen — I’m no superman but just a mere mortal man who tries to do the best he can. Now Delia looked on me, the lamps’ gleam limning her hair with those gorgeous chestnut tints, her face wonderfully soft and concerned, leaning over me. I swallowed.

“You rest now. Tomorrow we can strike camp and fly back to Vondium—”

“Rather, fly after the clansmen and try to—”

“The wind is foul for the northeast.”

“Is there no arguing with you?”

“Rather seek to argue with Whetti-Orbium, of Opaz.”

I made a face. Whetti-Orbium, as the manifestation of Opaz responsible for the weather and under the beneficent hand of that all-glorious godhood, the giver of wind and rain, had not been treating us kindly of late. The Lord Farris’s aerial armada had played little part in the battle, the wind being dead foul, and only his powered airboats had got themselves into the action.

“Then the cavalry must—” I began.

“Seg has that all under control.”

Good old Seg Segutorio. But— “And there is—”

“Hush!”

And then I smiled, a gently mocking, sympathetically triumphant smile, as with a stir and a rattle of accoutrements, the curtains of the tent parted and Prince Jaidur entered. He saw only Delia in the lamplit interior with its canvas walls devoid of garish ornament, with the weapons strapped to the posts, the strewn rugs, the small camp tables, the traveling chests. Delia turned and rose, smooth, lovely, inexpressibly beautiful.

“Mother,” said Jaidur. He sounded savage. “That rast found himself some flying beast and escaped.”

Jaidur, young and lithe and his face filled with the passions of youth and eagerness, took off his helmet and slung it on the floor. Through the carpets the iron rang against the beaten earth.

“Mirvols, I think they were. Flying beasts that cawed down most mockingly at us as they rose. I shot —

but the shafts fell short.” His fingers were busily unbuckling his harness as he spoke, and the silver-chased cuirass dropped with a mellower chime upon the floor. Armed and accoutred like a Krozair of Zy, Pur Jaidur, Prince of Vallia. He scowled as Delia handed him a plain goblet of wine, a bracing dry Tardalvoh, tart and invigorating. Taking it, he nodded his thanks perfunctorily, and raised the goblet to his lips.

“Prince Jaidur,” I said in my old gravel-shifting voice. “Is this the way you treat your mother? Like a petulant child? Or a boor from the stews of Drak’s City?”

He jumped so that the yellow wine leaped, glinting over the silver.

“You—”

“You chased after Kov Colun and Zankov. Did they both escape?”

His brown fingers gripped the goblet.

“Both.”

“Then,” I said, and I gentled my voice. “They will run upon their judgment later, all in Opaz’s good time.”

“I did not know you were here—”

“Evidently.”

My pleasure at his arrival, because it meant I could go on taking an interest in affairs instead of going to sleep at Delia’s orders, was severely tempered by this news. There was a blood debt, now, between Kov Colun and my friends. For a space I could not think of Barty Vessler. Barty — so bright and chivalrous, so ingenuous and courageous — had been struck down by Kov Colun. And Zankov, his companion in evil, had murdered the emperor, Delia’s father. But, all the same, vengeance was a road I would not willingly follow. The welfare of Delia, of my family, and of my friends and of Vallia — they were the priorities.

“I will leave you,” said Jaidur with a stiffness he cloaked in formality. He bent to retrieve his harness. He made no move to don the cuirass and the helmet dangled by its straps. “Tomorrow—”

“Tomorrow!” The surprise and scorn in my voice braced him up, and sent the dark blood into his face.

“Tomorrow! I recall when you were Vax Neemusjid. What harm has the night done you that you scorn to use it?”

Delia put her hand on my arm. Her touch scorched.

Jaidur swung around toward the tent opening.

“You are the Emperor of Vallia, and may command me. I shall take a saddle-bird. You will not see me again, I swear, until Kov Colun and Zankov are—”

“Wait!”

I spat the word out. “Do not make so weighty a promise so lightly. As for Kov Colun, there is Jilian to be considered. You would do her no favor by that promise.”

He looked surprised. “She still lives?”

“Thanks to Zair and to Nath the Needle.”

“I am glad, and give thanks to Zair and Opaz.”

“Also, I would like you to tell me of your doings since you returned from the Eye of the World.”

“I see you humor me, for whenever have you bothered over my doings?”

“Jaidur!” said Delia.

“Let the boy speak. I knew him as Vax, and took the measure of his mettle. I own to a foolish pride.”

Here Delia turned sharply to look at me, and I had to make myself go on. “Jaidur is a Krozair of Zy, a Prince of Vallia. I do not think there can be much else to better those felicities.” I deliberately did not mention the Kroveres of Iztar, for good reasons. “His life is his own, his life which we gave to him. I, Jaidur, command you in nothing, save one thing. And I do not think I need even say what that thing is, for it touches your mother, Delia, Empress of Vallia.”

“You do not. I would give my life, gladly—”

I said the words, and they cut deeply.

“Aye, Prince Jaidur. You and a host of men.”

The color rushed back to his bronzed cheeks. With a gesture as much to break the thrall of his own black thoughts as to slake his thirst, he reached for the silver goblet and took a long draught.

“Aye. You are right. And that, by Vox, is as it should be.”

Delia wanted to say something; but I ploughed on.

“Go after Kov Colun and after Zankov. Both are bitter foes to Vallia. But do not be too reckless. They are cunning rogues, vicious and cruel.” My voice trailed away. On Earth we talk about teaching our grandmothers to suck eggs. On Kregen we talk about teaching a wizard to catch a fly. And here was I, prattling on about dangers and cunning adversaries to a Krozair of Zy. Jaidur saw something of that belittling thought in me, for his brows drew down in a look I recognized and with recognition the same familiar ache. How Delia puts up with me and three hulking sons is a miracle beyond question. And, thinking these useless thoughts, the tent spun about me, going around and around, ghostly and transparent. I fell back on the bed, all the stuffing knocked out of me.

“That Opaz-forsaken arrow,” said Delia, leaning across, wiping my face with a scented towel. I felt the coolness. I must be in fever. My throat hurt; but not enough to stop me from speaking; but the weakness made the tent surge up and down and corkscrew like a swifter in a storm.

“I — shall — be — all — right,” I said.

“I will fetch Nath the Needle.” With that Jaidur ran from the tent, dropping his gear and casting the wine goblet from him.

“All this fuss — for a pesky arrow.”

“It drove deeply, my heart. Now — lie still!”

I lay still.

Fruitless to detail the rest of that night’s doings. Nath the Needle, looking as he always did, fussing and yet steadily sure with his acupuncture needles and his herbal preparations, fixed up my aches and pains in the physical sense. But my brain was afire with schemes, stratagems I must set afoot at once, so as further to discomfort the damned invading clansmen. Our enemies pressed us sorely, and they must be dealt with as opportunity offered. The chances of success here must be balanced against defeat there. The campaign against Zankov’s imported clansmen had been waged with fierceness. But it was all to do. I, a clansman by adoption myself, knew that no single battle would decide the issue. The Clansmen of Segesthes are among the most ferocious and terrible of fighting men of Kregen. That we had put a check on their advance must have hit them hard, hit them with shock. But they were clansmen. They would retire, regroup, and then they’d be back, thirsting for vengeance. And here I lay, lolling in bed like a drunkard in the stews.

There were able captains among the Army of Vallia. Many of them bore names not unfamiliar to you, many there were who have not so far been mentioned in this narrative. Delia told me, with a firmness made decisive by the crimp in those seductive lips, that I must leave it to Seg and the others. For now, she told me severely, they could handle any emergencies.

So, because Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains, who was now Delia, Empress of Vallia, willed it, I was immured. The fate of the island empire was, for that space, taken from my hands. Phu-Si-Yantong, one of the chief architects of the misery in which Vallia now found herself, would not rest, either. His schemes had for a time been thwarted. But he held the southwest and unknown areas of the southeast and many of the islands. His partnership— and then I paused. Yantong was too egomaniacal a figure ever to acknowledge anyone his peer or to admit them to an equality suggested by a partnership. Yantong wished to rule the roost, the whole roost, and he wished to rule alone. First things first. Our tenuous hold on the link through the eastern midlands between Vondium and the imperial provinces around the capital and the Hawkwa Country of the northeast had to be strengthened. We must attempt to relieve the pressure on the western mountains where people devoted to Delia, as to myself, still grimly held out. And there was always the far north, Evir and the other provinces beyond the Mountains of the North, where his self-styled King of North Vallia held sway. The north had to be forgotten for now. First things first.

As soon as I was deemed fit to travel Delia had me carted back to Vondium. During that period there were many visitors, representatives of the churches, the state, the army, the air service and the imperial provinces. The navy and merchant service also showed up; but they were dealing now almost entirely with flying ships of the air. The once-mighty fleet of galleons of Vallia was being rebuilt; but slowly, slowly.

These men and women who came to see me spoke all in soft voices, even the gruff old Chuktars of the army mellowed their habitual gruff barks. Always I was conscious of the presence of Delia, hovering protectively, and I guessed she had given strict injunctions on the correct sick-room behavior. And, by Zair, when Delia spoke it behooved everyone to heed, and heed but good. So, as you will see, I must have been much sicker than I realized. Seg Segutorio, that master Bowman of Loh, kept his reckless face composed as he sat at the bedside to tell me of the fortunes of the army. I had peremptorily thrust command on him at the height of the battle

— that engagement men called the Battle of Kochwold — when Jilian had reported in the news of the desperate affray involving Delia at the Sakkora Stones. We had brought her safely out of there, from that miasmal place of ages-old decay and present evil. But our daughter Dayra, she who flaunted her steel talons as Ros the Claw, had once more disappeared. I did not know if she was with Zankov, who had slain her grandfather. Truth to tell, I did not know how to view that situation, just as I did not know how to contain within myself the ghastly news of Seg’s wife, Thelda. I made myself agreeable to Seg, which is not a difficult task, and did not summon up the courage to tell him that his wife, whom he thought dead and sorrowed for, believed him dead, also, and had married another upright and honest man, Lol Polisto. So we talked of the army.

“The clansmen fight hard, and, by the Veiled Froyvil, my old friends, they led us a merry chase. They regroup now up past Infathon in Vazkardrin. We chivvy ’em and give ’em no rest. Nath is foaming to get at them with his Phalanx, but—”

“They may be amenable to an attack in their rear from the Stackwamors.” I pondered this. “Certainly we must keep them off balance. But reports indicate we may need the Phalanx elsewhere.”

Seg fired up at this. All the fey and reckless nature of his fiery race suddenly burst out, subduing the shrewd practicality.

“Where, my old dom? We will march — the men are in wonderful heart—”

“I am sure,” I said, somewhat drily. “With a victory under their belts.”

These audiences — if that is not too pompous a word to use of these discussions between the Emperor of Vallia and his ministers and generals — were conducted in a neat little withdrawing room off the old wing once inhabited by Delia and myself in the imperial palace of Vondium. There was a bed, in which I spent far too much time, tables and chairs and wine and food, with a bookcase stuffed with the life of Vallia. And, also, many maps adorned the walls. As a matter of course and scarce worth remarking, an arms rack stood handy. Handiest of all was the great Krozair longsword, scabbarded to the bedpost. Now I pointed at the map which showed the southwest of Vallia.

“There, Seg, again. The army which Fat Lango brought has been seen off. But others are landing. It seems that some countries of Pandahem are still desirous of carving a helping of good Vallian gold for themselves.”

“Vallia has something they deserve and which they will receive,” quoth Seg, without flourish. “Something that will last them through all the Ice Floes of Sicce.”

He referred, quite clearly, to the six feet of Vallian soil each one of her invaders would be dumped into. I smiled. Very dear to my heart is my blade comrade, Seg Segutorio. He and I have battled our way through some hairy scrapes since he first hurled a forkful of dungy straw in my face. And, by Zair, that seemed a long long time ago.

With that old memory in mind I said, and my voice, weak as it was, sounded altogether too much like a sigh: “If only Inch was here. Inch and all the others—”

Seg looked swiftly at me. He was not reassured by what he saw. He put a spread of fingers up under his ear and scratched his jaw. A very tough and craggy jaw, that jaw of Seg Segutorio’s.

“Aye, Dray, aye. But I think Inch will not forget Vallia, or that he is the Kov of the Black Mountains. His taboos — for my money Inch has been eating too much squish pie.”

That made me smile.

“When we were all slung back to our homelands by that sorcerous Vanti,” Seg went on, half-musing, his eyes bright on me, his hand rubbing his jaw. “I felt no doubt that every single one of us would make every effort to get back to Valka or Vallia as soon as humanly possible.” His voice betrayed nothing of the agony he must still suffer over his belief in the death of Thelda. I had pondered that problem. For all the news we had, Thelda and Lol Polisto might be dead by now. They were leading a precarious existence fighting our foes as guerillas. They could so easily be dead. Until Thelda was proved still to be alive, why torture Seg with a fresh burden that was so different and yet so much the same as his belief his wife was truly dead?

“My son Drak is still down there in Faol trying to find Melow the Supple.” I spoke fretfully, for I wanted Drak back here in Vallia, with me, so that he could take over this business of being Emperor of Vallia.

“But I think you have something else on your mind?”

“Aye. You have found a new marvel in Korero. He is indeed remarkable with his shields. So...”

“You don’t think I haven’t wondered what I’m going to say to Turko?”

His rubbing hand stilled. “What will you say?”

That was another poser for my poor aching head. The yellow bandage around my throat seemed to constrict in to choke me with problems. Turko the Shield stood always at my back with his great shield uplifted in the heat of battle. But, now, Korero the Shield, with his four arms and handed tail, stood always at my back with his shields upraised in the heat of battle... I said sourly, “I’ll make Turko a damned Kov and find him a province and get him married to raise stout sons for Vallia and beautiful daughters to grace the world. That’s what I’ll do.”

“He, I think, would prefer to stand at your back with his shield.”

“D’you think I don’t know that!”

“Hum, my old friend, a very large and ponderable hum.”

That was Seg Segutorio for you, able to cut away all the nonsense with a word. But he was smiling. By Vox! What it is to have comrades through life!

We talked for a space then about our comrades and wished them with us, and eventually returned to the subject of the army to be sent to the southwest and the knotty problem of choosing a commander. Seg said, “I still have a rapier to sharpen with those rasts of clansmen. And, yes, before you ask me, I can spare a Phalanx, although preferring not to. Filbarrka’s zorcamen make life a misery for them. And I am slowly becoming of the opinion that perhaps, one day, I shall manage to make bowmen of the fellows I have under training.”

Well, if Seg Segutorio, in my opinion the finest archer of all Kregen, couldn’t fashion a battle-winning missile force, then no one could.

We looked at the maps and pondered the likeliest routes the invading armies from Pandahem might choose. I would have to delegate responsibility in that area of the southwest, and make up my mind as to the numbers and composition of the army we would send. That would be the Army of the Southwest. Presently I placed my hand on the silver-bound balass box.

Seg shook his head.

“Much as I would love to rank Deldars against you, my old friend, and thrash you utterly, I have another zhantil to saddle.”

“There is never enough time,” I said. And added, under my breath, “In two worlds.”

“Anyway,” he said, standing up and shifting his sword around more comfortably. “Delia tells me you have been playing Master Hork.”

“Aye. Katrin Rashumin recommended him, although he has been famous as a master gamesman in Vondium for many seasons.”

Once, I had interrupted a proposed lesson that Katrin was to have taken from Master Hork. He had returned to the capital city, and had, I knew, played his part in our victory. As for Katrin, the Kovneva of Rahartdrin, Opaz alone knew what had happened to her. Her island kovnate was situated far to the southwest and messengers we had sent had not returned. Perhaps our new Army of the Southwest might succeed in gaining news of her and her people.

“Master Hork has a great command of the Chuktar’s right-flank attack,” said Seg. “Personally, I incline to the left wing.”

“Mayhap that is because an archer must have something of a squint—”

“Fambly!”

“And Seg, do you take great care. Your back is healed, well and good; but I don’t want you—”

“I know, my old dom. May Erthyr the Bow have you in his keeping, along with Zair and Opaz and Djan.” Then Seg, turning to go, paused and swung back. “And, I think, may the lady Zena Iztar also approve of our ventures. The Kroveres of Iztar do little, to my great frustration; but we try—”

“There is a great work set to our hands with the Kroveres.” That sounded fustian; but it was true. “We must continue as we are, recruiting choice spirits, and remain steadfast. As the Grand Archbold, you have a double duty.”

So I bid farewell to Seg and ached to see him go, and presently in came Master Hork with his own bronze-bound box of playing pieces and we set the board, ranked our Deldars, and opened the play. Master Hork held within himself that remote and yet alive inner sense of being that marks the Jikaidast. A Jikaidast is a man or woman who plays Jikaida on a professional level. Because of the enormous popularity of the game on Kregen such a person can make a handsome living and receive the respect that is due. I was most polite with Master Hork, a slender, well-mannered man with brown Vallian hair and eyes, and a face that one felt ought to be lined and wrinkled and which was smooth and untrammeled. His movements were neat and precise. He wasted not a single scrap of energy. But he could play Jikaida, by Krun!

There was no point in my attempting to play an ordinary game against his mastery, so we went through the moves of a famous game played five hundred seasons or so ago. Outstanding games are usually recorded for posterity, and many books of Jikaida lore exist. The notations are simple and easily read. This game was that remarkable example of high-level Jikaida played between Master Chuan-lui-Hong, a Jikaidast then in his hundred and twentieth year, and Queen Hathshi of Murn-Chem, a once-powerful country of Loh.

A Jikaidast will not deliberately lose a game, not even against so awesome a personage as a fabled Queen of Pain of Loh. But Chuan-lui-Hong had had to play with extraordinary skill, for Queen Hathshi might, had she not been a queen, have been a Jikaidast herself.

From the impeccable written record on the thick pages of Master Hork’s ponderous leather-bound tome we re-created that famous game. It was, indeed, a marvel. The queen swept all before her, using her swods and Deldars to push on and deploying her more powerful pieces with artistry. At the end, Master Chuan-lui-Hong had played the masterstroke. By using a swiftly developed file of his own pieces, by placing a swod, that is, the Kregan pawn, into the gap between his own file and that of the queen’s and so closing the gap, he was able to vault his left-flank Chuktar over the conjoined files into a threatening position that offered check. Check in jikaidish is kaida. That spectacular vaulting move is unique to Jikaida. A piece may travel over a line of other pieces, either orthogonally or diagonally, using them as stepping-stones, and alight at the far end. The jikaidish word for vault is zeunt. The Chuktar moves in a similar fashion to the Queen of our Earthly chess. Master Hork read out the next move.

“A beautiful response.” I felt the pleasure inherent in a neat move. “Hathshi avoids the Chuktar’s attack and places her Queen on the only square the Chuktar cannot reach.”

Although Vallians call the piece a King, many countries use the names Rokveil, Aeilssa, Princess, and in Loh, much as you would expect, the piece is called a Queen. The object of the game is to place this piece in such a position that it cannot avoid capture. In the jikaidish, this entrapment is called hyrkaida.

“And if the Chuktar moves to place the Queen in check, he will be immediately snapped up by her Hikdars or Paktuns. Although,” I said a little doubtfully, “her position is a trifle cramped.”

A Jikaidast lives his games, and lives vicariously through the games of his long-dead peers. Master Hork allowed a small and satisfied smile to stretch his lips. Deliberately, he closed the heavy leather cover of the book. The pages made a soft sighing sound and the smell of old paper wafted. I looked at Master Hork across the board where the pieces stood in their frozen march.

“See, majister,” he said, and reached far back into Chuan-lui-Hong’s Neemu drin. His slender fingers closed on the Pallan.

The Pallan is the most powerful piece on the board. He combines in himself moves that include those of the chess Queen and Knight, plus other purely Jikaidish possibilities. Chuan-lui-Hong was playing Yellow.

His Pallan stood in such a position that he could be moved up to the end of the long file of yellow and blue pieces — and vault.

The instant Master Hork touched the Pallan I saw it.

“Yes,” I said, and my damned throat hurt with that confounded arrow wound. “Oh, yes indeed!”

For the Pallan vaulted that long file and came down on the square occupied by his own Chuktar. The Pallan has the power to take a friendly piece — excepting the Queen, of course. Chuan-lui-Hong used his Pallan to remove his Chuktar from the game. Now the Pallan stood there, an imposing and glittering figure, and with the moves at his disposal he trapped, snared, detained, entombed Queen Hathshi’s own Queen.

“Hyrkaida!” said Master Hork. And, then, as Chuan-lui-Hong must have done all those dusty seasons ago, he said: “Do you bare the throat?”

“I fancy Hathshi bared her throat with good grace, Master Hork; for it is a pretty ploy.”

“Pretty, yes. But obvious, and one that she should have foreseen three moves ago when Hong’s Pallan made the crucial move to place him on the correct square within the correct drin.” Master Hork screwed his eyes up and surveyed me. “As majister, you should have seen, also.”

With Seg, I said, “Hum.”

Casually, Master Hork said, “Jikaida players say I am the master of the right-wing Chuktar’s attack. This is so. But in my last ten important games, against Jikaidasts of great repute, I have not employed that stratagem. Not in the opening, the middle or the end game. There is a lesson there, majister.”

I was perfectly prepared — happy — to be instructed by a master of his craft. But what Master Hork was saying was basic to cunning attack. Be where you are not expected.

“You are right, Master Hork. More wine — may I press this Tawny Jholaix?” From this you will see the truly high regard in which we of Kregen hold Jikaidasts, for Jholaix is among the finest and most expensive wines to be obtained. As Master Hork indicated his appreciation, I went on: “I have likened all Vallia to a Jikaida board. But how you would denominate the Phalanx I do not know for sure, for where they are they are, and there they stand.”

“I saw the Phalanx, majister, at the Battle of Voxyri.” He drank, quickly at his memories, too quickly for Jholaix, which should be savored. But I understood. When the Phalanx sent up their paean and charged at Voxyri it was, I truly think, a sight that would send either the shuddering horrors or the sublimest of emotions through a man until the day he died.

We talked on, mostly about Jikaida, and it was fascinating talk, filled with the lore of the game. As ever, when in contact with a Jikaidast, my memories flew back to Gafard, the King’s Striker, Sea Zhantil. Well, he was dead now, following our beloved Velia, and, I know, happy to go where she led, now and for ever.

“Many a great Jikaidast,” Master Hork was saying, “set store by the larger games, Jikshiv Jikaida and the rest. But I tend to think that there is a concentration of skill required in the use of the smaller boards. Poron Jikaida demands an artistry quite different in style.”

“Each size of board brings its own joys and problems,” I said, sententiously, I fear. But my head was ringing with sounds as though phantom bells tolled in my skull. I felt the weakness stealing over me, and growing, and pulling at me.

Master Hork started up. “Majister!”

There was a blurred impression of the Jikaida board spilling the bright pieces to the floor. That resplendent Pallan toppled and tumbled into a fold of the bedclothes. Master Hork made no attempt to save the scattering pieces. He turned, his face distraught, and ran for the door, yelling for the doctors. His voice reached me as a thin and ghostly whisper, faint with the dust of years. That Opaz-forsaken arrow wound! That was my immediate thought. By the unspeakably foul left armpit of Makki-Grodno! There was much to do, and all I could turn my hand to, it seemed, was playing Jikaida and lolling in bed.

And then...

And then I saw a shimmer of insubstantial blueness.

The radiance broadened and deepened.

So I knew.

Once again I was to be snatched away from all I held dear and at the behest of the Star Lords who had brought me to Kregen from Earth be flung headlong into some strange and foreign land. The injustice of this fate that doomed me rang and clangored in my head with the distant sounds as of mighty bellows panting. And the blueness grew and brightened and took on the form I knew and loathed. Towering over me the lambent blue form of a gigantic Scorpion beckoned. Once again the Scorpion of the Star Lords called...

Chapter Two

The Star Lords Disagree

Around me the blueness swirled and I knew no doctors or Kregan science could save me for I was in the grip of superhuman forces that made of human aspirations a mere mockery. Yet I had thought the Star Lords possessed a superhumanity in keeping with their superhumanness. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe they were entirely inimical. Still, as the gigantic Scorpion leered on me, blue and shimmering with all the remembered menacing power, I saw the betraying flicker of greenness suffusing through the blue. That Star Lord whose name was Ahrinye and who was evilly at odds with the rest of the Everoinye had his hand in this. He it was who summoned me now.

He was the one who wanted to run me hard, to run me as I had never been run before. I made a shrewd assessment of what that would mean. My life, over which I had been gradually assuming some kind of partial control, would never again belong to me. Ahrinye would have me continually at his beck and call.

“You are called to a great task, mortal!” The voice was as I remembered it, thin and acrid, biting. In those syllables the power of ages commanded both resentment and obedience.

“Fool!” I shouted, and my voice brayed soundlessly in that bedchamber. “Onker! Do you not—”

“Beware lest I smite you down, mortal. I am not as the other Everoinye.”

“That is very clear.” My bravado felt and sounded hollow, false, a mere mewling infant’s bleatings against the storms of fate. “They would soon see in what case I am.”

The idea that the Star Lords couldn’t actually see me when they summoned me was not worth entertaining.

The blueness sharpened with acid green. The green hurt my eyes, and that, by Vox, is far from the soothing balm that true greenness affords.

“You are wounded, mortal. That is of no matter. I speak to you. That is something that you cannot grasp, for the Everoinye speak to few.”

“Aye,” I bellowed in that soundless foolish whisper. “And I’d as lief you didn’t speak to me.”

The shape of the Scorpion wavered. I knew that for this moment out of time no one could see what I saw, that no one could hear what I heard. Master Hork would, for all he knew, run out to fetch the doctors. When he returned he would find an empty bed and I would be banished to some distant part of Kregen to sort out whatever problem this Ahrinye wished decided in his favor. That was, and I realized this with a sudden and chilling shock of despair, if he did not smash me back contemptuously to Earth, four hundred light years away. I must keep a civil tongue in my head. Yet, for all that, I was involved in some kind of dialogue with this Star Lord. Many a time I had engaged in a slanging match with the gorgeous bird who was the spy and messenger of the Everoinye. But that scarlet and golden bird, the Gdoinye, was merely a messenger, and we rubbed along, scathing each other with insults. But this was far different. Never before, I fancied, had I thus talked to a Star Lord and, too, never before — perhaps — had a Star Lord been thus spoken to by a mere mortal.

“Your wound is not serious and you merely sulk in bed and play at Jikaida.”

“That is what I say, and not what the doctors say.”

Was it possible to argue with a Star Lord? Was it perhaps conceivable that one might be swayed by what I said?

That had hitherto seemed a nonsense to me.

The Everoinye did what they did out of reasons far beyond the comprehension of a man. They had brought the fantastic array of diffs and strange animals to Kregen, upsetting the order established by the Savanti, who had lived here millennia ago. Why they had done this I did not know. But, clearly there was a reason.

“You cannot refuse my will, mortal.”

“I do not accept that.” As the blueness shimmered like shot silk waved against a fire, I went on quickly:

“I cannot obey your orders if I cannot fight — for that, I take it, is what I must do for you?” And then, from somewhere, the words sprang out, barbed and sarcastic. “For I assume you Star Lords are incapable of fighting your own battles on Kregen?”

“Whether we can or cannot is of no concern of yours. We choose to use mortal tools—”

A voice broke in, a thin, incisive voice that yet swelled with power. “Ahrinye! You have been warned. This man is not to be run by you, young and impetuous though you may be.”

I felt the draining sense of relief. When one Star Lord called another young he probably meant the Everoinye was only four or five millions years old. A wash of deep crimson fire spread against the blueness. The Scorpion remained; but I sensed he was removed in that insubstantial dimension inhabited by these superhuman beings.

“I have a damned great arrow wound in my neck,” I shouted without sound. “And a fever. And bed sores, too, I shouldn’t wonder. Let me get on with my tasks in Vallia, that you, Star Lords, promised me I might undertake. Of what use am I to you now?”

“Your wound,” the penetrating voice said, “is of no consequence. You may remove your bandage, for your neck is whole once more and your fever dissipated.”

And, as the words were spoken, damned if the aching nag in my neck didn’t vanish and my whole sense of well-being shot up wonderfully. I ripped the bandage free and explored my neck. The skin felt smooth and without blemish where a jagged hole had been left when they’d taken out the arrowhead.

“My thanks, Star Lord.” And, if I meant that, or if I spoke in savage sarcasm, I could not truly say.

“We are aware of the emotion called gratitude. It has its uses.”

“By Vox,” I said, “d’you have ice water in your veins?”

Even as I spoke I wondered if they had veins at all. I was not unmindful of the enormous risks I ran. These were the beings who had brought me here and who could banish me back to Earth. They had done so before now, to punish me, and on one occasion I had spent twenty-one miserable years on Earth. I was not likely to forget that.

The next words shocked me, shocked me profoundly — although they should not have done.

“We,” said the Star Lord, “were once as human as you.”

Well, now... .

This bizarre conversation with superhuman beings had lulled me into a false idea of my position. With genuine and I may add fervent interest I asked the question that had long burned in me, gradually losing its intensity in my realization that the Everoinye, being superhuman, had no need to care over my welfare.

“Why, Star Lords? Why have you summoned me? Why have you demanded I save certain people?

Where is the sense in it all?”

With lightning-strokes of rippling crimson bursting through the blue radiance, I was rapidly reminded of my true position and disabused of the notion that I might speak with impunity to the Everoinye.

“What we do we do. Our reasons are beyond your understanding. The Gdoinye carries our orders. We speak with you only because you have served faithfully and well. There is another task set to your hand. We will apprise you nearer the time. The warning you now receive is in earnest of our benign intentions toward you.”

If I say I found it extraordinarily difficult to swallow I think you will understand me. Yet I could not in all caution make the kind of impudent and insulting reply I would surely have hurled at the Gdoinye as he whirled about me on flashing wings, all scarlet and gold, superb, a hunting bird of the air. So, instead, I took a different tack.

“Very well, Star Lords. You seem to be implying a compact between us and one I will honor if you honor it also. I will do your bidding and rescue the people you wish saved. Although,” I added, and not without resentment, “I might take exception to your habit of plunking me down naked and unarmed—”

“This we do for reasons beyond—”

“Yes. As a mere mortal I cannot be expected to understand.”

Then I hauled myself up to standing. Softly softly! I dare not infuriate these unknown powers or I would find myself banished back to Earth. And Vallia called. And — Delia... What had happened to Ahrinye I never knew nor cared. But the greenness withered and died, and the blueness of the Scorpion faded. The crimson washed all over my vision, there in the sickroom, and I looked in vain for the mellow flood of pure yellow light that would herald the presence of Zena Iztar. That the Star Lords respected her powers I knew. Just what the relationship was I did not know. But Zena Iztar, I fervently believed, worked for other ends than those sought by either the Star Lords or the Savanti, and they were ends, I fancied, that we Kroveres would find most congenial. There in that close room the sense of the infinite moving about me dizzied my senses anew. The thin whispering voice attenuated as though withdrawing across the vasty gulfs of space itself.

“Go about your business in Vallia, mortal. But when you receive our call — be ready!”

With an abruptness that left me sprawling blinking and still dizzied on the bed, the blueness returned, the crimson vanished, the Scorpion faded and, with a final swirl as of the wings of fate closing, the blueness dimmed and was gone.

Despite my feeling of physical well-being I felt like a stranded flatfish. Momentous events had passed, of that I felt sure. Never before had such a conversation been held between the Star Lords and myself and, guessing they did nothing without good reason, I wondered what the reason could be. It would take a little time before I got over this little lot. Then the door burst open and Nath the Needle and Master Hork were there. And, with them, Delia, her face strained and worried, hurried in ready to fuss over me as only she can. Despite all my protestations Nath insisted on a full examination, and when he pronounced me fit and well and the wound healed, I, for one, was heartily glad to be rid of the sickroom aroma.

“I have work to do, and work I will do!”

“But, my heart — so soon?”

“Not soon enough.”

“The wound has healed with remarkable rapidity,” said Doctor Nath. He shook his head. “Your powers of recuperation, majister, are indeed phenomenal, as I have observed before.”

Well, he did not know that I, along with Delia and our friends, had bathed in the Sacred Pool of Baptism of the River Zelph in far Aphrasöe. That little dip, besides giving us a thousand years of life, also conferred great recuperative powers. But that would by itself not account for the complete disappearance of all traces of the arrow wound. The Everoinye had accomplished that. I said, “There is work to do. I am going to do that work and you, good Doctor Nath, have my thanks for your care and attention. As for you, Master Hork, I do not think I shall have the pleasure of your instruction in the more arcane aspects of Jikaida from now on.” I stretched, feeling the blood beginning to find its way around my body and go poking into long disused corners. “And for that I am truly sorry. But with Vallia as the Jikaida board, well...”

“My help is always at your command, majister.”

“And valued.” I bellowed then, a real fruity old-time bellow in my best foretop hailing voice. “Emder!”

When Emder came in, smiling at my recovery, he very quickly organized the essentials. A most valuable and self-effacing man, Emder, what you might call a valet and butler and personal attendant — I disliked to call him a servant — a man whom I valued as a friend.

Enevon Ob-Eye and his corps of stylors were soon hard at work writing out the orders. The Pallans were seen and their doings checked up on. The Presidio met and agreed on much, and disagreed on a number of points, also, which was healthy.

It is not my intention to go into details of all the work that had to be done, and that was done, by Vox. But being an emperor, even an emperor of so small an empire as I then was, takes up more time than Opaz hands out between sunrise and sunrise.

The news from Seg was that he was keeping the clansmen in play, baiting them with Filbarrka’s zorcamen. The zorcas, being so close-coupled and nimble, could ride rings around the more massive voves with their eight legs; but I felt that itchy feeling anyone must when he tangles with vove-mounted clansmen. Seg had started the Second Phalanx on their way back to Vondium and the Lord Farris was ferrying them in a detached part of his fleet of sailing skyships.

When the Second flew in, Kyr Nath Nazabhan flew with them.

Delia and I and a group of officers went out to meet him as his sailing flier touched down on Voxyri Drinnik. The wide open space outside the walls beyond the Gate of Voxyri blew with dust, the suns shone and streamed their mingled lights of ruby and jade, and the air smelled sweet with a Kregan dawn. Here, on this hallowed ground, the Freedom Fighters and the Phalanx had won their victory against the Hamalese and brought Vondium the Proud back once more into Vallian hands. Nath Nazabhan jumped down and walked most smartly toward us. He wore war harness, dulled with use, and his fresh and open face showed tiny signs of the care that had been wearing at him. But he was his usual alert, cheerful self, and a man I valued as a friend and a commander. Mind you, he never forgave himself for the debacle at the Gates of Sicce where a Phalanx had been overturned by the clansmen. But he had more than made up for that.

We had not seen each other since the Battle of Kochwold. “Majestrix! Majister!” He thumped the iron kax encasing his ribcage, its gold and silver chasings dulled. “Lahal and Lahal!”

We greeted him, Delia first, and the Lahals were warm and filled with feeling. In a little group we mounted the zorcas and rode into the city. There was much to be said. He told me he had instituted a thorough inquiry into the reasons for the temporary breaking of the Second Phalanx. This amused me. The idea that anyone should inquire why men should be broken by a vove-mounted clansmen’s charge was in itself ludicrous; but Nath was enormously jealous of the reputation and prowess of his Phalanx. And, of course, now that they had won so convincingly, nothing would change their minds and they remained convinced that the Phalanx and the Hakkodin could best any fighting force in the world.

The men of the Phalanx might be convinced; I still did not share that conviction. But there was no reasoning with Nath.

As we rode through the busy streets where the people gave us a cheer and then got on with their tasks, the grim men of the Emperor’s Sword Watch surrounded us. No need for their swords to be unsheathed against the people of Vondium. The ever-present threat of assassination had receded; but there were foemen in Kregen who would willingly pay red gold to see me dead.

As I have remarked, that sentiment was returned.

We all congregated in the Sapphire Reception Room where fragrant Kregan tea and sweets were served. For those who needed further sustenance, the second breakfast was provided. I looked at Kyr Nath Nazabhan.

His father, Nazab Nalgre na Therminsax, was an imperial Justicar, the governor of a province, and Nath took his name from his father. I felt it opportune to improve on that, not in any denial of filial respect but out of approval and recognition of Nath’s own qualities, of his service and achievements. When I broached the subject he looked glum.

“Truth to tell, majister, I have become used to being called Nazabhan—”

“But a man cannot live on his father’s name.”

“True, but—”

“Our son Drak,” said Delia, radiant in a long gown, her hair sheening in the early radiance. “Before he went off to Havilfar—”

What Delia would have said was lost, for the doors opened and Garfon the Staff, that major-domo whose arrow wound in the heel still produced a little limp, banged his gold-bound balass staff upon the marble floor. They relish that, do these major-domos and chamberlains. He produced a sudden silence with his clackety-clack.

Then he bellowed.

“Vodun Alloran, Kov of Kaldi!”

More than one person present in the Sapphire Reception Room gasped. It was easy to understand why. The kovnate of Kaldi, a lozenge-shaped province in the extreme southwest of the island, had long been cut off from communication with the capital and the lands hewing to the old Vallian inheritance. Down there Phu-si-Yantong’s minions held sway.

It was in Kaldi that the invading armies from Pandahem and Hamal had landed. The stir in the room brought a bright flush to the kov’s face as he marched sturdily across the floor. I did not fail to notice the discreet little group of the Sword Watch who escorted him and his entourage. A tenseness persisted there, a feeling of waiting passions, ready to break out. I placed my cup on the table and composed my face.

Naghan ti Lodkwara, Targon the Tapster and Cleitar the Standard happened to be the officers of the Sword Watch on duty that day. Their scarlet and yellow blazed in the room as they wheeled their men up. The men and women with the Kov of Kaldi kept together. They looked lost, not so much bewildered and bedraggled as approaching those states and not much caring for the experience. They must have gone through some highly unpleasant times, getting out of Kaldi.

“Majister!” burst out this Kov Vodun, and he went into the full incline, prostrating himself on the rugs of the marble floor.

“Get up, kov,” I said, displeased. “We no longer admit of that flummery here in Vondium in these latter days.”

Before he rose he turned his face up and looked at me.

A man of middle years, with a shrewd, weather-beaten face in which those brown Vallian eyes were partially hidden by heavy, down-drooping lids, he was a man with depths to his being, a man of gravitas. His clothes were of first quality, being the usual buff Vallian coat and breeches with the tall black boots. His broad-brimmed hat with those two slots cut in the front brim he held in his left hand. He stood up. He, naturally, wore no weapons. My Sword Watch would not tolerate strangers, even if they claimed to be kovs, the Kregan equivalent to dukes, carrying weapons into the presence of the Emperor and Empress of Vallia. That was a new and unwelcome custom, over which I had sighed and allowed, for as you will know we in Vallia are more used to carrying our weapons as a sign of our independence. But times change. Weapons were a part and parcel of life now, and we would soon be back to the old days, I hoped.

Kov Vodun’s retainers wore banded sleeves in maroon and gray, the colors of Kaldi. Their badges, sewn in drawn wire and in sculpted gold for the kov, represented a leaping sea-barynth, that long and sinuous sea monster of Kregen. I looked closely, for by the colors and badges a man wears may he be recognized again.

You can, also, tell his allegiances. There were no other colors — no black and white of the racters, for example — and from what I knew of Kaldi I believed the province to be out of the main stream of power politics. There were many provinces of the old Vallia whose hierarchy preferred to keep aloof from intrigues.

I considered. Then: “Lahal, Kov Vodun. You are welcome.”

He did not smile; but a muscle jumped in his cheek.

“Lahal, majister. I praise Opaz the All Glorious I have arrived safely.”

As you will see, I had cut through the Llahals straight to the Lahals. A small point; but I fancied this man needed encouragement.

“You will take refreshment?” I indicated the loaded tables and, instantly, a cup of tea was brought forward, for it was far too early for wine. “There is parclear and sazz if you would prefer.”

“Tea, majister, and I thank you. Those devils from Pandahem drain the country dry. We are fortunate to be alive.”

He was laboring under some powerful emotion that made the cup shake upon the saucer. I assumed what he had gone through had left an indelible mark. He told me his father, the old kov, had been slain by the enemies of Vallia, and that all the country down there was firmly in the hands of Rosil Yasi, the Strom of Morcray. At this name I sucked in my breath. I knew that rast of old. A Kataki, one of that whiptailed race who are slavemasters par excellence, the Kataki Strom and I were old antagonists and I knew him as a man who bore me undying enmity. He was, also, a tool of Phu-si-Yantong’s, and he had worked in his time for Vad Garnath of Hamal, a man who had his come-uppance waiting for him if ever we met again.

His retainers were taken care of and the other people in the Sapphire Reception Room were soon engaged in general conversation with him, trying to learn all there was to know of the situation. News, as always, was eagerly sought after.

Introductions were made as necessary and when the cordialities had been completed and he had described graphically how he and his people had fought from the hills until all their supplies had gone, and they were ragged and starving, so that they had at last stolen an airboat and made good their escape, Nath Nazabhan drew me privily aside.

Seeing that Nath had something he wished to get off his chest I moved quietly with him to a curtained alcove. I had been watching one of Kov Vodun’s people with a puzzled interest. This man — if it was a man, for in the enveloping green cloak and hood the figure could as easily have been a woman — moved with a slow stately upright stance. He (or she) carried his (or her) hands thrust deeply into the wide sleeves of the robe, crossed upon the chest. The waist was cinctured by a narrow golden chain from which the lockets for rapier and dagger swung emptily. There was merely black shadow within the hood, and a fugitive gleam of eye.

Upon the breast of the swathing green cloak, and very small, appeared the maroon and gray and the leaping Sea-Barynth. So I turned away, guessing this personage to be an adviser to Kov Vodun. If he (or she) turned out to be a Kataki in disguise, or some other evil-minded rast, my people would soon find out.

Nath said: “I suppose he is genuine? I mean, the real kov? He could be a spy, still working for Yantong.”

“He could be genuine and the real kov and still be working for Yantong.”

“By Vox, yes!”

One of the clever tricks an emperor has to know how to perform is judging character. So many people judge character by a person’s relations with society or established social orders; to perform the difficult task properly you have to judge if a person is being true to his own basic beliefs. This is fundamental. What goes even beyond that, penetrating into the unknown depths beyond the fundament — if, truly, that be possible — is to judge not only a person’s adherence to his own beliefs and therefore his own qualities of character; but to judge if those beliefs match up to what you yourself believe. If the two square — fine. If they do not — beware!

A part of the puzzle was solved for us almost at once. The least important part, to be sure. A Jiktar walked across the Kov Vodun and he moved a little diffidently, I thought. He wore a smart uniform of sky-blue tunic and madder-red breeches, and because he was Nath Orcantor, known as Nath the Frolus, and a well-liked regimental commander, he wore his rapier and main gauche as a matter of uniform dress.

He had raised a regiment of totrixmen for the defense of Vondium, and because he was from Ovvend he had insisted on clothing his regiment in blue tunics and red breeches, a combination unusual for Vallia. Now he halted before the kov and was introduced by Chuktar Ty-Je Efervon, a wily Pachak who was Nath the Frolus’s Brigade commander.

“Orcantor,” said Kov Vodun. “Of course. Your family is well known in Ovvend — shipping, I think.”

“That is so, kov. And I remember you when you visited Ovvend with your father. I am saddened at his loss, for he was a fine man and a great kov.”

“His death shall be avenged,” said Vodun, and he spoke between his teeth. All who watched him saw the flash of insensate rage. “I shall not rest until the devils are brought to justice.” His left hand dropped to his belt and groped, and found no familiar rapier hilt. But we all understood the message. Justice, from Vodun Alloran, the Kov of Kaldi, would be meted out with the sword.

“So he is the real kov,” said Nath.

“It would seem so. I think it is high time Naghan Vanki earned his hire.” Naghan Vanki had come in from his estates and was prepared to resume his position as the emperor’s chief spy-master. We had crossed swords in the past, and come to rapprochements. Now, with Delia to smooth the way, Naghan Vanki, Vad of Nav-Sorfall, was prepared to work with me. “He must sniff out all he can of this Kov Vodun.”

“Agreed. Vodun has a way with him, a presence. The ladies are quite smitten.”

And, by Krun, that was true, for the ladies were clustered around Kov Vodun now and were hanging on his words. Vodun had a story to tell, of hair-breadth escapes and disguises and swift flights in the lights of the Moons of Kregen. That flash of rage we had seen in him had struck like a lightning bolt, and had as quickly vanished. But Vodun would not rest until his father had been avenged.

“Well, Nath, I cannot shilly-shally about like this all day. I have a new flour mill to inspect, and then, I fancy you may feel it incumbent on me to take a look at the Second. Is this in your mind?”

He laughed.

“They are in good heart, now. It is only miserable skulking sorts of formations that do not relish showing off for their emperor.”

We had barely touched on that awful moment when the Second had recoiled. They had broken at the junction of Kerchuri and Kerchuri, the two wings of the Phalanx. They had been forced back on their rear ranks, a seething sea of bronze and crimson and many of the pikes had gone up. A pikeman whose pike stabs air is of little use in the front ranks. But the Third’s Sixth Kerchuri had swung up and held the torrent of voves, and the Second had closed up, reformed, and held. That, as I pointed out to Nath, was the achievement.

After the break, they had taken a fresh grasp on courage, had breathed in, and then smashed back, file by file, and the pikes had come down all in line, and they had driven the clansmen recoiling back.

“There are many bobs to be distributed, majister.”

“We shall make of the ceremony something special.” The men had earned their medals, and if they called them bobs in fine free-and-easy fashion, they valued them nonetheless. Making my excuses to the company — which had thinned now as the people went about their work —

I slipped away without ceremony. The Sword Watch were there. Delia gave me a smile and I said: “I must talk to you this evening, my heart.” Whereat her face grew grave and she understood that I did not talk thus lightly. But I went out and mounted up on a fine fresh zorca, Grumbleknees, a gray, and took myself off to the flour mill.

The original mill had burned in the Time of Troubles and the new structure incorporated refinements the wise men said would increase production as well as milling a finer flour. If I do not dwell on this flour mill it is precisely because this inspection was typical of so many that had to be undertaken. Everyone wanted to shine in the sight of the emperor, and although I could, had I wished, regard that as petty crawling lick-spittling behavior, I did not. We all worked for Vondium and for Vallia and my job was to make sure we all did the best we could.

The streaming mingled lights of the Suns of Scorpio flooded down as the waterwheel groaned and heaved and turned over as the sluice gates opened and the white water poured through. I looked up. Feeding the people would be by the measure of this mill that much easier. So I looked up, and with a hissing thud a long Lohvian arrow sprouted abruptly from the wood, a hand’s breadth from my head.

Chapter Three

Of a Meeting with Nath the Knife, Aleygyn of the Stikitches

“Hold fast!” My bellow ripped into the air. The bows of the Sword Watch, lifted, arrows nocked, drawn back, poised. Those sinewy fingers did not release the pull on the bowstrings by a fraction.

“There he goes!” shouted Cleitar, furious.

We could all see the bowman who had loosed at me clambering up the outside staircase of a half-ruined building across the canal. He wore a drab gray half-cape, and his legs were bare. He carried the long Lohvian bow in his left hand, and the quiver over his shoulder was stuffed with shafts. Like the arrow that still quivered in the wood by my head, each one was fletched with feathers of somber purple.

“A damned stikitche!” raved Cleitar. “Majister — you allow him to escape. Let us—”

“Lower your bows.”

The archers in the detachment of the Sword Watch obeyed.

Targon the Tapster, his face scowling, his brilliance of uniform which lent him, like them all, a barbaric magnificence, aflame under the suns, heeled his zorca across.

“Assassins, majister. They should be put down—”

These officers of the Sword Watch had not always been fighting men. I think it true to say their military experience had all been gained in contact with me. We had fought together in clearing Vallia. Cleitar the Standard, a big bulky man with bitterness in his soul, had been Cleitar the Smith until the Iron Riders had sundered him forever from his family and home. Targon the Tapster and Naghan ti Lodkwara had met over the matter of strayed or stolen ponshos. Now they formed a body of close comrades I came to value more and more as the seasons and the campaigns passed over.

“You are right. But that stikitche, had he wished to assassinate me, would not have missed. Bring me the shaft.”

The arrow was brought and I unwrapped the letter attached.

The message was addressed: “Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia.” The salutation, in the correct grammatical form, read: “Llahal-pattu. Majister.”

I sighed and looked quickly down for the signature.

The scrawl, in a different hand from the body of the letter, was just decipherable. It read: “Nath Trerhagen, Aleygyn.”

This assassin and I had met before, just the once. He was Nath Trerhagen, the Aleygyn, Hyr Stikitche, Pallan of the Stikitche Khand of Vondium.

This brought up painful memories of Barty Vessler and so looking at the writing I forced unwelcome thoughts away and concentrated on the here and now. Nath the Knife, the chief assassin was called. He wanted to meet me. There was an important matter that had come up. The phraseology was all in the mock legal, written by his pet lawyer he kept tucked up in some lair in Drak’s City, the Old City of Vondium, where, so far, the writ of the emperor’s law did not run.

“We should go in there and burn the place out,” quoth Larghos Manifer, a Vondian who had been newly recruited into the Sword Watch. His round face fairly bristled. His words met with general approval.

“Yet the people of Drak’s City held out the longest against the damned Hamalese,” I pointed out.

“They could fight all the imps of Sicce from there, majister.” Larghos Manifer, because he had been born in Vondium the Proud City, and knew what he knew, held a natural resentment against Drak’s City. “For one who is not a thief or a forger or a stikitche or an Opaz-forsaken criminal of one-kind or another it is death to venture in.”

“Nath the Knife wishes to meet me in the shadow of the Gate of Skulls. That, I think, indicates a willingness to come forward. We are, in theory, on neutral ground there.”

So, later on that morning and before we were due to return to eat, we wended our way through the crowded streets toward the moldering pile of old houses clustered behind the old walls that was the site of the very first settlements here, long before Vondium became the capital of Vallia. Targon, Naghan and Cleitar sidled their zorcas close to one another and after a brief conversation, Naghan went haring off. I had a shrewd suspicion about where he was going and what he was up to, and when we rode quietly up to the Gate of Skulls my guess was confirmed. The usual hectic activity around and through the gate was stilled. The striped awnings over stalls had been taken down. People kept away. The space this side of the gate and the Kyro of Lost Souls beyond were deserted. In a double line ranked two hundred paces back from the gate waited the Sword Watch. This was the handiwork of Naghan and the others. Bowman and lancer alternating, the men sat their zorcas silently. The scarlet and yellow, the gleaming helmets, the feathers, the brilliance of weapons, all made a fine show. I rather fancied Nath the Knife might have a similar if less splendidly outfitted array on his side of the wall.

And — he had Bowmen of Loh among his scurvy lot. My men were armed with the compound reflex bow of Vallia, a flat trajectory weapon of great power but not a patch on the great Lohvian longbow. As a matter of interest as I waited for the chief assassin I made a cursory count of the Sword Watch. I was astonished. There were better than five hundred of them. This was news to me. The rascally members of my original Choice Band, with whom I had campaigned and caroused and fought over Vallia, had been busy recruiting. Well, that could be looked into. Now, Nath the Knife made his presence known.

Four hefty fellows walked into the shadows under the Gate of Skulls carrying a heavy lenken table. This they placed down at the midway point between the inner and outer portals. They were followed by four more who carried a carved chair of fascinating design, a chair that breathed authority, a chair that, by Krun, was as like a throne as made no difference.

In the shadows beyond table and chair waited a line of men, indistinct, true; but the long jut of the bows in their fists was not to be mistaken. A bugle pealed.

“They make a mockery of it, majister,” growled Cleitar. He gripped the pole of my personal flag, Old Superb, and he scowled upon the Gate of Skulls. On my other side Ortyg the Tresh upheld the new union flag of Vallia. Close to hand Volodu the Lungs, leathery and thirsty, waited with his silver trumpet resting on his knee. At my back, as always, rode Korero the Shield, that splendid Kildoi with the four arms and tailhand, his golden beard glinting in the light of the suns, his white teeth just visible as his half-smile at the panorama before us matched my own feelings.

The Sword Watch had been reorganized. Now they were clearly arranged in order, the companies each with its own trumpeter and standard and commander. Those commanders I recognized from many a long day’s campaigning. The small body of men who had appointed themselves as my personal bodyguard —

which at the time I had deplored but acceded to at the sense of urgency these men shared — waited close. There were Magin, Wando the Squint, Uthnior Chavonthjid, Nath the Doorn and his boon comrade Nath the Xanko. There were, of course, Targon the Tapster, Naghan ti Lodkwara and Dorgo the Clis, his scar livid along his face.

As we waited for the ponderous arrival of Nath the Knife, Hyr Stikitche, what intrigued me was the apparent lack of a leader of the Sword Watch. Clearly those men I have named ran things. When they gave an order the zorcamen jumped. And they appeared to work together, with a consensus, each one supporting the next. I hoped that state of affairs resulted from the time we had spent campaigning together. There was no mistaking the smooth way things got done in the Emperor’s Sword Watch. The strange fancy struck me, as we sat our zorcas and waited, that we were arrayed as we would be when we waited in battle for the outcome, so as to go hurtling down to defeat or victory. With the flags waving in the slight breeze, with the trumpets ready to peal the calls, with the weapons bright and our uniforms immaculate, we looked just as we looked in battle. We were the emperor’s personal reserve, a powerful striking force under his hand. I may say it was most odd, by Vox, to remember that I was that emperor.

Just as a stir made itself apparent in the shadows of the Gate of Skulls I was thinking that the quicker Drak got home from Faol the better.

Alone, walking steadily and without haste, Nath Trerhagen, the Aleygyn, made his way to the table and passed around it and so sat himself down in that throne-like chair. I smiled.

“The impudent rast!” said Cleitar.

“It is clear,” offered Naghan ti Lodkwara. “He will sit. And there is no chair for you, majister.”

“Let me shaft the wretch!” suggested Dorgo the Clis.

He would have done so, instanter. But I nodded to the line of bowmen in the shadows.

“They are Bowmen of Loh. Each one would feather four of you before you could reach them. Hold fast!”

I rode out a half a dozen paces before my men and turned and lifted in the stirrups and faced them.

“I ride alone. Not one of you moves. My life is forfeit.” Then, to ram the order home, I said quietly to Volodu the Lungs, “Blow the Stand, Volodu.”

The silver trumpet with the significant dents was raised to those leathery lips. Grumbleknees turned again and walked sedately across the open dusty space toward the Gate of Skulls. His single spiral horn caught the mingled light of the suns and glittered. So it was and all unplanned, that the Emperor of Vallia rode toward this meeting with the pealing silver trumpet notes playing about his ears.

The villains of Drak’s City would not know what the call portended. They would probably think it was some kind of pompous fanfare that was sounded whenever the emperor rode out or did anything at all or even wished to blow his nose. I rode on, and I felt the amusement strong in me at the conceit. There was one thing of which I was pretty sure. I was not going to stand up while this stikitche lolled on his throne.

“By the Black Chunkrah!” I said to myself. “Nath the Knife must think again.”

No personal vanity was involved. This was a matter of policy and, of course, of will. Nath the Knife wore ordinary Vallian clothes, that is to say, the buff tunic, breeches and tall black boots. On his breast the badge of the three purple feather was pinned with a golden clasp. His face was covered by a dulled steel mask. When he spoke his voice was like breaking iron.

“Majister.”

I looked down on him from the back of the zorca. I debated. Then, carefully, I said, “Aleygyn.”

The steel mask moved as he nodded, as though under the steel he smiled, satisfied.

“Dismount, emperor, so that we may talk.”

“You might have killed me before this. I do not think you wish to talk without reason. Spit it out, Nath the Knife. There is much work to be done in Vondium these days.”

He sat up straighter. The power he wielded within the Old City was commensurate with the power I wielded in Vondium.

“There is a matter of bokkertu to be decided.”

“Once before you said that. You asked me to pay you gold so that I would not be a kitchew.” A kitchew, the target for assassination, usually has a very brief allotment left of life. But that matter had been settled with the death of the stikitche paid to do the job. That, I had thought, was finalized. Nath the Knife moved his hand. “No. It is not that.” He paused. There was about him a strange air of indecisiveness and I wished I could see his face beneath the mask so as to weigh him up better. “No. We had a bad time of it when those rasts of Hamalese captured Vondium.”

I said, “I heard how you held out in Drak’s City. You deserve congratulations for that. It has been in my mind to offer you masons and brickies, carpenters, so that you may rebuild and clean away some of the destruction.”

His head went up. “You are serious?”

It is damned hard to read a man wearing a mask.

“Yes. Perfectly serious.”

There seemed little point in adding that I wanted some of the mess in Drak’s City cleared up so as to lessen the risk of infection to the rest of the City. They policed themselves in the Old City; but I did not think they were too well-served by needlemen and once an epidemic got hold we would all be in trouble.

“You are not as other emperors—”

“No, by Vox!”

“And would you find men willing to enter here? Would not their tools be stolen, their throats cut?”

“Under proper safeguards and assurances, men would come in here and rebuild.”

“Because you told them to?”

I wondered what he was getting at.

“Not because I told them to. Because they understand the reasons. Anyway, I would pay them — pay them well — for the work will not be pleasant.”

“I think, Dray Prescot, they would do it for you.”

“They are not slaves. We do not have slaves anymore.”

Sitting the zorca, feeling the old itch down my back, darkly aware of that line of bowmen, I was all the time ready to get my foolish head down and make a run for it. But the trick of remaining mounted had given me just a little back of a hold on the situation. Nath the Knife waved his hand again. He wore gauntleted leather gloves; but a ring glowed in ronil fire upon his finger outside the glove. He came straight to the point, now, putting it to me.

“We have received a contract for you, emperor. Do not ask from whom, for that is our affair, in honor. I run perilously close to breaking the stikitche honor in this. But we stikitches remember the Hamalese and the aragorn and the flutsmen. We were cruelly oppressed. We rose when you and your armies broke into the city. Aye! We of Drak’s City hung many a damned Hamalese by his heels. We have seen what you have wrought in Vondium.” He pushed a paper that lay on the table. “The contract calls for immediate execution and the price is exceedingly large.”

I took a breath.

“And you wish me to pay you the price?”

Before he could answer, I went on: “You will recall what I told you when that was mentioned before—”

“No, emperor! By Jhalak! I know you to be a stiff-necked tapo; but will you not listen?”

I nodded and he went on speaking, and, I thought with a twinge of amusement, a little huffily. It seemed he could hardly understand just what he was saying, or why he was doing what he did. But he ploughed on, natheless.

The gist of it was that the folk of Drak’s City felt it would be to their advantage if I was alive and running Vondium. In this I fancied they did not put a great deal of store by the considerable army now at the disposal of the government. Their confidence in their own tumbledown city had been shaken by their defeat and enslavement by the Hamalese. What the chief assassin told me, quite simply, was that they intended to repudiate the contract, they would not accept it, and they wanted me to know. But—

“There is a chance that the client will bring in stikitches from outside Vondium. We frown on that; but it is known. I assure you, emperor, on the honor of a Hyr-Stikitche, that we will prevent that if it is in our power.”

What was odd about that was not the talk of assassins’ honor, which is just as real to them as any form of honor code to any other group of people, but the suggestion that in stikitche matters the khand of Vondium might not have the power to do what it willed.

“You have my thanks, Aleygyn. Vallia is sundered and torn, and our enemies press in on us from all sides. I think it is a task laid on all of us to resume peaceful ways. But that will not be possible until these invaders have been driven away—”

He did not so much surprise me as reveal that he, too, was a Vallian.

“Until they are all buried six feet deep and sent to rot in the Ice Floes of Sicce!”

“Agreed.” I chanced a shaft. “There are many fine young men in Drak’s City, men who have proved they can fight. They would be welcomed in the ranks of the new Vallian Army.”

The eyes within the slits of the mask glittered on me. The suns were shifting around and that mingled opaz radiance crept under the arch of the Gate and drove back the shadows.

“I will talk to the Presidio,” he said, whereat I smiled. The folk of Drak’s City aped Vondium and the whole of Vallia in holding their own Presidio, their governing body. It was a charming conceit. “There are men here who would form regiments that would show you soft townsfolk how to fight.”

“I await them in the ranks.”

“Not,” he said, a tang in his voice, “in the Phalanx.”

“No, I agree. As light infantry, skirmishers.”

“We have paktuns here—”

“I do not employ mercenaries. Many paktuns have become Vallian citizens. We are a people’s army. You are Vallians. Your young men will be paid the same as any other Vallians in our ranks.”

He digested that. And then we spoke of the practical side of the matter for a time until I felt I was getting altogether too chummy with a damned assassin, even if he was mindful of the welfare of the country. I twitched Grumbleknees’ reins.

“I bid you Remberee, Aleygyn. I shall send a Pallan to talk with you about the rebuilding I promised. I am serious. As serious as I hope you are in sending men to join the army. The quicker Vallia is back to her old peaceful ways the better. Remberee.”

“Remberee, Dray Prescot.”

But the old warrior did not stand up to say good-bye.

Chapter Four

Delia Thinks Ahead

“And you really had a long conversation with a stikitche! My heart — suppose—”

“But it didn’t.”

“All the same, you are just as feckless as ever you were. I wish Seg and Inch were here—”

“They’re just as bad.”

“True.” She sighed and then laughed. “You’re all as bad as one another, a pack of rascals and rogues!”

“There is a matter I must talk to you about and yet have not the courage to—”

“Dray! Oh — my dear. You are going away again!”

I nodded.

“Back to your silly little world with its one yellow sun and one silver moon and no diffs?”

“By Zim-Zair! I hope not!”

I told her a little of what had passed between me and the Star Lords, and then added: “And it is mighty fine of them to warn me. They do not often do that. But, my heart, rest assured. As soon as whatever must be done is done I shall fly back here just as fast as I can.”

“You make it all sound so — so—”

“I know.”

The warm gleam of the oil lamps shed a cozy glow in our snug and private little room. We had both spent a busy day. We were surrounded now by the good things of gracious living, or as many of them as our straightened circumstances would allow, and we relished this time when we could relax and talk of the doings of the day and of our plans for the morrow. To change the conversation, I said: “What do you make of Vodun Alloran, the Kov of Kaldi?”

Delia made a sweet little moue and tucked her feet up more comfortably on the divan. She wore a lounging robe, as did I, and we joyed one in the other. “Well, he is bright and forthright and, I am sure, a fine fighting man. What he is like as a kov I do not know. But, somehow, I must have more time to plumb him properly.”

I glanced at her. Delia usually knows her own mind.

“He strikes me as a useful man to have in the army. He will fight like a leem to get his kovnate back.”

“I am sure. He is a fighter, of that there is no doubt.”

Again, I sensed that deliberate withdrawal.

“I am minded to give him command of a brigade — as a kov he will never accept less. It is a pity he has no men of his own to form a regiment. But with the expansion, promotion will prove no problem.” I yawned. “I’ll be glad when we can finish with all this fighting and get back to decent living again.”

“So, Dray Prescot, you imagine you are well acquainted with decent living?”

She teased me; but it stung. I had been a wanderer, a soldier, a sailor, an airman, a fellow who struggled and fought and brawled until, it seemed, he could not possibly understand that life was not meant to be lived thus. But, the knotty problem there was, quite simply, that all this took place on Kregen. What a world Kregen is, by Zair! Wonderful, unutterably lovely, unspeakably ghastly, at times it is all things to all men. And yet I would not willingly be parted from that world four hundred light years from the planet of my birth or from the woman who meant more than anything else. I had been a slave and now I was an emperor — well, an emperor of sorts.

“The quicker—” I began.

“Yes. I have had word from Drak. Queen Lush is bringing him home.”

I gaped.

Then: “Drak? Queen Lush — bringing him?”

“He is not hurt,” she said, quickly. “Well, not much. He has rescued Melow and Kardo. The message simply says that we should expect them.” Her eyebrows drew down. “Queen Lush is — well—”

“Queen Lush is Queen Lush,” I said. “She has changed wonderfully from what she was when Phu-Si-Yantong sent her to entrap your father. Then she did as she was told, for all she was a queen with great wealth and power—”

“And beauty.”

“Oh, aye, she looks well, does Queen Lush. And Drak?”

“There is no doubt, at least in my mind. Queen Lush means to marry Drak.”

“She set her heart on being Empress of Vallia. Well, it seems she will have her way, seeing she knows very well that I shall hand over to Drak. She has heard me say so often enough.”

“Mayhap you do her an injustice.”

“I would like to think so. Yes, perhaps I do. I know she was much taken with Drak. Well — any girl with any sense would be. And that brings up Seg’s daughter, Silda.”

“I like Silda.”

“That settles that, then. When she went against Thelda’s wishes and joined in the Sisters of the Rose—”

“Hush.”

But I had already hushed myself. One did not speak lightly of these female secret Orders. And, too, mention of Seg and Thelda brought up a sharp agony I just could not face then. So I went on: “Silda is a charming girl and I would welcome her as a daughter-in-law. And Seg would be overjoyed. But — what says Drak in all this?”

“I think,” said the Empress of Vallia, “you would have to ask Queen Lushfymi of Lome the answer to that.”

We did not play Jikaida that night, for there was a mountain of paperwork Enevon Ob-Eye, the chief stylor, had landed us with. With the morning and a new day in which to work we set doggedly to that work. Rebuilding and healing a shattered city and people demand strenuous and unending efforts. All the time I felt the relief that Drak was safe. He was the stern and sober one of my sons, and yet he could be wild enough on occasion. He had taken over in Valka, as the strom, when I had been snatched back to Earth. He had known me when he had been young, unlike his brothers, for Zeg had been rather too young, and Jaidur had not known me at all. But these were not the reasons I felt he would prove to be a splendid emperor. It seemed to me that he had been born to the imperium. I was just a rough-hewn sailor from a distant planet, schooled by the wildly ferocious clansmen of Segesthes, picking up bits of lore and scraps of knowledge from here and there on Kregen. But Drak was an emperor to his fingertips. I confess I joyed in that.

Mind you, I did not forget that I was the King of Djanduin. But Djanduin was dwaburs away in Havilfar, and my friends could run affairs there perfectly. The moment I could snatch the time from Vallia, it would be Djanduin for me. Even, perhaps, before Strombor. As the Lord of Strombor I reposed absolute faith and confidence in Gloag, who was a good comrade and the one handling everything there. That I had some still remaining links with Hamal, the hated enemy of Vallia, remained true. I was, in Hamal, Hamun ham Farthytu, the Amak of Paline Valley. Nulty was the one in charge there. But that seemed to me distant and vague and blurred; one day I would return to Paline Valley. As Hamun ham Farthytu I would seek out my good comrades, Rees and Chido. Good comrades, and also Hamalese and therefore foemen to Vallians.

What a nonsense all that was!

The plans I hoped to see come to fruition demanded that Vallia and Hamal join hands in friendship, and with the nations of the island of Pandahem begin to form that grand alliance we must forge so as to combat the vicious shanks who raided from over the curve of the world. All these things went around in my head continually as we worked on the immediate problems of clearing Vallia of her invaders. The news from Seg reaffirmed his skill in keeping the clansmen off our necks until we were able to defeat them once and for all. Patrols of observation in the southwest reported little movement from the invaders there; but that part of the island had been under the heel of foreign lords with their mercenaries for long enough for us to watch and ward the borders and build our strength for the counterstroke. The Presidio now met regularly in the sumptuous Villa of Vennar, situated on one of the exclusive hills of Vondium. The place had been abandoned since its lord, Kov Layco Jhansi, had proved himself a double dyed villain and a traitor. The deren[1]of the Presidio had been burned to the ground. We would not waste resources on rebuilding that, not until Vallia was free, and particularly when there were abandoned villas with enormous chambers suitable for the purposes of the Presidio lying empty. In the Presidio Kov Vodun na Kaldi proved a volatile and persuasive speaker. Constantly he sought to encourage us to action. His hatred for the Hamalese and the Pandaheem was implacable. With his reiterated calls for the utter destruction of the invaders he reminded me of Cato and his never-ending Carthago delenda est .

Various conversations with him from time to time revealed him as a man with a history. Fretful at being the son of a kov who might have to wait years before he came into the title, the lands and power, and the responsibility, he went abroad and became a mercenary. Because Vallia had not kept a standing army, being mainly a trading maritime nation, many of her young men took themselves overseas to become mercenaries. Many had become famous paktuns. Kov Vodun was one such, entitled to wear the pakmort, the silver mortil-head on its silk cord at his throat. He did not wear it at home for, as he said, that would be too flamboyant.

So, he did understand something of soldiering.

He mentioned various places in Loh, where most of his service had been spent, and, as I summed him up, he grew in my estimation. We needed men like this, tough, no-nonsense professionals to put the polish on the crowds of eager but raw recruits who flocked to the standards. When I offered him a brigade, somewhat diffidently, I must admit, expecting him to refuse, he accepted.

“Give me the brigade, majister. You will soon see my men will form the best brigade in the army.”

The appointment was warmly endorsed by the Presidio.

Thinking myself foolish for offering a command to a man half expecting him to refuse — a very poor way of going on — I wondered if Delia’s attitude had contributed to that feeling of inexplicable hesitancy. Naghan Vanki, the emperor’s chief spymaster, reported that everything Kov Vodun had said was true. Vanki gave him a clean bill of health, and my spirits lifted at that. Asked about the mysterious green-cloaked figure, Vanki gave his thin smile.

“He is merely an adviser to the kov, majister. He is one of the Wizards of Fruningen, a small sect but with some claim to serious consideration. They regard Opaz, I am told, as a single entity and not, as indeed they truly are, the Invisible Twins, one and indissolubly twins.”

I raised my eyebrows at this, for Vanki expressed an extreme view. Most people regarded Opaz as the spirit of the Invisible Twins made manifest. And I knew of the island of Fruningen, a small rocky scrap jutting out of the sea northwest of the island of Tezpor. Reports, amplified by Kov Vodun, told us that the Vad of Tezpor, Larghos the Lame, had been hanged upside down from his own rooftree by flutsmen. And, Tezpor lay due north of the large island of Rahartdrin. There was nothing simple I could do for Katrin Rashumin save pray to all the gods she was safe.

“So far I have not met a Wizard of Fruningen,” I said to Naghan Vanki. “They are clearly not to be compared to the Wizards of Loh.” At this Vanki let his thin smile indicate the idiocy of the remark. I went on: “But how stand they in relation to the Sorcerers of Murcroinim?”

“If one were to engage the other in wizardly combat, Majister, I fear they would both disappear in puffs of smoke.”

“At least that argues real powers.”

“Yes.”

Naghan Vanki had dealt with a few real powers in his time, powers of steel and gold; I did not think a sorcerer would discompose him overmuch. A tough, wily old bird, Naghan Vanki, always impeccable in his silver and black.

So Kov Vodun got his brigade and began smartening them up and putting a snap in their step and iron into their backbones.

Then, although it spelled misery and desolation for the unfortunate people involved, an event occurred which gave me a capital opportunity to delegate responsibilities in Vondium to the Crebent-Justicar, the Lord Farris, and the Presidio, and take off for action.

“So you are off again, then, husband,” said Delia as I strapped on my harness in our rooms and wondered just what selection of weaponry to take. “This time I think I shall go with you, for the folk of Bryvondrin have suffered much and yet they have taken in and cared for the people of the occupied provinces east of the Great River. And they are our people.”

What she meant was plain. Bryvondrin, situated in one of the tremendous loops of the Great River, the enormous central waterway of Vallia, was an imperial province.

“True. But what concerns me is that the enemy have got over the Great River. We regarded that as a first-class natural barrier. And, my heart, it is only seventy dwaburs away from Vondium.”

“Too close for comfort.”

“But that does not mean you will fly with me—”

“You would prevent me?”

I sighed.

“I would if I thought it would do any good. You know how I joy to have you with me — but if there, rather, as there is to be fighting—”

“Fighting!”

I felt suitably chastened. Truly, Delia of Delphond has served in her quota of battles, to my own dread despair.

Her handmaidens, Floria and Rosala came in all chattering and laughing, rosy, gorgeous girls. They brought stands of clothing over which, I felt sure, they would all giggle and try against themselves and spend hours deciding exactly what to wear.

Aghast, I said: “You are not bringing them?”

“Are you taking Emder?”

“Well — to be honest, no.”

“Then it will be as it was in the old days.”

So that was decided. As usual, the decision seemed to have arrived of its own accord. Naghan Vanki reported that the invasion over the Great River was not in overmuch force. His spies had the composition confirmed by cavalry patrols from our small forces there. There were some fifteen thousand fighting men, ten of infantry and five of cavalry, mainly totrixes with some zorcas. These men were formed and disciplined, professional mercenaries and although they were not in great force they were formidable. Their object, as I saw it, was to create a secure bridgehead for their further encroachments on our country. Certainly, they held all the land from the Great River to the east coast.

“We must fly out in sufficient force to make very sure of the victory,” I told my assembled chiefs when, dressed in war harness and with Delia at my side, I rode out to see the army off. We were constrained to leave strong forces in Vondium, for obvious reasons, and I had had to pick and choose the units to go. Everyone wanted to be in on the act, and there were some long faces decorating those hardy warriors I had to leave behind.

Firstly, the Phalanx. Nath insisted on accompanying me and he would bring the Third Kerchuri of the Second Phalanx. With foot soldiers, Hakkodin and the attached archers, the Third Kerchuri amounted to some eight thousand men.

Secondly, three brigades of infantry, the sword and shield men. One of the brigades, the Nineteenth, was that commanded by Kov Vodun. These three brigades amounted to some four thousand five hundred men.

Thirdly, two brigades of archers, around three thousand.

And, fourthly, a brigade of the skirmishers.

That formed the infantry corps, and a fine body they looked as they marched out with a swing to board the sailing fliers. The weird constructions, more flying rafts, we had been forced to use before had now given place, with the time and the rebuilding program, to more sensible flying ships. These possessed hulls with real wooden walls, so that the men would have shelter during the flight. Their sail plan was deliberately kept simple, a fore, main and mizzen with jib and headsails. We rigged courses and topsails, not caring to go further into the fascinating ramifications of the typical Vallian galleon’s sail plan. They would fly, and with their silver boxes upholding them in thin air and extending invisible keels into the lines of ethero-magnetic force, they could tack and make boards against the wind. They were sailing ships of the sky, and subject to the vagaries of the weather, quite unlike the vollers of the Hamalese. For cavalry we took a division of totrix archers and lancers, just over two thousand jutmen, attached to the Phalanx. One division of totrix heavy cavalry, two thousand strong, and one division of zorcas, two thousand one hundred and sixty in number, were joined by a regiment of the superb heavy nikvove cavalry, five hundred big men on five hundred great-hearted nikvoves. Our tail consisted of engineers, supply wagons, medical and veterinary components, and a goodly force of varters.

Also, I took the whole of the Sword Watch, leaving merely a small cadre at my officer’s pleas to carry on with their program of recruitment and training.

In all we were nearly thirty thousand strong. The plan called for us to land, debouch, deploy and then thrash these upstart invaders and send them packing. That was the plan.

Chapter Five

Of the Theatre, a Gale and a Surprise

On the evening before we left we visited the theatre. The idea of pomp or pageantry in a simple visit by the emperor to relax for an evening’s enjoyment at the play was anathema to me, so Delia and I and a few companions went quietly to our seats in the Half Moon, an old theatre of Vondium and one in which many famous actors and actresses had trod the boards and spoken their lines. The building was mainly of brick and stone and only the roof had burned in the Time of Troubles. The seats were arranged in a horseshoe fashion, tiered one above the other, and the acoustics and vision were alike first class. As I sat down on the fleece-stuffed cushions and looked about at the black and ugly burn marks high on the walls, and the licks of fresh paint, and saw the stars glittering high and remote, I reflected that the times of troubles were not over yet, by Vox. An awning had been erected over the stage. During the performance a light rain began. The performers were shielded, and as they were the important part of the night’s proceedings, we in the auditorium perforce sat and got wet. Only a handful of people left. Watching the play absorbed us, and a little rain was nothing.

The play was a new one, recently completed by Master Belzur the Aphorist, called The Scarron Necklace. Although my mind was filled with Army Lists, and the problems of supply and transportation, and the natural concern for the morrow, I found I was held by the action of the play. Of one thing I was pleasantly sure: there were still playwrights left in Vallia.

As was often the case, a purely entertaining middle section had been incorporated, in which choirs sang the old songs of Kregen. On this night a new touch had been added. I sat up, and I heard Delia’s delighted laugh at my side.

For, onto the stage pranced files of half-naked girls clad in wisps of crimson and wearing fluffed out felt helmets that might, if you did not look too closely, pass as the bronze-fitted vosk-skull helmets of the Phalanx. The girls all carried wands — and then I realized they were intended to represent the pikes of the pikemen. They were only some five feet long; but the girls made great play with them, marching and countermarching and singing a foolish, lilting, heart-lifting ditty. The words were something to do with a soldier being always able to command the vagaries of a girl’s wayward heart. This was the song that was afterward called the “Soldier’s Love Potion.”

“They march well, majister,” said Nath, leaning across and not taking his gaze from the spectacle. “I could do with a few of them in the Phalanx, by Vox!” And he laughed. The girls weaved patterns across the stage, their wands circling and rising and falling, and thrusting. I found it extraordinarily difficult to laugh. By Zair! I approved of this flummery, for it did a power of good for morale — but in the reflected radiance of the mineral oil lamps limning those slender girls out there I seemed to see the clumped and solid ranks and files of the Phalanx and heard the awful clangor of battle. Playacting, make believe, a light-hearted evening’s entertainment — why should I make such heavy weather of it and refuse to take the joy? Why this continual questioning of my motives, when I had made up my mind, grimly, and intended to unite Vallia once again and then hand all over to Drak? Why? Why torture myself with regrets? Life is life, and it whirls along and we all get dragged with it willy-nilly no matter how desperately we cling to the deceptively substantial acts of everyday. I half-expected to see that damned Gdoinye come sticking his arrogant scarlet-feathered head out over the proscenium arch and summon me off to jump about for the Star Lords. By Krun! But that would stir the old blood up.

Delia sensed my mood, half-desperate, half-defiant, and she pressed my hand, and so I turned my fingers over and gripped hers.

“We sail in the morning.”

“I think I shall be glad to shake the dust of Vondium out of my head.” I felt her fingers in mine, warm and trembling slightly. “I wish Drak were here.”

“He will come home with Queen Lush,” she said, and I caught the amused puzzlement in her voice. “I have invited Silda to visit us. Her work — well, she will have news of Lela.”

“When that young lady deigns to return home to give a Lahal to her father, I shall have a few words to say—”

“Now, then, you grizzly old graint!”

Then the mock-soldiers on the stage, their crimson draperies swirling and their bodies gleaming splendidly, performed their final triumphant charge, and vanished into the wings, and the rest of The Scarron Necklace began.

* * * *

So, here we were, a little army flying off with the wind across Vallia toward Bryvondrin to meet these upstart foemen who would not leave us alone.

The wind held fair and we bowled along. Standing on the quarterdeck I looked around on the empty spaces of the sky. How odd, how weird, thus to see an armada of sailing ships billowing grandly through the air! Their sails did not gleam, for they were patched brown and pale blue, dappled with camouflage. But the sight of massive ships upheld in the air, bowling along with all sails spread... incredible. A sniff at the air and a closer look at the cloud formations ahead gave me unwelcome news. The captain came over at my call and he agreed that we were in for a change in the weather.

“In for a blow, majister — and the breeze will back, I think.”

“Aye, captain. I am not as sanguine as I was that we will reach Kanarsmot before the gale strikes.”

“We can but pile on all canvas and trust in Opaz, majister.”

“Aye.”

The plan had been to land near Kanarsmot, a town on the Great River situated where, on the southeastern bank of the river, the boundaries of Mai Makanar to the north and Mai Yenizar to the south marched. By this stratagem we would array our forces in rear of the invaders, cut their supply lines, free the town, and then be in a position to hit them in flank and rear and dispose of them with little hope of escape.

But the wind gusted and freshened. And, as we feared, it backed.

Well, weather is sent by the Hyr-Pallan Whetti-Orbium, the meteorological manifestation of Opaz, and we must do what we could. We battened down. There were no seas to come leaping and crashing in over the bulwarks; but as the breeze blew with ever greater strength and backed around the compass, our yards were hauled farther and farther around. Soon we were facing a stiff easterly. The rushing roar of the wind stuffed our mouths and nostrils and half-blinded us. On the ships staggered, lurching as their invisible keels gripped into the lines of force. At last, when we were within only three dwaburs of the town, it was apparent that we could make no further headway.

The twin suns were sinking, flooding the land below with their mingled streaming lights. The jade and ruby cast long tinted shadows. The country here was tufty, cut up by small hills and gullies, scrub country and yet being well-watered festooned with traceries of forests. The clouds sent racing shadows leapfrogging across the grass.

“Down, captain,” I shouted, my words blown away. I pointed down and stabbed my hand urgently. If we continued aloft we’d be blown miles off course.

So, in the last of the light, we made our landfall.

We came down fifteen miles short of Kanarsmot and we knew the enemy was in force somewhere between us and the town.

Thus are the grandiose plans of captains and kings foiled by the invisible breeze. A pretty bedlam ensued as the reluctant animals were herded from the capacious interiors of the ships. The men disembarked and set about bivouacking. The wind tore at cloaks and banners. We pitched a dry bivouac, no fires being lighted. Cavalry patrols, zorcamen, were sent out immediately. When I gave firm orders that the flutduins, those marvelous saddle birds of Djanduin, were not to be disembarked, Tyr Naghan Elfurnil ti Vandayha stomped across to me, raving. His flying leathers were swirled about his legs by the breeze. He had one hand gripping his sword and the other outstretched, palm up, as though he was begging for alms.

“Majister! My flyers can scout that Opaz-forsaken—”

“Come now, Naghan — look at the weather!”

“My flutduins can fly through the Mists of Sicce itself.”

“I don’t doubt,” I said, dryly. “However, I shall need your aerial cavalry for the morrow. The breeze will drop by then.”

Naghan Elfurnil was a Valkan, and he had been trained up by expert flyers from Djanduin. An aerial detachment was with us; but I was not going to throw them away in weather like this.

“The jutmen will be our eyes tonight, Naghan.”

“They’ll be outscouted, you mark my words.”

“It would perhaps be best if Jiktar Karidge did not hear you say that, Naghan. He has a temper—”

“Oh, aye, majister. Karidge is a fine zorcaman, I’ll give you that.” Naghan gave a huge sniff that was instantly whipped away by the wind. “But I’ll never live to see the day when zorcas can outscout flutduins.”

I forbore to suggest that, perhaps, this night, he had lived that long.

“Those oafs we will fight tomorrow have flying fluttrells. Not many. But you’ll need to look sharp to drive ’em off.”

“And, strom, since when has a fluttrell had a chance in hell of matching a flutduin?”

Well, by Vox, that was sooth, and we both knew it.

So the pandemonium continued, and slowly and in the end surprisingly, order and quietness came out of chaos. The army bivouacked and the sentries were posted and the patrols went out. If we were not outscouted, we could set down all fair and square. I did not think we would outscout our opponents, for they had the advantage of the terrain. And, as the night progressed and the reports flowed in we understood that on the morrow we would advance to battle with a good idea of the strength and location of the enemy, and that they in their turn would know of our strengths and positions. There were some cavalry clashes during that night. The army was up and breakfasting and on the move early. The wind had dropped; but we judged three burs or so would have to pass before the weather was fit for aerial cavalry. In that time we formed and marched forward. The commander of the local forces came in with a remnant of exhausted totrixmen. They had been pushed back by the first onslaught over the Great River and had subsequently harried the invaders as best they could.

“The whole situation was completely quiet,” the commander told me. He was a waso-Chuktar, Orlon Turnil, and he looked worn out. “But they will not expect so quick a reaction, majister. Truly, the flying ships are marvels.”

That was the trouble with the current mess in Vallia. Our enemies pressed in on all sides and we had to leap from here to there to repel each attack. It was strange to think that not so far away we had friendly forces quite cut off from us by enemy occupied territory. We had to build our strength so as to be able to field enough armies of sufficient power to handle each trouble spot. That was taking the time, and, by Zair, it was tiring me out.

“You had best take your men and see them bedded down,” I said.

Chuktar Turnil looked at me.

“I think, majister, I did not hear you. We shall, of course, ride with you this day and fight in the line.”

I did not smile. “I think, Chuktar Turnil, you did not hear me aright.” And then I added: “You are right welcome. May Opaz ride with you.”

As he cantered off to rejoin his men, the six legs of his totrix going floppily in all directions, I gave orders that his little force should ride with the cavalry reserve.

During a regulation break in the line of march we spread the maps and studied the tactical situation. Up until now it had been strategy and operations. Now we got down to the sharp end of planning.

“At the moment,” said Karidge, thumping the map, “they must at least have reached this line of trees.”

His headgear glittered with gold thread, his feathers bristled. He was a light cavalryman from the tips of those feathers to the stirrup-marked boots. I had chosen his zorca brigade and joyed in the choosing.

“And is this river fordable?” I pointed.

“Aye. The men will get wet bellies; but they can cross.”

“By the time we reach there, the enemy will have set down less than an ulm off. I think that will do.”

Nath scratched his nose.

“You mean to fight with a river at our backs?”

“A fordable river, Nath. You and the Third Kerchuri. The churgurs and archers will come in from the right flank. The woods there will screen their initial moves and by the time they are out in the open—”

“By Rorvreng the Vakka!” broke in Chuktar Tabex, commanding the heavy cavalry. “Then I will put in such a charge as will sweep them away!”

“I would prefer,” I said mildly, “for Nath to chew them up a trifle before that, Chuktar Tabex.”

“Aye, majister. But, I pray you, do not keep us under your hand too long!”

The regulation halt was up and the men were stirring and falling in. A bunch of slingers from Gremivoh were yelling back insults at the Deldars who were bawling them up. Undisciplined and unruly, slingers; but fine fighting men. The suns were lifting into the sky and the breeze was dropping away. The long files formed and the men shouldered their weapons and marched off.

They made a splendid sight and I forced the ugly truths from my mind and concentrated on thinking as an army commander. There would be many dead men and weeping women before Vallia could breathe freely again.

There was time for a last look at the map. A rounded hill was shown beyond the little river and it was my guess the enemy would station their cavalry there so as to get a good run in for their charge. The flanks would be more cavalry, with the infantry positioned in solid blocks interspersed with connecting lines. That seemed a reasonable guess; but you never can tell in dealing with paktuns who have years of campaigning under their belts. Even if the enemy formation was entirely different, I felt we had set down in such a way as to be able to meet them with the force we chose at the spot we chose. There seemed to me no chance that they would refuse battle. Our object was to get forward as quickly as possible and by hitting them in the flank, roll them up onto the pikes of the Phalanx. After that I could let slip the heavies with Chuktar Tabex in the van.

Delia had not insisted on bringing any of those ferocious Jikai Vuvushis, Battle Maidens, that I now knew to be a real part of her secret life. Jilian was still recovering from her wounds, and I had not seen much of her, to my own sorrow. Now Delia spurred up as I mounted and called across.

“I shall ride with you, at your side, Dray.”

I nodded, and lifted into the saddle. Korero was there, a golden shadow at my back. I half-turned and opened my mouth, and the Kildoi said, “It is understood, majister.”

I felt the quick flush of pleasure. By Vox! What it is to have great-hearted blade-comrades!

And here came Nath, another blade-comrade, and his face froze me.

“Majister!” he called as he galloped. Karidge was belting along to catch him, lathering his zorca, which made me understand with a shiver of dread that the news was bad.

“Those Opaz-forsaken louts!” Nath shouted. He hauled his zorca around and the animal’s four spindly legs flashed nimbly as he turned. “They have sucked us in!”

“Aye,” said Karidge, reining up, his face a single huge scowl. “By Lasal the Vakka! I trust in Opaz we have not scouted them too late.”

“Spit it out!”

Scouts had come in, and their latest reports contradicted what we had hitherto believed. We had thought there were fifteen thousand foemen. There were more than twenty-eight thousand — infantry and cavalry. A reinforcement had reached them from Opaz-knew-where. I felt my face congeal. Doggedly, I heard out the report, beginning to refigure the entire coming contest. I said, “We are near enough thirty. So the odds are even — weighed in our favor still. The plans stand. We go forward and attack. We cannot shilly-shally about now.”

Then it was a question of listening to reports of the composition of the new forces arrayed against us.

“Masichieri, majister. Damned thieving no-good vicious riff-raff, masquerading as mercenaries. But they can fight, and there are fully six thousand of them.”

Well, masichieri — bonny masichieri, I have known them called — yes, they are the scum of mercenaries. But in a battle they are fighting men and their rapaciousness drives them on with the lure of gold and plunder and women just as much as the ideal of patriotism drives on other men.

“And? The cavalry?”

“Aragorn, majister. Slavers, come to inspect their wares, aye, and fight for them, too.” Karidge drew his gauntleted hand over his luxuriant moustaches. “There are Katakis among ’em, may they rot in Cottmer’s Caverns.”

“It seems we will be honored by foemen worthy to die by the rope rather than steel,” I said, conscious of the turgidness of the words, but conscious, also, that they were true for all that.

“Also,” said Karidge, and he looked disgusted, “there are at least four regiments of sleeths.”

Nath banged a fist against his pommel. “Sleeths! Two-legged risslacas[2]suitable for — for—” He paused, and gazed about as though seeking the suitable word. It was a nicely calculated performance. One or two men among the aides-de-camp laughed. For, indeed, to a zorcaman the sleeth is something of a joke. Despite that, they can run and they can give a zorca a run for his money. And four regiments, if the usual regimental organization was followed, meant fifteen hundred or so.

“Is that all?”

“Dermiflons and swarths.”

The dermiflon is blue-skinned, ten-legged, very fat and ungainly, and is armed with a sinuous and massively barbed and spiked tail. He has an idiot’s head. The expression “to knock over a dermiflon” is a cast-iron guarantee of success. They’d have howdahs fixed to their backs and half a dozen men or so would be up there, shooting with bows and hurling pikes. I said: “How many swarths?”

“Around a thousand, three regiments, weak regiments.”

I let out my breath. The swarth is your four-legged risslaca with the cruel wedge-shaped head and the jaws, with the scaled body and the clawed feet. He is not very fast. But he has a muscular bulk and he can carry his rider well and, a jutman must admit, is a nasty proposition to go up against. They were relatively rare in Vallia and Pandahem; but I had been told that the Lohvian armies put much store by them. And that stupidly mad and imperious Thyllis, Empress of Hamal, had been busily recruiting swarth regiments for her armies of conquest.

“We will keep a weather eye open for the three swarth regiments. I think our nikvoves will knock them over.”

“That is something that old Vikatu the Dodger would be well clear of,” said Karidge.

“Indisputably. And the dermiflons?”

“Ten of them. But I think, majister,” said Nath, “we will be able to handle them with our javelin men. When they get a shower of pikes about them they’ll panic and run. At least, that is the theory.”

I rather liked that airy confidence.

“We will put the theory into practice. But you said twenty-eight thousand. There remain two and a half you have not accounted for.”

“Irregulars,” said Karidge. “Spearmen, half-naked and barefoot. They can be whipped away.”

“Be careful there, Karidge. Irregular spearmen can be a nasty thorn in the heel if they scent blood that is not theirs. We cannot just ignore them, like some levies.”

“True. But the aragorn and the swarths are what must exercise our muscles.”

“And our minds.”

Not for the first time I contemplated the large number of men locked up in the Phalanx. Perhaps as foot soldiers they might be spread to cover more ground and thus present a wider frontage. I set great store by the sword and shield men, and wished to increase their numbers, creating a powerful central force of super heavy infantry. But there was no gainsaying the might of the Phalanx. Once the pikes went down and the soldiers charged there was little that would stand before them. A half dozen saddle-birds lined out, curving against the blue sky where the last clouds we would see this day were wafting away with the breeze. They slanted in steeply, their wings stiff against the air, and made perfect landings. Tyr Naghan Elfurnil ti Vandayha unstrapped his harness and jumped down with an affectionate pat for his bird. He walked across to me.

“You have had the report of the reinforcements, majister?”

“Aye, Naghan.”

“If my saddle-birds could have been allowed to fly last night—”

“Little difference, Naghan. What do you see now?”

“They have positioned themselves before that low rounded hill, as you said they would. Here are the dispositions.” He handed me the paper with the scrawled squares and the scribbled notations. I studied it. Just where each enemy formation was located was important, for it was vital to place suitable forces opposite those they could handle. Cavalry in the center, cavalry on the wings, the infantry lined out. Yes. By rapidly executed flank marches the enemy commander, whoever he might be, could compress or extend his front, and swing cavalry or infantry across to plug gaps at will. I thought for a moment or two and then nodded to the waiting aides-de-camp. Quickly, they took their orders, saluted, and galloped off. As our army marched up to the stream and woods they would be marshaled so as to deploy according to my instructions.

By Zair! I just hoped that what I was doing was correct. The whole situation was likely to slide out of hand. Once the fronts locked in combat and all hell broke loose it would all be down to those initial dispositions and the sheer fighting ability of the men in the ranks. The orders were to go on. We would appear and attack. There would be no waiting. This was no defensive fight. This was onslaught, guerre a l’outrance, and look at the mess that has caused, by Krun!

The brilliant golden Mask of Recognition was affixed over my face. Cleitar the Standard and Ortyg the Tresh shook out their banners. Volodu the Lungs closed up and Korero, as always, hovered a golden shield at my back. Delia rode close, and Korero knew his duty there. In a little group we rode forward and so came to the last stand of trees. The sheen of the suns lay across the grass, the little stream and the rounded hill beyond.

Ranked before us, line on line, mass on mass, the waiting formations of the enemy seemed to fill all the space and overflow in a blinding brilliance of color and steel.

Taking out my sword I lifted it high and then slashed it down in a vehement gesture, the point aimed at the heart of the foemen.

Silently, the leading ranks of our men plunged into the stream.

Chapter Six

The Battle of First Kanarsmot

Thus began First Kanarsmot.

The feel of the zorca between my knees and the close confinement of the helmet and the Mask of Recognition, the itch of war harness on my shoulders, the brilliance of the splashing water drops as we forded across the stream — all these sensations in one form or another must have been felt by all the men in that little army. All, except the Mask of Recognition. The thing served a purpose, although I doubted if it would stop even a short-bow’s shaft. As we came up on the far bank a sudden and sweet scent of white shansili filled our nostrils. The familiar scent must have brought aching-memories of familiar homes and dear faces to the men for those lovely flowers are often grown in trellises over the doors of Vallian homes.

In advance ran the kreutzin, lithe limber young men, raffish and wayward; but thirsting to get their javelins and arrows into play. Half naked, some of them, fleet of foot and agile, they raced forward to be first in action.

Scrambling my zorca — who was faithful old Grumbleknees — up on the opposite bank I rode forward far enough to allow space for the Sword Watch to form at my back.

The enemy were already moving. Their masses came on steadily, and I looked to see who would make first contact.

From the enemy’s right they were drawn up thusly: the swarth force of a thousand; two dense masses of paktuns, five thousand each arrayed one behind the other; the central body of totrix and zorca cavalry, five thousand strong; the irregulars a little in advance and already beginning to race onward; the six thousand masichieri, who hung a little back; and, finally, on the left wing, the two thousand zorca-mounted aragorn. Ordered in two sections of five each, and out in front, the dermiflons lifted their stupid heads and brayed. The glitter of the suns smote back from the weapons of the men in their armored howdahs — armored castle-like structures the warriors of Kregen call calsaxes — and the dermiflon handlers ran yelling and pushing around the enormous beasts as they sought to force them into their clumsy stumbling run.

The main strength of the enemy, therefore, lay in his right wing. I did not discount the aragorn; but they and the masichieri would fight only for as long as they could see slaves and plunder coming their way. Already our bowmen were loosing at the dermiflons.

Once we had seen them off, the real fight could begin.

Equally, massive and impressive striding citadels of war though dermiflons truly are, they must not attract all a commander’s attention and he must not allow them to deflect him into wasting too many of his precious resources on them.

From the left we were arrayed thusly: the totrix cavalry division attached to the Phalanx; the Phalanx itself; the Tenth Brigade of Archers; the First Cavalry Brigade of zorcas with the Fourth slightly to their right. I lifted in the stirrups and looked across to the right toward the woods that masked the backward-curving bend of the river. There was no sign of movement among the trees. With great whoops from the drivers and riders and a veritable Niagara of fountaining splashes, the artillery crossed the stream. A number of different draught animals hauled the equipment, and they galloped on through the intervals and unlimbered to our front. At once they were in action, shooting their cruel iron-tipped darts. Within the space of ten murs they had shot two of the dermiflons out of it, the ungainly beasts turning around on their ten legs, braying angrily, lumbering back for all their handlers shrieked and beat at them with goads.

The forward movement of our men continued. They were not yet charging — they tramped on steadily, rank on rank, file on file, and the pikes lifted, thick as bristles on a wild vosk’s back. The twin suns slanted their rays onto the battlefield from our right flank. Again I looked. Still no movement within the trees flanking the curve of the stream.

Delia said: “The paktuns are coming perilously close.”

“Let the bowmen and the spear men play a little longer on the dermiflons.”

As I spoke another gigantic beast decided that he no longer wished to go in the direction from which these nasty stinging barbs were coming; braying, he turned about and with his ten legs all going up and down like pistons, he lumbered off.

There were twenty-eight thousand of the enemy. I had spoken lightly of our near thirty thousand — but in that I lied or boasted. Of men we could put in fighting line we had sixteen thousand seven hundred infantry and seven thousand three hundred and twenty cavalry, plus the artillery. And, already, some of our bowmen were down, caught by the deceptive arrow, tiny bundles on the grass, lying still or, more awfully, kicking in the last spasms.

The balance of our thirty thousand was made up of logistics people, medics, vets. Some of the wagoners would fight if it came to it — but I hoped profoundly it would not come to that. The swarths were moving, the scaled mounts advancing directly with the aim of crunching into the left flank of the Phalanx.

Chuktar De-Ye Mafon, a Pachak with great experience in command of the Tenth Cavalry Division attached to the Phalanx, countered the move. His division consisted of a brigade of three regiments of zorca archers and a brigade of three regiments of totrix lancers. Now he launched the zorcas at the oncoming swarths. The nimble animals swirled in evolutions practiced a thousand times, lined out, and their riders shot and shot as they swooped past the right flank of the enemy mass. Disordered, the swarths angled to their left and, at that moment, Chuktar De-Ye Mafon led his totrix lancers into them.

The outcome of that fight had, for the moment, to be awaited as the enemy commander pushed through in the center.

The Phalanx had been aimed at the enemy’s center, his ten thousand infantry and his five thousand cavalry, mercenaries all, tough, professional, the hard core of his army. With that swerving recoil of the swarths pressing in on the massed infantry, the enemy general had ordered one of the tactical moves he had left open to himself. The ordered ranks of the paktuns inclined to their left. They broke into a fast trot, their banners and plumes waving, their weapons glinting.

They would lap around the right flank of the Phalanx and I was about to give the order for Karidge’s Brigade to move up in support, when the last of the dermiflons on this side of the field broke. They fled back, immense engines of destruction, festooned with darts — one with a varter dart pinning three of his starboard legs together — and they crashed headlong into those smart and professional paktuns. The paktuns were professionals. They opened ranks; but in the incline that proved not quite so easy as it sounded. We were afforded enough space for the Phalanx to go smashing into them, the pikes down and level, the helmets thrust forward, the shields positioned, rank by rank, to serve each the best purpose. The noise blossomed into the sky. The yells and shrieks and the mad tinker-clatter of steel on iron, of steel on bronze, and the crazed dust-whirling advance encompassed by the raw stink of spilled blood brought a horror that underlay any thoughts of glory. On drove the Phalanx. On and with blood-smeared pikes thrust the paktuns aside.

Now was the time for the enemy Kapt to hurl in his five thousand cavalry — and our Hakkodin, our halberd and axe and two-handed sword men, knew it.

The Hakkodin flank the Phalanx and they take enormous pride in the protection they afford and their ability to ensure that no lurking dagger-man, no cavalryman, can smite away at the undefended flanks of the Phalanx. And the soldiers, hefting their pikes, know that and relish the feel of solid Hakkodin at their flanks and rear.

Although, mind you, in rear of the Third Kerchuri as it advanced lay only strewn and mangled corpses of paktuns.

The enemy shafts had been deflected by the uplifted shields of the Phalanx, the field of red roses in the popular imagery, the field of crimson flowers, and now our own archers of the Tenth Brigade stepped forward to assist the bowmen of the Phalanx. It was going to be touch and go. The second massed formation of paktuns was advancing in steady fashion and their incline, avoiding the tumultuous upsets of the disaster with the dermiflons, would place them astride the shoulder of the Phalanx. Engaged as the Kerchuri was, it could not toss pikes and turn half-right. That kind of evolution is very pretty on the parade ground; in the midst of battle with the red blood flowing and the screams and yells and the dust boiling everywhere — no, you grip your pike and you go on, and on, when it comes to push of pike. A zorcaman came galloping up to me, his feathers flying, his equipment flying — he hardly seemed to touch the ground. I knew who he was, right enough.

“Majister!” He bellowed out as Cleitar the Standard had to back his zorca a trifle. “Jiktar Karidge’s compliments — will you loose him now — please!”

Deliberately I lifted in the stirrups. I looked not toward the furious turmoil in the center of the field. Deliberately, I looked to the right. The six thousand masichieri were on the move. The two thousand aragorn flanking them were trotting on, splendid in the lights of the suns. The noise everywhere dinned on and on, and those fresh bodies of troops would go slap bang into the flank of our army when Karidge and the other brigade of the light cavalry division charged.

“Give me ten murs more, Elten Frondalsur.” The galloper’s face shone scarlet with sweat and exertion. He gentled his zorca as the excited animal curveted. “Just that, no more.”

“As you say, majister!”

Elten Frondalsur, even in that moment of high tension, had the sense not to argue or plead. Karidge would understand. I just looked steadily at the galloper, and so with a salute he flicked his zorca’s head around and took off back to Karidge. Also, I knew that in ten murs, and exactly ten murs, Karidge would set his brigade into a skirling charge. That was the way he would interpret the message the Elten brought.

Calling over the galloper attached to my staff from the light cavalry division, I sent him off to convey the same message to the officer in command. He, cunning old Larghos the Spear, would find himself commanding only the Fourth Brigade when the charge went in. But everyone in the army understood the impetuous ways of Karidge, aye, and loved him for it — well, most of the time. In six murs the movement I had been fretfully waiting from the trees over by the bend in the stream heralded the arrival of our flank force. And, by Vox, only just in time!

In one sense, they were late, for the paktuns were now at handstrokes with the Hakkodin. The mingled cavalry swirled around ready to complete the impending destruction of the Phalanx, as they imagined. And the aragorn and the masichieri came swiftly on.

From the trees erupted the archers of the Ninth Brigade. Following them and pounding on in their armor, strong, powerfully built men, the front line of the three brigades of sword and shield men burst onto the battlefield. Out to their right and flanking them, galloping swiftly on, roared the Heavy Cavalry Division, two thousand totrixmen formed, clad in armor, bearing swiftly on with lances couched. When those lances shivered they would haul out short one-handed axes, and stout swords, and they’d go through the zorca-mounted aragorn like the enemy had fancied he would go through our ranks. That marked the beginning of the end.

The commander over there must have looked with despair upon that battlefield. He saw his vaunted swarths mightily discomfited and driven off. He had seen a powerful force of mercenaries, containing Rapas and Fristles, Khibils and blegs, shattered, and a second about to be overwhelmed. The masichieri and the aragorn were hauling up, their ranks disordered and in turmoil. It took little imagination to picture what they were doing, to hear what they were shrieking as they saw this new menace rushing up to smash into the flank. And, with his dermiflons gone, the enemy commander saw his fancied force of cavalry recoil from the center of the field as the Light Division hit them full force. I do not like letting slip zorcas in a charge; but Karidge and Larghos the Spear had no doubts. In moments the face of the battle changed.

Everywhere the enemy were in retreat.

That was the end of First Kanarsmot.

Chapter Seven

An Axeman Drops In

“It would perhaps have made better sense,” said Delia as we sat in the tent and looked at the maps, the casualty returns ugly and horrible on the table, the sounds of an army at rest all about us in the mellow evening. “Perhaps, to have sent the Light Cavalry instead of the Heavies in the flank force.”

“As it turned out, it would have been. But they were late.” I yawned. “Mind you, my heart, by this time a man should have learned to expect delay in any plans he makes.”

“And a woman, also.”

“And what plans are you fomenting?”

“For the present situation, why, that we must take Kanarsmot as quickly as possible. Drak should be back by now and I want to go home to Vondium.”

“And I.” I looked at her, and I smiled. “You could always go—”

She did not say anything; but before I could go on she took off her slipper and threw it at me. I caught it. It was warm and soft.

“Very well. You won’t go home by yourself.”

“You could go. Nath can handle affairs here.”

“That is true. But I feel responsible. I want to clear the area this side of the Great River. After all, the villains to the east seem to have settled down in our country. If they respect the line of the river it will prove valuable.”

“You are, Dray Prescot, as cunning as a newborn infant.”

“Ah, but,” I said. “There is no one more fitted by nature to work cunning than a baby.”

She smiled at this, and I knew her memories mingled with mine, and the warmness enveloped us. Presently we had to get back to work. The army had not suffered the ghastly scale of casualties I had at one time envisioned. But we had not got off scatheless. The final nikvove charge, slap bang through the middle and to hell with anything that got in the way, had relieved a lot of pressure. Karidge and his zorcamen had behaved splendidly. The cavalry was pursuing; but the enemy were not a fleeing force for they had withdrawn onto a further considerable body of reinforcements and then presented a front. They were still in play. The cavalry harried them, and parried their cavalry probes. We had not been worried by their flying machines but in the successful accomplishment of that our small saddlebird force had been fully stretched, so that no aerial cavalry had played a part in the battle. Nath was most wrought up about the late arrival of the flank force. When I pointed out to him that if they had been too early they would not have had an exposed flank to charge into, he sniffed, and agreed, and said with devastating logic: “But had they been on time, as you ordered, majister, the flank would have been there and we would not have been so hard-pressed.”

We had not grown hard and callous over casualties. We mourned good men gone. But more and more the truth, unpleasant at first glance and then, with greater acquaintance, acceptable with a kind of glow of abnegation, was borne in on us that for what we sought to do even death had its part to play. These murky philosophical waters led us on, inexorably, to a continuation of the heady and almost intoxicated feelings the people of Vondium had felt during the protracted Time of Troubles and later, when we were penned up in the city. No one wants to die in the ordinary course of things, but if death comes to us all then a fighting man may choose his going over into the care of the gray ones on a battlefield. That, surely, is his right. And, do not forget, we were an all-volunteer army.

The arguments against this kind of thinking, involving manic pressure and self-hypnotism and twisted logic that goes against the grain of life-enhancement, were well known to the sages of Kregen. There is no proprietary right to life-thinking. But we all felt that our lives were well spent in the attempt to provide a free land for our children.

So I was able to read the casualty returns and see the familiar names leap out at me from the long lists with a calmness that no longer surprised me. No, we of Vallia are not callous in these matters. Nath said as I lowered the last list: “We lost Yolan Vanoimen, I am sorry to say.” Yolan Vanoimen was

— had been — Jodhrivax of the Second Jodhri of the Kerchuri. “A stinking Rapa bit his throat out.”

Nath looked down at his hands. I said nothing.

After a space he went on: “The Rapa was brave, you have to say that. He went down with four pike heads piercing him and a Hakkodin axe severing his wattled neck.”

“I am sorry that Yolan Vanoimen has gone,” I said at last. “He was in line for Kerchurivax of the Eighth. We have to pay a heavy price for what we believe in.”

The mineral oil lamps glowed and the camp tent was crowded with our familiar belongings. But I felt the chill. I tried to shake it off. The Eighth Kerchuri would have to find a new commander. We were forming a new Phalanx in Vondium, the Fourth. The Kerchuris were numbered throughout the whole Phalanx force. The Jodhris were numbered through their Phalanx, the First to the Sixth and the Seventh to the Twelfth. The Relianches, the basic formations of a hundred and forty-four brumbytes and twenty-four Hakkodin, were numbered through their Kerchuri, the First to the Thirty-Sixth. Later we made adjustments to this numbering.

The aftermath of battle is not kind. Useless to dwell on that. We gave the army a breather of four days during which time the additional units I had summoned from Vondium flew in. After that we pursued the campaign. From information received from the local people, who rallied wonderfully after the battle, we learned that the commander of the enemy army was one Ranjarsi the Strigicaw. He was a Rapa, one of those beaked and vulturine diffs of Kregen, and he showed great skill in fending us off and leading us a dance. But, in the end, with our enhanced forces, we pinned him against the Great River. The Fourth Kerchuri of the Second Phalanx had joined us, so we had a full phalanx in action. More bowmen and archers and cavalry swelled our ranks. Second Kanarsmot was a fearful debacle for the invaders and Kapt Ranjarsi the Strigicaw was lucky to escape across the river with the remnants. The waters of She of the Fecundity rolled red.

We did not pursue across the river, and we trusted the invaders got the message. Larghos the Left-Handed, a spry, clever, completely loyal Pallan, came up from Vondium to take over the command in the area. I trusted him, along with his comrade, Naghan Strandar, to deal with many of the higher details of the government, the army and the law. They worked with the Lord Farris and made a capital team.

Leaving sufficient forces to ensure that any fresh attempts to invade across the river would be crushed swiftly, we turned toward Kanarsmot itself. This still held out against the small screening forces so far pitted against it, the garrison, of mercenaries, commanded by a Fristle called Fonarmon the Catlenter. He had dubbed himself, no doubt with Ranjarsi’s blessing, the Strom of Kanarsmot. We disabused him of that idea.

The plan I outlined was to take the place by a coup de main. I had no desire whatsoever to sit down to a protracted siege. So, on the night chosen, when for a space only two of the smaller moons of Kregen rushed across the dark sky, we set off. Infiltrators within the walls overpowered the guard at the West Gate and we poured in, a silent host, and set about securing the town, house by house. Other forces went in over the walls. After that the garrison awoke to their peril and we came to handstrokes.

Over the southeastern walls of the town the citadel had been built with its footings in the waters of the river. The mercenaries fought well, earning their hire, and slowly withdrew to the citadel. The massive gates closed with a couple of ranks of our bowmen trapped inside. We knew we had seen the last of them. Other bowmen dropped with yells into the moat or withdrew from the hail of arrows that sprouted from the battlements. By that narrow margin had we failed to take the citadel. I said: “I regret the men we lost there. But as for the citadel, well, the cramphs are mewed up inside and we can leave them to rot. I will not lose more good men in unnecessary attacks.”

That seemed sound common sense, by Vox.

Dawn was breaking and illuminating the clouds with fringes of gold and ruby, orange and jade. Someone let out a high excited yell. We all looked up.

High against that paling sky the rope arched. It curved like a whip. It fell all quivering down the wall and its length dangled an invitation at the end of the bridge which the mercenaries had been unable to draw up. The next moment helmets tufted with the maroon and white of the churgurs of the Fiftieth Regiment of the Nineteenth Brigade appeared on the left-flank gate tower.

Kov Vodun shouted by my side.

“Those are my men up there.” He threw off his cloak.

In the next instant as he started forward across the bridge I was flinging my leg over the zorca to dismount.

Delia’s voice, warningly, said: “Dray.”

Korero, whose shields were uplifted against the occasional arrow, said, “Majister...”

“You can’t expect me to sit here and watch!”

Then a whole bunch of men ran over the bridge, yelling, and with Kov Vodun in the lead they began climbing the rope.

“By Zair!” I shouted. And I was running, too, running like a fool over the planks of the bridge where arrows stood thickly, and taking my turn to grip the rope and so go hand over hand up like a monkey. Korero, with four arms and a tailhand, had no difficulty in swarming up the rope after me, carrying his shields and giving me an assist from time to time. We tumbled over the battlements into a scene of confusion.

Those two ranks had done their job, and there could not have been above fourteen men between the two sections, in jamming the winding mechanism of the bridge and of clambering up the stairs of the left-flank gate tower. They had been unable to prevent the closing of the gates. But their dropped rope gave us an alternative ingress.

The tower top blazed with action, as swords clashed and spears flew. The paktuns, a mixed bunch of diffs with Fristles predominating, fought savagely to hold us back from the battlements. Our way down the gate tower was blocked; but once along the ramparts we could expand. The way into the citadel would lie open. The garrison knew that and fought like leems to hurl us back over the walls to shattered destruction on the ground below.

Very few of our men had climbed the rope with their shields. Vallians still had not fully mastered the art of shield play and had not slung the crimson flowers over their backs. I ripped out my drexer, the straight

— or almost straight — cut and thrust sword, and plunged into the fray. Over the clangor everyone heard the fearsome yells from the tower, dwindling. For a paralyzed instant the action froze . . . The soggy thumps sounded eerily loud.

“The rope has broken!” bellowed a hulking Deldar from the nearest group who had just climbed up.

“We are on our own!”

“Not for long!” I fairly shrieked over the fresh hubbub. “Into them! We must open the gates!”

This was the red hurly-burly of action very far removed from sitting a zorca in the rear and methodically working out which way a battle should be run. We were up at the sharp end and if our wits and our sword arms failed us we were done for.

The party of mercenaries blocking the stairway resisted our efforts. They were fighting men. Many of them showed the gleam of the pakmort at throat, or looped into the shoulder of the war harness. We charged into them and were thrust back, struggling desperately.

Our numbers were thinning. Flung stuxes, those thick and heavy throwing spears with the small cross quillons set back from the head, flew into our ranks. Men shrieked and died, blowing bloody froth, vomiting. I hurdled a sprawled bleg, three of his legs missing, and launched myself at the mercenaries. Their swords flamed. It was all a mad business of cut and hack, of duck, of thrust, of parry, and recover. I do not think, I seriously do not think, we could have done it. Looking back at that scene of carnage it seems to me the enemy were slowly overmastering us. We fought; but we were few and they continually fed reinforcements up from the garrison so that we faced what appeared to be an unending stream of foemen.

And then...

And then!

By Zair! But to think of it brings that excruciating tingle in the blood, sets the pulses jumping, shows it all again in splendor.

A shadow dropped down over us, a twinned shadow from the twin suns. An airboat hovered, for she could not settle with that seething mass of struggling men below without squashing friend and foe alike. From the voller leaped men. I saw them. Over the coamings they jumped, roaring into action. I saw their yellow hair flying free, for the Maiden with the Many Smiles was not in the sky. I saw the height of them, seven foot, each fighting man. I saw their weapons, those long single-bladed Saxon-pattern axes. Oh, yes, I saw them as they smashed into the mercenaries and the axes whirled in that old familiar way, ripping arcs of silver and red.

Warriors of Ng’groga, they were, tall sinewy axemen, and there was about their work the fierce controlled power of the typhoon.

At their head, urging them on, slashing with cunning skill, opening a path through the enemy — at their head, in the lead, roared on that tall familiar figure that meant so much to me.

“By Zair!” I said. “If only Seg were here now!”

With that and with renewed heart we swept the enemy from before the stairway. They were sent screaming to topple over the battlements of the tower. The stairway was cleared and men raced down, yelling, striking this way and that with lethal axes. The gate was opened. After that — why, the army poured in and in next to no time the citadel of Kanarsmot was in our hands. Delia found me as I walked out of the open gate and over the bridge. Walking was not easy for the arrows and the corpses. The Sword Watch were busily engaged in the citadel in rounding up prisoners and discovering what portable property there might be worthy the consideration of a guardsman of the Emperor’s Sword Watch.

“Oh, Dray! When you climbed the rope—”

“Did you see him?”

She smiled and the world of Kregen took on a roseate light. “Yes. I saw him. And here he is, walking up just as though nothing had happened.” She was looking past me and as I turned so Delia ran by and threw herself at that tall, yellow-haired, grimly ferocious axeman. He clasped her in his long arms.

“Inch!”

He looked at me over Delia’s brown hair and I swear he had to swallow before he spoke.

“As a comrade of ours would say, Dray — Lahal, my old dom.”

“Lahal and Lahal a thousand times, Inch.”

And I strode forward to clasp his hand. He had had to swallow before speaking. Damned if I didn’t, too...

Chapter Eight

Vondium Dances

Inch’s adventures would fill a book of their own. We left affairs in the capable hands of Larghos the Left-Handed and prepared to return to the capital. Inch kept on looking about and uttering exclamations of surprise — at the flying sailers so different from those with which we had fought the Battle of Jholaix, at the Phalanx, and this and that. He was delighted to be back, and when, in an odd moment, we found him solemnly standing on his head, reciting the Kregish alphabet backwards and at the end of each recital clapping his heels smartly together, we smiled fondly. Inch and his taboos! If he fell over when he clapped his heels together, he’d have to start all over again.

We did not ask him which particular taboo he had broken. When you got to know Inch of Ng’groga, the Kov of the Black Mountains, you did not bother to question his taboos and simply took delight in his presence.

He told us that after he had been sorcerously flung back from the Pool of Baptism to his native Ng’groga, in southeastern Loh, he had been forced to spend some time atoning for all the mass of broken taboos he felt sure he had left strewn in his wake. Then, with due ritual and protocol and a mass of taboo-legitimized formalities he had wed his Sasha.

Delia clapped her hands.

“Wonderful, Inch, delightful. Congratulations. Is she with you?”

“Yes. I left her in Vondium—”

“Oh?” I said.

He looked at me — by this time he was sitting at a table in a decent chair and we had forbidden squish pie to be brought any closer than an ulm — and he smiled.

“I know you think I am a clever fellow, Dray. But it would take Ngrangi Himself to have known you were here at Kanarsmot. No, the moment we heard in Ng’groga of the troubles in Vallia I set off.”

Across in the continent of Loh they had few if any airboats and travel would be slow and news hardly come by. “I took the liberty of going via Djanduin. I found the people wonderfully hospitable when they discovered I was acquainted with their king.”

“Acquainted,” I said.

Inch laughed at that. “Oh, yes, Ortyg Fellin Coper and Kytun Kholin Dom are great fellows. They greeted me right royally and gave me splendid fliers.”

“Fliers...”

“Well, of course. By Ngrozyan the Axe! You didn’t think I’d come empty-handed? I enlisted a parcel of likely rogues, all friends of mine, or friends of friends, and we look forward to a rollicking time, I can tell you.”

“How many?”

Five hundred or so — of course fifty of ’em are mindyfingling about somewhere in Pandahem, probably. One of the fliers broke down. And I sent half of ’em up to the Black Mountains under command of my second cousin, Brince, to sniff around and sort out any mischief up there.”

Delia glanced at me. Kov of the Black Mountains, our comrade Inch, with responsibilities there he took most seriously. Yet — he had flown first to Vondium...

All the same, the situation had to be explained to him, that same situation that had so puzzled and infuriated Seg.

Also, there was about Inch a new and refreshing air of determination, of a positive approach. He was still the same gangling affable fellow; but clearly discernible in his talk and his movements this new positive attitude to life marked off a change that had taken place in him, also. I said, “We no longer employ mercenaries in Vallia.” I saw his face. “Oh, there are still many paktuns in employ, of course, they have not all packed up and gone home. But as a part of the new imperial policy, Vallia is going to be liberated by Vallians.”

If he had stood up, flouncing, and shouted, before he stalked out, I could not have blamed him. This sounded like the basest ingratitude on my part. But Inch just stared at me, and scratched his nose, and pulled a long lock of that yellow hair.

“Yes. They told me something of the sort in Djanduin. If you’ve managed to persuade Kytun that he must not bring a horde of your ferocious Djang warriors to Vallia — well, the reasons must be cogent, most cogent indeed.” He gave a little laugh. “But, by Vox! What a sight that would be!”

“Aye.” I said. “It would indeed.”

There was a great deal to be talked about and histories to be filled in. Larghos the Left-Handed came in to finalize his orders and the position as we saw it then. He had known Inch as the Kov of the Black Mountains before the death of the emperor, Delia’s father. But when Nath came in, fresh from organizing the movements of the Phalanx, I braced myself up. Nath had not easily accepted Seg Segutorio. The last thing I wanted was friction between my comrades and my trusted lieutenants. Some emperors and dictators use antipathies between their subordinates to divide and rule; to me that is inefficient and, to boot, indicative of a society I have no wish to be a part of.

When the formalities were made, Inch, very gravely, said, “It was my misfortune not to have been with you, Kyr Nath, when you led the first Phalanx that the emperor has spoken of. I grieve that I missed so much. But I am here now and my axemen are under your command for the rest of this campaign.”

He cocked an eye at me and I wondered if he was bracing himself to break a few of his taboos for which he would have to do remarkable penances later. “I understand we no longer employ mercenaries. But these fellows are not paktuns. They are friends of mine, out for what rascally fun they can find and a little loot if that comes their way. We shall be going up to the Black Mountains before long.”

How difficult to judge when men and women talk in apparently open and frank ways just how much of the truth they are telling! Deeply thinking people do not rush into confidences the moment acquaintance is made with strangers. But I felt I knew Inch. He was a blade comrade. His words rang with truth, at least to me, and I knew that Delia also heard that truth.

Nath smiled.

“You are most welcome, kov. Like Kov Seg, you have been much spoken of in your absence. The Hakkodin will marvel at your axes.”

“They will that,” I said. And then I added, warningly, “But I think it takes a native Ng’grogan to swing that axe in just that way. We continue with our Vallian axes, Nath — do you not agree?”

“Assuredly, majister. And, anyway, I fancy some of my axemen could give Kov Inch’s men a gallop for their zorcas.”

The conversation eased after that. I was not fool enough to imagine that perfect comradely harmony would exist between Inch and Nath immediately and without a little time for rubbing off the sharp corners. But, at the least, a start had been made.

There remained the last parades and the music and the marching and the distribution of bobs, and then we took off for Vondium. News came in from Seg that he had inflicted a minor defeat on the enemies facing him, that the clansmen were arguing among themselves over what to do, and that given a little more time he rather fancied his chances at driving them into the sea. Nath read the message and said, at once and without preamble: “Let me go up there right away, majister, and join Kov Seg. We have the strength now—”

Farris looked troubled.

“My sailing fliers can—”

“Of course, Kov Farris!” broke in Nath, eagerly. “And we can drop right on them and discomfort them utterly.”

I’d heard this before. I pointed at the map, indicating the southwest. Nath said: “I know, majister. But the Fourth is coming along nicely, we have fresh regiments of churgurs and archers. And, above all, the southwest is quiet now.”

“Quiet. But what are they up to down there?”

“I,” said Inch, “would greatly like to see Seg again.”

There were a few other pallans in my rooms and each gave his opinion, honestly, for what it was worth, and all knowing I would have to make the final decision.

The notion that Vallia was some gigantic Jikaida board returned to me. One moved the pieces here and there and sought to contain strengths and to camouflage weaknesses. If you wonder why I hesitated to take the obvious step and rush up with all the forces at my disposal and smash the clansmen back into the sea, one reason was the ever-present threat from the south. Also the northwest remained a vague area of conflict in which racters fought Layco Jhansi’s people, and where Inch would soon plunge with his axemen into the Black Mountains. No — the reason lay in that recent conversation with the Star Lords. I had been snatched summarily from Vallia before. This time I waited. I knew I was to be called by the Everoinye. It was absolutely vital that Vallian affairs remained in honest and capable hands. Seg and Inch, Nath and Farris, all the others, would shoulder their burdens while I was away. If this was a doom laid on me then I waited for the stroke as I had waited in the dungeons of the Hanitchik.

The happy sounds of laughter outside and the clanging crash as the three-grained staffs of the guardsmen of the Sword Watch presented, heralded the joyous arrival of Delia, smiling, with Sasha, who looked radiant.

“The plans are all prepared and everything is going to be wonderful!” cried Delia. I, I must confess, gaped.

“And the first dance is to be a mandanillo,” said Sasha. “And you, Inch, are to lead off with me.”

So I remembered. Tonight all Vondium celebrated. The palace was to see a great ball and the lanterns would bloom colors to the night sky and the tables would groan with food and everyone would dance and sing and laugh as the moons cavorted through the sky between the stars, until the twin suns, Zim and Genodras, awoke to send us all to sleep at last.

“Let us dance the night away,” I said. “And in the morning, with Opaz, we will decide.”

The dances of Kregen are spectacles that would drive the gods to tripping a measure. Everything conduced to laughter and pleasure. Every girl was beautiful. Every man was a hero. We sang and danced and drank and ate, and we kept it up as the Maiden with the Many Smiles cast down her fuzzy pinkish light, and She of the Veils added her more golden glow, as the Twins endlessly revolved above. The stars blazed. The torches and the lanterns filled the air with motes of color. The orchestras played nonstop, all the exotic instruments of Kregen combining to provide the right music for each dance. And the dances!

Useless for me to attempt to describe them all. They delighted the senses and they fed the soul. The sounds of plunking announced the mandanillo and Inch and Sasha led off in that gliding, dreamlike dance. This was followed by more of the stately dances, in which the lines of men and women interlink and revolve and weave their magical patterns that woo the very blood in the body to the rhythms. As the night wore on so the dances grew wilder. Your Kregan loves a riotous rollicking dance, full of blazing passion and jumping and kicking and high jinks. In groups, in couples, the brilliantly attired revelers gyrated through the palace and into the grounds. In the avenues and boulevards the people danced and sang. The kyros filled with the rhythms, and the patterns of the dances cast kaleidoscopes of brilliance against the arcades and colonnades. The vener pranced in their boats along the cuts and the canal water glittered back in blinding reflections.

Oh, yes, we had a ball that night in Vondium.

The dance called the Wend carried people in swaying undulating lines through every corridor in the palace, it seemed, in a procession far removed from the solemn chanting religious festivals where the worshippers all chanted “Oolie Opaz, Oolie Opaz” over and over again. The Wend carried them singing the currently popular songs around and around: “Lucili the Radiant,” “The Empty Wine Jar,” “My Love is like a Moon Bloom,” and dozens more.

As you will realize, they sang “She Lived by the Lily Canal,” and “The Soldier’s Love Potion,” over and over.

Presently Delia drew me into the rose-bordered courtyard where Inch and Sasha and many and many another good friend laughed and waited, for we were to dance the Measure of the Princesses, often called the Jikaida Dance.

The ladies all wore their sherissas, those filmy, gauzy, tantalizing veils that float and drift dreamlike in the dance. The men wore masks, dominoes of silver and gold. The courtyard, massed in its banks of roses, was laid out as a Jikaida board, three drins by four, giving an area of eighteen by twenty-four squares. We all formed up, laughing and fooling, and the orchestra struck up the Jikaida Introduction and the choir started to sing.

Well, now. As the song unfolds the story, you have to suit your actions to the words. We were in the yellow party and we waved yellow favors. The blues, at the far end, waved their blue favors and taunted us, all laughing and joking, and every time some unfortunate made a mistake they were summarily ejected. We pranced around the board, hopping the blue and yellow squares, going through the contortions. No one cheated. There was no point in dancing else.

All too soon I missed a cue and forgot to wave my yellow favor aloft when I should have, and the marshals, killing themselves with laughter, attired in their white regalia, turfed me off the board.

“Dray! You empty-head!”

“It is all too clever for me, my love — but go on, go on — the blues gain on us.”

For, indeed, there were far too many yellows gathered in the shadow of the roses, chattering and scoffing and doing their best to upset the blues still in the dance. What a picture it all made! The gleam of the lanterns, the impression of the shadows of the trees above, the scent of the Moon Blooms, the music twining into our very beings — yes, Kregans know how to enjoy themselves. Be very sure the wheeled trolleys containing their racked amphorae were everywhere to hand.

In the end the yellows just pipped the blues, and Delia smiled and gestured to Sasha, who accepted the golden flower of triumph. We clapped, for Sasha was rapidly proving a popular figure among us. After that we had the Spear Dance, full of leaping and twisting and jumping the flashing spear blades. The Yekter followed and then there were more dances in which the participants enacted the stories of the songs.

Then, I walked to the orchestra I had spent a few burs with, doing my best to introduce them to the rhythms of the waltz. During my sojourns on Earth I had become addicted to the music of the waltzes that grew every year in popularity. The breadth and humanity of vision of the newest waltzes were a far cry from the early Ländler and I carried the tunes in my head. This is possible, and by repeated practice the orchestra chosen could reproduce the music most wonderfully. It had proved an altogether different kettle of fish with Beethoven; but even in this I persevered. So, now, to those evocative strains, Delia and I led out in the Grand Waltz of Vondium.

Soon the whole company were gliding and swaying and the music rose and a great sense of well-being filled me that was tinged with the sadness of coming parting.

We danced out from the lantern-lit areas and lightly followed the avenues of rose bushes, dancing under the Moons of Kregen. The feel of Delia in my arms, the scents of the flowers, the intoxicating strains of the music, the sense of a whole city enjoying itself, released the pressures and tensions of the times. And then Delia looked up and gasped.

“Dray — an airboat!”

Instantly my right hand darted to the rapier, for, dance or no dance, no Kregan goes abroad at night unarmed unless he has to.

The airboat landed on a wide terrace before the palace where the dancers and carousers scattered away for her. We heard the startled exclamations and then the laughter and the cheering. We stood, together, close. We saw.

From the voller leaped a tall, powerful, dominating man. He landed lightly and instantly turned to assist a woman to step down, a woman who wore a tiered headdress of intertwined silver flowers that caught the lights and glittered. A monstrous shape rose up from the voller. The watching crowds stopped their laughter and cheering, and they fell back. The monstrous shape leaped to the ground with the liquid lethal grace of a giant hunting beast. Instantly a second appeared and leaped to stand, ferocious, beside the first.

Delia gasped. I held her and then she broke free.

She ran.

She ran along the rose-bowered walk, shouting.

“Drak! Drak! Melow! Kardo!”

She ran to greet her son and I smiled and felt the enormous weight lift from my shoulders. Those two savage Manhounds of Antares, Melow the Supple and her son, Kardo, had been saved and brought back to Vondium by Drak, Prince Drak of Vallia, Krzy, and I felt the proper pride of a father. And then I smiled a little smile. For Delia had not called the name of the woman who stood so close to Drak. She had not cried out in welcome to Queen Lushfymi of Lome.

But she would do that, I knew; for in Delia there is no room for pettiness. So I slapped the rapier back into the scabbard and hitched up my belt and started off between the roses to greet my son. Now affairs in Vondium could take a different turn. Farris would be overjoyed to hand over the burden to Drak so that he could get on with his Air Service. I could take the army and see about winning a few battles secure in the knowledge that Drak was here. The moment we had Vallia in good shape he was going to take over as emperor. My heart was set on that. To hand over now, with all the problems still with us, would not be seemly. But, soon now, soon.

The blueness was at first merely a drifting mist that brushed irritatingly in my eyes. In a summoning flutter of scarlet and gold, wings beating against the blueness, the Gdoinye flew down. The spy and messenger of the Star Lords cocked his head on one side, his beak insolently agape.

“It is time, Dray Prescot. The Star Lords summon you.”

I felt my body would burst.

“Fool—” I managed to say.

“It is you who is the fool. You have been warned. See how considerate are the Everoinye, how tender of you — we have spoken aforetime—”

“Aye! And I have bidden you begone, bird of ill omen.”

The blueness closed in, thick and choking. The Gdoinye uttered a last mocking squawk. The shape of the phantom Scorpion coalesced, huge and menacing. I caught a last parting fragrance of the Moon Blooms. The ground whirled away. I was falling. The coldness lashed in. The blueness, the swirling movement, the cold — and then the blackness.

Chapter Nine

Pompino

A hard abrasive surface scratched at my stomach and legs. The blueness and the Scorpion of the Star Lords had hurled me somewhere. My arms dangled. I opened my eyes. Light — a familiar opaline wash of radiance — reassured me instantly; the idea that I might have been transported back to Earth had tortured me, held me in a stasis that this simple opening of the eyes dissipated. I was lying full length on the knobbly branch of a tree, my arms dangling into space, and bright green fronds tumbled about me as I moved. Swinging my legs over I sat up. The tree was not overlarge, and the leaves were very pleasant; but the bark was like emery paper.

How far the woods went on I could not see for trees.

About to jump down to the ground a glint of light off metal caught my eye and I waited, still, scarce breathing. In the direction which, by reason of the moss on the tree trunks, I took to be north, that wink of metal blinked twice more and then vanished. I was wrong about the direction being north, as I subsequently discovered. I waited for five heartbeats and, again, prepared to jump down. A man walked out from under the trees opposite.

Like me, he was stark naked. Unlike me, apim, he was a diff, a Khibil. His shrewd fierce foxy face turned this way and that. His body was compactly muscled and he bore the white glistening traceries of old scars. A bronzed, fit, tough man, this Khibil, with reddish hair and whiskers, and alert contemptuous eyes. He bent and picked up a stout length of wood, a branch as thick as his arm, which he tested for strength before he would accept it into his armory.

At this I frowned.

He looked all about him and then padded off between the trees, going silently and swiftly like a stalking chavonth.

My business, I thought, could not concern him. He was in no immediate danger and, anyway, apart from being naked and weaponless, looked as though he could defend himself. A cry spurted up from the trees to my rear and I swiveled about. Just beyond the end of the branch on which I sat bowered in leaves, and running to fall on the grass, a young Fristle fifi yelled and blubbered. The Fristle who was hitting her with a slender length of switch wore a brown overall-like garment, and his whiskers jutted stiffly. His gray-furred arm lifted and fell and the switch bit into the fifi’s gray fur. The branch bore my weight almost to the end. Then it broke with a loud crack. I jumped. I fell full on the Fristle. We both collapsed onto the grass.

He came at me raging, slicing his switch. I took it away and clipped him beside the ear and he fell down. He lay sprawled, and his whiskers drooped most forlornly.

Instantly the little Fristle fifi was on her knees at his side, wailing and crying.

“Father! Father! Speak to me!” She shook him, and pulled him to her. Then she sprang to her feet. Like a flying tarantula she was on me, striking and scratching, shrieking.

“You beast! You rast! My poor father — a great naked hairy apim — monster! Beast!”

I held her off. I felt foolish.

“Your father?”

She was sobbing in my grasp.

“We are poor wood cutters. I broke the jar with poor father’s tea.” She tried to bite my finger. “It was ron[3]sengjin tea. He beat me for it.”

“Tea,” I said. I shook my head. “Ron sengjin. A broken jar and a father’s chastisement.”

She broke free, for I could not bear to hold her, and she dropped to her knees and took her father’s head into her hands, crooning over him. Presently he opened his eyes and stared vacantly upward. I put down my hand and hauled him to his feet. He stood, groggily, shaking his head. I feel sure the Bells of Beng Kishi were clanging in there well enough.

“You fell on me from the sky, apim.”

“I owe you an apology — but the switch was too severe a punishment for the crime.”

“You fell on me.” His eyes rolled. “From the sky.”

A blaze of scarlet and gold flew down between us. The Gdoinye passed right before the staring eyes of the Fristle and his daughter. The cat-faced man and girl saw nothing of that impudent bird. He perched on a tree and he squawked at me.

“From the sky,” said the Fristle. He swallowed. “A great naked hairy apim. Fell on me.”

The Gdoinye squawked again and ruffled a wing.

Knowing when to make myself scarce I left the Fristles to it. The father might have lost his tea; I fancied he had learned a little lesson, also.

“Remberee,” I shouted back. And I plunged into the blue shadows of the trees. With that curious little incident, over which many a man would have grown rosy red in the remembrance, to point me on to my duty for the Star Lords, I ran out from under the far trees and so looked down on my real work here.

And yet, even as I plunged on down the slope, I could not feel fully convinced. The horizon lifted mellowly from a patchwork of fields and woods, threaded by watercourses, and the glittering roofs and spires of a town showed less than a dwabur off. The air held that fragrant freshness of Kregen. I breathed deeply as I skipped down the slope into action. The length of wood I had snatched up would serve to crack a few skulls.

And yet, as I say, I was not fully convinced.

* * * *

An ornate blue and gold carriage drawn by six krahniks was being besieged by a band of Ochs. The offside front wheel of the carriage jutted awkwardly from under the swingle tree, indication that the axle had broken. The krahniks stood, russet red and placid in their harness, chewing at the grass. Half a dozen Ochs were busily attempting to cut the traces and make off with the animals. Half a dozen more were banging spears on the wooden panels of the carriage and yelling. A big Rapa was running about, his beaked vulturine face desperate, trying to fend the Ochs off. Another Rapa lay in the grass. He was not dead, for his crest kept quivering as he tried to haul himself up, only for an Och to give him a sly thwack and so stretch him out again. Now Ochs are small folk little above four feet tall with lemon-shaped heads with puffy jaws and lolling chops. They have six limbs and use the central pair indiscriminately as arms or legs. Usually, they prefer to work in as large a body as they can, numbers giving them strength.

The rest of the group, about ten or so, were all yelling and jumping about and trying to attack the naked Khibil. He was laying about with his length of wood, knocking Ochs over, sending them flying, whirling them away. It was all a crazy little pandemonium. I ran down, debating. Often I have had to make up my mind just who the Star Lords wanted rescued. Was this Khibil in need of assistance? Or was he the aggressor and the Ochs required for the mysterious purposes of the Everoinye?

The Gdoinye, who had acted in so strange a manner, left me in no doubt. He flew on before me and swooped at the Ochs banging on the coach. They could not see him. So I ran on down and stretched that group of Ochs out and turned to give the Khibil a hand. There were only three left by then and they ran off as I turned on them. The rest left the krahniks and ran off, also, squeaking, their spindly legs flashing.

The Khibil swelled his massive chest and regarded me.

He held his length of wood cocked over his right shoulder. Deliberately, I allowed my length of wood to drop.

“Llahal, dom,” I said cheerfully.

For a moment he hesitated, and I fancied he was fighting the inherent feelings of superiority some Khibils never master. Then: “Llahal, apim. You were just in time to assist me in seeing this rabble of Ochs off —

they are not worth pursuit.”

“Probably.”

A noise echoed inside the carriage and I heard a whisper, quick and fervent. I moved slowly sideways so as to get a view of Khibil and coach together. The Khibil lowered his length of wood. Whatever the obi might be hereabouts it evidently did not include the immediate giving and receiving of a challenge it held in other parts of Kregen. I, of course, had no idea where I was. That I was on Kregen was the extent of my knowledge. The two suns were in the sky, and they were high in the meridian, and they did not jibe with my moss-and-tree deduction of the direction of north. The Khibil shared my curiosity.

He said, “Tell me, dom, where are we?”

Before I could answer, a sharp female voice from the coach window spat out: “Why, you knave, in Kov Pastic’s province, of course, and if you don’t put your clothes on at once I will have the kov’s guard arrest you the moment we reach Gertinlad.”

The Khibil and I stared at each other for a space. His reddish whiskers twitched. I thought of the Fristle on whom I had dropped from the sky. I thought of the occasion when I had given a helping hand to Marta Renberg, the Kovneva of Aduimbrev, with her luxurious coach that fell by the way. And, too, I thought of an earlier occasion when I had been transmitted to Kregen by the Star Lords to assist Djang girls against Och slavers. The two instances were strangely mingled here. Again that sense of machination troubled me, and by machination I mean wheels within wheels and not the ordinary interference in my life by the Everoinye. So the Khibil’s whiskers twitched. The woman in the coach was still screaming about our nakedness and her friend the kov. The Khibil was the first to laugh. And I, Dray Prescot, who had learned to laugh muchly of late in odd ways, I, too, laughed. The Khibil recovered first.

With the length of wood held just so, he approached the carriage. He spoke up; but the note in his voice was of a fine free scorn tempered by social observance.

“Llahal, lady. We have no clothes. They were stolen by these rascally Ochs. But we have saved your life.”

The woman was hidden from me by the jut of window; I could see her hand, thin and white, on which at least five rings glittered. Her voice continued in its shrill shriek.

“Onron! Give these two paktuns clothes! Bratch!”

The Rapa who had been running about, the one with the red feathers in whirlicues about his eyes and beak, went to the trunk fastened to the back of the coach and, presently, the Khibil and I were arrayed in gray trousers and blue shirts. I was beginning to have an idea of where I was, and not caring for it over much.

“See to the wheel,” said the lady, and the window shutter went up with a clatter. A mumble of conversation began within the coach.

I looked at the Khibil, prepared to get on with fixing the axle, for I conceived that the Everoinye wished this hoity-toity madam in the coach preserved for posterity. If she was anything like the couple I had saved in the inner sea she might pup a son who would topple empires. The Khibil said: “Lahal, apim. I am Pompino, Scauro Pompino ti Tuscursmot. When I saw the Gdoinye leading you on I realized you were a kregoinye.” He sniffed. “Although why the Everoinye should imagine I would need help against miserable little Ochs, I do not know, by Horato the Potent.”

I felt the solid ground of Kregen lurch beneath me.

A man, another mortal man, was talking of the Gdoinye, of the Star Lords! He knew! He called me and by implication himself a kregoinye. I swallowed. I spoke up.

“Lahal, Scauro Pompino. I am Jak.”

If I was where I thought I was the name of Dray Prescot would have that villain hog-tied and subject to an agonizing death.

About to go on to amplify the single name of Jak with some descriptive appellation — and it would not have been Jak the Drang for news travels where there are vollers — this Scauro Pompino ti Tuscursmot interrupted.

“You call me Pompino. On occasion it pleases me to be called Pompino the Iarvin.”

“Pompino.”

“Now we had best fix this shrewish lady’s axle and then see her safely into the town, which I take to be Gertinlad.”

“I agree. We are in Hamal, I think.”

He shook his head as we began on the axle. The lady made no offer to get out of the coach, and the Rapas gathered themselves to help.

“No. I am not sure; but not Hamal.”

Well, I thought, if you’re right, dom, thank Vox for that.

The Rapa called Onron scowled. “Hamal? You are from Hamal?” His fist gripped his sword, a thraxter, and he half-drew.

“No, Knave,” snapped Pompino. “We are not from Hamal.”

“The Hamalese,” quoth the Rapa, “should be tied up in their own guts and left to rot, by Rhapaporgolam the Reiver of Souls!”

“Quidang to that,” said Pompino.

A soft clump of hoofs drew our attention as a party of men riding totrixes rode up. There were ten of them and their six-legged mounts were lathered. Their weapons glittered in their hands, apim and diff alike. Pompino grabbed his piece of wood and prepared to fight; but Onron shrilled a silly cackle and said: “Peace, Knave. These are the lady Yasuri’s men, my comrades. They were decoyed away by other Ochs, may they rot in Cottmer’s Caverns.”

With the increment in our numbers we were able to repair the wheel and axle and so the coach started creakingly on its way to Gertinlad. Pompino and I rode perched on the roof, with Onron and his partner driving, and the totrix men resuming their function as escorts. We rolled through the mellow countryside and under the archway of the town and so into the familiar sights and stinks of a bustling market town and to an inn called the Green Attar. This was a high class hostelry such as would be patronized by a lady of gentle birth. The commander of her escort, a surly Rapa called Rordan the Negus, would have seen us off with a few curt words. He and his men wore half-armor, and were well armed with spear and bow, sword and shield. Pompino would have started an argument in his high-handed way; but Onron, who had carried the personal satchels from the coach into the inn, came out and yelled that the lady Yasuri would speak with us, and Bratch was the word.

So we jumped and obeyed on the run, which is what a serving man does when Bratch! is yelled at him. As we went in Pompino said: “I think the Everoinye wish us to continue to take care of this lady. I admit it is not an assignment I relish, but the ways of the Everoinye are not for mortal man to understand.”

I just nodded and so we went into the Green Attar and the smell of cooking and rich wines and stood before the table at which sat the lady Yasuri. The inn looked to be clean and comfortable, with much polished brass and dark upholstered chairs of sturmwood, with a wooden floor strewn with rugs of a weave new to me. We stood respectfully.

“You did well to drive off those rascally Ochs,” said the lady in her high voice. “You will be rewarded.”

She presented an outré picture, for she was tiny, and lined of face, with shapeless clothes that swaddled her in much black material like bombazine, shiny and hard, with a blaze of diamonds and sapphires, and with fine ivory lace at throat and wrist. She was apim, and her face looked like a wrinkled nut, with yet a little juice remaining. Her nose was sharp. She wore a wig of a frightful blond color. The rings on her fingers caught the oil lamps’ gleam and struck brilliants into our eyes. Pompino said: “We thank you, lady.”

She glared at him as though he had offered her violence.

“I am for LionardDen. The kov here is my friend; but he is away in the north helping in the fight against those Havil-forsaken rasts of Hamal. The land is hungry for fighting men. You are mercenaries. I offer you employment to see me safely through to Jikaida City.”

Pompino took a breath.

Before he could speak, the lady rattled on: “I can offer you better pay than usual. A silver strebe a day will buy a mercenary here. I offer you eight per sennight.”

With a dignity that set well with him, Pompino pointed out, “One does not buy a paktun. One pays him for services rendered.” As he spoke I received the impression that he was a paktun, probably a hyr-paktun and entitled to wear the golden pakzhan at his throat. “But, lady — are the silver strebes broad or short?”

She cocked up her sharp chin at this.

This was, indeed, a matter of moment. Coinage varies all over Kregen, of course, just as it does on Earth; but the common language imposed, so I thought, by the Star Lords, and the wild entanglement of peoples and animals and plants mean a creeping universality makes of Kregen a place unique by virtue of its very commonality. A short strebe, the silver coin known over most of the Dawn Lands, is worth far less than a broad strebe, and every honest citizen knows very well how to value the two in the scales. They may carry the very same head of whatever king or potentate has issued them, and the reverse may show the same magniloquent declarations of power or current advertisement of political policy; but the short and the broad will not buy the same quantity of goods in the markets — no, by Krun, not by a long chalk.

Now the Dawn Lands of Havilfar form a crazy patchwork of countries, and they bear no resemblance to the ordered checkers of the Jikaida board. They are a confusing conglomeration of kingdoms and princedoms and kovnates and republics, and a map-maker’s nightmare. The lady Yasuri hailed from one kingdom and while she was gone her king might be deposed, or her country invaded, so that when she returned she would have to vow fealty to a new sovereign — that was if her vadvarate still belonged to her. The Dawn Lands, viewed from some lofty perch in space, must resemble a stewpot forever on the boil.

Watching the lady Yasuri I saw how she used her shiny black bombazine to armor herself against the world. She was more accustomed, I guessed, to soft sensil and languorous dresses in the privacy of her own quarters, and she’d probably doff that hideous wig. She presented a hard and shrewish front to the world out of fear or the desire to intimidate. She screwed up her eyes, and her white hand toyed with her glass. She made a great show of thinking deeply. Then:

“Broad.”

Pompino nodded, still grave, still engaged in the negotiation of hiring out as a mercenary. But he did not attempt to increase the offer on account of his being, as I supposed, a hyr-paktun. He said: “But I am a Khibil. It would be nine for me.”

“Done,” said the lady Yasuri, promptly. “Nine for you, Khibil, and eight for the apim.”

I was too amused to argue.

Most places of Kregen use the six-day week, which I, rather contrarily, call a sennight. So our pay would be useful. A Pachak here would receive at least twelve broad strebes, possibly fourteen. A Chulik would get the same. You would rarely find a Kataki as a mercenary although there were renowned races of that slavemaster people whose second method of earning a living was hiring out as mercenaries; and they would grump until they got their twelve. As for the Ochs, four or five at the most. Rapas and Fristles and the like would get the standard one strebe a day.

If they didn’t argue it out, they’d get short strebes, too.

Pay is relative, of course, and I guessed that in these lands profoundly affected by the war with Hamal up north the price of commodities would have shot up. Perhaps this pay was not as excellent as at first sight it appeared. All the same, I contrasted these rates with those paid to the bowmen and archers of home, where a silver stiver was regarded as the small fortune paid to a Relianchun and where the bronze krad, a denomination of coin newly introduced by the Presidio, figured largely in the imaginations of the men come pay day. The krad, with, I hesitate to observe, an unspeakable likeness of the Emperor of Vallia on the obverse and resounding and inspiring slogans on the reverse, was regarded as fair and just. But, then, my men there in Vallia served their country and not for pay. Even so, I did not think that the old Crimson Bowmen of Loh, who had formed the old emperor’s bodyguard, had received a silver stiver a day. Their Jiktars and Chuktar had taken away their golden talens; of that I was very sure.

When Pompino and I, having made our respects to the lady Yasuri and the hiring being completed, returned to the courtyard of the Green Attar we became immediately aware of an offensive abomination going on there. The sights and sounds were sickening. A number of nobles put up here, for the place was renowned, and one of the members of a noble’s entourage was being flogged. The fellow had been triced up into the flogging triangle in a corner where sweet-scented flowers, brilliant and lovely, depended over the wall, forming a silent mockery of the obscenity going on in their shade. A thick leather gag had been forced between his teeth and secured by thongs around his head. He was flaxen-haired, strongly-built, and his tunic had been stripped down to his waist. He hung in the leather thongs binding his wrists and ankles to the wood of the triangle. He hung limply, as though accepting what was happening, and then he would jerk, every muscle standing out ridged, and so collapse into that limp huddle again. So he hung and jerked, shuddering, and hung again, and then convulsed once more as the other lash slashed across his bloody wreck of a back. A left-handed Brokelsh stood at his right side and a right-handed Rapa stood at his left. They took turns to slice the lashes down, black and whistling with stranded thongs.

“By Black Chunguj!” swore Pompino. “I never did like to see a man flogged jikaider.”

For the Rapa and the Brokelsh between them were dicing the man’s back up into a checkerboard of blood.

A Deldar, a heavy and thick-set man with the weight of years in the grade with no hope of ever making zan-Deldar and then Hikdar about him, spat and swore. “Hangi should have left the wine alone. It’s doing him no good, no, nor us, neither.”

The noble’s guards standing and looking on glumly as their comrade was flogged jikaider — a cruel and inhuman punishment, even to me who had seen men flogged round the Fleet — wore harness much studded with bronze bosses, and with pale blue and black favors. They looked a hard-bitten lot. Pompino made some remark, and the Deldar hawked up again.

“The notor is strict — aye, may Havandua the Green Wonder mete him his just desserts — strict. You can say that again about the notor, Erclan the Critchoith. Keep at it!” He swung away to bellow at the Rapa and Brokelsh who had desisted in their efforts to flay Hangi’s back. “You know the score! Ten times six and six more! Stylor!” to the shaking Relt who stood with slate and chalk marking the strokes.

“Keep a strict account!”

“Quidang, quidang,” stammered the Relt, his weak beaked face betraying by its frizzle of feathers the state he was in.

The lashes thwunked down again, and Hangi jerked, and was still. There is no real mystery why such a beastly practice should be given a name that associates it, however remotely, with the supreme board of Kregen. The contrast, it is said, explains the paradox.

“Stole Risslaca Ichor, did Hangi,” the Deldar told us, his face with the veins breaking around the nose sweating and empurpled. “A whole amphora. The notor’s favorite, is Risslaca Ichor, always keeps a special supply, and Hangi found it, and Hangi drank it, and there’s Hangi now, for all to see.”

“Risslaca Ichor.” Pompino sniffed. “A mere common rosé adulterated with dopa—”

“Fortified, dom, fortified!”

“So they say.”

Then a profound change overcame the Deldar. He grew, if it were possible, even bulkier and more purple. The sweat sprang out in great pearly drops. “Keep at it, you hulus! Hit hard!”

So we looked up to the flower-banked balcony, and there stood the notor, this Kov Erclan Rodiflor. Square and hard and ablaze with gems, he stood braced on wide-planted feet, his hands clamped on his hips, his chin with his strip of black beard upthrust, and his square lowering face brooded on the scene below. Returning to Jikaida City, was Kov Erclan. A man who exuded authority and power, he possessed a dark inner core that gave him the yrium he would have taken had he been a gang leader and not a kov.

Like his men, he wore the pale blue and black favors, arranged in checkerboard fashion. Well, he looked down and we looked up and he saw neither Pompino nor myself in the shadows; his dark eyes were all for the flogging. I thought merely that I had met many men like that, and so we walked on, stony-faced past the guards, and when I next met Kov Erclan — well, that you will hear, all in due time. Pompino and I thus became, for each of us once more, paktuns, hired mercenaries, bodyguards, men who rented out their skill with arms and laid their lives at risk to earn their daily crust. Events moved with speed after that. The life of a paktun is mostly boring, and shot through with sudden and brief flashes of scarlet action. Often they are the last things that happen to him. We were outfitted, for it was all found, and donned bronze-studded leather jerkins, with gray trousers and calf-high boots. The weapons were thraxter, the straight cut and thrust sword of Hamal, stuxes, oval shields and a dagger apiece. The green tunic I was handed bore a rusty stain low on the left side, and a rip neatly sewn together, a rip about the size to admit a spear-blade. The trousers had been laundered clean, however, for which I was grateful.

Pompino made a face. “Dead men’s clothes.”

The helmets were of iron, and not bronze, iron pots thonged under the chin and with ear and back flaps. Holders at the crown bore tufts of green, black and blue feathers.

So equipped and astride totrixes Pompino and I rode out the next morning as part of the escort to Yasuri Lucrina, the Vadni of Cremorra, en route for LionardDen, Jikaida City. From the rich lands around Gertinlad the way led us across rivers and through forests into country that grew impressively wild and menacingly forbidding. We were in the Dawn Lands of Havilfar. Here, in the ancient countries around The Shrouded Sea were situated those parts of the great southern continent that had been first settled when men arrived here in the beginning of history — so went the old stories. Both Pompino and I were firmly convinced that the Star Lords had sent us to ensure the safety of Yasuri. The whole operation, at least for me, was so markedly different from what had happened before that I deemed it prudent to follow events and to do my best to avoid the wrath of the Star Lords. Of one thing I was profoundly grateful. Because of the differences this time, and the warning, there was no extra bitterness in me at the parting from Delia. Of course I grieved for the sundering, and vowed to return as soon as I could, echoing in the old way and the old days, I will return to my Delia, my Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue Mountains. But, this time, she was apprised of my disappearance, and she knew, now, what that fate was that dogged me. No moist-mouthed slimy minions of Quergey the Murgey could affront her now; she would send that lot packing with a zorca hoof up their rumps. Sorrow touched me that I had not welcomed Drak and clasped hands with him. As with Melow the Supple and Kardo. But I felt the warm glow of satisfaction at the thought that Drak, Prince of Vallia, Krzy, was now there, in Vondium, and, Opaz willing, ready to take up the reins. Suppose he refused? Suppose he contumed the task of standing in for the Emperor of Vallia? He had told us that he would not become emperor while we lived, Delia and I, and I had brushed that aside as sentiment. I felt that Drak, who of all my sons was the strong, sober, industrious one, with that wild Prescot streak in him, too, was best fitted to run Vallia. Had I thought Zeg, who was now King in Zandikar, or Jaidur, who was swashbuckling about in connivance with the Sisters of the Rose, could handle the job better, then primogeniture, too, would have been kicked out with a zorca hoof up its rump. Primogeniture obtains on Kregen; but it is not an unbreakable rule. A man must fight for what he wants there, and it is what a man is and the spirit and heart of him that counts, not what his father is. Or his mother, either... For the ladies of Kregen are people in their own right, and fully aware of that, with minds that are their own. The ladies of Kregen count, as this Yasuri, Vadni of Cremorra, so sharply reminded us. Some of the women of Kregen there are who hate all men because they are men, as foolish a stance as to hate all calsanys because they are calsanys, or all roses because they are roses. But, then, some women do not deserve to be ladies of Kregen, anyway...

There was little satisfaction to be gained in the situation where I was a puppet of the Star Lords; but it is useless to kick against the pricks when there is nothing one can do about that particular situation. I had slowly and cautiously been attempting to build a kind of structure of deceit against the Star Lords, and had intemperately gone against my own plans and been banished to Earth for twenty-one cruel years. Now I was trying a new tack. But, in the end, obedience to the Everoinye must dominate my actions. They were superhuman. Their powers were far beyond those of mortals, beyond those of the Wizards of Loh, beyond the Savanti. I trembled to dare to think that perhaps Zena Iztar might possess powers to match them.

As we rode, I studied, to learn what I could from what Pompino could tell me. He was of South Pandahem, a land of which I then knew little. He was married with two sets of twins and from what he did not say I gathered that he rubbed along with his wife, in a kind of habit-formed pattern, rather than taking any active joy from the marriage state. Well, two worlds are full of marriages like that. He was not at all displeased to be called out to serve the Everoinye. He talked well as we jogged along through the land that increasingly grew more ominous, with rocky defiles and overhanging crags leading on to wide plains where the sere grass blew. The country was pock-marked with tracts of badlands, and we were due to spend the night at a fortified posting house at the ford of Gilma. Gilma is a water sprite found in the legends of Prince Larghos and the Demons. Pompino told me that he did not like the Hamalese, a sentiment I could well understand from Hamal’s ruthless conquest of Pandahem. But he could tell me little of the Star Lords.

He received his orders from the Gdoinye. When I introduced a casual remark about scorpions, he dismissed them as unpleasant but rarely seen creatures of Havil.

I told him I was from Huringa in Hyrklana. This city I knew well from my days as a kaidur in the Jikhorkdun there, and so could fabricate substantial accounts to bolster my story. He eyed me at that.

“Queen Fahia grows too fat, so men say — and I mean you no disrespect, Jak. But men say she cannot live long.”

I nodded. “So it is said.”

Pompino clicked his tongue at his totrix. We were passing a stand of withered trees and the branches reached out like gray wraiths.

“Men say that the tragedy of Princess Lilah cast a shadow over the kingdom.”

Princess Lilah of Hyrklana! I had sent spies to seek news of her whereabouts and all had reported failure.

“It is indeed a tragedy. I would dearly love to know where she is now, By Kru — by Havil.”

The slip passed unnoticed.

Much of what we said I will report when the time is due; suffice it that Pompino, for all he was one of those Khibils who consider themselves a cut above ordinary mortals, proved a stalwart companion, and in the manner of Khibils, brave and resourceful and loyal. A task had been set to his hands and he would fulfill that task with his dying breath.

He did grumble: “What the confounded woman wants to go all this dolorous way to play Jikaida for is a conundrum I would not burden Hoko the Amusingly Malicious with.”

There were so many burning questions I had to ask that mention of Jikaida passed me by then... But Pompino knew only that he took his orders from a great scarlet and gold bird, that he was paid handsomely for his trouble in real gold, and that should he disobey he would be punished with exceedingly unpleasant penalties. We did not go into their nature.

“Why, Pompino? Why?”

He looked puzzled. “The gods are passing strange in their ways, Jak. Passing strange. But to serve the gods, to serve the Everoinye, is not that a great pride and does it not confer stature upon a man? Is it not, Jak, a High Jikai?”

I had never looked on rushing about pulling the Star Lords’ chestnuts out of the fire as a High Jikai. That great word, that supreme notion of high chivalry and courage and self-sacrifice, seemed to me sacred to deeds writ in gold. As I did not answer he scowled. “Well?”

“Yes,” I said. “Assuredly.”

Because he had been the first to pelt down all naked into action and drive the Ochs away he had quite naturally assumed the leadership of our twin mission. I did not bother my head over that. Let him imagine he carried the burden. Truth to tell, I was happy to allow it — and, equally, I liked him. The posting house at the ford of Gilma was merely a single story house and surrounding wall all built of the gray stones carried down from the frowning hills. We did not change the totrixes or the krahniks, for we had not been pushing them and they were beasts of price. We set off early the next day and so came down the long valley into Songaslad, a town of thieves.

Over the border some sixty dwaburs off lay the country of Aidrin in which lay the capital, the city called Jikaida City. The journey was fraught with peril. It lay over badlands of an exceedingly bad badness. In Songaslad, the town of thieves, caravans were formed for mutual protection on the journey. The lady Yasuri sent her Rapa Jiktar to haggle for the price of a caravan’s protection. Perforce, we waited, and set a doubled guard over our possessions.

We lost only a good saddle, richly inlaid, a carpet of high price, and a set of golden candlesticks whose theft almost gave the lady a fainting fit. Her companions, her handmaids in the coach with her, used burned twigs of Sweet Ibroi to revive her. We concluded a deal with hawk-faced Ineldar the Kaktu, the caravan master, forthwith.

So, a long straggling procession of carriages and wagons and riders and people trudging afoot, we wended out of Songaslad, the town of thieves, to cross the Desolate Wastes, and so win our way to Aidrin, and the rich country around LionardDen, Jikaida City.

Chapter Ten

Into the Desolate Waste

Many times have I journeyed in caravans across country inhospitable by reason of nature or man, and on each occasion I vow never again, and know even as I vow that the lure of the adventure will always drag me on. Each occasion is different. Kregen is a world of so many startling contrasts that the beauty and terror mingle and fill the spirit with wild eagerness or desolation, with burning ambition to win against all or a calm and joyous acceptance of the stupendous.

Nights under the stars! Ah — they are never to be forgotten.

The Caravan labored along, crossing rivers and winding down long defiles, gaining the far slopes and so rising to emerge onto the vasty plains where the mist lifted blue and eerie, like lantern smoke against snow.

The totrix of the lady Yasuri’s given into my charge and whom I rode across the Desolate Wastes was a skewbald called Munky. I was careful of him. Accustomed I may be to walking barefoot across the awful places of Kregen, I was now far more of a mind to ride rather than walk. Oh, yes, despite all my deeper concerns, I enjoyed that caravan across the Desolate Wastes to Jikaida City. And, if the truth be told, the land was not all desolate. Grass grew and the animals fed. There was water in swift silver streams. Every now and then we crossed stony deserts, or sandy deserts; but we prepared for them. The various places along the way were infested with drikingers and these bandits attacked us, as was their custom. We fought them off.

Here we saw why the Star Lords had provided two men — two kregoinye, I must now call them — to escort the person they had chosen to save for posterity. The Rapa escort fought well and earned their hire along with all the other caravan guards. But, one by one, they went down, by arrow or spear, sword or javelin. Soon my companion Pompino was given the escort command, with the rank of Jiktar, whereat he smiled at me, and I warmed to him, realizing how much and how little he valued these titles. But we saved the skin of the lady Yasuri.

It is not my intention to give a blow-by-blow account of that journey, much though the prospect tempts me, for this was a kind of holiday. It is with some of the people of the caravan that my interest lies, and therefore yours.

The lady Yasuri herself was going to Jikaida City to play Jikaida, and most of the other folk in the caravan were doing likewise, to play, to participate, to gamble or merely to make a profit on the game. As is the way with such caravans, people tend to fall into clumps, who jog along together, for company, good fellowship and mutual protection. A deal of this can be put down to the speed of progress. The lady Yasuri’s coach matched the speed of an ornate, top-heavy creation of the carriage-builder’s art, in blue and yellow, that swayed along next in line. This conveyance was drawn by six krahniks. In the caravan were so many of the various marvelous animals of Kregen it were vain to name them all; but there were Quoffas, calsanys, plain asses, hirvels, totrixes, and the like. There were few zorcas. Of course, being Havilfar, there were no voves. This blue and yellow coach with the black and white checkerboard along the sides contained Master Scatulo. In Master Scatulo’s terms, to speak his name was enough.

Master Scatulo — he trumpeted a host of names all attesting to his enormous prowess as a Jikaidast —

permitted the lady Yasuri the graciousness of his company when we halted for meals. Yasuri hung on this young fellow’s words — for Scatulo was young, brash, supremely self-confident and, by the reckoning of anyone you cared to ask, a remarkable player of Jikaida, a true Jikaidast. His face was of a sallow cast, sharp and edgy, with deep furrows between his eyebrows, and eyes of a piercing quality that Sishi, the lady Yasuri’s least important hand maiden told me with a laugh, he painted with blue-kohl to enhance their impression of brooding intelligence. I believed this. It is known. Pompino guffawed and passed a most demeaning remark.

“He’s real clever, is Master Scatulo!” protested Sishi. She, herself, was apim and a little beauty with dark hair and a rosy glowing face and ways that were still artless, despite the way of the world. I waggled a finger at her.

“Now then, mistress Sishi. Beware of clever men like this Scatulo. Just because he says he is Havil’s gift to the world, that he is a genius, doesn’t mean he can—”

“I know what you’re saying, Jak!”

“Just as well you do, Sishi,” said Pompino. “For Jak speaks sooth. This Scatulo will get you—”

Her face was scarlet. Sishi burst out, “You’re horrible!”

That, by Vox, was true enough; but had little to do with the subject in question. There were other Jikaidasts in the caravan; not many. I gathered from sly remarks that a Jikaidast must be in the very topmost flight of his profession to be preferred in Jikaida City. Trouble was, Pompino and I could not flaunt our ignorance; everyone understood so well the significance of Jikaida City that significant details were taken for granted. We agreed to keep our ears open and learn. The other person who jogged along with us and shared our fire and engaged in conversation was a Wizard of Loh.

Yes. Oh, yes, I well realize the surprise anyone must feel in so cavalier a treatment of a representative of one of the most powerful groups of wizards on Kregen. But Deb-Lu-Quienyin was a pleasant old buffer whose red Lohvian hair was much thinned by perplexed rubbing and whose lined face expressed a perennial surprise at the state of the world. But, for all that, he was a Wizard of Loh. He wore plain robes, with their dark blue only moderately embellished with silver and he wore a stout shortsword, which made me look in wonder.

“Aye, young man, a sword and a Wizard of Loh. Parlous are the days, and grievous the evil thereof.”

“Aye, san,” I said, giving him the correct honorific of san — sage or dominie. “You speak sooth.”

He tilted his lopsided turban-like headdress to one side so as to rub his hair. Strings of pearls and diamonds decorated the folds of blue cloth; but he assured me they were imitation only. “For I have fallen on hard days, young man, and Things Are Not What They Were.”

He rode a preysany, the superior form of calsany used for riding, and that indicated a slender purse. Munky jogged alongside the preysany well enough, for a few emphatic kicks indicated to him he had best mind his manners. Preysanys, like calsanys, do offensive things when they are frightened. Deb-Lu-Quienyin wanted to talk. I did not think he suffered from that hideous disease, chivrel, that wastes a man or woman into premature old age; but he was without doubt unlike any Wizard of Loh I had previously encountered. During the days of the journey across the Desolate Waste I heard a deal of his history.

He had been a powerful sorcerer, come from Loh as a young man into Havilfar, and set fair to making his fortune. He had been variously court wizard to kings and kovs in the Dawn Lands, and had spent a time in Hyrklana, whereat we reminisced for a space. Then he had become aware that his powers were failing. He talked to me like this, frankly, I believe, out of the misery in him. He maintained a dignified mien to the people of the caravan and they, being prudent, gave him a wide berth. Some spark struck between us. I realized he told me much more than he perhaps knew, and I put that confidence down to the journey and the circumstances of the caravan and our traveling together through dangerous country. In the event, we got along capitally. He kept no famulus, for, as he said: “The last one grew too clever, and taunted me, and so left to set up for himself. And I do not have the wherewithal to pay an assistant.”

He had a little tame Och slave who tended his clothes and cooked his meals and chattered away to himself, a scrawny bundle in an old blanket coat who walked, for Deb-Lu-Quienyin’s purse could not stretch to a second saddle animal. His calsany was loaded with mysterious bundles, bowed under the weight, and there was no room for the Och, Ionno the Ladle. The Wizard of Loh cast glances of mingled covetousness and scorn at the Jikaidast, Master Scatulo, and sighed.

“Look at him, young man, Puffed With the Pride of the Masterful. Once I, too, must have been like that. And see his slave, the muscles, the strength — why, he could carry his master on his back all the way to Jikaida City if he had to.”

Truly, Scatulo’s personal slave was a powerfully built diff, a Brukaj with immense rounded shoulders and a hunched-forward head with a forceful face with more than a passing resemblance to that of a bulldog. The Brukajin possess legs rather on the short side, it is true; but they are determined, dogged, and I had been pleased to have them serve in any of the armies I had commanded on Kregen. As is to be expected from their natures they are superb in the defense. They are as dissimilar as one could imagine from the Tryfants, who attack with enormous élan, and in retreat merely rout, running every which way. The Brukajin are not to be confused with the Brokelsh, whose thick mat of coarse body hair complements their generally coarse ways of carrying on. I have good friends among the Brokelsh, and I was intrigued to notice the protocol that existed between the Brokelsh in the caravan and this slave of Scatulo’s, this powerful but docile Brukaj, who wag called Bevon.

Not for Bevon the Brukaj, as a slave, the privilege of a descriptive appendage to his name; Deb-Lu-Quienyin’s slave chattering to himself in his brown blanket coat was crowingly conscious of his descriptive name, the Ladle. The Wizard of Loh was good-natured enough to be pleased at this.

“Since my accident, young man,” he confided to me as we jogged along under the Suns of Scorpio, tasting the sweetness of the air, watching the ominous countryside. “I have not been the man I was. Time has Entrapped me in Her Coils.”

I gathered that the accident, the exact nature of which he did not specify, although it sounded as though he had tried some magic too powerful to be contained, had deprived him of enough of his wizardly powers as seriously to jeopardize his life style. He could not, for instance, go into lupu and spy out events and people at a distance. There were other powers he had lost. He was resigned to them in a bittersweet way, talking of his misfortunes and of life in capital letters. He was a humorous old boy, not strong, proud as are all Wizards of Loh, and yet much on the defensive after the accident. After a trifling brush with drikingers who drew off after the caravan guards shot their leader, we found we had water trouble. The bandits had shot deliberately at the water barrels fixed to the wagon. The amphorae they smashed with ease. The wooden staves of the barrels resisted; but enough were pierced through to cause Ineldar the Kaktu, the caravan master, to put us all on quarter rations until the next water hole.

This caused trouble.

Two days later we were all hot, dusty, dry — and thirsty.

And an event occurred that brought me vividly face to face with the Meaning of Life.