A Dragon at Worlds' End (26 page)

While Relkin worked up a sweat beating hell out of the punch bag, Lord Pessoba sipped invigorating nectar on the terrace and pondered his options. Since the exhibition at the Investigative Society, Pessoba had received many offers for the No-Tail Ardu, as he was still known, despite the evidence to the contrary.

Already, as one result of these offers, Pessoba had begun negotiating for a review of his Game. If he passed the review, he could compete for a chance at reinstatement in the ninth hundred. The last ten positions were always changing. Ten went down at the end of each lunar cycle, and ten from outside the Thousand were raised up and given places in the ninth hundred. There were other, easier ways to get back into the ninth hundred, but they required influence with the councils of the high.

The offers varied widely. Mot Pulk had offered seven tabis of gold. Mot Pulk was a fading star, now in the sixth hundred. He needed help with his Game, he needed a new piece, something fresh and very different. The no-tail youth might be just that thing.

However, Pessoba had never given Mot Pulk's bid much thought. Mot Pulk offered more gold pieces, but Pessoba was already wealthy. What Pessoba needed was influence in the councils of the Game Lords. Vastly more interesting to him were offers like that from Cabalatu of the Cabal, the major opposition group to the Tendency. Cabalatu, working through his friends in the Arkelaud clan, had offered twelve hundred keppox of gold and precious assistance in regaining Pessoba's rightful place in the Thousand. Twelve hundred keppox was equal to perhaps three tabis. Even better, they offered the services of the Cabal's top contract player during his first week of Game play once he was back in the ninth hundred. That first week was the most dangerous; often a new player lost all his pieces within days as they were hunted down by the predators from the higher hundreds. Such an offer was more valuable to him than gold in almost any amount.

There was also an offer from Red Elk of the Tendency, and it was wise to listen carefully. The Tendency had become the top clique by ruthless group play. If crossed, they might launch a lightning assault with two or three top players at once. Such assaults often destroyed a player in the lower hundreds and drove him from the Game. Unfortunately, the Tendency offer was for a thousand keppox of gold and just a vague promise of "help" in regaining Pessoba a place in the ninth hundred.

Pessoba was offended. He'd given Zulbanides a free audience with the boy and this was the response from the Tendency? He reined in his anger. It might be the result of politics within the Tendency. What if other leaders, like Red Elk, were trying to undermine Zulbanides? Perhaps, if he contacted Zulbanides and complained discreetly about the paltriness of this offer, he could get a better one. And there was always Cabalatu's offer in the background. If the Tendency wouldn't improve their offer, then he would take his chances with the Cabal. One way or another, Pessoba was determined to ride his success right into the ninth hundred. Once he won his way in, then he could use his new techniques, learned from the Arkelaud school. His rise would begin, and this time it would not be stopped!

He finished his nectar and summoned Lum to set in motion their departure to the banquet at Lord Rasion's quarters in the fabulous luxury of the Arkelaud. Lum barked orders and within thirty minutes Relkin had been bathed, shaved, and clad in a suit of black silk with silver slippers. A squad of five guards surrounded them as they rode in a horse-drawn carriage up a zigzag road, ascending the flank of the ridge on the city's southern margin.

At last Relkin glimpsed the Overlook of the Arkelauds, perched on a crag high above the city and suffused in a blaze of lights that cast a fantastic jumble of shadows across marble surfaces.

The road worked its way up the crag. As they went, they were afforded further views of the Overlook and of the city spread out below. Past the city was the dark mass of the great lake. On the far side of the lake could be seen more lights, with the statue of Zizma Bos blazing in the west.

Eventually they drove through a great gate and entered a huge courtyard. Servants, some of them Ardu slaves, were there to assist them. They entered through enormous doors and passed down a long, gloomy entry hall until they emerged into a wide space, covered by a ceiling of glistening scarlet lacquer. Pillars covered in gold leaf held up the ceiling. A long table covered in white linen took up the center. Around it were seated two dozen or so of the high and mighty of the city of Mirchaz.

Relkin and Pessoba were introduced, to a round of applause. Lord Rasion, a ruddy, well-fed version of the Mirchaz elf mage norm, stood to welcome Relkin to a place beside him. Pessoba, after a moment's hesitation, was detached and seated on the further side with Lady Tschinn and her friends. Relkin understood that this was not Pessoba's wish. Relkin also warned himself to be careful. There were many threads to this situation that he did not yet understand or even know about. The ground ahead was littered with traps, of that he was certain.

Lord Rasion sat at the head of the table, Relkin on his right. Beside Relkin was another beefy, silver-haired elf mage introduced as Red Elk. Next to him were Repadro Toba and across was Lord Kyenn. Relkin saw the same reddened, coarsened elf face on each figure. The hair was still the glistening silver curls, virtually lacquered into place, and the chin was still the same strong, square chin, but the jowls had swollen, the nose had reddened, and the skin had sagged all in individually different ways.

"You are not Ardu at all, are you?" said Lord Rasion, who seemed to finally be coming to terms with this truth.

"That is correct. I am a soldier from the land of Argonath."

"Yes, yes," rumbled the beefy Red Elk. "So we have heard. That and much more."

"Some kind of Ardu, but from the east," said Repadro Toba.

"No. I am not Ardu."

When Repadro Toba spoke, the heavy jowls wobbled. Relkin thought of the martial visages of Althis and Sternwall and shivered. This was virtually the same face as theirs, but buried beneath rolls of fat and wrinkled skin.

"There is the prophecy of Zizma Bos," said Lord Kyenn. "Is this the one they will call Iudo Faex?"

Repadro Toba gave a sour chuckle. "Of course not. He is mere human flesh, the clay of Ardol. The Iudo Faex must be of elven kind."

"That is not necessarily so," commented Lord Rasion. "Nowhere in the text of Zizma Bos does it say that."

"Perhaps not explicitly, but there can be no other reading of the text of Zizma Bos."

"Bah, there is no such thing as the Iudo Faex. 'Tis all but a tissue of lies put about by the faint-hearted, who grow weak at the thought of the grim lives of former slaves," growled Red Elk.

"Does that mean Rasion is one of the faint-hearted?" said Kyenn.

Repadro Toba's lips narrowed into a nasty smile. "Lord Rasion is one of our greatest warriors. All who know him must admit this! 'Faint heart' is no phrase for such as Lord Rasion!"

"Yet Rasion clings to his generous notions of society." But Kyenn's attempts to draw Repadro Toba on this subject did not succeed.

Red Elk suddenly leaned forward. "Rasion, one day you will wake up to our danger."

"Red Elk, the only danger I face is on the board. I had Pitz making sharp moves against my flank man this evening. We had the devil of a time extracting some strengths from the trap."

Eagerly, the ancient elf mages turned to discussion of the Great Game.

"These were the Jumping Strengths that Zulbanides was boasting about?"

"Was he boasting, the dog? Why the arrogance of Zulbanides knows no bounds. Pitz threatened the Strengths, but all he actually took was a Leaper and a Pawn."

"I maintain forty Leapers," sniffed Lord Rasion. "I will have a new one within the week."

"Old Pitz was sharp tonight. His first session in Tendency blue."

"His defection was noted. The Cabal will take measures. Pitz will have to be careful in coming weeks."

"Pitz will be running forty strengths, half of them Jumpers. I think Pitz will have sufficient forces for any struggle."

Food and wine were brought. Relkin drank water. The wines of Mirchaz were delicious, but he needed to keep his head clear. If there was to be a chance of escape, it would come on one of these sorties from Pessoba's house. He had been examining his surroundings carefully from the moment he'd sat down.

The room was enormous. The walls were lost behind pillars, statues, and clumps of servants standing beside trolleys and service tables. Dozens of servants were in motion at all times. It was hard to tell where the doors to other rooms might be.

He noticed that there were pairs of burly men set on either side of the table, about fifty paces distant. These men seemed to watch him closely the entire time.

An escape bid would have to be made very carefully. Finding his way out of this place while evading pursuit might be taking on too much at one go.

No worthwhile plan had formed as yet.

The elf lords were still discussing board play from that evening's session. Relkin had already gathered that it had been unusually active. Something called the "Ninth Gold" was in play. This Gold was a position of some sort that was held by the Tendency, the group that Red Elk and Zulbanides belonged to. The Ninth Gold was, however, almost surrounded now by a force of pieces belonging to the Cabal. The Tendency pieces were in great danger. There was a chance the Tendency would lose so much material that the Cabal would take the lead position. Zulbanides had already unleashed Pitz in merciless attack play; the Tendency would not give up without a bitter struggle. Red Elk promised as much. Relkin listened politely with half an ear while continuing his surreptitious examination of the room. Suddenly he noticed that Lord Rasion was watching with an amused smile on the perfectly proportioned lips.

"You are admiring our lovely dining chamber, I think."

"Yes. It is the largest I have ever seen."

Rasion's smile dipped for a moment, then brightened. "And as we know, you have traveled the world."

"I have seen some of it. A soldier of the Argonath goes where he is ordered to. That has been my lot, and my misfortune."

"Hardly that, child, for it has brought you here, to Mirchaz, where the glory of the Old Red Aeon still lives on. Can you not feel it? Can you not hear the sweet singing? This is the marbled heaven that we ascended to when we abandoned Gelderen."

"I'm sorry, I don't know these things."

"Of course you don't, child. You know nothing. You are as evanescent as a moth. But we, we are still alive, and we were alive in the Old Red Aeon, too. Think of that. Think of all the centuries that have passed as we have walked beneath the stars of Ardol here in our sacred vale."

"It is magnificent," said Relkin judiciously.

"And you will live here. You will take a place of honor among the Lords Tetraan."

"Will I see the Great Game?"

"You will see it. Oh, I expect you'll be in it up to your neck." Rasion chuckled soundlessly and in a way that was both cruel and mysterious.

Through the dinner the lords talked mostly about board play. There was a long argument about moves from standstill and which openings were currently the best. Occasionally the lords would focus on Relkin and he would be quizzed again about the Argonath, or the monster kebbold he was supposed to have in the forest. Relkin's replies were controlled and as brief as possible. The lords would probe a little, but then they would happily return to their argument over the new openings from standstill.

The main courses were at last completed. Relkin ate modestly and drank little, so his head remained quite clear.

A hot beverage was served in small pink cups. It turned out to be kalut, scented with cinnamon and sweetened with honey. Then a troupe of Ardu dancers, oiled and naked, performed a wildly sensual dance while an orchestra of twenty men filled the air with thundering music. The performance was not the Ardu's native dancing; this writhing and suggestive motion was more like something from a brothel in old Ourdh. The Ardu male dancers worked their tails between the legs of the female dancers, much to the merriment of the elf lords. Relkin felt only a mild disgust.

When Relkin asked to be allowed to relieve himself, he was escorted from the dining hall by two of the Katun lookalikes. These men hadn't touched a drop and they were alert and ready for anything. Relkin saw no opportunity for escape.

Back in the dining chamber a sweet dessert was prepared for them. With clashing cymbals a team of cooks, small men with yellow skin and shaved heads, worked over a huge metal pan that spanned perhaps ten feet. A mixture of nuts, raisins, dried fruit, and sugar was cooked in the pan and served in small bowls, drenched with a sweet concoction that conferred a floral bouquet.

Two of the men-at-arms approached with a message.

With a certain amount of ritualistic grumbling, Lord Rasion allowed Relkin to be escorted to the ladies' end of the table to be introduced and looked over by the elf ladies, clad in long gowns of silver, blue, and green.

As their names were announced—Lady Ansalld, Lady Shej a Goot, Lady Iaruka—Relkin was struck by how different and yet how similar the ladies were from the mighty lords. They all shared the same face, but the ladies were so thin, and with such prominent elfin cheekbones, that their faces bore the mark of the skull. The lords had grown more humanlike with age and increased weight, but the elf ladies had become distinctly inhuman. It wasn't just the star patterns in their eyes, where gold blazed amid the blue, but the odd upturn of their mouths, which formed an eerie permanent smile, like some foxlike grin, laden with cunning.

Relkin quickly realized that the elf ladies were not responding to his bows and polite salutations even though he was sure they understood enough Ardu. They gazed at him with gold in their eyes and treated him without respect, as an animal, an object. They discussed him in the lewdest terms. Of course, they spoke in quicksilver Intharion, the magic tongue, and he understood them perfectly. He felt his face burn as he heard himself compared unfavorably with a prime Ardu bullboy, bought for the bedchamber. Another voice promised to have his ears pierced for little chains, the better to guide him with in bed.