When I began to eat, if all the statues in the chamber had come to life and rushed upon me, I’d have finished gnawing on the vosk bone and fought the pack of ’em one-handed.
I drank hugely — a light Tardalvoh — and looked around the walls. And then I noticed that dust lay thickly upon the floor.
This was something new in the Coup Blag.
The wall containing the doorway through which I had entered held six other doors, all closed. They were all blue. I sighed. “By Makki-Grodno’s disgusting diseased liver and lights! Is there no end to this infernal maze?”
A voice from the air said, “Blue instead of red, will serve me, will serve you, will serve destiny.”
No use in looking around. The voice could be coming from anywhere. I shouted, I’m not interested in serving destiny! I’ve been doing that ever since I came to Kregen! I just want to get out and go home!”
And then I checked myself. No. No, that was not true. Well, of course it was true — of course I wanted to go home to Delia. But I had to do something drastic about this confounded conspiracy of Spikatur Hunting Sword, if I killed myself doing it. I stood up, hand on sword hilt.
“Blue, you say, you misshapen Opaz-forsaken lump of—”
“If you trust me.”
There was no denying the mockery. I drew a breath, stared at the doors — and, lo! All save one turned red.
I stumped across the floor, reaching for the ten-foot pole and remembering it had splintered to pieces down some damned alley. I hefted the Krozair longsword. I have used that superb brand to do all kinds of tasks on Kregen; now it would tap tap tap at the floor and walls as I went along as though I were a blind man. Which, in this place of horrors, I was.
The blue door opened before I reached it.
Blue light spilled.
Sword ready, I stormed through — and was instantly set on by a dozen of the malko guards, raging, weapons bright, gorilla fangs clashing for my throat, swords raking for my guts.
The Game Is Named
The very violence of their onslaught worked in my favor.
The leaders jostled one another to get at me, the blood lust bright and ugly on their lowering gorilla-like faces.
Hard, packed with muscle, malkos, fierce and not to be trifled with. Big, husky fellows, with their tiny black eyes overhung with massive brow ridges, and black fissured lips, dented in by the jut of yellow fangs, glowing with a sullen passion to kill.
They wore studded leather armor, very spiky as to shoulder and elbow, bulging over ribcages, adorned with scaled belts and gilt buckles. Their weapons were spears and shields, swords and daggers, and they gobbled in their passion to slay.
I daresay they had never met a man armed with a Krozair longsword before. I venture to suggest they had never tangled with a Krozair Brother before. Well, few folk outside the inner sea of Kregen, the Eye of the World, have had that dubious pleasure. I did not waste time. The Krozair brand flamed.
When it was done, two, at least, ran screaming. They did not run with all their bodily parts intact or functioning; but they were able to run away. Their companions lay scattered about the chamber. And forgive me, I mean scattered.
By Zair! The things a man does when he is frustrated!
The malko guards, grim with their gorilla faces and their metal-studded leather armor, had been posted to watch over a series of cages. These iron-barred receptacles held an assortment of slaves. They were well enough dressed for slaves, the girls in tissue-thin vestments and strings of cheap jewels, the men oiled and shaved, other men, of a variety of races although unarmed unmistakable mercenary guards. They all looked miserable, as slaves look downcast; but they appeared well fed.
A voice called, “Splendid, Jikai. Now let us out of here, in the name of Hiscielo the Chuns.”
“Whoever he might be,” I said to myself, and went across to the cage from which the woman called.
I knocked the lock off with a single blow. That is always a fine spirited — and empty — gesture. As soon as I’d committed that extravagant act of folly I checked the Krozair longsword, just in case... The edge was unmarked from the iron. Which, given the art of the Krozair swordsmiths, was as it should be.
The woman said, “So, Jikai, you prefer your sword to me?”
Prepared to be gracious to a gracious lady, I contented myself with a churlish: “Perhaps.”
Well, she was beautiful. There was a kind of mesmeric force attached to her beauty. Everything about her appeared to be perfect, and that, very often — not always — adds up to a lack of perfection in the totality. Her hair was bright gold, long and rippling free over a turquoise dress girdled with gold. Her figure would take the breath away from any man who has not seen my Delia. Beside my Delia, this beautiful shining woman looked artificial. She was overwhelmingly aware of her personal attraction, for the force of her beauty, and the power that beauty conferred.
She smiled alluringly at me. Her teeth were very white — they would have to be, seeing the list of perfections she possessed — and her lips were of that melting red that gets in under a fellow’s ribs and twists about like a white-hot knife.
I made her a small bow. I was still wrought up, with the smoking corpses of dismembered men casually tumbled about.
“My lady—”
“You call me majestrix.”
“So you’re Queen Mab, then?”
She smiled.
“Release my servants. We must leave here at once.”
I used more caution in opening the first cage holding a fat fellow with three quivering chins and a pot belly, garbed in black and green and with a great golden chain around his neck. I remembered the pit where we had freed Milsi.
“Open up the rest, dom,” I said, and ignored his affronted dignity. The queen merely smiled.
Yet, in that smile, I thought I sensed rather than saw a puzzlement, as though she could not understand my attitude. She couldn’t grasp why I hadn’t been bowled over by her beauty.
Well, people like her no doubt bathed in blood every day. A few poor fellows butchered meant nothing to her...
As though carrying on that thought, she said, “You fight exceeding well.”
“When I have to.”
She frowned and the lightning flashed. “Majestrix!”
Her own guards were crowding out now and running to pick up the malkos’ fallen weapons. I had no desire to get into another fight. “Majestrix,” I said dutifully.
She smiled.
Then I realized what the smile was for — it was certainly attractive, lighting up her face, as they say — it was designed to render me totally her slave, bound to her by adoration of her beauty. I did not laugh. I wasn’t that far sunk in boorishness, by Vox!
She said, “Anglar! Move everybody out. We go that way.” And she pointed to the black door at the end. So, the black door was the way we all went, fussed over by our fat friend in the black and green, and the chins, and the gold chains, Anglar the majordomo.
The corridors through which we walked were wide and well-lit, only a little dusty, and quite free of traps.
Feeling in no mood for conversation, I replied when spoken to and nothing else. She grew a little restive.
“You ask me nothing of this place. Have you been here long?”
I had to bite my lips to keep from shouting with mirth.
I eyed the guards she employed. They were all hulking great fellows, of a variety of races, and they carried weapons, and although I could probably put up a good show, I had no desire to fight them. So, because of that, I did not reply, as I ached to do, “Do you come here often?”
Mind you, by the disgusting diseased left eyeball of Makki-Grodno, had I done so, things might have turned out a little differently, by Zair!
Probably because of that feeling that I was reacting in a typically boorish way to a woman too conscious of her own powers of beauty and rank, and wishing to make amends, I said, “Majestrix. I am covered in the blood of those poor malkos, and I, perhaps, offend you. I must clean up as soon as possible.”
And she said, “Jikai — you are very dear to me as you are. Do not fret.”
Unable to make anything of this, or unwilling, I managed to mumble something and we walked on. In the next chamber we found a series of magnificently spread tables laid ready for us. And, in a small room in the corner, a bath.
I washed myself clean. I gave no thought to the oddness of finding a bath, where before we had traveled in our own muck, sweat and others’ blood...
She had prepared a chair next to hers, on her left hand, a chair smothered in chavonth pelts and ling furs, a chair almost like a throne. It was not, I saw as I sat down, quite so bountifully supplied with the symbols of rank as the chair in which she sat. The food smelled wonderful, looked marvelous and tasted delicious. It was, without question, superior to any food I’d come across before in the Coup Blag.
She spoke with her mouth full of basted chicken leg.
“You called those diabolical warrior malkos ‘poor malkos’ after they tried to slay you. They are very fierce. Do you feel guilt over their deaths?”
“Yes.”
“But why?” She sipped wine, a red superior vintage, and swallowed. “They are fit for carrion.”
“They are guards, paid to do a job.”
“And are you paid to do a job?”
“I have been, in my time.”
She leaned back against the pelts, and poked into her mouth with a bejeweled little finger. She spat a scrap of meat. Then she remembered.
She sat up.
“And you call me majestrix! Do not forget.”
I said, “I will not forget, majestrix, if you do not.”
For an instant I thought I’d gone too far. Then she smiled. That smile was a marvel, truly!
“I forgive you. I have never met a man like you before.”
By Krun! If platitudes had been invented on Kregen, which they were not, she would have been first in the line.
It occurred to me that she would be pleased if I told her I’d never met a woman like her before. As this was almost true, I compounded the lie and told her. Her smile dazzled.
“Yes. I know. I am something special...”
“Oh, yes,” I said, taking up a deep rosé with just a hint of purple around the edges of the goblet. “Very special. Something quite else again.”
And, as I thus foolishly ate and drank and tried to think of what to do next, I gave no heed to what was actually taking place around me. All I could see was a queen, and with her her retainers and guards, supping well. We had a walk to go before we escaped. But we would escape, I was certain. As I say, I overlooked the most elementary of questions. I offer in my exculpation only that the horror of this place must have worked on me, that I was worried over the fate of Seg and Milsi and the others, that I was tired — well, no, being tired is a sin, and I have no truck with it.
She said, “I had a map, a certain route through the Coup Blag. But it was lost.”
Still no alarum bells tingled in my stupid old vosk skull of a head. This Queen Mab quite clearly knew what she was about, was used to wielding power, and I felt a dim stirring of surprise that so powerful a party as hers had been taken up. At least, our group were still free... At least, at the least — I hoped and prayed they were.
“I think,” she said. “I think I shall enjoy walking with you.” Very gallantly, waving the goblet aloft, I said, “And I with you, majestrix.”
So, off we set again. There was a marked absence of traps in the corridors and rooms. I mentioned this. Two rooms later three of the guards were squashed against the roof as a stone block in the floor reared up on springs. Queen Mab just looked, tut-tutted, and we walked past on the other side.
She talked in a fine free way, animated, a flush across her cheeks. She displayed a queenly indifference to the horrors in this place. As we walked and talked, and what I said remains mostly a mystery to me — mainly a pack of lies about the romance and thrill of being a wandering adventurer and paktun — she would say, “Just so,” and, “I see,” and look suitably wise, bending her head graciously.
The slave girls in their silks and bangles looked bedraggled, and dragged their feet. Noticing this, I remarked that we were all tired, and that I hadn’t slept in a long time. At once she lifted her hands in the air, looking toward her servants. Then she half-turned, halting, to look at me. At the time we were passing through a dim chamber suffused with a wan greenish light, and stuffed with piled coffins, from which stray wisps of cloth and desiccated limbs protruded.
“Tired? Oh, of course they are.” She lowered her hands to her sides in a helpless gesture. “The poor things.”
“We’ll all march the better for a rest, majestrix.”
“Most certainly. But let us find a more pleasing chamber than this.”
The corridor, only a little dusty, turned and we walked up an incline. The next room, which was duly prodded by guards in what I could only take as a perfunctory manner, yielded nothing save a giant stone statue of some multi-limbed beast, standing on one leg at the center and trying to reach, with his tentacular trunk, a bunch of hanging fruit. The thing was grotesque. We hurried past.
The next room opened out into a blaze of light from crystal chandeliers.
I looked up, gaping. I expected the things to break free and fall on our heads, trying to slash us to ribbons.
A gigantic bed, big enough for a regiment, occupied the center of the room, masked by hanging damasks. Sweet scents cloyed on the air. Tables were laid with fruits and evening meal delicacies, and wine stood in amphorae.
The queen clapped her hands.
“Rest, everyone. Take your ease.”
Everyone immediately flopped down on the cushions and rugs strewn about the floor. I looked about.
“Guards?” I said. “Majestrix.”
“Guards? Oh, of course. Anglar — set guards.”
He bowed deeply, his black and green robes flapping. He flourished his ivory wand at a hulking great Chulik, whose tusks were set with diamonds. The Chulik looked savage.
“Nath the Kaktu! Set guards as commanded. Bratch!”
Nath the Kaktu bratched, bellowing fiercely at his men. They went off and lolled at the entrances to the chamber. I decided that I’d sleep lightly and keep my fist wrapped around my sword hilt.