A voice burst out from a crowd around an exceptionally large man flogging calsanys.
"By Grodno! It is him! I know! Pur Dray, the Lord of Strombor!"
I hauled the scarf up and took a running dive into the middle of a pack of calsanys.
It was damned unpleasant.
But in the hullabaloo, the shouting and yelling, the braying and honking, the dust flying up, and the general effluvium upon everything, I managed to get out the other side, knock over a stall covered with calsany brasses and bells, and disappear running up an alley. People turned to gawp. I yelled "Stop, thief!" and pointed and one or two turned out to run with me. Earth or Kregen — it is a useful ploy.
I may make this sound lighthearted, with calsanys doing what calsanys always do when frightened and pots and pans rolling and people yelling and running, but it was a deucedly serious business. By the Black Chunkrah, yes!
I did think that after fifty years people might forget what my ugly old face was like. But fifty years to a Kregan is not like fifty years to an Earthman. And some of those people had cause to remember Pur Dray, the most renowned Krozair upon the Eye of the World. It was not so surprising, after all. But it was most inconvenient. I think, also, that so many rumors of the return from the dead of Pur Dray had swept over Magdag that people’s nerves were keyed up. Certainly, the very next day, the day before the plot was to go into operation, some poor devil was shouted up as Pur Dray and set on and stabbed to death in the Souk of Silks. When he was dragged out by the heels, his green tunic a mass of bloody stab wounds, inquiries revealed no one anxious to own to the first shout of alarm. A lesson had been learned there by all Magdag.
So the day dawned.
Gafard said to me, standing in his armory with the wink and glitter of his priceless collections of arms upon the bare walls, speaking harshly: "Is all prepared?"
"Aye, gernu. The poison has been poured down a drain. The guards know their parts. Grogor—"
"I will answer for his conduct this day. I do not wish to miss this charade. Perhaps, one day soon, the king will relish the telling at a party. He must one day realize the position and relinquish this pursuit of my Lady."
He didn’t sound convinced.
"As for the greater news," he said, and he fired up at once, as he always did when he spoke of the notorious Krozair, "I believe Pur Dray to be in the city! It must be. He is a man who will be up and doing, always scheming, working for Zair."
How mean and small he made me feel!
"I must meet him. Somehow it must be arranged. There is a matter between us."
Nowadays I would have been reminded of the famous if fatuous walk up the High Street at noon. As it was, he reminded me of a bull chunkrah pawing the ground and tossing his horns, ready to face the challenge of who was to be top chunkrah of the herd.
I said, and not altogether to goad him, "You as a Ghittawrer, gernu, have the lustre now. All the accolades won by Pur Dray lie in the past, sere and shriveled. There have been no great Jikais done by him since he returned from the dead."
He stared at me.
"You speak of things you do not understand, Gadak. You do not understand. Pur Dray was the greatest Krozair of the Eye of the World. No one doubts that or seeks to challenge it. And, today, I am the greatest Ghittawrer of the Eye of the World. Any who seek to dispute that will feel my heavy hand."
"Yet is one of the past and the other of today."
He clapped me on the back, at which I forced my hands to remain clamped at my sides.
"You mean well, Gadak. You mean well. Yet there are matters of honor that are past your comprehension."
If he meant he wanted a good ding-dong with Pur Dray to prove who was the better man, I understood that. But I was beginning to think it was not as simple as that. There was more to it than a straightforward confrontation. Gafard was fighting a legend. That is always more difficult than fighting a flesh-and-blood opponent.
So, in my cleverness, I worked it all out.
Stupid onker, Gadak the Renegade!
If only. . .
But, then, we’d all be rich and happy on
if onlies.
Looking back as I do speaking to you into the microphone of this little machine here in the Antipodes, I try to visualize it all with calmness. I try to maintain a balance. I blamed myself bitterly for many and many a year afterward. I took the guilt. I did not luxuriate in guilt, as some weak people do. And yet, today, I know I was not to blame, not really, not when the situation was as it was.
Gafard had no doubts.
"The king is a wonderful man, Gadak. He is built in a different mold from Pur Dray and myself. He has the true genius for war, the yrium, the power over us all. Yet he has this weakness, this fault — which is not a fault, for has he not the yrium, and does not that excuse all?"
If ever there was a man trying to make excuses to himself for some other cramph, there he was now, talking to me.
"Gernu," I said. I spoke with seriousness, for the answer to my question intrigued me. This man revealed more of himself to me than he realized. And, I did not forget that he was loved by the Lady of the Stars. "Gernu. What do you think would happen were the king and Pur Dray to meet, face to face?"
He did not let me finish. A little shiver marked his shoulders and he put a hand to his face. Then he rallied. "It would be in the manner of their meeting. Were it blade to blade, or sectrix to sectrix, or in council chamber, or wherever it might be, I—" He pulled down his moustaches, for, like the Zairian moustaches they were, they insisted on growing upward and jutting out arrogantly, like mine. "I would give everything I own both to be there and yet never to have to witness that confrontation."
Around about then he remembered he was a rog and the King’s Striker and a great overlord of Magdag, and I was a mere renegade looking to him for everything. He bade me clear off and make sure my Genodder was sharp for the night, just in case.
My orders were simple, for I was to open the doors and then make myself scarce. Gafard knew as well as I that the king’s kidnappers might seek to slay me to silence me. My own plans called for a somewhat more ambitious program. That plan, however, would go into operation only if the king himself came with his men. There was little chance of that, but this Genod was a man of mettle, even if he was an evil rast, and the adventure would appeal to him.
Stealth and secrecy and wild midnight journeyings by the light of the seven moons of Kregen — yes, they have all been my lot on that wonderful world. I had spied in Hamal. I had made friends of Rees and Chido. Now they had left in an argenter, going back to Queen Thyllis with a story of the inefficiency of King Genod’s guards, no doubt, and I regretted I had not plucked up the strength of will to confront them and so joy in a reunion I felt they would relish as much as I. This night might see me once again in action, taking a king and his favorite back to Zy.
The emerald and ruby fires of Antares slipped below the horizon past the jumbled roofs of Magdag, casting enormous, elongated shadows from the megaliths across the plain. The guard details changed as usual. The life of the Jade Palace went on normally. The thought of Rees and Chido calmly setting sail and leaving the Eye of the World, sailing back around the world to Hamal, filled me with the kind of baffled fury the prey of the Bichakker must feel when he unavailingly tries to climb the sloping sandy sides of the cone, and slips down into the hideous jaws waiting for him below. I was not sure who had created the sandy slopes that kept me imprisoned in the inner sea. But imprisoned I was. Any argenter in which I sailed would never pass through the Grand Canal, never reach the Dam of Days.
Gafard remained aloft with his beloved when the king’s men came. The doors were open. I watched them through a chink in the inner door and saw them carry their logs and wedges to hold within any guards I had not poisoned thoroughly. This time there were no less than ten of them. Five remained to guard the escape; five went aloft. They returned very quickly bearing the shishi wrapped in a black cloak. She had ceased struggling. I saw with relief that no one carried a bloodied sword; all the blades remained in their scabbards. Silently, the black-cloaked men fled into the moon-shot darkness.
After a time Grogor came down and opened the door for us, kicking the logs and wedges away.
"It is done," he said. The evil smile on his face made me think of him in a much warmer light.
So we went back to our regular guard duties, for there were many other perils in Magdag besides the lusts of the genius king Genod.
The next day I went along to the rendezvous to pick up the balance of my pay, the other forty golden oars. No one turned up. I waited some time and then, with a fold of green cloth over my face, went back to the Jade Palace.
Nodgen the Faithful had proved himself damned faithless, the cramph.
At the Zhantil’s Lair
Of course, it had been obvious from the first that King Genod would not do his own dirty work. He would never descend to padding about one of his nobles’ palaces snuffing out a girl for himself. He was the king. He had the yrium. He would never come to me. So I had to go to him.
That was settled.
I am sure I have not adequately conveyed my feelings of desperation and frustration during this time when I was Gadak the Renegade. My heart felt sore and bruised. My mind shrieked for me to be free of this evil place and to leave the Eye of the World and return to Valka and race up the long flight of steps from the Kyro of the Tridents and so burst shouting joyously into my fortress palace of Esser Rarioch and once more clasp my Delia in my arms, my Delia of the Blue Mountains, my Delia of Delphond.
Before that devoutly longed-for resurrection could take place I must once more be accepted as a member of the Krozairs of Zy.
A High Jikai seemed to me to be the only way.
Truth to tell, as the days passed in Magdag and suns arched across the heavens and the duties came and went, I felt I cared little for the Krzy. I wished merely to use them to escape.
If this is brutal, callous, mean, and vengeful, then this is also me, to my shame.
Sometimes I would see my Lady of the Stars riding in the grassy park expanse, for the Jade Palace is large and sprawling among the buildings and palaces of Magdag, and she would graciously incline her head as I stood respectfully looking at her. She invariably wore the green veil.
Then I would feel the tiny gold and enamel valkavol on its golden chain about my neck. I detest chains and strings and beads. They give a foeman a chance to grip and twist and so drag your head down ready to receive the final chop.
I wore the little valkavol, except when on duty, for then danger and instant action might occur at any moment.
Occasionally Gafard would foin with me in the exercise yard. He was very good. He was a skilled man with the shortsword, and his Genodder work made me use all my skill to let me lose to him gracefully.
Although it seemed to me in my frustration and misery the time sped by superhumanly fast, as time is measured on Kregen very little elapsed before the announcement of the excursion was made and busy preparations immediately got under way.
We were to form a happy holiday party and visit Guamelga, Gafard’s enormous estates up the River Dag forming his rognate.
I said to Gafard that if he could spare me I would wish not to travel with the party. It was not that I was reluctant for a holiday. Truth was I wanted to stay in Magdag and work on my plans to take this evil king Genod and pitch him facedown in the muck and so, binding and gagging him, lug him off to a safe place. Then, I fancied, it would be comparatively simple to do the same to Gafard.
"What, Gadak the Renegade! Lose the chance of a holiday!"
"If it please you, gernu."
"It does not please me. My Lady of the Stars will go with us. She travels as she has before. But I need all my loyal men. Has Shagash got at your guts, and you are sluggish and bilious?"
So there was nothing for it. I decided I would have to take Gafard and then see about the king. It would be more difficult that way around.
One thing I felt sure of. This time there would be no Chido and Rees to halt me in my tracks.
Although at the time of our taking of the one-pastang flier I’d felt annoyed we’d missed the little two-place voller, now I saw the enormous benefit of that. The small flier remained in Magdag. Once I had the king I’d put the voller to good use. It would carry the three of us. I’d make it damn well carry the three of us. Its lifting and propulsive power, carried in the two silver boxes, would be ample. If necessary I’d hang the two devils in straps from the outside and let them freeze in the slipstream. . .
With that decided I put a bold face on the matter. I would have to act as a man delighting in the excursion, the picnics and the hunting parties. Everyone meant to enjoy every moment. We all surmised this was a last holiday before Gafard, the King’s Striker, was dispatched on new missions for his master the king.
Before we left Magdag I carried out the last of my reconnaissances of the king’s palaces. He possessed many residences in Magdag, the largest and most gorgeous of which, the Palace of Grodno the All-Wise, he used the least. This was reserved for official functions and contained the reception chamber where I had been received as a Grodnim. Two things must coincide for my plans to work right. The voller was seen over the city from time to time and people would look up and shout and no doubt think how mighty and powerful was their king. Sometimes a green-clad arm would wave. I had been unable to discover at which palace the damned thing was kept.
If it was moved about, then that made my arrangements just a little more difficult, for — by Krun! — they were difficult enough as it was. The voller and the king must be in the same place at the same time. Anything less would be not only suicidal, but downright stupid.
This genius king was very highly security conscious. I knew that after he had successfully won his battle against the overlords of Magdag and taken over here there had been plots against him. The overlords are a malignant lot. But he had weathered the troubled times and now kept his apparatus of guards and watches and sentinels and werstings in full order, for his genius, no doubt, told him this was a prudent course.