The next palace I reconnoitered, the Palace of Masks, looked promising. It was small, or at least small as any building of a palatial kind could ever be in Magdag of the megaliths. It hugged the crest of a hill to the east of the city just within the walls, built of yellow stone and yellow bricks. I say that it looked a charming spot, and I say that genuinely. There were more flowers and blossoming trees here than is usual in bare Magdag. I hung about looking at the guard posts and the sentry boxes, eyeing the roof with an evil glint, figuring angles and possible places for climbing and descent. If voller and king coincided here, I would strike.
Walking back to Gafard’s Jade Palace I found myself wondering how that little shishi was faring with the king. If she kept her head — and I meant that figuratively, although it had as much force literally — and maintained the fiction that she had been with Gafard for some time as his Lady of the Stars, she might become a person of extraordinary importance in Magdag. Even the princess Susheeng might have to look very carefully before she struck back.
As for Susheeng — if I never saw her again on Kregen it would be too soon.
That night all was bustle and laughing preparation within the Jade Palace. Opaz knows, the overlords of Magdag were a vile, villainous bunch; but even for them, and more particularly their women, a holiday ranked as a capital time to slough off all cares. We, the men of the loyal squadron, would ride our sectrixes fully armed, armored, and accoutered. I had had a small piece of good fortune one day in the Souk of Trophies, one of the open-air markets that should, by rights, have been called the Souk of Loot. Here the stalls were heaped with booty from Zairian prizes. I recalled when I had bought a piece of cut chemzite, a handsome trinket, to take to Vallia, and the princess Susheeng had thought it for her, and of my dark knowledge later that when she discovered it was not for her the scene had saved my life. Well, I found there not a piece of jewelry but a South Zairian hlamek, a wind-and-sand mask used by the people living on the skirts of the vast South Turismond deserts. It consisted of a metal skull, a finely crafted piece of hammered iron, well-padded with soft humespack, to which were appended four long and wide white humespack panels. From the upper side of the left-hand panel a broad square of silk was hinged in such a fashion that the left hand might take the top corner and hook it to the right side. It would cover all the face below the eyes, crossing the bridge of the nose. As a protection against wind and sand it was first rate, loose and soft enough to keep the wearer comfortable. All the brave scarlet stitching had been stripped away, but the basic fastenings remained intact.
As a facemask it offered opportunities I could not refuse.
So the hlamek went into the saddlebag along with my toilet necessities, the book I was reading
(How the Ghittawrer Gogol Gon Gorstar Conquered Ten Kingdoms of Zair to the Glory of Grodno),
my eating irons, and the golden drinking cup, one of the set presented to all those who had rescued her by the Lady of the Stars. We drank deep and long to her health in her golden drinking cups, for she had had the forethought to include a notable quantity of wine with her gift.
In a glittering procession we rode out of Magdag early on the following morning only murs after Zim and Genodras cleared the eastern battlements of the city. Each sectrix had been rubbed down, its mane curled and decorated with green ribbons, its hooves polished. The harness burned in the light. Green banners fluttered. Following the lord came his staff and retinue, his aides, his loyal squadron. The overlords who owed him allegiance rode with their wives and families. Following after came the long lines of wagons stuffed with good things, their krahniks in the shafts and hauling on the traces as scrubbed and shining as the sectrixes and hebras of the escort. After them came the calsanys, loaded down with enormous swaying baggage packs, linked head to tail by caravan ropes dyed green.
Yes, we made a goodly spectacle as we rode out of evil Magdag.
Although the slow-moving River Mag was perfectly suitable for river navigation, Gafard had chosen to ride. We could cut across the vast lazy curves of the river and cross by the ferry services provided on this, the direct route to the north. Once free of the delta we could swing to the northwest and so leave the river entirely and march through fertile country, past the chains of factory farms run in so meticulous a fashion by the overlords of the second class and journey on until we reached Guamelga in its loop of the river.
Hikdar Nath ti Hagon received special permission to leave us to ride to the east to his home town for a visit. He would rejoin us at Guamelga later.
Among our bright company there rode the Lady of the Stars, accoutered like a warrior. Gafard rarely left her side where they jogged on at the head of the column. Perforce, I was left to trundle along in the ranks and meditate on my plans.
A hunting party of a similar kind in Havilfar, if they did not fly by voller, would have flown astride any of the marvelous saddle birds or animals of that continent. With a mirvol under me, or a fluttclepper, I could have breasted into the breeze and the slipstream would have blown the cobwebs from my mind. I do not think, as I have said, I would choose a zhyan, for all that Zena Iztar had appeared to me astride one of those snow-white birds. Best of all is the flutduin in my opinion, the flyer of my warrior Djangs, and a magnificent flying creature I had introduced into Valka. It seemed to me, jogging along toward Guamelga and a holiday that would be a farce, that King Genod would very soon receive another consignment of vollers to replace the ones I had smashed up in the tide released from the Dam of Days. If the empress Thyllis meant to do a thing, she did it come hell or high water — and she’d had the high water, by Vox! So I would have to provide the hell. That, in my mood, seemed a singularly pleasant prospect.
Still and all, during my enforced imprisonment on Earth I had missed the high enjoyment of sweeping through the sky astride a giant flying mount. Even a fluttrell with its ridiculous head vane would have been like water in a desert to me then.
The city of Guamelga itself was small, gabled of roof, of no particular distinction, walled — for it was near enough the lands of the Ugas for raids to be counted on — and dominated by the harsh stone bulk of the castle, the Goytering. We did not stay in the castle or the city for long, Gafard being anxious to get away from all cares, and so we went deeper into the countryside away from the cultivated areas to one of the hunting lodges he kept up. The one he chose was the Zhantil’s Lair. A comfortable enough place set in woodlands with wide-open prospects of tall grasses beyond, it would not accommodate all his people and of those he kept with him I was one. I was pleased about this. I wanted the rogue under my eye.
Days of hunting followed. There was all manner of game, and there were leems and chavonths and, once, a pair of hunting lairgodonts. The hunting party was in sufficient strength to dispose of them. The trophies were brought back in triumph.
The Magdaggians do not go in greatly for singing. Oh, yes, they do sing, of course, and we had a few sessions around the fires of an evening. It is an odd fact that the Magdaggian swods when they sing on the march habitually bellow out only two or three songs, not caring for many others. Of these the most common is a song I find tiresome, going as it does with the beat of the studded marching sandals — "Ob! Dwa! So!" — One! Two! Three! — followed by a doggerel verse about Genodras or Goyt or Gyphimedes or Grodno.
Ob, dwa, so,
as intellectual subject matter for a song, seems to me somewhat below what is necessary. Still, it takes all kinds to make a world, particularly the world of Kregen. As was to be expected, this song was known as the "Obdwa Song."
When some idiot started up this song in the wood-paneled dining room, I stood up, swaying a little to color my appearance of fuddlement. "Ob, dwa so," they sang. "We’re a bloodthirsty lot, as Gashil is our witness. Ley, waso, shiv, we’ll slit throats and empty purses. Shebov, ord—"
I wandered out into the paneled hall and made my way to the kitchens in search of a drink of fresh water from the pump.
The room was brilliantly lit at the far end, down by the ovens and the preparation tables, but where I had come in to get at the hand-cranked pump, shadows fell. I heard a noise and instantly, for the noise was a slither, I put my hand on my shortsword and padded forward silently. I heard a low voice, a very low voice, singing a song I knew.
It is impossible to translate the song as a poem from the Kregish to the English, as I have already mentioned. But the meaning of the words was something like: "If your swifter’s got a kink, my lads, your swifter’s got a kink. You’ll go around in circles, boys, in circles around you’ll go. Your ram will pierce your stern, old son, your ram will pierce your stern. You’ll vanish like a sea-ghost, dom, a sea-ghost you’ll become—"
At this point the soft singing stopped and I heard the evil scrape of steel on steel as a blade cleared scabbard.
A harsh voice, kept low and penetrating, bit out: "Weng da!"
At the formal challenge of
Weng da
I said, "It is only Gadak the Renegade."
For I knew who this was and I knew the next words of the song, that famous old Zairian song, "The Swifter with the Kink," were highly uncomplimentary to the Green of Grodnim and most satisfyingly urbane about the Red of Zair.
I stepped forward into the light.
If Gafard wanted to make an issue of this, well, now was a time I would not have chosen; but it was a time I would make serve. I saw the silver glitter run up and down his blade.
"Gadak! You heard?"
"I heard ’Ob, dwa, so,’ gernu. That is all."
The reflections of the blade shimmered and then were engulfed in that scabbarding screech.
"Make it so." The slur in his voice was barely noticeable.
I made no formal bellow of loyalty.
I said, "But, all the same, it is hard."
He did not bite.
Instead he answered me in a way that showed he had thought about this thing and had reconciled himself.
"I am Gafard, Rog of Guamelga, the King’s Striker, the Sea-Zhantil. Few men carry the honor I command. You would do well to think of who your just masters are, Gadak the Renegade."
My hand rested limp and relaxed, ready to whip the Genodder out in a blur of steel.
"You told me, gernu, that no overlord would treat me as you have done. This I believe. I think had you been an ordinary overlord of Magdag one of us would be dead by now."
He stepped into the light and smiled. He was not quite perfectly composed. "If that were so, I think it would be you who lay stretched in his own blood on the kitchen floor."
"Yet you did not strike."
"My Lady has said — it is a thing I marvel at—" He put something of his old imperiousness into his words. "She has taken a fancy to you, Gadak. For that alone many an overlord would have you done away with."
"Yet this business with the king — it is a worry."
He lost his smile and scowled.
"I have said before, this is no matter for you to concern yourself with. I am the King’s Striker! The king has the yrium! That is all there needs to be said."
"That is all — until the next time."
"You step dangerously near the bounds of impudence, of insubordination. If one of us accused the other of singing ’The Swifter with the Kink,’ who do you think the overlords would believe? Riddle me that, Gadak!"
"You are secure in your power, gernu. Yet—" I stopped.
"Yes. Yet?"
"I will say no more. I serve you and my Lady. You know that to be sooth."
"I know it is sooth now. Let it remain sooth."
If I clouted him over the head now I’d have the devil of a job hauling him back to Magdag and then of taking the king and the voller. Better by far to grab the king first, with the voller, as I planned, and then bundle up this Gafard after. Yes, far better.
As I stood there with him in the kitchen I thought how dark and dangerous and powerful a man he was. I would then and there have joyed in hand-strokes with him, for he was a doughty fighter. But I let the opportunity pass.
"When, gernu, do we return to Magdag?"
"You are tired of this holiday? Aye, it palls." He stretched and yawned. "Give me the thrust of a swifter, to stand as prijiker in the bows, to bear down in the shock of the ram — aye! That is living."
"It is," I said. I believed the words as I spoke them.
"We will roam the Eye of the World, Gadak! We will create many a High Jikai! Soon all men will forget that Pur Dray existed — he will be a name, lost and forgotten with Pur Zydeng, the greatest Krozair of five centuries past. Dead with the great Ghittawrer Gamba the Rapacious, who went to the Ice Floes of Sicce these thousand seasons gone. Aye!"
"And yet, gernu, you speak always of the Lord of Strombor. I know you have no fear of him. But your interest interests me. I am fascinated not by Pur Dray but by your fascination."
He had forgotten to be imperious. His eyes held a long-lost look of a man sinking in a death-race of the sea.
"The Lord of Strombor was the greatest Krozair of his time. Greater than any Ghittawrer of Magdag. I would prove I am his match — and there is more. For this matter between us — and I speak to you like this only because my Lady smiles on you. I shall be sorry, tomorrow, and you may tremble lest I have your head off for it." He was, I could see, more than a little fuddled with wine. He was not drunk. I never saw him drunk or incapable. But he had had his tongue loosened.
Irritation at his petty problems flooded me. Perhaps I might have flamed out, in my stupid, prideful arrogance: "Sink me! You stupid onker! I am Pur Dray and what is this matter between us you prate so of?"
But I did not. I do not think, had I done so, it would have made any difference.
He probably would not have believed me, anyway, then.
He pulled himself erect and slapped his left hand down on his longsword hilt. "Enough of this kitchen talk! I came here to — to vent a little spleen. I want no more of them in there this night. Attend me to my room."