This Bartak the Brokelsh came from a rural community in Hyrzibar’s Finger, that long promontory dividing the sea from the Gulf of Wracks in southeast Havilfar. He had gone wandering, as so many young men did, and after various adventures, including a spell as a flutsman, had been captured by the aragorn. The mercenaries had sold him to the Kov of Faol for sport in the Great Jikai of the manhounds. I shook my head. Bartak would be a useful man in a fight, as he had proved; I could not accept his advice on more cerebral matters, such as the decision that needed to be taken now.
“I have never been to Hyrzibar’s Finger, Bartak. Are they all like you, there?”
“Aye. And what of it?”
That Drig-driven breeze must have wafted from the Faolese jungle then, for I laughed. Hyrzibar, as a shishi exclusively serving the minor godlings of mythology, had a long and vivid series of poems and stories clustered about her name. Her Finger was notorious, and I gathered that not only geography had fastened the name upon the southeastern promontory of Havilfar above Quennohch.
“It is no matter. Bartak, I think you would be well pleased to take all these wonderful possessions for your own, and fly this airboat back to Hyrzibar’s Finger with them.”
“I admit it is a fair prospect.” He stroked a thick thumb down his bristles, regarding me. “Would you then, take nothing for yourself?”
“Weapons and a zorca only, I fancy.”
“You never cease to amaze me.”
Melow the jikla let out a hissing screech at this, from which I gathered she sniffed that subtle breeze too.
“And, Melow the Supple,” I said. “What am I to do with you?”
“Nothing, Dray Prescot. For I have said I will go with you.”
“Into Smerdislad? Then how can I accomplish my errand?”
The sudden viciousness of manhounds and their ferocious tempers are things spoken of with awe on the parts of Kregen where the jiklos are known. I stood calmly, looking at Melow, prepared for that feral outburst of fury to launch straight at me. I could feel the warmth of the late afternoon suns upon my neck, and the smell of the jungle reached me as I waited for Melow the Supple to make up her mind.
Melow had no tail to twitch. But her gaudy new clothes rustled about her, and the dudinter chains clanked as she moved with stiff arms and legs, clanked in mockery of the iron chains she had always worn before.
“Very well, Dray Prescot. When your errand is done I will be waiting for you outside the dark walls of Smerdislad.”
“You would be known in Smerdislad, Melow. You would be taken and punished. Is that not true?” I said.
“This is so, Dray Prescot.”
“Then if you wait for me, I will come back for you.” I wanted to burst out into roaring laughter as I spoke, and yet I felt only a deadliness upon me, there in that devil-haunted jungle. “Although, what I am to do with you after, Opaz alone knows. And,” I added with an acerbity fully justified, “he isn’t telling me.”
The Brokelsh was eating again and I joined him despite his distressing habit of hurling half-eaten chicken legs, bones from chops, stones from fruit — everything with which he had finished — over his shoulders in what appeared a never-ending fusillade. I ducked a sizable vosk bone from which Bartak had sucked the marrow and picked up a nice-looking piece of cold glacéd vosk, and sank my teeth into it and set to with a will. Bartak had routed out bowls filled with masses of the most delicious fruit. I do not think it necessary to have to tell you of what metal Quarnach had had his bowls fashioned. Melow dragged down a whole cooked half-ponsho and settled down to devour the succulent meat. Well, we feasted after our various fashions.
Presently I freed two of the slave girls. I half drew my thraxter and slammed it back into the scabbard so that the poor creatures jumped. “Feed the people and the animals.” I glowered on them. “If you try to run away the jiklo is still hungry. She will chomp on your bones.” They shrieked and shuddered at this, and hurried about their tasks, very nervous and with constant apprehensive glances toward Melow, who sat breaking up juicy bones and sucking out the marrow.
Why, then, did all this make my mouth twitch and threaten to send me into convulsions of laughter? I am still not sure, but I fancy there must have been some potent mirth-producing perfume wafting from the jungle.
Even this bubbling if concealed hilarity could not blind me to the evil intentions harbored by Vad Quarnach for the hunt the next day. He would cheerfully shoot his arbalest at Saffi, the golden lion-maid, and at other beautiful girls, all in the name of sport. I would talk to Bartak, and caution him; I could do no more.
My preparations were made most carefully and in different fashion from those I had intended. The first thing was to turn Quarnach Algarond, Vad of the Dudinter District of Ba-Marish, out of his palanquin. His fat body quivered like one of these modern plastic sacks filled with oil. He spent no time in pleading, but I did see that he was settled into a lesser chair with carrying poles handy. Then I inspected the palanquin.
As I have said, it was a gorgeous affair, and the dudinter, being noncorrosive, and of a greater hardness than gold by reason of the silver mixed with it, gave the whole affair a weight and a dignity most becoming to the stature of a Vad, which is a rank very high in the listing of nobles, being merely one step below a Kov. The cushions were soft, the embroidery excellent, the backrest solid, so that an arrow or knife would not bite through. With that as a starting point I felt confident of success.
Throwing off the parti-colored clothes taken from the courtiers I ransacked Quarnach’s private lenken chest. He had an amazing quantity of fine clothes, and I dressed myself so that I almost resembled a whistling faerling, or myself as I had been dressed by Queen Thyllis, although with much greater taste and style. From all the weapons available I selected the two best thraxters. Two of the sportsmen’s crossbows with their close-grained herm-wood stocks went into the capacious flapped pockets outside the palanquin. Inside there were shelves, and these I stocked with a considerable plunder of jewels and money. Bartak looked on, not exactly glowing, but with an expression that said: “Have a care, my impetuous friend, for you take what is mine.”
I retained the stuxcal, for it might prove useful. In addition I fastened one of the guard’s shields upon the roof. The guards were nearly as effeminate as their masters, and they had given us no trouble. Quite the contrary, for they had seemed glad to surrender. Their uniforms were foppish, with too much flashy show and not enough hard soldierly leather. The men were Tryfants, diffs not much larger than Ochs, and if well led the Tryfants may carry out a wild enough charge, full of panache; I will not speak of them in retreat. There are many strange and different diffs upon Kregen of which I have not spoken yet, as there are many races of apims. I have no great feelings one way or the other for Tryfants.
A sack of provisions completed all I required of the Vad’s possessions apart from the two preysanys and the zorca. The preysany, that superior form of calsany, is a much more even-tempered animal than the calsany, and harnessing up two fore and two aft in the carrying poles presented no difficulties. I led the zorca to the rear and knotted a long leading string to the palanquin. Then I turned to my companions, Bartak and Melow.
“You will reach the city after the suns have gone, Dray Prescot,” said Melow in her hoarse voice. “I will await you by the tomb of Imbis Frolhan the Ship Merchant three ulms from the gate. You cannot miss the tomb, for it bears a ship upon the marble, a marble argenter, and that is rare among the nations of Havilfar.”
“True, Melow. So be it.”
The jikla was right, for most of the Havilfarese are not seafaring people. Vessels from other nations come to trade with them. Much of their own merchandise flies. I fancied I would have little trouble picking out a marble-carved argenter among the lines of tombs along the road to Smerdislad.
A great deal of money was spent, season by season, by honor-conscious families to keep back the encroaching jungle from the tombs.
Having satisfied myself that my projected mode of conveyance was satisfactory, I untied the zorca and mounted up. Bartak laid a squat black-bristled hand upon the bridle. “I bid you Remberee, Dray Prescot.” He stared up at me. “I have told you I come from Hyrzibar’s Finger, near to a town called Brodensmot. You have not told me where you come from.”
I sighed. Where to tell him. Strombor? Valka? Vallia? Djanduin? Would Paline Valley suffice? Could I say I came from Hemlad, as Bagor, that instantly invented fellow who had rescued Queen Thyllis, had claimed? Where?
I could always point upward into the air and say I came from Earth. With that Drig-driven perfumed air about my head that word might be worth a giggle. Then I checked myself. I looked down on Bartak the Hyrshiv, the Brokelsh, and although I did not smile I think my face did not make him flinch back.
“I am Dray Prescot, of Strombor,” I said.
“Strombor. I do not know it, dom.” He took a breath. “But, wherever upon Kregen it may lie, it breeds men!”
With that, and a last Remberee to Melow the Supple, I nudged the zorca and began my solitary march to Smerdislad and the cripples’ Jikai, to find Saffi, the golden lion-maid.
My first encounter with the Wizard Phu-si-Yantong
“As to Garnath, he will be here in good time, Quarnach. You need not fret so. He will fail to bring the lion-maid at his peril, for he has promised Phu-si-Yantong much.”
“I admit I am anxious to see the Numim wench myself, Kov Numrais.” I slouched in the upholstered chair provided for the members of the hunt, and I simpered. “I hear the Numims provide capital sport.”
“You are right, Quarnach.” This Kov Numrais pulled his black beard with a ringed hand. Thin and crafty and with a spine shattered in a fall so that his lower limbs were useless, he sat stiffly, his black eyes aglitter with the promise of rediscovering some of his vanished manhood in the Jikai. There were to be six cripples in the hunt. “Oh, yes, Quarnach,” said Kov Numrais, who owned a Kovnate called Neagron north of the Shrouded Sea. “There are too few spirited wenches to run, by Yskaroth! And the Numims are not a plentiful race of diffs, more’s the pity. We shall see a Great Jikai this day!”
I did not rise and hit him. For one thing, I was now acting the part of Vad Quarnach, and was therefore chained to my chair. They had accepted my story without a question. I had begun with the truth, saying that the girl for the hunt had cast herself over the side of my airboat. We had landed to claim her. I embroidered here on what I thought these creatures would like to hear of the inflicted punishment. Then, I had said, we attracted the attention of reiving flutsmen and were set upon. Only the speed of my preysanys in running me into the trees saved me. All the rest of my suite and my airboat had been captured. Not a one of them commented on my thus fleeing and saving my own skin, while my people stayed and died or were taken up for slavery. That was what they would have done. They understood that.
As for the missing girl, the Trylon of Thurkin had brought three, not being able to choose the fairest or more spirited, and so that was all right. All right! Had I not had my plan all neatly worked out in my head I do not think I could have sat still under this evil effrontery.
That made three of us in the hunt. The fourth was Vad Garnath and I guessed he would be faking as was I, pretending to be a cripple and thus confined to his chair. The fifth was the famous Wizard of Loh, Phu-si-Yantong. The sixth was a woman, a Chulik woman from the Chulik islands off the east coast of Balintol. She called herself Chimula the Sumptuous, and although we took her to be a Kovneva, for she was carried in much state and with evident display of great riches, we did not believe she had given us her real name. It was of no consequence then, although after— Well, that is for a later place in these tapes.
Sitting confined in a chair all day is a miserable way of life although most of those forced to do so manage to contrive the best out of it with great courage. I admit I fretted. To pass the time until the expected arrival of Garnath we played Jikaida. We played a large variant, with a hundred squares to a drin and with twelve drins to the board. There had been nothing else I could do but hire slaves with the money I had brought, for a man in a chair demands attentions. The slaves moved the bright pieces upon the board as we played. Kov Numrais na Neagron proved a cunning and devious player. In Jikaida the object is, as in most games of a like nature, to capture the opposing king, or check him. I marched my lines of swods up in fine style, using the vaulting technique to push on boldly, bringing up a powerful second division of zorcas and totrixes, for this was a cavalry game. There were also flyers, and these I flung in, in fine style. Numrais sucked me in, and then struck, surrounding a major force and making me commit my powerful pieces to my disadvantage. I fought hard, but my mind was not on the game.
[7]
Afterwards, we drank superb chilled spiced wine, and ate light pastries. The odd reflection crossed my mind that very soon I could as easily be thrusting a thraxter blade into this fellow and his companions as eating and drinking with them.
I had left the brown bristling growth on my chin, and had further enhanced its shadow with a brown berry stain. Quarnach had his own selection of masks and dominoes, like any noble, for many of them choose to mingle in places where they do not wish their faces to be seen. Almost all were fashioned from dudinter. I wore one with diamond-rimmed eye-sockets; a scarron chain of those marvelous scarlet jewels outlined the whole domino. No one was curious, but I let slip that my accident had marked my face.
We sat in a chamber high in the city of Smerdislad with extensive views across the jungles. The greenery out there with the mingled rays of the Suns of Scorpio lighting up the whole scene and picking out the blazing colors of flowers blooming lavishly in the upper terraces could not fail to move me. To be chained to a chair, unable to stride out, expanding the chest, filling it with Zair’s good air! Well, a surrogate had been found by these people. What Nalgre the slave-master had said was correct. Smerdislad
was
the Kov’s fortress. From those lofting dark walls that kept the jungle at bay, the place rose through tiered levels, circular, arcaded, terraced, rising until at the very pinnacle a scintillating tower of white rock crowned the edifice. This was done, I surmised, in imitation of the natural wonder of the White Rock of Gilmoy. In the chambers and warrens below crowded the slaves. The Horters had their lodgings higher up. The nobles lived at the topmost levels, and the visiting hunters who could pay the enormous fees demanded for these special services of Encar Capela, the Kov of Faol. Most hunts took place from the caves, as I well knew.