I said, “I seek the Jiktar Nath ti Coyton, Deldars.”
For both were waso-Deldars, and therefore important men in the lower hierarchy of Capela’s guards.
“We know no Jiktar Nath ti Coyton,” one of them said. “You had best wait quietly here and we will call the Hikdar.”
That would be standing orders.
I did not wish to slay them. Pachaks are good fighters, as you know, and men of integrity. Their straw-yellow hair, almost white, has flared over many a battlefield, for they have more than a touch of the berserker about them, and tend to strip off their helmets when in action. But, being good soldiers, they keep their armor on. (I sometimes think their berserker rages, which occur only when they are fighting, are a carefully controlled part of their image.) I eyed them with some caution. As you know, apart from the whiplike, ferociously effective tail with its glittering steel blade gripped in the hand at its tip, the other curious fact about a Pachak is his possession of two left arms. These two arms are not, I will allow, either as strong or as vicious as the two left arms of a Djang, but nonetheless they give a Pachak a most effective defense with a shield. Both these waso-Deldars carried shields.
More and more at this time I was coming to the conclusion that the ecological balances and racial distributions of Kregen had been planned aeons ago — and planned most probably by the Star Lords. Little else, I felt then, would account for the amazing variety and spread of cultures and races upon this always fresh and marvelous world.
“Wait, swod!” growled the one who had spoken. He flicked his right hand and — lo! — it held his thraxter. He gestured. “Pragan, go and ask the Hikdar of this swod. I will detain him here until you return.”
“At once, Apgarl.” The second Pachak easily lifted the log barring the lenken door and went out. These two had a chain of command, then, that was clear. That would be like the Pachaks.
That glittering blade, a foot long, glittered in the lamp’s gleam as it circled above the guard’s head. Within the deadly circle of that bladed tail it behooved any fighting-man to beware.
“Look, Deldar,” I said in a most reasonable tone of voice. “I have my duty to do. You are making an unnecessary fuss.”
“Stand still!”
“But—”
“Guards do not come here through the wenches’ quarters, nor do they stride with thraxters in their hands. Be still.”
I sighed. There was nothing else for it.
Saffi must be beyond that blue-and-green-curlicued door. Singing or not, she must be there. It would take time to get her out, and the other Pachak would be back with his Hikdar soon.
I did not kill the Pachak. As I say, and I believe you understand, I have a regard for that short stout race of halflings. I leaped, got in under his tail, elbowed his thraxter away, reached for his throat — and his two left arms jerked out like pistons and his shield smashed into my ribs and sent me sprawling back. I landed on my injured left shoulder. I felt the jab of scarlet pain, but there was no time to do anything else but roll frantically aside as his bladed tail came down thwacking onto the stones. He had struck with a flat blade so as to knock me out. I forced myself up and this time my thraxter met his in a jingle of steel. The tail whipped back ready for another blow. I nicked his sword down and prepared to sway aside from the next blow, and had barely time to gasp.
“Onker!” said the Pachak. His tail, instead of curling over his shoulder and around and down for a blow, abruptly disappeared. In the next second I saw a betraying glitter between his legs. The foot-long blade, horizontal and lethal, darted like a javelin straight for me, impelled by the stiffened, muscular tail.
If you have seen a flexible rammer used to thrust home a thirty-two pounder roundshot you will know how a flexible rope can become in a twinkling a hard bar. Even as I leaped I caught an expression on his face of pity, his blue eyes very bright. Then I was jumping up and the sword gripped in his tail hand hissed between my legs as it had hissed between his. I came down hard, got his tail between my knees, jerked upright. He looked his surprise. I straightened my legs, my knees snapped back perhaps four inches, enough to drag him forward, my thraxter bashed away his, and then, without stopping, I brought the hilt around and thunked it solidly against his chin. He gave a gasp; he did not fall down. I had to hit him three times before he sagged to his knees.
He rolled over onto his side, his tail now limp, that deadly steel scraping uselessly across the stones. I stepped back and saluted him with the sword.
Suddenly a low musical voice at my back said, “You give him the Jikai, then, Amak Hamun?”
I whirled.
Saffi stood in the doorway, her superb body bare, her glorious golden hair a dazzlement about her golden shoulders.
“We are leaving now, Saffi.”
“I am glad it is you who have come for me, Hamun. Is my father alive?”
“He lives.”
She let out a little sigh. She walked toward the fallen Pachak and took up his thraxter. I knew she would be skilled in its use. Also, she snapped off the cords of his green cape and flung it about herself. Then, together, we made for the open lenken door.
I thought about the Pachak’s green cape as I picked up the crossbow from where I had dropped it. Pachaks, like Katakis, do not like billowy, tangling clothing at their backs, and it is clear to see why, for a cape might easily interfere with that smooth sweeping looping of their bladed tails. So, having to wear the Kov’s regulation uniform cape, perhaps this Pachak, whose name I knew was Apgarl, had fought at a disadvantage. Perhaps his cape equaled my abandoned crossbow. I had not wished to slay him, as I might easily have done. Maybe I had been lucky.
Saffi, the daughter of Rees, the Trylon of the Golden Wind, must have observed the encounter; she had given a backhanded Jikai, so she must have observed the byplay with cape and crossbow.
We went swiftly along the curving corridor. If anyone asked, we were merely a guard taking a captive along according to orders; and if that did not satisfy the interlocutor, then six inches of sharp steel would.
The lion-girl walked with a free loping swing, and her face showed the burning passion of her nature. I said, “Look downcast, like a slave, Saffi. If you do not I shall spank you.”
“You might try!” she flared.
I glared at her. She lowered her eyes. She held the thraxter beneath the green cape, hidden, and I saw the way her right fist clenched. But she made her face assume a hangdog expression, and she hung her head in proper slave style.
We spent some time finding our way down the passageways. Now if I relate what next befell us in a straightforward and matter-of-fact way, it will sound the merest flight of fancy. Yet that is my way, as these tapes prove. Quite clearly and without doubt, at least to my mind, the Star Lords or the Savanti had taken a most direct hand in events. What their motives were, I did not know; of their results I can speak with absolute authority. For as we turned from a small corridor into a wide paved cavern, ablaze with light and filled with people moving on their errands, I saw a small half-closed doorway. I stopped. Ahead across the paved area a marching body of troops approached. They were Pachaks, all of them, and they meant business. I grabbed Saffi’s arm and bundled her through the narrow doorway.
“Hamun!”
“Be silent, Saffi. I might battle them all — aye, and slay them all, if Zair smiled — but that is not the way of wisdom.”
She pouted at me in the gloom. The place hung with dust we had disturbed, and if we sneezed we might betray ourselves. I moved farther down the narrow slot. Saffi inched along after. I felt a slight warm breeze on my cheek. There was practically no light now, and I could barely make out a bronze grille from which the warm perfumed air wafted.
I put my finger to my lips. “Not a sound.” My words just reached her golden ears.
Then — I must tell this just as it occurred. Then from the bronze grille and borne on the scented breeze came the sound of voices, talking in grim and purposeful fashion, three voices not so much arguing as discussing a knotty problem. I listened. In a moment we must back out of the slot and seek to escape.
But I listened.
The words bit through the dark air, hissing, sibilant, cold with a passionless dedication to an overweening ambition.
There, deep in the depths of the fortress-city of Smerdislad, away on the island of Faol, close to the continent of Havilfar, many and many a dwabur from home, I heard those chillingly shocking words. There in the darkness I heard and I could not believe I heard right.
For that thin and evil whisper said: “We must first win him to our views. For in all Vallia the man to be most feared is this same Dray Prescot.”
The Savanti and the Star Lords ordain fate
Saffi tugged my arm. I felt the wound in my shoulder. But I could not move. I think my mouth hung open in a foolish loose-lipped idiot’s grin. The voice of Phu-si-Yantong wafted through the bronze grille, there in the fortress of Smerdislad lost in the jungles of Faol.
“We must bring every artifice to bear on this Dray Prescot.”
The voice of Strom Rosil, the Kataki Chuktar: “Why not have him killed, and end it? A stikitche—”
“Like your man sent to slay the fool Quarnach, Rosil?” said the voice of Vad Garnath, sharp with goading malice.
Phu-si-Yantong quelled them. “He must not be slain. Through him we can rule all Vallia — aye, and the Vallian empire!”
Strom Rosil would not easily be quelled, although he spoke in a lowered, malevolent tone. “My man was no professional stikitche. The hunt is delayed. I care nothing for the hunt, and the onker Quarnach may crawl about the corridors bleeding to death for all I care. My Katakis and I need slaves! When we have Pandahem and then Vallia—”
Vad Garnath laughed. Saffi, who tried to listen, shivered.
“Much will depend on Queen Thyllis. For she believes her power to be absolute.”
“Remember,” came the ghost-whisper of Yantong. “Today her power in Hamal is absolute. We plan for the day after tomorrow.”
“And I grow impatient, by the Triple Tails of Targ the Untouchable!”
“Then I caution you to learn wisdom, Rosil, or you may suffer from a visit from your own Chezra-gon-Kranak for your sins.”
“By my tail!” The voice of the Chuktar Strom growled with malefic force through the bronzed grille. “I know well how to deal with those who cross my path.”
Still I was unable to move. Saffi tugged again; I barely felt her fingers on my arm, although pain struck from my shoulder. These three had been talking and I had stumbled into the middle of their talk, so that much of what they said meant nothing, overheard as it was out of context. But I felt I was on the verge of great discoveries. Yantong was talking about Strom Rosil’s twin, the Stromich Ranjal who was, I gathered, about some evil business for this unholy trio. I could not tear myself away. I listened, fascinated.
Saffi cautiously edged up close to me and I felt her golden hair tickling my neck. She put her lips close to my ear and whispered: “Amak Hamun! We must go before they search us out!”
I did not reply.
She was right. That paralysis dropped away. I began to move, and heard Phu-si-Yantong saying: “So the problem of Dray Prescot will find its own solution when the emperor is gone. Very well. I am concerned over this attempt by the king of Menahem to steal the secrets of voller manufacture.”
Vad Garnath laughed again. “The spy Dopitka ti Appanshad was taken and put to the question and sent to Queen Thyllis’ syatra. The spines pierced him through and—”
“Yes, Garnath, I can well imagine what happened to the spy from Menahem. But there may well be others. I am of Loh. I owe the cities of Havilfar — and Hamal and Hyrklana — much enmity from the old times and the ancient days. Without vollers the Empire of Loh was as a broken reed. Now the position has swung as the weathercock swings. Pandahem must not gain vollers, and none must be allowed to go to the Vallian rasts.” His whispering voice cut through the darkness. I found I was gripping the hilt of my thraxter with a grip that pained. “The vaol boxes and the paol boxes contain the seeds of a power greater than any you have imagined. They must never be broken.”
“What if they are?” Vad Garnath sounded impatient. “Even I do not know the nobles of Hamal charged with these secrets. They are not spoken of. Until the Nine Faceless Ones approach a noble and summon him to voller-duty he — or anyone — must remain ignorant of the secrets. All a meddler will find is dirt and air.”
Dirt and air!
Now I felt absolutely certain that the Savanti or the Star Lords had brought me to just this spot and just this time. I stopped moving back and strained to listen, and Saffi fretfully tugged again, anxious to be gone.
She dared not speak, and neither of us dared make a sound. So I listened as these three talked. They did not mention the word cayferm once, but I felt an uplifting sense that I had taken a measurable stride closer to the heart of the secret.
Now I could leave here. Now I could see a course of action ahead of me that would bring the secrets tumbling into my lap like shonages from a full-grown tree. Marvelous!
My first wriggling movement backward started Saffi agilely back down the slot. The last words I heard were from that Phu-si-Yantong upon whose face I had not yet gazed. He was giving Garnath orders about the volgendrins. Garnath was answering with the laughter entirely fled from his voice, and Rosil, too, sounded surly and vicious.
The Wizard of Loh, Phu-si-Yantong, said, “Extra Gerawin and other efficient guards must be used. It does not matter from which country they come, for my plans call for all of Havilfar to yield to me the One True Way. Use Gerawin, Pachaks, anyone who can fight well and is loyal to his hire to defend the volgendrins.”
Going back down the slot of darkness I mulled that over. We had to escape from this hellhole, but, equally, I had to know what secret information it was I had gained. I knew Gerawin only too well. They were squat, bandy-legged diffs with damned sharp tridents who so efficiently flew astride their tyryvols and guarded the Heavenly Mines where I had slaved in such horror. As for volgendrins, well, I had heard men speak of them and had passed it by, being busy about other pursuits. But the word conjured up certain possibilities . . .