Of Questions and Reminders
“No. Never heard of him.”
“A little fellow. Very cheery. The best armorer you could hope to find.”
“Sorry, dom.”
I turned away. This was the fifth dead end. Around me the familiar — hatefully familiar — sounds of the practice rings rose into the evening sky. The bulk of the amphitheater cast deep and imposing shadows. The smaller courts blocked off the last rays of Zim and Genodras, which in Havilfar are known as Far and Havil. The clink of steel on steel, the swift stamp and scrape of foot, the hoarse intake of breath, all these blood-quickening sounds served on this evening only to depress me. The Jikhorkdun was vast. It was a labyrinth.
This maze might not be quite as dangerous as that labyrinth within the Moder, down which we had ventured, braving monsters and sorceries; it held its own evil brand of danger. There had, it seemed to me, been nothing else for it but to ask for Naghan the Gnat by name. Yes, there was inherent peril in this. He might be using another name. Strangers who asked around for one particular person would be looked at most carefully. But — how else was I to find Naghan?
Deb-Lu-Quienyin had assured me my friends, although of the Jikhorkdun, were not involved in the arena. Tilly, that beautiful golden-haired Fristle fifi, might be anywhere in the immense barrack blocks. Oby, who was no longer a young tearaway and who might now prefer his name in full — Obfaril — had given up all desires to be a kaidur. In Valka he had become obsessed with fliers. He was an expert in vollers. Now, I trusted he had not been given the chance to fulfill his youthful ambitions.
As for Balass the Hawk, that doughty fighting man would have been sent back to his native land of Xuntal. I did not expect to find Balass here.
The promenades were crowded with folk come to see the kaidurs at close quarters. Even a day of surfeit in the arena could not satisfy many of the aficionados. Time would never dull for me the impression, the emotion, the passions of the arena. I’d been through the mill. I thought I knew.
Partisan devotees would come to admire and to shower gifts on the kaidurs who had been victorious. Wagers were arranged, and the bets were enormous. The trainers would display their new men; the backers would look and whisper behind their hands, pomanders well in evidence. It was a flesh market, of course, but at the same time the young sprigs of the gentry and nobility would take up a sword and set to with a renowned kaidur. The steel rang and scraped. I knew no kaidur was going to use all his skill to show up some popinjay. All the same, nasty knocks could be taken — aye, and given! — in these pretty little private matches.
The Jikhorkdun has its four color corners, plus the area reserved for the queen’s kaidurs, and I went first and naturally to the reds. And, again naturally, I sought the armorers and made my inquiries. After the fifth dead end I changed my tune about Naghan being the best armorer you could find. It was true. I have mentioned other armorers who had worked for me and who were comrades, and there were many — particularly in Valka — who were superb. Naghan the Gnat took his place among the finest. But my questions would be met with scowls and black brows.
So that little man with the great heart became just Naghan the Gnat, an armorer.
And still I found no trace at all, not even a memory. Well, that is passing foolish on my part, for by the nature of its trade, being a kaidur means you do not make friends. They tend to die off quickly, and you take your turn in that dismal procession.
About to chuck the reds and try my luck with the blues, for unless you volunteer to walk into the arena you do not often have the chance of choosing what color you fight under, I saw Cleitar Adria talking to a pot-bellied man loaded with gold chains. I thought it was Cleitar Adria. I stopped, looking without appearing to stare.
By Kaidun! It was Cleitar.
We’d been captured as slaves together, and given the opportunity to fight in the arena, and taken it. Cleitar had prospered as a kaidur as though wedded to it. It had become his life — and I own I was glad to see he was still alive. He had the marks of the Jikhorkdun upon him.
The dead tissues of the scar bisecting the left half of his face glistened like white ceramic from Loh. That scar started at his hairline and finished at his chin. His left eye socket was simply dead scar tissue.
I fancied no one called him Ob-Eye Adria.
He had not been a particularly close comrade. I had rubbed along with him out of pure self-interest, to avoid a fracas, and cheered his victories because he fought for the ruby drang.
It seemed to me he would not recognize me. But, just in case, I moved to one side and began to compose my features as Deb-Lu had instructed me and started to put on a new face.
Something soft and padded, and containing something hard and edged, thumped me in the middle of the back. I did not fall. Balance is important to a fighting man, even when he is in the middle of half bending over to change his face. I straightened as a bull roar broke out, a bellowing, hectoring, vicious torrent of words.
Some pot-bellied, swag-jowled, bloodshot-eyed, gold-bedecked oaf had bumped into me. The objects I had felt had been his guts and his sword. I will not repeat what he said.
The tide of invective poured on. I did not know who he was. The uproar attracted attention. He clearly felt himself to be an important man.
Even as I plucked my fist out of the air and slapped it down, opening my hand out to clamp around my thigh, I turned away. Hitting him would not help my three friends. And, somewhere in the limbo of the unborn, that new face of mine howled for a body.
By Zair! But I know my own face must have looked a sight — that devil’s look that stops a risslaca in its tracks.
I dodged down a side alley. Toward the end a cage held half a dozen werstings, and the black-and-white killer dogs prowled around and around, tongues lolling. Poor old Unmok the Nets had been in a quandary about his werstings. He put great store by them, and pampered them, and did not want to sell them and, because the rest of his merchandise was of top quality, had received offers. The quandary lay in this — his werstings were now soft. Pampered, overfed, overweight, perfumed and silk-ribboned, they would not last a heartbeat against real killers.
Mind you, I hold no brief for werstings. They have taken the seat out of more than one pair of breeches before I could jump clear. They and stavrers, both...
* * * *
The noise rose into the sky. The suns were gone and the gas lights jetted. Under the arcades all manner of unholy trades were going on, fruits of the excitement of the arena. The crowds jostled, taking the opportunity for a last look at famous kaidurs before the evening’s entertainments took on their more familiar aspects — taverns, theaters, dopa dens, girls all beckoned the raffish sets of Huringa.
In the shadows under the wooden swell of tiered seating of a small private arena I halted. Footsteps padded after me. Three drunks passed in the opposite direction, and I used their stumbling bodies as a shield to turn to confront whoever it was who stalked me. A man stepped forward.
“Lahal, Drak the Sword!”
“Lahal,” I answered firmly. “You would do yourself a good service, Cleitar, if you omit the Sword from my name.”
His one eye disappeared as he winked — or blinked — who can say in a one-eyed man?
“I understand. I thought you dead. You left — I recall it as though it were yesterday.”
“And, when that fat oaf bumped into me, you saw...?”
“Aye, Drak. One does not easily forget that look—”
“So I am told.”
“By the brass sword and glass eye of Beng Thrax! I am glad to see you. These young coys are all flatfish these days.”
I digested that. So much came out there. Cleitar must know we had not been blade comrades. But we had been comrades fighting for the ruby drang. I nodded. “Can you...?”
“Oh, I am a cheldur now and may come and go as I please.”
As I try to explain it, a cheldur is not quite like a Roman lanista. He is a trainer, above all, responsible for his barracks and for the production of kaidurs. He does not really possess the lanista’s privileges of arranging affairs.
Cleitar gestured to his face.
“This was a blessing in disguise.” He went on to describe in gory detail the fight in which he had received his wound. We walked on to where he said we could find wine or dopa. “After that they said I could be a cheldur and no longer fight. Well, by Kaidun! I have done well—”
“The ruby drang sits at the bottom of the staff.”
He looked savage. “Aye! The sapphire graint lords it now!”
So, weirdly, weirdly! I was back thinking and passionately thirsting for the ruby drang to be triumphant. I recalled how we reds fought and shouted, cat-calling the other colors, contemptuous of them all alike, how we crowed at our victories and screamed and rattled weapons along the iron bars at our defeats. Oh, yes, I had been a hyr-kaidur and one does not easily forget that, by Kaidun, no!
And, the other weird thing was, here we were, walking along and talking almost as though so many seasons separating our last meeting meant nothing, had never existed...
He wanted to know all about that dramatic escape in which a monstrous skyship had descended into the arena and plucked us from the silver sand. I told him a little — very little, as you will easily imagine. Then it was simple to go on talking about Oby and Tilly and Naghan the Gnat, for they, with Balass the Hawk, had been rescued along with me.
He had not heard of them, any of them, from that day to this.
So, I said to myself as we went into a vile-smelling place filled with wooden benches beneath a training ring, that means Naghan
has
to be armorer to another color.
“In here, Drak—” Cleitar said, ducking his head to pass under the lintel. I took his arm and held him back.
“It would be a good idea to call me by my name,” I said. “I am Chaadur, sometimes called Chaadur the Iarvin.”
He looked nonplussed for only a space, then he nodded, and we went in. He well understood that Queen Fahia would like to get her hands on me. Her pet neemus would have a feast then. And I was aware that he had to be watched.
As for the name Chaadur, this was a name I had used once in Hamal. And Iarvin — well, Pompino wouldn’t mind if I borrowed that, would he now?
The impression I took that Cleitar Adria hankered after the old days when he had been a hyr-kaidur strengthened. Hespoke offhandedly about the new men he had to train up. Not one, he said, banging his fist on the table, not a damned one was fit to latch the sandals of the coys in our day!
It occurred to me that, as the ploy had been successful already here in Huringa, I would try it again. By innuendo and hint I got across to Cleitar that, far from the queen being angry with me and seeking to have me killed, quite the contrary was true. I even went so far as to suggest the skyship had been a part of the plan.
“And I am here in Huringa, and Fahia—” I said Fahia and not the queen or Queen Fahia to impress him “—has been graciously pleased with my work for her. So, Cleitar, keep the old black-fanged winespout stoppered. Dernun?”
I said dernun in a nonviolent, inquisitive way, and his immediate response of “Quidang” carried also that note of conspiracy. And, at that, he got a thrill out of feeling in touch with skullduggery for the queen.
Dopa, that fiendish drink, was being drunk by other men in this malodorous cavern. Cleitar bellowed for purple Hamish wine and I was quite startled when it was forthwith produced.
He nodded, slyly. “This is more like it, Dra — Chaadur. We do ourselves well, out of sight, like. Better than Beng Thrax’s Spit, yes?”
“But you are surely allowed into the city?”
“Of course.” He poured. “But well — I have grown used to the Jikhorkdun. It is my home now. Far more than my real home ever was, when I was a quoffa handler.”
We talked over the old days, remembering past kaidurs and hyr-kaidurs, and the great kaidurs they had performed in the arena. Just how much he really believed of my story about the queen I wasn’t too sure. But I fancied he wanted to believe. He was a very lonely man in these latter days.
This dopa den was not patronized by kaidurs, of course. Here congregated the men involved in the ancillary details. Here sat and drank beast-handlers and slave-managers, cheldurs and armorers, the quasi-privileged of the arena. If they wanted to sing or fight, as is the habit in dopa dens, I did not care, being in the mood to oblige either desire. I gave Cleitar to understand that my reason for being here this evening was to pick up a few tips. I’d been away, I said.
He gave me the names and rankings and running odds of various of his kaidurs. The reds were down in the mouth these days.
“We have a new batch due in, coys as green and raw as uncropped corn. Maybe out of three hundred I will find three who will do. Eh, Chaadur! You remember how we began, me and you and Naghan the Gnat?”
“I do.”
By Kaidun! I did! And I had to get about finding Naghan and not sitting like a putative sot drinking purple Hamish wine.
So, with excuses and promises to return, I took my leave.
And, and I say this with all sincerity, it had given me quite a jolt to meet Cleitar Adria again and talk over the old days. Quite a jolt. As I say, when you have been a hyr-kaidur in the arena, you never lose the cachet, odiferous though it may be.
* * * *
The partnership with Unmok proceeded splendidly, but he wanted to save the incoming money. I agreed. So instead of buying ourselves zorcas to ride about we purchased urvivels. These are sturdy animals, although not in the same class as zorcas. I walked across the patio toward my urvivel, patiently awaiting me, and two shadows closed in under the lights. We went outside the Jikhorkdun. The people had mainly streamed away along the boulevards. Suddenly, this patio was deserted of all save me and these two.
“By Rhapaporgolam the Reiver of Souls!” quoth one, very merry. “I do believe we have a chicken to be plucked!”
“By the Resplendent Bridzilkelsh!” chortled the other, very darkly. “I do believe you have the right of it!”