The other two aides were nobles both, Strom Nath and Trylon Handur, youngish men with their careers to make, wealthy, resplendent with health and fancy uniforms, adept with weapons, and alike — almost — as two peas in a pod. But they were not buffoons, and they knew their duties. Nedfar would not have bothered with them had they not been competent.
I was dressed up in a fine ornate uniform of blue with green trimmings and with much gold lace and feathers. The thing itched abominably. But it would serve as a passport. The skiff touched the green-slimed gray stones and we let Nedfar jump out first. Always, I had to quell that instinctive movement to be first to leave a boat, last to enter. The sentries stiffened into bronze and iron statues and we went through the iron-bound gates and so entered Hammabi el Lamma.
Everything breathed opulence. The passageways would have taken three zorca chariots abreast. The ceilings were high enough for voller aerobatics. Marble and gold and dudinter smothered the walls. Curtains and drapes hung in artful folds, and the tapestries must have been worth millions. The fusty smell of a vast hive of people could not take away the impression of grandeur. We marched along like ants. Guards, sentries, paktuns, officers of all the armed services, stylors and slaves passed and repassed amid a continuous murmur of thousands of voices. I kept tag of the way we went by counting the enormous jars of Pandahem ware that stood, smothered in flowers, at every corner and angle. Truly, the place was a labyrinth of wealth.
We passed a party of women all beautifully dressed and who were neat and competent and feminine in the way Kregan ladies are. Nedfar stopped for a few words with their grand dame, who smiled and was gracious, her hair done up with pearls, her dress a blue and silver marvel. When he rejoined us, Nedfar said:
“Kovneva Dorena, a most powerful lady, charming and understanding. They are here as a delegation to offer their jewels in Hamal’s dark days.”
I perked up at mention of dark days for Hamal. Like most folk, I was in the dark as to the true situation, and the darker it was for Hamal the brighter for the allies. All the same, I vowed that all this nonsense of dark and bright would be swept away once the war was over. We had, as a united Paz, to face the dreaded Shanks.
More guards saluted and we passed through corridor after corridor. Far below lay the dungeons and the cells where once I had languished. As for the Hall of Notor Zan, we did not go near that somber place. Thyllis’s throne room with its horrible syatra pit lay in a different wing as we climbed the last flight of marble stairs to the military planning wing. I felt a tremble along my limbs. The famous moorn vew, the map room, lay only a few paces ahead. After all this, would there be nothing of value to my friends on those jealously guarded maps?
And then we three aides halted in an anteroom and Nedfar said, “Amuse yourselves for a bur or two.” He strode off, upright, purposeful, his desperate concern for his daughter thrust aside in his concern for his country.
I just stared. I had to close my mouth.
I turned to Trylon Handur, who walked across to a side table for the wine. “Trylon — do we not accompany the prince?”
Handur looked over his shoulder. He was casual. “No. He has gone to the map room. We are not allowed in there.”
Somehow or other I was still standing there, my face politely blank, still the perfect aide. Somehow or other I was not rushing madly after Nedfar, and shouldering past, and hurtling into the room where the secrets of our enemy’s dispositions were revealed. Perhaps they were, perhaps they were not. But I was still standing there, starting to look around for the wine, still dwa-Jiktar Jak the Shot. How it was done escapes me.
Strom Nath followed me. “I wish this unfortunate business over the prince’s daughter had not occurred just now.” I roused myself and we reached for wineglasses together. “The prince is the chief hope of Hamal. That gretchuk empire of Vallia is very strong—”
“But we are stronger, Nath,” said Trylon Handur.
“Oh, yes. But there is Hyrklana and the Dawn Lands, too—”
Double doors at the side of the room opened as the Chulik guards drew the valves aside and a messenger ran in. He ran. He was splashed with mud and had wisps of grass in his hair, so we surmised he’d come a cropper. His blue uniform, that of the messenger corps of the Air Service, was ripped. He said to Trylon Handur, “An urgent signal, Trylon—” He handed across an oilskin-sealed packet.
Randur took it, put his glass down, ran across to the smaller door in the corner where two Chuliks opened it as he arrived. He vanished inside. The messenger fell into a chair.
Strom Nath handed him wine and he tossed it off in a gulp.
Presently, the messenger said, “It will be no secret soon. Kapt Hlandli ham Therdun has been beaten. His army is in ruins and streaming back from Hallandlad.”
Now this was news! Ruathytu lies some one thousand miles south of the north coast, and Hallandlad is fair and square halfway between. The army was Seg’s, that had won the victory. He was forced to march most of the way, for we had nowhere near enough aerial transport. He would leapfrog what regiments he could, of course; but the danger of that was being caught by detachments. The messenger went on speaking, and from what he did not say I gathered Seg had made use of the natural capacity in military matters of his opposing general, this Kapt Hlandli ham Therdun. He’d sucked ham Therdun into the belief Seg was overextended, the Hamalese had attacked, screeching their war cry of “Hanitch! Hanitch!” and Seg had dumped the bulk of his army on them from a great height. I gloated.
Trylon Handur came out of that small door and handed Strom Nath a message packet. “For Kapt Naghan. He is to move at once.”
Now here was the dilemma. I now knew that Naghan was to take his army, held in reserve in Ruathytu, north to attack Seg. But there was no way I could warn him of this. What the hell had happened to Deb-Lu-Quienyin? I shuddered to believe the obvious. That devil Phu-Si-Yantong had used his enormous powers and forced Deb-Lu onto the defensive, unable to use his own kharrna to communicate with me.
Handur shook his head in admiration. “The prince is a marvel! This disastrous news, and he checks the maps — which we are not allowed to see — writes, and gives his orders. With his worries about his daughter, he knows exactly the right plan to smash these damned Vallian invaders.”
I said, “He is indeed a marvel. All the same, this is not the great plan that will save Hamal altogether.”
“Oh, no. But that exists. Everyone knows that.”
If I couldn’t get into that map room soon I fancied I’d burst!
Six tall windows each side of the double doors let in light. I strolled across — seething! — and looked out. A landing platform here had been built high against the wall, with the sky above and a nasty drop below. On the platform were ranked a number of courier vollers. To one side and neatly segregated stood perching towers for mirvols and scratching bars for fluttcleppers and volcleppers. The vollers were all just about the same, small two-place jobs with a van-like rear. They were all-over green in color and along their sides and sterns painted in yellow-gold was the word courier.
I rubbed my chin. Now one of those vollers would serve Lobur and Thefi a treat. Also, one would get me through to Seg or Drak later in the game. A landing platform to be borne in mind, then...
The guards out there were mostly apims; but there were Chuliks and Khibils and a couple of Rapas. There were no Pachaks I could see. Inside this anteroom the guards stood woodenly at their doors, opening them when necessary, and by the time I’d dealt with them all, reinforcements would come pelting in in overwhelming numbers.
The door in the fourth wall opened and a crowd of aides to other members of the high command jostled through. They’d been eating heavily and drinking well, for we with Nedfar were late arrivals. The uproar of laughter and conversation filled the anteroom. No doubt some of the high command would be members of the Nine Faceless Ones of Hamal who directed many affairs and particularly appointed nobles to the production of vollers. The news of the disastrous Battle of Hallandlad sobered the boisterous aides. For my part, I knew that the colors of my regiments in the battle would bear the honor embroidered in gold thread. Sink me else!
Shortly thereafter a deal of coming and going ensued as fresh orders were written and sent off. Ruathytu would be like a beehive tonight. This was to the good. If men were drawn off to the north they could not reinforce the armies facing the invasions from east and south.
When an aide was required from the group waiting a man would come out of that small door and bellow his name. This man presented a singular appearance, for he was blind. He wore a silly over-ornate uniform and a velvet cap with a feather; but his legs were chained so that he could just walk and not run. He carried a yellow stick with a bronze head, with which he felt along the walls and floor, although long custom in this occupation had given him a sure sense of direction.
“Trylon Handur!” he shouted in a parade-ground bellow. He must have been an old warrior, blinded in action, and now peculiarly suited for this work. Handur started up and ran through the door.
No doubt because of the seriousness of the news and the tenseness of the atmosphere in the anteroom, so far not one of the aides had strolled over to inspect the new aide. Among a certain type of noble — no less in Vallia than Hamal — the desire to bully and humiliate inferiors and new acquaintances is an old and nauseating phenomenon. I was in no mood to be temperate; but I did keep myself to myself, over by the windows.
When Handur reappeared he carried the oilskin packet that was the hallmark of the messengers’ trade. I had to take it to the Chuktar of the artillery park over in the soldiers’ quarter, north of the river. “Take a messenger voller,” said Handur. “And be quick. The packet cannot be entrusted to anyone else.”
I nodded and taking the packet went out through the double doors. The Jiktar on duty pointed out a voller and pilot I might use. The green-painted craft with the yellow-gold lettering looked flimsy; but she was fast with rakish lines. Her pilot settled at the controls and we were off.
He was a cheerful sort who invariably began any sentence with a little laugh. His fair hair blew about. He said his one desire was for the war to finish, as he had no enmity for Vallia, having been there and liking the place. He told me he was called Bonzo, although that was not his name. One day, I surmised, when he scraped up enough courage to disdain the job in which he found himself, he would make his mark upon the world. In this I was right.
The packet was duly delivered to the Chuktar, who brooded over his stores of varters and catapults and nasty darts and stones, and we flew back. The wind blustered and the Courier craft sped between the clouds. Ruathytu presented the spectacle of huge areas of darkness, and avenues and streets of light in other quarters. The Sacred Quarter spouted to the night sky.
I said a cheerful Remberee to Bonzo the Courier and went into the anteroom. Handur had gone off, I was told, and so I hitched up my sword and marched up to the small door. The Chuliks made no offer to open it.
“Open the door,” I said, in that cutting way. “Message for Prince Nedfar.”
I waited for what seemed a damned long time; then the left-hand Chulik, who wore a golden thread braided into his dangling pigtail, opened the door. He did not speak. I looked inside, along a corridor, and marched in as to the manner born.
The corridor was short, no more than half a dozen paces, carpeted in dark blue, with paler blue walls and ceiling. The only two pieces of furniture were a chair and a table. On the table stood a jug and a glass of water, a loaf of bread and a heel of cheese, together with a pottery dish of palines. Painted outlines on the table circumscribed the areas to be occupied by these refreshments. I noticed there was no butter. Some of the provinces of Hamal supply troops who will have nothing of butter or preserves or relishes. They furnish good quality fighting men, though. In the chair sat the blind man. As I entered he began to rise, for his hearing was sharp. As I closed the door after me he stood up very quickly, and called: “Do not shut the door, notor. Give me your message.” And he held out his free hand.
I looked at him, seeing the seamed weather-beaten features of an old kampeon, and I sighed. I walked on, very softly, and his stick switched up. The stick barred the passage. “Notor?”
Some things a man does in life he will not dwell on. I was as gentle as I could be, and arranged the old warrior in his chair comfortably, his stick propped at his side. What a world it was, when the Emperor of Vallia was reduced to dealing with old blind men!
His name was Nath the Bullet, for he had been a zan-Deldar of slingers.
The door beyond his slouched shoulder pushed open on oiled hinges. A small square room, carpeted and walled in green and blue checks, revealed three more doors. The one on my left was open to show a spartan bedroom. That on my right opened as I entered and a portly snuffly man emerged blowing his nose. That was the lavatory. He wore fussy robes, girded with golden links, and his jowly snuffly face had no time to express astonishment before he went to sleep. I was not as gentle with him as with Nath the Bullet.
The door ahead opened with a bang and a voice called: “Come on, Larghos! The fate of Hamal is being decided and you sit—”
The speaker was sumptuously dressed in blue and yellow and gold and he was a hard case, blue-jowled, heavy of eyebrow, scornful of lip.
“By Krun!” he exclaimed, seeing me.
I crossed that little square room like a leem. He collapsed. But other voices lifted beyond the open door. I looked in. Impressions jostled. People standing around a huge table, many lights, tall curtained windows, a square black opening in the far wall, the blackness as of a night of Notor Zan. I saw Nedfar look up from the table which, in the single glance I gave it, I saw was a superbly crafted model of Hamal, sculptured and painted in miniature perfection. Clumps and columns of color on this map table represented the armies marching and countermarching. The maps on the walls paled by comparison.