The odd and annoying outcome of the Star Lords’ instructions to rescue Pundhri worked to our disadvantage, however meritorious the end in view. Now that diffs were no longer regarded with contumely, the ranks of Hamal’s fighting formations were filling with them. Pundhri took much of that credit, together with a general revulsion of feeling against racism. I approved; but it was making life difficult for the allies, by Krun.
Not caring to frequent the haunts where I was known as Jak, I spent a few days as Hamun ham Farthytu, and realized afresh how easy it would be to sink into the ways of life of the Sacred Quarter. I saw and kept out of the way of that stupid boorish Trylon with whom I’d had a run in at The Fluttrell Feather in Thalansen. Inquiries elicited the information that he was Horgil Hunderd, Trylon of Deep Valley, still enormously wealthy, a womanizer, an upstart, and here to present the three regiments of paktuns he had raised to the empress.
One of the more disturbing sights abroad — at least to me — was the numbers of Katakis everywhere employed. Katakis are a nasty race of diffs, low-browed, fierce and savage of aspect, armed with long whiplike tails to which they strap six niches of bladed steel. Their main joy in life, it is said, is inflicting pain, they are sworn at as jibrfarils, and their main occupation is slaving. They were here to chain up the remnants of the armies invading Hamal after the Hamalese had won.
A few theaters remained open and I saw a performance of
The Queen’s Secret,
an anonymous play written only three hundred seasons or so ago. It is in my opinion overvalued; but it was better than the populist blood-thumpers dished up everywhere to drum up morale. I spent one evening in The Chuktar Hofardu, an inn named for a long-dead Hamalese kampeon, where I learned a deal of the grass-roots opinions of the swods and something of their morale, and where we finished up the night singing the old songs. Odd, singing songs with swods again in Ruathytu. We went through “When the Fluttrell Flirts His Wing” and “Chuktar’s Orders” and “The Chulik’s Bent Tusk.” We rollicked out “Sogandar the Upright and the Sylvie” and we all had No Idea At All, at all, No idea at all, and the laughter threatened the rafters. Damned odd, when very soon I’d be leading warriors to fight and slay these warriors who sang with me.
I steered clear of The Scented Sylvie and other like places. Ruathytu was bubbling nicely, and news of the various invasion columns was that they continued their advance, living off the land and fighting off attacks on their communications. Not long now...
The temple of Werl-am-Nardith by the Hirrume Gate had been beautifully embellished within, and as I passed by on a morning of high cloud with the suns of Antares striking glints of ruby and jade from every cornice and dome, Black Sadrap hailed me.
We shook hands and then Rollo the Circle waddled over. He was, if anything, even larger of stomach.
“I am pleased to see you, Zaydo! We’re all finished here and what do you think of our news?”
I managed a smile, for I was pleased to see Rollo and his band of wandering artists. I didn’t know his news; but when he told me I was dutifully impressed.
“The Empress of all Hamal has commanded us! We are to decorate some of her glorious chambers! I tell you, Zaydo, this will be the making of us.”
“My congratulations.” I did not add that he might be very lucky to be paid. Thyllis would have the work done and spend the money on her mercenaries and fob Rollo off with a title. She had been distributing patents of nobility lavishly in these latter days. Well, perhaps Rollo knew that, and calculated that to be a greater advantage. We talked in the suns light and then we went for a wet and I had to keep up the Zaydo role, and, in fine, I got myself a job assisting in mixing paint and carrying ladders and scaffolding and generally being useful.
I seized the opportunity.
By Vox! This was capital!
Now the Krozair longsword I wore hidden under my cloak had been built with quillons just wide enough to afford proper protection to the hands. We had built a few examples with quillons which folded forward along the blade, and by the press of a stud would spring out into place. Wil of the Bellows pursed up his lips at these, and wiped his hands on his leather apron, saying “Well, I would not like to trust those if a particularly powerful blow is struck full against them, by Zodjuin of the Sword, no!”
So I had this example. But it was clearly not going to be easy for me to scuttle up and down ladders carrying pots of paint with a great bar of steel over my back.
The artists were assigned quarters in some moldering sheds in a little-used court to the east of the Hammabi el Lamma, near the point of the artificial island. There was the usual fuss from the sentries in allowing us ingress; but after a sennight we became a part of the furnishings, and could come and go with our aprons all the colors of the rainbow, and paint in our hair and daubing our faces. I made sure my face was wonderfully streaked with color. Carrying a ladder or a length of plank enabled a fellow to wander past the sentries with a familiar: “Lahal, dom!” and some comment on the progress of the factions in the Jikhorkdun. Majordomos showed us the chambers to be decorated, a complex in a side corridor from the throne room which Thyllis was bringing back into use.
There was every reason to refuse to allow myself to become excited. Yes, I was in Thyllis’s palace. I was near her infernal throne room with the manhounds snarling on the steps, and her diabolical syatra pit. A deal more useful would have been to be near the map room...
Among all the paraphernalia of the artists’ equipment there were ample hiding places for the longsword and I got into the habit of keeping it handy wrapped in a length of paint-stained sacking. Among the medley of paints and pots and ladders and boxes it passed unnoticed. The reasons for this are easy to discern — the reasons for my wanting the Krozair brand handy...
The combination of arms into which the allies against Hamal had entered creaked along with many hitches and holdups. But the plans did progress and, thanks be to Zair, there were no major disasters. The day of the Seeking after Truth, as they say in the Risslaca Hork in Balintol, drew nearer with every suns rise. At the time I fancied that what next occurred was purest coincidence; very soon thereafter I was disabused of that paltry notion.
The high command’s plans appeared to be working, for they had checked a number of our weaker columns and only Seg’s army pressed on. We kept abreast of the news, and I was aware of the mounting tension. Damned uneasy it all was, too, knowing that Seg gambled with the deaths of thousands of good men, and with his own death, also. His army had been reinforced and was stronger than the Hamalese knew, and our aerial forces were massed ready to hit the enemy as they pounced. When Seg halted to give battle short of Ruathytu, the expressions of surprise amongst the Hamalese amused me. Good old Seg!
At this stage of this macabre dance of death Kytun and Seg would be in constant communication. Unless I heard to the contrary then, the day on which Rollo the Circle planned to paint the ceiling of Thyllis’s Chamber of the Chemzite Graints would be the day when that ceiling might collapse in tiles and plaster.
On that evening which ought to be the last evening of the old order in Hamal, Thyllis held a levee in her throne room for the forces who would march out. They would hit Seg with almost everything they had, and yet they would still leave forces inside the city, for the high command were not novices at war. I cleaned myself up, put on a neat dark blue tunic over the old scarlet breechclout, gray trousers and ankle boots of soft leather proved comfortable, and the silver-gray fur edging of the green cape was suitably foppish. That cape was cut both high and low and concealed the longsword. I buckled up rapier and dagger and, not wearing a hat, sallied forth wearing a quite different face I calculated I could hold for some time without too much discomfort. Joining the army officers and commanders of the paktuns, and looking grim and stern and remote, I went with them along to the throne room. It was easy enough, and I felt reassured that it was not too easy, for I dodged the sentries carrying out their checks by the simple expedient of temporarily assuming the face of a fellow in the crowd to the rear. I do not know if he got in or if they threw him out; certainly there was no fuss.
And so I entered Empress Thyllis’s throne room.
The most awesome single impression of that room was that you did not notice its height or length or width or the lavish decorations. Every eye was instantly drawn to the throne fashioned from its colossal block of multi-faceted crystal. Brightly colored rugs lay scattered across the dais below the throne and over the steps where the scantily clad golden-chained slave girls, the Chail Sheom, simpered and shuddered. For the manhounds were there, the jiklos, lolling their red tongues, their teeth sharp and jagged — the Manhounds of Antares, apims cruelly contorted by genetic science to run on all fours and to be more vicious than a hunting cat of the jungle. The chains that held them were of solid iron. To one side the golden railings encircled the marble slab with its chains and rollers.
And so to Thyllis herself.
She had changed. The face was as white and sharp as ever; but her jaw line had thickened and even in the blaze of light coruscating about her and reflecting from the solid mass of gems that smothered her, her body lacked the old slenderness of waist. Her green eyes slanted cruelly upon her courtiers and the officers gathered here in the evening levee prepared to march out on the morrow for the defense of her city.
Her lips were as red as ever, and fuller, more sensuous, and still she caught up one corner in her sharp white teeth.
The Womoxes at her back waved their faerling fans and their horns were gilded and polished, and their size proved they were still picked from the finest specimens Thyllis could come by.
I admit, I was caught up in watching this woman. Evil? Thyllis, was she a wicked woman? Well, she was if you call throwing people down into her syatra pit, or letting her manhounds loose to munch on them in the Hall of Notor Zan wicked. But, some folk would claim these are some of the mere tiresome duties of being an empress. She was a creature of her time and circumstances. In her the Scorpion had stung the Frog, and, willy-nilly, her life had followed with the inevitability of high tragedy. I had been drawn here almost against my own inclination to see her for the last time before I joined Kytun. It seemed to me only fit and proper that the Emperor of Vallia should look upon the Empress of Hamal before the final confrontation.
Despite the size of the throne room the closeness of the atmosphere made us clammy, the smell breathed in redolent with scents and sweat and fear. The noise of the crowd hung muted in shuffling of feet, the clink of swords, the jangle of golden ornaments. When a manhound yawned revealing a red cavern hedged in fangs the women jumped and the men looked unhappy, reflexively grasping their sword hilts. And, over the whole barbaric scene the presence of Thyllis brooded.
Yet she was being gracious. She was aware that these soldiers would march out to fight for her. That they obeyed her because of fear or for reward was for the moment pushed aside. But not far aside; as though to reinforce that chill grip of fear she inspired, a screaming wretch was dragged in. It was given out that he was a Chuktar, condemned for attempting to betray his empress for gold. The gathered mob began that dreadful chant.
“Syatra! Syatra! Syatra!”
Yet the sound did not ring and vibrate in the room as it once had done, it did not beat against the gilded rafters or echo in the groined vaultings. A man near me kept his mouth firmly closed, and a woman put a lace kerchief to her face. Half a dozen other poor wretches were dragged in, all accused of one crime or another. An iron hoop containing many of the best-quality torches of Kregen lowered over the round marble slab. Their light splashed weirdly down over the scene.
The shouts came mostly from the mercenaries. “Syatra! Syatra!” Guards pulled and whipped the condemned men forward. An old Xaffer shuffled up and removed a section of the gilded railings and the pulleys and rollers lifted and trundled the marble slab aside. A hole as black as the cloak of Notor Zan revealed itself in the floor, a blackness that gradually lightened to a leprous greenish-whiteness. Everyone craned to see.
Shrieking and struggling the doomed men were dragged on and hurled down into the pit. The round opening in the roof was not cleared for the rays of the suns to shine through for Zim and Genodras had sunk below the horizon, unwilling to shine upon this horror.
“By Havil! I do not like this!” said a horter at my side.
“Those poor men,” said his wife. “But the empress knows what she is doing.”
There was a perceptible delay before the man said, “Of course, my dear, of course she does.”
In my time I had been called rough and tough and ruthless; I decided I could stomach no more of this. It had been a mistake to take a last look at Thyllis. She was doomed, if the allies could ordain fate, and I felt a great uplift of the spirit. And, in that moment, the coincidence that was no matter of chance brought high-ringing peals from golden trumpets, and the buzz of talk and comment in the room stilled instantly.
Into the cleared space before the crystal throne stepped a group of Katakis. Richly clad they were, and yet bearing with them the darkness of their vile profession. And, at their head, his arrogant whiptail upflung so the torchlight splintered against the curved blade — Rosil na Morcray, the Chuktar Strom!
He had wrought my friends and me much harm, and had helped to ravage Vallia. He was here because we had defeated him in our homeland. And as I stared hotly at him, I heard a tinkling tingling as of a multitude of tiny bells — so I knew.
I knew!
Sixteen Womoxes, horns all gilded, and clad in black tabards girt with green lizard skins, bore the palanquin. The cloth of gold curtains were half drawn so that the dark shape of the occupant showed against the red-gold gleam, all liquid eye-watering, of the cushions within. The tiny golden bells tingled with their eerie, spine-chilling tinklings. Following the palanquin came the retinue of Relt stylors and chained Chail Sheom, of guards and slaves. They forced a note of obtrusive displayed power within Thyllis’s throne room. She sat up straight on her crystal throne, and her manhounds yawned and closed their eyes, and she put a hand to the mass of gems clustered above her heart.