A Victory for Kregen Read online

  Tyfar followed me.

  “What ails you, Jak? Your face — you look as though you have fallen among stampeding calsanys.”

  “No matter,” I said. Control returned to me, and with it common sense. “I think it would be a good plan to take a few vollers for ourselves.” I did not add that I would fly mine to South Pandahem and then Vallia.

  “Capital!” Tyfar brisked up. “Let us make a plan.”

  Rathon began at once to put all manner of obstacles in the way — the sentries were alert, we had no chance of reaching a landing platform, didn’t we have gold to buy a voller, it was madness. Jaezila looked fierce. “The plan is good!”

  I was not so sure. This lady, if she was not Hamalese, at least worked for my enemies. I felt drawn to her and she was, in truth, splendid. But she was an enemy. Well, poof to that. Were not Chido and Rees enemies, and were they not good friends, Bladesmen, comrades? In this, at least, we could work together.

  I noticed that this Jaezila had an odd little habit of suddenly turning her head, and looking slightly to her side and rear, as though expecting to find someone there.

  Now, in this enterprise going forward I had to think most carefully. We were a bunch of desperadoes, yes. But we purposed taking a voller from folk who were aligned against us in the political arena, and folk who were fighting against my enemies. It was a puzzle. In the end I did the only thing I could do, and went along and placed the outcome in the hands of Zair.

  Barkindrar the Bullet would have to be figured into the calculations. Eventually we persuaded Nath Rathon to apprise us of the best location for picking up vollers, and he said that the bright sparks flew in from the outlying districts and parked on the roof of The Rokveil’s Head.

  “They’ll be inspecting the undersides of tables with Beng Dikkane[3]long before the hour of midnight.”

  And he laughed.

  I forced myself to be polite to him.

  “Then, good Nath Rathon, you will show us this place a few burs before that.”

  “Me? Oh, no, dom. I will send Ornol—”

  Jaezila and Tyfar looked questioningly at me.

  “Oh, no, dom,” I said, “you will show us.”

  He spluttered indignant protests. What my face looked like I do not know; but I do know I fought for control. I made myself relax. Just why I acted as I did, Zair forgive me, you may more readily perceive

  — now — than I did — then.

  “I wish that you, Nath Rathon, should show us The Rokveil’s Head. I do not think you will argue.”

  He blinked. His keys jangled. He opened his mouth, looked at me, closed his mouth. His face, fat and plump and merry, on a sudden looked amazingly long. He shut that glistening mouth. Then, weakly, he said, “As you wish. I shall lead you.”

  “Good,” I said. And I smiled most genially.

  Our preparations made, we ventured out when She of the Veils cast her rosy golden light over the nighted city. The way was not far. We walked as a party of roisterers, out for a good time, and we made no bones about singing a few ditties. There was no problem as to who was to fly the vollers. Retainers of nobles and adventurers as we were, flying air-boats was a mere matter of normal occupation.

  The Rokveil’s Head turned out to be an imposing place, lit up with many lanterns, pillared and porticoed, and doing a humming business. Tyfar and I, allowing our expensive cloaks to conceal our armor, had no difficulty in entering. That mark of the notor we now realized had brought us with the ease that had puzzled us into the city. The lords ran this city. And the common folk looked to Hamal for relief.

  Truly, that was a colossal and vile joke on innocent people, to be sure!

  Nath Rathon had dressed himself in popinjay fashion, which we assumed to be normal for him. Jaezila had borrowed a demure but still devastating evening gown, all sheer peach-colored sensil. Rathon had taken it from one of the women of his establishment, and with the gown a display of gems. They were all fakes. And Kaldu wore a sober evening lounging robe of dark green. We all wore weapons — except Jaezila, outside our clothes — and this was a mere natural part of evening attire.

  The flunkeys wanted to bustle about and take our wraps and cloaks; but Rathon assured them that this was not necessary as he had just happened to meet this party and they were desirous of patronizing the best establishment in the city and so he had just gone out of his way to bring them here. No, they were not friends of his and he did not know them, and now he must take himself home to his house and family in the eastern suburbs.

  The majordomo thanked Rathon for bringing him the custom; but Rathon, whose hand hovered now continually at his mouth, smiled and bobbed and went off very quickly. We did not know if his deception would pass muster.

  As we went up the wide balustraded stairway with the carved statues of sylvies flanking the treads, Tyfar said, “I am not sure that was a clever move, Jak. It seems to be you may have placed Rathon in some jeopardy if he is recognized.”

  “Oh,” I said, airily, “he will get away with it.”

  Privately, I would have no sorrow if Rathon were discovered and thrown out of Khorundur. That would be one agent of Hamal the less. So we went on up. The halls were palatial. There were many slaves, all stupidly dressed in feathers and bangles and little else. Much wine was in evidence. The sounds of laughter and horseplay reached us from the various magnificent chambers. We passed a room in which Jikaida was in full swing, with great piles of gold wagered on the outcome. Jikalla too was being played, along with Vajikry. We saw no rooms devoted to the Game of Moons and that surprised no one.

  People were staggering about, this early already the worse for wear. And so, steadily, we passed on up the wide stairways until we reached the top floor.

  Sometimes I have swift attacks of nostalgia for remembered struggles. Sometimes; usually I am too bound up with the struggle going on at the moment. We found the door leading to the roof and stepped out under the stars of Kregen.

  “We take three if we can,” said Tyfar. “Is that agreed?”

  He was brilliantly excited, keyed up. “We strike a blow for Hamal tonight! Do not forget that.”

  “How can we forget it?” said Jaezila.

  Tyfar colored up again, and then shook himself, dark in the starlight, and we padded off in search of a suitable voller for the first of us to fly away. Our first port of call would be to pick up Barkindrar and Nath, and then we’d make for the camp and pick up the others. Then it was Hamal...

  The airboats were parked neatly and the guards moved about, dim silhouettes against the stars.

  Tyfar crept forward with Kaldu at his elbow.

  Jaezila and I, for the moment, waited in the shadows.

  “That one, I think, Jak, for me.”

  “Yes. A fleet craft. But you cannot trust a voller from Khorundur as you would trust one from Hamal.”

  “No — yes. You are right. But, I am not sure if I should go to Hamal. My work here has been spoiled—”

  “You’ll never obtain fliers now that the lords are against Hamal. Is there nowhere else you can try?”

  “You mock me, of course. I find your manners — uncouth.” She used the word sturr. I laughed. Oh, yes, I laughed.

  “You have the right of it, my lady. That is my name. Jak the Sturr.”

  She gazed at me. And then she, too, laughed. The look of her, the way her head tilted, the star-gleam in her eyes . . . I felt my stupid old heart give a leap. She was magnificent, and she worked for my enemies.

  Quietly, the laughter still bubbling away but held now within her poised manner, she said, “I shall not forget the way you dealt with that beastie that sought — it was quick.”

  “No quicker than the way you loosed to save poor Tyfar.”

  “Poor Tyfar! Indeed! He is a ninny, is he not?”

  “No . . . No. He is a gallant young man a little out of his depth.”

  And, a ghost rising to torment me, I carried on the thought in my head — like Barty Vessler.
/>   “Well, Jak the Sturr,” she said, and there was the bite of decision in her voice, “you are not out of your depth in this midnight murder and mayhem, that is very sure.”

  “I hope there is no murder.”

  “So do I.”

  A low whistle cut the dimness. We moved forward. Kaldu stood over the unconscious body of a Khibil guard. A Fristle slumbered at his side. Kaldu held his sword very purposefully.

  “There are two vollers, my lady. And the third for the hyr-paktun.”

  She looked at me, swiftly. “Kaldu dubs you a hyr-paktun and he has an eye for these things. Do you wear the pakzhan at your throat, Jak the Sturr?”

  “I have done so, in my time, my lady.”

  “So be it. Then let us board — and woe betide the laggard!”

  “Now, just a minute—” began Tyfar.

  She turned on him like a zhantilla turning to meet the rush of a leem.

  “Tyfar! Fambly! Get aboard and fly — the guards will not wait for your waiting.”

  “My lady, you treat me hard—”

  “Now Krun save me from a pretty-speechifying ninny!” she said, and swung her leg over the voller’s coaming. That fancy sensil robe split down and revealed her long russet-clad leg. She was in the voller in a twinkling and Kaldu at her side.

  I said to Tyfar, “Take your voller, Tyfar, and let us go.”

  “What a — a girl!” stuttered Tyfar.

  What a girl, indeed!

  Chapter ten

  The Brothers Fre-Da Give Nikobi

  As the three vollers touched down on the grass and then ghosted in under the trees out of chance sight from the air, I felt relief that we had carried it off successfully. Tyfar leaped down from his craft, leaving Nath to assist Barkindrar. Such is the way of unheeding princes. I was watching Tyfar.

  A shadow moved under the trees and the moons’ glitter caught on the blade that pressed against his breast.

  I started to leap down, dragging the thraxter free, when Tyfar said, “What? What? Oh — yes, I understand, Modo.”

  The Pachak’s tail hand quivered and the blade vanished in shadow.

  I came up with them, pretty sharpish, and Modo, seeing me, said, “Jak. A word from San Quienyin. He wishes you to call him Naghan and not to let these new people know he is a Wizard of Loh.”

  “Very well. If it is his wish.”

  The others crowded forward and Hunch and Nodgen came up, and the pappattu was made, and Quienyin had forsaken his blue robes and doffed that turban, and stood forth in a simple brown tunic —

  admittedly, there was a touch of silver braid at throat and hem — to be introduced as Naghan.

  “Naghan what?” said Jaezila in her sweet voice, not at all rudely. She smiled and charmed old Quienyin clean through.

  “Naghan the Dodderer, some folk call me, my lady. But, for you, the name Naghan the Seeing is more seemly. If it pleases you, my lady.”

  I marveled. Such humbleness from a Wizard of Loh!

  “It pleases me, Naghan the Seeing. And I am famished—”

  “My lady!” And Hunch was there, grimacing away, filled with enormous desires to be of help to this imperious and lovely lady, who had appeared at our camp from the shadows.

  We ate the viands we had, and none that we had brought from Khorunlad, alas.

  “We rest for two burs,” declared Tyfar. “And then we fly. And we will let our fluttrells go free. They will bring joy to whoever finds them.”

  “If they do not fly wild, Tyfar, as anyone would who had to support your—”

  “Whatever happens to the fluttrells,” I said, “they deserve well of us. Now, rest us all — and I shall stand the first watch.”

  Tyfar and Jaezila glared hotly, one at the other. I sighed. Bantam cocks — and a bantam hen, by Krun!

  The Maiden with the Many Smiles shed down her fuzzy pink light as we took off into the soft night air.

  Tyfar expressed himself as mightily pleased that Jaezila elected to fly with me.

  “For if I have to endure the barbs of her tongue,” he said, “I swear by the names I shall—” And then Jaezila, climbing up beside me, smiled down, and Tyfar was struck dumb.

  So we flew over the sleeping face of Kregen beneath the moons. Two of the lesser moons hurtled close by above. The night air breathed sweet and cool. The windrush in my face, my hair blowing, ah, yes —

  and a glorious girl at my side! Well, she was not Delia, my Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue Mountains; but I felt then they would be well-matched, and that, in all soberness, by Zair, was a strange feeling for me.

  She talked a little, small inconsequential matters, of her mother whom she loved dearly, and her brothers and sisters, although she did not mention their names. It would have been all too easy to slide into confidences, and to have spilled out my own near-despairing feelings about my own children. But I did not. I purported to come from Hamal, and must therefore watch my tongue.

  Hunch and Nodgen sat in the body of the voller. We fleeted on our way north and east toward the empire of my enemies.

  And I had to make a decision. I was going to stop by South Pandahem and drag Turko the Shield out of his fairground booth. Then I would look in on Vallia, just, I assured myself, to make sure the place was on an even keel. I felt a traitor even to think it might not be with Drak at the helm. And then it would be Hyrklana for me.

  “You are pensive, Jak the Storr.”

  “Aye, my lady. I am thinking that I shall have to leave you and Tyfar soon.”

  “Oh!” she flared. “Why link my name with that ninny’s?”

  “Now, young lady,” I said, and I heard my voice harden, “you are altogether too harsh on Tyfar. He is a young man with high ideals and great notions of honor—”

  “Like to make a laughingstock of himself—”

  “That is true. But, at the least, laughingstock or no, he will not be shamed.”

  She cocked her head at me. The moons’ light caught her hair and sheened soft brown and fuzzy pink.

  “No. I think you are right. But he is so — so—”

  “Gallant?”

  “Very well.” And she laughed, her head thrown back. “A gallant ninny!”

  We flew on into the blaze of dawn when the twin suns, Far and Havil, rose and the land came alive with color. Tyfar, in the lead voller, pointed down. Below us a small stream wended between wooded uplands. Some two dwaburs ahead, almost lost to sight, the towers of a city or fortress rose from the trees. Below us, by the stream, a clearing offered a landing place. Down we went.

  Making camp, with the vollers pulled into the shelter of the trees, and a circumspect fire going, we surveyed our paltry rations and resigned ourselves to going hungry. The Pachaks glided into the woods to find game. Hunch brewed tea. Barkindrar, wounded leg or not, went off by the river to sling at birds.

  Nath the Shaft and I stood watch.

  Presently this Deb-Lu-Quienyin, whom we now called Naghan the Seeing, approached. He looked thoughtful.

  “Tyfar and Jaezila and Kaldu are for Hamal. I would like very much now to go to Vallia. But — what of you, Jak?”

  “You know. South Pandahem.”

  “Yes. I followed your adventures in Khorunlad, a little, a few quick observations in lupu to make sure you were all right. I can tell you I was heartily glad you came out safely.”

  I favored him with a searching look. His face that had, since he’d regained his powers, lost a deal of those lines and wrinkles, was now down-drawn in fatigue. The smudges under his eyes, bruised purple, were new.

  “You are tired, Quienyin?”

  “Aye, Jak. By the Seven Arcades! Since our little trip with Monsters and Moders I do think... I need to sleep in a soft bed for a whole season.”

  “That can be arranged in Vallia.”

  “So? I shall go, and, I sincerely trust, with your blessing. But you?”

  “Give me a look out, from time to time,” I said, lightly, thinking nothing of the words, tryi
ng to jolly him along. He was very down and I wondered why. “I shall pull out with a whole skin, never fear.”

  He shook his head.

  “From anyone else, I would take that as boasting, Jak—”

  I was dutifully repentant. “And from me, also, I confess.”

  “Mayhap.”

  I drew a breath. “I have known other Wizards of Loh. Some I account good friends and others, as you know, as foe-men. But for none have I felt... Even Khe-Hi... It is strange. I would never have believed it of a Wizard of Loh. But it is, and I joy in the gift.”

  He smiled. “And I, too — Jak.”

  Again, that hesitation before the name. A deliberate hesitation? Yes, by Vox, I said to myself. Oh, yes...

  The Pachaks came back with game, and Barkindrar with a half-dozen birds, and Hunch got busy by the fire. Nodgen helped. Barkindrar stretched out with a grunt of relief, sticking his wounded leg before him like a crutch itself. Nath bent to him and Jaezila came across, imperious and commanding, ordering this and that, and mightily tender as she unwrapped the bandages to attend to the Bullet’s leg. I noticed that Kaldu remained always near his lady, ready to leap instantly to her defense. As a retainer, he was invaluable. Tyfar stood by as Jaezila worked on his man, and the cooking smells began to waft up. It was a pretty scene, there in the woodland, not quite Arden, perhaps, but very much a scene as I would like it on two worlds.

  Now appeared a good opportunity to inspect the vollers we had liberated. I used this euphemism quite deliberately, to cloak the mischief we might have wrought in the desperate straits of our own needs. Two of these craft would go eventually to Vallia, and only one to Hamal. The Khorundese craft bulked far more blockily than the petal-shaped vollers of comparable size manufactured in Hamal or Hyrklana. They were profusely ornamented. I had felt the handling of the example I had flown to be clumsier than I was used to, not so quick in response to the levers of control. But, more primitive though they might be, they flew.

  The food was served and we ate, a quite unbalanced diet; but succulent. Then I drew the Pachak twins aside.