A Victory for Kregen Read online

  The two Khibils, Andrinos and Saenci, hung in their bonds, gawping. I noticed that the Khibil maiden had not been crying. Andrinos’s foxy face showed determination as well as a goggling surprise at my eruption.

  Miklasu foined around; but he was too canny to let me get close to him. Gaptooth appeared, shrieking for the bravo-fighter to get on with it.

  Working my way around out of the reach of that sharp rapier, I came along the wall where the three captives hung. There was not much time left, for the row would surely bring the wrestlers arunning. I whipped out the kalider, slashed Turko’s bonds. He fell to his knees and, for two heartbeats, his head hung down. Then he was up, flexing his superb muscles. He did not say anything. I threw him the dagger and turned to make a feint at Miklasu and so draw him away. Turko could have handled the rapierman, I knew, but his muscles would be stiff and the blood must be giving him one hell of a time right now. He made no sound, but slashed the other two free.

  When he had done that, he moved with his ferocious speed toward Jimstye Gaptooth... Long before that man could escape, Turko had his neck in one fist. He looked across at me.

  “Do you remember Mungul Sidrath?”

  “Aye.”

  “So do I.”

  He put Jimstye Gaptooth to sleep. Miklasu shouted, and leaped, and the rapier and dagger swirled in a twin cyclone of glittering steel and the Khibil maiden let out a tiny scream and Miklasu was suddenly upside down, his head crashing into the floor, and the rapier and main gauche were in my fists.

  “And about time too,” said Turko. “Nalgre, was it?”

  I bent to the bravo-fighter. He was not dead, and his eyes opened and fluttered. “Nalgre Stahleker,” I said. “I know him. I knew his wife, too, Princess Nashta.”

  Miklasu’s eyes rolled up.

  Disgust shook me. I stopped what I was going to say, some stupid boasting about the Lord of Strombor. I turned to Turko.

  “Let us get out of this pestiferous place.”

  “With all my heart, Nalgre. My limbs appear to have returned to me.”

  “But,” said Andrinos. “How?”

  I ripped the cloak away from Miklasu and handed it to Saenci. She was a beautifully formed girl. Turko ripped off Gaptooth’s shirt-tunic and Andrinos donned that.

  “We go out the way I came in,” I said.

  Then Turko smiled. “Hark,” he said.

  The uproar outside took on a new and suddenly splendid difference. We went into the main chamber and saw a very large and knobby club with a six-inch nail embedded in the head going up and down like the head of a sissingbird snapping insects. A thraxter was slicing away with all the Chulik skills. Other weapons were being used, and the Khamorros were throwing people about like ninepins. Against the high khamsters our people would have had a more tricky time; but Turko waded in with all the venom engendered by being hung up like a chicken on a meat hook, and I took my part, and in short order we broke back through the door and ran down the stairs in a shouting, laughing mob.

  No one offered to stop us as we ran out of The Wristy Grip into the pink radiance of the Maiden with the Many Smiles and the rosy golden light of She of the Veils.

  Chapter fifteen

  The Confidence of the Kov of Falinur

  The experiences through which I had gone since escaping from the Humped Land formed a distinct pattern in my head. Finding Turko was not quite the last knot of that pattern. He was, of course, unwilling to leave the Golden Prychan and his wrestling comrades until the business of Andrinos and Saenci had been settled. But, for all that — and I warmed to the idea — he was ragingly eager to return to Vallia.

  Born in Herrelldrin though he had been, trained as a Khamorro, rising to a high kham, he now made his home in Valka and regarded himself as a Vallian. Well, did not I, also?

  The last knot in this chain would be, of course, Hyrklana.

  And that must wait until we had returned to Vallia.

  “He has had a fright, that Jimstye Gaptooth,” quoth Kimche. “But if you leave us, Turko, we face a hard time of it in the contests.”

  This was a matter I must not interfere in and must leave to Turko.

  “When I joined the consortium of the Golden Prychan,” said Turko, and he spoke slowly and with gravity, “I was beholden to you. But I did warn you, fair and square—”

  “Yes. You said you would have to leave us one day—”

  “And that day is now. Black Algon must be made to see reason.”

  “I have gold,” I said.

  They all stared at me.

  “But I will not interfere.”

  Andrinos, one arm about Saenci as we talked in the bamboo-lined snug, said, “If we win free, I will go with Turko.” He did not know where Turko was bound. Saenci would go with him. “And for the gold —

  that I will earn and repay and thank you with all my heart.”

  I nodded.

  With a lift of her Khibil head, Saenci said, “Tell Black Algon I will never return to him. If he refuses the gold, tell him I shall surely kill myself. Then he will have neither gold nor me.” She made herself smile.

  “And he is very avaricious.”

  So that was the way of it. Turko said to me, “Andrinos is a lucky fellow.”

  And I said, “Yes.”

  Now Turko the Shield is an extraordinarily handsome man. With the superb athletic build of a Khamorro and that brilliant profile, he must have wreaked havoc in many a female heart. When he married and settled down, then, I judged, a shadow would come over the bright days of many and many a beauteous maid.

  And, as you shall hear, I had the confounded problem of Korero the Shield to attempt to solve...

  Perhaps it was just blind luck; perhaps it was fate; perhaps it was some beneficent god or spirit of Kregen taking a hand, but what fell out heartened every one of us.

  On the very day Turko, Andrinos, and Saenci prepared to walk with me up that lonely, jungly path, the Khibil’s gold having been paid over and her manumission processed very smoothly, three fearsome Khamorros arrived at the fairground and were immediately taken into the consortium of the Golden Prychan. Kimche rubbed a thick hand over his glistening yellow pate.

  “Now may Likshu the Treacherous smile, doms! Our comrade Turko leaves us and we replace him with three of his compatriots!”

  So, laughing, filled with good cheer, we set off for the flier hidden away in the jungle.

  Fliers are rare craft in Pandahem. Andrinos and Saenci walked on ahead of us, close together, so I was able to have a private word with Turko as we followed. When I expressed myself as being surprised that so many Khamorros came to Mahendrasmot, he smiled that ironical, infuriating damned smile of his.

  “Mahendrasmot is well known. The fairground attracts people from far away. And, Dray, as you saw, the Khamorros were not high khams.”

  “And you?”

  He repeated what I had heard from our comrades of their shattering surprise when they had been sorcerously hurled back to their homelands. Turko had begun to work his way back to Vallia and had bogged down here, out of cash, and taking the fairground job to earn his passage money on. At this time there was no real volume of trade between Pandahem under Yantong and our sections of Vallia, apart from smuggling. He would have landed in an inhospitable section of Vallia, and he told me how concerned he had become at the rumors and stories out of Vallia.

  He was avid for news. I told him of the changed circumstances in the island empire, how the old emperor was dead, and of how I had been fetched to be the new. I said we must all act as our consciences dictated, and there were new men in the world, and Vallia was most miserably divided up and many of her people cruelly mistreated by Yantong and his minions, by riffraff, flutsmen, aragorn, and by the Hamalese.

  “There are stern battles ahead, Turko—”

  “And I shall be there, with my shield.”

  “It is in my mind to make you—” And then I stopped myself. I had been going to say I would create Turko a kov, t
hat exalted rank similar to that of duke, as a preparation for broaching the subject of Korero. I saw that as contemptible.

  I said, “I have fought in a few battles since we parted, Turko. I have a fine Kildoi to guard my back with his shields. You will meet Korero the Shield.”

  His eyebrows lifted and he half-turned. Then, in stony silence, he walked on up the jungly path. Andrinos and Saenci were laughing. The suns burned down.

  I ploughed on, my throat on fire. “Since you will have no truck with steel and edged weapons, in which you have my admiration, I think it right—”

  Then he said, “So you are casting me off?”

  “My Val!” I said. “Sink me! Of course not! You are a fambly to think it, let alone say it!”

  “So what is in your mind for me, then, Dray? Or should I call you emperor, majister—?”

  “Do you wish to try a few falls, dom? Listen, and shut that black-fanged winespout!”

  Then he laughed. “You are the same, at any rate, thanks be to Morro the Muscle!”

  “Seg and Inch are both kovs of Vallia. I see no reason why you should not be a kov also. I shall arrange this. And, as a kov—”

  “You can get rid of me and my shield at your back in the day of battle?”

  “Not so. Oh, no! When we fight the Hamalese, as we must, and the clansmen, and the riffraff tearing the heart out of our country, I shall count on you, Kov Turko, to be in the thick of it, as usual.”

  He kicked a jungly frond that tendriled across the path.

  “And, being a kov, and high and mighty some of them are, as we both know—” He stopped speaking then and scowled.

  We walked for a space in silence.

  Khamorros have reflexes as quick as thought. Turko’s hand whipped out and his fist cupped a sparkling fat, blue insect. It was harmless. It buzzed in the prison of Turko’s fingers for a space; then he opened his hand and the fly buzzed free.

  “Yes,” he said. “Seg is a kov and Seg is damned unhappy with his kovnate. Oh, Thelda loves it—” He saw my face. “What? Is Thelda dead? What has chanced with Seg?”

  Very firmly, I lied to him. “Thelda is reported dead, seeing no one has seen her in Vondium since we were all parted. Seg is getting over it.” As I spoke I realized these were not lies, for Seg’s wife, Thelda, although not dead but very happily married to Lol Polisto in all ignorance that her real husband was not dead, was generally regarded as being dead. Seg thought so. I cleared my throat. “Seg is unhappy, yes...

  But that does not mean you will be.”

  “It does not. If I am to be a kov I would like to take over Seg’s kovnate of Falinur. They are a bunch of rogues who deserve to be brought into a better understanding of life.”

  I was astounded. Then it was my turn to laugh. “I have spoken to Seg about his kovnate. He remains a kov. But, Turko, you have the lands and the titles and are the Kov of Falinur.”

  “Right,” he said, and I did not miss the ring in his voice. “I thank you for this, majister. There will be changes. And the first will be to alter that damned miserable ocher and umber checkerboard schturval.[4]

  Those colors for your kovnate clothes and symbols are depressing. I shall border each square with a nice thick line of cheerful red.”

  “Quidang!” I said, and thus mocked him in turn.

  He was filled with a bubbling confidence, which both amazed and heartened me. I had been totally unsure how he would take to the idea that he was no longer to stand at my back in battle with his shield. I had wondered how he would receive the comical notion that he should be a kov, with titles and estates and cities owing allegiance to him. He seemed to be thriving on the latter idea, and I, shrewdly I suppose, surmised he had not given up on the former and would seek to stand with me in battle as always.

  Korero would have to be handled, too...

  So, as we found the hidden voller and all climbed aboard, I felt that the future for the midlands of Vallia looked brighter than it had for seasons.

  We took off and soared away, heading for the islands of Vallia and what was left of my empire. And, at the thought, I suddenly felt a coldness, and stupidly longed to be down the Moder with all the Monsters and menace... By the Black Chunkrah! A few footling fun and games around passages and secret doors and ghoulish weirdies seemed then to be children’s pastimes beside the job facing me in Vallia and all of Paz. Again and again I had tried to throw off the yoke, and always some stupidity in my own nature forced me to resume the burden. The single decisive fact impelling me to go on was simply this: that I had been called on, chosen, fetched by the people of Vallia to lead them in their way of life and their struggle for freedom.

  My comrades were individual people, with strong characters and minds of their own. If, sometimes, it sounds as though I ordered them about willy-nilly, this is not so. Each one was a personality, a real living, breathing person, and if I fail to bring them vividly alive to you in these tapes, then the lack is mine, the loss yours, for, by Zair, they are a bonny bunch!

  Now Turko said to me, “I see you fly due west. So you do not intend to chance the mountains?”

  I shook my head.

  “This voller may not let us down as those cranky rubbish heaps from Hamal so often do. But the mountains offer a risk we do not have to accept.” I looked at him. “Anyway, I’ve a mind to fly over Rahartdrin.”

  I had told him how we had lost contact with so many of the outlying provinces and islands. Rahartdrin, the large island off the southwest of Vallia, was the kovnate of the Lady Katrin Rashumin. As a friend of Delia’s, her welfare concerned me. No news had come out of that part of the empire, and all our spies had either reported failure or had not returned.

  Turning north off the west coast of Pandahem, we soared on over the southern reaches of the Hobolings and struck out across the Sea of Opaz. The whole distance was above seven hundred dwaburs and we estimated should take us the best part of three days, as the flier was not of the fast variety. We took turns to conn the helm and stand by the levers, Saenci catered splendidly, and we bustled through the skies of Kregen in fine style.

  The strategic concept of having to stop for fuel, and have coaling stations conveniently scattered across the world, was one with which I was at that time unfamiliar. Vittles and water were the limiting factors in a journey time. The silver boxes, the vaol and paol, with their mix of minerals and gas, upheld us and drove us on, so there was no need to make any halts.

  Out over the Sea of Opaz, the islands of the Hobolings dropped astern; looking for the dawn and then a few burs of sunshine before we reached Rahartdrin, I stood at the controls and felt the lightness of spirits on me. I felt more free then I had for ages, and this despite the ponderous weight of the problems facing me at home. Going back to Delia; that was the answer. So I stood there and snuffed the night air and Deb-Lu-Quienyin appeared at my side.

  His ghostly form glimmered spectrally against the side of the voller. I could see the canvas stitching through him.

  He gestured. Commandingly, he pointed two points off the starboard bow. Darkness shrouded the sea, with the massed glitter of the stars above and the Twins fast sinking in the west. Then he stabbed his fingers into the air, five fingers, and his mouth framed the word “Bur.” The Kregan bur is forty terrestrial minutes long and there are forty-eight of them to a Kregan day.

  I moved the controls and the voller swung onto the heading Quienyin indicated. The Wizard of Loh smiled, and pushed his turban straight, and disappeared.

  Well, I said to myself, lucky Andrinos and Saenci had not witnessed that supernatural manifestation. I felt the chill. Yet how splendidly different this apparition from those with which that egomaniacal cramph Phu-Si-Yantong favored us!

  Turko came on deck at the change of course. He yawned.

  “In about five burs’ time, Turko, we shall see something interesting. The suns should just about be up by then.”

  He looked at me. “What—?”

  A brief, a very brief, explanat
ion had to suffice.

  “And this Wizard of Loh. You will no doubt kick Khe-Hi-Bjanching out as you—”

  “Now, Turko!”

  But he was smiling, and as we sailed on he launched into a summary of his plans for his new kovnate. I listened. I fancied the recalcitrant folk of Falinur were in for a shock. Turko had seen how Seg’s methods had failed to impress. As I listened I realized that Seg had attempted to do things in the way he knew I would approve, without force. Turko was prepared to bear down that much harder — well, by Vox! So was Seg; but he had genuinely attempted to apply the new principles we all wanted to bring to the hard and harsh world of Kregen. There was a lesson here. But, I knew, I would not give up my plans, even if, from time to time, they were temporarily set back.

  As for Quienyin, this visit proved to me he had been accepted in Vallia, and for that I joyed.

  I broke the bad news about Falinur with a little lift of that mockery subsisting between us. “Oh, and Turko. The ex-pallan, Layco Jhansi, has taken over in Falinur. We will have to send him packing first.”

  Turko glowered. I had told him of the treachery of Layco Jhansi, the old emperor’s chief pallan. “I find it odd, to say the least, Dray. Vallia, the island empire, divided up into a parcel of warring factions. Odd, damned odd.”

  “Odd but true. We hold Vondium and much of the south and midlands. But we must patrol these artificial frontiers, and hold strong reserves in loci where they can march instantly to any threatened point.

  And the flutsmen drop down anywhere, for they are returning to Vallia in increasing numbers. The world regards Vallia as doomed and as merely a fat prize to be sucked dry. Oh, and we have good friends in Hawkwa country, up in the Northeast.”

  “And Inch and Princess — I mean Empress — Delia? The Blue Mountain Boys, Korf Aighos, they would not take kindly to these rasts stealing from them. That is certain. And the Black Mountain Men.

  Inch’s kovnate must have fought.”

  “They both did and have kept themselves relatively clear of the vermin infesting our land; but it is mighty hard.”