A Sword for Kregen [Dray Prescot #20] Read online

  Master Scatulo, I fancied, would go up the ladder like a dose of salts.

  As to my own chances of improving in the Jikaida pieces’ hierarchy, I was not so sanguine. It was clear that the party with Konec, including Dav and Fropo, regarded me as a reasonably expert swordsman—they found it difficult to believe I had lasted even a couple of passes with Mefto—but were less than confident about letting me take the part of a superior piece. The Pallan, as the most important piece on the board, wore a full harness of that superb mesh steel. If he came up against a half-naked swod with a spear, the outcome would not be in doubt.

  When I questioned the sanity of men prepared to fight as swods, the explanations I was given ranged from blind passionate partisanship for the Blues or Yellow, simple greed, a desire to get on in Jikaida, fear of retribution for a crime—there are many foibles and quirks of human nature that Opaz has given us and that remain dark and shrouded in our inmost beings.

  Also, archers ringed the stands. If any piece, including a Pallan, shirked a fight and attempted to run, he would be shafted instantly at the signal from the representative of the Nine Masked Guardians who presided at every game.

  As the archers posted up there were Bowmen of Loh; everyone knew they would not miss.

  Some games of Kazz-Jikaida employed the rule that to make the powers of the superior pieces more representative of those the pieces really had on the board, more than one warrior took the part of a piece. Chuktars and Kapts might be represented by two fighting men, a Pallan by three. On other occasions all the pieces were armed in the same fashion. Once the stranger realized that Kazz-Jikaida was not quite like the Jikaida he had played as a boy against his father, or as a girl against her mother, then the anomalies were seen in their true perspective.

  In the board game a piece landing on the square of a hostile piece captures. In Kazz-Jikaida the square is contested in blood.

  To the death in Death-Jikaida.

  In most games, but not all, the Jikaidish Lore states that when an attacking piece wins he may be substituted by a fresh fighter of the same force. If a defending piece wins he must remain where he is, on the square for which he has fought so valiantly—bleeding, dying, it makes no matter. Thus a successful defense, which is contrary to board Jikaida, is penalized. The Substitutes lined along the benches wait to go in.

  Because like our Earthly game—coming possibly from chaturanga, shatranj—Jikaida has matured over the centuries and, also, because different folk play different rules in different parts of Kregen, there are many similarities and many divergences. The swods—the pawns—move one square diagonally or orthogonally ahead, and take on the forward diagonal. If a Deldar stands on a square adjacent to a swod, then that swod, of the Deldar's color, cannot be taken by an opposing swod. This leads to fascinating situations which abruptly erupt into furious action.

  This rule unique to Jikaida with its possibilities of Deldar-supported chains, is generally believed to have given rise to the traditional opening challenge of Jikaida: “Rank your Deldars!"

  The jikaidish for this particular protection is propt, and as we left the alehouse to set off for our quarters and an enormous meal, Dav said, “When the propts collapse the blood will fly, by Spag the Junct!"

  Because the prospect was both exhilarating and forbidding, making our fingers tingle, we swaggered and strutted, I can tell you, on our way to one of the six or eight square meals a day any Kregen likes to fuel the inner man. Pompino was more than a little put out by the unspoken imputations. His red whiskers bristled. But he was in the right of it. Our business was not taking part in blood games; it was in getting out of here.

  As we walked along he kept rotating his head, looking, as I alone knew, for that magnificent scarlet and golden raptor of the Star Lords. He regarded the Everoinye with none of the scorn and hatred I had once shown them; they had treated him well and fairly and he repaid them in loyal service. In addition, he was possessed of a species of religious rapture at the idea that he was so closely involved with the doings of the gods.

  Everybody in the twin cities talked in terms of the game, of course, and someone made a remark as we crossed into Blue City, that we had crossed a front. The Jikaida board is divided up into drins. Drin means land. Or, if you will, a number of drins are joined together to make the board. In general games a drin consists of a checkered board of six squares a side, making thirty-six in all. Six of these drins make up the board for Poron Jikaida, two by three. At the meeting of drins the line is painted in thicker markings. Some pieces have the power of crossing from drin to drin across a front on their move; most must halt at the front and wait until the next turn to cross.[5]

  [5 It is not necessary to understand how to play Jikaida to appreciate what follows. Dray Prescot relates in detail the description and rules of the game. A brief description of Jikaida is given at the end of this volume as Appendix A, together with sufficient rules for Poron Jikaida as to enable anyone to play an enjoyable game. A.B.A.]

  On the day appointed, Konec led us to the Jikaidaderen where we were to play. The lady Yasuri had hired herself a Jikaidast off the top of the tree. Konec, in his turn, had taken into employment for this game an intense, brooding, nervous Jikaidast called Master Urlando, who wore a blue gown with yellow checked border. For the professionals blue or yellow meant only the angles of the game, for the opening move was decided by chance and not by tradition.

  The game was an ordinary one and open to the public and the benches and covered arcades were filled. In the event Pompino gave in as much to his own estimation of himself as a fighting man as to outside pressures and took up his position as a Deldar. As I had expected, I was to act the part of a swod.

  The game was not distinguished. We ranked our Deldars after the impressive opening ritual, where prayers were spoken and the choirs sang suitable hymns and the incense was burned and the sacrifice made. The ib of Five-handed Eos-Bakchi here in Havilfar was represented by the ib of Himindur the Three-eyed. For the first time I realized, with a pang, that five-handed really did have a strong and terrible meaning. So, with due propitiation made and the fortunes of Luck and Chance called upon, we took our places upon the blue and yellow sanded squares.

  For a considerable period of the game I stood with a Deldar on an adjacent square and a swod—a Pachak with a brisk professional air about him, determined to get on—on the square to my left diagonal. He could not attack me by reason of the Deldar. We fell into an interesting conversation, although this was against the tenets of the game, and I learned of his history. I like Pachaks with their two left arms and their absolute loyalty in their nikobi to their oaths. Luckily for both of us we did not fight, the main action sweeping up the left hand side of the board and then, as Konec plunged, angling directly to the center and the Yellow Princess. Konec was a bold player, ruthless when he had to be. Dav was acting as Pallan. He was thrust forward, crossing a front, plunging into a direct confrontation with the Yellow Pallan. The fight was absorbingly interesting; Dav won, the right wing Kapt and Chuktar swept in and, with a Hikdar angling for the last kaida, the triumphant hyrkaida was made by Dav, sliding smoothly in and, challenged by the Yellow Princess's Swordsman, defeating him in a stiff but brief battle.

  The various shouts of acclaim went up, the Blue prianum, the shrine where the victory tallies were kept, notched up another win, and it was all over. I had neither struck nor received a blow. I bid a shaky remberee to the Pachak swod and we all went back to the hotel.

  Anticlimax—no. For I had seen what went on in Kazz-Jikaida, and was not much enamored of it.

  Konec said, “In two days’ time I meet a fellow from Ystilbur. You will be a Deldar, Jak."

  I nodded. There was little I felt I could say.

  Pompino, who had had to beat a swod, told me he was not going to act again. We were standing in the shade of a missal tree growing by the wall of the courtyard and the shadows from the walls crept over the sand. The sounds of the twin cities came muted. The ai
r smelled extraordinarily fresh and good.

  “Ineldar is forming his caravan. I shall be one of his guards. You, Jak?"

  “Yes, I think so."

  “Excellent. By Horato the Potent! I cannot wait to get out into the Desolate Waste!"

  A shadow moved among the shadows.

  Our thraxters were out in a twinkling.

  A voice said, “Jak? Pompino?"

  Pompino pointed his sword. “Step you forward so that we may see you. And move exceeding carefully."

  A dark form lumbered out into the last of the mingled light. Jade and ruby radiance fell about him. His hunched shoulders, his bulldog face, all the gentle power of him was as we remembered from the nights under the stars.

  There was blood on his right hand.

  Bevon the Brukaj said, “I have run away from my master. He abused me cruelly. And I struck a guard—I do not think I killed him; but his nose bled most wonderfully, to my shame."

  “Well, by the Blade of Kurin...” whispered Pompino.

  “Will you help me? Will you take me in?"

  The sound of loud voices rose from the street, approaching, and with them the heavy tramp of footsteps and the clank of weapons, the chingle of chains.

  “Inside, Bevon. Pompino, find Dav. Explain. We cannot allow them to take Bevon."

  “But—"

  “Do it!"

  Pompino took Bevon's arm and guided him into the inner doorway. Fixing a blank look on my face and sheathing my sword, I turned to the gate and stood, lolling there and picking my teeth.

  * * *

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kazz-Jikaida

  Over the seasons I have taken much enjoyment and indulged in merry mockery and silly sarcasm from that fuzzy look of blank idiocy I can plaster all across my weather-beaten old beakhead. But as the guards and the Watch strode up, clanking, I felt the pang of a realization that, perhaps, this stupid expression was truly me, after all.

  “Hey, fellow! A slave, a damned runaway slave. Have you seen him?"

  I picked my teeth. “Was he a little Relt with a big wart alongside his hooter?"

  “No, you fambly—"

  “I haven't seen anyone like that."

  “A hulking stupid great oaf of a Brukaj—"

  “Best look along by the Avenue of Bangles—they're all notors in here.” I screwed my eyes up. “D'you have the price of a stoup of ale, doms? I'm main thirsty—"

  But, angry and waving their poles from which the lanterns hung, flickering golden light, they went off, shouting, raising a hullabaloo. The black and white checkers vanished along the way and I, still picking my teeth, went back into the rear quarters of the hotel. They had given me no copper ob for a drink. They had cursed me for a fool, unpleasantly, and had there been time they'd have drubbed me for fun. Not nice people. I would not like Bevon to fall into their clutches.

  After a quantity of shouting and arm-waving we persuaded Dav that Bevon wouldn't murder us all in our beds. As a runaway slave he was a highly dangerous person to have on the premises; but Dav's good nature surfaced. He was a man who knew his own mind, and he summed Bevon up shrewdly. Runaway slaves are not tolerated in slave-owning society for the bad examples they set. It was left to Bevon to say the words that got us all off the hook.

  “Here in Jikaida City,” he said in his pleasant voice, having got his breath and composure back and washed off the guard's nose bleed, “I am told that a slave may gain his freedom by taking part in the games."

  “That is true, Bevon. But he has to act the part of a swod and he must survive a set number of games. It has been known—but is rare, by the Blade of Kurin."

  “Enter me in the next game, and I shall be safe from Master Scatulo. My blood-price will be paid by the Nine Masked Guardians, for they always welcome anyone willing to take part in Kazz-Jikaida as a swod. You know that. I cannot be touched by the law until I am free or dead. That is the law."

  Kov Konec, when consulted, agreed to Dav's proposals, and it was settled. I own I felt relief. Bevon seemed to me to be far too gentle a fellow actually to take up sword and fight; but as he said himself, rather that than being slave any longer.

  The day of the game against the player from Ystilbur was set as Bevon's introduction to Kazz-Jikaida, and the authorities were notified. Also, this day coincided with the decision about the caravan out of here. Pompino was in no doubt.

  “If we do not give our undertaking to Ineldar by tonight and conclude the bokkertu, he will have to employ other guards.” Pompino stood with me watching as Dav stood facing a table on which a huge ale barrel was upended. The spout gushed ale into an enormous flagon. Dav stood there, hands on hips, his head thrust forward, licking his lips, and, I am sure, feeling the tortures of the damned. There was no ale for Dav on the day of Kazz-Jikaida.

  Rather, there was no ale until we had won.

  “I have promised to fight—” I said.

  “Well, I shall not. They have been good friends to us, yes, I agree. But our duty lies elsewhere."

  “I thought you said you didn't get enough time away from your wife?"

  “True. But I've had enough time, now, by Horato the Potent!"

  By just about any of the honor codes of Kregen there could not really be any faulting of Pompino's logic. I said, “I'll just play in this game for them and then I'll come with you to sign on with Ineldar."

  “You might get chopped."

  “Then the problem wouldn't arise."

  Dav rolled across, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth just as though he'd demolished a whole stoup, and told us that the cramph from Ystilbur had hired the best the academies could offer. “Those rasts up there have gone in with the Hamalese, may Krun rot their eyeballs."

  Very carefully, I said: “They are a small nation. They were overrun by the cramphs of Hamal, just like the folk of Clef Pesquadrin. D'you know what happens when a country is subjected like that, Dav? Put in chains?"

  “Aye. And not pretty, either. But this Coner is half Hamalese, I'm told. There is a plot in this, and I don't like it.” He frowned and shook his shoulders. “I've tried to warn Konec; but he sees this as merely another step in the games."

  The many games of Jikaida all served to enhance or not the prestige of the various participants. There were league tables. This was the Two Thousand Five Hundred and Ninety-Eighth Game, and they played a Game a season, so that shows you. The champions went away from Jikaida City far wealthier than when they arrived; but also they took with them the intangible aura of the victor.

  The twin cities lived and breathed Jikaida. That cannot be emphasized enough. Everywhere, in the taverns, along the boulevards, in the parks, people sat all day playing. Those who could visited the public games of Kazz. The highest nobility of Havilfar and anywhere else who were apprized kept strictly to their own private games, where Death Jikaida ruled. These were the games in which the highest honors were conferred. Everyone gambled, of course. I had heard stories of whole kingdoms being staked on the outcome of a single game. People bet on the results, on just which pieces would survive, how long it would be before certain positions were reached, how many pieces would be wounded or slain. They bet on anything.

  Pompino said, “Plot or no, Dav, I'd put ten golden deldys on you; but no one will give me reasonable odds."

  Dav said, “I've been lucky so far.” The truth was, he was a fine fighting man, clever and quick with his blade, and the betting public had seen that and he commanded odds to gamblers.

  Remembering how I had met a flutsman of Ystilbur in peculiar circumstances, a Brokelsh height Hakko Bolg ti Bregal known as Hakko Volrokjid, I reflected that the Hamalese had all Ystilbur in their power. Perhaps some of the schemes of Konec also were known to them? Certain sure it was that the Hamalese, despite recent setbacks in the Dawn Lands, were intent on further conquest there.

  So Konec led us off to play Kazz-Jikaida against Coner, and Pompino got himself a seat in the stands to watch. The day was fair. The prelimina
ries were gone through as before, with the rituals and the choirs chanting and the sacrifices and the libations, and mightily impressive it all was. Konec and Coner seated themselves on the playing thrones, one at either end, and we pieces marched out to take up our places on the board.

  As a Deldar in this game I carried a shield of wicker and a five-foot spear. I had a leather jerkin. Dav, massive in his mesh, gave me a cheery word. Fropo the Curved, acting as a Kapt, strained his bulk against his lorica. Each piece was equipped according to the rules prescribed in the hyr-lif known as the Jikaidish Lore. I settled myself. Extremely beautiful girls, clad wispily in draperies of white and purple, danced about the board to carry the commands of the players to their pieces. Up on the throne dais each player had his Jikaidast at his side. The feeling of ages-old ritual, that this was the way the game should be played, the way it should be run, held everyone fixed in complete absorption. The fascination was there, like a drug, a dark compelling pull drawing on the deep tides of the blood.

  Golden trumpets blew. The banners broke free. The first move was made.

  Well, I will not go into it. It was a shambles.

  We ranked Deldars and started off in fine style, and then we ran into disastrous trouble as a whole rank of swods was swept away. Red-clad slaves with litters and stretchers carried off the casualties. Other slaves raked the blue and yellow sand neatly back into the squares, and fresh sand was sprinkled over the blood. But Yellow surged on and on, triumphant, and we were pressed back, losing men like flies in winter.

  The fighting men trained in the academies had been taught all the tricks of fighting in the admittedly limited space of the Jikaida squares. If a warrior stepped outside the square he was adjudged the loser, of course. If he stepped out too smartly, without giving of his utmost, if he shirked and sought that way out of the horror, then black-clad men ran onto the board. What they did ensured that pieces would fight, grimly and with thought only of victory.