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  “The elections have just taken place,” he said.

  So that was all right.

  Then whiskery Rubin stuck his head around the door and bellowed.

  Rubin, incidentally, like so many of my old swods, was a Zan Deldar and would, at his own request, remain so. Not for him the escalation of the dizzy heights. He could become a Hikdar, the next rank up, at once, should he so wish. It would not be long before he was a Jiktar. It would take a little longer, a matter of a decade, if no one got massacred too recklessly, before he made Chuktar. But for whiskery Rubin, being a Deldar, and a Zan Deldar, the top of the tree at that, was ambition, reward and pleasure enough.

  “Majister! Hamdi the Yenakker craves audience.”

  “Show him in, Rubin, please.” I glanced across sharply. “You have been on duty a long time.”

  “Aye, majister. Standing in for young Long Wil, who has a twisted shoulder.”

  “Oh?”

  Rubin looked evasive. The magnificence of his uniform was entirely superficial. All the gold and braids and feathers would not interfere with his sword arm. But he did look splendid. His medals — the bobs — on his chest glittered.

  “Fell, majister, twisted his shoulder.”

  Far be it from me to inquire further. But, just to be devilish and to let my swods know I wasn’t senile yet, I walked across, digging out a gold zan-deldy piece. This I placed in the horny palm of Rubin.

  “Puggled, winner or loser. You will know, Zan Deldar Rubin, who deserves this acknowledgment from me.”

  “Aye, majister, may the glory of Opaz shine on us all.”

  He stiffened up into attention. On Kregen it could not be ramrod attention; but he stiffened up as straight as one of Seg’s best shafts. His face, brown and lined and like a chunk of that hard stone they can never seem to break under a year’s hard labor in distant Shalasfreel, betrayed nothing. If Long Wil had been in a fight, his comrades would see to it that the deserving of the combatants received the gold. And ten gold pieces, in one zan-deldy coin, was a matter of consideration. I did not think Long Wil had fallen down drunk. That behavior tended to exclude folk from the ranks of my various guard units.

  As Hamdi the Yenakker sidled in, I reflected that this little aside with Rubin was not unimportant. Of little incidents like this was the trust between commander and men forged, for there was nothing here of the insulting patronage of handing out money as largesse without reason beyond the buying of men’s loyalty. My men and I swore our mutual loyalties by the edge of the sword.

  “Well, Hamdi?”

  “Majister. She is the woman I warned you of.”

  “So I gathered. This Pancresta. Sit down and take a glass. What else have you learned?”

  “She is from Pandahem. From south. I do not trust her. But she asks for an audience with you, majister.”

  “Does she? Well, Hamdi, you rogue, as you well know I do not trust you. Oh, we have done business in the past. But mayhap this time... Who knows?”

  Hamdi looked hurt. He was still the same tall and upright fellow, carrying himself with a swagger, now sworn to all things Vallian after our victory over mad Empress Thyllis. But he understood we knew he was a rogue. I feel that upset him only in that he felt less free to practice his wiles. Well, nothing much need be said about Hamdi the Yenakker. He sold us information. He provided contacts. He had his uses.

  And, so far, he had not betrayed us.

  “Have I not served you well, majister? Was it not I who took you and Kov Seg here to The Crushed Toad to meet Nath the Dwa? Have I not provided you with trustworthy information? Did I not save the life of young Strom Nomius?”

  “Aye, Hamdi, you did warn us in time to prevent his assassination. But to the matter of the woman—”

  “Yes, majister. I think she wishes to trick you by giving you false information.” He stood up for himself. “Unlike me.”

  Seg said, “I could wish Deb-Lu or Khe-Hi were here.”

  “Aye.”

  Had our two comrades who were Wizards of Loh been available on hand, they might well have riddled out if Pancresta spoke the truth. As it was, the Wizards were about their own business.

  Then Hamdi said, “Has... pressure... been exerted on the woman, majister?”

  “No,” I said. His look was sly, understanding, a tilt to his head and a sidelong glance conveying what he was hinting at. “Nothing like that, and nothing like that will be permitted while Kov Seg or myself remain in command.”

  “Well, majister, something made her wish to talk.”

  I would not open out on a speculation on the results of Nedfar’s threat. I said, “It is probably as you say. She wishes to trick us. I will see her.”

  Hamdi screwed up his eyes.

  “There is one thing—”

  “Yes?”

  “—She insists that she meet you privately, in the open, away from spying eyes.”

  Carefully, Seg said, “Can she insist?”

  “She was, kov, most insistent.”

  “She must be afraid of others of Spikatur. If she sells them, they will surely seek to kill her.”

  “That is right,” I said. “But it suggests there are loopholes in the security here.”

  “It is all Hamalese, now, apart from this wing of the palace.”

  “All right.” One woman, alone, deserved her fair chance of life. “I’ll see her as she wishes.”

  “1 shall arrange it, majister.”

  Hamdi rose, finishing his glass of parclear, and bowed. I let him. He put store by these things. When he had gone, Seg said, “All right, Dray. So you meet her and some hidden stikitche puts a shaft through your back.”

  “So I shall wear a breast and back.”

  “If it was me, I’d put one through whatever of you was unarmored. That’d be your vosk-skull of a head.”

  “Most assassins are not as good shots as you.”

  “Any stikitche worth contracting could hit your head.”

  The point of this wrangle was perfectly clear. Seg wanted to come along, too. I did not say him nay.

  There was time to see Ortyg ham Hundral, Pallan of Buildings, and to join with him in gleeful contemplation of the plans of the Temple of Havil in Splendor. I had only one fleeting thought at the oddness of this. Not so long ago I’d have been straining every nerve to destroy every damned temple erected to Havil the Green.

  Times change, by Zair!

  When Hamdi the Yenakker reported back the location chosen for the meeting with Pancresta, I own to an odd feeling of the rightness of the choice.

  The bloodiness of the Arena in Ruathytu was notorious throughout the length and breadth of the continent of Havilfar. I had not fought there at that time, although the ways of the Star Lords are passing strange and beyond the full comprehension of mortal men; but I had fought in the Arena of Huringa in Hyrklana. Along with many others, I had set my face against the idea of the Jikhorkdun, the Arena, the killing machinery of deadly games on the silver sand.

  In the Great Arena, here in Ruathytu, the arch devil Phu-Si-Yantong, that infamous Wizard of Loh, had made his last stand, his final resistance, until blown away in the Quern of Gramarye fashioned by our comrade Wizards of Loh.

  Since that awful occurrence, the place had not been popular, we had done all we could to discourage attendance, and the other smaller Jikhorkduns had reopened to patronage we deplored. So the Great Arena lay deserted under the Suns, and the silver sand sparkled unmarked by the tramp of booted feet, the rush of talons, the sprinkle of shed blood.

  Here, out on the silver sand, Pancresta chose to meet us and tell us the secrets of Spikatur Hunting Sword.

  Chapter four

  What Chanced in the Arena

  The Emperor of Hamal said in his sternest voice, “Remember, Dray Prescot, you are the Emperor of Vallia. And King of Djanduin. And many other notable titles and ranks. It is not fitting that you should not go attired as an emperor.”

  “As to that,” I said, adjusting the plain l
esten-hide belt with the silver buckle, “I never feel comfortable in all that popinjay finery.”

  Seg let loose a cross between a grunt and a chuckle.

  So, quickly, very quickly, I said, “I speak only for myself, Nedfar. You, I am sure, understand that.”

  Nedfar took it in good part.

  He was dressed magnificently, a shimmering statuesque emperor, a lordly one of Kregen, dominating and superb.

  Seg and I wore the brave old scarlet, with a cunning coat of mesh-linked mail, and over that we wore a breast and back apiece, since that pleased Seg on my behalf. Our harness was plain, workmanlike, without any of your frills. The smell of rich leather-oil pervaded the chamber not unpleasantly. I say rich — any fighting man will use the best equipment he can lay his hands on, and taking care of weapons and harness is a number-one priority. That oil was expensive.

  Seg found himself in something of a quandary.

  His strong face looked puzzled. I laughed and said, “Luckily enough I am not in that predicament.”

  He hefted two bows, one in each hand, and he looked at and weighed one and then he looked at and weighed the other.

  Finally, he said, “Were it not thought excessive, what our old comrade Fran the Zappim would call Vulgar Ostentation, I would take them both.”

  “Even a Djang finds difficulty in shooting two bows at once. They do not recommend the practice, and—”

  “And they have four arms! I know...”

  “We are only going to speak to a poor woman, alone, out on the silver sand.”

  “I don’t trust her.”

  “No more do I. Take them both, then. They will snug up over your shoulder well enough, seeing they are so alike.”

  He made that little grunting chuckle of his, and shook his head, and shoved both bowstaves up over his shoulder.

  “I may look a ninny, but that does not bother me.”

  Nedfar shared the general amusement over Seg and his precious bows.

  We strapped up our usual arsenal of weaponry — a rapier and main gauche, a drexer, a shoulder pack of throwing knives, those little deadly weapons the girls of the great clans of Segesthes call the Deldar, a hunting knife, odds and ends of lethal nastiness. Weight had to figure into all this, of course, but a fellow can carry a tremendous load when his life depends on it, and we took nothing we felt we did not need or might not require.

  For helmets, which we took because Nedfar insisted, we chose plain, smoothly round, headpieces, rather like basinets, and the gallant red feathers flaunted from minuscule silver rosettes. Over all we each flung a scarlet cape. This was, perhaps, carrying effect to extremes; but I had taken some heed of Nedfar’s words.

  So dressed up in a curious mixture of men going off to war and men intending merely to impress, we set off.

  If I do not mention that snugly scabbarded down my back lay a Krozair longsword, it is merely because whenever the opportunity offers I take a specimen of that great brand as a matter of course. There was, I firmly believed, on Kregen only one pattern of sword superior to the Krozair longsword, and that was the marvelous Savanti sword.

  So, dressed and accoutred and with a good meal under our belts, we went down to the courtyard and mounted our zorcas.

  As we rode along through the crowded streets after the short haul across the river, our zorcas patient of this delay before we remounted, I reflected on how well I knew this once-hostile city, how great and magnificent a place it was, and yet how different in atmosphere from the other great cities I knew on Kregen.

  Everywhere people were busy about the task of rehabitation. The place hummed with activity. Our small bodyguard rode at our backs, a party of Nedfar’s personal guards, and a half-dozen files of my duty squadron, which happened to be this day from 1ESW. The First Regiment of the Emperor’s Sword Watch. I knew every man, and every man knew me. But, as we rode, we attracted little attention.

  For this I was glad, but it showed all too clearly that the people of Ruathytu might have misinterpreted the attitude of their new emperor.

  Nedfar rode between us, and presently he half-leaned sideways and said to me, “The Empress Thyllis would never have ridden through her capital city like this, Dray. There would have been processions, and regiments of guards, and chanting and singing everywhere she went.”

  I acknowledged the truth of this observation.

  “The people do not fawn on me, and that is good. It seems your brand of emperorship works here in Hamal as well as in your Vallia.”

  “That pleases me. I can’t stand the sight of rows of upturned bottoms.”

  Seg laughed.

  The sounds and scents of a busy city surrounded us. But as we neared the Jikhorkdun the clamor fell away. The aqueducts bulked black against the sky. The cobbles rang louder under the hooves of the zorcas. These splendid riding animals, proud, curveting, each with his single spiral horn jutting arrogantly from his forehead, were full of fire and mettle.

  And the Arena brooded like a dark blot upon the city.

  Hamdi the Yenakker waited for us inside the first of the shadows.

  He bowed most respectfully to Nedfar.

  “Lahal, Emperor!”

  Nedfar acknowledged with a Lahal and a gesture, and then we dismounted and, with the guards closed up around us, went through the first of the warren of courtyards and practice rings and bazaars. Everywhere they lay deserted and empty.

  Once, this place would have been frantic with the everyday carryings-on of the Jikhorkdun. The booths were shuttered, the stalls empty. The practice rings gaped blindly.

  Through the colossal arches supporting the seating of the amphitheater we went, and our booted feet rang hollow echoes.

  And so we stepped out from one of the ring of gateways, out onto the sands of the Arena, out onto the Silver Sand.

  One could fancy all those rows and rows of seats, towering up into the sky, filled with the insensate beast-roar of a blood-mad crowd. Thousands of people, screaming with the blood lust upon them, and, down here where we stood, a small forlorn group, the kaidurs would have fought and died.

  I gave a little shivery shake of my shoulders.

  An airboat drifted in over the stands, lowering down to the sand.

  Seg said, “At least she travels in comfort.”

  “It was thought best, kov, by the Jiktar of the guard.” Hamdi spread his hands, saying it was no affair of his. The airboat settled out in the center of the arena.

  Nedfar took a step forward.

  He halted, and turned to us.

  I do not see why — at that stage — we felt tense, jumpy. We were just humoring a proud and willful woman, attempting to gain secrets from her without the use of force. But, all the same, I own to putting my fist down onto the hilt of my drexer, and of looking sharply into the blue-black shadows around the arena.

  “Dray?” said Nedfar.

  “You are emperor here now, Nedfar.”

  “Only because of you... Very well. Let us all go out together.”

  Seg, Nedfar and I walked across the silver sand.

  Sometimes, in the old days, the Jikhorkdun of Ruathytu had used golden sand.

  Red blood still looked dark and unwholesome, spilt on gold as on silver sand.

  The heat beat down. The suns were halfway down, sending mingled shadows across the floor of the arena. All the rows of flagstaffs were bare of treshes, naked and like withered sticks after a gale.

  Pancresta alighted from the airboat.

  We walked on.

  She advanced to meet us. We would meet just over halfway.

  She wore her long blue gown, open now at the throat. Even at this distance she gave the impression of hard dominance, of authority, of determination. She walked well.

  “We have done well,” said Nedfar, “to have caged this one.”

  “Aye,” said Seg.

  The way Nedfar observed that we had done well, and my own observation that Pancresta walked well, chimed. One supported the other. The Arena in R
uathytu is large. We took our time walking to this meeting. All the time we strode on, in a strange and affecting way, yet in no sense a weird or eerie way, I could hear the crazed roar of a blood-lusting crowd in my head. I could hear them, and if I half-closed my eyes I could see them — see the rows of inflamed faces and upraised fists, see the spectators as I fought out on the Silver Sand, see them all, by Beng Thrax’s Glass Eye and Brass Sword!

  In the airboat parked beyond the advancing form of Pancresta, the guards waited. There were not many of them in the small flier; after all, they merely guarded a lone woman. They were Hamalese, decked out in blue and green and with a deal of silver lace and colored feathers.

  An airboat flitted in over the western edge of the amphitheatre. Seg glanced up, following my gaze.

  Nedfar said, “I gave orders that the patrols should be active.”

  By the way we walked, the way we talked and, I suppose, by the way we thought, we gave an enormous importance to this woman Pancresta. Incongruous? I was beginning to think so when the airboat abruptly swooped.

  She passed directly over the flier that had brought the woman to this meeting.

  A small dark object tumbled out, and then another and another.

  They dropped down, plummeting into the flier.

  They were not pots of combustibles.

  “What?” said Nedfar, and he halted.

  A man leaped from the parked flier.

  He flailed his arms around his head. He danced like a crazy man. Another followed him, and then a third. They swirled and beat their arms. Around their heads a hazy shadow drifted, joining and parting, a grayish shroud lapping them together in a cloud of torment.

  “Wasps,” said Seg. “Or bees.”

  “Aye.”

  We started to run. Seg and I raced over the silver sands, and as we ran so we drew our swords.

  No thought of the incongruousness of all this armory could stand now against the stark reality of the trick by which we had been fooled.

  Pancresta stopped. She looked up. She held up her arms.

  There was tremendous triumph in the gesture.

  The voller sweeping through the air dived low, flew above her and a net spun out, a mesh of glinting silver.