A Victory for Kregen (9 page)

If he wasn’t going to come out with it, neither was I.

“Yes. Go to Vondium. Go to the Imperial Palace. You have the presence to gain audience of the empress. She will receive you kindly, if you tell her — certain things she will wish to know.”

“Thank you — Jak. The prospect pleases me.”

“You will be right royally welcome, Quienyin.”

Tyfar was moving about down by the fluttrells and a general animation stirred our little camp as we prepared to carry on.

“Of course,” I said. “The empress may not be in Vondium. She is often away about her own affairs.

Then ask to see the Prince Majister, Drak. Or Kov Farris. You will, I am sure, know just who best to see.”

“I shall — Jak.”

I stood up. I stretched. Then, sharply, I said, “And my friends in Hyrklana?”

“I shall attempt to obtain news.”

“Good. Now it seems we are moving on.”

We reached Astrashum, the city from which expeditions set out for the Humped Land. In this place Hunch, Nodgen, and I had been auctioned off on the slave block. The man who had bought us, Tarkshur the Lash, a Kataki, had ventured into the Moder filled with avarice. He had been left with his tail fast gripped in the uncuttable tentacle of one horrific kind of Snatchban. The decision seemed to me sound to banish memories of the Moder from my mind.

Prince Nedfar and his party had gone on to Jikaida City. The other principals alive of our expedition had taken their leave and gone home. Kov Loriman, the Hunting Kov, was reported as being in fine fettle.

Ariane nal Amklana had set off for Hyrklana with her small imperious head lifted in regal disdain.

Folk in Astrashum expressed themselves as vastly surprised there had been as many as three survivors from the original nine. Quienyin and I kept very low, and we set off at once for Jikaida City. Nedfar, Quienyin warned us, had left immediately for Hamal. Fresh airboats from Hamal had been flown in for his party. Their passage home would be swift.

“I joy that my father and sister, and all the others, are safe,” said Tyfar. But he bit his lip, and added:

“But I view with alarm what the empress will say. My father did not conclude the embassy with Prince Mefto and we have no great store of armies on which to call. She knows he does not see eye to eye with her war policy. I call on Krun of the Steel Blade to watch over him.”

“And I, too,” I said. “We follow?”

“As fast as our fluttrells can fly.”

“Prince,” said Nath the Shaft, respectfully, “flyers are scarce, as we all know. We must take care of them, lest they are stolen away from us. Their value is above price.”

“That is the war—”

“Aye!”

“Can you tell why Thyllis entrusted your father with the task of making the alliance with Mefto?” I wanted to know.

“He is known to be above party politics, seeking only the welfare of Hamal. If we can win the war quickly, then much grievous loss will be spared us. Thyllis knew this.”

Well, that made sense in a nonsensical world.

Honest men are used by the cunning of two worlds — as I know, having been used and user in my time.

Flying over the Dawn Lands of Havilfar reveals their haphazard splendor. They are like a patchwork quilt of countries. There are scores of tiny Stromnates and trylonates, larger vadvarates and kovnates, and broad princedoms and kingdoms. Here was where the first men to reach these shores settled, around the Shrouded Sea. Now all this wide land was in ferment as the looming monster of Hamal, to the north, sent tentacles of force to rip them apart and take all. Truly, the Empress of Hamal, this Thyllis, was besotted with a crazed ambition.

In this she shared the maniacal notions of Phu-Si-Yantong. Always, as you know, I wavered and hesitated over my own role in these great affairs of state. For, was not I, this new Emperor of Vallia, also caught up in these mad power politics?

To reach Hamal we flew something east of north. I was content in this, for to fly direct to South Pandahem would have occasioned flying over the Wild Lands of Northwestern Havilfar, and no man, unless he be mad, a fool, or uncaring, willingly ventures there. Once we hit Hamal I’d bid remberee to my comrades and fly on out over the sea and then take a sharp left turn along the northern shore of Havilfar, by the Southern Ocean, and skirting the island of Wan Witherm, reach Pandahem.

That was the theory, one of those famous theories I had been promulgating and failing to perform just lately.

Mind you, had I not been with this band of eight comrades, I would probably have flown westward, visited Migladrin and Djanduin, and then flown north to Pandahem up the South Lohvian Sea between Havilfar and Loh.

I am glad, now, that I did not...

Prince Tyfar was eager to press on.

“I wonder what Princess Thefi took from the Mausoleum of the Flame,” he said. “As for that scamp, Lobur the Dagger — he and I will buffet each other when we meet.”

“And,” I said, turning the blade in the wound, “do not forget Kov Thrangulf.”

“No. Who could forget him — save the entire world? He is hard put upon and there is something in the man finer than the world sees, struggling to get out. I wish Lobur was not so hard on him.”

“We will soon be in Hamal and then your worries will be over. Also, it is there that our ways will part.”

“I grieve for that, Jak. Cannot you stay in Hamal? After all, it is your country.”

“I am under duress — wen, you know I may not talk of that, save to assure you as I have.”

“If ever you need a friend in Hamal — you know where they are.”

“Aye. Thank Krun I do, Tyfar!”

The southern border of Hamal is marked off by the majestic River Os. This wends its regal way from the Mountains of the West which spine the center of the continent there, to the Ocean of Clouds in the east.

Its mouth divides to run around the country of Ifilion, which is fiercely independent and had not been overrun by the iron legions of Hamal.

South of the Os the countries had been invaded and subjected and Clef Pesquadrin, Ystilbur, Frorkenhume, had all felt the oppression of the iron legions. And still Thyllis’s ambitions were not slaked, and she sent her iron legions farther to the south still. And, down in the Dawn Lands, the opposition to her and her schemes grew.

Flyers cannot sustain the long hauls that fliers may, and we had to descend periodically to rest and feed our fluttrells. Naturally, we chose places well out of the way. We were not disturbed as we flew north.

The land opened out into a broad and pleasant prospect, and although we skirted towns and hamlets, we saw them, gleaming like lilies across the green fields.

At one halt in the shade of missals, Quienyin told me that my friends in Hyrklana were alive. I felt the leap of relief. Balass the Hawk, Oby, Naghan the Gnat, and Tilly were dear to me. The Wizard of Loh struck a note of alarm when he said they were involved in the Jikhorkdun again. I frowned.

“That bloody arena of Huringa should be—”

“Not while human nature is as human nature is, Jak.”

“As soon as I meet up with Turko — but, no. I have other things to do which supervene — I think.” The truth was, by Zair, I was all at sea. Vallia called. Yes, yes, the country was in good hands. But — well, easy enough to sense my feelings even if they do me no credit as your cool and hardheaded adventurer. I wanted to see Delia. I wanted to know that my home was not once more a sea of flames.

Emotion and feeling rule us, whether we will it or not. “As soon as I have done what I must do, it is Hyrklana for me, and the Jikhorkdun of Huringa.”

Quienyin nodded sympathetically.

“They are all perfectly safe, I assure you.”

“In the Jikhorkdun?”

“Yes.”

The old sayings have fallen into disrepute on Kregen as on Earth. I had to do what I had to do. There was no easy way out for me. But we all smirk when we hear the words, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” They are trite, stupid, meaning nothing out of overuse and unthinking repetition. But, they do mean a great deal. I had to go back to Vallia, first, and stopping off for Turko was an indulgence to my sensibilities. By Zair! What it is to be an emperor, what it is to be a man!

“South Pandahem is a more or less direct route through to Vallia,” said Quienyin. “Hyrklana is not.”

I stared at him. He knew who I was all right. But we kept up the pretense. I really think — I know —

he had been so profoundly shocked at his discoveries of the antics of his old friend Phu-Si-Yantong that he was still in something of a state of shock. And he had not asked me what I was doing down in the Dawn Lands. I could not tell him that, of course. He could know nothing of a power that had sent me here in the first place, a power immeasurably greater than all the powers of the Wizards of Loh combined.

From northwest to southeast the Dawn Lands stretch for something just under three thousand miles.

From northeast to southwest the breadth is of the order of one thousand five hundred, reaching a little more past the Western Mountains.

The whole place is like a beehive of energy.

Kingdoms rise and fall, borders stretch and contract. Racial, religious, political differences hold the frontiers. Geography plays its part, so that rivers and mountains form natural barriers. We flew on north and east and so passed the massive lenk forests of Shirrerdrin. Ahead lay Khorundur.

“We approach areas where runs the writ of Hamal,” said Tyfar. He sounded half angry and ashamed along with his pleasure.

I knew why.

So I took no notice. We made a frugal camp and decided what to do. Now you can shoot a paly and feast on succulent roast venison. You can slingshot a bird down and eat that. And you call pull fruit off trees and enjoy the succulent flesh and juices. But you cannot easily come by bread, or tea, or wine out in the wilds.

“I will go in,” said Nath the Shaft. “With Barkindrar. We have money, good gold which these folk of the city will exchange for food—”

“Wine,” said Hunch.

“Shall we go in, Hunch?” said Nodgen.

“Me? Why? Barkindrar and Nath offered, didn’t they?”

“Buy only enough to last us over Khorundur. Beyond that kingdom we will be among friends and may ask for all we need,” Tyfar told his retainers.

“Quidang, Prince!”

So the two went off and we waited and waited and when so much time had elapsed that we knew they were not coming back, Tyfar said, “They have been taken up. I shall go in after them and fetch them out.

They are loyal men — and comrades.”

Standing up, I looked at Tyfar, and there was no need for words.

Hunch quavered out: “You are going off and leaving me here, Jak!”

“You will be safe enough, Hunch. After all, Nodgen has his spear — and you have your bill, I see.”

The two Pachaks started laughing, and then Hunch, staring around, laughed, too. But it was a dolorous sound, for all that.

The city stood beside the banks of a pretty little river which wound between wooded slopes. Built of a bright yellow brick, this little city of Khorunlad. That yellow is a fine, strong color, yet not harsh, not offensive... The yellow of just that tint is called tromp in Kregish, a fuller tone than the more subtle yellow called lay. Domes were burnished with copper, green and glowing, and the avenues opened out into stone-flagged kyros where striped awnings promised refreshment for thirsty throats.

We two, Tyfar and I, walked in past the open gates. They were stout, fabricated of bronze-bound lenk, and the watchtowers were manned. Many of the roofs of buildings uplifted landing platforms for airboats.

I perked up.

We had both chosen to wear the armor taken from the dead lords destroyed by the flutsmen. We looked a resplendent pair. That was all to the good, for we had to get to Nath and Barkindrar before anything too unpleasant occurred to them.

Tyfar was all for going up to the magistrates and asking.

I pursed my lips.

“We-ell, Tyfar, we are strangers. D’you see the looks we got from the guard? And they looked handy fighting men, not your local city militia at all.”

I considered it odd that we had not been questioned, were not already in some iron-barred cell charged with some nameless crime, and our weapons gone and our pockets emptied.

The armor I wore was of that superb supple mesh link manufactured in some of the countries of the Dawn Lands. Armor of the highest quality is usually made to fit the wearer. I was glad that the dead lord had been large across the shoulders. All the same, I had had to let the shoulder thongs out to their fullest extent to get the harness on. Tyfar’s dead lord’s armor was of the plate variety, a kax of exceptional beauty which snugged on Tyfar’s brawny yet supple frame. We wore the green and yellow cloaks that came with the outfit, our helmets glittered in the suns, our weapons jutted with a fine panache, and, in short, we presented a splendid spectacle of two of the lords of the land.

Well, maybe that had not been such a good idea, after all.

Maybe had I done as I so often did, and padded in barefoot with a breechclout and weapons, I would have avoided the mischief. But, then, I would have avoided an adventure that afforded me enormous joy

— even though I was not aware of it at the time.

The first kyro to which we came was a plaza of pleasing proportions. The flags were uniformly arranged in blue and white hexagons. Tyfar stopped and stared at the tables beneath the bright umbrellas outside a tavern with the promising name of The Bottle and Morrow.

“Ronalines,” he said, and smacked his lips. “I have a penchant for them — and with thick, clotted cream.”

I sighed. People in clean and colorful clothes sitting at the tables were spooning up the ronalines smothered in thick cream. Ronalines are very much your Kregan strawberry, and highly tasty, too. Tyfar strode across and started opening his scrip ready to dole out money.

Deb-Lu-Quienyin suddenly appeared at my elbow.