A Sword for Kregen (26 page)

Chapter Twenty

Death Jikaida

“You must be a fambly, of a surety,” said Nath the Swordsman, screwing up his scarred face in hopeless wonderment. “But if you wish to act against Mefto, that is suitable for me. I do not give the lady Yasuri more than one chance in ten.”

“You are finding the pieces for the lady Yasuri. Put me down on the list.”

“And me,” said Bevon, at my side.

Pompino had disappeared. I harbored no grudge; this was no affair of his and he was mightily conscious of his duty for the Star Lords. We stood in Nath the Swordsman’s room that looked out upon the inner square of his rambling premises. Men and women were being put through their paces out there, and the quick flitter and flutter of sword blades filled the dusty area. The room was plainly furnished and contained as its centerpiece a finely executed picture of Kurin, delineated as some long-dead artist of Jikaida City had visualized him, blade in hand, in the guard position and, as this was Havilfar, covering himself with a shield. The picture served as the focus of a kind of shrine, with flowers and atras and incense burning, which exuded a stink into the room.

“The lady Yasuri was fortunate in the misfortune of Konec,” said Nath. His gaze seldom left the people practicing out there, and he would suddenly leap up and go striding out, yelling, to reprimand some poor wight whose clumsy technique had aroused Nath’s displeasure. The women out there were all strapping girls, of course, for they fight hard in Vuvushi Jikaida.

“Yes,” said Bevon.

The league tables led up to the final tournament and Yasuri had placed third, because she had already lost to Konec. That was her only defeat. With the absence of Konec, who was due to play Mefto in the final, Yasuri had been switched in. We were here to act as two of her pieces. Neither of us could see any other way of getting to Prince Mefto.

I had, in my old intemperate way, started to make a sally toward his hotel and had fought a few of his folk trying to get through. I had not succeeded and the darker the veil drawn over that chapter of misfortunes the better. I had had the sense to wear a mask. Now we presented ourselves at Nath en Screetzim’s premises and he welcomed us like water in the Ochre Limits.

Once we had been accepted, the formalities went through like sausages on a greased plate and very quickly we found ourselves joining the lumpen gaggle Yasuri had been able to find. We waited in a long, wide, tall hall with arrow-slits for windows far higher than a man could jump. We were in the heart of the Jikaidaderen. The game was to be a private one. The public would be able to see most of the other tournament games; but they would not be permitted here to see the final. That they were prepared to accept this indicates something of the obedience rife in Jikaida City. We rubbed shoulders with criminals, with men who had been delegated this duty, slaves fighting for their freedom and few, very few, men who fought for the lady Yasuri.

The atmosphere in that anteroom to the games clogged on the palate, the stink of sweat, the stink of fear — and the silly bravado men put on in times like these to mask their deeper feelings. Well, Bevon and I endured.

We studied the Jikaida pieces waiting to go on. We tried to pick the stout from the weak, the brave from those who would be unable to perform adequately through fear — everyone knew the penalty for running. I said to Bevon: “One or two will run, I think, and welcome a Lohvian shaft through them rather than a chopped-up death at the hands of Mefto’s bully boys.”

“Yet some look capable. That Chulik, he’s here for slitting the throat of a Rapa. And that group of Fristles, and see those Khibils? They will fight.”

Rumors and buzzes swept through the men. There was weak ale to drink and no wine. There was ample food. We understood that the lady Yasuri had obtained the services of a lady Jikaidasta whose name, we gathered, was Ling-li-Lwingling, or something like that. Bevon listened to the swift gabble of a Fristle, and turned to me. I did not know if he was laughing or cursing.

“Who do you think Mefto has as his Jikaidast?”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, Bevon, now you have a personal grudge in it doubled.”

“Aye.”

Och slaves at last brought in the equipment. These formalities differed markedly for us from our previous experiences. Then we had been part of a noble’s entourage, playing for his honor and glory; now we were assembled from the academies of the sword and from the prisons and stews. The bagniossupplied their freight. The lady Yasuri apparently relied entirely on the resources of Jikaida City for her pieces, for we saw none of the small bodyguard she kept up. As for the equipment, that was simple. A blue breechclout, a thraxter and a shield. Plus a headband decked with varying numbers of blue feathers and, for some of the superior pieces, blue favors on sashes. Bevon and I each received a reed-laurium
[6]
with two blue feathers. This marked us as Deldars.

The swords were thraxters and Bevon and I, by arrangement as volunteers, received our own weapons. The shields were laminated wood, bronze rimmed but not faced, and were smaller than the regulation Havilfarese swod’s shield, being something like twenty-seven inches high by sixteen inches wide, and were rectangular.

The shields were painted solid blue with white rank markings as appropriate, and a fellow would take the shield fitting his position as a piece when he left the substitutes bench.

The lady Yasuri had been obliged to play blue, as she was filling in and, no doubt, overjoyed at her own good fortune. She was a Yellow adherent, I knew; but the glory and profit of winning meant more to her, and it is proper that a Jikaida player should take either color for the experience of the different diagonals of play.

Wrapping the blue breechclout about me and drawing the end up between my legs and fastening it off with the blue cord provided reminded me, with a pang, of the times I had gone through this first stage of dressing with the brave old scarlet. But now there would be no mesh steel, no kax, no leather jerkin; now the blue breechclout was all. Well, by Zair! And wasn’t this what was required? Wasn’t it high time I went swinging into action wearing just a breechclout and with a sword in my fist?

“By the Black Chunkrah!” I said. “I think Mefto—” But I did not finish the thought. Black and white checks filled the room and we were being herded out. The smell of fear stank on the air, and, also, the sweat of men determined to fight before they died.

We all received a goblet of wine — a thick, heavy, red variety like the deep purple wine of Hamal called Malab’s Blood. I do not care for it; but, by Krun! it went down sweetly enough then, I can tell you.

The preliminary ceremonies went as usual, with the prayers and the chanted hymns and the sacrifices. When we came out of the long stone tunnel from the gloom onto the brilliance of the board, the brightness of the light smote our eyes. Ruby and jade radiance drenched the playing board. This was a very select, very refined Jikaida board. There was no noisy hum from an excited crowd of plebs. Around the board and raised on a plinth extended a broad terrace, shielded by black and white checkered awnings. The thrones facing each other at either end were ornate. On the terrace were set small tables and reclining couches, and the high ones of LionardDen lolled there, waited on by slaves, sipping their drinks and daintily picking at light delicacies. They had chairs which could be carried around the terrace by slaves so that they might watch the play from the best positions. No action would begin until the representative of the Nine Masked Guardians was satisfied that all the spectators were in position for the finest view.

“By the Resplendent Bridzilkelsh!” growled a Brokelsh near us. “Why don’t they get on with it.”

“There is all the time in the world to die, as Rhapaporgolam the Reiver of Souls knows full well,” a Rapa told him.

The Brokelsh spat, which heartened me.

A Pachak hefted his shield in his two left hands. “I have given the lady Yasuri my nikobi,” he said in that serious way of Pachaks. “And by Papachak the All-Powerful! I shall honor my pledge. But I think this is like to be the last fight for us.”

The Chulik slid his sword neatly under his left arm and then polished up his tusks with a spittled thumb. “By Likshu the Treacherous!” he said. “I shall take many of them down to the Ice Floes of Sicce with me.”

“Numi the Hyrjiv fights with us,” said one of the Fristles. “But I wish I had my scimitar instead of this thraxter.”

So, as we waited to march out with our backs as straight as we could contrive and take our places on the board, we called upon our gods and our guardian spirits. This is human nature. And how the exotic variety of Kregen can respond! Truly is it said, on Kregen are joys for all men’s hearts.

As we marched out we presented a spectacle at which, I suppose, many a person of limited intellect would scoff, dubbing us a collection of menagerie-men. Yet we were all men, all human beings, and we marched out to fight for our lives.

Even the Chulik shared some reflection of those feelings.

And, there was among our number a single Kataki.

“By the Triple Tails of Targ the Untouchable!” The Kataki swished his bladeless tail about like a leem in a temper. “Would that Takroti would slit all their gizzards!”

“Careful with your tail,” snapped one of the Fristles. “By Odifor, you nearly tripped me.”

The guards stepped in with upraised bludgeons to separate out the violently bawling combatants in the ensuing melee. Truly, we presented a horrifying and a pathetic spectacle as we marched out.

As we stepped onto the board we saw that the Princess’s square was already occupied. The woman standing waiting wore a long white gown of sensil, lavishly embroidered with blue and yellow and black and white checkers. An enormous crowning plume of blue feathers rose above her head, surrounded by tufts of blue. She glittered with gems. As I passed her, and the carrying chair for her Jikaidasta, I saw her face. Most of the lines were gone, her flesh filled out, and I guessed many of those lines had been caused by apprehension for the journey across the Desolate Waste. Her hair was a dark brown, curled, and I caught its perfume. Her shape in the white sensil was a world away from the shape in the shiny black bombazine and lace.

She saw me and a muscle twitched in her cheek. But she made no movement and ignored me. That suited me. I was not here to fight for the lady Yasuri, but to fight against her opponent.

The eight slave girls who carried the Jikaidasta’s chair were Gonells. The male Gons habitually shave off their white hair, believing it shames them. But some peoples of the Gon race take a proper pride in the silver hair of their females, and these eight Gonells were splendid girls, well-formed, clad in wispy blue, and their silver hair shone lustrously, sweeping in deep waves to their waists.

The occupant of the carrying chair was invisible to me and the gherimcal rested on its four legs, carved like prychans. We marched past and so fanned out to take up our positions.

As the trumpets blew and the Suns of Scorpio shone down on us, we Ranked our Deldars.

The game opened with Mefto taking the first move and soon his pieces were extending down the board toward us, like rivers of lava from a volcano. Our own lines extended toward Yellow. Truly, Mefto’s pieces looked splendid in their yellow breechclouts and with tufty masses of yellow feathers. Their shields formed a field of daffodils. He had picked his best men, no doubt of that; they were brawny, tough, adept. Like us, they were a mixture of diff and apim, and they were confident of victory.

The beautiful girls in their wisps of clothing ran about the board carrying the orders to the pieces. Men moved in obedience and soon the opening clashes began. Swords flashed and blood flowed.

We played Death Jikaida.

It chanced that I was formed into a diagonal line with a swod each side, and there I remained. Mefto had not put in an appearance on the board. I could just see him in the Yellow throne, giving his orders and the stylor below repeating them to the girls who ran so fleetly, their limbs rosy and glowing, or brown or black and splendid in the light. The lines formed and pieces fought and were taken or took, to be tossed back into the velvet-lined balass box or to be replaced from the substitutes’ bench. The opening proved to be the Princess’s Kapt’s Gambit Accepted, and my diagonal remained fast, the action taking place on the right wing.

The young swod by me licked his lips. He was apim, a lithely built lad, without the bulky toughness of the fighting man who has campaigned for seasons on end. Despite the regulations, we talked, as the pieces did. What could the representative of the Nine Masked Guardians do about that now? Have us all shafted?

There were things he could order and which the black-clad men would carry out; but this infringement of the rules was minor.

“I only borrowed the chicken,” said this lad, by name Tobi the Knees. “Mother was starving and Father — well, I do not know what happened to him. I would have given the next chicken back, as I always do.”

So he had been taken up by the Watch and condemned, and sent to the academy to be trained for Kazz-Jikaida. He came from the teeming sections of the city in which many poor folk eked out a precarious living. There were too many of these poor quarters. The contrast between their squalor, and the lavishness of Yellow or Blue City, condemned the Nine Guardians — at least, in my eyes. As for the Foreign Quarters, where visitors who were impartial as to color stayed, they were as palatial in their hotels as the palaces of the City nobility. Tobi the Knees was not alone in his misery.

“I was going to be a wheelwright — always get work as a wheelwright. And I can shape the wood perfectly. But, mother was ill and I lost my job, and—”

“You borrowed a chicken.”

“They got the feathers back!”

“I see.”

“And they showed me this sword and this shield and I can make a pass or two. But I still don’t understand it all.”

“Keep the shield up and keep sticking the sword out, Tobi. You’ll make a bladesman yet.”

“But I—” He swallowed. He was keeping up a brave front and smiling and swishing his thraxter about; but he was scared, frightened clear through to his ib.