The Quest of Kadji (5 page)

ERE DAWN the word had sped to every corner of Khôr and not a miserable beggar shivering in his hovel but knew that the last legitimate heir of the dynasty was slain, that the great House of Azakour was extinguished at last, and a grim and bloody time of troubles had come upon the Dragon Empire. The savage and merciless struggle for power would begin now, and there were many men of Khôr who could well recall the terrible days that followed the death of Azakour Third twenty years agone, and how all of the Plains had been torn asunder by civil war until the discovery of a legitimate heir—even that same Yakthodah who lay now in state in the Throne Hall.

The facts behind these bloody and swift-moving events were easy to unravel. The
kugars
had seized power after the death of the Emperor Azakour, and only an army of Rashemba knights, lent to the Pretender, Yakthodah, by his supporter and father-in-law, the High Prince Bayazin, had driven the greedy
kugars
from the place of power. The Nomad warriors of the Great Plains had aided in that war, but no sooner had they assisted in establishing Yakthodah in his father’s holy throne, than the fickle Emperor, discovering he needed the friendship and the fat purses of the
kugars
to sustain him in the life of revelry and license he desired, had welcomed back with open arms the rich and powerful landowner class. From this point things had gone from bad to worse, even to the point of alienating, then outlawing, and finally making war against the stout and loyal-hearted Nomads.

But the
kugars
were not completely satisfied. They feared the influence of Bayazin, and the strong hold he had on the pleasure-loving Yakthodah. And recent news that Bayazin, with an army of his mighty Rashemba knights, was, now moving upon Khôr—ostensibly to pay a visit of state upon his royal son-in-law, and also to garrison the heartlands about Khôr. against the long-expected revenge of the Kozanga Nomads—drove the jealous and fearful
kugars
into open rebellion. Yakthodah had been assassinated by night in his own Throne Hall, and
kugar
mercenaries now held the Khalidûr fortress, and the gates of Khôr itself against the expected siege of Prince Bayazin.

In all the turmoil and chaos that made the very world echo to the collapse of dynasties and the battle of opposed regimes, what of the boy Kadji, Red Hawk of the Chayyim Kozanga Nomads, and his sacred Quest to avenge upon the body of the man the world believed to be the True Emperor the stained honor of the Kozanga war clans?

What indeed? It would seem that a
kugar
blade had spared him the task his grandfather had set upon his shoulders.

He made up his mind swiftly, for time was very important: by noon, it might be, Khôr would be in a state of siege. If he were to act at all, be must do so now.

“Akthoob, have you still that pass which permits you entry into the Khalidûr?”

The old wizard shrugged bony shoulders. “This humble person has it here in his purse, young sir, but what good? I shall not now use it, as the Holy Dragon Emperor before whom I would have performed my small arts lies now stark and cold as last morning’s bacon. . . .”

“Does the pass describe the purpose of your visit?” Kadji pressed urgently through the fog of words.

“No, no indeed: it merely says that one Akthoob of Zool is given permission to enter into the Khalidûr and to come into the Throne Hall . . .”

“And it is dated?”

“Aye, young sir, but why all these questions? Oh, very well! It bears tomorrow’s date, as I told you when we talked . . .”

“You mean, today’s date, surely! For dawn is not many hours away, and the folk of Khôr reckon a day as beginning one hour past midnight, do they not?” urged Kadji.

“Very well, then, today’s date, surely, but why do you ask all of these questions . . .”

Grim purpose burned in the boy’s clear bright eyes, and determination could be seen in the firm set of his jaw.

“You are in my debt, are you not, Akthoob, for that I saved you a beating from the hands of that
kugar
bully, Jashpode, and mayhap saved your life, indeed?”

“Yes, yes, to be sure, young sir, but I do not—”

“I like it not, that I must force you to endanger yourself, old man, but my cause is very urgent, and as I see it we shall not be any great hazard, if all goes well. But now I fear I must ask you to absolve yourself of your debt to me, by doing me a favor . . .”

“A favor? What favor, young sir?” Curiosity glittered in the slant black eyes.

In short words Kadji answered him and watched the curiosity turn first to consternation, then astonishment, and finally—to terror.

SURPRISINGLY ENOUGH, it proved no great task to enter the Khalidûr. True, the bridges that spanned the moat, and the gates and portals through which they must passed, were under very heavy guard, and those guards were not the burly, red-faced Rashemba knights (most of whom, Kadji learned, had been brutally massacred during the first swift, crimson hours following the assasination of the Emperor, and those survivors now disarmed, under guard, or fled) but nervous, truculent
kugar
hirelings.

The odd thing was that one glance at their pass sufficed to win them past guardpost after guardpost, and generally without any questioning at all. Kadji, garbed for this expedition in sober robes and betraying no signs of either his true Kozanga identity or his assumed Ushamtar guise, had frankly expected keen questioning to expose the falsity of their purpose. And while he did not expect arrest, he would not have been surprised had the guards at the very first checkpoint brusquely turned them back, refusing to let them pass.

In preparation for this he had bidden the old wizard to clothe himself inmost unwizardly raiment: sober and nondescript, but expensive garments in good taste.

As it was, their pass,—after all a valid one,—saw them through the hazardous moments of scrutiny and ere long they stood within the vaulted halls of the Khalidûr, and both of them could begin to breathe again.

The explanation of the miraculous ease whereby they had passed the sentinels of the Khalldûr was simple. A dynasty had fallen in the first hours of dawn; and now, in the earliest hours of morning, a new regime was being put together. Hundreds of people were streaming in and out of the royal fortress, important
kugar
lords bound for council meetings, young lordlings, boys, messengers and the like, scurrying back and forth with screeds and notes, commands and memoranda. No individual with a proper pass could safely be stopped for questioning, for no guard could be certain—in this uneasy and disquiet time—whom he could offend with impunity. The most insignificant-looking fellow might by tomorrow wield terrifying powers of life and death over the remnants of an empire. Hence they passed through swiftly.

The immense pile of the ancient Khalidûr was murmurous with sound, whispering conversations in the corners, the footsteps of hurrying pages and message-bearers, the bustle of important lords. In the busy throng no one bothered even to notice the presence of two unfamiliar faces, here where so very much was new and where so many faces were those of strangers.

Hardly caring to risk stopping a passerby to ask him the way, Kadji and old Akthoob found their way through the shadowy and labyrinthine ways of the vast fortress by a combination of lucky accident and inspired guesswork. Without wasting too much of their time, they gained the entrance of the great Throne Hall at last.

For the rest of his life Kadji never forgot that moment. And yet, oddly enough, he could hardly remember the hall itself, one of the wonders of the world, with its soaring columns like a forest of stone trees, its stupendous dome, its glistening and mirrorlike pave of slick black marble. From the moment they stumbled upon their goal his attention was riveted on the thing that lay under a scarlet-and-gold cloth at the foot of the throne itself.

The throne—as for it, he spared hardly a glance at the glorious and immeasurably ancient seat of imperial power. True, it was fashioned entirely of pure and solid gold, and contained in itself the ransom of a province; true, the hand of some long-dead genius had lavished a lifetime of skill in the fashioning of it, for it was formed into the likeness of a coiled and glittering dragon whose arched wings rose enormous, and whose uplifted head was a snarling and terrible fanged mask of ferocity with eyes that glistened like orbs of flame. Two gigantical fire-rubies were those eyes, and their like the remainder of all this world could not afford. But Kadji saw it not, the Dragon Throne, for his eyes were fixed upon that which lay at its foot, on the lowest of the nine tiers of the dais whereupon the throne stood.

A young woman was bending over the covered body as the two entered the hall, and Kadji seized his companion’s arm and shoved the old Easterling wizard into the shadow of a column from which they could watch unobserved.

The woman drew back the torn tapestry a little as if to reassure herself that it was truly the dead Emperor who lay there. For a long moment she looked, ignored by the guards who stood about the throne with stolid and indifferent faces. Then she drew up the cloth again and turned away to make her way swiftly and purposefully out of the hall.

As she glided away her path took her directly into the glare of gold light from massed candles, and Kadji sucked in his breath with amazement and wonder. For it was—
Thyra!
The mystery girl he had glimpsed many days ago, disguised as a wandering Perushka lass, in the little village of Nabdoor—the girl he had seen but recently borne through the streets of kingly Khôr like a princess!

What was the secret of the flamehaired girl who so often crossed his path? The boy’s tanned face settled grimly: he must face one mystery at a time. And so he but watched helplessly as the strange young woman left the Throne. Hall and vanished from his view.

Then, with the nervous wizard at his heels, Kadji rapidly crossed the length of the hall and approached the throne and that which lay at its foot. The body was sprawled on the lowest step of the dais, and a rich tapestry had been hastily torn down to cover the dead thing. Kadji stepped nearer, despite Akthoob’s fearful admonitions; he shrugged off the restraining hand the little Easterling laid on his arm. He must make certain that this was in truth the body of the man all the world thought to be Yakthodah but be knew as Shamad the Impostor. He bent over it but he could not see its face because of the torn tapestry. Greatly daring, he reached out and drew aside one corner of the covering, exposing the head and breast of the corpse.

Akthoob turned pale as milk and gestured feebly, but Kadji ignored him and bent closer, straining to see in the dim wavering light of distant candles.

There were
kugar
mercenaries, stationed about the throne to guard the body, but they gazed stolidly ahead and paid Kadji no attention. It was naught to them who came to gaze upon or mock or revile the body of the Holy Emperor. In the general uncertainty of the times, they, like the sentinels at the gate, did not care to earn the enmity of any strange or unfamiliar person who might, ere long; turn out a man of power with a long memory.

So Kadji turned back the blood-stained tapestry and gazed without hindrance upon the face beneath.

It was cold and white as marble. In death, and death had robbed it of much of its beautiful perfection. The mouth was drawn in a frozen grimace of terror or outrage or surprise (who could say?) and the glazed, unseeing eyes stared up forever at the unknown face of the assassin.

Many knives had done the fearful deed—or perchance but one knife, striking many times. For the corpse bore frightful wounds in breast and shoulder, belly, throat, and side. It lay in a pool of drying blood, sticky and glutinous and vile.

Only one wound was visible on the face of Yakthodah, and that was in the cheek. Part of the lower face was slashed and gory, and Kadji noted without saying anything that the wound had obliterated that portion of the face that had borne the scarlet leaf-shaped birthmark he had noticed yesterday when he bad watched this man riding through the streets on his way to a night of revelry—

“Come; look,” he bade Akthoob.

The old wizard shuddered and rolled up his eyes but did not dare make too vocal a protest with the guards so near. He shuffled timorously over to where the Red Hawk stood and peered down with frightened eyes at the gory horror beneath the cloth.

“Is that Yakthodah?” the boy asked in a low whisper.

“Of course—who else should it be?”

“But is it? Look closely; you saw him yesterday as clearly as did I.”

Akthoob shuddered and turned away.

“Whoever he was yesterday, he is dead meat today . . . let us be gone from this accursed palace, young sir, I beg of you.”

“In a moment. Look again . . . look at his jaws,” he said.

“What of it? The Holy Emperor did not have time to shave before they . . . they . . . cannot we go now, while we yet have whole skins? What if the man be not shaved?”

“Nothing, perchance,” frowned Kadji. “But somehow it seems odd that his beard-stubble should be so long. Yestereve, when we saw him riding by, the Emperor was cleanly shaven . . . but this is no one night’s crop of whiskers . . . it looks like this man had not shaved in two days, perchance three. . . . Had the Emperor anyone in his court who resembled him?”

“
Haii,
gods, will you stand here talking when any moment we might be . . . well, and how should I know?” whimpered the wizard fretfully.

“Think,” Kadji insisted. “You were in the Khalidûr at least once ere now, were you not, to be interviewed by the Chancellor so that you might obtain permission ‘to perform before The court. Saw you anyone who resembled the Emperor?”

“Well . . . yes, now that you remind me of it, this humble person did indeed notice a minor functionary . . . a handsome youth with an extreme pallor and light eyes . . . he did look somewhat like the Holy Dragon Emperor. I remember thinking so at the time, although it had quite passed out of my mind . . .”

Kadji replaced the tapestry and turned away, striding thoughtfully across the hall. The guards regarded him with stolid indifference. At one of the exits from the hall, he exclaimed suddenly, and turned, excitement lighting up his face.

“What is it now?” groaned the Easterling.

“
Where is Zamog?
” Kadji demanded fiercely.

“Wha . . . the Dragonman? Why . . .”

“Yes! The loyal monsterliug that went ever at his master’s back; surely, to have struck down the Emperor, the assassin would first have had to slay the faithful Zamog.”

A strange light dawned in Akthoob’s slitted eyes.

“Can it be . . . ?”

“Yakthodah was slain right there, where his body now lies; and the body of Zamog the Dragonman should be hereabouts, if he is dead. But where is it? Nowhere! And why should they have bothered to carry away the corpse of the blue-scaled one? Kick it into a corner and forget it, let it lie—
that’s
how they would have thought, under the pressure of swift events! If Zamog is not here, it means the monsterling is not slain; and if Zamog is not slain . . .”

Excitement flared in the face of Akthoob.

“What is this you are saying! Does this humble one understand you to suggest . . .”

“Yes. That is not the body of Yakthodah, but of another. The man you knew as Yakthodah is an impostor named Shamad. He yet lives; he has fled—doubtless, fled the city itself.”

Kadji laughed, a boyish, reckless laugh, dangerous in this shadowy and murmurous place filled with eyes and ears. He cocked an irreverent thumb back at the hacked corpse.

“That dead man is a double impostor . . .
and Shamad lives!
”