The Quest of Kadji (7 page)

HE MUST have called her name aloud in his surprise, for she turned curious eyes upon him.

“You seem to know my name, warrior,” she said in a clear voice like a pure golden bell. “But I know you not . . . unless . . . yes! I have seen you before; in Nabdoor, was it not, although you were dressed differently then—”

“So were you!” he returned, and she laughed, a lovely sound.

“So I was, come to think of it! But then you went robed in an Ushamtar
kuruz
, with leggings, and girdle, and belled cap . . . whereas now you look more like one of the Kozanga clansmen than any Ushamtar . . .|”

Kadji grinned; upon quitting Khôr he had thrown off the Ushamtar garments and donned his true tribal raiment, which fortunately he had concealed in Haral’s saddlebags against discovery.

“I am Kadji the Red Hawk, the son of Goraky the Tall, who was the son of Zarouk the Lord Chief of the Chayyim Kozanga Nomads,” he said proudly. “And I have seen you—you three times: once in Nabdoor, when you went in ragged scarlet like a wench of the Perushka; the second time in the streets of Khôr, when you went in the fine silks of an Imperial princess; and the third time in the great halls of the Khalidûr, when you looked upon the naked face of him men believe to be Yakthodah the Holy Dragon. Emperor . . . but whom both you and I know to be a vile and villainous impostor!”

Her eyes widened in incredulous amazement, and he laughed in a gush of loud, boyish humor at her expression. But she did not contradict him—it was obvious that she was following the flight of Shamad, too, for she had looked on the face of the dead man and must have known, even as had Kadji and Akthoob, that he was not the True Emperor.

Before she could speak, the little Easterling, whining and snuffling, spoke up miserably.

“The snow falls heavier and yet more heavy, and we sit here talking as if ‘twere the balmy breezes of spring caressing our frozen ears, and not winter’s bitter blasts,” he complained. “Can we not bundle our saddle-blankets together into some fashion of tent, to shield us against the blizzard?”

“There is no need,” Thyra offered quickly “I have a small tent stored on my mare, and collapsible tent-poles. If we all work together, perchance we can put it up, even in this heavy snow . . . and then we can rest and talk in comfort.”

THE TENT was not easily erected in the rising gale, cumbered with the weight of thick-falling snow; but at length, and with much exertion, it was erected, and proved surprisingly capacious, although once three horses, three people, and an enormous grey wolf had entered and the tent flap was sealed against the wind, it was somewhat crowded.

Thyra’s plans seemed to have been made far in advance, as if she had received some premonition of Shamad’s flight and the rising of the
kugars
. For the wicker-work pannier her mare had borne disgorged other supplies besides the tent: food and drink, and even a. shallow porcelain dish of charcoal, which Akthoob set aflame with a solemn magical Word and a mystic sign of his left hand. As the baking warmth of the ruddy charcoal steamed his garments dry and thawed out his numb and icy exterior, Kadji relaxed, pillowed comfortably on his own saddle and blanket-roll, stretching out his feet toward the cherry glow of the coals, and reflected that there were worse companions to take along on a journey than a magician. Such personages came in handy at times.

And so they ate and drank, frugally, and fed meal to the cold and weary horses, and all the while the mighty smoke-grey wolf sat by his mistress and regarded them with unblinking eyes of gold fire. The wolf made Akthoob uneasy and he kept moving his own saddle and blanket-roll closer to Kadji.

“You need not fear Bazan, little man,” Thyra smiled. “He is a friend to those I name my friends, and only a foe to my foes.”

“
Aii
,” whimpered the timid little wizard, eyeing the great wolf uncomfortably. “Then this person humbles himself, and begs that you will make doubly certain he understand Akthoob to be his very great friend, indeed. Perhaps then the lord wolf will cease regarding this lowly one as though he were a dumpling!”

Thyra and Kadji laughed at the notion that anyone could mistake the lean and scrawny little Easterling for a plump and edible morsel.

Ere long the heat of the fire and the warmth of the wine made them drowsy, and Kadji doubly so, for that he had enjoyed no sleep the night before, and by now it was certainly early evening, although one could not be certain as the sky was a blind mass of falling snow.

They slept that night in cozy if cramped quarters, while beyond the tent the demons of the storm howled and the Seven Moons bid their shining visages behind veils of flying snow.

IT WAS past dawn when they woke, and the snowfall had ceased at last, and all the world was a shimmering plain of utter white under a fierce but impotent sun.

They breakfasted frugally from Thyra’s store, washed themselves in snow melted over the last embers of the coals, struck the tent and rode forth over immaculate fields.

Kadji was grim and worried. Yesterday they had been close on the heels of Shamad: now they had lost him, for surely the tracks of his passage were hidden beneath the snowy mantle. All they could do was to ride forward in the same direction, due east, hoping that be was continuing in the same direction. If, after a time, they did not come upon fresh tracks, they would know he had changed direction, perhaps riding south to strike the Grand Chemedis Road.

As they rode, Kadji and the girl saddle to saddle, the old wizard behind, nodding sleepily and dozing from time to time, the two young people talked in low tones. Kadji had told Thyra his story, and was curious to learn her own. When she did not elucidate the mystery of her presence in these events of her own accord, the boy warrior made so bold as to ask for it.

“You know my mission, and why I must pursue the Impostor at peril of my own life, so as to wreak the vengeance .of my people upon him, and thus eradicate the stain laid upon the honor of my brethren. Shall I not know your own reasons and your story as well?”

“That is so,” the girl said. “And if we are to be road companions, we should share our knowledge as we share our food. Ask, therefore, what you will.”

“Who are you, really?”

“I am the Lady Thyra of the Turmalin House. My mother was Amazya the younger sister of the late Emperor, Azakour, Third of that Name. She died in a distant province when I was but a child, having fled the Dragon City on the death of her brother.”

That was something to think on! Kadji was astounded and stared at her in silence for a bit.

“An Imperial princess, then,” he said. The girl nodded, her flame-red hair rippling gloriously in the sunlight.

“But are you not the True Heir to the Dragon Throne?” be demanded in astonishment. “If you are the last surviving member of the dynasty, why . . . why . . .”

She shook her head firmly. “The Law states that a female shall not inherit, thus I have no claim upon the throne of my Uncle. But my false cousin, the so-called Yakthodah—”

“—Shamad of Perushk,” Kadji murmurred.

“Even so, although I did not know his true name,” she continued: “The charlatan, Shamad, when he came to power, feared that the family of Azakour might perchance know him for a false Yakthodah, or might seek to dethrone him so that another of the Holy Blood could ascend the Dragon’s Chair. Thus he pursued with his vengeance even to our distant province, to the west, and would have exterminated the last of our House. Alas, there were few to oppose him: my mother dead, my father long since in his tomb, and I but a child. But friends of my House had hid me away, disguised as a serving girl, so that the assassins could not find me, and bore back to the false Emperor word that the House of Turmalin was extinct to the last leaf of the last withered branch.

“I determined to seek out this false-hearted and murderous charlatan, and if he were not the True Emperor as my friends whispered, to expose him: for I knew certain things about the true appearance of the original and genuine Yakthodah that perchance he could not know, nor could any, since they were buried in family documents in the archives of the dynasty. I traveled in the guise of a Perushka girl, and as such you glimpsed me in the streets of Nabdoor; this I did because there were none would wonder to see a girl traveling alone, if she were in Perushka dress.”

“Was it not unsafe for you to travel by yourself, a mere girl?” he asked.

She laughed again; she had the loveliest laugh the boy had ever heard. “Not with Bazan going ever at my side! For there be few bandits or thieves so foolhardy as to pick a fight with a full-grown wolf of the plains!”

“Why did you abandon your disguise in Khôr, and appear as your true self? Did not that place you in danger from Shamad?”

“Ah, but not in the least! For what could be done in distant Zoromesh—the province wherein I was reared—and openly, by assassins, can hardly be performed, in the Imperial capital against an avowed Princess of the Blood. There are too many eyes to see, too many tongues to whisper, too many agile and cunning minds to speculate. I came into Khôr in state and presented irrefutable and documentary evidence of my lineage to the collegium of the heralds. Poor Shamad—I shall have to get used to that name!—was forced to publicly acknowledge me his royal cousin. I was extremely careful; you may be sure, that my palace was guarded against intrusion; and doubly certain never to leave myself alone with Shamad or any of his people. In public places, he could not easily contrive my assassination, and in private I took every precaution that it should be no less difficult. His only recourse was to—politely—ignore my existence as much as was possible, and keep as far from me as he could. I never let him learn that I suspected him for an impostor, although I goon enough determined that he was one. Ere I had maneuvered circumstances to a pass where I could expose him and ruin him, the intriguing
kugars
intervened with their stupid plots and the coup was accomplished. As a Princess of the Blood I could come and go freely in the Khalidûr at any time; thus it was not difficult for me to obtain a close view of Shamad. Even as did you, I recognized that the man on the steps of the dais was not Shamad but another. My people queried and bribed, the gate guards and eventually discovered that Shamad and his Dragonman in disguise had fled the city on the very night of his pretended assassination; I. made haste to follow.”

“Why?” asked Kadji bluntly. “He is believed dead, and can no longer trouble you. The
kugars
have nothing against you, since a woman cannot inherit the Empire. Why not leave him alone?”

“You forget that he sought to slay me. Me, a Blood Princess, of the House of Holy Azakour! I, too, seek vengeance, even as you.”

She bridled a little under his frank, quizzical gaze, and her small, determined chin lifted proudly.

“Oh, you need not look at me in that wise, young man! What have I to fear from the Impostor and his servant? I can use sword, lance and bow as well as any man—and Bazan, here, is a powerful ally! I could have slain both of them, I know it!”

He wisely held his tongue. There are times when it is not good to provoke a woman, and this was one of those times.

BY MIDDAY they had seen no trace of tracks on the snowy plains, and thus decided to veer south so as to join the Grand Chemedis Road. This broad highway spanned the plains from the remote satrapies of the Easterlings, to the Rashemba kingdoms of the west. If Shamad was bound east, they should encounter each other on the highway sooner or later; if he had doubled back, hoping to join forces with the High Prince Bayazin, then they had lost him for good.

By nightfall they reached the stone-paved way that led east and ever east across the world. They slept that night under a sky of black velvet, blazing with the fretted fire of a million stars.

For several days thereafter they continued following the stone highway east, until Khôr, its plots and dynasties, its sieges and thrones, dwindled far behind them. On the fifth day of their departure from the little postern gate in the wall of the Dragon City they came upon an encampment of Perushka.

THE GYPSY caravan was drawn up in a semicircle beside the old highway, and a huge bonfire blazed in its center, as much to warm the wandering Perushka against the chill of winter nights as to keep away the plains-wolves who went famished in this bleak season and were often goaded by their near-starvation to attack men, even large parties.

Kadji was doubtful as to the wisdom of stopping to interrogate the chief of the Perushka caravan, for among his people they were despised as rogues, thieves, liars and vagabonds. But Thyra made mock of his hesitancy; she knew them well, and had learned their barbarous tongue as a child. Besides, she argued, even if the caravan had caught no glimpse of the two fugitives in their flight, they would doubtless permit Kadji to purchase food from them for red gold, and Thyra’s store of provisions was almost exhausted since she had not planned on being forced to feed two extra mouths, to say nothing of the horses.

At length the boy let himself be shamed into following her plan, and they rode forward into, the Perushka camp. The wagons were dilapidated and shabby, and the canvas that covered them was threadbare and patched in a thousand places. The Perushka themselves were a villainous-looking lot, with swarthy faces, filthy clothing and vicious eyes. Their women were bold and painted hussies, but the heavy application of cosmetics could not disguise knife-scars and the signs of disease. Even the dogs that came pouring out in a yelping chorus from under the wagons to herald the arrival of strangers were a mangy and mongrel lot, although they lost courage at the sight of mighty Bazan. As for the great grey wolf, he paced like a gliding, flame-eyed shadow at the heels of his mistress and ignored the hound-pack with the innate dignity of his kind.

The chief of the caravan was a lean, sallow, one-eyed rogue with a gap-toothed leer instead of a smile and a ragged fringe of whiskers that made him resemble one of the Hairy Men of the Hills of legend. Gold bangles flashed in his ears; bracelets. jangled about his dirty wrists; a gaudy kerchief bound his scabby and unwashed scalp; and the thick reek of cheap perfume which clung to him did not even disguise the stench of his unwashed body or wine-stained clothes.

Akthoob, like most Easterlings, was a merchant at heart, which is to say that among his people the ancient craft of haggling over a price had long since risen to the level of one of the fine arts. Thus Kadji left it to the small wizard to conduct negotiations for the purchase of supplies. And as Thyra was the only one who had any familiarity with the Perushka tongue, he left it to her to question the chief as to whether he or his people had seen anything of the fleeing Shamad. This left him with nothing to do, so he stayed with the horses. He might be wrong about the Perushka being thieves and vagabonds, but there was no question but that they were past masters of the art of horse-stealing, and there was no one else to stand guard.

Kylix the sun star had long since sunk in crimson glory behind the western horizon of the world when his two companions returned from their separate missions.

Akthoob was beaming, his lank and bony face glowing with a smirk of self-satisfaction. By this, Kadji correetly guessed that the little wizard had purchased provisions for many days from the gypsies, and at a price not too exorbitant.

Thyra, too, was radiant with suppressed excitement. “The chief—his name is Rukuz—says they saw two travelers at sunup, riding dead east along the highway. One was a tall, bright-haired man with white skin, but the other was lumpish and thick-set, and muffled in heavy robes. It can be no other than Shamed and Zamog!”

“Then they are, at most, only a day’s journey ahead of us,” Kadji said. “If we ride all night—pray to Mother Chaya there be no more snow—we could catch up to them by dawn.”

“I think so . . . but, Kadji . . . old Rukuz has offered us the hospitality of his people tonight . . . they have boar roasting in the fires, and there will be singing and dancing . . .”

He gave her a strange look.

“Well, we cannot spare the time. And if that one-eyed old rogue is as villainous a blackguard as he looks, I would not trust his wine to be without a sleeping-potion mixed therein . . . or saw you not the twinkle in his eye when I gave Akthoob the purse of gold wherewith to buy provisions? I have seen naked cupidity in my time, but the glint in his eye at ‘the sound of the chink of gold coins was virtual lust. I wouldn’t trust that old wolf any further than his own scruffy whiskers!”

The girl proved obstinate.

“ ‘Twould be an insult to refuse the hospitality of the caravan,” said Thyra stiffly. “We would be doing Rukuz an affront to his dignity; and I know these people, Kadji. They may look a bit rough-avised, but they are good folk at heat. We must stay, if only for the meal . . .”

The youth set his jaw grimly. “I am one day behind the false Shamad, and I will not fall further behind him by a single hour. To the Nine Hells with Rukuz and his dignity! I am sworn to a sacred mission of vengeance and honor and I will ride to the World’s Edge, if need be to strike down the traitorous Shamad! You may stay here for the ‘singing and dancing’ if you like; if these be such ‘good folks at heart’ as you claim, then you are safe in their company. But I am for the road.”

There was fire in the girl’s eyes but he paid it no heed. While she spluttered and argued he turned stiffly away and mounted his black Feridoon pony. Some of the Peruskha were drifting near to watch this altercation between the foreigners. Poor old Akthoob was flustered and apologetic, trying to calm the angry girl and appease the stiff-faced youth.

“Will you stay with her, old man, or do you ride with me?” Kadji demanded. He did not like the way the Perushka were gathering close about them. “Speak up! You owe me nothing, so if you wish to follow later with her and the wolf, I bid you farewell . . .”

“This lowly one is of the opinion, young sir, that—
aii!
Treachery!”

Kadji never learned the opinion which the skinny old Easterling wizard was about to give voice to, for in the next instant he felt heavy hands upon him and he was dragged headlong from the back of the rearing squealing pony. It would seem that old Rukuz saw that fat, jingling purse of gold about to leave camp and ride away across the Great Plains, and had decided to enforce his hospitality upon them. Kadji was in no mood for such tricks. He swung about, half out of the saddle, and drove his bootheel full in the teeth of one swarthy, grinning Perushka rogue. Teeth snapped and crunched and the man fell away shrieking and spitting broken teeth and blood.

Then firelight flashed on polished steel and Kadji felt a blow strike him in the back. It was not a heavy blow: odd how numbness spread through his shoulders and arms. Strange how the world swung and swooped dizzily about him and the noise of the scuffle faded as if in vast dumb distances. He reached a curiously heavy hand to his back and drew it away red with blood.

Then he heard Akthoob yell and Thyra scream and the world went black and he fell forward and did not even feel it when he hit the ground. . . .