The Pandahem Cycle I

Chapter two

Chapter two

Of beggars and emperorsIn a tavern fight of this brawling nature you don’t have to be too choosy. You don’t stand on ceremony. The romantic flicker of glittering blades is all very well, but...

The broken bottle rolled at the side of my boot.

I picked the bottle up, noticed that the end was broken into a satisfyingly jagged array of teeth, and gestured with it in my left hand as though I were about to throw it.

The leading wight rushing upon us dodged. He moved his head and shoulders back to avoid the throw. I waited until he’d moved, was fixed at the end of his balance — and then I threw.

The jagged end chewed up his face.

Dahram the Bold hurled himself forward, all bulk and hair, yelling. His sword flickered.

When you are a brand new young prince, or a brand new young emperor, you will find many people only too willing to patronize you, suck up to you, toady, flatter, all in the best interests of your good self, of course. I had a quick feeling of regret that, for all this hairy magnificence, there had not been a few more men like Dahram the Bold about some of the emperors and kings I’d known. He had assaulted and insulted me; now he did not waste words but just got stuck in to help to redress the balance.

He fought with a panache that overbore the next two assailants. He foined with the thraxter, using the blade as though it were a pea stick. The man with the three black pigtails lost two of them, and half his face with them, as Dahram slashed. The woman turned and ran. The last of the five stood looking with stupid, bewildered eyes at the hilt of the sword. The blade was through his neck. Seg can throw a blade, too, as well as loose a shaft...

As a fight, it was all over almost before it had begun.

“Friends of yours, doms?”

“No, Dahram. Never seen ’em before.”

Seg said, “It would seem our journey has been in vain. And the bottle is broken—”

“Yes,” I said. “All right, we’ll go.”

Seg hitched up his belt.

I said to Dahram, “You will take a stoup with us at a more salubrious tavern? We are in your debt.”

“For that little bit of knockabout?”

“For disconcerting those damned assassins.”

Seg hauled his sword free. He had to put his foot on the dead man’s face. “You’ve seen them before?”

“No,” said Dahram. “No. I don’t know ’em. I’m tazll at the moment, looking for a job. I heard a merchant will hire guards here.”

“There are many taverns where guards are hired.”

“True. Very well. And the first drink is on me.”

“Are there any sweeter words in any tongue?” quoth Seg.

On that cheerful note we left The Ruby Winespout. No doubt the little crippled Och would have regular arrangements for disposing of dead bodies.

My thoughts became grim. My two spies had been disposed of, their bodies found in the river...

We told Dahram we were called Nath the Hammer and Naghan the Fletcher; but he did not believe us. That did not bother me. Dahram, as I thought, was a chance acquaintance, fine company for an evening on the town away from the Sacred Quarter where the nobles and the gilded youth of the city played. He would sign on as a guard with a merchant and be off in a couple of days...

We swaggered across the square where the jugglers had performed their tricks during the day. We kept a very sharp lookout for the woman who had run off. The way I saw the situation was spelled out by Seg.

“The pigtail fellow Dahram chopped and the woman hired the three thugs to deal with us. Pigtail is dead. Will we ever run across the woman again?”

Dahram boomed. “Aye, doms! She had a nasty mean look about her, did that one.”

“All I really saw was that coiled hair and a sharp pointy nose like a witch.” As I spoke my gaze probed about among the shadows under the walls where the lights of torches did not reach. “And a ring on her finger the size of a loloo’s egg—”

“You exaggerate, dom! As big as a walnut, yes!”

“That’ll be a poison ring,” said Seg sagely. “She can flip the lid open and pour enough poison into your goblet to shrivel the toes of a regiment of heroes.”

“As I remarked,” said Dahram the Bold, “a nice class of friends you have.” He roared at his own words — a trick some people have that doesn’t really offend if you think about them as humans — and then sputtered out: “There’s the Calsany and Flea. They hire guards there.”

“They sell drinks there,” we said together.

Thirsty work, swording.

Although the maniacal wars of the late Empress Thyllis had now ceased, and the civil war was over, there still remained urgent need of fighting men.

The old iron legions of Hamal were being rebuilt. There was still need of mercenaries. Every person, every man woman and child old enough to understand, was aware that the danger from the Fishheads, the Shanks from over the curve of the world, had arrived in full force.

We could only expect this “full force” to become fuller and more powerful in the future.

Dahram the Bold would find a merchant eager enough to hire him.

We settled to our goblets in a quiet corner of the Calsany and Flea.

“Oh, yes, doms,” said Dahram, putting his goblet down and wiping the back of his hand across the hair over, below and surrounding his mouth. “I’m from Theakdrin, of which you will never have heard, seeing it is a small kovnate tucked in a bend of the River Os. We were independent for as far back as anyone could remember; then the Hamalese took us over. That was when I was a little shaver. So, I fought for Hamal. Well, it seemed the right thing to do at the time.”

“And then?” said Seg.

“Oh, I went for a mercenary. Hyr-paktun. Although you might not believe it—”

“We do.”

“In these recent troubles I started off hired out to a kov of Hamal and ended up fighting against him. That’s the way it goes in the paktun’s trade.”

Also, as we saw, though Dahram the Bold might be a hyrpaktun wearing the pakzhan, he had achieved that rare distinction through his own prowess. He was not a leader. He would not control his own band, and hire and fire, seek contracts, conclude deals. He would be in the forefront of the battle, always, earning his hire, fighting with swirling sword, and the pakzhan glittering gold at his throat.

He wanted to know all there was to learn of the black sorcerer and the unholy thaumaturgy that had destroyed the old empress and her followers. We were able to tell him a little of the Wizards of Loh — some of whom are my friends and in no sense black sorcerers — and how the arch-devil had been blown away in a flame of Gramarye. He shivered.

“I am a fighting man. Sorcery — no, doms, not for me.”

Mere mortals are not allowed the privilege of looking into the future. If it be a privilege, that is. So Dahram the Bold spoke thus, quaffing his ale, with no conception of what fate held in store for him in the way of sorcery...

We were pestered by a Rapa with one arm, whose feathers were mostly bristled off his birdlike face. His beak was dented. He wore rags, and stank.

“Masters — I was once like you — I fought at the Battle of the Incendiary Vosks — masters — an ob, a copper ob, for the sake of Havil the Green—”

Seg threw a few copper obs. The miserable creature scuffled for them. His feathers rustled. He stank.

“I was at that fight,” said Dahram, offhandedly.

“Oh?” we said, firing up as your fighting man does at promised reminiscences and soldiers’ yarns. “So were we.”[1]

After we decided to leave, Dahram said we were welcome to share his lodgings. A widow woman was most hospitable. We thanked him; but we had our own pads for the night.

So, with the shouted “Remberees!” we parted.

I said, “I must talk to Nedfar about the ex-soldiers. It is cruel that they should be reduced to begging. That Rapa may have stenched worse than a slave-whipmaster’s armpit, but he had fought.”

Seg has this astonishingly practical turn of mind to set against the fey qualities of his nature. He surprised me yet again.

“Mayhap, Dray. And mayhap he had his own arm chopped off and singed his feathers. The rest is mere play-acting.”

“Self-mutilation!”

“Successful begging is an art form. It goes in families. You get your trade, you learn it early, you accept your mutilation, and you are set up as a working beggar for life.”

“I don’t care for that, by Vox!”

But care for it or not, it was true and it went on. We had obliterated all traces of the self-mutilation bit in Vallia; but, for all our careful planning, we still had our beggars. They diminished, season by season; but they were a blot on our so-called civilization.

For some reason I had no desire to retire to bed this early. Sitting at the desk in a small study, part of the luxurious suite of apartments in the Alshyss Tower, I wrote to various people, counseling, inquiring, giving news, occasionally issuing direct orders. I wrote to Djanduin, and Valka, to Zamra and to Veliadrin, to Zenicce and to my wild clansmen of the plains of Segesthes. The burs passed as the water dropped in the clepsydra, and I did not notice. From this small study I could feel in direct contact with all those places in the world of Kregen that are especially dear to me.

I could not, of course, write to Delia.

Where she was, only the Sisters of the Rose knew.

So, and with strokes of the pen rather harder than softer, I directed a letter to Katrin Rashumin in the pious hope she would see that the SoR forwarded it to Delia.

Then I took a fresh sheet of paper, and hesitated.

Drak.

He still was not the Emperor of Vallia.

Finally, I wrote a letter couched in general terms, inquiring particularly after the trouble in the southwest of the island. I also wished to know the progress of our movements in the north and northwest, where Inch and Turko were involved.

Having written to Drak, I could write to my youngest son, Jaidur, who was the King of Hyrklana, and bring him up to date with the news and inquire what went forward in his realms.

And then I went to bed.

The first person I saw the following morning was cheerful old Ortyg ham Hundral, the Pallan of Buildings. He wore a loose round cape and a close-fitting cap they call a havchun. He beamed at me, sipping the hot milk my people had prepared for him.

“Majister! We have discovered the plans of the Temple of Havil in Splendor!”

“This is splendid news, Ortyg,” I said, enthused at once.

“We can rebuild houses to fresh patterns; the priests have been insistent that their temples be restored in toto.”

We talked on for a space, for the Pallan of the Buildings was a learned man, brought out of retirement. He had had nothing to do with mad Empress Thyllis, living quietly on his estates. He bustled off, cheerfully, and in came Nedfar.

“Please tell me what you propose in respect of the regular regiments of Djangs still in Hamal, Dray. I value them. But some of the people — well, they—”

“They don’t like to see foreign troops in their capital city. Well, that is more than understandable.”

“It is not quite that. Of course, you are right; but it has more to do with the very ferocity and build of your Djangs.”

I laughed.

“My four-armed Djangs will take most foemen apart, yes, I agree. As for your damned stinking Kataki slaver, with his whiptail and bladed steel, Djangs rejoice to blatter Katakis.”

“No one likes Katakis.”

“They almost took over your country, Nedfar.”

“Only through that mad wizard, Phu-Si-Yantong. Well, all that is gone, dust blown with the wind. We admire your Djangs. But we would feel happier if there were apims of Vallia to represent your presence.”

“Very good, Nedfar. I’ll see to it.”

“You had no fortune last night?”

“No.” I told Emperor Nedfar what had happened in The Ruby Winespout. “I’m seeing my man today. He has to know more about Spikatur than he has told us so far.”

“I could wish the business well away and gone.”

“Like your Tyfar and my Jaezila. Is it true that no one knows where they had flown?”

“Perfectly true, for my people. I have asked.”

“So have I. When your son and my daughter take it into their heads to plan a little intrigue, all the pressures of Imrien would not pry the secret loose.”

“No, by Krun!”

“And,” I said, making my voice more courteous, tactful, “the princess Thefi—?”

Nedfar’s fierce eyebrows drew down. He had developed as a man wonderfully since he had become emperor, and I was now convinced that the megalomania from which he might easily suffer would be resisted. I’d damned well see to it, if it was not. And, as you will readily perceive, there is the example of my own megalomania...

“My daughter Thefi has been sent to a distant cousin, in the country, to take the fresh air, to recuperate, and to take stock. As for Lobur the Dagger, he is posted at once to a Hamalian Air Service patrol, and is out there over the Mountains of the West fighting the wild men.”

“Poor Lobur!”

“And if he can win through, then he may win Thefi. Now, Dray, to business. We must restock the vital arms, we need cavalry mounts, both land and air, we need full-scale production of arrows and varter bolts, we need the mergem process to be speeded up—”

“In short, Nedfar, we need the complete arsenal of a major power in full deployment to beat these confounded Shanks. I agree. So, let us to it!”

Two meal breaks later we surfaced. I said, “I have contracted to go and see Pallan Ortyg ham Hundral. He has found the plans of the Temple of Havil in Splendor—”

Nedfar rubbed a finger along his chin.

“I seem to remember a flying ship of the Djangs dropped buckets of combustibles on that Temple, Dray.”

“So I am told. Katakis were shooting varters from it.”

In the little ensuing silence we both, in our own ways, regretted the follies and extravagances of battle.

The enormous continent of Havilfar, stretching below the equator, contained many countries and nations, the largest of which was the Empire of Hamal up in the northeast corner. The Kingdom of Djanduin, out in the west, was almost as large. Up above the equator to the north lay the island of Pandahem, divided up into various countries, and divided, also, east to west by a chain of mountains which altered completely the climate of Northern and Southern Pandahem. North of there lay Vallia... And, to the east of Vallia, Valka...

Well, I own it, I sensed the feelings of the people of Hamal. We of Vallia and Valka and Djanduin, with friends from Hyrklana and the Dawn Lands, had rid the world of the mad Empress Thyllis and the arch-fiend, Phu-Si-Yantong. But, well and all, perhaps we’d be better off at home? We might be overstaying our welcome here. I sensed this, in the delicate way Nedfar talked, his graceful gestures, and the way those eyebrows manipulated the shadows over his face.

“We must rebuild Hamal, Nedfar. We must be strong to face those devilish Shanks who raid us. But I think you know my feelings on having a country fight its own battles.”

“Yes,” he said wryly. “I remember.”

“And I am restless. I am asked this and that, I do this and that, and yet—”

‘The Empress Delia?”

“By Zair, how I miss her!”

“Well, my friend, you must go adventuring, as you love so well to do.”

“But—”

He smiled, and in his firmness of feature reminded me of his son, Tyfar, who was a blade comrade and who would, if all our friends could knock some sense into him and her, marry my daughter Jaezila.

“Oh, yes, Dray,” said the Emperor of Hamal, “there are always buts.”

Then Seg came in after knocking and I was able to dissimulate. By Krun! But Nedfar was right!

“Seg!” I said, and I spoke so that my comrade swung instantly to face me, and I saw that quickly suppressed flick of his hand, ready to draw sword or bow. “Seg, my old dom. You and I are due for some roving again — we have nothing now to detain us here.”

“That is true. I have the Kroveres of Iztar, but we are busily recruiting and things go passably well—”

“We will visit Vallia and Valka—”

“Visit?”

Nedfar saw what Seg meant.

“Can you visit your home?”

For me, an Earthman transited across four hundred light-years of emptiness to a marvelous and wonderful new world — to such a one — where did home lie? With Delia, yes. But she was off adventuring, driven by compulsions a mere mortal man was not allowed to share. Home? Yes, Valka was my home, up there in the high fortress castle of Esser Rarioch overlooking Valkanium and the bay. And, too, the gorgeous enclave city of Zenicce was home to me, and so were the tents of my ferocious Clansmen of Segesthes. And, too, so was the windy city of Djanguraj in my Kingdom of Djanduin. I have many homes, many I have not spoken of. But I think in the end a fellow’s true home is what he carries in his head. Where his thoughts lie, that is home.

Another knock sounded and the two guards opened the doors with a quick check of the fellow they admitted.

Protocol, at least for the Emperor of Vallia, was deliberately relaxed.

One of the guards, old whiskery Rubin who could sink a stoup of ale without pause and who had been in one or another of my regiments for a long long time, opened his mouth and bellowed: “Majister! Andoth Hardle, the Spy, craves audience!”

I did not burst out laughing. But, by Vox, I own my craggy old beakhead split into a most ferocious smile of pleasure. Good old Rubin. Spies, like anyone else, had to be announced to the emperor unless they were personal friends.

“He,” observed Seg, “won’t be a spy for long if Rubin shouts any louder.”

“Send him in, Rubin,” I said

“Quidang!”

And so my latest spy, Andoth Hardle, trotted in.

Trotted. Well, he was small and lithe and wore a chin beard, and was deft and inconspicuous, quick with a dagger, and wearing link mesh under his tunic. He bowed.

“Majister.”

“Sit down, Andoth, and take a glass. Your news?”

“The woman with the coiled hair has been taken up.”

“What!” exclaimed Seg. “So easily?”

Andoth Hardle sat in the chair that did not stand next to my desk, and he delicately filled the glass on the side table with parclear. He put the jug down and rearranged the linen cover. He lifted the glass and the parclear sparkled.

One does not ordinarily toast in parclear.

“Taken up, Kov Seg. She was discovered lying in the gutter, drunk and stupid.”

At once Seg and I believed we understood.

“Poor soul,” said Seg, and he spoke softly.

Nedfar, too, caught the drift.

“Yet, she was an enemy, and would have destroyed us.”

“True.”

“You will see her, majister?” Hardle drank and wiped his lips daintily with lace-trimmed linen from his sleeve.

“I will see her, Andoth.”

Seg looked in my direction, and I nodded. Of course.

Then I said, “Andoth. This is good news. But, before I see her, make sure she is sober and cleaned up, given fresh clothes if necessary, fed and cared for.”

“I understand, majister. It shall be as you command.”

“Does she give a name?”

Hardle twisted his head sideways. “She is not, majister, the Lady Helvia. At least, she says her name is Pancresta.”

“I see. Send for Hamdi the Yenakker. Have him study this woman, and do not let her see him. I feel there is a great deal we can learn from her.”

So that was how it was arranged. But privately I wondered just how much we would ever learn about Spikatur Hunting Sword.