A Fortune for Kregen

Chapter two

Chapter two

Gray Mask vanishesThe kennel containing the two stavrers I had passed in something of a hurry showed up ahead in the moonlight as I leaped — not too nimbly — up onto the coping. The stavrers had been aroused by the uproar. They stretched out to the full extent of the chains fixed to collars about their necks. Chunky, are stavrers, fierce and loyal watchdogs, with savage wolf-heads and eight legs, the rear six articulated the same way, and they can charge with throat-ripping speed. After a distance they flag; but that stavrer charge, bolting all fangs ready to rip and rend, is quite enough to protect an honest man’s house.

Now these two set up a fearful howling.

Two helmeted heads popped up over a nearby roof ridge among that jungle of roofs. Two arrows were loosed at me. They were not Bowmen of Loh shooting at me — chances are that I would not be here talking had they been — and I went flying down into a leaded gulley between tiled slopes and so scrabbled along like a fish in a stream trap.

This was all beginning to get out of hand. A guard jumped down from a chimney pot and tried to take my head off with his axe, and I ducked and got a boot into his midriff, and he went yowling away, holding his guts. The axe clattered down over blue slates and vanished into emptiness.

Other men were shouting, there was the shrilling sound of whistles, and more barking, from stavrers and other kinds of domestic animals nicely designed to rip the seat out of your pants, or to rip off other more important parts of your anatomy. Feeling incredibly like a fool, and beginning, also, to feel the humor of the situation breaking down all the silly anger, I went charging down a roof slope, came around a chimney corner and saw the uplifted coping of the roof whereon rested the airboat.

Any hope of stealing the voller vanished instantly.

She lay there bathed in the light of many lanterns. The men had turned out — some still without shirts or trousers, but all with swords. There was one young fellow there, with wide black moustaches, turned out as though for Chuktar’s Parade — fully accoutered in harness and with shield and thraxter at the ready. His helmet shone under the lights of the moons.

So I debated. The debate was very short.

The stavrers were baying at my heels, the guards were massed in front, the moons were casting down more and more light as they rose — the Twins, the two Moons of Kregen eternally orbiting each other — had been early this night, and The Maiden with the Many Smiles and She of the Veils were late. The light would strengthen in rose and gold until the first shards of light from the twin suns, Zim and Genodras, illuminated the horizon. Then this exotic world of Kregen would be revealed in radiance of jade and ruby and the light would increase and burn and any fellows foolish enough to be hopping around on the roofs of high-class hotels would get all they deserved.

Home — rather, back to the tavern at which I was lodging for the moment — seemed to me the order of the day — or night, seeing that the day’s orders would be so uncomfortable.

Mind you, if in retrospect I make it seem all light-hearted and if, truly, I did feel that light-headedness then, do not misunderstand me. I was raging with anger and frustration. Oh, yes, my island empire of Vallia, cruelly beset by predatory foemen, was in good and capable hands. I could go gallivanting about having adventures for as long as I wished; but I felt the deep tide drawing me back home. I had to get back to Vallia and make sure, make absolutely sure, that all was well. That I intended to hand it all over to my lad Drak as soon as possible was merely another reason for return. He was there, in Vallia, and I had not the slightest inkling what he was up to.

And, too, my half-healed wounds must have contributed to that feeling of light-headedness, as though this was all one gigantic jest.

So, bitterly angry, and stifling my laughter, I hopped off the roof down onto the next one and scuttled like an ancient crab along the ridge and slid down a drainpipe to the courtyard with its arbora trees. They are called this because their flowers look much like arbora feathers. If I thought I was on ground level I was seriously mistaken.

I remember I was thinking that I’d just let all this fuss blow over, and rest up a bit and get my strength back, and then I’d be back here to The Montilla’s Head and this time I’d really lay my avaricious paws on Prince Nedfar’s airboat. But really.

A door made from sturmwood and the bottoms of old bottles ahead looked promising, the roseate moonlight catching in the bottles and whirling hypnotically. I eased across with a quick glance aloft and then the door opened and disaster walked out — rather, disaster reeled out, shrieking and yelling.

The girl — she was a kitchen maid — was not apim but one of those charming diffs with the faces of apim infants, all soft rounded curves and chuckles and dimples, permanent baby-faces, naive and simple and delightful. The men folk have harder faces, it is true, but they, too, carry that hint of undeveloped childishness about them. For all that, the men have tough, muscle-hard, brawny bodies. The womenfolk have been blessed with female bodies that are marvels of curve and symmetry, sensuous, fascinating, endlessly alluring, intoxicating to any man — whether apim or diff — who shares our common heritage. This race of diffs — I once used to miscall diffs beast-men or men-beasts, halflings, not understanding — are often given the name Syblians; although the name they give themselves, not wishing to be confused with Sylvies, is Ennschafften.

The drunken lout chasing the girl was calling, in between hiccoughing and belching, yelling to her to stop.

“Mindy, miundy,” he called, staggering out of the door, his shirt tangled around his waist, his face enflamed with drink and passion, his eyes fairly starting out of his head. “Miundy, Mindy — wait for me, you little — come back — or I’ll—” And he staggered against the doorjamb, and bounced up, reaching out after the shrieking girl.

Now in these and similar situations a fellow had best keep out of the way until he knows exactly what is going on. Many an upright citizen stepping in to rescue a maiden in distress has been turned on by what seemed victim and attacker, both containing him with insults for coming between a family squabble of man and wife. So I waited quietly in the shade of the arbora tree. The scent was delicious, and I breathed in — thankful, I may add, for the rest.

The Sybli caught her foot in a gray old root of the tree and she stumbled forward three or four paces, off balance, her arms spread out to try to save herself. She wore a tattered old blue and yellow checkered dress, badly torn as to bodice and skirt, and her feet were bare. She almost saved herself, and then she lost her balance and fell.

The man laughed and staggered forward. He was apim, a big, husky, full-fleshed fellow who knew what he wanted — and took it.

The girl Mindy tried to rise and gave a gasp as her ankle twisted under her. Her face showed babyish terror. The man leaped forward and she kicked out. I felt like giving a cheer as he yelped and reeled back, cursing.

“Never, you beast, never!” she cried. Her body was shaking.

“You will or I’ll—”

She bit him as he came in again, sinking her sharp teeth into his hand. He let out a fearsome yell. It was quite clear that this secluded courtyard was soundproof and that with all the hullabaloo on the other side of the hotel this fellow was perfectly confident that the girl’s cries would not be heard.

She bit hard. He managed to drag his hand back and he stuck it in his mouth. He did not look so drunk or so amorous now.

In the confusing lights of the moons reaching ghostly pink and gold fingers into the courtyard the girl tried again to draw away. Her baby-face glistened with terror.

“You leave off, Granoj, you hear! You keep away—”

Granoj shook his head, took his hand out of his mouth and leaped on her. She kicked and struggled and screamed and I slowly straightened up from leaning against the tree. He wore a sword, a thraxter, the straight cut and thruster of Havilfar, and he was probably a soldier off duty, judging by the belt and his boots.

And then, so swiftly I was almost too late, his mood changed. He saw, clearly, that the girl Mindy was not going to do as he wished, and he turned ugly. And, too, she had hurt him. She had kicked him shrewdly.

“I’ll show you, you stupid Sybli! You can’t make a fool out of me—”

He ripped his sword free and swung it up. That he was going to strike her with the blade was crystal clear.

I stepped out, with a sigh, and caught his arm.

“This has gone far enough,” I said, and I tried to put the old snap into my voice.

But I felt that treacherous light-headedness, I felt the weakness, and with an oath he stepped back, having not the slightest difficulty in breaking my grip on his arm.

“You rast! You first — and then the girl!”

With that, he charged full at me, the sword upraised.

My own thraxter cleared the scabbard with what seemed to me agonizing slowness.

He was bull-strong, enraged, the drink lending him a reckless passion. He swung and chopped and hacked, and I had to dance a right merry little jig evading his savage attacks. The girl stopped screaming. The swords rang and clashed. He forced me back, and I felt the tree at my back, and I could not retreat any farther. And he laughed and taunted me most vilely, and rushed in. His words boiled around, his sword flickered cleverly, and he used a swordsman’s trick that is well-known in fighting circles, and he would have had me had I not known the trick.

Without thought — for thought was too laggard now — my own sword arm did what a sword arm must do if it wishes to retain a body from which to hang, and this Granoj staggered back, suddenly, and as he staggered back so he pulled free of my blade. That steel glimmered darkly wet. He put a hand to his side, and he looked down, and lifted the hand, and the blood dripped, dripped...

So Granoj fell.

Whether or not he was dead I did not know. I felt the weakness on me, and I staggered and the Sybli was at my side and I thought she would berate me, and attack me for the deed. She put her hand around my waist, and held me, and said, “You must hurry, Jikai! You must go away from here, quickly, and go with the thanks of Mindy the Ennschafftena. Hurry!”

The walls of the courtyard wavered like curtains in a breeze. The whirlicue stump ends of the bottles of the door gyrated at me. I choked up phlegm. I fancied my wounds had opened and were bleeding again.

“Yes — must go — you are — all right—”

All the frivolity of the night’s proceedings had turned nasty and ugly.

Death beat his black wings — as the quondam poets say — and I was feeling like one of the warmed-over corpses served up fresh from the Ice Floes of Sicce. If I did not get away, and me with a gray cloth mask over my head, I’d be done for.

“I am all right, Jikai — hurry, hurry — there is a wicket and stairs — the Street of Candles — there will be no one there now — my thanks—”

Staggering, sword in fist, hardly seeing, I was steered toward the little wicket in the corner. She threw open the gate and the slimy stairs led down, little used. I started at the top and the next moment I was at the bottom and with a pain there, too. I clawed up to my hands and knees and looked back. I could just see her outline.

“Remberee, Jikai — again my thanks — hurry!”

The wicket shut with a flat slap, like curtailed applause.

An arched opening gave egress onto the Street of Candles. No one was about, as Mindy the Sybli had promised. The shuttered doorways and windows added a ghostly note of desolation. A stray gyp went whining along, his brown and white coat wavering through the shadows. First things first. I wiped the sword on the gray cloth mask and then carefully folded it, bloodstains inward, and thrust it into my shirt. Clues... clues...

Then, sword scabbarded, all of Jikaida City going up and down and corkscrewing around me, I lurched off. By the time I had reached an avenue I recognized and could take my bearings the city was coming alive and the thin radiance of Zim and Genodras pulsed warmly in the sky to the east.