Arena of Antares

Chapter Thirteen

Defiant, theatrical, ridiculous, that gesture.

As soon as I hurled the bloody leem tail I leaped nimbly away and to the side. Eight stuxes and half a dozen crossbow bolts pierced into the sand where I had been standing. If this was the way I, Dray Prescot, Krozair of Zy, was to die, then I would make of it a great Jikai, and die well, by Zair!

I started for the tall wall festooned with silks and carpets and flowers supporting the royal box. I held that marvelous Krozair longsword before me, double-handed, as I had been trained and as I knew how, and as I went forward so I flicked and batted away flying stuxes and crossbow quarrels. The whole crowd remained absolutely silent. That silence hung eerily over the enormous amphitheater. Every eye, I knew, was fixed in a hypnotic gaze upon that macabre scene, a half-naked man clad in a brave red breechclout, advancing with a monstrous brand in his fists, forging through a flying hail of death. I picked the way I would climb up where no man believed a kaidur could climb. I seized on the flying stuxes and bolts and swatted them away with the wrist flickings that are the joy of a Krozair. Queen Fahia looked down and saw my face.

She flinched back.

I think she recognized that I would reach her.

She stood up.

Tall and regal, her pile of golden hair ablaze with gems, she lifted her white arms upward, and spoke harsh words that instantly halted the flickering streams of bolts and stuxes. She lowered her arms and placed her hands on her breast, crossed, and she looked into my eyes and I stopped and waited for her to speak.

“You say your name is Dray Prescot. You cry upon unfamiliar spirits. What token is it that smears blood upon a queen’s face.” And, indeed, her pale face showed daubs of leem blood, spots splattered across her gown and hair. She stared at me with wide and brilliant eyes, willing me, I knew, to submit to her beauty and authority.

I threw my head back, challenging. “What queen is it that sends a man to his death in the paws of a leem?”

“You merited that death.”

“You merit a death no different.”

Some hot-tempered young mercenary of her guard could not contain himself longer at this and he let loose. I flicked the bolt away and stared evilly at this Queen Fahia. But she was a queen, long used to absolute authority.

“You are very clever with that monstrous steel brand. What if I order two of my guardsmen to loose together?”

“Order them.”

I think she had now reached a conclusion I had already come to — and the crowd, in the way of crowds who sense these things, already guessed. She did not wish to have me killed until she had satisfied her feminine curiosity and slaked her pique. But the challenge I had issued was direct. She nodded curtly to her guard Chuktar. He was a Chulik. I had seen very few Chuliks so far in Havilfar. I guessed he was a most expensive paktun, hired to train and command her private bodyguard. Two crossbowmen lifted their weapons and, at the Chuktar’s barked command, let fly. At the moment of this word “Loose!” I took three neat little side steps. The bolts whistled through thin air.

Every throat in that vast amphitheater roared out — a great volume of raucous noise — for they were laughing!

Only Queen Fahia and those about her did not share the jest.

Fahia spoke again, swiftly, to the Chulik Chuktar. He nodded and sent a file of his men running down the concealed stairs that would enable them to pass onto the sand of the arena through doors solidly bolted only on the inside. I braced myself.

“You will not be harmed, Dray Prescot. I wish to talk with you, before I decide what is to become of you.”

I knew that part of it. I considered what was best to do.

The dead leem lay bleeding in the sun. I walked across to it and looked down. The flies were already gathering and I swatted the sword about, aware that this was not a lowly task for that marvelous brand. The leem was wearing a silver collar. During the fight I had not thought about it, for the Krozair steel would shear through silver as though flesh and bone. Now I bent and unlocked the silver collar, lifted it up so that it glittered in the mingled rays of the suns.

The queen’s guardsmen appeared from the hidden entrances onto the arena, other guards always alert and vigilant there.

And then — I suppose Naghan the Gnat started it, for he was a quick-witted rogue, and cunning, and yet a staunch armorer-kaidur — from the red benches a great storm of cheering rose. The kaidurs there, the apprentices, even the coys, were jumping up and down and yelling and shouting and, almost at once, the whole red corner of the amphitheater began to erupt in a bedlam of victory shouts.

“Drak the Sword! Kaidur! Kaidur! The red for the ruby drang! Drak the Sword!”

So they had at last recognized me. I felt a fitting further gesture might be in order, for I much disliked the queen’s new silky approach. I walked slowly over to the red corner and I lifted the silver collar taken from the dead leem and I hurled it high. It spun and glittered in the sun as it fell among the trophies of the reds, proudly displayed in their sacred prianum under the red and gold awning. Absolute silence from blue and yellow and green. Rapture unbounded from red!

Then the two files of mercenary guards closed up and I went with them, out of the arena with its blood-soaked silver sand and down the long secret tunnels and up the secret stairs into the regal presence of Queen Fahia of Hyrklana.

They made me wait, all blood-splashed and sweaty as I was. Wishing to reinforce my advantage and to consolidate what little hope I might have, I had given up the sword. A Rapa had placed his curved dagger at my ear at the time. I could have fought the lot of them, and slain them, and so raced from the secret passageways. But life thereafter in the Jikhorkdun would have been impossible. And I did not forget the great storm that had first thrown me into contact with this catlike Queen Fahia and her black neemu pets.

More and more I was understanding that it was well-nigh impossible to anticipate the wishes of the Star Lords. They had been patient with the escape I had made with Princess Lilah, and they had — even then

— been storing up that information against a later day. I wondered about the other people I had rescued on Kregen at different times and places, and wondered how they were destined to fit into the pattern of the future.

All the time I waited I guessed Fahia would be taking the baths of the nine, no doubt in ponsho-milk, relaxing and preparing for an interview she would be absolutely without doubt must go her way. She would be perfuming herself, and donning marvelous clothes of fabulous value, adorning herself with gems and feathers and silks and furs, her face painted and powdered and perfumed, her fingernails lacquered green, her eyes heavy with kohl, her lips rich and moistly red. And her hair — hair of that brilliant gold would be coiled and coiffed to display all its luster and brilliance, and sprinkled with gems so as to bring out with great artifice every last beauty.

When, at last, the Chulik Chuktar with a bodyguard came for me and I was ushered into her presence I felt cheated.

She knew her own power, did Queen Fahia. She sat in that curule chair with its zhantil-pelt coverings, and the barbaric furs and jewels and feathers and silks were all there, each adding its contribution to the gorgeous spectacle filled with light and color. She herself sat there in a classically simple red gown, slit to the thigh on both sides, girdled by a golden belt. Her golden hair, her face, retained still the splotches and stains of the dead leem’s blood.

The black neemus yawned and opened their lambent golden eyes, and stretched, tinkling their silver chains. The slave shishis huddled in their transparent silks. There were no councilors or pallans present, but Orlan Mahmud was there, and a few other young men I did not recognize. Women also were there, and at least two Fristle women of exceptional beauty and power in their looks, not slaves but free halflings at the queen’s court.

The Chulik positioned his crossbowmen in a single line to the right and left of the curule chair, facing me. I noticed the way the courtiers moved out of the area that could be turned into a sieve of death.

“You told me a lie, Drak the Sword.” Those were her first words.

I did not reply.

Her color was still pale, still wan; she had had a nasty fright. I knew the way the crowd’s fickle behavior would be read by the queen, how she must seek to placate them as she detested them, despite her power.

“You are a kaidur, and now, after the exploit today, a hyr-kaidur. Your name is Drak the Sword. What, then, this nonsense about a fanciful uncouth name like Dray Prescot?”

“A man may have a name before he gains a name in the Jikhorkdun.”

Her eyes regarded me. “Aye, that is true. And my Jikordun divides the leems from the ponshos.”

She said Jikhorkdun as Jikordun, as many people did, slurring the word for ease of pronunciation. Few kaidurs spoke it that way.

“Had I known you were a kaidur, Drak the Sword, perhaps I would not have been so swift in my just vengeance.”

There was a very great deal to be read into that statement.

I decided to play the most obvious reading, the one most likely to reflect the state of the game. I said, “I believe I did not express my very real sorrow at the destruction of the neemu.” I was deliberately refraining from calling her queen or majestrix or any other of the many terms for referring to royalty I spare you. “I feel I am able to make restitution.”

“Ah!” she said, and she sat forward, and again her chin settled onto her upturned fist. Her eyes regarded me now with a look reminiscent of the look that leem had first given me. “Yes, Drak, I think you may!”

Again pushing what I fancied the Star Lords, in their usual obscurantist way, were urging me to, I said,

“You have but to command.”

“I know that!” Her chin went up, off her fist, and her eyes blazed at me. “My commands are obeyed. But before that, Drak, I would talk of your great victory, for the leem was a mighty and powerful beast, and notable for its kills.”

So we spoke for a space, of this and that, and presently she motioned for me to come and sit on a stool brought forward by a flunky — a little Och in embroidered livery — and placed at her feet. I sat down and told her a pack of lies, about swinging the sword as one would an ax, and of how I rather fancied I would use it again, Havil willing, in the Jikhorkdun. She nodded and sucked in her breath, her bosom rising and falling, her eyes bright and leechlike upon me as she heard talk of other combats, some she had seen and some not. Her passionate interest in the arena was not faked. Statecraft, love, food, money -

all were of secondary interest to her beside this consuming passion for the Jikhorkdun. Knowing this, thinking I knew what the Star Lords were about, I forced down my desires to smash them all up and get out of here and aboard a voller and make for Valka — for I knew another great supernatural gale would brutally beat me back.

This game here must be played out first.

As a queen and a despot she had her pick of the kaidurs. Her chambermaids would bring them to her chambers at night, and she would use them as she saw fit, and so send them back to fight for her in the arena. I already knew that apart from the four color corners, there existed a small and select band of kaidurs devoted to the queen — Queen’s Kaidurs — and on special occasions these would fight wagered combats of phenomenal value. Usually they won, and would dispose of the opponent fighting them, no matter what color he happened to be. Much later, long and long, I discovered just why the Queen’s Kaidurs almost invariably won.

She did not make me an offer to become a Queen’s Kaidur. She had said, though, “You are a hyr-kaidur now, Drak. And as a great kaidur you may wander the streets of Huringa. Would you seek to escape? I remember the flier. .”

Here was where I took two korfs with one shaft, as Seg would say.

“No idea of escape enters my head. There was a girl — I have completely forgotten the shishi, now, since — since-” And, artfully and contemptuously, I hesitated, and looked at her, and looked away.

“No, I would on no account seek to escape from Huringa which is ruled by Queen Fahia.”

The performance sickened me. But if the Star Lords wished me to remain here, and I was to do so with my head still affixed between my shoulders, the pace must be forced a little. All that natural charisma I have told you of was working for me now, keeping me alive, as I know; I had to give nature some assistance, some better chance.

“I believe you, Drak the Sword.”

This first interview — first in our altered circumstances — drew to its close. But she was a sharp lady, and a queen, and so as I was retiring, she said, her voice roughened and back to its habitual coarseness from the more mellow tones in which we had conversed: “And, Drak the Sword! You swore to make restitution for the slain neemu!”

“Aye. Point out the way-”

“Sufficient that you remember. Now go. I shall send for you again.”

Amid much scraping and inclining — she insisted on the full incline in matters of state — we went out. I guessed I was expected to report back to the red barracks where no doubt Nath the Arm and Naghan the Gnat would greet me kindly enough, even if Cleitar Adria might glower with jealousy. I found myself walking along the corridors with the marble wall-facings and Pandahem jars of flowers and Lohvian mirrors from Chalniorn in company with Orlan Mahmud nal Yrmcelt and his friend, a commanding-looking apim with a somewhat pudgy face and plump body, sumptuously dressed, who I gathered was Rorton Gyss, Trylon of Kritdrin. Orlan Mahmud had been overeager to push up to my side, nudging other people out of the way, for a hyr-kaidur is assured of constant attention from admirers and well-wishers. I knew what was troubling him.

“Simmer down, Orlan,” said the Trylon of Kritdrin. “The hyr-kaidur is a man, by Havil! He knows the value of a closed mouth.”

Orlan Mahmud shot me a glance. “My father,” he said, all his liveliness gone. “I still fear him.”

“That, my boy, is why I never married. I like women, Havil knows, but I prefer to cast my bread upon private waters.” And Rorton Gyss chuckled. A genial, pleasant, thoroughly civilized Horter, this Rorton Gyss, and, as I was to find, with a mind of his own and a will of alloy-steel. They took me down from that high fortress of Hakal, frowning over the city of Huringa, and by more open ways this time we crossed to the Jikhorkdun. Here we stopped by a tavern into which, by virtue of my new status, I was now allowed. Many taverns and inns had been built into and alongside the Jikhorkdun and its surrounding warrens but inevitably never enough for all the public. Only nobles and high Horters might venture into the amphitheater tavern. One seldom ever heard anyone addressed as plain Horter; it was all Kyr and Kov and Tyr and Rango and Strom. We sat at a plain sturm-wood table and an apim girl served us light yellow wine from Central Hyrklana — reasonable stuff, light and refreshing and ideal for the heat of the day. If a deal was to be proposed, Mahmud and Gyss were going about it in a civilized manner.

The deal was simple.

I kept my mouth shut about Orlan Mahmud’s involvement with those people plotting the queen’s downfall, or I had my throat slit by certain paktuns whose names needn’t be mentioned among Horters.

“You would take my word?”

“Of course. You may be a kaidur, but we can tell you are also a Horter.”

I sipped my wine and inwardly I laughed at them. Fools! I was no gentleman — I never had been, save by a king’s commission to walk the quarterdeck of a King’s Ship, and I never would be. But, for all that, if I gave them my word I would keep it. Also, and I did not discount this aspect, they knew that it would take more than one paktun of very great skill indeed to deal with me, and further, that the queen would be most wroth and would relentlessly pursue an inquiry.

“Perhaps,” I said. “You do not ask yourself what I was doing there, at the time the great slate slab fell.”

This had occurred to them. It was not a weapon they might use against me except after I had denounced them, as they knew.

“You, too, are against” — Orlan’s gaze flicked around the tavern and back — “the queen?”

He whispered that, a conspirator to the life.

“It might very well be,” I said. And added, “Or, it might not. For I think the queen will smile on me now.”

“Aye!” Gyss drank his wine at a single gulp and called for more. “And we know where the queen’s smile leads! A garrote, and a stone lashed to the legs, and a hole in the River of Leaping Fish.”

Then someone recognized me and a crowd gathered and I had to rise and smile at them — most painful

— and so make my escape in a shower of back-claps and handshakes and adulatory speeches. We walked quickly along the alleyways threading the warrens of the Jikhorkdun, and my state attracted so much attention that in the end I had to bid Orlan Mahmud and this Rorton Gyss farewell and run for the red barracks.

“We will see you tomorrow, Drak the Sword!” called Rorton Gyss. This Trylon of Kritdrin had impressed me. He seemed a man who knew his own mind, and went for the truth, no matter what or who stood in his way.

He was a supporter of the yellow; that was unfortunate, but as I have said, color supporters might mingle freely with only the occasional fight, for Mahmud was of the red. And, if Gyss was of the yellow it would mean he could bring a whole new dimension of support to the cause he espoused with Mahmud. Nath the Arm greeted me with a great bellow.

“By Kaidun! Drak the Sword — you are a hyr-kaidur now! It was superbly done, Kaidur to the life!

Just remember: easy come, easy go. There are many coys pushing up, and the glass eye and brass sword of Beng Thrax may smile on them also!”

Naghan the Gnat jumped up and down in his excitement, and all the red barracks waxed warm over the triumph. The silver collar of the leem was a great trophy. I thought of the leem’s tail — and I did not smile.

I had not missed the shifty liquid eyes of the little fellow who had followed me, keeping as he thought out of sight, his plain brown tunic and kilt worn without color favor. A spy, he was, spying on me. . following me through the Jikhorkdun to the red barracks of Nath the Arm. He could not follow me inside, and on that I cursed him and forgot him. .