“Yes,” I said. “Assuredly.”
Because he had been the first to pelt down all naked into action and drive the Ochs away he had quite naturally assumed the leadership of our twin mission. I did not bother my head over that. Let him imagine he carried the burden. Truth to tell, I was happy to allow it — and, equally, I liked him. The posting house at the ford of Gilma was merely a single story house and surrounding wall all built of the gray stones carried down from the frowning hills. We did not change the totrixes or the krahniks, for we had not been pushing them and they were beasts of price. We set off early the next day and so came down the long valley into Songaslad, a town of thieves.
Over the border some sixty dwaburs off lay the country of Aidrin in which lay the capital, the city called Jikaida City. The journey was fraught with peril. It lay over badlands of an exceedingly bad badness. In Songaslad, the town of thieves, caravans were formed for mutual protection on the journey. The lady Yasuri sent her Rapa Jiktar to haggle for the price of a caravan’s protection. Perforce, we waited, and set a doubled guard over our possessions.
We lost only a good saddle, richly inlaid, a carpet of high price, and a set of golden candlesticks whose theft almost gave the lady a fainting fit. Her companions, her handmaids in the coach with her, used burned twigs of Sweet Ibroi to revive her. We concluded a deal with hawk-faced Ineldar the Kaktu, the caravan master, forthwith.
So, a long straggling procession of carriages and wagons and riders and people trudging afoot, we wended out of Songaslad, the town of thieves, to cross the Desolate Wastes, and so win our way to Aidrin, and the rich country around LionardDen, Jikaida City.
Chapter Ten
Many times have I journeyed in caravans across country inhospitable by reason of nature or man, and on each occasion I vow never again, and know even as I vow that the lure of the adventure will always drag me on. Each occasion is different. Kregen is a world of so many startling contrasts that the beauty and terror mingle and fill the spirit with wild eagerness or desolation, with burning ambition to win against all or a calm and joyous acceptance of the stupendous.
Nights under the stars! Ah — they are never to be forgotten.
The Caravan labored along, crossing rivers and winding down long defiles, gaining the far slopes and so rising to emerge onto the vasty plains where the mist lifted blue and eerie, like lantern smoke against snow.
The totrix of the lady Yasuri’s given into my charge and whom I rode across the Desolate Wastes was a skewbald called Munky. I was careful of him. Accustomed I may be to walking barefoot across the awful places of Kregen, I was now far more of a mind to ride rather than walk. Oh, yes, despite all my deeper concerns, I enjoyed that caravan across the Desolate Wastes to Jikaida City. And, if the truth be told, the land was not all desolate. Grass grew and the animals fed. There was water in swift silver streams. Every now and then we crossed stony deserts, or sandy deserts; but we prepared for them. The various places along the way were infested with drikingers and these bandits attacked us, as was their custom. We fought them off.
Here we saw why the Star Lords had provided two men — two kregoinye, I must now call them — to escort the person they had chosen to save for posterity. The Rapa escort fought well and earned their hire along with all the other caravan guards. But, one by one, they went down, by arrow or spear, sword or javelin. Soon my companion Pompino was given the escort command, with the rank of Jiktar, whereat he smiled at me, and I warmed to him, realizing how much and how little he valued these titles. But we saved the skin of the lady Yasuri.
It is not my intention to give a blow-by-blow account of that journey, much though the prospect tempts me, for this was a kind of holiday. It is with some of the people of the caravan that my interest lies, and therefore yours.
The lady Yasuri herself was going to Jikaida City to play Jikaida, and most of the other folk in the caravan were doing likewise, to play, to participate, to gamble or merely to make a profit on the game. As is the way with such caravans, people tend to fall into clumps, who jog along together, for company, good fellowship and mutual protection. A deal of this can be put down to the speed of progress. The lady Yasuri’s coach matched the speed of an ornate, top-heavy creation of the carriage-builder’s art, in blue and yellow, that swayed along next in line. This conveyance was drawn by six krahniks. In the caravan were so many of the various marvelous animals of Kregen it were vain to name them all; but there were Quoffas, calsanys, plain asses, hirvels, totrixes, and the like. There were few zorcas. Of course, being Havilfar, there were no voves. This blue and yellow coach with the black and white checkerboard along the sides contained Master Scatulo. In Master Scatulo’s terms, to speak his name was enough.
Master Scatulo — he trumpeted a host of names all attesting to his enormous prowess as a Jikaidast -
permitted the lady Yasuri the graciousness of his company when we halted for meals. Yasuri hung on this young fellow’s words — for Scatulo was young, brash, supremely self-confident and, by the reckoning of anyone you cared to ask, a remarkable player of Jikaida, a true Jikaidast. His face was of a sallow cast, sharp and edgy, with deep furrows between his eyebrows, and eyes of a piercing quality that Sishi, the lady Yasuri’s least important hand maiden told me with a laugh, he painted with blue-kohl to enhance their impression of brooding intelligence. I believed this. It is known. Pompino guffawed and passed a most demeaning remark.
“He’s real clever, is Master Scatulo!” protested Sishi. She, herself, was apim and a little beauty with dark hair and a rosy glowing face and ways that were still artless, despite the way of the world. I waggled a finger at her.
“Now then, mistress Sishi. Beware of clever men like this Scatulo. Just because he says he is Havil’s gift to the world, that he is a genius, doesn’t mean he can-”
“I know what you’re saying, Jak!”
“Just as well you do, Sishi,” said Pompino. “For Jak speaks sooth. This Scatulo will get you-”
Her face was scarlet. Sishi burst out, “You’re horrible!”
That, by Vox, was true enough; but had little to do with the subject in question. There were other Jikaidasts in the caravan; not many. I gathered from sly remarks that a Jikaidast must be in the very topmost flight of his profession to be preferred in Jikaida City. Trouble was, Pompino and I could not flaunt our ignorance; everyone understood so well the significance of Jikaida City that significant details were taken for granted. We agreed to keep our ears open and learn. The other person who jogged along with us and shared our fire and engaged in conversation was a Wizard of Loh.
Yes. Oh, yes, I well realize the surprise anyone must feel in so cavalier a treatment of a representative of one of the most powerful groups of wizards on Kregen. But Deb-Lu-Quienyin was a pleasant old buffer whose red Lohvian hair was much thinned by perplexed rubbing and whose lined face expressed a perennial surprise at the state of the world. But, for all that, he was a Wizard of Loh. He wore plain robes, with their dark blue only moderately embellished with silver and he wore a stout shortsword, which made me look in wonder.
“Aye, young man, a sword and a Wizard of Loh. Parlous are the days, and grievous the evil thereof.”
“Aye, san,” I said, giving him the correct honorific of san — sage or dominie. “You speak sooth.”
He tilted his lopsided turban-like headdress to one side so as to rub his hair. Strings of pearls and diamonds decorated the folds of blue cloth; but he assured me they were imitation only. “For I have fallen on hard days, young man, and Things Are Not What They Were.”