“If you had been picked by the gods to be favored with a great gift, as Mefto surely has, would you feel arrogance over that? Or would you feel awe — and a little fear?”
Pompino stared at me over the pewter rim of his goblet.
“Jak — we are kregoinye. We have been marked!”
“By Havil!” I said, and I sat back, astounded.
After a space in which sylvie glided over to refill our goblets and Pompino spilled out a couple of copper coins, I said, “All the same. It is not the same — if you see what I mean. Mefto’s gift and our tasks cannot stand comparison.”
Pompino was staring after the sylvie and licking his lips.
“I’m surprised a place like this can afford to hire a sylvie — slave or not. They tend to — to distract a fellow.”
That was true.
“We should, I think,” I said, “find Ineldar the Kaktu and make sure he will hire us for the return journey. We must know when he is starting.” I looked around and lowered my voice. “I begin to think we will not find a fluttrell or mirvol to steal in this city.”
“Agreed. But another stoup first, Jak.”
By the time we left to explore the city, Pompino was very merry. We quickly discovered that Jikaida City was not one but two. Twinned cities under the twin suns flourish all over Kregen, of course. The extensive shallow depression between low and rolling hills cupped the twin cities in a figure-eight shape. Between them rose edifices of enormous extent whose function was to house the games. We strolled along in the sunshine, admiring the sights, and Pompino kept breaking into little snatches of song, half to himself, half to any passersby who took his fancy. Despite myself, I did not pretend I was not with him. After all, he had proved a comrade.
Many of the more important avenues radiated away from the central mass of the Jikaidaderen and the buildings reflected the architectural tastes of many nations and races. In one avenue we saw a low-walled structure over the gate of which hung a banner, flapping gently in the light breeze, which read: NATH EN SCREETZIM.
Underneath, in letters only slightly less loud, was the Kregish for: “Patronized by the leading Jikaidasts.”
Pompino ogled the sign owlishly. “Are you a leading Jikaidast, Jak? I can rank my Deldars and — and reach the first drin. But after that-” He paused to bow deeply to a couple of passing matrons, who eyed him as though the flat stones of Havilfar had yawned and yielded up their denizens. “After that, dom, why
— it all gets confusing.”
“Stick to Jikalla.”
“No, no. The Game of Moons for me. Then the dice decide.”
For some perverse reason I defended the Game of Moons. “And skill, also, Pompino. You can’t deny that.”
He staggered three paces to larboard, smiled, and lurched four paces to starboard.
“Deny it? I love it!”
“Come on. They’ll have you inside with a sword in your fist before you can call on Horato the Potent.”
He nodded his head with great solemnity, his face glazed, his mouth slowly opening and then closing with a snap, only once more to drop open. I took his arm and steered him along the avenue away from Nath the Swordsman’s premises.
Nath’s place was not the only establishment we saw where the arts and skills and disciplines of fighting were taught. After my contretemps with Mefto I wondered — and not altogether in the abstract -
whether or not I might benefit from a fresh course of instruction. One fact seemed clear to me from what I had pieced together of Mefto’s career. As a Kildoi he was by nature possessed of formidable advantages in the fighting business. He had left his native Balintol seasons ago and had ruffled and swaggered his way through the Dawn Lands as a mercenary, rapidly rising through paktun to be hyr-paktun and privileged to wear the golden pakzhan at his throat. Then, with all the raffish and bloody accompaniments to revolution, he had taken command of a band of near-masichieri and with their help overthrown the old prince of Shanodrin and taken over the country, the titles, the wealth and the power. His legal acceptance had soon followed. By all the laws of Kregen, he was now Prince of Shanodrin. The revolution by itself would not have been enough — in law — to give him the right. The bokkertu had to be made. Then Mefto the Kazzur became Prince Mefto and could take the name of A’Shanofero as his own.
From what little I knew of the man I wondered why he had chosen a principality and not a kingdom. But, probably, he had his avaricious gaze already fixed on his next victim. Looked at completely dispassionately, Mefto the Kazzur had merely done what I, myself, had done. All the same, the idea of Mefto lording it as Emperor of Vallia sent a little shudder up my backbone.
“You ill, Jak?”
“Not as much as you, you old soak, Pompino.”
“Don’t get away from the wife enough, that’s my trouble.”
“Then may Havil the Green smile on us, and the Everoinye set another task to our hands.”
“Amen to that, by the pot belly of Beng Dikkane!”
The twin Suns of Scorpio, the red and the green, are not called Zim and Genodras in Havilfar, but Far and Havil. Usually on Kregen, Jikaida boards are checkered in blue and yellow or white and black. There are places where the red and green are used; Jikaida City was not, as far as I knew, one of them. As we neared the imposing pile of the Jikaidaderen the walls assumed something of their true stature, and we saw the palace was large, perfectly capable of accommodating many laid-out Kazz-Jikaida boards. The place was a maze of inner buildings, a vast complex not, I suppose, unlike the Jikhorkduns surrounding the amphitheatres and the arenas of Hamal and Hyrklana and other places. We strolled along, and Pompino was singing a charming if foolish ditty about a Pandaheem who kissed the baker’s wife and went floury white to see the sweep’s wife, whereat he became sooty black. The song is called
“Black is White and White is Black” and I will not repeat it.
The city within Jikaida City in which we thus swaggered along was bedecked with yellow. The other city claimed the blue. They had names, long rigmaroles of high boasting; but folk usually called them just Yellow City or Blue City. I had to stop myself from joining in some of Pompino’s songs. And, I wondered how long it would be before the Watch employed by the Nine Guardians would heave up to arrest us.
Each city was run by its own Masked Nine, and they had no kings or queens here. They did have a nobility, and from this aristocracy were drawn the Guardians of the Masked Nine. The system employed was a democratic one that extended only to these nobles and their families; but within that limitation they voted for office and did not fight for it. Jikaida drew the fires of the blood, so it was said. As a secret ballot was used, the successful candidates remained anonymous, masked, inducted into office by their peers. This system had, so far, proved effective in preventing unrest from developing into revolution. The army and the Watch obeyed the orders of the Masked Nine Guardians and enforced their edicts. We had heard of punishments for disobedience that would give nightmares to a seasoned paktun. All was balance, force countering force, and, over all, the games of Jikaida dominated the twin cities of Jikaida City.
The truth would not be served in saying the inhabitants of Blue City and Yellow City hated one another. They were rivals, at times deadly rivals; but all their hostility was played out on the Jikaida boards. Yellow against Blue. Blue against Yellow. Their loyalties to their color city and their partisanship were alike intense. They were dedicated. The forces aloof from this rivalry, the religious orders, the army -
and very few others, by Krun! — were still infected by the Jikaida fever and wore black and white checkerboarded insignia. Havil the Green was a noted deity here, with his temples and priests; but there were others, plenty of them in apparently equal prominence. On the surface there appeared no sign of Lem the Silver Leem, for which I was thankful, although I kept my eyes open on that score. Managing to drag Pompino off without further problems and keeping the Watch well in the offing, I found a suitable hostelry in the middle-sections of Yellow City called The Pallan’s Swod. Here, after due payment, I was able to deposit Pompino in a bed and close the door on his snores. Useless to detail my doings after that; they boiled down to confirmation of the absence of flyers, the vowed testimony from seasoned leem-hunters that only death by suicide awaited across the lakes, and that Ineldar the Kaktu would be returning when a caravan had been assembled and when that would be, by Havil, he had no idea. In the meantime he was going to drink up and visit the public games and have himself a good time and that was what Pompino and I should do. He’d be pleased to hire us as caravan guards when the time was ripe.