We went along to take our seats in the public galleries of one of the game courts of the Jikaidaderen and I watched the Kazz game — and I was not enthralled. There was a powerful fascination in Kazz-Jikaida, an appeal to deeply hidden emotions and a dark pull on the blood; but I kept seeing the magical blades and the scornful and triumphant face of Prince Mefto the Kazzur before my eyes.
Chapter Fifteen
The game turned out to be the Pallan’s Kapt’s Gambit Declined. That was how the encounter began. Because this was Kazz-Jikaida, the precise and elegantly contrived moves broke down after a time when a piece refused to be taken. The game proceeded interestingly enough, despite that. One swod, a Chulik whose fierce upthrust tusks were banded in silver, fought very well, defeating two Deldars sent against him successively. This upset the right hand drins of the game as far as Yellow was concerned, and pretty soon Blue was sweeping through the center with a line of Deldar-supported swods and pieces. When the two Kapts were brought into play they swept aside a Chuktar and a Hikdar and, but for an interesting contest between a Hyr-Paktun and the Aeilssa’s Swordsman, the game was over. Here in democratic-aristocratic Jikaida City the piece around whose capture the game revolved was called not King or Rokveil but Aeilssa, Princess. Well, I liked the romantic ring of that, and having married a princess and having others of that ilk as daughters, I could not in all conscience find fault. When the game was done, the sand already being raked neatly back into the blue and yellow squares ready for the next game — there being time for two encounters in that afternoon — Dav and I shouldered up to leave. Being Dav, his first thought was to discover the nearest alehouse. With a flagon in his fist and his elbow on the counter, he said, “The pieces fight differently when it is a Death game.”
I nodded, and drank. I was thirsty.
“How often do they-?”
“Very seldom for the public contests. Death-Jikaida is expensive. The inner courts. They are the places for the highest stakes and the most bloody of encounters.”
“I have heard it said,” I remarked, quoting Deb-Lu-Quienyin as we had talked around our caravan fire under the stars of the Desolate Waste, “that there is no skill in Jikaida where the outcome of carefully planned moves can be upset by mere brainless warriors fighting.”
“So they say.” Dav supped companionably. “But Konec says there is skill, albeit of a different kind. There is the skill of sizing up your opponent’s powers and of arranging within the moves to place your best fighters to bear on the weakest of your opponent’s, and of protecting your own lesser pieces.”
“That Chulik swod with the silver-banded tusks-”
“In the next game he will be a Deldar, you mark my words.”
“Chuliks are ferocious fighters. He’ll be a Pallan yet.”
“On the Jikaida board only, though! By Spag the Junct! The blue and yellow sand will drink much blood before they put him away in the balass box.”
Pompino found us then and wanted to catch up with the flagons, and some of Konec’s people arrived, and the alehouse began to liven up. We’d all put in some time in the practice court, and we lived and messed shoulder by shoulder, for Konec paid for everything in the Blue Rokveil with funds provided by contributions from Mandua against Mefto, and I’d practiced in a kind of daze. Dav regarded me as a better than middling swordsman. Pompino he rated much higher. I felt, in the turmoil that I couldn’t plumb, that maybe he was right.
Now, with the flagons being refilled by Fristle fifis, who squealed as they did their work, well-knowing that the customers liked that, Dav broached the question. He opened up the reasons behind what had been going on.
“You are a fighting man, Jak. You are good. You could be better, I feel, if — but then, if we all knew that if, we’d all be Mefto the Bastards, eh?”
“I suppose so.”
“Cheer up, you miserable fambly! I’m offering you a task you should joy in — we fight for Konec in Kazz-Jikaida. Will you join us?”
Pompino, who had just lifted a fresh flagon to his lips, blew a head of froth a clear six feet and into the cleavage of a fifi. She yelped. She put her finger down and wiped — and then she licked the finger, making a face. But she didn’t deceive us. We laughed — even I laughed.
“All right,” I said.
“We-ell,” said Pompino.
“It depends on the size of the game we get into,” Dav said, speaking to Pompino with intent to induce him. “Konec has brought first-class fighters; but we may need many more to make up the pieces. What say you? You know the pay is good, and the inducements offered by the Nine Masked Guardians add up to a handsome sum.”
In Poron Jikaida, which is the smallest size reckoned to be worth the playing, there are thirty-six pieces a side. In Lamdu Jikaida there are ninety pieces a side.
In the end Pompino gave his assent; a qualified assent which, as he said, depended on getting the hell out of this city. We were both of the opinion that the Everoinye, having used our services, would not bother us again for a space and therefore we must use our own efforts to escape. For we regarded it as an escape. “There is no chance I shall stay once Ineldar the Kaktu begins to form his caravan,” said Pompino, and he meant it.
“By Spag the Junct!” burst out Dav. “You eat Konec’s food and sleep under his roof-”
“I shall pay,” said Pompino, and his foxy face bristled. “I shall pay — you will see.”
“Very well. We shall hire swods from the academies. The higher pieces are named. I think you two may be Deldars-”
“What?” Pompino was outraged. “I am a paktun-”
“We have hyr-paktuns with us in this, with the pakzhan.”
Pompino stared furiously at me. I hate to see friends wrangling. “If you could at least give Pompino a decent harness it would-”
“The weapons and the armor are prescribed by law. It is all in the Jikaidish.”
Well, by Vox, that was true. Each piece on the board was represented on the blue and yellow sands of Kazz-Jikaida by a fighting man. Each piece was equipped according to the laws of Jikaida as prescribed in the Jikaidish Lore — that is, in this sense of the Kregish word, the hyr-lif written in the Jikaidish. Swods wore a breechclout and held a small shield and were armed with a five-foot spear. The Deldars wore a leather jerkin and carried a more effective shield. Mind you, the Jikaidish Lore provided for an amazing variety of equipments. One of the most important facts to remember about Jikaida is that the ramifications, combinations, extensions and sheer prolific variety of the game demand that before any game begins each player is aware of the exact rules under which the game is to be played. This is cardinal. Much blood has been shed because players were too stupid or lazy to make sure they agreed on the rules they were going to use before they started playing.
Pompino rubbed his whiskers.
“Arrange for me to have a sword, and, maybe-”
“It is difficult.” Dav screwed up his face and then reached for the flagon. “It may not be possible to arrange the bokkertu for Screetz-Jikaida. But I will speak to Konec.”
“Do so.”
“Who is Konec playing?” I said to attempt to bring the conversation down a few degrees. It had been growing too warm.
“Some old biddy called Yasuri.”
“Ha!” snapped Pompino. “I might have guessed.”
“She didn’t hire us to fight for her — she must be using the academies.”
Dav nodded sagely. “I am told they train ’em here to fight in ways adjusted to the Jikaida board. It is cramped.”