Yes, I know — this was an example of the futility of Kazz-Jikaida, and a confirmation of the pure Jikaida player’s views.
But, do not forget, this was Death Jikaida. As the final move in Mefto’s play was made, a long and satisfied sigh rippled up from the terrace. The men and women up there, sipping their delicate wines, perfumed lace at their noses, appreciated what they were seeing.
Prince Mefto, acting as the Yellow Pallan, made the last zeunt in person. He came off the vault opposite the Princess and his next move would capture her. She threw in our Chulik. He did well, he fought bravely; but he died. He died on Mefto’s blade.
Now it was Yellow’s move. As the winning defender, Mefto could not replace himself; but everyone present knew he had no intention of doing that. He was unmarked. Glitteringly in the sunshine he stood there, a golden figure of superb poise and accomplishment. He made his move. In a loud, ringing voice, he called: “Pallan captures Aeilssa. Hyrkaida! Do you bare the throat?”
Yasuri drew herself up, a diminutive figure yet shining and oddly impressive in her long white gown with the tall blue feathers nodding over her head.
“I do not bare the throat! En Screetzim nalen Aeilssa!”
The Princess’s Swordsman!
Her prerogative, available only in Kazz-Jikaida, and she had taken it — as, indeed, she must. Mefto knew that. He smiled. We all saw that smile, small and tight and filled with genuine pleasure. Mefto was a bladesman who loved to fight, who enjoyed his work, and who had never met his master. The man who had been waiting all this time as the Princess’s Swordsman started up. His face was green. He was apim. His eyes protruded grotesquely, and glistened like gouged-out eyes on a fishmonger’s slab. With a shriek he threw his shield away and ran. He had no idea where he was running. He just fled from horror.
In a blundering crazed gallop he ran over the blue and yellows and the long Lohvian shaft skewered him through the back and another pierced him through the throat and as he fell a third punctured into and through one of those ghastly staring eyes.
His shield still rocked on its face in the mingled sunslight.
Bevon stood up.
“I think I shall see what I may do against this-”
I pulled him by his blue breechclout.
“Stay, Bevon the Reckless!”
So it was I, Dray Prescot, Prince of Onkers, who stepped forward and picked up the fallen shield with its proud marks of the Princess’s Swordsman and walked straight and purposefully onto the blue and yellow squares of the board of Death Jikaida to face a man I knew had the beating of me in swordplay.
Chapter Twenty-one
Traditionally in Kazz-Jikaida whenever the Princess called on her Swordsman to fight for her the drums rolled. Black and white checkered tabards, black and white checkered drum cloths, all rippled and flowed as the drummers plied their drumsticks. The rataplan hammered out. Long thunderous rolls and flourishes, repeated and repeated, roared and boomed over the Jikaida board. And I walked forward, almost in a dream, feeling the blood in my head and the weight of the shield and the heft of the sword and the grip of the sand beneath my naked feet.
These were physical feelings. They bore in on me. They were tangible and real, like the sweat that beaded my forehead and trickled down my face from under the reed-laurium, like the taste of blood and sweat on the air. Physical, material impressions: the glitter of burnished steel, the gloating faces of the privileged onlookers as they crowded from their chairs to catch a closer look at this climactic butchery, the waft of a tiny breeze on my heat-soaked face — how refreshing that breeze, how vividly it brought back pungent memories of other days, of the quarterdeck of a seventy-four, of the scrap of decking of a swifter, a swordship, and the wind in my face and all the seas of two worlds! But I was pent in this stone-walled enclosure, this amphitheatre of death, and I recalled the Jikhorkdun of Huringa, and felt again the concussion of blows given and taken, and the leem’s tail and the blood, and all the time as these jangling memories sparked through my head so I walked quietly and steadily out over the blue and yellows to take up my position beside the lady Yasuri.
“En Screetzim nalen Aeilssa! Bratch!” She called again, briskly, for she had not taken her gaze off Mefto, and did not turn, and she waited for her champion to stand at her side.
“I am here, lady,” I said, and she turned, and saw me.
“Jak. Fight well. Fight well to the death-”
“Aye, lady, I shall fight as well as I am able and as Zair strengthens my sinews and gives cunning to my fist. And to the death, as it seems. But, lady, I do not fight for you.”
She flinched. What she had thought I do not know. But she flinched back, and a look of pain crossed her face.
“This is a game to you, lady. A mere pastime, lady. So that you may wear the diadem of triumph, lady. But the drums roll and blood will be spilled and men will die, and not for your sake, lady.”
The curtains of the carrying-chair rustled back. The ivory white face looked out and the glory of the suns caught in the red Lohvian hair. “Still your tongue, tikshim. You are condemned to fight, so fight and do not chatter.”
I regarded her as I stood there, waiting for the drumroll to end. I did not look at Mefto — not yet. Ling-li-Lwingling put a hand as white as her face, as slender as a missal, to the golden cord and her fingers toyed with the golden tassel. I knew who she was, now — rather, I knew what she was. The drums rolled. And I said: “Ling-li-Lwingling. By the Seven Arcades, woman, you are a Witch of Loh!”
“Yes, Jak the Condemned. I am a Witch of Loh, and better for you to-”
“Save your pretty threats, Witch. I would give you the Sana; but other and more pressing matters await.”
Her red red mouth widened. I did not think she knew how to smile.
“Your fears for Vallia are well-founded — you will fight for the lady Yasuri — and you will fight for me!”
I felt the whole enormous expanse of the Jikaida board tilt beneath me, and coalesce into the single square upon which I stood. I noticed it was a yellow square. Ling-li’s smile slowly died and her face resumed that fixed foreboding expression as though expertly carved from solid ivory of Chem. The long-drawn drumroll ended.
Absolute silence engulfed the Kazz-Jikaida board.
And I looked squarely upon Prince Mefto the Kazzur.
Arrogance and power and pride, yes, of course, they were all there, stamped upon him indelibly by his own prowess. I tried to see more. Men and women are more than mere bundles of flesh and blood hung on bones and walking the world in the light and darkness; this Mefto was a man, a five-handed Kildoi, and yet a human being. His presence smote me as a shell, a hard and shiny yellow carapace concealing the humanity within.
The vivid sensory impressions bombarding me as the drumroll rattled to silence contained all of the physical world; I dare not seek to pry into the world of feeling, of emotion, of fear or courage. I was here. Was not that enough?
Yet feeling decided all. Physical sensations were colored by the emotions, so I tried to look past the blue and yellow and the waiting silence and the spectators and the Jikaida pieces, past Yasuri and Ling-li and Mefto, tried to peer into the darkest depths beneath myself.
To find oneself… In that moment even the central core of existence sought its meaning. I was a Krozair of Zy. Did that matter so much?
Mefto’s voice lifted, high and hard and challenging.
“I know you, apim!”
I said nothing.
Perhaps, had the question been put to me, I could not have said anything. But, at the very end of that somber tunnel there might be a light. It was just possible. All I had to remember was one single fact in all the universe: I was Dray Prescot. That was all.