The time for my rendezvous approached. Vaspian had no particular need of me until the hour of the ceremony arrived, and so I did not find it difficult to make my way through the palace to the nearest exit.
Whatever Valkar and I should decide to do, my own plans were fixed and certain. The task of playing the assassin was mine; it could only be mine, for only I could come and go freely in the private apartments of the Prince; only I had the opportunity to request a private audience with him immediately prior to our departure for the Hall of Hoom, as the devil god of the Chac Yuul was known, before whose high altar the nuptials would be celebrated by Ool the wizard-priest.
And at that private audience I would accomplish the murder and be gone; such was to be my lonely fate.
Or so I thought at the time!
But va lu rokka, as the fatalistic philosophy of the Yathoon hordesmen has it. That which is destined shall come to pass, whatever your plans may be.
And, as things turned out, it was not after all my destiny to meet with Valkar at the wineshop that morning.
Fate had a few surprises in store for Jandar of Callisto!
It was my plan to leave the royal citadel by a side entrance which, while well guarded, was rather neglected. Few used it, as most of the lords and chieftains of the Black Legion preferred the more accessible main gate. But as my mission was of a somewhat surreptitious nature, and I did not desire to attract any more attention than I could help, I chose to leave by this side gate. And it is upon just such small matters as these, the passing whims of a moment, that the fate of empires and the destiny of worlds sometimes hang.
For as I strode through the gate, nodding at the guards who knew me for Prince Vaspian’s man, I encountered a Chac Yuul war party entering the palace with two prisoners in tow. When I glanced with casual curiosity at the two captives, I got the surprise of my life.
For they were my old comrades, Koja and Lukor!
Koja, the towering Yathoon, loomed above the squat Black Legion warriors by head, shoulders, and upper thorax. His bare, glistening, chitinous forelimbs were bound behind him with tough leather thongs. His bald, ovoid head, crowned with segmented feelers, bore only the slightest resemblance to a human visage. His horny, immobile face and huge solemn eyes were physiologically incapable of registering changes of emotion, and he regarded me with an unfathomable gaze.
As for Lukor, the peppery little Swordmaster of Zanadar was somewhat the worse for wear. His somber-colored garments were torn, dirtied, and disheveled. His shock of snowy hair was disarranged. He was bleeding from a number of small scratches and minor cuts, and I have no doubt that those who had captured him had not done so without discovering that it is not an easy thing to disarm a swordsman of such masterly skill. His face was stiff and expressionless as he saw me, but from the flash of excitement in his eyes I knew that he had instantly recognized me despite the unexpectedness of our meeting.
As for myself, I fear I retained less composure than did my two old friends. I believe I paled, and an expression of shocked surprise doubtless crossed my features at this unexpected meeting.
The komad in charge of the war party saw the expression of astonishment that crossed my features. But, luckily, he did not identify my expression as one of recognition: had he done so I would have been hard put to explain how a warrior of the Black Legion could have known a Ganatolian swordmaster and a Yathoon hordesman.
Instead, he misinterpreted my surprise as mere startlement at seeing a Yathoon warrior in the city of the Ku Thad. For while the various human races of Thanator frequently take service in alien cities, and while it is not at all rare to encounter a Perushtarian tradesman in Zanadar, a Canatolian warrior serving in the ranks of the Chac Yuul, or a Ku Thad dwelling in Ganatol, the great, solemn-faced, stalk-limbed arthropods of the Horde stay with their own kind and are not ever found in service with the forces of the human nations of this world.
Proud of his capture, the squat, bandy-legged little komad grinned hugely, hooked his thumbs in his girdle, and nodded at the two silent prisoners.
“Fresh bodies for the Games, eh, friend?” he chuckled. “The Warlord will be pleased with them. Why, we have not taken a capok prisoner in years. ‘Twill be a pleasure to see this one stand against a yathrib for the Nuptial Games. I have always wanted to see one of them in action with those ungainly whip-swords of theirs.”
I had gained control of my features by now and permitted them to register slight curiosity.
“Aye, true enough, komad,” I said indifferently. It came to me suddenly that, in honor of the marriage of Prince Vaspian and Darloona, the Chac Yuul would hold one of their bloody gladitorial festivals in the great arena of the palace compound that very afternoon. My blood ran cold at the thought. How could I free my friends, while attempting to save Darloona from the arms of the Son of Arkola? I did not think it possible to accomplish both; and yet I could hardly abandon Koja and Lukor to so horrible a fate as death in the arena. Both had saved my life ere this, at the hazard of their own.
“You are the komad Jandar, are you not?” the little officer inquired. “I believe I have seen you in Prince Vaspian’s retinue ere now.”
I nodded, and he identified himself as one Loguar, an officer in the fourth cohort of the Legion.
“Where did you get these two?” I asked, with what I hoped would sound like idle curiosity. Loguar was happy to swagger his triumph and needed no spur to his loquacity.
“Caught them in the lower city,” he said, meaning the slums of Shondakor, a dilapidated area of old tenements down by the river docks. “Sneaking along in the shadows, they were, and up to no good, that was obvious. The old one put up a terrific battle, for all his white hair. A devil with the sword, that one! Five of my lads will be months in the mending, and three others will fight for the Legion never again, for they are gone to Gordrimator.”
By this, Loguar meant they had been killed, or so I surmise. Oddly enough, for a barbaric world of walled cities and tribal monarchs, the various nations of Thanator have only the most rudimentary kind of a religion. They worship a pantheon of divinities called “The Lords of Gordrimator,” by which name they term the planet Jupiter, to which this world of Thanator is the fifth satellite; but the word “worship” may be too strong, for never yet have I met with a priest of this religion or nor have I seen anything that could be described as a cathedral or a temple.
Indeed, the only priest of any description I have heard of on Thanator is that inscrutable little being, Ool the Uncanny, and he is more wizard or enchanter than priest. But I had vaguely heard of the Thanatorian belief that the souls or spirits of the warrior dead travel to Gordrimator, which seems to be envisioned as a sort of paradise or afterlife, so I understood what he meant.
“Odd to see a Yathoon hordesman in the city,” I commented. “Where are you taking them, if I may ask?”
“To the Pits,” shrugged Loguar, meaning the dungeons beneath the royal citadel. “There they will be safe and secure until the Games.”
“Very good. Doubtless someone will wish to question them as to their reasons for being in the city?”
He grunted and spat. “The Warlord generally questions prisoners, but on this day of days I doubt he would be interested. Well, I must be off with my prizes.” He grinned, and tossed me a companionable salute. Then he strode off into the palace with his war party and the two captives.
I stood aside as they went past me, and as tall gaunt Koja went by he clacked out one word in his harsh metallic tones.