For North Pandahem lies perilously close to Vallia.
Vallia and Pandahem were enemies, through forces which were as much ironically stupid as through any other rational reason, for their maritime and colonial and economic rivalries could be adjusted given compassion and tolerance, and even though I was Prince Majister of Vallia, still I would fight for Pandahem against an outside invader. This might bring the two islands closer together in concern. I would like that. The Hamalians would not sell vollers to Pandahem. Was that because they wished to keep from them this means of aerial warfare, and, thus weakened, be easy meat for invasion and conquest? But then
— Hamal was now refusing to sell Vollers to Vallia, a traditional market. This, surely, was the preliminary to attack!
“You look thoughtful, Dray,” said my chief minister and now my regent, Pallan O. Fellin Coper. “Djangs are a bloodthirsty lot, as you know. I am a civilian and I-”
“Aye, Ortyg!” said Kytun, lifting his flagon. “You leave the fighting to us! And very sensible that is, to be sure. Dray,” he said, and he quaffed and set the emptied goblet down. “Djangs survive only by fighting well. If you have enemies we will fight them — aye! Even beyond the Ice Floes of Sicce!”
“Good Kytun, I don’t think we need to go there, just yet.”
I had discovered what I had already known to be true. These fearsome Djangs would fight for me, if they clearly saw my cause was just. I had little doubt that could be made plain. Deliberately, I steered the conversation away.
In the high-arched banqueting hall of my Palace of Illustrious Ornament in sprawling, arcaded, windy Djanguraj, the noise of laughter and singing brought aching memories of nights of carousing in the high fortress of Esser Rarioch overlooking Valkanium. It brought memories of those luminous nights with my clansmen on the Great Plains of Segesthes under the seven moons of Kregen. And, too, and with an especially keen nostalgia, it brought flooding back vivid memories of roistering away in Sanurkazz on the inner sea with my two favorite rascals, my two oar comrades, Nath and Zolta. Ah! Time is a relentless monster that devours us all.
And sometimes the thought of a thousand years is insupportable to me, and then I think of Delia, and I know the thousand years will be all too short. .
So I turned the conversation and I talked of affording better protection to our northern shore against slaving raids from Loh. I had at that time never been to Loh save for a short stop at Seg’s country, Erthyrdrin, when I had thought him dead. . I would go there, one day.
“We are still a long way from the kind of land we would like to see,” O. Fellin Coper said, and we plunged into discussions of ways and means and where the money was coming from and all the problems of managing a country.
Oh, yes, I acted the part of the King of Djanduin, and, as is the way of these things, acting was not necessary. At this time on Kregen the lands of Strombor, Valka, and Djanduin meant most to me, for the peoples of those lands looked to me not only as their leader and the man who would guide them and devote his life to them, but mostly, I like to think, because they regarded me as their friend. I do not make friends easily. I had been blessed and doubly blessed on Kregen with true friends. . I had also picked up a few enemies on the way. A goodly number of those were dead, and of those who remained there were some who were to do me great mischief, as you shall hear. . Because I was the King of Djanduin there was no difficulty in finding me a flier in which to travel to Migladrin. Any guilt I might have felt about depriving my country — a country, remember, of which I was a relatively new king — of a precious voller was more than overcome by the attitude of the Pallan of the Vollers, who would have taken amiss a decision to fly to Migladrin astride a flutduin. The Pallan of the Flyers — an office created by me to foster the breeding of first-class strains of birds — kicked a trifle; but he could see that long journeys went faster with vollers than with flyers. I sorted out a few last-minute problems and took my leave. At the last moment it was decided that a small group of Djangs, of both racial stocks, would accompany me to establish friendly relations with the Miglas. This suited me very well. I was now consciously beginning that wide-ranging system of establishing friendly relations between the various countries of this continental grouping. Of this I will have much more to say later. For now I flew to Migladrin, saw old Mog — called Mog the Mighty — and met my friends there again. Then, leaving the Djangs to diplomacy, I took off for Valka.
All this high-level politicking was intensely interesting, but I hungered to hold Delia in my arms again. In Valka I was greeted like some hero returning home, which embarrassed me mightily. After the junketings, which, you may well imagine, went on for a long time and embraced a continual round of banquets and feasts and entertainments, I had to confess to Delia, rather miserably, that I had failed.
“You see, Delia. It is even more important, now that Hamal refuses to sell us fliers, that we must learn to build our own.”
We were sitting on our favorite terrace high in the fortress of Esser Rarioch overlooking Valkanium and the sweep of the bay. Drak and Lela were safely sleeping after all the excitement of seeing their father -
and did they chatter and jump up and down! The streaming mingled light of the twin suns, Zim and Genodras, fell about us in the early evening. Soon it would be night, one of those sweet soft nights of Kregen when the moon-blooms open their petals and drink the moons-light, and the sky is filled with the pink radiance of the moons. I sipped a fine Jholaix, a wine with few equals.
“But, dear heart,” said Delia, her sweet face troubled, “is it ethical to steal this secret from the Hamalians?”
I knew what she meant.
I tried to explain.
“In the normal way, no, of course not. But think how Hamal has behaved. Not only do they charge inflated prices for vollers — and remember, I have seen them built and built them with my own hands! -
and refuse all service, they deliberately manufacture them with built-in faults. I am now absolutely convinced of this.”
“But, Dray, that is-”
“I know, Delia. But it is so. And we all know the fine men and women who have been killed in faulty fliers. This is murder. We owe it to the memory of the dead and to the well-being of the living to make sure a voller is safe in the air.”
“This all sounds high and mighty, you great shaggy graint! But the fact remains. You are stealing a secret from another country so that you will not have to buy their goods.”
My Delia, my Delia of Delphond, has a confoundedly cutting way with her at times! She put her pretty rosy finger right on the central core, on a fact that had troubled me. I tried in my gruff way to explain that, as far as I could see, the Hamalians had forfeited all rights to their own secrets, through their despicable use of them. “If they treated us fairly, there would be no need to steal the secret. They are a nasty lot, anyway — well, most of them — and they have done me mischief and will seek to do so again.”
“I know, Dray, you do not seek to justify your actions by talking of revenge.” Delia spoke with just enough hesitancy to make me sit up and take notice. She is the most beautiful woman in two worlds. She is also shrewd, clear-sighted, realistic — and maddeningly romantic, too! — and clever enough to tie in knots the smartest politicians and lawyers of those same two worlds.
“Revenge is for the softheaded, Delia,” I said. I drank some wine to break up my words. “Oh, I know I’ve thumped a few heads when I was annoyed-”
“I believe you have.”
“Yes, well. This is taken by me to be a matter of state. If Hamal attacks us — as I believe it will — we must have vollers to defend ourselves. I can find vollers only in Hamal.” She sat there, looking at me, her glorious brown hair with those dazzling auburn highlights catching the last of Zim as the red sun sank in swirls and floods of orange-and-crimson fire. She wore a simple sleeveless gown of white sensil, soft and clinging, without any jewels save a tiny brooch I had given her pinned to the left shoulder. That brooch blazed now in the fiery light with brilliant orange, yellow, and blue gems in the hubless spoked wheel within the circle.