On Hyr Khor I was taken to see a marvel of the island, a marvel, indeed, of all of Djanduin, and whose fame had spread eastward to the Shrouded Sea.
This marvel was the Kharoi Stones.
An enormous area covered with the time-shattered wreck of an ancient city, stones tumbled in indescribable confusion, columns, shafts, arcades, walls, towers, hanging gardens now slithered into pyramids to dwarf those of Egypt, channels cumbered with chipped marbles and vast tessellated areas, all smothered with vegetation and the home for wild beasts of many descriptions, this, then, was the eerie place called the Kharoi Stones. I have seen Karnak, and Angkor Wat, and other famed relics of the past on our own Earth, and I have seen other of the ancient monuments of the Sunset People on Kregen; the Kharoi Stones holds a mystery and a deep secret all its own. At this time, as you know, I had not seen the Dam of Days, which controls the tides through the western end of the Grand Canal of the Eye of the World. But I walked among the tumbled masses of the Kharoi Stones and I marveled. Everywhere was to be seen, sculpted boldly in relief or in the round, the magnificent representation of the Ombor, the mythical flying monster of immense size and fiery heart, who dying is yet reborn, whose breath scorches cities, whose tears water the oceans, whose hearts beat for all humankind, and, as I knew, for whom my enclave in Zenicce had been named.
Coupled with this plethora of ornamentation was the symbol of the double-ax — not the Minoan double-ax but an ax double-bitted yet narrow of blade, eminently suitable for the sweeping blow and the lethal chop from the saddle of a vove.
You may well believe I promised myself much future exploration of the Kharoi Stones. On a day in Djanguraj after I had been up all night by the light of four of the moons, reading reports, dictating answers and orders to my stylors, planning for the well-being of the country, I met for breakfast by prearrangement with Ortyg Coper and Kytun Dom.
We sat drinking that glorious Kregan tea and eating crisp vosk rashers, and eggs, and finishing with palines from a silver dish. Food, transport, law, education, security, all were now practically back to normal in Djanduin, and I had but a single sennight left of my prison sentence. The Todalpheme had been explicit, and my own calculations confirmed their findings.
Now I said to Ortyg Coper, “Is the realm faring well, Ortyg?”
And he said, “The realm is doing well, Majister, and will do better than it has ever done in the next two years.”
“By Djan!” said Kytun in his fierce way. “That is so!”
“I find it extraordinarily strange,” said Coper. “I was attacked as often as other Obdjangs by the leemsheads led by Nath Jagdur, and yet my life was spared. Soldiers could never find him or his leemsheads after the attacks; but I did not die. Others of my friends died.”
We were silent for a space, remembering. The Obdjangs had been returning to Djanduin and the country really was set fine. Prosperity was just around the corner.
“There was a reason, Ortyg.” I looked at him as I spoke.
He munched a paline. “I am alive — Sinkie and I live.”
“Yes, Ortyg. And I will tell you why. But, first, let me ask you, Kytun, once more, the question -
would you become king of Djanduin?”
He didn’t even think. “Not I, by Djan!”
“Would you loyally support Ortyg if he were king?”
Before Kytun could begin to reply Ortyg had reared up, agitatedly brushing his whiskers.
“Now, wait a minute! Here — my dear Majister — I mean — hold on!”
I tried to keep my face composed; it was a struggle.
“I am going on a journey. I cannot avoid it, nor do I wish to do so. I want the country to prosper and to remain fruitful and peaceful. The young men get enough fighting in the eternal games, and the merezo has been enlarged for even bigger and better zorca races. There is nothing now for which I am needed. You, Ortyg, are the next king of Djanduin, arid Kytun will give you all his loyal help, as he does us both.”
Kytun spat out a mouthful of palines, which is a terrible waste.
“You do not have to go, really, Dray! You are King! By Zodjuin of the Rainbow! You can’t desert us!”
I sighed. “I feared you would regard this as desertion. But it is a task laid on me. I must go. Ortyg will be-”
“No, Majister.” Ortyg Coper stood up, and abruptly he was formal and deadly serious. “No, Majister. I will not be king. But I will stand as regent for the throne.”
And with that I had to be content. I would return here, I promised that; but as to when. . That, in truth, partly lay in the inscrutable hands of the Star Lords. Had they two hands apiece, I wondered, or four?
Ortyg Coper was fully invested as regent, and Kytun was the first to lift his djangir in loyalty. I was as satisfied as I am ever satisfied about anything, that I had done all that I could do. Everyone knew I was taking a journey laid upon me, and the news traveled that the task was a reward given to me by the Glorious Djan Himself, He whose figure was not to be sculptured upon stone along with the warrior gods of Djanduin. As far as mortal mind and hand could contrive, I left the kingdom of Djanduin, of which I was sovereign, in good heart and good hands, and looking forward to golden days. The airboat I had bought and had provisioned was a small two-place flier. Over in my island of Hyr Khor I had found a strange and scarcely self-comprehending willingness to help. As their new Kov I was both suspect and welcome, for the old Kov, besides being a violent man, much given to breaking heads, had been impious and a leemshead, and a ravisher of the young girls of the island. I convinced the people of Hyr Khor that although I was no angel, and no simpleton, either, I was prepared to let them make their own lives, saving that they must always remain friends with the people of Uttar Djombey. There was some grumbling, I have no doubt, but on the surface the scheme worked well. So it was to Hyr Khor I went for a last farewell and to collect my flier.
My plan was simple. I would fly from Djanduin, across Gorgrendrin, over the back hills of Migla, and out over the Shrouded Sea to the place where I had last seen Delia. I fancied the Star Lords would permit this.
It was with a light heart I called Remberee to the people of Hyr Khor. They waved their great swords of the islands, and I took off into the morning suns-light.
“Remberee!”
“Remberee, Kov Dray Prescot, King of Djanduin!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The little flier lanced through the bright clean air of Kregen.
There is a coolness and sweetness about the air of these latitudes of Kregen. Because of that extraordinary width of the temperate zones of Kregen beneath Antares the climate as far south as Djanduin is perfectly suitable for comfortable living, not as hot as, for instance, northern Havilfar, by any means, but nowhere near as cold as the gray waters south of Thothangir. Between the Yawfi Suth and the Wendwath and the back mountains of Migla there lies a broad tract of country, sometimes fertile, sometimes less so, seldom truly inhospitable. The western areas are the ancestral homes of the peoples of Herrelldrin and Sava. The Gorgrens in their aimless meanderings over the vast inner plains had come down to the west and had occupied Sava and Herrelldrin and Tarnish, which lies to the south of the Tarnish Channel. Between the somewhat undefined eastern limits of the Gorgrens’ lands and the back hills of Migla lies the country of Yanthur.
It was over this area, in a place where spiny hills made of the landscape a miniature tree bark in appearance, that the flier chose to go wrong.
I cursed.
I was well used to airboats breaking down in Vallia and Zenicce; I had formed the opinion that they were built with some kind of weakness which was obviated in those models built for sale in Havilfar. This was a voller purchased from a Hamalian yard and delivered to express orders of the King of Djanduin. For this airboat to go wrong boded ill for someone.