When the last barbarian chief in this area had been captured and had his head removed Gafard said we would return to Magdag. A strong force would be left against future disorders. None of these Grodnims seemed to realize that the Ugas were not barbarians. There were savages in the north, we all knew that, but they lived farther off, and they cut up the Ugas cruelly. One day, no doubt, the barbarians of the northern hills would foray down south, past the tribesmen and the citizens, past the Ugas, and come rolling down to find out what pickings the Eye of the World might offer. History and destiny follow their own paths, on Kregen as they do on Earth. On the march south a messenger rode up on a foundering hebra and was instantly escorted to Gafard, where he rode at the head. He had remained cold to me, reserved, but not hostile. Shortly thereafter Nalgre summoned me. Gafard looked at me stonily. He had given orders that closed up a bodyguard, ready to ride.
"Orders, Gadak, from the king. We ride for Magdag and must reach there faster than the wind." He bent closer from his mount. "There is serious trouble in the inner sea. I want you at my side, for I smell treachery." He lifted himself in the stirrups, a powerful, compelling figure. He waved his sword. "We ride!
On for Magdag!"
Chapter Nine
The red sun of Antares, Zim, preceded the green sun of Antares, Genodras, across the heavens. A small but powerful body of men rode hard across the plain kicking dust in a straight line for the northern gate of sinister Magdag. All about on the plain stretched the megaliths, monstrous edifices, cutting enormous blocks of darkness against the radiance of the suns.
When the red and green suns passed in eclipse awful rites took place in those megalithic chambers, which only the highest of the land might see. The ordinary folk must huddle in their hovels and shudder at the wrath of Zair upon the land.
Always, Genodras would emerge from the pierced flank of Zim, and thus proclaim that Grodno still ruled.
We rode hard. The suns were drawing apart again in their cycle and were about a quarter of the way through that outward and inward movement. Our cloaks flared in the wind of our passage and our sectrixes labored with snorting nostrils, for they sensed the stables ahead and knew the journey was almost over. There was no time to reflect on the mysteries of Grodno and Zair within the spider-webbed shadowy chambers of the megaliths.
The sky held a high, drawn look, streaked with ocher clouds, and a few magbirds fluttered and cawed, whirling spots of blackness against the light. Heads low, trailing dust, we raced for the northern gate of evil Magdag.
Among our company, surrounded by Pachaks, rode a figure in armor and green robes glittering with precious gems. She was clad and accoutered like a warrior, but I could not mistake the erect, graceful carriage of the Lady of the Stars.
I was grateful that her protection had been entrusted to Pachaks. They are intensely loyal, honoring through their own system of nikobi the obligations of their hire; mercenaries whose code places them above the common herd. Two left arms has a Pachak, so that with a shield he is a formidable fighter. A long, sinuous tail equipped with a strong hand has a Pachak, so that he may slice you down from aloft or spit you clean as the blade leaps between his legs. Oh, yes, I employed Pachaks whenever I could. There were no Rapas among our company.
The hooves of the sectrixes rang loud on the stones beneath the gate. Passing archways with that pointed Grodnim shape, we saw the alert forms of guards and watchmen, the slanting rays of the suns bright on their weapons. The echoes bounced from the yellow stone walls and the dark granite walls as we clip-clopped along. People scattered from our path. A basket of gregarians overturned and the ripe fresh fruit rolled, squishing.
Straight to the Jade Palace we rode, and Gafard, lost in thought, led us, his head sunk upon his breast and his powerful body lumbering along in time to the ungainly gait of his mount. As in any well-run palace everything was prepared against the master’s homecoming. In the hullabaloo and uproar as slaves ran and men bellowed, Duhrra and I took ourselves off to the small chamber we had been allotted for our personal use. This lay under the roof to the rear, overlooking a courtyard where daily vast amounts of sweat were spilled by swods drilling. When Gafard needed us he would call. In the interim we spent the time arguing, as was inevitable, here in Green Magdag, about the best ways of getting back to the Reds.
I felt sure that Duhrra had either completely forgotten or had never really understood just who I was. After all, there had been only the scraps of quick conversation between Pur Zenkiren and myself, there in besieged Shazmoz, to afford any inkling that I was not the Dak I claimed to be. For Duhrra the task was simply that of escaping from Magdag and returning to the Zairian side of the inner sea. For me, of course, there awaited slavery at a galley oar in Zairia, for I was an unfrocked Krozair, Apushniad.
After we had bathed and eaten a huge meal and were thinking about emptying a few pots, the call came. I took care to dress in my mail and to bear my arms as I followed the Relt messenger along the corridors and so down to Gafard’s private suite, secluded in a separate wing of his palace with the windows cunningly angled so that the occupants might not be overlooked. The suns had long set and She of the Veils rose over the steep roofs and the flat roofs, set alternately in pleasing patterns. The long shadow of the Tower of True Contentment lay across the last corridor. The shimmer of golden light at each end burned unfocused. The Relt hurried on, silent on his foofray satin slippers, and I in my mail clumped on after in my studded sandals.
This was not a private audience. A number of Gafard’s chief officers crowded the anteroom to his study. Grogor, of course, was there, to favor me with a scowl as I entered. The others looked up without speaking and then went back, as I considered, to biting their nails. They knew far more than I of the intrigues festering in Magdag; whatever news Gafard had brought back from the king was not good. The close, oppressive atmosphere as we sat in silence and waited told me that. We were called in at last and trooped through the green velvet-draped doorway and so came into Gafard’s study. There were books here, papers and charts, maps and the paraphernalia of the fighting-man by both sea and land. Also on separate tables lay spread out six separate games of Jikaida, all in different stages of progress. Gafard waved us to seats.
We sat, expectantly, waiting for him to speak.
"Gernus," he began, and so we knew this was a serious business, for he used the usual euphemism, calling us lords. They do not go in for koters and horters in Green Magdag. They fancy kyrs and tyrs are below their gernus — as, indeed, they are — their overlords of Magdag.
"There is serious work afoot. I have to tell you the king is highly displeased with some of the recent actions over against the rasts of Zairians. Shazmoz is not taken. Shazmoz is relieved." There was a stir at this, a buzz, a murmur of speculation.