The people of Zair welcomed our return, as they always welcomed the return of a successful venture against Magdag. The four fat merchantmen we had taken would provide me with a substantial increase to my fortune. I had my eye on a gown all of gold and silver thread, silk lined, that I felt sure Mayfwy would admire. And, too, after this Zenkiren could no longer keep from me the command of a double-banked swifter, a hundred-and-twentyswifter! She would be called Zorg, of course, the moment I assumed command.
I knew the very ship. She had been reaching completion as we had set sail. Now, she must be ready, brand-new from the shipwrights and fitters, lying waiting for me in the arsenal. Zo, the new king, a man whom I quite liked, would surely not refuse a request from Zenkiren that one of his sea captains should take the command. The high admiral might grumble and Harknel of High Heysh would be sure to interfere and try to prevent me from any success, but intrigue would be met with intrigue. I, too, now had powerful friends in Holy Sanurkazz.
Was I not, after all, the Lord of Strombor, the most successful corsair captain of the Eye of the World?
The formalities were quickly over. The freed slaves, with many expressions of thanks, went to recuperate in Sanurkazz.
My crew was paid off and roaring for a well-earned leave. All the flags of gold, silver, and scarlet floated in the bright air above Sanurkazz and carpets of brilliant color and weave hung from hundreds of balconies smothered in flowers. My agent, wily old Shallan, with his wisp of beard, lined cheeks, and merry eyes, who would charge fifteen percent on a loan and chuckle with merriment as he did so, would see to the disposal of the prizes after the required dues had been paid to Zo, the king, the high admiral, Zenkiren, and to Felteraz.
I sat in the stern sheets of my personal barge, with a crew of sixteen free men to row, Zolta at my side, Zolta’s girl acting as drum-deldar, and Nath steering a precarious course as he upended a bottle at the rudder, as we rounded the curve of coast from Sanurkazz to Felteraz. As we glided into the harbor I contrasted this arrival with that first time when we had rolled up roaring on the asscart. Zenkiren was waiting for me in a tall cool room of tapestries and solid furniture with another man, a man who might have served as a model of what Zenkiren would be like in another hundred years. Mayfwy kissed me on the cheek as her maids brought in wine in chased silver goblets.
“Mayfwy!” I said. Then, “I have a cedar wood chest for you-”
“Dray!” she said, her eyes dancing, her cheeks flushed with my return. “Another present!”
“As I recall,” said Zenkiren dryly, “he can never keep his hands off Magdag gold and silver. If he didn’t bring you a present I would think my Lord of Strombor had sailed a lonely sea.”
“As for you, Zenkiren,” I said, unwrapping the blue-etched and gold-mounted Fristle scimitar I had picked up off the deck of that damned Magdag pirate, “I thought this toy might amuse you.”
“It is magnificent!” said Zenkiren, running his fingers along the curved blade. “I thank you.”
“And now,” he said, and a note of solemn seriousness entered his voice, “I wish to present you.” He turned to the other man, who had remained calm and cool, his old strong-featured face composed, his simple white apron and tunic immaculate, the long sword at his side scabbarded in the fighting-man’s style.
“May I present the Lord of Strombor.” He turned then to me. “I have the honor to present to you, my Lord of Strombor, Pur Zazz, Grand Archbold of the Krozairs of Zy.”
CHAPTER TEN
I can remember, even now, vividly, unforgettably, the zephyr of anticipation that blew through my whole being.
In the seasons I had been hunting with the corsairs of Sanurkazz I had heard a hint dropped here, a casual snatch of conversation there, and I had picked up information that must have been the sum total, or nearly that, of what the ordinary idle, happy, careless folk of Sanurkazz knew of the Krozairs of Zy. Now this tall, aloof, calm-faced man was here, in the familiar room of the citadel of Felteraz, at the express desire, as it seemed to me, of Zenkiren — and he was the Grand Arch-bold of the Krozairs!
What followed must have been very familiar to him, for he had been master of the Order for a very long time. From hints I picked up I gathered that Zenkiren himself was in line for the succession, that my friend Zenkiren would become Grand Archbold. Pur Zazz sized me up with a cold and level stare. Instinctively I straightened up and squared those inordinately broad shoulders of mine. He looked me over. I felt that he was stripping my flesh away, was paring my very self down to the essence beneath. I had been roistering and going pirating on the inner sea, I had been living life to the full, I had been amassing wealth, and I had made friends. All that seemed to me in that moment to be petty, a mere preliminary to what this man would require of me.
If I do not go too deeply into what happened to me in the year that followed on that interview it is because I am bound by vows of silence I do not wish to break, even to an audience four hundred light-years distant from the scenes of that rigorous training and selection and adherence to the principles of dedication to Zair and to the Krozairs of Zy.
The Order maintained an island stronghold in the narrowing strait between the inner sea and the Sea of Swords, that other smaller dependent sea opening off southward from the Eye of the World. Like the Sea of Marshes it covered an extensive area, but it lay westward, something less than halfway along the curved southern shore. The island had once been a volcano, but through the geological aeons its crater had smoothed and filled, the subterranean fires stilled, and fresh water had found its way up to rill out in pleasant springs. The outer jagged scarps rose harsh and rocky beneath the suns; within a habitation had been built very little less harsh. The Order took its vows seriously. They kept themselves aloof from other orders of lesser chivalry like The Red Brethren of Lizz; they were dedicated to the succor of destitute people of Zair, to the greater glory of Zim-Zair, and to the implacable resistance to Grodno the Green and all his works.
After the novice had served his novitiate he was ranked Krozair, given the titles and insignia of his station, a man fit to stand in the forefront of the ranks of Zim-Zair in the eternal struggle against the heretic. Only men of worth were ever approached. Many refused, for the disciplines were harsh. Many fell by the wayside and never reached into the inner knowledge.
Once a candidate had become a Krozair, he was entitled, as other orders also conferred the privilege, of prefixing his name with the honorific Pur. Pur was not a rank or a title: it was a badge of chivalry and honor, a pledge that the man holding it was a true Krozair. Then the newly-fledged Krozair might choose a number of paths that opened before him. If he chose to become a contemplative, that was his privilege. If he chose to become a Bold, one of the select brethren who manned the fortress isle of Zy and other of the citadels maintained by the Order throughout the red sections of the inner sea, he would be welcomed. Should he desire to return to the ordinary ways of life, he might do that also, for the Order recognized its mission in the world. But a stricture was laid upon that man, that proved Krozair. Whenever he received the summons to join the Krozairs, wherever they happened to be in need of his aid, then, wherever he happened to be, and whenever it might occur in his life, he was bound by all that he held most holy and dear to hasten as fast as sectrix or swifter might take him to join his brothers of the Order.
“There have been a number of famous and immortal calls in the past, Pur Dray,” Pur Zenkiren told me one time as we came from the salle d’armes where we had been knocking the stuffing out of each other with morning stars. “I have been privileged to answer one such summons, some thirty years ago, when the devils of Magdag came knocking on the very doors of Zy itself. From all over the inner sea the brothers gathered.” He laughed, a faraway look in his bright eyes. “I tell you, Pur Dray: we had quite a fight of it until the Order gathered and the long swords sang above the hated green.”