His motives were transparent. There was a secret about this Roz Nazlifurn. I was going out of Shazmoz, through enemy lines, and might easily be captured. What I did not know I could not tell. As though seeking to throw me further off, he added in a lighter voice: "We Krozairs do not put much store by titles and ranks of nobility. Would you not willingly trade a prince’s crown, supposing you owned one, for membership of the order?" He pulled his lips back in a parody of a smile. I did not smile. He did not know my history. The question hurt, stung. I surely would have, before the Apushniad! And now. . I rose from the chair and spoke politely. Now I had changed my priorities. I was hewing to my nature, as I then thought, doing the correct thing in difficult circumstances and to hell with anyone who thought otherwise.
"It is time to bid you remberee, Pur Zenkiren. I regret the long empty years. I made a mistake in not returning to the Eye of the World sooner. But bear in mind the Krozair dilemma. At the least, it will make a capital subject for debate."
He shook my hand as they do in the inner sea, and I felt again the old Krozair grip. He smiled, this time a real smile. "See, Pur Dray. I call you Pur and I give you the right hand of fellowship. I have decided the Apushniad was incorrect. Now it remains to prove it."
I felt this keenly.
"You do me great honor, Zenkiren. I have been an onker, and yet the slaves in Magdag. . they are human and needed to be set free. I did what I thought correct, according to my lights."
"Zair holds dominion over all and if it is His will-" He shivered and plucked at his gown, feeling the emblem stitched there, making me plainly see why it was so threadbare and worn. "Good will come of all this. Zair would not will it otherwise."
"Remberee, Pur Zenkiren."
"Remberee, Pur Dray."
So I went out and through the nighted streets and soon found Duhrra walking up to the gate. He carried his right hand inside his folded blanket-cloak. The guards brought our sectrixes. They wished us well. We rode away from doomed Shazmoz with the star glitter high above and a small moon slamming past above our heads.
The Pachak hyr-paktun Logu Pa-We and his brother would see us safely back. There need be no alarms on that score. I rode the damned sectrix in his ungainly waddle and I thought. I could live with what I had done with the old slave phalanx and my old vosk-helmets. Then we had fought for our lives and liberty. What followed later was not of our doing. But. . But when I had first been transported here into the Eye of the World by the Star Lords their clear command had been to save the lives of two young people from the hideous rock-apes, the grundals. This I had done. I had ensured that Gahan Gannius and Valima should live. They had lived. They had married and begotten a son. That son must be Genod Gannius. I, Dray Prescot, had directly brought doom and destruction upon my beloved Zairians!
Chapter Nineteen
My Deldars had been ranked, as we say opening a game of Jikaida, and now I must press on and push all the spidery shadows of past follies behind me.
By the Black Chunkrah! What a nurdling onker I had been! For all the kindness Pur Zenkiren had been able to show me, I knew, and this without rancor or disappointment too great to be borne, that he would in all probability be quite unable to resolve the riddle. The two impossibilities canceled each other out; the Krozair dilemma remained. I would remain Apushniad. I had resigned myself to that. And then, gladly, fiercely, I declared that it was not a resignation but a joyous awakening to the true values of my life on Kregen.
"Down there, master!" said Duhrra, pointing. "Zair-forsaken Grodnims, may Uncle Zobab rot their livers and fester their tripes."
I spoke somewhat sharply as we rode the high bluff trending toward the sea, with the suns’ radiance all about us and the thin piping of birds to keep us company. "What color do you wear on your back, oh Duhrra of the Mighty Muscles?"
He looked suitably discomfited and resentful.
"The damned green, master. And an itchy, vile, mean and crawling color it is, to be sure." I was not going to argue with him. We had said remberee to the Pachaks and ridden off, going west, wearing the green over our reds. Now we had almost reached the farthest point of the Eye of the World. Before us would soon appear the Grand Canal and the Akhram, and, if we went that far, beyond them the Dam of Days.
Our sectrixes paced on. We kept to the wending ridge of bluffs above the narrow coastal strip for, however much we might wear the green and pass ourselves off as mercenaries, the ever-present danger was that Duhrra would explode into action against the Magdaggians, and I would be scant murs after. Green is a charming color and restful to the eyes. There are a number of fine uses for green: it is the color of rifle regiments, of racing cars, of Robin Hood; I have nothing against the color itself. Had the Grodnims chosen to wear red and the Zairians green, my sentiments would have remained as they were, against what would have been the cramphs of red Grodnims. I did not forget what went on in their monstrous ziggurats and megaliths during the time of the green sun’s eclipse. A war party below, trotting their sectrixes parallel to us, had seen us; we must keep steadily on and give them no cause for suspicion.
In Havilfar, that progressive and yet barbaric continent, one of the most widespread of religions was that of Havil the Green. Havil, named for the Havilfarese word for Genodras, the green sun. How, you might ask, could anyone worship the small green sun when confronted with the magnificence of the huge red sun? The answer is simple and yet profound, and one that has made me ponder long. During eclipse, the red swallows the green utterly. There is no longer a green sun. But, eventually, lo! the green sun emerges, newly born, fresh, refulgent, a bright new sun eternally young. Oh, yes, rebirth and recreation play as significant a part in the religions of Kregen as of Earth.
Duhrra began to hum softly, The Chuktar with the Glass Eye, and we rode carefully, shading the liquid gleam of our eyes as we looked down on the war party pacing us below. I shook the reins. "I think we had best join them. They will wonder why we ride aloof in this dangerous land. You, Duhrra the Mighty Mangler, must keep a straight tongue in your mouth." He grew affronted when I taunted him with that old title he tried to forget. He humped and grumped and then came out with: "And you, a Krozair Brother!"
"I may have been." He knew enough now to desert me or remain; he had chosen to stay with me.
"My twin was a Zaman to the Krozairs of Zamu. The zigging Grodnims captured him and tortured him and slew him. I do not forget that."
"I lost a good friend under the whips of the rasts of Magdag."
"Then let us join them as you suggest and as soon as we are able let us slay every one, every last cramph."
"If we have to, we will, but our purpose is to reach the Akhram. Your hook depends on it, you tell me."
"Aye." He favored his stump. "Aye, master, it does." I licked my fingers and stroked my mustaches. ’’Pull those damn bristling mustaches of yours down, Duhrra. We will have to wear a hangdog down-dropping Grodnim pair if we are to pass muster." We stroked the Zairian mustaches into hangdog Grodnim mustaches. It pained us, but it was necessary. When a Grodnim strains tea or soup through his facial hair a good Zairian has to decide whether to laugh or throw up.
So we rode down the slope and joined the Grodnims. They were not Magdaggians, being from the free Grodnim city of Laggig-Laggu, a large and prosperous conurbation some twenty dwaburs inland of the northern shore of the Laggu River. Hard, businesslike warriors, they handled their sectrixes with confidence and I took note of their weapons. There were ten of them and their Deldar told us they were joining the Chuktar of the west. We nodded as though understanding.