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that I would say those great words with a kind of sob, a despairing feeling of emptiness. Oh, yes, Dray
Prescot could leap out and with drawn sword confront these two cramphs. Dray Prescot would have
done that. The Dray Prescot who had not, as Jak the Nameless, fought Prince Mefto the Kazzur and
lost.
The naked thraxter shook in my fist. The blade had not been paid for yet. And the magniloquent
thoughts clashed. The piece of paper and the pen lay to hand. What dreams I had had of getting Fodo to
fashion this sword into a more perfect instrument of death and how insubstantial and meaningless they
appeared when I could not even leap forward into action and use that new blade!
Sink me! I burst out but silently, to myself.
What might have happened Zair alone knows. I do not. I do remember that the thraxter was no longer
shaking, and that I took a half step forward. The world was fined down to the shadows around me and
the brilliant figures of those two men in their armor, tall and bright, and the hard yellow favors and
feathers.
What might have happened... The apim reached for more palines and he tossed one to Trinko, the
Moltingur.
With a gulp that echoed, Fodo said: It is a lady of reputation, come to buy a dagger for her husband.
Her lover and his men await. It would be He hesitated.
The apim laughed.
Trinko hissed, Passion and daggers and lovers. It is no business of ours, Ortyg. He flapped his yellow
cape around and hitched his sword. Well, that familiar gesture can mean many things. But Ortyg, the
apim, read his Moltingur comrade aright, and he laughed, and said, So perish all blind husbands, may
Quergey take them up. You are right, Trinko. Anyway, and he popped the last paline, if there are men
waiting...
By Gursrnigur! said Trinko. You have the right of it.
So, their fists on their sword hilts, they swaggered out.
A space passed over before I emerged from the shadows. I did not ask Friendly Fodo the reason for his
words. Perhaps he just did not like Mefto s men. Perhaps. Perhaps he had seen something in my sudden
flight that revealed much to his shrewd Fristle eyes.
Chapter Nineteen
Vallia is not Sunk into the sea.
Events moved rapidly in the ensuing days although in ways that surprised me and, by Vox! that mightily
discomposed Konec and Dav. My own emotions remained opaque and murky in relation to my feelings
about myself. Eventually I had emerged from my hiding place and with no word of the two Shanodrinese
between us had completed my business with Friendly Fodo. He would produce the finer lines in the
thraxter blade and he would charge me well.
We heard reports that Mefto the Kazzur was recovered of his wound. His animal-like powers of
recuperation aided in this sense of that certain possession of the yrium that aided him in his control of his
people. But I wondered. Certainly, had one of my clansmen, or Djangs, been wounded in a wing, as
Mefto had, he would not have dropped all his weapons. Those on the wounded side, yes, perhaps; but
not all of them.
The day on which Konec s entourage visited the Jikaidaderen to watch Mefto and his people play a
game comes back to me now as a day of suppressed passion and seething anger. We took our seats in
the public galleries and settled down to study the play. The crowd was of the opinion that the prince
would win, and resoundingly. This he did. We studied the way his men fought, their swordplay and
techniques, tried to detect any weaknesses, and marked the men to whom he assigned the posts of most
danger. On that occasion Mefto took part in only a single encounter. He and his Jikaidast worked the
play admirably, and Mefto was able to put himself in as a substitute and deal with the opposing
Princess s Swordsman. This man was a Rapa, beaked, proud, fierce and an accomplished bladesman.
He had made a name for himself. But against Mefto the Kazzur he just did not stand a chance. As I
watched the glittering blades and the dazzling, nerve-flicking passes, I stared hungrily, desperately
searching for a flaw in Mefto s art. He appeared to me perfect at every point. When it was over the
crowd applauded. At Konec s fierce urgings we clapped, too.
As the games were played and the positions on the league tables changed leading to the final tournament,
the patterns of the final opponents emerged. We were at last advised of the day on which we would meet
Mefto, for both he and ourselves had fought through successfully. The lady Yasuri, too, was well
positioned with a handful of nobles and royalty from various countries. The play-offs would sort out the
final positions. The wealth at stake in this session of games was breathtaking. As Konec remarked,
dourly, Let them keep their gold. We fight here for higher motives.
Yes. Yes, I know that sounds banal, juvenile almost, but if you had seen the burning determination of
these people of Konec s and understood what they were prepared to sacrifice for what they believed in,
I do not think you would mock.
One of the questions to be decided before a game could begin was the notation to be used. A simple
grid-reference, or the English notation where squares are named from their superior pieces, were in use,
as was the typically Kregan system in which each drin, having its own name, gives drin co-ordinates.
Well. As you may imagine, Mefto in the preliminary planning stages insisted on using his system. Konec,
who in other times might well have argued with the authority of a stiff-necked kov, gravely assented. We
didn t give the chances of an arbora feather in the Furnace Fires of Inshurfraz what rules were used, just
so we could get our swords at the cramph. But Dav screwed his eyes up.
Do not agree too hastily to everything, Konec. The rast will suspect. I have the nastiest of itches that
tells me he guesses we harbor plots against him
You say so?
I do not say so. Just that I have this itch.
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