The Quest of Kadji Read online

  “Permit this lowly person to do the talking,” Akthoob hissed, and Kadji nodded and remained in the saddle while the little Easterling dismounted and walked over to the guards, plucking something from a pocket of his robes, perhaps a coin to bribe their passage.

  Kadji watched with narrow, alert eyes as the little old man ambled over to the surly guards, nodding and bowing in his timid, self-effacing way, while all the time a flow of courteous speech poured from his lips. The thing he had drawn front the concealed pocket was a gem, a luminous and twinkling crystal, and as he babbled on, the wizard turned the crystal between his fingers In an absentminded way, as if through nervous habit.

  To the guards, the jewel was a potential bribe, and one of princely value, and they eyed it with greedy interest, not noticing that as Akthoob turned it and played with it, the gem became alive with glittering lights that played in a bewildering and mesmerizing fashion over their faces. Amber and coral and rose, azure and palest yellow and opal blue the twinkling lights of the sorcerous gem played across their stolid, unshaven, loutish features. And all the while their greedy little pig-eyes followed the shimmering lights of the moving gem while Akthoob talked on and on in a low murmurous voice.

  At length the moving play of colored lights held them bedazzled. It was as if their minds were asleep while their bodies remained awake. One even let go of his heavy spear which fell to the frost-crusted cobbles with a clang and aclatter that Kadji thought was enough to wake the dead—but the two guards did not even seem to hear the noise. They listened sleepily to the low singsong voice of the little wizard and, after a time, began to answer his interrogations in dull grunting tones, too low for the young warrior to hear.

  Finally Akthoob turned away from them, opening the postern gate and then returning to his mare. The flashing jewel he carefully stowed away in his voluminous garments.

  “It worked, I gather?” Kadji grinned.

  Akthoob nodded in bland satisfaction. “The mind jewel seldom fails. Yonder kugars tell that just before dawn two men bribed their way through this same gate with much gold—”

  “Two men? Did they describe them?”

  “Unfortunately, they could not see their features, for they were robed and cowled in black garments like priests. But one of the men was hulking and brutish, like a great ape, and the other, who conducted the bribery, had smooth white hands, strong and fair and well-kept, like a princely lord. The guards say the two rode east inconsiderable haste.”

  “Then I am right! I must be right—it could be none other than Shamad and Zamnog, his reptilian slave!”

  The old Easterlluig shrugged. “Doubtless the young sir was correct in his assumptions. However, the guards also state that one other person used this gate, and that but recently, scarce an hour ago.”

  “Could they describe him, at least?”

  “Alas, it was not a him; it was a young woman,” replied Akthoob.

  Kadji gasped, and swore feelingly.

  “A young girl—my own age—a flamehaired girl with smoky amber eyes?”.

  “I cannot say. She, too, went heavily robed against the cold wind; my two friends yonder could not describe her appearance, save that her saddle was silver-mounted, and her robes of expensive fur.”

  It is that girl again—Thyra—the girl we glimpsed looking at the corpse at the foot of the throne—it must be her!” Kadji growled. “At every twist and turn of the way, I encounter this girl! She is a puzzle, aye, a great puzzle …”

  “They say she rode alone, but that there was a great dog with her, like a tame wolf,” offered the little wizard.

  Kadji grinned. “Aye, the grey plains-wolf, her pet. Then it is the girl Thyra! But why should she have left the city? Could she be in pursuit of Shamad as well as we?”

  “I know not the answer to these riddles, young Kadji, but if this lowly person may suggest haste … yon two guards remain ‘mazed and bewildered by the art of the mind crystal, and I have opened the gates for our passage. We should be on our way, for the power of the jewel will not hold them in the magic slumber for very much longer.”

  And so Kadji, accompanied by the little Easterling wizard, rode forth from imperial Khôr on a bleak wintry late afternoon, and turned east on the tracks of Shamad the Impostor.

  The boy thought that with luck they might catch up to the fleeing traitor ere nightfall, for the Impostor could have no suspicions that he was being followed.

  Kadji was determined to ride as far as was needful, however.

  He did not dream how far his journey would take him in truth. Had he somehow known, he might well have turned back. As it was he rode on into the gathering shadows, following the triple trail of tracks across the snowy ground … east and ever east they led, and the Red Hawk and the little wizard followed ever after.

  iii. Flaming Eyes

  WHEN IT became too dark to any longer follow the trail, Kadji was forced to· halt, to make camp amidst the frozen plains, and to wait for.day.

  Because they had so swiftly left the city to avoid the vengeance of the kugar Jashpode, they had with them neither those of their belongings which had been left behind in the inn nor any provisions whatever. But Akthoob had cleverly “borrowed” the winesack wherewith the two guards of the postern, gate had been driving off the chill, together with a few wheaten cakes one of the guards had been munching. So it was not entirely on empty bellies that the two travelers went to sleep that night, wrapped in their saddleblankets and curled about a small fire.

  WHEN THEY woke to the first light, of dawn, Kadji cursed with great feeling. For soft fat flakes of white snow were falling and, from the thick white blanket that covered the ground, had obviously been falling for an hour or two. Thus the slight track left by Shamad in his flight was now hopelessly obscured.

  Refreshing themselves with the last of the wine and some crumbs of the wheaten cakes that were left, the two mounted and rode on due east through a driving blizzard that steadily grew worse until at length Kadji could no longer perceive their direction from the position of the sunstar Kylix, as the sky was one blowing mass of freezing whiteness. He dared go on no further, lest in the blind flurry of snow they deviate from the eastward and wander aside, thus losing whatever small advantage they had, for by now he reckoned they were not far behind Shamad, who could have had no reason to have pressed his flight with such tenacity and vigor as had the vengeful Red Hawk of the Kozanga Nomads.

  They had halted on a low rise of ground and Kadji was debating whether it would not be wise to try to pin their blankets together into a crude tent, and thus wait out the storm in relative comfort, when his black Feddoon pony lifted its head alertly, sniffing the freezing air, and gave voice to a harsh neigh of danger.

  In a moment, Kadji, too, had heard the distant sounds that had aroused his pony to a sense of peril.

  Wolves!

  The eerie chorus of their distant howling came faintly to his ears, as if the blanket of snow muffled their hunting cry. But he knew the sound for what it was: Somewhere out there on the snowy plains, a pack of gigantic wolves were circling their helpless quarry, narrowing in for the kill.

  It was a vagrant wisp of thought that made him ground out a bitter curse and seize up the reins, pulling his pony about and heading his nose into the wind. His booted feet thumpe4 the pony’s ribs, and without a word of explanation to his companion, the boy warrior was off and had vanished into the flurry of snow. Like an avenging demon the Red Hawk hurtled through the whiteness, praying to his grim Nomad Gods that he not be late … for it had occurred to him that the quarry the hunting wolves sought might well be his enemy, Shamad! And it was before the sacred Axe of Thom-Ra that the cunning and traitorous Impostor must fall, not to the glistening fangs and hungry jaws of a pack of plains-wolves… .

  Within moments he saw them. Their grey hides made them all but invisible in the snowy murk, but their eyes of flaming green were visible, like a host of goblin moons, burning weirdly through the snow-streaked gloom.
/>   He burst among them like a thunderbolt, and the great Axe was in his hands, flying through the air in terrible whistling curves like a live thing, shearing its irresistible way through the thick fur at throat and flank, hacking a gory way through tough muscle and heavy flesh of shoulder and neck.

  The wolves broke into a vengeful howling chorus at the sudden appearance of this new and unexpected adversary. One sprang snarling for his face, but the heavy Axe caught it in mid-leap and flung it back to the snowy earth, maimed and broken. A second wolf leaped upon him and clung for a second, claws buried in saddle-leather, foaming jaws snapping at his breast, lambent eyes of emerald flame burning like mad moons into his own. The Axe came whistling down and clove its head to a flying splatter of crimson and broken bone, and it fell and was lost behind.

  Then he was through the circling wolves and rode up to where their quarry sat astride a great grey mare, muffled in furry robes. There was no time for words—no time for anything but fighting, for the wolves were upon them now and Kadji was very busy for the next few minutes, wielding the flying Axe. But he did not fight alone: the fur-clad one was fighting, too, with a flashing rapier that drifted as lightly as a ray of light, drinking deep of wolf-gore as it ripped like a steely needle through throat and side. Haral fought, too. The brave little pony was shod with steel, and as the steed reared back on its hind legs, it churned the air with fore-hooves that struck like meteors amid the mass of ravening wolves. More than one went down to death with the hoofmark of the black Feridoon pony stamped deep in broken skull and splattered brains.

  In a moment or two more it was over, for the wolves had lost heavily, and turned from their quarry to tear asunder their own fallen, to snarl and snap and quarrel over their own dead.

  And then a weird shape loomed out of the murk and came flying toward them, and it was Akthoob. The little Easterling wizard was pale and chattering with terror as he rode through the wolfpack, but he was fighting nonetheless, in his own way, with flashes of violet flame that spurted from his trembling fingertips with an audible crack, like a whip, though muffled and dulled by the blanketing snow. In a moment he was through the raging wolves and reined up with a palsied hand beside the boy warrior.

  The plains-wolves were in the retreat now, dragging their dead away to be devoured at leisure and in safety from these strange beings who fought and slew so terribly, not only with cutting steel, which they knew all about, but with miniature bolts of purplish lightning, which were frightening and wholly new to their experience.

  One wolf there was that did not flee; indeed, he seemed to be fighting on their side, and came trotting back after the others had been driven away. And Kadji thought he knew that grey phantom with burning gold eyes, and turned to its master with a thrilling surmise, to see who it was be had rescued from the ravening fangs. And found himself staring into the white, tense, but beautiful face of a young slim girl with eyes of smoky and amberous gold, under a flying banner of flame-red hair.

  iv. Thyra

  HE MUST have called her name aloud in his surprise, for she turned curious eyes upon him.

  “You seem to know my name, warrior,” she said in a clear voice like a pure golden bell. “But I know you not … unless … yes! I have seen you before; in Nabdoor, was it not, although you were dressed differently then—”

  “So were you!” he returned, and she laughed, a lovely sound.

  “So I was, come to think of it! But then you went robed in an Ushamtar kuruz, with leggings, and girdle, and belled cap … whereas now you look more like one of the Kozanga clansmen than any Ushamtar …|”

  Kadji grinned; upon quitting Khôr he had thrown off the Ushamtar garments and donned his true tribal raiment, which fortunately he had concealed in Haral’s saddlebags against discovery.

  “I am Kadji the Red Hawk, the son of Goraky the Tall, who was the son of Zarouk the Lord Chief of the Chayyim Kozanga Nomads,” he said proudly. “And I have seen you—you three times: once in Nabdoor, when you went in ragged scarlet like a wench of the Perushka; the second time in the streets of Khôr, when you went in the fine silks of an Imperial princess; and the third time in the great halls of the Khalidûr, when you looked upon the naked face of him men believe to be Yakthodah the Holy Dragon. Emperor … but whom both you and I know to be a vile and villainous impostor!”

  Her eyes widened in incredulous amazement, and he laughed in a gush of loud, boyish humor at her expression. But she did not contradict him—it was obvious that she was following the flight of Shamad, too, for she had looked on the face of the dead man and must have known, even as had Kadji and Akthoob, that he was not the True Emperor.

  Before she could speak, the little Easterling, whining and snuffling, spoke up miserably.

  “The snow falls heavier and yet more heavy, and we sit here talking as if ‘twere the balmy breezes of spring caressing our frozen ears, and not winter’s bitter blasts,” he complained. “Can we not bundle our saddleblankets together into some fashion of tent, to shield us against the blizzard?”

  “There is no need,” Thyra offered quickly “I have a small tent stored on my mare, and collapsible tent-poles. If we all work together, perchance we can put it up, even in this heavy snow … and then we can rest and talk in comfort.”

  THE TENT was not easily erected in the rising gale, cumbered with the weight of thick-falling snow; but at length, and with much exertion, it was erected, and proved surprisingly capacious, although once three horses, three people, and an enormous grey wolf had entered and the tent flap was sealed against the wind, it was somewhat crowded.

  Thyra’s plans seemed to have been made far in advance, as if she had received some premonition of Shamad’s flight and the rising of the kugars. For the wickerwork pannier her mare had borne disgorged other supplies besides the tent: food and drink, and even a. shallow porcelain dish of charcoal, which Akthoob set aflame with a solemn magical Word and a mystic sign of his left hand. As the baking warmth of the ruddy charcoal steamed his garments dry and thawed out his numb and icy exterior, Kadji relaxed, pillowed comfortably on his own saddle and blanket-roll, stretching out his feet toward the cherry glow of the coals, and reflected that there were worse companions to take along on a journey than a magician. Such personages came in handy at times.

  And so they ate and drank, frugally, and fed meal to the cold and weary horses, and all the while the mighty smoke-grey wolf sat by his mistress and regarded them with unblinking eyes of gold fire. The wolf made Akthoob uneasy and he kept moving his own saddle and blanket-roll closer to Kadji.

  “You need not fear Bazan, little man,” Thyra smiled. “He is a friend to those I name my friends, and only a foe to my foes.”

  “Aii,” whimpered the timid little wizard, eyeing the great wolf uncomfortably. “Then this person humbles himself, and begs that you will make doubly certain he understand Akthoob to be his very great friend, indeed. Perhaps then the lord wolf will cease regarding this lowly one as though he were a dumpling!”

  Thyra and Kadji laughed at the notion that anyone could mistake the lean and scrawny little Easterling for a plump and edible morsel.

  Ere long the heat of the fire and the warmth of the wine made them drowsy, and Kadji doubly so, for that he had enjoyed no sleep the night before, and by now it was certainly early evening, although one could not be certain as the sky was a blind mass of falling snow.

  They slept that night in cozy if cramped quarters, while beyond the tent the demons of the storm howled and the Seven Moons bid their shining visages behind veils of flying snow.

  v. A Princess of the Blood

  IT WAS past dawn when they woke, and the snowfall had ceased at last, and all the world was a shimmering plain of utter white under a fierce but impotent sun.

  They breakfasted frugally from Thyra’s store, washed themselves in snow melted over the last embers of the coals, struck the tent and rode forth over immaculate fields.

  Kadji was grim and worried. Yesterday they had been close o
n the heels of Shamad: now they had lost him, for surely the tracks of his passage were hidden beneath the snowy mantle. All they could do was to ride forward in the same direction, due east, hoping that be was continuing in the same direction. If, after a time, they did not come upon fresh tracks, they would know he had changed direction, perhaps riding south to strike the Grand Chemedis Road.

  As they rode, Kadji and the girl saddle to saddle, the old wizard behind, nodding sleepily and dozing from time to time, the two young people talked in low tones. Kadji had told Thyra his story, and was curious to learn her own. When she did not elucidate the mystery of her presence in these events of her own accord, the boy warrior made so bold as to ask for it.

  “You know my mission, and why I must pursue the Impostor at peril of my own life, so as to wreak the vengeance .of my people upon him, and thus eradicate the stain laid upon the honor of my brethren. Shall I not know your own reasons and your story as well?”

  “That is so,” the girl said. “And if we are to be road companions, we should share our knowledge as we share our food. Ask, therefore, what you will.”

  “Who are you, really?”

  “I am the Lady Thyra of the Turmalin House. My mother was Amazya the younger sister of the late Emperor, Azakour, Third of that Name. She died in a distant province when I was but a child, having fled the Dragon City on the death of her brother.”