A Sword for Kregen

Chapter Fifteen

The game turned out to be the Pallan’s Kapt’s Gambit Declined. That was how the encounter began. Because this was Kazz-Jikaida, the precise and elegantly contrived moves broke down after a time when a piece refused to be taken. The game proceeded interestingly enough, despite that. One swod, a Chulik whose fierce upthrust tusks were banded in silver, fought very well, defeating two Deldars sent against him successively. This upset the right hand drins of the game as far as Yellow was concerned, and pretty soon Blue was sweeping through the center with a line of Deldar-supported swods and pieces. When the two Kapts were brought into play they swept aside a Chuktar and a Hikdar and, but for an interesting contest between a Hyr-Paktun and the Aeilssa’s Swordsman, the game was over. Here in democratic-aristocratic Jikaida City the piece around whose capture the game revolved was called not King or Rokveil but Aeilssa, Princess. Well, I liked the romantic ring of that, and having married a princess and having others of that ilk as daughters, I could not in all conscience find fault. When the game was done, the sand already being raked neatly back into the blue and yellow squares ready for the next game — there being time for two encounters in that afternoon — Dav and I shouldered up to leave. Being Dav, his first thought was to discover the nearest alehouse. With a flagon in his fist and his elbow on the counter, he said, “The pieces fight differently when it is a Death game.”

I nodded, and drank. I was thirsty.

“How often do they-?”

“Very seldom for the public contests. Death-Jikaida is expensive. The inner courts. They are the places for the highest stakes and the most bloody of encounters.”

“I have heard it said,” I remarked, quoting Deb-Lu-Quienyin as we had talked around our caravan fire under the stars of the Desolate Waste, “that there is no skill in Jikaida where the outcome of carefully planned moves can be upset by mere brainless warriors fighting.”

“So they say.” Dav supped companionably. “But Konec says there is skill, albeit of a different kind. There is the skill of sizing up your opponent’s powers and of arranging within the moves to place your best fighters to bear on the weakest of your opponent’s, and of protecting your own lesser pieces.”

“That Chulik swod with the silver-banded tusks-”

“In the next game he will be a Deldar, you mark my words.”

“Chuliks are ferocious fighters. He’ll be a Pallan yet.”

“On the Jikaida board only, though! By Spag the Junct! The blue and yellow sand will drink much blood before they put him away in the balass box.”

Pompino found us then and wanted to catch up with the flagons, and some of Konec’s people arrived, and the alehouse began to liven up. We’d all put in some time in the practice court, and we lived and messed shoulder by shoulder, for Konec paid for everything in the Blue Rokveil with funds provided by contributions from Mandua against Mefto, and I’d practiced in a kind of daze. Dav regarded me as a better than middling swordsman. Pompino he rated much higher. I felt, in the turmoil that I couldn’t plumb, that maybe he was right.

Now, with the flagons being refilled by Fristle fifis, who squealed as they did their work, well-knowing that the customers liked that, Dav broached the question. He opened up the reasons behind what had been going on.

“You are a fighting man, Jak. You are good. You could be better, I feel, if — but then, if we all knew that if, we’d all be Mefto the Bastards, eh?”

“I suppose so.”

“Cheer up, you miserable fambly! I’m offering you a task you should joy in — we fight for Konec in Kazz-Jikaida. Will you join us?”

Pompino, who had just lifted a fresh flagon to his lips, blew a head of froth a clear six feet and into the cleavage of a fifi. She yelped. She put her finger down and wiped — and then she licked the finger, making a face. But she didn’t deceive us. We laughed — even I laughed.

“All right,” I said.

“We-ell,” said Pompino.

“It depends on the size of the game we get into,” Dav said, speaking to Pompino with intent to induce him. “Konec has brought first-class fighters; but we may need many more to make up the pieces. What say you? You know the pay is good, and the inducements offered by the Nine Masked Guardians add up to a handsome sum.”

In Poron Jikaida, which is the smallest size reckoned to be worth the playing, there are thirty-six pieces a side. In Lamdu Jikaida there are ninety pieces a side.

In the end Pompino gave his assent; a qualified assent which, as he said, depended on getting the hell out of this city. We were both of the opinion that the Everoinye, having used our services, would not bother us again for a space and therefore we must use our own efforts to escape. For we regarded it as an escape. “There is no chance I shall stay once Ineldar the Kaktu begins to form his caravan,” said Pompino, and he meant it.

“By Spag the Junct!” burst out Dav. “You eat Konec’s food and sleep under his roof-”

“I shall pay,” said Pompino, and his foxy face bristled. “I shall pay — you will see.”

“Very well. We shall hire swods from the academies. The higher pieces are named. I think you two may be Deldars-”

“What?” Pompino was outraged. “I am a paktun-”

“We have hyr-paktuns with us in this, with the pakzhan.”

Pompino stared furiously at me. I hate to see friends wrangling. “If you could at least give Pompino a decent harness it would-”

“The weapons and the armor are prescribed by law. It is all in the Jikaidish.”

Well, by Vox, that was true. Each piece on the board was represented on the blue and yellow sands of Kazz-Jikaida by a fighting man. Each piece was equipped according to the laws of Jikaida as prescribed in the Jikaidish Lore — that is, in this sense of the Kregish word, the hyr-lif written in the Jikaidish. Swods wore a breechclout and held a small shield and were armed with a five-foot spear. The Deldars wore a leather jerkin and carried a more effective shield. Mind you, the Jikaidish Lore provided for an amazing variety of equipments. One of the most important facts to remember about Jikaida is that the ramifications, combinations, extensions and sheer prolific variety of the game demand that before any game begins each player is aware of the exact rules under which the game is to be played. This is cardinal. Much blood has been shed because players were too stupid or lazy to make sure they agreed on the rules they were going to use before they started playing.

Pompino rubbed his whiskers.

“Arrange for me to have a sword, and, maybe-”

“It is difficult.” Dav screwed up his face and then reached for the flagon. “It may not be possible to arrange the bokkertu for Screetz-Jikaida. But I will speak to Konec.”

“Do so.”

“Who is Konec playing?” I said to attempt to bring the conversation down a few degrees. It had been growing too warm.

“Some old biddy called Yasuri.”

“Ha!” snapped Pompino. “I might have guessed.”

“She didn’t hire us to fight for her — she must be using the academies.”

Dav nodded sagely. “I am told they train ’em here to fight in ways adjusted to the Jikaida board. It is cramped.”

“Wise old lady Yasuri,” sneered Pompino.

“Don’t tell me the name of her Jikaidast, Dav,” I said. “Let me guess. One Master Scatulo, yes?”

Dav shook his head. “No.”

I was surprised.

“She put great store by him. Fawned on him.”

“If he arrived with you then he wouldn’t have had time to Establish his Credentials.”

“Bevon the Brukaj mentioned that,” said Pompino.

We learned what that meant. Jikaidasts could earn fortunes here in Jikaida City. The great ones who could afford to come here and pay for the privilege of playing Kazz-Jikaida would all be devoted to the game, that went without saying; but they might not be quite as good players as they imagined. It was customary for each player to employ a Jikaidast to be at his or her elbow and to advise. A very conspicuous and ornate clepsydra marked off the time allowed for each move, and when the time was up the water-clock beat a resounding stroke upon a great brazen gong. In some games if a player had not made the move by then he was required to forfeit a piece. As for the Establishment of Credentials, this took place in the Hall of Jikaidasts.

The Hall was long and narrow. Along each side was ranged a column of Jikaida boards. The newcomer seated himself at the end board and played Jikaida against his opponent. If he won he moved up a board. There was a constant stream of Jikaidasts moving up or down — down and out to await their turn to begin the ascent of the ladder again, or up to the topmost table where they would have established their credentials and could then seek employment as advisers to wealthy players. Master Scatulo, I fancied, would go up the ladder like a dose of salts. As to my own chances of improving in the Jikaida pieces’ hierarchy, I was not so sanguine. It was clear that the party with Konec, including Dav and Fropo, regarded me as a reasonably expert swordsman -

they found it difficult to believe I had lasted even a couple of passes with Mefto — but were less than confident about letting me take the part of a superior piece. The Pallan, as the most important piece on the board, wore a full harness of that superb mesh steel. If he came up against a half-naked swod with a spear, the outcome would not be in doubt.

When I questioned the sanity of men prepared to fight as swods, the explanations I was given ranged from blind passionate partisanship for the Blues or Yellow, simple greed, a desire to get on in Jikaida, fear of retribution for a crime — there are many foibles and quirks of human nature that Opaz has given us and that remain dark and shrouded in our inmost beings.

Also, archers ringed the stands. If any piece, including a Pallan, shirked a fight and attempted to run, he would be shafted instantly at the signal from the representative of the Nine Masked Guardians who presided at every game.

As the archers posted up there were Bowmen of Loh; everyone knew they would not miss. Some games of Kazz-Jikaida employed the rule that to make the powers of the superior pieces more representative of those the pieces really had on the board, more than one warrior took the part of a piece. Chuktars and Kapts might be represented by two fighting men, a Pallan by three. On other occasions all the pieces were armed in the same fashion. Once the stranger realized that Kazz-Jikaida was not quite like the Jikaida he had played as a boy against his father, or as a girl against her mother, then the anomalies were seen in their true perspective.

In the board game a piece landing on the square of a hostile piece captures. In Kazz-Jikaida the square is contested in blood.

To the death in Death-Jikaida.

In most games, but not all, the Jikaidish Lore states that when an attacking piece wins he may be substituted by a fresh fighter of the same force. If a defending piece wins he must remain where he is, on the square for which he has fought so valiantly — bleeding, dying, it makes no matter. Thus a successful defense, which is contrary to board Jikaida, is penalized. The Substitutes lined along the benches wait to go in.

Because like our Earthly game — coming possibly from chaturanga, shatranj — Jikaida has matured over the centuries and, also, because different folk play different rules in different parts of Kregen, there are many similarities and many divergences. The swods — the pawns — move one square diagonally or orthogonally ahead, and take on the forward diagonal. If a Deldar stands on a square adjacent to a swod, then that swod, of the Deldar’s color, cannot be taken by an opposing swod. This leads to fascinating situations which abruptly erupt into furious action.

This rule unique to Jikaida with its possibilities of Deldar-supported chains, is generally believed to have given rise to the traditional opening challenge of Jikaida: “Rank your Deldars!”

The jikaidish for this particular protection is propt, and as we left the alehouse to set off for our quarters and an enormous meal, Dav said, “When the propts collapse the blood will fly, by Spag the Junct!”

Because the prospect was both exhilarating and forbidding, making our fingers tingle, we swaggered and strutted, I can tell you, on our way to one of the six or eight square meals a day any Kregen likes to fuel the inner man. Pompino was more than a little put out by the unspoken imputations. His red whiskers bristled. But he was in the right of it. Our business was not taking part in blood games; it was in getting out of here.

As we walked along he kept rotating his head, looking, as I alone knew, for that magnificent scarlet and golden raptor of the Star Lords. He regarded the Everoinye with none of the scorn and hatred I had once shown them; they had treated him well and fairly and he repaid them in loyal service. In addition, he was possessed of a species of religious rapture at the idea that he was so closely involved with the doings of the gods.

Everybody in the twin cities talked in terms of the game, of course, and someone made a remark as we crossed into Blue City, that we had crossed a front. The Jikaida board is divided up into drins. Drin means land. Or, if you will, a number of drins are joined together to make the board. In general games a drin consists of a checkered board of six squares a side, making thirty-six in all. Six of these drins make up the board for Poron Jikaida, two by three. At the meeting of drins the line is painted in thicker markings. Some pieces have the power of crossing from drin to drin across a front on their move; most must halt at the front and wait until the next turn to cross.[5]

On the day appointed, Konec led us to the Jikaidaderen where we were to play. The lady Yasuri had hired herself a Jikaidast off the top of the tree. Konec, in his turn, had taken into employment for this game an intense, brooding, nervous Jikaidast called Master Urlando, who wore a blue gown with yellow checked border. For the professionals blue or yellow meant only the angles of the game, for the opening move was decided by chance and not by tradition.

The game was an ordinary one and open to the public and the benches and covered arcades were filled. In the event Pompino gave in as much to his own estimation of himself as a fighting man as to outside pressures and took up his position as a Deldar. As I had expected, I was to act the part of a swod. The game was not distinguished. We ranked our Deldars after the impressive opening ritual, where prayers were spoken and the choirs sang suitable hymns and the incense was burned and the sacrifice made. The ib of Five-handed Eos-Bakchi here in Havilfar was represented by the ib of Himindur the Three-eyed. For the first time I realized, with a pang, that five-handed really did have a strong and terrible meaning. So, with due propitiation made and the fortunes of Luck and Chance called upon, we took our places upon the blue and yellow sanded squares.

For a considerable period of the game I stood with a Deldar on an adjacent square and a swod — a Pachak with a brisk professional air about him, determined to get on — on the square to my left diagonal. He could not attack me by reason of the Deldar. We fell into an interesting conversation, although this was against the tenets of the game, and I learned of his history. I like Pachaks with their two left arms and their absolute loyalty in their nikobi to their oaths. Luckily for both of us we did not fight, the main action sweeping up the left hand side of the board and then, as Konec plunged, angling directly to the center and the Yellow Princess. Konec was a bold player, ruthless when he had to be. Dav was acting as Pallan. He was thrust forward, crossing a front, plunging into a direct confrontation with the Yellow Pallan. The fight was absorbingly interesting; Dav won, the right wing Kapt and Chuktar swept in and, with a Hikdar angling for the last kaida, the triumphant hyrkaida was made by Dav, sliding smoothly in and, challenged by the Yellow Princess’s Swordsman, defeating him in a stiff but brief battle. The various shouts of acclaim went up, the Blue prianum, the shrine where the victory tallies were kept, notched up another win, and it was all over. I had neither struck nor received a blow. I bid a shaky remberee to the Pachak swod and we all went back to the hotel.

Anticlimax — no. For I had seen what went on in Kazz-Jikaida, and was not much enamored of it. Konec said, “In two days’ time I meet a fellow from Ystilbur. You will be a Deldar, Jak.”

I nodded. There was little I felt I could say.

Pompino, who had had to beat a swod, told me he was not going to act again. We were standing in the shade of a missal tree growing by the wall of the courtyard and the shadows from the walls crept over the sand. The sounds of the twin cities came muted. The air smelled extraordinarily fresh and good.

“Ineldar is forming his caravan. I shall be one of his guards. You, Jak?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Excellent. By Horato the Potent! I cannot wait to get out into the Desolate Waste!”

A shadow moved among the shadows.

Our thraxters were out in a twinkling.

A voice said, “Jak? Pompino?”

Pompino pointed his sword. “Step you forward so that we may see you. And move exceeding carefully.”

A dark form lumbered out into the last of the mingled light. Jade and ruby radiance fell about him. His hunched shoulders, his bulldog face, all the gentle power of him was as we remembered from the nights under the stars.

There was blood on his right hand.

Bevon the Brukaj said, “I have run away from my master. He abused me cruelly. And I struck a guard

— I do not think I killed him; but his nose bled most wonderfully, to my shame.”

“Well, by the Blade of Kurin…” whispered Pompino.

“Will you help me? Will you take me in?”

The sound of loud voices rose from the street, approaching, and with them the heavy tramp of footsteps and the clank of weapons, the chingle of chains.

“Inside, Bevon. Pompino, find Dav. Explain. We cannot allow them to take Bevon.”

“But-”

“Do it!”

Pompino took Bevon’s arm and guided him into the inner doorway. Fixing a blank look on my face and sheathing my sword, I turned to the gate and stood, lolling there and picking my teeth.