The Quest of Kadji

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 on 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.”

That was something to think on! Kadji was astounded and stared at her in silence for a bit.

“An Imperial princess, then,” he said. The girl nodded, her flame-red hair rippling gloriously in the sunlight.

“But are you not the True Heir to the Dragon Throne?” be demanded in astonishment. “If you are the last surviving member of the dynasty, why … why …”

She shook her head firmly. “The Law states that a female shall not inherit, thus I have no claim upon the throne of my Uncle. But my false cousin, the so-called Yakthodah—”

“—Shamad of Perushk,” Kadji murmurred.

“Even so, although I did not know his true name,” she continued: “The charlatan, Shamad, when he came to power, feared that the family of Azakour might perchance know him for a false Yakthodah, or might seek to dethrone him so that another of the Holy Blood could ascend the Dragon’s Chair. Thus he pursued with his vengeance even to our distant province, to the west, and would have exterminated the last of our House. Alas, there were few to oppose him: my mother dead, my father long since in his tomb, and I but a child. But friends of my House had hid me away, disguised as a serving girl, so that the assassins could not find me, and bore back to the false Emperor word that the House of Turmalin was extinct to the last leaf of the last withered branch.

“I determined to seek out this false-hearted and murderous charlatan, and if he were not the True Emperor as my friends whispered, to expose him: for I knew certain things about the true appearance of the original and genuine Yakthodah that perchance he could not know, nor could any, since they were buried in family documents in the archives of the dynasty. I traveled in the guise of a Perushka girl, and as such you glimpsed me in the streets of Nabdoor; this I did because there were none would wonder to see a girl traveling alone, if she were in Perushka dress.”

“Was it not unsafe for you to travel by yourself, a mere girl?” he asked.

She laughed again; she had the loveliest laugh the boy had ever heard. “Not with Bazan going ever at my side! For there be few bandits or thieves so foolhardy as to pick a fight with a full-grown wolf of the plains!”

“Why did you abandon your disguise in Khôr, and appear as your true self? Did not that place you in danger from Shamad?”

“Ah, but not in the least! For what could be done in distant Zoromesh—the province wherein I was reared—and openly, by assassins, can hardly be performed, in the Imperial capital against an avowed Princess of the Blood. There are too many eyes to see, too many tongues to whisper, too many agile and cunning minds to speculate. I came into Khôr in state and presented irrefutable and documentary evidence of my lineage to the collegium of the heralds. Poor Shamad—I shall have to get used to that name!—was forced to publicly acknowledge me his royal cousin. I was extremely careful; you may be sure, that my palace was guarded against intrusion; and doubly certain never to leave myself alone with Shamad or any of his people. In public places, he could not easily contrive my assassination, and in private I took every precaution that it should be no less difficult. His only recourse was to—politely—ignore my existence as much as was possible, and keep as far from me as he could. I never let him learn that I suspected him for an impostor, although I goon enough determined that he was one. Ere I had maneuvered circumstances to a pass where I could expose him and ruin him, the intriguing kugars intervened with their stupid plots and the coup was accomplished. As a Princess of the Blood I could come and go freely in the Khalidûr at any time; thus it was not difficult for me to obtain a close view of Shamad. Even as did you, I recognized that the man on the steps of the dais was not Shamad but another. My people queried and bribed, the gate guards and eventually discovered that Shamad and his Dragonman in disguise had fled the city on the very night of his pretended assassination; I. made haste to follow.”