The Quest of Kadji
- Автор: Картер Лин Спрэг
- Серия: Chronicles of Kylix #1
- Год: 1973
- Язык: английский
- Год: Five Star Paperback
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Quest of Kadji». Краткое содержание книги:
And yelping a shrill cry the lordling whipped his hand loose from Kadji’s grip and gave him a ringing slap across the face.
Kadji went white to the lips, for to strike another is the deadliest of all insults. And he knew that now he must fight. He stepped back and drew from beneath his garments the sacred Axe of Thom-Ra—for he bore no other weapon—and kissed it, making silent apology to the War Prince of the gods that he must employ the God-Axe in so ignoble a cause as a wineshop brawl, and saluted the kugar with great courtesy.
“I am high Ioga of Yuzan, a Free Sword of the Ushamtar Nomads,” he said in formal salutation, using the false identity he had assumed for the duration, of this adventure.
The kugar laughed and spat and ripped off his velvets and the ruffled silk of his japon, revealing a bronzed and well-threwed torso. He unsheathed his sabre and kissed it to Kadji, growling out his own, salutation in a slurred and careless fashion.
“I am the Highborn Cyrib Jashpode of the House of the Jashpodine,” he grunted, and without further warning or ado swung a vicious back-handed slash at Kadji’s throat. But, lithe as a dancing girl; the boy sprang backwards so that the blade whistled past him to go thunk in the wood of the table-edge, with such impact that Jashpode staggered and almost lost his footing.
The Red Hawk might have slain the kugar in that same moment, for the lordling could not at once disengage his blade from the heavy wood, but he did not, instead stood courteously to one side with the Axe lowered while the other with some effort wrenched his sword free of the grip of the wood.
Now wild with fury at the mild words and courteous manner of the Nomad youth, the young lordling sprang upon Kadji with a veritable whirlwind of blows. Steel rang against steel, filling the raftered hall with war’s ringing music. Again and again, with effortless ease, the slim brown Kozanga lad turned aside the slashing strokes of the kugar’s sabre. And ere long the heavier youth, somewhat the worse for drink and flabby in the muscles, became scarlet-faced with exertion and glistening with perspiration. He roared the vilest of insults at the silent boy, but before long he had to save his breath to fight with. And soon he was purple-faced and panting and staggering, his torso glittering and slick with sweat.
By contrast, Kadji was bone-dry, silent, and he breathed shallowly, showing no sign of exertion. Nor had he once taken a stroke with his great steel Axe, but restrained himself to merely warding off or turning aside the strokes of his opponent. This, though none but he knew it, was the silent vow he had made to his warrior Gods before entering the contest: that if he must employ the Sacred Axe in so lowly a combat, he would merely use it to defend himself, not to slay.
Around and around the long table they went, Jashpode panting gustily, dripping sweat; the Nomad youth as silent as a stalking panther. The boy had fought many hours with the axe and the sword, for the double-bladed war axe was one of the favorite weapons of the Kozanga Nomads; he knew that it had certain advantages against the sword—especially the sabre, which is slim and curved and can only be used to slash—and he was awaiting the proper moment to employ the weapon in a manner ho knew. But it must be just the right moment.
It came: He caught the other’s blade and twisted his wrist, allowing the glistening curve of steel to slide up the axeblade to the hook at its peak; therein it caught firmly, and he twisted his wrist very suddenly, the other way.
The narrow curving blade snapped in two pieces with a ringing clash that filled the hall. And Jashpode was disarmed.
Now, according to the code of the duel; as fought in the realms of the Dragon Emperor, it was well within the rights of Kadji to slay the other man. Instead he saluted politely and returned the Axe to its place beneath his fringed cloak, then turned away, taking the old wizard by the arm to escort him to his room, leaving the kugar behind, bare-handed, weaponless, weak with exhaustion and trembling with inarticulate fury.
All the way up the wooden, stair the fat little wizard marveled at the prowess of Kadji the Red Hawk. And the youth answered the old man politely but modestly.
Thus it was that on the first day of entering the city of the Dragon Emperor, Kadji, Red Hawk of the Kozanga Nomads, made a friend.
And an enemy, too. For he had affronted the honor of Cyrib Jashpode, and that honor could be cleansed only in scarlet blood.
iv. Akthoob
THE NEXT day Kadji continued his tour of the magnificent city and even the desperate importance of his Quest did not deter him from admiring the splendor that lay about him to either side. For thirty centuries of time golden Khôr had ruled these lands, and in all those ages it had drunk deep of the rivers of gold that poured through the hands of its merchants and landowners. Emperor after emperor had added new jewels to its crown, until by This age it was a splendor of arch and forum, temple and theatre, colonnade and sepulchre. Broad, level avenues were lined with heroic statuary; memorials to triumphant and fabulous wars, the glories of long-dead monarchs and extinct dynasties.
At evening he made his way back to the House of the Seven Moons, but before he had even reached that quarter of the city he was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the man whose death was the goal of his Quest and the sacred duty laid upon him by the Lord Chieftain of the Chayyim Kozanga.
There was a crash of golden trumpets; heralds armed with ceremonial whips rode clattering through the street and the throng of citizens rapidly drew to the sides thereof, and among them was Kadji. A moment later a troop of mounted and gaily caparisoned nobles rode past, laughing and jesting, and amidst them all, one tall golden man shone. He was serene and beautiful, with a cold, sculptured face and ice-grey eyes, and when he laughed, as he did both often and loudly, Kadji saw that the laughter did not reach beyond his lips, for his eyes remained frozen and watchful and arrogant. Thus he was watched as Yakthodah the Holy Dragon Emperor rode past under a cloud of fluttering banners in the noontide of his glory.
As he passed, on his way to an evening of revelry at the theatre or the hippodrome, he turned by chance and his arrogant, icy gaze flickered over Kadji’s face. For a single instant they stared into each other’s eyes, the traitor and the avenger, before the Dragon rode on. And the keen eyes of Kadji noted that the cold beautiful face of the Emperor bore a strange small flaw. Directly below the corner of his mouth was a bright scarlet mark the shape of a tarisk leaf.
And then the Emperor was past the place where Kadji stood, and Kadji noted with widening eyes the curious and horrible creature who rode at the Emperor’s back.
It was no man but a monster with the broad, sloping shoulders of a giant and the long powerful, dangling arms and short, bowed legs of an ape. The thing went naked save for a harness of belted straps, and with amazement Kadji saw that its body was covered with glittering snake-scales, sapphire blue. It had a hideous broad hairless bead, thrusting forward from bowed, enormous shoulders, neckless, noseless, scaled blue, with weird eyes of dull scarlet. In his astonishment, the boy uttered an ejaculation.
The man who stood next to him in the crowd chuckled at his cry of revulsion. “ ‘Tis naught to fear, young sir, for that is Zamog, the Holy Emperor’s familiar, as we call him—one of the Dragomnen of the Swamp Country. They say he is as intelligent as an ordinary man and utterly devoted to his master.”