The Quest of Kadji

Hooves crunching on crusted snow, they rode the circuit of the city that day while the Red Hawk continued his explorations. This day he had set aside for studying the gates of the city, their number and positioning, the approaches thereto, and the manner in which they were under guard.

Returning toward sunfall when Kylix was a disc of red gold sinking, behind the towers of the western quarter of Khôr, the Nomad boy made a strange discovery.

As he guided his pony into the long Avenue of the Hippogriffs that led to the House of the Seven Moons, a young woman was borne past him in a princely palanquin veiled in gauzy silks and carried by strong slaves in gold-and-purple livery.

The inquisitive youth had studied the nobility of Khôr. He knew that the kugars, the greedy class of great landowners, used no livery; being wealthy but not armigerous, The Emperor permitted a blank white escutcheon to the kugar class as a whole, but only the old Imperial baronial families bad the distinction of color liveries. And gold-and-purple, he knew, were the colors borne by an ancient family close to the dynasty currently regnant: a royal house, however, considered extinct.

Thus his attention was drawn to this closely veiled palanquin through curiosity, and by this chance he was able to observe something he might easily otherwise have missed.

Just as they drew together, side by side in the stream of traffic, the slaves bearing the palanquin slipped in an area of slick, icy wet snow, and staggered for a moment. This caused, the flap of the veils wherewith the sides of the palanquin were draped to fall back, revealing the features of the personage who rode within.

For a single flashing instant of time Kadji found himself gazing straight into smoky eyes of amberous gold, huge dark-lashed eyes set in a clear tanned oval faces framed in a gorgeous mane of flamy-golden hair.

It was the girl he had seen in Nabdoor, to the very life!

His eyes widened in surprise, and he caught, in that flashing instant before the flap fell back, a similar expression of surprise on the girl’s face. She had recognized him, as well.

He reined up his black Feridoon pony and watched the palanquin go by in bafflement. The girl he had seen in Nabdoor had gone unattended save by a monstrous grey plains-wolf. And she had been dressed in ragged and voluminous garments like a wandering Perushka wench But this girl rode like a princess, and her slim young body was sheathed in expensive silk, and pearls, the great blond pearls of Nizamar, had been woven like a net through her glorious tresses, and a great green opal had glowed at her brow.

Surely the two girls were one and the same—or were they?

On sudden impulse, he guided Haral aside to follow in the wake of the veiled palanquin. It turned in to a courtyard much overgrown and where the ruins of a garden grown wild lay dead and black and tangled beneath the deathly fall of the filtering snow.

The mansion that rose in tiered height beyond the walled courtyard was splendid and ornate, virtually a palace. But it was festooned with dead vines and the carven stonework at balcony and architrave was weather-stained. Such dilapidated grandeur in decay could have been caused only by long years of neglect … as if the mansion had stood empty and unattended for some space of time.

At the corner of the street whereon rose the mansion, Kadji found a small wineshop; he tethered his shivering pony to the wooden bar at the door and went in and ordered a tankard of ale, mindful of his shrinking purse.

Those who frequented the wineshop were, he saw, grooms and squires, gardeners and servants employed hereabouts, and thus a reservoir of gossip. He unlocked their tongues by buying a drink for all, for the moment pretending to be a genial mercenary swordsman on a drinking spree. Before long he learned that the mansion was the House of the Turmalin, that it had in truth stood deserted for many years, since, in fact, the death of the last Emperor, Azakour, some twenty years before. The Lady of the Turmalin had fled the city during the struggles of dynastic succession, and had taken up her abode in a far province.

“But surely the noble maiden I glimpsed going in just now is too young to have deserted Khôr twenty years ago!” Kadji said.

One of the grooms winked and nodded.

“Aye, this be her daughter, the Lady Thyra, new come from the provinces,” he said.

And that was all Kadji could discover. He rode back to the House of the Seven Moons through the blowing snow, deep in thought. Was the girl of the palanquin the same girl be had seen as a ragged Perushka in the traders’ town far to the south? They were alike as sisters, nay, more so: Kadji was convinced they were one and the same.

But why this should bother him, he could not discern. What was it to him that a strange and beautiful girl had been in Nabdoor some days ago, and now was here in mighty Khôr?

The snow was thicker now. Great parties of kugars were moving through the slushy streets in the direction of their quarter, which ringed the central Khalidûr like a half-moon. All day he had seen the kugars gathering into the capital and had thought but little of it, save to keep a wary eye out for the Highborn Cyrib Jashpode, the young kugar lordling whom he had angered and fought, and with whom he guessed there would yet be a final reckoning.