A Fortune for Kregen Read Online Free PDF Page A

reasonably priced and comfortable tavern in the Foreign Quarter. At the lady Yasuri’s expense, I might add. I mended. She had pursed up her lips and told us that if we stayed at The Plume and Quill we would attract less attention than if we baited at her Star of Laybrites. As The Plume and Quill catered to the superior tradesmen of foreign parts who visited Jikaida City to do business, I didn’t quite follow her reasoning; but she was paying. The lady Yasuri was the reigning Champion, and the Mediary Games had begun, and day by day they played Blood Jikaida, and, every now and then, Death Jikaida.
    Pompino, who was, like me, an agent of the Star Lords, had berated me silly for getting mixed up in the schemes of other people, when we should be bending all our energies to doing what the Star Lords wanted. I didn’t argue. I was as weak as a kitten, and the wounds had opened and the doctor, a shriveled little needleman with a brusque way with him, had cautioned me to stay in bed — or else. With a sniff he packed up his bag and his balass box of acupuncture needles and took himself off. His bill, too, would be paid by the lady Yasuri.
    He had said, this Doctor Larghos the Needle, “I did not have the felicity of seeing the Death Jikaida in which you fought, young man. But I have heard of marvels.” He shook his head. “It was said no man in all the world could best Prince Mefto the Kazzur at swordplay.”
    “I did not best him—”
    “I know, I know. But he is minus his tail hand now, and there are only two places in Kregen that I know of where he may have a new hand graft. And he may not know of them.”
    “I hope the cramph doesn’t!” said Pompino, most menacingly.
    “Would you tell me of them?” I was thinking of Duhrra.
    “No. Idle questions deserve sharp reprimands—”
    “It was not an idle question.”
    He glanced at me, still stuffing his medical kit away, a glance that said eloquently that, as I had not lost a hand I had no need of the information. He probably thought I was making conversation. “The nearest is in the Dawn Lands and is rumored to exist in the country of Florilzun.” He snorted. “But try to find that country on any map — try to find it. Hah!”
    So I was left to look at the loomin flowers and get well.
    Pompino was wearing a smart pale blue lounging robe and he took from a pocket a small brush and started to preen his Khibil whiskers. His sharp foxy face was engrossed. Because he was a Khibil, a member of that race of fox-faced diffs who are keen and smart and superb fighting men, he rather fancied himself. I did not mind. He was a good comrade although setting too much store by his understood duty to the damned Star Lords, the Everoinye, whom he thought of as gods.
    To me they were just a pain, superhuman entities who eddied me about Kregen on a whim, and who might, if I rebelled, hurl me back four hundred light years to Earth.
    “Had you stolen the Hamalese airboat and taken off, Jak, do you think the Everoinye would have allowed you to depart?”
    “I do not know.”
    “But you had to try?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you will try again as soon as you are well?”
    “If that cramph Prince Nedfar has not quitted the city by then.”
     
    I had told him just enough about my escapade to answer the most obvious inquiries. I had not mentioned Lobur the Dagger. Pompino, who was a shrewd fellow, imagined I hailed from Hyrklana, a large island off the eastern coast of the enormous southern continent of Havilfar. I had been a kaidur in the arena in Huringa, the capital of Hyrklana, and could pass myself off as a member of that nation without trouble.
    But Pompino would wonder why a Hamalese — even one whose life I had just saved — had made no greater demurral about letting me away scot free.
    Pompino himself, who came from South Pandahem, hated all Hamalese with the vigor of any man who has seen his country overrun and despoiled.
    In the quiet backwater of The Plume and Quill I lay