A Fortune for Kregen Read Online Free PDF

abed and mended. Being situated in the Foreign Quarter the tavern was outside the hurly-burly that continually bustled in the twin cities, Blue City and Yellow City. Jikaida dominated all. Jikaida, that greatest of board games of Kregen, was here played with fighting men, played in blood and death. To be of the Blue or to be of the Yellow, to win — and not to think of losing — these were the vital facts of life here.
    “I,” said Pompino, who like Lobur the Dagger had no head for Jikaida, “am thoroughly sick and tired of this city and Jikaida! By Horato the Potent! What in all Kregen has that stupid woman Yasuri got that we must protect her at the orders of the Star Lords?”
    Maliciously, I said, “You question orders from the Star Lords, Pompino?”
    He jumped. His foxy face bristled. “No! Of course not. Who said so?” And I laughed.
    Slowly, I mended. Slowly, my strength came back. Truth to tell, I recovered full health and strength far more quickly than anyone could who had not bathed in the Sacred Pool of Baptism in the River Zelph of far Aphrasöe. All the time I lay there, uselessly, I fretted over Vallia, and over Delia, Delia, Empress of Vallia. Was our son Drak doing the right things? Was Delia well? Oh yes, I fretted. But I had had an assurance from the Star Lords, delivered by their spy and messenger, the gorgeous scarlet and gold raptor called the Gdoinye, that Vallia did not succumb to her enemies and that Delia thrived and was well. This, I had to believe.
    To do anything else would not only make me go off my head, make a lesser man of me — it would destroy me.
    One day when I had demolished a whole vosk steak, a heaping pile of momolams, an equally heaping pile of steamed cabbage, had wolfed down a handsome squish pie — with a mental genuflection to Inch standing on his head — and was popping palines into my mouth, Pompino bustled in. And, I may add, that was the third such meal of the day and the time only just gone the bur of mid. He started without preamble: “Jak, tell me what you know of Moderdrin, the Humped Land.”
    “The Humped Land? Never heard of it — wait a minute.” I chewed a paline, savoring the flavor, feeling the goodness refreshing every part. “I heard a couple of rat-faced fellows — they were gauffrers —
    arguing in a tavern about going to a place that might have been Moderdrin. I paid them no attention, minding my ale, for Dav was yelling for his stoup—”
    “Yes, yes. But you know nothing of the Land of the Fifth Note? Moderdrin?”
    “No. What of it?”
    “Gold, Jak, that’s what of it.”
     
    I sniffed, and popped another paline. The yellow berry tasted just as good as the last. Never satiated on palines, no one ever can be, an impossibility. Palines had sustained me on my very first visit to Kregen.
    They tasted just as good now.
    “You may scoff. Gold, jewels, treasure — unimagined treasure—”
    “Just lying around for you to stroll along and pick it up?”
    His foxy face twisted up in fury at my obtuseness and his whiskers quivered.
    ‘There is more. More than gold and treasure — there are magic arts to be won — secrets that wizards would give their ibs for — sorceries that will transform your life—”
    “So?”
    His eagerness switched into a comical surprise.
    “So — what?”
    “So — when do you start?”
    “Who says I am going? There is danger — well, there must be danger, else everyone here would be rolling in wealth and all be as clever sorcerers as any Wizard of Loh.”
    “The point is, Pompino, my fine friend. You have two counts against you. One is you want me to go with you. And, two, you don’t know if those onkers of Everoinye will let you go.”
    His concern was genuine.
    “Jak! Jak! How many more times? I pray you, do not contume the Star Lords so! If they punish you—”
    “Yes, you are right.”
    His punishment would be of and on Kregen. My punishment would be off Kregen and back to Earth as quick as a