The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales Read Online Free PDF Page A

that instant Drozo, King Zhabutir's treasurer, appeared at the gate on his way to work. Vakar went with him to pick up a supply of trade-metal. Drozo gave him gold rings and silver tores and copper slugs shaped like little ax-heads, then handed him a semicircular piece of bronze, saying:
     
                  "If you get to Kernê and are pressed for funds, go to Senator Amastan with this. It's half a broken medallion whereof he has the other half, and will therefore identify you."
     
                  Vakar went back to his room. Bili called from the bedchamber:
     
                  "Aren't you coming back to bed, Vakar? It's early— "
     
                  " No," said Vakar shortly, and began rummaging through his possessions.
     
                  He took down one dagger for which he had rigged a harness of two narrow strips so that the sheath was positioned in front of his chest. He switched this harness to the sheath that now housed the poisoned dagger, took off his fine linen shirt, strapped the harness around his torso, and donned the shirt again.
     
                  Then he began collecting garments and weapons. He assembled his winged helmet of solid gold with the li ning of purple cloth; his jazerine cuirass of gold-washed bronzen scales; his cloak of the finest white wool with a collar of sable. He looked over his collection of bronze swords: slender rapiers, heavy cut-and-thrust longswords, short leaf-shaped barbarian broadswords, and a double-curved sapara from far Thamuzeira, where screaming men and women were flayed on the altars of Miluk. He picked the best rapier, the one with the gold-inlaid blade, the hilt of sharkskin and silver with a ruby pommel, and the scabbard of embossed leather with a golden chape at the end ...
     
                  At this point it occurred to Vakar that while he would no doubt make a glittering spectacle in all this gaudery, it would be useless to pretend that he was but a simple traveller of no consequence. In fact he would need a bodyguard to keep the first robber lord who saw him from swooping down with his troop to seize this finery.
     
                  One by one he returned the pieces to their chests and pegs and assembled a quite different outfit. As the rapier would be too light to be effective against armor he chose a plain but serviceable longsword; a plain bronze helm with a lining of sponge; a simple jack of stiff-tanned cowhide with bronze reinforcings; and his stout bronze buckler with the repousse pattern of lunes: work of the black Tartarean smiths. Nobody in Lorsk could duplicate it.
     
                  He was pulling on a pair of piebald boots of shaggy winter horsehide when Fual, his personal slave, came in. Fual was an Aremorian of Kerys who had been seized by Foworian slavers and sold in Gadaira. He was a slender man, more so even than Vakar, with the tight skin of the more northerly peoples and a touch of red in his hair that suggested the blood of the barbarous Galatha. He looked at Vakar from large melancholy eyes and clucked.
     
                  " ... and why didn't you call me, sir? It isn't proper for one of your rank to work for himself ."
     
                  "Like Lord Naz in the poem," grinned Vakar:
     
    "Slavishly swin ki ng,                             weary and worn ...
    "If it makes you unhappy you may complete the job."
     
                  They were stuffing extra clothing into a goatskin bag when Bili, scantily wrapped in a deerskin blanket, appeared in the doorway, looking at Vakar from brown bovine eyes. She said:
     
                  "My lord, as this will be the last time—"
     
                  "Don't bother me now!" said Vakar.
     
                  He finished packing and told Fual: "Get your gear too."
     
                  "Are you