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roof. We caught the kidnappers, but not before they had slain a beautiful numim maiden, her glorious
golden fur foully splattered with her own blood. I cursed. When we trooped downstairs again, assured
by an apim girl, a handmaiden to my Lady, that all was well, we took the three bodies and disposed of
them along with the first three.
Gafard, livid, twitching, raced up the stairs without a word. He came back furious. I wondered what he
would do. I knew there was nothing he could do  save send the girl to the king with a handsome note,
a gracious gift.
"This is becoming expensive for the king," he said.
That was all.
I think I admired him then, as much as ever I d done.
We kept the guard even more alert after that.
Three days later I had occasion to go into Magdag on an errand for Gafard. This was all a part of my
duties as his aide. He was ordering a pearl necklace of many strands, an enormous pearl choker for his
lady, and I was to deliver gold for the fittings and clasps. He trusted me in this.
The souks of Magdag are strange places, filled with all the clamor one expects of markets where all is
bustle, but yet completely lacking the bright, cheerful sounds of markets in Sanurkazz. Dour people, the
folk of Magdag, resting on a slave foundation for labor, giving orders and whipping and shouting "Grak!"
and taking the profits for themselves. They have this marvelous way with dressed leather, as I have said,
although the best leather comes from Sanurkazz. I found the jewelers arcade and the right shop, with its
barred windows and narrow door, and transacted my business. Awnings stretched out overhead and the
suns glare was muted into gentle saffron and lime and pink. The sounds of the souks penetrated in a
buzz. The walls were yellow and bright, but few vines or flowers grew, where in Sanurkazz in such a
place the whole area would have rioted in blossom.
I came outside, bending my head to duck under the low Magdaggian door, and a dagger presented its
point to my throat, a hand gripped my arm, and a voice said, "We mean you no harm, dom. Just come
quietly with us."
In the normal course of events I would not have abided this. To slide the dagger was not all that easy,
for the point pricked just above my Adam s apple; but I did so, anyway, and kicked in the direction of
the voice as I gripped the hand and twisted up and back.
Then I was outside the door, dragging one screaming wretch over the stones, seeing another reeling
away  most green and bilious and vomiting  and staring at a third who held a crossbow spanned and
loaded and pointing at my guts.
"We said we would not harm you, Gadak. We are on the business of a man you would do well to heed.
You will come with us."
A fourth man, dressed like the others in the usual green and white robes with tall white turbans,
approached and bent to say in my ear: "You are an onker! This is king s business."
The moment he spoke I saw the next few burs in all clarity  and damned awful they would be, too.
If I had been recognized  but this was very much an outside chance. As we went along the crowded
streets where it would have been easy for me to slip away, I did not do so. I had already convinced
myself that scar-faced Golitas had recognized me only because of the stark illumination as I d climbed up
into the voller. The corner of the eye and the quick, illuminating flash can often reveal far more than the
long stare. So, as I went along, I wetted and pulled my moustaches down even more into that ugly
soup-straining fungus the Magdaggians think of as proper moustaches. No  I did not think the king
wished to see me because I had been recognized as the arch-enemy of Magdag, the notorious Krozair,
Pur Dray.
In that  about the king seeing me  I flattered myself.
Everything was conducted in the chilling, efficient way of machine governments. The house to which I
was conducted was not a villa, not a hovel. It was nowhere near the king s palace. The king would not
dirty his hands with the details of his desires. The man who told me what he wanted me to do was puffy
and limp-fingered, with a green-swathed paunch, bloated eyes, and moustaches so long and thin and
black I felt he could tie green ribbons in each side.
He did not condescend to tell me his name; he told me I might call himgernu, and if that was not
sufficient, when I received my pay I might address him as Nodgen the Faithful.
It did not take a genius to understand what these cramphs wanted.
I was to arrange to open the guardroom doors, to arrange to let the kidnappers in, and this time when
we jammed the door we would stand guard with more spirit and at a proper time. Of course, this
Nodgen the Faithful had no idea of what had happened to his party of kidnappers. I told him, simply,
they had all been slain.
"Then this time it is your neck, Gadak. We know you, renegade. You will sell your ib for an ob."
I might sell my soul for a penny  but not on Earth or Kregen.
"And young Genal the Freckles? Will you serve me as you served him after I open the door, as he did?"
"He was an onker. He would have talked."
"And I will not?"
He looked annoyed. I realized I had best not pursue that line too far, otherwise he would release me
from the contract prematurely  with a free passage to the Ice Floes of Sicce. So I agreed. They had a
lever.
"If you betray us, be very sure you will end up on the oar benches, pulling your guts out in a swifter,
flogged . . . you will not relish that, I assure you."
"How would you know?" I began to say. I did not add, as I would have done were I not meditating
great, evil joy, "You fat slug!"
We agreed terms. Fifty golden oars. A large sum. I managed to get them to give me ten golden oars on
account. No doubt they thought they would take them back from my dead body after I had opened the
doors to them. Arrangements were made, the day was set, three days time, and I was taken away and
left in the souk. It would be useless to return to the house. That was a mere convenient place to meet; the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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