The Quest of Kadji by Lin Carter Read Free Book Online Page B

his own Throne Hall, and kugar mercenaries now held the Khalidûr fortress, and the gates of Khôr itself against the expected siege of Prince Bayazin.
    In all the turmoil and chaos that made the very world echo to the collapse of dynasties and the battle of opposed regimes, what of the boy Kadji, Red Hawk of the Chayyim Kozanga Nomads, and his sacred Quest to avenge upon the body of the man the world believed to be the True Emperor the stained honor of the Kozanga war clans?
    What indeed? It would seem that a kugar blade had spared him the task his grandfather had set upon his shoulders.
    He made up his mind swiftly, for time was very important: by noon, it might be, Khôr would be in a state of siege. If he were to act at all, be must do so now.
    “Akthoob, have you still that pass which permits you entry into the Khalidûr?”
    The old wizard shrugged bony shoulders. “This humble person has it here in his purse, young sir, but what good? I shall not now use it, as the Holy Dragon Emperor before whom I would have performed my small arts lies now stark and cold as last morning’s bacon. . . .”
    “Does the pass describe the purpose of your visit?” Kadji pressed urgently through the fog of words.
    “No, no indeed: it merely says that one Akthoob of Zool is given permission to enter into the Khalidûr and to come into the Throne Hall . . .”
    “And it is dated?”
    “Aye, young sir, but why all these questions? Oh, very well! It bears tomorrow’s date, as I told you when we talked . . .”
    “You mean, today’s date, surely! For dawn is not many hours away, and the folk of Khôr reckon a day as beginning one hour past midnight, do they not?” urged Kadji.
    “Very well, then, today’s date, surely, but why do you ask all of these questions . . .”
    Grim purpose burned in the boy’s clear bright eyes, and determination could be seen in the firm set of his jaw.
    “You are in my debt, are you not, Akthoob, for that I saved you a beating from the hands of that kugar bully, Jashpode, and mayhap saved your life, indeed?”
    “Yes, yes, to be sure, young sir, but I do not—”
    “I like it not, that I must force you to endanger yourself, old man, but my cause is very urgent, and as I see it we shall not be any great hazard, if all goes well. But now I fear I must ask you to absolve yourself of your debt to me, by doing me a favor . . .”
    “A favor? What favor, young sir?” Curiosity glittered in the slant black eyes.
    In short words Kadji answered him and watched the curiosity turn first to consternation, then astonishment, and finally—to terror.
    vii. The Double Impostor
    SURPRISINGLY ENOUGH, it proved no great task to enter the Khalidûr. True, the bridges that spanned the moat, and the gates and portals through which they must passed, were under very heavy guard, and those guards were not the burly, red-faced Rashemba knights (most of whom, Kadji learned, had been brutally massacred during the first swift, crimson hours following the assasination of the Emperor, and those survivors now disarmed, under guard, or fled) but nervous, truculent kugar hirelings.
    The odd thing was that one glance at their pass sufficed to win them past guardpost after guardpost, and generally without any questioning at all. Kadji, garbed for this expedition in sober robes and betraying no signs of either his true Kozanga identity or his assumed Ushamtar guise, had frankly expected keen questioning to expose the falsity of their purpose. And while he did not expect arrest, he would not have been surprised had the guards at the very first checkpoint brusquely turned them back, refusing to let them pass.
    In preparation for this he had bidden the old wizard to clothe himself inmost unwizardly raiment: sober and nondescript, but expensive garments in good taste.
    As it was, their pass,—after all a valid one,—saw them through the hazardous moments of scrutiny and ere long they stood within the vaulted halls of the Khalidûr,