Free Renegade of Kregen by Alan Burt Akers

and all the gaudy glitter of his clothes and jewels and arms paled beside the sullen power of that face.
    "Lahal, Gafard."
    "Lahal, majister."
    That was all, between these two. Yet I swear I understood a little more of the bond between them. Master and servant, brain and tool, they complemented each other. Between them they could take the inner sea and wring it dry.
    The princess Susheeng, who had once knelt weeping, beseeching, supplicating before me, naked but for the gray slave breechclout, did not move. I flicked her a quick glance and saw no outward change in her demeanor. It had been a long time, and that notorious Krozair Brother, the Lord of Strombor, was long dead and gone to his grave. And, perhaps I, too, had changed over all those years.
    Also, Gafard’s shadow from the clerestory windows fell across me, and my green silken turban wound around the plain iron helmet draped half across my face. I breathed more easily.
    Impossible to imagine she would recognize in this new renegade seeking admission to the king’s armies a man she had once known so long ago and who was now dead.
    Gafard had warned me that this audience would form the public initiation. From this time on I was Grodnim. Later the king would see me privately, and there I might form a better opinion of what was required of me.
    I recognized that Princess Susheeng had achieved much of her heart’s desire. She and her brother, that devil prince Glycas, had planned and plotted to raise themselves even higher in Magdag. Now this storming genius Genod Gannius had appeared on the scene and had led his armies in triumph over Magdag and ruled here in the city of megaliths. And he had chosen Susheeng as his consort. She, at least, had achieved much.
    The thought that Glycas must be here, if he was not dead, made me realize the latter alternative to be far more preferable.
    The short ceremony of admission was about to begin.
    The chamberlains unhitched the Genodder from the high belt and carried it toward a Chuktar, a Chulik, who stood enormous and impressive in armor and green. He took the sword.
    After some mumbo-jumbo, the Genodder would be blessed by the priests, waiting in their green robes at the side, the king would kiss it, and I would receive it back, to kiss it and so hang it once more upon my person. The admission would have been completed.
    So I stood there, waiting for the next move in this charade.
    No one moved.
    No one stirred.
    I looked hard at the king. His right hand was half lifted in the sign to begin. That hand did not move, did not waver, did not tremble. The old wise man’s mouth was half open. That mouth neither opened nor closed. Susheeng’s hand turned at the wrist and fondled a golden brooch upon her breast. Nothing moved.
    So I knew.
    Not a sound rose from the mass of courtiers in the bright reception chamber, not a person moved.
    I shuffled my feet and turned around, nastily, to face the tall double doors. Now, I said to myself, now what does she want?
    Zena Iztar walked in through the opened double doors and past the lines of petrified people. She looked, as always, supremely imposing. She wore her crimson and scarlet and golden robes, with a narrow green sash, and the jewels flamed from her to drown in magnificence the suddenly tawdry splendor of King Genod’s glittering reception chamber.
    She halted a little way off from me. She shook her head.
    "Dray Prescot!"
    "What do you want, Zena Iztar?"
    "I seek to know what you do here."
    "It is obvious."
    "Not to me, not to the Star Lords, not to the Savanti."
    "Then are they — and you — of little wit."
    That calm face, imperious, proud, beautiful yes, all those things, but also maternal and wise and sorrowing, did not smile. Again she shook her head and the jewels of her headdress flashed and sparkled. "If we used our wits, as you suggest, we might believe you did an evil thing here."
    "Of course it’s evil!"
    A tiny line dinted between her eyebrows.
    I said, "We have met three