Chapter 9

The Izmir was entombed and Richard Blade was married. He kept away from the first ceremony and, though it was permitted in Zirnian law to marry by proxy, attended the second. He moved into the Izmir's palace and spent his wedding night there. It was not a great success. Blade sensed that he did not content Hirga, though she said nothing, and within a week they agreed to separate chambers. Blade came to understand the arrangement and, apart from a wound to his vanity, was not displeasured. Hirga was his wife and always willing to couple with him, but her first and chief duty was to provide liaison with Casta.

The High Priest remained in his cavern and made no visit to the palace-city that Blade knew of. He sent no word other than that Blade get on with the invasion of the Hitts.

Blade sent for Valli on several occasions and bedded her and listened to her reports. He learned little of value. Rumors and rumors of rumors. The black priests were making themselves scarce in the palace-city but were converging on the Plain of Pyramids in great numbers. Work continued at a great pace on the Izmir's monument and it was to be finished in a few weeks. The black priests, coming from all over Zir, were set to work alongside the slaves. Blade pondered all this and made no great sense of it other than the obvious-Casta was grouping his man-power, collecting his forces against the time he might need them.

Blade had his own manpower troubles. The Zirnian army was in a sad state. Morale was poor, the pay low and the common soldiers lazy and inefficient. Blade began to change all that. He organized a general staff and appointed Ogier as chief. Thane was made head of logistics and engineering and began to build a pontoon over the narrow water. To do this, Blade had to introduce labor conscription. This, Valli told him during one of her visits, was the cause of much discontent among the ordinary people of Zir.

All in all, Blade made good progress and was content. There was one incident, though, that occurred on the night before he was to ride to the coast with Thane and Ogier. It disturbed and upset him because he could not understand it and he feared things he could not understand, especially in his present ambiance where he thought of himself as superior-with the possible exception of Casta-and it was maddening to know that certain matters were beyond his ken.

He chanced to visit Hirga's chambers unannounced-she lived in another part of the palace and had her own retinue-and he found her half asleep and with the rosy and contented look of a woman satiated. She made no effort to rise but greeted him courteously enough, though with a certain soft-voiced scorn. She had trouble keeping her eyes open and there was languor and fulfillment in the sprawl of her lovely body on the huge bed. Blade, who cared nothing for her, was nonetheless rankled. And did not at first notice the odor.

Blade stood at the foot of her bed, hand on sword, and surveyed his Princess wife, «You do not miss me, Hirga? You have taken a lover.»

Her mouth was puffy and her lip salve smeared. She still breathed hard. She could hardly open her eves as she answered. «Why do you say that, Blade? How can you know such a thing?»

«By the look of you, woman. I am neither a child nor a fool. You have just been filled, stuffed, and not long ago. It must have been greatly to your liking, by the look of you.»

Hirga gave him an enigmatic smile and wiggled a finger. «I do not admit it. Or deny it. It is a pity that you cannot do so for me.»

Blade glared, knowing he was a fool, but there is a time when the child in every man will surface.

«Would you care to tell me who it is? I promise I will take no revenge, for I do not care that much, but if it is one of my Captains I should know. For it bespeaks lack of loyalty to me- I will retire him and you shall have him as a companion.»

The truth being, he told himself, that he longed to see this man who was a better cocksman than himself.

Hirga opened her eyes wider and laughed at him. «Do not concern yourself, Blade. It is none of your Captains, none in this palace or in the city, and none of your affair.»

Blade began to anger. She sought to make a fool of him. «How can that be?» he snapped. «I came by the single corridor that leads to these chambers and I met no one. The place swarms with guards. You die swooning, a woman who has just left off making love, and yet you tell me the man is not near! Mind yourself, Hirga. I know that we play games, you and I and Casta, for mutual benefit, but do not push me too far. I care not a damn whom you bed with, you slut, but I will have you preserve the amenities and be secret about it. I have a task to accomplish in Zir and if I am laughed at it will be the harder done.»

«I am secret about it,» said Hirga. Her smile mocked him. «I am very secret about it, Blade. You may believe me in this-nobody sees my lover come and go.» And suddenly she buried her face in the pillow and went off into wild laughter.

Blade was puzzled, baffled, and it made him the angrier. It was then he noticed the odor, the foul smell he had noted in the cubicle in the cavern. It was fainter now, barely evident, but it was there. He frowned and wrinkled his nose.

Remembering, he stalked about the bed and the room and searched the floor. He found three of the silvery scales and picked them up and sniffed. The smell. He flung them away from him and looked at Hirga, She had turned and was watching him through fingers spread over her face. Still laughing at him.

Blade was beaten and knew it. There was a mystery here he could not guess at, and she would never tell. He flung the insult as he left.

«I was wrong, mayhap. You have no lover-other than your fingers. I think you do it yourself and call it lover. It is why I can never content you, for no man could. It is said that such women can never find satisfaction of a man, but must always turn to self-love. I wish you joy of it, Hirga.»

She screamed something at him as he stalked out, but he made no sense of it. Something about a little man with nothing between his legs who pretended godship. Blade slammed the door and made a vow-as soon as this thing between Casta and himself was resolved he would see that something was done about Hirga. For now it must bide as it was.

As he made his way back to his own quarters he realized how far he had adapted to Zir, to this present Dimension X. Blade of Home Dimension had faded. He retained the crystal in his brain and full memory of HD, and he still had his sense of mission, but he was now a Zirnian.

The crystal still was not working.

The next morning Blade, with Ogier and Thane, and a large bodyguard, rode to the coast. It was his first glimpse of the narrow water.

It was near a day's ride, and as they went Ogier and Thane answered Blade's questions. Thane wore new armor, which he had forged himself, and a helmet with bronze horns on it. «It will confuse the Hitts,» he joked. «For they wear the same themselves. If we ever get across the water and if we can bring Loth Bloodax and Galligantus to battle, I may get close enough to his head to take it. I am a Hitt, after all, and they might mistake me for friend.»

Ogier laughed. «I think you have been at the wine again.»

«No.» Thane reached beneath his chest armor to scratch. «But it is an idea. Tonight-«

«Tonight you will stay sober,» Blade said. «No man drinks until we have accomplished our task. After that, Thane, you can roll in the gutter, for all of me.»

They came to the narrow water as first dusk was falling. Fires blazed on high cliffs across the channel, as Blade immediately thought of it. He judged it half a mile wide at this point, where the first pontoon was being built, and it was inevitable that he be reminded of the English Channel. The air was light this night and the water calm and on the Zirnian side the beaches were wide and long and gently sloping.