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remained too obscure to be articulated, I added: “And Oby has settled a lien on the eyeballs with his long-knife.”
    There was a laugh at this. Delia rose. We went out together and Turko followed. Like my return home, this first investigation of the idol had been an anticlimax.

Four
    Eggs of evil
    There was so much for me still to learn about what had chanced on Kregen during my absence that every spare moment was occupied in Delia’s dredging her memory to retail the choicest bits of information. We had recourse to the records of Valka, of course, kept by the stylors in Esser Rarioch. How all this fresh torrent of facts and conjectures would influence my life had to be weighed and judged. I think it best if I simply fill in what it is needful to know about any given situation as it arises in this narrative.
    For instance, I was fascinated by the scraps of knowledge gleaned from distant Hyrklana, where Queen Fahia, poor soul, was having trouble finding fresh fodder for the Jikhorkdun. Likewise, I was mightily impressed by the progress made in raising and equipping three full regiments of Pachaks mounted on flutduins from the Pachaks of Zamra. But these and many and many another affair of state had nothing, as I saw it, to do with my present concern with the Chyyanists. I mention these two to give examples. Also, I handled some pressing affairs of business that my son Drak would have taken care of had he not been in Zamra dealing with the construction of a new seawall, jetty and pharos for the new town of Veliasmot put in hand to provide another secure harbor for the great galleons on which rested our trade.
    So, as I ate vosk pie and momolams, I listened to Jiktar Larghos Glendile recently returned from Vondium, the capital of the Empire of Vallia, telling me of the latest decrees of the Presidio. The Presidio ran the country although the emperor as well as holding titular power controlled enough real power to maintain the balances so necessary for government. It was all a matter of balancing one power group against another, of taking advice and of making laws that would maintain.
    “But the racters, my Prince! They have shrunk in numbers but have increased their powers through carefully placed men in the right positions.”
    The racters, the most powerful party in Vallia, who wore the black and white, held their wealth and positions through high commerce, through land, through slaving, through mining. There were other parties, notably the panvals, who stood against the racters. But all, as I well knew, had their own candidates to take the emperor’s place.
    “They maneuver the emperor so that he will stand alone. Then they can reduce him.”
    “Do you know who it is whispered will take his place?”
    “No, my Prince. That information is held close.”
    This Jiktar Larghos Glendile presented an imposing picture as he reported. He was a Pachak. Now Pachaks, being blessed by nature or by gene manipulation with two left arms, are among the most renowned of Kregen’s fighting men. Also, they have a hand on their long whiplike tail. Loyal were Pachaks, and first-class mercenaries. I had built up centers of Pachak habitation in both Valka and Zamra that were based on a full life. That is, the towns occupied by the Pachaks were proper towns, with all the facilities of towns. They were not mere military barracks for mercenaries.
    Larghos Glendile was a Jiktar, a rank I suppose most nearly equated with that of colonel. His uniform of the brave old scarlet glowed. He wore two bobs, the medals given by my Elders of Valka. His tough face, with the harsh yet human features of a man who has had wide experience, betrayed his desire to do well not just as a hired fighting man, which he no longer was, but as a full-fledged citizen of Zamra. Zamra, the larger island to the north of Valka, of which I am kov, was to prove of surprising worth in the seasons to come.
    The necessity of thus building up a powerful fighting force was one I