Read Online The courts of chaos by Roger Zelazny - Free Book Online Page B

that there was some sort of hall off to my right, from the foot of the stair. They were small steps and there were a lot of them. I did not bother with stealth, but hurried down to the landing.
    When I turned and looked into the hall, I beheld a scene out of some drunken Irishman’s dream. In a smoky, torchlit hall, hordes of meter high people, red-faced and green clad, were dancing to the music or quaffing what appeared to be mugs of ale while stamping their feet, slapping tabletops and each other, grinning, laughing and shouting. Huge kegs lined one wall, and a number of the revelers were queued up before the one which had been tapped. An enormous fire blazed in a pit at the far end of the room, its smoke being sucked back through a crevice in the rock wall, above a pair of cavemouths running anywhere. Star was tethered to a ring in the wall beside that pit, and a husky little man in a leather apron was grinding and honing some suspicious-looking instruments.
    Several faces turned in my direction, there were shouts and suddenly the music stopped. The silence was almost complete.
    I raised my blade to an overhand, epee en garde position, pointed across the room toward Star. All faces were turned in my direction by then.
    “I have come for my horse,” I said. “Either you bring him to me or I come and get him. There will be a lot more blood the second way.”
    From off to my right, one of the men, larger and grayer than most of the others, cleared his throat.
    “Begging your pardon,” he began, “but how did you get in here?”
    “You will be needing a new door,” I said. “Go and look if you care to, if it makes any difference-and it may. I will wait.”
    I stepped aside and put the wall to my back.
    He nodded.
    “I will do that.”
    And he darted by.
    I could feel my anger-born strength flowing into and back out of the Jewel. One part of me wanted to cut and slash and stab my way across the room, another wanted a more humane settlement with people so much smaller than myself; and a third and perhaps wiser part suggested that the little guys might not be such pushovers. So I waited to see how my door-opening feat impressed their spokesman.
    Moments later, he returned, giving me wide berth.
    “Bring the man his horse,” he said.
    A sudden flurry of conversation occurred within the hall. I lowered my blade.
    “My apologies,” said the one who had given the order. “We desire no trouble with the like of you. We will be foraging elsewhere. No hard feelings, I hope?”
    The man in the leather apron had untethered Star and started in my direction. The revelers drew back to make way as he led my mount through the hall.
    I sighed.
    “I will just call it a day and forgive and forget,” I said.
    The little man seized a flagon from a nearby table and passed it to me. Seeing my expression, he sipped from it himself.
    “Join us in a drink, then?”
    “Why not?” I said, and I took it and quaffed it as he did the same with the second one.
    He gave a gentle belch and grinned.
    “ ‘Tis a mighty small draught for a man of your size,” he said then. “Let me fetch you another, for the trail.”
    It was a pleasant ale, and I was thirsty after my efforts.
    “All right,” I said.
    He called for more as Star was delivered to me.
    “You can wrap the reins around this hook here,” he said, indicating a low projection near the doorway, “and he will be safe out of the way.”
    I nodded and did that as the butcher withdrew. No one was staring at me any longer. A pitcher of the brew arrived and the little man refilled our flagons from it. One of the fiddlers struck up a fresh tune. Moments later, another joined him.
    “Sit a spell,” said my host, pushing a bench in my direction with his foot. “Keep your back to the wall as you would. There will be no funny business.”
    I did, and he rounded the table and seated himself across from me, the pitcher between us. It was good to sit for a few moments, to take my mind from