The Quest of Kadji Read Online Free Page B

the endless plains of whispering grasses stretched north and ever north to the gates of golden Khôr and the fulfillment of his mighty Quest. He turned his pony onto the caravan road to Khôr and rode with a blithe heart and a merry song on his lips under the lowering sky.
    The air was crisp and clear and cold, and the wind which sprang up with late afternoon had a sharp biting edge like a steel knife, but he pulled his fringed cloak more closely about him and rode on. It was a small joy to the youth to know that every hour brought him nearer to his goal; that with every league he rode he drew closer to the Dragon Throne, and to the dreamed-of confrontation with the shrinking and cowardly black-heart that sat in the sacred chair and wore the false name of Holy Yakthodah, and to the epic moment of glory when through his hands the Axe of Thom-Ra would strike down the Usurper on the high seat of his power, amidst the fat greedy kugars and the venal and cunning Rashemba knights.
    What would happen after that proud and splendid moment, the boy Kadji could not envision. His dream stopped with the fall of Shamad the False . . . what would happen thereafter, Kadji could not guess. Doubtless he would die himself in the very next moment, cut down by the enraged knights of Prince Bayazin of Rashemba . . .
    Perhaps. Very likely.
    At any rate, he somehow did not see himself riding this same road south again, through the Barren Hills and the streets of Nabdoor, fording the level waters of the Babdar, and thence south across the Great Plains to the black mountains within whose hidden and secret heart his lordly grandfather Zarouk awaited his coming.
    THE RED HAWK rode north as sunset filled the west with flame and rode on under bright stars as the first of the Seven Moons arose to fill the skies with silvern light.
    He slept that night beside a flickering fire in the grasses and rose with first dawn to ride on. North and ever north.
    And as he rode, Kadji the Red Hawk of the Chayyim Kozanga did not guess or dream that his feet were set upon the first leagues of a journey that would take him across the measureless face of the world to its legended and unknown very Edge, and to a strange and marvelous destiny before the gates of shining Ithombar the City of the Immortals.
    Nor that his name would live in song ten thousand years.

Part Two
    IN GOLDEN KHÔR
    O life is short—and death is long—
    ‘Tis joy to live, and joy to slay!
    Out swords and life the battle-song:
    A man can die but once, they say!
    — Road Song of the Kozanga Nomads

i. The Coming of Kadji
    IT WAS with dawn the Red Hawk rode proudly into high and golden Khôr.
    Heaven was a canopy of golden silk shot through and through with flamy tints, and the lofty towers and tall spires of the imperial city caught and held the first shafts of brilliant day and blazed with a glory of flame.
    Nor was it by mere accident or chance that Kadji chose the hour of dawn for his entry into the Dragon Emperor’s city. He knew that guards who have watched the gates all night, marching their weary rounds upon the crest of the mighty wall, would at dawn be thinking more of breakfast and a soft warm couch than of catching an outlaw or piercing a disguise.
    And also, at this hour, the gate road was flooded with early travelers: heralds in the imperial scarlet and silver, bearing scrolls sealed in hollow segments of the horns of unicorns; farmers with groaning wains, eager to be first at market; all manner of priests in black robes, sorcerers in purple, soothsayers in prophetic green, bound for the shrines, temples, holstelries and librariums of the great city.
    In such a thick and motley throng, a lone warrior can easily lose himself; thus Kadji used a fat puffing old pedlar in soiled and tattered blue, mounted upon a fat waddling grey mare, to block himself from the view of the guardians of the gate, sleepy-eyed and brusk though they were.
    He suffered the torments of the illicit, for a moment or