A Fortune for Kregen

by Alan Burt Akers

  the alphabet reversed, or twinned—”

  “Or tripled, or squared, perhaps?” The voice of Ungovich, cold and mocking from his hood, congealed in the dusty air.

  Old Deb-Lu-Quienyin stood with the others and said nothing.

  “Well, we must get on!” Loriman the Hunter spoke pettishly. “If there is gold here, then it keeps itself to itself. Have a slave pull the chain, anyway—”

  “Yes,” said Ungovich. “Why not do that?”

  The backward movement among the slaves resembled the rustling withdrawal of a wave as it slips back down a shingly beach.

  Kov Loriman beckoned. “You — yetch — here.”

  The slave to whom he pointed was one of his own, as, of course, he would have to be. The fellow shrank back. He was a Gon, and his hair was beginning to bristle out in short white spears. Loriman shouted, and one of his guards, a Rapa, stalked across and hauled the Gon out. The fellow was shaking with terror.

  “Haul, slave!” said Loriman in that icy, unimpassioned voice of the man who has ordered slaves about unthinkingly since he could toddle.

  Seeing there was nothing for it, the Gon took the chain in both fists. The chain was of bronze and the links were as thick as thumbs, as wide as saucers.

  “Haul with a will,” said Loriman, and stepped back a pace.

  The Gon stretched up. His wire brush bristle of white hair glinted. He hauled.

  Instantly, with an eerie shriek, the chain transformed itself into a long bronze shape of horror. Like a python it wrapped folds about the Gon, squeezed.

  His eyes popped. He shrieked. And, over the shrieks, the sounds of his rib cage breaking in and crushing all within in a squelching red jelly drove everyone back in the grip of supernatural horror.

  “By Sasco!” Loriman fought his panic, overcame it, gave vent to his anger.

  The others reacted in their various ways. Watching, I saw this Kyr Ungovich standing, unmoved.

  The lady put a laced cloth to her mouth.

  Prince Nedfar said, “No more. We read the riddle.”

  The bronze chain dangling from the shadows became once more a bronze chain. Slaves dragged the crushed corpse into a corner. Another mark was chalked up against this great Kov Loriman the Hunter.

  They tried series of patterns, pushing various symbols and trying the chain. They lost more slaves. Not all were crushed by the serpent chain. Some vanished through a trapdoor that opened with a gush of vile smoke. Others charred and then burned as the chain glowed with inner fires.

  Every slave prayed that his master would not attempt to read the riddle, and having done so, pick on him to prove him right — or wrong.

  A young man, just about to enter the prime of life, standing with Prince Nedfar and Princess Thefi, chewed his lower lip. I had taken scant notice of him, foolishly, as I learned. He wore simple armor, and carried as well as a rapier and main gauche, a thraxter slung around him. Also, and this I did remark, swinging from his belt hung a single-bladed, spike-headed, short-hafted axe. When he moved toward the cross of the four tables, and spoke up, I took notice of him.

  His features were regular and pleasing, with dark hair and frank bold eyes which he kept veiled, as I saw, and he moved as it were diffidently, as though always hiding his light.

  “Father,” he said, “let me try.”

  Prince Nedfar gestured to the four tables.

  “The riddle is yours, my son.”

  Princess Thefi looked at him with some concern, as though she understood more of her brother than anyone else. I did not think they were twins. He smiled reassuringly at her, and moved with his hesitant step to the tables, and looked down.

  He spoke up as though he had pondered what he would say during the preceding tragedies.

  “There are lines of red, green and black. No one has marked them before. The symbols have taken all attention.” He looked up and gestured to the walls. “See the long black drapes, separated? Then, I think, this is the answer.” And he stabbed his hand down a long row of the black squares.

  “Perhaps—” said the sorcerer, almost sneering.

  The others waited. Prince Nedfar motioned to a slave and this wight moved reluctantly forward. He shook uncontrollably.

  “Wait!” The Young prince stepped toward the chain. Before anyone could stop him he seized the links in his two fists, reached up and hauled down with a will.

  “No!” Princess Thefi shrieked. “Ty! No!”

  She leaped forward, her arms outstretched.

  The chain rattled down from the shadows, a mere bronze chain, clinking and clanking into a puddle of bronze links on the stone floor.

  And the monstrous idol moved. Groaning, spitting dust from its edges, it revolved. Beyond lay a round opening, black as the cloak of Notor Zan.

  “By Havil, boy!” said Nedfar. His face expressed anger and anguish. He shook his head as though to clear away phantoms. Lobur the Dagger leaped forward. He clapped the young prince — this Ty — on the shoulder in a familiar gesture of friendship.

  “Bravo, Ty! Well done! It is a Jikai — prince, my prince, a veritable Jikai!”

  The shouts broke out then, of acclamation and, from us slaves, of heartfelt relief. Very soon we picked up our bundles and burdens and followed the great ones into the tunnel with flaring torches to light our going.

  When the tunnel opened out into a proper stone corridor once more and we faced five doors, each of a different size, and so halted to tackle the next problem, I made it my business to edge alongside one of the slaves I knew to be the property of the Hamalese.

  This slave was a Khibil, and his proud foxy face was woefully fallen away from its normal expression of hauteur, such as I was used to seeing on Pompino’s face. I struck up the aimless kind of conversation that seemed fitting to these surroundings, and at my more pointed questions the Khibil grew a little more animated.

  “The young prince? Prince Tyfar? Aye, he is a fair one, hard but fair. He don’t have us striped unless the crime was very bad. And he stops unjust punishments, for fun, like — you know.”

  I nodded. Indeed, I did know. But this Hamalese Prince Tyfar was not all sweetness and light. Oh, no!

  He was, I was told, regarded as a bit of a ninny and, because of that, the slaves whispered, was the black sheep of the prince’s family. He liked to take himself off and disappear — and not adventuring, either, as a prince should. He was often dragged out of libraries, as a youngster, kicking and screaming, and forced to go to the practice arenas for play at sterner games.

  I mentioned the axe.

  “Aye,” said the Khibil, as the leaders wrangled over which one of the five doors to chance first. They had lost a number of slaves and were growing cautious with their supplies of human trap fodder. “I heard it said — from a big Fristle fifi who was employed by the nursemaids — that in spite of them, Prince Tyfar had himself taught the axe from axe-masters. He is very good, so they say.”

  I thought, idly, it might be interesting to see how he acquitted himself against an axeman — and I thought of Inch of Ng’groga — by Zair! If Inch and Seg and Balass and Oby and Korero and some other of my choice comrades were here now! We’d make a fine old rumpus of this pestiferous maze of corridors, though, wouldn’t we? And then I realized I had been saying that a lot just lately, if only my friends were here. They were not. I was on my own. And I was slave.

  The Khibil told me Prince Tyfar had arrived in Jikaida City in his little single-place voller only a day or so before Prince Nedfar, his father, left on the expedition. “And,” went on the Khibil. “Some rasts stole our voller. Yes! Thieved our voller from the roof, right under our noses.”

  By Krun! But that was good news!

  I could guess that Pompino, at least, had hung about waiting for me to show up. Drogo would have fretted to be gone. So, in the end, they had left — and I in the slave chundrog awaiting Execution Jikaida.

  Thought of my comrades, many of whom I had not seen for far too long, made me rea
lize that I had numbered Korero the Shield, with an irrational but instinctive grasp upon reality, instead of Turko the Shield. Ah — where was my old Khamster comrade now?

  The sobering reflection struck me shrewdly that Turko did not know of the creation of the Emperor’s Sword Watch. By Krun! But I could guess what his ironic comment would be!

  A movement from up front heralded our onward progress and that one of the five doors had been selected. On we went and, taking the middle door, pressed forward along a wide stone-flagged corridor.

  One side consisted of firecrystal, that Kregan substance, almost stone, that being fireproof and transparent admits of the light from fires beyond to illuminate the darkest corners of a subterranean world. The light was bright.

  The opposite wall was punctuated at regular intervals by the rectangular outlines of doors. Each door we passed was thrown open and cursory glances inside revealed bronze-bound chests broken open, bales ripped apart, costly silks and fabrics scattered about, overturned and shattered amphorae.

  Also, among this debris of frantic searches lay the bodies of men. Most were hideously ripped apart, just like the bales. Not all were slaves — I saw a Rapa sprawled with his iron armor crushed in and at his throat the golden glitter of the pakzhan.

  “Monsters!” whispered the Khibil. He did not look happy.

  But, then, who would in this diabolical maze within the Moder, without armor and arms, chained in slavery?

  And then an even more sobering thought trotted up to chill the blood. In here, in the Moder with its denizens of monsters — would even arms and armor be of any use?

  Hunch was casting nervous glances about, and shivering. But Nodgen the Brokelsh had no doubts.

  “By Belzid’s Belly! I wish I had my spear!”

  We slaves were all jostling along the corridor, and a sullen-looking Brokelsh humped with a monstrous pile of bundles on his shoulders cursed at Nodgen.

  “By Belzid is it, Brokkerim? Well, by Bakkar, you do not know how well off you are! Your Kataki has not lost any of his slaves! This great rast Loriman has lost four of us already.”

  “Peace, dom,” said Nodgen. “We all fly the same fluttrell here.”

  The Brokelsh swore a resounding curse and struggled on. I was aware that just because men belong to the same race does not mean they are immediately and instinctively comrades in adversity. This is a sad thought.

  “Anyway,” said Hunch, with a shake of his shoulders. “He is right.”

  “So far,” said Nodgen, and poor Hunch shook again.

  And, in that moment, it seemed Hunch’s worse fears were to be realized. For Tarkshur the Lash lumbered his ferocious way through the press of slaves, yelling for his idle, layabout bunch of lumops. A lumop, as you know, is an insulting way of calling a fellow a useless oaf. Now we were to prove ourselves for our Kataki master.

  The room Tarkshur had elected to enter frowned upon us as we crowded up. His paktuns stood ready with drawn swords. We looked inside.

  The other slaves passed along the fire-lit corridor, and the sudden spurts of action ahead were signaled by screams and the clash of weapons.

  “You!” said Tarkshur, pointing at a Fristle whose cat-whiskers quivered up in anticipatory fear. “Inside!”

  There was no hope in all of Kregen for that Fristle. He had to enter the room. He did so. He went in slowly, his eyes swiveling about, his body hunched over, cringing at the expected horror about to befall him.

  He reached the center of the room and stood, unharmed.

  Tarkshur was no fool. His baleful eyes surveyed us and saw me. “You — inside!” So, in I went, to stand beside the Fristle. Presently, one by one, we all stood within the chamber.

  The walls were draped in red silk. A dais stood at the far end and on the dais lifted a golden chalice. At each side two golden candlesticks lifted their four candles, the flames burning tall and straight, unwaveringly. The air smelled of musk.

  “The chalice is of gold,” said Galid the Krevarr. “But it will be heavy to carry.”

  We all knew the Jiktar of Tarkshur’s bodyguard was not thinking of the pains of the slaves, but of the speed of the party. But — gold is gold, to the eternal damnation of many a choice spirit.

  “The chalice and the candlesticks.” Tarkshur made no bones about it. “Gold is what we have come for, and gold is what I mean to heave. Take it !”

  Two slaves, prodded by swords, reluctantly approached the chalice. It possessed a lid carved in the semblance of a trophy of arms, crowned by a helmet of the Podian pattern, plumed and visored, and around the chalice itself glittered scenes of war. The two slaves took each a handle and lifted. The chalice did not move.

  “Don’t lift it!” screamed Hunch — and the decorated lid rose, lifted of its own accord, and a wisp of blue smoke emerged.

  We all staggered back. In a bunch we turned for the door ignoring the massive bellows of command from Tarkshur. The door through which we had walked was gone — all four walls were uniformly clothed in scarlet silk.

  “Out, out!” shrieked the slaves.

  The blue mist wavered and grew. Sickly, we stared upon the gruesome sight as the smoke thickened into the semblance of a human skeleton. The skeleton was apim and in its bony fists it gripped a sword and shield, all fashioned from the blue smoke. Those blue-smoke bony jaws opened. The thing spoke.

  The words were harsh and croaked out like rusty nails drawn from sodden wood. We stood, petrified, and listened. The Kregish words were full of inner meanings; but a doggerel translation will give the flavor of what the ghastly apparition spoke.

  One of One and you are done.

  One of Two will make you rue.

  One of Three your lack you see.

  One of Four will give you more.

  Tarkshur laughed, suddenly, that grisly laugh of the Kataki that heralds no joy. “Give me more!” he shouted.

  Nothing happened.

  “But, notor, how?” said Galid.

  The Katakis looked about, swishing their tails on which the strapped steel glittered. Tarkshur pushed his helmet up. Then, wise in the way of the men a slave master handles, he swung his ugly face on us. “Well, slaves?”

  The answer was quite obvious; but I was in no mood to point the way for this rast Tarkshur to get more.

  So I said nothing. In the end a grim-faced Fristle, who had beforetimes received surreptitious favors from Galid, put his bundle down and advanced to the dais. He half-turned to face Tarkshur.

  “Master — I think — the candlesticks—”

  “Of course.” Tarkshur swaggered forward. “It is clear.”

  Hunch took a great risk. He spoke out without being given permission to speak.

  “Master — may I speak? More, yes. But — more of what?”

  “What?”

  Tarkshur was not puzzled. He even, in his good humor, did not lay his lash across Hunch’s back. “More gold, you onker.”

  I said, “I think not. More tricks, or more monsters.”

  Tarkshur’s tail lifted and quivered. He stared at me. Oh, I do not think he bothered to look at my face, even then. Katakis are man-managers and they treat men like objects. “Come you here.”

  Slowly, I walked across the room and stood before him.

  “You will be flogged. Jikaider. You are slave.”

  “Yes, master.”

  I could feel the chains dragging on my legs, the weight of the bundle on my shoulders. The air smelled of musk. The slaves at my back were breathing with open mouths, their sounds made a dolorous mewling in the silk-robed room.

  Tarkshur gestured to Hunch, Nodgen and the Fristle. They moved up and we four slaves positioned ourselves before the candlesticks.

  “Now, slaves, pull the candlesticks. Pull all four together.”

  Galid the Krevarr and two of the Katakis moved up to supervise our work. Tarkshur stood by me.

  “Pull!”

  Nodgen, Hunch and the Fristle pulled.

  I did not pull.
>
  The screech of metal on metal as the candlesticks raked forward was followed immediately by the bellow of rage from Tarkshur and drowned instantly in the clash of stone and in the shrieks of terror as the floor fell away. We eight plunged into stygian darkness.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Illusion of a Krozair Longsword

  We struck an unseen floor in a tumbled mass. Those damned steel tail-blades of the Katakis could do someone a nasty mischief now and I rolled up into a ball and shielded myself as much as possible with the bundles and the rope.

  “Help! Help! Help!” Hunch was crying.

  “By the Trip-Tails—” was followed by the scrunching wetness of a hard object squashing into a mouth.

  “Belzid—”

  We squirmed there in the darkness and sorted ourselves out. Tarkshur was raving. Galid was bellowing to his two men.

  The musky smell increased as a tiny warm wind blew about us.

  “Where is the slave? Where is he? I’ll have his tripes out! I’ll fry his eyeballs!” Tarkshur was frothing.

  Dragging myself off and feeling ahead at every step, I eased away from the noise. The chains clanked and I cursed.

  Then a long narrow slit of light abruptly sprang into existence high in the darkness. It stretched out of sight in one direction, and ended in blackness by my head. The perspective indicated that slot of light stretched a long way down a corridor. The slit widened. The light grew. Presently we saw that bronze shutters were lowering from a wall of fire-crystal. All too soon I was revealed in the light.

  The Katakis sprang up and swished their tail-blades, looking at Tarkshur. But only two rose, Galid and another. The remaining Kataki lay where he had fallen and his tail-blade thrust hard through his own throat.

  At his side, twisted in death, lay the Fristle. His cat-like head twisted down at an unnatural angle.

  Hunch was yelling and trying to run, and falling, and squirming about.

  “Silence!” bellowed Tarkshur. He looked at me. He began to walk. He began to strut. He was going to slay me, of a certainty. You can often tell by the way a Kataki holds his tail — just so.