A Fortune for Kregen

by Alan Burt Akers

  “Has anyone an atra with the symbol for air?” demanded the Wizard of Loh. “Hurry!”

  Everyone — except me — began searching desperately through the amulets they wore around their necks or hidden upon their persons. Most folk of Kregen — not all — carry an atra or two to ward off various kinds of evil. A Fristle let out a yell. With remarkable speed, Quienyin had the atra in his hand, with a quick jerk breaking the leather thong around the Fristle’s neck. The cat-man jumped. Quienyin started to force the atra up inside the tiniest of wrinkles in the lower edge of the Suffocating Hood as we gripped the shivering, dying Brokelsh. The atra was a simple, clumsily cast chunk of silver in the shape of a nine-sided figure, with the symbols for Fur, Lightning, Air and Milk, engraved on its dull surface.

  After what seemed a long time, the Brokelsh breathed again, his blueness seeped away — but the horrific Suffocating Hood remained clamped around his head.

  “How do we remove that ghastly thing?” whispered Ariane.

  “Why waste time?” demanded Loriman. “He is only a Brokelsh.” He strode across, lifting his sword.

  “Let me—”

  “Loriman! Kov!” said Ariane, shocked. “No—”

  But the Hunting Kov got the tip of his sword up the same fold where the atra had been forced. Perhaps it was the passage of air, perhaps it was the right thing to do, perhaps it was just luck. He started to twist his sword and cut into the thin material of the Suffocating Hood. He cut, also, the face of the Brokelsh. I did not think that man would mind.

  The Hood, suddenly, like an umbrella opened violently against a rainstorm, swelled out, and skimmed away aloft, trailing its tendril. Loriman gave a vicious slash at the dangling line; but missed. I wondered if a sword would cut the line at all.

  “Let us push on,” growled Loriman.

  Fortified wine was pressed on the Brokelsh. He looked shattered. But he was lucky still to be alive. Of course, maybe quiet suffocation would be preferable to what awaited him in the lower zones of this Moder...

  Our order of march was reorganized and we plunged with uplifted torches into that black hell hole beyond the throne.

  The moment the last mercenary pushed through the whole throne construction revolved. We saw the purple drapes, the throne, the frieze of skulls and bones, the four leems, all turning back to face once more into the chamber. I wondered if a new crown would appear on the dead queen’s head.

  At my side, his face crimson in the torchlights, Quienyin whispered, “Those leems — had we rung the bell...”

  “Probably,” I said. And we all hurried on into the darkness.

  The way led down. Nitre glittered on the walls, and our lights reflected back from obscene carvings which appeared to writhe and cavort. I observed the way Tyfar, highly embarrassed, kept trying to engage the lady Ariane in animated conversation and her quick bird-like looks of fascination past his glowing face at those highly personal carvings. Well, one day, the youngster would learn about women...

  We marched on down the long slope and it was at length clear that we must have penetrated down into the next zone within the Moder.

  The hall we entered was a single blazing mass of ruby walls.

  The walls were studded with rubies.

  Some of those hard-bitten paktuns started in at once with their daggers. No lightnings flashed, no thunders rolled, no monsters leaped upon us as the first stone broke free.

  The mercenary, he was one of Loriman’s powerful Chuliks, reached out with a cupped palm as the ruby popped out from the wall. The deep crimson gem fell onto his palm, fell through his palm, burned a seared black hole through flesh and bone and sinew. The Chulik let out a shout — and, knowing Chuliks, I was not at all surprised that the yell was almost all of anger and outrage and only a trifle of pain.

  “The Glowing Stones!” Quienyin pulled an apim back as the next stone bounced free. It struck the floor and exploded in a shower of sparks, red and brilliant even in the massy ruby light of that devilish room.

  Very cautiously we looked for the opening, and found a trapdoor in the floor which, when opened by prizing blades, revealed a hollow white radiance beneath. Tyfar said, “By Krun! White is better than red!” And he dropped down, his sword pointed before him.

  Yes, well, he was a brave young man. Foolhardy, perhaps.

  When we all stood on the floor at the foot of the flight of stairs down — and not before — the floor tilted. Helplessly, we were all tumbled away down a long slippery slope, the reek of thick oil in our nostrils. Down and down we shot, slipping and sliding. Above our heads the white light dwindled and was gone.

  The slope down which we skidded gradually eased out and became horizontal, like a chute, and deposited us, jumbled up and swearing, in a confused mass on a normal stone floor. Fire-crystal walls shed a yellow light. We picked ourselves up. Not a drop of oil stained our garments or armor. We looked about.

  In the opposite wall stood just two doors, one rounded and one pointed, both shut, and between them leaned an iron-bound skeleton of an anthromorph, grinning and grotesque.

  Otherwise, the chamber was bare.

  “Which?” said someone, and he spoke for us all.

  “I,” observed Kov Loriman, “prefer to choose the right.”

  That was the pointed arched doorway.

  For the rest of us that confirmed our decision to choose the round-headed doorway.

  Of such petty stuff are great decisions made.

  I did not speak aloud; but I said to myself, “Of Roman or Gothic, either will do for me...”

  The corridor beyond looked perfectly normal. Not one of us believed it was.

  But — we were wrong. A simple plain straightforward stone corridor, well-lit, led on for some way within the Moder, gently inclining down. The walls were unremarkable. At length, and with something of a relief, we came to a small chamber into which we could not all press, so perforce a bunch of warriors remained outside.

  In the room, within a glass case set upon a silver and balass table, we found an object upon which we gazed with great speculation. It was a key. It was fashioned from silver. It was an ordinary key.

  “Not, I think,” said Ariane, “one of the parts of the Key—”

  “That, lady, is obvious!” snorted Kov Loriman.

  “In that case, kov,” pointed out Tyfar, “there should be no difficulty for you to smash the glass and take the key. Surely?”

  But Loriman was a Hunter and was not to be snared like that.

  “Before I tell one of my paktuns to take the key, we will look more thoroughly.”

  That made sense, and so we searched the chamber.

  We found nothing else and Loriman told one of his men to break the glass. The Chulik polished up his tusks with a wetted thumb and started forward, and Tyfar said, “Kov! I mean you no disrespect. We are all in this together and must accept the needle. Let my slinger smash the glass while we wait outside...”

  The Chulik paktun — he was a hyr-paktun — turned about at once and marched toward the door. The rest of us followed suit. Only Loriman was left in the room. He gave a disgusted snort and followed us out. Tyfar’s Brokelsh slinger went through his ritual of shrugging his shoulders, winking his eyes and licking his lips. He slung.

  Barkindrar, his name was, a fine slinger. From Hyrzibar’s Finger. Down in the southeast of Havilfar.

  The glass vanished in a welter of smashings. It tinkled to the stone floor.

  A long rope-like object snapped up from the base of the shattered case and lashed, looping, around the empty space where any man must stand who had smashed the case with a sword. The diamond-backed rope, like a serpent, hissed as it coiled and lashed and, finding nothing there, collapsed limply. It hung down like a disused bell rope.

  “By Krun!”

  The Chulik who had been given the duty shouldered forward and hooked the key out with his dagger.

  The golden pakzhan glittered at his throat. The key lifted and he held it on the tip of th
e dagger, the point through one of the loops in the handle. He held it out to Kov Loriman, his employer.

  We all tensed.

  Loriman, with a coarse laugh, took from a pouch a wooden box, of a sort men use to carry cham which they chew all day, and the Chulik obediently dropped the key into the box. Loriman snapped the lid shut.

  We relaxed. If Loriman had vanished in a puff of smoke we would have been sorry. He was a powerful force to have with us, and I, for one, would have wished his end to be of a more obviously useful kind.

  So we went traipsing on up the corridor and left that room far in the rear. The corridor curved gently to the right, and this, I felt, must please the Hunting Kov.

  Ariane and Tyfar were deep in conversation.

  Quienyin and I walked side by side.

  “We must make a proper camp and rest soon, Jak. I am weary and, I fear, My Limbs are Not what They Were.”

  “I agree. The lady Ariane bears up wonderfully well.”

  I told the Wizard of Loh something of what had befallen me in the Moder, and then said, “And the openings offered what men lacked. If we could find a way back there, surely, you would find what you lack — is this not so?”

  He shook his head. “All is Not What it Seems. I think you will find the equipment you have will vanish when you leave this place.”

  “I had the thought myself. But it is real now, and serves.”

  “Some of the treasures these avaricious men have collected are real, others are mere fool’s gold. And the magical items which the more cunning among us seek share the Same Propensities.”

  “We are, I suggest, in the Gramarye zone?”

  “We may have descended through two zones and be in the Necromantic zone. I learned what San Orien had to tell me; but each Moder is different. Some are abandoned. We know why we are in this one...”

  He told me that San Orien, the resident Wizard of Loh in Jikaida City, had advised him as far as he could. The secrets of the Moders were kept as far as possible from the poorer folk, and this explained no doubt the mystery of Nathjairn the Rovard and his slit throat. Other cities to the south also sent expeditions. “On the six upper zones of the Moder are seven hundred and twenty-nine different types of monster.” He glanced up at me. “Which, as you will readily perceive, young man, is Nine Times Nine Times Nine.”

  “Oh, readily.”

  “The yellow poison you stoppered in your vial must be some form of protection to your skin — the Fliktitors did not scratch or bite you at all — or did you put that down to your superb swordsmanship?”

  Deb-Lu-Quienyin had seen me fight Mefto the Kazzur.

  I felt suitably chastened.

  “And you suggest that the sparkling stones from the Leprous Sheet can be used as Tarkshur used the stone in his ring?”

  “One was able to purchase little magics against some of the monsters, but their value is dubious. Yagno did a trade, as did that mysterious Ungovich. Your stones I think would be effective against another Leprous Sheet. Against any of the more Fearsome Monsters Down Here...” He shook his head.

  Cure-all magics were a fool’s dream, anyone but a fool knew. But men might draw a little comfort from exchanging gold for magic charms.

  The corridor branched and branched again and ranked doorways opened on either hand. Here Loriman demonstrated that some of his gold had not been wasted.

  The inclination to look into every room we passed had still not been mastered. Quienyin and I were content merely to look; others prodded and pried in the search for treasure and magic. It would not be altogether fruitful and might weary to catalog continuously all the rooms and chambers and monsters and horrors; but Loriman’s gold saved him at least twice on this level.

  A warrior marched up from the shadows of a room with fluted columns of red and yellow ocher and drapes of purple and gold — very tasteful to those with that taste. The warrior wore purple armor, and carried a purple shield whereon was described a golden zygodont — all fangs and claws and membranous wings and barbed tail. His sword looked useful, yet that cunning blade, too, was fashioned from purple metal. The visor of his helmet was closed.

  Loriman bristled up at once. He swelled. The veins in his nose throbbed.

  “Any man who wants a fight can have one! I am a hunter — and I hunt anything that moves!” And with a yell he threw himself into the onguard position ready to smash down onto the warrior in his closed purple armor.

  Quienyin shouted, “Kov! Caution! He is no man, he is a monster! A Hollow Carapace!”

  Loriman heard, luckily for him, and he jerked back. The purple-accoutered warrior strode on.

  “We had best run,” said Quienyin, looking about.

  “A Hollow Carapace! Like a fighting man!” boomed Loriman, and his voice echoed eerily in the chamber. “Aye! I have somewhat for that monster! The tricky rast!”

  From his pouch he drew forth — after snicking his sword away — a narrow box such as stylors use for their pens. From this he took forth a little animal like a pencil with squat wings. At its pointed head, which spiraled sharply, glinted moisture.

  Quienyin looked pleased.

  “An Acid-Head Gimlet! Charming—”

  “I paid gold for this,” said Loriman. “If it does not work as I was promised—”

  A Chulik — he was a hyr-paktun — abruptly screeched, high in his corded throat, and leaped upon the purple warrior. His sword lifted and blurred. The Hollow Carapace shifted the purple shield to deflect the blow; but the Chulik knew all about shields and swerved his blow away beautifully to hack past the side of the shield and into the purple cuirass beyond. At least, that savage and skilled blow would have hacked into a normal cuirass unless it was of superb quality.

  The sword bounced. The Chulik staggered back. “By Hlo-Hli!” he shrieked. His sword was a mere mass of molten metal, dripping, and when he dropped it it shredded away his glove and the flayed skin of his palm beneath.

  “Not the shield, kov,” cautioned Quienyin as the Hollow Carapace advanced, sword and shield ready.

  “I know, I know,” snapped Loriman. He lifted the little winged animal, the Acid-Head Gimlet. It was a dart of blue and green and brown, almost like a dragonfly. The moisture at its gimlet-shaped head glittered. Loriman launched it. It flew, its wings buzzing like ripsaws, skimmed across the space between to bury its head in the visored helmet. It rotated.

  Three heartbeats — three and a half, at the most — passed before the Hollow Carapace reacted. By then it was too late. From the hole drilled by the gimlet head and bitten by the acid puffed a foul odor.

  Whatever caused that was invisible and was, I think, not material. For the Hollow Carapace was —

  hollow.

  It collapsed.

  It fell in on itself as a vessel exhausted of air collapses under the ambient pressure.

  Bits and pieces of the armor bounced on the stone floor. We tensed anew, for we were well-accustomed to the ghastly phenomenon of fresh monsters rising from the remains of the old. The golden zygodont sprang into bestial life from the shield, sprang hissing out to charge full on us. The men fell back.

  “The sword!” yelled Quienyin, dancing around beside us.

  The purple sword skittered among the detritus of the Hollow Carapace. Fittingly, it was Loriman who dived for the sword, got it into his fist, swung at the golden zygodont. The blade sheared through a foreleg and Loriman swung again and the next stroke half-severed the serpent-neck. The third blow decapitated the zygodont. Everyone breathed out — shakily.

  “Now thank all your gods it did not resume its true size!” said Quienyin.

  I went across to the Chulik hyr-paktun who was gripping his right wrist, his hand stiffly extended. As I went so the pieces of purple armor puffed into purple smoke and dissipated.

  “Drop the sword, kov!”

  Loriman dropped it — just in time. He would have lost his hand — at the least.

  I took out the stoppered vial of yellow poison from the Bri
stle Ball and pressed it against that grisly flayed palm. “Hold still, Chulik!”

  He went rigid with shock, and then looked down. I took the vial away. The skin of his hand was whole again, yellow and unmarked.

  The hyr-paktun stared at me with his dark slit eyes.

  “You have my thanks, apim—”

  “We all fly the same fluttrell here.”

  The golden zygodont had disappeared. Dust hung in the air. We pushed on, warily. Many rooms, many chambers, many wonderful things...

  And, also, many ghostly apparitions, were-creatures, ghouls from the diseased imaginings of madmen, vampires with red-dripping fangs, specters, wraiths, banshees...

  We walked through a long corridor fitfully illuminated by orange torches in the yellow-brown fingers of skeletons ranged against the black walls. The oppressive atmosphere crashed down. We spoke in quiet voices — even Kov Loriman. Tyfar and Ariane walked together.

  “I believe we approach something of quality,” said Quienyin.

  Between each skeleton stood a table carved in the form of an impossible monster. On the tables rested objects of unimaginable use mingled with treasure, arms and armor, food and drink, valuables.

  Now Chuliks fear very little on Kregen and their imaginations are limited. One massive warrior, straining his armor, gazed upon an artifact that would keep him in luxury for the rest of his life. It was a single enormous yellow gem, subtly carved into the likeness of a Chulik head. It fascinated him, and, clearly, he felt himself to be the most fortunate of Chuliks to be nearest. He picked it up. I can guess he could not stop himself from picking up that magnificent gem.

  He cupped it in his fist and it did not burn, he did not disappear in smoke, he was unharmed.

  The skeleton at his side stretched out its empty hand, still gripping the torch in the other, and fastened those bony fingers about the Chulik’s wrist.

  Men yelled and stumbled away. The torches threw dizzying orange lights and shadows between writhed.