A Fortune for Kregen Read online

  Dark shadows moved within the jagged opening in the wall. They looked black and evil against the streaming yellow radiance.

  A form lumbered through, and stood up, and bellowed.

  “Hai! I am through!”

  We all stared.

  More figures burst into this dread chamber, and there was Kov Loriman, smothered in dust, shoving through, a massive sledgehammer in his fist, panting, triumphant. He saw us.

  “You famblys! And how many have you lost? Did I not say I would smash my way out?”

  Quienyin called across, “Or, kov — in !”

  To be honest, I could not understand why some horror had not carried off the Hunting kov and all his men sooner.

  I could not understand that riddle then. But it was made clear to me, and, I owned, despite his despicable propensities for Execution Jikaida and other unmentionable acts of abomination, Kov Loriman materially assisted me by that bashing entrance through the wall.

  We gave him warning about the green crescents, and his men were as wary as ours of the wantonly displayed wealth.

  One interesting fact I noticed then was that, of these survivors of the expedition, there were more hyr-paktuns with the golden pakzhan at throat or knotted in silken cords at shoulder than there were of paktuns with the silver pakmort or of ordinary mercenaries who were not yet elevated to the degree of paktun. But, then, surely, that was to be expected?

  Tyfar was your proper prince. However much of a ninny he might be in ordinary life, he was lapping up the marvels and terrors of this Moder. He was punctilious with Loriman.

  “The suggestion is, kov, that my slinger puts a bullet through one of these glass cabinets while we stand back.”

  Loriman grunted, and glared at his Jiktar, the commander of his Chuliks. This one, a magnificent specimen of the Chulik race, impressive in armor, fiercely tusked, pondered.

  “Quidang!” he roared at length.

  Chuliks have about as little of humanity in them as Katakis; they have given me a rough time of it on Kregen, as you know. But, at least, they are mercenaries born and bred to be paktuns, and not damned slave masters. And while their honor code in no way matches the nikobi of the Pachaks, they are loyal to their masters. And, they can be loyal even when the pay and food runs out, which is more than can be said for most mercenaries.

  As we prepared for this fraught experiment, I realized that the place with all its creepy horrors was actually powerful enough to make me maudlin over Chuliks. By Zair! But doesn’t that stunningly illuminate the stark and overpowering impression this Moder was making on me!

  So, with Chuliks as comrades, I hunkered down with the rest as Barkindrar the Bullet went through his pre-slinging ritual.

  Did he, I wondered, do this in the heat of battle?

  Prince Tyfar put store by him, as he put store by his bear-like apim archer, Nath the Shaft who hailed from Ruathytu. And, I should quickly add, neither of these two retainers were mercenaries, as Ariane’s numim retainer, Naghan the Doom, was not a mercenary.

  As Barkindrar went through his preparation and whirled his sling another odd little thought occurred to me. As we had penetrated nearer and nearer this Mausoleum of the Moder, so Deb-Lu-Quienyin had grown in confidence. It was as though by merely approaching what he sought he took reverberations from his coming powers, sucking strength from his own future.

  Barkindrar let rip. The leaden bullet flew. The glass cabinet splintered into gyrating shards. Splinters and shatters of razor-edged glass splayed out. Anyone standing nearby would have been slashed to ribbons.

  The smashing tinkles twittered ringingly to silence on the marble floor.

  We stood up.

  “Well done, Barkindrar!” said Tyfar. He beamed.

  “Have a caution, prince,” said Quienyin. “There may be a guardian...”

  Kov Loriman hauled out his pouch and extracted a small body. It was a tiklo, a small lizard creature, and he held it by the tail gingerly.

  “When we were being outfitted by Tyr Ungovich he charged me a great deal of red gold for this little fellow. By Havil, yes! Ungovich said that at the final moment he would prove his worth. Is not this the final moment of this damned maze?”

  “Have a care, kov.”

  “What ails you, Master Quienyin?”

  “I do not — rightly — know. It is passing strange.”

  Old Quienyin looked about, vacantly. I saw his arms begin to lift up from his sides as the arms of a Wizard of Loh rise when he is about to go into lupu. But the old mage’s arms dropped and he hooked his thumbs into his belt, and he squiffled around a space before he said, “You could be right.”

  Loriman laughed and led off to the smashed cabinet.

  Barkindrar had picked a cabinet containing crowns. They were ranked on their pegs, brilliant, redolent of power and authority, clustered with gems, shining. Each one would have bought the kingdom its owner ruled.

  Loriman picked one out unceremoniously. Nothing happened. He lifted it, with some casual remark that, by Havil, it suited him. He was about to put it on when Quienyin struck it from his hands. It fell and rolled. I noticed, from the corner of my eye, the little tiklo give a twitch in Loriman’s fingers.

  The crown rolled across the marble. It grew smaller. Rapidly it constricted in size, shrinking, until finally, with a little plop, it vanished.

  “Your head, kov, would have been inside that.”

  Loriman lost his smile and his color. The veins in his nose seemed to strangle into thin white lines. He shook.

  “This is a place damned to Cottmer’s Caverns — and beyond!”

  Tyfar looked troubled and he spoke in a voice low and off key, as though what he had to say perturbed him. “You said, Master Quienyin,” he remarked in that indifferent voice to our oracle, “that these treasures were real.”

  Quienyin coughed and wiped his lips.

  “So I said, prince, and so I maintain. Watch.”

  Deliberately the old Wizard of Loh picked up another bejeweled crown. He lifted it high in both hands.

  Then, with a decisive gesture, he brought it down and placed it on his own head.

  “No!” screamed Ariane, half fainting.

  The crown remained on Quienyin’s head. It did not shrink. Glittering, it surmounted his ridiculous turban, glowing with the divine right of kings to extort and slay.

  “What does it mean, Master Quienyin?”

  “Only that Kov Loriman should throw the tiklo away.”

  “You mean that rast Ungovich tricked me?”

  “No. Only that, perhaps, at a distance, Tyr Ungovich was not aware of the true menace of this Moder and its Monsters.”

  “I’ll have a word with him, I promise you!”

  Ariane giggled. “Maybe it is your turban, Quienyin!”

  “Aye!” shouted Loriman. “Try the crown without that!”

  Quietly, the Wizard of Loh complied. The crown remained its true size, a real crown, resplendent with glory.

  After that there was an orgy of cabinet smashing.

  Some little of the menace of this deadly place seemed to be removed and yet I do not think a single one of us was lulled. We all knew that the sternest test yet remained — if we knew what it was.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Mausoleum of the Flame

  A price surely seemed demanded for the wanton looting going on in this awesome chamber. The restraints of reason were broken among these people, the terrors through which they had gone had boiled up insupportably and now burst forth in wild laughter, drunken staggerings, the crazed smashing of glass cabinets and the wholesale strewing of the contents about the marble floor.

  The lady Ariane followed by her people was running madly from cabinet to cupboard to chest to box, eagerly searching for the lure that had brought her here. I could only wish her luck if it had to do with unseating poor pathetic fat Queen Fahia of Hyrklana.

  We do not always see clearly into the motives of people whom we do not know well, and if
they appear to agree with our own wishes, transfer our own desires into their actions.

  Fulfilling my promise to replace the rapier and main gauche with a real set of Bladesman’s weapons, I saw in the case alongside the equipment I chose a beautiful little brooch. It was in the form of a zhantil, that fierce, proud wild animal, king of the animal kingdom in many parts of Kregen, fashioned from scarrons, a gem of brilliant scarlet and precious above diamonds.

  Carefully, I pulled the brooch out. It did not come to life and seek to bite my thumb off. Nor did it come to life and grow full sized and seek to chew my head off.

  I put it into my pouch.

  A looter, Dray Prescot. Well, I have been a paktun and a mercenary many times, and the paktun’s guiding motto is grab what you can when you can. Life is short, brother...

  Without discarding the drexer I buckled up a thraxter. If the drexer was going to vanish along with the other weapons of hallucination, then a real blade for rough and ready battling would be a comfort.

  That brooch now — for whom else in two worlds would I have taken it?

  So that reminded me that when a fellow returns from a little lonely jaunt it behooves him to bring back presents for all the family. Feeling remarkably ridiculous, I toured around the shattered displays seeking items I thought suitable as little gifts. The odd thing was, a little gift from this treasure house of the Moder was worth a fortune.

  When Delia said to me, as she would, “And where have you been this time, my heart?” I would have to reply, “Oh, just a little game of Moders and Monsters.” And attempt to leave it at that. Of course, I would not be allowed to. I knew full well that after what I told my Delia and after the sight of these little gifts I’d have Drig’s own job to prevent her from hopping into a voller and insisting I took her on a little jaunt of Moders and Monsters. By Zair, no! I said to myself, and saw Ariane, holding an ivory box to her breast, the tears pouring down her rosy cheeks, and thought — my Delia? Down here? Never!

  Well, it just goes to show you that man sows and Zair reaps, that no man can riddle the secrets of Imrien, that — oh by Vox! That I was foolish to imagine what I imagined.

  Quienyin walked across to me. He waved an arm about.

  “Look at them, Jak!”

  Certainly the place was in an uproar. People were staggering about under enormous loads of loot. These were old hands at the game of removing portable property, and the gold and silver were left untouched, the gems and the trinkets which were worth more than the gems of which they were made, these were the objects these ferocious paktuns were pocketing.

  “Now, Jak,” said Quienyin in a sharpish tone, “here is that which I think you may find of use.”

  He handed me a thin golden bracelet of linked swords.

  “And, San?”

  “And just this, young man. When a man wears the Blade Bracelet he is an invincible swordsman. But, wait — it holds its power for one fight and one fight only. After that — poof!”

  “And you believe I need this?”

  He eyed me with a sympathy I sensed was genuine. “Keep it safe. When you meet Mefto the Kazzur again.”

  “I give you my thanks, Deb-Lu. But — no, and I mean you no disrespect. Mefto is a great kleesh, right enough; but he is a swordsman and when I next meet him I shall beat him fair and square.”

  He looked at me as though I were off my head.

  “What in the name of He of the Seven Arcades do you want here, then?”

  “I,” I said, “want to get out!”

  The racket continued on about us as he looked shrewdly up at me, his eyes appearing to give forth more light than any human eyes could. “Now that is the most sensible desire in this whole place!”

  “We have to get through that wall and up to the shaft of fire?”

  “Yes. Look, Jak—” He pulled a belt from one of the many pockets of his robe. “Cannot I interest you in this. If you wear this in a fight your foeman’s sword cannot harm you.”

  “Yes, and is that for one fight only?”

  “It is.”

  “Do these folk know that the magical items they are taking work once only?”

  “Oh, no, some of them work for quite a long time.”

  “I suppose there isn’t a device here that will magically transport us out of here? That would be — nice.”

  “Sarcasm, young man, is cheap. And, no, there is not. At least,” he pondered vaguely, “I have recognized nothing resembling such a device. And, I may add, I have felt remarkably young about my lost powers lately.”

  “I had noticed.”

  I had noticed, also, that he was not talking in capital letters for most of the time...

  “Let us take a look at the wall where Loriman broke in. I am interested.” He nodded and we started for the jagged opening in the wall. The wall where the Hall of Ghouls had revolved to bring us — squashing

  — here was simply another wall like all the other eight. The wall from the Hall of Specters showed Loriman’s gap. “The Hunting Kov is a — forthright — man.”

  “Oh, aye.” I gave a hitch to the lesten-hide belt holding the scarlet breechclout. That had been cut from an immense bolt of cloth here, and the belt was supple and strong. “D’you happen to know if he’s found whatever it is he seeks to help him with the Spikatur Hunting Sword? D’you happen to know what it is?”

  “He found a gold and ivory casket that gave him joy. Had I my powers — when I have my powers! —

  I must discern this Cult or Order.”

  “Well, if it works only once...”

  “That is what is so intriguing.”

  Approaching the jagged opening in the wall Quienyin stumbled on a chunk of the masonry Loriman’s bully boys had broken down. He put his hand against my back to steady himself, with a small cry and then a quick apology. Turning, I took his arm and supported him to the gap.

  Noises spurted from the jagged wedge-shaped opening, distant and hollow, borne on a foul-tasting breeze that died the moment it reached the central chamber. Quienyin cupped his ear and listened intently.

  Presently he looked up inquiringly, and I nodded.

  “But how many ... ?”

  A jag of masonry thrust against my side.

  “The hole!” cried Quienyin. “It is closing!”

  As a wound seeks to heal itself so the walls were growing whole again. I gave a yell at a bunch of shouting Chuliks who, loaded with loot, were making faces at the octopus-like monster in the nearby tank. They ignored me. I started bashing at the walls with a sledgehammer discarded among the rubble.

  Quienyin at my side helped with a pick.

  I bellowed into the hole, that old foretop hailing roar.

  “Hurry! The gap closes! Hurry, you famblys! Bratch !”

  As I smashed away stones so they grew and pressed in. So, although I hate the word, it fitted here, by Krun! and aptly, I bellowed into the hole: “Hurry! Hurry! Grak! Grak!”

  In only moments they were up the opening and the first face to show, peering through past the glitter of a sword, was that belonging to Prince Nedfar. He looked mad clean through.

  “I see you, rast!” In a twinkling he scrambled out and his sword leaped for my throat. I threw myself backwards.

  Lobur the Dagger was out, and other fighting men. Quienyin yelled.

  “Prince! Prince! Hold! It is us — we are here — this is Notor Jak and he is a friend. Hurry through, all of you, before the gap closes on you.”

  There followed a right old hullabaloo before the rest of the expedition tumbled through the opening. The last one through was Hunch, and he shivered and shook as the stones closed up at his rear with a clashing thunk, making him leap as though goosed.

  He did not recognize me, for I stood talking to the prince, girded with weapons, clearly one of the lords.

  “Jak? Aye — I remember you. You are well met.” Nedfar possessed the princely merit of remembering faces. “If your story is as strange and horrific as ours...”

&nbs
p; “It is, prince,” said Quienyin. He explained as the newcomers with howls of glee threw themselves at the glitter of treasure.

  Nodgen the Brokelsh was with Hunch. They did not know me. So it goes with the eyes of slaves. They both looked as though they had spent a continuous month of Saturday nights without a break.

  I wished them well of their Tryfant and Brokelsh paradises.

  Tyfar welcomed his father and sister with a seemly show of emotion. Also, I noticed the comradely way he greeted Lobur the Dagger. As for Kov Thrangulf, Tyfar welcomed him in the proper style, as befitted a young and untried prince toward a high-ranking influential noble.

  The flaunting display of wealth drew the newcomers as a flame draws a moth, and the uproar redoubled in that august and eerie chamber with the Shaft of Flame illuminating all the frenzied moths.

  The Sorcerer of the Cult of Almuensis pushed through and stood, feet braced, fists on hips, a glittering figure surveying the mausoleum, the circle of weird creatures in their tanks, the smashed treasure chests and scattered wealth. He nodded, sagely, as though he had planned it all.

  “So this is the nadir of the Moder,” he said. He puffed out his cheeks. His splendid figure glittered almost unmarked by the desperate adventures of the journey that had turned us into a rag-tail and bob-tail collection.

  “Not quite, San,” said Quienyin, cheerfully.

  But San Yagno ignored the old mage. His eyes lighted on a chest fastened with nine locks shaped into the likenesses of risslacas. The scaled dinosaurs were prancing in bronze. Yagno advanced upon the chest, pushing people and bric-a-brac out of his way. He planted himself before the chest, which was of sturm-wood inlaid with balass and ivory, and bound in bronze.

  “I recognize that sign,” he said, half to himself. He reached into that sumptuous gown and pulled out a thick book, covered in lizard skin, locked with gold.