Free The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales by L. Sprague de Camp Page A

stopped suddenly and all try to sit down, but one fails and is counted out. Then one chair is removed and the march repeated until there are but two players and one chair left, and whichever of these gains the chair wins. Now, suppose I play while the rest of you march, for I am a little old for such athletics."
     
                  "A childish sort of game," said Thiegos. "I fear we shall be bored—"
     
                  "Oh, you sneer at everything!" cried Porfia. "Vakar, Garal, move that chair back to the wall. Master Qasigan, sit here in the center and tootle. Great gods, look at him!" she pointed to Abeggu of Tokalet, who had quietly curled up in a corner and passed out. "Wake him up, somebody."
     
                  Vakar said: "How any man with blood in his veins could sleep through the spectacle we have just witnessed ... "
     
                  "It means nothing to him," said Thiegos. "They go naked all the time in Gamphasantia, he tells me. Ho, Lazybones, wake up!"
     
                  He kicked the sleeping man. When Abeggu had been aroused and briefed on the game they began marching unsteadily around the circle. When the music stopped all plumped on to the seats except Garal's wife, who being fat was slow on her feet. She laughed and went over to the wall to sit while Vakar lugged another stool out of the circle.
     
                  "Begin again!" said Qasigan.
     
                  His music became more and more exotic. The whole room seemed to Vakar to writhe in time with the tune. He wondered what was wrong, for he had been prudent l y holding down his consumption of wine since his quarrel with Thiegos.
     
                  The music stopped and Thiegos this time was left standing.
     
                  "Oh, well," said the queen's lover, "I do not find these antics very amusing anyway," and went over to sit by Garal's wife. Out went another chair.
     
                  At the next halt, Abeggu of Tokalet was out.
     
                  This time the music seemed to go right through Prince Vakar, to make his teeth and eyeballs ache. The lamps darkened; at least he could not see clearly. The music shook him as a dog shakes a rat ...
     
                  Then it stopped. Vakar took a quick look and lurched towards a dark shape that he fuzzily identified as Queen Porfia's imported serpent chair, which as a seat of office was the only one in the room with arms and a back.
     
                  He half-spun and fell into its stone embrace just ahead of Porfia herself, who landed lushly in his lap with a playful squeal that changed to a shriek of terror.
     
                  Vakar echoed the scream with an animal noise, half grunt and half shout, as he realized in one horror-struck flash that he was sitting on the coils of a giant five snake. There was an explosive hiss as the head and neck reared up and back to stare down at the two human beings, its forked tongue flicking. At the same instant a loop, thicker than Vakar's thigh, whipped around both of them, preventing them from rising.
     
                  Vakar vaguely heard screams and the sound of running feet as the coil tightened. His ribs creaked; it was like being squeezed to death by a live tree-trunk. He had no sword and his left arm was pinned between Porfia and the snake; his right was still free.
     
                  Vakar frantically ripped open his shirt and pulled out the envenomed dagger that had slain Sol. With all his strength he drove it into the scaly hide, again and again ...
     
                  The snake hissed louder, but the pressure of the coil relaxed an instant. With a tremendous effort Vakar freed his other arm. The snake's entire body was writhing convulsively around him. He got a foot against the coil in front and pushed. The coil gave, and he and Porfia were