Free A Fortune for Kregen by Alan Burt Akers

the head with his bludgeon. He was shouting, excited, frantic.
    “Here’s one of the rasts—” And he hit me again.
    That was it, for a space.
    The blackness remained, the blackness of Notor Zan, and I did not open my eyes. The place where they had thrown me stank. A dismal moaning and groaning filled the air. And, in my aching head the famous old Bells of Beng Kishi clashed and clanged. I winced. Cautiously, I opened one eye.
    The place was arched with ribbed brick, slimy and malodorous, and a few smoky torches sputtered along the walls. The place was a dungeon, a chundrog, and the prison would extend about us with iron bars and stone walls and many guards.
    Water dripped from that arched ceiling and splashed upon us, green and slimy, stinking. Rivulets of the water trickled down to open drains along the center. The people were crammed in. They were poor.
    They were tattered and half of them were starving. They moaned in long dismal monotones. And the air stifled with fear.
    Gradually I pulled myself together and sorted out what had happened.
    Criminals had been sought, and the Watch had scooped up a ripe bunch, and anyone who got in the way was taken up also. It is a dreadfully familiar story. The Nine Masked Guardians who ran LionardDen were fanatical about the order of the city. Many visitors stayed here, and the reputation of the city rested on reports of conditions. Who would journey to a city of thieves, or a city of revolution —
    even to play Death Jikaida?
    There was no sign in this tangled company of the woman and her baby and I just hoped they were all right. The people looked like a field of old rags ready for the incinerators. I have said that the Star Lords never lifted a finger to help me, and although this is not strictly accurate, for they once enabled me to overhear a conversation to my advantage in the island of Faol of North Havilfar, it was precisely in the kind of situation in which I found myself now that no help could be expected from the Everoinye. I expected none.
    A group of ruffians near me, all gleaming eye and broken teeth and rags, were discussing future possibilities.
    “It is Death Jikaida, you may be sure.”
    “No — they want fighting men for that.”
    “We can fight — aye, and will fight, if they put spears into our hands.”
    “Kazz-Jikaida,” said another, shaking. “Blood Jikaida. My brother was cut down in that, two seasons ago.”
    A man with lop ears and a broken nose, very villainous, stilled them all as he spoke. “It will not be that.”
    He spoke heavily, with a wheeze. “It is Execution Jikaida—”
    “No! No!” The shouts of horror were as much protestations as outbursts of terror. “Why, Nath, why?”
    “They had a blood-letting yesterday, did they not? And the great ones demand another game — I know, may they all rot in the Ice Floes of Sicce forever and ever.”
    The uproar told me that these ill-used people put store by the words of this Nath. It seemed he possessed enough of the yrium, that mysterious force that demands from other men respect and obedience, to command them.
    Lop-eared Nath, he was called, and he looked a right villain.
    We were fed a thin gruel and most of it was dilse, that profuse plant that pretends to nourish, and fills a man’s belly for a time and then leaves him more hungry than before. We drank abominable water. This chundrog was Spartan, a dungeon from which it would be well-nigh impossible to escape except in death. I began to think along those lines. A feigned death...
    Engaging in conversation with the nearest group, I soon discovered that plan was a bubble-dream.
    “Anyone who pretends death is stuck through with a spear, to make sure.” Lop-eared Nath appeared to relish his words. “Listen, dom, we only get out of here one way. We go to act as pieces in Execution Jikaida.”
    “But there is a chance in that. All the pieces will not be taken, not all killed.”
    “Aye. A chance.”
     
    A man with a snaggle of