Free A Life for Kregen by Alan Burt Akers

them, strom. But there must have been another one at my back who hit me after I stuck the bastard in front. By Vox, but the whiptail was quick, and I’d have had him, too, but for that crack on my noodle.”
    I said, sharply: “A Kataki?”
    “That’s what I said, strom.”
    He’d said whiptail; but that was the slang term for a Kataki, a nasty member of a nasty race of diffs, slavers, with fierce brow-beating faces, and intemperate dispositions and with long sinuous tails to which they strapped six inches of bladed steel. There were Katakis on Kregen who had no other aim in life but to degut me. The ambition was reciprocated.
    “Anything else? Clothes, faces, weapons—?”
    “Rapiers, strom, but they kept them scabbarded. They hit me with what felt like the Lenk of Vox. The whiptail had a favor of black and green feathers clipped by a golden grascent — I think, strom, for I was taken by surprise.”
    For a space a silence fell. Then, to give Barty the due he deserved, he was the one to burst out: “By Vox! Under the Gate of Voxyri — when I came running up — this Renko the Murais speaks the truth. I’ll swear it!”
    “Aye,” said Nath. “The devil’s work spreads itself.”
    After that we prosecuted further inquiries and a garbled story came out that made me itch with worry and with frustration. It seemed clear that the Relt stylor was bringing in a message and had been waylaid and slain and the message stolen. But from whom had the message been sent? The minions of Phu-Si-Yantong had heard of it, and we had not, and they had struck. There was no question now in anyone’s mind that Renko the Murais was not guilty. His chains were ordered struck off at once. He expanded after that, and a cup of wine further restored him. But he could add nothing further to the story, being engaged in eking out a living scrounging scraps from the ruins, as so many were. Now there was a happy outcome to the adventure, we could feel thankful he had stumbled on the corpse of the stylor. Although, frustratingly, we knew no more than that there had been a message from someone.
    “Anyway, majister — what made you—?” asked Barty.
    “The blood. There was no blood on the cut straps. Had Renko stabbed him in the back, that would have been the beginning of the murder — or the end of the Relt — and then he’d have cut the satchel free. No blood meant a clean knife had been used.” I smiled — I, Dray Prescot, smiled — across at Barty. “Anyway, Renko is an axeman. He wouldn’t have stabbed with such a heavy knife. He’d have sliced the Relt’s throat out.”
    “Yes,” said Barty.
    “And where stands Jando ti Faleravensmot in this?” demanded Nath.
    “His judgments have always been impeccable,” offered Enevon, shuffling his papers together. I rather think, as my chief stylor, he had been put out at the murder of a brother in his craft, and was pleased that at least some truth had been revealed.
    A stir at the back of the chamber announced the arrival of Tabshur the Talens and the sibling who had won the inheritance, a lean fellow in an apron called Naghan the Tallow. They both looked as guilty as hell. But that must not be allowed to weigh against them. Somehow — and in this I do not boast but rather feel a sense of deflation and defeat — the news that the Emperor of Vallia himself had sent for them and was to look again at their stories, had unnerved them. And, in the case of Tabshur, at least, he was a hard-case, cunning and vicious in his extortions. Naghan the Tallow had been a mere tool in his hands, credulous and willing to be led into infamy.
    They broke down and confessed. I think the jingle of chains as the Pachak guard waited added to their misery.
    And then Tabshur said: “I paid Tyr Jando twenty golden talens for his judgment. The Fristle fifis was the case he chose. You cannot trust anyone these evil days.”
    In that he was right — or almost right. There are people I trust on Kregen. Not