Chapter Three
I was naked.
I was unarmed.
I was a slave in a slave bagnio.
My only hope was that I was still on Kregen.
You may judge of the shock of this transition when I tell you I did not instantly grab that cruel kicking boot and topple the fellow down and twist his neck.
I lay there, choking with the horror of it, shaking, feeling waves of nausea rush and flutter over me as though, once again, I sped down the great glacier of the Mountains of the North. But this transition into another part of Kregen struck home with shrewder intensity. I had waited while Delia had been delivered of our children, and I had wanted to suffer along with her, uselessly, of course, for the techniques of acupuncture ensured the birth should be painless. She had smiled up at me and reached out her arms to me, and I leaned down and kissed her dear face, and together we joyed in an experience that she alone had to bear, and I alone had to wait in useless suffering. The boot smashed into my ribs again.
“Get up, you stinking yetch!”
Perhaps I had been feeling that this was my punishment for being so high and mighty, for letting Delia bear our children — although, Zair knew, I had done everything a mere man can do on these occasions
— perhaps the pride that comes before a fall had humbled me. But that second series of savage kicks made me take stock of my new situation.
I had been a slave before. I had been dumped down unarmed and naked before on Kregen. I knew the Star Lords had picked me out once again to perform some task for them, and if this task bore any resemblance to those that had gone before I must sort myself out quickly. The boot felt warm and slick in my hands.
I pulled.
The slave-master fell.
I took his throat in my hands and choked him a bit, and leaned over him and snarled into his ear: “Kick me again, rast, and your neck will snap.” Then I threw him from me.
I stood up.
Around me the groan and moan of naked slaves ceased.
They stood cramped up in a small chamber hewn from soft rock, crumbling, with the ceiling threatening to fall at any moment. Condensation on the walls and drops of niter glittered in the radiance of the twin suns pouring in the barred opening to the cave.
The slave-master scrabbled up.
He tried to lash me with the whip.
I caught the lash and pulled and took the slave-master again by the throat and lifted him up.
“I told you, kleesh-” I began.
A little Fristle female, all furry and curved, with her tail lashing in frenzy, caught my arm.
“Do not kill him, dom! They will be cruel to us all if he is found dead.”
Well, I had no love for Fristles, those cat-faced half-men I had known before. But I remembered Sheemiff of the warrens of Magdag, and so I did not break the slave-master’s neck. I choked him a little and then threw him against the wall. He fell and lay limply.
A big barky Brokelsh shouldered up, angry.
“Now we are in trouble!” All the slaves were naked. There were about a dozen of them. The Brokelsh started off for a black hole in the back wall. “I’m off.”
The other slaves ran after him, including the little Fristle woman, who chittered in her fear as she ran. I went over to the barred opening. The bars were solid logs of lenk. Outside I could see a clearing with papishin-leaved huts, a backing of jungle unfamiliar to me, and guards patrolling with ready weapons. There were some unusual circumstances about the slave compound, something I couldn’t then put my finger on. I shook the lenk logs in fruitless anger, raging against the fate that dragged me from Vallia and Delia and hurled me contemptuously somewhere else on Kregen, summarily bidden to do the dictates of the Star Lords.
A sound at the back of the cave brought me around, snarling. Being weaponless I lifted my hands in the discipline of unarmed combat of the Krozairs of Zy. Any man without a weapon on Kregen is at a disadvantage, but the Krozairs of Zy as part of their mystic devotions practice their own brand of hand-fighting, and very deadly it is, to be sure.
“Come away, dom,” said the girl who faced me.
She was young, filthy, dirty with long and tangled black hair. Her face showed the gaunt look of the half- starved, but her body was firm and supple, and she looked fierce and wild.
“Why do the guards come here alone?” I pointed to the unconscious slave-master. She shrugged her dirt- caked shoulders.
“He wanted pleasure, and would clear all but one out of here for that, into the other cells and passages.”
I did not need to be told that this girl was the one the slave-master sought. She nodded. “I am Tulema. But come away, quickly-” She pointed into the clearing. A couple of guards were walking toward the barred opening. They could not see into the cell, or so I fancied, but very quickly they would, and then there would be trouble. I nodded and followed Tulema. There must be absolutely no pining after Delia. I must not think of Vallia, or of Valka, until I was safely out of this mess. I had to do the bidding of the Star Lords, and then get myself back home as quickly as may be.
Then I cursed.
It was crystal clear why the Star Lords had brought me here.
I had to rescue a slave from these pens.
There had been at least a dozen in this cell when I arrived. Now they had hurried out. I followed after Tulema, ducking my head beneath the rocky overhang, and found myself in a corridor that led to a maze of passageways and so on to a wider cave in which hundreds of slaves sat and squatted or paced about. Which one was I expected to rescue?
The Fristle woman, the Brokelsh, and now Tulema — from these three I must find out who had been in that cell when the slave-master was knocked unconscious. I must not let them out of my sight. I did notice, looking about the vast prison-cave, that there were a large number of halflings here. In general, on Kregen, there are to be found usually far more human beings than halflings, and the halflings, too, are not just one race but many. Here, the balance was quite otherwise. A sudden commotion went up and then all the slaves were racing down toward a large opening cut in the cave. Tulema looked at me, shouted, “Feeding time!” and was off.
Perforce, I ran after her.
High in the rocky ceiling wide crystal facets showed the gleam of fire. I knew that crystal. It comes from Loh — exactly where is a closely guarded secret — and on it a fire may be kindled and it will not crack or distort. It is much used for holding heat and light above ceilings. . I was to find that this crystal did
That crystal is known as fireglass.
So it was that plenty of light in the cave allowed me to keep the supple form of Tulema in sight. Through the opening the cave passage debouched into a series of openings, each one walled off from its neighbor. Each cell was strongly barred off from the clearing, also. The slaves ran past these cells and on into another spacious cave where food had been left spread out over the floor. The scene that followed, given the circumstances, should not have sickened me. The slaves fell on the food with cries and fought and struggled over the choicest portions. Coarse stuff, it was, plentiful, belly-filling. A kind of maize grows on Kregen, dilse, that can be mixed with milk and water and pounded, salted, and served up in a variety of ways. It is cheap where it grows freely, for it needs little cultivation. Great tureens of dilse stood about, the carrying poles all carefully removed from the handles of the tureens. It steamed. Also there was a little Kregan bread — those long fluffy rolls, although this stuff was stale and
