Alan Akers - Krozair of Kregen

“And her name, this wonderful woman?”

“She said she was the lady Iztar.”

I did not answer. What was Zena Iztar — whose role so far had been enigmatic in my life although I felt I owed her a very great deal — doing in thus helping Duhrra? Her machinations, I suspected, might not jibe with those of the Star Lords or those of the Savanti. She it was who had told me I might never leave the Eye of the World until I was once more a Krzy. I believed her implicitly, had not thought to question her. She, I felt, I hoped, wished me well. That would make a remarkable change here on Kregen, where I had been knocked about cruelly by Savanti and Star Lords moving behind the scenes and exerting superhuman forces. So I admired Duhrra’s new hand and thought on.

Then the selfishness of my thoughts mocked me. It was all “I” — Zena Iztar could have helped Duhrra because he was Duhrra.

Tame-slaves threw in malsidges and we ate them, for they are a quality anti-scorbutic. We settled down to sleep and I had a deal to think about; but, all the same, I slept. Sleep became a rare and precious commodity during the next couple of sennights, for we were employed pulling at night as well as day. The swifters called at islands for short periods and then weighed again, and once again we threw our tortured bodies against the looms of the oars. Food was short and we hungered. Men began to die. I fancied Duhrra would last this kind of punishment well, and the Kataki had reserves of strength on which to call. For Fazhan ti Rozilloi the work became harder and harder; but with all the gallantry of a true crimson-faril he struggled on, refusing to be beaten. The young man Vax stuck to his work with stoical fury, sullen, with a smoldering anger in him hurtful to me. We were not flogged more than any other set on any other loom. But we lost Lorgad the Rapa. One day he could not pull any more, and the flogging lash merely made his dead body jump. He was unchained and heaved overboard, and a fresh man took his place.

He was short, and he took the apostis seat, chunky, and with a black bar look about the eyebrows, and a pug nose that was of the Mountains of Ilkenesk south of the inner sea. Yet he was a Zairian, an apim, and he contrived to give Rukker the Kataki a cunning slash with his chains as the whip-Deldars bundled him across.

Rukker bellowed and shook his chains.

I saw the chain between him and Duhrra pull taut. The chain between Duhrra and me began to pull. The link on which we had been working bent. It began to open. I cursed foully, loudly, unable to get at Rukker past Duhrra.

“Sit back, you stinking Kataki cramph! You tailed abomination! Sit down or I’ll cave your onkerish head in!”

He swung back to glare with murderous fury at me. The whip-Deldars bashed away at the new man’s chains. Duhrra tried to sit back as well, to release the pressure on the chains. It was a moment when all hell might have broken loose.

One whip-Deldar flicked his lash — almost idly — at me and I endured it. I bellowed again, something about Katakis and rasts and tails, and whispered to Duhrra, “Tell him, Duhrra! Get the gerblish onker to sit down!”

Duhrra leaned across and his rumble would have told the whole bank if I had not started yelling with the pain of the lash. It was not altogether a fake. Vax looked at me in surprise. I yelled some more. And then Duhrra must have got the message across, for Rukker slapped himself back on the bench, whipping his tail up out of the way, and the strain came off the chain.

When the whip-Deldars had gone, he started to rumble at me, “You called me many things, Dak, and I shall not forget them-”

“You would have ruined all, Rukker. You must think and plan if you wish to escape the overlords of Magdag and their slave-masters. Onker! I did what I did to make you sit down.”

Duhrra said, “Had you ruined our chances, Rukker, I would not have been pleased — duh — I would have been angry.”

Rukker glared at me again. Duhrra lifted the chain between us. Rukker looked. Duhrra’s metal hand had worked hard and well. The bent link was on the point of parting. Rukker whistled.

“Well, you onker! Now do you see your foolishness?”

He did not like my tone. But he was a Kataki.

Rukker said, “I understand. I will not speak of it again.”

That was Rukker the Kataki. He had this knack of putting his own mistakes and unpleasant experiences into a limbo where he chose not to speak of them. The idea of apology never entered his ferocious Kataki head.

“Well, Dak, apim, when is it to be?”

Rukker’s words whispered in his growly voice in the darkness. Green Magodont lay anchored somewhere or other — we oar-slaves had no idea where we were after all the comings and goings of the past days. We knew only that if we searched for a ship we had not found her. I said, “There is the question of this Nath the Slinger.”

“I shall break his neck the moment I am free,” said Rukker, in a comfortable way, perfectly confident. Nath the Slinger turned his pug-nosed face our way, looking up from the apostis seat, and scowled. He looked an independent sort of fellow, who would as soon knock your teeth out as pass the time of day. Rukker had not liked the slash from his chains.

“We can free the link tomorrow. But we shall not let you go, Rukker, if you-”

He bellowed at that, raising a chorus of curses from the oar-slaves about us in the darkness, weary men trying to sleep.

“You are a nurdling onker, Rukker — why not shout out and tell the captain? I am sure he will be happy to know.”

In the starlight and the golden glow of She of the Veils the zygite bank showed enough light for me to catch the look of venomous evil on Rukker’s face. But it was dark and shadowy and I could have been mistaken; I did not think I was.

“I do not wish to discuss that, Dak. If it is tomorrow night, then-”

“We will release you only if you swear to fight with us. Your quarrel with Nath the Slinger must wait.”

“I’ll rip his tail out and choke him with it!” said Nath the Slinger, in his snarly voice. I sighed.

Anger and enmity — well, they are common enough on Kregen, to be sure. But when they interfere with my own plans I am prepared to be more angry and be a better enemy than most.

“When we have taken the swifter, you two may kill each other,” I said, pretty sharply. “And curse you for a pair of idiots.”

A voice from the bench in front whispered back.

“If you all shout a little louder-”

“We already said that,” said Fazhan nastily.

“Then we will join you. The oar-master has the keys.”

Duhrra rolled his eyes at me.

“They must think we don’t know what we’re about.”

“They are slaves like us. Now the word will be all over the slave benches. If there are white mice among the slaves we may be prevented before we strike.”

“White mice” is an expression from my own eighteenth-century Terrestrial Navy, meaning men among the hands who will inform to the ship’s corporals and the master-at-arms. On Kregen these men are called maktikos and may sometimes be discovered among slaves who appear and disappear without apparent reason on a tier of oars, moving from bench to bench. I had wondered if Nath the Slinger might be an informer. There were plans to insure his silence once we had begun the escape. The only way to insure our safety before that was to note if he spoke to the overseers or the whip-Deldars. I fancied an apostis-seat man would experience difficulty in that.

“Why not tonight?” rumbled Rukker. “Now?”

“The link must be further bent.”

“I would snap it with one wrench.”