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the jar and spoke reflectively. San Orien says they go in for magical objects down here. Things that,
when possessed, confer special powers.
My jar of yellow poison
Precisely, Jak.
The yellow light filled the close air with radiance and the fire burned with its eerie blue flames. The
sentries prowled, alert, and our gazes kept flickering all about this mausoleum, surveying and noting the
shadows in the corners, the corpses on their stone shelves.
And Strom Phrutius, I said. What of him?
Gold and gems, I think. Treasure of the worldly sort.
Maybe he has more sense than I credited him with.
There is a well-known spell which will cause an armband to chain the wearer to the will of the giver.
When I say well-known I mean in the sense of its existence being well known. The spell itself is arcane
and difficult. With its knowledge a man could spell hundreds of armbands and thus ensure the willing and
total obedience of all who wore them.
Tarkshur! I said. That s what he s after.
It is very likely.
He ll turn up again, at the exit, you ll see. I clenched a fist. Katakis are devils at survival.
So will your two friends, Nodgen and Hunch. Quienyin offered me the wine. I shook my head. He
went on, It is Tyr Ungovich who provokes my curiosity. He is indeed an enigma.
What he wants, I said, guessing, will likewise be found on the ninth zone. Then, quickly, I said, You
are confident Hunch and Nodgen will reappear? They went right merrily into their paradises.
Illusion, as the weapons you bear. They will appear.
I touched the Krozair longsword. The metal was warm and hard and solid to my fingers. I shook my
head. Illusion...
It is a great pity, Quienyin said, that Longweill the Fluttrhim[5]was killed. His gifts would have been
useful.
He s down skating about on the Ice Floes of Sicce now, I said. May Opaz have him in his keeping,
poor Thief though he was.
Shortly after that there was a general alarm as a procession of Green-Glowing Ghoul Vampires
wandered past and we had a merry set-to. They were amenable to the kiss of steel, and were driven off.
Again I noticed the fine free way Prince Tyfar fought, and, foolishly, I thought of Barty Vessler, and
sighed.
When all had rested we set off to explore the nooks and crannies of the various halls containing the
corpses. Prowling monsters were encountered and dealt with, each to its own peculiar fashion, and we
lost a few more men.
If this was the Necromantic zone, as we believed, the key we sought the part of the key lay
somewhere hidden. Finding it would take us a long time. And, as we explored, so we drew ever nearer
the central chamber and the horrors it would most certainly contain.
There would be a dozen or more cassettes to be filled with my record of the things we encountered in
that nine-armed complex before we walked along and reached the place where we had camped. So we
had come full circle, had found no way in or out, and must most carefully put our heads together to
discover a method of forcing ingress to the center and its mystery.
To the right, as ever, quoth Kov Loriman. I will smash a way through the wall, by Lem, and then we
will get through!
He seized a corpse by its arm and pulled and the corpse snapped at once into hideous life and leaped
for Loriman s throat. The Hunting Kov was not one whit dismayed. His sword whirled, the corpse s
head flew off, and one of his Chuliks swept a broad-bladed axe around and chopped the corpse s legs
away.
They kicked the bits of mummified remains of the Kaotim aside and bringing up picks and
sledgehammers started smashing into the wall.
One has, observed Tyfar, to admire their enthusiasm.
Quienyin touched my arm and we drew a little apart.
Have you noticed, Jak, that while the vast majority of the corpses are apim, like you and me, there are
every now and then a few diffs?
Yes.
There is, I think, a Pattern to be Observed.
So, leaving Loriman and his henchmen to go on smashing the wall down, the rest of us started to inspect
the arrangements of the Undead.
In the end, and inevitably, it was Quienyin who spotted the significance. He smiled and pushed his turban
straight.
Now, I must of necessity spell the words in English but the final result was the same as the original
Kregish. The corpses lay in pattern, as Quienyin had indicated, and their order was thus: Gon. Hoboling.
Och. Undurker. Lamnia. Och. Rapa. Djang.
Be very sure I looked long and with choked feelings at the Djangs most of them were Obdjangs,
those clever, gerbil-faced people who so efficiently run Djanduin, and whom the ferocious four-armed
Dwadjangs respect with reason.
It seems, said Quienyin, we are to find what we seek in the Hall of Ghoul. And it will be the ord[6]
something.
We went carefully through the Hall of Vampires and the Hall of Banshees to the Hall of Ghouls. The
yellow light showed us the ranked shelves of corpses. We all expected the Kaotim to stir and sit up and
then leap upon us, uttering wraith-like wails.
In this Hall of Ghouls, somewhere, there were seven somethings, and the eighth something would give us
the answer.
The sense of oppression enclosed us. We were entombed. Surrounding us lay mile upon mile of
corridors and secret rooms, prowling monsters, darkness, and light more hideous than darkness.
The feeling that the domed ceiling would fall upon us choked us with primeval terrors we would not
admit. The idea of clean fresh air, and the radiance of the suns, and the feel of an ocean breeze all
these things were gone and lost and buried in the grave. The oppression held us in iron bands. The feeling
of hollowness, of dusty silence, of the abandonment of years, choked like skeletal fingers at our throats.
I I do not like this place, whispered Ariane.
Tyfar took her hand, and held it, and did not speak.
The tough mercenary warriors looked about with uneasy eyes, drawing together, fingering their
weapons.
And then a silly Hypnotic Spider as big as a carthorse fell on his thread through a trapdoor.
Do not look into his eyes! yelled Quienyin.
One Fristle, shocked, was too late. The cat-man stood, petrified, ridged gristle and fur, and the gigantic
spider, dripping venom, swung to take the poor fellow s head into its jaws.
Tyfar and I sprang together. His axe whirled. The Krozair longsword bit.
The Giant Hypnotic Spider burst apart like a paper bag filled with water and dropped from a great
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