o his own topic.

"When I saw you last you were a slave of Ch'aka, and tonight you were
brought in with the other slaves of Ch'aka and chained to the bar
while you were unconscious. There was an empty place next to mine and
I told them I would tend you if they placed you there, and they did.
Now there is something I must know. Before they stripped you I saw
that you were wearing the armor and helmet of Ch'aka. Where is the
man--what happened to him?"

"Me Ch'aka," Jason rasped, and burst out coughing from the dryness in his
throat. He took a long drink of water from the bowl. "You sound very
vindictive, Mikah you old fraud. Where is all the turn-the-other-cheek
stuff now? Don't tell me you could possibly hate the man just because he
hit you on the head, fractured your skull and sold you down the river as a
slave reject? In case you have been brooding over this injustice you can
now be cheered because the evil Ch'aka is no more. He is buried in the
trackless wastes and after all the applicants were sifted out I got the
job."

"You killed him?"

"In a word--yes. And don't think that it was easy since he had all the
advantages and I possessed only my native ingenuity, which luckily
proved to be enough. It was touch and go for a while because when I
tried to assassinate him in his sleep--"

"You _what_?" Mikah Samon hissed.

"Got to him at night. You don't think anyone in his right mind would
tackle a monster like that face-to-face do you? Though it ended up
that way, since he had some neat gadgets for keeping track of people
in the dark. Briefly, we fought, I won, I became Ch'aka, though my
reign was neither long nor noble. I followed you as far as the desert
where I was neatly trapped by a shrewd old bird name of Edipon who
demoted me back to the ranks and took away all my slaves as well. Now
that's my story. So tell me yours, where we are, what goes on here?"

"Assassin! Slave holder!" Mikah reared back, as far as he could under
the restraint of the chain, and pointed the finger of judgment at
Jason. "Two more charges must be added to your role of infamy. I
sicken myself, Jason, that I could ever have felt sympathy for you and
tried to help you. I will still help you, but only to stay alive so
that you may be taken back to Cassylia for trial and execution."

[Illustration]

"I like that example of fair and impartial justice--trial _and_
execution." Jason coughed again and drained the bowl of water. "Didn't
yo