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He started towards the cabin, then stopped to point to one of the club bearers. "Erebo you lazy sod, did you remember to fill the watercup of the gods this time, because they grow thirsty?" "I filled it, I filled it," Erebo muttered, chewing on a looted krenoj. Preparations made, Edipon went into the recessed doorway and pulled a concealing curtain over it.
"You're on," Jason said throwing the krenoj to the ground between them. "But I tell you it is perfectly good." "That's what I tell man I give it to. I got good use for a poisoned krenoj." He threw an arrow into the sand away from them and grabbed up the vegetable as he left.
For the rest of the day the line of walkers plodded across the sand and in addition to helping Mikah, Jason found two of the krenoj, the edible roots. They stopped before dusk and dropped gratefully to the sand. When the food was divided they received a slightly larger portion, as evidence perhaps of Jason's attention to the work. Both men were exhausted and fell asleep as soon as it was dark.
Ijale," he called, and she looked up from the boiler over which she was heating a thin stew of their last krenoj. "Leave that stuff, it tastes just as bad whatever is done to it, and if Snarbi has any luck we'll be having roast in any case. Tell me, have you seen anything strange or different about the land we passed through today." "Nothing strange, just signs of people.
But my personal grief must not be allowed to alter events: you forget that you committed a crime and must pay the penalty." Ch'aka belched cavernously inside his shell-helmet and howled at his slaves. "Enough eating, you pigs. You get fat. Wrap the meat and carry it, we have light yet to look for krenoj. Move!" Once more the line was formed and began its slow pace across the desert.
The man on the throne, undoubtedly the Hertug Persson, sported a magnificent white beard and shoulder length hair, his nose was round and red, his eyes blue and watery. He nibbled at a krenoj impaled delicately on a two-tined iron fork. "Tell me," the Hertug shouted suddenly, "why you should not be killed at once?"
Krenoj soup, and I suppose followed by fresh krenoj and krenoj salad. Tomorrow I see about getting a little variety into the diet." "Ch'aka is great," she whispered without looking up. "Ch'aka is powerful...." "Jason is the name, I lost the Ch'aka job when they took the uniform away." "... Jason is powerful to work charms on the D'zertanoj and makes them do what he will. His slave thanks you."
Only after Jason and his band had passed the border did the others return to their normal foraging. Then began the long walk to the borders of the inland desert. Since they had to search for krenoj as they went it took them the better part of three days to reach their destination.
Ijale stayed near Jason the next day, and took the next station in line when the endless krenoj hunt began. Whenever it was possible he questioned her and before noon had extracted all of her meager knowledge of affairs beyond the barren coastal plain where they lived. The ocean was a mystery that produced edible animals, fish and an occasional human corpse.
Look on these monuments to ultimate selfishness and beware: this is the end product of the system that begins with slave-holders like the former Ch'aka with their tribes of krenoj crackers, and builds up through familiar hierarchies like the D'zertanoj and reaches its zenith of depravity behind those strong walls.
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