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CHAPTER XII - GHEK PLAYS PRANKS
While Tara of Helium was being led to The Towers of Jetan, Ghek was escorted to
the pits beneath the palace where he was imprisoned in a dimly-lighted chamber.
Here he found a bench and a table standing upon the dirt floor near the wall, and
set in the wall several rings from which depended short lengths of chain. At the
base of the walls were several holes in the dirt floor. These, alone, of the several
things he saw, interested him. Ghek sat down upon the bench and waited in
silence, listening. Presently the lights were extinguished. If Ghek could have
smiled he would have then, for Ghek could see as well in the dark as in the light--
better, perhaps. He watched the dark openings of the holes in the floor and
waited. Presently he detected a change in the air about him--it grew heavy with a
strange odor, and once again might Ghek have smiled, could he have smiled.
Let them replace all the air in the chamber with their most deadly fumes; it would
be all the same to Ghek, the kaldane, who, having no lungs, required no air. With
the rykor it might be different. Deprived of air it would die; but if only a sufficient
amount of the gas was introduced to stupefy an ordinary creature it would have
no effect upon the rykor, who had no objective mind to overcome. So long as the
excess of carbon dioxide in the blood was not sufficient to prevent heart action,
the rykor would suffer only a diminution of vitality; but would still respond to the
exciting agency of the kaldane's brain.
Ghek caused the rykor to assume a sitting position with its back against the wall
where it might remain without direction from his brain. Then he released his
contact with its spinal cord; but remained in position upon its shoulders, waiting
and watching, for the kaldane's curiosity was aroused. He had not long to wait
before the lights were flashed on and one of the locked doors opened to admit a
half-dozen warriors. They approached him rapidly and worked quickly. First they
removed all his weapons and then, snapping a fetter about one of the rykor's
ankles, secured him to the end of one of the chains hanging from the walls. Next
they dragged the long table to a new position and there bolted it to the floor so
that an end, instead of the middle, was directly before the prisoner. On the table
before him they set food and water and upon the opposite end of the table they
laid the key to the fetter. Then they unlocked and opened all the doors and
departed.
*
* * * *
When Turan the panthan regained consciousness it was to the realization of a
sharp pain in one of his forearms. The effects of the gas departed as rapidly as
they had overcome him so that as he opened his eyes he was in full possession of
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