The Song of Phaid the Gambler

by Mick Farren

  With that he scooted out the door. Phaid and Vist-Roxon assumed they'd seen the last of him until the following morning. To their surprise, he was back inside of ten minutes. The old man was extremely agitated.

  'The rebels have taken over the powerhouse. They knocked out most of the Palace Guard in the battle. The rebels have split into two large mobs. One's heading for the Palace. The other's on its way here.'

  Phaid was straightaway on is feet.

  'For Lords' sake just let us out of the cell. When the rebels break in it may take them days to get around to looking for us up here. We could starve in the meantime.'

  Hofster hesitated. Phaid started to plead.

  'How can we help you, put in a good word with the rebels or whatever, if we're still locked in here?'

  Hofster continued to hesitate. His training went so deep that it took a major internal battle before he could make the unprecedented step of actually letting prisoners go free. He shook his head. He'd started to sweat.

  'I don't know.'

  'Don't be a damned fool, Hofster. The lights are going to go out at any moment. There'll be a slaughter here. It won't take more than a couple of hours for the rebels to figure out how to cut off the power to the White Tower. That means the jolt fields will fail and when they do, the rebels will walk in. Our only hope is to work together and try to stay alive. There's no other way, damn it.'

  Hofster finally saw reason. He punched out the code and the door swung open.

  'Where exactly should we go?'

  Vist-Roxon shrugged.

  'Down, I suppose. Somewhere near ground level would seem to be the obvious thing to do. What do you think, Hofster?'

  Hofster scratched his head.

  'The induction area would seem to be the most logical place to head for.'

  Phaid scowled.

  'It sounds like a great place to run into huge gangs of panicky guards.'

  Vist-Roxon looked at him.

  'What do you want to do?'

  'Maybe move down a few levels and see what's hap­pening.'

  'You' re probably right.'

  'I am right. You two can do what you like but I'm treating all this with extreme caution. I've had too many body blows of late. I'm not about to get myself burned down minutes before I can walk clean out of here.' He held his hand to Hofster. 'Give me your blaster.'

  Hofster was horrified.

  'You're joking.'

  'Give me the damn blaster, you old fool!'

  'I can't give my weapon to a prisoner.'

  'When are you going to get it through your goddamn head that stuff don't count any more.'

  'Why should you have the weapon?'

  'Because I'm younger, I've got the best reflexes and no scruples. Now hand it over before I get angry.'

  Hofster looked in silent appeal at Vist-Roxon. Vist-Roxon sighed.

  'You best give it to him, old friend, he is right.'

  Hofster slowly reached around to his belt, pulled out the blaster and handed it, butt first, to Phaid. Phaid grinned and started down the corridor. The two older men followed.

  They cautiously descended for two levels, encountering nothing more than the same dirt and decay that Phaid remembered from when he had been forced to make the long climb to Vist-Roxon's cell. On the third level, they became confused by a maze of short, turning, twisting corridors and a virtual honeycomb of small, dark, irregu­larly shaped cells. Trying to find their way back to the stairs, they turned a sharp corner and ran headfirst into more prisoners nervously making for the lower levels.

  The suddenness of the confrontation jangled everyone's already badly stretched nerves. Phaid almost burned them down before he realised that they offered no threat. Rather sheepishly, he lowered his blaster.

  'How did you people get loose?'

  There were only two of them, a small, timid looking man and a rather muscular woman. They appeared bewil­dered and disorientated. They seemed to have trouble grasping what was going on. The small man did the talking. He had a provincial accent, and shook slightly as he spoke.

  'We were in solitary on the level above this one. A guard came and unlocked all our cells. He said that he was running away. He said that there was a revolution and that he didn't want to be killed. He told us we could do what we liked. We decided to go down to the lower levels. There are half a dozen more still up there. They're afraid to come out. Is there really a revolution? The guard said that the Palace was going to fall.'

  Phaid nodded.

  'Yeah, yeah, there's a revolution, sure enough. How long you been in solitary?'

  The little man shrugged sadly.

  'Who knows. There's no way to count time. They never turn the lights on and off according to a proper pattern of day and night. So there really is a revolution? Are we going to be set free?'

  'There's a mob surrounding the prison waiting for the jolt field to go off. Once that happens, they'll doubtless start cutting through the walls. Quite what they'll do with us prisoners once they get inside is anybody's guess.'

  The little man trembled quite noticeably.

  'Is that why you've got the blaster?'

  'Damn right it is.'

  'Can we come with you?'

  Phaid looked at Vist-Roxon, but he said nothing. Phaid realised that somehow, without a word being said, he had been elected leader of the little band.

  'Shit.'

  He looked at the man and woman from solitary.

  'Sure, sure, what the hell, you can tag along.'

  With Phaid once again taking the lead, they moved off in what they hoped was the direction of the stairs. Somehow they hit lucky and were able to drop through three more levels very quickly. It was that time that they started to discover batches of prisoners still locked in their cells. Directly these unfortunates realised that there was a chance of getting loose, they set up a dreadful clamour. Beseeching arms reached out to Phaid and his compan­ions. They were bombarded with appeals to help these others get free. Vist-Roxon and the couple from solitary hesitated, but Phaid, with a scowl and a shrug of his shoulders, hurried on, resolutely ignoring these pleas.

  'I know they're prisoners, so what? They're not my responsibility. What did these assholes ever do for me?'

  Nobody seemed willing to argue with Phaid. They got back on to the stairs. The lower down the tower they went, the more the tension mounted. Although all the catwalks, observation blisters and weapon points normally manned by guards had so far been deserted, they knew, sooner or later, they had to come face to face with some of their captors. Robot sensors had watched them as they passed, but, nothing had happened. It all seemed a little too good to be true.

  There was also the problem that sooner or later the rebels would find a way to cut the power to the prison. They seemed to be taking an inordinately long time to do it, and Phaid was just thinking that how, even if the Day Oners were in charge, it shouldn't have taken them that long. Right at that moment the lights blinked once and then went out. Instinctively, the five halted. Phaid let out a short, sharp breath.

  'Well, how about that. They finally managed it. They knocked out the power. I guess it won't be too long before they come through the wall.'

  'Is that good or bad?'

  Phaid recognised the little man by his accent. He scowled in the dark.

  'How the fuck should I know?'

  Vist-Roxon's.voice came out of the pitch black.

  'What should we do now?'

  Phaid was wondering how it was that he had to do all the thinking for the five of them when some tiny lights in the corridor ceiling flickered into life.

  'It might be some sort of emergency back-up.'

  When the lights had first gone, it had sounded as if half the prison population seemed to be giving voice. There were screams and yells and even noises that Phaid could hardly believe came out of a human throat. When the back-up lights came on, for some reason the noise seemed to get even worse. Phaid could see how those prisoners who were still locked
up must be caught between the smell of freedom and the awful fear of some last minute atrocity on the part of the guards.

  In a lot of ways, the back-up lights were almost worse than no lights at all. They were so small and weak that they did little more than create a shadowy gloom that, coupled with the general cacophony, set the imagination fearfully spinning.

  Apprehensively, Phaid and his four charges edged their way down one more level. It seemed as though disaster was about to loom out of every patch of darkness, but, in fact, they made it without incident. Considerably embol­dened, they decided to risk another downward move, even though they were getting close to the populace levels of the prison.

  The next flight of stairs was a more elaborate affair than they had previously encountered. It was broad and deep, and surfaced in dull plasteel. It went down further than just one level. In fact, it went down further than Phaid could see. In the limited light, it appeared to drop away into a black and bottomless pit. Out of this pit came the din of hundreds of invisible prisoners who yelled, screamed and beat metal on metal in panic and despera­tion. Phaid could imagine how countless dozens of scores must be being settled under the cover of the noise and the half darkness.

  The stairwell was overlooked by two spindly guard catwalks. Even though these were deserted, like all the others they had passed, there was something menacing about them. Phaid would happily have taken any other route. Unfortunately, the only alternative was to go back up, back from where they'd come. With no other choice available, Phaid started down, his blaster raised, and looking nervously all around.

  They made some thirty steps and all was going well, then a metallic voice, louder than the background din, floated down from above.

  'Hold it down there!'

  Phaid looked up. He could make out two, maybe three figures up on the catwalk. He didn't think. He fired.

  WOWOAR!

  Phaid was half blinded by the flash. He hopped side­ways, down five or six steps, firing as he went.

  WOWOAR! WOWOAR!

  Flame lashed down from above. Phaid dropped to a crouch, spraying his blaster frantically above his head. The plasteel to his right glowed cherry red in maybe nine or ten palm sized spots. He cringed away from them but didn't stop his continuous firing.

  BRAAUUWAA!

  It was suddenly as bright as day.

  WABAWABAWABAWABAWABAWABA!

  Phaid rolled over and over. All round him there were glowing spots on the plasteel steps. He snapped off some better aimed shots.

  RAB-RABA-RAB-RAN-RAN!

  A body came windmilling down and smashed sickening­ly into the hard metal steps. Phaid could no longer see anyone on the catwalk. He was no longer being fired at. He slowly lowered his overheated blaster and stood up. Parts of the steps were still an angry but swiftly cooling red. Phaid peered into the gloom for his temporary companions.

  'Is everyone okay?'

  Three voices answered in the affirmative. Vist-Roxon and the two from solitary got up from where they had been crouching against the wall.

  'What about Hofster?'

  'Hofster's dead.'

  Phaid bit his lip.

  'That's too bad.'

  'I had become very fond of the old duffer.'

  'Yeah.'

  The little man from solitary was looking nervously upwards.

  'Let's get off these stairs, huh?'

  Phaid noticed that a blaster was lying on the steps. It must have been dropped by one of the guards on the catwalk. Phaid bent down and picked it up. The little man was standing next to him. Phaid offered him a weapon.

  'It may have been damaged in the fall, but you might as well have it.'

  The little man shook his head.

  'I couldn't use it.'

  'What? What the hell is your problem?'

  'I have implants. If I do anything violent I get an immediate seizure.'

  'Sweet Lords.'

  The muscular woman held out her hand. She seemed to have regained her control to an amazing extent since they had first met. There was now a hardness in her eyes. It gave Phaid the feeling that he was only a bit player in her own very separate adventure.

  With two out of the remaining four of them now armed, the little party made faster, less timid progress. They almost became involved in a second fire fight when they ran head on into another, large group of free and armed prisoners. It was only at the very last minute that both groups realised that they were all on the same side.

  Like tributary streams running into a river, more groups of prisoners joined together to form a main body moving down towards the bottom levels of the White Tower. While they were still many levels above the induction area, the guards had melted away and it was obvious that the prisoners were in sole control of the jail.

  There was talk of how some guards had broken into the stores, shot the prisoners in charge and changed into prison overalls. Phaid didn't like the sound of this. He could see it becoming an excuse for yet another Day One purge.

  When the procession from the upper levels finally reached the induction area, the sight that met their eyes was scarcely credible. The emergency lighting seemed to be better on the lower levels. Below them whooping and yelling prisoners milled around what had once been the place or total desolation and misery.

  Many guards, along with a sprinkling of policemen, priests and civilians, had been herded into the holding pens. Not all had made it. A number of bodies, in bloodstained pink and green uniforms, had been hauled into an alcove between two pillars. The corpses of chief overseer Borkastra's dogs had been thrown in on top of them.

  Borkastra herself had been confined in a small mobile cage. It was placed, as though on display, in the middle of the large open area. The cage stood on a makeshift scaffold, to allow everyone a clear view of how far their greatest tormentor had fallen.

  She no longer seemed so frightening. Her uniform was ripped and stained. One huge breast spilled out where the front of the tunic had been torn away. Blood and dirt were smeared over her face and someone had stolen her ornamental belts and veebe-hide boots. Her shoulders had slumped so she no longer seemed like the formidable woman mountain who put the fear into the new arrivals. The overthrow of her closed domain had left her a sagging, gross and flaccid thing that was nothing more than pathetic.

  A ring of armed prisoners stood around the outside of the cage, their weapons pointed outwards. They were ironically protecting the Chief Overseer from attempts at revenge by her former prisoners. Phaid shuddered to think what eventual fate they had in store for her. It had to be something infinitely worse than a vicious, but at least swiftly executed, on-the-spot lynching.

  Revenge wasn't, however, foremost in the minds of all the prisoners. Some were already making up for the lost years of deprivation. Somehow a bunch of them had found a store of liquor and bouts of singing and dancing had already broken out. In the least lighted areas there was sexual coupling either prone on the floor or leaning again walls and pillars. Phaid smiled and shook his head. With the taste of freedom so fresh in. their mouths, the prisoners were organising their own drunken celebration before even the prison walls had fallen and their liberators had broken in. Phaid could have stood and watched the bizarre spectacle for a long time, except that he noticed that a network of cracks was spreading across one section of the outside wall. Obviously the people on the outside were well on their way to breaking through. Few of the revellers, though, appeared to have noticed what was going on. Phaid started to ease his way through the crowd, as far away from the crumbling section of wall as he could get. He feared that when their supposed rescuers did break through there would be injuries and even deaths as the walls collapsed on top of the shouting, dancing prisoners. He didn't look back until he had put the greatest possible distance between him and the crumbling wall section.

  When he finally halted, the original cracks were deep fissures, surrounded by a delicate tracery of smaller faults that spread rapidly outwards. A loud hum, punctuated by s
taccato snaps, echoed round the vaulted ceiling of the area. Parts of the wall began to turn black. They were starting to smoke. The noise grew louder and an acrid, scorched smell was filling the air. People nearest to the distintegrating wall were backing away, those behind them pushed forward to see what was happening. The drunks added the extra measure of confusion that turned the induction area into total chaos.

  Then the walls fell. A huge section burst inwards with something close to a small explosion. A photon bolt flashed from the breach and exploded against the roof, blue and searing. Debris showered down. Jagged chunks of masonry cascaded on to the nearest parts of the milling press of prisoners. There were shouts and shrieks of pain. Phaid was forced to duck as small flying particles pep­pered the pillar by which he'd taken shelter. Choking clouds of dust billowed from out of the breach in the wall. There was more shouting and yelling. The injured were crying out, begging for help. From where Phaid was standing, the arrival of the liberators looked more like a mine disaster. And then, incongruously, people began cheering in the middle of it all.

  Someone fired a blaster into the air. Someone else did the same. Very soon the ceiling was being semi-melted by exuberant blaster fire. More hot debris rained down, Phaid saw his first rebel duster coat among the crowd. A woman in prison uniform grabbed him and kissed his cheek. The injured still lay unattended in the litter of debris and dancing feet as the liberators were mobbed by hysterical prisoners. Hands reached and grasped Phaid's.

  Arms were clapped around his shoulders. More green coats mingled with the prison grey. Another woman hugged him. The whole place was aswirl in a confused, formless dance. People were laughing, crying, some seemed too stunned to grasp what was happening. He saw Borkastra led away, loaded down with chains. He saw guards being stripped of their uniforms and organised into chained groups. Phaid looked around for Vist-Roxon, but he was nowhere to be seen in the chaos.

  Phaid knew that it was time to make it through to the outside world. He had spent too much time in the White Tower to want to linger. He started easing his way among the celebrating horde and clambering over the rubble, all the time moving in the direction of the gaping hole in the wall and real freedom. He'd almost made it when a hefty rebel grabbed him by the arm.