Norman, John - Gor 25 - Magicians of Gor.txt

by Magicians of Gor [lit]

  “Ah, yes,” I said, suddenly. “Marcus is right, of course. No ordinary person

  could hope to perform this task. It would require brilliance, dash, flair,

  subtlety, skill, even showmanship. It would require a master to pull it off.

  Nay, a master of masters.”

  “And what do you think I am?” asked the fellow.

  “This task,” I said dismally, “would require flexibility, range and nuance.” It

  seemed I had heard these words recently. They seemed useful at the moment. I

  seized upon them.

  “But I am a master of flexibility,” said the fellow, “I have enormous range,

  from one horizon of the theater to another. I have a grasp of nuance that would

  shame the infinite shades of the spectrum, in all their variations in

  brilliance, saturation and hue!”

  “Truly?” asked Marcus.

  “Of course!” said the fellow.

  “We really need an army,” he said.

  “In my youth,” said the fellow, “I was a one-man army!” In Gorean theater armies

  are usually represented by a fellow carrying a banner behind an officer. In the

  pageant we had seen earlier in the year, of course, hundreds of actors had been

  on the stage in the great theater.

  “You could never manage it,” I said.

  “You are craftier than a battering ram,” he said, “and your subtlety would put

  to shame that of most tharlarion of my acquaintance but this young man is

  serious.”

  Marcus looked at him, puzzled.

  “Do you not know who I am?” he asked.

  “A wondrous magician?” asked Marcus, hopefully.

  “The least of my accomplishments,” said the fellow.

  (pg. 283) “If anyone could accomplish the task, I would suppose it must be on

  such as you,” said Marcus.

  “Do you wish to know what the task is?” I asked.

  “Not now,” he said. “Whatever it is, I shall undertake it speedily and

  accomplish it with dispatch.”

  Marcus regarded him with awe.

  “What is it?” asked the fellow. “You wish the Central Cylinder moved? You wish

  the walls of Ar rebuilt overnight? You wish a thousand tarns tanned in one

  afternoon?”

  “He is a magician!” said Marcus.

  “You wish Ar to escape the yoke of Cos?” I asked the fellow.

  “Certainly,” he said.

  “What we have in mind may help to bring that about,” I said.

  “Speak,” he said.

  “You know that Ar refused to support Ar’s Station in the north and that her

  loyalty to the state of Ar cost her her walls and her Home Stone?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I know that, but I am not supposed to know that.”

  “Ar owes fidelity and courage of Ar’s Station much,” I said.

  “Granted,” he said.

  “Would you like to pay back a part of the debt which Ar owes Ar’s Station?” I

  asked.

  “Certainly,” he said.

  “And would you like to take a trip to the north with your troupe, a trip which

  might eventually bring you to the town of Port Cos, on the northern bank of the

  Vosk?”

  “They are staunch supporters of the theater there, are they not?” he asked.

  “It is a rich town,” I said.

  “Staunch enough,” he said.

  “In which, if you accomplish this task, you will be hailed as heroes,” I said.

  “We are already heroes,” he said. “It is only that we have not been hailed as

  such.”

  “If you undertake this task,” I said, “you will be indeed a hero.”

  “Port Cos?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That is where the survivors of Ar’s Station are, is it not?” he asked.

  “Many of them,” I said.

  (pg. 284) “What do you have in mind?” he asked.

  “The Delta Brigade,” I said, “is restoring courage and pride to Ar. The

  governance of the city, under the hegemony of Cos, wishes to discredit the

  Brigade by associating it in the popular mind with Ar’s Station, which the folks

  of Ar have been taught to despise and hate.”

  “That has been clear to me for some time,” said the fellow, “at least since noon

  yesterday.”

  “Do you think most folks in Ar believe, at least now, that Ar’s Station is

  behind the Delta Brigade?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “It is supposed almost universally that it is an organization of

  delta veterans.”

  “What do you think would happen,” I asked, “if the Home Stone of Ar’s Station

  would disappear, from beneath the very noses of the authorities?”

  “I do not know,” he said, “but I suspect it would be thought that the Delta

  Brigade, the veterans, rescued it, and this might give the lie to the official

  propaganda on the subject, and even vindicate Ar’s Station in the eyes of the

  citizenry, that the Delta Brigade chose to act on her behalf. At the least, the

  disappearance of the stone would embarrass the governance of the city, and Cos,

  and cast doubt on their security and efficiency. Its loss could thus undermine

  their grasp on the city.”

  “I think so, too,” I said.

  “You wish me to obtain the Home Stone of Ar’s Station for you?” he asked.

  “For Ar,” I said, “for Ar’s Station, for the citzenry of Ar’s Station, for

  Marcus.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Very well,” I said. I stepped back. I had not wish to urge him. Nor had Marcus.

  “You misled me,” he said.

  “I am sorry,” I said.

  “You told me that the task was difficult, that it was dangerous,” he said,

  scornfully.

  I was puzzled.

  “Do you not know that the stone is now on public display,” he asked, “for Ahn a

  day?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We know that.”

  “It is in the open!” he said.

  “In a way,” I said.

  “It is not locked in a tower, encircled with a moat of sharks, behind ten doors

  of iron, ringed by deadly osts, circled by maddened sleen, surrounded by

  ravening larls.”

  “No,” I said. “Not to my knowledge.”

  (pg. 285) “I shall not do it!” he said.

  “I do not blame you,” I said.

  “Do you hold me in such contempt?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” I said, puzzled.

  “Do you ask me, me, to do such a thing?”

  “We had hoped you might consider it,” I said.

  “Never!” he said.

  “Very well,” I said.

  “What slandering scoundrels you are, both of you,” he said, angrily.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “It is too easy!” he said, angrily.

  “What?â�
�� I asked.

  “It is too easy,” he said. “It is unworthy of me! It is beneath my attention. It

  would be an insult to my skills! There is no challenge!”

  “It is too easy?” I asked.

  “Would you come to a master surgeon to have a boil lanced, a wart removed?” he

  asked.

  “No,” I admitted.

  “To a scribe to read the public boards!”

  “No,” said Marcus. I myself was silent. I sometimes had difficulty with the

  public boards, particularly when cursive script was used.

  “Let me understand this clearly,” I said. “You think the task would be too

  easy?”

  “Certainly,” he said. “It requires only a simple substitution.”

  “Do you think you could manage it?” asked Marcus, eagerly.

  “Anyone could do it,” he said, angrily. “I know of at least one, in Turia.”

  “But that is in the southern hemisphere,” I pointed out.

  “True,” he said.

  “Then you will do it?” I said.

  “I will need to get a good look at the stone,” he said. “But that is easily

  accomplished. I will go and revile it tomorrow.”

  Marcus stiffened.

  “It is necessary,” I said to Marcus. “He will not mean it.”

  “Then,” he said, “once I have every detail of the stone carefully in mind I

  shall see to the construction of a duplicate.”

  “You can remember all the details?” I asked.

  “Taken in in an glance,” he assured me.

  “Remarkable,” I said.

  (pg. 286) “A mind such as mine,” he said, “occurs only once or twice in a

  century.”

  Marcus had hardly been able to speak, so overcome he was.

  “Do you, lad, know the stone fairly well?” he was asked by the paunchy fellow.

  “Yes!” said Marcus.

  “Good,” said the paunchy fellow.

  “Why do you ask that?” I asked.

  “In case I forget the color of it, or something,” he said.

  “You do realize, do you not,” I asked, “that the stone is under constant

  surveillance.”

  “It will not be under surveillance for the necessary quarter of an Ihn or so,”

  he said.

  “You will use misdirection?” I asked.

  “Unless you have a better idea, or seventy armed men, or something.”

  “No,” I said.

  “There will be many guards about,” said Marcus.

  “I work best with an audience,” said the ponderous fellow.

  I did not doubt it. On the other hand he did make me a bit nervous. I trusted he

  would not try to make too much of a show of it. The important thing was to get

  the stone and get it out of the city, and, if possible, to Port Cos.

  “Sir!” said Marcus.

  “Lad?” asked the ponderous fellow.

  “Even though you should fail in this enterprise and die a horrible death, I want

  you to know that you have the gratitude of Ar’s Station!”

  “Thank you,” said the fellow. “The sentiment touches me.”

  “It is nothing,” Marcus assured him.

  “No, no!” said the fellow. “On the rack, and under the fiery irons and burning

  pincers, should such be my fate, I shall derive much comfort from it.”

  “I think you are the most courageous man I have ever known,” said Marcus.

  “Twice this evening,” said the fellow, turning to me, “it seems my well-wrought

  sham of craven timidity, carefully constructed over the period of a lifetime,

  has been penetrated.”

  “Do you plan to seize the Home Stone by trickery or magic?” asked Marcus.

  “I haven’t decided,” said the fellow. “Which would you prefer?”

  “If it does not the more endanger you,” said Marcus, grimly, “I would prefer

  trickery, human trickery.”

  “My sentiments, exactly,” said the fellow. “What do you think?”

  (pg. 287) “Whatever you wish,” I said.

  “By using trickery,” said Marcus, earnestly, “we are outwitting Ar, making fools

  of them, accomplishing our objective within the rules, winning the game

  honestly.”

  “True,” said the fellow. “I have nothing but contempt for those magicians who

  stay safe in the towers of their castles, consulting their texts, uttering their

  spells and waving their magic wands about, spiriting away valuable objects.

  There is no risk there, no glory! That is not fair. Indeed, it is cheating.”

  “Yes,” said Marcus. “It would be cheating!”

  “You have convinced me,” said the fellow. “I shall use trickery and not magic.”

  “Yes!” said Marcus.

  “There is danger,” I said to the ponderous fellow.

  “Not really,” he said.

  “I am serious,” I said.

  “If I thought there were the least bit of danger involved in this, surely you do

  not think I would even consider it, do you?”

  “I think you might,” I said.

  “It all depends on the fellow involved,” he said. “If you were to attempt to

  accomplish this, with your particular subtlety and skills, there would indeed be

  danger, perhaps unparalleled peril. Indeed, I think I would have the rack

  prepared the night before. But for me, I assure you, it is nothing, no more than

  a sneeze.”

  “He is a magician,” Marcus reminded me.

  “But he is only planning on using trickery,” I reminded Marcus, somewhat

  irritably.

  “True,” said Marcus, thoughtfully.

  “Would you wait outside, Marcus?” I asked.

  “Certainly,” he said, exiting.

  “A nice lad,” said the fellow.

  “There are serious risks involved,” I said to the fellow.

  “For you perhaps,” he said. “Not for me.”

  “We have gold,” I said, “obtained in the north.”

  “And you do not know better than to try futilely to force this wealth upon me,

  even against my will?” asked the fellow.

  “I would like you to consider it,” I said.

  “That is the least I can do for a friend,” he said

  “It will help to defray the expenses of the troupe in the north,” I said.

  “It is then a contribution to the arts?” asked the fellow.

  “Certainly,” I said.

  “And you would be grievously offended if I did not accept it?”

  (pg. 288) “Certainly,” I said.

  “Under those you leave me no choice.”

  “Splendid,” I said.

  “The amount, of course, I leave to your well-known generosity.”

  “Very well,” I said.

  “It should be commensurate, of course, as you are the patron, with your concept

  of the risks involved and not mine.”

  “So much gold,” I sa
id, “is not in Gor.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I trust that my estimate of the risks involved is a good deal more

  accurate than yours.”

  “It is my fervent hope,” I said.

  “Do you think an entire gold piece, say, a stater, or a tarn disk, would be too

  much in a cause to perpetuate and enhance the arts on an entire world?”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “What about two gold pieces?”

  “It can be managed,” I assured him.

  “In that case perhaps you can return the young fellow’s wallet to him.” He

  handed me Marcus’ wallet. I felt quickly for my own. It was still in place.

  “It is all there,” he said, “what there was.”

  “Very well,” I said. Marcus and I did not carry much money about with us.

  “Be careful,” I said to him.

  “If I were not careful,” he said, “there would be a great deal more than eleven

  warrants out on me, and I would have a great deal more creditors than the

  twenty-two who know where to fine me.”

  I was silent.

  “I must go upstairs now,” he said, “and content Telitsia. Since she has become a

  slave she is quite different from the free woman you once knew.”

  “I am sure of it,” I said.

  In bondage, the once proud, arrogant Telitsia, of Asperiche, had learned slave

  arousal. I could imagine her upstairs now, probably chained by the neck to a

  ring, probably stripped, given the heat of the higher apartments, probably lying

  on the floor, where she had been put, near the ring, her small hands on her neck

  chain, or her fingers on the ring, now and then moaning, and turning about, or

  squirming, with a movement of chain, awaiting the return of her master.

  “I wish you well,” I said.

  “I wish you well,” he said.

  (pg. 289) He then turned about and, with considerably less speed than he had

  manifested in his descent, began to climb the stairs. In a moment or two, as he

  was not carrying a light, he had disappeared in the darkness. I listened,

  however, for some time, to his climbing. I then went outside and rejoined

  Marcus.

  “Do you know who that was?” I asked.

  “A magician,” he said.

  “Here is your wallet,” I said.