Players of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “The ubar is dead!” cried a man.

  “The beast has done this,” said an officer, in horror. “Kill it! Kill it!”

  The men turned to the Kur. It took a brand from the fire plate beneath the oil vat and hurled it into the vat. Instantly a torrent of flame blasted upward from the vat. The men drew back. The Kur then, with a prodigious strength, slowly lifted the flaming vat of bloodied oil over its head. “Look out!” cried a man. “It will be crushed!” cried another. “Back!” cried another fellow. The beast hurled the vat away from itself, toward the men. They fled back. Two, screaming, were caught under the cauldron. For one terrible moment it had seemed as though the air itself had burst into flame.

  “Regroup!” cried an officer. “Regroup!”

  The Kur, at this time, did not attempt to escape, though I believe it might have made its way then at least from the baiting pit. Rather, it took six brands, still flaming, from the sand, scattered from the fire plate, and set them upright, torchlike, in a circular pattern, about itself. It stood then within this ring, a ring with a diameter of some twenty feet. I wondered if such rings were occasionally erected on the steel worlds. I wondered if it had ever stood within such a ring before. The number six is a number of special significance to Kurii. This possibly has to do with the tentaclelike, multiply jointed, six-digited paw of the beast. This number, and its multiples and divisions, figures prominently in their organizations, their timekeeping, and their chronology. They employ a base-twelve mathematics. The beast now stood within that circle, or ring. I did not understand the purpose of the ring, but I gathered that it was important to the beast. I recalled it had sent the sleen back to their lair. It would face the men alone, it seemed. I did not think it wanted their aid, nor mine.

  Suddenly it began to leap about, turning in the ring. It even turned a backwards somersault, uttering what sounded like gibberish, and then, bounding up and down, struck at its knees and thighs. I think the men feared it had gone insane. These things, however, are signs of Kur pleasure. Then it stood upright and looked at me. I had no doubt its nocturnal vision saw me very well. Its lips curled back about its fangs. I smiled. The resultant expression, although perhaps somewhat fearsome in the abstract, was a Kur approximation of a human smile. It is very different, as would be clear if you saw it, from that baring of fangs which indicates true menace. Too, the ears were not laid back, which is an almost invariable sign among Kurii of readiness to attack, of intent to do harm. “Farewell,” I whispered to it. I saw the smile spread more widely. I suddenly realized that it had heard me, though the men between us could not.

  “Ready,” said an officer. “Be ready.”

  I saw spear points lower. The beast in its own ring was ringed, too, with steel.

  It snarled at the men, and they hesitated. Then it threw back its great shaggy head and howled its defiance to the three moons, to the men who threatened it, to the universe and stars, to the world. Men shuddered, but did not break their circle. I admired them. They were good soldiers. Then the beast again turned its attention to the men. I thought I detected a low, almost inaudible growl. I saw the lips draw back again about the fangs, but this was no smile. For an instant, as it turned its head, its eyes, reflecting the light of one of the torches, blazed like molten metal. I saw the ears lay back against the side of the head.

  Suddenly, at a word of command, the men rushed forward. The beast seized at spears, slapping them away, seizing some, breaking them, taking others, perhaps a dozen, in its body. I saw it standing, fighting and tearing, in the midst of men. More than one man I saw lifted and thrown aside. Then I saw it go down beneath bodies. Men swarmed about it, thrusting with their spears, some hacking downward with their swords. “We have killed it!” cried one of the men. “I smell glory,” it had said. “It is a smell more exhilarating even than that of meat.” “It is dead!” cried one of the men. “It is dead!” cried another. Was there so much glory here, I wondered. It did not seem a likely place for glory, the sand of a baiting pit, in a torchlit moonlight, in a country far from its own. No monuments would be erected to this beast. There would be no odes composed. Surely it would never be revered among its people. It would not be remembered, nor, if they had them, would it be sung in their songs. Its glory, if it had it, would have been its own, perhaps the splendor of a lonely moment that only the beast itself truly understood, a moment that was its own justification, and that needed no other, a moment that was sufficient onto itself.

  “It is moving!” cried a man in terror.

  Suddenly, from the midst of those bodies, howling, the Kur, spears in its body, thrust upward clawing and raging like some force of nature. It stood knee deep in bodies.

  “Kill it!” screamed the officer. Again men charged, with spears and swords. In the bloody tumult men struck even one another. I saw it reach out and tear a man from his fellows, disposing of him, half decapitating him with a slash of fangs to the throat, and seize another, tearing his head from his body. Then it went down, bloody and terrible, again, beneath the weight or iron, and men. That was the thing, I recalled, which had been cast out of its own world for its alleged weakness. “It is moving again!” screamed a man.

  Once more I saw it rise up among bodies. I heard men weep, and continue to strike at it. How it prided itself on its refinements, on its sense of gentility. How vain it had been! How irritated I had even been with it, with its confounded supercilious arrogance. How jealous it was of being a gentleman. It went down again. “We cannot kill it!” screamed a man. “We cannot kill it!” It even cooked its meat. Once more it thrust its way up through bodies, now waist-deep about it. An arm hung from its jaws. Spears and swords struck at it, again and again. “They will learn,” it had said, “that even a gentleman knows how to fight.” Twice more it tore its way up among bodies, and then, at last, men stepped wearily back from it. Bodies were pulled away. It lay alone on the sand, dead. I could not even pronounce its name.

  “Wait,” said one of the officers. “Where is the other fellow, Bosk of Port Kar?”

  I then stepped behind the ubar’s box and lifted the partly opened trap and lowered myself into the passage below. I then closed and locked the trap, from the bottom. As it was designed, it was almost impossible to distinguish, from the surface, from the arrangements of tilings behind the box.

  I, below, heard men walking about on the tilings, and on the wooden tiers.

  “Where is Bosk of Port Kar?” I heard.

  “He is gone,” said another.

  “He has disappeared,” said another.

  21

  What Occurred in the Apartments of Belnar;

  Leather Gloves

  I spun about.

  “I thought you might come here,” said Flaminius. “No, do not draw.”

  My hand hesitated. He had not drawn his own weapon. Behind him, in a rag of silk, was a female slave.

  “You may kneel, Yanina,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, swiftly falling to her knees.

  “You must forgive her,” he said. “She is new to the collar. Only an Ahn or so ago was she branded.”

  She who had been the Lady Yanina looked at me, frightened. Then she put down her head, swiftly. I had seen in her eyes, in that brief moment that she had looked at me, that already she had learned that she was slave. This does not take long in the vicinity of Gorean men.

  “Do not draw,” he said.

  “Is she yours?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “A pretty slave,” I said.

  I knew she thought of herself as beautiful, and, indeed, she was beautiful, very beautiful. But I thought it would be useful for her to hear herself referred to as ‘pretty’. Let her grow accustomed to being regarded as, referred to, and assessed as the little or nothing she now was, as a girl, as a slave. Women can easily become tormented and uncertain as to their beauty. Is it not a relative thing? Free women seldom think to compare their beauty with that of slaves, for the slave is no mor
e than an animal. They are not in the same order of consideration, or within the same compass, so to speak. The statuses and ranks are so different. On the other hand when the “free woman” finds herself just such an animal, a slave, she finds herself subject to the same objective assessments with which men, keepers and trainers, buyers and sellers, and such, regard all sorts of animals. Suddenly her beauty is no longer concealed and sacrosanct but subject to explicit display and comparison, and vending. I recalled that I had once told the Lady Yanina that there were thousands of slaves more beautiful than she, but she had dismissed this observation on the grounds that it was a pointless irrelevance, as the slaves could be bought and sold. But now she, too, could be bought and sold. No longer could she compare herself only with free women, but must now compare herself with slaves, as well; indeed, she should no longer think to compare herself with free women, at all, as she was now a slave; she should not even dare to harbor such a presumptuous comparison; free women were now dimensions beyond her; they were to her as though in another world; publicly expressing such a comparison could bring her a lashing, and possibly disfigurement; no longer was she a free woman; those distinctions, privileges, dignities, glories and honors had been taken from her; she had now been removed from one category of consideration and plunged into another which was quite different, that of the female slave. Branded, locked in a collar, she was now only one beauty amongst incredible numbers of others. Her competition in beauty, so to speak, had now become suddenly, unanticipatedly abundant, perhaps overwhelming. Too, though there are many important qualities of a slave, clearly the first recognized, and most obvious, is her beauty. And amongst her collar sisters I did not think that the former Lady Yanina, though she had been remarkably fair for a free woman, would be unduly conspicuous. Obviously the most beautiful women are slaves. There are two major reasons for this. Captors, raiders, slavers, and such, pick the most beautiful for the collar. Indeed, it can be a humiliating moment for a woman to be rejected for the collar. There is an expression, “slave beautiful,” which underscores this matter. Many free women wonder if they are beautiful enough to be a slave; they put this question to themselves in their privacy while standing naked before a mirror; it is a question whispered to their pillow. The second major reason that the most beautiful women are slaves is that slavery increases the beauty of a woman, and this has to do not simply with the diet, exercise, gracefulness, training, carriage, and such, expected of slaves, but has to do even more, I suspect, with the inward transformation which takes place in her, the newly found energy, the fresh, zestful eagerness, the vitality, and radiance, which marks her transition from the stiffness, the coldness, the constraints, the pretenses, the false images, the inhibitions, the self-alienations, the repressions of the free woman to the health, openness, fulfillment and joy, and, in a sense, interestingly, the freedoms of the slave. This has, one supposes, something to do with the depth nature of the human female which, when culturally permitted, and encouraged, manifests itself so beautifully, in such exquisite, needful, vulnerable, passionate femininity. Nature welcomed and accepted is nature in health; nature rejected and thwarted is nature crippled, nature poisoned. So I had thought it useful to refer to the former Lady Yanina as merely “pretty.” Let this communicate something to her of her loss of status; let it, too, unsettle her to some extent in her hitherto-unquestioned confidence in her own extraordinary beauty; let her become uncertain about it, confused, apprehensive; would this not encourage her to become a better, more avid, even more beautiful slave? And so my use of the expression ‘pretty’, I trusted, would do her good. To be sure, I expected the former Lady Yanina would look well on the slave block. Turned, exhibited, posed, I was sure she would sell well.

  She was, after all, truly beautiful.

  I thought she would make an excellent slave.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She trembled, scrutinized.

  “I brought her along,” he said. “She was with another search party. Almost anyone who could recognize you was with one party or another.”

  “I gathered that that might be the case,” I said.

  “She was given to me by Belnar,” he said.

  “Belnar is now dead,” I said.

  “So I understand,” he said.

  “The slave seems frightened,” I said.

  “You have reason to be frightened, do you not, my dear?” asked Flaminius.

  “Perhaps, Master,” she whispered. “I do not know, Master.”

  “Put your head down to the floor,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “She was put in a state collar,” said Flaminius, “with no specifications or restrictions. Accordingly, even if she had not been given to me, I could have obtained her for myself, sending a silver tarsk to the exchequer. Who would gainsay me in that?” He looked down at the girl. “So in either case you would have come into my chains, wouldn’t you, Yanina?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, her head to the floor.

  “Are you here for the same reason that I am?” I asked.

  “Perhaps,” he said.

  I had returned by way of the passage behind the ubar’s box in the baiting pit. Once here, I had begun my search, in various rooms, for obvious, unconcealed paraphernalia, of a sort that might be germane to Kaissa, such things as boards and pieces, books, sheaves of papers, and records. I had, of course, in my return, lifted the dropped iron gate separating the private room, giving access to the passage, from the rest of the area. This was not difficult from the passage side. It had taken only a moment to locate the appropriate apparatus. I had then freed the lock bolts, which keep the gate in place once it has dropped, and, by means of a wheel, associated with chains and counterweights, raised the gate. The gate is freed, incidentally, by a small lever. Its fall is gravity controlled. The fall is swift, but not destructive. The speed of its descent is controlled largely by the counterweights.

  I had found what I had been looking for in a room apparently devoted to Kaissa, in the midst of what were apparently merely the records of games, jotted on scraps of paper. Among those records, fitted in with them, were other papers. There was little doubt these were what I had sought. On one paper was a numbered list of names, names of well-known Kaissa players. That, even, of Scormus was among them. On another paper there was what purported to be a list of tournament cities, and on another a list of names, of individuals supposedly noted for their craftsmanship in the skill and design of Kaissa boards and pieces. There were also, on other papers, numbered, too, the representations of boards.

  Arranged in various ways on these boards were letters, sometimes beginning from a word, sometimes from a random, or seemingly random alignment of letters. These were all, I took it, keys to Kaissa ciphers of one level of complexity or another. In a very simple case, for example, a given word, say, “Cibron,” the name of a wood worker of Tabor, might occur. This key, then, in a simple case, without variations, would presumably be used in the following manner: the deciphering individual would write “C-I-B-R-O-N” in the first six spaces at the top of a Kaissa board, moving from left to right, then following with the other, unused letters of the alphabet, moving from right to left on the second line, and so on, as “the ox plows,” as standard Gorean is written. In this fashion each square of the board, with its name, such as “Ubar Five,” and so on, would correspond to a letter, and some spaces, of course, would correspond to the same letter, thus providing cipher multiples. When one comes to the end of the originally unused letters, one begins anew, of course, starting then with the first letter of the alphabet, writing the full alphabet in order, and then continuing in this fashion.

  Some of the lists had small marks after some of the words, seemingly casual, meaningless marks. These, however, depending on the slants and hooks, indicating direction, would indicate variations in letter alignments, for example, “Begin diagonally in the upper-left-hand corner,” and such. Those keys on which the entire board appeared usual
ly possessed complex, or even random, alignments, of letters, and several nulls, as well as the expected multiples. A Gorean “zero” was apparently used to indicate nulls.

  I had thrust these papers in my pouch. The hastily opened coffer, which had seemed so momentous, and inaccessible, before, of course, had been only a diversion. The true concealment of the papers, one assuredly calculated to deceive those individuals who might have some just notion of their value, one worthy of Belnar’s brilliance, was to have them lying about, almost casually, mixed in, and seemingly belonging with, papers of no great importance. This subterfuge, was, so to speak, the disguise of unexpected obviousness. In this manner, too, of course, they would tend to be safe from common thieves, whose investigations presumably would be directed more toward the breaking open of strong boxes and the search for secret hiding places. Given their relative accessibility and their apparent lack of value common thieves would not be likely to find them of interest.

  If Belnar had erred here, I think it was in a very subtle matter. The pieces in the Kaissa room, and the boards there, did not indicate frequent usage. The wood was not worn smooth and stained with the oil of fingers; the surface of the boards showed little sign of wear, or use, such as tiny scratches or even the subtle indications, the small rubbing marks, of polishings. Belnar, like most Goreans, was doubtless familiar with Kaissa. On the other hand, it did not seem he often played. That being the case the abundance of hand-written notes and records about, seemingly related to the game, must, at least to some observers, appear something of an anomaly. It was at this point that I heard a subtle noise behind me. I had spun about.

  * * * *

  “No,” he said. “Do not draw.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “Do you expect to leave this place alive?”

  “Of course,” he said. He made no move to remove his blade from its sheath.