Raiders of Gor
Page 35
"True," said Samos. "I hoped by that ruse to make it easier to deny any connection between myself and the message, should denial seem in order."
"You never again attempted to contact me," I said.
"You were not ready," said Samos. "And Port Kar needed you."
"You serve Priest-Kings," I said.
"Yes," said Samos.
"And it was for this reason, to protect me, one who once had served them as well, that you came to my holding?"
"Yes," said Samos, "but also because you had done much for my city, Port Kar. It was because of you that she now has a Home Stone."
"Does that mean so much to you?" I asked. Samos was the predator, the cruel, insensitive larl of a man, the hunter, the killer.
"Of course," he said.
We looked out. Disappearing now in the rence of the marshes, under the three moons, were the many small craft of the rencers.
Samos, on the height of the keep, regarded me. "Return to the service of Priest-Kings," he said.
I looked away. "I cannot," I said. "I am unworthy."
"All men," said Samos, "and all women, have within themselves despicable elements, cruel things and cowardly things, things vicious, and greedy and selfish, things ugly that we hide from others, and most of all from ourselves."
Telima and I regarded him.
Samos put, not without tenderness, a hand on the shoulder of Telima, and another on my own shoulder.
"The human being," he said, "is a chaos of cruelties and nobilities, of hatreds and of loves, of resentments and respects, of envies and admirations. He contains within himself, in his ferments, much that is base and much that is worthy. These are old truths, but few men truly understand them."
I looked out over the marshes. "It was no accident," I said, "that I was intercepted in the marshes."
"No," said Samos.
"Does Ho-Hak serve Priest-Kings?" I asked.
"Not to his knowledge," said Samos. "But long ago, when he was running from the galleys, and hunted, I concealed him in my house. I later helped him get to the marshes. From time to time he has aided me."
"What did you tell Ho-Hak?" I asked.
"That I knew of one from Port Kar who would soon be traversing the marshes."
"Nothing else?" I asked.
"Only," said he, looking at the girl, "that the girl Telima be used as the bait to snare you."
"The Rencers hate those of Port Kar,' I said.
"Yes," said Samos.
"They might have killed me," I said.
"It was a risk I took," said Samos.
"You are free with the lives of others," I said.
"Worlds are at stake," said he, "Captain."
I nodded.
"Did Misk," I asked, "the Priest-King, know of any of this?"
"No," said Samos. "He would surely not have permitted it. But Priest-Kings, for all their wisdom, know little of men." He, too, looked out over the marshes. "And there are men, too, of course," said he, "who, coordinating with Priest-Kings, oppose the Others."
"Who are the Others?" asked Telima.
"Do not speak now, Collared Female," said Samos.
Telima stiffened.
"I will speak to you sometime," I said, "of these things."
Samos had spoken gently, but he was a slaver.
"We anticipated," said Samos, "that your humanity would assert itself, that faced with a meaningless, ignominious death in the marshes, you would grovel and whine for your life."
In my heart I wept. "I did," I said.
"You chose," said Samos, "as warriors have it, ignominious bondage over the freedom of honorable death."
There were tears in my eyes. "I dishonored my sword, my city. I betrayed my codes."
"You found your humanity," said Samos.
"I betrayed my codes!" I cried.
"It is only in such moments," said Samos, "that a man sometimes learns that all truth and all reality is not written in one's own codes."
I looked at him.
"We knew that, if you were not killed, you would be enslaved. Accordingly, we had, for years, nursing in her hatreds and frustrations, well prepared one who would be eager to teach you, a warrior, a man, one bound for Port Kar, the cruelties, the miseries and degradations of the most abject of slaveries."
Telima dropped her head. "You prepared me well, Samos," she said.
I shook my head. "No," I said, "Samos, I cannot again serve Priest-Kings. You did your work too well. As a man I have been destroyed. I have lost myself, all that I was."
Telima put her head to my shoulder. It was cold on the height of the keep.
"Do you think," asked Samos of Telima, "that this man has been destroyed? That he has lost himself?"
"No," said the girl, "my Ubar has not been destroyed. He has not lost himself."
I touched her, grateful that she should speak so.
"I have done cruel and despicable things," I told Samos.
"So have we, or would we, or might we all," smiled Samos.
"It is I," whispered Telima, "who lost myself, who was destroyed."
Samos looked on her, kindly. "You followed him even to Port Kar," said he.
"I love him," she said.
I held her about the shoulders.
"Neither of you," said Samos, "have been lost, or destroyed." He smiled. "Both of you are whole," he said, "and human."
"Very human," I said, "too human."
"In fighting the Others," said Samos, "one cannot be human enough."
I was puzzled that he should have said this.
"Both of you now know yourselves as you did not before, and in knowing yourselves you will be better able to know others, their strengths and their weaknesses."
"It is nearly dawn," said Telima.
"There was only one last obstacle," said Samos, "and neither of you, even now, fully understand it."
"What is that?" I asked.
"Your pride," he said, "that of both of you." He smiled. "When you lost your images of yourselves, and learned your humanity, in your diverse ways, and shame, you abandoned your myths, your songs, and would accept only the meat of animals, as though one so lofty as yourself must be either Priest-King or beast. Your pride demanded either the perfection of the myth or the perfection of its most villainous renunciation. If you were not the highest, you would demand to be the lowest; if you were not the best, you would be nothing less than the worst; if there was not the myth there was to be nothing." Samos now spoke softly. "There is something," he said, "between the fancies of poets and the biting, and the rooting and sniffing of beasts."
"What?" I asked.
"Man," he said.
I looked away again, this time away from the marshes, and over the city of Port Kar. I saw the Venna and the Tela in the lakelike courtyard of my holding, and the sea gate, and the canals, and the roofs of buildings.
It was nearly light now.
"Why was I brought to Port Kar?" I asked.
"To be prepared for a task," said Samos.
"What task?" I asked.
"Since you no longer serve Priest-Kings," said Samos, "there is no point in speaking of it."
"What task?" I asked.
"A ship must be built," said Samos. "A ship different from any other."
I looked at him.
"One that can sail beyond the world's end," he said.
This was an expression, in the first knowledge, for the sea some hundred pasangs west of Cos and Tyros, beyond which the ships of Goreans do not go, or if go, do not return.
Samos, of course, knew as well as I the limitations of the first knowledge. He knew, as well as I, that Gor was a spheroid. I did not know why men did not traverse the seas far west of Cos and Tyros. Telima, too, of course, having been educated through the second knowledge in the house of Samos, knew that "world's end" was, to the educated Gorean, a figurative expression. Yet, in a sense, the Gorean world did end there, as it also, in a sense, ended with the Voltai ranges to the east. They wer
e the borders, on the east and west, of known Gor. To the far south and north, there was, as far as men knew, only the winds and the snows, driven back and forth, across the bleak ice.
"Who would build such a ship?" I asked.
"Tersites," said Samos.
"He is mad," I said.
"He is a genius," said Samos.
"I no longer serve Priest-Kings," I said.
"Very well," said Samos. He turned to leave. "I wish you well," said he, over his shoulder.
"I wish you well," I said.
Even though Telima wore her own cloak, I opened the great cloak of the admiral, and enfolded her within it, that we both might share its warmth. And then, on the height of the keep, looking out across the city, we watched the dawn, beyond the muddy Tamber Gulf, softly touch the cold waters of gleaming Thassa.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1971 by John Norman
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