by John Norman
“You do not handle a sword like a merchant,” smiled Farouk of Kasra.
I smiled.
“I myself,” said Farouk of Kasra, “am soon journeying to the Oasis of Nine Wells. I should be honored if you might, with your kaiila, accompany me.”
“I should be most pleased to do so,” I told him.
“I have purchased what kaiila I need,” said Farouk.
“When will you leave?” I asked.
“At dawn,” he said.
“I must pick up a girl at the pens of Tor,” I said. “I shall join you on the trail.”
“Do you know the desert?” asked Farouk.
“No,” I said.
“Achmed,” he said. “will wait for you at the south gate.”
“I am pleased,” I said.
After coming from the tents of Farouk of Kasra, outside the walls of Tor, I was returning late to my compartment, which lay in the district of tenders and drovers.
Things, it seemed to me, were proceeding well. Enroute I would find the rock, which had been discovered, some months ago, by the boy Achmed, the son of Farouk. This rock would be the place at which my search must begin. After determining this point, I would continue on to the Oasis of Nine Wells, where I would lay in supplies and water, attempt to hire a guide, and, returning to the rock, strike eastward into the Tahari. Questioning nomads, doubtless to be found here and there in the wastes, and the inhabitants of various eases, many of them off the main caravan routes, I hoped, eventually, to obtain enough data or information to make it possible to find the mysterious tower of steel. I thought it likely that there existed such a tower. I doubted that it was a figment of the imagination of the man who had made the inscription and, thereafter, had died in the desert. Towers of steel do not figure in the hallucinations, the delusions of the desert mad. Their delusions are influenced by wish-fulfillment; they involve water. Moreover, they are not likely to take the time to inscribe messages on rocks. Something had driven the man over the desert, something he had to tell. He had been, apparently, a raider. But yet, for some reason, he had fought his way, presumably eventually on foot, dying, through the desert, toward civilization, to warn someone, or something, of a steel tower. I did not doubt there was such a tower. On the other hand, I would have little or no chance of finding it by striking blindly out into the desert. I would have to make contact with nomads, and others, hoping eventually to find one who had heard of, or knew of, the tower. If it were in the dune country, removed from eases and caravan trails, of course, few, if any, might have seen it. Yet, I did not doubt that at least one man had seen it, he who had made the inscription, who had died near it, whose body had been dried, blackened, by the sun.
The streets of Tor were dark. Sometimes they were steep; often they were narrow and crooked. Sometimes I felt my way by touching a wall. Some places a small lamp burned, high, near a doorway.
I thought I heard a step behind me. I threw back the burnoose, unsheathed the scimitar. I waited.
I heard nothing more.
I pressed on through the streets. No more did I hear a step behind me.
I looked back, the streets were dark.
I think I was not more than a half pasang from my compartment when, approaching an opened gate, some forty yards ahead, lit by torches in walls, I stopped.
It was a small courtyard, through which it was my intention to pass.
I saw the shadow, furtive, dart back behind one of the two halves of the gate.
At the same time I heard the movements of men behind me. There were five of them.
I felled the first. I felled the second. I caught the scimitars of three on my blade and leaped back. They separated, intelligently, and, crouching, edged toward me. I backed away, crouching. I hoped to draw the center man forward, to where he might, if I should move to the right, block the man on his own right, or if I moved to the left, block the man on his own left. But he hung back, the two on the sides creeping forward. Whichever man I attacked need only defend himself; the other two would have a free instant, that of his defense, to make their own strokes. These men were not common street thieves.
Suddenly the three men stopped. I tensed. One man threw down his scimitar. All three of them turned and fled.
Behind me I heard the doors of the courtyard swing shut. I heard the beam, locking it, fall in place.
I turned. I could see nothing for the closed gate. The torches, high on the walls of the courtyard, flickered, casting pools of yellow light on the plaster walls.
Then I heard a human scream of horror from the other side of the gate.
I did not know at that time how many men were waiting in the courtyard. I do not think any of them escaped.
I waited, scimitar drawn, outside the closed gate of the courtyard.
High above, in a wall to my right, a light appeared. “What is going on?” cried a man.
Lights appeared in others of the high, narrow windows. I saw men looking out. I saw one woman, holding her veil to her face, peering out.
In what could not have been more than two or three Ehn, men, carrying torches, some of them lamps, emerged into the street. We could hear, too, men on the other side of the courtyard. Within the courtyard we then heard men moving. I heard a woman scream. I could see movement, and torches, in the vertical thread of space between the two halves of the gate.
“Open the gate!” called a man, pounding from our side. We heard the heavy bar thrust up, and then creak, rotating, on its four-inch-thick pin. Four men, from our side, pushed open the gate. The crowd in the courtyard stood back, in a circle. Torches were lifted as men looked to the stones of the courtyard. My eyes examined the heights of the walls, the adjoining roofs. Then I, too, gave my attention to the stones of the courtyard.
Eleven men lay there, and parts of men.
“What could have done this,” whispered a man.
I wondered if any had escaped. I doubted it.
The heads of four of the men had been torn from them; the heads of two others had been half bitten from them; one man’s throat looked as though it had been struck twice with parallel hatchets; I was familiar with the spacing of the wounds; two men had lost arms, one a leg; one of the men without an arm had been disemboweled; there was also the print of jaws in his shoulder; I was familiar with this sort of thing; I had seen it often enough in Torvaldsland; the man is seized about the neck and shoulders and held, while the squat, powerful, clawed hind feet rip at the lower abdomen; twenty feet of gut was scattered in the blood and robes, like wet, red-spattered rope; the man who had lost a leg had had his spine bitten through; I could see the stomach from the back; the other man who had had an arm torn from him, too, had been half eaten, ribs erupted from the chest cavity; the heart and the left lung were missing; the eleventh man had been the most cleanly killed; about his throat, on the sides, were six black, circular bruises, like rope marks; his head hung to one side; the back of his neck had been bitten through.
I looked again to the walls, the roofs about the courtyard. “What could have done this?” asked a man.
I turned and left the courtyard. Beside the two men in the street, who had lasted my scimitar, were gathered several townsfolk of Tor.
I looked down on the two bodies. “Do you know them?” I asked a man.
“Yes,” he said, “Tek and Saud, men of Zev Mahmoud.” “They will kill no more,” said a man.
“At what place might I expect to find the noble Zev Mahmoud?” I inquired.
“He and his men are often to be found at the Cafe of the Six Chains,” said the man. He grinned.
“My thanks, Citizen,” said I.
I wiped my blade on the burnoose of one of the fallen men, and resheathed it.
Looking up, I saw, hurrying toward us, carrying a torch, the small water carrier I had encountered several times. He looked up at me. “Did you see?” he asked.
His face was white. “It was horrible,” he said. He trembled.
“I saw,” I said.
/> I pointed to the two men in the street. “Do you know these men?” I asked.
He peered at them closely. “No,” he said. “They are strangers in Tor.”
“Is it not late to carry water?” I asked him.
“I am not carrying water, Master,” he said.
“How is it that you are in this district.” I asked.
“I live but a short way from here,” he said. Then he left, bowing, carrying the torch.
I looked at the man to whom I had spoken earlier. “Does he live near here?” I asked.
“No,” said the man, “he lives by the east gate, near the shearing pens for verr.”
“Do you know him?” I asked.
“He is well known in Tor,” said the man.
“And who is he?” I asked.
“The water carrier Abdul,” said the man.
“My thanks, Citizen,” said I.
“Zev Mahmoud?” I asked.
The heavily built man in the kaffiyeh and agal looked up, angry, then turned white.
The point of the scimitar was at his throat.
“Into the street,” I told him. I looked at the two other men, who sat, cross-legged, about the small table, with him. I gestured with my head. “Into the street,” I told them.
“There are three of us,” said Zev Mahmoud.
“Into the street,” I told them.
They looked at one another. Zev Mahmoud smiled. “Very well,” he said.
One of them, who had lost his scimitar, took one from a man in the cafe.
“Our fees will yet be paid,” said one of the men to Zev Mahmoud.
I followed them into the street.
There I finished them.
I did not wish to leave them behind me in Tor.
It was late when I returned to the compartment in the district of tenders and drovers.
I was not surprised to find the water carrier waiting for me; sitting on the steps.
“Master,” he said.
“Yes,” I responded.
“You are new in Tor,” said he. “and may not know the ways of the city. I know many in Tor, and might be of much help to you.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“There will soon be war between the Kavars and the Aretai,” he said. Caravan routes may be closed. It may be difficult to get tenders and drovers who will, in such dangerous times, venture into the desert.”
“And how,” I asked, “should such misfortune come to pass, might you be of assistance to me?”
“I could find you men, good men, honest, fearless fellows, who will accompany you.”
“Excellent,” I said.
“In troubled times, though,” he said, cringing, “their fees may be higher than normal.”
“That is understandable,” T said.
He seemed relieved.
“Whither are you bound, Master?” he asked.
“Turia,” I told him.
“And when will you be prepared to leave?” he asked. “Ten days,” said I, “from the morrow.”
“Excellent,” he said.
“Seek then,” said I. “such men for me.”
“It will be difficult,” said he. “but depend upon me.”
He put forth his palm. I put into it a silver tarsk. “Master is generous,” said he.
“My caravan is small.” I told him, “only a few kaiila. I doubt that I shall need more than three men.”
“I know just the men,” grinned the man.
“Oh?” asked I.
“Yes,” he said.
“And where will you find them?” I asked.
“I think,” said he, “at the Cafe of the Six Chains.”
“I hope,” said I, “you are not thinking of the noble Zev Mahmoud and his friends.”
He seemed startled.
“The word has spread through Tor,” I said. “It seems there was a brawl, outside the cafe.”
The water carrier turned white. “Then I must try to find you others, Master,” said he.
“Do so,” I said.
The silver tarsk slipped from his fingers. He backed away. Then, suddenly, looking over his shoulder, he turned, and fled.
I reached down and picked up the tarsk. I slipped it back in my wallet. I was weary. I did not think I would hear, soon, from the water carrier. It would be ten days, as I recalled, before I was due to leave for Turia.
Now I must rest, for I must be up at dawn. In the morning there were various preparations to be made. Among them, I must pick up a girl from the public pens of Tor. Achmed, the son of Farouk, would be waiting for me at the south gate of the city. We would join the caravan of Farouk on the trail, probably before noon.
I hoped there would not be war between the Kavars and the Aretai. It would not make my work easy.
I hoped to obtain supplies, and a guide, at the Oasis of Nine Wells. It was held, I recalled, by Suleiman, master of a thousand lances, Suleiman of the Aretai.
I then turned and began to climb the narrow wooden stairs to my compartment. I had heard the last, I conjectured, of the water carrier, he called Abdul.
4 Riders Join the Caravan of Farouk
The caravan moved slowly.
I turned my kaiila, and, kicking its flanks, urged it down the long line of laden animals.
With my scimitar tip I lifted aside a curtain.
The girl, startled, cried out. She sat within, her knees to the left, her ankles together, her weight partly on her hands, to the right, on the small, silk-covered cushion of the frame. It was semicircular and about a yard in width at its widest point. The superstructure of the frame rose about four feet above the frame at its highest point, inclosing, as in an open-fronted, flat-bottomed, half globe, its occupant. This frame, however, was covered completely with layers of white rep cloth, to reflect the sun, with the exception of the front, which was closed with a center-opening curtain, also of white rep-sloth. The wood of the frame is tem-wood. It is light. It is carried by a pack kaiila, strapped to the beast, and steadied on both sides by braces against the pack blankets. This frame is called, in Gorean, the kurdah. It is used to transport women, either slave or free, in the Tahari. The girl was not chained within the kurdah. There is no need for it. The desert serves as cage.
“Veil yourself,” I laughed.
Angrily Alyena, the former Miss Priscilla Blake-Allen of Earth, took the tiny, triangular yellow veil, utterly diaphanous, and held it before her face, covering the lower portion of her face. The veil was drawn back and she held it at her ears. The light silk was held across the bridge of her nose, where, beautifully, its porous, yellow sheen broke to the left and right. Her mouth, angry, was visible behind the veil. It, too, covered her chin. The mouth of a woman, by men of the Tahari, and by Goreans generally, is found extremely provocative, sexually. The slave veil is a mockery, in its way. It reveals, as much as conceals, yet it adds a touch of subtlety, mystery; slave veils are made to be torn away, the lips of the master then crushing those of the slave.
Aside from her veil, and her collar, in the kurdah, she was stark naked.
She held the veil before her face. I saw her eyes, very blue, over the yellow.
“At least now,” I said to her, “you are not face-stripped.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Shameless!” I said.
She held the veil to her face.
“Fasten it,” I said, “and wear it in the kurdah. Should I find you again so shamelessly unveiled, without my permission, you will be lashed.”
“Yes. Master.” she said, and, holding the veil with one hand, groped on the cushion for the tiny golden string with which she might fasten it upon her. With the scimitar tip I let the curtain of rep-cloth fall, concealing her again in the kurdah.
I laughed as I spun the kaiila, hearing her utter a tiny cry of rage inside the kurdah.
I did not doubt, however, but what the next time I opened the curtain of the kurdah it would be a veiled slave I would encounter therein.
&nbs
p; Alyena was very lovely, though she had much to learn. She had not yet even been whipped. That detail, however, unless she displeased me, I would leave to her new master, to he to whom I would eventually give or sell her.
The sand kaiila, or desert kaiila, is a kaiila, and handles similarly, but it is not identically the same animal which is indigenous, domestic and wild, in the middle latitudes of Gor’s southern hemisphere; that animal, used as a mount by the Wagon Peoples, is not found in the northern hemisphere of Gor; there is obviously a phylogenetic affinity between the two varieties, or species; I conjecture, though I do not know, that the sand kaiila is a desert-adapted mutation of the subequatorial stock; both animals are lofty, proud, silken creatures, long-necked and smooth-gaited; both are triply lidded, the third lid being a transparent membrane, of great utility in the blasts of the dry storms of the southern plains or the Tahari; both creatures are comparable in size, ranging from some twenty to twenty-two hands at the shoulder; both are swift; both have incredible stamina; under ideal conditions both can range six hundred pasangs in a day; in the dune country, of course, in the heavy, sliding sands, a march of fifty pasangs is considered good; both, too, I might mention, are high-strung, vicious-tempered animals; in pelt the southern kaiila ranges from a rich gold to black; the sand kaiila, on the other hand, are almost all tawny, though I have seen black sand kaiila; differences, some of them striking and important, however, exist between the animals; most notably, perhaps, the sand kaiila suckles its young; the southern kaiila are viviparous, but the young, within hours after birth, hunt, by instinct; the mother delivers the young in the vicinity of game; whereas there is game in the Tahari, birds, small mammals, an occasional sand sleen, and some species of tabuk, it is rare; the suckling of the young in the sand kaiila is a valuable trait in the survival of the animal; kaiila milk, which is used, like verr milk, by the peoples of the Tahari, is reddish, and has a strong, salty taste; it contains much ferrous sulphate; a similar difference between the two animals, or two sorts of kaiila, is that the sand kaiila is omnivorous, whereas the southern kaiila is strictly carnivorous; both have storage tissues; if necessary, both can go several days without water; the southern kaiila also, however, has a storage stomach, and can go several days without meat; the sand kaiila, unfortunately, must feed more frequently: some of the pack animals in a caravan are used in carrying fodder; whatever is needed, and is not available enroute, must be carried; sometimes, with a mounted herdsman, caravan kaiila are released to hunt tabuk; a more trivial difference between the sand kaiila and the southern kaiila is that the paws of the sand kaiila are much broader, the digits even webbed with leathery fibers, and heavily padded, than those of its southern counterpart.
