by John Norman
“It is near dawn,” said Hassan. “Let us leave the oasis.”
I rode beside him.
“Why should you wish to speak to me?” I asked him.
“I think,” he said, “we have a common interest.”
“In what?” I asked.
“In travel,” he said.
“Travelers often seek out curiosities,” I said, “I intend a venture into the desert,” he said.
“It will be dangerous in these times,” I said.
“Are you familiar with a stone,” asked he, “near the route between Tor and Nine Wells, which bears an inscription?”
“Yes,”‘ I said.
“And there was a man,” said he, “who lay near the stone, he who had scratched the inscription.”
“Yes,” I said. “But when I saw the stone he was gone.”
“I took the body,” said Hassan. “In a great pyre of brush I saw it burned. Its ashes I had committed to the sands.”
“You knew him?” I asked.
“He was my brother,” said Hassan.
“What do you seek in the desert?” I asked.
“A steel tower,” he said.
11 Red Rock, Where Salt is Shared; Hassan and I Encounter Tarna
“You do not wear bells on your kaiila harness!” said the man, threatening its with his lance.
“We come in peace,” said Hassan. “Have you seen, or heard aught, of a tower of steel?”
“You are mad!” cried the man.
Hassan turned aside his kaiila, with its single rein, and continued our journey, his nine men, myself, and the slave girl, Alyena, following, on our kaiila.
Standing afoot, in the dust, with his lance, the nomad watched us turn away.
Behind him was a herd of eleven verr, browsing on brownish snatches of verr grass. He would have defended the small animals with his life. Their milk and wool was his livelihood, and that of his family.
“Perhaps there is no steel tower,” I suggested to Hassan.
“Let us continue our search,” he said.
I had now seen the Tahari in many moods. For twenty days we had been upon the desert.
Once, when a rising edge of blackness, whipping with dust, had risen in the south, we had dismounted, hobbled our kaiila and turned their backs to the wind.
We had made a wall with our packs and crouched behind it, drawing our burnooses about us. Hassan, in his own burnoose, sheltered the girl, Alyena, commonly keeping her wrists braceleted behind her, that she not forget she was slave. For two days the sand bad hurtled about us, and we had waited, in the manner of the Tahari, patiently in the blasting half darkness of the sand. We had scarcely moved, save to pass about a verrskin of water and a leather pouch of Sa-Tarna meal. Then, as swiftly as it had come, the sand fled, and the sun, bright and immediate, raw with its ferocity and beauty, held again, untroubled, forgetful, the scepter, the constant, merciless mace, of its light and heat over the wide land.
Hassan was the first to stand. He shook the sand from his burnoose. He unbraceleted Alyena. She stretched like a she-sleen. Sand was banked against the wall of packs.
“A terrible storm,” I said.
He smiled. “You are not of the Tahari,” he said. “Be pleased that now, in the spring, the wind did not blow from the east.” Then he said to Alyena, “Make tea.” “Yes, Master,” she said, happily.
Two days later there had been rain.
The flies had now gone.
I had, at first, welcomed the clouds, and thrown back my burnoose to feel the swift, fierce rain pelt my face. The temperature fell by more than fifty degrees in a matter of Ehn. Alyena, too, was much pleased. The men of the Tahari, however, sought quickly the highest ground in the vicinity. There is little rain erosion in the Tahari, with the result that there are few natural and ready paths to convey water. When it falls, it often falls heavily, and on flat land, in the loose dust. Within minutes of the rain beginning to fall we had to dismount, to drag and pull our struggling, frightened kaiila to higher ground, They sank to their knees in the mud, snorting, eyes rolling, and we, mud to our hips, pushing and pulling, sometimes actually seizing one of their mired limbs, freeing it and moving it, brought them to the place Hassan had designated, the Joe side of a rocky formation.
Hassan put Alyena, whom be had carried, beside him.
“This is only the fourth time,’’ he said, “I have seen rain.”
“It is beautiful!” cried Alyena.
“Can one drown in such mud?” I asked.
“It is unlikely,” said Hassan. “It is not as deep as a man. Small animals, in effect, swim in it. The danger is primarily that the kaiila may, struggling, and falling, break their limbs.” I noted that Hassan’s men had thrown blankets over the heads of the kaiila, to prevent them from seeing the storm, and keep rain from striking their faces, which phenomenon, frightening them, tends to make them unmanageable.
“One must not, of course,” said Hassan, “camp in a dried watercourse. A storm, of which one is unaware, perhaps pasangs away, can fill such a bed with a sudden flow of water, washing away one’s camp and endangering life.”
“Are men often drowned in such accidents?” I asked.
“No,” said Hassan. “Men of the Tahari do not camp in such places. Further, those who are foolish enough to do so, can usually, struggling and washed along, save themselves.”
Many men of the Tahari, incidentally, and interestingly, can swim. Nomad boys learn this in the spring, when the waterholes are filled. Those who live at the larger, more populous oases can learn in the baths. The “bath” in the Tahari is not a matter of crawling into a small tub but is more in the nature, as on Gor generally, of a combination of cleaning and swimming, and reveling in the water, usually connected with various oils and towelings. One of the pleasures at the larger oases is the opportunity to bathe. At Nine Wells, for example, there are two public baths.
Within an Ahn after the cessation of the rain, the sun again paramount, merciless, in the now-cloudless sky, the footing was sufficiently firm, the water lost under the dust and sand, to support the footing of kaiila. The animals were unhooded, we mounted, and again our quest continued.
It was only a day later that the flies appeared. I had thought, first, it was another storm. It was not. The sun itself, for more than four Ehn, was darkened, as the great clouds moved over us. Suddenly, like darting, black, dry rain, the insects swarmed about us. I spit them from my mouth. I heard Alyena scream. The main swarms had passed but, clinging about us, like crawling spots on our garments, and in and among the hairs of the kaiila, in their thousands, crept the residue of the infestation. I struck at them, and crushed them, until I realized the foolishness of doing so. In less than four Ahn, twittering, fluttering, small, tawny, sharp-billed, following the black clouds, came flights of zadits. We dismounted and led the kaiila, and let the birds hunt them for flies. The zadits remained with us for more than two days. Then they departed.
The sun was again merciless. I did not find myself, however, longing for a swift return of rain.
“Where, friend,” asked Hassan, of another no-mad, “is the steel tower?” “I have never heard of such,” said he, warily. “Surely in the Tahari there are no towers of steel.”
And we continued our quest.
The Tahari is perhaps most beautiful at night. During the day one can scarcely look upon it, for the heats and reflections. During the day it seems menacing, whitish, shimmering with heat, blinding, burning, men must shade their eyes; some go blind: women and children remain within the tents: but, with the coming of the evening, with The departure of the sun, there is a softening, a gentling, of this vast, rocky harsh terrain. It is at this time that Hassan, the bandit, would make his camps. As the sun sank, the hills, the dust and sky, would become red in a hundred shades, and, as the light fades, these reds would become gradually transformed into a thousand of the glowing tones of gold which, with the final fading light in the west, yield to a world of luminous, then d
usky, blues and purples. Then, it seems suddenly, the sky is black and wide and high and is rich with the reflected sands of stars, like clear bright diamonds burning in the soft, sable silence of the desert’s innocent quietude. At these times, Hassan, cross-legged, would sometimes sit silently before his tent. We did not then disturb him. Oddly enough he permitted no one near him at such times but the collared slave girl, Alyena. She, alone, only female and slave, would be beside him, lying beside him, her head at his left knee. Sometimes he would, in these times, stroke her hair, or touch the side of her face, almost gently, almost as though her throat were not encircled by a collar. Then after the stars would be high for an Ahn or so, he would, suddenly, laughing, seize the girl by the arms and throw her on her back on the mats, thrust up her dress and rape her as the mere slave she was. Then he would, knot her skirt over her head, confining her arms within it, and throw her, she laughing, to his men, and to me, for our sport.
“No,” said a man, I have seen no tower of steel nor have I heard of such. How can there be such a thing?”
“My thanks, Herder,” said Hassan, and again led us on our quest.
The camps of nomads were becoming less frequent. Oases were becoming rare.
We were moving east in the Tahari.
Some of the nomads veil their women, and some do not. Some of the girls decorate their faces with designs, drawn in charcoal. Some of the nomad girls are very lovely. The children of nomads, both male and female, until they are five or six years of age, wear no clothing. During the day they do not venture from the shade of the tents. At night, as the sun goes down, they emerge happily from the tents and romp and play. They are taught written Taharic by their mothers, who draw the characters in the sand, during the day, in the shade of the tents. Most of the nomads in this area were Tashid, Which is a tribe vassal to the Aretai.
It might be of interest to note that children of the nomads are suckled for some eighteen months, which is nearly twice the normal length of time for Earth infants, and half again the normal time for Gorean infants. These children, if it is significant, are almost uniformly secure in their families, sturdy, outspoken and self-reliant. Among the nomads, interestingly, an adult will always listen to a child. He is of the tribe. Another habit of nomads, or of nomad mothers, is to frequently bathe small children even if it is only with a cloth and a cup of water. There is a very low infant mortality rate among nomads, in spite of their limited diet and harsh environment. Adults, on the other hand, may go months without washing. After a time one grows used to the layers of dirt and sweat which accumulate, and the smell, offensive at first, is no longer noticed.
“Young warrior,” asked Hassan, of a youth, no more than eight, “have you heard aught of a tower of steel?”
His sister, standing behind him, laughed. Verr moved about them, brushing against their legs.
The boy went to the kaiila of Alyena. “Dismount, Slave,” he said to her.
She did so, and knelt before him, a free male. The boy’s sister crowded behind him. Verr bleated.
“Put back your hood and strip yourself to the waist,” said the boy. Alyena shook loose her hair; she then dropped her cloak back, and removed her blouse.
“See how white she is!” said the nomad girl.
“Pull down your skirt,” said the boy.
Alyena, furious, did so, it lying over her calves.
“How white!” said the nomad girl.
The boy walked about her, and took her hair in his bands. “Look,” said he to his sister, “silky, fine and yellow and long.’’ She, too, felt the hair. The boy then walked before Alyena. “Look up,” said he. Alyena lifted her eyes, regarding him. “See,” said he to his sister, bending down. “She has blue eyes!”
“She is white, and ugly,” said the girl, standing up, backing off.
“No,” said the boy, “she is pretty.”
“If you like white girls,” said his sister.
“Is she expensive?” asked the boy of Hassan.
“Yes,” said Hassan, “young warrior. Do you wish to bid for her?”
“My father will not yet let me own a girl,” said the youngster.
“Ah,” said Hassan, understanding.
“But when I grow up,” said he’ “I shall become a raider, like you, and have ten such girls. When I see one I want, I will carry her away, and make her my slave.” He looked at Hassan. “They will serve me well, and make me happy.
“She is ugly,” said the boy’s sister. “Her body is white.”
“Is she a good slave?” asked the boy of Hassan.
“She is a stupid, miserable girl,” said Hassan, “who must be often beaten.”
“Too bad,” said the boy.
“Tend the verr,” said his sister, unpleasantly.
“If you were mine,” said the boy to Alyena, “I would tolerate no nonsense from you. I would make you be a perfect slave.”
