Tribesmen of Gor coc-10

by John Norman

  “Yes, Master,” said Alyena, stripped before him, her teeth gritted.

  “You may clothe yourself,” said the boy.

  “Thank you, Master,” said Alyena. She pulled up her skirt and drew on her blouse, adjusted her cloak and hood. Whereas she could dismount from the kaiila blanket, which served her as saddle, she could not, unaided, reach its back. I, with my left band under her foot, lifted her to her place. “The little beast!” whispered Alyena to me, in English. I smiled.

  “Have you seen, or heard, aught, young warrior,” asked Hassan, “of a tower of steel?”

  The boy looked at him and laughed. “Your slave, Raider,” said he, indicating the irritated Alyena, now again mounted, well vexed, on her kaiila, “apparently makes your tea too strong.”

  Hassan nodded his head, graciously. “My thanks, young warrior,” said he.

  We then left the boy, and his sister, and their verr. She was scolding him about the verr. “Be quiet,” he told her, “or I will sell you to raiders from Red Rock.

  In a year or two you will be pretty enough for a collar.” He then skipped away as she, shouting abuse, flung a rock after him. When we looked back again they were prodding their verr, leading them, doubtless, away from their camp. On our kaiila harness, we knew, we wore no bells.

  “The oasis of the Battle of Red Rock,” said Hassan to me, “is one of the few outpost oases maintained by the Aretai. To its west and south is mostly Kavar country.”

  At noon of the next day, I cried out, “There is the oasis.”

  “No,” said Hassan.

  I could see the buildings, whitish, with domes, the palms, the gardens, the high, circling walls of red clay.

  I blinked. This seemed to me no illusion. “Can you not see it?” I asked Hassan, the others.

  “I see it!” said Alyena.

  “We, too, see it,” said Hassan, “but it is not there.”

  “You speak in riddles, “ I said.

  “It is a mirage,” said he.

  I looked again. It seemed to me unlikely that this was a mirage. I was familiar with two sorts of mirages on the desert, of the sort which might be, and often were, seen by normal individuals under normal circumstances, not the mirages of the dehydrated body, the sun-crazed brain, not private hallucinatory images. The most common sort of mirage is simply the interpretation of heat waves, shimmering on, the desert, as the ripples in water, as in a lake or pond. When the sky is reflected in this rising, heated air, the mirage is even more striking, because then the surface of the “lake,” reflecting the sky, seems blue, and, thus, even more waterlike. A second common sort of mirage, more private than the first, but quite normal, is the interpretation of a mixed terrain, usually rocks and scrub brush, mixed with rising heat waves, as an oasis with water, palms and buildings. Perception is a quite complicated business, involving the playing of energies on the sensors, and the transduction of this energy into an interpreted visual world. All we are in physical contact with, of course, is the energy applied to the sensors. These physical energies are quite different from the “human world” of our experience, replete with color, sound and light. There is, of course, a topological congruence between the world of physics and the world of experience. Evolution has selected for such a congruence. Our experiential world, though quite unlike the world of physics, is well coordinated with it. If it were not we could not move our physical bodies conveniently among physical objects, manage to put our hands on things we wished to touch, and so on. Different sensory systems, as in various types of organisms, mean different experiential worlds. Each of these, however, the world of the man, the cuttlefish, the butterfly, the ant, the sleen, the Priest-King is congruent, though perhaps in unusual ways, with the presumably singular, unique physical world. Beyond this, perception is largely a matter of interpreting a flood of cues, or coded bits, out of which we construct a unified, coherent, harmonious world. Though the eye is a necessary condition for seeing, one does not, so to speak, “see” with the eye, but, oddly enough, with the brain. If the optic nerve, or, indeed, certain areas of the brain, could be appropriately stimulated one could have visual experiences without the use of eyes. Similarly, if the eye were in perfect condition, but the visual centers of the brain were defective, one could not “see.” Perhaps it is more correct to speak of a system of components necessary for visual experience, but, even if so, it is well to understand that what impinges upon the eyes are not visual realities but electromagnetic radiations. Further, what one sees is a function not simply of what exists in the external world, but of a number of other factors as well, for example, what one has familiarly seen before, what one expects to see, what others claim is there to be seen, what one wants to see, the physical condition of the organism, its conditioning and socialization, the conceptual and linguistic categories available to the organism, and so on. It is thus not unusual that, in a desert situation, a calm, normal person may, misinterpreting physical cues, make an oasis, complete with buildings and trees, out of energies reflected over a heated surface from rock and brush. There is nothing unusual in this sort of thing.

  But this did not seem to me a mirage sort of experience. I rubbed my eyes. I changed the position of my head. I closed and opened my eyes.

  “No,” I said. “I see an oasis clearly.”

  “It is not there,” said Hassan.

  “Does the oasis of the Battle of Red Rock have, at its northeast rim, a kasbah, with four towers?”

  “Yes,” said Hassan.

  “Then I see it,” I said.

  “No,” said Hassan.

  “There are palm groves, five of them,” I said.

  “Yes.” he said.

  “Pomegranate orchards lie at the east of the oasis.” I said. “Gardens lie inward. There is even a pond, between two of the groves of date palms.”

  “True,” said Hassan.

  “There is Red Rock,” I said.

  “No.” said Hassan.

  “I could not imagine these things,” I said. “I have never been to Red Rock.

  Look. There is a single gate in the kasbah, facing us. On the towers two flags fly.”

  Petitions,” said Hassan, “of the Tashid and Aretai.”

  “I shall race you to the oasis,” I said.

  “It is not there,” he said. “We shall not arrive there until tomorrow, past noon.”

  “I see it!” I protested.

  “I shall speak clearly,” said Hassan. “You see it and you do not see it.”

  “I am glad,” I said, “that you have chosen to speak clearly. Had you spoken obscurely I might not have understood.”

  “Ride ahead,” suggested Hassan.

  I shrugged, and kicked the kaiila in the flanks, urging downward, from the sloping hill, toward the oasis. I had ridden for no more than five Ehn when the oasis vanished. I reined in the kaiila. Before me was nothing but the desert.

  I was sweating. I was hot. Before me was nothing but the desert.

  “It is an interesting phenomenon, is it not?” asked Hassan, when he, and the others, had joined me. “The oasis, which is some seventy pasangs distant, is reflected in the mirror of air above it, and then again reflected downward and away, at an angle.”

  “It is like mirrors?” I asked.

  “Precisely,” said Hassan, “with layers of air the glass. A triangle of reflected light is formed. Red Rock, more than seventy pasangs away, is seen, in its image, here.”

  “It is only then an optical illusion?’’ I asked.

  “Yes,” said Hassan.

  “But did it not seem real to you?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “How did you know it was not Red Rock?” I asked.

  “I am of the Tahari,” he said.

  “Did it look different to you?” I asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “Then how could you tell?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I am of the Tahari,” he said.

  “But how could you tell?”
I asked.

  “By distances and times,” he said. “We had not come far enough, nor at our pace, fast enough, for it to be Red Rock.”

  “Seeing it,” I said, “one who was unwise, and not of the Tahari, might ration water unwisely, and die.”

  “In the Tahari,” said Hassan, “it is well to be of the Tahari, if one would live.”

  “I will try to be of the Tahari,” I said.

  “I will help you,” said Hassan.

  It was the next day, at the eleventh Ahn, one Ahn past the Gorean noon, that we arrived at the Oasis of Red Rock.

  It was dominated by the kasbah of its pasha, Turem a’Din, commander of the local Tashid clans, on its rim to the northeast. There were five palm groves. At the east of the oasis lay pomegranate orchards. Toward its lower parts, in its center, were the gardens. Between two of the groves of date palms there was a large pool. The kasbah contained a single gate. On the summits of its four towers flew petitions, those of the Tashid and Aretai.

  “Do you fear to enter the oasis of a vassal tribe of the Aretai?” asked Hassan.

  “We are far from Nine Wells,” I said.

  “I think, too, there is little danger,” said Hassan.

  We entered the oasis slowly, single file, in caravan style. There is almost always a constant, hot wind on the Tahari. Our burnooses lifted behind us, slowly, swelling, over the flanks of our animals. The girl, Alyena rode next to the last in our line, in the position of least status; she was followed by one of Hassan’s men, the guard; such a guard is commonly posted; he, from time to time, watches the trail behind the caravan and, of course, prevents the escape of slave girls.

  The oasis, which we were entering, is named for the Battle of Red Rock, which is a large shelf of reddish sandstone behind the oasis, north by northeast from its lowest point, and center. It was used as the vantage point for the Aretai commander at that time, Hammaran, who also launched at a crucial point in the struggle, his picked cavalry, and bodyguard, from that height, turning the battle’s tide. The Tashid commander of the time, Ba’Arub, died on the shelf of red stone, with ten men, trying to reach Hammaran. It was said that he came within ten yards of him. Ba’Arub was, it was said, a brave man. It was also believed that if he had stood siege in his kasbah, in time Hammaran would have been forced to retire. It is difficult to maintain a lengthy siege in the Tahari. Food supplies at the oasis are short, except for the stores in the kasbah, and supply lines are long, and difficult to defend. Had Ba’Arub destroyed or fouled the public wells at Red Rock, those outside the walls of the kasbah, Hammaran would have been forced to retire in twenty-four hours, and perhaps lose most of his men on the return march to his country. But, being of the Tahari, Ba’Arub, as it is told in the stories, related about the campfires, would not do this. It is said he came within ten yards of Hammaran.

  Men regarded us with some curiosity, as is common when newcomers arrive at an oasis, but I detected neither apprehension nor hostility. The wars and raids, I gathered, had not touched Red Rock.

  A child ran beside the stirrup of Hassan, playing. “You have no bells on your kaiila,” said the child.

  “They were stolen by raiders,” said Hassan. The boy laughed and ran beside him.

  “We shall seek an inn,” said Hassan.

  The battle of Red Rock, for which the oasis is named, took place more than seventy years ago, in 10,051 C.A., or in the sixth year of the reign of Ba’Arub Pasha. Since that time the Tashid have been a vassal tribe of the Aretai. Though there are some token tributes involved, exemptions for Aretai merchants from caravan taxes, and such, the vassal tribe is, in its own areas, almost completely autonomous, with its own leaders, magistrates, judges and soldiers.

  The significance of the relationship is, crucially, interestingly, military alliance. The vassal tribe is bound, by its Tahari oaths, sworn over water and salt, to support the conquering tribe in its military endeavors, with supplies, kaiila and men. The vassal tribe is, in effect, a military unit subordinate to the conquering tribe which it, then, may count among its forces. Enemies conquered become allies enlisted. One’s foe of yesterday becomes one’s pledged friend of today. The man of the Tahari, conquered, stands ready, his scimitar returned to him, to defend his conqueror to the death. The conqueror, by his might and cunning, and victory, has won, by the right of the Tahari, a soldier to his cause. I am not clear on the historical roots of this unusual social institution but it does tend, in its practice, to pacify great sections of the Tahari. War, for example, between conquering tribes and rebellious vassal tribes is, although not unknown, quite rare, Another result, perhaps unfortunate, however, is that the various tribes tend to build into larger and larger confederations of militarily related communities. Thus, if war should erupt between the high tribes, the conquering tribes, the entire desert might become engulfed in hostilities. This was what was in danger of happening now, for the Aretai and the Kavars were the two high tribes of the Tahari. Not all tribes, of course, are vassal or conquering tribes. Some are independent. War, incidentally, between vassal tribes is not unknown. The high tribes need not, though often they do, support vassal tribes in their squabbles; the vassal tribes, however, are expected to support the high, or noble, tribes, in their altercations. Sometimes, it is made quite clear, by messenger and proclamation, whether a war is local or not, say, between only the Ta’Kara and the Luraz, who have some point of dispute between them. All in all, the relation of vassal tribe to conquering tribe probably contributes more to the peace of the Tahari than to its hostilities. It is fortunate that some such arrangement exists for the men of the Tahari, like Goreans generally, are extremely proud, high-strung, easily offended men, with a sense of honor that is highly touchy. Furthermore, enjoying war, they need very little to send them to their saddles with their scimitars loose in their sheaths. A rumor of an insult or outrage, not inquired closely into, perhaps by intent, will suffice, A good fight, I have heard men of the Tahari say, licking their lips, justifies any cause. It may be appropriate here to mention that the reason that Hammaran came to Red Rock seventy years ago is not even known, by either Aretai or Tashid. The cause of the war was forgotten, but its deeds are still recounted about the fires. There were seventy men in the bodyguard of Hammaran. When the battle was lost to him, Ba’Arub tried to reach him. It is said he came within ten yards.

  “We shall stop here,” said Hassan, reining in before an inn. We dismounted. We took the packs from our kaiila, the saddles and accouterments. Boys came out to meet us, to take our kaiila to the stables. Two of Hassan’s men went with them, to see that the animals were well cared for. One of Hassan’s men helped Aleyna to dismount. She took short steps and went to kneel beside Hassan, her head down, at his left thigh.

  “Stand, Slave,” he said to her.

  “Yes, Master.” she said.

  He took one of the water bags, which was still full, which held some twenty gallons of water.

  “Carry this burden, Slave,” he said.

  “Yes. Master,” she said.

  He threw it over her shoulders. She gasped. She bent forward, her hands steadying the bag. It was heavy for the slight beauty. She almost lost her balance. If she dropped it, she would be much beaten.

  The men then gathered their saddles, their weapons, the other water and goods, and their belongings. Alyena waited for us, bent, face strained, bearing across her small shoulders the weight of the water.

  Each man carried his own saddle. Saddles are prized on the Tahari and each man cares for his own, and sees to its safety. Among nomads they are brought into the tent each night, and placed on the right side of the tent, at the back.

  The water which we had brought with us would not now be wasted but, by Tahari custom, emptied into the cistern of the inn. In this fashion the water is still used, and, to some extent, it saves the inn boys from carrying as much water as they might otherwise do, from the wells of the oasis, to the inn’s cistern. In leaving an oasis, of course, similarly, as a courtesy to the
inn, and its hospitality, the bags are commonly filled not at the cistern, but at the public well.

  Hassan then, carrying his saddle and other belongings, went into the inn. His men, and I, followed him. Last to enter the inn, head down, was Alyena.

  “Here, Slave,” said one of the inn boys to her, indicating the way to the inn’s cistern. Alyena, slowly, half stumbling, followed him. He did not, of course, help her. She emptied the water into the cistern. Those of Hassan’s men who carried water, too, emptied the water into the cistern. Before Alyena returned to us, the boy brushed back her hood, revealing her hair and face. His hand was in her hair. “You are a pretty slave,” he said. “Thank you, Master,” whispered Alyena. He turned her head from side to side. Then he released her, snapping his fingers and pointing to his feet. She knelt before him, and kissed his feet, her hair falling over them. He then turned away. She rose to her feet and went to kneel beside Hassan, who was sitting at a bench before a table. She knelt perpendicular to his thigh, and put her head gently, sideways, on his left leg.

  He handled her head and hair with a rough gentleness, sometimes running his fingers, caressing her, between her throat and the collar.

  “Have you heard aught of a tower of steel?” Hassan was asking the master of the inn.

  None, it seemed, at Red Rock had either seen, or heard, of so strange an architectural oddity as a tower of steel in the desert.

  This was irritating to Hassan, and did not much please me either, for the oasis of the Battle of Red Rock was the last of the major oases of the Tahari for more than two thousand pasangs eastward; it lay, in effect, on the borders of the dreaded dune country; there are oases in the dune country but they are small and infrequent, and often lie more than two hundred pasangs apart; in the sands they are not always easy to find: among the dunes one can, unknowingly, pass within ten pasangs of an oasis, missing it entirely. Little but salt caravans ply the dune country. Caravans with goods tend to travel the western. Or distant eastern edge of the Tahari; caravans do, it might be mentioned, occasionally travel from Tor or Kasra to Turmas, a Turian outpost and kasbah, in the southeastern edge of the Tahari, but even these commonly avoid the dune country, either moving south, then east, or east, then south, skirting the sands. Few men, without good reason, enter the dune country.