through the curtain of silver strings, to the pens of Tor.
“By the way,” I asked the officer, casually, though it was my main reason for
visiting his office, “there was a girl of interest to me who, I understand it,
was named Veema, and was at one time one of your guests. I should like to
discover what became of her. Would you have records on her?”
“Do you know her number in the pens?” asked the officer.
“87432,”1 said.
“Information such as this is usually confidential to the municipality,” said the
officer.
I placed a silver tarsk on the table.
Without taking it he went to a set of heavy, leaved books, bound in heavy, black
leather, on a nearby shelf.
“She was bought for two tarsks, from a caravan master named Zad of the Oasis of
Farad,” he said.
“I am more interested,” I said, “in who purchased her.”
“She was sold for four tarsks,” said the officer.
“To whom?” I asked.
“Keep your tarsk,” said the man, wryly. “There is no name given.”
“Do you remember the girl?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“Why have you not recorded a name?” I asked.
“No name was given, apparently,” he said.
“Do you often sell women thusly?” I asked. ·
“Yes,” he said. “It is the money in which we are interested. What is it to us
what might be the name of the buyer?”
I checked the book myself. Its entries were not coded.
“Keep the tarsk,” I said to the man. Then I left the office of the slave master
of Tor. I had failed to learn who it was who had purchased the girl Veema, who
perhaps had sent her as a message girl to Samos of Port Kar. To me the slave
master of Tor, within the normal discrepancies of the office, seemed an honest
enough fellow.
I was satisfied that he did not know to whom had been sold the girl Veema,
87432, Turian Pen Number. I recalled the message which she had borne. “Beware
Abdul.”
I bade the slave master farewell.
In the bazaar I stopped, seeming to contemplate mirrors. The four men I had seen
earlier, two large ones, two small ones, in white burnooses, still followed.
I had assumed the name Hakim, a Tahari name, one suitable for a merchant.
I would choose the place with some care.
I passed a stall of perfumers, and thought of Saphrar of Turia. Then I passed a
shop where the high, light kaiila saddles were being made. One could also buy
there, saddle blankets, quirts, bells and kaiila reins. The kaiila rein is a
single rein, very light, plaited of various leathers. There are often ten to a
dozen strips of tanned, dyed leather in a single rein. Each individual strip,
interestingly, given the strength of the rein, is little thicker than a stout
thread. The strips are cut with knives, and it requires great skill to cut them.
The rein, carefully plaited, is tied through a hole drilled in the right nostril
of the kaiila. It passes under the animal’s jaw to the left. When one wishes to
guide the animal to the left one draws the rein left; when one wishes to guide
it right one pulls right, drawing the rein over the animal’s neck, with pressure
against the left cheek. To stop the animal one draws back. To start or hasten
the animal, one kicks it in the flanks, or uses the long kaiila quirt.
I passed one of the wells of Tor. There were steps, broad, flat, worn, in
concentric circles, leading down to the water. At this time of year eight of the
steps were uncovered by the water. Many came there for water. I saw children on
their hands and knees lapping water, women filling jugs, men submerging bags,
the air bubbling up as the bags filled. Like most water in the Tahari the water
of Tor was slightly salty and unclear.
Casually glancing about I saw the four men. I assessed them, determining in my
mind who would be the swiftest, the most dangerous, the leader; who would be the
next most dangerous; and then the others.
I saw the water carrier, too, with the brass cups. It struck me suddenly strange
that he should be in the area of the bazaar, which, in the lower area in the
city, is in the vicinity of the wells. Surely few would call to purchase water
where it lay free at hand. He descended the steps and submerged his bag,
grinning at me, remembering me from earlier in the day. I smiled at him, turning
away. He was a simple, poor fellow, harmless, servile, slight. I felt myself a
fool. Of course he would have to come to the bazaar area. What would I have him
do, fill his bag with the white dust of Tor’s higher terraces?
I chose a side street, and another street from that, which terminated in a blind
wall. There were few about.
I heard the men hurrying toward me. I swung the walking chains I had purchased
lightly in my hand, not looking back, noting the shadows.
They would think I was trapped in the alley, with its blind wall. I had chosen
this alley, that they might make their move swiftly, at my choosing, not truly
theirs. Also, the alley was open behind them. I gave them access to flight. I
had no wish to kill them. It seemed to me most probable they were simple
brigands.
I saw the shadows, darting, heard the rush of robes.
Laughing, with the elation of the warrior, I turned, swiftly hurling the walking
chains, spinning once, through the air. They lashed about the face of the
leader. It had taken only an instant, the chain leaving my hand, to determine
that he was exactly where I had expected him to be, as he would have been at any
time in following me, had I earlier turned, slightly to my right. He cried out,
the chains whipping about his face. I used his body to block the two men on my
left. I leaped, knees bent, body turned, legs like compressed springs, toward
the man on the leader’s left. One foot struck him in the chest; the other
snapped his head back. I slipped behind the leader, seized the small fellow to
his right by the arm and hurled him headfirst into the wall. The last fellow I
lifted from his feet and, turning, hurled him against the same wall as the
other. He struck it, upside down, full along his back and head, and tumbling,
fell beside the other fellow, who lay inert. The leader, face bleeding, wiped
the blood from his forehead from his eyes, stepping back.
“You are of the warriors,” he whispered. Then he turned about, and fled.
I did not pursue him.
I returned to the bazaar, and inquired where steel might be purchased, and
kaiila. I was informed by a ragged youngster, whom I rewarded with a copper
tarsk. The weapon makers’ street was close on the bazaar. The kaiila pens in Tor
are outside her south gate.
On the way to the street of weapon makers I again passed the water carrier. His
bag on his shoulder was now, again, damp, dark, bulging.
“Tal, Master,” said he to me.
“Tal,” said I to him.
I walked to the street of the weapon makers. I was anxious to make the
acquaintance of the Tahari scimitar.
“There will be war between the Kavars and the Aretai,” I heard a man say.
I walked to the street of the weapon makers. Lightly, in my right hand, I swung
slave girl I was having bearded and trained in the pens of Tor.
This night I thought I would have my supper at the Pomegranate. I had heard
their dancers were superb.
3 Do Not Participate in What Occurs in a Courtyard; I Recover a Silver
Tarsk
The war kaiila, rearing on its hind legs, its claws, however, sheathed, lunged
at the other animal, its clawed back feet thrusting with an explosion of sand
away from the ground; the long neck darted forward, the long, graceful head, its
fanged jaws bound shut with leather, struck at the man astride the other beast.
He thrust the jaws away with the buckler, and, rearing in the stirrups of his
high saddle, slashed at me with the leather-sheathed, curved blade. I turned the
stroke with my own sheathed blade, it, too, in the light, ornamented exercise
sheath.
The kaiila, both of them, with the swiftness, the agility of cats, spun, half
crouching, squealing in frustration, and again lunged toward one another. With
the light rein I pulled my kaiila to the left as we passed, and the man, trying
to reach me, was, startled, off balance. With a backward sweeping cut the
sheathed blade struck him, as he hung from his saddle, on the back of the neck.
He swept past me and spun his kaiila, then jerked it up short, back on its
haunches in the sand.
I readied myself for another passage.
For ten days had we trained, for ten Gorean hours a day. Of the past forty
passages eight had been divided, no blood adjudged drawn. In thirty-two I had
been adjudged victorious, nineteen times to the death cut.
He pulled his sand veil, yellow, from his dark face, down about his throat. He
thrust his burnoose back further over his shoulders. He was Harif, said to be
the finest blade in Tor.
“Bring salt,” he said to the judge.
The judge gestured to a boy, who brought him a small dish of salt.
The warrior slipped from his saddle, and, on foot, approached me.
I remained mounted.
“Cut the leather from the jaws of your kaiila,” said he. Then he gestured to the
boy, that the boy should remove the claw sheaths of the beast. He did so,
carefully, the beast moving, nervous, shifting in the sand.
I discarded the exercise sheath, and, with the bared blade, parted the leather
that had bound the jaws of the kaiila. The leather sprang from the blade. Silk,
dropped upon the scimitar of the Tahari, divided, falls free, floating, to the
floor. The beast reared, its claws raking the air, and threw back its head,
biting at the sun.
I lifted the curved blade of the scimitar. It flashed. I sheathed it, and
slipped from the saddle, giving the rein of the mount to the boy.
I faced the warrior.
“Ride free,” he said.
“I will, “I said.
“I can teach you nothing more,” he said.
I was silent.
“Let there be salt between us,” he said.
“Let there be salt between us,” I said.
He placed salt from the small dish on the back of his right wrist. He looked at
me. His eyes were narrow. “I trust,” said he, “you have not made jest of me.”
“No,” I said.
“In your hand,” he said, “steel is alive, like a bird.”
The judge nodded assent. The boy’s eyes shone. He stood back.
“I have never seen this, to this extent, in another man.” He looked at me. “Who
are you?” he asked.
I placed salt on the back of my right wrist. “One who shares salt with you,” I
said.
“It is enough,” he said.
I touched my tongue to the salt in the sweat of his right wrist, and he touched
his tongue to the salt on my right wrist. “We have shared salt,” he said.
He then placed in my hand the golden tarn disk, of Ar, with which I had
purchased my instruction.
“It is yours,” I said.
“How can that be?” he asked.
“I do not understand,” I said.
He smiled. “We have shared salt,” he said.
I was returning to my compartment in Tor, from the tents of Farouk of Kasra. He
was a merchant. He was camping in the vicinity of the city while purchasing
kaiila for a caravan to the Oasis of Nine Wells. This oasis is held by Suleiman,
master of a thousand lances, Suleiman of the Aretai.
It had been at my invitation that Farouk had consented to judge the passages at
arms, constituting the final phases of the scimitar training.
It had not been inconvenient for him, for he was inspecting kaiila at the
corrals near the southern gate of Tor.
The judging had not been difficult, either, fortunately, for the passages were
clear. One passage, divided between us, adjudged as “no blood drawn,” might have
been disputed. Harif had wished it awarded to me. I refused to accept it, of
course, for his body had not been touched. The judge had seen the matter
correctly. The stroke in question was the back-handed, ascending face stroke.
Even though the blade was sheathed I had held the stroke, holding it short, a
horl from his face. The leather would have torn at his forehead, ascending, over
the bridge of the nose. I did not wish to injure him. Unsheathed, followed
through, of course, such a stroke would have taken off the top of his head,
slashing up ward through the hood of the burnoose.
“Would you be my guest tonight in my tents?” had asked the judge, Farouk of
Kasra. It had been his son who had carried the salt, who had unsheathed the
claws of my kaiila. The boy had stood by, eyes shining. His name was Achmed. It
had been he who had, enroute in a caravan, months before discovered the rock, on
which had been inscribed ‘Beware the steel tower.
“I would be much pleased,” I told the merchant, “to dine with you this night.”
That night, when our repast had been finished, and a clothed, bangled slave
woman, the property of Farouk, had rinsed our right hands with veminium water,
poured over our hand, into a small, shallow bowl of beaten copper, I drew forth
from my robes a small, flat, closed Gorean chronometer. It was squarish. I
placed it in the hands of the boy Achmed. He opened it. He observed the tiny
hands, moving. There are twenty hours, or Ahn, in the Gorean day. The
hands of the Gorean chronometers do not move as the hand of the clocks of the
Earth. They turn in the opposite direction. In that sense, they move
counterclockwise. This chronometer, tooled in Ar, was a fine one, sturdy, exact.
It contained, too, a sweeping Ihn hand, with which the tiny Ihn could be
measured. The boy watched the hands. Such instruments were rare in the Tahari
region. He looked at me.
“It is yours,” I told him. “It is a gift.”
The boy placed the chronometer in the hand of his father, offering it to him.
Farouk, merchant of Kasra, smiled.
The boy then, carrying the chronometer, took it about the circle of the small
fire, on the sand of the tent; before each of his kinsmen, he stopped: into the
hands of each, he placed the chronometer. “I give you this,” he said. Each
looked at the chronometer. Then each handed it back to th
e boy. The boy returned
and sat next to me. He looked at his father.
“You will tell the time,” said Farouk of Kasra, “by the speed of your kaiila, by
the circle and the stick, by the sun.”
“Yes, Father,” said the boy, his head down.
“But,” said his father; “you may keep the gift.”
“Oh, Father, thank you!” he cried. “Thank you!” He looked to all his kinsmen.
“Thank you,” he said to them.
They smiled.
“And you, swordsman,” said he to me, “I thank you.”
“It is nothing,” I said to him.
Farouk of Kasra looked at me. “I am pleased,” he said. Then he had asked, “What
is your business, Hakim of Tor, and may I in any way be of service to you?”
It had been on the route to the Oasis of Nine Wells that the boy had seen the
rock.
“I am a humble merchant,” I said. “I have a few small stones which I would like
to sell at the Oasis of Nine Wells, to buy date bricks to return and sell in
Tor.”
“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
Norman, John - Gor 10 - Tribesmen of Gor.txt Page 8
