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.
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,
Norman, John - Gor 10 - Tribesmen of Gor.txt Page 9
