silent, or be silenced,” said one of the fellows. “Remember,” said another,
“whatever happens, eventually, you will be put back with us.” “I will remember,”
said the fellow. “I will do as you wish.”
“Take him to an alcove,” I said. “Bind and gag him. Then, too, retire to your
alcoves.”
“Very well,” they said, retiring, taking with them the stumbling, miserable
fellow in the ruby necklace.
The seraglio, then, seemed empty, silent. We heard the torches crackle. I looked
again to Lana. She shrank back. She, the seraglio mistress,
unprotected, bound, gagged, helpless, was alone with us.
“I left her for you,” said Hassan.
Swiftly I untied her hands and then retied them, so that they were above her
head and behind it, fastened at the sides of the pillar. I then, lifting her,
lowered her gently to the tiles. She squirmed, helplessly. By the ankles I
pulled her as far from the pillar as the bonds on her wrists, fashioned by
Hassan from strips from her white, removed clothing, would permit. She lifted
one knee. I thrust her knees apart. She lifted her head, trying to put her
gagged mouth against me. I saw pain in her eyes. I pulled down the gag, for a
moment, and let her free herself of the wadding. “I love you, Master,” she
whispered. “I love you!” I kissed her, thrust back the wadding, and regagged
her.
I rose to my feet.
“You have ruined her, I judge,” said Hassan, “as an effective mistress of the
seraglio.”
The girl was trying to put her leg against me, reaching for me. I took her
ankle, and crouching, kissed it, on the top, and then pressed my lips to the
bottom of her foot, near the instep, then beneath and behind the shin, then
again, twice, near the bottom of the foot, at the instep.
I judged her responses, the movements of her eyes. “Yes,” I said, “I expect so.”
Lana lifted her body to me, helplessly. “I will guarantee, my dear,” I said to
her, “that, hereafter, you will be given to men.” I then, with her virgin blood,
on her belly, traced the Tahari slave mark. Seeing this, the mark of a free
man’s satisfaction with her, I had little doubt that Tarna would dismiss her
from the seraglio, sending her in chains to the lower levels, where, with
low-order slave girls, she might be used to serve the lusts of her raiders.
Lana’s eyes shone with pleasure. I had found her acceptable. I had, furthermore,
indicated this upon her flesh. She would now be done with the seraglio. She
would now have to do with free men, with true men, she the slave. She lay bound
and gagged, proudly. She stretched her body, as she could, luxuriantly, reveling
in the sensation in her body and the feel of the coolness of the tiles upon her
flesh.
I noted that Hassan, following my example, had also indicated his pleasure on
the flesh of the other girl.
“We must leave soon,” he said.
“There are two guards outside the outer door,” I said. “They will expect me,
soon, to bring you through.”
“Surely,” said he, “I should be better dressed for riding in the night.”
“One of the guards outside the outer door,” I said, “may perhaps be persuaded to
loan you garments, weapons and accouterments.”
“He would be a good fellow, indeed,” said Hassan.
“They seemed to me good fellows,” I said.
13 An Acouaintance is Renewed
My left foot broke through the crust of salt. “Kill us! Kill us!” I heard a man
cry. I heard the stroke of the lash behind me, and another cry, long miserable.
My left leg, to the thigh, slipped into the brittle layers of crust. I fell,
unable to break my fall because of the manacles confining my wrists at my waist,
fastened to the loop of chain, burning in the sun, about my waist. I could not
see, for the slave hood. My back, and body, burned. Our feet, to the knees, were
wrapped in leather, but, in many places, in making our way across the crusts,
the weight of our bodies forced us deeper than this into the crusts. The salt,
working its way into the leather wrappings, found its way to the feet, I could
feel blood inside the wrappings. Some men, though I did not know how many, had
gone lame. They were no longer with the chain. They had been left behind, their
throats cut, lying in the crusts. The chain on the collar at my throat jerked. I
lay still for a precious moment in the burning crusts. The lash struck me. The
chain jerked again and I struggled to my feet. Again the lash fell. I stumbled
on. The path is broken by a kaiila, whose long, haired legs, with broad pads,
break through, and lift themselves free, of the crusts,
“I did not think a woman could hold you,” had said the man.
Scarcely had Hassan and I, clad in the garments of guards, astride kaiila taken
from the stables of Tarna’s kasbah, emerged from the fortress’s gate than, on
the path to Red Rock, clouds of riders had swept before us. Wheeling our kaiila
we had sought escape, only to discover we were surrounded. In the bright
moonlight of Gor’s three moons we turned. On every side were riders, many with
crossbows.
“We have been waiting for you,” said one of the riders. “Will it be necessary to
kill the kaiila?” The riders were veiled in red.
“No,” had said Hassan. He had disarmed himself, and dismounted. I followed his
example.
Ropes were put on our throat; our hands were tied behind our backs.
On foot, among our captors, tethered by the neck to saddle rings, bound, we
trudged to the larger of the pair of kasbahs, that other than Tarna’s. The
journey was not long, only some two pasangs.
At the foot of the great gate we stopped. The walls were more than seventy feet
high. The battlements, square and looming, of which there were seventeen,
assuming general symmetry and counting the two flanking the central gate, soared
to ninety feet. The front wall was some four hundred feet in length; the side
walls were some four hundred and fifty feet in length. The walls in such a
kasbah are several feet thick, formed of stones and mud brick; the walls in this
kasbah, as in most, too, were covered with a sheen of plaster, whitish pink,
which, in the years of exposure to the heat and sun, as is common, had flaked
abundantly.
“You are Tarl Cabot,” said the leader of the men who had captured us, indicating
me.
I shrugged. Hassan looked at me.
“And you,” said the man, indicating Hassan, “are Hassan, the bandit.”
“It is possible,” admitted Hassan.
“It is as naked prisoners that you will enter this kasbah,” said the man.
We were stripped by the scimitar.
Naked, bound, standing in the sand, tethered, surrounded by kaiila, and riders,
we looked up at the lofty walls of flaking plaster, the battlements flanking the
great gate. The moonlight reflected from the walls of pinkish, flaking plaster.
Two of the kaiila snorted, pawing the sand.
The great gate, on its heavy hinges, opening in the middle, slowly swung back.
We faced the opening.
“You two have been troublesome,” said the rider. “You w
ill be troublesome no
more.”
We could see the whitish courtyard, its sand, beyond the gate, lamps set in
walls.
“Whose kasbah is this?” I asked.
“It can be only,” said Hassan, “the kasbah of the Guard of the Dunes.”
“That of the Salt Ubar?” I asked.
“That,” agreed Hassan. I had heard of the Salt Ubar, or the Guard of the Dunes.
The location of his kasbah is secret. Probably, other than his own men, only
some few hundred know of it, primarily merchants high in the salt trade, and few
of them would know its exact location. Whereas salt may be obtained from sea
water and by burning seaweed, as is sometimes done in Torvaldsland, and there
are various districts on Gor where salt, solid or in solution, may be obtained,
by far the most extensive and richest of known Gor’s salt deposits are to be
found concentrated in the Tahari. Tahari salt accounts, in its varieties, I
would suspect, for some twenty percent of the salt and salt-related products,
such as medicines and antiseptics, preservatives, cleansers, bleaches, bottle
glass, which contains soda ash, taken from salt, and tanning chemicals, used on
known Gor. Salt is a trading commodity par excellence. There are areas on Gor
where salt serves as a currency, being weighed and exchanged much as precious
metals. The major protection and control of the Tahari salt, of course, lies in
its remoteness, the salt districts, of which there are several, being scattered
and isolated in the midst of the dune country, in the long caravan journeys
required, and the difficulty or impossibility of obtaining it without knowing
the trails, the ways of the desert. A lesser protection and control of the salt,
though a not unformidable one, lies in the policing of the desert by the Salt
Ubar, or the Guard of the Dunes. The support of the kasbah of the Salt Ubar
comes from fees supplied by high salt merchants, the measure of which fees, of
course, they include in their wholesale pricings to lesser distributors. The
function of the kasbah of the Salt Ubar, thus, officially, is to administer and
control the salt districts, on behalf of the Tahari salt merchants, primarily by
regulating access to the districts, checking the papers and credentials of
merchants, inspecting caravans, keeping records of the commerce, etc. For
example, caravans between Red Rock, and certain other oases, and the salt
districts, will travel under an escort of the Guard of the Dunes. Many salt
caravans, incidentally, travel only between the districts and the local oases,
while others travel between the local oases and the distant points, often
culminating with Kasra or Tor. Some caravans, of course, journey through from
the distant points to the salt districts, accepting the danger and inconvenience
of trekking the dune country, but thereby avoiding the higher charges of picking
up salt from the storehouses in the local oases. Even these caravans, of course,
once in the dune country are accompanied by the men of the Guard of the Dunes.
The Guard of the Dunes, however, does not obtain the title of the Salt Ubar in
virtue of his complacent magistracy of the salt districts, subservient to the
Tahari merchants. There are those who say, and I do not doubt it true, that it
is he, and not the merchants, who controls the salt of the Tahari. Nominally a
sheriff of the Tahad merchants, he, ensconced in his kasbah, first among fierce
warriors, elusive and unscrupulous, possesses a strangle bold on the salt of the
Tahari, the vital commerce being ruled and regulated as he wills. He holds
within his territories the right of law and execution. In the dunes he is Ubar
and the merchants bow their heads to him. The Guard of the Dunes is one of the
most dreaded and powerful men in the Tahari.
“Kneel, Slaves,” said the rider, the leader of the men who had captured us.
Hassan and I knelt.
“Kiss the sand before the gate of your master,” said the man.
Hassan and I pressed our lips to the sand before the great, open portal.
“On your feet, Slaves,” said the man. Hassan and I rose to our feet.
“You have been troublesome, Slaves,” said the man. “You will be troublesome no
more.”
The gate stood open before us. We could see the courtyard, whitish beyond, the
moonlight on its sand, the small lamps set in the far walls.
“Herd the slaves before their master,” said the rider, be the leader of our
captors.
I felt the point of a scimitar in my back.
“What is the name of the Salt Ubar?” I asked Hassan.
“I thought everyone knew his name,” said Hassan.
“No,” I said. “What is his name?”
“Abdul,” said Hassan.
The scimitar pressed in my back. I, and Hassan, entered the kasbah of the Guard
of the Dunes, the Salt Ubar, he whose name was Abdul.
Opulent were the halls and lofty chambers of the kasbah of Abdul, the guard of
the dunes, he known as the Salt Ubar of the Tahari.
Rich and smooth were the variegated, glossy tiles, sumptuous the hangings,
slender the pillars and columns, ornate the screens and carvings, brilliant and
intricate the stylized floral inlays, the geometrical mosaics. High vessels of
gold, some as tall as a girl, gleaming dully in the light of the lamps, were
passed on our journey through the halls, into the upper rooms, too, great vases
of red and yellow porcelain, many of which were as large as a man, imported from
the potteries of Tyros. Beaded curtains did we pass, and many portals, looming
and carved.
We did not soil the polished floors, nor bring sand within. At the foot of the
great stairs, marble and spiraling, leading to the upper rooms, we, and our
guards, those accompanying us, some dozen men, paused. Their desert boots were
removed by kneeling slave girls, who then, with lavers and veminium water, and
oils, pouring and cleansing, washed their feet. The girls were not of the
Tahari, and so dried the men’s feet with their hair. To make a Tahari girl, even
though slave, do this, is regarded as a great degradation. As discipline, of
course, what is routine for a girl not of the Tahari, in miserable Tahari
enslavement, may be forced on a slave girl whose origin is itself the Tahari.
When the men’s feet were cleansed, they were fitted by the girls with soft,
heel-less slippers, of the sort commonly worn indoors in permanent residences in
the Tahari, with extended, curling toes. The feet of myself, and those of
Hassan, too, were washed, and dried. The girl who cared for me had long, hair,
almost black. She bent to her work. Once she looked up at me. She might once
have been of high family in Ar. She was now only a Tahari slave girl. She looked
down, finishing her labors. “In there,” said the man who had led our captors. We
had now stopped before a great portal, narrower at its bottom, then swelling,
curving, gracefully expanding, outward and upward, then narrowing again,
gracefully concluding in a point. It might have been in the design of a stylized
lance, or flame or leaf. This portal lay at the end of our trek, through several
balls, and up more than one flight of stairs.
There were men withi
n, seated about a central figure, on rugs, on a dais. The
men were veiled, in the manner of the Char. Girls, docile, belled and collared,
served them.
A girl emerged from the room. Our eyes met. Her eyes fell. She did not know us.
She found herself examined. Her body blushed red, from hair to ankles. Though
Hassan and I were stripped, she was more naked than we, for she wore Gorean
slave silk.
“In there,” said the man. Again I felt the incitement of the point of the
scimitar in my back.
On ropes, hands bound behind our back, Hassan and I entered the lofty chamber.
Those within the chamber looked up.
We were thrust before the dais. “Kneel, and kiss the tiles before the feet of
your master,” the man. Hassan and I knelt. Scimitars stood at the ready. We
kissed the tiles. We straightened ourselves. Failure to comply in such a
situation means immediate decapitation.
The man on the dais, sitting cross-legged, regarded us.
We said nothing.
He lifted his finger. “You may again show respect,” said the man behind us.
We again kissed the tiles. We again straightened ourselves. Again we said
nothing.
“I did not think a woman could hold you,” smiled the man on the dais.
We did not respond.
“I expect to have better fortune,” said the man. He was veiled, in the manner of
the Char, as were the others with him. He picked a grape from a bowl of fruit on
a small table near him, and, holding the veil from his face, as do the men of
the Char, put the bit of fruit into his mouth, and bit into it. It was pitted.
He chewed on the fruit.
I looked about the room.
It was a marvelous and lofty room, high ceilinged, columned and tiled, ornately
carved, open and spacious in aspect, rich in its decoration. A vizier, a pasha,
a caliph, might have held audience in such a chamber.
“She is an excellent tool,” said the man on the dais, finishing the fruit,
rinsing the fingers of his right band in a small bowl of veminium water, and
drying them on a cloth to his right. “But only, when all is said and done, a
woman. I did not think she could hold you. You were little more than twenty Ahn
in her keeping.”
“We fell well into your trap,” said Hassan.
The man shrugged, a Tahari shrug, tiny, subtle, like a swift smile,
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