by John Norman
I did not know at the time but Gur is a product originally secreted by large, gray, domesticated, hemispheric arthropods which are, in the morning, taken out to pasture where they feed on special Sim plants, extensive, rambling, tangled vinelike plants with huge, rolling leaves raised under square energy lamps fixed in the ceilings of the broad pasture chambers, and at night are returned to their stable cells where they are milked by Muls. The special Gur used on the Feast of Tola is, in the ancient fashion, kept for weeks in the social stomachs of specially chosen Priest-Kings to mellow and reach the exact flavor and consistency desired, which Priest-Kings are then spoken of as retaining Gur.
I watched as one Priest-King and then another approached the Mother and repeated the Gur Ceremony.
I was perhaps the first human who had ever beheld this ceremony.
Considering the number of Priest-Kings and the time it took for each to give Gur to the Mother, I conjectured that the ceremony must have begun hours ago. Indeed, it did not seem incredible to me at all that the giving of Gur might well last an entire day.
I was already familiar with the astounding patience of Priest-Kings and so I was not surprised at the almost total lack of movement in the lines of that golden pattern, formed of Priest-Kings, which radiated out from the Platform of the Mother. But I now understood as I observed the slight, almost enraptured tremor of their antennae responding to the scent-music of the musicians that this was not a simple demonstration of their patience but a time of exaltation for them, of gathering, of bringing the Nest together, of reminding them of their common, remote origins and their long, shared history, of reminding them of their very being and nature, of what they perhaps alone in all the universe were—Priest-Kings.
I looked at the golden rows of Priest-Kings, alert, immobile, their heads wreathed in green leaves, about their necks dangling the tiny, primitive, silverish tools telling of a distant, simpler time before the Scanning Chamber, the Power Plant and the Flame Death.
I could not to my emotional satisfaction conjecture the ancientness of this people on which I gazed, and I could but dimly understand their powers, what they might feel, what they might hope or dream, supposing that so old and wise a people were still akin to the simple dream, the vagrant, insuppressible perhaps, folly of hope.
The Nest, had said Sarm, is eternal.
But on the platform before which these golden creatures stood there lay the Mother, perhaps blind, almost insensate, the large, feeble thing they revered, weak, brownish, withered, the huge worn body at last wrinkled and empty.
You are dying, Priest-Kings, I said to myself.
I strained my eyes to see if I could pick out either Sarm or Misk in those golden rows.
I had watched for perhaps an hour and then it seemed that the ceremony might be over, for some minutes passed and no further Priest-King approached the Mother.
Then almost at the same time I saw Sarm and Misk together.
The rows of the Priest-Kings separated forming an aisle down the middle of the chamber and the Priest-Kings now stood facing this aisle, and down the aisle together came Sarm and Misk.
I gathered that perhaps this was the culmination of the Feast of Tola, the giving of Gur by the greatest of the Priest-Kings, the First Five Born, save that of that number there were only two left, the First Born and the Fifth, Sarm and Misk. As it turned out later I was correct in this surmise and the moment of the ceremony is known as the March of the First Five Born, in which these five march abreast to the Mother and give her Gur in inverse order of their priority.
Misk of course lacked the wreath of green leaves and the chain of tools about his neck.
If Sarm were disturbed at finding Misk, whom he thought to have had killed, at his side, he gave no sign to this effect.
Together, in silence to human ears but to the swelling intensities of scent-music, in stately, stalking procession the two Priest-Kings approached the Mother, and I saw Misk, first, dip his mouth to the great golden bowl on its tripod and then approach her.
As his antennae touched her head her antennae lifted and seemed to tremble and the ancient, brownish creature lifted her head and on her ready tongue from his own mouth Misk, her child, delicately and with supreme gentleness placed a glistening drop of Gur.
He backed away from her.
Now did Sarm, the First Born, approach the Mother and dip his jaws too to the golden bowl and stalk to the Mother and place his antennae gently on her head, and once again the old creature's antennae lifted but this time they seemed to retract.
Sarm placed his jaws to the mouth of the Mother but she did not lift her head to him.
She turned her face away.
The scent-music suddenly stopped and the Priest-Kings seemed to rustle as though an unseen wind had suddenly stirred the leaves of autumn and I heard even the surprised jangling of those tiny metal tools.
Well could I now read the signs of consternation in the rows of Priest-Kings, the startled antennae, the shifting of the supporting appendages, the sudden intense inclination of the head and body, the straining of the antennae toward the Platform of the Mother.
Once again Sarm thrust his jaws at the face of the Mother and once again she moved her head away from him.
She had refused to accept Gur.
Misk stood by, immobile.
Sarm pranced backwards from the Mother. He stood as though stunned. His antennae seemed to move almost randomly. His entire frame, that long, slender golden blade, seemed to shudder.
Trembling, with none of that delicate grace that so typically characterizes the movements of Priest-Kings, he once again tried to approach the Mother. His movements were awkward, uncertain, clumsy, halting.
This time even before he was near her she again turned aside that ancient, brownish, discolored head.
Once again Sarm retreated.
Now there was no movement among the rows of Priest-Kings and they stood in that uncanny frozen stance regarding Sarm.
Slowly Sarm turned toward Misk.
No longer was Sarm trembling or shaken but he had drawn his frame to its full and golden height.
Before the Platform of the Mother, facing Misk, rearing perhaps two feet over him, Sarm stood with what, even for a Priest-King, seemed a most terrible quietude.
For a long moment the antennae of the two Priest-Kings regarded one another and then Sarm's antennae flattened themselves over his head and so, too, did Misk's.
Almost at the same time the bladelike projections on their forelegs snapped into view.
Slowly the Priest-Kings began to circle one another in a ritual more ancient perhaps even than the Feast of Tola, a ritual perhaps older than even the days and objects celebrated by the string of metal tools that hung jangling about the neck of Sarm.
With a speed that I still find hard to comprehend Sarm rushed upon Misk and after a blurring moment I saw them on their posterior supporting appendages locked together rocking slowly back and forth, trying to bring those great golden, laterally chopping jaws into play.
I knew the unusual strength of Priest-Kings and I could well imagine the stresses and pressures that throbbed in the frames of those locked creatures as they rocked back and forth, to one side and another, each pressing and seeking for the advantage that would mean death to the other.
Sarm broke away and began to circle again, and Misk turned slowly, watching him, his antennae still flattened.
I could now hear the sucking in of air through the breathing tubes of both creatures.
Suddenly Sarm charged at Misk and slashed down at him with one of those bladelike projections on his forelegs and leaped away even before I saw the green-filled wound opening on the left side of one of those great, compound luminous disks on Misk's head.
Again Sarm charged and again I saw a long greenish-wet opening appear as if by magic on the side of Misk's huge golden head, and again Sarm, whose speed was almost unbelievable, leaped away before Misk could touch him and was again circling and watching.
Once more Sarm leaped to attack and this time a green-flowing wound sprang into view on the right side of Misk's thorax in the neighborhood of one of the brain-nodes.
I wondered how long it would take to kill a Priest-King.
Misk seemed stunned and slow, his head dropped and the antennae seemed to flutter, exposing themselves.
I noted that already the green exudate which flowed from Misk's wounds was turning into a green, frozen sludge on his body, stanching the flow from the wounds.
The thought crossed my mind that Misk, in spite of his apparently broken and helpless condition, had actually lost very little body fluid.
I told myself that perhaps the stroke in the vicinity of the brain-nodes had been his undoing.
Cautiously Sarm watched Misk's fluttering, piteous, exposed antennae.
Then slowly one of Misk's legs seemed to give way beneath him and he tilted crazily to one side.
In the frenzy of the battle I had apparently failed to note the injury to the leg.
Perhaps so too had Sarm.
I wondered if Sarm, considering Misk's desperate condition and plight, would offer quarter.
Once again Sarm leaped in, his bladed projection lifted to strike, but this time Misk suddenly straightened himself promptly on the leg which had seemed to fail him and whipped his antennae back behind his head an instant before the stroke of Sarm's blade and when Sarm struck he found his appendage gripped in the hooklike projections on the end of Misk's foreleg.
Sarm seemed to tremble and he struck with his other foreleg but this one too Misk seized with his other foreleg and once again they stood rocking on their posterior appendages, for Misk, having learned their strengths in the first grappling, and lacking the swiftness of Sarm, had decided to close with his antagonist.
Their jaws locked together, the great heads twisting.
Then, with a force that might have been that of clashing, golden glaciers, Misk's jaws tightened and turned and suddenly Sarm was thrown to his back beneath him and in the instant Sarm struck the floor Misk's jaws had slipped their grip to the thick tube about which hung the string of Tola's silverish tools, that tube that separated the head from the thorax of Sarm, what on a human would have been the throat, and Misk's jaws began to close.
In that instant I saw the bladelike projections disappear from the tips of Sarm's forelegs and he folded his forelegs against his body and ceased resistance, even lifting his head in order to further expose the crucial tube that linked thorax with head.
Misk's jaws no longer closed but he stood as if undecided.
Sarm was his to kill.
Though the translator which still hung about Sarm's neck with the string of silverish tools was not turned on I would not have needed it to interpret the desperate odor-signal emitted by the First Born. It was, indeed, though shorter and more intense, the first odor-signal that had ever been addressed to me, only then it had come from Misk's translator in the chamber of Vika. Had the translator been turned on, I would have heard "Lo Sardar"—"I am a Priest-King."
Misk removed his jaws from the throat of Sarm and stepped back.
He could not slay a Priest-King.
Misk slowly turned away from Sarm and with slow, delicate steps approached the Mother, before whom he stood, great chunks of greenish coagulated body fluid marking the wounds on his body.
If he spoke to her or she to him I did not detect the signals.
Perhaps they merely regarded one another.
My interest was more with Sarm, whom I saw lift himself with delicate menace to his four posterior appendages. Then to my horror I saw him remove the translator on its chain from his throat and wielding this like a mace and chain he rushed upon Misk and struck him viciously from behind.
Misk's legs slowly bent beneath him and his body lay on the floor of the chamber.
Whether he was dead or stunned I could not tell.
Sarm had drawn himself up again to his full height and like a golden blade he stood behind Misk and before the Mother. He looped the translator again about his throat.
I sensed a signal from the Mother, the first I had sensed, and it was scarcely detectable. It was "No."
But Sarm looked about himself to the golden rows of immobile Priest-Kings who watched him and then, satisfied, he opened those great, laterally moving jaws and advanced slowly on Misk.
At that instant I kicked loose the grille on the ventilator shaft and uttering the war cry of Ko-ro-ba sprang to the Platform of the Mother and in another instant had leaped between Sarm and Misk, my sword drawn.
"Hold, Priest-King!" I cried.
Never before had a human set foot in this chamber and I knew not if I had committed sacrilege but I did not care, for my friend was in danger.
Horror coursed through the ranks of the assembled Priest-Kings and their antennae waved wildly and their golden frames shook with rage, and hundreds of them must have simultaneously turned on their translators for I heard almost immediately from everywhere before me the contrastingly calm translation of their threats and protests. Among the words I heard were "He must die," "Kill him," "Death to the Mul." I almost had to smile in spite of myself for the unmoved, unemotional emissions of the translators seemed so much at odds with the visible agitation of the Priest-Kings and the dire import of their messages.
But then, from the Mother herself, behind me, I sensed once again the transmission of negation, and I heard on the translators that faced me, the simple expression "No." It was not their message, but that of she who lay brown and wrinkled behind me. "No."
The rows of Priest-Kings seemed to rustle in confusion and anguish but in a moment, incredibly enough, they were as immobile as ever, standing as if statues of golden stone, regarding me.
Only from Sarm's translator came a message. "It will die," he said.
"No," said the Mother, her message being caught and transmitted by Sarm's own translator.
"Yes," said Sarm, "it will die."
"No," said the Mother, the message coming again from Sarm's translator.
"I am the First Born," said Sarm.
"I am the Mother," said she who lay behind me.
"I do what I wish," said Sarm.
He looked around him at the rows of silent, immobile Priest-Kings and found none to challenge him. Now the Mother herself was silent.
"I do what I wish," came again from Sarm's translator.
His antennae peered down at me as though trying to recognize me. They examined my tunic but found on it no scent-markings.
"Use your eyes," I said to him.
The golden disks on his great globular head seemed to flicker and they fastened themselves upon me.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I am Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba," I said.
Sarm's bladelike projections snapped viciously into view and remained exposed.
I had seen Sarm in action and I knew that his speed was incredible. I hoped I would be able to see his attack. I told myself it would probably come for the head or throat, if only because these were, from his height, easier to reach and he would wish to kill me quickly and with little difficulty, for he would surely regard his main business as the slaying of Misk, who still lay, either dead or unconscious, behind me.
"How is it," asked Sarm, "that you have dared to come here?"
"I do what I wish," I told him.
Sarm straightened. The bladelike projections had never been withdrawn. His antennae flattened themselves over his head.
"It seems that one of us must die," said Sarm.
"Perhaps," I agreed.
"What of the Golden Beetle?" asked Sarm.
"I killed it," I said. I gestured to him with my sword. "Come," I said, "let us make war."
Sarm moved back a step.
"It is not done," he said, echoing words I had heard once from Misk. "It is a great crime to kill one."
"It is dead," I said. "Come, let us make war."
Sarm moved back another step.
He turned to one of the closest Priest-Kings. "Bring me a silver tube," he said.
"A silver tube to kill only a Mul?" asked the Priest-King.
I saw the antennae of several of the Priest-Kings curling.
"I spoke in jest," said Sarm to the other Priest-King, who made no response but, unmoving, regarded him.
Sarm approached me again. He turned his translator down.
"It is a great crime to threaten a Priest-King," he said. "Let me kill you quickly or I will have a thousand Muls sent to the dissection chambers."
I thought about this for a moment. "If you are dead," I asked, "how will you have them sent to the dissection chambers?"
"It is a great crime to kill a Priest-King," said Sarm.
"Yet you would slay Misk," I said.
"He is a traitor to the Nest," said Sarm.
I lifted my voice, hoping that the sound waves would carry to those transducers that were the translators of the Priest-Kings.
"It is Sarm," I called, "who is a traitor to the Nest, for this Nest will die, and he has not permitted the founding of a new Nest."
"The Nest is eternal," said Sarm.
"No," said the Mother, and the message again came from Sarm's own translator, and was echoed a thousand times by those of the other Priest-Kings in the great chamber.
Suddenly with a vicious, almost incalculable speed Sarm's right bladed projection flashed toward my head. I hardly saw it coming but an instant before its flight began I had seen the tremor of a fiber in his shoulder and I knew the signal for its strike had been transmitted.
I counterslashed.
And when the swift living blade of Sarm was still a full yard from my throat it met the lightning steel of a Gorean blade that had once been carried at the siege of Ar, that had met and withstood and conquered the steel of Pa-Kur, Gor's Master Assassin, until that time said to be the most skilled swordsman on the planet.
A hideous splash of greenish fluid struck me in the face and I leaped aside, in the same movement shaking my head and wiping the back of my fist across my eyes.
In an instant I was again on guard, my vision cleared, but I saw that Sarm was now some fifteen yards or more away and was slowly turning and turning in what must have been some primitive, involuntary dance of agony. I could sense the intense, weird odors of pain uncarried by his translator which now filled the chamber.
