Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt

Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt Page 33

by Players of Gor [lit]

Boots regarded me.

  “No one is perfect,” I said.

  “Throw,” said Boots, bravely, resolutely.

  I unsheathed one of the quivas, and turned it in my hand. I then turned to face

  the Lady Yanina. “What is wrong with her?” I asked.

  “She has fainted,” said a man.

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  12 Conversations with a Monster; The Punishment of a Slave

  “How did the accident occur?” I asked.

  “What accident?” he asked.

  There were fourteen pieces on the board, sic yellow, eight red. I was playing

  red.

  I had now been with the company of Boots Tarsk-Bit for several weeks. In this

  time we had played numerous villages and town, sometimes just outside their

  walls, or even against them, when we had not been permitted within. Too, we had

  often set up outside mills, inns, graneries, customs posts and trade barns,

  wherever an audience might be found, even at the intersections of traveled roads

  and, on certain days, in the vicinity of rural markets. In all this time we had

  been gradually moving north and westward, slowly toward the coast, toward

  Thassa, the Sea.

  “As I understand it,” I said, “there was a fire.”

  He regarded me.

  “You wear a hood,” I said.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “That accident which destroyed or disfigured your face,” I said, “that rendered

  it such, as I understand it, that women might run screaming from your sight,

  that even men, crying out, sickened and revolted, might drive you with poles and

  cudgels,

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  like some feared, disgusting beast, from their own habitats and haunts.”

  “Are you trying to put me off my game?” he inquired.

  “No,” I said.

  “It is your move,” he said. “You next move.”

  I returned my attention to the board. “I do not think the game will last much

  longer,” I said.

  “You are right,” he said.

  “Out of the several hundred times we have played,” I said, “never have I enjoyed

  so great an advantage in material.”

  “Do you have an advantage?” he asked.

  “Obviously,” I said. “More importantly I enjoy an immense advantage

  positionally.”

  “How is that?” he inquired.

  “Note,” I said. I thrust my Rider of the High Tharlarion to Ubar’s Initiate

  Eight. “If you do not defend, it will be capture of Home Stone on the next

  move.”

  “So it would seem,” he said.

  His Home Stone was at Ubar’s Initiate One. It was flanked by a Builder at Ubar’s

  Builder One. It was too late to utilize the Builder defensively now. No Builder

  move could now protect the Home Stone. Indeed it could not even, at this point,

  clear an escape route for its flight. He must do something with his Ubara, now

  at Ubara’s Tarnsman Five. The configuration of pieces on the board was as

  follows: On my first rank, my Home Stone was at Ubar’s Initiate One; I had a

  Builder at Ubar’s Scribe One. On my second rank, I had a Spearman at Ubar’s

  Builder Two, a Scribe at Ubara Two, and another Rider of the High Tharlarion at

  Ubara’s Scribe Two. On my third rank, I had a Spearman at Ubar’s Initiate Three

  and another at Ubar’s Scribe Three. One of my Riders of the High Tharlarion, as

  I indicated earlier, was now at Ubar’s Initiate Eight, threatening capture of

  Home Stone on the next move. On his eight rank he had a Spearman at Ubar’s

  Builder Eight, inserted between my two Spearmen on my third rank. His Spearman

  at Ubar’s Builder Eight was supported by another of his Spearmen, posted at

  Ubar’s Scribe Seven. He had his Ubara, as I indicated earlier, at Ubara’s

  Tarnsman Five. This was backed by a Scribe at Ubara’s Scribe Four. this

  alignment of the Ubara and Scribe did not frighten me. If he should be so

  foolish as to bring his Ubara to my Ubar’s Builder One, it would be taken by my

  Builder. His Scribe could recapture but he would have lost his Ubara, and for

  only a Builder. His last two pieces were located on his first rank. They were,

  as I indicated earlier, his Home Stone, located at Ubar’s Initiate

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  One, and a Builder, located at Ubar’s Builder One. The Builder was his Ubar’s

  Builder.

  “How would you choose to defend?” he inquired.

  “You could bring you Ubara over to your Ubar’s Initiate Five, threatening the

  Rider of the High Tharlarion,” I said.

  “But you would then retreat to your Ubar’s Initiate Seven, the Rider of the High

  Tharlarion then protected by your Scribe at Ubara Two,” he said. “This could

  immobilize the Ubara, while permitting you to maintain your pressure on the

  Ubar’s Initiate’s File. It could also give you time to build an even stronger

  attack.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  He placed his Ubara at Ubara’s Tarnsman Two.

  “That is the better move,” I said.

  “I think so,” he said.

  Ubar’s Initiate Nine, that square from which I might effect capture of Home

  Stone, was now protected by his Ubara.

  “Behold,” I said.

  “Yes?” he said.

  I now moved my Scribe from Ubara Two to Ubara’s Tarnsman Three. This bought it

  onto the diagonal on which lay the crucial square, Ubar’s Initiate Nine. he

  could not take it with his Ubara, of course, sweeping down his Ubara’s Tarnsman

  File, because it was protected now by my other Rider of the High Tharlarion,

  that hitherto, seem9ingly innocent, seemingly uninvolved piece which had just

  happened, apparently, to be posted at Ubara’s Scribe Two. now its true purpose,

  lurking at that square, was dramatically revealed. I had planned it well. “You

  may now protect your Home Stone,” I said, “but only at the cost of your Ubara.”

  I would now move my Rider of the High Tharlarion to Ubar’s Initiate Nine,

  threatening capture of Home Stone. His only defense would be the capture of the

  Rider of the High Tharlarion with his Ubara, at which point, of course, I would

  recapture with the Scribe, thus exchanging the Rider of the High Tharlarion for

  a Ubara, an exchange much to my profit. Then with my superior, even

  overwhelming, advantage in material, it would be easy to bring about the

  conclusion of the game in short order.

  “I see,” he said.

  “And I had red,” I reminded him. Yellow opens, of course. This permits him to

  dictate the opening and, accordingly, immediately assume the offensive. Many

  players of Kaissa, not even of the caste of players, incidentally, know several

  openings, in numerous variations, several moves into the game. This is one

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  reason certain irregular, or eccentric, defenses, though often theoretically

  weak, are occasionally used by players with red. In this way the game is opened


  and new trails, even if dubious ones, must be blazed. If these irregular or

  eccentric defenses tend to be successful, of course, they soon, too, become part

  of the familiar, analyzed lore of the game. On the master’s level, it might be

  mentioned, it is not unusual for red, because of the disadvantages attendant on

  the second move, to play for a draw.

  “You still have red,” observed my opponent.

  “I have waited long for this moment of vengeance,” I said. “M triumph here will

  be all the sweeter for having experienced so many swift, casual, outrageously

  humiliating defeats at your hands.”

  “Your attitude is interesting,” he said. “I doubt that I myself would be likely

  to find in one victory an adequate compensation for a hundred somewhat

  embarrassing defeats.”

  “It is not that I am so bad,” I said, defensively. “It is rather that you are

  rather good.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  To be honest, I had never played with a better player. Many Goreans are quite

  skilled in the game, and I had played with them. I had even, upon occasion,

  played with members of the caste of players, but never, never, had I played with

  anyone who remotely approached the level of this fellow. His play was normally

  exact, even painfully exact, and an opponent’s smallest mistake or least

  weakness in position would be likely to be exploited devastatingly and

  mercilessly, but, beyond this, an exhibition of a certain brilliant

  methodicality not unknown among high-level players, it was often characterized

  by an astounding inventiveness, an astounding creativity, in combinations. He

  was the sort of fellow who did not merely play the game but contributed to it.

  Further, sometimes to my irritation, he often, too often, in my opinion, seemed

  to produce these things with an apparent lack of effort, with an almost insolent

  ease, with an almost arrogant nonchalance.

  It is one thing to be beaten by someone; it is another thing to have it done

  roundly, you sweating and fuming, while the other fellow, as far as you can

  tell, is spending most of his time, except for an occasional instant spent

  sizing up the board and moving, in considering the ambient trivia of the camp or

  the shapes and motions of passing clouds. If this fellow had a weakness in

  Kaissa it was perhaps a tendency to occasionally indulge in curious or even

  reckless experimentation. Too, I was convinced he might occasionally let his

  attention wander just a

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  bit too much, perhaps confident of his ability to overcome inadvertencies, or

  perhaps because of a tendency to underestimate opponents. Too, he had an

  interest in the psychology of the game. Once he had put a Ubara ‘en prise’ in a

  game with me. I, certain that it must be the bait in some subtle trap I could

  not detect, not only refused to take it but, worrying about it, and avoiding it,

  eventually succeeded in producing the collapse of my entire game. Another time

  he had done the same thing with pretty much the same results. “I had not noticed

  that it was ‘en prise’,” he had confessed later. “I was thinking about something

  else.” Had I dared to take advantage of that misplay I might not have had to

  wait until now to win a game with him. Yes, he was sometimes a somewhat

  irritating fellow to play. I had little doubt, however, that, in playing with

  him, my skills in Kaissa had been considerably sharpened.

  “Do you wish to resign?” I asked him.

  “I do not think so,” he said.

  “The game is over,” I informed him.

  “I agree,” he said.

  “It would be embarrassing to bring it to its conclusion,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” he admitted.

  “Resign,” I suggested.

  “No,” he said.

  “Do not be churlish,” I smiled.

  “That is a privilege of ‘monsters’,” he said.

  “Very well,” I said. Actually I did not want him to resign. I had waited a very

  long time for this victory, and I would savor every move until capture of Home

  Stone.

  “What is going on?” asked Bina, coming up to us, chewing a larma.

  “We are playing Kaissa,” said the monster.

  I noted that she had not knelt. She had not thrust her head to the ground. She

  had not asked for permission to speak. Her entire attitude was one of slovenly

  disregard for our status, that of free men. She was not my slave, of course. She

  belonged to Boots.

  “I can see that,” she said, biting again into the larma. The juice ran down the

  side of her mouth.

  Her foot was on the edge of the monster’s robes, as he sat before the board,

  cross-legged.

  “Who is winning?” she asked.

  “It does not matter,” I said. I was angry with her animosity towards the

  monster. It was not my intention to give her any

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  occasion to receive gratification over his discomfiture. She wore light, leather

  slippers. Boots had permitted footwear to both Bina and Rowena. He was an

  indulgent master. To be sure, Lady Telitsia had not yet been permitted footwear,

  but then she had not yet been permitted clothing either, except for her collar,

  except when it was in the nature of costuming for her performances. “Do you

  play?” I asked.

  “I am a slave,” she said. “I cannot so much as touch the pieces of the game

  without permission without risking having my hands cut off, or being killed, no

  more than weapons.”

  “You do not know how to play, then?” I said.

  “No,” she said.

  “Do you understand anything of the game?” I asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “I see,” I said. That pleased me. It was just as well if she did not understand

  the dire straits in which my opponent now found himself. That would surely have

  amused the slinky little slut. Surely she knew her foot was on his robes. Surely

  he, too, must be aware of this.

  “I have offered to extend to you such permissions, and teach you,” he said.

  “I despise you,” she said.

  “Your foot is on the robes of my antagonist,” I said.

  “Sorry,” she said. She stepped back a bit, and then, deliberately, with her

  slipper, kicked dust onto his robes.

  “Beware!” I said.

  “You do not own me!” she said. “Neither of you own me!”

  “Any free man may discipline an insolent or errant slave,” I said, “even one who

  is in the least bit displeasing, even one he might merely feel like

  disciplining. I she is killed, or injured, he need only pay compensation to her

  master, and that only if the master can be located within a specific amount of

  time and requests such compensation.” IN virtue of such customs and statutes the

  perfect discipline under which Gorean slaves are kept is maintained and

  guaranteed even when they are not within the direct purview of
their masters or

  their appointed agents. She turned white.

  “We are playing,” said my opponent. “Do not pursue the matter.”

  She relaxed, visibly, and regained her color. Then she regarded my opponent.

  “You should not even be with the troupe,” she said. “You do not bring in enough

  coins to pay for your own suls. You are hideous. You are worthless! You are a

  fool and a contemptible weakling! All you do, all you can do, is play

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  Kaissa. It is a stupid game. Moving little pieces of wood about on a flat,

  colored board! How stupid! How absurd! How foolish!”

  “Perhaps you have some duties to attend to elsewhere,” I speculated.

  “Leave the camp, Monster,” she said to my opponent. “No one wants you here. Go

  away!”

  I regarded the female.

  “Yes,” she said to me, angrily, “I have duties to attend to!”

  “Then see to them, female slave,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. She then tossed her head, and left.

  “An insolent slut,” I said, “muchly in need of the whip.”

  “Perhaps she is right,” he said.

  “In what way?” I asked.

  He looked down at the board. “Perhaps it is stupid, or absurd, or foolish, that

  men should concern themselves with such things.”

  “Kaissa?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Now,” I said, “you are truly being foolish.”

  “Perhaps that is all it is, after all,” he said, “the meaningless movement of

  bits of wood on a checkered surface.”

  “And love,” I said, “is only a disturbance in the glands and music only a

  stirring in the air.”

  “And yet it is all I know,” he said.

  “Kaissa, like love and music, is its own justification,” I said. “It requires no

  other.”

  “I have lived for it,” he said. “I know nothing else.. In times of darkness, it

  has sometimes been all that has stood between me and my own knife.”

  “You did not wish for me to discipline the slave,” I said.

  “No,” he said.

  “Do you like her?” I asked.

  “I live for Kaissa,” he said.

  “She is a sexy little slut,” I said.

 

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