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

Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt Page 39

by Players of Gor [lit]

  it locked. It was very dark inside. there was a light coming from somewhere high

  above, through some sort of narrow, shuttered aperture.

  “It is hard to see,” I said.

  “Nim Nim see,” said the small beast, clutching at my wrist with both if its

  hands. I began to pull me through the room. Once my foot splashed into the

  shallow concave approach to a cistern. there was a smell in the place. This

  area, I suspected, was probably more in the nature of a sump beneath the prison

  than a bath. In a few moments my eyes could make out things reasonably well. The

  eyes of the urt people, I gathered, adjusted very quickly to darkness. This may

  be an adaptive specialization, having to do with the fact that urt packs are

  often active at night.

  “Here, here,” said the small creature, eagerly. It pulled me to a grating in the

  floor. “Nim Nim not strong enough!”

  I fixed my hands about the bars of the grating. I pulled at it. It seemed very

  solidly anchored in the cement. It did pull up a bit at one edge. It was

  extremely heavy. I was not surprised that the small creature could not move it.

  I wondered if many men could have moved it.

  “Pull! Pull!” said Nim Nim.

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  “I cannot move it,” I said.

  “Pull! “Pull!” said Nim Nim.

  I crouched down, getting my legs under me. Then, largely using the force of my

  legs, pushing up with them, I pulled against the bars. The side which had lifted

  before a bit, no, a little at a time, to my elation, with small sounds of

  loosening, breaking mortar, rose upward. The mortar, perhaps, in years of

  drainage here, if the area did function largely as a sump for the prison, might

  have been loosened.

  “See! See!” whispered Nim Nim.

  I thrust the heavy ;grating, loose now, to the side.

  Nim Nim scuttled into the dark, circular crevice. In a moment, half sickened by

  the stench, my body moving against the slimy sides of the opening, I followed

  him.

  We stood now, in the neighborhood of noon, on a small hill, some pasangs from

  the walls of Brundisium. We had emerged through rocky outcroppings below. There

  was muchs tone in this area. It could have been quarried. Much of this tone, in

  its great surrounding, irregular alignments, seemed almost to form the cerrated

  ridge of some vast, ancient, natural bowl, now muchly crumbled and weathered.

  These outcroppings, with their breaks and opening, encircled an area perhaps

  more than two pasangs in width. Guided by Nim Nim, who had sometimes ridden upon

  my back, and other times upon my shoulders, I had come to this place. Now he had

  leaped down from my shoulders. “Nim Nim safe now!” he cried, pointing downward

  into the shallow, muchly encircled valley below. In that broad, sweeping,

  concave area I could see what Nim Nim called the “people”. Never before had I

  seen an urt pack that huge. I must have contained for or five thousand animals.

  “Hold!” called a voice, authoritatively.

  I turned suddenly, swiftly about.

  “Good trick! Good trick!” cried Nim Nim. “Nim Nim good urt! No pit for Bosk!

  Worse! Much worse! Nim Nim help! Nim Nim help!”

  I felt sick. I remembered his words in the cell. I had not immediately

  understood, I had then supposed that he meant to help me escape, as indeed,

  clearly, later, seemed to be the intent of his words. Now I understood that it

  had been no accident he had been put in with me. He had been, from the

  geginning, the partisan of my enemies.

  “Nim Nim help?” he cried, delightedly. “Nim Nim help! Nim Nim good urt! Now Nim

  Nim free!”

  page 273

  “Kneel, Bosk of Port Kar,” said Flaminius. I knelt. With Flaminius were the

  jailer, and his other fellows. Several had set crossbows trained on me. More

  importantly, one held the leashes of three snarling sleen.

  “He looks well, naked and on his knees, Bosk of Port Kar, before men of

  Brundisium,” said the jailer.

  “Are you of Brundisium?” I asked Flaminius.

  “I am in the fee of Brundisium,” he said. “But I am of Ar.”

  I did not understand the sort of triumph which seemed to characterize the voice

  of the jailer. The alliances of Brundisium were with Ar, not with Tyros or Cos.

  I measured the distance between myself and the jailer. I wondered how long it

  would take to break his neck. I did not think I could reach him before the

  quarrels of crossbows would lodge themselves in my body. I was not a female,

  joyfully, rightfully, on her knees before men. The accent of Flaminius, now that

  I thought of it, did have traces within it which suggested Ar. To be sure, these

  things are sometimes difficult to determine with accuracy. It was certainly not

  obviously an accent of Ar. If he was of Ar, he had probably been out of the city

  for year.

  “I thought you were to have had a bath,” smiled Flaminius. “Instead it seems you

  are in desperate need of one.”

  I did not respond to him.

  “Did you enjoy your trip, crawling through the slime sewers of Brundisium?” he

  asked.

  I did not speak.

  “To be sure, your journey in the open air and sun has doubtless removed some of

  the stink from you.”

  Several of the men behind him laughed.

  “Even now, men are repairing the various gratings which we loosened or removed

  for your convenience, as well as narrowing several of the conduits.”

  I regarded him.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, “this has all been well planned.”

  “Would it not have been simpler to slay me in the prison?” I asked.

  “Simpler, yes,” said Flaminius, “but far less amusing.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “The arrangements in your cell, its location, and so on, were intended to

  encourage you to be apprehensive, and to think about escape.”

  “I do not think I needed much encouragement,” I said.

  “Apparently not,” he said. “We noticed, of course, that you did not use your

  bedding. That was clever of you. Without

  page 274

  something of that sort it is harder, of course, to set sleen on your trail.”

  “I thought you might intend to use me in the baiting pit,” I said.

  “Of course,” said Flaminius. “Indeed, it was intended that you should fear that.

  ON the other hand, it did not seem politically expedient, at least at this time,

  to have Bosk of Port Kar, that being a city theoretically neutral to Brundisium,

  publicly slaughtered in one of our baiting pits.”

  “I would suppose not,” I admitted. Some of the men of Brundisium, several

  functionaries and soldiers, for example, and guards in the prison, were familiar

  with my identity. Under such circumstances it would surely be difficult to

  conceal it from a crowd attending a public spectacle.

  “Accordingly, we arranged your escape,” said Flaminius, “risking nothing, of

  course.”


  “Nothing?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” said Flaminius. “How do you think we followed you so

  discreetly, allowing you your lead of better than an Ahn, until, at our

  pleasure, we chose to close the gap and apprehend you here?”

  I looked down at the urt pack in the valley below. “I was brought here,

  deliberately, of course,” I said.

  “Of course,” said Flaminius. “But even if you had not chosen to follow our

  little friend’s advice in this matter, we could have apprehended you easily

  anywhere in the vicinity, and then brought you here, as we wished.”

  “The sleen,” I said.

  “Certainly,” he said. “Look.” He signaled to one of the men standing by the

  fellow with the sleen. He drew forth from a sack the ragged tunic I had worn in

  the cell.

  “Clever,” I said.

  Outside the entrance to the cubicle of the bathing cisterns, before being

  prodded within by the spears of our keepers, Nim Nim and I had been forced to

  strip. We had then been herded into the darkness and the door closed and locked

  behind us. It had all seemed very natural. I now realized that it had been part

  of the plan of Flaminius. After the door had been closed behind us the clothing,

  or at least mine, had doubtless been taken down to the sleen pens. Then it was

  only necessary, later, to pick up our trail outside the city, at the termination

  of one of the conduits, where it would empty into one of ht long, half-dry

  drainage ditches about a half pasang outside the walls.

  page 275

  “Look,” grinned Flaminius, and he signaled again to the fellow who held the rags

  I had worn.

  He held them near the sleen. Instantly, furiously, snarling, they seized the

  garment, tugging and tearing at it.

  “Enough!” said Flaminius.

  The fellow freed the garment from the sleen, shouting at them, half tearing it

  away from them. Even though he was their keeper and they were doubtless trained

  to obey him, and perhaps only him, it was not easy for him to regain the

  garment.

  Flaminius then took the garment, and looked at me. “Behold, Bosk of Port Kar,”

  he laughed, “naked and kneeling before us, outwitted, terrified into the desire

  for escape, then led to believe his escape was successful, then his hopes

  dashed, now realizing how he was never out of our grasp. Behold the stupid,

  outwitted fool!”

  I was silent.

  “Are you not curious as to your fate?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Flaminius then threw me the garment he had taken from the sleen keeper. It was

  in shreds, little more than dangling tatters, from the teeth of the ravaging,

  contesting sleen. “Put it on,” he said. “No, do not rise. Draw it on as you

  kneel.”

  The men laughed at me as I knelt before them then, a few dangling tatters about

  my neck and body. The sleen eyed me eagerly.

  “Would not the stroke of the sword be quicker?” I asked.

  “Yes, but not as amusing,” said Flaminius.

  “Perhaps you should draw back, that you not be injured in the charge of the

  sleen,” I suggested.

  “Remain kneeling,” he warned me.

  “I am somewhat mystified about many things,” I said. “Perhaps this is an

  opportune moment to request an explanation. May I inquire, accordingly, what

  might be your interest in me, or that of your party? Why, for example, was the

  fellow named Babinius sent against me in Port Kar? What was the point of that?

  Similarly, why should there have been an interest in Brundisium in my

  apprehension? Who, or what, IN Brundisium, has this interest in me, and why?”

  “You would like me to respond to your questions, would you not?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I do no choose to do so,” he said.

  I clenched my fists. Those with him laughed.

  page 276

  “But do not think that we are not capable of acts of incredible kindness, or

  that mercy is beyond our ken,” he said.

  “Oh?” I said.

  “We are willing to permit you a choice of fates,” he said. “And we are willing

  to give you a certain amount of time, to agonize over them.”

  “I do not understand,” I said.

  “Surely you do not think it is an accident that we used our little friend here

  in our plans? Surely you do not think it is a mere coincidence that you have

  been brought to this place?”

  “I suppose not,” I said. I shuddered.

  Nim Nim Leaped up and down gleefully. “Nim Nim help. Nim Nim good urt!” he

  squealed.

  “Go, little urt,” said Flaminius, kindly. “Run to your people.”

  “Nim Nim smart!” it cried. “Nim Nim trick pretty Bosk!”

  “Hurry home, little urt,” said Flaminius, kindly.

  Nim Nim looked up at me with his ovoid eyes, set in that small, elongated face.

  “Worse than pit,” he said to me, “worse, far worse. Nim Nim help. Nim Nim trick

  pretty Bosk. Too bad, pretty Bosk!”

  “Hurry, hurry,” urged Flaminius.

  Nim Nim scampered down the grassy slope toward the huge urt pack in the

  distance. Flaminius laughed. So, too, did some of the others. The laughter was

  not pleasant.

  “You will now turn about, slowly, on your knees,” said Flaminius to me. “You

  will then rise slowly and slowly descend the hill. You will go tot he edge of

  the urt pack. We will remain, for a time, here on the hill. You will be under

  our observation at all times. If you should attempt to run or move to one side,

  as though thinking of skirting the pack, we will immediately release the sleen.

  You must, then, if you wish, enter the urt pack. If you do not wish to do this

  we will, after a time, release the sleen, and they will set upon you wherever

  they find you. Is this all clear?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I wonder what you will choose,” said Flaminius.

  “I bet he will enter the pack,” said one of the men.

  “I wager he will wait for the sleen,” said another.

  “Do not permit us to sway your decision,” said Flaminius, “but it has been our

  usual experience in similar situations, that the individual involved waits until

  the sleen are almost upon him and then, seemingly almost uncontrollably, runs

  into the pack.

  page 277

  To be sure, it would probably have been better for him if he had waited for the

  sleen.”

  “Sleen are quicker,” said one of the men.

  “Few have the courage, however, to wait for them,” said another.

  “What will you do, Bosk of Port Kar?” asked Flaminius.

  “I do not know,” I said.

  “An excellent answer,” said Flaminius. “Many men think they know what they will

  do, but when the moment comes it seems it does not always turn out as they

  expected. Sometimes he who thinks he
is brave learns he is a coward, and

  sometimes, too, I suppose, he who thought himself a coward learns that he is

  brave.”

  I turned away from them, slowly, on my knees, and then rose to my feet.

  “Slowly, slowly now,” said Flaminius.

  I began to walk down the hill, toward the urt pack. Nim had not yet entered it.

  I supposed he might be waiting to see what I might do.

  I went to within a few yards of the edge of the pack. Most of the animals did

  not pay me any attention. A few regarded me suspiciously. I did not, of course,

  infringe the perimeter of their group, or approach within a critical distance. I

  looked back to the crest of that low hill. I could see Flaminius there, and his

  men, and the sleen. I had a few Ehn, doubtless, before they were released. I was

  supposed to be spending that time, it seemed, agonizingly pondering which fate I

  would choose for myself. Needless to say, I was not enthusiastic about either of

  the obvious alternatives. I looked at the urt pack. I had never seen one so

  large. I contained a very large number of animals. The smell of it even was

  oppressive. I looked at he ends of the pack; they extended for about a quarter

  of a pasang on either side of me. If I were to run for hem the sleen, doubtless,

  would be immediately freed. They could be upon me in a matter of Ihn. I looked

  across the pack. It was some tow or three hundred yards across. I did not think

  that even sleen would be able to make it through them. No, it did not seem

  likely that even sleen could make it through such a dense thicket of large,

  vicious creatures. I fingered the tattered garment I wore. Sleen, I knew, are

  indefatigable hunters, fearless, tenacious trackers, very tenacioius trackers. I

  looked over to Nim Nim, a few yards form me, much closer to the pack. he was

  obviously prepared, if I approached him, to dart into the pack.

  page 278

  “Nim Nim safe here!” he called. he pointed to the pack. “The people do not hurt

  Nim Nim!”

  I wondered if somewhere in that vast pack of animals there might be other

  representatives of the urt people. If there were, however, they were keeping

  themselves concealed. They do not always stay with the pack, of course, but

  almost always they remain in its vicinity, seldom gone from it for long. Nim

  Nim, as I recalled, had been netted in a state orchard.

 

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