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

by Players of Gor [lit]

  “That is true,” I granted him, noting it. I had not really thought of that

  before.

  The fellows who had been descending the tiers were now on the sand, ringing us.

  “Be ready, men,” said an officer. “Level your spears. Take them within the

  points.”

  “Just behind the ubar’s box,” said the creature to me, “there is a partly opened

  trap. I emerged through it with dinner. It is apparently a private passage to

  the ubar’s box, through which he could arrive here without passing through

  crowds. Once closed it is difficult to detect.”

  “What are you telling me?” I asked.

  “I doubt that I could easily pass myself off as a human,” it said, “even if I

  could accept the indignity of the pretense. You, on the other hand, an actual

  human being, would presumably have little difficulty in doing so. Similarly, if

  I am not mistaken, you are wearing a uniform of Brundisium.”

  “I cannot reach it,” I said.

  “In a moment,” it said, “there is going to be a great deal of confusion.

  “Come with me,” I said.

  “I dreamed for years on the cliffs of such a moment,” it said. “I shall not

  forfeit it now, nor, I assure you, shall I share it.”

  “Look,” said one of the men. “Is that not the fellow in the hall, Bosk of Port

  Kar, he who disappeared so mysteriously?”

  “You are correct,” I told him.

  “Watch him! Watch him carefully!” said a man.

  “He cannot just vanish here,” said another.

  “Sleen are variously trained,” said the beast to me. “These in the pit respond

  to verbal signals, regardless of their source. They were of little use to me

  when I was chained at the stake, as they were set upon me, as upon a target. ON

  the other hand, I am not now in the position of the target, or prey, but in that

  of the trainer.”

  “Such signals are secret,” I said. “They are carefully guarded. You could not

  know them. How could you know them?”

  “I heard them whispered to the sleen,” it said. “Just because you cannot hear

  such sounds at such distances, does not mean that the sleen cannot, or that I

  cannot.”

  Once again the hair lifted on the back of my neck.

  “Be ready,” it said.

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  “Now,” said the officer. The men began to move forward, slowly, step by step.

  The beast beside me then, almost inaudibly, but intensely, uttered an

  approximation of human vocables.

  The sleen, startling me, suddenly spun about, the five of them, six-legged,

  agile, sinuous, and muscular, some nine or ten feet in length, and crowded about

  our legs, hissing, snarling, looking upwards.

  “By the Priest-Kings!” cried a man, in horror.

  Suddenly, at the utterance of a hissed syllable, coupled with a fierce, directed

  gesture from the beast, a movement almost like throwing g weapon violently

  underhanded, one of the animals, fangs bared, lunged fiercely toward the men. In

  an instant it was under, and among, the spears, tearing and slashing. There were

  wild screams and a sudden breaking of ranks. The men had not expected this

  charge, and were not ready for it. Even if they had been regrouped and set, the

  distance was so short and the attack of the beast so precipitous and swift that

  there had been no time to align their weapons n a practical, properly angled,

  defensive perimeter. The beast, accordingly, had simply darted into what, from

  its point of view, was an obvious opening. Another sleen then, another living

  weapon, with another fierce syllable and gesture, was launched by the beast.

  Then another, and another, to scattering men, to wildly striking weapons, and

  then the last!

  “Behind the ubar’s box!” said the beast to me.

  I regarded it, reluctant to leave it.

  “Go,” it said. “They will learn that even a gentleman knows how to fight.

  “Are there many like you in your country?” I asked.

  “Countries,” it said.

  “Countries,” I said.

  “Some,” it said.

  “I see,” I said.

  “Go,” it said.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  It made a noise. “That is my name,” it said.

  “I cannot pronounce it,” I said.

  “That is not my fault,” it said.

  “I suppose not,” I said.

  “I would really appreciate it, if you would leave,” it said.

  “Very well,” I said.

  I darted between two groups of men, each striking down at a twisting sleen. I

  heard screams. I saw that one of the sleen had its teeth fastened on the leg of

  a man. Several other men were

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  about the periphery of the baiting pit. I hurried to one group of such men.

  “What are you doing here!” I cried. “Search for Bosk of Port Kar!”

  “We do not know where he is!” protested a man. It was hard to see his features

  in the moonlight and shadows.

  “There are sleen here!” cried another.

  I struck the first fellow a rude blow with my fist, my sword in it. “Hurry!” I

  said. “Move!”

  They rushed confusedly down to the sand.

  “You, too!” I ordered another fellow.

  “Yes, Sir!” he cried. I then ascended to some of the tiers before the ubar’s box

  and stood there, as though directing the operation. With my sword, fiercely, I

  gestured to other fellows, that they, too, should hurry down to the sand. They

  did so.

  “Who is in command?” called a minor officer, confused.

  “I am,” I said. “Look for Bosk of Port Kar!”

  He, too, then hurried, taking two men with him, down to the sand. I looked about

  myself. The ubar’s box was behind me. I returned my attention to the sand below.

  The beast must have uttered another command to the sleen. Suddenly, tom y

  amazement, they relinquished their attack and, together, bristling and snarling,

  slunk back, one after the other, through the small, grated opening through which

  they had emerged. A man, limping, hurried to the tiny gate and flung it down.

  “Aiii!” cried a man, striking with his foot against an object on the sand.

  “What is it?” cried another.

  “It is a head!” cried the man, stepping back.

  “There is a pouch here, on the sand,” said a man.

  “Here is the medallion of the ubar,” said a man, lifting a chain and medallion.

  “The pouch bears the sign of Belnar,” said the man who had found the pouch.

  “There are parts of a body about,” said a man. “The sleen had them.”

  “The head is the head of Belnar!” cried a man, crouching down near it.

  “The ubar is dead!” cried a man.

  “The beast has done this,” said an officer, in horror. “Kill it! Kill it!”

  The men turned to t
he Kur. It took a brand from the fire plate beneath the oil

  vat and hurled it into the vat. Instantly a torrent of flame blasted upward from

  the vat. The men drew back. The Kur then, with a prodigious strength, slowly

  lifted the flaming

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  vat of bloodied oil over its head. “Look out!” cried a man. “It will be

  crushed!” cried another. “Back!” cried another fellow. The beast hurled the vat

  away from itself, toward the men. They fled back. Two, screaming, were caught

  under the cauldron. For one terrible moment it had seemed as though the air

  itself had burst into flame.

  “Regroup!” cried an officer. “Regroup!”

  The Kur, at this time, did not attempt to escape, though I believe it might have

  made its way then at least from the baiting pit. Rather, it took six brands,

  still flaming, from the sand, scattered from the fire plate, and set them

  upright, torchlike, in a circular pattern about itself. It stood then within

  this ring, a ring with a diameter of some twenty feet. I wondered if such rings

  were occasionally erected on the steel worlds. I wondered if it had ever stood

  within such a ring before. The number six is a number of special significance to

  Kurii. This possibly has to do with the tentaclelike, multiply jointed,

  six-digited paw of the beast. This number, and its multiples and divisions,

  figures prominently in their organizations, their timekeeping and their

  chronology. They employ a base-twelve mathematics. The beast now stood within

  that circle, or ring. I did not understand the purpose of the ring, but I

  gathered that it was important to the beast. I recalled it had sent the sleen

  back to their lair. It would face the men alone, it seemed. I did not think it

  wanted their aid, nor mine.

  Suddenly it began to leap about, turning in the ring. It even turned a backwards

  somersault, uttering what sounded like gibberish, and then, bounding up and

  down, struck at its knees and thighs. I think the men feared it had gone insane.

  These things, however, are signs of Kur pleasure. Then it stood upright and

  looked at me. I had no doubt its nocturnal vision saw me very well. Its lips

  curled back about its fangs. I smiled. The resultant statement, although perhaps

  somewhat fearsome in the abstract, was a Kur approximation of a human smile. It

  is very different, as would be clear if you saw it, from that baring of fangs

  which indicates menace. Too, the ears were not laid back, which is an almost

  invariable sign among Kurii of readiness to attack, of intent to do harm.

  “Farewell,” I whispered to it. I saw the smile spread more widely. I suddenly

  realized that it had heard me, though the men between us could not.

  “Ready,” said an officer. “Be ready.”

  I saw spear points lower. The beast in its own ring was ringed, too, with steel.

  It snarled at the men, and they hesitated. Then it threw back

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  its great shaggy head and howled its defiance to the three moons, to the men who

  threatened it, to the universe and stars, to the world. Men shuddered, but did

  not break their circle. I admired them. They were good soldiers. Then the beast

  again turned its attention to the men. I thought I detected a low, almost

  inaudible growl. I saw the lips draw back again about the fangs, but this was no

  smile. For an instant, as it turned its head, its eyes, reflecting the light of

  one of the torches, blazed like molten metal. I saw the ears lay back against

  the side of the head.

  Suddenly, at a word of command, the men rushed forward. The beast seized at

  spears, slapping them away, seizing some, breaking them, taking others, perhaps

  a dozen, in its body. I saw it standing, fighting and tearing, in the midst of

  men. More than one man I saw lifted and thrown aside. Then I saw it go down

  beneath bodies. Men swarmed about it, thrusting with their spears, some hacking

  downward with their swords. “We have killed it!” cried one of the men. “I smell

  glory,” it had said. “It is a smell more exhilarating even than that of meat.”

  “It is dead!” cried one of the men. “It is dead!’ cried another. Was there so

  much glory here, I wondered. It did not seem a likely place for glory, the sand

  of a baiting pit, in a torchlit moonlight, in a country far from its own. No

  monuments would be erected to this beast. There would be no odes composed.

  Surely it would never be revered among its people. It would not be remembered,

  nor, if they had them, would it be sung in there songs. Its glory, if it had it,

  would have been its own, perhaps the splendor of a lonely moment that only the

  beast itself truly understood, a moment that was its own justification, and that

  needed no other, a moment that was sufficient onto itself.

  “It is moving!” cried a man in terror.

  Suddenly, from the midst of those bodies, howling, the Kur, spears in its body,

  thrust upward clawing and raging like some force of nature. It stood knee deep

  in bodies.

  “Kill it!” screamed the officer. Again men charged, with spears and swords. In

  the bloody tumult men struck even one another. I saw it reach out and tear a

  ;man from his fellows, disposing of him, half decapitating him with a slash of

  fangs to the throat, and seize another, tearing his head from his body. Then it

  wen down, bloody and terrible, again, beneath the weight or iron, and men. That

  was the thing, I recalled, which had been cast out of its own world for its

  alleged weakness. “it is moving again!” screamed a man.

  Once more I saw it rise up among bodies. I heard men weep, and continue to

  strike at it. How it prided itself on its refinements,

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  one its sense of gentility. How vain it had been! How irritated I had even been

  with it, with its confounded supercilious arrogance. How jealous it was of being

  a gentleman. It went down again. “We can’t kill it!” screamed a man. “We can’t

  kill it!” It even cooked its meat. Once more it thrust its way up through

  bodies, now waist-deep about it. An arm hung from its jaws. Spears and swords

  struck at it, again and again. “They will learn,” it had said, “that even a

  gentleman know how to fight.” Twice more it tore its way up among bodies, and

  then, at last, men stepped wearily back from it. Bodies were pulled away. It lay

  alone on the sand, dead. I could not even pronounce its name.

  “Wait,” said one of the officer. “Where is the other fellow, Bosk of Port Kar?”

  I then stepped behind the ubar’s box and lifted the partly opened trap and

  lowered myself into the passage below. I then closed and locked the trap, from

  the bottom. As it was designed, it was almost impossible to distinguish, from

  the surface, from the arrangements of tiling behind the box.

  I, below, heard men walking about on the tiling, and on the wooden tiers.

  “Where is Bosk of Port Kar?” I heard.

  “He is gone,” said another.

  “He has disappeared,” said another.

  21 What Occurred in the Apartments of Belnar;
Leather Gloves

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  I spun about.

  “I thought you might come here,” said Flaminius. “No, do not draw.”

  My hand hesitated. He had not drawn his own weapon. Behind him, in a rag of

  silk, was female slave.

  “You may kneel, Yanina,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, swiftly falling to her knees.

  “You must forgive her,” he said. “she is new to the collar. Only an Ahn or so

  ago was she branded.”

  She who had been the Lady Yanina looked at me, frightened. Then she put down her

  head, swiftly. I had seen in her eyes, in that brief moment that she had looked

  at me, that already she had learned that she was slave. This does not take long

  in the vicinity of Gorean men.

  “Do not draw,” he said.

  “Is she yours?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “A pretty slave,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She trembled, scrutinized.

  “I brought her along,” he said. “She was with another search

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  party. Almost anyone who could recognize you was with one party or another.”

  “I gathered that that might be the case,” I said.

  “She was given to me by Belnar,” he said.

  “Belnar is now dead,” I said.

  “So I understand,” he said.

  “The slave seems frightened,” I said.

  “You have reason to be frightened, don’t you , my dear?” asked Flaminius.

  “Perhaps, Master,” she whispered. “I do not know, Master.”

  “Put your head down to the floor,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “She was put in a state collar,” said Flaminius, “with no specifications or

  restrictions. Accordingly, even if she had not been given to me, I could have

  obtained her for myself, sending a silver tarsk to the exchequer. Who would

  gainsay me in that?” He looked down at the girl. “So in either case you would

  have come into my chains, wouldn’t you, Yanina?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, her head to the floor.

  “Are you here for the same reason that I am?” I asked.

  “Perhaps,” he said.