by John Norman
"An iceberg which does not drift with the current, which does not move with its brothers," I said.
"Yes," said Samos.
"It is a thing of myth," I said.
"I suppose so," said Samos.
"You grow too tense with your responsibilities, Samos," I told him. "Obviously such a thing cannot be."
Samos nodded. He grinned. "You are right," he said.
"Where did you hear of this?" I asked.
"It was told by a man of the polar basin who had come south to sell skins at the Sardar."
"Had he himself seen this?" I asked.
"No," said Samos.
I smiled.
"And how was it that he spoke of it?" I asked.
"He was given a coin," said Samos, "to speak of anything strange or unusual of which he might have heard."
"He well earned his coin," I said.
"Wily sleen," said Samos.
I laughed. Samos, too, laughed.
"They are clever fellows," I said.
"It is not often I am outwitted," said Samos.
Samos and I rose to our feet and returned to the small table. He put the lamp down on the table.
"You will sail then, soon, for the world's end?" asked Samos.
"It is my intention," I said. I turned to leave.
"Captain," said he.
I turned to face him. "Yes," I said.
"Do you think," he asked, "that if ever the gate to the stars should be opened, that men will remember the name of Tarl Cabot?"
"No," I said.
"I wish you well," he said.
"I, too, wish you well, Samos, first captain of Port Kar," I said.
"Who will win," he asked, "Centius of Cos or Scormus of Ar?"
"Scormus of Ar," I said. "He is invincible. Centius of Cos is a fine player, but he is beyond his prime. He is weary now. He has had his day. He will be no match for Scormus."
I remembered Scormus of Ar, whom I had seen in the house of Cernus, of Ar, some years ago. He was an incredibly handsome fellow, young, brilliant, arrogant, haughty, lame. He lived much by himself. It was said he had never touched a woman. He ruled the high bridges of Ar with his Kaissa board. No other player might call "Kaissa" on those bridges until he had bested the young Scormus. His play was swift, decisive, brilliant, merciless; more than one player had given up the game after being indulged, and then toyed with, and humiliated, by the genius of Scormus. Kaissa was for him a weapon. He could use it to destroy his enemies. Centius of Cos, on the other hand, was an older man; no one knew how old; it was said the stabilization serums had not taken their full effect with him until he had seen fifty winters; he was slight and gray-haired; he was quite different in personality and character from the young Scormus; he was quiet, and soft-spoken, and gentle; he loved Kaissa, and its beauty. He would often ponder a board for hours, by himself, searching for a supreme combination. "It eludes me," he would say. Once he had been bested by Sabo of Turia, at the Tharna tournaments, and he had wept with joy and embraced the victor, thanking him for letting him participate in such a beautiful game. "Winning and losing," he had said, "do not matter. What matters is the game, and the beauty." Men had thought him mad. "I had rather be remembered as the loser in one beautiful game," he said, "then as the winner in a thousand flawed masterpieces." He had always sought for the perfect game. He had never found it. Beauty, I suspect, lies all about us. The craftsman can find it in a turning of leather, where I might never see it. A musician may find it in a sound which I cannot detect. And one who plays Kaissa may find it in the arrangements of tiny bits of wood on a board of red and yellow squares. Centius of Cos had sought always for the perfect game. He had never found it.
"When will you return?" asked Samos.
"After the matches," I said.
"You will see others, too," he asked.
"Of course," I said. "Do you know that Philemon of Teletus will play Stengarius of Ti, and that Hobart of Tharna will match wits with Boris of Turia?"
"No," said Samos, ruefully. "It escaped my attention."
I shrugged. Samos, I decided, was hopeless.
He conducted me even to the first gate of his house, where I threw about myself the cloak of the admiral.
In a few moments, I sat at the tiller of the longboat, for the simple task of guiding the craft pleased me, and was being rowed to my house. I saw the silken head of an urt in the canal, a few feet from the boat. It was a large urt, some forty pounds in weight. They live on garbage cast into the canals, and on bound slaves who have not been pleasing.
I looked back at the house of Samos. The slim, blond-haired girl would have been branded by now. We had not heard her scream for she, when it was done, would have been below, far away, in the pens.
I thought of the message:
Greetings to Tarl Cabot,
I await you at the world's end.
Zarendargar.
War General of the People.
I smiled to myself.
The prow of the ship of Tersites pointed even now to the world's end.
None had returned from the world's end.
The canal turned then and I guided the craft about the corner. As we turned I glanced once more at the house of Samos. It loomed high and formidable, over the canal, a slaver's house, a high, dark, frightening fortress.
In the pens far below the fortress there was a new slave, a slim, blond-haired Earth girl. She would be caged now. I wondered if she seized the bars of her cage, pressing her face against them, trying to understand what had happened to her. She had mixed in the affairs of worlds. She was now a slave. Probably she lay naked on her stomach on the cement flooring of her kennel, her hands over her head, screaming. On the exterior of her left thigh there would be a brand. On the interior of her thigh there would be blood. She had mixed in the affairs of worlds. It had not turned out well for her. She was now a slave. She would be soon sold off.
I wondered if she would learn swiftly to be pleasing to a master.
Another urt's head, sleek and glistening, surfaced near the boat, then it submerged.
I expected she would learn swiftly.
I considered the upcoming match between Centius of Cos and Scormus of Ar.
I would wager heavily on Scormus of Ar. I did not expect, however, that I would get good odds.
3
The Fair of En'Kara
"Make way! Make way!" laughed the brawny young fellow. He had a naked girl over his shoulder, bound hand and foot. He had won her in Girl Catch, in a contest to decide a trade dispute between two small cities, Ven and Rarn, the former a river port on the Vosk, the second noted for its copper mining, lying southeast of Tharna. In the contest a hundred young men of each city, and a hundred young women, the most beautiful in each city, participate. The object of the game is to secure the women of the enemy. Weapons are not permitted. The contest takes place in an area outside the perimeters of the great fair, for in it slaves are made. The area is enclosed by a low wooden wall, and spectators observe. When a male is forced beyond the wall he is removed from the competition and may not, upon pain of death, re-enter the area for the duration of the contest. When a girl is taken she is bound hand and foot and thrown to a girl pit, of which there are two, one in each city's end of the "field." These pits are circular, marked off with a small wooden fence, sand-bottomed, and sunk some two feet below the surface of the "field." If she cannot free herself she counts as a catch. The object of the male is to remove his opponents from the field and capture the girls of the other city. The object of the girl, of course, is to elude capture.
"Make way!" he called. "Make way!" I, with others in the crowd, stepped aside.
Both the young men and women wear tunics in this sport. The tunics of the young women are cut briefly, to better reveal their charms. The young man wears binding fiber about his left wrist, with which to secure prizes. The young women, who are free, if the rules permit, as they sometimes do not, commonly wear masks, that their modesty be less grievo
usly compromised by the brevity of their costume. Should the girl be caught, however, her mask is removed. The tunics of the girls are not removed, however, except those of the girls of the losing city, when the match has ended and the winner decided. The win is determined when the young men of one city, or those left on the field, have secured the full hundred of the women of the "enemy." A woman once bound and thrown to the girl pit, incidentally, may not be fetched forth by the young men of her city, except at the end of the match, and on the condition that they have proved victorious. The captured women of the victorious city at the conclusion of the contest are of course released; they are robed and honored; the girls of the losing city, of course, are simply stripped and made slaves. This may seem a cruel sport but some regard it as superior to a war; surely it is cleaner and there is less loss of life; this method of settling disputes, incidentally, is not used if it is felt that honor is somehow involved in the disagreement. Honor is important to Goreans, in a way that those of Earth might find hard to understand; for example, those of Earth find it natural that men should go to war over matters of gold and riches, but not honor; the Gorean, contrariwise, is more willing to submit matters of honor to the adjudication of steel than he is matters of riches and gold; there is a simple explanation for this; honor is more important to him. Strangely the girls of the cities are eager to participate in this sport. Doubtless each believes her standard will be victorious and she will return in honor to her city.
The young man brushed past me. The girl's hair was still bound, knotted, on her head; it had not yet even been loosened, as that of a slave girl. Looped about her neck, locked, was a slender, common, gray-steel slave collar. He had wired a tag to it, that she might be identified as his. She had been of Rarn, probably of high caste, given the quality of her beauty. She would now be slave in the river port of Ven. The man appeared to be a young bargeman. Her lips were delicate and beautiful. They would kiss him well.
I watched him press on through the crowds, toward the looming palisade which ringed the Sardar mountains, black and snow-capped, behind it.
The numbers in the game are set at a hundred young men and a hundred young women, in order that there be a young woman for each winning male.
This was the first year, incidentally, in which masks had been permitted to the young women in some of these contests. The masks, however, had been brief and feminine. They concealed little and did little more than to excite the men and stimulate them to the beauty's pursuit, culminating in her rude assault, capture and unmasking. Still I suspected the innovation, next year, would be dropped. It is easier to gamble on the taking of given girls, and how long they will be at large, if their beauty is better visible to the bettors.
I looked after the young man. He was going to the palisade. There he would climb one of the platforms and, putting the girl on her knees, her ankles and wrists crossed and bound, at his feet, facing the Sardar, he would unbind her hair. Then he would lift her in his arms, hair unbound, before the mountains of the Sardar, rejoicing, and giving thanks to Priest-Kings that she was now his.
"Where are the merchant tables," I asked a fellow from Torvaldsland, with braided blond hair and shaggy jacket, eating on a roast leg of tarsk, "where the odds on the Kaissa matches are being given?"
"I do not know," he said. "They play Kaissa only in the North."
"My thanks, fellow," said I. It was true that the Kaissa of the north differed in some respects from tournament Kaissa in the south. The games, however, were quite similar. Indeed, Kaissa was played variously on the planet. For example, several years ago Kaissa was played somewhat differently in Ar than it was now. Most Gorean cities now, at least in the south, had accepted a standard tournament Kaissa, agreed upon by the high council of the caste of players. Sometimes the changes were little more than semantic. For example, a piece which once in Ar had been called the "City" was now identified officially as the "Home Stone" even in Ar. Indeed, some players in Ar had always called it the Home Stone. More seriously there were now no "Spear Slaves" in common Kaissa, as there once had been, though there were distinctions among "Spearmen." It had been argued that slaves had no right upon the Kaissa board. One might note also, in passing, that slaves are not permitted to play Kaissa. It is for free individuals. In most cities it is regarded, incidentally, as a criminal offense to enslave one of the caste of players. A similar decree, in most cities, stands against the enslavement of one who is of the caste of musicians.
The man of Torvaldsland bit a large chunk from his leg of roast tarsk. "Where are the slave markets?" he asked.
"There are many," I said. Indeed, one might buy slaves here and there, publicly and privately, at many places in the Fair of En'Kara, one of the four great annual fairs at the Sardar. It is not permitted to fight, or kill, or enslave within the perimeters of the fairs, but there is no prohibition against the buying and selling of merchandise within those precincts; indeed, one of the main functions of the fairs, if not their main function, was to facilitate the buying and selling of goods; the slave, of course, is goods. The fairs, too, however, have many other functions. For example, they serve as a scene of caste conventions, and as loci for the sharing of discoveries and research. It is here, for example, that physicians, and builders and artisans may meet and exchange ideas and techniques. It is here that Merchant Law is drafted and stabilized. It is here that songs are performed, and song dramas. Poets and musicians, and jugglers and magicians, vie for the attention of the crowds. Here one finds peddlers and great merchants. Some sell trinkets and others the notes of cities. It is here that the Gorean language tends to become standardized. These fairs constitute truce grounds. Men of warring cities may meet here without fear. Political negotiation and intrigue are rampant, too, generally secretly so, at the fairs. Peace and war, and arrangements and treaties, are not unoften determined in a pavilion within the precincts of the fairs. "The nearest," I told the fellow from Torvaldsland, pointing down a corridor between pavilions and booths, "lies some quarter of a pasang in that direction, beyond the booths of the rug merchants. The largest, on the other hand, the platforms of slave exhibition and the great sales pavilion, lie to your left, two pasangs away, beyond the smithies and the chain shops."
"You speak clearly for one of the south," he said. He thrust the leg of roast tarsk to me. I took it and, holding it with both hands, cut at it with my teeth. I tore away a good piece of meat. I had not had food since the morning, when I arrived at the fair.
"My thanks," I said.
"I am Oleg," he said.
"I have been called Jarl Red Hair in the north," I said.
"Jarl!" he cried. "Forgive me, I did not know!"
"The meat is good," I said. I handed it back to him. It was true that in the north, by the word of Svein Blue Tooth, I had stood upon the shields as Jarl.
"I fought with you," he said, "at the camp of the beasts. I saw you once near the tents of Thorgard of Scagnar."
"It was a good fight," I said.
"It was," said he, smacking his lips.
"Is the north quiet?" I asked. "Is there Kur activity in Torvaldsland?"
"No," said he, "no more than an occasional stray. The north is quiet."
"Good," I said. The Kurii were not active in Torvaldsland. They had been driven from that bleak, rocky land by the mighty men of the high-roofed halls.
He grinned at me.
"Good hunting," said I, "in the slave markets."
"Yes, Jarl," said he, grinning, lifting the leg of roast tarsk. He turned toward the nearest market. In a few moments he hurled the bone of the tarsk from him, wiping his hands on the sides of his jacket. Over his shoulder hung the great ax of Torvaldsland.
It had rained in the night, and the streets of the fair were muddy.
The Sardar fairs are organized, regulated and administered by the Merchant Caste.
I heard a girl screaming, being lashed. She was on her knees, to one side, between two tents; she was chained at a short stake, about which she
had wrapped her arms, holding it for support. The side of her cheek was against the stake. The prohibition against violence at the Sardar, of course, does not extend to slaves. They may there, as elsewhere, be lashed, or tortured, or slain, as it should please the master. They are slaves.
I turned down one of the muddy streets, making my way between booths featuring the wares of potters and weavers. It seemed to me that if I could find the fair's street of coins, that the makers of odds might well have set their tables there. It was, at any rate, a sensible thought.
"Where is the street of coins?" I asked a fellow, in the tunic of the tarnkeepers.
"Of which city?" he asked.
"My thanks," I said, and continued on. The fairs are large, covering several square pasangs.
I turned another corner.
"Buy the silver of Tharna," called a man. "Buy the finest silver on all Gor."
He was behind a counter at a booth. At his belt, as did the men of Tharna, he wore two yellow cords, each about eighteen inches long. At the back of the booth, kneeling, small, her back low, her head and hair down to the mud, naked, collared, was a woman.
I stepped to one side to make way for a procession of initiates, who, with a ringing of bells, and shaking of bowls on chains, containing burning incense, passed me on their way to the palisade. An initiate in the lead carried a standard on which was mounted the sign of the Priest-Kings, a golden circle, that which has no beginning or end, the symbol of eternity, the symbol of Priest-Kings.
They were white-robed and chanting, and shaven-headed. The caste of initiates is rich on Gor.
I glanced to the kneeling woman in the booth of the man from Tharna. She had not dared so much as to raise her head. She had not been given permission. There are few free women in Tharna. One of the most harsh and cruel slaveries on Gor, it is said, is that of the slave girls of Tharna.
