by John Norman
If they had reasoned thus, then their strategy would seem likely to have been, first, to see that I did not find the egg, and, secondly, to secure it for themselves. They could guarantee their first objective, of course, by slaying me. The matter of the message collar had been a clever way of attempting to gain that end but, because of the shrewdness of Tuchuks, who seldom take anything at its face value, it had failed; they had then attempted to bring me down among the wagons with a Paravaci quiva, but that, too, had failed; I grimly reminded myself, however, that I was now in the power of Saphrar of Turia. The second objective, that of obtaining the egg for themselves, was already almost accomplished; Kutaituchik had been killed and it had been stolen from his wagon; there was left only to deliver it to the gray man, who would, in turn, deliver it to the Others—whoever or whatever they might be. Saphrar, of course, had been in Turia for years. This suggested to me that possibly the Others had even followed the movements of the two men who had brought the egg from the Sardar to the Wagon Peoples. Perhaps they had now struck more openly and quickly—employing Gorean tarnsmen—fearing that I might myself seize the egg first and return it to the Sardar. The attempt on my life took place one night and the raid on Kutaituchik's wagon the next. Saphrar, too, I reminded myself, had known that the golden sphere was in the wagon of Kutaituchik. I was puzzled a bit that he had had this information. Tuchuks do not make good spies, for they tend to be, albeit fierce and cruel, intensely loyal; and there are few strangers allowed in the wagon of a Tuchuk Ubar. It occurred to me that perhaps the Tuchuks had made no secret of the presence of the golden sphere in Kutaituchik's wagon. That puzzled me. On the other hand they may well not have understood its true value. Kamchak himself had told me the golden sphere was worthless—poor Tuchuk! But now, I said to myself, poor Cabot! However it came about—and I could not be sure—Others than Priest-Kings had now entered the games of Gor—and these Others knew of the egg and wanted it—and, it seemed, would have it. In time Priest-Kings, those remaining, would die. Their weapons and devices would rust and crumble in the Sardar. And then, one day, like the pirates of Port Kar in their long galleys, unannounced, unexpected, Others would cross the seas of space and bring their craft to rest on the shores and sands of Gor.
"Would you like to fight for your life?" asked Saphrar of Turia.
"Of course," I said.
"Excellent," said Saphrar. "You may do so in the Yellow Pool of Turia."
17
The Yellow Pool of Turia
At the edge of the Yellow Pool of Turia Harold and I stood, now freed of the slave bar, but with wrists tied behind our backs. I had not been given back my sword but the quiva I had carried was now thrust in my belt.
The pool is indoors—in a spacious chamber in the House of Saphrar—with a domed ceiling of some eighty feet in height. The pool itself, around which there is a marble walkway some seven or eight feet in width, is roughly circular in shape and has a diameter of perhaps sixty or seventy feet.
The room itself is very lovely and might have been one of the chambers in the renowned baths of Turia. It was decorated with numerous exotic floral designs, done primarily in greens and yellows, representing the vegetation of a tropical river, perhaps the tropical belt of the Cartius, or certain of its tributaries far to the north and west. Besides the designs there were also, growing from planting areas recessed here and there in the marble walkway, broad-leafed, curling plants; vines; ferns; numerous exotic flowers; it was rather beautiful, but in an oppressive way, and the room had been heated to such an extent that it seemed almost steamy; I gathered the temperature and humidity in the room were desirable for the plantings, or were supposed to simulate the climate of the tropical area represented.
The light in the room came, interestingly, from behind a translucent blue ceiling, probably being furnished by energy bulbs. Saphrar was a rich man indeed to have energy bulbs in his home; few Goreans can afford such a luxury; and, indeed, few care to, for Goreans, for some reason, are fond of the light of flame, lamps and torches and such; flames must be made, tended, watched; they are more beautiful, more alive.
Around the edge of the pool there were eight large columns, fashioned and painted as though the trunks of trees, one standing at each of the eight cardinal points of the Gorean compass; from these, stretching often across the pool, were vines, so many that the ceiling could be seen only as a patchwork of blue through vinous entanglements. Some of the vines hung so low that they nearly touched the surface of the pool. A slave, at a sort of panel fixed with wires and levers, stood at one side. I was puzzled by the manner in which the heat and humidity were introduced to the room, for I saw no vents nor cauldrons of boiling water, or devices for releasing drops of water on heated plates or stones. I had been in the room for perhaps three or four minutes before I realized that the steam rose from the pool itself. I gathered that it was heated. It seemed calm. I wondered what I was expected to meet in the pool. I would have at least the quiva. I noted that the surface of the pool, shortly after we had entered, began to tremble slightly, and it was then once again calm. I supposed something, sensing our presence, had stirred in its depths, and was now waiting. Yet the motion had been odd for it was almost as if the pool had lifted itself, rippled, and then subsided.
Harold and I, though bound, were each held by two men-at-arms, and another four, with crossbows, had accompanied us.
"What is the nature of the beast in the pool?" I asked.
"You will learn," Saphrar laughed.
I conjectured it would be a water animal. Nothing had yet broken the surface. It would probably be a sea-tharlarion, or perhaps several such; sometimes the smaller sea-tharlarion, seemingly not much more than teeth and tail, fluttering in packs beneath the waves, are even more to be feared than their larger brethren, some of whom in whose jaws an entire galley can be raised from the surface of the sea and snapped in two like a handful of dried reeds of the rence plant. It might, too, be a Vosk turtle. Some of them are gigantic, almost impossible to kill, persistent, carnivorous. Yet, if it had been a tharlarion or a Vosk turtle, it might well have broken the surface for air. It did not. This reasoning also led me to suppose that it would not be likely to be anything like a water sleen or a giant urt from the canals of Port Kar. These two, even before the tharlarion or the turtle, would by now, presumably, have surfaced to breathe.
Therefore whatever lay in wait in the pool must be truly aquatic, capable of absorbing its oxygen from the water itself. It might be gilled, like Gorean sharks, probably descendants of Earth sharks placed experimentally in Thassa millennia ago by Priest-Kings, or it might have the gurdo, the layered, ventral membrane, shielded by porous plating, of several of the marine predators perhaps native to Gor, perhaps brought to Gor by Priest-Kings from some other, more distant world than Earth. Whatever it was, I would soon learn.
"I do not care to watch this," Ha-Keel said, "so with your permission, I shall withdraw."
Saphrar looked pained, but not much more so than was required by courtesy. He benignly lifted his small fat hand with the carmine fingernails and said, "By all means, my dear Ha-Keel, withdraw if you so wish."
Ha-Keel nodded curtly and turned abruptly and angrily strode from the room.
"Am I to be thrown bound into the pool?" I asked.
"Certainly not," said Saphrar. "That would hardly be fair."
"I am pleased to see that you are concerned with such matters," I said.
"Such matters are very important to me," said Saphrar.
The expression on his face was much the same as that I had seen at the banquet, when he had prepared to eat the small, quivering thing impaled on the colored stick.
I heard the Paravaci, behind the hood, snicker.
"Fetch the wooden shield," commanded Saphrar. Two of the men-at-arms left the room.
I studied the pool. It was beautiful, yellow, sparkling as though filled with gems. There seemed to be wound through its fluids ribbons and filaments and it was dotted here and ther
e with small spheres of various colors. I then became aware that the steam that rose from the pool did so periodically, rather than continuously. There seemed to be a rhythm in the rising of the steam from the pool. I noted, too, that the surface of the pool licking at the marble basin in which it lay trapped seemed to rise slightly and then fall with the discharge of the steam.
This train of observation was interrupted by the arrival of Saphrar's two men-at-arms bearing a wooden barrier of sorts, about four and a half feet high and twelve feet wide, which they set between myself and my captors, and Saphrar, the Paravaci and those with the crossbow. Harold and his captors, as well, were not behind the barricade. It was, like the curving wall of the room, decorated in exotic floral patterns.
"What is the shield for?" I asked.
"It is in case you might feel tempted to hurl the quiva at us," said Saphrar.
That seemed foolish to me, but I said nothing. I certainly had nothing in mind so ridiculous as to hurl at enemies the one weapon which might mean life or death to me in my struggle in the Yellow Pool of Turia.
I turned about, as well as I could, and examined the pool again. I still had seen nothing break the surface to breathe, and now I was determined that my unseen foe must indeed be aquatic. I hoped it would be only one thing. And, too, larger animals usually move more slowly than smaller ones. If it were a school of fifteen-inch Gorean pike, for example, I might kill dozens and yet die half eaten within minutes.
"Let me be sent first to the pool," said Harold.
"Nonsense," said Saphrar. "But do not be impatient—for your turn will come."
Though it might have been my imagination it seemed that the pool's yellow had now become enriched and that the shifting fluid hues that confronted me had achieved new ranges of brilliance. Some of the filamentous streamers beneath the surface now seemed to roil beneath the surface and the colors of the spheres seemed to pulsate. The rhythm of the steam seemed to increase in tempo and I could now detect, or thought I could, more than simple moisture in that steam, perhaps some other subtle gas or fume, perhaps hitherto unnoticed but now increasing in its volume.
"Let him be untied," said Saphrar.
While two men-at-arms continued to hold me, another undid the bonds on my wrists. Three men-at-arms, with crossbows, stood ready, the weapons trained on my back.
"If I succeed in slaying or escaping the monster in the pool," I said, casually, "I take it that I am then, of course, free."
"That is only fair," said Saphrar.
"Good," I said.
The Paravaci, in the hood, threw back his head and laughed. The crossbowmen also smiled.
"None has, of course," said Saphrar, "ever succeeded in doing either."
"I see," I said.
I now looked across the surface of the pool. Its appearance was now truly remarkable. It was almost as if it were lower in the center and the edges higher near the marble basin, inching as high as they could toward our sandals. I took it that this was an optical illusion of some sort. The pool was now, it seemed, literally coruscating, glistening with a brilliance of hues that was phenomenal, almost like hands lifting and spilling gems in sunlit water. The filamentous strands seemed to go mad with movement and the spheres of various colors were almost phosphorescent, pulsating beneath the surface. The steam rhythm was now swift, and the gases or fumes mixed with that moisture, noxious. It was almost as though the pool itself respired.
"Enter the pool," commanded Saphrar.
Feet first, quiva in hand, I plunged into the yellow fluid.
To my surprise the pool, at least near the edge, was not deep. I stood in the fluid only to my knees. I took a few more steps out into the pool. It became deeper toward the center. About a third of the way toward the center I was entered into the pool to my waist.
I looked about, searching for whatever it was that would attack me. It was difficult to look into the fluid because of the brightness of the yellows, the glistening brilliance of the surface troubled by my passage.
I noted that the steam, and gas or fumes, no longer rose from the pool. It was quiet.
The filamentous threads did not approach me, but now seemed quiet, almost as if content. The spheres, too, seemed quiescent. Some of them, mostly whitish, luminescent ones, had seemed to float nearer, and hovered slightly beneath the surface, in a ring about me, some ten feet away. I took a step towards the ring and the spheres, doubtless moved by the fluids displaced in my step, seemed to slowly disperse and move away. The yellow of the pool's fluid, though rich, no longer seemed to leap and startle me with its vibrance.
I waited for the attack of the monster.
I stood so, in the fluid to my waist, for perhaps two or three minutes.
Then, angrily, thinking perhaps the pool was empty, or I had been made fool of, I cried out to Saphrar. "When is it that I meet the monster?"
Over the surface I heard Saphrar, standing behind the wooden shield, laugh. "You have met it," he said.
"You lie!" I cried.
"No," he responded, amused, "you have met it."
"What is the monster?" I cried.
"The pool!" he shouted.
"The pool?" I asked.
"Yes," said Saphrar, gleefully. "It is alive!"
18
The Pleasure Gardens
At the very instant that Saphrar had called out there was a great blast of steam and fumes that seemed to explode from the fluid about me as though the monster in which I found myself had now, its prey satisfactorily entrapped, dared to respire and, at the same time, I felt the yellow fluid about my body begin to thicken and gel. I cried out suddenly in alarm horrified at my predicament and struggled to turn back and wade to the edge of the marbled basin that was the cage of the thing in which I was, but the fluid, tightening about me, now seemed to have the consistency of a rich yellow, hot mud and then, by the time I had reached a level where it rose to a point midway between my knees and waist the fluid had become as resistant as wet, yellow cement and I could move no further. My legs began to tingle and sting, and I could feel the skin beginning to be etched and picked by the corrosive elements now attacking them.
I heard Saphrar remark, "It sometimes takes hours to be fully digested."
Wildly, with the useless quiva, I began to slash and pick at the damp, thick stuff about me. The blade would sink in fully, as though in a tub of wet cement, leaving a mark, but when it was withdrawn the mark would be erased by the material flowing in to fill the aperture.
"Some men," said Saphrar, "those who do not struggle—have lived for as much as three hours—long enough in some cases to see their own bones."
I saw one of the vines hanging near me. My heart leaped wildly at this chance. If I could but reach it! With all my strength I moved towards it—an inch—and then another inch—my fingers stretched, my arms and back aching, until in another inch I might have grasped it and then, to my horror, as I reached in agony for the vine, it rustled and lifted itself just beyond my reach. I moved toward it again, and again it did this. I howled with rage. I was going to try again when I saw the slave I had noticed earlier watching me, his hands on certain of the levers in the panel on the curving wall. I stood in the coagulating, tightening fluid, held fast a prisoner, and threw back my head in despair. He had, of course, controlled the movement of the vine from the panel, undoubtedly by wires.
"Yes, Tarl Cabot," wheezed Saphrar, giggling, "and yet you will, in an hour or so, when you are mad with pain and fear, try yet again and again to touch and grasp a vine, knowing that you will not succeed but yet again and again trying, believing that once somehow you will be successful. But you will not!" Saphrar now giggled uncontrollably. "I have even seen them reach for vines a spear's length above their head and think they could reach them!" Saphrar's two golden teeth, like yellow fangs, showed as he put back his head and howled with pleasure, his fat little hands pounding on the wood of the shield.
The quiva had turned itself in my hand and my arm flew back, that I mig
ht take with me in my death the tormentor, Saphrar of Turia.
"Beware!" cried the Paravaci and Saphrar suddenly stopped laughing and observed me warily.
If my arm should fly forward he would have time to leap below the wooden frame.
Now he was putting his chin on the wooden shield and watching me again, once more giggling.
"Many have used the quiva before now," he said, "but usually to plunge it into their own heart."
I looked at the blade.
"Tarl Cabot," I said, "does not slay himself."
"I did not think so," said Saphrar. "And that is why you were permitted to keep the quiva." Then he threw back his head and laughed again.
"You fat, filthy urt!" cried Harold, struggling in his bonds with the two men-at-arms who held him.
