Assassin of Gor (2 page)

There were one or two other girls there, kneeling, who drew back, with a sound of chain.

He thrust the dark-haired girl to her knees by the seventh collar and snapped it about her neck, turning the key, locking it. It gave her about a two-foot length of chain, fastened to a slave ring bolted into the stone. Then he looked down on her. Her eyes were lifted to his, frightened. The yellow of her livery seemed dark in the shadows. From where she knelt she could see the low-hanging tharlarion oil lamps of the main portion of the Paga tavern, the men, the girls in silk who, in a moment, belled, would move among them, replenishing the paga. In the center of the tables, under a hanging lamp, there was a square area, recessed, filled with sand, in which men might fight or girls dance. Beyond the area of the sand and the many tables there was a high wall, some twenty feet or so high, in which there were four levels, each containing seven small curtained alcoves, the entrances to which were circular, with a diameter of about twenty-four inches. Seven narrow ladders, each about eight inches in width, fixed into the wall, gave access to these alcoves.

She saw Kuurus go to the tables and sit cross-legged behind one, a table against the wall on her left, that there might be no tables behind him, but only the wall. The men who had been at that table, or near it, silently rose and left the area.

Kuurus had placed his spear against the wall behind him, and he had taken from his left shoulder his shield, his helmet and the sheathed short sword, which blade he had placed at his right hand on the low table.

At a gesture from the proprietor, the grimy man in the tunic of white and gold, one of the serving slaves, with a flash of ankle bells, hurried to the Assassin and set before him a bowl, which she trembling filled from the flask held over her right forearm. Then, with a furtive glance at the girl chained at the side of the room, the serving slave hurried away.

Kuurus took the paga bowl in both hands and put his head down, looking into it.

Then, somberly, he lifted it to his lips and drank.

Putting the bowl down he wiped his mouth on his forearm and looked at the Musicians. "Play," he said.

The three Musicians bent to their instruments, and, in a moment, there were again sounds of a paga tavern, the sounds of talk, of barbaric music, of pouring paga, the clink of bowls, the rustle of bells on the ankles of slave girls.

Scarcely a quarter of an Ahn had passed and the men who drank in that room had forgotten, as is the way of men, that a dark one sat with them in that room, one who wore the black tunic of the Caste of Assassins, who silently drank with them. It was enough for them that he who sat with them did not this time wear for them the mark of the black dagger on his forehead, that it was not they whom he sought.

Kuurus drank, watching them, his face showing no emotion.

Suddenly a small figure burst through the door of the tavern, stumbling and rolling down the stairs, crying out. It bounded to its feet, like a small, hunched animal, with a large head and wild brown hair. One eye was larger than the other. It could stand, even if it straightened, no higher than a man's waist. "Do not hurt Hup!" it cried. "Do not hurt Hup!"

"It is Hup the Fool," said someone.

The little thing, misshapen with its large head, scrambled limping and leaping like a broken-legged urt to the counter behind which stood the man in the grimy tunic, who was wiping out a paga bowl. "Hide Hup!" cried the thing. "Hide Hup! Please hide Hup!"

"Be off with you, Hup the Fool!" cried the man slapping at him with the back of his hand.

"No!" screamed Hup. "They want to kill Hup!"

"There is no place for beggars in Glorious Ar," growled one of the men at the tables.

Hup's rag might once have been of the Caste of Potters, but it was difficult to tell. His hands looked as though they might have been broken. Clearly one leg was shorter than the other. Hup wrung his tiny, misshapen hands, looking about. He tried foolishly to hide behind a group of men but they threw him to the center of the pit of sand in the tavern. He tried, like a frantic animal, to crawl under one of the low tables but he only spilled the paga and the men pulled him out from under the table and belabored his back with blows of their fists. He kept whimpering and screaming, and running one place or the other. Then, in spite of the angry shout of the proprietor, he scrambled over the counter, taking refuge behind it.

The men in the tavern, with the exception of Kuurus, laughed.

Then, a moment later, four men, armed, brawny men, with a streamer of blue and yellow silk sewn diagonally into their garments, burst through the door and entered the room.

"Where is Hup the Fool?" cried their leader, a large fellow with missing teeth and a scar over his right eye.

The men began to hunt about the room, angrily.

"Where is Hup the Fool?" demanded the leader of the four men of the proprietor.

"I shall have to look around for him," said the proprietor, winking at the fellow with missing teeth, who grinned. "No," said the proprietor, apparently looking about with great care behind the counter, "Hup the Fool does not seem to be here."

"It looks like we must search elsewhere," said the leader of the four men, attempting to sound disappointed.

"It appears so," said the proprietor. Then, after a cruel pause, the proprietor suddenly cried out. "No! Wait! Here is something!" And, reaching down to his feet behind the counter, picked up the small animal mass that was Hup the Fool, which shrieked with fear, and hurled it into the arms of the man with missing teeth, who laughed.

"Why," cried the man with missing teeth, "it is he! It is Hup the Fool!"

"Mercy, Masters!" cried Hup, squealing, struggling in the grasp of his captor.

The other three men, hired swords, perhaps once of the Caste of Warriors, laughed at the frantic efforts of the tiny, sniveling wad of flesh to free itself.

Many in the crowd laughed at the small fool's discomfort.

Hup was indeed an ugly thing, for he was small, and yet thick, almost bulbous, and under the dirty tunic, perhaps that of the potters, there bulged the hump of some grotesque growth. One of his legs was shorter than the other; his head was too large for his body, and swollen to the left; one eye was larger than the other. His tiny feet thrashed about, kicking at the man who held him.

"Are you truly going to kill him?" asked one of the patrons at the low table.

"This time he dies," said the man who held Hup. "He has dared to speak the name of Portus and beg a coin from him."

Goreans do not generally favor begging, and some regard it as an insult that there should be such, an insult to them and their city. When charity is in order, as when a man cannot work or a woman is alone, usually such is arranged through the caste organization, but sometimes through the clan, which is not specifically caste oriented but depends on ties of blood through the fifth degree. If one, of course, finds oneself in effect without caste or clan, as was perhaps the case with the small fool named Hup, and one cannot work, one's life is likely to be miserable and not of great length. Moreover, Goreans are extremely sensitive about names, and who may speak them. Indeed, some, particularly those of low caste, even have use names, concealing their true names, lest they be discovered by enemies and used to conjure spells against them. Similarly, slaves, on the whole, do not address free men by their names. Kuurus surmised that Portus, doubtless a man of importance, had been troubled by the little fool Hup on more than one occasion, and had now decided to do away with him.

The man who held the sniveling Hup held him with one hand and struck him with the other, and then threw him to one of his three fellows, who similarly abused him. The crowd in the tavern reacted with amusement as the small, animal-like body was buffeted and thrown about, sometimes flung against the wall or on the tables. At last, bleeding and scarcely able to whine, Hup curled himself into a small, trembling ball, his head between his legs, his hands holding his ankles. The four men, then having him between them in the pit of sand, kicked him again and again.

Then the large man with missing teeth seized Hup's hair and pulled up the head, to expose the throat, holding in his right hand a small, thick, curved blade, the hook knife of Ar, used sheathed in the sport of that name, but the knife was not now sheathed.

The eyes of tiny Hup were screwed shut, his body shivering like that of an urt clenched in the teeth of a sleen.

"Keep him on the sand!" warned the proprietor of the tavern.

He with the missing teeth laughed and looked about the crowd, his eyes bright, seeing that they waited with eagerness for his stroke.

But his laugh died in his throat as he looked into the eyes of Kuurus, he of the Caste of Assassins.

Kuurus, with his left hand, pushed to one side his bowl of paga.

Hup opened his eyes, startled at not yet having felt the deep, cruel movement of the steel.

He too looked into the eyes of Kuurus, who sat in the darkness, the wall behind him, cross-legged, looking at him, no emotion on his face.

"You are a beggar?" asked Kuurus.

"Yes, Master," said Hup.

"Was the begging good today?" asked Kuurus.

Hup looked at him in fear. "Yes, Master," he said, "yes!"

"Then you have money," said Kuurus, and stood up behind the table, slinging the sheath of the short sword about his shoulder.

Hup wildly thrust a small, stubby, knobby hand into his pouch and hurled a coin, a copper tarn disk, to Kuurus, who caught it and placed it in one of the pockets of his belt.

"Do not interfere," snarled the man who held the hook knife.

"There are four of us," said another, putting his hand on his sword.

"I have taken money," said Kuurus.

The men in the tavern, and the girls, began to move away from the tables.

"We are Warriors," said another.

Then a coin of gold struck the table before the Assassin, ringing on the wood.

All eyes turned to face a paunchy man, in a robe of blue and yellow silk. "I am Portus," he said. "Do not interfere, Assassin."

Kuurus picked up the coin and fingered it, and then he looked at Portus. "I have already taken money," he said.

Portus gasped.

The four Warriors rose to their feet. Five blades leaped from the sheath with but one sound. Hup, whining, crawled away from the sand on his hands and knees.

The first Warrior lunged toward the Assassin but in the darkness of the side of the room, in the dim light of the tharlarion lamps, it was difficult to tell what happened. No one heard the striking of sword steel, but all saw the turning body of the man with the missing teeth falling sprawled over the low table. Then the dark shape of the Assassin seemed to move like a swift shadow in the room, and each of the three Warriors leaped toward him, but seemed to fail to find him, and another man, without even the flash of sword steel, dropped to his knees and fell forward in the pit of sand; the other two men struck as well, but their blades did not even meet that of the Assassin, who did not seem to deign to cross steel with them; the third man, soundlessly, turned away from the blade of the Assassin, seeming surprised, took two steps and fell; the fourth man had fallen, the shadow had resheathed its blade. Now the Assassin picked up the coin of gold and looked at the startled and sweating Portus. Then the Assassin threw the coin to the feet of Hup the Fool. "A gift to Hup the Fool," said the Assassin, "from Portus, who is kind." Hup seized up the coin of gold and scrambled from the room, like an urt running through the open gate of a trap.

Kuurus returned to his table, and sat down cross-legged as before. Once more the short sword lay at his right hand on the table. He lifted his paga bowl and drank.

Kuurus had not finished the bowl of paga when he sensed a man approaching. The right hand of Kuurus now lay on the hilt of the short sword.

The man was Portus, heavy, paunchy, in blue and yellow silk. He approached gingerly, his hands open, held from his body, ingratiatingly, smiling.

He sat down, wheezing, across from Kuurus, and placed his hands deliberately on his knees.

Kuurus said nothing but observed him.

The man smiled, but Kuurus did not smile.

"Welcome, Killer," said the man, addressing the Assassin by what, for that caste, is a title of respect.

Kuurus did not move.

"I see you wear on your forehead," said the man, "the dagger."

Kuurus examined him, the paunchy flesh beneath the blue and yellow silken robe. He noted the hang of the garment on the man's right arm.

The short sword moved from the sheath.

"I must protect myself," said the man, smiling, as the blade of Kuurus lifted itself through the sleeve, parting the silk, revealing the sheath strapped to his forearm.

Not taking his eyes from the man, Kuurus cut the straps on the sheath from the man's forearm, and with a small movement of his blade, threw the sheath and its dagger some feet to the side.

"I am of the opinion," said the man, "that it is a good thing we have those in the black tunic back amongst us.

Kuurus nodded, accepting the judgement.