Assassin of Gor (47 page)

There were some tentative grunts about the table, some attempt to muster enthusiasm.

"Noble girl!" I called after Melanie, as she left the room.

She turned and smiled, and then, with Claudia Tentia Hinrabia, and their guard, left the room.

A Warrior in the hire of Cernus struck me across the mouth.

I laughed.

"Since I am Ubar of Ar," said Cernus to me, "and of the Caste of Warriors---."

There was mirth at the tables, but a look from Cernus silenced it in a moment.

"I am concerned," continued Cernus, "to be fair in all matters and thus propose that we wager for your freedom."

I looked up in surprise.

"Bring the board and pieces," said Cernus. Philemon left the room. Cernus looked down at me and grinned. "As I recall, you said that you did not play."

I nodded.

"On the other hand," said Cernus, "I of course do not believe you."

"I play," I admitted.

Cernus chuckled. "Would you like to play for your freedom?"

"Of course," I said.

"I am quite skillful, you know," said Cernus.

I said nothing. I had gathered in the months in the house, from what I had seen and heard, that Cernus was indeed a fine player. He would not be easy to beat.

"But," said Cernus, smiling, "since you are scarcely likely to be as skilled as I, I feel that it is only fair that you be represented by a champion, who can play for you and give you some opportunity for victory."

"I will play for myself," I said.

"I do not think that would be just," said Cernus.

"I see," I said. I then understood that Cernus would appoint my champion. The game would be a meaningless charade.

"Perhaps a slave who scarcely knows the moves of the pieces," I suggested, "might play for me---if such would not be too potent an adversary for you?"

Cernus looked at me with surprise. Then he grinned. "Perhaps," he said.

Sura, bound, lifted her head.

"Would you dare to contend with a mere slave girl," I asked, "one who has learned the game but a day or two ago, who has played but an Ahn or so?"

"Whom do you mean?" inquired Cernus.

"He means me, Master," said Sura, humbly, and then dropped her head.

I held my breath.

"Women do not play the game," said Cernus irritably. "Slaves do not play!"

Sura said nothing.

Cernus rose from the table and went to stand before Sura. He picked up the remains of the small doll which lay torn before her and tore them more. The old cloth broke apart. He ground the bits of the doll into the tile with the hell of his sandal.

I saw tears from the eyes of Sura fall to the tiles. Her shoulders shook.

"Have you dared to learn the game, Slave?" inquired Cernus, angry.

"Forgive me, Master," said Sura, not raising her head.

Cernus turned to me. "Pick a more worthy champion, fool," said he.

I shrugged. "I choose Sura," I said. Cernus would surely have no way of knowing that Sura possessed perhaps one of the most astounding native aptitudes for the game that I had ever encountered. Almost from the beginning she had begun to play at the very level of Players themselves. Her capacity, raw and brilliant, was simply a phenomenon, one of those rare and happy girls one sometimes discovers, to one's delight or dismay, and she had caused me much of both. "I choose Sura," I said.

The men about the tables laughed.

Cernus then, for no reason I understood clearly, struck Sura with the back of his hand, hurling her to the tiles.

I heard one of the men near me whisper to another. "Where is Ho-Tu?"

I myself had been curious about that.

The other whispered in return. "Ho-Tu has been sent to Tor to buy slaves."

The first laughed.

I myself thought it was perhaps well that Cernus, doubtless by design, had sent Ho-Tu from the house. Surely I would not have expected the powerful Ho-Tu to stand by while Sura, whom he loved, was so treated, even by the Master of the House of Cernus. With hook knife in hand against a dozen blades, Ho-Tu would probably have rushed upon Cernus. I was, as I suggested, just as well satisfied that Ho-Tu was not now in the house. It would be one less to die. I wondered if Cernus would have him slain on his return. If Sura were permitted to live I supposed Ho-Tu, too, would live, if only to be with her, to try to protect her as he could.

"I will not play with a woman!" snarled Cernus and turned away from Sura. She looked at me, helpless, stricken. I smiled at her. But my heart had sunk. My last hope seemed now dashed.

Cernus was now again at the table. In the meantime Philemon had brought the board and arranged the pieces. "It does not matter," said Cernus to me, "for I have already arranged your champion."

"I see," I said, "and who is to be my champion?"

Cernus roared with laughter. "Hup the Fool!" he cried.

The tables roared with laughter, and the men pounded with their fists on the wood so pleased were they.

At this point, from the main entryway to the hall, there entered two men, shoved by guards. One retained a certain dignity, though he held his hands before him. He wore the robes of a Player. The other rolled and somersaulted onto the tiles and bounded skipping to his feet, to the amusement of those at table. Even the slave girls clapped their hands with amusement, crying out with pleasure.

Hup was now backing around ogling the slave girls, and then he fell over on his back, tripped by a Warrior. He sprang to his feet and began to leap up and down making noises like a scolding urt. The girls laughed, and so, too, did the men.

The other man who had entered with Hup was, to my astonishment, the blind Player whom I had encountered so long ago in the street outside the Paga tavern near the great gate of Ar, who had beaten so brilliantly the Vintner in what had been apparently, until then, an uneven and fraudulent game, one the Player had clearly intended to deliver to his opponent, he who had, upon hearing that I wore the black of the Assassins, refused, though poor, to accept the piece of gold he had so fairly and marvelously won. I thought it strange that that man should have been found with Hup, only a fool, Hup whose bulbous misshapen head reached scarcely to the belt of a true man, Hup of the bandy legs and swollen body, the broken, knobby hands, Hup the Fool.

I saw Sura regarding Hup with a kind of horror, looking on him with loathing. She seemed to tremble with revulsion. I wondered at her response.

"Qualius the Player," called Cernus, "you are once again in the House of Cernus, who is now Ubar of Ar."

"I am honored," said the blind Player dryly. "I beat you once."

"It was a mistake, was it not?" asked Cernus humorously.

"Indeed," said Qualius. "For having bested you I was blinded in your torture rooms and branded."

"Thus, in the end," said Cernus, amused, "it was I who bested you."

"Indeed it was," said Qualius, "Ubar."

Cernus laughed.

"How is it," inquired Cernus, "that my men, sent for Hup the Fool, find you with him?"

"I share the fool's lodging," said Qualius. "There are few doors open to a destitute Player."

Cernus laughed. "Players and fools," said he, "have much in common."

"It is true," said Qualius.

We turned to look at Hup. He was now sneaking about the tables. He took a sip from one of the goblets and narrowly missed an amused, swinging blow aimed at him by the man whose goblet it was. Hup ran scampering away and crouched down making faces at the man, who laughed at him. Then Hup, with great apparent stealth, returned to the table and darted under it. On the other side his head suddenly appeared, then disappeared. Again he came under the table, and this time his hand darted out and back, and he began to chew on his prize, a peel of larma fruit snatched from a plate, discarded as garbage. He was grinning and cooing to himself while chewing on the peel.

"Behold your champion," said Cernus.

I would not reply to him.

"Why not slay me and be done with it?" I asked.

"Have you no faith in your champion?" asked Cernus. Then he threw back his head and laughed. The others, too, in the room laughed. Even Hup, his eyes watering, sat on his rump on the tiles and pounded his knees, seeing others laugh. When the others ceased to laugh, so, too, did he, and looked about, whimpering, giggling.

"Since you have a champion," said Cernus, "I thought it only fair that I, too have a champion."

I looked at him, puzzled.

"Behold my champion," said Cernus, "who will play for me." He expansively lifted his hand toward the entryway. All turned to look.

There were cries of astonishment.

Through the entryway, rather angrily, strode a young man, perhaps no more than eighteen or nineteen years of age, with piercing eyes and incredibly striking features; he wore the garb of the Player, but his garb was rich and the squares of the finest red and yellow silk; the game bag over his left shoulder was of superb verrskin; his sandals were tied with strings of gold; startingly, this young man, seeming like a god in the splendor of his boyhood, was lame, and as he strode angrily forward, his right leg dragged across the tiles; seldom had I seen a face more handsome, more striking, yet rich with irritation, with contempt, a face more betokening the brilliance of a mind like a Gorean blade.

He stood before the table of Cernus and though Cernus was Ubar of his city he merely lifted his hand in common Gorean greeting, palm inward. "Tal," said he.

"Tal," responded Cernus, seeming somehow in awe before this mere boy.

"Why have I been brought here?" asked the young man.

I studied the face of the young man. There was something subtly familiar about it. I felt almost as though I must have seen him before. I felt it was a face I somehow knew, and yet could not know.

I happened to glance at Sura and was startled to see her. She could not take her eyes from the boy. It was as though she, like myself, somehow recognized him.

"You have been brought here to play a game," said Cernus.

"I do not understand," said the boy.

"You will play as my champion," said Cernus.

The boy looked at him curiously.

"If you win," said Cernus, "you will be given a hundred gold pieces."

"I will win," said the boy.

There had been nothing bold in his tone of voice, only perhaps impatience.

He looked about himself, and saw Qualius, the blind Player. "The game will be an interesting one," said the boy.

"Qualius of Ar," said Cernus, "is not to be your opponent."

"Oh?" inquired the boy.

Hup was rolling in a corner of the room, rolling to the wall, then back, then rolling to it again.

The boy looked at him in revulsion.

"Your opponent," said Cernus, pointing to the small fool rolling in the corner, "is he."

Fury contorted the features of the boy. "I will not play," he said. He turned with a swirl of his cloak but found his way barred by two guards with spears. "Ubar!" cried the boy.

"You will play Hup the Fool," laughed Cernus.

"It is an insult to me," said the boy, "and to the game. I will not play!"

Hup began to croon to himself in the corner, now rocking back and forth on his haunches.

"If you do not play," Cernus said, not pleasantly, "you will not leave this house alive."

The young man shook with fury.

"What is the meaning of this?" he inquired.

"I am giving this prisoner an opportunity to live," said Cernus, indicating me. "If his champion wins, he will live; if his champion loses, he will die."

"I have never played to lose," said the young man, "never."

"I know," said Cernus.

The young man looked at me. "His blood," he said to Cernus, "is on your hands, not mine."

Cernus laughed. "Then you will play?"

"I will play," said the young man.

Cernus leaned back and grinned.

"But let Qualius play for him," said the young man.

Qualius, who apparently knew the voice of the young man, said, "You need have no fear, Ubar, I am not his equal."

I wondered who the young man might be if Qualius, whom I knew to be a superb player, did not even speak as though he might force a draw with him.

Again I glanced at Sura, and was again startled at the intentness, almost the wonder, with which she regarded the incredibly handsome, lame boy who stood before us. I racked my brain, trying to understand something which seemed somehow but a moment from comprehension, something elusive, hauntingly near and yet undisclosed.

"No," said Cernus. "The Fool is your opponent."

"Let us be done with this farce," said the boy. "Further, let no word of this shame be spoken outside this house."

Cernus grinned.