Explorers of Gor (38 page)

“Continue on,” said Mwoga to one of the askaris on the platform.

The fellow called out sharply to the chained slaves drawing the platform, pointing ahead with his spear. They then began to wade forward, drawing the canoes, with the platform of state affixed athwart them.

We watched the platform, with its passengers, and canopy, moving west.

I looked at Kisu. I did not think, now, I would have long to wait.

“Dig,” said a nearby askari.

With a feeling of satisfaction, and pleasure, I then thrust the shovel deep into the mud at my feet.

We sat in the long cage, bolted on the extended raft. I ran my finger under the collar, to move it a bit from my neck. I could smell the marshes about.

With a movement of chain, he crawled toward me in the darkness. With my fingernail I scratched a bit of rust from the chain on my collar. Far off, across the marsh, we could hear the noises of jungle birds, the howling of tiny, long-limbed primates. It was about an Ahn after the late evening rain, somewhere about the twentieth Ahn. The sky was still overcast, providing a suitable darkness for the work which must soon be at hand.

“I must speak with you,” he said, in halting Gorean.

“I did not know you could speak Gorean,” I said, looking ahead in the darkness.

“When a child,” he said, “I once ran away. I lived for two years in Schendi, then returned to Ukungu.”

“I did not think a mere village would content you,” I said. “It was a long and dangerous journey for a child.”

“I returned to Ukungu,” he said.

“Perhaps that is why you are such a patriot of Ukungu,” I said, “because once you fled from it.”

“I must speak with you,” he said.

“Perhaps I do not speak with members of the nobility,” I said.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I was a fool.”

“You have learned, then,” I said, “from Bila Huruma, who will speak to all men.”

“How else can one listen?” he asked. “How else can one understand others?”

“Beggers speak to beggers, and to Ubars,” I said.

“It is a saying of Schendi,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you speak Ushindi?” he asked.

“A little,” I said.

“Can you understand me?” he asked, speaking in the dialect of the court of Bila Huruma.

“Yes,” I said. Gorean was not easy for him. Ushindi, I was sure, was no easier for me. Ayari, to my right, knew Ushindi well enough to transpose easily into the related Ngao dialect spoken in the Ukungu district, but I did not. “If I cannot understand you, I will tell you,” I said. I had little doubt but what, between his Gorean and my understanding of the Ushindi dialect spoken at the court of Bila Huruma, we could communicate.

“I will try to speak Gorean,” he said. “That, at least, is not the language of Bila Huruma.”

“There are other things in its favor as well,” I said. “It is a complex, efficient language with a large vocabulary.”

“Ukungu,” he said, “is the most beautiful language in all the world.”

“That may well be,” I said, “but I cannot speak it.” I, personally, would have thought that English or Gorean would have been the most beautiful language in all the world. I had met individuals, however, who thought the same of French and German, and Spanish, and Chinese and Japanese. The only common denominator in these discussions seemed to be that each of the informants was a native speaker of the language in question. How chauvinistic we are with respect to our languages. This chauvinism can sometimes be so serious as to blind certain individuals to the natural superiority of English, or, perhaps, Gorean. Or perhaps French, or German. or Spanish, or Chinese, or Japanese, or, say, Bassa or Hindi.

“I will try to speak Gorean,” he said.

“Very well,” I said, generously. I breathed more easily.

“I want to escape,” he said. “I must escape.”

“Very well,” I said. “Let us do so.”

“But how?” he asked..

“The means,” I said, “have long lain at our disposal. It is only that I have lacked the cooperation necessary to capitalize on them.”

I turned to Ayari. “Pass the word down the chain,” I said, “in both directions, in various languages, that we shall escape tonight.”

“How do you propose to do this?” asked Ayari.

“Discharge your duties, my friendly interpreter,” I said. “You will see shortly.”

“What if some fear to escape?” asked Ayari.

“They will then be torn alive out of the chain,” I told him.

“I am not sure I am in favor of this,” said Ayari.

“Do you wish to be the first?” I asked him.

“Not me,” said Ayari. “I am busy. I have things to do. I am passing the word down the chain.”

“How can we escaper asked Kisu.

I reached out and measured the chain at his collar, and slipped my hands down the chain until, about five feet later, it lifted to the collar of the next man. I pushed them closely together, to drop the chain, in a loop, to the log floor of the extended raft. By feeling I dropped the loop between the ends of two logs and drew it back, about two feet in from the end of the log it was now looped beneath. The bottom of the loop was then under water and about one log. I put one end of the chain in the hands of the powerful Kisu and took the other end in my own hands.

“I see,” said Kisu, “but this is an inefficient tool.”

“You could ask the askaris for a better,” I suggested.

We then began, smoothly and firmly, exerting heavy, even pressures, to draw the chain back and forth under the log. In moments, using this crude saw, or cuffing tool, we had cut through the bark of the log and had begun, rhythmically, to gash and splinter the harder wood beneath. The spacing and twisting of the links, in the motion of the metal, served well in lieu of teeth. There was an occasional squeak of the metal on the wet wood but the work, for the most part, was accomplished silently, the sound being concealed under the surface of the water. It was a mistake on the part of the askaris to have left us in neck chains in a cage mounted on a log platform. We ceased work, once, when a canoe of askaris, on watch, paddled by.

My hands began to bleed on the chain. Doubtless Kisu’s hands, too, were bloodied.

One man crept close to us. “This is madness,” he said. “I am not with you.”

“You must then be killed,” I told him.

“I have changed my mind,” he said. “I am now with you, fully.”

“Good,” I said.

“The sound will carry under the water,” said another man. Sound does carry better under water than above it, indeed, some five times as well. The sound, of course, does not well break the surface of the water. Thus the sound, though propagated efficiently either beneath or above the surface, is not well propagated, because of the barrier of the surface, either from beneath the surface to above the surface, or from above the surface to beneath the surface.

“It will attract tharlarion, or fish, and then tharlarion,” he said.

“We will wait for them to investigate and disperse,” I said.

Ayari was near to me. “It is dark,” he said. “It is a good night for raiders.”

A bit of wood, moved by the chain, splintered up by my feet.

I slid the loop of chain down toward the end of the log, near the end of the other log, to which it was adjacent.

The chain, thus positioned, might exert more leverage. “Pull,” I said. Kisu and I, drawing heavily on the chain, splintered the log upward, breaking off some inches of it. With my foot and hands I snapped off some sharp splinters.

“We will now wait for a time,” I said.

We heard a tharlarion, a large one, rub up against the bottom of the raft.

I looped the chain in my bloody hands, to strike at it if it should try to thrust its snout through the hole.

“Cover the log. Seem asleep,” whispered a man.

We sat about the piece of log, our heads down, some of us lying on the floor of the log raft. I saw the light, a small torch, in the bow of another canoe pass us, one containing ten armed askaris.

They did not pay us much attention.

“They fear raiders,” said Ayari.

After a time, when it seemed quiet, I said, “Bring the first man on the chain forward.”

He, not happy, was thrust toward me. “I will go first,” I said, “but I cannot, as I am toward the center of the chain.”

“What about the fellow at the end of the chain?” he inquired.

“An excellent idea,” I said, “but he, like you, might be reluctant, and it is you, not he, whose neck is now within my reach.”

“What if there are tharlarion?” he asked.

“Are you afraid?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“You should be,” I said. “There might be tharlarion.”

“I am not going,” he said.

“Take a deep breath,” I told him, “and keep moving, for others must follow. Make for the mud raft. There are shovels there.”

“I am not going,” he said.

I seized him and thrust him head first downward through the hole. The next man slid feet first through the hole. The next, heavy, squeezed with difficulty through the aperture between the logs. Another man slipped through. The first man’s head broke the surface sputtering. He started toward the mud aft. One after another, I and Kisu, and Ayari, toward the center of the chain, the same forty-six prisoners of the cage slipped free.

“Take shovels and bring the raft,” I said.

“Which way shall we go?” asked Ayari.

“Follow me,” I said.

“You are going west!” said Ayari.

“We must free ourselves,” I said. “In the chain we cannot long escape. If we go west we may deceive inquiring askaris. And west, only a pasang away, lies the smiths’ island, where men are added to the chain.”

“There will be tools there,” said Ayari.

“Precisely,” I said.

“Let us go east, or toward the jungles north or south,” said a man.

Kisu struck him on the side of the head, knocking him sideways.

I looked at Kisu. “Does it not seem wise to you, Mfalme,” I asked him, “to proceed westward?”

He straightened himself. “Yes,” he said. “We will go westward,”

His agreement pleased me. Without his cooperation, and the significance of his prestige and status, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce my will on the chain. Without his aid and influence I do not think it would have been possible to have escaped the cage. I had seen, from his striking the fellow in the chain, that he had been in agreement with me as to the advisability of proceeding westward. I had then, using the title of Mfalme, asked him to make this concurrence explicit. His declaration had helped to reassure the men. In asking him I had also, of course, indicated my respect for his opinion, which, incidentally, I did respect, and, in using the title of Mfalme, I had acknowledged that I, for one, would continue to recognize his lofty status in Ukungu. Had I not anticipated his agreement I do not know what I would have done. I suppose then one or the other of us would have had to beat or kill the other.

Soon, leading the chain from the center, its ends behind and on either side of us, I, and Kisu, and some others between us, were wading westward, shovels in hand. Some men behind, on either side, thrust the mud raft along with us.

“You are a clever fellow,” said Kisu to me.

“Surely you do agree that our best direction at the moment is west?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“They will not expect us to head west, and there are tools there.”

“There is something else there, too,” he said, “which I want.”

“What is that?” I asked.

“You will see,” he said.

“Askaris!” said Ayari. “Ahead!”

“We have been released by other askaris, and sent westward for safety,” I told him. “We were even given our tools. There were raiders.”

“Who is there? Stop!” called an askari.

We stopped, obediently. Nervously I saw that there were several askaris about, more than I had originally realized, some twenty of them, with their shields and stabbing spears. The white feathers of the headdresses marked their positions. In raids askaris sometimes remove these headdresses. When actually engaged in combat in darkness, of course, it helps them keep their formations and tell friend from foe. Although doubtless there are advantages and disadvantages to the headdress it is, tactically, in my opinion, a liability. Like the shako of the hussar, it makes too good a target.

“Raiders!” called out, Ayari, pointing backward. “We were released by askaris and commanded to march west for protection.”

“Raiders!” cried one of the askaris.

“It is a good night for them,” said another.

“You will protect us, will you not?” begged Ayari.

“Where are the askaris who released you?” demanded one askari.

“Fighting!” said. Ayari.

“Sound the drums,” said the man. An askari rushed away. “Prepare to relieve the beleaguered section,” said the man.

“Column of twos!” called another.

The askaris formed themselves into a double column.

“Who will stay to protect us?” inquired Ayari.

“March to the rear,” said the officer. “You will be safe there.”

“There is a relief,” said Ayari.

“Hurry!” said the officer.

We immediately began to wade westward again. The askaris hurriedly began to wade east. Soon we could hear a drum. Its sound would marshal new askaris.

“Hurry,” said Ayari.

Twice in our march west we were passed by columns of askaris, and then by two canoes filled with such troops.

“They will soon discover it is a false alarm,” said Kisu.

“Hurry,” I said.

In a few moments we clambered onto the smiths’ island. Askaris moved past us.

“What is going on?” asked one of the smiths, holding a torch, standing outside his sleeping shelter.

He, and his fellows, in the shelter, were then ringed with desperate men.

“Remove our chains,” I told him.

“Never,” said one.

“We can do it ourselves,” said Ayari. Shovels were lifted. The smiths, threatened, hurried, escorted by chained men, to their anvils.

The collars, swiftly, were opened and the heavy bands, struck with sharp, expert blows, were bent wide. We thrust the smiths back into their sleeping shed and threw them to their bellies. We tied them hand and foot, gagging them with choking wads of marsh grass, forced into their mouths and fastened in place with wide strips of leather. I tied shut the door of the wooden shelter, to keep it from being pushed inward by tharlarion which might crawl to the surface of the small island.