Magicians of Gor (2 page)

total male domination. To understand this more clearly, two further items might

be noted. First, she must go about in public, denied face veiling. Men, as they

please, may look freely upon her face, witnessing its delicacy, its beauty, its

emotions, and such. She is not permitted to hide it from them. She must bare it,

in all its revelatory intimacy, and with all the consequences of this, to their

gaze. Second, her degradation is completed by the fact that she is given no

choice but to be what she is, profoundly and in depth, a human female, and must

thus, willing or not, (pg. 13) sexually and emotionally, physically and

psychologically, accept her fulfillments in the order of nature.

“I wish you well,” I said to the merchant.

He turned away.

“Make way,” I heard. “Make way!”

A house marshal was approaching, carrying a baton, with which he touched folks

and made a passage among them. He was preceding the palanquin of a free woman,

apparently a rich one, borne by some eight male slaves. I stepped to one side to

let the marshal, the palanquin and its bearers move past. The sides of the

palanquin were veiled.

“Odd that a palanquin of such a nature should be in the Metallan district,” I

said.

“Perhaps we should consider saving our lives now,” said Marcus.

“Phoebe is not finished with your feet,” I said.

Phoebe, looked up, happily.

“Up,” said Marcus irritably, snapping his fingers. Immediately she sprang to her

feet. She stood beside him, her head down, docile. She, I noted, attracted her

share of attention. I was not too pleased with this, as I did not wish to be

conspicuous in Ar. On the other hand, it is seldom wise to interfere in the

relationship between a master and a slave.

I looked back down the street. I could no longer see any sign of the fellow who

had been in the room, the magistrate, or the guardsmen, with their shapely

prisoner. She had been on a guardsman’s shoulder, being carried, her head to the

rear, as a slave. Later I did not think she would be often accorded the luxury

of such transportation. Soon, perhaps in a day or two, she would be learning how

to heel a man and to walk gracefully on his leash.

“Oh!” said Phoebe.

Someone in the crowd, in passing, had undoubtedly touched her. Marcus looked

about, angrily. I did not know, really, what he expected.

I looked back down the street. I could see the head of Milo, with its blond

curls, over the heads of the crowd, about fifty yards away. He was standing near

a wall. The free woman’s palanquin had stopped briefly by him, and then, after a

time, continued on its way.

“Oh!” said Phoebe.

Marcus turned about again, swiftly, angrily. There was only the crowd.

“If you do not care for such things,” I said, “perhaps you should give her a

garment.”

(pg. 14) “Let her go naked,” he said. “She is only a slave.”

“Perhaps some article of clothing would not be amiss,” I said.

“She has her collar,” he said.

“You many never have noticed,” I said, “but she is an exquisitely beautiful

female.”

“She is the lowest and most despicable of female slaves,” he said.

“Of course,” I said.

“Too,” said he, “do not forget that I hate her.”

“It would be difficult to do that,” I said, “ as you have told me so many times.

Phoebe lowered her head, smiling.

“Too,” said he, “she is my enemy.”

“If ever she was your enemy,” I said, “she is not your enemy now. She is now a

slave. Look at her. She is simply an animal you own. Do you think she does not

know that? She now exists for you, to please and serve you.”

“She is Cosian,” he said.

“Turn your flank to him, slave,” I said. “Touch you collar.”

Phoebe complied.

“You can see the brand,” I said. “You can see the collar. Furthermore, it is

yours.”

He regarded the slave, docile, obedient, turned, her fingers, too, lightly on

her collar, so closely locked on her lovely neck.

“And it is a pretty flank,” I said, “and a lovely throat.”

He moaned softly.

“I see that you think so,” I said.

The feelings of the young warrior toward his slave were profoundly ambivalent.

She was not only the sort of female that he found irresistibly, excruciatingly

attractive, as I had known before I had shown her to him the first time, but, to

my surprise and delight, there seemed to be a special mystery or magic, or

chemistry, between them. Each was a dream come true for the other. She had been,

it seems, in some profound genetic sense, born for his chains. They fitted

together, like a lock and its key. She loved him profoundly, helplessly, and

from the first time she had seen him. He, too, had been smitten. Then he had

discovered that she was from Cos, that ubarate which was his hated foe, at the

hands of whose mercenary and regular forces he had seen his city destroyed. It

was no wonder that in rage he had vowed to make the lovely slave stand proxy for

Cos, that he might then vent upon her his fury, and his hatred, for Cos, and all

things Cosian. And so it was that he had determined to reduce and humiliate her,

and make (pg. 15) her suffer, but with each cuffing, with each command, with

each kick, with each blow of the whip, she became only the more his, and the

more loving. I had know for a long time, even as long ago as the inn of the

Crooked Tarn, on the Vosk Road, before the fall of Ar’s Station, that she had

profound slave needs, but I had never suspected their depth until I had seen her

in a camp outside Brundisium, kneeling before Marcus, looking up at him,

unbelievingly. She had known then that she was his, and in perfection. I had no

doubt they fitted together, in the order of nature, in the most intimate,

beautiful and fulfilling relationship possible between a man and a woman, that

of love master and love slave. To be sure, she was Cosian.

Phoebe put down her head, shyly smiling.

“Cosian slut!” snarled Marcus.

He seized her by the arms and lifted her from her feet, thrusting her back

against the wall of the building.

He held her there, off her feet, her back pressed back, hard, against the rough

wall.

“Yes,” she cried. “Yes!”

“Be thusly used, and as befits you,” said he, “slave, and slut of Cos!”

“Yes, my Master!” she wept. She clung about him, her eyes closed, her head back,

gasping.

Then he cried out, and lowered her to the stones of the street.

She knelt there, gratefully, sobbing. Her back was bloody. Marcus had not been

gentle with the slave. She was holding to his leg.

“Disgusting,” said a free woman, drawing her veil more closely about her face.

Did she not know that she, too, if she were a slave, would be similarly subject

to a master’s pleasure?

“This is a very public place,” I said to Marcus.

A small crowd, like an eddy in the flowing stream of folks in the street, had

gathered about.

“She is a slut of Cos,” said Marcus to a fellow nearby.

“Beat her for me,” said the man.

“She is only a slave,” I said.

“A Cosian slut,” said one man to another.

“She is only a slave,” I said again.

The crowd closed in a bit more, menacingly. Phoebe looked up, frightened.

In the press there was not even room to draw the sword, let alone wield it.

“Let us kill her,” said a fellow.

(pg. 16) “Move back,” said Marcus, angrily.

“A slut of Cos,” said another man.

“Let us kill her!” said another fellow.

Phoebe was very small and helpless, kneeling on the stones, near the wall.

“Continue on your way,” I said to the men gathered about. “Be about your

business.”

“Cos is our business,” said a man.

The ugliness of the crowd, its hostility, and such, was, I think, a function of

recent events, which had precipitated confusion, uncertainty and terror in Ar,

in particular the military catastrophe in the delta, in which action, absurdly,

the major land forces at Torcadino, one of the largest assemblages of armed men

ever seen of Gor, under their polemarkos, Myron, cousin to Lurius of Jad, Ubar

of Cos, had now set their standards towards Ar. Torcadino had been a supply

depot for the forces of Cos on the continent. It had been seized by the

mercenary, Dietrich of Tarnburg, to forestall the march on Ar. Ar, however, had

failed to act. She had not relieved the siege at Torcadino nor that in the

north, at Ar’s Station. Dietrich, finally understanding the treason in Ar, in

high places, had managed to effect a withdrawal from Torcadino. His location was

now unknown and Cos had put a price on his head. Now there lay little or nothing

between the major forces of Cos on the continent, now on the march, and the

gates of Ar. Further, though there was much talk in the city of resistance, of

the traditions of Ar, of her Home Stone, and such, I did not think that the

people of Ar, stunned and confused by the apparently inexplicable succession of

recent disasters, had the will to resist the Cosians. Perhaps if there had been

a Marlenus of Ar in the city, a Ubar, one to raise the people and lead them,

there might have been hope. But the city was now under the governance of the

regent, Gnieus Lelius, who, I had little doubt, might have efficiently managed a

well-ordered polity under normal conditions, but was an unlikely leader in a

time of darkness, crisis and terror. He was, I thought, a good man and an

estimable civil servant, but he was not a Marlenus of Ar. Marlenus of Ar had

vanished months ago on a punitive raid in the Voltai, directed against the

tarnsmen of Treve. He was presumed dead.

“Kill her!” said a man.

“Kill her!” said another.

“No!” said Marcus.

“No!” I said.

“There are only two of them,” said a fellow.

(pg. 17) “Listen!” I said, lifting my hand.

In that instant the crowd was silent. More than one man lifted his head. We

turned down the street. Phoebe, very small and vulnerable, naked, in her collar,

crawled more behind the legs of Marcus.

We could hear the bells, the chanting. In a moment we could see the lifted

golden circle, on its staff, approaching. The people in the streets hurried to

press against the walls.

“Initiates,” I said to Marcus.

I could now see the procession clearly.

“Kneel,” said the fellow near me.

“Kneel,” I said to Marcus.

We knelt, on one knee. It surprised me that the people were kneeling, for,

commonly, free Goreans do not kneel, even in the temples of the Initiates.

Goreans commonly pray standing. The hands are sometimes lifted, and this is

often the case with praying Initiates.

“I do not kneel to such,” said Marcus.

“Stay down,” I said. He had caused enough trouble already.”

We could now smell the incense. In the lead of the procession were two lads in

white robes, with shaved heads, who rang the bells. Following them were two

more, who shook censers, these emitting clouds of incense. These lads, I

assumed, were novices, who had perhaps taken their first vows.

“Praise the Priest-Kings!” said a man, fervently.

“Praise the Priest-Kings!” said another.

I thought that Misk, the Priest-King, my friend, might have been fascinated, if

puzzled, by this behavior.

An adult Initiate, in his flowing white robe, carried the staff surmounted with

the golden circle, a figure with neither beginning nor end, the symbol of

Priest-Kings. He was followed by some ten or so Initiates, in double file. It

was these who were chanting.

A free woman drew back her robes, hastily, frightened, lest they touch an

Initiate. It is forbidden for Initiates to touch women, and, of course, for

women to touch them. Initiates also avoid meat and beans. A good deal of time, I

gather, is devoted to sacrifices, services, chants, prayers, and the perusal of

mystic lore. By means of the study of mathematics they attempt to purify

themselves.

“Save Ar!” wept a man, as they passed.

“Save us, oh intercessors with Priest-Kings!” cried a man.

“I will bring ten pieces of gold to the temple!” promised another.

(pg. 18) “I will bring ten verr, full-grown verr, with gilded horns,” promised

another.

But the Initiates took no note of these not inconsiderable pledges. Of what

concern could be such things to them?

“Keep your head down,” I muttered to Marcus.

“Very well,” he growled. Phoebe was behind us, on her stomach, shuddering,

covering her head with her hands. I did not envy her, a naked slave, caught

inadvertently in such a place.

In a few moments the procession had passed and we rose to our feet. The crowd

had dissipated about us.

“You are safe now,” I said to Phoebe, “or at least as safe as is ever a female

slave.”

She knelt timidly at the feet of Marcus, holding to his leg.

“We cannot resist Cos,” said a man, a few feet from us.

“We must place our trust in the Priest-Kings,” said another.

Across from us, about seven feet away, on the other side of the narrow street,

was the free woman who had secured her robes, that they might not touch an

Initiate. She rose to her feet, looking after the procession. We could still

hear the bells. The smell of incense hung in the air. Near the free woman was a