Magicians of Gor (42 page)

the bearded prisoner once again reacted.

“I think I could have struck him harder than that,” speculated Marcus.

“Release him!” cried a vendor of tur-pah, pushing through baskets of the

vinelike vegetable.”

“Do not interfere!” warned one of the mercenaries.

“Back, you disgusting patriots of Ar!” exclaimed the other.

“Strange,” remarked Marcus, “that the prisoner has on his sleeve the armband

with the delka upon it.”

“Doubtless that is how the mercenaries recognized him as a member of the Delta

Brigade,” I said.

“The work of Seremides would be much simpler, to be sure,” said Marcus, “if all

fellows in the Delta Brigade would be so obliging.”

“Perhaps they could all wear a uniform,” I suggested, “to make it easier to pick

them out.”

“There are only two of them!” cried the bearded prisoner. “Take me from them!

Hide me! Glory to the Delta Brigade!”

None in the crowd, it seemed, dared echo this sentiment, but there was no

mistaking its mood, one of sympathy for the fellow, and of anger toward the

mercenaries, and there was a very definite possibility, one thing leading to

another, that it might take action.

“Help! Help, if there be true men of Ar here!” cried the prisoner.

One of the fellows from the market pushed at a mercenary who thrust him back,

angrily.

“Make way! Make way!” cried the mercenary.

“Let him go!” cried a man. Men surged about the two mercenaries.

(pg. 245) “It is my only crime that I love Ar and am loyal to her!” cried the

prisoner.

“Release him!” cried men. More than one fellow in the crowd had a staff, that

simple weapon which can be so nimble, so lively, so punishing, in the hands of

one of skill. This was only to be expected as many of the vendors in the market,

were peasants, come in with produce from outside the walls. Indeed, in many

places they could simply enter through breaches in the wall, or climb over

mounds of rubble, and enter the city. With respect to the staff, it serves of

course not only as a weapon but, more usually, and more civilly, as an aid in

traversing terrain of uncertain footing. Too, it is often used, yokelike, fore

and aft of its bearer, to carry suspended, balanced baskets. Weaponwise,

incidentally, there are men who can handle it so well that they are a match for

many swordsmen. My friend Thurnock, in Port Kar, was one. Indeed, many sudden

and unexpected blows had I received in lusty sport from that device in his

hands. Eventually, under his tutelage, I had become proficient with the weapon,

enabled at any rate to defend myself with some efficiency. But still I would not

have cared to meet him, or such a fellow, in earnest, each of us armed only in

such terms. I prefer the blade. Also, of course, all things being equal, the

blade is a far more dangerous weapon. The truly dangerous peasant weapon is the

peasant bow, or great bow. It is in virtue of that weapon that thousands of

villages of Gor have their own Home Stones.

“Release him!” cried a man.

“What is to be done with him?” inquired another.

“Doubtless to be impaled,” said one of the mercenaries.

“No! No!” cried men.

“I wonder if those mercenaries realize they are in danger,” said Marcus.

“I trust that they are being well paid,” I said. “Otherwise they are certainly

being exploited.”

“Save me!” cried the bearded fellow. “Do not let them take me! Save me, if there

be true men of Ar here!”

“Back, sleen of Ar!” cried the mercenary with the prisoner in hand.

“Back!” cried the other.

“Certainly they are not being very politic,” said Marcus.

“Nor very courteous,” I said.

“Help!” cried the prisoner, struggling. His hands were bound behind him and

there were some ropes, as well, about his upper body, binding his arms to his

sides.

“There is one hopeful sign here,” said Marcus. “there is obviously sympathy for

the Delta Brigade.”

(pg. 246) “Yes,” I said.

“Help!” cried the prisoner.

“Does it seem to you that there are secret guardsmen about?” I asked Marcus. I

had been trying to determine this.

He, too, surveyed the crowd, and area. “I do not think so,” he said.

“Perhaps then,” I said, “it is time to remove our armbands and reverse our

cloaks, and adjust our wind scarves.”

“Yes,” said Marcus, grimly, “as the poor fellow is surely in desperate need of

rescue.”

In a moment then, our armbands removed, and certain adjustments effected in our

garmenture, we thrust through the crowd.

“Unhand him!” I cried. It was not for nothing that I had once been granted a

tryout with the troupe of Boots Tarsk-Bit. To be sure, the tryout had come to

naught.

“Who are you?” cried one of the mercenaries. I did not think he was bad either.

Surely he knew whom to expect, at any rate, in this situation. The prisoner’s

face suddenly beamed. With our wind scarves in place, and our blades drawn,

there would be little doubt who we would be, at least in general.

“The Brigade!” whispered men, elated, about us.

“Unhand them!” cried one of the men about.

A fellow flourished a staff. I trusted the crowd would not now close with the

mercenaries, for if it did I genuinely feared there would be little but pulp

left of them. But, still, it seemed, they did not recognize that they were in

actual danger. So little respect they had, it seemed, for the men of Ar. On the

other hand, perhaps they read the crowd better than I. But I really doubt it. I

think I was much more aware, and had been earlier from my position and

perspective, and my awareness of the mood of Ar, of its tenseness, its

readiness, its ugliness, like a dark sky that might suddenly, without warning,

blaze and shatter with destruction and thunder. Indeed, it was the mercenaries

whom Marcus and I, I believe, as it was turning out, were rescuing.

“We yield to superior force,” said the first mercenary.

“We have no choice,” said the second, apparently similarly resigned, the one who

had the prisoner in hand.

A murmur of victory, of elation, coursed through the crowd.

“There are only two of us,” I said to the mercenary who I took it was first of

the two. “Let us have it out with blades.”

“No, no, that is all right,” he said.

“Here is seems you have many allies,” said the second.

“I am sure they will be good fellows and not interfere,” I said.

(pg. 247) “No, we will not interfere!” said a fellow enthusiastically.

“Clear some space,” said another.

The crowd began to move back.

“I tell you,” we surrender the prisoner,” said the first, somewhat unpleasantly.

“We are surrendering him. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said.

“We are yielding to superior force,” he said.

“There is no choice for us,” said the second.

“Very well,” I said.

They then turned about, and expeditiously withdrew.

“You must now escape,” said a man. “They will inform guardsmen, they will return

with reinforcements.”

“I do not think so,” I said.

Men looked at me, puzzled.

“My thanks, brothers!” said the prisoner. “But our brethren of Ar are right! We

must flee! Take me with you, hide me!”

I sheathed my blade, and so, too, did Marcus his.

“Hurry! Untie me! Let us make away!” said the prisoner.

“You do not seem to be well tied,” I said, inspecting his bonds.

“What are you doing?” he cried. “Ugh!”

“Now,” I said, “you are well tied.”

He struggled briefly, startled, frustratedly. Then he understood his

helplessness.

“What is the meaning of this?” he said.

“What are you doing?” asked a fellow, puzzled.

I bent down and pushed the prisoner’s ankles together, and then looped a thong

about them, that they might not be able to move more than a hort or two apart.

He could not now run. To be sure, he could stand.

“Untie me!” he said. “We must escape!”

“You are of the Delta Brigade?” I inquired.

“Yes,” he said, “as must be you!”

“Why do you say that?” I inquired.

“You have rescued me,” he said.

“You regard yourself as rescued?” I said.

“Surely you, like myself, are of the Delta Brigade!” he said.

“I do not think I know you,” I said.

“I am not of your component,” he said.

“But perhaps we are not of the Delta Brigade,” I said.

“But who then?” he said.

“Perhaps we are loyal fellows of Ar,” I said, “who, as is presumably appropriate

for those of the new Ar, hate the Delta Brigade, and are opposed to it, who see

in it a threat to Ar’s (pg. 248) ignominious surrender, that is, to harmony and

peace, who see in it a challenge to the imperious governance of Cos, that is, to

the glorious friendship and alliance of the two great ubarates?”

“He speaks like the public boards,” said a fellow.

“Like part of them, at any rate,” said another.

“I thought only the pusillanimous, and naïve adolescents, took such twaddle

seriously,” said another.

“I do not understand,” said the prisoner uncertainly.

“Are you for the old Ar or the new Ar?” I asked.

“I am of the Delta Brigade!” he said. “And there is only one Ar, the old Ar, the

true Ar!”

“Yes!” said a man.

“Brave fellow!” said a man.

“Release him, and hide him!” urged another.

“No,” said the prisoner. “They are right. They must make certain of me! In their

place I would do the same.”

“Make certain quickly then,” said a man. “There may be little time!”

“Do not fear,” I said.

The prisoner now stood straighter, more proudly, more assuredly. He now

suspected he was being tested. Indeed, he was, but not in the sense he thought.

“You then acknowledge,” I asked him, “that the only Ar, and the true Ar, is the

Ar of old, the Ar which was betrayed and which stands in defiance of Cos?”

For a moment the prisoner turned white. Then he said, boldly, “Yes, that is the

true Ar.”

“And you further acknowledge that Seremides and the Ubara are traitors to Ar,

and puppets of Cos?”

“Of course,” he said, after a moment.

Here and there there were gasps in the crowd. Whereas presumably there were few

in the crowd who were not prepared to resent, and as possible, oppose Cos, not

all were convinced of the depth and extent of the treason which had contributed

so significantly to her victory. I thought it well to have the crowd hear these

sentiments from the lips of the prisoner. To be sure, such understandings were

surely not new to the Cosians of Ar, nor to many of the more reflective in Ar

herself.

“Treason on the part of Seremides?” asked a man.

“Talena a traitor?” said another.

“Yes!” said the prisoner.

“Clearly he is of the Delta Brigade,” said a man. “Release him!”

“You would have us hide you?” I asked.

“Yes,” said the prisoner.

(pg. 249) “Take you into our confidence, bring you to our secret places, tell

you our plans, introduce you to our leaders, our pervasive, secret networks of

communication?”

“Only if later you deem me worthy of such trust,” he said.

I hoped by this last question to lead the crowd to believe that the Delta

Brigade was a determined, disciplined, extensive, well-organized force in Ar,

one which might realistically inspire hope in the populace and fear in the

forces of occupation. Actually, of course, I had no idea of the nature or

extent, or power, or resources, of the Delta Brigade. I was not even sure there

was such an organization. At one time Marcus and I thought we were the Delta

Brigade. Certainly at that time there had been no organization. Then, later, it

seemed, there had been acts performed in the name of the Delta Brigade,

sabotage, and such, in which we had had no part. These might have been the acts

of individuals, or groups of individuals, for all we knew, perhaps patriots, or

criminals, or fools, but not of an organization. There had apparently been

concerted action in the existence of the “brigade”. It could have been done by a

small group of men, presumably mostly veterans of the delta, interested in

making it difficult for Cos to trace there identities.

“Were you in the delta?” I asked.

“Certainly,” said he.

“Who was the commander of the vanguard?” I asked.

“Labienus,” said he, “of this city.”

“And his first subaltern?” I asked.

“I do not know,” he said. “I was not of the vanguard.”

“Who commanded the 17th?” I asked.

“I do not remember,” he said.

“Vinicius?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Vininius.”

“And the 11th?”

“I do not know,” he said.

“Toron, of Venna,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Toron, of Venna.”

“In which command were you?”

“In the 14th,” he said.

“Who commanded the 14th?”

“Honorius.”

“And his first subaltern?”

“Falvius.”

“His second?”

“Camillus.”

(pg. 250) “You were with the 14th then when it was defeated in the northern

tracts of the delta?”

“Yes,” he said.

“With the 7th, the 11th and the 9th?”

“Yes,” he said.

I then removed the armband with the delka on it and tucked it in my belt. I then

tore loose a part of his tunic and thrust it in his mouth. I then tied it in