Magicians of Gor (46 page)

and, at the other end, to the corners of a flat pallet at the bottom of

palanquin, on which the girl reclines. When the curtains of the palanquin are

drawn, as they were, you remember, the weights are disengaged by the bearers.

These weights, the four of them, collectively, are much heavier than the pallet

and the girl, whom, you will remember was slim and light. As the weights descend

within the poles the cords move and draw the pallet up under the canopy.”

“The girl was then being held at the top, concealed by the canopy?”

“Precisely,” I said.

“I did not think of her as going up,” said Marcus.

(pg. 268) “Nor would most folks,” I said. “After all, people do not normally fly

upwards. Presumably most folks would think, if at all about these matters, in

terms of a false bottom, or back, or something, but, as you saw, such

considerations would have been immediately dismissed, as the construction of the

palanquin made them impractical, for example, its openness, and its bottom being

too shallow to effect any efficacious concealment for the girl.”

“It was not magic?” he said.

“Once the girl is offstage,” I said, “there is no difficulty in changing her

clothes and getting her in sirik.”

“The trunk was real magic,” he said, “as we saw it carried on, kept off the

floor, and opened, and shown empty!”

“In the case of the trunk,” I said, “after it was on the trestles, the back was

lowered first, and then the sides and front.”

“Yes,” he said, “that is correct.”

“When it was closed, however,” I said, “it was the front which was first lifted

and put in place, and then the sides, and then the back.”

“Yes,” he said.

“In short,” I said, “in the opening of the trunk, the back was lowered first,

and in its closing, it was lifted last.”

“True,” said Marcus.

“You remember?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“The interior of the back was thus not seen by the audience in the beginning,” I

said, “because it was either concealed by the front panel as the trunk was

carried onto the stage or was facing the back of the stage when it was hanging

down in back. similarly, later, the interior of the back was not seen by the

audience because it was either facing away from them, when it hung down in back,

or was concealed by the front panel and sides, which were first lifted, to keep

it concealed.”

“The slave was then carried onto the stage in the closed trunk, her body

fastened somehow to the inside of the back panel.”

“In a sling of sorts,” I said.

“She was then hanging down, fastened to the side of the back panel away from the

audience, when the trunk was opened?”

“Yes,” I said.

(pg. 269) “And was returned to the interior of the trunk with the shielded

lifting of the back panel?”

“Yes,” I said. “And once within the trunk, it then closed again, she could, of

course, her hands being free enough in the sirik to accomplish this, undo the

straps, and conceal them in the flooring of the trunk, in a slot prepared for

the purpose.”

“Then it was not magic?” he said.

“That depends on what you mean by ‘magic’,” I said.

“You know what I mean,” he said, somewhat disagreeably.

“No,” I said. “It was not magic.”

“But it could have been magic,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Even those these wonders could have been accomplished so easily by mere

trickery, that does not prove they were!”

“No,” I said. “I suppose not.”

“The same effect might have quite different causes,” he said, “for example, in

these cases, having been achieved either by mere charlatanry or by genuine

magic.”

“I have seen the equipment,” I said. I had, in one of the wagons of the

ponderous fellow several months ago. I had even diddled about with it, for my

own amusement.

“But that does not prove it was used!” said Marcus.

“I suppose not,” I said. “I suppose that these effects, so easily wrought by a

skilled fellow, who knows how to bring them about, might actually, in these

cases, have been produced not by familiar trickery but by the application of

uncanny and marvelous powers.”

“Certainly,” said Marcus.

“Would you believe the fellow if he showed you how he did it?” I asked.

“He might show me how it could be done, but not how he actually did it,” said

Marcus. “He might lie to me, to conceal from me his possession of mysterious

powers.”

“Well,” I said, “I never thought about that.” I never had. “I guess you’re

right,” I said.

Marcus walked on beside me for a way. Then suddenly he burst out, angrily, “The

charlatan, the fraud!”

“Are you angry?” I asked.

“They are only tricks!” he said.

“Good tricks,” I said.

“But only tricks!”

“I don’t think he ever claimed they weren’t,” I said.

“He should be boiled in oil!” cried Marcus.

“To me that seems somewhat severe,” I said.

“Tricks!” said Marcus.

(pg. 270) “I suppose you now respect them the less,” I said.

“Charlatanry!” he murmured. “Trickery! Fraud!”

“I think that I myself,” I said, “apparently responding to this sort of thing

rather differently from yourself, admire them the more as I understand how

ingenious and wonderful they are, as tricks. I think I should be awed by them,

but would not find so much to admire in them, if I thought they were merely the

manifestations of unusual powers, as, for example, the capacity to turn folks

into turtles or something.”

“Perhaps,” he said.

“Certainly,” I said.

“I would not wish to be a turtle,” he said.

“So let us trust,” I said, “that folks do not abound who can wreak such

wonders.”

“True,” he said.

“Similarly,” I said, “if there were such a thing as ‘real magic’ in your sense,

whatever that might be, the world would presumably be much different than it

is.”

“There might be a great many more turtles,” he said.

“Quite possibly,” I said.

I did not doubt, of course, from what I knew of them, that the science of

Priest-Kings was such that many unusual effects could be achieved. And, indeed,

I did not doubt but what many such were well within the scope of the several

sciences of the Kurii, as well. But these effects, of course, were rationally

explicable, at least to those with the pertinent techniques and knowledge at

their disposal, effects which were the fruits of unusual sciences and

technologies. I did not think that Marcus needed to know about such things. How

inexplicable and marvelous to a savage might appear a match, a handful of beads,

a mirror, a stick of candy, a tennis ball.

“The slave was not in Anango!” he cried.

“No,” I said. “I would not think so.”

“But she said so, or let it be thought!” he said. “She is thus a lying slave and

should be punished. Let her be whipped to the bone!”

“Oh, come now,” I said. “She is playing her part in the show, in the

entertainment. She is enjoying herself, along with everyone else. And she is a

slave. What do you expect her to say? To tell the truth, and spoil the show, or

perhaps have her master flogged? Do you not think such ill-thought-out

intrepidity would swiftly bring her luscious hide into contact with the supple

switch?”

“Yes,” he said. “It is the master who is to blame.”

“I do hope you get on with him,” I said.

(pg. 271)”What?” he cried.

“Yes,” I said, “and, indeed, I would even recommend that you be nice to him.”

“Why?” asked Marcus.

“Because,” I said, “it is he who is going to obtain for you the Home Stone of

Ar’s Station.”

18
   
Our Wallets are in Order

“Here we are,” I said.

We had been walking about for some time after the show, even past the time of

curfew the constraints of which, because of our affixed armbands, as auxiliary

guardsmen, we had not the least difficulty in circumventing. Challenged, we

challenged back. Questioned, we questioned. And if our challenges and questions

were satisfactorily met, we would proceed further, first volunteering, of

course, in deference to alternative authority, our own names and missions in

turn. If notes were to be later compared at some headquarters, as I did not

expect they would be, some officers might have been astonished to learn how many

sets of auxiliary guardsmen and diverse missions had been afoot that night.

“This is the insula,” I said, “at which resides the great Renato and his

troupe.”

“The magician?” said Marcus.

“Yes,” I said. I had made inquiries into this matter prior to leaving the

theater, Marcus waiting outside for me, pondering the wonders he was convinced

he had beheld within.

“I would not keep the stripped, lashed Ubara of a captured city chained in a

kennel such as this,” he said.

“Surely you would do so,” I said.

“Well, perhaps,” he admitted.

Some believe such women should be prepared quickly for the collar and others

that the matter may be drawn out, teasingly, until even she, trying to deny it

to herself all the while, realizes what her eventual lot is to be.

“Not all folk in the theater and such live as well as they might,” I said.

“It seems they cannot make gold pieces appear from thin air,” said Marcus.

(pg. 272) “Not without a gold piece to start with,” I said.

“Getting one to start with is undoubtedly the real trick,” he said.

“Precisely,” I said. “Let us go in.”

I shoved back the heavy door. It hung on its top hinge. It had not been barred.

I gathered that not every one who lived within, interestingly, was necessarily

expected back before curfew. On the other hand, perhaps the proprietor, or his

manager, was merely lax in matters of security. The interior, the hall and foot

of the stairs, was lit by the light of a tiny tharlarion oil lamp.

“Whew!” said Marcus.

At the foot of the stairs, as is common in insulae, there was a great wastes

pot, into which the smaller wastes pots of the many tiny apartments in the

building are emptied. These large pots are then carried off in wagons to the

carnaria, where their contents are emptied. This work is usually done by male

slaves under the supervision of a free man. When the wastes pot is picked up, a

clean one is left in its place. The emptied pot is later cleaned and used again,

returned to one insula or another. There is sewerage in Ar, and sewers, but on

the whole these service the more affluent areas of the city. The insulae are, on

the whole, tenements.

“This is a sty,” said Marcus.

“Do not insult the caste of peasants,” I said. “It is the ox on which the Home

Stone rests.” Thurnock, one of my best friends, was of that caste.

Not everyone is as careful as they might be in hitting the great pot. Lazier

folks, or perhaps folks interested in testing their skill, sometimes try to do

it from a higher landing. According to the ordinances the pots are supposed to

be kept covered, but this ordinance is too often honored in the breach. Children

sometimes use the stairs to relieve themselves. This is occasionally done, I

gather, as a game, the winner being decided by the greatest number of stairs

soiled.

“Ho there,” said an unpleasant voice, from the top of the landing. We looked up

into a pool of floating light, from a lifted lantern.

“Tal,” I said.

“He is not here,” said the fellow.

“Who?” I asked.

“Anyone,” said the fellow.

“There is no one here?” I asked.

“Precisely,” he said.

“We should like to rent a room,” I said.

(pg. 273) “No rooms,” said he. “We are filled.”

“I can be up the stairs in an instant,” said Marcus, “and open him like a bag of

noodles.”

“Whom are you looking for?” asked the fellow, who perhaps had excellent hearing.

“Renato the Great,” I said.

“The villain, the fat urt, the rogue, the rascal?” asked the fellow.

“Yes,” I said. “He.”

“He is not here,” he said.

I supposed the fellow was fond of him, and was concerned to protect him. On the

other hand, perhaps he had not yet collected the week’s lodging. That, in

itself, might be a good trick.

“Do not be dismayed by our armbands,” I said. “We do not come on the business of

guardsmen.”

“You are creditors then,” he said, “or defrauded bumpkins intent upon the

perpetration of dire vengeance.”

“No,” I said. “We are friends.”

The pool of light above us seemed to shake with laughter.

I drew my blade and put it to the bowl of the lamp, on its small shelf in the

hall. With a tiny movement I could tip it to the floor.

“Be careful there,” said the fellow. His concern was not without reason. Such

accidents, usually occurring in the rooms, often resulted in the destruction of

an insula. Many folks who lived regularly in insulae had had the experience of

hastily departing from their building in the middle of the night. There was also

the danger that such fires could spread. Sometimes entire blocks, and even

districts, are wiped out by such fires.

“Summon him,” I said.

“It is not my building,” said the fellow. “It belongs to Appanius!”

“Ah, yes!” I said.

“You know the name?” asked Marcus.