Players of Gor (5 page)

I wondered if anything might be wrong.

"Did you want to see me?" I asked. It was unusual for Samos to invite me to his holding simply for a game of kaissa.

He did not respond. He continued to regard the board. Samos played well, but he was not an enthusiast for the game. he had told me once he preferred a different kaissa, one of politics and men.

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"I do not think you brought m e here to play kaissa," I said.

He did not respond.

"Guard your Ubar," I said.

He withdrew the piece.

"have you heard aught of Kurii?" I asked.

"Little or nothing," he said.

Our last major source of information on this matter, as far as I knew, had come from a blond slave named Sheila. I recalled her kneeling naked before us, the slave harness cinched on her in such a way as to enhance her beauty. She had spoken obediently, and volubly, but she had been able, all in all, to help us but little. Kurii, doubtless as a security measure, entrust little vital information to their human agents. She had once been the Tatrix of Corcyrus. She now belonged to Hassan of Kasra, often called Hassan, the Slave Hunter. I had once been in Kasra. It is a river port on the Lower Fayeen. It is important in the Tahari salt trade. When Samos had finished with her, she had, at the command of Hassan, still in the harness, served the pleasure of both of us. She was then hooded. The last time I saw her Hassan had put her in the bottom of a longboat at Samos' steps, descending to the canal. He had tied her ankles together and pulled them up behind her body, fastening them there with a strap passed through a ring at the back of the slave harness. I suspected she would not be freed from the hood, except for its lifting to feed and water her, for days, not until she was in Hassan's keep in Kasra. I had little doubt he would see to it that she served him well.

I nodded. From the testimony of Sheila, and other sources which seemed to corroborate it, we gathered that the Kurii might now be turning to the patient stratagems of piecemeal subversion, the control of cities and their eventual linkages in networks of power, to win a world by means theoretically within the laws and decrees of Priest-Kings. Indeed, for such a strategy to eventually prove successful, it seemed not unlikely they would have at least the tolerance of the Sardar itself. I shuddered. It would not bode well for humans, I thought, if some form of liaison, or arrangement, were entered into between Priest-Kings and Kurii.

"Have you heard aught from the Sardar?" I asked.

Samos looked up from the board.

Outside I could hear the sounds of yet another troupe traversing the canal, with its raucous cries, its drums and trumpets. There had been several such troupes, theatrical troupes, carnival troupes, this evening. It was now only two days to carnival, to the Twelfth Passage Hand.

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"Late in Se'Var," said Samos, "a Torvaldsland voyageur, Yngvar, the Far-Traveled, bought paga in the Four Chains."

I nodded. I knew the Four Chains. It was owned by Procopius Minor. It was near Pier Sixteen. Procopius Minor is not to be confused with Procopius Major, who is an important merchant in Port Kar, one with interests not only in taverns but in paper, hardware, wool and salt. I had never heard of Yngvar, the Far-Traveled, until recently. I did not know him. The time of which Samos spoke was about two months ago.

"In his drinking, this Yngvar told many stories. One frightens and puzzles me. Some fifty pasangs northeast of Scagnar he claims that he and his crew saw something turning and spinning in the sky, like webbed glass, the light spilling and refracting through it. They then saw a silverish disklike object near it. These two objects, both, seemed to descend, as though to the sea itself. Then a little later, the silverish object departed. Curious, frightened, they rowed to the place where the objects had seemed to descend. There was not even a skerry there. They were about to turn about when one of the men saw something. There, not more than twenty yards from the ship, half submerged, was a large, winged creature. They had never seen anything like this before. It was dead. They poked it with spears. Then, after a time, it slipped beneath the water and disappeared."

"I have heard the story," I said. To be sure, I had heard it only a few days ago. It, like other stories, seemed to circulate through the taverns. Yngvar, with some fellow Torvaldslanders, had signed articles and taken ship northward shortly thereafter. Neither Samos nor myself had been able to question them.

"The dating of this occurrence seems unclear," I said.

"It was apparently not recent," said Samos.

Presumably this had happened after the time I had gone to Torvaldsland, or, I suppose, I would have heard of it while there. Interesting stories move swiftly through the halls, conveyed by merchants and singers. Too, such a story would be widely told, on supposes, at a Thing-Fair. I went to Torvaldsland in the Rune-Year 1,006. Years, in the chronology of Torvaldsland, are counted from the time of Thor's gift of the stream of Torvald to Torvald, the legendary founder and hero of the northern fatherlands. the calendars are kept by Rune-Priests. That would have been 10,122 C.A., or Year 3 of the Sovereignty of the Council of Captains in Port Kar. I suspected, though I did not know, that the events recounted by Yngvar had occurred from four to five years ago.

"It was probably a few years ago," said Samos.

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"Probably," I granted him.

"The ship was probably a ship of Priest-Kings," said Samos.

"I would suppose so," I said. It did not seem likely that a Kur ship would move openly in Gorean air space.

"it is an interesting story," said Samos.

"Yes," I said.

"Perhaps it has some significance," said Samos.

"Perhaps," I said.

I recalled, long ago, in the Nest, when I had seen the dying Mother. "I see him, I see him," she had said, "and his wings are like showers of gold." She had then lain quietly on the stone. "The Mother is dead," had said Misk. Her last memory, interestingly, it seemed, had been of her Nuptial Flight. There was now, doubtless, a new Mother in the Nest. Yngvar and his fellows, unwittingly, I was confident, had witnessed the inauguration of a new dynasty among Priest-Kings.

"Have you heard anything from the Sardar?" I asked, again.

Samos looked down at the board. I did not press him. His reticence to respond directly puzzled me. If he had heard something, of course, it was perhaps none of my business. I had no intention of prying into his affairs, or those of Priest-Kings. Also, of course, perhaps he had heard nothing.

"You are not playing your usual game," I told him.

"I am sorry," he said.

A new girl, Susan, was now dancing. She who had been the Lady Rowena of Lydius was o her belly on a table, clutching its sides, her teeth gritted. Tula was being handed from man to man. Some of the other girls, too, were now being used by masters. And others were licking and kissing at them, and whispering in their ears, begging for attention.

We played another pair of moves.

"What is bothering you?" I asked Samos.

"Nothing," he said.

"Is there much news?" I asked.

"Tarnsmen from Treve had raided the outskirts of Ar," said Samos.

"They grow bold," I said.

Cos and Ar are still at odds," he said.

"Of course," I said.

"The building of ships in Tyros continues," he said.

"Chenbar has a long memory," I said. Much of the naval power of Tyros had been destroyed in the battle of the 25th of

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Se'Kara. This had taken place in Year One of the Sovereignty of the Council of Captains, in 10,120 C.A.

"On Cos, as our spies have it," said Samos, "there is much training of men, and a recruitment of mercenaries."

"We could strike at the shipyards of Tyros," I said, "ten ramships, a thousand men, a picked force."

"The yards are well fortified," he said.

"Do you think Cos and Tyros will move?" I asked.

"yes," he said.

"When?" I asked.

"I do not know," he said.

"It is interesting," I said. "I cannot see Port Kar as a great threat to them. The power of Ar in the Vosk Basin would seem a much greater threat to their influence, and their sphere of trade."

"One would think so," said Samos.

"Matters are complicated there now, of course," I said, "by the formation of the Vosk League."

"That is true," said Samos.

"What is the nature of the training being given the men on Cos?" I asked.

"Infantry training," he said.

"That is interesting," I said. it did not seem likely to me that infantry, at least in its normal deployments and tactics, would be successful in an assault on Port Kar. This had primarily to do with her situation, in the northwestern portion of the estuary of the Vosk, the waters of the Tamber Guld and Thassa before her, the vast, trackless marshes of the Vosk's delta behind her.

"Can it be," I asked, "that Cos is planning to challenge Ar on the land?"

"That would be madness," said Samos.

I nodded. Ar is the major land force in known Gor. The Cosian infantry, meeting her on land in open battle, in force, would be crushed.

"It seems clear then," said Samos, "that they are planning on using the infantry against Port Kar."

I nodded. Cos would never challenge Ar on the land. That was unthinkable.

"That is what is bothering you?" I asked.

"What?" he asked.

"The possibility that Cos and Tyros may move against Port Kar," I said.

"No," he said.

"What is bothering you?" I asked.

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"Nothing," he said.

"Are you disturbed by the proximity of the Waiting Hand?" I asked.

This is a frightening and difficult time for many Goreans.

"No," he said.

"Let us stop playing and adjudicate the game as a draw," I suggested.

"No," he said. "It is all right."

I moved my Ubara's Builder to threaten his Ubar. This movement of the builder produced a discovered attack on his Home Stone by my Ubara's Initiate. He interposed his own Ubar's Builder, which I then took with the Initiate, a less valued piece. The Initiate's attack, of course, continued the threat on the Home Stone. he then took the Initiate with his Ubara's Builder, and I, of course, removed his Ubar from the board with my Ubara's Builder.

Samos turned to Linda. "Dance," he said. She leaped to her feet and hurried to the center of the tiles. Susan, then, was pulled by the hair to the place of a keleustes, on who marks time, usually on a pounding block or a ship's drum, for oarsmen. In some navies, and on ships of some registry, the office of the keleustes is referred to as that of the horator. He reports directly to the oar-master. The oar-master, like the helmsman, of which two are generally on duty at any one time, most Gorean ships being double ruddered, reports to the captain.

We watched Linda dance. It seemed she had eyes only for Samos. Her fingers played teasingly with the disrobing loop at her left shoulder.

"Strip, slave," said Samos.

She drew the disrobing loop. There was Gorean applause. She danced well. There was little left in her now of the Earth female. How happy and fulfilled she was on Gor. To be sure, she was only a slave.

I returned my attention to the board, as did Samos.

"It is capture of Home Stone in four," I said.

He nodded. He removed his Home Stone from the board, resigning.

He lifted his head, regarding Linda. "She is pretty," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

She writhed well, the Gorean slave.

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"Why did you invite me this night to your holding?" I asked. "Surely not to play Kaissa?"

He was now resetting the pieces. He would take Yellow this time.

"Ubar's Spearman to Ubar Five," he said.

This move attacks the center and opens a diagonal for the Ubara. It also makes possible a positioning move, matching him positionally in the center, stopping an advance on that file and securing the same advantages for the Ubara and Ubar's Tarnsman. This is one of the most common opening moves in kaissa.

We played twice more that night. I won both games easily, the first with a battering ram of Spearmen and Riders of the High Tharlarion on the Ubar's side, and the second with a middle-game combination of Ubara's Scribe, Ubara and Ubar's Tarnsman. It was now late. Linda lay curled on the tiles near Samos. She was naked, save for her collar. She was beautiful and curvaceous. She was his.

"Captain," said one of the two guardsmen standing before our table. They were the fellows in whose custody the free woman, the Lady Rowena of Lydius, had earlier been drawn to our attention The woman who had been the Lady Rowena of Lydius was now again in their custody. She was now on her knees between them, facing us, her arms held high and to either side of her, each of her wrists in the grasp of a guard. She was now a slave.