Prize of Gor (120 page)

Bosk of Port Kar turned his attention to Mirus. “You were allies of the beasts, you, and the other, there?”

“Once,” said Mirus, “but no more, enemies now, surely.”

“I think then it will not be necessary to kill you,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

“I am pleased to hear that,” said Mirus.

“I vouch for them,” said Portus Canio.

“I, too,” averred Selius Arconious.

“I, too,” said Fel Doron.

Bosk of Port Kar smiled. The one time the slave had seen him smile. “That is sufficient,” he said.

“Did you know the beasts were following you?” asked Bosk of Port Kar.

“No,” said Selius Arconious.

“We thought them probably gone,” said Fel Doron.

“But we did not know,” said Portus Canio.

“No, we did not know,” said Fel Doron.

“Yet,” said Selius Arconious, “if they were still with us, this, it seemed, would be the likely morning for them to act, for this morning Mirus and his fellow are on to Brundisium, and we, with the slave, will trek toward Ar. Thus, if they wished to destroy all three, it seems that this would be the time to strike.”

“We shortened our watches accordingly, to maximize alertness,” said Portus Canio.

“Yet,” said Fel Doron, “it seemed as though they sprang upon us as though from nowhere.”

Bosk of Port Kar nodded.

“How is it that they would have anticipated an imminent division of your party?” asked Marcus, of Ar’s Station.

“There,” said Selius Arconious, indicating the object to the side, “the preparation of the travois, the wounded fellow of Mirus no longer to be transported in the wagon.”

“He is strong enough now to travel so,” said Fel Doron.

“The slave was not apprised of your suspicions,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

“No,” said Selius Arconious, “lest she inadvertently, by signs of uneasiness, alert the beasts as to such suspicions.”

“That was wise,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

On her knees, Ellen tensed, angrily. She was then muchly aware of her collar.

“How are things in Ar?” asked Portus Canio.

“The last we have heard,” said Bosk of Port Kar, “this from those with whom we spoke at the rendezvous, the mercenaries grow increasingly restless, indeed, unpleasant. There have actually been skirmishes between them and the Cosian regulars in the city. The work of the Delta Brigade grows bolder. Rebellion may be imminent.”

“What of Marlenus of Ar?” asked Fel Doron.

“It is thought he has been found,” said Bosk of Port Kar. “To be sure, the matter seems unclear. One hears conflicting stories, of imposture, of forgetfulness, even of madness. But he is the key to open revolt. If he appears in the streets, sword in hand, standard raised, the people will cry out, and rise up. Then let Cos and her allies tremble. But without Marlenus I think the city will be uncertain and divided, and any open resistance would be foolishly precipitate, costly, and, I suspect, doomed.”

“Talena yet sits upon the throne, a puppet for Cos?” asked Fel Doron.

“Yes,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

“Torture and the impaling stake for her,” said Portus Canio.

“Or the collar,” smiled Bosk of Port Kar, regarding the collared, kneeling Ellen.

“But she is a Ubara, Master!” breathed the slave.

Then she feared she would be beaten.

Had she not spoken without permission?

But then Masters are often lenient in such matters. And, too, a slave can often sense when it is acceptable to speak and when it would be wise to request permission to speak. Often she has what might be thought of as a standing permission to speak. But this may of course be revoked, and thus is preserved the principle that a slave’s permission to speak remains at the discretion of the master. She may always be silenced with a glance or word. Sometimes the master will ask, “Did you ask permission to speak?” To this question the customary response is, “No, Master. Please forgive me, Master.” She may then be granted the permission to speak or not, as the master will have it.

“Who knows?” said Bosk of Port Kar. “Perhaps she is already a slave, and even now waits in terror, on her throne, in the loneliness of her chamber, in the empty halls of the Central Cylinder, startled by the least sound, even imagined, fearing to be claimed by her master.”

“Surely you will trek with us to Ar,” said Portus Canio.

“I and my fellow,” said Mirus, “as said, are bound for Brundisium.”

“Some pasangs from here we have fellows waiting, with tarns,” said Bosk of Port Kar. “If all goes well, we will be aflight by tomorrow at this time.”

“But surely,” said Portus Canio, “we may share our breakfast with you?”

“That will please us,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

“Get up and get to work,” said Selius Arconious, unpleasantly.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen, quickly rising to her feet.

“She has pretty legs,” said Marcus, of Ar’s Station.

Ellen tried to pull down the tunic at the hems.

“Prettier than those of Phoebe?” asked Bosk of Port Kar.

“No, I do not think so,” said Marcus of Ar’s Station.

That “Phoebe,” as they spoke of her, thought Ellen, so casually, so objectively, must be a slave. Surely they would not dare to speak so of the legs of a free woman.

What beasts men are, thought Ellen, to openly compare the limbs of slaves! Are we animals? And then, of course, devastatingly, the obvious thought came to her that yes, of course, they were animals!

“Get busy!” snapped Selius Arconious. For some reason, he seemed angry with her. Perhaps she had been a bit petulant, earlier, before the attack of the beasts, but surely he would not hold that against her! Not such a small thing!

“Yes, Master!” she said, stumbling, hurrying, running to the wagon, to fetch supplies, pans, utensils, bread, grains, that she might expeditiously set about preparing the men’s breakfast.

As she worked, she saw, once, the eyes of Bosk of Port Kar upon her. About his lips there played a subtle smile. She reddened, angrily. Doubtless he knew her an Earth woman! He seemed amused then, to see her here, on this world, so far from her old world, on a world so different from her old world, she here reduced to a natural woman, reduced fittingly to a collared slave, anxiously hastening to serve masters.

Later, their simple repast finished, the men rose up.

“Well met!” said Portus Canio, gratefully.

“Well met,” said Bosk of Port Kar.

The men clasped hands, and embraced, and then Bosk of Port Kar, Port Kar a port on the Tamber Gulf, rumored to be a den of cutthroats and pirates, and Marcus, of Ar’s Station, once an outpost of Ar on the distant Vosk, took their leave.

The slave watched them disappear in the long grasses. They did not look back.

Shortly thereafter some supplies were given to Mirus. He was given, too, a sword, dagger, and spear. Then, with the help of Portus Canio and Selius Arconious, his weak fellow was placed on the travois. On this device, too, were placed the shared supplies and the weaponry. How different, thought the slave, the dagger, the sword, the spear, from the weapons with which Mirus had been hitherto familiar. They were weapons such that with them man might meet man, weapons requiring closure, and risk, weapons requiring skill and courage, not engineer’s weapons, not weapons with which the pretentious, petty, effete and craven might effortlessly outmatch and overcome the might of heroes, surpass and vanquish brave and mighty men from whom in the order of a hardy nature they must shrink and hide. Yes, they were different weapons from those with which Mirus had been hitherto familiar, but she suspected that here, on this world, he would learn them, such weapons, and perhaps master them.

“Mirus, my friend,” said Portus Canio.

“Yes?” said Mirus.

“When Bosk of Port Kar was in the camp we spoke briefly, apart, and he gave me something. I would like to show it to you.”

Portus Canio, Fel Doron near him, drew from his pouch a heavy, shapeless object of metal, which seemed as though it had been deformed, perhaps twisted, bent in upon itself, and then fused, melted, in great heat.”

“What is it?” asked Mirus.

“You do not know?”

“No.”

“After we left our camp, of some days ago, Bosk of Port Kar, and his friend, visited the site of our camp, thinking we might still be there. Subsequently they followed us.”

“What of your fellow, Tersius Major?” asked Mirus.

“No fellow of mine, he,” said Portus Canio. “But Bosk and his friend found there only bones, pieces of bones, splintered, gnawed, shreds of clothing, torn, cast about.”

“Sleen,” said Mirus.

“It would seem so,” said Portus Canio.

“Apparently sleen do not respect circles of forbidden weapons,” said Mirus. “They, at least, are not prone to baseless superstition. They, at least, do not share your concern with Priest-Kings.”

“Hold this,” said Portus Canio, extending his hand, the weighty, shapeless object within it.

Mirus took the object, and regarded it. “It is a strange thing,” he said, “possibly a meteorite, a star stone.”

“Feel the weight,” said Portus Canio. “Does it not remind you of something?”

Mirus turned white.

“Yes,” said Portus Canio. “It is the remains of one of the forbidden weapons. The others were similarly destroyed. Bosk cast them away, into the grass. He kept this one to show me.” So saying, Portus Canio took back the bit of fused, shapeless metal.

“Do you not fear to touch it?” asked Mirus.

“Not now,” said Portus Canio. “It is no longer a weapon. Now it is nothing, only what was once a weapon.”

“What force or heat could do this, and here, in the prairie?” asked Mirus, wonderingly.

“Surely the Priest-Kings have spoken,” said Fel Doron.

“Do not be absurd, my friend,” said Mirus. “There are no such things. You must overcome such beliefs.”

“There is this,” said Portus Canio, lifting the shapeless mass of fused, melted metal.

“There was a storm last night, to the north,” said Mirus. “Lightning. Lightning struck the weapons. It destroyed them. It is an obvious explanation. They were metal, they were on a high place, on a knoll.”

“That is certainly possible,” agreed Portus Canio. Then he cast the piece of metal far from him, away, out into the grass.

“Priest-Kings do not exist,” said Mirus.

“Even so,” smiled Portus Canio, “I would advise you to keep their laws.”

“They do not exist,” said Mirus.

“I do not know,” said Portus Canio. “But do not be afraid.”

“I do not understand,” said Mirus.

“If they do exist, perhaps in the Sardar Mountains, as many claim,” said Portus Canio, “I think it is clear that we have little to fear from them, indeed far less to fear from them than from the caste of Initiates, which claims to speak in their name. The Priest-Kings, it seems to me, have little or no interest in us, in our kind, in our form of life, little or no concern with the doings of men, other than that their laws be kept.”

“You suggest that they are rational? That they fear human technology?”

“Perhaps,” said Portus Canio.

“They are real then?” asked Mirus.

“One does not suppose otherwise,” said Portus Canio. “Perhaps as real as mountains and storms, as real as flowers, as tarns and sleen.”

“They do not exist,” said Mirus, again.

“I do not know,” said Portus Canio.

“No,” said Mirus. “It is lightning, lightning.”

“Perhaps,” said Portus Canio.

“Lightning,” repeated Mirus. “Obviously lightning.”

“That is quite possible,” said Portus Canio.

“It looks like a pleasant day for trekking,” said Mirus.

“Yes,” said Fel Doron.

“In eight or ten days,” said Portus Canio to Mirus, “you might reach the coast, and Brundisium.”

“In some twenty days,” said Fel Doron, “it is our hope to reach the Viktel Aria, near Venna.”

At hearing the name of this city, the slave thought, naturally, of the slave, Melanie, whom she had met at the festival camp. Melanie, she recalled, had been sold to a man from Venna. She thought of the hundreds of cities and towns merely in known Gor, in which thousands of women such as she, tunicked and collared, served masters. Interestingly, it gave her a warm, deep, rich sense of identity, and belonging. Gone now were the uncertainties, the castings about, the miseries, the pain, the confusions, the ambiguities, the rootlessness, the anomie, of her former existence. She was now, at last, something societally meaningful, something actual, something understood, something accepted and real, something prized, something with an actual, clear value, a slave girl. The Viktel Aria is one of the great roads of known Gor, extending north and south of Ar for thousands of pasangs.

Mirus then adjusted the travois ropes about his shoulders.

“Bid him farewell,” said Selius Arconious.

Ellen went to Mirus and knelt before him. “Farewell, Master,” she said. Then, at a gesture from Selius Arconious, she put down her head and humbly kissed his feet. Then she lifted her head and looked at him. Tears brimmed in her eyes. It was he who had brought her to Gor. “Thank you, Master,” she whispered, so that Selius Arconious, who was standing to one side, could not hear. “Thank you for bringing me here, thank you for putting me in a collar, thank you making me a slave.”

“It is nothing,” he said, a Gorean remark.

Perhaps, she thought to herself, to you it is nothing, Master, but to me it is everything!

Then she again lowered her head and, gratefully, kissed his feet, again.

He moved back a little.

The men then exchanged farewells.

“You have taught me something of this world,” said Mirus to Selius Arconious. “It is my hope that I may one day be worthy of a Home Stone.”

“It is nothing,” said Selius Arconious.

The two men clasped hands, and then embraced, and Mirus put his shoulders into the ropes. At the edge of the small camp he paused and turned, regarding Ellen. He smiled. “Farewell,” said he, “slave girl.”

“Farewell,” said she, “Master.”

Chapter 29

WHAT OCCURRED NEAR THE VIKTEL ARIA,