Norman, John - Gor 25 - Magicians of Gor.txt

Norman, John - Gor 25 - Magicians of Gor.txt Page 39

by Magicians of Gor [lit]

  background, he was prepared to accept what appeared to be the evidence of his

  senses. Would it not have seemed to him an even more grievous affront to

  rationality not to do so? I supposed that I, in his place, if I had had his

  background, and had known as little as he did about such things, might have been

  similarly impressed, if not convinced. Certainly many Goreans whom I regarded as

  much more intelligent than I took such things with great seriousness.

  “What have I done wrong? What have I done wrong?” moaned the ponderous fellow.

  He then put up the front panel and latched it to the side panel on the left.

  “What have I done wrong?” he moaned. He then hooked up the right side of the

  trunk. It attached to the front panel. “I do not understand it,” he moaned. He

  went to the back and lifted up the back panel and latched it to the side panels.

  He then reached down and put the wicker lid back on the trunk. “What have I done

  wrong?” he queried.

  “You did not call upon the magician!” cried a fellow.

  “What?” cried the ponderous fellow, startled.

  “No!” said the fellow in the audience. “Remember! You called out before,

  expressing a wish that you might be succored in your dilemma, that some magician

  might waft her away, if only for a moment, to teach her a little of what it was

  to be a slave girl!”

  “Yes!” said the ponderous fellow. “Yes! That is true!”

  “Perhaps the fellow from Anango, your friend,” said the man, “who is perhaps a

  magician, heard you and did as you asked, as a favor.”

  “Is it possible?” inquired the ponderous fellow.

  “It is possible!” averred the man.

  “What must I then do?” inquired the ponderous fellow.

  “Ask for her back!” said the man.

  “Certainly,” said another fellow in the audience.

  “Do you think he would return her?” asked the ponderous fellow.

  “Certainly,” said the fellow who had been attempting to be of help in this

  matter.

  “He is your friend,” another reminded him.

  “I think he is my friend,” said the ponderous fellow.

  “It is surely worth a try,” said the first fellow.

  The ponderous fellow then looked upward and called out, (pg. 263) “Oh, Saba

  Boroko Swaziloo, old chap, if you can hear me, and if it be you who has wafted

  away my little Litsia, perhaps for her instruction and improvement, please

  return her to me now!” Such names, of course, are nonsense, and are not really

  Anagan names but they do have several of the vowel sounds of such names, and,

  accordingly, upon occasions such as these, by fellows who are somewhat careless

  in such matters, are often prevailed upon to serve as such. It was highly

  unlikely, of course, that there would be any Anagans in the audience. I hoped

  not, at any rate, for the sake of the ponderous fellow.

  There was silence.

  “Nothing!” said the ponderous fellow, in disappointment. “Nothing!”

  There was suddenly a rocking and thumping from the wicker trunk. It shook on the

  trestles.

  “What is this?” cried the ponderous fellow, turning about.

  The trunk rocked back and forth.

  “Master!” came from within the trunk. “Master, oh, beloved Master, help me. I

  beg of you to help me, Master! Please, Master, if you can hear me, help me! Help

  me!”

  “Open it!” cried a man.

  “Open it!” called another.

  The ponderous fellow threw off the wicker, basketlike lid of the trunk and gazed

  within, then staggering back as though in astonishment.

  “Show us! Show us!” cried men.

  Swiftly, losing not a nonce, he undid the side latches and dropped the front

  panel of the trunk. There, in the trunk, framed by the sides and back, as men

  cried out in wonder and delight, was descried the slave, Litsia, now not only in

  the least of slave rags but in sirik.

  She was excitingly curvaceous, a dream of pleasure, such a sight as might induce

  a strong man to howl with joy, to dance with triumph.

  Those on the tiers rose to their feet, applauding.

  Yes, the woman was well turned. No longer now could there be the least doubt as

  to the promises of her lineaments. Almost might she have been on the block so

  little did her brief, twisted, scanty rages leave to the imagination of lustful

  brutes. And well did she move upon that wicker surface, in helpless

  desirability, in the grasp of the sirik, the metal on her neck, and on her

  wrists and ankles, the whole impeccably joined by its linkage of gleaming chain.

  “The magician had returned her!” said a man.

  (Pg. 264) “And she is in better condition than when he received her,” laughed a

  man.

  The ponderous fellow then, with a tug, tore away the bit of cloth which had

  provided its mockery of a shielding for her beauty and cast it aside.

  Men cheered.

  “It seems I have a new master,” said the girl, squirming a little, naked, to the

  audience.

  There was laughter.

  She was then pulled from the trunk and flunk to her knees on the stage.

  She, kneeling, in sirik, turned to the audience. “I now know I have a new

  master!” she said.

  There was more laughter.

  “Where have you been?” demanded the ponderous fellow.

  “I was in my palanquin,” she said. “Then, in the blinking of an eye, I was in

  the castle somewhere, stripped and in chains.”

  “In Anango, I wager,” said the ponderous fellow.

  “And at the feet of a magician!” she cried.

  “That would be my old friend, Swaziloo,” said the ponderous fellow.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think that is what he said his name was.”

  I was pleased that they had managed to get the name right the second time. I had

  known the ponderous fellow to slip up in such matters. The girl was not likely

  to make a mistake, of course. If she did so, she would probably be whipped.

  “And for what purpose were you transported to his castle?” asked the ponderous

  fellow.

  “To be taught, Master!” she said.

  “And were you taught?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master!” she said.

  Then, to the delight of the audience, she reached forth and, holding the

  fellow’s leg, and pressing herself against it, kissed him humbly, timidly,

  lovingly, about the thigh.

  “And I,” said the ponderous fellow, “may have learned something, too, about how

  to be a master.”

  There was then applause and cheering, and bows were taken by the troupe, the

  assistants and the ponderous fellow, and the girl, for her part, performing

  obeisance to the audience, and then, to the delight of the audience, being

  conducted off, in her chains, with tiny, short steps, no more permitted her by

  the linkage on her ankle rings, in a common slave girl leading (pg. 265)

  position, bent over at the wa
ist, drawn along at the master’s side by the hair.

  Marcus had been shaken by the performance.

  Afterward we were walking outside. We would not attend any more performances

  that evening, as the shows, and the street, would be soon closed, due to the

  curfew. Also, I had discovered what I had been searching for, the fellow I

  wished to contact.

  “I am puzzled by what I have seen,” he said.

  “In what way?” I asked.

  “Is he truly a magician, or in league with magicians?” asked Marcus.

  “Much depends on what you mean by ‘magician’,” I said.

  “You know what I mean,” said Marcus.

  “I do not think so,” I said.

  “One who can do magic,” said Marcus, irritably.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “I do not know if it is wise to use magic in such a way,” said Marcus, “for pay,

  as a show, for an audience.”

  “I do not understand,” I said.

  “Magic seems too strange and wonderful,” he said.

  “Why don’t they just make gold pieces appear instead?” I asked.

  “Yes, why not?” he asked.

  “Indeed, why not?” I said.

  “I do not understand the audience,” he said. “Some men laughed much, and did not

  seem to understand the momentousness of what was occurring. Some seemed to take

  it almost for granted. Others were more sensitive to the wonders they beheld.”

  “Dear Marcus,” I said, “such things are tricks. They are done to give pleasure,

  and amusement.”

  “The magician, or the magician, or magicians, the showman was in league with,”

  said Marcus, “obviously possess extraordinary powers.”

  “In a sense, yes,” I said, “and I would be the last to underestimate or belittle

  them. They have unusual powers. But you, too, have unusual powers. For example,

  you have unusual powers with tempered blades, with the steels of war.”

  “Such things,” said he, quickly, “are mere matters of blood, of instinct, of

  aptitude, of strength, of reflexes, of training, of practice. They are skills,

  skills.”

  “The magician, too,” I said, “has his skills. Let them be remarked and

  celebrated. Life is the richer for us that he has them. Let us rejoice in his

  achievements.”

  “I do not think I understand you,” said Marcus.

  (pg. 266) “Would you like to know how the tricks were done?” I asked.

  “Tricks,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “If I tell you, will you then value them less?”

  “ ‘Done’?” he said.

  “Surely you do not believe that a slave disappeared into thin air and then

  reappeared out of thin air in a wicker trunk, do you?”

  “Certainly it is difficult to believe,” said Marcus, “but surely I must believe

  it, it happened.”

  “Nonsense,” I said.

  “Did you not see what I saw?” he asked.

  “I suppose that in one sense I saw what you saw,” I said, “but in another sense

  I think it would be fair to say that I didn’t. At the very least, we surely

  interpreted what we saw very differently.”

  “I know what I saw,” said Marcus.

  “You know what you think you saw,” I said.

  “There could be no tricks,” said Marcus, angrily. “Not this time. Do not think I

  am naïve! I have heard of such things as trapdoors and secret panels! I have

  even heard of illusions done with mirrors! But those are not done by true magic.

  They are only tricks. I might even be able to do them. But this was different.

  Here, obviously, there could have been only true magic.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “I do not know that there is false magic, or only apparent magic, and false

  magicians, or only apparent magicians, but this was different.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “If there are so many false magicians,” said Marcus, “then there must be at

  least one true magician.”

  “Have you reflected upon the logic of that?” I asked.

  “Not carefully,” he said.

  “It might be well to do so,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” he said, irritatedly.

  “From the fact that most larls eat meat it does not follow that some larls do

  not,” I said. “Rather, if one were to hazard an inference in such a matter, it

  would seem rational to suppose that they all eat meat.”

  “And from the fact that most magicians may not do real magic one should not

  infer that therefore some do?”

  “That is it,” I said.

  “But some might!” he said, triumphantly.

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  (Pg. 267) “I grant you the logic of matter,” he said, “but in this case I must

  be granted the fact of the matter.”

  “What fact?” I asked.

  “That there is real magic!”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “Because tonight,” he said, “we witnessed not tricks, but genuine magic.”

  “What makes you think that?” I asked.”

  “You saw the slave in the palanquin,” he said. “It was moved about, it was

  lifted up in the air! Do you think the girl could have slipped through a

  trapdoor or something? There is no way that could have happened. Similarly the

  palanquin was moved about. Accordingly there could have been no mirrors.”

  “There could have been some,” I said.

  “Do you think it was done with mirrors?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “It was not done with mirrors.”

  “It was done by magic,” he said.

  “Not by what you seem to mean by ‘real magic’.” I said, “whatever that might

  be.”

  “How then do you think it was done?” he asked, angrily.

  “There were two illusions,” I said, “the first in which the girl disappeared

  from the palanquin, and the second in which she reappeared in the trunk.”

  “Or two wonders,” said Marcus, “the one of the palanquin and the other of the

  trunk.”

  “Very well,” I said. “You noted, of course, that the palanquin was roofed, or

  canopied, and that the roof or canopy was supported by four poles.”

  “Of course,” he said, warily.

  “Those poles are hollow,” I said, “and within them there are cords and weights.”

  “Continue,” said he.

  “The cords,” I said, “are attached at one end to the weights within the poles

  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

&nb
sp; 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

 

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