by John Norman
I began to sweat.
I watched the great board. It was as I had feared. On his seventh move Centius of Cos advanced his Rider of the High Tharlarion to Ubara’s Builder three. This would prepare for Builder to Builder two, and, on the third move, for placement of Home Stone at Builder one.
The crowd was suddenly quiet. They, too, realized what I had just realized.
Anxiously we studied the board.
If Scormus wished to place his Home Stone at either Ubar’s Builder one or Ubara’s Builder one, it would take three moves to do so. It would also take three moves if he wished to place it at Ubar’s Initiate one, or at Ubara’s Scribe one, Ubara’s Builder one or Ubara’s Initiate one. He could place the Home Stone, of course, in two moves, if he would place it at Ubar’s Tarnsman one, or Ubar’s Scribe one, or Ubar one, or Ubara one, or Ubara’s Tarnsman one. But these placements permitted within two moves left the Home Stone too centralized, too exposed and vulnerable. They were not wise Placements.
Already, though he had red. Centius of Cos was moving to place his Home Stone.
Now, on his eighth move, Scormus of Ar angrily advanced his Rider of the High Tharlarion to Builder three. His attack must be momentarily postponed.
On his own eighth move Centius of Cos advanced his Ubara’s Builder to Builder two, to clear Builder one for placement of Home Stone.
On his ninth move Scormus of Ar, following suit, advanced his Ubara’s Builder to Builder two, to open Builder one for the positioning of the Home Stone on the tenth move.
We watched the great board.
Centius of Cos placed his Home Stone at his Ubara’s Builder one. He had done this on his ninth move. It needed not be done before the tenth move. His tenth move was now free, to spend as he would.
Scormus of Ar, on his tenth move, inexplicably to many in the crowd, though he possessed yellow, a move behind, placed his Home Stone at Builder one.
The two Home stones, at their respective locations, faced one another, each shielded by its several defending pieces, Scribe and Initiate, one of the central spearmen, a flanking spearman, a Builder, a Physician, and a Rider of the High Tharlarion.
Scormus might now renew his attack.
“No,” I cried suddenly. “No, look!”
I rose to my feet. There were tears in my eyes. “Look!” I wept. “Look!”
The man next to me saw it, too, and then another, and another.
Men of Cos seized one another, embracing. Even men of Ar cried out with joy.
Red’s Ubar’s Initiate controlled the Ubar’s Initiate’s Diagonal; the red Ubara controlled the Ubar’s Physician’s Diagonal; the red Ubar controlled the Ubar’s Builder’s Diagonal; the Ubar’s Scribe controlled the Ubar’s Scribe’s Diagonal. Red controlled not one but four adjacent diagonals, unobstructed diagonals, each bearing on the citadel of yellow’s Home Stone; the red Ubara threatened the Ubara’s Scribe’s Spearman at Ubara’s Scribe two; the Initiate threatened the Ubara’s Builder at Builder two, positioned directly before yellow’s Home Stone; the Ubar threatened the Rider of the High Tharlarion at Builder three; the Scribe threatened the Ubara’s Flanking Spearman at Ubara’s Initiate three. I had never seen such power amassed so subtly in Kaissa. The attack, of course, was not on the Ubar’s side but on the side of the Ubara, where Scormus had placed his Home Stone. Moves which had appeared to weaken red’s position had served actually to produce an incredible lead in development; moves which had appeared meaningless or defensive had actually been deeply insidious; the timorous feint to the Ubar’s side by red with the Ubara and Ubar had, in actuality, prepared a trap in which Scormus had little choice but to place his Home Stone.
On his tenth move Centius of Cos moved his Rider of the High Tharlarion, which had been at Builder three, obliquely to Builder four. This opened the file of the Builder. The power of this major piece now, in conjunction with the might of the Ubar, focused on yellow’s Rider of the High Tharlarion. The attack had begun.
I shall not describe the following moves in detail. There were eleven of them.
On what would have been his twenty-second move Scormus of Ar, saying nothing, rose to his feet. He stood beside the board, and then, with one finger, delicately, tipped his Ubar. He set the clocks on their side, stopping the flow of sand, turned, and left the stage.
For a moment the crowd was silent, stunned, and then pandemonium broke out. Men leaped upon one another; cushions and caps flew into the air. The bowl of the amphitheater rocked with sound. I could scarcely hear myself shouting. Two men fell from the tier behind me. I scrambled onto my tier, straining to see the stage. I was buffeted to one side and then the other.
One of the men of the party of Cos which had now returned to the stage stood on the table of the game, the yellow Home Stone in his grasp. He lifted it to the crowd. Men began to swarm upon the stage. The guards could no longer restrain them. I saw Centius of Cos lifted to the shoulders of men. He lifted his arms to the crowd, the sleeves of the player’s robes falling back on his shoulders. Standards and pennons of Cos appeared as if from nowhere. On the height of the rim of the amphitheater a man was lifting the standard of Cos, waving it to the crowds in the fields and streets below.
The stage was a melee of jubilant partisans.
I could not even hear the shouting of the thousands outside the amphitheater. It would later be said the Sardar itself shook with sound.
“Cos! Cos! Cos!” I heard, like a great drumming, like thunderous waves breaking on stone shores.
I struggled to keep my place on the tier.
Pieces were being torn away from the great board. One sleeve of the robe of Centius of Cos had been torn away from his arm.
He waved to the crowds.
“Centius! Centius! Centius!” I heard. Soldiers of Cos lifted spears again and again. “Centius! Cos!” they cried. “Centius! Cos!”
I saw the silvered hair of Centius of Cos, unkempt now in the broiling crowd. He reached toward the man on the table who held aloft the yellow Home Stone. The man pressed it into his hands.
There was more cheering.
Reginald of Ti was attempting to quiet the crowds. Then he resigned himself to futility. The tides of emotion must take their course.
Centius of Cos held, clutched, in his hand, the yellow Home Stone. He looked about in the crowd, on the stage, as though he sought someone, but there was only the crowd, surgent and roiling in its excitement and revels.
“Cos! Centius! Cos! Centius!”
I had lost fourteen hundred tarns of gold. Yet I did not regret the loss nor did it disturb me in the least. Who would not cheerfully trade a dozen such fortunes to witness one such game.
“Centius! Cos! Centius! Cos!”
I had, in my own lifetime, seen Centius of Cos and Scormus of Ar play.
On the shoulders of men., amidst shouting and the upraised standards and pennons of Cos I saw silver-haired Centius of Cos carried from the stage.
Men were reluctant to leave the amphitheater. I made my way toward one of the exits. Behind me I could hear hundreds of men singing the anthem of Gas.
I was well pleased that I had come to the Sardar.
It was late now in the evening of that day on which Centius of Cos and Scormus of Ar had met in the great amphitheater. There seemed little that was discussed in the fair that night save the contest of the early afternoon.
“It was a flawed and cruel game,” Centius of Cos was reported as having said.
How could he speak so of the masterpiece which we had witnessed?
It was one of the brilliancies in the history of Kaissa.
“I had hoped,” had said Centius of Cos, “that together Scormus and I might have constructed something worthy of the beauty of Kaissa. But I succumbed to the temptation of victory.”
Centius of Cos, it was generally understood, was a strange fellow.
“It was the excitement, the press, the enthusiasm of the crowds,” said Centius of Cos. “I was weak. I had determined to
honor Kaissa but, on the first move, I betrayed her. I saw, suddenly, in considering the board what might be done. I did it, and followed its lure. In retrospect I am saddened. I chose not Kaissa but merciless, brutal conquest. I am sad.”
But any reservations which might have troubled the reflections of the master of Cos did not disturb those of his adherents and countrymen. The night at the fair was one of joy and triumph for the victory of Cos and her allies.
His response to Ubara’s Spearman to Ubara’s Spearman five, sequential, in its continuation, was now entitled the Telnus Defense, from the city of his birth, the capital and chief port of the island of Cos. Men discussed it eagerly. It was being played in dozens of variations that very night on hundreds of boards. In the morning there would be countless analyses and annotations of the game available.
On the hill by the amphitheater where sat the tent of Centius of Cos there was much light and generous feasting. Torches abounded. Tables were strewn about and sheets thrown upon the ground. Free tarsk and roast bosk were being served, and Sa-Tarna bread and Ta wine, from the famed Ta grapes of the Cosian terraces. Only Centius of Cos, it was said, did not join in the feasting. He remained secluded in the tent studying by the light of a small lamp a given position in Kaissa, one said to have occurred more than a generation ago in a game between Ossius of Tabor, exiled from Teletus, and Philemon of Asperiche, a cloth worker.
On the hill by the amphitheater, where sat the tent of the party of Ar, there was little feasting or merriment. Scormus of Ar, it was said, was not in that tent. After the game he had left the amphitheater. He had gone to the tent. He was not there now. No one knew where he had gone. Behind him he had left a Kaissa board, its kit of pieces, and the robes of the player.
I turned my thoughts from Centius of Cos and Scormus of Ar. I must now think of returning to Port Kar.
There was little now to hold me at the fair. Overhead, with some regularity, I saw tarns streaking from the fair, many with tarn baskets slung beneath them, men and women returning to their cities. More than one caravan, too, was being harnessed. My own tarn was at a cot, where I had rented space for him.
I thought that I would leave the fair tonight. There seemed little point now in remaining at the fair.
I thought of the ship of Tersites, its high prow facing toward the world’s end. That unusual, mighty ship would soon be supplied and fitted. It could not yet see. Its eyes had not yet been painted. This must be done. It would then be ready to seek the sea and, beyond it, the world’s end.
I was troubled as I thought of the great ship. I was troubled as I thought of the world’s end. I was not confident of the design of the ship. I thought I might rather ply toward the horizon beckoning betwixt Cos and Tyros in the Dorna or the small, swift Tesephone.
Tersites, it was clear, was mad. Samos thought him, too, however, a genius.
Oddly, for there seemed no reason for it, I found myself thinking, in a mentally straying moment, of the herd of Tancred, and its mysterious failure to appear in the polar basin. I hoped the supplies I had sent north would mitigate what otherwise might prove a catastrophe for the red hunters, the nomads of the northern wastes. I recalled, too, the myth of the mountain that did not move, a great iceberg which somehow seemed to defy the winds and currents of the polar sea. Many primitive peoples have their stories and myths. I smiled to myself. It was doubtless rather the invention of a red hunter, bemused at the request of the man of Samos, months ago, for reports of anything which might prove unusual. I wondered if the wily fellow had chuckled well to himself when placing the tarsk bit in his fur pouch. Seldom would his jokes and lies prove so profitable I suspected. The foolishness of the man of Samos would make good telling around the lamp.
I was making my way toward the tarn cot where I had housed the tarn on which I had come to the fair, a brown tarn, from the mountains of Thentis, famed for its tarn flocks. My belongings I had taken there earlier, putting them in the saddlebags. I had had supper.
I was looking forward to the return to Port Kar. It is beautiful to fly alone by night over the wide fields, beneath the three moons in the black, star-studded sky. One may then be alone with one’s thoughts, and the moons, and the wind. It is beautiful, too, to so fly, with a girl one has desired, bound over one’s saddle, tied to the saddle rings, commanded to silence, her white belly arched, exposed to the moons.
I turned down the street of the rug makers.
I was not dissatisfied with my stay at the fair and I did not think my men would be either.
I smiled to myself.
In my pouch were the receipts and shipping vouchers for five slave girls, she whom I had purchased at the public tent this morning and four others, recently acquired on the platforms near the pavilion. I had had good buys on the four, as well as the first. A new shipment had come in, from which I had bought the four. I had had almost first pick of the chain beauties. The market had been slow, as I had thought it would be, and as I had hoped it would be, because of the game earlier between the Kaissa titans, Centius of Cos and Scormus of Ar. Indeed the market had been almost empty, save for the displayed wares and their merchants. The girls must wait, chained, for buyers, while men discuss Kaissa. The four I had purchased I had obtained from the platforms of Leander of Turia. His caravan had been delayed in arriving at the Sardar because of spring floods on the Cartius. None of the girls was an Earth wench. All were Gorean. Each was woman enough to survive when thrown naked and collared among men such as mine. I had had the lot for a silver tarsk, a function of the slowness of the market, a slowness which I had anticipated and on which I had been pleased to capitalize. I happily slapped the pouch at my side which contained the receipts for the fair merchandise and the shipping vouchers. My favorite I thought would be the girl I had bought from the public tent. She could not help herself but turn hot and open when a man’s hand so much as closed on her arm. What marvelous slaves women make, when men are strong.
I turned down the street of the cloth makers now. Most of the booths were closed.
I thought again of the herd of Tancred, which had not appeared in the north, and of the “mountain that did not move,” the great iceberg which seemed, somehow, independent and stable, maintaining its position, fixed and immobile, in the midst of the restless, flowing waters of the polar sea. But I dismissed consideration of the latter, for that was obviously a matter of myth. That the herd of Tancred, however, had not appeared in the north seemed to be a matter of fact, a puzzling anomaly which, in Gorean history, had not, as far as I knew, hitherto occurred.
The herd has perhaps been wiped out by a disease in the northern forests.
I hoped the supplies I had had Samos send northward would save the red hunters from extinction.
I made my way down the street of the cloth makers. There were few people in the street now.
The ship of Tersites intrigued me. I wondered if its design was sound.
“Greetings to Tarl Cabot,” had read the message on the scytale, “I await you at the world’s end. Zarendargar. War General of the People.”
“It is Half-Ear,” had said Samos, “high Kur, war general of the Kurii.”
“Half-Ear,” I thought to myself. “Half-Ear.”
Eyes must be painted on the ship of Tersites. It must sail.
It was then that I heard the scream, a man’s scream. I knew the sound for I was of the warriors. Steel, unexpectedly and deeply, had entered a human body. I ran toward the sound. I heard another cry. The assailant had struck again. I tore aside a stake on which canvas was sewn and forced my way between booths. I thrust aside boxes and another sheet of canvas and stumbled into the adjacent street. “Help!” I heard. I was then in the street of the dealers in artifacts and curios. “No!” I heard. “No!” Other men, too, were hurrying toward the sound. I saw the booth, closed, from which the sounds came. I tore aside the roped canvas which, fastened to the counter and to the upper framework of the booth, closed off the selling area. Inside, crouching over a fall
en man, the merchant, was the attacker, robed in swirling black. In his hand there glinted a dagger. Light in the booth was furnished by a tiny lamp, dim, burning tharlarion oil, hung from one of the booth’s ceiling poles. The merchant’s assistant, the scribe, his face and arm bleeding, stood to one side. The attacker spun to face me. In his hand, his left, he clutched an object wrapped in fur; in his right he held the dagger, low, blade up. I stopped, crouched, cautious. He had turned the dagger in his hand as he had turned to face me. It is difficult to fend against the belly slash.
I must approach him with care.
“I did not know you were of the warriors, he who calls himself Bertram of Lydius,” I smiled. “Or is it of the assassins?”
The struck merchant, bleeding, thrust himself back from the attacker.
The attacker’s eyes moved. There were more men coming. Gorean men tend not to be patient with assailants. Seldom do they live long enough to be impaled upon the walls of a city.
The assailant’s hand, that bearing the object of his quest, some curio wrapped in fur, flashed upward, and I turned my head aside as flaming oil from the lamp splashed upon me, the lamp itself struck loose from its tiny chains and flying past my head. I rolled to one side in the sudden darkness, and then scrambled to my feet. But he had not elected to attack. I heard him at the back of the booth. I heard the dagger cutting at the canvas. He had elected flight, it seemed. I did not know this for certain, but it was a risk I must take. Darkness would be my cover. I dove at the sound, low, rolling, to be under the knife, feet first, presenting little target, kicking, feet scissoring. If I could get him off his feet I might then manage, even in the darkness, regaining my feet first, to break his diaphragm or crush his throat beneath my heel, or, with an instep kick to the back of his neck to snap loose the spinal column from the skull.
But he had not elected flight.
The cutting at the canvas, of course, had been a feint. He had shown an admirable coolness.
But I had the protection of the darkness. He, waiting to one side, leaped downward upon me, but I, twisting, squirming, proved an elusive target. The blade of the dagger cut through the side of the collar of my robes and my hand then was on his wrist.