by John Norman
"I am familiar with such garments for the upper and lower body," I said. "They are worn in Torvaldsland and in other areas, generally in the northern latitudes."
"'Is it not obvious?' he asked. 'It is the carving of a naked slave girl kneeling before her master.' I was so embarrassed. 'Perhaps she is only a captive,' I said, angrily. 'Look,' he said, pointing. 'She wears a neck belt.' 'Oh,' I said. 'See its knot and disk,' he asked, 'the distinctive slave knot, and the disk, that identifying the master?' 'Yes,' I said. 'It is the neck belt of a slave,' he said. 'I see,' I said. 'She is a slave,' he said. 'Then,' I said, 'she would have to do what her master tells her.' He then, with two hands, removed my sunglasses. He looked directly into my eyes. 'Yes,' he said. I trembled, for, in that instant, he had looked upon me as a woman, one perhaps containing within herself a slave. He then turned me so that I must look again upon the carving of the subservient girl, the kneeling slave at the feet of her master. I then saw it in the bright and direct light of the sun. It was clear that she was lovely, even in the rudeness of the carving. On her throat was the neck belt of bondage, doubtless tied shut with a slave knot, and, fastened to it, identifying her, the disk of the master. How horrifying it is to look upon such a reality so directly. How much better it is to deny it, or to see it only, as through colored glass, through the softened, tinted lies of civilization. He then handed me back the sunglasses. 'Do not put them back on,' he said. How angry I was! Immediately, angrily, I put them back on."
"Continue," I said. "What occurred next in this dream?"
"That night, of course," she said, "I was captured, ruthlessly gagged and bound with black straps. For days I was carried into the jungle. I began to stink. My clothing, rotting from my sweat, and the heat and humidity, began to disintegrate on my body. Too, it was half torn away from snagging on thorns, and from the lashings of branches. In the beginning I was tied on a pole, carried on the shoulders of men. Then a sack was put over my head and I was thrown on my belly in a canoe. Then, later, at some point I did not recognize, after I had again been carried into the jungle, the sack was removed. I was then, hands tied behind me, marched before my captors. I stumbled before them for days. When I dallied I was beaten with sticks. At last we came to a clearing in the jungle. There was a city in this clearing. The architecture of the city was identical to that of the ruins we had earlier visited, but this city was not in ruins. It was a living city, populated, thriving, hidden in the jungle. It was not known what had become of the population of the city which had been permitted to fall into ruins. No marks of war or fire, or other forms of sudden destruction, had been discernible. Meals had apparently been left uneaten, and fires untended. At a given point, perhaps determined by their priests or chiefs, for no reason that is clear to us, the population, it seemed, had abandoned the city, marching away into the jungles. The fate of the population was one of anthropology's mysteries. I was thrust toward the city. I, perhaps alone of all white people, now understood, or thought I understood, what had become of the population of the city which, over centuries, had fallen into ruins. They had come here, it seemed, to this point in the jungle, and, here, had rebuilt their city. The numerous individuals, red men and women, in their colorful feathers and robes, on the walks and terraces of this city, maintaining their old way of life, it seemed, were their living descendants. Sticks, pushed against my back, guided me to a narrow doorway, leading into a room, carved out of living rock, in the base of what I took to be a temple. There four red girls, who were beautiful, were awaiting me. I was unbound and turned over to the four red girls, who treated me with great deference. They fed me and, gently removing the remains of my clothing, bathed me. They combed my hair and perfumed me. I was given golden sandals to wear and a single robe, high-collared, ornate, of brocaded gold. My old clothing, and my boots, which the girls, laughing, cut to pieces with small knives, were burned. Outside the doorway, with large, curved knives, stood two huge men, warriors, I suppose, on guard."
The blond-haired barbarian looked at me.
"Continue," I told her.
"That night they came for me," she said. "My hands were tied behind my back. Then two straps were put on my neck and, by two men, the girls following, I was led forth. I was conducted down a long street, between mighty buildings. Men and women followed me, with long-handled feathered fans. There was much singing. There were numerous torches, and drums. At the end of the street, before a group of men standing on the wide steps and the surface of a broad, stone platform, some ten feet in height, we stopped. The drums and singing, too, suddenly stopped. A sign was given, by one of the men on the height of the platform. The straps were removed from my neck. My hands were freed. I looked up at them. Another sign was given. The girls removed my sandals and then, gracefully, drew away my robe. I looked up again at the men. I was now stark naked. The man on the height of the platform, red, in his robes and feathers, regarded me for some time. Then, by nodding his head, and a simple gesture, he indicated his approval. There was a shout of pleasure from the crowd which made me shudder. My wrists were seized and a long thong was tied on each wrist. Men then began, by these wrist leashes, to drag me up the steps. The singing and drums had then again commenced. 'No!' I screamed, when I reached the top of the platform, for I then saw, before me, a large, oblong piece of stone, a massive, primitive stone altar, discolored with huge stains of dried blood, with iron rings. 'No! No!' I screamed. But I was lifted from my feet and, my back to the ground, screaming, carried by many men, was helplessly hurried to its surface. I was thrown on my back on the altar and my hands, by the wrist leashes, were fastened apart and over my head to iron rings. At the same time my legs, by the ankles, were jerked apart, painfully so. I felt thongs tied on my ankles. I cried out. My legs were pulled even more widely apart. Men strung the thongs on my ankles through the iron rings at the foot of the altar. I screamed. By the thongs my legs were drawn apart even more. I was then, as I wept and begged for mercy, fastened in that cruel position. The ceremony began. The priest, from a golden dish, lifted up a knife. It was long and translucent, eighteen inches in length, of slender, bluish stone. I twisted on the altar, under the torches. All about me were the robes and feathers, the savage red faces; the thongs bit deeply into the flesh of my wrists and ankles; the singing, the drums, began to intensify in crescendo; they became deafening; the priest lifted the knife. It was then that I saw him, sitting on an oblong pillar of stone, some eight feet in height, some forty feet from the altar. He was sitting cross-legged, watching, impassively. Though he now wore the robes and feathers of this savage people, I recognized him instantly. It was he who had been the guide of the tour in which I had been a member, that tour with which I had been visiting the ruins of the mysteriously abandoned city. It was he who had explained to me the meaning of the carving of the kneeling girl, who had told me not to replace my sunglasses, he whom I had disobeyed. 'Master!' I screamed to him. 'Master!'"
"'Master'?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "I called him 'Master'."
"Why?" I asked.
"I do not know," she said. "It startled me, that I should have called him that. Yet the utterance came naturally, helplessly, from deep within me, an irrepressible, incontrovertible acknowledgment."
"You called him 'Master'," I said, "because, in your heart, you knew that he was your master."
"Yes, Master," she said. "That is it. I suppose I had known from the first instant I had seen him that he was my master, and I was his slave, but how could I, an Earth woman, have admitted that, even to myself, let alone to the superb, red brute."
"What occurred then in the dream?" I asked.
"He lifted his hand and spoke out to the priest and the men about the altar.
"I lay there, helpless. He pointed to me and said something in his own tongue. I could tell that it was scornful.
"The priest, angrily, returned the knife of blue stone to the golden dish. Others, too, were angry. The thongs at my ankles were cut free. My wrist leashes were un
tied from the iron rings. The crowd began to become ugly. Many were the sullen mutterings I heard. Frightened, I supposed that these seeming animadversions, this obvious hostility, must be directed toward the fellow, obviously one in authority, whose intervention had interfered with the ceremony, indeed, at whose word the ceremony had come to an end. By a hand on my arm I was thrust from the altar. It seemed now they did not want me on the altar. I was struck by a man. I cowered. My wrist leashes were seized by two men and I was dragged before the pillar of oblong stone on which sat he to whom I had called out 'Master'. The anger of the men, and the crowd, I suddenly realized, was not directed at the red brute sitting upon the stone, who had stopped the ceremony, but, startlingly, frighteningly, at me. They were not angry with him for interfering with their ceremony, for literally stopping it, but somehow, for no reason I understood, with me. I shuddered, held naked by the wrist leashes before the stone, the object of the contempt and wrath, the scorn and fury, of the multitude. I, terrified, felt their hatred directed upon me, almost as though it came in waves. 'Why did you not tell us you were a slave?' he asked of me. He spoke in English. 'Forgive me, Master,' I begged. 'To our gods,' he said, 'the offer of a contemptible slave would be an insulting sacrifice.' 'Yes, Master,' I said. 'The first time I saw you,' he said, 'I thought you were a slave. Yet when I ordered you not to replace your sunglasses, you did so.' 'Forgive me, Master,' I said. 'Surely you know that any free man has authority over a slave girl?' he asked. 'Yes, Master,' I said. 'When you did not obey,' he said, 'I then thought perhaps that I had been mistaken about you, that perhaps you were not a slave, but a free woman, and thus might serve as a suitable sacrifice to our gods.' 'Yes, Master,' I said, my head lowered. 'But, as I had originally thought,' he said, 'you were only a slave.' 'Yes, Master,' I said. I did not raise my head. 'When I ordered you not to replace your sunglasses, you did so,' he said. 'Yes, Master,' I said. 'Why?' he asked. 'Forgive me, Master,' I said. 'You were disobedient,' he said. 'Yes, Master,' I said. 'Whip her,' he said."
The blond-haired barbarian looked at me.
"Continue," I said.
"There were two rings before the stone, about five feet apart," she said. "They knelt me down."
"Kneel down," I said, "precisely as in your dream."
"Yes, Master," she said. She knelt down. "My wrist leashes," she said, "were then slipped through the rings, the free ends of each in the hands of a standing man."
"It is interesting that that should be in your dream," I said. "It is a device for maintaining a differential tension in the body of a beaten girl."
"It seemed natural," she said.
"It is natural," I said. "Now place your wrists exactly as they were at the beginning of your beating."
"Yes, Master," she said. She extended her wrists downward and to the sides.
"What then occurred?" I asked.
"I was beaten," she said.
"How many strokes?" I asked.
"Eleven," she said. "Ten for disobedience, and one to remind me that I was a slave."
"Interesting," I said. "That, too, is sometimes done."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"You will now," I said, "count the strokes, and, after each count, react as you did in your dream."
"Yes, Master," she said.
I observed her. The beating, in her dream, had apparently been quite efficient. I studied her facial expressions, the movements of her body. Sometimes under the blows or in fearful anticipation of them she twisted or changed position, once sitting, sometimes crouching, once on her stomach; most of the blows were across her back, but two had been delivered frontally, and two to her left side, and one to her right side. In all this I was conscious, in her movements, of how the two men with the wrist leashes, tightening or slackening them, toyed and played with her, as one sometimes does with a slave, skillfully managing her in her beating.
"The beating was then finished?" I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Apparently you were well beaten," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, "I was well beaten."
"At the end of the beating you well knew that you were a slave," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, "I well knew then that I was a slave."
"What occurred then?" I asked.
"I cowered kneeling, sobbing, before my master," she said. "The men then thrust my wrist leashes back through the rings and, by means of them, dragged me to my feet. I looked up at my master, piteously, searching his face for the least sign of kindness. But there was none. I was a woman of a foreign and hated race, and a slave. 'You are a worthless slave,' he said. 'Yes, Master,' I wept. He gestured to his right. I was dragged to the side by the wrist leashes. Stumbling I saw before me a circular opening in the stone, like a sunken, sheer-sided pool some eight or nine feet in diameter. The men went to either side of the pool, dragging me by the wrist leashes toward it. I heard grunting and movement, and stirred water, in the pool. In the light of lifted torches I saw its contents. I screamed. In the pool, clambering over one another, lifting their jaws upward were crocodiles, beasts like river tharlarion but differently hided and plated."
I nodded. The marsh tharlarion, and river tharlarion, of Gor are, I suspect, genetically different from the alligators, caimans, and crocodiles of Earth. I suspect this to be the case because these Earth reptiles are so well adapted to their environments that they have changed very little in tens of millions of years. The marsh and river tharlarion, accordingly, if descended from such beasts, brought long ago to Gor on Voyages of Acquisition by Priest-Kings, would presumably resemble them more closely. On the other hand, of course, I may be mistaken in this matter. It remains my speculation, however, that the resemblance between these forms of beasts, which are considerable, particularly in bodily configuration and disposition, may be accounted for by convergent evolution; this process, alert to the exigencies of survival, has, I suspect, in the context of similar environments, similarly shaped these oviparous predators of two worlds. Certain other forms of Gorean beast, however, I suspect do have an Earth origin. This seems to be the case with certain birds and rodents and, possibly, even with an animal as important to the Gorean economy as the bosk.
"Struggling, trying to pull back, fighting the wrist leashes, screaming, inch by inch," she said, "I was drawn toward the pool. 'Master! Master!' I screamed. Then I was drawn to the very edge of the pool. I looked back wildly over my shoulder, sobbing. 'Please, Master!' I wept. 'Have mercy on me, Master! Mercy, Master, mercy! Take pity on a worthless slave!' The wrist leashes then tightened, to plunge me forward into the lifted, waiting, lunging jaws. I threw my head back. I do not know from where within me came then that piteous wild cry that I then uttered. 'Let me please you!' I cried. He must have given a sign, perhaps raising his hand, for the wrist leashes, tight on my small wrists, no longer pulled me forward, but neither did they let me move an inch back. 'Let your girl try to please you, Master!' I cried. 'The girl begs to please her master!' I could scarcely believe that I had uttered those words. I was horrified that I had said them. They were the words, surely, of a slave. Yet how naturally and spontaneously they had come from me! What could it mean? I was dragged back before the oblong stone. There my wrist leashes were removed. I ran, terrified, to the stone, and pressed myself against it. I scratched at it with my fingernails, and looked up at him. 'Do you desire to please your master?' he asked. 'Yes, Master,' I said. 'You are a slave?' he asked. 'Yes, Master.' 'And whose slave are you?' he asked. 'Yours, Master,' I said. 'I am your slave, Master!' 'And you desire to please your master?' he asked. 'Yes, Master!' I said. 'As a slave?' he asked. 'Yes, Master,' I said, 'as a slave.' 'Why?' he asked. 'Why?' I asked, startled, dismayed, terrified. 'Yes,' he said, 'Why?' 'Because I am a slave!' I cried. 'Because I am a slave! I am a slave! I am a slave! I am a slave!' 'It is clear,' he said, 'that you are now a slave. Were you a slave before?' 'Yes, Master,' I cried. 'Yes, Master! I was a slave before!' 'You understand that now?' 'Yes, Master!' 'But the men of
your culture did not enslave you, did they?' 'No, Master!' I wept. 'That was a mistake, was it not?' he asked. 'Yes, Master,' I said. 'You should have been enslaved, should not you have been?' he inquired. 'Yes, Master,' I said. 'But you are now enslaved, are you not?' 'Yes, Master.' 'And that is as it should be, is it not?' he asked. 'Yes, Master,' I said. 'Speak again what you are,' he said. 'Yes, Master,' I said. 'I am a slave, Master.' I looked at him. I now knew what the words I had uttered before had meant, those words which had so horrified me, and which, yet, had come so naturally and spontaneously from me. They had meant that I was truly a slave, and truly desired to please my master. Then, in my own heart, my slavery was well confirmed in me. 'I understand that you desire to please your master,' he said. 'Yes, Master,' I said. 'Attempt to do so,' he said. 'Attempt, Master?' I said, aghast. 'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, Master,' I said, and stepped back from the stone."
I listened to the noises of the jungle night. I threw some more twigs on the fire.
"'You understand clearly, do you not,' he asked, 'that if you are not sufficiently pleasing, you will be thrown to the crocodiles?' 'Yes, Master,' I said."
"Continue," I told her.
"I was terrified," she said. "I looked up at the brute. I knew that, if I were to live, I must please him, and please him well, and as a slave."
"What did you do?" I asked.
"I moved before him," she said, "as a slave."
"Do so now," I said, "precisely, in every detail, as you did in your dream."
"Ah!" she said. "How clever you are, Master. How cleverly you have tricked me!"
I regarded her, not speaking.
"It is again a matter of female display behaviors, is it not?" she asked.
"Of course," I said.