"The market was slow," admitted Imnak.
"But you are, too, a skillful bargainer," pointed out Ram.
Imnak shrugged modestly. "They did cost me five pelts," he said.
"Five pelts is nothing for such beauties," insisted Rain.
"Perhaps you are right," said Imnak. "At any rate they are now both in my bondage strings."
Barbara came to us and knelt before us. She looked at Ram. She carried a bowl of dried berries. Their eyes met over the bowl as she lifted it to him. He, without taking his eyes from her, thrust his hand into the bowl and scooped out a large handful of berries. She then rose lightly, sinuously, before him, and, turning her back, left. Ram watched her. She walked slowly, gracefully, away. She was intensely conscious of his eyes upon her. When she dared, she turned once and looked at him, then put her head down, smiling.
"They are good at pulling sleds," said Ininak.
"They have other utilities, too," I said.
"You may use either, of course," said Imnak, putting Thimble and Thistle, both, at Ram's disposal.
"Thank you," said Ram. "But neither of them commanded me at the wall."
He looked at Arlene, who knelt before us, a bit to the left. She shrank back.
"Meat," he said to her.
"I will fetch some," she said, starting to rise.
"Do not be a little fool," I said. "He means you."
"Oh," she said, frightened.
"Are you any good?" asked Ram.
"I do not know," she whispered. "Master will tell me."
Ram rose to his feet and walked over to the wall of the feasting house. There he threw off the lart-skin shirt he wore.
"With your permission, Imnak," said Ram, "I will try the others later."
"Use them whenever you wish," said Imnak. "Their use is yours."
Ram stood, waiting by the wall.
Arlene looked at me, frightened.
"Please him," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said. She made as though to rise.
"No," I said. "Crawl to him on your hands and knees."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"And please him well," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I turned my attention to the clearing in the feasting house. There there was miming going on. The hunters and the women clapped their hands and cried out with pleasure at the skill of the various mimera. Naartok was being a whale. This was the occasion of additional jests from the audience.
"Tarl, who hunts with me," said Imnak, seriously, "I am afraid."
"What are you afraid of?" I asked.
"The animal we saw," said Imnak, "was surely an ice beast."
"So?" I said.
"I fear Karjuk is dead," he said.
"Why do you say this?" I asked.
"Karjuk is the guard," he said. "He stands between the People and the ice beasts."
"I see," I said.
White-pelted Kurii are called ice beasts by the red hunters. These animals usually hunt from ice floes in the summer, generally far out at sea. Unlike most Kurii, they have an affinity for water, and are fond of it. In the winter, when the sea freezes, they occasionally rove inland. There are different races of Kur. Not much was known of the mysterious Karjuk, even among the red hunters, save that he was one of them. He was a strange man, who lived alone. He had no woman. He had no friends. He lived alone on the ice. He roved in the darkness, silent, with his lance. He stood between the People and the ice beasts. The Kur that I had seen outside the village, which had escaped with the slain snow sleen, had been white-pelted. I was confident, however, that it had been a ship Kur, and not a common ice beast. On the other hand, I was confident, too, that it must have come from the northern sea or the northern ice. Thus, presumably, it would have penetrated and passed through the territory in which Karjuk maintained his lonely outpost. That it had appeared this near the village suggested that it had either slipped by Karjuk or that it had found him, of all those Kurii which may have hunted him, and killed him.
"Perhaps the beast slipped past Karjuk," I suggested.
"I do not think an ice beast could slip past Karjuk," said Imnak. "I think Karjuk is dead."
A man was now being a sea sleen, swimming, before the group. He was quite skillful.
"I am sorry," I said.
Imnak and I sat together for a long time, not speaking.
Akko and Kadluk were then before the group. Akko was an iceberg, floating, drifting about, and Kadluk, pressing near and withdrawing, was the west wind. Akko, the iceberg, responded to the wind, heavily, sluggishly, turning slowly in the water.
Both were skillful.
There was much laughter and pleasure, and delight, taken in their performance.
Suddenly, as they finished their performance, there was a breath of chill air that coursed through the feasting house. All heads turned toward the door. But no one spoke. A man stood there, a red hunter, dark-visaged and lean, thin and silent. At his back there was a horn bow and a quiver of arrows; in his hand there was a lance and, held by cords, a heavy sack. He turned about and swung shut the door, and pulled down the hide across it. There was snow on his parka, for, apparently, snow had begun to fall outside during the feast. When he had closed the feasting house, he turned again to look upon the feasters.
Imnak's hand was hard upon my arm.
The man then put his weapons near the rear wall of the feasting hcuse and walked, carrying the sack he had brought with him, to the clearing on the dirt floor. There, not speaking, he shook loose from the sack, causing it to fall to the dirt, the head of a large, white-pelted Kur, an ice beast. In its ears were golden rings.
I looked at Imnak.
"It is Karjuk," he said.
24
We Hold Converse In The Hut Of Imnak; A Decision Is Reached; I Permit Arlene To Share My Furs
"It is fortunate for me, perhaps," said Ram, to Karjuk, in Imnak's hut, "that you were trailing the ice beast and managed to kill it." He looked at the severed head in the corner of the hut. "I would hate to meet it again."
Karjuk nodded, but did not speak.
He had cut the rings from the ears of the beast, and had given them, with Imnak's permission, to Poalu, who now wore them on her left wrist, as bracelets.
Before she had put them on her wrist I had held them, looking at them closely, and weighing them in my hand.
"Are you sure," I asked Ram, "that this is the head of the beast who attacked you?"
"Could there be more than one such beast," he asked, "with rings in its ears?"
"It does not seem likely," I admitted. I had examined the head with great care, the ears and the mouth in particular.
"I had followed the beast for days," said Karjuk. "I trailed it to where I encountered sled tracks, and blood in the snow, and the trampling of the snow by many feet."
"That would be where it had attacked my sleen and sled," said Ram, "and where the men from the village came to rescue me."
"I then trailed the beast further, some pasangs across the snow. It had been wounded twice, and was found feeding on the carcass of a snow sleen with harness marks in its fur."
"That then is the same beast," said Ram, "assuredly."
"I then slew it," said Karjuk.
I sipped my Bazi tea, and looked at him, over the rim of the bowl. He, too, looked at me, and sipped his tea.
The girls, Poalu, too, remained in the background, in case the men should need aught. The white-skinned girls did not go close to the severed head. Poalu, a woman of red hunters, had no fear or repulsion concerning the object. Bones, and blood and hide, and such things, were a part of her world.
"Have you heard aught, Karjuk," I asked, "of a mountain of ice, an ice mountain in the sea, which does not move?"
"In the winter," said Karjuk, "the mountains in the water do not move, for then the sea is frozen."
"Have you heard of such a mountain which does not move, even when the sea flows?" I asked.
"I
have not heard of such a mountain," he said.
"I told him there could be no such thing," said Imnak.
"But I have seen it," said Karjuk. He had spoken with the literalness of the red hunter.
We were all silent.
"There is such a thing?" said Imnak.
"Yes," said Karjuk. "It is far out to sea, but once, in sleen fishing, I paddled my kayak about it."
"Is it large?" I asked.
"Very large," he said.
"How can there be such a thing?" asked Imnak.
"I do not know," said Karjuk, "but I know it exists, for I have seen it."
"Have others, too, seen it?" I asked.
"Perhaps," said Karjuk, "I do not know."
"Could you take me to it?" I asked.
"It is far out on the ice now," he said.
"Could you take me to it?" I asked.
"Yes, if you wish," he said.
I put aside my tea. "Fetch my pouch," I said to Arlene. She hurried and brought the pouch to me.
I drew forth from the interior of the pouch the carved head of a Kur, wrought in bluish stone, that savage head with one ear half torn away.
"Is this your work?" I asked.
"Yes," said Karjuk, "I made that."
"Did you ever see such a beast?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Where?" I asked.
"Near the mountain that did not move," he said.
"Is it the head of an ice beast?" I asked.
"No," he said. "It was too darkly pelted to be an ice beast."
"Could you lead me soon to the mountain that does not move?" I asked.
"It is the night now," said Karjuk, "and the time of darkness. The ice is dangerous. It is at this time that the ice beasts sometimes come inland."
"Yet you will lead me there, will you not?" I asked. I smiled.
"Yes," said Karjuk, "if you wish."
"That is my wish," I said.
"Very well," said Karjuk.
"There will be little danger if Karjuk is with us," said Poalu. "He is the guard."
"I will come with you," said Imnak.
"You need not do that," I said.
Imnak looked at the severed head of the white-pelted Kur. It was difficult to read his face. "No," he said, "I will come with you."
Karjuk sipped his tea.
"I, too, of course, will accompany you," said Ram.
"Will you trade Bazi tea to the ice beasts?" I asked.
"I am coming," said Ram.
"Very well, my friend," I said. I looked at Karjuk. "When shall we leave?" I asked Karjuk.
"I must finish my tea," he said, "and then sleep. We may then leave."
"Would you like the use of any of my women?" asked Imnak of Karjuk. indicating Poalu, and Thimble and Thistle.
"Or the use of my pretty slave?" I asked, indicating Arlene.
Arlene drew back. She was frightened of the thin, dour Karjuk. Yet she knew that at my slightest word, should I speak it, she would have to serve him, fully, for she was slave.
Karjuk looked at Poalu, in the two golden bracelets, which had been rings in the ears of the slain Kur. The rings, as bracelets, were pretty on her small red wrist. She was a lovely red slave.
She drew back a bit.
"No," said Karjuk.
He finished his tea and then crawled into furs on the sleeping platform. The others, too, prepared to retire.
"Let us not bring the girls with us," I suggested to Imnak.
"No," said Imnak. "We will bring them. Who else will chew the ice from our boots, and sew for us, and boil meat and tend the lamps, and keep us warm in the furs?" He rolled over in the furs. "We will take snow sleen and women," he said.
"Very well," I said. I did not think, objectively, there would be great danger for the women. If what I suspected was true, uses would be found for them. They were all beautiful.
"Master," whispered Arlene.
"Yes," I said.
"May I crawl into your furs?" she asked.
"Are you cold?" I asked. She had her own furs. Sometimes she had to sleep alone, as when I was sleeping with Audrey or Barbara.
"No, Master," she whispered.
"Your need to serve a man is hot on you, Slave?" I asked.
"I am frightened," she said.
I held open the furs and let her creep into them, beside me. I held her, under the furs, in my arms. She trembled, small, against me.
"I'm frightened," she whispered, her face, so soft, against my chest.
"Of what are you frightened?" I asked.
"Of Karjuk," she said, "and of going out on the ice." She held me, closely. "What will you find there?" she asked.
"I do not know," I said.
"You search for the headquarters of those who were my superiors, do you not?' she asked.
"Yes," I said, "Slave."
"They must assuredly be dangerous," she said.
"Perhaps," I said.
"Avoid them then at all costs," she said. "Flee to the south," she whispered.
"Do you beg it?' I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"No," I said. "Your will means nothing."
She sobbed.
"Do you know the nature of those who were your superiors," I asked.
"No," she said.
"Look," I said to her, taking her head and turning it, so that she might see, in the dim light of the lamp, the head of the Kur. "They are much like that," I said.
She half choked with horror. "No," she said.
"It was such as they whom you, when free, served, my lovely slave beauty," I said.
"No, no," she whispered.
"But, yes," I smiled. "It is true."
"What will be done with you, if you fall into their hands?" she asked.
"I do not know," I said. "I suspect it would not be pleasant."
"What would they do with me, if I fell into their hands?" she asked.
"Perhaps you would be restored to all your rights and privileges," I said, "and would again become an operative for them."
"I failed them," she whispered.
"That is true," I said. "Perhaps they would find some other tasks for you to perform."
"Like what?" she asked.
"You would look well," I said, "in a wisp of slave silk and a steel collar."
"They would keep me as a slave?' she asked.
"I am sure you were brought to Gor, ultimately, to be a slave," I said. "You are too beautiful to be indefinitely left free."
She held me.
"Your beauty, you see," I said, "has a cost on this world. Its price is your freedom. Beauty, and exquisite femininity, such as yours, buys for itself on this world chains and a master."
"I am going to say something to you," she said, "which I had never thought I would say to a man."
"What is that?" I asked.
"I would love to wear your chains, Master," she whispered. Then she sobbed, shaken with the horror of this confession.
"Do not weep," I said. "It is only that you are a slave." I kissed her. "Would you lick and kiss your chains?" I asked.
"Do not make me do that," she begged, turning her head aside, weeping.
"It is not my intention to make you do that," I said.
"I do not know what I would do if you were to throw your chains to my feet," she said.
"I know what Audrey would do," I said.
"Yes," said Arlene, bitterly, "so do I, the little slut. She would kneel, and lift them, and lick and kiss them."
"I think so," I said.
"What a slave she is," said Arlene.
"Her intelligence," I said, "is fully comparable to yours, and may be superior," I said.
"That is what I cannot understand," said Arlene. "How can a woman of her intelligence be such a slave?"
"Perhaps her intelligence frees her to be more quickly and honestly responsive to her deepest needs," I said. "Perhaps she is quicker to recognize her deepest feelings, and more willing to accept them,
than a duller woman, or perhaps only a more constricted woman. Often the superior woman searches, lonely and frustrated, for a man superior to herself, who can be a full man to the hidden woman in her. Unfortunately many who could be a man to the woman in such a female do not, because of their training and conditioning, become so. When the superior woman does meet a man superior to herself, who will also, simply because he is a true man, put her in the authentic biological male/female relationship where she belongs, at his feet, she will generally, unless there are mitigating psychological reservations, functions of her own conditionings, submit herself joyfully to him as what is, for all practical purposes, his slave. On Gor, of course, men have not been conditioned against the authentic biological male/female relationship, at least where female slaves are concerned. Similarly, on Gor, a woman, collared, is not permitted psychological reservations or that sort of thing. Her will is nothing. Also, the society hecks the master. The girl has absolutely no one to call. She has absolutely nowhere to run. She has no recourse. She is an owned slave."
John Norman - Counter Earth12 Page 40