Priest-Kings of Gor coc-3

by John Norman

  In my heart something seemed to be speaking, but I could not dare to listen.

  Then I looked through the ruins of the palisade and over the fallen gate, at the smoke from the countless sacrificial fires that burned there, at the smoke from the swinging censers. No longer did it seem to pop apart and dissipate. Now it seemed to lift in slender strands towards the sky.

  A cry of joy escaped my lips.

  “What is it Cabot?” cried Vika.

  “Misk has won!” I cried. “We have won!”

  Not stopping even to set her on her feet I now raced in long, soft bounds towards the gate.

  As soon as I reached the gate I placed Vika on her feet.

  Before the gate, facing me, I saw the astonished throng.

  I knew that never before in the history of the planet had a man been seen to return from the Sardar.

  The Initiates, hundreds of them, knelt in long lines to the crags of the Sardar, to the Priest-Kings. I saw their shaven heads, their faces distraught in the bleak white of their robes, their eyes wide and filled with fear, their bodies trembling in the robes of their caste.

  Perhaps they expected me to be cut down by the Flame Death before their very eyes.

  Behind the Initiates, standing, as befits the men of other castes, I saw men of a hundred cities, joined here in the common fear and plea to the denizens of the Sardar. Well could I suppose the terror and upheavals that had brought these men, normally so divided against one another in the strife of their warring cities, to the palisade, to the dark shadows of the Sardar — the earthquakes, the tidal waves, the hurricanes and atmospheric disturbances, and the uncanny lessening of the gravitational attraction, the lessening of the bonding that held the very earth together beneath their feet.

  I looked upon the frightened faces of the Initiates. I wondered if the shaven heads, traditional for centuries with Initiates, held some distant connection, lost now in time, with the hygienic practices of the Nest.

  I was pleased to see that the men of other castes, unlike the Initiates, did not grovel. There were men in that crowd from Ar, from Thentis, from Tharna, recognised by the two yellow cords in their belt; from Port Kar; from Tor, Cos, Tyros; perhaps from Treve, Vika’s home city; perhaps even from fallen, vanished Ko-ro-ba; and the men in that crowd were of all castes, and even of castes as low as Peasants, the Saddle Makers, the Weaves, the Goat Keepers, the Poets and Merchants, but none of them grovelled as did the Initiates; how strange, I thought — the Initiates claimed to be most like Priest-Kings, even to be formed in their image, and yet I knew that a Priest-King would never grovel; it seemed the Initiates, in their efforts to be like gods, behaved like slaves.

  One Initiate stood on his feet.

  I was pleased to see that.

  “Do you come from Priest-Kings?” he asked.

  He was a tall man, rather heavy, with bland soft features, but his voice was very deep and would have been quite impressive in one of the temples of the Initiates, constructed to maximise the acoustical effects of such a voice. His eyes, I noted, in contrast with his bland features, his almost pudgy softness, were very sharp and shrewd. He was no man’s fool. His left hand, fat and soft wore a heavy ring set with a large, white stone, carved with the sign of Ar. He was, I gathered, correctly as it turned out, the High Initiate of Ar, he who had been appointed to fill the post of the former High Initiate whom I had seen destroyed by the Flame Death years earlier.

  “I come from the place of the Priest-Kings,” I said, raising my voice so that as many could hear as possible. I wanted to carry on no private conversation with this fellow, which he might later report as he saw fit.

  I saw his eye furtively flit to the smoke of one of the sacrificial fires.

  It was now ascending in a gentle swirl to the blue sky of Gor.

  He knew!

  He knew as well as I that the gravitational field of the planet was re-established.

  “I wish to speak!” I cried.

  “Wait,” he said, “oh welcome messenger of Priest-Kings!”

  I kept silent, waiting to see what he wanted.

  The man gestured with his fat hand and a white bosk, beautiful with its long, shaggy coat and its carved, polished horns, was led forward. Its shaggy coat had been oiled and groomed and colored beads were hung about it horns.

  Drawing a small knife from his pouch the Initiate cut a strand of hair from the animal and threw it into a nearby fire. Then he gestured to a subordinate, and the man, with a sword opened, opened the throat of the animal and it sank to its knees, the blood from its throat being caught in a golden laver held by a third man.

  While I waited impatiently two more men cut a thigh from the slain beast and this, dripping with grease and blood, was ordered cast upon the fire.

  “All else has failed!” cried the Initiate, weaving back and forth, his hands in the air. Then he began to mumble prayers very quickly in archaic Gorean, a language in which the Initiates converse among themselves and conduct their various ceremonies. At the end of this long but speedily delivered prayer, refrains to which were rapidly furnished by the Initiates massed about him, he cried, “Oh Priest-Kings, let this our last sacrifice turn aside your wrath. Let this sacrifice please your nostrils and now consent to hear our pleas! It is offered by Om, Chief among all the High initiates of Gor!”

  “No!” cried a number of other Initiates, the High Initiates of various other cities. I knew that the High Initiate of Ar, following the policies of the High Initiate before him, wished to claim hegemony over all other Initiates, and claimed to possess this already, but his claim, of course, was denied by the other High Initiates who regarded themselves as supreme in their own cities. I surmised that, pending some form of military victory of Ar over the other cities or some form of large-scale political victory of Ar over the other cities or some form of large-scale political reordering of the planet, the Initiate of Ar’s claims would remain a matter of dispute.

  “It is the sacrifice of all of us!” Cried one of the other High Initiates.

  “Yes!” cried several of the others.

  “Look!” cried the High Initiate of Ar. He pointed to the smoke which was now rising in an almost natural pattern. He jumped up once and came down, as though to illustrate a point. “My sacrifice has been pleasing to the nostrils of the Priest-Kings!” he cried.

  “Our sacrifice!” cried the other Initiates, joyfully.

  A wild, glad shout broke from the throats of the assembled multitude as the men suddenly began to understand that their world was returning to its normal order. There were thousands of cheers and cries of gratitude to the Priest-Kings.

  “See!” cried the High Initiate of Ar. He pointed to the smoke which, as the wind had changed somewhat, was now drifting toward the Sardar. “The Priest-Kings inhale the smoke of my sacrifice.

  “Our sacrifice!” insisted the other High Initiates.

  I smiled to myself. I could well imagine the antennae of the Priest-Kings shuddering with horror at the very thought of that greasy smoke.

  Then somewhat to his momentary embarrassment the wind shifted again and the smoke began to blow away from the Sardar and out toward the crowd.

  Perhaps the Priest-Kings are exhaling now, I thought to myself, but the High Initiate had more practise in the interpretation of signs than myself.

  “See!” he cried. “Now the Priest-Kings blow the breath of my sacrifice as a blessing upon you, letting it travel to the ends of Gor to speak of their wisdom and mercy!”

  There was a great cry of joy from the crowed and shouts of gratitude to the Priest-Kings.

  I had hoped that I might have used those moments, that priceless opportunity, before the men of Gor realised the restoration of gravity and normal conditions was occurring, to command them to give up their warlike ways and turn to the pursuit of peace and brotherhood, but the moment, before I realised it, had been stolen from me by the High Initiate of Ar, and used for his own purposes.

  Now as the crowd rejoiced
and began to disband I knew that I was no longer important, that I was only another indication of the mercy of the Priest-Kings, that someone — who had it been? — Had returned from the Sardar.

  At that moment I suddenly realised I was ringed by Initiates.

  Their codes forbade them to kill but I knew that they hired men of other castes for this purpose.

  I faced the High Initiate of Ar.

  “Who are you, Stranger?” he asked.

  The words for “stranger” and “enemy” in Gorean, incidentally, are the same word.

  “I am no one,” I said.

  I would not reveal to him my name, my caste, nor city.

  “It is well,” said the High Initiate.

  His brethren pressed more closely about me.

  “He did not truly come from the Sardar,” said another Initiate.

  I looked at him, puzzled.

  “No,” said another. “I saw him. He came from the crowd and only went within the ring of the palisade and wandered towards us. He was terrified. He did not come from the mountains.”

  “Do you understand?” asked the High Initiate.

  “Perfectly,” I said.

  “But it is not true,” cried Vika. “We were in the Sardar. We have seen Priest-Kings!”

  “She blasphemes,” said one of the Initiates.

  I cautioned Vika to silence.

  Suddenly I was very sad, and I wondered what would be the fate of humans from the Nest, if they should attempt to return to their cities or the world above. Perhaps, if they were silent, they might return to the surface, but even then, probably not their own cities, for the Initiates of their cities would undoubtedly recall that they had left for, and perhaps entered, the Sardar.

  With great suddenness I realised that what I knew, and what others knew, would make no difference to the world of Gor.

  The Initiates had their way of life, their ancient traditions, their given livelihood, the prestige of their caste, which they claimed to be the highest on the planet, their teachings, their holy books, their services, their role to play in the culture. Suppose that even now if they knew the truth — what would change? Would I really expect them — at least on the whole — to burn their robes, to surrender their claims to secret knowledge and powers, to pick up hoes of Peasants, the needles of the Cloth Workers, to bend their energies to the humble task of honest work?

  “He is an impostor,” said one of the Initiates.

  “He must dies,” said another.

  I hoped that those humans who returned from the Nest would not be hunted by Initiates and burned or impaled as heretics and blasphemers.

  Perhaps they would simply be treated as fanatics, as daft homeless wanderers, innocent in the madness of their delusions. Who would believe them? Who would take the word of scattered vagrants against the word of the mighty Caste of Initiates? And, if he did believe them, who would dare to speak out that he did so?

  The Initiates, it seemed, had conquered.

  I supposed many of the humans might even return to the Nest, where they could live and love and be happy. Others, perhaps to keep the skies of Gor over their head, might confess to deceit; but I suspected there would be few of those; yet I was sure that there would indeed be confessions and admissions of guilt, from individuals never within the Sardar, but hired by Initiates to discredit the tales of those who returned. Most who had returned from the Sardar would, eventually at least, I was sure, try to gain admittance in new cities, where they were not known, and attempt to work out new lives, as though they did not keep in their hearts the secret of the Sardar.

  I stood amazed at the greatness and smallness of man.

  And then with shame I realised how nearly I myself had come to betraying my fellow creatures. I had intended to make use of that moment myself, pretending to have come with a message from Priest-Kings, to encourage man to live as I wished him to live, to respect himself and others, to be kind and to be worthy of the heritage of a rational animal, and yet of what worth would these things be if they came not from the heart of man himself, but from his fear of Priest-Kings or his desire to please them? NO, I would not try to reform man by pretending that my wishes for him were the wishes of Priest-Kings, even though this might be effective for a time, for the wishes that reform man, that make him what he is capable of becoming, and has not yet become, must be his own and not those of another. If man rises, he can do so only on his own two feet.

  And I was thankful that the High Initiate of Ar had interfered.

  I thought how dangerous might be the Initiates if, intertwined with their superstitious lore and their numerous impressive ceremonies, there had been a truly moral message, something that might have spoken to the nobility of men.

  The High Initiate of Ar gestured to the others who crowded about, pressing in on me.

  “Stand back,” he said, and he was obeyed.

  Sensing that he wished to speak to me I asked Vika to withdraw somewhat, and she did so.

  The High Initiate of Ar and myself regarded one another.

  Suddenly I did no feel him as an enemy any longer and I sensed that somehow he did not regard me either as a threat or foe.

  “Do you know of the Sardar?” I asked him.

  “Enough.” he said.

  “Then why?” I asked.

  “It would be hard for you to understand,” he said.

  I could smell the smoke from the burning thigh of the bosk as it hissed and popped on the sacrificial fire.

  “Speak to me.” I said.

  “With most,” he said, “it is as you think, and they are simple, believing members of my caste, and there are others who suspect the truth and will pretend — but I, Om, High Initiate of Ar, and certain of the High Initiates are like none of these.”

  “And how do you differ?” I asked.

  “I — and some others —” he said, “wait for man.” He looked at me. “He is not yet ready.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “To believe in himself,” said Om, incredibly. He smiled at me. “I and others have tried to leave open the gap that he might see and fill it — and some have — but not many.”

  “What gap is this?” I asked.

  “We speak not to man’s heart,” said Om, “but only to his fear. We do not speak of love and courage, and loyalty and nobility — but of practice and observance and the punishment of the Priest-Kings — for if we so spoke, it would be that much harder for man to grow beyond us. Thus, unknown to most members of my caste, we exist to be overcome, thus in our way pointing the way to man’s greatness.”

  I looked at the Initiate for a long time, and wondered if he spoke the truth. These were the strangest things I had heard from the lips of an Initiate, most of whom seemed interminably embroiled in the rituals of their caste, in the arrogance and archaic pedantry of their kind.

  I trembled for a moment, perhaps from the chill winds sweeping down the Sardar.

  “It is for this reason,” said the man, “that I remain and Initiate.”

  “There are Priest-Kings,” I said at last.

  “I know,” said Om, “but what have they to do with what is most important for man?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “I suppose,” I said, “— very little.”

  “Go in peace,” said the Initiate, stepping aside.

  I extended my hand to Vika and she joined me.

  The High Initiate of Ar turned to the other Initiates about.

  He raised his voice. “I saw no one emerge from the Sardar,” he said.

  The other Initiates regarded us.

  “Nor did I,” said several of them.

  They parted, and Vika and I walked between them, and through the ruined gate and palisade which had once encircled the Sardar.

  Chapter Thirty Four

  MEN OF KO-RO-BA

  “MY FATHER!” I CRIED. “My father!”

  I rushed to the arms of Matthew Cabot who, weeping, caught me in his arms and held me as though he might
never let me go.

  Once again I saw the strong, lined face, that square jaw, that wild, flowing mane of fiery hair so much like my own, that spare, ready frame, those gray eyes, now rimmed with tears.

  I felt a sudden blow on my back and nearly lost my breath and twisted to see the gigantic brawny Older Tarl, my former Master at Arms, who clapped me on the shoulders, his hands like the talons of tarns.

  There was a tugging at my sleeve and a blubbering and I looked down and nearly poked a scroll in my eye which was carried by the small blue-clad figure at my side.

  “Torm!” I cried.

  But the little fellow’s sandy hair and pale, watery eyes were hidden in the vast sleeve of his blue robe as he leaned against my side and wept unabashedly.

  “You will stain your scroll,” I cautioned him.

  Without looking up or missing a sob he shifted the scroll to a new position under his other arm.

  I swept him off his feet and spun him around and the robes flew from his head and Torm of the Caste of Scribes cried aloud in joy and that sandy hair whoofed in the wind and tears ran sideways down his face and he never lost hold of the scroll although he nearly batted the Older Tarl with it in one of his orbits and then he began to sneeze and I gently put him down.

  “Where is Talena!” I begged my father.

  Vika, as I scarcely noted, stepped back when I had said this.

  But in that instant my joy was gone, for my father’s face became grave.

  “Where is she!” I demanded.

  “We do no know,” said the Older Tarl, for my father could not bring himself to say the words.

  My father took me by the shoulders. “My son,” he said,” he said, “the people of Ko-ro-ba were scattered and none could be together and no stone of that city might stand upon another stone.”

  “But you are here,” I said, “three men of Ko-ro-ba.”

  “We met here,” said the Older Tarl, “and since it seemed the world would end we decided that we would stand together one last time — in spite of the will of Priest-Kings — that we would stand together one last time as men of Ko-ro-ba.”