Priest-Kings of Gor coc-3

by John Norman

  I looked down at the little scribe, Torm, who had stopped sneezing, and was now wiping his nose on the blue sleeve of his robes. “Even you, Torm?” I asked.

  “Of course,” said Torm, “after all a Priest-King is only a Priest-King.” He rubbed his nose meditatively. “Of course,” he admitted, “that is quite a bit to be.” He looked up at me. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose that I am brave.” He looked at the Older Tarl. “You must not tell other members of the Caste of Scribes,” he cautioned.

  I smiled to myself. How clearly Torm wished to keep caste lines and virtues demarcated.

  “I will tell everyone,” said the Older Tarl kindly, “that you are the bravest of the Caste of Scribes.”

  “Well,” said Torm, “thus qualified, perhaps the information will do no harm.”

  I looked at my father. “Do you suppose Talena is here?” I asked.

  “I doubt it,” he said.

  I knew how dangerous it would be for a woman to travel unattended on Gor.

  “Forgive me, Vika,” I said, and introduced her to my father, to the Older Tarl and Torm, the Scribe, and explained briefly as I could what had befallen us in the Sardar.

  My father, the Older Tarl and Torm listened amazed to my account of the truths of the Sardar.

  When I had finished I looked at them, to see if they believed me.

  “Yes,” said my father, “I believe you.”

  “And I,” said the Older Tarl.

  “Well,” said Torm, thoughtfully, for it did not behove a member of his caste to volunteer an opinion too rapidly on any matter, “it does not contradict any text with which I am familiar.”

  I laughed and seized the little fellow by the robes of his caste and swung him about.

  “Do you believe me?” I asked.

  I swung him about by the hood of his garment twice more.

  “Yes!” he cried. “I do! I do!”

  I set him down.

  “But are you sure?” he asked.

  I reached for him again and he leaped backwards.

  “I was just curious,” he said. “After all,” he muttered, “it is not written down in a text.”

  This time the Older Tarl lifted him up by the scruff of his robes and held him dangling, kicking, a foot from the ground. “I believe him!” cried Torm. “I believe him!”

  Once safely down Torm came over to me and reached up and touched my shoulder.

  “I believed you,” he said.

  “I know,” I said, and gave his sandy-haired head a rough shake. He was, after all, a Scribe, and had the properties of his caste to observe.

  “But,” said Matthew Cabot, “I think it would be wise to speak little of these matters.”

  All of us agreed to this.

  I looked at my father. “I am sorry.” I said, “That Ko-ro-ba was destroyed.”

  My father laughed. “Ko-ro-ba was not destroyed,” he said.

  I was puzzled, for I myself had looked upon the valley of Ko-ro-ba and had seen that the city had vanished.

  “Here,” said my father, reaching into a leather sack that he wore slung about his shoulder, “is Ko-ro-ba,” and he drew forth the small, flat Home Stone of the city, in which Gorean custom invests the meaning, the significance, the reality of a city itself. “Ko-ro-ba cannot be destroyed,” said my father, “for its Home Stone has not perished!”

  My father had taken the Stone from the City before it had been destroyed. For years he had carried it on his own person.

  I took the small stone in my hands and kissed it, for it was the Home Stone of the city to which I had pledged my sword, where I had ridden my first tarn, where I had met my father after an interval of more than twenty years, where I had found new friends, and to which I had taken Talena, my love, the daughter of Marlenus, once Ubar of Ar, as my Free Companion.

  “And here, too is Ko-ro-ba,” I said, pointing to the proud giant, the Older Tarl, and the tiny, sandy-haired scribe, Torm.

  “Yes,” said my father, “here too is Ko-ro-ba, not only in the particles of its Home Stone, but in the hearts of its men.”

  And we four men of Ko-ro-ba clasped hands.

  “I understand,” said my father, “from what you have told us, that now once more a stone may stand upon a stone, that two men of Ko-ro-ba may once again stand side by side.”

  “Yes,” I said, “that is true.”

  My father and the Older Tarl and Torm exchanged glances. “Good,” said my father, “for we have a city to rebuild.”

  “How will we find others of Ko-ro-ba?” I asked.

  “The word will spread,” said my father, “and they will come in twos and threes from all corners of Gor, singing each carrying a stone to add to the walls and cylinders of their city.”

  “I am glad,” I said.

  I felt Vika’s hand on my arm. “I know what you must do, Cabot,” she said. “And it is what I want you to do.”

  I looked down at the girl from Treve. She knew that I must search out Talena, spend my life need be in the quest for she whom of all women I had chosen for my Free Companion.

  I took her in my arms and she sobbed. “I must lose all,” she wept. “All!”

  “Do you wish me to stay with you?” I asked.

  She shook the tears from her eyes. “No,” she said. “Seek the girl you love.”

  “What will you do?” I asked.

  “There is nothing for me,” said Vika. “Nothing.”

  “You may return to Ko-ro-ba, I said. “My father and Tarl, the Master-of-Arms, are two of the finest swords on Gor.”

  “No,” she said, “for in your city I would think only of you and if you should return there with your love, then what should I do?” she shook with emotion. “How strong do you think I am, dear Cabot?” she asked.

  “I have friends in Ar,” I said, “even Kazrak, the Administrator of the City. You can find a home there.”

  “I shall return to Treve,” said Vika. “I shall continue there the work of a physician from Treve. I know much of his craft and I shall learn more.”

  “In Treve,” I said, “you might be ordered slain by members of he cast of Initiates.”

  She looked up.

  “Go to Ar,” I said. “You will be safe there,” And I added, “And I think it will be a better city for you than Treve.”

  “Yes Cabot,” she said, “you are right. It would be hard to live now in Treve.”

  I was pleased that she would go to Ar, where she, though a woman, might learn the craft of medicine under masters appointed by Kazrak, where she might found a new life for herself far from warlike, plundering Treve, where she might work as befitted the daughter of a skilled, courageous father, where she might perhaps forget a simple warrior of Ko-ro-ba.

  “It is only Cabot,” she said, “because I love you so much that I do not fight to keep you.”

  “I know,” I said, holding her head to my shoulder.

  She laughed. “If I loved you only a little less,” she said, “I would find Talena of Ar myself and thrust a dagger into her heart.”

  I kissed her.

  “Perhaps some day,” she said, “I will find a Free Companion such as you.”

  “Few,” I said, “would be worthy of Vika of Treve.”

  She burst into tears and would have clung to me but I handed her gently into the arms of my father.

  “I will see that she gets to Ar safely,” he said.

  “Cabot!” cried Vika and broke away from him and hurled herself into my arms weeping.

  I held her and kissed her again, gently, tenderly, and then wiped the tears from her eyes.

  She straightened herself.

  “I wish you well, Cabot,” she said.

  “And I,” I said, “wish you well, Vika, my girl of Treve.”

  She smiled and turned away and my father gently put his arm about her shoulder and led her away.

  For some unaccountable reason tears had formed in my own eyes, though I was a Warrior.

  “She was very
beautiful,” said the Older Tarl.

  “Yes,” I said, “she was very beautiful.” I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes.

  “But,” said the Older Tarl, “you are a Warrior.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I am a Warrior.”

  “Until you fine Talena,” he said, “your companion is peril and steel.”

  It was an old Warrior saying.

  I drew the blade and examined it.

  The Older Tarl’s eyes, like mine, ran the edge, and I saw that he approved.

  “You carried it at Ar,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “The same.”

  “Peril and steel,” said he.

  “I know,” I said. “I have before me the work of a Warrior.”

  I resheathed the blade.

  It was a lonely road that I now had to walk, and I wished to set out upon it as soon as possible. I told the Older Tarl and Torm to say good-bye to my father, as I did not trust myself to see him longer, for fear that I would not wish so soon to part from him again.

  And so it was that I wished my two friends well.

  Though I had met them only for a moment in the shadow of the Sardar, we had renewed our affection and comradeship, on to the other, in the timeless instant friendship.

  “Where will you go?” asked Torm. “What will you do?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, and I spoke honestly.

  “It seems to me,” said Torm, “that you should come with us to Ko-ro-ba and wait there. Perhaps Talena will find her way back.

  The Older Tarl smiled.

  “It is a possibility,” said Torm.

  Yes, I said to myself, it is a possibility, but not a likely one. The probability of so beautiful a woman as Talena finding her way through the cities of Gor, over the lonely roads, among the open fields to at last return to Ko-ro-ba was not high.

  Somewhere even now she might be facing danger that she would not face in Ko-ro-ba and there might be none to protect her.

  Perhaps she was even now threatened by savage beasts or even more savage men.

  Perhaps she, my Free Companion, even now lay chained in one of the blue and yellow slave wagons, or serve Paga in a tavern or was a belled adornment to some warrior’s Pleasure Gardens. Perhaps even now she stood upon the block in some auction in Ar’s Street of Brands.

  “I will return to Ko-ro-ba from time to time,” I said, “to see if she has returned.”

  “Perhaps,” said the Older Tarl, “she attempted to reach her father, Marlenus, in the Voltai.”

  That was possible, I thought, for Marlenus, since his deposition from the throne of Ar, had lived as an Outlaw Ubar in the Voltai. It would be natural for her to try to reach him.

  “If that is true,” I said, “and it is heard that Ko-ro-ba is being rebuilt Marlenus will see that she reaches the city.”

  “That is true,” said the Older Tarl.

  “Perhaps she is in Ar,” suggested Torm.

  “If so, and Kazrak knows of it,” I said, “he will return her.”

  “Do you wish me to accompany you?” asked the Older Tarl.

  I thought his sword might indeed have been welcome, but I knew his first duty lay to his city. “No,” I said.

  “Well then,” said torm, shouldering his scroll like a lance, “that leaves only two of us.”

  “No,” I said to him. “Go with Tarl, the Master-of-Arms.”

  “You have no idea how useful I might be,” said Torm.

  He was right, I had no idea.

  “I am sorry,” I said.

  “There will be many scrolls to examine and catalogue when the city is rebuilt,” observed the Older Tarl. “Of course,” he added, “I might do the work myself.”

  Torm shook with horror. “Never!” he cried.

  The Older Tarl roared with laughter and swept the little scribe under his arm.

  “I wish you well,” said the Older Tarl.

  “And I wish you well,” I said.

  He turned and strode off, saying no more, Torm’s chest and head sticking out behind from under his arm. Torm hit him several times with the scroll but the blows seemed not to phase him. At last Torm, before he disappeared from sight, waved his scroll in farewell.

  I lifted my hand to him. “I wish you well, little Torm,” I said, I would miss him, and the Older Tarl. And my father, my father. “I wish all of you well,” I said softly.

  Once more I looked to the Sardar.

  I was alone again.

  There were a few, almost none on Gor, who would believe my story.

  I supposed that there would be few on my Old World — Earth — too, who would believe it.

  Perhaps it was better that way.

  Had I not lived these things, did I not know whereof I speak, I ask myself if I — Tarl Cabot himself — would accept them, and I tell myself frankly, in all likelihood, No. So then why have I written them? I do not know, save that I thought these things worth recording whether they are to be believed or not.

  There is little more to tell now.

  I remained some days beside the Sardar, in the camp of some men from Tharna, whom I had known several months before. I regret that among them was not the dour, magnificent, yellow-haired Kron of Tharna, of the Caste of Metal Workers, who had been my friend.

  These men of Tharna, mostly small tradesmen in silver, had come for the autumn fair, the Fair of Se`Var, which was just being set up at the time of the gravitational lessening. I remained with them, accepting their hospitality, while going out to meet various delegations from different cities, as they came to the Sardar for the fair.

  Systematically and persistently I questioned these men of various cities about the whereabouts of Talena of Ar, hoping to find some clue that might lead me to her, even if it might be only the drunken memory of some herdsmen of a vision of beauty once encountered in a dim and crowded tavern in Cos or Port Kar. But in spite of my best efforts I was unable to uncover the slightest clue to her fate.

  This story is now, on the whole, told.

  But there is one last incident which I must record.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  THE NIGHT OF THE PRIEST-KING

  IT OCCURRED LATE LAST NIGHT.

  I had joined a group of men from Ar, some of whom remembered me from the Siege of Ar more than seven years before.

  We had left the Fair of Se`Var and were making our way around the perimeter of the Sardar Range before crossing the Vosk on the way to Ar.

  We had made camp.

  We were still within sight of the crags of the Sardar.

  It was a windy, cold night and the three moons of Gor were full and the silvery grasses of the fields were swept by the chill blasts of the passing wind. I could smell the cold tang of approaching winter. There had already been a heavy frost the night before. It was a wild, beautiful autumn night.

  “By the Priest-Kings!” should a man, pointing to a ridge. “What is it?”

  I and the others leaped to our feet, swords drawn, to see where he had pointed.

  About two hundred yards above the camp, toward the Sardar, whose crags could be seen looming in the background against the black, star-shattered night was a strange figure, outlined against one of the white, rushing moons of Gor.

  There were gasps of astonishment and horror from all save myself. Men seized weapons.

  “Let us rush on it and kill it!” They cried.

  I sheathed my sword.

  Outlined against the largest of Gor’s three hurtling moons was the black silhouette, as sharp as a knife, of a Priest-King.

  “Wait here!” I shouted and I ran across the field and climbed the knoll on which it stood.

  The two peering eyes, golden and luminous, looked down at me. The antennae, whipped by the wind, focussed themselves. Across the left eye disk I could see the whitish seam that was the scar left from the slashing bladelike projection of Sarm.

  “Misk!” I cried, rushing to the Priest-King and lifting my hands to receive the antennae, which was
gently placed in them.

  “Greetings, Tarl Cabot,” comes from Misk’s translator.

  “You have saved our world,” I said.

  “It is empty for Priest-Kings,” he said.

  I stood below him, looking up, the wind lifting and tugging my hair.

  “I came to see you one last time,” he said, “for there is Nest Trust between us.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You are my friend,” he said.

  My heart leaped!

  “Yes,” he said, “the expression is now ours as well as yours and you and those like you have taught us its meaning.”

  “I am glad,” I said.

  That night Misk told me of how affairs stood in the Nest. It would be long before the powers of the broken Nest could be restored, before the Scanning Chamber could function again, before the vast damages done to the Nest could be repaired, but men and Priest-Kings were even now at work, side by side.

  The ships that had sped from the Sardar had now returned, for as I had feared, they were not made welcome by the cities of Gor, nor by the Initiates, and those who had ridden the ships had not been accepted by their cities. Indeed, the ships were regarded as vehicles of a type forbidden to men by Priest-Kings and their passengers were attacked in the name of the Priest-Kings from which they had come. In the end, those humans who wished to remain on the surface had landed elsewhere, far from their native cities, and scattered themselves as vagabonds about the roads and alien cities of the planet. Others had returned to the Nest, to share in the work of its rebuilding.

  The body of Sarm, I learned, had been burned in the Chamber of the Mother, according to the custom of Priest-Kings, for he had been First Born and beloved of the Mother.

  Misk apparently bore him not the least ill will.

  I was amazed at this, until it occurred to me that I did not either. He had been a great enemy, a great Priest-Kings, and had lived as he had thought he should. I would always remember Sarm, huge and golden, in the last agonising minute when he had pulled free of the Golden Beetle and had stood upright and splendid in the crumbling, perishing Nest that he was determined must be destroyed.