by John Norman
“There is nothing here, Master!” cried one of the men.
“This is madness!”
“It is gone,” I told Ibn Saran.
Ibn Saran smiled. “No,” he said. “It is here. It is here somewhere.” Then he said to his men. “Be silent! Listen!”
I could not even hear men breathing. The light fell from the barred window onto the gray stones of the straw-strewn floor. I looked at the men, the walls, the matted, dried kort rinds on the floor, near the metal dish. On the rinds the spiders continued to hunt vints.
We did hear a man calling outside, selling melons. We heard two kaiila plod by, their bells.
“The cell is empty,” said one of the men, whispering.
Suddenly one of the men of Ibn Saran screamed horribly. I looked up, in the collar, chains pulling at my throat. I jerked at my wrist chains, held. Men shrank back, “Save me!” cried the man. “Help!”
Abruptly, horribly, had he seemed, from his feet, sideways, to hurtle upward.
Ten feet in the air, against the stones of the ceiling, twisting, crying out, screaming, he writhed.
“Help me!” he cried.
“Do not break your position,” said Ibn Saran. “Hold position!”
“Please!” wept the man.
“Hold position!” said Ibn Saran.
Then the man, the sleeves of his garments, above his elbows, tight to his body, was slowly lowered.
“Please!” he said.
Then he cried out, a short cry, brief; there was a sound, exploding, velvet-soft, like a bubble of air being forced up ward through water; the side of his neck had been bittern way; arterial blood, driven by the blind pump of the heart, pulsed.
“Hold position!” cried Ibn Saran.
I admired his generalship. Had his men charged, initially, the captured man would have been hurled against them. In the breaking of their formation the Kur would have slipped away. Had they now rushed to their comrade, again the formation would be broken, and the Kur, by now, had assuredly changed his position.
Ibn Saran himself, a brave man, blocked the open door to the cell.
“Scimitars ready!” he cried. “Ho!”
Across the floor, now wet with blood, and blood-soaked straw, the men, in their line, Ibn Saran remaining at the door, charged. The blood, between the stones, formed tiny rivers.
“Aiii!” cried a man, wheeling back, horrified. There was blood on his scimitar.
He was terrified. “A Djinn!” he cried.
In that moment, Ibn Saran, at the door, thrust out, wickedly, deeply.
There was a roar of pain, a howl of rage, and I saw that his scimitar, to six inches, was splashed with bright blood of the Kur, clearly visible.
“We have it!” cried Ibn Saran. “Strike! Strike!” The men looked about. “There!” cried Ibn Saran. “The blood! The blood!” I saw a stain of blood on the floor, and then a bloody print, of a heavy, clawed foot. Then drops of blood, as if from nowhere dropping, one after the other, to the stones. “Attack at the blood!” cried Ibn Saran. The men converged at the blood, striking. I heard two more howls of rage, for twice more had they struck the beast. Then a man reeled back, turning. His face was gone.
The men now circled where the blood fell, which marked the path of the beast.
Suddenly there was a scrambling sound and I saw the bars in the small window shake and scrape, one wrenching loose, with a shower of stone and dust from the wall.
“To the window!” cried Ibn Saran. “It will escape!” He leaped to the barred window, striking madly about, against the stone. His men followed, striking, crying out.
I smiled, seeing, in the confusion the blood, drop by drop, slip to the door of the cell, move across the stones, out into the hall, and through the threshold, then up the twisting, narrow, concave stairs.
It had been an excellent diversion on the part of the Kur. It would have known it would not have had the time to wrench loose the bars and slip through the narrow window before being hacked to pieces. But the ruse had drawn Ibn Saran from the door.
Ibn Saran spun from the wall, his blade battered, nicked and dull, from pounding on the stone. He saw the blood. He cried out with rage and, turning, fled from the cell.
On the kort rinds the spiders continued to hunt vints.
“We have killed it,” said Ibn Saran. “It is dead.”
I surmised that they had had little difficulty in following the trail of blood.
The animal, at least four times, had been struck, and with the razor-sharp scimitars of the Tahari. Once, by Ibn Saran, it had been wounded to a depth of some six inches. I had adjudged this by the blood rain on the scimitar, in its rivulets. So Struck, four times, I found it not difficult to believe that the animal, even if unfound, would have sought a dark place, and there, in silence, bled to death.
“We have disposed of the body,” said Ibn Saran.
I shrugged.
“It threatened your life,” he said. “We have saved your life.”
“My gratitude,” I said.
It was midnight, in the cell. Outside, the three moons were full.
The cell had been cleaned, straw and wastes removed, rinsed down; most of the blood had been scrubbed from the stones; behind remained, here and there, only some stubborn, darkish stains; new straw had been spread: the kort rinds had been taken. Little remained to give evidence of the conflict which had earlier transpired in the chamber. Even the barred window had been repaired. The scrubbing, and cleaning, to my interest, had been done by jailers. I would have expected such work to be done by nude female slaves, in work collar, chain and ankle ring, to keep them on their knees with their brushes, but it had not been: one of the administrative penalties of he who is sent to the brine pits of Klima is commonly to he deprived of the sight of female bodies; there are no women at Klima; there is little but the salt, the heat, the slave masters and the sun; sometimes men go mad, trudging into the desert, trying to escape: but there is no water within a thousand pasangs of Klima: I would have liked to have seen a female slave, before being chained for the march to Klima; but I was not permitted this.
Often I had to force from my mind the look on the face of the second slave, she called Vella, of triumph, as she, small and lovely, luscious, freed of the rack ropes had sat up on the knotted ropes, after her testimony had confirmed that of others, of Zaya, the other girl, and Ibn Saran, sending me to the brine pits of Klima. She had been pleased. I would go to Klima. The slave girl had had her vengeance. She, with her lie, confirming those of others, had determined the matter well. Then, her testimony done, she, with the other wench, had been chained as a slave. I recalled her smile, and that I, though innocent, was to go to Klima.
I was not pleased with the female slave.
I looked up. With Ibn Saran were four men. One of them held up a tharlarion-oil lamp.
“Do you understand what it is,” asked Ibn Saran, “to be sent to Klima-to be a salt slave?”
“I think so,” I told him.
“There is the march to Klima.” said he, “through the dune country, on foot, chained, on which many die.”
I said nothing.
“And should you be so unfortunate,” said he, “to reach the vicinity of Klima, your feet must he bound with leather to your knees, for you will sink through the salt crusts to your knees, and, unprotected, your flesh, by the millions of tiny, heated crystals, would be grated and burned from your bones.”
I looked away, in the chains.
“In the pits,” he said, “you pump water through underground deposits, to wash salt, with the water, to the surface, and repump again the same water. Men die at the pumps, in the heat. Others, the carriers, in the brine, must fill their yoke buckets with the erupted sludge, and carry it from the pits to the drying tables; others must gather the salt and mold it into cylinders.” He smiled.
“Sometimes men kill one another for the lighter assignments.”
I did not look at him.
“But you,”
said he, “who attempted to assassinate our noble Suleiman Pasha, will not be given light assignments.”
I pulled at the chains.
“It is the steel of Ar,” he said. “It is excellent, brought in by caravan.”
I fought the manacles.
“It will hold you quite well,” said he, “-Tarl Cabot.”
I looked at him.
“It will amuse me,” he said, “to think of Tarl Cabot, laboring in the brine pits. As I rest in my palace, in cool of the rooms, on cushions, relishing custards and berries, sipping beverages, delighted by my slave girls, among them your pretty Vella, I shall think of you, often, Tarl Cabot.”
I tore at the chains.
“The famed agent of Priest-Kings, Tarl Cabot,” he said, “in the brine pits!
Excellent! Superb!” He laughed. “You cannot free yourself,” he said, “You cannot win.”
I subsided in the chains, helpless.
“The day at Klima,” he said, “begins at dawn, and only ends at darkness. Food may be fried on the stones at Klima. The crusts are white. The glare from them can blind men. There are no kaiila at Klima. The desert, waterless, surrounds Klima, for more than a thousand pasangs on all sides. Never has a slave escaped from Klima. Among the less pleasant aspects of Klima is that you will not see females. You will note that, following your sentencing the sight of such flesh has been denied you. But then you can always think of your pretty Vella.”
In the manacles, my fists clenched.
“When I make her serve me,” he said, “I will think of you.”
“Where did you find her?” I asked.
“She has a very lively body, hasn’t she?” asked Ibn Saran.
“She is a female.” I said. “Where did you find her?”
“In a tavern in Lydius.” he said. “It is interesting. We bought her, originally, simply as a slave. We keep our eyes open for good female flesh, it is useful to our purposes, in infiltrating houses, in obtaining secrets, in seducing officers and important men, and, of course, to reward our followers and, naturally, as a simple item for exchange, a form of currency; the slave girl is usually in demand, particularly if beautiful and trained: at our wish, such women are conveniently marketable; there is little trouble in selling them; furthermore, they attract little undue commercial attention, for they are a familiar type of merchandise; thus, the slave girl, for us, if beautiful, and particularly if trained constitutes a reliable, safe, readily negotiable form of wealth”
“For anyone,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“And Vella?” I asked.
“The former Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, of New York City, the planet Earth?” he asked.
“You seem to have learned much,” I said.
“The Earth slave girl has taught us much,” he said. “She was a lucky catch. We were fortunate to get our chain on her collar.”
“What has she told you?” I asked.
“Whatever we wished to know,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, “I see.”
“Torture was not required,” said Ibn Saran. “Its threat was sufficient. She is only a woman. We chained her nude in a dungeon, with urts. In an hour, weeping, hysterical, she begged to speak. She was interrogated for the night. We learned all she knew. We learned much.”
“Surely you then freed her?” I asked, smiling. “For such aid?”
“It seems we promised to do so,” said he, “but, later, as I recall, it slipped our mind. We keep her slave.”
“Full slave?” I asked.
“Full slave,” he said.
“Fitting,” I said.
“She is a slave,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
“What, in particular,” I asked, “did you learn from the Earth slave girl, the former Miss Cardwell?”
“Many things,” said he, “but, doubtless of most importance, the weakness of the Nest.”
“You will now attack?” I asked.
“It will not be necessary,” he said.
“An alternate plan?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“What she told you, of course,” said I, “may not be true.”
“It tallies with the reports of other humans, who, once, long ago, fled the Sardar.”
These would have been the Nest’s humans who, following the Nest War, had elected to return to the surface of Gor.
“But are these reports true,” I asked, “or only, sincerely, believed to be true?”
“They could, of course, be implanted memories,” admitted Ibn Saran. “It could be a trick to lure an attack into a trap.”
I was silent.
“We are not unaware of such possibilities,” he said. “We have typically proceeded with caution.”
“But now it may matter less?” I asked.
“Now,” said he, “it may matter not at all. No longer need we listen with such care to the blabbering of slave girls.”
“You have a new strategy?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” he said, smiling.
“Perhaps you would share it with one bound for the brine pits of Klima?” I asked.
He laughed. “And you might speak it to guards, or others!”
“My tongue could be cut out,” I said.
“And your hands cut off?” he laughed. “And then good would you be in the pits?”
“How did you learn that the slave, purchased only for her beauty in Lydius, was the former Elizabeth Cardwell?” I asked.
“Fingerprints,” he said. “Her accent, certain mannerisms, suggested Earth origin. We took her prints, curious. On our records they matched those of Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, of New York City, Earth, who had been brought to Gor to wear the message collar to the Tuchuks.”
I recalled the collar. When first I had seen her, her stockings in shreds, her brief, yellow, Oxford-cloth shift dusty and stained, her neck bound to a capture lance, her wrists bound behind her, on the plains of the Wagon Peoples, a captive of Tuchuks, she had worn it. She had understood so little then, been so innocent of the affairs of worlds.
Now the girl was less innocent.
“The message collar,” said Ibn Saran, “failed to bring about your death, the termination of your quest for the last egg of Priest-Kings,” He smiled. “Indeed, the girl even became your slave.”
“I freed her,” I said.
“Courtly fool,” he said. “Investigating her further, understanding she accompanied you to the Sardar, with the last egg of Priest-Kings, we looked for further connections. Soon it became clear that she had been your confederate, spying for you, in contriving the downfall of the house of Cernus, one of our ablest operatives.”
“How could you know this?” I asked.
“One who knew the house of Cernus, freed from slavery, was brought to my palace.
To her terror, he immediately identified her. We then stripped her and put her in shackles in the dungeon, with the urts. In an Ahn she begged to tell us all, and did.’’ “She betrayed Priest-Kings?” I asked.
“Completely.” said Ibn Saran.
“She serves Kurii now?” I asked.
“She serves us well,” he said. “And her body is exquisite, and delicious.”
“You are fortunate,” said I, “to possess such a slave.”
Ibn Saran nodded.
“I was interested to note, as well, said I, “that she testified that I had struck Suleiman Pasha.”
“So, too, did Zaya,” said Ibn Saran.
“That is true,” I said.
“Neither needed urging,” said Ibn Saran. “Both are slaves.”
“Vella,” said I, “is a highly intelligent, complex woman.”
“Such make the best slaves,” said Ibn Saran.
“True,” I said. Indeed, who would want to collar any other sort of woman? To take the most brilliant, the most imaginative, the most beautiful women, and put them at your feet, impassioned, helpless slaves is victory.
“She hates you,” said
Ibn Saran.
“I see,” I said.
“It has to do with Lydius, it seems,” said he.
I smiled.
“It was with much pleasure that the vicious little slave falsely testified that it had been your blade which had struck Suleiman Pasha. It is with much pleasure that she sends you to the brine pits.”
“I see,” I said.
“A woman’s vengeance is not a light thing,” said Ibn Saran.
“Doubtless,” said I.
“But one thing troubled her,” said Ibn Saran, “a matter in which, fearing for herself, she was apprehensive.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“The security of Klima,” he said. “She feared you might escape.”
“Oh?” I said.
“But I assured her that there was no escape from the pits of Klima, and, thus encouraged, it was with enthusiasm that she rehearsed her testimony.”
“Pretty Vella,” I said.
He smiled.
“It is no accident,” I said, “that she was, her identity discovered, brought to the Tahari.”
“Of course not,” said Ibn Saran. “She was brought here collared, to serve me.”
“She has served you well,” I said.
“She has much aided, as we had anticipated, in your reception. She, permitted once, secretly, to look upon you in streets of Nine Wells, through the tiny veil of a haik, nude beneath, in the keeping of one of my men, later firmed, stripped on her knees before me, her lips to my feet, your identity-as Tarl Cabot, agent of Priest-Kings. And what she did not accomplish, with the message collar in land of the Wagon Peoples, she has well accomplished here on the rack in the chamber of justice.”
“She has served you well,” I said.
“She is an excellent little slave,” said Ibn Saran, “and most pleasing on the cushions.”
“Pretty Vella,” I said.
“Think often of her, Salt Slave,” said Ibn Saran, “in the pits of Klima.”
He turned, cloak swirling, and left the chamber followed by his men, the last bearing the tharlarion-oil lamp.