two public baths.
Within an Ahn after the cessation of the rain, the sun again paramount,
merciless, in the now-cloudless sky, the footing was sufficiently firm, the
water lost under the dust and sand, to support the footing of kaiila. The
animals were unhooded, we mounted, and again our quest continued.
It was only a day later that the flies appeared. I had thought, first, it was
another storm. It was not. The sun itself, for more than four Ehn, was darkened,
as the great clouds moved over us. Suddenly, like darting, black, dry rain, the
insects swarmed about us. I spit them from my mouth. I heard Alyena scream. The
main swarms had passed but, clinging about us, like crawling spots on our
garments, and in and among the hairs of the kaiila, in their thousands, crept
the residue of the infestation. I struck at them, and crushed them, until I
realized the foolishness of doing so. In less than four Ahn, twittering,
fluttering, small, tawny, sharp-billed, following the black clouds, came flights
of zadits. We dismounted and led the kaiila, and let the birds hunt them for
flies. The zadits remained with us for more than two days. Then they departed.
The sun was again merciless. I did not find myself, however, longing for a swift
return of rain.
“Where, friend,” asked Hassan, of another no-mad, “is the steel tower?” “I have
never heard of such,” said he, warily. “Surely in the Tahari there are no towers
of steel.”
And we continued our quest.
The Tahari is perhaps most beautiful at night. During the day one can scarcely
look upon it, for the heats and reflections. During the day it seems menacing,
whitish, shimmering with heat, blinding, burning, men must shade their eyes;
some go blind: women and children remain within the tents: but, with the coming
of the evening, with The departure of the sun, there is a softening, a gentling,
of this vast, rocky harsh terrain. It is at this time that Hassan, the bandit,
would make his camps. As the sun sank, the hills, the dust and sky, would become
red in a hundred shades, and, as the light fades, these reds would become
gradually transformed into a thousand of the glowing tones of gold which, with
the final fading light in the west, yield to a world of luminous, then dusky,
blues and purples. Then, it seems suddenly, the sky is black and wide and high
and is rich with the reflected sands of stars, like clear bright diamonds
burning in the soft, sable silence of the desert’s innocent quietude. At these
times, Hassan, cross-legged, would sometimes sit silently before his tent. We
did not then disturb him. Oddly enough he permitted no one near him at such
times but the collared slave girl, Alyena. She, alone, only female and slave,
would be beside him, lying beside him, her head at his left knee. Sometimes he
would, in these times, stroke her hair, or touch the side of her face, almost
gently, almost as though her throat were not encircled by a collar. Then after
the stars would be high for an Ahn or so, he would, suddenly, laughing, seize
the girl by the arms and throw her on her back on the mats, thrust up her dress
and rape her as the mere slave she was. Then he would, knot her skirt over her
head, confining her arms within it, and throw her, she laughing, to his men, and
to me, for our sport.
“No,” said a man, I have seen no tower of steel nor have I heard of such. How
can there be such a thing?”
“My thanks, Herder,” said Hassan, and again led us on our quest.
The camps of nomads were becoming less frequent. Oases were becoming rare.
We were moving east in the Tahari.
Some of the nomads veil their women, and some do not. Some of the girls decorate
their faces with designs, drawn in charcoal. Some of the nomad girls are very
lovely. The children of nomads, both male and female, until they are five or six
years of age, wear no clothing. During the day they do not venture from the
shade of the tents. At night, as the sun goes down, they emerge happily from the
tents and romp and play. They are taught written Taharic by their mothers, who
draw the characters in the sand, during the day, in the shade of the tents. Most
of the nomads in this area were Tashid, Which is a tribe vassal to the Aretai.
It might be of interest to note that children of the nomads are suckled for some
eighteen months, which is nearly twice the normal length of time for Earth
infants, and half again the normal time for Gorean infants. These children, if
it is significant, are almost uniformly secure in their families, sturdy,
outspoken and self-reliant. Among the nomads, interestingly, an adult will
always listen to a child. He is of the tribe. Another habit of nomads, or of
nomad mothers, is to frequently bathe small children even if it is only with a
cloth and a cup of water. There is a very low infant mortality rate among
nomads, in spite of their limited diet and harsh environment. Adults, on the
other hand, may go months without washing. After a time one grows used to the
layers of dirt and sweat which accumulate, and the smell, offensive at first, is
no longer noticed.
“Young warrior,” asked Hassan, of a youth, no more than eight, “have you heard
aught of a tower of steel?”
His sister, standing behind him, laughed. Verr moved about them, brushing
against their legs.
The boy went to the kaiila of Alyena. “Dismount, Slave,” he said to her.
She did so, and knelt before him, a free male. The boy’s sister crowded behind
him. Verr bleated.
“Put back your hood and strip yourself to the waist,” said the boy. Alyena shook
loose her hair; she then dropped her cloak back, and removed her blouse.
“See how white she is!” said the nomad girl.
“Pull down your skirt,” said the boy.
Alyena, furious, did so, it lying over her calves.
“How white!” said the nomad girl.
The boy walked about her, and took her hair in his bands. “Look,” said he to his
sister, “silky, fine and yellow and long.’’ She, too, felt the hair. The boy
then walked before Alyena. “Look up,” said he. Alyena lifted her eyes, regarding
him. “See,” said he to his sister, bending down. “She has blue eyes!”
“She is white, and ugly,” said the girl, standing up, backing off.
“No,” said the boy, “she is pretty.”
“If you like white girls,” said his sister.
“Is she expensive?” asked the boy of Hassan.
“Yes,” said Hassan, “young warrior. Do you wish to bid for her?”
“My father will not yet let me own a girl,” said the youngster.
“Ah,” said Hassan, understanding.
“But when I grow up,” said he’ “I shall become a raider, like you, and have ten
such girls. When I see one I want, I will carry her away, and make her my
slave.” He looked at Hassan. “They will serve me well, and make me happy.
“She is ugly,” said the boy’s sister. “Her body is white.”
“Is she a good slave?” asked the boy of Hassan.
“She is a stupid, miserable girl,” said Hassan, “who must be often beaten.”
“Too bad,” said the boy.
“Tend the verr,”
said his sister, unpleasantly.
“If you were mine,” said the boy to Alyena, “I would tolerate no nonsense from
you. I would make you be a perfect slave.”
“Yes, Master,” said Alyena, stripped before him, her teeth gritted.
“You may clothe yourself,” said the boy.
“Thank you, Master,” said Alyena. She pulled up her skirt and drew on her
blouse, adjusted her cloak and hood. Whereas she could dismount from the kaiila
blanket, which served her as saddle, she could not, unaided, reach its back. I,
with my left band under her foot, lifted her to her place. “The little beast!”
whispered Alyena to me, in English. I smiled.
“Have you seen, or heard, aught, young warrior,” asked Hassan, “of a tower of
steel?”
The boy looked at him and laughed. “Your slave, Raider,” said he, indicating the
irritated Alyena, now again mounted, well vexed, on her kaiila, “apparently
makes your tea too strong.”
Hassan nodded his head, graciously. “My thanks, young warrior,” said he.
We then left the boy, and his sister, and their verr. She was scolding him about
the verr. “Be quiet,” he told her, “or I will sell you to raiders from Red Rock.
In a year or two you will be pretty enough for a collar.” He then skipped away
as she, shouting abuse, flung a rock after him. When we looked back again they
were prodding their verr, leading them, doubtless, away from their camp. On our
kaiila harness, we knew, we wore no bells.
“The oasis of the Battle of Red Rock,” said Hassan to me, “is one of the few
outpost oases maintained by the Aretai. To its west and south is mostly Kavar
country.”
At noon of the next day, I cried out, “There is the oasis.”
“No,” said Hassan.
I could see the buildings, whitish, with domes, the palms, the gardens, the
high, circling walls of red clay.
I blinked. This seemed to me no illusion. “Can you not see it?” I asked Hassan,
the others.
“I see it!” said Alyena.
“We, too, see it,” said Hassan, “but it is not there.”
“You speak in riddles, “ I said.
“It is a mirage,” said he.
I looked again. It seemed to me unlikely that this was a mirage. I was familiar
with two sorts of mirages on the desert, of the sort which might be, and often
were, seen by normal individuals under normal circumstances, not the mirages of
the dehydrated body, the sun-crazed brain, not private hallucinatory images. The
most common sort of mirage is simply the interpretation of heat waves,
shimmering on, the desert, as the ripples in water, as in a lake or pond. When
the sky is reflected in this rising, heated air, the mirage is even more
striking, because then the surface of the “lake,” reflecting the sky, seems
blue, and, thus, even more waterlike. A second common sort of mirage, more
private than the first, but quite normal, is the interpretation of a mixed
terrain, usually rocks and scrub brush, mixed with rising heat waves, as an
oasis with water, palms and buildings. Perception is a quite complicated
business, involving the playing of energies on the sensors, and the transduction
of this energy into an interpreted visual world. All we are in physical contact
with, of course, is the energy applied to the sensors. These physical energies
are quite different from the “human world” of our experience, replete with
color, sound and light. There is, of course, a topological congruence between
the world of physics and the world of experience. Evolution has selected for
such a congruence. Our experiential world, though quite unlike the world of
physics, is well coordinated with it. If it were not we could not move our
physical bodies conveniently among physical objects, manage to put our hands on
things we wished to touch, and so on. Different sensory systems, as in various
types of organisms, mean different experiential worlds. Each of these, however,
the world of the man, the cuttlefish, the butterfly, the ant, the sleen, the
Priest-King is congruent, though perhaps in unusual ways, with the presumably
singular, unique physical world. Beyond this, perception is largely a matter of
interpreting a flood of cues, or coded bits, out of which we construct a
unified, coherent, harmonious world. Though the eye is a necessary condition for
seeing, one does not, so to speak, “see” with the eye, but, oddly enough, with
the brain. If the optic nerve, or, indeed, certain areas of the brain, could be
appropriately stimulated one could have visual experiences without the use of
eyes. Similarly, if the eye were in perfect condition, but the visual centers of
the brain were defective, one could not “see.” Perhaps it is more correct to
speak of a system of components necessary for visual experience, but, even if
so, it is well to understand that what impinges upon the eyes are not visual
realities but electromagnetic radiations. Further, what one sees is a function
not simply of what exists in the external world, but of a number of other
factors as well, for example, what one has familiarly seen before, what one
expects to see, what others claim is there to be seen, what one wants to see,
the physical condition of the organism, its conditioning and socialization, the
conceptual and linguistic categories available to the organism, and so on. It is
thus not unusual that, in a desert situation, a calm, normal person may,
misinterpreting physical cues, make an oasis, complete with buildings and trees,
out of energies reflected over a heated surface from rock and brush. There is
nothing unusual in this sort of thing.
But this did not seem to me a mirage sort of experience. I rubbed my eyes. I
changed the position of my head. I closed and opened my eyes.
“No,” I said. “I see an oasis clearly.”
“It is not there,” said Hassan.
“Does the oasis of the Battle of Red Rock have, at its northeast rim, a kasbah,
with four towers?”
“Yes,” said Hassan.
“Then I see it,” I said.
“No,” said Hassan.
“There are palm groves, five of them,” I said.
“Yes.” he said.
“Pomegranate orchards lie at the east of the oasis.” I said. “Gardens lie
inward. There is even a pond, between two of the groves of date palms.”
“True,” said Hassan.
“There is Red Rock,” I said.
“No.” said Hassan.
“I could not imagine these things,” I said. “I have never been to Red Rock.
Look. There is a single gate in the kasbah, facing us. On the towers two flags
fly.”
Petitions,” said Hassan, “of the Tashid and Aretai.”
“I shall race you to the oasis,” I said.
“It is not there,” he said. “We shall not arrive there until tomorrow, past
noon.”
“I see it!” I protested.
“I shall speak clearly,” said Hassan. “You see it and you do not see it.”
“I am glad,” I said, “that you have chosen to speak clearly. Had you spoken
obscurely I might not have understood.”
“Ride ahead,” suggested Hassan.
I shrugged, and kicked the kaiila in the flank
s, urging downward, from the
sloping hill, toward the oasis. I had ridden for no more than five Ehn when the
oasis vanished. I reined in the kaiila. Before me was nothing but the desert.
I was sweating. I was hot. Before me was nothing but the desert.
“It is an interesting phenomenon, is it not?” asked Hassan, when he, and the
others, had joined me. “The oasis, which is some seventy pasangs distant, is
reflected in the mirror of air above it, and then again reflected downward and
away, at an angle.”
“It is like mirrors?” I asked.
“Precisely,” said Hassan, “with layers of air the glass. A triangle of reflected
light is formed. Red Rock, more than seventy pasangs away, is seen, in its
image, here.”
“It is only then an optical illusion?’’ I asked.
“Yes,” said Hassan.
“But did it not seem real to you?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said.
“How did you know it was not Red Rock?” I asked.
“I am of the Tahari,” he said.
“Did it look different to you?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“Then how could you tell?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I am of the Tahari,” he said.
“But how could you tell?” I asked.
“By distances and times,” he said. “We had not come far enough, nor at our pace,
fast enough, for it to be Red Rock.”
“Seeing it,” I said, “one who was unwise, and not of the Tahari, might ration
water unwisely, and die.”
“In the Tahari,” said Hassan, “it is well to be of the Tahari, if one would
live.”
“I will try to be of the Tahari,” I said.
“I will help you,” said Hassan.
It was the next day, at the eleventh Ahn, one Ahn past the Gorean noon, that we
arrived at the Oasis of Red Rock.
It was dominated by the kasbah of its pasha, Turem a’Din, commander of the local
Tashid clans, on its rim to the northeast. There were five palm groves. At the
east of the oasis lay pomegranate orchards. Toward its lower parts, in its
center, were the gardens. Between two of the groves of date palms there was a
large pool. The kasbah contained a single gate. On the summits of its four
towers flew petitions, those of the Tashid and Aretai.
“Do you fear to enter the oasis of a vassal tribe of the Aretai?” asked Hassan.
“We are far from Nine Wells,” I said.
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