by John Norman
Miss Cardwell was little different from thousands of lovely working girls in the great cities of Earth, perhaps more intelligent than many, perhaps prettier than most, but essentially the same, girls living alone or together in apartments, working in offices and studios and shops, struggling to earn a living in a glamorous city, whose goods and pleasures they could ill afford to purchase. What had happened to her might, I gathered, have happened to any of them.
She remembered arising and washing and dressing, eating a hurried breakfast, taking the elevator downstairs from her apartment, the subway, arriving at work, the routines of the morning as a junior secretary in one of the larger advertising agencies on Madison Avenue, her excitement at being invited to interview for the position of assistant secretary to the head of the art department, her last-minute concern with her lipstick, the hem of her yellow shift, then steno pad in hand, entering his office.
With him had been a tall, strange man, broad of shoulder with large hands, a greyish face, eyes almost like glass. He had frightened her. He wore a dark suit of expensive cloth and tailoring, and yet somehow it seemed not that he wore it as one accustomed to such garments. He spoke to her, rather than the man she knew, the head of the department, whom she had seen often. He did not permit her to take the seat by the desk.
Rather he told her to stand and straighten herself. He seemed to scorn her posture. Angry, she nevertheless did so until, embarrassed, she stood insolently erect before him. His eyes regarded her ankles with care, and then her calves and she was acutely aware, blushing, that standing as she did, so straight before him, the simple yellow, oxford-cloth shift ill concealed her thighs, the flatness of her belly, the loveliness of her figure. “Lift your head,” he said, and she did, her chin high, the lovely, angry head set proudly on her aristocratic delicate neck.
He then backed away from her.
She turned to face him, eyes flashing.
“Do not speak,” he said.
Her fingers went white with anger, clutching the steno pad and pencil.
He gestured to the far side of the room. “Walk there,” he said, “and return.”
“I will not,” she said.
“Now,” said the man.
Elizabeth had looked, tears almost in her eyes, at the department head, but he seemed suddenly to her soft, pudgy, distant, sweating, nothing. He nodded hastily, “Please, Miss Cardwell, do as he says.”
Elizabeth faced the tall, strange man. She was breathing rapidly now. She felt the pencil clutched in her sweating hand. Then it broke.
“Now,” said the man.
Looking at him she suddenly had the feeling, a strange one, that this man, in some circumstances and for some purpose or another, had assessed and judged many women.
This infuriated her.
It seemed to her a challenge that she would accept. She would show him a woman indeed — allowing herself for the instant to be insolently and fully female — showing him in her walk her contempt and scorn for him.
She would then leave and go directly to the personnel office, tendering her resignation.
She threw back her head. “Very well,” she said. And Elizabeth Cardwell walked proudly, angrily, to the far side of the room, wheeled there, faced the man, and approached him, eyes taunting, a smile of contempt playing about her lips. She heard the department head quickly suck in his breath. She did not take her eyes from the tall, strange man.
“Are you satisfied,” she asked, quietly, acidly.
“Yes,” he had said.
She remembered then only turning and starting for the door, and a sudden, peculiar odour, penetrating, that seemed to close about her face and head.
She had regained consciousness on the Plains of Gor. She bad been dressed precisely as she had been the morning she had gone to work save that about her throat she had found sewn a high, thick leather collar. She had cried out, she had wandered. Then, after some hours stumbling confused, terrified, hungry through the high, brown grass, she had seen two riders, mounted on swift, strange beasts. They had seen her. She called to them. They approached her cautiously, in a large circle, as though examining the grass for enemies, or others.
“I’m Elizabeth Cardwell,” she had cried. “My home is in New York City. What place is this? Where am I?” And then she has seen the faces, and had screamed.
“Position,” said Kamchak.
I spoke sharply to the girl. “Be as you were before.”
Terrified the girl straightened herself and again, knees placed, back straight and head high, knelt before us in the position of the Pleasure Slave.
“The collar,” said Kamchak, “is Turian.”
Kutaituchik nodded.
This was news to me, and I welcomed it, for it meant that probably, somehow, the answer to at least a part of the mystery which confronted me lay in the city of Turia.
But how was it that Elizabeth Cardwell, of Earth, wore a Turian message collar?
Kamchak drew the quiva from his belt and approached the girl. She looked at him wildly, drawing back.
“Do not move,” I told her.
Kamchak set the blade of the quiva between the girl’s throat and the collar and moved it, the leather collar seeming to fall from the blade.
The girl’s neck, where the collar had been sewn, was red and sweaty, broken out.
Kamchak returned to his place where he again sat down cross-legged, putting the cut collar on the rug in front of him.
I and Kutaituchik watched as he carefully spread open the collar, pressing back two edges. Then, from within the collar, he drew forth a thin, folded piece of paper, rence paper made from the fibres of the rence plant, a tall, long-stalked leafy plant which grows predominantly in the delta of the Vosk. I suppose, in itself, this meant nothing, but I naturally thought of Port Kar, malignant, squalid Port Kar, which claims suzerainty over the delta, exacting cruel tributes from the rence growers, great stocks of rence paper for trade, sons for oarsmen in cargo galleys, daughters for Pleasure Slaves in the taverns of the city. I would have expected the message to have been written either on stout, glossy-surfaced linen paper, of the sort milled in Ar, or perhaps on vellum and parchment, prepared in many cities and used commonly in scrolls, the process involving among other thing tile washing and liming of skins, their scraping and stretching, dusting them with sifted chalk, rubbing them down with pumice.
Kamchak handed the paper to Kutaituchik and he took it but looked at it, I thought, blankly. Saying nothing he handed it back to Kamchak, who seemed to study it with great care, and then, to my amazement, turned it sideways and then upside down. At last he grunted and handed it to me.
I was suddenly amused, for it occurred to me that neither of the Tuchuks could read.
“Read,” said Kutaituchik.
I smiled and took the piece of rence paper. I glanced at it and then I smiled no longer. I could read it, of course. It was in Gorean script, moving from left to right, and then from right to left on alternate lines. The writing was quite legible. It was written in black ink, probably with a reed pen. This again suggested the delta of the Vosk.
“What does it say?” asked Kutaituchik.
The message was simple, consisting of only three lines.
I read them aloud.
Find the man to whom this girl can speak.
He is Tarl Cabot.
Slay him.
“And who has signed this message?” asked Kutaituchik.
I hesitated to read the signature.
“Well?” asked Kutaituchik.
“It is signed,” I said, “— Priest-Kings of Gor.”
Kutaituchik smiled. “You read Gorean well,” he said.
I understood then that both men could read, though perhaps many of the Tuchuks could not. It had been a test.
Kamchak grinned at Kutaituchik, the scarring on his face wrinkling with pleasure. “He has held grass and earth with me,” he said.
“Ah!” said Kutaituchik. “I did not know.”
&nbs
p; My mind was whirling. Now I understood, as I had only suspected before, why an English-speaking girl was necessary to bear the collar, that she might be the device whereby I would be singled out from the hundreds and thousands among the wagons, and so be marked for death.
But I could not understand why Priest-Kings should wish me slain. Was I not engaged, in a sense, in their work? Had I not come to the Wagon Peoples on their behalf, to search for the doubtless golden sphere that was the last egg of Priest-Kings, the final hope of their race?
Now they wished me to die.
It did not seem possible.
I prepared to fight for my life, selling it as dearly as possible on the dais of Kutaituchik, called Ubar of the Tuchuks, for what Gorean would dare reject the command of Priest-Kings? I stood up, unsheathing my sword.
One or two of the men-at-arms immediately drew the quiva.
A small smile touched the broad face of Kutaituchik.
“Put your sword away and sit down,” said Kamchak.
Dumbfounded, I did so.
“It is,” said Kamchak, “obviously not a message of Priest-Kings.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
The scarred face wrinkled again and Kamchak rocked back and slapped his knees. He laughed, “Do you think Priest-Kings, if they wished you dead, would ask others to do this for them?” He pointed at the opened collar lying before him on the rug. “Do you think Priest-Kings would use a Turian message collar?” He pointed his broad finger at Elizabeth Cardwell. “Do you think Priest-Kings would need a girl to find you?” Kamchak threw back his head and laughed loudly, and even Kutaituchik smiled. “No,” said Kamchak, slapping his knee, “Priest-Kings do not need Tuchuks to do their killing!”
What Kamchak had said then seemed to make a great deal of sense to me. Yet it seemed strange that anyone, no matter whom, would dare to use the name of Priest-Kings falsely. Who, or what, could dare such a thing? Besides, how did I know that the message was not from Priest-Kings? I knew, as Kamchak and Kutaituchik did not, of the recent Nest War beneath the Sardar, and of the disruption in the technological complexes of the Nest — who knew to what primitive devices Priest-Kings might now find themselves reduced Yet, on the whole, I tended to agree with Kamchak, that it was not likely the message came from Priest-Kings. It had been, after all, months since the Nest War and surely, by now, to some extent, Priest-Kings would have managed to restore-significant portions of the equipment, devices of surveillance and control, by means of which they had, for such long millennia, managed to maintain their mastery of this barbarian sphere. Besides this, as far as I knew, Misk, who was my friend and between whom and myself there was Nest Trust, was still the highest born of the living Priest-Kings and the final authority in matters of importance in the Nest; I knew that Misk, if no other, would not have wished my death. And finally, I reminded myself again, was I not now engaged in their work? Was I not now attempting to be of service to them? Was I not now among the Wagon Peoples, in peril perhaps, on their behalf?
But, I asked myself, if this message was not from Priest-Kings, from whom could it be? Who would dare this? And who but Priest-Kings would know that I was among the Wagon Peoples? But yet I told myself — someone, or something — must know — others, not Priest-Kings. There must be others — others, who did not wish me to succeed in my work, who wished Priest-Kings, the race, to die, others who were capable even of bringing humans from Earth for their purposes — technologically advanced — others who were, perhaps, I cautiously, invisibly, at war with Priest-Kings — who perhaps wished as prize this world, or perhaps this world and Earth as well, our sun and its planets — others, who perhaps stood on the margins of our system, waiting perhaps for the demise of the power of Priest-Kings, perhaps the shield which unknown to men, had protected them — perhaps from the time of the first grasping of stones, from the time even before an intelligent, prehensile animal could build fires in the mouth of its lair.
But these speculations were too fantastic, and I dismissed them.
There was remaining, however, a mystery, and I was determined to resolve it.
The answer possibly lay in Turia.
In the meantime I would, of course, continue my work. I would try, for Misk, to find the egg, and return it to the Sardar. I suspected, truly as it turned out, that the mystery and my mission were not utterly unconnected.
“What,” I asked Kamchak, “would you do if you thought the message were truly from Priest-Kings?”
“Nothing,” said Kamchak, gravely.
“You would risk,” I asked, “the herds — the wagons — the peoples?” Both Kamchak and I knew that Priest-Kings were not lightly to be disobeyed. Their vengeance could extend to the total and complete annihilation of cities. Indeed their power, as I knew, was sufficient to destroy planets.
“Yes,” said Kamchak.
“Why?” I asked.
He looked at me and smiled. “Because,” said he, “we have together held grass and earth.”
Kutaituchik, Kamchak and I then regarded Elizabeth Cardwell.
I knew that, as far as the interrogation was concerned, she had served her purpose. There was nothing more to be learned from her. She, too, must have sensed this, for she seemed, though she did not move, terribly frightened. Her fear could be read in her eyes, in the slight, tremulous movement of her lower lip. In the affairs of state she was now without value. Then uncontrollably, piteously, suddenly, trembling in the Sirik, she put her head down to the pelt of the larl. “Please,” she said, “do not kill me.”
I translated for Kamchak and Kutaituchik.
Kutaituchik addressed the question to her.
“Are you zealous to please the fancy of Tuchuks?”
I translated.
With horror Elizabeth Cardwell lifted her head from the pelt and regarded her captors. She shook her head, wildly, “No, please no!”
“Impale her,” said Kutaituchik.
Two warriors rushed forward and seized the girl under the arms, lifting her from the pelt.
“What are they going to do?” she cried.
“They intend to impale you,” I told her.
She began to scream. “Please, please, please!”
My hand was on the hilt of my sword, but Kamchak’s hand rested on mine.
Kamchak turned to Kutaituchik. “She seems zealous,” he said.
Once again Kutaituchik addressed his question to her, and I translated it.
“Are you zealous to please the fancy of Tuchuks?”
The men who held the girl allowed her to fall to her knees between them. “Yes,” she said, piteously, “yes!”
Kutaituchik, Kamchak and I regarded her.
“Yes,” she wept, her head to the rug, “I am zealous to please the fancy of Tuchuks.”
I translated for Kutaituchik and Kamchak.
“Ask,” demanded Kutaituchik, “if she begs to be a slave girl.”
I translated the question.
“Yes,” wept Elizabeth Cardwell, “yes — I beg to be a slave girl.”
Perhaps in that moment Elizabeth Cardwell recalled the strange man, so fearsome, grey of face with eyes like glass, who had so examined her on Earth, before whom she had stood as though on a block, unknowingly being examined for her fitness to bear the message collar of Turia. How she had challenged him, how she had walked, how insolent she had been! Perhaps in that moment she thought how amused the man might be could he see her now, that proud girl, now in the Sirik, her head to the pelt of a larl, kneeling to barbarians, begging to be a slave girl; and if she thought of these things how she must have then cried out in her heart, for she would have then recognized that the man would have known full well what lay in store for her; how he must have laughed within himself at her petty show of female pride, her vanity, knowing it was this for which the lovely brown-haired girl in the yellow shift was destined.
“I grant her wish,” said Kutaituchik. Then to a warrior nearby, he said, “Bring meat.”
The w
arrior leapt from the dais and, in a few moments, returned with a handful of roasted bosk meat.
Kutaituchik gestured for the girl, trembling, to be brought forward, and the two warriors brought her to him, placing her directly before him.
He took the meat in his hand and gave it to Kamchak, who bit into it, a bit of juice running at the side of his mouth; Kamchak then held the meat to the girl.
“Eat,” I told her.
Elizabeth Cardwell took the meat in her two hands, confined before her by slave bracelets and the chain of the Sirik, and, bending her head, the hair falling forward, ate it.
She, a slave, had accepted meat from the hand of Kamchak of the Tuchuks.
She belonged to him now.
“La Kajira,” she said, putting her head down, then covering her face with her manacled hands, weeping. “La Kajira. La Kajira!”
Chapter 8
THE WINTERING
If I had hoped for an easy answer to the riddles which concerned me, or a swift end to my search for the egg of Priest-Kings, I was disappointed, for I learned nothing of either for months.
I had hoped to go to Turia, there to seek the answer to the mystery of the message collar, but it was not to be, at least until the spring.
“It is the Omen Year,” had said Kamchak of the Tuchuks.
The herds would circle Turia, for this was the portion of the Omen Year called the Passing of Turia, in which the Wagon Peoples gather and begin to move toward their winter pastures; the second portion of the Omen Year is the Wintering, which takes place far north of Turia, the equator being approached in this hemisphere, of course, from the south; the third and final portion of the Omen Year is the Return to Turia, which takes place in the spring, or as the Wagon Peoples have it, in the Season of Little Grass. It is in the spring that the omens are taken, regarding the possible election of the Ubar San, the One Ubar, he who would be Ubar of all the Wagons, of all the Peoples.
I did manage, however, from the back of the kaiila, which I learned to ride, to catch a glimpse of distant, high-walled, nine-gated Turia.