Nomads of Gor coc-4

by John Norman

  “No,” I said. “It must have been marvellously concealed.”

  “What does the egg look like?” he asked.

  I sat still on the back of the kaiila. “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You thought, perhaps,” he asked, “it would be golden and spherical?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I did.”

  “It was for such a reason,” he said, “that we Tuchuks dyed the egg of a tharlarion and placed it in the wagon of Kutaituchik, letting its position be known.”

  I was speechless, and could not respond to the Tuchuk.

  “I think,” said he, “you have often seen the egg of Priest-Kings, for it lies about in my wagon. Indeed, the Paravaci who raided my wagon did not regard it as of sufficient interest to carry away.”

  “That!” I cried.

  “Yes,” said he, “the curiosity, the grey, leathery object that.”

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  I recalled Kamchak sitting on the grey, rather squarish, grained thing with the rounded corners. I recalled he had moved it about with his foot, that once he had kicked it across the wagon for me to examine.

  “Sometimes,” said Kamchak, “the way to conceal something is not to conceal It, it is thought that what is of value will be hidden, and so it is natural to suppose that what is not hidden will not be of value.”

  “But,” I said, my voice trembling, “you rolled it about you would throw it to the side of the wagon once you even kicked it across the rug to me that I might examine it.” I looked at him, incredulously. “Even,” I said, “did you dare to sit upon it”

  “I shall hope,” chuckled Kamchak, “that the Priest-Kings will take no offence, but understand that such little bits of acting rather well carried off, I think were important parts of my deception.”

  I smiled, thinking of Misk’s joy at receiving the egg. “They will take little offence,” I said.

  “Do not fear the egg was injured,” said Kamchak, “for to injure the egg of Priest-Kings I would have had to use a quiva or axe.”

  “Wily Tuchuk,” I said.

  Kamchak and Harold laughed

  “I hope,” I said, “that after this time the egg is still”

  Kamchak shrugged. “We have watched it,” he said, “we have done what we could.”

  “And I and Priest-Kings are grateful to you,” I said.

  Kamchak smiled. “We are pleased to be of service to Priest-Kings,” he said, “but remember that we reverence only the sky.”

  “And courage,” added Harold, “and such things.”

  Kamchak and I laughed.

  “I think it is because at least in part,” I said, “that you reverence the sky and courage and such things that the egg was brought to you.”

  “Perhaps,” said Kamchak, “but I shall be glad to be rid of it, and besides it is nearly the best time for hunting tumits with the bola”

  “By the way, Ubar,” asked Harold, winking at me, “what was it you paid for Aphris of Turia?”

  Kamchak threw him a look that might have been a quiva in the heart.

  “You have found Aphris!” I cried.

  “Albrecht of the Kassars,” remarked Harold, casually, “picked her up while raiding the Paravaci camp.”

  “Wonderful!” I cried.

  “She is only a slave, and unimportant,” growled Kamchak.

  “What did you pay for her return?” inquired Harold, with great innocence.

  “Almost nothing,” muttered Kamchak, “for she is nearly worthless.”

  “I am very pleased,” I said, “that she is alive and well and I gather that you were able to purchase her from Albrecht of the Kassars without difficulty.”

  Harold put his hand over his mouth and turned away, sniggering, and Kamchak’s head seemed to sink angrily into his shoulders.

  “What did you pay?” I asked.

  “It is hard to outwit a Tuchuk in a bargain,” remarked Harold, turning back, rather confidently.

  “It will soon be time to hunt tumits,” growled Kamchak, looking off across the grass toward the wagons beyond the walls.

  Well did I recall how Kamchak had made Albrecht of the Kassars pay dearly for the return of his little darling Tenchika, and how he had roared with laughter because the Kassar had paid such a price, obviously having allowed himself to care for a mere slave girl, and she a Turian at that

  “I would guess,” said Harold, “that so shrewd a Tuchuk as Kamchak, the very Ubar of our wagons, would have paid no more than a handful of copper tarn disks for a wench of such sorts.”

  “The tumits run best this time of year rather toward the Cartius,” observed Kamchak.

  “I’m very happy,” I said, “to hear that you have Aphris back. She cared for you, you know.”

  Kamchak shrugged.

  “I have heard,” said Harold, “that she does nothing but sing around the bosk and in the wagon all day I myself would probably beat a girl who-insisted on making all that noise.”

  “I think,” said Kamchak, “I will have a new bola made for the hunting.”

  “He is, of course,” observed Harold, “quite handsome.”

  Kamchak growled menacingly.

  “At any rate,” continued Harold, “I know that he would have upheld the honour of the Tuchuks in such matters and driven a hard bargain with the unwary Kassar.”

  “The important thing,” I said, “is that Aphris is back and safe.” We rode on for a while more. Then I asked, “By the way, as a matter of fact, what did you pay for her?”

  Kamchak’s face was black with rage. He looked at Harold, who smiled innocently and questioningly, and then at me, who was only honestly curious. Kamchak’s hands were like white clubs knotted on the reins of the kaiila. “Ten thousand bars of gold,” he said.

  I stopped the kaiila and regarded him, astounded. Harold began to pound his saddle and howl with laughter.

  Kamchak’s eyes, had they been jets of fire, would have frizzled the young, blond Tuchuk in his saddle.

  “Well, well,” I said, a certain regrettable malicious elation perhaps unfortunately detectable in my voice.

  Now Kamchak’s eyes would have frizzled me as well.

  Then a wry glint of amusement sparkled in the Tuchuk’s eyes and the furrowed face wrinkled into a sheepish grin.

  “Yes,” he said, “Tarl Cabot, I did not know until then that I was a fool.”

  “Nonetheless, Cabot,” remarked Harold, “do you not think, all things considered, he is on the whole albeit unwise n certain matters an excellent Ubar?”

  “On the whole,” I agreed, “albeit perhaps unwise in certain Matters an excellent Ubar.”

  Kamchak glared at Harold, and then at me, and then he looked down, scratching his ear; then he looked at us again, and all three of us suddenly burst together into laughter, and tears even streamed down Kamchak’s face, running here and there among the scarred furrows on his cheeks.

  “You might have pointed out,” said Harold to Kamchak, “that the gold was Turian gold.”

  “Yes,” cried Kamchak, “that is true it was Turian gold!”

  He cracked his fist on his thigh. “Turian gold”

  “One might claim,” said Harold, “that that makes quite a difference.”

  “Yes!” cried Kamchak.

  “On the other hand,” said Harold, “I for one would not claim that.”

  Kamchak straightened in the saddle and thought about it.

  Then he chuckled and said, “Nor would I.”

  Again we laughed and, suddenly, we urged the kaiila forward in great bounding strides, eager to reach the wagons, each of us, for waiting in these wagons were three girls, desirable, marvellous, ours, Hereena, she who had been of the First Wagon, the slave of Harold, her master; Aphris of Turia, almond-eyed and exquisite, once the richest and perhaps the most beautiful woman of her city, now the simple slave of the Ubar of Tuchuks, he Kamchak; and the slender, lovely, dark-haired, dark-eyed Elizabeth Cardwell, once a proud girl of Earth, n
ow only the helpless and beautiful slave of a warrior of Ko-ro-ba; a girl in whose nose had been fixed the delicate, provocative golden ring of Tuchuk women, a girl whose thigh bore unmistakably the brand of the four bosk horns, whose lovely throat was encircled by a collar of steel, bearing my name; a girl whose rapturous and uncontrollable submission had, in its utterness, astounded both herself and me, both he who commanded and she who served, he who took and she who was given no choice but to yield unreservedly. When she had left my arms she had lain upon the rug and wept. “I have nothing more to give,” she cried. “Nothing more!”

  “It is enough,” I had told her.

  And she had wept with joy, pressing her head with its loose, wild hair to my side.

  “Is my master pleased with me?” she had asked.

  “Yes,” I had told her. “Yes, Vella, Kajira mire. I am pleased. I am pleased indeed.”

  I leaped from the back of the kaiila and ran toward the wagon and the girl waiting there cried out with joy and tad to me and I swept her into my arms and our lips met and she wept, “You are safer You are safer”

  “Yes,” I said, “I am safe and you are safe and the world is safer.”

  At the time I believed that what I kind said was true.

  Chapter 27

  THE SPARING OF THE HOME STONE OF TURIA

  I gathered that the best season for hunting tumits, the large, flightless carnivorous birds of the southern plains, was at hand, for Kamchak, Harold and others seemed to be looking forward to it with great eagerness. Kutaituchik avenged, Kamchak was no longer interested in Turia, though he wished the city to be restored, perhaps in order that the Wagon Peoples might have a valuable trade outlet whereby they could manage, if the caravan raids turned out poorly, to barter hides and horn for the goods of civilization.

  On the last day before the withdrawal of the Wagon Peoples from nine-gated, high-walled Turia, Kamchak held court in the palace of Phanius Turmus. The Turian Ubar himself, with Kamras, former Champion of Turia, both clad m the Kes, were chained at the door, to wash the feet of those who would enter.

  Turia had been a rich city, and though much gold had been given to the tarnsmen of Ha-Keel and the defenders of t he House of Saphrar, it was a tiny amount when compared with the whole, not even counting that lost by being carried by civilians through the gates Kamchak had designated as escapes from the burning city. Indeed, Saphrar’s secret hordes alone, kept in dozens of vast underground storehouses, would have been enough to have made each and every Tuchuk, and perhaps each Kataii and Kassar as well, a rich man a very rich man in any of the cities of Gor. I recalled that never before had Turia fallen, not since the founding of the city, perhaps thousands of years ago.

  Yet a large portion of this wealth perhaps a third Kamchak designated should be left behind in the city, to aid in its rebuilding.

  Kamchak, as a Tuchuk, could not bring himself to be quite as generous with the city’s women, and the five thousand most beautiful girls of Turia were branded and given to the commanders of Hundreds, that they might be distributed to the bravest and fiercest of their warriors; the others were permitted to remain in the city or flee through the gates to seek their fellow citizens beyond the walls. Additionally, of course, beyond the free women, numerous slaves had fallen into the hands of the warriors, and these, too, were sent to the commanders of Hundreds. The most marvellous set of the latter were the beauties from the Pleasure Gardens of Saphrar of Turia. The girls of the Wagon Peoples, of course, who had been enslaved, were freed; the others, however, save for some of Ko-ro-ba on whose behalf I spoke, would change their perfumed silks and their warmed, scented baths for the hardships of the trek, the care of bosk, and the arms of warrior masters. Few it seemed to me, surprisingly perhaps, much objected to leaving the luxurious delights of the gardens of Saphrar for the freedom of the winds and prairies, the dust, the smell of bosk, the collar of a man who would master them utterly but before whom they would stand al human shes, individual, each different, each alone and marvellous and prized in the secret world of her master’s wagon.

  In the palace of Phanius Emus, on his throne, eat. Kamchak, the purple of the Ubar’s robes thrown casually over one shoulder, over his Tuchuk leather. He did not now sit dourly as before, stern and lost in thought, but attended to the details of his business with good humour, stopping only now and then to throw scraps of meat to his kaiila, which was tethered behind the throne. As a matter of course various goods and riches were heaped about his throne, and among them, as part of the booty, there knelt some of the most beautiful of Turia’s maidens, clad only in the Sirik, but at his right knee, unchained and clad Kajir, there knot Aphris of Curia.

  About his throne as well there stood his commanders, and some leaders of Hundreds, many with their women. Beside me, clad not Kajir but in the brief leather of one of the Wagon Girls, though collared, stood Elizabeth Cardwell; similarly attired and collared, I noted, standing a bit behind Harold of the Tuchuks, I saw the fiery Hereena; she was perhaps the only one of all the girls of the Wagon Peoples that day in Turia who was not free; she alone remained slave, and would so remain until or unless it might please Harold, her master, that it should be otherwise; “I rather like the look of a collar on her throat,” he once remarked in his wagon, before ordering her to prepare food for Kamchak and Aphris, and myself and Elizabeth, or Vella, as I would sometimes can her. I gathered that the proud Hereena might long be the slave of Harold of the Tuchuks.

  As fellow after fellow, men of importance in Turia, were dragged before his throne, in the Kes and chained, Kamchak would say to them, “Your goods and your women are mine. Who is the Master of Turia?”

  “Kamchak of the Tuchuks,” they would say, and be dragged away.

  To some he would ask, “Has Turia fallen?”

  And they would bow their heads and say, “She has fallen.”

  At last Phanius Turmus and Kamras were pulled before the throne and thrust to their knees.

  Kamchak gestured to the riches piled about him. “Whose h the wealth of Turia?” he asked.

  “Kamchak of the Tuchuks,” said they.

  Kamchak thrust his fist affectionately into the hair of Aphris of Turia and twisted her head to him.

  “whose are the women of Turia?” he asked.

  “Master,” said Aphris.

  “Kamchak of the Tuchuks,” said the two men.

  “Who,” laughed Kamchak, “is Ubar of Turia?”

  “Kamchak of the Tuchuks,” said the two.

  “Bring the Home Stone of the city,” commanded Kamchak, and the stone, oval and aged, carved with the initial letter of the city, was brought to him.

  He lifted the stone over his head and read fear in the eyes of the two men chained before him.

  But he did not dash the stone to the floor. Rather he arose Tom his throne and placed the stone in the chained hands of Phanius Turmus. “Turia lives,” said he, “Ubar.”

  Tears formed in the eyes of Phanius Turmus and he held the Home Stone of the city to his heart.

  “In the morning,” called Kamchak, “we return to the wagons.”

  “You will spare Turia, Master?” asked Aphris, wondering, knowing the hatred he had borne the city.

  “Yes,” said he, “Turia will live.”

  Aphris looked at him, not understanding.

  I myself was startled, but would not speak. I had thought that Kamchak might destroy the stone, thus breaking the heart of the city, leaving it in ruins in the minds of men. It was only at that time, as he held court in the palace of Phanius Turmus that I realized he would permit the city its freedom, and its soul. I had hitherto only understood that Turians might perhaps return to the city, and that its walls would be left standing. I had not understood that it would be permitted to retain a Home Stone.

  It seemed to me a strange act for a conqueror, for a Tuchuk.

  Was it only because Kamchak believed, as he had once said, that the Wagon Peoples must have an enemy? or was there some other reason, bey
ond that?

  Suddenly there was commotion at the door and three men, followed by some others, burst into the hall.

  The first was Conrad of the Kassars, and with him were Hakimba of the Kataii and a third man I did not know, but who was Paravaci. Behind them were some others, among whom I saw Albrecht of the Kassars, and behind him, to my astonishment, clad in brief leather, not collared, was Tenchika, who held a small bundle tied in cloth in her right hand.

  Conrad, Hakimba and the Paravaci strode to the throne of Kamchak, but none of them, as befitted Ubars of their peoples, knelt.

  Conrad spoke. “The Omens have been taken,” he said.

  “They have been read well,” said Hakimba.

  “For the first time in more than a hundred years,” said the Paravaci, “there is a Ubar San, a One Ubar, Master of the Wagons!”

  Kamchak stood up and threw from his shoulders the purple of the Turian Ubar and stood in the black leather of a Tuchuk.

  As one man the three Ubars raised their arms to him.

  “Kamchak,” they cried, “Ubar San!”

  The cry was taken up by all in the room, even myself.

  “Kamchak Ubar San”

  Kamchak held forth his hands and the room was quiet.

  “Each of you,” he said, “the Kassars the Kataii the Paravaci have your own bosk and your own wagons live so but in time of war when there are those who would divide us when there are those who would fight us and threaten our wagons and our bosk and women our plains, our land then let us war together and none will stand against the Wagon Peoples we may live alone but we are each of us of the Wagons and that which divides us is less than that which unites us we each of us know that it is wrong to slay bosk and that it is right to be proud and to have courage and to defend our wagons and our women we know that it is right to be strong and to be free and so it is together that we will be strong and we will be free. Let this be pledged.”

  The three men came to Kamchak and he and they placed their hands together.

  “It is pledged,” they said. “It is pledged.”

  Then they stood back. “All hail Kamchak,” they cried, “Ubar San!”