Magicians of Gor

by Norman, John;

  "It is not necessary," he said.

  "No," I said. "I suppose it is not necessary."

  "Are you going to kill him?" Marcus asked me.

  "I have not decided," I said.

  "There are two of you," he said.

  "You are a brave fellow," I said, "not to turn about, and flee." The odds, you see, were much against him, even were we mediocre swordsmen. One need only engage and defend, and the other strike.

  "You dare not attack," he said. "It is day. Those of Ar watch."

  "Is it true?" I asked Marcus, not taking my eyes off the fellow.

  Marcus stepped back, shielding himself behind me. "Yes," he said.

  "Interesting," I said.

  "You see," he said. "There are many witnesses."

  "They are not rushing for aid are they?" I asked Marcus.

  "No," he said.

  "I suspect they will have seen nothing," I said.

  The fellow turned pale.

  "You are cowards!" he said.

  "Which of us will kill him?" asked Marcus.

  "It does not matter," I said.

  The fellow stepped back another pace.

  "Why do you not run?" I asked.

  "Those of Ar watch," he said.

  "And not to show fear before them you would stand your ground against two?"

  "I am Cosian," he said.

  "Now," I said to Marcus, "perhaps the victory of Cos is clearer to you."

  "Yes," said Marcus.

  "Under the circumstances," I said to the guardsman, "I would nonetheless recommend a discretionary withdrawal."

  "No," said the man.

  "We are prepared to permit it," I said.

  "No," he said.

  "No dishonor is involved in such a thing," I said.

  "No," he said.

  "You need not even make haste," I said.

  "Those of Ar watch," he said.

  "I have decided not to kill you," I said.

  "I do not fear you singly," he said.

  "On guard," I said.

  He immediately entered readiness.

  "Stay back," I said to Marcus.

  I had scarcely uttered my injunction to Marcus when, Phoebe screaming, the fellow lunged. Our blades met perhaps three times and I was under his guard. He drew back, shaken, white faced. Again we engaged and, again, in a moment, I was behind his guard. Again he drew back, this time staggering, off balance. "Aii," he wept and lunged again, and then, tripped, scrambling about, pressed back with my foot, was on his back, my sword at his throat. He looked up, wildly. "Strike!" he said.

  "Get up," I said. "Sheath your sword."

  He staggered to his feet, watching me, and sheathed his sword. I then sheathed mine.

  "Why did you not kill me?" he asked.

  "I told you earlier," I said, "I had decided not to kill you."

  "I am an expert swordsman," he said, looking at me.

  "I agree," I said.

  "I have never seen such speed, such subtlety," he said. "It is like defending oneself against wind, or lightning."

  I did not respond to him. In a way I felt sad, and helpless. In many ways I am a very average man, if that. Too, I have many lacks, and many faults. How ironic then it was, I thought, that among the few gifts which I might possess, those few things which might distinguish me among other men, were such as are commonly associated with destructiveness. Of what value is it, I asked myself, to have certain talents. Of what dreadful value are such skills? Of what value, really, is it to be able to bring down a running man with the great bow at two hundred yards, to throw the quiva into a two-hort circle at twenty paces, to wield a sword with an agility others might bring to the handling of a knife? Of what use are such dreadful skills? Then I reminded myself that such skills are often of great use and that culture, with its glories of art, and music and literature, can flourish only within the perimeters of their employments. Perhaps there is then a role for the lonely fellows on the wall, for the border guards, for the garrisons of far-flung outposts, for the guardsmen in the city treading their lonely rounds. All these, too, in their humble, unnoticed way, serve. Without them the glory is not possible. Without them even their critics could not exist.

  "Are you all right?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said.

  I recalled, too, the games of war. They, too, in their awesomeness, must not be forgotten. Why is it that some men seek wars, traveling to the ends of the earth to find them? It is because they have a taste for such things. It is because there, where others fear to tread, they find themselves most alive. He who has been on the field of battle knows the misery, the terror, the tenseness, the racing of the blood, the pounding of the heart, the exhilaration, the meaningfulness. In what other arena, and for what lesser stakes, can so much of man be summoned forth, man with his brutality, his cruelty, his mercilessness, his ruthlessness, his terribleness, these ancient virtues, and man with his devotion, his camaraderie, his fellowship, his courage, his discipline, his glory? In what other endeavor is man, in his frailty and strength, in his terribleness and nobility, so fully manifested? What is the meaning of war to the warrior? Surely it is not merely to be found in the beholding of flaming cities and the treading of bloody fields. Surely it is not merely to be found in silver plate and golden vessels, nor even in women lying naked in their chains, huddled together, trembling, in the mud, knowing that they are now properties and must please. It is rather, I think, primarily, the contest, and that for which all is risked, victory. To be sure, this is a war of warriors, not of technicians and engineers, a war of men, not of machines, not of explosives, not of microscopic allies, not of poisoned atmospheres, wars in which the tiny, numerous meek, in their swarms, crawling on six legs, will inherit the earth.

  "You are not of Ar," said the guardsman.

  "No," I said.

  "I did not think so," he said.

  I shrugged.

  "Cos," he said, "can use blades such as yours."

  "I seek employment," I said.

  "Go to the barracks of guardsman," said he.

  "Perhaps," I said.

  "I would now leave this area," he said. "Too, I would not attempt to interfere with the work on the walls."

  "I understand," I said.

  "That is a pretty slave," he said.

  "She belongs to my friend," I said. Phoebe shrank back a bit, closer to Marcus. Female slaves on Gor must grow used to being looked upon frankly by men, and assessed as the properties they are. They know they can be acquired, and disposed of, and bought and sold, and traded, and such, with ease, even at a moment's notice.

  "Is she of Ar?" he asked.

  "No," said Marcus.

  "Are you sure?" asked the guardsman.

  "Yes," said Marcus.

  "Many women of Ar look well in slave tunics, barefoot and collared," he said.

  "Undoubtedly," I said.

  And I had little doubt that this fate lay eventually in store for many of the women of Ar. Women are too beautiful not to be enslaved, not to be collared, and owned. They are spoils, as are kaiila and verr. Cos would see to it, eventually, I was sure, that many of the women of Ar would find themselves so, the half-clad, collared chattels of victors. Bit by bit the politics and rhetorics of reconciliation and harmony, perhaps almost unnoticeably, on one pretext or another, would be replaced with the politics and rhetorics of fact. Ar had lost; Cos had won. At the feet of victors lie the defeated.

  Many a collar in some warehouse, I was sure, and not as far away as Cos, waited for the fair throat about which it would be placed and locked.

  "They should all be slaves," he said.

  "So should all women," I said.

  "True," he said.

  To be sure, it did amuse me, in particular, as perhaps it would have most Goreans, to think of the proud women of Ar, of "Glorious Ar," as slaves. Such a fate seemed to me fully appropriate for them, and in particular for some of them.

  "Let us return to our lodgings," I said to Marcus.
/>   "I wish you well," said the guardsman.

  "I, too, wish you well," I said.

  "I must now put these tame cattle of Ar back to work," he said.

  "One man alone?" I asked.

  "No more are needed," he said.

  Indeed, there were no guardsmen on the walls themselves. We had encountered one on the way to the wall, on Harness Street, who had detained us briefly, apparently primarily to determine whether or not we were of Ar.

  "We shall leave now," said Marcus.

  "Yes, Master," said Phoebe.

  We then turned about, and left the vicinity of the Wall Road. Near the entrance to Harness Street, off the Wall Road, I turned about.

  "Continue your work for peace!" called the guardsmen to those on the wall.

  The men on the wall then, and the youths, and women, returned to their labors.

  "Incredible," marveled Marcus.

  "Master," moaned Phoebe.

  Things were then much as they had been before. Nothing had changed. To be sure, the work was not now being performed to the music of flute girls. Tomorrow, however, I did not doubt but what the flute girls would be back, and numerous guards in attendance, at least on the street.

  "Is your sword for hire?" I asked Marcus.

  "It could be," he said.

  "Good," I said.

  "You have some plan?" he asked.

  "Of course," I said.

  "Master," whimpered Phoebe.

  Marcus stopped and looked at her.

  She, too, stopped, and looked up at him.

  "Strip," he said.

  She looked at him, suddenly, wildly, and then about herself. "This is a public street," she said.

  He did not speak.

  She squirmed. "Is there no doorway? No sheltered place?" she asked.

  He did not respond to her.

  "I was a woman of Cos," she said, tears springing to her eyes. "This is a public street in Ar!"

  His expression remained impassive. He maintained his silence.

  "Cos has defeated Ar!" she wept.

  He did not speak.

  "Am I to suffer because you are angry with the men of Ar?" she asked.

  "Does the slave dally in her obedience?" he inquired.

  "No, Master!" she said, frightened.

  "Must a command be repeated?" he inquired.

  "No, Master!" she cried. Her tiny fingers began to fumble with the knot of the slave girdle, before her, beneath her breasts. Then she had the knot loose and pulled away the girdle. She then, hastily, struggling a little with it, pulled the tunic, a light pullover tunic, off, over her head. "The slave obeys her master!" she gasped, frightened, kneeling before him. He then tied her hands behind her back with the slave girdle and thrust the tiny tunic, folded, crosswise, in her mouth, so that she would bite on it. He then pushed her head down to the stones.

  "Are you now less angry with the men of Ar?" I asked him, in an Ehn or two.

  Marcus stood up, adjusting his tunic.

  "Yes," he said.

  Phoebe turned about, from her knees, the tunic between her teeth, and looked back at us.

  "This has little to do with you," I told her. "Too, it is immaterial that you were once of Cos. A slave, you must understand, must sometimes serve such purposes." Her eyes were wide. But one of the utilities of a slave, of course, is to occasionally serve as the helpless object upon which the master may vent his dissatisfaction, his frustration or anger. Too, of course, they may serve many other related purposes, such as the relief of tensions, to relax oneself and even to calm oneself for clear thought.

  "Do you understand?" I asked.

  She nodded.

  I regarded her.

  She whimpered, once.

  "Good," I said.

  One whimper signifies "Yes," and two signifies "No." This arrangement, at any rate, was the one which Marcus had taught to Phoebe long ago, quite early in her slavery to him, at a time when she had been much more often kept bound and gagged than now.

  Marcus then snapped his fingers that she should rise.

  She leaped to her feet.

  We turned our steps once more toward our lodging. Phoebe hurried behind. Once she tried, whimpering, to press herself against her master. She looked up at him, tears in her eyes, her hands tied behind her, the tunic between her teeth. She feared that she might have now, because of her earlier behavior, lapsed in his favor. Too, compounding her misery, was doubtless the fact that Marcus, in his swift, imperious, almost thoughtless usage of her, had done little more than intensify her needs, the helpless prisoner of which, as a slave girl, she was. He thrust her back. We then continued on our way, Phoebe heeling her master. I heard her gasp once or twice, and sob. She was now, I was sure, much more aware, in her own mind, of what it was to be a slave. I do not think, then, she thought of herself any longer, really, as a woman of Cos, or even one who had once been of Cos, but rather now as merely a slave, only that, and one who had perhaps, frighteningly, to her trepidation and misery, failed to be fully pleasing. I did not doubt that later, when we had reached the room, and she was unbound and freed of the gag, that she would crawl to Marcus on all fours, the whip between her teeth, begging. Too, though he loved her muchly, I did not doubt but what he would use it on her. She was, after all, his slave, and he, after all, was her master.

  9

  The Plaza of Tarns

  "She," said Talena, Ubara of Ar, "she is chosen."

  The woman uttered a cry of anguish.

  There were cheers, and applause, the striking of the left shoulder, from the crowd standing about the edges of the huge, temporary platform, the same which had earlier served near the Central Cylinder for the welcoming of Myron, in his entrance into the city.

  The woman, held now by the upper left arm, by a guardsman, was conducted to a point on the platform, erected now in the Plaza of Tarns, a few feet from a rather narrow, added side ramp, where she was knelt, to be manacled. This smaller, added ramp would be on the left side of the platform, as one would face it. My own position was near to, and rather at the foot of this ramp, such that I would be on the right of a person descending the ramp. Talena, with certain aides and counselors, and guardsmen and scribes, was on a dais, it mounted on the surface of the platform, a few feet away, rather to its left, as one would face it. There was a similar added ramp on the other side, by means of which the women, barefoot, and clad at that point in the robe of the penitent, would ascend to its surface.

  The manacles were closed about the wrists of the kneeling woman. One could clearly hear the decisive closure of the devices, first the one, then the other. She lifted them, regarding them, unbelievingly.

  "Have you never worn chains?" asked a man.

  First with one hand and then the other, suddenly, frenziedly, first from one wrist, and then from the other, sobbing, she tried to force the obdurate iron from her wrist.

  Then, again, she lifted the manacles, regarding them, disbelievingly.

  "Yes, they are on you," laughed a fellow.

  "You cannot slip them," said a man.

  "They were not made to be slipped by such as you," said another.

  There was much laughter.

  The woman sobbed.

  "Do not blubber, female," said a man. "Rejoice, rather, that you have been found suitable, that you have been honored by having been chosen!"

  The woman then, conducted by another fellow, with an armband, signifying the auxiliary guardsmen, the first fellow, a uniformed guardsman, returning to the group on the platform, was conducted down the ramp. She was knelt before me. "Wrists," I said. She lifted her chained wrists. I then, by means of the chain, pulled her wrists toward me. I inserted the bolt of a small, sturdy, padlocklike joining ring through a link in the coffle chain. This would hold it in a specific place on the chain, preventing slippage. I then snapped the ring shut about her wrist chain. She looked up at me, coffled.

  "On your feet, move," said another auxiliary guardsman.

  She rose
to her feet and moved ahead, to the first line scratched in the tiles of the plaza. There were some one hundred such lines, each about four or five feet apart, marking places for women to stand. As she moved ahead, so, too, did others. Beyond these hundred spaces the chain moved to the side, and was doubled, and folded back upon itself, again and again, in this fashion keeping its prisoners massed, different lines facing different directions, and all in the vicinity of the platform.

  "It angers me," said a fellow nearby, "that these women should complain. It is a simple enough duty to perform, and a worthy enough act, as female citizens, given the guilt of Ar, her complicity in the wicked schemes of Gnieus Lelius, to offer themselves for reparation consideration."

  "Few enough are chosen anyway," said a fellow.

  "Yes," said another, angrily.

  "Are all burdens to be borne only by men?" asked a man.

  "What of the work levies and such?" said another.

  "Yes," said another.

  "And the taxes and special assessments," said another.

  "True," said a fellow.

  "They are citizens of Ar," said another. "It is only right that they, too, pay the price for our misdeeds."

  "And theirs," said another.

  "Yes," said a fellow.

  "They supported members of councils, and members to elect members of councils," said a man.

  "Yes!" said another.

  "Look at noble Talena," said a man. "How bravely she performs this duty."

  "How onerous it must be for her," said a man.

  "Poor Talena," said a fellow.

  "She, too, it might be recalled," said a man, "appeared in public barefoot, in the garb of a penitent, prepared to offer herself to save Ar."

  "Of course," said a man.

  "Noble woman," breathed a man.

  Auxiliary guardsmen do not wear helmets. I had, accordingly, covered my head and, loosely, the lower portion of my face with a scarf, rather in the manner of the fellows in the Tahari. This fitted in well with the motley garbs of auxiliary guardsmen who, on the whole, had little in common except that they were not of Ar. Regular guardsmen of Ar were, as I have suggested, fellows of Ar under Cosian command, or, often, Cosians, in the uniform of Ar. Too, as mentioned, there were regulars of Cos in the city, and, at any given time, various mercenaries, usually on passes. Some mercenaries, it might be mentioned, had been transferred into the auxiliary guardsmen. Some others, discharged, had enlisted in these units. A good deal of the sensitive work in Ar, work which might possibly produce resentment, or even enflame resistance, was accorded to auxiliary guardsmen. Their actions, if necessary, could always be deplored or disavowed. If necessary, some units might even be disbanded, as a token of conciliation. Such units are, after all, difficult to control. In this I saw further evidence of attention on the part of Myron, or his advisors, to the principles and practices of Dietrich of Tarnburg. A similar device, incidentally, though not one employed by Dietrich of Tarnburg, at least to my knowledge, is to recruit such forces from the dregs of a city itself, utilizing their resentment of, and their hatred for, their more successful fellow citizens to constitute a vain, suspicious and merciless force. This force then may later be disbanded, or even destroyed, to the delight of the other citizens, who then will see their conqueror as their protector, not even understanding his use of, and sacrifice of, such instrumentalities as the duped dregs of their own community, first making use of them, then disposing of them.