Magicians of Gor

by Norman, John;

  "Please, no!" she said.

  "But then," I said, "I think I would rather have your lovely legs free, that you might hurry to and fro, serving me, or be able to dance before me, for my pleasure."

  "'Dance'!" she wept. "'For your pleasure'!"

  "Of course," I said.

  She regarded me, aghast.

  "Such practices are surely not unusual amongst slaves," I said, "such things as dancing before their masters."

  "I suppose not," she said.

  "For they are owned," I said.

  "Yes," she said.

  I was silent.

  "What are you thinking of?" she demanded.

  "I was thinking," I said, "that a special chair might be constructed, a holding chair, a prison chair, so to speak, into which you might be inserted, it then locked shut about you for, say, a few months. More simply, you might be simply chained in a chair for some months. This would give you, I would think, something of the sense of one afflicted with such difficulties. Then again, of course, you might consider how amusing you might find it."

  "Do not even speak so!" she said.

  "I would speculate," I said, "that after only a few Ahn in such a predicament you would be eager to be freed, that you would soon beg piteously to be permitted to dance, to run and fetch, to serve, such things."

  "You can walk now," she murmured.

  Much the same effect, of course, can be achieved in many ways, for example, by close chains, by the slave box, by cramped kennels, tiny cages, and such. These devices are excellent for improving the behavior of slaves.

  She put her head down. I saw that she was frightened, that she was no longer certain of me.

  "I received the antidote in Torvaldsland," I said, "brought to me from far-off Tyros, and, interestingly, as a matter of honor."

  She lifted her head.

  "Do you understand honor?" she asked.

  "No," I said.

  "How, then, can you speak of it?" she asked.

  "Once or twice I glimpsed it," I said.

  "And what is it like?" she asked.

  "It is like a sun, in the morning," I said, "rising over dark mountains."

  "Fool!" she cried.

  I was silent.

  "Weakling!" she said.

  I was silent.

  "You are a weakling!" she said.

  "Perhaps not so much now as I once was," I said.

  "Free me!" she said.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Before," she said, "you freed me!"

  "I am wiser now," I said.

  "Cos can never be driven from Ar!" she said.

  "The might of Cos on the continent," I said, "as opposed to her naval power, is largely dependent on mercenaries."

  "So?" she asked.

  "Mercenaries, on the whole," I said, "saving some companies with unusual allegiance to particular leaders, such as those of Pietro Vacchi and Dietrich of Tarnburg, are seldom trustworthy, and are almost never more trustworthy than their pay."

  "It matters not," she said. "Their pay is assured."

  "Is it?" I asked.

  "Ten companies could hold Ar," she said.

  "Perhaps," I said. "I am not sure of it."

  "Is it truly your intention to call my whereabouts to the attention of Seremides?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "He will rescue me," she said.

  "No," I said. "In a sense he, or Myron, or others, will merely be keeping you for me, rather like your being boarded at some commercial slave kennels."

  "What a beast you are," she said.

  "Indeed," I said, "they will be saving me your upkeep."

  "I shall be restored to the honors of the Ubara!" she said.

  "No," I said. "You are now a slave. A slave cannot be Ubara. You can do no more now than pretend to be the Ubara. In a sense you will be an impostor. And let us hope that no one detects your deception, for, as you know, the penalties for a slave masquerading as a free woman are quite severe."

  She looked at me, in fury.

  "To be sure," I said, "few, at least at present, are likely to suspect your bondage. Most, seeing you participate in state ceremonies, holding court, opening games, and such, will think you are truly the Ubara. Only a few will know that you are my slave girl. Among these few, of course, will be yourself, and myself."

  "It interests me," she said, "that you will not try to smuggle me now out of the city."

  "You are only a slave girl," I said. "You are not that important."

  "I see," she said.

  "It would be rather pointless to take you now, and I do not find it convenient to do so."

  'I see," she said.

  "Other projects, you must understand, are of much higher priority."

  "Naturally," she said.

  "You can wait to be collected."

  "Of course!" she said.

  "Besides," I said, "it amuses me to think of you in the Central Cylinder."

  "Oh?" she asked, angrily.

  "Waiting for me to come for you," I said.

  "Absurd!" she said.

  "Particularly as you grow ever more apprehensive, and more frantic, sensing Ar slipping away from you, mercenaries departing, your power collapsing, your ambitions and hopes blighted, and realizing yourself, a former puppet and traitress, now no more than a masquerading slave illicitly occupying an undeserved throne."

  "You are mad!" she said.

  "You may implore Priest-Kings," I said, "that your father does not return to Ar, and discover what you have done."

  "He died in the Voltai!" she said.

  "Perhaps," I said. "Perhaps not."

  "Surely!" she said.

  "Was the body recovered?" I asked.

  "Were he alive," she said, "he would have returned, long ago."

  "Perhaps," I said. "Perhaps not."

  She pulled a little, futilely, at her bracelets and shackles. How well women look on their knees, chained.

  She looked up at me, the former Ubara, now a slave, helpless.

  "I would not be you," I said, "when the people of Ar see fit to rise."

  "They will never rise!" she exclaimed. "We have destroyed them as men, confused and duped them, by shaming them, by filling them with self-doubt, by denying them to themselves, by trickery and falsehood, by tripping them, by entangling them in verbal snares! We have taught them to rejoice in their diminishment and self-betrayal. Soon, I assure you, there will be no more manhood in them than, as I understand it, in the putative males of your own sorry world!"

  "You are doubly mistaken," said I, "shackled slave. Fear, for the men of Ar are Gorean."

  She trembled, shuddering at the thought of untamed, untrammeled men. What could women be before such men were it not for the protection of their Home Stones?

  "And, too," said I, "on my former world, here and there, there are men. Believe it. And perhaps, too, in every male there is somewhere a man, even there, despite all, who might awaken."

  "Never!" she said.

  "Who knows?" I said. "Suppose they were to look upon you, chained slave."

  "They would faint with embarrassment," she laughed. "And when recovered, averting their eyes, stuttering with profuse apologies, they would free me, instantly."

  I looked upon her.

  She seemed uneasy.

  "Perhaps not," I said.

  "Not?" she said.

  "Perhaps they would put a collar on you, and keep you," I said. "Do you think you would not appeal to them?"

  "They do not know what to do with slaves," she said.

  "Perhaps that is because their culture has given them little familiarity with slaves," I said.

  She looked at me, apprehensively.

  "Suppose there were slaves about," I said.

  "Yes?" she said.

  "I do not think they would then long remain ignorant as to what to do with such lovely creatures," I said.

  She looked at me.

  "Do you not think they could learn?" I said.

 
"No!" she said. "Or they would have done so! They are weak! They are hopeless!"

  "I doubt that," I said.

  "I am of high caste!" she said. "I am aware of the second knowledge. The women of your world are and should be slaves! Your world abounds with slaves, and yet your males do nothing about it! They let them run about as they wish! They let them be disagreeable and insulting!"

  "That changes on Gor," I said.

  "They tolerate insolence!" she said. "They are stupid!"

  "Ignorant, perhaps," I said. "Not stupid."

  "Where are their females’ collars? Must they wait until they are brought to Gor to have them on their necks?" she asked.

  "Perhaps," I said.

  "How weak the men of your world!" she sneered.

  "Some, perhaps," I said.

  I did not think the men of my world were irremediably weak. To be sure, they had been much bled, and trammeled, drop by drop, strand by strand. It was indeed a world in which, in many ways, the unnatural had well contrived, to their advantage, to deny nature to the natural.

  "The men of your world, it seems," said she, "are too weak to seize and claim the slaves of their world."

  I did not respond. I did consider the readiness and joy of Earth-girl slaves brought to the Gorean collar. It occurred to me that there must then be on Earth many lonely, unowned slaves.

  "Poor men of Earth!" she laughed. "Slaves all about, and they have not one!"

  "Some do," I said.

  "Oh?" she said.

  "Yes," I said. "Some men of Earth keep their women as slaves."

  "But few!" she said.

  "Yes," I said, "I think, few."

  I did not doubt but what there were thousands of unowned slaves on Earth, thousands longing for masters, thousands dreaming of collars.

  "How pathetic the men of Earth," she said, "they let their slaves run free!"

  "They may not always run free," I said.

  "They should enslave them," she said. "Slaves are appropriate for low men."

  "Why low men?" I asked. "Why not, just men? Certainly high men, in high civilizations, have held slaves, often beautiful, highly educated slaves, sophisticated, gifted women, well subdued, then trained in arts both intellectual and sensual, slaves who are fit properties for even Ubars."

  "High men," she sniffed, "will prefer a free woman!"

  "Not at all," I said.

  "What!" she cried, angrily, jerking at the bracelets.

  "How naive you are, little fool," I said.

  "I do not understand," she said.

  "Once a man, any man," I said, "has tasted a slave, do you think he will ever again go back to free women?"

  "Free women," she said, "are a thousand times better than a slave!"

  "Of course," I said.

  "Sleen!" she wept. "Sleen!"

  "But now I must water you," I said. I lifted up the decanter of water. "There is a good deal of water here," I said, "but I want you to drink it, as you will not have another drink until sometime tomorrow. Put your head back."

  I set the opening of the bottle to her mouth, but scarcely had she dampened her lips than she drew back her head.

  "What is wrong?" I asked.

  "This water has been drawn for days," she said. "Surely it is not fresh!"

  "Drink it," I said. "All of it."

  She looked at me.

  "Your head can be held back by the hair," I said, "and your nostrils can be pinched shut."

  "That will not be necessary," she said.

  I then gave her of the water.

  "Please," she protested.

  But I did not see fit to permit her to dally in the downing of it.

  I then set the decanter to the side, empty.

  "That is a nicely rounded slave belly," said Marcus.

  I patted it twice. It sounded not unlike a filled wineskin. Too it bulged out, and reacted not dissimilarly.

  She drew back.

  "If you were to be sold in a Tahari market," I told her, "you might find yourself forced to drink a large amount of water, like this, shortly before your sale."

  She crept back, on her knees, apprehensively, putting a little more distance between us.

  "Do not fear," I said. "I have no intention at present of testing you for vitality."

  "'Vitality'?" she whispered.

  "I recall you as a free woman," I said. "But it will be interesting to see how you are once you have been for a time in a collar."

  "No!" she wept.

  "Then, I think, you will first learn what it is to be a female. It will be interesting to see you jump and squirm as a slave, and weep and beg!"

  "No!" she cried. "No!"

  "But, yes," I smiled.

  "Sleen!" she cried. "Sleen!

  I then picked up the makings of the gag which were to her left, the wadding and the binding.

  She eyed them, apprehensively.

  "This is not the first time you have been a slave," I said. "Once, I know, you were owned by Rask of Treve."

  She looked up at me.

  "Did you serve him well?" I asked.

  "He put me often in slave silk, and jewelry, to show me off," she said, "as it amused him, he, of Treve, to have the daughter of Marlenus of Ar for a slave, but he did not make much use of me. Indeed, I served him, by his will, almost entirely in domestic labors, keeping his tent, and such. This he seemed to feel was appropriate, such demeaning, servile labors, for the daughter of Marlenus of Ar. But, too, I do not think he much cared for me. Then, when he got his hands on a meaningless little blond chit, a true slave in every hort of her body, named El-in-or, he gave me away, to a panther girl named Verna, to be taken to the northern forests. I served panther girls, too, as a domestic slave, and was later sold, at the coast, where I came into the collar of Samos, of Port Kar."

  "It is difficult to believe that Rask of Treve did not put you to slave use," I said.

  "He did, of course," she said.

  "And how were you?" I asked.

  "He told guests that I was superb," she said.

  "And were you?" I asked.

  "I had better have been," she said.

  "True," I said. I had twice met Rask of Treve, both times in Port Kar. He was the sort of fellow whom women strove to serve unquestioningly to the best of their abilities.

  "Surely you learned much of the arts of the slave in his tent," I said.

  "No," she said. "I was more of a prize, or a political prisoner. I was more like a free woman in slave silk than a slave, in his camp."

  "Then, in effect," I said, "aside from having worn the collar and such, you have never experienced what one might call a full slavery?"

  "Like a common slave slut?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "No!" she said, angrily.

  "That would seem to have been an oversight on the part of Rask of Treve," I said.

  "Perhaps," she said, angrily.

  "Perhaps other masters can remedy that oversight," I said.

  "Sleen," she said.

  "Were slave fires ignited in your belly?" I asked.

  "Do not speak so to a Ubara!" she said.

  "Were they," I asked, "slave girl?"

  "No! No!" she said. "Certainly not!"

  "Interesting," I said.

  "I will not have such things done to me!" she said.

  "If men see fit," I said, "you will have no choice."

  "I will resist!" she said.

  "If it pleases men," I said, "your resistance will be useless."

  "Such things," she said, "can be done to me, against my will?"

  "Easily," I said.

  She shuddered.

  It amused me to think of the proud Talena, collared, and at the mercy of slave fires. It could be done to her. She was a lovely, healthy female. She would then be no different from any other embonded confection, or slab of collar meat, or property slut, so afflicted. She, too, on her knees or belly, helpless, could learn to beg.

  It is pleasant to do this to
women. It is pleasant to transform them into needful slaves.

  "Sometimes," she said, "I would purchase a man’s slave and use her as a serving slave. It amused me to hear her beg, and whine, and scratch, in her kennel."

  "Doubtless you found that amusing," I said.

  "She was only a slave," she said.

  "You were a free woman," I said.

  "Of course," she said.

  "And thus you enjoyed tormenting slaves, and making them suffer?"

  "We hate them," she said, "the meaningless chits! Their very existence is a reproach to free women!"

  "Because they are excruciatingly desirable, and men will have them as they wish?"

  She was silent.

  "And because they are happy?" I asked.

  "They have no right to be happy," she said. "They are in collars. They must fear the whip!"

  "So you hate slaves?"

  "Certainly!" she said.

  "But now you are one yourself," I said.

  "No!" she cried.

  "But, yes," I said.

  She uttered a cry of rage.

  "But an inadequate one," I said, "for you are not even trained."

  "Release me!" she demanded.

  "And as a new slave, you are probably not even, as yet, 'slave hot.'"

  "'Slave hot'!"

  "That can come in time," I said.

  "No!" she exclaimed. "I am the daughter of a Ubar!"

  "Do not struggle so," I said. "You might mark your body, and that might lower your price."

  "Tarsk!" she wept. "Sleen! Sleen!"

  "Rask of Treve, I gather," I said, "refrained from igniting the slave fires in your belly?"

  "He preferred me, it seems," she said, angrily, "as the cool, reserved, distressed daughter of a Ubar, something dignified to be displayed, and worked, rather as a trophy."

  "And not as pathetic, lascivious, begging slave?"

  "Would that not have cheapened me?" she asked.

  "Certainly," I said, "and marvelously, and superbly."

  "That would scarcely be appropriate for the daughter of a Ubar," she said.

  "That is a matter of opinion," I said.

  "I see," she said.

  "I see nothing amiss with a Ubar’s daughter, naked and belled, on her belly at a master’s feet, squirming, weeping, begging his touch."

  "You would not," she said.

  "But before such alterations could occur," I said, "you were taken to the northern forests."

  "I was taken to the northern forests."

  "I see," I said.

  "Men must not make me that way," she said. "I do not want to be a helpless, needful slave!"