Priest-Kings of Gor

by John Norman

  There were no lacerations or bruises that might not have been caused by her flight through the tunnels. Her body and arms and legs, though cut and injured, were neither torn nor broken.

  I found nothing that could have caused her death unless perhaps a small puncture on her left side, through which some poison might have been injected.

  There were, however, though I could not conceive of how they could have killed her, five large round swellings on her body. These extended in a line along her left side, reaching from the interior of her left thigh to her waist to a few inches below her shoulder. These swellings, hard, round and smooth, seemed to lie just beneath the skin and to be roughly the size of one's fist. I supposed they might have been some unusual physiological reaction to the poison which I conjectured had been injected into her system through the small, livid puncture, also on her left side.

  I wiped the back of my forearm across my eyes.

  There was nothing I could do for her now, save perhaps hunt for the Golden Beetle.

  I wondered if I could bury the body somewhere, but dismissed the thought in view of the stony passages I had just traversed. I might move it from the filth of the Golden Beetle's den but it, until the creature itself was slain, would never be safe from its despoiling jaws. I turned my back on Vika of Treve and, carrying the torch, left the cavern. As I did so I seemed almost to hear a silent, horrible, pleading shriek but there was of course no sound. I returned and held the torch and her body was the same as before, the eyes fixed with the same expression of frozen horror, so I left the chamber.

  I continued to search the stony passages of the tunnels of the Golden Beetle but I saw no sign of the creature.

  I held my sword in my right hand and the Mul-Torch in my left.

  When I made a turn I would take the hilt of the sword, in order to protect the blade, and scratch a small sign indicating the direction from which I had come.

  It was a long, eerie search, in the blue light of the Mul-Torch, thrusting it into one crevice and another, trying one passage and then the next.

  As I wandered through these passages my sorrow for Vika of Treve struggled with my hatred for the Golden Beetle until I forced myself to clear my head of emotion and concentrate on the task at hand.

  But still, as the Mul-Torch burned lower and I yet encountered no sign of the Golden Beetle, my thoughts turned ever and again to the still form of Vika lying in the cavern of the Golden Beetle.

  It had been weeks since I had last seen her and I supposed it would have been at least days since she had been closed in the tunnels of the Golden Beetle. How was it that she had been captured only so recently by the creature? And if it were true that she had been captured only recently how would she have managed to live in the caverns for those days? Perhaps she might have found a sump of water but what would there have been to eat, I wondered? Perhaps, I told myself, she, like the Slime Worm, would have been forced to scavenge on the previous kills of the Beetle but I found this hard to believe, for the condition of her body did not suggest an ugly, protracted, degrading battle with the worms of starvation.

  And how was it, I asked myself, that the Golden Beetle had not already feasted on the delicate flesh of the proud beauty of Treve?

  And I wondered on the five strange protuberances that nested so grotesquely in her lovely body.

  And Misk had said to me he thought I would be too late for it was near hatching time.

  A cry of horror from the bottom of my heart broke from my lips in that dark passage and I turned and raced madly back down the path I had come.

  Time and time again I stumbled against outcroppings of rock and bruised my shoulders and thighs but never once did I diminish my speed in my headlong race back to the cavern of the Golden Beetle. I found I did not even have to stop and search for the small signs I had scratched in the walls of the passages to guide my way for as I ran it seemed I knew each bend and turn of that passageway as though it had suddenly leaped alive flaming in my memory.

  I burst into the cavern of the Golden Beetle and held the torch high.

  "Forgive me, Vika of Treve!" I cried. "Forgive me!"

  I fell to my knees beside her and thrust the Mul-Torch into a space between two stones in the floor.

  From her flesh at one point I could see the gleaming eyes of a small organism, golden and about the size of a child's turtle, scrambling, trying to pull itself from the leathery shell. With my sword I dug out the egg and crushed it and its occupant with the heel of my sandal on the stone floor.

  Carefully, methodically, I removed a second egg. I held it to my ear. Inside it I could hear a persistent, ugly scratching, sense the movement of a tiny, energetic organism. I broke this egg too, stamping it with my heel, not stopping until what squirmed inside was dead.

  The next three eggs I disposed of similarly.

  I then took my sword and wiped the oil from one side of the blade and set the shining steel against the lips of the girl from Treve. When I removed it I cried out with pleasure for a bit of moisture had formed on the blade.

  I gathered her in my arms and held her against me.

  "My girl of Treve," I said. "You live."

  24

  The Golden Beetle

  At that instant I heard a slight noise and looked up to see peering at me from the darkness of one of the tunnels leading from the cavern, two flaming, luminous eyes.

  The Golden Beetle was not nearly as tall as a Priest-King, but it was probably considerably heavier. It was about the size of a rhinoceros and the first thing I noticed after the glowing eyes were two multiply hooked, tubular, hollow, pincerlike extensions that met at the tips perhaps a yard beyond its body. They seemed clearly some aberrant mutation of its jaws. Its antennae, unlike those of Priest-Kings, were very short. They curved and were tipped with a fluff of golden hair. Most strangely perhaps were several long, golden strands, almost a mane, which extended from the creature's head over its domed, golden back and fell almost to the floor behind it. The back itself seemed divided into two thick casings which might once, ages before, have been horny wings, but now the tissues had, at the points of touching together, fused in such a way as to form what was for all practical purposes a thick, immobile golden shell. The creature's head was even now withdrawn beneath the shell but its eyes were clearly visible and of course the extensions of its jaws.

  I knew the thing before me could slay Priest-Kings.

  Most I feared for the safety of Vika of Treve.

  I stood before her body, my sword drawn.

  The creature seemed to be puzzled and made no move to attack. Undoubtedly in its long life it had never encountered anything like this in its tunnels. It backed up a bit and withdrew its head further beneath the shell of its fused, golden wings. It lifted its hooked, tubular jaws before its eyes as though to shield them from the light.

  It occurred to me then that the light of the Mul-Torch burning in the invariably dark tunnels of its domain may have temporarily blinded or disoriented the creature. More likely the smell of the torch's oxidation products suddenly permeating its delicate antennae would have been as cacophonous to it as some protracted, discordant bedlam of noises might have been to us.

  It seemed clear the creature did not yet understand what had taken place within its cavern.

  I seized the Mul-Torch from between the stones where I had placed it and, with a great shout, thrust it towards the creature's face.

  I would have expected it to retreat with rapidity, but it made no move whatsoever other than to lift its tubular, pincerlike jaws to me.

  It seemed to me most unnatural, as though the creature might have been a living rock, or a blind, carnivorous growth.

  One thing was clear. The creature did not fear me nor the flame.

  I withdrew a step and it, on its six short legs, moved forward a step.

  It seemed to me that it would be very difficult to injure the Golden Beetle, particularly when its head was withdrawn beneath the shell of its enclosing win
gs. This withdrawal on its part, of course, would not in the least prevent it from using its great jaws to attack, but it would, I supposed, somewhat narrow the area of its sensory awareness. It would most certainly limit its vision but I did not suppose that the Golden Beetle, any more than a Priest-King, much depended on this sense. Both would be quite at home, incomprehensibly to a visually oriented organism, in utter darkness. On the other hand I could hope that somehow the sensory field of the antennae might be similarly, at least partially, restricted by their withdrawal beneath the casing of the fused, horny wings.

  I slipped my sword into its sheath and knelt beside Vika's body, not taking my eyes off the creature who stood about four yards distant.

  By feeling I closed the lids of her eyes in order that they might no longer stare blindly out with that look of frozen horror.

  Her body was stiff yet from the venom which had induced the paralysis, but now, perhaps because of the removal of the five eggs, it seemed somewhat warmer and more yielding than before.

  As I touched the girl the Beetle took another step forward.

  It began to hiss.

  This noise unnerved me for a moment because I had been used to the uncanny silence of Priest-Kings.

  Now the Beetle began to poke its head out from beneath the shelter of those domed, golden wings and its short antennae, tufted with golden fluff, thrust out and began to explore the chamber.

  With my right hand I lifted Vika to my shoulder and stood up.

  The hissing now became more intense.

  Apparently the creature did not wish me to remove Vika from the cavern.

  Walking backwards, Vika on my shoulder, the Mul-Torch in my hand, I slowly retreated from the cavern of the Golden Beetle.

  When the creature, following me, crawled over the pile of soiled moss and stems on which Vika had lain, it stopped and began to poke about among the shattered remains of the eggs I had crushed.

  I had no notion of the speed of the creature but at this point I turned and began to jog away down the passage, back toward the entrance to the tunnels of the Golden Beetle. I hoped, considering the size and shape and probable weight of the creature, and the comparative tininess of its legs, that it would not be able to move quickly, at least not for a sustained period.

  About an Ehn after I had turned and began to move away from the cavern, Vika on my shoulder, I heard from the cavern one of the strangest and most horrifying sounds I had ever heard in my life, a long, weird, frantic, enraged rush of sound, more than a rush of air, more than a wild hiss, almost a cry of pain, of comprehension and agony.

  I stopped for a moment and listened.

  Now, scrambling after me in the tunnel, I could hear the approach of the Golden Beetle.

  I turned and jogged on.

  After a few Ehn I stopped again and once more listened.

  Apparently my conjecture as to the mobility of the Golden Beetle had been correct and the speed of its pursuit had quickly slackened. Yet I knew that somewhere back there it would still be coming, that it would not yield its vengeance and its prey so easily. It was still coming, somewhere back there in the darkness, slowly, patiently, implacably, like the coming of winter or the weathering of a stone.

  I wondered at the nature of the Beetle's pursuit of his prey.

  How horrible I thought it would be to be trapped in these tunnels, waiting for the Beetle, able to avoid it perhaps for hours, perhaps days, but not daring to sleep or to stop, not knowing if one were going down a blind passage, if the Beetle were suddenly to confront one at the next turn.

  No, I supposed the Beetle did not need speed in its tunnels.

  I set Vika down.

  I leaned the Mul-Torch against the side of the passage.

  And yet it seemed strange to me to think of the Beetle as pursuing its prey in these tunnels for hours, perhaps days. It seemed foolish, unlikely, a puzzle of nature. But I myself had seen its body and knew now that it was incapable of prolonged, rapid movement. How was it then, I asked myself, that such a slow, awkward, clumsy creature, no matter how formidable at close range, could capture and slay an organism as alert and swift as a Priest-King?

  I moved Vika's limbs and rubbed her hands to see if I could restore her circulation to a more normal level.

  Bending my ear to her heart I was pleased to detect its faint beat. Holding her wrist I sensed a tiny movement of blood in her veins.

  There did not seem to be much air in the tunnels of the Golden Beetle.

  I supposed they were not ventilated as well as the tunnels of the Priest-Kings. There was an odor in the tunnels of the Golden Beetle, perhaps of its spoor or various exudates. The odor seemed somewhat oppressive. I had not noticed it much before. Now I became aware of how long I had been in its tunnels, how long without food and how tired I was. Surely there would be time to sleep. The Beetle was far behind. Surely there would be time, if not to sleep, to close my eyes for a moment.

  I awoke with a start.

  The odor was now insufferable and close.

  The Mul-Torch was little more now than a glowing stub.

  I saw the peering eyes.

  The golden strands on its back were lifted and quivering, and it was from them that the odor came.

  I cried out as I felt two long, hard, curved objects close on my body.

  25

  The Vivarium

  My hands seized the narrow, hollow, pincerlike jaws of the Golden Beetle and tried to force them from my body, but those relentless, hollow, chitinous hooks closed ever more tightly. They had now entered my skin and to my horror I felt a pull against my tissues and knew that the creature was now sucking through those foul tubes, but I was a man, a mammal, and not a Priest-King, and my body fluids were locked within the circulatory system of another form of being, and I thrust against the vicious hooked tubes that were the jaws of the Golden Beetle, and they budged out an inch and the creature began to hiss and the pressure of the jaws became even more cruel, but I managed to thrust them out of my skin and inch by inch I separated them until I held them at last almost at my arms' length and then I thrust yet more, forcing them yet further apart, slowly, as implacably as the Beetle itself, and then at my arms' length with a sickening, snapping sound they broke from its face and fell to the stone floor of the passage.

  The hissing stopped.

  The Beetle wavered, its entire shell of golden, fused wings trembling, and it seemed as if those fused wings shook as though to separate and fly but they could not, and it pulled its head back under the shelter of the wings. It began to back away from me on its six short legs. I leaped forward and thrust my hand under the wing shell and seized the short, tufted antennae and with one hand on them twisting and the other beneath the shell I slowly managed, lifting and twisting, to force the struggling creature onto its back and when it lay on its back, rocking, its short legs writhing impotently, I drew my sword and plunged it a dozen times into its vulnerable, exposed belly, and at last the thing stopped squirming and lay still.

  I shuddered.

  The odor of the golden hairs still lingered in the passages and, fearing I might once again succumb to whatever drug they released into the air, I determined to make my departure.

  The Mul-Torch began to sputter.

  I did not wish to resheath my sword, for it was coated with the body fluids of the Golden Beetle.

  I wondered how many more such creatures might dwell in similar passages and caverns near the tunnels of the Priest-Kings.

  The plastic tunic I wore did not provide an absorbent surface with which to clean the blade.

  I thought for a moment I might clean it on the golden strands of the Beetle's strange mane but I discovered these were wet with foul, glutinous exudate, the source of that unpleasant, narcotic odor which still permeated the passageway.

  My eyes fell on Vika of Treve.

  She had not yet made her contribution to the business of the day.

  So I tore a handful of cloth from her garment and on this I w
iped my hands and the blade.

  I wondered how proud Vika would have responded to that.

  I smiled to myself, for I could always tell her, and truthfully, that having saved her life she was now mine by Gorean law, so brief had been her freedom, and that it was up to me to determine the extent and nature of her clothing, and, indeed, whether or not she would be allowed clothing at all.

  Well could I imagine her fury upon the receipt of this announcement, a fury not diminished in the least by the knowledge that the words I spoke were simply and prosaically true.

  But now it was important to get her from the tunnels, to find her a place of refuge and safety where I hoped she might recover from the venom of the Golden Beetle.

  I worried, for where could I find such a place?

  By now it might be well known to Sarm that I had refused to slay Misk and the Nest would no longer be safe for me, or for anyone associated with me.

  For whether I wished it or not my action had placed me in the party of Misk.

  As I prepared to resheath the sword I heard a slight noise in the passage and, in the light of the dying Mul-Torch, without moving, I waited.

  What approached was not another Golden Beetle, though I supposed there might have been several in those tunnels, but another inhabitant of those dismal passages, the whitish, long, slow, blind Slime Worm.

  Its tiny mouth on the underside of its body touched the stone flooring here and there like the poking finger of a blind man and the long, whitish, rubbery body gathered itself and pushed forward and gathered itself and pushed forward again until it lay but a yard from my sandal, almost under the shell of the slain Beetle.

  The Slime Worm lifted the forward portion of its long, tubular body and the tiny red mouth on its underside seemed to peer up at me.

  "No," I said, "the Golden Beetle has not made a kill in this place."

  The tiny red mouth seemed to continue to peer at me for perhaps a moment or two more and then it slowly turned away from me to the carcass of the Golden Beetle.