Priest-Kings of Gor

by John Norman

  I shook myself and resheathed my sword.

  I had been long enough in this place.

  I lifted the girl Vika of Treve in my arms. I could feel the tremble of life in her body and the touch of her breath on my cheek made me happy.

  The Mul-Torch suddenly sputtered out, leaving us in darkness.

  Gently I kissed her cheek.

  I was happy. We were both alive.

  I turned and with the girl in my arms began to trace my way slowly down the passage.

  Behind me in the darkness I could hear the feeding of the Slime Worm.

  * * * *

  Although it was slow work I had little difficulty in finding my way back to where I had entered the tunnels of the Golden Beetle.

  When I had entered I had immediately marked my passage with small arrows scratched by the hilt of my sword at eye level on the left side of the passages. Now, by touch, I was able to retrace my journey. I had made the marks because, unlike others who had entered the tunnels, I fully intended to return.

  When I came to the portal where I had entered I found it closed as I had known it would be and there was, as I knew, no handle or obvious device for opening the door on this side, for no one returned, supposedly, from the tunnels of the Golden Beetle. The portals were opened occasionally to allow the Beetle its run of the Nest but I had no idea when this might occur again.

  Although the portal was thick I supposed that I might have been heard on the outside if I had pounded on it with the hilt of my sword.

  On the other hand I had been informed, graciously, by the Muls who manned the portal that it might not be opened by them to release me once I had decided to enter. As they put it, they simply were not permitted to do so. It was the law of Priest-Kings. I was not certain whether, as a matter of fact, they would open the door or not, but I thought it best that both of them could honestly report that they had seen me enter the tunnels and had not seen me return.

  It had been Sarm's intention apparently that I should enter the tunnels of the Golden Beetle and die there and so I thought it expedient to allow him to believe I had done so.

  I knew the tunnels of the Golden Beetle, like those of the Nest itself, were ventilated and I hoped to be able to use one of the shafts to leave the tunnels undetected. If this were not possible I would explore the tunnels seeking some other exit, and if worse came to worst, I was sure that Vika and I, now that I knew the dangers and strengths and weaknesses of the Golden Beetle, might manage to survive indefinitely in the tunnels, however despicably, and escape eventually when the portal was opened to release yet another of the Priest-Kings' golden assassins.

  In the vicinity of the portal itself I remembered, when I had had the Mul-Torch, seeing a ventilation shaft some twenty or thirty yards inside the passage and fixed in the ceiling of the passage some nine feet from the floor. A metal grille had been bolted over the shaft but it was fairly light and I did not expect much difficulty in wrenching it loose.

  The problem would be Vika.

  I could now feel a bit of fresh air and, in the darkness, Vika in my arms, I walked until I could feel it best, and it seemed to be blowing directly down upon me. I then set Vika to one side and prepared to leap up to seize the grille.

  A shattering flash of energy seemed to explode in my face and burn through my body as my fingers touched the metal grille.

  Shivering and numb and disoriented, I crumpled to the floor beneath it.

  In the flash of light I had seen the mesh clearly and the shaft beyond and the rings set in the shaft used by Muls who upon occasion clean the shafts and spray them with bactericides.

  My limbs shaking, clouds of yellow and red fire moving in tangled afterimages across my field of vision in the darkness, I struggled to my feet.

  I walked a bit up and down in the shaft rubbing my arms and shaking my head until I felt ready to try again.

  This time, with luck, I could hook my fingers in the grille and hang on.

  I leaped again and this time managed to fasten my fingers in the grille and cried out in pain, turning my face away from the heat and fire that seemed to transform its surface erupting over my head with torturing, savage incandescence. Then I could no longer release the grille had I wanted to and I hung there agonized, a prisoner of the charges flashing through my body and the bolts wrenched loose from the ceiling, and I fell again to the floor, the grille clattering beside me, my fingers still hooked in its mesh.

  I pulled my hands free and crawled in the darkness to one side of the passage and lay down against the wall. My body ached and trembled and I could not control the involuntary movements of its muscles. I shut my eyes but to no avail against the burning universes that seemed to float and explode before my eyes.

  I do not know if I lost consciousness or not but I suppose I may have, for the next thing I remember was that the pain had gone from my body and that I lay against the wall weak and sick. I crawled to my knees and threw up in the passage. I stood up then unsteadily and walked beneath the shaft and stood there with my head back drawing in the welcome fresh air that blew down towards me.

  I shook myself and moved my limbs.

  Then, gathering my strength, I leaped up and easily seized one of the rings inside the chamber shaft, held it for a moment and then released it and dropped back to the floor.

  I went to Vika's side.

  I could hear the clear beat of her heart, and the pulse was now strong. Perhaps the fresh air in the vicinity of the shaft was doing its part in reviving her.

  I shook her. "Wake up," I said. "Wake up!" I shook her again, harder, but she could not regain consciousness. I carried her beneath the shaft and tried to hold her upright, but her legs crumpled.

  Strangely I sensed that somehow within her she was vaguely conscious of what was occurring.

  I lifted her to her feet again and slapped her face four times, savagely, sharply. "Wake up!" I cried, but though her head jerked from side to side and my hand felt afire she did not regain consciousness.

  I kissed her and lowered her gently to the floor.

  I had no wish to remain indefinitely in the passage, nor could I bring myself to abandon the girl.

  There seemed to be but one thing to do. I took off my sword belt and, rebuckling it, made a loop which I managed to hook over the closest ring in the shaft. I then removed the thongs from my sandals. With one thong I tied them together about my neck. With the other thong I bound Vika's wrists securely together before her body and placed her arms about my neck and left shoulder. Thus carrying her I climbed the sword belt and soon had attained the first ring. Once in the shaft I rebuckled the belt about my waist and, still carrying Vika as before, began to climb.

  After perhaps two hundred feet of climbing the rings in the shaft I was pleased to reach two branching shafts which led horizontally from the vertical shaft which I had just ascended.

  I removed Vika's arms from my neck and shoulder and carried her in my arms down the shaft which led, to the best of my reckoning, in the general direction of the major complexes of the Nest.

  A slight moan escaped the girl and her lips moved.

  She was regaining consciousness.

  For perhaps an Ahn I carried her through the network of ventilation shafts, sometimes walking on the level, sometimes climbing. Occasionally we would pass an opening in the shaft where, through a grille, I could see portions of the Nest. The light entering at these openings was very welcome to me.

  At last we came to an opening which gave onto something of the sort for which I was looking, a rather small complex of buildings, where I saw several Muls at work but no Priest-Kings.

  I also noted, against the far wall of the brilliantly lit area, tiers and tiers of plastic cases, much like the one I had occupied in Misk's compartment. Some of these cases were occupied by Muls, male or female, sometimes both. Unlike the case in Misk's compartment and others I had seen, these were apparently locked.

  Fungus, water and pellets, and whatever else was needed,
were apparently administered to the occupants of these cases from the outside by the Muls who attended them.

  I was reminded a bit of a zoo with its cages. Indeed, as I spied through the grille I saw that not all of the cases were occupied by humans but some by a variety of other organisms, some of the types with which I was familiar in the Nest but others not, and some of the others were, as far as I could tell, even mammals.

  There was, I could see, a pair of sleen in one case, and two larls in another pair of cases, with a sliding partition between them. I saw one humanoid creature, small with a receding forehead and excessively hairy face and body, bounding about in one case, racing along and leaping with his feet against the wall and then with the momentum established dashing along the next wall of the case and then dropping to the floor to repeat again this peculiar circuit.

  In a vast low case, on the floor of which apparently grew real grass, I saw a pair of shaggy, long-horned bosk grazing, and in the same case but in a different corner was a small herd, no more than five adult animals, a proud male and four does, of tabuk, the single-horned, golden Gorean antelope. When one of the does moved I saw that moving beside her with dainty steps were two young tabuk, the first I had ever seen, for the young of the tabuk seldom venture far from the shaded, leafy bowers of their birth in the tangled Ka-la-na thickets of Gor. Their single horns were little more than velvety stubs on their foreheads and I saw that their hide, unlike that of the adults, was a mottled yellow and brown. When one of the attendant Muls happened to pass near the case the two little tabuk immediately froze, becoming almost invisible, and the mother, her bright golden pelt gleaming, began to prance away from them, while the angry male lowered his head against the Mul and trotted in a threatening manner to the plastic barrier.

  There were several other creatures in the cases but I am not sure of their classification. I could, however, recognize a row of brown varts, clinging upside down like large matted fists of teeth and fur and leather on the heavy, bare, scarred branch in their case. I saw bones, perhaps human bones, in the bottom of their case.

  There was a huge, apparently flightless bird stalking about in another case. From its beak I judged it to be carnivorous.

  In another case, somnolent and swollen, I saw a rare golden hith, a Gorean python whose body, even when unfed, would be difficult for a full-grown man to encircle with his arms.

  In none of the cases did I spy a tarn, one of the great, predatory saddle birds of Gor, perhaps because they do not thrive well in captivity. To live a tarn must fly, high, far and often. A Gorean saying has it that they are brothers of the wind, and how could one expect such a creature to survive confinement? Like its brother the wind when the tarn is not free it has no choice but to die.

  As I gazed on this strange assemblage of creatures in the tiered cases it seemed clear to me that I must be gazing upon one of the vivaria of which I had heard Sarm speak.

  Such a complex might ideally serve my purpose of the moment.

  I heard a groan from Vika and I turned to face her.

  She lay on her side against the wall of the shaft, some seven or eight feet back from the grille.

  The light pouring through the grille formed a reticulated pattern of shadows on her body.

  I stood to one side, back a bit from the grille so as not to be observed from the outside, and watched her.

  Her wrists of course were still bound.

  She was very beautiful and the brief rags that were all that remained of her once long and lovely garment left little of her beauty to conjecture.

  She struggled to her hands and knees, her head hanging down, her hair falling over her head to the floor of the shaft. Slowly she lifted her head and shook it, a small beautiful movement that threw her hair back from her face. Her eyes fell on me and opened wide in disbelief. Her lips trembled but no word escaped them.

  "Is it the custom of the proud women of Treve," I asked, "to appear so scantily clad before men?"

  She looked down at the brief rags she wore, insufficient even for a slave girl, and at her bound wrists.

  She looked up and her eyes were wide and her words were scarcely a whisper. "You brought me," she said, "from the tunnels of the Golden Beetle."

  "Yes," I said.

  Now that Vika was recovering I suddenly became aware of the difficulties that might ensue. The last time I had seen this woman conscious had been in the chamber where she had tried with the snares of her beauty to capture and conquer me for my archenemy, Sarm the Priest-King. I knew that she was faithless, vicious, and treacherous, and because of her glorious beauty a thousand times more dangerous than a foe armed only with the reed of a Gorean spear and the innocence of sword steel.

  As she gazed upon me her eyes held a strange light which I did not understand.

  Her lips trembled. "I am pleased to see you live," she whispered.

  "And I," I said sternly, "am pleased to see that you live."

  She smiled ruefully.

  "You have risked a great deal," she said, "to thong the wrists of a girl."

  She lifted her bound wrists.

  "Your vengeance must be very precious to you," she said.

  I said nothing.

  "I see," she said, "that even though I was once a proud woman of the high city of Treve you have not honored me with binding fiber but have bound my limbs only with the thong of your sandal, as though I might be the lowest tavern slave in Ar—carried off on a wager, a whim or caprice."

  "Are you, Vika of Treve," I asked, "higher than she of whom you speak, the lowest tavern slave in Ar?"

  Her answer astounded me. She lowered her head. "No," she said, "I am not.

  "Is it your intention to slay me?" she asked.

  I laughed.

  "I see," she said.

  "I have saved your life," I said.

  "I will be obedient," she said.

  I extended my hands to her and her eyes met mine, blue and beautiful and calm, and she lifted her bound wrists and placed them in my hands and kneeling before me lowered her head between her arms and said softly, very clearly, "I the girl Vika of Treve submit myself—completely—to the man Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba."

  She looked up at me.

  "Now, Tarl Cabot," she said, "I am your slave girl and I must do whatever you wish."

  I smiled at her. If I had had a collar I would then have locked it on her beautiful throat.

  "I have no collar," I said.

  To my amazement her eyes as they looked up into mine were tender, moist, submissive, yielding. "Nonetheless, Tarl Cabot," she said, "I wear your collar."

  "I do not understand," I said.

  She dropped her head.

  "Speak, Slave Girl," I said.

  She had no choice but to obey.

  The words were spoken very softly, very slowly, haltingly, painfully, and it must have cost the proud girl of Treve much to speak them. "I have dreamed," she said, "since first I met you, Tarl Cabot, of wearing—your collar and your chains. I have dreamed since first I met you of sleeping beneath the slave ring—chained at the foot of your couch."

  It seemed to me incomprehensible what she had said.

  "I do not understand," I said.

  She shook her head sadly. "It means nothing," she said.

  My hand fixed itself in her hair and gently turned her face up to mine.

  "—Master?" she asked.

  My stern gaze demanded an answer.

  She smiled, my hand in her hair. Her eyes were moist. "It means only," she said, "that I am your slave girl—forever."

  I released her head and she dropped it again.

  To my surprise I saw her lips gently kiss the cruel leather thong which so tightly bound her wrists.

  She looked up. "It means, Tarl Cabot," she said, her eyes wet with tears, "that I love you."

  I untied her wrists and kissed her.

  26

  The Safekeeping of Vika of Treve

  It was hard to believe that the gentle, obedient girl wh
o nestled in my arms, who had so leaped and sobbed with pleasure, was the proud Vika of Treve.

  I still had not determined to my satisfaction that she might be fully trusted, much to her distress, and I would take no chances with her, for I knew who she was, the bandit princess of the lofty plundering Treve of the Voltai Range. No, I would take no chances with this girl, whom I knew to be as treacherous and vicious as the nocturnal, sinuous, predatory sleen.

  "Cabot," she begged, "what must I do that you will trust me?"

  "I know you," I said.

  "No, dear Cabot," she said, "you do not know me." She shook her head sadly.

  I began to move the grille at one corner to allow us to drop to the floor beneath in the Vivarium chamber. Fortunately this grille was not charged, and I had not supposed it would be.

  "I love you," she said, touching my shoulder.

  I pushed her back roughly.

  It seemed to me I now understood her treacherous plan and something of the same bitterness with which I had earlier regarded this woman tended to fill my breast.

  "But I do," she said.

  I turned and regarded her coldly. "You play your role well," I said, "and nearly was I fooled, Vika of Treve."

  "I don't understand," she stammered.

  I was irritated. How convincing she had been in her role of the enamored slave girl, hopelessly, desperately mine, undoubtedly waiting her chance to betray me.

  "Be silent, Slave," I told her.

  She blushed with shame and hung her head, her hands before her face, and sank to her knees weeping softly, her body shaken with sobs.

  For a moment I almost yielded, but I steeled myself against her trickery and continued my work.

  She would be treated with the coldness and harshness which she deserved as what she was, a beautiful and treacherous slave girl.

  At last I moved the corner of the large grille sufficiently to allow me to slip through to the floor beneath and then Vika followed me and I helped her to the floor.

  The grille snapped back into place.

  I was rather pleased with the discovery of the network of ventilator shafts, for it suggested to me almost a private and extensive highway to any place in the Nest I might wish to reach.