Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt

Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt Page 49

by Players of Gor [lit]

  other things, to fix the bolts as one wishes. The bolts, of course, are on the

  outside of the trunk, so that they may be released by the outside performer. A

  consequence of this is that the inside performer, if his external confederate

  should neglect to free the bolts, would find himself kept in the trunk.

  Naturally, for my purposes, I had neglected exactly this detail. The result,

  accordingly, was that the trunk’s occupant, even had it not been for her other

  bonds and the sack, would have been confined within it as perfectly as though

  she might have been a stripped kajira in a slave box.

  “Hurry!” screamed Belnar. “Hurry!”

  The hood, unbuckled, was thrust up over her head. Her eyes were wild. Her face

  was red, and broken out. She flung back her head, freeing the damp wet hair

  about her face.

  “Lady Yanina!” cried many voices.

  She could not speak. She whimpered. The packing was still well fixed in her

  mouth. The gag scarf was still tight.

  “Ungag the slut!” cried Belnar. Lady Yanina put back her head while one of the

  soldiers fought with the scarf knots. ON her body there were stripes, ten of

  them. I had decided earlier, in the camp of Boots Tarsk-Bit, that she would be

  whipped. I had not found her entirely pleasing. After I had left the trunk,

  which I had done late after being brought into the palace, this ruse having

  accomplished my entry into these precincts. I had donned the uniform seemingly

  of an officer of Brundisium. This had been fashioned from costumes n Boots’s

  stores. I had then, late at night, carrying suitable articles in a folded slave

  sack, located the quarters of the Lady Yanina in the palace. Her door was

  pounded on. What could it be? There was some message, it

  page 340

  seemed, come from Belnar, for her ears alone, something having to do with some

  emergency, something perhaps requiring immediate consultation, perhaps even a

  conference of the high council. She hastened to the door to open it, clad only

  in a light gown. I entered, stripped her and put her at my mercy. IN a few

  moments I was then again making my way through the halls of the palace, dragging

  a slave sack by its cords behind me. I took her afar below, to the pens beneath

  the palace. There I put the stripes upon her. Her cries, muffled by the damp,

  thick walls, as she twisted at the ring, carried in no clear fashion to the

  guards. They assumed only that another wench was being disciplined, not an

  unusual occurrence in such a place. I then conducted her, gagged and hooded,

  leashed and braceleted, back to the main levels of the palace. In s short while

  then I had returned to the room off the great hall where the trunk had been

  left. There I put the ankle rings on her, put her in the slave sack, tied it

  shut and placed it the trunk, through the rear panel. I then secured the bolts,

  locking the trunk. Its ostensible locks, with the key hanging in the front of

  the trunk, had not been disturbed. Things looked the same as they had. To be

  sure, the trunk now had a new occupant, and one that was now truly its prisoner.

  I had then, using my assumed identity as an officer, located the room of a

  fellow from Turia. He also opened the door to me. He was then kind enough to

  loan me his credentials, by means of which I had obtained entrance this evening

  to the banquet. He would doubtless be found in the morning by some startled

  cleaning slave.

  “Ubar!” cried the Lady Yanina, the scarf torn away, the heavy, wet packing of

  the gag pulled with a finger from her mouth.

  “Who did this to you?” cried Belnar.

  “Bosk of Port Kar!” she cried, pulling helplessly at the bracelets that confined

  her.

  “Where is he!” cried Belnar.

  “I do not know!” she cried.

  “Fool! Fool!” cried Belnar, in rage.

  “He must still be within the palace!” cried Flaminius, leaping to his feet.

  There was consternation in the hall.

  “Go to the quarters of the players!” said Belnar. “Arrest them. They must be

  involved in this!”

  “They did not go toward their quarters,” called out a man, near the door.

  “They will be fleeing the city!” said a man.

  “Stop them!” cried Belnar.

  “Wait!” cried a man. “I hear alarm bars.”

  page 341

  He was right. Faintly now, but clearly, now that there was a brief silence in

  the hall, one could hear the ringing of alarm bars.

  “What is wrong?” said Belnar. “What is going on?”

  AT that moment a soldier hurriedly, distraught, entered the room. “There has

  been an escape from the prison!” he cried. “Gatch has been slain. The cells have

  been emptied. Prisoners have poured into the streets.”

  This, I had hoped, would provide an emergency of such gravity that Belnar might

  be moved to see to the safekeeping of significant valuables.

  “Martial law exists,” said Belnar. “Summon all guardsmen. Secure the palace!”

  If the escape of the prisoners did not seem sufficient for that purpose the

  sudden knowledge that I was still free in the palace, and mysteriously so,

  should prove more than adequate to accomplish that end. I trusted that Boots had

  set up the mirrors outside the hall in the location we had agreed upon. To be

  sure, if he had not done so, it did not seem likely, all things considered, that

  he would ever have to fear being reprimanded on the point.

  “Ubar!” cried the Lady Yanina.

  “Seize her!” cried Belnar to the soldiers near the Lady Yanina. “Take her to the

  oil! Boil her alive!”

  “No, Master!” she cried, terrified.

  There was a sudden, shocked silence in the hall. The Lady Yanina, from the

  depths of her, in her terror, had cried out the word “Master”. She shuddered,

  and shrank back. The word “Master” in her terror, had come from the depths of

  her. All had heard it.

  “In her heart she is a slave,” said a man.

  “She is a slave,” agreed another.

  “No, no,” whimpered the Lady Yanina, lamely.

  “Put her in the oil for having denied her slaver,” said a man.

  “No, please,” said the Lady Yanina.

  “No,” said another. “Let it rather be manifested upon her.”

  “Please, no, no,” said the Lady Yanina.

  “The oil is too good for her,” said Belnar. “Take her below. Put her in a

  collar. Brand her!”

  “No, No, Ubar, please!” cried the Lady Yanina.

  “Ubar?” asked Belnar.

  “Master! Master!” cried the Lady Yanina.

  “Take her below!” screamed Belnar.

  A soldier lifted the shuddering Lady Yanina lightly and threw her over his

  shoulder, her head to the rear. She was to be taken

  page 342

  below, there to be enslaved. After that Belnar, at his leisure, in his mercy,

  could always decide what might further be done with her.

&nbs
p; “Ho, greetings!” I called.

  “What?” cried men.

  I had now slipped toward the back of the room, near the great vat of scalding,

  bubbling oil. I had my hands on one of the long poles, wherewith the giant vat,

  on its lifting rings, had been brought into the hall.

  “It is he!” cried a fellow. “It is he, Bosk of Port Kar!”

  “Seize him!” cried Belnar.

  “Beware!” cried a man. “Look out!” cried others. Slave girls screamed and fled

  back.

  “No!” cried men.

  With the pole, using it as a lever, thrusting it beneath the vat and its large,

  raised fuel plate, I tipped, and then turned, the bat and plate. A sudden vast

  hissing flow of boiling oil spread eagerly, deeply, outward, away from the

  tilted rim. Men leaped to the tables. I heard men scream in pain. The vat was

  now overturned. I kicked a flaming brand toward the oil, spread now and slick,

  hot, about the floor. Instantly, as men and slaves screamed and fled, a

  frightening torrent of sheetlike flames, like narrow, roaring, successive walls

  of fire, leapt upward and outward, surging, racing away from me, seeming for a

  moment to engulf the room. I struck a guard away from me with the pole. I saw a

  man screaming, trying to put out flames at the foot of his robe. Others were

  fleeing back about the walls. I struck another guard, sweeping the pole at him.

  He staggered back against the wall. The temperature of the room had dramatically

  increased. It was difficult to breathe from the fumes. I saw Belnar through the

  flames and smoke. Men were choking. slaves pressed back against the walls.

  Weapons were drawn. “Have at you!” cried a fellow, boldly racing towards me

  through the flames and smoke. He too the pole unpleasantly his stomach. I looked

  about. In a moment the flames would subside to the point where they might be

  waded through, becoming little more than more than flickering puddles.

  “Seize him!” cried Belnar, coughing, the sleeve of his robe up about his nose

  and mouth. I flung the pole into a pair of aggressive guests, knocking them

  back. I must now take my leave. I resisted an impulse to wave cheerily to the

  crowd. Such gestures have their value, but too many fellows have been pierced by

  crossbow bolts while doing so. I hastened from the hall.

  page 343

  “Save your Ubar!” I called to two confused, startled guards outside, still

  loyally at their posts, sweeping my arm toward the hall. They could not resist

  this plea and vanished within, into the smoke and tumult. I swung shut the door

  after them and tied shut the handles with the silken belt of my robes. Almost

  instantly the door was being forced from the other side, and I saw a sword flash

  through the crack, hacking at the silk. The corridor was long and seemingly

  empty, on both sides of the door, save for such things as closed doors,

  presumably locked, slave rings, niches here and there, vases, and decorative

  plantings. In a moment the crowd, soldiers in advance, would come plunging

  through the door.

  I looked wildly up and down the corridor. It stretched far in either direction.

  I could see no one. At its turnings I supposed there might be guards.

  The door to the great hall burst open, its sides flung back, cracking into the

  walls. I heard shouting, the grunting of men, the rushing of feet. Then there

  was suddenly silence.

  “Where is he?” asked a man, startled.

  “He must be here,” said someone.

  “The hall is empty,” said another.

  “It cannot be,” said a man. “He was only Ihn before us.”

  “He is gone,” said another.

  “The corridor doors,” cried Belnar. “He has slipped through one of them! Hurry!

  Find him!”

  I heard men running down the corridor, in both directions. One passed within a

  few feet of me. The reports were soon being passed back. “The doors are locked!”

  I heard. “They are locked!” Then from the other direction I heard, “They are

  locked! None are forced!”

  “Perhaps he had a key,” said someone.

  “He would not have had time to use it,” said a fellow, fearfully.

  “The keys to these doors are kept in the quarters of the captain of the guards,”

  said another fellow, hesitantly.

  “See that a key check is conducted, immediately,” said Belnar. “We shall see

  what key is missing. He will then have fled through that door.”

  “We were out of the hall in an instant,” said a man, uneasily.

  “I do not think he could have had time to reach one of those doors,” said a

  fellow.

  “Surely,” said another, uneasily, he who had spoken fearfully earlier, “if he

  had been able to reach one of the doors, he would not have had the time to pause

  and let himself in.”

  page 344

  “The door could have been open, left open,” said another fellow. “It would only

  be necessary that he had managed to have a key earlier.”

  “It could then have been locked from the inside,” said a fellow.

  “That is it,” said another.

  “I do not think he would have had time to reach one of the doors,” said a

  fellow, one who had spoken earlier.

  “What are you suggesting?” asked another, impatiently.

  “I do not know,” said the fellow, uneasily.

  “Fools!” cried Belnar. “Take reports from the guards at the ends of the

  corridor. They probably have him in custody already!”

  I heard running footsteps, fading down the corridor in both directions.

  “Here comes the officer of the guard,” said a man. “Borto is with him.”

  “Ubar!” I heard.

  “What keys are missing, from this corridor, quick!” said Belnar.

  “None, Ubar!” said the man. “No keys are missing, not from anywhere!”

  This announcement was greeted with silence.

  “Ubar,” called a man. “We have the report from the west guards. No one has left

  the corridor in the vicinity of their post.”

  “Very well,” said Belnar. “The matter is done. He will now be in the custody of

  the east guards.”

  “The eastern post,” said a man. “We were just behind him. How could he have

  reached it so quickly?”

  “There is no other explanation,” said Belnar. “He is there.”

  “Here comes Elron,” said a fellow. “He will have the report from the east

  guards.”

  “He is in their custody,” said Belnar.

  “Ubar,” said a voice.

  “Speak,” said Belnar. “Was the fellow taken easily, or with difficulty?”

  “Ubar?” asked the man.

  “You come from the east guards, do you not?” demanded Belnar.

  “Yes, Ubar!” said the man.

  page 345

  “Render to us then the report of the east guards, man!” said Belnar. “They have

&nbs
p; taken him, have they not?”

  “They have not seen him,” Ubar,” said the man.

  “What!” cried Belnar.

  “He did not pass their post,” said the man.

  “Impossible!” said Belnar.

  “It is true, Ubar,” said the man.

  “He must have passed them,” said a man.

  “No,” said the man.

  “He must have,” insisted the man.

  “That is highly unlikely,” said the man. “The corridor is narrow. There are five

  guards there.”

  “He would not have had time to reach that area anyway,” said another man. “We

  were almost upon him.”

  There was then another silence.

  “He must be here, somewhere,” said a fellow.

  “He is not in the corridor,” said a man. “We have examined it. You can see that

  it is empty.”

  “Where can he be?” asked a man.

  “Where is he?” asked another fellow.

  “I do not like it,” said a man.

  “He is gone,” said a man. “He is just gone.”

  “He has disappeared,” whispered a man.

  “Ubar,” said a voice, the voice of Flaminius. “The alarm bars still sound. I

  submit that attention be given to more serious matters than the apprehension of

  an elusive brigand.”

  “I want him found!” screamed Belnar.

  “He was wearing robes of white and gold, merchants’ robes,” said a man to

  another.

  “They were sewn with silver,” said another man.

  “They were of a Turian cut,” said another.

  “Ubar,” said Flaminius.

  “Search the palace!” screamed Belnar. “Find him!”

  “Yes, Ubar!” cried men, running from the place.

  “Ubar,” protested Flaminius.

  “Contact the appropriate officers, civic and military!” screamed Belnar. “Issue

  orders! Are you a fool? Have them see to the safety of the streets, the security

  of the gates, the search for escaped prisoners!”

  “Surely you will take command personally,” said Flaminius.

  “I have other matters to attend to,” said Belnar.

  “I will take command then, with your permission,” said Flaminius. “Have no fear.

 

‹ Prev Next ›