Assassin of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “Do you want leash and bracelets for her?” asked Sura, pointing to Elizabeth.

  “Oh yes,” I said. “Yes, of course.”

  They were brought. Elizabeth glared at me while I braceleted her, and leashed her. Then, together, we left the House of Cernus, leading our girls.

  Outside the House of Cernus, and around the first corner, I took the bracelets and leash from Elizabeth.

  “Why did you do that?” asked Ho-Sorl.

  “She will be more comfortable,” I said. “Besides,” I said, “she is only Red Silk.”

  “He is probably not afraid of her,” said Phyllis pointedly.

  “I do not understand,” said Ho-Sorl.

  “You may remove the bracelets from me,” said Phyllis. “I will not attack you.” Phyllis turned about and held her braceleted hands to Ho-Sorl, her head irritably in the air.

  “Well,” said Ho-Sorl. “I would certainly not want to be attacked.”

  Phyllis stamped her foot.

  Relius was looking at Virginia, and with his hand he lifted her chin, and for the first time, she met his eyes, with her deep gray, timid eyes. “If I remove the bracelets from you,” said Relius, “you will not attempt to escape, will you?”

  “No,” she said, softly, “Master.”

  In an instant her bracelets had been removed. “Thank you,” said she, “Master.” The Gorean slave girl addresses all free men as “Master” and all free women as “Mistress.”

  Relius looked deeply into her eyes, and she dropped her head.

  “Pretty slave,” he said.

  Without looking up, she smiled. “Handsome Master,” she said.

  I was startled. That seemed rather bold for the timid Virginia Kent.

  Relius laughed and set off down the street, giving Virginia a tug that almost pulled her off her feet, and she stumbled and caught up with him, then remembered herself, and followed him, head down, two paces behind, but he gave her another tug and took up the slack in her leash, so that she must walk at his side, and she did so, barefoot, beautiful, and, I think, happy.

  Ho-Sorl was speaking to Phyllis. “I will take off the bracelets, but in order that you may attack me if you wish. That might be amusing.”

  The bracelets were removed from Phyllis. She rubbed her wrists and stretched in the leash.

  “I think I will tear the iron belt from her,” commented Ho-Sorl.

  Phyllis stopped stretching. She looked at Ho-Sorl irritably. “Perhaps you wish me to promise that I shall not attempt to escape?” she inquired.

  “That will not be necessary,” responded Ho-Sorl, starting off after Relius. “You will not escape.”

  “Oh,” cried Phyllis, nearly thrown from her feet. Then she was angrily walking beside Ho-Sorl. But he stopped and turned and regarded her. Not speaking, but biting her lip, she stepped back two paces, and thus, leashed, furious, followed him.

  “Let us not be late for the races,” said Elizabeth.

  I extended her my arm, and together we followed the guards and their prisoners.

  At the races Relius and Ho-Sorl unsnapped the slave leashes and, though in the stands, amid thousands of people, Virginia and Phyllis were free. Virginia seemed rather grateful, and knelt quite close to Relius, who sat on the tier; in a moment she felt his arm about her shoulders and thus they watched race after race, or seemed to watch the race, for often I observed them looking rather more at one another. Ho-Sorl, after several races, gave Phyllis a coin, ordering her to find a vendor and buy him some Sa-Tarna bread smeared with honey. A sly look came over her face and in an instant, saying “Yes, Master,” she was gone.

  I looked at Ho-Sorl. “She will try to escape,” I said.

  The black-haired, scarred fellow looked at me, and smiled. “Of course,” he said.

  “If she escapes,” I said, “Cernus will doubtless have you impaled.”

  “Doubtless,” said Ho-Sorl. “But she will not escape.”

  Pretending not to be particularly observant, but watching very closely, Ho-Sorl and I observed Phyllis picking her way past two vendors with bread and honey. He smiled at me. “See,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “I see.”

  Phyllis then, darting a look about her, suddenly turned and fled down one of the dark ramps at the races.

  Ho-Sorl leaped nimbly to his feet and started after her.

  I waited a moment or so and then I arose also. “Wait here,” I said to Elizabeth.

  “Don’t let him hurt her,” said Elizabeth to me.

  “She is his prisoner,” I told Elizabeth.

  “Please,” said Elizabeth.

  “Look,” I said, “Cernus would not be much pleased if she were slain or disfigured. The most Ho-Sorl will do to her is give her a good drubbing.”

  “She doesn’t know any better,” said Elizabeth.

  “And that,” I said, “would probably do her good.”

  I then left Elizabeth, and Relius and Virginia, and started off after Ho-Sorl and Phyllis, picking my way through the bustling crowd. The judge’s bar rang three times, signaling that the tarns were coming to the track for the next race.

  I had hardly walked more than fifty yards through the crowd when I heard a frightened scream, that of a girl, coming from the dark ramp down which Phyllis had disappeared. I then pushed and shoved my way through men and women, tumbling a vendor to the left, and raced to the passageway. I could now hear some angry cries of men, the sound of blows.

  I bounded down the ramp, three turns, and managed to seize a fellow by the neck and arm and fling him some dozen feet to the next landing below, who had been rushing on Ho-Sorl from behind. Ho-Sorl meanwhile was lifting one fellow over his head and hurling him down the ramp. On both the left and the right side there lay a battered, senseless fellow. Phyllis, wild eyed, the clothing half torn from her, the iron belt revealed, was trembling by the iron banister on the ramp, on her knees shuddering, her left wrist braceleted to the railing, breathing spasmodically. The fellow Ho-Sorl had flung down the ramp rolled for some feet, struck the wall at the turn, struggled to his feet and drew a knife. Ho-Sorl immediately took a step toward him and the fellow screamed, threw down his knife, and ran.

  Ho-Sorl strode over to Phyllis. The bracelet that fastened her to the railing was his. I gather he had come on the men, who had apparently seized the girl, beaten them away, braceleted her to keep her there, and then turned to fight them again as they had regrouped and attacked.

  He glared down at Phyllis, who, this time, did not meet his eyes but looked down at the stones of the ramp on which she knelt.

  “So,” said Ho-Sorl, “the pretty little slave girl would run away?”

  Phyllis swallowed hard, looking down, not speaking.

  “Where did the pretty little slave girl think to run?” asked Ho-Sorl.

  “I don’t know,” she said numbly.

  “Pretty little slave girls are foolish, aren’t they?” asked Ho-Sorl.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know.”

  “There is no place to run,” said Ho-Sorl.

  Phyllis looked up at him, then, I think, feeling the true hopelessness of her plight.

  “Yes,” she said numbly, “there is no place to run.”

  Ho-Sorl did not beat her but rather, after removing the slave bracelets from the railing of the ramp and from her wrist, putting the bracelets in his belt, simply pulled her to her feet. He found the ripped slave cloak and hood which had been torn from her and helped her to tie together the parts of her slave livery. When she stood ready to return to the tiers she put her back to him and extended her wrists behind her. But he did not bracelet her, nor leash her. Rather he looked about on the ramp until he found the small coin he had given her to buy him bread and honey, which coin she had dropped when the four men had seized her. To her astonishment he gave her the coin. “Buy me bread and honey,” he told her. Then he said to me, “We have missed the sixth race,” and together we turned about and went back into the stands, f
inding our seats. Some minutes later Phyllis came to our seats, bringing Ho-Sorl his bread and honey, and the two copper tarn disks change. He became absorbed in the races. He may not have noticed that she knelt on the tier below us, her head down, her face in her hands, sobbing. Virginia and Elizabeth knelt with her, one on each side, holding her about the shoulders. “I only regret,” Ho-Sorl was saying to me, “that I never saw Melipolus of Cos ride.”

  Race followed race, and, eventually, we heard the judge’s bar ringing three times, signaling that the tarns were being brought out for the eleventh race, the last of the day.

  “What do you think of the Steels?” asked Relius, leaning toward me.

  The Steels were a new faction in Ar, their patch a bluish gray. But they had no following. Indeed, there had never yet been a Steel in a race in Ar. I had heard, however, that the first tarn would fly for the Steels in this very race, the eleventh race, that which was shortly to begin. I did know, further, that a tarncot for the Steels had been established during Se’Var and riders had been hired. The backing of the faction was a bit mysterious. What gold there was behind the Steels was not clear, either as to quantity or origin. It might be noted, however, that a serious investment is involved in attempting to form a faction. There are often attempts to found a new faction, but generally they are unsuccessful. If a substantial proportion of races are not won in the first two seasons the law of the Stadium of Tarns discontinues its recognition of that faction. Moreover, to bring a new faction into competition is an expensive business, and involves considerable risk to the capital advanced. Not only is it expensive to buy or rent tarncots, acquire racing tarns, hire riders and Tarn Keepers, and the entire staff required to maintain a faction organization, but there is a large track fee for new factions, during the first two probation years. This fee, incidentally, can be levied even against older factions if their last season is a very poor one; moreover, a number of substandard seasons, even for an established faction, will result in the loss, permanently or for a ten-year period, of their rights on the track. Further, the appearance of new factions is a threat to the older factions, for each win of the new counts as a loss against the old. It is to the advantage of any given faction that there should be a small number of factions in competition and so the riders of an older faction, if unable to win themselves in given races, will often attempt to prevent a good race being flown by the riders of the new faction. Further, it is common among older factions not to hire riders who have ridden for the new factions, though sometimes, in the case of a particularly excellent rider, this practice is waived.

  “What do you think of the Steels?” asked Relius again.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I know nothing of them.” There had been something in his voice which puzzled me. Also, Ho-Sorl gave me a look at about this time. Neither of them, incidentally, had ever seemed much taken aback by the fact that I commonly wore the black of the Assassin. Now, of course, as I usually did when I was outside the house, I wore the red of the Warrior. They had not exactly attempted to become friends with me, but they had not avoided me; and often where I was I found them about.

  “Now that is a bird!” cried Ho-Sorl, as the low, wheeled platforms were being drawn on the track.

  I heard several in the crowd cry out in amazement.

  I looked down to the track, and could not speak. I sat frozen on the tier. I could not breathe.

  Throughout the stands, startling those multitudes, unsettling the other birds being drawn by the horned tharlarion on the low carts, there was heard the sudden shrill, ringing challenge scream of a tarn, unhooded, a giant tarn, black, a wild mountain cry of one of Gor’s fiercest, most beautiful predators, that might have been heard in the sharp crags of the Mountains of Thentis, famed for its tarn flocks, or even among the red peaks of the lofty, magnificent Voltai itself, or perhaps in battle far above the swirling land below as tarnsmen met in duels to the death.

  “It is not even a racing tarn,” said a man nearby.

  I now stood on my feet, stupefied, staring down at the wagons, the birds being brought to the perches.

  “They tell me,” said Relius, “that the bird is from the city of Ko-ro-ba.”

  I stood there, not speaking, my limbs weak. Behind me I heard Virginia and Phyllis cry out with pain. I turned a bit to see that Ho-Sorl had a fist in the hair of each, twisting it, pulling their heads back to him. “Slaves,” said he, “will not speak of what they see today.”

  “No, Master!” said Virginia.

  “No, no!” cried Phyllis. Ho-Sorl’s hand twisted her head and hair cruelly. “No, Master!” cried Phyllis. “No, Master! Phyllis will not speak!”

  I turned to my left and began to follow the tier, until I came to a narrow set of stairs, leading to the lower portions of the stands, which I then followed, descending.

  I heard Relius behind me. “Take this,” he said. He pushed something into my hand, something like a folded cloth of leather. I scarcely noticed. Then he was left on the stairs, and I was descending again, alone. Near the railing of the front tier, I stopped.

  I was now some forty yards from the birds. I stood still.

  Then, as though searching for me in those multitudes, that turbulence of faces and cloth, of sound, of cries, I saw the gleaming eyes of the tarn cease their scanning and fasten upon me. The wicked, black eyes, round and blazing with light, did not leave me. The crest on its head seemed to lift and each muscle and fiber in that great body seemed filled with blood and life. The vast, long black wings, broad and mighty, opened and struck against the air, hurling a storm of dust and sand on all sides, almost tumbling the small, hooded Tarn Keeper from the low wagon. Then the tarn threw back its head and once more screamed, wild, eerie, fierce, savage, a cry that might have struck terror into the heart of a larl, but I did not fear it. I saw the talons of the tarn were shod with steel. It was, of course, a war tarn.

  I looked down at the wad of leather in my hand. I opened it, and drew on the hood concealing my features. I leaped over the rail and strode to the bird.

  “Greetings, Mip,” said I, mounting to the platform, seeing the small Tarn Keeper.

  “You are Gladius of Cos,” said he.

  I nodded. “What is the meaning of this?” I asked.

  “You ride for the Steels,” said he.

  I reached up and touched the fierce, curved beak of that mighty bird. And then I held it, and pressed my cheek to its fierce surface. The tarn, that predator, gently lowered its head, and I put my head against its head, below its round, gleaming right eye, and, within the leather hood, unseen, I wept. “It has been long, Ubar of the Skies,” I said. “It has been long.”

  Vaguely I was aware about me of the sounds of men, tense, speaking curt words, mounting into the high saddles of tarns.

  I sensed Mip near me.

  “Do not forget what I have taught you in the Stadium of Tarns,” said Mip, “as we have ridden together so many nights.”

  “I will not,” I said.

  “Mount,” said Mip.

  I climbed to the saddle of the tarn, and when Mip unlocked the hobble from its right foot, took it to the starting perch.

  17

  Kajuralia

  “Kajuralia!” cried the slave girl hurling a basket of Sa-Tarna flour on me, and turning and running. I had caught up with her in five steps and kissed her roundly, swatted her and sent her packing.

  “Kajuralia yourself!” I said laughing, and she, laughing, sped away.

  About that time a large pan of warm water splashed down on me from a window some sixteen feet above the street level. Wringing wet I glared upward.

  I saw a girl in the window, who blew me a kiss, a slave girl.

  “Kajuralia!” she cried and laughed.

  I raised my fist and shook it and her head disappeared from the window.

  A Builder, whose robes were stained with thrown fruit, hastily strode by. “You had better be indoors,” said he, “on Kajuralia.”

  Three male ho
use slaves stumbled by, crowned with odorous garlands woven of the Brak Bush. They were passing about a bota of paga and, between dancing and trying to hold one another up, managed to weave unsteadily by. One of them looked at me and from his eyes I judged he may have seen at least three of me and offered me a swig of the bota, which I took. “Kajuralia,” said he, nearly falling over backwards, being rescued by one of his fellows, who seemed fortunately to be falling in the opposite direction at the same time. I gave him a silver coin for more paga. “Kajuralia,” I said, and turned about, leaving, while they collapsed on one another.

  At that time a slave girl, a blond girl, sped by and the three slaves, stumbling, bleary-eyed, bumping into one another, dutifully took up her pursuit. She turned, laughing in front of them, would run a bit, then stop, and then when they had nearly caught up with her, she would run on again. But, to her astonishment, coming up from behind, catching her by surprise, another male seized her about the waist and held her, while she screamed in mock fear. But in a moment it was determined, to the rage of all save the girl, that she wore an iron belt. “Kajuralia!” she laughed, wiggled free and sped away.

  I dodged a hurled larma fruit which splattered on the wall of a cylinder near me.

  The wall itself was covered with writing and pictures, none of it much complimentary to the masters of the area.

  I heard some breaking of pottery around the corner, some angry cries, the laughing of girls.

  I decided I had better return to the House of Cernus.

  I turned down another street. Here, unexpectedly, I ran into a pack of some fifteen or twenty girls who, shrieking and laughing, surrounded me in a moment. I found myself wishing that masters belled their girls for Kajuralia, so that they might be heard approaching. Their silence in the street a moment before I had turned into it told me they had been hunting. They had probably even had spies, advance scouts. Now they crowded about me, laughing, seizing my arms.

  “Prisoner! Prisoner!” they shrieked.

  I felt a rope thrown about my throat; it was drawn unpleasantly tight.