Assassin of Gor

by Norman, John;

  It was held in the hand of a black-haired girl, collared of course, long-legged, in brief slave livery.

  “Greetings,” said she, “Warrior.” She jerked menacingly on the rope. “You are now the slave of the girls of the Street of Pots,” she informed me.

  I felt five or six more ropes suddenly looped about me, drawn tight. Two girls had even, behind me, darted unseen to my ankles, and in an instant had looped and drawn tight ropes on them. My feet could be thus jerked from beneath me should I attempt to run or struggle.

  “What shall we do with this prisoner?” asked the black-haired girl of her fellows.

  Numerous suggestions were forthcoming. “Take off his clothes!” “Brand him!” “The whip!” “Put him in a collar!”

  “Now look here,” I said.

  But they had now set off down the street, dragging me along amongst them.

  We stopped when I was pushed stumbling into a large room, in which there were numerous baskets and harnesses hanging about, apparently a storeroom of sorts in an unimportant cylinder. A wide area had been cleared in the center of the room, on which, over straw, had been spread some rep-cloth blankets. Against one wall there were two men, bound hand and foot. One was a Warrior, the other a handsome young Tarn Keeper. “Kajuralia,” said the Warrior to me, wryly.

  “Kajuralia,” I said to him.

  The black-haired girl, the tall girl, walked back and forth before me, her hands on her hips. She also strode over to the other two men, and then she returned to me.

  “Not a bad catch,” said she.

  The other girls laughed and shrieked. Some leaped up and down and clapped their hands.

  “Now you will serve us, Slaves,” announced the black-haired girl.

  We were freed, save that two ropes apiece were kept on our throats, and a rope on each ankle, each rope in the care of one of the girls.

  We were given some small cups of tin, containing some diluted Ka-la-na that the girls had probably stolen.

  “After we have been served wine,” announced the girl, “we will use these slaves for our pleasure.”

  Before we were permitted to serve the wine, garlands of talenders were swiftly woven about our necks.

  Then each of us gave some of the girls wine, asking each “Wine, Mistress?” to which each of the girls, with a laugh, would cry out, “Yes, I will have wine!”

  “You will serve me the wine, Slave!” said the long-legged, black-haired girl. She was marvelous in the brief slave livery.

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said, as humbly as I could manage.

  I reached out to hand her the small, tin cup.

  “On your knees,” she said, “and serve me as a Pleasure Slave!”

  The girls gasped in the room. The two men cried out in anger.

  “I think not,” I said.

  I felt the two ropes on my throat tighten. Suddenly the two girls on the ankle ropes jerked on their ropes and I fell heavily forward, spilling the wine to the stones.

  “Clumsy slave,” jeered the long-legged girl.

  The other girls laughed.

  “Give him more wine,” ordered the long-legged girl.

  Another small tin cup was placed in my hands. I no longer much cared for their foolery. The long-legged girl, doubtless a miserable slave most of the year, seemed intent on humiliating me, taking revenge probably on her master, for whom I now stood as proxy.

  “Serve me wine,” she ordered harshly.

  “Kajuralia,” I said, humbly.

  She laughed, and so did the other girls as well. My eye strayed to a room off the storeroom, in which I could see some boxes, much dust.

  Then the room was very still.

  I put down my head, kneeling, and extended the small tin cup to the girl.

  The other girls in the room seemed to be holding their breath.

  With a laugh the long-legged girl reached for the tin cup, at which point I seized her wrists and sprang to my feet, swinging her off balance and, not releasing her, whirled her about, tangling her in the ropes, preventing them from being drawn tight. Then while the girls shrieked and the long-legged girl cried out in rage I swept her into my arms and leaped into the small room, where I dropped her to the stones and spun about, throwing the door shut and bolting it. I heard the angry cries of the girls and their fists on the door for a moment, but then I heard them suddenly begin shrieking, and crying out, as though slavers might have fallen upon them. I glanced about the room. There was one window high in one wall, narrow, barred. There was no escape for the girl locked within with me. I removed the ropes from my body, coiled them neatly, and dropped them inside the door. I put my ear to the door, listening. After about five Ehn I heard only a number of sobs, frustrated noises of girls in bonds.

  I opened the door and, not to my surprise, discovered that the Warrior and Tarn Keeper, preventing the girls from escaping, and having freed themselves in the moment of surprise and tumult in which I had seized the long-legged girl, had, probably one by one, while the other girls had looked on miserably, cuffed away if they tried to interfere, bound the girls of the Street of Pots. A long rope, or set of ropes knotted together, ran behind the kneeling girls, with which their wrists were bound; another rope, or set of ropes tied together, fastened them by the throat, as in a slaver’s chain. The long-legged girl was pushed into the larger room to observe her helpless cohorts.

  The black-haired girl sobbed.

  There were tears in the eyes of several of the girls.

  “Kajuralia!” said the Warrior, cheerfully, getting to his feet, after checking the knots that bound the wrists of the last girl on the ropes.

  “Kajuralia!” I responded to him, waving my hand. I took the black-haired, long-legged girl by the arm and dragged her to the line of bound girls. “Behold the girls of the Street of Pots,” I said.

  She said nothing, but tried to turn away. I permitted her to go to the center of the room, where she stood, facing me, tears in her eyes, near the rep-cloth blankets spread over straw.

  Then she looked down, defeated. “I will serve you wine,” said she, “Master.”

  “No,” I said.

  She looked at me, puzzled. Then she nodded her head, and, reached to the disrobing loop on her left shoulder.

  “No,” I said gently.

  She looked at me, startled.

  “I,” I said, “will serve you wine.”

  She looked at me in disbelief while I filled one of the small tin cups with diluted Ka-la-na and handed it to her. Her hand shook as she took the cup. She lifted it to her lips, but looked at me.

  “Drink,” I said.

  She drank.

  I then took the cup from her and threw it to the side of the room, and took her into my arms, that lovely, long-legged, black-haired beast, provocative in the brevity of her slave livery, and kissed her, and well, and at length.

  Then she was lying on the rep-cloth blankets, spread over the straw, beneath me, kissing me helplessly.

  “Do not let me escape,” she begged.

  “You will not escape,” I told her, reaching to the loop on her left shoulder.

  I heard one of the girls bound in the line whisper to the Warrior, and another to the Tarn Keeper, “Do not let me escape, Master.”

  They removed these girls from the line, later returning them to it.

  The Warrior, the Tarn Keeper and I remained the greater part of the day with the girls of the Street of Pots. When I had finished with the long-legged girl I had bound her hand and foot and put her to one side. When we were preparing to leave, she begged again to be used, and was.

  This time when I finished with her I did not bind her but stood her before me, my hands on her arms above the elbows. I would not truss her, that she might free her fellows.

  The Warrior, followed by the Tarn Keeper, was moving down the line of bound girls, lifting their heads, taking their final wages for the sport, saying “Kajuralia,” to each and moving to the next.

  Once more I kissed the
black-haired, long-legged girl, and she me.

  “Kajuralia,” I said to her gently, and turned, and with the Warrior and the Tarn Keeper, arm in arm, with garlands of talenders, which had been several times replaced, woven about our necks, left the Street of Pots.

  “Kajuralia!” called the girls to us.

  “Kajuralia!” we responded.

  “Kajuralia!” I heard the long-legged girl call after me. “Kajuralia, Warrior!”

  “Kajuralia!” I responded, well satisfied with the day’s sport.

  The Kajuralia, or the Holiday of Slaves, or Festival of Slaves, occurs in most of the northern, civilized cities of known Gor once a year. The only exception to this that I know of is Port Kar, in the delta of the Vosk. The date of the Kajuralia, however, differs. Many cities celebrate it on the last day of the Twelfth Passage Hand, the day before the beginning of the Waiting Hand; in Ar, however, and certain other cities, it is celebrated on the last day of the fifth month, which is the day preceding the Love Feast.

  It had been a strange and eventful summer, fantastic in many ways. Week by week Ar became ever more wild, ever more lawless. Gangs of men, often armed, roamed streets and bridges, apparently undisturbed by Warriors, their depredations not curbed; and, startlingly, when captured and sent to the Central Cylinder, or to the Cylinder of Justice, pretexts would be found for their release, customarily on legal technicalities or an alleged lack of evidence against them. But, as this lawlessness grew, and it became such that men would not walk the bridges without arms, the frenzy over the races and the games grew more rabid; it became rare on the streets and bridges to pass a person who would not, either for himself or for someone he knew, wear a faction patch, even on those rare days in which the Stadium of Tarns stood empty. People seemed to care little for anything save the races and the games. Their neighbor’s compartment might be despoiled by ruffians but, if they themselves were unharmed, they would think little of it and hasten to their chosen entertainment, fearing only that they might be late.

  The duel for the lead in racing hung suspended among three factions, the Greens, the Yellows and the Steels, the new faction. The progress and startling rise of the Steels as a faction dated from the first day of the races, when, in the eleventh race, Gladius of Cos, astride a great tarn, initiated the Steels as a faction with a surprising, but resounding, win over a strong field of competitors. The great bird he rode was no racing tarn but its size, its swiftness, its sureness, its incredible power and ferocity made it a terrible foe in the wars of the suspended rings; indeed, never had it lost; many of the other tarns of the Steels, as well, were not bred racing tarns, but war tarns, ridden by unknown riders, mysterious men hailing supposedly from far cities; the excitement of a new faction not only competing but dangerously challenging the established factions of Ar provided a spectacle that inflamed the imaginations of the men and women of Ar; thousands of fans, for one reason or another, discouraged with their factions, or seeking novelty, or wishing to feel a part of the great battle of the races, sewed or pinned on their garments the small rectangle of bluish-gray cloth, faction patch of the Steels.

  I, masked in a leather hood, wearing bluish-gray silk, had again and again ridden the great black tarn for the Steels. The name of Gladius of Cos was a watchword in the city, though surely few knew his identity. I rode with the Steels because my tarn was there, and Mip, whom I had come to know and like, wished it to be so. I knew myself involved in games of a dangerous sort, but I had agreed to play, not clearly understanding the object or the goal of what I did. Relius and Ho-Sorl often assisted me. I gathered that it had not been coincidence that had brought them to the House of Cernus. After each race Mip, in detail, would discuss my riding, making suggestions; before each race, he would explain to me what he knew of the habits of the riders and tarns I faced, which was almost invariably a great deal; he taught me to recognize for myself certain faults in other riders, certain exploitable characteristics in the flight patterns of the birds they rode; one rider, for example, had a tendency to take the third corner ring at the three-strap point, thus permitting a probable block at that point without slackening speed near the ring to effect it; one bird, a swift, reddish tarn, which raced for the blues, flown at least twice every ten days, would, in approaching its perch, brake with its wings an instant before necessary, thus making it possible, if following it closely, to strike the very perch it intended to take, rather than the next perch below it, as one would normally do.

  Equaling and perhaps exceeding the fame of Gladius of Cos was that of the swordsman Murmillius, of the cruel games observed in the Stadium of Blades. Since the beginning of En’Kara he had fought more than one hundred and twenty times, and one hundred and twenty foes had fallen before him, which, following his unusual custom, he had never slain, regardless of the will of the crowd. Some of the best swordsmen of Ar, even Warriors of High Caste, eager to be the one to best the mysterious Murmillius, had dared to enter the arena against him, but each of these bold gentlemen he seemed to treat with more scorn than his common foes, playing with them and then, it seemed when he wished, disabling their sword arm, so cruelly that perhaps they might never again be able to lift the steel. Condemned criminals and men of low caste, fighting for gold or freedom in the arena, he treated with the harsh courtesies obtaining among sword brothers. The crowd, each time he fought, went mad with pleasure, thrilling to each ringing stroke of steel, and I suspected that that man most adored in Ar was the huge, mysterious Murmillius, superb and gallant, a man whose very city was unknown.

  Meanwhile the intrigues of Cernus, of the House of Cernus, threaded their way through the days and events of the spring and summer in Ar. Once in a paga tavern I heard a man, whom I recognized to be one of the guards from the iron pens, though now in the tunic of a Leather Worker, declaring that the city needed for its Administrator not a Builder but a Warrior, that law would again prevail.

  “But what Warrior?” inquired a fellow at the table, a Silversmith.

  “Cernus, of the House of Cernus,” said the disguised guard, “is a Warrior.”

  “He is a Slaver,” said one.

  “He knows the business and needs of Ar,” said the guard, “as would a Merchant, but he is yet of the Caste of Warriors.”

  “He has sponsored many games,” said a Tharlarion Keeper.

  “He would be better than a Hinrabian,” said another fellow.

  “My admission to the races,” said another man, a Miller, “has been paid a dozen times by the House of Cernus.” He referred to a practice of handing out passes, dated ostraka bearing the print of the House of Cernus, outside the gate of the Slaver’s house, which were dispensed on a first-come-first-served basis, a thousand a day, each day of the races. Some men spent the night at the walls of the house of Cernus, that they might obtain their ostrakon at dawn.

  “I say,” said the disguised guard, “Ar could do worse than have such a man as Cernus on the throne!”

  To my amazement, several about the table, who were undoubtedly common citizens of Ar, began to nod their heads.

  “Yes,” said the Silversmith, “it would be good if a man such as Cernus were Administrator of the city.”

  “Or Ubar?” said the guard.

  The smith shrugged. “Yes,” he said, “or Ubar.”

  “Ar is at war with itself,” said one man, who had not spoken before, a Scribe. “In these times perhaps what one needs is truly a Ubar.”

  “I say,” said the guard, “Cernus should be Ubar of Ar.”

  The men about the table began to grunt affirmatively. “Bring paga!” called the disguised guard, summoning a belled slave girl to him, one carrying a large vessel of paga, that drinks might be dispensed yet once again. I knew the moneys spent so lavishly by the guard had been counted out carefully from the office of Caprus, for such information I had from Elizabeth. I turned and left when I heard the men at the table, led by the guard, lifting their cups to Cernus, of the House of Cernus. “May Cernus, of the House of Ce
rnus,” said they, “become Ubar of Ar!”

  I saw one other man rise up when I did, and also leave the tavern.

  Outside I stopped and turned, regarding Ho-Tu.

  “I thought you did not drink paga,” I said.

  “I do not,” said Ho-Tu.

  “How is it that you are in a paga tavern?” I asked.

  “I saw Falarius leave the house,” said he, “in the garb of a Leather Worker. I was curious.”

  “It seems he was on the business of Cernus,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Ho-Tu.

  “Did you hear them speak of Master Cernus,” I asked, “as a possible Ubar?”

  Ho-Tu looked at me sharply. “Cernus,” he said, “should not be Ubar.”

  I shrugged.

  Ho-Tu turned and strode away between the buildings.

  While the men of Cernus did their work in the paga taverns, and on the streets and in the market squares, and on the ramps and in the tiers of the games and races, the gold of Cernus, and the steel of Cernus, was apparently plied elsewhere. His loans to the Hinrabians, a wealthy family in itself but surely unable to carry the incessant burdens of supporting games and races, became fewer and then stopped. Then, with great reluctance, claiming need, Cernus petitioned for the repayment of certain minor, but significant, portions of his loans. As these might be repaid from the private treasuries of the Hinrabians, he required ever larger payments, greater and greater portions of the moneys owed to his house by the Hinrabians. Further, games and races which he had sponsored in the name of the Hinrabians now ceased, and those they had jointly sponsored ceased to bear the name of the Administrator. The name of Cernus, as patron and benefactor, was now what appeared on the placards and the boards of announcements. Then, interestingly, minor omens, recorded by the High Initiate, and others, began to turn against the Hinrabian dynasty. Two members of the High Council, who had spoken out against the influence of Merchants in the politics of Ar, presumably a veiled reference to Cernus, were found slain, one cut down by killing knife and another throttled and found dangling from a bridge near his home. The first sword of the military forces of Ar, Maximus Hegesius Quintilius, second in authority only to Minus Tentius Hinrabius himself, was relieved of his post. He had shortly before expressed reservation concerning the investiture of Cernus in the Caste of Warriors. He was replaced by a member of the Taurentians, Seremides of Tyros, nominated by Saphronicus of Tyros, Captain of the Taurentians. Shortly thereafter Maximus Hegesius Quintilius was found dead, poisoned by the bite of a girl in his Pleasure Gardens, who, before she could be brought before the Scribes of the Law, was strangled by enraged Taurentians, to whom she had been turned over; it was well known that the Taurentians had greatly revered Maximus Hegesius Quintilius, and that they had felt his loss perhaps as deeply as the common Warriors of Ar. I had known Maximus Hegesius Quintilius only briefly several years ago, when he had been a captain, in 10,110 from the Founding of Ar, in the time of Pa-Kur and his horde. He had seemed to me a good soldier. I regretted his passing. He was given a full military funeral; his ashes had been scattered from tarnback over a field where, as a general some years before, he had led the forces of Ar to victory.