Assassin of Gor

by Norman, John;

  I returned my attention to the race.

  My fellow, now, instead of watching the race, stood, armed, with his back to mine, his crossbow ready.

  The tarns, like a torrent of beating wings and talons, swept by again.

  The large-winged tarn had fallen back now, the lead being taken by the rider of the Blue, a small, shrewd man, a veteran rider but one too precipitate. I knew his bird. He had moved too soon.

  I smiled.

  Mip, on Green Ubar, swept past the large-winged tarn. Second in the race was now the rider who wore the silk of the Silvers. Already he permitted his bird freedom of the reins. I saw there were two tarn heads left on the poles. I did not know the strength of the bird. With a clear strike at the first of the end rings, however, the bird, headstrong, resenting the sudden pressure on the control straps, went wide.

  Mip took advantage of this cutting in closely, following now the rider in blue silk.

  Menicius of Port Kar, riding for the Yellows, tearing at the control straps of his bird, tarn goad showering sparks to the sand below, tarn screaming, fought his way, birds buffeting, past the Silver trying to regain the center of the rings.

  The Blue, leading now, expertly blocked Mip at ring after ring. I noted that the bird ridden by the rider in blue silk was tiring. But yet the race could be won on blocking. Menicius of Port Kar had been slowed by the Silver’s attempt to stop him.

  Again and again Mip tried to pass above the bird of the Blues, ring after ring, and then, lifting the bird again, he suddenly cut low and to the left, executing the dangerous talon pass. The bird of the Blues raked downward, with talons that could have torn Mip from the saddle, but Mip had judged the distance superbly. I heard the rider of the Blues curse and those who favored the Steels leaped roaring to their feet.

  “Look,” said the crossbowman, who stood near me. He pointed to a spot about a hundred yards away, on a small wall, built itself on the dividing wall, near the pole of the wooden tarn heads.

  I cried out with rage.

  There I saw a Taurentian, armed with a crossbow, lifting it, preparing to fire as Mip passed through the third of the far end rings. The Taurentian had the stock of the crossbow to his shoulder, waiting.

  The crossbowman with me said, “Do not fear.” He raised his weapon to his shoulder. Mip was clearing the center ring of the end rings when the heavy leather-wrapped cable of the crossbow sprang forward and the quarrel hissed from the guide.

  I watched the dark, swift flight of the quarrel, like a black needle, and saw it drop into the back of the Taurentian, who suddenly stiffened, seeming inches taller, the metal fins of the bolt like a tiny dark triangle in the purple of the cloak, and pitched lifeless from the wall.

  Mip cleared the third of the end rings and streaked on.

  “An excellent shot,” I said.

  The crossbowman shrugged, drawing back the heavy cable on the bow.

  There was now but one tarn head left on the pole.

  The crossbowman fitted another quarrel to his bow and stood as before, examining the crowd.

  The crowd roared.

  Mip held the lead.

  Then the Yellows sprang to their feet in the stands.

  Menicius of Port Kar, his tarn young, swift, competitive, was making his move, gaining rapidly.

  Mip released the reins. He did not strike Green Ubar with the tarn goad. He shouted to him, crying encouragement. “Old Warrior, fly!” he cried.

  I saw Green Ubar begin then to hold his lead, his wings striking with the accelerating, timed frenzy of the racing tarn, each stroke seeming to carry him swifter and farther than the last. Then, to my horror, I saw the wings miss their beat and the bird screamed in pain, and began to turn in the air, Mip spinning with the bird, trying to control it.

  Menicius of Port Kar streaked past and as he did so his right hand flew forward and I saw Mip suddenly lose the reins of the tarn and clutch spasmodically at his back, as though trying to reach something. Mip was thrown back in the two thin safety straps of the racing saddle and then sagged in the saddle, leaning to one side.

  I clutched the arm of the crossbowman.

  The tarn of the Blues, and then of the Silvers, and then of the Reds flashed past the reeling tarn and its rider.

  The crossbowman raised his weapon. “Menicius will not live to finish the race,” he said.

  “He is mine,” I said.

  Suddenly Green Ubar, in the flash of the wings and the cries of the riders passing him, righted himself and with a cry of rage and pain burst toward the rings, Mip sagging in the saddle.

  Then the bird, which had in its time won a thousand races and more, addressed itself again to that fierce and familiar path in the Stadium of Tarns.

  “Look!” I cried. “Mip lives!”

  Mip now hung on the neck of Green Ubar, his body parallel to the saddle, clinging to the bird, his face pressed against it, his lips moving, speaking to it.

  And it is hard to say what I then saw.

  The crowd roared, the tarns screamed, and Green Ubar, his rider Mip, flew, eyes blazing, for those final moments marvelous and incandescent in his youth, like a bird and rider come from the dreams of old men, as they knew them once, when they too were young. Green Ubar flew. He flew. And what I saw seemed to be a young bird, in the fullness of his strength, at the pitch of his prime and pride, his cunning and swiftness, his fury and power. It was Green Ubar as I had heard speak of him, Green Ubar of the legends, Green Ubar as he had been in the stories told by men who had seen him years before, Green Ubar, greatest of the racing tarns, holder of awards, victorious, triumphant.

  When the bird came first to the perches of victory there was no sound from the crowd, that vast multitude totally silent.

  Second was the startled Menicius of Port Kar, the palm of victory snatched from his grip.

  Then all, save perhaps those closest to the noble Ubar of the city, began to cry out and cheer, and pound their fists on their left shoulder.

  The bird stood there on the perch, and Mip straightened himself painfully in the saddle.

  The bird lifted its head, resplendent, fantastic, and uttered the victory scream of the tarn.

  Then it tumbled from the perch into the sand.

  I, the crossbowman, and others, raced to the perch.

  With my sword I cut Mip free of the safety straps and drew him from the tarn.

  I jerked the small knife from his back. It was a killing knife, a legend carved about its handle. “I have sought him. I have found him.”

  I lifted Mip in my arms. He opened his eyes. “The tarn?” he asked.

  “Green Ubar is dead,” I told him.

  Mip closed his eyes and between the pressed eyelids there were tears.

  He stretched out his hand toward the bird and I lifted him, carrying him to the side of the inert, winged beast. He put his arms about the neck of the dead bird, laying his cheek against that fierce, whitish-yellow beak, and he wept. We stood back.

  After a time the crossbowman, who stood beside me, spoke to Mip. “It was victory,” he said.

  Mip only wept. “Green Ubar,” he said. “Green Ubar.”

  “Fetch one of the Caste of Physicians,” cried an onlooker. The crossbowman shook his head negatively.

  Mip lay dead across the neck of the bird he had ridden to victory.

  “He rode well,” I said. “One might have thought him more than a simple Tarn Keeper.”

  “Long ago,” said the crossbowman, “there was a rider of racing tarns. In a given race, attempting the head pass, he misjudged the distance and was struck bodily from the saddle by the high bar of the first of the center side rings. He was dropped broken into the path of following tarns, torn, and fell again to the lower bar of the ring and then to the net. He raced once or twice after that, and then no more. His timing, his judgment were no longer sure. He feared then the rings, the birds. His confidence, his skill, his nerve were gone. He was afraid, deathly afraid, and understandably so. He did not rac
e more.”

  “Mip?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said the crossbowman. “It would be well,” he said, “if you understand the courage of what he did here today.”

  “He raced well,” I said.

  “I watched,” said one of the men of the Steels standing nearby. “He did not fear. There was no fear in his handling of the tarn. There was only sureness, and skill, and nerve.”

  “And pride,” added another man.

  “Yes, that, too,” said the first man.

  “I remember him,” said another man, “from years ago. It was the Mip of old. He rode as he had ridden years before. Never did he ride a finer race.”

  There were murmurs of assent from those gathered about.

  “He was then,” I asked, “well known as a rider.”

  The men about looked at me.

  “He was the greatest of the riders,” said the crossbowman, looking down at the small, still figure of Mip, his arms still about the neck of the tarn, “the greatest of the riders.”

  “Did you not know him?” asked one of the men of me.

  “He was Mip,” I said. “I knew him only as Mip.”

  “Then know him now,” said the crossbowman, “by his true name.”

  I looked at the crossbowman.

  “He was Melipolus of Cos,” said the crossbowman.

  I stood stunned, for Melipolus of Cos was indeed a legend in Ar and in the hundred cities in which races were held.

  “Melipolus of Cos,” repeated the crossbowman.

  “He and Green Ubar died in victory,” said one of the men present.

  The crossbowman looked at him sharply. “I remember only,” said he, “the victory perch, Mip lifting his hands, the tarn’s scream of victory.”

  “I, too,” said the man.

  The judge’s bar rang twice, signaling the preparation for the ninth race, that of the Ubar.

  I picked up the small knife which had slain Mip, that hurled by Menicius of Port Kar. I thrust it in my belt.

  The platforms, bearing the tarns for the ninth race, were being wheeled onto the track area, approaching the starting perches.

  Attendants rushed forward.

  I picked up Mip in my arms and handed him to one of the Steels. The body of Green Ubar was placed on a platform and taken from the area.

  The crowd was stirring in the stands. The caste colors of Gor seemed turbulent in the high tiers. Men rushed here and there securing the clay disks confirming their bets. Hawkers cried their wares. Here and there children ran about. The sky was a clear blue, dotted by clouds. The sun was shining. It was a good day for the races.

  On a large board, against the dividing wall, on which the day’s results were tallied, and lists and odds kept of the coming races, I saw them place as the winner of the eighth race Green Ubar, and his rider Melipolus of Cos. I supposed it had been years since the board had been so posted.

  Menicius of Port Kar would, of course, ride in the Ubar’s Race for the Yellows. His mount was the finest in their tarncots, Quarrel, named for the missile of the crossbow, a strong bird, very fast, reddish in color, with a discoloration on the right wing where, as talk had it, protagonists of the Silvers, long ago, had hurled a bottle of acid. I thought it a good bird. I respected it. But I had little doubt Ubar of the Skies, whose name I saw posted now for the Steels, was his master.

  The races now stood even between the Steels and the Yellows. The Ubar’s Race would decide the honors of the day, and of the Love Feast and, for most practical purposes, the season.

  I looked to the box of the Ubar, and to that of the High Initiate, Complicius Serenus. Both boxes were draped with the colors of the Greens. I wondered if Cernus had yet received word of the events at the Stadium of Blades. Even now, through the streets, men were marching.

  I walked to the board, where men were entering the information. There was no name following Ubar of the Skies for the Steels.

  “Put there,” I told the men, “the name Gladius of Cos.”

  “He is here!” cried one of them.

  The other hastened to put up the name, letter by letter. The crowd roared with pleasure. I saw men from the betting tables conferring, some of them then approaching the board. Odds began to shift on the great board.

  I heard the judge’s bar ring three times, signaling the birds to their perches.

  I strode in the sunlight across the sand toward the starting perches.

  I saw Menicius of Port Kar standing on the platform, on which, hooded, trembling with anticipation, stood Quarrel, that marvelous reddish tarn, prince of the tarncots of the Yellows.

  Before Menicius of Port Kar, and surrounding the platform as well, I saw a guard of Taurentians.

  I approached them but did not attempt to penetrate their line. Menicius of Port Kar, his face white, climbed to the saddle of his bird.

  I called to him. “Gladius of Cos,” I said, “following the race would confer with Menicius of Port Kar.”

  He said nothing.

  “Stand away!” ordered the leader of the Taurentians.

  “Menicius of Port Kar,” I said, “was in the city of Ko-ro-ba during En’Var of last year.”

  Menicius’ fists went white on the reins of the tarn.

  I took the killing knife from my belt, poising it in my fingers.

  “He recalls a Warrior of Thentis,” I remarked.

  “I know nothing of what he says,” growled Menicius.

  “Or perhaps he does not recall him,” I conjectured, “for I expect he saw little other than his back.”

  “Drive him away!” cried Menicius.

  “A green patch might easily have been placed on the bridge a day before, an hour before. Menicius of Port Kar is skilled with the killing knife. The strike was made doubtless from the back of a racing tarn, a small swift tarn, maneuverable, darting among the bridges.”

  “You are mad!” cried Menicius of Port Kar. “Slay him!”

  “The first man who moves,” said the voice of the crossbowman behind me, “will swallow the bolt of a crossbow.”

  None of the Taurentians moved against me.

  An attendant unhooded Quarrel, tarn of the Yellows. Its reddish crest sprang erect and it shook its head, rippling the feathers. It lifted its head and screamed at the sun.

  When the attendant had unhobbled the bird it sprang to its starting perch, the first, or inside perch. It stood there, its head extended, snapping its wings.

  It seemed to me a fine bird.

  My own tarn, on its platform before the fourth perch, was unhooded.

  The crowd cried out, as it always did, at the sight of that monstrous head, the wicked beak, that sable, crackling crest, the round, black gleaming eyes. An attendant for the Steels unlocked the hobble from the right leg of the bird and leaped aside. The steel-shod talons of the war tarn tore for a moment at the heavy beams of the platform on which it stood, furrowing it. Then the bird threw back its head and opened its wings, and, eyes gleaming, as though among the crags of the Thentis Range or the Voltai, uttered the challenge scream of the Mountain Tarn, shrill, wild, defiant, piercing. I think there were none in that vast stadium who did not for the moment, even in the sun of summer, feel a swift chill, suddenly fearing themselves endangered, suddenly feeling themselves unwitting intruders, trespassers, wandered by accident, unwilling, into the domain of that majestic carnivore, the black tarn, my Ubar of the Skies.

  “Mount!” cried the crossbowman, and I did so. I would miss Mip at my stirrup, his grin, his advice, the counsel, his cheery words, the last slap at my stirrup. But I remembered him only now as he had held the saddle of Green Ubar, dying, but his hands lifted, in victory.

  I looked across to Menicius of Port Kar. His eyes darted from mine. He bent over the neck of Quarrel.

  I saw that he had been given another knife, a tarn knife, of the sort carried by riders. In his right hand, ready, there was a tarn goad. To my surprise I noted, coiled at the side of his saddle, in four loops, was a whip knife,
of the sort common in Port Kar, a whip, but set into its final eighteen inches, arranged in sets of four, twenty thin, narrow blades; the tips of whip knives differ; some have a double-edged blade of about seven or eight inches at the tip; others have a stunning lead, which fells the victim and permits him, half-conscious, to be cut to pieces at the attacker’s leisure; the whip knife of Menicius, however, held at its tip the double-edged blade, capable of cutting a throat at twelve feet.

  I noted Taurentians going to the other contestants in the race, conveying messages to them. Some of these men were protesting, shaking their fists.

  “It would be well,” said the crossbowman, standing by my stirrup, “not to fall behind in this race.”

  I saw a Taurentian bring Menicius of Port Kar a container, wrapped in silk, which he thrust in his belt.

  “Look,” I said to the crossbowman, indicating Taurentians, carrying crossbows, slipping into the crowd.

  “Race,” said he to me. “There are those of ours among the tiers.”

  I took the great tarn up with a snap of his wings to my starting perch, the fourth.

  Menicius of Port Kar no longer seemed white, no longer afraid. His lean face was now calm; there was a cruel smile about his lips, his eyes. He looked to me, and laughed.

  I readied myself for the sound of the judge’s bar. The starting rope was strung before the tarns.

  I noted, to my surprise, that the padding on the rings had been removed by attendants, and replaced with bladelike edges, used not in races but in exhibitions of daring riding, stunts in effect, in which riders appear to court death at the rings.

  The crowd, all factions, cried out in protest at this.

  The riders, with the exception of myself and Menicius of Port Kar, looked from one to the other warily, puzzled.

  “Bring me,” I said, to the crossbowman, standing at the foot of the perch, “from the belongings of Gladius of Cos, kept in the compound of the Steels, the bola of the Tuchuks, the kaiila rope, the southern quiva.”

  He laughed. “I wondered,” he said, “when you would understand that you ride to war.”

  I smiled at him, under my mask.

  An attendant of the Steels threw a package up to my saddle.