Conspirators of Gor cog[oc-31

by John Norman

  “Four times,” said Desmond of Harfax, “before the revolt of Lucius, despite the importunities of Agamemnon, Timarchos, Lysymachos, and others, Grendel sought to postpone this journey, meanwhile laboring on our behalf.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “One pretext after another was proposed, each more exasperating to Agamemnon and his adherents than the other. Then, before we were well organized, the abortive revolt of Lucius took place. The aftermath of the revolt has been unfortunate. The movements of Agamemnon have become more guarded, men have been disarmed, and Kurii patrol the Cave and guard the great portal.”

  “Things would be difficult,” I said.

  “Even with Grendel, and some trust in him by Agamemnon and his cohorts, I fear they would have been impossible.”

  “I saw him taken,” I said, “by the great portal.”

  “Why now?” he asked.

  “I do not know,” I said.

  “Nor I,” he said.

  I recalled Grendel, roped, being led down the hall, preceding his captors, bearing their primitive but terrible weapons.

  “Our plans have come to naught,” he said.

  I was silent.

  “There is another danger,” he said.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Given the suppression of the revolt, and the increased security in the Cave,” he said, “the increased suspicion and watchfulness, the fear of further disruption or dissension, the intensified vigilance, our small organization of men, secret and subversive, intent on exposing the machinations of Agamemnon and his cohorts, is in ever greater jeopardy. How can it not be discovered, if not now, tomorrow, or the day after?”

  “Perhaps all will survive,” I said.

  “It is clear how at least one might survive,” he said.

  “How?” I asked.

  “By betraying the rest,” he said.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  “I recognize you,” said the guard. “You are his grooming slave.”

  “I am not such a slave,” I said. “I have groomed him. Will you deliver the tray to him?”

  “No,” said the guard.

  “I fear to approach him,” I said.

  “He will not hurt you,” said the guard. He then sounded the small bar in the background and, in a bit, another guard appeared, carrying one of the bulky, complex crossbows. The door to the cell was then opened, and I was ushered within. I did my best to appear reluctant. I heard the gate close behind me.

  “Groom him,” said the guard. “He dies tomorrow.”

  All these remarks from the guard, of course, were transmitted by means of his translator.

  The two guards then withdrew.

  If the prisoner had cared to tear my head from my shoulders, my arms from my body, there would have been nothing to prevent it.

  “Tal, Allison,” said Grendel.

  “I beg your forgiveness, Master,” I said, “for doubting you.”

  “You were supposed to doubt me,” said Grendel.

  “How is it,” I asked, “that they have turned on you?”

  “The matter was simple,” he said. “It was inevitable that their suspicions would be aroused. I would not fight for Agamemnon, I would not execute those who were foolish enough to avail themselves of the amnesty. I sought excuses for delaying my departure for the steel world of Arcesilaus. Indeed, I was surprised at their patience. One does not expect such of my fellow Kurii.”

  “You were crucial to their plans,” I said. “You were not to be lightly expended.”

  “Apparently,” he said. “But they then devised a test, one I must refuse to pass, to see if I were sincerely of their camp.”

  “They threatened the Lady Bina,” I said.

  “Nothing so simple,” he said. “One might always negotiate, delay things, make promises, fail to keep them, make new promises, fail to keep them, and so on.”

  “That might have earned enough time to escape the Cave,” I said.

  “That would have been my hope,” he said. “As you know, matters were moving forward. Supplies might have been gathered, warm clothing found for the humans, the Lady Bina freed, and the guards at the gate dealt with, hopefully benignly. It might well have been dangerous, particularly if we were pursued in force, but the stakes were high, and there seemed little choice.”

  “What happened, then?” I asked.

  “Returning to the Cave,” he said, “I was apprehended, bound, and conducted into the presence of Agamemnon, and confronted with the test.”

  “I saw you arrested, at the great portal,” I said. “What was the test?”

  “Bite at the fur,” he said. “Appear to groom me.”

  I obeyed, and, shortly thereafter, the two guards returned. Grendel had doubtless heard their approach.

  “Feed,” ordered the first guard.

  I drew back, and Grendel, humbly, turned to the tray. The guards then, again, withdrew.

  He then faced me, and I went close to his muzzle.

  “The test was a simple one, exquisite, worthy of Agamemnon,” said Grendel. “The Lady Bina was present. I was instructed to kill her, immediately. I refused, and that was the end of the matter. Thus were my lies and ruses exposed. My pretense of being of the party of Agamemnon was proved fraudulent.”

  “The Lady Bina must have been terrified,” I said.

  “Not at all,” he said. “She fears nothing from me.”

  “How is that?” I asked.

  “I am her guard,” he said.

  “You are to be executed tomorrow,” I said.

  “Agamemnon will have to find another envoy to the world of Arcesilaus,” he said.

  “I do not think there is another,” I said, “and certainly none who might be expected to be taken as seriously as you, nor exercise an influence such as yours.”

  “Perhaps,” he said.

  “You have dealt a great blow to the plans of Agamemnon,” I said.

  “With respect to remote support, at least for a time,” he said.

  “Master Desmond,” I said, “without your leadership, despairs of escaping the Cave, of braving the Voltai, of counteracting the conspiracy. Pausanias and his wagons may already be near Venna.”

  “Desmond is a fine leader, one of intelligence, power, and honor,” said Grendel.

  “He puts me in a cage when it pleases him,” I said. “If he owned me, I have little doubt but what I would be well corded, well roped, and chained.”

  “I take it you hate him,” said Grendel.

  “Yes!” I said.

  “And how is it then,” he asked, “that you love him?”

  “I, love?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “On Earth,” I said, “I did not love. I did not know what love was. But here, with a collar fastened on my neck, I know.”

  “You love Desmond of Harfax,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “With the love of a free woman?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “I love him with the most profound and deepest love a woman can know. I love him with the love of a helpless, yielding slave for her master.”

  “Tomorrow, at the Ninth Ahn,” said Grendel, “I am to be taken from the Cave and executed. Perhaps you might leave the Cave a few Ehn before the Ninth Ahn and walk to the Sixth Ahn.”

  “I do not understand,” I said.

  “There is no escape for you, of course,” he said. “If you were not caught, you would die of cold, or be eaten by animals.”

  “What are you saying?” I asked.

  “You would be well advised to return promptly,” he said. “You might not even be missed. If you returned soon, and of your own accord, you might not even be switched.”

  “There are guards,” I said.

  “They might not be observant,” he said. “In any event, they are not likely to leave their post.”

  “Why should I do this?” I asked.

  “Perhaps you thought to run, and then wisely change
d your mind,” he said.

  “Master?” I said, puzzled.

  “Remember,” he said, “walk to the Sixth Ahn.”

  “How can I walk for so many Ahn,” I asked, “if I leave before the Ninth Ahn?”

  “You will only have to walk a little,” he said, “only a few Ehn.”

  “To the Sixth Ahn?” I said.

  “Precisely,” he said.

  “I understand nothing of this,” I said.

  “It is better that you do not,” he said.

  At this point the two guards entered the outer chamber. Shortly thereafter I removed the tray, the plate, and tankard from the cell.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Shortly before the Ninth Ahn, I was in the large hall, leading to the great portal. I moved very carefully, my back to the wall on the left, as one would approach the great portal from the inside. I was several yards from the opening. One of the guards turned, regarded me for a moment, and then turned back, to his fellow. Shortly thereafter, some yards back from the opening, two slave girls, Jane and Eve, began pushing one another, and screaming at one another. In a moment, they were rolling on the floor of the hall, seemingly intent on tearing out one another’s hair, seemingly clawing at one another like embroiled she-sleen, while the male crouched nearby, waiting to pull the victor to his burrow by the fur at the back of the neck. The two guards turned about, to watch the sobbing, screaming, seemingly tearing, seemingly scratching slaves. Altercations amongst slave girls can be nasty things. Kurii, and, I fear, some men, find them amusing.

  I slipped through the portal, unnoticed. I was frightened. I had crossed the threshold, without permission. In theory I knew I could be lashed, hamstrung, or slain. Mina was to have been fed alive to Kurii until Trachinos had intervened with coin, purchasing her.

  I looked about, wildly.

  I normally told Gorean time by the ringing of the bars, often public bars, but sometimes bars within a house. Grendel, however, in the domicile, had taught me to read time from the small chronometer he kept in his pouch. He doubtless would have recalled that he had done this. That was undoubtedly important. In the night I had pondered his strange words, about walking to the Sixth Ahn. Clearly, as he had told me to walk for only some Ehn, he had not meant that I should try to walk for several Ahn, until it was again the Sixth Ahn, almost a day later. What then could be meant? I was unfamiliar with Gorean directions, which I found complex, and, in any event, I not only lacked a compass, but would not have been able to read one if I had had one. I did know that the Gorean compass needle always pointed to the Sardar Mountains. It seemed clear then, upon reflection, that Grendel had given me a direction in which to proceed. It was also clear that he took it for granted that I would understand him. His confidence in this matter, although flattering, was not obviously warranted. Various difficulties obtained. I thought of time in terms of the bars, and not chronometers. I was not all that familiar with Gorean chronometers, and his casual lesson in the domicile had been brief. I tried to remember it. Most dangerously the chronometers with which I was familiar on my former world not only divided the day differently, but marked the divisions in a different order. On my former world the hands of chronometers begin to rotate to the right, whereas in your chronometers they begin to rotate to the left. Your concept of “clockwise” is thus opposite to that with which I was familiar. When I thought of Gorean time, as it might be measured by a chronometer, I always thought of it analogously to the chronometers of my former world; thus, in my mind I would think of the Fifth Ahn as to the right of the Twentieth Ahn, rather than, as you would think of it, as to the left of the Twentieth Ahn. Grendel, of course, would be thinking in terms of the Gorean chronometer. Accordingly, if a large Gorean chronometer had been placed flat before the great portal, and one was to move toward the Sixth Ahn one would go to the left and not the right. In any event, I sped from the portal, aligning myself with where the imaginary Sixth Ahn would lie.

  I heard no cry, or roar from behind me, and so I supposed the attention of the guards might still be focused on the amusing spectacle of two squabbling slave girls.

  The terrain was uneven and treacherous.

  There were many rocks, and crevices about, and narrow passageways between boulders and out-juttings. In places ascending and descending narrow ledges skirted cliff-like projections. Here and there there were spears of stone. The morning sun would be bright before me, on rock, and then, in a moment, one would confront almost impenetrable, cave-like shadows, indicating recesses of an undisclosed depth. In such a place anything might hide. Occasionally, from a high place, I looked back, to see the great portal. I tried to keep the direction, I hoped it was correct, which I understood Grendel to have given me. I recalled I had seen a larl from the great portal once, perhaps one at much this distance from the Cave. I swallowed, and continued on. My feet hurt, for I had no sandals. Too, camisked, I began to shiver. I nearly slipped into a crevice, but pressed myself against the rock, and, bit by bit, made my way forward. Mighty boulders were scattered about, some jagged, and young, and some worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain. Might the knives of expanding ice in fissures have broken loose stones, some like small mountains? I wondered if, in its long past, the Voltai had witnessed the passage of oceans of ice at its feet, oceans which might bear ships of stone. I wondered what forces might have given birth to the mighty Voltai.

  I hurried about a boulder, turning, and screamed in terror, for I had plunged into the outstretched arms of a large, hairy shape, which clutched me to itself, its nostrils dilating and closing, and dilating and closing again, sucking in scent from about my neck and shoulders. A massive paw closed over my mouth. I could barely squirm. Then, gently, it released me, and I stepped back. There was no mistaking the seared pockets of tissue marking where once large, glistening eyes had glowed.

  “You are alive!” I said.

  It could not understand me, of course, for it had no translator. But it might have detected something of the shock and amazement in my voice. Certainly it was familiar with the sounds humans made, from its captors, from the carnival, from the house of Epicrates, perhaps even from before its capture, from the Cave, and from after its brief return to the Cave, before its banishment into the wilderness. Looking on this beast, not on the brink of starvation, not half dead, but alert and sound, I realized the explanation for Grendel’s many departures from the Cave. He had fed it, and kept it alive. It was one of his own, even though it had betrayed him, a treason which Grendel had understood, and had not resented. It had been to return this ruined, blinded beast to his fellows in the Voltai that Grendel had undertaken our perilous expedition to the mountains, which expedition had unexpectedly revealed large secrets of political and military significance. I was sure now, of course, that the point of my mission into the mountains was precisely to contact this beast, whom we spoke of as Tiresias.

  The beast regarded me.

  I was sure it would not attack me. I was sure, too, that it recognized me, by scent. Had I not been sent for it once before, in Ar, and had encountered it in the market of Cestias?

  But how could I make clear to it the plight of Grendel, and even if I could manage to do so, of what help might be so powerful but so handicapped an animal?

  “Lord Grendel,” I said, again and again. And again. I thought it possible he would recognize this name, for he had heard it often enough, from the Lady Bina and from myself, in the house of Epicrates. And, hopefully, he could recognize the apprehension, the frantic concern, the pleading note in my voice.

  The beast growled suddenly, and lifted its sightless head. I saw fangs bared. I turned away, and retraced my steps, just a few steps. I thought it might follow me, if it understood. In any event, I had given him a direction. Suddenly he sprang forward and, as I cried out in fear, he took me in his left arm and nestled me against that broad, hirsute chest. I sensed the large heart beating within it. My feet were cold and bleeding. I pressed myself against that large body, half hidden in its lo
ng fur, perhaps its winter coat, grateful for the warmth. Its right paw extended before it, and sometimes brushed to the side. It began to move rapidly down the trail I had ascended. I realized then that it was extremely familiar with its immediate environment. Just as a blind human might negotiate its own house with relative ease, knowing the thresholds, the location of furniture, and such, so, too, the beast was at home in what, over the weeks of its exile, had become its territory. Indeed, it may have come this route many times, to meet Grendel. At the high points in this sometimes frightening trek, for it occasionally negotiated ledges which I, sighted, might have been reluctant to traverse, I could make out the great portal. At one point I cried out in fear, and clutched the beast’s fur, for, not more than a dozen paces from us, over a shelf of rock, I saw the lifted head of a larl, broad, triangular, quizzical. The beast was fully aware of it, for its head turned in that direction, its ears inclined to that place, and its nostrils drew in the alien scent, and then the beast, with no further action, either of a monitory or preparatory nature, continued on its way. The larl had not charged. I supposed it was recently surfeited. Like most carnivores, and unlike men and Kurii, it hunts only when hungry. I would discover later that more was involved. In much less time than it had taken me to rendezvous with Tiresias, he had brought me to a passageway which debouched onto a relatively flat slope of rock no more than a hundred paces from the great portal. This was the point, I gathered, at which Grendel and he might have met. In any event, I think it might have marked the end of its territory. The beast remained behind a turn of rock. It would not be visible from the portal. Released, I regained my footing and went cautiously to the opening of the passageway, and, shielding myself with the rock as much as possible, looked back to the portal.

  “Grendel,” I whispered. I was sure the beast knew that name.

  Emerging from the portal was Grendel, bound, and on a leash. With him were two Kurii, each with a large ax.

  The beast pushed his paw toward me, opening and closing the digits. “Counting,” I thought. “He wants me to count.” I took one digit in my hand, and then I took another, and then I held them together, and pressed the two, twice.