Raiders of Gor coc-6

by John Norman

  "Ah," she said, looking up at me, "it is not unlikely that in the end I will succumb to you."

  I laughed.

  But then, as though infuriated by my laughter, she began to struggle viciously. "But, in the meantime," she hissed, between clenched teeth, "I shall resist you with all my might!"

  I laughed again, and she laughed, and I permitted her to struggle until she had exhausted herself, and then, with lips and hands, and teeth and tongue, I touched her, until her body, caressed and loved, in all its loneliness and passion, yielded itself, moaning and crying out, to mine in our common ecstasy. And in the moments before she yielded, when I sensed her readiness, to her faint protest, then joy, I removed from her throat the slave collar that her yielding, our game ended, would be that of the free woman, glorious in the eager and willing, the joyous, bestowal of herself.

  "I love you," she said.

  "I love you, too," I said. "I love you, my Telima."

  "But sometime," she said, teasingly, "you must love me as a slave girl." "Women!" I cried, in exasperation.

  "Ever woman," said Telima, "sometimes wishes to be loved as a Ubara, and sometimes as a slave girl."

  "Oh," I said.

  For a long time we lay together in one another's arms.

  "My Ubar," she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Why, at the feast, when the singer sang," she asked, "did you weep?" "For no reason," I said.

  We lay side by side, looking up at the ceiling.

  "Years ago," she said, "when I was so much younger, I recall hearing sing of Tarl of Bristol."

  "In the marshes?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said, "sometimes a singer comes to the rence islands. But, too, when I was a slave in Port Kar I heard sing of Tarl of Brstol, in the house of my master."

  Telima had never spoken much to me of her slavery in Port Kar. She had hated her master, I had known, and she had escaped. And, as I had sensed, her slavery had scarred her deeply. In the marshes I had been unfortunate enough to taste something of the hatreds and frustrations that had been built up within her. Her wounds had been deep, and having been hurt by a man it had been her desire to hurt one in turn, and cruelly so, that in his suffering her imagined vengeance on another would be the sweeter. Telima was a strange woman. I wondered again how she had come by an armlet of gold. And I recalled, now puzzled again, that she, though a rence girl, had been able to read the lettering on the collar I had placed on her one night long ago.

  But I did not speak to her of these things, for she was speaking to me, dreamily, remembering.

  "When I was a girl on the rence island," she said, "and later, sometimes at night, when I was a slave, in my cage in my master's house, I would lie awake and think of the songs, and of heroes."

  I touched her hand.

  "And sometimes," she said, "even often, I would think of the hero Tarl of Bristol."

  I said nothing.

  "Do you think there is such a man?" she asked.

  "No," I said.

  "Could not such a man exist?" she asked. She had rolled over on her stomach, and was looking at me. I was lying on my back, looking at the ceiling.

  "In songs," I said. "Such a man might exist in songs."

  She laughed. "Are there no heroes?" she asked.

  "No," I told her. "there are no heroes."

  She said nothing.

  "There are only human beings," I told her.

  I lay looking for a long time at the ceiling.

  "Human beings," I told her, "are weak. They are capable of cruelty. They are selfish, and greedy, and vain and petty. They can be vicious, and there is much in them that is ugly and worthy only of contempt" I looked at her. "All men," I told her, "are corruptible. There are no heroes, no Tarls of Bristol." She smiled at me. "There is gold and steel," she said.

  "And the bodies of women," I said.

  "And songs," she said.

  "Yes," I said, "and songs."

  She laid her head on my shoulder.

  Dimly, far off, I heard the ringing of a great bar.

  Though it was early i heard noises in the house. Some men, down one or another of the corridors, were shouting.

  I sat up on the couch, and drew about myself my robes.

  I heard feet running in the corridor, approaching.

  "The blade," I said to Telima.

  She leaped up, and picked up the sword, which lay near the wall, where I had thrown it some hours before, where I had not slain her.

  I put the blade in my scabbard, and wrapped the straps about the scabbard. The steps were close now, and then I heard a pounding at my door.

  "Captain!" I heard.

  It was Thurnock.

  "Enter!" I called.

  Thurnock burst in. He stood there, within the room, his eyes wild, his hair wild, holding a torch. "Patrol ships have returned," he cried. "The joint fleets of Cos and Tyros are but hours from us!"

  "Outfit my ships," I said.

  "There is no time!" he cried. "And captains are fleeing! All who can are leaving Port Kar!"

  I looked at him.

  "Flee, my Captain!" he said. "Flee!"

  "You may go," said I, "Thurnock."

  He looked at me, confused, and then turned and stumbled away down the hall. Somewhere I heard a girl screaming in fear.

  I dressed, and slung the sword over my left shoulder.

  "Take your ships and what men are left to you," said Telima. "Fill your ships with treasure and fly, my Ubar."

  I regarded her. How beautiful she was.

  "Let Port Kar die!" she cried.

  I picked up the broad scarlet ribbon, with its medallion, that with the tarn ship and the initials of the Council of Captains.

  I put it in my pouch.

  "Let Port Kar burn," said Telima. "Let Port Kar die!"

  "You are very beautiful, my love," I told her.

  "Let Port Kar die!" she cried.

  "It is my city," I said. "I must defend it."

  I heard her weeping as I left the room.

  Strangely there was little in my mind as I walked to the great hall, where the feast had been held. I walked as though I might be another, no knowing myself. I knew what I would do, and yet I knew not why I would do it.

  To my surprise, in the great hall, I found gathered the officers fo my men. I think there was not one that was there.

  I looked from face to face, the great Thurnock, now calm, swift, strong Clitus, the shrewd oar-master, the others. Many of these men were cutthroats, killers, pirates. I wondered why they were in this room.

  A door at the side opened and Tab strode in, his sword over his left shoulder. "I am sorry, Captain," said he, "I was attending my ship."

  We regarded one another evenly. And then I smiled. "I am forunate," I said, "to have one so diligent in my service."

  "Captain," said he.

  "Thurnock," I said, "I gave orders, did I not, to have my shops outfitted." Thurnock grinned, the tooth missing on his upper right side. "It is being done," he said.

  "what are we to do?" asked one of my captains.

  What could on say to them? If the joint fleets of Cos and Tyros were indeed almost upon us, there was little to do but flee, or fight. We were truly read to do neither. Even had the fortunes I had brought from the treasure fleet been applied immediately after my return to the city, we could not, in the time, have outfitted a fleet to match that which must be decending upon us.

  "What would be your estimate of the size of the fleet of Cos and Tyros," I asked Tab.

  He did not hesitate. "Four thousand ships," he said.

  "Tarn ships?" I asked.

  "All," he said.

  His surmise agreed closely with the reports of my spies. The fleet would consist, according to my information, of forty-two hundred ships, twenty-five hundred from Cos and seventeen hundred from Tyros. Of the forty-two hundred, fifteen hundred would be galleys heavy class, two thousand medium-clas galleys, and seven hundred light galleys. A net, a hundred p
asangs wide, was closing on Port Kar.

  It seemed that only the departure date of the fleet had eluded my spies. I laughed, yet I could not blame them. One scarcely advertises such matters. And ships may be swiftly outfitted and launched, if materials and crews are at hand. The council and I had apparently miscalculated the damage done by the capture of the treasure fleet to the war plans of Cos and Tyros. We had not expected the launching of the fleet ot take places until the spring. Besides, it was now in Se'Kara, late in the season to launch tarn ships. Most sailing, save by round ships, is done in the spring and summer. In Se'Kara, particularly later in the month, there are often high seas on Thassa. We had been taken totally unprepared. It was dangerous to attack us now. In this bold stroke I saw not the hand of Lurius, Ubar of Cos, but of the brilliant Chenbar of Kasra, Ubar of Tyros, the Sea Sleen.

  I admired him. He was a good captain.

  "What shall we do, Captain?" ask teh officer once more.

  "What do you propose?" I asked him, smiling.

  He looked at me, startled. "There is only one thing to do," he said, "and that is to ready our ships, take our treasure and slaves aboard, and flee. We are strong, and may take an island on our own, one of the northern islands. There you can be Ubar and we can be your men."

  "Many of the captains," said another officer, "are already weighing anchor for the northern islands."

  "And others," said another, "for the southern ports."

  "Thassa is broard," said another officer. "There are many islands, many ports." "And what of Port Kar?" I asked.

  "She has no Home Stone," said one of the men.

  I smiled. It was true. Port Kar, of al the cities on Gor, was the only one that had no Home Stone. I did not know if men did not love her because she had on Home Stone, or that she had no Home Stone because men did not love her. The officer had proposed, as clearly as one might, that the city be abandoned to the flames, and to the ravaging seamen of Cos and Tyros.

  Port Kar had no Home Stone.

  "How many of you think," I asked, "that Port Kar has no Home Stone?" The men looked at one another, puzzled. All knew, of course, that she had no Home Stone.

  There was silence.

  Then, after a time, Tab said, "I think that she might have one."

  "But," said I, "she does not yet have one."

  "No," said Tab.

  "I," said one of the men, "wonder what it would be like to live in a ctiy where there is a Home Stone."

  "How does a city obtain a Home Stone?" I asked.

  "Men decide that she hasll have one," said Tab.

  "Yes," I said, "that is how it is that a city obtains a Home Stone." The men looked at one another.

  "Send the slave boy Fish before me," I said.

  The men looked at one another, not understanding, but one went to fetch the boy. I knew that none of the slaves would have fled. They would not have been able to. The alarm had come in the night, and, at night, in a Gorean household, it is common for the slaves to be confined; certainly in my house, as a wise percaution, I kept my slaves well secured; even Midice, when she had snuggled against me in the love furs, when I had finished with her, was always chained by the right ankle to the slave ring set in the bottom of my couch. Fish would have been chained in the kitchen, side by side with Vina.

  The boy, white-faced, alarmed, was shoved into my presence.

  "Go outside," I told him, "and find a rock, and bring it to me."

  He looked at me.

  "Hurry!" I said.

  He turned about and ran from the room.

  We waited quietly, not speaking, until he returned. He held in his hand a sizable rock, somewhat bigger than my fist. It was a common rock, not very large, and gray and heavy, granular in texture.

  I took the rock.

  "A knife," I said.

  I was handed a knife.

  I cut in the rock the initials, in block Gorean script, of Port Kar. Then I held out in my hand the rock.

  I held it up so that the men could see.

  "What have I here?" I asked.

  Tab said it, and quietly, "The Home Stone of Port Kar."

  "Now," said I, facing the man who had told me there was but one choice, that of flight, "shall we fly?"

  He looked at the simple rock, wonderingly. "I have never had a Home Stone before," he said.

  "Shall we fly?" I asked.

  "Not if we have a Home Stone," he said.

  I held up the rock. "Do we have a Home Stone?" I asked the men.

  "I will accept it as my Home Stone," said the slave boy, Fish. None of the men laughed. The first to accept the Home Stone of Port Kar was only a boy, and a slave. But he had spoken as a Ubar.

  "And I!" cried Thurnock, in his great, booming voice.

  "And I!" cried Clitus.

  "And I!" said Tab.

  "And I!" cried the men in the room. And, suddenly, the room was filled with cheers and more than a hundred weapons left their sheaths and saluted the Home Stone of Port Kar. I saw weathered seamen weep and cry out, brandishing their swords. There was joy in that room then such as I had never before seen it. And there was a belonging, and a victory, and a meaningfulness, and cries, and the clashing of weapons, and tears and, in that instant, love.

  I cried to Thurnock. "Release all the slaves! Send them throughout the city, to the wharves, the taverns, the arsenal, the piazzas, the markets, everywhere! Tell them to cry out the news! Tell them to tell everyone that there is a Home Stone in Port Kar!"

  Men ran from the room to carry out orders.

  "Officers," I cried, "to your ships! Form your lines beyond the harbor four pasangs west of the wharves of Sevarius!"

  "Thurnock and Clitus," I said, "remain in the holding."

  "No!" they cried together.

  "Remain!" I ordered.

  They looked at one another in dismay.

  I could not send them to their deaths. I had no hopes that Port Kar could muster enough ships to fend off the joint fleet of Cos and Tyros.

  I turned away from them, and, with the stone, strode from the room. Outside the holding, on the broad promenade before of the holding, bordering on the lakelike courtyard, with the canal gate beyond, I ordered a swift, tharlarionprowed longboat made ready.

  Even from where I was I could hear, beyond the holding, the cries that there was a Home Stone in Port Kar, and could see torches being borne along the narrow walks which, in most places, line the canals.

  "Ubar," I heard, and I turned to take Telima in my arms.

  "Will you not fly?" she begged, tears in her eyes.

  "Listen," I told her. "Hear them? Hear what they are crying outside?" "They are crying that there is a Home Stone in Port Kar," she said, "but there is no Home Stone in Port Kar. Everyone knows that."

  "If men will that there be a Home Stone in Port Kar," I said, "then in Port Kar there will be a Home Stone."

  "Fly," she wept.

  I kissed her and leaped down into the longboat, which was now beside the promenade.

  The men shoved off with the oars.

  "To the Council of Captains," I told them.

  The tharlarion head of the craft turned toward the canal gate.

  I turned to lift my hand in farewell to Telima. I saw her standing there, near the entryway to my holding, in the garment of the Kettle Slave, under the torches. She lifted her hand.

  Then I took my seat in the longboat.

  I noted that at one of the oars sat the slave boy Fish.

  "It is a man's work that must now be done, Boy," I said to him.

  He drew on the oar. "I am a man," he said, "Captain."

  I saw the girl Vina standing beside Telima.

  But Fish did not look back.

  The ship nosed through the canals of Port Kar toward the hall of the Council of Captains.

  There were torches everywhere, and lights in the windows.

  We heard the cry about us sweeping the city, like a spark igniting the hearts of men into flame, that now in Port Kar th
ere was a Home Stone.

  A man stood on a narrow walks, a bundle on his back, tied over a spear. "Is it true, Admiral?" he cried. "Is it true?"

  "If you will have it true," I told him, "it will be true."

  He looked at me, wonderingly, and then the tharlarion-prowed longboat glided past him in the canal, leaving him behind.

  I looked once behind, and saw that he had thrown the bundle from his spear, and was following us, afoot.

  "There is a Home Stone in Port Kar!" he cried.

  I saw others stop, and then follow him.

  The canals we traversed were crowded, mostly with small tharlarion boats, loaded with goods, moving this way and that. All who could, it seemed, were fleeing the city.

  I had heard already that men with larger ships, hundreds of them, had put out to sea, and that the wharves were packed with throngs, bidding exorbitant amounts of gold for a passage from Port Kar. Many fortunes, I thought, would be made this night in Port Kar.

  "Make way for the Admiral!" cried the man in the bow of the longboat. "Make way for the admiral!"

  We saw frightened faces looking out from the windows. Men were hurrying along the narrow walks lining the canals. I could see the shining eyes of urts, their noses and heads dividing the torchlit waters silently, their pointed, silken ears laid back against the sides of their heads.

  "Make way for the Admiral!" cried the man in the bow of the longboat. Our boat mixed oars with another, and then we shoved apart and continued on our way.

  Children were crying. I heard a woman scream. Men were shouting. Everywhere dark figures, bundles on their backs, were scurrying along the sides of the canals. Many of the boats we passed were crowded with frightened people and goods. Many of those we passed asked me, "Is it true, Admiral, that there is a Home Stone in Port Kar," and I responded to them, as I had to the man before, "If you will have it true, it will be true."

  I saw a man at the tiller of one of the boats put about.

  There were now torches on both sides of the canals, in long lines, following us, and boats, too, began to follow us.

  "Where are you going?" asked a man from a window of the passing throng. "I think to the Council of Captains," said one of the men on the walk. "It is said that there is now a Home Stone in Port Kar."

  And I heard men behind him cry, "There is a Home Stone in Port Kar! There is a Home Stone in Port Kar!" This cry was taken up by thousands, and everywhere I saw men pause in their flight, and boats put about, and men pour from the entryways of their buildings onto the walks lining the canals. I saw bundles thrown down and arms unsheathed, and behind us, in throngs of thousands now, came the people of Port Kar, following us to the great piazza before the halls of the Council of Captains.