by John Norman
No sound came from the sands.
I wondered what thoughts passed behind the golden mask of Lara, Tatrix of the city of Tharna.
I wondered if the bird would recognise me.
A nimble slave, wasting no time, and held on the shoulders of a fellow slave, loosened the belts that held the beak of the tarn and the hood that bound its head. He did not remove them but only loosened them, and as soon as he had, he and his fellow scurried for the safety of the open section of wall, which then slid noiselessly shut.
The tarn opened its beak and the belts that bound it loosely flew asunder. It shook its head, as if to throw water from its feathers and the leather hood was thrown far into the air and behind the bird. Now it spread its wings and smote the air, and lifted its beak and uttered the terrifying challenge scream of its kind. Its black crest, now unconfined by the hood, sprang erect with a sound like fire, and the wind seemed to lift and preen each feather.
I found him beautiful.
I knew that I gazed upon one of the great and terrible predators of Gor. But I found him beautiful.
The bright round eyes, the pupils like black stars, gleamed at me. "Ho! Ubar of the Skies!" I cried, holding my arms extended. My eyes glistened with tears. "Do you not know me? I am Tarl! Tarl of Ko-ro-ba!" I cried. I know not what effect this cry may have had on the stands of the arena, for I had forgotten them. I addressed myself to the giant tarn, as though he had been a warrior, a member of my caste. "You at least," I said, "do not fear the accents of my city."
Regardless of the danger I ran to the bird. I leaped to the heavy wooden platform on which it stood. I flung my arms around its neck, weeping. The great beak questioningly touched me. There could be no emotion, of course, in such a beast. Yet as its great round eyes regarded me I wondered what thoughts might course through its avian brain. I wondered if it too recalled the thunder of the wind, the clash of arms as tarnsmen dueled in flight, the sight of Gor" s tarn cavalries wheeling in formation to the beat of the tarn drums, or the long, steady, lonely soaring flights we had known together over the green fields of Gor. Could it remember the Vosk, like a silver ribbon beneath its wings; could it recall fighting the blasts and upwinds of the rugged Voltai Range; could it recall Thentis, famed for its tarn flocks, ko-ro-ba" s gleaming towers, or the lights of Ar as they had blazed that night of the Planting Feast of Sa-Tarna, when we two had dared to strike for the Home Stone of the greatest city of all known Gor? No, I suppose that none of these memories, so dear to me, could find their place in the simple brain of this plumed giant. Gently the bird thrust its beak beneath my arm.
I knew that the warriors of Tharna would have to kill two of us, for the huge tarn would defend me to the death.
It lifted its huge, terrible head, scrutinizing the stands. It shook the leg which was chained to the great silver bar. It would be able to move, dragging that weight, but it could not fly.
I knelt to examine the hobble. It had not been forged in place inasmuch as it would be removed in the confines of the tarn cot, to allow the bird its perch, its exercise. Luckily it had not been locked in place. It had, however, been bolted, fastened with a heavy, square-headed bolt, much like an oversized machine bolt, the shaft of which was perhaps an inch and a half in diameter.
My hands tried the bolt. It was tight. It had been affixed with a wrench. My hands locked on it, trying to twist it open. It held. I struggled with it. I cursed it. Inwardly I screamed for it to open. It would not. I was now aware of cries from the stands. They were not simply cries of impatience but of consternation. The silver masks were not simply cheated of a spectacle, but dumbfounded, confused. It did not take long for them to understand that the tarn, for whatever strange reason, was not going to attack me, and, whatever they considered my chances, it took only a moment longer to determine that it was my intention to free the bird. The voice of the Tatrix drifted across the sands. "Kill him," she cried. I heard, too, the voice of Dorna the Proud urging the warriors to the task. Soon the spearmen of Tharna would be upon us. Already one or two had leapt over the wall from the stands and were approaching. The great door through which the tarn had been drawn was also opening, and a line of warriors was hurrying through the opening.
My hands clenched even more tightly on the pieces of the bolt. It was now stained with my blood. I could feel the muscles of my arm and back pitting their strength against the obdurate metal. A spear sank into the wood of the platform. Sweat burst out from every pore on my body. Another spear struck the wood, closer than the first. It seemed the metal would tear the flesh from my hands, break the bones of my fingers. Another spear struck the wood, creasing my leg. The tarn thrust its head over me and uttered a piercing, fierce scream,a terrible cry of rage that must have shaken the hearts of all within the confines of the arena. The spearmen seemed frozen, and dropped back, as if the great bird could have freely attacked them. "Fools!" cried the voice of the man with wrist straps. "The bird is chained! Attack! Kill them both!"
In that instant the bolt gave, and the nut spun from the shaft! The tarn, as if it understood it was free, shook the hated metal from its leg and lifted its beak to the skies and uttered such a cry as must have been heard by all in Tharna, a cry seldom heard except in the mountains of Thentis or among the crags of the Voltai, the cry of the wild tarn, victorious, who claims for his territory the earth and all that lies within it.
For an instant, perhaps an unworthy instant, I feared the bird would immediately take to the skies, but though the metal was shaken from its leg, though it was free, though the spearmen advanced, it did not move. I leapt to its back and fastened my hands in the stout quills of its neck. What I would have given for a tarn saddle and the broad purple strap that fastens the warrior in the saddle!
As soon as it felt my weight the tarn cried again and with an explosion of its broad wings sprang into the air, climbing in dizzy circles. Some spears fell in lazy loops below us, short by far, falling back again into the gala-coloured sand of the arena. There were cries of rage that drifted up from below as the silver masks of Tharna began to understand that they had been cheated of their prey, that the Amusements had turned out badly. I had no way to guide the tarn proficiently. Normally the tarn is guided by a harness. There is a throat strap to which, customarily, six reins are attached in a clockwise fashion. These pass from the throat strap to the main saddle ring, which is fixed on the saddle. By exerting pressure on these reins, one directs the bird. But I lacked both saddle and harness. Indeed, I did not even have a tarn-goad, without which most tarnsmen would not even approach their fierce mounts.
I did not fear much on this score, however, as I had seldom used the goad on this bird. In the beginning I had refrained from using it often because I feared that the effect of the cruel stimulus might be diminished through overfrequent application, but eventually I had abandoned its use altogether, retaining it only to protect myself in case the bird, particularly when hungry, should turn on me. In several cases tarns have devoured their own masters, and it is not unusual for them, when loosed for feeding, to attack a human being with the same predatory zest they bestow on the yellow antelope, the tabuk, their favourite kill, or the ill- tempered, cumbersome bosk, a shaggy, long-haired wild ox of the Gorean plains. I found that the goad, with this monster at least, did not improve, but rather impaired his performance. He seemed to resent the goad, to fight it, to behave erratically when it was used; when struck with it he might even slow his flight, or deliberately disobey the commands of the tarn straps. Accordingly the goad had seldom left its sheath on the right side of the saddle.
I wondered sometimes if that bird, my Ubar of the Skies, that tarn of tarns, spoken of by Goreans as Brothers of the Wind, might have considered himself as above the goad, resented its shocks and sparks, resented that that puny human device would pretend to teach him, he, a tarn of tarns, how to fly, how swiftly and how far. But I dismissed such thoughts as absurd. The tarn was but another of the beasts of Gor. The feeling I was tempted to ascrib
e to it would lie beyond the ken of so simple a creature. I saw the towers of Tharna, and the glittering oval of its arena, that cruel amphitheatre, dropping away beneath the wings of the tarn. Something of the same exhilaration which I had felt in my first wild flight on a tarn, this very giant, now thrilled in me again. Beyond Tharna and its gloomy soil, continually broken by its stony outcroppings, I could see the green fields of Gor, glades of yellow Ka-la-na tress, the shimmering surface of a placid lake and the bright blue sky, open and beckoning. "I am free!" I cried.
But I knew even as I cried out that I was not free, and I burned with shame that I had so bespoke myself, for how could I be free when others in that grey city were bound?
There was the girl, warm-eyed Linna, who had been kind to me, whose auburn hair was knotted with coarse string, who wore the grey collar of a state slave of Tharna. There was Andreas of Tor, of the Caste of Singers, young, valiant, irrepresible, his hair wild like the mane of a black larl, who would rather die than try to kill me, condemned to the Amusements or the mines of Tharna. And there were how many more, yoked and unyoked, bound and free, in the mines, on the Great Farms, in the city itself who suffered the misery of Tharna and her laws, who were subject to the crushing weight of her traditions, and knew at best nothing better in life than a bowl of cheap Kal-da at the end of a day" s arduous, inglorious labour? "Tabuk!" I cried to the plumed giant. "Tabuk!"
The tabuk is the most common Gorean antelope, a small graceful animal, one-horned and yellow, that haunts the Ka- la-na thickets of the planet and occasionally ventures daintily into its meadows in search of berries and salt. It is also one of the favourite kills of a tarn.
The cry of "Tabuk!" is used by the tarnsman on long flights when time is precious, and he does not wish to dismount and free the bird to find prey. When he spots a tabuk in the fields below, or, indeed, any animal in the prey range of the tarn, he may cry "Tabuk!" and this is the signal that the tarn may hunt. It makes its kill, devours it, and the flight resumes, the tarnsman never leaving the saddle. This was the first time I had called "Tabuk!" but the bird would have been conditioned to the call by the tarn-keepers of Ko-ro-ba years ago, and might still respond. I myself had always freed the bird to feed. I thought it well to rest the bird, unsaddle it, and, also, frankly I did not find myself eager to be present at the feeding of a tarn.
The great sable tarn, upon hearing the cry of "Tabuk!", to my joy, began to describe its long, soaring hunting circles, almost as if it might have received its training yesterday. It was truly a tarn of tarns, my Ubar of the Skies!
It was a desparate plan I had seized upon, no more than one chance in a million, unless the great tarn could tip the scales in my favour. Its wicked eyes gleamed, scanning the ground, its head and beak thrust forward, its wings still, gliding silently in great sweeps, lower and lower, over the grey towers of Tharna.
Now we passed over the arena of Tharna, still boiling with its throbbing, angry multitudes. The awnings had been struck, but the stands were still filled, as the thousands of silver masks of Tharna waited for the golden Tatrix herself to be the first to leave that scene of the macabre amusements of the grey city.
Far below in the midst of the crowd I caught sight of the golden robes of the Tatrix.
"Tabuk!" I cried. "Tabuk!"
The great predator wheeled in the sky, turning as smoothly as a knife on wire. It hovered, the sun at its back. Its talons, shod with steel, dropped like great hooks; it seemed to tremble almost motionless in the air; and then its wings, parallel, lifted, almost enfolding me, and were still. The descent was as smooth and silent as the falling of a rock, the opening of a hand. I clung fiercely to the bird. My stomach leaped to my throat. The stands of the arena, filled with its robes and masks, seemed to fly upward.
There were shrill screams of terror from below. On every hand, robes and regalia flying, the silver masks of Tharna which had so insolently screamed but moments before for blood fled now for their lives in panic-stricken rout, trampling one another, scratching and tearing at one another, scrambling over the benches, thrusting one another even over the wall into the sands below.
In one instant that must have been the most terrifying in her life the Tatrix stood alone, looking up, deserted by all, on the steps before her golden throne in the midst of tumbled cushions and trays of candies and sweetmeats. A wild scream issued from behind that placid, expressionless golden mask. The golden arms of her robe, the hands gloved in gold, were flung across her face. The eyes behind the mask, which I saw in that split second, were hysterical with fear.
The tarn struck.
Its steel-shod pinioning talons closed like great hooks on the body of the screaming Tatrix. And so for an instant stood the tarn, its head and beak extended, its wings snapping, its prey locked in its grasp, and uttered the terrifying capture scream of the tarn, at once a scream of victory, and of challenge.
In those titanic, merciless talons the body of the Tatrix was helpless. It trembled in terror, quivering uncontrollably like that of a graceful, captured tabuk, waiting to be borne to the nest. The Tatrix could no longer even scream.
With a storm of wings the tarn smote the air and rose, in the sight of all, above the stands, above the arena, above the towers and walls of Tharna, and sped toward the horizon, the golden-robed body of the Tatrix clutched in its talons.
Chapter Fifteen: A BARGAIN IS STRUCK
The tabuk-cry is the only word to which a tarn is trained to react. Beyond this it is all a matter of the tarn-straps and the tarn goad. I bitterly criticised myself for not having conditioned the bird to respond to voice commands. Now, of all times, without a harness and saddle, such a training would have been invaluable.
A wild thought occurred to me. When I had borne Talena home from Ar to ko-ro-ba I had tried to teach her the reins of the tarn-harness and help her, at least with me at hand, to learn to master the brute.
In the whistling wind, as the need arose, I had called the straps to her, "One-strap!", "Six-strap!" and so on, and she would draw the strap. That was the only association between the voice of a man and the arrangements of the strap harness which the tarn had known. The bird, of course, could not have been conditioned in so short a time, nor for that matter had it even been my intention to condition the bird — for I had spoken only for the benefit of Talena. Moreover, even if it had been the case that the bird had been inadvertantly conditioned in that short a time, it was not possible that it would still retain the memory of that casual imprinting, which had taken place more than six years ago.
"Six-strap!" I cried.
The great bird veered to the left and began to climb slightly. "Two-strap!" I called, and the bird now veered to the right, still climbing at the same angle.
"Four-strap!" I called, and the bird began to drop toward the earth, preparing to land.
"One-strap!" I laughed, delighted, bursting with pleasure, and the plumed giant, that titan of Gor, began to climb steeply.
I said no more and the bird leveled off, its wings striking the air in great rhythmical beats, alternating occasionally with a long, soaring, shallow glide. I watched the pasangs flow by below, and saw Tharna disappear in the distance.
Spontaneously, without thinking, I threw my arms around the neck of the great creature and hugged it. Its wings smote on, unresponsive, paying me no attention. I laughed, and slapped it twice on the neck. It was, of course, only another of the beasts of Gor, but I cared for it. Forgive me if I say that I was happy, as I should not have been in the circumstances, but my feelings are those that a tarnsman would understand. I know of few sensations so splendid, so godlike, as sharing the flight of a tarn.
I was one of those men, a tarnsman, who would prefer the saddle of one of those fierce, predatory titans to the throne of a Ubar.
Once one has been a tarnsman, it is said, one must return again and again to the giant, savage birds. I think that this is a true saying. One knows that one must master them or be devoured. One knows that they are not
dependable, that they are vicious. A tarnsman knows that they may turn upon him without warning. Yet the tarnsman chooses no other life. He continues to mount the birds, to climb to their saddle with a heart filled with joy, to draw the monster aloft. More than the gold of a hundred merchants, more than the countless cylinders of Ar, he treasures those sublime, lonely moments, high over the earth, cut by the wind, he and the bird as one creature, alone, lofty, swift, free. Let it be said simply I was pleased, for I was on tarnback again.
From beneath the bird there came a long, shivering moan, a helpless, uncontrolled sound from the golden prey seized in its talons.
I cursed myself for a thoughtless fool, for in the exhilaration of the flight, incomprehensible though it seems to me now, I had forgotten the Tatrix. How frightful for her must have been those few minutes of flight, grasped in the talons, hundreds of feet above the plains of Tharna, not knowing if she might be dropped at any instant, or carried to some ledge to be ripped to pieces by that monstrous beak, those hideous steel-shod talons.
I looked behind me to see if there was pursuit. It would surely come, on foot and on tarnback. Tharna did not maintain large cavalries of tarns, but it would surely be able to launch at least some squadrons of tarnsmen to rescue and avenge its Tatrix. The man of Tharna, taught from birth to regard himself as an unworthy, ignoble and inferior creature, at best a dull-witted beast of burden, did not, on the whole, make a good tarnsman. Yet I knew there would be tarnsmen in Tharna, and good ones, for her name was respected among the martial, hostile cities of Gor. Her tarnsmen might be mercenaries, or perhaps men like Thorn, Captain of Tharna, who in spite of their city thought well of themselves and maintained at least the shreds of caste pride.
Though I scrutinised the sky behind me, looking for those tiny specks that would be distant tarns in flight, I saw nothing. It was blue and empty. By now every tarnsman in Tharna should be flying. Yet I saw nothing. Another moan escaped the golden captive.