Nomads of Gor

by John Norman

  I saw the astonished eyes of the young man regarding Kamchak, and then he was carried away.

  "In time," said Kamchak, "that boy will command a Thousand."

  Then Kamchak lifted his head and regarded the other three men, seated Ha-Keel, calm with his sword, and the frantic Saphrar of Turia, and the tall Paravaci, with the quiva.

  "Mine is the Paravaci!" cried Harold.

  The man turned angrily to face him, but he did not advance, nor hurl his quiva.

  Harold leaped forward. "Let us fight!" he cried.

  At a gesture from Kamchak Harold stepped back, angry, a quiva in his hand.

  The two sleen were snarling and pulling at their collars. The tawny hair hanging from their jaws was flecked with the foam of their agitation. Their eyes blazed. The claws emerged and tore at the rug, and retracted, and then emerged again and again tore at the rug.

  "Do not approach!" cried Saphrar, "or I shall destroy the golden sphere!" He tore away the purple cloth that had enfolded the golden sphere and then lifted it high over his head. My heart stopped for the instant. I put out my hand, to touch Kamchak's leather sleeve.

  "He must not," I said, "he must not."

  "Why not?" asked Kamchak. "It is worthless."

  "Stand back!" screamed Saphrar.

  "You do not understand!" I cried to Kamchak.

  I saw Saphrar's eyes gleam. "Listen to the Koroban!" he said. "He knows! He knows!"

  "Does it truly make a difference," asked Kamchak of me, "whether or not he shatters the sphere?"

  "Yes," I said, "there is nothing more valuable on all Gor—it is perhaps worth the planet itself."

  "Listen to him!" screamed Saphrar. "If you approach I shall destroy this!"

  "No harm must come to it," I begged Kamchak.

  "Why?" asked Kamchak.

  I was silent, not knowing how to say what had to be said.

  Kamchak regarded Saphrar. "What is it that you hold?" he asked.

  "The golden sphere!" cried Saphrar.

  "But what is the golden sphere?" queried Kamchak.

  "I do not know," said Saphrar, "but I know that there are men who will pay half the wealth of Gor for this—"

  "I," said Kamchak, "would not give a copper tarn disk for it."

  "Listen to the Koroban!" cried Saphrar.

  "It must not be destroyed," I said.

  "Why?" asked Kamchak.

  "Because," I said, "—it is the last seed of Priest-Kings—an egg—a child—the hope of Priest-Kings, to them all—everything, the world, the universe."

  The men murmured with surprise about me. Saphrar's eyes seemed to pop. Ha-Keel looked up, suddenly, seeming to forget his sword and its oiling. The Paravaci regarded Saphrar.

  "I think not," said Kamchak. "I think rather it is worthless."

  "No, Kamchak," I said, "please."

  "It was for the golden sphere, was it not," asked Kamchak, "that you came to the Wagon Peoples?"

  "Yes," I said, "it was." I recalled our conversation in the wagon of Kutaituchik.

  The men about us shifted, some of them angrily.

  "You would have stolen it?" asked Kamchak.

  "Yes," I said. "I would have."

  "As Saphrar did?" asked Kamchak.

  "I would not have slain Kutaituchik," I said.

  "Why would you steal it?" asked Kamchak.

  "To return it to the Sardar," I said.

  "Not to keep it for yourself, nor for riches?"

  "No," I said, "not for that."

  "I believe you," said Kamchak. He looked at me. "We knew that in time someone would come from the Sardar. We did not know that you would be the one."

  "Nor did I," I said.

  Kamchak regarded the merchant. "Is it your intention to buy your life with the golden sphere?"

  "If necessary," said Saphrar, "yes!"

  "But I do not want it," said Kamchak. "It is you I want."

  Saphrar blanched and held the sphere again over his head.

  I was relieved to see that Kamchak signaled his bowmen not to fire. He then waved them, and the others, with the exception of Harold and myself, and the sleen keeper and his animals, back several yards.

  "That is better," wheezed Saphrar.

  "Sheath your weapons," ordered the Paravaci.

  We did so.

  "Go back with your men!" cried Saphrar, backing away from us a step. "I will shatter the golden sphere!"

  Slowly Kamchak, and Harold and I, and the sleen keeper, dragging the two sleen, moved backwards. The animals raged against the chain leashes, maddened as they were drawn farther from Saphrar, their prey.

  The Paravaci turned to Ha-Keel, who had now resheathed his sword and stood up. Ha-Keel stretched and blinked once. "You have a tarn," the Paravaci said. "Take me with you. I can give you half the riches of the Paravaci! Bosk and gold and women and wagons!"

  "I would suppose," said Ha-Keel, "that all that you have is not worth so much as the golden sphere—and that is Saphrar of Turia's."

  "You cannot leave me here!" cried the Paravaci.

  "You are outbid for my services," yawned Ha-Keel.

  The Paravaci's eyes were white in the black hood and his head turned wildly to regard the Tuchuks clustered in the far end of the room.

  "Then it will be mine!" he cried and raced to Saphrar, trying to seize the sphere.

  "Mine! Mine!" screamed Saphrar, trying to retain the sphere.

  Ha-Keel looked on, with interest.

  I would have rushed forward, but Kamchak's hand reached out and touched my arm, restraining me.

  "No harm must come to the golden sphere!" I cried.

  The Paravaci was much stronger than the fat, tiny merchant and he soon had his hands well on the sphere and was tearing it out of the smaller man's clutching hands. Saphrar was screaming insanely and then, to my astonishment, he bit the Paravaci's forearm, sinking the two golden upper canine teeth into the hooded man's flesh. The Paravaci suddenly cried out in uncanny fear and shuddered and, to my horror, the golden sphere, which he had succeeded in wresting from Saphrar, was thrown a dozen feet across the room, and shattered on the floor.

  A cry of horror escaped my lips and I rushed forward. Tears burst from my eyes. I could not restrain a moan as I fell to my knees beside the shattered fragments of the egg. It was done, gone, ended! My mission had failed! The Priest-Kings would die! This world, and perhaps my other, dear Earth, would now fall to the mysterious Others, whoever or whatever they might be. It was done, gone, ended, dead, dead, hopeless, gone, dead.

  I was scarcely aware of the brief whimpering of the Paravaci as, twisting and turning on the rug, biting at it, holding his arm, his flesh turning orange from ost venom, he writhed and died.

  Kamchak walked to him and tore away the mask. I saw the contorted, now-orange, twisted, agonized face. Already it was like colored paper and peeling, as though lit and burned from the inside. There were drops of blood and sweat on it.

  I heard Harold say, "It is Tolnus."

  "Of course," said Kamchak. "It had to have been the Ubar of the Paravaci—for who else could have sent their riders against the Tuchuk wagons, who else could have promised a mercenary tarnsman half the bosk and gold and women and wagons of the Paravaci?"

  I was only dimly aware of their conversation. I recalled Tolnus, for he had been one of the four Ubars of the Wagon Peoples, whom I, unknowing, had met when first I came to the Plains of Turia, to the Land of the Wagon Peoples.

  Kamchak bent to the figure and, opening his garments, tore from his neck the almost priceless collar of jewels which the man had worn.

  He threw this to one of his men. "Give this to the Paravaci," he said, "that they may buy back some of their bosk and women from the Kataii and the Kassars."

  I was only partly cognizant of these things, for I was overcome with grief, kneeling in Saphrar's audience hall before the shards of the shattered golden sphere.

  I was conscious of Kamchak now standing near to me, and behind him Harold.<
br />
  Unabashed I wept.

  It was not only that I had failed, that what I had fought for had now vanished, become ashes—not only that the war of Priest-Kings, in which I had played a prominent part, fought long before over such matters, had now become fruitless, meaningless—that my friend Misk's life and its purpose would now be shattered—even that this world and perhaps Earth itself might now, undefended, fall in time to the mysterious Others—but that what lay in the egg itself, the innocent victim of intrigues which had lasted centuries and might perhaps bring worlds into conflict, was dead—it had done nothing to warrant such a fate; the child, so to speak, of Priest-Kings, what could have become the Mother, was now dead.

  I shook with sobs, not caring.

  I heard, vaguely, someone say, "Saphrar and Ha-Keel have fled."

  Near me Kamchak said, quietly, "Release the sleen. Let them hunt."

  I heard the chains loosened and the two sleen bounded from the room, eyes blazing.

  I would not have cared to have been Saphrar of Turia.

  "Be strong, Warrior of Ko-ro-ba," said Kamchak, kindly.

  "You do not understand, my friend," I wept, "you do not understand."

  The Tuchuks stood about, in their black leather. The sleen keeper stood nearby, the chain leashes loose in his hands. In the background there stood the slaves with their pans of gold.

  I became aware of a strong odor, of rottenness, exuding from the shattered thing which lay before me.

  "It smells," Harold was saying. He knelt down near the fragments, disgust on his face, fingering the stiff, leathery ruptured egg, some of the golden pieces broken from it. He was rubbing one of them between his thumb and forefinger.

  My head down, I cared for nothing.

  "Have you examined the golden sphere carefully?" Kamchak was asking.

  "I never had the opportunity," I said.

  "You might do so now," said Kamchak.

  I shook my head negatively.

  "Look," said Harold, thrusting his hand under my face. I saw that his thumb and forefinger were marked with a golden stain.

  I gazed at his hand, not comprehending.

  "It is dye," he said.

  "Dye?" I asked.

  Harold got up and went to the shattered, stiff shards of the egg. From it, wet, wrinkled, rotted, dead for perhaps months or years, he drew forth the body of an unborn tharlarion.

  "I told you," said Kamchak, kindly, "the egg was worthless."

  I staggered to my feet, standing now and looking down at the shattered fragments of the egg. I stooped down and picked up one of the stiff shards and rubbed it, seeing the golden stain now left on my fingertips.

  "It is not the egg of Priest-Kings," said Kamchak. "Do you truly think we would permit enemies to know the whereabouts of such a thing?"

  I looked at Kamchak, tears in my eyes.

  Suddenly, far off, we heard a weird scream, high, wavering, and the shrill howls of frustrated sleen.

  "It is ended," said Kamchak. "It is ended."

  He turned in the direction from which the scream had come. Slowly, not hurrying, in his boots he tramped across the rug, toward the sound. He stopped once beside the twisted, hideous body of Tolnus of the Paravaci. "It is too bad," he said, "I would have preferred to stake him out in the path of the bosk." Then, saying no more, Kamchak, the rest of us following, left the room, guiding ourselves by the distant, frustrated howls of disappointed sleen.

  We came together to the brink of the Yellow Pool of Turia. At its marbled edge, hissing and quivering with rage, throwing their heads now and again upward and howling in frustrated fury were the two tawny hunting sleen, their maddened round eyes blazing on the pathetic figure of Saphrar of Turia, blubbering and whimpering, sobbing, reaching out, his fingers scratching the air as though he would climb it, for the graceful, decorative vines that hung above the pool, more than twenty feet above his head.

  He struggled to move in the glistening, respiring, sparkling substance of the Yellow Pool, but could not change his place. The fat hands with the scarlet fingernails seemed suddenly to be drawn and thin, clutching. The merchant was covered with sweat. He was surrounded by the luminous, white spheres that floated under the surface about him, perhaps watching, perhaps somehow recording his position in virtue of pressure waves in the medium. The golden droplets which Saphrar wore in place of eyebrows fell unnoticed into the sluggish fluid that slowly rose about him, inching itself upward, thickening itself about him. Beneath the surface we could see places where his robes had been eaten away and the skin was turning white beneath the surface, the juices of the pool etching their way into his body, taking its protein and nutriment into its own, digesting it.

  Saphrar took a step deeper into the pool and the pool permitted this, and he now stood with the fluids level with his chest.

  "Lower the vines!" begged Saphrar.

  No one moved.

  Saphrar threw back his head like a dog and howled in pain. He began to scratch and tear at his body, as if mad. Then, tears bursting from his eyes, he held out his hands to Kamchak of the Tuchuks.

  "Please!" he cried.

  "Remember Kutaituchik," said Kamchak.

  Saphrar screamed in agony and moving beneath the yellow glistening surface of the pool I saw several of the filamentous fibers encircle his legs and begin to draw him deeper into the pool and beneath the surface.

  Then Saphrar, merchant of Turia, struggled, pounding against the caked material near to him, to prevent his being drawn under. The eyes were bulging perhaps a quarter of an inch from the little round head and the mouth, with its two golden teeth, now emptied of ost venom, seemed to be screaming but there was no sound.

  "The egg," Kamchak informed him, "was the egg of a tharlarion—it was worthless."

  The fluid now had reached Saphrar's chin and his head was back to try and keep his nose and mouth above the surface. His head shook with horror.

  "Please!" he cried once more, the syllable lost in the bubbling yellow mass that reached into his mouth.

  "Remember Kutaituchik," said Kamchak, and the filamentous fibers about the merchant's legs and ankles drew him slowly downward. Some bubbles broke the surface. Then the merchant's hands, still extended as though to grasp the vines overhead, with their scarlet fingernails, the robes eaten away from the flesh, disappeared beneath the sparkling, glistening surface.

  We stood silently there for a time, until Kamchak saw small, white bones, like bleached driftwood, rocking on the sparkling, now watery surface, being moved bit by bit, almost as if by tides, to the edge of the pool, where I gathered attendants would normally collect and discard them.

  "Bring a torch," said Kamchak.

  He looked down into the sparkling, glistening living fluid of the Yellow Pool of Turia.

  "It was Saphrar of Turia," said Kamchak to me, "who first introduced Kutaituchik to the strings of kanda." He added, "It was twice he killed my father."

  The torch was brought, and the pool seemed to discharge its vapor more rapidly, and the fluids began to churn, and draw away from our edge of the pool. The yellows of the pool began to flicker and the filamentous fibers began to writhe, and the spheres of different colors beneath the surface began to turn and oscillate, and dart in one direction and then the other.

  Kamchak took the torch and with his right hand, in a long arc, flung it to the center of the pool.

  Suddenly like an explosion and conflagration the pool erupted into flames and Kamchak and I and Harold and the others shielded our faces and eyes and withdrew before the fury of the fire. The pool began to roar and hiss and bubble and scatter parts of itself, flaming, into the air and again to the walls. Even the vines caught fire. The pool then attempted to dessicate itself and retreat into its hardened shell-like condition but the fire within the closing shell burst it apart and open and then it was again like a lake of burning oil, with portions of the shell tossed like flaming chips upon it.

  For better than an hour it burned and then the basi
n of the pool, now black, in places the marble fused and melted, was empty, save for smears of carbon and grease, and some cracked, blackened bones, and some drops of melted gold, what had been left perhaps of the golden drops which Saphrar of Turia had worn over his eyes, and the two golden teeth, which had once held the venom of an ost.

  "Kutaituchik is avenged," said Kamchak, and turned from the room.

  * * * *

  Harold and I, and the others followed him.

  Outside the compound of Saphrar, which was now burning, we mounted kaiila to return to the wagons outside the walls.

  A man approached Kamchak. "The tarnsman," he said, "escaped." He added, "As you said, we did not fire on him for he did not have with him the merchant, Saphrar of Turia."

  Kamchak nodded. "I have no quarrel with Ha-Keel, the mercenary," he said. Then Kamchak looked at me. "You, however," he said, "now that he knows of the stakes in these games, may meet him again. He draws his sword only in the name of gold, but I expect that now, Saphrar dead, those who employed the merchant may need new agents for their work—and that they will pay the price of a sword such as that of Ha-Keel." Kamchak grinned at me, the first time since the death of Kutaituchik. "It is said," remarked Kamchak, "that the sword of Ha-Keel is scarcely less swift and cunning than that of Pa-Kur, the Master of Assassins."

  "Pa-Kur is dead," I said. "He died in the siege of Ar."

  "Was the body recovered?" asked Kamchak.

  "No," I said.

  Kamchak smiled. "I think, Tarl Cabot," he said, "you would never make a Tuchuk."

  "Why is that?" I asked.

  "You are too innocent," he said, "too trusting."

  "Long ago," said Harold, nearby, "I gave up expecting more of a Koroban."

  I smiled. "Pa-Kur," I said, "defeated in personal combat on the high roof of the Cylinder of Justice in Ar, turned and to avoid capture threw himself over the ledge. I do not think he could fly."

  "Was the body recovered?" Kamchak asked again.

  "No," I said. "But what does it matter?"

  "It would matter to a Tuchuk," said Kamchak.

  "You Tuchuks are indeed a suspicious lot," I remarked.