by John Norman
Avengers of Gor
Gorean Saga * Book 36
John Norman
Chapter One
It is Night; I Visit the Village of Nicosia
“Put away the knife,” I said. “Do not lift it against me. I am then permitted to kill you.”
“The codes?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said.
“How do I know you are of that caste?” he asked.
“You do not know,” I said.
“Why should I believe you?” he asked.
“That your life not be jeopardized,” I said.
“My life,” he said, “what does it matter?”
“One must decide such things for oneself,” I said.
He replaced the knife, a kitchen knife, not finely ground, not hilted, not a war knife, not a killing knife, in his belt.
I looked about.
“What has been done here?” I asked.
“Is it not obvious?” he said.
It was obvious enough, but I wished my haggard, hollow-cheeked, wretched, despondent interlocutor, who had now sunk wearily to his haunches, not looking at me, to speak. One who speaks freely, unthreatened, of his own will, with no obvious motivation to lie, is more likely to tell the truth, even in its miserable plenty, than one intimidated, or one seeking profit by means of its distortion or concealment.
“A sudden disruption in the crust of the earth,” I suggested, “a spillage of fire from ovens or hearths, uncontrolled, sweeping even to the pomerium, eating away the palisade with red teeth?”
We were within the blackened shell of what had once been a hut, a simple village dwelling. I could see my interlocutor, he now crouching, in the light of the yellow moon. His hair was blond, long, and uncombed, his beard poorly cut, his clothing little more than a wrapping of rags. I thought him weak, exhausted, and possibly starving, though such things may be easily feigned.
Things are not always as they seem.
That is well known.
“Do not spring up,” I said. “I would act without thought. I could not help myself. We are trained so. There would be no time to think, to reason or understand. Forgive me, but your neck would be broken.”
He then sat back, leaning against the wall behind him.
“You are a stranger,” he said, bitterly.
“I am unknown to you,” I said, “but I am not a stranger.”
It is difficult to translate this into English, for the same word in Gorean is used for a “stranger,” in the sense of someone not known, and an enemy. Literally I had said, “I am a stranger who is not a stranger.”
“You wear the field garment, the trading garment, of the Merchants,” he said.
“Think of me so,” I said.
“But you wear a sword, sheathed, on a single strap, the leather not fastened across your body, but loose, over your left shoulder,” he said.
“Thus,” I said, “the blade drawn, the scabbard and belt may be instantly discarded, no longer constituting a perilous, graspable snare or encumbrance.”
“You are of the scarlet caste,” he said.
“I wear the garb of the Merchants,” I said.
“Look about you,” he said.
“Your time of troubles is some days gone,” I said.
Ashes were damp. They had been rained on, perhaps several times, surely once recently.
“The smell of smoke lingers,” he said.
“It will do that, for days,” I said.
Wood lay about, charred, and broken. I saw little or nothing of value in the wreckage. There was no food, at least as far as I could tell. Even clay vessels were missing, or shattered, many apparently trodden underfoot in some intended thoroughness of havoc. Planks of what must once have been a portal were sundered, broken apart and splintered. On a stanchion, to the right, were deep marks testifying to the blows of an ax.
Everything spoke of an attack, a ravaging, a hurried, ruthless looting and burning. What had been done in this place, as it had been done, seemed pointless. It exhibited an inexplicable ferocity. The raid which had wrought this destruction was untypical of the work of common corsairs, pirates, and thieves. When one wishes to steal fruit from a tree one does not destroy the tree. One may wish to return, for new fruit, return when there is a slowly accumulated, renewed wealth, when there is a declined vigilance, when the prey thinks itself safe, when there is a new harvest, freshly reaped, to be gathered in, a new generation of females to be fastened in chains, ripe for delivery to the markets.
My eye roved the desolation, within and about the hut, the residue of carnage and burning.
This spoke not of economics and profit but of calculated destruction. It spoke less of men than of designing monsters, less of piracy than policy, less of spoil than extermination.
“The village is burned,” I said. “Even the palisade is gone. How is it that you did not contain the flames?”
“Who was there to contain them?” he asked. “Those slain, those fleeing, those seized? The roasted beast, turning on its spit, does not extinguish the flames in which it cooks. Its dripping grease feeds the fire.”
We were on Chios, the closest of the three ‘Farther Islands’, Chios, Thera, and Daphna, those islands beyond Tyros and Cos, once taken as marking the end of a world, beyond which lay only terror and mystery, and the devouring, waiting, stirring vastness of turbulent Thassa, the sea, fierce summoner of winds, raiser of storms, caster of fire, player with ships, jealous of her secrets. Were there not rumors of monsters, behemoths, the strike of whose thrashing tails could shatter hulls, of watery countries of impassable, seeking, floating, thick, clutching vines, avid to ensnare travelers, of inescapable spinning wells in the sea, capturing and sinking even the largest of vessels? And what of the abyss, beyond the brink of Thassa, where ships fell, plunging a thousand pasangs down, perishing? Who would wish to go there? Who would dare to look upon such a place? Who would wish to be swept over the edge of a world?
“You are one of them,” he said.
“One of whom?” I said.
“Those who did these things,” he said, “those who came with axes, flaming brands, swords, and chains.”
“No,” I said.
“You have come to see the work done,” he said. “You have come to confirm horror. You have come to see if a pole of dried fish was missed, if a conical granary lies undetected, if an amphora of paga, buried in the sand, was overlooked.”
“No,” I said.
“Perhaps you search for survivors, some now crept back, as I, sorrowing, frightened, worn, hungry, from the mountains,” he said, “to hunt and kill them.”
“No,” I said.
“Report to your commander,” he said. “The work was well done, organized, swift, and thorough.”
“I am not of those who assailed this place,” I said.
“Now kill me,” he said.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
I took a bit of bread from my pouch and tossed it to him.
He held the bread to his mouth, tearing at it, not taking his eyes from me. Had it been poison, he could not have dealt with it more recklessly, less desperately.
“You suspect me,” I said.
“You come at night,” he said. “Merchants do not come at night.”
“If I meant you harm,” I said, “I would not have worn this raiment, white and yellow, easily seen. I would have dressed like the night, have come in stealth, as the sleen.”
“You have no cart, no wagon, no pack,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“You are not of the Merc
hants,” he said.
“Perhaps not,” I said.
“One came before as you,” he said, “days ago, seemingly, too, of the Merchants. We welcomed him, we regaled him, we entertained him, we shared paga, our maidens danced before him, we showed him hospitality. Two days later, following his departure, they came, with fire and chains. They took even the trinkets, precious to us, for which we had traded.”
“He was a spy, a scout,” I said. “He counted men, and huts, he assessed women, he ascertained goods, and locations, he identified strengths and weaknesses, he familiarized himself with habits and customs, studied the palisade, and marked the gates, the openings and closings.”
“You seem familiar with such doings,” said the man, thrusting the last of the bread into his mouth.
“Given certain ends, who would do things otherwise?” I said. “One does not raid blindly. Only a fool rushes into a lair within which a larl might repose.”
“I think you are of them,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“You seek to join them,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“You are late,” he said. “They have gone.”
“Yours is not the first village,” I said. “There is a pattern. The scouting, the attack. Then there is the disappearance, the vanishing. At least four villages were destroyed on Thera, and two on Daphna. Ships, too, have been waylaid at sea.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
“It is not difficult,” I said. “Things become known. Often there are survivors, sometimes perhaps spared that they may speak. Perhaps you are one such. Word spreads, swift, like the wind.”
“How did you know of this place?” he asked. “How came you here?”
“A rumor, aflight in a tavern in Sybaris, high town of Thera,” I said, “overheard nine days ago.”
“Impossible,” he said, “the attack took place but five days ago.”
“I set forth immediately,” I said.
“You arrived too late,” he snarled.
“Five days ago?” I asked. “The attack took place five days ago?”
“Yes,” he said.
I had surmised something of this sort, shortly after my arrival, from the condition of the village, it muchly surprising me, it muchly exciting me. My search, until now, had been long and fruitless. The predator, sought in vain, had left no trail. He struck, and then was seen no more, until he struck again. Long had I cast about in vain. Now, in the vast darkness of failure and disappointment, I glimpsed a tiny light. The predator had erred. He had left a trace. I now knew where to begin.
“I seek them,” I said.
“To join them, to partake of theft and arson.”
“No,” I said.
“Beware,” he said. “You are but one man.”
“There are others,” I said.
“I do not know your accent,” he said, suddenly.
“It is from faraway,” I said. “Do not concern yourself.”
“It is not of Cos,” he said, “nor Tyros.”
I myself could not distinguish between the accents of Cos and Tyros. I suspect few could.
“This is Nicosia, this village, is it not?” I asked.
“As you well know,” he said.
“How should I know?” I asked.
“Were you not here before, with blades and fire?”
“No,” I said.
Nicosia was a shoreline hamlet of south Chios, within the hegemony of Cos, as are Thera and Daphna.
“What resistance was offered to the raiders?” I asked.
“What could be done?” he asked.
“The bow,” I said, “the great bow, the fletched long shafts. On the continent, there are thousands of villages, sovereign and proud, prosperous and free, too costly to attack, defended by flights of the birds of death.”
“We once had the bow, long ago,” he said. “But Cos outlawed them, for our own safety, so that we would have little to fear from them.”
“So that you would be at the mercy of those with arms,” I said.
“Supposedly none would have arms,” he said.
“Only those who recognized the advantages and power of ignoring the law.”
“We are denied arms for our own good,” he said.
“For someone’s good,” I said, “scarcely for yours.”
“I do not understand,” he said.
“And Nicosia is looted and burned,” I said, “with impunity.”
“Cos is supposed to protect us,” he said.
“And where was Cos?” I asked.
“Elsewhere,” he said.
“Perhaps Cos will one day arrive, to weep with you over the ashes,” I said.
“Perhaps we should have retained the means to defend ourselves,” he said. “It is hard to know. One wishes, of course, to obey the law. One wishes to be good citizens, to do what is right, to preserve civic peace.”
“Have you not considered the possibility that your most dangerous enemy may not be thieves and brigands, bandits and killers, but Cos itself, the state?”
“I do not understand,” he said.
“Who will control the state?” I asked.
“What are you saying?” he asked, bewildered.
“The state has power,” I said, “and the ambitious, covetous, and unscrupulous seek power. Thus they gravitate to the state. They seek the state. Every tyranny seeks to disarm those it rules, to better have them at its mercy. Nothing is more clear. They need only dissemble and lie, need only trick the populace. They need only convince the ruled that being helpless is desirable, that it is in their own best interest, that a desire to protect oneself is benighted and shameful, an evidence of civic distrust, of moral ignorance and iniquity, even that an inability to defend oneself is rightfulness and salvation. Lies gilded pass easily as golden truths.”
“Such words would be denounced as treason,” he said.
“Treason to tyranny is fidelity to freedom,” I said.
He was silent.
“In any event,” I said, “be things as they may, dark things have been done here. Nicosia is wounded, ravaged and burned.”
“Thanks to you and your kind,” he said.
“Where is your Home Stone?” I asked.
“So that is why you are here, mysteriously in the night,” he said. “You and your sort have not done enough? You come for the Home Stone!”
He half sat up.
“Do not draw your knife,” I said. “The codes, the codes.”
He removed his hand, reluctantly, from the hilt of the knife.
He sat back.
“The Home Stone was taken,” he said, “taken and destroyed.”
“That is unlikely,” I said.
“Even if it were not,” he said, “I would not reveal its concealment. I would die first. I will never betray the Home Stone.”
“Keep it hidden,” I said.
“You have not come to steal it, to destroy it, to wipe Nicosia from the earth, to make her be as though she never was?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“The Home Stone is safe,” he said.
“I trust so,” I said. “Do not tell me its location. I do not wish to know.”
“Nicosia will rise again,” he said, “though from the ashes. She will once more be green, be strong and grow, and flower.”
“Let her be, as well,” I said, “defended and dangerous.”
“Then you are not of them,” he said, “not of the killers, the arsonists and looters?”
“No,” I said.
“But you seek them,” he said.
“Yes, but not to join them,” I said.
“But you have business with them?”
“Yes,” I said, “the business of blood.”
“Then you are not alone?”
“No.”
“They vanished,” he said. “They were here, and then gone. You will never find them.”
I had heard this sort of thing before, on Thera and Daphna.
Ships had struck, burned and looted, and then disappeared. Whence then the raiders? How can such things be? How can ships disappear?
“For the first time,” I said, “they have left a trail.”
“Ships leave no trail in water,” he said.
“The trail has been left,” I said.
“I do not understand,” he said.
“You have given me the clue I have long sought,” I said.
“What clue?”
“That of nine days and five days,” I said.
He was silent, sitting in the darkness.
“Their identity is obscure,” I said. “I would know it.”
“They made their identity well known,” he said, “in cries of war and shouts of victory.”
I had heard, too, this sort of thing on Thera and Daphna. It was common in my investigations. Reports and allegations were rampant. Wherever news of the mysterious raids was broadcast, it was the same. The rumors of responsibility spread from village to village, from port to port, from island to island, spread like the wind, spread like raging flame through straw. As unpredictable and terrible as might be the raids, as anomalous as might be the vanishing of ships, as elusive as might be the raiders, one thing was sturdily, unmistakably clear, he against whom blame was levied.
“Their identity,” said he, “is no secret.”
“So I understand,” I said.
“They roundly and repeatedly proclaimed the glory of their vile, fierce, merciless, scarlet-haired captain,” he said.
“You saw him?” I said.
“From afar,” he said. “But, even so, no doubt could adhere to the recognition.”
“There were three ships?” I said. I had heard that, from the accounts.
“No,” he said, “six ships, four larger and two smaller.”
This was an unwelcome intelligence, indeed.
“And men,” I said. “Far more than oarsmen, than of mariners.”
I had heard that, even in the reports of only three ships.
“Yes,” he said.
“And the ships reputedly hail from afar?” I said.