Conspirators of Gor (89 page)

He then ran to the dais and leaped upon it, his knife raised.

“Stop!” cried Timarchos.

“Do not!” cried Lysymachos.

Before the knife of Desmond of Harfax could fall Lord Grendel darted forward with the speed of a charging sleen, and caught Desmond of Harfax about the waist, lifted him, and spun about, hurling him several feet away, back, to the center of the room.

I ran to Desmond of Harfax, and knelt beside him. “Master!” I wept. He was confused, and stunned. I feared an arm might be broken.

On the dais Lord Grendel had approached the table on which reposed the last container, that which had been on the right side of the dais, as one would face the dais.

“Is it Grendel?” came from the container.

“It is Grendel,” said Lord Grendel.

“Kill it!” cried Desmond of Harfax, from the center of the room, now on his feet, unsteadily, grasping his arm.

“Forgive me, dear Desmond,” said Grendel.

“Kill it, kill it!” cried Desmond of Harfax.

“No,” said Lord Grendel.

Timarchos, with great pain, struggled to his feet, and Lysymachos, weak and bloody, stood, as well.

“My son,” came from the container.

“Father,” said Grendel.

He then placed the damaged container tenderly into the arms of Timarchos.

Chapter Forty-Nine

“Do you not think, dear Grendel,” asked the Lady Bina, “that I should be a Ubara, somewhere, somehow?”

“I am only a beast,” he said.

Tor-tu-Gor was bright outside.

A few days ago had been the vernal equinox, with which you begin your year, as Nature does. We were now again in the House of Epicrates, in Ar.

If I had been unclear in the Cave of Agamemnon as to whom I belonged, there was no longer any doubt about that. The collar of the Lady Bina was again on my neck.

To me this was a source of great sorrow, but I was a slave, and the slave has no control over whose collar she wears. To be sure, the Lady Bina, though strict, following the counsel of the Lady Delia, who had clear ideas as to how a slave girl should be owned, managed, and worked, was a good Mistress. As long as I was fully pleasing, I had little to fear. But I had hoped to belong to another. I could think of one to whom I would have been happy to have been sold for a copper tarsk-bit, whereas there were others from whom I would have hoped that the Lady Bina would have resisted offers of tarn disks of gold.

I will speak of several things.

It may be recalled that in my first visit to the audience chamber of Agamemnon with Grendel, that in which Grendel had been addressed by Agamemnon, and later awarded a golden chain, at one point Grendel, in being addressed by Agamemnon, had seemed muchly taken aback, had seemed very much startled and shocked. I followed nothing of that at the time, of course, as that meeting was conducted entirely in Kur, but, as I later learned, that was the point at which Agamemnon had told Grendel of his alleged share in his parentage. As it is explained to me, Grendel was the result of an experiment. The genetic materials of several male Kurii were blended in some manner and then fused with the egg of a human mother. In this way he had several fathers and a human mother. Apparently his mother did not long survive his birth. Agamemnon claimed to be one of these fathers. I do not know if that claim was true or not, but it could have been true, given the science at the disposal of the Kurii on the steel world. Indeed, Agamemnon might have lost his Kur body generations before Grendel was born, but it would have been easily possible for portions of his genetic material, his seed, samples of his hereditary coils, and such, to have been maintained in a viable state, and later utilized in the experiment in question. As stated, I do not know if Agamemnon’s claim was true or not. It might have been a judicious fabrication, intended to better secure Grendel’s allegiance to his cause. One does not know. It could, of course, be true. Indeed, it is quite possible, given the importance of the experiment, and its projected political aim, that of securing alliances with Gorean humans, that Agamemnon would have wished something of himself, his intelligence, vision, cunning, might, and power, to be incorporated in Grendel. The truth of the matter doubtless lies on a distant steel world, in some archive of experiments. The experiment, as noted, had a political end in view, that of producing a Kur-like thing, with Kur allegiances, with enough human characteristics to interact profitably with Gorean humans, garnering alliances, and such. The experiment failed, however, as the humans tended to not only not identify with Grendel, but, for the most part, to loathe him, and recoil from him. His reception amongst Kurii was similar. He found himself understood as little more, if anything, than a hybrid monster.

It may be remembered that when Lucius had failed to dispatch Grendel, and had lost the respect and allegiance of the only two Kurii who remained of his followers, he had departed from the audience chamber. It had been supposed and it had, indeed, been the case, that he would try to escape the Cave, in which he would now be viewed as little more than a fallen, treasonous fugitive. Grendel had called to him not to leave the Cave, and Tiresias had warned him that a guard had been set.

The guard was the larl with which Tiresias, in his exile, had formed a symbiotic relationship. Grendel’s many trips from the Cave, which had been hitherto noted, were mostly concerned to bring food to Tiresias. Tiresias shared this food with the larl in question. In this fashion, the larl received food and it, in its turn, not only refrained from attacking Tiresias, the source of the food, but guarded him against the inroads of other predators. Tiresias had managed to get the larl to cross the entryway of the great portal on the night of my return to the Cave simply enough, by luring it with food from the opposite side. The larl had been stationed near the exit of the Cave by the food signal, which it had come to recognize. This was a portion of the plan of Grendel and Tiresias, to prevent the escape from the Cave of enemies. If none had attempted escape, Grendel would have seen to it that food, in the usual manner, would have been delivered to the larl. A strange Kur, Lucius, whose scent was unfamiliar to the larl, was taken for food, and attacked. Had Lucius realized what was involved he would have taken food with him, to cast to the larl, but he knew nothing of this. From the larl’s point of view, which had been given the food signal, it seemed that that which emerged from the Cave must either bring food or be food. Apparently Lucius had been attacked within a hundred paces of the Cave. The last seen of Lucius had been a limp body being dragged away, over the rocky slope toward the maze of passageways which led back into the mountains. Some days later, no longer fed, the larl had drifted away. One supposes it may have been the same larl which, in the chaos of the revolt, when the great portal was temporarily unguarded, had wandered into the Cave. That, of course, is not known.

It may be recalled, as well, that Agamemnon had desired Grendel, a former hero of the very revolution on the steel world which had dethroned Agamemnon, to return to the steel world and use his station and prestige to influence its support of his schemes on Gor. As I understand it, this was not as impractical as it might seem as, first, Grendel’s word would be taken seriously, and might be persuasive; second, the current establishment on the steel world would be in no way threatened; and, third, and perhaps most importantly, those of the steel worlds had long coveted a natural world, after, it seems, they had destroyed their own long ago. Presumably any plausible opportunity to obtain a natural world might be welcomed, and seized. For Grendel to undertake this dark embassy it was necessary, naturally, that a means of transportation be provided. In his explorations outside the Cave, Grendel had located the ship in its concealed housing within the Crag of Kleinias. This ship was unmanned, but prepared in such a way that, activated, it would reach the intended steel world. Consider a crossbow set in place, with its quarrel in the guide, a crossbow trained on a distant target. It might remain quiescent, indefinitely, until the trigger was pulled, and then the quarrel would move to the target. So, too, the ship, a ship without sails, a ship which might scorn both water and air, a ship which might by itself seek its far port. It was on this ship that not Grendel but Tiresias would seek the steel world. The point of this was to make available to him the biological science of the steel-world that, by its knowledge of, and manipulation of, the hereditary coils, tissue might be regenerated. I am told that burned, ruined flesh might be restored, that limbs might be regrown, that eyes, from one’s own hereditary coils, might be formed anew. Thus, if all went well, Tiresias might again see, as well or better than before. Apparently, long ago, in the time of the revolution on the steel world, the Lady Bina herself had undergone terrifying injuries, having been the object of some sort of attack. She had been muchly lacerated, torn, broken, and disfigured. But, it seems, by means of her own hereditary coils, her health, vitality, and beauty had been restored, if not enhanced. In any event, one snowy morning, several of us watched the departure of the small, remarkable ship, emerging from its housing, rising through the falling snow, then fading from sight, a ship with no crew, and with but one passenger, Tiresias, whom we all wished well.

Timarchos and Lysymachos, with supplies, bearing the container housing Agamemnon, had soon left the Cave. This was thought judicious as the always fragile trust and relationships on which a civilization implicitly relies had been muchly disrupted. Lucius had not managed to secure the governance of the Cave and Agamemnon was deemed to have lost it, for, given the decimation of his chief supporters, he no longer had the power to impose discipline and order. Further, his downfall was not received unwillingly by either men or Kurii, given the rampant dissatisfaction which had preceded it in the Cave. Grendel, and his party, might have provided a rallying point for those who recognized the dangers of lawlessness and anarchy, but his concern was elsewhere, and he would leave the Cave, accompanied by the Lady Bina, Desmond of Harfax, Desmond’s cohorts, and several of the men from the Cave, willing to essay a return to civilization, even in the season. He would take some animals with him, the sort spoken of as kajirae. Most of the men and, one supposes, most, or all, of the surviving Kurii remained in the Cave. Certainly no Kurii accompanied us. One supposed some of the men at least, and perhaps all, would attempt to return to civilization in the spring, when the passes would be open. It seemed unlikely that the Cave, in any case, even if inhabited by several Kurii, would remain the center of future conspiracies. The fate of Timarchos, Lysymachos, and Agamemnon is not known. It is possible they managed to make their way to some sort of safety. There are, apparently, various enclaves of Kurii, usually small groups in remote areas, where interaction would be unlikely between them and native Goreans. Perhaps they managed to reach one of these enclaves. Perhaps not. They may have perished in the Voltai, from starvation, from animals, or hostile men or Kurii. But perhaps, too, they managed, somehow, to return to a steel world, not their original world, on which they would be unwelcome, but another. There is much here which is not known.

As mentioned earlier the containers, one of which housed Agamemnon, had been damaged in the audience chamber. The major effect which this damage seems to have had on Agamemnon was the damage to that portion of the device by means of which the ensconced brain was enabled to generate a visual consciousness. In this way, Agamemnon’s awareness of who, or what, was in his vicinity had been impaired. Because of the trust accorded by both Timarchos and Lysymachos to Grendel, and because of him, to Tiresias, Agamemnon was occasionally left in the keeping of either Grendel or Tiresias, or both. Timarchos and Lysymachos were well aware that Agamemnon was not without enemies in the Cave.

One day, as I often was, I was in attendance on Tiresias, that I might fetch for him, or help him about, as he might wish. On that day, Tiresias was with Agamemnon.

“Bring me eyes,” had said Agamemnon.

“I have no eyes to bring,” had said Tiresias.

“Who is there?” had asked Agamemnon.

Tiresias had made his presence known.

“It was I who had you put out, into the mountains,” said Agamemnon.

“Yes,” said Tiresias.

“It is the Kur way,” said Agamemnon.

“That is my understanding,” said Tiresias.

“Are you going to kill me?” asked Agamemnon.

“No,” said Tiresias.

“It is the Kur way,” said Agamemnon.

“I am Kur,” had said Tiresias. “And it is not my way.”

The next day, their preparations complete, Timarchos, Lysymachos, and Agamemnon had left the Cave.

When Grendel had been saved from his projected executioners I had urged him to flee, but he had refused to do so. Rather, he and Tiresias would hide, and where, it seemed, they would not be sought. He would remain. He had, it seemed, “work to do.” Where he would not be sought turned out to be the Cave itself. In his explorations outside the Cave, as noted, he had located and investigated the waiting ship, inert, waiting for its activation. He had forced his way into its housing, and, from within the housing, had obtained access to the interior of the Cave. Thus, while search party after search party left the Cave and scoured the icy, cruel terrain of the Voltai, he and Tiresias enjoyed the comforts of shelter. Snow provided drink, and an occasional mountain verr was secured for food. Grendel was well aware that Lucius and some cohorts remained at large and this suggested either, or both, of two possibilities, one, their retreat to remote portions of the Cave or, two, their access to concealed passages. Presumably the possibility likely to be of greatest interest to the fugitives would be that of concealed passages, by means of which important areas of the Cave, central halls, major chambers, and such, might be conveniently at hand. With this in mind, and the conviction that a private access, which might be utilized under certain conditions, as well as a public access, generally available, to the housing of the ship would be likely, Grendel addressed himself, over several Ahn, to the walls and flooring of the ship’s housing. As a result of this investigation, he had eventually discovered a trap, which led by a flight of stairs, to a private passageway which, in turn, connected with a network of such passages. As a result, Grendel soon had at his disposal the same roads, and tunnels, so to speak, which were serving Lucius and his cohorts. Moreover, he had the advantage that Lucius and his cohorts were not aware of this intrusion into what they took to be their private domain. Accordingly, from time to time, he was able to follow their movements, and, occasionally, overhear their conversation.