Explorers of Gor (60 page)

Kisu and Ayari, and Turgus and I, entered the canoe. “Masters!” cried the blond, kneeling in the mud, her hands braceleted behind her. “Wait!” cried the dark-haired girl.

“You are slaves,” I told them. “You may be left behind.” The prow of the canoe swung slowly toward the center of the river.

“Do not leave us!” cried the blond. She struggled to her feet and, slipping, waded splashing to the side of the canoe. So, too, did the dark-haired girl.

The canoe was now in waist-deep water.

The blond, wading beside it, crying, thrust her body against its side. “Please,” she begged, “please!” Both the girls still wore the vine collars on their throats, which the small people had affixed on them, that they might be fastened more easily at the fallen tree. The blond, too, still had looped about her neck her gag lashing with its unrolled, dependent wadding looped about it.

“Let us serve you as work slaves!” cried the blond. “Yes, Master, please!” cried the dark-haired girl. The canoe continued to move, and the two girls waded, weeping, beside it. “Let us serve you as work and pleasure slaves!” cried the blond. “Yes, Masters,” cried the dark-haired girl. “Please, please!”

“Do you have the makings of a pleasure slave?” I asked the blond. I held her by the vine collar at the side of the canoe.

“Yes, Master,” she wept. “Yes, Master!” “I, too,” cried the dark-haired girl.

I pulled the blond into the canoe, kneeling before me, her back to me. She was shuddering. Turgus drew the weeping trembling dark-haired girl, too, into the canoe. She fainted, overcome, and he placed her on her side, knees drawn up, before him.

“Where are you from?” I asked the blond girl.

“I, and Fina,” she said, indicating with her head the dark-haired girl, “are from Turia. The other girls are from various cities in the south.”

“Did you spy upon us once,” I asked, “further down the river?”

“Yes,” she said. “It was I. We then determined to try and trap you, for slaves.” Ayari, then, long ago, had, as I had suspected, seen a taluna in the forest. He had thought it might have been Janice, gathering wood.

“How came you to the rain forests?” I asked.

“I, and Fina, and the others,” she said, “fled undesired companionships.”

“But now you have fallen slave,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Your entire band,” I said, “will doubtless know no nobler fate.”

“Yes, Master,” she said. She shuddered. “We now, all of us, belong to men.”

“Yes,” I said.

“You left our vine collars on,” she said. “You knew, did you not, that we would beg slavery?’

“Yes,” I said.

“But how could you know?” she asked.

“Though you and the others have fought your femininity,” I said, “yet you and they are both beautiful and feminine.”

“You knew that we were natural slaves?” she said.

“Of course,” I said.

“I will no longer be permitted to fight my femininity, will I?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “You are now a slave girl. You will yield to it, and fully.”

“I’m frightened,” she said.

‘That is natural,” I said.

“It will make me so loving and helpless,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Can I dare, too, now,” she asked, “to be sensuous?”

“If you are not fully pleasing in all the modalities of the slave girl, sensuous and otherwise,” I said, “you will be severely punished.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Or slain,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

The canoe moved into the center of the river. “I do not know how to be a slave girl,” she suddenly wept. I thrust her head down, “You will begin,” I said, “by learning to be docile and submissive.” I then rewound the wadding and, dragging her head up briefly, by the hair, from behind, pushed it into -her mouth and lashed, it in place. I then again thrust her head down. “Also,” I said, “you will consider whether or not, at a given time, your master wishes to hear you speak. If you are in doubt, you may ask his permission to speak, which may then be granted or denied, as he pleases.”

She nodded, piteously signifying her slave’s assent.

We then continued our journey eastward.

In a few moments she began to tremble. Tears fell from her eyes, staining her thighs and the wood of the canoe bottom. I put her then gently on her stomach, her head turned to the left. She shuddered and then, exhausted by her ordeal, fell asleep.

We paddled on.

We would let the new slaves sleep for a time. Then, in an Ahn or so, we would put our hands upon them and, holding them by the hair and the braceleted wrists, thrust them half over the side, immersing their heads and torsos in the river, that they might be awakened. We would then pull them back into the canoe, tie their ankles to a thwart and remove their slave bracelets. Paddles would be thrust into their hands. Janice, Alice and Tende might then rest, and the new girls, fresh, raw slaves, but now more cognizant than before of their condition, might contribute to our progress on the river.

49

There Is To Be War Upon The River; Tende Will Not Be Tied Tonight

“Can you read the drums, Ayari?” I asked. “Kisu?”

“No,” said Ayari.

“No,” said Kisu.

“The drums have the rhythm of neither the Ushindi nor Ukungu speech,” said Ayari.

Two days ago we had left the country of the small people, where we had made the acquaintance of Turgus and acquired two new slaves.

An Ahn later we could still hear the drums, both behind us and before us.

“Keep paddling,” I told Janice.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

We had cut new paddles, carving them into shape, that each member of our party, free and slave, might have his own lever. If it became necessary to expedite our passage we wished each member of our party, whether free or bond, to be able to lend his strength to this work. Commonly, however, only four or five of us, two men, and two or three women, paddled at a given time. That way we were not only usually assured of a crew in readiness but we could spend longer hours on the river. Kisu had placed the finishing touches on the new paddles, making them fit, in grip and weight, for Turgus and the two new slaves, the blond who had been the leader of the talunas and the dark-haired girl, who had been her second in command. We had also, incidentally, cut an extra paddle, to go with the extra paddle we were already carrying. The carrying of an extra paddle, or paddles, as I may have mentioned, is a not uncommon precaution on the river.

Ayari looked about himself. He listened to the drums. “The jungle is alive,” he said.

Suddenly Alice screamed. “Look!” she cried, pointing. We saw, dangling over the water, hung there by the neck, the body of a man. There was upon his body, half torn away, the blue of the scribe.

“Is it Shaba?” asked Kisu.

“No,” I said.

“It is one of his men,” said Turgus, grimly.

“There is another!” cried Alice. About a hundred yards beyond the first body, on the same side of the river, it, too, suspended from a tree branch, hung by the neck, dangling over the water, was a second body. This one wore tattered brown and green.

“It is another of Shaba’s men,” said Turgus. “I think it would be wise to turn back.”

The drums pounded from the jungle, both before us and behind us, along the river.

“Continue on,” I said.

In a few Ehn we had passed some six more bodies.

“Look, over there,” said Ayari. “On the shore.”

We took the canoe to the shore and drew it up among the roots and brush.

“It is one of the galleys of Shaba, is it not?” I asked Turgus.

“Yes,” he said.

It was partially burned. Its sides wore weapon cuts. The bottom had been hacked out of it with pangas or axes. Splintered oars lay about.

“I do not think Shaba continued further on the river,” said Turgus.

The two new slaves, the blond girl and the dark-haired girl, remained in the canoe. Their ankles were fastened to two thwarts. They had placed their paddles across the canoe and, weary, were bending over them.

“There were three galleys,” I said.

“I do not like the sound of the drums,” said Ayari.

“Yes,” said Turgus, thoughtfully. “There were three galleys.”

“We found the wreckage of one earlier,” I said, “and now the wreckage of this one.”

“Surely Shaba could not have proceeded further,” said Turgus. “Hear the drums.”

“There was a third galley,” I said.

“Yes,” said Turgus.

“Do you think Shaba would have turned back?” I asked.

“He was ill,” said Turgus. “Doubtless he has lost many men. What hope could he have had?”

“Do you think he would have turned back?” I asked.

“No,” said Turgus.

“We shall then continue on,” I said. We returned to the canoe and thrust it again into the muddy waters of the wide Ua.

Within the next Ahn we passed more than sixty bodies, dangling at the side of the river. None was that of Shaba. About some of these bodies there circled scavenging birds. On the shoulders of some perched small, yellow-winged jards. One was attacked even by zads, clinging to it and tearing at it with their long, yellowish, slightly curved beaks. These were jungle zads. They are less to be feared than desert zads, I believe, being less aggressive. They do, however, share one ugly habit with the desert zad, that of tearing out the eyes of weakened victims. That serves as a practical guarantee that the victim, usually an animal, will die. Portions of flesh the zad will swallow and carry back to its nest, where it will disgorge the flesh into the beaks of its fledglings. The zad is, in its way, a dutiful parent.

“The drums,” I said, “may not have us as their object.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Ayari.

“We heard them, first,” I said, “far upriver of us. The message, whatever it is, was then relayed downstream.”

“What then could be the message?” asked Ayari.

“I fear,” said Turgus, “that it signifies the destruction of Shaba.”

“What think you, Kisu?” I asked.

“I think you are right about ourselves not being the object of the drums’ call,” said Kisu, “and for the reason which you gave. But I think, too, that if the destruction of Shaba was the content of the message that we might well have heard drums yesterday and the day before, when perhaps the second galley was destroyed. Why would the drums sound just now?”

“Then Shaba may live,” I said.

“Who knows?” asked Kisu.

“What then is the meaning of the drums?” pressed Ayari.

“I think that I may know,” I said.

“I suspect that I, too, know,” said Kisu, grimly.

“Listen,” said Ayari. We ceased paddling.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes,” said Kisu.

We then heard, drifting over the waters, from upstream. singing.

“Quickly,” I mid, “take the canoe to the left, take shelter upon that river island!”

We took the canoe quickly to a narrow river island, almost a wooded bar, on either side of which, placidly, flowed the Ua.

Scarcely had we beached the canoe and dragged it into the brush than the first of the many canoes rounded the southern edge of the island.

“Incredible,” whispered Ayari.

“Get down, Slaves,” I said to the blond girl and the dark-haired girl, who were tied by their ankles in the canoe. They lay then on their stomachs in the canoe, not daring to raise their heads. The rest of us lay in the grass and brush and watched.

“How many can there be?” asked Ayari.

“Countless numbers,” I said.

“It is as I had hoped,” said Kisu.

Hundreds of canoes were now passing the small island. They were, many of them, long war canoes, containing as many as fifteen or twenty men. They paddled in rhythm and sang. They were bright with feathers. Their bodies, in white and yellow paint, were covered with rude designs.

“I was told of this by the leader of the small people,” I said. “It is the massing of the peoples of the river for war.”

Still the canoes streamed past us. We could hear the drums In the background, behind the singing, throbbing and Pounding out their message.

Finally, after a half of an Ahn, the last of the canoes had disappeared down the river.

Kisu and I stood up. Tende, too, stood up.

“Well, Kisu,” said I, “it seems you have lured Bila Huruma to his destruction. He will be outnumbered by at least ten to one. He cannot survive. Your plan, it seems, has been fulfilled. In your battle with the Ubar it is you, Kisu, who seems to have won.”

Kisu looked down the river. Then he put his arm about the shoulders of Tende. “Tonight, Tende,” he said, “I will not tie you.”

50

The Lake; The Ancient City; We Will Enter The Ancient City

“It is so vast,” said Ayari.

“it is larger than Ushindi or Ngao,” said Turgus.

We guided our canoe over the shining, placid waters of a broad lake.

“It is, I am confident,” I said, “the source of the Ua.”

“Into it must flow a thousand streams,” said Kisu.

Two weeks ago we had come to another high falls, even higher than that from which we had, long ago, caught sight of the following forces of Bila Huruma, pasangs behind in the distance. We must be thousands of feet Gorean, given the length of the river, the numerous plunging cataracts, and the plateaus and levels we had ascended, above sea level, above the entrance points, west of Ngao and Ushindi, of the brown Kamba and Nyoka into the green waters of Thassa. From the falls at the edge of this unnamed lake we had been able to see far behind us. The river had been clear.

Here and there, emerging from the lake, were great stone figures, the torsos and heads of men, shields upon their arms, spears grasped in their hands. These great figures were weathered, and covered with the patinas of age, greenish and red. Lichens and mosses grew in patches on the stone; vines clambered about them. Birds perched on the heads and shoulders of the great figures. On ridgework near the water turtles and tharlarion sunned themselves.

“How ancient are these things?” asked Janice.

“I do not know,” I said.