Magicians of Gor (49 page)

“Yes!” said Marcus.

“Good,” said the paunchy fellow.

“Why do you ask that?” I asked.

“In case I forget the color of it, or something,” he said.

“You do realize, do you not,” I asked, “that the stone is under constant

surveillance.”

“It will not be under surveillance for the necessary quarter of an Ihn or so,”

he said.

“You will use misdirection?” I asked.

“Unless you have a better idea, or seventy armed men, or something.”

“No,” I said.

“There will be many guards about,” said Marcus.

“I work best with an audience,” said the ponderous fellow.

I did not doubt it. On the other hand he did make me a bit nervous. I trusted he

would not try to make too much of a show of it. The important thing was to get

the stone and get it out of the city, and, if possible, to Port Cos.

“Sir!” said Marcus.

“Lad?” asked the ponderous fellow.

“Even though you should fail in this enterprise and die a horrible death, I want

you to know that you have the gratitude of Ar’s Station!”

“Thank you,” said the fellow. “The sentiment touches me.”

“It is nothing,” Marcus assured him.

“No, no!” said the fellow. “On the rack, and under the fiery irons and burning

pincers, should such be my fate, I shall derive much comfort from it.”

“I think you are the most courageous man I have ever known,” said Marcus.

“Twice this evening,” said the fellow, turning to me, “it seems my well-wrought

sham of craven timidity, carefully constructed over the period of a lifetime,

has been penetrated.”

“Do you plan to seize the Home Stone by trickery or magic?” asked Marcus.

“I haven’t decided,” said the fellow. “Which would you prefer?”

“If it does not the more endanger you,” said Marcus, grimly, “I would prefer

trickery, human trickery.”

“My sentiments, exactly,” said the fellow. “What do you think?”

(pg. 287) “Whatever you wish,” I said.

“By using trickery,” said Marcus, earnestly, “we are outwitting Ar, making fools

of them, accomplishing our objective within the rules, winning the game

honestly.”

“True,” said the fellow. “I have nothing but contempt for those magicians who

stay safe in the towers of their castles, consulting their texts, uttering their

spells and waving their magic wands about, spiriting away valuable objects.

There is no risk there, no glory! That is not fair. Indeed, it is cheating.”

“Yes,” said Marcus. “It would be cheating!”

“You have convinced me,” said the fellow. “I shall use trickery and not magic.”

“Yes!” said Marcus.

“There is danger,” I said to the ponderous fellow.

“Not really,” he said.

“I am serious,” I said.

“If I thought there were the least bit of danger involved in this, surely you do

not think I would even consider it, do you?”

“I think you might,” I said.

“It all depends on the fellow involved,” he said. “If you were to attempt to

accomplish this, with your particular subtlety and skills, there would indeed be

danger, perhaps unparalleled peril. Indeed, I think I would have the rack

prepared the night before. But for me, I assure you, it is nothing, no more than

a sneeze.”

“He is a magician,” Marcus reminded me.

“But he is only planning on using trickery,” I reminded Marcus, somewhat

irritably.

“True,” said Marcus, thoughtfully.

“Would you wait outside, Marcus?” I asked.

“Certainly,” he said, exiting.

“A nice lad,” said the fellow.

“There are serious risks involved,” I said to the fellow.

“For you perhaps,” he said. “Not for me.”

“We have gold,” I said, “obtained in the north.”

“And you do not know better than to try futilely to force this wealth upon me,

even against my will?” asked the fellow.

“I would like you to consider it,” I said.

“That is the least I can do for a friend,” he said

“It will help to defray the expenses of the troupe in the north,” I said.

“It is then a contribution to the arts?” asked the fellow.

“Certainly,” I said.

“And you would be grievously offended if I did not accept it?”

(pg. 288) “Certainly,” I said.

“Under those you leave me no choice.”

“Splendid,” I said.

“The amount, of course, I leave to your well-known generosity.”

“Very well,” I said.

“It should be commensurate, of course, as you are the patron, with your concept

of the risks involved and not mine.”

“So much gold,” I said, “is not in Gor.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Then I trust that my estimate of the risks involved is a good deal more

accurate than yours.”

“It is my fervent hope,” I said.

“Do you think an entire gold piece, say, a stater, or a tarn disk, would be too

much in a cause to perpetuate and enhance the arts on an entire world?”

“Not at all,” I said.

“What about two gold pieces?”

“It can be managed,” I assured him.

“In that case perhaps you can return the young fellow’s wallet to him.” He

handed me Marcus’ wallet. I felt quickly for my own. It was still in place.

“It is all there,” he said, “what there was.”

“Very well,” I said. Marcus and I did not carry much money about with us.

“Be careful,” I said to him.

“If I were not careful,” he said, “there would be a great deal more than eleven

warrants out on me, and I would have a great deal more creditors than the

twenty-two who know where to fine me.”

I was silent.

“I must go upstairs now,” he said, “and content Telitsia. Since she has become a

slave she is quite different from the free woman you once knew.”

“I am sure of it,” I said.

In bondage, the once proud, arrogant Telitsia, of Asperiche, had learned slave

arousal. I could imagine her upstairs now, probably chained by the neck to a

ring, probably stripped, given the heat of the higher apartments, probably lying

on the floor, where she had been put, near the ring, her small hands on her neck

chain, or her fingers on the ring, now and then moaning, and turning about, or

squirming, with a movement of chain, awaiting the return of her master.

“I wish you well,” I said.

“I wish you well,” he said.

(pg. 289) He then turned about and, with considerably less speed than he had

manifested in his descent, began to climb the stairs. In a moment or two, as he

was not carrying a light, he had disappeared in the darkness. I listened,

however, for some time, to his climbing. I then went outside and rejoined

Marcus.

“Do you know who that was?” I asked.

“A magician,” he said.

“Here is your wallet,” I said.

“Ai!” said Marcus, slapping at his belt.

“Supposedly its contents are unrifled, or at least intact.”

“It was wafted away by magic,” said Marcus.

“Sometimes I believe him to be more light-fingered than is in his own best

interest,” I said.

“No,” said Marcus. “I felt nothing. It was magic. He is a true magician!”

“Perhaps he is a bit vain of his tricks,” I said.

I could well imagine many Goreans leaping upon him with a knife under such

circumstances, or, at any rate, looking him up later with that in mind, having

discovered their loss in the meantime.

“Perhaps we should exchange him to use magic in his attempt on the Home Stone,”

said Marcus. “I would not wish him to be torn to shreds on the rack.”

“His mind is made up,” I said. “He would not hear of it.”

“Such courage!” said Marcus.

“Do you know who he is?” I asked.

“Renato, the Great,” said Marcus.

“That is not his real name,” I said.

“What is his real name?” I said.

“In an instant you would know it, if I told it to you,” I said. “You would be

astonished that such a fellow has deigned to help us. He is known far and wide

on Gor. He is famous. His fame is spread throughout a thousand cities and a

hundred lands. He is known from the steaming jungles of Schendi to the ice packs

of the north, from the pebbly shores of Thassa to the vast, dry barrens east of

the Thentis range!”

“What is his name?” inquired Marcus, eagerly.

“Boots Tarsk-Bit!” I said.

“Who?” asked Marcus.

“Put your wallet away,” I said.

“Very well,” he said.

I also checked my own wallet, again. It was in place, and its contents were in

order.

19
   
The Field Slave

(pg. 289) “That is she,” I whispered to Marcus.

We were astride rented tharlarion, high tharlarion, bipedalian tharlarion.

Although our mounts were such, they are not to be confused with the high

tharlarion commonly used by Gorean shock cavalry, swift, enormous beasts the

charge of which can be so devastating to unformed infantry. If one may use

terminology reminiscent of the sea, these were medium-class tharlarion,

comparatively light beasts, at least compared to their brethren of the contact

cavalries, such cavalries being opposed to the sorts commonly employed in

missions such as foraging, scouting, skirmishing and screening troop movements.

Rather our mounts were typical of the breeds from which are extracted racing

tharlarion, of the sort used, for example, in the Vennan races. To be sure, it

is only select varieties of such breeds, such as the Venetzia, Torarii and

Thalonian, which are commonly used for the racers. As one might suppose, the

blood lines of the racers are carefully kept and registered, as are,

incidentally, those of many other sorts of expensive bred animals, such as

tarsks, sleen and verr. This remark also holds for certain varieties of

expensive bred slaves, the prize crops of the slave farms. Venna, a wealthy town

north of Ar, is known for its diversions, in particular, its tharlarion races.

Many of Ar’s more affluent citizens kept houses in Venna, at least prior to the

Cosian war. To date, Venna, though improving her walls and girding herself for

defense, had not been touched in the Cosian war. This is perhaps because it is

not only the rich of Ar who kept properties within her walls, but those of many

other cities, as well, perhaps even of Kasra and Tentium, in Tyros, and of

Telnus, Selnar, Temos, and Jad, in Cos. We were some pasangs outside Ar. We wore

wind scarves. Dust rose up for feet about us. The season was dry. Where our

beasts trod the prints of their feet, and claws remained evident in the dust. In

places the earth cracked under their step.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“I saw her only once before,” he said, “on a fellow’s shoulder, in Ar, in our

district, carried in slave fashion, her upper body wrapped closely in the toils

of a net.”

(pg. 291) “Helpless,” I said.

“Utterly,” he said.

“She had been taken,” I said, “only moments before.”

“You are sure it is she?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Her head was completely enclosed in a slave hood, buckled shut,” he said.

“It is she,” I said. “I saw her before, in the room. I recognize her.”

“I am not sure I understand your plan,” he said.

“Let us approach,” I said.

We had left Ar early in the morning, and had circled the remains of her walls to

the west and then took smaller roads into the hills to the northeast. We then,

after noting the travelers on the road, particularly on the more isolated roads

to the northeast, running through the villa districts, doubled back. In this

fashion one tends almost automatically to cancel through the large numbers of

coincidental travelers and detect those whose relationship with you is likely to

be more purposeful, those who are following you. The likelihood of a given

individual following you in both directions is small. Similarly, there is small

likelihood of having someone or other constantly behind you on isolated roads.

This helps to compensate for the possibility that the trackers might be acting

in relays or shifts, one picking up where another turns aside.

We turned the tharlarion towards the fields where the girl was filling a vessel

with water.

Her figure, extremely female, exquisitely curved, was rather like the figure of

another girl we had encountered earlier in the morning, some pasangs to the

northeast of the city, on one of the isolated roads winding through the hills,

among which, nestled back, almost out of sight, were set a number of small,

white-washed villas. Apparently she had come from some stream or rivulet, or

public place, where she had been laundering, for she had had in her possession a

basket filled with dampened clothes. Her hair, too, which she had apparently

recently washed, was wet. This sort of thing would normally be done at a

cemented pool within the walls of the villa, to the back, but, I had gathered,

given the dryness of the season, the villa reservoir might be being reserved for

drinking water.

We had come upon her as she was about to turn into the path leading toward one

of the small villas.

“A pretty one,” commented Marcus.

“Hola,” had called I, “slave!”

(pg. 292) She immediately stopped and put down the basket, and hurried to the

side of the road where we waited.

“Yes,” I said. “She is indeed a pretty one.”

She did not dally in kneeling. I noted with approval the position of her knees.