Raiders of Gor (19 page)

daylight. I trod the narrow walkway lining the canal. Then, suddenly, falling to

my hands and knees, I threw up into the dark waters. I heard one of the giant

canal urts twist in the water somewhere beneath me. I threw up again, and then

stood up, shaking my head. I had had too much paga, I told myself.

I could smell the sea, but I had not yet seen her.

The buildings lining the canals on each side were dark, but, here and there, in

the side of one, near a window, was a torch. I looked at the brick, the stone,

watched teh patterns and shadows playing on the walls of the buildings of Port

Kar.

Somewhere I heard the squealing and thrashing of two of the giant urts fighting

in the water, among the floating garbarge.

My steps took me again to the paga tavern where I had begun this night.

I was alone, and miserable. I was cold. There was nothing of worth in Port Kar,

nor in all the worlds of all the suns.

I pushed open the doors of the paga tavern.

The musicians, and the dancer, had gone, long ago I suppose.

There were not so many men in the paga tavern now, and those there were seemed

mostly lost in stupor. Here and there lay among the tables, their tunics soiled

with paga. Others lay, wrapped in ship’s cloaks, against the wall. Some two or

three still sat groggily at the tables, staring at goblets half-filled with

paga. The girls, saving those who served still in the curtained alcoves, must

have been somewhere chained for the night, probably in a slave room off the

kitchen. The proprietor, when I entered, lifted his head from the counter,

behind which hung a great bottle of paga in its pouring sling.

I threw down a copper tarn disk and he tilted the great bottle.

I took my goblet of paga to a table and sat down, cross-legged, behind it.

I did not want to drink. I wanted only to be alone. I did not even want to

think. i wanted only to be alone.

I heard weeping from one of the alcoves.

It irritated me. I did not wish to be disturbed. I put my head in my hands and

leaned forward, elbows on the table.

I hated Port Kar, and all that was of it. And I hated myself, for I, too, was of

Port Kar. That I had learned this night. I would never forget this night. All

that was in Port Kar was rotten and worthless. There was no good in her.

The curtain from one of the alcoves was flung apart. There stood there, framed

in its conical threshold, Surbus, he who was captain of Port Kar. I looked upon

him with loathing, despising him. How ugly he was, with his fierce beard, the

narrow eyes, the ear gone from the right side of his face. I had heard of him,

and well. I knew him to be pirate; and I kenw him to be slaver, and murderer,

and thief; I knew him to be a cruel and worthless man, abominable, truly of Port

Kar and, as I looked upon him, the filth and rottenness, I felt nothing but

disgust.

In his arms he held, stripped, the bound body of a slave girl. It was she who

had served me the night before, before Surbus, and his cutthroats and pirates,

had entered the tavern. I had not much noticed her. She was thin, and not very

pretty. She had blond hair, and, as I recalled, blue eyes. She was not much of a

slave. I had not paid her much attention. I remembered that she had begged me to

protect her and that I, of course, had refused.

Surbus threw the girl over his shoulder and went to the counter.

“I am not pleased with her,” he said to the proprietor.

“I am sorry, Noble Surbus,” said the man, “I shall have her beaten.”

“I am not pleased with her!” cried Surbus.

“You wish her destroyed?” asked the man.

“Yes,” said Surbus, “destroyed.”

“Her price,” said the proprietor, “is five silver tarsks.”

From his pouch Surbus placed five silver tarsks, one after the other, on the

counter.

“I will give you six,” I said to the proprietor.

Surbus scowled at me.

“I have sold her for five,” said the proprietor, “to this noble gentleman. Do

not interfere, Stranger, this man is Surbus.”

Surbus threw back his head and laughed. “Yes,” he said, “I am Surbus.”

“I am Bosk,” I said, “from the Marshes.”

Surbus looked at me, and then laughed. He turned away from the counter now,

taking the girl from his shoulder and holding her, bound, in his arms. I saw

that she was conscious, and her eyes red from weeping. But she seemed numb,

beyond feeling.

“What are you going to do with her?” I asked.

“I am going to throw her to the urts,” said Surbus.

“Please,” she whispered, “please, Surbus.”

“To the urts!” laughed Surbus, looking down at her.

She closed her eyes.

The giant urts, silken and blazing-eyed, living mostly on the garbage in the

canals, are not stranger to bodies, both living and dead, found cast into their

waters.

“To the urts!” laughed Surbus.

I looked upon him, Surbus, slaver, pirate, thief, murderer. This man was totally

evil. I felt nothing but hatred, and an ugly, irrepressible disgust of him.

“No,” I said.

He looked at me, startled.

“No,” I said, and moved the blade from the sheath.

“She is mind,” he said.

“Surbus often,” said the proprietor, “thus destroys a girl who has not pleased

him.”

I regarded them both.

“I own her,” said Surbus.

“That is true,” said the proprietor hastily. “You saw yourself her sale. She is

truly his slave, his to do with as he wishes, duly purchased.”

“She is mine,” said Surbus. “What right have you to interfere?”

“The right of Port Kar,” I said, “to do what pleases him.”

Surbus threw the girl from him and, with a swift, clean motion, unsheathed his

blade.

“You are a fool, Stranger,” said the proprietor. “That is Surbus, one of the

finest swords in Port Kar.”

Our discourse was brief.

Then, with a cry of hatred and elation, my blade, parallel to the ground, that

it not wedge itself between the ribs of its target, passed through his body. I

kicked him from the blade and withdrew the bloodied steel.

The proprietor was looking at me, wide-eyed.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Bosk,” I told him, “Bosk from the Marshes.”

Several of the men around the tables, roused by the flash of steel, had

awakened.

They sat there, startled.

I moved the blade in a semicircle, facing them. None of them moved against me.

I tore off some of his tunic and cleaned the blade on it.

He lay there on his back, blood moving from his mouth, the chest of his tunic

scarlet, fighting for breath.

I looked down on him. I had been of the warriors. I knew he would not live long.

I felt no compunction. He was totally evil.

I went to the slave girl and cut the binding fiber that fastened her ankles and

wrists. The chains which she had worn while serving paga, and when she had asked

for my protection, had been removed, doubtless while she had been in the alcove,

sometime after I had left the tavern, that she might have better rendered

Surbus, Captain of Port Kar, the dues of the slave girl. They had been serving

bracelets, with two lengths of chain, each about a foot long, which linked them.

I looked about the room. The proprietor stood back, behind his counter. None of

the men had arisen from the tables, though many were of the crew of Surbus

himself.

I looked at him.

His eyes were on me, and his hand, weakly, lifted. His eyes were agonized. He

coughed blood. He seemed to want to speak, but could not do so.

I looked away from him.

I resheathed the blade.

It was good that Surbus lay dying. He was evil.

I looked upon the slave girl. She was a poor sort. She was scrawny, and thin

faced, with narrow shoulders. Her blue eyes were pale. The hair was thin,

stringy. She was my poor slave.

To my surprise she went and knelt next to Surbus, and held his head. He was

looking at me. Again he tried to speak.

“Please,” said the girl to me, looking up at me, holding he head of the dying

man.

I looked upon them both, puzzled. He was evil. She, perhaps, was mad. Did she

not understand that he would have hurled her bound to the urts in the canals?

His hand lifted again, even more weakly, extended to me. There was agony in his

eyes. His lips moved, but there was no sound.

The girl looked up at me and said, “Please, I am too weak.”

“What does he want?” I asked, impatient. He was pirate, slaver, thief, murderer.

He was evil, totally evil, and I felt for him only disgust.

“He wants to see the sea,” she said.

I said nothing.

“Please,” she said, “I am too weak.”

I bent and put the arm of the dying man about my shoulders and, lifting him,

with the girl’s help, went back through the kitchen of the tavern and, one by

one, climbed the high, narrow stairs to the top of the building.

We came to the roof, and there, near its edge, holding Surbus between us, we

waited. The morning was cold, and damp. It was about daybreak.

And then the dawn came and, over the buildings of Port Kar, beyond them, and

beyond the shallow, muddy Tamber, where the Vosk empties, we saw, I for the

first time, gleaming Thassa, the Sea.

The right hand of Surbus reached across his body and touched me. He nodded his

head. HIs eyes did not seem pained to me, nor unhappy. His lips moved, but then

he coughed, and there was more blood, and he stiffened, and then, his head

falling to one side, he was only weight in our arms.

We lowered him to the roof.

“What did he say?” I asked.

The girl smiled at me. “Thank you,” she said. “He said Thank you.”

I stood up wearily, and looked out over the sea, gleaming Thassa.

“She is very beautiful,” I said.

“Yes,” said the girl, “yes.”

“Do the men of Port Kar love the sea?” I asked.

“Yes,” said said, “they do.”

I looked on her.

“What will you do now?” I asked. “Where will you go?”

“I do not know,” she said. She dropped her head. “I will go away.”

I put out my hand and touched her cheek. “Do not do that,” I said. “Follow me.”

There were tears in her eyes. “Thank you,” she said.

“what is your name?” I asked.

“Luma,” she said.

I, followed by the slave Luma, left the roof, descended the long, narrow stairs.

In the kitched we met the proprietor. “Surbus is dead,” I told him. He nodded.

The body, I knew, would be disposed of in the canals.

I pointed to Luma’s collar. “Key,” I said.

The proprietor brought a key and removed his steel from her throat.

She fingered her throat, now bare, perhaps for the first time in years, of the

encircling collar.

I would buy her another, when it was convenient, suitably engraved, proclaiming

her mine.

We left the kitchen.

In the large central room of the tavern, we stopped.

I thrust the girl behind me.

There, waiting for us, standing, armed, were seventy or eighty men. They were

seamen of Port Kar. I recognized many of them. They had come with Surbus to the

tavern the night before. They were portions of his crews.

I unsheathed my blade.

One of the men stood forward, a tall man, lean, young, but with a face that

showed the marks of Thassa. He had gray eyes, large, rope-rough hands.

“I am Tab,” he said. “I was second to Surbus.”

I said nothing, but watched them.

“You let him see the sea?” said Tab.

“Yes,” I said.

“Then,” said Tab, “we are your men.”

10
   
The Council of Captains

I took my sea in the Council of the Captains of Port Kar.

It was now near the end of the first passage hand, that the following En’Kara,

in which occurs the Spring Equinox. The Spring Equinox, in Port Kar as well as

in most other Gorean cities, marks the New Year. In the chronology of Ar it was

now the year 10,120. I had been in Port Kar for some seven Gorean months.

None had disputed my right to the seat of Surbus. His men had declared

themselves mine.

Accordingly I, who had been Tarl Cabot, once a warrior of Ko-ro-ba, the Towers

of the Morning, sat now in the council of these captains, merchant and pirate

princes, the high oligarchs of squalid, malignant Port kar, Scourge of Gleaming

Thassa.

In the council, in effect, was vested the stability and administration of Port

Kar.

Above it, nominally, stood five Ubars, each refusing to recognize the authority

of the others, Chung, Eteocles, Nigel, Sullius Maximus and Henrius Sevarius,

claiming to be the fifth of his line.

The Ubars were represented on the council, to which they belonged as being

themselves Captains, by five empty thrones, sitting before the semicircles of

curule chairs on which reposed the captains. Beside each empty throne there was

a stool from which a Scribe, speaking in the name of the Ubar, participated in

the proceedings of the council. The Ubars themselves remained aloof, seldom

showing themselves for fear of assassination.

A scribe, at a large table before the five thrones, was droning the record of

the last meeting of the council.

There are commonly about one hundred and twenty captains who form the council,

sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less.