Players of Gor coc-20, page 43
part #20 of Chronicles of Counter-Earth Series
Suddenly it began to leap about, turning in the ring. It even turned a backwards somersault, uttering what sounded like gibberish, and then, bounding up and down, struck at its knees and thighs. I think the men feared it had gone insane. These things, however, are signs of Kur pleasure. Then it stood upright and looked at me. I had no doubt its nocturnal vision saw me very well. Its lips curled back about its fangs. I smiled. The resultant statement, although perhaps somewhat fearsome in the abstract, was a Kur approximation of a human smile. It is very different, as would be clear if you saw it, from that baring of fangs which indicates menace. Too, the ears were not laid back, which is an almost invariable sign among Kurii of readiness to attack, of intent to do harm. "Farewell," I whispered to it. I saw the smile spread more widely. I suddenly realized that it had heard me, though the men between us could not.
"Ready," said an officer. "Be ready."
I saw spear points lower. The beast in its own ring was ringed, too, with steel.
It snarled at the men, and they hesitated. Then it threw back its great shaggy head and howled its defiance to the three moons, to the men who threatened it, to the universe and stars, to the world. Men shuddered, but did not break their circle. I admired them. They were good soldiers. Then the beast again turned its attention to the men. I thought I detected a low, almost inaudible growl. I saw the lips draw back again about the fangs, but this was no smile. For an instant, as it turned its head, its eyes, reflecting the light of one of the torches, blazed like molten metal. I saw the ears lay back against the side of the head.
Suddenly, at a word of command, the men rushed forward. The beast seized at spears, slapping them away, seizing some, breaking them, taking others, perhaps a dozen, in its body. I saw it standing, fighting and tearing, in the midst of men. More than one man I saw lifted and thrown aside. Then I saw it go down beneath bodies. Men swarmed about it, thrusting with their spears, some hacking downward with their swords. "We have killed it!" cried one of the men. "I smell glory," it had said. "It is a smell more exhilarating even than that of meat." "It is dead!" cried one of the men. "It is dead! cried another. Was there so much glory here, I wondered. It did not seem a likely place for glory, the sand of a baiting pit, in a torchlit moonlight, in a country far from its own. No monuments would be erected to this beast. There would be no odes composed. Surely it would never be revered among its people. It would not be remembered, nor, if they had them, would it be sung in there songs. Its glory, if it had it, would have been its own, perhaps the splendor of a lonely moment that only the beast itself truly understood, a moment that was its own justification, and that needed no other, a moment that was sufficient onto itself.
"It is moving!" cried a man in terror.
Suddenly, from the midst of those bodies, howling, the Kur, spears in its body, thrust upward clawing and raging like some force of nature. It stood knee deep in bodies.
"Kill it!" screamed the officer. Again men charged, with spears and swords. In the bloody tumult men struck even one another. I saw it reach out and tear a;man from his fellows, disposing of him, half decapitating him with a slash of fangs to the throat, and seize another, tearing his head from his body. Then it wen down, bloody and terrible, again, beneath the weight or iron, and men. That was the thing, I recalled, which had been cast out of its own world for its alleged weakness. "it is moving again!" screamed a man.
Once more I saw it rise up among bodies. I heard men weep, and continue to strike at it. How it prided itself on its refinements, one its sense of gentility. How vain it had been! How irritated I had even been with it, with its confounded supercilious arrogance. How jealous it was of being a gentleman. It went down again. "We can't kill it!" screamed a man. "We can't kill it!" It even cooked its meat. Once more it thrust its way up through bodies, now waist-deep about it. An arm hung from its jaws. Spears and swords struck at it, again and again. "They will learn," it had said, "that even a gentleman know how to fight." Twice more it tore its way up among bodies, and then, at last, men stepped wearily back from it. Bodies were pulled away. It lay alone on the sand, dead. I could not even pronounce its name.
"Wait," said one of the officer. "Where is the other fellow, Bosk of Port Kar?"
I then stepped behind the ubar's box and lifted the partly opened trap and lowered myself into the passage below. I then closed and locked the trap, from the bottom. As it was designed, it was almost impossible to distinguish, from the surface, from the arrangements of tiling behind the box.
I, below, heard men walking about on the tiling, and on the wooden tiers.
"Where is Bosk of Port Kar?" I heard.
"He is gone," said another.
"He has disappeared," said another.
21 What Occurred in the Apartments of Belnar; Leather Gloves
I spun about.
"I thought you might come here," said Flaminius. "No, do not draw."
My hand hesitated. He had not drawn his own weapon. Behind him, in a rag of silk, was female slave.
"You may kneel, Yanina," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said, swiftly falling to her knees.
"You must forgive her," he said. "she is new to the collar. Only an Ahn or so ago was she branded."
She who had been the Lady Yanina looked at me, frightened. Then she put down her head, swiftly. I had seen in her eyes, in that brief moment that she had looked at me, that already she had learned that she was slave. This does not take long in the vicinity of Gorean men.
"Do not draw," he said.
"Is she yours?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"A pretty slave," I said.
"Yes," he said.
She trembled, scrutinized.
"I brought her along," he said. "She was with another search party. Almost anyone who could recognize you was with one party or another."
"I gathered that that might be the case," I said.
"She was given to me by Belnar," he said.
"Belnar is now dead," I said.
"So I understand," he said.
"The slave seems frightened," I said.
"You have reason to be frightened, don't you, my dear?" asked Flaminius.
"Perhaps, Master," she whispered. "I do not know, Master."
"Put your head down to the floor," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"She was put in a state collar," said Flaminius, "with no specifications or restrictions. Accordingly, even if she had not been given to me, I could have obtained her for myself, sending a silver tarsk to the exchequer. Who would gainsay me in that?" He looked down at the girl. "So in either case you would have come into my chains, wouldn't you, Yanina?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, her head to the floor.
"Are you here for the same reason that I am?" I asked.
"Perhaps," he said.
I had returned by way of the passage behind the ubar's box in the baiting pit. Once here, I had begun my search, in various rooms, for obvious, unconcealed paraphernalia, of a sort that might be germane to kaissa, such things as boards and pieces, books, sheafs of papers, and records. I had, of course, in my return, lifted the dropped iron gate separating the private room, giving access to the passage, from the rest of the area. This was not difficult from the passage side. It had taken only a moment to locate the appropriate apparatus. I had then freed the lock bolts, which keep the gate in place once it has dropped, and, by means of a wheel, associated with chains and counterweights, raised the gate. The gate is freed, incidentally, by a small lever. Its fall is gravity controlled. The fall, though swift, is not destructive. The speed of its descent is controlled largely by the counterweights.
I had found what I had been looking for in a room apparently devoted to kaissa, in the midst of what were apparently merely the records of games, jotted on scraps of paper. Among those records, fitted in with them, were other papers. There was little doubt these were what I had sought. On one paper was a numbered list of names, names of well-known kaissa players. That, even, of Scormus was among them. On another paper there was what purported to be a list of tournament cities, and on another list of names, of individuals supposedly noted for their craftsmanship in the skill and design of kaissa boards and pieces. There were also, on other papers, numbered, too, the representations of boards.
Arranged in various ways on these boards were letters, sometimes beginning from a word, sometimes from a random, or seemingly random alignment of letters. These were all, I took it, keys to kaissa ciphers of one level of complexity or another. In a very simple case, for example, a given word, say, "Cibron," the name of a wood worker of Tabor, might occur. This key, then, in a simple case, without variations, would presumably be used in the following manner: the deciphering individual would write «C–I-B-R-O-N» in the first six spaces at the top of a kaissa board, moving from left to right, then following with the other, unused letters of the alphabet, moving from right to left on the second line, and so in, as "the ox plows," as standard Gorean is written. In this fashion each square of the board, with its name, such as "Ubar Five," and so on, would correspond to a letter, and some spaces, of course, would correspond to the same letter, thus providing cipher multiples. When one comes to the end of the originally unused letters, one begins anew, of course, starting then with the first letter of the alphabet, writing the full alphabet in order, and then continuing in this fashion.
Some of the lists had small marks after some of the words, seemingly casual, meaningless marks. These, however, depending on the slants and hooks, indicating direction, would indicate variations in letter alignments, for example. "Begin diagonally in the upper-left-hand corner," and such. Those keys on which the entire board appeared usually possessed complex, or even random, alignments, of letters, and several nulls, as well as the expected multiples. A Gorean «zero» was apparently used to indicate nulls.
I had thrust these papers in my pouch. The hastily opened coffer, which had seemed so momentous, and inaccessible, before, of course, had been only a diversion. The true concealment of the papers, one assuredly calculated to deceive those individuals who might have some just notion of their value, one worth of Belnar's brilliance, was to have them lying about, almost casually, mixed in, and seemingly belonging with, papers of no great importance. This subterfuge, was, so to speak, the disguise of unexpected obviousness. In this manner, too, of course, they would tend to be safe from common thieves, whose investigations presumably would be directed more toward the breaking open of strong boxes and the search for secret hiding places.
Given their relative accessibility and their apparent lack of value common thieves would not be likely to find them of interest.
If Belnar had erred here, I think it was in a very subtle matter. The pieces in the kaissa room, and the boards there, did not indicate frequent usage. The wood was not worn smooth and stained with the oil of fingers; the surface of the boards showed little sign of wear, or use, such as tiny scratches or even the subtle indications, the small rubbing marks, of polishings. Belnar, like most Goreans, was doubtless familiar with kaissa. On the other hand, it did not seem he often played. That being the case the abundance of hand-written notes and records about, seemingly related to the game, must, at least to some observers, appear something of an anomaly. It was at this point that I heard a subtle noise behind me. I had spun about.
"No," he said. "Do not draw."
"Why not?" I asked. "Do you expect to leave this place alive?"
"Of course," he said. He made no move to remove his blade from its sheath.
"You will, of course," I said, "tell me that I am surrounded."
"I have men about, of course," he said. "Some are stationed in the vicinity of the ubar's box, and at other openings, known to me, of the passage from the tower. Do not think to escape that way. Other men I have outside, but at a distance, on the bridges, outside the gate to the garden."
"That," I said, "the distance involved, would seem to be a flaw in your plan." I moved my hand to the hilt of my sword.
"I do not really think so," he said. "We certainly would not want them present at just any conversation which we might choose to have, would we?"
"I suppose not," I said. "Have you also considered how you might save your life, before I can reach you?"
"Of course," he said.
"Oh?" I asked.
"Come with me, to the front threshold," he said. He turned about, exposing his back to me, to lead the way. I was intrigued. "You may come, too, Yanina," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Precede me, girl," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I followed Flaminius and Yanina through the house. I wanted them both in front of me. I was wary as we passed through doors and archways. Yanina, I could not help noting, was quite lovely.
She walked well, doubtless conscious of being a slave before a free man. I felt a brief wave of gratitude to the fellows who wove, and designed, slave silk. It displays a female marvelously. It was tiny, and all she wore, except a close-fitting steel collar. She was barefoot. Whether or not she might have footwear was no longer her decision, but that of a master.
"See?" asked Flaminius, at the exterior threshold, that leading to the balcony garden.
"What?" I asked.
He raised his arm, signaling to some men on the other side of the garden gate, on the narrow bridge outside it.
"No," I moaned.
His men lifted up, holding him by the arms, a tall, lanky figure, limp and bleeding, showing him to us.
"He is your fellow, Petrucchio, I believe," said Flaminius. "I encountered him on the bridge. Apparently, anticipating your interest in the quarters of the ubar, he had come here, to defend the bridge, to keep you safe. He had only his huge, silly sword. I felled him in an instant."
"He should have fled the city," I said.
"Apparently he turned back, hoping to be of assistance to you, or rescue you," said Flaminius.
I groaned. I could well imagine Petrucchio, poor noble, brave Petrucchio, Boots Tarsk-Bit's "Captain," on the bridge. What an absurd, frail, pathetic, splendid figure he mist have cut there, with that silly sword and those fierce mustaches.
"What a preposterous fool," said Flaminius. "Can you imagine that? A mere player, a member of a troupe, daring to cross swords with me?"
"You have done well against one untrained in arms," I said, "one who dared to face you with only courage and a wooden sword. Prepare now to try the skills of another member of the troupe of Boots Tarsk-Bit, but one whose sword is of steel."
"I have no intention of meeting you with steel," said Flaminius. "Do you think I do not know the reputation of Bosk of Port Kar? Do you think I am mad?"
"Kneel, then," I said, "and bare your neck."
"I have your friend, Petrucchio," said Flaminius.
"I have you," I said.
"If I am slain," said Flaminius, "Petrucchio, of course, will die."
"If Petrucchio dies," I said, "you will be slain."
"Surely it is time to have a conversation," said Flaminius.
"Speak," I said.
"Let us step back inside, away from the door," he said.
"Very well," I said.
We withdrew into the room. He closed the door.
"You may kneel, Yanina," he said. "head to the floor."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Speak," I said.
"Belnar, and other members of the high council," he said, "have been conducting negotiations with individuals in various states, in particular, Cos and Ar. I do not fully understand all that is transpiring, but I have some idea. These negotiations, I gather, are generally in cipher. I would like to guarantee the security of those ciphers. One set of cipher keys, at least, is doubtless somewhere here. If you have found them, turn them over to me. Too, surrender yourself to me, to be bound as a prisoner."
"What if I agree?" I asked.
"You must agree," he smiled. "You have really no choice, at least no honorable alternative."
"You would trap a man by his honor?" I asked.
"Or by his greed, or his ambition, or whatever proves itself useful," said Flaminius.
"I see," I said.
"Comply with my wishes," said Flaminius, "and Petrucchio goes free."
"And what of me?" I asked.
"Your disposition will be determined by others," said Flaminius. "Who knows? You might even be permitted to live, perhaps as a blinded, toungueless slave chained to he bench of a Cosian galley."
"Cosian?" I asked.
"Perhaps," he smiled.
I hesitated.
"Petrucchio bleeds," he said. "I have given orders that his wound not be bound. He does not appear overly strong. It is quite conjectural how long he can survive without care."
"I see," I said.
"Your sword, Captain?" he asked.
I reached to the sword, to surrender it.
There was, however, at that moment, a great, authoritative pounding on the door.
"I gave orders that we were not to be disturbed," said Flaminius, angrily.
"Open in the name of Saphronicus, General of Ar!" I heard. "Open in the name of alliance!"
"A general of Ar, here?" said Flaminius.
I stepped back, my hand on the hilt of my sword.
There was then a repetition of that fierce pounding. It seemed any delay in opening that portal would not be lightly brooked.
Flaminius looked at me. I shrugged. "Perhaps you should open it," I said.
Flaminius hurried to the door and opened it. A tall, broad-shouldered, imposing, caped figure stood there. "I am Saphronicus, general of Ar, envoy from the state of Ar," it said. "I have entered the city only within the Ahn, immediately ordering the city captain to report to me. Here I find slaughtered ubars, chaos and fire! I have assumed command in the city until the high council appoints a new ubar. I was told by the city captain that he received his orders from some fellow named Flaminius, and that he might be here. Who is this Flaminius?"
