Gor - Nomads For Gor Part 4

"Why not?" she demanded.

"Have you not," I pressed, "noted the difference in the gravitational field of this place have you not noted the slight difference in the appearance of the sun?"

"It's not true!" she screamed "This is not Earth," I told her. "This is Gor another earth perhaps but not yours." I looked at her fixedly. She must understand. "You are on another planet."

She closed her eyes and moaned.

"I know," she said. "I know I know but how?

how?"

"I do not know the answer to your question," I said. I did not tell her that I was, incidentally, keenly interested for my own reasons in learning the answer to her question.

Kamchalc seemed impatient.

"What does she say?" he asked.

"She is naturally disturbed," I said. "She wishes to return to her city."

"What is her city?" asked Kamchak.

"It is called New York," I said.

"I have never heard of it," said Kamchak.

"It is far away," I said.

"How is it that you speak her language?" he asked.

"I once lived in lands where her language is spoken," I said.

"Is there gra.s.s for the bask in her lands?" asked Kamchak.

"Yes," I said, "but they are far away."

"farther even than Thentis?" asked Kamchak.

"Yes," I said.

"farther even than the islands of Cos and-Tyros?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

Kamchak whistled. "That is far," he said. .

I smiled. "It is too far to take the bask," I said.

Kamchak grinned at me.

One of the warriors on the kaiila spoke. "She was with no one," he said. "We searched. She was with no one."

Kamchak nodded at me, and then at the girl.

"Were you alone?" I asked.

The girl nodded weakly.

"She says she was alone," I told Kamchak.

"How came she here?" asked Kamchak.

I translated his question, and the girl looked at me, and then closed her eyes and shook her head. "I don't know," she said.

"She says she does not know," I told Kamchak.

"It is strange," said Kamchak. "But we will question her further later."

He signaled to a boy who carried a skin of Ka-la-na wine over his shoulder. He took the skin of wine from the boy and bit out the horn plug; he then, with the wineskin on his shoulder, held back the head of Elizabeth Cardwell with one _.

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hand and with the other shoved the bone nozzle of the skin between her teeth; he tipped the skin and the girl, half choking, swallowed wine; some of the red fluid ran from her mouth and over her body.

When Kamchak thought she had drunk enough he pulled the nozzle from her mouth, pushed back the plug and re- turned the skin to the boy.

Dazed, exhausted, covered with sweat, dust on her face and legs, wine on her body, Elizabeth Cardwell, her wrists thonged behind her and her throat bound to a lance, stood captive before Kamchak of the Tuchuks.

He must be merciful. He must be kind.

"She must learn Gorean," said Kamchak to me. "Teach her 'La Kajira'."

"You must learn Gorean," I told the girl.

She tried to protest, but I would not permit it.

"Say 'La Kajira'," I told her.

She looked at me, helplessly. Then she repeated, "La Kajira."

"Again," I commanded.

"La Kajira," said the girl clearly, "La Kajira."

Elizabeth Cardwell had learned her first Gorean.

"What does it mean?" she asked.

"It means," I told her, "I am a slave girl."

"No!" she screamed. "No, no, not"

Kamchak nodded to the two riders mounted on kaiila.

"Take her to the wagon of Kutaituchik."

The two riders turned their kaiila and in a moment, moving rapidly, the girl running between them, had turned from the gra.s.sy lane and disappeared between the wagons.

Kamchak and I regarded one another.

"Did you note the collar she wore?" I asked.

He had not seemed to show much interest in the high, thick leather collar that the girl had had sewn about her neck.

"Of course," he said.

"I myself," I said, "have never seen such a collar."

"It is a message collar," said Kamchak. "Inside the leather, sewn within, will be a message."

My look of amazement must have amused him, for he laughed. "Come," he said, "let us go to the wagon of Kutai- tuchik."

The wagon of Kutaituchik, called Ubar of the Tuchuks, was drawn up on a large, flat-topped gra.s.sy hill, the highest land in the camp.

Beside the wagon, on a great pole fixed in the earth, stood the Tuchuk standard of the four bask horns.

The hundred, rather than eight, bask- that drew his wagon had been unyoked; they were huge, red bask; their horns had been polished and their coats glistened from the comb and oils; their golden nose rings were set with jewels; necklaces of precious stones hung from the polished horns.

The wagon itself was the largest in the camp, and the largest wagon I had conceived possible; actually it was a vast platform, set on numerous wheeled frames; though at the edges of the platform, on each side, there were a dozen of the large wheels such as are found on the much smaller wagons; these latter wheels turned as the wagon moved and supported weight, but could not of themselves have supported the entire weight of that fantastic, wheeled palace of hide.

The hides that formed the dome were of a thousand colors, and the smoke hole at the top must have stood more than a hundred feet from the flooring of that vast platform. I could well conjecture the riches, the loot and the furnis.h.i.+ng that would dazzle the interior of such a magnificent dwelling.

But I did not enter the wagon, for Kutaituchik held his court outside the wagon, in the open air, on the flat-topped gra.s.sy hill. A large dais had been built, vast and spreading, but standing no more than a foot from the earth. This dais

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was covered with dozens of thick rugs, sometimes four and five deep.

There were many Tuchuks, and some others, crowded about the dais, and, standing upon it, about Kutaituchik, there were several men who, from their position on the dais and their trappings, I judged to be of great importance.

Among these men, sitting cross-legged, was Kutaituchik, called Ubar of the Tuchuks.

About Kutaituchik there were piled various goods, mostly vessels of precious metal and strings and piles of jewels; there was sills there from Tyros; silver from Thentis and Tharna; tapestries from the mills of Ar; wines from Cos; dates from the city of Tor. There were also, among the other goods, two girls, blonde and blue-eyed, unclothed, chained; they had perhaps been a gift to Kutaituchik; or had been the' daugh- ters of enemies; they might have been from any city; both were beautiful; one was sitting with her knees tucked under her chin, her hands clasping her ankles, absently staring at the jewels about her feet; the other lay indolently on her side, incuriously regarding us, her weight on one elbow; there was a yellow stain about her mouth where she had been fed some fruit; both girls wore the Sirilc, a light chain favored for female slaves by many Gorean masters; it consists of a Turian-type collar, a loose, rounded circle of steel, to which a light, gleaming chain is attached; should the girl stand, the chain, dangling from her collar, falls to the floor; it is about ten or twelve inches longer than is required to reach from her collar to her ankles; to this chain, at the natural fall of her wrists, is attached a pair of slave bracelets; at the end of the chain there is attached another device, a set of linked ankle rings, which, when closed about her ankles, lifts a portion of the slack chain from the floor; the Sirit is an incredibly graceful thing and designed to enhance the beauty of its wearer; perhaps it should only be added that the slave bracelets and the ankle rings may be removed from the chain and used separately; this also, of course, permits the Sirik to function as a slave leash.

At the edge of the dais Kamchak and I had stopped, where our sandals were removed and our feet washed by Turian slaves, men in the Kes, who might once have been officers of the city.

We mounted the dais and approached the seemingly som- nolent figure seated upon it.

Although the dais was resplendent, and the rugs upon it even more resplendent, I saw that beneath Kutaituchik, over these rugs, had been spread a simple, worn, tattered robe o f gray boskhide. It was upon this simple robe that he sat. It was undoubtedly that of which Kamchak had spoken, the robe upon which sits the Ubar of the Tuchuks, that simple robe which is his throne.

Kutaituchik lifted his head and regarded us; his eyes seemed sleepy; he was bald, save for a black knot of hair that emerged from the back of his shaven skull; he was a broad-backed man, with small legs; his eyes bore the epican- thic fold; his skin was a tinged, yellowish brown; though he was stripped to the waist, there was about his shoulders a rich, ornamented robe of the red bask, bordered with jewels; about his neck, on a chain decorated with sleen teeth, there hung a golden medallion, bearing the sign of the four bask horns; he wore furred boots, wide leather trousers, and a red sash, in which was thrust a quiva. Beside him, coiled, perhaps as a symbol of power, lay a bask whip. Kutaituchik absently reached into a small golden box near his right knee and drew out a string of rolled kanda leaf.

The roots of the kanda plant, which grows largely in desert regions on Gor, are extremely toxic, but, surprisingly, the rolled leaves of this plant, which are relatively innocuous, are formed into strings and, chewed or sucked, are much favored by many Goreans, particularly in the southern hemisphere, where the leaf is more abundant.

Kutaituchik, not taking his eyes off us, thrust one end of the green kanda string in the left side of his mouth and, very slowly, began to chew it. He said nothing, nor did Kamchak.

We simply sat near him, cross-legged. I was conscious that only we three on that dais were sitting. I was pleased that there were no prostrations or grovelings involved in ape preaching the august presence of the exalted Kutaituchik. I gathered that once, in his earlier years, he might have been a rider of the kaiila, that he might have been skilled with the bow and lance, and the quiva; such a man would not need ceremony; I sensed that once this man might have ridden six hundred pasangs in a day, living on a mouthful of water and a handful of bask meat kept soft and warm between his saddle and the back of the kaiila; that there might have been few as swift with the quiva, as delicate with the lance, as he; that he had known the wars and the winters of the prairie; that he had met animals and men, as enemies, and _.

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had lived; such a man did not need ceremony; such a man, I sensed, was Kutaituchik, called Ubar of the Tuchuks.

And yet was I sad as I looked upon him, for I sensed that for this man there could no longer be the saddle of the kaiila, the whirling of the rope and bole, the hunt and the war. Now, from the right side of his mouth, thin, black and wet, there emerged the chewed string of kanda, a quarter of an inch at a time, slowly. The drooping eyes, glazed, regard- ed us. For him there could no longer be the swift races across the frozen prairie; the meetings in arms; even the dancing to the sky about a fire of bask dung.