John Norman - Priest-Kings of Gor

“Why?” I asked.

Misk said nothing for a long time, and then he dejectedly lowered his head, delicately extending his antennae to me for grooming. After I had combed them for a bit, I sensed he was ready to speak.

“It was my fault,” said Misk. “She wanted to let the threadlike growths on her head emerge, for she was not bred in the Nest.” Misk’s voice came from the translator as consecutively and mechanically as ever, but his whole body trembled. I removed the grooming fork from his antennae in order that the sensory hairs not be injured. “I was indulgent,” said Misk, straightening up so that his long body now loomed over me, inclined forward slightly from the vertical in the characteristic stance of Priest-Kings. “So that it was actually I who killed her.”

“I think not,” I said. “You tried to be kind.”

“And it occurred on the day on which she saved my life,” said Misk.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“I was on an errand for Sarm,” said Misk, “which took me to unfrequented tunnels and for company I took the girl with me.

We came upon a Golden Beetle though none had ever been seen in that place and I wanted to go to the Beetle and I put my head down and approached it but the girl seized my antennae and dragged me away, thus saving my life.”

Misk lowered his head again and extended his antennae for grooming.

“The pain was excruciating,” said Misk, “and I could not but follow her in spite of the fact that I wanted to go to the Golden Beetle. In an Ahn of course I no longer wanted to go to the Beetle and I knew then she had saved my life. It was the same day that Sarm ordered her given five record-scars for the growths on her head and had her destroyed.”

“Is it always five record-scars for such an offense?” I asked.

“No,” said Misk. “I do not know why Sarm acted as he did.”

“It seems to me,” I said, “that you should not blame yourself for the girl’s death, but Sarm.”

“No,” said Misk. “I was too indulgent.”

“Is it not possible,” I asked, “that Sarm wished you to die by the Golden Beetle?”

“Of course,” said Misk. “It was undoubtedly his intention.”

I puzzled to myself why Sarm might want Misk to be killed. Undoubtedly there was some type of rivalry or political division between them. To my human mind, used to the cruelties with which selfish men can implement their schemes, I saw nothing incomprehensible in the fact that Sarm would have attempted to engineer Misk’s death. I would learn later however that this simple fact was indeed almost incomprehensible to Priest-Kings, and that Misk, though he readily accepted it as a fact in his mind, could not bring himself, so to speak, in the furthest reaches of his heart to acknowledge it as true, for were not both he and Sarm of the Nest, and would not such an action be a violation of Nest Trust?

“Sarm is the First Born,” said Misk, “whereas I am the Fifth Born. The first five born of the Mother are the High Council of the Nest. The Second, Third and Fourth Born, in the long ages, have, one by one, succumbed to the Pleasures of the Golden Beetle. Only Sarm and I are left of the Five.”

“Then,” I suggested, “he wants you to die so that he will be the only remaining member of the Council and thus have absolute power.”

“The Mother is greater than he,” said Misk.

“Still,” I suggested, “his power would be considerably augmented.”

Misk looked at me and his antennae had a certain lack of resilience and the golden hairs had seemed to lose some of their sheen.

“You are sad,” I said.

Misk bent down until his long body was horizontal and then inclined downward yet more towards me. He laid his antennae gently on my shoulders, almost as though a man might have put his hands on them.

“Youmust not understand these things,” said Misk, “in terms of what you know of men. It is different.”

“It seems no different to me,” I said.

“These things,” said Misk, “are deeper and greater than you know, than you can now understand.”

“They seem simple enough to me,” I remarked.

“No,” said Misk. “You do not understand.” Misk’s antennae pressed a bit on my shoulders. “But you will understand,” he said.

The Priest-King then straightened and stalked to my case. With his two forelegs he gently lifted it and moved it aside.

The ease with which he did this astonished me for I am sure its weight must have been several pounds. Beneath the case I saw a flat stone with a recessed ring. Misk bent down and lifted this ring.

“I dug this chamber myself,” he said, “and day by day over the lifetimes of many Muls I took a bit of rock dust away and scattered it here and there unobserved in the tunnels.”

I looked down into the cavern which was now revealed.

“I requisitioned as little as possible,” you see,” said Misk.

“Even the portal must be moved by mechanical force.”

He then went to a compartment in the wall and withdrew a slender black rod. He broke the end of the rod off and it began to burn with a bluish flame.

“This is a Mul-Torch,” said Misk, “used by Muls who raise fungus in darkened chambers. You will need it to see.”

I knew that the Priest-King had no need of the torch.

“Please,” said Misk, gesturing toward the opening.

Holding the slender Mul-Torch over my head I peered into the cavern now revealed in the floor of Misk’s chamber. From a ring on the underside of the floor, the ceiling of the chamber, there dangled a knotted rope.

There seemed to be very little heat from the bluish flame of the Mul-Torch but, considering the size of the flame, a surprising amount of light.

“The workers of the Fungus-Trays,” said Misk, “break off both ends of the torch and climb about on the trays with the torch in their teeth.”

I had no mind to do this, but I did grasp the torch in my teeth with one end lit and, hand over hand, lower myself down the knotted rope.

One side of my face began to sweat. I closed my right eye.

A circle of eerie, blue, descending light flickered on the walls of the passage down which I lowered myself. The walls a few feet below the level of Misk’s compartment became damp.

The temperature fell several degrees. I could see the discolourations of slime molds, probably white, but seeming blue in the light, on the walls. I sensed a film of moisture forming on the plastic of my tunic. Here and there a trickle of water traced its dark pattern downward to the floor where it crept along the wall and, continuing its journey, disappeared into one crevice or another.

When I arrived at the bottom of the rope, some forty feet below, I held the torch over my head and found myself in a bare, simple chamber.

Looking up I saw Misk, disdaining the rope, bend himself backwards through the aperture in the ceiling and, step by dainty step, walk across the ceiling upside down and then back himself nimbly down the side of the wall.

In a moment he stood beside me.

“You must never speak of what I am going to show you,” said Misk.

I said nothing.

Misk hesitated.

“Let there be Nest Trust between us,” I said.

“But you are not of the Nest,” said Misk.

“Nonetheless,” I said, “let there be Nest Trust between us.”

“Very well,” said Misk, and he bent forward, extending his antennae towards me.

I wondered for a moment what was to be done but then it seemed I sensed what he wanted. I thrust the torch I carried into a crevice in the wall and, standing before Misk, I raised my arms over my head, extending them towards him.

With extreme gentleness, almost tenderness, the Priest-King touched the palms of my hands with his antennae.