John Norman - Nomads of Gor

Kamchak looked at her in surprise. “I am kind,” he said.

“How is that?” I asked.

“I am permitting her to live,” he said.

“I think,” I said, “that you have won this night but I warn you that the girl from Turia will think again of the quiva and the heart of a Tuchuk warrior.”

“Of course,” smiled Kamchak, feeding Aphris, “she is superb.”

The girl looked at him with wonder.

“For a Turian slave,” he added. He fed her another piece of meat. “Tomorrow, Little Aphris,” said he, “I will give you something to wear.”

She looked at him gratefully.

“Bells and collar,” said he.

Tears appeared in her eyes.

“Can I trust you?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Bells and collar,” said he. “But I shall wind them about with strings of diamonds that those who see will know that your master can well afford the goods you will do without.”

“I hate you,” she said.

“Excellent,” said Kamchak. “Excellent.”

When the girl had finished and Elizabeth had given her a dipper of water from the leather bucket that hung near the door, Aphris extended her wrists to Kamchak.

The Tuchuk looked puzzled.

“Surely,” she said, “you will lock me in slave bracelets and chain me tonight?”

“But it is rather early,” pointed out Kamchak.

The girl’s eyes showed a moment of fear but then she seemed resolved. “You have made me your slave,” she said, “but I am still Aphris of Turia. You may, Tuchuk, slay Aphris of Turia if it pleases you, but know that she will never serve your pleasure never.”

“Well,” said the Tuchuk, “tonight I am pretty drunk.”

“Never,” said Aphris of Turia.

“I note,” said Kamchak, “that you have never called me Master.”

“I call no man Master,” said the girl.

“I am tired tonight,” said Kamchak, yawning. “I have had a hard day.”

Aphris trembled in anger, her wrists still forward.

“I would retire,” she said.

“Perhaps then,” said Kamchak, “I should have sheets of crimson silk brought, and the furs of the mountain larl.”

“As you wish,” said the girl.

Kamchak clapped her on the shoulders. “Tonight,” he said, “I will not chain you nor put you in the bracelets.”

Aphris was clearly surprised. I saw her eyes furtively dart toward the kaiila saddle with its seven quivas.

“As Kamchak wishes,” she said.

“Do you not recall,” asked Kamchak, “banquet of Saphrar?”

“Of course,” she said, warily.

“Do you not recall,” asked Kamchak, “the affair of the tiny bottles of perfume and the smell of bosk dung how nobly you attempted to rid the banquet hall of that most unpleasant and distasteful odour?”

“Yes,” said the girl, very slowly.

“Do you not recall,” asked Kamchak, “what I then said to you what I said at that time?”

“Nor” cried the girl leaping up, but Kamchak had jumped toward her, scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder.

She squirmed and struggled on his shoulder, kicking and pounding on his back. “Sleep!” she cried. “Sleep! Sleen! Sleen!”

I followed Kamchak down the steps of the wagon and, blinking and still sensible of the effects of the Paga, gravely held open the large dung sack near the rear left wheel of the wagon. “No, Master!” the girl wept.

“You call no man Master,” Kamchak was reminding her.

And then I saw the lovely Aphris of Turia pitched head first into the large, leather sack, screaming and sputtering, threshing Shout.

“Master!” she cried. “Master! Master!”

Sleepily I could see the sides of the sack bulging out wildly here and there as she squirmed about.

Kamchak then tied shut the end of the leather sack and wearily stood up. “I am tired,” he said. “I have had a difficult and exhausting day.”

I followed him into the wagon where, in a short time, we had both fallen asleep.

In the next days I several times wandered into the vicinity of the huge wagon of Kutaituchik, called Ubar of the Tuchuks. More than once I was warned away by guards. I knew that in that wagon, if the words of Saphrar were correct, there lay the golden sphere, doubtless the egg of Priest-Kings, which he had, for some reason, seemed so anxious to obtain.

I realized that I must, somehow, gain access to the wagon and find and carry away the sphere, attempting to return it to the Sardar. I would have given much for a tarn. Even on my kaiila I was certain I could be outdistanced by numerous riders, each leading, in the Tuchuk fashion, a string of fresh mounts. Eventually my kaiila would tire and I would be brought down on the prairie by pursuers. The trailing would undoubtedly be done by trained herd sleen.

The prairie stretched away for hundreds of pasangs in all directions. There was little cover.

It was possible, of course, that I might declare my mission to Kutaituchik or Kamchak, and see what would occur but I knew that Kamchak had said to Saphrar of Turia that the Tuchuks were fond of the golden sphere and I had no hopes that I might make them part with it, and surely I had no riches comparable to those of Saphrar with which to purchase it and Saphrar’s own attempts to win the sphere by purchase, I reminded myself, had failed.

Yet I was hesitant to make the strike of a thief at the wagon of Kutaituchik for the Tuchuks, in their bluff way, had made me welcome, and I had come to care for some of them, particularly the gruff, chuckling, wily Kamchak, whose wagon I shared. It did not seem to me a worthy thing to betray the hospitality of Tuchuks by attempting to purloin an object which obviously they held to be of great value. I wondered if any in the camp of the Tuchuks realized how actually great indeed was the value of that golden sphere, containing undoubtedly the last hope of the people called Priest-Kings.

In Turia I had learned nothing, unfortunately, of the answers to the mystery of the message collar or to the appearance of Miss Elizabeth Cardwell on the southern plains of Gor. I had, however, inadvertently, learned the location of the golden sphere, and that Saphrar, a man of power in Turia, was also interested in obtaining it. These bits of information were acquisitions not negligible in their value.

I wondered if Saphrar himself might be the key to the mysteries that confronted me. It did not seem impossible.

How was it that he, a merchant of Turia, knew of the golden sphere? How was it that he, a man of shrewdness and intelligence, seemed willing to barter volumes of gold for what he termed merely a curiosity? There seemed to be something here at odds with the rational avarice of mercantile calculation, something extending even beyond the often irresponsible zeal of the dedicated collector which he seemed to claim to be. Yet I knew that whatever Saphrar, merchant of Turia, might be, he was no fool. He, or those for whom he worked, must have some inkling or perhaps know of the nature of the golden sphere. If this was true, and I thought it likely, I realized I must obtain the egg as rapidly as possible and attempt to return it to the Sardar.

There was no time to lose. And yet how could I succeed?

I resolved that the best time to steal the egg would be during the days of the Omen Taking. At that time Kutaituchik and other high men among the Tuchuks, doubtless including Kamchak, would be afield, on the rolling hills surrounding the Omen Valley, in which on the hundreds of smoking altars, the haruspexes of the four peoples would be practicing their obscure craft, taking the omens, trying to determine whether or not they were favourable for the election of a Ubar San, a One Ubar, who would be Ubar of all the Wagons. If such were to be elected, I trusted, at least for the sake of the Wagon Peoples, that it would not be Kutaituchik. Once he might have been a great man and warrior but now, somnolent and fat, he thought of little save the contents of a golden kanda box. But, I reminded myself, such a choice, if choice there must be, might be best for the cities of Gor, for under Kutaituchik the Wagons would not be likely to move northward, nor even to the gates of Turia.