John Norman - Nomads of Gor

“That explains,” I said, “how it is that you, though in Turia, can have a galley in Port Karl”

“Of course,” said he.

“Also,” I cried, suddenly aware, “the rence paper in the message collar, paper from Port Kar!”

“Of course,” he said.

“The message was yours,” I said.

“The collar was sewn on the girl in this very house,” said he, “though the poor thing was anesthetized at the time and unaware of the honour bestowed upon her.” Saphrar smiled.

“In a way,” he said, “it was a waste I would not have minded keeping her in my Pleasure Gardens as a slave.”

Saphrar shrugged and spread his hands. “But he would not hear of it, it must be she!”

“Who is ‘he’?” I demanded.

“The grey fellow,” said Saphrar, “who brought the girl to the city, drugged on tarnback.”

“What is his name?” I demanded.

“Always he refused to tell me,” said Saphrar.

“What did you call him?” I asked.

“Master,” said Saphrar. “He paid well,” he added.

“Fat little slave,” said Harold.

Saphrar took no offence but arranged his robes and smiled.

“He paid very well,” he said.

“Why,” I asked, “did he not permit you to keep the girl as a slave?”

“She spoke a barbarous tongue,” said Saphrar, “like yourself apparently. The plan was, it seems, that the message would be read, and that the Tuchuks would then use the girl to find you and when they had they would kill you. But they did not do so.”

“No,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter now,” said Saphrar.

I wondered what death he might have in mind for me.

“How was it,” I asked, “that you, who had never seen me, knew me and spoke my name at the banquet?”

“You had been well described to me by the grey fellow,” said Saphrar. “Also, I was certain there could not have been two among the Tuchuks with hair such as yours.”

I bristled slightly. For no rational reason I am sometimes angered when enemies or strangers speak of my hair. I suppose this dates back to my youth when my flaming hair, perhaps a deplorably outrageous red, was the object of dozens of derisive comments, each customarily engendering its own rebuttal, both followed often by a nimble controversy, adjudicated by bare knuckles. I recalled, with a certain amount of satisfaction, even in the House of Saphrar, that I had managed to resolve most of these in my favour.

My aunt used to examine my knuckles each evening and when they were skinned which was not seldom, I trooped away to bed with honour rather than supper.

“It was an amusement on my part,” smiled Saphrar, “to speak your name at that time to see what you would do, to give you something, so to speak, to stir in your wine.”

It was a Turian saying. They used wines in which, as a matter of fact, things could be and were, upon occasion, stirred mostly spices and sugars.

“Let us kill him,” said the Paravaci.

“No one has spoken to you, Slave,” remarked Harold.

“Let me have this one,” begged the Paravaci of Saphrar, pointing the tip of his quiva at Harold.

“Perhaps,” said Saphrar. Then the little merchant stood up and clapped his hands twice. From a side, from a portal which had been concealed behind a hanging, two men-at-arms came forth, followed by two others. The first two carried a platform, draped in purple. On this platform, nestled in the folds of the purple, I saw the object of my quest what I had come so far to find that for which I had risked and, apparently, lost my Life, the golden sphere.

It was clearly an egg. Its longest axis was apparently about eighteen inches. It was, at its widest point, about a foot thick.

“You are cruel to show it to him,” said Ha-Keel.

“But he has come so far and risked so much,” said Saphrar kindly. “Surely he is entitled to a glimpse of our precious prize.”

“Kutaituchik was killed for it,” I said.

“Many more than he,” said Saphrar, “and perhaps in the end even more will die.”

“Do you know what it is?” I asked.

“No,” said Saphrar, “but I know it is important to Priest-Kings.” He stood up and went to the egg, putting his finger on it. “Why, though,” he said, “I have no idea, it is not truly of gold.”

“It appears to be an egg,” said Ha-Keel.

“Yes,” said Saphrar, “whatever it is, it has the shape of an egg.”

“Perhaps it is an egg,” suggested Ha-Keel.

“Perhaps,” admitted Saphrar, “but what would Priest-Kings wish with such an egg?”

“Who knows?” asked Ha-Keel.

“It. was this, was it not,” asked Saphrar, looking at me, “that you came to Turia to find?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “That is what I came to find.”

“See how easy it was!” he laughed.

“Yes,” I said, “very easy.”

Ha-Keel drew his sword. “Let me slay him as befits a warrior,” he said.

“No,” cried the Paravaci, “let me have him as well as the other.”

“No,” said Saphrar firmly. “They are both mine.”

Ha-Keel angrily rammed his sword back into the sheath.

He had clearly wanted to kill me honourably, swiftly. Clearly he had little stomach for whatever games the Paravaci or Saphrar might have in mind. Ha-Keel might have been a cutthroat and a thief but, too he was of Ar and a tarnsman.

“You have secured the object,” I inquired, “to give it to the grey man?”

“Yes,” said Saphrar.

“He will then return it to Priest-Kings?” I asked innocently.

“I do not know what he will do with it,” said Saphrar. “As long as I receive my gold and the gold will perhaps make me the richest man on Gor I do not care.”

“If the egg is injured,” I said, “the Priest-Kings might be, angry.”

“For all I know,” said Saphrar, “the man is a Priest-King. How else would he dare to use the name of Priest-Kings on the message in the message collar?”

I knew, of course, that the man was not a Priest-King. But I could now see that Saphrar had no idea who he was or for whom, if anyone, he was working. I was confident that the man was the same as he who had brought Elizabeth Cardwell to this world he who had seen her in New York and decided she would play her role in his perilous sports and that thus he had at his disposal an advanced technology certainly to the level of at least space flight. I did not know, of course, if the technology at his disposal was his own, or that of his kind, or if it were furnished by others unknown not seen who had their own stake in these games of two worlds, perhaps more. He might well be, and I supposed it true, merely an agent but for whom, or what? Something that would challenge even Priest-Kings blat, it must be, I something that feared Priest-Kings, or it would naturally have I struck this world, or Earth something that wanted Priest-Kings to die that the one world, or two, or perhaps even the system of our sun, would be freed for their taking.

“How did the grey man know where the golden sphere was?” I asked.

“He said once,” said Saphrar, “that he was told”

“By whom?” I asked.

“I do not know,” said Saphrar.

“You know no more?”

“No,” said Saphrar.

I speculated. The Others those of power, not Priest-Kings, must, to some extent, understand or sense the politics, the needs and policies of the remote denizens of the Sardar — they were probably not altogether unaware of the business of Priest-Kings, particularly not now, following the recent War of Priest-Kings, after which many humans had escaped the Place of Priest-Kings and now wandered free, if scoffed at and scorned for the tales they might bear possibly from these, or from spies or traitors in the Nest itself, the Others had learned the Others, I was sure, would neither jeer nor scoff at the stories told by vagabonds of Priest-Kings.