John Norman - Explorers of Gor

“Perhaps,” smiled Bila Huruma.

“Why do you give it to me?” I asked.

“It was the wish of Shaba,” said Bila Huruma.

“I had scarcely known such friendship could exist,” I said.

“I am a Ubar,” said Bila Huruma. “In my life I have had only two friends. Now both are gone.”

“Shaba was one,” I said.

“Of course,” said Bila Huruma.

“Who was the other?” I asked.

“The other I had killed,” he said.

“What was his name?” I asked.

“Msaliti,” he said.

“Let us leave,” called Kisu.

The Ubar and I descended the steps together, that we might make our departure from the landing, from the eastern shore of Lake Shaba.

It was then that the explosion occurred. It took place several pasangs away. There was a blast of light. A great towering blade of fire stormed upward against the tropical sky. There was a vast, spreading billowing cloud of dust and leaves. The earth shook, the waters of Lake Shaba roiled. Men cried out and girls screamed. We felt a shock wave of great heat and saw trees falling. There was a rain of rocks, branches and debris.

And then it was quiet, save for the water lapping against the landing and the sides of the wooden vessels. To the southwest there was a darkness in the sky. In places the tops of standing trees still burned. Then the fires, no longer sustained by the heat of the blast, one by one vanished, unable to overcome the living freshness of the wood.

“What was that?” asked Kisu.

“It is called an explosion,” I said.

“What is its meaning?” asked Bila Huruma.

“It means, I think,” I said, “that it is now safe to descend the river.”

I smiled to myself. The false ring would never be delivered to the Sardar.

“Let us proceed,” said Bila Huruma.

“Cast off the lines,” I called to the men.

Soon the four galleys and the canoes, including our raiders’ canoe, were upon the lake.

I tied the Tahari ring about my neck, where it hung, with the golden chain of Bila Huruma, on my chest. Near me in the canoe, wrapped in waterproof, oiled skins, and tied to a floatable frame, were the map case and notebooks of Shaba.

I looked back once at the city, and once at the darkness in the sky to the southwest.

I then lowered my paddle and thrust back against the waters of the lake.

“Where is Aibu?” cried Kisu.

We stood in the clearing of Nyundo, the central village of the Ukungu region.

Mwoga, spear in hand, a shield on his arm, came out to greet us. “He is dead,” said Mwoga.

Tende, behind Kisu, cried out with misery.

“How did he die?” asked Kisu.

“By poison,” said Mwoga. “I, now, am chieftain in Ukungu.”

“My spear says it is not true,” said Kisu.

“My spear,” said Mwoga, “says that it is true.”

“We shall, then, let them decide,” said Kisu.

Small leather strips customarily sheath the blades of the spears of Ukungu. Both Mwoga and Kisu had now removed these tiny strips from their weapons. The edges of the blades gleamed. Each man carried, too, a shield. On the Ukungu shield there is, commonly, a tuft of feathers. This is fastened at one of the points of the shield. When the tuft of feathers is at the bottom of the shield, the shield being so held, this is an indication that the hunter seeks an animal. When the tuft of feathers is at the top of the shield, the shield so held, it is an indication that the quarry is human. On both the shield of Kisu and Mwoga the tufts were now at the top.

“I would make a better Mfalme than Aibu,” said Mwoga. “It was thus that I had him killed.”

The fight was brief, and then Kisu withdrew the bloodied point of his weapon from the chest of Mwoga, who lay at his feet.

“You fight well,” said Bila Huruma. “Will you now see to the slaughter of those who supported Mwoga?”

“No,” said Kisu. “My quarrel is not with them. They are my fellow tribesmen. They may remain in peace in the villages of Ukungu.”

“Once, Kisu,” said Bila Huruma, “you were little more than a kailiauk, with the obstinacy and crudity of the kailiauk’s power, quick to anger, thoughtless in your charges. Now I see that you have learned something of the wisdom of one worthy to be a Mfalme.”

Kisu shrugged.

“Proceed with us further to Ushindi,” said Bila Huruma. “Msaliti is gone. I shall have need of one to be second in my empire.”

“Better to be first in Ukungu,” said Kisu, “than second in the empire.”

“You are first in Ukungu,” said Bila Huruma, naming Kisu to power.

“I shall fight you from Ukungu,” said Kisu.

“Why?” asked Ella Huruma.

“I will have Ukungu free,” said Kisu.

Bila Huruma smiled. “Ukungu,” he said, “is free.”

Men cried out in astonishment.

“Clean now the blade of your spear, Kisu,” said Bila Huruma. “Put once more upon it the sheathing strips of guarding leather. Turn your shield so that the feathers lie again at its base.”

“I will clean and sheath my spear,” said Kisu. “I will turn my shield.”

Kisu handed his weapons to one of the villagers. He and Bila Huruma embraced.

It was thus that peace came to Ukungu and the empire.

“It is not necessary to chain me like this, Master,” said Janice.

She knelt on the hot boards of the wharf at Schendi. Her ankles were shackled, and her small wrists locked behind her in slave bracelets. A tight belly chain, locked on her, running to a heavy ring in the wood, about a foot from her, secured her in place. She was stripped. On her throat, locked, was a steel collar. It read ‘I am owned by Bosk of Port Kar’. That is a name by which I am known in many parts of Gor. It has its own history.

“Before,” said Janice, looking up at me, in my collar, “when I might have fled, and did, in Port Kar, I was not even secured. Now, when I know what I do, what it is to be a slave girl on Gor, and would be terrified to so much as move from this place without permission, I am heavily chained.”

“It is common to secure female cargo before loading.” I said. “It should have been done before.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

I looked down at her. “Even if you were not chained, and wished to escape,” I said, “I do not think such a venture would now be practical.”

“No, Master,” she said. “I am now branded. I am now collared.”

“Greetings,” said Captain Ulafi to me.

“Greetings,” said I to him.

“Is this the little troublemaker?” he asked, looking down at Janice.

“I do not think she will cause you trouble now,” I said.

Janice put her head down to the boards of the wharf. “Forgive me, Master,” she said, “if I once displeased you.”

“Lift your head,” said Ulafi.

Janice looked up at him,

“How beautiful she has become,” said Ulafi. “It is difficult to believe that she is the same girl.” He regarded her. “She has become a sensuous dream,” he said.

“She is a slave,” I said. I shrugged.

“What fools men are to let any woman be free,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“You wish to take passage again on the Palms of Schendi,” he asked, “for return to Port Kar?”

“With your permission, Captain,” I said.

“The arrangements have been made,” he said. I pressed into his hands the coins on which we had agreed.

“We sail shortly,” he said, “with the tide.”

When I had returned to Schendi I had borne with me notes from the court of Bila Huruma. The moneys which I had lost when apprehended in Schendi, for seizure and transportation to the canal, had been returned to me. I had obtained again, too, my sea bag and its enclosed articles. I had received these back from the woman who had rented me the room off the Street of Tapestries. The sea bag lay at my feet. In it, with my other things, was a chain of gold, which I had received, long ago, from Bila Huruma. It had shared much of my equatorial odyssey. About my neck, on a leather string, inside my tunic, I wore the Tahari ring.