John Norman - Swordsmen of Gor

Her bondage is her life.

In her servitude she finds fulfillments and joys scarcely conceivable by the free woman, fulfillments and joys unutterably beyond those of the free woman.

She is in a collar.

She is a man’s slave.

She is happy.

We were now some four hundred yards from shore. The shouting and drumming continued, but little of it now reached us.

“I would be answered,” said Lord Nishida.

There had been shouting, the clashing of blades, the pounding of spear metal on metal-rimmed shields. The sound of a trumpet now carried across the cold water.

As Pertinax had now joined us, I turned to him. “What do you think is going on, on the beach?” I said.

“How would I know?” he asked.

“I think you can guess,” I said. I was interested to see how far Pertinax had come from Earth, not in miles, but in heart, in blood.

“In its way,” he said, “it seems celebratory.”

“It is,” I said.

“I do not understand,” said Lord Nishida.

“It is a salute,” I said. “They are saluting you. You are praised, and honored. They acclaim your power, your bravery, your success.”

“But they are our enemies,” said Lord Nishida.

“Surely such things exist amongst the Pani, as well,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “but I had not expected to find them here.”

“It is important that those who would kill one another respect one another,” I said. “One would not wish to kill an unworthy foe, one whom one did not respect. There is efficiency in that, and it may be practical, or necessary, but little glory. It is more like the crushing of lice, the extermination of urts. Many Gorean warriors, in private matters, will not cross swords with a foe they do not respect.”

“Interesting,” said Lord Nishida.

“It is a strange thing,” said Pertinax, “but I think I understand it.”

“You are becoming Gorean,” I said.

“That is my hope,” he said. His Jane was with him, and she knelt at his thigh.

“Doubtless,” I said, “some on the beach have the glass of the Builders. Let us then raise our hands. Let us acknowledge the salute.”

Lord Nishida, I, and Pertinax, standing at the rail of the stern castle, lifted our hands.

On the shores of the river, to the left and right, we saw hundreds, perhaps thousands of spears raised.

I then turned away from the rail.

“What do you think of the sky?” I asked Aetius.

He looked for a time. Then he said, “We have our course.”

“Master,” called Cecily, from the rail.

I joined her at the rail.

“Look,” she said, “there is something there, in the water.”

It was hard to make out, at the distance. It was behind, on the starboard side, away from the wake of the ship.

“What is it?” asked Cecily.

“I am not sure,” I said. “I think it is a sea sleen.”

I then made my way forward, heeled by Cecily.

This was the beginning of our third day at sea.

Two mariners were at the starboard rail, amidships, leaning out, looking back.

I joined them, noticed nothing, and then looked out, across the water, squarely abeam.

The sea was calm. Tor-tu-Gor was low behind us, on the horizon, in our wake. It was a winter sky, though we had not yet come to the Ninth Passage Hand, following which is the winter solstice. Toward the tenth Ahn, the Gorean noon, after we had emerged from the Alexandra earlier, in the morning, some three days ago, at, say, the fifth Ahn, the ship had changed course, radically. I gathered that Aetius had reconsidered the sky, or that someone to whom he might report had done so. About the sixteenth Ahn, the storm was well to the north. This could be seen from the darkness over the water. Had we kept the former course we would have been in the vicinity of the storm, if not embroiled within it. To be sure it might have been no more than a robust squall. Perhaps, in its passing, it would have lasted for little more than a quarter of an Ahn. Perhaps a galley might have weathered it, without even sheeting itself with canvas. Still, it is hard to know about such things. One does not know what the sky portends, only that it portends. I myself, particularly with an untried ship, would not have challenged it. And so, too, had ruled whoever might be the master of the ship of Tersites. To be sure, many storms cover the sea for hundreds of square pasangs and one can no more avoid them than the sea herself. Too, some storms last several days. One strives to weather such storms, and sometimes one must flee before them. In a galley one would normally take down the mast and yard, that they not be lost in the wind, or, if necessary, rig the smallest of her sails, the storm sail, get the storm astern and run before her, as might a tabuk attempting to elude a pursuing larl. I had confirmed with the helmsman the following morning that we had returned to our former course. It would take us south of Cos, north of Tyros.

As noted, this was the morning of our third day at sea.

“It is falling behind,” said one of the mariners.

“It has been with us since the Alexandra,” said the other.

“It weakens,” said the first.

“It is foundering,” said the second.

“It is drowning,” said the first.

How odd, I thought, that a sea sleen would be with us from the Alexandra.

Perhaps they frequented these waters. Still we were far from shore, and the sea sleen, as other forms of predatory sea life, tends to range the fishing banks, so to speak, shallower waters closer to shore where sea plants can get sunlight, these plants then forming the basis of a rich marine ecology.

But we were now far from shore.

Too, sea sleen commonly swam in packs. They were seldom alone.

“How could a sea sleen drown?” I asked.

“That beast is mad,” said the first fellow.

“That is not a sea sleen,” said the second mariner, turning about. “That is a land animal. See the width of the head, the jaws.”

The sea sleen is an unusual animal, presumably related somehow to the varieties of land sleen. Its body is much narrower, and the head is narrow and knifelike. The six powerful appendages attached to that long, narrow body are flippered, not clawed. It is not fully clear whether the sea sleen is a marine adaptation of the sleen or a similar but independently evolved animal. Its body is snakelike, and it approaches its prey silently, gliding, usually from the rear right or left, and propels itself, when making its strike, by the sudden lashing of its tail. It is the fastest creature in the sea. Its greatest moment of danger is at its birth, for the mother’s casting of the offspring and blood into the water stimulates the investigation of predators, in particular that of the nine-gilled Gorean shark. At such times several male sea sleen will ring the mother and infant, protecting them. The narrow snout of the sea sleen, driven into the shark at great speed, can destroy the capacity of gills to extract oxygen from the water, and crush cartilage. The razorlike teeth aligned in two rows within the narrow, triangular jaws, too, some eighteen inches in length, can seize, shake, and tear the head from many varieties of shark. The mother, within the ring, has only a few Ehn within which she must bring the infant to the surface, for its first breath.

“It is not a sea sleen?” I said.

“No,” said the first mariner.

“It is exhausted,” said the other.

“It is an amazing beast,” said the first mariner. “It has been with us since the Alexandra. It swims all night, in the darkness, following us, somehow keeping up with us, and we with a fair wind. It must have incredible strength.”