Tribesmen of Gor (21 page)

 
    
I sat forward, as far as I could, listening. I sat on the stone, on straw, soiled, which was scattered on the floor to absorb wastes. I looked to the door, some twenty feet across the stone floor; it was of beams, sheathed with iron. There was a small window, high in the door, about six inches in height, eighteen inches in width. It bore five bars. There was a musty smell, but the room was not particularly damp. Light reached it from a small window, barred, some twelve feet above the floor, in the wall to my right. It was just under the ceiling. In the placid, diagonal beam of light, seeming to lean against the wall, ascending to the window, I saw dust.

 
    
I distended my nostrils, screening the scents of the room. I rejected the smell of moldy straw, of wastes. From outside I could smell date palms, pomegranates. I heard a kaiila pass, its paws thudding in the sand. I heard kaiila bells, from afar, a man shouting. Nothing seemed amiss. I detected the odor of kort rinds, matted, drying, on the stones, where they had been scattered from my supper the evening before. Vints, insects, tiny, sand-colored, covered them: On the same rinds, taking and eating vints, were two small cell spiders. Outside the door I could smell cheese. The smell, too, of Bazi tea was clear. I heard the guard move, drowsy, on his chair outside the door. I could smell his sweat, and the veminium water he had rubbed about his neck.

 
    
Then I sat back against the stones. It seemed I had been mistaken.

 
    
I closed my eyes. "Surrender Gor," had come the message, presumed from the steel worlds. "Surrender Gor." And, earlier, months ago, a caravan boy, Achmed, the son of the merchant, Farouk of Kasra, had found the inscription on a rock, "Beware the steel tower." There had been, too, the message girl, Veema, whose very body had borne the warning, "Beware Abdul." I thought little of that now, however, for Abdul had been the water carrier in Tor, surely a minor agent of Others, the Kurii, little to be feared, no more than a gnat in the desert. I had not chosen to press the juices from the body of that insect. I had let him flee in terror. I still did not know, however, who had sent the warning, "Beware Abdul." I smiled. There seemed little reason to beware of such a nonentity.

 
    
On the tip to Nine Wells, in the company of Achmed; his father, Farouk; Shakar, captain of the Aretai; Hamid, his lieutenant, and a guard of fifteen riders, I had seen the stone, led to it by Achmed.

     
"The body is gone!" cried Achmed. "It lay here!"

 
    
The stone, however, remained, and the message scratched upon it. It was scratched in Taharic, the lettering of the Tahari peoples. Their language is Gorean, but they, like certain other groups, usually isolated groups, did not use the common Gorean script. I had studied the Taharic alphabet. Since the alphabet is correlated with Gorean phonemes, it is speedily mastered, little more than an incomplete cipher, by one who knows Gorean. One oddity about it, from the point of view of one who reads Gorean, is that it possesses signs for only four of the nine vowels in Gorean. There was, however, even for me, no difficulty in reading the inscription. No vowel sound had to be interpolated, or determined from context, in this message. Each sign was clear. The message as a whole was explicit, unmistakable. The vowel sounds which are explicitly represented, incidentally, are represented by tiny marks near the other letters, rather like accent marks. They are not, in themselves, full-fledged letters. Vowel sounds which are not explicitly represented, of course, must be inserted by the reader. At one time in Taharic, apparently, no vowel sounds were represented. Some Taharic scholars, purists, refuse to countenance vowel signs, regarding their necessity as a convenience for illiterates.

"There is no body here now," had said Shakar, captain of the Aretai.

"Where could it have gone?" asked Hamid, his lieutenant.

 
    
His question was not an ill-advised one. There was no sign about of picked bones, or of the work of scavengers. Had there been sand storms the rock, too, presumably, would have been covered. Sand storms in the Tahari, incidentally, though upon occasion lengthy and terrible storms, may rearrange dunes, but they seldom bury anything. The whipping sand is blasted away almost as swiftly as it is deposited. Further, of course, a body in the Tahari decomposes with great slowness. The flesh of a desert tabuk which dies in the desert, perhaps separated from its herd, and unable to find water, if undisturbed by the salivary juices of predators, remains edible for several days. The external appearance of the animal, beyond this, can remain much the same for centuries.

"It is gone," said Shakar, turning his kaiila, and returning to the caravan.

The others followed him.

 
    
I lingered a bit longer, looking on the inscription. "Beware the steel tower." Then I, too, turned my kaiila, and returned to the caravan.

"Surrender Gor," I thought.

 
    
I leaned back against the stone. I moved my head a bit, turning my neck inside the heavy collar. I pulled a bit at the wrist manacles, on my left and right. I heard the chain subside to the stones. I felt a trickle of sweat move down my left forearm, and slip under the iron on my left wrist. I pulled wildly against the wrist manacles, the collar cut into my neck; I twisted my ankles in the ankle irons, and pulled the chain against the ring. Then, furious, I sat back against the stones. I was a prisoner. I was absolutely helpless.

 
    
I closed my eyes again. Suleiman had not died. The blow of the assassin, in the confusion. had failed to find its mark.

 
    
The judge, on the testimony of Ibn Saran, and that of two white-skinned, female slaves, one named Zaya, a red-haired girl, the other a dark-haired girl, whose name was Vella, had sentenced me as a criminal, a would-be assassin, to the secret brine pits of Klima, deep in the dune country, there to dig until the salt, the sun, the slave masters, had finished with me. From the secret pits of Klima, it was said, no slave had ever returned. Kaiila are not permitted at Klima, even to the guards. Supplies are brought in, and salt carried away, by caravan, on which the pits must depend. Other than the well at Klima, there is no other water within a thousand pasangs. The desert is the wall at Klima. The locations of the pits, such as those at Klima, are little known, and, to protect the resource, are kept secret by mine agents and merchants. Women are not permitted at Klima, lest men kill one another for them.

 
    
Then again, unmistakably, this time, the odor came to my nostrils. The hair rose on the back of my neck.

 
    
I strained against the iron, the chains. I was nude. I was completely helpless. I could not even put my hands before my body.

     
I must wait.

     
I smelled Kur.

     
"Is there someone there?" called the guard. I heard his chair scrape. I heard him get to his feet.

     
He received no answer. There was only silence.

     
I sat still. I moved not even the chain.

 
    
He walked toward the threshold of the large room, or hall, which gives access to the cells. He walked carefully. There is no door on the threshold. It is a narrow threshold, lying at the foot of a set of narrow twisting concave stairs.

     
"Who is there?" he called. He waited. There was no answer.

     
He turned about and went back to his chair. I heard him sit down again. But in a moment, suddenly, the chair scraped back again, and he was on his feet. "Who is there!" he challenged. I heard his scimitar leave its sheath.

 
    
"Who is there!" I heard him cry once more, then heard him turning, wildly, facing about, here and there, in the hall.

 
    
Then I heard a startled inarticulate cry of horror, quick cut short. There was a snap, as of gristle.

 
    
There was little sound then, only that of a large tongue, moving in blood, tasting, curious. The man had had smeared about the base of his neck veminium water.

 
    
I heard then the body, dropped. I did not hear the sound of feeding. I heard a pawing about the body, and it’s clothing. Then I sensed, outside, a large body lift itself to its feet, and turn, slowly, toward the door of my cell.

 
    
I sensed then that it stood before the door of my cell. I could not take my eyes from the small window in the door. I saw nothing outside. Yet I sensed that it stood there, and that it was looking through the bars.

     
I heard the key move in the lock.

 
    
The door swung open. I saw nothing in the threshold. Beyond, crumpled on the floor, I saw the remains of the guard, head, awry, lying on its side, strung by torn vessels to the body, the back of the neck bitten through. I saw straw move within the cell. The smell of Kur was strong. I sensed it stood before me.

     
The chain at my left wrist was lifted. Twice, it was pulled against the wall ring. Then was it dropped to the stones.

     
I sensed that the beast stood.

     
In a moment I heard voices, those of several men. They were nearing.

     
Among them, imperious, I heard the voice of Ibn Saran. I heard men descending the steps. There was a cry of horror. I could see through the door of my cell, now swung open. Ibn Saran, himself, in black cloak, and white kaffiyeh with black cording, emerged through the threshold.

     
Instantly was his scimitar unsheathed, the reflex of a desert warrior. He did not look upon the gruesome sight which lay upon the stones at his feet. Rather did he, with one lightning glance, examine the room.

     
"Unsheath your weapons," cried he to his daunted men. Some of them were unable to take their eyes from what lay on the stones. With the flat of his blade he struck more than one of them. "Back to back," he said. "Stand ready!" Then he said, "Block the door!"

     
He looked within the cell. I saw him, outside. I was chained in a sitting position. I could not pull far against the ring of my ankle irons for my back was against the wall; I could not pull forward, nor to the side, from the wall because of the chains on my collar; my hands wire chained down and toward the wall, on each side, back from my body; I could, by the intention of my captors, exert little leverage; I was perfectly chained. Ibn Saran smiled. "Tal," said he. I was his prisoner. "Tal," said I. I could see his scimitar.

     
"What could have done this horrible thing?" asked one of his men.

     
"I was warned of this," said Ibn Saran.

     
"A Djinn?" asked one of the men.

     
"Smell it?" said Ibn Saran. "Smell it! It is still here!"

     
I heard the Kur breathing, near me.

     
"Block the door!" said Ibn Saran.

     
The two men by the door, who had been standing there, looked about themselves, brandishing their scimitars, frightened.

 
    
"Do not fear, my fellows," said Ibn Saran. "This is not a Djinn. It is a creature of flesh and blood. But be wary! Be wary!" He then formed his men into a line, against the far wall of the outer room, that into which the threshold gave access. "I had warning of this possibility," he said. "It has now occurred. Do not fear. It can be met."

The men looked to one another, wild-eyed.

 
    
"Upon my signal," said Ibn Saran, speaking in swift: Gorean, "attacking in a line, slash every inch of this room. He who first makes contact, let him cry out, and the others, then, must converge on that spot, cutting, as it were, the very air into pieces."

 
    
One of the men looked at him. "There is nothing here," he whispered.

 
    
Ibn Saran, scimitar poised, smiled. "It is here," he said. "It is here." Then suddenly he cried, "Ho!" and leapt forward, the blade, in rapid, diagonal figure-eight strokes, backhand upswept, shallowly curved, blade turning, forehand descending, shallowly curved, tracing its razor pattern. His right, booted foot stamped forward, his body turned to the left, minimizing target, his head to the right, maximizing vision, his rear foot at right angles to the attack line, maximizing leverage, assuring balance. His men, some of them timidly thrusting out, poking, touching, followed him. "There is nothing here, noble master," said one of them.

 
    
Ibn Saran stood in the threshold of the cell. "It is in the cell," he said.

 
    
I observed the scimitar. It was a wickedly curved blade. On such a blade, I knew, silk dropped, should the blade be moved, would fall parted to the floor. Even a light stroke of such a blade, falling across an arm, would drop through the flesh, leaving its incised record, a quarter of an inch deep, in the bone beneath.