Blood Brothers of Gor

Chapter 35 IN THE VISION PLACE

"The body was never recovered," I said.

"It would make a difference to a Tuchuk," said Kamchak, of the Tuchuks.

A cold wind swept across the flat summit of Ar's Cylinder of Justice.

The stones were cold some twenty passangs west of the Casmu-Kaiila camp at Two Featers.

Again I held grass and earth with Kamchak, of the Tuchuks. I could fee it, cold in my hands, between my fingers.

It began to rain. The rain washed the dirt and grass from my hands. The bridges of Tharna had been gray and cool in the soft, long, slow rain.

In this distance heard the roars of the crowds in Ar's Stadium of Tarns.

I emerged from the baths of Ar. They semed suddenly cold.

The silver mask seemed unnaturally large. The women's voice, from behind it, seemingly far away, was wild with rage. "We shall meet again!" I heard.

The tarn smote its way from the roof of the palace. Are tore past us.

The Dora was a ship, a tarn ship, a ram ship, shallow-drafted, stright-keeled, singl-banked, latten-rigged, carvel-built, painted gree, difficult to detect in the rolling waters of Thassa, our of Port Kar.

Lara, who had been Tatrix of Tharna, kneeling before me on a scarlet rug, in the camp of Targo, the Silver, lifted, suppilicating, holding them in her hands, two yellow cords to me.

Misk, at night, stood in the grasses near the Sardar, loftly, slender, grand against the moons, on a small bill, the wind moving his antennae.

I should have returned that night, perhaps, to the tavern of Sarpedon in Lydius, to see Vella dance. I had had business.

How splendid women look in the collars of men!

The sky was white with lightning. There was a great crash of thunder.

"It is a hurricane of stones!" cried Hassan, the wind tearing back his burnoose.

"Maybe it will be cold tonight," speculated Imnak, bending over the slate point of his harpoon, methodically sharpening it with a stone, in the light of the small sleen-oil lamp.

"Yes," I agreed.

The northern waters are cold. Torrents descended, lashing the sea. The serpent of Ivar Forkbeard, its mast and spar lashed down, pitched in the waves near the Skerry of Einar. I heard Ivar Forkbeard's great laugh.

Lightning crashed above the red crags of the Voltai.

"Let him be whipped," said Marlenus of Ar.

Blows fell.

My cheek lay on the cold wet stones. One does not leave the vision place. Rain fell. I put out my hand and clutched ice. It rattled and struck about me, leaping up from the stones. My back was cut. The white clay on my body was streaked. I covered my head and lay on the stones. One does not leave the vision place.

It was hot.

I could hear the birds in the jungle of the Ua.

"Let us continue on," said Kisu, and, again, the river before us, broad between the moist, tangled green thickets of the banks, backed on each side by the enclosing jungle, we dipped our paddles into the muddy, sluggish water.

I felt lightheaded. Perhaps it was the sun. The Ur force is being disrupted, I heard. It seemed the ground was far beneath me. My feet could hardly touch it.

I lay on my back. The high, hot sun of the Tahari burned in the sky.

"Drink," said Hassan, bending over me. "Alas," he said, "the water bag is empty."

"At least," said Samos, "it is cooler now. That is a relief."

"Yes," I said.

"I am sorry you are so hungry," said Imnak. "I would like to give you something to eat, but there is no food in the cam. I think maybe one should go hunting."

"Yes," I said. "Let us go hunting."

"Are you not coming?" asked Imnak.

"I am weak," I said. "I am tired. I think I will lie here for a little while."

"You have drunk very little, and you have not eaten in three days," said Imnak.

"Yes," I said.

"That is probably why you are so hungry," speculated Imnak.

"That is probably it," I agreed.

"There is a storm coming, Captain," said Thunock. "Sensible ships, in such a season, are safe in port."

"Even warriors long sometimes for the sight of their own flags, stop friendly walls, for the courtyards of their keeps, for the hearths of their halls. Thus admit the Codes."

I struck the sword from the hand of Marlenus of Ar.

"One must seek medicine helpers in certain ways," said Canka. "If you would do this thing, you must do so in the correct manner."

"I will abide your wishes," I said.

"There is no assurance the medicine helper will come," said Kahintokapa.

"I understand," I said.

"In seeking medicine helpers, sometimes men die," said Kahintokapa.

"I understand," I said.

"This thing is not easy," said Cuwignaka.

"I understand," I said.

The shield of Hci rose like a moon, inexorably, exposing him to the lance of the Yellow Knife. The moon raced through the clouds. There are many ways to understand what one sees.

"A storm is coming, Captain," said Thurnock.

A small package, oblone, heavy, brought from among the articles in Grunt's lodge, in the festival camp, lay near me on the stones.

I struggled to sit up, cross-legged, on the stones. I put my hands on my knees.

I felt rain.

Lightning burst in the sky and thunder rolled and crashed about me, like the waves between the banks of the horizons.

Torrents of cold rain desceneded in diagonal sheets, pounding at the rocks, tearing at the leaves of nearby trees.

"Who is that woman?" I asked.

"It is said she was once the daughter of Marlenus of Ar." I was told. "Then, for dishonoring him, she was disowned." Her figure, veiled, clad in the robes of concealment, had vanished, gone from the corridor.

"You are a weakling!" she cried, in the hall of Samos. "I hate you!"

"You would let me go," she asked, "rather than throw me to your feet and whip me, and master me?"

"Give her passage to Ar," I said.

"Here is the slave, Captain," said Thurnock. He threw her to the tiles before my curule chair. "On your knees before your master, Slave," he said.

She looked up at me.

I fondled the whip, thoughfully, idly, that lay across my knees.

"I love you," cried Vella, suddenly beside me, kneeling at the side of my curule chair, her hands on my arm. "I love you! I will please you more. I will please you a thousand times more!"

Lightning lit the sky. Thunder cracked. Rain tore its way downward.

"It is a severe storm," said Ivar Forkbeard, near me, on the deck of his serpent.

The lightning again illuminated the stormy sky and the driving torrents of rain, and then the lightning and rain were gone, and then there were great ringing blows, and the great hammer of Kron, of the Metal Workers, lifting and falling, smote on a mighty anvil, showering sparks in the night, which fell into the calm sea and glowed there like diamonds, and I rolled to my back and looked upwards to see that the diamonds were in the sky, and were stars.

It beings in the sweat lodge. This is a small lodge, rather oval and rounded. A man may not stand upright within it. One constructs a framework of branches. This framework is then covered with hides. In the center there is a hole, in which the hot stones, passed in from the outside on a forked stick, are placed. Cups of water are poured on the stones. When the stones cool they are removed from the lodge and reheated. There are many rituals and significances connected with the sweat lodge, having to do with such things as the stones, the fire, the orientation of the lodge, the path between the lodge and the fire, the amounts and ways in which the water is poured, and the number of times the lodge is opened. I shall not enter inot these matters in depth. Suffice it to say that the ceremony of the sweat lodge is detailed, complex, sophisticated and highly symbolic ritual. The purification of the bather is its pricipal objective, the readying of the bather for the awesome task of seeking the dream or vision. My helpers, tending the fire and aiding with the stones, were Canka and Cuwignaka.

I did not follow the order of the ritual in all respects nor keep the cerimony in the exactutude of all its details. I would not do this because of reservations on my part, having pimarily to do with skepticism concerning the existance of a medicine world, and because I was not Kaiila. Not being Kaiila I would have felt it improper or irrevenrent, if not dishonest, profane, sacrilegious or blasphemous, to do so. My feelings and decisions in these matters are understood and respected by Canka as well as Cuwignaka. Nonetheless, as one sits alone in the darkened interior of the sweat lodge, with one's head down between one's knees, to keep from fainting and to help stand the heat, one has a great deal of time to think. I do not think that it is a bad idea for a man to be alone sometimes, and to have some time to think. This is a good way, for example, to get to know oneself. Many men, it seems, have never made their own acquaintance. It would not hurt most of us, I suspect, once in a while, to go to a sweat lodge.

After one emerges from the sweat lodge one goes to a stream and washes in the cold water. One cleans, with a knife or sharpened stick, even under one's fingernails. A small fire, of sweet-brush and needles, from needle trees, is then built. One rubs the smoke from this fire into one's body. These things hide the smell of men. It is thought that most medicine helpers do not like the smell of men and if they smell this smell they will be loath to approach. Everything possible is done, of course, to encourage the approach or apperance of the medicine helper.

One goes to the vision place.

It is a high place, and rocky. There are some trees about. One can look down and see the grass below, moving in the wind.

There one fasts. There one waits.

One may drink a little water. It takes a long time to starve to death, weeks. It does not take long, however, to die of thirst. How long it takes to die of thirst varies with many things, with the man, with his bodily activity, with the sunlight or shade, with the winds and the temperatures. But it does not take long. It is a matter of days, usually three or four. It is good, thus, to drink some water.

One waits. One does not know if the medicine helper will come or not.

It is lonely in the vision place.

I lay on my back, looking up at the stars.

They are very beautiful in the Barrens.

The rocks on which I lay were cold and wet. It had rained earlier in the evening.

It is very quiet in the vision place.

I was very hungry, and thirsty, and cold.

Sometimes, I knew, the medicine helper does not come. Sometimes men wait in vain. Sometimes they must go back to camp without a vision. Sometimes they try again, another time. Sometimes they stay longer at the vision place. Sometimes they die there.

Perhaps the medicine helper will not come, I said to myself. Then I laughed, but with little mirth, for I was Tarl Cabot. I was not of the Kaiila. How absurd that I lay here, on these stones, daubed with white clay, in a vision place, alone with the trees and stars. I was not of the Kaiila.

I was terribly weak.

I wondered if the smoke of sweet-brush and needles, if the rubbing with white clay, might not have its effect not so much in encouraging the approach of medicine helpers but in lessening the probability of the approach of sleen. Similarly, the lack of activity on the part of the vision seeker may not be stimulatory to the sleen's attack response, Akihoka tells a story about his own vision seeking. A sleen came and lay down quite near to him, and watched him, until morning, and then rose up and went away. Some vision seekers, on the other hand, are torn to pieces by sleen. Akihoka's medicine helper is the urt. He recieved his vision on the second night.

I fell asleep.

It was gray and cold, a bit after dawn, when I awakened. It was still muchly dark.

How is it that these people can have visions, I asked myself.

Perhaps, in time, the tortured body has had enough. Perhaps it then petitions the brain for a relieving vision.

It helps, of course, to believe in such visions, and to take them as indications of the medicine world.

Unnatrual states of consciousness occur, surely, in the vision place. It is somthing about the hunger and thirst, the loneliness, I suppose. It is difficult, sometimes to distinguish between dreams and visions, and realities.

One does not really need a vision. A dream will do.

But some men are not good at having visions, and some men cannot remember what they did in the dream country, only that they were there.

But, in such cases, the red savages are merciful. They know that not all men are alike. It is enough to try to dream, to seek the vision, or who cannot obtain a suitable dream, may purchase one from another, who is more furtunate, one who will share his vision or dream with him, or sell him one he does not need. Similaraly, one may make a gift of a dream or vision to someone who needs it, or would like to have it. Such gifts, to the red savages, are very precious.

No more can be expected of a man than that he go to the vision place. That is his part. What more can he do?

The medicine helper is not coming, I said to myself. The medicine helper will not come.

I have come to the vision place. I have done my part. I am finished with it.

I then heard a noise.

I feared it might be a sleen.

I struggled to sit up, cross-legged. I could not stand. I heard small stones slipping and falling backward, down the slope. I put my hand on the hilt of my knife. It was the only weapon I had in the vision place. But my fingers could scarcely close on the beaded hilt. I could not grasp it tightly. I was too weak.

I saw the head first, then the body of the creature. It crouched down, a few feet from me.

It was very large, larger than a sleen. I put my hands on my knees.

It lifted the object, wrapped in hide, which I had placed before me. Then, with its teeth, it tore off the leather.

In the half darkness, it was not easy to see its lineaments or features.

It approached me, and took me in its arms. It pressed its great jaws against my face and, from its storage stomach, brought up water into its oral cavity, from which, holding it there, and rationing it out, bit by bit, it gave me of drink. It gave me then, similarly, a soft curd of meat, brought up, too, from the storage stomach. I fought to swallow it, and did.

"Are you the medicine helper of Kahintokapa?" I asked, in Kaiila. "Are you the medicine helper of One-Who-Walks-Before?" I asked, in Gorean.

"I am Zarendargar," came from the translator, in Gorean, "war general of the Kurii."