Explorers Of Gor

19
A Basket Of Osts; A Chain Of Gold; The Eyes Of The Ubar

"Why is there no guard?" I asked.

"He has been disposed of," said Msaliti. "Have no fear." He gestured to the portal. "Enter," he said.

"Surely Shaba will have others of his caste with him, geographers of the scribes," I said.

"Enter," said Msaliti.

"Lend me your lamp," I said. He carried a small lamp, with a shallow bowl, which burned tharlarion oil.

"Askaris might see the flame through the walls of the room," he said. "There are many about. Hurry."

I slipped into the room. It was totally dark within. I stood with my back to the grass wall, to the left of the door, as I had entered.

The sleeping platform, I was told, was near the center of the room. Shaba, I suspected, would have the ring about his neck. Very slowly, inch by inch, every sense alert, I began to move toward the center of the room. Msaliti had brought me himself to the room. He had not been accompanied by askaris. I found this strange.

"As few as possible must know of our deed," he had said.

"Yes," I had said.

But surely he would not trust me to return the ring to him. I had expected that he would be accompanied by askaris, whom he would set upon me, to slay me, once I had either killed Shaba or obtained the ring. But I saw none. It had been my hope, of course, and a risk which Msaliti, for his part, would have had to accept, that I might, with the ring, elude his askaris, even if the room were surrounded. The odds, had I the ring, would, I think, have been in my favor. They were odds, of course, which Msaliti had been given no chance but to accept. I could always leave the room, of course, by kicking and tearing through the grass wall at any point of my choosing.

Looking behind me I saw, outside the room, the lamp of Msaliti lift and lower twice.

I smiled to myself. That, I took it, was his sign to his askaris that I was within the room, his sign to them that they were then to surround it.

But then I was troubled. I saw no askaris appearing from the darkness outside.

Suddenly I heard a rush of feet. Instantly I crouched, dagger drawn, blade up, my left hand, too, ready, in the on-guard position for knife combat. But the feet had not approached me. I was startled. I thought I heard climbing. Then, suddenly, from in front of me, in the darkness, I heard a hideous cry of pain. Then I heard a wild, piteous shriek which terminated in spasmodic coughing and gasping. I heard fingernails scratching at a wooden surface and the turning and thrashing of a body.

I turned to leave the room, but, at the door, I was met with the leveled stabbing spears of several askaris. I saw no sign of Msaliti. I lifted my hands, dropping the knife. Men entered with lamps.

I saw then that I was not in the room of Shaba.

In the center of the room, on a high platform, some nine feet high, supported by eight poles, sitting, cross-legged, naked, save for the panther teeth about his neck, was not Shaba, but the ubar, Bila Huruma.

Men seized my arms then, pinioning them behind me. I felt my wrists being tied.

The room was now well lit from the several lamps. Other lamps, too, at a sign from the ubar, were lit.

I looked to the round, shallow, circular pit in the center of the room. It was about a foot deep. The poles supporting the sleeping platform were set within it. In the pit, his hands still clutching, fingernails bloody, at one of the round poles supporting the platform, lay an askari. His body was twisted horribly, and contorted. The flesh had turned a blackish orange and, in places, had broken open, the skin' peeling back like burned paper. A knife, fallen, lay near him in the pit About his body, small, nervous, sinuous, crawled tiny snakes, osts. Each of these, startlingly, had tied to it a thin string. There were eight such diminutive reptiles. The strings, fastened behind their heads, led up to a pole at the head of the sleeping platform, where they were tied. A woven basket hung, too, near the foot of the sleeping platform. The ost is usually an orange snake, but these were Ushindi osts, which are red with black stripes. Anatomically, and with respect to toxin, I am told they are almost identical to the common ost.

"What is going on, my Ubar?" cried Msaliti, entering. He was in disarray as though he might have been aroused by the screaming. He did not have the lamp with him. In his hurry, of course, he would not have had time to light a lamp. I admired him. He was a shrewd fellow.

Suddenly Msaliti stopped, startled. He seemed astonished, but only for an instant. "My Ubar!" he cried. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," said Bila Huruma.

Upon entering Msaliti had called out to the Ubar, but when he actually saw him he had reacted briefly, stunned. I realized he had called out to make it clear to all that he had expected the Ubar to be alive when he entered, but, when he saw that the Ubar, truly, was alive, he had been for the moment startled. He had recovered himself almost instantaneously. But surely he would not have expected me to have killed the Ubar. I sought the ring. If I had not found it on Shaba's person 1 surely would not have killed him, perhaps losing it forever.

Msaliti looked into the shallow pit below the high poles of the sleeping platform of Bila Huruma. He looked sick.

"What happened?" he asked. He looked closely at the contorted figure, its discolored hands still clutching at the pole of the sleeping platform. "It is Jambia," he said. "Your guard."

"He tried to kill me," said Bila Huruma. "He was doubtless highly paid. He did not know of the osts. That man is doubtless his accomplice."

I then understood the brilliance of Msaliti. But Msaliti had underestimated the genius of his Ubar.

I had been told that the guard had been disposed of. Actually he had been within, in the hire of Msaliti, awaiting his signal with the lamp. I recalled then that Msaliti, in the morning, had told me that Bila Huruma was he who stood in the way of obtaining the ring, and that if he were gone it would be easy to arrest Shaba and secure the ring. His plan then had been simple. Bila Huruma was to be slain by Jambia, who would then escape, presumably by cutting through the grass wall. It would be I who would be found in the Ubar's chamber. Perhaps Jambia himself was to make the discovery. The rent in the grass wall would be taken, of course, the grass pressed inward, to have been my entrance into the Ubar's chamber, rather than the exit of Jambia. If the plan had been successful Bila Huruma would have been dead and Shaba, without his protector, would be much at the mercy of Msaliti who, as high wazir, would immediately assume, at least temporarily, the reins of government. My false identity, that which Msaliti had constructed for me, as an envoy of Teletus would not then, in the circumstances, any longer protect me. Any diplomatic immunity, so to speak, which I might have possessed would, in the circumstances, have been stripped away from me. I might then be dealt with as Msallti pleased. His plan, if successful, then, would permit him not only to secure the ring but rid himself of me as well, one who shared with him the secret knowledge of the ring and one who might desire to be himself the agent by which the ring was to be transmitted to Belisarius in Cos, for subsequent return to the Kurii. I had been troublesome to Msaliti. I might prove troublesome to him in the future. He had thus found a useful place for me in his plans. Too, of course, if it were thought I were the assassin, Investigative scrutiny would then be directed away from the court rather than within it.

But Msaliti's plan had not succeeded.

"Kill him," said Msaliti, pointing to me.

Two askaris drew back the short stabbing spears to drive them into my chest.

"No," said Bila Huruma.

They lowered the stabbing spears.

"Do you speak the Ushindi speech?" asked Bila Huruma of me.

"Only a little," I said. Ayari, with whom I had shared the rogues' chain in the canal, had been generous in his help. We both knew Gorean and so I had made rapid progress with the lexicon. The grammar, of course, was much more difficult. I spoke the inland speech very poorly, but, as would be expected, thanks to Ayari, I could follow a reasonable amount of what was going on.

"Who hired you?" asked Bila Huruma.

"No one hired me," I said. "I did not know this was your chamber."

One by one, slowly, almost tenderly, on their strings, Bila Huruma lifted the tiny osts from the floor of the pit and placed them, one by one, in the basket near the foot of the sleeping platform.

"Are you of that caste called assassins?" he asked.

"No," I said.

He held the last of the osts on its string, suspended, about five feet from the floor of the pit.

"Bring him near," he said.

I was dragged to the edge of the pit. Bila Huruma extended his arm. I saw the small ost, red with its black stripes, on its string, near my face. Its tiny forked tongue slipped rapidly back and forth between the tiny jaws.

"Do you like my pet?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I do not."

The snake twisted on the string.

"Who hired you?" he asked.

"No one hired me," I said. "I did not know this was your chamber."

"You do not know, probably, who it was who truly hired you," he said. "Doubtless they would not do so, openly."

"He is white," said a man nearby. "Only those in Schendi might hire such a killer. They are familiar with the sleen of the north."

"Perhaps," said Bila Huruma.

I now saw the snake lifted until it was level with my eyes. "Is Jambia, who was my guard, known to you?" asked Bila Huruma.

"No," I said.

"Why did you wish to kill me?" asked Bila Huruma.

"I had no wish to kill you," I said.

"Why were you here?" he asked.

"I came to find something of value," I said.

"Ah," said Bila Huruma. Then he spoke rapidly to an askari. I could not follow what he said then.

Bila Huruma took the tiny snake and then, carefully, placed it in the hanging basket. He then placed the lid on the basket. I breathed more easily.

Suddenly a necklace of gold, heavy, with solid links, was looped about my neck. It had been taken from a coffer to one side.

"You were a guest in my house," he said. "If you wished something of value you should have asked for it. I would then have given it to you."

"My thanks, Ubar," I said.

'Then, if I thought you should not have asked for it," he said, "I would have had you killed."

"I see," I said.

"But I give you this freely," he said. "It is yours. If you are an assassin, take it in lieu of the pay which you would not otherwise receive. If you are, as I suspect, a simple thief, take it as a token of my admiration of your boldness, for it must have taken courage to enter the chamber of a Ubar."

"I did not even know this was your chamber," I said.

"Keep it then as a memento of our meeting," he said.

"My thanks, Ubar," I said.

"Wear it in the canal," he said. "Take him away."

Two askaris turned me about and thrust me toward the door. At the door I stopped, startling the askaris. I turned about, dragging them with me, to again face Bila Huruma.

Our eyes met.

I then, truly, for the first time looked into the eyes of Bila Huruma.

He sat upon the high platform, above the others, solitary and isolated, the necklace of panther teeth about his neck, the lamps below him.

I sensed then, for a moment, what it must be to be a Ubar. It was then, in that instant, that I first truly saw him, as he was, and as he must be. I looked the. on loneliness and decision, and power. The Ubar must contain within himself dark strengths. He must be capable of doing, as many men are not, what is necessary.

Only one can sit upon the throne, as it is said. And, as it is said, he who sits upon the throne is the most alone of men.

It is he who must be a stranger to all men, and to whom all men must be strangers.

The throne indeed is a lonely country.

Many men desire to live there but few, I think, could bear its burdens.

Let us continue to think of our Ubars as men much like ourselves, only perhaps a bit wiser, or stronger, or more fortunate. That way we may continue to be comfortable with them, and, to some extent, feel ourselves their superior. But let us not look into their eyes too closely, for we might see there that which sets them apart from us.

It is not always desirable to look deeply into the eyes of a Ubar.

The askaris again turned me about. I saw, briefly, the face of Msaliti.

Then I was conducted from the chamber of Bila Huruma, his gift, a necklace of gold, about my neck. I remembered him behind me, sitting on the high platform, a sleeping platform from which hung a basket of osts.