Explorers Of Gor

25
We Reach The Sill; I Am Not Pleased With A Slave

"Look," said Ayari, in the bow of the long canoe, pointing forward.

"At last," said Kisu, in the stern, resting his paddle.

The two white slaves, kneeling one behind the other, before me, lifted their paddles from the water, laying them across the sides of our narrow vessel.

Behind me, directly, before Kisu, Tende withdrew her paddle, too, from the water. Kisu kept her in the canoe immediately before him. He wanted her within his reach. She knew herself constantly under his scrutiny. She dared not shirk, no more than the other slaves, in the heavy work set her. More than once Kisu had struck her across the shoulders with his broad-bladed, ornately carved paddle when she, weary, arms aching, had faltered in the rhythm of the stroke.

We had come to the sill, that place where the marsh gives way to the waters of Ngao.

Kisu and I slipped into the water and, wading, slipping in the mud, thrust and hauled the canoe forward.

Then the marsh reeds parted and I saw, before us, sparkling in the sun, broad and shining, the waters of Lake Ngao.

"How beautiful it is," breathed the blond-haired barbarian, in English.

It had taken us fifteen days to reach the sill.

We had lived by spear fishing, and drinking the fresh water of the marsh.

The sun shone on the wide, placid waters.

Shaba, I recalled, had been the first of civilized men, or outlanders, to have seen this sight.

"It is beautiful," I thought to myself. Unfortunate, I thought, that the first civilized person to have seen this sight had been the treacherous Shaba.

"Ukungu," said Kisu, "lies to the northeast, on the coast." Ukungu was a country of coast villages, speaking the same or similar dialects. It was now claimed as a part of the expanding empire of Bila Huruma.

"You are no longer welcome there," I said to Kisu.

"True," said he.

"Is it your intention to return," I asked, "in an attempt to foment rebellion?"

"That is not a portion of my current plan," he said.

"What is your current plan?" I asked;

"I shall speak to you of it later," he said.

"I am seeking one called Shaba," I said, "one with whom I have business to conclude. My task takes me to the Ua."

"I, too," smiled Kisu, "am on my way to the Ua River."

"That is a part of your plan?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "it is a part of my plan."

"I myself," I said, "may perhaps find it necessary to enter upon the Ua River itself."

"I, too, may find that necessary," he said.

"The country of the Ua, I suspect," I said, "is a perilous country."

"I am counting on that," said Kisu.

"Is that, too," tasked, "in accord with the plan you guard so secretively?"

"It is," grinned Kisu.

"Are you familiar with the Ua?" I asked.

"No," said Kisu. "I have never seen it."

I steadied the canoe. It floated free now, fully, at the outer edge of the Ngao waters.

"Let us be on our way," I said.

Kisu, the water now again to his thighs, reached into the canoe. He took a narrow, short length of leather and bound Tende's wrists, tightly, behind her body. He then, similarly, crossing them and lashing them together, secured the girl's ankles.

"Why does my Master bind me?" she asked, kneeling helplessly in the canoe.

"I do not expect to see canoes of Ukungu," said Kisu, "but if we do, you will, thus bound, perhaps not be tempted to leap into the water and swim to safety."

"Yes, Master," she said, putting her head down.

"These other slaves, too," I said, "might be tempted to seek an easier slavery within the collar of the empire."

"Let us then discourage them, too, from foolish thoughts of escape," said Kisu.

I then bound the other two girls as Kisu had bound Tende. We then, with two long lengths of leather, fastened them, all three, together, one strap putting them in throat coffle, the other in left-ankle coffle.

"Do not tie me with white slaves, Master," begged Tende, but Kisu laughed at her, and it was done to her.

Kisu and I re-entered the canoe and took up our paddles. We then set forth, paddling calmly, on the broad, shining waters of Ngao.

We paid no attention to Tende, who was weeping with the degradation which had been inflicted upon her.

The proud daughter of Aibu, high chief of the Ukungu district, was now well learning that she was only a slave.

"You there," I said, "crawl to my arms."

I lay in the canoe, on one elbow, under the moons of Gor, the canoe like a tiny bit of wood in the vastness of the shimmering lake.

"Yes, Master," she said.

The blond-haired barbarian, her body pale in the light of the moons, carefully, moved toward me. I heard the shells about her neck click softly together.

"Nestle," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said. She nestled obediently in the crook of my left arm.

We had kept the girls in high-security ties only for the first two days upon Ngao. Then we had been far out on the lake, much farther away from the shores than any canoe would be likely to travel. After the first two days we had, for another two days, kept them merely in left-ankle and throat coffle. On the fifth day they were merely in throat coffle. On the sixth day we had relieved them of even that bond.

"Kiss me," I said.

She did so. And then she lay with her head on my left shoulder.

"You are frightened," I said. She had lost much ground since Schendi. "Do you not remember the beautiful girl you saw in the mirror, in Schendi?" I asked.

"She was a slave," whispered the girl.

"Of course," I said.

"I fear her," she said.

"She is the slave beauty within you," I said. "Indeed, she is the true you, glimpsed but for an instant, your true self, seen but for a moment, begging to be freed."

"I dare not free her," she said. "She is too beautiful, and sensuous."

"You do not dare to be what you are?" I asked.

"No," she said. "If that is what I am, I dare not be it."

"Why?" I asked.

"It is too beautiful, and sensuous, and helpless and yielding."

"And yet, in your heart," I said, "you ache to be it."

"No," she said, "no."

I said nothing.

"I am in conflict," she said, miserably.

"Resolve the conflict," I told her. "Free the slave within you, she who is suppressed, your true self."

"No, no," she said, pressing her cheek against my shoulder. I felt tears.

"You will never achieve happiness," I told her, "until you have acknowledged her."

"No," she whispered.

"She must be freed," I said, "that lovely girl, the slaves yearning for a collar within you, your truest and deepest self."

"I dare not free her," she said.

"Is honesty so terrible?" I asked.

"A woman must have dignity," she said.

"Are self-deceit, and lies and hypocrisy, so noble?" I inquired.

"I dare not free the slave," she said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I fear that I may be she," she whispered.

"You are she," I said.

"No, no," she whispered.

"Yes," I said.

"I am not a Gorean girl," she said.

"The women of Earth, collared and broken to the whip," I said, "make superb slaves."

"Oh," she said, as I touched her.

"You are dry and tight," I told her.

"Forgive me, Master," she said, bitterly.

"You are not now on Earth," I told her. "Here no one will chide you for being lovely and sensuous. Here you need not feel guilty for being loving and feminine."

"I am not a Gorean slut," she said.

"Do you think that I am patient?" I asked.

"If Master wishes to use his girl, please do so," she said, "and then let me crawl back to my place."

I took her head between my hands.

"Please, you're hurting me," she said.

"Do you think that I am patient?" I asked.

"I am ready to obey, Master," she said, tensely, frightened.

"Do you think that I am patient?" I asked holding her.

"I do not know, Master," she whispered, strained.

"There is a time to be patient, and a time not to be patient," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Beware," I said, "of the time when I decide not to be patient."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I released her.

She lay on her side in the canoe, her body tense, beside me. "Do you want me now, Master?" she asked, frightened.

"No," I told her. "Return to your place."

"Yes, Master," she said. She crawled back to her place.

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

I beard her fingernails dig at the wood of the canoe. She had been a rejected slave.