Explorers Of Gor

33
What We Saw From The Height Of The Falls; Tende Dances; We Enter Again Upon The River; I Anticipate The Surrender Of The Blond-Haired Barbarian

We thrust the canoe upward, Kisu and I at the stern, Ayari and the girls hauling on ropes at the forequarter. It tipped up and then settled downward, and we thrust and hauled it, laden, to the level.

The sound of the falls, to our left, plunging some four hundred feet to the waters below, was deafening.

It is difficult to convey the splendor of the Ua's scenery to those who have not seen it. There is the mightiness of the river, like a great road, twisting and turning, occasionally broken with green islands, sometimes sluggish, sometimes shattered by rapids and cataracts, sometimes interrupted by flooding cascades of water, sometimes a few feet in height and sometimes towering upwards hundreds of feet, and then there is the jungle, its immensity and wildlife, and the vast sky above it.

"I am pleased," said Kisu, happily, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"Why?" I asked.

"Come here," he said.

"Be careful!" I said to him. He was wading out into the water.

"Come here!" he called.

I waded after him, some forty or fifty feet out into the current. It was only to our knees there.

"Look!" he said, pointing.

From the height of the falls we could see for pasangs behind us downriver. It was not only a spectacular but also a marvelous coign of vantage.

"I knew it would be so!" he cried, slapping his thigh in pleasure.

I looked, the hair on the back of my neck rising.

"Tende! Tende!" called Kisu. "Come here, now!"

The girl, moving carefully, waded to where we stood. Kisu seized her by the back of the neck and faced her downriver. "See, my pretty slave?" he asked.

"Yes, my master," she said, frightened.

"It is he," said Kisu. "He is coming for you!"

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Hurry now to the shore," he said. "Build a fire, prepare food, Slave."

"Yes, Master," she said, commanded, hurrying from us to address herself to her tasks.

I looked into the distance, downriver, half shutting my eyes against the glare from the water.

Downriver, several pasangs away, small but unmistakable, moving in our direction, was a fleet of canoes and river vessels. There must have been in the neighborhood of a hundred, oared river galleys, the balance of the fleet which had been prepared for Shaba's originally projected penetration of the Ua, and perhaps again as many canoes. If there were crews of fifty on the galleys and from five to ten men in a canoe, the force behind us must have ranged somewhere between five and six thousand men.

"It is Bila Huruma!" shouted Kisu in triumph.

"So this is why you accompanied me on the Ua?" I asked.

"I would have come with you anyway, to help you, for you are my friend," said Kisu. "But our ways, happily, led us the same direction. Is that not a splendid coincidence?"

"Yes, splendid," I smiled.

"You see now what was my plan?" he asked.

"Your mysterious plan?" I grinned.

"Yes," he said, happily.

"I thought this might be it," I said. "But I think you may have miscalculated."

"I could not in battle beat Bila Huruma," said Kisu. "His askaris were superior to my villagers. But now, as I have stolen Tende, his projected companion, I have lured him into the jungle. I need now only lead him on and on, until he is slain in the jungle, or until, bereft of men and supplies, I need only turn back and meet him, as man to man, as warrior to warrior."

I looked at him.

"Thus," said Kisu, "in destroying Bila Huruma, I will destroy the empire."

"It is an intelligent and bold plan," I said, "but I think you may have miscalculated."

"How is that?" asked Kisu.

"Do you truly think that Bila Huruma," I asked, "who owns or is companion to perhaps hundreds of women would pursue you into the jungle at great risk to himself and his empire to get back one girl, a girl whom he doubtless realizes has by now been reduced to slavery, and has thus been rendered politically worthless, and a girl who was never more to him to begin with than a convenience in a minor political situation on the Ngao coast?"

"Yes," said Kisu… "It will be a matter of principle for him."

"It might be a matter of principle for you," I said, "but I doubt that it would be a matter of principle for Bila Huruma. There are principles and there are principles. For a man such as Bila Huruma I conjecture that the principle of preserving his empire would take precedence over matters of minor personal concern."

"But Bila Huruma is on the river," said Kisu.

"Probably," I said.

"Thus," said Kisu, "you are wrong."

"Perhaps," I said.

"Do you think he follows you?" asked Kisu.

"No," I said, "I am unimportant to him."

"Thus," said Kisu, "it is I whom he follows."

"Perhaps," I said. "Perhaps you are right."

Kisu then turned and, happily, waded back to the shore.

"Remove your garment," said Kisu to Tende.

"Yes, Master," she said. "Follow me," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You others may come, too," he said.

Wading, we followed Kisu and Tende out toward the center of the river. There was there, overlooking the falls, a large, flat rock. We climbed onto the rock. From its surface we could see downriver, and, pasangs back, the flotilla of canoes and galleys of the Ubar, Bila Huruma.

"What are you going to do with me, Master?" asked Tende.

"I am going to dance you naked," he said. He thrust her forward on the rock, facing downriver.

Tende stood there, trembling, dressed only in her slave beads.

"Bila Huruma!" called Kisu. "I am Kisu!" He pointed at the girl. "This is the woman, Tende, who was to have been your companion! I took her from you! I made her my slave!"

Bila Huruma, of course, if he were with the flotilla, as we conjectured, could not have heard Kisu. The distance was too great. Too, had he been within fifty yards he probably could not have heard him, because of the roar of the falls. Moreover, so far away was the flotilla, I had little doubt but what we could not be seen from its position. We could see the flotilla largely because of the size of its galleys and the number of its vessels, both canoes and galleys. The canoes were almost invisible from where we stood. Had there been but a single canoe it would have been extremely difficult to detect. Similarly, from the. position of the flotilla we would be, of course, specks upon a larger speck, for most practical purposes invisible. I had never seen glasses of the builders in the palace of Bila Huruma. Shaba, however, I was sure, from Anango, would possess such an instrument. It would make him difficult to approach.

"This is the woman, Tende," called Kisu, facing his distant enemy, shouting against the roar of the falls, pointing to Tende. "She was to have been your companion! I took her away from you! I made her mine! I now exhibit her naked before you as my slave!"

"He cannot see you or hear you!" shouted Ayari.

"That does not matter," laughed Kisu. He gave Tende a happy slap below the smell of the back.

"Oh!" she cried.

"Dance, Tende!" said he. He began to sing and clap, looking downriver.

"That is a slave song!" she cried.

He stopped clapping and singing, and regarded her.

"There are white slaves present, Master!" she cried.

He looked upon her sternly.

"I dance, my master," she cried, frightened. She flexed her legs, freeing her body to move, and extended her arms gracefully to the right, the right arm further advanced than the left.

"Is she free?" asked Ayari.

"No," said Kisu.

"Have her put her arms over her head, wrists back to back," said Ayari.

"Do so," said Kisu.

Tende complied. "How lovely that is," said Kisu.

"I have seen it done in Schendi," said Ayari. 'it is one of the ways in which a slave may begin a dance."

I smiled to myself. That was true. The lovely posture which Tende had just assumed was undeniably one of the initial postures of certain slave dances. It is widely known on Gor, of course, not just in Schendi. It is, for example, quite familiar in Port Kar and, far to the southeast of that port, and somewhere far to the north and east of our present position, in the Tahari. Slave dances, of course, may begin in dozens of ways, sometimes even with the girl roped or chained at a man's feet. I looked at Tende. To be sure, only a slave dance could begin from such a posture. No free woman, for example, would dare to place herself in such a position before Gorean free men, unless perhaps, weary of her misery and frustration, she was begging them, almost explicitly, to put her in a collar. There are many stories of Gorean free women, sometimes of high caste, who, as a lark or in a spirit of bold play, dared to dance in a paga tavern. Often, perhaps to their horror, they found themselves that very night hooded and gagged, locked in close chains, lying on their back, their legs drawn up, fastened in a wagon, chained by the neck and ankles, their small bodies bruised on its rough boards as they, helpless beneath a rough tarn blanket, are carried through the gates of their city.

"Are you ready, Slave?" asked Kisu.

"Yes, Master," said Tende.

I am fond of slave dances. It is hard for a woman to be more beautiful than when she dances her beauty as a slave before masters. But then a woman can be Incredibly beautiful in almost all attitudes and postures. It is strange that the men of Earth are so seldom aware of the subtler beauties of women, but then they have not seen them in their full femininity, as slaves. A woman can be very beautiful simply greeting her master, head down, at the door to his chambers. She can be very beautiful in doing so small a thing as pouring his wine, eyes downcast, gracefully, as his slave. Perhaps she is a bit more beautiful, however, when she kneels helplessly before you, or lies piteously at your feet supplicating you to satisfy her slave needs. Perhaps she is most beautiful when she, collared in your arms, cries out in orgasm, acknowledging you as her master.

"Dance, Slave," said Kisu.

"Yes, Master," said Tende.

Tende then, obedient to her master's command, as Kisu clapped his hands and sang, danced on a flat rock in the Ua river, danced before Bila Huruma, so far away, her master's enemy, from whom she had been stolen.

She danced well.

I observed the eyes of the blond-haired barbarian who, with Alice, knelt on the rock. The eyes of the blond-haired barbarian, gazing on the exhibited slave, shone with excitement. How beautiful Tende was. And how stimulating it was to the blond-haired barbarian to realize that a man could force a woman to do this sort of thing.

Kisu continued to clap his hands. He continued to sing, the strains of a melodic slave song.

Dancers bring high prices on Gor. Some slavers specialize in dancers, renting them, and buying and selling them. Two such houses in Ar are those of Kelsius and Aurelius. Some say that the finest dancers on Gor are found in Ar; others say that they are found in Port Kar, and others that they are in the Tahari, or in Tuna. These controversies, I think, are fruitless. I have been in many cities and in each I have found marvelous dancers. The matter is further complicated by the buying and selling of girls and their shipment, as merchandise, among cities. A dancer has usually had many masters; her fair throat has been graced by many collars. In some cities if a dancer is not thought to have been sufficiently pleasing she is thrown to the patrons of the tavern to be torn to pieces or beaten. If she is thought to have been sufficiently pleasing she may be auctioned, for the period of an Ahn, to the highest bidder.

"Enough!" called Kisu, happily. Tende stopped dancing. He then, to her surprise, with a leather strap, as she stood on the rock overlooking the falls, tied her hands behind her back. He then took her by the hair, bent her over, and waded her back to the shore. We followed him, I stopping to look once more downriver, at the tiny objects so far away, yet objects I knew to be filled with men.

Kisu and I thrust the canoe into the shallow water. As I held it he placed Tende on her knees in the canoe. He then crossed and tied her ankles. He then took two lengths of rope. He tied them both on her neck and then took the free end of one and tied it to a thwart forward of her position and the free end of the other and tied it to the thwart aft of her position, thus fastening her between these two thwarts.

"Master?" she asked.

"That should hold you," he said.

That was an understatement. Kisu tied well.

"Why are you placing me under such great security, Master?" she asked.

"Bila Huruma is now behind us," he said. "You will not, now, go running back to him."

She put back her head and laughed. "Oh, Master!" she protested.

"What is wrong?" he asked.

"I do not wish to run away from you," she said.

"Oh?" he asked.

She looked at him. "Do you not know, by now, my Master," she asked, "that Tende is your conquered slave?"

"No chances will be taken with you, Slave," he said.

"As my master wishes," she said, putting her head down.

I saw then, as I think that Kisu did not, that the proud Tende, who had been so haughty and cold, was now naught but a surrendered love slave. I smiled to myself. She was now, indeed, politically worthless.

"What of the remains of the fire?" asked Ayari. "Should we not dispose of such evidence of this brief encampment?"

"No," said Kisu. "Leave it."

"But it will mark our trail," said Ayari.

"Of course," said Kisu. "It is my intention that it do so."

We then moved the canoe, wading beside it, with the exception of Tende, fastened within it, out into the river.

Kisu,waist deep in the water, turned to lock back, over the falls. He lifted his fist and shook it. "Follow me, Bila Huruma!" he cried. "Follow me, Bila Huruma, if you dare!" His voice was almost indistinguishable against the roar of the waters. He then lowered his fist and slipped into the canoe, taking his place at the stern. Ayari and Alice entered the canoe. I then slipped into the canoe and, taking the blond-haired barbarian under the arms, drew her into the canoe. I did not immediately release her. She turned her head back, over her left shoulder. "Did you see it," she asked, "on the rock, he danced her naked!" "Of course," I said. "She is only a slave." "Yes, Master," said the blond-haired barbarian. "Like yourself," I said. "Yes, Master," she said. I then thrust her ahead of me, to her place. "Take your plane, Slave Girl," I said. "Yes, Master," she said. We then lifted our paddles and lent our strengths to the task at hand.

Once she looked back at me. But my stern gaze warned her to direct her attention again to her work and the river.

I smiled to myself. I saw that the slave girl in her was now well ready to be released. This very night, I thought, she would beg explicitly for her master's touch.