Kur of Gor

Chapter, the Sixty-Seventh: CABOT'S JOURNEY; AN ACQUAINTANCE IS RENEWED

Cabot did not care to accompany Lord Grendel to the palace, to watch him die, as Kur, before Lord Arcesilaus.

It was a demand of Lord Agamemnon that all power weapons of insurrectionists be defused, gathered together, and destroyed. Not one power weapon was to be left in the camp. This, too, was a portion of the price for Lord Arcesilaus’ life.

It was with a bitter heart that he watched his Kur brethren defuse and stack their weapons, prior to their destruction.

It was with a bitter heart that he watched his Kur brethren, one by one, unarmed, depart from the ramparts to file to the palace.

This time there would be no concealed weapons.

"Agamemnon has won,” had said Lord Grendel, resignedly. “I knew that he would."

"How is that?” had asked Cabot.

"He is the Eleventh face of the Nameless One, Theocrat of the World,” said Lord Grendel.

"But you fought against him,” said Cabot, “and many others, too."

"It was to have been done,” said Lord Grendel.

Cabot, though a warrior, had wept, parting from his friend.

Humans, whose ways were surely not the ways of Kur, left the camp, to seek what shelters, what concealments, they might.

Mostly they scattered, to live as they could, until the hunters, abetted by sleen, might find them.

To be sure, as many had now mastered the bow, they would prove dangerous game.

This risk, of course, would be welcomed by many Kur hunters. Such things increase the sport. They add considerable zest to the chase.

The hunters, of course, wary of the birds of death, it should be noted, would not go into the forests subjecting themselves to the self-imposed limitations to which they had been accustomed in the sport world. One would not expect that. They would therefore carry power weapons. With these they might burn out a swath of forest, yards wide, with a single charge. Too, they would wear body armor, capable of turning an arrow at point-blank range.

In such ways, one trusts, might their risks be reduced.

In this respect, one effects nothing critical.

Who would care to hunt otherwise masters of the great bow?

The heads of males might be tied to their harnesses as trophies, to be later properly mounted. Human females had their uses, even to Kurii, and could be brought back, stripped and bound, and dragged on a handful of leashes, almost as though they might be slaves. The prettier ones might be put again in high collars, to serve as pets, groomers, filers of claws, cleaners of caves, and such. Plainer ones might be used for the scouring of sewers, the cartage of wastes, the scavenging of garbage, such things, or, if fortunate, be put to work in the pens, cleansing them, filling the feed troughs, and such, hoping that they would not themselves be sent to the ramps, for they would understand the ramps, as their gross, lumbering charges would not.

The weather, for humans, was still bitterly cold. There was much snow on the ground. Overhead Cabot could even see it on the trees which, from his vantage point, though so far away, seemed to be growing downward.

Cabot had no particular destination in mind but he found his steps tending toward Lord Grendel's abandoned forest camp.

It was now some five days after his departure from the ramparts that he heard an astonishing, unaccountable message, one somehow, as several others had been, on the great speaker system, a message which seemed to emanate, as they had, from a thousand points in the world. The message was astonishing to Cabot. He did not understand it. It made no sense to him. If there were to be such messages he would have expected them to be, say, warnings to Kur loyalists, even nondominants, to beware of humans, or renegades, or calls to humans, or others, if there were others, to come in and surrender, perhaps to be spared for lowly services, groomings, and such, or, most likely, some gloating, or matter-of-fact announcement, pertaining to Agamemnon's glorious victory, perhaps the announcement of some holiday, or festival, or such. But such was not the message.

The message, incomprehensible to Cabot, was very simple. It was repeated three times, and only three times, but each time more insistently, more urgently.

Bring me a body.

Bring me a body.

Bring me a body.

Shortly thereafter Cabot became less concerned with his trail, which had been obvious in the snow.

As a warrior, or as anyone actually, who might be concerned with such things, Cabot had some sense of the value of remaining both alert and undetected, while in certain milieus. One moves with some stealth, naturally, often taking advantage of cover, and one tends to be very alive to one's surroundings, as the smallest suggestion of something perhaps seen, the tiniest sound perhaps heard, the faintest odor perhaps discerned, may be burdened with significance. Similarly, to the extent possible, one avoids the breaking of branches, the tearing of leaves from a bush, the crushing of a twig, the dislodging of pebbles or debris, such things. A stone turned, for example, may reveal a dampness for better than an Ahn, which bespeaks its recent movement. The edging of a footprint, its sharpness or lack of sharpness, may have its tale to tell. The tiny tracks of a night insect across the footprint may be a chronometer of passage.

Commonly it helps to utilize snow-free, windswept rocks, but there were few to be encountered in his journey, save in the vicinity of the womb tunnel. Too, it is common to utilize stream beds, for even the sleen cannot scent through flowing water, but must peruse the banks for an emergence. But the small streams which in a more equable time might have provided some trail's concealment were of little value now. If the ice was thick, it was laden with snow; if the stream moved, however slowly, beneath a ceiling of ice, that ice, if thin, too often broke beneath a man's weight. Too, to plunge into the icy water, in the cold, without a prompt application of warmth, the availability of fire, a toweling and change of gear, might within an Ahn result in incapacitation.

But as recorded, shortly after the strange message heard within the world, Cabot became less concerned with the obviousness of his trail, hitherto so obviously broken through the snow.

He had for Ahn, you see, waded through snow, much of it to his thighs.

But shortly after the strange message the snow ceased to be deep and dry, and began to subside into dampness, and, where it had been flat, and hard, and icy, he could see water beneath it, in bubbles, and tiny rivulets at the side.

He stopped, and put back his hood.

There was a cracking sound, and he crouched down, alert, but it had been ice fallen from a branch.

He moved to a higher place, for the wrappings with which he had swathed his legs were now dark, wet from softening snow.

At his feet he saw a trickle of water, moving through damp leaves.

Some yards away he heard the small sound of moving water, sluggish, undeniable.

Investigating, he detected a small stream pursuing its course. In it, twisting about, drifted some branches, some small blocks and plates of ice.

He removed his cloak.

Clearly, remarkable changes were occurring in the world. It seemed that a winter had been set aside, to be replaced with a damp, fragrant spring.

Wet, fallen leaves now appeared beneath his feet.

Here and there there were tiny ponds of water.

He could see branches of trees reflected in them.

The ground, here and there, for a time at least, would be wet, muddy.

When he resumed his journey, he would avoid such ground, insofar as it was possible.

He had feared to string the bow for days, for fear it would snap in the cold. He thought that it might soon be safe to do so, perhaps by noon. He shook the arrows in the quiver, and they moved well. They were loose, ready. The fletching was now damp, no longer stiff, cold to the touch. He had kept the strings wound about his body, for warmth.

Cabot shuddered, as though to throw the remains of cold from him, as a sleen might shudder, to rid itself of snow or water.

Light, sunlike, blazed within the world. Water began to drip from snowy branches.

Cabot stretched, and moved his hands and fingers. Now they felt as they usually had, and responded as he wished. His feet no longer ached with cold, were now no longer wrapped in crackling, frozen cloth.

Cabot pondered the unusual shift in the weather.

Presumably there might be many explanations for this change. They would not, of course, be entirely meteorological, for this was a steel world, and weathers and climates, droughts and storms, light and darkness, heat and cold, or the initial conditions for such, which might then produce their natural consequences, could be planned and produced, both with respect to their frequencies and durations.

The unnatural winter, Cabot supposed, had cessitated, as it was now no longer necessary, or, perhaps better, useful, given Agamemnon's victory. The weapon of the weather, a very effective and terrible weapon, with its devastating impact on the insurrectionists’ human allies, and surely even its seriously inconveniencing impact on its Kur allies, might now be put aside. The establishment secure, all things in their place, the world might now be returned to its normality.

The only thing Cabot did not understand was the strange message, repeated three times, consecutively, each time more insistently, more urgently, which had been earlier broadcast throughout the world: “Bring me a body."

Two days later Cabot had arrived at the abandoned camp of Lord Grendel, that in the more remote recesses of one of the world's farther forests, that from which they had long ago departed.

The gate was open, the palings were in place. Shelters had remained much as they had been, save for the effects of weather. The snow had melted and Cabot could find the ashes of cooking fires. There were some vessels about, one of them an overturned, dented metal bowl. In one place he found a stick, partly carved, not yet drilled. Such would have been intended for an arrow straightener. The small open-sided shelter in which the Lady Bina had been chained was still there. The stakes between which she had been fastened were also still there, but the chains, and belt, were gone.

This is a strange place, thought Cabot, for a human to end his life, on a steel world.

On the other hand, he supposed it was as good as any.

He might have preferred a field on Gor, with long green grass, with the wind rising from the east, in the morning, or perhaps a crag in the scarlet mountains, the mighty Voltai, or perhaps the stem castle or helm deck of a lateen-rigged galley, perhaps the Dorna or Tesephone. The thought crossed his mind of the mad shipwright, Tersites, filled with his dream of a ship so sturdy and mighty that it might see what lay on the far side of Thassa, to go so far that no mariner who had attained only to the first knowledge would dare to ply one of its oars, for fear of plunging over the world's cliff.

He thought of Lord Pyrrhus, slain in the arena, of Lord Arcesilaus, of the slaver, Peisistratus, of his dear friend, Lord Grendel. He thought of the forest humans, of the men of Peisistratus in the pleasure cylinder, of killer humans, bred for arena games, of the ponderous cattle humans, bred for stupidity and meat. He thought in sorrow of the beauty of the Lady Bina, and how she was now little more than a broken, torn, hideous, shapeless thing. Lord Grendel alone, it seemed, could bear to look upon her. He would, as though she were but a child, enfold her in his arms, and whisper to her, and try to comfort her.

Cabot looked up, quickly.

The animal was moving through the gate, a large animal, dragging something. It was making no effort to conceal its presence. Clearly it was not hunting.

"Ho,” said Cabot. “Tal, welcome, friend."

Cabot went to greet the large, sinuous thing.

He would not close the gate behind it, for such things can become uneasy, even dangerous, if they feel closed in.

Cabot knelt down and fondled the large, triangular, viperlike, furred head. It was better than eighteen inches in width at its widest point. He held it against his chest.

"You have continued to guard the camp,” observed Cabot, “though it is empty. Perhaps you were protecting it, perhaps you were waiting, patiently, for our return, wondering what had become of us, and it is only I who have returned."

There was a rumbling in the chest of the beast. This sound is not formed in the larynx. The noise is seldom heard by a human being.

"I am pleased to see you, as well,” said Cabot. “You bring me a gift, I see. It is part of a tarsk, which was buried, and you have dug it out of the ground for me, to share it. I think I may not eat it, but I appreciate the thought.” Cabot, curious, did wipe some dirt and leaves from the meat, which smelled, and put it to his tongue. After a time such meat, as it spoils, will form cadaverine alkaloids, which are potently toxic. Animals who might, long ago, have found the taste of such things agreeable would fail to replicate their genes. Similarly, animals who happened to find the taste disagreeable, say, in the case of humans, offensively bitter, would survive. It is not an inexplicable happenstance that foods which nourish beasts tend to have an agreeable taste to them and those unlikely to nourish them tend to have a disagreeable taste to them. The tastes may originally have been randomly allotted in a population, distributed with indifference, but the consequences of these tastes would weigh quite differently in the scales of life and death. A trail of misery and death in one case, and of health and vitality in another, lies at the roots, here and elsewhere, of what might seem to be a thousand matters of coincidence, but are no more coincidences, or inexplicable accidents, than the scimitarlike sharpness of the larl's fangs, or the erratic, bounding fleetness of the tabuk. Is not each the artist and designer of the other? Does not each, in his way, make the other more beautiful? And thus are played out the dark games of the Nameless One. The meat was not yet bitter, and so Cabot supposed it edible, if not palatable. Once the cadaverine alkaloids are formed not even the flocking, despised jard will feed. Cabot pretended to partake a bit of the meat and Ramar, the giant arena sleen, lamed in the left hind leg from a steel-toothed trap, began to tear at it contentedly, holding it down with his paws, and pulling at it, bit by bit, with his teeth. The rumbling in the animal's chest continued, as it fed, undiminished, for, as noted, the sound does not emanate from the animal's larynx, or throat, but its chest.

"I am hungry for meat, friend,” said Cabot. “After the supplies brought from the war camp, I have had little but berries, and, near the womb tunnel, some roots dug out from under the snow. So perhaps we will go hunting in the morning. I think you would like that. We may even make a fire. I would suppose you have never had cooked meat. I wonder if you would like it."

Ramar continued to feed, contentedly.