Magicians of Gor

15 Fire

"It will be dangerous," I said to Marcus.

"I am of Ar's Station," said he.

"What we do now will have little effect, I fear," I said, "on the fortunes of Ar's Station."

"Here is the rope," he said.

I took it. It was fastened to a one-pronged grappling iron, no more than a simple hook.

It was about the second Ahn, a dark, cloudy night. We had approached the house of records.

This afternoon, on the Avenue of Turia, a cart, putatively carrying the records of the veterans of the delta, supposedly on its way from the house of records to the war office in the Central Cylinder, had been surrounded by a group of youths, crying out against the veterans of the delta, almost as if it had been months ago, a time in which there had been several abusive demonstrations against the delta veterans, whose crime seemed to be that they had been loyal to the Home Stone and that they had been so foolish as to have served Ar, and suffered for her, in the north. Those demonstrations, of course, had been instigated at the behest of Cos, and carefully planned and organized by Cosian agents. Such demonstrations, in spite of the apparent beliefs of many of their participants, do not somehow materialize by magic, in response to some requirement of appropriateness. They are structured events, serving certain purposes. In brief, however, these lads, some dozens of them, had surrounded the cart and its guards, screaming out reproaches against the delta veterans, spitting on the records, and such. The guards, I think, Cosians, were not certain how to respond to the demonstration. They tried to push back the youths, but their lines were crowded through, while them themselves were being greeted as heroes. Soon one or two youths, seemingly overcome with hatred, had leaped upon the records, and were tearing them apart and hurling them to the gathered crowd. In another moment a torch had been brought. Marcus and I, knowing the movement was to take place, and, indeed, it had been on the public boards, had come to watch. Men drew swords but the officer restrained them. The papers had then been burned and the youths had withdrawn in triumph, singing songs to the glory of Cos. I had recognized the first youth to spring upon the cart. It had been he who, some days before, had cut the defiant delka deeply into one of the public boards on the Avenue of the Central Cylinder.

"Those are brave lads," I had said to Marcus later.

"But surely," he said, "the destroyed papers were not the records of the delta veterans."

"No," I said. "They would have been moved secretly."

"What was the purpose of all this?" asked Marcus.

"Many associate the veterans of the delta with the Delta Brigade," I said. "This was undoubtedly a trap set by Seremides. In pretending to move the records, records from which the identities of the delta veterans might be obtained, to a place of safer keeping, he hoped to lure an attack by the Delta Brigade. Certainly there were many guards, near the cart, far more than one might expect, and there were a great many others, if I am not mistaken, in the crowd, in plain garments, with concealing cloaks. They moved, at any rate, with the cart."

"How will Cos understand this demonstration?" he asked.

"It was not an armed attack," I said. "The demonstrators were young, they seemed sincere. Cos may even take this action as one favorable to themselves. They have lost nothing and have apparently received a confirmation of the effectiveness of their propaganda."

"Do you think Seremides will be fooled?" he asked.

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

"The Ubara?" he asked.

"I do not know," I said.

"She was at the palestrae games last week," he said.

"No," I said. "Some woman in her robes was."

"How do you know?" he asked.

"She was in sandals," I said, "and a hort taller than the Ubara."

"You know the Ubara?" he asked.

"Once," I said.

"You are sure?" he asked.

"I know where she comes upon me."

"You were brave to approach her so closely," he said.

"I permitted her to approach me, as I stood to one sides and she passed, with her guards."

"What if she had been the true Ubara, and recognized you?" he said.

"I was muchly hooded," I said, "but I did not think there was much danger. It would not be the true Ubara."

"Why not?" he asked.

"No longer would Cos choose to risk her in public," I said.

"Because of the Delta Brigade?

"Of course," I said. "There is growing hatred in the city for our darling Ubara."

"Where is she, then?"

"In the Central Cylinder, I would conjecture," I said.

"As a virtual prisoner?" he asked.

"Probably as much so," I said, "as when she was kept there, sequestered in her shame by Marlenus."

"But she is still Ubara," he said.

"Of course," I said, "under Cos."

"Where do you think the records are?" he asked.

"I do not know," I said.

"Why then are we going to the house of records, with a rope and iron?" he asked. "They may be there," I said.

"You would take such risks, one which are not only unnecessary, but perhaps meaningless, just to keep the records out of the hands of Cos?"

"You do not need to accompany me," I said.

"Be serious," he said.

"The fact that Seremides, if I read him right, set such a trap for the Delta Brigade, supposedly with the delta records, indicates if nothing else that he is quite serious in his suspicion of the delta veterans, and that he may act against them."

"They are not all bad fellows in all cities," I said. "Even in Ar's Station."

"Perhaps," grumbled Marcus.

"Certainly," I assured him.

"What is your plan?" he asked.

"To approach the house of records over adjoining roofs, eschewing the use of patrolled streets," I said, "then to hurl the iron and rope from the roof of a nearby building to the roof of the house of records, and thence, later, by means of its displuviate atrium, to obtain entrance." The atrium is the house of records, I had learned, was open to the sky, which opening, as in many public and private Gorean buildings in the south, serves to admit light. The displuviate atrium is open in such a way as to shed rainwater outwards, keeping most of it from the flooring of the atrium below. This would also facilitate the use of the rope and iron. The alternative atrium, if unroofed, of course, is impluviate, so constructed as to guide rainwater into an awaiting pool below. This sort of atrium is less amenable to the rope and iron because of the pitch of the roof.

"You are confident you can recognize the records?"

"Not at all," I said.

"Surely you do not expect to carry them off?"

"Not at all," I said, "that would be impractical."

"You are going to burn them?"

"Yes," I said.

"How will you know what to burn?" he asked.

"I do not think that will present a problem," I said.

"Why not? he asked.

"I plan on burning the entire building," I said.

"I see," he said. "What if the fire spreads throughout the entire district, and then burns down Ar?"

"I had not considered that," I admitted.

"Well," he said. "It is hard to think of everything."

"Yes," I granted him. He was right, of course.

"What if the records are in the Central Cylinder," he asked, "already at the war office?"

"That I where I suspect they are," I said.

He groaned.

"But they may be here."

"You are not planning on burning down the Central Cylinder, are you?" he asked. "Of course not," I said. "If they are there, with their facilities, they have probably already been copied, and perhaps more than once, and who knows where those copies might be stored, either there or about the city. Besides there are slave girls there."

"Such as the Ubara," he asked.

"Yes," I said.

I suddenly stopped.

"What is it?" he asked, instantly alert.

"Listen," I said.

We could hear footsteps approaching, rapidly. We moved back, against a wall. A brawny figure, in the darkness, passed.

I was not sure, but it seemed I had seen it somewhere, some place.

"Not everyone is observant of the curfew," remarked Marcus.

"You are out," I said.

"We have armbands," he said.

"I think there is another coming," I said.

We kept back, in the shadows.

Another fellow was in the street, approaching, but suddenly detected us, shadows among shadows. He whipped free a sword and mine, and that of Marcus, too, left its sheath. He seemed startled, for a moment. I, too, was startled. Then, not sheathing the blade, he hurried on.

"Are there others?" whispered Marcus.

"Probably," I said, "but on other streets, each taking a separate way."

Marcus put back his sword. I, too, sheathed mine.

"Did you recognize the first fellow?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"I think he was of the peasant levies," I said. "I first saw him outside the walls. He had come from the west, and had survived the final defeat of Ar." I thought I remembered him. he was a shaggy giant of a man. He had won the game of standing on the verr skin. He had cut the skin. I remembered the wine, soaking the ground, like blood. He had stood upon the skin and regarded us. "I have won," he had said. He had been of the peasants. I would have expected him to have left the vicinity of the city. To be sure, his village may have been one of several nearby villages put to the torch, its supplies gathered in by foragers, or burned. Such villages, after all, had furnished their quotas for the defensive levies. Indeed, a good portion of youth, many not old enough to know how to handle a weapon.

"You recognized the second fellow?" said Marcus.

"I think so," I said.

"I think he may have recognized us as well," he said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Plenius," said he, "from the delta."

"Yes," I said.

"I hear cries in the street," said Marcus.

"There is an alarm bar, as well," I said.

"Look there!" said Marcus.

"I see it," I said.

The sky was red in the east. It was a kind of radiance, flickering and pulsing. "That is not the dawn," said Marcus grimly.

"I think we should return to our quarters," I said.

Some men ran past us now, towards the east, toward the light. We could hear more than one alarm bar now.

"Surely the curfew is still in effect," said Marcus.

"It will be hard to enforce now," I said.

"What is going on?" I called to a fellow hurrying past us, carrying a lantern. "Have you not heard?" he asked. "It is the house of records. It is afire!"

"Perhaps we should have gone to a tavern," said Marcus.

"They close at the eighteenth Ahn now," I said.

"True," he said, irritatedly.

I supposed that the taverners must be much put out by the curfew law, and would have lost much business. But perhaps they could open earlier.

I then, the rope and hook beneath my cloak, accompanied Marcus back toward the Metallan district. I could share his chagrin. Indeed, we might as well have spent the evening in a paga tavern, enjoying the swaying, pleading bodies of former free women of Ar, and considering on the ankles of which, on the cord there, wrapped several times about the ankle, and tied, we would consent to thread a pierced metal token, five of which might be purchased for a tarsk bit. At the time of the closing of the tavern these women were whipped if they did not have at least ten such tokens on their ankle cord. They jingled when they moved.