Magicians of Gor

17 Magic

"Where has she gone!" cried a man.

"My senses reel!" exclaimed Marcus. "But a moment ago she was within the palanquin!"

"Shhh," I said.

"I cannot understand what I have seen on this street!" he said.

Marcus and I stood in the pit, shoulder to shoulder with others, before the low stage. There were tiers behind us for those who wished to pay two tarsk bits, rather than one, for the entertainments.

The four fellows, in turbans, with plumes, in stately fashion, as though nothing unusual had occurred, carried the palanquin, its curtains now open again, offstage.

"She has vanished," said a fellow, wonderingly.

"But to where?" asked another.

"She cannot disappear into thin air," said a fellow.

"But she has done so!" said another, in awe.

We were in a small, shabby theater. It had an open proscenium. The house was only some twenty yards in depth. This was the fourth such establishment we had entered this evening. To be sure, there were many other entertainments on the streets outside, in stalls, and set in the open, behind tables, and such, in which were displayed mostly tricks with small objects, ostraka, rings, scarves, coins and such. I am fond of such things, and a great admirer of the subtlety, the adroitness, dexterity and skills which are often involved in making them possible.

"Alas," cried the ponderous fellow waddling about the stage, yet, if one noticed it, with a certain lightness and grace, considering his weight," have I lost my slave?"

"Find her!" cried a fellow.

"Recover her!" cried another.

These fellows, I think, were serious. It might be mentioned, at any rate, that many Goreans, particularly those of lower caste, and who are likely to have had access only to the "first knowledge", take things of this sort very seriously, believing they are witness not to tricks and illusions but to marvelous phenomena consequent upon the gifts and powers of unusual individuals, sorcerers or magicians. This ingenuousness is doubtless dependent upon several factors, such as the primitiveness of the world, the isolation and uniqueness of the cities, the disparateness of cultures and the tenuousness of communication. Also the Gorean tends neither to view the world as a mechanical clockwork of interdependent parts, as a great, regular, predictable machine, docile to equations, obedient to abstractions, not as a game of chance, inexplicable, meaningless and random at the core. His fundamental metaphor in terms of which he would defend himself from the glory and mystery of the world is neither the machine nor the die. It is rather, if one may so speak, the stalk of grass, the rooted tree, the flower. He feels the world as alive and real. He paints eyes upon his ships, that they may see their way. And if he feels so even about this vessels, then so much more the awed and reverent must he feel when he contemplates the immensity and grandeur, the beauty, the power, and the mightiness within which he finds himself. Why is there anything? Why is there anything at all? Why not just nothing? Wouldn't «nothing» be more likely, more rational, more scientific? When did time begin? Where does space end? On a line, at the surface of a sphere? Do our definitions constrain reality? What if reality does not know our language, the boundaries of our perceptions, the limitations of our minds? How is it that one wills to raise one's hand and the hand rises? How is it that an aggregation of molecules can cry out with joy in the darkness? The Gorean sees the world less as a puzzle than an opportunity, less as a datum to be explained than a bounty in which to rejoice, less as a problem to be solved than a gift to be gratefully received. It might be also be noted, interestingly, that the Gorean, in spite of his awe of Priest-Kings, and the reverence he accords them, the gods of his world, does not think of them as having formed the world, not of the world being in some sense consequent upon their will. Rather the Priest-Kings are seen as being its children, too, like the sleen, and rain and man. A last observation having to do with the tendency of some Goreans to accept illusions and such as reality is that the Gorean tends to take such things as honor and truth very seriously. Given his culture and background, his values, he is often easier to impose upon than would be many others. For example, he is likely, at least upon occasion, to be an easier mark for the fraud and charlatan than a more suspicious, cynical fellow. On the other hand, I do not encourage lying to Goreans. They do not like it.

"I could have reached out and touched her," said Marcus.

I really doubted that he could have done that. To be sure, we were quite close to the stage.

In this part of the performance a light, roofed, white-curtained palanquin had been carried on the stage by the four turbaned, plumed fellows. It had been set down on the stage and the curtains drawn back, on both sides, so that one could see through to the back of the stage, which was darkly draped. Within the palanquin, reclining there, as though indolently, on one elbow there had been a slim girl, veiled and clad in shimmering white silk.

"Surely this is some high-born damsel," had called out the ponderous fellow. There had been laughter at this. Free women almost never appear on the Gorean stage. Indeed, in certain higher forms of drama, such as the great tragedies, rather than let women on the stage, either free or slave, female roles are played by men. The masks worn, the costuming, the dialogue, and such, make it clear, of course, which roles are to be understood as the female roles. Women, of course, almost always slaves, may appear in mimings, farces and such. The girl had then, aided by a hand from the ponderous fellow, risen from the palanquin and looked about herself, rather as though bored. She then regarded the audience, and at some length, disdainfully. There had been some hooting at this.

"Surely this cannot be my slave, Litsia?" wailed the fellow.

She tossed her head, in the hood and veil.

"If you are free, dear lady," said the fellow, "report me to guardsmen for my affrontery, that I may be flogged for daring to address you, but if you be my Litsia, remove your hood and veil."

As though with an almost imperial resignation she put back her hood and lowered her veil.

"She is pretty!" had exclaimed Marcus.

Others, too, expressed their inadvertent admiration of the woman.

"It is my Litsia!" cried the ponderous fellow, as though relieved.

The woman drew down her robes a bit, that her shoulders were bared. She held the robes together before her.

"She is not collared!" cried a fellow.

"Lash her!" cried another.

For an instant the girl blanched and trembled, clutching the robes together before her in her small fists, but then, in a moment, had recovered herself, and was back in character. It was easy to tell that she had, at some time or another, felt the lash, and knew what it was like.

"But surely we are to respect slaves in the new Ar?" inquired the ponderous fellow, anxiously, of the audience.

This question, of course, was greeted with guffaws, and a slapping of the left shoulders.

"But my Litsia must have some token of her bondage upon her," said the fellow. "Please, Litsia, show us."

Quickly the girl thrust the lower portion of her left leg, lovely and curved, from the robe. On her left ankle was a narrow, locked slave anklet. Then, quickly, she concealed her leg and ankle again within the robe. The slave collar, of one form or another, band or bar, or chain or lock, is almost universal on Gor for slaves. On the other hand, some masters use a bracelet or anklet. Too, the slaves of others may wear as little to denote their condition as a ring, the significance of which may be known to few. The bracelet, the anklet and ring are often worn by women whose slavery is secret, largely hidden from the world, though not, of course, from themselves and their masters. And even such women, when in private with their masters, will usually be collared, as is suitable for slaves. Indeed, they will often strip themselves and kneel, or drop to all fours, to be collared, as soon as they enter their master's domicile. There are many points in favor of the collar, besides those of history and tradition. The throat is not only an ideal aesthetic showplace for the symbol of bondage, displaying it beautifully and prominently, but one which, because of the location, at the throat, and the widths involved, is excellently secure. It also makes it easier to leash the female. Also, of course, by means of it and a rope or chain one may attach her to various rings and holding devices. Some fellows even bracelet or tie her hands to it. The collar, too, of course, helps to make clear to the slave, and others, her status as a domestic animal.

"Show us a little more, Litsia," begged the ponderous fellow.

Litsia then, rather quickly, but holding the pose for a moment, open the silken robes, and her knees slightly flexed, and her head turned demurely to the left, held them out to the sides.

"She is lovely!" said Marcus.

"Yes," I agreed.

"Surely she is a bred slave, with lines like that," he said.

"No," I said. "She was a free woman, from Asperiche."

Marcus looked at me, puzzled.

"Yes," I said.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Interesting," he said.

"In a sense, of course," I said, "she is a bred slave."

"True," he said.

It is a common Gorean belief that all females are bred slaves. It is only that some have their collars and some, as yet, do not.

The girl wore a modest slave tunic, which muchly covered her.

She now drew closed again the sides of the shimmering robe and, once more, tossed her head, and glanced disdainfully at the audience. Against there was hooting.

"Some folks," said the ponderous fellow, "think that I have spoiled her." The girl then put out her small hand and was assisted by the ponderous fellow to the palanquin again. When she took her place in it, it was lifted.

It was clearly off the floor. One could see the drapery at the back of the stage.

"I do trust you will be nice to me this evening?" said the ponderous fellow to the slim beauty on the palanquin.

She tossed her head and did not deign to respond to him.

He then drew shut the curtains of the palanquin. It was still off the floor. "Do you think I am too easy with her?" the ponderous fellow inquired of the audience.

"Yes! Yes!" shouted several of the men.

"Oh, oh!" cried the ponderous fellow looking upward miserably and shaking his fists, helplessly, angrily, in the air. "If only I were not a devoted adherent of the new and wonderful Ar!"

There was much laughter.

I gathered that much of the resentment toward the current governance of Ar tended to be expressed in such places, in shows, in farces, in bawdy travesties and such. Certain theaters had been closed down because of the articulateness and precision, and abusiveness, of such satire or criticism. Two had been burned. To be sure this fellow seemed technically within the bounds of acceptability, if only just so. Too, it was doubtless a great deal safer now than it had been a few weeks ago to indulge in such humor. Wisely I thought had the government withdrawn from its projected policies of devirilization, which, indeed, had never been advanced beyond the stage of proposals. It had discovered, simply, clearly, and immediately that most males of the city would not give up their manhood, even if they were praised for doing so. Indeed, even the Ubara herself, it seemed, had reaffirmed that slave girls should be obedient and try to please their masters. So narrowly, I suspected, had riots and revolutions been averted. Still, I supposed, there might be spies in the audience. I doubted if the ponderous fellow would be poplar with the authorities.

"If only some magician would aid me in my dilemma!" wept the ponderous fellow. "Beware!" cried a fellow in the audience, alarmed.

"Yes, beware!" laughed another fellow.

"If only some magician would waft away my Litsia, if only for a moment, and teach her just a little of what is it to be a slave girl!" he said.

Several men laughed. I had to hand it to the ponderous fellow. He carried off the thing well.

"But of course there are no magicians!" he said.

"Beware," cried one fellow, he who had been so alarmed, so drawn into the drama, before. "Beware, lest one might be listening!"

"I think that I shall speak with her, and plead with her to be a better slave girl," said the fellow.

The palanquin was still of course where it had been last, near the center of the stage, lifted off the floor, by its four bearers. To be sure, as the ponderous fellow had drawn them, the curtains were now closed.

The audience was very still now.

The ponderous fellow then pulled back the curtains.

"Ai!" cried a fellow.

Several of the fellows, including Marcus, gasped.

"She is gone!" cried a fellow.

Once again, one could see through the open palanquin, to the draperies at the back of the stage.

The four fellows in turbans, with plumes, then, in stately fashion, as though nothing unusual had occurred, carried the palanquin offstage.

Men spoke excitedly about us.

I struck my left shoulder, commending the performer for the illusion.

Others, too, then applauded.

The ponderous fellow bowed to the crowd, and then resumed his character. "I think there is but one chance to recover my slave," he confided to the audience, "but I fear to risk it."

"Why?" asked a fellow.

"Because," said the ponderous fellow, addressing his concerned interlocutor confidentially, with a stage whisper, "it might require magic."

"No matter!" said a fellow.

"There is a wicker trunk," said the ponderous fellow. "It was left with me by a fellow from Anango."

Some of the fellows in the audience gasped. The magicians of Anango are famed on Gor. If you wish to have someone turned into a turtle or something, those are the fellows to see. To be sure, their work does not come cheap. The only folks who are not familiar with them, as far as I know, are the chaps from far-off Anango, who have never heard of them.

"Of course, he may not be a magician," mused the ponderous fellow.

"But he might be!" pointed out an excited fellow in the audience.

"True," mused the ponderous fellow.

"It is worth a try," said a fellow.

"Anything to get your rope back on her," said another.

"Do you think he would mind?" asked the ponderous fellow.

"No!" said a fellow.

I wondered how he knew.

"He may be the very fellow who wafted her away!" said another.

"Yes," suggested another fellow.

"Perhaps he wants you to use the trunk to recover her!" said another.

"Yes!" said a man, convinced.

"He did say he was my friend," said the ponderous fellow.

"Fetch the trunk!" said a man.

"Fetch the trunk!" cried the ponderous fellow, decisively, to his fellows offstage.

Two of the fellows who had borne out the palanquin, their turbans and plumes now removed, appeared on stage, entering from stage right, the house left, each of them carrying a trestle. These were placed rather toward the back of the stage, at the center, about five feet apart. In a moment the other two fellows who had helped to bear the palanquin, they, too, now without the turbans and plumes, as there was now no point in such accouterments, their no longer being in attendance on the insolent slave, also emerged from stage right, bearing a long wicker trunk, some six feet in length, some two feet in height and two feet in depth. This was placed on the two trestles. One could, accordingly, see under the trunk, and about it. It was, thus, in full view, and spatially isolated from the floor, the sides of the stage and the drapery in the back, several feet behind it, supported on its two trestles.

"The trunk is not empty!" cried a fellow.

"The slave is within it!" called out another.

"That is no trick!" said another.

"I surely hope the slave is within it," called the ponderous fellow to the audience, "as I do wish to recover her!"

"She is there!" hooted a fellow.

"I hope so," said the ponderous fellow. "Let us look!"

He hurried to the trunk and lifted away the wicker lid, which covered it. He set the lid to one side, on the floor. He then unhinged the back of the trunk from the trunk sides. It hen hung down in the back, being attached to the trunk bottom. One could see it, through the trestle legs. He then opened the left side of the trunk, letting it, too, hang free, except that it hung to the side. It, too, of course, was attached to the trunk's bottom. He treated the right side of the trunk in the same manner. It, too, naturally, was attached to the trunk bottom, in the same manner as was the left side. The trunk, in effect, was being disassembled before the audience. It was now completely open, the back hanging down in back, and the sides to the sides, except for the front panel, which the ponderous fellow held in place with one hand.

"Open the front panel!" cried a fellow.

"Show us the slave!" cried another.

"That is no trick!" said a fellow.

"Aii!" cried more than one fellow, as the ponderous fellow let the front panel drop forward, to the front. The trunk was now completely open.

"The slave is not there!" cried a man.

"She is not there," said another, startled.

"It would be a poor trick if she was there," said another.

"Why do you show us an empty trunk?" asked a man.

We could see through to the drapery behind.

"Alas, woe!" cried the ponderous fellow, running his hands about the empty space now exposed to view. "It is true! She is not here!" He got down on all fours, and looked under the trunk, and then he lifted up the front panel, running his hand about under the trunk bottom, which was, say, about an inch in thickness. He then, seemingly distraught, let the front panel fall forward again. But even then he went again to his knees and thrust his hand about, to the floor, then between the trunk bottom and the floor. The front panel, even dropped forward, was still about eighteen inches from the floor. The floor could be seen clearly at all times beneath it.

"She is not here!" wailed the ponderous fellow.

"Where is the slave?" asked a man.

"Perhaps she has been kept by the magician," proposed a fellow, seriously enough.

"But he is my friend!" protested the ponderous fellow.

"Are you sure of it?" asked one of the more earnest fellows in the audience. "Perhaps the trunk is not really magic?" said the ponderous fellow.

"That would seem the most plausible explanation to me," whispered one fellow to another.

"I would think so," said Marcus, more to himself than to anyone else.

I looked at him sharply. I think he was serious.

"Do you not think so?" he asked. He was serious.

"Let us watch," I said. I smiled to myself. Marcus, I knew, was a highly intelligent fellow. On the other hand he did come from a culture which on the whole maintained a quite open mind on questions of this sort, and these illusions were, I take it, the first he had ever seen. To him they must have seemed awesome. Too, as a highly intelligent young man, from his particular background, he was prepared to accept what appeared to be the evidence of his senses. Would it not have seemed to him an even more grievous affront to rationality not to do so? I supposed that I, in his place, if I had had his background, and had known as little as he did about such things, might have been similarly impressed, if not convinced. Certainly many Goreans whom I regarded as much more intelligent than I took such things with great seriousness.

"What have I done wrong? What have I done wrong?" moaned the ponderous fellow. He then put up the front panel and latched it to the side panel on the left. "What have I done wrong?" he moaned. He then hooked up the right side of the trunk. It attached to the front panel. "I do not understand it," he moaned. He went to the back and lifted up the back panel and latched it to the side panels. He then reached down and put the wicker lid back on the trunk. "What have I done wrong?" he queried.

"You did not call upon the magician!" cried a fellow.

"What?" cried the ponderous fellow, startled.

"No!" said the fellow in the audience. "Remember! You called out before, expressing a wish that you might be succored in your dilemma, that some magician might waft her away, if only for a moment, to teach her a little of what it was to be a slave girl!"

"Yes!" said the ponderous fellow. "Yes! That is true!"

"Perhaps the fellow from Anango, your friend," said the man, "who is perhaps a magician, heard you and did as you asked, as a favor."

"Is it possible?" inquired the ponderous fellow.

"It is possible!" averred the man.

"What must I then do?" inquired the ponderous fellow.

"Ask for her back!" said the man.

"Certainly," said another fellow in the audience.

"Do you think he would return her?" asked the ponderous fellow.

"Certainly," said the fellow who had been attempting to be of help in this matter.

"He is your friend," another reminded him.

"I think he is my friend," said the ponderous fellow.

"It is surely worth a try," said the first fellow.

The ponderous fellow then looked upward and called out, "Oh, Saba Boroko Swaziloo, old chap, if you can hear me, and if it be you who has wafted away my little Litsia, perhaps for her instruction and improvement, please return her to me now!" Such names, of course, are nonsense, and are not really Anagan names but they do have several of the vowel sounds of such names, and, accordingly, upon occasions such as these, by fellows who are somewhat careless in such matters, are often prevailed upon to serve as such. It was highly unlikely, of course, that there would be any Anagans in the audience. I hoped not, at any rate, for the sake of the ponderous fellow.

There was silence.

"Nothing!" said the ponderous fellow, in disappointment. "Nothing!"

There was suddenly a rocking and thumping from the wicker trunk. It shook on the trestles.

"What is this?" cried the ponderous fellow, turning about.

The trunk rocked back and forth.

"Master!" came from within the trunk. "Master, oh, beloved Master, help me. I beg of you to help me, Master! Please, Master, if you can hear me, help me! Help me!"

"Open it!" cried a man.

"Open it!" called another.

The ponderous fellow threw off the wicker, basketlike lid of the trunk and gazed within, then staggering back as though in astonishment.

"Show us! Show us!" cried men.

Swiftly, losing not a nonce, he undid the side latches and dropped the front panel of the trunk. There, in the trunk, framed by the sides and back, as men cried out in wonder and delight, was descried the slave, Litsia, now not only in the least of slave rags but in sirik.

She was excitingly curvaceous, a dream of pleasure, such a sight as might induce a strong man to howl with joy, to dance with triumph.

Those on the tiers rose to their feet, applauding.

Yes, the woman was well turned. No longer now could there be the least doubt as to the promises of her lineaments. Almost might she have been on the block so little did her brief, twisted, scanty rages leave to the imagination of lustful brutes. And well did she move upon that wicker surface, in helpless desirability, in the grasp of the sirik, the metal on her neck, and on her wrists and ankles, the whole impeccably joined by its linkage of gleaming chain. "The magician had returned her!" said a man.

"And she is in better condition than when he received her," laughed a man.

The ponderous fellow then, with a tug, tore away the bit of cloth which had provided its mockery of a shielding for her beauty and cast it aside.

Men cheered.

"It seems I have a new master," said the girl, squirming a little, naked, to the audience.

There was laughter.

She was then pulled from the trunk and flunk to her knees on the stage.

She, kneeling, in sirik, turned to the audience. "I now know I have a new master!" she said.

There was more laughter.

"Where have you been?" demanded the ponderous fellow.

"I was in my palanquin," she said. "Then, in the blinking of an eye, I was in the castle somewhere, stripped and in chains."

"In Anango, I wager," said the ponderous fellow.

"And at the feet of a magician!" she cried.

"That would be my old friend, Swaziloo," said the ponderous fellow.

"Yes," she said. "I think that is what he said his name was."

I was pleased that they had managed to get the name right the second time. I had known the ponderous fellow to slip up in such matters. The girl was not likely to make a mistake, of course. If she did so, she would probably be whipped. "And for what purpose were you transported to his castle?" asked the ponderous fellow.

"To be taught, Master!" she said.

"And were you taught?" he asked.

"Yes, Master!" she said.

Then, to the delight of the audience, she reached forth and, holding the fellow's leg, and pressing herself against it, kissed him humbly, timidly, lovingly, about the thigh.

"And I," said the ponderous fellow, "may have learned something, too, about how to be a master."

There was then applause and cheering, and bows were taken by the troupe, the assistants and the ponderous fellow, and the girl, for her part, performing obeisance to the audience, and then, to the delight of the audience, being conducted off, in her chains, with tiny, short steps, no more permitted her by the linkage on her ankle rings, in a common slave girl leading position, bent over at the waist, drawn along at the master's side by the hair. Marcus had been shaken by the performance.

Afterward we were walking outside. We would not attend any more performances that evening, as the shows, and the street, would be soon closed, due to the curfew. Also, I had discovered what I had been searching for, the fellow I wished to contact.

"I am puzzled by what I have seen," he said.

"In what way?" I asked.

"Is he truly a magician, or in league with magicians?" asked Marcus.

"Much depends on what you mean by "magician'," I said.

"You know what I mean," said Marcus.

"I do not think so," I said.

"One who can do magic," said Marcus, irritably.

"Oh," I said.

"I do not know if it is wise to use magic in such a way," said Marcus, "for pay, as a show, for an audience."

"I do not understand," I said.

"Magic seems too strange and wonderful," he said.

"Why don't they just make gold pieces appear instead?" I asked.

"Yes, why not?" he asked.

"Indeed, why not?" I said.

"I do not understand the audience," he said. "Some men laughed much, and did not seem to understand the momentousness of what was occurring. Some seemed to take it almost for granted. Others were more sensitive to the wonders they beheld."

"Dear Marcus," I said, "such things are tricks. They are done to give pleasure, and amusement."

"The magician, or the magician, or magicians, the showman was in league with," said Marcus, "obviously possess extraordinary powers."

"In a sense, yes," I said, "and I would be the last to underestimate or belittle them. They have unusual powers. But you, too, have unusual powers. For example, you have unusual powers with tempered blades, with the steels of war."

"Such things," said he, quickly, "are mere matters of blood, of instinct, of aptitude, of strength, of reflexes, of training, of practice. They are skills, skills."

"The magician, too," I said, "has his skills. Let them be remarked and celebrated. Life is the richer for us that he has them. Let us rejoice in his achievements."

"I do not think I understand you," said Marcus.

"Would you like to know how the tricks were done?" I asked.

"Tricks," he said.

"Yes," I said. "If I tell you, will you then value them less?"

" 'Done'?" he said.

"Surely you do not believe that a slave disappeared into thin air and then reappeared out of thin air in a wicker trunk, do you?"

"Certainly it is difficult to believe," said Marcus, "but surely I must believe it, it happened."

"Nonsense," I said.

"Did you not see what I saw?" he asked.

"I suppose that in one sense I saw what you saw," I said, "but in another sense I think it would be fair to say that I didn't. At the very least, we surely interpreted what we saw very differently."

"I know what I saw," said Marcus.

"You know what you think you saw," I said.

"There could be no tricks," said Marcus, angrily. "Not this time. Do not think I am naA?ve! I have heard of such things as trapdoors and secret panels! I have even heard of illusions done with mirrors! But those are not done by true magic. They are only tricks. I might even be able to do them. But this was different. Here, obviously, there could have been only true magic."

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"I do not know that there is false magic, or only apparent magic, and false magicians, or only apparent magicians, but this was different."

"Why?" I asked.

"If there are so many false magicians," said Marcus, "then there must be at least one true magician."

"Have you reflected upon the logic of that?" I asked.

"Not carefully," he said.

"It might be well to do so," I said.

"Perhaps," he said, irritatedly.

"From the fact that most larls eat meat it does not follow that some larls do not," I said. "Rather, if one were to hazard an inference in such a matter, it would seem rational to suppose that they all eat meat."

"And from the fact that most magicians may not do real magic one should not infer that therefore some do?"

"That is it," I said.

"But some might!" he said, triumphantly.

"Perhaps," I said.

"I grant you the logic of matter," he said, "but in this case I must be granted the fact of the matter."

"What fact?" I asked.

"That there is real magic!"

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Because tonight," he said, "we witnessed not tricks, but genuine magic."

"What makes you think that?" I asked."

"You saw the slave in the palanquin," he said. "It was moved about, it was lifted up in the air! Do you think the girl could have slipped through a trapdoor or something? There is no way that could have happened. Similarly the palanquin was moved about. Accordingly there could have been no mirrors."

"There could have been some," I said.

"Do you think it was done with mirrors?" he asked.

"No," I said. "It was not done with mirrors."

"It was done by magic," he said.

"Not by what you seem to mean by "real magic'." I said, "whatever that might be."

"How then do you think it was done?" he asked, angrily.

"There were two illusions," I said, "the first in which the girl disappeared from the palanquin, and the second in which she reappeared in the trunk."

"Or two wonders," said Marcus, "the one of the palanquin and the other of the trunk."

"Very well," I said. "You noted, of course, that the palanquin was roofed, or canopied, and that the roof or canopy was supported by four poles."

"Of course," he said, warily.

"Those poles are hollow," I said, "and within them there are cords and weights."

"Continue," said he.

"The cords," I said, "are attached at one end to the weights within the poles and, at the other end, to the corners of a flat pallet at the bottom of palanquin, on which the girl reclines. When the curtains of the palanquin are drawn, as they were, you remember, the weights are disengaged by the bearers. These weights, the four of them, collectively, are much heavier than the pallet and the girl, whom, you will remember was slim and light. As the weights descend within the poles the cords move and draw the pallet up under the canopy."

"The girl was then being held at the top, concealed by the canopy?"

"Precisely," I said.

"I did not think of her as going up," said Marcus.

"Nor would most folks," I said. "After all, people do not normally fly upwards. Presumably most folks would think, if at all about these matters, in terms of a false bottom, or back, or something, but, as you saw, such considerations would have been immediately dismissed, as the construction of the palanquin made them impractical, for example, its openness, and its bottom being too shallow to effect any efficacious concealment for the girl."

"It was not magic?" he said.

"Once the girl is offstage," I said, "there is no difficulty in changing her clothes and getting her in sirik."

"The trunk was real magic," he said, "as we saw it carried on, kept off the floor, and opened, and shown empty!"

"In the case of the trunk," I said, "after it was on the trestles, the back was lowered first, and then the sides and front."

"Yes," he said, "that is correct."

"When it was closed, however," I said, "it was the front which was first lifted and put in place, and then the sides, and then the back."

"Yes," he said.

"In short," I said, "in the opening of the trunk, the back was lowered first, and in its closing, it was lifted last."

"True," said Marcus.

"You remember?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"The interior of the back was thus not seen by the audience in the beginning," I said, "because it was either concealed by the front panel as the trunk was carried onto the stage or was facing the back of the stage when it was hanging down in back. similarly, later, the interior of the back was not seen by the audience because it was either facing away from them, when it hung down in back, or was concealed by the front panel and sides, which were first lifted, to keep it concealed."

"The slave was then carried onto the stage in the closed trunk, her body fastened somehow to the inside of the back panel."

"In a sling of sorts," I said.

"She was then hanging down, fastened to the side of the back panel away from the audience, when the trunk was opened?"

"Yes," I said.

"And was returned to the interior of the trunk with the shielded lifting of the back panel?"

"Yes," I said. "And once within the trunk, it then closed again, she could, of course, her hands being free enough in the sirik to accomplish this, undo the straps, and conceal them in the flooring of the trunk, in a slot prepared for the purpose."

"Then it was not magic?" he said.

"That depends on what you mean by "magic'," I said.

"You know what I mean," he said, somewhat disagreeably.

"No," I said. "It was not magic."

"But it could have been magic," he said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Even those these wonders could have been accomplished so easily by mere trickery, that does not prove they were!"

"No," I said. "I suppose not."

"The same effect might have quite different causes," he said, "for example, in these cases, having been achieved either by mere charlatanry or by genuine magic."

"I have seen the equipment," I said. I had, in one of the wagons of the ponderous fellow several months ago. I had even diddled about with it, for my own amusement.

"But that does not prove it was used!" said Marcus.

"I suppose not," I said. "I suppose that these effects, so easily wrought by a skilled fellow, who knows how to bring them about, might actually, in these cases, have been produced not by familiar trickery but by the application of uncanny and marvelous powers."

"Certainly," said Marcus.

"Would you believe the fellow if he showed you how he did it?" I asked.

"He might show me how it could be done, but not how he actually did it," said Marcus. "He might lie to me, to conceal from me his possession of mysterious powers."

"Well," I said, "I never thought about that." I never had. "I guess you're right," I said.

Marcus walked on beside me for a way. Then suddenly he burst out, angrily, "The charlatan, the fraud!"

"Are you angry?" I asked.

"They are only tricks!" he said.

"Good tricks," I said.

"But only tricks!"

"I don't think he ever claimed they weren't," I said.

"He should be boiled in oil!" cried Marcus.

"To me that seems somewhat severe," I said.

"Tricks!" said Marcus.

"I suppose you now respect them the less," I said.

"Charlatanry!" he murmured. "Trickery! Fraud!"

"I think that I myself," I said, "apparently responding to this sort of thing rather differently from yourself, admire them the more as I understand how ingenious and wonderful they are, as tricks. I think I should be awed by them, but would not find so much to admire in them, if I thought they were merely the manifestations of unusual powers, as, for example, the capacity to turn folks into turtles or something."

"Perhaps," he said.

"Certainly," I said.

"I would not wish to be a turtle," he said.

"So let us trust," I said, "that folks do not abound who can wreak such wonders."

"True," he said.

"Similarly," I said, "if there were such a thing as "real magic' in your sense, whatever that might be, the world would presumably be much different than it is."

"There might be a great many more turtles," he said.

"Quite possibly," I said.

I did not doubt, of course, from what I knew of them, that the science of Priest-Kings was such that many unusual effects could be achieved. And, indeed, I did not doubt but what many such were well within the scope of the several sciences of the Kurii, as well. But these effects, of course, were rationally explicable, at least to those with the pertinent techniques and knowledge at their disposal, effects which were the fruits of unusual sciences and technologies. I did not think that Marcus needed to know about such things. How inexplicable and marvelous to a savage might appear a match, a handful of beads, a mirror, a stick of candy, a tennis ball.

"The slave was not in Anango!" he cried.

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

"But she said so, or let it be thought!" he said. "She is thus a lying slave and should be punished. Let her be whipped to the bone!"

"Oh, come now," I said. "She is playing her part in the show, in the entertainment. She is enjoying herself, along with everyone else. And she is a slave. What do you expect her to say? To tell the truth, and spoil the show, or perhaps have her master flogged? Do you not think such ill-thought-out intrepidity would swiftly bring her luscious hide into contact with the supple switch?"

"Yes," he said. "It is the master who is to blame."

"I do hope you get on with him," I said.

"What?" he cried.

"Yes," I said, "and, indeed, I would even recommend that you be nice to him."

"Why?" asked Marcus.

"Because," I said, "it is he who is going to obtain for you the Home Stone of Ar's Station."