Mariners of Gor

Chapter Two

It was an awesome sight.

One feared it was a ship of no mortal creation, but rather a vessel of Priest-Kings, come from the clouds over the Sardar, gone on air. Yet, as our patrol craft had approached it, and we could more discern its make, it was seen to be clearly formed of wood, carvel-built, six-masted, single-ruddered, massively so, square-sailed.

We detected it first, by the glass of the Builders, from the stem castle, far off, through the fog, not clear, seemingly risen from the sea as might a mountain, as the islands that Thassa sometimes lifts from her bosom, in southern waters, with a roiling of waves, a casting of stones, and smoke and fire, when she pleases.

“It is a fortress, a city!” exclaimed the left helmsman.

“There can be nothing here,” said the captain. “These are open waters. Familiar waters. We know them well.”

“Take the glass, captain,” said the lookout.

“It is an illusion,” said the captain, “a lie whispered by the fog, the sea and wind.”

“The glass, captain,” insisted the lookout.

We were two days out from the port of Telnus, terraced Cos’s southern window to the sea, our mother, mighty Thassa, on routine patrol.

We had heard no report, no rumors. Another day, and a junction with the long ships of Tyros, and we would return to Telnus.

No ship, no vessel, might ply these waters without papers, bearing the seal of either Tyros or Cos.

Thus are the farther islands sheltered, protected from illicit trade, and the wealth of Cos and Tyros conserved.

“It is no illusion,” said the captain, his eye to the glass.

“What then?” asked his second officer, peering into the fog. The season was nearly over, the time when ships were taken from the water for their wintering, the time when rational mariners withdrew wisely from lashing, gleaming Thassa, leaving her, the mother, to her moods of violence, to her towering, rushing, lifting waves, higher than the masts of round ships, to her bitter storms and cruel ice.

We at the oars, free men all, for our vessel was a long ship, low in the water, knifelike, fit for war, were looking forward to our winter leave, and the paga and girls of the taverns, The Silver Chain, the Beaded Whip, the Pleasure Garden, the Chatka and Curla, the Ubar’s Choice, and others.

“It is moving,” said the captain. “It is no island, no mountain. It is afloat, moving, slowly, but moving.”

“Can we overtake it?” asked the second officer.

“Yes,” said the captain.

“Is it wise to do so?” said the second officer.

“I do not know,” said the captain.

“There is a chill wind,” said the second officer, gathering his cloak about himself.

We, two at an oar, above decks, wore gloves, for the wood was cold.

“Lower the mast,” called the captain.

The single yard was lowered, and the storm sail furled. The mast and yard, with its furled sail, were then lashed down, parallel to the deck. On such ships, as you may know, there are various sails, whose use depends on the weather. The mast is lowered when the ship prepares for action. We were lateen-rigged, as is common, this allowing one to sail closer to the wind. In Torvaldsland, and to the north, it is common to use a single rudder, and a single sail, square-rigged.

The captain pointed toward the object in the distance, indistinct in the fog.

The two helmsmen brought us about.

Another gesture from the captain, this to the keleustes, increased the beat.

As the mast went down our fellows at the springals lit the bucketed fires in which the oil-soaked wrappings on javelin heads might be ignited.

On the long ship, as opposed to some round ships, one does not stand at the oar. And from the thwart, of course, one cannot, while at the oar, see much over the bulwarks. That is just as well, of course, for the bulwarks provide some protection from arrow fire, certainly from most long ships, which, like us, unlike many round ships, are low in the water. Even galleys with rowing frames have comparable shieldings. In any event, without standing, I could see very little, and one does not stand while at the oar, not on the long ship.

While I was at the oar, it would be well for you to understand, and I would have it understood, that I was not an oarsman, not by choice, not by calling, not by rating. One takes what fee one can when needful. I, once a spear of Cos, even a first spear, leader of nine men, with hundreds of others, after the trouble in Ar, scattered, separated from our commands and units, withdrew to Torcadino, and thence, bribing and spending, and then by recourse to brigandage and banditry, made our way by long marches to the sea, to the small coastal outposts and trading stations maintained by Tabor and Teletus, south of Brundisium, from which, with our last bit of silver, even to the surrender of accouterments and weapons, dispirited, hungry, and ruined, we obtained passage, mostly on fishing craft, little more than refugees, some to Tyros, most to Cos. I went first to Jad, city of my birth, city of great Lurius, our Ubar, where I had been enlisted and trained, but swords were plentiful there, and I was scorned, for my blade, with helmet and gear, was gone, having been bartered, in part, together with my last tarsk, for passage, for life, from the continent, and great Lurius, too, given the cessation of the draining of Ar’s wealth, the drying up of that flowing stream of gold, was muchly displeased with the recent events on the continent, and ill-disposed to receive those whom he had once sent to the ships with stirring music and brave banners. Impoverished, weaponless, defeated, despised, and disgraced, those such as I would not be welcomed. We were an embarrassment, visible tokens of a state’s shame. I sought fee then in Selnar, and Temos, but was no more fortunate. The defeat in the south, and the indignity of our retreat marked us, clinging to us as a stain. I became an itinerant laborer, concealing that I had once held rank amongst the spears of Cos. I lived as I could, earning what I might, in one town or another, a tarsk here, a tarsk there, and then it came to my attention, from a peddler come north, encountered in a tavern, that openings for oarsmen were being advertised in Telnus. The patrol fleet was being expanded, that the waters between Tyros and Cos might be better secured, better protected against unregulated shipping, this posing an unwelcome, yea, unacceptable, threat to the welfare and profits of our merchantry. And so it came about that I, who had been a spear of Cos, even a first spear, a leader of nine, who had served in the occupation of Ar, who had served even in the Central Cylinder itself, whose wallet had once been heavy with gold, who had walked proudly, who had been feared in the streets, whom none would dare accost, ventured to Telnus, hungry and destitute, seeking so modest a place as one on the thwarts of a patrol ship. Even so, many were the applicants for a single oar. Things were well in Cos for some, but less so for many. Where coin had been abundant, it was now scarce.

“We cannot use you,” said the examiner.

“Whom might you use better?” I inquired.

“He,” said the examiner, “and he,” indicating two fellows.

“I think not,” I said.

“Contest?” he asked.

“Yea,” I said.

I grappled with each, one after the other, and was twice thrown, and bloodied. I had lost. I lay then on the ground, beaten, in pain, in the bloody mud.

But I heard some men about, striking their left shoulders.

I looked about. I did not see my opponents, who had seemed good fellows, vigorous and brawny, needful of a place, too. They must have gone to the table, to sign the articles, or make their marks upon them.

“You did not do badly,” said a voice, by his insignia that of a harbor marshal.

I struggled to my feet.

“You are strong,” he said. “When have you last eaten?”

“Two days ago,” I said.

“Give him a place,” said the marshal.

We plied our levers, at a ten-beat, which strong men can maintain for as much as an Ahn, and continued this beat for something like twenty Ehn, and then the keleustes, warned to silence, put aside his hammers. The ship drifted forward a bit, noiselessly, through the fog. Then it rocked in place. One could hear the water lapping against the hull.

There was no command to bring the oars inboard.

The beat need not be rung, of course, but may be called softly, from amidships, if appropriate.

But there was only silence.

Then there was a rift in the fog, like the sudden, whispering drawing aside of a curtain, but briefly.

“Aiii!” cried a man.

We stood then, at the thwarts, and first beheld her.

Then the fog again closed in. I did not think we were more than seventy-five yards from her.

It seemed we were a chip, floating on the sea, off the coast of some ponderous, drifting immensity.

“What is it?” asked a man.

“A ship,” said a fellow. “A ship.”

“Oars!” called the captain, and we resumed our position.

“Back oar,” said the second officer, shuddering.

“No,” said the captain. “Stroke!”

“Withdraw,” urged the second officer.

“Stroke,” called the captain.

We did not know if he were curious, courageous, or mad. I think he was a good officer.

The ship moved a little forward, but there was murmuring behind me and to the side, consternation, and I do not think that every oar was drawn. Had we been a round ship I think the lash would have fallen amongst us.

“If you must,” said the second officer, “go closer, look, and then flee, but it is pointless, and none will believe your report.”

“Stroke,” called the captain.

It is rumored that there were gigantic dragons of the sea, prodigious monsters, lurking beyond the farther islands, aquatic prodigies guarding the end of the world, set there by Priest-Kings, as one might post guard sleen about the perimeter of a camp, but this thing, in the glimpse we had had, was no water-shedding, surfacing monster, toothed and scaled, nothing alive, as least we commonly thought of life, nothing curious, jealous, and predatory.

“Your command will be taken,” said the second officer.

“Stroke,” called the captain, softly, peering into the fog.

“Desist, Captain, I beg of you,” said the second officer.

The captain then was silent, listening.

The patrol ship was not large. She was a light galley, and she, though fitted with ram and shearing blades, was built more for speed and reconnaissance than fencing at sea, the ship the weapon itself. She was only some fifty foot Gorean from stem to stern, some ten feet in her beam. Such ships are less likely to engage a medium- or heavy-class galley than support such larger sisters in their altercations, perhaps hovering about, like a small sleen, awaiting an auspicious moment to take advantage of an otherwise distracted foe. We had only five oars to a side, and a rowing crew of twenty, two to each oar. Our common concern, or prey, were small boats, with a crew of four or five, tiny merchantmen, or smugglers, if you like, hoping to run the blockade to the farther islands. Larger galleys, rogues from the coastal ports, not signatory to the imposed treaties, or, more dangerously, pirates or merchantmen from Port Kar, our enemy, detected, would be reported to Telnus, in theory to be intercepted, if possible, on their return to their home ports. To be sure, interceptions were rare, and it was suspected that this had more to do with understandings and secret fees than faulty intelligence. Many high captains of both Tyros and Cos were wealthy men.

“There,” whispered the lookout, suddenly, pointing.

“Ah!” breathed the captain.

The fog had parted, again, and we could see the monstrous structure, now some fifty yards abeam.

Clearly it was a ship. It was wood. It was carvel-built, the mighty planks fitted, not the clinker-construction with overlapping planks. That construction is common with the serpents of the north. It ships more water, but with its elasticity, with its capacity to shift, to twist and bend, it is less likely to break up in a heavy sea. The ship had six masts, apparently fixed, which suggested it was a round ship, which has fixed masts, and often more than one, say, two or three, though never so many as six. The round ship, with its size and weight, though oared, usually by galley slaves, chained to their benches, relies more on its sails than a long ship. Interestingly, though the ship was carvel-built it was square rigged, with tiered sails, on tiered yards. The square sail is an all-purpose sail, whose single canvas may be adjusted to the wind. The mighty structure before us had a blunt, rearing prow. It had no ram, no shearing blades. It would be slow to come about, and a small galley might easily outdistance her, much as a racing kaiila might easily overtake a caravan of bosk-drawn wagons. It was not built for war, but for space and power, for height and storage, perhaps for invulnerability. We did not know what cargo it might carry. In its holds it might carry the stores of a small city. Its maneuverability would be so sluggish that the deft adjustments of shearing blades, responsive to subtleties of the ship’s movement, so common in the swift movements of Gorean naval warfare, would be impractical, if not impossible. Too, in such a mountain of wood there would be little use for a ram, as it would be of little use against a swifter, darting foe. To be sure, the ship itself would be formidable. It might plow through piers.

The fog then closed in again.

The great ship had been abeam.

The captain lifted his hand, and then lowered it.

We rocked, gently.

“Back oars,” suggested the second officer. “Back oars!”

“No,” said the captain.

I sensed he was alarmed. So, too, were we.

It was very quiet.

We were not sure, now, of the position of the great structure, or even if it were moving.

He called for no further stroke.

Then we heard the cry of a Vosk gull. These are large, broad-winged birds, which occasionally fish three and four hundred pasangs from the delta. Smaller gulls nest on the cliffs of both Tyros and Cos.

We did not see the bird.

It was then again quiet, save for the soft sound of water against the hull.

There was then another cry, but it was not the cry of the Vosk gull. It was a wild, shrill, ringing scream, unmistakable.

“That is a tarn!” cried a man.

“Impossible,” said the captain.

Even with the fog we could not be so far off our course, or so confused. The tarn, you see, is a land bird, a hook-beaked, vast-winged, gigantic, crested, dreaded, fearsome monster of the skies. Its talons can clasp a kaiila and carry it aloft, to drop it to its death, thence to land and feed on the meat. Its most common prey is the delicate, flocking, single-horned tabuk. A single wrench of that mighty beak could tear the arm from a man. The tarn, you see, never flies from the sight of land. It could not be the cry of a tarn.

Then, again, we heard that shrill scream, as though at dawn, as it might announce itself to the sun, Tor-tu-Gor, as it might inform the world of the privacy and sanctity of its nesting site, as it might warn even larls away from its surveyed domain.

The tarn, it is said, is the Ubar of the sky.

So astonishing then that men, so tiny beside its bulk, might saddle and use such monsters as mounts! Such men are called tarnsmen.

“Back oars! Back oars!” cried the second officer, standing wildly at the port rail.

“Back oars!” screamed the captain.

We seized the oars but it was useless. There was no time, no time to even lift the blades from the water.

Emerging from the fog, literally upon us, suddenly visible, was the vast bulk of the great ship.

There was a wrenching of wood and the cries of men, and the stem and stern of the long ship began to rise out of the water, and the planking amidships, shattering, pressed down, sank into the sea, and then the stem, I clinging to it, collapsed back into the water, and doubtless, on the other side, for I could not see, given the obscuring passing of the vast, intrusive bulk, the stern did as well, and Thassa burst up, flooding the thwarts, and then the deck. I stood in a foot or two of cold, swirling water. My station was forward, and I suddenly, unwillingly, realized that I was now clinging to what was only a part of the ship, a recognition I somehow frenziedly fought against acknowledging, not wanting to see it, or understand it, that she had been snapped in two. As the monstrous bow of the great structure continued on its way, placidly, like a force of nature, the remains of the long ship were swept aside. I had heard, above the cries and the breaking wood, from the other side of the passing hull, the sudden ringing of springal boards speeding javelins, doubtless ignited, into the enemy. We were fighting back. But I heard them only once. The decks were awash. Clinging to a remnant of the bulwarks, half in water, I saw the hull of the monster towering above me, fifty feet or more, like a several-storied building of wood, a moving insula, wet and glistening, moving. This was some five times the height of a large round ship. In all the world no such a thing had been seen.

Surely this was no human thing, but a creation of the gods of Gor, of the Priest-Kings themselves.

How absurd to have fired flaming javelins at such a vessel. Might that not displease the Priest-Kings, the gods and masters of Gor?

I blinked my eyes, fiercely, to rid them of water. I shook my head, to get my sopped hair behind me. It was cold, clinging to the bit of wreckage. I saw no one about me. I called out, but was not answered.

Then I thought, “No, the Priest-Kings would not build such mortal frames, and, if so, not of wood. Stories had it that they rode within ships, but strange ships, round, flat ships, like disks, disks of metal, which moved like clouds, swift as thought, in silence. Some claimed to have seen them over the palisade of the Sardar. But such stories must be false, as they were denied by Initiates, the white caste, highest and worthiest of all the castes, as they were intermediaries between Priest-Kings and mortals. How wise they were, and how powerful they were, how sacrosanct and holy they were, to have the ear of Priest-Kings, to have at their disposal the prayers, the spells, the rituals, the devotions, and sacrifices by means of which Priest-Kings might be swayed, by means of which their favor might be garnered. It was no wonder that that they were consulted by Ubars bearing baskets of gold, and simple Peasants, with a handful of suls. They were celebrated by cities and villages. They were petitioned by Merchants embarking on bold, uncertain ventures, by gamblers with an interest in the summer tharlarion races. Assassins sought their blessing. Some of the loveliest buildings on Gor were their temples. They lived well. They were frauds, laden with corruption.

I thought I heard the oars of a galley, a light galley, not much different from the patrol ship.

It must be a long ship of Tyros, come early to our rendezvous!

“Ho!” I cried.

“Ho!” I heard, in return, to my elation, some yards away, through the fog.

“Here, here!” I cried. “I am here! Hurry!”

I spat out water, and shook my head. My eyes stung from the water. Water swept over the wreckage, and then drained from it, again and again. I was often immersed. My hands slipped on the bit of railing I held. With my teeth I pulled off the heavy, water-filled oar gloves. Within them my fingers seemed frozen. I thrust the fingers of one hand into my mouth, and then those of my other hand, for a modicum of warmth. It was late in the season, and the waters were cold, and I knew not how long I or another, in the sweep and washing of the water, might be able to cling to so negligible a support. I dug my fingers into the ornate external carving on the wreckage. I was half in the water, half out of the water, on the wet, washed, sloping surface.

“Here, here!” I cried. “I am here!”

I heard some oars being indrawn, through the thole ports.

The sound was close!

“Call out,” I heard. “Call out!”

“Here, here!” I cried. The voice I had heard had clearly the accents of Tyros, or Cos, which accents are much the same, many times even indistinguishable.

Then, the fog parting, momentarily, I saw, looming above me, passing, a large, painted eye, black on yellow, that behind the small galley’s downward sloping, concave prow, such eyes that she may guard herself and see her way, for as those who follow the sea are well aware, the ship is a living thing, and without eyes how might she see? Without eyes how might she guard herself or hers, how find her way? She is not an object, but a fellow, a colleague, a friend, a companion, a lover, one with whom one shares an endeavor or an adventure, one to whom one entrusts oneself. She stands between you and the deep, cold waters of Thassa. She will not lie to you, or betray you. She will not cheat you or steal from you. She will never forsake you for another. She speaks to you in the creaking of her timbers, in the snapping of her sails, and the cracking of her lines.

Her hull was low in the water, and blue.

“Ho!” I called.

Blue is the common color of Cos.

Odd that a Cosian long ship, another Cosian long ship, would be in these waters. The ship, reassuringly, was not green, for pirates often paint their ships green, that they be the less seen on mighty, rolling Thassa. Many of the vessels of Port Kar, that den of thieves and cutthroats, that scourge of Thassa, were green, almost invisible, under oars, low in the water, the mast down.

“I see you!” called a voice.

Yes, clearly the accent was reassuring!

The galley back-oared on the port side. Her starboard oars were mostly indrawn, or still. The stroke of one of those levers can kill a man.

The hull of the galley was within two or three yards, and a wharfing pole thrust over the bulwarks, toward me. The common galley usually carries three wharfing poles, for pushing away from a wharf, until oars can obtain their purchase. One is usually used at the bow, the second amidships, the last at the stern. They are also used to adjust wharfage, until the lines are snug to the wharf cleats. In battle they help to prevent boardings, keeping another ship at bay until grappling hooks might be dislodged. I seized the pole and pulled myself to an unsteady footing on the wreckage.

“Steady,” said a voice.

I was shuddering and freezing, weak with misery and cold.

“Closer,” said the voice. “Good, good.”

The pole was being drawn inward, I lost my footing and my feet were in the water. Then to the waist. I clung to the pole. It was being drawn toward the railing, and lifted. I was afraid I could not hold to the pole. I was afraid, half frozen, and numb, that I would lose the pole, and fall back into the water. A hand was outstretched, over the vessel’s side, it rocking, toward me.

I grasped it, gratefully, in the seaman’s grip, wrist to wrist.

“Hail Cos!” I cried. “Hail mighty Lurius of Jad! Hail Tyros! Hail Chenbar, Ubar of Tyros!”

I was then drawn over the rail, and held in strong arms.

“Hail Cos,” I said. “Hail Tyros!”

“Hail Marlenus of Ar,” said a voice. “Hail Glorious Ar,” said another voice.

“Ar?” I said.

“Strip and bind him,” I heard.

I was thrown on my belly to the deck between the thwarts. My wrists were then jerked behind me and my ankles crossed, and I was bound, swiftly, expertly, by two men, hand and foot. My clothing was then cut away and cast over the side.

I lay on the deck between the thwarts, naked, and freezing. I squirmed a bit, fighting the ropes, but my struggles were unavailing. I was prone, between the thwarts, naked and bound, helplessly bound.

I felt a foot on my back. I was pressed down to the deck. “Lie still,” said a voice.

I ceased struggling.

The foot was then removed from my back.

“Is he well tied?” asked a voice.

“Yes,” said a voice, “he is as helpless as a trussed vulo, or a female slave.”

I cried out with rage, and fought the ropes. How furious I was that they had dared to compare my helplessness with that of a bound female slave, a domestic animal, thigh-marked and neck-encircled, a man’s purchasable, obedient, whip-fearing work beast and pleasure toy! My efforts were met with laughter. I then lay quietly on the deck, angry and sullen, helpless, as helpless as a trussed vulo, or, I suppose, a female slave.

I was their prisoner.

“Return to the ship,” said a man.