Nomads Of Gor

2. I Make the Acquaintance of the Wagon People

As I walked I asked myself why I did so-why I, Tarl Cabot-once of Earth, later a warrior of the Gorean city of Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning, had come here. In the long years that had passed since first I had come to the Counter-liarth I had seen many things, and had know loves, and had found adventures and perils and wonders, but I asked myself if anything I had done was as unreasoning, as foolish as this, as strange.

Some years before, perhaps between two and five years before, as the culmination of an intrigue enduring centuries, two men, humans from the walled cities of Gor, had, for the sake of Priest-Kings, undertaken a long, secret journey, car- rying an object to the Wagon Peoples, an object bestowed on them by Priest-Kings, to be given to that people that was, to the Goreans' knowledge, the most free, among the fiercest, among the most isolated on the planet-an object that would be given to them for safekeeping.

The two men who had carried this object, keeping well its secret as demanded by Priest-Kings, had braved many perils and had been as brothers. But later, shortly after the com- pletion of their journey, in a war between their cities, each had in battle slain the other, and thus among men, save perhaps for some among the Wagon Peoples, the secret had been lost. It was only in the Sardar Mountains that I had learned the nature of their mission, and what it was that they had carried. Now I supposed that I alone, of humans on Gor, with the possible exception of some among the Wagon Peoples, knew the nature of the mysterious object which once these two brave men had brought in secrecy to the plains of Turia and, to be truthful, I did not know that even I should I see it-would know it for what I sought.

Could I, Tarl Cabot, a human and mortal, find this object and, as Priest-Kings now wished, return it to the SardarA return it to the hidden courts of Priest-Kings that it might there fulfill its unique and irreplaceable role in the destiny of this barbaric world, Gor, our Counter-Earth?

I did not know.

What is this object?

One might speak of it as many things, the subject of secret, violent intrigues; the source of vast strifes beneath the Sardar, strifes unknown to the men of Gor; the concealed, precious, hidden hope of an incredible and ancient race; a simple germ; a bit of living tissue; the dormant potentiality of a people's rebirth, the seed of godsAan eggAthe last and only egg of Priest-Kings.

But why was it I who came?

Why not Priest-Kings in their ships and power, with their fierce weapons and fantastic devices?

Priest-Kings cannot stand the sun.

They are not as men and men, seeing them, would fear them.Men would not believe they were Priest-Kings. Men con- ceive Priest-Kings as they conceive themselves.

The object the egg might be destroyed before it could be delivered to them.

It might already have been destroyed.

Only that the egg was the egg of Priest-Kings gave me occasion to suspect, to hope, that somehow within that mys- terious, presumably ovoid sphere, if it still entwisted, quiescent but latent, there might be life.

And if I should find the object, why should I not myself destroy it, and destroy thereby the race of Priest-Kings, giving this world to my own kind, to men, to do with as they pleased, unrestricted by the laws and decrees of Priest-Kings that so limited their development, their technology? Once I had spoken to a Priest-King of these things. He had said to me, "Man is a larl to man; if we permitted him, he would be so to Priest-Kings as well."

"But man must be free," I had said.

"Freedom without reason is suicide," had said the Priest King, adding, "Man is not yet rational."

But I would not destroy the egg, not only because it contained life, but because it was important to my friend, whose name was Misk and is elsewhere spoken of; much of the life of that brave creature was devoted to the dream of a new life for Priest-Kings, a new stock, a new beginning; a readiness to relinquish his place in an old world to prepare a mansion for the new; to have and love a child, so to speak, for Misk, who is a Priest-King, neither male nor female, yet can love.

I recalled a windy night in the shadow of the Sardar when we had spoken of strange things, and I had left him and come down the hill, and had asked the leader of those with whom I had traveled the way to the Land of the Wagon Peoples.

I had found it.

The dust rolled nearer, the ground seemed more to move than ever.

I pressed on.

Perhaps if I were successful I might save my race, by preserving the Priest-Kings that might shelter them from the annihilation that might otherwise be achieved if uncontrolled technological development were too soon permitted them; perhaps in time man would grow rational, and reason and love and tolerance would wax in him and he and Priest-Kings might together turn their senses to the stars.

But I knew that more than anything I was doing this for Misk, who was my friend.

The consequences of my act, if I were successful, were too complex and fearful to calculate, the factors involved being so numerous and obscure.

If it turned out badly, what I did, I would have no defense other than that I did what I did for my friend for him and for his brave kind, once hated enemies, whom I had learned to know and respect.

There is no loss of honor in failing to achieve such a task, I told myself. It is worthy of a warrior of the caste of Warriors, a swordsman of the high city of Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning.

Tal, I might say, in greeting, I am Tart Cabot of Ko-ro-ba; I bring no credentials, no proofs; I come from the Priest-Kings; I would like to have the object which was brought to you from them; they would now like it back; Thank you; farewell.

I laughed.

I would say little or nothing.

The object might not even be with the Wagon Peoples any longer.

And there were four Wagon Peoples, the Paravaci, the Kataii, the Kassars, and the dreaded Tuchuks.

Who knew with which people the object might have been placed?

Perhaps it had been hidden away and forgotten?

Perhaps it was now a sacred object, little understood, but revered and it would be sacrilege to think of it, blasphemy to speak its Barge, a cruel and slow death even to cast one's eyes upon it.

And if I should manage to seize it, how could I carry it away?I had no tarn, one of Gor's fierce saddlebirds; I had not even the monstrous high tharlarion, used as the mounts of shock cavalry by the warriors of some cities.

I was afoot, on the treeless southern plains of Gor, on the Plains of Turia, in the Land of the Wagon Peoples. The Wagon Peoples, it is said, slay strangers.

The words for stranger and enemy in Gorean are the same.

I would advance openly.

If I were found on the plains near the camps or the bosk herds I knew I would be scented out and slain by the do- mesticated, nocturnal herd sleen, used as shepherds and sentinels by the Wagon Peoples, released from their cages with the falling of darkness.

These animals, trained prairie sleen, move rapidly and silently, attacking upon no other provocation than trespass on what they have decided is their territory. They respond only to the voice of their master, and when he is killed pr dies, his animals are slain and eaten.

There would be no question of night spying on the Wagon Peoples.

I knew they spoke a dialect of Gorean, and I hoped I would be able to understand them.

If I could not I must die as befitted a swordsman of Ko-ro-ba.

I hoped that I would be granted death in battle, if death it must be. The Wagon Peoples, of all those on Gor that I know, are the only ones that have a clan of torturers, trained as carefully as scribes or physicians, in the arts of detaining life.

Some of these men have achieved fortune and fame in various Gorean cities, for their services to Initiates and Ubars, and others with an interest in the arts of detection and persuasion. For some reason they have all worn hoods. It is said they remove the hood only when the sentence is death, so that it is only condemned men who have seen whatever it is that lies beneath the hood.

I was surprised at the distance I had been from the herds, for though I had seen the rolling dust clearly, and had felt and did feel the shaking of the earth, betraying the passage of those monstrous herds, I had not yet come to them. But now I could hear, carried on the wind blowing toward distant Turia, the bellowing of the basks. The dust was now heavy like nightfall in the air. The grass and the earth seemed to quake beneath my tread.

I passed fields that were burning, and burning huts of peasants, the smoking shells of Sa-Tarna granaries, the shat- tered, slatted coops for vulos, the broken walls of keeps for the small, long-haired domestic verr, less belligerent and sizeable than the wild verr of the Voltai Ranges.

Then for the first time, against the horizon, a jagged line, humped and rolling like thundering waters, seemed to rise alive from the prairie, vast, extensive, a huge arc, churning and pounding from one corner of the sky to the other, the herds of the Wagon Peoples, encircling, raising dust into the sky like fire, like hoofed glaciers of fur and horn moving in shaggy floods across the grass, toward me.

And then I saw the first of the outriders, moving toward me, swiftly yet not seeming to hurry. I saw the slender line of his light lance against the sky, strapped across his back. I could see he carried a small, round, leather shield, glossy, black, lacquered; he wore a conical, fur-rimmed iron helmet, a net of colored chains depending from the helmet protecting his face, leaving only holes for the eyes. He wore a quilted jacket and under this a leather jerkin; the jacket was trimmed with fur and had a fur collar; his boots were made of hide and also trimmed with fur; he had a wide, five-buckled belt. I could not see his face because of the net of chain that hung before it. I also noted, about his throat, now lowered, there was a soft leather wind scarf which might, when the helmet veil was lifted be drawn over the mouth and nose, against the wind and dust of his ride.

He was very erect in the saddle. His lance remained on his back, but he carried in his right hand the small, powerful horn bow of the Wagon Peoples and attached to his saddle was a lacquered, narrow, rectangular quiver containing as many as forty arrows. On the saddle there also hung, on one side, a coiled rope of braided boskbide and, on the other, a long, three-weighted bole of the sort used in hunting tumits and men; in the saddle itself on the right side, indicating the rider must be right-handed, were the seven sheaths for the almost legendary quivas, the balanced saddleknives of the prairie. It was said a youth of the Wagon Peoples was taught the bow, the quiva and the lance before their parents would consent to give him a name, for names are precious among the Wagon Peoples, as among Goreans in general, and they are not to be wasted on someone who is likely to die, one who cannot well handle the weapons of the hunt and war. Until the youth has mastered the bow, the quiva and the lance he is simply known as the first, or the second, and so on, son of such and such a father.

The Wagon Peoples war among themselves, but once in every two hands of years, there is a time of gathering of the peoples, and this, I had learned, was that time. In the thinking of the Wagon Peoples it is called the Omen Year, though the Omen Year is actually a season, rather than a year, which occupies a part of two of their regular years, for the Wagon Peoples calculate the year from the Season of Snows to the Season of Snows; Turians, incidentally, figure the year from summer solstice to summer solstice; Goreans generally, on the other hand, figure the year from vernal equinox to vernal equinox, their new year beginning, like nature's, with the spring; the Omen Year, or season, lasts several months, and consists of three phases, called the Passing of Turia, which takes place in the fad; the Wintering, which takes place north of Turia and commonly south of the Cartius, the equator of course lying to the north in this hemisphere; and the Return to Curia, in the spring, or, as the Wagon Peoples say, in the Season of Little Grass. It is near Turia, in the spring, that the Omen Year is completed, when the omens are taken usually over several days by hundreds of harus- pexes, mostly readers of bask blood and verr livers, to determine if they are favorable for a choosing of a Ubar San, a One Ubar, a Ubar who would be High Ubar, a Ubar of an the Wagons, a Ubar of all the Peoples, one who could lead them as one people.^{2}

A consequence of the chronological conventions of the Wagon Peoples, of course, is that their years tend to vary in length, but this fact, which might bother us, does not bother them, any more than the fact that some men and some animals live longer than others; the women of the Wagon Peoples, incidentally, keep a calendar based on the phases of Gor's largest moon, but this is a calendar of fifteen moons, named for the fifteen varieties of bask, and functions independently of the tallying of years by snows; for example, the Moon of the Brown Bosk may at one time occur in the winter, at another time, years later, in the summer; this calendar is kept by a set of colored pegs set in the sides of some wagons, on one of which, depending on the moon, a round, wooden plate bearing the image of a bosk is fixed. The years, incidentally, are not numbered by the Wagon Peoples, but given names, toward their end, based on something or other which has occurred to distinguish the year. The year names are kept in living memory by the Year Keepers, some of whom can recall the names of several thousand consecutive years. The Wagon Peoples do not trust important matters, such as year names, to paper or parchment, subject to theft, insect and rodent damage, deterioration, etc. Most of those of the Wagon Peoples have excellent memories, trained from birth. Few can read, though some can, perhaps having acquired the skill far from the wagons, perhaps from merchants or tradesmen. The Wagon Peoples, as might be expected, have a large and complex oral literature. This is kept by and occasionally, in parts, recited by the Camp Singers. They do not have castes, as Goreans tend to think of them. For example, every male of the Wagon Peoples is expected to be a warrior, to be able to ride, to be able to hunt, to care for the bask, and so on. When I speak of Year Keepers and Singers it 'muss be understood that these are not, for the Wagon Peoples, castes, but more like roles, subsidiary to their main functions, which are those of the war, herding and the hunt. They do have, however, certain clans, not castes, which specialize in certain matters, for example, the clan of healers, leather workers, salt hunters, and so on. I have already mentioned the clan of torturers. The members of these clans, however, like the Year Keepers and Singers, are all expected, first and foremost, to be, as it is said, of the wagons namely to follow, tend and protect the bask, to be superb in the saddle, and to be skilled with the weapons of both the hunt and war.

The saying is: under such conditions it was not surprising that the "omens tended to be unfavorable"; indeed, what more inauspicious omens could there be? The haruspexes, the readers of bosk blood and verr livers, surely would not be unaware of these, let us say, larger, graver omens. It would not, of course, be to the benefit of Turia, or the farther cities, or indeed, any of the free cities of even northern Gor, if the isolated fierce peoples of the south were to join behind a single standard and turn their herds northward, away from their dry plains to the lusher reaches of the valleys of the eastern Cartius, perhaps even beyond them to those of the Vosk. Little would be safe if the Wagon Peoples should march.

A thousand years ago it was said they had carried devastation as far as the walls of Ar and Ko-ro-ba.

The rider had clearly seen me and was moving his mount steadily toward me.

I could now see as well, though separated by hundreds of yards, three other riders approaching. One was circling to approach from the rear.

The mount of the Wagon Peoples, unknown in the northern hemisphere of Gor, is the terrifying but beautiful kaiila. It is a silken, carnivorous, lofty creature, graceful, long-necked, smooth-gaited. It is viviparous and undoubtedly mammalian, though there is no suckling of the young. The young are born vicious and by instinct, as soon as they can struggle to their feet, they hunt. It is an instinct of the other, sensing the birth, to deliver the young animal in the vicinity of game. I supposed, with the domesticated kaiila, a bound verr or a prisoner might be cast to the newborn animal. The kaiila, once it eats its fill, does not touch food for several days.

The kaiila is extremely agile, and can easily outmaneuver he slower, more ponderous high tharlarion. It requires less food, of course, than the tarn. A kaiila, which normally stands about twenty to twenty-two hands at the shoulder, can over as much as six hundred pasangs in a single day's riding.* The head of the kaiila bears two large eyes, one on each side, but these eyes are triply lidded, probably an adaptation to the environment which occasionally is wracked by severe storms of wind and dust; the adaptation, actually a transpar- ent third lid, permits the animal to move as it wishes under conditions that force other prairie animals to back into the wind or, like the sleen, to burrow into the ground. The kaiila is most dangerous under such conditions, and, as if it knew this, often uses such times for its hunt.

Now the rider had reined in the kaiila.

He held his ground, waiting for the others.

I could hear the soft thud of a kaiila's paws in the grass, to my right.

The second rider had halted there. He was dressed much as the first man, except that no chain depended from his helmet, but his wind scarf was wrapped about his face. His shield was lacquered yellow, and his bow was yellow. Over his shoulder he, too, carried one of the slender lances. He was a black. Kataii, I said to myself.

The third rider placed himself, reining in suddenly, pulling the mount to its hind legs, and it reared snarling against the bit, and then stood still, its neck straining toward me. I could see the long, triangular tongue in the animal's head, behind the four rows of fangs. The rider, too, wore a wind scarf. His shield was red. The Blood People, the Kassars.

I turned and was not surprised to see the fourth rider, motionless on his animal, already in position. The kaiila moves with great rapidity. The fourth rider was dressed in a hood and cape of white fur. He wore a flopping cap of white fur, which did not conceal the conical outlines of the steel beneath it. The leather of his jerkin was black. The buckles on his belt of gold. His lance had a rider hook under the point, with which he might dismount opponents. The kaiila of these men were as tawny as the brown grass of the prairie, save for that of the man who faced me, whose mount was a silken, sable black, as black as the lacquer of the shield.

About the neck of the fourth rider there was a broad belt of jewels, as wide as my hand. I gathered that this was ostentation. Actually I was later to learn that the jeweled belt is worn to incite envy and accrue enemies; its purpose is to encourage attack, that the owner may try the skill of his weapons, that he need not tire himself seeking for foes. I knew, though, from the belt, though I first misread its purpose, that the owner was of the Paravaci, the Rich People- "Tal!" I called, lifting my hand, palm inward, in Gorean greeting.

As one man the four riders unstrapped their lances. "I am Tart Cabot," I called. "I come in peace"

I saw the kaiila tense, almost like larls, their flanks quivering, their large eyes intent upon me. I saw one of the long, triangular tongues dart out and back. Their long ears were laid back against the fierce, silken heads.

"Do you speak Gorean?" I called.

As one, the lances were lowered. The lances of the Wagon Peoples are not pouched. They are carried in the right fist, easily, and are flexible and light, used for thrusting, not the battering-ram effect of the heavy lances of Europe 's High Middle Ages. Needless to say, they can be almost as swift and delicate in their address as a saber. The lances are black, cut from the poles of young tem trees. They may be bent almost double, like finely tempered steel, before they break. A loose loop of boskhide, wound twice about the right fist, helps to retain the weapon in hand-to-hand combat. It is seldom thrown.

"I come in peace!" I shouted to them.

The man behind me called out, speaking Gorean with a harsh accent. "I am Tolnus of the Paravaci." Then he shook away his hood, letting his long hair stream behind him over the white fur of the collar. I stood stock still, seeing the face. From my left came a cry. "I am Conrad, he of the Kassars." He threw the chain mask from his face, back over the helmet and laughed. Were they of Earth stock, I asked myself. Were they men?

From my right there came a great laugh. "I am Hakimba of the Kataii," he roared. He pulled aside the wind scarf with one hand, and his face, though black, bore the same marks as the others.

Now the rider in front of me lifted the colored chains from his helmet, that I might see his face. It was a white face, but heavy, greased; the epicanthic fold of his eyes bespoke a mixed origin.

I was looking on the faces of four men, warriors of the Wagon Peoples. On the face of each there were, almost like corded chev- roes, brightly colored scars. The vivid coloring and intensity of these scars, their prominence, reminded me of the hideous markings on the faces of mandrills; but these disfigurements, as I soon recognized, were cultural not genetic. They bespoke not the natural innocence of the work of genes but the glories and status, the arrogance and prides, of their bearers. The scars had been worked into the faces, with needles and knives and pigments and the dung of basks over a period of days and nights. Men had died in the fixing of such scars. Most of the scars were set in pairs, moving diagonally down from the side of the head toward the nose and chin. The man facing me had seven such scars ceremo- nially worked into the tissue of his countenance, the highest being red, the next yellow, the next blue, the fourth black, then two yellow, then black again. The faces of the men I saw were all scarred differently, but each was scarred. The effect of the scars, ugly, startling, terrible, perhaps in part calculated to terrify enemies, had even prompted me, for a wild moment, to conjecture that what I faced on the Plains of Turia were not men, but perhaps aliens of some sort, brought to Gor long ago from remote worlds to serve some now discharged or forgotten purpose of Priest-Kings; but now I knew better; now I could see them as men; and now, more significantly, I recalled what I had heard whispered of once before, in a tavern in Ar, the terrible Scar Codes of the Wagon Peoples, for each of the hideous marks on the face of these men had a meaning, a significance that could be read by the Paravaci, the Kassars, the Kataii, the Tuchuks as clearly as you or I might read a sign in a window or a sentence in a book. At that time I could read only the top scar, the red, bright, fierce cordlike scar that was the Cour- age Scar. It is always the highest scar on the face. Indeed, without that scar, no other scar can be granted. The Wagon Peoples value courage above all else. Each of the men facing me wore that scar.

Now the man facing me lifted his small, lacquered shield and his slender, black lance.

"Hear my name," cried he, "I am Kamchak of the Tuchuks!"

As suddenly as he had finished, as soon as the men had named themselves, as if a signal had been given, the four kaiila bounded forward, squealing with rage, each rider bent low on his mount, lance gripped in his right hand, straining to be the first to reach me.