Raiders of Gor

16 What Occurred One Night in Port Kar

I held the sweet, loving, uncollared thing in my arms.

"My Ubar," whispered Telima.

"Master," I said, kissing her.

She drew back, reproachfully. "Would you not rather be my Ubar, than my Master?" she asked.

I looked at her. "Yes," I said, "I would."

"You aer both," she pronounced, again kissing me.

"Ubara," I whispered to her.

"Yes," she whispered, "I am your Ubara-and your slave girl."

"You wear no collar," I pointed out.

"Master removed it," said she, "that he might more easily kiss my throat." "Oh!" I said.

"Oh!" she cried.

"What is wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing," she laughed.

I felt her back, and the five weals left there by the switch of the kitchen master.

"But a few hours ago," said she, "I displeased my master and he had me beaten." "I am sorry," I said.

She laughed. "How silly you sometimes are, my Ubar. I left your side unbidden, and so, of course, I was beaten." She looked up at me, laughing. "I have richly deserved many beatings," she confided, "but I have not always received them." Telima was Gorean to the core. I myself would always be, doubtless, at least partly, of Earth. I held her. There could never be, I told myself, any question of sending this woman to Earth. In tht overcrowded desert of hypocracies and hysterical, meaningless violences, she would surely wither and blacken, like some rare and beautiful plant of the marshes uprooted and thrust down among stones to die.

"Are you still sad, my Ubar?" she asked.

"No," I told her, kissing her. "No."

She looked at me, gently. And touched my cheek with her hand. "Do not be sad," she said.

I looked about and found the golden armlet. I slipped it once again on her arm. She leaped to her feet, standing on the furs of the couch, and threw her left arm into the air. "I am Ubara!" she cried.

"Commonly," I said, "a Ubara wears more than a golden armlet."

"On the couch of her Ubar?" asked Telima.

"Well," I admitted, "I do not know about that."

"I do not either," said Telima. She looked down at me, brightly. "I shall ask the new girl in the kitchens," she said.

"You wench!" I cried, grabbing her ankle.

She stepped back swiftly, and then stood there, regally on the furs. "How dare you address such a word to your Ubara, Slave!" demanded she. "Slave!" I cried.

"Yes," she taunted, "Slave!"

I cast about for the slave collar I had taken from her throat.

"No, no!" she cried, laughing, almost losing her footing in the furs. Then I had the collar.

"You will never collar me!" she cried.

She darted away, laughing. I, laughing, leaped from the couch, pursuing her. She ran this way and that, and dodged back and forth, laughing, but then I had her pinned in the corner of the room, her arms held down by the walls and my body, and snapped the collar again on her throat. I lifted her and carried her again to the furs and threw her down upon them.

She jerked at the collar and looked up at me, as though in fury.

I held her wrists down.

"You will never tame me!" she hissed.

I kissed her.

"Well," she said, "perhaps you will tame me."

I kissed her again.

"Ah," she said, looking up at me, "it is not unlikely that in the end I will succumb to you."

I laughed.

But then, as though infuriated by my laughter, she began to struggle viciously. "But, in the meantime," she hissed, between clenched teeth, "I shall resist you with all my might!"

I laughed again, and she laughed, and I permitted her to struggle until she had exhausted herself, and then, with lips and hands, and teeth and tongue, I touched her, until her body, caressed and loved, in all its loneliness and passion, yielded itself, moaning and crying out, to mine in our common ecstasy. And in the moments before she yielded, when I sensed her readiness, to her faint protest, then joy, I removed from her throat the slave collar that her yielding, our game ended, would be that of the free woman, glorious in the eager and willing, the joyous, bestowal of herself.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you, too," I said. "I love you, my Telima."

"But sometime," she said, teasingly, "you must love me as a slave girl." "Women!" I cried, in exasperation.

"Ever woman," said Telima, "sometimes wishes to be loved as a Ubara, and sometimes as a slave girl."

"Oh," I said.

For a long time we lay together in one another's arms.

"My Ubar," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Why, at the feast, when the singer sang," she asked, "did you weep?" "For no reason," I said.

We lay side by side, looking up at the ceiling.

"Years ago," she said, "when I was so much younger, I recall hearing sing of Tarl of Bristol."

"In the marshes?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "sometimes a singer comes to the rence islands. But, too, when I was a slave in Port Kar I heard sing of Tarl of Brstol, in the house of my master."

Telima had never spoken much to me of her slavery in Port Kar. She had hated her master, I had known, and she had escaped. And, as I had sensed, her slavery had scarred her deeply. In the marshes I had been unfortunate enough to taste something of the hatreds and frustrations that had been built up within her. Her wounds had been deep, and having been hurt by a man it had been her desire to hurt one in turn, and cruelly so, that in his suffering her imagined vengeance on another would be the sweeter. Telima was a strange woman. I wondered again how she had come by an armlet of gold. And I recalled, now puzzled again, that she, though a rence girl, had been able to read the lettering on the collar I had placed on her one night long ago.

But I did not speak to her of these things, for she was speaking to me, dreamily, remembering.

"When I was a girl on the rence island," she said, "and later, sometimes at night, when I was a slave, in my cage in my master's house, I would lie awake and think of the songs, and of heroes."

I touched her hand.

"And sometimes," she said, "even often, I would think of the hero Tarl of Bristol."

I said nothing.

"Do you think there is such a man?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Could not such a man exist?" she asked. She had rolled over on her stomach, and was looking at me. I was lying on my back, looking at the ceiling.

"In songs," I said. "Such a man might exist in songs."

She laughed. "Are there no heroes?" she asked.

"No," I told her. "there are no heroes."

She said nothing.

"There are only human beings," I told her.

I lay looking for a long time at the ceiling.

"Human beings," I told her, "are weak. They are capable of cruelty. They are selfish, and greedy, and vain and petty. They can be vicious, and there is much in them that is ugly and worthy only of contempt" I looked at her. "All men," I told her, "are corruptible. There are no heroes, no Tarls of Bristol." She smiled at me. "There is gold and steel," she said.

"And the bodies of women," I said.

"And songs," she said.

"Yes," I said, "and songs."

She laid her head on my shoulder.

Dimly, far off, I heard the ringing of a great bar.

Though it was early i heard noises in the house. Some men, down one or another of the corridors, were shouting.

I sat up on the couch, and drew about myself my robes.

I heard feet running in the corridor, approaching.

"The blade," I said to Telima.

She leaped up, and picked up the sword, which lay near the wall, where I had thrown it some hours before, where I had not slain her.

I put the blade in my scabbard, and wrapped the straps about the scabbard. The steps were close now, and then I heard a pounding at my door.

"Captain!" I heard.

It was Thurnock.

"Enter!" I called.

Thurnock burst in. He stood there, within the room, his eyes wild, his hair wild, holding a torch. "Patrol ships have returned," he cried. "The joint fleets of Cos and Tyros are but hours from us!"

"Outfit my ships," I said.

"There is no time!" he cried. "And captains are fleeing! All who can are leaving Port Kar!"

I looked at him.

"Flee, my Captain!" he said. "Flee!"

"You may go," said I, "Thurnock."

He looked at me, confused, and then turned and stumbled away down the hall. Somewhere I heard a girl screaming in fear.

I dressed, and slung the sword over my left shoulder.

"Take your ships and what men are left to you," said Telima. "Fill your ships with treasure and fly, my Ubar."

I regarded her. How beautiful she was.

"Let Port Kar die!" she cried.

I picked up the broad scarlet ribbon, with its medallion, that with the tarn ship and the initials of the Council of Captains.

I put it in my pouch.

"Let Port Kar burn," said Telima. "Let Port Kar die!"

"You are very beautiful, my love," I told her.

"Let Port Kar die!" she cried.

"It is my city," I said. "I must defend it."

I heard her weeping as I left the room.

Strangely there was little in my mind as I walked to the great hall, where the feast had been held. I walked as though I might be another, no knowing myself. I knew what I would do, and yet I knew not why I would do it.

To my surprise, in the great hall, I found gathered the officers fo my men. I think there was not one that was there.

I looked from face to face, the great Thurnock, now calm, swift, strong Clitus, the shrewd oar-master, the others. Many of these men were cutthroats, killers, pirates. I wondered why they were in this room.

A door at the side opened and Tab strode in, his sword over his left shoulder. "I am sorry, Captain," said he, "I was attending my ship."

We regarded one another evenly. And then I smiled. "I am forunate," I said, "to have one so diligent in my service."

"Captain," said he.

"Thurnock," I said, "I gave orders, did I not, to have my shops outfitted." Thurnock grinned, the tooth missing on his upper right side. "It is being done," he said.

"what are we to do?" asked one of my captains.

What could on say to them? If the joint fleets of Cos and Tyros were indeed almost upon us, there was little to do but flee, or fight. We were truly read to do neither. Even had the fortunes I had brought from the treasure fleet been applied immediately after my return to the city, we could not, in the time, have outfitted a fleet to match that which must be decending upon us.

"What would be your estimate of the size of the fleet of Cos and Tyros," I asked Tab.

He did not hesitate. "Four thousand ships," he said.

"Tarn ships?" I asked.

"All," he said.

His surmise agreed closely with the reports of my spies. The fleet would consist, according to my information, of forty-two hundred ships, twenty-five hundred from Cos and seventeen hundred from Tyros. Of the forty-two hundred, fifteen hundred would be galleys heavy class, two thousand medium-clas galleys, and seven hundred light galleys. A net, a hundred pasangs wide, was closing on Port Kar.

It seemed that only the departure date of the fleet had eluded my spies. I laughed, yet I could not blame them. One scarcely advertises such matters. And ships may be swiftly outfitted and launched, if materials and crews are at hand. The council and I had apparently miscalculated the damage done by the capture of the treasure fleet to the war plans of Cos and Tyros. We had not expected the launching of the fleet ot take places until the spring. Besides, it was now in Se'Kara, late in the season to launch tarn ships. Most sailing, save by round ships, is done in the spring and summer. In Se'Kara, particularly later in the month, there are often high seas on Thassa. We had been taken totally unprepared. It was dangerous to attack us now. In this bold stroke I saw not the hand of Lurius, Ubar of Cos, but of the brilliant Chenbar of Kasra, Ubar of Tyros, the Sea Sleen.

I admired him. He was a good captain.

"What shall we do, Captain?" ask teh officer once more.

"What do you propose?" I asked him, smiling.

He looked at me, startled. "There is only one thing to do," he said, "and that is to ready our ships, take our treasure and slaves aboard, and flee. We are strong, and may take an island on our own, one of the northern islands. There you can be Ubar and we can be your men."

"Many of the captains," said another officer, "are already weighing anchor for the northern islands."

"And others," said another, "for the southern ports."

"Thassa is broard," said another officer. "There are many islands, many ports." "And what of Port Kar?" I asked.

"She has no Home Stone," said one of the men.

I smiled. It was true. Port Kar, of al the cities on Gor, was the only one that had no Home Stone. I did not know if men did not love her because she had on Home Stone, or that she had no Home Stone because men did not love her. The officer had proposed, as clearly as one might, that the city be abandoned to the flames, and to the ravaging seamen of Cos and Tyros.

Port Kar had no Home Stone.

"How many of you think," I asked, "that Port Kar has no Home Stone?" The men looked at one another, puzzled. All knew, of course, that she had no Home Stone.

There was silence.

Then, after a time, Tab said, "I think that she might have one."

"But," said I, "she does not yet have one."

"No," said Tab.

"I," said one of the men, "wonder what it would be like to live in a ctiy where there is a Home Stone."

"How does a city obtain a Home Stone?" I asked.

"Men decide that she hasll have one," said Tab.

"Yes," I said, "that is how it is that a city obtains a Home Stone." The men looked at one another.

"Send the slave boy Fish before me," I said.

The men looked at one another, not understanding, but one went to fetch the boy. I knew that none of the slaves would have fled. They would not have been able to. The alarm had come in the night, and, at night, in a Gorean household, it is common for the slaves to be confined; certainly in my house, as a wise percaution, I kept my slaves well secured; even Midice, when she had snuggled against me in the love furs, when I had finished with her, was always chained by the right ankle to the slave ring set in the bottom of my couch. Fish would have been chained in the kitchen, side by side with Vina.

The boy, white-faced, alarmed, was shoved into my presence.

"Go outside," I told him, "and find a rock, and bring it to me."

He looked at me.

"Hurry!" I said.

He turned about and ran from the room.

We waited quietly, not speaking, until he returned. He held in his hand a sizable rock, somewhat bigger than my fist. It was a common rock, not very large, and gray and heavy, granular in texture.

I took the rock.

"A knife," I said.

I was handed a knife.

I cut in the rock the initials, in block Gorean script, of Port Kar. Then I held out in my hand the rock.

I held it up so that the men could see.

"What have I here?" I asked.

Tab said it, and quietly, "The Home Stone of Port Kar."

"Now," said I, facing the man who had told me there was but one choice, that of flight, "shall we fly?"

He looked at the simple rock, wonderingly. "I have never had a Home Stone before," he said.

"Shall we fly?" I asked.

"Not if we have a Home Stone," he said.

I held up the rock. "Do we have a Home Stone?" I asked the men.

"I will accept it as my Home Stone," said the slave boy, Fish. None of the men laughed. The first to accept the Home Stone of Port Kar was only a boy, and a slave. But he had spoken as a Ubar.

"And I!" cried Thurnock, in his great, booming voice.

"And I!" cried Clitus.

"And I!" said Tab.

"And I!" cried the men in the room. And, suddenly, the room was filled with cheers and more than a hundred weapons left their sheaths and saluted the Home Stone of Port Kar. I saw weathered seamen weep and cry out, brandishing their swords. There was joy in that room then such as I had never before seen it. And there was a belonging, and a victory, and a meaningfulness, and cries, and the clashing of weapons, and tears and, in that instant, love.

I cried to Thurnock. "Release all the slaves! Send them throughout the city, to the wharves, the taverns, the arsenal, the piazzas, the markets, everywhere! Tell them to cry out the news! Tell them to tell everyone that there is a Home Stone in Port Kar!"

Men ran from the room to carry out orders.

"Officers," I cried, "to your ships! Form your lines beyond the harbor four pasangs west of the wharves of Sevarius!"

"Thurnock and Clitus," I said, "remain in the holding."

"No!" they cried together.

"Remain!" I ordered.

They looked at one another in dismay.

I could not send them to their deaths. I had no hopes that Port Kar could muster enough ships to fend off the joint fleet of Cos and Tyros.

I turned away from them, and, with the stone, strode from the room. Outside the holding, on the broad promenade before of the holding, bordering on the lakelike courtyard, with the canal gate beyond, I ordered a swift, tharlarionprowed longboat made ready.

Even from where I was I could hear, beyond the holding, the cries that there was a Home Stone in Port Kar, and could see torches being borne along the narrow walks which, in most places, line the canals.

"Ubar," I heard, and I turned to take Telima in my arms.

"Will you not fly?" she begged, tears in her eyes.

"Listen," I told her. "Hear them? Hear what they are crying outside?" "They are crying that there is a Home Stone in Port Kar," she said, "but there is no Home Stone in Port Kar. Everyone knows that."

"If men will that there be a Home Stone in Port Kar," I said, "then in Port Kar there will be a Home Stone."

"Fly," she wept.

I kissed her and leaped down into the longboat, which was now beside the promenade.

The men shoved off with the oars.

"To the Council of Captains," I told them.

The tharlarion head of the craft turned toward the canal gate.

I turned to lift my hand in farewell to Telima. I saw her standing there, near the entryway to my holding, in the garment of the Kettle Slave, under the torches. She lifted her hand.

Then I took my seat in the longboat.

I noted that at one of the oars sat the slave boy Fish.

"It is a man's work that must now be done, Boy," I said to him.

He drew on the oar. "I am a man," he said, "Captain."

I saw the girl Vina standing beside Telima.

But Fish did not look back.

The ship nosed through the canals of Port Kar toward the hall of the Council of Captains.

There were torches everywhere, and lights in the windows.

We heard the cry about us sweeping the city, like a spark igniting the hearts of men into flame, that now in Port Kar there was a Home Stone.

A man stood on a narrow walks, a bundle on his back, tied over a spear. "Is it true, Admiral?" he cried. "Is it true?"

"If you will have it true," I told him, "it will be true."

He looked at me, wonderingly, and then the tharlarion-prowed longboat glided past him in the canal, leaving him behind.

I looked once behind, and saw that he had thrown the bundle from his spear, and was following us, afoot.

"There is a Home Stone in Port Kar!" he cried.

I saw others stop, and then follow him.

The canals we traversed were crowded, mostly with small tharlarion boats, loaded with goods, moving this way and that. All who could, it seemed, were fleeing the city.

I had heard already that men with larger ships, hundreds of them, had put out to sea, and that the wharves were packed with throngs, bidding exorbitant amounts of gold for a passage from Port Kar. Many fortunes, I thought, would be made this night in Port Kar.

"Make way for the Admiral!" cried the man in the bow of the longboat. "Make way for the admiral!"

We saw frightened faces looking out from the windows. Men were hurrying along the narrow walks lining the canals. I could see the shining eyes of urts, their noses and heads dividing the torchlit waters silently, their pointed, silken ears laid back against the sides of their heads.

"Make way for the Admiral!" cried the man in the bow of the longboat. Our boat mixed oars with another, and then we shoved apart and continued on our way.

Children were crying. I heard a woman scream. Men were shouting. Everywhere dark figures, bundles on their backs, were scurrying along the sides of the canals. Many of the boats we passed were crowded with frightened people and goods. Many of those we passed asked me, "Is it true, Admiral, that there is a Home Stone in Port Kar," and I responded to them, as I had to the man before, "If you will have it true, it will be true."

I saw a man at the tiller of one of the boats put about.

There were now torches on both sides of the canals, in long lines, following us, and boats, too, began to follow us.

"Where are you going?" asked a man from a window of the passing throng. "I think to the Council of Captains," said one of the men on the walk. "It is said that there is now a Home Stone in Port Kar."

And I heard men behind him cry, "There is a Home Stone in Port Kar! There is a Home Stone in Port Kar!" This cry was taken up by thousands, and everywhere I saw men pause in their flight, and boats put about, and men pour from the entryways of their buildings onto the walks lining the canals. I saw bundles thrown down and arms unsheathed, and behind us, in throngs of thousands now, came the people of Port Kar, following us to the great piazza before the halls of the Council of Captains.

Even before the man in the bow had tied the tharlarion-prowed longboat ot a mooring post at the piazza, I had leaped up to the tiles and was striding, robes swirling, across the squares of the broard piazza toward the great door of the hall of the Council of Captains.

Four members of the Council Guard, beneath the two great braziers set at the entrance, leaped to attention, the butts of their pikes striking on the tiles. I swept past them and into the hall.

Candles were lit on several of the tables. Papers were strewn about. There were few scribes or pages there. Of the usual seventy or eighty, or so, captains of the approximately one hundred and twenty entitled to sit in the council, only some thirty or forty were present.

And even as I entered some two or three left the hall.

The scribe, haggard behind the great table, sitting before the book of the council, looked up at me.

I glanced about.

The captains sat silently. Samos was there, and I saw that short-cropped white hair buried in his rough hands, his elbows on his knees.

Two more captains rose to their feet and left the room.

One of them stopped beside Samos. "Make your ships ready," he said. "There is not much time to flee."

Samos shook him away.

I took my chair. "I petiton," said I to the scribe, as though it might be an ordinary meeting, "to address the council."

The scribe was puzzled.

The captains looked up.

"Speak," said the Scribe.

"How may of you," asked I of the captains, "stand read to undertake the defense of your city?"

Dark, long-haired Bejar was there. "Do not jest," said he, "Captain." He spoke irritably. "Most of the captains have already fled. And hundreds of the lesser captains. The round ships and the long ships leave the harbor of Port Kar. The people, as they can, flee. Panic has swept the city. We cannot find ships to fight."

"The people," said Antisthenes, "flee. The will not fight. They are truly of Port Kar."

"Who knows what it is to be truly of Port Kar?" I asked Antisthenes. Samos lifted his head and regarded me.

"The people flee," said Bejar.

"Listen!" I cried. "Hear them! They are outside!"

The men of the council lifted their heads. Through the thick walls, and the high, narrow windows of the hall of the Council of Captains, there came a great, rumbling cry, the thunderous mixture of roiling shouts.

Bejar swept his sword from his sheath, "They have come to kill us!" he cried. Samos lifted his hand. "No," he said, "listen."

"What is it they are saying?" asked a man.

A page rushed into the hall. "The people!" he cried. "They crowd the piazza. Torches! Thousands!"

"What is it that they cry!" demanded Bejar.

"They cry," said the boy, in his silk and velvet, "that in Port Kar there is a Home Stone!"

"There is no Home Stone in Port Kar," said Antisthenes.

"There is," I said.

The captains looked at me.

Samos threw back his head and roared with laughter, pounding the arms of the curule chair.

Then the other captains, too, laughed.

"There is no Home Stone in Port Kar!" laughed Samos.

"I have seen it," said a voice near me. I was startled. I looked about and, to my wonder, saw, standing near me, the slave boy Fish. Slaves are not permitted in the hall of the captains. He had followed me in, through the guards, in the darkness.

"Bind that slave and beat him!" cried the scribe.

Samos, with a gesture, silenced the scribe.

"Who are you?" asked Samos.

"A slave," said the boy. "My name is Fish."

The men laughed.

"But," said the boy, "I have seen the Home Stone of Port Kar."

"There is no Home Stone of Port Kar, Boy," said Samos/

The, slowly, from my robes, I removed the object which I had hidden there. No one spoke. All eyes were upon me. I slowly upwrapped the silk.

"It is the Home Stone of Port Kar," said the boy.

The men were silent.

The Samos said, "Port Kar has no Home Stone."

"Captains," said I, "accompany me to the steps of the hall."

They followed me, and I left the chamber of the council, and, in a few moments, stood on the top of the broad marbled steps leading up to the hall of the Council of Captains.

"It is Bosk," cried the people. "It is Bosk, Admiral!"

I looked out into the thousands of faces, the hundreds of torches.

I could see the canals far away, over the heads of the people, crowded even to the distant waters bordering the great piazza. And in those waters beyond there were crowded hundreds of boats, filled with men, many of them holding torches, the flames' reflection flickering on the walls of the buildings and on the water.

I said nothing, but faced the crowd for a long moment.

And then, suddenly, I lifted my right arm, and held in my right hand, high over my head, was the stone.

"I have seen it!" cried a man, weeping. "I have seen it! The Home Stone of Port Kar!"

There were great cheers, and cries, and shouts, and the lifting of torches and weapons. I saw men weep. And women. And I saw fathers lift their sons upon their shoulders that they might see the stone.

I think the cries of joy in the piazza might have carried even to the moons of Gor.

"I see," said Samos, standing near to me, his voice indistinct in the wild cries of the crowd, "that there is indeed a Home Stone in Port Kar."

"You did not flee," I said, "nor did the others, nor have these people." He looked at me puzzled.

"I think," I said, "that there has always been a Home Stone in Port Kar. It is only that until this night it had not been found."

We looked out over the vast throng, shaken in its jubilation and its tears. Samos smiled. "I think," said he, "Captain, you are right."

Near to me, tears in his eyes, shouting, was the slave boy Fish. And I saw tears, too, in the eyes of the vast crowds, with their torches, before me. There was much shouting, and a great crying out.

"Ye, Captain," said Samos, "I think that you are right."