Tribesmen of Gor

14 The March to Klima

I took another step, and my right leg, to the knee, broke through the brittle crusts. The lash struck again across my back. I straightened in the slave hood, my head thrown back by the stroke. The chain on my neck jerked forward and I stumbled in the salt crusts. My bands clenched in the manacles, fastened at my belly by the loop of chain. My left leg broke through a dozen layers of crust, breaking it to the side with a hundred, dry, soft shattering sounds, the rupture of innumerable fine crystalline structures. I could feel blood on my left leg, over the leather wrappings, where the edge of a crust, ragged, hot, had sawed it open. I lost my balance and fell. I tried to rise. But the chain before me dragged forward and I fell again. Twice more the lash struck. I recovered my balance. Again I waded through the crusts toward Klima.

For twenty days had we marched. Some thought it a hundred. Many had lost count.

More than two hundred and fifty men had been originally in the salt chain.

I did not know how many now trekked with the march. The chain was now much heavier than it had been, for it, even with several sections removed, was carried by far fewer men. To be a salt slave, it is said, one must be strong.

Only the strong, it is said, reach Klima.

In the chain, we wore slave hoods. These had been fastened on us at the foot of the wall of the kasbah of the Salt Ubar. Before mine had been locked under my chin I had seen the silver desert in its dawn. The sky in the east, for Gor, like the Earth rotates to the east, had seemed cool and gray. It was difficult to believe then, in the cool of that morning, as early as late spring that the surface temperatures of the terrain we would traverse would be within hours better than one hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Our feet, earlier, had been wrapped in leather sheathing, it reaching, in anticipation of the crusts, — later to be encountered, to the knees. The moons, at that time, had been still above the horizon. Rocks on the desert, and the sheer walls of the Salt Ubar’s kasbah, looming above us, shone with dew, common in the Tahari in the early morning, to be burned off in the first hour of the sun. Children, and nomads, sometimes rise early, to lick the dew from the rocks. From where we were chained, I had been able to see, some two pasangs to the east, Tarna’s kasbah. A useful tool had the Salt Ubar characterized her. She had not been able to hold Hassan and me. The Salt Ubar had speculated that be would enjoy better fortune in this respect. The collar was locked about my throat.

An Ahn before dawn I had been aroused. Tafa, sweet and warm, on the cool stones, on the straw, lay against me, in my arms. On her throat was a heavy cell collar, with ring; attached to the ring was some fifteen feet of chain, it attached to a plate near our beads. I was similarly secured. The plates were no more than five inches apart. When we had been placed in the cell a tiny lamp had been put on a shelf by the door. The stones were broad, heavy blocks, cool, wet in places, over which lay a scattering, of damp straw. We were perhaps a hundred feet below the kasbah. The cell had not been much cleaned. There was a smell, as of humans, and urts. Tafa screamed but she, unleashed, was thrown to the wall, and her fair throat placed in the waiting cell collar, it then snapped shut. I was then, too, secured. “Do not keep me in this place!” screamed Tafa. “Please! Please!” But they did not unlock the collar. An urt scampered across the stones, disappearing between two blocks of stone in the wall. Tafa screamed and threw herself to the feet of one of the jailers, holding his legs, kissing at him. With his left and right hand he checked the collar at her throat, holding it with his left hand and, with his right, jerking the chain twice against the ring, then threw her from him, to the straw. The other man similarly checked my collar. Then, with a knife, he cut the two ropes from my throat, and freed me of the binding fiber.

He took the shreds of rope and binding fiber with him when he left the cell. The heavy door, beams of wood, sheathed with plates of iron, together some eight inches thick, closed. The hasps were flung over the staples, two, heavy, and two locks were shut on the door. At the top of the door, some six inches by ten inches, barred, was an observation window. The guards looked in. Tafa sprang to her feet and ran to the length of her chain, her hands and fingers outstretched, clawing toward the bars. Her fingers came within ten inches of the bars. “Do not leave me here,” she cried. “Please, oh, please, oh Masters!” They turned away.

She moaned, and turned from the door, dragging at the chain with her small hands. She fell to her hands and knees and vomited twice, from fear and the stench. An urt skittered past her, having emerged from a crack in the floor between two stones and moved swiftly across the floor, along one wall, and vanished through the crack which had served as exit for its fellow a few moments earlier. Tafa began to weep and pull hysterically at the chain and collar on her throat. But it was obdurately fastened upon her. I checked my own collar and chain, and the linkage at the ring and plate. I was secured. I looked at the tiny lamp on the shelf near the door. It smoked, and burned oil, probably from tiny rock tharlarions, abundant south of Tor in the spring. I looked at Tafa.

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “You are sentenced to Klima.”

I leaned back against the wall. “You will be only a salt slave,” she said.

I watched her. With the back of her right wrist she wiped her mouth. I continued to watch her. She half knelt, half sat, her head down, the palms of her hands on the floor of the cell.

I picked up, where it lay on the stones, fastened to the plate and ring near mine, the chain which ran, looped, lying on the floor, to her collar, several feet away.

“No!” she cried angrily. I held the chain. I did not pull it to me. “Salt slave!” she cried. She jerked the chain taut with her two hands, on her knees, backing away. My hand rested on the chain, lightly. It was tight on its ring, taut. I removed my hand from the chain.

Watching me, catlike, Tafa lay on her side in the straw. I looked away. Tafa, no longer under the eye of her master, the feared Ibn Saran, had a slave girl’s pride. She was, after all, a lock-collar girl, who had been once free, who was beautiful, who had, at Two Scimitars, brought a high price, a price doubtless improved upon, if only slightly, by the agents of Ibn Saran, when they had bought her for their master. Slave girls, commonly obsequious and docile with free males, who may in an instant put them under discipline, are often insolent and arrogant with males who are slave, whom they despise. Salt slaves in the Tahari are among the lowest of the male slaves. The same girl who, joyously, would lasciviously writhe at the feet of the free male, begging him for his slightest touch, would often, confronted with male slaves, treat them with the contempt and coldness commonly accorded the men of Earth by their frustrated, haughty females; I have sometimes wondered if this is because the women of Earth, cheated of their domination by the aggressor sex, see such weaklings, perhaps uneasily or subconsciously, as slaves, men unfit to master, males determined to be only the equals of girls, stupid fools who wear their own chains, slaves who have enslaved themselves, fearing to be free. Goreans, interestingly from the point of view of an Earthling, who has been subjected to differing historical conditioning processes, do not regard biology as evil: those who deny the truths of biology are not acclaimed on Gor, as on Earth, but are rather regarded as being curious and pathetic. Doubtless it is difficult to adjudicate matters of values. Perhaps it is intrinsically more desirable in some obscure sense to deny biology and suffer from mental and physical disease, than accept biology and be strong and joyful, I do not know. I leave the question to those wiser than myself. For what it is worth, though doubtless it is little pertinent, the men and women of Gor are, generally, whole and happy; the men and women of Earth, generally, if I do not misread the situation, are not. The cure for poison perhaps is not more poison, but something different. But this matter I leave again to those more wise than myself.

My hand again picked up Tafa’s chain, where it was fastened to the plate near mine. Instantly, her eyes, which she had closed, her arm under the left side of her head, opened. I took up a fist of the chain. “Salt slave!” she said. She rose to her knees. She jerked with her weight against the chain. This time I did not release it. Her hands slipped on the chain. She tried to jerk it again, holding it more firmly. I did not release the chain. It was as though it had been fastened anew, but a fist shorter than it bad been. “No!” she cried. I took up another fist of chain. She sprang to her feet. “No! No!” she cried. I put my two hands on the chain. I drew it another few inches toward me. She stumbled forward some inches, then stood, bracing herself, her hands on the chain. “No!” she cried. I took up another fist of the chain, her neck and head were pulled forward. She was in an awkward position. She could not brace herself. She gave some inches and again braced herself, throwing her weight back against the chain. It did not yield. She wept. “No! No!” she said. It interested me that she would attempt to pit her strength against mine. The strength of a full-grown woman is equivalent to that of a twelve-year-old boy. Goreans read in this an indication as to who is master. Foot by foot, slowly, across the floor of the cell, she slipping, screaming, struggling, I drew her toward me. I saw the small oil lamp was growing dim, the oil almost depleted, the wick smoking. Then my fist was in the girl’s collar and I threw her to her back at my side. With my left band I lifted the heavy collar chain from her body and threw it over her head and behind her. I saw her wild eyes, frightened. With some straw I wiped her mouth, cleaning it, for earlier, in her revulsion and terror, her horror at the place and manner in which she found herself incarcerated, she had from her own mouth soiled both herself and the cell. “Please,” she said. “Be silent,” I told her. The lamp sputtered out.

An Ahn before dawn I had been aroused. Tafa, sweet and warm, on the cool stones, on the straw, lay against me, in my arms. Five men, two with lamps, entered the cell. A loop of chain was placed about my belly. My wrists were manacled before me, the manacles fixed with a ring in the chain. Two of the men, one on each side, then thrust a bar behind my back and before my elbows, by means of which, together, they could control me. The fifth man unsnapped the collar from my throat, and dropped it, with its chain, to the stones. I was pulled to my feet.

Tafa, frightened, awake, knelt at my feet. She bent to my feet. I felt her hair on my feet. I felt her lips kiss my feet. She knelt as a slave girl. In the night I had conquered her.

By means of the bar, not looking back, I was thrust from the cell.

We had stood, the salt slaves being readied for the march to Klima, at the foot of the wall of the kasbah of the Salt Ubar. The moons were not yet below the horizon. It was cooling, even chilly at that hour in the late spring. Dawn, like a shadowy scimitar, curved gray in the east. I could see Tama’s kasbah, some two pasangs away. Hassan stood, some four men from me, similarly manacled. Our feet had already been wrapped in leather. I saw the collar of the chain lifted, snapped on his throat. Dew shone on the plastered walls of the kasbah looming over me, on rocks scattered on the desert. A rider, on kaiila, was moving toward us, on the sand about the edge of the wall. The scarlet sand veil of the men of the Guard of the Dunes concealed his countenance, and a length of it fluttered behind him as he rode, and the wide burnoose lifted and swelled behind him. The cording of the agal, over the scarlet kaffiyeh, was gold. Men beside me lifted the chain and collar. The rider pulled the kaiila up beside me, drawing back on the single rein. The collar was snapped about my throat. I felt the weight of the chain.

“Greetings, Tarl Cabot,” said the rider.

“You rise early, noble Ibn Saran,” said I.

“I would not miss your departure,” he averred.

“Doubtless in this there is triumph for you,” said I.

“Yes,” said he, “but, too, regret, Comrade. One gains a victory, one loses an enemy.”

The men of the Guard of the Dunes were fastening slave hoods on the prisoners of the chain. There were several men behind me. This slave hood does not come fitted with a gag device. It is not a particularly cruel hood, like many, but utilitarian, and merciful. It serves four major functions. It facilitates the control of the prisoner. A hooded prisoner, even if not bound, is almost totally helpless. He cannot see to escape; he can not see to attack; he cannot be sure, usually, even of the number and position of his captors, whether they face him, or are attentive, or such; sometimes a hooded prisoner, even unbound, is told simply to kneel, and that if he moves, he will be slain; some captors, to their amusement, leave such prisoners, returning Ahn later, to find them in the same place; the prisoner, of course, does not know if they have merely moved a hundred feet away or so, to rest or make camp, all he knows is that if he does move a foot from his place he may feel a scimitar pass suddenly through his body. In the hood, too, of course, the prisoner does not know who might strike or abuse him. He is alone in the hood, with his confusion, his ignorance, his unfocused misery, his anguish, helpless. The second major function of the hood is to conceal from the prisoner his location, where he is and where be is being taken, it produces disorientation, a sense of dependence on the captor. In the case of the march to Klima, of course, the hood serves to conceal the route from the prisoners of the chain. Thus, even if they thought they might live for a time in the desert, in trying to flee, they would have little idea of even the direction to take in their flight, The chance of their finding their way back to the kasbah of the Salt Ubar, and thence, say, to Red Rock, would be small, even if they were not hooded; hooded, on the Klima march, of course, the chance, unhooded, of finding their way back at a later time would be negligible. This disorientation tends to keep men at Klima: fewer of them, thus, die in the desert. The second two functions of the slave hood, relative to the march to Klima, were specific to the march. Mercifully, the hood tended to protect the head from the sun; one does not go bareheaded in the desert: secondly, the darkness of the hood, when the salt crusts were reached, prevented blindness, from the reflection of the Tahari sun off the layered, bleak, white surfaces.

These hoods, used on the march to Klima, have a tiny flap, closed and tied with a leather string, at the mouth, through which, several times during the day, opened, the spike of a water bag, carried by kaiila, is thrust. The men are fed twice, once in the morning, once at night, when the hood is opened, and thrust up some inches to permit eating. Food is thrust in their mouths. It was generally dried fruit, crackers and a bit of salt, to compensate for the salt loss during the day’s march, consequent on perspiration. Proteins, meat, kaiila milk, vulo eggs, verr cheese, require much water for their digestion. When water is in short supply, the nomads do not eat at all. It takes weeks to starve, but only, in the Tahari, two days to die of thirst. In such circumstances, one does not wish the processes of digestion to drain much needed water from the body tissues. The bargain would be an ill one to strike.

Ibn Saran had turned his kaiila toward Hassan. He looked at him for a time. Then he said, “I am sorry.” Hassan did not speak. It had puzzled me that Ibn Saran had spoken thusly to Hassan, a bandit. Then Ibn Saran turned his kaiila again, and prepared to depart the chain.

“Ibn Saran,” I said.

He paused, and guided the kaiila to my side. The men were closer now, fastening on the prisoners the slave hoods.

“Slave runs to Earth by agents of Kurii,” I said, “have been discontinued.”

“I know,” he said.

“Does that not seem curious?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“Priest-Kings,” I said, “received an ultimatum, ‘Surrender Gor.’“

“That is known to me,” said he.

“Might you clarify that ultimatum?” I asked.

“I assume,” he said, “it betokens an intention to invite capitulation, before some aggressive stratagem is initiated.”

“A stratagem of what nature?” I asked.

“I am not privy,” said he, “to the war conferences of the Kurii.”

“What is your charge in the desert, on behalf of Kurii?” I inquired.

“Their work,” said he.

“And of late?” I asked.

“To precipitate war,” said he, “between the Kavars and Aretai, and their vassal tribes, to close the desert to strangers intruders.”

“Such as agents of Priest-Kings?” I asked.

“They, and any others unwelcome now in the dune country,” said he.

“Can your men not police the dune country?” I asked.

“We are too few,” said he. “The risk of some Aretai slipping through would be too great.” In Aretai Gorean, the same expression is used for stranger and enemy.

“So you enlist the desert on your behalf?” I said.

“Inadvertently,” he said, “thousands of warriors, preparing, hasten even now to do my bidding, to fly at one another’s throats.”

“Many men will die,” cried Hassan, “both Aretai Kavars and Aretai and of the vassal tribes! It must be stopped! They must be warned!”

“It is necessary,” said Ibn Saran to him. “I am sorry.”

A slave hood was pulled over the bead of Hassan. His fists were clenched. It was locked under his chin.

“One gains a victory’ “ said Ibn Saran, “but one loses an enemy.” He looked at me. He unsheathed his scimitar.

“No,” I said. “I will march to Klima.”

“I am prepared to be merciful,” said he, “Comrade.”

“No,” I said.

“It is cool here,” be said. “Your death would be swift.”

“No,” I said.

“You are of the Warriors,” said he. “You have their stupidity, their grit, their courage.”

“I will march to Klima,” I said.

He lifted the scimitar before me, in salute. “March then,” said he, “to Klima.”

He resheathed the blade, swiftly. He turned his kaiila. He rode down the line, the burnoose swelling behind him.

Hamid, who was lieutenant to Shaker, captain of the Aretai, now in the red sand veil of the men of the Guard of the Dunes, stood near.

“I ride with the chain,” he said.

“I shall enjoy your company,” I said.

“You will feel my whip, “ he’ said.

I saw the kneeling kaiila of the guards, the guards now mounted, lifting themselves, to their feet. I surveyed the number of kaiila which bore water.

“Klima is close,” I said.

“It is far,” he said.

“There is not enough water,” I said.

“There is more than enough,” said he. “Many will not reach Klima.”

“Am I to reach Klima?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Hamid, “should you be strong enough.”

“What if difficulties should arise, unanticipated, on the journey,” I asked.

“Then,” said Hamid, “unfortunately, I shall be forced to slay you in the chain.”

“Is it important that I reach Klima?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Hamid.

“Why?” I asked.

“You have given Kurii, and their agents, much trouble,” said he. “You have opposed yourself to their will. Tarl Cabot, thus, will serve at Klima.”

“Tarl Cabot, thus,” I repeated, “will serve at Klima.”

“Look,” said Hamid. He pointed to a window, narrow, high in the wall.

I looked up.

At the window, veiled in yellow, behind her a slave master, stood a female slave.

Gracefully the girl, doubtless with the permission of the slave master, removed her veil. It was Vella.

“You remember, perhaps,” said Hamid, looking up, “the delicious slave, Vella, whom the Kurii found of much use, who testified against you in the court at Nine Wells, who, by her false testimony, attempted to send you to the pits of Klima?”

“I recall the slave,” I said. “She is the girl-property of Ibn Saran.”

I recalled her well.

“It is she,” said Hamid, indicating the girl in the narrow window, the slave master behind her.

“Yes,” I said. “I see.”

The girl looked down upon me. She smiled, scornfully. She had begged in Lydius to be freed. I had not known until then that she was true slave. But I would have known it now, seeing the insolence, the petty, collared beauty of her. I stood below her in the chain of salt slaves. Female slaves, cringing and obsequious, fearing free men, often display contempt for male slaves. Sometimes they even flaunt their beauty before them, in their walk and movements, to torture them, knowing that the male slave may he slain for so much as touching their silk. I could see that she was much pleased to see me, helpless and in the chain to Klima. I could see in her smile how she looked upon me, as a female slave upon a male slave, but I could see, too, in her smile, the pleasure of her triumph.

“A delicious day for the slave,” said Hamid.

“True,” I said.

Then the girl, reaching within her silk, withdrew from her bosom a light square of silk, some eighteen inches square, scarlet, clinging, diaphanous.

She turned to the slave master behind her. She requested of him something. He seemed adamant. Her attitude was one of begging. With a laugh, he acceded to her request. Triumphantly she turned again to the window and dropped the silk from the aperture. Gracefully, it wafted downward, settling on the sand at the foot of the wall near us.

“Bring it,” said Hamid to a man.

The man picked it up, smelled it and laughed, and brought it to Hamid.

Hamid held it. It was laden with slave perfume. It was slave silk.

“A token,” I said.

“The token of a slave girl.” said Hamid contemptuously. Hamid thrust and twisted the square of silk in the metal of my collar, and yanked it tight. “Remember her at Klima,” he said.

She had testified against me at Nine Wells. She Had smiled when I had been sentenced there to the pits of Klima.

I looked up, the silk fastened in my collar.

She looked down upon me, as a female slave upon a male slave. And, too, more than this, she looked down upon me in triumph. Her face was flushed. It was red with pleasure, transfused with joy. How deliciously sweet did she find her petty feminine vengeance! How foolish I thought her. Did she not know I was Gorean?

Did she not know I would come back for her?

But it was said none returned from Klima.

I looked up at her.

I resolved that I would return from Klima.

“Remember her at Klima,” said Hamid.

“Yes,” I said.

I would remember her. I would remember her well.

In the window the girl stiffened. The man behind her Had said something to her.

She turned to him, agonized. She pleaded with him. This time his face remained impassive. Angrily she turned to the window again. She smiled. She blew a kiss toward me, in the Gorean fashion, brushing it toward me with her fingers. Then, swiftly, she turned and left the window.

“Is she not,” I asked, “to be permitted to look out, to see us begin the march to Klima?”

“She is a slave girl,” said Hamid. “It will not be permitted her.”

“I see,” I said.

One often denies slave girls small pleasures and gratifications, It teaches them, the more deeply, that they are slaves.

Some kaiila moved by, laden with various supplies. Some guards rode by.

I smelled the slave perfume. I recalled it from the palace of Suleiman Pasha, when the girl, with Zaya, the other slave, had served black wine. A rich master will often have individual perfumes specially blended and matched to the slave nature of his various girls. All are slaves, completely, but each girl, collared, imbonded, is deliciously different. Some slave perfumes are right for some slaves, and others not. Vella’s perfume, I thought, doubtless a tribute to the skills of some perfumer, had suited her superbly. It fitted her well, like a measured collar.

I smiled. Perhaps Vella, even now, had been returned to the quarters for female slaves, where she would wait until commanded by men, perhaps to her exercises or bath, or silks, or cosmetics, to her beautification, or to small, suitable servile tasks, or perhaps to the couch of her master, or to those to whom he saw fit to give her. But it was early. Doubtless her silk had merely been taken from her and she had been commanded to her stomach, head to the wall, in her alcove, and the small, square gate had been locked behind her. These two precautions are common in female seraglios in the Tahari. When the girl lies on her stomach, her head to the wall, she cannot prevent the door from locking behind her.

Furthermore, the small opening, approximately eighteen inches square, and set some ten inches off the floor, in the bars, with its small, heavy gate, can be easily negotiated only on the hands and knees. A girl cannot dart from a typical Tahari female-slave alcove. That she must enter and leave it on her hands and knees is thought to have a desirable psychological effect on the girl, impressing on even a haughty girl that she is only slave. Too, of course, this posture, on the girl’s part, makes it convenient to leash her upon leaving the alcove.

I looked up at the window, in which the girl had stood. It was now empty.

Doubtless Vella, even now, in the quarters for female slaves, lay in her cushioned, barred alcove. Perhaps her small fists were clenched, as she lay nude on the silks, the cushions, on her stomach, head to the wall, behind the ornate bars of her tiny, luxurious kennel. The tiny, iron door, heavy, barred, would shut behind her, locking. She was not to be permitted to watch in triumph my departure for Klima. What she had failed to do at Nine Wells, her master, Ibn Saran, silken, pantherlike and lithe, had well accomplished. The small, delicious owned brunet would not be permitted to watch. She would be denied that gratification, that pleasure. She would be shut instead in her alcove-cell. She was slave, only slave.

I smiled. I inhaled the perfume. Hamid took from a man nearby a slave hood. I saw the sky, grayish, the descending moons, the desert, and then the hood was pulled over my head, jerked tight, and locked.

We trudged, climbing, chained, and hooded, half dragged, tortuously, up the long slope. Time seemed measured insteps, the blows of the whip, the slow turning of the sun, over the Ahn, from one shoulder through the heat to the other.

For twenty days had we marched. Some thought it a hundred. Many had lost count.

More than one man raved, insane in the chain. We had begun with some two hundred and fifty men. The chain was heavier now. Lengths had been removed from it. But still was it heavier. We did not know how many now carried the chain, or the remaining lengths.

Normally one does not move on the desert in the day, but the march to Klima is made in the sun, that only the strong will survive. We were given little to eat, but much water. In the desert, without water, even the strong die swiftly.

“Kill us! Kill us!” one man kept screaming.

At the crest of the slope we heard a man call “Hold!” The chain stopped.

I sank to my knees, the crusts about my thighs. The inside of the slave hood seemed bright and granular. Even within it I closed my eyes. I held my hands, my neck, as still as possible, for the least movement would shift the collar, the manacles, the chain at my waist, and stir burning iron in the raw, abraded flesh. I did not wish to lose consciousness. Too many I feared who had lost it had not regained it. The guards of the chain did not see fit to dally overlong with the inert.

The salt clung to my body.

The sun was the sun of the late spring in the Tahari. The surface temperature of The crusts would be in the neighborhood of 160 degrees Fahrenheit. The air temperature would range from 120 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The marches to Klima are not made in the Tahari summer, only in the winter, the spring and fall, that some will survive them.

I lifted my head to the sun, and shut my eves against the redness, the heat and refulgence that seemed to fill the hood. I put down my head. Even in the hood I sensed the reflected heat radiating from the crusts.

It pleases Kurii, I thought, that Tart Cabot will serve at Klima. How amusing they would find that. There was a bit of silk, now doubtless bleached by the sun, thrust and wrapped in my collar. Doubtless another, too, would be pleased that I served at Klima.

A kaiila moved swiftly past me, its paws scattering salt. I felt it in the marks on my back, and in the chain sores.

“Kill us! Kill us!” the man screamed again, from somewhere in the chain behind me, several collars away.

Another kaiila moved past me, moving toward the front of the chain. My fists clenched.

I wondered if I could endure another day. I knew that I could. I had much to live for. There was a bit of silk, wrapped, fastened in the collar I wore.

“Kill us! Kill us!” screamed the man.

“There are too many,” I heard one of the guards say.

“Alternate collars,” said a voice.

“No!” a voice screamed. “No!”

The guards knew the water. We did not.

It seemed a long time we knelt in the crusts. After some Ehn I heard men afoot near me. They were moving down the chain. I tensed in the hood. Suddenly the chain before me, jerked. I heard no sound. Then the chain pulled down. I struggled to my feet, pulling against the chain with my neck, wild, not able to see. “Kneel,” said a voice. I knelt. I tensed. I could not see in the hood. I knelt, a chained captive in the crusts. I could not lift my hands before my body. I was helpless, absolutely. “No,” I heard a voice cry, “No!” The chain at my throat, from behind, shook, and sprang taut. I heard feet, scraping in the crusts, slipping. There was a cry, and I felt, through the chain, a drag, and shudder. Then the men continued on their way.

“I misjudged the water,” I heard Hamid say.

“It does not matter,” said someone.

We knelt in the crusts. Somewhere, a few feet from me, I heard a man singing to himself.

Another man came down the chain. I heard him open the collars on either side of me.

I heard, a short time later, wings, the alighting of one or more large birds.

Such birds, broad-winged, black and white, from afar, follow the marches to Klima; their beaks, yellowish, narrow, are long and slightly hooked at the end, useful for probing and tearing.

The birds scattered, squawking, as a Kaiila sped past. The birds are called zads.

“On your feet, Slaves!” I heard. The lash struck me twice. I did not object to it. I could feel it. The blood coursed through my body. The Pain was sharp, rich, and deep, and keen. I did not object to the pain, for I could feel it.

Elation coursed through me, fierce, uncontrollable, for I was alive. The lash struck again. I laughed, struggling to my feet. I stood straight. “March, Slaves!” I heard, and I began again the march, moving first with the left foot, then the right, that the march be uniform, that the chain be carried evenly. It was heavier than before, but I carried it lightly, for I was alive. No longer did I object to the salt in my flesh, the heat. It was enough that I lived. How foolish it seemed then, suddenly, that one should want more. How should one want more, save perhaps health and honor, and a woman, slave at one’s feet? I marched onward again, brushing through feeding zads, once more toward Klima. I hummed to myself a simple tune, a tune I had never forgotten, a warrior tune from the northern city of Ko-ro-ba.

Four days later, on a crest, the voice again called “Hold!” and the chain held.

“Do not kill us! Do not kill us!” screamed a voice. I recognized it. It was the voice of the man who, through much of the march, had cried for us to be killed.

He had been silent since the noon halt of four days ago. I had not known whether he had survived or not.

Kaiila moved past us.

I heard collars being opened. For the hood I could not see. The silk, which was tied in my collar, was removed. It was tied, by order of Hamid, who rode near, about my left wrist, under the manacle. I felt the silk in the circular wrist sore. A heavy key was then thrust in the lock of my collar. The lock contained sand and salt. In the heat the metal was expanded. The lock resisted. Then the key, forced, with a heavy snap, turned, freeing the lock bolt. The collar was opened. The collar was jerked from my throat, and dropped, with the chain, in the crusts. The man then moved to the next prisoner.

No man fled from the chain.

“We may not take kaiila in,” said a man.

We stood for some minutes. I felt the blood and salt in the split shreds of the leather wrappings on my legs. I took care not to move the manacles and chain.

I felt a key inserted in the lock of the slave hood. To my surprise it was thrust up, and jerked from my head. I cried out in sudden pain, the unbelievable white light, hot, fierce, universal, merciless, shuddering in the scalding air of the encircling, blazing crusts, from horizon to horizon, exploding, stabbing, searing like irons at my face and eyes. “I’m blind,” cried a man. “I’m blind!”

Kaiila moved along the line. It would be long minutes before we could see.

We heard chains being looped and gathered. More kaiila passed me.

My limbs felt weak, and ached. I was dizzy. I could scarcely move. I could scarcely stand.

“Take salt,” said a voice. It was Hassan! “You live!” I cried.

“Take salt,” he said.

He fell to his knees, and thrust his face into the salt. He bit at the crusts.

He licked crystals from them.

I followed his example. We had not had salt in four days.

“Look,” cried one of the guards. We lifted our heads. We struggled to our feet.

We gritted our eyelids, to shut out the heat, the blinding light.

“Water!” cried a voice. “Water!”

It was a man, come from the desert about. He had not been in the chain. He wore no manacles.

“Water!” he cried. He staggered toward us. He wore a bit of cloth. His body moved awkwardly. His fingernails were gone. His mouth and face seemed split, like dried crust.

“It is an escaped slave from the desert,” said Hamid. He unsheathed his scimitar, and loped toward the man. He bent down easily from the saddle, the blade loose, but he did not strike, but returned to the other guards, The man stood in the crusts, looking after the rider, stupidly. “Water…” he said.

“Please, water.”

“Shall we have sport?” asked Hamid of two of his fellows.

“The trek has been long,” grinned one, “and there has been little diversion.”

“The head?” asked one. “The left car?”

“Agreed,” said the other. They loosened their lances.

“Water,” said the man. “Water.”

The first man, kicking the kaiila forward, missed his thrust. The gait of the kaii1a in the crusts was not even. The mark, too, was not an easy one. To strike it would require considerable skill.

The haggard man stood in the crusts, stupidly.

“The right ear,” said the next man, grasping the long, slim lance, eight feet Gorean in length, marked with red and yellow swirling stripes, terminating in an extremely narrow point, razored, steel, some eleven inches in length, and lanceolate, as the leaf of the flahdah tree.

All the time he had not taken his eyes from the target.

“Water!” cried the man. Then he screamed as the lance struck him, turning him about.

The second rider had been skillful. The blade had penetrated below the helix and opened the ear, lifting and parting, in its upward movement, the helix.

The man staggered back in the crusts, he lifted his hand. The first rider cursed. He had charged again. This time, the man, stumbling, trying to turn away, had been struck on the left arm, high, just below the shoulder. I was startled that there was so little blood, for the wound was deep. It was as though the man had no blood to bleed. There was a, ridge of reddish fluid at the cut. I watched through narrowed eyelids, grimacing against the light. To my horror I saw the man press his mouth to the wound, sucking at the bit of blood.

He did not move, but stood in the crusts, sucking at the blood.

Hamid, easily, on the kaiila, his scimitar still light in his hand, rode behind the man. I did not watch, but turned away.

“The point is to Baram,” said Hamid. Clearly the second rider had been the finest.

“We may not take the kaiila in,” said one of the guards.

“We have water sufficient for the return trip,” said another, “moving at an unimpeded pace.”

To my amazement I saw one of the guards unlocking the stomach-chain and manacles of one of the prisoners. Already the man’s slave hood had been removed. And we had, already, been freed of the neck chain.

I looked about, through half-shut eyes. I stood unsteadily. I counted. There were twenty prisoners standing in the crusts. I shuddered.

Hamid rode to my side. He had wiped his blade in the mane of his kaiila. He resheathed the blade. I felt the heat. We stood on a crest, overlooking a broad, shallow valley.

Hamid leaned down. “There,” he said, pointing into the broad valley. “Can you see?”

“Yes,” I said.

In the distance, below, perhaps five pasangs away, in the hot, concave, white salt bleakness, like a vast, white, shallow bowl, pasangs wide, there were compounds, low, white buildings of mud brick, plastered. There were many of them. They were hard to see in the distance, in the light, but I could make them out.

“Klima,” said Hamid.

“I have made the march to Klima,” said one of the prisoners. He cried out, elatedly, “I have made the march to Klima!” It was the man who had, for many of the days, cried out for us to be slain. It was he who had, since the noon halt of four days ago, been silent.

I looked at the prisoners. We looked at one another. Our bodies were burned black by the sun. The flesh, in many places, had cracked. Lighter colored flesh could be seen beneath. There was salt on us, to our thighs. The leather wrappings about our legs were in tatters. Our necks and bodies were abraded, raw from collar and chain. In the last days we had been denied salt. Our bodies were cruel with cramps and weakness. But we stood, all of us, and straight, for we had come to Klima.

Twenty had come to Klima.

The first prisoner, whose bonds had been removed, was thrust in the direction of the compounds. He began to stagger down the slope toward the valley, slipping in the crusts, sometimes sinking in to his knees.

One by one the prisoners were freed. None attempted to flee into the desert.

Each, as he was freed, began to trudge toward Klima. There was nowhere else to go.

The man, who had cried out, “I have made the match to Klima!” was freed. He staggered toward the compounds, running, half falling, down the long slope.

Hassan and I were freed. Together we trudged toward Klima, following the straggling line of men before us.

We came upon a figure, fallen in the salt. It was be who had run ahead, who had cried out, disbelievingly, joyously, “I have made the march to Klima!”

We turned the body over in the salt. “He is dead,” said Hassan.

Together, Hassan and I rose to our feet.

Nineteen had come to Klima.

I looked back once, to see Hamid, he who was in the fee of the Guard of the Dunes, the Salt Ubar, who was supposedly the faithful lieutenant to Shakar, captain of the Aretai. He turned his kaiila, and, with a scattering of salt, following the others, disappeared over the crest.

I looked up toward the merciless sun. Its relentless presence seemed to fill the sky.

I looked down.

About my left wrist, knotted, bleached in the sun, was a bit of slave silk. On it, still, lingered the perfume of a slave girl, one who, purchased, had been useful to Kurii, who had testified falsely against me at Nine Wells, who had, contemptuously, insolently, cast me a token of her consideration, a bit of silk and scent, to remember her by, when I served at Klima. I would not soon forget pretty Vella. I would remember her well.

I looked up at the sun again, and then, bitter, looked away. I put the wench from my head. She was only a slave girl, only collar meat.

The important work was that of Priest-Kings. Hassan and I had not found the steel tower. We had failed.

I was bitter.

Then I followed Hassan, who had trudged on ahead, wading in the salt, following him toward Klima.