Tribesmen of Gor

17 What Occurred in the Pit

I think there was no man on the raft that evening who bad not lost at least one comrade, recently or long ago, to the Old One.

“We hunt the Old One,” T’Zshal had said. He bad visited various pits, some open, some sheltered, the warehouses, the refining vats. “We hunt the Old One,” he had said. And they bad followed him. Even in the shadow of Klima’s Keep itself, the squarish, stout, fortresslike building which houses the weaponry, domicile and office of the Salt Master himself did we recruit our crew. On the height of the keep I saw, tight in the bright, hot wind, under the merciless sun, defiant to the pits and desert itself, the Rag of Klima, the whip and scimitar. None bad been ordered; not one upon the raft had, under the uplifted whip coil, nor upon the advice of unsheathed steel, been commanded. Many were older men, sober and mature, many blackened by the sun. Each was slave, but each came not as a slave, but came unbidden, as a man. “We hunt the Old One,” had said T’Zshal. He said this in the pits, the warehouses, among the refining vats. “We hunt the Old One,” he said. And men had followed him.

I think there was no man on the raft that evening who had not lost at least one comrade, recently or long ago, to the Old One.

“Awaken me,” bad said T’Zshal, “when the lelts have gone.”

Far into the pit, distant from the salt docks, we slowed the raft, and steadied it with the long poles, holding it as nearly as we could in place. He who bad been steersman with us yesterday, during the attack of the Old One, held the sweep that governed the movements of that open, sluggish platform which constituted our vessel. Beside he, only Hassan, on the other side, and myself, of yesterday’s crew, accompanied T’Zshal. At the comers of the raft burned four lamps, mounted on poles. Torches, however, stood ready, to be lit from these, and held over the water, should there be need.

“Awaken me when the lelts have gone,” had said T’Zshal. “I will sleep now.”

He had then lain down, behind the frame within which the salt tubs are stored, aft, and had slept. Beside him lay the long lance, some nine feet in length.

“Will you not use poison on the blade?” had asked a man at the salt dock. No one of those who accompanied T’Zshal had asked the question.

“No,” had said T’Zshal.

I wondered if he had once been of the Warriors.

I observed T’Zshal as he slept, the bearded head on one arm. I wondered why it was that none killed him, to become kennel master in his place. How was it, he holding the precarious sovereignty of our kennel, that he dared to sleep among slaves, who might win his kaffiyeh and agal, though they were only rep-cloth, so simply as the dagger, slipped from his sash, might enter his throat? The kennel master, though slave, too, is Ubar, with power of life and death, in the squalor of his domain. How is it, I wondered, that such a man can survive a night, that such a man dare turn his back upon the fierce, envious sleen among whom, with whip, and laughter, he walks. His will, his word, in the kennel decrees law. He may, if he choose, stake out, or whip or slay a man who fails his quota of gathered salt, or strikes a fellow, administering fierce, dread discipline as the whim may seize him, and yet, should he himself be slain, his slayer is not punished, but accedes to his authority and, in his place, becomes master of the kennel. How is it, I wondered, that men survive at Klima, and that they do not die at one another’s throats?

I looked at the heads of the lelts, and, scattered among them, the heads of the pale salamanders, thrust from the dark water, attracted by the movement, or the awareness of the light or heat, of the lamps.

They had been with the raft now for better than an Ahn, appearing some quarter of an Ahn after we had steadied the sluggish vessel in place.

It is difficult to bespeak the darkness of the pit.

T’Zshal slept.

Beside him lay the lance; in his reddish sash was thrust the dagger of his office.

“The lelts remain with us,” said one of the men near me, he, too, with a pole.

I looked upon the lelts, and, among them, here and there, the salamanders. Their blunt, whitish heads protruded from the water, curious, each head oriented toward one or the other of the four lamps on the raft. I knelt down on the raft, and, quickly, scooped, holding it, one of the lelts from the water. It was enclosed in my hand. It struggled briefly, then lay still. The lelt is a small fish, long-bodied for its size, long-finned. It commonly swims slowly, smoothly, conserving energy in the black, saline world encompassing its existence. There is little to eat in that world; it is a liquid desert, almost barren, black, blind and cool. It swims slowly, conserving its energy, not alerting its prey, commonly flatworms and tiny-segmented creatures, predominantly isopods. I turned the lelt, looking at the small, sunken, covered pits in the sides of its head. I wondered if it was capable, somehow, of a dim awareness of the phenomenon of light. Could there be some capacity, some genetic predisposition for the recognition of light, like an ancient, almost lost genetic memory, buried in the tiny, simple, linear brain at the apex of its spinal column? It could not be possible I told myself. The tiny gills, oddly beneath and at the sides of its jaws, closed and opened. There was a minute sound. I lowered my hand and let the lelt slip again into the dark water. It slipped from sight. Then I saw it again, a few feet from the raft. Again its head protruded from the water, again oriented to the same lamp at the corner of the raft.

“Why did you not eat it?” asked the man near me.

I shrugged. Some salt slaves eat the lelt, raw, taken from the water, or gleaned from their harvesting vessels. The first bite is taken behind the back of the neck.

I regarded the fish.

Perhaps they have some dim awareness of light. Perhaps it is only the heat that draws them. I suppose, in the salt pit, one of our small lamps might seem to those who had in their lives known only darkness like the glory of a thousand suns. We know little about the lelt. We do know it will come from the darkness and lift the blind pits of its eyes toward a source of light.

“You could have given it to me,” said the man near me.

“I did not think of it,” I told him.

We know little about men, too, I thought. We do know they will seek the truth. I do not know if they can see it. Perhaps if they touched it, they would die, burning in its flames. Perhaps we cannot see truth. Perhaps nature has denied us this gift. Perhaps we can sense only its presence. Perhaps we can sense only its heat. Perhaps to stand occasionally in its presence is sufficient.

“The lelts have gone,” said the man.

The waters were dark, seemingly empty. The lelts, the salamanders, had gone.

“Waken, T’Zshal,” said the man. The hair rose on the back of my neck. Suddenly then I understood the institution of the kennel master, and the dark laws governing his tenure, how they regulated and ordered behavior at Klima.

“The lelts have gone,” whispered a man.

I glanced at T’Zshal, his heavy head, bearded, resting on his arm, the lance beside him.

I had wondered why men did not kill T’Zshal, and the other kennel masters, why the societal arrangement was as stable as it was. I now knew. It was because the killer then, in turn, would be kennel master. The dread responsibility would then be his to bear. His then would be the fearful burdens of autonomy, of freedom. One must speak carefully whose words becomes law. It is not easy to be master at Klima. Too, he would be the next to die. It is a high price to pay for the whip. One must think carefully before slaying a kennel master, for the reasons for which one performs this action, if sufficient to justify his slaying must, too, be sufficient to justify the slaying of his successor. There are two major controls on the office of kennel master, one on the men, the other on the master. The control on the men is that the killer of the kennel master must assume the office of his victim, with its vulnerabilities and hazards. The control on the kennel master is the incipient rage and menace of his desperate charges. If he does not govern shrewdly and well, if be does not do rough justice, he invites the lesions of resentment, which among the grim, trapped men of Klima must, sooner or later, culminate in the moment of insurrection. He cannot be easy with the men, of course, for he himself is subject to the sanctions of his superiors, in particular in connection with the salt quotas imposed upon his kennel. Men do not wish to be kennel master. But yet one must be sovereign; one must accept the burden. It is steel alone, and will, which prevents catastrophe and slaughter. The whip must be held. Who will be courageous enough, strong enough, to lift it among the savage, condemned beasts of Klima? Who will be bold enough, generous enough, to accept the dreadful office of kennel master at Klima? “Waken T’Zshal.” whispered a man near me.

I went to the recumbent figure of the kennel master. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Awaken, T’Zshal,” said 1. “The lelts have gone.”

T’Zshal opened his eyes. He sat up. With his fingers, and some fresh water, from a skin, he rubbed his eves. He took a drink. He stretched, and stood up on the raft. He studied the waters about the raft, black and quiet. He removed his shirt, and his boots.

The waters were quiet.

He was bare-chested. He wore the kafflyeh and agal. He was barefoot. The dagger was thrust in his sash. He examined the long blade of the lance, running his finger along the edge of the blade. The blade was bound in the shaft by four rivets. From his sash he took a long, narrow lacing of rawhide, which he bound about the base of the lance blade, where it was riveted in the shaft, thus, for about six inches, reinforcing the shaft. He then took fresh water from the skin and soaked the lacing. He then laid the lance over the tops of two of the large retaining vessels, the salt tubs, on the raft.

There was no stirring, or movement, near the raft.

None of the men spoke.

T’Zshal was the first to see it. We saw it only after we sensed his movement, slight.

It was some forty feet away, aft on the starboard side. Then it disappeared.

T’Zshal took the lance, holding the point down. He gripped it in both hands.

“Stand back from the edge of the raft,” he said.

We moved back.

I felt exhilarated. Gone from my mind suddenly were the brooding on realities and truths that might not be disclosed to men. It is enough to know they exist.

One need not stand forever, one’s face pressed against a wall that may not be penetrated. One must turn one’s back in time upon the impenetrable wall, One must laugh, and cry out, and be a man. Man can think; he must act. In the midst of impenetrable mysteries, not caring for him, beyond him, he behaves, he chooses, he acts. Wisdom decrees that the tree of thought must not be planted where it cannot bear fruit. A man may starve trying to feed on the illusion of nourishment. There are realities, truths, which lie open to man. These are those of his species, of his kind of being, of his realm of animal. To know these truths he needs little more than his brain, his blood, his eyes and hands. He listens overmuch to what does not speak to him, to what cannot speak to him.

Within the boundaries of his own being, in that bright realm, let him claim the supremacy which is his; it will remain vacant, unless he seize upon it. It is his; he may take it or not. The choice is up to him. All else is the night and darkness. Music he will make among the stones and silence. He will sing for his own ears; the justification is himself and the song. To what must he be true, if not himself? To what else should he be true? He is born a hunter. Let him not forget the taste of meat.

It erupted from the water not a yard from the raft, hurtling upward, ten feet into the air, towering over the boards and T’Zshal, with a cry of rage, and joy, and I, too, screamed, thrust the lance deep into the body and it turned twisting in the air jaws teeth rows like hooks back bent triangular the gills beneath the jaw the pits in the side of the great head a yard more I could not tell across and then fell back into the water and twisted under the surface and circled away, the dorsal fin, sail-like, scarred from years before, tracing its angry circle.

“Greetings, Old One’’ cried T’Zshal. He held the bloodied lance in his hand, fluid thick, black under the lamps, on the blade.

The Old One now again faced the raft. It scarcely moved in the water. It seemed to be watching us.

“It is not pleased,” said a man. “You have angered it,” said another.

My heart pounded. I thought not then of our comrades of the day before, those slain by the monster in the water. I thought then rather of the beast, the foe, and the bunt. I feared then only that it might forsake the fray.

But I needed not fear, for it was the Old One with whom we dealt.

“Ah, Old One,” crooned T’Zshal, softly across the water, “we meet again.”

I wondered that he had said this.

“Protect the lamps.” said T’Zshal, softly, to us. “Cover them when the water is high.”

If the lamps were lost, and the torches unlit, I did not think it likely we would return to the salt dock.

I saw the water near the tail of the Old One begin to stir. It was moving its tail back and forth. Then it slipped beneath the surface.

“Hold to the salt tubs,” said T’Zshal.

We felt the great body of the Old One twist under the heavy beams of the raft.

Then the raft lifted, to an almost forty-five degree angle as the monster humped beneath it, thrusting it upward. Men slipped, some fell, but none entered the water. Four times the Old One tried to turn the raft. Before we had left the salt docks we had filled the salt tubs with salt. He could not turn the raft. We retained the light on the poles. The Old One circled away and again lay out from us in the water, some fifty to sixty feet distant, seeming to watch.

Then he again slipped from sight. We did not see him for more than a quarter of an Ahn.

Then, suddenly, at the port side, aft, he erupted from the water a dozen feet away and fell back, spattering torrents of water over the raft.

“Cover the torches,” cried T’Zshal. “Protect the lamps!” The lamp at the aft, port corner of the raft, drenched, was extinguished. Men covered the torches with their bodies. The Old One had again disappeared.

“Perhaps he is gone now.” said one of the men.

“Perhaps.” said T’Zshal. The men laughed.

“Aiiii!” cried a man. The Old One rose, twisting, near him, near the forequarter on the port side. He leaped back. The Old One turned, its vast sicklelike tail snapping across the beams. It caught the man’s leg between itself and the salt tub, breaking the leg, turning it suddenly oddly inward below the knee. But it had not been the man, we surmised, that the Old One had wanted. The tail, like a twig, had struck loose the lamp pole, hurling it, spinning, flaming oil spilling, yards away into the circle of darkness outside the ring of lamplight, on the dark, briny water.

“Bring the lamps to the center of the raft,” said T’Zshal. “Stand within the frame of the salt tubs.”

Bits of oil burned briefly on the water scattered from the struck lamp. Then they went out.

I saw the man whose leg was broken. He clung to the side of the salt tub, the salt on the side of his cheek, his arms and chest. He made no sound.

“You were clumsy,” said T’Zshal.

The Old One circled the raft four times, sometimes stopping, seeming, to regard us.

“If you want us, you must come for us,” said T’Zshal, calling across the water.

“Come, little one. Come to T’Zshal. He waits for you.”

I saw the water begin to move about the tail of the Old One. The pits of its eyes seemed to rest even with the water.

“Beware,” I said to T’Zshal.

“He’s coming!” cried one of the men.

The long, vast body hurtled through the water, tail switching. Almost at the edge of the raft the great body lifted in the water, turning to its side, jaws dropping open, lunging, falling, biting, onto the beams, thrashing. T’Zshal thrust the long lance, almost bead-on, toward the monster, and it cut, slicing, a long wound, a yard in length, along its side. The teeth caught the wide cloth of the trouser, turning T’Zshal, spinning him, tearing away cloth to the hip.

T’Zshal struck again with the lance, driving it into the tail of the monster as it twisted off the raft.

“Light a torch. Lift it high,” said T’Zshal.

He held the lance ready. On the left leg of T’Zshal, where the cloth had been torn away, I could see, white and wide, jagged, descending, a long, irregular scar. It almost encircled the leg and ranged from a half of an inch to two inches in width.

“We are old friends, Old One,” called T’Zshal, across the water. “Come, call again.”

I had not seen the scar before. I then had no doubt that at some time in the past, T’Zshal and the Old One had become acquainted.

“Come, Old One,” whispered T’Zshal. “Come, Old One.” He held the lance ready.

T’Zshal, and the Old One, as he had said, were old friends. I wondered how many men of T’Zshal had been killed by the Old One. I suspected it was not few.

In the lamplight, on tile raft, on the dark water, among us, waiting, he held the lance ready.

We did not speak.

None of us suspected it. It came by surprise, from the back, from beneath the surface, then without warning men screaming wood splintering amongst us seeing it striking me others too tumbling gone then men crying out arms in the water one lamp only tiny alive in that blackness.

“Light torches,” I cried. From the lamp torches were lit. We saw the Old One emerge from the water, rising up, more than a dozen feet of that great, mighty body rearing upward, Water streaming from it, in its jaws the body of T’Zshal.

I leaped from the raft, striking the surface of the water. I reached the side of the Old One before I realized fully the possibilities of my action. The teeth of the Old One, like that of the long-bodied sharks of Gor, and related marine species, as well as similarly evolved forms of Earth, bend rearward; each bite anchors the bitten material, which can be dislodged conveniently only in the direction of the throat. In short, the Old One could not easily release its quarry. Further, the reflex instinct of the beast would be to hold, not to release the quarry. Even for the Old One, in the black, almost barren waters, food would be scarce. In such an environment one would expect the holding instinct would be as near to inflexible as such an instinct could be. I seized the lateral fin on the right side of the beast. It dove, and rubbed itself, twisting, in the salt at the bottom of the pit. I did not release my hold. I thrust my hand toward the jaws. They were open, clenched on the body of T’Zshal.

I could not reach into the jaws. Then the beast swept upward and I, clinging to the fin, erupted with it, eyes and nostrils stung with salt, half blinded, more than ten feet into the air. I was aware of torches across the water on the raft, men crying out, then the fish, I clinging to it, fell into the water, thrashing.

As the fish fell back into the water it rolled, lifting me into the air. I shook my head and released the fin, lunging for the jaws which were held open by T’Zshal’s body. My arm entered the jaws. The fish rolled. I lost my grip. I seized T’Zshal’s body. Again I reached my arm into the jaws, grasping. I got my hand on the hilt of the dagger. The fish leaped again from the water and I had the dagger free, plunging it, ripping, into the gill tissue below its jaw, one of the salt-adaptations of marine life in the pit. I did not know the number of its hearts or their location. These vary in Gorean sharks. Too, the heart is deep within the body. I did not think I could reach it with the blade at my disposal. But the gill tissue is delicate, like layers of petals, essential for drawing oxygen from the environment. Madly did the great marine beast thrash; its jaws distended, trying to disgorge its victim, but it was held by the teeth; it tried to bite through the body in its jaws but the body was wedged well within the jaws and it could exert little leverage. Then the thrashing grew weaker. The Old One was still alive when I was drawn away from it, pulled by Hassan and another man to the surface of the raft. I could not release the dagger. Hassan pried it from my fingers with his hands. I lay on my back on the beams of the raft. Near me lay T’Zshal. I crawled to my hands and knees and went to him.

“You let the Old One seize you,” I told him.

“I was clumsy,” he smiled.

Flesh hung, ripped from his body. I tried to press together the wounds. “The Old One?” asked T’Zshal.

“Dead,” I said.

The carcass lay in the water, whitish, buoyed by the salt. It was longer than the raft itself.

“Good,” said T’Zshal. Then he closed his eyes.

“He is dead,” said one of the men.

“Find the lance head,” said I, “take the lacings from the blade. Bring me the dagger.”

“You cannot save him,” said Hassan. The beams beneath the body of the kennel master were drenched with blood. My forehead was drenched with sweat. I saw the wounds in the shifting torchlight above and behind me. There was salt on my hands, blood. I pressed together, as I could, the serrated flesh.

“I did not know there could be so much blood in a man,” said one of the men behind me.

“Bring me what I asked for,” I said.

The lance shaft broken, was found floating near the raft. The lacings which had reinforced the head were removed. The dagger was thrust in the wood beside me.

“Help me,” said I, “Hassan.”

“Be merciful,” said Hassan. “Kill him.”

“Help me.” I said.

“There is no hope,” said he.

“We have shared salt,” I said.

“I will help you,” said Hassan.

Using the dagger as an awl, punching through the flesh, and the long lacing from the lance head, while Hassan held together the edges of the ripped furrows, I crudely sewed together the rent, bloodied meat before me.

Once T’Zshal opened his eyes. “Let me die,” he begged.

“I thought you once made the march to Klima,” I said.

“I did,” said T’Zshal.

“March again to Klima,” I told him.

The fists of the kennel master clenched. A bit later be slept.

I leaned back from the body of T’Zshal. “You would not qualify as one of the caste of physicians,” said a man behind me.

“I myself,” said Hassan, “would not admit him to the leather workers.”

We laughed. T’Zshal slept.

“What of the Old One?” asked one of the men.

“Leave him,” I said. The lelts, as yet, had not even dared approach the shifting, buoyant carcass of the Old One. In time their hunger would bring them, nosing and nibbling, to its bulk, and the blind feast in the black waters would begin.

“Return to the salt docks,” I said.

The men picked up their poles. The great raft turned and began to make its way back toward the docks.