Tribesmen of Gor

18 I Retrieve a Bit of Silk; We Enter the Desert

“What would you have for saving my life?” asked T’Zshal.

“How is it,” I asked, “that this interview takes place in the domicile of the Salt Master?”

I stood on cool tiles, blue and yellow, in a vaulted room, in the, keep of the Salt Master. I stood before a draped couch, on which lay T’Zshal. Guards were about. Near me stood Hassan.

“I am the Salt Master,” said T’Zshal. Men of the caste of physicians, slave, too, at Klima, stood about the couch. “What would you have?”

“My freedom,” said I, “and water.” I regarded T’Zshal. He lay upon the couch, stripped to the waist, not deigning to bide the fierce, sewn wounds, which encircled his body.

“There are no kaiila at Klima,” said T’Zshal.

“I know,” I said.

“You would enter the desert afoot?” he asked.

“I have business away from Klima,” I said, to him.

“You saved my life,” said T’Zshal. “In return, you ask only your own death?”

“No,” I said. “I ask freedom and water.”

“You do not know the desert,” he said.

“I will accompany him,” said Hassan. “I, too, ask freedom and water. I, too, have business away from Klima.”

“You know the desert?” asked T’Zshal.

“The desert is my mother, and my father,” said Hassan. It was a saying of the Tahari.

“And yet you would leave Klima afoot?”

“Furnish me kaiila,” said Hassan. “And I will not refuse them.”

“I could place both of you high at Klima,” said T’Zshal.

“Our business lies elsewhere,” I said.

“You are determined?” asked T’Zshal.

“Yes,” I said.

“I, too,” said Hassan.

“Very well,” said T’Zshal, “stake them out in the sun.”

We were seized from behind by guards. We struggled. “I saved your life!” I cried.

“Stake him out in the sun,” said T’Zshal.

“Sleen!” cried Hassan.

“He, too,” said T’Zshal.

I pulled at the stake to which my right wrist was fastened.

“Lie still,” said the guard. I felt the point of his lance at my throat.

He retired to the canopy beneath which, with water, he sat, cross-legged, with his companion. Between them they had, in the crusts, scratched a board for Zar.

This resembles the Kaissa board. Pieces, however, may he placed only on the intersections of lines either within or at the edges of the board. Each player has nine pieces of equal value which are originally placed on the intersections of the nine interior vertical lines with what would be the rear horizontal line, constituted by the back edge of the board, from each player’s point of view. The corners are not used in the original placement, though they constitute legitimate move points after play begins. The pieces are commonly pebbles, or bits of verr dung, and sticks. The “pebbles” move first. Pieces move one intersection at a time, unless jumping. One may jump either the opponent’s pieces or one’s own. A jump must be made to an unoccupied point. Multiple jumps are permissible. The object is to effect a complete exchange of original placements. The first player to fully occupy the opponent’s initial position wins. Capturing, of course, does not occur. The game is one of strategy and maneuverability.

“Hassan.” I said.

“Lie still,” he said. “Do not speak. Try to live.”

I was silent.

“Ali,” cried one of the guards. He had just made a move, which pleased him.

I kept my eyes closed, that I be not blinded.

I was cold.

I moved the stake, to which my right wrist was fastened, a quarter of an inch.

“Hassan,” I said. “Do you live?”

“Yes,” said he, from near me.

We had been staked out in the crusts.

The sun was now down.

Under the Tahari sun some men last as little as four hours, even those who have made the march to Klima.

Water had been nearby, but we had not been given any. We kept company with the stakes. One moves as little as possible. One must not sweat. Further, one shields, with one’s body, the surface on which one lies. The surface temperature can reach one hundred and seventy-five degrees by late afternoon.

Oddly, I was now cold. It was the Tahari night. I could see the stars, the three moons.

The two guards had now gone.

“By noon tomorrow, we shall be dead.” said Hassan.

I moved the stake again, to which my right wrist was fastened, another quarter of an inch. Then, slowly, bit by bit, I drew it from the crusts.

Hassan’s face was turned toward me.

“Do not speak,” I told him.

With the freed stake and my right hand, I rolled to my left and attacked the crusts about the stake that held my left wrist down. Then I bad it free, and with my teeth and right hand, freed my left wrist of its impediment, then I freed my ankles of the straps.

“Save yourself,” said Hassan. “I cannot walk.”

I freed him of the restraints at his wrists, then of those which held his ankles. To my right wrist, dangling, hung the stake I had first drawn from the crusts.

“Leave,” Raid Hassan. “I cannot walk!”

I bent down and lifted him to his feet. I supported him with my left arm about his waist. His right arm was about my shoulder.

We looked up.

About us, in a dark cloud, scimitars drawn, were more than a dozen men.

I seized the stake in my right fist, to do war with steel.

The men about us parted. I saw, among them, carried on a sedan chair, the figure of T’Zshal. The chair was placed before us.

“T’Zshal!” I cried.

He regarded us, under the moons.

“Are you still determined to enter the desert?” he asked.

“We are,” I said.

“Your water is ready,” he said.

Two men, with yoke bags, falling before their body, on each side, stepped forward.

“We sewed together several talu bags,” said T”Zshal, “to make these.”

I was stunned.

“I hoped,” said T’Zshal, “to teach you the sun and the lack of water, that you might be dissuaded from your madness.”

“You have well taught us, T’Zshal,” said I, “the lack of water and the meaning of the sun.”

He nodded his head. “You will now, at least with understanding,” said he, “enter the desert.” He turned to a guard. “Cut the stake from his wrist,” he said. It was done. Then he turned to another guard, one with a one-talu bag, who had been one of the men who had watched us, when we had been staked out. “Give them water,” he said.

“You did not let me struggle in the straps,” I said to the guard.

“You saved the life of T’Zshal,” said the man. “I did not wish you to die.” Then he gave Hassan and I to drink from the water he carried.

Before we finished the bag, we passed it about the men, and T’Zshal, that each of us, there together, might have tasted it, the water from the same bag. We had, thus, in this act, shared water.

“You will, of course,” said T’Zshal, “remain at Klima for some days, to recover your strength.”

“We leave tonight,” I told him.

“What of him?” asked T’Zshal, indicating Hassan.

“I can walk,” said Hassan, straightening himself. “I now have water.”

“Yes,” said T’Zshal. “You are truly of the Tahari.”

A man handed me a bag of food. It contained dried fruit, biscuits, salt.

“My thanks,” I said. We had not expected food.

“It is nothing,” he said.

“Will you not,” I asked T’Zshal, “in your turn, when your wounds heal, march from Klima?”

“No,” said T’Zshal.

“Why?” I asked.

I have not forgotten the answer he gave me.

“I would rather be first at Klima than second in Tor,” he said.

“I wish you well,” said 1, “T’Zshal, Salt Master of Klima.”

Hassan and I turned and, with the water, and our supplies, into the night desert, took our way.

We stopped outside the perimeter of Klima. From the place in the salt crusts, where I had hidden it, I took the faded, cracked bit of silk that had been thrust in my collar on the march to Klima. I held it to my face, and to the face of Hassan.

“A trace of the perfume lingers,” he said.

“Perhaps I should give it to those of Klima,” I smiled.

“No,” smiled Hassan. “They would kill one another for it.”

But I had no wish to give it to any at Klima. Rather I wished to return it, personally, to a girl.

I tied the bit of silk about my left wrist.

Then together, under the Gorean moons, through the salt crusts, we began the trek from Klima.

We stopped once, on the height of the great shallow bowl, which encloses Klima, to look back. We saw Klima white in the light of the three moons. Then we continued our journey.