Witness of Gor

10

I screamed suddenly, startled, at the pounding of the pipe between the bars, and at the snarling at the beast. I had not been looking. I had been taken totally unawares. I had not expected either sound. I scrambled to the back of the cell and pressed myself, my body and the palms of my hands, against the stone there. It was as though I would try to press though the rock itself. I looked back over my shoulder, wildly. I saw shadows there. “Please, no!” I cried in my native language. Then I realized in misery that such a lapse might earn me a beating. I saw the beast there, the low, large, long, heavy beast, six-legged monster, with the triangular viperlike head. It was just outside the bars. At its side stood a corpulent, massive male, in a half tunic, with a heavy leather belt, and leather wristlets. In his left hand he held the beast, on a short leash. The metal pipe with which he had struck the bars he threw behind him, on a shoulder strap. It was the sort of thing with which he might have subdued even a man. From his belt there hung a ring of keys and a whip. I heard the beast snuffling and growling. I heard the ring of keys, jangling, removed from the belt. He went to the side, as I could see, turning half about, past the right side of the door, as one faces outward. I heard him then, out of sight, to the right of the door. He opened, it seemed, a panel of some sort. I heard a key thrust in a lock, and turned. The locking mechanism, you see, is not visible from the cell. It is somewhere outside, and, I conjectured, protected in a paneled niche. I was to some extent familiar with these things from the cell’s having been opened several times before, in the morning. To be sure, I had then, warned by the signal bar, been prone at the back of the cell, helplessly spread-eagled. He had, however, as yet, not demanded any such accommodation. I crouched now at the back of the cell, turned about, looking. I saw him re-emerge into view, the keys back on his belt. He looked through the bars and, fro an instant, our eyes met, and then I looked away, unable to meet his eyes. I saw him transfer the leash to his right hand and reach down and, with his left hand, in one motion, with a sound of sliding metal, lift the gate. I gasped. This had apparently required considerable force, but it had been done easily. I suspected then that he, or another such as he, might have been with the woman, or women, earlier. The beast put its head down and moved forward, a quick, stealthy step, little more than the movement of one paw. I groaned. I trusted it was under effective discipline. I hoped the man could hold it, if it were not. But I had no assurance of that. It was larger and heavier then he, by far, and had the leverage of six clawed legs. I hoped the leash would not break. I heard the growling of the animal. I flung a pleading, helpless glance at its keeper, and perhaps mine. I did not darn meet the eyes of the animal, for fear I might trigger some attack response. It could have torn me into pieces. It could have bitten me in two. Briefly again, fleetingly, in terror, begging him to control the animal, my eyes met those of the massive male, and then, again, I looked down. He was a man not untypical of this world, in his size and strength. But, too, even more typical of this world, one could read in his eyes the absence of vacillation and confusion, the undivided nature of his character, the firmness, simplicity and unilaterality of his will. He did not belong to a world in which men, though deceit and trickery, and lies, and insidious, hypocritical conditioning programs, had been bled and weakened. On this world, at least where women such as I were concerned, men had kept their power. They had not surrendered their manhood, their natural dominance. In his eyes, you see, I saw the firmness of his character, the strength of his will, which was as iron. In his eyes, in a sense, you see, I saw, unpretentious and untroubled, the severity, the simplicity, the strictness, the rigor, the uncompromising relentlessness of nature.

I knelt before him then, with my back straight, but my head down. I spread my knees very widely.

I wanted to beg him for permission to speak, but I was afraid to do so. I wanted to beg his forgiveness for having cried out in my native language. After all, it would not be his language, and his language must now be my language. Our language must become that of the rights holders.

I heard the animal growl, a low, rumbling noise, and sensed it move forward another step.

I looked up, again, and then, frightened, knelt forward, putting my head to the stone flooring, my palms, too, down on the stone, in a common attitude of obeisance.

I trembled.

“Look up,” said he, in his language.

I looked up, frightened, crouching before him then on all fours. I did this immediately. He was the sort of man, like so many on this world, whom a woman obeys instantly.

Two gestures then did he make, in quick succession, the first indicating the left shoulder where, had I been tunicked in that fashion, there would have been a disrobing loop, and the second indicating, fingers spread, palms down, the floor. Instantly I drew the tunic over my head, stripping myself before him, and turned about, and put myself to my belly, legs and arms spread widely, spread-eagled.

I lay there thustly for some moments, regarded.

Then I sobbed as I felt the snout of the beast, prodding, rude, inquisitive, cold, pushing about my body.

“Do not move,” he said.

As if I could have moved!

“May I speak? May I speak!” I begged.

“No,” he said.

I sobbed, silenced.

“He is not really taking your scent,” he said. “He is only curious about you.”

I trembled, under the investigation of the beast. I smelled its fetid breath.

“Later,” he said, “once you have been named, you will be introduced to our pets in the sleen pens.”

I did not understand this at the time, but it would later become all too clear. The name is, of course, important, as it serves, in conjunction with other signals, to direct and target a hunt.

I did understand, of course, that I did not have, as of now, a name. I might as well have been then, I realized, in a collar. Any possible doubts as to my status had been dissipated. My brand was as meaningful as ever. It remained in full effect.

I felt his hand on my body.

I lifted it a little, to him, placatingly.

“Kajira,” he chuckled.

That is one of the words in the language of the rights holders for women such as I. Indeed, as I have suggested, it is by far the most common word in their language for women such as I. The first worlds I had been taught on this world were “La kajira.” — “I am a kajira.” — “I am a slave girl.”

He took the tunic I had discarded and folded it in small squares.

I had not been given permission to speak, and had thus not been permitted to beg forgiveness for having cried out in my native tongue. On the other hand, it seemed he had chosen to overlook my outburst.

I had, at any rate, not been kicked or cuffed.

I assumed he would have known, even before coming to the cell, that I was not from this world. And my outburst, under the circumstances, his sudden appearance, the noise, the beast, and such, certainly would have been an innocent enough one, a natural enough one.

To be sure, eventually, even such outbursts, I had little doubt, would be uttered in the language of the rights holders, that language, too, later, having become mine.

The men of this world are terribly strict with us, but few of them are cruel. Their pleasure is found in the manifold perfections of our service, intimate and otherwise, and in our devotion and love, not in our distress or pain. These men keep their animals under perfect discipline, as is their way, but they also, on the whole, treat them well.

I felt his eyes upon me.

“Kneel, and face me,” he said.

Swiftly I complied.

He placed the folded tunic in my mouth, deeply back, between my teeth, crosswise, and I, as I knew was expected, closed my teeth upon it.

He then stood up, and I, kneeling before him, looked up at him.

“You are a pretty one,” he said.

I looked at him, gratefully. Had I not been pretty, I supposed, I would not have been brought here. I gathered they tended to select “pretty ones.” They liked that sort. Interestingly, on my own world, as I have indicated, I had never really thought of myself as being particularly attractive, at least generally, particularly as I had regarded my body as erring, so to speak, in approximating closely the statistical norms for a human female. Here, however, it seemed that the normal woman, well curved and luscious, was, for whatever reason, esteemed more highly than her more boyish, stricklike sisters. I did not mind this, of course. It pleased my vanity. On the other hand, my desirability, such as it was, I recognized, might place me in danger. “I would like to have you in my shackles,” a guard had once told me. “I, too,” had said another. “And I,” had laughed another. I had been frightened. Many men, it seemed, and men such as these, such fierce, strong men, men like predators, like carnivores, might want me in their shackles!

“You are from the slave world?” he asked. I looked at him, puzzled.

“From the place called “Earth”?” he said. I nodded.

“Are there others like you there?” he asked. Tears brimmed in my eyes. I nodded.

He laughed. He then snapped his fingers and indicated that I should rise and leave the cell, going to the right, as one faced outwards.

I leaped to my feet and, going far to the right, stopped only by the stone, put as much distance between me and the six-legged beast as possible.

Then I was outside the cell!

It was breathtakingly beautiful. The air was bracing. I bit down on the folded tunic between my teeth. The wind blew through my hair.

I looked down to the left, and groaned, for there was a precipitate drop there, some forty or fifty feet to another trail below, and below that another such drop to another trail, and thence to another. Similarly, above me, I could see what seemed to be similar ledges, three or four of them, receding. There must have been more than a dozen such trails and ledges, several below, some above. Too, I could see several openings in the mountain, most of them barred. This was, in effect, I gathered, a place of imprisonment. I stepped back, dizzy for a moment, from the edge of the trail, and touched the rock to my right. I gasped; hundreds of yards ahead of me, where the trail led, past several barred cells, and approached by a narrow, ascending trail, there was a startling, lofty, sheer edifice that seemed to rear up from the mountains itself, its towers lost among clouds. It was walled. It was some sort of fortress or citadel. I looked again to the left. I could see the valley below now, or part of it. It was, I was sure, cultivated. Then I looked back, and trembled. The jailer was there, and the fearsome beast, held on its leash. Behind the jailer and the beast I could see the ledge trail going back around the mountain. To my right I saw the panel box, locked now, within which must lie the locking mechanism to the cell. The panel box itself, not to mention the mechanism within, could not be reached from within the cell. Other than this there was only the steepness, the side of the mountain, there on the right, rising up, and, on the left, below the ledge, the drop, forty or fifty feet, to the ledge and trail below. The rock ledge felt very hard, and granular, beneath my bare feet. it was chilly on the ledge. I looked back, again, at the jailer, and the beast.

Though I was out of the cell no leather or chain had been put on my neck.

The beast was leashed, but not I.

I had, incidentally, in the pens, been taught to walk gracefully, and to kneel, and pose, and such, in a leash. We are sometimes taken out in such fashions. There are also wrist leashes, usually worn on the right wrist of a right-handed girl, or the left wrist of a left-handed girl, and ankle leases, similarly oriented.

The point of the leash, of course, is seldom to hold or control a woman, for we all rational, and know we must obey, but rather to make it clear whose property she is, and to display her. Too, it might be mentioned that the leash has a profoundly erotic effect upon the female, as its meaning, and its symbolism of her domination, its profoundly arousing to her.

In this respect it is rather like the collar itself.

It does, of course, as a simple matter of undeniable fact, and this is something which should be openly acknowledged, have its custodial aspect. In it she is held. She is its prisoner. She is on her leash.

But I was not now leashed.

It was not necessary for one such as I, I thought then, to be leashed, perhaps for a free women, or a new girl, or a naive girl, or an ignorant girl, but not for one such as I, who had some understanding of the world on which she found herself, and what she was upon it.

But I would soon learn how wrong I was!

I would soon learn how much that simple device, the leash, had to teach me!

He was looking at me.

I straightened my body. We are not free women; we may not be slovenly or slatternly. We must stand and walk with excellent posture. I lifted and smoothed my hair a little, and moved it back, about my head. We have our vanity. His grin showed me that he saw me as a slave. I saw that he would expect perfect obedience of me, and was well aware that he would receive it.

No, a leash would not be necessary.

I understood the world on which I found myself, and what I was upon it.

How naive I was! How much I had still to learn!

ahead of me was the trail and the looming fortress or citadel in the distance. Wisps of cloud hung about the cold trial, and the turrets, or towers, of the structure in the distance.

He drew down the gate of the cell. It locked automatically. He then gestured ahead. As soon as he did this the best uttered a menacing growl and tugged forward. I swiftly, stumbling, turned, and hurried along the narrow ledge in the direction indicated.

The tunic was clamped between my teeth.

I looked into the cells as we passed them. Most were empty. Some, however, were occupied. In some were sullen men, clad in the remnants of what might once have been uniforms. Their wrists and ankles were chained. In others there were unchained men, some men sitting crossed-legged, playing some game with bits of cloth. Others stood near the bars, but kept their hands well within the bars.

“Hello, little tasta,” called one of the men to me.

I hurried on.

A tasta is a kind of small, sweet candy, usually sold at fairs. It is commonly mounted on a stick. Some men use it as a slang expression for one such as I. Another such is ‘vulo’. The vulo is a small, soft, usually white, pigeonlike bird. It is the most common form of domestic fowl kept on this world. It is prized for its mean and eggs. It is notoriously incapable of eluding hawks and other forms of predatory birds, by which it can easily be torn to pieces.

I passed another cell containing such men.

“Is she to be given to us?” one of them called out.

Again, frightened, I hurried on.

It occurred to me that I might, of course, being what I was, be thrown among them, for their gratification or amusement.

Not every cell which was occupied, however, contained men.

Some contained women such as I, who looked fearfully out, often from the back of the cell, through the bars. Their fear frightened me as I thought they might know more of this place than I. Some of these were clad in tunics such as I had been, invariably brief and revealing, the sort of garments in which men might choose to clothe women such as I. Others were clad in what appeared to be rags, some little more than castoffs, which might have been soiled even, from use in the kitchen, others in rags which, I think, were actually scandalous ta-teeras, artfully arranged rags, intended to well display the women placed in them. I was sure these women were such as I because their throats were encircled by collars, mostly of the common variety, those closely fitting, of narrow steel. But two, at least, wore the looser collars of rounded metal, the Turian collar. To be sure, it, too, cannot be slipped.

Some women in certain other cells, on the other hand, were not collared. They were, however, stripped. Too, they were in sirik, chained hand and foot, and neck.

The sirik is a common custodial device for a female, and its quite flexible in its possibilities. The common arrangement is a collar with dangling chain, to which are attached two smaller chains, the first with wrist rings, the second, at the termination of the dangling chain, a-with ankle rings. Women are very beautiful in it. I had learned to wear it attractively in the pens.

As the women were not collared I conjectured that they might be free.

“Do not look upon us, slut!” cried one. Quickly I looked away.

I wondered how she felt, locked in slave steel. Doubtless she was awaiting, or being held for, her processing. Such takes place, of course, at the convenience of the rights holders. Sometimes a captive is held in incarceration for days, being given time to reflect deeply and fully on what is to become of her. I did not think she would be as imperious should her thigh come to wear, as I suspected it might soon do, a mark like mine, identical in import if not in actual design.

In another cell I saw four women in rags of white silk. As they wore collars I gathered that they were women such as I. The combination of the collars and the white silk suggested that they might be virgin slaves. A “white-silk girl” is a virgin; one who is not a virgin is sometimes referred to as a “red-silk girl.” This need not refer, literally, of course, to the color of their garmenture. White-silk slaves, as you might suppose, are very rare. There is apparently a market for such. The most expensive of such slaves, as I understand it, are those which have been raised from infancy in seclusion, kept literally in ignorance of the existence of men. Then, when they are of a suitable age, they are purchased, unbeknownst to themselves, by unseen buyers. Later they are drugged and removed from their familiar surroundings, to awaken in new surroundings, of the buyer’s choosing.

It is in those surroundings, those of the buyer’s choosing, that they will learn that they are women, and that there are men.

I felt the hot breath of the beast on the back of my calves, and sensed the hot mouth, the teeth, at my heels. I whimpered in dismay, and hurried on.

The trail became steeper and my breath became shorter. The pace I was keeping began to hurt my feet.

I heard a fellow laugh, from within one of the cells, as I hurried past. Momentarily I was angry. Surely there was little dignity in my progress!

I supposed, however, if I proved capable of sustaining a more rapid pace, that that would be expected of me. I cast a glace back over my shoulder at the jailer. He gestured ahead, and held the beast back, by the leash and collar.

Again I hurried forward.

The soles of my feet felt raw. My legs began to ache. I moaned. I tried to draw breath in, wildly, through my nostrils, even about the rag in my mouth. Tears formed in my eyes.

I did not see how I could, given this elevation, and the ascent, maintain this pace.

And one of the prisoners had laughed at me!

I would show them!

Imperceptibly then, so subtly they would not even notice, I determined to slow my pace, ever so subtly, so subtly that they would never notice!

I could thus, in my way, fool them. I could thus, in my way, dally.

I had not been punished for having inadvertently cried out in my native language. I had been given a tunic and blanket in the cell. There had been slices of fruit in the food bowl. There had been straw in the cell, for my comfort and cleanliness! Even a vessel for wastes had been provided! Could it be that these men were weak, or, if not weak, that they were tolerant, understanding, and kindly?

Then it would surely be easy to fool them.

I need be only a clever girl.

I heard the slightest sound behind me and turned about, moving, and looked over my shoulder. My heart almost stopped! He had removed the whip from his belt and shaken out its coils. I then, despite the difficulty and the pain, weeping, in terror, increased my pace even beyond what it had been before. I feared to feel the whip. I knew that a man such as he behind me, a man of this world, would not hesitate for an instant to use it on a woman such as I.

I wept, hurrying up the trail, the beast at my heels, the jailer at its side.

“Hurry, little kajira,” I heard from one of the cells.

I sobbed!

There was laughter, that of more than one man, from the cell.

I hurried forward, pressed to even greater haste. I could feel the breath of the beast behind me, on my legs. I heard it strain forward, its claws scraping on the stone. It nipped at my heels.

I moaned. I wept.

How could I go more swiftly?

The whip suddenly, like a shot, cracked behind me.

I went more swiftly!

I heard laughter from a cell, from some men, crowded behind the bars. I caught only a glimpse of them. Were they so much more then I?

“Give her to us!” called a man.

Yes, they were far more than I.

I feared being thrown to the.

The whip cracked again.

I stumbled, frightened, I regained my balance, I hurried on again, crying. In my fear I had almost lost the tunic from my mouth. I thrust it firmly back in my mouth. I hoped it would not be disarranged.

I did not wish to be beaten.

Women such as I, on this world, are much at the mercy of men!

There was suddenly, to my left, out from the ledge, a piercing scream, a great smiting sound, and, on my right, the cliff, as though flung there, twisting, a vast moving, wheeling shadow. A torrent of air threw me against the side of the cliff. I saw the fur on the beast blown as if my hurricanelike windsto its right, and the jailer, too, must brace himself not to be hurled to the side. I held the tunic in my mouth with both hands, crouching down. Then the gigantic bird had turned abruptly, wheeling about, and was making its way, it seemed to the very heights, the very pinnacles, loftly and cloud-obscured, of the citadel itself. The rider, now in the distance, moving swiftly, looking back, lifting his arm to the jailer, and the jailer, grinning, raised his whip in salute. Such men, it seemed, must have their jokes.

The jailer looked at me, and I leaped up, and continued my journey up the trail.

The joke had had nothing to do with me. I had been incidental to the interests of such men.

It seemed that I was being permitted to go more slowly now. Perhaps the jailer was contemplating some revenge on the prankster. He chuckled, perhaps in his ruminations, I almost now forgotten, having come to some suitable resolution. I was grateful for this respite. Then he suddenly made a sound of annoyance, as though abruptly recalling to himself his business, which, I gathered, had to do with the delivery of a kajira. Again the whip cracked and I again addressed myself to my hasty ascent. The sound of the whip, too, seemed to stimulate the beast. It snapped at my heels. It seemed I must not try to attain even greater speeds! I wanted to cry out, to remonstrate with him, to beg him for a little indulgence, but I could not do so, for the gag.

Perhaps that was the point of the gag, I thought, a kindness in its way, that not being able to protest or plead I need not be lashed for having dared to do so.

What manner of men would these be, in this place?

What hope had I of mercy?

Could they be so much the masters?

One does not, of course, remove such an obstruction without permission. That would be a serious offense.

“Kajira!” called more than one man, in a given cell, as we passed them, seemingly to alert those in cells father down the trail as to our passage. “Kajira!” I heard, behind me. Then the same cry I heard ahead, and it was then, from thence, relayed forward, again, and again. Men came to the bars, to watch. They pressed against the bars, but they did not put their hands though. Perhaps they did not wish them torn off by the beast! In the pens we kajirae, kneeling or crouching down, had sometimes put our hands through the bars of our kennels, trying to touch a guard, to call ourselves, whimpereingly, to his attention, but this experience suggested, uneasily, a quite different sort of possibility, one in which such as I might have to tread a passage with care, lest we fall within the grasp of fearsome, dangerous inmates. Would we not be in our way rather like food, dangled almost within the reach of starving men?

“Giver her to us!” called a man.

But the whip cracked again, and again I sped forward. Then we were past the cells!

I continued to climb upward. We were now on the trail leading up to the citadel.

The cliff rose sheer on my right, the drop, precipitous, was to my left. Behind me was the beast, so fearful, and the man, so powerful, with his whip in hand.

The whip cracked again.

I was being herded!

My feet were sore. I struggled to breathe. My body ached. Again I felt the teth of the beast at my heels.

I was not even of this world! How dare they treat me in this fashion? How dare they do this to me!

I had been taken from my world!

I had been brought here!

Then I recalled that I was now a kajira, and that anything might be done to me.

I fell and, frantically, struggled to regain my feet. “Hurry, kajira,” said the man, sternly, restraining the snarling beast. I sped forward, again.

I wept.

There was no dignity here.

I was being herded! I was now being driven upward, like a pig, toward what I knew not!

Then, gasping, trying to hold the gag in my mouth, I sank to my knees before part of the stone mountain, a sheer wall of stone, at the end of the trail. There was the mountain there, rearing upward, and, high above, perhaps a hundred feet above, seeming to rise out of the rock itself, were the walls of the citadel. I could go no further. There was no place to go now, unless it were back. I looked back, frantically, at the beast and jailer. The beast viewed me balefully. Surely it must understand one could go no further! The jailer took from his wallet, slung at his belt, a whistle, on which he blew a succession of piercing notes. The notes, some simply, some in combinations, were linked, I would learn, with the alphabet of the language. The notes were spelling out, in the language, a phrase or password. These phrases changed daily, and sometimes oftener. I heard a responding whistle from above, also with succession of notes. The original signal and its response constituted the exchange of a sign and countersign. The beast, whose hearing was doubtless acute, seemed discomfited by these sounds. It twisted about, growling.

I heard a grinding sound from above and saw a wooden platform, in which there was a rectangular aperture, slide out from the wall.

Though this aperture there soon appeared a dangling rope, with one or more things attached to it, which, perhaps released from the cylinder of a windlass, began, swinging, to descend rapidly toward us. In a few moments the rope was within his reach. There was something on it like a stirrup, and, above that, something like a canvas bag. The jailer motioned that I should approach him. I did so, timidly. He opened the bag, the bottom portion of which was sacklike, but had two apertures in it. He indicated that I should step into the bag, putting my feet through the apertures, and I did so, one foot at a time. He then pulled the bag up, I standing, until it was snuggly on me. Next he closed the bag about me, my hands and arms inside, and buckled it about me, tightly. Lastly though the leg holes, but only to the extent permitted by the rope on the bag. Within the bag I was helpless. I looked at the jailer, frightened, and at the beast, and, upward, toward the platform so far above me. Clearly I wanted to speak. The jailer fixed the folded tunic in my mouth, more carefully. I was not to speak. I looked at him, pathetically, over this gag. But he paid me no attention. He stepped away from me, going to the beast. He freed it from the leash, putting the leash at his belt. He then returned to the rope and pulled on it, twice. I now saw the rope begin to move upward. I shook my head wildly, whimpering. I did not dare release the gag, of course. I had, for example, no way of retrieving it if it fell. Too, I did not know what would be done with me if I should even let it fall, let alone eject it. Too, it was my only clothing in this place, and that made it inordinately precious to me. Too, I did not want to be punished. Too, these not men of Earth. If I lost my clothing, I did not know when, or if, it might be replaced. I suddenly felt my toes lift from the stone. I tried to reach down with my toes to touch the stone, but they could not do so. The rope now, with y weight on it, was taut. I felt myself ascending. I saw the jailer, below me, put his foot in the stirrup, his left foot, and at the same time grasp the rope with his left hand, above his head; and then the rope, too, bore his weight. The bag was attached to a ring on the rope by means of its own ring, a ring which could open and close. In this way, even if a girl, in her ascent, should squirm or struggle, the bag, ideally, remains affixed to the rope. I trusted, of course, that these rings would hold. Too, I hoped the rope would hold our weight. The beast, below, looked upward. Then I saw it prowl away, perhaps returning to its lair, or perhaps to its patrol of the ledges. The bag swung a little on the rope, but the weight of the jailer, below me, muchly steadied it, preventing what might otherwise have been a most frightening swaying of that stout strand. From the stirrup, incidentally, a sword may be used. The stirrup is commonly attached to the rope below the sack for two reasons, first, in order to facilitate its defense, and, secondly, to enable it to be steadied, or even held, or supported, if necessary. I kept my legs still, not wanting to press stress on the rings which held the sack in place. Foot by foot the rope moved upward. I was soon some yards above level of the trail. The rope swung a little, moving upward. I was absolutely helpless. I felt no tearing of canvas, no breaking, or pulling away, of stout threads, one my one, from straps. I looked up at the rope above me. I detected no unraveling of strands. It seemed the rings and the ropes might hold. I grew more confident. I had not been this high before, at least unhooded. I saw ranges beyond ranges of mountains, some snowcapped, extending into the distance. I put my arms about myself, inside the sack. I bit down on the tunic. The air was bracing. The mountains were very beautiful. In a few moments I could hear the cranking of the windlass. I looked down as I could. The jailer, below me, his foot in the stirrup, his left hand on the rope, was seemingly contemplating the mountains. That seemed remarkable to me, for he was no more than a brute of a man. In a sense we both perhaps felt small before them, and both found them awesome and beautiful. I looked up I could see the platform now, so close, a few feet above me, and the aperture through which I would be lifted. I could not see the windlass. The rope ascended through the aperture and went over a pulley, attached to what was apparently a tripodlike arrangement of beams. Above the platform the walls of the citadel reared up, toward the clouds. Perhaps we might feel small before the mountains, in their vast, mute grandeur, but men, here, had made themselves a part of this, making for themselves a lair, an aerie, in this very magnificence, like eagles.

I was drawn upward through the rectangular aperture and found myself suspended, a bit below the pulley, some ten feet above the platform. I dangled there. The jailer had stepped from the stirrup to the platform as the stirrup had cleared the aperture. Greetings were exchanged between the jailer and some men on the platform. These men were in scarlet tunics. Doubtless it was a livery, or uniforms of some sort. They were, I gathered, guards, or soldiers, of some sort. I heard the windlass and flet myself being lowered. When I reached the vicinity of the aperture the jailer reached out and drew the sack, by the rope, back over the platform. With difficulty I got my feet under me. The rope descended another yard or so. He then, I standing, and the slackness of the rope facilitating it, opened the ring on the sack, and freed it of the rope ring. I was now free of the rope. I knelt, as was proper, for I was in the presence of men. I did edge back from the opening.

From the platform I could see the mountains. The jailer looked at them, too, for a moment. Those on the platform, on the other hand, paid them little attention. To them they were doubtless quite familiar. I looked up at the jailer, and then looked down. He and I might both have noted the beauty of the mountains on the ascent, achieving in that moment a sort of brief parity, suspended as we were on the rope, between the land and the sky, between worlds, in a sort of aesthetic void, an artificial stasis, but we had now come to the platform, to its solid beams. He stood. I knelt. Once again worlds of differences loomed between us. I was kajira. He was a free man.

“This is the one who was purchased?” asked one of the soldiers.

I gathered that these men seldom purchased their women.

“Yes,” said the jailer.

“For what purpose?” asked a soldier.

I listened, eagerly.

“I do not know,” said the jailer.

Could it be that he did not know?

Another of the soldiers crouched beside me, and took me by the hair, pulling my head back, sharply, that they might better observe my features. We may be handled in such a fashion, as, on my old world, might be, say, horses. Do not blame them for this. Do not think anything of it. On this world, as I have mentioned, we, women such as I, are animals.

“Not bad,” said he who held my head back.

“No,” said another.

“When you buy them,” said another, “you can at least see what you are getting.”

“Fully,” agreed another.

Some of the men laughed.

This was, I suppose, a vulgar joke, but there wee no free women present, who might be offended, or scandalized. My presence did not count. I was kajira.

Women, of course, are commonly examined nude before being purchased. Men like to see what they are getting, all of it. It is said that only a fool would buy a woman clothed. That is doubtless true.

I was no stranger to this sort of thing.

Before I had been sold I had been so examined in great detail, even to the extent of performing what was almost a choreography before my prospective buyers, that my features, expressions, attitudes, movements, charms, if any, and such, might be better assessed.

One theory for the revealing barb in which kajirae are commonly kept is that in a primitive, warlike, barbarous world, a world in which slavery is common, and beautiful women are regarded as a familiar form of booty, such garb tends to make them the desiderated objects of capture, seizure and theft, this being thought, in its way, to constitute something of a protection for the free women, in their cumbersome, concealing robes and veils. But there are, doubtless, several reasons for the distinctive forms of garb in which kajirae are placed. One commonly mentioned reason is that it draws a clear distinction in a profoundly stratified society between our lowliness, marked by our rags, or brief tunics, and such, and the loftiness of free women, expressed in the complexity, richness and ornateness of their habiliments. It is not likely then that we will be confused with our betters. The most significant reasons, however, I suspect, have to do with the gratifications of men, who enjoy dressing us, if at all, for their pleasure, and with the informative, mnemonic, and stimulatory effects achieved on the slave herself. It is hard to be dressed in certain fashions without comprehending very clearly and meaningfully that one is beautiful and desirable — and owned. These comprehensions, in turn, enhance sexual responsiveness. The garmentrue of the slave, then, has its effect not only on those who see her, but on the slave herself. With respect to the first reason, that of protecting free women, I think there may be something to it. For example, if stalking, or careful hunting is involved, r if an escape must be made quickly, then the robes of concealment, as they are often called, might give some pause to a hunter. Who would wish to risk his life for a woman only to discover later in his camp, after her unveiling, that better than she might have been purchased for a few coppers from an itinerant peddler? Would he not feel much a fool? To be sure, he might be lucky. He might have his rope on a prize. But, even so, would that not be mere luck, and, in a sese, would he not then be merely a lucky fool? Certainly professional slavers on this world would customarily exercise great care in such matters, perhaps even having recourse to elaborate techniques of inquiry and espionage. It is rumored they sometimes work in conjunction with free women who manage baths, and such, patronized by free women. In the conquest of cities, of course, or in elaborate raids, in which perhaps outlaying villas, or cylinders, are struck, by several men, one may take more time, sorting out captures into field girls, kitchen-and-laundry girls, kettle-and-mat girls, tower slaves, pleasure slaves, and such. In the capture of a city a woman may be disrobed, or ordered to disrobe, on the spot. One then may decide whether or not to put her on his rope or, in some cases, to bind her and then insert a nose ring, to which a leash cord may be attached. Sometimes a given warrior may have several women hurrying behind him, their leash cords grasped in his fist. When a conquering force is disciplined, the women are sometimes merely bound helplessly, and marked, and then left where they may be easily found later, in collections, for return to the original captor. The marks are various. Sometimes the names, or signs, are written on her body. Sometimes a token is affixed to her, as, say, a tag-bearing wire thrust through her ear lobe and then twisted shut, to preclude dislodgment. Women of my world, of course, for the most part, are not veiled. In this way those of this world who come to my world, doubtless for various purposes, but amongst them, it seems, though perhaps only incidentally, to acquire women for this world, women who will become such as I, encounter little difficulty in making their assessments. Doubtless it pleases them to do this at their leisure, and quite openly. How convenient all this is for them! Are the goods not, so to speak, publicly displayed?

What sort of culture, I wondered, allows its women to be so exhibited, to be displayed so brazenly, so publicly and conveniently, for the inspection of men? And what of the women? Have they, in their haughty displays, no inkling of how they appear to men? Do they wish to insult men? Do they wish to disturb and taunt men? Do they wish, in their frustration, to challenge men? Or do they long on some level to be taken in hand, and be done with as men please? Do they long on some level for the iron and the chain?

I remembered with chagrin how I had on my old world obtained gratification from teasing boys. Now I belonged to men.

The soldier released my hair, and my head came forward. I kept it lowered.

The platform on which I knelt was some twenty feet square, and the aperture within it was some four feet by five feet. It had slid out from the side of the citadel. It was large enough that one of the great birds could have landed on it. The tripodlike arrangement of beams which, with its pulley, facilitated the movement of the rope, could be set up or taken down. Above the track of the platform, swung back now, was a double gate. It was such that the platform, if the tripod of beams was not set up, could be extended or withdrawn without reference to it. In each of the double gates was a smaller opening which was now shut, though which only one person at a time might pass. Given these arrangements several permutations were possible, the most obvious being the gates shut and the platform withdrawn, the gates shut and the platform extended, and the gates open with the platform extended or withdrawn. I would not wish to have been on the platform if the gates were closed and the platform was withdrawn. I suddenly whimpered, for the platform began to move back, into the citadel. I did not dare rise, or course. I did look up and saw, as I passed under the wall, heavy and menacing, in a large, oblong overhead slot, the downward-pointing spikes of a great, barred barrier. One would not wish to have been beneath those spikes had they descended. Just behind that area was the inner threshold, which would be closed by the gates. With a rumble the platform stopped. It stopped well within the gate. This allowed the gates, if and when they would be closed, clearance of the tripod, that associated with the windlass. In this fashion the tripod might, if one wished, be kept in its braces. I think saw, rattling and heavy, the barred gate, with the spikes, descend. The spikes descended into sockets in a stone sill. I could now see the windlass. It was within the gate itself. The gates were then closed.

I knelt on the drawn-back platform. The gates were twice barred, with heavy beams. They slid slowly across the inner faces of the gate. They must have weighed hundreds of pounds. They were now secure within their monstrous iron brackets.

The gates were now closed, now barred. The gates were heavy and high. They must have been a foot thick. The exterior surfaces had been sheathed with nailed copper sheets, the intention of which, one supposes, was to resist fire.

I looked at the great gates.

How helpless I felt, kneeling on the platform, my upper body pinioned helplessly within that stout canvas sheath. It was so tightly buckled upon me that I could scarcely move my hands and arms within it. Too, it was buckled closely about my neck.

The beams of the platform were rough and heavy. They felt splintery beneath my knees and were the upper sides of my toes, as I knelt, now rested upon the. The bottoms of my feet burned from the ascent to the lower level. Here and there on the platform were deep gouges, were weapons might have struck, or the talons of the great birds.

I did not know where I was!

I had not asked to be brought here!

What was I doing here?

This was not even my world!

I was afraid.

How faraway then seemed my own world, and my past.

“I will tell them that you are here,” said one of the soldiers.

We were then, it seemed, expected.

This understanding did not ease my apprehensions.

What was I doing here?

Why could I not be as other girls, routinely processed, auctioned summarily off a block to the highest bidder, and then led, braceleted, barefoot, frightened, hopeful, to the domicile of my buyer, and new master?

How was it that I was so different?

We waited on the drawn-in platform.

It seemed we waited a long time.

It was hot in the sack, my hands and arms closely confined within it, but, on my bared legs I could feel the cool air of the mountains. The mountain air, too, moved my hair a little. I shook my head a little, to move the hair away from my eyes. Confined as I was I could not reach it with my hands.

“Steady, little vulo,” said one of the men.

He brushed the hair back from my face with his large hand. I looked up at him, gratefully, and then again put my head down. Masters are often kind to us, for we are so much theirs, and so helpless. But they are always the masters.

I was grateful for his small kindness.

A touch, a smile, a candy, a pastry, mean much to us.

We are kajirae.

On my old world I had lacked an identity. Perhaps we all did. On my old world roles and masks made do for identities, for realities. We were all told we were real, of course, but when we inquired as to what were, really, we were met with evasive answers; I suppose we were just supposed to know; when we went to touch those supposed realities, our hands passed through them. They weren’t really there. And if they were truly us, then we, too, were not there. But we knew we were real somehow, something beyond the masks, the roles. Not everyone wants to disappear behind a mask, or even to hide behind one. It seemed we were all waiting. Young, we were supposed to wait. Reality was around the corner. Existence and truth must be postponed yet another day. And so we waited, and distracted ourselves with sweets and lies. But where was the end of this? Were the older ones real either?

Could it be that the older ones, too, were waiting? Were they embarrassed to admit this? Were the parents real? Had they learned, in their longer lives, secrets they refused to reveal? It is a terrible thing to look behind a mask and see nothing. The masks can be voracious. How many scream, trapped within a mask? How many do not scream, unaware that they have become the mask, that now there is nothing left but the mask?

We awaited the return of the soldier.

How could I be here?

Was it not madness that I was here? But I was here.

Here, however, I had a reality. I had an identity. There were no problems with that matter here. No longer need I wait in some windy place, on some lonely bridge or busy street corner, hoping to meet myself. That rendezvous had now occurred. Here, at last, I was something, really. Here I had an identity. I was an identity as real as that of a dog or pig. I was kajira.

I looked up. Then I looked down.

“Bring her,” said the soldier to the jailer.

He stood some ten or twelve feet from us.

I felt myself drawn to my feet. The jailer did this. It was done by means of the ring on the back of the sack, that by means of which I had been attached to the ring on the rope. I stumbled a little. I feared to fall. My hands and arms pinioned I would have no way of breaking the fall. I did not lose the tunic. It was now muchly dampened, and must bear within it tooth marks.

The jailer snapped a light leash to a small ring on the sack straps, just below my chin.

The development affected me with apprehension.

I had not been leashed below, outside, on the ledge.

Was a leash necessary?

Surely not!

But what manner of place was this? What was I too see? This leashing was surely not for purposes of display, not here, not now, but now, I understood, of girl management, of girl control! Or perhaps girl instruction! I knew a female could learn much on a leash. And where was I to be taken? I was suddenly very much frightened. I was suddenly so much more in their power.

I was leashed!

Did they think I was a new girl? But here, in this place, I was a new girl! I was an ignorant slave here, one unaware of her surroundings and their nature. Might I run, or bolt? Might I, in some imminent situation, overcome with terror, attempt irrationally, unable to help myself, to flee? But even if I wished to do so, and dared to do so, I could not. I was leashed.

Or was it to teach me something that I was leashed? Did I not yet know myself slave enough?

Apparently they would see to it that I would learn.

Had I not been leashed on the ledge, that I might be the more startled, the more apprehensive, the more conscious of it here? Where was I to be taken? What was to be done with me?

The soldier turned about, and strode away. The jailer followed him, and I followed him, on the leash.

If I were to precede him I supposed that he might have used the stout leash with which he had restrained the six-legged animal, it secured to the ring on the back of the sack.

Leashes are often held partly coiled on this world, the leash otherwise being somewhat long. The length permits the leash to also serve as, in effect, binding fiber. One usually prefers to be led rather then to lead. When one leads, as, say, if it might be the wish of the rights holder to so display one, one might, if one does not, for example, walk well, feel the free end of the leash only-too soon, as a lash. That is another advantage of the long leash, of course, that one, if the rights holder wishes, may be punished while still upon it. I preferred to be led. I hastened to keep up with the soldier and jailer, the leash in the grasp of the latter. They moved quickly. One is customarily expected to follow at an appropriate distance, that constituting an attractive, lovely interval, but it is not always easy to maintain such an interval, for various reasons, such as crowding, or the rapidity of the leash holder’s pace. Two or three times I was jerked forward, and nearly fell. The leash was often taut. I was conducted through several narrow passageways. Sometimes portions of these were barred, and signs and countersigns were given. Twice we passed women such as I, but in collars. As the men passed, they went immediately to their knees, performing obeisance. Both wore brief tunics, the skirt of one being slit to the waist on both sides. There seemed few in these narrow passages, or streets. I did see one child. I would have had to kneel before it, as before any free person. It regarded us idly. It had apparently seen many women such as I, so conducted. Then the lash jerked taut again and I nearly lost my footing. I hastened on. I did not think it would be difficult to defend such passageways.

In what seemed but a matter of moments we had come to a large, heavy door, almost a gate. A panel was slid back, a sign and countersign exchanged, and the door opened. Within was a high, vaulted room, apparently a guard station. Inside there were some tables and benches, several men, in scarlet livery, and some chains dangling from the ceiling. It seemed clearances were to be obtained here. One of the men fastened me, but the ring on the back of the sack, to another ring, on one of the dangling chains. These dangling chains were such that they could be drawn upward. The keeper, or jailer, looped the leash coils about my neck, rather closely, tucking in the loose end to hold them in place. He then went to one of the tables, accompanied by the soldier. Two men then, by means of the rings and the chain to which I was now attached, hoisted me upward, foot by foot, until I was suspended some thirty feet above the floor, some two thirds of the way to the ceiling. At this point the chain was secured. I swung there, waiting, while the jailer completed business at one of the tables. There were papers in his wallet which he presented. I supposed they were my papers. One feels terribly helpless, suspended thusly. One is not in contact with the floor, or ground. One has no leverage. One cannot bolt, or run. Indeed, from such a height, even if one is not gagged, it is not practical to communicate. One waits, isolated. One waits, at the pleasure of others.

The jailer, and the soldier with him, were still before one of the tables.

I squirmed a little, but then noticed one of the guards looking upward, so, frightened, I stopped. I had gathered some inkling in the pens as to how I, or, indeed, I suppose, any kajira, struggling, or even moving a little, might be viewed by a strong man. I then kept as quiet as I could. It was hot near the ceiling. I bit down on the gag. I was afraid of dropping it. The leash coils were about my neck, looped there rather closely, the free end of the leash tucked in, to hold the coils in place. I saw, far below, over to one side, briefly tunicked, entering with a pitcher, unobtrusively, as was appropriate, a woman such as I. She glanced up, but then looked away. I gathered that she had seen more than one woman, perhaps even free women, suspended thusly in this place, in the custody of the sack and chain. The chains suggested that that might not be uncommon in this place. The custodial arrangement, as you might imagine, was quite effective. On the other hand, I would suppose that it was primarily designed with free women, prisoners, or new kajirae, in mind, women who might not yet fully understand the meaning of their collars. I did not think the security of this arrangement was necessary for such as I. I might be a new kajira but the pens in which I had been trained had been efficient. Not long on this world, I has already learned something of discipline. The kajira who had entered with the pitcher was collared, of course. I could see the collar. It was flat, narrow, about half inch in height, and closely fitting, a common collar. She was blond. I saw this with some contempt, and perhaps a bit of jealousy. This may have been something lingering from my old world, for, on this world, brunettes seem to be favored, it being claimed, truly or not, that they are much more easily aroused, and much more helpless, and passionate, in the furs. But, to be sure, blond hair, genuinely blond hair, is rare on this world, except for certain areas, as it is on my old world. This rarity, of course, as would be expected, tends to increase its marketability somewhat, except in more northern markets, where it is common. The hair of kajirae who are up for sale, incidentally, is never dyed, or, if dyed, that is made clear to the buyers. A buyer who regards himself as defrauded can be, as I understand it, extremely disagreeable. With respect to heat it is my supposition that blondes, at least if properly managed and disciplined, are also responsive and passionate. Indeed, they had better be. Frigidity is not permitted to kajirae. We are not free women. If it is pertinent I might mention that in the pens I saw blondes on their bellies, tears in their eyes, begging the touch of guards, just as brunettes and redheads. These things really depend not on the color of hair, but on the individual woman. I might note, in passing, that in many slave markets, the single, most prized color of hair seems to be auburn. That hair color is highly prized in a kajira. An itinerant vendor, then, if desiring to defraud buyers and raise the price of a kajira, is more likely to have her hair dyed auburn than blond.

At the table there seemed some puzzle as to my disposition, one which the jailer, as far as I could tell, could not really dispel.

I noted, to my irritation, that the fellow who had been looking up at me was now eyeing the blond. But surely I was more attractive than she! She was pouring some liquid from the pitcher into one of the vessels on the table. And I think that she, the vixen, was not that unaware of his scrutiny! He was suddenly standing quite near to her and she looked up, into his eyes, only inches from him. Then she hurried away, though a beaded side-entrance, and he, in a moment, followed her.

I squirmed in the sack. That fellow had been handsome. It might be pleasant to be in his arms! He was not an ugly, repulsive, callous giant like the jailer. Perhaps I should have moved a tiny bit more before him, as though inadvertently, you understand.

I whimpered a little, not so much as to make it clear that I was trying to attract attention to myself. Indeed, I was not trying to attract attention to myself! I had just made a little noise, you see, not really meaning it.

When I sensed that one of the fellows was looking up I moved my legs a little, putting them together, and then separating them, and pointing the toes a little, and bending my legs back, a little. I had pretty legs, I was sure. I did not think this display, even though totally inadvertent, would be lost on such men. And I could always pretend that they had misunderstood. To be sure, such defenses, in a kajira, are not likely to prove effective. Indeed, what would such men be likely to care, really, whether they had understood me or not?

“What is her name?” asked the fellow below me.

My heart leaped.

“She does not have a name,” said the jailer.

I was muchly pleased. He had expressed interest. The name is important. One commonly keeps track of a girl by her name. It is useful in putting in a call fro her, in having her sent to one, and so on. But I did not, as of now, I had just learned, have a name.

Perhaps it was just as well, I thought. These men, or some of them, were the masters of monstrous beasts. I did not doubt then but what they would be excellent, and sever, masters of other sorts of beasts, as well, for example, curvaceous little beasts, such as I.

How fortunate then!

If I did not have a name, it would be more difficult to put in a call for me. I needed then have less fear of being summoned to the furs of such brutes! But I wanted a name, though I knew it would be only a slave name, put on me for the convenience and pleasure of masters. How else could I be summoned, or have it written on a shard drawn at random from an urn? I had not been caressed in days! Surely someone must have mercy on a kajira! I supposed the name, as I was an Earth girl, would be an Earth-girl name. They are regarded as slave names. Sometimes they are put on a Gorean girl as a punishment. I did not mind, of course. I hoped it would be a pretty name. Surely it would be one which, to a Gorean master, would say “slave.”

The business at the table had now, apparently, been successfully terminated.

We were apparently cleared to proceed.

I was lowered, foot by foot, to the floor. Then I had my feet under me. I was now among the men. I seemed very small among them. Suddenly I felt rather frightened. No longer was I secure in a protected elevation. To be sure, that security, and that elevation, that protection, that sanctuary, had been wholly at the discretion of others. They might accord it to me, or terminate it, instantly, as they pleased.

The leash was then unlooped from about my throat. It was then securely in the hand of the jailer. I was then freed of the chain.

Briefly then my jailer and the soldier, his guide in this place, conferred.

One of the guards, a handsome fellow, he who had looked up at me, and asked my name, regarded me. I looked away, and tossed my head.

Let him understand that!

What cared I for him!

But he slapped his thigh in amusement.

Had I not yet learned my collar?

I feared suddenly that he might one day make me pay dearly for that expression, that gesture.

But my jailer, preceded by the soldier, now again, continued on his way.

On the leash I swiftly followed him.

I heard laughter behind me.

Those men might remember me, I feared.

We passed though a portal, once again one less like a common door than a stout gate.

I followed, leashed.

Within was a long, dimly lit tunnel, with several opened gates within it, some of bars, some of metal-sheathed wood,with tiny apertures some eight to ten feet above the floor. These were tiny ports, used, I would learn, for the missiles of the crossbow. They are manned by platforms which are a part of the interior surface of the doors. I did not notice them at the time but there were other ports overhead from which missiles might be fired toward the doors, should foes achieve the dubious success of reaching them. I think there was no place in that corridor, or perhaps generally in the fortifications as a whole, which could not be reached my missile fire from at least two directions. Noxious materials might be emitted from such vents, as well, such as pitch, acids, and heated oil.

When we went though the next gate, we were suddenly plunged in darkness, absolute darkness.

For several minutes we made our way through a number of labyrinthine passages, occasionally stopping at various gates, which, after an exchange of signs and countersigns, were opened for us. I think there were side passages, too, for I occasionally sensed a difference in the air. If one did not know the passages, I supposed one might, lost and helpless, wander about in them for days. Once I silently screamed, and bit down, fiercely, on the gag, that I might not lose it, and wept in terror, for I felt my thigh brushed by a thick, greasy fur of a large, curious animal, one, I think, like that I had encountered earlier on the ledge. I do not know how many of them were in the passage. Though I could not see them I could often smell the. They were silent. Once I heard claws scraping on the stone. There was no reflection of light from their eyes fro in those passages there was no light to be reflected. The soldier, and the jailer, continued to move with assurance. I did not know if they had memorized the passages or not. Perhaps they guided themselves by touch, or by some irregularities in the flooring. My own passage was guided by the leash. Had I not been leashed I would have had to be led in some other way. A common slave-girl leading position is to grasp her by the hair and hold her head at your hip. Needless to say, we prefer the leash.

Perhaps this is the reason for the leash, I thought, that I not be lost in the tunnel, or injure myself against the walls, or flee in terror, madly, upon the discovery that the tunnel is shared by beasts, whose function is doubtless to protect it from any to whom its passage might be prohibited. Such utilities were intelligible, and plausible.

These things were doubtless true, but I would learn, as well, that the leash had additional purposes, later to become clear to me.

Several times I lost my balance, and must struggle, stumbling, to regain it. This was not easy to do, as I could not make use of my body, within the sack, it strapped so tightly about me. One is not only helpless in such an arrangement, but one is very sensitive to one’s helplessness. One feels very vulnerable. You follow the leash as best you can. Twice I actually fell, bruising myself in the darkness on the stone flooring. Then the leash would pull against the sack ring, under my chin, and I must needs rise up, and again follow.

My legs were tired. The bottoms of my feet were sore, mainly from the ledge.

It had been, so far, a lengthy, wearing, mysterious peregrination.

Surely we must be near its end.

In the darkness, I had sensed that we were often climbing.

I did not know how high we might be.

We then passed though another door, and emerged, at last, into a lighted passage, though it was lighted but dimly, with two torches, one at each end of the passage. The light was not bright, but it hurt my eyes. We paused, all of us, waiting for a bit, to allow our eyes to adjust to it.

Then I shrank back, to the end of the leash.

We had come, on the other side of the door, a few feet from the door, to a deep, narrow, moatlike depression. This extended in the corridor, from side to side, for the width of the corridor, perhaps for some five to seven yards, until it terminated several feet before the farther door, at the end of the passage. Bridging this moatlike depression, running parallel to the sides of the corridor, there lay a narrow, retractable metal beam or plank, perhaps two inches in width.

I shook my head negatively, wildly, beggingly, piteously.

Even were I not confined as I was, I would not have dared to essay that narrow span, that long, terrifyingly narrow beam. At best, unconfined, under duress, I might have tried to inch across it on my belly, trying to balance upon it, clinging desperately to it.

I began to tremble.

I feared I could not long remain on my feet, so weak and frightened I was.

I looked at the soldier, the jailer.

My eyes must have been wild with fear. I whimpered in terror. My legs buckled under me. I slipped down to the stone. I could not stand. I could not even begin to rise to my feet. I knelt down, and put my head to the stone. I could not speak a word, for the gag which I clenched between my teeth. But my mien, doubtless, was pathetic.

I could not even stand.

The jailer may have expected some such response from me. Perhaps he had brought other kajirae to this place.

In any event he did not remonstrate with me, or order me to my feet, or lash me with the strap of the leash.

Perhaps he had not expected more of me. Would a Gorean girl have been different? I did not think so.

He roared with laughter, which much unsettled me.

This was, it seemed, a joke of Masters?

Of course, I suddenly realized, he had not expected me to negotiate that barrier. Perhaps some women might have managed it, even in constraints as I was, but I was not one of the.

The soldier, I saw, made his way swiftly across the bridge.

This startled me.

The jailer then reached down and, to my misery, I helpless, scooped me up, and threw me over his shoulder. I bit down on the gag, that I might not scream with fear, and loose it in the moatlike depression. He carried me with my head to the rear, as women such as I are often carried. We are helpless in this carry, and cannot see to what we are being carried. I held my breath until we reached the other side. He moved across that narrow bridge swiftly and surely, as had the soldier. I saw, in the bottom of the depression, some forty feet below, numerous upward-pointing knives. Perhaps the bridge was wide enough and sturdy enough for those accustomed to such things, but it seemed terribly narrow to me, with the drop beneath, let alone the knives. Men, I knew, in carnivals, or circuses, traversed even narrower and far less steady surfaces. But I did not think those surfaces were likely to be suspended over knives. I then kept my eyes closed until we reached the other side. The bridge shook, and vibrated, with a ringing noise, as we crossed it.

“Wait here,” said the soldier.

I was then put on my knees to one side. The jailer lifted a chain from the side wall. It was attached to a ring there and was itself terminated with another ring. He clipped the ring on the back of my sack to that ring. I was thus, in the sack, kneeling, fastened to the wall.

We waited.

“Do you like our little bridge?” he asked.

I shook my head, negatively.

“There are far worse things in this place,” he said.

I regarded him, frightened.

“You are going to be a good little kajira, are you not?” he asked.

I nodded my head.

“I wonder why you were purchased,” he said, looking down at me.

I looked up at him. I did not know.

“To be sure,” he said, “you are pretty.”

I put my head down, quickly. One is sometimes wary when one hears one so spoken of, too, by such a man. The buckles of the sack were within his reach, of course. It was I who could not reach them.

“We are in the vicinity of one of the high terraces,” he said.

I thought I detected a freshness of air, and a draft from beneath the door.

“You have not been a kajira long, have you?” he asked.

I shook my head, negatively.

“You are familiar with gag signals, are you not?” he asked.

I whimpered once. When a woman is gagged, one whimper means “Yes,” and two, “No.”

“That is better,” he said.

I hoped he would not cuff me.

“You wish to use them then, do you not?” he said.

I whimpered once. Of course! Of course!

“Good,” he said. “Have you been a kajira long?”

I whimpered twice.

“You have much to learn,” he said.

I whimpered once.

“Within,” he said, “you will find yourself in the presence of an officer. Do you understand?”

I whimpered once. I did not really understand, fully, the import of what he was saying but I gathered enough to understand that he within, or he on the other side of that door, he before whom I might soon expect to appear, was of some importance in this place.

This was, as you might suppose, a piece of very frightening intelligence for me.

“You do wish to live, do you not?” asked the jailer.

I whimpered once, earnestly, fervently. Tears sprang to my eyes.

“Good,” he said.

We continued to wait.

“You do not know why you were purchased, do you?” he asked.

I whimpered twice. I looked at him, pleadingly.

“I do not know either,” he said. “Perhaps it is merely because you are pretty.”

I looked down, frightened.

“You are pretty,” he said.

I whimpered a little, not in response, but rather in fear.

I could hardly move in the sack. By means of it I was tethered to the wall.

He looked down at me.

I was within his power.

But he did not unbuckle the sack. I wondered if I might be in some way special. I had certainly not been regarded as special in the pens, except perhaps insofar as I might have been thought to have been of “special interest” to strong men, or, in their rude humor, “specially delicious” as a “tasta” or “pudding.”

I looked at the door, fearfully.

I wondered what lay beyond it.

Behind that door then, I would guess from some several yards behind it, there sounded a gong.

I looked up, wildly, frightened.

“Steady,” he said “It will be a few Ehn.”

He then unclipped the leash ring from the ring on the straps, under my chin. He then, over the straps, pushed my chin up, and fastened the leash, by means of its own clip and ring, about my neck, a portion of the leash thus serving as its own collar. The loop fitted closely about my neck. Perhaps there was something like a half inch of play in the loop. He jerked the loop open, as far as it would go, to its limit, where it was stopped by the ring and guard. I then had something like an inch of play within the loop. I could not, of course, hope to slip such a tether.

“Note,” he said.

He then gave a slight tug on the leash and I looked up at him in terror. Where as the loop might widen to the point where I might have as much as a full inch between my throat and the leather, no limit, other then my throat itself, was imposed on its closure. As the leash was now arranged, it constituted a choke collar. This was quite different from the earlier arrangement, when the ring had been attached to the sack straps.

“Do you like the choke collar?” he asked.

I whimpered twice.

“They are commonly used for dangerous male slaves,” he said, “sometimes for new girls, sometimes for arrogant free women, that they may immediately cease to be arrogant, sometimes for ignorant girls, sometimes for stupid girls. Sometimes women use them for controlling other women, for they have less strength.”

I looked up at him. Such a collar terrified me.

“Do you think it necessary for one such as you?”

I whimpered twice.

“No,” he said. “I do not think so, either. But I thought it useful that you should feel it, and understand that it can be sued on you here.”

I trembled.

I was not totally unfamiliar with choke collars, for they had occasionally been used in my training, in the pens. I did fear them.

I shall elaborate on this matter briefly, at another point.

“Good,” he said, “I see that you are an intelligent kajira, and that you understand. But have no fear, or no more than is necessary. I will now make a simple adjustment.”

He fixed the ring differently.

“There,” he said.

He then jerked the leash. But now it did not close on my throat. It had been adjusted, to be a normal collar.

I looked at him, gratefully.

I still could not slip it, of course.

“That is better, is it not?” he asked.

I whimpered once.

“You do not now fear the leash, do you?” he asked.

I whimpered twice.

“You are mistaken,” he said.

I regarded him, puzzled. What was there to fear from a common leash?

He then freed the ring at the back of the sack from the chain on the wall.

No longer was I attached to the wall.

I felt him unbuckling the sack.

I whimpered, begging him to speak to me.

“You are perhaps concerned about the gong,” he said.

I whimpered once.

“That was the first signal,” he said.

When the sack fell free from about my upper body I was put to all fours. My upper body suddenly felt cold. It had been uncomfortably warm in its tight canvas enclosure, from the pressure of my limbs held so closely to my body and the general heat and constraint of the sack. It had been covered with a sheen of perspiration, from its confinement and my exertions. Now it felt cold, from the air of the corridor. He then had me crawl forward, until my legs, too, were free of the sack. He then folded the sack and put it to one side. He then picked up the leash, looping its long end in three or four coils.

We then waited, again.

He was to my left. I was naked. I was on all fours. The tunic, in its small, neat folds, was grippedbetween my teeth.

The leash, in his hand, looped down, and then up, to my neck.

I regarded the closed door.

“Remember that you would like to live,” said the jailer.

I whimpered, once.

He looked down upon me, as such men often look, and appropriately, upon women such as I.

“You are a pretty little she-sleen,” he said.

At that time, though I was familiar with sleen, or at least the one who had patrolled the ledge, I did not know the word.

There are many varieties of sleen, incidentally, adapted to diverse environments; the most formidable, as far as I know, is the forest sleen. There is also a sand sleen, a snow sleen, even some aquatic varieties, types of sea sleen, and so on. They are very greatly in size, as well. Some sleen are quite small and silken, and sinuously graceful, no larger than domestic cats. They are sometimes kept as pets.

It was easy enough to understand, of course, that a “pretty little she-sleen” must be some sort of domestic animal. I was on all fours. I was to be, apparently, marched forward, through the door, on all fours, leashed. How could it be made more clear to me that I was an animal?

At that time I did not know of the habit of some masters, usually imposed as punishment, to refuse an upright posture to their girls, and to refuse them, as well, the use of human language. They must go about on all fours, or their bellies, and communicate, as they can, by whimpers, moans, and such. They are naked, save for their collars. They are not permitted to use their hands to feed themselves, and so on. Needless to say, they also serve in this modality. There are various Gorean expressions for this; one is the “discipline of the she-tarsk.” A tarsk is a piglike animal. The boars are tusked, and can be quite large. They are also territorial and fierce. Many hunters have lost their lives in their pursuit. The sows are smaller and lack tusks. The male keeps them in his group, or, so to speak, in his harem.

“Do you understand the leash?” he asked.

I whimpered once.

“I wonder,” he said.

He then, suddenly, without warning, jerked the leash upward, and its leather was tight under my chin and I was jerked up to my knees, and I looked at him wildly, helplessly held in place; he then, with ease, with flicks of the leash, flung me to one side and the other, bruising me on the stone and the walls, and then put me to my back, and his booted sandal was on my belly; I looked up at him, in terror; the stone was hard beneath me; and then, with snaps of the leash and the sides of his feet, and gestures, he rolled me about on the stone, from one side to the other; and then he flung me to my belly; how hard was the stone! I shuddered, lying before him, on my belly, in his power. How well I had been controlled by the leash, even though my hands were free! I lay there prone, trembling, sweating on the stone, the tunic tight between my teeth; he then put his foot on my back, holding me down, pressing me to the stone, and, leaning forward, pulled up the leash, the leather again under my chin; my head was painfully back; always, as a practiced leash master, he avoided exerting pressure on the throat; that can be extremely dangerous; the pressure of a collar, of whatever sort of collar, is to be always high, under the chin, or at the back or sides of the neck; happily, he had adjusted the collar so that it was no longer a choke collar; else I might have been slain; most collars, of course, as mine now was, given the adjustment he had made, are not choke collars; such collars, as suggested, can be extremely dangerous; indeed, most masters eschew them; too, they commonly train their girls to such a point of perfection that there is no need for such a device; too, of course, the girls go to great lengths in diligence and perfection of service to avoid having such a device put on them; also, as a matter of fact, other devices are as much or more effective in girl training, even things as simple as bracelets and a switch; but even if a choke collar is used, the slave knows that she has nothing to fear fromit, unless she is in the least bit recalcitrant or disobedient; then, of course, there is much to fear from it; he then, with the free end of the leash, which was long, tied my hands behind my back, and then crossed my ankles, and pulled them up, painfully behind me, and tied them to my wrists. I reared up a little, but was helpless. I then, lay, subdued, on my belly, before him, my wrists tied behind me, my ankles pulled up and tied to my wrists.

How I had been intimidated, controlled and mastered!

“Do you understand the leash now,” he asked, “a little better?”

I whimpered once, fervently.

I now understood the leash, and its power, as I had never understood it before.

And as he had adjusted it, it had been only a common leash. How terrifying then would be a choke leash!

I had received additional training.

I gathered that he had though I needed it.

Certainly I would be a better kajira for it.

Another device which can be used for training, display, control, or such, is the slave harness, to which a leash may be attached. This does not touch the throat. Such a harness, well cinched on the slave, can be extremely attractive. There are usually two rings on such a harness, for the attachment of a leash; one is on the front of the harness and the other is on the back.

He then unbound my hands and feet, and gestured that I should once again go to all fours.

I did so, the leash still on me.

I would be taken through the door leashed, on all fours. I was a slave, an animal. And thus I would be presented, as an animal, before whoever might be on the other side of that door. The leash was a common leash. I did not require a choke collar.

“Soon, little tasta,” he said. “Soon.”

We waited.

My knees, and palms of my hands, were sore, from the stone. My body, too, was bruised from my leash training.

I had a clearer notion now of what I was.

I was more of a kajira now than I had been this morning.

This was, I think, a kindness on the part of the jailer. He wanted me to live.

Then I started as, from behind the door, from somewhere well behind it, once again, sounded the gong.

The door opened.

“Proceed, little tasta,” said the jailer.

I then, on my leash, crawled toward the opening.