Witness of Gor

32

The leader of the strangers, warily, the fellow with one of the lamps, tiny and flickering, preceding him, went to the portal.

“The corridor is dark,” said the fellow with the lamp.

“He extinguished the lamps as he passes,” said a man.

“He cannot get far, not in the pits,” said the leader. “Light more lamps.”

The lamps which were still serviceable were lit. one of the lanterns, even, though its glass was broken, was lit.

“There are more lamps, torches, and such, in my quarters,” said the pit master, helpfully.

The lieutenant, carefully, crouching beside the fellow, spreading the metal, removed the helmet from the first victim of the peasant, he whose head had been struck by the stone on the chain. The lieutenant laid the bloody helmet to one side. On the broken skull within, on its forehead, distorted by the breakage, was a tiny black dagger, set there this morning.

“Your actions have been noted,” said the leader of the strangers to the pit master, “and yours as well,” he added, addressing himself to the officer, “and will be duly reported to the authorities.”

“Surely Lurius of Jad, the paragon of honor,” said the officer, “would not have condoned the murder of a prisoner.”

“From whom do you think we obtained our charge?” said the leader of the strangers.

“He cannot escape us,” said the lieutenant, standing up. “He is in the vicinity.”

“You need only find him,” said the pit master.

Neither the officer of Treve nor the pit master were now in custody of the black-tunicked men. The pit master had, I supposed, slipped his stiletto back within his tunic. He did not have it, at any rate, in his hand.

“I trust we may, from this point further, now, that he is free, and dangerous, have the assurance of your support,” said the leader of the strangers.

“Do not doubt it,” said the pit master.

“He will be trapped against the first gate, that sealing this tunnel,” said the lieutenant.

“Arm your bows,” said the leader of the strangers. “Fire even at a shadow.”

Gito was still half buried in the straw, huddled there, shaking, whimpering, to the left, as one would enter.

The leader of the strangers regarded us. We kept our heads down. We dared not meet his eyes. I think there was not one of us who would not have rather, a thousand times over, been elsewhere, almost anywhere, in the heaviest of chains in the foulest of dungeons; pitching, sick, bound to our pallets, almost immobile, in the holds of stinking slave ships, covered with vermin; sweating in the mills, chained to our looms; carrying water, shackled, in the fields; even drawing sleds or wagons, padlocked in our harnesses, draft beasts. But we were beautiful, and a different sort of slave. But what would even our beauty, and our hope to please, to be spared to serve, avail ourselves with these men? And we had perhaps, they might judge, seen too much.

The leader of the strangers turned away from us.

The black-tunicked men then, following him, withdrew from the cell.

The officer of Treve followed them.

A moment later Gito, fearing to be alone, scrambled out, to join the black-tunicked men.

The pit master snapped his fingers.

We struggled to our feet, aligning ourselves, standing, the tallest first, Fina was third of the ten, I was seventh.

At a gesture of the pit master, discerned in a lamp from outside the door, held by one of the men, we filed out of the cell. We followed the officer of Treve, Gito, the black-tunicked men. The pit master came behind us.

I tried to free my wrists, but I could not do so. They, like those of the others, had been bound by men, our masters.

The water in the corridor was cold on my feet.

I was sick with fear.