Players of Gor (59 page)

"What is that?" I asked the officer, pointing to a dark aperture at one side of the room.

"It is nothing," he said evasively.

It would be, of course, the opened trap though which Belnar had taken his leave, a passage leading down through the tower.

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"Lift the torch higher," I said to my man nearby. I looked about the room, from the other side of the gate.

"The search is complete," said a guardsman, reporting to the officer. "We have made a thorough examination of the premises, both inside and outside. They are clear. There is no sign of a beast."

"There is at least one sign," I said.

"What?" asked the officer.

"Look," I said. I pointed to a defensive, opened iron lattice on one of the windows in the room behind the barred gate.

"It is opened, of course," said the officer, puzzled.

"Examine, as you can, at the distance, in the light, the latch clasps," I said.

"They appear to be broken," he said.

"They are broken," I said.

"The lattice seems to have been forced open," he said.

"From the outside," I said.

"Impossible," he said.

"Does it not seem so to you?" I asked.

"Yes," he whispered.

"Search out Belnar," I said. "He is in grave danger."

Men hurried away, those with them, by my leave, who had come with me. Again I was alone. I remained there, for a time, looking through the bars. I strained to test the air. Then, after a time, I detected it, a lingering, residual, faint odor. I was not unfamiliar with the odor. I had smelled such an odor before, and knew it well. I was bitter. I was not the first to have come to the compartments of Belnar. I myself would have had great difficulty locating him in Brundisium, but I, on the other hand, could not follow him softly, swiftly, silently, through numerous passages, with the tenacity of a sleen, with the menace of a larl, intent upon his tracks.

I shook the bars violently, in fury. I had no idea where Belnar might have gone. Then suddenly it seemed I felt chilled, grasping the bars.

I turned and sped from the room.

20
   
The Baiting Pit; I Make the Acquaintance of a Gentleman; I Will Return to the Apartments of Belnar

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"Stop!" I cried, from the height of the tiers surrounding the baiting pit. "Stop!" But I was too late. Already was the chained ubar screaming under the teeth of sleen. I looked to the ubar's box. There, in the moonlight, sitting back on its haunches, was the Kur.

I descended swiftly to the level of the sand. The Kur, with that agility seemingly so unnatural and surprising in a beast of its size, descended from the ubar's box and interposed itself between me and the pathetic figure, now staring wildly upward, fallen, twisting and shuddering, moved this way and that, being pulled and shaken, being torn by the sleen. The Kur bared its fangs at me. I did not think it would attack. It was I who had earlier released it, with the other prisoners. I sheathed my sword. I was not sure if Belnar was dead or not. Five sleen were gnawing at the body. Its eyes were still open. Belnar, I thought, in spite of his size, and his ponderous bulk, had fought well. Two sleen, their blood dark in the silverish moonlit sand, lay dead near him. The Kur had given him an ax. That was more

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than it had had to defend itself in its own ordeals. Still one would have bet upon the sleen.

Belnar had been fastened some five feet from the post by a stout chain. It had been jerked tight about this gut, then locked there. It made him seen slim. It was the same chain, differently employed, that had fastened the Kur in the same place. It would have held a kailiauk. The chain clinked as the body was pulled this way and that. The sleen had then been released, the iron grating slid upward which had opened the way for them into the pit. The ax lay nearby. One of Belnar's hands, his right, lay near it. Seeing that I did not challenge it, the Kur turned away from me, and went, on all fours, to where the sleen were feeding. To my horror, it thrust itself in among them, its shaggy shoulders rubbing against their. I saw it put its head down.

To one side in the pit, safely away from flammable materials, was the huge vat, or cauldron, which had been in the great hall earlier. It was again filled with oil, and, heated by new fuel on its plate, boiling. Near it, one a few feet from it, the other a little further from it, the backs of their necks bitten through, lay two dead servitors of the ubar. I had little doubt buy what Belnar had ordered the oil once more prepared. Too, it was not difficult to speculate as to why he had done so. I shuddered. These preparations now, however, it seemed, would go to waste. I did not think that Flaminius, or a city captain, or a captain of the guard, would care to impose such niceties on a victim.

I then pushed in between the sleen and the Kur. Belnar was inert, moved only by the beasts. His eyes were still open, staring upward. One of the sleen snarled, but it did not so much as look at me. Sleen are extremely single-minded beasts, even in feeding, and, as long as I did not attempt to interfere with it, or counter its will, I did not fear the Kur. Interestingly, though its jaws were red, it did not seem to have been feeding. It had, however, it seemed, tasted, or tested, the meat. I moved my hands about, as I could, examining the body and torn clothing of Belnar. I took the pouch and pulling it back from the body, ransacked it. I stood up and moved about the post. I examined the sand. Nowhere did I find that which I sought. If he had brought it with him it was now gone.

I heard a key turn in a heavy lock. The Kur then, snarling, scattered the reluctant sleen away with blows. It pulled Belnar free of the chain and dragged Belnar though the sand, behind him, toward the vat.

"Can you understand me?" I asked it. Some Kurii can follow human languages. Some can make semihuman sounds.

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It regarded me, Belnar in his grasp.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"I was put in the pit like an animal," it said.

"Those of Brundisium did not understand," I said. "I am certain of that."

"I was caught," it said. "I was treated like an animal."

"Yes," I said.

"I am a civilized being," it said. "I am what you might call a gentleman. I am different even from most of my kind."

"I am sure of it," I said. "What are you going to do?"

"In the prison," it said, "we were not well fed."

"Stop!" I said.

Belnar's eyes suddenly, wildly, to my horror, opened further. On his face there was suddenly an instant of terrified consciousness, of comprehension. A weird scream, prolonged, and almost silent, escaped from his lips, as he was plunged into the oil. Then, in a moment, the torn, half-eaten body, shuddered wildly, and was limp. I had thought he had been dead, but he had not been, until then.

I regarded the beast with horror. A moment or two later he had drawn forth the body of the ubar from the oil. "Why do you look at me like that?" it asked.

"It is nothing," I said.

"I am a civilized being," it said. "I am different even from many of my own kind. They are barbarians."

"Yes," I said.

"As you can see," it said, feeding, "I even cook my food."

"Yes," I whispered.

I was in dismay. I was certain that Belnar would have even carrying that which I sought. I had even seen the opened coffer in his apartments. "He," I said, slowly, pointing at the meat in the beast's grasp.

It lifted its eyes, regarding me, its jaws bloody.

"He carried papers, something?" I asked.

It shrugged, a movement which in the Kur carries throughout most of its upper body, and, chewing, returned its attention to its feast.

I think it understood me, and just did not understand how it might respond. It if had seen something if interest in the ubar's possession, a packet, a sheaf of papers, something, I think it might have given me some affirmative response. I do not think it would have tried to hide anything from me. It was, in its way, I believe, well disposed toward me. Too, it now had another way of satisfying its hunger.

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Belnar, of course, might have removed the materials from the room and secreted them somewhere, perhaps in the passages between his apartments and the location where he had first felt the paw of the beast upon his shoulder. That would seem to make some sense. But where in such passages, presumably unguarded, lonely and seldom used, would a suitable place be found for such a deposit? No, it seemed more likely he would have carried them with him, away from the room on his person. That is what one would expect. Yes, I though, that is exactly what one would expect. The hair, then, on the back of my neck rose up. I considered the cleverness of Belnar, and the probable audacity and daring of such a man, one deviously implicated, I suspected, in the intricate and dangerous games of Gorean high politics, and how easily I had been earlier outwitted in my first attempt to close with him, in my first attempt to gain my elusive objective. Belnar was brilliant! That is what I must remember! That is what I must not permit myself to forget!

The Kur looked up at me, startled. I had cried out with pleasure. "I know where they are!" I cried.

It blinked.

"I do," I cried, happily. "I know!"

"Look," I heard, a cry from near the top of the tiers. "Who are you? What are you doing down there! Stand!"

"It is the beast!" we heard a man cry.

"Stand!" cried a man from the other side.

I looked wildly about. The rim at the top of the tiers seemed suddenly alive with helmets, with spear points and plumes. "We are surrounded!" I cried.

The animal continued to feed. I drew my blade. I prepared to make a stand. The sleen were still lurking about, prowling in a circle about us. It seemed they feared to approach what crouched near me, in the vicinity of the vat, eating. I think not only, however, did they respect its size and ferocity but, too, trained sleen, that they were confused, that they did not really understand it, or how they were to relate to it. It had not been tethered at the post. It had released them. It had given them feeding.

"Stand!" called a fellow, stepping down the tiers towards us. Behind him were others.

The Kur then rose to its hind legs. It must have been about eight feet tall, tall even for such a beast.

"By the Priest-Kings," cried a man. "Look at the size of it."

"I did not recall it was so large," said another.

"Approach warily," said a man. "There are sleen there, too."

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"That was good," said the Kur. Its long, dark tongue moved about its jaws, licking its lips. It then threw the remains of Belnar to the sleen, who pounced eagerly upon them. "I smell glory," said the beast, looking about. "It is a smell more exhilarating even than that of meat." At the time I did not fully understand what it had said. Indeed, I had thought that I had perhaps heard it incorrectly. In retrospect, now, however, particularly in the light of those events which later evidenced its intention, I think that I do understand it. At any rate, I have reported it as I am certain it was said. Many and mixed can be the motivations of men and beasts, and the motivations of some beasts, and some men, will be forever beyond the ken of others. To beasts moved only by meat, and the pressure of blows, the hungers of higher and more terrible organisms will remain always exceedingly mysterious. I know of no way to prove the existence of glory to those who lack the senses for its apprehension. By what yardsticks can its magnitude be measured?

"You are unarmed," I said. "Flee. Do not die here, in this empty place, in this moonlight, on this foreign sand. Who will know, or care?"

"It does not matter," it said.

"Flee," I said. "There is no one here to recognize your glory."

"You are mistaken," it said.

"Who is here, then?" I asked.

"I am here," it said.

"Approach warily, men," said a man, one on the tiers, descending with others.

"I never thought to perish, back to back, with one such as you," I said.

"I was cast out of my own country, a steel country, faraway," it said, "as a weakling."

"I find that hard to believe," I said.

"Nonetheless, it is true," it said. "Many of my compeers, many of whom are honestly little better than barbarians, found it difficult to appreciate my taste for the niceties of life, for the tiny refinements that can so redeem the drabness of existence."

"Such as cooking your meat?" I asked.

"Precisely," it said. "Accordingly I was put into exile, cast weaponless, not even with combs and brushes, without even adornments, upon this world. How could I be expected to groom myself? How could I be expected to keep up my appearance?"

"I do not know," I admitted.

"It was dreadful," it said.

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"I suppose so," I said.

"Surely one can be both brave and a gentleman," it said.

"I suppose so," I said. I thought of many of the Goreans I knew, with their chains and whips, and their naked, collared slaves, kneeling apprehensively before them. Those fellows, I thought, would probably not count as gentlemen. ON the other hand, I knew Goreans, too, who would surely count as gentlemen and their slaves were treated in much the same way, if not more so. Their gentlemanliness tended to be manifested in the exquisite and exacting refinements expected of their females, for example, in costume, appearance, behavior, deportment and service, not in any weakness exhibited towards them. Indeed, many Gorean slave girls fear terribly that they might be purchased by a "gentleman". Such can be very difficult to please.