Nomads of Gor (83 page)

      
it."

        
"Listen to the Koroban!" cried Saphrar.

        
"It must not be destroyed," I said.

        
"Why?" asked Kamchak.

      
"Because," I said, "It is the last seed of Priest-Kings an

      
egg a child the hope of Priest-Kings, to them all---

      
everything, the world, the universe."

      
The men murmured with surprise about me. Saphrar's eyes

      
seemed to pop. Ha-Keel looked up, suddenly, seeming to forget his sword and its oiling. The Paravaci regarded Saphrar.
 

 
"I think not," said Kamchak. "I think rather it is worth-

 
less."

  
"No, Kamchak," I said, "please."
              

 
"It was for the golden sphere, was it not," asked

 
Kamchak, "that you came to the Wagon Peoples?"

 
"Yes," I said, "it was." I recalled our conversation in the

 
wagon of Kutaituchik.

 
The men about us shifted, some of them angrily.

 
'You would have stolen it?" asked Kamchak.

 
"Yes," I said. "I would have."

 
"As Saphrar did?" asked Kamchak.

 
"I would not have slain Kutaituchik," I said.

 
"Why would you steal it?" asked Kamchak.

 
"To return it to the Sardar," I said.

 
"Not to keep it for yourself, nor for riches?"

 
"No," I said, "not for that."

 
"I believe you," said Kamchak. He looked at me. "We

 
knew that in time someone would come from the Sardar. We

did not know that you would be the one."

"Nor did I," I said.

 
Kamchak regarded the merchant. "Is it your intention to

 
buy your life with the golden sphere?"

 
- "If necessary," said Saphrar, "yes"

 
"But I do not want it," said Kamchak. "It is you I want."

 
Saphrar blanched and held the sphere again over his head.

 
I was relieved to see that Kamchak signaled his bowmen

 
not to fire. He then waved them, and the others, with the

 
exception of Harold and myself, and the Sleen keeper and his

 
animals, back several yards.

 
"That is better," wheezed Saphrar.

 
'Sheath your weapons," ordered the Paravaci.

 
We did so.

 
"Go back with your men" cried Saphrar, backing away

 
from us a step. "I will shatter the golden sphere!"

 
Slowly Kamchak, and Harold and I, and the sleen keeper,

 
dragging the two sleen, walked backwards. The animals raged

 
against the chain leashes, maddened as they were drawn

 
farther from Saphrar, their prey.

 
The Paravaci turned to Ha-Keel, who had now resheathed

 
his sword and stood up. Ha-Keel stretched and blinked once.

"You have a tarn," the Paravaci said. "Take me with you. I
  

can give you half the riches of the Paravaci Bosk and gold

and women and wagons!"

"I would suppose," said Ha-Keel, "that all that you have is

       
not worth so much as the golden sphere and that is Saphrar

       
of Turia's."

         
"You cannot leave me here" cried the Paravaci.

         
'You are outbid for my services," yawned Ha-Keel.

       
The Paravaci's eyes were white in the black hood and his

       
head turned wildly to regard the Tuchuks clustered in the far

       
end of the room.

       
"Then it will be miner" he cried and raced to Saphrar,

       
trying to seize the sphere.

       
"Miner Mine" screamed Saphrar, trying to retain the

       
sphere.

         
Ha-Keel looked on, with interest.

       
I would have rushed forward, but Kamchak's hand

       
reached out and touched my arm, restraining me.

         
"No harm must come to the golden sphere!" I cried.

       
The Paravaci was much stronger than the fat, tiny mer-

       
chant and he soon had his hands well on the sphere and west

       
tearing it out of the smaller man's clutching hands. Saphrar

       
was screaming insanely and then, to my astonishment, he bit

       
the Paravaci's forearm, sinking the two golden upper canine

       
teeth into the hooded man's flesh. The Paravaci suddenly

       
cried out in uncanny fear and shuddered and, to my horror,

      
 
the golden sphere, which he had succeeded in wresting from

       
Saphrar, was thrown a dozen feet across the room, and

       
shattered on the floor.

       
A cry of horror escaped my lips and I rushed forward.

       
Tears burst from my eyes. I could not restrain a moan as I

       
fell to my knees beside the shattered fragments of the egg. It

       
was done, gone, ended My mission had failed! The Priest-

       
Kings would diet This world, and perhaps my other, dear

       
Earth, would now fall to the mysterious Others, whoever or

       
whatever they might be. It was done, gone, ended, dead,

       
dead, hopeless, gone, dead.

       
I was scarcely aware of the brief whimpering of the

       
Paravaci as, twisting and turning on the rug, biting at it,

       
holding his arm, his flesh turning orange from ost venom, he

       
writhed and died.

      
Kamchak walked to him and tore away the mask. I saw

      
the contorted, now-orange, twisted, agonized face. Already it

      
was like colored paper and peeling, as though lit and burned

      
from the inside. There were drops of blood and sweat on it.

   
I heard Harold say, "It is Tolnus."

 
"Of course," said Kamchak. "It had to have been the Ubar

 
of the Paravaci for who else could have sent their riders

 
against the Tuchuk wagons, who else could have promised a

 
mercenary tarnsman half the bask and gold and women and

 
wagons of the Paravaci?"

 
I was only dimly aware of their conversation. I recalled

 
Tolnus, for he had been one of the four Ubars of the Wagon

 
Peoples, whom I, unknowing, had met when first I came to

 
the Plains of Turia, to the Land of the Wagon Peoples.

 
Kamchak bent to the figure and, opening his garments,

 
tore from his neck the almost priceless collar of jewels which

 
the man had worn.

 
He threw this to one of his men. "Give this to the Parava-

 
ci," he said, "that they may buy back some of their bask and

 
women from the Kataii and the Kassars."

 
I was only partly cognizant of these things, for I was

 
overcome with grief, kneeling in Saphrar's audience hall

 
before the shards of the shattered golden sphere.

 
I was conscious of Kamchak now standing near to me, and

 
behind him Harold.

   
Unabashed I wept.

 
It was not only that I had failed, that what I had fought

 
for had now vanished, become ashes not only that the war

 
of Priest-Kings, in which I had played a prominent part,

 
fought long before over such matters, had now become

 
 
fruitless, meaningless that my friend Misk's life and its

 
purpose would now be shattered even that this world and

 
perhaps Earth itself might now, undefended, fall in time to

 
the mysterious Others but that what lay in the egg itself,

 
the innocent victim of intrigues which had lasted centuries

 
and might perhaps being worlds into conflict, was dead it

 
had done nothing to warrant such a fate; the child, so to

 
speak, of Priest-Kings, what could have become the Mother,

 
was now dead.

  
I shook with sobs, not caring.

 
I heard, vaguely, someone say, "Saphrar and Ha-Keel have

 
fled.

 
Near me Kamchak said, quietly, "Release the sleen. Let

 
them hunt."

 
I heard the chains loosened and the two sleen bounded

 
from the room, eyes blazing.

  
I would not have cared to have been Saphrar of Turia.

"Be strong, Warrior of Ko-ro-ba," said Kamchak, kindly.

"You do not understand, my friend," I wept, "you do not

        
understand."

        
The Tuchuks stood about, in their black leather. The sleen

    
    
keeper stood nearby, the chain leashes loose in his hands. In

        
the background there stood the slaves with their pans of

        
gold.

        
I became aware of a strong odor, of rottenness, exuding

        
from the shattered thing which lay before me.

        
"It smells," Harold was saying. He knelt down near the

        
fragments, disgust on his face, fingering the stiff, leathery

        
ruptured egg, some of the golden pieces broken from it. He

        
was rubbing one of them between his thumb and forefinger.

         
My head down, I cared for nothing.

        
"Have you examined the golden sphere carefully?"

        
Kamchak was asking.

         
"I never had the opportunity,' I said.

     
   
"You might do so now," said Kamchak.

         
I shook my head negatively.

        
"Look," said Harold, thrusting his hand under my face. I

        
saw that his thumb and forefinger were marked with a golden

        
stain.

         
I gazed at his hand, not comprehending.

         
"It is dye," he said.

         
"Dye?" I asked.

       
Harold got up and went to the shattered, stiff shard" of the