Norman, John - Gor 02 - Outlaw of Gor

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OUTLAW OF GOR
Volume two of the Chronicles of Counter-Earth
by John Norman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A NOTE ON THE MANUSCRIPT
My friend, Harrison Smith, a young lawyer of the city, has recently given
me a second manuscript, purportedly by the individual Tarl Cabot. It was
his desire that I bring this second document, as I did the first, to the
attention of a publisher. This time, however, because of the numerous
claims and inquiries generated by the first manuscript Tarnsman of Gor
(pertaining to various matters ranging from further alleged documentation
for the existence of the Counter-Earth to disputes concerning the
authorship of the manuscript), I have prevailed upon Smith to write
something in the way of a preface to this second account, making clear his
own role in these matters and telling us a bit more about Tarl Cabot, whom
I have never had the good fortune to meet in person.
John Norman
Chapter One: THE STATEMENT OF HARRISON SMITH
I first met Tarl Cabot at a small liberal arts college in New Hampshire,
where we had both accepted first year teaching appointments. He was an
instructor in English history and I, intending to work for some three years
to save money toward law school, had accepted an appointment as an
instructor in physical education, a field which, to my annoyance, Cabot
never convinced himself belonged in the curriculum of an educational
institution.
We hiked a good deal, talked and fenced, and, I hoped, had become friends.
I liked the young, gentle Englishman. He was quiet and pleasant, though
sometimes he seemed remote, or lonely, somehow unwilling to break through
that protective shield of formality behind which the educated Englishman,
at heart perhaps as sentimental and hot-blooded as any man, attempts to
conceal his feelings.
Young Cabot was rather tall, a good-sized man, well-built, with an animal
ease in his walk that perhaps bespoke the docks of Bristol, his native
city, rather than the cloisters of Oxford, at one of whose colleges he had
obtained his later education. His eyes were clear, and blue, direct and
honest. He was fairly complected. His hair, lamentably perhaps, though some
of us loved him for it, was red, but not merely red - it was rather a
tangled, blazing affront to the properties of the well-groomed academician.
I doubt that he owned a comb, and I would be willing to swear that he would
not have used one if he had. All in all, Tarl Cabot seemed to us a young,
quiet, courteous Oxford gentleman, except for that hair. And then we
weren't sure.
To my consternation and that of the college, Cabot disappeared shortly
after the conclusion of the first semester. I am sure that this was not of
his own intention. Cabot is a man who honours his commitments.
At the end of the semester, Cabot, like the rest of us, was weary of the
academic routine, and was seeking some diversion. He decided to go camping
- by himself - in the nearby White Mountains, which were very beautiful
then, in the white, brittle splendour of a New Hampshire February.
I loaned him some of my camping gear and drove him into the mountains,
dropping him off beside the highway. He asked me, and I am certain he was
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serious, to meet him at the same place in three days. I returned at the
determined time, but he failed to keep the rendezvous. I waited several
hours, and then returned at the same time the next day. Still he did not
appear. Accordingly, then alarmed, I notified the authorities, and, by
afternoon, a large-scale search was underway.
Eventually we found what we supposed to be the ashes of his fire, near a
large flat rock some nine hours' climb from the highway. Our search,
otherwise, was fruitless. Yet, several months later, I understand that Tarl
Cabot stumbled out of these same mountains, alive and well, but apparently
under the stress of some emotional shock which had culminated in amnesia -
at least for that period during which he had been missing.
He never returned to teach at the college, to the relief of several of my
elder colleagues who now confessed that they thought that young Cabot had
never really fitted in. Shortly thereafter I determined that I did not fit
in either, and left the college. I did receive a cheque from Cabot to cover
the cost of my camping equipment, which he had apparently lost. It was a
thoughtful gesture but I wish instead that he had stopped to see me. I
would have seized his hand and forced him to speak to me, to tell me what
had happened.
Somehow, unlike my colleagues at the school, I had found the amnesia
account too simple. It was not an adequate explanation; it couldn't be. How
had he lived for those months, where had he been, what had he done?
It was almost seven years after I had known Tarl Cabot at the college when
I saw him on the streets of Manhattan. By that time I had long ago saved
the money I needed for law school and had not taught for three years.
Indeed, I was then completing my studies at the school of law associated
with one of New York's best known private universities.
He had changed very little, if at all. I rushed over to him and without
thinking seized him by the shoulder. What happened next seemed almost too
unbelievable to comprehend. He spun like a tiger with a sudden cry of rage
in some strange tongue and I found myself seized in hands like steel and
with great force hurled helplessly across his knee, my spine an inch from
being splintered like kindling wood.
In an instant he released me, apologising profusely even before recognising
me. In horror I realised that what he had done had been as much a reflex as
the blinking of an eye or the jerking of a knee under a physician's hammer.
It was the reflex of an animal whose instinct it is to destroy before it
can be destroyed, or of a human being who has been tooled into such an
animal, a human being who has been conditioned to kill swiftly, savagely,
or be killed in the same fashion. I was covered with sweat. I knew that I
had been an instant from death. Was this the gentle Cabot I had known?
'Harrison!' he cried. 'Harrison Smith!' He lifted me easily to my feet, his
words rapid and stumbling, trying to reassure me. 'I'm sorry,' he kept
saying, 'Forgive me! Forgive me, Old Man!'
We looked at one another.
He thrust out his hand impulsively, apologetically. I took it and we shook
hands. I'm afraid my grip was a bit weak, and that my hand shook a little.
'I'm really frightfully sorry,' he said.
There was a knot of people who had gathered, standing a safe distance away
on the sidewalk.
He smiled, the ingenuous boyish smile I remembered from New Hampshire.
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'Would you like a drink?' he asked.
I smiled too. 'I could use one,' I said.
In a small bar in midtown Manhattan, little more than a doorway and a
corridor, Tarl Cabot and I renewed our friendship. We talked of dozens of
things, but neither of us mentioned his abrupt response to my greeting, nor
did we speak of those mysterious months in which he had disappeared in the
mountains of New Hampshire.
In the ensuing months, my studies permitting, we saw one another fairly
often. I seemed to answer a desparate need for human fellowship in that
lonely man, and, for my part, I was more than happy to count myself his
friend - unfortunately perhaps, his only friend.
I felt that the time would come when Cabot would speak to me of the
mountains but that he himself would have to choose that time. I was not
eager to intrude into his affairs, or his secrets as the case might be. It
was enough to be once more his friend. I wondered upon occasion why Cabot
did not speak to me more openly on certain matters, why he so jealously
guarded the mystery of those months in which he had been absent from the
college. I now know why he did not speak sooner. He feared I would have
thought him mad.
It was late one night, in early February, and we were drinking once more at
that small bar in which we had had our first drink that incredible sunny
afternoon some months before. Outside there was a light snow falling, soft
as coloured felt in the lonely neon lights of the street. Cabot watched it,
between swallows of Scotch. He seemed to be morose, moody. I recalled it
was in February that he had departed from the college, years earlier.
'Perhaps we had better go home,' I said.
Cabot continued to stare out the window, watching the neon snow drifting
aimlessly down to the gray, trampled sidewalk.
'I love her,' said Cabot, not really speaking to me.
'Who?' I asked.
He shook his head, and continued to watch the snow.
'Let's go home,' I said. 'It's late.'
'Where is home?' asked Cabot, staring into the half-filled glass.
'Your apartment, a few blocks from here,' I said, wanting him to leave,
wanting him to get out of there. His mood was alien to anything I had seen
in him before. Somehow I was frightened.
He would not be moved. He pulled his arm away from my hand. 'It is late,'
he said, seeming to agree with me but intending perhaps more. 'It must not
be too late,' he said, as though he had resolved on something, as though by
the sheer force of his will he would stop the flow of time, the random
track of events.
I leaned back in my chair. Cabot would leave when he was ready. Not before.
I became aware of his silence, and the light subdued patter of conversation
at the bar, the clink of glasses, the sounds of a foot scraping, of liquid
swirling into a small, heavy glass.
Cabot lifted his Scotch again, holding it before him, not drinking. Then,
ceremoniously, bitterly, he poured a bit of it onto the table, where it
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splattered, partly soaking into a napkin. As he performed this gesture, he
uttered some formula in that strange tongue I had heard but once before -
when I had nearly perished at his hands. Somehow I had the feeling that he
was becoming dangerous. I was uneasy.
'What are you doing?' I asked.
'I am offering a libation,' he said. 'Ta-Sardar-Gor.'
'What does that mean?' I asked, my words fumbling a bit, blurred by the
liquor, made unsteady by my fear.
'It means,' laughed Cabot, a mithless laugh, ' - to the Priest-Kings of
Gor!'
He rose unsteadily. He seemed tall, strange, almost of another world in
that subdued light, in that quiet atmosphere of small, genial civilised
noises.
Then without warning, with a bitter laugh, at once a lament and a cry of
rage, he hurled the glass violently to the wall. It shattered into a
million sporadic gleaming fragments, shocking the place into a moment of
supreme silence. And in that sudden instant of startled, awe-struck
silence, I heard him clearly, intensely, repeat in a hoarse whisper that
strange phrase, 'Ta-Sardar-Gor!'
The bartender, a heavy, soft-faced man, waddled to the table. One of his
fat hands nervously clutched a short leather truncheon, weighted with shot.
The bartender jerked his thumb toward the door. He repeated the gesture.
Cabot towering over him seemed not to comprehend. The bartender lifted the
truncheon in a menacing gesture. Cabot simply took the weapon, seeming to
draw it easily from the startled grip of the fat man. He looked down into
the sweating, frightened fat face.
'You have lifted a weapon against me,' he said. 'My codes permit me to kill
you.'
The bartender and I watched with terror as Cabot's large firm hands twisted
the truncheon apart, splitting the stitching, much as I might have twisted
apart a roll of cardboard. Some of the shot dropped to the floor and rolled
under the tables.
'He's drunk,' I said to the bartender. I took Cabot firmly by the arm. He
didn't seem to be angry any longer, and I could see that he intended no one
any harm. My touch seemed to snap him out of his strange mood. He handed
the ruined truncheon meekly back to the bartender.
'I'm sorry,' said Cabot. 'Really.' He reached into his wallet and pressed a
bill into the bartender's hands. It was a hundred dollar bill.
We put on our coats and went out into the February evening, into the light
snow.
Outside the bar we stood in the snow, not speaking. Cabot, still
half-drunk, looked about himself, at the brutal electric geometry of that
great city, at the dark, lonely shapes that moved through the light snow,
at the pale glimmering headlights of the cars.
'This is a great city,' said Cabot, 'and yet it is not loved. 'How many are
there here who would die for this city? How many who would defend to the
death its perimeters? How many who would submit to torture on its behalf?'
'You're drunk,' I said, smiling.
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'This city is not loved,' he said. 'Or it would not be used as it is, kept
as it is.'
He walked sadly away.
Somehow I knew that this was the night on which I would learn the secret of
Tarl Cabot.
'Wait!' I cried to him suddenly.
He turned and I sensed that he was glad that I had called to him, that my
company on that night meant a great deal to him.
I joined him and together we went to his apartment. First he brewed a pot
of strong coffee, and act for which my swirling senses were more than
grateful. Then without speaking he went into his closet and emerged
carrying a strongbox. He unlocked this with a key which he carried on his
own person, and removed a manuscript, written in his own clear, decisive
hand and bound with twine. He placed the manuscript in my hands.
It was a document pertaining to what Cabot called the Counter-Earth, the
story of a warrior, of the siege of a city, and of the love of a girl. You
perhaps know it as Tarnsman of Gor.
When, shortly after dawn, I had finished the account, I looked at Cabot,
who, all the time, had been sitting at the window, his chin on his hands,
watching the snow, lost in what thoughts I could scarcely conjecture.
He turned and faced me.
'It's true,' he said, 'but you need not believe it.'
I didn't know what to say. It could not, of course, be true, yet I felt
Cabot to be one of the most honest men I had ever known.
Then I noticed his ring, almost for the first time, though I had seen it a
thousand times. It had been mentioned in the account, that simple ring of
red metal, bearing the crest of Cabot.
'Yes,' said Cabot, extending his hand, 'this is the ring.'
I gestured to the manuscript. 'Why have you shown me this?' I asked.
'I want someone to know of these things,' said Cabot simply.
I arose, now conscious for the first time of a lost night of sleep, the
effects of the drinking, and of the several cups of bitter coffee. I smiled
wryly. 'I think,' I said, 'I'd better go.'
'Of course,' said Cabot, helping me on with my coat. At the doorway he held
out his hand. 'Good-bye,' he said.
'I'll see you tomorrow,' I said.
'No,' he said. 'I am going again to the mountains.'
It was in February, at this time, that he had disappeared seven years
before.
I was shocked into clear consciousness. 'Don't go,' I said.
'I am going,' he said.
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'Let me come with you,' I said.
'No,' he said, 'I may not come back.'
We shook hands, and I had the strange feeling that I might never see Tarl
Cabot again. My hand was clenched firmly on his, and his on mine. I had
meant something to him, and he to me, and now as simply as this it seemed
that friends might part forever, never to see or talk to one another again.
I found myself in the bleak white hallway outside his apartment, blinking
at the exposed bulb in the ceiling. I walked for some hours, in spite of my
fatigue, thinking, puzzling about these strange things of which I had
heard.
Then suddenly I turned and, literally, ran back to his apartment. I had
left him, my friend. To what I had no idea. I rushed to the door of the
apartment and pounded on it with my fists. There was no answer. I kicked in
the door, splintering the lock from the jamb. I entered the apartment. Tarl
Cabot was gone!
On the table in that small furnished apartment was the manuscript I had
read through the long night - with an envelope fastened under the twine.
The envelope bore my name and address. Inside was the simple note: 'For
Harrison Smith, should he care to have it.' Dismal, I left the apartment,
carrying the manuscript which was subsequently published as Tarnsman of
Gor. That and memory were all that remained of my friend, Tarl Cabot.
My examinations came and were successfully completed. Later, following more
examinations, I was admitted to the bar in New York State, and I entered
one of the immense law offices in the city, hoping to obtain eventually
enough experience and capital to open a small practice of my own. In the
rush of working, in the interminable, demanding jungle of detail required
in my trade, the memory of Cabot was forced from my mind. There is perhaps
little more to say here, other than the fact that I have not seen him
again. Though I have reason to believe he lives.
Late one afternoon, after work, I returned to my apartment. There - in
spite of the locked doors and windows - on a coffee table before the
settee, was a second manuscript, that which now follows. There was no note,
no explanation.
Perhaps, as Tarl Cabot once remarked, 'The agents of the Priest-Kings are
among us.'
Chapter Two: RETURN TO GOR
Once again, I, Tarl Cabot, strode the green fields of Gor.
I awakened naked in the wind-swept grass, beneath that blazing star that is
the common sun of my two worlds, my home planet, Earth, and its secret
sister, the Counter-Earth, Gor.
I rose slowly to my feet, my fibers alive in the wind, my hair torn by its
blasts, my muscles each aching and rejoicing in their first movements in
perhaps weeks, for I had again entered that silver disk in the White
Mountains which was the ship of the Priest-Kings, used for the Voyages of
Acquisition, and, in entering, had fallen unconscious. In that state, as
once long before, I had come to this world.
I stood so for some minutes, to let each sense and nerve drink in the
wonder of my return.
I was aware again of the somewhat lesser gravity of the planet, but this
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awareness would pass as my system accomodated itself naturally to the new
environment. Given the lesser gravity, feats of prowess which might seem
superhuman on earth were commonplace on Gor. The sun, as I remembered it,
seemed a bit larger than it did when viewed from the earth, but as before
it was difficult to be altogether sure of this.
In the distance I could see some patches of yellow, the Ka- la-na groves
that dot the fields of Gor. Far to my left I saw a splendid field of
Sa-Tarna, bending beautifully in the wind, that tall yellow grain that
forms a staple in the Gorean diet. To the right, in the far distance, I saw
the smudge of mountains. From their extent and height, as far as I could
judge, I guessed them to be the mountains of Thentis. From them, if this
were true, I could gather my bearings for Ko-ro-ba, that city of cylinders
to which, years ago, I had pledged my sword.
So standing, the sun upon me, without thinking I raised my arms in pagan
prayer to acknowledge the power of the Priest- Kings, which had once again
brought me from Earth to this world, the power which once before had torn
me from Gor when they were finished with me, taking me from my adopted
city, my father and my friends, and from the girl I loved, dark- haired
beautiful Talena, daughter of Marlenus, who had once been the Ubar of Ar,
the greatest city of all known Gor.
There was no love in my heart for the Priest-Kings, those mysterious
denizens of the Sardar Mountains, whoever or whatever they might be, but
there was gratitude in my heart, either to them or to the strange forces
that moved them.
That I had been returned to Gor to seek out once more my city and my love
was, I was sure, not the spontaneous gesture of generosity, or of justice,
that it might seem. The Priest- Kings, Keepers of the Holy Place in the
Sardar Mountains, seeming knowers of all that occurred on Gor, masters of
the hideous Flame Death that could with consuming fire destroy whatever
they wished, whenever they might please, were not so crudely motivated as
men, were not susceptible to the imperatives of decency and respect that
can upon occasion sway human action. Their concern was with their own
remote and mysterious ends; to achieve these ends, human creatures were
treated as subservient instruments. It was rumoured they used men as one
might use pieces in a game, and when the piece had played its role it might
be discarded, or perhaps, as in my case, removed from the board until it
pleased the Priest-Kings to try yet another game.
I noticed, a few feet from me, lying on the grass, a helmet, shield and
spear, and a bundle of folded leather. I knelt to examine the articles.
The helmet was bronze, worked in the Greek fashion, with a unitary opening
somewhat in the shape of a Y. It bore no insignia and its crest plate was
empty.
The round shield, concentric overlapping layers of hardened leather riveted
together and bound with hoops of brass, fitted with the double sling for
carrying on the left arm, was similarly unmarked. Normally the Gorean
shield is painted boldly and has infixed in it some device for identifying
the bearer's city. If this shield were intended for me, and I had little
doubt it was, it should have carried the sign of Ko-ro-ba, my city.
The spear was a typical Gorean spear, about seven feet in height, heavy,
stout, with a tapering bronze head some eighteen inches in length. It is a
terrible weapon and, abetted by the somewhat lighter gravity of Gor, when
cast with considerable force, can pierce a shield at close quarters or bury
its head a foot deep in solid wood. With this weapon groups of men hunt
even the larl in its native haunts in the Voltai Range, that incredible
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pantherlike carnivore which may stand six to eight feet high at the
shoulder.
Indeed, the Gorean spear is such that many warriors scorn lesser missile
weapons, such as the longbow or crossbow, both of which are not uncommonly
found on Gor. I regretted, however, that no bow was among the weapons at my
disposal, as I had, in my previous sojourn on Gor, developed a skill with
such weapons, and admittedly a fondness for them, a liking which had
scandalised my former master-at-arms.
I recalled him with affection, the Older Tarl. Tarl is a common name on
Gor. I looked forward eagerly to seeing him again, that rough, Viking giant
of a man, that proud, bearded, affectionately belligerent swordsman who had
taught me the craft of arms as practised by the warriors of Gor.
I opened the leather bundle. In it I found the scarlet tunic, sandals and
cloak which constitute the normal garb of a member of the Caste of
Warriors. This was as it should be, as I was of that caste, and had been
since that morning, some seven years ago, when in the Chamber of the
Council of High Castes I had accepted weapons from the hands of my father,
Matthew Cabot, Administrator of Ko-ro-ba, and had taken the Home Stone of
that city as my own.
For the Gorean, though he seldom speaks of these things, a city is more
than brick and marble, cylinders and bridges. It is not simply a place, a
geographical location in which men have seen fit to build their dwellings,
a collection of structures where they may most conveniently conduct their
affairs.
The Gorean senses, or believes, that a city cannot be simply identified
with its natural elements, which undergo their transformations even as do
the cells of a human body.
For them a city is almost a living thing, or more than a living thing. It
is an entity with a history, as stones and rivers do not have a history; it
is an entity with a tradition, a heritage, customs, practices, character,
intentions, hopes. When a Gorean says, for example, that he is of Ar, or
Ko-ro-ba, he is doing a great deal more than informing you of his place of
residence.
The Goreans generally, though there are exceptions, particularly the Caste
of Initiates, do not believe in immortality. Accordingly, to be of a city
is, in a sense, to have been a part of something less perishable than
oneself, something divine in the sense of undying, Of course, as every
Gorean knows, cities too are mortal, for cities can be destroyed as well as
men. And this perhaps makes them love their cities the more, for they know
that their city, like themselves, is subject to mortal termination.
The love of their city tends to become invested in a stone which is known
as the Home Stone, and which is normally kept in the highest cylinder in
the city. In the Home Stone - sometimes little more than a crude piece of
carved rock, dating back perhaps several hundred generations to when the
city was only a cluster of huts by the bank of a river, sometimes a
magnificent and impressively wrought, jewel- encrusted cube of marble or
granite - the city finds its symbol. Yet to speak of a symbol is to fall
short of the mark. It is almost as if the city itself were identified with
the Home Stone, as if it were to the city what life is to man. The myths of
these matters have it that while the Home Stone survives, so, too, must the
city.
But not only is it the case that each city has its Home Stone. The simplest
and humblest village, and even the most primitive hut in that village,
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perhaps only a cone of straw, will contain its own Home Stone, as will the
fantastically appointed chambers of the Administrator of so great a city as
Ar.
My Home Stone was the Home Stone of Ko-ro-ba, that city to which I had
seven years ago pledged my sword. I was now eager to return to my city.
In the bundle, wrapped inside the tunic and cloak I found the shoulder
belt, sheath and short sword of the Goreans. I took the blade from its
sheath. It was well balanced, vicious, double-edged and about twenty to
twenty-two inches in length. I knew the handle, and I could recognise
certain marks on the blade. It was the weapon I had carried at the siege of
Ar. It felt strange to hold it again in my hand, to feel its weight, the
familiar grasp of the hilt. This blade had fought its way up the stairs of
the Central Cylinder of Ar, when I had rescued Marlenus, embattled Ubar of
that city. It had crossed with that of Pa-Kur, master assassin, on the roof
of Ar's Cylinder of Justice, when I had fought for my love, Talena. And now
again I held it in my hand. I wondered why, and knew only that the
Priest-Kings had intended it so.
There were two items I had hoped to find in the bundle which were not
there, a tarn-goad and a tarn-whistle. The tarn- goad is a rodlike
instrument, about twenty inches long. It has a switch in the handle, much
like an ordinary flashlight. When the goad is switched to the on-position
and it strikes an object, it emits a violent shock and scatters a shower of
yellow sparks. It is used for controlling tarns, the gigantic hawklike
saddle-birds of Gor. Indeed, the birds are conditioned to respond tothe
goad, almost from th egg.
The tarn-whistle, as one might expect, is used to summon the bird. Usually,
the most highly trained tarns will respond to only one note, that sounded
by the whistle of their master. There is nothing surprising in this
inasmuch as each bird is trained, by the Caste of Tarn Keepers, to respond
to a different note. When the tarn is presented to a warrior, or sold to
one, the whistle accompanies the bird. Needless to say, the whistle is
important and carefully guarded, for, should it be lost or fall into the
hands of an enemy, the warrior has, for all practical purposes, lost his
mount.
I now dressed myself in the scarlet garb of a warrior of Gor. I was puzzled
that the garb, like the helmet and shield, bore no insignia. This was
contrary to the ways of Gor, for normally only the habiliments of outlaws
and exiles, men without a city, lack the identifying devices of which the
Gorean is so proud.
I donned the helmet, and slung the shield and sword over my left shoulder.
I picked up the massive spear lightly in my right hand. Judging by the sun,
and knowing that Ko-ro-ba lay northwest of the mountains, I strode in the
direction of my city.
My step was light, my heart was happy. I was home, for where my love waited
for me was home. Where my father had met me after more than twenty years of
separation, where my warrior comrades and I had drunk and laughed together,
where I had met and learned from my little friend, Torm, the Scribe, there
was home.
I found myself thinking in Gorean, as fluently as though I had not been
gone for seven years. I became aware that I was singing as I walked through
the grass, a warrior song.
I had returned to Gor.
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file:///F|/rah/John%20Norman/Chronicles%20of%20Counter-Earth%201%20-%20Outlaw%20of%20Gor.txt
Chapter Three: ZOSK
I had walked for some hours in the direction of Ko-ro-ba when I was
delighted to come on one of tha narrow roads to the city. I recognised it,
and even had I not, the cylindrical pasang stones that marked its length
were each inscribed with the sign of the city and the appropriate pasang
count to its walls. A Gorean pasang is approximately .7 of a mile.
The road, like most Gorean roads, was built like a wall in the earth and
was intended to last a hundred generations. The Gorean, having little idea
of progress in our sense, takes great care in his building and workmanship.
What he builds he expects men to use until the storms of time have worn it
to dust. Yet this road, for all the loving craft of the Caste of Builders
which had been lavished upon it, was only an unpretentious, subsidiary
road, hardly wide enough for two carts to pass. Indeed, even the main roads
to Ko-ro- ba were a far cry from the great highways that led to and from a
metropolis like Ar.
Surprisingly, though the pasang stones told me I was close to Ko-ro-ba,
stubborn tufts of grass were growing between the stones, and occasional
vines were inching out, tendril by tendril, across the great stone blocks.
It was late afternoon and, judging by the pasang stones, I was still some
hours from the city. Though it was still bright, many of the colourfully
plumed birds had already sought their nests. Here and there swarms of night
insects began to stir, lifting themselves under the leaves of bushes by the
road. The shadows of the pasang stones had grown long, and, judging by the
angle of these shadows (for the stones are set in such a way as to serve
also as sundials) it was past the fourteenth Gorean Ahn, or hour. The
Gorean day is divided into twenty Ahn, which are numbered consecutively.
The tenth Ahn is noon, the twentieth, midnight. Each Ahn consists of forty
Ehn, or minutes, and each Ehn of eighty Ihn, or seconds.
I wondered if it would be practical to continue my journey. The sun would
soon be down, and the Gorean night is not without its dangers, particularly
to a man on foot.
It is at night that the sleen hunts, that six-legged, long- bodied
mammalian carnivore, almost as much a snake as an animal. I had never seen
one, but had seen the tracks of one seven years before.
Also, at night, crossing the bright disks of Gor's three moons might
occasionally be seen the silent, predatory shadow of the ul, a giant
pterodactyl ranging far from its native swamps in the delta of the Vosk.
Perhaps I most dreaded those nights filled with the shrieks of the vart
pack, a blind, batlike swarm of flying rodents, each the size of a small
dog. They could strip a carcass in a matter of minutes, each carrying back
some fluttering ribbon of flesh to the recesses of whatever dark cave the
swarm had chosen for its home. Moreover, some vart packs were rabid.
One obvious danger lay in the road itself, and the fact that I had no
light. After dark, various serpents seek out the road for its warmth, its
stones retaining the sun's heat longer than the surrounding countryside.
One such serpent was the huge, many-banded Gorean python, the hith. One to
be feared even more perhaps was the tiny ost, a venemous, brilliantly
orange reptile little more than a foot in length, whose bite spelled an
excruciating death within seconds.
Accordingly, in spite of my eagerness to return to Ko-ro-ba, I decided that
I would withdraw from the road, wrap myself in my cloak and spend the night
in the shelter of some rocks, or perhaps crawl into the tangle of some
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