Norman, John - Gor 01- Tarnsman of Gor

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Chapter 1: A Handful of Earth

MY NAME Is TARL CABOT. The name is supposed to have been shortened in the fifteenth century from

the Italian surname Caboto. As far as I know, however, I have no connection with the Venetian

explorer who carried the banner of Henry VII to the New World. Such a connection seems unlikely

for a number of reasons, among them the fact that my people were simple tradesmen of Bristol, and

uniformly fair-complexioned and topped with a blaze of the most outrageous red hair. Nonetheless,

such coincidences, even if they are only geographical, linger in family memory-our small challenge

to the ledgers and arithmetic of an existence measured in bolts of cloth sold. I like to think

there may have been a Cabot in Bristol, one of us, who watched our Italian namesake weigh anchor

in the early morning of that second of May, 1497.

You may remark my first name, and I assure you that it gave me quite as much trouble as it might

you, particularly during my early school years, when it occasioned almost as many contests of

physical skill as my red hair. Let us say simply that it is not a common name, not common on this

world of ours. It was given to me by my father, who disappeared when I was quite young. I thought

him dead until I received his strange message, more than twenty years after he had vanished. My

mother, whom he inquired after, had died when I was about six, somewhere about the time I entered

school. Biographical details are tedious, so suffice it to say that I was a bright child, fairly

large for my age, and was given a creditable upbringing by an aunt who furnished everything that a

child might need, with the possible exception of love.

Surprisingly enough, I managed to gain entrance to the University of Oxford, but I shall not

choose to embarrass my college by entering its somewhat too revered name in this narrative. I

graduated decently, having failed to astound either myself or my tutors. Like a large number of

young men, I found myself passably educated, able to parse a sentence or so in Greek, and familiar

enough with the abstractions of philosophy and economics to know that I would not be likely to fit

into that world to which they claimed to bear some obscure relation. I was not, however,

reconciled to ending up on the shelves of my aunt's shop, along with the cloth and ribbon, and so

I embarked upon a wild, but not too wild, adventure, all things considered.

Being literate and not too dull, and having read enough history to tell the Renaissance from the

industrial Revolution, I applied to several small American colleges for an instructorship in

history-English history, of course. I told them I was somewhat more advanced academically than I

was, and they believed me, and my tutors, in their letters of recommendation, being good fellows,

were kind enough not to disabuse them of this illusion. I believe my tutors thoroughly enjoyed the

situation, which they, naturally, did not officially allow me to know they understood. It was the

Revolutionary War all over again. One of the colleges to which I applied, one perhaps somewhat

less perceptive than the rest, a small liberal arts college for men in New Hampshire, entered into

negotiations, and I had soon received what was to be my first and, I suppose, my last appointment

in the academic world.

In tune I assumed I would be found out, but meanwhile I had my passage to America paid and a

position for at least one year. This outcome struck me as being a pleasant if perplexing state of

affairs. I admit I was annoyed by the suspicion that I had been given the appointment largely on

the grounds that I would be faculty exotica. Surely I had no publications, and I am confident

there must have been several candidates from American universities whose credentials and

capacities would have far outshone my own, except for the desiderated British accent. Yes, there

would be the round of teas and the cocktail and supper invitations.

I liked America very much, though I was quite busy the first semester, smashing through numerous

texts in an undignified manner, attempting to commit enough English history to memory to keep at

least a reign or so ahead of my students. I discovered, to my dismay, that being English does not

automatically qualify one as an authority on English history. Fortunately, my departmental

chairman, a gentle, bespectacled man, whose speciality was American economic history, knew even

less than I did, or, at least, was considerate enough to allow me to believe so.

The Christmas vacation helped greatly. I was especially counting on the time between the semesters

to catch up, or, better, to lengthen my lead on the students. But after the term papers, the

tests, and the grading of the first semester, I was afflicted with a rather irresistible desire to

chuck the British Empire and go for a long, long walk

indeed, even a camping trip in the nearby White Mountains.

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I borrowed some camp gear, mostly a knapsack and a sleeping bag, from one of the few friends I had

made on the faculty-an instructor also, but in the deplorable subject of physical education. He

and I had fenced occasionally and had gone for infrequent walks. I sometimes wonder if he is

curious about what happened to his camp gear or to Tarl Cabot. Surely the administration of the

college was curious, and angry at the inconvenience of having to replace an instructor in the

middle of the year, for Tarl Cabot was never heard of again on the campus of that college.

My friend in the physical education department drove me a few miles into the mountains and dropped

me off. We agreed to meet again in three days at the same place. The first thing I did was check

my compass, as if I knew what I was up to, and then proceeded to leave the highway well behind me.

More quickly than I realized, I was alone and in the woods, climbing. Bristol, as you know, is a

heavily urbanized area, and I was not well prepared for my first encounter with nature. Surely the

college, though somewhat rural, was at least one of the outworks of, say, material civilization. I

was not frightened, being confident that walking steadily in any given direction would be sure to

bring me to one highway or another, or some stream or another, and that it would be impossible to

become lost, or at least for long. Primarily, I was exhilarated, being alone, with myself and the

green pines and patches of snow.

I trudged along for the better part of two hours before I finally yielded to the weight of the

pack. I ate a cold lunch and was on my way again, getting deeper into the mountains. I was pleased

that I had regularly taken a turn or two around the college track.

That evening I dropped my pack near a rock platform and set about gathering some wood for a fire.

I had gone a bit from my makeshift camp when I stopped, startled for a moment. Something in the

darkness, to the left, lying on the ground, seemed to be glowing. It held a calm, hazy blue

radiance. I put down the wood I had gathered and approached the object, more curious than anything

else. It appeared to be a rectangular metal envelope, rather thin, not much larger than the normal

envelope one customarily uses for correspondence. I touched it; it seemed to be hot. My hair rose

on the back of my head; my eyes widened. I read, in a rather archaic English script inscribed on

the envelope, two: words-my name, Tarl Cabot.

It was a joke. Somehow my friend had followed me,--, must be hiding somewhere in the darkness: I

called his name, laughing. There was no answer. I raced about in the woods a moment, shaking

bushes, batting the snow from the low-hanging branches of pines. I then walked more slowly, more

carefully, being quiet. I would find him!

Some fifteen minutes passed, and I was growing cold,

angry. I shouted to him. I widened my search, keeping

that strange metal envelope with its blue ambience the

center of my movements. At last I realized he must have

planted the odd object, left it for me to discover, and,",

was probably on his way home by now or was perhaps

camping somewhere nearby. I was confident he was not

within earshot or he would have eventually responded.

It was no longer funny, not if he was near. -

I returned to the object and picked it up. It seemed to be cooler now, though I still had the

distinct impression.. of warmth. It was a strange object. I brought it back to my camp and built

my fire, against the darkness and cold. I was shivering in spite of my heavy clothing. I was

sweating. My heart was beating. My breath was short. I was frightened.

Accordingly, slowly and calmly, I set about tending the fire, opened a can of chili, and set up

sticks to hold the:

tiny cooking pot over the fire. These domestic activities slowed my pulse and succeeded in

convincing me that I could be patient and was even not too much interested in the contents of the

metal envelope. When the chili was heating, and not before, I turned my attention to the puzzling

object.

I turned it over and over in my hands and studied it by the light of the campfire. It was about

twelve inches long and four inches high. It weighed, I guessed, about four ounces. The color of

the metal was blue, and something of its ambience continued to characterize it, but the glow was

fading. Also, the envelope no longer seemed warm to the touch. How long had it lain waiting for me

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in the woods? How long ago had it been placed there?

While I considered this, the glow faded abruptly. If it had faded earlier, I never would have

discovered it in the woods. It was almost as if the glow had been connected with the intent of the

sender, as if the glow, no longer needed, had been allowed to fade. "The message has been

delivered," I said to myself, feeling a bit silly as I said it. I did not find my private joke

very funny.

I looked closely .at the lettering. It resembled some now outdated English script, but I knew too

little about such things to hazard much of a guess at the date. Something about the lettering

reminded me of that on a colonial charter, a page of which had been photocopied for an

illustration in one of my books. Seventeenth century perhaps? The lettering itself seemed to be

inset in the envelope, bonded in its metallic structure. I could find no seam or flap in the

envelope. I tried to crease the envelope with my thumbnail, but failed.

Feeling rather foolish, I took out the can opener I had used on the chili can and attempted to

force the metal point through the envelope. Light as the envelope seemed to be, it resisted the

point as if I were trying to open an anvil. I leaned on the can opener with both arms, pressing

down with all my weight. The point of the can opener bent into a right angle, but the envelope had

not: been scratched.

I handled the envelope carefully, puzzled, trying to determine if it might be opened. There was a

small circle on the back of the envelope, and in the circle seemed to be the print of a thumb. I

wiped it on my sleeve, but it did not disappear. The other prints on the envelope, from my

fingers, wiped away immediately. As well as I could, I scrutinized the print in the circle. It,

too, like the lettering, seemed a part of the metal, yet its ridges and. lineaments were

exceedingly delicate.

At last I was confident that it was a part of the envelope. I pressed it with my finger; nothing

happened. Tired of this strange business, I set the envelope aside and; turned my attention to the

chili, which was now bubbling over the small campfire. After I had eaten, I re-'° moved my boots

and coat and crawled into the sleeping bag.

I lay there beside the dying fire, looking up at the branch-lined sky and the mineral glory of the

unconscious universe. I lay awake for a long time, feeling alone, yet not alone, as one sometimes

does in the wilderness, feeling as if one were the only living object on the planet and as if the

closest things to one-one's fate and destiny perhaps-lay outside our small world, somewhere in the

remote, alien pastures of the stars.

A thought struck me with sudden swiftness, and I was .. afraid, but I knew what I must do. The

matter of the envelope was not a hoax, not a trick. Somewhere, deep in .whatever I am, I knew that

and had known it from the beginning. Almost as if dreaming, yet with vivid clarity, I inched

partly out of my sleeping bag. I rolled over,, and threw some wood on the fire and reached for the

envelope. Sitting in the sleeping bag, I waited for the fire to rise a bit. Then I carefully

placed my right thumb on the impression in the envelope, pressing down firmly. It answered to my

touch, as I had expected it to, as I .

had feared it would. Perhaps only one man could open that envelope-he whose print fitted the

strange lock, he whose name was Tarl Cabot. The apparently seamless envelope crackled open, almost

with the sound of cellophane.

An object fell from the envelope, a ring of red metal bearing the simple crest "C." I barely

noticed it in my excitement. There was lettering on the inside of the envelope, which had opened

in a manner surprisingly like a foreign air-mail letter, where the envelope serves also as

stationery. The lettering was in the same script as my name on the outside of the envelope. I

noticed the date and froze, my hands clenched on the metallic paper. It was dated the third of

February, 1640. It was dated more than three hundred years ago, and I was reading it in the sixth

decade of the twentieth century. Oddly enough, also, the day on which I was reading it was the

third of February. The signature at the bottom was not in the old script, but might have been done

in modern cursive English.

I had seen the signature once or twice before, on some letters my aunt had saved. I knew the

signature, though I could not remember the man. It was the signature of my father, Matthew Cabot,

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who had disappeared when I was an infant.

I was dizzy, unsettled. It seemed my vision reeled; I couldn't move. Things grew black for a

moment, but I shook myself and clenched my teeth, breathed in the sharp, cold mountain air, once,

twice, three times, slowly, gathering the piercing contact of reality into my lungs, reassuring

myself that I was alive, not dreaming, that I held in my hands a letter with an incredible date,

delivered more than three hundred years later in the mountains of New Hampshire, written by a man

who presumably, if still alive, was, as we reckon time, no more than fifty years of age-my father.

Even now I can remember the letter to the last word. I think I will carry its simple, abrupt

message burned into the cells of my brain until, as it is elsewhere said, I have returned to the

Cities of Dust.

The third day of February, in .the Year of Our Lord 1640.

Tarl Cabot, Son:

Forgive me, but I have little choice in these matters. It has been decided. Do whatever you think

is in your own best interest, but the fate is upon you, and you will not escape. I wish health to

you and to your mother. Carry on your person the ring of ._ red metal, and bring me, if you would,

a handful of

our green earth.

Discard this letter. It will be destroyed.

With affection,

Matthew Cabot

I read and reread the letter and had become unnaturally calm. It seemed clear to me that I was not

insane, or if I was, that insanity was a state of mental clarity .and comprehension quite apart

from the torment that I had conceived it -to be. I placed the letter in my knapsack.

What I must do was fairly obvious-make my way out of the mountains as soon as it was fight. No,

that might be too late. It would be mad, scrambling about in the darkness, but there seemed to be

nothing else that would serve. I did not know how much time I had, but even if it was only a few

hours, I might be able to reach some highway or stream or perhaps a cabin.

I checked my compass to get the bearing back to the highway. I looked uneasily about in the

darkness. An owl hooted once, perhaps a hundred yards to the right. Something out there might be

watching me. It was an unpleasant feeling. I pulled on my boots and coat, rolled my

sleeping bag, and fixed the pack. I kicked the fire to pieces, stamping out the embers, scuffing

dirt over the sparks.

Just as the fire was sputtering out, I noticed a glint in the ashes. Bending down, I retrieved the

ring. It was warm from the ashes, hard, substantial-a piece of reality. It was there. I dropped it

into the pocket of my coat and started off on my compass-bearing, trying to make my way back to

the highway.

I felt stupid trying to hike in the dark. I was asking for a broken leg or ankle, if not a neck.

Still, if I could put a mile or so between myself and the old camp, that should be sufficient to

give myself the margin of safety I needed-from what I didn't know. I might then wait until morning

and start off in the light, secure, confident. Moreover, it would be a simple matter to cover

one's tracks in the light. The important thing was not to be at the old camp.

I had made my way perilously through the darkness for perhaps twenty minutes when, to my horror,

my knapsack and bedroll seemed to burst into blue flame on my back. It was an instant's action to

hurl them from me, and I gazed, bewildered, awe-stricken, at what seemed to be a furious blue

combustion that lit the pines on all sides as if with acetylene flames. It was like staring into a

furnace. I knew that it was the envelope that had burst into flame, taking with it my knapsack and

bedroll. I shuddered, thinking of what might have happened if I had been carrying it in the pocket

of my coat.

Strangely enough, now that I think of it, I didn't run headlong from the spot, though I can't see

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why, and the thought did cross my mind that the bright, flarelike luminescence would reveal my

position, if it was of interest to anyone or anything. With a small flashlight I knelt beside the

flakes of my knapsack and bedroll. The stones on which they had fallen were blackened. There was

no trace of the envelope. It seemed to have been totally consumed. There was an unpleasant, acrid

odor in the air, some fumes of a sort that I was not familiar with.

The thought came to me that the ring, which I had dropped in my pocket, might similarly burst into

flame, but, unaccountably perhaps, I doubted it. There might be a point in someone's destroying

the letter, but presumably there would be little point or no point in destroying the ring. Why

should it have been sent if not to have been kept?

Besides, I had been warned about the letter-a warning I had foolishly neglected-but had been asked

to carry the ring. Whatever it was, father or no, that was the source of these frightening events,

it did not seem to wish me harm, but then, I thought, somewhat bitterly, floods and earthquakes

presumably wish no one harm either. Who knew the nature of the things or forces that were afoot

that night in the mountains, things and forces that might perhaps smash me, casually, as one

innocently steps on an insect without being aware of it or caring?

I still had the compass, and that constituted a firm link to reality. The silent but intense

explosion of the envelope into flames had caused me momentarily to become confused-that and the

sudden return to the darkness from the hideous glaring light of the disintegrating envelope. My

compass would get me out. With my flashlight I examined it. As the thin, sharp beam struck the

face of the compass, my heart stopped. The needle was spinning crazily, and oscillating backward

and forward, as if .the laws of nature had suddenly been abridged in its vicinity.

For the first time since I had opened the envelope, I began to lose my control. The compass had

been my anchor and trust. I had counted on it. Now it had gone crazy. There was a loud noise, but

I now think it must have been the sound of my own voice, a sudden frightened shriek for which I

shall always bear the shame.

The next thing I was running like a demented animal, in any direction, every direction. How long I

ran I don't know. It may have been hours, perhaps only a few minutes. I slipped and fell dozens of

times and ran into the prickly branches of the pines, the needles stabbing at my face. I may have

been sobbing; I remember the taste of salt in my mouth. But mostly I remember a blind, headlong

flight, a panic-stricken, unworthy, sickening flight. Once I saw two eyes in the darkness and

screamed and ran from them, hearing the flap of wings behind me and the startled cry of an owl.

Once I startled a small band of deer and found myself in the midst of their bounding shapes

buffeting me in the darkness.

The moon came out, and the mountainside was suddenly lit with its cold beauty, white on the snow

in the trees and on the side of the slope, sparkling on the rocks. I could run no further. I fell

to the ground, gasping for breath, suddenly asking myself why I had run. For the first time in my

life I had felt full, unreasoning fear, and it had gripped me like the paws of some grotesque

predatory animal. I had surrendered to it for just a moment, and it had become a force that had

carried me, hurling me about as if I were a swimmer captured in surging waves-a force that could

not be resisted. It had departed now. I must never surrender to it again. I looked around and

recognized the platform of rock near which I had set my bedroll. I saw the ashes of my fire. I had

returned to my camp. Somehow I'd known that I would.

As I lay there in the moonlight, I felt the earth beneath me, against my aching muscles and the

body that was covered with the foul-smelling sheen of fear and sweat. I felt then that it was good

even to feel pain. Feeling was the important thing. I was alive.

I saw the ship descend. For a moment it looked like a falling star, but then it suddenly became

clear and substantial, like a broad, thick disk of silver. It was silent and settled on the rock

platform, scarcely disturbing the light snow that was scattered on it. There was a slight wind in

the pine needles, and I rose to my feet. As I did so, a door in the side of the ship slid quietly

upward. I must go in. My father's words recurred in my memory: "The fate is upon you." Before

entering the ship, I stopped at the side of the large, flat rock on which it rested. I bent down

and scooped up, as my father had asked, a handful of our green earth. I, too, felt that it was

important to take something with me, something which, in a way, was my native soil. The soil of my

planet, my world.

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The Counter-Earth

I REMEMBERED NOTHING, FROM THE time I'd boarded the silver disk in the mountains of New Hampshire

until now. I awoke, feeling rested, and opened my eyes, half expecting to see my room in the

alumni house at the college. I turned my head, without pain or discomfort. I seemed to be lying on

some hard, flat object, perhaps a table, in a circular room with a low ceiling some seven feet

high. There were five narrow windows, not large enough to let a man through; they rather reminded

me of ports for bowmen in a castle tower, yet they admitted sufficient light to allow me to

recognize my surroundings.

the earth, was blue. My first thought was that this must be the earth and the sun's apparent size

an illusion.

Obviously, I was breathing, and that meant necessarily an atmosphere containing a large

percentage of oxygen. It must be the earth. But as I stood at the window, I knew that this could

not be my mother planet. The building in which I found myself was apparently one of an indefinite

number of towers, like endless flat cylinders of varying sizes and colors, joined by narrow,

colorful bridges that arched lightly between them.

I could not lean far enough outside the window to see the ground. In the distance I could

see hills covered with some type of green vegetation, but I could not determine whether or not it

was grass. Wondering at my predicament, I turned back to the table. I strode over to it and nearly

bruised my thigh on the stone structure. I felt for a moment as though I must have stumbled, have

been dizzy. I walked around the room. I leaped to the top of the table almost as I would have

climbed a stair in the alumni house. It was different, a different movement. Less gravity. It had

to be. The planet, then, was smaller than our earth, and, given the apparent size of the sun,

perhaps somewhat closer to it.

My clothes had been changed. My hunting boots were gone, my fur cap and the heavy coat and

the rest of it. I was clad in some sort of tunic of a reddish color, which was tied at the waist

with a yellow cord. It occurred to me that I was clean, in spite of my adventures, my panic-

stricken rout in the mountains. I had been washed. I saw that the ring of red metal, with the

crest of a "C," had been placed on the second finger of my right hand. I was hungry. I tried to

put my thoughts together, sitting on the table, but there was too much. I felt like a child,

knowing nothing, taken to some complex factory or store, unable to sort out his impressions,

unable to comprehend the new and strange things that flash incessantly upon him.

There was a tapestry to the right, a well-woven depiction of some hunting scene, I took

it, but fancifully done, the spear-carrying hunters mounted on birds of a sort and attacking an

ugly animal that reminded me of a boar, except that it appeared to be too large, out of proportion

to the hunters. Its jaws carried four tusks, curved like scimitars. It reminded me, with the

vegetation and background and the classic serenity of the faces, of a Renaissance tapestry I had

once seen on a vacation tour I had taken to Florence in my second year at the University.

Opposite the tapestry-for decoration, I assumed --hung a round shield with crossed spears

behind it. The shield was rather like the old Greek shields on some of the red-figured vases in

the London Museum. The design on the shield was unintelligible to me. I could not be sure that it

was supposed to mean anything. It might have been an alphabetic monogram or perhaps a mere delight

to the artist. Above the shield was suspended a helmet, again reminiscent of a Greek helmet,

perhaps of the Homeric period. It had a somewhat "Y"-shaped slot for the eyes, nose, and mouth in

.the nearly solid metal. There was a savage dignity about it, with the shield and spears, all of

them stable on the wall, as if ready, like the famous colonial rifle over the fireplace, for

instant use; they were all polished and gleamed dully in the half light.

Aside from these things and two stone blocks, perhaps chairs, and a mat on one side, the

room was bare; the walls and ceiling and floor were smooth as marble, and a classic white. I could

see no door in the room. I rose from the stone table; which was indeed what it was, and went to

the window. I looked out and saw the sun our sun it had to be. It seemed perhaps a fraction

larger, but it was difficult to be sure. I was confident that it was our own brilliant yellow

star. The sky, like that of

A panel in the wall slid sideways, and a tall red-haired man, somewhere in his late forties,

dressed much as I was, stepped through. I hadn't known. what to expect, what these people would be

like. This man was an earthman, apparently. He smiled at me and came forward, placing his hands on

my shoulders and looking into my eyes. He said, I thought rather proudly, "You are my son, Tarl

Cabot."

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"I am Tarl Cabot," I said.

"I am your father," he said, and shook me powerfully by the shoulders. We shook hands, on my part

rather stiffly, yet this gesture of our common homeland somehow reassured me. I was surprised to

find myself accepting this stranger not only as a being of my world, but as the father I couldn't

remember.

"Your mother?" he asked, his eyes concerned.

"Dead, years ago," I said.

He looked at me. "She, of all of them, I loved most," he said, turning away, crossing the room. He

appeared to be affected keenly, shaken. I wanted to feel no sympathy with him, yet I found that I

could not help it. I was angry with myself. He had deserted my mother and me, had he not? And what

was i2 now that he felt some regret? And how was it that he had spoken so innocently of "all of

them," whoever they might be? I did not want to find out.

Yet, somehow, in spite of these things, I found that I wanted to cross the room, to put my hand on

his arm, to touch him. I felt somehow a kinship with him, with this stranger and his sorrow. My

eyes were moist. Something stirred in me, obscure, painful memories that had been silent, quiet

for many years-the memory of a woman I had barely known, of a gentle face, of arms that had

protected a child who had awakened frightened in the night. And I remembered suddenly another

face, behind hers.

"Father," I said.

He straightened and turned to face me across that simple, strange room. It was impossible to tell

if he had wept. He looked at me with sadness in his eyes, and his rather stern features seemed for

a moment to be tender. Looking into his eyes, I realized, with an incomprehensible suddenness and

a joy that still bewilders me, that someone existed who loved me.

"My son," he said.

We met in the center of the room and embraced. I wept, and he did, too, without shame. I learned

later that on this alien world a strong man may feel and express emotions, and that the hypocrisy

of constraint is not honored on this planet as it is on mine.

At last we moved apart.

My father regarded me evenly. "She will be the last," he said. "I had no right to let her love

me."

I was silent.

He sensed my feeling and spoke brusquely. "Thank you for your gift, Tarl Cabot," he said.

I looked puzzled.

"The handful of earth," he said. "A handful of my native ground."

I nodded, not wanting to speak, wanting him to tell me the thousand things I had to know, to

dispel the mysteries that had torn me from my native world and brought me to this strange room,

this planet, to him, my father.

"You must be hungry," he said.

"I want to know where I am and what I am doing here," I said.

"Of course," he said, "but you must eat." He smiled. "While you satisfy your hunger, I shall speak

to you."

He clapped his hands twice, and the panel slid back again. I was startled. Through the opening

came a young girl, somewhat younger than myself, with blond hair bound back. She wore a sleeveless

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garment of diagonal stripes, the brief skirt of which terminated some inches above her

knees. She was barefoot, and as her eyes shyly met mine, I saw they were blue and deferential. My

eyes suddenly noted her one piece of jewelry-a light, steel like band she wore as a collar. As

quickly as she had come, she departed.

"You may have her this evening if you wish," said my father, who had scarcely seemed to notice the

girl.

I wasn't sure what he meant, but I said no.

At my father's insistence, I began to eat, reluctantly, never taking my eyes from him, hardly

tasting the food, which was simple but excellent. The meat reminded me of venison; it was not the

meat of an animal raised on domestic grains. It had been roasted over an open flame. The bread was

still hot from the oven. The fruit-grapes and peaches of some sort-was fresh and as cold as

mountain snow. After the meal I tasted the drink, which might not inappropriately be described as

an almost incandescent wine, bright, dry, and powerful. I learned later it was called Ka-la-na.

While I ate, and afterward, my father spoke.

"Gor," he said, "is the name of this world. In all the languages of this planet, the word means

Home Stone." He paused, noting my lack of comprehension. "Home Stone," he repeated. "Simply that.

"In peasant villages on this world," he continued, "each but was originally built around a flat

stone which was placed in the center of the circular dwelling. It was carved with the family sign

and was called the Home Stone. It was, so to speak, a symbol of sovereignty, or territory, and

each peasant, in his own hut, was a sovereign."

"Later," said my father, "Home Stones were used for villages, and later still for cities. The Home

Stone of a village was always placed in the market; in a city, on the top of the highest tower.

The Home Stone came naturally, in time, to acquire a mystique, and something

of the same hot, sweet emotions as our native peoples of Earth feel toward their flags became

invested in it."

My father had risen to his feet and had begun to pace the room, and his eyes seemed strangely

alive. In time I would come to understand more of what he felt. Indeed, there is a saying on Gor,

a saying whose origin is lost in the past of this strange planet, that one who speaks of Home

Stones should stand, for matters of honor are here involved, and honor is respected in the

barbaric codes of Gor.

"These stones," said my father, "are various, of different colors, shapes, and sizes, and many of

them are intricately carved. Some of the largest cities have small, rather insignificant Home

Stones, but of incredible antiquity, dating back to the time when the city was a village or only a

mounted pride of warriors with no settled abode."

My father paused at the narrow window in the circular room and looked out onto the hills beyond

and fell silent.

At last he spoke again.

"Where a man sets his Home Stone, he claims, by law, that land for himself. Good land is protected

only by the swords of the strongest owners in the vicinity."

"Swords?" I asked.

"Yes," said my father, as if there were nothing incredible in this admission. He smiled. "You have

much to learn of Gor," he said. "Yet there is a hierarchy of Home Stones, one might say, and two

soldiers who would cut one another down with their steel blades for an acre of fertile ground will

fight side by side to the death for the Home Stone of their village or of the city within whose

ambit their village lies.

"I shall show you someday," he said, "my own small Home Stone, which I keep in my chambers. It

encloses a handful of soil from the Earth, a handful of soil that I first brought with me when I

came to this

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world-along time ago." He looked at me evenly. "I shall keep the handful of earth you brought," he

said, his voice very quiet, "and someday it may be yours." His eyes seemed moist. He added, "If

you should live to earn a Home Stone."

I rose to my feet and looked at him.

He had turned away, as if lost in thought. "It is the occasional dream of a conqueror or

statesman," he said, "to have but a single Supreme Home Stone for the planet." Then, after a long

moment, not looking at me, he said, "It is rumored there is such a stone, but it lies in the

Sacred Place and is the source of the Priest-Kings' power."

"Who are the Priest-Kings?" I asked.

My father faced me, and he seemed troubled, as if he might have said more than he intended.

Neither of us spoke for perhaps a minute.

"Yes," said my father at last, "I must speak to you of Priest-Kings." He smiled. "But let me begin

in my own way, that you may better understand the nature of that whereof I speak." We both sat

down again, the stone table between us, and my father calmly and methodically explained many

things to me.

As he spoke, my father often referred to the planet Gor as the Counter-Earth, taking the name from

the writings of the Pythagoreans who had first speculated on the existence of such a body. Oddly

enough, one of the expressions in the tongue of Gor for our sun was LarTorvis, which means The

Central Fire, another Pythagorean expression, except that it had not been, as I understand it,

originally used by the Pythagoreans to refer to the sun but to another body. The more common

expression for the sun was Tor-tu-Gor, which means Light Upon the Home Stone. There was a sect

among the people that worshiped the sun, I later learned, but it was insignificant both in numbers

and power when compared with the worship of the Priest Kings who, whatever they

were, were accorded the honors of divinity. Theirs, it seems, was the honor of being enshrined as

the most ancient gods of Gor, and in time of danger a prayer to the Priest-Kings might escape the

lips of even the bravest men.

"The Priest-Kings," said my father, "are immortal, or so most here believe."

"Do you believe it?" I asked.

"I don't know," said my father. "I think perhaps I do."

"What sort of men are they?" I asked.

"It is not known that they are men," said my father.

"Then what are they?"

"Perhaps gods."

"You're not serious?"

"I am," he said. "Is not a creature beyond death, of immense power and wisdom, worthy to be so

spoken of?"

I was quiet.

"My speculation, however," said my father, "is that the Priest-Kings are indeed men-men much as

we, or humanoid organisms of some type who possess a science and technology as far beyond our

normal ken as that of our own twentieth century would be to the alchemists and astrologers of the

medieval universities."

His supposition seemed plausible to me, for from the very beginning I had understood that in

something or someone existed a force and clarity of understanding beside which the customary

habits of rationality as I knew them were little more than the tropisms of the unicellular animal.

Even the technology of the envelope with its patterned thumb-lock, the disorientation of my

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compass, and the ship that had brought me, unconscious, to this strange world, argued for an

incredible grasp of unusual, precise, and manipulable forces.

"The Priest-Kings," said my father, "maintain .the Sacred Place in the Sardar Mountains, a wild

vastness into which no man penetrates. The Sacred Place, to the minds. of most men here, is taboo,

perilous. Surely none have

returned from those mountains." My father's eyes seemed faraway, as if focused on sights he might

have preferred to forget. "Idealists and rebels have been dashed .to pieces on the frozen

escarpments of those mountains. If one approaches the mountains, one must go on foot. Our beasts

will not approach them. Parts of outlaws and fugitives who have sought refuge in them have been

found on the plains below, like scraps of meat cast from an incredible distance to the beaks and

teeth of wandering scavengers."

My hand clenched on the metal goblet. The wine moved in the vessel. I saw my image in the wine,

shattered by the tiny forces in the vessel. Then the wine was still.

"Sometimes," said my father, his eyes still faraway, "when men are old or have had enough of life,

they assault .the mountains, looking for the secret of immortality in the barren crags. If they

have found their immortality, none have confirmed it, for none have returned to the Tower Cities."

He looked at me. "Some think that such men in time become Priest-Kings themselves. My own

speculation, which I judge as likely or unlikely to be true as the more popular superstitious

stories, is that it is death to learn the secret of the Priest-Kings."

"You do not know that," I said.

"No," admitted my father. "I do not know it."

My father then explained to me something of the legends of the PriestKings, and I gathered that

they seemed to be true to this degree at least that the PriestKings could destroy or control

whatever they wished, that they were, in effect, the divinities of this world. It was supposed

that they were aware of all that transpired on their planet, but, if so, I was informed that they

seemed, on the whole, to take little note of it. It was rumored, according to my father, that they

cultivated holiness in their mountains, and in their contemplation could not be concerned with the

realities and evils of the outside

and unimportant world. They were, so to speak, absentee divinities, existent but remote, not to be

bothered with the fears and turmoil of the mortals beyond their mountains. This conjecture, the

seeking of holiness, however, seemed to me to fit not well with the sickening fate apparently

awaiting those who attempted the mountains. I found it difficult to conceive of one of those

.theoretical saints rousing himself from contemplation to hurl the scraps of interlopers to the

plains below.

"There is at least one area, however," said my father, .

"in which the Priest-Kings do take a most active interest

in this world, and that is the area of technology. They

limit, selectively, the technology available to us, the Men

Below the Mountains. For example, incredibly enough,

weapon technology is controlled to the point where the

most powerful devices of war are the crossbow and

lance. Further, there is no mechanized transportation

or communication equipment or detection devices such as

the radar and sonar equipment so much in evidence in

the military establishments of your world. -

"On the other hand," he said, "you will learn that in

lighting, shelter, agricultural techniques, and medicine,

for example, the Mortals, or the Men Below the Mountains, are relatively advanced." He

looked at me

amused, I think. "You wonder," he said, "why the numerous, rather obvious deficits in our

technology have not

been repaired-in spite of the Priest-Kings. It crosses

your mind that there must exist minds on this world

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Norman, John - Gor 01- Tarnsman of Gor

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