Tribesmen of Gor

“We shall stop here,” said Hassan, reining in before an i

“Stand, Slave,” he said to her.

“Yes, Master.” she said.

He took one of the water bags, which was still full, which held some twenty gallons of water.

“Carry this burden, Slave,” he said.

“Yes. Master,” she said.

He threw it over her shoulders. She gasped. She bent forward, her hands steadying the bag. It was heavy for the slight beauty. She almost lost her balance. If she dropped it, she would be much beaten.

The men then gathered their saddles, their weapons, the other water and goods, and their belongings. Alyena waited for us, bent, face strained, bearing across her small shoulders the weight of the water.

Each man carried his own saddle. Saddles are prized on the Tahari and each man cares for his own, and sees to its safety. Among nomads they are brought into the tent each night, and placed on the right side of the tent, at the back.

The water which we had brought with us would not now be wasted but, by Tahari custom, emptied into the cistern of the i

Hassan then, carrying his saddle and other belongings, went into the i

“Here, Slave,” said one of the i

He handled her head and hair with a rough gentleness, sometimes ru

“Have you heard aught of a tower of steel?” Hassan was asking the master of the i

None, it seemed, at Red Rock had either seen, or heard, of so strange an architectural oddity as a tower of steel in the desert.

This was irritating to Hassan, and did not much please me either, for the oasis of the Battle of Red Rock was the last of the major oases of the Tahari for more than two thousand pasangs eastward; it lay, in effect, on the borders of the dreaded dune country; there are oases in the dune country but they are small and infrequent, and often lie more than two hundred pasangs apart; in the sands they are not always easy to find: among the dunes one can, unknowingly, pass within ten pasangs of an oasis, missing it entirely. Little but salt caravans ply the dune country. Caravans with goods tend to travel the western. Or distant eastern edge of the Tahari; caravans do, it might be mentioned, occasionally travel from Tor or Kasra to Turmas, a Turian outpost and kasbah, in the southeastern edge of the Tahari, but even these commonly avoid the dune country, either moving south, then east, or east, then south, skirting the sands. Few men, without good reason, enter the dune country.

I had little doubt, nor did Hassan, that it was within the dune country that lay the steel tower, if there was indeed such an unusual edifice.

It seemed reasonably clear that if such were not the case someone, nomad or merchant, or i

But such a tower might exist in the dune country for ten thousand years, remote and undiscovered.

The Others, the Kurii, had stopped slave runs from Earth to Gor. “Surrender Gor,” had been the ultimatum delivered to the Sardar. A Kur, alone, had been apprehended, apparently on his way to the dune country. A message had been inscribed on a rock: Beware the steel tower. And a message girl had been brought to Samos, of Port Kar. Her message, revealed in the shaving of her bead, had been “Beware Abdul.” Only that portion of the mystery seemed well solved. Abdul had been the lowly water carrier in Tor, a minor agent, presumably of Others, the Kurii, who had wished to keep me from the Tahari. That part of the mystery only had I now well solved. Still, however, I did not know who had sent the message. I wondered on the Kur, which had entered, invisible, my cell at Nine Wells. He had been much wounded. He had not killed me. Ihn Saran had told me the beast had been slain. There was much, yet, which I did not understand.

“We shall leave in the morning,” said Hassan to me, stretching. “None here seem to know of a steel tower.”

Indeed, to my surprise, word of the attack, putatively by Aretai, on the Bakah oasis of Two Scimitars, of some days ago, had not yet seemed to reach Red Rock.

None here spoke of it. Had they known of the raid it would, surely, have been the topic of pervasive converse in the oasis. It seemed to me clear that none here, at least of the common population, knew of it. Had it truly been by Aretai I had no doubt but what the oasis would be preparing itself, even now, for Kavar reprisals. It was not odd, of course-, for Red Rock not to have yet heard of the attack. It was explained so simply as by no man yet having brought them the news. No one had yet journeyed to them, who knew of the attack, or knew of it and would tell them. Since Red Rock was an oasis under the governance of the Tashid, a vassal tribe of Aretai, of course, no Bakah, or other member of the Kavar confederation, would be likely, particularly in such times, to drop in and, in friendly fashion, convey this intelligence to them. Indeed, they would tend to avoid Aretai and Aretai-dominant oases, at least until they could come in force, paying the respects of the Tahari with steel.

“I am weary,” said Hassan. “I shall retire.” Already he had sent Alyena up to his room. His men, too, were lodged on the second floor.

Hassan looked about himself. “What is the hour?” asked Hassan.

One of the i

“Are masters well content in my house?” asked the i

“Yes,” said Hassan. Then Hassan said, “Soldiers are returning.”

I listened carefully I had not noticed the sound. Hassan’s fingers, on the table, had caught the subtle vibration.

I could now hear the drumming of galloping kaiila.

“No soldiers, are out,” said the i

Hassan leaned to his feet, throwing over the table. In a bound he had fled upstairs.

“Do not go to the window,” I cried.

But already the i