Vagabonds of Gor

Indeed perhaps the men, scattered about, here and there, miserable on the bar, thought the flies had gone.

I had, however, from the rence, seen the clouds once more approaching from the west, even vaster, even darker. The first wave is never the most dense, the most terrible. The center waves, seemingly obedient to some statistical imperative, enjoyed that distinction. The final waves, of course, are smaller, and more fitful. Rencers sometimes even leave their huts during the final waves, racing overhead like scattered clouds.

As soon as I had seen the first edge of the new darkness, those new clouds, like a black rising moon, emerge on the horizon, over the rence, to the west, I had taken the rence tube, already prepared, and returned to the vicinity of the men of Ar. None here, on the bar, it seemed, was yet aware of the new clouds, rising in the west.

That was better for me.

Let the new storm come upon them like lightning, like a torrent of agony.

"Ho!" cried a man on the bar, in misery. "Listen! Listen!"

"Aiii!" cried more than one man.

I saw with satisfaction the men of Ar take what shelter they could, digging into the sand, pulling blankets about them, covering themselves with rence, wrapping cloths about their head and eyes, burying their head in their arms, doing whatever they could do to prepare themselves for the imminent arrival of their numerous small guests, the temporary masters of the delta of the Vosk.

At such a time I thought a larl might tread u

"Ai!" cried a man, stung by what was, in effect, no more than one of the harbingers or precursors of the cloud. It is a bit like a rain, I thought, the first drops, then more, then torrents, perhaps for a long time, then eventually the easing, the letting up, then the last drops, then, somehow, eventually, what one had almost ceased to hope for, the clearing. To be sure it comes horizontally, and is dry, and black, and some of the «drops» linger, crawling about.

In a matter of moments the air began to be laced with movement. This movement was sudden and swift, almost blurring. Yet there was no great density in it. It was as though these small, furious flying forms sped through transparent tu

Men of Ar cried out in misery. Many lay flat, covering their head with their hands.

I dipped my head briefly under the water, to wash flies from my face. Most of the flies that alight on one do not, of course, sting. If they did, I suppose, given the cumulative effect of so much venom, so much toxin, one might be dead in a matter of Ehn.

Then, suddenly it seemed the very air was filled with swiftly moving bodies, pelting, striking even into one another. I then swiftly, ru

"I do not have it!" he said.

"Do not lie!" I said to him, savagely. I almost moved the blade into his throat. I had not come this far to be disappointed.

"I do not have it," he wept.

For an instant then I became aware of the flies about. They were thick. I must be covered with them. I had been stung, I think, but in the intensity of my emotion, and given my concentration on my quest, I was not even sure of it.

"Who has it? Where is it?" I asked.

"Do not kill me!" he said.

"Where is the key?" I said.

"Plenius would know!" he said.

"We are going to call on him," I said. Plenius was the name of the fellow who had been my keeper.

"Rise to your knees, slowly," I said. I then, crouching behind him, slipped the linkage of the manacles about his neck, that he might be kept where I wished, also returning the blade to his throat. "Place your hands and forearms now within your tunic belt." I said, "Good." He looked down once at the sword in its sheath, lying to the side, where it had slipped, the sword belt earlier severed, when he had risen to his knees. "Now," I whispered to him, "let us find our friend, Plenius."

In a moment or two, he on his knees, I moving behind him, we had come to a figure huddled in a blanket.

"Call to him, softly," I said.

"Plenius!" he called. "Plenius!"

Angrily Plenius pulled aside the blanket, a little. Then, despite the flies, he threw it back from him. His hand went to his sword but my mien and the movement of the knife at my prisoner's throat gave him pause. The face of Plenius was a mass of swellings. One eye was swollen shut I could still see the mark on the side of his forehead where, earlier, I had struck him with the bow of the yoke.

"The key to the manacles," I said.

He stood up, kicking away the blanket.

Flies were much about. At times I could not see him clearly for their numbers.

"The key," I said.

The buzzing of the flies was monstrous.

I saw his hand, almost inadvertently, go to his tunic. He had it then, I supposed, within his tunic, about his neck. His one open eye gleamed wildly.

"I thought you might come back," he said.

"Speak softly," I said, the dagger at my prisoner's throat.

He pulled the key, on its string, out of the tunic. "It is for that reason," he said, "that I have myself kept the key, that you would have to come to me for it!"

"This fellow had it earlier, did he not?" I inquired.

"Yes," he said.

This pleased me, that I had not been mistaken about the matter.

"If you want it," he said, "you must get it from me."

"I should have realized that you would take it back," I said, "that you would accept its responsibility, the risk that I might return for it."

"I wanted you to come to me for it," he said.

"You have now received your wish," I said.