I smiled and took the piece of rence paper. I glanced at it and then I smiled no longer. I could read it, of course. It was of.

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so in Gorean script, moving from left to right, and then from right to left on alternate lines. The writing was quite legible.

It was written in black ink, probably with a reed pen. This again suggested the delta of the Vosk.

"What does it say?" asked Kutaituchik.

The message was simple, consisting of only three lines.

I read them aloud.

NOMADS OF FOR.

Find the man to whom this girl can speak.

He is Tart Cabot.

Slay him.

"And who has signed this message?" asked Kutaituchik.

I hesitated to read the signature.

"Wells" asked Kutaituchik.

"It is signed," I said, "Priest-Kings of Gor."

Kutaituchik smiled. "You read Gorean well," he said.

- I understood then that both men could read, though per- haps many of the Tuchuks could not. It had been a test.

Kamchak grinned at Kutaituchik, the scarring on his face wrinkling with pleasure. "He has held gra.s.s and earth with me," he said.

"Ah!" said Kutaituchik. "I did not know."

My mind was whirling. Now I understood, as I had only suspected before, why an English-speaking girl was neces- sary to bear the collar, that she might be the device whereby I would be singled out from the hundreds and thousands among the wagons, and so be marked for death.

But I could not understand why Priest-Kings should wish me slain. Was I not engaged, in a sense, in their work? Had I not come to the Wagon Peoples on their behalf, to search for the doubtless golden sphere that was the last egg of Priest- Kings, the final hope of their race?

l Now they wished me to die.

It did not seem possible.

I prepared to fight for my life, selling it as dearly as possible on the dais of Kutaituchik, called Ubar of the Tuchuks, for what Gorean would dare reject the command of Priest-Kings? I stood up, unsheathing my sword.

One or two of the men-at-arms immediately drew the quiver A small smile touched the broad face of Kutiatuchik.

"Put your sword away and sit down," said Kamchak.

Dumbfounded, I did so.

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LA "J~.

51.

"It is," said Kamchak, "obviously not a message of Priest- Kings."

"Now do you know?" I asked.

The scarred face wrinkled again and Kamchak rocked back and slapped his knees. He laughed, "Do you think Priest-Kings, if they wished you dead, would ask others to do this for them?" He pointed at the opened collar lying before him on the rug. "Do you think Priest-Kings would use a Turian message collar?" He pointed his broad finger at Bliza- beth Cardwell. "Do you think Priest-Kings would need a girl to find you?" Kamchak threw back his head and laughed loudly, and even Kutaituchik smiled. "No," said Kamchak, slapping his knee, "Priest-Kings do not need Tuchuks to do their killing!"

What Kamchak had said then seemed to make a great deal of sense to me. Yet it seemed strange that anyone, no matter whom, would dare to use the name of Priest-Kings falsely. Who, or what, could dare such a thing? Besides, how did I know that the message was not from Priest-Kings? I knew, as Kamchak and Kutaituchik did not, of the recent Nest War beneath the Sardar, and of the disruption in the technological complexes of the Nest who knew to what primitive devices Priest-Kings might now find themselves reduced Yet, on the whole, I tended to agree with Kamchak, that it was not likely the message came from Priest-Kings. It had been, after all, months since the Nest War and surely, by now, to some extent, Priest-Kings would have managed to restore-significant portions of the equip- ment, devices of surveillance and control, by means of which they had, for such long millennia, managed to maintain their mastery of this barbarian sphere. Besides this, as far as I knew, Misk, who was my friend and between whom and myself there was Nest Trust, was still the highest born of the living Priest-Kings and the final authority in matters of im- portance in the Nest; I knew that Misk, if no other, would not have wished my death. And finally, I reminded myself again, was I not now engaged in their work? Was I not now attempting to be of service to them? Was I not now among the Wagon Peoples, in peril perhaps, on their behalf?

But, I asked myself, if this message was not from Priest- Kings, from whom could it be? Who would dare this? And who but Priest-Kings would know that I was among the Wagon Peoples? But yet I told myself someone, or some- thing must know others, not Priest-Kings. There must be others, who did not wish me to succeed in my work, Alto wished Priest-Kings, the race, to die, others who were !

capable even of bringing humans from Earth for their pur- !

poses technologically advanced others who were, perhaps, I cautiously, invisibly, at war with Priest-Kings who perhaps wished as prize this world, or perhaps this world and Earth as well, our sun and its planets others, who perhaps stood on the margins of our system, waiting perhaps for the demise of the power of Priest-Kings, perhaps the shield which unknown to men, had protected them perhaps frown the time of the first grasping of stones, from the time even before an intelligent, prehensile animal could build fires in the mouth of its lair.

But these speculations were too fantastic, and I dismissed them.

There was remaining, however, a mystery, and I was deter- mined to resolve it.

The answer possibly lay in Turia.

In the meantime I would, of course, continue my work. I would try, for Misk, to find the egg, and return it to the Sardar. I suspected, truly as it turned out, that the mystery and my mission were not utterly unconnected.

"what," I asked Kamchak, "would you do if you thought the message were truly from Priest-Kings?"

"Nothing," said Kamchak, gravely.

"You would risk," I asked, "the herds the wagons the peoples?" Both Kamchak and I knew that Priest-Kings were not lightly to be disobeyed. Their vengeance could extend to the total and complete annihilation of cities. Indeed their power, as I knew, was sufficient to destroy planets.

"Yes," said Kamchak.

"Why?" I asked.

He looked at me and smiled. "Because," said he, "we have together held gra.s.s and earth."

Kutaituchik, Karnchak and I then regarded Elizabeth Cardwell.

I knew that, as far as the interrogation was concerned, she had served her purpose. There was nothing more to be learned from her. She, too, must have sensed this, for she seemed, though she did not move, terribly frightened. Her fear could be read in her eyes, in the slight, tremulous movement of her lower lip. In the affairs of state she was now without value. Then uncontrollably, piteously, suddenly, trembling in the Sirik, she put her head down to the pelt of the larl. "Please," she said, "do not kill me."

I translated for Kamchak and Kutaituchik.

Kutaituchik addressed the question to her.

"Are you zealous to please the fancy of Tuchuks?"

I translated.

With horror Elizabeth Cardwell lifted her head from the pelt and regarded her captors. She shook her head, wildly, "No, please no!"

"Impale her," said Kutaituchik.

Two warriors rushed forward and seized the girl under the arms, lifting her from the pelt.

"What are they going to do?" she cried.

"They intend to impale you," I told her.

She began to scream. "Please, please, please!"

My hand was on the hilt of my sword, but Kamchak's hand rested on mine.

Kamchak turned to Kutaituchik. "She seems zealous," he said.

Once again Kutaituchik addressed his question to her, and I translated it.

"Are you zealous to please the fancy of Tuchuks?"

The men who held the girl allowed her to fall to her knees between them. "Yes," she said, piteously, "yes!"

Kutaituchik, Kamchak and I regarded her.

"Yes," she wept, her head to the rug, "I am zealous to please the fancy of Tuchuks."

I translated for Kutaituchik and Kamchak.

"Ask," demanded Kutaituchik, "if she begs to be a slave girl."

I translated the question.

"Yes," wept Elizabeth Cardwell, "yes I beg to be a slave Perhaps in that moment Elizabeth Cardwell recalled the strange man, so fearsome, gray of face with eyes like gla.s.s, who had SO examined her on Earth, before whom she had stood as though on a block, unknowingly being examined for her fitness to bear the message collar of Turia. How she had challenged him, how she had walked, how insolent she had been Perhaps in that moment she thought how amused the man might be could he see her now, that proud girl, now in the Sirik, her head to the pelt of a larl, kneeling to barbari- ans, begging to be a slave girl; and if she thought of these things how she must have then cried out in her heart, for she would have then recognized that the man would have known full well what lay in store for her; how he must have laughed within himself at her petty show of female pride, her vanity, knowing it was this for which the lovely brown-haired girl in the yellow shift was destined.

"I grant her wish," said Kutaituchik. Then to a warrior nearby, he said, "Bring meat."

The warrior leapt from the dais and, in a few moments, returned with a handful of roasted bosk meat.

Kutaituchik gestured for the girl, trembling, to be brought forward, and the two warriors brought her to him, placing her directly before him.

He took the meat in his hand and gave it to Kamchak, who bit into it, a bit of juice running at the side of his mouth; Kamchak then held the meat to the girl.

"Nat," I told her.

Elizabeth Cardwell took the meat in her two hands, confined before her by slave bracelets and the chain of the Sirik, and, bending her head, the hair falling forward, ate it.

She, a slave, had accepted meat from the hand of Kamchak of the Tuchuks.

She belonged to him now.

'La Kajira," she said, putting her head down, then cover- ing her face with her manacled hands, weeping. "La Kajira.

La Kajiral"

If I had hoped for an easy answer to the riddles which concerned me, or a swift end to my search for the egg of Priest-Kings, I was disappointed, for I learned nothing of either for months.

I had hoped to go to Turia, there to seek the answer to the mystery of the message collar, but it was not to be, at least until the spring.

"It is the Omen Year," had said Kamchak of the Tuchuks.

The herds would circle Turia, for this was the portion of the Omen Year called the Pa.s.sing of Turia, in which the Wagon Peoples gather and begin to move toward their winter pastures; the second portion of the Omen Year is the Winter- ing, which takes place far north of Turia, the equator being approached in this hemisphere, of course, from the south; the third and final portion of the Omen Year is the Return to Turia, which takes place in the spring, or as the Wagon Peoples have it, in the Season of Little Gra.s.s. It is in the spring that the omens are taken, regarding the possible elec- tion of the Ubar San, the One Ubar, he who would be Ubar of all the Wagons, of all the Peoples.

I did manage, however, from the back of the kailla, which I learned to ride, to catch a glimpse of distant, high-walled, nine-gated Turia.

It seemed a lofty, fine city, white and shimmering, rising "Be patient, Tart Cabot," said Kamchak, beside me on his

55.

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