their instrumentalities?
I wondered what kaissa was being played, and who were the gamesmen. I did have some sense of the pieces.
“This is a skirmish,” said Lord Nishida. “The war is elsewhere.”
“Where?” I asked.
“I trust,” he said, “you will learn.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “I might be now enlightened.”
“I think not, at present,” he said.
“I think,” I said, “I have served sufficiently.”
“Alas,” said he, “we cannot permit our friends, now so informed, to withdraw from our service.”
“Do you think you can stop me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “but I would greatly regret having to do so.”
“What is your war,” I asked. “Where is it to be fought?”
“The war,” he said, “is far away, and its nature you may learn.”
“It has to do with a far shore?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “I see that you are interested.”
“I choose my wars with care,” I said.
“One does not always have that option,” said Lord Nishida.
“Allegiances, dynasties?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Men such as you,” I said to Lord Nishida, “are rare in what we sometimes think of as ‘known Gor’.”
“So?” he said.
“How came you here?” I asked.
Surely they had not come to these shores by such a ship or ships. How, then, had they come? And why, then, could they not return as they had come?
A cloud seemed to move in the narrow eyes of Lord Nishida.
I suddenly realized, with a start, that he might know as little of this as I.
“I think,” said Lord Nishida, “that a wager is involved, or perhaps a contest of sorts, amongst spirits, powerful beings.”
“How so?” I said.
“There were battles, several,” said Lord Nishida. “Losses were heavy. Lands were lost. The camps were crowded with the wounded and starving. Our forces were divided. We were pushed to the shore. Our world reeled.”
“You are here,” I said.
“A straight-eyed, raving man, a barbarian, such as yourself, was washed upon our shore, while we awaited our doom. He spoke of a world we did not know, of strange ships, and great birds.”
“Tersites?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“You were on Cos, or Tyros, or one of the Farther Islands?” I said.
“No,” he said. “No.”
How, I wondered, might the mad, half-blind shipwright, Tersites, have found himself on a remote shore.
He had been brought there.
“How is it that you speak Gorean?” I asked.
“Strange men, dour men with shaven heads and white robes, appeared amongst our ancestors, mysteriously so, long ago, very long ago, claiming to speak for the gods.”
“Initiates,” I said.
I supposed some might have been placed amongst the Pani by Priest-Kings. Apparently the Priest-Kings wanted there to be at least one commonly spoken language on Gor, by means of which they could communicate with at least a majority of Gorean human beings. Perhaps they thought that that would lead to harmony, peace, and understanding. It had not. Amongst themselves the Priest-Kings communicated by scent. On the rare occasions when they dealt with human beings directly, translators were utilized.
“We must learn their language or be destroyed,” said Lord Nishida. “Some recalcitrants and zealots were consumed by fire, streaming from the sky.”
That would be the Flame Death. It was commonly used for enforcing the technology laws, and, doubtless, could serve other purposes, as well.
“So Gorean was learned?” I said.
“Who disputes the will of the gods?” asked Lord Nishida.
“Who, indeed?” I said.
“Other things were brought, as well,” said Lord Nishida, “recipes, seeds, serums, and such.”
Normally such gifts would be received through cultural diffusion, through trade, and such. I gathered that this was impractical in the case of the Pani.
“But these strange men,” said Lord Nishida, “attempted to rule us.”
“I see,” I said.
“They were crucified,” said Lord Nishida.
“There were no retaliations from the sky?” I said.
“No,” said Lord Nishida.
Their purposes served, it seems the Priest-Kings had no further need of their missionaries, so to speak.
“What of Tersites, and your fate?” I pressed.
“It was the night before the final battle,” said Lord Nishida, “when we were to be swept into the sea.”
“Yes?” I said.
“A great darkness came suddenly over the moons, watch fires mysteriously ceased to burn, guards struggled to remain awake at their posts, we fought, crying out, and beating on drums, and blowing trumpets, to rouse ourselves, to stay awake, but we were overcome, and in Ehn we lay down to die.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“We awakened in many places, on the shores of what you have spoken of as ‘known Gor’, though, I assure you, it was not known to us. I myself awakened in the vicinity of what I learned was Brundisium.”
“I know it,” I said. It was a major port. Indeed, it had been used as the port of entry for the invasion forces of Cos and Tyros, bound for Ar.
“We encountered, and were dealt with,” said Lord Nishida, “by many Goreans, prepared to welcome and direct us. Too, these barbarians had at their disposal considerable wealth, abetting that which had been sent with us from our home, not only from our camp, but apparently from elsewhere, as well, perhaps even from the stores of our enemies. In any event, when our foes attacked in the morning they would find an empty camp, picked clean as though by centuries of looters. Doubtless they were much displeased, at the loss of gain, and perhaps the mysterious loss of much of their own wealth, as well. Their anger would not be lightly dissipated.”
Lord Nishida shuddered, and I did not inquire the cause of his concern. It had to do, doubtless, with those left behind, not in the camp, not at the edge of the sea, but others, for whom they had fought, perhaps hundreds of vulnerable thousands of others, townsmen, retainers, peasants and such, in undefended districts, then perhaps at the undisputed mercy of some disappointed, vindictive foe.
“I understand little of this,” I said.
“I fear,” said Lord Nishida, “it is a game, which we are to resolve on another’s board.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“The gods wager,” he said. “Doubtless they have their sport, their interest in which drop of water will be first to reach a sill, which insect will be the first to cross a line.”
My blood seemed for a moment to turn cold.
I then began to suspect that it was not in the toils of Priest-Kings that we labored, or in those of Kurii, to achieve their ends. It was our own game, in its way, but one on which more powerful beings, Priest-Kings or Kurii, in a moment of recreation, or perhaps truce, had seen fit to wager.
“This is madness,” I said. “It cannot be.”
“Much has been prepared,” said Lord Nishida, quietly.
