mountains.
It became possible to breathe without pain.
Later, a light rain had begun to fall, for the first time in several days. This, I take it, may have been a result of the stifling, burning air ascending to the high, cold sky, familiar to jacketed tarnsmen, where, condensing, it fell as a soft, washing rain. Had we not been on the ship, I feared we might not have escaped death. Fixed in place, there would have been little to do but die.
I no longer saw the slave, but I knew that she had survived. Originally, I feared she might have drowned, her arms locked, desperately, frozen, about the storm rope, but, later, the ship righted and emergent, though cruelly pitching, I had seen her move, trembling, struggling to clutch the rope even more tightly. And later, as the ship had sought to effect its escape, I had seen her react, stung by the falling, fiery cinders. As she was no longer in view, she would have been conducted, or sent, below. Her body had been blackened in the soot and ash. I had seen her scratch cinders from her hair, slap frenziedly at the left side of her tiny tunic, where the material had caught fire. Then she had clung ever more tightly to the soaked, heavy rope. There would doubtless be marks on her body from it. I suspected that her hands and arms would have to have been pried from it.
So the slave had survived.
Excellent.
You must understand, of course, that there was nothing personal in this, nothing on the score of which I need castigate myself.
Surely one might be similarly pleased, and even legitimately so, at the survival of any other animal, as well, say, a verr or kaiila. The slave, as the verr or kaiila, and other such animals, has value. For example, she may, at one’s pleasure, be sold.
Understand, clearly, that she meant nothing to me.
There was nothing personal in my feelings.
My concern was purely on behalf of the ship.
One does not care for a slave.
That is absurd.
She is not a free woman.
She is a slave.
Her purpose is to be mastered, totally, to be worked, commonly in the performance of repetitious, servile tasks, and to satisfy, obediently and unquestioningly, and helplessly, the lowest, most bestial, and carnal of her master’s appetites. The free woman may be conducted to public readings and song dramas; the slave is to be at the foot of her master’s couch, chained to his slave ring.
Of what value is a woman to a man if she lacks slave skills?
Even a brilliant woman, witty and articulate, learned, of the high Scribes, collared, her blue robes exchanged for a rag, must apply herself to new studies, the use of her lips and tongue, of her small fingers and glossy hair. Aside from homely tasks, she will be taught cosmetics and ornamentation. To the snap of a whip she will learn slave dance. If the master is cruel, earrings may be fastened in her ears. On the high bridges she will feel wind on her legs and arms, and in her hair, and on her unveiled features, on which men may look with impunity.
She is now a slave.
She belongs to her master.
Collared, she is freer now than she would have ever dreamed possible.
She hopes to prove a suitable slave to him, attentive, humble, grateful, zealous, and skilled.
Her errands done, she hurries to his quarters, to kneel before him.
Many men had now come to the deck, which swarmed with mariners and armsmen. I saw even Lord Okimoto.
About us were several of the fire mountains, less fearful now. We threaded our way amongst them with care.
The storm ropes were loosened and coiled, to be stowed below decks. The hatches, as the sky was clear, remained open. I did not understand it at the time, but the “ridge” had been passed. We were leaving the Raging Sea, the Sea of Fire.
I wondered why the slave, earlier, had not accompanied her collar sisters below, but had lingered on deck. Surely she knew she was risking a switching.
I trusted that she had been sent to the washing tubs, that her hair and body, and tunic, might be cleaned, and that physicians had tended to her burns.
Perhaps, by now, she was back in the Kasra keeping area, on her chain, run to its ring by her mat.
Though the hatches and portals had been sealed, I supposed that the great ship would have shipped some water. As I had heard no call for the pumps, I supposed it was negligible, and confined to the holds, where men might wade, and soon hand buckets from one to the other.
I saw Tersites on the stem-castle deck.
I thought him likely to be satisfied with the great ship.
She had come through the Raging Sea, the Sea of Fire.
I wondered if the slave, below, once cleaned, and salved, had been beaten. She had not accompanied her collar sisters back below decks. Her hair and body had been covered with soot and ash, her skin had been pelted with dust and scalding cinders, her tunic had been partly burned. Yes, I thought, she would doubtless have been switched. A slave is expected to care for herself, to keep herself clean, well groomed, and attractive, as she is her master’s property.
The great hatch was rolled back. I gathered that tarns would be exercised. I also saw, for the first time, at the side of Tarl Cabot, as men drew back in fear, a large sleen, which dragged its left, hind foot. I had heard the animal a number of times before, but I had never seen it until now. Heeling Cabot, behind the lame sleen, was his barbarian slave, Cecily. She was attractive. I did not doubt but what she would bring good coin off the block. I wondered if the barbarian lands might not be rich with such women, ripe for bringing to the markets of Gor. By the morrow, I hoped that the
I scanned the horizon, that line below the sky, with the glass. Thousands of times I, and others, had done so.
How eager we were to see tiny irregularities in the distance, initially almost undiscernible, perhaps tiny, beckoning flecks of green or brown.
Sometimes, interestingly, particularly after long at sea, one sees such things when they are not there. It is well then to hold back, until one is sure, until matters are clear, at least to the glass. More than one watch had been flogged for crying out the sight of land, stirring crews, rousing jubilation, where there was no land.
It suddenly occurred to me that we must be at least two or three days from land, else the tarns, the concealment of whose existence seemed a matter of such moment to Lords Nishida and Okimoto, would remain concealed. To be sure, perhaps we were months from land. I doubted that, however, if only because of the fire mountains. Might not such cataclysmic births herald a world or worlds similarly formed? Perhaps, I suspected, we were not far from the World’s End, the Homeland of the Pani.
I sensed pressure on the ratlines to my right.
It was Leros.
“Tal,” he said, looking about, clinging to the ratlines. The sight was indeed impressive.
“Tal,” I said. “The jard flies swiftly.”
“To where feasting may be found,” he said.
He joined me at the platform and ring. “I will linger a moment,” I said. I looked about. I had never before seen the formation of islands.
Chapter Twenty
