Mariners of Gor

We were not sure, now, of the position of the great structure, or even if it were moving.

He called for no further stroke.

Then we heard the cry of a Vosk gull. These are large, broad-winged birds, which occasionally fish three and four hundred pasangs from the delta. Smaller gulls nest on the cliffs of both Tyros and Cos.

We did not see the bird.

It was then again quiet, save for the soft sound of water against the hull.

There was then another cry, but it was not the cry of the Vosk gull. It was a wild, shrill, ringing scream, unmistakable.

“That is a tarn!” cried a man.

“Impossible,” said the captain.

Even with the fog we could not be so far off our course, or so confused. The tarn, you see, is a land bird, a hook-beaked, vast-winged, gigantic, crested, dreaded, fearsome monster of the skies. Its talons can clasp a kaiila and carry it aloft, to drop it to its death, thence to land and feed on the meat. Its most common prey is the delicate, flocking, single-horned tabuk. A single wrench of that mighty beak could tear the arm from a man. The tarn, you see, never flies from the sight of land. It could not be the cry of a tarn.

Then, again, we heard that shrill scream, as though at dawn, as it might announce itself to the sun, Tor-tu-Gor, as it might inform the world of the privacy and sanctity of its nesting site, as it might warn even larls away from its surveyed domain.

The tarn, it is said, is the Ubar of the sky.

So astonishing then that men, so tiny beside its bulk, might saddle and use such monsters as mounts! Such men are called tarnsmen.

“Back oars! Back oars!” cried the second officer, standing wildly at the port rail.

“Back oars!” screamed the captain.

We seized the oars but it was useless. There was no time, no time to even lift the blades from the water.

Emerging from the fog, literally upon us, suddenly visible, was the vast bulk of the great ship.

There was a wrenching of wood and the cries of men, and the stem and stern of the long ship began to rise out of the water, and the planking amidships, shattering, pressed down, sank into the sea, and then the stem, I clinging to it, collapsed back into the water, and doubtless, on the other side, for I could not see, given the obscuring passing of the vast, intrusive bulk, the stern did as well, and Thassa burst up, flooding the thwarts, and then the deck. I stood in a foot or two of cold, swirling water. My station was forward, and I suddenly, unwillingly, realized that I was now clinging to what was only a part of the ship, a recognition I somehow frenziedly fought against acknowledging, not wanting to see it, or understand it, that she had been snapped in two. As the monstrous bow of the great structure continued on its way, placidly, like a force of nature, the remains of the long ship were swept aside. I had heard, above the cries and the breaking wood, from the other side of the passing hull, the sudden ringing of springal boards speeding javelins, doubtless ignited, into the enemy. We were fighting back. But I heard them only once. The decks were awash. Clinging to a remnant of the bulwarks, half in water, I saw the hull of the monster towering above me, fifty feet or more, like a several-storied building of wood, a moving insula, wet and glistening, moving. This was some five times the height of a large round ship. In all the world no such a thing had been seen.

Surely this was no human thing, but a creation of the gods of Gor, of the Priest-Kings themselves.

How absurd to have fired flaming javelins at such a vessel. Might that not displease the Priest-Kings, the gods and masters of Gor?

I blinked my eyes, fiercely, to rid them of water. I shook my head, to get my sopped hair behind me. It was cold, clinging to the bit of wreckage. I saw no one about me. I called out, but was not answered.

Then I thought, “No, the Priest-Kings would not build such mortal frames, and, if so, not of wood. Stories had it that they rode within ships, but strange ships, round, flat ships, like disks, disks of metal, which moved like clouds, swift as thought, in silence. Some claimed to have seen them over the palisade of the Sardar. But such stories must be false, as they were denied by Initiates, the white caste, highest and worthiest of all the castes, as they were intermediaries between Priest-Kings and mortals. How wise they were, and how powerful they were, how sacrosanct and holy they were, to have the ear of Priest-Kings, to have at their disposal the prayers, the spells, the rituals, the devotions, and sacrifices by means of which Priest-Kings might be swayed, by means of which their favor might be garnered. It was no wonder that that they were consulted by Ubars bearing baskets of gold, and simple Peasants, with a handful of suls. They were celebrated by cities and villages. They were petitioned by Merchants embarking on bold, uncertain ventures, by gamblers with an interest in the summer tharlarion races. Assassins sought their blessing. Some of the loveliest buildings on Gor were their temples. They lived well. They were frauds, laden with corruption.

I thought I heard the oars of a galley, a light galley, not much different from the patrol ship.

It must be a long ship of Tyros, come early to our rendezvous!

“Ho!” I cried.

“Ho!” I heard, in return, to my elation, some yards away, through the fog.

“Here, here!” I cried. “I am here! Hurry!”

I spat out water, and shook my head. My eyes stung from the water. Water swept over the wreckage, and then drained from it, again and again. I was often immersed. My hands slipped on the bit of railing I held. With my teeth I pulled off the heavy, water-filled oar gloves. Within them my fingers seemed frozen. I thrust the fingers of one hand into my mouth, and then those of my other hand, for a modicum of warmth. It was late in the season, and the waters were cold, and I knew not how long I or another, in the sweep and washing of the water, might be able to cling to so negligible a support. I dug my fingers into the ornate external carving on the wreckage. I was half in the water, half out of the water, on the wet, washed, sloping surface.

“Here, here!” I cried. “I am here!”

I heard some oars being indrawn, through the thole ports.

The sound was close!

“Call out,” I heard. “Call out!”

“Here, here!” I cried. The voice I had heard had clearly the accents of Tyros, or Cos, which accents are much the same, many times even indistinguishable.

Then, the fog parting, momentarily, I saw, looming above me, passing, a large, painted eye, black on yellow, that behind the small galley’s downward sloping, concave prow, such eyes that she may guard herself and see her way, for as those who follow the sea are well aware, the ship is a living thing, and without eyes how might she see? Without eyes how might she guard herself or hers, how find her way? She is not an object, but a fellow, a colleague, a friend, a companion, a lover, one with whom one shares an endeavor or an adventure, one to whom one entrusts oneself. She stands between you and the deep, cold waters of Thassa. She will not lie to you, or betray you. She will not cheat you or steal from you. She will never forsake you for another. She speaks to you in the creaking of her timbers, in the snapping of her sails, and the cracking of her lines.

Her hull was low in the water, and blue.

“Ho!” I called.

Blue is the common color of Cos.

Odd that a Cosian long ship, another Cosian long ship, would be in these waters. The ship, reassuringly, was not green, for pirates often paint their ships green, that they be the less seen on mighty, rolling Thassa. Many of the vessels of Port Kar, that den of thieves and cutthroats, that scourge of Thassa, were green, almost invisible, under oars, low in the water, the mast down.

“I see you!” called a voice.

Yes, clearly the accent was reassuring!

The galley back-oared on the port side. Her starboard oars were mostly indrawn, or still. The stroke of one of those levers can kill a man.

The hull of the galley was within two or three yards, and a wharfing pole thrust over the bulwarks, toward me. The common galley usually carries three wharfing poles, for pushing away from a wharf, until oars can obtain their purchase. One is usually used at the bow, the second amidships, the last at the stern. They are also used to adjust wharfage, until the lines are snug to the wharf cleats. In battle they help to prevent boardings, keeping another ship at bay until grappling hooks might be dislodged. I seized the pole and pulled myself to an unsteady