“Nine, not counting Trachinos and Akesinos,” said Astrinax.
“Your information is detailed,” said Desmond.
“It is apparently easily gathered by an informant with excellent night vision and unusual hearing,” said Astrinax. “Too, apparently the outlaws cooked and kept an animal fire.”
“We cannot well defend ourselves against eleven men,” said Desmond.
“I do not think it will be necessary to do so,” said Astrinax.
“I do not understand,” said Desmond.
“The outlaws will live as long as they pose no threat,” said Astrinax. “It will be in their best interest to abandon their plan. Once they prepare to attack, I fear it will be too late for them.”
“Why have they delayed this long?” asked Desmond.
“Trachinos is waiting,” said Astrinax. “He suspects we are projecting a rendezvous, perhaps with others as rich as we, or that we may lead them to a cache of concealed wealth. The purpose of our venture, as you well know, seems mysterious, even to you and me. Why would one venture so into the Voltai if riches, perhaps a buried horde, or a secret mine, were not somehow involved?”
“I see,” said Desmond.
“They will bide their time,” said Astrinax.
“It is like an ax, which may fall at any time,” said Desmond.
“The ax,” said Astrinax, “may be in greater danger than we.”
“How is that?” asked Desmond.
“We are not the only ones in the Voltai,” said Astrinax.
“I wonder if we are watched?” said Desmond.
“Possibly,” said Astrinax.
“What of the caravan of Pausanias?” said Desmond.
“I have little doubt that it is watched more carefully than we,” said Astrinax.
“How so?” said Desmond.
“It is apparently far more important than we,” said Astrinax.
“Why?” asked Desmond.
“I do not know,” said Astrinax. “But I gather it is of great importance to someone.”
“Or something,” said Desmond.
“I do not understand?” said Astrinax.
“It is nothing,” said Desmond, dismissively.
“I,” said the Lady Bina, who had been present, I gathered on her cushion on the wagon bench, but muchly quiet, “have something of interest to convey as well, but I must ask you to hold the matter in confidence for a time.”
“Lady?” asked Astrinax.
“I am to be the Ubara of a hundred cities, and then, later, when the planet is properly unified and organized, the Ubara of all Gor.”
I heard no response from the men.
“That is what I have been given to understand,” she said.
“From whom, Lady?” asked Astrinax. I feared he and Master Desmond might think the Lady Bina joking, or mad. More frighteningly, I did not think she was either.
I sensed, as naive or unrealistic as she might be, there might somehow be a world at stake.
“Oh,” she said, “someone, but someone of importance.”
I was sure this illusion, or fantasy, had been implanted by the blind Kur who had guested with us in the house of Epicrates.
What was involved here, I was sure, had less to do with the Lady Bina than with one with whom it was thought she might exercise great influence.
“When I am suitably emplaced,” she said, “I will not forget my friends.”
“We hope to be numbered amongst them,” said Astrinax.
Poor Astrinax, I thought. He thinks she is insane.
“We are to follow the caravan of Pausanias,” said Master Desmond.
“Yes,” said Astrinax, “but, obviously, not that closely.”
“It should be easy enough to do,” said Desmond, “ten wagons, heavily laden, even should there be torrential rains.”
“I think so,” said Astrinax.
I hoped that we might return to Ar, quickly and safely, once the blind Kur had been reunited with his fellows. On the other hand, it seemed clear that this practical expediency, as sensible as it might seem, might not be congenial to either the Lady Bina or to he in whose charge I was. They might have subtler, deeper interests in this wilderness.
“The caravan of Pausanias left the Aqueduct Road,” said Desmond.
“There are hundreds of trails in the Voltai,” said Astrinax.
“And thousands of places where there are no trails,” said Desmond.
“Call Lykos, Trachinos, Akesinos,” said Astrinax. “We must harness the tharlarion and be on our way.”
It would take some time to do this, and turn the wagons, to follow the tracks of the departed caravan. I did not care to leave the road. I stood up, by the mat and harness, and jar of oil, and the rags, and looked about myself.
The Voltai Mountains are called the Red Mountains. Their color, dull and reddish, is doubtless a consequence of some property of the soil. They are, I think, the most extensive of Gor’s mountain ranges. They may also be the highest and most rugged. There are villages here and there in the Voltai, usually of herders of domestic verr. These are generally, though not always, in the foothills. I know of only one city in the Voltai, like a remote tarn’s aerie, and that is the bandit city of Treve.
The mountains are beautiful, but forbidding. They contain larls and sleen, and, in the lower ranges, wild tarsk, as well. As noted, at the higher altitudes, there is little to be found but wild verr and tiny snow urts.
The sun was high.
I could see snow on some distant peaks.
I did not care to leave the road, the aqueduct. I was afraid, very much afraid. Had I known more of this world I would have feared even to enter the Voltai. Certainly many did. Even Jane and Eve, untutored, illiterate barbarians, as myself, had known enough to fear the Voltai. They had been double chained to the slave post in the Venna camp. And Astrinax had been largely unsuccessful in recruiting drivers and guards for our small caravan.
I did not wish to go further into the Voltai.
I was terrified to do so.
Perhaps some of you feel that under the circumstances, so threatening and uncertain, I should have considered flight, but I did not do so. I would stay with the wagons. We all would, Jane and Eve, as well. I do not think it was merely that we knew ourselves safer with the wagons, though that was surely true. Certainly we did not wish to be eaten by animals. It was frightening enough, sometimes, just to gather firewood. Too, of course, we accepted that there was no escape for the Gorean slave girl. Marked, collared, and slave-clad, and given the culture, the best she might hope for, if she were not bound and returned to her master, would be, as a fugitive, to fall into a harsher and more grievous bondage. Men like to own us, and have us in collars. Too, one did not care to be hamstrung, fed to sleen, or cast to leech plants. We were aware of all these things. Too, for whatever reason, I was reluctant to leave the vicinity of the brute I so hated, Desmond of Harfax, he who had treated me so badly, who held me in such contempt, who had so scorned me. Perhaps my lips had been bred to be pressed to the leather of his whip. Might I not belong in his slave bracelets? Might he not be my master? But aside from all these things, I think, rather, primarily, and more profoundly, the reason we would not run away was quite simple, that we were now quite other than we had once been; we now well knew what we had become, and were. We now clearly understood, in every fiber of our bodies, in the bottom of our bellies and in the depths of our hearts, that we were no longer those cultural artifices which are called free women, but now something quite different, something more natural, more ancient, more biological, that we were now belongings and properties, that we were now slaves. This understanding brings about a radical transformation in a woman. She is no longer the same. She cannot be. We
