to return to the tiers she put her back to him and extended her wrists behind her. But he did not bracelet her, nor leash her. Rather he looked about on the ramp until he found the small coin he had given her to buy him bread and honey, which coin she had dropped when the four men had seized her. To her astonishment he gave her the coin.
'Buy me bread and honey,' he told her. Then he said to me, 'We have missed the sixth race,' and together we turned about and went back into the stands, finding our seats.
Some minutes later Phyllis came to our seats, bringing Ho-Sorl his bread and honey, and the two copper tarn disks change. He became absorbed in the races. He may not have noticed that she knelt on the tier below us, her head down, her face in her hands, sobbing. Virginia and Elizabeth knelt with her, one on each side, holding her about the shoulders.
'I only regret,' Ho-Sorl was saying to me, 'that I never saw Melipolus of Cos ride.'
Race followed race, and, eventually, we heard the judge's bar ringing three times, signaling that the tarns were being brought out for the eleventh race, the last of the day.
'What do you think of the Steels?' asked Relius, leaning toward me.
The Steels were a new faction in Ar, their patch a bluish gray. But they had no following. Indeed, there had never yet been a Steel in a race in Ar. I had heard, however, that the first tarn would fly for the Steels in this very race, the eleventh race, that which was shortly to begin. I did know, further, that a tarn cot for the Steels had been established during Se'Var and riders had been hired.
The backing of the faction was a bit mysterious. What gold there was behind the Steels was not clear, either as to quantity or origin. It might be noted, however, that a serious investment is involved in attempting to form a faction. There are often attempts to found a new faction, but generally they are unsuccessful. If a substantial proportion of races are not won in the first two seasons the law of the Stadium of Tarns discontinues its recognition of that faction. Moreover, to bring a new faction into competition is an expensive business, and involves considerable risk to the capital advanced. Not only is it expensive to buy or rent tarn cots, acquire racing tarns, hire riders and Tarn Keepers, and the entire staff required to maintain a faction organization, but there is a large track fee for new factions, during the first two probation years.
This fee, incidentally, can be levied even against older factions if their last season is a very poor one; moreover, a number of substandard seasons, even for an established faction, will result in the loss, permanently or for a ten-year period, of their rights on the track. Further, the appearance of new factions is a threat to the older factions, for each win of the new counts as a loss against the old. It is to the advantage of any given faction that there should be a small number of factions in competition and so the riders of an older faction, if unable to win themselves in given races, will often attempt to prevent a good race being flown by the riders of the new faction. Further, it is common among older factions not to hire riders who have ridden for the new factions, though sometimes, in the case of a particularly excellent rider, this practice is waived.
'What do you think of the Steels?' asked Relius again.
'I don't know,' I said. 'I know nothing of them.' There had been something in his voice which puzzled me. Also, Ho-Sorl gave me a look at about this time. Neither of them, incidentally, had ever seemed much taken aback by the fact that I commonly wore the black of the Assassin. Now, of course, as I usually did when I was outside the house, I wore the red of the Warrior. They had not exactly attempted to become friends with me, but they had not avoided me; and often wheere I was I found them about.
'Now that is a bird!' cried Ho-Sorl, as the low, wheeled platforms were being drawn on the track.
I heard several in the crowd cry out in amazement.
I looked down to the track, and could not speak. I sat frozen on the tier. I could not breathe.
Throughout the stands, startling those multitudes, unsettling the other birds being drown by the horned tharlarion of the low carts, there was heard the sudden shrill, ringing challenge scream of a tarn, unhooded, a giant tarn, black, a wild mountain cry of one of Gor's fiercest, most beautiful predators, that might have been heard in the sharp crags of the Mountains of Thentis, famed for its tarn flocks, or even among the red peaks of the lofty, magnificent Voltai itself, or perhaps in battle far above the swirling land below as tarnsmen met in duels to the death.
'It is not even a racing tarn,' said a man nearby.
I now stood on my feet, stupefied, staring down at the wagons, the birds being brought to the perches.
'They tell me,' said Relius, 'that the bird is from the city of Ko-ro-ba.'
I stood there, not speaking, my limbs weak. Behind me I heard Virginia and Phyllis cry out with pain. I turned a bit to see that Ho-Sorl had a fist in the hair of each, twisting it, pulling their heads back to him. 'Slaves,' said he, 'will not speak of what they see today.'
'No, Master!' said Virginia.
'No, no!' cried Phyllis. Ho-Sorl's hand twisted her head and hair cruelly. 'No, Master!' cried Phyllis. 'No, Master! Phyllis will not speak!'
I turned to my left and began to follow the tier, until I came to a narrow set of stairs, leading to the lower portions of the stands, which I then followed, descending.
I heard Relius behind me. 'Take this,' he said. He pushed something into my hand, something like a folded cloth of leather. I scarcely noticed. Then he was left on the stairs, and I was descending again, alone. Near the railing of the front tier, I stopped.
I was now some forty yards from the birds. I stood still.
Then, as though searching for me in those multitudes, that turbulence of faces and cloth, of sound, of cries, I saw the gleaming eyes of the tarn cease their scanning and fasten upon me. The wicked, black eyes, round and blazing with light, did not leave me. The crest on its head seemed to lift and each muscle and fiber in that great body seemed filled with blood and life. The vast, long black wings, broad and mighty, opened and struck against the air, hurling a storm of dust and sand on all sides, almost tumbling the small, hooded Tarn Keeper from the low wagon. Then the tarn threw back its head and once more screamed, wild, eerie, fierce, savage, a cry that might have struck terror into the heart of a larl, but I did not fear it. I saw the talons of the tarn were shod with steel. It was, of course, a war tarn.
I looked down at the wad of leather in my hand. I opened it, and drew on the hood concealing my features. I leaped over the rail and strode to the bird.
'Greetings, Mip,' said I, mounting to the platform, seeing the small Tarn Keeper.
'You are Gladius of Cos,' said he.
I nodded. 'What is the meaning of this?' I asked.
'You ride for the Steels,' said he.
I reached up and touched the fierce, curved beak of that mighty bird. And then I held it, and pressed my cheek to its fierce surface. The tarn, that predator, gently lowered its head, and I put my head against its head, below its round, gleaming right eye, and, within the leather hood, unseen, I wept. 'It has been long, Ubar of the Skies,' I said. 'It has been long.'
Vaguely I was aware about me of the sounds of men, tense, speaking curt words, mounting into the high saddles of tarns.
I sensed Mip near me.
'Do not forget what I have taught you in the Stadium of Tarns,' said Mip, 'as we have ridden together so many nights.'
'I will not,' I said.
'Mount,' said Mip.
I climbed to the saddle of the tarn, and when Mip unlocked the hobble from its right foot, took it to the starting perch.
17 — KAJURALIA
'Kajuralia!' cried the slave girl hurling a basket of Sa-Tarna flour on me, and turning and running. I had caught up with her in five steps and kissed her roundly, swatted her and sent her packing.
'Kajuralia yourself!' I said laughing, and she, laughing, sped away.
About that time a large pan of warm water splashed down on me from a window some sixteen feet above the street level. Wringing wet I glared upward.
I saw a girl in the window, who blew me a kiss, a slave girl. 'Kajuralia!' she cried and laughed.
I raised my fist and shook it and her head disappeared from the window.
A Builder, whose robes were stained with thrown fruit, hastily strode by. 'You had better be indoors,' said he, 'on Kajuralia.'
Three male house slaves stumbled by, crowned with odorous garlands woven of the Brak Bush. They were passing about a bota of paga and, between dancing and trying to hold one another up, managed to weave unsteadily by. One of them looked at me and from his eyes I judged he may have seen at least three of me and offered me a swig of the bota, which I took. 'Kajuralia,' said he, nearly falling over backwards, being rescued by one of his fellows, who seemed fortunately to be falling in the opposite direction at the same time. I gave him a silver coin for more paga. 'Kajuralia,' I said, and turned about, leaving, while they collapsed on one another.
At that time a slave girl, a blond girl, sped by and the three slaves, stumbling, bleary-eyed, bumping into one another, dutifully took up her pursuit. She turned, laughing in front of them, would run a bit, then stop, and then when they had nearly caught up with her, she would run on again. But, to her astonishment, coming up from behind, catching her by surprise, another male seized her about the waist and held her, while she screamed in mock fear. But in a moment it was determined, to the rage of all save the girl, that she wore an iron belt. 'Kajuralia!' she laughed, wiggled free and sped away.
I dodged a hurled larma fruit which splattered on the wall of a cylinder near me.
The wall itself was covered with writing and pictures, none of it much complimentary to the masters of the area.
I heard some breaking of pottery around the corner, some angry cries, the laughing of girls.
I decided I had better return to the House of Cernus.
I turned down another street. Here, unexpectedly, I ran into a pack of some fifteen or twenty girls who, shrieking and laughing, surrounded me in a moment. I found myself wishing that masters belled their girls of Kajuralia, so that they might be heard approaching. Their silence in the street a moment before I had turned into it told me they had been hunting. They had probably even had spies, advance scouts. Now they crowded about me, laughing, seizing my arms.
'Prisoner! Prisoner!' they shrieked.
I felt a rope thrown about my throat; it was drawn unpleasantly tight.
