counter, behind which stood the man in the grimy tunic of white and gold. Kuurus threw the key to him. 'Use twenty-seven,' said the man, handing Kuurus a bit of silk, Pleasure Silk, wrapped about a set of slave chains.
Kuurus threw the silk and chains over his shoulder and motioned the girl to move ahead of him and, numbly, she did so, crossing the room, going between the tables, and stopping before the narrow ladder at the right side of the high wall, in which were found the ledges with their alcoves. Not speaking, but woodenly, she climbed the ladder and crawled onto the shelf near the tiny alcove marked with the Gorean equivalent of twenty-seven and entered, followed by Kuurus, who drew the curtains behind them.
The alcove, with its enclosing, curved walls, was only about four feet high and five feet wide. It was lit by one small lamp set in a niche in the wall. It was lined with red silk, and floored with love furs and cushions, the furs being better than some six to eight inches deep.
In the alcove the demeanor of the girl changed and she suddenly rolled onto her back and lifted one knee. She looked at him saucily.
'I have never been in one of these places before,' she said.
Kuurus tossed the silk and the chains to one side of the alcove and grinned at her.
'I now understand,' she said, 'why it is that free women never enter Paga taverns.'
'But you are only a slave girl,' said Kuurus.
'True,' she said forlornly, turning her head to one side.
Kuurus removed her slave livery.
The girl sat up, her eyes bright, holding her ankles with her hands.
'So this is what these places are like,' she said, looking about her.
'Do you like them?' asked Kuurus.
'Well,' she said, demurely, looking down, 'they make a girl feel-rather-well-.'
'Precisely,' agreed Kuurus. 'I see that I shall have to bring you here more often.'
'That might be pleasant,' said she, 'Master.'
He fingered the collar on her throat, yellow enameled over steel. It bore the legend: I am the property of the House of Cernus.
'I would like,' he said, 'to remove the collar.'
'Unfortunately,' said she, 'the key reposes in the House of Cernus.'
'It is a dangerous thing you are doing, Elizabeth,' said Kuurus.
'You had best call me Vella,' said she, 'for that is the name I am known by in the House of Cernus.'
He gathered her in his arms, and she kissed him. 'I have missed you,' said she, 'Tarl Cabot.'
'And I have missed you, too,' I said.
I kissed her.
'We must speak of our work,' I mumbled, 'our plans and purposes, and how we may achieve them.'
'The business of Priest-Kings and such,' said she, 'is surely less important than our present activities.'
I mumbled something, but she would hear nothing of it, and suddenly feeling her in my arms I laughed and held her to me, and she laughed, and whispered, 'I love you, Tarl Cabot,' and I said to her, 'Kuurus, Kuurus-of the Caste of Assassins,' and she said, 'Yes, Kuurus-and poor Vella of the House of Cernus-picked up on the street and brought to this place, given no choice but to serve the pleasure of a man who is not even her master-cruel Kuurus!'
We fell to kissing and touching and loving, and after some time she whispered, eyes bright, 'Ah Kuurus, you well know how to use a wench.'
'Be quiet,' Kuurus told her, 'Slave Girl.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I reached over and put the bit of Pleasure Silk under her, that it might be wrinkled and bear the stains of her sweat.
'Clever, Master,' said she, smiling.
'Be silent, Slave Girl,' I warned her, and she heeded my injunction, for she then, for better than an Ahn, served in a silence that was exquisite, broken only by our breathing, her small moans, and cries.
3 — THE GAME
When I deemed it wise to depart from Vella, I knotted her yellow slave livery about her neck and cried out, 'Be gone, Slave!' and then slapped my hands together at which juncture she let forth a howl as though she had been struck, and then, blubbering hysterically and crying out, she scrambled from the alcove, hastily and awkwardly, half falling, descended the narrow ladder and fled weeping from the Paga tavern, much to the delight and amusement of the customers below.
A few moments later I emerged, descended the ladder and went to the proprietor of the shop, throwing the bit of soiled Pleasure Silk and the slave chains to the counter. I looked at him and he did not ask for pay, but looked away, and so I left the tavern and entered the street.
It was still light and in the early evening.
I was not much afraid of being recognized. I had dyed my hair black. I had not been in Ar in several years. I wore the habiliments of the Caste of Assassins.
I looked about myself.
I have always been impressed with Ar, for it is the largest, the most populous and the most luxurious city of all known Gor. Its walls, its countless cylinders, its spires and towers, its lights, its beacons, the high bridges, the lamps, the lanterns of the bridges, are unbelievably exciting and fantastic, particularly as seen from the more lofty bridges or the roofs of the higher cylinders. But perhaps they are the most marvelous when seen at night from tarnback.
I remembered the night, so many years ago, when I had first streaked over the walls of Ar, on the Planting Feast, and had made the strike of a tarnsman for the Home Stone of Gor's greatest city, Glorious Ar. As I could I put these thoughts from my mind, but I could not fully escape them, for among them was the memory of a girl, she, Talena, the daughter of the Ubar of Ubars, Marlenus, who so many years before had been the Free Companion of a simple Warrior of Ko-ro-ba, he who had been torn from her at the will of Priest-Kings and returned to distant Earth, there to wait until he was needed again for another turn of play in the harsh games of Gor. When the city of Ko-ro-ba had been destroyed by Priest-Kings and its people scattered, no two to stand together, the girl had disappeared. The Warrior of Ko-ro-ba had never found her. He did not know whether she was alive or dead.
For those who passed in the street some might have been startled had they noted, standing in the shadows, one who wore the black of the Assassins, who wept.
'Game! Game!' I heard, and quickly shook my head, driving away the memories of Ar, and of the girl once known, always loved.
The word actually cried was 'Kaissa,' which is Gorean for «Game». It is a general term, but when used without qualification, it stands for only one game. The man who called out wore a robe of checkered red and yellow squares, and the game board, of similar squares, with ten ranks and ten files, giving a hundred squares, hung over his back; slung over his left shoulder, as a warrior wears a sword, was a leather bag containing the pieces, twenty to a side, red and yellow, representing Spearmen, Tarnsmen, the Riders of the High Tharlarion, and so on.
The object of the game is the capture of the opponent's Home Stone. Capturings of individual pieces and continuations take place much as in chess. The affinities of this game with chess are, I am confident, more than incidental. I recalled that men from many periods and cultures of Earth had been brought, from time to time, to Gor, our Counter-Earth. With them they would have brought their customs, their skills, their habits, their games, which, in time, would presumably have undergone considerable modification. I have suspected that chess, with its fascinating history and development, as played on Earth, may actually have derived from a common ancestor with the Gorean game, both of them perhaps tracing their lineage to some long-forgotten game, perhaps the draughts of Egypt or some primitive board game of India.
It might be mentioned that the game, as I shall speak of it, for in Gorean it has no other designation, is extremely popular on Gor, and even children find among their playthings the pieces of the game; there are numerous clubs and competitions among various castes and cylinders; careful records of important games are kept and studied; lists of competitions and tournaments and their winners are filed in the Cylinder of Documents; there is even in most Gorean libraries a section containing an incredible number of scrolls pertaining to the techniques, tactics and strategy of the game. Almost all civilized Goreans, of whatever caste, play. It is not unusual to find even children of twelve or fourteen years who play with a depth and sophistication, a subtlety and a brilliance, that might be the envy of the chess masters of Earth.
But this man now approaching was not an amateur, nor an enthusiast. He was a man who would be respected by all the castes in Ar; he was a man who would be recognized, most likely, not only by every urchin wild in the streets of the city but by the Ubar as well; he was a Player, a professional, one who earned his living through the game.
The Players are not a caste, nor a clan, but they tend to be a group apart, living their own lives. They are made up of men from various castes who often have little in common but the game, but that is more than enough. They are men who commonly have an extraordinary aptitude for the game but beyond this men who have become drunk on it, men lost in the subtle, abstract liquors of variation, pattern and victory, men who live for the game, who want it and need it as other men might want gold, or others power and women, or others the rolled, narcotic strings of toxic kanda.
There are competitions of Players, with purses provided by amateur organizations, and sometimes by the city itself, and these purses are, upon occasion, enough to enrich a man, but most Players earn a miserable living by hawking their wares, a contest with a master, in the street. The odds are usually one to forty, one copper tarn disk against a forty-piece, sometimes against an eighty-piece, and sometimes the amateur who would play the master insists on further limitations, such as the option to three consecutive moves at a point in the game of his choice, or that the master must remove from the board, before the game begins, his two tarnsmen, or his Riders of the High Tharlarion. Further, in order to gain Players, the master, if wise, occasionally loses a game, which is expensive at the normal odds; and the game must be lost subtly, that the amateur must believe he has won. I had once known a Warrior in Ko-ro-ba, a dull, watery-eyed fellow, who boasted of having beaten Quintus of Tor in a Paga Tavern in Thentis.
Those who play the game for money have a hard lot, for the market is a buyer's market, and commonly men will play with them only on terms much to their satisfaction. I myself, when Centius of Cos was in Ko-ro-ba, might have played him on the bridge near the Cylinder of Warriors for only a pair of copper tarn disks. It seemed sad to me, that I, who knew so little of the game, could have so cheaply purchased the privilege of sitting across the board from such a master. It seemed to me that men should pay a tarn disk of gold just to be permitted to watch such a master play, but such were not the economic realities of the game.
