retaliation, the seeking of vengeance, the shadows of the forest. Steel is your tool, darkness your ally. But this is not the case with most men. Most men desire peace.'
'All men desire peace,' said Kisu.
'If this were true, there would be no war,' said Mwoga.
Kisu regarded him, angrily. 'Bila Huruma is a tyrant,' he said.
'Of course,' said Mwoga.
'He must be resisted,' said Kisu.
'Then resist him,' said Mwoga.
'He must be stopped,' said Kisu.
'Then stop him,' said Mwoga.
'You style yourself a hero, who would lead my people into the light of civilization?' asked Kisu.
'No,' said Mwoga, 'I am an opportunist. I serve myself, and my superiors.'
'Now you speak honestly,' said Kisu.
'Politics, and needs and times, calls forth men such as myself,' said Mwoga. 'Without men such as myself there could be no change.'
'The tharlarion and the ost have their place in the palace of nature,' said Kisu.
'And I will have mine at the courts of Ubars,' said Mwoga.
'Meet me with spears,' said Kisu.
'How little you understand,' said Mwoga. 'How naively you see things. How your heart craves simplicities.'
'I would have your blood on my spear,' said Kisu.
'And the empire would endure,' said Mwoga.
'The empire is evil,' said Kisu.
'How simple,' marveled Mwoga. 'How dazed and confused you must be when, upon occasion, you encounter reality.'
'The empire must be destroyed,' said Kisu.
'Then destroy it,' said Mwoga.
'Go, serve your master, Bila Huruma,' said Kisu. 'I dismiss you.'
'We are grateful for your indulgence,' smiled Mwoga.
'And take these slave girls with you, gifts for his highness. Bila Huruma,' said Kisu, gesturing to Tende and her two servitors.
'Lady Tende, daughter of Aibu, high chief of Ukungu,' said Mwoga, 'is being conveyed in honor to the ceremony of companionship, to be mated to his majesty, Bila Huruma.'
'She is being sold to seal a bargain,' said Kisu. 'How could she be more a slave?'
Tende's face remained expressionless.
'Of her own free will,' said Mwoga, 'the Lady Tende hastens to become Ubara to Bila Huruma.'
'One of more than two hundred Ubaras!' scoffed Kisu.
'She acts of her own free will,' averred Mwoga.
'Excellent,' said Kisu. 'She sells herself!' he said. 'Well done, Slave Girl!' he commended.
'She is to be honored in companionship,' said Mwoga.
'I have seen Bila Huruma,' said Kisu. 'No woman could be other than a slave to him. And I have seen luscious slaves, black, and white, and oriental, in his palace, girls who know truly how to please a man, and desire to do so. Bila Huruma has his pick of hot-blooded, trained, enslaved beauties. If you do not wish to remain barren and lonely in your court you will learn to compete with them. You will learn to crawl to his feet and beg to serve him with the unqualified and delicious abandon of a trained slave.'
Still Tende's face did not change expression.
'And you will do so, Tende,' said Kisu, 'for you are in your heart, as I can see in your eyes, a true slave.'
Tende lifted her hand, her right hand, with the whip, on its loop, fastened to her wrist. She moved her hand indolently. Her two slaves, tense, frightened, desisted from fanning her.
Tende rose gracefully to her feet and descended from the cushions and dais, to stand at the edge of the platform, over Kisu.
'Have you nothing to say, my dear Tende, beautiful daughter of the traitor, Aibu?' inquired Kisu.
She struck him once with the whip, across the face. He had shut his eyes that he not be blinded.
'I do not speak to commoners,' she said. She then returned to her position, her face again expressionless, and looking straight ahead.
She lifted her hand, indolently, and again her two slaves began, gently, to fan her.
Kisu opened his eyes, a diagonal streak of blood across his face. His fists were clenched.
'Continue on,' said Mwoga to one of the askaris on the platform.
The fellow called out sharply to the chained slaves drawing the platform, pointing ahead with his spear. They then began to wade forward, drawing the canoes, with the platform of state affixed athwart them.
We watched the platform, with its passengers, and canopy, moving west.
I looked at Kisu. I did not think, now, I would have long to wait.
'Dig,' said a nearby askari.
With a feeling of satisfaction, and pleasure, I then thrust the shovel deep into the mud at my feet.
We sat in the long cage, bolted on the extended raft. I ran my finger under the collar, to move it a bit from my neck. I could smell the marshes about.
With a movement of chain, he crawled toward me in the darkness. With my fingernail I scratched a bit of rust from the chain on my collar. Far off, across the marsh, we could hear the noises of jungle birds, the howling of tiny, long-limbed primates. It was about an Ahn after the late evening rain, somewhere about the twentieth Ahn. The sky was still overcast, providing a suitable darkness for the work which must soon be at hand.
'I must speak with you,' he said, in halting Gorean.
'I did not know you could speak Gorean,' I said, looking ahead in the darkness.
'When a child,' he said, 'I once ran away. I lived for two years in Schendi, then returned to Ukungu.'
'I did not think a mere village would content you,' I said. 'It was a long and dangerous journey for a child.'
'I returned to Ukungu,' he said.
'Perhaps that is why you are such a patriot of Ukungu,' I said, 'because once you fled from it.'
'I must speak with you,' he said.
'Perhaps I do not speak with members of the nobility,' I said.
'Forgive me,' he said. 'I was a fool.'
'You have learned, then,' I said, 'from Bila Huruma, who will speak to all men.'
'How else can one listen?' he asked. 'How else can one understand others?'
'Beggers speak to beggers, and to Ubars,' I said.
'It is a saying of Schendi,' he said.
'Yes,' I said.
'Do you speak Ushindi?' he asked.
'A little,' I said.
'Can you understand me?' he asked, speaking in the dialect of the court of Bila Huruma.
'Yes,' I said. Gorean was not easy for him. Ushindi, I was sure, was no easier for me. Ayari, to my right, knew Ushindi well enough to transpose easily into the related Ngao dialect spoken in the Ukungu district, but I did not. 'If I cannot understand you, I will tell you,' I said. I had little doubt but what, between his Gorean and my understanding of the Ushindi dialect spoken at the court of Bila Huruma, we could communicate.
'I will try to speak Gorean,' he said. 'That, at least, is not the language of Bila Huruma.'
'There are other things in its favor as well,' I said. 'It is a complex, efficient language with a large vocabulary.'
'Ukungu,' he said, 'is the most beautiful language in all the world.'
'That may well be,' I said, 'but I cannot speak it.' I, personally, would have thought that English or Gorean would have been the most beautiful language in all the world. I had met individuals, however, who thought the
