tragically starved where abounded food aplenty, perhaps from ignorance, perhaps from fear, perhaps from an irrational reluctance to seize the necessities of survival.
'Do you think you can bring us out of the delta?' asked Labienus, sitting on the rock. He was staring ahead, out over the marsh.
'I think so,' I said.
'There are fifteen of us,' he said.
'I do not think it will be easy,' I said.
'Yet you would give us hope?' asked Labienus, looking out, over our beads.
'Yes,' I said.
'There is no hope,' said a man.
'Eat,' I said, proffering him the morsel I had most recently severed from the tharlarion.
'No,' he said, drawing back.
'We are doomed,' said another.
'Yes,' agreed another.
'Such sentiments,' said I, 'do not bespeak the spirit that made Ar the glory and menace of Gor.'
'Ar,' said one, 'is no more.'
'She perished in the delta,' said another.
'I am surprised to hear such sentiments,' I said, 'from those who must once have held and kissed the Home Stone of Ar.' This was a reference to the citizenship ceremony which, following the oath of allegiance to the city, involves an actual touching of the city's Home Stone. This may be the only time in the life of a citizen of the city that they actually touch the Home Stone. In Ar, as in many Gorean cities, citizenship is confirmed in a ceremony of this sort. Nonperformance of this ceremony, upon reaching intellectual majority, can be a cause for expulsion from the city. The rationale seems to be that the community has a right to expect allegiance from its members.
'Ar is not dead,' said a man.
'She did not perish in the delta,' said another.
'No,' said another. 'Ar lives on.'
'It is not Ar who is dead,' said a fellow, wearily. 'It is we who are dead.'
'You are not dead,' I said.
'Ar cannot be Ar without her armies,' said a man.
'Without her military might,' said a man, 'Ar can be little more than a cultural beacon, a recollection of a golden time, something to look back on, a school to others, a lesson to men.'
'Perhaps she, in defeat, can culturally conquer her conquerors,' said another fellow, gloomily.
'That sort of thing has happened often enough,' said a fellow.
'In that way,' said a fellow, 'the final victory will be hers.'
There was something to what these fellows were saying. It is a common occurrence that barbarians sweep down on a softer civilization only to later, in their own turn, be softened, for the encroachments of new barbarians, with new whips and chains. To avoid this fate, of course, some barbarians take care to preserve their barbaric heritage, training their male youth in arms and hardship, and keeping themselves aloof from the subject population, that as befits its sovereign overlords, indeed, keeping the subject population much as herdsmen might keep herds, commanding and controlling them, helping themselves to their riches, taking those of its women who might please them for themselves, and so on.
'With all due respect,' I said, 'there are a few other cities and towns on this planet, and some of them hold their own culture in higher esteem than that of Ar.'
Some of the fellows looked at me, skeptically.
'Ko-ro-ba,' I said, 'Telnus and Jad, on Cos, Turia, in the south.' To be sure, the cultures of the high cities were much the same. To find truly different cultures one might have to travel to Torvaldsland, to the Tahari, to the Barrens, to the Land of the Wagon Peoples, to the interior, east of Schendi, and so on.
'Such places cannot compare with Ar,' said a man.
'I beg to differ,' I said.
'What do you know,' said a man. 'You are a Cosian.'
'I am not Cosian,' I said.
'Why have you come here to torment us in our misery?' asked a man.
'Have some tharlarion,' I said, offering him the piece of meat.
He drew back.
'Many folks,' I said, 'think of Ar not in terms of her musicians, her poets, and such, but in terms of administrators, engineers and soldiers.'
'That, too, is Ar,' granted a fellow, generously.
'Kill him,' suggested a man.
'The Cosians say the laws of Cos march with the spears of Cos,' said a fellow.
'So, too, it is with Ar,' said a fellow.
'But today it is Cos who marches,' said the first man.
'Ar is doomed,' said a man.
'No,' said another fellow, 'it is only we who are doomed.'
'You are not doomed,' I said.
'Her Home Stone survives,' said another.
'We do not know that,' observed another.
'Ar lives,' insisted another.
'Ar must live!' said another.
'The immediate problem,' I suggested, 'is not profound historical speculations but survival.'
'That problem,' said one of the men, 'has already been solved for us, by the delta.'
'Not at all,' I said. 'Have a piece of meat.'
'No thank you,' said he.
'Do you bear us ill will?' asked Labienus, staring toward the marsh.
'Yes,' I said, 'I bear you considerable ill will.'
'Why have you come here then?' he asked. 'My reasons, of whatever value they might be, and I think their value may be slight, are my own.'
'Are you of the Warriors?' asked Labienus.
'Yes,' I said.
'Hear,' said Labienus to his men. 'He is of the Warriors.'
'He says he is,' said a fellow, glumly.
'What is the 97th Aphorism in the Codes?' inquired Labienus.
'My scrolls may not be those of Ar,' I said. To be sure, the scrolls should be, at least among the high cities, in virtue of conventions held at the Sardar Fairs, particularly the Fair of En'Kara, much in agreement.
'Will you speak?' asked Labienus.
'Remove the female,' I said.
'He is a Warrior,' said one of the men.
One of the men lifted the bound Ina in his arms, one hand behind the back of her knees, and the other behind her back, and carried her from where we were gathered. In a few moments he returned.
'The female is now out of earshot?' inquired Labienus, staring ahead.
'Yes,' said the fellow, 'and she will stay where I left her, on her back, as I tied her hair about the base of a stout shrub.'
'The 97th Aphorism in the Codes I was taught,' I said, 'is in the form of a riddle: 'What is invisible but more beautiful than diamonds?'
'And the answer?' inquired Labienus.
'That which is silent but deafens thunder.'
The men regarded one another.
'And what is that?' asked Labienus.
'The same,' said I, 'as that which depresses no scale but is weightier than gold.'
'And what is that?' asked Labienus.
