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'I do!' she insisted.

'Someday,' I said, 'you will love - but I do not think it will be a warrior of Ko-ro-ba.'

'Do you think I cannot love?' she challenged.

'I think someday you will love,' I said, 'and I think you will love greatly.'

'Can you love?' she challenged. 'I don't know,' I said.I smiled.'Once - long ago - I thought I loved.'

'Who was she?' asked Vika, not too pleasantly.

'A slender, dark-haired girl,' I said, 'whose name was Talena.'

'Was she beautiful?' asked Vika.

'Yes,' I said.

'As beautiful as I?' asked Vika.

'You are both very beautiful,' I said.

'Was she a slave?' asked Vika.

'No,' I said, '- she was the daughter of a Ubar.'

Rage transfigured Vika's features and she leaped from the couch and strode to the side of the room, her fingers angrily inside her collar, as though they might pull it from her throat.'I see!' she said.'And I - Vika - am only a slave girl!'

'Do not be angry,' I said.

'Where is she?' demanded Vika.

'I don't know,' I admitted.

'How long has it been since you have seen her?' demanded Vika.

'It has been more than seven years,' I said.

Vika laughed cruelly.'Then,' she gloated, 'she is in the Cities of Dust.'

'Perhaps,' I admitted.

'I - Vika -' she said, 'am here.'

'I know,' I said.

I turned away.

I heard her voice over my shoulder.'I will make you forget her,' she said.

Her voice had borne the cruel, icy, confident, passionate menace of a woman from Treve, accustomed to have what she wanted, who would not be denied.

I turned to face Vika once more, and I no longer saw the girl to whom I had been speaking but a woman of High Caste, from the bandit kingdom of Treve, insolent and imperious, though collared.

Casually Vika reached to the clasp on the left shoulder of her garment and loosened it, and the garment fell to her ankles.

She was branded.

'You though I was a Passion Slave,' she said.

I regarded the woman who stood before me, the sullen eyes, the pouting lips, the collar, the brand.

'Am I not beautiful enough,' she asked, 'to be the daughter of a Ubar?'

'Yes,' I said, 'you are that beautiful.'

She looked at me mockingly.'Do you know what a Passion Slave is?' she asked.

'Yes,' I said.

'It is a female of the human kind,' she said, 'but bred like a beast for its beauty and its passion.'

'I know,' I said.

'It is an animal,' she said, 'bred for the pleasure of men, bred for the pleasure of a master.'

I said nothing.

'In my veins,' she said, 'flows the blood of such an animal. In my veins flows the blood of a Passion Slave.'She laughed.'And you, Tarl Cabot, she said, 'are its master. You, Tarl Cabot, are my master.'

'No,' I said.

Amused, tauntingly, she approached me.'I will serve you as a Passion Slave,' she said.

'No,' I said.

'Yes,' she said, 'for you I will be an obedient Passion Slave.'She lifted her lips to mine.

My hands on her arms held her from me.

'Taste me,' she said.

'No,' I said.

She laughed.'You cannot reject me,' she said.

'Why not?' I asked.

'I shall not allow you to do so,' she said.'You see, Tarl Cabot, I have decided that you shall be my slave.'

I thrust her from me.

'Very well,' she cried, her eyes flashing.'Very well, Cabot,' she said, 'then I shall conquer you!'

And she seized my head in her hands and pressed her lips to mine.

In that moment I sensed once more that slightly acrid scent which I had experienced in the corridors beyond the chamber, and I pressed my mouth hard into Vika's until her lips were cut by my teeth and I had pressed her back until only my arm kept her from falling to the stones of the floor, and I heard her cry of surprise and pain, and then I hurled her angrily from me to the straw slave mat which lay at the foot of the stone couch.

Now it seemed to me that I understood but they had come too soon!She had not had a chance to do her work.It might go hard with her but I was not concerned.

Still I did not turn to that giant portal.

The scent was now strong.

Vika crouched terrified on the slave mat at the foot of the couch, in the very shadow of the slave ring.

'What is the matter?' she asked.'What is wrong?'

'So you were to conquer me for them, were you?' I demanded.

'I don't understand,' she stammered.

'You are a poor tool for Priest-Kings,' I said.

'No,' she said, 'no!'

'How many men have you conquered for Priest-Kings?' I asked. I seized her by the hair and twisted her head to face me. 'How many?' I cried.

'Please!' she wept.

I found myself tempted to break her head against the foot of the stone couch, for she was worthless, treacherous, seductive, cruel, vicious, worthy only of the collar, irons and the whip!

She shook her head numbly as though denying charges I had not yet voiced.

'You don't understand,' she said.'I love you!'

With loathing I cast her from me.

Yet still did I not turn to face that portal.

Vika lay at my feet, a streak of blood at the corner of those lips that bore still the marks of my fierce kiss.She looked up at me, tears welling in her eyes.

'Please,' she said.

The scent was strong.I knew that it was near.How was it that the girl was not aware of it?How was it that she did not know?Was it not part of her plan?

'Please,' she said, looking up at me, lifting her hand to me. Her face was tear-stained; her voice was a broken sob.'I love you,' she said.

'Silence, Slave Girl,' I said.

She lowered her head to the stones and wept.

I knew now that it was here.

The scent was now overpowering, unmistakable.

I watched Vika and suddenly she seemed too to know and her head lifted and her eyes widened with horror and she crept to her knees, her hands before her face as though to shield herself and she shuddered and suddenly uttered a wild, long, terrible scream of abject fear.

I drew my sword and turned.

It stood framed in the doorway.

In its way it was very beautiful, golden and tall, looming over me, framed in that massive portal.It was not more than a yard wide but its head nearly touched the top of the portal and so I would judged that, standing as it did, it must have been nearly eighteen feet high.

It had six legs and a great head like a globe of gold with eyes like vast luminous disks.Its two forelegs, poised and alert, were lifted delicately in front of its body.Its jaws opened and closed once.They moved laterally.

From its head there extended two fragile, jointed appendages, long and covered with short quivering strands of golden hair. These two appendages, like eyes, swept the room once and then seemed to focus on me.

They curved toward me like delicate golden pincers and each of the countless golden strands on those appendages straightened and pointed toward me like a quivering golden needle.

I could not conjecture the nature of the creature's experience but I knew that I stood within the centre of its sensory field.

About its neck there hung a small circular device, a translator of some sort, similar to but more compact than those I had hitherto seen.

I sensed a new set of odours, secreted by what stood before me.

Almost simultaneously a mechanically reproduced voice began to emanate from the translator.

It spoke in Gorean.

I knew what it would say.

'Lo Sardar,' it said.'I am a Priest-King.'

'I am Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba,' I said.

A moment after I spoke I sensed another set of odours, which emanated perhaps from the device which hung about the neck of what stood before me.

The two sensory appendages of the creature seemed to register this information.