“Interesting,” said Mirus.
“Men on this world have demonstrated their dominance over me, and their refusal to accept insubordination,” said Ellen. “I love them for it!”
“It seems,” said Mirus to Selius Arconious, “that you have found a slave, one who is fully your own.”
“Yes, it seems so,” said Selius Arconious, “for the moment, at least, or until I tire of her.”
“Oh, please, no, Master!” protested Ellen.
“Why do you not do so, as well?” Selius Arconious asked Mirus, paying the slave no attention.
“I fear that is not done where I come from,” said Mirus.
“But you are not now where you come from,” said Selius Arconious.
“True,” smiled Mirus.
“Will you not accept a woman for what she is?” asked Selius Arconious.
“It is seldom done on my world,” said Mirus.
“In each woman,” said Selius Arconious, “there is a slave, longing to be commanded forth and ordered to one’s feet.”
“Such truths may not be so much as uttered on my world,” said Mirus.
“In each man,” said Selius Arconious, “there is a master, and in each woman, a slave. Each seeks for the other.”
“Where I come from,” said Mirus, “I fear they seldom find one another.”
“Consider the wells of profound realities tapped by dreams. In his dreams, those of his sleeping hours and those of his waking hours, what man has not yearned for a beautiful slave, and what woman, in such free, innocent, unguarded hours, has not yearned to be owned, to be collared, chained and mastered?”
“On my world,” said Mirus, “society walls itself away from nature. It aligns its moats and stakes against the fields and forests. Sanctions, like pikes, array themselves against truth. Snares and traps are at every hand. The insects of conformity swarm and sting. All are vulnerable. Few dare speak their needs, their dreams.”
“It must be a strange world,” said Selius Arconious.
“It is a far different, far sadder, far more miserable world than this one, yours,” said Mirus.
“But this is now your world,” said Selius Arconious.
“Yes,” said Mirus. “This is now my world.”
“You must buy yourself a slave,” said Selius Arconious.
“I think I shall,” said Mirus.
“Will you buy a Gorean girl or a barbarian?” asked Selius Arconious.
“I think a barbarian,” said Mirus. “I have a score to settle with the women of Earth.”
“Excellent,” said Selius Arconious.
“Mirus, Mirus,” called the wounded man, from where he lay, to the side.
“I must go to my fellow,” said Mirus, rising from beside the fire.
“He has lost much blood,” said Fel Doron.
“Yes,” said Mirus.
At this juncture Portus Canio and Fel Doron, wiping their hands on their thighs, rose, too, and approached Tersius Major, crouching down amongst the weapons, on his knoll, in the descending darkness.
“Give me drink, give me food, old friend,” said Tersius Major to Portus Canio.
“Come down, old friend,” said Portus Canio. “Stakes and thongs await, and knives can be heated, old friend.”
“For the love of Priest-Kings,” cried Tersius Major, “give me something to drink, something to eat!”
“You have broken the law of Priest-Kings,” said Portus Canio.
“Priest-Kings are not to be loved,” said Fel Doron. “They are to be respected, and feared, and obeyed.”
“Do not approach!” suddenly shrieked Tersius Major.
“Have no fear,” then said Portus Canio, angrily, hesitating, then stepping back, “I will not cross the circle of forbidden weapons.”
“None may cross it!” cried Tersius Major.
At the edge of the camp, there was a motion in the grass, a subtle motion. We saw nothing. It was almost as though a snake, a large snake, might have moved there. A similar motion occurred a few yards to the left.
“I think we had best leave this place,” said Portus Canio, uneasily.
“None may cross the circle!” cried Tersius Major.
“Several of them, I think, are about,” said Fel Doron.
“As I understand it,” said Mirus, who now joined the group, “the Priest-Kings enforce their laws by the Flame Death.”
“When it pleases them,” said Fel Doron.
“Have you ever seen such a thing?” asked Mirus.
“No,” said Fel Doron.
“You?” asked Mirus.
“No,” said Portus Canio.
“Priest-Kings do not exist,” said Mirus.
“They exist,” said Fel Doron.
“But you have never seen one?”
“No.”
“It seems,” said Mirus, looking at Tersius Major crouching down amongst the emptied pistols on the knoll, “the Priest-Kings are silent.”
There were more stirrings in the grass.
“Perhaps there is more than one way in which Priest-Kings speak,” said Portus Canio.
“Let us break camp,” said Fel Doron. “It is dangerous to remain here.”
This said, the men returned to the wagon, and the tharlarion. The few possessions were gathered together and placed in the wagon. Portus Canio and Mirus placed the wounded man in the wagon bed.
“Get in the wagon,” Selius Arconious told his slave.
“May I not walk,” she asked, “to lighten the wagon, Master.”
“Will it be necessary to bind you hand and foot, and cast you to the wagon bed?” he asked.
“No, Master!” she said.
“Must a command be repeated?” he asked.
“No, Master!” she said, and, seizing the side of the wagon bed and, stepping on one of the spokes, supporting herself thereby, climbed hurriedly to the wagon bed, within which she knelt on the tarpaulins and supplies, and, looking out, clutched the sides of the wagon bed.
“It seems that Master is concerned with the safety of his slave,” she said.
“No,” he said, angrily. “I do not wish our journey to be delayed by the slowness of a she-tarsk.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, happily.
The tharlarion suddenly lifted its head on its thick neck, and looked about, nostrils flaring.
“Do not leave me!” shrieked Tersius Major.
“Then join us,” said Portus Canio.
“Ho, on!” called Fel Doron from the wagon box, and turned the tharlarion southeastward.
The wheels of the wagon creaked and the tharlarion began to plod southeastward.
“Do not leave me! Do not leave me!” cried Tersius Major.
Ellen, kneeling in the wagon, clutching the sides of the wagon, saw him, as they moved past the knoll. The sleen, she knew, is a primarily nocturnal animal. Too, she was sure that there must, by now, be several in the vicinity.
“Do not leave me!” cried Tersius Major. The party then took its way from the camp. “Give me a weapon!” cried Tersius Major. “Give me a weapon!” Then, after a time, one could no longer hear him.
“Do Priest-Kings exist?” said Fel Doron.
“No,” said Mirus.
“One does not know,” said Portus Canio. “One does not know.”
Chapter 28
WHAT OCCURRED FOUR DAYS LATER
It was toward morning.
“Master,” whispered the slave.
“Yes?” said he.
“Will you not content your animal? Will you not pet her? Will you not stroke her, just a little, Master?”
“You, an Earth woman, beg as a slave to be touched?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” whispered Ellen, “as the most abject and needful of slaves!”
“No,” he said.
“Master,” she whimpered, “I am no longer a free woman, as once I was! I can no longer pride myself on my frigidity. I can no longer base my self-respect, my self-esteem, on my sexual inertness, on my superiority to sex. I can no longer go months or years without actual sexual relief, sublimating my physical needs into petulance, negativity, irritability, nastiness, pettiness and rivalry. I now need sex. Surely you understand, Master, that I have been embonded. I am now a slave! Men have aroused me! The collar has set me aflame. Slave fires rage now in my belly. I now belong to Masters, needfully!”