In the barbaric world of Gor, the Robes of Concealment are deemed necessary to protect the women from the binding fibers of roving tarnsmen. Few warriors will risk their lives to capture a woman who may be as ugly as a tharlarion. Better to steal slaves, where the guilt is less and the charms of the captive are more readily ascertainable in advance.
Now the eyes of the daughter of the Ubar were blazing at me furiously from the narrow aperture in her veil. I noted that they were greenish in cast, fiery and untamed, the eyes of a Ubar's daughter, a girl accustomed to command men. I also noted, though with considerably less pleasure, that the daughter of the Ubar was several inches taller than myself. Indeed, her body seemed somehow to be out of proportion.
"You will release me immediately," announced the daughter of the Ubar, "and dismiss this filthy insect."
"Spiders are, as a matter of fact, — particularly clean insects," I remarked, my eyes informing her that I was inspecting her comparatively filthy garments.
She shrugged haughtily.
"Where is the tarn?" I demanded.
"You should ask," she said, "where is the Home Stone of Ar."
"Where is the tarn?" I repeated, more interested at the moment in the fate of my fierce mount than in the ridiculous piece of rock I had risked my life to obtain.
"I don't know," she said, "nor do I care."
"What happened?" I wanted to know.
"I do not care to be questioned further," she announced.
I clenched my fists in rage.
Then, gently, the mandibles of Nar closed around the girl's throat. A sudden tremor of fear shook her heavily robed body, and the girl's hands tried to force the implacable chitinous pincers from her throat. Apparently the Spider Person was not as harmless as she had arrogantly assumed. "Tell it to stop," she gasped, writhing in the insect's grip, her fingers helplessly trying to loosen the mandibles.
"Do you wish her head?" asked the mechanical, voice of Nar.
I knew that the insect, who would allow his kind to be exterminated before he would injure any rational creature, must have some plan in mind, or at least I assumed he did. At any rate, I said, "Yes." The mandibles began to close on her throat like the blades of giant scissors.
"Stop!" screamed the girl, her voice a frenzied whisper.
I motioned to Nar to relax his grip.
"I was trying to bring the tarn back to Ar," said the girl. "I was never on a tam before. I made mistakes. It. knew it. There was no tarn-goad."
I gestured, and Nar removed his mandibles from the girl's throat.
"We were somewhere over the swamp forest," said the girl, "when we flew into a flock of wild tarns. My tam attacked the leader of the flock."
She shuddered at the memory, and I pitied her for what must have been a horrifying experience, lashed helpless to the saddle of a giant tam reeling in a death struggle for the mastery of a flock, high over the trees of the swamp forest.
"My tam killed the other," said the girl, "and followed 3 it to the ground, where he tore it to pieces." She shook with the memory. "I slipped free and ran under the wing and hid in the trees. After a few minutes, his beak and talons wet with blood and feathers, your tam took flight. I last saw him at the head of the tarn flock."
That was that, I thought. The tam had turned wild, all his instincts triumphant over the tarn whistle, the memory of men.
"And the Home Stone of Ar?" I asked.
"In the saddle pack," she said, confirming my expectation. I had locked the pack when I had placed the Home Stone inside, and the pack is an integral part of the tarn saddle. When she had spoken, her voice had burned with shame, and I sensed the humiliation she felt at having failed to save the Home Stone. So now the tam was gone, returned to his natural wild state, the Home Stone was in the saddle pack, and I had failed, and the daughter of the Ubar had failed, and we stood facing one.j another on a green knoll in the swamp forest of Ar.
Chapter 7
A Ubar's Daughter
THE GIRL STRAIGHTENED, SOMEHOW PROUD but ludicrous in her mud bedaubed regalia. She stepped away from Nar, as if apprehensive that those fierce mandibles might threaten her again. Her eyes flashed from the narrow opening in her veil. "It pleased the daughter of Marlenus," she said, "to inform you and your eight-legged brother of the fate of your tarn and of the Home Stone you sought."
Nar's mandibles opened and shut once in annoyance. It was the nearest to anger I had ever seen the gentle creature come.
"You will release me immediately," announced the daughter of the Ubar.
"You are free now," I said.
She looked at me, stunned, and backed away, being careful to avoid Nar by a safe distance. She kept her eyes on my sword, as if she expected me to strike her down if she turned her back.
"It is well," she finally said, "that you obey my command. Perhaps your death will be made easier in consequence."
"Who could refuse anything to the daughter of a Ubar?" I said, and then added maliciously, it seems now, "Good luck in the swamps."
She stopped and shuddered. Her robes still bore the wide lateral stain where the tongue of the tharlarion had wrapped itself. I glanced no more at her, but put my hand on the foreleg of Nar, gently, so that I might not injure any of the sensory hairs.
"Well, Brother,". I said, remembering the insult of the daughter of the Ubar, "shall we continue our journey?" I wanted Nar to understand that not all humankind were as contemptuous of the Spider People as the daughter of the Ubar.
"Indeed, Brother," responded the mechanical voice of Nar. And surely I would rather have been `a brother tothat gentle, rational monster than many of the barbarians g I had met on Gor. Indeed, perhaps I should be honored that he had addressed me as brother — I who failed to meet his standards, I who had so many times, intentionally or unintentionally, injured those of the rational kind.
Nar, with me on his back, moved from the knoll.
"Wait!" cried the daughter of the Ubar. "You can't leave me here!" She stumbled a bit from the knoll, tripped and fell in the water. She knelt in the green stagnant water, her hands held out to me, pleading, as if she suddenly realized the full horror of her plight, what it would mean to be abandoned in the swamp forest. "Take me with you," she begged.
"Wait," I said to Nar, and the giant spider paused.
The Ubar's daughter tried to stand up, but, ridiculously enough, it,seemed as if one leg were suddenly far shorter than the other. She stumbled again and fell once more into the water. She swore like a tarnsman. I laughed and slid from Nar's back. I waded to her side P and lifted her to carry her back to the knoll. She was surprisingly light, considering her apparent size.
I had hardly taken her in my arms when she struck my face viciously with one muddy hand. "How dare you touch the daughter of a Ubar!" she exclaimed. I shrugged and dropped her back in the water. Angrily she scram to bled to her feet as best she could and, hopping and stumbling, regained the knoll. I joined her there and examined her leg. One monstrous platform like shoe had broken from her small foot and flopped beside her ankle, still attached by its straps. The shoe was at least ten inches high. I laughed. This explained the incredible height of the Ubar's daughter.
"It's broken," I said. "I'm sorry."
She tried to rise, but one foot was, of course, some ten inches higher than the other. She fell again, and I unstrapped the remaining shoe. "No wonder you.can hardly walk," I said. "Why do you wear these silly things?"