“The rope was removed from my neck,” she said. “I was then lifted in the arms of someone. ‘We expect you to be cooperative,’ I was informed by the leader. His voice was from before me, so it was not he in whose arms I was held. ‘If you are not cooperative, or choose to be troublesome,’ he continued, ‘your clothing will be removed, and you will be lashed, as though you might be a slave. Do you understand?’ I assumed he was bluffing, but with such a man, with such men, such beasts and brutes, I could not be sure. I whimpered once. ‘Take her away,’ said the leader. I sobbed, and whimpered, and struggled, but it was to no avail. I was later placed in a trunk of some sort, I think. I heard the latches fastened. Indeed, I thought I heard, as well, the closing of four heady padlocks. This was placed on a cart. Several times I was transferred from one container or vehicle to another. I was ungagged only in darkness and then to be fed and watered. More than once I was aerially transported.”
I, too, at least once, had been so transported. Well I recalled my helplessness, the whistling wind, swaying of the basket. It would be by air, it seemed, in one fashion or another, one would most likely arrive at this place, this apparently remote aerie. She had claimed to be clothed. I supposed it true, but in the darkness I did not know. She must be fortunate. Certainly most of the women I had seen brought here, when I was in the cell in the side of the mountain, had been brought here as stripped, or scantily clad, captives. Slaving, it seemed, was part of the business of this place. On this world, as I have indicated, women count as loot. Perhaps the women were then transported beyond the mountains, to far markets.
“Often did I recall,” said she, “how they had spoken of having a place in mind for me, one for my safekeeping, one in which no one would ever find me!”
I heard her shake the bars in the darkness.
“Oh, yes!” she cried. “Here I am surely theirs! Here I need not fear rescue!”
I thought it true.
“Where is the ruby necklace?” I inquired. I thought it must be very pretty, and of great value.
“They left it on me, the sleen,” she cried, “until I arrived here. It was their joke, I think, that I should wear, fro all to see, hung about my neck, when I arrived here, what I had sought so avidly, so greedily, that with which they had baited their trap, that by means of which I had been snared, that in virtue of which I had come so simply into their power! But, their joke finished, it was removed from me before I was put here.”
“You do not know where it is?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Perhaps it is now once again at its work. Perhaps, even now, it is being used to snare another.”
“They are clever wretches!” she cried, suddenly. Again I heard the movement of what must be bars, shaken. She wept.
It seemed, indeed, she had been deftly, and cleverly, taken. The men here, it seemed, were not unskillful in diverse endeavors. Many businesses might be herein practiced. Certainly her acquisition, the arrangements, her transportation and such, spoke of a tried methodology, of some sort of experience or acumen in such matters. I gathered that she was rich. Her ransom, I speculated, would be considerable. It would doubtless be far more than she, or, I supposed, almost any woman, would be likely to bring on a sales block. If that were not the case, it seemed unlikely that the men here would be holding her for ransom. Rather, they would simply sell her, perhaps individually, or in a lot, with others. She was, it seemed, a free woman. I myself, on the other hand, was the sort of woman who is most appropriately owned. I had known this, even on my old world. And here, on this world, I was owned. To be sure, I would have preferred a private master. You might think, incidentally, that all of us would prefer to choose our own master, and not merely a private master, but an individual master, but that is not true. I think I would have preferred to choose my own master, but that is perhaps whom I had knelt even before my body had grown used to bonds of iron, one whom I had never forgotten, one whom I had failed to please, one whose whip I had kissed. But some of us, at least, would prefer not to choose our own master, but, rather, to have one imposed upon us, whom we must then, in the fullness of our bondage, willing or not, strive to please. Indeed, had I not met a particular man, one I well remembered, I, myself, might have preferred this latter alternative. I did, of course, hope to have a kind master, or, at least, one as kindly as was compatible with the clear, strict relationship in which we stood to one another. I wanted to win the love of my master, whoever he might be. I asked only the opportunity to serve and love. I was waiting to serve and love. But, in any event, it is not we who choose the masters. It is the masters who choose us.
“Hist!” she said, suddenly. “Someone is coming!”
I sat up, as I could, in the net, my hands bound behind me, my ankles crossed and tied. The net swung.
I heard nothing.
I saw nothing.
I was very still. I strained to hear. If she had truly heard something, her senses must have become considerably sharpened in this environment. To be sure, she might have learned, somehow, to detect and interpret the slightest of sounds in such a place. I did hear a stirring in the waters somewhere beneath. I had heard that sound before.
I thought I saw a light, dim, far off.
What would be done with me?
I recalled that the man in the chair had speculated that Dorna, the high slave, would not be displeased with my disposition. That recollection did not hearten me.
Closer grew the light.
“He is coming,” whispered the woman from the darkness. I heard the slight creak of the chain.
It seemed to me that at least two were in the passage, but it may be, I thought, that only one counted.
of what use, I asked myself, would be my beauty, if beauty it was, or the helplessness of my sexual reflexes, taken as a matter of course in a slave, in a place such as this?
But doubtless I would be assigned my duties!
The light came closer.
I did not even know my name! I had a name. One had been given to me by my masters. But I did not know what it was. It was on my collar. I knew that. But I did not know what it was. Indeed, I could not even read.
Now I could hear tiny sounds, unusual sounds, in the approaching passage.
I shuddered, waiting, bound in the net.
I recalled the girl from the surface, a slave, who had been whipped and sent, plunging, into the depths. She was terrified. I had no doubt she would do her best to be found pleasing.
The light was now closer, and I could determine, clearly, that there were two figures in the passage. The first was a woman, in a brief tunic. No more than a rag. She was excellently curved. She was doubtless a slave. She carried a torch. I was not sure what was behind her. I did not even know, for certain, if it were human or not. It seemed large, broad thing. But it had tiny legs. It walked bent over. I did not know if it could straighten itself or not. It less walked than shambled. It moved with small steps.