Tarnsman of Gor   ::   Норман Джон

"Mine, if you like," he agreed.

Marlenus set the Home Stone on the ground before him and drew his sword, which he laid across his knees; he looked like some remote and terrible god of war.

"Do you know, Tarnsman," he asked, "that there is no justice without the sword?" He smiled down on me grimly. "This is a terrible truth," he said, "and so consider it carefully." He paused. "Without this," he said touching the blade, "there is nothing — no justice, no civilization, no society, no community, no peace. Without the sword there is nothing."

"By what right," I challenged, "is it the sword of Marlenus that must bring justice to Gor?"

"You do not understand," said Marlenus. "Right itself — that right of which you speak so reverently — owes its very existence to the sword."

"I think that is false," I said. "I hope it is false." I shifted, even that small movement irritating the whip cuts on my back.

Marlenus was patient. "Before the sword," he said, "there is no right, no wrong, only fact — a world of what is and what is not, rather than a world of what should be and what should not be. There is no justice until the sword creates it, establishes it, guarantees it, gives it substance and significance." He lifted the weapon, wielding the heavy metal blade as though it were a straw. "First the sword" he said, "then government — then law — then justice."

"But," I asked, "what of the dream of Ar, that dream of which you spoke, that dream that you believed it right to bring about?"

"Yes?" said Marlenus.

"Is that a right dream?" I asked.

"It is a right dream," he said.

"And yet," I said, "your sword has not yet found the strength to bring it into being."

Marlenus looked at me thoughtfully, then laughed. "By the Priest-Kings," he said, "I think I have lost the exchange."

I shrugged, somewhat incongruously in the chains; it hurt.

"But," went on Marlenus, "if what you say is true, how shall we separate the right dreams from the wrong dreams?"

It seemed to me a difficult question.

"I will tell you," laughed Marlenus. He slapped the blade fondly. "With this!"

The Ubar then rose and sheathed his sword. As if this were a signal, some of his tarnsmen entered the cave and seized me.

"Impale him," said Marlenus.

The tarnsmen began to unlock the shackles, that I might be impaled freely on the lance, perhaps so that my struggles might provide a more interesting spectacle to the onlookers.