Tarnsman of Gor   ::   Норман Джон

Mintar bowed his head in mock ceremony, a wry smile on his fat face, and with one short finger delicately tipped his own Ubar, causing it to fall.

"It is a weakness in my game," lamented Mintar. "I am ever too greedy for a profit, however small."

Marlenus looked at Kazrak and myself. "Mintar," he said, "teaches me patience. He is normally a master of defense."

Mintar smiled. "And Marlenus invariably of the attack."

"An absorbing game," said Marlenus, almost absentmindedly. "To some men this game is music and women. It can give them pleasure. It can help them forget. It is Ka-la-na wine, and the night on which such wine is drunk.

Neither Kazrak nor myself spoke.

"Look here," said Marlenus, reconstructing the board. "I have used the Assassin to take the City. Then, the Assassin is felled by a Tarnsman… an unorthodox, but interesting variation…»

"And the Tarnsman is felled by a Spear Slave," I observed.

"True," said Marlenus, shaking his head, "but thusly did I win."

"And Pa-Kur," I said, "is the Assassin."

"Yes," agreed Marlenus, "and Ar is the City."

"And I am the Tarasman?" I asked.

"Yes," said Marlenus.

"And who," I asked, "is the Spear Slave?"

"Does it matter?" asked Marlenus, sifting several of the Spear Slaves through his fingers, letting them drop, one by one, to the board. "Any of them will do."

"If the Assassin should take the City," I said, "the rule of the Initiates will be broken, and eventually the horde with its loot will scatter, leaving a garrison."

Mintar shifted comfortably, settling his great bulk more deeply into the cushions. "The young tarnsman plays the game well," he said.

"And," I went on, "when Pa-Kur falls, the garrison will be divided, and a revolution may take place."

"Led by a Ubar," said Marlenus, looking fixedly at the game piece in his hand. It was a Ubar. He smashed it down on the board, scattering the other pieces to the silken cushions. "By a Ubar!" he exclaimed.

"You are willing," I asked, "to turn the city over to, Pa-Kur — that his horde should swarm into the cylinders, that the city may be looted and burned, the people destroyed or enslaved?" I shuddered involuntarily at the thought of the uncontrolled hordes of Pa-Kur among the spires of Ar, butchering, pillaging, burning, raping or, as the Goreans will have it, washing the bridges in blood.

The eyes of Marlenus flashed. "No," he said "But Ar will fall. The Initiates can only mumble prayers to the Priest-Kings arrange the details of their meaningless, innumerable sacrifices.