Tarnsman of Gor   ::   Норман Джон

I prepared to welcome the bolt flashing through my body. I was curious to know if I would be conscious of its strike. Pa-Kur raised his hand with an imperious gesture. From somewhere I saw a small, round object sailing high into the air, out over the river. It was a tarn disk hurled by one of Pa-Kur's men. Just as the tiny object, black against the blue sky, reached its apogee, I heard the click of the trigger, the vibration of the string, and the swift hiss of the quarrel. Before the tare disk could. begin its fall, the quarrel pierced it, carrying it, I would judge, some two hundred and fifty yards out into the river. The men of Pa-Kur stamped their feet in the sand and clanged their spears on their shields.

"I spoke as a fool," I said to Pa-Kur.

"And you will die the death of a fool," he said. He spoke with no trace of anger or emotion of any kind.

He motioned to the men to thrust the frame out into the river, where it would be swept away.

"Wait," I said, "I ask your favor." The words camehard.

Pa-Kur gestured to the men to desist.

"What have you done with the girl?"

"She is Talena, daughter of the Ubar Marlenus," said Pa-Kur. "She will rule in Ar as my queen."

"She would die first," I said.

"She has accepted me," said Pa-Kur, "and will rule by my side." The stone eyes regarded me, expressionless.

"It was her wish that you die the death of a villain," he said, "on the Frame of Humiliation, unworthy to stain our weapons."

I closed my eyes. I should have known that the proud Talena, daughter of a Ubar, would leap at the first chance to return to power in Ar, even though it be at the head of a plundering host of brigands. And I, her protector, was now to be discarded. Indeed, the Frame of Humiliation would be ample vengeance to satisfy even Talena for the indignities she had suffered at my hands. It, if anything, would wipe out forever from her mind the offensive memory that she had once needed my help and had pretended to love me.

Then, each of the men of Pa-Kur, as is the custom before a frame is surrendered to the waters of the Vosk, spit on my body. Lastly, Pa-Kur spit in his hand and then placed his hand on my chest. "Were it not for the daughter of Marlenus," said Pa-Kur, his metallic face as placid as the quicksilver behind a mirror, "I would have slain you honorably. That I swear by the black helmet of my caste."

"I believe you," I said, my voice choked, no longer caring if I lived or died.

The spear butts pressed against the frame, shoving it away from the bank.