Outcast of Gor Chapter Thirty Four

 

I have never understood the concept of men digging their own grave, or, to put it another way, submitting meekly to their own death. I remember as a kid watching a film in which one man pointed a gun at another man and ordered him to dig a grave for himself, and even at that young age I thought, why doesn’t the man try to fight? Yes, the odds are against him, but he’s going to die anyway. He has a shovel in his hands. That’s a weapon. Have a go. What do you have to lose? Worst case scenario – your murderer has to do the digging himself. 

 

“You’re not putting a noose on me,” I said as I readied myself for a fight. 

 

“Shackle his hands,” said the lead guard. 

 

“Like fuck you will.” I needed a weapon, but there wasn’t anything in the cell I could pick up and use. Okay, fine, I’d use my hands, and I’d at least die fighting. I know how to use my hands. 

 

That’s the other thing – if it comes down to it, and you’re fighting for real – you go full out. I had no marital arts training, but I knew enough about street fighting that I was going to fight dirty and I was going to fight to cripple and kill. Hammer blows and heel palms to vulnerable areas like the throat and temples. The huge guy had closely cropped hair, which meant I couldn’t seize a handful of it and pull his face down to meet my knee. Too bad.

 

I didn’t think I was going to survive this, but they would know they had a fight on their hands by the end of the day. 

 

The huge Gorean man tossed the noose rope to the lead guard and moved in on me with a sour faced grin. Come on ugly. I could feel the adrenaline boost coursing through my body now and I felt like a coiled spring. Use it. Use it straight away. Don’t fuck about. Don’t dance and plead and cajole. Use that added strength as soon as you have it. 

 

He was probably expecting me to back away, act defensively at first, and so I did the complete opposite. I closed in on him as quickly as I could. I feinted with my left hand and aimed a clenched palm strike for under his chin. Break his jaw and shock his neck and then add a clenched fist hammer blow to his nose, maybe even get to stab fingers into his eyes, following that.

 

I was suddenly lying on the floor, dazed, my senses reeling.

 

I don’t even know what had happened. 

 

Except I knew he’d hit me. 

 

“Shackle him and then ready the noose,” said the lead guard. The Gorean hulk nodded, but he had his eyes off me for a split second. 

 

I swept my legs out and took his legs between my feet, taking away his balance, bringing him crashing down to the ground. 

 

That surprised him.

 

I staggered up to my knees and threw myself at his fallen body. I let my own weight push him back down onto the cement and I pressed down with my left forearm against his throat, raising my right hand in a clenched hammer fist to break his nose inwards, but before I had the chance, the lead guard seized my hair and pulled me back, away from the fallen hulk. 

 

My hair was long enough to be easily seized. 

 

I was off balance for a moment, and as I tried to right myself before I might be thrown onto my back, the hulk leapt back to his feet. He was close enough as I was falling back that I was able to swing a sharp kick with my right foot into his groin before he was able to counter. It’s normally very difficult to hit there, but big ugly had only just got to his feet and wasn’t ready to guard himself. The kick was a good one and I had the satisfaction of hearing him scream and stagger backwards. 

 

No sex for you tonight I grimly thought as tears flooded the man’s eyes. That’s going to be tender for a few days to come. 

 

But now I was pulled off balance and came crashing down to the cement floor. The lead guard quickly stomped down on me and would have stamped hard on my gut if I hadn’t managed to twist to one side. Even so, the kick hurt like hell. I seized that ankle before it could draw back and now I threw him to the ground. 

 

The adrenaline rushing through me meant I didn’t really feel the injuries I’d taken, or, rather, yes, they hurt, but they wouldn’t slow me down yet. My body didn’t understand how much pain it was in. Tunnel vision had set in and I lost any feel for time, existing now in a single moment of intense clarity as I suddenly found myself on top of the lead guard, striking down into his face with a hammer fist. I struck again and again, not even aware of his screaming. 

 

Big ugly must have got over the groin kick because I suddenly felt a kick to my ribs. It didn’t stop me from striking the lead guard again with the clenched side of my hand. But then I was lifted up and the next thing I knew my head struck a wall. 

 

Now I was in a bad state. I couldn’t see properly. I felt another kick and then my head hit the wall again. 

 

I tried to get up, but another kick put a stop to that. 

 

I felt a spreading numbness that obliterated much of the pain, as if my brain was shutting down. 

 

I heard distant shouting, but couldn’t make out any words. 

 

Is this what it’s like to die? A gradual disconnect with reality? A gradual fading away from life itself?

 

I was on my belly and my wrists were drawn back. I couldn’t move my wrists back before me, so I had to be shackled now. I felt a rope noose thrust down past my head and tightened about my throat.

 

Felicity, I’m so sorry.

 

Kulai, I’m so sorry.

 

And yes, Kelsee, you too.

 

My mouth tasted very wet. Blood, no doubt. 

 

Oh, Felicity. I love you so much. And Kulai – I wasted those precious days when I could have been with you to begin with. You would have been the mother of my children, and I would have been so fucking proud of you. You are not a slave. You are a Free Woman. It doesn’t matter to me that you have a brand and a collar. In your heart you are a huntress. I love you, too.

 

And Kelsee – in another life perhaps. 

 

I am so sorry to you all. 

 

I felt my body rising. I felt a tightness about my neck. My body began convulsing, switching now to pure instinctive survival mode, thrashing about as I rose to first my knees, and then my feet. The rope was doing the heavy lifting and I struggled to rise with it, to spare myself the choking that would come from passive resistance. 

 

And then I was on tiptoes, and my body began to panic. 

 

Was I screaming? I wasn’t properly conscious of what I was doing, or what anyone had been doing. It had all been adrenaline and instinct.

 

And then my toes left the ground and I began to really convulse. I couldn’t breathe. The rope noose was tight about my windpipe. Any screams had probably stopped.

 

I felt my bladder release. I had read once that happens during a hanging. 

 

Kelsee, Kulai, Felicity.

 

Felicity, Kulai, Kelsee.

 

I hallucinated, seeing Kulai before me, standing proudly through some bank of fog, dressed as a huntress, smiling down at me and holding out her hand.

 

Kulai, I love you. You are my woman. 

 

“And you are my man, beloved,” she said. “I would not let you die alone.”

 

The tension was suddenly gone, though the tight pressure around my throat and windpipe remained as I came crashing down, striking the cement floor with my shoulder first, sparing my head from the worst that might have happened. 

 

I lay there, still choking from the constriction of the rope, if not from the weight of my body.

 

I felt fingers about my throat, loosening the rope. 

 

I gasped and breathed in air. 

 

And then I must have passed out. 

 

--------------------

 

It was explained to me, sometime after I recovered, that I had spent six days and five nights suspended in a Tleilaxu tank. This is a reinforced glass tank full of a slightly blue hued water that stimulates and accelerates tissue regeneration and healing. If this comes as something of a surprise to you, it was an equal surprise to me when I learnt of it. On the surface, Gor seems a backward pre-industrial society, so it is always something of an eye opener when you learn of its advanced science in certain permitted fields of endeavour. Medical science, under the care and ministration of the green clad caste of Physicians, is one such area of technology permitted to humanity on this savage and natural Counter Earth, and in fact its level of advancement far exceeds anything comparable on Earth itself. The fluid is expensive and therefore the preserve of the rich and powerful, but it can achieve remarkable results. 

 

I must have been dimly aware of my time in the tank as I had a feeling of being warm and cossetted throughout, like a baby must feel inside its mother’s womb. I am also aware I had vivid and stimulating dreams during my period of induced coma, while the blue viscous fluid worked its magic on my cellular tissue. I think I may have even dreamt of floating in a vast ocean where brightly coloured fish swam around me, but like most dreamers, the details were lost soon after waking, and all that remained was an abstract awareness of having slept well and vividly. 

 

When I did finally awake, it was on a couch bed in a marble walled room. My body had been dried of the fluid and I lay under soft sheets, my head resting on a soft pillow. There were tubes and wires taped to my body, and readings were being taken on a variety of free-standing instruments. 

 

A man in green robes consulted the readings and seemed pleased with what he saw them registering as I gradually returned to consciousness.

 

“You may find it difficult to move for a time,” he explained. “Your muscles have become unused to motion, and there will be a certain stiffness and weakness until you familiarise yourself with your body again. You may also feel disorientated and dizzy to begin with, possibly losing your sense of balance, but all this will return within a few ahn. Try not to stimulate yourself. Your body received nourishment intravenously during your induced coma, but you will no doubt feel very hungry despite this. I will have a slave bring you some warm broth. Eat it slowly. In fact, allow the slave to administer the broth to your lips. She will regulate your intake and ensure you do not choke on it.”

 

“Where am I?” I manged to say, though the words sounded mangled as they emerged from my mouth.

 

“In the palace of Corcyrus,” he said. “You are safe.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“I have no idea,” remarked the man. “I am simply your physician. Suffice to say you came here with considerable injuries.” He consulted a scroll. “You had lost an eye, your spleen was ruptured, your ribs were broken, as was your nose and both cheek bones, and… well, it’s quite a considerable list. Your right ear was crushed, almost certainly rendering you deaf on the left side, and the damage to your windpipe was possibly life threatening. Your spine was also broken in two places.”

 

He seemed to register the alarm now displayed in my face, and so he quickly added, “all this has been dealt with. Your time in the Tleilaxu tank has healed and repaired your body. You have a new eye grown from the pulped remains of your ruined one, and everything else has been restored as good as new.”

 

“How?”

 

“The Palace has a Tleilaxu tank,” he said, as if that was answer enough. “It is an expensive process, requiring skilled oversight, but I suppose you must be someone very important.”

 

“I’m… I’m not important.”

 

“Someone obviously thinks you are.” The physician rolled the scroll closed and placed it in a rack with a number of other scrolls. “I will send for the slave girl now. Do not agitate yourself for a few ahn at least. Allow her to feed you and give you some water. You will know when your body is recovered, because you will probably want to put the girl to use. I would ask you not to, for today at least. It is best to take things slow and easy for the remainder of the day.”

 

“Is she beautiful?” I asked with a wry smile.

 

The physician regarded me with amusement. “Almost certainly. This is the palace of Corcyrus, after all.”

 

She was beautiful, and her name was Amy. She spoon fed me, slowly, carefully, pausing as I choked on the first attempts to will my throat to function again.

 

I felt helpless, like an invalid, but within a few ahn co-ordination returned to my limbs and I was able to sit up with confidence and then swing my feet down onto the ground and take some first, hesitant, steps. 

 

“Master is recovering well,” said Amy. She had blonde hair and was dressed modestly, for a slave, that is. 

 

“Do you know what happened to me?” I asked. The last I could recall was hanging from a noose in my prison cell.

 

“I am only a kajira, Master. No one tells us anything.”

 

This was true. But despite that, kajirae tend to know a lot about a lot of things. They are always a good source of gossip and news. People tend to be careless when talking in front of their slaves. 

 

“This is the palace?” I took some unsteady steps across the tiled floor, feeling strength and balance return to my legs as I paced back and forth. “The palace of the Tatrix?”

 

“Yes, Master,” said Amy. Her accent identified her as a barbarian, that is to say, a girl from Earth. Her given name was also of Earth origin, though that itself meant little, as sometimes Gorean slave girls are given Earth girl names. They invariably hate it when that happens. 

 

“Are you the property of the Tatrix?”

 

“I am the property of the palace, Master, so I suppose that makes me the property of the Tatrix. She has never spoken to me, though, and I have only seen her at a distance, and then only once or twice. I work mostly in the stables.”

 

“How long have you been on Gor?”

 

She seemed surprised by the question, then she thought for a while, and replied, “I was taken here in 1979, in Earth terms.”

 

I hadn’t even been born when Amy had been taken by Gorean slavers. I hadn’t appreciated how long the slave trade from Earth to Gor had been going on. She had been stabilised on Gor, of course. Despite being abducted in 1979, Amy appeared to be in her mid-twenties. It was strange to think I was talking to an Earth girl who wouldn’t even know what the Internet was. 

 

I walked to a series of large Arabian featured windows that overlooked a lush garden. Beyond the garden I saw high walls, and strung across the open space, at roof height, were strands of narrow razor wire.  

 

“That is tarn wire, Master. It has been strung a few days ago as a precaution after what happened in the city. The palace is under tight security.”

 

“Why am I here?”

 

“I do not know, Master. You must be important.”

 

“I’m not important. I’m an outlaw.” I held my left hand up for Amy to see. “This means I’m little more than a common thug.”

 

Amy said nothing as I displayed the outlaw brand. 

 

“You should be scared of me, kajira,” I said.

 

“I am not scared of you Master, no more so than I am scared of any other man. I hope to be found pleasing by men, and thus they will perhaps be kind to me.”

 

“You have nothing to fear from me,” I said after a while. She was very lovely. “I am a man of honour, despite my brand, and I am not a sadist.”

 

“I am pleased to hear that, Master.” She watched as I practised walking some more, but after about ten ehn I felt fatigued and had to sit back down on the couch. She took my arm and helped me there. 

 

“I can massage you gently, Master. That may help speed the recovery of your limbs and add strength to your body,” she offered.

 

“Do so,” I said.

 

I enjoyed a very pleasant ahn, lying on my stomach on the couch, feeling Amy work her magic with her fingers. The physician had been right. My strength of limb and sense of balance was returning quickly, and Amy’s skilled hands helped immensely. Part of me felt like rolling on to my back and telling her to straddle me, but I was reminded of the physician’s words not to strain myself in the first few hours. 

 

It might well have lasted more than an ahn, if I hadn’t been suddenly interrupted.

 

“Rise, robe yourself,” said the returning physician as he motioned for the slave, Amy, to withdraw from my couch. He placed a long robe on a side table. 

 

“Why?” I rose to a seated position and brushed my hand through my hair. 

 

“You have a visitor. An important visitor.” The physician glanced towards the open doorway, through which I could see a side corridor. 

 

“When you say important…”

 

“The Tatrix of Corcyrus,” he said, automatically bowing his head an inch or so when speaking her title. 

 

“Is she here now?” I asked as I rose from the couch. I sensed people lingering just beyond the doorway.

 

“She is. Ready yourself.” He gestured at the robe.

 

“Is she likely to be troubled by the sight of my naked body?” I couldn’t help but smile at the thought.

 

“Robe yourself.”

 

“Very well.” I slipped my head and arms through the luxurious robe and allowed the garment to fall down to just above my ankles. It had long sleeves and was belted with a sash. 

 

“He is ready, your grace,” said the physician.

 

I turned as I sensed a woman enter the chamber. She was closely followed by what I presumed was one of her advisors, as he had the look of a studious politician. That is to say, half man, half rat. 

 

“Your grace,” the physician bowed low. I offered a simple nod of my head. She was robed and modest and I saw she wore a number of veils, hiding the lower features of her face, though not the street veil, simply the lighter house veils. This seemed interesting, as she had famously always exposed her features to the crowds during her night time rallies. She wore a hood raised over her hair, but this was loosely positioned, and it was easy enough to make out the luxurious head of red hair that she had.

 

I had no idea how to address a Tatrix, and so I followed the physicians’ cue.

 

“Greetings, your grace,” I said.

 

“I am Aliyyah Mercator, Nineteenth Tatrix of Corcyrus.” It was her voice. If I had any doubts that this anonymously veiled woman was the woman I had listened to a week ago, they were banished by the familiar intonations of that commanding voice. “This is my First Minister, Laskar Tagaris. You may be interested to know that for the past week he has been advising me to kill you.”

 

There was silence in the room for a moment. I could hardly believe my ears. As I regarded Laskar Tagaris, he simply nodded, emotionless, and remarked, “I suggested a clean and painless death, of course. We are not barbarians.”

 

“May I…” I gazed about the room for a weapon. There were at least three things I felt I could seize at short notice, but then the absurdity of the situation suddenly struck me – they had gone to great expense and even greater effort to heal my injuries. Surely this hadn’t been done just so that I could be killed as a healthy man? “May I ask why you considered killing me?”

 

The Tatrix walked into the room on her softly slippered feet. She paused before me. “Because of what you did.”

“What I did? Just what did I do, exactly, that warrants summary execution?”

 

“You saved the life of my daughter.”