Shadows of Gor Chapter Six (of Eighteen)

Chapter Six: Explanations are given before we begin a long journey by land and sea to Port Kar

'...and by a force of will,
my lungs are filled,
with air,
so I breathe.'

Two years eight months ago, minus a few days, sort of...

I had danced on the tiles for just under eight minutes. Barefoot, fully made up with my most beguiling cosmetics, naked except for long ankle length strips of red silk tied to a silver chain about my waist, shorter lengths of silk to my wrists, and belled at the ankles, I had danced to the Arabic rhythms of three musicians who sat in a far corner. I say Arabic but of course they were from the Tahari and they enjoyed the patronage of Brinn who had taken a liking to that kind of music when it was accompanied and enhanced by the presence of silken dancers such as myself. Back on Earth I had loved Arabic style trance records that fused the ethnic desert rhythms with electronic pulses. I’ve always loved music and in my student days I tried to learn to play the guitar, never really progressing beyond some basic heavy blues riffs, as I thought it might give me an air of bohemian artistry and attract the attention of the lovely Cathy Granger, because didn’t all women want to hang out with a guitarist? Sadly Cathy Granger found one of the members of the University rowing society more her kind of thing. 

Shadows of Gor - Chapter Five (of Eighteen)

Chapter Five: We are auctioned together on the slave block of the House of Kanaan

The sharp crack of the slaver’s whip against the wooden boards was the signal for Lot 23 – Chloe and myself – to walk on stage and present ourselves to the assembled men and a small handful of women who, it must be said, kept themselves within an informal grouping, preferring not to sit or stand in amongst men who had thoughts of female flesh on their minds. Our potential buyers stood watching from the sawdust covered floor in direct sight of the platform as we stepped out into bright daylight. We were both naked, and our original collars had been removed and replaced with platform collars stating that were currently in the care of the House of Kanaan. A carefully measured extract of Belladonna had been applied with an eyedropper to make our pupils appear bigger just before we were due to be auctioned. We wore full makeup that I had applied to us both, choosing to wave away an auction house slave-girl who had been doing the rounds to tend to girls with little or no makeup skills.

Shadows of Gor - Chapter Four (of Eighteen)

Chapter Four: My Fate and Other Nightmares

“No, I’m not going to give the bitch the satisfaction. I'm not.”

“For God’s sake, Emma, she’ll probably kill you if you refuse. You won't believe how angry she was last night. Simon has gone to great lengths to calm her down and plead on your behalf for mercy. All you have to do is beg for your life and she’ll let you live.” Chloe knelt beside me as I lay on a pile of soft furs in one of the slave pens. All around me the other girls watched and listened. I lay on my stomach of course because the whip marks were still fresh and painful across my back.

Shadows of Gor Chapter Three (of 18)

Chapter Three: Elevation

No matter what you do, the pain is always there. All you can do is to shift it from one part of your body to the other.

I hung there from manacles around my wrists, suspended from a hinged ring mounted on a thick wooden pole ten feet above the ground of the central courtyard. I was able to support the weight of my body, barely, on a thin off cut of wood that was fixed against the pole at the position where my feet would reach. Cruelly the piece of wood was only wide enough to support one foot (although I could rest the other foot on top of the first) and only if I stretched my body taut and touched the off cut of wood with the ball of my foot. Otherwise I would hang there with the weight of my body pulling at my wrists in their iron manacles.

Shadows of Gor Chapter Two (of 18)

Chapter Two: Queen Bitch

“Lady Cassandra, it is my great pleasure to welcome you back to the Sardar. As always, you grace us with your charm and exquisite refinement, and I speak personally for the entire household in Brinn's absence when I say that your visits are always a delight. May I offer you our full hospitality, and I place myself at your personal service in all things. I consider your word to be the word of Brinn, my friend and patron.”

Sadly, Simon wasn’t making any of this up for comic effect. I listened to him greet Cassandra with the warmest tones possible as I knelt in the dirt in the grounds facing the villa with the Household slaves lined up behind me for inspection. Cassandra had been carried to this spot in her gilded palanquin, and now her retinue of warriors had lined up in three ranks either side of her conveyance, standing proud with spears and shields and crested helmets in the Gorean manner. Simon had assembled Brinn’s own warriors to face them, not as any sort of challenge of course, but rather as a welcome since both sets of warriors in a sense belonged to the same family house.

Shadows of Gor Chapter One (of 18)

Chapter One: The Best of Times

It was I suppose the best of times, until it became the worst of times.

Six years had passed since I had played my part in the downfall of Kurgus, Seremides and Miss Elizabeth Bentley on the shores of Lake Siljan. I had perhaps imagined my story was over, and that there would be nothing left to tell. I had said goodbye to Rachel, and I had submitted fully and completely to Brinn of the Sardar. I truly thought my days of adventure were over.

How little I knew.

Review: 'The Game of Worlds' (A Tales of Gor RPG supplement)

'The Game of Worlds' review

For me, one of the most compelling aspects of the Gorean milieu is the 'Great Game' that is played out in the background by the two alien races, the Priest Kings and the Kurii, with us humans acting as their playthings or expendable resources. And tied in to it is one of the core concepts of the Gor series – the ships of acquisition that travel through space bringing humans from one world to the other, most often women, and most often against their will.