Civitatis Ar, Plus!

Cylinder of Documents / House of Records

Why had this been done to me? Was this the reward for my services? And what of Elizabeth? Was it that Marlenus had looked upon her and so pleasing did he find her that he had decreed that she be reserved for the very Pleasure Gardens of the Ubar of Ar himself, to serve him as a silken wench, one of perhaps hundreds waiting perhaps a year for his casual notice or his touch? Men such as Marlenus are wont to take what pleases them, and to hold it, should they wish, at the point of a blade. Had it been that his eye had glanced upon her and he had, by the prerogative of the Ubar, commanded her to his slave ring. But was this honor? My hatred for the Ubar of Ar, whom I had helped restore to his throne, welled up within me, volcanic, molten and black. My hand was clutched on the hilt of my sword.
I threw open the door to my compartment.
The girl turned and faced me suddenly. She wore the briefly skirted gray slave livery of the state slave of Ar, the gray collar, the slender band of gray metal with its five simple bells locked about her left ankle. I heard the bells as she moved toward me. In her eyes there were tears.
I took Elizabeth Cardwell into my arms. I felt that never would I let her go. We wept, our tears meeting in her hair and on our cheeks as we kissed and touched. The tiny, fine golden ring of the Tuchuk woman was in her nose.
"I love you, Tarl," she said.
"I love you," I cried. "I love you, my Elizabeth!"
Unnoticed Hup, the small Fool, had entered the room. He carried with him some papers. There were tears in his eyes.
After a time, he spoke. "There is only an hour," said he, "until sundown."
Holding Elizabeth I looked at him.
"Thank Marlenus, Ubar of Ar, for me," said I.
Hup nodded. "Yesterday evening," said he, "Marlenus sent her to you, to tie your sandals, to serve you wine, but you refused even to look upon her."
Elizabeth laughed and pressed her cheek to my left shoulder.
"I have been refused bread, and fire and salt," I said to Elizabeth.
She nodded. "Yes," she said. She looked at me, bewildered. "Hup told me yesterday it would be so."
I looked at Hup.
"But why has this been done to me?" I asked. "It seems unworthy of the hand of a Ubar."
"Have you forgotten," asked he, "the law of the Home Stone?"
I gasped.
"Better surely banishment than torture and impalement."
"I do not understand," said Elizabeth.
"In the year 10,110, more than eight years ago, a tarnsman of Ko-ro-ba purloined the Home Stone of the city."
"It was I," I told Elizabeth.
She shuddered, for she knew the penalties that might attach to such a deed.
"As Ubar," said Hup, "it would ill become Marlenus to betray the law of the Home Stone of Ar."
"But he gave no explanation," I protested.
"An Ubar gives no accounting," said Hup.
"We fought together," said I, "back to back. I helped him to regain his throne. I was once the companion of his daughter."
"I say because I know him," said Hup, "though I might die from the saying of it, Marlenus is grieved. He is much grieved. But he is Ubar. He is Ubar. More than man, more than Marlenus, he is Ubar of my city, of Ar itself."
I looked at him.
"Would you," asked Hup, "betray the Home Stone of Ko-ro-ba?"
My hand leaped to the hilt of my sword.
Hup smiled. "Then," said he, "do not think Marlenus, whatever the price or cost, his grief, his dream, would betray that of Ar."
"I understand," I said.
"If a Ubar does not respect the law of the Home Stone, what man shall?"
"None," said I. "It is hard to be Ubar."
"It is less than an hour to sundown," said Hup.
I held Elizabeth to me.
"I have brought you papers," said Hup. "They have been endorsed to you. The slave is yours."
Elizabeth looked at Hup. He was Gorean. To him she was that, simply, a slave.
To me she seemed the world.
"Write on the papers," said I, "that on this first day of the restoration of Marlenus of Ar, the slave Vella was by her master, Tarl of Ko-ro-ba, granted her freedom."
Hup shrugged, and so endorsed the papers. I signed them, my name in Gorean script, followed by the sign of the city of Ko-ro-ba.
Hup gave me the key to Elizabeth's collar and anklet and I freed her of the steel that marked her slave.
"I will file the papers in the cylinder of documents," said Hup.
I took the free woman, Vella of Gor, Elizabeth Cardwell of Earth, in my arms.  ASSASSIN OF GOR-, (5) Pages 406-407

"What is your plan?" he asked.
"To approach the house of records over adjoining roofs, eschewing the use of patrolled streets," I said, "then to hurl the iron and rope from the roof of a nearby building to the roof of the house of records, and thence, later, by means of its displuviate atrium, to obtain entrance." The atrium is the house of records, I had learned, was open to the sky, which opening, as in many public and private Gorean buildings in the south, serves to admit light. The displuviate atrium is open in such a way as to shed rainwater outwards, keeping most of it from the flooring of the atrium below. This would also facilitate the use of the rope and iron. The alternative atrium, if unroofed, of course, is impluviate, so constructed as to guide rainwater into an awaiting pool below. This sort of atrium is less amenable to the rope and iron because of the pitch of the roof.  MAGICIANS OF GOR-, (25) Page 241

Some men ran past us now, towards the east, toward the light. We could hear more than one alarm bar now.
"Surely the curfew is still in effect," said Marcus.
"It will be hard to enforce now," I said.
"What is going on?" I called to a fellow hurrying past us, carrying a lantern.
"Have you not heard?" he asked. "It is the house of records. It is afire!"
"Perhaps we should have gone to a tavern," said Marcus.
"They close at the eighteenth Ahn now," I said.
"True," he said, irritatedly.
I supposed that the taverners must be much put out by the curfew law, and would have lost much business. But perhaps they could open earlier.  MAGICIANS OF GOR-, (25) Page 243
 

Kudos to you, Mr. Norman for writing the Gorean series!
A rich, yet utterly simple saga; a world, a time, a people;
those of the Counter-Earth .. the planet .. Gor.
Thank you!

The material presented herein was researched and compiled by me, naia{Saul}.
The material referenced comes from John Norman's Gor Series, The Counter-Earth Saga.
This is a work in process.
Please, do not take, copy, duplicate, or use this work as your own.
If you find it valuable enough to share, please .. share the link to this page.

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