Tal Goreans,
Greetings visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column. Tarl Cabot’s stay in the latest inescapable dungeon to which he has been committed - the salt mines of Klima - has been a brief one. By saving the life of T’Zshal, the Salt Master, he has won his freedom along with his friend and native guide, Hassan the Bandit. All he has to worry about now is crossing an indefinite number of pasangs of desert in an unknown direction in order to reach civilization, stop a war, and possibly save the world. When our hero is in such an extremity, it would be rude to keep him waiting…

Chapter Nineteen

Thanks to Hassan’s desert survival skills, things are not yet hopeless, though they are having to live off the land, and they are catching occasional glimpses and sniffs of a Kur. Tarl and Hassan are still lost when they have water for only four days more, which Hassan points out actually leaves them six days of life, for a man may last two days without water.

But the very desert is turning against our heroes. Tarl has had the ill-luck to encounter a Tahari sandstorm before, and on that occasion Hassan waxed philosophical and bade him think himself lucky that the wind was not blowing from the East. On this occasion, however, it is. They are in for a rough ride, and even Hassan does not know for how long they may have to endure it; even when Tarl reminds him that they are now officially brothers (implying: Tarl is entitled to know the truth), Hassan maintains that no-one can know how bad it will be - but it will certainly be very bad.

At the height of the storm the Kur appears, making itself plainly known; but unlike at least one other Kur whom Tarl has met, this is unable to speak to him in Gorean, and only silently urges Tarl to enter the terrible dune country. Hassan and Tarl obey their first instinct, which is to flee, and they can hardly be blamed for this.

Chapter Twenty

The storm, however, abates, fortunately not living up to the reputation of an East-winder, though Hassan believes there will be more before much longer. But Tarl has another concern. He returns to where they saw the Kur, and finds it still there, nearly dead. Though Hassan is all for letting it die, Tarl points out that it could have killed them for the water it desperately needs, and it did not do so; and in the name of mercy, plus some curiosity, he shares their water with it.

The Kur repeats its silent demand, that Tarl should go into the dune country with it, and he recognises it both as the creature he had released from Samos at the start of the story, and as the one that was nearly killed by Ibn Saran when Tarl was in prison. (He can tell this last fact by the scimitar wounds the Kur carries.) Hassan protests, but Tarl will not be dissuaded, and he urges Hassan to make all haste to his own tribe, because of the impending war; and though Hassan would favour his new brother over his tribe, they have not enough water for both of them to accompany the Kur.

Chapter Twenty-One

The dune country is as dreadful as reputation makes it; arid, lifeless, and barely survivable. Yet the Kur is at least as expert a desert survivor as Hassan, and finds them sustenance on their way and bullies Tarl into making the best possible pace. When he holds up eight fingers and points at the Sun, Tarl does not yet understand what he means; but as the next day the Kur holds up only seven, and six on the following day, the meaning becomes plain. They have only a few days to accomplish the Kur’s mission, whatever that may be.

The Kur succeeds in finding water-holes, then dried-up water-courses with wet mud and buried snails, as the days go by, and somehow the pair take on enough moisture to live a little longer, before plunging into the depths of the dunes. As Tarl flags, first of all the Kur hauls him after himself on a tether, and then carries the unconscious Tarl for a while. Tarl cannot but admire the magnificent courage and endurance of the creature, but the desert is mightier yet and their journey seems hopeless. Even the march to Klima was a stroll in the park next to this.

At last the Kur feeds Tarl water from its own storage stomach, which inspires Tarl to a final exertion on his own account, though they are both forced to slow their pace as the days count down to two, to one, until finally the Kur holds up a clenched fist: No more days. Suddenly the full horror of the situation strikes Tarl. The Kurii message “Surrender Gor” was no idle threat. The power of the Priest-Kings protects not only Gor but Earth, and the Kurii are willing to eliminate the one in order to win the other.

The promised sandstorm strikes up, but just as it does so, with an unknown number of hours left of a world’s last day, they stumble across the “steel tower” of which Tarl had been told to beware. It is plainly some kind of rocket ship, crashed point-first into the sand, and Tarl does not need to wonder at its purpose. Plainly it houses a fantastically powerful bomb, and the Kur at once makes for it; but it operates a strange ring on its finger and disappears from view before Tarl’s eyes.

There is the sound of gunfire and men screaming in terror, before the Kur reappears. It has been shot and is mortally wounded, and it hands Tarl the invisibility ring before collapsing on the sand. Concluding that the bomb is still active, Tarl takes the ring and heads for the ship. There he finds another Kur, evidently on a suicide mission to ensure that the explosion happens on schedule. Tarl has to use the ring to escape. He talks of “light diversion fields”, which is a cod-scientific way of saying “it’s magic”; but he deduces that the ring did not save his Kur friend and it will not save him either. The guard need only wait for him to frame himself in the doorway, and it cannot miss him.

Of course, Tarl comes up with a tactic to get himself into the ship, through creative non-use of the ring, and as night falls and time is running out, he and the Kur fight. Tarl triumphs, and has to somehow stop the bomb going off. Fortunately the Kurii who created the bomb never read the Evil Overlord’s Handbook, so they do not know that, if you must use a time-bomb, you should never set it to go off at 0:00:00 but ensure that there is, say, five and a half minutes left on the clock when it blows. Even more fortunately, the fantastically-advanced Kurii, for all their incredibly cheap space flight, ray guns, invisibility rings and what not, actually use analogue clocks, with breakable glass and conveniently large hands, and Tarl, with a dramatically short time left to do so, manages to stop the clock with a scientifically-placed length of metal pipe.

He reports his success to the friendly Kur, but it is too late; still, it seems to have died contented. And as he repairs his strength on the food and water aboard the ship, he spends his time usefully, carefully dismantling what he can, although the major work will be left to the Priest-Kings when they get there. Tarl’s luck continues to smile on him; normally the only sane course of action, when you are sitting on a bomb that could destroy the world but has been rendered inactive, is to touch nothing with a capital N.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Fed, watered and recovered, Tarl need only wait for the next supply delivery in order to win himself a kaiila to ride out of the desert on. He resorts to a cunning ploy to lure his quarry in close enough, and the rest is plain sailing. The cherry on the cake as far as Tarl is concerned is that he recognises the men as two of his erstwhile guards on the march to Klima, giving him a welcome opportunity for a spot of catch-up. (It’s not that big a coincidence. We already know that Ibn Saran is an important Kurii agent, and these two were working for him before and still are.)

A short action sequence later, Tarl has disposed of one of the riders and has his kaiila and the supplies, which means he can follow the other rider at his leisure and let thirst bring him down, and he sets off contentedly to do so.

Chapter Twenty-Three

At Red Rock Tarl finds large armies massed for war, the Kavars and the Aretai and their many vassal tribes, plus the Tajuks, who are not actually vassals so much as friends who will gladly join in a fight for any reason, or none. Tarl is welcomed, though he is a stranger, simply for declaring that he would like to fight for the Kavars.

As battle is about to be joined between tens of thousands of bloodthirsty desert warriors, a lone rider hastens up. There is a call for a parley between this, High Pasha Haroun of the Kavars, and his opposite number, Suleiman of the Aretai, and various vassal leaders join the parley; Tarl goes to listen in, expecting to be let alone as everyone will think he is with someone else.

Haroun asks politely after Suleiman’s health and the causes of the coming battle, and establishes that there is a legitimate grievance. Then he reveals that the whole thing is a put-up job - and one with a few basic errors in the outfitting of the impostors who have been masquerading as Kavar well-breakers. And to the continued accusations that Aretai have also been guilty of the same, Haroun states instantly that he believes not a word of this, for Aretai are “of the Tahari” - which, philosophically speaking, is a “No True Scotsman” fallacy, but as an earnest of good faith in the sight of High Pasha Suleiman it can’t be bettered.

The true enemy is soon unmasked, as one of the prisoners lays the blame at the door of Tarna and her overlord, the Salt Ubar, and both armies promptly paint for war against the new foe. To a man, it can safely be said that they don’t care one bit, and indeed would rather have a new casus belli than simply go home; and this is especially true of the young Khan of the Tajuks, whose dress and mannerisms bespeak the Wagon Peoples as much as the Tahari.

Tarl now touches base with High Pasha Haroun, and politely asks what he should call him. He is invited to use the name he knows best: Hassan.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The united armies promptly steamroller the Salt Ubar’s meagre forces into the desert sands, but there is still a siege to be managed. Tarna, for what it is worth, is not in the battle; plainly Ibn Saran has not forgiven her bungling over Tarl and Hassan. But a siege is problematical in the desert, where it is difficult to supply the attacking army. Fortunately, Tarl has an ace in the hole.

The scene shifts to the interior of the Salt Ubar’s kasbah, and to the quarters of one slave girl in particular: Vella. Tarl has been owing her repayment for her insolence and treachery ever since he was packed off to Klima or, for that matter, tried for the attempted murder of Suleiman. It should be said to Vella’s credit that, when she sees the scrap of silk that was her parting gift to him (albeit in taunt), she reacts with utter joy even before she is aware that Tarl himself is present. He has the Kur invisibility ring to thank for the success of his burglary, of course.

But his reaction is not quite what she has been expecting, and she goes through a stammering self-accusation over all her crimes even before Tarl has spoken a word of blame. When she is through, he brings up the only two matters that concern him: her smile of pleasure when she bore false witness against him, and her mocking of him when he was marched away. All else that she did was forced from her; this was of her own will.

Still, Vella plainly cares for Tarl, for she repeatedly urges him to flee before he is found and killed; but he knows something she doesn’t. Of course he is not fooling around with a slave girl while there is a battle to be won. He has already arranged, using the same invisibility that got him in here, for the besiegers to gain entry to the kasbah. Since that is well in hand, he has time for a short discussion on Gorean philosophy, specifically the rightness of owning women and indeed the absolute necessity for a woman to be owned for her own greater good. And Vella learns that he desires very much to own her, and “love”, as she has understood the term, doesn’t enter into it.

Stating that he will give her to “Hakim of Tor”, Tarl marks Vella to this effect, and leaves her weeping and wailing behind him while he goes to get on with men’s work.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Soon the Salt Ubar’s kasbah is conquered, but Ibn Saran himself has made good his escape to the nearby kasbah of Tarna, which the besiegers have been too busy to worry about, and it seems that they will have all their work to do over again. But Haroun is unperturbed, dropping veiled hints about a reserve army, and Suleiman is most curious to know where they might have come from. Haroun only teasingly remarks “Let us discuss these matters over small cups of Bazi tea at the end of the day” and Suleiman, amusedly, remarks that Haroun’s impudence reminds him of Hassan the bandit.

On entering Tarna’s kasbah, our heroes corner Ibn Saran, and Hassan claims the right of fighting him. We know that Ibn Saran is a superb scimitarsman; but Hassan is his master, and Ibn Saran, mortally wounded, salutes the pair of them. Tarl just has time to return the compliment Ibn Saran paid him when he was marched off to Klima: “One gains a victory. One loses an enemy” before that elegant villain falls dead from the tower, to where the lone and level sands stretch far away.

Hassan is sorrowful, for Ibn Saran was his brother, as was the man who sent the warning about the steel tower. One served Priest-Kings and one Kurii, and in the end Hassan could not remain neutral - and he is much comforted to have the one brother in Tarl to take the place of the two he has lost.

The mystery army is commanded by T’Zshal, who has made a phenomenally quick and complete recovery from being half-eaten alive by the Old One (see last month’s Booknotes); evidently there is no praise too high for Gorean Physicians. Hassan, in his capacity as the Kavar High Pasha, has provided the men of Klima with kaiila and weapons, which Tarl considers highly dangerous. Meanwhile, though, there is the venal Hamid, Ibn Saran’s lieutenant, to deal with, and the matter of Suleiman’s attempted murder is finally resolved. This entails Haroun revealing that he and Hassan are indeed one and the same, but Suleiman promises to keep the secret, as one High Pasha to another, so that his opposite number can still keep up his banditry as a hobby.

Now Tarna also is run to earth, and this time it is Tarl’s turn to show off his martial prowess. Tarna is good, up to a point, but she is not Gorean-Warrior good, still less up to Tarl’s mark. He defeats her with some ease, and then is struck by a fit of compassion. She stands to be put to hideous death for her many crimes, well-breaking at the top of the list, and Tarl and Hassan offer her a way out: slavery. Of course, it will not be easy for her to pass for a slave, so Tarl gives her an object lesson in what a slave is used for (I don’t need to draw a picture, do I?) and the pair take her off to be branded and collared. Then they educate her a little more before handing her over to a soldier, but as a nameless slave, not as Tarna; and from her reaction to the soldier, it seems as though she will probably manage to survive, and even enjoy it.

Chapter Twenty-Six

So everyone prepares to return to his own place; Tarl to Tor and subsequently Port Kar, Hassan and Suleiman to their respective thrones, T’Zshal and his men to Klima, though as free men now and not slaves of the salt, and Tarna to the slave block.

Hassan has been reunited with his favourite slave Alyena, formerly Miss Priscilla Blake-Allen of Earth, and she is being treated as quite the lady. He had his moment of fun with her when, as Haroun, he announced that he would keep her himself and she was led away protesting her love for Hassan her master, and then revealed to her that he was indeed Hassan. Despite the depth of her love for him, though, Hassan still sentences her to three whippings; one for disobedience at the earlier siege of Red Rock, and twice for profaning his name. Alyena, though, will be only too pleased to be whipped by her master.

Vella on the other hand tries to wheedle her way out of punishment (as Tarl remarks: “Women of Earth… are never punished, no matter what they do”), and then rages against it, and then tries to play dominance games with Tarl. It is all in vain. All she succeeds in doing, if anything, is in strengthening Tarl’s resolve, and he gives her twenty lashes, re-brands her, and makes her recite a formal submission.

The immediate effect of this upon Vella is quite profound. She immediately drops her angry, confrontational attitude - which is only natural, assuming that she does not want still worse punishment - but she finds her treatment and the affirmation of her status thrilling as well as horrifying.

Tarl ties up the one remaining loose end in the plot - that the message to “Beware Abdul”, now known to have been meant to refer to Ibn Saran, was actually sent by Hassan on his brother’s orders. He speculates that there will be no further attempt to destroy Gor, for the Kurii will want this planet rather than the polluted Earth; but he will have to wait and see what happens next. And so, slave girl at his stirrup singing his praises, Tarl quits the Tahari, and so must we.

So we have reached the close of “Tribesmen of Gor”, the tenth book in the Gorean Cycle, but we have many more, and I request the pleasure of the reader’s company next month, when we shall begin a fresh journey.

I wish you well,

Socrates