Tal, Goreans,

Greetings, visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column. The search for the last egg of the Priest-Kings has just developed not necessarily to Tarl’s advantage. True, the golden sphere of which he has heard only rumours up to now is no longer in the wagon of Kutaituchik, but it is now perhaps even more inaccessible, having been carried away to nine-gated Turia by mercenary tarnsmen acting on the orders of Saphrar the Merchant. Kutaituchik was murdered during the course of this theft, and after a brief assault on the great walled city, Kamchak has announced his intention to withdraw the Tuchuks in order to safeguard the herds and wagons from a possible aerial assault. Ignoring Kamchak’s advice that the golden sphere is worthless, Tarl is preparing to enter Turia in search of it, and in this undertaking he has the assistance of the eccentric but ingenious Harold; and we had better join the enterprising pair and find out how they are getting on.

Chapter Sixteen

Harold knows a secret way into Turia, the very way by which he escaped from the city after eleven years as a boy slave – a tunnel through which water runs from one of Turia’s wells. That he dared such a desperate way of escape speaks volumes for Harold’s cojones, for it is one thing to observe that water drains away from the bottom of a well and quite another to take the leap of faith that it is possible to follow the same route without drowning and end up in the open. Harold fills in Tarl on the story of his escape, and leads Tarl to where he emerged, a cleft in the rocks some way outside Turia’s walls. They have a moderately taxing journey through this tunnel and against the current, and then a lengthy climb up the well-rope, during which Harold outlines his plan of escape after they have accomplished their respective objectives. This simple, unambitious plan involves nothing more difficult than the theft of two tarns, one of which Harold means to learn to ride on the fly, as it were.

This deed will result in Harold getting his hands on a wench and a tarn, but more importantly, it will earn him the Courage Scar of the Tuchuks, a badge of manhood without which he is doomed never to be accepted and which he has little chance to acquire by more orthodox means. Although Tarl can see one or two flaws in the plan, he admits to himself that he certainly doesn’t have a better one and that the unbiased observer might find it hard to judge whether Harold or himself was the bigger idiot.

The courageous pair emerge in a well-house and decide to amuse themselves for a few hours, so that their several burglarious deeds can be attempted at a more suitable time. Unfortunately, no sooner are they out of the well-house than they find themselves netted by Turian guards, who, as it turns out, know perfectly well of Harold’s secret way – indeed, the well itself is nicknamed "the Passage Well" – and they are promptly frog-marched to Saphrar’s house and clapped in irons. This was, Harold ruefully admits, not part of his plan.

Saphrar has a couple of house-guests. One of them is Ha-Keel, the captain of the mercenary tarnsmen, while the other is a hooded Paravaci, identity unknown, except that Tarl intuitively identifies him with the would-be murderer who nearly did for him a short time previously. Talking of identities, Saphrar knows Tarl’s perfectly well, and so does Ha-Keel, who has seen him before in his guise as "Tarl of Bristol", way back in Book One. There are some interesting aspects of Ha-Keel’s history which we can gloss over for now, as they will not turn out to be important; but Saphrar now reveals that he has been in contact with an agent of some mysterious faction of whom he knows nothing except that they can pay well – it is this mysterious man, Saphrar’s description of whom tallies well with Elizabeth’s account of the stranger in her New York office, who was responsible for elevating Saphrar to his present wealthy and privileged position in Turia.

At least Tarl gets a sight of the golden sphere, and Saphrar reveals that he has no idea why it is so important, and even has no idea whether or not he is working for the Priest-Kings. As for Tarl, he deduces from this admission the existence of these "Others" on whom he was fancifully speculating a while ago, and he also indulges in some leaps of logic as to their nature, strategy, present knowledge of the Priest-Kings’ vulnerability following the Nest War, and so on. Saphrar obligingly offers Tarl the opportunity to fight for his life, which he graciously accepts, and he is led away to the Yellow Pool of Turia.

Chapter Seventeen

Ha-Keel, a true warrior at heart, doesn’t stay around to watch what is to come, as Tarl is given a quiva and ushered into a largish swimming pool. There he waits in anxious anticipation for a while, speculating on the nature of his unknown foe, until Saphrar gleefully reveals that the creature is the pool itself, which is alive.

Chapter Eighteen

The pool-creature obviously has a fine sense of the dramatic, since it erupts into life as soon as the words are out of Saphrar’s mouth. It turns out to be a gigantic (and presumably artificial) single-celled life-form, which makes a determined effort to digest Tarl. But our hero is equal to the occasion. After a futile attempt to escape, he takes the line of least resistance, straight into the middle of the creature, and finds that it has some kind of cell-nucleus that is vulnerable to his quiva; and after he has hacked this about a bit, the creature can stand it no longer and spits him out, forming itself into a hard-shelled sphere that he cannot assault.

This catches Saphrar and his guards on the hop, and he promptly welshes on his undertaking to let Tarl go if he survived the encounter with the monster; but Tarl gets the upper hand in the ensuing cinematic action sequence, and manages to secure both his own escape and Harold’s, although Saphrar himself succeeds in legging it.

Of course, Tarl’s first thought is that the game is up for their respective quests, and he hopes that they can find the tarns that Harold was originally thinking of purloining, although some kaiila would be a workable alternative. Harold, though, came to Turia to steal a wench out of Saphrar’s Pleasure Gardens, and that is exactly what he intends to do. Not without plenty of misgivings, Tarl follows him.

Chapter Nineteen

One point in Tarl and Harold’s favour is that the Pleasure Gardens are roughly the size of a public park, and also, as Harold points out, they are about the last place anyone would think to look for intruders; only a fool would try to hide there. He has a brief think and decides that it will only be an hour or so before tarnsmen are called in to help with the search, and once this happens, he and Tarl will have a much better chance to steal a tarn. Meanwhile, he goes in search of his wench, after they have had a short breather.

The search occupies quite a time, for it is not just any wench that Harold is after, but one in particular, and after a while they find her. This is Hereena, formerly of the First Wagon, and Harold’s erstwhile tormenter in the days when she was free and haughty. He awakens her, informs her of what is going on, and gags her when she tries to scream. Once she is suitably trussed up and silenced, the whole thing being carried out "rather neatly", as Tarl tacitly admits, the plan proceeds to its next phase.

Chapter Twenty

This, of course, involves finding some tarns to steal, and the search for these leads via another cinematic sequence to the Keep, where Harold immobilizes a succession of guards by the simple expedient of giving them Hereena to hold for a moment and then punching their lights out while their hands are full – a thoroughly simple and workable Tuchuk plan which works again and again in best Three Stooges fashion. There are, of course, a few more guards than can be overcome by this plan alone, which gives Tarl the chance for a running fight or two, before the pair of them win their way to the tarn-cot and get their hands on the desired transport.

Harold’s outrageous command of bluff proves as effective against tarns as against bemused guardsmen, and although he commits the cardinal error of trying to get his tarn to lift off while it is still hobbled, this earns him nothing more than a reproachful look from the offended bird, itself showing a workmanlike grasp of comic timing, whereupon he and Tarl make good their escape, thus concluding perhaps the funniest two chapters in the entire Gorean cycle. But this is not enough for Tarl, of course, who realizes only too well that he is going to have to go back for another go at a task which is now looking even more hopeless than it was before.

Chapter Twenty-One

Tarl’s Plan B consists of taking advantage of the fact that, with the withdrawal of the Tuchuk horde, Turia’s gates are once more open to honest traders. He disguises himself as a pedlar and acquires some wares, then watches the funeral of Kutaituchik, in which the giant wagon is put to the torch with its late owner inside. Then Kamchak orders the Tuchuks away from Turia, refusing to discuss with Tarl why he has given up so easily.

With the Tuchuks safely gone, Tarl effects entry to Turia without much ado, but can’t get near to Saphrar’s house; his merchandise, on which he spent his last remaining money, turns out to be so far beneath Saphrar’s personal consideration that the merchant’s servants boot him roughly out, and he nearly falls foul of the now-recovered Kamras and has to run for his life. Then, while he is cowering in hiding and wondering what on earth to do next, he receives aid from an unexpected quarter. The bread that he cast upon the waters returns to him after many days, in the shape of Dina of Turia, the girl he freed some time previously, who manages to make contact with him and hide him in, fittingly, her baker’s shop.

She has no family or business left, thanks to Saphrar, who murdered Dina’s father and brothers when they would not join his commercial empire, and is ekeing out a living as a personal shopper for wealthy women. Holding something of a torch for Tarl because of his kind treatment of her, Dina becomes both protector and pro-tem lover, which is very pleasant for Tarl but doesn’t advance his cause very much. He manages to scout the city somewhat with a change of disguise, but decides that his best chance of securing the golden sphere will be to return to the wagons once the hue and cry has died down enough for him to get clear of Turia, recover the tarn that he stole, and try an aerial raid on Saphrar’s compound.

No sooner has he decided that he will carry out this plan on the next nightfall than he notices something amiss at one of the gates, where a wagon has broken down. The wagon-driver is somewhat familiar to his eyes, and he notices besides a column of dust approaching Turia at speed. Immediately he orders Dina to go home and lock herself in, and himself rushes down to the gate, where Harold of the Tuchuks is doing all he can to ensure that his broken-down wagon will not be moved clear of the gates before the column of dust, which is being raised by the Tuchuk horde at a flat-out gallop, reaches the city.

The guards realize what is afoot slightly too late, although they would have done for Harold had Tarl not intervened opportunely, and another sword-fight ensues at the gate during which Harold obliges with some more of the comedy, feigning not to recognise Tarl. Then the horde itself arrives, the fighting gets properly under way, and in rides Kamchak in full battle array. He is a man of simple and straightforward desires, for as he announce: "I want the blood of Saphrar of Turia."

Chapter Twenty-Two

In best movie-villain style, of course, Saphrar is not going to come within Kamchak’s reach until the final reel. There is a whole city to conquer first, and then Saphrar’s own citadel. But Kamchak has caught Turia well and truly napping, and the conquest is going all his own way. In a trice his picked squads have accounted for both the Ubar and the Champion, and his kaiila-riding light cavalry are virtually unstoppable in street fighting against an enemy desperately trying to improvise a defence with no leadership and no plan. Saphrar’s compound is put under siege, but shows no sign of falling just yet.

Harold and Tarl let the horde get on with the fighting, and content themselves with going on a tour of the battlefield, for as Harold now reveals, he and Tarl have both been elevated to the rank of Commander of a Thousand for the business at the gate. They inspect the plunder already gathered, repay Dina’s aid by guaranteeing her freedom and safety at a word to the two Tuchuks who have just captured her, and make their way to the Ubar’s throne-room, which Kamchak has borrowed for a feast. There he humiliates the Turian Ubar, Phanius Turmus, and the Champion, Kamras, who has probably had his bellyful of Kamchak one way and another, but Kamchak does not seem altogether happy. He still wants the blood of Saphrar in revenge for the murder of Kutaituchik, who as he now reveals was Kamchak’s father.

However, the revels are interrupted when bad news reaches Kamchak. The Turians have unexpected allies against the Tuchuks, for the Tuchuk wagons are under attack by their fellow Wagon People, the Paravaci.

But what Kamchak will do about this unforeseen reverse, and whether Tarl will ever get his hands on the egg of the Priest-Kings, and whether, looking at the eighty-odd pages of the book still to be covered, there might still be an epic battle scene to come before all is done, and for that matter what has become of Elizabeth Cardwell, who has been out of view for a good long while, is going to have to wait for next month’s issue, and what will be the concluding instalment of "Nomads of Gor".

I wish you well,

Socrates