Tal Goreans,
Greetings visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column. Last month Tarl and Hassan the bandit had just made good their escape from the clutches of Tarna, the beautiful and vicious female warlord who has lately emerged as a major player in the Tahari. Being captured by her was the latest setback in Tarl’s expedition to Gor’s greatest desert, where he was seeking a mysterious “steel tower” and has already been falsely accused of the attempted murder of one of the mightiest tribal chiefs, Suleiman Pasha. With Hassan as his willing and able accomplice, he did not have much difficulty in escaping from Tarna, though matters with her are anything but settled, and the two of them can now resume their world-saving quest without delay. Let us therefore turn at once to “Tribesmen of Gor” and find out how things are going.

Chapter Thirteen

We last saw our two heroes heading over the wall from Tarna’s desert stronghold; we rejoin them somewhere in the middle of the desert in a slave column headed for the salt mines of Klima, with which Tarl was being threatened a few chapters ago. It is evident, once we wrap our minds around the discontinuity, that the author has resorted yet again to the device of jumping ahead to some dramatic point in the story and then jumping back again to fill us in on what happened in the interim. He could, I believe, do with a good slapping for excessive use of this dubious device… but enough of my gratuitous commentary, and on with the story.

Tarl and Hassan, it turns out, got barely a score of yards out of Tarna’s compound before they were ambushed by a sizeable force of kaiila cavalry, and they were promptly frogmarched to the kasbah next door, where they were ushered into the presence of the Salt Ubar, or the Guard of the Dunes, whom Tarl describes as “one of the most dreaded and powerful men in the Tahari”, for it is he who has the de facto control of the immensely lucrative salt trade. Tarl asks Hassan what the Salt Ubar’s name is, and the question puzzles Hassan, for this is evidently like asking an American the name of the head honcho at Microsoft; “Abdul,” he replies. Possibly a sizeable coin goes clang in Tarl’s head at this juncture.

We may picture an Arabian Nights palace of the grandest style, into which Tarl and Hassan are brought, and even they, though prisoners, are thoroughly washed by slave girls even as are the men escorting them - plainly in the interests of keeping the palace clean, and the smell of their sweat out of the nostrils of their captor. In their subsequent interview Abdul the Salt Ubar amusedly admits that Tarna is a useful tool, but that he had not expected her to be able to hold Tarl and Hassan. Hassan, veiling his request in the most cultured and polite terms, first of all suggests that the Salt Ubar might consider releasing the pair of them, then in the name of pity for Tarl’s “boorishness” that he might release Tarl alone. To both of these suggestions the Salt Ubar elegantly demurs, as if sorry to do so, although this is doubtless not the case.

Hassan is somewhat put out to see that his favoured slave Alyena, formerly Priscilla Blake-Allen of Earth, is in the Salt Ubar’s keeping; for he had sent her off under guard when his forces were attacked at the Oasis of Red Rock, and is displeased to learn that when she had reached safety she turned around and ran back to the Oasis, calling out for him. Though possibly touched by her devotion, he will surely feel that she could better display her love for him by doing as she was told, and there is also the matter of profaning his name with her lips to take into consideration. Still, force majeure being what it is, she has for now no choice but to obey her present master.

They are treated to a feast, and later Tarl brings up the question of the Salt Ubar’s identity, and that of his closest associates. These include Hamid, a slimeball we have seen something of in the previous chapters, and Abdul the water-seller from Tor, whom Tarl had mistakenly supposed to be the “Abdul” of whom he was told to beware. But as to the Salt Ubar himself, this is none other than Ibn Saran. He does not offer to dishonour Tarl by suggesting he forsake the Priest-Kings’ service for the Kurii’s, and acknowledges him as a Warrior, to which Tarl agrees. (This is an interesting moment. Since losing his honour in the rence swamps, Tarl had considered himself stripped of caste, and when, two books ago, no less a man than Marlenus addressed him as “Warrior”, he said that he was a merchant. He has now come as far as saying that anyone who wished to dispute his caste would need to do so with steel.)

Ibn Saran gives Hassan and Tarl the final gift of a slave girl for what is left of the night, suggesting they make the most of it, for there are no women at Klima.

Chapter Fourteen

Hooded and chained in long lines, the slave convoy trudges through the killing salt flats on their way to Klima. Tarl reflects on his last night with the slave girl Tafa, who was horrified at being given to a mere salt slave, although by the morning Tarl had better taught her her station, and also his farewell to Ibn Saran. He came out to see the slaves off, and regarded Tarl’s fate with mixed emotions. As he put it: “One gains a victory. One loses an enemy”. As for Hassan, Ibn Saran said to him “I am sorry”; but there has been no time to date for Tarl to find out what that might be all about. He briefly discusses the Kurii strategy with Ibn Saran, but though Ibn Saran does not know exactly what is going on, he knows his own duty and will discharge it; to stir up the desert tribes for war, and make the desert impassible for any meddlers such as Tarl. Hassan protests the inevitable loss of life; but Ibn Saran only apologises, and has no intention of being swayed from his purpose.

He does, however, offer Tarl a swift and merciful death at his scimitar, but Tarl will have none of it, which earns him another grain of Ibn Saran’s respect. Meanwhile, at a high window, Vella, previously known as Elizabeth Cardwell, watches the slave procession about to leave, and tosses down a love-token for Tarl, a square of scented silk. This is clearly intended as a taunt, causing Tarl to narrow his eyes and vow to come back for her, as a Gorean would. Of course, no-one ever has returned from Klima; but Tarl resolves to be the first. And for what it is worth, Vella’s overseer does not allow her to watch the actual departure; a petty denial of minor pleasure that is a useful tool for disciplining slaves.

Returning to the present, some twenty days later, the slave column is still marching, albeit somewhat depleted. The journey is, intentionally, exceptionally gruelling, and at least one fellow prisoner screamed many times to be killed, at least until the guards declared the water ration insufficient and culled every other man in the column. This event caused Tarl to reflect profoundly on what a joy it was to be alive, even though marching to Klima.

After another four days the column arrives at Klima, where the surviving slaves are unhooded and uncollared. Of the more than two hundred and fifty who set out, exactly twenty are still alive, including the slave who had earlier pleaded for them to be killed; and on the very threshold of the salt mines, that man collapses and dies, the amazed utterance “I have made the march to Klima!” on his lips, leaving only nineteen survivors. These men have a certain pride in themselves for passing one of Gor’s severest endurance tests, but Tarl is bitter. The important work for Priest-Kings has miscarried.

Chapter Fifteen

Tarl introduces us to the joys of salt-mining, Gor style. It is gruelling enough to make the silver mines of Tharna (see “Outlaw of Gor”) seem attractive by comparison. Much of the work is carried out in underground brine-pits, sieving salt out of the super-saturated solution. (Tarl informs us that most of the salt is white, but some pits produce red salt, a piece of trivia sometimes accorded excessive importance in on-line Gor.) On Hassan’s advice, Tarl hides his piece of sun-bleached slave-silk, for at Klima, there being no women, men would kill one another for such a treasure.

They then meet the Kennel Master, T’Zshal, as hard a man as ever drew breath even on Gor. He announces that anyone at Klima is free to leave at any time - but since no-one present knows the way back to civilization, nor will anyone who wishes to leave be given water, nobody is in a hurry to avail themselves of the offer. T’Zshal further points out that anyone who chooses to leave, and then repents of his choice, can expect no mercy on returning to Klima. And in case any of the newly arrived slaves (of whom another four have at last succumbed to the privations of the journey) should think to put on airs for having marched to Klima, he points out that absolutely everyone within these walls has done likewise.

Of course, if anyone should dislike the Kennel Master’s rule, all that is necessary is for them to assume the position for themselves - which can be done only by killing T’Zshal.

Chapter Sixteen

Strangely, despite the ferocious concentration of salt in the waters of the pits, these are home to a whole ecosystem of aquatic life, from protozoa right up to great sharks, and the most dreaded of these is the legendary “Old One”. It is inevitable that Tarl’s path should cross this creature’s without much delay, when a salt-gathering shift he is on is attacked by the monster. This is just the bad luck of the salt-harvesters, who have a quota to fill, paddling their raft around the lake. At least one man is carried bodily off by the Old One and several more are lost in the water, including one who takes it into his head to swim to the docks, several miles away.

When T’Zshal arrives he sums up the situation in an instant, and he wins the hearts and minds of Tarl and Hassan alike by resolving to rescue the lost swimmer, despite the peril to himself and those with him. Finding the lost man, who is suffering some kind of shock-induced amnesia and seems perfectly happy although confused, T’Zshal announces an expedition on the morrow, to put paid to the Old One’s predation.

Chapter Seventeen

T’Zshal has no shortage of volunteers for this hunt, including Tarl and Hassan. The monster has got away with it for too long and the men of Klima need no second bidding to come and avenge a long history of terror in the dark and lost comrades. In this at least, Tarl remarks that the salt slaves of Klima conduct themselves no differently than any free men might.

Judging that he has some time for sleep, T’Zshal enjoys forty winks on the raft, though surrounded by desperate men who might covet his station or owe him revenge for some earlier punishment, and even though there is no penalty for slaying the Kennel Master, and indeed the reward of becoming Kennel Master in his place. It is only after he has mulled the matter over for a while that the answer presents itself to Tarl: Whoever became the next Kennel Master would have the same fate to fear. And it occurs to Tarl that it would be exceedingly difficult for a man to discharge the office well enough to keep his head.

When the smaller fish have fled, heralding the arrival of the Old One, T’Zshal is wakened and the hunt begins in earnest. Tarl finds this exhilirating, awakening the primitive blood of prehistoric Man, the hunter; and as he is urging his species, born hunters, not to forget the taste of meat, the Old One attacks. T’Zshal wounds it with his lance, but not enough to seriously discommode it. It tries to tip the raft over; but the raft has been heavily ballasted. Intelligently (and since it is a blind animal, the reader cannot but wonder what instinct drives it) the Old One tries to put out the lights, injuring one of the hunters. On its next attack it succeeds only in collecting another wound; but Tarl sees, through a rent in T’Zshal’s clothes sustained in this pass, an old scar that he is confident is a souvenir from a previous meeting.

Suddenly the Old One attacks a third time, surprising all the hunters, even T’Zshal who is carried away in the monster’s jaws. Almost without realizing what he is doing Tarl leaps in after it. He is on safer ground than untutored thought would suggest, for when he gets around to thinking about it Tarl realizes that the creature is incapable of releasing its prey before it has bitten through it, which it is not easy even for the Old One to manage on something the size of a man. Armed only with a knife, but with the advantages just outlined, Tarl succeeds in mortally wounding the creature and freeing T’Zshal from its clutches; but the Kennel Master is grievously hurt.

Tarl immediately sets about sewing up T’Zshal’s wounds, with nothing but a dagger blade and some leather thongs, in spite of Hassan’s recommendation to kill T’Zshal mercifully and that worthy’s plea to be allowed to die. He does not, at any rate, die as a result of Tarl’s primitive surgery, and is peacefully asleep as the raft is poled back to the docks.

Chapter Eighteen

Soon after, when T’Zshal has received proper medical care - and there are former Physicians at Klima, slaves like the rest - he is well enough to discuss Tarl’s reward for saving his life. Tarl, remembering his business elsewhere, asks for his freedom and water, and when it is pointed out that he does not know the desert, Hassan volunteers to act as his guide and makes the same request. T’Zshal asks if the pair are really sure, given that they must leave on foot, and Hassan admits that were he offered kaiila he would certainly not refuse them, but he will do without them if he must. (There are no kaiila at Klima, purposely.) On hearing the request reiterated, T’Zshal orders them staked out in the sun, ignoring Tarl’s protest and Hassan’s curses.

As their guards play a board-game called Zar, plainly a variant of Chinese Checkers, Tarl and Hassan lie grimly beneath the midday sun. A guard’s lance discourages Tarl from struggling, and throughout the long day the pair lie as still as possible. When night falls Tarl has enough strength left to pull his stakes out of the ground, then to free Hassan, though Hassan cannot walk; but they are immediately surrounded by armed guards. T’Zshal is borne to them on a litter and asks if their intentions are still unchanged. Defiantly, Tarl says that they are - and he is astonished when T’Zshal presents them with a pair of giant water-skins, prepared during the day from the smaller skins usually used at Klima.

He has acted, he reveals, solely in the interests of teaching them what it is to be under the desert sun without water, in the hope that they would not throw their lives away, and Tarl realizes that the guard who would not let him struggle was actually doing him a favour, improving his chances of survival. This, the guard remarks, was in gratitude for saving T’Zshal’s life. Curiously, Tarl asks whether T’Zshal will not take the same route to freedom once he is well, but in echo of Milton’s Lucifer, the Salt Master says: “I would rather be first at Klima than second in Tor.” Thereupon Tarl and Hassan take their leave, stopping only for Tarl to retrieve the piece of slave silk that Vella threw to him.

So as our two heroes become the first to escape from Klima, and we reflect upon the lesson that Tarl’s enemies never learn (“When the hero is at your mercy, do not consign him to an inescapable prison or infallible death-trap. Just kill him”), we ask ourselves how the war in the Tahari has been going in their absence, and what of the steel tower and the various players in the game: Suleiman Pasha, Ibn Saran, Tarna, and the still-missing invisible Kur? But we are out of time for this month’s issue, and for the answers to all these questions and perhaps some more as yet unasked, I must ask the reader to return next month, for what promises to be the final instalment of “Tribesmen of Gor”!

I wish you well,

Socrates