Tal, Goreans,

Greetings, visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column. Still on the run from the Priest-Kings after the unfortunate incident back in Chapter One that suggested that he no longer enjoyed their favour and might have become permanently surplus to requirements, Tarl has succeeded in enlisting with the travelling theatre troupe of Boots Tarsk-Bit. He has by the way managed to lay his hands on that same Lady Yanina who so neatly trapped him at the festival in Port Kar, and while she is not presently a slave it is anyone?s guess how long this state of affairs will obtain; certainly she is more than willing to serve Tarl after the manner of the ?full? female captive. As for Boots, he does have a new slave to his name, that same Lady Telitsia of the Scribes who cost him his annual profit from the Sardar Fair by taking too much pains to be virtuously offended by his troupe?s performance. We had better find out how they are getting on.

Chapter Eleven

Not content merely to trade on Boots?s gratitude for those heroics that won him a place in the troupe, Tarl is willing to perform as a sideshow turn when next the company finds a place to stop. He is highly skilled with the Tuchuk throwing knifes, or ?quivas?, of which he has an adequate supply, and as many knife throwers on another world might, he livens the act up by having a human target, if ?target? is the right word when it is of the essence that all of the knives miss her. From this perspective it is very much to the point that Lady Yanina is a free woman; the audience would feel no vicarious thrill at seeing a slave in peril, since such is of no value whatever. Lady Yanina, though, certainly has no more say in her part than a slave girl would, and appears thoroughly terrified; on this occasion, in fact, she faints before a single knife can be thrown.

Chapter Twelve

It is a pleasant afternoon some time later, after Tarl has been with the company for several weeks. He is whiling the time away with the Kaissa-playing ?monster?, the hooded, limping sideshow turn whom we have glimpsed from time to time, seeming uninterested in whether he earns money or not, or even whether he lives or dies. Over the course of a passage of play that is plainly from the late stages of a game, Tarl engages him in conversation as to the accident that disfigured him; but the Player is uninterested in discussing such.

Tarl describes his position in some detail, as the precursor to an interesting mating combination that has the air of a problem or, more accurately, a study, this being the term reserved for a composition that uses a position that could plausibly arise in actual play. This affords the would-be Kaissa player some useful information as to the moves of the pieces and the rules of the Game, even though by no means enough to compensate for the lack of a single coherent description (as your summariser has lamented before). He appears to be on the verge of a hard-won win after innumerable humiliating failures at the Player?s hands, and while the ?monster? affects surprise over Tarl?s apparent delight, Tarl informs us that he personally has never encountered a stronger or more imaginative opponent ? and that, while by no means of master rank himself, Tarl has at least sat down against genuine Players and so has a standard for comparison. Again, the alert reader who knows his Gor may make something of this description ? of a limping Player who does not show his face, and who is both mercilessly exact and brilliantly original in his play.

While the game is going on the slave Bina, one of the actresses, wanders over to kibitz, or rather to disrespect the Player, for she does not understand the game and has earlier turned down his generous offer to teach her (in defiance of the usual convention that the pieces of the Game are not for slaves to touch). But Tarl warns her to mind her manners and sends her away. The game resuming, the Player offers Tarl a draw, but Tarl refuses, believing himself about to win ? and the Player marvels at this, realizing that Tarl deliberately spared him the humiliation of defeat before the mocking slave. He reiterates the offer of the draw before demonstrating to Tarl that once again he has erred in his assessment of the position, playing a rather pretty sacrificial combination that delivers Tarl?s Home Stone into his hands a bare move before Tarl could have arranged the capture of the ?monster? ?s.

Still, the brilliant finish gives Tarl the excuse to bring out some Kaissa papers he has knocking around, although the ?monster? recognises Tarl?s nonchalance for what it is. He obligingly looks at them and confirms what Tarl had already suspected ? that, though apparently scores of games, they do not make sense as such, listing moves that would be nonsensical in context or even impossible. But he is able to discern what they are, at least, though not to read them correctly; they are Kaissa ciphers, using moves to a coded board to encrypt some message or other. The ciphering method is a strong one, as without knowing how the letters were arranged on the original board the reader cannot reasonably hope to know how a given sequence of moves should be interpreted.

Still, the brilliant finish gives Tarl the excuse to bring out some Kaissa papers he has knocking around, although the ?monster? recognises Tarl?s nonchalance for what it is. He obligingly looks at them and confirms what Tarl had already suspected ? that, though apparently scores of games, they do not make sense as such, listing moves that would be nonsensical in context or even impossible. But he is able to discern what they are, at least, though not to read them correctly; they are Kaissa ciphers, using moves to a coded board to encrypt some message or other. The ciphering method is a strong one, as without knowing how the letters were arranged on the original board the reader cannot reasonably hope to know how a given sequence of moves should be interpreted.

Though no further to knowing what the contents of the messages are, Tarl guesses that the Priest-Kings are not involved, since this doesn?t seem to be a method they would be likely to use. So his next guess, the ?space politics? of Gor being what they are, is that the Kurii are hand in glove with the rulers of Brundisium; and it is there that he expects to be able to decode the messages.

The ?monster? remarks that Tarl is an unlikely specimen to be a mere roustabout with a troupe of rogues and vagabonds, but Tarl for his own part thinks much the same of the Player. He believes that the Player is good enough to have competed at a very high level, even with the legendary Scormus of Ar; but that is not a name that the Player cares to hear bandied about, viewing Scormus as a traitor to his city for losing to Centius of Cos (in Beasts of Gor, which regular readers will recall as being the last occasion when Scormus was seen in public). Tarl for his part remarks that he thinks the Player perhaps does not know Scormus; and the Player, rather crossly, informs Tarl that there will be no more Kaissa between them.

Bina now returns and continues where she left off, insulting and scolding the ?monster? and going so far as to throw dirty water on him. To her shock and dismay, she is overseen by Boots Tarsk-Bit, who if an easy-going and humorous sort normally is not the kind to allow slaves such liberties. He demands an explanation, to which Bina gives a mendacious response, gambling that the Player will back her up rather than see her exposed to hideous punishment for lying to her Master. Unfortunately he has plainly had enough of her and declines to endorse her untruths.

Though in a towering rage and threatening all manner of bloodthirsty reprisals, every one of them deserved according to the usual rules of slave conduct, Boots lets the slave off extremely lightly once the ?monster? has shrugged off his right to punish her himself. She will alter her clothing to expose her brand, and surrender her slippers ? which, since very many slaves go barefoot and naked, is little enough ? but, as if by afterthought, Boots adds that her use is to be given to the ?monster?. This is enough to turn the stomachs of every woman in the camp, including the free Lady Yanina, since it is common knowledge that the Player is hideously disfigured beneath his hood and robe; but Boots is not to be swayed on the matter, and Bina goes weeping to the wagon of her new use-master.

Tarl offers the Player some man-to-man advice, and asks if he is strong enough to truly master her. The Player, having admitted that he has never been interested enough in anything but Kaissa to have even bothered having sex, ponders the question only momentarily before calmly answering ?Yes?.

Chapter Thirteen

The author has resorted once again to his overused literary device of jumping ahead to a dramatic scene and filling in what has gone before with a series of flashbacks. He reunites us with Tarl in a prison cell, looking out through the bars while to one side there is one of the ?urt people?. He tells us of his capture by men under the command of Flaminius, Lady Yanina?s rival in the service of Belnar; his conversation with Flaminius concerning that same Lady Yanina, who is even more out of favour now than previously and will be lucky to escape the collar; and, as an aside, the gang rape of the slave Telitsia by many of Flaminius?s men, which, in contrast to many such incidents during the series, it is plain that Telitsia does not enjoy.

Now watching the events in the arena outside, Tarl reconsiders his hypothesis as to the special relationship between Brundisium and the Kurii. In the arena three sleen are currently being set on a hapless victim ? at least, that may be the intention, but the victim, as Tarl sees, is himself a Kur and anything but hapless. Even for something with the brain of a man and the might and natural weaponry of a polar bear and silverback gorilla rolled into one, three sleen are no laughing matter; but it escapes with the loss of some blood and a painful bite or two, only to be led away to the cells at the points of many weapons.

This leaves Tarl?s chain of deduction in tatters, of course, but he does have more pressing matters to occupy his mind, such as being in the prison of his enemies. He is given to wonder why it is that the prisoners have been permitted furniture, which is by no means standard operating procedure. Eating his food, Tarl watches the Kur go by on the way to its cell; it has accumulated several wounds and may not survive its next trip to the arena. He now gives us a closer look at ?the representative of the urt people?, a pygmy with curiously rat-like features; Tarl guesses that in antiquity some primitive men began to run with the urt packs just as wolf-cubs came to live with men, and selective breeding has shaped the urt-people race just as it did the dog.

This ?representative? is named Nim Nim (by humans; he utters his own name for himself, but Tarl can neither pronounce nor spell it) and is fearful for Tarl. He observes Tarl?s lack of chains and the presence of the table, and guesses that something is up; very likely he has been exercising his unusually keen ears, for he warns Tarl that something bad is planned for him. The pit? No, something worse. Tarl is, of course, eager to escape if he can; and Nim Nim offers to ?help?.

Chapter Fourteen

With Nim Nim?s help, Tarl has effected his escape from the bathhouse, though he was surprised to be taken for a bath in the first place. The two emerge from a drainage culvert many miles from Brundisium, and the urt person is overjoyed to see his very own urt pack in attendance. However, barely have they seen this than they are called to halt by Flaminius, and Nim Nim?s reaction reveals that he was in on the plot to betray Tarl in this amusing fashion.

On this meeting, Flaminius reveals that, although in the pay of Brundisium, he is himself of Ar, which Tarl finds interesting; and Flaminius explains that it would be politically awkward to slay publicly a citizen of Port Kar, an uninvolved neutral, and so the end they have in mind is more discreet than the sleen-pit while still being quite as amusing for all involved. Talking of sleen, there are some here, to ensure that Tarl would have been recaptured even without Nim Nim?s help; he left as little scent behind him as he could, but could do nothing about his clothes, which he was forced to surrender on entering the bathhouse.

Flaminius has plainly read at least part of the Evil Overlord?s Handbook (www.eviloverlord.com, with my personal recommendation) as, when Tarl says in effect ?As long as you?re going to kill me, won?t you tell me what all this is about?? Flaminius only laughs and says ?No?. But Tarl is to be given a choice of fates; he can wait near the urt pack while the sleen are set on him, and then can either stand his ground to be killed swiftly by the sleen, or flee into the urts and be somewhat more messily dispatched.

He stands near the urts and watches as Nim Nim gleefully bids him farewell and prepares to rejoin his fellows; but Tarl regards any act of generosity by Flaminius with deep suspicion and, frankly, smells a rat. (Ahem.) He warns Nim Nim to stay out of the pack, but Nim Nim is afraid of him and retires to what he views as safety. It is only when the Urt Person is well within the pack that Tarl?s half-articulated fears are both fully formed and realized. Nim Nim, half a year in prison, has lost his pack scent and the urts react to him as an intruder. Too paralyzed with fear to win clear in time, Nim Nim is horribly torn to pieces even as Tarl tries to rescue him.

Sickened in body and mind, Tarl still keeps his brain active. Something has been nagging at him about the persistence of tracking sleen. He has the body of a dead urt in his hands and as sudden realization hits him he feverishly skins it with his bare hands and one of its own tusks. Flaminius plainly divines that something is up, but though he orders the sleen released Tarl has an urt pelt in his hands before they are upon him. He edges into the pack, keeping the pelt between him and any urt that approaches him, and as the sleen relentlessly pursue him they in their turn are mobbed by the multitudes of urts, each one many times larger and more savage than their Earth cousins. Not even the mighty sleen can prevail against such numbers, and soon they are being eaten alive even while Tarl makes his way safely to the centre of the pack, where he offers the scent of the pelt to the pack?s short-sighted leader.

A few minutes later Tarl is exiting the pack on its far side, leaving Flaminius and his men behind ? it will take time to circle the urt pack, by which time Tarl intends to have built up a considerable lead.

So we leave Tarl behind as he leaves his pursuers behind, and if this month?s extract has been short on chapters it has been long on high adventure, which is why Players has sometimes been bracketed with that splendid volume of derring-do, Assassin of Gor. And at this juncture I bid 2006 goodbye in the certain knowledge that there are many loose ends yet to be tied up in the remaining chapters; the import of the mysterious Kaissa ciphers, the political alignment of Brundisium, the true affiliation of Flaminius and even such minor matters as the fate of Bina in the hands of the ?monster? and ? who knows? ? the resolution of his own personal mystery. But between now and then I, for one, have a New Year to see in with much merrymaking and good companionship, and I wish the same to my readership and much good fortune in the year to come.

I wish you well,

Socrates