None had returned from the world's end.

The canal turned then and I guided the craft about the corner. As we turned I glanced once more at the house of Samos. It loomed high and formidable, over the canal, a slaver's house, a high, dark, frightening fortress.

In the pens far below the fortress there was a new slave, a slim, blond-haired Earth girl. She would be caged now. I wondered if she seized the bars of her cage, pressing her face against them, trying to understand what had happened to her. She had mixed in the affairs of worlds. She was now a slave. Probably she lay naked on her stomach on the cement flooring of her kennel, her hands over her head, screaming. On the exterior of her left thigh there would be a brand. On the interior of her thigh there would be blood. She had mixed in the affairs of worlds. It had not turned out well for her. She was now a slave. She would be soon sold off.

I wondered if she would learn swiftly to be pleasing to a master.

Another urt's head, sleek and glistening, surfaced near the boat, then it submerged.

I expected she would learn swiftly.

I considered the upcoming match between Centius of Cos and Scormus of Ar.

I would wager heavily on Scormus of Ar. I did not expect, however, that I would get good odds.

3.

The Fair Of En'kara

"Make way! Make way!" laughed the brawny young fellow. He had a naked girl over his shoulder, bound hand and foot. He had won her in Girl Catch, in a contest to decide a trade dispute between two small cities, Ven and Rarn, the former a river port on the Vosk, the second noted for its copper mining, lying southeast of Tharna. In the contest a hundred young men of each city, and a hundred young women, the most beautiful in each city, participate. The object of the game is to secure the women of the enemy. Weapons are not permitted. The contest takes place in an area outside the perimeters of the great fair, for in it slaves are made. The area is enclosed by a low wooden wall, and spectators observe. When a male is forced beyond the wail he is removed from the competition and may not, upon pain of death, reenter the area for the duration of the contest. When a girl is taken she is bound hand and foot and thrown to a girl pit, of which there are two, one in each city's end of the "field." These pits are circular, marked off with a small wooden fence, sand-bottomed, and sunk some two feet below the surface of the "field." If she cannot free herself she counts as a catch. The object of the male is to remove his opponents from the field and capture the girls of the other city. The object of the girl, of course, is to elude capture.

"Make way!" he called. "Make way!" I, with others in the crowd, stepped aside.

Both the young men and women wear tunics in this sport. The tunics of the young women are cut briefly, to better reveal their charms. The young man wears binding fiber about his left wrist, with which to secure prizes. The young women, who are free, if the rules permit, as they sometimes do not, commonly wear masks, that their modesty be less grievously compromised by the brevity of their costume. Should the girl be caught, however, her mask is removed. The tunics of the girls are not removed, however, except those of the girls of the losing city, when the match has ended and the winner decided. The win is determined when the young men of one city, or those left on the field, have secured the full hundred of the women of the "enemy." A woman once bound and thrown to the girl pit, incidentally, may not be fetched forth by the young men of her city, except at the end of the match, and on the condition that they have proved victorious. The captured women of the victorious city at the conclusion of the contest are of course released; they are robed and honored; the girls of the losing city, of course, are simply stripped and made slaves. This may seem a cruel sport but some regard it as superior to a war; surely it is cleaner and there is less loss of life; this method of settling disputes, incidentally, is not used if it is felt that honor is somehow involved in the disagreement. Honor is important to Goreans, in a way that those of Earth might find hard to understand; for example, those of Earth find it natural that men should go to war over matters of gold and riches, but not honor; the Gorean, contrariwise, is more willing to submit matters of honor to the adjudication of steel than he is matters of riches and gold; there is a simple explanation for this; honor is more important to him. Strangely the girls of the cities are eager to participate in this sport. Doubtless each believes her standard will be victorious and she will return in honor to her city.

The young man brushed past me. The girl's hair was still bound, knotted, on her head; it had not yet even been loosened, as that of a slave girl. Looped about her neck, locked, was a slender, common, gray-steel slave collar. He had wired a tag to it, that she might be identified as his. She had been of Ram, probably of high caste, given the quality of her beauty. She would now be slave in the river port of Ven. The man appeared to be a young bargeman. Her lips were delicate and beautiful. They would kiss him well.

I watched him press on through the crowds, toward the looming palisade which ringed the Sardar mountains, black and snow-capped, behind it.

The numbers in the game are set at a hundred young men and a hundred young women, in order that there be a young woman for each winning male.

This was the first year, incidentally, in which masks had been permitted to the young women in some of these contests. The masks, however, had been brief and feminine. They concealed little and did little more than to excite the men and stimulate them to the beauty's pursuit, culminating in her rude assault, capture and unmasking. Still I suspected the innovation, next year, would be dropped. It is easier to gamble on the taking of given girls, and how long they will be at large, if their beauty is better visible to the bettors.

I looked after the young man. He was going to the palisade. There he would climb one of the platforms and, putting the girl on her knees, her ankles and wrists crossed and bound, at his feet, facing the Sardar, he would unbind her hair. Then he would lift her in his arms, hair unbound, before the mountains of the Sardar, rejoicing, and giving thanks to Priest-Kings that she was now his.

"Where are the merchant tables," I asked a fellow from Torvaldsland, with braided blond hair and shaggy jacket, eating on a roast hock of tarsk, "where the odds on the Kaissa matches are being given?"

"I do not know," he said. 'They play Kaissa only in the North."

"My Thanks, fellow," said I. It was true that the Kaissa of the north differed in some respects from tournament Kaissa in the south. The games, however, were quite similar. Indeed, Kaissa was played variously on the planet. For example, several years ago Kaissa was played somewhat differently in Ar than it was now. Most Gorean cities now, at least in the south, had accepted a standard tournament Kaissa, agreed upon by the high council of the caste of players. Sometimes the changes were little more than semantic. For example, a piece which once in Ar had been called the "City" was now identified officially as the "Home Stone" even in Ar. Indeed, some players in Ar had always called it the Home Stone. More seriously there were now no "Spear Slaves" in common Kaissa, as there once had been, though there were distinctions among "Spearmen." It had been argued that slaves had no right upon the Kaissa board. One might note also, in passing, that slaves are not permitted to play Kaissa. It is for free individuals. In most cities it is regarded, incidentally, as a criminal offense to enslave one of the caste of players. A similar decree, in most cities, stands against the enslavement of one who is of the caste of musicians.

The man of Torvaldsland bit a large chunk from his hock of roast tarsk. "Where are the slave markets?" he asked.

"There are many," I said. Indeed, one might buy slaves here and there, publicly and privately, at many places in the Fair of En'Kara, one of the four great annual fairs at the Sardar. It is not permitted to fight, or kill, or enslave within the perimeters of the fairs, but there is no prohibition against the buying and selling of merchandise within those precincts; indeed, one of the main functions of the fairs, if not their main function, was to facilitate the buying and selling of goods; the slave, of course, is goods. The fairs, too, however, have many other functions. For example, they serve as a scene of caste conventions, and as loci for the sharing of discoveries and research. It is here, for example, that physicians, and builders and artisans may meet and exchange ideas and techniques. It is here that Merchant Law is drafted and stabilized. it is here that songs are performed, and song dramas. Poets and musicians, and jugglers and magicians, vie for the attention of the crowds. Here one finds peddlers and great merchants. Some sell trinkets and others the notes of cities. It is here that the Gorean language tends to become standardized. These fairs constitute truce grounds. Men of warring cities may meet here without fear. Political negotiation and intrigue are rampant, too, generally secretly so, at the fairs. Peace and war, and arrangements and treaties, are not unoften determined in a pavilion within the precincts of the fairs. "The nearest," I told the fellow from Torvaldsland, pointing down a corridor between pavilions and booths, "lies some quarter of a pasang in that direction, beyond the booths of the rug merchants. The largest, on the other hand, the platforms of slave exhibition and the great sales pavilion, lie to your left, two pasangs away, beyond the smithies and the chain shops."

"You speak clearly for one of the south," he said. He thrust the hock of roast tarsk to me. I took it and, holding it with both hands, cut at it with my teeth. I tore away a good piece of meat. I had not had food since the morning, when I arrived at the fair.

"My thanks," I said.

"I am Oleg," he said.

"I have been called Jarl Red Hair in the north." I said.

"Jarl!" he cried. "Forgive me, I did not know!"

"The meat is good," I said. I handed it back to him. It was true that in the north, by the word of Sevin Blue Tooth, I had stood upon the shields as Jarl.

"I fought with you," he said, "at the camp of the beasts. I saw you once near the tents of Thorgard of Scagnar."

"It was a good fight," I said.

"It was," said he, smacking his lips.

"Is the north quiet?" I asked. "Is there Kur activity in Torvaldsland?"

"No," said he, "no more than an occasional stray. The north is quiet."

"Good," I said. The Kurii were not active in Torvaldsland. They had been driven from that bleak, rocky land by the mighty men of the high-roofed halls.

He grinned at me.

"Good hunting," said I, "in the slave markets."

"Yes, Jarl," said he, grinning, lifting the hock of roast tarsk. He turned toward the nearest market. In a few moments he hurled the bone of the tarsk from him, wiping his hands on the sides of his jacket. Over his shoulder hung the great ax of Torvaldsland.

It had rained in the night, and the streets of the fair were muddy.

The Sardar fairs are organized, regulated and administered by the Merchant Caste.

I heard a girl screaming, being lashed. She was on her knees, to one side, between two tents; she was chained at a short stake, about which she had wrapped her arms, holding it for support. The side of her cheek was against the stake. The prohibition against violence at the Sardar, of course, does not extend to slaves. They may there, as elsewhere, be lashed, or tortured or slain, as it should please the master. They are slaves.

I turned down one of the muddy streets, making my way between booths featuring the wares of pottery and weavers. It seemed to me that if 1 could find the fair's street of coins, that the makers of odds might well have set their tables there. It was, at any rate, a sensible thought.

"Where is the street of coins?" I asked a fellow, in the tunic of the tarnkeepers.

"Of which city?" he asked.

"My thanks," I said, and continued on. The fairs are large, covering several square pasangs.

I turned another corner.

"Buy the silver of Tharna," called a man. "Buy the finest silver on all Gor."

He was behind a counter at a booth. At his belt, as did the men of Tharna, he wore two yellow cords, each about eighteen inches long. At the back of the booth, kneeling, small, her back low, her head and hair down to the mud, naked, collared, was a woman.

I stepped to one side to make way for a procession of initiates, who, with a ringing of bells, and shaking of bowls on chains, containing burning incense, passed me on their way to the palisade. An initiate in the lead carried a standard on which was mounted the sign of the Priest-Kings, a golden circle, that which has no beginning or end, the symbol of eternity, the symbol of Priest-Kings.

They were white-robed and chanting, and shaven-headed. The caste of initiates is rich on Gor.

I glanced to the kneeling woman in the booth of the man from Tharna. She had not dared so much as to raise her head. She had not been given permission. There are few free women in Tharna. One of the most harsh and cruel slaveries on Gor, it is said, is that of the slave girls of Tharna.

"Where are odds made on the Kaissa matches," I asked the fellow from Tharna.

"I do not know," he said.

"My thanks," I said, and turned away. The woman remained kneeling as she had been placed.

I hoped the fellow from Torvaldsland would be able to buy a good piece of meat at the market.

"Where are odds made on the Kaissa matches?" I asked a small fellow, in the garb of the leather workers. He wore the colors of Tabor on his cap.

"I would ask you that," he said.

"Do you favor Scormus of Ar?" I inquired.

"Assuredly," he said.

I nodded. I decided it would be best to search for a merchant who was on the fair's staff, or find one of their booths or praetor stations, where such information might be found.

I stepped again to one side. Down the corridor between tents, now those of the carvers of semiprecious stones, came four men, in the swirling garb of the Tahari. They were veiled. The first led a stately sand kaiila on which a closed, fringed, silken kurdah was mounted. Their hands were at their scimitar hilts. I did not know if the kurdah contained a free woman of high state or perhaps a prized female slave, naked and bejeweled, to be exhibited in a secret tent and privately sold.

I saw two men of the Wagon Peoples pass by, and, not a yard from them, evincing no concern, a fellow in the flowing robes of Turia. The fairs were truce ground.

Some six young people, in white garments, passed me. They would stand before the palisade, paying the homage of their presence to the mysterious denizens of the Sardar, the mysterious Priest-Kings, rulers of Gor. Each young person of Gor is expected, before their twenty-fifth birthday, to make the pilgrimage to the Sardar, to honor the Priest-Kings. These caravans come from all over known Gor. Most arrive safely. Some are preyed upon by bandits and slavers. More than one beauty who thought to have stood upon the platforms by the palisade, lifting laurel wreaths and in white robes singing the glories of the Priest-Kings, has found herself instead looking upon the snow-capped peaks of the Sardar from the slave platforms, stripped and heavily chained.

Colorful birds screamed to one side, on their perches. They were being sold by merchants of Schendi, who had them from the rain forests of the interior. They were black-visaged and wore colorful garments.

There were many slave girls in the crowd, barefoot, heeling their masters.

Schendi, incidentally, is the home port of the league of black slavers. Certain positions and platforms at the fairs are usually reserved for the black slavers, where they may market their catches, beauties of all races.

I stopped to watch a puppet show. In it a fellow and his free companion bickered and struck one another with clubs.

Two peasants walked by, in their rough tunics, knee-length, of the white wool of the Hurt. They carried staves and grain sacks. Behind them came another of their caste, leading two milk verr which he had purchased.

I returned my attention to the puppet show. Now upon its tiny stage was being enacted the story of the Ubar and the Peasant. Each, wearied by his labors, decides to change his place with the other. Naturally this does not prove fruitful for either individual. The Ubar discovers he cannot tax the bosk and the Peasant discovers his grain cannot grow on the stones of the city streets. Each cannot stop being himself, each cannot be the other. In the end, of course, the Ubar returns gratefully to his throne and the peasant, to his relief, manages to return to the fields in time for the spring planting. The fields sing, rejoicing, upon his return. Goreans are fond of such stories. Their castes are precious to them.

A slave girl in the crowd edged toward me, and looked up at me. She was alone.

I saw a short fellow in they street crowd. He was passing by. He was squat and broad, powerful, apparently very strong. Though the weather was cool in the early spring he was stripped to the waist. He wore trousers of fur, and fur boots, which came to the knee. His skin was dark, reddish like copper; his hair was bluish black, roughly cropped; his eyes bore the epicanthic fold. About his shoulder he had slung some coils of braided rope, fashioned from twisted sleen hide, and, in his hand, he carried a sack and a bundle of tied furs; at his back was a quiver containing arrows, and a short bow of sinew-bound, layered horn.

Such men are seldom seen on Gor. They are the natives of the polar basin.

The herd of Tancred had not appeared in the north. I wondered if he knew this.

I had arranged with Samos to have a ship of supplies sped northward.

Then he was gone, lost in the crowd.

The slave girl put her head down. I felt her timidly biting at my sleeve.

She lifted her eyes to mine. Her eyes were dark, moist, pleading.

Slave girls often need the caress of men.

"I followed you," she said, "in the crowds."

"I know," I said. I had known this, for I was of the warriors.

"I find you very attractive, Master," she whispered.

She held my arm, closely, looking up at me. Her breasts, sweet, pendant, white, were lovely in the loose rep-cloth of her tunic.

"Please, Master," she whispered.

"Are you on an errand for your master?" I asked.

"No, Master," she said. "I am not needed until supper."

I looked away from her.

Her hands, small and piteous, grasped my arm. "Please, Master," she said.

I looked down into her eyes.

There were tears in them.

"Please, Master," she said, "take pity on me. Take pity on the miserable needs of a girl."

"You are not mine," I told her. "You are a pretty little thing, but I do not own you."

"Please," she said.

"Your master," I said, "if he chooses, will satisfy your needs. If he does not, he will not." For all I knew she might be under the discipline of deprivation. If that were so, I had no wish to impair the effectiveness of her master's control over her. Besides I did not know him. I did not wish to do him dishonor, whoever he might be.

"Does your master know you are begging in the streets?" I asked.

"No," she said, frightened.

"Then," said I, "perhaps I should have your hands tied and write that upon your body."

"Oh, no!" she cried.