Mariners of Gor (19 page)

He was of the tarn cavalry.

He had his marked pole, testing the water. He seemed satisfied, the water had not inched higher in the last Ahn.

“Good fellows!” he called.

The ship was six-masted, square-rigged, seven decked, carvel-built, and single-ruddered, not guided by a steering board, or the double rudders of the typical Gorean ship. The nested galleys, on the other hand, were typical of most Gorean vessels, long or round ships, oar-banked, double ruddered, single-masted, and lateen-rigged. The long ships are commonly open to the weather, like the dragons of Torvaldsland, and the round ships, larger and slower, are commonly decked, this to shelter passengers, if there be passengers, and protect cargo.

The fellow, Torgus, turned about and, with his pole, ascended the steps.

We were not the only pumping crew at work, as there were several others, I knew not how many, these engaged elsewhere.

We had three pumps, in the forward port hold, and four men were at the handles of each, two men to a side.

One fellow, Tyrtaios, lean and hard, a snake I thought in a warrior’s body, left his pump and waded to where I worked. “Take my place,” said he to Durbar, who worked beside me. Durbar did as he was told. I had observed this fellow Tyrtaios in the hold, under the single swinging lamp, on its chains, which supplied the feeble light within which we worked, which cast wild shadows about, which seemed like the flutterings of frightened jards. Tyrtaios had worked at the other two pumps, as well. Several days ago, an altercation had taken place between this Tyrtaios and a man named Decius, with respect to a bench-place in the mess. A day later Decius was gone. We supposed he had been washed overboard whilst making his way to the helm deck. Durbar, not speaking, took the place at the second pump, that place vacated by Tyrtaios.

For several Ehn we continued to man the pump, in silence, and then Tyrtaios spoke to us, the other three at the pump.

“We are moving north,” he said.

“West,” said Andronicus, once of Tabor, once of the Scribes. Andronicus was no stranger to the Second Knowledge. He could read.

“No longer, for days, even before the storm,” said Tyrtaios.

“Our course is west,” said Andronicus.

“We are not on course,” said Tyrtaios. “I was to the helm deck. Half blinded by water I saw briefly, clouds apart in the wind, the star of Hesius. It was at the bow. Four times later, too, on different days, the star of Hesius lay before us. Two helmsmen confirmed this.”

“We have been blown off course,” I said, levering the pump.

“Tersites is taking us north,” he said. “The wind is his ally.”

“Why so?” I asked.

“If we are going north,” said Andronicus, “and by intent, Tersites plans to shorten the voyage, by the northern circle.”

“I do not understand,” said Thoas, across from Tyrtaios.

“Gor,” said Andronicus, “is like a ball, and one may shorten distances by curving to the north and then curving back to the south.

“He has gone too far north,” said Tyrtaios.

“Perhaps,” said Andronicus.

“The wind,” I said. “We fly before it.”

“Ice has been seen in the water,” said Tyrtaios, “ice the size of galleys.”

“Then we are too far north,” said Andronicus.

“The wind,” I said.

“Tersites,” said Tyrtaios, “is mad. That is well-known. He will kill us all.”

“What is to be done?” asked Thoas.

“We must turn back,” said Tyrtaios.

“It is true,” said Andronicus, “that the ship may break apart.”

“There may be little time,” said Tyrtaios.

“There is, too, the brink, the falling away place, where the world ends,” said Thoas.

“And before the next watch,” whispered Tyrtaios, “we may fall from the world, to fall forever.”

I did not think Tyrtaios believed what he said, but many amongst the crew might.

“No,” said Andronicus. “Gor is like a ball. There is no edge.”

“You do not know that, wise one,” said Thoas. “You have not been there. Perhaps your scrolls, what you read, are false.”

“There is much evidence,” said Andronicus.

“Use your eyes,” said Thoas. “The world is flat, as may be easily seen, and, if so, it must end somewhere.”

Andronicus was silent, which silence Thoas apparently took as having had his point conceded.

“But Thassa must have an edge,” said Tyrtaios.

“Of course,” said Andronicus.

“None have returned from beyond the farther islands,” said a fellow at the nearest pump.

“And we are beyond the farthest islands,” said the fellow beside him.

“Lower your voices,” whispered Tyrtaios, looking about.

The two returned to their work.

“We must be the first,” said Tyrtaios to us, in a whisper.

“And how may that be done?” asked Thoas, apprehensively.

“We must urge Tersites to turn back,” said Tyrtaios.

“He will never do so,” said Andronicus. “He is at war with Thassa.”

“We must force him to turn back,” said Tyrtaios. “He cannot man the ship without us.”

“There are the Pani,” I said, “the soldiers of Lords Nishida and Okimoto.”

“They must join us,” said Tyrtaios.

“I think that is unlikely,” said Andronicus.

“We outnumber them,” said Tyrtaios.

“Tersites will never turn back,” said Andronicus.

“Then,” said Tyrtaios, “it may be necessary to seize the ship.”

“I signed articles, long ago,” said Andronicus.

“Not to go to our deaths,” said Tyrtaios.

We continued to work the pump.

“Many are of my mind,” whispered Tyrtaios.

“Some are not,” said Andronicus.

“What if I told you, if we return to the continent,” whispered Tyrtaios, “that riches would await us all?”

“We have nothing but our fee,” said Thoas. “Of what do you speak?”

“I speak no further,” smiled Tyrtaios. “But there would be wealth enough for all, great wealth.”

I did not understand his words.

I knew there was a pretty price on the pretty head of the slave, Alcinoë, once the Lady Flavia of Ar, once confidante of the former Ubara, Talena, but it was scarcely enough to enrich several hundred men, mariners and soldiers, Pani, and others.

“Division at sea,” said Andronicus, “as fire at sea, is a hazard no rational man will countenance.”

“Surely,” said Tyrtaios, “the rational man weighs risk against gain, and recognizes that even considerable risk is more than outweighed by the prospect of prodigious gain.”

“I signed articles,” said Andronicus.

“I hear steps on the companionway,” I said.

We fell silent.

It was the fellow, Torgus, come again, with his pole.

He stood on the first step of the companionway, and carefully lowered the butt of the stick to the deck, under the water. “Good fellows!” he called. “Good fellows! The water is down. A hort! Your relief is at hand. Go to the mess, and get paga.”

As we ascended the companionway others passed us, on the way down, to tend to the pumps. I saw again, amongst them, as I had on former days, Tarl Cabot, himself, commander of the tarn cavalry, and his friend, Pertinax. “Well done, fellows,” said Tarl Cabot to us, as we passed. How odd, I thought, that officers, these two, would take their turn at the pumps. Did they not understand their station? Had they so little dignity? How could they expect to keep the respect of their men, if they so lowered themselves, if they so demeaned themselves, if they so compromised their position? But, too, I thought, would men not die for such officers?

I saw Tyrtaios wait on the steps, for Andronicus to pass him, and he would then be behind him.

This clearly made Andronicus uneasy, but he continued on.

At the next level, when we reached it, Tyrtaios, then waiting, spoke to me. “Do not forget what I have said,” he said.

“I will not,” I assured him.

I heard a passing mariner say to his fellow, “The weather is clearing.”

I took the blanket handed me at the door to the mess. I dried my feet and legs, and shivered, and stepped inside. I could smell fresh Sa-Tarna bread, roast bosk. My body ached, I was weary. I was looking forward to food, and hot paga.

Chapter Eight

The Ice;

I Hold Converse with a Slave;

Rations Grow Short;

I Consider the Matter of Seremides

The day was dim and cold.

It must be near noon, but it seemed more like dawn.
Tor-tu-Gor
, Light-upon-the-Home-Stone, was low, lying almost upon the gray horizon.

The ship was not moving.

It was quiet, except for the men below, outside, moving on the ice about us, with their staves, posts, and axes, striking at the ice. Even on deck one could hear the crunch of their boots on the ice below, the striking of the posts downward, each handled by two men, on the ice, the sharp crack of the Torvaldslander axes striking on the horizontal, encroaching wall that seemed about to encircle the mighty ship. Sound carried clearly. One could hear conversations yards below.

“We are in the grasp of Thassa,” said Philoctetes to me.
 

“She will have her way,” said a fellow.

On the stem castle, one could see the small, misshapen figure of Tersites, hidden in furs, pacing from side to side, sometimes howling in rage, sometimes pausing to shake small, gnarled fists at the thick, white expanse, like rock, that stretched about us.

“This voyage was madness,” said a man.

“Curse Tersites, curse this ship, curse the Pani!” hissed a man.

I had heard no more of sedition from Tyrtaios, who was of the retinue of Lord Nishida. If he harbored thoughts of insubordination, even mutiny, he did not now speak them. They lay dormant, if seething, within the walls of his own dark, coiled, serpentine heart. There is a time to strike, a time to wait. What point to seize a ship, to risk one’s life, when the prize, even if won, would be without profit? Only a fool would hope to steal a wagon without wheels, a kaiila which cannot be untethered, a girl whose chain he cannot loosen, a treasure which cannot be carried away.

“Away!” called a man, standing at the rail.

One of the great saws, heavy, eleven feet in length, with gigantic metal teeth, fashioned from iron timber braces, by the ship’s Metal Workers, on its rope, was lowered over the side, to the men below. There it would be weighted, its back rings fitted with draw chains, and the whole fixed in its pulleyed frame, to be dropped and raised, again and again, and, by means of the draw chains, pulled against the ice.

I had wondered, from time to time, of the hints of Tyrtaios, those of untold wealth for all. Surely that lacked all foundation in fact, and who, save the simplest and most gullible, might be deceived by so obvious and meretricious an enticement, so transparent a fabrication? And yet, I wondered, why would one of the seeming astuteness of Tyrtaios put himself so at risk, as he would be when the vacuity of his promise became manifest, as it must, in time? He, I thought, must be as mad as Tersites himself.

In my turn, I helped draw the used ax, that which had just been replaced, freed of its weight and chains, to the open deck. Its teeth would be sharpened, and then, again, within two Ahn, it would be put to work below.

The days were short, the nights long. In the land of the Red Hunters, farther north, north even of Torvaldsland, it was said that night would reign unremitting for weeks, from passage hand to passage hand, and to passage hand again, as in their summer, oddly,
Tor-tu-Gor
would never set. Yet even in their night, interestingly, one might see, from the light of moons, from that of stars, and, sometimes, it was said, from mysterious, shifting curtains of light, these many things reflected from the bleakness of the silent, frozen sea.

The mighty ship had been seized by Thassa, in her fists of ice, better than thirty days ago. The ice had formed about her, and lifted her, mighty as she was, from the surface of the sea, aslant, and crooked, yards toward the sky. This had proved fortunate for, as later became clear, the massive press of ice on each side might snap apart even timbers as fearsome as those of the great ship of Tersites, might break them apart as easily as a child might snap the twigs of a play fortress. Thassa had reserves on which she might draw, the vast pressures of her solidifying surface. Twenty days ago the ice had shifted, with a great, splitting roar, and our great, weighty bulk had slid downward, deeper into the ice, then through the ice, and righted itself. We rejoiced that there was again water beneath our keel, and that we might again negotiate a righted deck, but, by morning, as the ice closed in, almost invisibly forming, Ehn by Ehn, hort by half-hort, our joy turned to terror, for one could remark the groaning of timbers, the cracking of stressed beams. “Do nothing!” had cried Tersites. “The ship is strong! She will neither bend nor break. Mightier than Thassa is she, my ship, always, in every way, do nothing!” But the ice, like the forge pliers of a Metal Worker, slowly, little by little, began to close on the wood. “Do nothing!” cried Tersites. But now none heeded him. Aëtius, his confidante and loyal apprentice, in whose management was the day-to-day handling of the ship, dared to countermand his orders, this with the support of Lords Nishida and Okimoto, and the counsel of Tarl Cabot, admiral in Port Kar, member of the council of captains, and the war with ice had begun, to keep it at bay, by whatever means necessary. Accordingly, some feet of ice, with great travail, had been cleared about the hull of the great ship, and, by day, and under torches at night, flickering weirdly on the ice, men, in shifts, struck, hacked, and sawed away at the foe, the silent, ever-forming, encroaching ice.