“Master, what shall I do?” begged Alyena. How beautiful she was.

All eyes were upon her. Aside from her jewelries, her bells, the oval and collar, the cosmetics, the heady slave perfume, she wore six ribbons of silk, yellow, three before and three behind, some four feet in length, depending from her collar. I had always admired her brand. It was deep and delicate, and beautifully done.

“Master!” cried Alyena.

The finger of the man on the dais, he veiled in red, prepared to fall.

“Dance, Slave,” said Hassan. The man’s finger fell languidly, the musicians began to play. Alyena, before us, in the chains of the Tahari, danced. She was a most beautiful trifle, a most lovely bauble.

We feasted late, and were much pleased by the beauties of the Salt Ubar.

Finally, he said, “It is late. And you must retire, for you must rise before dawn.”

Hours before, Alyena had been dismissed from the audience chamber of the Guard of the Dunes, the Salt Ubar.

“Take her to the guard room,” he said. “There let her give pleasure to the men.”

Alyena, still in her chains, was pulled by the hair from the room.

“You veil yourself in the manner of the Char,” I said, “but I do not think you of the Char.”

“No,” said the man on the dais.

“I had not known you were the Salt Ubar,” said 1.

“Many do not know that,” said the man.

“Why are you and your men veiled?” I asked.

“It is customary for the men of the Guard of the Dunes to veil themselves,” said he. “Their allegiance is to no tribe, but to the protection of the salt. In anonymity is a disguise for them. Freely may they move about when unveiled, none knowing they are in my fee. Veiled, their actions cannot be well traced to an individual, but only to an institution, my Ubarate.”

“You speak highly of your office,” I said.

“Few know the men of the Salt Ubar,” said he. “And, veiled, anonymous, all fear them.”

“I do not fear them,” said Hassan. “Free me, and give me a Scimitar, and we shall make test of the matter.”

“Are there others here, too, I know?” I asked.

“Perhaps,” said the man. Then he turned to the others. Unveil yourselves,” he said.

The men removed the scarlet veils. “Hamid,” said I, “lieutenant to Shakar, captain of the Aretai.” I nodded.

The man looked at me with hatred. His hand was at a dagger in his sash. “Let me slay him now,” he said.

“Perhaps you would have better fortune than when you in stealth struck Suleiman Pasha,” I said.

The man cried out in rage.

The leader, the Salt Ubar, lifted his finger and the man subsided, his eyes blazing.

“There is another here I know,” I said, nodding toward a small fellow, sitting beside the Salt Ubar, “though he is now more richly robed than when last I saw him.”

“He is my eyes and ears in Tor,” said the Salt Ubar.

“Abdul the water carrier,” said I. “I once mistook you for someone else,” I said.

“Oh?” he said.

“It does not matter now,” I said. I smiled to myself. I had thought him to be the “Abdul” of the message, that which had been placed in the scalp of the message girt, Veema, who had been sent mysteriously to the house of Samos in Port Kar. I still did not know who had sent the message. As now seemed clear to me, the message must have referred to Abdul, the Salt Ubar. He who had sent the message had doubtless been of the Tahari. It had doubtless not occurred to him that the message might have been misconstrued. In the historic sense, the planetary sense, there would have been only one likely “Abdul” in the Tahari at this time, the potent, powerful, dreaded Guard of the Dunes, the Salt Ubar. He would be a most formidable minion of Kurii. Neither Samos nor myself, however, though we had heard of the Salt Ubar, had known his name. Further, his name is not often casually mentioned in the Tahari. It is difficult to know who are and who are not his spies. His men belong to various tribes. I might have behaved differently in the Tahari had I earlier known the name of the Salt Ubar. I wondered who had sent the message, “Beware Abdul.” How complacent I had been, how sure that I bad earlier penetrated that mystery.

“May I cut his throat?” asked the water carrier.

“We have other plans for our friend,” said the Salt Ubar. He had not yet unveiled himself, though his men, at his command, had done so.

“Have you long been known as Abdul?” I asked the Salt Ubar.

“For some five years,” said be, “since I infiltrated the kasbah and deposed my predecessor.”

“You serve Kurii,” I said.

The man shrugged. “You serve Priest-Kings,” said he. “We two have much in common, for we both are mercenaries. Only you are less wise than I, for you do not serve upon that side which will taste the salt of victory.”

“Priest-Kings are formidable enemies,” said I.

“Not so formidable as Kurii,” said he. “The Kur,” said he, “is persistent, It is tenacious. It is fierce. It will have its way. The Priest-Kings will fall. They will fail.”

I thought that what he said might be true. The Kur is determined, aggressive, merciless. It is highly intelligent, it lusts for blood, it will kill for territory and meat. The Priest-King is a relatively gentle organism, delicate and stately. It has little interest in conflict, its military posture is almost invariably defensive; it asks little more than to be left alone. I did not know if Priest-Kings, with all their brilliance, and all their great stores of knowledge on their scent-tapes, had a glandular and neurological system with which the motivations and nature of Kurii could be understood. The true nature of the Kurii might elude them, almost physiologically, like a menacing color they could not see, a terrible sound to which their sensors were almost inert. A man, I felt, could know a Kur, but Priest-Kings, I suspected, could only know about a Kur. They could know about them, but they could not know them. To know a Kur one must, perhaps, in the moonlight, face it with an ax, smell the musk of its murderous rage, see the eyes, the intelligence, the sinuous, hunched might of it, the blood black at its jaws, hear the blood cry, stand against its charge. A creature, who had not known hatred, lust and terror, I suspected, would be ill fitted to understand the Kur, or men.

“What you say is quite possibly true,” I said.

“I shall not ask you to serve Kurii,” said the man.

“You honor me,” I said.

“You are of the Warriors,” he said.

“It is true,” I said. Never had I been divested of the scarlet. Let who would, with steel, dispute my caste with me.

“Well,” said the man on the dais. “It is late, and we must all retire. You must be up before dawn.”

“Where is Vella?” I asked.

“I have confined her to quarters,” he said.

“Must I address you,” I asked. “As Abdul?”

The man lowered his veil. “No,” he said, “not if you do not wish to do so.”

“I know you better under another name,” I said.

“That is true,” said the man.

Hassan began to struggle. He could not part the fiber on his wrists. The ropes burned on his throat. He was held by the guards on his knees. The blade of a scimitar stood at his throat He was quiet.

“Are we to be slain at dawn?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

I looked at him puzzled. Hassan, too, seemed shocked.

“You will begin a journey, with others, at dawn,” said the man. “It will be a long journey, afoot. It is my hope that you will both arrive safely.”

“What are you doing with us?” demanded Hassan.

“I herewith,” said Ibn Saran, “sentence you to the brine pits of Klima.”

We struggled to our feet, but each of us, by two guards, was held.

“Tafa, Riza,” said Ibn Saran, to two of the girls, “strip.”

They did so, to collar and brand. “You will be taken below, to the dungeons,” said Ibn Saran to us. “There you will be chained by the neck in separate cells.