18 The Epilogue of Bosk of Port Kar

This is now Bosk of Port Kar, who speaks.

I wish to add a small note to this manuscript, which I shall have transmitted to the Sardar.

It is long since I have served Priest-Kings. I would be free of their service. Samos often speaks with me, but I have remained adamant. Even so, in the arsenal, Tersites, the half-blind, mad shipwright builds a strange ship, to sail beyond the world's end. I wish to be free, and to be left alone. I am now rich. I am now respected. I have much for which a man might wish, the beautiful Telima, considerable wealth, a great house, wines and allegiances, and before me, gleaming Thassa, the Sea. I wish to be free of Priest-Kings, and Others. I want no longer any part of their dark games. Let the world be saved without me, for I have done my work, and want now only peace. But yet the Others have not forgotten me. They know me, and my whereabouts, and have tried to slay me. I endanger all those with whom I am in contact. What should I do? What can I do? My old sword, the blade carried even as long ago as the siege of Ar, hangs still in my chambers, in its worn scabbard. I am not eager to take it up again. And I have now learned, from the narrative of the girl, Elinor, that Talena, once my companion, may well be in the northern forests. I have heard, too, that the girls of Verna, chief of the panther girls, were freed in Ar, surreptitiously, and are believed to have escaped northward. In this I think I see the hand of Rask of Treve, or perhaps even of Verna, a most unusual woman, herself. I have spoken to Telima. Sometimes she comes with me, to the great keep, which once we defended, and we look sometimes toward Thassa, the Sea, and I look sometimes toward the northern forests. Marlenus of Ar prepares an expedition to enter the forests, to recapture Verna and punish her for her insolence. It is not unknown to him, for rumors have been spread, that she, too, holds captive in those forests the girl Talena, his daughter. It is said he is shamed that she has been a slave, and that he intends to free her, and keep her sequestered in Ar, that her degradation not be publicly exhibited. How could she, a Ubar's daughter, hold up her head, when once she has worn the collar of a warrior of Treve.

"Hunt for her," has said Telima. "Perhaps you still love her."

"I love you," I told Telima.

"Find her," said Telima. "Bringer her here as a slave and choose between us. If you wish, we will fight with knives in the marshes."

"She was once my companion," I told Telima.

"The companionship is gone," said Telima. "More than a year has passed," she pointed out, "and you have not, together, repledged it."

"That is true," I admitted. By Gorean law the companionship, to be binding, must, together, be annually renewed, pledged afresh with the wines of love. "And," said Telima, "both of you were once enslaved, and that, in itself, dissolves the companionship. Slaves cannot stand in companionship." I looked at her angrily.

"You have not forgotten the delta of the Vosk? she asked. Telima was not pleasing in her jealousy.

"No," I said, "I have not." I could never forget the delta of the Vosk, and my degradation. I knew that I had once betrayed my codes. I knew that I was one who had once chosen ignominious slavery over the freedom of honorable death. "Forgive me, my Ubar," had said Telima.

"I do," I said.

I looked toward the northern forests. It had been so many years. I recalled her, Talena. She had been a dream in my heart, a memory, an ideal of a youthful love, never forgotten, glowing still, always remembered. I remembered her as I had seen her, in the swamp forest, south of Ar, with Nar the spider, and in the Ka-la-na grove, where I had freed her from the chains of a slave, only to put mine upon her; and in the caravan of Mintar, of the Merchants, in her collar, mine, and slave tunic, with Kazrak, my sword brother; and her dancing in my tent; and she upon the lofty cylinder of justice, in Ar, threatened with impalement, and as she had been, beautiful and loving, in the hours of our Free Companionship in Ko-ro-ba, before I had awakened again, stiff, bewildered, in the mountains of New Hampshire. I had never forgotten her. I could not. "I will go with you," said Telima. "I know well how to treat slaves." "If I go," I said, "I go alone."

"As my Ubar wishes," said Telima, and turned and left, leaving me alone on the top of the keep.

I looked out over Thassa, and the marsh, in the moonlight. Thurnock climbed the steps of the keep. He carried his bow, with arrows. "The Dorna," he said, "and the Tela and Venna will be ready for inspection at dawn."

"I am lonely, Thurnock," I said.

"All men are, from time to time, lonely," said Thurnock.

"I am alone," I said.

"Except when they are touched by love," said Thurnock, "all men are alone." I looked across to the delta wall, bordering the marshes. I could see the girl, Elinor, walking the wall, as she did often at this hour, looking out over the reeds and the glistening water. She was lovely.

"It is time she was chained in the kitchen," said Thurnock.

"Not until the nineteenth hour," I said.

"Would my captain care to join me," he asked, "in a cup of paga before we retire?"

"Perhaps, Thurnock," I said. "Perhaps."

"We must rise early," he pointed out.

"Yes," I said, "we must rise early."

I watched her lone, forlorn figure, looking out over the delta wall. "Most alone," I said, "are those whom love has once touched, and left." The tarn strike was sudden. I had been waiting for days for it to happen. There was from the broken cover of clouds, like a bolt of dark, beating lightning, the thunder of the wings of a tarn.

The alarm bell sounded almost immediately. There was shouting.

The tarn's talons struck the delta wall, and, wings beating, it clung there, and put back its head and screamed. I saw, for one moment, the helmet of the warrior, and his hand extended downward. I heard the girl cry out and run to the saddle, and seize the hand.

"No!" I said to Thurnock, putting my hand on the arrow, thrusting it to one side.

He looked at me wildly.

"No!" I said, sternly.

I saw the helmeted figure rear up in the saddle, and with an imperious gesture fling a dark, heavy object to the stone walk behind the wall. A crossbow quarrel hissed through the night from the courtyard toward him. Men were running now. I heard more shouts, the clanking of weapons. The quarrel had sped past, vanishing behind him in the night. The tarn screamed and, wings beating, smote the air from its path, and began to climb into the dark, windy sky, streaking toward the moons of Gor. More quarrels fell behind the great bird.

"I could have felled him!" cried Thurnock.

"Is it an attack?" I heard from below.

"No!" I called down. "Return to your rest!"

"You have lost the girl!" cried Thurnock. "She has been taken from you!" "Fetch me," I said, "the object which was thrown to the walk behind the delta wall."

Thurnock fetched it, and brought it to me. It was heavy, and leather. It was a purse, and it was filled with gold. In the light of a torch I counted the coins. There were a hundred of them, and they were of gold. Each bore the sign of the city of Treve.

"Thurnock," I said, "let us now have that cup of paga, and then let us retire. We must rise early, for the Dorna, and the Venna, and the Tela are to be inspected."

"Yes, my captain," said Thurnock. "Yes!"