The deafening response, "No!" shouted from thousands of voices shook the amphitheater.

"Who wants me?" she cried.

"I!" came the thousands of responses, making the very walls ring with their pleasure.

"But," wailed Elizabeth, "I am only a miserable girl without a master." She held her wrists together and out to the crowd, as though they had been braceleted. "Who will buy me?" she wailed.

The thunder of bids was deafening.

Elizabeth backed to the other girls and took each by an arm, and together they came to the front of the block.

"Who will buy us?" called Elizabeth.

"Eight hundred gold pieces!" came one cry.

"Eight hundred and fifty," came another. Then we heard nine hundred and fifty bid, and then, incredibly, a thousand and then a bid for the astounding sum of fourteen hundred pieces of gold.

The auctioneer signaled to the Musicians again and once more, to the shouts of the crowd, while he held open his hand, not yet closing it, taking bids, the girls performed the last moments of Ar's dance of the newly collared slave girl, who dances her joy at the thought that she will soon be in the arms of a strong master. When the dance ended the three girls, slaves, knelt in the position of submission, back on their heels, arms extended, heads lowered, wrists crossed as though for binding; Elizabeth knelt facing the crowd and, perpendicular to her, on her left and right knelt Virginia and Phyllis, a vulnerable, submitted flower of slave girls.

The auctioneer waited for some minutes for the acclaim of the crowd to subside. The last bid he had received had been an astounding fifteen hundred pieces of gold. To my knowledge never in the Curulean had a set of three girls brought such a price. The investment of Cernus had been, it seemed, a good one.

The auctioneer called out to the crowd, now silent. "I will close my fist!"

"Do not close your fist," said Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar.

Deferentially the auctioneer regarded the Slaver of squalid, malignant Port Kar, mistress and scourge of gleaming Thassa.

"Does Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar, mistress and jewel of gleaming Thassa, now care to express interest?"

"He does," said Samos, dispassionately.

"What is the Curulean bid?" inquired the auctioneer.

"It is bid," said the man, "by Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar, for the wenches now on the block three thousand pieces of gold."

There was an audible gasp throughout the audience in the swirling amphitheater.

The auctioneer stepped back, astonished. Even the girls lifted their bowed heads, startled, breaking the discipline of the submitted flower. Then, smiling, Elizabeth lowered her head again, and so, too, did Virginia and Phyllis. I felt sick. Doubtless Elizabeth thought Samos the agent of Priest-Kings, sent to purchase them and carry them to safety and freedom.

Cernus was chuckling.

The fist of the auctioneer closed, as though grasping a handful of golden coins. "The women are sold!" he cried. The crowd shouted its pleasure, its delight.

The girls were now on their feet and whip slaves were braceleting their wrists before their bodies and attaching the lead chains to the bracelets, preparing to conduct the purchased merchandise from the block.

"More barbarians!" cried the crowd. "Let us see more barbarians!"

"You shall!" cried the auctioneer. "You shall! We have many sets of barbarians to present for your consideration and pleasure! Do not be disappointed! There are more! There are many more barbarians to be sold, beautiful and splendid lots, superbly trained!"

The crowd trembled with excitement.

Elizabeth and the other two girls had now been secured, braceleted and on their leashes. The ordeal of the sale over Virginia and Phyllis were weeping. Elizabeth, by remarkable contrast, seemed exceedingly well pleased. When they had turned and were being led from the block by the whip slaves who held their leashes, Cernus spoke to two of the guards behind me. "Throw the fool on his feet," said he. "Let her see him!"

I struggled but could not resist the men who hauled me to my feet.

"Behold an enemy of Cernus!" cried Philemon to the block.

The girls turned and then Elizabeth, peering out into the crowd, for the first time, saw me, in the rag of a slave, my wrists bound behind my back in steel, the helpless captive of Cernus, Slaver, Ubar of Ar.

Her eyes were wide. She stood as though stunned. She put her braceleted hands before her mouth. She shook her head disbelievingly. Then, by the chain and bracelets, she was rudely turned about. She looked back over her shoulder, her eyes wide with horror. Then, fighting the chain and bracelets, she was dragged stumbling down the steps. It was then she understood herself sold. She cried out wildly, helplessly, a long screaming wail of misery and understanding. I heard the sound of a slave whip below the block, the hysterical, wild sobbing and screaming of a slave girl. Then, as she was dragged away, the sound of the slave whip and of her cries grew more distant, and then I could hear them no more.

"Before she is delivered to Samos," Cernus was saying, "I think I will have her returned to the house and use her. She intrigued me this evening. Since she is Red Silk, Samos will not object."

I said nothing.

"Take him away," said Cernus.

In a moment, manacled, a guard holding each arm, I was being conducted from the amphitheater.

The lights of the amphitheater briefly went out, and then flashed on again.

I heard the crowd cry out.

I heard the auctioneer making his call for the first bid. I knew that behind me, on the block, there would be a new lot for sale, more to please the buyers of Ar.

20 — A GAME IS PLAYED

"This," cried Cernus, lifting his cup aloft, "is a night for rejoicing and amusement!"

Never had I seen the customarily impassive Slaver so elated as on this night, following the sales in the Curulean. The feast was set late in the hall of Cernus and the wine and paga flowed freely. The girls chained at the wall for the amusement of his guards clutched drunkenly, ecstatically, at those who used them. Guards stumbled about with goblets in their hands. The Warriors of Cernus sang at the tables. Roasted tarsks on long spits were borne to the tables on the shoulders of nude slave girls. Girls still in training, unclothed as well, served wine this night of feasting. Musicians wildly, drunkenly, picked and pounded at their instruments.

Hooded, stripped to the waist, chained, I had been beaten from one end of the room to the other with sticks.

Now, unhooded, but chained, I knelt bloody before the dais of Cernus.

A few feet from me, wretched, dazed, chained like I before the dais of our master, knelt Elizabeth Cardwell, her only garment the chain of Cernus, with its medallion of the tarn and slave chains, about her throat.

To one side, to my dismay, I saw Relius and Ho-Sorl chained. Near them, kneeling, her wrists and ankles bound with slender, silken ropes, knelt Sura, head forward, her hair touching the floor.

The doll which she had so loved, which she had had from her mother, which she had attacked me with the slave goad at the kill point, lay on the tiles before her, torn asunder, destroyed.

"What is their crime?" I had asked Cernus.

"They would have freed you," laughed Cernus. "The men we apprehended after severe fighting, trying to cut their way to you when you lay in the dungeon. The woman tried, with paga and jewels, to bribe the guards."

I shook my head. I could not understand why Relius and Ho-Sorl would make my cause theirs, nor why Sura, though I knew she cared for me, would so risk her life, now doubtless lost. I had done little to deserve such friends, such loyalty. I felt now in my plight that I had betrayed not only Elizabeth, and the other girls, and the Priest-Kings, but perhaps allies even unknown to me, among them perhaps Relius, Ho-Sorl, Sura, others. How overcome I felt, with fury, with rage, with helplessness. I looked across to Elizabeth, the chain of Cernus looped about her neck, staring numbly, woodenly, down at the tiles of the hall, half in shock.