I saw Sura regarding Hup with a kind of horror, looking on him with loathing. She seemed to tremble with revulsion. I wondered at her response.

"Qualius the Player," called Cernus, "you are once again in the House of Cernus, who is now Ubar of Ar."

"I am honored," said the blind Player dryly. "I beat you once."

"It was a mistake, was it not?" asked Cernus humorously.

"Indeed," said Qualius. "For having bested you I was blinded in your torture rooms and branded."

"Thus, in the end," said Cernus, amused, "it was I who bested you."

"Indeed it was," said Qualius, "Ubar."

Cernus laughed.

"How is it," inquired Cernus, "that my men, sent for Hup the Fool, find you with him?"

"I share the fool's lodging," said Qualius. "There are few doors open to a destitute Player."

Cernus laughed. "Players and fools," said he, "have much in common."

"It is true," said Qualius.

We turned to look at Hup. He was now sneaking about the tables. He took a sip from one of the goblets and narrowly missed an amused, swinging blow aimed at him by the man whose goblet it was. Hup ran scampering away and crouched down making faces at the man, who laughed at him. Then Hup, with great apparent stealth, returned to the table and darted under it. On the other side his head suddenly appeared, then disappeared. Again he came under the table, and this time his hand darted out and back, and he began to chew on his prize, a peel of larma fruit snatched from a plate, discarded as garbage. He was grinning and cooing to himself while chewing on the peel.

"Behold your champion," said Cernus.

I would not reply to him.

"Why not slay me and be done with it?" I asked.

"Have you no faith in your champion?" asked Cernus. Then he threw back his head and laughed. The others, too, in the room laughed. Even Hup, his eyes watering, sat on his rump on the tiles and pounded his knees, seeing others laugh. When the others ceased to laugh, so, too, did he, and looked about, whimpering, giggling.

"Since you have a champion," said Cernus, "I thought it only fair that I, too have a champion."

I looked at him, puzzled.

"Behold my champion," said Cernus, "who will play for me." He expansively lifted his hand toward the entryway. All turned to look.

There were cries of astonishment.

Through the entryway, rather angrily, strode a young man, perhaps no more than eighteen or nineteen years of age, with piercing eyes and incredibly striking features; he wore the garb of the Player, but his garb was rich and the squares of the finest red and yellow silk; the game bag over his left shoulder was of superb verrskin; his sandals were tied with strings of gold; startingly, this young man, seeming like a god in the splendor of his boyhood, was lame, and as he strode angrily forward, his right leg dragged across the tiles; seldom had I seen a face more handsome, more striking, yet rich with irritation, with contempt, a face more betokening the brilliance of a mind like a Gorean blade.

He stood before the table of Cernus and though Cernus was Ubar of his city he merely lifted his hand in common Gorean greeting, palm inward. "Tal," said he.

"Tal," responded Cernus, seeming somehow in awe before this mere boy.

"Why have I been brought here?" asked the young man.

I studied the face of the young man. There was something subtly familiar about it. I felt almost as though I must have seen him before. I felt it was a face I somehow knew, and yet could not know.

I happened to glance at Sura and was startled to see her. She could not take her eyes from the boy. It was as though she, like myself, somehow recognized him.

"You have been brought here to play a game," said Cernus.

"I do not understand," said the boy.

"You will play as my champion," said Cernus.

The boy looked at him curiously.

"If you win," said Cernus, "you will be given a hundred gold pieces."

"I will win," said the boy.

There had been nothing bold in his tone of voice, only perhaps impatience.

He looked about himself, and saw Qualius, the blind Player. "The game will be an interesting one," said the boy.

"Qualius of Ar," said Cernus, "is not to be your opponent."

"Oh?" inquired the boy.

Hup was rolling in a corner of the room, rolling to the wall, then back, then rolling to it again.

The boy looked at him in revulsion.

"Your opponent," said Cernus, pointing to the small fool rolling in the corner, "is he."

Fury contorted the features of the boy. "I will not play," he said. He turned with a swirl of his cloak but found his way barred by two guards with spears. "Ubar!" cried the boy.

"You will play Hup the Fool," laughed Cernus.

"It is an insult to me," said the boy, "and to the game. I will not play!"

Hup began to croon to himself in the corner, now rocking back and forth on his haunches.

"If you do not play," Cernus said, not pleasantly, "you will not leave this house alive."

The young man shook with fury.

"What is the meaning of this?" he inquired.

"I am giving this prisoner an opportunity to live," said Cernus, indicating me. "If his champion wins, he will live; if his champion loses, he will die."

"I have never played to lose," said the young man, "never."

"I know," said Cernus.

The young man looked at me. "His blood," he said to Cernus, "is on your hands, not mine."

Cernus laughed. "Then you will play?"

"I will play," said the young man.

Cernus leaned back and grinned.

"But let Qualius play for him," said the young man.

Qualius, who apparently knew the voice of the young man, said, "You need have no fear, Ubar, I am not his equal."

I wondered who the young man might be if Qualius, whom I knew to be a superb player, did not even speak as though he might force a draw with him.

Again I glanced at Sura, and was again startled at the intentness, almost the wonder, with which she regarded the incredibly handsome, lame boy who stood before us. I racked my brain, trying to understand something which seemed somehow but a moment from comprehension, something elusive, hauntingly near and yet undisclosed.

"No," said Cernus. "The Fool is your opponent."

"Let us be done with this farce," said the boy. "Further, let no word of this shame be spoken outside this house."

Cernus grinned.

Philemon indicated the board, and the young man went to it and took a chair, Cernus' own, surrendered eagerly by him, at the table. The boy turned the board irritably about, taking red. Philemon turned the board back, that he might have yellow, and the first move, permitting him to choose his opening.

The young man looked about him with disgust, but did not protest.

"To the table, fool," cried Cernus to Hup.

Hup, as though shocked, leaped to his feet, turned a somersault, and bounded unevenly to the table, where he put his chin on the boards, trying to nibble at a piece of bread lying there.

Those in the room laughed, with the exception of Relius, Ho-Sorl, the young boy, and myself, and Sura. Sura was still looking at the boy. There were tears in her eyes. I tried to place the boy, his features.

"Would you not care," asked Cernus of the boy, "to inform the prisoner of your name?"

The handsome boy looked down from the chair of Cernus on me. His lips parted irritably. "I am Scormus of Ar," he said.

I closed my eyes and began to shake with laughter, seeing the joke on myself. And the others, too, those with Cernus, laughed, until the room roared with their mirth.

My champion was Hup, a Fool, that of Cernus was the brilliant, fiery, competitive Scormus of Ar, the young, phenomenal Scormus, who played first board of the city of Ar and held the highest bridge in the city as the province of his game, the master not only of the Players of Ar but doubtless of Gor as well; four times he had won the cap of gold at the Sardar Fairs; never had he entered a tournament he had not won; there was no Player on Gor who did not acknowledge him his master; the records of his games were hungered for throughout all the cities of Gor; his strategy was marked with a native and powerful subtlety, a profundity and brilliance that had made him, even in his youth, a legend in the harsh cities of Gor; it was little wonder that even Cernus himself stood in awe of this imperious youth.