John Norman - Gor 25 - Magicians of Gor.pdf

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Contents
Magicians of Gor
Contents
1. The Street
7
2. The Tent
20
3. The Camp
34
4. Within Ar
66
5. Outside the Gate
71
6. The Public Boards
75
7. Ar is Liberated
82
8. The Wall
101
9. The Plaza of Tarns
135
10.The Sword is Thirsty
162
11.The Delka
175
12.The Countries of Courage
190
13.A Difference Seems Afoot in Ar
206
14.In the Vicinity of the Public Boards
215
15.Fire
238
16.In the Vicinity of the Teiban Market
243
17.Magic
253
18.Our Wallets are in Order
271
19.The Field Slave
290
20.The Slave Will Obey
333
21.I Receive the Report of a Slave
357
22.My Plans Proceed
372
23.A Message is to be Delivered
399
24.Staffs and Chains
413
25.Bracelets and Shackles
422
26.A Free Woman; A Female Slave
441
27.We Take Our Leave
459
28.The Room
485
CHAPTER 1
THE STREET
(pg. 7) “Surely you understand the law, my dear,” he said.
She struggled in the net, dropped from the ceiling, then held about her by guardsmen sprung from concealment
at the sides of the room.
“No!” she cried. “No!”
Magicians of Gor
She was then turned about, twice in the net, on the couch so that she was thoroughly entangled, doubly, in its
toils.
“No!” she wept.
The guardsmen, four of them, held the net.
Her eyes were wild. Her fingers were in the knotted mesh. She was like a frightened animal.
“Please,” she wept. “What do you want?”
The fellow did not then answer her, but regarded her. She was naked in the toils of the net, and now lay on her
side, her legs drawn up in it, now seemingly, small and very vulnerable, so bared and caught, on the deep furs of
the huge couch.
“Milo!” she cried to a tall, handsome fellow to one side, “Help me!”
“But I am a slave,” pointed out Milo, donning his purple tunic.
She looked at him, wildly.
“I am sure you are familiar with the law,” said the first fellow, flanked by two magistrates.
“No!” she cried.
The magistrates were ex offico witnesses, who could certify the circumstances of the capture. The net was a
stout one, and weighted.
“Any free women who couches with another’s slave, or readies herself to couch with another’s slave, becomes
herself a slave, and the slave of the slave’s master. It is a clear law.”
“No! No!” she wept.
“Think of it in this fashion, if you wish,” he said. “You have given yourself to Milo, but Milo is mine, and can
own nothing, and thus you have given yourself to me. An analogy is the coin given by a free person to a street
girl, which coin, of course, does not then belong to the girl but to her master. What is given to the slave is given
to the master.
She regarded him with horror.
(pg. 8) “I loathe you!” she cried. “Bring me my clothing!” she wept to the guardsmen.
“When the certifications are approved, and filed, and in this case there will be no ambiguity or difficulty about
the matter, you will be mine.
“No!” she wept.
“Put her on her knees, on the couch, in the net,” he said.
Magicians of Gor
This was done.
She looked wildly at Milo. There were tears in her eyes. “Will I then, as a slave, be your woman?” she asked.
“I do not think so,” said Milo, smiling.
“The handsome, charming, suave, witty Milo,” said the fellow, “is a seduction slave.”
“A seduction slave?” she wept.
“Yes,” he said. “He has much increased my stock of slaves.”
She tore at the net, in tears, but helpless.
“Had you, and your predecessors, not been so secretive, so much concerned to conceal your affairs with a slave,
Milo’s utility as a seduction slave would have doubtless been much diminished by now. On the other hand, the
concern for your reputation and such, so natural in you free women, almost guarantees the repeatability, and
continued success, of these small pleasant projects.”
“Release me!” she begged.
“Some of Milo’s conquests are used in my fields, and others in my house,” he said. “But most, and I am sure
you will be one of these, are exported, sold out of the city to begin your new life.”
“My new life?” she whispered.
“That of a female slave,” he smiled.
She struggled, futilely.
“Raise the net to her waist, and lower it to her neck,” he said, “and tie it about her. Then put her in a gag and
hood.”
“No!” she wept.
“By tonight,” he said, “you will be branded and collared.”
“No, please!” she wept.
The net was then adjusted on the female, in accordance with the fellow’s instructions, in such a way that her
legs and head were free, but her arms were confined. It was then bound tightly in place.
The fellow then glanced at the handsome slave. “You will leave by another exit,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” said the slave.
The free woman watched the slave withdraw. “Milo!” she whispered.
(pg. 9) “You are now kneeling on a couch,” said the fellow, “which, for a female slave, is a great honor. You
may be months into your bondage before you are again permitted such an honor.”
Magicians of Gor
“Milo!” she wept, after the slave.
The leather bit of the gag, a fixture of the hood, was then forced back between her teeth, and tied in place.
She made a tiny noise, of protest.
The hood itself was then drawn over her head, covering it completely. It was then fixed on her, buckled shut,
beneath her chin.
“What have you seen?” said Marcus.
I stepped back from the crack in the shutters, through which I had observed the preceding scene.
“Nothing,” I said.
We were in a street of Ar, a narrow, crowded street, in which we were much jostled. It was in the Metellan
district, south and east of the district of the Central Cylinder. It is a shabby, but not squalid district. There are
various tenements, or insulae, there. It is the sort of place, far enough from broad avenues of central Ar, where
assignations, or triflings, might take place.
“Is Ar this crowded always?” asked Marcus, irritably.
“This street, at this time of day,” I said.
My companion was Marcus Marcellus, of the Marcelliani, formerly of Ar’s Station, on the Vosk. We had come
to Ar from the vicinity of Brundisium. He, like myself, was of the caste of warriors. With him, clinging closely,
about him, as though she might fear losing him in the crowd, and attempting also, it seemed, not unoften, to
make herself small and conceal herself behind him, was his slave, Phoebe, this name having been put on her, a
slender exquisite, very lightly complexioned, very dark-haired girl. She had come into his keeping in the
vicinity of Brundisium, some months ago.
“As we do have the yellow ostraka and our permits do not permit us to remain in the city after dark,” said
Marcus, “I think we should venture now to the sun gate.”
Marcus was the sort of fellow who was concerned about such things, being arrested, impaled, and such.
“There is plenty of time,” I assured him. Most cities have a sun gate, sometimes several. They are called such
because they are commonly opened at dawn and closed at dusk, thus the hours of their ingress and regress being
determined by the diurnial cycle. Ar is the largest city of known Gor, larger even, I am sure, than Turia, in the
far south. She has some forty public gates, and, I suppose, some number of restricted smaller gates, secret gates,
posterns, and such. Long ago, I had once entered (pg. 10) the city through such a passage, its exterior access
point reached by means of a putative Dar-Kosis pit, which passage, I had recently determined, descending into
the pit on ropes, was now closed. I supposed that this might be the case with various such entrances, if they
existed, given Ar’s alarm at the announced approach of Cos. In a sense I regretted this loss, for it had
constituted a secret way in and out of the city. Perhaps other such passages existed. I did not know.
“Let us go,” suggested Marcus.
Magicians of Gor
I saw a slave girl pass, in a brief, brown tunic, her back straight, her beauty protestingly full within her tiny,
tight garment, balancing a jar on her head with one hand. The bottom of the jar rested in a sort of improvished
shallow stand or mount, formed of a dampened, wrapped towel. In Schendi the white slave girls of black
masters are sometimes taught to carry such vessels on their heads without the use of their hands or such devices
as the towel. And woe to the girl who drops it. Such exercises are good for a girl’s posture. To be sure, the
lower caste black women of Schendi and the interior do such things commonly. I looked at the girl. Yes, I
thought, she could be similarly trained, without doubt. If I owned her, I thought, I might so train her. If she
proved clumsy or slow to learn she could be whipped. I did not think she would prove slow to learn. Our eyes
met, briefly, and she lowered her eyes swiftly, still keeping her burden steady. She trembled for a moment. I
think she had seen, in that glance, that I could be her master, but then, so, too, of course, could be many men. A
slave girl is often very careful about meeting the eyes of a free man directly, particularly a stranger. They can be
cuffed or beaten for such insolence. The collar looked well on her, gleaming, close-fitting, locked. She was
barefoot. Her brief garment was all she wore. It would have no nether closure. Thusly on Gor are female slaves
commonly garbed. She hurried on.
“Let us be on our way,” said Marcus. Phoebe clung close to him, her tiny fingers on his sleeve.
“In a moment,” I said.
“I do not like such crowds,” said Marcus.
We were buffeted about a bit.
“There is a date on the permits,” Marcus reminded me, “and they will be checking at the gate to see who has left
the city and who has not.”
“I think they will be coming out in a moment or two,” I said, “there at that door.”
“Who?” he asked.
“There,” I said.
(pg. 11) I saw the fellow who had been in the room emerge through the door. He was followed by the two
magistrates, who had probably now made the entries in their records. They were followed by four guardsmen, in
single file. “Make way, make way!” said the fellow from the room, and the crowds parted a little, to let them
pass. The third of the three guardsmen carried a burden on his right shoulder. It was a naked woman whose
upper body was thoroughly and tightly wrapped in several turns of a heavy net, tied closely about her. Her head
was covered with a buckled hood. She squirmed a little, helplessly. She was being carried with her head to the
rear, as a slave is carried.
“So that is what you were watching,” said Marcus, “a caught slave.”
“In a sense,” I said.
About at the same time, coming toward us, down the street, following the other party by several yards, was a
large, graceful fellow, blond and curly-haired, who was astonishingly handsome, almost unbelievably so. On his
left wrist, locked, there was a silver slave bracelet. His tunic was of a silken purple. He had golden sandals.
“Who is that?” I asked a fellow in white and gold, the colors of the merchants, when the handsome fellow had
passed. Such a one, I assumed, might be generally known. He was no ordinary fellow.

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