"Yes," whimpered Cernus, "yes." He reached humbly, brokenly, into his robe, drawing forth a dagger. I eyed him narrowly. Suddenly he cried, "Die!" and hurled it at me. I had expected the move and had turned. The knife struck the back of the chair before which I stood, striking through the wood, stopping only with the hilt.
"Excellent," I commented.
He stood now with his sword in hand, eyes bright.
I cried out with a shout of exultation and leaped over the table towards him.
In an instant our blades had met in the swift discourse of flashing steel.
He was an excellent swordsman, very fast, cunning, strong.
"Excellent," I told him.
We moved about the room, over the tables and behind them, across the square of sand.
Once Cernus, moving backward, defending himself, fell over the dais, and my sword was at his throat.
"Well," I said, "will it be my steel or the impaling spear of Ar's justice?"
"Let it be your steel," he said.
I stepped back and permitted him to regain his feet. Again we fought.
Then I drew blood, from the left shoulder. I stepped back. He tore his robe from his body and wore only the belted house tunic; the left shoulder was soaked with blood.
"Yield," I told him.
"Die!" he screamed, rushing again towards me.
It was a superb attack, but I met it and drew blood twice more, once from the left side, once from the chest.
Cernus reeled back, his eyes glazed. He coughed and spit blood.
I did not follow him.
He regarded me, breathing hard. He wiped a bloody forearm across his face.
"Sura is dead," I told him.
He looked startled. "I did not kill her," he said.
"You killed her," I said.
"No!" he cried.
"There are many ways in which a man can kill," I said.
He looked at me, haggard, bloody.
I moved my position. He looked over his shoulder, saw the door from the hall which led to the stairs and passage leading to the chambers of the beast. I saw a sudden, wild elation cross his features. He set himself as though to receive my attack. Then, suddenly, he spun and ran for the door.
I let him reach the door, jerk it open, take his stumbling flight up the stairs, into the passage.
At the head of the stairs, I at the foot, he turned. "It will protect me!" he cried. "You are a fool, Tarl Cabot!" He hurled his sword down the stairs at me. I stepped aside and it clattered past. Then he turned and fled down the passage.
I climbed the stairs slowly.
At the head of the stairs I saw that the room at the end of the passage was open. As I had expected there were now no guards posted.
I saw the trail of blood on the boards of the hall, marking the flight of Cernus.
"You would never make a Player, Cernus," said I to myself.
I heard the horrid scream from the room at the end of the hall, and a frightening roar, and strange noises, human, and snarling and feeding.
When I had come to the room, sword ready, the beast was gone.
I ran through the room. It opened into a larger room. One with a vast portal open to the air, sheer on all sides. In the larger room I smelled the odor of a tarn, mixed with another odor I could not place, but animal. Outside the room, mounted in the wall of the cylinder of Cernus, was a tarn perch. I saw, in the distance, something large on the back of a great tarn, humped, shaggy.
I turned back and looked into the room. In it I saw the rifle which had been brought from Earth. About the walls of the room there was much delicate apparatus, reminding me somewhat of instrumentation I had seen in the Nest long ago; complex paneling, wires, disks; the dials, I noted, were adopted for a visually oriented organism, needles quivering against a metric of spaces; a cone was flashing on and off in the instrumentation; I lifted a matching cone from its placement on a horizontal panel; putting the cone to my ear I heard a splattering of signals of varying pitch; they came more and more frequently, and at greater and greater intensity; then, to my amazement, the signals stopped; there was a pause; then there came a strange sound, which could have been uttered by no human throat, but articulate, repeated again and again.
I put the cone down. The sound continued.
Ho-Tu, his hook knife in his hand, entered the room. "Cernus?" he asked.
I pointed to the rags and the part of a body that was thrown into a corner of the room, mixed with litter and bones.
"What more could you have done?" I asked.
Ho-Tu looked at me.
"Sura," I said, "told me to tell you that she loved you."
Ho-Tu nodded. There were tears in his eyes. "I am happy," he said. Then he turned and left the room.
I saw on the part of the body lying among the bones the chain and medallion of Cernus, now stained with blood, the tarn, gold, slave chains in its talons.
I pulled it through the body and threw it onto the horizontal panel, next to the flashing cone, to the other cone that kept repeating its request.
I looked about. Throughout the room there was the heavy animal odor. I saw the webbing on which the thing had apparently slept, judged its strength, noted its width. I saw the small boxes which had been brought from the black ships. I saw cases of metallic disks, perhaps mnemonic disks or record disks. Priest-Kings could make use, I supposed, of the contents of this room. I expected they could learn much.
I went to the horizontal panel and picked up the cone through which the voice was being transmitted; I noted a switch in the cone and pushed it; immediately the voice stopped.
I spoke into the cone. I spoke in Gorean. I did not know to whom I spoke. I was certain that my transmission, like others, would be taped or recorded in some fashion. It would, now, or later, be understood.
"Cernus is dead," I said. "The beast is gone. There will be no answer."
I clicked the switch again. This time it was silent.
I turned and left the room, barring it on the outside, that others might not enter it.
In passing again through the hall of Cernus I encountered Flaminius. "Ho-Tu," he said.
I followed him to the chamber of Sura.
There Ho-Tu, with his hook knife, had cut his own throat, falling across the body of Sura. I saw that he had first removed from her throat the collar of Cernus.
Flaminius seemed shaken. He looked to me, and I to him.
Flaminius looked down.
"You must live," I said to him.
"No," he said.
"You have work to do," I told him. "There is a new Ubar in Ar. You must return to your work, your research."
"Life is little," he said.
"What is death?" I asked him.
He looked at me. "It is nothing," he said.
"If death is nothing," I said, "then the little that life is must be much indeed."
He looked away. "You are a Warrior," he said. "You have your wars, your battles."
"So, too, do you," said I, "Flaminius."
Our eyes met.
"Dar-kosis," I said, "is not yet dead."
He looked away.
"You must return to your work," I said. "Men need you."
He laughed bitterly.
"The little that men have," I said, "is worth your love."
"Who am I to care for others?" he asked.
"You are Flaminius," I told him, "he who long ago loved men and chose to wear the green robes of the Caste of Physicians."
"Long ago," he said, looking down, "I knew Flaminius."
"I," I said, "know him now."
He looked into my eyes. There were tears in his eyes, and in mine.
"I loved Sura," said Flaminius.
"So, too, did Ho-Tu," I said. "And so, too, in my way, did I."
"I will not die," said Flaminius. "I will work."
I returned to my own chambers in the House of Cernus. Outside I could hear the song of Ar's glory. I washed away from my forehead the mark of the black dagger.