"Is this he?" asked the officer of the merchant council.
"That is he," said Msaliti turning about. "He claims to be Tarl of Teletus but he will be unable to substantiate that identity."
"What is going on here?" I shouted. I struggled, trying to free myself of the four men who held me. Then I felt two daggers pressed through the fabric of my tunic.
I ceased struggling, feeling the points in my flesh. Both could be driven home before I could hurl my captors from me.
My hands were taken behind me and tied.
"These men were waiting for me," I said to Msaliti.
"Of course," said be.
"I see that you were determined, in any event," I said, "to be the one who would return the ring to our superiors."
"Of course," said Msaliti. "I will then stand higher in their favor."
"But what of me?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Who can tell what may have happened to you?" he asked.
"You are an officer of Schendi," I said to the man in charge of the guardsmen. "I demand to be released."
"Here is the paper," said Msaliti to the officer.
The officer took the paper and looked it over. Then he looked at me. "You are the one who calls himself Tarl of Teletus?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
The officer placed the paper inside his robes. "There is no place in Schendi," he said, "for criminal vagabonds."
"Look in my wallet," I said. "You will see that I am not a vagabond."
The wallet was cut from my belt. The officer shook out gold pieces and silver tarsks into his hand.
"You see?" I asked.
"He arrived in Schendi," said Msaliti, "in the garb of a metal worker. You see him now in the garb of a leather worker." Msaliti smiled. "What metal worker or leather worker," he asked, "carries such funds?"
"He is obviously a thief, doubtless a fugitive," said the officer.
"The work levy imposed on Schendi is due to leave in the morning," said Msaliti. "Perhaps this fellow could take the place of a good citizen of Schendi in that levy?"
"Would you find that acceptable?" asked the officer.
Msaliti looked at me. "Yes," he said.
"Splendid," said the officer. "Put ropes on the sleen's neck."
Two leash ropes were knotted on my neck.
"This is not justice," I said.
"These are hard times," said the officer. "And Schendi fights for her life."
He then lifted his hand to Msaliti and withdrew, taking his, guardsmen with him.
"Where am I to be taken?" I asked Msaliti.
"To the interior," he said.
"You had the cooperation of the council of Schendi," I said. "Someone in a high place must have ordered this."
"Yes," said Msaliti.
"Who?" I asked.
"I," said Msaliti. I looked at him, puzzled.
"Surely you know who I am?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"I am Msaliti," he said.
"And he?" I asked. "Who might he be?"
"Why, I," smiled Msaliti.
"And you?" I asked.
"I thought it was known to all," he said. "I am the high wazir of Bila Huruma."
16
Kisu
"Get back!" I shouted, striking at it with the shovel. The edge of the shovel struck, cutting, at the side of its snout. It hissed. The noise is incredibly loud, or seems so, when one is close to it. I saw the pointed tongue. The jaws distended, more than a yard in height, with the rows of backward-leaning fangs.
I had managed to get my foot on the lower jaw and, with the shovel, pry up the jaw, releasing the hold on the lacerated leg of Ayari, who, bleeding, scrambled back. I had felt the draw of his chain against my own collar.
I thrust the shovel out again, against the upper teeth, thrusting back, shouting.
Other men, too, to the right of Ayari and to my left, screamed, and struck at it with their shovels.
Eyes blazing it backed away, twisting, small legs, with the stubby, clawed feet, stabbing at the water. Its gigantic tail thrashed, striking a man, hurling him back a dozen feet. The water was to my thighs. I pushed back again, with the shovel. The transparent eyelids on the beast, under the scaly eyelids, closed and opened. It hissed more, its tongue sopping at the blood of Ayari in its mouth.
"Back!" cried the askari, in the inland language, with his torch, thrusting it into the beast's mouth.
It roared with pain. Then, thrashing, squirming, hissing, it backed off in the shallow water. I saw its eyes and snout, nostrils open, almost level with the water.
"Away! Away!" shouted the askari, in the inland speech, brandishing his torch. Another askari, at his side, armed with a lance, gripping it with two hands, shouted, too, ready to support his fellow.
Interestingly the incident did not much affect the work in the area. From where I stood I could see hundreds of men, workmen and askaris, and many rafts, some weighted with supplies, others with logs and tools, some with mud and earth we had dug out of the swampy terrain, mud and earth which would be used to bank the flanking barricades, that the area in which we worked might be drained, that a proper channel might later be excavated.
"Are you all right?" I asked Ayari.
He wiped the flies away from his head. "I think I am sick." he said.
There was blood in the water about his leg.
"Return to work," said the askari with the torch, wading near us.
"You have had a narrow escape," I told Ayari.
He threw up into the water.
"Can you work?" asked the askari.
Ayari's leg seemed to buckle under him. He half fell in the water. "I cannot stand," he said.
I supported him.
"It is well that I am on the rogues' chain," grinned Ayari.
"Never before have I been so pleased with my profession," said he. "Had I not been chained, doubtless I would have been pulled away."
"That is quite possible," I told him.
Ayari was of Schendi, a thief. He had been put on the work levy for the canal of Bila Huruma. Schendi was using the misfortune of the levies in order, as much as possible, to rid itself of its less desirable citizens. I supposed she could scarcely be blamed. Ayari, of Schendi, of course, spoke Gorean. Happily, for me, he could also speak the tongue of the court of Bila Huruma. His father had, many years ago, fled from an inland village, that of Nyuki, noted for its honey, on the northern shore of lake Ushindi. The incident had had to do with the theft of several melons from the chief's patch. His father had returned some five years later to purchase his mother. They had then lived in Schendi. The inland speech hail been spoken in the home. It is estimated that some five to eight percent of the people of Schendi are familiar with the inland speech.
"Can you work?" asked the askari of Ayari.
Such simple phrases I could now make out, thanks to Ayari's tutoring.
More impressive to me was Ayari's capacity to read the drums, though, I am told, this is not difficult for anyone who can speak the inland speech fluently. Analogues to the major vowel sounds of the inland speech are found in certain of the drum notes, which differ, depending on where the hollowed, grooved log, is struck. The rhythm of the drum message, of course, is the rhythm of the inland speech. Thus, on the drum it is possible to duplicate, in effect, the vowels and intonation contours of inland sentences. When one adds to this certain additional drum signals corresponding, in effect, to keys to the message or to certain consonantal ciphers, one has, in effect, a direct, effective, ingenious device at one's disposal. given the drum relays, for long-distance communication. A message may be conveyed by means of drum stations for hundreds of pasangs in less than an Ahn. Needless to say Bila Huruma had adopted and improved this device and it had played, and continued to play, its role in the effectiveness of his military machine and in the efficiency of the administration of his ubarate. As a communication device it was clearly superior to the smoke and beacon ciphers of the north. There was, as far as I knew, nothing on Gor to compare with it except, of course; the advanced technological equipment at the disposal of the Priest-Kings and Kurii, equipment of a sort generally forbidden, in the weapons and communication laws, to most Gorean humans. I found it astonishing, and I think most Goreans would have, even those of Schendi, that a ubarate of the size and sophistication of that of Bali Huruma could exist in the equatorial interior. One of the most amazing evidences of its scope and ambition was the very project in which I was now unwillingly engaged, the visionary attempt to join Lakes Ushindi and Ngao, separated by more than four hundred pasangs, by a great canal, a canal that would, via Lake Ushindi and the Nyoka and Kamba rivers, then link the mysterious Ua river, it flowing into Lake Ngao, to gleaming Thassa, the sea, a linkage that would, given the Ua, open up to the civilized world the riches of the interior, riches that must then pass through the ubarate of Bila Huruma.