In the context of matters such as these, it would be remiss not to call, in passing, some attention to one of the most interesting deities in the Telnarian pantheon, Dira, whose devotion is widely spread among female slaves. Dira is the goddess of slave girls, and is herself a slave girl of the gods. She functions, too, as a goddess of love and beauty. Dira, as her legend goes, was an unhappy, haughty, frigid goddess, who regarded herself as superior to the other gods. In some versions of the legend she was said to be insulting to the other gods and to rejoice in treating them badly and making them miserable. This caused much anger among the other gods but nothing was done about it as Dira was a goddess.
Now Orak, the king of the gods, was one day pondering the making of men, and other creatures, and what would be the appropriate arts and occupations of these creatures, and their natures, races, and kinds. He made things that lived on the land and in the sea, and even things that could fly in the air. He made many different sorts of things, and over a very long time. Indeed, according to the stories, he still makes things, new things, as they occur to him, according to his caprice, or curiosity, interested in seeing how they will turn out. This is one reason there are so many different things in the world. He made the gazelle for the vi-cat, so it would have something to hunt and eat, and the lamb for the lion, and so on. And, too, seeing how often men were lonely and angry, and restless, he made the slave girl, to love and serve men, not so much unlike he had made the gazelle for the vi-cat and the lamb for the lion, and he put a slave girl in every woman, hiding her there.
“How silly!’’ had said Dira, laughing, tossing her pretty head and, turning with a swirl of her voluminous, pure-white garments, left the hall of the gods.
But Dira, learning of the making of the slave girl, had, for a moment, unnoted by the other gods, trembled, and had felt a troubling, unaccountable stirring between her lovely thighs.
Now Dira had often criticized the works of Orak, who did not care for that.
“How is it,” asked Andrak, the artisan and builder of ships, “that men should have more than the gods?”
“How is it,” asked Foebus, the swift god, the carrier of messages, “that men should have slave girls and we none?”
“Surely that is not right,” said Tylethius, the maker of whips and breeder of dragons.
“No!” cried Orak, with a roar like thunder, rising to his feet.
Far off, Dira heard this, and was puzzled, wondering what it might mean.
“Forge magic chains, hunting chains,” said Orak to Andrak, the artisan.
Dira heard this, and was apprehensive.
“Call your dragons that can herd like hounds,” said Orak to Tylethius. “And braid a whip fit to lash a goddess!”
Dira heard this and was muchly frightened.
She heard pounding in the smithy of Andrak.
She heard the howling of the dragons of Tylethius.
She summoned up her powers.
But Orak, king of the gods, put forth his hand, and her powers were gone. Though a goddess she was now little more than a woman.
Then Orak put forth his powers, and they were like winds and storms.
“Go,” said he, to his hawks, “and bring me the garments of Dira!”
And with cries they were awing, fiercely.
Dira, alone, deprived of her powers, little more now than a woman, cried out in fear, and began to run, but in a moment she found herself in the shadow of the wings of the hawks of Orak, who, crying shrilly, descended upon her, and, with their beaks and talons, tore away her snowy garments, leaving her on the plain, terrified, naked, and bloody.
And then she heard the clanking of chains, like snakes, leaving the hall of the gods, and she fled, and fled, and hid herself in a dark, deep cave, cold and trembling, but the chains, slowly, sniffing like dogs, followed her, deep into the earth.
“No!” cried Dira, backed against a wall of the cave, at its very end, but one of the chains, even in the darkness, near the ground, like a snake, unerringly, striking, snapped its ring about her ankle, as the legend has it, the left. Her right ankle was caught then by the next chain. As she reached down, hoping to free her ankles, her left and right wrists were seized by two other chains. Then the four chains began to draw her, protesting and weeping, out of the cave, upward, to the upper air, where two dragons, like hounds, with breaths of fire, were waiting for her. Then, dragged by the chains, and hastened by the dragons with their breaths of fire, scorching the earth and grass, and the stones at her feet, she was conducted across the plains, and into the hills, and into the mountains, and up the secret mountain trail, hidden from mortals, to the wide marble steps, the thousand steps, leading yet farther upward, to the hall of the gods, and thence she was conducted up the steps, and into the great marble-floored hall itself, where, on that great, smooth expanse of marble flooring, the gods sitting about in council upon their thrones, the chains, by themselves, whipped about four rings in the floor prepared by Andrak, and welded themselves shut.
“I beg mercy!” cried Dira.
These four rings were placed directly before the throne Orak.
She knew she had many faults, but she had never expected be punished for them, because she was a goddess.
But now she was afraid.
“Mercy!” she whispered.
“How beautiful she is!” marveled many of the gods.
“Clothe her!” cried Umba, the consort of Orak.
Orak lifted his hand and a tiny, narrow rag, of no more than half an inch in width, of bright red, wrapped itself twice about the left wrist of Dira, and knotted itself shut.
Umba cried out in fury and left the hall, and so, too, did the other female deities, leaving Dira with only male gods about. The beauty of Dira had not made her popular with the other goddesses.
Orak raised his hand again, and the tiny rag about her wrist vanished.
The gods murmured their approval.
“Kneel,” said Orak.
Dira knelt.
This was the first time that Dira knelt. She did not dare to disobey.
The hawks of Orak were perched upon the back of his throne. The dragons of Tylethius were behind her, one to each side,
“You have been petty, and haughty, and troublesome,” said Orak. “You have been supercilious and cruel.”
“You have taken my powers,” she said. “I am little more now than a mortal woman.”
“But one who is very beautiful,” said Andrak.
“What is in your eyes?” she asked.
“It is desire,” said Orak.
Dira trembled.
“Do you find it amusing that I have made slave girls?” asked Orak.
“No,” said Dira.
“Do you object in any way?”
“No,” said Dira.
“Do you find it fitting?” asked Orak.
“Yes,” said Dira.
“But they are unimportant, and worthless,” said Orak.
“Yes,” said Dira.
“And one may do what one wishes with them,” said Orak.
“Yes,” said Dira.
“Bring the lash,” said Orak.
Andrak produced the lash which Tylethius had braided.
“What are you going to do?” asked Dira.
“Put her hair forward,” said Orak.
Her hair was thrown forward, before her body. Tylethius did this.
“What are you going to do?” asked Dira.
“Lean forward, so that you are on all fours,” said Orak.
Dira complied.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Surely you suspect,” said Orak.
“But I am a goddess!” she said.
“Lash her,” said Orak.
In a moment the lash, wielded by Andrak, the artisan and builder of ships, fell upon the goddess.