They moaned, but did not disobey the kennel master.
T’Zshal himself stood at the bow of the raft, the lance in one hand, in his other a lantern, lifted.
An Ahn later he found the man. “Greetings,” said the fellow. “Greetings,” said T’Zshal, drawing him from the water. “I have been swimming,” said the man.
“Yes,” said T’Zshal. T’Zshal put him on the planks of the raft. The man seemed to have no recollection of the Old One, nor of what he was doing in the water.
He fell asleep.
“Return to the dock,” said T’Zshal.
The heavy raft turned, and began to move toward the docks.
Hassan and I looked at one another. We had decided that we would not kill T’Zshal.
“Tomorrow,” said T’Zshal, “at dusk, I am returning to this area.”
“I shall accompany you,” I said. “And I, too,” said Hassan.
17 What Occurred in the Pit
I think there was no man on the raft that evening who bad not lost at least one comrade, recently or long ago, to the Old One.
“We hunt the Old One,” T’Zshal had said. He bad visited various pits, some open, some sheltered, the warehouses, the refining vats. “We hunt the Old One,” he had said. And they bad followed him. Even in the shadow of Klima’s Keep itself, the squarish, stout, fortresslike building which houses the weaponry, domicile and office of the Salt Master himself did we recruit our crew. On the height of the keep I saw, tight in the bright, hot wind, under the merciless sun, defiant to the pits and desert itself, the Rag of Klima, the whip and scimitar. None bad been ordered; not one upon the raft had, under the uplifted whip coil, nor upon the advice of unsheathed steel, been commanded. Many were older men, sober and mature, many blackened by the sun. Each was slave, but each came not as a slave, but came unbidden, as a man. “We hunt the Old One,” had said T’Zshal. He said this in the pits, the warehouses, among the refining vats. “We hunt the Old One,” he said. And men had followed him.
I think there was no man on the raft that evening who had not lost at least one comrade, recently or long ago, to the Old One.
“Awaken me,” bad said T’Zshal, “when the lelts have gone.”
Far into the pit, distant from the salt docks, we slowed the raft, and steadied it with the long poles, holding it as nearly as we could in place. He who bad been steersman with us yesterday, during the attack of the Old One, held the sweep that governed the movements of that open, sluggish platform which constituted our vessel. Beside he, only Hassan, on the other side, and myself, of yesterday’s crew, accompanied T’Zshal. At the comers of the raft burned four lamps, mounted on poles. Torches, however, stood ready, to be lit from these, and held over the water, should there be need.
“Awaken me when the lelts have gone,” had said T’Zshal. “I will sleep now.”
He had then lain down, behind the frame within which the salt tubs are stored, aft, and had slept. Beside him lay the long lance, some nine feet in length.
“Will you not use poison on the blade?” had asked a man at the salt dock. No one of those who accompanied T’Zshal had asked the question.
“No,” had said T’Zshal.
I wondered if he had once been of the Warriors.
I observed T’Zshal as he slept, the bearded head on one arm. I wondered why it was that none killed him, to become kennel master in his place. How was it, he holding the precarious sovereignty of our kennel, that he dared to sleep among slaves, who might win his kaffiyeh and agal, though they were only rep-cloth, so simply as the dagger, slipped from his sash, might enter his throat? The kennel master, though slave, too, is Ubar, with power of life and death, in the squalor of his domain. How is it, I wondered, that such a man can survive a night, that such a man dare turn his back upon the fierce, envious sleen among whom, with whip, and laughter, he walks. His will, his word, in the kennel decrees law. He may, if he choose, stake out, or whip or slay a man who fails his quota of gathered salt, or strikes a fellow, administering fierce, dread discipline as the whim may seize him, and yet, should he himself be slain, his slayer is not punished, but accedes to his authority and, in his place, becomes master of the kennel. How is it, I wondered, that men survive at Klima, and that they do not die at one another’s throats?
I looked at the heads of the lelts, and, scattered among them, the heads of the pale salamanders, thrust from the dark water, attracted by the movement, or the awareness of the light or heat, of the lamps.
They had been with the raft now for better than an Ahn, appearing some quarter of an Ahn after we had steadied the sluggish vessel in place.
It is difficult to bespeak the darkness of the pit.
T’Zshal slept.
Beside him lay the lance; in his reddish sash was thrust the dagger of his office.
“The lelts remain with us,” said one of the men near me, he, too, with a pole.
I looked upon the lelts, and, among them, here and there, the salamanders. Their blunt, whitish heads protruded from the water, curious, each head oriented toward one or the other of the four lamps on the raft. I knelt down on the raft, and, quickly, scooped, holding it, one of the lelts from the water. It was enclosed in my hand. It struggled briefly, then lay still. The lelt is a small fish, long-bodied for its size, long-finned. It commonly swims slowly, smoothly, conserving energy in the black, saline world encompassing its existence. There is little to eat in that world; it is a liquid desert, almost barren, black, blind and cool. It swims slowly, conserving its energy, not alerting its prey, commonly flatworms and tiny-segmented creatures, predominantly isopods. I turned the lelt, looking at the small, sunken, covered pits in the sides of its head. I wondered if it was capable, somehow, of a dim awareness of the phenomenon of light. Could there be some capacity, some genetic predisposition for the recognition of light, like an ancient, almost lost genetic memory, buried in the tiny, simple, linear brain at the apex of its spinal column? It could not be possible I told myself. The tiny gills, oddly beneath and at the sides of its jaws, closed and opened. There was a minute sound. I lowered my hand and let the lelt slip again into the dark water. It slipped from sight. Then I saw it again, a few feet from the raft. Again its head protruded from the water, again oriented to the same lamp at the corner of the raft.
“Why did you not eat it?” asked the man near me.
I shrugged. Some salt slaves eat the lelt, raw, taken from the water, or gleaned from their harvesting vessels. The first bite is taken behind the back of the neck.
I regarded the fish.
Perhaps they have some dim awareness of light. Perhaps it is only the heat that draws them. I suppose, in the salt pit, one of our small lamps might seem to those who had in their lives known only darkness like the glory of a thousand suns. We know little about the lelt. We do know it will come from the darkness and lift the blind pits of its eyes toward a source of light.
“You could have given it to me,” said the man near me.
“I did not think of it,” I told him.
We know little about men, too, I thought. We do know they will seek the truth. I do not know if they can see it. Perhaps if they touched it, they would die, burning in its flames. Perhaps we cannot see truth. Perhaps nature has denied us this gift. Perhaps we can sense only its presence. Perhaps we can sense only its heat. Perhaps to stand occasionally in its presence is sufficient.
“The lelts have gone,” said the man.
The waters were dark, seemingly empty. The lelts, the salamanders, had gone.
“Waken, T’Zshal,” said the man. The hair rose on the back of my neck. Suddenly then I understood the institution of the kennel master, and the dark laws governing his tenure, how they regulated and ordered behavior at Klima.
“The lelts have gone,” whispered a man.
I glanced at T’Zshal, his heavy head, bearded, resting on his arm, the lance beside him.
I had wondered why men did not kill T’Zshal, and the other kennel masters, why the societal arrangement was as stable as it was. I now knew. It was because the killer then, in turn, would be kennel master. The dread responsibility would then be his to bear. His then would be the fearful burdens of autonomy, of freedom. One must speak carefully whose words becomes law. It is not easy to be master at Klima. Too, he would be the next to die. It is a high price to pay for the whip. One must think carefully before slaying a kennel master, for the reasons for which one performs this action, if sufficient to justify his slaying must, too, be sufficient to justify the slaying of his successor. There are two major controls on the office of kennel master, one on the men, the other on the master. The control on the men is that the killer of the kennel master must assume the office of his victim, with its vulnerabilities and hazards. The control on the kennel master is the incipient rage and menace of his desperate charges. If he does not govern shrewdly and well, if be does not do rough justice, he invites the lesions of resentment, which among the grim, trapped men of Klima must, sooner or later, culminate in the moment of insurrection. He cannot be easy with the men, of course, for he himself is subject to the sanctions of his superiors, in particular in connection with the salt quotas imposed upon his kennel. Men do not wish to be kennel master. But yet one must be sovereign; one must accept the burden. It is steel alone, and will, which prevents catastrophe and slaughter. The whip must be held. Who will be courageous enough, strong enough, to lift it among the savage, condemned beasts of Klima? Who will be bold enough, generous enough, to accept the dreadful office of kennel master at Klima? “Waken T’Zshal.” whispered a man near me.