“What is her name?” asked the fellow below me.
My heart leaped.
“She does not have a name,” said the jailer.
I was muchly pleased. He had expressed interest. The name is important. One commonly keeps track of a girl by her name. It is useful in putting in a call fro her, in having her sent to one, and so on. But I did not, as of now, I had just learned, have a name.
Perhaps it was just as well, I thought. These men, or some of them, were the masters of monstrous beasts. I did not doubt then but what they would be excellent, and sever, masters of other sorts of beasts, as well, for example, curvaceous little beasts, such as I.
How fortunate then!
If I did not have a name, it would be more difficult to put in a call for me. I needed then have less fear of being summoned to the furs of such brutes! But I wanted a name, though I knew it would be only a slave name, put on me for the convenience and pleasure of masters. How else could I be summoned, or have it written on a shard drawn at random from an urn? I had not been caressed in days! Surely someone must have mercy on a kajira! I supposed the name, as I was an Earth girl, would be an Earth-girl name. They are regarded as slave names. Sometimes they are put on a Gorean girl as a punishment. I did not mind, of course. I hoped it would be a pretty name. Surely it would be one which, to a Gorean master, would say “slave.”
The business at the table had now, apparently, been successfully terminated.
We were apparently cleared to proceed.
I was lowered, foot by foot, to the floor. Then I had my feet under me. I was now among the men. I seemed very small among them. Suddenly I felt rather frightened. No longer was I secure in a protected elevation. To be sure, that security, and that elevation, that protection, that sanctuary, had been wholly at the discretion of others. They might accord it to me, or terminate it, instantly, as they pleased.
The leash was then unlooped from about my throat. It was then securely in the hand of the jailer. I was then freed of the chain.
Briefly then my jailer and the soldier, his guide in this place, conferred.
One of the guards, a handsome fellow, he who had looked up at me, and asked my name, regarded me. I looked away, and tossed my head.
Let him understand that!
What cared I for him!
But he slapped his thigh in amusement.
Had I not yet learned my collar?
I feared suddenly that he might one day make me pay dearly for that expression, that gesture.
But my jailer, preceded by the soldier, now again, continued on his way.
On the leash I swiftly followed him.
I heard laughter behind me.
Those men might remember me, I feared.
We passed though a portal, once again one less like a common door than a stout gate.
I followed, leashed.
Within was a long, dimly lit tunnel, with several opened gates within it, some of bars, some of metal-sheathed wood,with tiny apertures some eight to ten feet above the floor. These were tiny ports, used, I would learn, for the missiles of the crossbow. They are manned by platforms which are a part of the interior surface of the doors. I did not notice them at the time but there were other ports overhead from which missiles might be fired toward the doors, should foes achieve the dubious success of reaching them. I think there was no place in that corridor, or perhaps generally in the fortifications as a whole, which could not be reached my missile fire from at least two directions. Noxious materials might be emitted from such vents, as well, such as pitch, acids, and heated oil.
When we went though the next gate, we were suddenly plunged in darkness, absolute darkness.
For several minutes we made our way through a number of labyrinthine passages, occasionally stopping at various gates, which, after an exchange of signs and countersigns, were opened for us. I think there were side passages, too, for I occasionally sensed a difference in the air. If one did not know the passages, I supposed one might, lost and helpless, wander about in them for days. Once I silently screamed, and bit down, fiercely, on the gag, that I might not lose it, and wept in terror, for I felt my thigh brushed by a thick, greasy fur of a large, curious animal, one, I think, like that I had encountered earlier on the ledge. I do not know how many of them were in the passage. Though I could not see them I could often smell the. They were silent. Once I heard claws scraping on the stone. There was no reflection of light from their eyes fro in those passages there was no light to be reflected. The soldier, and the jailer, continued to move with assurance. I did not know if they had memorized the passages or not. Perhaps they guided themselves by touch, or by some irregularities in the flooring. My own passage was guided by the leash. Had I not been leashed I would have had to be led in some other way. A common slave-girl leading position is to grasp her by the hair and hold her head at your hip. Needless to say, we prefer the leash.
Perhaps this is the reason for the leash, I thought, that I not be lost in the tunnel, or injure myself against the walls, or flee in terror, madly, upon the discovery that the tunnel is shared by beasts, whose function is doubtless to protect it from any to whom its passage might be prohibited. Such utilities were intelligible, and plausible.
These things were doubtless true, but I would learn, as well, that the leash had additional purposes, later to become clear to me.
Several times I lost my balance, and must struggle, stumbling, to regain it. This was not easy to do, as I could not make use of my body, within the sack, it strapped so tightly about me. One is not only helpless in such an arrangement, but one is very sensitive to one’s helplessness. One feels very vulnerable. You follow the leash as best you can. Twice I actually fell, bruising myself in the darkness on the stone flooring. Then the leash would pull against the sack ring, under my chin, and I must needs rise up, and again follow.
My legs were tired. The bottoms of my feet were sore, mainly from the ledge.
It had been, so far, a lengthy, wearing, mysterious peregrination.
Surely we must be near its end.
In the darkness, I had sensed that we were often climbing.
I did not know how high we might be.
We then passed though another door, and emerged, at last, into a lighted passage, though it was lighted but dimly, with two torches, one at each end of the passage. The light was not bright, but it hurt my eyes. We paused, all of us, waiting for a bit, to allow our eyes to adjust to it.
Then I shrank back, to the end of the leash.
We had come, on the other side of the door, a few feet from the door, to a deep, narrow, moatlike depression. This extended in the corridor, from side to side, for the width of the corridor, perhaps for some five to seven yards, until it terminated several feet before the farther door, at the end of the passage. Bridging this moatlike depression, running parallel to the sides of the corridor, there lay a narrow, retractable metal beam or plank, perhaps two inches in width.
I shook my head negatively, wildly, beggingly, piteously.
Even were I not confined as I was, I would not have dared to essay that narrow span, that long, terrifyingly narrow beam. At best, unconfined, under duress, I might have tried to inch across it on my belly, trying to balance upon it, clinging desperately to it.
I began to tremble.
I feared I could not long remain on my feet, so weak and frightened I was.
I looked at the soldier, the jailer.
My eyes must have been wild with fear. I whimpered in terror. My legs buckled under me. I slipped down to the stone. I could not stand. I could not even begin to rise to my feet. I knelt down, and put my head to the stone. I could not speak a word, for the gag which I clenched between my teeth. But my mien, doubtless, was pathetic.