The Diary
of Suzanne
"The
Prize of the Sea"
Chapter
1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6,
7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 ...
Chapter
1
The
Awakening in
Gor ...
[Out
behind the Gorean Tavern]
The rain pelted down her narrow back, as
it drenched the land of Gor. The winds whistled fiercely about the
buildings in the city's borders. Shivering, her creamy skin a slight
blue tint from the cold, Suzanne opened her eyes.
With the naivety of a child she peered out
from the tangle of ebony hair, heavy from the assaulting kiss of the rain
that continued to soak the ground. Slowly she pushed herself up,
having been huddled on the grass as if in slumber, and sat on her crossed
ankles, still her eyes gazing blankly around. The question was not
immediately where she was, nor was there any concern at the moment for
her nakedness or any instinct to get out of the rain. No, she merely
looked around.
What had happened to send her life spiraling
to this moment was now a complete blank, as the realization of her amnesia
and the shock of knowing nothing at all about your own life, rushed over
her like a tidal wave hitting land. Suzanne screamed but, whether
from her overflowing fear of reality or the fact that she had just been
grabbed, will never be known either.
The man standing over her was drunk on paga.
He wreaked of it. His huge rough hand, twisted in her long, wet hair,
drawing her helplessly to her feet and almost off the ground considering
his height. He laughed and dangling her there, her hands grasping
frantically for the rope of hair, inspected her hastily and turned, dragging
her behind him. "You'll do. No collar, no cost."
For hours she was beaten for fighting him.
He tried relentlessly to rape her, but in the end it was only his whip
that had tasted her flesh. Tired of the game he was about to kill
her when a somewhat more appealing prospect arose, a trained kajira to
soften his anger. Suzanne had been tied to the post of his tent,
waiting, her cheeks stained with her unending tears when the girl begged
to enter. She distracted him and when he saw there was something
more pleasurable to be done besides have to clean up Suzanne's blood, he
drug her back out of the tent and dumped her on the doorstep of the Gorean
Tavern, not far from where he found her. Before she had time to run,
several in the tavern took notice of the man's disposed of goods, and she
was grabbed and thrown to the furs by three rarius.
Commanded to fetch them each a bota of paga,
it's temperature didn't matter, merely their immediate thirst, Suzanne
realized from her own actions that the thought of serving and the customs
were not without some knowledge. Shaking, her body covered in blood
red whelps, some still bleeding, all raised upon her once alabaster hued
flesh, she rose from the furs and went without thought to the servery.
For a time it was as if she were watching herself from a distance, as each
small realization that something had been seen or done before became apparent.
Though clumsily, probably due to her ordeal and the waves of tremors from
fear that would not cease their passing through her, she managed to serve
them.
As the evening passed, their intoxication demanded
more attention, and Suzanne found herself once again being stared at with
lust filled eyes, as only a gorean male can gaze. Thrown back on
their pile of furs, she screamed out just as another man stepped up.
The rarius hovering over her side turned to listen to his words, then his
gaze fell to the other kajira across the room that was being gestured to.
Xavier Miles Kirash was his name, and the well
trained kajira at his feet had been traded for Suzanne. He immediately
left the tavern with her and took her to an Inn in the City of Tharna.
There on the top floor at the end of the hall to the left, was his room,
where Suzanne would spend the next week of her life. Master Kirash
tied her to the posts at the foot of his bed, spread eagle so as he laid
back on the pillows he could gaze up at her naked form slung between them.
Without a word to her, he left but in minutes the door opened again and
a woman came in. She cleaned Suzanne where she hung and even brushed
her long raven hair. Her wounds were covered in a salve that burned
at first, but then helped ease the pain. She was fed from the woman's
hand, and a great quantity of water forced down her throat. And when
she had finished and left, Suzanne realized, the woman had never said a
word and she hadn't either.
Master Kirash returned late that night, and
after having his meal at a small table, and reading some scrolls taken
from his pouch, he turned his attention to Suzanne. Moving to the
bed, he sat back and recanted for her what had happened that she didn't
know about. The kajira who had been serving him in the tavern, had
whispered to him that she thought she recognized Suzanne. Apparently
whatever the kajira had said, he felt it would increase the weight of his
pouch if he was to save her and collect the ransom that had been implied.
He was a tarnsman for hire. A finder of runaways and such, and had
already been out asking for information about that strange mark over on
her breast.
The
story he told was short, and for the most part, merely added to her own
confusion. The mark on her chest, though she of course had noticed
it, meant nothing until it's importance as a possible "brand" was pointed
out to her. But, he obviously had learned nothing, or the owner of
the mark meant not to reclaim his property.
Master Kirash slept well into the day, never
having touched her the night before. She had been awake for hours
it seemed, staring down at him from her imprisonment when he finally stirred.
After gathering his things, having a brief meal brought, without
being asked for, by the same woman that had cared for Suzanne he turned
his attention back to her. For the first time that day, and what
would later be known as the last time ever he gazed at her.
His eyes seemed to pierce through her.
Not a word spoken, just his continued stare. Perhaps that was the
most frightened she had been so far. The anticipation of what was
to come next, torturing her, as her imagination ran wild. He approached
her, and his thick gloved hand, wound in her hair and forcefully pulled
her head back. Standing beside her bowed body, he stared from this
position down into her tear filled eyes, his hand never loosening it's
grip a bit. For what seemed like an eternity he had simply gazed
at her, then suddenly, his mouth assaulted hers in a forceful kiss.
Then he released her hair and walked out of the room. He was
never seen again.
Days past, and though the woman came to see
to Suzanne's feeding and care, she was always placed back between the bedposts
as before, and there was no indication that he was not expected to return.
Each time Suzanne attempted to speak to one of those who would come, she
was immediately "shushed" to silence, and warned of punishment if her lips
parted again. Having no other possible choice, she complied, with
what would be learned later by her, as the perfect submission of a "slave's
heart". No will of her own, she was merely a kajira.
Chapter
2
The
Key changes hands ...
[The
Inn in Tharna; last door on the left at the top of the stairs]
It was early evening when the sound of
the old wooden door, creaking woke her from a nap. She turned her
head, expecting to find the woman with her kajiru at foot, come to feed
and clean her as usual. But, instead a man stood at the door, a free
man obviously from his appearance. And within his hand Suzanne noticed
right off, the key that had unlocked the door. He was fumbling with
it, a bit absentmindedly, as he looked about the room.
After acquainting himself with his surroundings,
he approached the bed, and began to inspect Suzanne. It was obvious
he had intended to find her there, but his gaze seemed a bit surprised
almost, though why she couldn't make out. After a time of looking
her over, he explained to her how he was given the key to the room by a
man about to leave the City. He had been given Suzanne, sight unseen,
with no cost whatsoever. His name was Turon Da'Kur, and he would
be the first that would take true possession of her.
Untying her carefully, Suzanne crumbled to
her knees on the bed. Her wrists and ankles sore and swollen from
days unending of being hung there, with only the brief reprieves to her
confinement when the slave's of the woman would take her down and bathe
her.
Delicate small hands rubbed incessantly at
the marks, as she stared at him, not a word spoken other than to simply
answer the questions posed to her. All she knew was that she was
free, in a sense. At least from the ropes and the bed.
His tale was even shorter than Master Kirash's
had been. He'd met the fellow sword in a tavern and had been tossed
the key to this room. Master Kirash was gone, called away on some
hired quest. And on Gor, each adventure could be your last.
With his departure, he had seen to her in his own way.
Master Da'Kur gathered his prize, tying her
hands securely, he through her over his shoulder like a sack of sa-tarna
grain, and headed off to what she would know as home for sometime, House
Golden Larl.
The House rested in the midst of the City of
Tharna, on the other side of the town from the Inn. Once inside Suzanne
was taken to his private apartment, where she was again inspected.
He asked her repeatedly of her past. Her answer always the same.
She didn't remember. The mark had been mentioned she supposed, from
his questions to her of it's placement and Master Kirash's inquiries, but
again the same truthful answer, she didn't remember. He tested her.
Commanding her to slave positions, and each time Suzanne reacted immediately.
Though she couldn't remember why, had she been a kajira? Or had she
been a free woman? The mystery that is her life, was only just
truly beginning.
He left her uncollared, though he did dress
her in red silks. Master Kirash had kept her bare, though for some
reason she thought this more for ease of having her cleaned and such.
Not wishing to give any chance to escape. But that was merely the
impression her own mind had formed. She was fed, and he toyed with
her a bit, again seeming to test her. And when he would leave her,
she was secured to a metal ring that protruded from the stone in the middle
of his room.
Master Da'Kur was kind, though still very much
gorean. He seemed to Suzanne to not truly believe she could ever
had been a slave. And once he even returned to his room, his
burley arms draped in the gorgeous fabric, she later learned to be the
robes of a free woman. More than once he had gone through the initial
act of beginning to place his collar about her throat, and yet each time,
he stopped, hesitating, and when he finally did, it was clear he still
didn't believe in his heart she was a kajira.
He continued to adamantly search for anyone
that might know of the mysterious mark on her breast, though keeping her
hidden for the most part, even from most of the very House he resided in
and was sword for. Only once was there a moment where it seemed her
past would reveal itself, and that was the one time he took her to the
gardens.
Suzanne had begged to be let outside, she longed
for fresh air. The winds had beckoned her over and over again
from outside, and finally she had talked him into it. She wandered
down to the gardens ahead of him, humming and a bit of a bounce of freedom
in her steps. She bathed in the pond there, and then went to rest
against a tree, simply enjoying the day. Since "arriving" in Gor,
she had almost completely been confined. Whether tied to that bed
in the Inn, or fixed to that ring in Master Da'Kur's room, she had not
seen much of anything.
He had been bathing in the pond when he caught
Suzanne's eyes, she'd watched him. Noting each ripple of his muscles,
his every gesture, and more so than anything, his shy, demur attitude.
Danuwa dried himself, and once slung his head about, sending a spray of
water droplets to sprinkle her from where he stood, and perhaps it was
her soft laugh that caught his attention, but whatever it was, his eyes
turned to her. He smiled, though his head lowered immediately with
pure submission. And Suzanne blushed right along with him and lowered
hers as well. But what followed next has kept her confused since,
and is one of the reasons she continually searches for the kajiru known
as Krannos.
He approached her, and once at her feet beneath
the tree, he knelt down. Suzanne's mind ran rampant with questions
and curiosity, and for some reason, her heart pounded as if about to burst
from her chest. When he spoke, his voice seemed to come from inside
of her not his mouth, but the words shocked her and unfortunately for them
both, it would prove to be the barrier that most probably kept the past
the same mystery it is today. Danuwa as he is named by his Master,
called Suzanne, "Mistress". And no matter how she coaxed and
gently argued with him, he refused or more exactly, his entire essence
refused to acknowledge her any other way. He knew her. It was
obvious. They had touched before. The feel of his hand almost
burned her, sending rushes of feelings coursing through her again and again
which she could no more identify than deny. His gentleness was beyond
description of mere words, and it was apparent as well, she caused this
same sense of peace and comfort in him too.
Master Da'Kur arrived in the gardens as Suzanne
knelt before Danuwa, her small soft hand, caressing the skin of his cheek,
as if mesmerized by him. Danuwa became frightened with the presence
of her Master, and though reassured by him that he meant no harm, and giving
his permission for the kajiru to continue to speak to Suzanne, he had been
to scared, the past remaining his secret. Suzanne spent as much time
as she could with Danuwa, holding him, just letting their flesh touch.
It was as if his embrace brought her instant peace, and the strength to
go on with life. They fell asleep together in a secluded spot on
the outskirts of the garden, hidden by the brush of flowering foliage,
surrounded by the sweet aroma of the blooms. But when Suzanne awoke,
she was alone. She has searched for him since, and at times is almost
convinced he was merely a dream; A very sweet and peaceful dream,
that can never actually come true.
The lar-torvis began to peek through the limbs
of the overhanging tree, and she got up and made her way back to the House,
hoping she would find mercy from the Master for not returning the night
before. She did, his kindness again was shown with his understanding,
and it was at that moment she realized he seemed to feel for her.
Perhaps it was only clear, after she had seen and felt Danuwa's show of
loving affection, either way, it was now obvious. Master Da'Kur indeed
showed the signs of having fallen in love with the slave he kept in his
room.
Left mostly to herself, her position still a bit confusing as
Master Da'Kur continued to try to discover her past. He seemed more
concerned with it than her now, as if some discovery might lead to revelation
of his life as well. No matter the past, Suzanne for her own sanity
had begun to accept and approach the future with the resignation to being
simply kajira, but also with the burning need and conviction inside her
to be the "best" ever known.
One day in the gardens she heard the sound
of kaska drums coming from the distance, and she followed them, to find
the dancing sands of the kajira. It was there a new spell took hold
of her, and her feet gave way to the music, she could dance. She
was good at it too. This would be her release she thought, her moment
to escape and yet in the same token, be that object of pure pleasure to
the goreans she was surrounded by. It was at that moment, the "little
dancer" was born. Or perhaps ... reborn.
Time seemed to pass slowly on Gor. So
the number of days just washed one into the other, but Suzanne had been
within the House's security for a few weeks when she was stumbled upon
one day by their En'Sword, Kadliuk. He was a strong, prideful gorean
male. Completely convicted to his position and the code of the rarius,
and his sword. She was a bit in awe of him at first.
His forceful nature, his every gesture just another expression of his strength
and attitude. He found her very pleasing to his eyes, though in same
respect, kept his distance at first. He had taken a taste of her
helpless lips once, and the look that his eyes shown after, was as purely
fire as the flames that dance at night in the fire pits. It would
not be long before she would find herself in his grasp.
Master Kadliuk Dathyl Arius approached Master
Da'Kur about Suzanne, and though little of their words is known to her,
after all she is just a kajira, one night he came to the room she was kept
in. He unfastened her from the ring she was tied to, tossed her over
his shoulder like a prize possession and walked down the hall to his apartment.
There she was collared as his slave. It was there on the cold tile
floor of his room, empty and obviously vacant for sometime, she submitted
in the tradition of Gor. He placed her in sirik chains, nothing more
than the bracelets and anklets they were affixed to upon her form, and
began to explain to her his desires and what he expected of her.
The Mistress of the House was informed, and though Master Da'Kur was obviously
not pleased by this turn of events, she remained and was from then on known
as the kajira of the En'Sword, Kadliuk.
He, just like Master Da'Kur had done, tested
her in his own way, and discovered something that had remained unnoticed,
the kajira was a bit of poet as well. She could write, in gorean
too, though it was clear she was not born of Gor. And her words seem
to bewitch and possess a magical allure, that he found quite pleasing.
She was commanded on many occasions to simply write for his pleasure.
Different subjects, some as simple as for her to recant all of that which
she knew, every food she had tasted or not, or could prepare, every drink,
every known command to her. Without realizing it, not knowing the
ways of Gor truly as yet, her price went up. Drastically.
Master Kadliuk saw to her teachings personally,
every detail he wished her to possess being imparted with a strong hand.
But Suzanne in every moment of her spare time continued to learn more of
the gorean dance, the stories the dancers told with their graceful gestures,
the expression of the need that fills the desires of a kajira.
A true kajira.
In a purely innocent attempt to test her own
skill, she danced one day in the garden for a Master by the name of Tarian
Lar Garrott, he was enchanted. It was the first time she had danced
in public or for a man, and it also caused what Suzanne would come to learn
to know as the anger possible from her Master. Master Garrott fell
in love with Suzanne immediately, declared it right then, and even took
her, secured on his tarn to his home. She begged him, her Master's
collar reminding her with each breath taken, not to take her, not to dishonor
her Master. He finally agreed and let her go, gently seeing her back
to the House of Golden Larl, though he didn't want to. Suzanne told
her Master everything, and though he was overwhelmed with her new found
ability of dancing, he punished her. That night she felt hurt as
never before, and as she lay on the cold stones of the floor, his harsh
words ringing over and over again in her ears, only one thought came to
ease her, to calm her so sleep could eventually come. The comforting
feeling came from the thought of Danuwa, and as she finally slept, she
dreamed again of the kajiru's touch on her cheek.
Suzanne was to learn that her Master would
just as soon kill her as keep her, and from that point on, she remained
mindful of this. Although as fate would have it, it was not the last
time he punished her, or the worst.
She was allowed to continue to dance, and encouraged even, due
to her show of promise in the art. Her writing was something that
was a form of punishment at times, and a gift for being good, as it clearly
was something she loved. Suzanne caught many eyes, and word seemed
to spread of her all over Gor. And her Master would find each time
he returned to his home, a new stack of scrolls left for him; some offers
for purchase; requests to rent her for pleasure, or to have her brought
to certain taverns to dance; the scrolls continued to come and with them
the knowledge that he held something that was becoming increasingly desired
by many.
And perhaps, that was her curse. For
it is not always a blessing to be found beautiful and alluring to men,
as she would soon learn.
Chapter
3
Lessons
Learned ...
[Within
the apartment of her Master, Kadliuk; she reflects back on recent events]
Suzanne had felt like he would never return.
He was always on some long journey it seemed. His apartment had been
cleaned and kept warm with a hearty fire, for whenever he might come home.
Each day she had gone to the kitchen and learned some new way to cook,
bringing it up to his room. Each night, timidly eating a bit of it
herself, saving it from waste when she was sure he wouldn't arrive that
night.
But the lessons were being learned. That's
what mattered most she thought. She was more and more a "complete"
kajira with each passing turn of the moons over the land.
Hours had been spent reading the books she
found in the library of the House. No one hardly ever seeming to
be there, she would read of the tales of the land in quiet solitude by
his fire. What was driving her? Was this the normal desire
to please of a kajira?
Suzanne had taken time to venture out a bit
each day. Sometimes enjoying the warmth of the Lar-Torvis and sometimes
the glow of the three moons over her head. Many times the dancing
pits had found her practicing her new found art. The Master's and
Mistress's of Gor, were now calling her idly, "the little dancer".
The warmth of his room beckoned her early this
night. Tired from the day before, her ordeal still haunting her and
the reality she was nothing. The silver tarn disks she had held in
her mouth, annoying, cumbersome, she went to his desk and bent over.
Her lips softly deposited each on the fine oiled wood. First one,
two, three, four, then the last slipping through her moist lips, being
carefully laid by their side, one gold.
She had been summoned to dance in a tavern,
by a Master who's kajira had gone back from the pits, and performed much
better then ever before. The girl had spoken of Suzanne as helping
her, and he was greatly pleased. She danced for the gathering, though
keeping it much tamer than even her slave's heart could hardly bare, and
the reaction was phenomenal. She had never felt so proud, as
the coins fell by where she lay quivering in a pile of creamy flesh on
the stones. Each call how she had danced divinely, demands to know
who her Master was, calls of how he is surely honored by such a beauty.
It wasn't the coin or the cries from the entire assembly, but the thought
of his face if he had seen. That placed the smile of pride upon hers.
The serving table was still laid out, and she
sat quietly on the furs before the dancing flames of the hearth, as she
ate the small chunk of sa-tarna bread, and pieces of fruit from the bowl
she had procured. A bowl of water sat by her side, and when
she had filled herself with the fruit and bread, she drained it and went
to put the things away. Everything perfect. Everything
waiting for his arrival.
Her tiny bells rang out as she moved back to
the furs. Though she liked the ornament of them, they reminded
her of what had caught the attention of the man that had tried to steal
her in her Master's absence. Laying down on the lush furs, stretching
her lithe form before the kissing glow of the embers that send the flames
to lick at the stones in the hearth, she closes her eyes and thanks the
Priest Kings, that the man had made a mistake and turned his back long
enough for her to escape.
She had been in the gardens, simply sitting
under a tree and enjoying the breeze. He had rode in on a tarn, catching
her attention immediately. She watched him, nothing more, as
he sat by a tree with another girl hiding behind it. And within mere
moments, her and the other kajira were being ordered to his feet.
Suzanne had acted as obedient, submissive and
respectful as any kajira ever recorded, and only because she had failed
to answer a question quickly enough, though she had indeed thought it asked
of the other girl first, she had begged forgiveness and answered.
The Master's anger was not quelled and Suzanne was soon to learn there
was no appeasing this Gorean male.
He dismissed the other girl mercifully, and
ordered Suzanne to "table" before him. Kicking her hard, and making
her stance as impossible for grace as he could, he made her to clean his
boots with her tongue, and then remove them, then his feet were commanded
washed in this same manner, after he had shoved them rough and harshly
against what was her Master's. He continued to constantly taunt
her, making her beg unendingly between fulfilling his commands, never enough,
never could she thank him enough to cool his anger. There in the
midst of the gardens, trembling, scared, still not understanding what she
had done, the torture continued for all to see and observe. And this
Master, this Nildes Til was relentless in her torture.
He had tried to steal her from Kadliuk, forcefully placing
her on his mounted tarn, and whisking her to his camp. He even tried
to force her to voluntarily submit to him, by threatening to loose his
pet sleens on her, though she had held firmly to her Master's collar, continually
begging out his repeated pleas, though never submitting. Making
the mistake of wanting her to show him the dance another had said she was
talented at, he took her to a tavern, where she did just that.
The owner, Master Rencius, having found her
dance most pleasing, was not as pleased with the man and his actions within
his establishment. Though she doesn't understand the ways of men,
Suzanne knew something bad had occurred. She had turned and ran from
the tavern when they started to quarrel, seeing her moment, and rushing
with urgent determination to her Master's room. Safe again.
Master Rencius had tried to call her back, though she stayed there in the
safety of Kadliuk's apartments, secure in it's confinement and warmth.
Master Rencius complimented her again, and asked her for her Master's name.
Then briefly told her not to worry, the other man had been collared and
ran, and was being listed as such with the Gorean High Council.
Suzanne might have been educated but this she did not understand, nor question,
merely thanked the Master for his kind words and slipped off to sleep frightened,
too scared to eat, curled under the furs.
As she laid now on the soft offering of furs, she opened her
eyes and rolled to her side, curling her legs up to her naked belly, pulling
the furs up to cover her. Watching the flames dance, her mind remembered
the words of another she had met that day, and soothing her with the memory,
she whispered them out loud to herself.
"Tell your Master, you pleased a Gorean Male
this day." His name was Master Kaleb Da'Kar, and his words
seemed to help her force the memory of her short capture and fear from
her. Suzanne thought of Master Kadliuk, and how she had longed for
him to be there to protect his property in those moments of pain.
She longed for his voice to fill the air with the commanding sound he always
maintained. She sighed at the thought of his touch though they had
been few and far between, and almost a gift granted to her when it did
come.
The flames crackled, and she settled a bit
more, though not falling asleep for sometime, the warmth adding to the
security that filled and surrounded her again, but as if a demon, her curious
mind continued to contemplate what would cause someone to want her so adamantly.
When dawn came, she found herself alone as
usual. Something she had come to hate. Loneliness it seemed
was nothing new to her, and each time she found herself faced with that
old friend, it became clearer to her it had played some part in her past.
Pain would come with the realization, and her mind would wander as if to
avoid it. On this day, her curiosity would cause the moment of her
greatest punishment.
She went to the sands, and danced awhile alone
on the pole there. Not paying any attention to who might come along,
or the calls that swept through the air as lookers-on watched and responded
to her grace filled movements. She was truly alone, in her mind as
well as her surroundings. And once almost exhausted, she wandered
away down the path back towards the City. She found herself back
in the library of House Golden Larl, and as had become habit, hours passed
unnoticed while she read. The tale in the book, of the riches of
Curulean, and the blocks there upon which slaves are sold. Discarding
the old book, she laid and stared at the ceiling. She thought of
the words of the first man to see her dance, and all the others of those
who had come to see her since.
Her emerald eyes moved from the light of the
fire to fall upon her Master's desk, and they roamed over the huge stack
of scrolls that came daily. He would laugh and toss them away whenever
he returned from a journey, saying how amusing it was that so many wished
to purchase his property. Each time, making a statement as to what
her worth might be if sold. The story in the book had caught her,
and as she wandered out of the room she began to imagine herself upon those
blocks, and how she would dance and display herself there if that destiny
was to befall her.
Master Kadliuk happened to return and found
her, in a room forbidden which she had chosen for privacy, dancing as if
upon the very Curulean Blocks, and as his voice boomed out announcing his
presence, Suzanne had just whispered, thinking herself alone, ..."buy a
girl".
He was furious. Beyond anything Suzanne
had ever seen so far. He rushed to the block upon which she stood,
taking her by the long raven hair and drug her out of the room, his dagger
in his other hand, poised as if waiting for the decision to be made.
Kill her or not.
Screaming and crying out for mercy, he took
her without care to her dragging flesh on the rough stones, down to the
basement in House Golden Larl. It was there that the kennels were
kept. A damp, dank place, cold and filled with only metal cages.
Nothing more. She was thrown into one of these guilded cages and
informed it was where a kajira had killed herself the night before.
Suzanne could see the stain of blood still on the stones and though she
continued to beg for forgiveness, he left her there.
[Within
the bowels of House Golden Larl: the Kennels in the Dungeon]
Hours had passed since the sound of his boots
had fallen completely away in the distance. The slamming of the door
as he left the room, resounding again and again, haunting her through the
night with every other strange noise.
Suzanne huddled in a corner of the cage.
How long she had wept was not known, perhaps until she could produce no
more tears in her blood shot eyes. The bars she leaned against
were cold as icicles and the stone floor was no warmer. Damp and
drafty, her trembling had turned from being caused by fear to her body's
cold, deprived of heat for far too long. Though she tried, her arms
encasing around her form, holding herself close, her hair pulled about
her, trying to provide some comfort, she had found no warmth.
Several times throughout the long night, she
thought she heard footsteps, but never did they approach. Perhaps
it was just her tortured mind, playing a horrid trick to tease her, only
to dispel the hope and replace it again with the despair of reality ...
that there was no one really there.
Sometime, not long before dawn, her sheer exhaustion,
as much physical as emotional, drug her mercifully into sleep. But
there was no mercy for Suzanne, and as she slumbered, bent in a huddled,
quivering mass of cold flesh, the nightmares came. Every possible
conceivable torture, befell her there in that dream.
Not long after falling asleep, she awoke to her own screams.
Banging her head on the low bars above her on the roof of the cage as she
tried to stand mindless of where she was. She cried out again, and
slumped to a whimpering pile of flesh on the cold stone floor. The
glistening layer of sweat caused from her dream, only providing another
catalyst for the cold that had seeped to her very bones. Almost numb
now from it, she tried, to no avail, to find a position of any comfort,
any reprieve at all from the cold.
She tried to close her eyes and think of the fire in his room.
How warm and secure she had felt there, whether on his furs or by his side.
Oh, she dare not even think of the warmth of his strong body next to hers,
the pain, the torture too much. The sounds of the City outside the
House, began to rise as the Lar-Torvis moved higher in the sky.
Though nothing but darkness where she was. No warmth from the rays
that kissed the waking town.
The moisture on her skin had drawn her raven
tresses to cling to it. Soaking up the glistening droplets, her hair
was now damp as the room she was confined in. There is a point when
one becomes so cold that it seems warmth will never come. And surely
Suzanne had reached this point, as her mind began to again torture her
with thoughts that she would be forgotten in this place, and left to die,
a more horrible death than even the stains on the ground heralded.
The stains on the ground. She knew now
how this cold, damp place could drive one insane enough to wish it end
at any cost. But her will, though not her own, drove her to be as
strong as she could. To endure whatever she must to prove herself
loyal and devoted to him.
Her convulsive shudders, seemed to stir the very air, and the
rankness of this place invaded her sense of smell. And she
realized, the sweet aroma from the scented oils she so meticulously would
rub into her tender flesh each day, was gone, replaced by the stench of
the dungeon. The dampness, the foul, dank and moldy air, permeated
her skin and brought about another flow of tears to stain her cheeks.
Her emerald eyes, though their hue dulled from
her sobs, and the darkness that surrounds her, roamed over the cage as
she tried again, to bring the mass of her small form, into a ball, begging
for some warmth.
As she wrapped her shaking arms about her bent
legs, the lush lashes that frame those eyes, fell closed, as if placing
a gentle kiss of comfort upon the tender skin below. No comfort
was found, and as the bars continued to pass by in her mind, she whispered
out to no one. Reciting words she had read long ago, now their meaning
clear. Now she knew what that panther had seen and felt as
she had watched him pace inside his cage.
"His vision, from
the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary
that it cannot hold anything else.
It seems to him
there are a thousand bars;
and behind the
bars, no world.
As he paces in
cramped circles, over and over,
the movements
of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual
dance around a center
in which a mighty
will stands paralyzed.
Only at times,
the curtain of the pupils lifts, quietly - ...
An image enters
in,
rushes down through
the tense, arrested muscles,
plunges into the
heart and is gone."
Her eyes opened just a moment, as if she didn't
realize it was her own voice that had broke the silence of the room.
Another shudder from deep within her very core, and this time, as she drew
in a deep breath, a subtle cough came out with the exhale. She laid
her head back upon her knees, her arms tightening about the bent up legs,
fighting to quell the shaking. The rumbling in her belly no
concern as yet, though she had not eaten in far too long. The only
drink for her thirst hours before he had come. Her eyes closed again,
though she dare not fall asleep. Reality, being a far less painful
torture ... than her nightmares.
Sleep did finally come, and when she awoke,
she found the door to the cage unlocked and slightly ajar, and a bowl of
porridge and water there on the stones. Too cold to barely move,
she took a sip of the water, her hands never once touching the bowl, and
she crawled out of the cage and up the stairs to the main house.
There she found her Master sitting at his desk. He paid her little
regard, though his eyes did glance to her as if to say enter without words,
and she did just that, going to his feet, where her every gesture was one
of pleading for his forgiveness and thanks for being let out of the cage.
After a time, he gathered her up and took her
to the fire to warm her. All the while telling her how he never wanted
to be that angry again, and if forced to it, would probably kill her.
She knew he told the truth, for she had seen it in his eyes. To Master
Kadliuk she was merely a pet, there was no love in this man for her.
She was nothing but kajira to him and never would be more.
[the
words recited in the quiet of the room, "The Panther", written by Rainer
Maria Rilke, 1927, trans. from French, 1982]
Chapter
4
The
Dream of the New Year ...
[Within
House Golden Larl, the eve of the New Year]
The soft bristles of the furs upon which she
lay sleeping, caressed the tender skin of her belly. One knee drawn up,
her arms forming a circle almost about the pool of black tresses that provided
her head a soft pillow. The flames in the hearth crackled as the core of
a green log was reached and screamed out the fires invasion. Suzanne stirred
in her sleep, her lithe form laying prone on the furs, and as her eyelids
fluttered open, the lush lashes parting for her emerald eyes to gaze sleepily
at the flames, she thought she saw the image of a man kneeling over her.
The silhouette seemed to fade right into her dream state, as if a drug
took effect that moment, spiraling her into a drowsy haze.
And in fact, it had.
Suzanne opened her eyes again, the soft feel of robes against
her cheek, her arm snaked up more securely around the neck of the one holding
her. A mist seemed to surround them, and then blackness as she faded deeper
into the "seeming dream" again.
Her eyes opened again, and this time she felt
the cold of stone beneath her form, and her hands moved to push herself
slowly up from the ground. Looking all about her, still her eyes confused
and glazed, something took hold of her from inside. A feeling, strangely
familiar.
A deep methodic music begin to fill the air
around where she lay naked on the marble floor. But this was right, it
was right to be here, and just as she was. As if the music grabbed her,
along with that hand pulling her from inside, she rose up, and reached
her arms to the skies, and began chanting in a strange tongue. As if a
spectator of her dream, her surroundings became immediately apparent. A
great hall; arched openings with massive dragons filling each; two thrones,
and a seal on the marble where she stood.
The sound of continuing roars seemed to shake
the Throne Room from outside, as what could have been hundreds of other
dragons joined in the chorus of the ritual. As if her feet had walked her
through the waltz a thousand times, she turned as if displaying herself
to all sides of the assembly, before facing the riser where the two thrones
perched. Something was different in this ritual, something that had only
been performed once. As if the very day of creation was repeating itself,
the first ritual, the first prophecy, the "First Rite" was being enacted.
Only one other time had someone sat on the throne as she spoke the words,
only one other time had there been a Keeper or King sitting there.
Her slender arms still reaching above her head,
now opening as her head fell back with her chants, the picture of pure
offering, opening, as if her very being. Mindless of the act, drugged as
she was, Suzanne approached the thrones. There a small altar table placed
at the foot of the steps, directly in front of the Seal. She knelt down
on the symbol of the Isle, and took hold of the ornate dagger laid by a
basin of earth.
As her eyes looked up to the man sitting on
the throne, the dragons perched in the arches seemed to tense and spread
their wings, anxious, the words of the spell reaching their climax in her
entrancing chant. The air was thick with the heated breaths of the dragons,
and across the Isle every dragon alive rose their head to the sky and breathed
forth their breath, as a deep mist began to swirl like a cloud of dense
fog.
Holding the dagger in her right hand, offering
her left wrist as sacrifice, she spoke the final words and drug the blade
deep across the flesh. The wound opened and her blood began to trickle
down into the pot of soil. Mingling, her blood with the earth of the Isle,
each becoming one with the other, sealing her vows and sending her magic
to join with the dragons breath. Something was different though. Another
thing that made this night different from the genesis. The mist that surrounded
the Isle in it's protective blanket, was .... blue.
The sound of the golden dagger hitting the
stone altar, echoed in the great room, as her head fell back as if herself
in a trance, taking the ritual one step farther, the dragons began to roar
and the ground quaked as if opening up. The blood continued to flow as
her chanting became softer, and softer, slower and slower, she seemed to
writhe before the small altar. Then suddenly the dragons became silent.
The mysterious beat of drums, pounded out a final cord, and she fell over,
her svelte form crumbling to cover the basin of blood soaked soil.
Moments later, she bent slowly up, the muscles
in her belly rippling as she knelt again, her eyes closed. The spell of
protection completed. The spell of the Dragons Breath done, stronger even
it seemed as the blue mists spiraled and swirled in cyclones over the palace,
over the entire land. A huge horned dragon stepped from his perch just
as her eyes opened. Without turning to see him, she placed both her hands
on the bowl and raised it up over her head. The dragon leaped forward,
taking the bowl in his talons and turning dipped and swooped out of the
throne room ... across the Isle the sacred soil was being scattered.
Suzanne rose from her knees and turned first
to the assemblage of dragons. Her glazed eyes swept over each one as she
turned. Making a full circle, she stepped around the altar and ascended
the steps to the thrones. There, at the feet of the largest one, she kneeled
back down. "It is done my King." And in that moment, she bent fully down,
and placed a tender kiss upon his boot, before rising back up to gaze into
his eyes. The man on the throne, the same as the image of the man who's
silhouette had been framed by the fire light kneeling by her side in Kadliuk's
apartment.
Darkness, as if the curtain of her eyes fell
on the play, there was nothing left but darkness.
Peace, tranquility, and contentment. The warmth
of love filled her, washed over as if she had just been baptized. Every
sensation screaming out in the darkness of her mind. She was being carried
again, the strong hands that held her, loving, caressing her with each
opportunity. Occasionally the feel of moist lips, placing a kiss upon hers.
She could feel something beating against her, and within her. Two hearts,
both in perfect time. The warmth of fire against her skin. The softness
of furs as her body was laid down with such gentleness, surely it was an
angel's wings that had eased her down. Another kiss left upon her lips,
more tender caresses across the smooth cheeks of her face, and the tingling
of fingers combing lovingly through her hair. She sighed deep, lost in
the contentment of each touch. Her eyes opened, dazed, still the drug potent,
though seemingly the veil of it's effect being lifted for this one moment.
And there, she saw her heart and soul, and for that moment, remembered
him and her love completely. She heard him say, "Sleep Suzanne ... sleep."
And her eyes closed again, her moist lips prying themselves apart to utter
her last words before slumber. They washed out of her mouth, just as soft
as her breath, and she felt his mouth cover hers, just as they were spoken.
"I love you."
Darkness.
Silence.
Suzanne stirred, rolling over on the furs, the fire having died
way down, she sat up cold and shivering, pulling the furs up around her
and whimpered with a sudden pain. Looking down to her left wrist, she gently
rubbed the bracelet of metal that fit snugly over her flesh, unknowing
of the little wound hidden beneath. Turning, she brought her hands to cover
her face, her head still swimming from the drugs. "What a strange dream....",
she whispered out in the empty room. Pushing herself up, knowing unless
the fire was stoked and fed she would never be warm, she went to attend
to that chore.
Carefully placing several logs on the embers,
the flames began to dance again in only a few moments. As she knelt there
before it, gently rubbing her hands to warm them, the image of the man
from her dreams, rushed through her again, plunging into her very soul,
passing through her heart. She stared into the flames, and there saw his
face again, and though she didn't realize it, her hand came up and covered
the brand over her heart. The triad of fallen teardrops. She closed
her eyes, letting the feeling, so deep and full of all the things that
make one at peace, consume her completely, her body seemingly exhausted.
Still half drugged and having no idea that
she had been, or that she had ever left the room, Suzanne plunged back
into her sleep. Only this time she did dream, and it was of the man who
had taken her, the keeper of her heart and soul, and a cavern of beautiful
blue mist where she was at peace and contented in his arms.
Chapter
5
The
Quickening ...
[the
Gift; Port Kar and Master Rencius]
Time pasted quickly, and Suzanne concentrated
on her studies of Gor, and more specifically her ability to dance.
Master Kadliuk was attentive enough, when he was there, but more than not
his journey's kept him away, and she was left alone. The House was
almost always empty. Only on occasion would anyone venture into its
walls. She had proven her loyalty and devotion to her Master again,
and was finally allowed to wander in the places he had deemed safe.
One of these places was the tavern in Port Kar, owned by a slaver named
Rencius. Her Master had taken her to his tavern once, and commanded
her to dance for the assemblage, and the response had been well accepted,
and a camaraderie established with Kadliuk and Rencius. She was told
then and there, that if summoned, she could go and dance in his tavern,
but only if he was there.
Knowing he would be away more than not, he
also gave her the name of two of his sword brothers, and informed her that
in the event either of these men called for her, she was go immediately
to serve them in whatever manner they wished. With the exception,
of sexual pleasure. That was his alone to savor, and he made it absolutely
clear.
Suzanne would stay for the most part in the confines of the
House, reading in the library, her education being kept a bit of a secret,
at least as far as it's depth was concerned. But there was one thing
she was confident of, and it drove her almost; that any piece of wisdom
obtained, would help her to survive in this strange world. No matter
what the future held for her.
She went to the kitchens each night, preparing
a modest meal, that would wait for him in case he arrived home. More
often than not she would eat of the meal herself, loneliness becoming a
close friend. It was obvious to her, though not one shred of her
memory seemed to return, that being alone was something familiar to her,
though it did bare a pain that itself thickened the barrier of her mind.
One weekend, while the Master happened to be
home and in the City, a messenger rang the bell of the House, and left
with one of the swords, a package. With no other instructions, the
man simply stated, and it was written on the wrapping, "for Suzanne."
Being questioned incessantly, he seemed genuine in his response and stayed
to his story, that a man in black robes had paid him to deliver the package,
saying nothing more than it was to be given to Suzanne.
The commotion it seemed to cause could not
be ignored, even in the City's streets, there were whispered words and
rumors of a kajira being sent a mysterious gift. Suzanne had ventured
to the hallway, unnoticed, she peered in where those of the House gathered
to look at the package she would obviously never be allowed to see herself.
Word had sped to Kadliuk in the City, and it seemed like the messenger
had no more been dismissed, than he appeared at the doors. He came
in, arrogant as any gorean male might, and immediately claimed what was
now obviously a shinny box or block, from what Suzanne could see anyway.
The sight of her Master and the exasperated look on his face, sent her
scurrying back to his apartment, with the stealth of a mouse in the dark.
She shut the door quietly, and moved to the furs by the fire, and knelt
down there and stared at the flames. Her mind raced. Why would
someone send her a gift? Who could it possibly be, and did they not
know she could own nothing, or that the chance of her ever seeing it even
was minute. Master Kadliuk's foot steps resounding in the corridor,
snapping her mind from her thoughts and back to the reality of the moment.
He came storming into the room, going immediately
to the large tem wood desk by the wall, and tossed what she had seen before,
and knew to be the velvet pouch that had held the gift. The noise
it caused upon hitting the surface, gave away it's obvious weight.
He removed his sword belt, and laid it on the desktop by the pouch, as
well as his satchel and other items. Turning to her, she sat up a
bit straighter, though her eyes remained lowered to the furs, and her small
teeth bit deep into her lip. But his stare burned right through her.
He took her that night.
With more violent force than she had thought
possible from him. It seemed as if his actions were meant for all
to see who owned her, and though no one witnessed the brutal rape, he also
seemed to be proving the point to himself as well. Suzanne was taken
to his bed, and there she slept within the imprisonment of his arms throughout
the night.
Master Kadliuk left early the next morning,
imparting a new though actually unchanged set of instructions upon her.
Smiling, she kept her eyes down as she listened, realizing the rules hadn't
changed at all. She was still to obey and serve any of the House,
and his two named sword brothers, and of course, Master Rencius when called
to dance. She had brought him profit more than once. Returning
to House Golden Larl, her cheeks filled with the silver tarn disks thrown
at her trembling pile of flesh once her dance completed, and twice actually,
someone had placed a gold tarn disk in her mouth, instructing her with
messages to her Master of her performance. Before he left,
she sat up with a start, remembering a forgotten message, the incident
the day before and his raping of her having made her forget. First
she begged forgiveness for the oversight, then told him of the Festival
in Lydius that Master Rencius had thought her Master would find appealing.
Though Suzanne knew what he was truly thinking.
There was to be a dance contest. And
he seemed adamant to have the "jewel" seen by everyone.
Kadliuk made note of it, and indeed agreed
she should dance in the contest. He knew he wouldn't return in time,
and told her he would see to her being taken by someone from the House.
He left with one final word to her, and a gesture to the pouch. She
wasn't to touch it, and if when he returned, she had not displeased anyone
or broken any of his rules, he would actually consider allowing her one
look before it was discarded.
She sat and stared at the pouch most of the
rest of the day. Knowing he was gone there was no reason to clean
or more accurately, re-clean the apartment again just yet. After
hours, she finally finished the last of the fruit he was generous enough
to have left on his plate, not knowing it may be her last meal. As
the House was now deserted again, only the supplies had not been replenished.
They had been a small gathering, The House of Golden Larl, and each seemed
to keep what slaves they had with them, so no one thought to leave food
for the little kajira, Suzanne.
One of the Mistress' came and checked on her,
immediately her own curiosity taking her to the reason she had ventured
to the City, the gift on Kadliuk's desk addressed to Suzanne.
Suzanne sat wide eyed, and even begged her at first not to touch it, fearing
she would be blamed for it's disturbance. But the Mistress shushed
her, and made her sit on the furs, as she took the block of silver from
the bag, and with awe began to inspect it.
What happened in that apartment within House
Golden Larl, within Tharna's walls, will remain a secret to Suzanne.
Surfice it to say, she now knew what the gift was. Knew what it's
supposed meaning was to be. But like everyone else, had no idea who
had sent it. The Mistress Eymber and her created a bond that day,
simple as it may be with mere knowing looks, and touches of soft hands
in comfort of the other. It was a bond between women. And not
the barrier of Suzanne's nakedness as a kajira or the Mistress' confinement
in the heavy robes of a free woman would ever sever it.
The next day brought the Festival in Lydius,
and there was no sign of her Master's return. Suzanne actually sat
and sulked in private. At times she seemed as though an actress in
a great play but left without a script from the director, and other times
something inside her heralded her past. She would take on momentary
traits of what was once noticed and commented on jokingly as the observer
thought her "acting"; an inherent nobility in her grace, and mannerisms.
She would dream on occasion of an island that
seemed on another world and a palace filled with an age old extravagance
and elegance, that seemed in its way to match, complimentingly so, to her.
Master Rencius showed at the door to take Suzanne
to the contest, he was not about to let her sit in that lonely apartment
and not be shown to all of Gor. She followed by his side, and when
the time came, she danced upon his command for the judges gathered, and
with the same elegant, submissive grace that seemed to capture the eyes
of gorean men, she said her prayer out loud reverently to have been pleasing,
and left with Master Rencius. She never knew for sure what happened,
but she had not won, and Master Rencius was livid with the matter of the
contest's, integrity. No matter what the outcome, one thing very
significant had occurred that night, Suzanne had danced and been featured
in public, the same Suzanne they were talking of in the streets.
"Beauty isn't always a blessing."
These were words she had spoken to the Mistress that afternoon in the House,
but it wasn't until the end of that day, she truly knew how right she was.
Master Kadliuk had several times mentioned the numerous offers and bids
to buy her, he would laughing measure the piles of scrolls while she watched.
Seeing which day had brought the most requests, and chuckling proud and
arrogantly at the latest offer that would be placed on the top of that
stack. "What they don't understand, is that I will never sell you,
and indeed may even kill you before another has their chance." His
words about this always followed with a deep hearty laugh, though Suzanne
found no humor in her death. Occasionally one of the offers would
be addressed with a plea to Kadliuk, that the man making the offer for
purchase had fallen in love with the vision, and in his desperation would
state it. This amused Kadliuk even more, for he saw the weakness
of the men that would go that far.
These days were trying for Suzanne, though
her "worth" as it were, continued to sky rocket, she found herself constantly
being watched and soon realized there was good reason to be afraid.
Master Kadliuk for all his faults and absence had been a "Master" to her.
Something that is at times forgotten on this strange world. True Mastery.
From what Suzanne had seen, there was very little of this concept around
her. True, the men took what they wished. Arrogantly they would
even come to the gardens and bathing areas and take the girls there.
Then there were those that "made" their kajira "love" them.
Whether by command or how they themselves seemed to "love" the slaves as
well. An affection that always confused her. Love it seemed
for some strange reason, had no meaning. And what she saw from most
gorean men, was that same weakness Kadliuk saw, only in Suzanne's eyes,
it was a weakness because it had no conviction. There was no courage
behind the emotion shown. No conviction or faith in what it meant.
No desire to keep it once found. It held no sacred place in this
society, and perhaps, no real meaning anyway, no sacrifice to be made to
obtain it, no real prize. Perhaps there wasn't any such thing as
real love on Gor, at least for the moment she was convinced of this.
When Master Kadliuk left the House that day,
he informed Suzanne that he was taking her from the security of it's walls,
and she watched as he wrote a note to the Mistress. Unlike most kajira,
Suzanne could read and write very well, perhaps better than most scribes.
She had studied the Knowledge of Gor, at what seemed like an unnatural
rate of speed, and mastered the language and it's writing almost immediately.
She looked around from behind him, and read the letter, in essence, her
Master was leaving House Golden Larl, resigning his position as the En'Sword,
and in what would later be argued, over Suzanne, the mere kajira.
They left the House and he took her to an Inn, his cloak wrapped around
her, though he mumbled many reasons why she accompanied him in this manner,
it was obvious he was trying to keep her hidden at least for that moment.
Once inside, she made the place acceptable to his needs, while he prepared
a scroll to Master Rencius. It was simple enough. He would
be gone for a few days, and in his absence Rencius could have Suzanne.
He could do with her whatever he wished, Kadliuk merely wished his property
taken care of and returned unharmed or at least, not much anyway.
When he walked out of the room, Suzanne had no idea it would be the last
time her eyes would fall on his as "her Master".
Rencius claimed his gift, with the delight
of a child with a new toy, the one you wanted more than anything but felt
for sure you could never have. But when Suzanne was sent back to
the City, he sent no guard with her, and that is when her life and this
strange world took a new turn. Though the events are fleeting in
her mind, as if pushed out to save her pain, a part of her memory returned
to her that eve, and would continue to come clear a bit more with each
passing day.
What she remembered of that fateful night was
merely bits and pieces of a beginning and a completeness of the end that
seemed to never stop coming. She could remember a dreamlike place,
beautiful and surrounded by a glistening lake. Dolphins swam and
played in the waters, and the entire landscape and castle there in the
valley seemed at peace. Brief glimpses in her mind recalled strange
things; a long hallway; a door locked and a key on a long braid
of black hair; a tapestry; and something ... blue. She
didn't or couldn't remember anything else, except smiling and looking back
to the tower in the distance as she left, dripping still with the water
from the lake she had just swam in. And honestly, it is this part
that has worried Suzanne that it was the leave of her sanity, as if it
was another dream. What wasn't a dream is what came next.
While wandering through the forest, someone
hunting, was kind enough to point her in the right direction. It
never occurred to her, how that "man" had treated her like he knew her,
and as if she was a Lady of the House. But the man she came upon
next was not kind, nor did he see her as anything other than prey.
From behind a tree he jumped her and tackled
her to the ground. Suzanne fought him. Kicking and screaming
at the top of her lungs. Her feet found their mark a few times, and
once was solid enough to send him gasping for air and back to the ground.
She ran. A branch hanging low on a tree,
caught her hair as she ducked underneath it, and as she reached frantic
in her strides to free the strands, she realized her collar was gone!
Where was it? How could it have come off without someone using the
key or pounding it off? The questioning of her mind would prove
to be almost fatal, for she didn't see the arrow coming from his crossbow,
and by the time she heard it whistle through the air, it had impaled her
to the tree through her right shoulder.
"Ahhhh!!!" She screamed out, her
left hand immediately grasping at the protrusion from her shoulder, and
in a frantic struggle to free herself, looked up to see the laughing man
approaching her. His eyes burned with anger at her forceful, well
aimed kicks from before, and surely from the mere fact she had initially
gotten away from him. He drew his sword. Raising it high, he
announced. "I should kill you, but instead I am going to make you
wish I had!" Just at that moment, the adrenaline of her own
courage and conviction to live took over, and in a final struggle she broke
off the arrow and bolted for the trees. She didn't stop to
look back, and was miles away before she crumbled with exhaustion by a
pile of rocks near the base of a small hill. The arrow had long since
been pulled from the wound and discarded. Only now did she see the
extent of blood that had painted her pale skin. Unable to even gather
the strength to breath, she laid out on the ground and passed out.
It was late in the day when she came to, stumbling
to her feet as if the chase would commence again, she realized there was
no one about and fell back to the ground. Her shoulder ached horribly,
and she looked up and about her, trying to decide what she should do.
Her Master would not have returned yet, this she was sure of. For
a moment she even smirked and let the thought that he was never there anyway
return again. There was only one she could go to, and that is where
she went.
Suzanne found Master Rencius in the midst of fighting to reclaim
his en'safora Xanya when she arrived well into the night. Apparently
pirates had attempted to steal the girl and he had just managed to bargain
for her release. Suzanne came in and it was literally only his other
girl, Luna, who even noticed she was hurt, and she saw to cleaning Suzanne
up and finding her some food. When Master Rencius returned, he called
Suzanne to him, seeing not her wound, but the fact she had no collar.
Just as he was about to place his around her
throat, in walked the same man who had been given that key to the room
in the Tharna Inn, what seemed like ages ago. Turon Da'Kur.
His voice boomed in the room as he told Rencius to, "Hold!"
They exchanged words, it was obvious Turon
intended to regain what he had lost months ago. He even challenged
Rencius for Suzanne, stating he would die to have her. His one flaw
in the confrontation, he made or more rightly, "gave" Suzanne a command
to choose. And in that moment while all in the tavern seemed to watch
as the kajira, pale, starved, and still bleeding from the freshly dressed
wound, Turon sealed his fate without realizing it. He let it
be known he loved her, and he cried as he asked her again, only with a,
"Please".
Suzanne was already at Rencius's feet.
And though in that moment she was close to begging for death and not life
at all. She finally crossed her wrists and held them out to Master
Rencius ... and everyone in the tavern finally breathed.
There is an old Earth cliché in certain
parts of that world, wherein jokingly one will say, "If you don't like
the weather, wait a few minutes", implying it changes that quickly.
Well if her luck or life was weather, she was making this earthen statement
fact. His hand had no more than secured the collar about her still
bloody throat; Turon had just gotten the door closed behind him, and the
rest of the tavern had barely taken that first breath after the play being
performed before them reached the end of the act, when Master Rencius up
and walked out of his tavern, leaving her still on her knees by where he
sat.
She was in shock. No instructions, no
nothing. No, "I am your Master now", nothing! She stayed
there with Luna, who later was kind enough to point the way to the River
House and Rencius's stronghold. But not having been commanded she
merely went and roamed along the docks and the enclosure.
Xanya found her roaming that night. She was still shaken
from her own ordeal and Suzanne understood, and did not burden her with
any words or emotions. It was with pain that she took the white silks
from Xanya's hand, her eyes filled with tears though the girl never knew
why. A man on Gor would not understand, not even a kajiru she thought.
Agreeing to wear them, she watched where Xanya pointed to the stables.
A troth to feed from would be there, and perhaps a bail of hay to lay upon.
Again, she smiled and thanked the girl, not once showing any sign of the
emotional hurt that now was almost as painful as that of her shoulder.
Suzanne put on the silks. Only the second time she had ever been
commanded to wear anything at all, except the sirik chains and manacles
when she wasn't dancing. "White silk in training." She repeated
the words again and again under her breath as she watched Xanya head back
to the lit House that shown like a beacon in the night. Under a tree
by the docks, Suzanne slept on a patch of mossy grass.
The next day was not any different really.
Master Rencius didn't seem to have a moment to give to any of his girls
for simple instruction or anything. Xanya saw to all of it.
Suzanne would soon form her own opinion as to why he called her to him.
He was to make her collaring, "official", in a sort of ceremony designed
for such. It relieved Suzanne a bit, and he also made it clear she
would not be a white silk, but a red silk, pleasure reserved to him alone.
Following him through the House, he showed her her new Home, and once in
the dome covered balcony above his own chambers, overlooking the sea and
Port Kar, he told her the story of his coming and his building of this
home.
Confused she listened. Why would he care
to tell this to a kajira, and when he finished his story, he laughed and
said basically the same thing. "I don't know why I tell you this."
It was not the first strange piece of history or other such conversation
someone had held with her. Smiling she simply looked down as he finished,
and perhaps laughed in her mind, repeating something recently heard by
one of the judges of the dance contest and his companion stopping in Port
Kar. "All the gold in Ar couldn't buy that girl if she were mine.
And I'd bet my sword, the Administrator's of all the Cities of Gor, with
wealth of any kind, will have placed a piece representing her on their
Kassia boards, as the ultimate "prize" by the next cycle of the moons!
And that's not far off!"
Master Rencius showed her his Home Stone.
And then kissing it and returning it to the pedestal upon which it rested,
he had her submit to him again. And not unlike the first time in
his tavern, he was almost immediately distracted and forced to leave.
Again, Suzanne was left standing alone. Later that night Master Rencius
summoned her to his tavern again. She went to him immediately, that
slave's heart guiding her more and more with each day in her new world.
She was to serve him, and only him as it was soon learned. But again,
almost as if the hands of the Priest King's were turning the wheel of her
fortunes, again, his attention was drawn away.
She sat on her knees and watched as two new
wanderers were collared. Again, she was left sitting and feeling
more worthless and useless than she could ever recall. Asking for
his permission to leave, she sadly walked out of the tavern and into the
night. Suzanne had tried hard not to let her emotions shows, it wasn't
jealousy by any means, but she was so longing to have her loneliness end.
A wish that seemed would never be filled. Again no one had even noticed
or seemed to care of her injured shoulder, or that her simple cleaning
and care of it was not enough, and the wound was on the verge of infection.
Solemnly, she walked out onto the docks.
The moons over head barely offering any light through the passing clouds
that threatened to empty the heavy weight of the rain upon her. There
in the dark, alone, she danced. She danced for the eyes of the three
moons. She danced for the spray of water caused by the tides that
lapped at the footing of the dock. She danced for the winds, and
herself. Screaming out, she dared the sea to take her, she dared
the winds to take her, and when her dance was done, both had died down.
As if tamed by her, and without the strength to fight her entrancing spell.
Long drawn in breaths, echoed out in chorus to the sound of the sea, as
she turned to wander aimlessly about the births. Ships were docked
there, quiet and left alone it would seem, and she found herself standing
on the deck of one of them, her delicate hands caressing the wood.
From out of the darkness she felt a hand grab
her from behind, and another covered her mouth just as the sound of her
scream was emitting from her throat. As she struggled in the hands
that now held her firm, she saw in the distance the approaching ship cutting
silently through the black sea, and then ... nothing.
She awoke to find herself in a dark storage
room. Her silks torn from the struggle, covered in dirt, and soot
as if she had been drug, her legs were scraped as well. She was chained
to a ring in the floor and couldn't see a thing.
Suzanne wept silently. She had been stolen.
It was obvious. Her head fell back against the wall behind her, and
her lips uttered one lone word, almost as if a plea through the fall of
somber tears in the darkness ... "Master."
Chapter
6
The
Prize of the Sea ...
[Master
Krosius, Captain of the RamUbar, Admiral of Tyros]
He stood on the forecastle looking upon the approaching harbor.
Turning he shouted out the order to strike the masts as his "second", who
Suzanne would later know as Tamon, turned and bellowed orders sending men
to move swiftly in compliance. Sails were lowered and rigging stowed
as the men moved with exacted urgency. They had been upon Thassa,
faced enemies and lived. Now they were returning home.
The ship slowed considerably as the sails were
lowered, but below the sound of the oar master beating a strong quarter
could be heard as the men pulled on their oars and then broke out in song.
Free men and warriors all on oar, they too, excited to be nearing home.
He stood up straighter, smiling and very much
aware of the eyes of his men upon him. He was proud. All his
men, brave and strong enough to make any Captain proud. The removal
of the two masts from their slots on the wooden deck was noted by his keen
eyes, as men moved to stow them in storage position as they moved passed
the harbor beacon, the port city of Tentium drawing closer.
"Bring forth the girl and put her at the prow."
His name was Krosius, and as Captain, his commands were immediately answered
by his Second, Tamon. "Yes Captain." Swiftly the man turned
and moved towards the deckhouse disappearing with orders to retrieve Suzanne.
Midway below deck, at the end of a narrow hallway,
the door to a small storage room swung open. Tamon entered the dark
room smiling, and raised the small tharlarion oil lamp higher, casting
a glow over her.
Cowering against a wall, Suzanne raised her
arm to cover her eyes as the start of light invaded the room. Pulling
her knees up closer to her belly, she scoots back farther, the brush of
the wood shavings on the floor scratching through the tender skin on her
buttocks. As he approached closer, he laughed at her frightened and
wide eyes, knowing full well, she knew not even by whom she had been captured
or to whom she belonged.
"Arise girl." Sharp and quick,
no quarter given by even his tone.
Slowly she pushed herself up along the wall.
Her hair unfolding to her knees once standing, tangled and in disarray.
Her emerald eyes darted about her, filled with fright, yet she obeyed immediately
as the collar around her throat marked her a kajira. She didn't move
as she stood against the wall, her hands on the wood behind her.
Tamon bent and unlocked her from the chains
she was manacled with. Handling her quickly and with strength, "Bracelets!"
He snapped out as he freed her completely from her restraints. Suzanne
literally jumped with the sound of his voice. Her eyes widened and
the soft gasp was heard as she spun around, her arms moving like ribbons
at her sides to meet, crossing at the wrists behind her back. She
let her head fall forward, blinding her sight mercifully as the heavy locks
cascaded over her face, down her belly and to the floor.
"Place your hands in front of you girl."
A wave of fear passed over her. Trembling, Suzanne turned around
and placed her wrists together and held them out before her form.
Looking up through the veil of her raven hair, her eyes came darling close
to meeting his, then fell again as he snapped the bracelets that were slung
over his shoulder, expertly onto her wrists. Locking them in place
his hand grabbed the length of chain connecting them and using it like
a lead he pulled her roughly along. "Come along slut."
Stumbling she fell forward. Caught of
guard and yanked to place. Her bare feet made a soft pounding noise
on the wooden floor as they immediately regained their balance.
Tamon pulled her from the room. One hand
holding up the lamp to light the narrow passageway, the other still clamped
securely about the chain he led Suzanne by. The ship rocked and occasionally
he would give a tug on the chain, sending her to tumble forward so he could
smile in amusement. Her feet fought to maintain their purchase
on the floor, though his relentless toying with her sent her stumbling
more than once. She whimpered out softly once, as he pulled rather
hard, and she felt her right shoulder surge with the burning pain again.
At the same time, her foot scraped across
a splintered board.
Tamon stopped at a narrow stairway, and ascended
slow and carefully having heard her cry out. He didn't wish to damage
her in his amusement and so she was given a reprieve from his play.
The small lamp was extinguished and placed back on a rack there in the
deckhouse, then turning he stepped out on deck pulling Suzanne behind him.
As the winds from the Thassa assaulted her
in their caress, a wave of tremors washed over her as surely as the tides
were on the shore in the distance. Her eyes moved frightened
about her then focused on the front of the ship. That was where he
was taking her.
The figure of a man, large and strong of stature,
whose presence seemed to tower over all, stood with his hair caught in
the kiss of the winds as well. It was a striking contrast she thought
fleetingly. Golden as the suns rays splashing down his back and hers
a dark storm cloud of raven silk, that at the moment was tangled about
her form, lapping at her knees.
He strode across the deck. Dragging Suzanne
along. Passing his Captain as he stood there overlooking all, he
straightened as he passed with the girl and continued to the very bow of
the ship. Suzanne stumbled again, catching her toe on a slightly
protruding plank. Surely any that saw her that moment would never
have known what grace and pure sensual elegance those same fumbling feet
could and would produce. Her eyes lingered a moment on the man they
passed. Then being stopped, the voice of the "escort" ringing out,
Suzanne raised her head to see the approach of the other man.
The seaman approached and handed the rope to
Tamon. She watched as it was threaded with meticulous care through
the chains that held her wrists shackled by the bracelets. She trembled
as Tamon completed his task, her eyes following his every moment from behind
the veil of her silken hair. Helpless, her arms were pulled up and
the rope was secured to a pulley on the halyard. Tilting her head
back she looked up briefly as the familiar sound of a windlass being drawn
taunt was heard. Just as her head fell again, Tamon moved to join
the other seaman so their combined efforts would hoist her up.
"You are to receive a great honor girl," Tamon's
voice bombed out with the first sturdy pull on the rope, "you will grace
our prow as we enter port." She cried out softly in pain, feeling
the strain upon her shoulder as her body was hoisted up. Her eyes
closed as she tried to regain control of her fear and the pain, gasping
for each breath in time with the yanks of the rope. There her body
dangled beneath the shimmering light of the three moons. Displayed
and bathed by the sprinkle of light for all to see. Suzanne opened
her eyes as the rope was tied off, and they fell to the deck below her,
her vision passing slowly over to where the Captain still stood.
Krosius eyed her with interest, her lithe form
twisting and turning, as she was hoisted to the prow of His ship.
Hung from the ropes, her body writhed like a banner in the hands of the
winds. Noting that her silks were scanty and damaged, torn ragged
as though she had been in a struggle. They revealed much more than
they concealed, and he smiled thinking this was appropriate. Krosius
was very pleased with himself to have acquired her. Suzanne would
make a splendid addition to his chain and he vowed to see her dance this
very night upon the sands of his tavern. The features on his face
scowled, as he thought of his enemy Rencius of Port Kar. Then he
smiled again as he looked upon Suzanne closer, and he thought how great
it was to take what one wished. She was a lovely one he thought and
with reluctance his attention returned to the business of his ship.
The harbor neared, its strong walls rearing
up before them. Ships aplenty moored and docked, lined the large,
long wharf. Others were putting out, and his hand raised in salute
to a passing serpent as it slipped past, its Captain clothed in the furs
of the north returning his hail as his men rowed from the port. He
noted the vessel sat heavy upon the water, and was probably loaded with
cargo. Looks from the raised heads of his seamen were drawn as was
his to the rude calls that drifted over the water as the men feasted their
eyes on the dangling beauty.
As the ship passed with an errie slowness through
the black waters towards the end of the docks, Krosius could see men coming
from the warehouses that lined the wharf, his return to port was being
noted and slaves were being sent to spread the word. The commotion
on the docks caught Suzanne's attention, just as the winds caught the locks
of her hair and sent them whirling about her like a dark storm cloud.
Krosius's love was the Thassa, but his smile was one of a man glad to be
home. And Suzanne had seen it. Her arms aching she held her
gaze firmly on him, as those gathered along the wharf to see his arrival
increased in number. Her mind whirled with anticipation, her future
having been taken control of by this man that stood proud on deck.
She closed her eyes a moment as she fought with a memory from her past.
This duel of her inner thoughts was only to just begin, and it was a fight
that Suzanne's heart and soul would lose in the end.
"Up and in oars!" Krosius called to Tamon
who relayed the command, and the ship eased into the dock. With the
preciseness of expert commands and their execution, the RamUbar glided
calmly to the wharf, stopping an arms length away and a loud cheer rose
from the gathered crowd at this display of seamanship. Ropes
were thrown and men clamored eagerly on the docks to grab and tie them
off, securing the ship in her birth. "Hail Admiral!" "Welcome
Krosius!" The cries echoed out and filled the air as the ship rocked
gently now in her secured place. The roar coming from the gathered
crowd reached up and seemed to slap her face, for surely the new depth
of the hue that flushed her cheeks heralded the burn she felt from their
eyes. Dangling, helpless, her form produced a purely erotic vision
of bare pale flesh, writhing against the backdrop of the dark sea.
Suzanne twisted her body and tried to turn her head and face away from
the crowd but, helpless to the ropes she dangled from, this only created
a more enticing gesture of her svelte form and a soft whimpering moan passed
her lips as she heard the crowd scream louder.
Krosius raised his hand in greeting to the
brothers of his city and with an expansive gesture he waved toward the
dangling slave flesh on his prow. Tamon, who was at the gunwale of
the ship, bellowed out loud, as if on cue. "A slut taken by sword
from the canal dwellers at sea! Along with other loot!" Suzanne
raised her head as the deafening yells and cheers rose to meet her ears.
All eyes were on her. She was a prize, taken from their hereditary
enemies of Port Kar.
The gangplank was lowered at his signal and
men began to disembark. Coming from below decks, men carrying sea
bags and other cargo over their broad shoulders filed off the boat, as
Krosius stood looking on. His eyes observed with seeming enjoyment
as his men were met by loved ones, comrades and the hot bellied slaves
that had been left waiting. These feelings of home, companions and
slaves alike, jumping up and down with their excitement, made men feel
alive, especially when they had returned from the perils of the sea.
Suzanne's form swayed again from the rope, her legs coiling together like
coupling snakes as the winds slapped her flesh again along with the eyes
of so many piercing through her. Krosius signaled to Tamon.
He and another man moved to the prow and they lowered her slowly down to
the deck. She cried out loud once, her shoulder quivering as the
tension was released. Crumbling to the wooden deck, she held her
wrists out as the man untied her. Tamon allowed her to remain prone
for a few moments so she would regain full circulation, then kicked her
soundly with his booted foot. "Get up slut. Rise to your feet."
Krosius's eyes never left her though he signaled
to another man, relaying a command and glanced to see him speed away.
The seaman reappeared from below deck and quickly went to his side, and
Krosius took the pouch and dismissed him. Suzanne pushed herself
up and turned to stand facing the Captain, though her head stayed lowered.
Standing with his arms crossed over his chest, Krosius watched on as Tamon
jerked her forward and flung her to Krosius's feet. Unable to help
herself, Suzanne again whimpered out and got to her knees before him just
as she felt Tamon's hand pushing her head down to a metal covered plank.
She screamed. And continued to, as the hammer came repeatedly down
upon the tool held at the lock of her collar. It was struck expertly
and quickly from her before she scarcely knew what happened. Tamon
wound his hand in her long hair and yanked her head up. She screamed
out in fear again, as she turned her eyes up to the man whose feet she
was kneeling at. Trembling, Suzanne bent over and pressed her lips
to Krosius's feet and he nodded to Tamon who let go of his purchase on
her hair and departed to finish seeing the ship's unloading. She
knelt back, having no idea what was to be her fate next.
His eyes stared down at her, then he took out
a 7 lock collar from the pouch, inscribed with a simple legend. Holding
it out before her, he spoke for the first time, directly to her.
"Read." He could see the tremors passing through her as she
watched his hand, and the sign of her taking a deep breath as her chest
heaved. The slightest of nods was given and her own voice, mysterious
and soft came from behind the veil of her raven hair. "Yes, Master."
Her eyes moved over the words branding them in her mind just as he spoke
again. "Speak them out loud." As she read the words outloud,
her hands came from the smooth flesh of her thighs they were perched upon,
scooping up the black silken tresses, she lifted them from the tender flesh
of her neck. "Property of Krosius." The
sound of the clicking locks as the black metal collar was fastened around
her neck produced another quiver.
Standing straight again, regarding her, he
spoke. "I am he. I am called Krosius. I own you.
I am your Master." Suzanne's delicate hands, still trembling dropped
the long hair, and it fell, sweeping the wooden deck to pool about her
like ink on the sea. Slowly she raised her arms and reached them
out to him, crossing her wrists. Lowering her head between them in
pure submission she answered him. "I am yours, Master." She
heard herself speak those words as if watching on. Never before had
she said those words voluntarily, much less felt the truth of their meaning.
Before her lips even closed, Tamon approached again with a cup and held
it out to her. "Drink this, girl." It was slave wine,
and she drank it down, giving a slight cough as the last drop flowed down
her throat. It was bitter and left her with a bad taste though she
swallowed it all and held out the cup again as if in offering of a serve.
Krosius watched on and when the cup was taken
from her hands, and she had been commanded to rise by Tamon and done so,
he stepped forward and ripped off what was left of her silks. Forcefully
his strong hands pulled it from her body, exposing her naked form and his
eyes gleamed as he looked at her. Suzanne whimpered barely audible
as the silk was torn off her body and tilting her head back just a bit,
she gazed in his direction.
"Turn about girl. Slowly." She
tilted her head just a bit to the side, and literally pirouetted in slow
motion before him. Within the movement, her arms rose and vanished
behind her neck, lost from sight until she had turned completely to face
him. The hair was brushed outward by the hands that now fell back
slowly to her sides, sending the ebony tresses shimmering back against
her pale flesh. Her emerald eyes lowered submissively before him,
"I pray I please you, Master." Was that her that spoke?
She caught her mind racing over this thought again. Not seeing a
brand, Krosius reached out and grabbed her arm, spreading her legs with
his foot, he searched her body with his eyes before releasing her.
Though giving no resistance, his sudden movements had caused her to cry
out in fear. He looked puzzled. "You are unmarked?" Her
voice answered him softly. "I have never been branded, Master."
Her hand reached involuntarily to the tiny mark on her chest then fell
again to her side. "Surely a serious oversight that will soon
be remedied." He remarked and smiled turning to walk towards port
side of his ship. "Heel me, girl." Suzanne, her head
lowered, fell in step behind him.
Men at work paused to watch their Captain pass
by with his naked slave at his feet. She kept her gaze hidden for
the most part, behind the fall of her hair that partially concealed her
face. At times, as they walked, her eyes would stare in wonder at
the man she followed and she caught herself doing this as he stopped by
the gangplank and turned to her. Krosius reached out and plucked
her off her feet and slung her with ease over his shoulder. As she
hung there, limp, her hands resting along his back where they dangled,
he addressed her again. "It is as a naked and helpless slave, slung
over my shoulders as my prize, that you will enter my city, girl.
That of Tentium on beautiful Tyros." With that he stepped firmly
onto the plank and descended to the wharf below. As she felt the
touch of his hand upon her, her body relaxed and she closed her eyes.
Her fingers curled in the cloth of his cloak, "Yes, Master...", was the
soft reply his words and touch had called out.
He carried her through the city towards his warehouse.
Being as much a small fortress as a simple place of storage, it was outside
yet still attached to the walls of the city. He conducted much business
here, preferring to be close to the goods and his men returning from voyages,
rather than be aloof ad shut away in some lofty place. He passed
guards as they moved down long musty corridors. Scribes hovered over
the workers, busy cataloging the wares recently acquired on his latest
journey and Suzanne took note of everything from his shoulder as they passed
through another set of huge wooden doors.
Within these walls he placed her on a rack.
And branded Suzanne with his own hand. The simple mark of the kef,
a perfect Kwas branded into the flesh of her
outer left thigh. Once the burnt flesh had been covered in healing
salve, again by his very hand, the chains and bracelets were removed and
she was commanded to follow him. And she did. Taken to his
chambers, she entered on her hands and knees, in total submission.
She was ordered to bath and did so quickly. He gave her the yellow
silks of a tavern slave, and when she had tied the knot at her waist, she
looked up and displayed herself for his approval. Suzanne saw the
burn in his eyes as he grabbed her and assaulted her lips with the kiss
of a Master. And yet she again felt herself submitting to him more
completely than she ever conceived possible. He raped her there and
then took her to his tavern as he had earlier declared in his mind, to
see her dance.
From that night on Suzanne's mind was filled
only of pleasing him. She danced for his eyes and those of his men
and others that came to his paga den. And she did so with more driving
desire to please than she knew existed inside her. That very first
night, another warrior had even tossed a gold tarn disk to the stone floor
after she finished her dance, which she picked gently up in her lips and
deposited on the table by her Master. She obeyed him without reservation
and was taken to the alcoves by those he deemed worthy of tasting his treasure.
Though they were few indeed. He kept her mainly to himself, even
taking her to his couch, and sleeping with her curled in his arms.
The battle continued violently within her.
Those old memories and the wounds they left, coming to life again with
each passing day. But there was one thing that no matter how she
fought it, returned and slowly overcame her. At some point she realized
what had been meant by all the reading she had done back in House Golden
Larl, the Knowledge absorbed then had until now been merely words, opinion
and facts at best. Now she knew, and fully understand what it meant
to feel the devotion to One. To have your entire being, heart, mind,
flesh and yes ... even her very soul, desire only one, and his Mastery.
She lost the battle with her mind over her forgotten memories, and fell
in love with him.
Suzanne never spoke of this to her Master and
perhaps he never even noticed. His en'safora, Dina, loved him as
well, and would show it, bubbling in each gesture and whether he realized
it or not, he returned it. Causing Suzanne to hide her innermost
feelings even more. As she stood on the port of Lisbeon, she wept
silently as the RamUbar pulled away. The storm was raging out on
the Thassa, and though the winds were warm, she shook as they swirled about
her. Some say her mind was lost at sea with Krosius, for she acted
almost insane in the weeks to come after the Civil War broke out.
But what no one knew, not even Krosius, was that he took her heart and
soul with him that day to sea. There to be lost on the Thassa ...
along with him.
On the day Tamon was brought to the Ubar's
palace, Suzanne wept again seeing the loyal man that she had come to know
as one of her Master's closest comrades. And as he was impaled on
the harbor walls with the others, Krosius being found guilty of treason,
though presumed dead at sea, she made a silent vow to herself and followed
it later with a prayer to the Priest Kings. Alone in the Ubar's palace,
sitting in the golden cage he kept in her when not serving his court, she
begged the Priest Kings strike her dead. But the blue flames of death
never came, and again she wept for her Master.
[The entire sequence
of events mentioned at the end of this chapter, were written in detail
by Krosius in his Personal Log Book.
They cover his life, his time with Suzanne, and detail the chain of events
leading up to, through and after the Civil War which he is presumed dead
at sea because of. I will not attempt to repeat them here.
The next chapter begins where "His" words end. Please read what he
wrote.]
Chapter
7
"Peril
and Steel"
Krosius
"Time.
Time. Time. Never ask what's become of us. Just dedicate
your sorrow,
here and now
...
to the Soul
of the Sea ... and me."
Anne
Wilson, 1976 The Soul of the Sea
[Imprisoned.
Her whereabouts unknown]
The stone wall was cold. Her ankles and
wrists stretched. Secured. Dangling and yet not. How
long she'd been left, Suzanne didn't know. The hours had turned into
days, and the days had pasted by unnoticed there in the darkness.
The kajira that had cleaned her bruised and beaten flesh after she'd been
manacled to the wall, had never returned.
The rumbling ache of her belly had kept her
company and offered chorus to the soft songs she had sung there to herself
for comfort the first few days. But even the hunger and thirst that
had threatened to drive her mad, had stopped. They too, were all
out of faith. She screamed one day for what seemed unending.
The desperation of hope running out. As the dying sound of her voice
echoed in the room, she cried out his name, "Krosius ..." And just
as she had seen the wine and oil fall from the cups he held in his hands,
she sercame to merciful sleep as helplessly as those vessels had run dry.
The last words heard, whispered out in the dark seclusion of that chamber
room, were the last words she had heard him speak, "Ta-Thassa."
Some say, your life passes before your eyes
as you die. And surely this was the conductor of the dreams that
came. But as if her soul would not let go, the dreams though real,
bore a small glimmer of gossamer hope. Like the lingering hint of
wine and oil within the empty cups, loosed from within the stony chamber
of her innermost soul. Cast free and loosed to lodge, where a trickle
might form. Her mind caught the vision. Such a precious drop,
that sparkling the gossamer has bound, that in a moment had caught her
eye in the dream. A priceless jewel contained thereon, a beam ...
a ray of hope ... and a further life.
[Suzanne's
Dream ... merely a replay in her mind of the events of the days leading
up to the present]
Lashed to the saddle of his tarn, her eyes
beheld Tentium and the majestic shores of Tyros for the last time as they
flew away. Somewhere, not far from Port Kar, from the terrain
she had seen between the pulsing flaps of the war bird's wings, they landed.
Paying her no mind, she was left strapped to the bird as he unloaded the
saddle pouch and sat himself on the ground to eat. Suzanne's mind
swam with fear. What if the bird decided to take flight? Go
to feed with her still across it's back? Frantic were her thoughts,
and she strained her arms back trying to feel for the knot in the leather
straps.
He had taken her so quickly, she had truly
not been secured there on the tarn. He had seemed oblivious to this
fact. She could feel one knot slipping, the binding around her waist
loosen. Just as her small, trembling hands worked on the second,
the sound of arrows, whistling through the air, startled her and she screamed
without realizing it. The fight was quick, and furious. He
leaped to the ladder and yanked on the straps to take flight, but as the
bird screeched and spread his mighty wings, Suzanne fell free and landed
hard to the ground. The breath knocked from her. The silent
gasp for air. As her eyes focused, the rush of pain washing over
her, she realized she had fallen into the bushes not far from where he
had sat down the bird to begin with.
He circled once overhead, then yelling out
as another tarn came into view, he turned and flew away. They all
must have thought the other had taken her, for she laid there unseen into
the night. Barely able to move, though nothing broken, she could
feel the sharp stabs of pain in her side with each breath. Night
fell and she slept. The heat of the lar-torvis woke her the next
day, and as if pushing her, she found the strength to move.
She wandered, aimlessly that day. Picking
berries, and stopping once at a stream to wash her face and cool her parched
throat. While kneeling in the very banks of the trickling brook,
she heard the sounds of laughter, as three kajirae and a kajiru came bounding
from the brush not far from where she knelt. At first so frightened
her mind could not reason, she attempted to stand and run. But the
pain of her bruised ribs, yanked her back to the sandy embankment.
She had been seen.
It was obvious from the image of her there
the distress. They looked upon her, their play halted by her presence.
And like a injured wild animal, cornered, they assured her they meant her
no harm. Casually they continued their play in the water, and Suzanne
cautiously continued to wash away the dirt and grime from the tattered
silks. The silks the Ubar had placed on her. Torn, no one would
know the lavish raiment they had once been. The others kept an eye
on her constantly. Occasionally offering soft smiles of comfort.
Once even the kajiru came and offered to help her tend to the wound on
her back, above the right shoulder blade. Reluctantly, she let him
touch her. And closing her eyes, she heard the others whisper.
When her eyes opened there stood a woman dressed in the green robes of
a physician. Another free woman by her side. A tarn came swooping
down through the lazy passing clouds, and she yelped out, but the kajiru
held her, trying to convince her they meant her no harm again. As
he plucked her from the stream's caress, she fell limp and unconsciousness
took her. He laid her like a child in the arms of the hired tarnsman.
She was being carried in the same manner when
she awoke. Cradled in the arms of huge man, that she realized was
the same kajiru, as her eyes glanced up through the veil of sleep.
She had been bathed. The sweet smell of veninium clung to her skin.
He took her to a room, and laid her with careful gentleness down on a thick
pile of furs in the middle of the room. There on the couch sat the
Mistress Amethyst and her friend, the Physician Lily Thorn. Her wounds
were seen to, and she was given food. Never once even turning from
where she had been deposited on the furs, she hadn't even noticed what
was behind her. Lily left, and as her and the Mistress said their
farewells, Suzanne heard them whispering, they thought her insane.
Her gaze, though never once offering resistance to the aid being given,
had been of that same wild animal.
The Mistress, leaving the door open as if a
sign of trust, went to the chest by the wall and took out a long shimmering
gown of white silk. Not the silks of a kajira, the sleeping garment
of a free woman. She bid Suzanne to put it on, as she laid it on
the fur by her feet. Suzanne complied, and as she stood to let it's
soft folds fall free to the floor, she turned and saw for the first time
what was there behind her.
The window was the length of the wall.
Floor to ceiling. And it opened up to ... the Thassa. Mesmerized,
Suzanne walked with entranced steps towards it. Standing there, her
hand reached out and rested on the large single pane of glass. The
woman was speaking to her, but the memories the sight had reached in her
soul, drowned out her voice. Then as if she had actually heard it
all she turned to face her, the tears that silently rolled down her cheeks,
fully seen. The palm of her hand finally fell, its touch upon the
glass having lingered until the last possible moment. Slowly she
raised her arms, and lifted away the cascade of hair that was still just
a bit damp from the apparent bath. His collar was still there.
Tilting her head, the simple legend inscribed could be fully seen.
And Suzanne finally spoke. "I am the property of Krosius."
Words like those are spoken hundreds of times a day by kajirae. The
act of showing the Master's collar. But the sound of her voice, was
actually being spoken by her heart. No longer would she hide it.
"I know. We saw it there as you were
brought and bathed. He is dead you know. He has been for sometime
from what I understand. Did you not know this?" The Mistress
had spoke to her as if she were telling a lover of the loss of he who was
her life. Perhaps, that is not far from wrong. Turning
back to the window, Suzanne's voice whispered, subtly cracking. "His
men were impaled while I watched." Silence. Then with a deliberate
breath heard, she continued. "This is His Thassa. And to me,
he is, the Soul of the Sea." Her eyes fell slowly shut, like the
heavy curtain on a stage. Her hand fell as well from the glass, limp
to her side, as if showing the way for the tears that came again.
The woman left her alone, after receiving nothing but a nod of Suzanne's
head, thanks for the hospitality she was being given. No guards.
No chains. Nothing but the silence of the warm room, and the Thassa,
lapping at the shores beyond the glass.
Suzanne stood there for hours. The lar-torvis
fell to the blanketing shroud of the dark night as her eyes remained fixed
on the horizon. At some point she forced herself to move, and as
if looking for distraction, she rummaged through the room. A bowl
of fruits. A loaf of round sa-tarna bread, obviously fresh, yet untouched
from before. And the chest where the gown she wore had came from.
It held something else. The thick almost royal in their elegant layers,
robes and veils of a free woman. They were as black as her hair.
And she put them on. Turning she saw her image in a mirror that had
not been viewed before, and the vision she looked upon, was that of a free
woman. Suzanne had been told she would be a guest there, until she
was rested and healed. The Mistress seemed to pity her. Though
there had been a final mumble of words as she left, as to what would be
done once she was well.
Why she didn't know, perhaps the wish of death
so she could join him, but she wandered out of the room and house and into
the night. The vision of the image that befell all as she pasted,
was one of a free woman. And she played the role well, right up until
the final act. A coin purse had been found within the trunk.
And she had wandered through the Port, and into a tavern. Hiding
the pain of her wounds beneath the robes and veils, just like Krosius's
collar, she found solace in a place not unlike where she might have been
when his spies had seen her dance that first time. The Mistress
of the tavern was brazen and rough, and obviously had very little use for
men. They shared blackwine and chatted casually, occasionally chuckling
at the others witty tale.
The wheel of fortune turned swiftly in Suzanne's
life. It always had. And he walked in.
Suzanne had once heard it said, from an assassin
that had seen her dance at the festival of Lydius, "Surely even the Priest
Kings are watching you little one. More rightly you should be named
as such. The Prize of Gor not the Sea. Tell your Master, you
pleased a Gorean today." She had laughed to herself and thought
him funny to label her such. He merely smiled, put on his helmet,
swung the black cloak about him and left. But maybe he was right.
She had been sitting there for sometime, in the same room with warriors
that came to quench their thirst, their flower like kajira kneeling at
their feet. She had fit right in. Catching their sight once
in awhile, though it seemed more the exotic look she exuded. The
robes were black as night, the skin of her smooth face milk white, and
those eyes, like perfectly cut emerald gems set in accentuatingly, to heightened
the contrast.
The rarii had paid her casual respect, as if
she were simply one of the few, rich, free women ... that knew her place.
Gracefully she had maneuvered the veils from her full lips to sip from
the mug. Her eyes gazed with the perfect doze of respect, yet with
the same alluring noble grace as if those jewels were set in a crown.
Since her hair was the same hue as the veils and robes, it all mingled
together in a shimmering illusion, that also hid any hint of the black
metal collar. The perfect illusion. Every gesture. Every
word she had read those long days in the library at Tharna, all the knowledge
she had absorbed in her solitude, now being poured out with the same precision
of her dances. How? How did the little kajira pull it off?
Suzanne had mused behind those veils more than once, a smile they never
saw. A perfectly timed giggle was not due to the warrior's tale of
his heroism in battle, but it did win her a quick nod, wink and smile before 
he
continued with gained enthusiasm.
It was so simple.
Suzanne pretended she was obeying her Master's
command!
As if dressed in that lavish raiment by Krosius
himself; his rough fingers brushing through her hair as he framed those
eyes, veiling her himself as she stared up in reverence and listened to
the instructions; the game, to be an enchanting free woman; the more they
believed, the more she would please him; a kiss on the forehead; a swat
on the butt as a coax to, go on. Her performance was as if to please
her Master. Just as she had many times danced before the imaginary
pole in her mind, so she became the pure quintessence of a woman, simply
to please the Master watching from the shadows of her mind. That
perfectly timed giggle. Was the fleeting thought to herself that
she had in fact heard Krosius chuckle with amusement, as his little kajira
fooled them all. All but one.
Kireon's eyes fixed on Suzanne the moment he
came in. He walked right over, plucked her straight from the chair
and slung her over his shoulder as he turned to walk out. She had
enchanted them all. What they saw was a perfectly elegant, respectful
free women being taken without cause. What Kireon saw, was what he
knew to be Suzanne, the property of Krosius.
They seemed to have flown for days, and did.
And from the moment she had been tethered to that tarn, she had struggled
and cried out for the Thassa as it disappeared behind them. Farther
inland she realized once, she couldn't even smell it anymore. And
cried out his name.
They were followed all the way to Torcandino.
Once there, she was chained in the House of Kireon and right before the
Mistress from that tavern and the men accompanying her, Suzanne was stripped.
"Does this look like a free woman to you?" Kireon grabbed her hair
and yanked back her head, his anger having grown over the course of the
journey. "Can you read woman? This is the kajira of Krosius.
Look at the collar!"
The Mistress's facial expression shifted and
so did the forms of the men standing there as well. Suzanne had not
stopped struggling. Though it was pitiful in the attempt. She
might have hidden what she was with the veils and robes, but she couldn't
hide the fact she was still injured and very weak. Cowering away
from Kireon, she stretched the chain attached to her wrists to it's full
length. "Very well. I'll buy her." "She's not for
sale." "Come now, how much do you want? Everything has
a price." "Not this one." The exchange ended with threatening
words and she was alone with him.
Still fighting the chain, the collar she had
somehow managed to wear until long after his presumed death, was forcibly
removed. It hit the wall and clattered to the floor as she watched
it come to rest not far from where she would later sleep. She refused
to submit. He collared her without her ever speaking, other than
the continued plea of, "No." After the third strike of the kurt across
her back, she finally did yell out the ordered words, and she took 17 more
lashes, each time thanking the "Master." He had beaten her
almost unconscious, sparing no part of the flesh writhing before him.
But the kiss of the kurt deliberately drawn repeatedly over her right shoulder,
was too much. Seeing her condition, he didn't even chain her.
They slept in the same room. Him on the couch, her huddled in the
corner. He only kept Suzanne a few days. She wouldn't speak
except when literally forced to. And the day the tarn came to take
her to Treve to dance in a wager, she saw it as maybe a chance to for it
all to end.
Master Kireon would not be there, he was busy
testing a man's sword for his service. But he did come later to claim
her, but he was too late. She had been rented to perform a version
of the whip dance. The wager was over who's chosen dancer would be
most pleasing. A silver tarsk was at stake. When Suzanne arrived,
it took her a bit of time to gain her calmness. She was growing to
hate tarns. Fortunately for her, the girl was still dancing, though
the room was visibly bored. Even covered as she was with the marks
of the kurt, the red silks seemed to make them the perfect adornment for
the chosen dance. She danced, teasingly, even yanking the whip from
Master Liam's side. He was overwhelmed when she finally crumbled
to the stone floor at his feet. He conceded the silver to Varonnes
without a word. Even as weak as she surely was, Suzanne had won.
What happened next was so fast and furious,
she hardly had time to blink. Varonnes had been infuriated by another
kajira, her life saved by Master Liam. But, Varonnes grabbed Suzanne
to prove his strength, and forced her by the hair to the ground, demanding
she voluntarily submit. Kireon walked in at just that moment, and
when the clanking sound of blades crossed once over her head, the door
slammed, and she was still at Varonnes's feet. It took him twice
to get her to say the words after Kireon's collar was pried off, and Varonnes's
snapped in place. But she finally did call him Master, but after
admitting ... in public, that the man known as Krosius, alone Mastered
her heart. She was violently beaten and raped repeatedly.
But even during the public torture which she endured, she still refused
to denounce her true Master. In the few moments she was given reprieve,
the kajiru that had been used as the latest instrument of her pain came
as if to see if she even lived there where she huddled. In desperation
Suzanne whispered a name, and begged the kajiru Donnor, to find him.
There had been rumor someone was offering two
gold tarsks for any information about Suzanne. And that was the man
whose name left her lips that night.
When the tarn flew off over Treve towards the
Sardar Mountains, nobody knew that it was intended to be the last flight
Suzanne would ever make over the savage world of Gor. Varonnes, another
of his kajira and Suzanne were only in the air for about 15 ehn when the
bird landed outside a small enclosure. The kajiru Donnor had told
Varonnes of her plea, and after she was manacled to the wall, the only
key to them smashed by her face on the stone with a hammer, she admitted
it freely when asked. It was to be the last words she spoke before
left alone in that room.
The kajira had been commanded to return each
day to clean her and feed her. But Varonnes in his anger had threatened
to leave her there to starve. The kajira never came. Unable
to move. No food or water for days. There in the darkness,
Suzanne's strength began to run out.
The dream came to its climaxing end.
The play of her life brought to a tragic close of simply being left to
die alone, shackled to a stone wall. The Prize of the Sea as Krosius
had called her that day he had captured her, was now to die alone, her
whereabouts unknown. On Gor it is easy to own a slave.
They are bought, sold, stolen and collared almost each moment. But
to truly Master a slave. To own her truly in her heart and
soul. That was the actual rarity. Suzanne had been Mastered
by Krosius.
As she drew in each shallow, labored breath.
A part of her trying to give up. That beam, that ray of gossamer
hope she had seen just before the fall of helpless sleep had overcome her,
returned, and she heard in her mind these words, ... "I will find you."
[The Fate of Suzanne
is written within the Personal Log
Book of Krosius. There the "Sanctum"
recants how the epic ends. The next chapter of this Diary will begin
only when "His" words end, and the right time comes to continue.
Please read what he wrote of our lives. The inspiration for this
poem came from there.]
"...To Further
Life"
If you had seen
the gaze I saw,
Within those sea
blue eyes;
And felt the tremor
bathe my flesh,
His touch possesively
did guide;
You would have
known, without a doubt,
The secret, Our
gaze knew;
Our reticent smiles,
Their meaning
kept from view;
And with your
hand, a casual point, as if you truly saw,
And musingly,
the finger traced, across that rugged jaw;
"The soul lies
there, behind those eyes, from all that I've been told,
Perhaps they're
right, for in their gaze, a dream did seem to unfold."
©1999,
Kristi Kuslak
[The tale of
Krosius and Suzanne has been continued within the pages of the Personal
Log Book of Krosius. "Kassia" brings their saga up to date.
Enjoy.]
The
Diary of Suzanne
...
This
is her life ... through her eyes.
©1999,
All rights reserved.
Chapter
7 contains a paraphase of words from a poem written by "Krosius."
Thank you to the
author for sharing his words and allowing their use here with mine.
"Gracias,me sueno
ben cierto."
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