The figure of the woman, swathed in black, heavily veiled,
descended the steps of the slave wagon. Once at the foot of the stairs she stopped and
stood for a long moment. Then the musicians began, the hand-drums first, a rhythm of
heartbeat and flight.
To the music, beautifully, it seemed the frightened figure ran first here and then there,
occasionally avoiding imaginary objects or throwing up her arms, ran as though through the
crowds of a burning city-alone, yet somehow suggesting the presence about her of hunted
others. Now, in the background, scarcely to be seen, was the figure of a warrior in
scarlet cape. He, too, in his way, though hardly seeming to move, approached, and it
seemed that wherever the girl might flee there was found the warrior. And then at last his
hand was upon her shoulder and she threw back her head and lifted her hands and it seemed
her entire body was wretchedness and despair. He turned the figure to him and, with both
hands, brushed away hood and veil.
There was a cry of delight from the crowd.
The girl's face was fixed in the dancer's stylized moan of terror, but she was beautiful.
I had seen her before, of course, as had Kamchak, but it was startling still to see her
thus in the firelight-her hair was long and silken black, her eyes dark, the color of her
skin tannish.
She seemed to plead with the warrior but he did not move. She seemed to writhe in misery
and try to escape his grip but she did not.
Then he removed his hands from her shoulders and, as the crowd cried out, she sank in
abject misery at his feet and performed the ceremony of submission, kneeling, lowering the
head and lifting and extending the arms, wrists crossed.
The warrior then turned from her and held out one hand.
Someone from the darkness threw him, coiled, the chain and collar.
He gestured for the woman to rise and she did so and stood before him, head lowered.
He pushed up her head and then, with a click that could be heard throughout the enclosure,
closed the collar-a Turian collar-about her throat. The chain to which the collar was
attached was a good deal longer than that of the Sirik, containing perhaps twenty feet of
length.
Then, to the music, the girl seemed to twist and turn and move away from him, as he played
out the chain, until she stood wretched some twenty feet from him at the chain's length.
She did not move then for a moment, but stood crouched down, her hands on the chain.
I saw that Aphris and Elizabeth were watching fascinated. Kamchak, too, would not take his
eyes from the woman.
The music had stopped.
Then with a suddenness that almost made me jump and the crowd cry out with delight the
music began again but this time as a barbaric cry of rebellion and rage and the wench from
Port Kar was suddenly a chained she-larl biting and tearing at the chain and she had cast
her black robes from her and stood savage revealed in diaphanous, swirling yellow Pleasure
Silk. There was now a frenzy and hatred in the dance, a fury even to the baring of teeth
and snarling. She turned within the collar, as the Turian collar is designed to permit.
She circled the warrior like a captive moon to his imprisoning scarlet sun, always at the
length of the chain. Then he would take up a fist of chain, drawing her each time inches
closer. At times he would permit her to draw back again, but never to the full length of
the chain, and each time he permitted her to withdraw, it was less than the last. The
dance consists of serveral phases, depending on the general orbit allowed the girl by the
chain. Certain of these phases are very slow, in which there is almost no movement, save
perhaps the turning of a head or the movement of a hand; others are defiant and swift;
some are graceful and pleading; each time, as the common thread, she is drawn closer to
the caped warrior. At last his fist was within the Turian collar itself and he drew the
girl, piteous and exhausted, to his lips, subduing her with his kiss, and then her arms
were about his neck and unresisting, obedient, her head to his chest, she was lifted
lightly in his arms and carried from the firelight.
Nomads of Gor, pg. 159
