What The Hell Is This Place?

 

What The Hell Is This Place?
Pauline Anne Armitage

With acknowledgement and thanks to John Norman for creating the wonderful world of Gor, in which this story is set.

 

This is a strange dream.  In this dream, I awake from sleep. I mean it has to be a dream, right? There’s no way that it can be real, even though it feels as if it is.  I know that last night when turning in for the night, I’d thought that I’d not get to sleep for worrying about the creepy men who’ve been watching me, following me for the last fortnight or so.  Clearly I did get to sleep, otherwise I couldn’t be in this dream now.  Logical!  If this was real, I’d still be in my own bed, waking normally.  Ergo, dream.  Or perhaps nightmare.  I’ll say ‘dream’ for now.  Nothing’s happened in it yet to make me think it’s a nightmare.  Since it is a dream I must enjoy or endure it until my brain decides it’s time to wake up properly, or something in the dream is too horrific or too wonderfully impossible causes me to arouse from my slumber.

Yes, I’m awake, in my dream at least.  I lie on a piece of rough grass surrounded by bushes.  There are trees close by.  I can’t identify the trees or the shrubs.  They are not displeasing to look at, but they don’t look quite like any trees or bushes that I recall having ever seen before.  They don’t have that bucolic ‘Garden of England’ look that’s so instantly identifiable whenever I look out of my bedroom window, or for that matter the vegetation of anywhere I’ve visited on past holidays[1].  Clearly then, in my dream, I am somewhere I’ve never been before.

I’m naked!  Absolutely bare.  How bizarre!  But then, I suppose that in such a dream, I’m simply just ‘me’.  There’s no social context yet, for me to know how to clothe myself appropriately.  I’m not cold by any means.  Indeed, I feel that this ‘somewhere’ is warmer than at home, even though it is summer in England at present.  Further south perhaps?  I rise to my feet and gaze over the bushes that have hidden and sheltered me from prying eyes.

The sun is close to setting.  The temperature is dropping, but it’s still not cold.  Warm like a summer night.  My nakedness is not a problem from a survival point of view, but it makes me feel uncomfortable from a social and cultural point of view.  Even though there doesn’t seem to be anyone here to look at me, I’d still feel happier to have some clothes.  Even just a simple bra and panties would be better than nothing.  However one does not control a dream, it controls you.  One can’t within the dream consciously demand that it change its own parameters in order to provide one with suitable garments.

No. Definitely no people.  Nor for that matter any sign of civilisation at all.  No buildings, no bridges, no structures of any kind.  I look in all directions, it’s the same at every angle.  Unless there’s something hidden by the nearby tree trunks.  I seem to be on some kind of undulating grassy plain interspersed with small pockets of woodland.

I push myself through the low bushes.  The prickling and scraping of the shrub vegetation whilst not painful is felt.  Really lifelike this dream!  To my left there’s a darkness, to the grass; like a patch of burnt vegetation.  I turn to it, to investigate.  As I approach, I am struck by how fresh and clear the air is.  There’s a lightness too, to my stride.  It’s almost as if I’m skipping along.  The darkened vegetation is indeed a burn mark.  The grass has been seared here.  The charred patch seems to be roughly circular, some paces in diameter.  At the far rim of the circle, I see a misshapen lump.  As I approach it becomes clear that this is, or was, a person.  The body is crisped black.  It’s little more than a skeleton, the skin burned away.  There’s a faint smell of cooked meat.  I retch in horror, but am not sick.  I don’t feel hungry, but nor does there seem to be anything in my stomach to puke up.

Not far from this pile of bones I see in the grass two parallel sets of claw marks.  It’s like someone was trying to cling to the very ground as they were being dragged away.  The sight sends a cold shiver up my spine.  I don’t think that I want to go in that direction, thank you.

I mean…  I’m going to have to go in one direction or another soon.  I can’t stay here indefinitely.  There’s no food for a start; no people who can help me get home.  Even though this is a dream, the concept of needing to eat, of trying to get back to the familiarity of home seems obvious and necessary.  It’s part of the dream’s consistency.

I have no idea whatsoever of where in the world I am, hence where I should go.  I do however know that the west is to my right, because that is where the sun is now setting.  I’m therefore facing south.  Behind me is the north, and to my left is the east.  Excellent!  Basic navigation theoretically possible for the present.

I’m not sure that it’s a good idea walking over the rough grassland at night.  I don’t want to sprain my ankle, or worse.  Even in a dream, one doesn’t want to turn it into a nightmare.  There’s just enough light for me to do a quick circuit round the copse of trees and bushes, get a sense of my starting point.  I note that several of the bushes seem to have fruit that looks as if it could be edible.  I don’t recognise what kind of fruit it is, so I’ll have to be careful in case it’s poisonous.  By morning in this dreamscape, assuming that I haven’t woken up back in my own bed, I’m going to start needing food.

I have a pretty good geographical sense.  Geography was always one of those subjects that I did well at in school.  Coupled with a father who at an early age imbued me with an interest and even love of maps, even though I was only a girl.  I’m pretty sure that once I begin to move, before long I’ll start to get some sense of where I am.  That is, of course, if this dreamscape tallies up to real landscape.  So far, I have no reason to think otherwise; though on occasion in past dreams cities I’ve been in, have born no relationship whatsoever to the real geography of said city.  I’ll have to ‘play this situation by ear.’ as the saying goes.

This place seems to be a kind of undeveloped temperate grassland with patches of what appear to be deciduous trees.  Not Europe then.  There’s be more people, more development.  The Russian Steppes perhaps?  The Great Plains of North America?  The Pampas of South America?  For any of these though, it has to be summer, otherwise the temperature would be far too cold for me to be comfortable given I’ve no clothes.

It’s almost dark now.  The brightest stars are showing clearly.  I see clearly the constellation Orion.  Yes, I know too, enough about the night sky to recognise the main star patterns.  I spent many a night lying on a blanket with a boyfriend.  When we weren’t doing what young people the world over do, he, knowing something of the subject would point out the salient astronomical things of interest.  I can definitely find my way about the ‘heavenly delights’ both kinds!  Orion is an equatorial constellation, visible from both northern and southern hemispheres.  Right now, it’s about as high in the sky as I would expect it to be in southern England, so I must be at about latitude fifty degrees or so.  I look again at Orion.  It’s ‘right way up’  i.e. the star Betelgeuse is upper-left, Rigel lower-right.  That takes out the Pampas.  I’m in the northern hemisphere, clearly.  A little worm of doubt works its way through my brain though.  Orion is a winter constellation in the northern hemisphere, yet here it’s clearly summer?  In summer in the north, one simply wouldn’t see it, Earth’s revolution round the sun would have it hidden by the sun!  How can this be?  I let my mind work on this planetary modelling conundrum as I settle down to make myself as comfortable as possible for the night.  No matter how I puzzle this enigma, the only conclusion I can come to is absolutely absurd!  It’s so ludicrous that it just cannot be taken seriously.  If I were to believe this, to use a crudity, bullshit idea, then the Earth would have to be some hundred and eighty degrees out from where it should be; i.e. on the opposite side of the sun!  Utter madness!  Either that, or I’m on another planet on the opposite side of the sun from Earth.  I giggle insanely at that idea!  There is no such planet on the other side of the sun!  Even though it would never be seen, the scientists and astronomers would have found it, if only through the gravitational effects on the other planets.  No, the idea is just ridiculous!  I must have misread some basic premise.  A vague memory though stirs.  There is a planet on the opposite side of the sun!  At least in fiction.  In my teenage years, I’d found a cheap paperback book in my brother’s room.  Real ‘sword and sandal’ bullshit.  It was almost pornographic in its portrayal of women as effective sex-slaves.  I’d read it with much amusement, and even though  highly misogynistic, not a little sexual excitement.  What was the name of the place?  Gor!  Yes, that was it.  Perhaps I’m on Gor?  I laugh again at such a stupid notion.  There is no such place as Gor!  I giggle myself to sleep.

I awake with a start.  I think that some kind of animal call has awakened me.  No.  I’m not back in my own bed!  The dream clearly still has me wrapped in its coils.  My ‘sleep’ and awakening are then just part of that dream.  I look up again at the gloriousness of the stars and the ‘Milky Way’.  The sky is so bright and clear.  One rarely sees it like this at home.  The light-pollution, certainly in Europe is far too insidious for such a light-show.

I turn my head to my left to gaze at the moon.  My jaw drops open.  My mental grasp on my sanity slips.  This is not the Moon!  Correction it is A moon, but not the one that I expect to see, that I recognise.  This moon is irregular in shape.  It’s nothing like as big, and hence the light from it is less.  It has a totally different pattern of craters and mountains.  Wait!  There’s more!  To the left of this bizarre moon there are two more moons!  They are smaller still and just as irregular.  With the addition of these two smaller moons, the moonlight doesn’t seem any less bright than at home.  Have I been transported into another dimension where some cataclysm has broken up the familiar moon into these three parts?  That’s science-fiction stuff!  I cannot believe that any more than I can believe what I’m seeing.

No!  Nooo!  My memory of the ‘Gor’ book, has that planet as having three moons!  No.  I cannot, dare not believe this hypothesis.  It is as ridiculous as the ‘other dimension’ concept!  The implications, if the Gor premise were to be true, is that the Gor books, yes there were more than one, are in fact real stories.  Biographies and autobiographies!  The last strains of my logic remind me that such isn’t necessarily so.  Remember that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a whole string of ‘Martian’ stories.  Subsequent scientific discoveries disproved  them all.  I so desperately want to get out of this nightmare dream.  Close your eyes, girl.  It’ll all go away when you properly wake up!

When I wake again, I’m still not at home in my flat[2].  I’m still on this grassy plain.  Still in the vicinity of the small copse of trees.  I’m beginning to feel hungry.  The only thing that I can see that might be edible is the fruit on the bushes.  With some trepidation, I pluck one and take a tiny bite, ready to spit out the flesh of the fruit if I think it’s poisonous.  It’s juicy and ripe. I chew it carefully.  Still no indications that my body is inimical to this fruit.  The flavour of the fruit is strange.  Not unpleasant, but it’s like no other fruit I’ve ever tasted before.  I’ve no idea what kind of fruit it is.  It’s a bit like a cross between a peach and a grapefruit, but yet, it’s neither of them.  I decide that live or die, I’ll have a full belly!  I eat several more of the unusual fruits.

There’s no point in staying here.  I muse on which is the best way to go.  I decide to go west.  The three moons part of the dream, is just that, part of the dream.   No.  I’m on Earth, at least in the main part of the dream, I am.  I reason that going west I’m more likely to come to a town or a village than any other direction.  I set off walking.

As I walk I cannot get it out of my head that this place might just be this mythical Gor.  Time and time, I consciously banish this idea from my thinking, but it worms its way back in.

It doesn’t take long before I realise that being naked isn’t a good idea.  The sun, whilst not flaying, is borderline hot.  I see that my skin is turning red.  Also, I quickly find myself feeling thirsty.  There’s another small wood not far ahead.  I make for it, and it’s shade.  Fortunately I quickly find a stream.  The water looks clean, but one can’t really tell.  Certainly on Earth, or at least in bucolic England, one has to get high into the hills to find a stream that some sheep hasn’t pee’d into, or some farmer polluted with chemicals.  It’s no good, I’ll have to take the chance, especially as I don’t have a container to carry water in, and no water that I know to be clean.  The water is cold, and tastes just wonderful.  There seems to be a zing, a zest to it. Perhaps, it’s just my need for it that makes it so tasty.

I continue on, trying to avoid disturbing the undergrowth.  I stop suddenly, my heart pounding both at the potential for danger, and at the implications of what I am seeing.

The animal is huge.  Bigger than I.  It’s like a large rat, but it’s got a head cowled, reminiscent of a viper.  More astonishing yet is that it has six legs!  Yes, I have to look again, even to having to count them. The animal, Sleen!  That’s what it is!  The name and description surface in my mind from the pages of that ridiculous ‘Gor’ book.  Why am I seeing so many things that tally to a half remembered sword and sandal book about a world that just doesn’t exist?  Well, I suppose that what our dreams show us is not a conscious choice.  Perhaps the ludicrous book effected me more than I thought, and several years on, my brain has decided to address those alien concepts.  I haven’t taken my eyes off the sleen, though.  It has it’s head down, sniffing the ground.  It’s hunting, tracking perhaps.  Such is their purpose, or at least for the tamed ones.  It’s path is perpendicular to mine, so fortunately I don’t think that it’s me it’s stalking.  I stay very still and quiet.  The sleen moves off.

Clearly then, in my dream, I am definitely on the planet Gor.  I mean, I can’t be on that planet for real!  It doesn’t exist, so I cannot be on it in actual fact.  One thing though does gnaw at my certainties, is just why I can’t wake up.  I’ve been in this dream now for some twelve hours.  I know that dream-time is usually much longer than real-time.  Surely though, even allowing for that, why hasn’t my alarm clock woken me?  It’s got to be almost mid-morning at least.  Why isn’t the dream releasing me.  The conscious controller should be telling the intellectual part of my brain that I’m going to be late for work!

Ow!  I’ve just trodden on a thorn!  That hurt!  Real painful pain, not thought-generated ‘I’ve trodden on a thorn, therefore it must hurt’ pain.  How can pain in a dream be physically painful?  I know that the mind can play tricks on the body, and even perhaps the body playing tricks on the mind, but this feels so much like the real thing, that I have to again wonder if I truly am in the dream.  Is this reality or is it the dream.  The Sleen says that it’s a dream, the thorn in the foot says ‘don’t be too sure’.

As I hobble along, the pain receding, my bare feet getting more and more used to the roughness of the ground in this wood.  I take in several large-leaved plants.  I’m considering whether it’s possible to use such to fashion some simple clothes, using plant stems to sew the ensemble together.

Suddenly I’m at the edge of a track!  A track means people.  People mean settlements.  Settlements mean a way back home.  Even if this is a dream, in it, I am seeking a way back to the life I know.  The track is not particularly wide.  Wide enough for a wheeled wagon to pass along it.  Indeed, whilst they are not actually ruts as such, the grass is worn to bare ground in two parallel lines.  The tracks are narrow, not like the width of a car or truck tyre.  There’s also footprints.  Those of men, but also those of a beast, but I can’t identify what kind of beast.  It’s not horse tracks, or at least not shod horse.  Similarly, the footprints of the men, don’t show and distinctive tread, or even block shape as one would see from a modern shoe. Moccasins perhaps?  Am I in ‘Indian’ country in USA or Canada?  The track is going in essentially the same direction as I am, perhaps just slightly to the south.  I decide to follow it.  It must go somewhere!

As I follow the track, I notice that occasionally there are piles of dung.  The piles are big.  Bigger than I would expect for horse droppings or cow pats.  I need to pee.  I step off the track into the undergrowth, seeking a tree to shield my nakedness.  Why I bother is unclear.  There’s no-one around to watch me.  I guess that it’s habit, the body-shame inculcated in each Earth person by controlling religions. Now that was a Freudian slip!  Am I secretly beginning to think that I truly am on this mythical Gor?

I’ve just nicely finished and am about to get back onto the track, when I hear noises; a rumbling sound, the bellow of an animal, the cry of a man.  I stay still, letting the foliage of the wood hide me.  Yes, I could use help to get to the nearest town or city, but prudence suggests that I should check out just who these people are.  After all, a totally naked woman, in what’s effectively a wilderness, could easily find herself in danger.

What am I seeing!?  The beast is huge!  I don’t know how to describe it.  It’s like a very large and fat lizard.  Perhaps not as big as an elephant, but I’d definitely say as big as a rhino!  It’s wearing a harness, to which the shafts of some kind of wagon are attached.  A man seems to be leading this behemoth with some kind of chain leash.  I feel the ground quiver as this monster passes.  A word, a name comes to me.  Drat! It’s that ‘Gor’ book again!  The word is ‘Tharlarion’.  Why do I think that this is what this animal is called?  The description in the book is somewhat vague.  The wagon that it pulls is large.  It looks somewhat in shape to a Conestoga wagon, having a vaguely boat-shaped body.  The rear wheels being larger than the front ones.  From the corner of my eye I see what appears to be another such beast and wagon following.  The wagon has hoops, so clearly the cargo can be protected if the weather should prove problematical.  I take that fact in as an aside.  It’s the cargo that leaves me open-mouthed with astonishment.  Along the sides of the wagon, facing inwards are some thirty women!  As much as can be seen above the sides of the wagon, it appears that the woman are all naked!  All seem to have a band of metal surrounding their throats!

Slave girl’s!?  Kajirae is the plural for a multiplicity of such, at least that’s what I understand.  This is a slaver’s caravan!  I’m glad now that I needed to pee, and that I got off the road when I did!  I’ve no wish, even in this dream to find myself added to the cargo manifest of this shipment, thank you!  I might not be branded or collared, such being the identification marks of a kajira, so am technically free.  But a naked barbarian woman with no-one to protect her, would very quickly find that shortage rectified, I’ve no doubt! I’m not a slave-girl!  Not kajira material!  I’m not some lascivious little slut that is prepared to crawl and grovel for a man’s touch!  I shudder, or is it a shiver…?

There’s a shout! The wagon stops suddenly.  The second wagon closes up and halts just short of the first.  Round the perimeter step guards, warriors…  They are all big, muscular, super-masculine.  They are like the soldiers, the gladiators, in the sword and sandal film[3] yarns, of past cinematic epics.  They are dressed in red tunics.  Red?  Caste of Warriors, in that pesky ‘Gor’ book? They carry spears, swords.  Their helmets are very reminiscent of those worn by ancient Greek heroes.

One of the non-warriors lets one of the women down from the wagon.  He’s doing something to her ankles.  I hear the chink of chain.  She was actually chained!?  Clearly he no longer wants her so, for some reason.  The man holds his hands together.  The woman puts her foot into his hands.  She is boosted upwards to the point where she can step onto the wheel.  She reaches for a large piece of cloth .  She pulls it up.  It’s clearly some kind of awning.  It’s blue, but with yellow edging.  Yet another memory of Gor surfaces.  The colours of the Caste of Slavers.

The woman looks round furtively.  Seeing an opportunity, she leaps down off the wheel and runs. She disappears into the woodland.  Fortunately she doesn’t head in my direction.  Go, girl.  Go! Get away, while you can!  There’s a shout!  She’s been seen.  Several men run after the fleeing woman,  The warriors however hold guarding position.

In short order the men return pulling the captive runaway with them.  Damn shame, she didn’t escape after all.  Nice try, girl!  The men tie the wrists of the woman to the topmost spokes of the large rear wheels. From a box under the seat of the wagon driver, one of them pulls an object.  It has a longish handle.  Several straps seem to fall from the handle.  It’s a whip!  Some kind of scourge.  Surely they aren’t going to use it to punish this helpless woman?  In my mind and heart, I just know that’s exactly what they are going to do.  It’s a common punishment for a displeasing kajira, according to the book.

I watch entranced with horror as the man commences his flogging.  The woman screams almost from the very beginning of her punishment.  Even between the lashes striking, her sobbing is loud and plaintive. I’m utterly appalled!  I’m also terrified!  That could be me, if they do find me, and I were caught running away!  The whipping stops.  The woman hangs from her bonds.  The man speaks to her in a language I don’t understand, while holding a metal object to the back of her knees; a knife I think.  I know that there are major tendons at the back of the knee.  Is he threatening to cut them, crippling the woman permanently? What kind of place is this?  Even for a nightmare it’s totally barbaric and terrifying.

I have to get out of here!  I can’t stand the thought of being caught by these scary men!  I step back, ever so gently.  Oh no!  I hear the crack, as I feel a large twig breaking under my heal.  It’s enough.  I see the heads of several men turn towards me.  They start to move as do I.  I run, run as fast as I can, leaping undergrowth that would trip me.  I’m not fast enough!  I hear the progress of men crashing through the wood, to the left, to the right, behind me.  I hear the ragged breathing of a man close up behind me.  He’s nearly got me.  What am I going to do?  Come on alarm clock!  Wake me up!  It’s got to be morning.  One wakes from even the worst nightmare at the point where it becomes too horrific to contemplate.  Get me out of this terrible dream right now...please…  Pretty please!

---

[1]     US: Vacations

[2]     US: Apartment

[3]     U.S.: Movie