Zork
Peony D Beckside
In
appreciation of, and with thanks to John Norman for creating the wonderful
world of Gor, in which this story is set.
Chapter One: Introduction
My name is Zork. I am what you puny ones call a Kur, Kurii in plural. Actually my name is longer than that, and much more meaningful. You puny ones however cannot pronounce my full name, your vocal cords and lineaments of your mouths make it impossible. Zork then will have to do.
I did think that I should eat the blue-coated puny one that
travelled with me from the village. Yes,
I gave my word, to him, but he’s just a puny one. Is one’s word to a bosk, a sleen, a tarsk, a
verr, valid? Why did I hesitate? I think that it was because he showed no
fear, unlike the rest of the villagers.
Unlike too, the red coated ones, the ones that carry weapons. That spoke to me of courage. I was curious about him, perhaps as curious
as he seemed to be about me. Yes, the
blue-coated one is what I take to be a male of the puny ones; a lesser male,
not as powerful as a red-coated one; but in his community valued as much.
The blue-coated one says that his name is Cadmus. Simple, straightforward, direct. Among the puny ones, complexity of name doesn’t
seem to carry with it connotations of power or value.
The function of this Cadmus, indeed apparently all
blue-coated puny ones, seems to revolve round adding marks to scrolls of paper
or vellum, and interpreting similar marks already there. Why this should be important I cannot quite
understand.
I am on a journey. Before
leaving the Steel Worlds, I had heard that there is a group of my kind forming
in the North-East of the main landmass of the planet; in a place the puny ones
call Torvaldsland. I would join them. Whether they can help me get back to the
Steel Worlds or not, is unimportant. It
will be good to be among my own kind once again. It will be a long journey.
Cadmus, for his own reasons has made it clear that he would
accompany me, if I have no objections. I for my part would welcome some
company, even if it is just a puny one.
Besides, since this world seems to be full of puny ones, there might be
circumstances where this puny one can better handle a situation that my kind of
response might exacerbate.
I hunt, Cadmus cooks and ensures that our camping places are
safe and as comfortable as possible. The best eating seems to be the
four-legged, one horned, prancing beast; Cadmus calls it a ‘tabuk’. He will not cook or eat one of the puny
ones. Indeed he seems upset if I bring
in the body of one such. He tells me
that it’s wrong to eat puny ones, that it’s dishonourable to do so. I can’t quite see the dishonour in eating
puny ones, really. As a Kur, I can eat
almost any animal. The part vegetable
diet that puny ones seem to eat, whilst not poisonous to us, does not provide
us with any nutrients, nor is it pleasing to eat.
If tabuk or other game is not available then hunting puny
ones becomes necessary. The female ones
are preferable. The meat is softer and
sweeter. They are easier to catch than
the males. They freeze in terror whereas
the males often try to fight back. I
prefer the females that wear the skimpiest coats, though I have to be careful
not to break my teeth on the metal band around their throats. Why they have a metal band round their
throats, I can’t yet understand. The
other females all seem to wear a ridiculous number of coats. It takes forever
to tear the coats away so as to get at the meat. Cadmus however would rather go hungry than
eat another puny one.
I don’t really need to stop as the sun goes down. As a Kur, my senses are just as sharp at
night as during the day. Even a Kur
needs rest from time to time. It’s as
easy to fall into the diurnal routine that puny ones seem to need.
In the evenings after eating, Cadmus gets out paper and
marking sticks. I talk, Cadmus listening
to the output from my translation device draws marks representing what I am
saying, onto the paper, at least until the light fades too much for him to be
able to do that.. For his point of view,
he seems to want to record everything about me and my journey, or at least as
much as I am prepared to tell him. From
my perspective, I recognise that there’s a strong probability that I won’t make
it to Torvaldsland. I would not want my
story lost with a pointless death somewhere in the middle of this barbarous
planet. Even if it has to be translated
from the scrawlings of the puny ones, on the paper marked by Cadmus. At least if the worst comes to the worst,
there will be a record. One day when we
have conquered this planet, one of my kind will know of me, and of what
happened to me.
I have told Cadmus that I will speak. He will write what he hears from my
translation device, verbatim. Thus it is
as if it were I who had marked the paper myself. He also understands that I will speak in the
present, telling past events as happening now, until my story catches up with
the present.
My story begins now:
Chapter Two: Arrival On A Barbarous World
I am the supervisor of the Kur general cargo space vessel ‘Gold
Fang’, en-route from the other world of puny ones, the one with the dirty air,
the huge sprawling settlements, the flying and crawling machines, to this
present world. The puny ones call it
Gor, short for Tor-tu-gor, ‘light on the home-stone’. We have a cargo of anaesthetised female puny
ones. Our agents on Gor sell them to
fund their activities on our behalf. There are other items, even some that are
considered on Gor as forbidden. Some
puny ones are prepared to risk our enemies, the Priest Kings, finding out;
death to the user then being inevitable.
No matter how careful we are in our approach, the
surveillance of the Priest Kings is extremely vigilant. In order to avoid being seen, we find it
necessary on this occasion to put down some ten pasangs short of our intended
landing site, as distances are measured here on Gor. I decide that we will wait for a couple of
Ahn before moving off towards the original meeting point with our agents.
Needing to defecate, I disembark and head for a nearby copse
of trees. Yes, we Kur do need to urinate
and defecate too. I do not need the
trees out of modesty, but do not want to leave obvious signs of our passing
here in the open. The puny ones have
trained the six-legged animals they call sleen to track any enemy, or one of
their females, even us. These sleen are
indefatigable, and even though we fly on to the rendezvous, they might be
capable of casting around and picking up my trail at that point.
I have just finished my business, when I hear a shearing,
slicing sound and the screams of the puny one crew of the ship. I see a Priest King ship dissecting my ship
with a beam that seems to evaporate the metal.
There’s nothing I can do, nothing that will not lose me my life. I stay still where I am in the copse. The
Priest King ship moves off, leaving me alone on the surface, with only my light
ship-clothes. Stupidly I’ve not picked
up my weapons, deeming me not needing such for a simple bowel evacuation.
I take stock of my situation.
I can make my way to Torvaldsland.
Eating will not be a problem; I can hunt. As I understand it, a stranded Kur will not
be hunted by the Priest Kings as long as I abide by their anti-technology
edicts. If I don’t try to make or use a
forbidden tool or weapon, I will be safe from them. Individual puny ones away
from settlements won’t be a problem. The
red-coated ones can be surprisingly fast and could injure me, but given my
superior speed, strength, bulk and increased sensitivity I doubt a single one
could kill me. More than one though
could be dangerous. Even I could not
survive a meeting with an army! As for
the rest of the puny ones, simply growling at a smallish party would have them
running away. They will however, like a
swarm of gitches[1]
defend a village or other settlement fiercely. Even I might not survive that.
I know that this planet revolves to the east. The sun therefore appearing to rise in the
east and set in the west. It doesn’t
take long to ascertain which direction the sun is travelling to identify the
cardinal navigation directions based on the polar axes. Navigating by compass, even if I had one is
not as easy as it seems since the magnetic pole is in the Sardar Mountains, the
home of the Priest Kings.
I know not precisely where on the planet I am, but I think I
am in the southern hemisphere. That kind
of menial task was handled by the ship’s puny ones, I considering this minutiae
unimportant. I wish now I had taken more
notice. No matter. I shall move north and east, correcting
direction as and when new information comes to me. I know that there are no major south to north
rivers on this landmass of the planet, though there are several, and very large
ones, running generally east to west. I
shall have to find ways to cross these, as and when I come to them.
I have been loping gently on all four paws for three or four
Gorean ahn when I begin to feel hungry. I’ve seen little by way of game. There was a tabuk, but it was almost on the
horizon. From a nearby start-point, I
can outrun a tabuk, but not one with this kind of a start. No matter.
Here’s something! It’s
a puny one. This one wears a red
coat. He, yes I’m sure it’s a ‘he’, is
well-muscled. He carries with him a
small bag, various accoutrements attached to a leather belt, a sharply pointed
stick and what looks like a (to him) long knife held in some kind of leather
retainer hanging from the his belt. This
puny one is alert. He knows that I am
close by when I’m still several steps away, even though I approach from behind
him. He spins rapidly to face me, his
sharp stick raised. I rush at him. He doesn’t flinch, run away, or cower before
my bulk and speed. Instead he leaps to
attack me! He is fast. I only just manage to deflect the stick
before it pierces me. He pulls the long
knife from its holder and approaches again, slashing. He fights bravely and fiercely. He even manages to scratch me with the knife
before I am within the circle of effectiveness of his weapon. My teeth close on his throat. The taste of his blood awakens in me a kind
of lustful remembrance of past fights. I
feel glad that I am alive, and that I have gained a victory, even a small one,
given the size of the puny one.
I do not yet have the means to make a fire, so as to cook the
puny one. I eat him raw. His meat is not that pleasant, tough and
stringy, but needs must.
I examine the puny one’s weapons and other belongings. I see no use for the cloth that the puny one
had wrapped himself in. In his bag I
find a small metal box. Inside it is a
lint-like substance, a piece of rock and a small metal rod. I think this is some kind of fire-making
apparatus. I don’t know if with my
digits, I can use this. I will study it
later. I slip the box into a pocket in
my shipsuit.
In one of the belt pouches I find several small disks of
metal. These I believe are ‘coins’, a
way of transferring the value of one’s work to another location, allowing the
obtaining of necessities and luxuries when away from where such have been
earned. I see no immediate use for them,
but perhaps later in my journey I might.
I add these to another shipsuit pocket.
The warrior’s long knife, in my hand is little more than
something the puny one’s would use to peel and cut the vegetable substances
they pull from beneath the ground.
Still, even a small knife is better than no knife at all. The sharp stick again is rather small in my
hand, something akin to what the puny one women use in the making and care of
cloth garments. I take both, as I move
on.
Several days later I am in an area where there seems to be
very little by way of game. I am
becoming quite hungry.
I almost stumble onto a place. A puny-one site with several angular
habitations. That I do not smell this
place is purely down to the fact that the wind is coming from behind me. Why the puny one’s of this place don’t
therefore smell me, I don’t know.
Perhaps, like I’d learned while journeying in the space vessel, the
olfactory equipment of puny ones is nothing like as efficient as mine.
They have seen me; heard me, or smelt me. A sizeable group of male puny one’s are
gathering. Many carry farm implements,
others sharp sticks similar to mine.
Others have long knives similar to the one I ‘liberated’ from the slain
and eaten warrior. Whether they know how
to use them, more than I do, is another matter. Behind them there are several
female puny ones. I smell the fear in
the members of this group, particularly that of the females. Some of the females wail and even
scream. What that’s intended to do I don’t
really understand. I turn up the input
sensitivity of my translator box, to try and gauge from what’s said what the
intention of the group is. Are they
going to attack me, or simply hope that by a show of force I’ll be driven away.
I hear one voice from among them, it comes from the blue
coated one.
“Wait! This is no
ordinary beast! Look it wears
clothes. It carries weapons. What bosk, tharlarion or kaiila does
that? We have to consider that this
beast is intelligent!”
I don’t know if I’m offended by that comment. Of course I’m intelligent. More intelligent, I’m sure than these puny
ones. That most except the blue coated
ones think me nothing more than a dumb animal is insulting! At least the blue coated one is ‘giving me
the benefit of the doubt’.
“I will go and see if I can figure out what it wants.”
It! Is that how they
see me? A mere thing?
I hear other comments from the crowd. ‘He’ll get himself killed!’ ‘Stupid fool’, even ‘Good riddance, what do
we need a scribe for anyway!’
The blue coated one walks towards me. He has no smell of fear. Among his kind I think he is brave, perhaps
as brave as the red coated one. More-so
maybe since he has no weapons, and by his standards I am one big potential
threat.
“I think that you are no ordinary beast, friend. I don’t know if you can understand me. If you can, I would speak with you…”
I speak, the translator device giving out a series of noises
that equate to what I wish to say, in the words that this puny one will
understand. The translator is limited in
its vocabulary, grammar, and doesn’t give much by way of nuances, but it does
have the ability to store new terms and idioms, effectively to ‘learn’.
“How do you know that I won’t eat you?”
He stares at the translator, nodding his head. I think it’s a sign he’s understanding the
purpose of the device. He responds
“I don’t, but were you a mere beast you would already be
eating me…”
I laugh. My laugh is
not like a human one. I sense that the
rest of the puny ones are even more frightened. This one gives off a series of
rhythmic sounds that the translator cannot recognise. It doesn’t sound like the whining that some
of the puny ones are giving off. The
outer part of his mouth curl upwards, his teeth just showing. I tentatively decide that he is laughing along
with me.
“My name is Cadmus. Do
you have a name I may call you?”
“You may call me Zorksprinrtovnickan.”
He tries to repeat, but it’s clear he’s having trouble
pronouncing my name.
“May I call you Zork, for short?”
“You may.”
“Thank you, Zork.”
My translator can give me no equivalent to the words ‘Thank
you’. I take it to be some form of
appreciation.
“Why have you come here, Zork?”
“The hunting has been poor. I am hungry.
This is a place of cattle, even if they are the two-legged variety.”
This ‘Cadmus’ shrinks back.
“Cattle? Is that
how you see us, as mere food animals? We
are intelligent. We are not unthinking,
unreasoning beasts! If you want food, we
can give you grain, root vegetables, suls, etc.”
“My kind cannot digest vegetable matter, we must have
meat. I do not require much, one of your
smaller number, a female would do. The
ones with a metal band round their neck are easier to unwrap. Female puny-one meat is sweeter then male.”
Despite his apparent shock that we Kurii eat human flesh, he
gives the rhythmic sound that I think is laughing.
“I’ll give your request to the villagers, but I think I
know what they will say. They are rather
fond of their kajirae!”
Cadmus wanders back to the increasing crowd. I listen in on what’s being said.
“His name is Zork.
At least I think he is a male of his species. He is hungry.
The difficulty is that his kind is unable to eat grain or other
vegetable matter. He needs meat. Unfortunately his kind doesn’t see humans as
being different to bosk, tarsks, verr, etc.
He requests that you…”
Interesting that he uses the word ‘you’, not ‘we’, as if
somehow he is not part of this ‘herd’.
“...give him one of you, ideally a female, a kajira.”
There is much grumbling and anger. Shouts of ‘Let us rush him, chase him away’. At the back I hear the shrill voice of one of
the females, a multi-wrapped one.
“Yes! Give him
what he wants. Give him a
slave-girl. We don’t need all of the
sluts! Give him that she-sleen ‘Andrea’.
There seems to be some kind of antipathy between the heavily
swathed females and the lightly garbed ones. A deeper male voice, one who I
sense has some authority in this group of cattle, silences this female.
“Silence Glynnia!”
He pauses to think.
“Our kajirae are not cattle, as we are not. We will not give up one of our number, not
even a kajira…”
I tense ready in case they decide to attack. Nor will I leave here without food.
“…Do you think that if we give it a tarsk that will
satisfy it?”
“I’ll ask...”
From behind this apparent leader, another calls.
“How do we know it will leave if we give it what it wants
as food? How do we know we can trust it?”
“Good point. Cadmus?”
“I’ll take your proposal and see what Zork says.”
Cadmus returns.
“They…”
“It’s fine, Cadmus.
I heard what they propose. Make
it two tarsks, one roasted to eat now, one butchered, salted, and ready to go,
and they have a deal.”
“You will leave then?
You have a sense of honour. You
hold to a code, where when you say you will do something, you do it? You don’t lie?”
“From what I have observed of you puny ones, I suspect
that the honour of my kind is stronger and more binding than that of your
species. I will honour my word. I will leave this place after eating.”
“Never to return?”
“Never to return.”
“I will carry your terms to the village head-man.”
“You will join me in feasting on roast tarsk?”
“Why thank you, Zork!
Yes. I would know more about you
and your kind!”
“Likewise, Cadmus.
I shall wait here. If the puny
one’s would bring the two tarsks to that rock over there, I will join you
there, then.”
“Until later, then Zork!”
Cadmus departs to discuss my offer. I listen in.
This head-man grumbles, but agrees.
He gives orders to several men, and also to some of the lightly clad
females. The females, while still
cautious, are no longer terrified that they might be fed to me.
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