Post by adreannaTal{fb} on Jan 4, 2011 16:05:27 GMT -5
~Tarnsman of Gor~
Written by John Norman
(copy right 1966 by John Lange)
(Ballantine Books, Inc.)
~Back Cover~
Here is the magnificent world of Gor, known also as Counter-Earth, a planet as strangely populated, as threatening, as beautiful as any you are likely to encounter in the great works of fiction. We predict that one day the name of John Norman will be counted among the top writers of sword and sorcery. This is the beginning. Don't miss it.
~Inside~
Tarl Cabot was of Earth. Or at least so he had believed for all of his twenty-odd years. He had no inkling of the fantastic event that was to occur one winter's night in the frosty woods of America's New England.
Nothing had prepared him for the great wild tarns that screamed across an alien sky, for the dreaded, omniscient Priest-Kings of the Sardar Mountains, for the Scribes and Warriors and Slaves and Assassins of Gor.
Yet Tarl was the chosen one--the one picked out of millions, to be trained and schooled and disciplined by the best teachers, swordsmen, bowmen of Gor. Toward what end, what mission, what purpose?
Only Gor--Counter-Earth--held the answer.
~Quotations from the book, Tarnsman of Gor~
********************************************************************************************
“I trudged along for the better part of two hours before I finally yielded to the weight of the pack. I ate a cold lunch and was on my way again, getting deeper into the mountains….That evening I dropped my pack near a rock platform and set about gathering some wood for a fire. I had gone a bit from my makeshift camp when I stopped, startled for a moment. Something in the darkness, to the left, lying on the ground, seemed to be glowing. It held a calm, hazy blue radiance. I put down the wood I had gathered and approached the object, more curious than anything else. It appeared to be a rectangular metal envelope, rather thin, not much larger than the normal envelope one customarily uses for correspondence. I touched it; it seemed to be hot. My hair rose on the back of my head; my eyes widened. I read, in a rather archaic English script inscribed on the envelope, two words—my name, Tarl Cabot.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 12 & 13~
“I handled the envelope carefully, puzzled, trying to determine if it might be opened. There was a small circle on the back of the envelope, and in the circle seemed to be the print of a thumb………I carefully placed my right thumb on the impression in the envelope, pressing down firmly. It answered to my touch, as I had expected it to, as I had feared it would. Perhaps only one man could open that envelope—he whose print fitted the strange lock, he whose name was Tarl Cabot.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 15 & 16~
"I saw the ship descend. For a moment it looked like a falling star, but then it suddenly became clear and substantial, like a broad, thick disc of silver. It was silent and settled on the rock platform, scarcely disturbing the light snow that was scattered on it. There was a slight wind in the pine needles, and I rose to my feet. As I did so, a door in the side of the ship slid quietly upward. I must go in. My father's words recurred in my memory: “The fate is upon you.” Before entering the ship, I stopped at the side of the large, flat rock on which it rested. I bent down and scooped up, as my father had asked, a handful of our green earth. I, too, felt that it was important to take something with me, something which, in a way, was my native soil. The soil of my planet, my world."
~Tarnsman of Gor, Pages 20 & 21~
“Obviously, I was breathing, and that meant necessarily an atmosphere containing a large percentage of oxygen. It must be the earth. But as I stood at the window, I knew that this could not be my mother planet. The building in which I found myself was apparently one of an indefinite number of towers, like endless flat cylinders of varying sizes and colors, joined by narrow, colorful bridges that arched lightly between them……
Wondering at my predicament, I turned back to the table. I strode over to it, and nearly bruised my thigh on the stone structure. I felt for a moment as though I must have stumbled, have been dizzy. I walked around the room. I leaped to the top of the table almost as I would have climbed a stair in the alumni house. It was different, a different movement. Less gravity. It had to be. The planet, then, was smaller than our earth, and, given the apparent size of the sun, perhaps somewhat closer to it.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 23~
"I learned later that on this alien world a strong man may feel and express emotions, and that the hypocrisy of constraint is not honored on this planet as it is on mine."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 25~
“Gor," he said, "is the name of this world. In all the languages of this planet, the word means Home Stone." He paused, noting my lack of comprehension. "Home Stone," he repeated. "Simply that.
"In peasant villages on this world," he continued, "each hut was originally built around a flat stone which was placed in the center of the circular dwelling. It was carved with the family sign and was called the Home Stone. It was, so to speak, a symbol of sovereignty, or territory, and each peasant, m his own hut, was a sovereign."
"Later," said my father, "Home Stones were used for villages, and later still for cities. The Home Stone of a village was always placed in the market; in a city, on the top of the highest tower. The Home Stone came naturally, in time, to acquire a mystique, and something of the same hot, sweet emotions as our native peoples of Earth feel toward their flags became invested in it."
My father had risen to his feet and had begun to pace the room, and his eyes seemed strangely alive. In time I would come to understand more of what he felt. Indeed, there is a saying on Gor, a saying whose origin is lost in the past of this strange planet, that one who speaks of Home Stones should stand, for matters of honor are here involved, and honor is respected in the barbaric codes of Gor.
"These stones," said my father, "are various, of different colors, shapes, and sizes, and many of them are intricately carved. Some of the largest cities have small, rather insignificant Home Stones, but of incredible antiquity, dating back to the time when the city was a village or only a mounted pride of warriors with no settled abode."
My father paused at the narrow window in the circular room and looked out onto the hills beyond and fell silent.
At last he spoke again.
"Where a man sets his Home Stone, he claims, by law, that land for himself. Good land is protected only by the swords of the strongest owners in the vicinity."
"Swords?" I asked.
"Yes," said my father, as if there were nothing incredible in this admission. He smiled.
"You have much to learn of Gor," he said. "Yet there is a hierarchy of Home Stones, one might say, and two soldiers who would cut one another down with their steel blades for an acre of fertile ground would fight side by side to the death for the Home Stone of their village or of the city within whose ambit their village lies."
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 26 & 27~
"As he spoke, my father often referred to the planet Gor as the Counter-Earth, taking the name from the writings of the Pythagoreans who had first speculated on the existence of such a body. Oddly enough, one of the expressions in the tongue of Gor for our sun was Lar-Torvis, which means The Central Fire, another Pythagorean expression, except that it had not been, as I understand it, originally used by the Pythagoreans to refer to the sun but to another body. The more common expression for the sun was Tor-tu-Gor, which means Light Upon the Home Stone. There was a sect among the people that worshipped the sun, I later learned, but it was insignificant both in numbers and power when compared with the worship of the Priest-Kings who, whatever they were, were accorded the honours of divinity. Theirs, it seems, was the honor of being enshrined as the most ancient gods of Gor, and in time of danger a prayer to the Priest-Kings might escape the lips of even the bravest men."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 28~
“My speculation, however,” said my father, “is that the Priest-Kings are indeed men—men much as we, or humanoid organisms of some type—who possess a science and technology as far beyond our normal ken as that of our own twentieth century would be to the alchemists and astrologers of the medieval universities.”………
“The Priest-Kings," said my father, “Maintain the Sacred Place in the Sardar Mountains, a wild vastness into which no man penetrates. The Sacred Place, to the minds of most men here, is taboo, perilous. Surely none have returned from those mountains.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 29 & 30~
"That," he said with animation, "is the Theory of the Sun Shield." He added. "That is why I like to think of the planet as the Counter-Earth, not only because of its resemblance to our native world, but because, as a matter of fact, it is placed as a counterpoise to the Earth. It has the same plane of orbit and maintains its orbit in such a way as always to keep The Central Fire between it and its planetary sister, our Earth, even though this necessitates occasional adjustments in its speed of revolution."
"But surely," I protested, "its existence could be discovered. One can't hide a planet the size of the Earth in our own solar system! It's impossible!"
"You underestimate the Priest-Kings and their science," said my father, smiling. "Any power that is capable of moving a planet--and I believe the Priest-Kings possess this power--is capable of effecting adjustments in the motion of the plant, such adjustments as might allow it to use the sun indefinately as a concealing shield".
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 33 & 34~
“The Goreans I had seen in the past few weeks had tended to be meticulous in their dress, taking great pride in their appearance”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 37~
"His desk, a vast wooden table, was piled with papers and pots of ink, and pens and scissors and leather fasteners and binders. There was no square foot of the chamber that did not contain racks of scrolls, and others, hundreds perhaps, were piled like cord wood here and there."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 37~
"One of the most interesting was the Translator, which could be set for various languages. Whereas there was a main common tongue on Gor, with apparently several related dialects or sublanguages, some of the Gorean languages bore in sound little resemblance to anything I had heard before, at least as languages; they resembled rather the cries of birds and the growls of animals; they were sounds I knew could not have been produced by a human throat. Although the machines could be set for various languages, one term of the translation symmetry, at least in the machines I saw, was always Gorean.
If I set the machine to, say, Language A and spoke Gorean into it, it would, after a fraction of a second, emit a succession of noises, which was the translation of my Gorean sentences into A. On the other hand, a new succession of noises in A would be received by the machine and emitted as a message in Gorean. My father, to my delight, had taped one of these translation devices with English, and accordingly it was a most useful tool in working out equivalent phrases. Also, of course, he and Torm worked intensively with me. The machine, however, particularly to Torm's relief, allowed me to practice on my own. These translation machines are a marvel of miniaturization, each of them, about the size of a portable typewriter, being programmed for four non-Gorean languages.
The translations, of course, are rather literal, and the vocabulary is limited to recognitions of only about 25,000equivalencies for each language. Accordingly, for subtle communication or the fullest expression of thought, the machine was inferior to a skilled linguist. The machine, however, according to my father, retained the advantage that its mistakes would not be intentional, and that its translations, even if inadequate, would be honest."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 39~
"The Code of the Warrior was, in general, characterized by a rudimentary chivalry, emphasizing loyalty to Pride Chiefs and the Home Stone. It was harsh, but with a certain gallantry, a sense of honor that I could respect. A man could do worse then live by such a code."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 41~
"I was also instructed in the Double Knowledge--that is, I was instructed in what the intellectuals were expected to know. Sometimes there was a surprising discrepancy between the two. For example, the population as a whole, the castes below the High Castes, were encouraged to believe that their world was a broad flat disc. Perhaps this was to discourage them from exploration or to develop in them a habit of relying on common-sense prejudices--something of a social control device.
On the other hand, the High Castes, specifically the Warriors, Builders, Scribes, Initiates and Physicians, were told the truth in such matters, perhaps because it was thought they would eventually determine it for themselves, from observations such as the shadow of their planet on one or another of Gor's three small moons during eclipses, the phenomenon of sighting the tops of distant objects first, and the fact that certain stars could not be seen from certain geographical positions; if the planet had been flat, precisely the same set of stars would have been observable from every position on its surface.
I wondered, however, if the Second Knowledge, that of the intellectuals, might not be as carefully tailored to preclude inquiry on their level as the First Knowledge apparently was to preclude inquiry on the level of the Lower Castes. I would guess that there is a Third Knowledge, that reserved to the Priest-Kings."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 41~
"The Caste structure,” said my father patiently, with perhaps a trace of a smile on his face “is relatively immobile, but not frozen, and depends on more than birth. For example, if a child in his schooling shows that he can raise Caste, as the expression is, he is permitted to do so. But, similarly, if a child does not show the aptitude expected of his Caste, whether it be, say, that of the physician or warrior, he is lowered in Caste."
~Tarnsman of Gor page 42~
"The High Castes in a given city elect an administrator and council for stated terms. In times of crisis, a war chief, or Ubar, is named, who rules without check and by decree until, in his judgment, the crisis is passed….Those who do not desire to surrender their power, are usually deserted by their men. The offending war chief is simply abandoned."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 42~
"Economically, the base of the Gorean life was the free peasant, which was perhaps the lowest but undoubtedly the most fundamental caste, and the staple crop was a yellow grain called Sa-Tarna, or Life-Daughter." ~Tarnsman of Gor, page 43~
"Interestingly enough, the word for meat is Sa-Tassna, which means Life-Mother. Incidentally, when one speaks of food in general, one always speaks of Sa-Tassna.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 43 & 44~
"The Scribes, of course, are the scholars and clerks of Gor, and there are divisions and rankings within the group, from simple copiers to the savants of the city."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 44~
"On the whole, I liked the people I met, and I was confident that they were largely of Earth stock, that their ancestors had been brought to the planet in Voyages of Acquisition. Apparently, after having been brought to the planet, they had simply been released, much as animals might be released in a forest preserve, or fish stocked free in a river."
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 44 & 45~
"Earth origin, incidentally, was not a part of the First Knowledge, though it was of the Second."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 45~
“I did learn, casually, from a Scribe, not Torm, that slaves were not permitted to impart instruction to a free man, since it would place him in their debt, and nothing was owed to a slave.”
~Tarnsman page 46~
“He entered my apartment, carrying a metal rod about two feet long, with a leather loop attached. It had a switch in the handle, which could be set in two positions, on and off, like a simple torch. He wore another such instrument slung from his belt. “This is not a weapon,” he said. “It is not to be used as a weapon.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A tarn-goad,” he replied. He snapped the switch in the barrel to the “on” position and struck the table. It showered sparks in a sudden cascade of yellow light, but left the table unmarked. He turned off the goad and extended it to me. As I reach for it, he snapped it on and slapped it into my palm. A billion tiny ywllow stars, like pieces of fiery needles, seemed to explode in my hand and I cried out in shock. I thrust my hand to my mouth . It had been like a sudden, severe electric charge, like the striking of a snake in my hand. I examined my hand, it was unhurt. “Be careful of a tarn-goad,” said the Older Tarl. “It is not for children.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 50~
"The Goreans believe, incredibly enough, that the capacity to master a tarn is innate and that some men possess this characteristic and that some do not. One does not learn to master a tarn. It is a matter of blood and spirit, of beast and man, of a relation between two beings which must be immediate, intuitive, spontaneous. It is said that a tarn knows who is a tarnsman and who is not, and that those who are not die in this first meeting."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 51~
"Never since the panic of the disoriented compass back in the mountains of New Hampshire had I been so frightened, but this time I refused to allow my fear the fatal inch it required. If I was to die, it would be; if I was not to die, I would not.
I smiled to myself in spite of my fear, amused at the remark I had addressed to myself. It sounded like something out of the code of the Warrior, something which, if taken literally, would seem to encourage its believer to take not the slightest or most sane precautions for his safety. I blew a note on the whistle, and it was shrill and different, of a new pitch from that of the Old Tarl.
Almost immediately from somewhere, perhaps from a ledge out of sight; rose a fantastic object, another giant tarn, even larger than the first, a glossy sable tarn which circled the cylinder once and then wheeled toward me, landing a few feet away, his talons striking on the roof with a sound like hurled gauntlets. His talons were shod with steel - a war tarn. He raised his curved beak to the sky and screamed, lifting and shaking his wings. His enormous head turned toward me, and his round, wicked eyes blazed in my direction. The next thing I knew his beak was open; I caught a brief sight of his thin, sharp tongue, as long as a man's arm; darting out and back, and then, snapping at me, he lunged forward, striking at me with that monstrous beak, and I heard the Older Tarl cry out in horror, "The goad! The goad!"
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 53~
“I shouted to my tarn, in Gorean and in English. “Har-ta! Har-ta! Faster! Faster!”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 57~
"The pasang is a measure of distance on Gor equivalent approximately to .7 of a mile."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 58~
“The older Tarl and I may have drunk too much of that fermented brew concocted with fiendish skill from the yellow grain, Sa-Tarna, and called Pagar_Sa_Tarna, Pleasure of the Life-Daughter, but almost always “Paga” for short. I doubted that I would ever touch the stuff again.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 61~
"The Chamber of the Council is the room in which the elected representatives of the High Castes of Ko-ro-ba hold their meetings. Each city has such a chamber.………Benches of stone, on which the members of the Council sat, rose in five monumental tiers about the walls, one tier for each of the High Castes.…………..The tier nearest the floor, which denoted some preferential status, the white tier, was occupied by Initiates, Interpreters of the Will of the Priest-Kings. In order, the ascending tiers, blue, yellow, green, and red, were occupied by representatives of the Scribes, Builders, Physicians, and Warriors."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 61 & 62~
“I removed my helmet, feeling proud as I heard the approval of the Council, both in voice and by Gorean applause, the quick, repeated striking of the left shoulder with the palm of the right hand. Aside from candidates for the status of Warrior, none of my caste was permitted to enter the Council armed. Had they bee armed, my caste brothers in the last tier would have struck their spear blades on their shields. As it was, they smote their shoulders in the civilian manner.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 63~
“Thentis is a city famed for it’s tarn flocks and remote in the mountains from which the city takes its name.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 67~
“The Home Stone of Ar, like most Home Stones in the cylinder cities, was kept free on the tallest tower, as if in open defiance of the tarnsmen of rival cities. It was, of course, kept well-guarded and at the first sign of serious danger would undoubtedly be carried to safety. Any attempt on the Home Stone was regarded by the citizens of a city as sacrilege of the most heinous variety and punishable by the most painful of deaths, but, paradoxically, it was regarded as the greatest of glories to purloin the Home Stone of another city, and the warrior who managed this was acclaimed, accorded the highest honors of the city, and was believed to be favored by the Priest-Kings themselves.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 67 & 68~
"The Home Stone of a city is the center of various rituals. The next would be the Planting Feast of Sa-Tarna, The Life-Daughter, celebrated early in the season to insure a good harvest. This is a complex feast, celebrated by most Gorean cities, and the observances are numerous and intricate. The details of the rituals are arranged and mostly executed by the Initiates of a given city."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 68~
“During the day I freed my tarn, to allow him to feed as he would. They are diurnal hunters and eat only what they catch themselves, usually one of the fleet Gorean antelopes or a wild bull, taken on the run and lifted in the monstrous talons to a high place, where it is torn to pieces and devoured. Needless to say, tarns are a threat to any living matter that is luckless enough to fall within the shadow of their wings, even human beings.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 73
“I kept my course by the luminescent dial of my gor compass, the needle of which pointed always to the Sardar Mountain Range, home of the Priest-Kings.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 73~
"When I opened my eyes, I found myself partially adhering to a vast network of broad, elastic strands that formed a structure, perhaps a pasang in width, and through which at numerous points projected the monstrous trees of the swamp forest. I felt the network, or web, tremble, and I struggled to rise, but found myself unable to gain my feet. My flesh adhered to the adhesive substance of the broad strands. Approaching me, stepping daintily for all its bulk, prancing over the strands, came one of the Swamp Spiders of Gor. I fastened my eyes on the blue sky, wanting it to be the last thing I looked upon. I shuddered as the beast paused near me, and I felt the light stroke of its forelegs, felt the tactile investigation of the sensory hairs of its appendages. I looked at it, and it peered down, with its four pairs of pearly eyes—quizzically, I thought. Then, to my astonishment, I heard a mechanically reproduced sound say, “Who are you?”
……..The monstrous insect bent near me and I caught sight of the mandibles, like curves knives. I tensed myself for the sudden lateral chopping of those pincers like jaws. Instead, saliva or some related type of secretion or exudate was being applied to the web in my vicinity, which loosened its adhesive grip. When freed, I was lifted lightly in the mandibles and carried to the edge of the web, where the spider seized a hanging strand and scurried downward, placing me on the ground. He then backed away from me on his eight legs, but never taking the pearly gaze of his several eyes from me.
“I will not hurt you. The Spider People do not hurt rational creatures.”
“I am grateful for that,” I said.
The next remark took my breath away.
“Was it you who stole the Home Stone of Ar?”
I paused, then, being confident the creature had no love for the men of Ar, answered affirmatively.
“That is pleasing to me,” said the insect, “for the men of Ar do not behave well towards the Spider People. They hunt us and leave only enough of us alive to spin the Cur-lon Fibre used in the mills of Ar. If they were not rational creatures, we would fight them.”
~ Tarnsman ofGor, pages 80 - 83~
"I regarded the daughter of the Ubar, now a sorry sight. Her Robes of Concealment were splattered with mud and marsh water, and in several places the heavy brocade had stiffened and cracked. The dominant colors of her Robes of Concealment were subtle reds, yellows and purples, arrayed in intricate, overlapping folds. I guessed it would have taken her slave girls hours to array her in such garments. Many of the free women of Gor and almost always those of High Caste wear the Robes of Concealment, though, of course, their garments are seldom as complex or splendidly wrought as those of a Ubar's daughter. The Robes of Concealment, in function, resemble the garments of Muslim women on my own planet, though they are undoubtedly more intricate and cumbersome. Normally, of men, only a father and a husband may look upon the woman unveiled. In the barbaric world of Gor, the Robes of Concealment are deemed necessary to protect the women from the binding fibers of roving tarnsmen. Few warriors will risk their lives to capture a woman, who may be as ugly as a tharlarion. Better to steal slaves, where the guilt is less and the charms of the captive are more readily ascertainable in advance."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 87~
"......to my astonishment, the daughter of the Ubar Marlenus, daughter of the Ubar of Ar, knelt before me, a simple warrior of Ko-ro-ba, and lowered her head, lifting and extending her arms, the wrists crossed. It was that same simple ceremony that Sana had performed before me in the chamber of my father, back at Ko-ro-ba--the submission of the captive female. Without raising her eyes from the ground, the daughter of the Ubar said in a clear, distinct voice: "I submit myself."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 93~
“I wish you well, “ said Nar, using a common Gorean phrase of farewell."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 94~
“I threw her to my feet. She tried frantically to readjust the folds of her veil, but with both hands I tore it fully away, and she lay at my feet as it is said on Gor, face-stripped.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 98~
"Unresisting, the girl extended her wrists, and the soldier snapped slave bracelets on them—light, restraining bracelets of gold and blue stones that might have served as jewelry if it had not been for their function."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 102~
“I can force you to take me," she said.
"How?" I asked.
"Like this," she responded, kneeling before me, lowering her head and lifting her arms, the wrists crossed. She laughed. "Now you must take me with you or slay me,” she said, "and I know you cannot slay me.” I cursed her, for she took unfair advantage of the Warrior Codes of Gor.
"What is the submission of Talena, the daughter of the Ubar, worth?" I taunted.
"Nothing," she said. "But you must accept it or slay me."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 109~
“It is interesting, incidentally, that in the Gorean language, the word for stranger is the same as the word for enemy.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 110
"Free women on Gor do not travel attended by only a single warrior, not of their own free will."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 113~
“In a minute the rider appeared in view—a fine, bearded warrior with a golden helmet and a tharlarion lance. He drew the riding lizard to a halt a few paces from me. He rode the species of tharlarion called the high tharlarion, which ran on its two back feet in great bounding strides. Its cavernous mouth was lined with long, gleaming teeth. Its two small, ridiculously disproportionate forelegs dangled absurdly in front of its body.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 115~
" Do not harm him," said Kazrak. "He is my sword brother, Tarl of Bristol."
Kazrak's remark was in accord with the strange warrior codes of Gor, codes which were as natural to him as the air he breathed, and codes which I, in the Chamber of the Council of Ko-ro-ba, had sworn to uphold. One who has shed your blood, or whose blood you have shed, becomes your sword brother, unless you formally repudiate the blood on your weapons. It is a part of the kinship of Gorean warriors regardless of what city it is to which they owe their allegiance. It is a matter of caste, an expression of respect for those who share their station and profession, having nothing to do with cities or Home Stones."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 119~
“I am a merchant,” said Mintar, “and it is in my code to see that I am paid.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 121~
"In those days I learned to master the high tharlarion, one of which had been assigned to me by the caravan's tharlarion master. These gigantic lizards had been bred on Gor for a thousand generations before the first tarn was tamed, and were raised from the leathery shell to carry warriors. They responded to voice signals, conditioned into their tiny brains in the training years. Nonetheless, the butt of one's lance, striking about the eye or ear openings, for there are few other sensitive areas in their scaled hides, is occasionally necessary to impress your will on the monster.
The high tharlarions, unlike their draft brethren, the slow-moving, four-footed broad tharlarions, were carnivorous. However, their metabolism was slower than that of a tarn, whose mind never seemed far from food and, if it was available, could consume half its weight in a single day. Moreover, they needed far less water than tarns."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 124~
Then I will show you a love dance," she said happily, "a dance I learned in the Walled Gardens of Ar."
"I should like that," I said, and, as I watched, Talena performed Ar's strangely beautiful dance of passion.
She danced before me for several minutes, her scarlet dancing silks flashing in the firelight, her bare feet, with their belled ankles, striking softly on the carpet. With a last flash of the finger cymbals, she fell to the carpet before me, her breath hot and quick, her eyes blazing with desire. I was at her side, and she was in my arms. Her heart beat wildly against my breast. She looked into my eyes, her lips trembling, the words stumbling but audible.
“Call for the iron,” she said. “Brand me, Master.”
“No, Talena,” I said, kissing her mouth. “No.”
“I want to be owned, “ she whimpered. “I want to belong to you, fully, completely in every way”…..
I fumbled with the collar at her throat, unlocked it, threw it aside.
“You’re free, my love, “ I whispered. “Always free.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 135~
"Talena stepped forth from behind the silk curtain. I had thought she had retired. Instead, she stood before me in the diaphanous, scarlet dancing silks of Gor. She had rouged her lips. My head swam at the sudden intoxicating scent of a wild perfume."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 154~
“Merchants must keep their friends on both sides of the fence, for who knows if Marlenus may not once more sit upon the throne of Ar?”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 159~
“I stopped a hurrying slave girl and inquired the way to the compound…………She spit the coins she carried In her mouth into her hand, and told me what I wanted to know.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 165~
“Normally, the merchant camp, like the better-organized military camps, not the melange that constituted the camp of Pa-Kur is laid out geometrically,
and, night after night, one puts up one's tent in the same relative position. Whereas the military camp is usually laid out in a set of concentric squares, reflecting the fourfold principle of military organization customary on Gor, the merchant camp is laid out in concentric circles, the guards' tents occupying the outermost ring, the craftsmen's, strap-masters', attendants and slaves' quarters occupying inner rings, and the center being reserved for the merchant, his goods, and his body-guard.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 166~
“The Supreme Initiate, as he called himself, raised a spear and set it, like the shield, at his feet. This gesture is a military convention employed by commanders on Gor when calling for a parley or conference. It signifies a truce, literally the temporary putting aside of weapons. In surrender, on the other hand, the shield straps and the shaft of the spear are broken, indicating that the vanquished has disarmed himself and places himself at the mercy of the conqueror.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 187~
"Inside the tunnel, though dim, was not altogether dark, being lit by domelike, wire-protected energy bulbs, spaced in pairs every hundred yards or so. These bulbs, invented more than a century ago by the Caste of Builders, produce a clear, soft light for years without replacement."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 197~
"When I returned to Ko-ro-ba with Talena, a great feast was held and we celebrated our Free Companionship. A holiday was declared, and the city was ablaze with light and song. Shimmering strings of bells pealed in the wind, and festive lanterns of a thousand colors swung from the innumerable flower-strewn bridges. There was shouting, and laughter, and the glorious colors of the castes of Gor mingled equally in the cylinders. Gone for the night was even the distinction of master and slave, and many a wretch in bondage would see the dawn as a free man.
To my delight, even Torm, of the Caste of Scribes, appeared at the tables. I was honored that the little scribe had separated himself from his beloved scrolls long enough to share my happiness, only that of a warrior. He was wearing a new robe and sandals, perhaps for the first time in years. He clasped my hands, and, to my wonder, the little scribe was crying. And then in his joy, he turned to Talena and in gracious salute lifted the symbolic cup of Ka-la-na wine to her beauty.
Talena and I swore to honor that day as long as either of us lived. I have tried to keep that promise, and I know that she has done so as well. That night, that glorious night, was a night of flowers, torches, and Ka-la-na wine, and late, after sweet hours of love, we fell asleep in each other's arms."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 216~
Written by John Norman
(copy right 1966 by John Lange)
(Ballantine Books, Inc.)
~Back Cover~
Here is the magnificent world of Gor, known also as Counter-Earth, a planet as strangely populated, as threatening, as beautiful as any you are likely to encounter in the great works of fiction. We predict that one day the name of John Norman will be counted among the top writers of sword and sorcery. This is the beginning. Don't miss it.
~Inside~
Tarl Cabot was of Earth. Or at least so he had believed for all of his twenty-odd years. He had no inkling of the fantastic event that was to occur one winter's night in the frosty woods of America's New England.
Nothing had prepared him for the great wild tarns that screamed across an alien sky, for the dreaded, omniscient Priest-Kings of the Sardar Mountains, for the Scribes and Warriors and Slaves and Assassins of Gor.
Yet Tarl was the chosen one--the one picked out of millions, to be trained and schooled and disciplined by the best teachers, swordsmen, bowmen of Gor. Toward what end, what mission, what purpose?
Only Gor--Counter-Earth--held the answer.
~Quotations from the book, Tarnsman of Gor~
********************************************************************************************
“I trudged along for the better part of two hours before I finally yielded to the weight of the pack. I ate a cold lunch and was on my way again, getting deeper into the mountains….That evening I dropped my pack near a rock platform and set about gathering some wood for a fire. I had gone a bit from my makeshift camp when I stopped, startled for a moment. Something in the darkness, to the left, lying on the ground, seemed to be glowing. It held a calm, hazy blue radiance. I put down the wood I had gathered and approached the object, more curious than anything else. It appeared to be a rectangular metal envelope, rather thin, not much larger than the normal envelope one customarily uses for correspondence. I touched it; it seemed to be hot. My hair rose on the back of my head; my eyes widened. I read, in a rather archaic English script inscribed on the envelope, two words—my name, Tarl Cabot.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 12 & 13~
“I handled the envelope carefully, puzzled, trying to determine if it might be opened. There was a small circle on the back of the envelope, and in the circle seemed to be the print of a thumb………I carefully placed my right thumb on the impression in the envelope, pressing down firmly. It answered to my touch, as I had expected it to, as I had feared it would. Perhaps only one man could open that envelope—he whose print fitted the strange lock, he whose name was Tarl Cabot.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 15 & 16~
"I saw the ship descend. For a moment it looked like a falling star, but then it suddenly became clear and substantial, like a broad, thick disc of silver. It was silent and settled on the rock platform, scarcely disturbing the light snow that was scattered on it. There was a slight wind in the pine needles, and I rose to my feet. As I did so, a door in the side of the ship slid quietly upward. I must go in. My father's words recurred in my memory: “The fate is upon you.” Before entering the ship, I stopped at the side of the large, flat rock on which it rested. I bent down and scooped up, as my father had asked, a handful of our green earth. I, too, felt that it was important to take something with me, something which, in a way, was my native soil. The soil of my planet, my world."
~Tarnsman of Gor, Pages 20 & 21~
“Obviously, I was breathing, and that meant necessarily an atmosphere containing a large percentage of oxygen. It must be the earth. But as I stood at the window, I knew that this could not be my mother planet. The building in which I found myself was apparently one of an indefinite number of towers, like endless flat cylinders of varying sizes and colors, joined by narrow, colorful bridges that arched lightly between them……
Wondering at my predicament, I turned back to the table. I strode over to it, and nearly bruised my thigh on the stone structure. I felt for a moment as though I must have stumbled, have been dizzy. I walked around the room. I leaped to the top of the table almost as I would have climbed a stair in the alumni house. It was different, a different movement. Less gravity. It had to be. The planet, then, was smaller than our earth, and, given the apparent size of the sun, perhaps somewhat closer to it.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 23~
"I learned later that on this alien world a strong man may feel and express emotions, and that the hypocrisy of constraint is not honored on this planet as it is on mine."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 25~
“Gor," he said, "is the name of this world. In all the languages of this planet, the word means Home Stone." He paused, noting my lack of comprehension. "Home Stone," he repeated. "Simply that.
"In peasant villages on this world," he continued, "each hut was originally built around a flat stone which was placed in the center of the circular dwelling. It was carved with the family sign and was called the Home Stone. It was, so to speak, a symbol of sovereignty, or territory, and each peasant, m his own hut, was a sovereign."
"Later," said my father, "Home Stones were used for villages, and later still for cities. The Home Stone of a village was always placed in the market; in a city, on the top of the highest tower. The Home Stone came naturally, in time, to acquire a mystique, and something of the same hot, sweet emotions as our native peoples of Earth feel toward their flags became invested in it."
My father had risen to his feet and had begun to pace the room, and his eyes seemed strangely alive. In time I would come to understand more of what he felt. Indeed, there is a saying on Gor, a saying whose origin is lost in the past of this strange planet, that one who speaks of Home Stones should stand, for matters of honor are here involved, and honor is respected in the barbaric codes of Gor.
"These stones," said my father, "are various, of different colors, shapes, and sizes, and many of them are intricately carved. Some of the largest cities have small, rather insignificant Home Stones, but of incredible antiquity, dating back to the time when the city was a village or only a mounted pride of warriors with no settled abode."
My father paused at the narrow window in the circular room and looked out onto the hills beyond and fell silent.
At last he spoke again.
"Where a man sets his Home Stone, he claims, by law, that land for himself. Good land is protected only by the swords of the strongest owners in the vicinity."
"Swords?" I asked.
"Yes," said my father, as if there were nothing incredible in this admission. He smiled.
"You have much to learn of Gor," he said. "Yet there is a hierarchy of Home Stones, one might say, and two soldiers who would cut one another down with their steel blades for an acre of fertile ground would fight side by side to the death for the Home Stone of their village or of the city within whose ambit their village lies."
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 26 & 27~
"As he spoke, my father often referred to the planet Gor as the Counter-Earth, taking the name from the writings of the Pythagoreans who had first speculated on the existence of such a body. Oddly enough, one of the expressions in the tongue of Gor for our sun was Lar-Torvis, which means The Central Fire, another Pythagorean expression, except that it had not been, as I understand it, originally used by the Pythagoreans to refer to the sun but to another body. The more common expression for the sun was Tor-tu-Gor, which means Light Upon the Home Stone. There was a sect among the people that worshipped the sun, I later learned, but it was insignificant both in numbers and power when compared with the worship of the Priest-Kings who, whatever they were, were accorded the honours of divinity. Theirs, it seems, was the honor of being enshrined as the most ancient gods of Gor, and in time of danger a prayer to the Priest-Kings might escape the lips of even the bravest men."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 28~
“My speculation, however,” said my father, “is that the Priest-Kings are indeed men—men much as we, or humanoid organisms of some type—who possess a science and technology as far beyond our normal ken as that of our own twentieth century would be to the alchemists and astrologers of the medieval universities.”………
“The Priest-Kings," said my father, “Maintain the Sacred Place in the Sardar Mountains, a wild vastness into which no man penetrates. The Sacred Place, to the minds of most men here, is taboo, perilous. Surely none have returned from those mountains.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 29 & 30~
"That," he said with animation, "is the Theory of the Sun Shield." He added. "That is why I like to think of the planet as the Counter-Earth, not only because of its resemblance to our native world, but because, as a matter of fact, it is placed as a counterpoise to the Earth. It has the same plane of orbit and maintains its orbit in such a way as always to keep The Central Fire between it and its planetary sister, our Earth, even though this necessitates occasional adjustments in its speed of revolution."
"But surely," I protested, "its existence could be discovered. One can't hide a planet the size of the Earth in our own solar system! It's impossible!"
"You underestimate the Priest-Kings and their science," said my father, smiling. "Any power that is capable of moving a planet--and I believe the Priest-Kings possess this power--is capable of effecting adjustments in the motion of the plant, such adjustments as might allow it to use the sun indefinately as a concealing shield".
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 33 & 34~
“The Goreans I had seen in the past few weeks had tended to be meticulous in their dress, taking great pride in their appearance”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 37~
"His desk, a vast wooden table, was piled with papers and pots of ink, and pens and scissors and leather fasteners and binders. There was no square foot of the chamber that did not contain racks of scrolls, and others, hundreds perhaps, were piled like cord wood here and there."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 37~
"One of the most interesting was the Translator, which could be set for various languages. Whereas there was a main common tongue on Gor, with apparently several related dialects or sublanguages, some of the Gorean languages bore in sound little resemblance to anything I had heard before, at least as languages; they resembled rather the cries of birds and the growls of animals; they were sounds I knew could not have been produced by a human throat. Although the machines could be set for various languages, one term of the translation symmetry, at least in the machines I saw, was always Gorean.
If I set the machine to, say, Language A and spoke Gorean into it, it would, after a fraction of a second, emit a succession of noises, which was the translation of my Gorean sentences into A. On the other hand, a new succession of noises in A would be received by the machine and emitted as a message in Gorean. My father, to my delight, had taped one of these translation devices with English, and accordingly it was a most useful tool in working out equivalent phrases. Also, of course, he and Torm worked intensively with me. The machine, however, particularly to Torm's relief, allowed me to practice on my own. These translation machines are a marvel of miniaturization, each of them, about the size of a portable typewriter, being programmed for four non-Gorean languages.
The translations, of course, are rather literal, and the vocabulary is limited to recognitions of only about 25,000equivalencies for each language. Accordingly, for subtle communication or the fullest expression of thought, the machine was inferior to a skilled linguist. The machine, however, according to my father, retained the advantage that its mistakes would not be intentional, and that its translations, even if inadequate, would be honest."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 39~
"The Code of the Warrior was, in general, characterized by a rudimentary chivalry, emphasizing loyalty to Pride Chiefs and the Home Stone. It was harsh, but with a certain gallantry, a sense of honor that I could respect. A man could do worse then live by such a code."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 41~
"I was also instructed in the Double Knowledge--that is, I was instructed in what the intellectuals were expected to know. Sometimes there was a surprising discrepancy between the two. For example, the population as a whole, the castes below the High Castes, were encouraged to believe that their world was a broad flat disc. Perhaps this was to discourage them from exploration or to develop in them a habit of relying on common-sense prejudices--something of a social control device.
On the other hand, the High Castes, specifically the Warriors, Builders, Scribes, Initiates and Physicians, were told the truth in such matters, perhaps because it was thought they would eventually determine it for themselves, from observations such as the shadow of their planet on one or another of Gor's three small moons during eclipses, the phenomenon of sighting the tops of distant objects first, and the fact that certain stars could not be seen from certain geographical positions; if the planet had been flat, precisely the same set of stars would have been observable from every position on its surface.
I wondered, however, if the Second Knowledge, that of the intellectuals, might not be as carefully tailored to preclude inquiry on their level as the First Knowledge apparently was to preclude inquiry on the level of the Lower Castes. I would guess that there is a Third Knowledge, that reserved to the Priest-Kings."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 41~
"The Caste structure,” said my father patiently, with perhaps a trace of a smile on his face “is relatively immobile, but not frozen, and depends on more than birth. For example, if a child in his schooling shows that he can raise Caste, as the expression is, he is permitted to do so. But, similarly, if a child does not show the aptitude expected of his Caste, whether it be, say, that of the physician or warrior, he is lowered in Caste."
~Tarnsman of Gor page 42~
"The High Castes in a given city elect an administrator and council for stated terms. In times of crisis, a war chief, or Ubar, is named, who rules without check and by decree until, in his judgment, the crisis is passed….Those who do not desire to surrender their power, are usually deserted by their men. The offending war chief is simply abandoned."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 42~
"Economically, the base of the Gorean life was the free peasant, which was perhaps the lowest but undoubtedly the most fundamental caste, and the staple crop was a yellow grain called Sa-Tarna, or Life-Daughter." ~Tarnsman of Gor, page 43~
"Interestingly enough, the word for meat is Sa-Tassna, which means Life-Mother. Incidentally, when one speaks of food in general, one always speaks of Sa-Tassna.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 43 & 44~
"The Scribes, of course, are the scholars and clerks of Gor, and there are divisions and rankings within the group, from simple copiers to the savants of the city."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 44~
"On the whole, I liked the people I met, and I was confident that they were largely of Earth stock, that their ancestors had been brought to the planet in Voyages of Acquisition. Apparently, after having been brought to the planet, they had simply been released, much as animals might be released in a forest preserve, or fish stocked free in a river."
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 44 & 45~
"Earth origin, incidentally, was not a part of the First Knowledge, though it was of the Second."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 45~
“I did learn, casually, from a Scribe, not Torm, that slaves were not permitted to impart instruction to a free man, since it would place him in their debt, and nothing was owed to a slave.”
~Tarnsman page 46~
“He entered my apartment, carrying a metal rod about two feet long, with a leather loop attached. It had a switch in the handle, which could be set in two positions, on and off, like a simple torch. He wore another such instrument slung from his belt. “This is not a weapon,” he said. “It is not to be used as a weapon.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A tarn-goad,” he replied. He snapped the switch in the barrel to the “on” position and struck the table. It showered sparks in a sudden cascade of yellow light, but left the table unmarked. He turned off the goad and extended it to me. As I reach for it, he snapped it on and slapped it into my palm. A billion tiny ywllow stars, like pieces of fiery needles, seemed to explode in my hand and I cried out in shock. I thrust my hand to my mouth . It had been like a sudden, severe electric charge, like the striking of a snake in my hand. I examined my hand, it was unhurt. “Be careful of a tarn-goad,” said the Older Tarl. “It is not for children.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 50~
"The Goreans believe, incredibly enough, that the capacity to master a tarn is innate and that some men possess this characteristic and that some do not. One does not learn to master a tarn. It is a matter of blood and spirit, of beast and man, of a relation between two beings which must be immediate, intuitive, spontaneous. It is said that a tarn knows who is a tarnsman and who is not, and that those who are not die in this first meeting."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 51~
"Never since the panic of the disoriented compass back in the mountains of New Hampshire had I been so frightened, but this time I refused to allow my fear the fatal inch it required. If I was to die, it would be; if I was not to die, I would not.
I smiled to myself in spite of my fear, amused at the remark I had addressed to myself. It sounded like something out of the code of the Warrior, something which, if taken literally, would seem to encourage its believer to take not the slightest or most sane precautions for his safety. I blew a note on the whistle, and it was shrill and different, of a new pitch from that of the Old Tarl.
Almost immediately from somewhere, perhaps from a ledge out of sight; rose a fantastic object, another giant tarn, even larger than the first, a glossy sable tarn which circled the cylinder once and then wheeled toward me, landing a few feet away, his talons striking on the roof with a sound like hurled gauntlets. His talons were shod with steel - a war tarn. He raised his curved beak to the sky and screamed, lifting and shaking his wings. His enormous head turned toward me, and his round, wicked eyes blazed in my direction. The next thing I knew his beak was open; I caught a brief sight of his thin, sharp tongue, as long as a man's arm; darting out and back, and then, snapping at me, he lunged forward, striking at me with that monstrous beak, and I heard the Older Tarl cry out in horror, "The goad! The goad!"
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 53~
“I shouted to my tarn, in Gorean and in English. “Har-ta! Har-ta! Faster! Faster!”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 57~
"The pasang is a measure of distance on Gor equivalent approximately to .7 of a mile."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 58~
“The older Tarl and I may have drunk too much of that fermented brew concocted with fiendish skill from the yellow grain, Sa-Tarna, and called Pagar_Sa_Tarna, Pleasure of the Life-Daughter, but almost always “Paga” for short. I doubted that I would ever touch the stuff again.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 61~
"The Chamber of the Council is the room in which the elected representatives of the High Castes of Ko-ro-ba hold their meetings. Each city has such a chamber.………Benches of stone, on which the members of the Council sat, rose in five monumental tiers about the walls, one tier for each of the High Castes.…………..The tier nearest the floor, which denoted some preferential status, the white tier, was occupied by Initiates, Interpreters of the Will of the Priest-Kings. In order, the ascending tiers, blue, yellow, green, and red, were occupied by representatives of the Scribes, Builders, Physicians, and Warriors."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 61 & 62~
“I removed my helmet, feeling proud as I heard the approval of the Council, both in voice and by Gorean applause, the quick, repeated striking of the left shoulder with the palm of the right hand. Aside from candidates for the status of Warrior, none of my caste was permitted to enter the Council armed. Had they bee armed, my caste brothers in the last tier would have struck their spear blades on their shields. As it was, they smote their shoulders in the civilian manner.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 63~
“Thentis is a city famed for it’s tarn flocks and remote in the mountains from which the city takes its name.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 67~
“The Home Stone of Ar, like most Home Stones in the cylinder cities, was kept free on the tallest tower, as if in open defiance of the tarnsmen of rival cities. It was, of course, kept well-guarded and at the first sign of serious danger would undoubtedly be carried to safety. Any attempt on the Home Stone was regarded by the citizens of a city as sacrilege of the most heinous variety and punishable by the most painful of deaths, but, paradoxically, it was regarded as the greatest of glories to purloin the Home Stone of another city, and the warrior who managed this was acclaimed, accorded the highest honors of the city, and was believed to be favored by the Priest-Kings themselves.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, pages 67 & 68~
"The Home Stone of a city is the center of various rituals. The next would be the Planting Feast of Sa-Tarna, The Life-Daughter, celebrated early in the season to insure a good harvest. This is a complex feast, celebrated by most Gorean cities, and the observances are numerous and intricate. The details of the rituals are arranged and mostly executed by the Initiates of a given city."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 68~
“During the day I freed my tarn, to allow him to feed as he would. They are diurnal hunters and eat only what they catch themselves, usually one of the fleet Gorean antelopes or a wild bull, taken on the run and lifted in the monstrous talons to a high place, where it is torn to pieces and devoured. Needless to say, tarns are a threat to any living matter that is luckless enough to fall within the shadow of their wings, even human beings.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 73
“I kept my course by the luminescent dial of my gor compass, the needle of which pointed always to the Sardar Mountain Range, home of the Priest-Kings.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 73~
"When I opened my eyes, I found myself partially adhering to a vast network of broad, elastic strands that formed a structure, perhaps a pasang in width, and through which at numerous points projected the monstrous trees of the swamp forest. I felt the network, or web, tremble, and I struggled to rise, but found myself unable to gain my feet. My flesh adhered to the adhesive substance of the broad strands. Approaching me, stepping daintily for all its bulk, prancing over the strands, came one of the Swamp Spiders of Gor. I fastened my eyes on the blue sky, wanting it to be the last thing I looked upon. I shuddered as the beast paused near me, and I felt the light stroke of its forelegs, felt the tactile investigation of the sensory hairs of its appendages. I looked at it, and it peered down, with its four pairs of pearly eyes—quizzically, I thought. Then, to my astonishment, I heard a mechanically reproduced sound say, “Who are you?”
……..The monstrous insect bent near me and I caught sight of the mandibles, like curves knives. I tensed myself for the sudden lateral chopping of those pincers like jaws. Instead, saliva or some related type of secretion or exudate was being applied to the web in my vicinity, which loosened its adhesive grip. When freed, I was lifted lightly in the mandibles and carried to the edge of the web, where the spider seized a hanging strand and scurried downward, placing me on the ground. He then backed away from me on his eight legs, but never taking the pearly gaze of his several eyes from me.
“I will not hurt you. The Spider People do not hurt rational creatures.”
“I am grateful for that,” I said.
The next remark took my breath away.
“Was it you who stole the Home Stone of Ar?”
I paused, then, being confident the creature had no love for the men of Ar, answered affirmatively.
“That is pleasing to me,” said the insect, “for the men of Ar do not behave well towards the Spider People. They hunt us and leave only enough of us alive to spin the Cur-lon Fibre used in the mills of Ar. If they were not rational creatures, we would fight them.”
~ Tarnsman ofGor, pages 80 - 83~
"I regarded the daughter of the Ubar, now a sorry sight. Her Robes of Concealment were splattered with mud and marsh water, and in several places the heavy brocade had stiffened and cracked. The dominant colors of her Robes of Concealment were subtle reds, yellows and purples, arrayed in intricate, overlapping folds. I guessed it would have taken her slave girls hours to array her in such garments. Many of the free women of Gor and almost always those of High Caste wear the Robes of Concealment, though, of course, their garments are seldom as complex or splendidly wrought as those of a Ubar's daughter. The Robes of Concealment, in function, resemble the garments of Muslim women on my own planet, though they are undoubtedly more intricate and cumbersome. Normally, of men, only a father and a husband may look upon the woman unveiled. In the barbaric world of Gor, the Robes of Concealment are deemed necessary to protect the women from the binding fibers of roving tarnsmen. Few warriors will risk their lives to capture a woman, who may be as ugly as a tharlarion. Better to steal slaves, where the guilt is less and the charms of the captive are more readily ascertainable in advance."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 87~
"......to my astonishment, the daughter of the Ubar Marlenus, daughter of the Ubar of Ar, knelt before me, a simple warrior of Ko-ro-ba, and lowered her head, lifting and extending her arms, the wrists crossed. It was that same simple ceremony that Sana had performed before me in the chamber of my father, back at Ko-ro-ba--the submission of the captive female. Without raising her eyes from the ground, the daughter of the Ubar said in a clear, distinct voice: "I submit myself."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 93~
“I wish you well, “ said Nar, using a common Gorean phrase of farewell."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 94~
“I threw her to my feet. She tried frantically to readjust the folds of her veil, but with both hands I tore it fully away, and she lay at my feet as it is said on Gor, face-stripped.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 98~
"Unresisting, the girl extended her wrists, and the soldier snapped slave bracelets on them—light, restraining bracelets of gold and blue stones that might have served as jewelry if it had not been for their function."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 102~
“I can force you to take me," she said.
"How?" I asked.
"Like this," she responded, kneeling before me, lowering her head and lifting her arms, the wrists crossed. She laughed. "Now you must take me with you or slay me,” she said, "and I know you cannot slay me.” I cursed her, for she took unfair advantage of the Warrior Codes of Gor.
"What is the submission of Talena, the daughter of the Ubar, worth?" I taunted.
"Nothing," she said. "But you must accept it or slay me."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 109~
“It is interesting, incidentally, that in the Gorean language, the word for stranger is the same as the word for enemy.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 110
"Free women on Gor do not travel attended by only a single warrior, not of their own free will."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 113~
“In a minute the rider appeared in view—a fine, bearded warrior with a golden helmet and a tharlarion lance. He drew the riding lizard to a halt a few paces from me. He rode the species of tharlarion called the high tharlarion, which ran on its two back feet in great bounding strides. Its cavernous mouth was lined with long, gleaming teeth. Its two small, ridiculously disproportionate forelegs dangled absurdly in front of its body.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 115~
" Do not harm him," said Kazrak. "He is my sword brother, Tarl of Bristol."
Kazrak's remark was in accord with the strange warrior codes of Gor, codes which were as natural to him as the air he breathed, and codes which I, in the Chamber of the Council of Ko-ro-ba, had sworn to uphold. One who has shed your blood, or whose blood you have shed, becomes your sword brother, unless you formally repudiate the blood on your weapons. It is a part of the kinship of Gorean warriors regardless of what city it is to which they owe their allegiance. It is a matter of caste, an expression of respect for those who share their station and profession, having nothing to do with cities or Home Stones."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 119~
“I am a merchant,” said Mintar, “and it is in my code to see that I am paid.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 121~
"In those days I learned to master the high tharlarion, one of which had been assigned to me by the caravan's tharlarion master. These gigantic lizards had been bred on Gor for a thousand generations before the first tarn was tamed, and were raised from the leathery shell to carry warriors. They responded to voice signals, conditioned into their tiny brains in the training years. Nonetheless, the butt of one's lance, striking about the eye or ear openings, for there are few other sensitive areas in their scaled hides, is occasionally necessary to impress your will on the monster.
The high tharlarions, unlike their draft brethren, the slow-moving, four-footed broad tharlarions, were carnivorous. However, their metabolism was slower than that of a tarn, whose mind never seemed far from food and, if it was available, could consume half its weight in a single day. Moreover, they needed far less water than tarns."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 124~
Then I will show you a love dance," she said happily, "a dance I learned in the Walled Gardens of Ar."
"I should like that," I said, and, as I watched, Talena performed Ar's strangely beautiful dance of passion.
She danced before me for several minutes, her scarlet dancing silks flashing in the firelight, her bare feet, with their belled ankles, striking softly on the carpet. With a last flash of the finger cymbals, she fell to the carpet before me, her breath hot and quick, her eyes blazing with desire. I was at her side, and she was in my arms. Her heart beat wildly against my breast. She looked into my eyes, her lips trembling, the words stumbling but audible.
“Call for the iron,” she said. “Brand me, Master.”
“No, Talena,” I said, kissing her mouth. “No.”
“I want to be owned, “ she whimpered. “I want to belong to you, fully, completely in every way”…..
I fumbled with the collar at her throat, unlocked it, threw it aside.
“You’re free, my love, “ I whispered. “Always free.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 135~
"Talena stepped forth from behind the silk curtain. I had thought she had retired. Instead, she stood before me in the diaphanous, scarlet dancing silks of Gor. She had rouged her lips. My head swam at the sudden intoxicating scent of a wild perfume."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 154~
“Merchants must keep their friends on both sides of the fence, for who knows if Marlenus may not once more sit upon the throne of Ar?”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 159~
“I stopped a hurrying slave girl and inquired the way to the compound…………She spit the coins she carried In her mouth into her hand, and told me what I wanted to know.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 165~
“Normally, the merchant camp, like the better-organized military camps, not the melange that constituted the camp of Pa-Kur is laid out geometrically,
and, night after night, one puts up one's tent in the same relative position. Whereas the military camp is usually laid out in a set of concentric squares, reflecting the fourfold principle of military organization customary on Gor, the merchant camp is laid out in concentric circles, the guards' tents occupying the outermost ring, the craftsmen's, strap-masters', attendants and slaves' quarters occupying inner rings, and the center being reserved for the merchant, his goods, and his body-guard.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 166~
“The Supreme Initiate, as he called himself, raised a spear and set it, like the shield, at his feet. This gesture is a military convention employed by commanders on Gor when calling for a parley or conference. It signifies a truce, literally the temporary putting aside of weapons. In surrender, on the other hand, the shield straps and the shaft of the spear are broken, indicating that the vanquished has disarmed himself and places himself at the mercy of the conqueror.”
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 187~
"Inside the tunnel, though dim, was not altogether dark, being lit by domelike, wire-protected energy bulbs, spaced in pairs every hundred yards or so. These bulbs, invented more than a century ago by the Caste of Builders, produce a clear, soft light for years without replacement."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 197~
"When I returned to Ko-ro-ba with Talena, a great feast was held and we celebrated our Free Companionship. A holiday was declared, and the city was ablaze with light and song. Shimmering strings of bells pealed in the wind, and festive lanterns of a thousand colors swung from the innumerable flower-strewn bridges. There was shouting, and laughter, and the glorious colors of the castes of Gor mingled equally in the cylinders. Gone for the night was even the distinction of master and slave, and many a wretch in bondage would see the dawn as a free man.
To my delight, even Torm, of the Caste of Scribes, appeared at the tables. I was honored that the little scribe had separated himself from his beloved scrolls long enough to share my happiness, only that of a warrior. He was wearing a new robe and sandals, perhaps for the first time in years. He clasped my hands, and, to my wonder, the little scribe was crying. And then in his joy, he turned to Talena and in gracious salute lifted the symbolic cup of Ka-la-na wine to her beauty.
Talena and I swore to honor that day as long as either of us lived. I have tried to keep that promise, and I know that she has done so as well. That night, that glorious night, was a night of flowers, torches, and Ka-la-na wine, and late, after sweet hours of love, we fell asleep in each other's arms."
~Tarnsman of Gor, page 216~