25 - Magicians of Gor by John Norman

25 - Magicians of Gor by John Norman

Author:John Norman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Erotica, Adventure
Published: 2010-07-02T00:00:00+00:00


Chapter 17

MAGIC

“Where has she gone!” cried a man.

“My senses reel!” exclaimed Marcus. “But a moment ago she was within the palanquin!”

“Shhh,” I said.

“I cannot understand what I have seen on this street!” he said.

Marcus and I stood in the pit, shoulder to shoulder with others, before the low stage. There were tiers behind us for those who wished to pay two tarsk bits, rather than one, for the entertainments.

The four fellows, in turbans, with plumes, in stately fashion, as though nothing unusual had occurred, carried the palanquin, its curtains now open again, offstage.

“She has vanished,” said a fellow, wonderingly.

“But to where?” asked another.

“She cannot disappear into thin air,” said a fellow.

“But she has done so!” said another, in awe.

We were in a small, shabby theater. It had an open proscenium. The house was only some twenty yards in depth. This was the fourth such establishment we had entered this evening. To be sure, there were many other entertainments on the streets outside, in stalls, and set in the open, behind tables, and such, in which were displayed mostly tricks with small objects, ostraka, rings, scarves, coins and such. I am fond of such things, and a great admirer of the subtlety, the adroitness, dexterity and skills which are often involved in making them possible.

“Alas,” cried the ponderous fellow waddling about the stage, yet, if one noticed it, with a certain lightness and grace, considering his weight,” have I lost my slave?”

“Find her!” cried a fellow.

“Recover her!” cried another.

These fellows, I think, were serious. It might be mentioned, at any rate, that many Goreans, particularly those of lower caste, and who are likely to have had access only to the “first knowledge”, take things of this sort very seriously, believing they are witness not to tricks and illusions but to marvelous phenomena consequent upon the gifts and powers of unusual individuals, sorcerers or magicians. This ingenuousness is doubtless dependent upon several factors, such as the primitiveness of the world, the isolation and uniqueness of the cities, the disparateness of cultures and the tenuousness of communication. Also the Gorean tends neither to view the world as a mechanical clockwork of interdependent parts, as a great, regular, predictable machine, docile to equations, obedient to abstractions, not as a game of chance, inexplicable, meaningless and random at the core. His fundamental metaphor in terms of which he would defend himself from the glory and mystery of the world is neither the machine nor the die. It is rather, if one may so speak, the stalk of grass, the rooted tree, the flower. He feels the world as alive and real. He paints eyes upon his ships, that they may see their way. And if he feels so even about this vessels, then so much more the awed and reverent must he feel when he contemplates the immensity and grandeur, the beauty, the power, and the mightiness within which he finds himself. Why is there anything? Why is there anything at all? Why not just



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