"But we will die free!" cried Andreas of Tor, and his cry was echoed by hundreds of voices.

"And so must others!" I cried. "You must hid by day and move by night. You must elude your pursuers. You must carry your freedom to others!" "Are you asking us to become warriors?" cried a voice.

"Yes!" I cried, and such words had never before been spoken of Gor. "In this cause," I said, "whether you are of the Caste of Peasants, or Poets, or Metal Workers, or Saddle- Makers, you must be warriors!"

"We shall," said Kron of Tharna, his fist holding the great hammer with which he had struck off our shackles.

"Is this the will of the Priest-Kings?" asked a voice.

"If it is the will of the Priest-Kings," I said, "let it be done." And then I raised my hands again and standing on the windlass over the shaft, blown by the wind, with the moons of Gor above me, I cried. "And if it be not the will of the Priest-Kings — still let it be done!"

"Let it be done," said the heavy voice of Kron.

"Let it be done," said the men, first one and then another, until there was a sobre chorus of assent, quiet but powerful, and I knew that never before in this harsh world had men spoken thus. And it seemed strange to me that this rebellion, this willingness to pursue the right as they saw it, independently of the will of the Priest-Kings, had come not first from the proud Warriors of Gor, nor the Scribes, nor the Builders nor the Physicians, nor any of the high castes of the many cities of Gor, but had come from the most degraded and despised of men, wretched slaves from the mines of Tharna.

I stood there and watched the slaves depart, silently now, like shadows, forsaking the precincts of the mines to seek their outlaw fortunes, their destinies beyond the laws and traditions of their cities.

The Gorean phrase of farewell came silently to my lips. "I wish you well." Kron stoppped by the shaft.

I walked across the bar of the windlass and dropped to his side. The squat giant of the Caste of Metal Workers stood with his feet planted wide. He held that great hammer in his massive fists like a lance across his body. I saw that the once close-cropped hair was now a shaggy yellow. I saw that those eyes, usually like blue steel, seemed softer than I remembered them.

"I wish you well, Tarl of Ko-ro-ba," he said.

"I wish you well, Kron of Tharna," I said.

"We are of the same chain," he said.

"Yes," I said.

Then he turned away, abruptly I thought, and moved rapidly into the shadows.

Now only Andreas of Tor remained at my side.

He mopped back that mane of black hair like a larl" s and grinned at me. "Well," said he, "I have tried the Mines of Tharna, and now I think I shall try the Great Farms."

"Good luck," I said.

I fervently hoped that he would find the auburn-haired girl in the camisk, gentle Linna of Tharna.

"And where are you off to?" asked Andreas lightly.

"I have business with the Priest-Kings," I said.

"Ah!" said Andreas, and was silent.

We faced one another under the three moons. He seemed sad, one of the few times I had seen him so.

"I" m coming with you," he said.

I smiled. Andreas knew as well as I that men did not return from the Sardar Mountains.

"No," I said. "I think you would find few songs in the mountains." "A poet," said he, "will look for songs anywhere."

"I am sorry," I said, "but I cannot allow you to accompany me." Andreas clapped his hands on my shoulders. "Hear, dull- witted scion of the Caste of Warriors," he said, "my friends are more important to me than even my songs."

I tried to be light. I feigned skepticism. "Are you truly of the Caste of Poets?"

"Never more truly than now," said Andreas, "for how could my songs be more important than the things they celebrate?"

I marveled that he had said this, for I knew that the young Andreas of Tor might have given his arm or years of his life for what might have been a true song, one worthy of what he had seen and felt and cared for. "Linna needs you," I said. "Seek her out."

Andreas of the Caste of Poets stood in torment before me, agony in his eyes.

"I wish you well," I said, "- Poet."

He nodded. "I wish you well," he said, "- Warrior."

Perhaps both of us wondered that friendship should exist between members of such different castes, but perhaps both of us knew, though we did not say so, that in the hearts of men arms and song are never far distant. Andreas had turned to go, but he hesitated, and faced me once more. "The Priest-Kings," he said, "will be expecting you."

"Of course," I said.

Andreas lifted his arm. "Tal," he said, sadly. I wondered why he had said this, for it is a word of greeting.

"Tal," I said, returning the salute.

I think perhaps he wanted to greet me once more, that he did not believe he would ever again have the opportunity.

Andreas had turned and was gone.

I must begin my journey to the Sardar Mountains.

As Andreas had said, I would be expected. I knew that little passed on Gor that was not somehow known in the Sardar Mountains. The power and knowledge of the Priest-Kings is perhaps beyond the comprehension of mortal men, or as it is said on Gor, the Men Below the Mountains.

It is said that as we are to the amoeba and the paramecium so are the Priest-Kings to us, that the highest and most lyric flights of our intellect are, when compared to the thought of the Priest-Kings, but the chemical tropisms of the unicellular organism. I thought of such an organism, blindly extending its pseudopodia to encircle a particle of food, an organism complacent in its world — perhaps only an agar plate on the desk of some higher being.

I had seen the power of the Priest-Kings at work — in the mountains of New Hampshire years ago when it was so delicately exercised as to affect the needle of a compass, in the valley of Ko-ro-ba where I had found a city devastated as casually as one might crush a hill of ants.

Yet, I knew that the power of the Priest-Kings — rumoured even to extend to the control of gravity — could lay waste cities, scatter populations, separate friends, tear lovers from one another" s arms, bring hideous death to whomsoever it might choose. As all men of Gor I knew that their power inspired terror throughout a world and that it could not be withstood. The words of the man of Ar, he who had worn the robes of the Initiates, he who had brought me the message of the Priest- Kings on the road to Ko-ro-ba that violent night months before, rang in my ears, "Throw yourself upon your sword, Tarl of Ko-ro-ba!"

But I knew then that I would not throw myself upon my sword, and that I would not now. I knew then as I knew now that I would go instead to the Sardar Mountains, that I would enter them and seek the Priest-Kings themselves.

I would find them.

Somewhere in the midst of those icy escarpments inaccessible even to the wild tarn they waited for me, those fit gods of this harsh world.