Adult-FanFiction.org : Books

Behind Those Eyes	By : CanPsycho337 Category: G through L Series > Gor Views: 9735 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Gor and I make no profit from this story.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
“You have been summoned to the main hall.”
Nox’s voice sounded from behind Sariah as she bathed in a small basin in her room. She was nude, but being exposed to men, even Nox, no longer bothered her. Her time as a slave, particularly prior to arriving in Ko-ro-ba, had robbed her of much modesty and in the more than a year since, she no longer feared what men could do to her.
Most that would try to rape her, she could now kill. Those that she couldn’t, she could ensure that she died before they were able to complete their deed and if they decided to pleasure themselves with her corpse? What would it matter to her?
Instead, it was the news that she was finally to be brought before her Master-it was still hard to think of Daden as anything but-that truly rocked her composure. But, she mused after a moment, it really shouldn’t have. In their first session in the courtyard, Nox had revealed that he’d only had a year in which to train the girl and by her reckoning, that year was very nearly up.
Still, to see the beautiful man who had been both the cause of and her saviour from the torments of the outside world again brought her a rush of emotion she had not realized that she could still feel. She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she said nothing.
However, as was all too often the case, it didn’t matter. Nox already knew. He always knew.
“You think perhaps you will see Daden-Arun, the man you still think of as Master even though you have been free for nearly a year. You hope that he will look upon you and give you his approval, you also fear that he will not.”
Sariah turned to face Nox and still made no attempt to hide herself from him. “Yes.” She replied in part because he was correct and in part because she knew that she could not lie to him.
“I do not know why Daden has summoned you. I have not spoken with him since we began your training. I know not his mind on this.”
Sariah arched an eyebrow at the pale assassin. It was the most explanation of any sort that he had given her about, well, anything. Furthermore, it had been utterly unsolicited. “Why are you telling me this?” She asked when, at last, she found that she could form coherent words again.
“Because I find it strange that Daden would summon you and not me as well.”
“You mean that you are not to accompany me?” This was strange. Though Sariah would never have thought to reason on her Master’s intentions, it had always seemed to her that Nox and Daden were close. That Nox had been cut off from his superior for all this time that he would not now be allowed to revel in his accomplishments in front of Daden now seemed utterly inexplicable.
Almost cruel. Though Sariah did not harbour any pity for the monster that presented itself as a man. He had very effectively removed that from her repertoire of emotions.
“I have been dispatched to another city on a contract. Summoning you was to be my final duty before leaving.”
With that, Nox turned and left the room, disappearing into the hallway and ostensibly leaving the tower itself for his unknown destination.
***
Sariah entered the main hall for the first time in over a year. Unlike the last time she had been her, she did not wear the trappings of a slave girl, but instead the non-descript grey coverings that Daden’s men affected when not on a contract.
Nox had not provided much of an explanation as to why they did this, rather than wear the black most commonly associated with their Caste, but she surmised that at some point in the past the Caste of Assassins had made itself unwelcome in a number of Gorean cities, including Ko-ro-ba. Since Assassins, by tradition, did not have a homestone of their own, Sariah doubted that this had done much to damage them. Yet, for reasons that remained unknown, Daden had decided to remain inside the city with his men. Likely, the grey tunics were to convince the Administrator that they were in fact outlaws who had turned away from their Caste.
Sariah’s knowledge of Gorean culture was still limited, but she doubted that if Daden and his men hadn’t been so dangerous, even this concession on their part would not have saved them from attack. As it stood, it seemed that Daden and the city of Ko-ro-ba had created something of an uneasy truce.
Still, it was an explanation that lacked a great deal of information and one thing Nox had drilled into her was that it wasn’t what you knew that was the most dangerous, but what you didn’t know.
Even as her mind worked to unravel the increasingly complex puzzle that had become her life, Sariah found herself finally face to face with her Master. In the matter of an instant, all of her doubts and worries faded away as she bowed her head to him.
“Master, this girl has been summoned.”
Daden watched her impassively for a moment, and she could feel his green eyes moving freely over her changed body. Without a word, he stood from the chair upon which he sat and approached her. Even though she still felt the need to keep her eyes averted, she couldn’t help but look at his beautiful face as it neared hers.
“I told you,” He said softly. “You no longer have to call me Master. You are not mine, or anyone else’s, slave.”
“Thank you, Mas…thank you.” She replied.
“I would say that you have the look of your mother,” Daden continued. “But it wouldn’t be the truth. You must take after your father. Tell me, did you ever know him?”
Sariah took a deep breath before answering. “No, and mother never spoke of him. But I heard whispers in the forest camps, rumors that he was a barbarian who’d been trained to fight as a gladiator. In the stories, he won many victories until finally the Ubar who owned my mother brought him into his house. When asked what he wanted more than anything, my father was said to have replied ‘Your slave and your life.’”
Daden’s eyes widened a little. “Really? And what happened next?”
“Well,” Sariah continued, feeling more like a child than she had in months. “The women in my camp said that my father fought and killed the Ubar. By rights, that meant that he should have been able to rule in the Ubar’s place but instead he chose to free my mother and the other women until the Ubar’s thrall and lead them in rebellion. For a season they fought, until finally they were overrun. My father stayed back with a small group of their warriors, while my mother fled with most of the others into the Forests where they joined the women who already lived there.”
“Did your father die?” Daden pressed further.
“I am not sure. Some of the women said that he did, that he must have. Others told stories of him being forced back into the fighting ring until he died much later. Others still, say that he simply disappeared returning to the realm called Urth from where he came.”
“Fascinating,” Daden said, and Sariah could tell from his tone that he meant it. “I never heard of any of this. Certainly, I knew of the rebellion your mother fought in. There are few in this part of Gor who haven’t but never before did I hear word of a barbarian gladiator from Urth.”
“It might not be true,” Sariah added hastily. “These are only things that I have heard.”
“Perhaps so, but nonetheless, I still believe that it is true.”
“How can you be so sure, Master?”
“Don’t call me that,” He replied tightly before continuing. “My name is Daden and I’d appreciate it if you called me that.” For a moment, there was something in his inflection that seemed utterly foreign to her Sariah, even if the words were spoken in perfect Gorean. And in his eyes, she saw a brief flash of longing so intense that she thought that even in that brief instant she might be swallowed up by it.
And then it was gone.
“The reason I believe that it is true,” He continued. “Is very complicated. Do you remember when I told you of the secret war of which we are all apart?”
“Yes…Daden.”
“Good, now tell me what you know of the Priest Kings?”
“I know that they are said to live deep in the mountains, and that they sometimes kill people who displease them.”
“I see, and what have you heard about the Kurii?”
Something inside of Sariah grew intensely cold upon hearing the word, as if the word itself was dangerous and unnatural. Without even thinking, Sariah whispered a single word. “Monsters.”
Daden watched her for a long moment before responding. “Yes, they are monsters. While the Priest Kings rule this world benignly, the Kurii seek to conquer it. The Kurii live in the stars, on board massive constructs that are beyond our ability to understand. They outnumber the Priest Kings in both population and ferocity. It is only for the fact that the Priest Kings are stronger by far than the Kurii that our world is kept safe.”
Sariah tried to understand Daden’s words, but a few of them took an odd accent as he spoke and a couple more were completely indecipherable. In the end, she simply looked at him without comprehending. When he was finished, she asked but a single question.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because the Priest Kings have told me to do so.”
“They speak to you?” Once, many years before when Sariah was a small child, her mother had spoken to her of the Priest Kings. She’d said that they lived in the mountains and that the Caste of Priests called them Gods and that many of the lower Castes believed them. Though her mother had not said anything specific, Sariah had gotten the impression that she’d been skeptical. However, even if they did exist, it was even more fantastical to believe that they spoke to Daden personally.
“No, not as such. The Priest Kings maintain a network of, agents for lack of a better term, within the Gorean world. Some of these agents are gifted with special objects that allow us to communicate over long distances. Do you remember my brother, the Player you killed in Thentis?”
Sariah forced herself to remain calm, even as a flood of memories and feelings came back to her. She blushed despite herself but remained silent.
“The thing that he stole from me, all those years ago, was just such an object. Without it, I was forced to receive my orders by more conventional means. This meant that I sometimes had to wait years between orders. When I received the orders to capture you and your mother, I also received information that my brother had been found in Thentis. Once I had you, I knew that only you would be able to get close enough to Aaron to kill him.”
“Why did he need to die?” Sariah asked.
“He was corrupted by the Kurii, he stole the object from me as their behest. Nothing touched by their evil must be allowed to exist.”
The explanation seemed wrong to her, but she remembered their time together. She remembered the way Aaron had felt inside of her and she remembered what she felt when, finally, she had killed him. If he had been touched by the Kurii, is that why Daden had been so concerned with the fact that she’d slept with him? Was she now tainted by the same evil?
“While the Kurii in the stars are many, only a few live here on Gor.” Daden told her. “They are strong, but the Priest Kings are stronger and in truth, even an army of men could eventually best them in combat. So they keep to the shadows, living on the outskirts of our world, deep in the north and in the desert to the south. To do their bidding, they have corrupted men and women. Much of that corruption has found itself rooted in the inner workings of my Caste. Our Caste.”
“Is…that why we do not wear the black?”
“Yes. Only a few of us remain untainted now. Our leadership has been lost to their taint, and I fear that I am the only Master left untainted.”
“What of Nox?” Sariah said suddenly, remembering her first meeting with the monstrous creature who would become her teacher. He had also identified himself as a Master of Assassins.
“Nox too, has been tainted. That is why he appears so sallow, why his eyes are red and why he can hear your thoughts. The Kurii have changed him as much as the Priest Kings will allow. Corrupted and tormented him. If he were any other man, he would be now wholly their slave.”
“But he isn’t their slave, he serves you.”
“Yes, because there is something in Nox that the Kurii cannot bend to their will. A torment inside his mind that has no equal. The Kurii once thought to use this to turn him, but soon learned that any fear they might instill in Nox pale in comparison to the fear the man has of himself.”
Sariah found the whole thing fantastical, but at the same time she did not doubt Daden. “Where do I fit in this? I already returned your object to you, why train me as you have?”
“Because I have been instructed to, and because I sense that you may be the best hope for us to survive the coming days.”
- 9
- 10
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Behind Those Eyes