“It is not my wish”, said Samos, looking up from the board, “that you journey to the northern forests.” I regarded the board. Carefully, I set the Ubar’s Tarnsman at Ubar’s Scribe Six. “It is dangerous,” said Samos.

“It is your move,” said I, intent upon the game.

He threatened the Ubar’s Tarnsman with a spearman, thrust to his Ubar Four. “We do not care to risk you,” said Samos. There was a slight smile about his lips.

“We?” I asked.

“Priest-Kings and I “ said Samos.

“I no longer serve Priest-Kings,” said I.

“Ah, yes,” said Samos. Then he added, “Guard your tarnsman.”

We played in the hall of Samos, a lofty room, with high, narrow windows. It was late at night. A torch burned in a rack above and behind me, to my left. The shadows flickered about the board of one hundred red and yellow squares. The pieces, weighted, seem tall on the board, casting their shadows away from the flame, across the flat arena of the game.

We sat cross-legged on the floor, on the tiles, over the large board. There was a rustle of slave bells to my right, loved on the left ankle of a girl.

Samos wore the blue and yellow robes of the Slaver. Indeed, he was first slaver of Port Kar, and first Captain in its Council of Captains, which council, since the downfall of the four Ubars is sovereign in Port Kar. I, too, was a member of the Council of Captains, Bosk, of the House of Bosk, if Port Kar. I wore a white robe, woven of the wool of the Hurt, imported from distant Ar, trimmed with golden cloth, from Tor, the colors of the Merchant. But beneath my robe I wore a tunic of red, that color of the warriors.

To one side of the room, unclothed, his wrists manacled behind his body, his ankles confined in short chains, knelt a large man, a heavy band of iron hammered about his throat.