He had restored Lara, Tatrix of Tharna, to her throne. He had entered the Sardar, and was one of the few men who knew the true nature of the Priest-Kings, those remote and extraordinary beings who controlled the world of Gor. He had been instrumentalin the Nest War, and had earned the friendship and gratitude of the Priest-King, Misk, glorious, gentle Misk. “there is Nest Trust between us,” Misk had told him. I recalled that I, in the palms of my hands, had felt the delicate touch of the antennae of that golden creature. “Yes. There is Nest Trust between us, “Tarl Cabot told him. And he had gone to the Land of the Wagon Peoples, to the Plains of Turia, and had obtained there the last egg of the Priest-Kings, and had returned it, safe, to the Sardar. He had well served Priest-Kings, had Tarl Cabot, that young brave distant man, so fine, so proud, so much of the warriors. And he had gone, too, to Ar. And there defeated the schemes of Cernus and the hideous aliens, the Others, intent on the conquest of Gor, and then the Earth He had well served Priest-Kings, that young man.And then he had ventured to The Delta of the Vosk, to make his way through it, to make contact with Samos of Port Kar, agent of Priest-Kings, to continue in their service. But in the Delta of the Vosk, he had lost his honour› He had betrayed his codes.There, merely to save his miserable life, he had chosen ignominious slavery to the freedom of honourable death. He had sullied the sword the honour, which he had pledged to Ko-ro-ba’s Home Stone. By that act he had cut himself away from his codes, his vows.For such an act, there was no atonement, even to the throwing of one’s body upon one’s sword. It was in that moment of his surrender to his cowardice that Tarl Cabot was gone and, in his place, knelt a slave contemptuously named Bosk, for a great shambling oxlike creature of the plains of Gor.

But this Bosk, forcing his mistress, the beautiful Telima, to grant him his freedom, had come to Port Kar, bringing her with him as his slave, and had there, after many adventures, earned riches and fame, and the title even of Admiral of Port Kar.