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.When the city of Ko-ro-ba hadbeen destroyed by Priest-Kings and its people scattered, no two to standtogether, the girl had disappeared.The Warrior of Ko-ro-ba had never foundher.He did not know whether she was alive or dead.For those who passed in the street some might have been startled had theynoted, standing in the shadows, one who wore the black of the Assassins, whowept."Game! Game!" I heard, and quickly shook my head, driving away the memories ofAr, and of the girl once known, always loved.The word actually cried was "Kaissa," which is Gorean for "Game".It is ageneral term, but when used without qualification, it stands for only onegame.The man who called out wore a robe of checkered red and yellow squares, andthe game board, of similar squares, with ten ranks and ten files, giving ahundredsquares, hung over his back; slung over his left shoulder, as a warrior wearsa sword, was a leather bag containing the pieces, twenty to a side, red andyellow, representing Spearmen, Tarnsmen, the Riders of the High Tharlarion,and so on.The object of the game is the capture of the opponent's Home Stone.Capturings of individual pieces and continuations take place much as in chess.The affinities of this game with chess are, I am confident, more thanincidental.I recalled that men from many periods and cultures of Earth hadbeen brought, from time to time, to Gor, our Counter-Earth.With them theyPage 14ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlwould have brought their customs, their skills, their habits, their games,which, in time, would presumably have undergone considerable modification.Ihave suspected that chess, with its fascinating history and development, asplayed on Earth, may actually have derived from a common ancestor with theGorean game, both of them perhaps tracing their lineage to some long-forgottengame, perhaps the draughts of Egypt or some primitive board game of India.Itmight be mentioned that the game, as I shall speak of it, for in Gorean it hasno other designation, is extremely popular on Gor, and even children findamong their playthings the pieces of the game; there are numerous clubs andcompetitions among various castes and cylinders; careful records of importantgames are kept and studied;lists of competitions and tournaments and their winners are filed in theCylinder of Documents; there is even in most Gorean libraries a sectioncontaining an incredible number of scrolls pertaining to the techniques,tactics and strategy of the game.Almost all civilized Goreans, of whatevercaste, play.It is not unusual to find even children of twelve or fourteen years who playwith a depth and sophistication, a subtlety and a brilliance, that might bethe envy of the chess masters of Earth.But this man now approaching was not an amateur, nor an enthusiast.He was aman who would be respected by all the castes in Ar; he was a man who would berecognized, most likely, not only by every urchin wild in the streets of thecity but by the Ubar as well; he was a Player, a professional, one who earnedhis living through the game.The Players are not a caste, nor a clan, but they tend to be a group apart,living their own lives.They are made up of men from various castes who oftenhave little in common but the game, but that is more than enough.They are menwho commonly have an extraordinary aptitude for the game but beyond this menwho have become drunk on it, men lost in the subtle, abstract liquors ofvariation, pattern and victory, men who live for the game, who want it andneed it as other men might want gold, or others power and women, or others therolled, narcotic strings of toxic kanda.There are competitions of Players, with purses provided by amateurorganizations, and sometimes by the city itself, and these purses are, uponoccasion, enough to enrich a man, but most Players earn a miserable living byhawking their wares, a contest with a master, in the street.The odds areusually one to forty, one copper tarn disk against a forty-piece, sometimesagainst an eighty-piece, and sometimes the amateur who would play the masterinsists on further limitations, such as the option to three consecutive movesat a point in the game of his choice, or that the master must remove from theboard, before the game begins, his two tarnsmen, or his Riders of the HighTharlarion.Further, in order to gain Players, the master, if wise,occasionally loses a game, which is expensive at the normal odds; and the gamemust be lost subtly, that the amateur must believe he has won [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]