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 FibersThese are the relevant references from the Books where Fibers are mentioned. I did not include references to Binding Fiber. If I had, this page would much, much longer. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. Arrive at your own conclusions. I wish you well, Fogaban "That is pleasing to me," said the insect, "for the men of Ar do not behave well toward the Spider People. They hunt us and leave only enough of us alive to spin the Curlon Fiber used in the mills of Ar. If they were not rational creatures, we would fight them." Tharna has perhaps a hundred or more mines, each maintained by its own chain of slaves. These mines are torturous networks of tunnels worming themselves inch by inch irregularly through the rich ores that are the foundation of the wealth of the city. Most of the shaft tunnels do not allow a man to stand upright in them. Many are inadequately braced. As the slave works the tunnel, he crawls on his hands and knees, which bleed at first but gradually develop calluses of thick, scabrous tissue. About his neck hangs a canvas bag in which pieces of ore are carried back to the scales. The ore itself is freed from the sides of the mine by a small pick. Light is supplied by tiny lamps, no more than small cups of tharlarion oil with fiber wicks. I would allow Vika to share the great stone couch, its sleeping pelts, and silken sheets. This was unusual, however, for normally the Gorean slave girl sleeps at the foot of her master's couch, often on a straw mat with only a thin, cottonlike blanket, woven from the soft fibers of the Rep Plant, to protect her from the cold. I and Kutaituchik watched as he carefully spread open the collar, pressing back two edges. Then, from within the collar, he drew forth a thin, folded piece of paper, rence paper made from the fibers of the rence plant, a tall, long-stalked leafy plant which grows predominantly in the delta of the Vosk. The foot knots were done with subsidiary rope but worked into the fiber of the main rope and glued over so as to be almost one with it. They were spaced about every ten feet on the rope. Saphrar screamed in agony and moving beneath the yellow glistening surface of the pool I saw several of the filamentous fibers encircle his legs and begin to draw him deeper into the pool and beneath the surface. "Remember Kutaituchik," said Kamchak, and the filamentous fibers about the merchant's legs and ankles drew him slowly downward. Some bubbles broke the surface. Then the merchant's hands, still extended as though to grasp the vines overhead, with their scarlet fingernails, the robes eaten away from the flesh, disappeared beneath the sparkling, glistening surface. The torch was brought, and the pool seemed to discharge its vapor more rapidly, and the fluids began to churn, and draw away from our edge of the pool. The yellows of the pool began to flicker and the filamentous fibers began to writhe, and the spheres of different colors beneath the surface began to turn and oscillate, and dart in one direction and then the other. Rence paper is made by slicing the stem into thin, narrow strips; those near the center of the plant are particularly favored; one layer of strips is placed longitudinally, and then a shorter layer is placed latitudinally across the first layer; these two surfaces are then soaked under water, which releases a gluelike substance from the fibers, melding the two surfaces into a single, rectangular sheet; these formed sheets are then hammered and dried in the sun; roughness is removed by polishing, usually with a smooth shell or a bit of kailiauk horn; the side of a tharlarion tooth may also be used in this work. In a few moments the tarn spread his wings before the black wind and, caught in the blast, was hurled before the Dorna, and began, in dizzying circles, to climb in the wind and sleet. The boy, his feet braced on a knot in the swaying rope, his hands clenched on its fibers, swung below me. Far below I saw the Dorna, lifting and falling in the troughs of the waves, and, separated from her, the ships of the fleet, round ships and tarn ships, storm sails set, oars dipping, flying before the storm. I passed another stall, in which mats were being sold. These are used for various purposes, sometimes vertically for screens, more normally, horizontally, for sifting and sleeping. They can be tightly rolled and occupy little space. Among them I saw rough-fibered slave mats, and among those, the coarsest of all, submission mats, on which the female slave may be forced to perform for her master. I saw the black leather strap, wide, shiny, across his body, from which depended the blade slung at his left hip. Behind it I saw the coarsely woven, thick red fibers at his tunic. I knew that were he to seize me in his arms and crush me to his chest, with what strength must be his, that the mark of the strap, the coarse fibers, would be imprinted on my breasts. The girl again stirred in the corner of the room. She rolled to her back. One knee was raised. She was luscious in the slave rag and collar. She turned her head from side to side. She made a small noise. She opened and closed one small hand. I wondered if she were aware, dimly, of the coarse fibers of the slave mat beneath her back. I did not think so, not yet. The girl turned uneasily on the mat. She was then again on her side. Her legs were again drawn up. She moaned. I saw the small fingers of her right hand touch the mat. Her fingertips were soft against the rough fibers. On her legs, where she had lain, there were markings from the mat. I saw her small fingers move slightly, and her fingertips touch the fibers of the mat. Then, suddenly, I saw her fingertips press down on the mat, and then, suddenly, her fingernails, frightened, dug at it. Her entire body suddenly stiffened. "You are awake," I observed. "What is this on which I find myself?" she asked, frightened. "Is it not obvious?" I asked. "It is a slave mat." I watched, a bale of rep fiber on my shoulder, near the rep wharf. As the running man approached me I lowered the bale of rep fiber and, as he came within feet of me, suddenly slid it before him. He struck the bale and stumbled over it, rolling on the boards. I went to pick up her tunic. I felt the blades of wet, cold grass cut at my ankles. I tossed her the tunic. She knelt, holding it. It was tiny, in her hands. On it, dark and wet, moist in its fibers, were the marks of dew. In a moment there was a cracking noise, and then, after a few more blows, a splintering, rending sound as the tree tipped, and then, its branches striking the earth, fell. Five last blows were struck, cutting the last fibers and wood, and the trunk, freed, laid level, a yard above the ground, held in place by branches and foliage. It seemed I lay there for an Ahn. The heavy fiber of the basket cut into my skin. I did not, however, so much as move. Then other tarns were brought, one by one, to the platform. The other baskets were lofted away. Mine only, it seemed, remained. Through tiny cracks between the woven fibers of the deep, sturdy basket I could see the ground slipping away beneath us. The fiber of the basket would be temporarily imprinting its pattern on my skin. "This mat is hard," she said. "It is rough." She squirmed a little, moving her back upon it, on its rough fibers. "She does have auburn hair," I informed him. "It may be hard to see in this light." "Then shave it off, and sell it," he laughed. "The keeper might do that," I said. Lady Temione moaned, helplessly. This was, of course, a genuine possibility, particularly in this area at this time. Women's hair, long and silky, plaited into heavy ropes, is ideal for the cording of catapults. It is far superior, for example, to vegetable fibers. I noted the collar on her neck, metal, close-fitting and locked. It was easy to see, even with her head down, because of the shortness of her hair. It had been shaved off some weeks ago by the keeper of the Crooked Tarn, to be sold as raw materials for catapult cordage. Women's hair, soft, glossy, silky and resilient, stronger than vegetable fibers and more weather resistant, well woven, is ideal for such a purpose. I was then placed in some sort of basket. I could feel the fiber though the blanket. Memories of the dream recurred, the movements, the metal wagon, the chains, the hood, the basket, the wind though its course, sturdy fibers. The material of the gown she wore was from the wool of the bounding hurt, which is distinguished from the common hurt not only by its gazellelike movements, particularly when startled, but by the quality of its wool. It is raised on this world for its wool. The cell was not really uncomfortable. It was large, and its floor was covered, for the most part, with a woven fiber mat. There was no mat of woven fiber on the floor; the floor was bare, and hard, consisting of heavy blocks of fitted stone, such as those in the corridor. The basket, as it was a cargo basket, had no seat or bench. It was woven of stout fibers, generally an inch or better in width. A consequence of this lack of hair, or fur, is that the species, in its wanderings and migrations, certainly into colder areas, must clothe itself. This seems to have been done first by taking the skins and fur of other animals, with which the Nameless One, if it was concerned at all with such matters, had refused to provide them, and later particularly by the utilization of plant fibers, and such. "The hull," he said, "is bored by ship worms, and rotted. The deck is split and the boards shrunk. Were it not for the clasp of the foliage, suspending her, she may have disappeared long ago." He punched downward with the heel of his sea boot and the board broke under the blow, revealing a brown, spongelike mass of fiber. "You writhe well," he said. I scratched at the coarse fibers of the mat. I could see little from within the basket other than through the opened gate, the boards outside, but there were numerous, tiny openings between the woven fibers. I looked about, listening intently, straining to see, but I could see nothing but now-manifest threads of morning light glittering amongst the fibers of the wicker walls. Then I screamed, again, for suddenly with a ripping of fiber, an object, short, narrow, cylindrical, pointed, metal-finned, had burst up through the floor of the basket in which I lay. "No!" she screamed, but the guard who had introduced her into the chamber, in his arms, lifted her and plunged her into the pool. He even, three or four times, held her head fully, briefly, under water. Then he drew her soaked figure dripping from the pool and laid her near the fire. Oddly enough, there was no great pool of water about her soaked figure. It was as though her tight, wrapped layers of sheeting, within the ropes, sucked the water into its fibers. "And there are many strong-winged birds, shore birds and sea birds, for example, the sea kite, much like the Vosk gull." "Granted," said Tab. "And fibers abound, hemp, linen, and silk, which may be cunningly twisted." Clitus had now withdrawn his net from the water and the net seemed alive, thrashing and squirming. I caught a flash of roiling color within it, saw teeth cutting at its fibers, saw part of a body, short, serpentine, and muscular, bulging and distending cords, and saw a cord severed and a triangular head, viperish, thrust through torn mesh, followed by half a body, when Clitus cried out, "Ho!" and flung the entire net and its contents over the head of the terrified, screaming minion. |       
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