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I looked at him steadily. "They are probably false stones," I said, "amber droplets, the pearls of the Vosk sorp, the polished shell of the Tamber clam, glass colored and cut in Ar for trade with ignorant southern peoples."
Nomads of Gor, page 20
I left the tiers of the racing stadium and began to walk down the long, sloping stone ramp, level by level. There were few leaving the races but I did pass some late comers, moving up the ramps, who had perhaps been detained or had been released from their shops only late in the day. At one corner in the descending ramp there was a small knot of young men, weavers by their garments, who were gambling with the inked knucklebones of verr, shaking them in a small leather cup and spilling them to the stones. On the ground level, beneath the lofty stands, there was much more life. Here there were lines of booths in an extended arcade, where merchandise of various sorts might be purchased, usually of an inexpensive and low-quality variety. There were poorly webbed, small tapestries; amulets and talismans; knotted prayer strings; papers containing praises of Priest- Kings, which might be carried on one's person; numerous ornaments of glass and cheap metal; the strung pearls of the Vosk sorp; polished, shell brooches; pins with heads carved from the horn of kailiauk tridents; lucky sleen teeth; racks of rep-cloth robes, veils and tunics in various caste colors; cheap knives and belts and pouches; vials containing perfumes, for which extraordinary claims were made; and small clay, painted replicas of the stadium and racing tarns. I also saw a booth where sandals were sold, cheap and poorly sewn, which the seller was proclaiming were of the same sort as those worn by Menicius of Port Kar. He, riding Yellow, had won one of the races I had just witnessed. He claimed over six thousand wins and was, in Ar and certain of the northern cities generally, a quite popular hero; he was said in private life to be cruel and dissolute, venal and petty, but when he climbed to the saddle of a racing tarn there were few who did not thrill to the sight; it was said no man could ride as Menicius of Port Kar. The sandals, I noted, were selling quite well.
Assassin of Gor, pages 155-156
He sat upon a giant shell of the Vosk sorp, as on a sort of throne, which, for these people, I gather it was.
Raiders of Gor, page 14
"He is a spy," said one of the other men present, who stood beside Ho-Hak. This man was tall, and strong looking. He carried a marsh spear. On his forehead there was tied a headband formed of the pearls of the Vosk sorp.
Raiders of Gor, page 18
Bending over I found a string of cheap beads, formed from the shell of the vosk sorp, broken. It might have been torn from the neck of a panther girl in a struggle.
Hunters of Gor, page 190
It was Luma, the chief scribe of my house, in her blue robe and sandals. Her hair was blond and straight, tied behind her head with a ribbon of blue wool, from the bounding Hurt, dyed in the blood of the Vosk sorp. She was a scrawny girl, not attractive, but with deep eyes, blue; and she was a superb scribe, in her accounting swift, incisive, accurate, brilliant; once she had been a Paga slave, though a poor one; I had saved her from Surbus, a captain, who had purchased her to slay her, she not having served him to his satisfaction in the alcoves of the tavern; he would have cast her, bound, to the swift, silken urts in the canals. I had dealt Surbus his death blow, but, before he had died, I had, on the urging of the woman, she moved to pity, carried him to the roof of the tavern, that he might, before his eyes closed, look once more upon the sea. He was a pirate, and a cutthroat, but he was not unhappy in his death; he had died by the sword, which would have been his choice, and before he had died he had looked again upon gleaming Thassa; it is called the death of blood and the sea; he died not unhappy; men of Port Kar do not care to die in their beds, weak, lingering, at the mercy of tiny foes that cannot see; they live often by violence and desire that they shall similarly perish; to die by the sword is regarded as the right, and honor, of he who lives by it.
Marauders of Gor, pages 1-2
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