Most of the scars were set in pairs, moving diagonally down from the side of the head toward the nose and chin.
2
172
The man facing me had seven such scars ceremonially worked into the tissue of his countenance, the highest being red, the next yellow, the next blue, the fourth black, then two yellow, then black again.
2
173
The faces of the men I saw were all scarred differently, but each was scarred.
2
174
The effect of the scars, ugly, startling, terrible, perhaps in part calculated to terrify enemies, had even prompted me, for a wild moment, to conjecture that what I faced on the Plains of Turia were not men, but perhaps aliens of some sort, brought to Gor long ago from remote worlds to serve some now-discharged or forgotten purpose of Priest-Kings; but now I knew better; now I could see them as men; and now, more significantly, I recalled what I had heard whispered of once before, in a tavern in Ar, the terrible Scar Codes of the Wagon Peoples, for each of the hideous marks on the face of these men had a meaning, a significance that could be read by the Paravaci, the Kassars, the Kataii, the Tuchuks as clearly as you or I might read a sign in a window or a sentence in a book.
2
175
At that time I could read only the top scar, the red, bright, fierce cordlike scar that was the Courage Scar.
2
176
It is always the highest scar on the face.
2
177
Indeed, without that scar, no other scar can be granted.
Most of the scars were set in pairs, moving diagonally down from the side of the head toward the nose and chin.
The man facing me had seven such scars ceremonially worked into the tissue of his countenance, the highest being red, the next yellow, the next blue, the fourth black, then two yellow, then black again.
The faces of the men I saw were all scarred differently, but each was scarred.
The effect of the scars, ugly, startling, terrible, perhaps in part calculated to terrify enemies, had even prompted me, for a wild moment, to conjecture that what I faced on the Plains of Turia were not men, but perhaps aliens of some sort, brought to Gor long ago from remote worlds to serve some now-discharged or forgotten purpose of Priest-Kings; but now I knew better; now I could see them as men; and now, more significantly, I recalled what I had heard whispered of once before, in a tavern in Ar, the terrible Scar Codes of the Wagon Peoples, for each of the hideous marks on the face of these men had a meaning, a significance that could be read by the Paravaci, the Kassars, the Kataii, the Tuchuks as clearly as you or I might read a sign in a window or a sentence in a book.
At that time I could read only the top scar, the red, bright, fierce cordlike scar that was the Courage Scar.
It is always the highest scar on the face.
Indeed, without that scar, no other scar can be granted.
- (Nomads of Gor, Chapter )