Then, soberly, though I acknowledged it as a superstition, I performed the Gorean ritual of looking into the blood.
4
100
With my cupped hands I drank a mouthful of blood, and then, holding another in my hands, I waited for the next flash of lightning.
4
101
One looks into the blood in one's cupped hands.
4
102
It is said that if one sees one's visage black and wasted one will die of disease, if one sees oneself torn and scarlet one will die in battle, if one sees oneself old and white haired, one will die in peace and leave children.
4
103
The lightning flashed again, and I stared into the blood.
4
104
In that brief moment, in the tiny pool of blood I held, I saw not myself but a strange face, like a globe of gold with disklike eyes, a face like none I had ever seen, a face that struck an eerie terror into my heart.
4
105
The darkness returned, and in the next flash of lightning I examined the blood again, but it was only blood, the blood of a sleen I had killed on the road to Ko-ro-ba.
Then, soberly, though I acknowledged it as a superstition, I performed the Gorean ritual of looking into the blood.
With my cupped hands I drank a mouthful of blood, and then, holding another in my hands, I waited for the next flash of lightning.
One looks into the blood in one's cupped hands.
It is said that if one sees one's visage black and wasted one will die of disease, if one sees oneself torn and scarlet one will die in battle, if one sees oneself old and white haired, one will die in peace and leave children.
The lightning flashed again, and I stared into the blood.
In that brief moment, in the tiny pool of blood I held, I saw not myself but a strange face, like a globe of gold with disklike eyes, a face like none I had ever seen, a face that struck an eerie terror into my heart.
The darkness returned, and in the next flash of lightning I examined the blood again, but it was only blood, the blood of a sleen I had killed on the road to Ko-ro-ba.
- (Outlaw of Gor, Chapter )