In the tenth and chronologically final tale in the series, “The Game of Time and Pain” (1985), Gorgik has been successful in his political campaign to end slavery officially throughout the land of Nevèrÿon. The political question is how the nation should deal intelligently with this sudden population of freed slaves. This Gorgik narrates to one of his young sexual partners, a barbarian boy named Udrog, when the two find themselves together in an abandoned castle for the night, just before the passing of a funeral procession of one of Gorgik’s major political adversaries. Other than the first tale, this is the only one in which Gorgik is on stage for the majority of the action.
