Lin Carter - The City Outside the World

by Lin Carter

  He didn’t like the looks of them—their soft, underdeveloped bodies, their features so pretty as to verge on girlish beauty, their languid postures, too graceful and affected to be manly. But he had to admit they held their swords expertly enough. They looked as if they knew very well how to use them.

  There was no sense in getting himself killed—not here, not like this, like a rat trapped in a black hole in the ground. It would do no good to resist, so he surrendered.

  The dainty princeling who had attended Valarda on the parapet murmured some peremptory directive to his retinue. Ryker listened closely this time. Now that he realized the language was an antiquated and obsolete variant of the one universal native language, he thought he could almost catch the sense of what was said.

  The pronunciation of the words was oddly different from the Tongue he knew, of course. The phrasing of the remark the princeling drawled to his companions was stilted, archaic and formal, the consonants were spoken with more crispness and sharpness than in the dialect of the Tongue familiar to him, the vowels were rounder and more fully enunciated, rather than being slurred and almost elided, as in the modern forms of speech spoken on the desert world, and some of the verbs were unrecognizable.

  But he could catch enough of what the aristocratic personage said to his followers to make out its import.

  He said,’ ‘Bind this one, and construct a litter for the old man. We shall escort them into Zhiam, since that seems to be their goal. The Priestess will no doubt desire to have words with this ruffian in particular.”

  So he was a prisoner again!

  By now, Ryker was almost getting used to it.

  They lashed his wrists behind his back with silken cords which looked flimsy enough, but proved to be surprisingly strong when Ryker surreptitiously tested his strength against them.

  It was singularly humiliating to stand there and let these pretty boys tie him up. He towered head and shoulders above most of them, and his arms were bigger around and more heavily muscled than were their thighs. He could have picked them up and tossed them about like dolls, but he bent his head and grimly submitted to being bound.

  The Martians took up the limp body of Doc Herzog and 167

  bore it along with them on a makeshift litter fashioned from two slim spears, lashed together with strips torn from one of the crimson cloaks. They treated the injured man gently enough, Ryker saw.

  Then, prodded on by their leader, who seemed to be named Lord Thoh, the Zhiamese let Ryker precede them into the tunnel.

  It was black as pitch inside, of course, but the flooring was dry and smooth underfoot, and Ryker cautiously felt his way, wary of stumbling over some unseen obstacle in the dark.

  The tunnel slanted downwards for a time on a shallow decline, then ran straight for a certain ways, and finally rose to the surface again on a gentle upwards slant.

  It had been tunnelled beneath the very bed of the river, he realized, and it was obvious that it was not a recent excavation. Heavy beams of dark azure wood supported the roof at intervals, and crossbraces prevented the earthen walls from crumbling in. The beams were not freshly cut, but old; here and there, they were slick with patches of mold and lichen.

  His burly form towering above the slim Zhiamese, Ryker went down into the darkness, feeling rather like Hercules descending into Hades to claim his bride from the King of Shadows. The classical parallel was neat and fitting, but made him feel uncomfortable. One thrust of those slim rapiers, and he would be going down into the Kingdom of Shadows sure enough.

  What purpose this underground road had been built to serve, Ryker could not even guess. But he reflected that any city worth its salt has more than one way in—or out.

  When they ascended again to the surface of the planet, it was by a stone stair similar to that Ryker had seen at the other end of the subterranean passage. This one gave forth

  into the interior of a large stone building whose shadowy heights and echoing recesses were brilliantly illuminated by lamps of crystal and some silvery metal. He could have sworn the method of illumination used was fluorescent lighting, but there was no way of telling without examining one of the glowing spheres at close hand.

  Here Lord Thoh reported his small triumph to an officer who treated him with the utmost deference, glancing curiously at the tall, rugged Earthling and the unconscious scientist. This officer was manlier and more strongly built than the little party of courtiers, although still an unusually short and slightly built warrior by modern standards. He wore a short tunic of glassy green stuff, covered with shiny scales like some sort of armor, and his helm was of red copper.

  Ryker was put into a narrow cell with a barred door and his wrists were cut free.

  Then the Zhiamese warriors went away, bearing the unconscious body of the old scientist with them, and Ryker was left alone with his thoughts.

  21. Sentence of Death

  The officer in charge of the cells was named Aoth. Ryker got to know him a bit. He was gruff but courteous, offering his prisoner no insult, but treating him rather gingerly. Ryker got the idea that the fellow was somewhat in awe of Ryker, curious as to his antecedents—he was obviously not Martian but too polite to ask questions.

  He brought Ryker food and drink. The wine was of a superb vintage, heady and effervescent, a pale golden fluid which looked and tasted not unlike champagne. It had been fifteen years since Ryker had last enjoyed a goblet of champagne, and he sipped the beverage appreciatively, thinking that if this was the sort of fare served up in the jails of Zhiam, being a prisoner here was not going to be all that tough to endure.

  The food was similarly delicious—spicy balls of some reddish meal soaked in hot, succulent sauce, and a sort of hot broth filled with crisp tidbits of herbs and vegetables. It all went down as easily as did the golden wine.

  Ryker could not help noticing that there was no meat in his meal. Were these descendants of the ancient Martian rebels all vegetarians, or did their religion prohibit them from slaughtering beasts? If the latter was true, then they seemed a bit too tenderhearted to fit his notion of devil worshippers.

  While the cuisine would have done credit to the finest gourmet restaurant, the prison cell was just a prison cell. It boasted nothing more elaborate in the way of furniture

  than a rough wooden bench and a heap of dry straw. There was a porcelain jug in one corner which looked almost exactly like pictures Ryker had seen of antique chamber pots, and which was apparently here for precisely the same purpose.

  And the bars were … bars. It would have taken someone a lot stronger than he was to bend them out of their sockets.

  After a while, he dozed off, awakening a time later when guards unlocked the door and entered his cell to bring him forth for judgment. The guards were a hardier lot than Thoh’s retinue, too, like Captain Aoth. Ryker began to guess that his first impression of the Zhiamese was, after all, mistaken. Courtiers and nobles here in Zhiam were about as effete and elegant and dainty of person as courtiers and nobles are commonly supposed to be, he thought. But there were some decent men here in the City, just the same.

  He was led out into the open, into a sort of courtyard. Strange glowing flowers shimmered against the dark, luminous and glossy; graceful feather trees spread their soft plumage to the night breeze, and fountains splashed somewhere in the darkness.

  Here Ryker was told to step into a light wheeled vehicle for which he had no name. It was too small to be called a carriage, and too capacious to be considered a chariot. But when he saw the thing that was harnessed to draw the wheeled car, he promptly forgot all about the vehicle itself.

  Was this the remote, prehistoric ancestor of the slidarl If so, it was improbably beautiful, like some fantastic creature in a fairy tale.

  Imagine a six-legged animal all lean and sinewy and

  graceful as a leopard, but five times as large, and covered with glittering enameled scales like a reptile, and you will have a faint idea of what it looked like. The creature had a
long, gracefully arched neck somewhat like a fine horse, but longer. Also horselike, it was restive and spirited, pawing at the stone pave with delicate clawed feet. Its entire slim, beautifully proportioned body was a glittering tapestry of gold and green scales, like cloisonne or rare Oriental inlay work. And when it turned its slim, tapering head to peer back at Ryker, he gasped, for it had the long curved beak of an ibis or a crane, and immense, fathomless eyes like huge gems of dark purple, and a nodding crest of rosy filaments like some griffin or wyvern oi fable.

  The chariot, or whatever it was, got underway. Rapidly trotting along on its six astounding limbs, the gorgeous beaked reptilian creature glided swiftly out of the courtyard and into a broad boulevard lined with fantastic trees covered with huge blossoms like powder puffs, tintec pastel colors, pink and soft blue and a delicate shade of orange. Dawn was breaking overhead and the sky was s rich scarlet and vermilion and palest gold. The fairy like beauty of the scene made Ryker catch his breath.

  At this early hour few were up, and the streets were empty under the blaze of morn. The beaked reptile bore the light chariot down a magnificent avenue lined with palaces or villas such as Ryker had only seen before moldering in decay, bitten deep by the teeth of time. Bui these were fresh and new and in excellent repair.

  Then—and for the first time—did he truly realize in the depths of his heart that he had been transported by some weird, uncanny magic back into the ancient past of immemorial Mars. The sensation was a difficult one tc convey. Something of what Ryker felt as he drove down

  that empty boulevard past splendid edifices of gleaming, fulvous marble in a vehicle drawn by some incredible beast of fable, you or I would feel, were we suddenly and miraculously transported to the Ishtar Gate of Babylon in the days when Nebuchadnezzar reigned, or that holy sacred city at the headwaters of the Nile which Akhnaten the Heretic Pharaoh had built to the glory of his god Aton, or gorgeous Persepolis before the mighty Macedonian conqueror put it to the torch.

  And in that moment he knew that, no matter what Zarouk said or the gaunt fanatic, Dmu Dran, believed, these people were no worshippers of Evil and Old Night. Surely, deviltry and black sorcery could not flourish here, • in surroundings so lovely, so impossibly gorgeous, that they took his breath away and left him numb and shaken with awe.

  Whatever Zhagguaziu—the Fire Devil—actually was, | if he was anything at all beyond a mere myth, the folk who worshipped him were not sinful fiends, but a graceful, courteous, beauty-loving people with an immensely advanced civilization and a culture rich with appreciation of the arts and of gracious living. How, then, could the god they worshipped be a demon of evil?

  The answer was that he couldn’t.

  The hall in which Valarda received him was smaller than he might have expected, and incredibly beautiful.

  The floor and walls were covered with glistening ceramic tiles, durable and gleaming as fine porcelain, and ornamented with geometrical arabesques quite unlike the ordinary native decorative arts. If they resembled anything in particular, it was the complex and intricate designs on Islamic tiles from the Middle Ages.

  Carpets of sleek fur were scattered about the floor of the

  large, high-ceilinged room. That they were the hides of hitherto unknown beasts was unquestionable, since fur-bearing mammals were all but extinct on the Mars he knew. Brick-red and carnation and dark bronze were the furs, and to tread upon their softness was like walking on clouds.

  Despite the modest proportions of the room—for it was little more than an antechamber to the enormous pillared rotunda wherein Valarda generally held her court—quite a number of personages were crowded therein. This was the largest gathering of the Lost Nation that Ryker had ever seen close up, and he looked about him curiously. One and all were dressed in abbreviated garments which left plenty of naked flesh bare, the only exception to this fashion being old Melandron himself. The sage was robed in soft, clinging stuff which looked like velour.

  Some of the younger nobles had the same soft, effete, underdeveloped look to them that he had observed in Lord Thoh’s retinue when it had surprised him at the entrance to the underground road. But many of the older lords were heavier of build, with stronger character in their faces, and the look of competence and virility about them. The women, even the older women, were singularly beautiful.

  Even in so lustrous a company, Valarda shone out like a diamond among pebbles. Her shimmering cataract of silken black hair was held in the same openwork coronal of gold filigree she had worn on the parapet. Her tawny limbs, svelte and nearly nude, flashed with priceless gems. Suspended between her shallow, firm breasts an immense, purple jewel blazed like a captive star. It was a rare ziriol, he knew, and its value was incalculable.

  This time the face she turned to him was serene, resolute and untroubled. She was in control of her emotions, and the calm emotionlessness of her features, if they

  masked an inner turmoil of guilt or indecision, revealed no trace of this to the observing eye.

  She sat on a low, carven bench of sparkling crystal, and, alone of that company, she was seated. Ryker had suspected her rank to be of the highest, and Thoh’s term for her—’ ‘Priestess” it translated to—suggested as much. Now her supremacy among this company was obvious. And Ryker relaxed a little. It never hurts to have a friend on the throne.

  Standing near Melandron, Ryker was surprised and relieved to see Herzog. The old scientist had been less seriously injured in his fall through the hidden trapdoor than Ryker had first feared, and from the lively expression on his face and the sprightly manner in which he held himself, he seemed to have made a full recovery.

  “Ryker, my boy!” he sang out as the tall Earthling came into the chamber amidst his escort of guards. He wove his way through the throng and came over to grin happily up at the younger man.

  “Hey, Doc, you’re all in one piece, eh?” grinned Ryker. “That’s good news! What’s going on here, anyway?”

  The old Israeli sobered. “Good news and bad news,” he muttered. “We’re to be judged, my boy, and it don’t look good.”

  He nodded to where Lord Thoh stood, accoutered like a peacock in bejewelled finery that would have made Ha-roun Al-Raschid blush with envy. ‘ ‘That fellow over there is no friend of ours, let me tell you. Seems this place is split into two factions—politics, business as usual, even here!—-and he leads the one that wants to go out and fight against our old friend, Zarouk, and his desert bandits, using the ancient weapons of science magic the ancestors of these people used long ago. Well, sir, the other faction,

  led by the Lady herself, thinks they better stick to the old laws against bloodshed—”

  Ryker drew a breath. “So it is their law, then! I about had it figured that way, from the fact that the Stone Giants never took a life. Wonder if Zarouk knew about the law all the time? It sure would explain how he dared come into Zhiam with such a small force, when for all he knew he would be facing thousands of armed warriors.”

  “Yes,” Doc nodded, “and the trouble is, see, Valarda—she’s not only descended from the royal blood of these people, but the chief priestess of the Fire Devil—is holding her sway with quite a bit of difficulty, here. She’s had to compromise, fact is. Had to give in to Thoh on this one point, just to hold her coalition together.”

  “What do you mean by that?” demanded Ryker.

  Doc looked apologetic, as if he hated to be the bearer of bad news.

  “Well … I mean we’re already sentenced to death, both of us,” he admitted. “The only question they have yet to decide is—how.”

  22. Down There

  That night in his cell, Ryker had a visitor. It was about the last visitor he could have expected, considering the death sentence that had been passed against him and the old Israeli.

  He was aroused from his fitful, uneasy slumbers by the clink of metal against metal, and the scrape of sandal leather against gritty stone.

  Raising himself up on one elbow, he blinked
through the gloom to see two robed and hooded figures at the door. The brilliant light from the crystal lamps which illuminated the corridor outlined their shadowy forms.

  ‘ ‘Ryker!” whispered a faint voice. That voice he knew, and to hear again its husky music sent a quiver through his nerves which he could neither suppress nor deny. He got up quietly, so as not to disturb Doc, who lay snoring loudly against the wall, and padded over to the cell door on bare feet.

  The taller of the two figures tossed back its hood, and it was Valarda.

  “What d’you want?” he grunted. “After what you had to say back there, I figured there’d be nothing else to say—my Lady.”

  His voice was heavy with sarcasm, and she winced at the sound of it. Then she raised her face and looked into his eyes, and that which he saw written in her features, the suffering, the sorrow, made him wish he hadn’t spoken so harshly.

  “I want to try to make you understand,” she whispered.

  “Well, you can try,” he said gruffly. “Go ahead.”

  Her face was wan and pale, and there were lines of strain and weariness about her glorious eyes. She stepped closer to the bars which stood between them—so close that he could smell the spicy scent of her unbound hair, and the warm perfume of her naked flesh.

  “I hold my throne with difficulty here,” she whispered. “To wield the power that is my inheritance from the ancient warrior princes of my blood, I must yield on some points. Can you understand that?”

  He grinned humorlessly. “My death may be a small point to you, but it’s mighty important to me! But go on, I’m listening.”