The City Outside the World

6. The Oasis Town

Dawn had lit the cave-roof with its pale luminance before Ryker got back to sleep, and when at last the others roused him it was near midday.

He went out to check on their lopers, and was surprised to find them unmolested. They had tethered the beasts at the foot of the cliff wall of the mesa, some distance up a narrow ravine where they could feed on the rock lichens and podweed. The slioth had not investigated the ravine, apparently.

As for the cliff dragon, its body was gone. Either the bolt from Ryker’s power gun had not slain it outright, and it had dragged itself off to its lair, or its fellow scavengers had carried it away to feast in private.

Ryker thought it likely the beast had limped away on its own. Such reptiles are notoriously hard to kill, having brains so small it takes them hours to realize they are dead—an old hunting joke—and two hearts.

Nobody spoke over breakfast. And there was utterly no reference made to last night. It was as if none of it had even happened. Valarda did not meet his eyes, and served his meal with a cool reserve.

Ryker was just as glad. The embrace, the kiss, they had been one of those things and meant nothing. And he was in a surly, taciturn mood and felt little like conversation. The little imp, Kiki, however, had a twinkle of mischief in his green eyes as the boy demurely asked how he had slept.

They rode on that day, due west, following the curve of the meridian.

There had been some discussion about this, but not much. The girl informed him that they wished to reach the oasis of Yhakhah, where it was their intention to join a caravan traveling north.

This oasis town—actually, little more than a more-or-less permanent camp—stood at the northernmost terminus of the old waterway called Nilosyrtis, at the southern tip of the Casius Plateau. Now, it was the most logical place to go from where they were, perhaps; but Ryker still wondered why Valarda wished to venture into those parts. No matter what she had said to him, it simply could not be true that they wanted to travel north from that point. For north lay nothing: the barren cliff wall of the Casius, the bleak and uninhabited tableland itself, and then endless leagues of empty desert which stretched clear to the pole.

There was no city or encampment of the People north of Yhakhah. So where was she going?

There was more to all of this than met the eye, he knew. But he was in this, now, up to his neck. And there wasn’t much else for him to do but go along, if only for the ride.

All that day they skirted the soaring cliff wall of the great mesa, riding west, carrying as much food and water as they could store. From time to time, Ryker eyed it curiously. The mesa meant something to Valarda and her old grandsire—if that is all he was. The Earthling recalled the curious emotion with which they had viewed it the previous evening. They had seemed—what?—appalled?, crestfallen?, saddened?

Now, why should that be? The mesa of Alcyonius Nodus was as it had ever been, a barren tableland of dead, sterile rock. And it had been thus for millions of years, surely, or anyway since the great oceans of prehistoric Mars began to dry up. Once, perhaps , it had been a broad and fertile island, against whose cliffy shores the lost oceans had burst in shattering spray. But that was long ago.

They rode west, then north awhile until the mighty wall of the great pleateau darkened the horizon to the north. Reaching the foot of the plateau, they skirted it, riding west until sundown, and slept that night in the mouth of one of the innumerable ravines into which the cliffs of Casius were cloven.

The following day they caught their first glimpse of the broad Nilosyrtis. Once this canal had been a mighty river, perhaps, flowing down into the lowlands from the mountainous heights of Casius, and watering the Old City which stood at the northern extremity of that huge peninsula now called Syrtis Major. Now it was only a level plain covered with knee-high vegetation, weirdly blue.

When Mars began to dry up as the free water vapor in its atmosphere escaped in ever-dwindling amounts into space, the crust of the planet had shrunk and cracked, forming a network of long, geometrical lesions in the surface. Into these titanic ravines the shrinking oceans, or what was left of them, had drained. And over succeeding ages the Martian vegetation, adapting to ever-dwindling supplies of moisture, had taken root along these fissures, forming thick belts of hardy growths whose root systems delved down for miles into the pockets of moisture trapped within the bowels of the planet.

It was these broad strips of fertile vegetation the Earth astronomers had mistaken for artificial waterways. Only some of them, like Nilosyrtis, had once been the beds of primordial rivers, and only a very few showed any signs of having been engineered by human hands. While it was now thought that a few of the old canals had actually been “mined” for water with immense rigs which had probably resembled the oil wells of Texas and Oklahoma, most of them were natural phenomena, and none of them bore even the slightest resemblance to the super Venetian canals which had webbed the planet from pole to pole in the imagination of Earthsider astronomers and fiction writers two centuries ago.

But here there was, truly, a source of water. For the low, rubbery, bright blue plants were a tough and hardy species whose leathery leaves and stems stored precious moisture hoisted drop by drop from whatever was left of the lost oceans at the planet’s core. Here was both food and drink for man and beast, and a safe road they could follow to Yhakhah.

They rode into the old town at sundown and took rooms at an inn whose walls had already been ancient before the glaciers retreated from Europe, or the English Channel was born, or the first man made friends with the first dog.

There were a dozen of these oasis towns scattered over the face of Mars, and here all enmity was held in strict abeyance. Clan war or tribal feud or private vengeance were unknown. For towns such as Yhakhah were under Water Truce; here all men were as brothers banded together against a universal enemy, which was grim and hostile Nature herself. Here even the F’yagha could come without fear of danger. Here even the priests who had hunted Valarda would be powerless to harm her. (And Ryker wondered if they were still hunting her—and now him.)

And here she masked her eyes again, before they entered the town.

Ryker wished he knew more about the folklore of the People. Perhaps golden eyes, which he knew to be rare, were thought unlucky, or a stigma of witchcraft. Crossed eyes were once so regarded back on Earth, centuries ago, he knew—the origin of the “Evil Eye” of legend.

At any rate, she masked her own as they came riding into Yhakhah.

It was old, that town. The low wall around it, and parts of the buildings, showed that originally it had been built of huge blocks of the pale golden marble mined from the worn, low hills of Mars. The tooth of Time does not bite deep upon such dense stone, and they rode through pillared gates and down a long arcade of marble columns that had stood a million years or more, and still looked new and fresh, as if carried hither from the quarries only yesterday.

But the buildings had worn less well, and many of their walls had fallen and been patched together with the clay brick the Martians somehow manufacture on a desert world where water is more precious than rubies, and a lot scarcer. They were low roofed, the buildings, hunched and blear windowed, built every which way, in a tangle of meandering, narrow streets and dark alleys choked with refuse.

It was not pretty. But the patina of age had mellowed it and softened its harsh lines and enriched the dim colors of it, until in a way it was beautiful, in the way a very old woman can be beautiful: it had character.

The dim gold of the ancient marble, the dusty red-brown of the brickwork, the tawny lucency of the horn-paned windows, blended with the rich umber of the beaten soil, and the copper and ochre of the Dustlands that ringed it in.

Two, perhaps three, caravans were assembling in Yhakhah when they rode in under an evening sky of dusky crimson, or were resting here for the next leg of a long, slow journey that might carry them halfway around this world. The wineshops were roaring with song and odorous with cooked meats; drunken men lounged about or brawled or jested, lean, rangy men, caravan guards for the most part, half outlaw, with the look of wolves about them.

Slatternly oasis women loitered in doorways, or called hoarse, obscene invitations from windows. Naked urchins played in the streets or stood, sucking dirty thumbs, staring owlishly as they rode by.

Ryker had donned a hooded cloak, drawn close to hide his inches and his face. In a pinch he could pass for a warrior of the People. He had done it before and played the part now to perfection, swaggering when he had dismounted in the innyard, hooking his thumbs in his leather belt, which was worn over the kaftanlike cloak, drawn close to conceal the thermalsuit which would have revealed him at a glance as an Outworlder. Earthsiders could come and go with impunity here, true, but there was no point in calling attention to themselves. There might be eyes, even here, alert for a dancing girl, an old man and a child, who were accompanied by an Earthman.

Four of the first inns they tried were filled to capacity, but the fifth could house them. The surly innkeeper grudgingly informed Melandron one attic room was free. They must all sleep together, but they had done it before, in the cave, and could do it now.

Again, Ryker could not help but notice how Valarda held herself aloof, like a princess, and let her grandsire engage a room for them, and hire an oasis woman to prepare and serve their meals. He wondered about it to himself. On Mars, as in the desert countries back on Earth, youth abases itself before age. And if old Melandron was indeed her grandfather, as she had said he was, it should have been Valarda who performed these tasks, while the old man sunned himself in the yard, accepting wine with dignity.

But she treated him more like a retainer, and he deferred in her as he would to a queen.

They were weary from the long day’s journey, and said little; and besides, the old witch of an oasis woman was there, cooking the meat over a hibachilike pot suspended ovcr a pan of green chemical fire, and it would not do to discuss their business before a stranger.

The woman was needed because it was traditional, and they took the evening meal in the little garret, for the Martians do not customarily eat together in the common room with strangers, save at certain feasts.

After the meal, when the woman left, the old man left them at wine and went forth into the town to speak to the caravan men. Ryker would have done this, but Melandron curtly bade him tend Valarda, and there was nothing else for him to do but acquiesce.

She turned her eyes to him once, then, and looked into his own for virtually the first time since they had shared that kiss together under the starlight.

And at what he saw in the mysterious golden eyes of the dancing girl he had rescued from the mob in Yeolarn, Ryker felt a weight lift from his heart, and the blood sang within his veins, and there was no need for him to drink wine, for he was already drunk.

For the strange light that shone in her eyes when she looked at him he thought he knew. He had seen that light once before in the eyes of a woman, and it was like the glow that glimmers in Paradise.

7. The Jest of Kiki

While the people only feast together in family groups or during certain festivities, it is traditional for them to drink together, rather than apart. And this was particularly true in towns like Yhakhah which are under Water Truce, for technically the Truce does not include travelers until they have drunk water and wine in common with strangers. It was the only form of water-sharing which does not place the Martian equivalent of blood-brotherhood upon two chance-met travelers, yet the obligation to hold the Truce is somewhat similar. And woe to him who breaks it.

Thus, although they were weary from the day’s travel, they went down into the common room to drink with the caravan men, and to listen to the latest gossip. The relayer of this was a scrawny, bright-eyed little man with a comic puckered mouth and a nubbin of a nose, called a Juhangir. The Juhangir is the People’s version of a medieval troubadour, itinerant clown, juggler and entertainer, all rolled into one in an amalgam uniquely Martian.

Between snatches of song and sketches of comic patter, the Juhangir relays the latest news and gossip, some of it months, even years, old, gathered by him during his lifelong, endless journey from town to town, city to city, camp to camp.

The Martians have no daily newsfax or stereovision commentators, they have only the wandering gossip mongerers they call Juhangir.

This particular clown, a little man named Goro, had gathered his gossip in many far places, but had—Ryker was sincerely relieved to find out—heard naught of the latest events in Yeolarn. The big Outlander had tensed himself for the bad news that a zhaggua (whatever that meant to the People) had nearly been torn apart by a mob in Yeolarn, until a F’yagh rescued her, killing a priest with his power-guns.

Ryker breathed a sigh of relief when Goro finished, collected a few coins from the audience, and bowed himself away to his cubby. If gossip of their adventures had already reached Yhakhah, it could have been bad for them.

For there were priests here, even here.

After the skinny-shanked clown was through, a dancing girl came on. She looked hardly more than twelve or thirteen, her breasts scarcely budded, and she danced with coltish grace, but with none of the breathtaking artistry of Valarda. Her dance was frankly obscene, a naked wriggling invitation, and she simpered and giggled while undulating her bare tummy and loins before the grinning men. It was a disgusting thing to see, thought Ryker, although he was no prude and once he might have found it crudely exciting.

If they needed to replenish their dwindling store of coins here in Yhakhah, he thought to himself, Valarda could earn a fortune. The awkward nymphet barely wrung enough from her audience to buy a bauble, and went off to her grubby pallet accompanied by a leering, swaggering lout who would pay her scarcely more for a more intimate form of entertainment.

The room was large and long and low ceilinged, walled and roofed with stone, and floored with ancient, subtly colored tiles most likely thieved from one of the Dead Cities. It had a carved stone fireplace at one end, its

He gasped and half-rose. In the next instant warm, supple limbs twined about him, pressing him down, and a mouth was upon his own. He returned the kiss avidly, hungrily, his hands gliding down a curved back to slim thighs, his heart drumming.

Then he froze incredulously, scarce daring to think.

He caught slim shoulders, pried the body from his own, and slid his hands up between them.

Instead of soft, yielding roundness, he touched the smooth, hard breast of a boy.

Roaring a furious oath in a voice half-strangled with fury, he jerked free and pulled away.

“You little imp!” he yelled, “I’ll tan your bottom for you, if I ever get my hands on you!”

Doubled over with crowing laughter, Kiki scrambled from the cubicle, pausing momentarily at the part in the curtains to dart a mischievous, green-eyed glance at the contorted, crimsoning face of the outraged Earthling.

Then, with an impudent wiggle of his bare bottom, the grinning boy was gone.

His fury subsiding, Ryker sank back. Then it struck him funny in a sour way, and he grimaced, chuckling. The little rascal!—and he had taken it for granted that slim, vibrant body, bare against his own, was Valarda! And that eager, voluptuous mouth—

He scrubbed the back of his hand against his lips furiously. Maybe it served him right for thinking the dancer could go for a hairy, hulking Outworlder like himself.

But he resolved to get even with Kiki somehow. The urchin would bait him mercilessly for days over the success of his jest, otherwise.

Houm was a fat, merry man with a greasy, obsequious smile which contrasted curiously with his lordly ways. His fawning smiles, however, reached no further than his lips, and his small, slitted eyes were shrewd and coldly calculating.

He affected princely raiment and seemed forever to be stuffing sweetmeats in his mouth. And he wore altogether too many rings on his pudgy fingers for Ryker’s liking.

Ryker did not like the man. Neither did he entirely trust him.

For his own part, though, the merchant from Bakrah seemed eager to have them ride north with his caravan, and was happy to have so stalwart a warrior as Ryker to join his outriders. These were needed to guard the caravan against the possibility of marauders, for danger was always present in these northerly regions, which were far beyond the territories protected by the rule of the great High Clan princes. Outlaw bands might well lurk among the ravines of Casius to ambush passersby; and even slavers were not unknown north of Syrtis.

One more outrider was a welcome addition to Houm’s troop of guards, even if he was a F’yagh. The fat man measured Ryker’s tall, brawny frame, noted his hard, suspicious eyes and the way the tips of his calloused lingers never strayed far from the well-worn gun butts, and nodded approvingly.

The chief of Houm’s guards was a rangy, wolfish warrior called Xinga. If anything, the desert rider looked even more of a ruffian than the lean, leathery men he commanded. But he looked capable enough. Xinga assigned Ryker to the right guard of the caravan’s front, and Ryker gave a surly nod of assent. He did not like to be separated from Valarda, but had no say in the matter.

At least, his assignment would keep him out of reach of Kiki’s knowing grins for the day. The boy had burst into fits of giggling every time he saw the grumpy expression on Ryker’s face, and the big man had flushed crimson each time this happened, and yearned to up-end the child and apply the palm of his strong right hand to that bare and impudent little bottom.

The caravan departed from the oasis town of Yhakhah at midday as scheduled, and headed north along the old stone-paved way which bordered the Nilosyrtis.

For some time they rode with the broad acres of blue, rubbery-leafed plants to their right hand, and the highlands of Casius dead ahead, marching across the world from horizon to horizon like a wall built by captive titans.

There were some twenty-five covered wains comprising the main body of the caravan, and they looked for all the world like pictures of the ancient covered wagons the pioneers had used to cross the western plains Ryker had seen in history tapes. The wains were not made of wood, however, since nothing resembling a tree is to be found on water-poor, oxygen-starved Mars. Instead, the capacious, high-sided wagons were constructed from panels of thick, tar soaked canvas, fastened together with metal joints and hinges. The People weave this cloth from plant fibre, and it is remarkably tough and durable. These wains were loaded with merchandise: wines from the south in ceramic casks; liqueurs, syrups, dyes and perfumes; bolts of rare silks, colored cloths, and the gorgeous tapestries and carpets of Shiaze, Yukara and Diome.

Houm carried carven ivory and jewelry and tradeware of copper and bronze as well, for gifts to the northern chieftains of the towns and encampments he planned to visit.

The guards were a rough lot, clad in tunics and jerkins of black leather with long cloaks of fur. Some wore helmets of metal, others high hats of black felt, or turban-like headdresses of colored cloth. Hoops of gold dangled in their earlobes, and their leather trappings were adorned with small plaques of precious metal and jewelled ornaments.

This ostentatious display was not a display occasioned by vanity, but a simple precaution. There are no banking institutions on Mars, or at least none that will deal with the natives, and no safety deposit boxes, either. The People either carry their wealth on their person, or conceal it in their homes, or bury it in the dead sea bottoms or on the highlands far from other men, returning to dig it up months or even years later. This being so, treasure maps, generally spurious ones, are easy to buy on Mars, but are purchased mainly by the gullible. The People need no maps to find their hidden caches. Nature has given them an innate sense of location which is uncannily accurate.

Ryker took a lot of hazing from the guards, who disliked having one of the despised F’yagha amongst them. He endured their insults in grim silence, but when the punishment became tentatively physical it was a different matter. Despite the fact that he wore power-guns, while they were only armed with swords, dirks, spears and targes, they dared to lay their hands upon him.

These weapons, he knew, were mostly for show. Their real weapons hung over their shoulders—slim, hollow, long black tubes which were used like blowguns, and thin flat quivers of needlelike darts used in the tubes, and poison tipped, as like as not. Guns were no deadlier than those long black tubes, he knew, and he would lose face with the men if he went for them.

Instead he waded in with balled fists and battered his chief tormentor to his knees in a few seconds. It was not hard, as the People have no knowledge of the fine art of the prize ring. His opponent, a long-legged fellow called Raith, climbed painfully to his feet and swayed awhile, fingering a loose tooth and spitting blood. Then he came over to Ryker, slapped him on the shoulder a time or two, and called him a dirty name, grinning.

Ryker grinned back, and called Raith by an even deadlier insult. The other men hooted, slapped their thighs, and relaxed. And he was accepted—for a time, at least.

That night they made camp under the jewelled skies, having drawn the wagons into a huge ring. Green flames lit the gloom, meat sizzled on spits, and leathern bottles of fire-hearted wine were passed from hand to hand. After drinking, they drew apart to eat in private.

Then, posting guards about the perimeter of the circle, they bedded down in their cloaks and slept.

Ryker, as a very junior newcomer, had the first watch, as did Raith, in punishment for letting himself be beaten by a mere F’yagh. He leaned on his tall spear, and watched the stars wheel across the sky, and thought of Valarda. His need for her was like an ache deep in his groin.

He had been a long time without a woman. And men like him have strong need for women, as other men need wealth or fame or power.

That night, his watch done, he slept deep and there were no dreams.

8. The Dead City

by the following afternoon they reached the foothills of the Casius. The vast plateau obliterated half the sky, cutting the world in two. Once, perhaps, it had been a small northern continent near the Pole, like Greenland hack on Earth. Now it was only a bleak, barren expanse of stony desolation, although pod-lichen lived in the clefts, and rock lizards, too, and probably slioths.

Here they were forced to take refuge from a duststorm, one of the rare phenomena which occur often enough to remind visitors from Earth, gasping on the thin, dry air, that Mars truly does have an atmosphere, and even winds at times.

Like sandstorms in the desert countries back home, Ryker knew, the airborne deluge of whirling dust can be, and often is, deadly. The talcum-soft powder seeps through cloth with ease, and works into your lungs, bringing the coughing sickness they call yagh.

He had seen a man die of it once, and it was not a nice thing to watch. Houm evidently felt the same way, and hastily guided the caravan off course to the west as soon as the storm showed visibly, a sooty smudge against the sky.

Why west? Ryker wondered silently to himself. He would have thought it best to have driven north, to the cliff wall of the great plateau, where surely they could take refuge from the whirlwind in one of the deep, narrow ravines that cleft the wall of stone asunder in a thousand places. But Houm seemed to know where he was going, and before long Ryker got a surprise.

As they urged their lopers across the desert with all the speed they could coax or coerce or cudgel out of the troublesome creatures, riding before the wind which yammered in their ears like a screeching devil horde, they came upon a city in the sands, lost and forgotten for ages.

It was one of the Dead Cities, Ryker knew. There were many such as this scattered across the dusty face of Mars, abandoned as the wells ran dry or the inhabitants dwindled to a handful. It was just that he had not known there was one this far north, this near the Pole. For they were in the Dustlands of Meroe, near the narrow isthmus which connects Casius and its sister plateau to the west, Boreosyrtis. And the city was only some thirty-eight miles or so south of the maximum winter limit of the polar ice.

Which meant the city was … old.

A chill ran tingling up Ryker’s spine at the sight of it, the fallen walls mouldering in deep-drifted dust, the riven minarets which leaned and some of which lay fallen, broken into sections, and the long stone quays, crusted with fossilized barnacles, which thrust out from the dock-front into the dead, empty Dustlands.

This city had been already old before the oceans died.

Ryker gaped, and muttered a dazed oath. A city that old should have been one of the wonders of Mars, famed afar, crawling with tourists, rifled by three generations of archaeologists. And he hadn’t even known it was there!

But Houm had, evidently.

They entered the lost city well ahead of the duststorm, and sought refuge in a large domed structure whose walls were still intact and where, presumably, they would be safe from the dangers of the tempest. They stabled the wains and beasts within an inner court, high walled and secure enough.

Houm acted as if he knew this place well, and that did not seem odd to Ryker until he got a good look at the interior of the domed citadel. Its furnishings were intact, although greatly worn by age and neglect. The tapestries and wall hangings were ragged and their brilliant hues were dimmed by the ages, but Ryker knew enough about such things to guess that they would still bring a rich price in the back alleys of Syrtis. And the low couches and tabourets, inlaid with carven plaques of mellow ivory, glistening purple winestone and rare carnelian, which stood undecayed by time and unmolested by men, were fabulous antiques.

Why, then, had not Houm looted the dead city long ago, since he must have been here before? It was curious. It was more than curious, it was suspicious.

But, to be honest, Ryker didn’t know what to be suspicious about.

For the present, he resolved to keep his mouth shut and to act unconcerned. But he grimly vowed to keep his eyes and ears open.

The storm was soon over. In fact, it never struck at all, but faded as its furies ebbed and the winds died, the shrieking whorls of deathly dust subsiding, dissipating before they even reached the city.

At its first appearance, Ryker had half a notion that it was too low on the horizon to be one of those deathstorms that rage for days on end and bury men and beasts alive. But Houm seemed fearful and ordered them to run for cover, and Houm knew this part of the North Country better than did Ryker, so the Earthling forgot about his first intimation until it was proven accurate.

Odd, then, that Houm had panicked so, since even Ryker, a stranger to these parts, had guessed from the first that the storm would subside as swiftly as it had arisen. It was almost as if the fat, beringed merchant had seized upon a convenient pretext for diverting the caravan from its announced route and entering the lost city.

And, now that they were here, Houm seemed in no particular hurry to depart. In fact, it seemed to Ryker as if the clever little trader was seeking every excuse that came to mind to linger here a bit longer.

First he demanded the wainmasters inspect their wheels and grease the axels and gears, as if he feared the dust had clogged them. This made good sense, for if one or another of the wagons had broken down in the middle of the desert of Meroe, it would have been a costly, even a dangerous hindrance. But the wainmasters reported no accumulation of dust.

Whereupon Houm found one reason after another for lingering overnight in the town. The beasts, he said, were too wearied to reach the isthmus before nightfall; and it was better they camp here now, than be caught short on time in the Dustlands. It all seemed very suspicious to Ryker

The upper floor of the citadel was divided into many rooms, which were assigned for sleeping and eating. Kiki and Melandron and the girl were given one of them. Ryker joined them at the meal, being off-duty for a time.

And there was another strangeness he observed.

When they had taken their first look at the incredibly ancient town, Ryker had been struck with awe, and had stared about him with wonderment. He had chanced to notice the reaction of Valarda and her grandsire at the same moment, being near thier wain.

The emotions legible in thier wide eyes and stricken features had puzzled him at the time. For they seemed struck dumb with shock and horror and with another emotion he could only name with the name of … sorrow.

Now, why should these ancient ruins, which had stood collapsed in this same state of advanced decay for millions of years, virtually unchanged in the dry, weatherless atmosphere of Mars, have caused them such consternation?

It was almost as if they somehow remembered the city from an ancient time, when it was new and whole and beautiful… .

But that was crazy, of course.

Over the meal, he could not help noticing how withdrawn and crestfallen the two seemed. They barely said a word and when they did it was to mutter in that unknown dialect of theirs whereof he was ignorant. But he read with deep sorrow the sadness and despair which were written in their faces, and it was a mystery to him. He sought an analogue for their strange sorrow and realized at length that it was akin to the tragic horror one would feel, seeing again an old friend you had not visited in years, to find him hideously wasted and aged by some horrible and hopeless disease.

Now, why in the world should the appearance of this ancient city affect them so strongly?

Ryker shook his head numbly, his wits baffled. There were too many mysteries here, and he didn’t like it.

After the meal they went down into the great rotunda that was the main hall of the citadel, to share water and wine.

And here Valarda danced again.

Houm begged it of her, waving his wine goblet jovially, and the men grinned wolfishly, echoing his wish. Nor could Valarda deny them their request, for Houm had made this a condition for their joining his caravan, and her own grandsire had promised it on her behalf.

So, while the men drank another round, and old Melan-dron went into his pitch, praising her beauty and the grace and seductiveness of her body, in a sing-song voice—a ritual he had evidently repeated many times in many wineshops—Valarda retired to oil her body and dust it down with the glittering powder traditionally worn by one of her profession.

Ryker liked this little, but there was nothing he could do about it. The girl had not “shared a cloak” with him, which would have given him a proprietary right to refuse that she bare herself before the men. So he had to grin and endure it.

Little Kiki had gone back to their room to fetch down drum and pipe and begging bowl, so Ryker had nothing to do but sit and watch. And drink the strong, sour wine.

Valarda danced like the pure flame of a candle wavering in the wind, like a plume of golden desert dust floating before the breeze, and, as before, the room grew silent until all you could hear above the squeal of Kiki’s pipe and the thump and pitter of the old man’s drum was the hoarse breathing of men caught by the throat in the grip of desire.

She was very beautiful.

Her dance was a naked and wanton temptation, a thing of sheer lust, the quintessence of animal passion.

Ryker’s throat was dry and his heart pounded painfully, and there was a throbbing in his head that was not caused by wine.

Her beauty was such that it clenched at his loins, and roused a male hunger within him. It was torture for him to see the allure of her nakedness, and to know that other men felt it, too.

Houm watched with his head tipped on one side and an amiable, avuncular smile on his fat face. But the hot glitter in his little eyes belied the kindly paternalism in his smile. It was the gleam of greed.

Two men sat with Houm on his carpeted pallet, and they were men that Ryker had not seen with the caravan before, and that was odd. One was tall and lean and curiously elegant, although wrapped in a disreputable cloak like-a beggar. His features were hard, fierce, aquiline: there was breeding in them, and pride. The other man was small and hunched and spindle shanked, and he hid his face in the shadow of his hooded cloak. Ryker eyed them curiously, wondering where they had been hidden all this while. He could have sworn that he knew at sight every last member of the caravan, even the painted, pampered, simpering boy slave Houm kept apart for his own pleasure.

Finally he asked Raith about it. The tall guardsman sat next to him, and they had become good comrades ever since Ryker had knocked him down and ended the hazing.

“They’re new,” Raith shrugged.

“What do you mean, ‘new’?”

The warrior shrugged, incuriously. “Came riding in an hour ago, when you were having meat. I was on guard and saw them. Old Houm was waiting for them, I think. At least, he seemed mighty relieved when they turned up, and glad to see them.”

“Do you know who they are?” Ryker asked.

“I don’t know the tall one,” admitted Raith. “But the little fellow with him is a Juhangir …”

An alert, wary flame leaped up in Ryker’s colorless eyes.

“Named Goro? The one who entertained back at Yhakhah?”

“That’s the one.”

Ryker said nothing, but now he was no longer curious.

Now he was afraid.

It took him quite a while to get to sleep that night, with so many small, annoying mysteries on his mind. Finally he did manage to drift off, although his sleep was shallow and troubled by shadowy and ominous dreams.

An hour or so before dawn he came fully awake, suddenly, tingling all over with apprehension. Something had disturbed his light slumbers. But, what?

He threw back the fold of his cloak of furs and raised himself on one arm, looking around. The energy gun was ready in his hand.

But he saw nothing, nothing at all. The bare, empty room of the ancient citadel, rubbish in the corners, the faded hues of curious antique murals—naught else was visible in the dim green glow of chemical flame. The metal pan stood on the floor by the door, shedding its emerald illumination evenly over the room. By this night light, which the Martians leave burning when they sleep, believing that green light repels the night-wandering apparitions and vampiric demons of the dark which throng their old mythology, he saw nothing suspicious.

It was merely a superstition, of course, but a night light sometimes comes in handy. As now, for instance, Ryker could see that no one was there.

From beyond the half-open door he heard the distant mutter of men in the suites below, being awakened to replace the guards. From the courtyard beyond his unshuttered window, he heard the beasts stirring in their sleep, and the restless clatter of their splay-footed feet against the worn old tiles.

The early morning was so still that he could hear even these faint, far, familiar sounds.

What, then, had startled him into awakening so suddenly?

Then he felt the night-chill against his heart. And knew that his garments were disarranged—and not by him.

His thermals were held together by pressure seams, which could not easily be opened. But something had opened them, laying naked the flesh above his heart.

A dim premonition stirred within him, then.

For around his neck in a leather bag he wore the black seal he had found in the ancient tomb.

Now, why on Earth—or on Mars—would anybody be interested in that?

9. “ZHAGGUA!”

Perhaps it had not been anyone after the black seal at all, he reasoned to himself. For, after all, it still lay snug and safe in the little leather bag he wore suspended about his neck on a thong. To make certain of this, he opened the bag, took out the carven piece of heavy black crystallike stone and examined it closely by the green glow. Then he put it away.

Perhaps his thief in the night had simply been that—a thief. Thieves seek valuables—currency, coins, gems. And Ryker’s pockets were bare of these things, God knew! He grinned sourly, shrugged, and lay back in the folds of his cloak, composing himself to snatch what little of the night was left before he must rise to the duties of the day.

But he had drunk deeply of the strong wine the night before, watching Valarda dance naked before the men, and the pressure of his kidneys goaded him reluctantly from the room to seek a privy.

There was a dry well in the courtyard where the slidars were tethered, he remembered. He headed downstairs for it. But at the head of the stairway he froze motionless, straining his ears, his gun out and ready.

There were men ascending the stairs, many men, moving with furtive stealth, keeping as quiet as was possible.

Ryker knew this by blind, unreasoning instinct. He had been pursued and hunted in his time, and men walk in a different way when they are trying to creep up on someone without being seen or heard, than when they are just trying not to awaken their sleeping comrades.

He melted into the shadows then, and when the band of men reached the head of the stair he was nowhere to be seen.

It was out in the open at last. The time of lies and cunning wiles and impostures was over with. Whatever (his thing really was, however ugly, it was about to reveal itself.

Dawn broke dim gold in the east, and the caravan was in an uproar. During the early morning a band of desert warriors had come riding into the dead city, bearing with them an Earthling captive. The presence of the captive, an old man with white hair, surprised no one. The surprise was that the warriors had ridden in without the alarm being sounded.

For Houm himself, and the two strangers who had shared his carpet with him at the drinking of wine last night, were dressed and awake and waiting at the gate to welcome the newcomers.

Word flew from mouth to mouth that the tall, hawk-faced stranger of the night before, who had watched Valarda dance with cold, searching, yet avid eyes, was Prince Zarouk himself, the desert marauder of the south of whom all had heard much, and little that was to their taste.

But further surprises were in store.

Down from the third story of the citadel came a band of Zarouk’s tall, long-legged warriors, grinning wolfishly.

With them they bore three captives—the dancing girl, the old man, and that imp of a boy!

The three were dragged forth into the gold light of dawn, and it could be seen that their arms and wrists were bound behind their backs by tight leathern thongs. Seeing them, the Prince strode forward, a cold smile on his thin, bearded lips. Houm stood smirking, fingering his ; little queue of a goatee. Silence fell—tense, tight, expectant.

The girl’s head was sunk upon her breast, the pale oval of her perfect face veiled beneath the black wings of her long hair.

Zarouk reached out and took her by the throat.

“Raise your head, slut!” he snarled. “Open your eyes, that all men may see you as you are, and may know the vile thing you be.”

Valarda lifted her face into the light and looked upon the caravan men and the desert raiders with great golden eyes.

A shudder as of loathing ran through the crowd. And men began to speak a word, first in a whisper, then in a mutter, then and at last in a growling chant.

“Zhaggua … Zhaggua … ZHAGGUA!”

There was fear in their voices, aye, and contempt, and also hatred. They did not so much utter the despised name as spit it in her face like phlegm.

But Valarda neither flinched nor let the slightest flicker of emotion shadow her expression of pride and disdain. No haughty French aristocrat ever faced the guillotine during the Terror with such proud disdain, nor with such courage.

Zarouk chuckled, enjoying the drama of the moment. He showed his white teeth in a leering smile, and his eyes gloated on the three captives. He flung up his head in a bold gesture.

“What shall we do with this zhaggua and her pack?”

He cried. “Dmu, what says The Book? What is the end decreed most fitting for such vermin, and most pleasing to the Timeless Ones?”

Forth from the throng of tall, robed desert warriors there came shuffling into view a small, old man with the shaven pate and silver ear-sigils of a native priest, his gaunt, bent, wasted form wrapped in dark, dusty robes, his hands lucked into his voluminous sleeves.

The men made way for him a bit uneasily. Priests are respected on Mars, but not exactly loved. Few even of the devout feel comfortable in their presence. Perhaps they stand too close to the eternal mysteries of creation and judgment and doom, and the gates of life and death, for ordinary men to enjoy their company.

“The Death of the Slow Fire, lord Prince,” the old priest said in a thin, quavering sing-song voice. And his rheumy, lusterless eyes brightened as he said this.

The men stood silent, glancing at each other. It was a slow, agonizing death the priest had named. The green, flaming chemical that lights the demon-frighting lamps falls drop by searing drop upon the writhing naked body of the condemned. These were rough, hard men, and they loathed Valarda’s kind with an ancient loathing. But more than a few turned pale or looked away.

Houm, however, smiled and licked his thick lips.

And then the world changed with a crash.

From nowhere a needle of incandescence flared. It sizzled before the very booted toes of Prince Zarouk, searing a black, smoking line between the desert chieftain and his captives. Almost before the fire-needle vanished, a voice from above rang out, hard and sharp as the crack of a whip.

“Nobody moves!”

A hundred eyes searched the upper works of the citadel and found him on the ledge.

Ryker with his guns out and ready, and the deadly fury of hell naked in his cold, ice-colored eyes.

They put a league of dust-desert between them and the dead city before Ryker dared let them slow their stride.

The lopers they had taken were their own, but were well rested from Houm’s delay in the city, where he had evidently arrived earlier than convenient for Zarouk to meet him at their prearranged rendezvous. There were doubtless faster slidars to be found among the caravan beasts, but they were accustomed to these brutes.

They had ridden fast and hard and almost without words, not even words of thanks for the rescue Ryker had so brilliantly pulled off. But as they had mounted into the saddles back there in the courtyard, ringed about by silent men with eyes that spoke their hatred for them, Valarda had lifted her golden eyes to those of the Earthling for one long, searching look. Tears glistened in her silky lashes, and her soft red mouth had been tender, vulnerable, trembling with emotion.

He had grinned, saying nothing. Sometimes words can be unspoken, and yet heard clearly, and maybe this was one of those times.

For a bit of extra life insurance, Ryker suggested they lake the long-legged desert prince with them, and also his pet priest, whose name turned out to be Dmu Dran. These two he had commanded bound with the same leathern thongs as had bound the wrists of the girl, the boy, and the old man.

The boy Kiki did the tying. And he did it with a vengeance, pulling the tough thongs tight and tighter still, even as Zarouk’s henchmen had pulled them tight.

The old priest, sunk in apathy, his withered mask of a face dull eyed and vacant, did not wince—perhaps the lad had gone easy on his bonds. But Kiki had tied the desert prince tight indeed. Zarouk had not winced, either, and the tight-lipped silence and the curious dignity—even a sort of majesty—with which the maurauder accepted this sudden and unexpected reversal of fate won him Ryker’s grudging but unspoken respect.

But if his tongue was silent, his eyes were eloquent and spoke volumes. They burned with hellfire, those amber eyes, and were as quick and alert and deadly as a snake’s.

This is a bad man to have for your enemy, thought Ryker to himself, sourly, cursing the day he had ever gotten himself mixed up in this stinking mess. But if he hadn’t, he would never have found Valarda … never have seen her dance … never have gazed deep into those unforgettable eyes of fluid gold ….

Still, Zarouk would make a deadly foe, he knew. The man was all fire and pride and ambition, stretched tight as a trigger and thirsty for blood. An unsettling, explosive amalgam of religious fanatic and something of the megalomaniac, he decided. Ryker didn’t know just how he knew it, but he hadn’t kept alive this long without being able to read men at a glance.

And he was seldom wrong. Not about men like Zarouk.

This was the sort of man who would follow you across the wide world, if you earned his hate. He would track you to the very doorstep of hell, to have his revenge.

So maybe it was best to have him at your side, Ryker had decided. Then, if his men break their sworn oath, and follow, or lay ambush, or attack, you can at least have the pleasure of taking him down to hell with you, with a yard of sword steel through his guts before you get the same through yours.

He hadn’t thought to bring Houm along as well. He judged that the shrewd, greedy little merchant could be tempted and hired to flirt with danger for gold, but probably didn’t give a damn for vengeance or religion or much of anything else, except perhaps the fat, giggling boy he kept as a pet.

And there is where Ryker made the worst mistake of his life.

They got a league and a little more into the northern parts of the Merope before the lopers died beneath them. They had been given a slow-acting poison, probably the night before. Maybe Houm figured that Ryker might have his wind up, and would spook easy, or be wary enough to try to make a break for freedom during the night. Or maybe one of his men had fed the poisoned food to the slidars when it became obvious, back in the courtyard, what his plans were.

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were afoot now in the Dustlands and would have to walk all the way to wherever it was they were going, with a hundred desert warriors behind them, armed and mounted and hungry for revenge.

So they started walking. There wasn’t anything else to do.

10. The Betrayal

They trudged through the Dustlands of the northern Merope all the rest of that day, putting as much distance between themselves and Zarouk’s desert hawks as could humanly be done.

It was hard going.

The dust was as fine and as soft as talcum powder, and in the light gravity of this world, where an Earthling weighs about one third what he would weigh back home, they raised the dust with every step. It clung to their robes, their furs, it coated their faces and worked its way into eyes and nostrils and the inside of their mouths. And there was nothing they could do about it but endure it.

The desert dust was so soft that men sank to their ankles in it, and, after a time, walking became sheer torture. It was like wading through foot-deep molasses. Every step of the way, the dust dragged against the pull of your muscles, until they ached as if hot needles were thrust into them.

There was no cure for this discomfort, either.

When after a time the old man, Melandron, fell to his knees and could go no further, Ryker knew that he had assumed the leadership of this unlucky expedition, and that from here on all of the hard decisions were up to him.

The old man feebly begged them to leave him and go on without him. Valarda said nothing; she bit her lip and veiled her gold eyes behind shadowy lashes. The boy Kiki was downcast and silent. His mischievous pranks and merry jests were a thing of the past now, for even his youthful ebullience and supple strength were worn and wearied.

Ryker gruffly bade the old man be silent, ignored his weak struggles, and picked him up in his arms. A flicker came and went swiftly in the eyes of Zarouk. Almost too swiftly for notice, the desert prince resumed his imperturbable, bland expression. But Ryker had seen that flicker, and realized that if he must carry Melandron his hands would not be free to go for his guns, if go for them he must.

He solved both problems easily, by making Zarouk carry the old man! The prince bit his lip, scowled, but did as he was told. Rather than cut his hands free, Ryker had him carry Valarda’s grandsire piggyback.

They trudged on.

There was no water, only a little wine. This he rationed out in grudging sips. It was barely sufficient to wet parched, dust-covered lips, but it would have to do.

The old priest, Dmu Dran, did not weaken and have to be carried, and for this, at least, Ryker was grimly thankful. The priest was an enemy, and, even in the best of times, Ryker bore no love for priests—-Martian or Earthsider—but he wasn’t sure he had it in him to abandon the old man to die the slow death of dehydration.

Thank God he didn’t have to make that decision. For, despite his age and seeming frailty, the fanatic seemed tireless as iron.

The cliffs that were the sides of the great plateau were ever before them, but never seemed to get any nearer. They danced and wavered in the tired vision of the travelers like some devilish mirage of the waste, and seemed in fact to recede into the distance the closer you came.

Ryker, who had the rudiments of an education, thought of Tantalus and Ixion and Sisyphus, and of the torments invented for them by the gods. He grinned sourly; Mars could have taught a lesson or two to the Olympians, when it came to dreaming up tortures.

They plodded on, and every foot seemed like a mile, and every minute like an hour. Somehow they kept going.

At last they reached the foot of the plateau, which proved to be no illusion after all. Here they would have fallen to the ground to sleep where they fell, but Ryker drove them on with oaths and blows and curses.

He was made of granite, but even granite can crack and crumble. For a little while longer, though, he held strong.

He drove them into the mouth of a deep, narrow ravine, and made them follow it. They stumbled along on numb legs, dazed and mindless, like men who walked in their sleep. Between the tall, towering walls the ravine twisted and turned, but at its end the solid rock of the plateau was worn away in strata which could be climbed, although not easily.

It was like ascending a staircase built for giants, but they made it to the top of the plateau. And here he allowed them to rest and to make camp. Here he felt safe—safe enough, at any rate. He knew that the desert hawks would be following them. But he also knew there was no way for Zarouk’s warriors to tell which of the ten thousand ravines into which the edge of the plateau was cloven was the one they had followed.

And from the edge of the cliff wall, by daylight, he could see for many miles, and spot the raiders on their trail.

He did not let Valarda make a fire. Fire can be seen far off in the black gloom of a Martian night. So they munched dry bread and devoured cold meat, huddled in their fur cloaks for warmth. They had each two mouthfuls of cold wine from the leather bottles, and it was Valarda who served them.

Ryker was bone weary by now, and so tired that his brain felt numb and dead as if his skull were stuffed with cotton, but he drove himself a bit further. There were two prisoners to tend to, and both were very dangerous and deadly enemies. But, after all, they too were men.

So he unbound their hands and stood by, his palms resting on his gun butts, watching while Zarouk and the aged priest chafed the blood back to their stiff limbs. He permitted them to relieve themselves a little ways from camp, then herded them back with the others, and bound their hands again, and their ankles, too, this time, and wrapped them in their cloaks for sleep.

Probably, he should have killed them or left them at the foot of the cliff to die in the night, but it was not in him to murder men in cold blood. So, cursing himself for his weakness, he let them live a while longer.

Then he slept. There was no strength left in him to stand guard all night. And, anyway, the wine had made him woozy and more than a little drunk. And he would need every atom of his strength to go on tomorrow.

He slept like a dead man. The deep, bottomless sleep of absolute exhaustion. And there were no dreams this time.

He had done all that a man could do. He had taken every precaution that was possible for a man of his fiber. The two captives he made sleep apart, with the others between them, to reduce the possibility that they might crawl together in the darkness and work each other’s bonds free.

He had no fear of this. Zarouk and Dmu Dran were only men, and probably far wearier than he. They, too, would sleep deeply—as deeply as he.

Which is why he awoke sometime after sunrise, as tonished to find his guns gone and his wrists tied behind him with leather thongs.

Ryker rolled over onto his back and peered around him with a cold horror in his heart and a sinking feeling deep in his guts at what he would see.

But instead of what he had feared, quite a different sight met his eyes.

“Surprised, scum?” Zarouk asked, in a voice like iron scraping against iron. “No man can trust a zhaggua. Now you have learned the truth of it, fool!”

Ryker stared. Valarda and Melandron and the boy Kiki were nowhere to be seen. They were gone. Gone, too, were their sleeping furs, and all the gear. And the food and drink they had carried off from the caravan encampment, and the weapons, too.

He rolled onto one side and sat up, painfully and stiffly, unable to believe the evidence of his senses.

The holsters strapped to his thighs were empty. They had taken his guns.

And then it came to him that one other thing was gone from him as well, an old, familiar weight he had worn over his heart for so long that he had become accustomed to the weight of it, and hardly felt it any more.

Now the very absence of that weight reminded him of it.

The ancient black seal he had carried in a little leather bag suspended about his throat by a thong was missing!

Bag, seal and thong they had stolen.

And left him here to die.

His heart contracted, became a cold, hard lump within his breast. And something within him died then. Something he had begun to feel for the girl with the golden eyes … something that was more than mere lust or mere desire … something that had begun in a hungry wanting, but had grown and flowered into something that was very close to love.

Dead, now, that emotion. Burnt to ashes in the fires of the fierce, hating fury that woke within him.

Zarouk saw it in the hard mask of his face and the deadly coldness of his slitted eyes, and laughed to see it. The old priest who lay across from him, hooded eyes fixed on nothing, must have felt it too, but said nothing. His heart was so charged with the venom of hatred there was no room for more.

Sometime in the night while he had lain in that deathlike sleep of utter weariness—or in the first light of dawn, perhaps—they had quietly awakened—Valarda and her old grandsire and the naked imp of a boy.

Stealthily and furtively, they had crept upon Ryker and thieved from him his power guns and the thing that lay above upon his heart in the little leather bag.

Then, gently and carefully, so as not to waken him, they had bound his wrists together so that he was helpless. Then they had gathered up their furs, and all the food and drink there was left, and stole away like the thieves they were.

Or maybe they hadn’t been so gentle and so careful with him, after all. Maybe they hadn’t feared of waking him before they were done with their treachery and betrayal. Maybe they hadn ‘t had to fear, because of the drug Valarda had slipped into the wine she served him the night before.

For, from the vile, oily taste on his tongue, and the little hot red throb of pain behind his eyes, Ryker guessed that he had been drugged. He had been drugged once before, while those he thought were friends had robbed him and left him to die, and he remembered the effects of it well.

A thirst for vengeance came into him then, like a cold black poison in his blood.

Those who had betrayed him that time before had left him to die, like this—bound and helpless for the first cliff dragon or sandcat who came near, hunting meat.

But he had fooled them.

He had endured. He had clung tenaciously to life with an iron grip. And he had lived. Lived to hunt them down, those three, one by one, though half a world lay between them.

And he had taken his revenge, slowly, one at a time, enjoying it. Afterwards, he had not liked remembering what he had done, but he did not regret the doing of it. For a man pays his debts, every last debt, or he is something less than a man.

Staring at the empty day with hard, slitted eyes, Ryker knew that he would pay this debt, too. On the boy; on the old man; and—yes—even on the girl. The girl he had been very near to loving… .

“If you’re done feeling sorry for yourself, F’yagh,” said Zarouk quietly, “roll over here beside me. There is a knife slid down my boot, but as my hands are tied I cannot reach it. Maybe you can. If so, cut me free, and I will free your hands, and the priest’s.”

“You’ll slit my throat first, and you know it,” grunted Ryker.

Prince Zarouk shrugged. “Why should I bother? We’ll all die here—of thirst, or of the fangs of the first beast that comes this way. Unless you cut me free.”

“You’ll blood your knife in me the moment your hands are free, because you hate my guts.”

The prince looked at him. “I have no love for you, scum of the F’yagha. But there are those whom I hate more than you. You know the truth of that, because you

hate them too—the friends you rescued from the mob back in Yeolarn, who betrayed you here while you slept, and stole away like thieves in the night, leaving you to die. You hate them, too, more than you hate Zarouk, who has done you no particular hurt.”

Ryker said nothing. He could not deny the truth of what Zarouk said, but swallowing it left a bitter taste.

“Come, man, fight for life, don’t lie there pitying yourself!” the prince said levelly. “I would be a fool to slay you now, even if I could. When the beasts come—as they will come, unless my laggardly men get here first— we’ll have a better chance at living longer, two strong men to stand against them. The priest is nothing, you know that, half-mad, and old and feeble. I cannot fight the dragons of the cliffs alone, armed only with a slim knife. But the two of us, together, we might live. To be revenged someday on those who left us here.”

Ryker sighed, knowing he was a damned fool, and rolled over to where the desert-hawk sat, and began fumbling for the knife thrust down into his boot. He found it after a time, and inched it out. Then, with numb fingers and aching wrists, he sawed clumsily at the thongs that bound Zarouk’s hands—sawing at the flesh of those hands, as often as not, although the prince neither winced nor cried out at the pain of it.

After a long while, Zarouk was free. He chafed his wrists until the circulation began to return, then got up and went over to where Dmu Dran lay, and cut his bonds.

Then he strode over to where Ryker lay in a huddle and stood looking down at him, smiling slightly, fingering the knife.

Ryker said nothing. But he gave him look for look, and there was no weakness in his face, no trace of fear.

The prince knelt and cut his hands free. Then he stood up and put the knife into his sleeve, and went to look over the cliff edge, and searched the desert with narrowed eyes.

As soon as he had rubbed the numbness from his stiff muscles, Ryker came over to where Zarouk stood.

“What now?” he asked.

Zarouk shrugged.

“Now we sit down and wait until my men get here,” he said flatly. “After that, we’ll see.”

Ryker nodded thoughtfully. Then he found a convenient boulder and sat down. And waited.

To learn whether he was going to live or die.