Lin Carter - The City Outside the World (9 page)

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. See- _ ing 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?"

lie 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.