Read Online Lin Carter - The City Outside the World by Lin Carter - Free Book Online
Authors: Lin Carter
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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 lheir 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
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 lheir 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
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