Lin Carter - The City Outside the World Read Online Free PDF

ensouled, inherit from this legendary First Ancestor the very catlike ability to see in the dark. Ryker could not have traversed the black labyrinth with any speed at all, alone. The boy, Kiki, shrilling an impolite word of abuse, impatiently came scrambling back for the Earthling, seized him by the hand, and led him into the black gloom at a breakneck pace.
    The hand was small and strong and calloused and very dirty. But without it, Ryker could not have moved afoot through the darkness without feeling every inch of the way.
    He was very grateful they were taking him with them, instead of abandoning him and leaving him behind to his own fate.
    It did not occur to Ryker, until very long after, to wonder why they bothered to bring him along at all. . . .
    After what seemed to Ryker like interminable hours of crawling through the pitch-black tunnels, but which was more likely well under an hour's time, the girl imperiously called a halt.
    At intervals, the low tunnel roof was broken by a circular opening which gave upon a vertical shaft. These shafts were like the one through which they had entered the underground tunnel system in the first place. They gave forth upon the cryptlike spaces beneath the houses, and sometimes they led to the surface of the street itself, where thin plates of metal covered them, like manhole covers in the streets of Earth.
    To ascend the vertical shaft was harder than going down

    into one, as Ryker found when Valarda halted their progress. You had to brace your feet against one side of the shaft and press your back and shoulders against the opposite side, then inch your way up. There was no other way to do it, because there were neither handholds nor footholds.
    Ryker inched his way up the shaft first, and broke the seal which held the plate in place with one heave of his burly shoulders. Climbing out, he discovered himself to. be just within the, black mouth of a narrow and high-walled alley, very near the house of Yammak. He stretched out flat on his belly and reached down with one arm to clasp the boy's hand. Kiki came scrambling up like a monkey to squat on his little bottom, watching Ryker with bright, amused, malicious eyes as he helped the old man, Melan-dron, to the street.
    As for Valarda, she again ignored the assistance of his hand, and climbed the shaft swiftly and easily, her fingers and bare, wriggling toes finding holds he could have sworn were not there.
    They made their way to the house of Yammak without encountering anyone. The night was dark and clear, the stars blazing like an emperor's ransom in diamonds flung out upon black velvet. The twin moons of Mars were both aloft by this hour, which was near to dawn, but were virtually invisible in the sky. Even under the best of conditions, it was difficult to find the two moons with the unaided eye, due to their small size and low albedo.
    Yammak was at home, and in his present mood Ryker found it easy to gain his cooperation. Whether it was his memory of old favors still unrepaid, or the cold glint in Ryker's eyes and the way his hard fingers brushed his gun butts, Yammak proved eager to help them on their way. While his woman gathered food and drink and found
    sleeping furs and other necessities for them, Yammak escorted Ryker and Valarda to the slidar pens in the back, where they selected steeds. It was decided that Ryker and Valarda would ride separately mounted, while old Melandron and the boy shared a third beast, with a fourth to serve as pack animal.
    Well before moonset the four brutes were saddled and provisioned, and the little party slunk out through the open and unguarded gate between the two stone dragons which so markedly resembled the great saurians that had prowled the murky, steaming fens of Earth's forgotten Mesozoic.
    A purse of gold had changed hands, but Ryker depended on more than gold to seal the lips of Yammak. For the fat, beardless, voluble little man had recognized the three who accompanied the Earthling. He