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 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.
V
AN AGE THAT TIME FORGOT
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 slidar! 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 of 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.