Диана Дуэйн - A Wizard Of Mars

“Well,” Aurilelde said, “what would be so different about that?” They passed in through the gates together, and as they did, Aurilelde threw Kit an amused look. “You’ve been forgetting things since we met. Though perhaps that’s not something I’d say in front of my father.”

Her expression was still serene enough, but there was a sound to her voice as if Aurilelde was thinking of some old trouble that she didn’t want to revive.

Now, what’s that about? Kit thought as they came out into the wide plaza inside the gates. This is so weird. She really thinks she knows me. Where do I go with this? What’s Mars trying to use all this stuff to tell me? Nothing I can do but keep my eyes open, try to pick up on the message, see what the imagery has to tell me—

Kit craned his neck up to look at the spearing towers and the little bronze-and-gilt airships veering and darting among them. Seen close up, their design looked handsomely retro, with spiky fins and a surprising number of rivets. Late Marillan, something whispered in his ear. The last of the technology to be preserved from the Great Flight. And there will be no more—

Kit blinked. Aurilelde followed his glance. “Yes, it’s busy, isn’t it?” she said as they crossed the plaza. “People have been coming in from the outmarch towns all morning.” She laughed, and for the first time that laughter was uneasy: from the sound of it, Kit thought there was something at the back of her mind that Aurilelde didn’t care to be thinking of right now. “Very many thought that someone else would come to the gates first this morning—”

The nervousness in her voice came through much more clearly just then, and as Kit looked over at her, Aurilelde fell silent. The two of them continued across the plaza, and Kit became aware that the two of them were becoming the focus of attention for the many other people there, men and women dressed as Aurilelde was— Or somewhat dressed, Kit thought— who watched them pass. Many of those people bowed as Aurilelde and Kit went by, though in some cases those who bowed were wearing slightly dubious expressions, and looked at their neighbors as if unsure what their opinions might be of the two who walked through the middle of it all.

They were making for a high archway across the plaza, one that apparently led into the bottom levels of the Scarlet Tower. Aurilelde, catching Kit’s glance at the bowing people of the city, said softly, “The usual doubts. Rorsik’s party in the Chambers has been stirring up what trouble it can, though they’ve suspected that he’d never be able to find the prize you set out to bring us.”

He wouldn’t have had the courage to find it on his own, anyway, the back of Kit’s brain whispered to him.

Kit blinked again: but then he realized that this was what he had been half hoping would happen— that the spell itself would clue him in as to what was going on here, what tack he should take. I wanted it to tell me what was going on.

So let’s have it, Kit said silently to the magic. Who’s Rorsik? What’s going on here? Are these people the original Martians? And what happened to them? Tell me!

The archway before them was guarded by men in leather crossbelts and more utilitarian-looking clothing than Kit had seen so far—loincloths of some shimmering metallic material. The guards blocked the way with long, crossed lances that appeared to be tipped with something like diamond. Not Barsoomian weapons, Kit thought. Something else is seeping through the spell’s appearance now, the way Aurilelde’s name did.

“Aurilelde—” Kit said as they made for the archway, and the guards there, seeing them, came to attention and pulled the weapons out of their way, raising them to the salute. “What exactly is your father going to be expecting me to do?”

She shot him a slightly surprised look as they entered the Scarlet Tower. “Well, of course you’ve brought the Nascence—”

Kit didn’t say anything for a moment, having been thrown off slightly by the discovery that the metal of the Scarlet Tower was transparent: the Sun falling on its outer surface poured straight through and splashed to the white floor like blood. He paused, seeing that they had stepped into the heart of a great atrium. All around the inner skin of the Tower, platforms and floors reached up for more than three-quarters of a mile, ceasing only in one final floor near the one-mile mark that took the Tower’s whole width at that height.

Aurilelde had kept on walking for a moment: now, though, she paused, looking over her shoulder, surprised that he hadn’t answered her. “Kit,” she said, very quietly, like someone saying a strange word and fearing to be overheard saying it. “The Nascence. You do have it, don’t you?”

Kit looked at her and felt a sudden terrible wash of embarrassment and fear. “No,” he said. “But I know where it is.”

Then he blinked again. I do?

But the whisper inside Kit’s head was coaching him now, and things were starting to come back into focus— slowly, as if he’d been waking up from a long sleep, these last few minutes. It was like that time when he’d been away with the family on vacation, and they’d changed motels three or four nights in a row. The fourth morning he’d awakened and stared at the ceiling, absolutely unable to work out where he was or how he’d gotten there. Now once again he’d been seeing everything around him with that same traveler’s confusion, uncertain where or when he was—

Aurilelde retraced her steps to him, reached out to him, and took him by the arms. It was an urgent gesture, a frightened one. “If you don’t have it,” she whispered, “why did you come? You know what they’ll do! Rorsik especially! He’ll claim forfeiture! He’ll say you’ve proven unable to defend the city from its enemies, to free us to take our rightful place in this world. He’ll accuse you of treason! You know he’s always wanted an excuse to do that. And if my father agrees—”

“He won’t.” The whisper in his head was certain now. “Rorsik is the only man in the New Lands that your father wants in the Tower even less than he wants me.”

Aurilelde’s face went pained at that, and she opened her mouth to say something. But then from across the huge interior of the Tower, a crazy, yodeling yelling went up. Aurilelde turned, and so did Kit—

Running at them from one of many doors right across the atrium came a glinting green shape, many-legged, all its claws clacking on the polished floor as it came howling toward them. Kit saw the two raised pairs of claws in front, realized what he was seeing, and snatched the wand out of his belt and got it ready—

Aurilelde grabbed his arm. “Khr— Kit!” she said. “No, don’t—”

But there was no need. One second Kit had believed himself to be looking at a monster, another example of the things that had just attacked him. Just? said the voice in his head. But now it seemed a month ago, a year. And the horrible thing running toward him was suddenly harmless, even funny, as the hind claws scrabbled for purchase on the floor, as it hurled itself toward him. “Takaf!” he said, and started laughing: he couldn’t help it. He got down on one knee.

The sathak flung itself at him, howling in inane greeting. Kit shoved the wand back into his belt and batted the claws away in the usual way. Then he grabbed the bizarre body, flipped it onto its back, and started rubbing the soft underbelly plating in all the right places, while Takaf squirmed and waved his claws around and made the usual idiot of himself.

Some other part of Kit stared at the strange thing on the floor, obsessed by a dream-memory of glinting green claws and deadly, empty metal eyes. But his waking mind now knew that the cold-hearted mechanical mav-sathakti were just imitations of the sathak, the few remaining companion-creatures from the First World to have survived here: and Takaf was probably the friendliest, most faithful, and dimmest of them all.