C. L. Moore - The Cold Gray God

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2024-11-24 1 0 43.3KB 16 页 5.9玖币

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THE COLD GRAY GOD

Snow fell over Righa, pole city of Mats. Bitter snow, whirling in ice-hard

particles on the thin, keen wind that always seems to blow through Righa's

streets. These cobblestoned ways were nearly empty today. Squat stone houses

crouched low under the assaults of that storm-laden wind, and the dry snow

eddied in long gusts down the reaches of the Lakklan, Righa's central street.

The few pedestrians along the Lakklan huddled collars high about their ears

and hurried over,the cobbles.

But there was one figure in the street that did not hurry. It was a woman's

figure, and by die swing of her gait and the high poise of her head one might

guess that she was young, but it would be no more than a guess, for the fur

cloak she clutched about her muffled every line of her body and the peaked

hood of it hid her face. That fur was the sleek white hide of the almost

extinct saltland snow-cat, so that one might presuppose her wealth. She walked

with a swinging grace rarely encountered in Righa's streets. For Righa is an

outlaw

city, and young women, wealthy and beautiful and unattended, are seldom seen

upon the Lakklan.

She strolled slowly down the broad, uneven way, her long hooded cloak making a

white enigma of her. But she was somehow alien to this bleak, bitter scene.

That almost dancing litheness which attended her motion, eloquent even through

the concealing folds of rich snow-cat fur, was not a characteristic of Martian

women, even the pink beauties of the canals. Indefinably she was

foreign-exotically foreign.

From the shadow of her hood an eager gaze roved the street, avidly scanning

the few faces she passed. They were hard-featured faces for the most part,

bleak and cold as the gray city about them. And the eyes that met hers boldly

or slyly, according to the type of passer-by, were curiously alike in then-

furtiveness, their shadow of alert and hunted watching. For men came to Righa

quietly, by devious ways, and dwelt in seclusion and departed without

ostentation. And their eyes were always wary.

The girl's gaze flicked by them and went on. If they stared after her down the

street she did not seem to know, or greatly to care. She paced unhurriedly on

over the cobbles.

Ahead of her a broad, low door opened to a burst of noise and music, and warm

light streamed briefly out into the gray day as a man stepped over the sill

and swung the door shut behind him. Sidelong she watched the man as he belted

his heavy coat of brown pole-deer hide and stepped briskly out into the

street. He was tall, brown as leather, hard-featured under the pole-deer cap

pulled low over his eyes. They were startling, those eyes, cold and steady,

icily calm. Indefinably he was of Earth. His scarred dark face had a faintly

piratical look, and he was wolfishly lean in his spaceman's leather as he

walked lightly down the Lakklan, turning up the deer-hide collar about his

ears with one hand. The other, his right, was hidden in the pocket of his

coat.

The woman swerved when she saw him. He watched her subtly swaying approach

without a flicker of expression on his face. But when she laid a milkily white

hand upon his arm

he gave a queer little start, involuntarily, like a shiver quickly suppressed.

A ripple of annoyance crossed his face briefly and was gone, as if the

muscular start had embarrassed him. He turned upon her an absolutely

expressionless stare and waited.

"Who are you?" cooed a throatily velvet voice from the depths of the hood.

"Northwest Smith." He said it crisply, and his lips snapped shut again. He

moved a little away from her, for her hand still lay upon bis right arm, and

his right hand was still hidden in the coat pocket. He moved far enough to

free his arm, and stood waiting.

"Will you come with me?" Her voice throbbed like a pigeon's from the shadow of

her hood.

For a quick instant his pale eyes appraised her, as caution and curiosity

warred within him. Smith was a wary man, very wise in the dangers of the

spaceways life. Not for a moment did he mistake her meaning. Here was no

ordinary woman of the streets. A woman robed in snow-cat furs had no need to

accost casual strangers along the Lakklan.

"What do you want?" he demanded. His voice was deep and harsh, and the words

fairly clicked with a biting brevity.

"Come," she cooed, moving nearer again and slipping one hand inside his arm.

"I will tell you that in my own house. It is so cold here."

Smith allowed himself to be pulled along down the Lakklan, too puzzled and

surprised to resist. That simple act of hers had amazed him out of all

proportion to its simplicity. He was revising his judgment of her as he walked

along over the snow-dust cobbles at her side. For by that richly throaty voice

that throbbed as colorfully as a dove's, and by the milky whiteness of her

hand on his arm, and by the subtle swaying of her walk, he had been sure,

quite sure, that she came from Venus. No other planet breeds such beauty, no

other women are born with the instinct of seduction in their very bones. And

he had thought, dimly, that he recognized her voice.

But no, if she were Venus-bred, and the woman he half suspected her of being,

she would never have slid her arm through his with that little intimate

gesture or striven to override his hesitation with the sheer strength of her

own charm. His one small motion away from her hand on his arm would have

warned a true Venusian not to attempt further intimacy. She would have known

by the look in his still eyes, by the wolfish, scarred face, tight-mouthed,

that his weakness did not lie along the lines she was mistress of. And if she

were the woman he suspected, all this was doubly sure. No, she could not be

Venus-bred, nor the woman her voice so recalled to him.

Because of this he allowed her to lead him down the Lakklan. Not often did he

permit curiosity to override his native caution, or he would never have come

unscathed through the stormy years that lay behind him. But there was

something so subtly queer about this woman, so contradictory to his

preconceived opinions. Very vital to Smith were his own quick appraisements,

and when one went all awry from the lines he intuitively expected, he felt

compelled to learn why. He went on at her side, shortening his strides to the

gliding gait of the woman on his arm. He did not like the contact of her hand,

although he could not have said why.

No further words passed between them until they had reached a low stone

building ten minutes' walk on down the Lakklan. She rapped on the heavy door

with a quick, measured beat, and it swung open upon dimness. Her bare white

hand in the crook of Smith's arm pulled him inside.

A gliding servant took his coat and fur cap. Without ostentation, as he

removed the coat he slipped out the gun which had lain in his right hand

pocket and upon which his hand had rested all the while he was in the street.

He tucked it inside his leather jacket and followed the still cloaked woman

down a short hallway and through a low arch under which he had to stoop his

head. The room they entered was immemo-rially ancient, changelessly Martian.

Upon the dark stone floor, polished by the feet of countless generations, lay

the

furs of saltland beasts and the thick-pelted animals of the pole. The stone

walls were incised with those inevitable, mysterious symbols which have become

nothing more than queer designs now, though a million years ago they bore deep

significance. No Martian house, old or new, lacks them, and no living Martian

knows their meaning.

Remotely they must be bound up with the queer, cold darkness of that strange

religion which once ruled Mars and which dwells still in the heart of every

true Martian, though its shrines are secret now and its priests discredited.

Perhaps if one could read those symbols they would tell the name of the cold

god whom Mars worships still, in its heart of hearts, yet whose name is never

spoken.

The whole room was fragrant and a little mysterious with the aromatic fumes of

the braziers set at intervals about the irregularly shaped room, and the low

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C. L. Moore - The Cold Gray God

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