Michael Moorcock - City of the Beast

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City of the Beast (Warriors of Mars)

Michael Kane Book 1

by Michale Moorcock

Version 1.0

Chapter One

MY DEBT

TO M. CLARCHET

THE Matter Transmitter is both villain and hero of

this story (began Kane), for it took me to a world

where I felt more at home than I shall ever feel

here. It brought me to a wonderful girl whom I

loved and who loved me—and then took it all away

again.

But I had better begin nearer the beginning.

I was born, as I told you, in Ohio—in Wynns-

ville—a small, pleasant town that never changed

much. Its only unusual feature was in the person of

M. Clarchet, a Frenchman who had settled there

shortly after the First World War. He lived in a

large place on the outskirts of town. M. Clarchet

was a cosmopolitan, a Frenchman of the old

school—short, very straight-backed, with a typically

French, waxed moustache and a rather military

way of walking.

To be honest, M. Clarchet was something of a

caricature to us and seemed to illustrate everything

we had learned about the French in our dime

novels and comic books. Yet I owe my life to M.

Clarchet, though I wasn't to realize it until many

years after the old gentleman had passed on, and

when I found myself suddenly transported to Mars

... But again I am getting ahead of myself.

Clarchet was an enigma even to me though, as

boy and youth, I probably knew him better than

anyone else. He had been, he said, a fencing mas-

ter at the Court of the Tsar of Russia before the

Revolution and had had to leave in a hurry when

the Bolsheviks took over.

He had settled in Wynnsville directly because of

this experience. It had seemed to him at the time

that the whole world was in chaos and was being

turned upside down. He had found a small town

that was never likely to change much—and he liked

it. The way of life he led now was radically differ-

ent from the one he had been used to, and it

seemed to suit him.

We first met when I had accepted a dare by my

young pals to climb the fence of his house and see

if I could observe what M. Clarchet was up to. At

that time we were all convinced he was a spy of

some description! He had caught me, but instead

of shooting me, as I half-expected, he had laughed

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good-naturedly and sent me on my way. I liked

him at once.

Soon after that we kids had a phase which was a

sequel to seeing Ronald Colman in The Prisoner of

Zenda. We all became Ruperts and Rudolfs for a

time. With long canes for swords, we fenced one

another to exhaustion—not very skilfully but with a

lot of enthusiasm!

On a sunny afternoon in early summer, it so hap-

pened that I and another boy, Johnny Bulmer,

were duelling for the throne of Ruritania just out-

side M. Clarchet's house. Suddenly there came a

great shout from the house and we wheeled in as-

tonishment.

"Non! Non! Non!" The Frenchman was plainly

exasperated. "That ees wrong, wrong, wrong! That

ees not how a gentleman fences!"

He rushed from his garden and seized my cane,

adopting a graceful fencing stance and facing a

startled Johnny, who just stood there with his

mouth open.

"Now," he said to Johnny, "you do ze same, oui?"

Johnny inelegantly copied his posture.

"Now, you thrust—so!" The cane darted out in a

flicker of movement and stopped just short of

Johnny's chest.

Johnny copied him—and was parried with equal

swiftness. We were amazed and delighted by this

time. Here was a man who would have been a

good match for Rupert of Hentzau.

After a while M. Clarchet stopped and shook his

head. "It ees no good with thees slicks—we must

have real foils, non? Come!"

We followed him into the house. It was well fur-

nished though not lavishly. In a special room at the

top we found more to make us gasp.

Here was an array of blades such as we'd never

even imagined! Now I know them to be foils and

epees and sabres, plus a collection of fine, antique

weapons—claymores, scimitars, Samurai swords,

broadswords, Roman short swords—the gladius—

and many, many more.

M. Clarchet waved a hand at the fascinating dis-

play of weapons. "Zere! My collection. Zey are

sweet, ze little swords, non?" He took down a small

rapier and handed it to me, handing a similar

sword to Johnny. It felt really good, holding that

well-balanced sword in my hand. I flexed my wrist,

not quite able to get the balance. M. Clarchet took

my hand and showed me the correct way of grasp-

ing it.

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"How would you like to learn properly?" said M.

Clarchet with a wink. "I could teach you much."

Was it possible? We were going to be allowed to

wield these swords—taught how to sword-fight like

the best. I was amazed and delighted—until a

thought struck me, and I frowned.

"Oh—we don't have any money, sir. We couldn't

pay you and our moms and pops aren't likely to—

they're mean enough as it is."

"I do not wish for payment. The skill you ac-

quire from me will be reward enough! Here—I will

show you zee simple parry first . . ."

And so he taught us. Not only did we learn how

to fence with the modern conventional weapons-

foils, epees and sabres—but also with the antique

and foreign weapons of all shapes, weights, sizes

and balances. He taught us the whole of his mar-

vellous art.

Whenever we could, Johnny and I attended M.

Clarchet's special Sword Room. He seemed grate-

ful to us, in his way, for the opportunity to pass on

his skill, just as we were to him for giving us the

chance to learn. By the time we were around fif-

teen we were both pretty good, and I think I prob-

ably had the edge on Johnny, though I say it

myself.

Johnny's parents moved to Chicago about that

time so I became M. Clarchet's only pupil. When I

wasn't studying physics at high school and later at

university, I was to be found at M. Clarchet's,

learning all I could. And at last the day came when

he cried with joy. I had beaten him in a long and

complicated duel!

"You are zee best, Mike! Better zan any I have

known!"

It was the highest praise I have ever received. At

university I went in for fencing, of course, and was

picked for the American team in the Olympics. But

it was a crucial time in my studies and I had to

drop out at the last moment.

That was how I learned to fence, anyway. I

thought of it in my more depressed moments as

rather a purposeless sport—archaic and only in-

directly useful, in that it gave me excellently sharp

reactions, strengthened my muscles and so on. It

was useful in the Army, too, for the physical disci-

pline essential in Army training was already built

in to me.

I was lucky. I did well in my studies and sur-

vived my military service, part of which was spent

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fighting the Communist guerrillas in the jungles of

Vietnam. By the time I was thirty, I was known as

a bright boy in the world of physics. I joined the

Chicago Special Research Institute, and because of

my ideas on matter transmission was appointed

Director of the department responsible for de-

veloping the machine.

I remember we were working late on it, enlarg-

ing its capacity so that it could take a man.

The neon lights in the lab ceiling illuminated the

shining steel and plastic cabinet, the great 'trans-

lator cone' directed down at it, and all the other

equipment and instruments that filled the place al-

most to capacity. There were five of us working-

three technicians and Doctor Logon, my chief

assistant.

I checked all the instruments while Logan and

the men worked on the equipment. Soon all the

gauges were reading what they should read, and

we were ready.

I turned to Doctor Logan and looked at him. He

said nothing as he looked back at me. Then we

shook hands. That was all.

I climbed into the machine. They had tried to

talk me out of it earlier but had given up by this

time. Logan reached for the phone and contacted

the team handling the 'receiver'. This was situated

in a lab on the other side of the building.

Logan told the team we were ready and checked

with them. They were ready, too.

Logan walked to the main switch. Through the

little glass panel in the cabinet I saw him switch it

on gravely.

My body began to tingle pleasantly. That was all

at first. It is difficult to describe the weird sensation

I experienced as soon as the transmitter began to

work. It was literally true that every atom of my

body was being torn apart—and it felt like it. I be-

gan to get light-headed; then came the sensation of

frightful pressures building up inside me, followed

by the feeling that I was exploding outwards.

Everything went green and I felt as though I

was spreading gently in all directions. Then came a

riot of colors blossoming around me—reds, yellows,

purples, blues.

There was an increasing sense of weightless-

ness—masslessness even. I felt I was streaming

through blackness and my mind began to blank out

altogether. I felt I was hurtling over vast distances,

beyond time and space—covering an incredible

area of the universe in every direction in a few sec-

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onds.

Then I knew nothing more!

I came to my senses—if senses they were—under

a lemon-colored sun blazing down on me from out

of a deep blue, near-purple sky. It was a color

more intense than any I had ever seen before. Had

my experience enabled me to see color with

greater sharpness?

But when I looked around I realized that it was

more than intensity which had changed. I was ly-

ing in a field of gently swaying, sweet-smelling

ferns. But they were ferns unlike any I had ever

seen!

These ferns were an impossible shade of crim-

son!

I rubbed my eyes. Had the transmitter—or rather

the receiver—gone wrong and put me together

slightly mixed up, with my color sense in a

muddle?

I got up and looked across the sea of crimson

ferns.

I gasped.

My whole sight must somehow have been al-

tered!

Cropping at the ferns, with a line of yellowish,

hills in the background, was a beast as large as an

elephant and of roughly the same proportions as a

horse. Yet here the similarly to any beast I knew

ended. This creature was a mottled shade of mauve

and light green. It had three long, white horns

curling from its flat, almost catlike head. It had

twin, somewhat reptilian, tails spreading to the

ground behind it, and it had one huge eye covering

at least half the area of its face. This was a faceted

eye that shone and glinted in the sunlight. The

beast looked rather curiously at me and lifted its

head, then began to move towards me.

With, I suspect, a wild yell, I ran. I felt con-

vinced I was experiencing some sort of nightmare

or paranoiac delusion as a result of a fault in the

transmitter or receiver.

I heard the beast thundering on behind me, giv-

ing out a strange mooing sound, and increased my

pace as best I could. I found I could run very eas-

ily indeed and seemed to be lighter than normal.

Then to one side of me I heard musical laughter,

at once merry and sympathetic. A lilting voice

called something in what was to me a strange,

unearthly language, trilling and melodic. In fact,

the sound of the language was so beautiful that it

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did not seem to need words.

"Kahsaaa manherra vosu!"

I slowed my pace and looked towards the source

of the voice.

It was a girl—the most wonderful girl I have

ever seen in my life.

Her hair was long, free and golden. Her face

was oval, her white skin clear and fresh. She was

naked, apart from a wispy cloak which curled

round her shoulders and a broad, leather belt

around her waist. The belt held a short sword and a

holster from which jutted the butt of a pistol of

some kind. She was tall and her figure was exqui-

site. Somehow her nakedness was not obvious and

I accepted it at once. She, too, was totally unself-

conscious about it. I stopped still, not caring about

the beast behind me so long as I could have a few

seconds' glimpse of her.

Again she threw back her head and laughed that

merry laugh.

Suddenly I felt something wet tickling my neck.

Thinking it must be an insect of some sort, I put

up my hand. But it was too large for an insect. I

turned.

That strange mauve and green beast, that mon-

ster with the fly-like, Cyclops eye, two tails and

three horns, was gently licking me!

Was it tasting me? I wondered vaguely, still con-

centrating on the girl. Judging by the way she was

laughing, I thought not.

Wherever I was—in dream or lost world—I knew

that I had fled in panic from a tame, friendly, do-

mestic animal. I blushed and then joined in the

girl's laughter.

After a moment I said: "If it's not a rude ques-

tion, I wonder, ma'am, if you could tell me where I

am."

She wrinkled her perfect brow when she heard

me and shook her head slowly. "Uhoi merrash?

Civinnee norshasa?"

I tried again in French but without any luck.

Then in German—again no success. Spanish was

equally ineffective at producing communication be-

tween us. My Latin and Greek were limited, but I

tried those, too. I am something of a linguist, pick-

ing up foreign tongues quickly. I tried to remem-

ber the little Sioux and Apache I had learned

during a brief study of the Red Indians at college.

But nothing worked.

She spoke a few more words in her language

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which seemed to me, when I listened very care-

fully, to have certain faint similarities to classical

Sanskrit.

"We are both, it seems, at a loss," I remarked,

standing there with the beast still licking me lov-

ingly.

She stretched out a hand for me to take. My

heart pounded and I could hardly make myself

move. "Phoresha," she said. She seemed to want me

to go somewhere with her, and pointed towards

the distant hills.

I shrugged, took her hand and went along with

her.

So that was how, hand in hand with its loveliest

resident, I came to Varnal, City of the Green

Mists—most splendid of the splendid Martian cities.

Oh, how many thousands upon thousands of

years ago!

Chapter Two

THE ASTOUNDING TRUTH

VARNAL is more real to me, even in my memories,

than ever Chicago or New York can be. It lies in a

gentle valley in the hills, which the Martians term

the Calling Hills. Green and golden, they are cov-

ered with slender trees and, when the wind passes

through them, they sound like sweet, distant, call-

ing voices as one walks past.

The valley itself is wide and shallow and con-

tains a fairly large, hot lake. The city is built

around the lake, from which rises a greenish steam,

a delicate green that sends tendrils curling around

the spires of Varnal. Most of Varnal's graceful

buildings are tall and white, though some are built

of the unique blue marble which is mined close by.

Others have traceries of gold in them, making

them glitter in the sunlight. The city is walled by

the same blue marble, which also has golden

traceries in it. From its towers fly pennants, gay

and multicolored, and its terraces are crowded

with its handsome inhabitants, the plainest of

whom would be a sought-after beau or belle in

Wynnsville, Ohio—or, indeed, Chicago or any other

great city of our world.

When I first came upon the city of Varnal, led

by that wonderful girl, I gasped in awed admira-

tion. She seemed to accept my gasp as the compli-

ment it was and she smiled proudly, saying

something in her then incomprehensible language.

I decided that I could not be dreaming, for my

own imagination was simply not capable of

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creating such a vision of splendor and loveliness.

But where was I? I did not know then. How had

I got there? That I still cannot answer fully.

I puzzled over the second question. Evidently

the matter transmitter had had a fault. Instead of

sending me to the receiver on the other side of the

lab building it had sent me hurtling through

space—perhaps through time, too—to another

world. It could not be Earth—not, at least, the

Earth of my own age. Somehow I could not be-

lieve it was any Earth, of the past or the future.

Yet it could not be the only other obvious planet in

our solar system—Mars—for Mars was a dead, arid

planet of red dust and lichen. Yet the size of the

Sun and the fact that gravity was less here than on

Earth seemed to indicate Mars.

It was in a daze of speculation that I allowed the

girl to lead me through the golden gates of the

city, through its tree-lined streets, towards a palace

of shining white stone. People, men and women

dressed—if dressed is the word—similarly to the

girl, glanced in polite curiosity at my white lab

coat and grey pants which I was still wearing.

We mounted the steps of the palace and entered

a great hall, hung with banners of many colors, on

which were embroidered strange emblems, myth-

ical beasts and words traced out in a peculiar

script which also reminded me of Sanskrit.

Five galleries rose around the hall and in the

centre a fountain played. The few simply-dressed

people who stood conversing in the hall waved

cheerfully to the girl and gave me that same look

of polite curiosity I had received in the streets.

We walked through the hall, through another

doorway and up a spiral staircase of white marble.

Here she paused on the landing and opened a door

that at first looked like metal but on closer observa-

tion proved to be wood of incredible hardness and

polish.

The room in which I found myself was quite

small. It was barely furnished, with a few rugs of

brightly dyed animal skins scattered about and a

series of cupboards around the walls.

The girl went to one of these cupboards, opened

it and took out two metal circlets in which were set

radiant gems of a kind completely unknown to me.

She placed one of these on her head and indicated

that I should imitate her with the second. I took

the circlet and fitted it over my own head.

Suddenly a voice spoke inside my skull. I was as-

tonished for a second, until I realized that here was

some kind of telepathic communicator which we

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physicists had only speculated about.

"Greetings, stranger," said the voice, and I could

see the girl's lips move, framing those lovely, alien

syllables. "From where do you come?"

"I come from Chicago, Illinois," I said, more to

test the device than to convey information which I

guessed would be meaningless to her.

She frowned. "Soft sounds and very pleasant, but

I do not know that place. Where in Vashu is that?"

"Vashu? Is this city in a land called Vashu?"

"No—Vashu is the whole planet. This city is

called Varnal, capital of the nation of the Karnala,

my people."

"Do you have astronomy?" I asked. "Do you

study the stars?"

"We do. Why do you ask?"

"Which planet is this in relation to the sun?"

"It is the fourth from the sun."

"Mars! It is Mars!" I cried.

"I do not follow you."

"I am sorry. Somehow I have arrived here from

the third planet, which we call Earth. That is

where Chicago is!"

"But there are no men on Negalu, the third

planet. Only steamy jungles and monstrous beasts!"

"How do you know so much about the planet?"

"Our ethercraft have visited it and brought back

pictures."

"You have space-ships—but ..." I was at a loss.

This was too incredible for me to accept all at

once. I questioned her more closely and soon

learned that the Earth her people knew was not

the Earth I bad left. It seemed to be an Earth that

had existed millions of years ago, during the Age

of Reptiles. Somehow both space and time had

been crossed. That matter transmitter had more to

it than we'd guessed!

Another thing puzzled me. The people did not

appear to have a great deal of technology visible in

the city—yet they had space-ships.

"How could this be?" I asked her.

"We did not build the ethercraft. They were a

gift from the Sheev—as were these mind-crowns.

We have a science of our own but it cannot com-

pare to the great wisdom and knowledge of the

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Sheev."

"Who are the Sheev?"

"They are very great and few of them still live.

They are remote and of an older race than any on

Vashu. Our philosophers speculate on their origin,

but we know little about them."

I let that go for the time being and decided it

was about the moment to introduce myself.

"I am called Michael Kane," I said.

"I am Shizala, Bradhinaka of the Kanala, and

ruler in the absence of the Bradhi."

I learned that the Bradhi was about the equiva-

lent of our 'kang', although the title did not suggest

that the man who held it possessed absolute power.

Perhaps Guide would be a better one—or Protec-

tor? Bradhinaka meant, roughly, Princess—daugh-

ter of the King.

"And where is the Bradhi?" I asked.

I saw her face become sad and she glanced at

the ground.

"My father disappeared two years ago—on a

punitive expedition against the Argzoon. He must

have been killed or, if he was captured, killed him-

self. It is better to die than become a prisoner of

the Blue Giants."

I expressed my sympathy and did not feel the

time right to ask what the Argzoon or Blue Giants

were. She was evidently deeply moved by the

memory of the loss of her father, but showed great

self-control in refusing to burden someone else

with her grief.

I felt immediately like trying to offer her some

comfort. But, considering I knew nothing of the

moral code and customs of her people, that might

perhaps have been disastrous.

She touched her circlet. "We only need to wear

these for the time being. The Sheev have given us

another machine which should be able to teach

you our spoken language."

We conversed a little longer and I learned much

of Mars—or Vashu, as I was already beginning to

think of it.

There were many nations on Mars, some friendly

towards the Kanala, some not. They all spoke rec-

ognizable versions of the same root language. This

is supposedly true of Earth—that our language was

originally a common one; but in our case the

changes have been extreme. This was not the case,

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Michael Moorcock - City of the Beast

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