The Invisible City by Brian K Lowe

Author:Brian K Lowe [Lowe, Brian K]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

At Timash's suggestion we took refuge in one of the upper floors of a building some distance away. As he pointed out, the unique architecture of this city (whose name, it came out, was as much a mystery to Marella as ourselves) gave avenues of escape in various directions even on the second and third stories, while giving us likewise a greater field of view. I think he also relished the possibility of climbing; ever since that day we escaped the tiger spiders, he had resurrected the arboreal habits of his ancestors at every opportunity. Even Balu had thought it odd.

Practical as only a woman could be, Marella had torn shreds of cloth from the clothing of some of our late opponents and was now busily scrubbing and scraping such stains as she could from her hands and face. She had offered us some, but as we had just bathed (twice) in the river, we declined. Nor were we as greatly in need; neither Timash nor I had spilled any blood to speak of, and Harros was almost fresh.

Keeping watch from inside the window, I inquired of Marella how she had found herself in this situation.

"I was on a sky barge crossing the plain on my way home. I'm from Dure." She paused, as if to await our reaction, but all she received was three blank stares. I understood why Timash and I failed to react, and apparently Harros was not much of a traveler himself, but Marella found us all incredible. "Hello? You know—Dure? The Island Continent—across the big water?" She shook her head. "Men…" After a moment she recollected my question and decided, whatever her personal opinion of us, civility did demand an answer.

"Anyway, I'm a force field tech on the barge. It's called the Dark Lady. We're ferrying some nobles home, and one of them sees this deserted city down here, so naturally, he has explore it." She shook her head again, her opinion no less obvious for being unspoken. "Well, no sooner do we set down the schooner than this big—" she looked around at us, set her lips, and changed what she was about to say— "really big thunder lizard comes crashing out of nowhere. Of course Lord Masinto is the first one back on the schooner, screaming at everybody to shoot the thing and take off at the same time, and meanwhile the officers are trying to get everybody on board but the thunder lizard's on their tail and so they take off and I'm still on the ground," she finished in a rush. "I got away from the lizard okay, 'cause he was watching the schooner (and probably laughing his ass off at Masinto), but I was looking for some water when those jokers you saw started chasing me and cornered me in that basement."

"We were outside the wall when we heard you scream," I explained.

Her brows knit. "Did I scream?" I nodded. "Huh. Must've startled me."

"I'm sure it was involuntary, and quite understandable under the circumstances," Harros assured her.

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