COREY HOUSE
Dawn revealed Corey House in all its dour magnificence. It had been built in the earliest days of Martian colonization by a Scottish family—many of the first settlers had been Scots—and it bore the heavy, martial mien characteristic of that people’s architecture: all thick walls, square towers, and fortified parapets. But unlike the gray castles of Scotland, which she had seen in colored plates, this one was built of native Martian stone, and the light of the rising sun brought out the warmth in the rock’s butterscotch-orange and rust-red tones. The house was set firmly into the slope of a small mountain, and the crags all around it displayed similar colors.
But despite the warmth of the scene’s color scheme, the overall sight that greeted Arabella’s eyes brought a chill to her bones. For the daylight also revealed the full extent of the army of angry Martians that surrounded the house. Rank on rank of tents and huts stretched for what seemed like miles across the plain below the house, lapping like a wave on the lower reaches of the prominence upon which the house was constructed, and reaching right up to the bases of the nearest towers. The encampment seethed with Martians in their bright clan colors, their swords and forked spears glittering in the sunlight.
Most disturbing of all, several enormous catapults were under construction in the midst of the encampment. Two of them looked to be nearly complete, and large pyramids of jagged hogshead-sized red stones waited near each of them.
*
After performing her morning necessities, Arabella joined the captain and their escort for the short ride to the near edge of the encampment. A large troop of mounted Martians rode out to meet them, hostility clearly visible in their attitudes, but as soon as they scented the storek on Arabella’s forehead they relaxed. After a brief but thorough inspection of Arabella’s and the captain’s few possessions, they allowed them to enter the camp.
Their escort did not accompany them further. “We have delivered you to Corey House, as requested,” said the escort leader, “and now we return to our akhmok.”
“Thank you for accompanying us this far,” Arabella said, “and please convey my thanks and appreciation to Khema as well.”
The escort leader merely tossed her head in acknowledgement and rode off toward the rising sun, accompanied by her fellows and leading the two huresh that Arabella and the captain had ridden.
Arabella looked upon their retreating backs with considerable trepidation. Though she had finally returned to the planet of her birth, it now seemed foreign and dangerous. Even Khema, who was more dear to her than any one save her own family, had become barely recognizable. And now even that tiny particle of familiarity was gone, leaving Arabella alone and defenseless among angry, armed Martians who wanted her brother dead.
No … not alone. She had the captain by her side, for which she was more grateful than she could comfortably express.
“Come,” she said to him. “Let us present ourselves at the gate. The sooner my brother can explain himself, the better.”
*
They made their way through the surging crowd, Martian warriors hurrying this way and that with weapons, supplies, and construction materials for the gigantic catapults. Most of the warriors simply glared at them, but on many occasions they were approached by angry Martians with swords or spears raised, who backed down as soon as they scented the storek. By the twentieth or thirtieth such occasion Arabella had learned to stand her ground as though unafraid, though her heart still raced every time.
“How long does this … charm last?” the captain murmured to her as yet another armed Martian angrily swished her sword at them and stalked away.
“Khema said it would get us as far as the gate,” she replied. It was all she knew.
The crowd grew thicker and angrier as they approached the house, until by the time they reached the gate itself they found themselves pushing through a packed mob, many of who were hurling rocks or shooting arrows at the house’s thickly shuttered windows. If not for the storek’s influence they might not even have been able to progress on foot.
The gate itself, a heavy double door of khoresh-wood some ten feet wide, was deeply set into the red stone of the wall. Both door and wall were exceedingly scarred. Arabella banged the knocker, politely at first and then vigorously, but received no response.
They stepped back a bit. “Ahoy the house!” the captain called in a carrying voice that even stilled for a moment the furious activity of the Martians packed shoulder to shoulder around them. “Ahoooy!” he called again.