City Dweller Mysteries
Much remains to be learned concerning the City Dwellers, not the least their history. One thing is abundantly clear, their race is ancient, possibly incredibly so. All one need do to see this is look about, taking in the crumbling stone buildings in cities, the re-use of building materials even in such ancient places, the varying styles of decoration ranging from the primitive to the sophisticates and back and forth again and again.
Those who have made attempts to study the written records claim of these Martians claim that the rolls of rulers go back twenty thousands of years at least, probably longer - much longer. Certainty cannot be had as not just the languages but the very forms of writing change in the crumbling parchments of the dustiest archives. However old their civilization, it seems plain that the City Dwellers were building towering palaces and sailing the skies while Mankind was hiding in caves and counting the ability to make fire ads his highest achievement.
Today's City Dwellers seem a people frozen in time. They are heavily mired in ritual, tradition, and "the way things have always been done." Strange cults, and magical beliefs obsess them. Stagnation, languor and idleness are the order of the day, though they are yet fierce when stirred. It is clear, however, that such indolence and decadence was not always the way with this race. Marvelous architecture and sculpture, strange devices, and even the Great Canals themselves cry out otherwise. These things are beyond the powers of the modern day Martian yet they exist. Some say that the Cephalids, they who the City Dwellers refer to as the Dominators, did all these things, but how can that be? What we know of Cephalid design and constructional technique is notable different. When did the change come about for the City Dwellers? How did it come about? Is their culture somehow cyclical, or has it been suppressed and warped by the Cephalids? Or are they simply a race in decline, slipping into barbarism and ignorance in a strange mirroring of their very planet's slide into senescence?
Venerated Ones
Even more mysterious is the class or caste known as Venerated Ones. Like the Scouts, they go about veiled and covered, swathed in voluminous robes that hide their shapes and identities. A necessity, it is whispered, since they are not like ordinary Martians. Just how they differ is never spoken of.
They are said to be ancient beings, steeped in wisdom and lore so old that the dusty tomes that are their bibles are copies of crumbling parchment which are themselves copies of volumes long since fallen to dust.
They are said to move through the palaces without hindrance, able to come and go at their will. No guard or locked door can bar them.
To date, no Earthman has knowingly held converse with one of these esteemed personages. They have been seen, certainly, glimpsed while standing masked, robed, and silent behind a potentate's throne or gliding silently and purposefully through the shadowed halls of a palace.
A rational man can easily perceive that these Venerated Ones are simply the stuff of smoke and mirrors. They are no more than fancy dress trickery intended to lend to the courts of the rulers something of the style and mystery that City Dwellers seem to love so well, no more real than the Pa-powered abilities of the Sverdlinkers.
Weirdlinkers
City Dweller belief is things magical is embodied in the shamans and charlatans called Weirdlinkers. While their spells, charms, and curses are clearly no more than tricks, they have a strong influence on the susceptible Martians and travelers to the Red Planet should not underestimate the effects that such chicanery can have on Martians in their employ. Like the witchdoctors and medicine men of primitive societies on Earth, these individuals hold their fellows' minds in grips of fear, and fear is a powerful motivator whatever its source.
A related belief among the City Dwellers is that individuals may be touched by the Weird, the magic that infuses the universe. While such sensitives do not have the powers of a true weirdlinker, they can sense, if only dimly, the flow of the forces that fuel those powers. Such individuals are known as weirdlings and are valued for the warnings of danger that they can bring.
I think I could show you the very paving stone upon which I stood when my eyes fell upon the carving, and a pang of terrific awe passed through my very soul. It was between the Parroom Customs House and the palace of the Holheem's nephew, where a one-legged fruit-vendor displayed the morning's crop. Never again would I be the same.
--M. Andre Clien author of The Mysterious Heritage of Mars