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03 - The God's of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs · Daily Sci-Fi Books

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Chapter three, The Chamber of Mystery. For moments after that awful laugh had
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ceased, reverberating through the rocky room, Tars Tarkas and eyes stood in tense
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and expectant silent. But no further sound broke the stillness, nor within the
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range of our vision did aught move at length. Tars Tarkas laughed softly,
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after the manner of his strange kind, when in the presence of the horrible
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or terrifying. It is not an hysterical laugh, but rather the genuine expression
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of the pleasure. They derived from the things that move earth men to loathing
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or to tears. Often and again have I seen them roll upon the ground
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in mad fits of uncontrollable mirth. When witnessing the death agonies of women and
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little children beneath the torture of that hellish green Martian fete the Great Games.
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I looked up at thark a smile upon my own lips, for here,
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in truth was greater need for a smiling face than a trembling chin. What
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do you make of it all? I asked, wherein the deuce are we?
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He looked at me in surprise. Where are we? He repeated,
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Do you tell me John Carter, that you know not where you be.
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That I am upon Barsoom is all that I can guess, And but for
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you and the great White Apes, I should not even guess that, for
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the sights I have seen this day are as unlike the things of my beloved
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Barsoom as I knew it ten long years ago, as they are unlike the
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world of my birth. No, tars Tarkas, I know not where we
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be. Where have you been since you opened the mighty portals of the atmosphere
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plant years ago, after the keeper had died, and the engines stopped,
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and all Barsoom was dying that had not already died of his phyxiation. Your
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body even was never found, though the men of a whole world sought after
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it for years, though the Jeddak of Helium and his granddaughter, your princess,
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offered such fabulous rewards that even princes of royal blood joined in the search.
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There was but one conclusion to reach when all efforts to locate you had
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failed, and that that you had taken the long last pilgrimage down the mysterious
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river Ish to await in the valley door upon the shores of the lost Sea
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of Chorus, the beautiful dejah Thoris, your princess. Why you had gone
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none could guess, for your princess still lived. Thank God, I interrupted
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him. I did not dare to ask you, for I feared I might
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have been too late to save her. She was very low when I left
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her in the royal gardens of Tardos Moor's that long gone night, so very
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low that I scarcely hoped even then to reach the atmosphere plant Ere. Her
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dear spirit had fled from me forever, and she lives. Yet she lives.
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John Carter, you have not told me where we are, I reminded
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him. We are where I expected to find you. John Carter, and
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another many years ago, you heard the story of the woman who taught me
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that the thing that green Martians are rared to hate, the woman who taught
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me to love. You know the cruel tortures and the awful death her love
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won for her at the hands of the beast Talhajash. She I thought awaited
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me by the lost Sea of Chorus. You know that it was left for
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a man from another world, for yourself, John Carter, to teach this
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cruel thark what friendship is and you, I thought, also roamed the care
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free valley door. Thus were the two I most longed for. At the
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end of the long pilgrimage I must take some day. And so as the
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time had elapsed which dejah Thoris had hoped might bring you once more to her
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side, for she has always tried to believe that you had but temporarily returned
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to your own planet, I at last gave way to my great yearning.
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And a month since I started upon the journey, the end of which you
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have this day witnessed. Do you understand now where you be? John Carter?
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And that was the river ish emptying into the lost sea of Chorus in
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the valley door, I asked, This is the valley of love and peace
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and rest to which every Barsomium since time immorial has longed a pilgrimage at the
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end of a life of hate and strife and bloodshed. He replied, this,
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John Carter, is heaven. His tone was cold and ironic, its
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bitterness but reflecting the terrible disappointment he had suffered. Such a fearful disillusionment,
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such a blasting of life long hopes and aspirations, such an uprooting of age
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old tradition might have excused a vastly greater demonstration on the part of the thark.
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I laid my hand upon his shoulder. I am sorry, I said,
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Nor did there seem aught else to say. Think John Carter of the
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countless billions of Barsoomiums who have taken the voluntary pilgrimage down this cruel river since
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the beginning of time, only to fall into the ferocious clutches of the terrible
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creatures that to day assailed us. There is an ancient legend that once a
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red man returned from the banks of the Lost Sea of Chorus, returned from
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the valley door back through the mysterious river Ish, and the legend has it
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that he narrated a fearful blasphemy of horrid brutes that inhabited a valley of wondrous
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loveliness, brutes that pounced upon each Barsoomium as he terminated his pilgrimage, and
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devoured him upon the banks of the last Sea, where he had looked to
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find love and peace and happiness. But the ancients killed the blasphemer, as
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tradition has ordained that any should shall be killed who returned from the bosom of
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the river of mystery. But now we know that it was no blasphemy,
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that the legend is a true one, and that the man told only of
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what he saw. But what does it profit us, John Carter, Since
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even should we escape, we also would be treated as blasphemer's. We are
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between the wild throat of certainty and the mads it that are of fact.
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We can escape neither, as earthmen say. We are between the devil and
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the deep sea Tars Tarkas, I replied, nor could I help but smile
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at our dilemma. There is naught that we can do but take things as
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they come, and at least have the satisfaction of knowing that whoever slays us
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eventually will have far greater numbers of their own dead to count than they will
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get in return. White ape or plant men, green barsoomium or red man,
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whosoever it shall be that takes the last toll from us, will know
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that it is costly in lives to wipe out John Carter, Prince of the
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House of Tardos Mors and Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of thark. At the same
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time, I could not help but laugh at him grim humor and he joined
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in with me in one of those rare laughs of real enjoyment, which was
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one of the attributes of this fierce Tharkian chief, which marked him from the
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others of his kind. But about yourself, John Carter, he cried at
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last, if you have not been here all these years, where indeed have
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you been? And how is it that I find you here to day?
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I have been back to Earth, I replied. For ten long years I
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have been praying and hoping for the day that would carry me once more to
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this grim old planet of yours, for which, with all its cruel and
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terrible customs, I feel a bond of sympathy and love even greater than for
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the world that gave me birth. For ten years have I been enduring a
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living death of uncertainty and doubt as to whether dejah Thoris lived. And now
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that for the first time in all these years, my prayers have been answered
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and my doubt relieved, I find myself through a cruel, cruel whim of
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fate, hurled into the one tiny spot of all of Barsoom, from which
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there is apparently no escape, and if there were, at a price which
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would put out forever the last flickering hope which I may cling to of seeing
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my princess again in this life. And you have seen to day with what
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pitiful futility man yearns towards a material. Hereafter only a bare half hour before
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I saw you battling with the plant men, I was standing in the moonlight
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upon the banks of a broad river that taps the eastern shore of Earth's most
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blessed land. I have answered you, my friend, do you believe?
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I believe, replied tars Tarkas, though I cannot understand. As we talked,
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I had been searching the interior of the chamber with my eyes. It
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was perhaps two hundred feet in length and half as broad, with what appeared
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to be a doorway in the center of the wall directly opposite that through which
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we had entered. The apartment was hewn from the material of the cliff,
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showing mostly dull gold in the dim light which a single minute radium illuminator in
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the center of the roof diffused throughout its great dimensions. Here and there polished
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surfaces of ruby, admiral and diamond patched the golden walls and ceilings. The
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flour was of another material, very hard and worn by much use to the
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smoothness of glass. Aside from the two doors, I could discern no sign
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of other aperture, and as one we knew to be locked against us,
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I approached the other. As I extended my hand to search for the controlling
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button, that cruel and mocking laugh rang out once more, so close to
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me, this time that I involuntarily shrank back, tightening my grip upon the
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hilt of my great sword. And then, from the far corner of the
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great chamber, a hollow voice chanted, there is no hope. There is
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no hope the dead return not. The dead return not, nor is there
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any resurrection hope not, for there is no hope. Though our eyes instantly
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turned toward the spot from which the voice seemed to emanate, there was no
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one in sight. And it must admit that cold shivers played along my spine,
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and the short hairs at the base of my head stiffened and rose up,
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as do those upon a hound's neck when in the night his eyes see
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those uncanny things which are hidden from the sight of man. Quickly I walked
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towards the mournful voice, but it had ceased ere I reached the further wall.
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And then from the other end of the chamber came another voice, shrill
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and piercing. Fools, fools, it shrieked, thinkest thou to defeat the
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eternal laws of life and death? Wouldst cheat the mysterious Issus, goddess of
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Death of her just dues. Did not her mighty messenger, the ancient iss
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bear you upon her laden bosom, at your own behest to the valley door,
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thinkest thou, o fools that ishus wilt give up her own? Thinkest
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thou to escape from whence, in all the countless ages, but a single
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soul has fled. Go back the way, thou camest to the merciful maws
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of the children of the Tree of Life, or the gleaming fangs of the
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great white apes, For there lies speedy, surceased from suffering. But insist
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in your rash purpose to thread the mazes of the golden cliffs of the mountains
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of Ortz, past the ramparts of the impregnable fortresses of the Holy Therns,
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And upon your way, death in its most frightful form will overtake you,
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a death so horrible that even the holy thurns themselves, who conceive both life
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and death. Avert their eyes from its fiendishness, and close their ears against
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the hideous shrieks of its victims. Go back, o fools, the way
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thou camest. And then the awful laugh broke out from another part of the
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chamber, most uncanny, I remarked, turning to tars Tarkas, What shall
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we do? He asked, We cannot fight empty air. I would almost
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sooner return and face foes into whose flesh I may feel my blade bite and
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know that I am selling my carcass dearly before I go down to that eternal
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oblivion, which is evidently the fairest and most desirable eternity that mortal men has
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the right to hope for. If, as you say, we cannot fight
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empty air, tars Tarkas I replied, neither, on the other hand,
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can empty air fight us. I, who have faced and conquered in my
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time thousands of sinewy warriors and tempered blades, shall not be turned back by
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wind, Nor no more shall you thark. But unseen voices may emanate from
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unseen and unseeable creatures who wield invisible blades, answered the green warrior rot tars
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Tarkas I, cried. Those voices come from beings as real as you or
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I, in their vain floes, life blood that may be a let as
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easily as ours, And the fact that they remain invisible to us is the
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best proof to my mind that they are mortal, nor overly courageous mortals.
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At that, think you, Tars Tarkas, that John Carter will fly at
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the first shriek of a cowardly foe who dare not come out into the open
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and face a good blade. I had spoken in a loud voice that there
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might be no question that our would be terrorizers, should hear me, for
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I was tiring of this nerve racking fiasco. It had occurred to me too,
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that the whole business was but a plan to frighten us back into the
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valley of death from which we had escaped, that we might be quickly disposed
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of by the savage creatures there. For a long period there was silence.
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Then of a sudden, a soft, stealthy sound behind me caused me to
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turn suddenly to behold a great, many legged banth creeping sinuously upon me.
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The banth is a fierce beast of prey that roams the low hills surrounding the
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dead seas of ancient Mars. Like nearly all Martian animals, it is almost
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hairless, having only a great bristly mane about its thick neck. Its long
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lithe body is supported by ten powerful legs. Its enormous jaws are equipped like
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those of a calet or Martian hound, with several rolls of long needlelike fangs.
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Its mouth reaches to the point far back of its tiny ears, while
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its enormous protruding eyes of green add the last touch of terror to its awful
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aspect. As it crept toward me, it lashed its powerful tail against its
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yellow sides, and when it saw that it was discovered, it emitted the
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terrifying roar which often freezes its prey into momentary paralysis in the instant that it
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makes its spring. And so it launched its great bulk towards me. But
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its mighty voice had held no paralyzing terrors for me, and it met cold
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steel instead of the tender flesh. Its cruel jaws gaped so widely to engulf
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an instant. Later, I drew my blade from the still heart of this
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great Barsoomian lion, and turning toward tars Tarkas was surprised to see him facing
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a similar monster. No sooner had he despatched his than I, turning,
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as though drawn by the instinct of my guardian's sub conscious mind, beheld another
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of the savage denizens of the Martian wilds, leaping across the chamber toward me.
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From then on, for the better part of an hour, one hideous
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creature after another was launched upon us, springing apparently from the empty air about
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us. Tars Tarkas was satisfied here was something tangible that he could cut and
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slash with his great blade, while I, for my part, may say
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that the diversions was a marked improvement over the uncanny voices from unseen lips.
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That there was nothing supernatural about our new foes was well evidenced by their howls
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of rage and pain as they felt the sharp steel at their vitals, and
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the very real blood which flowed from their severed arteries as they died the real
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death. I noticed during the period of this new persecution that the beast appeared
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only when our backs were turned. We never saw one really materialize from thin
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air, nor did I for an instant sufficiently lose my excellent reasoning faculties to
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be once deluded into the belief that the beasts came into the room other than
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through some concealed and well contrived doorway. Among the ornaments of tars Tarkas's leather
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harness, which is the only manner of clothing worn by Martians other than silk
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capes and robes of silk and fur for protection from the cold after dark,
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was a small a mirror about the bigness of a lady's hand glass, which
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hung midway between his shoulders and his waist against his broad back. Once,
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as he stood looking down at a newly fallen antagonist, my eyes happened to
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fall upon this mirror, and in its shiny surface I saw pictured a sight
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that caused me to whisper move not tars Tarkas move, not a muscle.
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He did not ask why, but stood like a graven image, while my
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eyes watched the strange thing that meant so much to us. What I saw
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was the quick movement of a section of the wall behind me. It was
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turning upon pivots, and with it a section of the floor directly in front
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of it was turning. It was as though you placed a visiting card upon
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end on a silver dollar that you had laid flat upon a table, so
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that the edge of the card perfectly bisected the surface of the coin. The
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card might represent the section of the wall that turned, and the silver dollar
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the section of the floor. Both were so nicely fitted into the adjacent portions
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of the floor and wall that no crack had been noticeable in the dim light
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of the chamber. As the turn was half completed, a great beast was
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revealed, sitting upon its haunches upon that part of the revolving floor that had
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been on the opposite side before the wall commenced to move. When the section
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stopped, the beast was facing toward me on the other side of that partition.
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It was very simple, But what had interested me most was the sight
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that the half turned section had presented through the opening that it had made a
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great chamber, well lited, in which were several men and women chained to
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the wall, and in front of them, evidently directing and operating the movement
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of the secret doorway, a wicked faced man, neither red as are the
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red men of Mars, nor green as are the green men, but white
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like myself, with a great mass of flowing yellow hair. The prisoners behind
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him were red martians. Chained with them were a number of fierce beasts such
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has been turned upon us, and others equally as ferocious. As I turned
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to meet my new foe, it was with a heart considerably lightened watched the
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wall at your end of the chamber. Tars Tarkas, I cautioned, it
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is through secret doorways in the wall that the brutes are loosed upon us.
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I was very close to him, and spoke in a low whisper that my
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knowledge of their secret might not be disclosed to our tormentors. As long as
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we remained each facing an opposite end of the apartment, no further attacks were
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made upon us. So it was quite clear to me that the partitions were
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in some way pierced, that our actions might be observed from without. At
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length, a plan of action occurred to me, and, backing quite close
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to tars Tarkas, I unfolded my scheme in a low whisper, keeping my
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eyes still glued upon my end of the room. The great thark grunted his
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assent to my proposition. When I had done, and in a cocordance with
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my plan, commenced, backing toward the wall, which I faced, while
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I advanced slowly ahead of him. When we had reached a point some ten
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feet from the secret doorway, I halted my companion, and cautioning him to
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remain absolutely motionless until I gave the prearranged signal. I quickly turned my back
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to the door, through which I could almost feel the burning and baleful eyes
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of our would be executioner. Instantly my own eyes sought the mirror upon Tars
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Tarkas's back, and in another second I was closely watching the section of the
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wall which had been disgorging its savage terrors upon us. I had not long
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to wait for. Presently the golden surface commenced to move rapidly. Scarcely had
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it started than I gave the signal to Tars Tarkas, and simultaneously, springing
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from the receding half of the pivoting door, in like manner, the thark
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wheeled and leaped from the opening being made by the inswinging section. A single
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bound carried me completely through into the adjoining room and brought me face to face
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with the fellow whose cruel face I had seen before. He was about my
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own height, and well muscled, and in every outward detail molded precisely as
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our earthmen. At his side hung a long sword, a short sword,
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and a dagger, and one of the destructive ranium revolvers that are common upon
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Mars. The fact that I was armed only with a long sword, and
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so according to the laws and ethics of battle everywhere upon barsoom, should only
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have been met with a similar or lesser weapon, seemed to have no effect
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upon the moral sense of my enemy, for he whipped out his revolver ere
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I scarce had touched the floor by his side, but an upper cup from
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my long sword sent it flying from his grasp before he could discharge it.
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Instantly he drew his long sword, and thus evenly armed, we set to
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in earnest for one of the closest battles I ever have fought. The fellow
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was a marvelous swordsman, and evidently in practice. While I had not gripped
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the hilt of a sword for ten long years before that morning, but it
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did not take me long to fall easily into my fighting stride, so that
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in a few minutes the man began to realize that he had at last met
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his match. His face became livid with rage as he found my guard impregnable,
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while blood flowed from a dozen minor wounds upon his face and body.
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Who are you, white man, he hissed, that you are No Barsoomium
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from the outer world is evident from your color, and you are not of
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us. His last statement was almost a question. What if I were from
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the Temple of Issus, I hazard on a wild guest fate forfend, he
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exclaimed, his face going white under the blood that now nearly covered it.
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I did not know how to follow up my lead, but I carefully laid
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the idea away for future use, should circumstances require it. His answer indicated
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that, for all he knew, I might be the Temple of Issus,
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and in it were men like unto myself. And either this man feared the
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inmates of the temple, or else he held their persons or their power in
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such reverence that he trembled to think of the harm and indignities he had heaped
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upon one of them. But my present business with him was of a different
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nature than that which requires any considerable abstract reasoning. It was to get my
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sword between his ribs and this I succeeded in doing within the next few seconds.
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Nor was I an instant too soon. The chained prisoners had been watching
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the combat in tense silence. Not a sound had fallen in the room,
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other than the clashing of our contending blades, the soft shuffling of our naked
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feet, and the few whispered words we had hissed at each other through clenched
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teeth the while we continued our mortal duel. But as the body of my
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antagonist sank in an inert mass, to the floor, a cry of warning
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broke from one of the female prisoners. Turn behind you, she shrieked,
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and as I wheeled at the first note of her shrill cry, I found
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myself facing a second man of the same race as he who lay at my
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feet. The fellow had crept stealthily from the dark corridor and was almost upon
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me with raised sword. Ere I saw him. Tars Tarkas was nowhere in
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sight, and the secret panel in the wall through which I had come was
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closed. How I wished that he were by my side. Now I had
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fought almost continuously for many hours. I had passed through such experiences and adventures
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as must sap the vitality of man. And with all this I had not
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eaten for nearly twenty four hours, nor slept. I was fagged out,
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and for the first time in years, felt a question as to my ability
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to cope with an antagonist. But there was naught else for it than to
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engage my man, and that as quickly and ferociously as lay in me,
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For my only salvation was to rush him off his feet. By the impetuosity
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of my attack, I could not hope to win a long drawn out battle.
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But the fellow was evidently of another mine, for he backed and parried,
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and parried and side stepped until I was almost completely fagged from the exertion
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of attempting to finish him. He was a more adroit swordsman, if possible,
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than my previous foe, and I must admit that he led me a
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pretty chase, and in the end came near to making a sorry fool of
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me and a dead one into the bargain. I could feel myself growing weaker
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and weaker, until at length objects commenced to blur before my eyes, and
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I staggered and blundered about, more asleep than awake. And then it was
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that he worked his pretty little coup that came near to losing me my life.
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He had backed me around so that I stood in front of the corpse
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of his fellow, and then he rushed me suddenly, so that I was
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forced back upon it, and as my heel struck it, the impetus of
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my my body flung me backward across the dead man. My head struck the
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hard pavement with a resounding quack, And to that alone I owe my life,
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for it cleared my brain, and the pain roused my temper, so
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that I was equal for the moment to tearing my enemy to pieces with my
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bare hands. And I verily believed that I should have attempted it, had
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not my right hand, in the act of raising my body from the ground,
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came in contact with a bit of cold metal. As the eyes of
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the layman, so is the hand of the fighting man when it comes in
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contact with an implement of his vocation. And thus I did not need to
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look or reason to know that the dead man's revolver, laying where it had
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fallen when I struck it with my grasp, was at my disposal. The
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fellow whose ruse had put me down was springing toward me, the point of
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his gleaming blade directed straight at my heart, And as he came there rang
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from his lips the cruel and mocking peal of last after that I had heard
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within the chamber of mystery. And so he died, his thin lips curled
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in the snarl of his hateful laugh, and a bullet from the revolver of
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his dead companion bursting into his heart. His body, borne by the impetus
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of his headlong rush plunged upon me. The hilt of his sword must have
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struck my head, for with the impact of the corpse I lost consciousness.
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End of chapter three.