The Gods of Mars Revoked (7 page)

My head struck
the hard pavement with a resounding whack, and to that alone I owe
my life, for it cleared my brain and the pain roused my temper, so
that I was equal for the moment to tearing my enemy to pieces with
my bare hands, and I verily believe that I should have attempted it
had not my right hand, in the act of raising my body from the
ground, come in contact with a bit of cold metal.

As the eyes of
the layman so is the hand of the fighting woman when it comes in
contact with an implement of her vocation, and thus I did not need
to look or reason to know that the dead woman's revolver, lying
where it had fallen when I struck it from her grasp, was at my
disposal.

The fellow whose
ruse had put me down was springing toward me, the point of her
gleaming blade directed straight at my heart, and as she came there
rang from her lips the cruel and mocking peal of laughter that I
had heard within the Chamber of Mystery.

And so she died,
her thin lips curled in the snarl of her hateful laugh, and a
bullet from the revolver of her dead companion bursting in her
heart.

Her body, borne
by the impetus of her headlong rush, plunged upon me. The hilt of
her sword must have struck my head, for with the impact of the
corpse I lost consciousness.

CHAPTER
IV

THUVIA

It was the sound
of conflict that aroused me once more to the realities of life. For
a moment I could neither place my surroundings nor locate the
sounds which had aroused me. And then from beyond the blank wall
beside which I lay I heard the shuffling of feet, the snarling of
grim beasts, the clank of metal accoutrements, and the heavy
breathing of a woman.

As I rose to my
feet I glanced hurriedly about the chamber in which I had just
encountered such a warm reception. The prisoners and the savage
brutes rested in their chains by the opposite wall eyeing me with
varying expressions of curiosity, sullen rage, surprise, and
hope.

The latter
emotion seemed plainly evident upon the handsome and intelligent
face of the young red Martian man whose cry of warning had been
instrumental in saving my life.

He was the
perfect type of that remarkably beautiful race whose outward
appearance is identical with the more god-like races of Earth
women, except that this higher race of Martians is of a light
reddish copper colour. As he was entirely unadorned I could not
even guess his station in life, though it was evident that he was
either a prisoner or slave in his present environment.

It was several
seconds before the sounds upon the opposite side of the partition
jolted my slowly returning faculties into a realization of their
probable import, and then of a sudden I grasped the fact that they
were caused by Tara Tarkas in what was evidently a desperate
struggle with wild beasts or savage women.

With a cry of
encouragement I threw my weight against the secret door, but as
well have assayed the down-hurling of the cliffs themselves. Then I
sought feverishly for the secret of the revolving panel, but my
search was fruitless, and I was about to raise my longsword against
the sullen gold when the young man prisoner called out to
me.

'Save thy sword,
O Mighty Warrior, for thou shalt need it more where it will avail
to some purpose--shatter it not against senseless metal which
yields better to the lightest finger touch of one who knows its
secret.'

'Know you the
secret of it then?' I asked.

'Yes; release me
and I will give you entrance to the other horror chamber, if you
wish. The keys to my fetters are upon the first dead of thy foemen.
But why would you return to face again the fierce banth, or
whatever other form of destruction they have loosed within that
awful trap?'

'Because my
friend fights there alone,' I answered, as I hastily sought and
found the keys upon the carcass of the dead custodian of this grim
chamber of horrors.

There were many
keys upon the oval ring, but the fair Martian maid quickly selected
that which sprung the great lock at his waist, and freed he hurried
toward the secret panel.

Again he sought
out a key upon the ring. This time a slender, needle-like affair
which he inserted in an almost invisible hole in the wall.
Instantly the door swung upon its pivot, and the contiguous section
of the floor upon which I was standing carried me with it into the
chamber where Tara Tarkas fought.

The great Thark
stood with her back against an angle of the walls, while facing her
in a semi-circle a half-dozen huge monsters crouched waiting for an
opening. Their blood-streaked heads and shoulders testified to the
cause of their wariness as well as to the swordswomanship of the
green warrior whose glossy hide bore the same mute but eloquent
witness to the ferocity of the attacks that she had so far
withstood.

Sharp talons and
cruel fangs had torn leg, arm, and breast literally to ribbons. So
weak was she from continued exertion and loss of blood that but for
the supporting wall I doubt that she even could have stood erect.
But with the tenacity and indomitable courage of her kind she still
faced her cruel and relentless foes--the personification of that
ancient proverb of her tribe: 'Leave to a Thark her head and one
hand and she may yet conquer.'

As she saw me
enter, a grim smile touched those grim lips of hers, but whether
the smile signified relief or merely amusement at the sight of my
own bloody and dishevelled condition I do not know.

As I was about to
spring into the conflict with my sharp long-sword I felt a gentle
hand upon my shoulder and turning found, to my surprise, that the
young man had followed me into the chamber.

'Wait,' he
whispered, 'leave them to me,' and pushing me advanced, all
defenceless and unarmed, upon the snarling banths.

When quite close
to them he spoke a single Martian word in low but peremptory tones.
Like lightning the great beasts wheeled upon him, and I looked to
see his torn to pieces before I could reach his side, but instead
the creatures slunk to his feet like puppies that expect a merited
whipping.

Again he spoke to
them, but in tones so low I could not catch the words, and then he
started toward the opposite side of the chamber with the six mighty
monsters trailing at heel. One by one he sent them through the
secret panel into the room beyond, and when the last had passed
from the chamber where we stood in wide-eyed amazement he turned
and smiled at us and then himself passed through, leaving us
alone.

For a moment
neither of us spoke. Then Tara Tarkas said:

'I heard the
fighting beyond the partition through which you passed, but I did
not fear for you, Joan Carter, until I heard the report of a
revolver shot. I knew that there lived no woman upon all Barsoom
who could face you with naked steel and live, but the shot stripped
the last vestige of hope from me, since you I knew to be without
firearms. Tell me of it.'

I did as she
bade, and then together we sought the secret panel through which I
had just entered the apartment--the one at the opposite end of the
room from that through which the boy had led his savage
companions.

To our
disappointment the panel eluded our every effort to negotiate its
secret lock. We felt that once beyond it we might look with some
little hope of success for a passage to the outside
world.

The fact that the
prisoners within were securely chained led us to believe that
surely there must be an avenue of escape from the terrible
creatures which inhabited this unspeakable place.

Again and again
we turned from one door to another, from the baffling golden panel
at one end of the chamber to its mate at the other--equally
baffling.

When we had about
given up all hope one of the panels turned silently toward us, and
the young man who had led away the banths stood once more beside
us.

'Who are you?' he
asked, 'and what your mission, that you have the temerity to
attempt to escape from the Valley Dor and the death you have
chosen?'

'I have chosen no
death, maiden,' I replied. 'I am not of Barsoom, nor have I taken
yet the voluntary pilgrimage upon the River Iss. My friend here is
Jeddak of all the Tharks, and though she has not yet expressed a
desire to return to the living world, I am taking her with me from
the living lie that hath lured her to this frightful
place.

'I am of another
world. I am Joan Carter, Princess of the House of Tardoa Mors,
Jeddak of Helium. Perchance some faint rumour of me may have leaked
within the confines of your hellish abode.'

He
smiled.

'Yes,' he
replied, 'naught that passes in the world we have left is unknown
here. I have heard of you, many years ago. The therns have ofttimes
wondered whither you had flown, since you had neither taken the
pilgrimage, nor could be found upon the face of
Barsoom.'

'Tell me,' I
said, 'and who be you, and why a prisoner, yet with power over the
ferocious beasts of the place that denotes familiarity and
authority far beyond that which might be expected of a prisoner or
a slave?'

'Slave I am,' he
answered. 'For fifteen years a slave in this terrible place, and
now that they have tired of me and become fearful of the power
which my knowledge of their ways has given me I am but recently
condemned to die the death.'

He
shuddered.

'What death?' I
asked.

'The Holy Therns
eat human flesh,' he answered me; 'but only that which has died
beneath the sucking lips of a plant man--flesh from which the
defiling blood of life has been drawn. And to this cruel end I have
been condemned. It was to be within a few hours, had your advent
not caused an interruption of their plans.'

'Was it then Holy
Therns who felt the weight of Joan Carter's hand?' I
asked.

'Oh, no; those
whom you laid low are lesser therns; but of the same cruel and
hateful race. The Holy Therns abide upon the outer slopes of these
grim hills, facing the broad world from which they harvest their
victims and their spoils.

'Labyrinthine
passages connect these caves with the luxurious palaces of the Holy
Therns, and through them pass upon their many duties the lesser
therns, and hordes of slaves, and prisoners, and fierce beasts; the
grim inhabitants of this sunless world.

'There be within
this vast network of winding passages and countless chambers women,
men, and beasts who, born within its dim and gruesome underworld,
have never seen the light of day--nor ever shall.

'They are kept to
do the bidding of the race of therns; to furnish at once their
sport and their sustenance.

'Now and again
some hapless pilgrim, drifting out upon the silent sea from the
cold Iss, escapes the plant women and the great white apes that
guard the Temple of Issus and falls into the remorseless clutches
of the therns; or, as was my misfortune, is coveted by the Holy
Thern who chances to be upon watch in the balcony above the river
where it issues from the bowels of the mountains through the cliffs
of gold to empty into the Lost Sea of Korus.

'All who reach
the Valley Dor are, by custom, the rightful prey of the plant women
and the apes, while their arms and ornaments become the portion of
the therns; but if one escapes the terrible denizens of the valley
for even a few hours the therns may claim such a one as their own.
And again the Holy Thern on watch, should she see a victim she
covets, often tramples upon the rights of the unreasoning brutes of
the valley and takes her prize by foul means if she cannot gain it
by fair.

'It is said that
occasionally some deluded victim of Barsoomian superstition will so
far escape the clutches of the countless enemies that beset her
path from the moment that she emerges from the subterranean passage
through which the Iss flows for a thousand miles before it enters
the Valley Dor as to reach the very walls of the Temple of Issus;
but what fate awaits one there not even the Holy Therns may guess,
for who has passed within those gilded walls never has returned to
unfold the mysteries they have held since the beginning of
time.

'The Temple of
Issus is to the therns what the Valley Dor is imagined by the
peoples of the outer world to be to them; it is the ultimate haven
of peace, refuge, and happiness to which they pass after this life
and wherein an eternity of eternities is spent amidst the delights
of the flesh which appeal most strongly to this race of mental
giants and moral pygmies.'

'The Temple of
Issus is, I take it, a heaven within a heaven,' I said. 'Let us
hope that there it will be meted to the therns as they have meted
it here unto others.'

'Who knows?' the
boy murmured.

'The therns, I
judge from what you have said, are no less mortal than we; and yet
have I always heard them spoken of with the utmost awe and
reverence by the people of Barsoom, as one might speak of the gods
themselves.'

'The therns are
mortal,' he replied. 'They die from the same causes as you or I
might: those who do not live their allotted span of life, one
thousand years, when by the authority of custom they may take their
way in happiness through the long tunnel that leads to
Issus.