The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
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Burroughs >> The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
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* I have used the word king in describing the rulers or chiefs of
the Bantoomian swarms, since the word itself is unpronounceable
in English, nor does jed or jeddak of the red Martian tongue have
quite the same meaning as the Bantoomian word, which has
practically the same significance as the English word queen as
applied to the leader of a swarm of bees.--J. C.
Nor was Ghek's prophecy long in fulfilment. Presently the sounds
of pursuit became audible in the distant clanking of
accouterments and the whistling call to arms of the kaldanes.
"The tower is but a short distance now," cried Ghek. "Make haste
while yet you may, and if we can barricade it until the sun rises
we may yet escape."
"We shall need no barricades for we shall not linger in the
tower," replied Gahan, moving more rapidly as he realized from
the volume of sound behind them the great number of their
pursuers.
"But we may not go further than the tower tonight," insisted
Ghek. "Beyond the tower await the banths and certain death."
Gahan smiled. "Fear not the banths," he assured them. "Can we but
reach the enclosure a little ahead of our pursuers we have naught
to fear from any evil power within this accursed valley."
Ghek made no reply, nor did his expressionless face denote either
belief or skepticism. The girl looked into the face of the man
questioningly. She did not understand.
"Your flier," he said. "It is moored before the tower."
Her face lighted with pleasure and relief. "You found it!" she
exclaimed. "What fortune!"
"It was fortune indeed," he replied. "Since it not only told that
you were a prisoner here; but it saved me from the banths as I
was crossing the valley from the hills to this tower into which I
saw them take you this afternoon after your brave attempt at
escape."
"How did you know it was I?" she asked, her puzzled brows
scanning his face as though she sought to recall from past
memories some scene in which he figured.
"Who is there but knows of the loss of the Princess Tara of
Helium?" he replied. "And when I saw the device upon your flier I
knew at once, though I had not known when I saw you among them in
the fields a short time earlier. Too great was the distance for
me to make certain whether the captive was man or woman. Had
chance not divulged the hiding place of your flier I had gone my
way, Tara of Helium. I shudder to think how close was the chance
at that. But for the momentary shining of the sun upon the
emblazoned device on the prow of your craft, I had passed on
unknowing."
The girl shuddered. "The Gods sent you," she whispered
reverently.
"The Gods sent me, Tara of Helium," he replied.
"But I do not recognize you," she said. "I have tried to recall
you, but I have failed. Your name, what may it be?"
"It is not strange that so great a princess should not recall the
face of every roving panthan of Barsoom," he replied with a
smile.
"But your name?" insisted the girt
"Call me Turan," replied the man, for it had come to him that if
Tara of Helium recognized him as the man whose impetuous avowal
of love had angered her that day in the gardens of The Warlord,
her situation might be rendered infinitely less bearable than
were she to believe him a total stranger. Then, too, as a simple
panthan* he might win a greater degree of her confidence by his
loyalty and faithfulness and a place in her esteem that seemed to
have been closed to the resplendent Jed of Gathol.
* Soldier of Fortune; free-lance warrior.
They had reached the tower now, and as they entered it from the
subterranean corridor a backward glance revealed the van of their
pursuers--hideous kaldanes mounted upon swift and powerful
rykors. As rapidly as might be the three ascended the stairways
leading to the ground level, but after them, even more rapidly,
came the minions of Luud. Ghek led the way, grasping one of
Tara's hands the more easily to guide and assist her, while Gahan
of Gathol followed a few paces in their rear, his bared sword
ready for the assault that all realized must come upon them now
before ever they reached the enclosure and the flier.
"Let Ghek drop behind to your side," said Tara, "and fight with
you."
"There is but room for a single blade in these narrow corridors,"
replied the Gatholian. "Hasten on with Ghek and win to the deck
of the flier. Have your hand upon the control, and if I come far
enough ahead of these to reach the dangling cable you can rise at
my word and I can clamber to the deck at my leisure; but if one
of them emerges first into the enclosure you will know that I
shall never come, and you will rise quickly and trust to the Gods
of our ancestors to give you a fair breeze in the direction of a
more hospitable people."
Tara of Helium shook her head. "We will not desert you, panthan,"
she said.
Gahan, ignoring her reply, spoke above her head to Ghek. "Take
her to the craft moored within the enclosure," he commanded. "It
is our only hope. Alone, I may win to its deck; but have I to
wait upon you two at the last moment the chances are that none of
us will escape. Do as I bid." His tone was haughty and
arrogant--the tone of a man who has commanded other men from
birth, and whose will has been law. Tara of Helium was both
angered and vexed. She was not accustomed to being either
commanded or ignored, but with all her royal pride she was no
fool, and she knew the man was right, that he was risking his
life to save hers, so she hastened on with Ghek as she was bid,
and after the first flush of anger she smiled, for the
realization came to her that this fellow was but a rough
untutored warrior, skilled not in the finer usages of cultured
courts. His heart was right, though; a brave and loyal heart, and
gladly she forgave him the offense of his tone and manner. But
what a tone! Recollection of it gave her sudden pause. Panthans
were rough and ready men. Often they rose to positions of high
command, so it was not the note of authority in the fellow's
voice that seemed remarkable; but something else--a quality that
was indefinable, yet as distinct as it was familiar. She had
heard it before when the voice of her great-grandsire, Tardos
Mors, Jeddak of Helium, had risen in command; and in the voice of
her grandfather, Mors Kajak, the jed; and in the ringing tones of
her illustrious sire, John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom, when he
addressed his warriors.
But now she had no time to speculate upon so trivial a thing, for
behind her came the sudden clash of arms and she knew that Turan,
the panthan, had crossed swords with the first of their pursuers.
As she glanced back he was still visible
beyond a turn in the stairway, so that she could see the quick
swordplay that ensued. Daughter of a world's greatest swordsman,
she knew well the finest points of the art. She saw the clumsy
attack of the kaldane and the quick, sure return of the panthan.
As she looked down from above upon his almost naked body, trapped
only in the simplest of unadorned harness, and saw the play of
the lithe muscles beneath the red-bronze skin, and witnessed the
quick and delicate play of his sword point, to her sense of
obligation was added a spontaneous admission of admiration that
was but the natural tribute of a woman to skill and bravery and,
perchance, some trifle to manly symmetry and strength.
Three times the panthan's blade changed its position--once to
fend a savage cut; once to feint; and once to thrust. And as he
withdrew it from the last position the kaldane rolled lifeless
from its stumbling rykor and Turan sprang quickly down the steps
to engage the next behind, and then Ghek had drawn Tara upward
and a turn in the stairway shut the battling panthan from her
view; but still she heard the ring of steel on steel, the clank
of accouterments and the shrill whistling of the kaldanes. Her
heart moved her to turn back to the side of her brave defender;
but her judgment told her that she could serve him best by being
ready at the control of the flier at the moment he reached the
enclosure.
CHAPTER IX
ADRIFT OVER STRANGE REGIONS
PRESENTLY Ghek pushed aside a door that opened from the stairway,
and before them Tara saw the moonlight flooding the walled court
where the headless rykors lay beside their feeding-troughs. She
saw the perfect bodies, muscled as the best of her father's
fighting men, and the females whose figures would have been the
envy of many of Helium's most beautiful women. Ah, if she could
but endow these with the power to act! Then indeed might the
safety of the panthan be assured; but they were only poor lumps
of clay, nor had she the power to quicken them to life. Ever must
they lie thus until dominated by the cold, heartless brain of the
kaldane. The girl sighed in pity even as she shuddered in disgust
as she picked her way over and among the sprawled creatures
toward the flier.
Quickly she and Ghek mounted to the deck after the latter had
cast off the moorings. Tara tested the control, raising and
lowering the ship a few feet within the walled space. It
responded perfectly. Then she lowered it to the ground again and
waited. From the open doorway came the sounds of conflict, now
nearing them, now receding. The girl, having witnessed her
champion's skill, had little fear of the outcome. Only a single
antagonist could face him at a time upon the narrow stairway, he
had the advantage of position and of the defensive, and he was a
master of the sword while they were clumsy bunglers by
comparison. Their sole advantage was in their numbers, unless
they might find a way to come upon him from behind.
She paled at the thought. Could she have seen him she might have
been further perturbed, for he took no advantage of many
opportunities to win nearer the enclosure. He fought coolly, but
with a savage persistence that bore little semblance to purely
defensive action. Often he clambered over the body of a fallen
foe to leap against the next behind, and once there lay five dead
kaldanes behind him, so far had he pushed back his antagonists.
They did not know it; these kaldanes that he fought, nor did the
girl awaiting him upon the flier, but Gahan of Gathol was engaged
in a more alluring sport than winning to freedom, for he was
avenging the indignities that had been put upon the woman he
loved; but presently he realized that he might be jeopardizing
her safety uselessly, and so he struck down another before him
and turning leaped quickly up the stairway, while the leading
kaldanes slipped upon the brain-covered floor and stumbled in
pursuit.
Gahan reached the enclosure twenty paces ahead of them and raced
toward the flier. "Rise!" he shouted to the girl. "I will ascend
the cable."
Slowly the small craft rose from the ground as Gahan leaped the
inert bodies of the rykors lying in his path. The first of the
pursuers sprang from the tower just as Gahan seized the trailing
rope.
"Faster!" he shouted to the girl above, "or they will drag us
down!" But the ship seemed scarcely to move, though in reality
she was rising as rapidly as might have been expected of a
one-man flier carrying a load of three. Gahan swung free above
the top of the wall, but the end of the rope still dragged the
ground as the kaldanes reached it. They were pouring in a steady
stream from the tower into the enclosure. The leader seized the
rope.
"Quick!" he cried. "Lay hold and we will drag them down."
It needed but the weight of a few to accomplish his design. The
ship was stopped in its flight and then, to the horror of the
girl, she felt it being dragged steadily downward. Gahan, too,
realized the danger and the necessity for instant action.
Clinging to the rope with his left hand, he had wound a leg about
it, leaving his right hand free for his long-sword which he had
not sheathed. A downward cut clove the soft head of a kaldane,
and another severed the taut rope beneath the panthan's feet. The
girl heard a sudden renewal of the shrill whistling of her foes,
and at the same time she realized that the craft was rising
again. Slowly it drifted upward, out of reach of the enemy, and a
moment later she saw the figure of Turan clamber over the side.
For the first time in many weeks her heart was filled with the
joy of thanksgiving; but her first thought was of another.
"You are not wounded?" she asked.
'No, Tara of Helium," he replied. "They were scarce worth the
effort of my blade, and never were they a menace to me because of
their swords."
"They should have slain you easily," said Ghek. "So great and
highly developed is the power of reason among us that they should
have known before you struck just where, logically, you must seek
to strike, and so they should have been able to parry your every
thrust and easily find an opening to your heart."
"But they did not, Ghek," Gahan reminded him. "Their theory of
development is wrong, for it does not tend toward a perfectly
balanced whole. You have developed the brain and neglected the
body and you can never do with the hands of another what you can
do with your own hands. Mine are trained to the sword--every
muscle responds instantly and accurately, and almost
mechanically, to the need of the instant. I am scarcely
objectively aware that I think when I fight, so quickly does my
point take advantage of every opening, or spring to my defense if
I am threatened that it is almost as though the cold steel had
eyes and brains. You, with your kaldane brain and your rykor
body, never could hope to achieve in the same degree of
perfection those things that I can achieve. Development of the
brain should not be the sum total of human endeavor. The richest
and happiest peoples will be those who attain closest to
well-balanced perfection of both mind and body, and even these
must always be short of perfection. In absolute and general
perfection lies stifling monotony and death. Nature must have
contrasts; she must have shadows as well as high lights; sorrow
with happiness; both wrong and right; and sin as well as virtue."
"Always have I been taught differently," replied Ghek; "but since
I have known this woman and you, of another race, I have come to
believe that there may be other standards fully as high and
desirable as those of the kaldanes. At least I have had a glimpse
of the thing you call happiness and I realize that it may be good
even though I have no means of expressing it. I cannot laugh nor
smile, and yet within me is a sense of contentment when this
woman sings--a sense that seems to open before me wondrous vistas
of beauty and unguessed pleasure that far transcend the cold joys
of a perfectly functioning brain. I would that I had been born of
thy race."
Caught by a gentle current of air the flier was drifting slowly
toward the northeast across the valley of Bantoom. Below them lay
the cultivated fields, and one after another they passed over the
strange towers of Moak and Nolach and the other kings of the
swarms that inhabited this weird and terrible land. Within each
enclosure surrounding the towers grovelled the rykors, repellent,
headless things, beautiful yet hideous.
"A lesson, those," remarked Gahan, indicating the rykors in an
enclosure above which they were drifting at the time, "to that
fortunately small minority of our race which worships the flesh
and makes a god of appetite. You know them, Tara of Helium; they
can tell you exactly what they had at the midday meal two weeks
ago, and how the loin of the thoat should be prepared, and what
drink should be served with the rump of the zitidar."
Tara of Helium laughed. "But not one of them could tell you the
name of the man whose painting took the Jeddak's Award in The
Temple of Beauty this year," she said. "Like the rykors, their
development has not been balanced."
"Fortunate indeed are those in which there is combined a little
good and a little bad, a little knowledge of many things outside
their own callings, a capacity for love and a capacity for hate,
for such as these can look with tolerance upon all, unbiased by
the egotism of him whose head is so heavy on one side that all
his brains run to that point."
As Gahan ceased speaking Ghek made a little noise in his throat
as one does who would attract attention. "You speak as one who
has thought much upon many subjects. Is it, then, possible that
you of the red race have pleasure in thought? Do you know aught
of the joys of introspection? Do reason and logic form any part
of your lives?"
"Most assuredly," replied Gahan, "but not to the extent of
occupying all our time--at least not objectively. You, Ghek, are
an example of the egotism of which I spoke. Because you and your
kind devote your lives to the worship of mind, you believe that
no other created beings think. And possibly we do not in the
sense that you do, who think only of yourselves and your great
brains. We think of many things that concern the welfare of a
world. Had it not been for the red men of Barsoom even the
kaldanes had perished from the planet, for while you may live
without air the things upon which you depend for existence
cannot, and there had been no air in sufficient quantities upon
Barsoom these many ages had not a red man planned and built the
great atmosphere plant which gave new life to a dying world.
"What have all the brains of all the kaldanes that have ever
lived done to compare with that single idea of a single red man?"
Ghek was stumped. Being a kaldane he knew that brains spelled the
sum total of universal achievement, but it had never occurred to
him that they should be put to use in practical and profitable
ways. He turned away and looked down upon the valley of his
ancestors across which he was slowly drifting, into what unknown
world? He should be a veritable god among the underlings, he
knew; but somehow a doubt assailed him. It was evident that these
two from that other world were ready to question his preeminence.
Even through his great egotism was filtering a suspicion that
they patronized him; perhaps even pitied him. Then he began to
wonder what was to become of him. No longer would he have many
rykors to do his bidding. Only this single one and when it died
there could not be another. When it tired, Ghek must lie almost
helpless while it rested. He wished that he had never seen this
red woman. She had brought him only discontent and dishonor and
now exile. Presently Tara of Helium commenced to hum a tune and
Ghek, the kaldane, was content.
Gently they drifted beneath the hurtling moons above the mad
shadows of a Martian night. The roaring of the banths came in
diminishing volume to their ears as their craft passed on beyond
the boundaries of Bantoom, leaving behind the terrors of that
unhappy land. But to what were they being borne? The girl looked
at the man sitting cross-legged upon the deck of the tiny flier,
gazing off into the night ahead, apparently absorbed in thought.
"Where are we?" she asked. "Toward what are we drifting?"
Turan shrugged his broad shoulders. "The stars tell me that we
are drifting toward the northeast," he replied, "but where we
are, or what lies in our path I cannot even guess. A week since I
could have sworn that I knew what lay behind each succeeding
ridge that I approached; but now I admit in all humility that I
have no conception of what lies a mile in any direction. Tara of
Helium, I am lost, and that is all that I can tell you."
He was smiling and the girl smiled back at him. There was a
slightly puzzled expression on her face--there was something
tantalizingly familiar about that smile of his. She had met many
a panthan--they came and went, following the fighting of a
world--but she could not place this one.
"From what country are you, Turan?" she asked suddenly.
"Know you not, Tara of Helium," he countered, "that a panthan has
no country? Today he fights beneath the banner of one master,
tomorrow beneath that of another."
"But you must own allegiance to some country when you are not
fighting," she insisted. "What banner, then, owns you now?"
He rose and stood before her, then, bowing low. "And I am
acceptable," he said, "I serve beneath the banner of the daughter
of The Warlord now--and forever."
She reached forth and touched his arm with a slim brown hand.
"Your services are accepted," she said; "and if ever we reach
Helium I promise that your reward shall be all that your heart
could desire."
"I shall serve faithfully, hoping for that reward," he said;
but Tara of Helium did not guess what was in his mind, thinking
rather that he was mercenary. For how could the proud daughter of
The Warlord guess that a simple panthan aspired to her hand and
heart?
The dawn found them moving rapidly over an unfamiliar landscape.
The wind had increased during the night and had borne them far
from Bantoom. The country below them was rough and inhospitable.
No water was visible and the surface of the ground was cut by
deep gorges, while nowhere was any but the most meager vegetation
discernible. They saw no life of any nature, nor was there any
indication that the country could support life. For two days they
drifted over this horrid wasteland. They were without food or
water and suffered accordingly. Ghek had temporarily abandoned
his rykor after enlisting Turan's assistance in lashing it safely
to the deck. The less he used it the less would its vitality be
spent. Already it was showing the effects of privation. Ghek
crawled about the vessel like a great spider--over the side, down
beneath the keel, and up over the opposite rail. He seemed
equally at home one place as another. For his companions,
however, the quarters were cramped, for the deck of a one-man
flier is not intended for three.
Turan sought always ahead for signs of water. Water they must
have, or that water-giving plant which makes life possible upon
many of the seemingly arid areas of Mars; but there was neither
the one nor the other for these two days and now the third night
was upon them. The girl did not complain, but Turan knew that she
must be suffering and his heart was heavy within him. Ghek
suffered least of all, and he explained to them that his kind
could exist for long periods without food or water. Turan almost
cursed him as he saw the form of Tara of Helium slowly wasting
away before his eyes, while the hideous kaldane seemed as full of
vitality as ever.
"There are circumstances," remarked Ghek, "under which a gross
and material body is less desirable than a highly developed
brain."
Turan looked at him, but said nothing. Tara of Helium smiled
faintly. "One cannot blame him," she said, "were we not a bit
boastful in the pride of our superiority? When our stomachs were
filled," she added.
"Perhaps there is something to be said for their system," Turan
admitted. "If we could but lay aside our stomachs when they cried
for food and water I have no doubt but that we should do so."
"I should never miss mine now," assented Tara; "it is mighty poor
company."
A new day had dawned, revealing a less desolate country and
renewing again the hope that had been low within them. Suddenly
Turan leaned forward, pointing ahead.
"Look, Tara of Helium!" he cried. "A city! As I am Ga--as I am
Turan the panthan, a city."
Far in the distance the domes and walls and slender towers of a
city shone in the rising sun. Quickly the man seized the control
and the ship dropped rapidly behind a low range of intervening
hills, for well Turan knew that they must not be seen until they
could discover whether friend or foe inhabited the strange city.
Chances were that they were far from the abode of friends and so
must the panthan move with the utmost caution; but there was a
city and where a city was, was water, even though it were a
deserted city, and food if it were inhabited.
To the red man food and water, even in the citadel of an enemy,
meant food and drink for Tara of Helium. He would accept it from
friends or he would take it from enemies. Just so long as it was
there he would have it--and there was shown the egotism of the
fighting man, though Turan did not see it, nor Tara who came from
a long line of fighting men; but Ghek might have smiled had he
known how.
Turan permitted the flier to drift closer behind the screening
hills, and then when he could advance no farther without fear of
discovery, he dropped the craft gently to ground in a little
ravine, and leaping over the side made her fast to a stout tree.
For several moments they discussed their plans--whether it would
be best to wait where they were until darkness hid their
movements and then approach the city in search of food and water,
or approach it now, taking advantage of what cover they could,
until they could glean something of the nature of its
inhabitants.
It was Turan's plan which finally prevailed. They would approach
as close as safety dictated in the hope of finding water outside
the city; food, too, perhaps. If they did not they could at least
reconnoiter the ground by daylight, and then when night came
Turan could quickly come close to the city and in comparative
safety prosecute his search for food and drink.
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