The Collected John Carter of Mars (Volume 2)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  “There sits the creature! Didst thou dare lie, then, to thy dwar?”

  “I swear,” cried the warrior, “that I spoke the truth. But a moment since the thing groveled, headless, upon this very table! And may my first ancestor strike me dead upon the spot if I speak other than a true word!”

  The officer looked puzzled. The men of Mars seldom if ever lie. He scratched his head. Then he addressed Ghek. “How long have you been here?” he asked.

  “Who knows better than those who placed me here and chained me to a wall?” he returned in reply.

  “Saw you this warrior enter here a few minutes since?”

  “I saw him,” replied Ghek.

  “And you sat there where you sit now?” continued the officer.

  “Look thou to my chain and tell me then where else might I sit!” cried Ghek. “Art the people of thy city all fools?”

  Three other warriors pressed behind the two in front, craning their necks to view the prisoner while they grinned at the discomfiture of their fellow. The officer scowled at Ghek.

  “Thy tongue is as venomous as that of the she-banth O-Tar sent to The Towers of Jetan,” he said.

  “You speak of the young woman who was captured with me?” asked Ghek, his expressionless monotone and face revealing naught of the interest he felt.

  “I speak of her,” replied the dwar, and then turning to the warrior who had summoned him: “return to thy quarters and remain there until the next games. Perhaps by that time thy eyes may have learned not to deceive thee.”

  The fellow cast a venomous glance at Ghek and turned away. The officer shook his head. “I do not understand it,” he muttered. “Always has U-Van been a true and dependable warrior. Could it be—?” he glanced piercingly at Ghek. “Thou hast a strange head that misfits thy body, fellow,” he cried. “Our legends tell us of those ancient creatures that placed hallucinations upon the mind of their fellows. If thou be such then maybe U-Van suffered from thy forbidden powers. If thou be such O-Tar will know well how to deal with thee.” He wheeled about and motioned his warriors to follow him.

  “Wait!” cried Ghek. “Unless I am to be starved, send me food.”

  “You have had food,” replied the warrior.

  “Am I to be fed but once a day?” asked Ghek. “I require food oftener than that. Send me food.”

  “You shall have food,” replied the officer. “None may say that the prisoners of Manator are ill-fed. Just are the laws of Manator,” and he departed.

  No sooner had the sounds of their passing died away in the distance than Ghek clambered from the shoulders of his rykor, and scurried to the burrow where he had hidden the key. Fetching it he unlocked the fetter from about the creature’s ankle, locked it empty and carried the key farther down into the burrow. Then he returned to his place upon his brainless servitor. After a while he heard footsteps approaching, whereupon he rose and passed into another corridor from that down which he knew the warrior was coming. Here he waited out of sight, listening. He heard the man enter the chamber and halt. He heard a muttered exclamation, followed by the jangle of metal dishes as a salver was slammed upon a table; then rapidly retreating footsteps, which quickly died away in the distance.

  Ghek lost no time in returning to the chamber, recovering the key, relocking the rykor to his chain. Then he replaced the key in the burrow, and squatting on the table beside his headless body, directed its hands toward the food. While the rykor ate Ghek sat listening for the scraping sandals and clattering arms that he knew soon would come. Nor had he long to wait. Ghek scrambled to the shoulders of his rykor as he heard them coming. Again it was the officer who had been summoned by U-Van and with him were three warriors. The one directly behind him was evidently the same who had brought the food, for his eyes went wide when he saw Ghek sitting at the table and he looked very foolish as the dwar turned his stern glance upon him.

  “It is even as I said,” he cried. “He was not here when I brought his food.”

  “But he is here now,” said the officer grimly, “and his fetter is locked about his ankle. Look! it has not been opened—but where is the key? It should be upon the table at the end opposite him. Where is the key, creature?” he shouted at Ghek.

  “How should I, a prisoner, know better than my jailer the whereabouts of the key to my fetters?” he retorted.

  “But it lay here,” cried the officer, pointing to the other end of the table.

  “Did you see it?” asked Ghek.

  The officer hesitated. “No, but it must have been there,” he parried.

  “Did you see the key lying there?” asked Ghek, pointing to another warrior.

  The fellow shook his head negatively. “And you? and you?” continued the kaldane addressing the others.

  They both admitted that they never had seen the key. “And if it had been there how could I have reached it?” he continued.

  “No, he could not have reached it,” admitted the officer; “but there shall be no more of this! I-Zav, you will remain here on guard with this prisoner until you are relieved.”

  I-Zav looked anything but happy as this intelligence was transmitted to him, and he eyed Ghek suspiciously as the dwar and the other warriors turned and left him to his unhappy lot.

  chapter XIII

  A DESPERATE DEED

  E-MED CROSSED the tower chamber toward Tara of Helium and the slave girl, Lan-O. He seized the former roughly by a shoulder. “Stand!” he commanded. Tara struck his hand from her and rising, backed away.

  “Lay not your hand upon the person of a princess of Helium, beast!” she warned.

  E-Med laughed. “Think you that I play at jetan for you without first knowing something of the stake for which I play?” he demanded. “Come here!”

  The girl drew herself to her full height, folding her arms across her breast, nor did E-Med note that the slim fingers of her right hand were inserted beneath the broad leather strap of her harness where it passed over her left shoulder.

  “And O-Tar learns of this you shall rue it, E-Med,” cried the slave girl; “there be no law in Manator that gives you this girl before you shall have won her fairly.”

  “What cares O-Tar for her fate?” replied E-Med. “Have I not heard? Did she not flout the great jeddak, heaping abuse upon him? By my first ancestor, I think O-Tar might make a jed of the man who subdued her,” and again he advanced toward Tara.

  “Wait!” said the girl in low, even tone. “Perhaps you know not what you do. Sacred to the people of Helium are the persons of the women of Helium. For the honor of the humblest of them would the great jeddak himself unsheathe his sword. The greatest nations of Barsoom have trembled to the thunders of war in defense of the person of Dejah Thoris, my mother. We are but mortal and so may die; but we may not be defiled. You may play at jetan for a princess of Helium, but though you may win the match, never may you claim the reward. If thou wouldst possess a dead body press me too far, but know, man of Manator, that the blood of The Warlord flows not in the veins of Tara of Helium for naught. I have spoken.”

  “I know naught of Helium and O-Tar is our warlord,” replied E-Med; “but I do know that I would examine more closely the prize that I shall play for and win. I would test the lips of her who is to be my slave after the next games; nor is it well, woman, to drive me too far to anger.” His eyes narrowed as he spoke, his visage taking on the semblance of that of a snarling beast. “If you doubt the truth of my words ask Lan-O, the slave girl.”

  “He speaks truly, O woman of Helium,” interjected Lan-O. “Try not the temper of E-Med, if you value your life.”

  But Tara of Helium made no reply. Already had she spoken. She stood in silence now facing the burly warrior who approached her. He came close and then quite suddenly he seized her and, bending, tried to draw her lips to his.

  Lan-O saw the woman from Helium half turn, and with a quick movement jerk her right hand from where it had lain upon her breast. She saw the hand shoot from beneath the arm of E-Med and r
ise behind his shoulder and she saw in the hand a long, slim blade. The lips of the warrior were drawing closer to those of the woman, but they never touched them, for suddenly the man straightened, stiffly, a shriek upon his lips, and then he crumpled like an empty fur and lay, a shrunken heap, upon the floor. Tara of Helium stooped and wiped her blade upon his harness.

  Lan-O, wide-eyed, looked with horror upon the corpse. “For this we shall both die,” she cried.

  “And who would live a slave in Manator?” asked Tara of Helium.

  “I am not so brave as thou,” said the slave girl, “and life is sweet and there is always hope.”

  “Life is sweet,” agreed Tara of Helium, “but honor is sacred. But do not fear. When they come I shall tell them the truth—that you had no hand in this and no opportunity to prevent it.”

  For a moment the slave girl seemed to be thinking deeply. Suddenly her eyes lighted. “There is a way, perhaps,” she said, “to turn suspicion from us. He has the key to this chamber upon him. Let us open the door and drag him out—maybe we shall find a place to hide him.”

  “Good!” exclaimed Tara of Helium, and the two immediately set about the matter Lan-O had suggested. Quickly they found the key and unlatched the door and then, between them, they half carried, half dragged, the corpse of E-Med from the room and down the stairway to the next level where Lan-O said there were vacant chambers. The first door they tried was unlatched, and through this the two bore their grisly burden into a small room lighted by a single window. The apartment bore evidence of having been utilized as a living-room rather than as a cell, being furnished with a degree of comfort and even luxury. The walls were paneled to a height of about seven feet from the floor, while the plaster above and the ceiling were decorated with faded paintings of another day.

  As Tara’s eyes ran quickly over the interior her attention was drawn to a section of paneling that seemed to be separated at one edge from the piece next adjoining it. Quickly she crossed to it, discovering that one vertical edge of an entire panel projected a half-inch beyond the others. There was a possible explanation which piqued her curiosity, and acting upon its suggestion she seized upon the projecting edge and pulled outward. Slowly the panel swung toward her, revealing a dark aperture in the wall behind.

  “Look, Lan-O!” she cried. “See what I have found—a hole in which we may hide the thing upon the floor.”

  Lan-O joined her and together the two investigated the dark aperture, finding a small platform from which a narrow runway led downward into Stygian darkness. Thick dust covered the floor within the doorway, indicating that a great period of time had elapsed since human foot had trod it—a secret way, doubtless, unknown to living Manatorians. Here they dragged the corpse of E-Med, leaving it upon the platform, and as they left the dark and forbidden closet Lan-O would have slammed to the panel had not Tara prevented.

  “Wait!” she said, and fell to examining the door frame and the stile.

  “Hurry!” whispered the slave girl. “If they come we are lost.”

  “It may serve us well to know how to open this place again,” replied Tara of Helium, and then suddenly she pressed a foot against a section of the carved base at the right of the open panel. “Ah!” she breathed, a note of satisfaction in her tone, and closed the panel until it fitted snugly in its place. “Come!” she said and turned toward the outer doorway of the chamber.

  They reached their own cell without detection, and closing the door Tara locked it from the inside and placed the key in a secret pocket in her harness.

  “Let them come,” she said. “Let them question us! What could two poor prisoners know of the whereabouts of their noble jailer? I ask you, Lan-O, what could they?”

  “Nothing,” admitted Lan-O, smiling with her companion.

  “Tell me of these men of Manator,” said Tara presently. “Are they all like E-Med, or are some of them like A-Kor, who seemed a brave and chivalrous character?”

  “They are not unlike the peoples of other countries,” replied Lan-O. “There be among them both good and bad. They are brave warriors and mighty. Among themselves they are not without chivalry and honor, but in their dealings with strangers they know but one law—the law of might. The weak and unfortunate of other lands fill them with contempt and arouse all that is worst in their natures, which doubtless accounts for their treatment of us, their slaves.”

  “But why should they feel contempt for those who have suffered the misfortune of falling into their hands?” queried Tara.

  “I do not know,” said Lan-O; “A-Kor says that he believes that it is because their country has never been invaded by a victorious foe. In their stealthy raids never have they been defeated, because they have never waited to face a powerful force, and so they have come to believe themselves invincible, and the other peoples are held in contempt as inferior in valor and the practice of arms.”

  “Yet A-Kor is one of them,” said Tara.

  “He is a son of O-Tar, the jeddak,” replied Lan-O; “but his mother was a high born Gatholian, captured and made slave by O-Tar, and A-Kor boasts that in his veins runs only the blood of his mother, and indeed is he different from the others. His chivalry is of a gentler form, though not even his worst enemy has dared question his courage, while his skill with the sword, and the spear, and the thoat is famous throughout the length and breadth of Manator.”

  “What think you they will do with him?” asked Tara of Helium.

  “Sentence him to the games,” replied Lan-O. “If O-Tar be not greatly angered he may be sentenced to but a single game, in which case he may come out alive; but if O-Tar wishes really to dispose of him he will be sentenced to the entire series, and no warrior has ever survived the full ten, or rather none who was under a sentence from O-Tar.”

  “What are the games? I do not understand,” said Tara. “I have heard them speak of playing at jetan, but surely no one can be killed at jetan. We play it often at home.”

  “But not as they play it in the arena at Manator,” replied Lan-O. “Come to the window,” and together the two approached an aperture facing toward the east.

  Below her Tara of Helium saw a great field entirely surrounded by the low building, and the lofty towers of which that in which she was imprisoned was but a unit. About the arena were tiers of seats; but the thing that caught her attention was a gigantic jetan board laid out upon the floor of the arena in great squares of alternate orange and black.

  “Here they play at jetan with living pieces. They play for great stakes and usually for a woman—some slave of exceptional beauty. O-Tar himself might have played for you had you not angered him, but now you will be played for in an open game by slaves and criminals, and you will belong to the side that wins—not to a single warrior, but to all who survive the game.”

  The eyes of Tara of Helium flashed, but she made no comment.

  “Those who direct the play do not necessarily take part in it,” continued the slave girl, “but sit in those two great thrones which you see at either end of the board and direct their pieces from square to square.”

  “But where lies the danger?” asked Tara of Helium. “If a piece be taken it is merely removed from the board—this is a rule of jetan as old almost as the civilization of Barsoom.”

  “But here in Manator, when they play in the great arena with living men, that rule is altered,” explained Lan-O. “When a warrior is moved to a square occupied by an opposing piece, the two battle to the death for possession of the square and the one that is successful advantages by the move. Each is caparisoned to simulate the piece he represents and in addition he wears that which indicates whether he be slave, a warrior serving a sentence, or a volunteer. If serving a sentence the number of games he must play is also indicated, and thus the one directing the moves knows which pieces to risk and which to conserve, and further than this, a man’s chances are affected by the position that is assigned him for the game. Those whom they wish to die are always Panthans in the game, for the P
anthan has the least chance of surviving.”

  “Do those who direct the play ever actually take part in it?” asked Tara.

  “Oh, yes,” said Lan-O. “Often when two warriors, even of the highest class, hold a grievance against one another O-Tar compels them to settle it upon the arena. Then it is that they take active part and with drawn swords direct their own players from the position of Chief. They pick their own players, usually the best of their own warriors and slaves, if they be powerful men who possess such, or their friends may volunteer, or they may obtain prisoners from the pits. These are games indeed—the very best that are seen. Often the great chiefs themselves are slain.”

  “It is within this amphitheater that the justice of Manator is meted, then?” asked Tara.

  “Very largely,” replied Lan-O.

  “How, then, through such justice, could a prisoner win his liberty?” continued the girl from Helium.

  “If a man, and he survived ten games his liberty would be his,” replied Lan-O.

  “But none ever survives?” queried Tara. “And if a woman?”

  “No stranger within the gates of Manator ever has survived ten games,” replied the slave girl. “They are permitted to offer themselves into perpetual slavery if they prefer that to fighting at jetan. Of course they may be called upon, as any warrior, to take part in a game; but their chances then of surviving are increased, since they may never again have the chance of winning to liberty.”