 CHAPTER XII GECK PLAYS PRANKS While Tara of Helium was being led to the towers of Jitan, Gekk was escorted to the pits beneath the palace where he was imprisoned in a dimly-lighted chamber. Here he found a bench and a table standing upon the dirt floor near the wall, and set in the wall several rings from which depended short lengths of chain. At the base of the walls were several holes in the dirt floor. These, alone of the several things he saw, interested him. Gekk sat down upon the bench and waited in silence, listening. Presently, the lights were extinguished. If Gekk could have smiled, he would have then, for Gekk could see as well in the dark as in the light, better, perhaps. He watched the dark openings of the holes in the floor and waited. Presently, he detected a change in the air about him. It grew heavy with a strange odor, and once again, might Gekk have smiled. Could he have smiled? Let them replace all the air in the chamber with their most deadly fumes. It would be all the same to Gekk, the kaldane, who, having no lungs, required no air. With the Rykor, it might be different. Deprived of air, it would die. But if only a sufficient amount of the gas were introduced to stupify an ordinary creature, it would have no effect upon the Rykor, who had no objective mind overcome. So long as the excess of carbon dioxide in the blood was not sufficient to prevent heart action, the Rykor would suffer only a diminution of vitality, but would still respond to the exciting agency of the kaldane's brain. Gekk caused the Rykor to assume a sitting position, with its back against the wall, where it might remain without direction from his brain. Then he released his contact with its spinal cord, but remained in position upon its shoulders, waiting and watching, for the kaldane's curiosity was aroused. He had not long to wait before the lights were flashed on and one of the locked doors opened to admit a half dozen warriors. They approached him rapidly and worked quickly. First, they removed all his weapons and then, snapping a fetter about one of the Rykor's ankles, secured him to the end of one of the chains hanging from the walls. Next, they dragged the long table to a new position and there bolded it to the floors, so that an end, instead of the middle, was directly before the prisoner. On the table before him, they set food and water, and upon the opposite end of the table, they laid the key to the fetter. Then they unlocked and opened all the doors and departed. When Turan the panthan regained consciousness, it was to the realization of a sharp pain in one of his forearms. The effects of the gas departed as rapidly as they had overcome him, so that as he opened his eyes he was in full possession of all his faculties. The lights were on again, and in their glow there was revealed to the man the figure of a giant Martian rat, crouching upon the table and gnawing upon his arm. Snatching his arm away, he reached for his short sword, while the rat, growling, sought to seize his arm again. It was then that Turan discovered that his weapons had been removed, short sword, long sword, dagger, and pistol. The rat charged him then, and striking the creature away with his hand, the man rose and backed off, searching for something with which to strike a harder blow. Again the rat charged, and as Turan stepped quickly back to avoid the menacing jaws, something seemed to jerk suddenly upon his right ankle, and as he drew his left foot back to regain his equilibrium, his heel caught upon a taut chain, and he felt heavily backward to the floor, just as the rat leaped upon his breast and sought his throat. The Martian rat is a fierce and unlovely thing. It is many legged and hairless. It is hide resembling that of a newborn mouse in repulsiveness. In size and weight, it is comparable to a large air dale terrier. Its eyes are small and close set, and almost hidden in deep fleshy apertures. But its most ferocious and repulsive feature is its jaws, the entire bony structure of which protrudes several inches beyond the flesh, revealing five sharp spade-like teeth in the upper jaw and the same number of similar teeth in the lower, the whole suggesting the appearance of a rotting face from which much of the flesh has sloughed away. It was such a thing that leaped upon the breast of the panthan to tear at his jugular. Twice Turan struck it away as he sought to regain his feet, but both times it returned with increased porosity to renew its attack. Its only weapons are its jaws, since its broad splay feet are armed with blunt talons. With its protruding jaws, it excavates its winding burrows, and with its broad feet, it pushes the dirt behind it. To keep the jaws from his flesh, then, was Turan's only concern, and this he succeeded in doing until chance gave him a hold upon the creature's throat. After that the end was but a matter of moments, rising at last he flung the lifeless thing from him with a shudder of disgust. Now he turned his attention to a hurried inventory of the new conditions which surrounded him since the moment of his incarceration. He realized vaguely what had happened. He had been anesthetized and stripped of his weapons, and as he rose to his feet he saw that one ankle was fettered to a chain in the wall. He looked about the room. All the doors swung wide open. His captors would render his imprisonment the more cruel by leaving ever before him tempting glimpses of open aisles to the freedom he could not attain. Upon the end of the table and within easy reach was food and drink. This at least was attainable, and at sight of it his starved stomach seemed almost a cry allowed for sustenance. It was with difficulty that he ate and drank in moderation. As he devoured the food his eyes wondered about the confines of his prison until suddenly they seized upon a thing that lay on the table at the end farthest from him. It was a key. He raised his fettered ankle and examined the lock. There could be no doubt of it. The key that lay there on the table before him was the key to that very lock. A careless warrior had laid it there and departed, forgetting. Hope searched high in the breast of Gahan of Gathol, of Turan the Panthan, furtively. His eyes sought the open doorways. There was no one in sight. If he could but gain his freedom he would find some way from this odious city back to her side and never again would he leave her until he had won safety for her or death for himself. He rose and moved cautiously toward the opposite end of the table where lay the coveted key. The fettered ankle halted his first step, but he stretched at full length along the table, extending eager fingers toward the prize. They almost laid hold upon it a little more and they would touch it. He strained and stretched, but still the thing lay just beyond his reach. He hurled himself forward until the iron fetter bit deep into his flesh, but all futilely. He sat back upon the bench then and glared at the open doors and the key, realizing now that they were part of a well-laid scheme of refined torture, nonetheless demoralizing because it inflicted no physical suffering. For just a moment the man gave way to useless regret and foreboding. Then he gathered himself together. His brows cleared and he returned to his unfinished meal. At least they should not have the satisfaction of knowing how sorely they had hit him. As he ate it occurred to him that by dragging the table along the floor he could bring the key within his reach, but when he essayed to do so he found that the table had been securely bolted to the floor during the period of his unconsciousness. Again Gahan smiled and shrugged and resumed his eating. When the warriors had departed from the prison in which Gek was confined, the kaldang crawled from the shoulders of the rykor to the table. Here he drank a little water and then directed the hands of the rykor to the balance of it and to the food upon which the brainless thing fell with avidity. While it was thus engaged, Gek took his spider-like way along the table to the opposite end where laid the key to the fetter. Seizing it, in his kila, he leaped to the floor and scurried rapidly toward the mouth of one of the burrows against the wall, into which he disappeared. For long had the brain been contemplating these burrow entrances, they appealed to his kaldanine tastes, and further they pointed a hiding place for the key and a lair for the only kind of food that the kaldane relished, flesh and blood. Gek had never seen an ulcio, since these great Martian rats had long ago disappeared from band-tomb, their flesh and blood having been greatly relished by the kaldanes, but Gek had inherited almost unimpaired every memory of every ancestor, and so he knew that ulcio inhabited these lairs and that ulcio were good to eat, and he knew what ulcio looked like and what his habits were, though he had never seen him nor any picture of him. As we breed animals for the transmission of physical attributes, so the kaldanes breed themselves for the transmission of attributes of the mind, including memory and the power of recollection, and thus have they raised what we term instinct above the level of the threshold of the objective mind, where it may be commanded and utilized by recollection. Doubtless, in our own subjective minds lie many of the impressions and experiences of our forebears. These may impinge upon our consciousness in dreams only, or in vague, haunting suggestions that we have before experienced some transient phase of our present existence. Ah, if we had but the power to recall them. Before us would unfold the forgotten story of the lost eons that have preceded us. We might even walk with God in the garden of his stars, while man was still but a budding idea within his mind. Gek descended into the barrel at a steep incline for some ten feet. When he found himself in an elaborate and delightful network of burrows, the kaldane was elated. This indeed was life. He moved rapidly and fearlessly, and he went as straight to his goal as you could to the kitchen of your own home. This goal lay at a low level in a spheroidal cavity about the size of a large barrel. Here in a nest of torn bits of silk and fur lay six baby ulcios. When the mother returned, there were but five babies and a great spider-like creature, which she immediately sprang to attack only to be met by powerful keely which seized and held her so that she could not move. Slowly they dragged her throat toward a hideous mouth, and in a little moment she was dead. Gek might have remained in the nest for a long time, since there was ample food for many days, but he did not do so. Instead he explored the burrows. He followed them into many subterranean chambers of the city of Manator, and upward through walls to rooms above the ground. He found many ingeniously devised traps, and he found poisoned food and other signs of the constant battle that the inhabitants of Manator waged against these repulsive creatures that dwelt beneath their homes and public buildings. His exploration revealed not only the vast proportions of the network of runways that apparently traversed every portion of the city, but the great antiquity of the majority of them. Tons upon tons of dirt must have been removed, and for a long time he wondered where it had been deposited, until in following downward a tunnel of great size and length he sensed before him the thunderous rush of subterranean waters, and presently came to the bank of a great underground river tumbling onward, no doubt, the length of a world to the buried sea of Omid. Into this torrential sewer had unthinkable generations of all seos pushed their few handfuls of dirt in the excavating of their vast labyrinth. For only a moment did Gek tarry by the river, for his seemingly aimless wanderings were in reality prompted by a definite purpose, and this he pursued with vigor and singleness of design. He followed such runways as appeared to terminate in the pits or other chambers of the inhabitants of the city, and these he explored usually from the safety of a burrow's mouth until satisfied that what he saw was not there. He moved swiftly upon his spider legs and covered remarkable distances in short periods of time. His search not being rewarded with immediate success, he decided to return to the pit where his righore lay chained and looked to its wants. As he approached the end of the burrow that terminated in the pit, he slackened his pace, stopping just within the entrance of the runway that he might scan the interior of the chamber before entering it. As he did so, he saw the figure of a warrior appear suddenly in an opposite doorway. The righore sprawled upon the table, his hands groping blindly for more food. Gek saw the warrior pause and gaze and sudden astonishment at the righore. He saw the fellow's eyes go wide and an ashen hue replaced the copper bronze of his cheek. He stepped back as though someone had struck him in the face. For an instant only, he stood thus, as in a paralysis of fear. Then he uttered a smothered shriek and turned and fled. Again was it a catastrophe that Gek the kaldane could not smile? Quickly entering the room, he crawled to the tabletop and affixed himself to the shoulders of his righore, and there he waited. And who may say that Gek, though he could not smile, possessed not a sense of humor? For a half hour he sat there, and then there came to him the sound of men approaching along corridors of stone. He could hear their arms clank against the rocky walls, and he knew that they came at a rapid pace, but just before they reached the entrance to his prison they paused and advanced more slowly. In the lead was an officer, and just behind him, wide-eyed and perhaps still a little ashen, the warrior who had so recently departed in haste. At the doorway they called it, and the officer turned sternly upon the warrior. With upraised finger he pointed at Gek. There sits the creature. Didst thou dare lie then to thy doir? 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 Gek. 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 and replied. Saw you this warrior enter here a few minutes since? I saw him, replied Gek, and you sat there where you sit now? continued the officer. Look thou to my chain, and tell me then where else I might sit? cried Gek. Are 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 discomforture of their fellow. The officer scowled at Gek. Thy tongue is as venomous as that of the Shibang Otar sent to the towers of Jiton, he said. You speak of the young woman who was captured with me, asked Gek. His expressionless monotone and face revealing naught of the interest he felt. I speak of her, replied the Dwarf, and then turning to the warrior, who had summoned him, returned to thy quarters, and remained 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 Gek and turned away. The officer shook his head. I do not understand it, he muttered. Always has Uvan been a true and dependable warrior. Could it be, he glanced piercingly at Gek. 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 Uvan suffered from thy forbidden powers. If thou be such, Otar will know well how to deal with thee. He wheeled about and motioned his warriors to follow him. Wait, cried Gek. Unless I am to be starved, send me food. You have had food, replied the warrior. Am I to be fed that once a day, asked Gek, 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 their laws of Manator, and he departed. No sooner had the sounds of their passing died away in the distance than Gek clamor'd from the shoulders of his right core, and scurried to the barrel 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 barrel. Then he returned to his place upon the 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 the table. Then rapidly retreating footsteps, which quickly died away in the distance. Gek lost no time in returning to the chamber, recovering the key, relocking the right core to his chain. Then he replaced the key in the barrel, and squatting on the table beside his headless body, directed its hands toward the food. While the right core ate, Gek sat listening for the scraping sandals and clattering arms that he knew soon would come. Nor had he longed to wait. Gek scrambled to the shoulders of his right core as he heard them coming. Again it was the officer who had been summoned by Uban, 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 Gek sitting at the table and he looked very foolish as the dwarf 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 is 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 Gek. 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 Gek? The officer hesitated. No, but it must have been there, he parried. Did you see the key lying there, asked Gek, pointing to another warrior? The fellow shook his head negatively, and you, and you, continued to call Dane, 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 and met it the officer, but there should be no more of this. Isaac, you will remain here on guard with this prisoner, until you are relieved. Isaac looked anything but happy, as this intelligence was transmitted to him, and he eyed Gek suspiciously, as the Dwar and the other warriors turned and left him to his unhappy lot. This is the end of the Chessmen of Mars, Chapter 12, Recording by Tom Weiss. The Chessmen of Mars, Chapter 13. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tom Weiss. The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chapter 13. A Desperate Deed. Emed crossed the tower chamber toward Tara of Helium, and the slave girl Lanno. He seized the former roughly by a shoulder. Stand, he commanded. Tara struck his hand from her and rising back away. Lay not your hand upon the person of a Princess of Helium, Beast, she warned. Emed laughed. Think you that I play a G-10 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 Emed 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 Otar learns of this, you shall rue it, Emed cried the slave girl. There be no law in Manator that gives you this girl before you shall have won her fairly. What cares, Otar, for her fate, replied Emed. Have I not heard? Did she not flout the great jeddak, keeping abuse upon him? By my first ancestor I think Otar might make a jedd 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 unchief 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 G-10 for a princess of Helium, but though you win the match, never may you claim the reward. If thou wouldst possess a dead body, press me too far. But no, 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 not of Helium, and Otar is our warlord, replied Ahmed, 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 was 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 Lanno, the slave girl. He speaks truly, a woman of Helium interjected Lanno, try not the temper of Ahmed 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. Lanno saw the woman from Helium half turned, 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 Ahmed and rise between 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 crumbled like an empty fur, and lay a shrunken heap upon the floor. Tara of Helium stooped and wiped her blade upon his harness. Lanno, 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 handedness 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 said about the matter Lanno had suggested. Quickly they found the key and unlatched the door, and then, between them, they half carried, half dragged the corpse of Emed from the room, and down the stairway to the next level, where Lanno 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 to joining 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, Lanno! she cried. See what I have found! A hole in which we may hide the thing upon the floor. Lanno joined her, and together the two investigated the dark aperture, finding a small platform from which a narrow runway led downward in distigion 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 Emed, leaving it upon the platform, and as they left the dark and forbidden closet, Lanno would have slammed to the panel had not Tara prevented. Wait, she said, and fell to examining the door frame and the style. 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 the foot against the 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, Lanno, what could they? Nothing, admitted Lanno, smiling with her companion. Tell me of these men of Manator, said Tara presently. Are they all like Emed, or are some of them like Acor, who seem to brave and chivalrous character? They are not unlike the peoples of other countries, replied Lanno. 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 filled 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 Lanno. Acor 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 Acor is one of them, said Tara. He is a son of Otar, the jeddak, replied Lanno, but his mother was a high-born Gatholian, captured and made slave by Otar, and Acor 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 jeffler 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 Helin. Sentence him to the gains, replied Lanno. If Otar be not greatly angered, he may be sentenced to but a single game, in which case he may come out of lie, but if Otar 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 Otar. What are the games? I do not understand, said Tara. I have heard them speak of playing at G-10, but surely no one can be killed at G-10. We play it often at home. But not as they play it in the arena at Manator, replied Lanno, 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 G-10 board laid out upon the floor of the arena, in great squares of alternate orange and black. Here they play at G-10 with living pieces. They play for great stakes, and usually for a woman, some slave of exceptional beauty. Otar himself might have played for you, and 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 is merely removed from the board. This is a rule of G-10, 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 Lanno. 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 comparison 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 panthons in the game, for the panthan has the least chance of surviving. Do those who direct the play ever actually take part in it, as Tara? Oh, yes, said Lanno. Often when two warriors, even of the highest class, hold a grievance against one another, Otar compels them to settle it upon the arena. Then it is that they take active part, and withdrawn swords direct their own players from the position of chief. They pick their own players, usually the best of their 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 needed then, as Tara, very largely, replied Lanno. 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 Lanno. But no one 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 G-10. Of course, they may be called upon as any warrior to take part in the game. But their chances then of surviving are increased, since they may never again have the chance of winning to liberty. But a woman insisted Tara. How may a woman win her freedom? Lanno laughed. Very simply she cried derisively. She has but to find a warrior who will fight through ten consecutive games for her and survive. Just are the laws of Manator, quoted Tara scornfully. Then it was that they heard footsteps outside their cell, and a moment later a key turned in the lock and the door opened. A warrior faced them. Has seen Emed the Dwarf, he asked? Yes, replied Tara. He was here some time ago. The man glanced quickly about the bare chamber, and then searchingly first at Tara of Helium, and then at the slave girl, Lanno. The puzzle expression upon his face increased. He scratched his head. It is strange, he said. A score of men saw him ascend into this tower, and though there is but a single exit and that well guarded, no man has seen him pass out. Tara of Helium hit a yawn with the back of a shapely hand. The princess of Helium is hungry, fellow, she drawled. Tell your master that she would eat. It was an hour later that food was brought, an officer and several warriors accompanying the bearer. The former examined the room carefully, but there was no sign that ought a miss had occurred there. The wound that had sent Emed the Dwarf to his ancestors had not bled, fortunately for Tara of Helium. Woman, cried the officer, turning upon Tara, you were the last to see Emed the Dwarf. Answer me now, and answer me truthfully. Did you see him leave this room? I did, answered Tara of Helium. Where did he go from here? How should I know? Think you that I can pass through a locked door of skel, the girl's tone was scornful. Of that we do not know, said the officer. Strange things have happened in the cell of your companion in the pits of Manator. Perhaps you could pass through a locked door of skel as easily as he performed seemingly more impossible feats. Whom do you mean, she cried? Turan the Panthan? He lives then? Tell me, is he here in Manator unharmed? I speak of that thing which calls itself Gek, the kaldane, replied the officer. But Turan, tell me, Padwar, have you heard ought of him? Tara's tone was insistent, and she leaned a little forward toward the officer, her lips slightly parted in expectancy. Into the eyes of the slave-girl, Lano, who was watching her, there crept a soft light of understanding, but the officer ignored Tara's question. What was the fate of another slave to him? Men do not disappear into thin air, he growled, and if Emed be not found soon, O-Tar himself may take a hand in this. I warn you, woman, if you be one of those horrid corphals that by commanding the spirits of the wicked dead gains evil mastery over the living, as many now believe the thing called Gek to be, that lest you return Emed, O-Tar will have no mercy on you. What foolishness is this? cried the girl. I am a princess of Helium, as I have told you all a score of times. Even if the fabled corphals existed, as none but the most ignorant now believes, the lore of the ancients tells us that they entered only into the bodies of wicked criminals of the lowest class. Man of Manator, thou art a fool, and thy jeddak and all his people, and she turned her royal back upon the padwar, and gazed through the window across the field of G-10, and the roofs of Manator through the low hills, and the rolling country, and freedom. And you know so much of corphals, then, he cried. You know that while no common man dare harm them, they may be slain by the hand of a jeddak with impunity. The girl did not reply, nor would she speak again for all his threats and rage, for she knew now that none in all Manator dared harm her save O-Tar, the jeddak, and after a while the padwar left, taking his men with him. And after they had gone, Tara stood for long, looking out upon the city of Manator, and wondering what more of cruel wrongs fate held in store for her. She was standing thus in silent meditation when there rose to her the strains of martial music from the city below, the deep mellow tones of the long war trumpets of mounted troops, the clear ringing notes of foot soldiers' music. The girl raised her head and looked about, listening, and Lano standing at an opposite window, looking toward the west, motioned Tara to join her. Now they could see across roofs and avenues to the gate of enemies, through which troops were marching into the city. The great jeddak is coming, said Lano. None other dares enter thus, with blaring trumpets, the city of Manator. It is Uthor, jedd of Manatos, second city of Manator. They call him the great jedd, the length and breadth of Manator, and because the people love him, O-Tar hates him. They say, who know, that it would need but slight provocation to inflame the two to war. How such a war would end no one could guess, for the people of Manator worship the great O-Tar, though they do not love him. Uthor they love, but he is not the jeddak, and Tara understood, as only a Martian may, how much that simple statement encompassed. The loyalty of a Martian to his jeddak is almost an instinct, and second not even to the instinct of self-preservation at that. Nor is this strange in a race whose religion includes ancestor worship, and where families trace their origin back into remote ages, and a jeddak sits upon the same throne that his direct progenitors have occupied for perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, and rules the descendants of the same people that his forebears ruled. Wicked jeddaks have been destroyed, but seldom are they replaced by other than members of the imperial house, even though the law gives to the jedds the right to select whom they please. Uthor is a just man and good then, asked Tara of Helium. There be none nobler, replied Lanno. In Manatos none, but wicked criminals who deserve death are forced to play at G-10, and even then the play is fair, and they have their chance for freedom. Volunteers may play, but the moves are not necessarily to the death. A wound, and even sometimes points in sword play deciding the issue. There they look upon G-10 as a martial sport. Here it is but butchery. And Uthor is opposed to the ancient slave raids and to the policy that keeps Manator forever isolated from the other nations of Barsoom. But Uthor is not jeddak, and so there is no change. The two girls watch the column moving up the broad avenue from the gate of enemies toward the palace of Uthor. A gorgeous barbaric procession of painted warriors in jewel-studded harness and waving feathers, vicious squealing thoats, comparison in rich trappings, far above their heads the long lances of their riders bore fluttering pennants, foot soldiers swinging easily along the stone pavement, their sandals of cititar hide giving forth no sound, and at the rear of each Uthon a train of painted chariots drawn by mammoth cititars carrying the equipment of the company to which they were attached. Uthon after Uthon entered through the great gate, and even when the head of the column reached the palace of Uthor they were not all within the city. I have been here many years at the girl lano, but never have I seen even the great jedd bring so many fighting men into the city of Manator. Through half-closed eyes Tara of Helium watched the warriors marching up the broad avenue, trying to imagine them the fighting men of her beloved Helium coming to the rescue of their princess. That splendid figure upon the great thoat might be John Carter himself, warlord of Barsoom, and behind him Uthon after Uthon of the veterans of the empire, and then the girl opened her eyes again and saw the host of painted befeathered barbarians and scy. But yet she watched, fascinated by the martial scene, and now she noted again the groups of silent figures upon the balconies. No waving silks, no cries of welcome, no showers of flowers and jewels such as would have marked the entry of such a splendid, friendly pageant into the twin cities of her birth. The people do not seem friendly to the warriors of Manatos, she remarked to Lano. I have not seen a single welcoming sign from the people on the balconies. The slave girl looked at her in surprise. It cannot be that you do not know, she explained, why they are, but she got no further. The door swung open, and an officer stood before them. The slave girl, Tara, is summoned to the presence of Otar the Jeddak, he announced. This is the end of the Chessmen in Mars, Chapter 13, recording by Tom Weiss. The Chessmen of Mars, Chapter 14. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tom Weiss. The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Chapter 14 at Gex Command. Turan, the panthan chafed in his chains. Time dragged. Silence and monotony prolonged minutes into hours. Uncertainty of the fate of the woman he loved turned each hour into an eternity of hell. He listened impatiently for the sound of approaching footsteps that he might seek and speak to some living creature and learn for chance some word of Tara of Helium. After torturing hours his ears were rewarded by the rattle of harness and arms. Men were coming. He waited breathlessly. Perhaps they were his executioners, but he would welcome them notwithstanding. He would question them, but if he knew not of Tara he would not divulge the location of the hiding place in which he had left her. Now they came, a half dozen warriors and an officer escorting an unarmed man, a prisoner doubtless. Of this Turan was not left long in doubt, since they brought the newcomer and chained him to an adjoining ring. Immediately the panthan commenced to question the officer in charge of the guard. Tell me, he demanded, why have I been made prisoner, and if other strangers were captured since I entered your city? What other prisoners? asked the officer. A woman and a man with a strange head, replied Turan. It is possible, said the officer, but what were their names? The woman was Tara, Princess of Helium, and the man was Ghek, a caldane of Bantoum. These were your friends? asked the officer. Yes, replied Turan. It is what I would know, said the officer, and with a curt command to his men to follow him he turned and left the cell. Tell me of them, cried Turan after him. Tell me of Tara of Helium. Is she safe? But the man did not answer, and soon the sound of their departure died in the distance. Tara of Helium was safe but a short time since, said the prisoner chained by Turan's side. The panthan turned toward the speaker, seeing a large man, handsome of face, and with a manner both stately and dignified. You have seen her? he asked. They captured her then. She is in danger? She is being held in the towers of Gtan as a prize for the next game, replied the stranger. And who are you? asked Turan. And why are you here, a prisoner? I am Acor, the duar, keeper of the towers of Gtan, replied the other. I am here because I dared speak the truth of Otar, the jeddak, to one of his officers. And your punishment? asked Turan. I do not know. Otar has not yet spoken. Doubtless the games. Perhaps the full ten. Or Otar does not love Acor, his son. You are the jeddak's son, as Turan? I am the son of Otar and of a slave, Haja of Gaethal, who was a princess in her own land. Turan looked searchingly at the speaker, a son of Haja of Gaethal, a son of his mother's sister. This man then was his own cousin. Well did Gahan remember the mysterious disappearance of the princess Haja and an entire utan of her personal troops. She had been upon a visit far from the city of Gaethal, and returning home had vanished with her whole escort from the site of man. So this was the secret of the seeming mystery. Doubtless it explained many other similar disappearances that extended nearly as far back as the history of Gaethal. Turan scrutinized his companion, discovering many evidences of resemblance to his mother's people. Acor might have been ten years younger than he, but such differences in age are scarce accounted among a people who seldom or never age outwardly, after maturity and whose span of life may be a thousand years. And where lies Gaethal? asked Turan. Almost due east of Manator, replied Acor. And how far? Some twenty-one degrees it is from the city of Manator to the city of Gaethal, replied Acor, but little more than ten degrees between the boundaries of the two countries. Between them, though, there lies a country of torn rocks and yawning chasms. Well did Gaethan know this country that bordered his upon the west? Even the ships of the air avoided it because of the treacherous currents that rose from the deep chasms and the almost total absence of safe landings. He knew now where Manator lay, and for the first time in long weeks the way to his own Gaethal, and here was a man of fellow prisoner in whose veins flowed the blood of his own ancestors, a man who knew Manator, its people, its customs, and the country surrounding it, one who could aid him with advice at least to find a plan for the rescue of Tara of Helium and for his escape. But would Acor, could he dare broach the subject? He could do no less than try. And Otar, you think, will sentence you to death, he asked, and why? He would like to, replied Acor, for the people chafed beneath his iron hand, and their loyalty is but the loyalty of a people to the long line of illustrious jeddaks from which he has sprung. He is a jealous man, and has found the means of disposing of most of those whose blood might entitle them to acclaim upon the throne, and whose place in the affections of the people endowed them with any political significance. The fact that I was the son of a slave relegated me to a position of minor importance in the consideration of Otar, yet I am still the son of a jeddak, and might sit upon the throne of Manator with as perfect congruity as Otar himself. Combined with this is the fact that of recent years the people, and especially many of the young warriors, have evinced a growing affection for me, which I attribute to certain virtues of character and training derived from my mother, for which Otar assumes to be the result of an ambition upon my part to occupy the throne of Manator. And now I am firmly convinced he has seized upon my criticism of his treatment of the slave girl Tara as a pretext for ridding himself of me. But if you could escape, and reach Gaethal, suggested Turan. I had thought of that, mused Acor, but how much better off would I be? In the eyes of the Gatholians I would be not a Gatholian, but a stranger, and doubtless they would accord me the same treatment that we of Manator accord strangers. Could you convince them that you are the son of the Princess Haja? Your welcome would be assured, said Turan, while on the other hand you could purchase your freedom and citizenship with a brief period of labor in the Dive and Mines. How know you all these things, as Acor? I thought you were from Helium. I am a Panthan, replied Turan, and I have served many countries, among them Gaethal. It is what the slaves from Gaethal have told me, said Acor thoughtfully, at my mother, before Ohtar sent her to live at Manatos. I think he must have feared her power and influence among the slaves from Gaethal and their descendants, who numbered perhaps a million people throughout the land of Manator. Are these slaves organized, as Turan? Acor looked straight into the eyes of the Panthan for a long moment before he replied. You are a man of honor, he said. I read it in your face, and I am seldom mistaken in my estimate of a man, but—and he leaned closer to the other. Even the walls have ears, he whispered, and Turan's question was answered. It was later in the evening that warriors came and unlocked the fetter from Turan's ankle, and led him away to appear before Ohtar the jeddak. They conducted him toward the palace along narrow winding streets and broad avenues, but always from the balconies, there looked down upon them in endless ranks, the silent people of the city. The palace itself was filled with life and activity. Mounted warriors galloped through the corridors and up and down the runways connecting adjacent floors. It seemed that no one walked within the palace other than a few slaves. Squealing, fighting foats were stable in magnificent halls while their riders, if not upon some duty of the palace, played at Gitan with small figures carved from wood. Turan noted the magnificence of the interior architecture of the palace, the lavish expenditure of precious jewels and metals, the gorgeous mural decorations which depicted almost exclusively martial scenes, and principally duels which seemed to be fought upon Gitan boards of heroic size. The capitals of many of the columns supporting the ceilings of the corridors and chambers through which they passed were wrought into formal likenesses of Gitan pieces. Everywhere there seemed to be a suggestion of the game. Along the same path that Tara of Helium had been led, Turan was conducted toward the throne room of Otar the Jet Act, and when he entered the Hall of Cheese his interests turned to wonder and admiration as he viewed the ranks of statuesque thoat men decked in their gorgeous martial panoply. Never, he thought, had he seen upon Barsoom more soldierly figures or thoats so perfectly trained to perfection of immobility as these, not a muscle quivered, not a tail lashed, and the riders were as motionless as their mounts, each warlike eye straight to the front, the great spears inclined at the same angle. It was a picture to fill the breast of a fighting man with awe and reverence, nor did it fail in its effect upon Turan as they conducted him the length of the chamber, where he waited before great doors until he should be summoned into the presence of the ruler of Manator. When Tara of Helium was ushered into the throne room of Otar, she found the great hall filled with the chiefs and officers of Otar and Uthor, the latter occupying the place of honor at the foot of the throne as was his due. The girl was conducted to the foot of the aisle and hauled it before the Jet Act, who looked down upon her from his high throne with scowling brows and fierce, cruel eyes. The laws of Manator are just, said Otar, addressing her. Thus is it that you have been summoned here again to be judged by the highest authority of Manator. Word has reached me that you are suspected of being a corefall. What word have you to say in refutation of the charge? Tara of Helium could scarce restrain as sneer as she answered the ridiculous accusation of rich crap. So ancient is the culture of my people, she said, that authentic history reveals no defense but that which we know existed only in the ignorant and superstitious minds of the most primitive peoples of the past. To those who are yet so untutored as to believe in the existence of corefalls, there could be no argument that will convince them of their error. Only long ages of refinement and culture can accomplish their release from the bondage of ignorance. I have spoken. Yet you do not deny the accusation, said Otar. It is not worthy the dignity of a denial, she responded heartily. And I were you woman, said a deep voice at her side. I should nevertheless deny it. Tara of Helium turned to see the eyes of Uthor, the great jed of Manatos upon her. Brave eyes they were, but neither cold nor cruel. Otar wrapped impatiently upon the arm of his throne. Uthor forgets, he cried, that Otar is a jedic. Uthor remembers, replied the jed of Manatos, that the laws of Manator permit any who may be accused to have advice and counsel before their judge. Tara of Helium saw that for some reason this man would have assisted her, and so she acted upon his advice. I deny the charge, she said, I am no corefall. Of that we shall learn, snapped Otar. Uthor, where are those who have knowledge of the powers of this woman? An Uthor brought several who recounted the little that was known of the disappearance of Emed, and others who told of the creature of Gek and Tara, suggesting by deduction that having been found together they had sufficient in common to make it reasonably certain that one was as bad as the other, and that therefore it remained but to convict one of them of corefallism to make certain the guilt of both. And then Otar called for Gek, and immediately the hideous Caldain was dragged before him by warriors who could not conceal the fear in which they held this creature. And you, said Otar in cold accusing tones, already have I been told enough of you to warrant me in passing through your heart the jedic steel, and of how you stole the brains from the warrior Uvan, so that he thought he saw your headless body still endowed with life, of how you caused another to believe that you had escaped, making him to see not but an empty bench and a blank wall where you had been. Ah, Otar, but that is as nothing, cried a young Padwar, who had come in command of the escort that brought Gek. The thing which he did to Isav would prove his guilt alone. What did he to the warrior Isav, demanded Otar, let Isav speak. The warrior Isav, a great fellow of bulgy muscles and thick neck, advanced to the foot of the throne, he was pale and still trembling visibly as from a nervous shock. Let my first ancestor be my witness, Otar, that I speak the truth, he began. I was left to guard this creature, who sat upon a bench, shackled to the wall. I stood by the open doorway at the opposite end of the chamber. He could not reach me yet, Otar, may is engulf me if he did not drag me to him helpless as an unhatched egg. He dragged me to him, greatest of jedics, with his eyes. With his eyes he seized upon my eyes and dragged me to him and he made me lay my swords and dagger upon the table and back off into a corner and still keeping his eyes upon my eyes his head quitted his body and crawling upon six short legs it descended to the floor and backed partway into the hole of an ulcio, but not so far that the eyes were not still upon me and then it returned with the key to its fetter and after resuming its place upon its shoulders it unlocked the fetter and again dragged me across the room and made me to sit upon the bench where it had been and there it fastened the fetter about my ankle and I could do not for the power of its eyes and the fact that it wore my two swords and my dagger and then the head disappeared down the hole of the ulcio with the key and when it returned it resumed its body and stood guard over me at the doorway until the padwar came to fetch it hither. It is enough, said Otar sternly, both shall receive the jeddak steel and rising from his throne he drew his long sword and descended the marble steps toward them while two brawny warriors seized Tara by either arm and two seized Gek holding them facing the naked blade of the jeddak. Hold just Otar, cried Udor. There be yet another to be judged. Let us confront him who calls himself Turan with these his fellows before they die. Good exclaimed Otar, pausing halfway down the stairs. Fetched Turan the slave. When Turan had been brought into the chamber he was placed a little to Tara's left and a step nearer the throne. Otar eyed him menacingly. You are Turan, he asked. Friend and companion of these? The panthan was about to reply when Tara of Helium spoke. I know not this fellow, she said. Who dares say that he be a friend and companion of the Princess Tara of Helium? Turan and Gek looked at her in surprise, but at Turan she did not look, and to Gek she passed a quick glance of warning as to say, hold thy peace. The panthan tried not to fathom her purpose for the head is useless when the heart usurps its functions, and Turan knew only that the woman he loved had denied him, and though he tried not, even to think it is his foolish heart urged but a single explanation, that she refused to recognize him lest she be involved in his difficulties. Otar looked first at one, and then at another of them, but none of them spoke. Were they not captured together? he asked of Udor. No, replied the Dwarf. He who is called Turan was found seeking entrance to the city, and was enticed to the pits. The following morning I discovered the other two upon the hill beyond the gate of Enemies. But they are friends and companions, said a young padwar, for this Turan inquired of me concerning these two, calling them by name, and saying that they were his friends. It is enough, stated Otar, that all three shall die, and he took another step downward from the throne. Or what shall we die? asked Gek. Your people pray of the just laws of Manator, and yet you would slay three strangers without telling them of what crime they are accused? He is right, said a deep voice. It was the voice of Udor, the great jed of Manatos. Otar looked at him and scowled. But there came voices from other portions of the chamber, seconding the demand for justice. Then know, thou you shall die anyway, cried Aetor, that all three are convicted of Corphalism, and that as only a jeddak may slay such as you in safety, you are about to be honored with the steel of Otar. Fool! cried Turan. Know you not that in the veins of this woman flows the blood of ten thousand jeddaks, that greater than yours is her power in her own land? She is Tara, Princess of Helium, great granddaughter of Tardus Moors, daughter of John Carter, warlord of Arsum. She cannot be a Corphal. Nor is this creature Gek. Nor am I, and you would know more, I can prove my right to be heard, and to be believed if I may have word with the Princess Haja of Gathol, whose son is my fellow prisoner in the pits of Otar, his father. At this, Udor rose to his feet and faced Otar. What means this, he asked, speaks the man the truth, is the son of Haja, a prisoner in the pits of Otar? And what is it to the jed of Manatos who be the prisoners in the pits of his jeddak demanded Otar angrily? It is this to the jed of Manatos, replied Udor in a voice so low as to be scarce more than a whisper, and yet that was heard the whole length and breadth of the great throne room of Otar, jeddak of Manator. You gave me a slave woman, Haja, who had been a princess in Gathol, because you feared her influence among the slaves from Gathol. I have made of her a free woman, and I have married her, and made her thus a princess of Manatos. Her son is my son, Otar. And though thou be my jeddak, I say to you, that for any harm that befalls Acor, you shall answer to Udor of Manatos. Otar looked long at Udor, but he made no reply. Then he turned again to Turan. If one be a corporal, he said, then all of you be corporals, and we know well from the things that this creature has done, he pointed at Ghek, that he is a corporal, for no mortal has such powers as he, and as you are all corporals, you all must die. He took another step downward, when Ghek spoke. These two have no such powers as I, he said, there but ordinary, brainless things, such as yourself. I have done all the things that your poor ignorant warriors have told you, but all this only demonstrates that I am of a higher order than yourselves, as is indeed the fact. I am a kaldane, not a corporal. There is nothing supernatural or mysterious about me, other than that to the ignorant all things which they cannot understand are mysterious. Easily might I have eluded your warriors and escaped your pits, but I remained in the hope that I might help these two foolish creatures who have not the brains to escape without help. They befriended me and saved my life. I owe them this debt. Do not slay them, they are harmless. Slay me, if you will. I offer my life if it will appease your ignorant wrath. I cannot return to Bantum, and so I might as well die, for there is no pleasure in intercourse with the feeble intellects that cumber the face of the world outside the valley of Bantum. Hidious egotist, said Otar, prepare to die and assume not to dictate to Otar the jeddak. He has passed sentence, and all three of you shall feel the jeddak's naked steel. I have spoken. He took another step downward, and then a strange thing happened. He paused, his eyes fixed upon the eyes of Gek. His sword slipped from nervous fingers, and still he stood there swaying forward and back. A jedd rose to rush to his side. The Gek stopped him with a word. Wait, he cried. The life of your jeddak is in my hands. You believe me a corporal, and so you believe too that only the sword of a jeddak may slay me, therefore your blades are useless against me. Offer harm to any one of us, or seek to approach your jeddak until I have spoken, and he will sink lifeless to the marble. Release the two prisoners and let them come to my side. I would speak to them privately. Quick, do as I say. I would as leave as not slay Otar. I but let him live that I may gain freedom from my friends, obstruct me, and he dies. The guards fell back, releasing Tara and Turan, who came closer to Gek's side. Do as I tell you, and do it quickly, whispered the kaldane. I cannot hold this fellow long, nor could I kill him thus. There are many minds working against mine, and presently mine will tire, and Otar will be himself again. You must make the best of your opportunity while you may. Behind the aris that you see hanging in the rear of the throne above you is a secret opening. From it a corridor leads to the pits of the palace, where there are storerooms containing food and drink. Few people go there. From these pits lead others to all parts of the city. Follow one that runs due west, and it will bring you to the gate of the enemies. The rest will then lie with you. I can do no more. Hurry before my waning powers fail me. I am not as Lund who was a king. He could have held this creature forever. Make haste, go! This is the end of the Chessmen of Mars, Chapter 14, recording by Tom Weiss. The Chessmen of Mars, Chapter 15. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tom Weiss. The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burrows. Chapter 15. The Old Man of the Pits. I shall not desert you, Gek, said Tara of Helium simply. Go! Go! whispered the caldane. You can do me no good. Go! Or all I have done is for naught. Kara shook her head. I cannot, she said. They will slay her, said Gek to Turan, and the panthan torn between loyalty to this strange creature who had offered its life for him and love of the woman hesitated but a moment. Then he swept Tara from her feet, and lifting her in his arms, leaped up the steps that led to the throne of Manator. Behind the throne he parted the aris and found the secret opening. Into this he bore the girl, and down a long, narrow corridor and winding runways that led to lower levels until they came to the pits of the palace of Otar. Here was a labyrinth of passages and chambers presenting a thousand hiding places. As Turan bore Tara up the steps toward the throne, a score of warriors rose as though to rush forward to intercept them. Stay! cried Gek, or your jeddak dies, and they hauled it in their tracks, waiting the will of this strange uncanny creature. Presently Gek took his eyes from the eyes of Otar, and the jeddak shook himself as one who would be rid of a bad dream and straightened up half days still. Look! said Gek, then I have given your jeddak his life, nor have I harmed one of those whom I might easily have slain when they were in my power. No harm have I or my friends done in the city of Manator. Why then should you persecute us? Give us our lives, give us our liberty. Otar, now in command of his faculties, stooped and regained his sword. In the room was silence as all waited to hear the jeddak's answer. Just are the laws of Manator, he said at last. Perhaps, after all, there is truth in the words of the stranger. Return him then to the pits and pursue the others and capture them. Through the mercy of Otar they shall be permitted to win their freedom upon the field of G-10 in the coming games. Still Ashen was the face of the jeddak as Gek was led away and his appearance was that of a man who had been snatched from the brink of eternity into which he has gazed, not with the composure of great courage, but with fear. There were those in the throne room who knew that the execution of the three prisoners had been but delayed and the responsibility placed upon the shoulders of others, and one of those who knew was Uthar, the great jed of Manatos. His curling lift betokened his scorn of the jeddak who had chosen humiliation rather than death. He knew that Otar had lost more of prestige in those few moments than he could regain in a lifetime, for the Martians are jealous of the courage of their chiefs. There can be no evasions of stern duty, no temporizing with honor. That there were others in the room who shared Uthar's belief was evidenced by their silence and the grim scowls. Otar glanced quickly around. He must have sensed the hostility and guessed its cause, for he went suddenly angry. And as one who seeks by the vehemence of his words to establish the courage of his heart, he roared forth what could be considered as not other than a challenge. The will of Otar, the jeddak, is the law of Manator, he cried, and the laws of Manator are just. They cannot air. Udor, dispatch those who will search the palace, the pits, and the city, and return the fugitives to their cells. And now for you, Udor of Manatos. Think you with a punity to threaten your jeddak? To question his right to punish traitors and instigators of treason? What am I to think of your own loyalty who takes to wife a woman I have banished from my court because of her intrigues against the authority of her jeddak and her master? But Otar is just. Make your explanations and your peace then before it is too late. Uthor has nothing to explain, replied the jeddak of Manatos. Nor is he had war with his jeddak, but he has the right that every jedd and every warrior enjoys of demanding justice at the hands of the jeddak for whomsoever he believes to be persecuted. With increasing rigor has the jeddak of Manator persecuted the slaves from Gaethal since he took to himself the unwilling Princess Hajah. If the slaves from Gaethal have harbored thoughts of vengeance and escape, his no more than might be expected from a proud and courageous people. Ever have I counseled greater fairness in our treatment of our slaves, many of whom, in their own lands, are people of great distinction and power, but always has Otar, the jeddak, flouted with arrogance my every suggestion. Though it has been through none of my seeking that the question has arisen now, I am glad that it has, for the time was bound to come when the Jedds of Manator would demand from Otar the respect and consideration that is their due from the man who holds his high office at their pleasure. No then, Otar, that you must free Acor the Dwar, forthwith or bring him to fair trial before the assembled Jedds of Manator. I have spoken. You have spoken well and to the point, Uthor, cried Otar, for you have revealed to your Jeddak and your fellow Jedds the depths of the disloyalty that I have long suspected. Acor already has been tried and sentenced by the Supreme Tribunal of Manator, Otar the Jeddak, and you too shall receive justice from the same unfailing source. In the meantime, you are under arrest, to the pits with him, to the pits with Uthor, the false Jed. He clapped his hands to summon the surrounding warriors to do his bidding. A score leaped forward to seize Uthor. They were warriors of the palace mostly, but two score leaped to defend Uthor, and with ringing steel they fought at the foot of the steps to the throne of Manator, where stood Otar, the Jeddak, withdrawn sword ready to take his part in the melee. At the clash of steel, palace guards rushed to the scene from other parts of the great building, until those who would have defended Uthor were outnumbered two to one, and then the Jedd of Manatos slowly withdrew with his forces, and fighting his way through the corridors and chambers of the palace came at last to the avenue. Here he was reinforced by the little army that had marched with him into Manator. Slowly they retreated toward the gate of enemies between the rows of silent people looking down upon them from the balconies, and there within the city walls they made their stand. In a dimly lighted chamber beneath the palace of Uthor, the Jeddak Turan the panthan lowered Tara of Helium from his arms and faced her. I am sorry, Princess, he said, that I was forced to disobey your commands or to abandon Ghek, but there was no other way. Could he have saved you I would have stayed in his place. Tell me that you forgive me. How could I do less, she replied graciously, but it seemed cowardly to abandon a friend. Had we been three fighting men it had been different, he said. We could only have remained and died together, fighting. But you know, Tara of Helium, that we may not jeopardize a woman's safety even though we risk the loss of honor. I know that, Turan, she said, but no one may say that you have risked honor who knows the honor and bravery that are yours. He heard her with surprise, for these were the first words that she had spoken to him that did not savor of the attitude of a princess to a panthan, though it was more in her tone than the actual words that he apprehended the difference. How and variants were they to her recent repudiation of him. He could not fathom her, and so he blurted out the question that had been in his mind since he had told Otar that she did not know him. Tara of Helium, he said, your words are balm to the wound you gave me in the throne room of Otar. Tell me, Princess, why you denied me. She turned her great deep eyes up to his, and in them was a little of reproach. You did not guess, she asked, that it was my lips alone and not my heart that denied you. Otar had ordered that I die, more because I was a companion of Gek than because of any evidence against me, and so I knew that if I acknowledged you as one of us, you would be slain too. It was to save me then, he cried, his face suddenly lighting. It was to save my brave panthan, she said in a low voice. Tara of Helium, said the warrior, dropping to one knee, your words are as food to my hungry heart, and he took her fingers in his and pressed them to his lips. Gently she raised him to his feet. You need not tell me kneeling, she said softly. Her hand was still in his as he rose, and they were very close, and the man was still flushed with the contact of her body, since he had carried her from the throne room of Otar. He felt his heart pounding in his breasts, and the hot blood surging through his veins as he looked at her beautiful face, with its downcast eyes, and the half-parted lips that he would have given a kingdom to possess. And then he swept her to him, and as he crushed her against his breast his lips smothered hers with kisses. But only for an instant, like a Tigris the girl turned upon him, striking him, and thrusting him away. She stepped back, her head high, and her eyes flashing fire. You would dare, she cried, you would dare dusty file of Princess of Helium. His eyes met hers squarely, and there was no shame and no remorse in them. Yes, I would dare, he said. I would dare love Tara of Helium, but I would not dare defile her or any woman with kisses that were not prompted by love of her alone. He stepped closer to her and laid his hands upon her shoulders. Look into my eyes, daughter of the warlord, he said, and tell me that you do not wish the love of Turan the Panthan. I do not wish your love, she cried, pulling away. I hate you. And then, turning away, she bent her head into the hollow of her arm and wept. The man took a step toward her, as though to comfort her when he was arrested by the sound of a crackling laugh behind him. Wheeling about, he discovered a strange figure of a man standing in a doorway. It was one of those rarities occasionally to be seen upon Barsoom, an old man with the signs of age upon him. Bent and wrinkled, he had more the appearance of a mummy than a man. Love in the pits of Otar, he cried, and again his thin laughter jarred upon the silence of the subterranean bolts. A strange place to woo, a strange place to woo indeed. When I was a young man, we roamed in the gardens, beneath giant Pimalese, and stole our kisses in the brief shadows of hurtling Thuria. We came not to the gloomy pits to speak of love, but times have changed, and ways have changed, though I had never thought to live to see the time when the way of a man with a maid, or a maid with a man would change. Ah, but we kissed them then. And what if they objected? Eh, what if they objected? Why, we kissed them more. Eh, eh, those were the days, and he crackled again. Eh, well do I recall the first of them I ever kissed, and I've kissed an army of them since. She was a fine girl, but she tried to slip a dagger into me while I was kissing her. Eh, eh, those were the days, but I kissed her. She's been dead over a thousand years now, but she was never kissed again like that while she lived. I'll swear, not since she's been dead either. And then there was the other, but Turan, seeing a thousand or more years of osculatory memoirs pretending interrupted. Tell me, ancient one, not of thy loves, but of thyself. Who are you? What do you do here in the pits of Otar? I might ask you the same, young man, replied the other. Few there are who visit the pits other than the dead, except my pupils, eh? That is it. You are new pupils. Good. But never before have they sent a woman to learn the great art from the greatest artist. But times have changed. Now in my day the women did no work. They were just for kissing and loving. Eh, those were the women. I'm mind the one we captured in the south, eh? She was a devil. But how she could love. She had breasts of marble and a heart of fire. Why, she, yes, yes interrupted Turan. We are pupils, and we are anxious to get to work. Lead on, and we will follow. Eh, yes, eh, yes, come. All is rush and hurry as though there were not another countless myriad of ages ahead. Eh, yes, as many as lie behind. Two thousand years have passed since I broke my shell, and always rush, rush, rush. Yet I cannot see that Ot has been accomplished. Manator is the same today as it was then, except the girls. We had the girls then. There was one that I gained upon the fields of G-10. Eh, but you should have seen. Lead on, cried Turan. After we are at work you shall tell us of her. Eh, yes, said the old fellow, and shuffled off down a dimly-lighted passage. Follow me. You are going with him? asked Tara. Why not? replied Turan. We know not where we are, or the way from these pits, for I know not east from west, but he doubtless knows, and if we are shrewd, we may learn from him that which we would know. At least we cannot afford to arouse his suspicions, and so they followed him. Followed along winding corridors, and through many chambers, until they came at last to a room in which there were several marble slabs raised upon pedestals, some three feet above the floor, and upon each slab lay a human corpse. Here we are, exclaimed the old man. These are fresh, and we shall have to get to work upon them soon. I am working now on one for the gate of enemies. He slew many of our warriors. Truly is he entitled to a place in the gate. Come, you shall see him. He led them to an adjoining apartment, upon the floor were many fresh human bones, and upon a marble slab a mass of shapeless flesh. You will learn this later, announced the old man, but it will not harm you to watch me now, for there are not many thus prepared, and it may be long before you have the opportunity to see another prepared for the gate of enemies. First you see I remove all the bones, carefully that the skin may be damaged as little as possible. The skull is the most difficult, but it can be removed by a skillful artist. You see, I have made but a single opening. This I now sew up, and that done the body is hung so, and he fastened the piece of rope to the hair of the corpse, and swung the horrid thing to a ring in the ceiling. Directly below it was a circular manhole in the floor, from which he removed the cover revealing a well partially filled with a reddish liquid. Now we lower it into this, the formula for which you shall learn in due time. We fasten it thus to the bottom of the cover, which we now replace. In a year it will be ready, but it must be examined often in the meantime, and the liquid kept above the level of its crown. It will be a very beautiful piece, this one, when it is ready. And you are fortunate again, for there is one to come out today. He crossed to the opposite side of the room and raised another cover, reached in, and dragged a grotesque-looking figure from the hole. It was a human body, shrunk by the action of the chemical in which it had been immersed, to a little figure scarce a foot high. A. is it not fine? cried the little old man. Tomorrow it will take its place in the gate of enemies. He dried it off with cloths and packed it away carefully in a basket. Perhaps you would like to see some of my life work, he suggested, and without waiting for their assent led them to another apartment, a large chamber in which were forty or fifty people. All were sitting or standing quietly about the walls, with the exception of one huge warrior who best rode a great boat in the very center of the room, and all were motionless. Instantly there sprang to the minds of Tara and Turan the rows of silent people upon the balconies that lined the avenues of the city, and the noble array of mallet warriors in the hall of chiefs, and the same explanation came to both. But neither dared voice the question that was in his mind for fear of revealing by his ignorance the fact that they were strangers in Manator, and therefore imposters in the guise of pupils. It is very wonderful, said Turan. It must require great skill and patience and time. That it does, replied the old man, though having done it so long I am quicker than most, but mine are the most natural. Why, I would defy the wife of that warrior to say that in so far as appearances are concerned he does not live, and he pointed at the man upon the throat. Many of them, of course, are brought here wasted or badly wounded, and these I have to repair. That is where great skill is required, for everyone wants his dead to look as they did at their best in life. But you shall learn to mount them and paint them and repair them, and sometimes to make an ugly one look beautiful, and it will be a great comfort to be able to mount your own. Why, for fifteen hundred years no one has mounted my own dead but myself. I have many. My balconies are crowded with them, but I keep a great room for my wives. I have them all, as far back as the first one, and many is the evening I spend with them, quiet evenings, and very pleasant. And then the pleasure of preparing them, and making them even more beautiful than in life, partially recompenses one for their loss. I take my time with them, looking for a new one while I am working on the old. When I am not sure about a new one I bring her to the chamber where my wives are, and compare her charms with theirs, and there is always a great satisfaction at such times in knowing that they will not object. I love harmony. Did you prepare all the warriors in the Hall of Chiefs, as Turan? Yes, I prepare them and repair them, replied the old man. Otar will trust no other. Even now I have two in another room who were damaged in some way, and brought down to me. Otar does not like to have them gone long, since it leaves two riderless thoats in the hall. But I shall have them ready presently. He wants them all there in the event any momentous question arises upon which the living Jeds cannot agree, or do not agree with Otar. Such questions he carries to the Jeds in the Hall of Chiefs. Then he shuts himself up alone with the great chiefs, who have attained wisdom through death. It is an excellent plan, and there is never any friction or misunderstandings. Otar has said that it is the finest deliberative body upon bar soon, much more intelligent than that composed of the living Jeds. But come, we must get to work. Come into the next chamber, and I will begin your instruction. He led the way into the chamber, in which lay the several corpses upon their marble slabs, and going to a cabinet he donned a pair of huge spectacles, and commenced to select various tools from little compartments. This done he turned again toward his two pupils. Now let me have a look at you, he said. My eyes are not what they once were, and I need these powerful lenses for my work, or to see distinctly the features of those around me. He turned his eyes upon the two before him. Turan held his breath, for he knew that now the man must discover that they wore not the harness or insignia of Manator. He had wondered before why the old fellow had not noticed it, or he had not known that he was half blind. The other examined their faces, his eyes lingering long upon the beauty of Tara of Helium, and then they drifted to the harness of the two. Turan thought that he noted an appreciable start of surprise on the part of the taxidermist. But if the old man noticed anything, his next words did not reveal it. Come with Aigas, he said to Turan, I have materials in the next room that I would have you fetch hither. Remain here, woman, we shall be gone but a moment. He led the way to one of the numerous doors opening into the chamber, and entered ahead of Turan. Just inside the door he stopped, and pointing to a bundle of silks and furs upon the opposite side of the room, directed Turan to fetch them. The latter had crossed the room and was stooping to raise the bundle when he heard the click of a lock behind him. Wheeling instantly, he saw that he was alone in the room, and that the single door was closed. Running rapidly to it, he strobed open it, only to find that he was a prisoner. Aigas, stepping out and locking the door behind him, turned toward Tara. Your leather betrayed you, he said, laughing his crackling laugh. You sought to deceive old Aigas, but you found that though his eyes are weak, his brain is not. But it shall not go ill with you. You are beautiful, and Aigas loves beautiful women. I might not have you elsewhere in Manator, but here there is none to deny old Aigas. Few come to the pits of the dead. Only those who bang the dead, and they hasten the way as fast as they can. No one will know that Aigas has a beautiful woman locked with his dead. I shall ask you no questions, and then I will not have to give you up, for I will not know to whom you belong, eh? And when you die, I shall mount you beautifully, and place you in the chamber with my other women. Will that not be fine, eh? He had approached until he stood close beside the horrified girl. Come, he cried, seizing her by the wrist. Come to Aigas. This is the end of the Chessmen of Mars, Chapter 15, Recording by Tom Weiss