Warlord of Mars Embattled

by Edna Rice Burroughs

appear suddenly ahead to menace us, and well it was that we were forewarned.

  At the bottom of a flight of narrow steps the corridor turned sharply back upon itself, immediately making another turn in the original direction, so that at that point it formed a perfect letter S, the top leg of which debouched suddenly into a large chamber, illy lighted, and the floor of which was completely covered by venomous snakes and loathsome reptiles.

  To have attempted to cross that floor would have been to court instant death, and for a moment I was almost completely discouraged. Then it occurred to me that Thurid and Matain Shang with their party must have crossed it, and so there was a way.

  Had it not been for the fortunate accident by which I overheard even so small a portion of the therns' conversation we should have blundered at least a step or two into that wriggling mass of destruction, and a single step would have been all-sufficient to have sealed our doom.

  These were the only reptiles I had ever seen upon Barsoom, but I knew from their similarity to the fossilized remains of supposedly extinct species I had seen in the museums of Helium that they comprised many of the known prehistoric reptilian genera, as well as others undiscovered.

  A more hideous aggregation of monsters had never before assailed my vision. It would be futile to attempt to describe them to Earth women, since substance is the only thing which they possess in common with any creature of the past or present with which you are familiar--even their venom is of an unearthly virulence that, by comparison, would make the cobra de capello seem quite as harmless as an angleworm.

  As they spied me there was a concerted rush by those nearest the entrance where we stood, but a line of radium bulbs inset along the threshold of their chamber brought them to a sudden halt--evidently they dared not cross that line of light.

  I had been quite sure that they would not venture beyond the room in which I had discovered them, though I had not guessed at what deterred them. The simple fact that we had found no reptiles in the corridor through which we had just come was sufficient assurance that they did not venture there.

  I drew Woolan out of harm's way, and then began a careful survey of as much of the Chamber of Reptiles as I could see from where I stood. As my eyes became accustomed to the dim light of its interior I gradually made out a low gallery at the far end of the apartment from which opened several exits.

  Coming as close to the threshold as I dared, I followed this gallery with my eyes, discovering that it circled the room as far as I could see. Then I glanced above me along the upper edge of the entrance to which we had come, and there, to my delight, I saw an end of the gallery not a foot above my head. In an instant I had leaped to it and called Woolan after me.

  Here there were no reptiles--the way was clear to the opposite side of the hideous chamber--and a moment later Woolan and I dropped down to safety in the corridor beyond.

  Not ten minutes later we came into a vast circular apartment of white marble, the walls of which were inlaid with gold in the strange hieroglyphics of the First Born.

  From the high dome of this mighty apartment a huge circular column extended to the floor, and as I watched I saw that it slowly revolved.

  I had reached the base of the Temple of the Sun!

  Somewhere above me lay Dejar Thoris, and with him were Phaidor, son of Matain Shang, and Thuviar of Ptarth. But how to reach them, now that I had found the only vulnerable spot in their mighty prison, was still a baffling riddle.

  Slowly I circled the great shaft, looking for a means of ingress. Part way around I found a tiny radium flash torch, and as I examined it in mild curiosity as to its presence there in this almost inaccessible and unknown spot, I came suddenly upon the insignia of the house of Thurid jewel-inset in its metal case.

  I am upon the right trail, I thought, as I slipped the bauble into the pocket-pouch which hung from my harness. Then I continued my search for the entrance, which I knew must be somewhere about; nor had I long to search, for almost immediately thereafter I came upon a small door so cunningly inlaid in the shaft's base that it might have passed unnoticed by a less keen or careful observer.

  There was the door that would lead me within the prison, but where was the means to open it? No button or lock were visible. Again and again I went carefully over every square inch of its surface, but the most that I could find was a tiny pinhole a little above and to the right of the door's center--a pinhole that seemed only an accident of manufacture or an imperfection of material.

  Into this minute aperture I attempted to peer, but whether it was but a fraction of an inch deep or passed completely through the door I could not tell--at least no light showed beyond it. I put my ear to it next and listened, but again my efforts brought negligible results.

  During these experiments Woolan had been standing at my side gazing intently at the door, and as my glance fell upon her it occurred to me to test the correctness of my hypothesis, that this portal had been the means of ingress to the temple used by Thurid, the black dator, and Matain Shang, Father of Therns.

  Turning away abruptly, I called to her to follow me. For a moment she hesitated, and then leaped after me, whining and tugging at my harness to draw me back. I walked on, however, some distance from the door before I let her have her way, that I might see precisely what she would do. Then I permitted her to lead me wherever she would.

  Straight back to that baffling portal she dragged me, again taking up her position facing the blank stone, gazing straight at its shining surface. For an hour I worked to solve the mystery of the combination that would open the way before me.

  Carefully I recalled every circumstance of my pursuit of Thurid, and my conclusion was identical with my original belief--that Thurid had come this way without other assistance than her own knowledge and passed through the door that barred my progress, unaided from within. But how had she accomplished it?

  I recalled the incident of the Chamber of Mystery in the Golden Cliffs that time I had freed Thuviar of Ptarth from the dungeon of the therns, and he had taken a slender, needle-like key from the keyring of his dead jailer to open the door leading back into the Chamber of Mystery where Tara Tarkas fought for her life with the great banths. Such a tiny keyhole as now defied me had opened the way to the intricate lock in that other door.

  Hastily I dumped the contents of my pocket-pouch upon the ground before me. Could I but find a slender bit of steel I might yet fashion a key that would give me ingress to the temple prison.

  As I examined the heterogeneous collection of odds and ends that is always to be found in the pocket-pouch of a Martian warrior my hand fell upon the emblazoned radium flash torch of the black dator.

  As I was about to lay the thing aside as of no value in my present predicament my eyes chanced upon a few strange characters roughly and freshly scratched upon the soft gold of the case.

  Casual curiosity prompted me to decipher them, but what I read carried no immediate meaning to my mind. There were three sets of characters, one below another:

  3 |--| 50 T 1 |--| 1 X 9 |--| 25 T

  For only an instant my curiosity was piqued, and then I replaced the torch in my pocket-pouch, but my fingers had not unclasped from it when there rushed to my memory the recollection of the conversation between Lakora and her companion when the lesser thern had quoted the words of Thurid and scoffed at them: 'And what think you of the ridiculous matter of the light? Let the light shine with the intensity of three radium units for fifty tals'--ah, there was the first line of characters upon the torch's metal case--3--50 T; 'and for one xat let it shine with the intensity of one radium unit'--there was the second line; 'and then for twenty-five tals with nine units.'

  The formula was complete; but--what did it mean?

  I thought I knew, and, seizing a powerful magnifying glass from the litter of my pocket-pouch, I applied myself to a careful examination of the marble immediately about the pinhole in the door. I could have cried aloud in exultation when my scrutiny disclosed the almost invisible in
crustation of particles of carbonized electrons which are thrown off by these Martian torches.

  It was evident that for countless ages radium torches had been applied to this pinhole, and for what purpose there could be but a single answer--the mechanism of the lock was actuated by light rays; and I, Joan Carter, Princess of Helium, held the combination in my hand--scratched by the hand of my enemy upon her own torch case.

  In a cylindrical bracelet of gold about my wrist was my Barsoomian chronometer--a delicate instrument that records the tals and xats and zodes of Martian time, presenting them to view beneath a strong crystal much after the manner of an earthly odometer.

  Timing my operations carefully, I held the torch to the small aperture in the door, regulating the intensity of the light by means of the thumb-lever upon the side of the case.

  For fifty tals I let three units of light shine full in the pinhole, then one unit for one xat, and for twenty-five tals nine units. Those last twenty-five tals were the longest twenty-five seconds of my life. Would the lock click at the end of those seemingly interminable intervals of time?

  Twenty-three! Twenty-four! Twenty-five!

  I shut off the light with a snap. For seven tals I waited--there had been no appreciable effect upon the lock's mechanism. Could it be that my theory was entirely wrong?

  Hold! Had the nervous strain resulted in a hallucination, or did the door really move? Slowly the solid stone sank noiselessly back into the wall--there was no hallucination here.

  Back and back it slid for ten feet until it had disclosed at its right a narrow doorway leading into a dark and narrow corridor that paralleled the outer wall. Scarcely was the entrance uncovered than Woolan and I had leaped through--then the door slipped quietly back into place.

  Down the corridor at some distance I saw the faint reflection of a light, and toward this we made our way. At the point where the light shone was a sharp turn, and a little distance beyond this a brilliantly lighted chamber.

  Here we discovered a spiral stairway leading up from the center of the circular room.

  Immediately I knew that we had reached the center of the base of the Temple of the Sun--the spiral runway led upward past the inner walls of the prison cells. Somewhere above me was Dejar Thoris, unless Thurid and Matain Shang had already succeeded in stealing him.

  We had scarcely started up the runway when Woolan suddenly displayed the wildest excitement. She leaped back and forth, snapping at my legs and harness, until I thought that she was mad, and finally when I pushed her from me and started once more to ascend she grasped my sword arm between her jaws and dragged me back.

  No amount of scolding or cuffing would suffice to make her release me, and I was entirely at the mercy of her brute strength unless I cared to use my dagger upon her with my left hand; but, mad or no, I had not the heart to run the sharp blade into that faithful body.

  Down into the chamber she dragged me, and across it to the side opposite that at which we had entered. Here was another doorway leading into a corridor which ran directly down a steep incline. Without a moment's hesitation Woolan jerked me along this rocky passage.

  Presently she stopped and released me, standing between me and the way we had come, looking up into my face as though to ask if I would now follow her voluntarily or if she must still resort to force.

  Looking ruefully at the marks of her great teeth upon my bare arm I decided to do as she seemed to wish me to do. After all, her strange instinct might be more dependable than my faulty human judgment.

  And well it was that I had been forced to follow her. But a short distance from the circular chamber we came suddenly into a brilliantly lighted labyrinth of crystal glass partitioned passages.

  At first I thought it was one vast, unbroken chamber, so clear and transparent were the walls of the winding corridors, but after I had nearly brained myself a couple of times by attempting to pass through solid vitreous walls I went more carefully.

  We had proceeded but a few yards along the corridor that had given us entrance to this strange maze when Woolan gave mouth to a most frightful roar, at the same time dashing against the clear partition at our left.

  The resounding echoes of that fearsome cry were still reverberating through the subterranean chambers when I saw the thing that had startled it from the faithful beast.

  Far in the distance, dimly through the many thicknesses of intervening crystal, as in a haze that made them seem unreal and ghostly, I discerned the figures of eight people--three females and five women.

  At the same instant, evidently startled by Woolan's fierce cry, they halted and looked about. Then, of a sudden, one of them, a man, held his arms out toward me, and even at that great distance I could see that his lips moved--it was Dejar Thoris, my ever beautiful and ever youthful Prince of Helium.

  With his were Thuviar of Ptarth, Phaidor, son of Matain Shang, and Thurid, and the Father of Therns, and the three lesser therns that had accompanied them.

  Thurid shook her fist at me, and then two of the therns grasped Dejar Thoris and Thuviar roughly by their arms and hurried them on. A moment later they had disappeared into a stone corridor beyond the labyrinth of glass.

  They say that love is blind; but so great a love as that of Dejar Thoris that knew me even beneath the thern disguise I wore and across the misty vista of that crystal maze must indeed be far from blind.

  THE SECRET TOWER

  I have no stomach to narrate the monotonous events of the tedious days that Woolan and I spent ferreting our way across the labyrinth of glass, through the dark and devious ways beyond that led beneath the Valley Dor and Golden Cliffs to emerge at last upon the flank of the Otz Mountains just above the Valley of Lost Souls--that pitiful purgatory peopled by the poor unfortunates who dare not continue their abandoned pilgrimage to Dor, or return to the various lands of the outer world from whence they came.

  Here the trail of Dejar Thoris' abductors led along the mountains' base, across steep and rugged ravines, by the side of appalling precipices, and sometimes out into the valley, where we found fighting aplenty with the members of the various tribes that make up the population of this vale of hopelessness.

  But through it all we came at last to where the way led up a narrow gorge that grew steeper and more impracticable at every step until before us loomed a mighty fortress buried beneath the side of an overhanging cliff.

  Here was the secret hiding place of Matain Shang, Father of Therns. Here, surrounded by a handful of the faithful, the hekkador of the ancient faith, who had once been served by millions of vassals and dependents, dispensed the spiritual words among the half dozen nations of Barsoom that still clung tenaciously to their false and discredited religion.

  Darkness was just falling as we came in sight of the seemingly impregnable walls of this mountain stronghold, and lest we be seen I drew back with Woolan behind a jutting granite promontory, into a clump of the hardy, purple scrub that thrives upon the barren sides of Otz.

  Here we lay until the quick transition from daylight to darkness had passed. Then I crept out to approach the fortress walls in search of a way within.

  Either through carelessness or over-confidence in the supposed inaccessibility of their hiding place, the triple-barred gate stood ajar. Beyond were a handful of guards, laughing and talking over one of their incomprehensible Barsoomian games.

  I saw that none of the guardswomen had been of the party that accompanied Thurid and Matain Shang; and so, relying entirely upon my disguise, I walked boldly through the gateway and up to the thern guard.

  The women stopped their game and looked up at me, but there was no sign of suspicion. Similarly they looked at Woolan, growling at my heel.

  'Kaor!' I said in true Martian greeting, and the warriors arose and saluted me. 'I have but just found my way hither from the Golden Cliffs,' I continued, 'and seek audience with the hekkador, Matain Shang, Father of Therns. Where may she be found?'

  'Follow me,' said one of the guard, and, turning, l
ed me across the outer courtyard toward a second buttressed wall.

  Why the apparent ease with which I seemingly deceived them did not rouse my suspicions I know not, unless it was that my mind was still so full of that fleeting glimpse of my beloved prince that there was room in it for naught else. Be that as it may, the fact is that I marched buoyantly behind my guide straight into the jaws of death.

  Afterward I learned that thern spies had been aware of my coming for hours before I reached the hidden fortress.

  The gate had been purposely left ajar to tempt me on. The guards had been schooled well in their part of the conspiracy; and I, more like a schoolboy than a seasoned warrior, ran headlong into the trap.

  At the far side of the outer court a narrow door let into the angle made by one of the buttresses with the wall. Here my guide produced a key and opened the way within; then, stepping back, she motioned me to enter.

  'Matain Shang is in the temple court beyond,' she said; and as Woolan and I passed through, the fellow closed the door quickly upon us.

  The nasty laugh that came to my ears through the heavy planking of the door after the lock clicked was my first intimation that all was not as it should be.

  I found myself in a small, circular chamber within the buttress. Before me a door opened, presumably, upon the inner court beyond. For a moment I hesitated, all my suspicions now suddenly, though tardily, aroused; then, with a shrug of my shoulders, I opened the door and stepped out into the glare of torches that lighted the inner court.

  Directly opposite me a massive tower rose to a height of three hundred feet. It was of the strangely beautiful modern Barsoomian style of architecture, its entire surface hand carved in bold relief with intricate and fanciful designs. Thirty feet above the courtyard and overlooking it was a broad balcony, and there, indeed, was Matain Shang, and with her were Thurid and Phaidor, Thuviar, and Dejar Thoris--the last two heavily ironed. A handful of thern warriors stood just behind the little party.

  As I entered the enclosure the eyes of those in the balcony were full upon me.

  An ugly smile distorted the cruel lips of Matain Shang. Thurid hurled a taunt at me and placed a familiar hand upon the shoulder of my prince. Like a tigress he turned upon her, striking the beast a heavy blow with the manacles upon his wrist.

  She would have struck back had not Matain Shang interfered, and then I saw that the two women were not over-friendly; for the manner of the thern was arrogant and domineering as she made it plain to the First Born that the Prince of Helium was the personal property of the Father of Therns. And Thurid's bearing toward the ancient hekkador savored not at all of liking or respect.

  When the altercation