CHAPTER XII
GHEK PLAYS PRANKS
While Tara of Helium was being led to The Towers of Jetan, Ghek wasescorted to the pits beneath the palace where he was imprisoned in adimly-lighted chamber. Here he found a bench and a table standing uponthe dirt floor near the wall, and set in the wall several rings fromwhich depended short lengths of chain. At the base of the walls wereseveral holes in the dirt floor. These, alone, of the several things hesaw, interested him. Ghek sat down upon the bench and waited insilence, listening. Presently the lights were extinguished. If Ghekcould have smiled he would have then, for Ghek could see as well in thedark as in the light--better, perhaps. He watched the dark openings ofthe holes in the floor and waited. Presently he detected a change inthe air about him--it grew heavy with a strange odor, and once againmight Ghek have smiled, could he have smiled.
Let them replace all the air in the chamber with their most deadlyfumes; it would be all the same to Ghek, the kaldane, who, having nolungs, required no air. With the rykor it might be different. Deprivedof air it would die; but if only a sufficient amount of the gas wasintroduced to stupefy an ordinary creature it would have no effect uponthe rykor, who had no objective mind to overcome. So long as the excessof carbon dioxide in the blood was not sufficient to prevent heartaction, the rykor would suffer only a diminution of vitality; but wouldstill respond to the exciting agency of the kaldane's brain.
Ghek caused the rykor to assume a sitting position with its backagainst the wall where it might remain without direction from hisbrain. Then he released his contact with its spinal cord; but remainedin position upon its shoulders, waiting and watching, for the kaldane'scuriosity was aroused. He had not long to wait before the lights wereflashed on and one of the locked doors opened to admit a half-dozenwarriors. They approached him rapidly and worked quickly. First theyremoved all his weapons and then, snapping a fetter about one of therykor's ankles, secured him to the end of one of the chains hangingfrom the walls. Next they dragged the long table to a new position andthere bolted it to the floor so that an end, instead of the middle, wasdirectly before the prisoner. On the table before him they set food andwater and upon the opposite end of the table they laid the key to thefetter. Then they unlocked and opened all the doors and departed.
* * * * *
When Turan the panthan regained consciousness it was to the realizationof a sharp pain in one of his forearms. The effects of the gas departedas rapidly as they had overcome him so that as he opened his eyes hewas in full possession of all his faculties. The lights were on againand in their glow there was revealed to the man the figure of a giantMartian 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 Turandiscovered that his weapons had been removed--short-sword, long-sword,dagger, and pistol. The rat charged him then and striking the creatureaway with his hand the man rose and backed off, searching for somethingwith which to strike a harder blow. Again the rat charged and as Turanstepped quickly back to avoid the menacing jaws, something seemed tojerk suddenly upon his right ankle, and as he drew his left foot backto regain his equilibrium his heel caught upon a taut chain and he fellheavily backward to the floor just as the rat leaped upon his breastand sought his throat.
The Martian rat is a fierce and unlovely thing. It is many-legged andhairless, its hide resembling that of a newborn mouse in repulsiveness.In size and weight it is comparable to a large Airedale terrier. Itseyes are small and close-set, and almost hidden in deep, fleshyapertures. But its most ferocious and repulsive feature is its jaws,the entire bony structure of which protrudes several inches beyond theflesh, revealing five sharp, spadelike teeth in the upper jaw and thesame number of similar teeth in the lower, the whole suggesting theappearance of a rotting face from which much of the flesh has sloughedaway.
It was such a thing that leaped upon the breast of the panthan to tearat his jugular. Twice Turan struck it away as he sought to regain hisfeet, but both times it returned with increased ferocity to renew theattack. Its only weapons are its jaws since its broad, splay feet arearmed with blunt talons. With its protruding jaws it excavates itswinding 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 thishe succeeded in doing until chance gave him a hold upon the creature'sthroat. After that the end was but a matter of moments. Rising at lasthe flung the lifeless thing from him with a shudder of disgust.
Now he turned his attention to a hurried inventory of the newconditions which surrounded him since the moment of his incarceration.He realized vaguely what had happened. He had been anaesthetized andstripped of his weapons, and as he rose to his feet he saw that oneankle was fettered to a chain in the wall. He looked about the room.All the doors swung wide open! His captors would render hisimprisonment the more cruel by leaving ever before him temptingglimpses of open aisles to the freedom he could not attain. Upon theend of the table and within easy reach was food and drink. This atleast was attainable and at sight of it his starved stomach seemedalmost to cry aloud for sustenance. It was with difficulty that he ateand drank in moderation.
As he devoured the food his eyes wandered about the confines of hisprison until suddenly they seized upon a thing that lay on the table atthe end farthest from him. It was a key. He raised his fettered ankleand examined the lock. There could be no doubt of it! The key that laythere on the table before him was the key to that very lock. A carelesswarrior had laid it there and departed, forgetting.
Hope surged high in the breast of Gahan of Gathol, of Turan thepanthan. Furtively his eyes sought the open doorways. There was no onein sight. Ah, if he could but gain his freedom! He would find some wayfrom this odious city back to her side and never again would he leaveher until he had won safety for her or death for himself.
He rose and moved cautiously toward the opposite end of the table wherelay the coveted key. The fettered ankle halted his first step, but hestretched at full length along the table, extending eager fingerstoward the prize. They almost laid hold upon it--a little more and theywould touch it. He strained and stretched, but still the thing lay justbeyond his reach. He hurled himself forward until the iron fetter bitdeep into his flesh, but all futilely. He sat back upon the bench thenand glared at the open doors and the key, realizing now that they werepart of a well-laid scheme of refined torture, none the lessdemoralizing 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 returnedto his unfinished meal. At least they should not have the satisfactionof knowing how sorely they had hit him. As he ate it occurred to himthat by dragging the table along the floor he could bring the keywithin his reach, but when he essayed to do so, he found that the tablehad been securely bolted to the floor during the period of hisunconsciousness. Again Gahan smiled and shrugged and resumed his eating.
* * * * *
When the warriors had departed from the prison in which Ghek wasconfined, the kaldane crawled from the shoulders of the rykor to thetable. Here he drank a little water and then directed the hands of therykor to the balance of it and to the food, upon which the brainlessthing fell with avidity. While it was thus engaged Ghek took hisspider-like way along the table to the opposite end where lay the keyto the fetter. Seizing it in a chela he leaped to the floor andscurried rapidly toward the mouth of one of the burrows against thewall, into which he disappeared. For long had the brain beencontemplating these burrow entrances. They appealed to his kaldaneantastes, and further, they pointed a hiding place for the key and a lairfor the only kind of food that the kaldane relished--flesh and blood.
Ghek had never seen an ulsio, since these great Martian rats had longago disappeared from Bantoom, their flesh and blood having been greatlyrelished by the kaldanes; but Ghek had inherited, almost unimpaired,every memory of
every ancestor, and so he knew that ulsio inhabitedthese lairs and that ulsio was good to eat, and he knew what ulsiolooked like and what his habits were, though he had never seen him norany picture of him. As we breed animals for the transmission ofphysical attributes, so the Kaldanes breed themselves for thetransmission of attributes of the mind, including memory and the powerof recollection, and thus have they raised what we term instinct, abovethe level of the threshold of the objective mind where it may becommanded and utilized by recollection. Doubtless in our own subjectiveminds 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 transientphase of our present existence. Ah, if we had but the power to recallthem! Before us would unfold the forgotten story of the lost eons thathave preceded us. We might even walk with God in the garden of Hisstars while man was still but a budding idea within His mind.
Ghek descended into the burrow at a steep incline for some ten feet,when he found himself in an elaborate and delightful network ofburrows! The kaldane was elated. This indeed was life! He moved rapidlyand fearlessly and he went as straight to his goal as you could to thekitchen of your own home. This goal lay at a low level in a spheroidalcavity about the size of a large barrel. Here, in a nest of torn bitsof silk and fur lay six baby ulsios.
When the mother returned there were but five babies and a greatspider-like creature, which she immediately sprang to attack only to bemet by powerful chelae which seized and held her so that she could notmove. Slowly they dragged her throat toward a hideous mouth and in alittle moment she was dead.
Ghek might have remained in the nest for a long time, since there wasample food for many days; but he did not do so. Instead he explored theburrows. He followed them into many subterranean chambers of the cityof Manator, and upward through walls to rooms above the ground. Hefound many ingeniously devised traps, and he found poisoned food andother signs of the constant battle that the inhabitants of Manatorwaged against these repulsive creatures that dwelt beneath their homesand public buildings.
His exploration revealed not only the vast proportions of the networkof runways that apparently traversed every portion of the city, but thegreat antiquity of the majority of them. Tons upon tons of dirt musthave been removed, and for a long time he wondered where it had beendeposited, until in following downward a tunnel of great size andlength he sensed before him the thunderous rush of subterranean waters,and presently came to the bank of a great, underground river, tumblingonward, no doubt, the length of a world to the buried sea of Omean.Into this torrential sewer had unthinkable generations of ulsios pushedtheir few handsful of dirt in the excavating of their vast labyrinth.
For only a moment did Ghek tarry by the river, for his seeminglyaimless wanderings were in reality prompted by a definite purpose, andthis he pursued with vigor and singleness of design. He followed suchrunways as appeared to terminate in the pits or other chambers of theinhabitants of the city, and these he explored, usually from the safetyof a burrow's mouth, until satisfied that what he sought was not there.He moved swiftly upon his spider legs and covered remarkable distancesin short periods of time.
His search not being rewarded with immediate success, he decided toreturn to the pit where his rykor lay chained and look to its wants. Ashe approached the end of the burrow that terminated in the pit heslackened his pace, stopping just within the entrance of the runwaythat he might scan the interior of the chamber before entering it. Ashe did so he saw the figure of a warrior appear suddenly in an oppositedoorway. The rykor sprawled upon the table, his hands groping blindlyfor more food. Ghek saw the warrior pause and gaze in suddenastonishment at the rykor; he saw the fellow's eyes go wide and anashen hue replace the copper bronze of his cheek. He stepped back asthough someone had struck him in the face. For an instant only he stoodthus as in a paralysis of fear, then he uttered a smothered shriek andturned and fled. Again was it a catastrophe that Ghek, the kaldane,could not smile.
Quickly entering the room he crawled to the table top and affixedhimself to the shoulders of his rykor, and there he waited; and who maysay that Ghek, though he could not smile, possessed not a sense ofhumor? For a half-hour he sat there, and then there came to him thesound of men approaching along corridors of stone. He could hear theirarms clank against the rocky walls and he knew that they came at arapid pace; but just before they reached the entrance to his prisonthey paused and advanced more slowly. In the lead was an officer, andjust behind him, wide-eyed and perhaps still a little ashen, thewarrior who had so recently departed in haste. At the doorway theyhalted and the officer turned sternly upon the warrior. With upraisedfinger he pointed at Ghek.
"There sits the creature! Didst thou dare lie, then, to thy dwar?"
"I swear," cried the warrior, "that I spoke the truth. But a momentsince the thing groveled, headless, upon this very table! And may myfirst ancestor strike me dead upon the spot if I speak other than atrue word!"
The officer looked puzzled. The men of Mars seldom if ever lie. Hescratched his head. Then he addressed Ghek. "How long have you beenhere?" he asked.
"Who knows better than those who placed me here and chained me to awall?" he returned in reply.
"Saw you this warrior enter here a few minutes since?"
"I saw him," replied Ghek.
"And you sat there where you sit now?" continued the officer.
"Look thou to my chain and tell me then where else might I sit!" criedGhek. "Art the people of thy city all fools?"
Three other warriors pressed behind the two in front, craning theirnecks to view the prisoner while they grinned at the discomfiture oftheir fellow. The officer scowled at Ghek.
"Thy tongue is as venomous as that of the she-banth O-Tar sent to TheTowers of Jetan," he said.
"You speak of the young woman who was captured with me?" asked Ghek,his expressionless monotone and face revealing naught of the interesthe felt.
"I speak of her," replied the dwar, and then turning to the warrior whohad summoned him: "return to thy quarters and remain there until thenext games. Perhaps by that time thy eyes may have learned not todeceive thee."
The fellow cast a venomous glance at Ghek and turned away. The officershook his head. "I do not understand it," he muttered. "Always hasU-Van been a true and dependable warrior. Could it be--?" he glancedpiercingly at Ghek. "Thou hast a strange head that misfits thy body,fellow," he cried. "Our legends tell us of those ancient creatures thatplaced hallucinations upon the mind of their fellows. If thou be suchthen maybe U-Van suffered from thy forbidden powers. If thou be suchO-Tar will know well how to deal with thee." He wheeled about andmotioned his warriors to follow him.
"Wait!" cried Ghek. "Unless I am to be starved, send me food."
"You have had food," replied the warrior.
"Am I to be fed but once a day?" asked Ghek. "I require food oftenerthan that. Send me food."
"You shall have food," replied the officer. "None may say that theprisoners of Manator are ill-fed. Just are the laws of Manator," and hedeparted.
No sooner had the sounds of their passing died away in the distancethan Ghek clambered from the shoulders of his rykor, and scurried tothe burrow where he had hidden the key. Fetching it he unlocked thefetter from about the creature's ankle, locked it empty and carried thekey farther down into the burrow. Then he returned to his place uponhis brainless servitor. After a while he heard footsteps approaching,whereupon he rose and passed into another corridor from that down whichhe knew the warrior was coming. Here he waited out of sight, listening.He heard the man enter the chamber and halt. He heard a mutteredexclamation, followed by the jangle of metal dishes as a salver wasslammed upon a table; then rapidly retreating footsteps, which quicklydied away in the distance.
Ghek lost no time in returning to the chamber, recovering the key,relocking the rykor to his chain. Then he replaced the key in theburrow and squatting on the table beside his headless body, directedi
ts hands toward the food. While the rykor ate Ghek sat listening forthe scraping sandals and clattering arms that he knew soon would come.Nor had he long to wait. Ghek scrambled to the shoulders of his rykoras he heard them coming. Again it was the officer who had been summonedby U-Van and with him were three warriors. The one directly behind himwas evidently the same who had brought the food, for his eyes went widewhen he saw Ghek sitting at the table and he looked very foolish as thedwar turned his stern glance upon him.
"It is even as I said," he cried. "He was not here when I brought hisfood."
"But he is here now," said the officer grimly, "and his fetter islocked about his ankle. Look! it has not been opened--but where is thekey? It should be upon the table at the end opposite him. Where is thekey, creature?" he shouted at Ghek.
"How should I, a prisoner, know better than my jailer the whereaboutsof the key to my fetters?" he retorted.
"But it lay here," cried the officer, pointing to the other end of thetable.
"Did you see it?" asked Ghek.
The officer hesitated. "No but it must have been there," he parried.
"Did you see the key lying there?" asked Ghek, pointing to anotherwarrior.
The fellow shook his head negatively. "And you? and you?" continued thekaldane addressing the others.
They both admitted that they never had seen the key. "And if it hadbeen there how could I have reached it?" he continued.
"No, he could not have reached it," admitted the officer; "but thereshall be no more of this! I-Zav, you will remain here on guard withthis prisoner until you are relieved."
I-Zav looked anything but happy as this intelligence was transmitted tohim, and he eyed Ghek suspiciously as the dwar and the other warriorsturned and left him to his unhappy lot.
The Chessmen of Mars Page 13