CHAPTER V

Gods of Mars

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER V, GODS OF MARS by Edgar R. Burroughs
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CORRIDORS OF PERIL


How long I slept upon the floor of the storeroom I do not
know, but it must have been many hours.

I was awakened with a start by cries of alarm, and scarce
were my eyes opened, nor had I yet sufficiently collected my
wits to quite realize where I was, when a fusillade of shots
rang out, reverberating through the subterranean corridors in
a series of deafening echoes.

In an instant I was upon my feet. A dozen lesser therns
confronted us from a large doorway at the opposite end of
the storeroom from which we had entered. About me lay the
bodies of my companions, with the exception of Thuvia and
Tars Tarkas, who, like myself, had been asleep upon the floor
and thus escaped the first raking fire.

As I gained my feet the therns lowered their wicked rifles, their
faces distorted in mingled chagrin, consternation, and alarm.

Instantly I rose to the occasion.

"What means this?" I cried in tones of fierce anger. "Is Sator Throg
to be murdered by his own vassals?"

"Have mercy, O Master of the Tenth Cycle!" cried one of
the fellows, while the others edged toward the doorway as
though to attempt a surreptitious escape from the presence
of the mighty one.

"Ask them their mission here," whispered Thuvia at my elbow.

"What do you here, fellows?" I cried.

"Two from the outer world are at large within the dominions
of the therns. We sought them at the command of the Father
of Therns. One was white with black hair, the other a
huge green warrior," and here the fellow cast a suspicious
glance toward Tars Tarkas.

"Here, then, is one of them," spoke Thuvia, indicating the
Thark, "and if you will look upon this dead man by the door
perhaps you will recognize the other. It was left for Sator
Throg and his poor slaves to accomplish what the lesser
therns of the guard were unable to do--we have killed one
and captured the other; for this had Sator Throg given us
our liberty. And now in your stupidity have you come and
killed all but myself, and like to have killed the mighty
Sator Throg himself."

The men looked very sheepish and very scared.

"Had they not better throw these bodies to the plant men
and then return to their quarters, O Mighty One?" asked
Thuvia of me.

"Yes; do as Thuvia bids you," I said.

As the men picked up the bodies I noticed that the one
who stooped to gather up the late Sator Throg started as his
closer scrutiny fell upon the upturned face, and then the
fellow stole a furtive, sneaking glance in my direction from
the corner of his eye.

That he suspicioned something of the truth I could have sworn;
but that it was only a suspicion which he did not dare voice was
evidenced by his silence.

Again, as he bore the body from the room, he shot a quick
but searching glance toward me, and then his eyes fell once
more upon the bald and shiny dome of the dead man in his
arms. The last fleeting glimpse that I obtained of his profile
as he passed from my sight without the chamber revealed a
cunning smile of triumph upon his lips.

Only Tars Tarkas, Thuvia, and I were left. The fatal
marksmanship of the therns had snatched from our companions
whatever slender chance they had of gaining the perilous
freedom of the world without.

So soon as the last of the gruesome procession had disappeared
the girl urged us to take up our flight once more.

She, too, had noted the questioning attitude of the thern
who had borne Sator Throg away.

"It bodes no good for us, O Prince," she said. "For even
though this fellow dared not chance accusing you in error,
there be those above with power sufficient to demand a closer
scrutiny, and that, Prince would indeed prove fatal."

I shrugged my shoulders. It seemed that in any event the
outcome of our plight must end in death. I was refreshed from
my sleep, but still weak from loss of blood. My wounds were
painful. No medicinal aid seemed possible. How I longed
for the almost miraculous healing power of the strange salves
and lotions of the green Martian women. In an hour they
would have had me as new.

I was discouraged. Never had a feeling of such utter hopelessness
come over me in the face of danger. Then the long flowing, yellow
locks of the Holy Thern, caught by some vagrant draught, blew
about my face.

Might they not still open the way of freedom? If we acted
in time, might we not even yet escape before the general
alarm was sounded? We could at least try.

"What will the fellow do first, Thuvia?" I asked. "How long
will it be before they may return for us?"

"He will go directly to the Father of Therns, old Matai
Shang. He may have to wait for an audience, but since he is
very high among the lesser therns, in fact as a thorian among
them, it will not be long that Matai Shang will keep him waiting.

"Then if the Father of Therns puts credence in his story,
another hour will see the galleries and chambers, the courts
and gardens, filled with searchers."

"What we do then must be done within an hour. What is the
best way, Thuvia, the shortest way out of this celestial Hades?"

"Straight to the top of the cliffs, Prince," she replied, "and
then through the gardens to the inner courts. From there our
way will lie within the temples of the therns and across them to
the outer court. Then the ramparts--O Prince, it is hopeless.
Ten thousand warriors could not hew a way to liberty from out
this awful place.

"Since the beginning of time, little by little, stone by stone,
have the therns been ever adding to the defences of their
stronghold. A continuous line of impregnable fortifications
circles the outer slopes of the Mountains of Otz.

"Within the temples that lie behind the ramparts a million
fighting-men are ever ready. The courts and gardens are
filled with slaves, with women and with children.

"None could go a stone's throw without detection."

"If there is no other way, Thuvia, why dwell upon the
difficulties of this. We must face them."

"Can we not better make the attempt after dark?" asked
Tars Tarkas. "There would seem to be no chance by day."

"There would be a little better chance by night, but even
then the ramparts are well guarded; possibly better than by
day. There are fewer abroad in the courts and gardens,
though," said Thuvia.

"What is the hour?" I asked.

"It was midnight when you released me from my chains,"
said Thuvia. "Two hours later we reached the storeroom.
There you slept for fourteen hours. It must now be nearly
sundown again. Come, we will go to some nearby window in
the cliff and make sure."

So saying, she led the way through winding corridors
until at a sudden turn we came upon an opening which
overlooked the Valley Dor.

At our right the sun was setting, a huge red orb, below the
western range of Otz. A little below us stood the Holy Thern
on watch upon his balcony. His scarlet robe of office was
pulled tightly about him in anticipation of the cold that comes
so suddenly with darkness as the sun sets. So rare is the
atmosphere of Mars that it absorbs very little heat from the
sun. During the daylight hours it is always extremely hot; at
night it is intensely cold. Nor does the thin atmosphere
refract the sun's rays or diffuse its light as upon Earth.
There is no twilight on Mars. When the great orb of day disappears
beneath the horizon the effect is precisely as that of the
extinguishing of a single lamp within a chamber. From brilliant
light you are plunged without warning into utter darkness.
Then the moons come; the mysterious, magic moons of Mars,
hurtling like monster meteors low across the face of the planet.

The declining sun lighted brilliantly the eastern banks of
Korus, the crimson sward, the gorgeous forest. Beneath the
trees we saw feeding many herds of plant men. The adults
stood aloft upon their toes and their mighty tails, their talons
pruning every available leaf and twig. It was then that I
understood the careful trimming of the trees which had led
me to form the mistaken idea when first I opened my eyes upon
the grove that it was the playground of a civilized people.

As we watched, our eyes wandered to the rolling Iss,
which issued from the base of the cliffs beneath us.
Presently there emerged from the mountain a canoe laden with
lost souls from the outer world. There were a dozen of them.
All were of the highly civilized and cultured race of red men
who are dominant on Mars.

The eyes of the herald upon the balcony beneath us fell
upon the doomed party as soon as did ours. He raised his
head and leaning far out over the low rail that rimmed his
dizzy perch, voiced the shrill, weird wail that called the
demons of this hellish place to the attack.

For an instant the brutes stood with stiffly erected ears, then
they poured from the grove toward the river's bank, covering
the distance with great, ungainly leaps.

The party had landed and was standing on the sward as
the awful horde came in sight. There was a brief and futile
effort of defence. Then silence as the huge, repulsive shapes
covered the bodies of their victims and scores of sucking
mouths fastened themselves to the flesh of their prey.

I turned away in disgust.

"Their part is soon over," said Thuvia. "The great white apes
get the flesh when the plant men have drained the arteries.
Look, they are coming now."

As I turned my eyes in the direction the girl indicated, I
saw a dozen of the great white monsters running across the
valley toward the river bank. Then the sun went down and
darkness that could almost be felt engulfed us.

Thuvia lost no time in leading us toward the corridor
which winds back and forth up through the cliffs toward the
surface thousands of feet above the level on which we had been.

Twice great banths, wandering loose through the galleries,
blocked our progress, but in each instance Thuvia spoke a low
word of command and the snarling beasts slunk sullenly away.

"If you can dissolve all our obstacles as easily as you
master these fierce brutes I can see no difficulties in our way,"
I said to the girl, smiling. "How do you do it?"

She laughed, and then shuddered.

"I do not quite know," she said. "When first I came here I
angered Sator Throg, because I repulsed him. He ordered me
to be thrown into one of the great pits in the inner gardens.
It was filled with banths. In my own country I had been
accustomed to command. Something in my voice, I do not
know what, cowed the beasts as they sprang to attack me.

"Instead of tearing me to pieces, as Sator Throg had
desired, they fawned at my feet. So greatly were Sator Throg
and his friends amused by the sight that they kept me to train
and handle the terrible creatures. I know them all by name.
There are many of them wandering through these lower regions.
They are the scavengers. Many prisoners die here in their chains.
The banths solve the problem of sanitation, at least in this respect.

"In the gardens and temples above they are kept in pits.
The therns fear them. It is because of the banths that they
seldom venture below ground except as their duties call them."

An idea occurred to me, suggested by what Thuvia had just said.

"Why not take a number of banths and set them loose before us
above ground?" I asked.

Thuvia laughed.

"It would distract attention from us, I am sure," she said.

She commenced calling in a low singsong voice that was
half purr. She continued this as we wound our tedious way
through the maze of subterranean passages and chambers.

Presently soft, padded feet sounded close behind us, and
as I turned I saw a pair of great, green eyes shining in the
dark shadows at our rear. From a diverging tunnel a sinuous,
tawny form crept stealthily toward us.

Low growls and angry snarls assailed our ears on every
side as we hastened on and one by one the ferocious
creatures answered the call of their mistress.

She spoke a word to each as it joined us. Like well-
schooled terriers, they paced the corridors with us, but I
could not help but note the lathering jowls, nor the hungry
expressions with which they eyed Tars Tarkas and myself.

Soon we were entirely surrounded by some fifty of the
brutes. Two walked close on either side of Thuvia, as guards
might walk. The sleek sides of others now and then touched
my own naked limbs. It was a strange experience; the
almost noiseless passage of naked human feet and padded
paws; the golden walls splashed with precious stones; the
dim light cast by the tiny radium bulbs set at considerable
distances along the roof; the huge, maned beasts of prey
crowding with low growls about us; the mighty green warrior
towering high above us all; myself crowned with the priceless
diadem of a Holy Thern; and leading the procession the
beautiful girl, Thuvia.

I shall not soon forget it.

Presently we approached a great chamber more brightly
lighted than the corridors. Thuvia halted us. Quietly she
stole toward the entrance and glanced within. Then she
motioned us to follow her.

The room was filled with specimens of the strange beings
that inhabit this underworld; a heterogeneous collection of
hybrids--the offspring of the prisoners from the outside
world; red and green Martians and the white race of therns.

Constant confinement below ground had wrought odd freaks
upon their skins. They more resemble corpses than living
beings. Many are deformed, others maimed, while the
majority, Thuvia explained, are sightless.

As they lay sprawled about the floor, sometimes overlapping
one another, again in heaps of several bodies, they suggested
instantly to me the grotesque illustrations that I had
seen in copies of Dante's INFERNO, and what more fitting
comparison? Was this not indeed a veritable hell, peopled
by lost souls, dead and damned beyond all hope?

Picking our way carefully we threaded a winding path
across the chamber, the great banths sniffing hungrily at
the tempting prey spread before them in such tantalizing and
defenceless profusion.

Several times we passed the entrances to other chambers similarly
peopled, and twice again we were compelled to cross directly
through them. In others were chained prisoners and beasts.

"Why is it that we see no therns?" I asked of Thuvia.

"They seldom traverse the underworld at night, for
then it is that the great banths prowl the dim corridors
seeking their prey. The therns fear the awful denizens of
this cruel and hopeless world that they have fostered and allowed
to grow beneath their feet. The prisoners even sometimes turn
upon them and rend them. The thern can never tell from
what dark shadow an assassin may spring upon his back.

"By day it is different. Then the corridors and chambers
are filled with guards passing to and fro; slaves from the
temples above come by hundreds to the granaries and
storerooms. All is life then. You did not see it because I led
you not in the beaten tracks, but through roundabout passages
seldom used. Yet it is possible that we may meet a thern even yet.
They do occasionally find it necessary to come here after the sun has set.
Because of this I have moved with such great caution."

But we reached the upper galleries without detection and
presently Thuvia halted us at the foot of a short, steep ascent.

"Above us," she said, "is a doorway which opens on to
the inner gardens. I have brought you thus far. From here
on for four miles to the outer ramparts our way will be beset
by countless dangers. Guards patrol the courts, the temples,
the gardens. Every inch of the ramparts themselves is
beneath the eye of a sentry."

I could not understand the necessity for such an enormous
force of armed men about a spot so surrounded by mystery
and superstition that not a soul upon Barsoom would have
dared to approach it even had they known its exact location.
I questioned Thuvia, asking her what enemies the therns could
fear in their impregnable fortress.

We had reached the doorway now and Thuvia was opening it.

"They fear the black pirates of Barsoom, O Prince," she
said, "from whom may our first ancestors preserve us."

The door swung open; the smell of growing things greeted
my nostrils; the cool night air blew against my cheek. The
great banths sniffed the unfamiliar odours, and then with a
rush they broke past us with low growls, swarming across the
gardens beneath the lurid light of the nearer moon.

Suddenly a great cry arose from the roofs of the temples;
a cry of alarm and warning that, taken up from point to
point, ran off to the east and to the west, from temple, court,
and rampart, until it sounded as a dim echo in the distance.

The great Thark's long-sword leaped from its scabbard;
Thuvia shrank shuddering to my side.