The Chessmen of Mars
sardonic grin in twain, and open him to the middle of his breast bone.
As the dead hand relaxed its grasp upon Tara's wrist the girl leaped
forward, without a backward glance, to Gahan's side. His left arm
encircled her, nor did she draw away, as with ready sword the Gatholian
awaited Fate's next decree. Before them Tara's deliverer was wiping the
blood from his sword upon the hair of his victim. He was evidently a
Manatorian, his trappings those of the Jeddak's Guard, and so his act
was inexplicable to Gahan and to Tara. Presently he sheathed his sword
and approached them.
"When a man chooses to hide his identity behind an assumed name," he
said, looking straight into Gahan's eyes, "whatever friend pierces the
deception were no friend if he divulged the other's secret."
He paused as though awaiting a reply.
"Your integrity has perceived and your lips voiced an unalterable
truth," replied Gahan, whose mind was filled with wonder if the
implication could by any possibility be true--that this Manatorian had
guessed his identity.
"We are thus agreed," continued the other, "and I may tell you that
though I am here known as A-Sor, my real name is Tasor." He paused and
watched Gahan's face intently for any sign of the effect of this
knowledge and was rewarded with a quick, though guarded expression of
recognition.
Tasor! Friend of his youth. The son of that great Gatholian noble who
had given his life so gloriously, however futilely, in an attempt to
defend Gahan's sire from the daggers of the assassins. Tasor an
under-padwar in the guard of O-Tar, Jeddak of Manator! It was
inconceivable--and yet it was he; there could be no doubt of it.
"Tasor," Gahan repeated aloud. "But it is no Manatorian name." The
statement was half interrogatory, for Gahan's curiosity was aroused. He
would know how his friend and loyal subject had become a Manatorian.
Long years had passed since Tasor had disappeared as mysteriously as
the Princess Haja and many other of Gahan's subjects. The Jed of Gathol
had long supposed him dead.
"No," replied Tasor, "nor is it a Manatorian name. Come, while I search
for a hiding place for you in some forgotten chamber in one of the
untenanted portions of the palace, and as we go I will tell you briefly
how Tasor the Gatholian became A-Sor the Manatorian.
"It befell that as I rode with a dozen of my warriors along the western
border of Gathol searching for zitidars that had strayed from my herds,
we were set upon and surrounded by a great company of Manatorians. They
overpowered us, though not before half our number was slain and the
balance helpless from wounds. And so I was brought a prisoner to
Manataj, a distant city of Manator, and there sold into slavery. A
woman bought me--a princess of Manataj whose wealth and position were
unequaled in the city of her birth. She loved me and when her husband
discovered her infatuation she beseeched me to slay him, and when I
refused she hired another to do it. Then she married me; but none would
have aught to do with her in Manataj, for they suspected her guilty
knowledge of her husband's murder. And so we set out from Manataj for
Manatos accompanied by a great caravan bearing all her worldly goods
and jewels and precious metals, and on the way she caused the rumor to
be spread that she and I had died. Then we came to Manator instead, she
taking a new name and I the name A-Sor, that we might not be traced
through our names. With her great wealth she bought me a post in The
Jeddak's Guard and none knows that I am not a Manatorian, for she is
dead. She was beautiful, but she was a devil."
"And you never sought to return to your native city?" asked Gahan.
"Never has the hope been absent from my heart, or my mind empty of a
plan," replied Tasor. "I dream of it by day and by night, but always
must I return to the same conclusion--that there can be but a single
means for escape. I must wait until Fortune favors me with a place in a
raiding party to Gathol. Then, once within the boundaries of my own
country, they shall see me no more."
"Perhaps your opportunity lies already within your grasp," said Gahan,
"has not your fealty to your own Jed been undermined by years of
association with the men of Manator." The statement was half challenge.
"And my Jed stood before me now," cried Tasor, "and my avowal could be
made without violating his confidence, I should cast my sword at his
feet and beg the high privilege of dying for him as my sire died for
his sire."
There could be no doubt of his sincerity nor any that he was cognizant
of Gahan's identity. The Jed of Gathol smiled. "And if your Jed were
here there is little doubt but that he would command you to devote your
talents and your prowess to the rescue of the Princess Tara of Helium,"
he said, meaningly. "And he possessed the knowledge I have gained
during my captivity he would say to you, 'Go, Tasor, to the pit where
A-kor, son of Haja of Gathol, is confined and set him free and with him
arouse the slaves from Gathol and march to The Gate of Enemies and
offer your services to U-Thor of Manataj, who is wed to Haja of Gathol,
and ask of him in return that he attack the palace of O-Tar and rescue
Tara of Helium and when that thing is accomplished that he free the
slaves of Gathol and furnish them with the arms and the means to return
to their own country.' That, Tasor of Gathol, is what Gahan your Jed
would demand of you."
"And that, Turan the slave, is what I shall bend my every effort to
accomplish after I have found a safe refuge for Tara of Helium and her
panthan," replied Tasor.
Gahan's glance carried to Tasor an intimation of his Jed's
gratification and filled him with a chivalrous determination to do the
thing required of him, or die, for he considered that he had received
from the lips of his beloved ruler a commission that placed upon his
shoulders a responsibility that encompassed not alone the life of Gahan
and Tara but the welfare, perhaps the whole future, of Gathol. And so
he hastened them onward through the musty corridors of the old palace
where the dust of ages lay undisturbed upon the marble tiles. Now and
again he tried a door until he found one that was unlocked. Opening it
he ushered them into a chamber, heavy with dust. Crumbling silks and
furs adorned the walls, with ancient weapons, and great paintings whose
colors were toned by age to wondrous softness.
"This be as good as any place," he said. "No one comes here. Never have
I been here before, so I know no more of the other chambers than you;
but this one, at least, I can find again when I bring you food and
drink. O-Mai the Cruel occupied this portion of the palace during his
reign, five thousand years before O-Tar. In one of these apartments he
was found dead, his face contorted in an expression of fear so horrible
that it drove to madness those who looked upon it; yet there was no
mark of violence upon him. Since then the quarters of O-Mai have been
shunned for the legends have it that the ghosts of Corphals pursue the
spirit of the wicked Jeddak nightly through these chambers, shrieking
and moaning as they go. But," he added, as though to reassure himself
as well as his companions, "such things may not be countenanced by the
culture of Gathol or Helium."
Gahan laughed. "And if all who looked upon him were driven mad, who
then was there to perform the last rites or prepare the body of the
Jeddak for them?"
"There was none," replied Tasor. "Where they found him they left him
and there to this very day his mouldering bones lie hid in some
forgotten chamber of this forbidden suite."
Tasor left them then assuring them that he would seek the first
opportunity to speak with A-Kor, and upon the following day he would
bring them food and drink.*
* Those who have read John Carter's description of the Green Martians
in A Princess of Mars will recall that these strange people could exist
for considerable periods of time without food or water, and to a lesser
degree is the same true of all Martians.
After Tasor had gone Tara turned to Gahan and approaching laid a hand
upon his arm. "So swiftly have events transpired since I recognized you
beneath your disguise," she said, "that I have had no opportunity to
assure you of my gratitude and the high esteem that your valor has won
for you in my consideration. Let me now acknowledge my indebtedness;
and if promises be not vain from one whose life and liberty are in
grave jeopardy, accept my assurance of the great reward that awaits you
at the hand of my father in Helium."
"I desire no reward," he replied, "other than the happiness of knowing
that the woman I love is happy."
For an instant the eyes of Tara of Helium blazed as she drew herself
haughtily to her full height, and then they softened and her attitude
relaxed as she shook her head sadly.
"I have it not in my heart to reprimand you, Turan," she said, "however
great your fault, for you have been an honorable and a loyal friend to
Tara of Helium; but you must not say what my ears must not hear."
"You mean," he asked, "that the ears of a Princess must not listen to
words of love from a panthan?"
"It is not that, Turan," she replied; "but rather that I may not in
honor listen to words of love from another than him to whom I am
betrothed--a fellow countryman, Djor Kantos."
"You mean, Tara of Helium," he cried, "that were it not for that you
would--"
"Stop!" she commanded. "You have no right to assume aught else than my
lips testify."
"The eyes are ofttimes more eloquent than the lips, Tara," he replied;
"and in yours I have read that which is neither hatred nor contempt for
Turan the panthan, and my heart tells me that your lips bore false
witness when they cried in anger: 'I hate you!'"
"I do not hate you, Turan, nor yet may I love you," said the girl,
simply.
"When I broke my way out from the chamber of I-Gos I was indeed upon
the verge of believing that you did hate me," he said, "for only
hatred, it seemed to me, could account for the fact that you had gone
without making an effort to liberate me; but presently both my heart
and my judgment told me that Tara of Helium could not have deserted a
companion in distress, and though I still am in ignorance of the facts
I know that it was beyond your power to aid me."
"It was indeed," said the girl. "Scarce had I-Gos fallen at the bite of
my dagger than I heard the approach of warriors. I ran then to hide
until they had passed, thinking to return and liberate you; but in
seeking to elude the party I had heard I ran full into the arms of
another. They questioned me as to your whereabouts, and I told them
that you had gone ahead and that I was following you and thus I led
them from you."
"I knew," was Gahan's only comment, but his heart was glad with
elation, as a lover's must be who has heard from the lips of his
divinity an avowal of interest and loyalty, however little tinged by a
suggestion of warmer regard it may be. To be abused, even, by the
mistress of one's heart is better than to be ignored.
As the two conversed in the ill-lit chamber, the dim bulbs of which
were encrusted with the accumulated dust of centuries, a bent and
withered figure traversed slowly the gloomy corridors without, his weak
and watery eyes peering through thick lenses at the signs of passage
written upon the dusty floor.
CHAPTER XIX
THE MENACE OF THE DEAD
The night was still young when there came one to the entrance of the
banquet hall where O-Tar of Manator dined with his chiefs, and brushing
past the guards entered the great room with the insolence of a
privileged character, as in truth he was. As he approached the head of
the long board O-Tar took notice of him.