Under the Moons of Mars (19 page)

I barely managed to get my blade up in time to slash-block the leap of the creature that had suddenly leapt at me—an ulsio almost twice the size of any I’d ever seen in my explorations of the depths beneath Gathol. My quick defense barely deflected the beast, however, and it took another series of cut-and-thrusts to leave it gasping for life on the ancient stone pavement, missing three of its six legs by the time it finally expired. Leaving me no time to celebrate, another leapt forward out of the gloom. I dispatched it quickly with a slash to the neck, removing its head with one clean strike. The sight of me removing its head was apparently sufficient to quell any further attack, for, although another followed at a distance, it clearly decided that feasting on its own kind was preferable to the risk I posed.

And how, you might wonder, did I come to be prowling the pits of Horz, whose dark depths had been unprobed (except by my father and great-grandfather) in hundreds of thousands of years? Horz—once heralded as the greatest of the now-dead cities of Barsoom, and the queen city and most magnificent port on the vanished Throxeus—had been built downward over the eons—to follow the dwindling ocean—then largely abandoned.

When my father saw me, he swallowed . . . and then began to teach me everything he knew about swords. He had others teach me to fight with nothing but my body, a skill at which he was less adept . . . for he was an Orovar, and his weapon was the blade—though he was expert with the radium rifle as well. My parents would not let me leave the palace until they were convinced that I was a match for all but the finest of swordsmen. That training that took years and years, naturally, because all too many of the men of Barsoom are indeed accomplished with the blade.

That did not mean I had no adventures as a youth—for the palace of Gathol is vast indeed, and some of those deep chambers had seen no man for centuries before I entered them. In those depths and darknesses I found
some
adventure; I fought off ulsios, and feral calots, and once even a banth that had found an ancient tunnel and made its way through haads of underground passages to the palace. Vanquishing a banth would have given me some small stature . . . but, alas, I had no proof, for, as I ran it through, it had thrashed about, and then rolled backward into a shaft that descended into such depths that I never heard the impact of its fall. Had I told anyone that tale, I would have been the laughingstock of all Gathol.

On an unusually warm morning, prior to my journey to Horz, I had stepped into the small side courtyard of the palace where I made a practice of exercising, only to find the lovely Jasras Kan sitting on one of the ersite benches.

“Kaor, Jasras.”

“The same to you, Dan Lan Chee.”

“You are most beauteous this morning, as you are every morning and evening. . . .”

“I would flatter you, for you deserve it,” I said.

“Without deeds behind the words, those words are like the wind. What have you done in your life, Dan Lan Chee? You are among the best Jetan players in Gathol, but that is but a game of mental skill. You have illustrious ancestors, but you have never even left Gathol. . . .”

Strictly speaking, her words were not true. I had taken my personal flier hundreds of haads from Gathol, even into the frigid lands of the last remaining Panars. I’d served under my father when he led a force against the Yellow Men of Barsoom, but I had not distinguished myself individually. For all the skill required to move padwars and princesses across the squares of the gameboard, Jetan did not hazard the body. While I had heard that in times long before Jeddaks had played Jetan with real warriors on a life-size courtyard gameboard, I myself had never partaken of such a game, although I had heard stories about my grandmother Tara having been forced into playing as a live piece in one.

Those quiet words of Jasras Kan had bitten deep into my mind, much as I would have liked to dismiss them. For Jasras was a worthy prize, a woman of wit and beauty, if of a wit sometimes too sharp. She was also the daughter of Rojas, once a princess of the invisible people, and of Garis Kan, an odwar of Hastor, who had won the heart, or at least the mind and body, of Rojas after she had returned to Gathol with my mother. Rojas had aided my mother’s return from her abduction by Hin Abtol, as had my father and great-grandfather, but none of them would ever speak of it, only her rescue and adventurous return.

For days, I flew north and west, my directional compass holding my flier on course while I slept, over haads and haads of ochre moss that grew on the lands that had once held oceans, seeing not a soul in all that time. Late on the fifth day, I beheld Horz, a sweep of buildings at the west end of a vast plateau. As I neared the city, despite the tales I had heard, I was awed at its size, and at the buildings and towers, magnificent still in their partial ruin. Following what I recalled of the little my father had said—and what he had demanded that I tell no one, on my honor as his son—I took care to circle the uppermost level of ancient Horz, avoiding the great courtyard that was doubtless still watched by the remaining Orovars, for they would put to death any outsiders for fear that others would come to take their secrets—especially, no doubt, their secret of creating food and water from nearly nothing.

I landed the flier on the flat roof of a small building on the far side of the great citadel, as close as I could to a narrow way leading to it, for, as my father had once revealed, the only known entrance to the pits of Horz was near that ancient citadel. Deep in those pits was where I determined to find Lum Tar O’s secrets. Not for me the mere baubles of ancient golden harnesses and endless jewels; of what value were those to Jasras Kan, a princess who was the daughter of a princess?

Yet I saw no one, heard no one, on my way to the small windowless building set to the rear of the citadel. The massive gates had no locks, but they were so corroded that it took all my strength to move one enough to squeeze through and then move it back so that any Orovar who chanced to come that way would see nothing obviously amiss.

As I walked toward the wide stone ramp that led away from the citadel and into the depths, I eased the cover off the torch. When the air struck its central core, a cold bluish light issued forth. I kept the light low, just bright enough to see by, and continued downward.

I had not even reached the first of the ancient dungeon chambers when the first ulsio had darted from the darkness of a dungeon chamber and attacked. Even after disposing of two, a third followed me for another hundred ods or so before it slipped back into the darkness.

Only after dispatching the vile creatures did I glance into the dungeon chambers from whence they came. The first held little besides ancient chains and bones and dust. The second held two carved, metal-bound chests. The first of these was filled with golden harnesses and jewels. Outside of a handsome dagger that fit on my harness, I left the jewels and moved to the second chest, some seven ods long; it was empty.

I was not looking for treasure—although there was plenty to be found—but for the amazing devices of Lum Tar O that would bring me accolades—and the hand of Jasras Kan.

Before long, certainly no more than a zode, I came upon a particular chamber, the very one I had sought. It was large and filled with all manner of items: a simple couch, a bench, a table, a stove of a design eons old, bookshelves filled with ancient tomes, and a reservoir of water. There was also a pile of dust, and beside it lay a dagger. Several empty chests with their lids set askew or detached and beside them lined the walls.

I had found the lair of Lum Tar O. Yet, there was no hint of the devices I sought. I walked to the wall opposite the doorway through which I had entered and examined it with care. Nothing. Nor did the wall adjacent to that reveal anything. On the third wall, I found a square slightly different in shade to the rest of the wall, and when I touched it, it flaked away to reveal the symbol of an armed warrior—a panthan by its appearance—in jet, inlaid into the stone.

I beheld a set of stone stairs leading downward, with a door below, set perhaps ten ods from the bottommost step. I stepped through the opening and descended until I stood in a small square room facing the door. There was a massive bronze lever on the dark iron door, but no hole for a key. Nor was there a circular dial with numbers upon it, in the fashion of locks on Jasoom. Instead, there was a depiction of a game of Jetan, half-played, if not more, with the profile of each piece in either jet black or gold.

The lever did not budge, even when I exerted all my strength—which is not inconsiderable.

I examined closely the Jetan game before me. The pieces were displayed in outline, all except one: the gold princess. While her likeness was small, it showed an exquisite golden-skinned face, with jet-black hair and piercing green eyes. It would have been defilement to touch that figure, and so I did not. Instead, I studied the game, recognizing that the position of the pieces represented one of the timeless puzzles of Jetan, the beginning of the end game where every move but two led to disaster.

The problem was simple. I could not tell whether the next move belonged to jet or to gold, and there were very different outcomes to the game depending on whether that move was by the jet or by the gold. Gold or jet? Jet or gold? Finally, as much by my sense as by logic, I looked again at the tiny perfection of the gold princess and touched the gold chief and then the square to which I would move him.

For several tals, nothing happened. Then the door shuddered and the very stone beneath my feet trembled. But the door did not open, and nothing else occurred.