The Swordsman of Mars Page 8

  As he and the resplendent ambassador exchanged dignified salutes, the Earthman exulted over the fact that she had said, "my friend."

  Meanwhile, Neva had beckoned a pretty little black-haired, brown-eyed beauty to her side.

  "I take it that you have met the ambassador, Trixana," she said, "but not my friend, Sheb Takkor Jen."

  Thorne acknowledged with a courtly salute, and a moment later found himself walking at the side of the vivacious little brunette, following Neva and Lori Thool as they made then-way toward the gaming boards. From the corner of his eye, he saw Irintz Tel standing, chin on chest and hands clasped behind him. And he was quite positive that the Dixtar's look was not friendly.

  A moment later he saw Sel Han slip up beside Irintz Tel and, bending, whisper some secret communication. The Dixtar nodded, and again flashed a look at Thorne.

  Lori Thool and the two girls chanced much gold at the gaming boards, and Trixana won quite heavily. But Thorne only looked on. As he was standing, watching the game, he felt a touch on his arm, and turning, beheld the dly face of the white-haired Lal Vak.

  "Greetings, Sheb Takkor Jen," he said softly. "Turn and watch the game, while I deliver a message. We must not seem to be talking together."

  Thorne looked back at the players, and the scientist continued: "You are in great danger. Sel Han is plotting against your life. He has denounced you to the Dixtar as being over-friendly with Neva, and her actions tonight in treating you as an equal have seemed to confirm his words. A friend has brought me news that Irintz Tel has just promised Sel Han he will turn you over to the headsman in the morning."

  "What can I do about it?"

  "Escape. Get away from the palace before morning."

  "That I had already planned."

  "How?"

  "Over the garden wall."

  "Splendid! It is just what we had in mind. I will have a conveyance waiting for you. Be there just after the farther moon rises and it may be that we can save you. Farewell."

  When the gathering broke up, Lori Thool, after saying a lingering farewell to Neva, departed with his suite. Trixana was claimed by her father, a tall, handsome soldier in the prime of life, and Neva, left once more with Thorne, started toward the door. They had only gone a few steps when Sel Han suddenly strode up. He made a sweeping bow before Neva.

  "May I have the honor of seeing the Dixtar's daughter safely to her apartments?" he asked.

  She took Thorne's arm. "The Dixtar's daughter is adequately escorted."

  Sel Han continued to bar her way, smiling cynically. And the Earthman noticed that the Dixtar himself was only a few feet away, looking on.

  "Apparently you have not observed that the Dixtar's daughter wishes to pass," said Thorne. "Under such circumstances it should not be necessary to request any gentleman to stand aside."

  At this, the deputy flashed a look at the Dixtar, as much as to say, "I told you so," and moved out of the way.

  * * *

  Back in the apartments of Neva, as Thorne stood guard before her chamber door, his mind was a mass of conflicting emotions. The time slipped by until he suddenly realized that the farther moon had risen and the hour had struck for his departure. He was about to steal softly away from his post when he was startled by a touch on his arm and a whispered, "Quiet."

  Swiftly turning, he was astonished to see Neva standing there before the curtain clad in a filmy sleeping garment.

  "Make no noise," she said, "and come with me. I heard someone on my balcony, and want you to surprise the prowler."

  Softly they entered the sleeping chamber. For a moment Thorne stood there, accustoming his eyes to the dim light and taking note of his surroundings. Then he silently drew his sword and advanced toward the balcony, listening intently.

  Reaching a window without having heard a sound, he cautiously leaned forward and peered out. So far as he could see, the balcony was deserted. He stepped out and explored. Still no signrtain crowler. Then he reentered the room.

  "Did you see him?" she asked.

  "I saw no one," he replied. "Perhaps you were only dreaming."

  "No, no! I am positive a man was there a moment ago. Not only did I hear him, but I saw his shadow as the moon came up. I'm terribly frightened."

  They were standing very close together. Her eyes, looking up into his, were wide with fear. She swayed toward him.

  Solicitously he threw his arms about her-felt that she was trembling. Her arms stole about his neck and clung. "Hold me tight--tight! In your arms I am not afraid."

  Now it was the man who trembled; but not with fear. Their lips met.

  "I love you, love you, love you!" she murmured. "Say again what you said to me this evening."

  "I love and adore you," he told her, his voice husky with emotion. "Yet it is madness--a sweet madness."

  "Why, dear one?"

  "Because tomorrow..."

  Suddenly the lights flashed on, and he paused, speechless with surprise.

  A dozen armed soldiers rushed into the room, bared blades in their hands. At their head was Sel Han, a grin of triumph on his features. And behind them came Irintz Tel, Dixtar of Xancibar.

  "Help! The guard! Release me, you brute!"

  For a moment Thorne was in a daze. Then he suddenly realized that it was Neva who was speaking-that she was beating upon his breast with her clenched hands--hands that had caressed him but a moment before-straining to break from his clasp.

  Mechanically he let her go. She ran to the little wizened Dixtar, buried her face in his shoulder, and began sobbing bitterly.

  Thorne suddenly came to the full realization of his peril. He whipped out his sword and dagger and leaped for the door. Two warriors barred his progress.

  A feint, a thrust, and one went down stabbed through the heart. He parried the thrust of the other with his dagger. Then he withdrew his blade from the heart of the first enemy and sheathed it in the throat of the second.

  Other warriors leaped in close, but he bounded over the bodies of his two fallen adversaries and out of the door. Straight across the terrace he dashed, then down the steps and into the labyrinth of garden paths.

  A few moments more and Thorne had reached his objective--a tall sebolis tree standing near the wall, which he had previously marked for his purpose. Pausing only to hurl his sword and dagger into the faces of his pursuers, he scrambled up the rough tree trunk, then climbed from branch to branch until he was above the level of the wall.

  Walking out on the swaying branch until it sagged dangerously, he leaped. His fingers caught the edge of the wall, but it was rounded by a thousand years of weathering, and slippery with the night's accumulation of hoar frost.

  With a last despairing clutch at the curved, treacherous surface, he fell to the ground twenty feet below.

  As soon as he struck, a half dozen soldiers pounced on him.aponless, he fought them with fists and feet until Sel Han reached over and struck him on the head with the flat of his heavy mace. Then his captors, at a sharp command from the triumphant deputy, jerked him to his feet and half carried, half dragged him back to the palace.

  Neva, attended by two of her slave girls, sat on a divan with a fluffy wrap around her shoulders. Irintz Tel was pacing up and down, chin on chest, hands clasped behind his back, his brow contracted in a frown and his thin lips compressed in a tight line.

  Presently a tall, sad-faced man bearing a great, two-handed sword on his shoulder, strode into the room. Behind him walked a sleepy-eyed, frightened little boy who carried a basket.

  "Strike the head from this despicable traitor, Lurgo," squeaked Irintz Tel, without looking up.

  Lurgo the headsman lowered his huge weapon and stood leaning on the pommel, waiting while two warriors dragged Thorne to the center of the floor and forced him to kneel. Then he stepped back, carefully measured the distance with his practiced eye, and whirled the great blade over his head.

  CHAPTER 13

  “No, no! Lurgo! Wait!"

  It wa
s Neva who had sprung from her couch, and now stood between the sad-faced headsman and the kneeling Thorne.

  Lurgo stared sorrowfully down at her, his blade still poised in mid-air.

  Irintz Tel ceased his pacing for the first time and looked up. "What's this, daughter? Can it be that you care for this vile miscereant?"

  "Care for him!" Neva stamped her foot angrily. "I hate him for the affront he has put upon me. For much less than this, you have caused minor offenders to suffer for days before death was finally granted them. Yet this seducer, this ravisher who has dared to lay hands on your own daughter is let off with a mere stroke of the headsman's sword. Do you hold my honor so lightly as this?"

  "By the wrath of Deza, you are right!" exclaimed Irintz Tel. "I have been too hasty. Let be, Lurgo."

  At this, the tall headsman sadly shouldered his sword and trudged away, the sleepy-eyed boy with the basket trailing in his wake.

  "Does it not seem fair, my father," said Neva, "that since the crime of this malefactor was against me, I should be the one to pronounce sentence upon him?"

  "It does indeed, daughter. It does indeed," agreed Irintz Tel. "Suppose you name his fate."

  "Why, then, I'll sentence him to labor in the baridium mines," she said. "I hear that men are long in dying there, and that they suffer much."

  "But," interposed Sel Han, "there are tortures..."

  "Since when," asked Neva, facing him haughtily, "has the Dixtar's deputy acquired the right to question the mandates of the Dixtar's daughter?"

  "You are right, daughter, you are right," interposed Irintz Tel. "You must not interfere, Sel Han. She has pronounced a fitting sentence, and we confirm it. Away with him, warriors."

  Thorne, still dazed by the blow on his head, dimly comprehended that he had been saved from the stroke of the sworder only to be condemned to a worse fate.

  As he was dragged away by the warriors, he saw the face of Irintz Tel sneering, that of Sel Han grinning malevolently, and those of the warriors stem and pitiless. But at Neva he did not look.

  After conducting him through numerous passageways, the soldiers led him into a small room at one end of which a hole about three feet in diameter was cut in the wall. Into this hole they thrust him feet first, attached a tag to his arm marked "Baridium Mines," and gave him a violent push. With a speed that gave him a peculiar sensation in the pit of his stomach and caused a considerable pressure on his eardrums, he shot downward in a dark, slanting tube, the inner surface of which was as smooth as glass. Presently he glided over a series of rises which slowed his progress, then out into an open trough under a long, low shed. At the end of the trough two soldiers caught him and stood him erect.

  To his surprise, Thorne now saw that he was in one of the large warehouses which lined the banks of the canal over which he had passed. After the soldiers had examined his tag he was herded with a group of other prisoners, similarly tagged, who were huddled around a large globe-heater on the dock. Here he stood, slowly turning like the others, for while the side toward the heater was comfortably warm, the one directly away from it was subjected to the freezing temperature of the early morning air.

  Presently the sun, heralded only by a brief dawn-light in this tenuous atmosphere, popped above the horizon, its blue-white shafts instantly dissipating the cold, and swiftly melting the shell of ice which covered the canal. Moored at the dock was a low, narrow craft about two hundred feet in length. The hull was of brown metal, and the upper structure was roofed over with iridescent, amber colored crystal curved like the back of a whale.

  Through one of the doors the prisoners were now driven. As he followed along with the others, Thorne noticed the strange propulsive devices used on these craft, which were shaped much like the webbed feet and legs of aquatic birds, and were fastened at intervals along the sides.

  As soon as the prisoners had been herded on board, the metal door clanged shut behind them. Shortly thereafter the craft glided away from the dock, propelled smoothly and noiselessly by its artificial webbed feet.

  Thorne presently tired of the sameness of the scenery and entered into a conversation with one of his fellow unfortunates--a man who had once been high in the councils of the Kamud, but who had dared to oppose Irintz Tel. Levri Thornel was a silver-haired man in the late autumn of life. He showed no rancor against the Dixtar, but took his sentence as the decree of fate.

  "At most," he told Thorne, "I would have only enjoyed a few short years of life. But you are a young man. Your case is sad, indeed, as you would have had much to live for."

  For a time silence fell between them. Then Thorne asked, "What are these baridium mines like? Have you any idea?"

  "There are vast workings, which require much machinery and equipment, and the labor of many slaves. The baridium ore, after being brought up from deposits far underground, is crushed and cleaned of all impurities. Then it is distilled. The liquid which passes over in the still is mixed with phosphorus and several other chemicals, and used to fill the light globes with which you are familiar. The solid residue left in the stills is calcined until it becomes an impalpable powder, fearfully water-hungry. Then it is combined with several elements, the most important of which is metallic sodium, to make the fire-powder which instantly ignites when moistened."

  Thorne was about to ask him how all this affected the slaves, when the boat suddenly slowed down, then stopped side a dock of black stone which jutted from the wall on the outer side of the canal. The metal door was thrown open, the prisoners were herded out and Thorne lost track of Levri Thornel.

  They were marched through a high archway in the thick black wall, and thence into an immense building constructed of the same material. Here they formed in line, to be examined by an officer, who assigned them to various working groups. Thorne was pleased when he found that Levri Thornel was assigned to this group, which numbered about twenty men.

  A guard marched them through a long corridor, lighted by small baridium globes, and thence into a broad courtyard which overlooked an immense pit, several miles in diameter, the rim of which was circled by a high black wall. As soon as they entered this court, the prisoners encountered air laden with fine dust and acrid fumes, which smarted their lungs and nostrils and set them to coughing and sneezing violently.

  Meanwhile, the guard urged them onward to the edge of the pit, where he turned them over to another guard, whose face, head and body were protected by a breathing mask, helmet and air-tight suit.

  This new guard spoke to them through a sound amplifier which projected from the top of his helmet.

  "Down the stairway," he ordered, "and step lively. I'll make the first laggard regret his slothfulness." The deeper they descended the more difficult breathing became, until, when they reached the bottom of the stairway, the fumes fairly seared their lungs, while the fine dust, settling on the skin, made them itch and burn. Merely being in the place without a protective suit was torment.

  As these things came to Thorne's attention, he thought again of Neva. More sharply than the baridium fumes seared his lungs, the thought of her perfidy seared his heart.

  CHAPTER 14

  The group of slaves was ushered into a large building and set at the task of filling and sealing small phials of fire-powder. Here the laborers were seated at long benches, above which were suspended large hoppers of the powder. This was conveyed down to them by means of tubes with small valves at the bottom which could be opened or closed by the operator as the phials were filled.

  Stoppers of red, resilient material like that which formed the suits of the guards were pressed into the bottles, then held for a moment against hot plates, the heat melting them down and sealing them hermetically.

  The labor in this department was the lightest of any in the baridium pit. Yet it was the most dreaded of all, as the air was constantly filled with the searing powder which attacked skin and lungs alike.

  With a sickening apprehension of the fate in store for him, Thorne gradually saw his own skin t
urning yellow from contact with the fumes and powder in the air. And despite the utmost watchfulness he was unable to avoid burning his fingers and the backs of his hands by spilling on them small quantities of powder which sifted down from the none too efficient valve.

  Whn night came the slaves were herded into a great communal building, the only furniture of which consisted of heating globes. Here a coarse porridge was doled out to them. They were given water to drink.

  In this building the air was somewhat freer from dust and fumes than outside, and therefore offered some slight relief to Thorne and other newcomers whose lungs and skin had not, as yet, been badly seared. After eating their rations, the slaves flung themselves down on the hard floor around the heating globes, many to fall asleep from utter exhaustion.