CHAPTER IX
THE BATTLE IN THE PLAIN
The distance from the bottom of the funnel to the floor of thechamber beneath it could not have been great, for all three of thevictims of Tario's wrath alighted unscathed.
Carthoris, still clasping Thuvia tightly to his breast, came tothe ground catlike, upon his feet, breaking the shock for the girl.Scarce had his feet touched the rough stone flagging of this newchamber than his sword flashed out ready for instant use. Butthough the room was lighted, there was no sign of enemy about.
Carthoris looked toward Jav. The man was pasty white with fear.
"What is to be our fate?" asked the Heliumite. "Tell me, man!Shake off your terror long enough to tell me, so I may be preparedto sell my life and that of the Princess of Ptarth as dearly aspossible."
"Komal!" whispered Jav. "We are to be devoured by Komal!"
"Your deity?" asked Carthoris.
The Lotharian nodded his head. Then he pointed toward a low doorwayat one end of the chamber.
"From thence will he come upon us. Lay aside your puny sword, fool.It will but enrage him the more and make our sufferings the worse."
Carthoris smiled, gripping his long-sword the more firmly.
Presently Jav gave a horrified moan, at the same time pointingtoward the door.
"He has come," he whimpered.
Carthoris and Thuvia looked in the direction the Lotharian hadindicated, expecting to see some strange and fearful creature inhuman form; but to their astonishment they saw the broad head andgreat-maned shoulders of a huge banth, the largest that either everhad seen.
Slowly and with dignity the mighty beast advanced into the room.Jav had fallen to the floor, and was wriggling his body in the sameservile manner that he had adopted toward Tario. He spoke to thefierce beast as he would have spoken to a human being, pleadingwith it for mercy.
Carthoris stepped between Thuvia and the banth, his sword ready tocontest the beast's victory over them. Thuvia turned toward Jav.
"Is this Komal, your god?" she asked.
Jav nodded affirmatively. The girl smiled, and then, brushing pastCarthoris, she stepped swiftly toward the growling carnivore.
In low, firm tones she spoke to it as she had spoken to the banthsof the Golden Cliffs and the scavengers before the walls of Lothar.
The beast ceased its growling. With lowered head and catlike purr,it came slinking to the girl's feet. Thuvia turned toward Carthoris.
"It is but a banth," she said. "We have nothing to fear from it."
Carthoris smiled.
"I did not fear it," he replied, "for I, too, believed it to beonly a banth, and I have my long-sword."
Jav sat up and gazed at the spectacle before him--the slender girlweaving her fingers in the tawny mane of the huge creature that hehad thought divine, while Komal rubbed his hideous snout againsther side.
"So this is your god!" laughed Thuvia.
Jav looked bewildered. He scarce knew whether he dare chanceoffending Komal or not, for so strong is the power of superstitionthat even though we know that we have been reverencing a sham, yetstill we hesitate to admit the validity of our new-found convictions.
"Yes," he said, "this is Komal. For ages the enemies of Tario havebeen hurled to this pit to fill his maw, for Komal must be fed."
"Is there any way out of this chamber to the avenues of the city?"asked Carthoris.
Jav shrugged.
"I do not know," he replied. "Never have I been here before, norever have I cared to do so."
"Come," suggested Thuvia, "let us explore. There must be a wayout."
Together the three approached the doorway through which Komal hadentered the apartment that was to have witnessed their deaths.Beyond was a low-roofed lair, with a small door at the far end.
This, to their delight, opened to the lifting of an ordinary latch,letting them into a circular arena, surrounded by tiers of seats.
"Here is where Komal is fed in public," explained Jav. "Had Tariodared it would have been here that our fates had been sealed; buthe feared too much thy keen blade, red man, and so he hurled usall downward to the pit. I did not know how closely connected werethe two chambers. Now we may easily reach the avenues and the citygates. Only the bowmen may dispute the right of way, and, knowingtheir secret, I doubt that they have power to harm us."
Another door led to a flight of steps that rose from the arenalevel upward through the seats to an exit at the back of the hall.Beyond this was a straight, broad corridor, running directly throughthe palace to the gardens at the side.
No one appeared to question them as they advanced, mighty Komalpacing by the girl's side.
"Where are the people of the palace--the jeddak's retinue?" askedCarthoris. "Even in the city streets as we came through I scarcesaw sign of a human being, yet all about are evidences of a mightypopulation."
Jav sighed.
"Poor Lothar," he said. "It is indeed a city of ghosts. There arescarce a thousand of us left, who once were numbered in the millions.Our great city is peopled by the creatures of our own imaginings.For our own needs we do not take the trouble to materialize thesepeoples of our brain, yet they are apparent to us.
"Even now I see great throngs lining the avenue, hastening to andfro in the round of their duties. I see women and children laughingon the balconies--these we are forbidden to materialize; but yetI see them--they are here. . . . But why not?" he mused. "Nolonger need I fear Tario--he has done his worst, and failed. Whynot indeed?
"Stay, friends," he continued. "Would you see Lothar in all herglory?"
Carthoris and Thuvia nodded their assent, more out of courtesy thanbecause they fully grasped the import of his mutterings.
Jav gazed at them penetratingly for an instant, then, with a waveof his hand, cried: "Look!"
The sight that met them was awe-inspiring. Where before therehad been naught but deserted pavements and scarlet swards, yawningwindows and tenantless doors, now swarmed a countless multitude ofhappy, laughing people.
"It is the past," said Jav in a low voice. "They do not see us--theybut live the old dead past of ancient Lothar--the dead and crumbledLothar of antiquity, which stood upon the shore of Throxus, mightiestof the five oceans.
"See those fine, upstanding men swinging along the broad avenue?See the young girls and the women smile upon them? See the mengreet them with love and respect? Those be seafarers coming upfrom their ships which lie at the quays at the city's edge.
"Brave men, they--ah, but the glory of Lothar has faded! See theirweapons. They alone bore arms, for they crossed the five seas tostrange places where dangers were. With their passing passed themartial spirit of the Lotharians, leaving, as the ages rolled by,a race of spineless cowards.
"We hated war, and so we trained not our youth in warlike ways.Thus followed our undoing, for when the seas dried and the greenhordes encroached upon us we could do naught but flee. But weremembered the seafaring bowmen of the days of our glory--it isthe memory of these which we hurl upon our enemies."
As Jav ceased speaking, the picture faded, and once more, the threetook up their way toward the distant gates, along deserted avenues.
Twice they sighted Lotharians of flesh and blood. At sight ofthem and the huge banth which they must have recognized as Komal,the citizens turned and fled.
"They will carry word of our flight to Tario," cried Jav, "and soonhe will send his bowmen after us. Let us hope that our theory iscorrect, and that their shafts are powerless against minds cognizantof their unreality. Otherwise we are doomed.
"Explain, red man, to the woman the truths that I have explained toyou, that she may meet the arrows with a stronger counter-suggestionof immunity."
Carthoris did as Jav bid him; but they came to the great gateswithout sign of pursuit developing. Here Jav set in motion themechanism that rolled the huge, wheel-like gate aside, and a momentlater the three, accompanied by the banth, stepped out into theplain befor
e Lothar.
Scarce had they covered a hundred yards when the sound of many menshouting arose behind them. As they turned they saw a company ofbowmen debouching upon the plain from the gate through which theyhad but just passed.
Upon the wall above the gate were a number of Lotharians, among whomJav recognized Tario. The jeddak stood glaring at them, evidentlyconcentrating all the forces of his trained mind upon them. Thathe was making a supreme effort to render his imaginary creaturesdeadly was apparent.
Jav turned white, and commenced to tremble. At the crucial momenthe appeared to lose the courage of his conviction. The great banthturned back toward the advancing bowmen and growled. Carthorisplaced himself between Thuvia and the enemy and, facing them,awaited the outcome of their charge.
Suddenly an inspiration came to Carthoris.
"Hurl your own bowmen against Tario's!" he cried to Jav. "Let ussee a materialized battle between two mentalities."
The suggestion seemed to hearten the Lotharian, and in anothermoment the three stood behind solid ranks of huge bowmen who hurledtaunts and menaces at the advancing company emerging from the walledcity.
Jav was a new man the moment his battalions stood between him andTario. One could almost have sworn the man believed these creaturesof his strange hypnotic power to be real flesh and blood.
With hoarse battle cries they charged the bowmen of Tario. Barbedshafts flew thick and fast. Men fell, and the ground was red withgore.
Carthoris and Thuvia had difficulty in reconciling the reality ofit all with their knowledge of the truth. They saw utan after utanmarch from the gate in perfect step to reinforce the outnumberedcompany which Tario had first sent forth to arrest them.
They saw Jav's forces grow correspondingly until all about themrolled a sea of fighting, cursing warriors, and the dead lay inheaps about the field.
Jav and Tario seemed to have forgotten all else beside the strugglingbowmen that surged to and fro, filling the broad field between theforest and the city.
The wood loomed close behind Thuvia and Carthoris. The latter casta glance toward Jav.
"Come!" he whispered to the girl. "Let them fight out their emptybattle--neither, evidently, has power to harm the other. They arelike two controversialists hurling words at one another. While theyare engaged we may as well be devoting our energies to an attemptto find the passage through the cliffs to the plain beyond."
As he spoke, Jav, turning from the battle for an instant, caughthis words. He saw the girl move to accompany the Heliumite. Acunning look leaped to the Lotharian's eyes.
The thing that lay beyond that look had been deep in his heartsince first he had laid eyes upon Thuvia of Ptarth. He had notrecognized it, however, until now that she seemed about to passout of his existence.
He centred his mind upon the Heliumite and the girl for an instant.
Carthoris saw Thuvia of Ptarth step forward with outstretchedhand. He was surprised at this sudden softening toward him, andit was with a full heart that he let his fingers close upon hers,as together they turned away from forgotten Lothar, into the woods,and bent their steps toward the distant mountains.
As the Lotharian had turned toward them, Thuvia had been surprisedto hear Carthoris suddenly voice a new plan.
"Remain here with Jav," she had heard him say, "while I go to searchfor the passage through the cliffs."
She had dropped back in surprise and disappointment, for she knewthat there was no reason why she should not have accompanied him.Certainly she should have been safer with him than left here alonewith the Lotharian.
And Jav watched the two and smiled his cunning smile.
When Carthoris had disappeared within the wood, Thuvia seatedherself apathetically upon the scarlet sward to watch the seeminglyinterminable struggles of the bowmen.
The long afternoon dragged its weary way toward darkness, and stillthe imaginary legions charged and retreated. The sun was about toset when Tario commenced to withdraw his troops slowly toward thecity.
His plan for cessation of hostilities through the night evidentlymet with Jav's entire approval, for he caused his forces to formthemselves in orderly utans and march just within the edge ofthe wood, where they were soon busily engaged in preparing theirevening meal, and spreading down their sleeping silks and furs forthe night.
Thuvia could scarce repress a smile as she noted the scrupulouscare with which Jav's imaginary men attended to each tiny detailof deportment as truly as if they had been real flesh and blood.
Sentries were posted between the camp and the city. Officersclanked hither and thither issuing commands and seeing to it thatthey were properly carried out.
Thuvia turned toward Jav.
"Why is it," she asked, "that you observe such careful nicety inthe regulation of your creatures when Tario knows quite as well asyou that they are but figments of your brain? Why not permit themsimply to dissolve into thin air until you again require theirfutile service?"
"You do not understand them," replied Jav. "While they exist theyare real. I do but call them into being now, and in a way directtheir general actions. But thereafter, until I dissolve them, theyare as actual as you or I. Their officers command them, under myguidance. I am the general--that is all. And the psychologicaleffect upon the enemy is far greater than were I to treat themmerely as substanceless vagaries.
"Then, too," continued the Lotharian, "there is always the hope,which with us is little short of belief, that some day thesematerializations will merge into the real--that they will remain,some of them, after we have dissolved their fellows, and that thuswe shall have discovered a means for perpetuating our dying race.
"Some there are who claim already to have accomplished the thing.It is generally supposed that the etherealists have quite a fewamong their number who are permanent materializations. It is evensaid that such is Tario, but that cannot be, for he existed beforewe had discovered the full possibilities of suggestion.
"There are others among us who insist that none of us is real. Thatwe could not have existed all these ages without material food andwater had we ourselves been material. Although I am a realist, Irather incline toward this belief myself.
"It seems well and sensibly based upon the belief that our ancientforbears developed before their extinction such wondrous mentalitiesthat some of the stronger minds among them lived after the deathof their bodies--that we are but the deathless minds of individualslong dead.
"It would appear possible, and yet in so far as I am concerned Ihave all the attributes of corporeal existence. I eat, I sleep"--hepaused, casting a meaning look upon the girl--"I love!"
Thuvia could not mistake the palpable meaning of his words andexpression. She turned away with a little shrug of disgust thatwas not lost upon the Lotharian.
He came close to her and seized her arm.
"Why not Jav?" he cried. "Who more honourable than the second ofthe world's most ancient race? Your Heliumite? He has gone. Hehas deserted you to your fate to save himself. Come, be Jav's!"
Thuvia of Ptarth rose to her full height, her lifted shoulder turnedtoward the man, her haughty chin upraised, a scornful twist to herlips.
"You lie!" she said quietly, "the Heliumite knows less of disloyaltythan he knows of fear, and of fear he is as ignorant as the unhatchedyoung."
"Then where is he?" taunted the Lotharian. "I tell you he has fledthe valley. He has left you to your fate. But Jav will see thatit is a pleasant one. To-morrow we shall return into Lothar at thehead of my victorious army, and I shall be jeddak and you shall bemy consort. Come!" And he attempted to crush her to his breast.
The girl struggled to free herself, striking at the man with hermetal armlets. Yet still he drew her toward him, until both weresuddenly startled by a hideous growl that rumbled from the darkwood close behind them.