John Carter's 03 Chronicles of Mars Volume Three Read online

  Copyright © 2012 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All rights reserved. Published by Disney Editions, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Disney Editions, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

  Swords of Mars was first published in The Blue Book Magazine as a six-part serial, November 1934 through April 1935. Copyright © 1934, 1935 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All rights reserved. Synthetic Men of Mars was first published in Argosy Magazine as a six-part serial, January through February 1939. Copyright © 1938, 1939 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All rights reserved. Llana of Gathol was first published as four novelettes in Amazing Stories magazine under the following names: “The City of Mummies” in March 1941, “Black Pirates of Barsoom” in June 1941, “Yellow Men of Mars” in August 1941, and “Invisible Men of Mars” in October 1941. Copyright © 1941 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. All rights reserved. John Carter of Mars was first published as two novelettes in Amazing Stories magazine. The first part was published under the name “John Carter and the Giant of Mars” in January 1941. Copyright © 1940 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. All rights reserved. The second part was published under the name “Skeleton Men of Jupiter” in February 1943. Copyright © 1942 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. All rights reserved. These authorized editions are published by Disney Editions in arrangement with Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

  ISBN 978-1-4231-7032-7

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  Table of Contents

  Swords of Mars

  Sowrds of Mars - Prologue

  Swords of Mars - Chapter I

  Swords of Mars - Chapter II

  Swords of Mars - Chapter III

  Swords of Mars - Chapter IV

  Swords of Mars - Chapter V

  Swords of Mars - Chapter VI

  Swords of Mars - Chapter VII

  Swords of Mars - Chapter VIII

  Swords of Mars - Chapter IX

  Swords of Mars - Chapter X

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XI

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XII

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XIII

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XIV

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XV

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XVI

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XVII

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XVIII

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XIX

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XX

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XXI

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XXII

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XXIII

  Swords of Mars - Chapter XXIV

  Synthetic Men of Mars

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter I

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter II

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter III

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter IV

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter V

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter VI

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter VII

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter VIII

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter IX

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter X

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XI

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XII

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XIII

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XIV

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XV

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XVI

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XVII

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XVIII

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XIX

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XX

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XXI

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XXII

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XXIII

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XXIV

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XXV

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XXVI

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XXVII

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XXVIII

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XXIX

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XXX

  Synthetic Men of Mars - Chapter XXXI

  Llana of Gathol

  Part 1: The Ancient Dead - Chapter I

  Part 1: The Ancient Dead - Chapter II

  Part 1: The Ancient Dead - Chapter III

  Part 1: The Ancient Dead - Chapter IV

  Part 1: The Ancient Dead - Chapter V

  Part 1: The Ancient Dead - Chapter VI

  Part 1: The Ancient Dead - Chapter VII

  Part 1: The Ancient Dead - Chapter VIII

  Part 1: The Ancient Dead - Chapter IX

  Part 1: The Ancient Dead - Chapter X

  Part 1: The Ancient Dead - Chapter XI

  Part 1: The Ancient Dead - Chapter XII

  Part 1: The Ancient Dead - Chapter XIII

  Part 2: The Black Pirates of Barsoom - Chapter I

  Part 2: The Black Pirates of Barsoom - Chapter II

  Part 2: The Black Pirates of Barsoom - Chapter III

  Part 2: The Black Pirates of Barsoom - Chapter IV

  Part 2: The Black Pirates of Barsoom - Chapter V

  Part 2: The Black Pirates of Barsoom - Chapter VI

  Part 2: The Black Pirates of Barsoom - Chapter VII

  Part 2: The Black Pirates of Barsoom - Chapter VIII

  Part 2: The Black Pirates of Barsoom - Chapter IX

  Part 2: The Black Pirates of Barsoom - Chapter X

  Part 2: The Black Pirates of Barsoom - Chapter XI

  Part 2: The Black Pirates of Barsoom - Chapter XII

  Part 2: The Black Pirates of Barsoom - Chapter XIII

  Part 3: Escape on Mars - Chapter I

  Part 3: Escape on Mars - Chapter II

  Part 3: Escape on Mars - Chapter III

  prologue

  THE MOON had risen above the rim of the canyon near the headwaters of the Little Colorado. It bathed in soft light the willows that line the bank of the little mountain torrent and the cottonwood trees beneath which stood the tiny cabin where I had been camping for a few weeks in the White Mountains of Arizona.

  I stood upon the little porch of the cabin enjoying the soft beauties of this Arizona night; and as I contemplated the peace and serenity of the scene, it did not seem possible that but a few years before the fierce and terrible Geronimo had stood in this same spot before this self-same cabin, or that generations before that this seemingly deserted canyon had been peopled by a race now extinct.

  I had been seeking in their ruined cities for the secret of their genesis and the even stranger secret of their extinction. How I wished that those crumbling lava cliffs might speak and tell me of all that they had witnessed since they poured out in a molten stream from the cold and silent cones that dot the mesa land beyond the canyon.

  My thoughts returned again to Geronimo and his fierce Apache warriors; and these vagrant musings engendered memories of Captain John Carter of Virginia, whose dead body had lain for ten long years in some forgotten cave in the mountains not far south of this very spot—the cave in which he had sought shelter from pursuing Apaches.

  My eyes, following the pathway of my thoughts, searched the heavens until they rested upon the red eye of Mars shining there in the blue-black void; and so it was that Mars was uppermost in my mind as I turned into my cabin and prepared for a good night’s rest beneath the rustling leaves of the cottonwoods, with whose soft and soothing lullaby was mingled the rippling and t
he gurgling of the waters of the Little Colorado.

  I was not sleepy; and so, after I had undressed, I arranged a kerosene lamp near the head of my bunk and settled myself for the enjoyment of a gangster story of assassination and kidnaping.

  My cabin consists of two rooms. The smaller back room is my bedroom. The larger room in front of it serves all other purposes, being dining room, kitchen, and living room combined. From my bunk, I cannot see directly into the front room. A flimsy partition separates the bedroom from the living room. It consists of rough-hewn boards that in the process of shrinking have left wide cracks in the wall, and in addition to this the door between the two rooms is seldom closed; so that while I could not see into the adjoining room, I could hear anything that might go on within it.

  I do not know that I am more susceptible to suggestion than the average man; but the fact remains that murder, mystery, and gangster stories always seem more vivid when I read them alone in the stilly watches of the night.

  I had just reached the point in the story where an assassin was creeping upon the victim of kidnapers when I heard the front door of my cabin open and close and, distinctly, the clank of metal upon metal.

  Now, insofar as I knew, there was no one other than myself camped upon the headwaters of the Little Colorado; and certainly no one who had the right to enter my cabin without knocking.

  I sat up in my bunk and reached under my pillow for the .45 Colt automatic that I keep there.

  The oil lamp faintly illuminated my bedroom, but its main strength was concentrated upon me. The outer room was in darkness, as I could see by leaning from my bunk and peering through the doorway.

  “Who’s there?” I demanded, releasing the safety catch on my automatic and sliding my feet out of bed to the floor. Then, without waiting for a reply, I blew out the lamp.

  A low laugh came from the adjoining room. “It is a good thing your wall is full of cracks,” said a deep voice, “or otherwise I might have stumbled into trouble. That is a mean-looking gun I saw before you blew out your lamp.”

  The voice was familiar, but I could not definitely place it. “Who are you?” I demanded.

  “Light your lamp and I’ll come in,” replied my nocturnal visitor. “If you’re nervous, you can keep your gun on the doorway, but please don’t squeeze the trigger until you have had a chance to recognize me.”

  “Damn!” I exclaimed under my breath, as I started to relight the lamp.

  “Chimney still hot?” inquired the deep voice from the outer room.

  “Plenty hot,” I replied, as I succeeded at last in igniting the wick and replacing the hot chimney. “Come in.”

  I remained seated on the edge of the bunk, but I kept the doorway covered with my gun. I heard again the clanking of metal upon metal, and then a man stepped into the light of my feeble lamp and halted in the doorway. He was a tall man apparently between twenty-five and thirty with grey eyes and black hair. He was naked but for leather trappings that supported weapons of unearthly design—a short-sword, a long-sword, a dagger, and a pistol; but my eyes did not need to inventory all these details before I recognized him. The instant that I saw him, I tossed my gun aside and sprang to my feet.

  “John Carter!” I exclaimed.

  “None other,” he replied, with one of his rare smiles.

  We grasped hands. “You haven’t changed much,” he said.

  “Nor you at all,” I replied.

  He sighed and then smiled again. “God alone knows how old I am. I can recall no childhood, nor have I ever looked other than I look tonight; but come,” he added, “you mustn’t stand here in your bare feet. Hop back into bed again. These Arizona nights are none too warm.”

  He drew up a chair and sat down. “What were you reading?” he asked, as he picked up the magazine that had fallen to the floor and glanced at the illustration. “It looks like a lurid tale.”

  “A pretty little bedtime story of assassination and kidnaping,” I explained.

  “Haven’t you enough of that on earth without reading about it for entertainment?” he inquired. “We have on Mars.”

  “It is an expression of the normal morbid interest in the horrifying,” I said. “There is really no justification, but the fact remains that I enjoy such tales. However, I have lost my interest now. I want to hear about you and Dejah Thoris and Carthoris, and what brought you here. It has been years since you have been back. I had given up all hope of ever seeing you again.”

  He shook his head, a little sadly I thought. “It is a long story, a story of love and loyalty, of hate and crime, a story of dripping swords, of strange places and strange people upon a stranger world. The living of it might have driven a weaker man to madness. To have one you love taken from you and not to know her fate!”

  I did not have to ask whom he meant. It could be none other than the incomparable Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, and consort of John Carter, Warlord of Mars—the woman for whose deathless beauty a million swords had been kept red with blood on the dying planet for many a long year.

  For a long time John Carter sat in silence staring at the floor. I knew that his thoughts were forty-three million miles away, and I was loath to interrupt them.

  At last he spoke. “Human nature is alike everywhere,” he said. He flicked the edge of the magazine lying on my bunk. “We think that we want to forget the tragedies of life, but we do not. If they momentarily pass us by and leave us in peace, we must conjure them again, either in our thoughts or through some such medium as you have adopted. As you find a grim pleasure in reading about them, so I find a grim pleasure in thinking about them.

  “But my memories of that great tragedy are not all sad. There was high adventure, there was noble fighting; and in the end there was—but perhaps you would like to hear about it.”

  I told him that I would, so he told me the story that I have set down here in his own words, as nearly as I can recall them.

  chapter I

  RAPAS THE ULSIO

  OVER NINETEEN HUNDRED miles east of The Twin Cities of Helium, at about Lat. 30° S., Lon. 172° E., lies Zodanga. It has ever been a hotbed of sedition since the day that I led the fierce green hordes of Thark against it and, reducing it, added it to the Empire of Helium.

  Within its frowning walls lives many a Zodangan who feels no loyalty for Helium; and here, too, have gathered numbers of the malcontents of the great empire ruled over by Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium. To Zodanga have migrated not a few of the personal and political enemies of the house of Tardos Mors and of his son-in-law, John Carter, Prince of Helium.

  I visited the city as seldom as possible, as I had little love either for it or its people; but my duties called me there occasionally, principally because it was the headquarters of one of the most powerful guilds of assassins on Mars.

  The land of my birth is cursed with its gangsters, its killers, and its kidnapers; but these constitute but a slight menace as compared with the highly efficient organizations that flourish upon Mars. Here assassination is a profession; kidnaping, a fine art. Each has its guild, its laws, its customs, and its code of ethics; and so widespread are their ramifications that they seem inextricably interwoven into the entire social and political life of the planet.

  For years I have been seeking to extirpate this noxious system, but the job has seemed a thankless and hopeless one. Entrenched behind age-old ramparts of habit and tradition, they occupy a position in the public consciousness that has cast a certain glamour of romance and honor upon them.

  The kidnapers are not in such good odor, but among the more notorious assassins are men who hold much the same position in the esteem of the masses as do your great heroes of the prize ring and the baseball diamond.

  Furthermore, in the war that I was waging upon them, I was also handicapped by the fact that I must fight almost alone, as even those of the red men of Mars who felt as I did upon the subject also believed that to take sides with me against the assassins would prove but another means for co
mmitting suicide. Yet I know that even this would not have deterred them, had they felt that there was any hope of eventual success.

  That I had for so long escaped the keen blade of the assassin seemed little less than a miracle to them, and I presume that only my extreme self-confidence in my ability to take care of myself prevented me from holding the same view.

  Dejah Thoris and my son, Carthoris, often counseled me to abandon the fight; but all my life I have been loath to admit defeat, nor ever have I willingly abandoned the chance for a good fight.

  Certain types of killings upon Mars are punishable by death, and most of the killings of the assassins fell in such categories. So far, this was the only weapon that I had been able to use against them, and then not always successfully, for it was usually difficult to prove their crime, since even eyewitnesses feared to testify against them.

  But I had gradually evolved and organized another means of combating them. This consisted of a secret organization of super-assassins. In other words, I had elected to fight the devil with fire.

  When an assassination was reported, my organization acted in the rôle of detective to ferret out the murderer. Then it acted as judge and jury and eventually as executioner. Its every move was made in secret, but over the heart of each of its victims an “X” was cut with the sharp point of a dagger.

  We usually struck quickly, if we could strike at all; and soon the public and the assassins learned to connect that “X” over the heart as the mark of the hand of justice falling upon the guilty; and I know that in a number of the larger cities of Helium we greatly reduced the death rate by assassination. Otherwise, however, we seemed as far from our goal as when we first started.

  Our poorest results had been gained in Zodanga; and the assassins of that city openly boasted that they were too smart for me, for although they did not know positively, they guessed that the X’s upon the breasts of their dead comrades were made by an organization headed by me.

  I hope that I have not bored you with this exposition of these dry facts, but it seemed necessary to me that I do so as an introduction to the adventures that befell me, taking me to a strange world in an effort to thwart the malign forces that had brought tragedy into my life.