After endless hours of wandering, I came at last into a little room with no exit.
In the wall facing me was a barred window, the first I had seen in this maze. As I saw it, my hopes lifted.
Shrugging off the cloak of leaden despair that bowed my shoulders and made every step heavy, I strode forward into the little cell. This might be the one means of egress I sought―the mode by which I could come to , the aid of my friend Koja, who was otherwise doomed.
As I strode into the room, my foot struck some slight obstruction on the floor and I pitched forward off balance and struck my head against the floor.
I had botched everything.
I had come charging into the citadel like some hero out of romantic melodrama―charging single-handedly to the rescue of a doomed and imprisoned friend.
First I had become separated from Lukor. Then I had gotten myself thoroughly lost. And now, finally, I had knocked myself unconscious.
I fell into welling blackness, and even as consciousness left me, I felt the bitter taste of failure and defeat upon my tongue.
Koja had come to face death in the arena because of me. And now, in the hour of his greatest need, I had failed him yet again.
For a brief instant I felt despair, knowing myself helpless to save from his doom the first living creature on Thanator who had offered me the gift of friendship.
And then I struck the wall and knew nothing more.
12. THE DAY OF BLOOD
It was a sound that aroused me, whether moments or hours later I never knew.
A thunderous swell of sound, rising and falling like the sea―a booming surf of clamorous noise.
I sat up stiffly, and clutched my head. Throbbing waves of pain went through my skull, in rhythm to the rise arid fall of those waves of sound.
At first I could not think where I was. I blinked about me in the dimness, seeing the small square room of rough stone. And then the memories came crowding back into my consciousness―Lukor, the trap, the endless hours of stumbling through the black labyrinth.
But this was not blackness, this dimness that lay about me―it was light! The light of day!
And that dull roar, rising and falling like ocean surf, I could identify it now. The applause of many hundreds of human voices!
Where was I?
I sprang to my feet, ignoring the throb of pain from my gashed brow, and stared out of the small barred window into a dazzling scene of circling stone tiers of seats crowded by a brilliantly clothed throng of Zanadarians―with a sandy floor at their feet, whereupon men struggled with their bare hands against enormous beasts.
This stone cell overlooked the arena itself! Irony of ironies―I could not aid Koja, but I was forced to look on helplessly as he went forward into the jaws of death!
I raved and wept and hurled myself against that barred grille that covered the small window, but it was too strong even for my earthly muscles to force. I was, indeed, helpless.
How had I come into this tiny room? I strove to recall, and it came back to me. I had glimpsed the window and strode carelessly over to it, and my feet had struck some obstruction in the floor, which had pitched me forward into the wall.
I bent my gaze downwards, and my heart leaped within me as my eyes discovered an iron ring in the floor.
The iron ring was the obstruction which had tripped me.
And it might prove, as well, the key to my escape from this dungeon of despair. For on Earth, at least, such rings indicate the presence of trapdoors.
Crouching on the floor, I closely examined the stone floor about the iron ring. The amount of daylight which filtered through the bars of the narrow window was not sufficient to give much illumination, so I used my sense of touch, running my sensitive fingertips over the dusty surface of the floor.
It was true―my fingers traced the rectangular outline of a trapdoor!
I caught the ring and strained to pull it open, while the roar of the distant throng pounded dimly through the small dusty room. Sweat broke out on my brow and I heaved at that iron ring until my muscles ached from the strain, but to no avail.
I released the ring and squatted there on my heels, resting for a moment and gathering my strength.
Then I hurled every ounce of force in my back, chest, arms, and shoulders into one great heave.
Was it my imagination, or was the crack in the floor wider?
Again and again I strove to lift that square of solid stone, my face black with effort, the blood roaring in my ears, my thews taut and cracking with the strain.
At last I heard a splintering sound―startlingly loud in the stone box of my cell―and whatever had been restraining the trapdoor gave way, and a black opening yawned in the floor at my feet. The stone trapdoor fell backwards with a room-shaking crash and I could see what had resisted my efforts―the undersurface of the trap had been coated in thick plaster. Doubtless the corridor or chamber below―whatever was there ―had been newly plastered by workmen ignorant of the fact that a door existed in the roof.
I threw myself face downward and peered into the black opening, but in the gloom my eyes could discern nothing. The rise and fall of distant applause continued to beat against the silence, and I knew that I could not delay my next move for very long. Even now my brave and faithful Koja might be facing the slavering jaws of some monster of the arena with bare hands while I lingered, debating!
I slid through the opening and dropped feet first into darkness
―And landed astride something enormous, and―alive!
It bucked and writhed under my unexpected weight. By instinct alone, I clamped my legs around its barrel, locking my heels together under its belly. And hung on for all I was worth. It was pitch black; as the saying goes, I could not see my hand before my face. But the hot musky smell of pent-up beasts was heavy and rank in my nostrils, and I guessed that I had fallen into the beast pens, where the wild and monstrous predators of the jungle were kept, awaiting their chance to rip and ravage the helpless and unarmed condemned prisoners in the arena beyond.
How I managed to keep my seat on the back of the unknown monster is something I shall never know. It jumped and writhed, striving to unseat me. The clash of snapping jaws and the acrid fetor of its hot breath told me the invisible thing was craning back over its shoulder, seeking to get its fangs into me. If I permitted this to happen, I would be ripped from the relative safety of my place astride its shoulders and torn and trampled underfoot.
There was little enough I could do to prevent this, in the black darkness, but what little there was I did. The jungle thing had a mane of coarse bristling hair about its neck, and I dug my fists into this and hung on for dear life while my savage steed leaped and snarled, hurling itself from side to side in its frantic efforts to dislodge me.
How long I could have held my seat I do not know. But after only a few moments of this, the sudden blaze of brilliant day struck me blind. Hinges groaned ―a huge door swung suddenly open―bare sands lay beyond, baking under the clear light―and my savage steed catapulted to freedom, soaring over the doorsill to land like a great cat upon the hot sands of the arena.
I caught a swift, kaleidoscopic impression of things around me: rising oval tiers of stone benches on all sides, lined with throngs of gaping, astounded faces ―blazing dome of golden sky overhead, where three huge moons hung―level plain of yellow sand, trampled and torn and splashed with blood―and a cluster of perhaps fifty men, naked save for buskin and loincloth, gathered in the center. In the next moment my beast went absolutely wild in its efforts to shake me from my seat.