In front of me and behind I continually heard voices berating other voices:
"Sense where you're going, you blundering idiot," or, "Stop stepping on my heels, you fool," or "Who do you think you're bumping into, son-of-a-calot!" The voices seemed to be constantly getting in one another's way. Serious as I felt my situation might be, I could not help but be amused.
Presently I felt an arm brush against mine, or at least it felt like an arm, the warm flesh of a bare arm; it would touch me for an instant only to be taken away immediately, and then it would touch me again in a measured cadence, as might the arms of two men walking out of step side by side; and then a voice spoke close beside me, and I knew that a voice was walking with me.
"We are coming to a bad place," said the voice; "you had better take my arm."
I groped out with my right hand and found an arm that I could not see. I grasped what felt like an upper arm, and as I did so my right hand disappeared! Now, my right arm ended at the wrist, or at least it appeared to do so; but I could feel my fingers clutching that arm that I could not see. It was a most eerie sensation. I do not like situations that I cannot understand.
Almost immediately we came to an open place in the forest, where no trees grew.
The ground was covered with tiny hummocks, and when I stepped on it it sank down a few inches. It was like walking on coil springs covered with turf.
"I'll guide you," said the voice at my side. "If you should get off the trail here alone you'd be swallowed up. The worst that can happen to you now would be to get one leg in it, for I can pull you out before it gets a good hold on you."
"Thank you," I said; "it is very decent of you."
"Think nothing of it," replied the voice. "I feel sorry for you; I am always sorry for strangers whom Fate misguides into the forest of Invak. We have another name for it which, I think, better describes it — The Forest of Lost Men."
"It is really so bad to fall into the hands of your people?" I asked.
"I am afraid that it is," replied the voice; "there is no escape."
I had heard that one before; so it didn't impress me greatly. The lesser peoples of Barsoom are great braggarts; they always have the best swordsmen, the finest cities, the most outstanding culture; and once you fall into their hands, you are always doomed to death or a life of slavery-you can never escape them.
"May I ask you a question?" I inquired.
"Certainly," said the voice.
"Are you always only a voice?"
A hand, I suppose it was his right hand, seized my arm and squeezed it with powerful, though invisible, fingers; and whatever it was that walked beside me chuckled. "Does that feel like only a voice?" it asked.
"A stentorian voice," I said. "You seem to have the physical attributes of a flesh-and-blood man; have you a name?"
"Most assuredly; it is Kandus; and yours?" he asked politely.
"Dotar Sojat," I told him, falling back upon my well-worn pseudonym.
We had now successfully crossed the bog, or whatever it was; and I removed my hand from Kandus's arm. Immediately I was wholly visible again, but Kandus remained only a voice. Again I walked alone, I and a rope sticking out in front of me and apparently defying the law of gravity. Even the fact that I surmised that the other end of it was fastened to a voice did not serve to make it seem right; it was a most indecent way for a rope to behave.
"'Dotar Sojat,'" repeated Kandus; "it sounds more like a green man's name."
"You are familiar with the green men?" I asked.
"Oh, yes; there is a horde which occasionally frequents the dead sea bottoms beyond the forest; but they have learned to give us a wide berth. Notwithstanding their great size and strength, we have a distinct advantage over them. As a matter of fact, I believe that they are very much afraid of us."
"I can well imagine so; it is not easy to fight voices; there is nothing one may get one's sword into."
Kandus laughed. "I suppose you would like to get your sword into me," he said.
"Absolutely not," I said; "you have been very decent to me, but I don't like that voice which calls itself Pnoxus. I wouldn't mind crossing swords with it."
"Not so loud," cautioned Kandus. "You must remember that he is the jeddak's son. We all have to be very nice to Pnoxus-no matter what we may privately think of him."
I judged from that that Pnoxus was not popular. It is really amazing how quickly one may judge a person by his voice; this had never been so forcibly impressed upon me before. Now, I had disliked the Pnoxus voice from the first, even when it was soft and oily, perhaps because of that; but I had liked the voice named Kandus-it was the voice of a man's man, open and without guile; a good voice.
"Where are you from, Dotar Sojat?" asked, Kandus.
"From Virginia," I said.
"That is a city of which I have never heard. In what country is it?"
"It is in the United States of America," I replied, "but you never heard of that either."
"No," he admitted; "that must be a far country."
"It is a far country," I assured him, "some forty-three million miles from here."
"You can talk as tall as you jump," he said. "I don't mind your joking with me," he added, "but I wouldn't get funny with Pnoxus, nor with Ptantus, the jeddak, if I were you; neither one of them has a sense of humor."
"But I was not joking," I insisted. "You have seen Jasoom in the heavens at night?"
"Of course," he replied.
"Well, that is the world I come from; it is called Earth there, and Barsoom is known as Mars."
"You look and talk like an honorable man," said Kandus; "and, while I don't understand, I am inclined to believe; however, you'd better pick out some place on Barsoom as your home when anyone else in Invak questions you; and you may soon be questioned-here we are at the gates of the city now."
Chapter 3
Invak! The city in the Forest of Lost Men. At first only a gate was visible, so thickly set were the trees that hid the city wall-the trees and the vines that covered the wall.
I heard a voice challenge as we approached the gate, and I heard Pnoxus's voice reply, "It is Pnoxus, the prince, with twenty warriors and a prisoner."
"Let one advance and give the countersign," said the voice.
I was astonished that the guard at the gate couldn't recognize the jeddak's son, nor any of the twenty warriors with him. I suppose that one of the voices advanced and whispered the countersign, for presently a voice said, "Enter, Pnoxus, with your twenty warriors and your prisoner."
Immediately the gates swung open, and beyond I saw a lighted corridor and people moving about within it; then my rope tightened and I moved forward toward the gate; and ahead of me, one by one, armed men suddenly appeared just beyond the threshold of the gateway; one after another they appeared as though materialized from thin air and continued on along the lighted corridor. I approached the gate apparently alone, but as I stepped across the threshold there was a warrior at my side where the voice of Kandus had walked.
I looked at the warrior, and my evident amazement must have been written large upon my face, for the warrior grinned. I glanced behind me and saw warrior after warrior materialize into a flesh-and-blood man the moment that he crossed the threshold. I had walked through the forest accompanied only by voices, but now ten warriors walked ahead of me and nine behind and one at my side.
"Are you Kandus?" I asked this one.
"Certainly," he said.
"How do you do it?" I exclaimed.
"It is very simple, but it is the secret of the Invaks," he replied. "I may tell you, however, that we are invisible in daylight, or rather when we are not illuminated by these special lamps which light our city. If you will notice the construction of the city as we proceed, you will see that we take full advantage of our only opportunity for visibility."