Edgar Rice Burroughs - Pellucidar 03 - Tanar of Pellucidar

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About The Author

EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS 1875-1950

One of Chicago's most famous sons was Edgar Rice Burroughs. Young Burroughs tried his hand at many

businesses without success, until, at the age of thirty-five, he turned to writing. With the publication of

Tarzan of the Apes andA Princess of Mars, his career was assured. The gratitude of a multitude of

readers who found in his imagination exactly the kind of escape reading they loved assured him of a large

fortune.

Edgar Rice Burroughs died at home in a town bearing the name of his brain child, Tarzana, California.

But, to the countless millions who have enjoyed his works, he will live forever.

ace books

A Division of Charter Communications Inc.

1120 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036

TANAR O F PELLUC IDAR

To JOAN BURROUGHS PIERCE II

COVER PAINTING BY FRANK FRAZETTA

First Ace printing: December, 1962

Second Ace printing: August, 1968

Third Ace printing: November, 1969

Fourth Ace printing: January, 1973

Printed in U.S.A.

A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT TO ALL

ERB ENTHUSIASTS

Because of the widespread, continuing interest in the books of Edgar Rice Burroughs, we are listing

below the names and addresses of various ERB fan club magazines. Additional information may be

obtained from the editors of the magazines themselves.

-THE EDITORS

ERB-DOM

P. O. Box 550

Evergreen, Colorado 89439

THE BURROUGHS BIBLIOPHILES

6657 Locust Street

Kansas City, Missouri 64131

THE JASOOMIAN

P. O. Box 1305

Yuba City, California 95991

THE BURROUGHS NEWSBEAT

7710 Penn Avenue So., #206

Richfield, Minnesota 55423

ERBANIA

8001 Fernview Lane

Tampa, Florida 33615

TANAR OF PELLUCIDAR

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Pellucidar Series #3

Table of Contents

About The Author

A Special Announcement

PROLOGUE

INTRODUCTION

I STELLARA

II DISASTER

III AMIOCAP

IV LETARI

V THE TANDOR HUNTER

VI THE ISLAND OF LOVE

VII "KORSARS!"

VIII MOW

IX LOVE AND TREACHERY

X PURSUIT

XI GURA

XII "I HATE YOU!"

XIII PRISONERS

XIV TWO SUNS

XV MADNESS

XVI THE DARKNESS BEYOND

XVII DOWN TO THE SEA

CONCLUSION

PROLOGUE

JASON GRIDLEY is a radio bug. Had he not been, this story never would have been written. Jason is

twenty-three and scandalously good looking—too good looking to be a bug of any sort. As a matter of

fact, he does not seem buggish at all—just a normal, sane, young American, who knows a great deal

about many things in addition to radio; aeronautics, for example, and golf, and tennis, and polo.

But this is not Jason's story—he is only an incident—an important incident in my life that made this story

possible, and so, with a few more words of explanation, we shall leave Jason to his tubes and waves and

amplifiers, concerning which he knows everything and I nothing.

Jason is an orphan with an income, and after he graduated from Stanford, he came down and bought a

couple of acres at Tarzana, and that is how and when I met him.

While he was building he made my office his headquarters and was often in my study and afterward I

returned the compliment by visiting him in his new "lab," as he calls it—a quite large room at the rear of

his home, a quiet, restful room in a quiet, restful house of the Spanish-American farm type—or we rode

together in the Santa Monica Mountains in the cool air of early morning.

Jason is experimenting with some new principle of radio concerning which the less I say the better it will

be for my reputation, since I know nothing whatsoever about it and am likely never to.

Perhaps I am too old, perhaps I am too dumb, perhaps I am just not interested—I prefer to ascribe my

abysmal and persistent ignorance of all things pertaining to radio to the last state; that of disinterestedness;

it salves my pride.

I do know this, however, because Jason has told me, that the idea he is playing with suggests an entirely

new and unsuspected—well, let us call it wave.

He says the idea was suggested to him by the vagaries of static and in groping around in search of some

device to eliminate this he discovered in the ether an undercurrent that operated according to no

previously known scientific laws.

At his Tarzana home he has erected a station and a few mile's away, at the back of my ranch, another.

Between these stations we talk to one another through some strange, ethereal medium that seems to pass

through all other waves and all other stations, unsuspected and entirely harmless—so harmless is it that it

has not the slightest effect upon Jason's regular set, standing in the same room and receiving over the

same aerial.

But this, which is not very interesting to any one except Jason, is all by the way of getting to the

beginning of the amazing narrative of the adventures of Tanar of Pellucidar.

Jason and I were sitting in his "lab" one evening discussing, as we often did, innumerable subjects, from

"cabbages to kings," and coming back, as Jason usually did, to the Gridley wave, which is what we have

named it.

Much of the time Jason kept on his ear phones, than which there is no greater discourager of

conversation. But this does not irk me as much as most of the conversations one has to listen to through

life. I like long silences and my own thoughts.

Presently, Jason removed the headpiece. "It is enough to drive a fellow to drink!" he exclaimed.

"What?" I asked.

"I am getting that same stuff again," he said. "I can hear voices, very faintly, but, unmistakably, human

voices. They are speaking a language unknown to man. It is maddening."

"Mars, perhaps," I suggested, "or Venus."

He knitted his brows and then suddenly smiled one of his quick smiles. "Or Pellucidar."

I shrugged.

"Do you know, Admiral," he said (he calls me Admiral because of a yachting cap I wear at the beach),

"that when I was a kid I used to believe every word of those crazy stories of yours about Mars and

Pellucidar. The inner world at the earth's core was as real to me as the High Sierras, the San Joaquin

Valley, or the Golden Gate, and I felt that I knew the twin cities of Helium better than I did Los Angeles.

"I saw nothing improbable at all in that trip of David Innes and old man Perry through the earth's crust to

Pellucidar. Yes, sir, that was all gospel to me when I was a kid."

"And now you are twenty-three and know that it can't be true," I said, with a smile.

"You are trying to tell me it is true, are you?" he demanded, laughing.

"I never have told any one that it is true," I replied; "I let people think what they think, but I reserve the

right to do likewise."

"Why, you know perfectly well that it would be impossible for that iron mole of Perry's to have

penetrated five hundred miles of the earth's crust, you know there is no inner world peopled by strange

reptiles and men of the stone age, you know there is no Emperor of Pellucidar." Jason was becoming

excited, but his sense of humor came to our rescue and he laughed.

"I like to believe that there is a Dian the Beautiful," I said.

"Yes," he agreed, "but I am sorry you killed off Hooja the Sly One. He was a corking villain."

"There are always plenty of villains," I reminded him.

"They help the girls to keep their 'figgers' and their school girl complexions," he said.

"How?" I asked.

"The exercise they get from being pursued."

"You are making fun of me," I reproached him, "but remember, please, that I am but a simple historian.

If damsels flee and villains pursue I must truthfully record the fact."

"Baloney!" he exclaimed in the pure university English of America.

Jason replaced his headpiece and I returned to the perusal of the narrative of an ancient liar, who should

have made a fortune out of the credulity of book readers, but seems not to have. Thus we sat for some

time.

Presently Jason removed his ear phones and turned toward me. "I was getting music," he said; "strange,

weird music, and then suddenly there came loud shouts and it seemed that I could hear blows struck and

there were screams and the sound of shots."

"Perry, you know, was experimenting with gunpowder down there below, in Pellucidar," I reminded

Jason, with ...a grin; but he was inclined to be serious and did not respond in kind.

"You know, of course," he said, "that there really has been a theory of an inner world for many years."

"Yes," I replied, "I have read works expounding and defending such a theory."

"It supposes polar openings leading into the interior of the earth," said Jason.

"And it is substantiated by many seemingly irrefutable scientific facts," I reminded him—"open polar sea,

warmer water farthest north, tropical vegetation floating southward from the polar regions, the northern

lights, the magnetic pole, the persistent stories of the Eskimos that they are descended from a race that

came from a warm country far to the north."

"I'd like to make a try for one of the polar openings," mused Jason as he replaced the ear phones.

Again there was a long silence, broken at last by "a sharp exclamation from Jason. He pushed an extra

headpiece toward me.

"Listen!" he exclaimed.

As I adjusted the ear phones I heard that which we had never before received on the Gridley

wave—code! No wonder that Jason Gridley was excited, since there was no station on earth, other than

his own, attuned to the Gridley wave.

Code! What could it mean? I was torn by conflicting emotions—to tear off the ear phones and discuss

this amazing thing with Jason, and to keep them on and listen.

I am not what one might call an expert in the intricacies of code, but I had no difficulty in understanding

the simple signal of two letters, repeated in groups of three, with a pause after each group: "D.I., D.I.,

D.I.," pause; "D.I., D.I., D.I.," pause.

I glanced up at Jason. His eyes, filled with puzzled questioning, met mine, as though to ask, what does it

mean?

The signals ceased and Jason touched his own key, sending his initials, "J.G., J.G., J.G." in the same

grouping that we had received the D.I. signal. Almost instantly he was interrupted—you could feel the

excitement of the sender.

"D.I., D.I., D.I., Pellucidar," rattled against our eardrums like machine gun fire. Jason and I sat in dumb

amazement, staring at one another.

"It is a hoax!" I exclaimed, and Jason, reading my lips, shook his head.

"How can it be a hoax?" he asked. "There is no other station on earth equipped to send or to receive

over the Gridley wave, so there can be no means of perpetrating such a hoax."

Our mysterious station was on the air again: "If you get this, repeat my signal," and he signed off with

"D.I., D.I., D.I."

"That would be David Innes," mused Jason.

"Emperor of Pellucidar," I added.

Jason sent the message, "D.I., D.I., D.I.," followed by, "what station is this," and "who is sending?"

"This is the Imperial Observatory at Greenwich, Pellucidar; Abner Perry sending. Who are you?"

"This is the private experimental laboratory of Jason Gridley, Tarzana, California; Gridley sending,"

replied Jason.

"I want to get into communication with Edgar Rice Burroughs; do you know him?"

"He is sitting here, listening in with me," replied Jason.

"Thank God, if that is true, but how am I to know that it is true?" demanded Perry.

I hastily scribbed a note to Jason: "Ask him if he recalls the fire in, his first gunpowder factory and that

the building would have been destroyed had they not extinguished the fire by shoveling his gunpowder

onto it?"

Jason grinned as he read the note, and sent it.

"It was unkind of David to tell of that," came back the reply, "but now I know that Burroughs is indeed

there, as only he could have known of that incident. I have a long message for him. Are you ready?"

"Yes," replied Jason. "Then stand by."

And this is the message that Abner Perry sent from the bowels of the earth; from The Empire of

Pellucidar.

INTRODUCTION

IT MUST be some fifteen years since David Innes and I broke through the inner surface of the earth's

crust and emerged into savage Pellucidar, but when a stationary sun hangs eternally at high noon and

there is no restless moon and there are no stars, time is measureless and so it may have been a hundred

years ago or one. Who knows? Of course, since David returned to earth and brought back many of the

blessings of civilization we have had the means to measure time, but the people did not like it. They found

that it put restrictions and limitations upon them that they never had felt before and they came to hate it

and ignore it until David, in the goodness of his heart, issued an edict abolishing time in Pellucidar.

It seemed a backward step to me, but I am resigned now, and, perhaps, happier, for when all is said

and done, time is a hard master, as you of the outer world, who are slaves of the sun, would be forced to

admit were you to give the matter thought.

Here, in Pellucidar, we eat when we are hungry, we sleep when we are tired, we set out upon journeys

when we leave and we arrive at our destinations when we get there; nor are we old because the earth has

circled the sun seventy times since our birth, for we do not know that this has occurred.

Perhaps I have been here fifteen years, but what matter. When I came I knew nothing of radio—my

researches and studies were along other lines—but when David came back from the outer world he

brought many scientific works and from these I learned all that I know of radio, which has been enough

to permit me to erect two successful stations; one here at Greenwich and one at the capital of The

Empire of Pellucidar.

But, try as I would, I never could get anything from the outer world, and after a while I gave up trying,

convinced that the earth's crust was impervious to radio.

In fact we used our stations but seldom, for, after all, Pellucidar is only commencing to emerge from the

stone age, and in the economy of the stone age there seems to be no crying need for radio.

But sometimes I played with it and upon several occasions I thought that I heard voices and other

sounds that were not of Pellucidar. They were too faint to be more than vague suggestions of intriguing

possibilities, but yet they did suggest something most alluring, and so I set myself to making changes and

adjustments until this wonderful thing that has happened but now was made possible.

And my delight in being able to talk with you is second only to my relief in being able to appeal to you

for help. David is in trouble. He is a captive in the north, or what he and I call north, for there are no

points of compass known to Pellucidarians.

I have heard from him, however. He has sent me a message and in it he suggests a startling theory that

would make aid from the outer crust possible if—but first let me tell you the whole story; the story of the

disaster that befell David Innes and what led up to it and then you will be in a better position to judge as

to the practicability of sending succor to David from the outer crust.

The whole thing dates from our victories over the Mahars, the once dominant race of Pellucidar. When,

with our well organized armies, equipped with firearms and other weapons unknown to the Mahars or

their gorilla-like mercenaries, the Sagoths, we defeated the reptilian monsters and drove their

slimy-hordes from the confines of The Empire, the human race of the inner world for the first time in its

history took its rightful place among the orders of creation.

But our victories laid the foundation for the disaster that has overwhelmed us.

For a while there was no Mahar within the boundaries of any of the kingdoms that constitute The Empire

of Pellucidar; but presently we had word of them here and there—small parties living upon the shores of

sea or lake far from the haunts of man.

They gave us no trouble—their old power had crumbled beyond recall; their Sagoths were now

numbered among the regiments of The Empire; the Mahars had no longer the means to harm us; yet we

did not want them among us. They are eaters of human flesh and we had no assurance that lone hunters

would be safe from their voracious appetites.

We wanted them to be gone and so David sent a force against them, but with orders to treat with them

first and attempt to persuade them to leave The Empire peacefully rather than embroil themselves in

another war that might mean total extermination.

Sagoths accompanied the expedition, for they alone of all the creatures of Pellucidar can converse in the

sixth sense, fourth dimension language of the Mahars.

The story that the expedition brought back was rather pitiful and aroused David's sympathies, as stories

of persecution and unhappiness always do.

After the Mahars had been driven from The Empire they had sought a haven where they might live in

peace. They assured us that they had accepted the inevitable in a spirit of philosophy and entertained no

thoughts of renewing their warfare against the human race or in any way attempting to win back their lost

ascendancy.

Far away upon the shores of a mighty ocean, where there were no signs of man, they settled in peace,

but their peace was not for long.

A great ship came, reminding the Mahars of the first ships they had seen—the ships that David and I had

built —the first ships, as far as we knew, that ever had sailed the silent seas of Pellucidar.

Naturally it was a surprise to us to learn that there was a race within the inner world sufficiently far

advanced to be able to build ships, but there was another surprise in store for us. The Mahars assured us

that these people possessed firearms and that because of their ships and their firearms they were fully as

formidable as we and they were much more ferocious; killing for the pure sport of slaughter.

After the first ship had sailed away the Mahars thought they might be allowed to live in peace, but this

dream was short lived, as presently the first ship returned and with it were many others manned by

thousands of bloodthirsty enemies against whose weapons the great reptiles had little or no defense.

Seeking only escape from man, the Mahars left their new home and moved back a short distance

toward The Empire, but now their enemies seemed bent only upon persecution; they hunted them, and

when they found them the Mahars were again forced to fall back before the ferocity of their continued

attacks.

Eventually they took refuge within the boundaries of The Empire, and scarcely had David's expedition to

them returned with its report when we had definite proof of the veracity of their tale through messages

from our northernmost frontier bearing stories of invasion by a strange, savage race of white men. Frantic

was the message from Goork, King of Thuria, whose far-flung frontier stretches beyond the Land of

Awful Shadow.

Some of his hunters had been surprised and all but a few killed or captured by the invaders.

He had sent warriors, then, against them, but these, too, had met a like fate, being greatly outnumbered,

and so he sent a runner to David begging the Emperor to rush troops to his aid.

Scarcely had the first runner arrived when another came, bearing tidings of the capture and sack of the

principal town of the Kingdom of Thuria; and then a third arrived from the commander of the invaders

demanding that David come with tribute or they would destroy his country and slay the prisoners they

held as hostages.

In reply David dispatched Tanar, son of Ghak, to demand the release of all prisoners and the departure

of the invaders.

Immediately runners were sent to the nearest kingdoms of The Empire and ere Tanar had reached the

Land of Awful Shadow, ten thousand warriors were marching along the same trail to enforce the

demands of the Emperor and drive the savage foe from Pellucidar.

As David approached the Land of Awful Shadow that lies beneath Pellucidar's mysterious satellite, a

great column of smoke was observable in the horizonless distance ahead.

It was not necessary to urge the tireless warriors to greater speed, for all who saw guessed that the

invaders had taken another village and put it to the torch.

And then came the refugees—women and children only —and behind them a thin line of warriors

striving to hold back swarthy, bearded strangers, armed with strange weapons that resembled ancient

harquebuses with bell-shaped muzzles—huge, unwieldy things that belched smoke and flame and stones

and bits of metal.

That the Pellucidarians, outnumbered ten to one, were able to hold back their savage foes at all was due

to the more modern firearms that David and I had taught them to make and use.

Perhaps half the warriors of Thuria were armed with these and they were all that saved them from

absolute rout, and, perhaps, total annihilation.

Loud were the shouts of joy when the first of the refugees discovered and recognized the force that had

come to their delivery.

Goork and his people had been wavering in allegiance to The Empire, as were several other distant

kingdoms, but I believe that this practical demonstration of the value of the Federation ended their doubts

forever and left the people of the Land of Awful Shadow and their king the most loyal subjects that

David possessed.

The effect upon the enemy of the appearance of ten thousand well-armed warriors was quickly

apparent. They halted, and, as we advanced, they withdrew, but though they retreated they gave us a

good fight.

David learned from Goork that Tanar had been retained as a hostage, but though he made several

attempts to open negotiations with the enemy for the purpose of exchanging some prisoners that had

fallen into our hands, for Tanar and other Pellucidarians, he never was able to do so.

Our forces drove the invaders far beyond the limits of The Empire to the shores of a distant sea, where,

with difficulty and the loss of many men, they at last succeeded in embarking their depleted forces on

ships that were as archaic in design as were their ancient harquebuses.

These ships rose to exaggerated heights at stern and bow, the sterns being built up in several stories, or

housed decks, one atop another. There was much carving in seemingly intricate designs everywhere

above the water line and each ship carried at her prow a figurehead painted, like the balance of the ship,

in gaudy colors — usually a life size or a heroic figure of a naked woman or a mermaid.

The men themselves were equally bizarre and colorful, wearing gay cloths about their heads, wide sashes

of bright colors and huge boots with flapping tops—those that were not half naked and barefoot.

Besides their harquebuses they carried huge pistols and knives stuck in their belts and at their hips were

cutlasses. Altogether, with their bushy whiskers and fierce faces, they were at once a bad looking and a

picturesque lot.

From some of the last prisoners he took during the fighting at the seashore, David learned that Tanar

was still alive and that the chief of the invaders had determined to take him home with him in the hope that

he could learn from Tanar the secrets of our superior weapons and gunpowder, for, notwithstanding my

first failures, I had, and not without some pride, finally achieved a gunpowder that would not only burn,

but that would ignite with such force as to be quite satisfactory. I am now perfecting a noiseless,

smokeless powder, though honesty compels me to confess that my first experiments have not been

entirely what I had hoped they might be, the first batch detonated having nearly broken my ear-drums

and so filled my eyes with smoke that I thought I had been blinded.

When David saw the enemy ships sailing away with Tanar he was sick with grief, for Tanar always has

been an especial favorite of the Emperor and his gracious Empress, Dian the Beautiful. He was like a son

to them. We had no ships upon this sea and David could not follow with his army; neither, being David,

could he abandon the son of his best friend to a savage enemy before he had exhausted every resource at

his command in an effort toward rescue.

In addition to the prisoners that had fallen into his hands David had captured one of the small boats that

the enemy had used in embarking his forces, and this it was that suggested to David the mad scheme

upon which he embarked.

The boat was about sixteen feet long and was equipped with both oars and a sail. It was broad of beam

and had every appearance of being staunch and seaworthy, though pitifully small in which to face the

dangers of an unknown sea, peopled, as are all the waters of Pellucidar, with huge monsters possessing

short tempers and long appetites.

Standing upon the shore, gazing after the diminishing outlines of the departing ships, David reached his

decision. Surrounding him were the captains and the kings of the Federated Kingdoms of Pellucidar and

behind these ten thousand warriors, leaning upon their arms. To one side the sullen prisoners, heavily

guarded, gazed after their departing comrades, with what sensations of hopelessness and envy one may

guess.

David turned toward his people. "Those departing ships have borne away Tanar, the son of Ghak, and

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AboutTheAuthorEDGARRICEBURROUGHS1875-1950OneofChicago'smostfamoussonswasEdgarRiceBurroughs.YoungBurroughstriedhishandatmanybusinesseswithoutsuccess,until,attheageofthirty-five,heturnedtowriting.WiththepublicationofTarzanoftheApesandAPrincessofMars,hiscareerwasassured.Thegratitudeofamultitudeofreader...

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