Black Amazon of Mars Revisited
Appendix N Revisited, Part 3
Hello, and welcome to the third installment of my "Appendix N Revisited" project! As I mentioned previously, in the course of this project, I want to revisit the classics of fantasy fiction, weird fiction, and science fiction that made up "Appendix N" to the original Dungeon Master's Guide by Gary Gygax, both to explore their influence on my Hobby (RPGs) and my own writing and conception of fantasy fiction. The third installment focuses on Leigh Brackett and Black Amazon of Mars. If you have never read the book and wish to avoid spoilers, you should stop reading at this point, as I shall be discussing the book in some detail.
Leigh Brackett (1915-1978) was known as "the Queen of Space Opera" - she wrote "sword and planet" space opera sci-fi set on Mercury, Venus, and Mars (habitable, in the way those planets are in pulp space operas). She died in 1978, right around the time that Appendix N was originally compiled by Gary Gygax, and two years before the release of the movie that assured her lasting memory in modern geekdom, for she helped write the screenplay for Star Wars Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back. Black Amazon of Mars (1951) features the character Eric John Stark, originally introduced in Queen of the Martian Catacombs (1949), an orphan from Earth raised on Mercury by semi-sentient aborigines, among whom he was known as N'Chaka, "the man without a tribe." Stark was saved by someone from Earth, adopted and civilized, but in moments of stress he reverts back to his instincts as N'Chaka.
Ease of Availability
This is the easiest Leigh Brackett book to find on Amazon Kindle; some of her other stories can be much harder to find. The odd thing is, this is not the first "Eric John Stark on Mars" story; reading this story, one clearly has the sense that Stark has quite a backstory! I intend to go back and read more Leigh Brackett books in the future, but I decided to start with what I could find immediately. There is an audiobook version of this book readily available from Audible as well, and I did enjoy listening to that.
Summary and Commentary - SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!
As I mentioned above, Black Amazon of Mars is not the first Eric John Stark story by Leigh Brackett (he was introduced in Queen of the Martian Catacombs in 1949), merely the easiest one to find and read these days, so be aware before you read that this story alludes to the protagonist's backstory but does not expand upon that. John Eric Stark is human, but was apparently orphaned as a small child on Mercury, where he was adopted by some sort of semi-sentient aboriginal life form. They called him N'Chaka, "The Man Without A Tribe," and although he was eventually saved and raised by an official from Earth who "civilized" him, in times of stress, Stark reverts to the primitive instincts and survival skills he learned as N'Chaka. So he is sort of a "Mercurian Tarzan" [Edgar Rice Burroughs is also in Appendix N, of course!].
This story begins in medias res, in the Norlands (near the northern polar ice cap of Mars), and Eric John Stark is accompanying his dying friend Camar the Martian on a journey back to his home, the city of Kushat, Camar is dying because he deliberately took a bullet meant for Stark (they fought together in a long guerilla campaign "among the harried tribes of the nearer moon), but as they take shelter in some ancient ruins, Stark realizes to his sorrow that Camar is not going to survive to make it back to his home city before he dies. Stark is shown as loyal, tough, a mercenary warrior, and somewhat cosmopolitan (he speaks "courtly High Martian almost as fluently" as a native). The ruins in which they shelter are unsettling - "wrong, somehow, with a taint of forgotten evil still about them." [Stark is a fairly archetypal Appendix N hero, and an obvious template for the sort of mercenary player characters that came to dominate most fantasy and space opera RPGs, his travels among ancient ruins and lost civilizations read very much like an RPG module plot].
As he is dying, Stark's companion Camar reveals that the reason that he is so anxious to return to Kushat is that he stole "a holy thing" long ago that he feels he must return. He grew up in the Thieves' Quarter of Kushat [classic RPG campaign cities always seem to have one!], and when he was young he stole the Talisman of Ban Cruach. Who is Ban Cruach? Local hero legend, supposedly the founder of Kushat, which stands guard over a mountain pass known as the Gates of Death that lead toward Mars' north pole. Ban Cruach passed beyond the Gates of Death and never returned, but he left behind his talisman, a lens of crystal, intricately faceted, which Camar has hidden in a secret compartment behind the boss of his belt. Camar had planned to return the sacred talisman to Kushat, to atone for his theft, before he died. Now he knows that he will die before he reaches Kushat. Stark offers to take the burden upon himself, to bring the talisman home, but Camar warns him that it would not be safe for him to do so, that the folk of the Norlands are suspicious of outsiders. Camar also warns Stark to beware the barbarians known as the Mekh - "The riders of Mekh are wolves. They hunt these gorges. Look out for them."
Stark examines the talisman. When he places the lens against his brow, he has a vision, as the mind and memories of Ban Cruach invade his own. He sees through the eyes of Ban Cruach, "a million years ago in the morning of the world." Mars covered in ice, and cities dwelt in by creatures he could not see or describe clearly [they are referred to as "the shining ones" throughout much of this story, though not at this point]. He feels Ban Cruach's hatred of them, and his own horror at these inhuman beings that lived in crystal cities cut into the living ice.
When Stark revives from his vision, Camar has died. Soon after this, he is found by the red-haired barbarians known as the riders of Mekh [I note that it is never explicitly stated in this novel what the "riders of Mekh" actually ride, it seems not to be horses - they are referred to as "mounts," and there are a couple of passages that imply that they might be some sort of reptilian, lizard-like creatures - some sort of native Martian beasts?]. The leader of the Mekh patrol is named Thord. He listens to Stark's story that he was simply traveling to Kushat when his companion died, but Thord doesn't Stark - he has Stark disarmed and robbed, and taken prisoner back to the Mekh camp to meet "Lord Ciaran," who is apparently the leader of the barbarians.
So Stark is brought before Lord Ciaran, who is seated, "seemed very tall," and "from neck to thigh his lean body was cased in black link mail, and under that a tunic of leather, dyed black," across his knees he held s sable axe, "a great thing made for the shearing of skulls," and his head and face are covered by what Stark recognizes to be "the ancient war-mask of the inland Kings of Mars," "wrought of black and gleaming steel" [the description actually sounds a lot like the helmet and mask of Darth Vader, long before Lucas ever thought of it, for the record!]. At one point Stark asks to see Lord Ciaran's face, and someone tells him that if a man like that always wears a mask, it must be for a reason - given that the reader knows the title of the story, we might already guess at "Lord Ciaran's" secret! Anyway, Stark is again interrogated about his purpose for traveling in the Norlands, and Lord Ciaran's mad courtier Otar suggests that Stark's dead companion might have been Camar, famed as the thief that stole the talisman of Ban Cruach (Stark denies this, and does not admit to having the talisman hidden behind the boss of the belt he took from Camar).
Lord Ciaran says, "I am a bastard, but I come of the blood of kings. My name and rank I must make with my own hands. But I will set them high, and my name will ring in the Norlands!" Lord Ciaran reveals his intent to capture the city of Kushat - "Who hold Kushat, holds Mars - and the power and the riches that lie beyond the Gates of Death!" It is revealed that Otar, the mad courtier, was driven mad because he has seen the "shining ones" beyond the Gates of Death, just as Stark saw them in his vision! Ciaran offers Stark a chance to join the Mekh, but he refuses.
Ciaran says, "By tomorrow, the last of the clans will have joined us. After that, we must march." Ciaran gives Stark to Thord to try to find if he knows more of the talisman.
The scene shifts to much later that night, when Thord has scourged Stark, but Stark refuses to talk or cry out. The talisman is still safe in his belt. Thord lets down his guard, and Stark bites his hand, growling like a beast, having reverted to his N'Chaka persona - "It is a thing of evil. Warlock. Werewolf. Beast." When Thord moved to kill Stark, despite Lord Ciaran's orders to let him live, Ciaran hurled the great axe, which took Thord in the neck and killed him - "I will be obeyed. And I will not stand for fear, not of god, man, nor devil" [a very Appendix N sentiment! - very similar to the old Viking sagas in which heroes declare that they don't trust in supernatural powers or gods, only their own might and main]. But when Ciaran's soldiers go to cut Stark down from his bonds, he manages to escape, steal a mount, and ride for Kushat.
It is a very long ride to Kushat, and an excruciating one, especially since Stark has just survived an extended torture interrogation. When he rides into the gates of Kushat and to a marketplace, he is nearly unconscious. The descriptions of Kushat make clear its decadence and fallen splendor, that the ancient city established by Ban Cruach grew to greatness and now has diminished over the millennia. Stark is taken in by a woman of the Thieves' Quarter named Thanis, who offers him wine. Armored city watchmen interrogate him as to his identity and purpose, for "no one crosses the moors in winter." Stark warns them that "the clans of Mekh are crossing them. An army, to take Kushat - one, two days behind me." The guards do not believe him, but Thanis vouches for Stark and offers to look after him while they report word of the coming siege to their superiors (for they dare not ignore the warning, no matter how unlikely it seems to them).
Thanis takes Stark to the home she shares with her brother Balin in the Thieves' Quarter, so Stark can get some sleep. While he sleeps Balin examines his clothing, and finds the talisman, but he replaces it in the belt. Stark is awakened when a nobleman of Kushat named Rogain comes to interrogate him. He realizes that the folk of Kushat are "too civilized . . . Peace had drawn their fangs and cut their claws. He thought of the wild clansmen coming fast across the snow, and felt a certain pity for the men of Kushat" [sounds very Robert E. Howard, doesn't it? He's also in Appendix N, of course]. Rogain says that he will arm the city to fight a siege, since he does not dare do otherwise, but threatens dire punishment if Stark is found to be lying. As soon as Rogain leaves, Stark falls asleep again.
When Stark awakens again, Thanis gives him some nice garments that Balin stole for him [they are thieves of the Thieves' Quarter after all, like the Old School days when Thief was a character class, not Rogue]. Balin tells him that the soldiers are grumbling about a false alarm. It is pointed out that Stark could simply flee, but he now considers his grudge with Lord Ciaran to be somewhat personal. Stark takes Balin and Thanis up onto the city walls of Kushat to watch for the Mekh invaders. "They will attack at dawn," predicting the attack will come in the hour of darkness between the setting of the second moon, Deimos, and the rising of the sun. Thanis says she does not believe in the barbarians and leaves. But of course, Stark is correct - just as dawn comes, they appear, with war horns, pipes, and drums, coming with infantry, cavalry, and of course, Lord Ciaran, all in black, leading the Mekh.
Within the walls, all becomes chaos very quickly - a "troop of nobles went by, brave in their bright mail, to take up their post in the square by the great gate" - "soldiers came and ordered them off the Wall. They went back to their own roof, where [Balin and Stark] were joined by Thanis" - Thanis is contemptuous of the barbarians who would dare to attack Kushat, at first. But then she hears it - "'what is that - that sound like thunder?' 'Rams,' he answered, 'They are battering the gate' . . . Balin said heavily, 'It is the end of Kushat'." The soldiers of decadent Kushat fight the Mekh, but they are clearly outmatched. Stark and Balin join the fight, but Kushat is clearly doomed [Incidentally, this is a great description of a city under siege, up there with Tolkien's Siege of Minas Tirith, in my opinion!].
Stark tells Balin to get his sister Thanis to safety, but Balin asks for the talisman of Ban Cruach: "Give me the talisman. Give it me, and I will go beyond the Gates of Death and rouse Ban Cruach from his sleep. And if he had forgotten Kushat, I will take his power into my own hands . . . or if the legends are all lies, then I will die." Stark refuses, but Balin ends up going anyway!
Stark is there when Lord Ciaran and the Mekh forces break through into the market square where he first arrived in Kushat. Stark fights Lord Ciaran, and rips off the war-mask, planning to break Ciaran's neck - but is stunned to realize "Lord Ciaran" is a woman! [played up as a big reveal to the audience as well as to the characters, but the title is Black Amazon of Mars - when the character that wears all black refuses to take off the mask, I think the reader already knows what's going on!]. Stark is so shocked that she manages to break free from him, stun him, and since her secret is now revealed to her followers, she potentially has only seconds before they turn on her for her deception. So she yells, "I have led you well. I have taken you Kushat. Will any man dispute me?" Just then, the nobles of Kushat rally to attack her, revitalized by the revelation that "Lord Ciaran" is "A wench! A strumpet of the camps! A woman!" She swiftly dispatches three of them with her axe, and her stunned Mekh followers rally to her, shouting "Ciaran! Ciaran!" Stark escapes.
Later, Stark stealthily enters the king's castle, which Ciaran has taken as a headquarters. Again, the fallen splendor and decadence of Kushat is played up as he makes his way through the castle. He sees Otar sleeping on a pallet like a dog. He knocks out a guard and breaks into "Ciaran's" chambers where she is sleeping. She awakens, but is unafraid of Stark - "I will have a word with my guards about this."
"My mother named me Ciara, if that seems better to you," she says, and reveals that she seeks whatever lies beyond the Gates of Death, whatever power Ban Cruach found there and made it so "men speak of him still as half a god." Stark tries to warn her of the terrible dangers beyond the Gates of Death - "Even the bravest may break. Ban Cruach himself . . . Would you be made as Otar, mad with what you have seen?" She says that she is certain now that he has the talisman, and she would flay him alive to get it, but either way she intends to go through the Gates of Death when the spring thaw comes. She has overcome much in her life, especially sexism, to become the warlord of the Mekh - "I have come a long way. I will not turn back now."
Stark tries to argue, and shows her the talisman and its use. She is overwhelmed by the visions and memories of Ban Cruach, just as he was. She cries out, "Oh gods of Mars!" and she collapses. Stark makes sure she is still alive, then leaves to avoid being captured by Ciara's men. On his way out of the castle, he hears Thanis' voice at the entrance to the castle, threatening, "Balin has gone to bring doom upon you! He will open wide the Gates of Death, and then you will die! - die! - die!" Stark realizes that he must stop Balin before he flings wide the Gates of Death and releases "an ancient, mysterious horror . . . upon Kushat."
So Stark makes the journey through the polar mountain pass in winter, and Brackett builds up a sense of foreboding dread on the long journey. Finally, at the end of the pass, Stark finds "a great cairn, and upon it sat a figure, facing outward from the Gates of Death, as though it kept watch over whatever country lay beyond . . . The figure of a man in antique Martian armor." As Stark passes the cairn, he feels a flash of heat in his flesh, "and not in any tempering of the frozen air" - he looks up at the mailed figure, and into the face of the corpse of Ban Cruach.
Brackett puts some effort into describing the well-preserved corpse of Ban Cruach; a sample: "Clad as for battle in his ancient mail, he held upright between his hands a mighty sword. The pommel was a ball of crystal as large as a man's fist, that held within it a spark of intense brilliance . . . the sword-blade blazed with a white, cruel radiance" - Ban Cruach wards "forever the inner end of the Gates of Death, as his ancient city of Kushat guarded the outer." Stark steps towards him an feels "again the shock and flaring heat in his blood" - "The strange force in the blazing sword made an invisible barrier across the mouth of the pass . . . a barrier of short waves . . . having no heat in themselves but increasing the heat in body cells by increasing their vibration" [Flaming swords and the like are common enough in fantasy literature and RPGs, but how many explicitly work by microwave radiation? Nevertheless, the fact that Ban Cruach's sword emits a field of microwaves that heat up anything passing through is important!]. Stark does not really want to pass into the polar region beyond the Gates of Death, but he knows that Balin must have come this way, so he proceeds.
Once again, Brackett's evocative descriptions are, if you will forgive the term, chilling - the terrible beauty of the spires and bridges of crystal ice, "a metropolis of gossamer and frost, fragile and lovely as a dream, locked in the clear, pure vault of the ice," with stone towers that protrude above the ice vault. Stark can also see the horrible beings, the shining ones, who dwell within that icy vault. Looking back, Stark can see Ciara and her riders pursuing, having followed him through the Gates of Death. She calls out to him, and it seems as if her shouts rouse the guardians of that place - the rest of the riders flee while the shining others come out of the stone towers to take Stark and Ciara! The shining ones use some kind of freezing, black, nerve-affecting energy to numb Stark & Ciara, knock them unconscious, and take them prisoner.
Stark awakens, unable to move, a prisoner of the shining ones, in their city. Hundreds of feet overhead he sees a crystal globe like the one on the pommel of Ban Cruach's sword, but instead of a shining light spark, it has a smoldering purple spark within, sending out cold, dark vibrations - two equal, yet opposite, crystals, he realizes. The sword of B an Cruach touched the blood with heat, and the one he sees in the tower deadens flesh with cold - opposite ends of the spectrum.
Stark estimates that the well of the stone tower plunges more than 500' under the ice down to the bedrock on which the city of the shining ones rests. They bring him to a cathedral-like building, all arched and spired, standing in the center of a 12-pointed plaza. There, the shining ones already hold Balin prisoner. There are 7 of the shining beings there to interrogate them. They communicate telepathically, and from this mental contact, Stark learns that they are beings of extreme cold, "even the infinitesimal amount of heat radiated by their half-frozen human bodies caused the ice-folk discomfort." Stark wants to know what the shining ones want from them, and receives the telepathic answer with some difficulty - Freedom!" Balin rouses - "They asked me already! Tell them no, Stark! Tell them no!"
It is revealed that the shining ones once ruled more of Mars as "kings of the glacial ice;" they controlled the ice, far outside the present polar cap. Their towers, whose ruins dot the landscape to this day, once blanketed the land with the dark force drawn from the magnetic field of Mars itself through the crystalline globe Stark saw, locking it in ice that never thawed, until the coming of Can Cruach . . .
Ban Cruach learned the secret of the crystal globes, learned how to reverse their force and use it against the shining ones. Leading his armies, he destroyed their towers one by one, drove them back, trapping them beyond the Gates of Death. Mars needed water, so the ice of the shining ones was melted, their cities destroyed, so that humans could have water on Mars. Ban Cruach realized that he could not destroy the last refuge of the shining ones at the polar ice cap completely, so he set himself to guard the Gates of Death with his blazing sword, so that the shining ones could never reclaim Mars.
This is what the shining ones demand of their captives - that they take away the sword of Ban Cruach, which none of them can even approach, let alone touch, so that the shining ones can once more extend their empire beyond the Gates of Death. But Stark knows the terrible thirst of Mars, and the catastrophic death that will befall the humans of the planet if all the water were to be locked up in the polar ice again. So he refuses, as Balin did. Ciara cares little for the human civilizations south of her domain, but she says, "If I take that sword, it will be to use it against you as Ban Cruach did!"
But the shining ones are not frightened by her threat - "Neither you not anyone now knows how to use it as he did," and they are certain that they can force a prisoner to take it. The shining ones demand that Stark do it, threatening Ciara and Balin (having telepathically sensed his fondness for them). They have a device that will slowly freeze Ciara and Balin alive in such a way that they will remain horribly conscious though paralyzed with cold, and if exposed to the rays long enough, they will die. They begin the freezing process to pressure Stark. Both Ciara and Balin are prepared to give their lives to save the Norlands from the shining ones. But Stark tells the shining ones that he will do what they ask to save his friends.
Stark takes the talisman of Ban Cruach and binds it to his forehead with a strip of cloth. He is flooded with the memories and personality of Ban Cruach, almost possessed by the dead man's soul, yet retaining some sense of himself - "a curious duality." He reached out and took the sword out of the frozen hands of Ban Cruach "as though it were his own," he now "knew the secret of the metal rings that bound its hilt" - by turning the rings, he adjusts the aura of force that closed the Gates of Death, turning it into a focused weapon, a beam. He can sense the horror and fear of the shining ones as they realize that Stark does know how to use the sword of Ban Cruach (thanks to the memories within the talisman) - "Ban Cruach! Ban Cruach has returned!" - they had touched his mind. They knew.
So Stark sweeps the sword in an arc, the long bright blade of force cutting the shining ones down "like flowers under a scythe." The remaining shining ones flee as he comes bounding back from Ban Cruach's cairn, with Ban Cruach's sword in his hand, Ban Cruach's talisman on his forehead, and Ban Cruach's memories in his head. He drives them back, shields himself from their dark force with the bright force of the sword, and returns to the tower where Ciara and Balin are held captive, slowly freezing. The shining ones try to take him from behind while his attention is focused on saving his friends. So Stark takes the broken mechanism of the freezing machine and hurls it town the well of the tower, shattering the fragile bridges of ice used by the shining ones so that they cannot approach him. He then turns to unfreezing Ciara and Balin before it is too late . . .
The scene cuts to several hours later, after Stark has freed Ciara and Balin, and has removed the talisman and "was himself again." He puts the sword of Ban Cruach back at the cairn, and turns the rings to spread out the radiation and close the Gates of Death to the shining ones again. "Tell the story in Kushat," he says, "Men have forgotten. And they should not forget." So they return to Kushat.
Ciara asks Stark to stay with her, sensing that he will not, although he is not driven by conquest as she once was. She asks what drives Stark. "I don't know," he answers, "It doesn't matter . . . . I want to stay, Ciara. Now, this minute, I could promise that I would stay forever. But I know myself. You belong here, you will make Kushat your own. I don't. Someday I will go." Ciara seems to understand, and agrees, "Very well, Stark. Let it be so." And so the story ends as so many do in Appendix N literature - the male hero defeats the monsters, saves the city, and gets the girl, but is destined to eventually move on, being unsuited to settling down in one place.
Black Amazon of Mars clearly shows the influence of Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote both his own Mars stories (John Carter of Mars) and stories about an orphaned human raised by semi-sentient animals who comes to excel because of his dual heritage as both savage and civilized man (Tarzan). \
Leigh Brackett's Mars is one of the obvious influences on modern FRPG offerings like Peril on the Purple Planet for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG!
This story begins in medias res, in the Norlands (near the northern polar ice cap of Mars), and Eric John Stark is accompanying his dying friend Camar the Martian on a journey back to his home, the city of Kushat, Camar is dying because he deliberately took a bullet meant for Stark (they fought together in a long guerilla campaign "among the harried tribes of the nearer moon), but as they take shelter in some ancient ruins, Stark realizes to his sorrow that Camar is not going to survive to make it back to his home city before he dies. Stark is shown as loyal, tough, a mercenary warrior, and somewhat cosmopolitan (he speaks "courtly High Martian almost as fluently" as a native). The ruins in which they shelter are unsettling - "wrong, somehow, with a taint of forgotten evil still about them." [Stark is a fairly archetypal Appendix N hero, and an obvious template for the sort of mercenary player characters that came to dominate most fantasy and space opera RPGs, his travels among ancient ruins and lost civilizations read very much like an RPG module plot].
As he is dying, Stark's companion Camar reveals that the reason that he is so anxious to return to Kushat is that he stole "a holy thing" long ago that he feels he must return. He grew up in the Thieves' Quarter of Kushat [classic RPG campaign cities always seem to have one!], and when he was young he stole the Talisman of Ban Cruach. Who is Ban Cruach? Local hero legend, supposedly the founder of Kushat, which stands guard over a mountain pass known as the Gates of Death that lead toward Mars' north pole. Ban Cruach passed beyond the Gates of Death and never returned, but he left behind his talisman, a lens of crystal, intricately faceted, which Camar has hidden in a secret compartment behind the boss of his belt. Camar had planned to return the sacred talisman to Kushat, to atone for his theft, before he died. Now he knows that he will die before he reaches Kushat. Stark offers to take the burden upon himself, to bring the talisman home, but Camar warns him that it would not be safe for him to do so, that the folk of the Norlands are suspicious of outsiders. Camar also warns Stark to beware the barbarians known as the Mekh - "The riders of Mekh are wolves. They hunt these gorges. Look out for them."
Stark examines the talisman. When he places the lens against his brow, he has a vision, as the mind and memories of Ban Cruach invade his own. He sees through the eyes of Ban Cruach, "a million years ago in the morning of the world." Mars covered in ice, and cities dwelt in by creatures he could not see or describe clearly [they are referred to as "the shining ones" throughout much of this story, though not at this point]. He feels Ban Cruach's hatred of them, and his own horror at these inhuman beings that lived in crystal cities cut into the living ice.
When Stark revives from his vision, Camar has died. Soon after this, he is found by the red-haired barbarians known as the riders of Mekh [I note that it is never explicitly stated in this novel what the "riders of Mekh" actually ride, it seems not to be horses - they are referred to as "mounts," and there are a couple of passages that imply that they might be some sort of reptilian, lizard-like creatures - some sort of native Martian beasts?]. The leader of the Mekh patrol is named Thord. He listens to Stark's story that he was simply traveling to Kushat when his companion died, but Thord doesn't Stark - he has Stark disarmed and robbed, and taken prisoner back to the Mekh camp to meet "Lord Ciaran," who is apparently the leader of the barbarians.
So Stark is brought before Lord Ciaran, who is seated, "seemed very tall," and "from neck to thigh his lean body was cased in black link mail, and under that a tunic of leather, dyed black," across his knees he held s sable axe, "a great thing made for the shearing of skulls," and his head and face are covered by what Stark recognizes to be "the ancient war-mask of the inland Kings of Mars," "wrought of black and gleaming steel" [the description actually sounds a lot like the helmet and mask of Darth Vader, long before Lucas ever thought of it, for the record!]. At one point Stark asks to see Lord Ciaran's face, and someone tells him that if a man like that always wears a mask, it must be for a reason - given that the reader knows the title of the story, we might already guess at "Lord Ciaran's" secret! Anyway, Stark is again interrogated about his purpose for traveling in the Norlands, and Lord Ciaran's mad courtier Otar suggests that Stark's dead companion might have been Camar, famed as the thief that stole the talisman of Ban Cruach (Stark denies this, and does not admit to having the talisman hidden behind the boss of the belt he took from Camar).
Lord Ciaran says, "I am a bastard, but I come of the blood of kings. My name and rank I must make with my own hands. But I will set them high, and my name will ring in the Norlands!" Lord Ciaran reveals his intent to capture the city of Kushat - "Who hold Kushat, holds Mars - and the power and the riches that lie beyond the Gates of Death!" It is revealed that Otar, the mad courtier, was driven mad because he has seen the "shining ones" beyond the Gates of Death, just as Stark saw them in his vision! Ciaran offers Stark a chance to join the Mekh, but he refuses.
Ciaran says, "By tomorrow, the last of the clans will have joined us. After that, we must march." Ciaran gives Stark to Thord to try to find if he knows more of the talisman.
The scene shifts to much later that night, when Thord has scourged Stark, but Stark refuses to talk or cry out. The talisman is still safe in his belt. Thord lets down his guard, and Stark bites his hand, growling like a beast, having reverted to his N'Chaka persona - "It is a thing of evil. Warlock. Werewolf. Beast." When Thord moved to kill Stark, despite Lord Ciaran's orders to let him live, Ciaran hurled the great axe, which took Thord in the neck and killed him - "I will be obeyed. And I will not stand for fear, not of god, man, nor devil" [a very Appendix N sentiment! - very similar to the old Viking sagas in which heroes declare that they don't trust in supernatural powers or gods, only their own might and main]. But when Ciaran's soldiers go to cut Stark down from his bonds, he manages to escape, steal a mount, and ride for Kushat.
It is a very long ride to Kushat, and an excruciating one, especially since Stark has just survived an extended torture interrogation. When he rides into the gates of Kushat and to a marketplace, he is nearly unconscious. The descriptions of Kushat make clear its decadence and fallen splendor, that the ancient city established by Ban Cruach grew to greatness and now has diminished over the millennia. Stark is taken in by a woman of the Thieves' Quarter named Thanis, who offers him wine. Armored city watchmen interrogate him as to his identity and purpose, for "no one crosses the moors in winter." Stark warns them that "the clans of Mekh are crossing them. An army, to take Kushat - one, two days behind me." The guards do not believe him, but Thanis vouches for Stark and offers to look after him while they report word of the coming siege to their superiors (for they dare not ignore the warning, no matter how unlikely it seems to them).
Thanis takes Stark to the home she shares with her brother Balin in the Thieves' Quarter, so Stark can get some sleep. While he sleeps Balin examines his clothing, and finds the talisman, but he replaces it in the belt. Stark is awakened when a nobleman of Kushat named Rogain comes to interrogate him. He realizes that the folk of Kushat are "too civilized . . . Peace had drawn their fangs and cut their claws. He thought of the wild clansmen coming fast across the snow, and felt a certain pity for the men of Kushat" [sounds very Robert E. Howard, doesn't it? He's also in Appendix N, of course]. Rogain says that he will arm the city to fight a siege, since he does not dare do otherwise, but threatens dire punishment if Stark is found to be lying. As soon as Rogain leaves, Stark falls asleep again.
When Stark awakens again, Thanis gives him some nice garments that Balin stole for him [they are thieves of the Thieves' Quarter after all, like the Old School days when Thief was a character class, not Rogue]. Balin tells him that the soldiers are grumbling about a false alarm. It is pointed out that Stark could simply flee, but he now considers his grudge with Lord Ciaran to be somewhat personal. Stark takes Balin and Thanis up onto the city walls of Kushat to watch for the Mekh invaders. "They will attack at dawn," predicting the attack will come in the hour of darkness between the setting of the second moon, Deimos, and the rising of the sun. Thanis says she does not believe in the barbarians and leaves. But of course, Stark is correct - just as dawn comes, they appear, with war horns, pipes, and drums, coming with infantry, cavalry, and of course, Lord Ciaran, all in black, leading the Mekh.
Within the walls, all becomes chaos very quickly - a "troop of nobles went by, brave in their bright mail, to take up their post in the square by the great gate" - "soldiers came and ordered them off the Wall. They went back to their own roof, where [Balin and Stark] were joined by Thanis" - Thanis is contemptuous of the barbarians who would dare to attack Kushat, at first. But then she hears it - "'what is that - that sound like thunder?' 'Rams,' he answered, 'They are battering the gate' . . . Balin said heavily, 'It is the end of Kushat'." The soldiers of decadent Kushat fight the Mekh, but they are clearly outmatched. Stark and Balin join the fight, but Kushat is clearly doomed [Incidentally, this is a great description of a city under siege, up there with Tolkien's Siege of Minas Tirith, in my opinion!].
Stark tells Balin to get his sister Thanis to safety, but Balin asks for the talisman of Ban Cruach: "Give me the talisman. Give it me, and I will go beyond the Gates of Death and rouse Ban Cruach from his sleep. And if he had forgotten Kushat, I will take his power into my own hands . . . or if the legends are all lies, then I will die." Stark refuses, but Balin ends up going anyway!
Stark is there when Lord Ciaran and the Mekh forces break through into the market square where he first arrived in Kushat. Stark fights Lord Ciaran, and rips off the war-mask, planning to break Ciaran's neck - but is stunned to realize "Lord Ciaran" is a woman! [played up as a big reveal to the audience as well as to the characters, but the title is Black Amazon of Mars - when the character that wears all black refuses to take off the mask, I think the reader already knows what's going on!]. Stark is so shocked that she manages to break free from him, stun him, and since her secret is now revealed to her followers, she potentially has only seconds before they turn on her for her deception. So she yells, "I have led you well. I have taken you Kushat. Will any man dispute me?" Just then, the nobles of Kushat rally to attack her, revitalized by the revelation that "Lord Ciaran" is "A wench! A strumpet of the camps! A woman!" She swiftly dispatches three of them with her axe, and her stunned Mekh followers rally to her, shouting "Ciaran! Ciaran!" Stark escapes.
Later, Stark stealthily enters the king's castle, which Ciaran has taken as a headquarters. Again, the fallen splendor and decadence of Kushat is played up as he makes his way through the castle. He sees Otar sleeping on a pallet like a dog. He knocks out a guard and breaks into "Ciaran's" chambers where she is sleeping. She awakens, but is unafraid of Stark - "I will have a word with my guards about this."
"My mother named me Ciara, if that seems better to you," she says, and reveals that she seeks whatever lies beyond the Gates of Death, whatever power Ban Cruach found there and made it so "men speak of him still as half a god." Stark tries to warn her of the terrible dangers beyond the Gates of Death - "Even the bravest may break. Ban Cruach himself . . . Would you be made as Otar, mad with what you have seen?" She says that she is certain now that he has the talisman, and she would flay him alive to get it, but either way she intends to go through the Gates of Death when the spring thaw comes. She has overcome much in her life, especially sexism, to become the warlord of the Mekh - "I have come a long way. I will not turn back now."
Stark tries to argue, and shows her the talisman and its use. She is overwhelmed by the visions and memories of Ban Cruach, just as he was. She cries out, "Oh gods of Mars!" and she collapses. Stark makes sure she is still alive, then leaves to avoid being captured by Ciara's men. On his way out of the castle, he hears Thanis' voice at the entrance to the castle, threatening, "Balin has gone to bring doom upon you! He will open wide the Gates of Death, and then you will die! - die! - die!" Stark realizes that he must stop Balin before he flings wide the Gates of Death and releases "an ancient, mysterious horror . . . upon Kushat."
So Stark makes the journey through the polar mountain pass in winter, and Brackett builds up a sense of foreboding dread on the long journey. Finally, at the end of the pass, Stark finds "a great cairn, and upon it sat a figure, facing outward from the Gates of Death, as though it kept watch over whatever country lay beyond . . . The figure of a man in antique Martian armor." As Stark passes the cairn, he feels a flash of heat in his flesh, "and not in any tempering of the frozen air" - he looks up at the mailed figure, and into the face of the corpse of Ban Cruach.
Brackett puts some effort into describing the well-preserved corpse of Ban Cruach; a sample: "Clad as for battle in his ancient mail, he held upright between his hands a mighty sword. The pommel was a ball of crystal as large as a man's fist, that held within it a spark of intense brilliance . . . the sword-blade blazed with a white, cruel radiance" - Ban Cruach wards "forever the inner end of the Gates of Death, as his ancient city of Kushat guarded the outer." Stark steps towards him an feels "again the shock and flaring heat in his blood" - "The strange force in the blazing sword made an invisible barrier across the mouth of the pass . . . a barrier of short waves . . . having no heat in themselves but increasing the heat in body cells by increasing their vibration" [Flaming swords and the like are common enough in fantasy literature and RPGs, but how many explicitly work by microwave radiation? Nevertheless, the fact that Ban Cruach's sword emits a field of microwaves that heat up anything passing through is important!]. Stark does not really want to pass into the polar region beyond the Gates of Death, but he knows that Balin must have come this way, so he proceeds.
Once again, Brackett's evocative descriptions are, if you will forgive the term, chilling - the terrible beauty of the spires and bridges of crystal ice, "a metropolis of gossamer and frost, fragile and lovely as a dream, locked in the clear, pure vault of the ice," with stone towers that protrude above the ice vault. Stark can also see the horrible beings, the shining ones, who dwell within that icy vault. Looking back, Stark can see Ciara and her riders pursuing, having followed him through the Gates of Death. She calls out to him, and it seems as if her shouts rouse the guardians of that place - the rest of the riders flee while the shining others come out of the stone towers to take Stark and Ciara! The shining ones use some kind of freezing, black, nerve-affecting energy to numb Stark & Ciara, knock them unconscious, and take them prisoner.
Stark awakens, unable to move, a prisoner of the shining ones, in their city. Hundreds of feet overhead he sees a crystal globe like the one on the pommel of Ban Cruach's sword, but instead of a shining light spark, it has a smoldering purple spark within, sending out cold, dark vibrations - two equal, yet opposite, crystals, he realizes. The sword of B an Cruach touched the blood with heat, and the one he sees in the tower deadens flesh with cold - opposite ends of the spectrum.
Stark estimates that the well of the stone tower plunges more than 500' under the ice down to the bedrock on which the city of the shining ones rests. They bring him to a cathedral-like building, all arched and spired, standing in the center of a 12-pointed plaza. There, the shining ones already hold Balin prisoner. There are 7 of the shining beings there to interrogate them. They communicate telepathically, and from this mental contact, Stark learns that they are beings of extreme cold, "even the infinitesimal amount of heat radiated by their half-frozen human bodies caused the ice-folk discomfort." Stark wants to know what the shining ones want from them, and receives the telepathic answer with some difficulty - Freedom!" Balin rouses - "They asked me already! Tell them no, Stark! Tell them no!"
It is revealed that the shining ones once ruled more of Mars as "kings of the glacial ice;" they controlled the ice, far outside the present polar cap. Their towers, whose ruins dot the landscape to this day, once blanketed the land with the dark force drawn from the magnetic field of Mars itself through the crystalline globe Stark saw, locking it in ice that never thawed, until the coming of Can Cruach . . .
Ban Cruach learned the secret of the crystal globes, learned how to reverse their force and use it against the shining ones. Leading his armies, he destroyed their towers one by one, drove them back, trapping them beyond the Gates of Death. Mars needed water, so the ice of the shining ones was melted, their cities destroyed, so that humans could have water on Mars. Ban Cruach realized that he could not destroy the last refuge of the shining ones at the polar ice cap completely, so he set himself to guard the Gates of Death with his blazing sword, so that the shining ones could never reclaim Mars.
This is what the shining ones demand of their captives - that they take away the sword of Ban Cruach, which none of them can even approach, let alone touch, so that the shining ones can once more extend their empire beyond the Gates of Death. But Stark knows the terrible thirst of Mars, and the catastrophic death that will befall the humans of the planet if all the water were to be locked up in the polar ice again. So he refuses, as Balin did. Ciara cares little for the human civilizations south of her domain, but she says, "If I take that sword, it will be to use it against you as Ban Cruach did!"
But the shining ones are not frightened by her threat - "Neither you not anyone now knows how to use it as he did," and they are certain that they can force a prisoner to take it. The shining ones demand that Stark do it, threatening Ciara and Balin (having telepathically sensed his fondness for them). They have a device that will slowly freeze Ciara and Balin alive in such a way that they will remain horribly conscious though paralyzed with cold, and if exposed to the rays long enough, they will die. They begin the freezing process to pressure Stark. Both Ciara and Balin are prepared to give their lives to save the Norlands from the shining ones. But Stark tells the shining ones that he will do what they ask to save his friends.
Stark takes the talisman of Ban Cruach and binds it to his forehead with a strip of cloth. He is flooded with the memories and personality of Ban Cruach, almost possessed by the dead man's soul, yet retaining some sense of himself - "a curious duality." He reached out and took the sword out of the frozen hands of Ban Cruach "as though it were his own," he now "knew the secret of the metal rings that bound its hilt" - by turning the rings, he adjusts the aura of force that closed the Gates of Death, turning it into a focused weapon, a beam. He can sense the horror and fear of the shining ones as they realize that Stark does know how to use the sword of Ban Cruach (thanks to the memories within the talisman) - "Ban Cruach! Ban Cruach has returned!" - they had touched his mind. They knew.
So Stark sweeps the sword in an arc, the long bright blade of force cutting the shining ones down "like flowers under a scythe." The remaining shining ones flee as he comes bounding back from Ban Cruach's cairn, with Ban Cruach's sword in his hand, Ban Cruach's talisman on his forehead, and Ban Cruach's memories in his head. He drives them back, shields himself from their dark force with the bright force of the sword, and returns to the tower where Ciara and Balin are held captive, slowly freezing. The shining ones try to take him from behind while his attention is focused on saving his friends. So Stark takes the broken mechanism of the freezing machine and hurls it town the well of the tower, shattering the fragile bridges of ice used by the shining ones so that they cannot approach him. He then turns to unfreezing Ciara and Balin before it is too late . . .
The scene cuts to several hours later, after Stark has freed Ciara and Balin, and has removed the talisman and "was himself again." He puts the sword of Ban Cruach back at the cairn, and turns the rings to spread out the radiation and close the Gates of Death to the shining ones again. "Tell the story in Kushat," he says, "Men have forgotten. And they should not forget." So they return to Kushat.
Ciara asks Stark to stay with her, sensing that he will not, although he is not driven by conquest as she once was. She asks what drives Stark. "I don't know," he answers, "It doesn't matter . . . . I want to stay, Ciara. Now, this minute, I could promise that I would stay forever. But I know myself. You belong here, you will make Kushat your own. I don't. Someday I will go." Ciara seems to understand, and agrees, "Very well, Stark. Let it be so." And so the story ends as so many do in Appendix N literature - the male hero defeats the monsters, saves the city, and gets the girl, but is destined to eventually move on, being unsuited to settling down in one place.
Black Amazon of Mars clearly shows the influence of Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote both his own Mars stories (John Carter of Mars) and stories about an orphaned human raised by semi-sentient animals who comes to excel because of his dual heritage as both savage and civilized man (Tarzan). \
Leigh Brackett's Mars is one of the obvious influences on modern FRPG offerings like Peril on the Purple Planet for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG!
I hope you enjoyed my thoughts about Black Amazon of Mars. Please join me again for future installments of Appendix N Revisited, on or around the Ides of each month!
Until next time . . . Happy Reading! Skál!
~ Colin Anders Brodd
Villa Picena, Phoenix, Arizona
Ides of March, 2017
Villa Picena, Phoenix, Arizona
Ides of March, 2017
Next up for Appendix N Revisited: short stories by Fredric Brown in the Fredric Brown Megapack!
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