READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

Tarzan on Mars
Komak with respect to the issues at hand.
First came a brief review of the religious system of
Barsoom prior to the advent of John Carter. Since Martians
usually lived as long as a thousand years if not killed in battle
or by the assassin's blade, the later years which robbed them
of vigor and forced them into a less eventful way of life were
often regarded as lonely and fruitless, especially if other loved
ones were already departed.
Therefore, it was a great moral and spiritual relief to
them to embark upon one last great adventure from which no
man was ever permitted to return. They would gather their
personal belongings and usually in the company of friends and
loved ones they would embark upon the mysterious River Iss
which bore them beneath the sacred Mountains of Otz to the
Valley Dor and the lost Sea of Korus.
Here, according to the teachings of the Thern priests,
was heaven in mortal life where the faithful would meet other
friends and loved ones and live in peace and happiness on the
shores of an actual watery sea, in the sight of actual forests
and under the protection of the higher Therns of the Sacred
Worlds who, themselves, would never see the outer world
again.
Then later, the initiated would one day be permitted to
visit the holy Temple of Issus and gaze upon the incomparable
living goddess, herself—which was the crowning spiritual
goal of all mortal life.
It had been a beautiful and sustaining belief, on the
outside. But it was true that the heaven of Korus was a
hideous lie. It was true, as John Carter had revealed, that the
Therns of the higher cycles who dwelled in their fortress empire
in the Mountains of Otz and in the Golden Cliffs of Dor
pirated the pilgrims and led them to death at the hands of the
plant men and the great white apes. Or, if some of the
pilgrims to this false heaven possessed the strength and the
courage to escape the Therns, they fell victims to the mad
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