READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

Tarzan on Mars
She saw him through the veil of memory, standing there
in the forest after he had overcome her priests in furious
combat, a towering wild thing of breath-taking masculine
perfection and terrifying strength, as his gray eyes gleamed
in anger, and clearly she would always hear his parting words
to Cadj, the high priest:
"La goes back to her temple under the protection of her
priests and the threat of Tarzan of the Apes that whoever
harms her will die.. Protect her so that when Tarzan comes
again he will find La there to greet him."
"La will be there to greet thee!" she had exclaimed. "And
La will wait, longing, always longing, until you come again.
Oh, tell me that you will come!"
"Who knows?" he had answered even as he swung effortlessly
into the lower terraces of the jungle and disappeared
from her sight.
Her thought were suddenly interrupted by the appearance
of one of her few remaining assistant priestesses. This
one had been once fair to look upon, but the passage of years
in the time-stranded ruins of Opar had wrought two fatal
changes in the woman. She now displayed the marks of age
which slashed at the once firm contours of her face with
wrinkles and withdrew the bloom of youth from her flesh. But
the environment of Opar had also added to this a dereliction
of the human attributes, reducing her to an unkept, primordial
female with the wary, shifty eyes of the wild and untamed. In
fact, she had abandoned the ancient tongue of her ancestors
in favor of the guttural speech of the apes which had infested
Opar for ages.
"Cadj awaits you with the other priests in the council
chamber," she announced. "He says he has something of great
importance to tell you."
The knowing look in the savage eyes of the lesser
priestess appraised La only too readily of the nature of the
impending conference. Her time had come. The priests would
5