"Charles R Tanner - Tumithak Of The Towers Of Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tanner Charles R)

TUMITHAK OF THE TOWERS OF FIRE
by Charles R. Tanner
Death prowled the land with a hungry tread, and the Venus fire was the only law,
as Tumithak of the Corridors came out of the pits of darkness to make his last
great fight to reclaim the earth for his people.



Foreword:
FIVE thousand years ago, the savage shelks of Venus invaded this planet and
drove Man from his proud place as master of the earth's Surface into the pits
and corridors, where he was to skulk in fear and terror for twenty long
centuries.
Three thousand years ago, the first pitmen emerged from their hole and defied
the dominant race of shelks. From that moment, the war between sheik and man
waged unrelenting until, some eight hundred years later, the last sheik was
killed. Today, after a period of dark ages during which both sheik wisdom and
human science almost died, Man is again winning back his once proud place upon
the earth, and we can even claim that some few sciences have been established on
as firm a foundation as before the Invasion.
Among these sciences (as a natural result of our search for the secrets of the
ancients) are the ones related to geology and archeology. We know far more today
then we did a hundred years ago of the life of mankind in the golden days before
the coming of the shelks; and we know far more, too, of the life of those
strange ancestors of ours who spent their whole lives in the pits and corridors
under the Surface, in those long-gone days when the Beasts of Venus were lords
of all the earth.
And among the many legends which have grown slowly through the passing
centuries, the greatest has always been that of Tumithak of Loor. It is little
wonder that this is so, for both legend and verified history have portrayed him
as the first man to brave the dangers of the Surface after the long generations
of pit-dwelling which our ancestors endured.
Now among all the tales of wonder, magic and prophecy which make up the saga of
Tumithak, some few, striped of their incredibility, give us an outline of events
that might well be historical and reasonably accurate. The story of Tumithak's
first journey to the Surface, for instance, or the one which tells of his
arousing and leading his men to capture the little city of Shawn. . . And also,
there is the story of his adventures in Kaymak.
The first two stories appeared in print long ago. The third the author presents
here, in the hope that readers have not forgotten "Tumithak of the Corridors."



CHAPTER ONE
Incredible Rescue
THE room in which the workers toiled was about a hundred feet square, and
windowless. The fact that the floor, walls and high ceiling were all of the same
glassy brown composition suggested that the room was underground, as indeed it
was. And on the far right, a flight of stairs running up the side of the wall, a
broad flight with an ornate, carved balustrade, added any necessary proof to the