The Chessmen of Mars (17 page)

"Manator knows only the laws of Manator," replied U-Dor; "but
come. You shall go with us to the city, where you, being
beautiful, need have no fear. I, myself, will protect you if
O-Tar so decrees. And as for your companion—but hold! You said
'companions'—there are others of your party then?"

"You see what you see," replied Tara haughtily.

"Be that as it may," said U-Dor. "If there be more they shall not
escape Manator; but as I was saying, if your companion fights
well he too may live, for O-Tar is just, and just are the laws of
Manator. Come!"

Ghek demurred.

"It is useless," said the girl, seeing that he would have stood
his ground and fought them. "Let us go with them. Why pit your
puny blade against their mighty ones when there should lie in
your great brain the means to outwit them?" She spoke in a low
whisper, rapidly.

"You are right, Tara of Helium," he replied and sheathed his
sword.

And so they moved down the hillside toward the gates of
Manator—Tara, Princess of Helium, and Ghek, the kaldane of
Bantoom—and surrounding them rode the savage, painted warriors
of U-Dor, dwar of the 8th Utan of O-Tar, Jeddak of Manator.

The dazzling sunlight of Barsoom clothed Manator in an aureole of
splendor as the girl and her captors rode into the city through
The Gate of Enemies. Here the wall was some fifty feet thick, and
the sides of the passageway within the gate were covered with
parallel shelves of masonry from bottom to top. Within these
shelves, or long, horizontal niches, stood row upon row of small
figures, appearing like tiny, grotesque statuettes of men, their
long, black hair falling below their feet and sometimes trailing
to the shelf beneath. The figures were scarce a foot in height
and but for their diminutive proportions might have been the
mummified bodies of once living men. The girl noticed that as
they passed, the warriors saluted the figures with their spears
after the manner of Barsoomian fighting men in extending a
military courtesy, and then they rode on into the avenue beyond,
which ran, wide and stately, through the city toward the east.

On either side were great buildings wondrously wrought. Paintings
of great beauty and antiquity covered many of the walls, their
colors softened and blended by the suns of ages. Upon the
pavement the life of the newly-awakened city was already afoot.
Women in brilliant trappings, befeathered warriors, their bodies
daubed with paint; artisans, armed but less gaily caparisoned,
took their various ways upon the duties of the day. A giant
zitidar, magnificent in rich harness, rumbled its broad-wheeled
cart along the stone pavement toward The Gate of Enemies. Life
and color and beauty wrought together a picture that filled the
eyes of Tara of Helium with wonder and with admiration, for here
was a scene out of the dead past of dying Mars. Such had been the
cities of the founders of her race before Throxeus, mightiest of
oceans, had disappeared from the face of a world. And from
balconies on either side men and women looked down in silence
upon the scene below.

The people in the street looked at the two prisoners, especially
at the hideous Ghek, and called out in question or comment to
their guard; but the watchers upon the balconies spoke not, nor
did one so much as turn a head to note their passing. There were
many balconies on each building and not a one that did not hold
its silent party of richly trapped men and women, with here and
there a child or two, but even the children maintained the
uniform silence and immobility of their elders. As they
approached the center of the city the girl saw that even the
roofs bore companies of these idle watchers, harnessed and
bejeweled as for some gala-day of laughter and music, but no
laughter broke from those silent lips, nor any music from the
strings of the instruments that many of them held in jeweled
fingers.

And now the avenue widened into an immense square, at the far end
of which rose a stately edifice gleaming white in virgin marble
among the gaily painted buildings surrounding it and its scarlet
sward and gaily-flowering, green-foliaged shrubbery. Toward this
U-Dor led his prisoners and their guard to the great arched
entrance before which a line of fifty mounted warriors barred the
way. When the commander of the guard recognized U-Dor the
guardsmen fell back to either side leaving a broad avenue through
which the party passed. Directly inside the entrance were
inclined runways leading upward on either side. U-Dor turned to
the left and led them upward to the second floor and down a long
corridor. Here they passed other mounted men and in chambers upon
either side they saw more. Occasionally there was another runway
leading either up or down. A warrior, his steed at full gallop,
dashed into sight from one of these and raced swiftly past them
upon some errand.

Nowhere as yet had Tara of Helium seen a man afoot in this great
building; but when at a turn, U-Dor led them to the third floor
she caught glimpses of chambers in which many riderless thoats
were penned and others adjoining where dismounted warriors lolled
at ease or played games of skill or chance and many there were
who played at jetan, and then the party passed into a long, wide
hall of state, as magnificent an apartment as even a princess of
mighty Helium ever had seen. The length of the room ran an arched
ceiling ablaze with countless radium bulbs. The mighty spans
extended from wall to wall leaving the vast floor unbroken by a
single column. The arches were of white marble, apparently
quarried in single, huge blocks from which each arch was cut
complete. Between the arches, the ceiling was set solid about the
radium bulbs with precious stones whose scintillant fire and
color and beauty filled the whole apartment. The stones were
carried down the walls in an irregular fringe for a few feet,
where they appeared to hang like a beautiful and gorgeous drapery
against the white marble of the wall. The marble ended some six
or seven feet from the floor, the walls from that point down
being wainscoted in solid gold. The floor itself was of marble
richly inlaid with gold. In that single room was a vast treasure
equal to the wealth of many a large city.

But what riveted the girl's attention even more than the fabulous
treasure of decorations were the files of gorgeously harnessed
warriors who sat their thoats in grim silence and immobility on
either side of the central aisle, rank after rank of them to the
farther walls, and as the party passed between them she could not
note so much as the flicker of an eyelid, or the twitching of a
thoat's ear.

"The Hall of Chiefs," whispered one of her guard, evidently
noting her interest. There was a note of pride in the fellow's
voice and something of hushed awe. Then they passed through a
great doorway into the chamber beyond, a large, square room in
which a dozen mounted warriors lolled in their saddles.

As U-Dor and his party entered the room, the warriors came
quickly erect in their saddles and formed a line before another
door upon the opposite side of the wall. The padwar commanding
them saluted U-Dor who, with his party, had halted facing the
guard.

"Send one to O-Tar announcing that U-Dor brings two prisoners
worthy of the observation of the great jeddak," said U-Dor; "one
because of her extreme beauty, the other because of his extreme
ugliness."

"O-Tar sits in council with the lesser chiefs," replied the
lieutenant; "but the words of U-Dor the dwar shall be carried to
him," and he turned and gave instructions to one who sat his
thoat behind him.

"What manner of creature is the male?" he asked of U-Dor. "It
cannot be that both are of one race."

"They were together in the hills south of the city," explained
U-Dor, "and they say that they are lost and starving."

"The woman is beautiful," said the padwar. "She will not long go
begging in the city of Manator," and then they spoke of other
matters—of the doings of the palace, of the expedition of U-Dor,
until the messenger returned to say that O-Tar bade them bring
the prisoners to him.

They passed then through a massive doorway, which, when opened,
revealed the great council chamber of O-Tar, Jeddak of Manator,
beyond. A central aisle led from the doorway the full length of
the great hall, terminating at the steps of a marble dais upon
which a man sat in a great throne-chair. Upon either side of the
aisle were ranged rows of highly carved desks and chairs of skeel,
a hard wood of great beauty. Only a few of the desks were
occupied—those in the front row, just below the rostrum.

At the entrance U-Dor dismounted with four of his followers who
formed a guard about the two prisoners who were then conducted
toward the foot of the throne, following a few paces behind
U-Dor. As they halted at the foot of the marble steps, the proud
gaze of Tara of Helium rested upon the enthroned figure of the
man above her. He sat erect without stiffness—a commanding
presence trapped in the barbaric splendor that the Barsoomian
chieftain loves. He was a large man, the perfection of whose
handsome face was marred only by the hauteur of his cold eyes and
the suggestion of cruelty imparted by too thin lips. It needed no
second glance to assure the least observing that here indeed was
a ruler of men—a fighting jeddak whose people might worship but
not love, and for whose slightest favor warriors would vie with
one another to go forth and die. This was O-Tar, Jeddak of
Manator, and as Tara of Helium saw him for the first time she
could not but acknowledge a certain admiration for this savage
chieftain who so virilely personified the ancient virtues of the
God of War.

U-Dor and the jeddak interchanged the simple greetings of
Barsoom, and then the former recounted the details of the
discovery and capture of the prisoners. O-Tar scrutinized them
both intently during U-Dor's narration of events, his expression
revealing naught of what passed in the brain behind those
inscrutable eyes. When the officer had finished the jeddak
fastened his gaze upon Ghek.

"And you," he asked, "what manner of thing are you? From what
country? Why are you in Manator?"

"I am a kaldane," replied Ghek; "the highest type of created
creature upon the face of Barsoom; I am mind, you are matter. I
come from Bantoom. I am here because we were lost and starving."

"And you!" O-Tar turned suddenly on Tara. "You, too, are a
kaldane?"

"I am a princess of Helium," replied the girl. "I was a prisoner
in Bantoom. This kaldane and a warrior of my own race rescued me.
The warrior left us to search for food and water. He has
doubtless fallen into the hands of your people. I ask you to free
him and give us food and drink and let us go upon our way. I am a
granddaughter of a jeddak, the daughter of a jeddak of jeddaks,
The Warlord of Barsoom. I ask only the treatment that my people
would accord you or yours."

"Helium," repeated O-Tar. "I know naught of Helium, nor does the
Jeddak of Helium rule Manator. I, O-Tar, am Jeddak of Manator. I
alone rule. I protect my own. You have never seen a woman or a
warrior of Manator captive in Helium! Why should I protect the
people of another jeddak? It is his duty to protect them. If he
cannot, he is weak, and his people must fall into the hands of
the strong. I, O-Tar, am strong. I will keep you. That—" he
pointed at Ghek—"can it fight?"

"It is brave," replied Tara of Helium, "but it has not the skill
at arms which my people possess."

"There is none then to fight for you?" asked O-Tar. "We are a
just people," he continued without waiting for a reply, "and had
you one to fight for you he might win to freedom for himself and
you as well."

"But U-Dor assured me that no stranger ever had departed from
Manator," she answered.

O-Tar shrugged. "That does not disprove the justice of the laws
of Manator," replied O-Tar, "but rather that the warriors of
Manator are invincible. Had there come one who could defeat our
warriors that one had won to liberty."

"And you fetch my warrior," cried Tara haughtily, "you shall see
such swordplay as doubtless the crumbling walls of your decaying
city never have witnessed, and if there be no trick in your offer
we are already as good as free."

O-Tar smiled more broadly than before and U-Dor smiled, too, and
the chiefs and warriors who looked on nudged one another and
whispered, laughing. And Tara of Helium knew then that there was
trickery in their justice; but though her situation seemed
hopeless she did not cease to hope, for was she not the daughter
of John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom, whose famous challenge to
Fate, "I still live!" remained the one irreducible defense
against despair? At thought of her noble sire the patrician chin
of Tara of Helium rose a shade higher. Ah! if he but knew where
she was there were little to fear then. The hosts of Helium would
batter at the gates of Manator, the great green warriors of John
Carter's savage allies would swarm up from the dead sea bottoms
lusting for pillage and for loot, the stately ships of her
beloved navy would soar above the unprotected towers and minarets
of the doomed city which only capitulation and heavy tribute
could then save.

But John Carter did not know! There was only one other to whom
she might hope to look—Turan the panthan; but where was he? She
had seen his sword in play and she knew that it had been wielded
by a master hand, and who should know swordplay better than Tara
of Helium, who had learned it well under the constant tutorage of
John Carter himself. Tricks she knew that discounted even far
greater physical prowess than her own, and a method of attack
that might have been at once the envy and despair of the
cleverest of warriors. And so it was that her thoughts turned to
Turan the panthan, though not alone because of the protection he
might afford her. She had realized, since he had left her in
search of food, that there had grown between them a certain
comradeship that she now missed. There had been that about him
which seemed to have bridged the gulf between their stations in
life. With him she had failed to consider that he was a panthan
or that she was a princess—they had been comrades. Suddenly she
realized that she missed him for himself more than for his sword.
She turned toward O-Tar.