Under the Moons of Mars (21 page)

We had almost reached that small building when the padding of sandals on stones alerted me, and we swiftly turned—to face four other Orovars wearing the harnesses of panthans. So quick was our turn that I managed a gut thrust to the leading Orovar. In turn, that allowed Cynthara a crippling blow to the calf of the second man.

None of us got in another blow, however, because the very stones beneath our feet started shaking violently.

“This way!” I grasped Cynthara’s wrist, wondering as I did so if she would turn to dust like those ancient Horzians my father had met. But her wrist was firm, with strong tendons.

In only a few tals we had cut down the side alley and up the narrow staircase to where my airship remained. Cynthara hesitated, and I half-pulled, half-dragged her onto the main desk, extracting the control key from my harness.

“What manner of vessel is this that rests on a rooftop?” she asked in that accent I found both so charming and alluring.

“One that sails the skies as ships once sailed the Throxeus,” I replied.

She did open her mouth for a moment, then grasped the railing as the building beneath us shuddered. I concentrated on getting us airborne, and then headed away from the center of Horz . . . and then down over the descending series of structures that the ancients had built to follow the Throxeous ocean as it dwindled away.

A column of dust had shot upward, a column almost half a haad wide, and stones spewed out from it. Could there be anything left at the center of old Horz? Somehow, I doubted it. Another spewing of stone and dust erupted, and towers and buildings shook and then wavered . . . and many toppled before my eyes.

Slowly, I turned my airship back toward Gathol, giving the city of Horz a wide berth.

Cynthara continued to watch while the city that had once been hers so long before disappeared behind us. In turn, I watched her, realizing that while my quest had begun to impress Jasras Kan, I had found much more than strange devices or riches. I had found someone who offered far more than the lovely face and sharp and polished words of Jasras Kan. Yet I did not know what Cynthara might feel.

Finally, she turned and stepped forward, beside me.

“The Horz I knew is gone, so far in the past that not even legends remain. So are my people. Is that not true, Dan Lan Chee?”

“It is.”

“You did not soothe me with pleasant falsehoods.”

“No.”

“Nor did you attempt to take advantage of me.”

“I doubt any man would have much success in that.” I could not help but smile at her words.

“You respect me.”

I nodded. How could I not? Could I have awakened after eons with strange machines keeping me uncorrupted and acted as decisively as she had?

“You mock me. . . .” Her green eyes flashed.

“I would never mock you, Cynthara Dulchis. But I cannot accept what you offer, unless you accept what I offer in return.”

The smile on her face was confirmation enough that I had found a great treasure in Horz . . . if not exactly the one I had sought. But this treasure was not one I could have bought with devices and riches, just as my father could not have bought my mother with such. And so we stood together, at the beginning of another journey.

The Chessmen of Mars
tells the story of Tara, daughter of John Carter and Dejah Thoris. In the beginning of the novel, Tara meets a young prince named Gahan of Gathol, and is thoroughly unimpressed with him. Later she is out in her flier (a small craft kept aloft by advanced Barsoomian technology) and a storm sweeps her off course. Upon landing, she is captured by the grotesque Kaldanes, who resemble large heads with crablike legs. The Kaldanes have bred Rykors, headless human bodies, and the Kaldanes are able to mount the Rykors, becoming their heads and steering them like a vehicle. Meanwhile Gahan, who has fallen in love with Tara, sets out after her, and falls victim to the same storm. He comes upon Bantoom, land of the Kaldanes, and manages to rescue Tara, although initially she doesn’t recognize him due to his haggard, disheveled appearance. They arrive at the city of Manator, and Gahan ventures inside, seeking food and water, but he and Tara are captured and forced to participate in a sadistic spectacle—a game of Jetan (similar to chess) in which living prisoners are used as pieces. Tara and Gahan ultimately fall in love and escape the city. Upon returning home, they learn that Tara’s betrothed, Djor Kantos, believing her dead, has married another. Tara marries Gahan, and together they have a daughter named Llana, focus of the novel
Llana of Gathol
. Our next tales sees Tara return to the blood-drenched sands of Manator.

“The Princess may not move onto a threatened square, nor may she take an opposing piece.”
—
The Chessmen of Mars

W
hen Tara stepped from her flier, she was surprised her brother was not there to greet her.

Djor Kantos was.

Djor Kantos, a noble of the city. Djor Kantos, who had been her intended husband, until the morning a year ago that she discovered he cared for another.

That was the morning she’d taken her flier into a storm and ended up a prisoner of the Kaldanes, a living player in a gladiatorial game of Jetan.

Much had changed since then.

“Princess,” he greeted. “Your mother, Dejah Thoris, has bid me make you welcome.”

It was a formal speech—too formal for old friends—and he didn’t look her quite in the eye.

(Too much had changed.)

“You’re kind,” she said. “Where is Carthoris?”

“Your brother and his wife should be here shortly,” Djor said, frowned. “Do you mind my greeting you?”

(Her husband was waiting at home in Gathol. Djor Kantos had not been hers for a year, and she had not loved Djor Kantos to distraction then; why was it so hard to meet him now?)

They walked to the audience hall in a silence that made it hard to breathe.

They had grown up together; he’d been her dance partner, her sparring partner. (They each tested skills against her brother, Carthoris, and the ongoing tally of wins had been the biggest argument she and Djor Kantos ever had. Both of them hated to lose.)

How quickly two people can grow to be strangers,
she thought.

Then they were at the door, and Tara was face-to-face with her mother.

“Greetings, Dejah Thoris,” said Tara in the formal manner, but a moment later Tara was caught in an embrace, their arm-bangles clanging, as her mother said, “How I’ve been expecting you!”

Tara grinned. “I still have a whole speech our advisors wrote for me—a list of your best qualities. Apparently, that’s very good for trade. Should I recite it now or wait for Carthoris?”

Dejah Thoris laughed, and Tara even caught the ghost of a smile on the face of Djor Kantos.

Then a messenger burst into the hall.

He was followed by two sword-wielding guards, but the messenger looked so terrified that Tara knew it couldn’t just be the guards that worried him.

Something else, something worse, was wrong.

As soon as the messenger saw them he cried, “I request the audience of Dejah Thoris!”

“You have it,” she said. “Speak.”

“Princess,” the messenger gasped, “your son’s ship has been destroyed—in the Bantoom desert outside Manator!”

Tara went cold.

Manator was the city of the Kaldanes.

But even as Dejah Thoris gripped the arms of her throne in terror and demanded the messenger explain, Tara knew what the messenger would tell them next.

There were no bodies.

Kaldanes took their captives alive, and saved them for the Game.

Djor Kantos was standing at her mother’s side, asking the messenger for information he wouldn’t have, and Tara felt as though it was all at a great distance, as if that horrific city was already dragging her back across the burning sand.

(
For my brother’s sake,
she thought, her heart pounding.
My brother!
)

Without thinking, Tara was running for the armory, then for her flier, her favorite shortsword in her hand.

It was a shame, she thought, to leave Helium again so soon. Gathol was still not her city, and she had been so looking forward to coming home again.

But she had no choice. By the time her mother had spoken to her advisors, had made plans, had dispatched soldiers enough to overpower the Kaldanes, Carthoris and Thuvia would be dead.

In Manator, Jetan was played to the death, and Kaldanes did not delay their pleasures. They would be pulled onto the board before they had time to strategize, because a hasty Game meant better fighting.

Tara had survived the Game as a Princess, forbidden to fight, fought over—but she had watched, and learned.

Now it was time to show what sort of pupil she was.

Her flier was standing open on the landing pad, and she was already in the cockpit when she heard echoing footfalls from the palace.

“Where are you going?” Djor shouted.

She said, “To Manator.”

Tara expected him to tell her how her mother needed her, or that she had other considerations that should keep her home, or that there was nothing she could do.

But he only glanced back at the palace and squared his jaw, as if he was deciding something.

“Then I go too,” he said, turning back to her.

She bristled—she had been very headstrong about small things, not long ago—but there was not enough time left, not even to be proud.

“Come, then,” she said, starting the engine, “and close the door behind you. We have to reach the Bantoom desert before dark, or we’ll be too late.”

“For what?”

She smiled, all teeth. “For the Game.”

Tara knew better this time how to navigate the ravine and the vicious storm between Helium and Manator, though the winds battered them until her hands were white-knuckled on the controls.

Behind her, Djor braced himself as best he could. Her flier was meant only for one, and he spent the journey kneeling beside her with one hand on her chair for balance, like a sprinter about to hear the starting horn.

She was almost glad for the storm, as it kept her from wondering why he had come with her.

(He was as loyal to Carthoris as she was; it didn’t need to be more than that. Aid was aid.)

She described the Kaldanes—parasites, jarred brains that used tentacles to attach themselves to senseless headless bodies, as most Barsoomians put on and discarded coats—and he gripped the chair until his fingers shook.

“They are ruthless and cruel,” she said, “though one of them, Ghek, was kind to me when I was imprisoned.”

“Not kind enough to free you,” Djor said.

But Tara knew some things were out of a soldier’s power, and she said, “He helped me prepare for Jetan, and I will always be grateful.”

After they were safely around the next bend, he ventured, “Tell me the Game. I haven’t seen it since I was a boy. I remember orange and black squares, and the Chief and the Princess on each side, and that each side had two flier-shaped pieces that didn’t look anything like fliers I’d seen.”

“Fliers aren’t on the living board,” she said. “Bad luck for our escape. It’s just two more terrified men fighting for their lives in the arena.”

He glanced at her, didn’t answer.

She explained the rules of Jetan; panthan mercenary pieces that formed the first expendable line of defense, staid Captains and Lieutenants who moved in only one direction, Warriors who had more flexible paths, Thoat-mounted fighters who could jump intervening pieces.

“We won’t know what to expect until they’re already on the board,” said Tara. “Often a Chief can choose his own pieces, but sometimes the Kaldanes assign them from within the prisons.”

“Is that where your brother will be?”