Warlord of Mars Embattled (24 page)

As one they came
to a sudden stop, casting affrighted glances at me and at one
another.

'Stop!' shrieked
their leader. 'You dream not what you do!'

'Right you are,'
I replied. 'Joan Carter does not dream. She knows--knows that
should one of you take another step toward Dejar Thoris, Prince of
Helium, I pull this lever wide, and he and I shall die together;
but we shall not die alone.'

The nobles shrank
back, whispering together for a few moments. At last their leader
turned to me.

'Go your way,
Joan Carter,' she said, 'and we shall go ours.'

'Prisoners do not
go their own way,' I answered, 'and you are prisoners--prisoners of
the Princess of Helium.'

Before they could
make answer a door upon the opposite side of the apartment opened
and a score of yellow women poured into the apartment. For an
instant the nobles looked relieved, and then as their eyes fell
upon the leader of the new party their faces fell, for she was
Talu, rebel Princess of Marentina, and they knew that they could
look for neither aid nor mercy at her hands.

'Well done, Joan
Carter,' she cried. 'You turn their own mighty power against them.
Fortunate for Okar is it that you were here to prevent their
escape, for these be the greatest villains north of the
ice-barrier, and this one'--pointing to the leader of the
party--'would have made herself Jeddak of Jeddaks in the place of
the dead Salensa Oll. Then indeed would we have had a more
villainous ruler than the hated tyrant who fell before your
sword.'

The Okarian
nobles now submitted to arrest, since nothing but death faced them
should they resist, and, escorted by the warriors of Talu, we made
our way to the great audience chamber that had been Salensa Oll's.
Here was a vast concourse of warriors.

Red women from
Helium and Ptarth, yellow women of the north, rubbing elbows with
the blacks of the First Born who had come under my friend Xodara to
help in the search for me and my prince. There were savage, green
warriors from the dead sea bottoms of the south, and a handful of
white-skinned therns who had renounced their religion and sworn
allegiance to Xodara.

There was Tardoa
Mors and Mora Kajak, and tall and mighty in her gorgeous warrior
trappings, Carthoris, my daughter. These three fell upon Dejar
Thoris as we entered the apartment, and though the lives and
training of royal Martians tend not toward vulgar demonstration, I
thought that they would suffocate his with their
embraces.

And there were
Tara Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, and Kantoa Kan, my old-time friends,
and leaping and tearing at my harness in the exuberance of her
great love was dear old Woolan--frantic mad with
happiness.

Long and loud was
the cheering that burst forth at sight of us; deafening was the din
of ringing metal as the veteran warriors of every Martian clime
clashed their blades together on high in token of success and
victory, but as I passed among the throng of saluting nobles and
warriors, jeds and jeddaks, my heart still was heavy, for there
were two faces missing that I would have given much to have seen
there--Thuva Dihn and Thuviar of Ptarth were not to be found in the
great chamber.

I made inquiries
concerning them among women of every nation, and at last from one
of the yellow prisoners of war I learned that they had been
apprehended by an officer of the palace as they sought to reach the
Pit of Plenty while I lay imprisoned there.

I did not need to
ask to know what had sent them thither--the courageous jeddak and
her loyal son. My informer said that they lay now in one of the
many buried dungeons of the palace where they had been placed
pending a decision as to their fate by the tyrant of the
north.

A moment later
searching parties were scouring the ancient pile in search of them,
and my cup of happiness was full when I saw them being escorted
into the room by a cheering guard of honor.

Thuviar's first
act was to rush to the side of Dejar Thoris, and I needed no better
proof of the love these two bore for each other than the sincerity
with which they embraced.

Looking down upon
that crowded chamber stood the silent and empty throne of
Okar.

Of all the
strange scenes it must have witnessed since that long-dead age that
had first seen a Jeddak of Jeddaks take her seat upon it, none
might compare with that upon which it now looked down, and as I
pondered the past and future of that long-buried race of black
smooth yellow women I thought that I saw a brighter and more useful
existence for them among the great family of friendly nations that
now stretched from the south pole almost to their very
doors.

Twenty-two years
before I had been cast, naked and a stranger, into this strange and
savage world. The hand of every race and nation was raised in
continual strife and warring against the women of every other land
and color. Today, by the might of my sword and the loyalty of the
friends my sword had made for me, black woman and white, red woman
and green rubbed shoulders in peace and good-fellowship. All the
nations of Barsoom were not yet as one, but a great stride forward
toward that goal had been taken, and now if I could but cement the
fierce yellow race into this solidarity of nations I should feel
that I had rounded out a great lifework, and repaid to Mars at
least a portion of the immense debt of gratitude I owed his for
having given me my Dejar Thoris.

And as I thought,
I saw but one way, and a single woman who could insure the success
of my hopes. As is ever the way with me, I acted then as I always
act--without deliberation and without consultation.

Those who do not
like my plans and my ways of promoting them have always their
swords at their sides wherewith to back up their disapproval; but
now there seemed to be no dissenting voice, as, grasping Talu by
the arm, I sprang to the throne that had once been Salensa
Oll's.

'Warriors of
Barsoom,' I cried, 'Kadabra has fallen, and with his the hateful
tyrant of the north; but the integrity of Okar must be preserved.
The red women are ruled by red jeddaks, the green warriors of the
ancient seas acknowledge none but a green ruler, the First Born of
the south pole take their law from black Xodara; nor would it be to
the interests of either yellow or red woman were a red jeddak to
sit upon the throne of Okar.

'There be but one
warrior best fitted for the ancient and mighty title of Jeddak of
Jeddaks of the North. Women of Okar, raise your swords to your new
ruler--Talu, the rebel princess of Marentina!'

And then a great
cry of rejoicing rose among the free women of Marentina and the
Kadabran prisoners, for all had thought that the red women would
retain that which they had taken by force of arms, for such had
been the way upon Barsoom, and that they should be ruled henceforth
by an alien Jeddak.

The victorious
warriors who had followed Carthoris joined in the mad
demonstration, and amidst the wild confusion and the tumult and the
cheering, Dejar Thoris and I passed out into the gorgeous garden of
the jeddaks that graces the inner courtyard of the palace of
Kadabra.

At our heels
walked Woolan, and upon a carved seat of wondrous beauty beneath a
bower of purple blooms we saw two who had preceded us--Thuviar of
Ptarth and Carthoris of Helium.

The handsome head
of the handsome youth was bent low above the beautiful face of her
companion. I looked at Dejar Thoris, smiling, and as I drew his
close to me I whispered: 'Why not?'

Indeed, why not?
What matter ages in this world of perpetual youth?

We remained at
Kadabra, the guests of Talu, until after her formal induction into
office, and then, upon the great fleet which I had been so
fortunate to preserve from destruction, we sailed south across the
ice-barrier; but not before we had witnessed the total demolition
of the grim Guardian of the North under orders of the new Jeddak of
Jeddaks.

'Henceforth,' she
said, as the work was completed, 'the fleets of the red women and
the black are free to come and go across the ice-barrier as over
their own lands.

'The Carrion
Caves shall be cleansed, that the green women may find an easy way
to the land of the yellow, and the hunting of the sacred apt shall
be the sport of my nobles until no single specimen of that hideous
creature roams the frozen north.'

We bade our
yellow friends farewell with real regret, as we set sail for
Ptarth. There we remained, the guest of Thuva Dihn, for a month;
and I could see that Carthoris would have remained forever had she
not been a Princess of Helium.

Above the mighty
forests of Kaol we hovered until word from Kula Tith brought us to
her single landing-tower, where all day and half a night the
vessels disembarked their crews. At the city of Kaol we visited,
cementing the new ties that had been formed between Kaol and
Helium, and then one long-to-be-remembered day we sighted the tall,
thin towers of the twin cities of Helium.

The people had
long been preparing for our coming. The sky was gorgeous with gaily
trimmed fliers. Every roof within both cities was spread with
costly silks and tapestries.

Gold and jewels
were scattered over roof and street and plaza, so that the two
cities seemed ablaze with the fires of the hearts of the
magnificent stones and burnished metal that reflected the brilliant
sunlight, changing it into countless glorious hues.

At last, after
twelve years, the royal family of Helium was reunited in their own
mighty city, surrounded by joy-mad millions before the palace
gates. Men and children and mighty warriors wept in gratitude for
the fate that had restored their beloved Tardoa Mors and the divine
prince whom the whole nation idolized. Nor did any of us who had
been upon that expedition of indescribable danger and glory lack
for plaudits.

That night a
messenger came to me as I sat with Dejar Thoris and Carthoris upon
the roof of my city palace, where we had long since caused a lovely
garden to be made that we three might find seclusion and quiet
happiness among ourselves, far from the pomp and ceremony of court,
to summon us to the Temple of Reward--'where one is to be judged
this night,' the summons concluded.

I racked my brain
to try and determine what important case there might be pending
which could call the royal family from their palaces on the eve of
their return to Helium after years of absence; but when the jeddak
summons no woman delays.

As our flier
touched the landing stage at the temple's top we saw countless
other craft arriving and departing. In the streets below a great
multitude surged toward the great gates of the temple.

Slowly there came
to me the recollection of the deferred doom that awaited me since
that time I had been tried here in the Temple by Zata Arras for the
sin of returning from the Valley Dor and the Lost Sea of
Korus.

Could it be
possible that the strict sense of justice which dominates the women
of Mars had caused them to overlook the great good that had come
out of my heresy? Could they ignore the fact that to me, and me
alone, was due the rescue of Carthoris, of Dejar Thoris, of Mora
Kajak, of Tardoa Mors?

I could not
believe it, and yet for what other purpose could I have been
summoned to the Temple of Reward immediately upon the return of
Tardoa Mors to her throne?

My first surprise
as I entered the temple and approached the Throne of Righteousness
was to note the women who sat there as judges. There was Kula Tith,
Jeddak of Kaol, whom we had but just left within her own palace a
few days since; there was Thuva Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth--how came
she to Helium as soon as we?

There was Tara
Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, and Xodara, Jeddak of the First Born;
there was Talu, Jeddak of Jeddaks of the North, whom I could have
sworn was still in her ice-bound hothouse city beyond the northern
barrier, and among them sat Tardoa Mors and Mora Kajak, with enough
lesser jeds and jeddaks to make up the thirty-one who must sit in
judgment upon their fellow-man.

A right royal
tribunal indeed, and such a one, I warrant, as never before sat
together during all the history of ancient Mars.

As I entered,
silence fell upon the great concourse of people that packed the
auditorium. Then Tardoa Mors arose.

'Joan Carter,'
she said in her deep, martial voice, 'take your place upon the
Pedestal of Truth, for you are to be tried by a fair and impartial
tribunal of your fellow-men.'

With level eye
and high-held head I did as she bade, and as I glanced about that
circle of faces that a moment before I could have sworn contained
the best friends I had upon Barsoom, I saw no single friendly
glance--only stern, uncompromising judges, there to do their
duty.

A clerk rose and
from a great book read a long list of the more notable deeds that I
had thought to my credit, covering a long period of twenty-two
years since first I had stepped the ocher sea bottom beside the
incubator of the Tharks. With the others she read of all that I had
done within the circle of the Otz Mountains where the Holy Therns
and the First Born had held sway.