The Chessmen of Mars
concealment that she might have a better view of the city.
U-Dor, dwar of the 8th Utan of O-Tar, Jeddak of Manator, rode back in
the early dawn toward Manator from a brief excursion to a neighboring
village. As he was rounding the hills south of the city, his keen eyes
were attracted by a slight movement among the shrubbery close to the
summit of the nearest hill. He halted his vicious mount and watched
more closely. He saw a figure rise facing away from him and peer down
toward Manator beyond the hill.
"Come!" he signalled to his followers, and with a word to his thoat
turned the beast at a rapid gallop up the hillside. In his wake swept
his twenty savage warriors, the padded feet of their mounts soundless
upon the soft turf. It was the rattle of sidearms and harness that
brought Tara of Helium suddenly about, facing them. She saw a score of
warriors with couched lances bearing down upon her.
She glanced at Ghek. What would the spiderman do in this emergency? She
saw him crawl to his rykor and attach himself. Then he arose, the
beautiful body once again animated and alert. She thought that the
creature was preparing for flight. Well, it made little difference to
her. Against such as were streaming up the hill toward them a single
mediocre swordsman such as Ghek was worse than no defense at all.
"Hurry, Ghek!" she admonished him. "Back into the hills! You may find
there a hiding-place;" but the creature only stepped between her and
the oncoming riders, drawing his long-sword.
"It is useless, Ghek," she said, when she saw that he intended to
defend her. "What can a single sword accomplish against such odds?"
"I can die but once," replied the kaldane. "You and your panthan saved
me from Luud and I but do what your panthan would do were he here to
protect you."
"It is brave, but it is useless," she replied. "Sheathe your sword.
They may not intend us harm."
Ghek let the point of his weapon drop to the ground, but he did not
sheathe it, and thus the two stood waiting as U-Dor the dwar stopped
his thoat before them while his twenty warriors formed a rough circle
about. For a long minute U-Dor sat his mount in silence, looking
searchingly first at Tara of Helium and then at her hideous companion.
"What manner of creature are you?" he asked presently. "And what do you
before the gates of Manator?"
"We are from far countries," replied the girl, "and we are lost and
starving. We ask only food and rest and the privilege to go our way
seeking our own homes."
U-Dor smiled a grim smile. "Manator and the hills which guard it alone
know the age of Manator," he said; "yet in all the ages that have
rolled by since Manator first was, there be no record in the annals of
Manator of a stranger departing from Manator."
"But I am a princess," cried the girl haughtily, "and my country is not
at war with yours. You must give me and my companions aid and assist us
to return to our own land. It is the law of Barsoom."
"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.
CHAPTER XI
THE CHOICE OF TARA
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