The Chessmen of Mars
"I did," answered Tara of Helium.
"Where did he go from here?"
"How should I know? Think you that I can pass through a locked door of
skeel?" the girl's tone was scornful.
"Of that we do not know," said the officer. "Strange things have
happened in the cell of your companion in the pits of Manator. Perhaps
you could pass through a locked door of skeel as easily as he performs
seemingly more impossible feats."
"Whom do you mean," she cried; "Turan the panthan? He lives, then? Tell
me, is he here in Manator unharmed?"
"I speak of that thing which calls itself Ghek the kaldane," replied
the officer.
"But Turan! Tell me, padwar, have you heard aught of him?" Tara's tone
was insistent and she leaned a little forward toward the officer, her
lips slightly parted in expectancy.
Into the eyes of the slave girl, Lan-O, who was watching her, there
crept a soft light of understanding; but the officer ignored Tara's
question--what was the fate of another slave to him? "Men do not
disappear into thin air," he growled, "and if E-Med be not found soon
O-Tar himself may take a hand in this. I warn you, woman, if you be one
of those horrid Corphals that by commanding the spirits of the wicked
dead gains evil mastery over the living, as many now believe the thing
called Ghek to be, that lest you return E-Med, O-Tar will have no mercy
on you."
"What foolishness is this?" cried the girl. "I am a princess of Helium,
as I have told you all a score of times. Even if the fabled Corphals
existed, as none but the most ignorant now believes, the lore of the
ancients tells us that they entered only into the bodies of wicked
criminals of the lowest class. Man of Manator, thou art a fool, and thy
jeddak and all his people," and she turned her royal back upon the
padwar, and gazed through the window across the Field of Jetan and the
roofs of Manator through the low hills and the rolling country and
freedom.
"And you know so much of Corphals, then," he cried, "you know that
while no common man dare harm them they may be slain by the hand of a
jeddak with impunity!"
The girl did not reply, nor would she speak again, for all his threats
and rage, for she knew now that none in all Manator dared harm her save
O-Tar, the jeddak, and after a while the padwar left, taking his men
with him. And after they had gone Tara stood for long looking out upon
the city of Manator, and wondering what more of cruel wrongs Fate held
in store for her. She was standing thus in silent meditation when there
rose to her the strains of martial music from the city below--the deep,
mellow tones of the long war trumpets of mounted troops, the clear,
ringing notes of foot-soldiers' music. The girl raised her head and
looked about, listening, and Lan-O, standing at an opposite window,
looking toward the west, motioned Tara to join her. Now they could see
across roofs and avenues to The Gate of Enemies, through which troops
were marching into the city.
"The Great Jed is coming," said Lan-O, "none other dares enter thus,
with blaring trumpets, the city of Manator. It is U-Thor, Jed of
Manatos, second city of Manator. They call him The Great Jed the length
and breadth of Manator, and because the people love him, O-Tar hates
him. They say, who know, that it would need but slight provocation to
inflame the two to war. How such a war would end no one could guess;
for the people of Manator worship the great O-Tar, though they do not
love him. U-Thor they love, but he is not the jeddak," and Tara
understood, as only a Martian may, how much that simple statement
encompassed.
The loyalty of a Martian to his jeddak is almost an instinct, and
second not even to the instinct of self-preservation at that. Nor is
this strange in a race whose religion includes ancestor worship, and
where families trace their origin back into remote ages and a jeddak
sits upon the same throne that his direct progenitors have occupied
for, perhaps, hundreds of thousands of years, and rules the descendants
of the same people that his forebears ruled. Wicked jeddaks have been
dethroned, but seldom are they replaced by other than members of the
imperial house, even though the law gives to the jeds the right to
select whom they please.
"U-Thor is a just man and good, then?" asked Tara of Helium.
"There be none nobler," replied Lan-O. "In Manatos none but wicked
criminals who deserve death are forced to play at jetan, and even then
the play is fair and they have their chance for freedom. Volunteers may
play, but the moves are not necessarily to the death--a wound, and even
sometimes points in swordplay, deciding the issue. There they look upon
jetan as a martial sport--here it is but butchery. And U-Thor is
opposed to the ancient slave raids and to the policy that keeps Manator
forever isolated from the other nations of Barsoom; but U-Thor is not
jeddak and so there is no change."
The two girls watched the column moving up the broad avenue from The
Gate of Enemies toward the palace of O-Tar. A gorgeous, barbaric
procession of painted warriors in jewel-studded harness and waving
feathers; vicious, squealing thoats caparisoned in rich trappings; far
above their heads the long lances of their riders bore fluttering
pennons; foot-soldiers swinging easily along the stone pavement, their
sandals of zitidar hide giving forth no sound; and at the rear of each
utan a train of painted chariots, drawn by mammoth zitidars, carrying
the equipment of the company to which they were attached. Utan after
utan entered through the great gate, and even when the head of the
column reached the palace of O-Tar they were not all within the city.
"I have been here many years," said the girl, Lan-O; "but never have I
seen even The Great Jed bring so many fighting men into the city of
Manator."
Through half-closed eyes Tara of Helium watched the warriors marching
up the broad avenue, trying to imagine them the fighting men of her
beloved Helium coming to the rescue of their princess. That splendid
figure upon the great thoat might be John Carter, himself, Warlord of
Barsoom, and behind him utan after utan of the veterans of the empire,
and then the girl opened her eyes again and saw the host of painted,
befeathered barbarians, and sighed. But yet she watched, fascinated by
the martial scene, and now she noted again the groups of silent figures
upon the balconies. No waving silks; no cries of welcome; no showers of
flowers and jewels such as would have marked the entry of such a
splendid, friendly pageant into the twin cities of her birth.
"The people do not seem friendly to the warriors of Manatos," she
remarked to Lan-O; "I have not seen a single welcoming sign from the
people on the balconies."
The slave girl looked at her in surprise. "It cannot be that you do not
know!" she exclaimed. "Why, they are--" but she got no further. The
door swung open and an officer stood before them.
"The slave girl, Tara, is summoned to the presence of O-Tar, the
jeddak!" he announced.
CHAPTER XIV
AT GHEK'S COMMAND
Turan the panthan chafed in his chains. Time dragged; silence and
monotony prolonged minutes into hours. Uncertainty of the fate of the
woman he loved turned each hour into an eternity of hell. He listened
impatiently for the sound of approaching footsteps that he might see
and speak to some living creature and learn, perchance, some word of
Tara of Helium. After torturing hours his ears were rewarded by the
rattle of harness and arms. Men were coming! He waited breathlessly.
Perhaps they were his executioners; but he would welcome them
notwithstanding. He would question them. But if they knew naught of
Tara he would not divulge the location of the hiding place in which he
had left her.
Now they came--a half-dozen warriors and an officer, escorting an
unarmed man; a prisoner, doubtless. Of this Turan was not left long in
doubt, since they brought the newcomer and chained him to an adjoining
ring. Immediately the panthan commenced to question the officer in
charge of the guard.
"Tell me," he demanded, "why I have been made prisoner, and if other
strangers were captured since I entered your city."
"What other prisoners?" asked the officer.
"A woman, and a man with a strange head," replied Turan.
"It is possible," said the officer; "but what were their names?"
"The woman was Tara, Princess of Helium, and the man was Ghek, a
kaldane, of Bantoom."
"These were your friends?" asked the officer.
"Yes," replied Turan.
"It is what I would know," said the officer, and with a curt command to
his men to follow him he turned and left the cell.
"Tell me of them!" cried Turan after him. "Tell me of Tara of Helium!
Is she safe?" but the man did not answer and soon the sound of their
departure died in the distance.
"Tara of Helium was safe, but a short time since," said the prisoner
chained at Turan's side.
The panthan turned toward the speaker, seeing a large man, handsome of
face and with a manner both stately and dignified. "You have seen her?"
he asked. "They captured her then? She is in danger?"
"She is being held in The Towers of Jetan as a prize for the next
games," replied the stranger.
"And who are you?" asked Turan. "And why are you here, a prisoner?"
"I am A-Kor the dwar, keeper of The Towers of Jetan," replied the
other. "I am here because I dared speak the truth of O-Tar the jeddak,
to one of his officers."
"And your punishment?" asked Turan.
"I do not know. O-Tar has not yet spoken. Doubtless the games--perhaps
the full ten, for O-Tar does not love A-Kor, his son."
"You are the jeddak's son?" asked Turan.
"I am the son of O-Tar and of a slave, Haja of Gathol, who was a
princess in her own land."
Turan looked searchingly at the speaker. A son of Haja of Gathol! A son
of his mother's sister, this man, then, was his own cousin. Well did
Gahan remember the mysterious disappearance of the Princess Haja and an
entire utan of her personal troops. She had been upon a visit far from
the city of Gathol and returning home had vanished with her whole
escort from the sight of man. So this was the secret of the seeming
mystery? Doubtless it explained many other similar disappearances that
extended nearly as far back as the history of Gathol. Turan scrutinized
his companion, discovering many evidences of resemblance to his
mother's people. A-Kor might have been ten years younger than he, but
such differences in age are scarce accounted among a people who seldom
or never age outwardly after maturity and whose span of life may be a
thousand years.
"And where lies Gathol?" asked Turan.
"Almost due east of Manator," replied A-Kor.
"And how far?"
"Some twenty-one degrees it is from the city of Manator to the city of
Gathol," replied A-Kor; "but little more than ten degrees between the
boundaries of the two countries. Between them, though, there lies a
country of torn rocks and yawning chasms."
Well did Gahan know this country that bordered his upon the west--even
the ships of the air avoided it because of the treacherous currents
that rose from the deep chasms, and the almost total absence of safe
landings. He knew now where Manator lay and for the first time in long
weeks the way to his own Gathol, and here was a man, a fellow prisoner,
in whose veins flowed the blood of his own ancestors--a man who knew
Manator; its people, its customs and the country surrounding it--one
who could aid him, with advice at least, to find a plan for the rescue
of Tara of Helium and for escape. But would A-Kor--could he dare broach
the subject? He could do no less than try.
"And O-Tar you think will sentence you to death?" he asked; "and why?"
"He would like to," replied A-Kor, "for the people chafe beneath his