The Chessmen of Mars
iron hand and their loyalty is but the loyalty of a people to the long
line of illustrious jeddaks from which he has sprung. He is a jealous
man and has found the means of disposing of most of those whose blood
might entitle them to a claim upon the throne, and whose place in the
affections of the people endowed them with any political significance.
The fact that I was the son of a slave relegated me to a position of
minor importance in the consideration of O-Tar, yet I am still the son
of a jeddak and might sit upon the throne of Manator with as perfect
congruity as O-Tar himself. Combined with this is the fact that of
recent years the people, and especially many of the younger warriors,
have evinced a growing affection for me, which I attribute to certain
virtues of character and training derived from my mother, but which
O-Tar assumes to be the result of an ambition upon my part to occupy
the throne of Manator.
"And now, I am firmly convinced, he has seized upon my criticism of his
treatment of the slave girl Tara as a pretext for ridding himself of
me."
"But if you could escape and reach Gathol," suggested Turan.
"I have thought of that," mused A-Kor; "but how much better off would I
be? In the eyes of the Gatholians I would be, not a Gatholian; but a
stranger and doubtless they would accord me the same treatment that we
of Manator accord strangers."
"Could you convince them that you are the son of the Princess Haja your
welcome would be assured," said Turan; "while on the other hand you
could purchase your freedom and citizenship with a brief period of
labor in the diamond mines."
"How know you all these things?" asked A-Kor. "I thought you were from
Helium."
"I am a panthan," replied Turan, "and I have served many countries,
among them Gathol."
"It is what the slaves from Gathol have told me," said A-Kor,
thoughtfully, "and my mother, before O-Tar sent her to live at Manatos.
I think he must have feared her power and influence among the slaves
from Gathol and their descendants, who number perhaps a million people
throughout the land of Manator."
"Are these slaves organized?" asked Turan.
A-Kor looked straight into the eyes of the panthan for a long moment
before he replied. "You are a man of honor," he said; "I read it in
your face, and I am seldom mistaken in my estimate of a man; but--" and
he leaned closer to the other--"even the walls have ears," he
whispered, and Turan's question was answered.
It was later in the evening that warriors came and unlocked the fetter
from Turan's ankle and led him away to appear before O-Tar, the jeddak.
They conducted him toward the palace along narrow, winding streets and
broad avenues; but always from the balconies there looked down upon
them in endless ranks the silent people of the city. The palace itself
was filled with life and activity. Mounted warriors galloped through
the corridors and up and down the runways connecting adjacent floors.
It seemed that no one walked within the palace other than a few slaves.
Squealing, fighting thoats were stabled in magnificent halls while
their riders, if not upon some duty of the palace, played at jetan with
small figures carved from wood.
Turan noted the magnificence of the interior architecture of the
palace, the lavish expenditure of precious jewels and metals, the
gorgeous mural decorations which depicted almost exclusively martial
scenes, and principally duels which seemed to be fought upon jetan
boards of heroic size. The capitals of many of the columns supporting
the ceilings of the corridors and chambers through which they passed
were wrought into formal likenesses of jetan pieces--everywhere there
seemed a suggestion of the game. Along the same path that Tara of
Helium had been led Turan was conducted toward the throne room of O-Tar
the jeddak, and when he entered the Hall of Chiefs his interest turned
to wonder and admiration as he viewed the ranks of statuesque thoatmen
decked in their gorgeous, martial panoply. Never, he thought, had he
seen upon Barsoom more soldierly figures or thoats so perfectly trained
to perfection of immobility as these. Not a muscle quivered, not a tail
lashed, and the riders were as motionless as their mounts--each warlike
eye straight to the front, the great spears inclined at the same angle.
It was a picture to fill the breast of a fighting man with awe and
reverence. Nor did it fail in its effect upon Turan as they conducted
him the length of the chamber, where he waited before great doors until
he should be summoned into the presence of the ruler of Manator.
* * * * *
When Tara of Helium was ushered into the throne room of O-Tar she found
the great hall filled with the chiefs and officers of O-Tar and U-Thor,
the latter occupying the place of honor at the foot of the throne, as
was his due. The girl was conducted to the foot of the aisle and halted
before the jeddak, who looked down upon her from his high throne with
scowling brows and fierce, cruel eyes.
"The laws of Manator are just," said O-Tar, addressing her; "thus is it
that you have been summoned here again to be judged by the highest
authority of Manator. Word has reached me that you are suspected of
being a Corphal. What word have you to say in refutation of the charge?"
Tara of Helium could scarce restrain a sneer as she answered the
ridiculous accusation of witchcraft. "So ancient is the culture of my
people," she said, "that authentic history reveals no defense for that
which we know existed only in the ignorant and superstitious minds of
the most primitive peoples of the past. To those who are yet so
untutored as to believe in the existence of Corphals, there can be no
argument that will convince them of their error--only long ages of
refinement and culture can accomplish their release from the bondage of
ignorance. I have spoken."
"Yet you do not deny the accusation," said O-Tar.
"It is not worthy the dignity of a denial," she responded haughtily.
"And I were you, woman," said a deep voice at her side, "I should,
nevertheless, deny it."
Tara of Helium turned to see the eyes of U-Thor, the great jed of
Manatos, upon her. Brave eyes they were, but neither cold nor cruel.
O-Tar rapped impatiently upon the arm of his throne. "U-Thor forgets,"
he cried, "that O-Tar is the jeddak."
"U-Thor remembers," replied the jed of Manatos, "that the laws of
Manator permit any who may be accused to have advice and counsel before
their judge."
Tara of Helium saw that for some reason this man would have assisted
her, and so she acted upon his advice.
"I deny the charge," she said, "I am no Corphal."
"Of that we shall learn," snapped O-Tar. "U-Dor, where are those who
have knowledge of the powers of this woman?"
And U-Dor brought several who recounted the little that was known of
the disappearance of E-Med, and others who told of the capture of Ghek
and Tara, suggesting by deduction that having been found together they
had sufficient in common to make it reasonably certain that one was as
bad as the other, and that, therefore, it remained but to convict one
of them of Corphalism to make certain the guilt of both. And then O-Tar
called for Ghek, and immediately the hideous kaldane was dragged before
him by warriors who could not conceal the fear in which they held this
creature.
"And you!" said O-Tar in cold accusing tones. "Already have I been told
enough of you to warrant me in passing through your heart the jeddak's
steel--of how you stole the brains from the warrior U-Van so that he
thought he saw your headless body still endowed with life; of how you
caused another to believe that you had escaped, making him to see
naught but an empty bench and a blank wall where you had been."
"Ah, O-Tar, but that is as nothing!" cried a young padwar who had come
in command of the escort that brought Ghek. "The thing which he did to
I-Zav, here, would prove his guilt alone."
"What did he to the warrior I-Zav?" demanded O-Tar. "Let I-Zav speak!"
The warrior I-Zav, a great fellow of bulging muscles and thick neck,
advanced to the foot of the throne. He was pale and still trembling
visibly as from a nervous shock.
"Let my first ancestor be my witness, O-Tar, that I speak the truth,"
he began. "I was left to guard this creature, who sat upon a bench,
shackled to the wall. I stood by the open doorway at the opposite side
of the chamber. He could not reach me, yet, O-Tar, may Iss engulf me if
he did not drag me to him helpless as an unhatched egg. He dragged me
to him, greatest of jeddaks, with his eyes! With his eyes he seized
upon my eyes and dragged me to him and he made me lay my swords and
dagger upon the table and back off into a corner, and still keeping his
eyes upon my eyes his head quitted his body and crawling upon six short
legs it descended to the floor and backed part way into the hole of an
ulsio, but not so far that the eyes were not still upon me and then it
returned with the key to its fetter and after resuming its place upon
its own shoulders it unlocked the fetter and again dragged me across
the room and made me to sit upon the bench where it had been and there
it fastened the fetter about my ankle, and I could do naught for the
power of its eyes and the fact that it wore my two swords and my
dagger. And then the head disappeared down the hole of the ulsio with
the key, and when it returned, it resumed its body and stood guard over
me at the doorway until the padwar came to fetch it hither."
"It is enough!" said O-Tar, sternly. "Both shall receive the jeddak's
steel," and rising from his throne he drew his long sword and descended
the marble steps toward them, while two brawny warriors seized Tara by
either arm and two seized Ghek, holding them facing the naked blade of
the jeddak.
"Hold, just O-Tar!" cried U-Dor. "There be yet another to be judged.
Let us confront him who calls himself Turan with these his fellows
before they die."
"Good!" exclaimed O-Tar, pausing half way down the steps. "Fetch Turan,
the slave!"
When Turan had been brought into the chamber he was placed a little to
Tara's left and a step nearer the throne. O-Tar eyed him menacingly.
"You are Turan," he asked, "friend and companion of these?"
The panthan was about to reply when Tara of Helium spoke. "I know not
this fellow," she said. "Who dares say that he be a friend and
companion of the Princess Tara of Helium?"
Turan and Ghek looked at her in surprise, but at Turan she did not
look, and to Ghek she passed a quick glance of warning, as to say:
"Hold thy peace."
The panthan tried not to fathom her purpose for the head is useless
when the heart usurps its functions, and Turan knew only that the woman
he loved had denied him, and though he tried not even to think it his
foolish heart urged but a single explanation--that she refused to
recognize him lest she be involved in his difficulties.
O-Tar looked first at one and then at another of them; but none of them
spoke.
"Were they not captured together?" he asked of U-Dor.
"No," replied the dwar. "He who is called Turan was found seeking
entrance to the city and was enticed to the pits. The following morning
I discovered the other two upon the hill beyond The Gate of Enemies."
"But they are friends and companions," said a young padwar, "for this
Turan inquired of me concerning these two, calling them by name and
saying that they were his friends."
"It is enough," stated O-Tar, "all three shall die," and he took
another step downward from the throne.
"For what shall we die?" asked Ghek. "Your people prate of the just
laws of Manator, and yet you would slay three strangers without telling
them of what crime they are accused."