John Carter (8 page)

H
IGH UP NEAR
the vaulted ceiling, perched in the shadows of the eaves, Carter watched silently as Sab Than led Dejah out of the room, one arm wrapped possessively around her waist. The guardsmen and maidens followed. The matron took a quick, suspicious look around the room, then exited last, pulling the heavy door shut behind her.

Alone now, Carter dropped to the floor.

He'd made his decision, he realized. Earth had been no more than a syllable away; he'd felt its pull, almost
smelled
the sweet grass of Virginia calling. But in the end, it was all nothing next to Dejah Thoris. She meant the world to him.

Unfortunately, he had no idea what to do next. Carter was free but hunted, in a hostile, alien city. And Dejah was less than a day away from marrying that city's tyrant ruler.

Helium and Zodanga had made their pact. Carter's only hope was the Tharks.

He slipped out of the room, eyes darting around the empty corridor. He turned a corner toward a winding staircase and came face to face with Dejah's matron.

The old woman held up a strange bracelet weapon. A web of glimmering blue energy spat out from it, striking Carter's chest and growing like instant moss. It expanded up to his neck and down over his legs, stretching out to cover his arms, his clothing. Then it turned rigid, hard as stone, locking his body in place.

“What is this—?”

The web snaked up around his throat, wrapping around his jaw to form a gag.

The matron raised a finger to her mouth. “
Shh.
” With a graceful motion, she plucked the medallion from Carter's hand. Then she circled behind him, leaned over his shoulder…and her face shifted and changed. Became harder, more angular, more masculine. She seemed to grow taller as well, and a timeless, ancient look appeared in her eyes.

“I am Matai Shang,” the figure said. “And I assure you, we will have plenty of time to talk.”

Then the energy web spread up over Carter's eyes and the world went black. He made a muffled, panicky noise, but Matai Shang's firm arm pulled him forward. Carter heard sounds, voices. The stagnant indoor air gave way to a warm breeze, and he felt the jostle of a crowd around him. He almost tripped over a short flight of steps, and then a firm hand shoved him into a seated position.

When the Thern energy weapon receded from his eyes, Carter found himself sitting in a Zodangan battlewagon. He managed to turn his neck far enough to see out the window: a crowded street lined with pedestrians and market stalls. And statues of Sab Than.

“The Avenue of Warriors,” Matai Shang said.

Matai sat directly across from him, dressed now in an ethereal, shifting beige robe and metallic wristbands. He studied Carter like a cat with an injured mouse.

Carter struggled but the Thern device held his limbs tight. Matai touched his wristband, and a tendril receded from Carter's throat. Carter gagged, coughed.

“Now,” Matai said. “Let's have that talk.”

“Who are you?”

“Ah. American.”

Carter frowned. “Who
are
you, sir?”

“‘Sir.' Definitely the South.” Shang cocked his head, almost amused. “The Carolinas? Virginia? It's Virginia, isn't it. Lovely place.”

“You know it?”

“Not well, yet. But I will.”

The wagon lurched, jolted to a stop. Matai slid open a small panel behind his head. Then he placed a finger to his throat and spoke in a completely different voice.

The voice of a Zodangan military officer.

“Padwar, what's the holdup?”

From up front, the driver's muffled reply. “Sorry, sir. Streets are blocked. It's the wedding procession.”

Matai closed the panel, mildly annoyed. He turned back around, smiling at Carter's futile struggles.

“Increased strength and agility. A simple matter of gravitation and anatomy…we should have foreseen it.”

“We?”

“No apparent intelligence increase—unfortunately for you. Still, this will not do at all.” Matai held up the medallion, dangled it close to Carter. “We can't have Earthmen projecting themselves to Barsoom, leaping about and causing all manner of disruption.”

Carter frowned. This man or creature, whatever he was, had enormous weaponry and power at his command—and he seemed to know all about Carter and Earth as well. Suddenly Carter recalled Dejah's words back in the Thark settlement.

“You're a Thern,” he said.

“Therns are a myth,” Matai replied.

Then Matai touched his throat again and spoke in the officer's voice. “Padwar, we'll go on foot.”

The battlewagon's rear doors swung open. Carter felt a lightening sensation in his legs and discovered he could stand. When he looked up again, Matai Shang had transformed wholly, body and clothing, into a young Zodangan officer.

They hurried out of the wagon and into the crowd. Zodangan citizens massed around them, dressed in celebratory red. There were too many, packed too tightly, for Carter to make a run for it. And his arms were still bound.

“The Therns do not exist,” Matai said in a low voice. “
I
do not exist. Indeed, I work very hard at that.”

The crowd grew even thicker, jostling and bumping against Carter. When he looked up, Matai's officer form had been replaced by the figure of a smiling elderly woman.

“Excuse me,” Matai was saying. “Many pardons…the blessings of Issus be upon you…”

As the crowd thinned, Carter looked up to see the royal float approaching, gliding above the wide street. Sab Than and Dejah Thoris stood atop its roof, waving down at the adoring citizens.

“It's a shame, really,” Matai said in his old lady's voice. “She is a remarkable creature. And she came very close indeed.”

“You mean the Ninth Ray,” Carter said.

“It's of no consequence now. Tonight, when the two moons meet and vows are exchanged, there will be a grand ceremony. And then she, and anyone else with knowledge of the Ninth Ray, will be eliminated.” Matai turned to Carter and smiled a cruel, inhuman smile. “Shame there's no one to warn her.”

Carter whipped around, back toward the float—and the web snaked its tendrils up, covering his mouth again. A muffled cry died in his throat.

The royal float slid by. Of all the cheering crowd, only Carter could see the sadness behind Dejah Thoris's stoic smile.

Matai waved as the float passed by. “The balance must be restored.”

Then he grasped Carter's arm roughly, leading him off through the crowd again. Up ahead, Carter saw the elevated space of the Zodangan Hangar Deck with its multiple levels of skycraft, pilots, and mechanics.

The web receded again. Carter gasped for breath.

“What—what gives you the right to interfere?”

“Why do you care?” Matai seemed honestly curious. “This is not your home; you have no obligation to these people. How would they say it in Virginia? You have no dog in this fight. You're a man without a cause.”

As they approached the base of the Hangar Deck, Matai shifted casually back into the form of an officer. He saluted the guards and led Carter swiftly onto an open-air elevator platform.

As the platform started to rise, Matai shifted back into his true, robed form.

“What is
your
cause?” Carter asked.

“Oh, we have none. We are not haunted by mortality as you are. We are eternal.”

“The wedding—this little stroll. Why not just kill me? Kill Dejah?”

“Don't question our motives, Earthman.” Matai gestured out past the open platform, at the city of Zodanga laid out below. “What must happen will happen. Tonight Dejah Thoris will say her vows, drink from the chalice, and seal the fate of Barsoom. Our agents have spent decades preparing for this: they ply their trade in the Council of Helium, in the highest spires of Zodanga, in the lowest slums of Barsoom.

“We are everywhere. We've been playing this game since before the birth of this world, and we will play it long after the death of yours.”

Carter gazed out over the city's spires. He could just make out the royal float receding into the distance down the crowd-choked Avenue of Warriors.

“You see,” Matai continued, “we don't actually cause the destruction of a world. We simply
manage
it…feed off it, if you like. But on every host world, it plays out the same way. Populations rise, societies divide, wars rage. And all the while, the neglected planet slowly dies.”

The platform reached the elevated Hangar Deck. Matai Shang, in officer form again, snapped out an order. “Prisoner transport. Prep a two-man flier immediately.”

The flier was a frightening contraption: barely more than a large cylinder with instrument controls, a windscreen, and metal “wings” fanning out from the sides to collect solar energy. As the Thern anchored him to the rear seat, throttling the engine to life, Carter felt a deep sense of despair. The unearthly web held him fast, responding to Matai Shang's every slight command. Carter was utterly helpless.

But more than that. The Therns held this world in a vise, and they seemed all-powerful. No man from Earth, no Thark, Zodangan, or Heliumite, could possibly stand against them. No creature on either world…

Before they could take off, the flier suddenly slammed over onto its side. Matai was thrown free, but Carter went down with the flier. He struggled to turn his head and managed to see a snarling, bulky figure spring through the air, landing atop the Thern with a clamping of powerful jaws.

“Woola!” Carter cried.

Matai struggled beneath the animal's bulk. Woola snapped out and crunched Matai's bracelet, crushing it against the Thern's arm. Matai cried out in pain.

With the bracelet destroyed, Carter's shackles crumbled to dust. He jumped to his feet, then knelt down next to the trapped, squirming Thern.

“Immortal ain't bulletproof,” Carter said, petting Woola absently. “I shot one of you back on Earth. Remember that.”

Carter grabbed the medallion, shoving it quickly into his boot. Then he turned to see the Zodangan guards pointing and running toward him. Woola whimpered urgently.

Carter turned his attention to the two-man flier, still humming with power. He hopped onto it, fumbled with its controls. And tried not to think about what he had to do now.

Captain John Carter, veteran of nineteenth-century ground combat, was about to make his first solo flight.

F
OR
C
ARTER
,
the next hour passed in a blur of instinct and action. He managed to guide the flier up, lost control, and righted it again. He heard Matai Shang shout something, and then a loud buzzing rose up behind him: guards on mounted fliers taking off in pursuit. Carter panicked, plummeted his flier over the side of the Hangar Deck, then pulled up just in time to see the palace looming ahead.

He banked sharply, lost control, and dove again—into the mazelike pipework of the city's refineries, the steaming brass network that fed power to its streets. Two Zodangan fliers were right on his tail now. Carter dodged thick, scalding-hot pipes, pulling up hard on the flier's stick as he'd seen the pilots of Barsoom do.

Every slight twitch made the flier lurch sharply beneath him.
This ain't no horse
, he thought.

He banked, swerved, shot to the side—and suddenly found himself beneath the city, weaving through its rows of gigantic moving legs. They pressed down into the sand like oil derricks, like pile drivers. Carter grimaced, tightening his grip on the flier's controls.

One of the Zodangans was too slow and slammed right into a leg. His flier exploded in a burst of fire.

But as Carter slowed, disoriented, the second Zodangan pressed his advantage. He swerved to the side, pulling up even with Carter, then banked back hard, aiming his grapnel gun straight at his prey. Carter grimaced.

A shot rang out. The Zodangan spun off his flier, trailing blood. Carter looked around frantically. He was almost clear of the city now, and he could see the empty trench left behind in its wake. The last few legs clomped past him, and he spotted the shooter standing on the flat sand below.

Sola, with her Thark rifle. Woola stood next to her, yapping excitedly.

Carter bumped his way down to an uneasy landing. Behind him, the city lumbered slowly onward through the trackless desert.

When he dismounted, Sola swept him up like a mother reunited with her child.

“Easy now!” he said. “Sola—”

“I told you Woola could find you anywhere,” she replied.

He smiled down at the beast, which was hopping up and down with joy. Then he turned away, started back toward his flier.

“Where are you going?” Sola asked.

“To save Dejah. And I'm going to need an army to do it.” He kicked the flier to life. “Get on.”

“No.” Sola hesitated. “It is unnatural. Tharks do not fly.”

Again Carter smiled. “They do now.”

They made quite a sight: Carter in the pilot's seat, Sola perched behind, clasping four arms painfully around his chest—and Woola stretched out like a hood ornament on the front of the flier. At first the animal seemed dubious, but soon he was howling with excitement into the onrushing wind.

When they reached the Thark settlement, Carter discovered that landing the flier was even more difficult with passengers. He collided with a dune, sending a wave of sand spitting up into the air. They skidded noisily to a halt, blinded by dust.

When the dust cleared, they found themselves staring into the barrels of two Thark rifles.

“Take me to the Jeddak,” Carter said. “Now!”

The guards led them through the maze of tents. Sarkoja sneered at them as they passed. Sola cringed, turning quickly away.

When they reached the Jeddak's tent, Carter pushed straight through the flap. “Tars! They're gonna kill Dejah—”

But the Thark sitting in the Jeddak's chair was not Tars Tarkas. Tal Hajus jerked his head up from a platter of food, a dark grin forming on his face.

“Issus truly rewards the just,” he said.

They dumped Carter through a grate and he dropped twenty feet or more down to a ruined dungeon. A heavy rock fell after him, chained to his leg.

Tal Hajus smirked down at him, then replaced the grate and walked away.

Carter's eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness. Tall, elongated Thark skeletons filled the corners of the dark, foul-smelling space…and something else, too. Another figure…

“I see the dead.”

The voice was raspy but familiar. Carter squinted. “Tars?”

The former Jeddak slumped against a wall, naked and battered. Dozens of tiny wounds covered his body.

He seemed more dead than alive and only half aware of his surroundings.

“The Virginia I knew,” Tars said, “he traveled the Iss—”

“Virginia has returned, my friend.” Carter bent to examine him. “What have they done to you?”

Tars looked up, seeming to focus on Carter for the first time. “Your once great Jeddak now battles starved banths in the arena.” He coughed blood. “When I saw you I wished to believe it was a sign that something new could come into this world. No matter. My daughter is with her mother in paradise. I take comfort in that.”

Carter hesitated. “Ah, Tars…actually, Sola came back here. With me.”

Tars reared up, amazingly fast, and struck Carter full strength. Carter flew across the room, slamming hard against the far wall. The chain and rock followed, almost hitting him.

With a murderous look, Tars Tarkas rose to his full height and began advancing toward the Earthman.

“Tars. No—wait!” Carter held up a hand. “Dejah, Helium. They're about to—”

“
This
is how you repay your debt to me?”

Tars reached out with all four hands and began to choke the life out of the Earthman. Carter gasped, struggled to speak. “Tars—don't—Helium! They're—”

But it was no use. Even wounded, the Thark was far stronger than Carter. Carter felt the iron grip of green hands, saw the dungeon begin to fade into a death haze. His eyes settled on one of the skeletons:
that'll be me soon
.

Then the hands went slack on his neck, and Tars Tarkas passed out from exhaustion.

A huge door swung open and three Thark guards stormed in. They prodded Carter with spears, poking Tars until his eyes snapped open.

“Up. Now!” the first guard said. “We go!”

Carter swatted the spears away, no longer caring what the guards did to him. To his surprise, they backed off and let him help Tars Tarkas to his feet.

“We are finished,” Tars said quietly.

“Nonsense.” Carter forced a smile. “Leave a Thark his head and one hand and he may yet conquer. Right?”

“Your spirit annoys me.”

As the guards led them out, Carter felt a sudden, irrational hope. With Tars Tarkas at his side, he might yet escape.

But not, he knew, without a battle.

Light washed over Carter—glaring, blinding light—as the huge stone wall lifted up, revealing the Thark arena beyond. Beside him, Tars Tarkas tensed for battle.

Crumbling grandstands filled with cheering, chanting Tharks lined the huge amphitheater. A high wall topped with iron spikes separated the arena from the spectators. The arena itself was littered with dry bones and the huge, putrefying carcasses of a half dozen banths.

Carter gestured at the carnage. “This your work?”

Tars nodded wearily.

Behind them the stone wall slammed down, trapping them in the arena. No escape.

High above, in the grandstand, a single figure rose from the wreckage of a carved throne. Tal Hajus raised his arms, and the crowd instantly fell silent.

“Weakness. Sentiment.” Tal gestured down at Carter. “Allowing abominations like this white worm to contaminate the horde!”

Again the Tharks cheered.

“We are united because we cull our freaks,” the new Jeddak continued. “We are strong because we despise weakness.” He glared down the stands at Sola, who sat collared and chained like a dog. Sarkoja, cruel as ever, held her leash.

“Let them be crushed like our unhatched eggs!”

The crowd jeered and began to throw rubble down into the arena. Tars flinched under the pelting, falling to his knees. Carter moved to protect him but came up short against the chain still bound to his leg. He looked back and saw that the Thark guards had anchored the other end of his chain to a large boulder near the door. Restrained this way, Carter would only be able to reach the center of the arena.

Then a scream rang out—a nightmare cry of predatory hunger, unlike anything Carter had ever heard before. Its near-human fury chilled him on a base, instinctive level.

“Was that a banth?” he asked.

“No.” Tars shook his head slowly, eyes filled with dread. “It is a white ape.”

On the far side of the arena, an iron gate creaked upward. The white ape burst free: gigantic, four-armed, twice the height and three times the bulk of a Thark, with no visible eyes. It stopped in the center of the arena and sniffed the air blindly, then turned slowly toward Tars and Carter.

The Tharks cheered.

“God almighty,” Carter whispered.

The ape howled and charged. Carter reached out to protect the weakened Tars Tarkas—too late. The ape struck out blindly with flailing arms and flung Tars clear across the arena. When Tars crashed down, the ape turned and began trudging back toward him, abandoning Carter for the moment.

Carter took off at a run after the creature. But once again the chain stopped him in his tracks. As he watched, helpless, the ape closed in on the former Jeddak, roaring and thumping the ground.

The Tharks rose to their feet, howling with excitement. Carter caught a quick glimpse of Sola pressing her face between the barrier spikes, eyes wide as she watched Tars's plight. Sarkoja still held tightly to her leash.

Carter tugged at his chain, frustrated beyond belief. He couldn't help Sola, and he couldn't help Tars. Tal Hajus ruled the Tharks now, and Sab Than would soon rule the rest of Barsoom. And Dejah…Dejah Thoris…

No. He could not let it all fall apart. Not for him, not for the Tharks who'd become his comrades in battle. And especially not for
her
.

Gritting his teeth, Carter reached out and grabbed his chain in both hands. He whipped it up and down, slapping it against the ground as hard as he could. Once, twice, four and five times.

The white ape paused above Tars Tarkas's unmoving body and turned at the noise.

Then it charged Carter.

The ape was upon him quicker than he'd expected. Carter sprang up, sailing over the creature's head, then jerked to a halt in mid-air as the chain reached its end. He slammed hard to the ground, momentarily dazed.

Again the ape charged. Again, Carter leaped.

In the crowd, Tal Hajus turned to a guard and coldly demanded: “Release the other one.”

As he landed, the second ape charged him. Carter stared at it for a moment, then whirled around to see the first ape approaching from the other side. He could leap again, but there was no escape now. He looked around frantically, eyes straying from the dead banths to the cheering Tharks—and then Sola flipped herself into the arena, vaulting over the spiked wall.

Sarkoja—still holding Sola's leash—let out a yelp as the leash went taut, flinging Sarkoja up into the air after the younger female. Sarkoja's armor snagged on the spikes, catching her on the wall above the arena. She cursed, waving her sword wildly.

Sola landed in the center of the arena. The apes turned, sniffing the air.

On the floor, Tars Tarkas roused himself. “Sola! Are you mad?”

“No,” Sola cried. “The blood of my father drives me!”

Sarkoja wriggled free of the spikes and glared down into the arena.
“Father?”

Sola gave a sharp tug on the chain, and Sarkoja tumbled down into the arena. Right into the arms of the first white ape.

It howled once, then ripped her in half.

The crowd jeered and booed.

As Carter watched, Sola helped Tars Tarkas to his feet. Barely looking around, Tars reached behind him and plucked a discarded spear from a banth carcass. He hurled it at the second ape, landed it firmly in the beast's chest.

The ape yanked the spear out, howling and bleeding, then took off in a fury after Tars and Sola.

Carter smiled. This was more like it.

He began circling around the first ape, winding his chain around its fearsome body. The ape howled and jerked free, yanking out an entire chunk of the stone wall at the end of the chain. Straining his muscles to the limit, Carter whirled the chain around above his head, with boulder and stone attached, and struck the ape square in the face.

There was a sickening crack, and the ape fell to the ground. Dead.

The other ape was howling in agony, still chasing Sola and Tars around the arena. As they ran past Sarkoja's broken body, Carter called out:
“Sola!”

Sola ducked sideways, snatched up Sarkoja's sword, and tossed it to Carter, just as the ape began to descend on Sola and Tars.

Carter sprang into action, plucking the sword out of the air. He landed near the two Tharks just as the white ape crushed them all. For a long series of seconds, the arena was still. And then, the point of the sword pierced through the back of the ape. Carter cut his way through the beast, covered in its blood, and the crowd erupted.