John Carter (6 page)

They locked eyes for a long moment. Then he stuck out his hand. “Deal.”

She stared at the hand, puzzled.

“You shake it,” he said.

A very awkward handshake ensued. Carter smiled again, despite himself. “Now I just need to get that medallion off of Tars. I don't suppose he'll just—”

“Dotar Sojat?”

They looked down to see Sola struggling in the grip of Sarkoja's four strong arms. Five Tharks raised rifles in warning, aiming them straight at Carter and Dejah.

“I told you it was forbidden,” Sola said.

T
ARS
T
ARKAS
burst into the holding tent, sweeping the flap open with all four arms. “What in the name of Issus is going on?”

Four Tharks held Carter, who struggled in tight bindings. Sarkoja stood above the kneeling Sola and Dejah Thoris, brandishing a sword in triumph.

“Issus has been profaned,” Sarkoja said. “We found these ones plotting in the temple.”

Tars stared down at Dejah Thoris. “In the temple?”

“Sola led them there.”

Carter watched as Tars's gaze turned to Sola, and a horrible, pained look crossed the Jeddak's face.

“No,” Carter said. “Sola tried to stop us. I meant no disrespect to your goddess, Tars.”

Sarkoja pressed her blade against Carter's neck. “Your ‘right arm' was planning to rob you of the medallion, my Jeddak. He planned to take it down the River Iss to use it for greater blasphemy.”

“I'm just tryin' to get home!” Carter cried.

Tal Hajus came up behind Tars Tarkas, surveying the scene coldly. “They must all die,” he said. “In the arena.”

Tars reached forward with one arm and shoved Sarkoja aside. He hoisted Carter up in the air with two more arms and carried the Earthman away from the others, to a corner of the tent.

“How could you do this?” Tars's fourth hand clamped down hard on Carter's throat and began to strangle him. “I spared your life, made you Dotar Sojat. Yet
her
life means nothing to you!”

The Thark's voice was bitter, disgusted…and tinged with an odd, hopeless sadness.

“You knew,” Tars continued. “You knew she had no room for another mark. Now Sola will die because of you.”

“She's—” Carter gasped for breath. “She's your daughter, isn't she?”

The Jeddak's face lit up with shock and guilt. He hefted Carter again, moved him even farther away from the others, and slammed him up against a rock. Still bound, Carter was helpless to resist.

“Who told you that?” Tars kept his voice low. “A Thark has no parent but the horde.”

“Call it a father's intuition.” Carter glanced down at the bands on his own, bound hand. “But how do you know? That she's your daughter, I mean?”

“Her mother kept her egg. Sola is the last flicker of our ancient greatness.”

Carter pointed to Tars's medallion. “Then you can't just stand by and let her be killed—”

Suddenly Tars grabbed Carter up by the throat again. When the Thark whirled around, Carter saw why: Tal Hajus and Sarkoja had crept up behind them, straining to hear the hushed exchange.

Tars Tarkas faced Sarkoja directly. “You are correct. My right arms have offended me. It falls to me to cut them off.”

Then he leaned forward and spoke with all the force of a Thark Jeddak.
“Leave us.”

Tal and Sarkoja filed out, casting suspicious glances back.

When they were gone, Tars Tarkas pulled out his knife. As he raised it, Carter had a horrible moment of fear and doubt. Had he overplayed his hand? Would the Jeddak really kill Carter to keep secret the truth about Sola?

Then Tars cut his bonds. Carter was free.

Sola and Dejah moved in to join them. “You must hurry,” Tars said, pointing to the tent's rear flap.

Dejah took Carter's arm. “Thank you, Jeddak—”

“One condition.” Tars unhooked the medallion, handing it to Carter. “Take Sola with you down the River Iss.”

Sola gasped. When Tars turned to her, his voice was oddly…human.

“I'd rather you died in the arms of the Goddess than become food for wild banths in a Thark arena.” Tars turned solemnly to Carter. “From this moment, Sola serves under Dotar Sojat. Where you go, she goes.”

Carter nodded, then gestured toward the tent's front flap. “What about Sarkoja and Tal Hajus? What will they do to you?”

“Leave a Thark his head and his hand, and he may yet conquer.” Tars grinned then, the ghastly Thark smile. “Now go!”

As Carter started running, followed by Dejah and Sola, he realized in surprise:
I'm almost getting used to that grin.

The three figures galloped across the sands, each astride a swift thoat. Carter heard a noise and turned swiftly, expecting pursuers. But a familiar figure whooped along after them, kicking up a cloud of dust.

“Woola!” Carter exclaimed. “How in the world—”

“You belong to him,” Sola said. “Woola would find you anywhere on Barsoom.”

Dejah Thoris pointed ahead. “Follow me!”

They rode for many miles, past trackless wastes dotted with a startling variety of ruins. Once, Dejah explained, this had been a lush sea covered with islands, settlements, and ports. But the waters had dried up long ago, and the moving, predatory city of Zodanga had soaked up most of the planet's remaining resources. Barsoom had become a shadow of a world, a barren desert fallen largely into savagery.

Carter was captivated by Dejah's beauty, her energy, and her passion to save her people. But more and more he came to realize she wasn't telling him everything.

On the second day, as Dejah rode ahead under the hot sun, Sola frowned up at the sky. Then she pulled her thoat over alongside Carter's.

“Dotar Sojat,” she said. “I mean,
Carter
. I do not think she leads us to the Iss.”

Carter nodded grimly. “Play along.”

Then he galloped up fast behind Dejah. As she turned in surprise, he reached out and grabbed the reins of her thoat. “What did you think I'd do when I saw your city?”

“What?”

“You're supposed to be taking us to the river.”

Sola trotted up alongside and pointed to the twin moons in the sky. “Cluros and Thuria. They should be at our backs by now. You lead us toward Helium.”

Dejah grimaced and moved to slow her thoat—but Carter tugged on its reins, urging it forward. “Once we reached Helium,” she said, “I knew you would see the virtue of our cause.”

“Everyone thinks their cause is virtuous, Professor.”

With a swift motion, he yanked at her saddlebag. Its contents spilled out onto the sand. When Dejah turned in surprise, Carter shoved her roughly off the beast and released its reins.

Dejah tumbled to the ground. The thoat dashed off, riderless, disappearing quickly over a rise. Carter and Sola broke to the side, riding off together in the opposite direction.

“No,” Dejah cried. “John Carter, you can't!”

“I like this plan better,” Sola said.

Carter motioned the Thark to silence.

“You mad fool!” Dejah ran after them on foot, gasping for breath. “You're not from Earth—and there are no Therns! I only told you what you wanted to hear so you'd help us—so you'd help
me
.”

Sola looked over at Carter questioningly.

“Wait for the truth,” he said, too softly for Dejah to hear.

“Stop,” Dejah called. “I can't—
I cannot marry him
!”

Carter reined in his thoat and wheeled it around to face Dejah.

“Can't marry who?” he asked.

She glared up at him. “Sab Than. The Zodangan Jeddak you fought aboard the airship. He offered a truce in exchange for my hand. My father fears the Zodangans' new weaponry, so he consented, but I—I could not.”

“Your father?”

“Tardos Mors.”

“The Jeddak of Helium?” Sola rode up, her voice sharp with shock. “She is a princess!”

“A princess of Mars.” Carter pulled up alongside Dejah, began to circle around her. “A princess who didn't want to get married, so she ran away.”

He suddenly felt angry. She'd used him, lied to him, placed hundreds of lives in peril. And for this?

He turned and trotted away.

Dejah kept after him. “I didn't run. I escaped.”

He swung his thoat around. “Why don't you just marry him and help your people?”

“I can't do that to them.”

“Do what? Let them live?”

“A life of oppression? That is not living.”

“
Death
is not living.”

“But they don't have to die.”

“Right. You can marry Sab Than.”

“Or
you
can help us—
uhhh
!”

He heard Dejah trip and turned to see her sprawled face down on the sand. Swearing, he pulled his thoat to a halt, then jumped down to help her.

He reached out a hand, but she slapped it away.

Sola circled on her own thoat, keeping her distance.

Slowly Dejah stood up and stared at the ground. When she spoke, there was steel in her voice.

“If you had the means to save others—to save those you cared most about—would you not take any action to do that?”

“No good will come of me fighting your war.”

“I would lay down my life for Helium. But I will not sell my soul.” She looked down again. “Yes, I ran away. I was afraid, weak. Maybe I should have just married him. But I feared it would mean the end of Barsoom.”

She took both his shoulders in her firm, lovely hands.

“I tell you true, John Carter of Earth. There are no Gates of Iss. They are not real.”

“I'm sorry, Princess.” He held up the medallion, almost apologetically. “But
this
is real, and it brought me here. If it can bring me home again…I've got to try.”

They looked into each other's eyes for a long moment. A strange thought came to Carter:
if she can understand my sorrow, then maybe I can understand hers.

Together, hand in hand, they walked back to his thoat.

T
HE CITY
of Zodanga was on the move. Stalking along on countless gigantic legs, shaking the desert beneath a thousand tons of iron and stone. Crushing all that lay before it, leaving a deep trench in its wake.

Sab Than strode across the open-air expanse of the Royal Hangar. To the airmen preparing his personal flier he looked fearless, almost as powerful as the Therns themselves. But Matai Shang's consciousness still buzzed within Sab's mind, constantly reminding him who held the true power here.

A general approached, nervous. “Sire. Prudence demands you take an escort with you.”

“No,”
Matai Shang said in Sab's mind. His tone of voice brooked no argument.

“I will go alone,” Sab said aloud.

“But Jeddak—”

“In one stroke, I can end a thousand years of civil war and bring Helium to her knees forever. But my
general
, in his superior wisdom, objects?”

The general withdrew, mumbling apologies.

As Sab Than mounted the flier, he whispered to Matai Shang. “I'm even starting to talk like you.”

The Thern made no reply.

The flier rose up into the sky, leaving the spires of Zodanga behind. “I have doubts about this plan,” Sab said. “The princess is still missing. And that white ape…”

“Don't concern yourself with them.”

Then a switch seemed to open in Sab Than's brain, and suddenly he saw what Matai Shang saw. A dozen images at once: the city of Zodanga on its scuttling legs. Sab Than's own flier, seen from the ground as it climbed into the sky. Tardos Mors, his eyes dark as he prepared for a royal wedding. A long view of the blue-spired city of Helium, twin halves divided by a deep, unbridgeable chasm.

And then, just for a moment, an image of the open desert: Dejah Thoris, a Thark female, and the white ape called Carter winding their way down a deep trench toward the River Iss.

They're everywhere
, Sab realized,
the Therns. And whatever one of them sees, all the others see too, through their brothers' eyes.

Matai Shang broke the connection. Sab blinked, startled and disoriented. The flier lurched beneath him, and he struggled to right it.

“They will not reach the Gates,”
Matai said.
“Wherever they are, I am already there.”

By the time they reached the River Iss, the thoats were parched. Carter led his mount down to the black water and left it to drink. He stood taking in the scene as Sola and Dejah Thoris rode up behind him and dismounted. Faithful Woola had found them again too and galloped up to join them at river's edge.

Carter had expected to see signs of life around the river—bodies of water were very rare on Barsoom. But the shore held no people, red or green. Only canoes, some wrecked and some whole, all littered with abandoned food and offerings. A fatal stillness hung over the landscape.

Sola gestured at the offerings. “Here, pilgrims must leave behind all they have, all they know. Never to return.” She lowered her head, spoke more softly. “May the Goddess find me worthy.”

Carter glanced briefly at her. Sola had been very quiet for the past day. Carter wished, not for the first time, that he understood the Tharks better.

He knelt down, scooped up a handful of water—and pitched over as Woola slammed into him, whimpering and licking his face.

“Woola!”

Then Dejah gasped. Carter looked up, followed her gaze, and saw his thoat lying dead on the riverbank a few feet away. Foam oozed out of its muzzle.

“The water is poisonous.” Thoroughly, Carter shook the water off his hands and wiped them clean. He turned to Woola, who sat panting next to him. “Good boy!”

Then he spied Sola, beginning a solemn march down to the river.

“Wait!”

Carter leaped up and landed on the riverbank between Sola and the water. She reached out to push him aside, but he stood firm. “What do you think you're doing?”

“It is my way, Dotar Sojat. Not yours.” Her voice was flat. “I must honor my Jeddak, and redeem my unworthiness.”

“You want to honor your father? Then stay alive and help me.”

“My
father
?”

Too late, Carter realized what he'd just said.

“What do you mean?” she continued.

“Sola…that's what drives your compassion. The blood of your father, of Tars Tarkas. Of all the Tharks, you're the only one worthy of him.”

Carter watched her for a moment, saw her struggle with this new knowledge. He felt the urge to reach out to her and realized something very strange. As inhuman—as alien—as she was, Sola was the closest thing to a mother he'd known for a long, long time.

He turned away and crossed to one of the intact canoes.

“And your duty to your father demands that you see me through.” He held out an oar, gesturing to the canoe. “Just help me find the Gates. Then you can decide what your honor requires.”

Sola stared at the oar. Dejah Thoris walked up behind Carter and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Just to the Gates, then.” Sola took the oar and climbed into the canoe.

When Carter looked over at Dejah, she was smiling at him. The most tender, human smile he'd yet seen on this world.

They left poor Woola on the riverbank, whimpering and fidgeting, to guard the remaining thoats. The water was thick but flowing with a strong current that pushed them downstream toward their destination.

Sola kept watch, eyeing the water carefully for omens. Once she gestured, and Carter paddled the canoe over to the bank. A flatboat glided by bearing three gaunt, unmoving Tharks. Two of them knelt in the bow, chanting low, while the third stood aft, poling the boat like some eerie gondolier of death.

“Other pilgrims,” Sola said.

They paddled for the better part of a day, past broken piers and abandoned boats. Finally they drifted around a sharp bend, and Carter reached for Dejah with sudden excitement.

The Gates of Iss loomed before them, an inverted pyramid that seemed to grow up out of the river: a massive, sandblasted structure that dwarfed everything around it, like a madman's vision of an earthly water dam.

Sola whispered a chant and began making signs in the air with all four of her arms.

Dejah shook her head, eyes wide. “Impossible,” she said.

Carter peered closer. Every inch of the Gates' surface was covered with the strange lattice of lines he'd seen in the Arizona cave and again in the Thark temple. But those etchings, he now realized, had been crude carvings, primitive imitations. This was the real thing, a pulsing web of living machinery built for some powerful, specific purpose.

The current guided them straight to the narrow foot of the Gates. They struck it with a slight bump, coming to a stop as the river flowed around the structure on both sides.

Dejah reached out a hand, touching the intricate line work. “I've never seen this material before…”

“I want to get a better look.” Carter scooped up Dejah in his arms and leaped. She cried out, burying her head in his chest.

They soared up a hundred feet, clearing the top of the Gates, then came to a landing on its flat, wide roof. Below, in the canoe, Sola continued to chant.

Dejah was staring at him. He set her down.

“Carter,” she said. “Your feet.”

He glanced down. A blue aura spread out from him, forming a glowing pattern against the latticework on the roof of the Gates. Tentatively, he took a step. When his foot touched down again, a flare of blue energy rose up.

Carter raised the medallion in surprise. It too glowed blue, its forked lines seeming to come alive in the Gates' presence.

Then the surface of the Gates seemed to open up in front of them, stone falling away like sand rushing down an hourglass. A stairway wove itself into being, leading down into the heart of the structure.

Together they began their descent. The walls of the Gates surrounded them, the staircase constantly forming new steps just ahead of their feet. Carter couldn't tell how far down they walked—at least to the level of the river's surface, probably deeper.

When they reached the bottom, the medallion flared bright.

Ahead, a portal opened in the blue stone. A corridor knitted itself into existence just as the stairway had done before. Carter peered ahead but the passageway was dim, lit only by the blue glow of the medallion.

He glanced over at Dejah, and she returned his gaze. Once again he felt that bond between them, the sense that he was born to meet this woman. This strange, willful, infuriating, unspeakably beautiful princess of Mars.

They drew their swords as one, in a single fluid motion. And stepped forward into the dark.