The Chessmen of Mars Read online

  CHAPTER II

  AT THE GALE'S MERCY

  Tara of Helium did not return to her father's guests, but awaited inher own apartments the word from Djor Kantos which she knew must come,begging her to return to the gardens. She would then refuse, haughtily.But no appeal came from Djor Kantos. At first Tara of Helium was angry,then she was hurt, and always she was puzzled. She could notunderstand. Occasionally she thought of the Jed of Gathol and then shewould stamp her foot, for she was very angry indeed with Gahan. Thepresumption of the man! He had insinuated that he read love for him inher eyes. Never had she been so insulted and humiliated. Never had sheso thoroughly hated a man. Suddenly she turned toward Uthia.

  "My flying leather!" she commanded.

  "But the guests!" exclaimed the slave girl. "Your father, The Warlord,will expect you to return."

  "He will be disappointed," snapped Tara of Helium.

  The slave hesitated. "He does not approve of your flying alone," shereminded her mistress.

  The young princess sprang to her feet and seized the unhappy slave bythe shoulders, shaking her. "You are becoming unbearable, Uthia," shecried. "Soon there will be no alternative than to send you to thepublic slave-market. Then possibly you will find a master to yourliking."

  Tears came to the soft eyes of the slave girl. "It is because I loveyou, my princess," she said softly. Tara of Helium melted. She took theslave in her arms and kissed her.

  "I have the disposition of a thoat, Uthia," she said. "Forgive me! Ilove you and there is nothing that I would not do for you and nothingwould I do to harm you. Again, as I have so often in the past, I offeryou your freedom."

  "I do not wish my freedom if it will separate me from you, Tara ofHelium," replied Uthia. "I am happy here with you--I think that Ishould die without you."

  Again the girls kissed. "And you will not fly alone, then?" questionedthe slave.

  Tara of Helium laughed and pinched her companion. "You persistentlittle pest," she cried. "Of course I shall fly--does not Tara ofHelium always do that which pleases her?"

  Uthia shook her head sorrowfully. "Alas! she does," she admitted. "Ironis the Warlord of Barsoom to the influences of all but two. In thehands of Dejah Thoris and Tara of Helium he is as potters' clay."

  "Then run and fetch my flying leather like the sweet slave you are,"directed the mistress.

  * * * * *

  Far out across the ochre sea-bottoms beyond the twin cities of Heliumraced the swift flier of Tara of Helium. Thrilling to the speed and thebuoyancy and the obedience of the little craft the girl drove towardthe northwest. Why she should choose that direction she did not pauseto consider. Perhaps because in that direction lay the least knownareas of Barsoom, and, ergo, Romance, Mystery, and Adventure. In thatdirection also lay far Gathol; but to that fact she gave no consciousthought.

  She did, however, think occasionally of the jed of that distantkingdom, but the reaction to these thoughts was scarcely pleasurable.They still brought a flush of shame to her cheeks and a surge of angryblood to her heart. She was very angry with the Jed of Gathol, andthough she should never see him again she was quite sure that hate ofhim would remain fresh in her memory forever. Mostly her thoughtsrevolved about another--Djor Kantos. And when she thought of him shethought also of Olvia Marthis of Hastor. Tara of Helium thought thatshe was jealous of the fair Olvia and it made her very angry to thinkthat. She was angry with Djor Kantos and herself, but she was not angryat all with Olvia Marthis, whom she loved, and so of course she was notjealous really. The trouble was, that Tara of Helium had failed foronce to have her own way. Djor Kantos had not come running like awilling slave when she had expected him, and, ah, here was the nub ofthe whole thing! Gahan, Jed of Gathol, a stranger, had been a witnessto her humiliation. He had seen her unclaimed at the beginning of agreat function and he had had to come to her rescue to save her, as hedoubtless thought, from the inglorious fate of a wall-flower. At therecurring thought, Tara of Helium could feel her whole body burningwith scarlet shame and then she went suddenly white and cold with rage;whereupon she turned her flier about so abruptly that she was all buttorn from her lashings upon the flat, narrow deck. She reached homejust before dark. The guests had departed. Quiet had descended upon thepalace. An hour later she joined her father and mother at the eveningmeal.

  "You deserted us, Tara of Helium," said John Carter. "It is not whatthe guests of John Carter should expect."

  "They did not come to see me," replied Tara of Helium. "I did not askthem."

  "They were no less your guests," replied her father.

  The girl rose, and came and stood beside him and put her arms about hisneck.

  "My proper old Virginian," she cried, rumpling his shock of black hair.

  "In Virginia you would be turned over your father's knee and spanked,"said the man, smiling.

  She crept into his lap and kissed him. "You do not love me any more,"she announced. "No one loves me," but she could not compose herfeatures into a pout because bubbling laughter insisted upon breakingthrough.

  "The trouble is there are too many who love you," he said. "And nowthere is another."

  "Indeed!" she cried. "What do you mean?"

  "Gahan of Gathol has asked permission to woo you."

  The girl sat up very straight and tilted her chin in the air. "I wouldnot wed with a walking diamond-mine," she said. "I will not have him."

  "I told him as much," replied her father, "and that you were as good asbetrothed to another. He was very courteous about it; but at the sametime he gave me to understand that he was accustomed to getting what hewanted and that he wanted you very much. I suppose it will mean anotherwar. Your mother's beauty kept Helium at war for many years, and--well,Tara of Helium, if I were a young man I should doubtless be willing toset all Barsoom afire to win you, as I still would to keep your divinemother," and he smiled across the sorapus table and its golden serviceat the undimmed beauty of Mars' most beautiful woman.

  "Our little girl should not yet be troubled with such matters," saidDejah Thoris. "Remember, John Carter, that you are not dealing with anEarth child, whose span of life would be more than half completedbefore a daughter of Barsoom reached actual maturity."

  "But do not the daughters of Barsoom sometimes marry as early astwenty?" he insisted.

  "Yes, but they will still be desirable in the eyes of men after fortygenerations of Earth folk have returned to dust--there is no hurry, atleast, upon Barsoom. We do not fade and decay here as you tell me thoseof your planet do, though you, yourself, belie your own words. When thetime seems proper Tara of Helium shall wed with Djor Kantos, and untilthen let us give the matter no further thought."

  "No," said the girl, "the subject irks me, and I shall not marry DjorKantos, or another--I do not intend to wed."

  Her father and mother looked at her and smiled. "When Gahan of Gatholreturns he may carry you off," said the former.

  "He has gone?" asked the girl.

  "His flier departs for Gathol in the morning," John Carter replied.

  "I have seen the last of him then," remarked Tara of Helium with a sighof relief.

  "He says not," returned John Carter.

  The girl dismissed the subject with a shrug and the conversation passedto other topics. A letter had arrived from Thuvia of Ptarth, who wasvisiting at her father's court while Carthoris, her mate, hunted inOkar. Word had been received that the Tharks and Warhoons were again atwar, or rather that there had been an engagement, for war was theirhabitual state. In the memory of man there had been no peace betweenthese two savage green hordes--only a single temporary truce. Two newbattleships had been launched at Hastor. A little band of holy thernswas attempting to revive the ancient and discredited religion of Issus,who they claimed still lived in spirit and had communicated with them.There were rumors of war from Dusar. A scientist claimed to havediscovered human life on the further moon. A madman had attempted todestroy the atmosphere plant. Seven people had been assassinated
inGreater Helium during the last ten zodes, (the equivalent of an Earthday).

  Following the meal Dejah Thoris and The Warlord played at jetan, theBarsoomian game of chess, which is played upon a board of a hundredalternate black and orange squares. One player has twenty black pieces,the other, twenty orange pieces. A brief description of the game mayinterest those Earth readers who care for chess, and will not be lostupon those who pursue this narrative to its conclusion, since beforethey are done they will find that a knowledge of jetan will add to theinterest and the thrills that are in store for them.

  The men are placed upon the board as in chess upon the first two rowsnext the players. In order from left to right on the line of squaresnearest the players, the jetan pieces are Warrior, Padwar, Dwar, Flier,Chief, Princess, Flier, Dwar, Padwar, Warrior. In the next line all arePanthans except the end pieces, which are called Thoats, and representmounted warriors.

  The Panthans, which are represented as warriors with one feather, maymove one space in any direction except backward; the Thoats, mountedwarriors with three feathers, may move one straight and one diagonal,and may jump intervening pieces; Warriors, foot soldiers with twofeathers, straight in any direction, or diagonally, two spaces;Padwars, lieutenants wearing two feathers, two diagonal in anydirection, or combination; Dwars, captains wearing three feathers,three spaces straight in any direction, or combination; Fliers,represented by a propellor with three blades, three spaces in anydirection, or combination, diagonally, and may jump intervening pieces;the Chief, indicated by a diadem with ten jewels, three spaces in anydirection, straight, or diagonal; Princess, diadem with a single jewel,same as Chief, and can jump intervening pieces.

  The game is won when a player places any of his pieces on the samesquare with his opponent's Princess, or when a Chief takes a Chief. Itis drawn when a Chief is taken by any opposing piece other than theopposing Chief; or when both sides have been reduced to three pieces,or less, of equal value, and the game is not terminated in thefollowing ten moves, five apiece. This is but a general outline of thegame, briefly stated.

  It was this game that Dejah Thoris and John Carter were playing whenTara of Helium bid them good night, retiring to her own quarters andher sleeping silks and furs. "Until morning, my beloved," she calledback to them as she passed from the apartment, nor little did sheguess, nor her parents, that this might indeed be the last time thatthey would ever set eyes upon her.

  The morning broke dull and gray. Ominous clouds billowed restlessly andlow. Beneath them torn fragments scudded toward the northwest. From herwindow Tara of Helium looked out upon this unusual scene. Dense cloudsseldom overcast the Barsoomian sky. At this hour of the day it was hercustom to ride one of those small thoats that are the saddle animals ofthe red Martians, but the sight of the billowing clouds lured her to anew adventure. Uthia still slept and the girl did not disturb her.Instead, she dressed quietly and went to the hangar upon the roof ofthe palace directly above her quarters where her own swift flier washoused. She had never driven through the clouds. It was an adventurethat always she had longed to experience. The wind was strong and itwas with difficulty that she maneuvered the craft from the hangarwithout accident, but once away it raced swiftly out above the twincities. The buffeting winds caught and tossed it, and the girl laughedaloud in sheer joy of the resultant thrills. She handled the littleship like a veteran, though few veterans would have faced the menace ofsuch a storm in so light a craft. Swiftly she rose toward the clouds,racing with the scudding streamers of the storm-swept fragments, and amoment later she was swallowed by the dense masses billowing above.Here was a new world, a world of chaos unpeopled except for herself;but it was a cold, damp, lonely world and she found it depressing afterthe novelty of it had been dissipated, by an overpowering sense of themagnitude of the forces surging about her. Suddenly she felt verylonely and very cold and very little. Hurriedly, therefore, she roseuntil presently her craft broke through into the glorious sunlight thattransformed the upper surface of the somber element into rolling massesof burnished silver. Here it was still cold, but without the dampnessof the clouds, and in the eye of the brilliant sun her spirits rosewith the mounting needle of her altimeter. Gazing at the clouds, nowfar beneath, the girl experienced the sensation of hanging stationaryin mid-heaven; but the whirring of her propellor, the wind beating uponher, the high figures that rose and fell beneath the glass of herspeedometer, these told her that her speed was terrific. It was thenthat she determined to turn back.

  The first attempt she made above the clouds, but it was unsuccessful.To her surprise she discovered that she could not even turn against thehigh wind, which rocked and buffeted the frail craft. Then she droppedswiftly to the dark and wind-swept zone between the hurtling clouds andthe gloomy surface of the shadowed ground. Here she tried again toforce the nose of the flier back toward Helium, but the tempest seizedthe frail thing and hurled it remorselessly about, rolling it over andover and tossing it as it were a cork in a cataract. At last the girlsucceeded in righting the flier, perilously close to the ground. Neverbefore had she been so close to death, yet she was not terrified. Hercoolness had saved her, that and the strength of the deck lashings thatheld her. Traveling with the storm she was safe, but where was itbearing her? She pictured the apprehension of her father and motherwhen she failed to appear at the morning meal. They would find herflier missing and they would guess that somewhere in the path of thestorm it lay a wrecked and tangled mass upon her dead body, and thenbrave men would go out in search of her, risking their lives; and thatlives would be lost in the search, she knew, for she realized now thatnever in her life-time had such a tempest raged upon Barsoom.

  She must turn back! She must reach Helium before her mad lust forthrills had cost the sacrifice of a single courageous life! Shedetermined that greater safety and likelihood of success lay above theclouds, and once again she rose through the chilling, wind-tossedvapor. Her speed again was terrific, for the wind seemed to haveincreased rather than to have lessened. She sought gradually to checkthe swift flight of her craft, but though she finally succeeded inreversing her motor the wind but carried her on as it would. Then itwas that Tara of Helium lost her temper. Had her world not always bowedin acquiescence to her every wish? What were these elements that theydared to thwart her? She would demonstrate to them that the daughter ofThe Warlord was not to be denied! They would learn that Tara of Heliummight not be ruled even by the forces of nature!

  And so she drove her motor forward again and then with her firm, whiteteeth set in grim determination she drove the steering lever far downto port with the intention of forcing the nose of her craft straightinto the teeth of the wind, and the wind seized the frail thing andtoppled it over upon its back, and twisted and turned it and hurled itover and over; the propellor raced for an instant in an air pocket andthen the tempest seized it again and twisted it from its shaft, leavingthe girl helpless upon an unmanageable atom that rose and fell, androlled and tumbled--the sport of the elements she had defied. Tara ofHelium's first sensation was one of surprise--that she had failed tohave her own way. Then she commenced to feel concern--not for her ownsafety but for the anxiety of her parents and the dangers that theinevitable searchers must face. She reproached herself for thethoughtless selfishness that had jeopardized the peace and safety ofothers. She realized her own grave danger, too; but she was stillunterrified, as befitted the daughter of Dejah Thoris and John Carter.She knew that her buoyancy tanks might keep her afloat indefinitely,but she had neither food nor water, and she was being borne toward theleast-known area of Barsoom. Perhaps it would be better to landimmediately and await the coming of the searchers, rather than to allowherself to be carried still further from Helium, thus greatly reducingthe chances of early discovery; but when she dropped toward the groundshe discovered that the violence of the wind rendered an attempt toland tantamount to destruction and she rose again, rapidly.

  Carried along a few hundred feet above the ground she was better ableto appreciate the Titan
ic proportions of the storm than when she hadflown in the comparative serenity of the zone above the clouds, for nowshe could distinctly see the effect of the wind upon the surface ofBarsoom. The air was filled with dust and flying bits of vegetation andwhen the storm carried her across an irrigated area of farm land shesaw great trees and stone walls and buildings lifted high in air andscattered broadcast over the devastated country; and then she wascarried swiftly on to other sights that forced in upon herconsciousness a rapidly growing conviction that after all Tara ofHelium was a very small and insignificant and helpless person. It wasquite a shock to her self-pride while it lasted, and toward evening shewas ready to believe that it was going to last forever. There had beenno abatement in the ferocity of the tempest, nor was there indicationof any. She could only guess at the distance she had been carried forshe could not believe in the correctness of the high figures that hadbeen piled upon the record of her odometer. They seemed unbelievableand yet, had she known it, they were quite true--in twelve hours shehad flown and been carried by the storm full seven thousand haads. Justbefore dark she was carried over one of the deserted cities of ancientMars. It was Torquas, but she did not know it. Had she, she mightreadily have been forgiven for abandoning the last vestige of hope, forto the people of Helium Torquas seems as remote as do the South SeaIslands to us. And still the tempest, its fury unabated, bore her on.

  All that night she hurtled through the dark beneath the clouds, or roseto race through the moonlit void beneath the glory of Barsoom's twosatellites. She was cold and hungry and altogether miserable, but herbrave little spirit refused to admit that her plight was hopeless eventhough reason proclaimed the truth. Her reply to reason, sometimespoken aloud in sudden defiance, recalled the Spartan stubbornness ofher sire in the face of certain annihilation: "I still live!"

  That morning there had been an early visitor at the palace of TheWarlord. It was Gahan, Jed of Gathol. He had arrived shortly after theabsence of Tara of Helium had been noted, and in the excitement he hadremained unannounced until John Carter had happened upon him in thegreat reception corridor of the palace as The Warlord was hurrying outto arrange for the dispatch of ships in search of his daughter.

  Gahan read the concern upon the face of The Warlord. "Forgive me if Iintrude, John Carter," he said. "I but came to ask the indulgence ofanother day since it would be fool-hardy to attempt to navigate a shipin such a storm."

  "Remain, Gahan, a welcome guest until you choose to leave us," repliedThe Warlord; "but you must forgive any seeming inattention upon thepart of Helium until my daughter is restored to us."

  "You daughter! Restored! What do you mean?" exclaimed the Gatholian. "Ido not understand."

  "She is gone, together with her light flier. That is all we know. Wecan only assume that she decided to fly before the morning meal and wascaught in the clutches of the tempest. You will pardon me, Gahan, if Ileave you abruptly--I am arranging to send ships in search of her;" butGahan, Jed of Gathol, was already speeding in the direction of thepalace gate. There he leaped upon a waiting thoat and followed by twowarriors in the metal of Gathol, he dashed through the avenues ofHelium toward the palace that had been set aside for his entertainment.