John Carter

by Stuart Moore

  “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.

  CARTER AND DEJAH had only taken a few steps when the corridor sparked to life. An eerie, diffuse light filled the air, seeming to follow them as they walked. At its edges up ahead they could still see the corridor weaving itself into existence, forming new stone and mortar work before their eyes.

  Dejah Thoris shook her head in disbelief. “This is not the work of gods. These are machines.”

  Abruptly the corridor stopped. Carter stepped forward toward the wall—and again his foot began to glow. An intricate lattice of energy rose up into the air, glowing and twisting all around them. The walls began to melt away, shaping and swirling, expanding outward to form a new, much larger chamber.

  When the energy faded, Dejah and Carter found themselves standing in a cylindrical, high-ceilinged room. Faint lights danced along the rock walls, glowing in the now-familiar lattice pattern.

  Almost in a trance, Dejah ran her fingers along the blue-lit wall. She glanced at the floor, then held out her hand to Carter.

  “Your medallion.”

  He passed it to her. She knelt and placed it atop a softly glowing mark on the floor. The medallion flared again, seething briefly with light. Dejah snatched her hand away—and the medallion rose up, stopping to hover just a few inches above the floor.

  Carter grabbed Dejah’s hand, and together they stepped back as the floor beneath them came alive, glowing with luminous text and symbols. Abstract shapes connected by radiant lines, arcs, circles. When it was done, Carter stared in awe at the final pattern.

  The nine-legged spider. Its legs stretched outward from their common origin point: the mark directly beneath the hovering medallion.

  “Nine,” Dejah whispered. “Nine rays.”

  He looked at her, puzzled.

  “Carter, the Ninth Ray is real. It can be harnessed! Don’t you see?” She darted around the floor, pointing and gesturing at the grid of lines. “This entire structure runs on Ninth Ray isolates. I was right! Mother Issus—” She stopped, whirled around. “The Therns. They’re real. And you…you really are John Carter of Earth?”

  He grinned at her excitement. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And the ships that sail the sea…you’ve seen them. It must be a beautiful sight.”

  “It truly is.” He moved toward her. “But I’m not sure I’d trade it for the look on your face right now.”

  Carter stepped on another disk of light—and that mark too expanded under his feet, eclipsing the first pattern with its own. A central glowing spot with nine concentric circles fanning out around it. Various-size dots swelled along each line, completing a model of the solar system. Just as Dejah had etched it out in the sand back in the Thark settlement.

  But the pattern didn’t stop there. As Carter and Dejah stared, eight more lines sprouted from the third dot, the one representing Earth. The lines spread out, crossing the concentric circles, forming links to every other planet in the diagram. Along each line, glyphs appeared in the ancient language of Barsoom.

  Together they knelt down next to “Earth” and began tracing the lines with their fingers. Carter turned to Dejah. “What’s it say?”

  “I’m not sure.” She ran a hand over the glyphs. “It appears to be a…a kind of technical diagram. This line links Jasoom to Barsoom, and the glyph here…it’s like our symbol for a transcription. A copy sent along these lines be
tween the worlds. Like—”

  “Like a telegram.” Carter shook his head, struggling with the concept. “You’re saying I got telegraphed here? I’m a copy of myself?”

  “Possibly. These words could be the command for travel.” She frowned. “I don’t like guessing. I need more information…charts, codices…”

  Carter’s pulse quickened. Could this be his way home?

  “These charts. Where could we find them?”

  “In the Hall of Science. In Helium.”

  “Oh yes. Let’s just turn around and head on back to Helium.” Suddenly angry, he lifted her up into the air. “What do you take me for?”

  She looked down into his eyes for a long moment.

  “I take you for a man who’s lost,” she said.

  “I won’t be lost if you tell me how to work this thing.”

  “I’ll tell you what I can. But everything I need to understand that medallion is in Helium.”

  He pulled her closer, staring into her eyes. Was she telling the truth? Or was this just another trick to lure him to her city?

  “I’m trying to help you,” she continued. “To get you back to your cave of gold. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “Yes,” he said. But even to him, the answer seemed weak. Hollow.

  “No,” she replied, firmer now. “I don’t believe that. We were born worlds apart, but I know you, John Carter.” He tried to look away but her blue eyes held him fast. “From the first moment you leaped into the sky and caught me, I knew. When we stood together atop that tower, swords drawn, I—I felt the heart of a good man. A man willing to lay down his life for others.”

  He said nothing.

  “To fight for a cause.” She moved even closer, until their eyes were only inches apart. “Here. On Barsoom.”

  Then the space between them collapsed, as easily as the space between Earth and Barsoom. They kissed, a hot, passionate melding of lips. She smelled of blood and fire, like the ancient sands covering her proud, warrior world.

  Carter closed his eyes and, despite himself, a memory flooded into his mind: the last time he’d known such a passionate kiss. Dressed in his rebel grays, out on the steps of the old house in Virginia. Sarah’s lips warm on his, her tousled hair framed against the green trees, the lilacs in bloom. Carter’s hand resting firm on their daughter’s head as the girl clung to Sarah’s skirts.

  “Don’t you see, Carter?”

  His eyes snapped open.

  “I fled Helium to find another way,” Dejah continued. She raised a hand, caressed his cheek. “You are that other way.”

  He shook his head, guilt and passion warring within him. Opened his mouth to speak…then whirled at the sound of gunfire.

  “Outside!” Dejah cried. She took off at a run down the corridor.

  Still dazed, Carter took a last look around at the majestic solar system model covering the floor. Then he snatched up the floating medallion and took off after Dejah.

  Behind him, the room dissolved into atoms.

  From atop the Gates, Carter stared down at a grim sight. Sola stood alone in the canoe, rifle raised, firing round after round at the bluffs above the river…which teemed with Warhoons.

  Tars Tarkas had described the Warhoons to Carter: snarling, savage, piratical cousins of the Tharks, with deadly gnarled teeth and sharply hooked tusks. Hundreds of them stood massed on the bluff, firing off an almost solid wall of spears and arrows. Some Warhoons sat astride thoats while others rode banths, eight-legged beasts with rat tails and sharp lionlike claws.

  Sola was holding her own, and the Warhoons were keeping their distance from the poison river. But the Thark was badly outnumbered. Sooner or later, a spear would strike her down.

  Barely thinking, Carter snatched up Dejah and jumped. They landed hard in the canoe, splashing deadly black water up all around. Sola whirled in surprise, almost dropping her rifle. “Dotar Sojat!”

  “Are they from Helium?” Carter asked.

  Dejah shook her head emphatically. A volley of arrows whizzed between them, and she shrank back.

  “Sola,” Carter said, “get Dejah out of here.”

  “Carter?” Dejah asked.

  He took her by the shoulders, looked deep into her eyes. “I was too late once. I won’t be again.”

  Then he tensed his muscles and leaped again—toward the shore.

  Dejah called after him. “Carter! No!”

  He landed just as a piercing horn blast rang out, assaulting his senses. The Warhoon horde charged, bearing straight down on him. A hundred howling, slavering beast warriors, each of them four times his size, spears and arrows cocked and flying.

  As he faced certain death, a memory once again flashed into Carter’s mind. The horrible moment when he’d returned home from war, bloodied and limping, kept alive only by the hope of seeing Sarah and his little girl again. He’d ridden that horse till it dropped—in front of a burned-out farm, every bit of it destroyed by fire. Sobbing, exhausted, he’d scrabbled with his bare hands through the wreckage…till he found it.

  Sarah’s body curled in death around a tiny, swaddled, unmoving form.

  I was too late once. I won’t be again.

  Inside Carter, something snapped. He let out a savage cry, funneling all the horror and rage of his past into this one moment, this battle that would probably be his last. He vaulted into the air away from the river and dove into the seething mass of Warhoons. Whirling, slashing, drawing blood and springing up again.

  Arrows struck him, spears pierced his flesh, but Carter felt nothing. All he saw was the memory of his own hand dribbling a handful of earth onto his daughter’s tiny grave. The hand that now bore two wedding bands in memory of all he’d lost.

  Through his rage, through his grief and pain, the thought came to Carter: I’ve found something worth fighting for. But was it Dejah Thoris? Sarah’s memory? Or just the hope of returning home? As a dozen Warhoon fists pummeled him, as his blood fell and mixed with the blood of the Warhoon horde he decimated, Carter realized that he still didn’t know. And no matter the answer, even as the horde overwhelmed him, he knew he would never stop fighting.

  DEJAH THORIS watched with horror as the Warhoon horde flooded over Carter. One monster after another piled atop him, stabbing and punching, forcing him slowly but surely to the ground.

  “He’ll be dead in minutes,” she said. “We have to help him!”

  Sola gave her a sharp look. “No. You heard Dotar Sojat’s orders.”

  Dejah moved to grab the paddle, planning to row the canoe toward shore. But then a huge explosion rocked the river, sending the poison waters swirling perilously close to the canoe’s lip. Up on the bluff, Warhoons and thoats flew through the air. The survivors scattered and ran for cover. A second blast struck the shore, then a third.

  A shadow loomed over the canoe. Dejah cast her eyes upward and pointed with excitement. “The Xavarian! It’s the Xavarian!”

  The majestic Helium airship hovered above, raining down barrage after barrage on the panicking Warhoons. On the deck, expert swivel-gunners targeted the creatures surgically, isolating the largest fighters and separating them from their fellows.

  As Dejah paddled the boat to the riverbank, the Xavarian glided in to an easy landing beside the scattered Warhoon corpses. The blue standard of Helium waved proudly from its flagpoles. The few remaining Warhoons ran, scurrying for the hills.

  Warriors spilled down the airship’s ramp, moving to greet Dejah Thoris as she stepped up onshore. Sola followed her warily.

  The Heliumite warriors parted, revealing a familiar, imposing figure.

  “Father!” Dejah cried.

  “Dejah!” Tardos Mors swept her up into his arms. “Thank Issus!”

  For a split second, Dejah buried her face in her father’s shoulder. Then she pulled away urgently. “Carter?”

  Tardos led her to a heaped pile of Warhoon corpses. One by one, Helium soldiers rolled away the dead Warhoons, revealing Carter’s body half c
rushed beneath.

  Heart pounding, Dejah dropped to his side. She checked his pulse: faint but steady.

  “Thank Issus,” she breathed.

  “Who is he?” Tardos Mors asked.

  “His name is John Carter. He saved my life. And…he is from Jasoom.”

  “From Jasoom? You believe that?”

  She smiled. “Yes. I do.”

  Tardos started to argue but a deep, commanding voice rang out from the direction of the airship. “We’ll take him to Zodanga. It’s closer than Helium.”

  Dejah turned to see Sab Than striding toward them, proud and tall. His red dress uniform stood out against the sea of Helium blue. He bowed deeply before Dejah, gestured casually at Carter. “He’ll have my personal physician, I promise.”

  Snarling, Dejah whirled away from the Zodangan ruler. Before Tardos Mors could protest, she grabbed his pistol from its holster and aimed it straight at Sab Than. Her hands were steady, calm.

  “Daughter!” Tardos cried.

  “He shot me out of the sky,” Dejah said.

  Sab Than eyed her calmly.

  Tardos moved between them, holding Dejah back. “Daughter, listen to me. Sab Than admitted to everything. He came to me—alone, without an escort. I could have killed him easily. Yet it was clear he cared only about your safety.”

  “I feared you might be tortured by the Tharks,” Sab said. “Condemned to die in their arena. I could not live with that on my conscience.” He smiled at her, an easy smile. “I do have a conscience, Princess.”

  “Really?” Dejah lowered the gun but kept her eyes trained on Sab. “I heard you had it removed along with your—”

  “Daughter!”

  Sab Than held up a hand. “She does not trust me, Jeddak. And why should she? There has never been trust between Zodanga and Helium. Therefore, I offer this token of my good will.”

  He unsheathed his sword, held it upright—and a hundred Helium soldiers drew their blades in response. In a quick, easy motion, Sab Than flipped his sword around and held out the hilt to Dejah Thoris.

  “My life,” he said.

  Dejah felt herself in the grip of great forces, passions that would transform the history of Barsoom. Nodding, she reached out and grasped the sword. She pointed it at Sab Than’s throat, ignoring her father’s protests.