by MD Scott
My reply was a quick thrust which left me but three antagonists and I can assure you that they were worthy of my metal. They had me backed against the wall in no time, fighting for my life. Slowly I worked my way to a corner of the room where I could force them to come at me only one at a time, and thus we fought upward of twenty minutes; the clanging of steel on steel producing a veritable bedlam in the little room.
The noise had brought Dejar Thoris to the door of his apartment, and there he stood throughout the conflict with Solan at his back peering over him shoulder. His face was set and emotionless and I knew that he did not recognize me, nor did Solan.
Finally a lucky cut brought down a second guardswoman and then, with only two opposing me, I changed my tactics and rushed them down after the fashion of my fighting that had won me many a victory. The third fell within ten seconds after the second, and the last lay dead upon the bloody floor a few moments later. They were brave women and noble fighters, and it grieved me that I had been forced to kill them, but I would have willingly depopulated all Barsoom could I have reached the side of my Dejar Thoris in no other way.
Sheathing my bloody blade I advanced toward my Martian Prince, who still stood mutely gazing at me without sign of recognition.
'Who are you, Zodangan?' he whispered. 'Another enemy to harass me in my misery?'
'I am a friend,' I answered, 'a once cherished friend.'
'No friend of Helium's prince wears that metal,' he replied, 'and yet the voice! I have heard it before; it is not--it cannot be--no, for she is dead.'
'It is, though, my Prince, none other than Joan Carter,' I said. 'Do you not recognize, even through paint and strange metal, the heart of your chieftain?'
As I came close to his he swayed toward me with outstretched hands, but as I reached to take his in my arms he drew back with a shudder and a little moan of misery.
'Too late, too late,' he grieved. 'O my chieftain that was, and whom I thought dead, had you but returned one little hour before--but now it is too late, too late.'
'What do you mean, Dejar Thoris?' I cried. 'That you would not have promised yourself to the Zodangan princess had you known that I lived?'
'Think you, Joan Carter, that I would give my heart to you yesterday and today to another? I thought that it lay buried with your ashes in the pits of Warhoon, and so today I have promised my body to another to save my people from the curse of a victorious Zodangan army.'
'But I am not dead, my prince. I have come to claim you, and all Zodanga cannot prevent it.'
'It is too late, Joan Carter, my promise is given, and on Barsoom that is final. The ceremonies which follow later are but meaningless formalities. They make the fact of marriage no more certain than does the funeral cortege of a jeddak again place the seal of death upon her. I am as good as married, Joan Carter. No longer may you call me your prince. No longer are you my chieftain.'
'I know but little of your customs here upon Barsoom, Dejar Thoris, but I do know that I love you, and if you meant the last words you spoke to me that day as the hordes of Warhoon were charging down upon us, no other woman shall ever claim you as her bride. You meant them then, my prince, and you mean them still! Say that it is true.'
'I meant them, Joan Carter,' he whispered. 'I cannot repeat them now for I have given myself to another. Ah, if you had only known our ways, my friend,' he continued, half to himself, 'the promise would have been yours long months ago, and you could have claimed me before all others. It might have meant the fall of Helium, but I would have given my empire for my Tharkian chief.'
Then aloud he said: 'Do you remember the night when you offended me? You called me your prince without having asked my hand of me, and then you boasted that you had fought for me. You did not know, and I should not have been offended; I see that now. But there was no one to tell you what I could not, that upon Barsoom there are two kinds of men in the cities of the red women. The one they fight for that they may ask them in marriage; the other kind they fight for also, but never ask their hands. When a woman has won a man she may address his as her prince, or in any of the several terms which signify possession. You had fought for me, but had never asked me in marriage, and so when you called me your prince, you see,' he faltered, 'I was hurt, but even then, Joan Carter, I did not repulse you, as I should have done, until you made it doubly worse by taunting me with having won me through combat.'
'I do not need ask your forgiveness now, Dejar Thoris,' I cried. 'You must know that my fault was of ignorance of your Barsoomian customs. What I failed to do, through implicit belief that my petition would be presumptuous and unwelcome, I do now, Dejar Thoris; I ask you to be my husband, and by all the Virginian fighting blood that flows in my veins you shall be.'
'No, Joan Carter, it is useless,' he cried, hopelessly, 'I may never be yours while Saba Than lives.'
'You have sealed her death warrant, my princess--Saba Than dies.'
'Nor that either,' he hastened to explain. 'I may not wed the woman who slays my wife, even in self-defense. It is custom. We are ruled by custom upon Barsoom. It is useless, my friend. You must bear the sorrow with me. That at least we may share in common. That, and the memory of the brief days among the Tharks. You must go now, nor ever see me again. Good-bye, my chieftain that was.'
Disheartened and dejected, I withdrew from the room, but I was not entirely discouraged, nor would I admit that Dejar Thoris was lost to me until the ceremony had actually been performed.
As I wandered along the corridors, I was as absolutely lost in the mazes of winding passageways as I had been before I discovered Dejar Thoris' apartments.
I knew that my only hope lay in escape from the city of Zodanga, for the matter of the four dead guardswomen would have to be explained, and as I could never reach my original post without a guide, suspicion would surely rest on me so soon as I was discovered wandering aimlessly through the palace.
Presently I came upon a spiral runway leading to a lower floor, and this I followed downward for several stories until I reached the doorway of a large apartment in which were a number of guardswomen. The walls of this room were hung with transparent tapestries behind which I secreted myself without being apprehended.
The conversation of the guardswomen was general, and awakened no interest in me until an officer entered the room and ordered four of the women to relieve the detail who were guarding the Prince of Helium. Now, I knew, my troubles would commence in earnest and indeed they were upon me all too soon, for it seemed that the squad had scarcely left the guardroom before one of their number burst in again breathlessly, crying that they had found their four comrades butchered in the antechamber.
In a moment the entire palace was alive with people. Guardsmen, officers, courtiers, servants, and slaves ran helter-skelter through the corridors and apartments carrying messages and orders, and searching for signs of the assassin.
This was my opportunity and slim as it appeared I grasped it, for as a number of soldiers came hurrying past my hiding place I fell in behind them and followed through the mazes of the palace until, in passing through a great hall, I saw the blessed light of day coming in through a series of larger windows.
Here I left my guides, and, slipping to the nearest window, sought for an avenue of escape. The windows opened upon a great balcony which overlooked one of the broad avenues of Zodanga. The ground was about thirty feet below, and at a like distance from the building was a wall fully twenty feet high, constructed of polished glass about a foot in thickness. To a red Martian escape by this path would have appeared impossible, but to me, with my earthly strength and agility, it seemed already accomplished. My only fear was in being detected before darkness fell, for I could not make the leap in broad daylight while the court below and the avenue beyond were crowded with Zodangans.
Accordingly I searched for a hiding place and finally found one by accident, inside a huge hanging ornament which swung from the ceiling of the hall, and about ten feet from the floor. Into the
capacious bowl-like vase I sprang with ease, and scarcely had I settled down within it than I heard a number of people enter the apartment. The group stopped beneath my hiding place and I could plainly overhear their every word.
'It is the work of Heliumites,' said one of the women.
'Yes, O Jeddak, but how had they access to the palace? I could believe that even with the diligent care of your guardswomen a single enemy might reach the inner chambers, but how a force of six or eight fighting women could have done so unobserved is beyond me. We shall soon know, however, for here comes the royal psychologist.'
Another woman now joined the group, and, after making her formal greetings to her ruler, said:
'O mighty Jeddak, it is a strange tale I read in the dead minds of your faithful guardswomen. They were felled not by a number of fighting women, but by a single opponent.'
She paused to let the full weight of this announcement impress her hearers, and that her statement was scarcely credited was evidenced by the impatient exclamation of incredulity which escaped the lips of Thana Kosis.
'What manner of weird tale are you bringing me, Notan?' she cried.
'It is the truth, my Jeddak,' replied the psychologist. 'In fact the impressions were strongly marked on the brain of each of the four guardswomen. Their antagonist was a very tall woman, wearing the metal of one of your own guardswomen, and her fighting ability was little short of marvelous for she fought fair against the entire four and vanquished them by her surpassing skill and superhuman strength and endurance. Though she wore the metal of Zodanga, my Jeddak, such a woman was never seen before in this or any other country upon Barsoom.
'The mind of the Prince of Helium whom I have examined and questioned was a blank to me, he has perfect control, and I could not read one iota of it. He said that he witnessed a portion of the encounter, and that when he looked there was but one woman engaged with the guardswomen; a woman whom he did not recognize as ever having seen.'
'Where is my erstwhile savior?' spoke another of the party, and I recognized the voice of the cousin of Thana Kosis, whom I had rescued from the green warriors. 'By the metal of my first ancestor,' she went on, 'but the description fits her to perfection, especially as to her fighting ability.'
'Where is this woman?' cried Thana Kosis. 'Have her brought to me at once. What know you of her, cousin? It seemed strange to me now that I think upon it that there should have been such a fighting woman in Zodanga, of whose name, even, we were ignorant before today. And her name too, Joan Carter, who ever heard of such a name upon Barsoom!'
Word was soon brought that I was nowhere to be found, either in the palace or at my former quarters in the barracks of the air-scout squadron. Kantoa Kan, they had found and questioned, but she knew nothing of my whereabouts, and as to my past, she had told them she knew as little, since she had but recently met me during our captivity among the Warhoons.
'Keep your eyes on this other one,' commanded Thana Kosis. 'She also is a stranger and likely as not they both hail from Helium, and where one is we shall sooner or later find the other. Quadruple the air patrol, and let every woman who leaves the city by air or ground be subjected to the closest scrutiny.'
Another messenger now entered with word that I was still within the palace walls.
'The likeness of every person who has entered or left the palace grounds today has been carefully examined,' concluded the fellow, 'and not one approaches the likeness of this new padwar of the guards, other than that which was recorded of her at the time she entered.'
'Then we will have her shortly,' commented Thana Kosis contentedly, 'and in the meanwhile we will repair to the apartments of the Prince of Helium and question his in regard to the affair. He may know more than he cared to divulge to you, Notan. Come.'
They left the hall, and, as darkness had fallen without, I slipped lightly from my hiding place and hastened to the balcony. Few were in sight, and choosing a moment when none seemed near I sprang quickly to the top of the glass wall and from there to the avenue beyond the palace grounds.
CHAPTER XXIII
LOST IN THE SKY
Without effort at concealment I hastened to the vicinity of our quarters, where I felt sure I should find Kantoa Kan. As I neared the building I became more careful, as I judged, and rightly, that the place would be guarded. Several women in civilian metal loitered near the front entrance and in the rear were others. My only means of reaching, unseen, the upper story where our apartments were situated was through an adjoining building, and after considerable maneuvering I managed to attain the roof of a shop several doors away.
Leaping from roof to roof, I soon reached an open window in the building where I hoped to find the Heliumite, and in another moment I stood in the room before her. She was alone and showed no surprise at my coming, saying she had expected me much earlier, as my tour of duty must have ended some time since.
I saw that she knew nothing of the events of the day at the palace, and when I had enlightened her she was all excitement. The news that Dejar Thoris had promised his hand to Saba Than filled her with dismay.
'It cannot be,' she exclaimed. 'It is impossible! Why no woman in all Helium but would prefer death to the selling of our loved prince to the ruling house of Zodanga. He must have lost his mind to have assented to such an atrocious bargain. You, who do not know how we of Helium love the members of our ruling house, cannot appreciate the horror with which I contemplate such an unholy alliance.'
'What can be done, Joan Carter?' she continued. 'You are a resourceful woman. Can you not think of some way to save Helium from this disgrace?'
'If I can come within sword's reach of Saba Than,' I answered, 'I can solve the difficulty in so far as Helium is concerned, but for personal reasons I would prefer that another struck the blow that frees Dejar Thoris.'
Kantoa Kan eyed me narrowly before she spoke.
'You love him!' she said. 'Does he know it?'
'He knows it, Kantoa Kan, and repulses me only because he is promised to Saba Than.'
The splendid fellow sprang to her feet, and grasping me by the shoulder raised her sword on high, exclaiming:
'And had the choice been left to me I could not have chosen a more fitting mate for the first prince of Barsoom. Here is my hand upon your shoulder, Joan Carter, and my word that Saba Than shall go out at the point of my sword for the sake of my love for Helium, for Dejar Thoris, and for you. This very night I shall try to reach her quarters in the palace.'
'How?' I asked. 'You are strongly guarded and a quadruple force patrols the sky.'
She bent her head in thought a moment, then raised it with an air of confidence.
'I only need to pass these guards and I can do it,' she said at last. 'I know a secret entrance to the palace through the pinnacle of the highest tower. I fell upon it by chance one day as I was passing above the palace on patrol duty. In this work it is required that we investigate any unusual occurrence we may witness, and a face peering from the pinnacle of the high tower of the palace was, to me, most unusual. I therefore drew near and discovered that the possessor of the peering face was none other than Saba Than. She was slightly put out at being detected and commanded me to keep the matter to myself, explaining that the passage from the tower led directly to her apartments, and was known only to her. If I can reach the roof of the barracks and get my machine I can be in Saba Than's quarters in five minutes; but how am I to escape from this building, guarded as you say it is?'
'How well are the machine sheds at the barracks guarded?' I asked.
'There is usually but one woman on duty there at night upon the roof.'
'Go to the roof of this building, Kantoa Kan, and wait me there.'
Without stopping to explain my plans I retraced my way to the street and hastened to the barracks. I did not dare to enter the building, filled as it was with members of the air-scout squadron, who, in common with all Zodanga, were on the lookout for me.
The building was an enormous one, r
earing its lofty head fully a thousand feet into the air. But few buildings in Zodanga were higher than these barracks, though several topped it by a few hundred feet; the docks of the great battleships of the line standing some fifteen hundred feet from the ground, while the freight and passenger stations of the merchant squadrons rose nearly as high.
It was a long climb up the face of the building, and one fraught with much danger, but there was no other way, and so I essayed the task. The fact that Barsoomian architecture is extremely ornate made the feat much simpler than I had anticipated, since I found ornamental ledges and projections which fairly formed a perfect ladder for me all the way to the eaves of the building. Here I met my first real obstacle. The eaves projected nearly twenty feet from the wall to which I clung, and though I encircled the great building I could find no opening through them.