A Princess of Mars Rethroned (28 page)

Toward the middle
of the day many of the weaker commenced to succumb and within an
hour the people of Barsoom were sinking by thousands into the
unconsciousness which precedes death by asphyxiation.

Dejar Thoris and
I with the other members of the royal family had collected in a
sunken garden within an inner courtyard of the palace. We conversed
in low tones, when we conversed at all, as the awe of the grim
shadow of death crept over us. Even Woolan seemed to feel the
weight of the impending calamity, for she pressed close to Dejar
Thoris and to me, whining pitifully.

The little
incubator had been brought from the roof of our palace at request
of Dejar Thoris and now he sat gazing longingly upon the unknown
little life that now he would never know.

As it was
becoming perceptibly difficult to breathe Tardoa Mors arose,
saying,

'Let us bid each
other farewell. The days of the greatness of Barsoom are over.
Tomorrow's sun will look down upon a dead world which through all
eternity must go swinging through the heavens peopled not even by
memories. It is the end.'

She stooped and
kissed the men of her family, and laid her strong hand upon the
shoulders of the women.

As I turned sadly
from her my eyes fell upon Dejar Thoris. His head was drooping upon
his breast, to all appearances he was lifeless. With a cry I sprang
to his and raised his in my arms.

His eyes opened
and looked into mine.

'Kiss me, Joan
Carter,' he murmured. 'I love you! I love you! It is cruel that we
must be torn apart who were just starting upon a life of love and
happiness.'

As I pressed his
dear lips to mine the old feeling of unconquerable power and
authority rose in me. The fighting blood of Virginia sprang to life
in my veins.

'It shall not be,
my prince,' I cried. 'There is, there must be some way, and Joan
Carter, who has fought her way through a strange world for love of
you, will find it.'

And with my words
there crept above the threshold of my conscious mind a series of
nine long forgotten sounds. Like a flash of lightning in the
darkness their full purport dawned upon me--the key to the three
great doors of the atmosphere plant!

Turning suddenly
toward Tardoa Mors as I still clasped my dying love to my breast I
cried.

'A flier, Jeddak!
Quick! Order your swiftest flier to the palace top. I can save
Barsoom yet.'

She did not wait
to question, but in an instant a guard was racing to the nearest
dock and though the air was thin and almost gone at the rooftop
they managed to launch the fastest one-man, air-scout machine that
the skill of Barsoom had ever produced.

Kissing Dejar
Thoris a dozen times and commanding Woolan, who would have followed
me, to remain and guard him, I bounded with my old agility and
strength to the high ramparts of the palace, and in another moment
I was headed toward the goal of the hopes of all
Barsoom.

I had to fly low
to get sufficient air to breathe, but I took a straight course
across an old sea bottom and so had to rise only a few feet above
the ground.

I traveled with
awful velocity for my errand was a race against time with death.
The face of Dejar Thoris hung always before me. As I turned for a
last look as I left the palace garden I had seen his stagger and
sink upon the ground beside the little incubator. That he had
dropped into the last coma which would end in death, if the air
supply remained unreplenished, I well knew, and so, throwing
caution to the winds, I flung overboard everything but the engine
and compass, even to my ornaments, and lying on my belly along the
deck with one hand on the steering wheel and the other pushing the
speed lever to its last notch I split the thin air of dying Mars
with the speed of a meteor.

An hour before
dark the great walls of the atmosphere plant loomed suddenly before
me, and with a sickening thud I plunged to the ground before the
small door which was withholding the spark of life from the
inhabitants of an entire planet.

Beside the door a
great crew of women had been laboring to pierce the wall, but they
had scarcely scratched the flint-like surface, and now most of them
lay in the last sleep from which not even air would awaken
them.

Condaitions
seemed much worse here than at Helium, and it was with difficulty
that I breathed at all. There were a few women still conscious, and
to one of these I spoke.

'If I can open
these doors is there a woman who can start the engines?' I
asked.

'I can,' she
replied, 'if you open quickly. I can last but a few moments more.
But it is useless, they are both dead and no one else upon Barsoom
knew the secret of these awful locks. For three days women crazed
with fear have surged about this portal in vain attempts to solve
its mystery.'

I had no time to
talk, I was becoming very weak and it was with difficulty that I
controlled my mind at all.

But, with a final
effort, as I sank weakly to my knees I hurled the nine thought
waves at that awful thing before me. The Martian had crawled to my
side and with staring eyes fixed on the single panel before us we
waited in the silence of death.

Slowly the mighty
door receded before us. I attempted to rise and follow it but I was
too weak.

'After it,' I
cried to my companion, 'and if you reach the pump room turn loose
all the pumps. It is the only chance Barsoom has to exist
tomorrow!'

From where I lay
I opened the second door, and then the third, and as I saw the hope
of Barsoom crawling weakly on hands and knees through the last
doorway I sank unconscious upon the ground.

CHAPTER
XXVIII

AT THE ARIZONA
CAVE

It was dark when
I opened my eyes again. Strange, stiff garments were upon my body;
garments that cracked and powdered away from me as I rose to a
sitting posture.

I felt myself
over from head to foot and from head to foot I was clothed, though
when I fell unconscious at the little doorway I had been naked.
Before me was a small patch of moonlit sky which showed through a
ragged aperture.

As my hands
passed over my body they came in contact with pockets and in one of
these a small parcel of matches wrapped in oiled paper. One of
these matches I struck, and its dim flame lighted up what appeared
to be a huge cave, toward the back of which I discovered a strange,
still figure huddled over a tiny bench. As I approached it I saw
that it was the dead and mummified remains of a little old man with
long black hair, and the thing it leaned over was a small charcoal
burner upon which rested a round copper vessel containing a small
quantity of greenish powder.

Behind him,
depending from the roof upon rawhide thongs, and stretching
entirely across the cave, was a row of human skeletons. From the
thong which held them stretched another to the dead hand of the
little old man; as I touched the cord the skeletons swung to the
motion with a noise as of the rustling of dry leaves.

It was a most
grotesque and horrid tableau and I hastened out into the fresh air;
glad to escape from so gruesome a place.

The sight that
met my eyes as I stepped out upon a small ledge which ran before
the entrance of the cave filled me with consternation.

A new heaven and
a new landscape met my gaze. The silvered mountains in the
distance, the almost stationary moon hanging in the sky, the
cacti-studded valley below me were not of Mars. I could scarcely
believe my eyes, but the truth slowly forced itself upon me--I was
looking upon Arizona from the same ledge from which ten years
before I had gazed with longing upon Mars.

Burying my head
in my arms I turned, broken, and sorrowful, down the trail from the
cave.

Above me shone
the red eye of Mars holding his awful secret, forty-eight million
miles away.

Did the Martian
reach the pump room? Did the vitalizing air reach the people of
that distant planet in time to save them? Was my Dejar Thoris
alive, or did his beautiful body lie cold in death beside the tiny
golden incubator in the sunken garden of the inner courtyard of the
palace of Tardoa Mors, the jeddak of Helium?

For ten years I
have waited and prayed for an answer to my questions. For ten years
I have waited and prayed to be taken back to the world of my lost
love. I would rather lie dead beside his there than live on Earth
all those millions of terrible miles from him.

The old mine,
which I found untouched, has made me fabulously wealthy; but what
care I for wealth!

As I sit here
tonight in my little study overlooking the Hudson, just twenty
years have elapsed since I first opened my eyes upon
Mars.

I can see his
shining in the sky through the little window by my desk, and
tonight he seems calling to me again as he has not called before
since that long dead night, and I think I can see, across that
awful abyss of space, a beautiful black-haired man standing in the
garden of a palace, and at his side is a little girl who puts her
arm around his as he points into the sky toward the planet Earth,
while at their feet is a huge and hideous creature with a heart of
gold.

I believe that
they are waiting there for me, and something tells me that I shall
soon know.

Artwork by Mark
Sebastian

http://www.flickr.com/photos/markjsebastian/3539348159/sizes/l/in/photostream/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

JEKKARA
PRESS

You can find out
more about the Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn at the Jekkara Press
wordpress website:

http://jekkarapress.wordpress.com

or the blogger
site

http://jekkarapress.blogspot.com

And you can find
this book and other Tara Loughead books in html, text, epub, mobi,
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Also by Jekkara
press

The Adventures of
Bulays and Ghaavn currently include:

01 Blood Demons
of Titan - Tara Loughead

The warriors
Bulays and Ghaavn hunt demons and their master through the dim and
dusty streets of Barnes, on Titan. Can they stop him before he
completes a devastating ritual?

02 Death Queen of
Neptune - Tara Loughead

Bulays and Ghaavn
are called in to investigate why a frontier base on Neptune has
gone silent. Ice monsters and an ancient, beautiful evil
await.

03 She Devils of
Europa - Tara Loughead

One of the
richest women in the Solar System asks Bulays and Ghaavn for help
in stopping a series of thefts. There is a mystery to solve at the
most

expensive resort
in existence, The Europa. Larceny, magic and dancing await, in an
all expenses paid evening.

04 Shadow Emperor
of Phobos: The Martian Moon War Part 1 - Tara Loughead

Bulays and Ghaavn
try and stop a underworld shooting war. First they must get past a
Martian Shadowcat, employ surprising combat techniques, and try and
reason with Ghaavn's criminal mentor.

05 Desert Empress
of Deimos: The Martian Moon War Part 2 - Tara Loughead

Bulays and Ghaavn
are caught in the middle of a crime family war. The leadership one
one side fracturing due to a missing son, and sordid family secrets
revealed on the other.

06 Heart Breakers
of Hyperion - Tara Loughead

Aliens from outer
space are stealing parts of our women. And all of our men. Bulays
and Ghaavn

have to go
undercover in the notorious brothel Madame Khan's to stop it. With
Emar, the Death Queen of Neptune as their Mistress!

07 The Gebriahl
Setup – Tara Loughead

Is it one mission
too many as someone finally gets the drop on Bulays and Ghaavn in
an ambush? Plus, what happens when the Death Queen of Neptune goes
to a wedding?

08 Vampire
Masters of Mercury - Tara Loughead

Someone is
killing the Thermpires of the Twilight Belt, on Mercury. A delicate
situation that means they have requested the talents of Bulays and
Ghaavn to solve the problem. And where is her cousin,
Bulayd?

The Gender Switch
Adventures

The Devil In
Iron, Respawned [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E Howard

Any resemblance
to Robert E. Howard's Conan is completely intentional. A
resurrected demon menaces Conyn on an island fortress, along with
other monsters.

The Pool of the
Black One, Reswum [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E
Howard

Any resemblance
to Robert E. Howard's Conan is completely intentional. Conyn, a
pirate, puts herself in charge and investigates a strange island
with mystic waters.

Jewels of
Gwahlur, Reboxed [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E.
Howard