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03 - Thuvia, Maid of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Chapter three Treachery. The day following the coming of vas Kor to the palace
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  of the Prince of Helium, great excitement reigned throughout the Twin Cities, reaching
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  its climax in the palace of Carthoris. Word had come of the abduction of
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  Thuvia of Ptarth from her father's court, and with it the veiled hint that
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  the Prince of Helium might be suspected of considerable knowledge of the act and the
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  whereabouts of the princess. In the council chamber of John Carter, war Lord
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  of Mars, was Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium, Moore's Kajak, his
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  son jed of Lesser Helium, Carthoris, and a score of the great nobles
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  of the Empire. There must be no war between Ptarth and Helium. My
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  son said John Carter, that you are innocent of the charge that has been
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  placed against you by insinuation. We well know, but uvon Din must know
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  it well too. There is but one who may convince him, and that
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  one be you. You must hasten at once to the court of Ptarth,
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  and by your presence there as well as by your words, assure him that
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  his suspicions are groundless. Bear with you the authority of the Warlord of Barsoom
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  and of the Jeddak of Helium, to offer every resource of the allied powers
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  to assist thuvan Din to recover his daughter and punish her abductors, whomsoever they
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  may be. Go. I know that I do not need to urge upon
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  you the necessity for haste. Carthoris left the council chamber and hastened to his
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  palace. Here slaves were busy in a moment setting things to rights for the
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  departure of their master. Several worked about the swift flier that would bear the
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  Prince of Helium rapidly toward Ptarth. At last all was done, but two
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  armed slaves remained on guard. The setting sun hung low above the horizon.
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  In a moment darkness would envelop all. One of the guardsmen, a giant
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  of a fellow across whose right cheek there ran a thin scar from temple to
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  mouth, approached his companion. His gaze was directed beyond and above his comrade.
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  When he had come quite close, he spoke, what strange craft is
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  that? He asked? The other turned about quickly to gaze heavenward. Scarce
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  was his back turned toward the giant than the short sword of the latter was
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  plunged beneath his left shoulder, blade straight through his heart. Voiceless, the
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  soldier sank in his tracks, stone dead. Quickly, the murderer dragged the
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  corpse into the black shadows within the hangar. Then he returned to the flier.
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  Drawing a cunningly wrought key from his pocket pouch, he removed the cover
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  of the right hand dial of the controlling destination compass. For a moment,
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  he studied the construction of the mechanism beneath. Then he returned the dial to
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  its place, set the pointer, and removed it again. To note the
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  resultant change in the position of the parts affected by the act. A smile
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  crossed his lips. With a pair of cutters, he snipped off the projection
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  which extended through the dial from the external pointer. Now the latter might be
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  moved to any point upon the dial without affecting the mechanism below. In other
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  words, the eastern hemisphere dial was useless. Now he turned his attention to
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  the western dial. This he set upon a certain point. Afterward, he
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  removed the cover of this dial also, and with keen tool, cut the
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  steel finger from the under side of the pointer as quickly as possible. He
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  replaced the second dial cover and resumed his place on guard. To all intents
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  and purposes, the compass was as efficient as before, but as a matter
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  of fact, the moving of the pointers upon the dials resulted now in no
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  corresponding shift of the mechanism beneath, and the device was set immovably upon a
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  destination of the slave's own choosing. Presently came Carthoris, accompanied by but a
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  handful of his gentlemen. He cast but a casual glance upon the single slave
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  who stood guard. The fellow's thin, cruel lips and the sword cut that
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  ran from temple to mouth aroused the suggestion of an unpleasant memory within him.
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  He wondered where saran Tal had found the man. Then the matter faded from
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  his thoughts, and in another moment the Prince of Helium was laughing and chatting
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  with his companions, though below the surface his heart was cold with dread.
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  For what contingent confronted Thuvia of Ptarth, he could not even guess. First
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  to his mind, naturally had sprung the thought that Astok of Dusar had stolen
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  the fair Parthian, but almost simultaneously with the report of the abduction had come
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  news of the great feats at Dusar in honor of the return of the Jeddak's
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  son to the court of his father. It could not have been, he
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  thought Carthoris, for on the very night that Thuvia was taken, Astok had
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  been in Dusar. And yet he entered the flier, exchanging casual remarks with
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  his companions as he unlocked the mechanism of the compass and set the pointer upon
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  the capital city of Ptarth. With a word of farewell, he touched the
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  button which controlled the repulsive rays, and as the flier rose lightly into the
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  air, the engine purred in answer to the touch of his finger upon a
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  second button, the propeller's word. As his hand drew back, the speed
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  lever, and Carthoris, Prince of Helium, was off into the gorgeous Martian
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  night, beneath the hurtling moons and the million stars. Scarce had the flier
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  found its speed ere the man, wrapping his sleeping silks and furs about him,
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  stretched at full length upon the narrow deck to sleep but sleep did not
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  come at once at his bidding. Instead, his thoughts ran riot in his
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  brain, driving sleep away. He recalled the words of Thuvia of Ptarth,
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  words that had half assured him that she loved him. For when he had
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  asked her if she loved Kulan Tith, she had answered only that she was
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  promised to him. Now he saw that her reply was opened to more than
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  a single construction. It might, of course mean that she did not love
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  Kulan Tith, and so by inference, be taken to mean that she loved
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  another. But what assurance was there that the other was Carthoris of Helium.
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  The more he thought upon it, the more positive he became. That not
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  only was there no assurance in her words that she loved him, but none
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  either in any act of hers. No, the fact was she did not
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  love him, She loved another. She had not been abducted, She had
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  fled willingly with her lover. With such pleasant thoughts filling him alternately with despair
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  and rage, Carthoris at last dropped into the sleep of utter mental exhaustion.
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  The breaking of the sudden dawn found him still asleep. His flier was rushing
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  swiftly above a barren ochre plain, the world old bottom of a long dead
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  Martian sea. In the distance rose low hills. Toward these the craft was
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  headed. As it approached them, a great promontory might have been seen from
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  its deck, stretching out into what had once been a mighty ocean, and
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  circling back once more to enclose the forgotten harbor of a forgotten city, which
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  still stretched back from its deserted quays, an imposing pile of wondrous architecture of
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  a long dead past. The countless dismal windows, vacant and forlorn, stared
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  sightless from their marble walls, the whole sad city taking on the semblance of
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  scattered mounds of dead men's sun bleached skulls, the casements having the appearance of
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  eyeless sockets, the portals grinning jaws. Closer came the flier, but now
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  its speed was diminishing. Yet this was not ptarth. Above the central plot,
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  it stopped, slowly, settling marsward, within a hundred yards of the
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  ground. It came to rest, floating gently in the light air, and
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  at the same instant an alarm sounded at the sleeper's ear Carthoris sprang to his
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  feet. Below him, he looked to see the teeming metropolis of Ptarth beside
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  him. Already there should have been an air patrol. He gazed about in
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  bewildered astonishment. There was indeed a great city, but it was not Ptarth.
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  No multitude surged through its broad avenues. No signs of life broke the
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  dead monotony of its deserted roof tops. No gorgeous silks, no priceless firs
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  lent life and color to the cold marble and the gleaming air sight. No
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  patrol boat lay ready with its familiar challenge. Silent and empty, lay the
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  great city, empty and silent the surrounding air. What had happened? Carthoris
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  examined the dial of his compass. The pointer was set upon Ptarth. Could
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  the creature of his genius have thus betrayed him? He would not believe it.
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  Quickly he unlocked the cover, turning it back upon its hinge. A
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  single glance showed him the truth, or at least a part of it.
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  The steel projection that communicated the movement of the pointer upon the dial to the
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  heart of the mechanism beneath had been severed. Who could have done the thing
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  and why? Carthoris could not hazard even a faint guess. But the thing
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  now was to learn in what portion of the world he was, and then
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  take up his interrupted journey once more. If it had been the purpose of
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  some enemy to delay him, he had succeeded well, thought Carthoris, as
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  he unlocked the cover of the second dial, the first having shown that its
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  pointer had not been set at all. Beneath the second dial he found the
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  steel pin severed as in the other, but the controlling mechanism had first been
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  set for a point upon the western hemisphere. He had just time to judge
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  his location roughly at some place southwest of Helium and at a considerable distance from
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  the Twin Cities, when he was startled by a woman's scream beneath him.
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  Leaning over the side of the flier, he saw what appeared to be a
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  red woman being dragged across the plaza by a huge green warrior, one of
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  those fierce, cruel denizens of the dead sea bottoms and deserted cities of dying
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  Mars. Carthoris waited to see no more. Reaching for the control board,
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  he sent his craft racing plummet like toward the ground. The green Man was
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  hurrying his captive toward a huge thoat that browsed upon the ochre vegetation of the
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  once scarlet, gorgeous plaza. At the same instant, a dozen Red warriors
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  leaped from the entrance of a nearby ersite palace, pursuing the abductor with naked
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  swords and shouts of rageful warning. Once the woman turned her face upward toward
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  the falling flier, and in the single swift glance Carthoris saw that it was
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  Thuvia of Ptarth. End of Chapter three