The Bronze Man of Mars

It’s a terrible thing to be the son born of a great love story, perhaps the greatest in the recent history of Gathol—to be the son of Pan Dan Chee, the only Orovar to leave the hidden sanctuary of ancient Horz in hundreds of thousands of years, who offered his sword to my mother at first glance, and then fought his way across the rugged terrain of Barsoom. After protecting her honor the entire way, he arrived just in time to break the siege of Gathol, which was under attack by millions of the frozen men of Panar. If that were not enough of a burden, it is even more terrible to be the great-grandson of the most famous warrior of Barsoom. Yes, my mother was Llana of Gathol, the granddaughter of the Jeddak of Jeddaks, John Carter, whose accomplishments and legends are so vast as to be beyond enumerating . . . as well as unbelievable to those who do not know him.

Those accomplishments were the reason I now stood in the ancient city of Horz, listening, in the darkness, to the shuffling feet of the creatures that scurried within. I had heard that the ulsios of Horz were far larger than the knee-high creatures that frequented the depths and declivities of most cities. I turned slowly, torch in one hand, sword in the other, searching for the first sign of one of the repulsive needle-toothed rodents.

I barely managed to get my blade up in time to slash-block the leap of the creature that had suddenly leapt at me—an ulsio almost twice the size of any I’d ever seen in my explorations of the depths beneath Gathol. My quick defense barely deflected the beast, however, and it took another series of cut-and-thrusts to leave it gasping for life on the ancient stone pavement, missing three of its six legs by the time it finally expired. Leaving me no time to celebrate, another leapt forward out of the gloom. I dispatched it quickly with a slash to the neck, removing its head with one clean strike. The sight of me removing its head was apparently sufficient to quell any further attack, for, although another followed at a distance, it clearly decided that feasting on its own kind was preferable to the risk I posed.

And how, you might wonder, did I come to be prowling the pits of Horz, whose dark depths had been unprobed (except by my father and great-grandfather) in hundreds of thousands of years? Horz—once heralded as the greatest of the now-dead cities of Barsoom, and the queen city and most magnificent port on the vanished Throxeus—had been built downward over the eons—to follow the dwindling ocean—then largely abandoned.

My journey to Horz was inevitable, for from the moment I left the egg it was clear I did not look like either of my parents. My mother possessed the fair-skinned redness and red hair of a princess of Barsoom, while my father had the white skin and blond hair of an Orovar. I, meanwhile, appeared before my mother with golden bronze skin and reddish bronze hair. There had been, in the long history of Barsoom, white men, yellow men, black men, green men, and even plant men . . . but never, until my birth, a bronze man. Add to that the gray eyes of my great-grandfather, and I possessed an appearance unlike anyone in Gathol—at least until my brother left the egg some ten years later, but he’ll have to tell his own tale.

When my father saw me, he swallowed . . . and then began to teach me everything he knew about swords. He had others teach me to fight with nothing but my body, a skill at which he was less adept . . . for he was an Orovar, and his weapon was the blade—though he was expert with the radium rifle as well. My parents would not let me leave the palace until they were convinced that I was a match for all but the finest of swordsmen. That training that took years and years, naturally, because all too many of the men of Barsoom are indeed accomplished with the blade.

That did not mean I had no adventures as a youth—for the palace of Gathol is vast indeed, and some of those deep chambers had seen no man for centuries before I entered them. In those depths and darknesses I found some adventure; I fought off ulsios, and feral calots, and once even a banth that had found an ancient tunnel and made its way through haads of underground passages to the palace. Vanquishing a banth would have given me some small stature . . . but, alas, I had no proof, for, as I ran it through, it had thrashed about, and then rolled backward into a shaft that descended into such depths that I never heard the impact of its fall. Had I told anyone that tale, I would have been the laughingstock of all Gathol.

On an unusually warm morning, prior to my journey to Horz, I had stepped into the small side courtyard of the palace where I made a practice of exercising, only to find the lovely Jasras Kan sitting on one of the ersite benches.

“Kaor, Jasras.”

“The same to you, Dan Lan Chee.”

“You are most beauteous this morning, as you are every morning and evening. . . .”

“Words . . . polished words, and words alone are but sounds and flattery. . . .” Like her mother, Rojas, Jasras said what she meant, if less politely.

“I would flatter you, for you deserve it,” I said.

“Without deeds behind the words, those words are like the wind. What have you done in your life, Dan Lan Chee? You are among the best Jetan players in Gathol, but that is but a game of mental skill. You have illustrious ancestors, but you have never even left Gathol. . . .”

Strictly speaking, her words were not true. I had taken my personal flier hundreds of haads from Gathol, even into the frigid lands of the last remaining Panars. I’d served under my father when he led a force against the Yellow Men of Barsoom, but I had not distinguished myself individually. For all the skill required to move padwars and princesses across the squares of the gameboard, Jetan did not hazard the body. While I had heard that in times long before Jeddaks had played Jetan with real warriors on a life-size courtyard gameboard, I myself had never partaken of such a game, although I had heard stories about my grandmother Tara having been forced into playing as a live piece in one.

Those quiet words of Jasras Kan had bitten deep into my mind, much as I would have liked to dismiss them. For Jasras was a worthy prize, a woman of wit and beauty, if of a wit sometimes too sharp. She was also the daughter of Rojas, once a princess of the invisible people, and of Garis Kan, an odwar of Hastor, who had won the heart, or at least the mind and body, of Rojas after she had returned to Gathol with my mother. Rojas had aided my mother’s return from her abduction by Hin Abtol, as had my father and great-grandfather, but none of them would ever speak of it, only her rescue and adventurous return.

What else could I do? That very afternoon, I stocked my flier and set out for Horz, seeking to establish some honor by doing something my father had not: recovering the ancient and wondrous devices used by the near-immortal and evil Lum Tar O, who had preserved warriors for tens of thousands of years, creating food and sustenance from nothing, while surviving for untold generations in the depths beneath Horz. Hundreds upon hundreds of my ancestors had distinguished themselves by their blades, and Jasras was not a woman to be impressed by mere feats of arms; I was determined to do more than that. I had to.

For days, I flew north and west, my directional compass holding my flier on course while I slept, over haads and haads of ochre moss that grew on the lands that had once held oceans, seeing not a soul in all that time. Late on the fifth day, I beheld Horz, a sweep of buildings at the west end of a vast plateau. As I neared the city, despite the tales I had heard, I was awed at its size, and at the buildings and towers, magnificent still in their partial ruin. Following what I recalled of the little my father had said—and what he had demanded that I tell no one, on my honor as his son—I took care to circle the uppermost level of ancient Horz, avoiding the great courtyard that was doubtless still watched by the remaining Orovars, for they would put to death any outsiders for fear that others would come to take their secrets—especially, no doubt, their secret of creating food and water from nearly nothing.

I landed the flier on the flat roof of a small building on the far side of the great citadel, as close as I could to a narrow way leading to it, for, as my father had once revealed, the only known entrance to the pits of Horz was near that ancient citadel. Deep in those pits was where I determined to find Lum Tar O’s secrets. Not for me the mere baubles of ancient golden harnesses and endless jewels; of what value were those to Jasras Kan, a princess who was the daughter of a princess?

There was no obvious access to the rooftop, only a covered staircase off a side alley in this deserted quarter of the ruins, affording a measure of security to the flier. I locked the controls, slipped the master key into a hidden space in my harness, and made my way down to street level, blade in one hand, a torch of the kind used by my ancestors in the other.

Yet I saw no one, heard no one, on my way to the small windowless building set to the rear of the citadel. The massive gates had no locks, but they were so corroded that it took all my strength to move one enough to squeeze through and then move it back so that any Orovar who chanced to come that way would see nothing obviously amiss.

As I walked toward the wide stone ramp that led away from the citadel and into the depths, I eased the cover off the torch. When the air struck its central core, a cold bluish light issued forth. I kept the light low, just bright enough to see by, and continued downward.

I had not even reached the first of the ancient dungeon chambers when the first ulsio had darted from the darkness of a dungeon chamber and attacked. Even after disposing of two, a third followed me for another hundred ods or so before it slipped back into the darkness.

Only after dispatching the vile creatures did I glance into the dungeon chambers from whence they came. The first held little besides ancient chains and bones and dust. The second held two carved, metal-bound chests. The first of these was filled with golden harnesses and jewels. Outside of a handsome dagger that fit on my harness, I left the jewels and moved to the second chest, some seven ods long; it was empty.

With my torch in hand, I returned to the main corridor and proceeded onward through the darkness that retreated before my torch and closed in behind me. At each dungeon chamber I checked to see what lay within. Most held little but dust and chains unused in eons. Occasionally I found a chest like the others, chests that had once held bodies, according to my father, bodies embalmed in the ancient past by Lee Um Lo—embalmed so well that the dead did not know that they were dead when they were infused by the will of the maniacal Lum Tar O. They had all died a final time and turned to dust when my grandfather had slain the mad scientist who had almost taken over his very mind.

I was not looking for treasure—although there was plenty to be found—but for the amazing devices of Lum Tar O that would bring me accolades—and the hand of Jasras Kan.

Before long, certainly no more than a zode, I came upon a particular chamber, the very one I had sought. It was large and filled with all manner of items: a simple couch, a bench, a table, a stove of a design eons old, bookshelves filled with ancient tomes, and a reservoir of water. There was also a pile of dust, and beside it lay a dagger. Several empty chests with their lids set askew or detached and beside them lined the walls.

I had found the lair of Lum Tar O. Yet, there was no hint of the devices I sought. I walked to the wall opposite the doorway through which I had entered and examined it with care. Nothing. Nor did the wall adjacent to that reveal anything. On the third wall, I found a square slightly different in shade to the rest of the wall, and when I touched it, it flaked away to reveal the symbol of an armed warrior—a panthan by its appearance—in jet, inlaid into the stone.

Knowing not what else to do, I pressed upon the figure. A rumbling, creaking noise followed, to no immediately obvious effect. It was only when I turned, holding the torch, that I saw the corner of the wall had recessed, leaving a narrow opening. I hurried toward it, uncapping the torch more to better see what I had uncovered.

I beheld a set of stone stairs leading downward, with a door below, set perhaps ten ods from the bottommost step. I stepped through the opening and descended until I stood in a small square room facing the door. There was a massive bronze lever on the dark iron door, but no hole for a key. Nor was there a circular dial with numbers upon it, in the fashion of locks on Jasoom. Instead, there was a depiction of a game of Jetan, half-played, if not more, with the profile of each piece in either jet black or gold.

The lever did not budge, even when I exerted all my strength—which is not inconsiderable.

I examined closely the Jetan game before me. The pieces were displayed in outline, all except one: the gold princess. While her likeness was small, it showed an exquisite golden-skinned face, with jet-black hair and piercing green eyes. It would have been defilement to touch that figure, and so I did not. Instead, I studied the game, recognizing that the position of the pieces represented one of the timeless puzzles of Jetan, the beginning of the end game where every move but two led to disaster.

The problem was simple. I could not tell whether the next move belonged to jet or to gold, and there were very different outcomes to the game depending on whether that move was by the jet or by the gold. Gold or jet? Jet or gold? Finally, as much by my sense as by logic, I looked again at the tiny perfection of the gold princess and touched the gold chief and then the square to which I would move him.

For several tals, nothing happened. Then the door shuddered and the very stone beneath my feet trembled. But the door did not open, and nothing else occurred.

I pulled down on the massive lever. Still, it did not move. I tried lifting it then, and suddenly the door slid sideways—not open toward me, but out and across the wall—revealing a larger room containing two upright chests, each on a pedestal and identical to those I had found in the other dungeon chambers. Behind them was another door, unlike any I had ever beheld, hexagonal in shape, and made not of iron, but of a greenish metal.

I had no more time to devote to pondering the door, for the top of the first chest suddenly dropped away, revealing a well-muscled man with the harness of a panthan who darted forward, blade flashing toward my gut. Both his harness and his sword were jet black. He was half a head taller than me, and quick. I barely managed to slide his blade and jump sideways. Thinking that the dark might benefit me, as I moved back, I capped the torch, only to discover that a faint greenish radiance issued forth from the chest he had vacated—and that the lid of the second chest was now moving as well.

The jet panthan’s blade flashed like black lightning, and almost as swiftly, yet I managed to parry it and then slashed back with a rising twist-cut that ripped his biceps, causing his blade to fall from his hand and strike the stone floor with a muted clang. Yet he—relentless—pulled a dagger from the sheath on his harness and attacked again. I could not help but admire his persistence, but when I saw another panthan emerging from the second chest, I had to end things quickly and so thrust my blade through the jet panthan’s neck, jerking it out just in time to block the thrust of the gold panthan that now approached me.

Unlike the first warrior, this one held his blade in his left hand, and—strangely—his moves seemed to be mirror-images of those of the first. But that is where the opposite-mirroring ended, for our encounter ended in exactly the same way—with the panthan dead on my blade.

For several moments, I simply stood there, breathing heavily. As I watched, the bodies of both panthans crumbled into dust before my eyes, leaving behind only their harnesses, daggers, and blades. Then the green luminescence also vanished, leaving me in pitch darkness.

I quickly uncapped the torch and stepped toward the green metal hexagonal door. It had no lever, only another depiction of a Jetan board, this one with the pieces displayed in red and green.

The puzzle was one with which I was unfamiliar. So I had to work through the possibilities, visualizing each potential move . . . and where each would lead. Finally, I touched the red odwar and the square to which I would move him . . . unsure if the move I was making was the correct one, for the move was actually a sacrifice.

The stone trembled beneath my feet before the door split and each half recessed into the wall. So perfect had the seam been between the two halves that I’d had no inkling that the door had been in two sections. Beyond the green metal door was a far smaller chamber, with yet another chest in the center, one of gleaming bronze resting flat on a low pedestal made of the same green metal as the door. A shimmering gold and black cable ran from one end of the chest into a green metal pedestal and through a bronze fitting.

I stepped forward to the chest. There were three Jetan boards inlaid in the metal on the top of the chest. Below the center of each board was a jet-black square, and a different piece was circled by a gold ring on each board. It took but a tal for me to grasp that the puzzle posed was to determine which move on which board represented the correct one.

A faint grinding sound began to build. I glanced around. The green metal door had closed behind me! No sooner did I realize this than a faint shower of dust drifted down past me, and I looked up to see the ceiling descending! There appeared to be a recess in that solid slab of stone that matched the chest and pedestal. Clearly if I didn’t solve the puzzle—and soon—I would be flattened by the inexorably descending stone.

I examined the first Jetan board, but the move shown would lead to defeat by the jet pieces. The same was true for the second board—and the third!

What was I missing?

The stone ceiling was pressing down now, less than an od above my head.

I decided . . . and pressed black squares on all three of the boards, one after the other, as quickly as I could, in the order in which the games would end, beginning with the one that had the shortest number of moves remaining.

The grinding stopped, and the ceiling halted its progress toward me, but did not return to its former position.

The top of the chest before me suddenly swung back, revealing a young woman whose skin was the same gold as that of the Jetan pieces, and whose hair was as black as jet. Her eyes were closed, but I could see her breathing . . . or had she just begun to breathe? And was there the faintest tinge of green on that perfect skin? It had been her likeness, I realized, on the princess piece on the first Jetan board! Lying beside her in the chest was a sword, shorter than mine, made entirely of black metal, except for gold traceries on the hilt. The same was true of her harness: black with traceries of gold.

Her eyes flicked open.

For long moments, we looked at each other. Her forehead wrinkled, but the frown vanished after a moment, and she sat up in the chest, that single movement creating a shower of greenish dust, leaving her bare skin unblemished gold.

“What manner of man are you?” Her words were clear, although it took me a moment to understand, for the way in which she spoke was somehow . . . different.

“I am Dan Lan Chee of Gathol. And you?”

“Gathol? I have never heard of it, and I have heard of all the cities of Barsoom. Are all who live there bronze?” She frowned.

“No. Most are red.” I waited.

She continued to study me. Finally, she said, “ I am . . . Cynthara Dulchis . . . of high Horz, of course, but you should know that.”

“Perhaps I should, but high Horz has vanished. All but a tiny part of the city is abandoned, and the once mighty ocean Throxeus is no more.” Even as I said those words, I wondered if she would protest, as my father had said the fading survivors of Lum Tar O did before they had turned to dust. Would Cynthara do the same?

“I might doubt your words, but let us go see.” With that she stepped from the chest, retrieving her black blade and sliding it into the scabbard on her harness.

“Before we go,” I said quickly, “is there anything that will reveal the secrets of this chamber and the devices that have kept you alive for all these eons?”

Another frown followed my question. “I can only have been here a few years, a few hundred at most, while my family’s enemies were vanquished.”

“I fear they were not, Princess Cynthara.”

“Princess? I am . . .” She broke off and laughed, softly and bitterly. “I suppose that title is as good as any other. Your very presence indicates an unpleasant truth. How unpleasant . . . well, let us see.”

I looked at the platform below the chest. “How did this all come to be?”

“From my father, Emperor of Jeddaks, and his workshops adjacent to this chamber.”

“And how might we enter them?”

“In the same fashion as you entered this one,” replied Cynthara.

Rather than argue that point, I gestured toward the closed green metal doorway. “Shall we?”

For the first time since she awakened, Cynthara looked puzzled.

I found that momentary lapse of attention most attractive, though I must admit that she was already the most beautiful woman I’d ever beheld.

“That door . . . it wasn’t there before. You came through it?”

“I had to solve two Jetan puzzles and evade a few traps to get through it.”

The side of the door facing us remained featureless as we neared it. There were no Jetan boards, just a black and a gold square at shoulder height.

“Touch the gold one,” I suggested, because she represented the gold princess on the Jetan boards.

She did, and the door split and slid back into the recesses, revealing the chamber that held the two empty chests and the weapons and harnesses of the two panthans.

“My guardians . . .” Her eyes took in the dust and harnesses left behind.

“They tried to kill me.”

“And you vanquished them?”

“I had little choice.”

She walked through the square arch and studied the levered door, her eyes drawn to the inlaid Jetan board. “This was not here when I last stood in this room, but the work has the mark of my father.”

She glanced around, as if searching for something, before walking to the wall and, using a small knife—jet-black—that she pulled from her harness, she scraped away a small section of the wall’s surface. After several tals, her scraping cleared away the surface to reveal a golden square edged in black.

She pressed it. The wall began to shake. I pulled Cynthara back as the very stones of the wall collapsed away with a roar. We waited until the dust of ages and sundered stone dissipated. Beyond the irregular gap in the wall were the remains of machines of black and jet. The curves and swirled tubes of those strange devices threatened to twist my eyes and mind—even though they had already been wrecked and smashed in places.

“No . . . it cannot be . . .” Cynthara’s words were barely above a whisper. She turned to me. “How long has it been . . . ?”

“So many years that no one knows how long.”

From out of the mass of half-untouched, half-wrecked machinery emerged a huge silver-skinned calot—more than twice the size of any I’d ever seen, larger and more fearsome than even the largest of banths, with shining silver teeth and eyes like red coals. How had it survived in a place where there was so little food? For that matter, how had the ulsios that had attacked me earlier?

“That is the destroyer of warriors,” said Cynthara. “My grandsire imprisoned it beneath the city hundreds of years before I was born. It took all of his skills and the deaths of a hundred panthans to capture it.”

A dagger arrowed from the red eyes of that calot toward Cynthara, a missile of the beast’s mind accompanied by a feeling of hatred and vengeance so palpable that it felt more deadly than the missile it accompanied. Somehow, my blade moved quickly enough to slice through the dagger—and both halves changed into smaller darts that arced toward me. I concentrated on trying to block those missiles with my thoughts, even as my blade wove in and out and across their path, finally blocking and destroying them, only to find that the silver calot was now almost on top of Cynthara. Her black blade was a blur, yet she was retreating, not quite able to hold her ground against it, its claws like shimmering knives, its teeth like short, sharp blades.

I struck at the calot’s right shoulder with all the force I could bring to bear, cleaving a wide and deep wound. The calot turned. As its mouth opened wider, I could see that gaping wound begin to close, healing instantly.

What kind of beast was this silver calot? Could it heal itself through its thoughts, such as they were? My father’s tales ran through my mind . . . about how the ruler of the last Orovars could create warriors and even food through his thoughts alone . . . but I had no more time to ponder, for the calot was almost upon me.

I slashed away a paw—only to see it regrow.

A cut across the beast’s eyes blinded it, but for only a few tals.

In desperation, as I kept my blade between myself and the creature, I thought of the calot’s death, of corruption of the wounds I had dealt it, of the futility of besting my blade, and followed this with thoughts of futility, ancient dust, and despair.

The animal offered a terrible scream—yet one that echoed only in my thoughts—before slumping to the stone floor, its wounds festering into corruption. In moments, it was a bloody heap of silver.

Then it was gone.

Cynthara looked at me, wide-eyed, if but for a moment. “No single warrior has ever bested the hunter of hunters.”

“No single warrior did now. It took both of us.”

“You are kind, Dan Lan Chee, but my blows scarcely slowed the destroyer of warriors.”

“Without your blows, it would not have died.”

“It wished me dead, as if it held me an enemy.”

“Perhaps it recognized you as the granddaughter of its ancient foe.”

I gestured toward the twisted tubes and strange machinery. “What do you know of that?”

“Everything.” She smiled proudly. “I helped my father build all of it.”

“Could you rebuild it, then?”

“I could . . . with time,” she said. “I even know the secrets of the genetor.”

I glanced around. The walls seemed to press in upon me.

“The genetor . . . what is that?” I asked.

“It creates things from the ether itself.”

From the ether itself? What ether? I wondered.

She looked toward the ancient machinery. “The genetor looks untouched. The other machines? In time, perhaps. If the materials even exist, but they require Ur-radium to power them.”

My heart sank. The ancient tomes in the lower library of Gathol mentioned Ur-radium, but only as an element that vanished eons before.

Cynthara’s face suddenly took on a look of concern. She pointed at the gap in the wall. “Look!”

The twisted metal beyond the wall had begun to glow.

“We must flee. Now!” The urgency in her voice was palpable and commanding. “Before we are destroyed!”

Quickly, we retraced our steps back to the hidden stairs and up into the chamber of Lum Tar O.

Cynthara glanced around, then shook her head. “We must be farther away. The energies within the very metals are being released. Nothing will remain for haads and haads.” Her face was a mask of despair.

“Come!” I fully uncapped my torch, letting it blaze forth.

We began to run back along the passageway, then up the ramp. I was breathing hard, and my heart was straining when we reached those corroded gates. Still, it took but a moment to push them open enough for us to step through and into the way beyond.

Cynthara looked around. “Where are the people?”

“As I said, all but a tiny handful have gone. The city died over the ages.”

“That cannot be. How could it—”

“Those who remain survive by their minds and wits.” I had never quite believed my father’s tales of how the Jeddak of Horz, if that was what he was, could create armies and food with his thoughts—except Cynthara had mentioned a genetor that accomplished the same thing. Had the Jeddak—and Lum Tar O—somehow drawn on that ancient machine without even knowing it?

A yell echoed down the walled avenue I had thought deserted. Two Orovars came charging around the corner, likely from the larger square on the other side of the structure that afforded access to the pits of Horz. Behind them were several others of their kind.

“Who are they?” asked Cynthara, bringing up her blade.

“The Orovars . . . they must have come here after your time.” I could say no more because the first Orovar sprinted toward me, his blade out and ready. He was no match for me, and in three quick passes, his blade lay on the stones, and he clutched his shoulder, staggering back.

The second man gaped—he even turned pale—as he beheld Cynthara, but that didn’t stop him from attacking. That was a mistake, because Cynthara ran him through with her jet blade that looked so delicate. That allowed me a moment to beat down the guard of the third man and deliver a deep cut to his sword arm, so hard that he dropped his blade.

“This way!” I called.

Cynthara disarmed another Orovar. Her blade was almost as quick as mine. In fact, much as it pained me, she was faster, although she could not deliver quite the force behind her point or edge. While the other Orovars paused, we turned and hurried down the narrow way that led to where I had concealed my airship.

We had almost reached that small building when the padding of sandals on stones alerted me, and we swiftly turned—to face four other Orovars wearing the harnesses of panthans. So quick was our turn that I managed a gut thrust to the leading Orovar. In turn, that allowed Cynthara a crippling blow to the calf of the second man.

None of us got in another blow, however, because the very stones beneath our feet started shaking violently.

“This way!” I grasped Cynthara’s wrist, wondering as I did so if she would turn to dust like those ancient Horzians my father had met. But her wrist was firm, with strong tendons.

In only a few tals we had cut down the side alley and up the narrow staircase to where my airship remained. Cynthara hesitated, and I half-pulled, half-dragged her onto the main desk, extracting the control key from my harness.

“What manner of vessel is this that rests on a rooftop?” she asked in that accent I found both so charming and alluring.

“One that sails the skies as ships once sailed the Throxeus,” I replied.

She did open her mouth for a moment, then grasped the railing as the building beneath us shuddered. I concentrated on getting us airborne, and then headed away from the center of Horz . . . and then down over the descending series of structures that the ancients had built to follow the Throxeous ocean as it dwindled away.

“Look!” Cynthara touched my arm, and the warmth of her touch, as much as her voice, caused me to glance back.

A column of dust had shot upward, a column almost half a haad wide, and stones spewed out from it. Could there be anything left at the center of old Horz? Somehow, I doubted it. Another spewing of stone and dust erupted, and towers and buildings shook and then wavered . . . and many toppled before my eyes.

Slowly, I turned my airship back toward Gathol, giving the city of Horz a wide berth.

Cynthara continued to watch while the city that had once been hers so long before disappeared behind us. In turn, I watched her, realizing that while my quest had begun to impress Jasras Kan, I had found much more than strange devices or riches. I had found someone who offered far more than the lovely face and sharp and polished words of Jasras Kan. Yet I did not know what Cynthara might feel.

Finally, she turned and stepped forward, beside me.

“The Horz I knew is gone, so far in the past that not even legends remain. So are my people. Is that not true, Dan Lan Chee?”

“It is.”

“You did not soothe me with pleasant falsehoods.”

“No.”

“Nor did you attempt to take advantage of me.”

“I doubt any man would have much success in that.” I could not help but smile at her words.

“You respect me.”

I nodded. How could I not? Could I have awakened after eons with strange machines keeping me uncorrupted and acted as decisively as she had?

Abruptly, she knelt and laid that deadly black blade at my feet. I’d never seen a woman do that. In my Barsoom, only men offered their blades and lifetime loyalty. I could not reject the gesture . . . and yet. . . . Quickly, I unbuckled my own blade and scabbard and laid it at her feet.

“You mock me. . . .” Her green eyes flashed.

“I would never mock you, Cynthara Dulchis. But I cannot accept what you offer, unless you accept what I offer in return.”

The smile on her face was confirmation enough that I had found a great treasure in Horz . . . if not exactly the one I had sought. But this treasure was not one I could have bought with devices and riches, just as my father could not have bought my mother with such. And so we stood together, at the beginning of another journey.