CARA AND KANTOS

Though Cara and Kantos can be read as a stand-alone novelette, it is actually a 15-years-later follow-up to Lara of Jasoom, found elsewhere in this section and which should probably be read first to understand the characters. The background of both stories is based on the books of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and only indirectly connected to the movie. If you haven't read ERB's books, give them a try. There's a wondrous new world awaiting you! (The first five can be found in this section).

Chapter 1

I had always felt safe in Kobol.

While we rode through the streets on the day of my brother Tarin's coronation, however, I sensed a malevolence that seemed to emanate from among the spectators like a poisonous miasma. My mother Lara, with whom I shared a strong telepathic bond, glanced at me in some alarm.

"Cara, do you sense that?" she asked.

I nodded, but saw little reason for concern. We were well defended. Several hundred of Tarin's hand-picked personal guard marched ahead, behind and abreast of us several men deep. It would take an audacious assassin with a death wish to attempt to breach that wall.

Dressed in our cumbersome ceremonial robes, Lara, Carthan and I followed as my brother led the procession from the palace to the stadium. We rode huge white thoats, their white leather harnesses glittering with precious gems – Tarin's with rare royal rubies. The ceremonial route, winding throughout the city, was lined with people often ten deep, giving most of its citizens an opportunity to see their new Jed in person. His red hair gleaming in the sun, Tarin responded to their waves and cheers with a genuine smile, confident in the role for which he had been training for the last 15 years when his predecessor, Ban Tar, had died, bequeathing the throne to him.

I watched my twin with pride.

Physically he had grown into a man to rival our father Carthan – tall, athletic, and an exceptional swordsman. But it was his wisdom and diplomatic abilities that had won the hearts of Kobol's citizens. The once-lawless city was peaceful for the first time in perhaps a hundred years thanks to the regency of my parents. Over the past few years Carthan and Lara had given Tarin more and more latitude – "practice" they called it – in governance and judicial duties. Of late Tarin had been presiding over disputes in the courts. His judgements, my parents agreed, were brilliant and his solutions frequently innovative.

I didn't envy my twin. He would forever be tied to those responsibilities. Never again would he be free to travel Barsoom as we used to with Carthan on his mapping expeditions. Whenever I commented on that loss of freedom, Tarin would stare at me in bewilderment. "Cara," he would say, "I will have lost nothing and gained everything. I will be Jed of Kobol." As if that were enough.

Perhaps it was – for him.

As for me, I had no intention of remaining confined to Kobol for the rest of my life! The problem, of course, is that I am a woman. Where formerly Tarin had always been there to accompany me in our adventures, now I would be alone, and few women on Barsoom care – or dare – to travel the world alone.

How I longed to go to Jasoom – Earth – the planet of my birth. To see its oceans and mountains and great cities, to breathe in the oxygen-rich air, to explore its jungles, feel the hot sun on my skin . . . to experience the freedom . . .

But that too was impossible. John Carter, who at one time had been able to freely transport himself to Jasoom, refused to reveal his secret, knowing Barsoomians would be lost on that teeming world. Then, following his ill-fated space journey to Jupiter decades later, Barsoom had abandoned space-flight as dangerous and futile. The expenditure of matériel and labour, it was felt, could be put to better use preserving and improving our imperiled way of life.

The maroon and gold banners of Kobol flew from the ramparts of the stadium as our thoats made their ponderous way across the field where a large dais had been constructed midway along its length. The dais was high enough that the four of us had merely to step onto it from the backs of our thoats, thus preserving our dignity. Lara grinned at me as she caught my imagined picture of our scrambling to the ground with robes around our ears.

I rolled my eyes at her and, with as much poise as I could muster, followed my family to our carved and gilded chairs on either side of the elegant throne of Kobol. Tarin would not occupy it until he was confirmed as Jed.

I am not a patient person, and the ceremony seemed interminable. The coronation itself, presided over by my great-grandfather John Carter, Warlord of Mars, was mercifully brief, but it was the long, long procession of jeds and jeddaks, each of whom felt compelled to make a speech, who turned the morning into prolonged misery. Though buzzing with energy, I had to force myself to appear calm and interested whenever my attention tended to wander. Idly I scanned the crowd. I could still sense the malignity but could not pinpoint it.

By the time the speeches were over, even our imperturbable Tarin was showing signs of fatigue. To judge by the thunderous ovation when the first of the competitors entered the arena, he was far from alone.

The day's entertainment consisted of a variety of physical skills, such as team sports, wrestling, foot races and fencing. Tarin had insisted that the youth of Kobol should participate as well as the militia.

The fencing event comprised all ages, beginning with several levels of the most adept boys, and would end with the finest swordsmen in Tarin's army.

After the youth came a women's bout. Few women on Barsoom felt any need to learn sword play – in fact, Lara and I were the only exceptions of which I was aware. However, the eight women who marched onto the field were about to prove me wrong. All of them were dressed alike in male regalia, with unadorned harnesses bristling with weapons. Their hair was cut in masculine shoulder-length bobs, and I had the impression that they thought of themselves as some sort of fighting sisterhood.

As the women lined up in a row to salute us, the eyes of one of them zeroed in on Lara and me. She was too far away for me to be certain which of us was the target, but I felt her hatred as if it were a red hot iron held to my forehead. She was the source of the hostility we had detected earlier. Shivers radiated down my spine, and I visualized my waist length red hair standing on end.

Lara interrupted her conversation with Tarin to stare at me in amazement. "What an image, Cara! What brought that on?"

"Don't you feel her? The third woman from the left."

Lara peered at the tall, muscular female, and gasped. "Danalla! I know her – she tried to kill me once."

I sniffed. "What did you do to her?"

"When she tried to strangle me I used an old Wu Shu trick to throw her across the room. I think I broke her arm. On top of that Carthan killed her brother."

Shocked, I asked, "Why?"

"Both she and Toran intended to assassinate me. It seems they didn't approve of my Jasoomian genes. Must keep the blood pure, you know."

Lara waved one of the bodyguards over and quietly speaking into his ear asked him to obtain as much information as he could about the eight women.

The first elimination round began. With only eight women competing, I thought the event would be short, but the women were good. In fact they were as skilled as most of the men I had witnessed in that arena over the years.

After a long, hard-fought exchange, Danalla pricked her opponent on the arm, drawing blood and ending the fight. She won the second round as handily, and then took on the last opponent, a woman somewhat shorter and slimmer, but whose lithe body gave her a grace Danalla lacked.

Lithe body notwithstanding, Danalla ran her through within seconds. As she did so, she pivoted to face the dais, glared up at Lara, and snarled, "You're next, Lara of Jasoom – you and all your kin!" She spun about and, followed by the other women, bolted into the pits. Her last opponent however, collapsed on the sand, dead.

It was the first death in that stadium since Carthan had killed the tyrant Ob Kor fifteen years before, and only the second violent death I had ever witnessed.

I sprang to my feet, fumbling frantically at the fasteners of my heavy robe. Dropping the thing to the floor and clad only in a chemise, I snatched a short sword from the scabbard of a startled guard, leapt down from the dais and sprinted for the entrance to the pits. I sensed Lara and Carthan right behind me, but Tarin was being restrained by his bodyguards.

"She's mine, Cara!" Lara shouted.

Not if I find her first, I thought, obstinate child that I am.

But I didn't find her. No one did. She and her remaining cohorts must have planned an effective escape route through the maze of cells, corrals and tunnels beneath the stadium seats, and somehow managed to disappear without a trace. The guard who was sent to learn more about the women returned with little information except their names – Danalla's blatant among them – and that they were panthans (mercenaries), an unheard-of occupation for women.

Lara tells me that if such an event had occurred on old Earth, Tarin's reign might have been considered cursed with bad luck. Not so on Barsoom. In fact, many of the old-guard warriors, who missed the days of duels to the death, felt the swordwoman's death was a good omen.

It's all nonsense to me. I am not superstitious. A murder is a murder no matter where or when or how it occurs. That Danalla would kill one of her own comrades was an act of betrayal I could not fathom. The fact that it happened within ads of me and I could do nothing to prevent it, offended my sense of honour.

I vowed that one day I would find Danalla and we'd see who would be "next"!