Chapter Seventeen: The House of Spirits
words by Jeff, art by Duane
Each thing in The World -- the animals, the plants, the sky and stars and lightning -- has a Power behind it that makes it do what it does. What you can see is only a little of the whole thing. The Power is in the spirit part. Some people can learn to reach the spirit part of something, and they become its izze-nantan, its shaman-chief. There is Power in everything!
-- The teachings of Yellow Bear.

When Shis-Inday learned of the zoo at Amhor, she decided that we must visit it.

I did not protest, although I knew that she would not like what she saw. Shis-Inday had always felt an affinity for nature; her wild side never drifted far from the surface -- even during the most stately of functions. She could be elegant, when the situation demanded. But she could also be savage. In fact, the untamed side of her needed no prompting to rise to the surface.

The Human Beings could no more cage another living thing than they could cage themselves. Perhaps it was the oddness of the concept that made Shis-Inday want to see a Barsoomian zoo.

When we arrived, even I was aghast by the horrid conditions. The animals were gaunt, and seemed nearly dead of thirst. Shis- Inday fled to our apartments in disgust, after clawing our guide, Jal Had.

The jed of Amhor sputtered in rage, stemming the flow of blood from his face with a silk cloth.

I turned angrily upon him, ready to strangle him for the distress that conditions here had caused my princess.

"Tardos Mors!" he cried. "My beasts are watered more frequently than my people. Has the drought not yet reached distant Helium?"

For the first time in many years, I thought of Hora San.

Many more years would pass before I came to know the prophecy of that megalomaniac.

***
"But what is wrong with her?" I demanded of the scientist. "What terrible disease afflicts her?"

"She is old," Ras Thavas answered, without feeling, without sentiment. "She will die soon."

"Old!" I nearly shouted. "She left Jasoom as little more than a child. And that was only twenty years ago, by Barsoomian reckoning."

"Nearly fifty years, by the reckoning of her own planet," Ras Thavas retorted.

"Twenty years, or fifty! What of it? It is nothing. It is a fraction of a moment."

"On Barsoom, perhaps," the scientist said.

***
The drought worsened with every passing year.

And with every passing month, more rapidly than seemed possible, my princess grew old and frail.

She also grew wiser, more tender, and sometimes mysterious.

She still danced by moonlight. And I danced with her, when she would allow. But often my princess made solitary journeys of communion with the Directions, and Usen, and the spirits that meant as much to her as life itself. Kliji-Litzogue, the Yellow Lizard, was her companion at such times. I never saw her Spirit Guide, though she spoke to me of him as she would a thing of flesh and blood. Perhaps he was, in a sense I will never fully understand.

My reign during those years was marked by a wisdom and compassion that was due in large part to my Jeddara. It was a time of great uncertainty, because of the drought. Men have tried, but it is impossible to conquer thirst with a sword. Under such conditions, an iron will is more important than the strongest steel at your hip.

Shis-Inday sometimes fretted about her inability to string a bow so tautly, or hunt so keenly, or leap so marvelously in her dance beneath the eyes of Kleego-na-ay's crazy cousins. And often she stared placidly into my eyes, wondering that they had not yet begun to grow dim, as had her own.

"My chieftain, I do not understand it," she said. "You look the same as the day we first met, while I have become my grandmother, Old Woman."

In my eyes, she had grown more beautiful. A part of me grieved that I had remained unchanged in hers.

The people of Helium were enchanted by the mere sight of Shis-Inday's white hair and crinkled skin. They loved my aging princess more dearly than I can explain.

And so did I.

The steady cadence of her deliberate walk brought calmness and reflection to the most anxious of young warriors. They, and Helium, were stronger for it.

Only now, since the coming of John Carter and the fall of Issus, has age begun to show in the population of our ancient planet. But in those days, it was virtually unheard of. If we did not die young, in war, we journeyed to Dor just before the change overtook our strong bodies.

It is perhaps the greatest of ironies that John Carter himself appears to possess eternal youth.

Will his princess age, while the Warlord remains unchanged? Only time will divulge.

It is not a fate I would wish upon anyone.

***
Thuvan Dihn's face told me ere he spoke how grave the situation was in Ptarth. He'd come to Helium to discuss possible solutions to the planet-wide drought, which had grown worse -- impossible as that seemed.

Dozens of full-scale wars raged over great portions of Barsoom. Helium itself fought battles on several fronts, against red men and green who would have raided what precious stores of water we'd been able to horde.

Scattered pockets of water throughout the empire and beyond had been located at the guidance of Shis-Inday, whose Power was more valuable upon Barsoom, now, than it had ever been in the relatively fruitful deserts of The World.

After prayers and consultations with Kliji-Litzogue, Shis-Inday would fly over some foresaken stretch of dead sea bottom. When a familiar scent or other vague sign became known to her by some means no one but she could fathom, the Be-don-ko-he princess would lean forward, wind whipping her hair straight back from her brow. Then she'd point from the deck of the flier to the area where water could be found.

At first, engineers assigned to these reconaissance missions doubted the accuracy of my Shis-Inday's uncanny sense. But in time, they came to trust her instincts more readily than the most precise mechanisms of science they could devise.

Shis-Inday, meanwhile, seemed increasingly worried by the growing dryness of the dying planet she'd adopted as her own. It became difficult for her to locate even the smallest of reservoirs.

She was upon one such errand when Thuvan Dihn appeared at my court. I would be glad of that, for Shis-Inday had come to love the princess of Ptarth as a daughter.

"Thousands have departed upon the Final Pilgrimage," said Thuvan Dihn, stroking the head of young Sovan, his son. "And thousands more would follow, did they not fear dying alone upon the parched wastelands before reaching Dor."

His voice trembled, and I could tell there was more.

"Thuvia has gone," Thuvan Dihn said. "She thought to inspire hope among those who feared the Pilgrimage. Hundreds followed her; and I believe many more will within the week."

"I'm thirsty," said the boy, weakly, in a voice that spoke for an entire world.

The Jeddak of Ptarth looked at me, blankly. Thuvan Dihn was among the greatest warriors I'd ever known on a planet of great warriors. But now he was forlorn.

Alone.

On the verge of dry tears.

"My daughter is gone, Tardos Mors," he said. "She seeks the knee of Issus. Her love for our people must be greater than her love, even, for me. She leads them to salvation."

***
"We are saved, father!"

The urgency in the voice of Mors Kajak made me turn from the balcony, where Thuvan Dihn and I stood in contemplation of a subdued, silent Helium.

"Saved?" I said quietly, turning to face my son.

"Mother has saved us!" he cried.

***
The reports came in by wireless. Rain was falling throughout Barsoom. Canals that had been dry for years were filling to capacity. New reservoirs had been located. Even the Iss, whose waters were sacred, had regained something of its former majesty.

Battle fleets stopped fighting, as their crews marveled at the unimagined sight of water from the sky.

My world was saved.

To you, of Jasoom, the precipitation that fell upon Barsoom that day would be barely a drop in those depthless oceans of yours. But to us, it was life. Give a Barsoomian one grasping chance at that, and he'll cling to it with the tenacity of a white ape.

With Thuvan Dihn and Mors Kajak, I hastily outfitted an expedition to join Shis-Inday at the site of her greatest triumph.

When we arrived, my Be-don-ko-he princess was dancing at the edge of the Great Canal, leaping like the Girl of the Woods that she'd been when first I'd laid eyes upon her that long-ago night in the marsh. With a whoop unbecoming a jeddak, I joined her.

She fell into my arms, laughing as I held her close.

"The Spirits heard!" she cried. "Usen was pleased with my dance, and He granted my prayer!"

The deluge soaked us both. I could hear the shouts of those all about us, who'd taken up the wild dance begun by my princess.

Shis-Inday kissed me tenderly, and then walked peacefully to the edge of the canal. The rain slowed to a light mist, but the rushing water before us had not diminished.

On tired legs, she clambered to the top of the concrete wall, contentedly studying the miracle.

As I climbed to join her, a section of the wall gave way. The loose mortar had not yet settled where craftsmen had worked to shore it against the oncoming water.

Shis-Inday plunged downward, just as I reached the top of the crumbling block.

"No!" I screamed.

She struggled for a moment in that raging torrent and then went under. I raced along the wall, frantic, straining for a glimpse of my princess. I was on the brink of leaping into the swirling water, when strong arms pulled me back.

I have lived my life on a world where water is among the most prized of possessions; there is none to spare for more than drinking or bathing.

I never learned to swim.

And yet, I'd have plunged headlong into that furious maelstrom, had Thuvan Dihn and Mors Kajak not been there to stop me.

"Would you drown yourself in a suicidal effort to reach her side, Tardos Mors?" the Jeddak of Ptarth asked.

"Yes!" I cried, straining against his hold. "A thousand times, yes!"

An engineer on the other side of the canal shouted for our attention.

"There!" came the cry, barely audible above the roar of the flood.

My eyes followed his pointing finger, and I saw Shis-Inday's head bob to the surface of the churning water.

She looked at me, calm, almost smiling. Her head tilted, looking to something I could not see -- something none of us upon either side of the canal could see. I had the distinct impression that she was listening to someone at her side, who soothed fears that needed no soothing. She was at peace, even as chaos raged about her.

Roiling waves washed over her, bathing her in a spiritual kind of bliss. I saw her lips move. She spoke to that unseen presence in her native tongue.

No one but I could make out the words:

"Child of the Water."

Then Shis-Inday went under for the last time.

Her body has never been found.

And neither has my heart.


Afterward: Gora-ban-Hinsu
The "POJ" Table of Contents
E-mail the writer: jefflong@livenet.net

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