After repeatedly escaping death, John Carter finally returns to the surface only to be arrested and condemned for having come back alive from the forbidden Valley Dor, and his despair deepens when he learns that Dejah Thoris has undertaken the perilous pilgrimage in the hope of finding him. With Tars Tarkas and new allies at his side, Carter becomes involved in enormous aerial and ground battles, breaking the power of the Therns and Black Martians, exposing the fraud of Issus, and freeing many of those who had been enslaved by the false religion. Yet at the moment of apparent victory, Dejah Thoris, Thuvia, and Phaidor are trapped inside the Temple of the Sun, whose chamber will not reopen for a long period, leaving Carter separated from the woman he loves and ending the novel on a deliberate combination of triumph and devastating uncertainty.
