Robert W. Chambers

“ And to Yulun: “Have I not told you that nothing can harm our souls?”
Yulun’s expression altered and she turned to Benton: “Say it to me!” she pleaded.
As in a dream he heard his own words: “Nothing can ever really harm the soul.”
Yulun’s hands fell from her tunic collar. Very slowly she lifted her head, looking at him out of lovely, proud young eyes.
She said, evenly, her still gaze on him: “I am Yulun of the Temple. My heart is like a blazing pearl which you hold between your hands. May the four Blessed Companions witness the truth of what I say.” ”

“ You have seized my mind and are crushing it! You are putting out its light, you Yezidee witch!—you are quenching the last spark—of reason—in—me——”
“Sanang!”
His knife fell clattering to the floor. But he stood stock still, his hands clutching his head—stood motionless, while scream on scream tore through the loose and gaping lips, blowing them into ghastly, distorted folds.
“Sanang Noïane!” she cried in her clear voice, “the Eight Towers are darkened! The Rampart of Gog and Magog is fallen! On Mount Alamout nothing is living. The minds of mankind are free again!” ”

“ So is every human soul! What mad nonsense have the Yezidees made you believe? Is there any surer salvation for the soul than to die in Christ’s service?”
He slipped his arm from her quivering shoulders and grasped both her hands, crushing them as though to steady every fibre in her tortured body.
“I want you to live. I want to live, too. But I tell you it’s in God’s hands, and we soldiers of civilisation have nothing to fear except failure to do our duty. Now, then, are we comrades under the United States Government?” ”

“ Tressa had taken her moon-lute to the hammock, but her fingers rested motionless on the strings.
Cleves and Recklow, shoulder to shoulder, paced the moonlit path along the hedges of oleander and hibiscus which divided garden from jungle.
And they moved cautiously on the white-shell road, not too near the shadow line. For in the cypress swamp the bloated grey death was awake and watching under the moon; and in the scrub palmetto the diamond-dotted death moved lithely.
And somewhere within the dark evil of the jungle a man in white might be watching. ”

“ Take that to your Master of Mount Alamout! I do what I please; I go where I please; I live as I please. And if I please, I turn against him!”
“In that event,” he said hoarsely, “there lies your winding-sheet on the floor at your feet! Take up your shroud; and make Erlik seize you!”
“Sanang,” she said very seriously.
“I hear you, Keuke-Mongol.”
“Listen attentively. I wish to live. I have had enough of death in life. I desire to remain a living, breathing thing—even if it be true—as you Yezidees tell me, that you have caught my soul in a net and that your sorcerers really control its destiny. ”

“ The newcomer glanced at Selden, smiled slightly, blushed, then caught a glimpse of Cleves where he lay in the brake, and a mischievous glimmer came into her slanting eyes.
“Did I not tell my lord truths?” she inquired in a demure whisper. “As surely as the sun is a dragon, and the flaming pearl burns between his claws, so surely burns the soul of Heart of Flame between thy guarding hands. There are as many words as there are demons, my lord, but it is written that Niaz is the greatest of all words save only the name of God.” ”

“ Recklow remained silent. Tressa lay deep in her armchair, twisting her white fingers.
“What makes him so late?” she said.... “I sent my soul out twice to look for him, and could not find him.”
“Send it again,” said Recklow, fearfully.
For ten minutes the girl lay as though asleep, then her eyes unclosed and she said drowsily: “I can not find him.”
“Did—did you learn anything while—while you were—away?” asked Recklow cautiously.
“Nothing. There is a thick darkness out there—I mean a darkness gathering over the whole land. It is like a black fog. ”

“ Tressa flung out her right hand and, with her forefinger, drew a barrier through space, bar above bar.
And Benton, half swooning on his bed, saw a cage of terrible and living light penning in Djamouk, who beat upon the incandescent bars and grasped them and clawed his way about, squealing like a tortured rat in a red-hot cage.
Through the deafening tumult Yulun’s voice cut like a sword:
“Their bodies are dying, Heart of a Rose!... Listen! I hear their souls bidding their minds farewell!”
And, after a dreadful silence: “The train speeding north carries two dead men! God is God. Niaz!” ”

“ Cleves and Selden had their rifles. Tressa lay like a slender boy, her brier-torn hands empty.
And, as she lay there, her husband made a sponge of a handful of sphagnum moss, and bathed her face and her arms, cleansing the dried blood from the skin, while the girl looked up at him out of grave, inscrutable eyes.
The sun hung low over the wilderness when they came to the woods of Fool’s Acre. They crept cautiously out of the briers, among ferns and open spots carpeted with pine needles and dead leaves which were beginning to burn ruddy gold under the level rays of the sun. ”

“ I know it. I have no desire to die for others—to perish for the sake of the common good. I am young. I have suffered too much; I am determined to live—and let my soul take its chances between God and Erlik.”
She came close to him, looked curiously into his pale face.
“I laughed at you out of the temple cloud,” she said. “I know how to open bolted doors as well as you do. And I know other things. And if you ever again come to me in this life I shall first torture you, then slay you. Then I shall tell all!... and unroll my shroud.” ”

“ How can any man fall in love with such a girl?”
“Why do you say that Sanang slew your soul?” asked Recklow, peering at her averted face through the reddening firelight.
She lay still in her chair for a moment, then turned suddenly on him:
“He did slay it! He came to the Lake of the Ghosts as my lover; he meant to have done it there; but I would not have him—would not listen, nor suffer his touch!—I mocked at him and his passion. I laughed at his Tchortchas. ”

“ And when, in the month of the Snake, the Eight Sheiks-el-Djebel came to the temple to spread their shrouds on the rose-marble steps, then, after they had departed, chanting the Prayers for the Dead, each to his Tower of Silence, we temple girls were free for a week.... And once I went with Tchagane—a girl—and with Yulun—another girl—and we took our keutch, which is our luggage, and we went to the yaïlak, or summer pavilion on the Lake of the Ghost. Oh, wonderful,—a silvery world of pale-gilt suns and of moons so frail that the cloud-fleece at high-noon has more substance! ”

“ I pray God to be merciful to this soul I send to Erlik!”
All the time he was advancing, edging cautiously around the circle of little plumy pines; and already the wind struck his left cheek.
“Yarghouz Khan!” cried the girl in her clear voice. “Take up your shroud and repeat the fatha!”
“Backward!” laughed the young man, “—as do you, Keuke Mongol!”
“Heretic!” she retorted. “Do you also refuse to name the ten Imaums in your prayers? Dog! Toad! Spittle of Erlik! May all your cattle die and all your horses take the glanders and all your dogs the mange!”
“Silence, sorceress!” ”

“ She stepped closer. “And I’ll tell you another thing you fear—you Yezidee of Alamout—you robber of Yian—you sorcerer of Sabbah Khan, and chief of his sect of Assassins! You fear this native land of mine, America; and its laws and customs, and its clear, clean sunshine; and its cities and people; and its police! Take that message back. We Americans fear nobody save the true God!—nobody—neither Yezidee nor Hassani nor Russ nor German nor that sexless monster born of hell and called the Bolshevik!” ”

“ Instantly the girl flung her right arm straight upward.
“Yarghouz!”
“I hear thee, Heavenly Azure.”
“Another step to the west and I shatter thy flask of gas.”
“With what?” he demanded; but stood discreetly motionless.
“With what I grasp in an empty palm. Thou knowest, Yarghouz.”
“I have heard,” he said with smiling uncertainty, “but to hear of force that can be hurled out of an empty palm is one thing, and to see it and feel it is another. I think you lie, Heavenly Azure.”
“So thought Gutchlug. And died of a yellow snake.” ”

“ It was taught to us in the temple that from these eight foci of infection the disease of evil has been spreading throughout the world; from these eight towers have gone forth every year the emissaries of evil—perverted missionaries—to spread the poisonous propaganda, to teach it, to tamper stealthily with the minds of men, dominate them, pervert them, instruct them in the creed of the Assassin of Souls. ”

“ Suddenly she flung her left arm around his neck and the delicate clenched hand brushed his cheek.
“They shall not have you,” she breathed. “I am fighting. I am holding my own. There are eight of them—eight Assassins! My mind is in battle with theirs—fiercely in battle.... I hold my own! I am armed and waiting!”
With a convulsive movement she drew his head closer to her shoulder. “Eight of them!” she whispered,—“trying to entrap and seize my brain. But my thoughts are free! My mind is defending you—you, here in my arms!” ”

“ I want your rather amazing gifts, your unprecedented experience among almost unknown people, your familiarity with occult things, your astounding powers—whatever they are—hypnotic, psychic, material.
“Because, to-day, civilisation is engaged in a secret battle for existence against gathering powers of violence, the force and limit of which are still unguessed.
“It is a battle between righteousness and evil, between sanity and insanity, light and darkness, God and Satan! And if civilisation does not win, then the world perishes.” ”

“ And we shall become of one mind and one body.
“I am no longer afraid of Sanang Noïane!”
“No longer afraid to slay him?” he asked quietly.
A blue light flashed in her eyes and her face grew still and white and terrible.
“Death to the body? That is nothing, my lord!” she said, in a hard, sweet voice. “It is written that we belong to God and that we return to Him. All living things must die, Heart of the World! It is only the death of souls that matters. And it has arrived at a time in the history of mankind, I think, when the Slayer of Souls shall slay no more.” ”

“ She smiled and resumed her seat beside Selden, amid the drooping fern fronds.
“Bid thy dear lord leave his rifle here,” she added quietly.
Cleves laid down his weapon. Selden pointed eastward in silence.
So they went together into the darkening woods.
In the dusk of heavy foliage overhanging the garden, Tressa lay flat as a lizard on the top of the wall. Beside her lay her husband.
In the garden below them flowers bloomed in scented thickets, bordered by walks of flat stone slabs split from boulders. A little lawn, very green, centred the garden. ”

“ He sat calmly enjoying his pipe for a few moments’ silence, then:
“Five of this sect of Assassins remain—five sly, murderous, psychic adepts who call themselves sorcerers. Except for Prince Sanang, I do not know who these other four men may be. I haven’t a notion. Nor have you. Nor do I believe that with all the resources of the United States Secret Service we ever should be able to discover these four Sheiks-el-Djebel except for the astounding spiritual courage and psychic experience of the young wife of Victor Cleves.” ”

“ None lights the Black Planet, Yrimid. It is where evil dwells. And there Sanang Noïane belongs.”
And now, beyond the dirty edges of the snow-smothered city, under an icy mist they caught sight of the river where ships lay blockaded by frozen floes.
Gulls circled over it; ghostly factory chimneys on the further shore loomed up gigantic, ranged like minarettes.
The coupé, jolting along behind the mounted policemen, struggled up toward the sidewalk and stopped. The two horses stood steaming, knee deep in snow. Recklow sprang out; Tressa gave him one hand and stepped lithely to the sidewalk. ”

“ And here she suddenly showed an edge of teeth under the full scarlet upper lip: “Keep your signs and your shrouds to yourself, dog of a Yezidee!—toad!—tortoise-egg!—he-goat with three legs! Keep your threats and your messages to yourself! Keep your accursed magic to yourself! Do you think to frighten me with your sorcery by showing me the Moons of Yu-lao?—by opening a bolted door? I know more of such magic than do you, Sanang—Death Adder of Alamout!” ”

“ Take up thy shroud and pray!”
The young man felt the west wind at the back of his left ear. Then he began to laugh.
“Heavenly Eyes,” he said, “thy end is come—together with the two police who hide in the pines yonder behind thee! Behold the bottle magic of Yarghouz Khan!”
And he lifted the glass flask in the moonlight as though he were about to smash it at her feet. ”

“ And she felt their two souls flame and fuse together, and burn together in one heavenly blaze—felt the swift conflagration mount, overwhelm, and sweep her clean of the last lingering taint; felt her soul, unafraid, clasp her husband’s spirit in its white embrace—clung to him, uplifted out of hell, rising into the blinding light of Paradise. ”

“ So go to the devil, my Banneret, and may Erlik seize you!’”
Cleves, his ears ringing with the sweet confusion of their girlish laughter, rose from his pillow, supporting himself on one arm.
“You are Yulun. You are alive and real——” He looked at Tressa: “She is real, isn’t she?” And, to Yulun: “Where do you come from?”
The girl replied seriously: “I come from Yian.” She turned to Tressa with a dazzling smile: “Thou knowest, my heart’s gold, how it was I came. Tell thy dear lord in thine own way, so that it shall be simple for his understanding.... ”

“ She half rose from her chair, grasped the arms, then seated herself again, her eyes ablaze with the memory of wrongs.
“How dare I show my dear lord that I am in love with him when Sanang’s soul caught my soul out of my body one day—surprised my soul while my body lay asleep in the Yezidee Temple!—and bore it in his arms to the very gates of hell!”
“Good God,” whispered Recklow, “what do you mean? Such things can’t happen.”
“Why not? They do happen. I was caught unawares.... It was one golden afternoon, and Yulan and Sansa and I were eating oranges by the fountain in the inner shrine. ”

“ Mud worm! May Erlik seize you! May your skin be covered with putrefying sores! May all the demons torment you! May God remember you in hell!”
“Yarghouz! Stand still!”
“Is your word then the Rampart of Gog and Magog, you young witch of Yian, that a Khan of the Seventh Tower need fear you!” he sneered, stealing stealthily westward through the feathery pines.
“I give thee thy last chance, Yarghouz Khan,” she said in an excited voice that trembled. “Recite thy prayer naming the ten, because with their holy names upon thy lips thou mayest escape damnation. For I am here to slay thee, Yarghouz! ”

“ Listen very seriously in your turn, Sanang, Sheik-el-Djebel, Prince of the Hassanis who, God knows when and how, have come out into the sunshine of this clean and decent country, out of a filthy darkness where devils and sorcerers make earth a hell. ”