The king of Vendhya was dying. Through the hot, stifling
night the temple gongs boomed and the conchs roared. Their clamor
was a faint echo in the gold–domed chamber where Bunda Chand
struggled on the velvet–cushioned dais. Beads of sweat glistened on
his dark skin; his fingers twisted the gold–worked fabric beneath
him. He was young; no spear had touched him, no poison lurked in
his wine. But his veins stood out like blue cords on his temples,
and his eyes dilated with the nearness of death. Trembling
slave–girls knelt at the foot of the dais, and leaning down to him,
watching him with passionate intensity, was his sister, the Devi
Yasmina. With her was the wazam
, a noble grown old in the royal court.
She threw up her head in a gusty gesture of wrath and despair
as the thunder of the distant drums reached her ears.
'The priests and their clamor!' she exclaimed. 'They are no
wiser than the leeches who are helpless! Nay, he dies and none can
say why. He is dying now—and I stand here helpless, who would burn
the whole city and spill the blood of thousands to save
him.'
'Not a man of Ayodhya but would die in his place, if it might
be, Devi,' answered the wazam .
'This poison—'
'I tell you it is not poison!' she cried. 'Since his birth he
has been guarded so closely that the cleverest poisoners of the
East could not reach him. Five skulls bleaching on the Tower of the
Kites can testify to attempts which were made—and which failed. As
you well know, there are ten men and ten women whose sole duty is
to taste his food and wine, and fifty armed warriors guard his
chamber as they guard it now. No, it is not poison; it is
sorcery—black, ghastly magic—'
She ceased as the king spoke; his livid lips did not move,
and there was no recognition in his glassy eyes. But his voice rose
in an eery call, indistinct and far away, as if called to her from
beyond vast, wind–blown gulfs.
'Yasmina! Yasmina! My sister, where are you? I can not find
you. All is darkness, and the roaring of great winds!'
'Brother!' cried Yasmina, catching his limp hand in a
convulsive grasp. 'I am here! Do you not know me—'
Her voice died at the utter vacancy of his face. A low
confused moan waned from his mouth. The slave–girls at the foot of
the dais whimpered with fear, and Yasmina beat her breast in
anguish.
* * * * *
In another part of the city a man stood in a latticed balcony
overlooking a long street in which torches tossed luridly, smokily
revealing upturned dark faces and the whites of gleaming eyes. A
long–drawn wailing rose from the multitude.
The man shrugged his broad shoulders and turned back into the
arabesque chamber. He was a tall man, compactly built, and richly
clad.
'The king is not yet dead, but the dirge is sounded,' he said
to another man who sat cross–legged on a mat in a corner. This man
was clad in a brown camel–hair robe and sandals, and a green turban
was on his head. His expression was tranquil, his gaze
impersonal.
'The people know he will never see another dawn,' this man
answered.
The first speaker favored him with a long, searching
stare.
'What I can not understand,' he said, 'is why I have had to
wait so long for your masters to strike. If they have slain the
king now, why could they not have slain him months
ago?'
'Even the arts you call sorcery are governed by cosmic laws,'
answered the man in the green turban. 'The stars direct these
actions, as in other affairs. Not even my masters can alter the
stars. Not until the heavens were in the proper order could they
perform this necromancy.' With a long, stained fingernail he mapped
the constellations on the marble–tiled floor. 'The slant of the
moon presaged evil for the king of Vendhya; the stars are in
turmoil, the Serpent in the House of the Elephant. During such
juxtaposition, the invisible guardians are removed from the spirit
of Bhunda Chand. A path is opened in the unseen realms, and once a
point of contact was established, mighty powers were put in play
along that path.'
'Point of contact?' inquired the other. 'Do you mean that
lock of Bhunda Chand's hair?'
'Yes. All discarded portions of the human body still remain
part of it, attached to it by intangible connections. The priests
of Asura have a dim inkling of this truth, and so all nail
trimmings, hair and other waste products of the persons of the
royal family are carefully reduced to ashes and the ashes hidden.
But at the urgent entreaty of the princess of Khosala, who loved
Bhunda Chand vainly, he gave her a lock of his long black hair as a
token of remembrance. When my masters decided upon his doom, the
lock, in its golden, jewel–encrusted case, was stolen from under
her pillow while she slept, and another substituted, so like the
first that she never knew the difference. Then the genuine lock
travelled by camel–caravan up the long, long road to Peshkhauri,
thence up the Zhaibar Pass, until it reached the hands of those for
whom it was intended.'
'Only a lock of hair,' murmured the nobleman.
'By which a soul is drawn from its body and across gulfs of
echoing space,' returned the man on the mat.
The nobleman studied him curiously.
'I do not know if you are a man or a demon, Khemsa,' he said
at last. 'Few of us are what we seem. I, whom the Kshatriyas know
as Kerim Shah, a prince from Iranistan, am no greater a masquerader
than most men. They are all traitors in one way or another, and
half of them know not whom they serve. There at least I have no
doubts; for I serve King Yezdigerd of Turan.'
'And I the Black Seers of Yimsha,' said Khemsa; 'and my
masters are greater than yours, for they have accomplished by their
arts what Yezdigerd could not with a hundred thousand
swords.'
* * * * *
Outside, the moan of the tortured thousands shuddered up to
the stars which crusted the sweating Vendhyan night, and the conchs
bellowed like oxen in pain.
In the gardens of the palace the torches glinted on polished
helmets and curved swords and gold–chased corselets. All the
noble–born fighting–men of Ayodhya were gathered in the great
palace or about it, and at each broad–arched gate and door fifty
archers stood on guard, with bows in their hands. But Death stalked
through the royal palace and none could stay his ghostly
tread.
On the dais under the golden dome the king cried out again,
racked by awful paroxysms. Again his voice came faintly and far
away, and again the Devi bent to him, trembling with a fear that
was darker than the terror of death.
'Yasmina!' Again that far, weirdly dreeing cry, from realms
immeasurable. 'Aid me! I am far from my mortal house! Wizards have
drawn my soul through the wind–blown darkness. They seek to snap
the silver cord that binds me to my dying body. They cluster around
me; their hands are taloned, their eyes are red like flame burning
in darkness. Aie , save me, my
sister! Their fingers sear me like fire! They would slay my body
and damn my soul! What is this they bring before me?—
Aie! '
* * * * *
At the terror in his hopeless cry Yasmina screamed
uncontrollably and threw herself bodily upon him in the abandon of
her anguish. He was torn by a terrible convulsion; foam flew from
his contorted lips and his writhing fingers left their marks on the
girl's shoulders. But the glassy blankness passed from his eyes
like smoke blown from a fire, and he looked up at his sister with
recognition.
'Brother!' she sobbed. 'Brother—'
'Swift!' he gasped, and his weakening voice was rational. 'I
know now what brings me to the pyre. I have been on a far journey
and I understand. I have been ensorcelled by the wizards of the
Himelians. They drew my soul out of my body and far away, into a
stone room. There they strove to break the silver cord of life, and
thrust my soul into the body of a foul night–weird their sorcery
summoned up from hell. Ah! I feel their pull upon me now! Your cry
and the grip of your fingers brought me back, but I am going fast.
My soul clings to my body, but its hold weakens. Quick—kill me,
before they can trap my soul for ever!'
'I cannot!' she wailed, smiting her naked
breasts.
'Swiftly, I command you!' There was the old imperious note in
his failing whisper. 'You have never disobeyed me—obey my last
command! Send my soul clean to Asura! Haste, lest you damn me to
spend eternity as a filthy gaunt of darkness. Strike, I command
you! Strike! '
Sobbing wildly, Yasmina plucked a jeweled dagger from her
girdle and plunged it to the hilt in his breast. He stiffened and
then went limp, a grim smile curving his dead lips. Yasmina hurled
herself face–down on the rush–covered floor, beating the reeds with
her clenched hands. Outside, the gongs and conchs brayed and
thundered and the priests gashed themselves with copper
knives.