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- Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
Abraham Merritt's 'Dwellers in the Mirage' is a sci-fi classic that transports readers to a mysterious and exotic world filled with adventure and mystique. The novel combines elements of science fiction and fantasy, offering a unique literary experience that challenges traditional boundaries. Through vivid descriptions and imaginative storytelling, Merritt creates a thought-provoking narrative that explores themes of perception, reality, and the unknown. The dreamlike quality of the prose adds to the ethereal atmosphere of the story, captivating readers from start to finish. Set in a lost civilization hidden deep within the desert, 'Dwellers in the Mirage' is a captivating tale of discovery and intrigue that will leave readers spellbound with its richness and depth.
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DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE: Sci-Fi Classic
Published by
Books
BOOK OF KHALK’RU
CHAPTER I.SOUNDS IN THE NIGHT
I Waited for an hour, examining the curious contents of the room, and amusing myself with shadow-fencing with the two swords. I swung round to find the Uighur captain watching me from the doorway, pale eyes glowing.
“By Zarda!” he said. “Whatever you have forgotten, it is not your sword play! A warrior you left us, a warrior you have returned!”
He dropped upon a knee, bent his head: “Pardon, Dwayanu! I have been sent for you. It is time to go.”
A heady exaltation began to take me. I dropped the swords, and clapped him on the shoulder. He took it like an accolade. We passed through the corridor of the spearsmen and over the threshold of the great doorway. There was a thunderous shout.
“Dwayanu!”
And then a blaring of trumpets, a mighty roll of drums and the clashing of cymbals.
Drawn up in front of the palace was a hollow square of Uighur horsemen, a full five hundred of them, spears glinting, pennons flying from their shafts. Within the square, in ordered ranks, were as many more. But now I saw that these were both men and women, clothed in garments as ancient as those I wore, and shimmering in the strong sunlight like a vast multicoloured rug of metal threads. Banners and bannerets, torn and tattered and bearing strange symbols, fluttered from them. At the far edge of the square I recognized the old priest, his lesser priests flanking him, mounted and clad in the yellow. Above them streamed a yellow banner, and as the wind whipped it straight, black upon it appeared the shape of the Kraken. Beyond the square of horsemen, hundreds of the Uighurs pressed for a glimpse of me. As I stood there, blinking, another shout mingled with the roll of the Uighur drums.
“The King returns to his people!” Barr had said. Well, it was like that.
A soft nose nudged me. Beside me was the black stallion. I mounted him. The Uighur captain at my heels, we trotted down the open way between the ordered ranks. I looked at them as I went by. All of them, men and women, had the pale blue-grey eyes; each of them was larger than the run of the race. I thought that these were the nobles, the pick of the ancient families, those in whom the ancient blood was strongest. Their tattered banners bore the markings of their clans. There was exultation in the eyes of the men. Before I had reached the priests. I had read terror in the eyes of many of the women.
I reached the old priest. The line of horsemen ahead of us parted. We two rode through the gap, side by side. The lesser priests fell in behind us. The nobles followed them. A long thin line upon each side of the cavalcade, the Uighur horsemen trotted — with the Uighur trumpets blaring, the Uighur kettle-drums and long-drums beating, the Uighur cymbals crashing, in wild triumphal rhythms.
“The King returns —”
I would to that something had sent me then straight upon the Uighur spears!
We trotted through the green of the oasis. We crossed a wide bridge which had spanned the little stream when it had been a mighty river. We set our horses’ feet upon the ancient road that led straight to the mountain’s doorway a mile or more away. The heady exultation grew within me. I looked back at my company. And suddenly I remembered the repairs and patches on my breeches and my blouse. And my following was touched with the same shabbiness. It made me feel less a king, but it also made me pitiful. I saw them as men and women driven by hungry ghosts in their thinned blood, ghosts of strong ancestors growing weak as the ancient blood weakened, starving at it weakened, but still strong enough to clamour against extinction, still strong enough to command their brains and wills and drive them toward something the ghosts believed would feed their hunger, make them strong again.
Yes, I pitied them. It was nonsense to think I could appease the hunger of their ghosts, but there was one thing I could do for them. I could give them a damned good show! I went over in my mind the ritual the old priest had taught me, rehearsed each gesture.
I looked up to find we were at the threshold of the mountain door. It was wide enough for twenty horsemen to ride through abreast. The squat columns I had seen, under the touch of the old priest’s hands, lay shattered beside it. I felt no repulsion, no revolt against entering, as I then had. I was eager to be in and to be done with it.
The spearsmen trotted up, and formed a guard beside the opening. I dismounted, and handed one of them the stallion’s rein. The old priest beside me, the lesser ones behind us, we passed over the threshold of the mined doorway, and into the mountain. The passage, or vestibule, was lighted by wall cressets in which burned the dear, white flame. A hundred paces from the entrance, another passage opened, piercing inward at an angle of about fifteen degrees to the wider one. Into this the old priest turned. I glanced back. The nobles bad not yet entered; I could see them dismounting at the entrance. We went along this passage in silence for perhaps a thousand feet. It opened into a small square chamber, cut in the red sandstone, at whose side was another door, covered with heavy tapestries. In this chamber was nothing except a number of stone coffers of various sizes ranged along its walls.
The old priest opened one of these. Within it was a wooden box, grey with age. He lifted its lid, and took from it two yellow garments. He slipped one of these garments over my head. It was like a smock, falling to my knees. I glanced down; woven within it, its tentacles encircling me, was the black octopus.
The other he drew over his own head. It, too, bore the octopus, but only on the breast, the tentacles did not embrace him. He bent and took from the coffer a golden staff, across the end of which ran bars. From these fell loops of small golden bells.
From the other coffers the lesser priests had taken drums, queerly shaped oval instruments some three feet long, with sides of sullen red metal. They sat, rolling the drumheads under their thumbs, tightening them here and there while the old priest gently shook his staff of bells, testing their chiming. They were for all the world like an orchestra tuning up. I again felt a desire to laugh;
I did not then know how the commonplace can intensify the terrible.
There were sounds outside the tapestried doorway, rustlings. There were three clangorous strokes like a hammer upon an anvil. Then silence. The twelve priests walked through the doorway with their drums in their arms. The high priest beckoned me to follow him, and we passed through after them.
I looked out upon an immense cavern, cut from the living rock by the hands of men dust now for thousands of years. It told its immemorial antiquity as clearly as though the rocks had tongue. It was more than ancient; it was primeval. It was dimly lighted, so dimly that hardly could I see the Uighur nobles. They were standing, the banners of their dans above them, their faces turned up to me, upon the stone floor, a hundred yards Wso away, and ten feet below me. Beyond them and behind them the cavern extended, vanishing hi darkness. I saw that in front of them was a curving trough, wide — like the trough between two long waves — and that like a wave it swept upward from the hither side of the trough, curving, its lip crested, as though that wave of sculptured stone were a gigantic comber rushing back upon them. This lip formed the edge of the raised place on which I stood.
The high priest touched my arm. I turned my head to him, and followed his eyes. A hundred feet away from me stood a girl. She was naked. She had not long entered womanhood and quite plainly was soon to be a mother. Her eyes were as blue as those of the old priest, her hair was reddish brown, touched with gold, her skin was palest olive. The blood of the old fair race was strong within her. For all she held herself so bravely, there was terror in her eyes, and the rapid rise and fall of her rounded breasts further revealed that terror.
She stood in a small hollow. Around her waist was a golden ring, and from that ring dropped three golden chaias fastened to the rock floor. I recognized their purpose. She could not run, and if she dropped or fell, she could not writhe away, out of the cup. But run, or writhe away from what? Certainly not from me! I ‘looked at her and smiled. Her eyes searched mine. The terror suddenly fled from them. She smiled back at me, trustingly.
God forgive me — I smiled at her and she trusted me! I looked beyond her, from whence had come a glitter of yellow like a flash from a huge topaz. Up from the rock a hundred yards behind the girl jutted an immense fragment of the same yellow translucent stone that formed the jewel in my ring. It was like the fragment of a gigantic shattered pane. Its shape was roughly triangular. Black within it was a tentacle of the Kraken. The tentacle swung down within the yellow stone, broken from the monstrous body when the stone had been broken. It was all of fifty feet long. Its inner side was turned toward me, and plain upon all its length clustered the hideous sucking discs.
Well, it was ugly enough — but nothing to be afraid of, I thought. I smiled again at the chained girl, and met once more her look of utter trust.
The old priest had been watching me dosely. We walked forward until we were half-way between the edge and the girl. At the lip squatted the twelve lesser priests, their drums on their laps.
The old priest and I faced the girl and the broken tentacle. He raised his staff of golden bells and shook them. From the darkness of the cavern began a low chanting, a chant upon three minor themes, repeated and repeated, and intermingled.
It was as primeval as the cavern; it was the voice of the cavern itself.
The girl never took her eyes from me.
The chanting ended. I raised my hands and made the curious gestures of salutation I had been taught. I began the ritual to Khalk’ru . . . .
With the first words, the odd feeling of recognition swept over me — with something added. The words, the gestures, were automatic. I did not have to exert any effort of memory; they remembered themselves. I no longer saw the chained girl. All I saw was the black tentacle in the shattered stone.
On swept the ritual and on . . . was the yellow stone dissolving from around the tentacle . . . was the tentacle swaying?
Desperately I tried to halt the words, the gesturing. I could not!
Something stronger than myself possessed me, moving my muscles, speaking from my throat. I had a sense of inhuman power. On to the climax of the evil evocation — and how I knew how utterly evil it was — the ritual rushed, while I seemed to stand apart, helpless to check it.
It ended.
And the tentacle quivered . . . it writhed . . . it reached outward to the chained girl . . . .
There was a devil’s roll of drums, rushing up fast and ever faster to a thunderous crescendo . . . .
The girl was still looking at me . . . but the trust was gone from her eyes . . . her face reflected the horror stamped upon my own.
The black tentacle swung up and out!
I had a swift vision of a vast cloudy body from which other cloudy tentacles writhed. A breath that had in it the cold of outer space touched me.
The black tentacle coiled round the girl . . . .
She screamed — inhumanly . . . she faded . . . she dissolved . . . her screaming faded . . . her screaming became a small shrill agonized piping . . . a sigh.
I heard the dash of metal from where the girl had stood. The clashing of the golden chains and girdle that had held her, falling empty on the rock.
The girl was gone!
I stood, nightmare horror such as I had never known in worst of nightmares paralysing me —
The child had trusted me . . . I had smiled at her, and she had trusted me . . . and I had summoned the Kraken to destroy her!
Searing remorse, white hot rage, broke the chains that held me. I saw the fragment of yellow stone in its place, the black tentacle inert within it. At my feet lay the old priest, flat on his face, his withered body shaking; his withered hands clawing at the rock. Beside their drums lay the lesser priests, and flat upon the floor of the cavern were the nobles — prostrate, abased, blinds and deaf in stunned worship of that dread Thing I had summoned.
I ran to the tapestried doorway. I had but one desire — to get out of the temple of Khalk’ru. Out of the lair of the Kraken. To get far and far away from it. To get back . . . back to the camp-home. I ran through the little room, through the passages and, still running, reached the entrance to the temple. I stood there for an instant, dazzled by the sunlight.
There was a roaring shout from hundreds of throats — then silence. My sight cleared. They lay there, in the dust, prostrate before me — the troops of the Uighur spearsmen.
I looked for the black stallion. He was close beside me. I sprang upon his back, gave him the reins. He shot forward like a black thunderbolt through the prostrate ranks, and down the road to the oasis. We raced through the oasis. I bad vague glimpses of running crowds, shouting. None tried to stop me. None could have stayed the rush of that great horse.
And now I was close to the inner gates of the stone fort through which we had passed on the yesterday. They were open. Their guards stood gaping at me. Drums began to beat, peremptorily, from the temple. I looked back. There was a confusion at its entrance, a chaotic milling. The Uighur spearsmen were streaming down the wide road.
The gates began to close. I shot the stallion forward, bowling over the guards, and was inside the fort. I reached the further gates. They were closed. Louder beat the drums, threatening, commanding.
Something of sanity returned to me. I ordered the guards to open. They stood, trembling, staring at me. But they did not obey. I leaped from the stallion and ran to them. I raised my hand. The ring of Khalk’ru flittered. They threw themselves on the ground before me — but they did not open the gates.
I saw upon the wall goatskins full of water. I snatched one of these and a sack of grain. Upon the floor was a huge slab of stone. I lifted it as though it had been a pebble, and hurled it at the gates where the two halves met. They burst asunder. I threw the skin of water and sack of grain over the high saddle, and rode through the broken gates.
The great horse skimmed through the ravine like a swallow. And now we were over the crumbling bridge and thundering down the ancient road.
We came to the end of the far ravine. I knew it by the fall of rock. I looked back. There was no sign of pursuit But I could hear the faint throb of the drums.
It was now well past mid-afternoon. We picked our way through the ravine and came out at the edge of the sandstone range. It was cruel to force the stallion, but I could not afford to spare him. By nightfall we had readied semi-arid country. The stallion was reeking with sweat, and tired. Never once had he slackened or turned surly. He had a great heart, that horse. I made up my mind that he should rest, come what might.
I found a sheltered place behind some high boulders. Suddenly I realized that I was still wearing the yellow ceremonial smock. I tore it off with sick loathing. I rubbed the horse down with it. I watered him and gave him some of the grain. I realized, too, that I was ravenously hungry and had eaten nothing since morning. I chewed some of the grain and washed it down with the tepid water. As yet, there were no signs of pursuit, and the drums were silent. I wondered uneasily whether the Uighurs knew of a shorter road and were outflanking me. I threw the smock over the stallion and stretched myself on the ground. I did not intend to sleep. But I did go to sleep.
I awakened abruptly. Dawn was breaking. Looking down upon me were the old priest and the cold-eyed Uighur captain. My hiding place was ringed with spearsmen. The old priest spoke, gently.
“We mean you no harm, Dwayanu. If it is your will to leave us, we cannot stay you. He whose call Khalk’ru has answered has nothing to fear from us. His will is our will.”
I did not answer. Looking at him, I saw again — could only see — that which I had seen in the cavern. He sighed.
“It is your will to leave us! So shall it be!”
The Uighur captain did not speak.
“We have brought your clothing, Dwayanu, thinking that you might wish to go from us as you came,” said the old priest.
I stripped and dressed in my old clothes. The old priest took my faded finery. He lifted the octopus robe from the stallion. The captain spoke:
“Why do you leave us, Dwayanu? You have made our peace with Khalk’ru. You have unlocked the gates. Soon the desert will blossom as of old. Why will you not remain and lead us on our march to greatness?”
I shook my head. The old priest sighed again.
“It is his will! So shall it be! But remember, Dwayanu — he whose call Khalk’ru has answered must answer when Khalk’ru calls him. And soon or late — Khalk’ru will call him!”
He touched my hair with his trembling old hands, touched my heart, and turned. A troop of spearsmen wheeled round him. They rode away.
The Uighur captain said:
“We wait to guard Dwayanu on his journey.”
I mounted the stallion. We reached the expedition’s new camp. It was deserted. We rode on, toward the old camp. Late that afternoon we saw ahead of us a caravan. As we came nearer they halted, made hasty preparations for defence. It was the expedition — still on the march. I waved my hands to them and shouted.
I dropped off the black stallion, and handed the reins to the Uighur.
“Take him,” I said. His face lost its sombre sternness, brightened.
“He shall be ready for you when you return to us, Dwayanu. He or his sons,” he said. He touched my hand to his forehead, knelt. “So shall we all be, Dwayanu — ready for you, we or our sons. When you return.”
He mounted his horse. He faced me with his troop. They raised their spears. There was one crashing shout —
“Dwayanu!”
They raced away.
I walked to where Fairchild and the others awaited me.
As soon as I could arrange it, I was on my way back to America. I wanted only one thing — to put as many miles as possible between myself and Khalk’ru’s temple.
I stopped. Involuntarily my hand sought the buckskin bag on my breast.
“But now,” I said, “it appears that it is not so easy to escape him. By anvil stroke, by chant and drums — Khalk’ru calls me ‘”
CHAPTER II.RING OF THE KRAKEN
Three years ago, so I began my story, I went into Mongolia with the Fairchild expedition. Part of its work was a mineral survey for certain British interests, part of it ethnographic and archeological research for the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania.
I never had a chance to prove my value as a mining engineer. At once I became good-will representative, camp entertainer, liaison agent between us and the tribes. My height, my yellow hair, blue eyes and freakish strength, and my facility in picking up languages were of never-ending interest to them. Tartars, Mongols, Buriats, Kirghiz — they would watch while I bent horseshoes, twisted iron bars over my knees and performed what my father used to call contemptuously my circus tricks.
Well, that’s exactly what I was to them — a one-man circus. And yet I was more than that — they liked me. Old Fairchild would laugh when I complained that I had no time for technical work. He would tell me that I was worth a dozen mining engineers, that I was the expedition’s insurance, and that as long as I could keep up my act they wouldn’t be bothered by any trouble makers. And it is a fact that they weren’t. It was the only expedition of its kind I ever knew where you could leave your stuff unwatched and return to find it still there. Also we were singularly free from graft and shake-downs.
In no time I had picked up half a dozen of the dialects and could chatter and chaff with the tribesmen in their own tongues. It made a prodigious bit with them. And now and then a Mongol delegation would arrive with a couple of their wrestlers, big fellows with chests like barrels, to pit against me. I learned their tricks, and taught them ours. We had pony lifting contests, and some of my Manchu friends taught me how to fight with the two broadswords — a sword in each hand.
Fairchild had planned on a year, but so smoothly did the days go by that he decided to prolong our stay. My act, he told me in his sardonic fashion, was undoubtedly of perennial vitality; never again would science have such an opportunity in this region — unless I made up my mind to remain and rule. He didn’t know how close he came to prophecy.
In the early summer of the following year we shifted our camp about a hundred miles north. This was Uighur country. They are a strange people, the Uighurs. They say of themselves that they are descendants of a great race which ruled the Gobi when it was no desert but an earthly Paradise, with flowing rivers and many lakes and teeming cities. It is a fact that they are apart from all the other tribes, and while those others cheerfully kill them when they can, still they go in fear of them. Or rather, of the sorcery of their priests.
Seldom had Uighurs appeared at the old camp. When they did, they kept at a distance. We had been at the new camp less than a week when a band of twenty rode in. I was sitting in the shade of my tent. They dismounted and came straight to me. They paid no attention to anyone else. They halted a dozen feet from me. Three walked close up and stood, studying me. The eyes of these three were a peculiar grey-blue; those of the one who seemed to be their captain singularly cold. They were bigger, taller men than the others.
I did not know the Uighur. I gave them polite salutations in the Kirghiz. They did not answer, maintaining their close scrutiny. Finally they spoke among themselves, nodding as though they had come to some decision.
The leader then addressed me. As I stood up, I saw that he was not many inches under my own six feet four. I told him, again in the Kirghiz, that I did not know his tongue. He gave an order to his men. They surrounded my tent, standing like guards, spears at rest beside them, their wicked long-swords drawn.
At this my temper began to rise, but before I could protest the leader began to speak to me in the Kirghiz. He assured me, with deference, that their visit was entirely peaceful, only they did not wish their contact with me to be disturbed by any of my companions. He asked if I would show him my hands. I held them out. He and his two comrades bent over the palms, examining them minutely, pointing to a mark or a crossing of lines. This inspection ended, the leader touched his forehead with my right hand.
And then to my complete astonishment, he launched without explanation into what was a highly intelligent lesson in the Uighur tongue. He took the Kirghiz for the comparative language. He did not seem to be surprized at the ease with which I assimilated the tuition; indeed, I had a puzzled idea that he regarded it as something to be expected. I mean that his manner was less that of teaching me a new language, than of recalling to me one I had forgotten. The lesson lasted for a full hour. He then touched his forehead again with my hand, and gave a command to the ring of guards. The whole party walked to their horses and galloped off.
There had been something disquieting about the whole experience. Most disquieting was my own vague feeling that my tutor, if I had read correctly his manner, had been right — that I was not learning a new tongue but one I had forgotten. Certainly I never picked up any language with such rapidity and ease as I did the Uighur.
The rest of my party had been perplexed and apprehensive, naturally. I went immediately to them, and talked the matter over. Our ethnologist was the famous Professor David Barr, of Oxford. Fairchild was inclined to take it as a joke, but Barr was greatly disturbed. He said that the Uighur tradition was that their forefathers had been a fair race, yellow-haired and blue-eyed, big men of great strength. In short, men like myself. A few ancient Uighur wall paintings had been found which had portrayed exactly this type, so there was evidence of the correctness of the tradition. However, if the Uighurs of the present were actually the descendants of this race, the ancient blood must have been mixed and diluted almost to the point of extinction.
I asked what this had to do with me, and he replied that quite conceivably my visitors might regard me as of the pure blood of the ancient race. In fact, he saw no other explanation of their conduct. He was of the opinion that their study of my palms, and their manifest approval of what they had discovered there, clinched the matter.
Old Fairchild asked him, satirically, if he was trying to convert us to palmistry. Barr said, coldly, that he was a scientist. As a scientist, he was aware that certain physical resemblances can be carried on by hereditary factors through many generations. Certain peculiarities in the arrangement of the lines of the palms might persist through centuries. They could reappear in cases of atavism, such as I clearly represented.
By this time, I was getting a bit dizzy. But Barr had a few shots left that made me more so. By now his temper was well up, and he went on to say that the Uighurs might even be entirely correct in what he deduced was their opinion of me. I was a throwback to the ancient Norse. Very well. It was quite certain that the Aesir. the old Norse gods and goddesses — Odin and Thor, Frigga and Freya, Frey and Loki of the Fire and all the others — had once been real people. Without question they had been leaders in some long and perilous migration. After they had died, they had been deified, as numerous other similar heroes and heroines had been by other tribes and races. Ethnologists were agreed that the original Norse stock had come into North-eastern Europe from Asia, like other Aryans. Their migration might have occurred anywhere from 1000 B.C. to 5000 B.C. And there was no scientific reason why they should not have come from the region now called the Gobi, nor why they should not have been the blond race these present-day Uighurs called their forefathers.
No one, he went on to say, knew exactly when the Gobi had become desert — nor what were the causes that had changed it into desert. Parts of the Gobi and all the Little Gobi might have been fertile as late as two thousand years ago. Whatever it had been, whatever its causes, and whether operating slowly or quickly, the change gave a perfect reason for the migration led by Odin and the other Aesir which had ended in the colonization of the Scandinavian Peninsula. Admittedly I was a throwback to my mother’s stock of a thousand years ago. There was no reason why I should not also be a throwback in other recognizable ways to the ancient Uighurs — if they actually were the original Norse.
But the practical consideration was that I was headed for trouble. So was every other member of our party. He urgently advised going back to the old camp where we would be among friendly tribes. In conclusion he pointed out that, since we had come to this site, not a single Mongol, Tartar or any other tribesman with whom I had established such pleasant relations had come near us. He sat down with a glare at Fairchild, observing that this was no palmist’s advice but that of a recognized scientist.
Well, Fairchild apologized, of course, but he over-ruled Barr on returning; we could safely wait a few days longer and see what developed. Barr remarked morosely that as a prophet Fairchild was probably a total loss, but it was also probable that we were being closely watched and would not be allowed to retreat, and therefore it did not matter. .
That night we heard drums beating far away, drumming between varying intervals of silence almost until dawn, reporting and answering questions of drums still further off.
The next day, at the same hour, along came the same troop. Their leader made straight for me, ignoring, as before, the others in the camp. He saluted me almost with humility. We walked back together to my tent. Again the cordon was thrown round it, and my second lesson abruptly began. It continued for two hours or more. Thereafter, day after day, for three weeks, the same performance was repeated. There was no desultory conversation, no extraneous questioning, no explanations. These men were there for one definite purpose: to teach me their tongue. They stuck to that admirably. Filled with curiosity, eager to reach the end and leam what it all meant, I interposed no obstacles, stuck as rigorously as they to the faatter in hand. This, too, they seemed to take as something expected of me. In three weeks I could carry on a conversation in the Uigher as well as I can in English.
Barr’s uneasiness kept growing. “They’re grooming you for something!” he would say. “I’d give five years of my life to be in your shoes. But I don’t like it. I’m afraid for you. I’m damned afraid!”
One night at the end of this third week, the signalling drums beat until dawn. The next day my instructors did not appear, nor the next day, nor the day after. But our men reported that there were Uighers all around us, picketing the camp. They were in fear, and no work could be got out of them.
On the afternoon of the fourth day we saw a cloud of dust drifting rapidly down upon us from the north. Soon we heard the sound of the Uigher drums. Then out of the dust emerged a troop of horsemen. There were two or three hundred of them, spears glinting, many of them with good rifles. They drew up in a wide semi-circle before the camp. The cold-eyed leader who had been my chief instructor dismounted and came forward leading a magnificent black stallion. A big horse, a strong horse, unlike the rangy horses that carried them; a horse that could bear my weight with ease.
The Uighur dropped on one knee, handing me the stallion’s reins, I took them, automatically. The horse looked me over, sniffed at me, and rested its nose on my shoulder. At once the troop raised their spears, shouting some word I could not catch, then dropped from their mounts and stood waiting.
The leader arose. He drew from his tunic a small cube of ancient jade. He sank again upon his knee, handed me the cube. It seemed solid, but as I pressed it flew open. Within, was a ring. It was of heavy gold, thick and wide. Set in it was a yellow, translucent stone about an inch and a half square. And within this stone was the shape of a black octopus.
Its tentacles spread out fan-wise from its body. They had the effect of reaching forward through the yellow stone. I could even see upon their nearer tips the sucking discs. The body was not so clearly defined. It was nebulous, seeming to reach into far distance. The black octopus had not been cut upon the jewel. It was within it.
I was aware of a curious mingling of feelings — repulsion and a peculiar sense of familiarity, like the trick .of the mind that causes what we call double memory, the sensation of having experienced the same thing before. Without thinking. I slipped the ring over my thumb which it fitted perfectly, and held it up to the sun to catch the light through the stone. Instantly every man of the troop threw himself down upon his belly, prostrating himself before it.
The Uigher captain spoke to me. I had been subconsciously aware that from the moment of handing me the jade he had been watching me closely. I thought that now there was awe in his eyes.
“Your horse is ready —” again he used the unfamiliar word with which the troop had saluted me. “Show me what you wish to take with you, and your men shall carry it.”
“Where do we go — and for how long?” I asked.
“To a holy man of your people,” he answered. “For how long — he alone can answer.”
I felt a momentary irritation at the casualness with which I was being disposed of. Also I wondered why he spoke of his men and his people as mine.
“Why does he not come to me?” I asked.
“He is old,” he answered. “He could not make the journey.”
I looked at the troop, now standing up beside their horses. If I refused to go, it would undoubtedly mean the wiping out of the camp if my companions attempted, as they would, to resist my taking. Besides, I was on fire with curiosity.
“I must speak to my comrades before I go,” I said.
“If it please Dwayanu”— this time I caught the word —“to bid farewell to his dogs, let him.” There was a nicker of contempt in his eyes as he looked at old Fairchild and the others.
Definitely I did not like what he had said, nor his manner.
“Await me here,” I told him curtly, and walked over to Fairchild. I drew him into his tent, Barr and the others of the expedition at our heels. I told them what was happening. Barr took my hand, and scrutinized the ring. He whistled softly.
“Don’t you know what this is?” he asked me. “It’s the Kraken — that super-wise, malignant and mythical sea-monster of the old Norsemen. See, its tentacles are not eight but twelve. Never was it pictured with less than ten. It symbolized the principle that is inimical to Life — not Death precisely, more accurately annihilation. The Kraken — and here in Mongolia!”
“See here. Chief,” I spoke to Fairchild. “There’s only one way you can help me — if I need help. And that’s to get back quick as you can to the old camp. Get hold of the Mongols and send word to that chief who kept bringing in the big wrestlers — they’ll know whom I mean. Persuade or hire him to get as many able fighting men at the camp as you can. I’ll be back, but I’ll probably come back running. Outside of that, you’re all in danger. Not at the moment, maybe, but things may develop which will make these people think it better to wipe you out. I know what I’m talking about. Chief. I ask you to do this for my sake, if not for your own.”
“But they watch the camp —” he began to object.
“They won’t — after I’ve gone. Not for a little while at least. Everyone of them will be streaking away with me.” I spoke with complete certainty, and Barr nodded acquiescence.
“The King returns to his Kingdom,” he said. “All his loyal subjects with him. He’s in no danger — while he’s with them. But — God, if I could only go with you, Leif! The Kraken! And the ancient legend of the South Seas told of the Great Octopus, dozing on and biding his time till he felt like destroying the world and all its life. And three miles up in the air the Black Octopus is cut into the cliffs of the Andes! Norsemen — and the South Sea Islanders — and the Andeans! And the same symbol — here!”
“Please promise?” I asked Fairchild. “My life may depend on it.”
“It’s like abandoning you. I don’t like it!”
“Chief, this crowd could wipe you out in a minute. Go back, and get the Mongols. The Tartars will help. They hate the Uighurs. I’ll come back, don’t fear. But I’d bet everything that this whole crowd, and more, will be at my heels. When I come, I want a wall to duck behind.”
“We’ll go,” he said.
I went out of that tent, and over to my own. The odd-eyed Uighnr followed me. I took my rifle and an automatic, stuffed a toothbrush and a shaving-kit in my pocket, and turned to go.
“Is there nothing else?” There was surprise in his Question.
“If there is, I’ll come back for it,” I answered.
“Not after you have — remembered,” he said, enigmatically.
Side by side we walked to the black stallion. I lifted myself to his back.
The troop wheeled in behind us. Their spears a barrier between me and the camp, we galloped south.
CHAPTER III.RITUAL OF KHALK’RU
The stallion settled down to a steady, swinging lope. He carried my weight easily. About an hour from dusk we were over the edge of the desert. At our right loomed a low range of red sandstone hills Close ahead was a defile. We rode into it, and picked our way through it. In about half an hour we emerged into a boulder-strewn region, upon what had once been a wide road. The road stretched straight ahead of us to the north-east, toward another and higher range of red sandstone, perhaps five miles away. This we reached just as night began, and here my guide halted, saying that we would encamp until dawn. Some twenty of the troop dismounted; the rest rode on.
Those who remained waited, looking at me, plainly expectant. I wondered what I was supposed to do; then, noticing that the stallion had been sweating, I called for something to rub him down, and for food and water for him. This, apparently, was what had been looked for. The captain himself brought me the cloths, grain and water while the men whispered. After the horse was cooled down, I fed him. I then asked for blankets to put on him, for the nights were cold. When I had finished I found that supper had been prepared. I sat beside a fire with the leader. I was hungry, and, as usual when it was possible, I ate voraciously. I asked few questions, and most of these were answered so evasively, with such obvious reluctance, that I soon asked none. When the supper was over, I was sleepy. I said so. I was given blankets, and walked over to the stallion. I spread my blankets beside him, dropped, and rolled myself up.
The stallion bent his head, nosed me gently, blew a long breath down my neck, and lay down carefully beside me. I shifted so that I could rest my head on his neck. I heard excited whispering among the Uighurs. I went to sleep.
At dawn I was awakened. Breakfast was ready. We set out again on the ancient road. It ran along the hills, skirting the bed of what had long ago been a large river. For some time the eastern hills protected us from the sun. When it began to strike directly down upon us, we rested under the shadow of some immense rocks. By mid-aftemoon we were once more on our way. Shortly before sun-down, we crossed the dry river bed over what had once been a massive bridge. We passed into another defile through which the long-gone stream had flowed, and just at dusk reached its end.
Each side of the end of the shallow gorge was commanded by stone forts. They were manned by dozens of the Uighurs. They shouted as we drew near, and again I heard the word “Dwayanu” repeated again and again.
The heavy gates of the right-hand fort swung open. We went through, into a passage under the thick wall. We trotted across a wide enclosure. We passed out of it through similar gates.
I looked upon an oasis hemmed in by the bare mountains. It had once been the site of a fair-sized city, for ruins dotted it everywhere. What had possibly been the sources of the river had dwindled to a brook which sunk into the sands not far from where I stood. At the right of this brook there was vegetation and trees; to the left of it was a desolation. The road passed through the oasis and ran on across this barren. It stopped at, or entered, a huge square-cut opening in the rock wall more than a mile away, an opening that was like a door in that mountain, or like the entrance to some gigantic Egyptian tomb.
We rode straight down into the fertile side. There were hundreds of the ancient stone buildings here, and fair attempts had been made to keep some in repair. Even so, their ancientness struck against my nerves. There were tents among the trees also. And out of the buildings and tents were pouring Uighurs, men, women and children. There must have been a thousand of the warriors alone. Unlike the men at the guardhouses, these watched me in awed silence as I passed.
We halted in front of a time-bitten pile that might have been a palace — five thousand years or twice that ago. Or a temple. A colonnade of squat, square columns ran across its front. Heavier ones stood at its entrance. Here we dismounted. The stallion and my guide’s horse were taken by our escort. Bowing low at the threshold, my guide invited me to enter.
I stepped into a wide corridor, lined with spearsmen and lighted by torches of some resinous wood. The Uighur leader walked beside me. The corridor led into a huge room — high-ceilinged, so wide and long that the flambeaux on the walls made its centre seem the darker. At the fax end of this place was a low dais, and upon it a stone table, and seated at this table were a number of hooded men.
As I drew nearer, I felt the eyes of these hooded men intent upon me, and saw that they were thirteen-six upon each side and one seated in a larger chair at the table’s end. High cressets of metal stood about them in which burned some substance that gave out a steady, dear white light. I came close, and halted. My guide did not speak. Nor did these others.
Suddenly, the light glinted upon the ring on my thumb.
The hooded man at the table’s end stood up, gripping its edge with trembling hands that were like withered claws. I heard him whisper —“Dwayanu!”
The hood slipped back from his head. I saw an old, old face in which were eyes almost as blue as my own, and they were filled with stark wonder and avid hope. It touched me, for it was the look of a man long lost to despair who sees a saviour appear.
Now the others arose, slipped back their hoods. They were old men, all of them, but not so old as he who had whispered. Their eyes of cold-blue-grey weighed me. The high priest, for that I so guessed him and such he turned out to be, spoke again:
“They told me — but I could not believe! Will you come to me?”
I jumped on the dais and walked to him. He drew his old face close to mine, searching my eyes. He touched my hair. He thrust his hand within my shirt and laid it on my heart. He said:
“Let me see your hands.”
I placed them, palms upward, on the table. He gave them the same minute scrutiny as had the Uighur leader. The twelve others clustered round, following his fingers as be pointed to this marking and to that. He lifted from his neck a chain of golden links, drawing from beneath his robe a large, flat square of jade. He opened this. Within it was a yellow stone, larger than that in my ring, but otherwise precisely similar, the black octopus — or the Kraken — writhing from its depths. Beside it was a small phial of jade and a small, lancet-like jade knife. He took my right hand, and brought the wrist over the yellow stone. He looked at me and at the others with eyes in which was agony.
“The last test.” he whispered. “The blood!”
He nicked a vein of my wrist with the knife. Blood fell, slow drop by drop upon the stone; I saw then that it was slightly concave. As the blood dripped, it spread like a thin film from bottom to lip. The old priest lifted the phial of jade, unstoppered it, and by what was plainly violent exercise of his will, held it steadily over the yellow stone. One drop of colourless fluid fell and mingled with my blood.
The room was now utterly silent, high priest and his ministers seemed not to breathe, staring at the stone. I shot a glance at the Uighur leader, and he was glaring at me, fanatic fires in his eyes.
There was an exclamation from the high priest, echoed by the others. I looked down at the stone. The pinkish film was changing colour. A curious sparkle ran through it; it changed into a film of clear, luminous green.
“Dwayanu!” gasped the high priest, and sank back into his chair, covering his face with shaking hands. The others stared at me and back at the stone and at me again as though they beheld some miracle. I looked at the Uighur leader. He lay flat upon his face at the base of the dais.
The high priest uncovered his face. It seemed to me that he had become incredibly younger, transformed; his eyes were no longer hopeless, agonized; they were filled with eagerness. He arose from his chair, and sat me in it.
“Dwayanu,” he said, “what do you remember?”
