The Slayer of Souls
Robert W. Chambers
Produced by Chris Curnow, Michael, Mary Meehan and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
THE SLAYER OF SOULS
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
AUTHOR OF "IN SECRET," "THE COMMON LAW," "THE RECKONING," "LORRAINE,"ETC.
NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
_Copyright, 1920, By Robert W. Chambers_
_Copyright, 1919, 1920, by International Magazine Company_
_Printed in the United States of America_
TO MY FRIEND GEORGE ARMSBY
I
Mirror of Fashion, Admiral of Finance, Don't, in a passion, Denounce this poor Romance; For, while I dare not hope it might Enthuse you, Perhaps it will, some rainy night, Amuse you.
II
So, your attention, In poetry polite, To my invention I bashfully invite. Don't hurl the book at Eddie's head Deep laden, Or Messmore's; you might hit instead Will Braden.
III
Kahn among Canners, And Grand Vizier of style, Emir of Manners, Accept--and place on file-- This tribute, which I proffer while I grovel, And honor with thy matchless Smile My novel.
R. W. C.
CONTENTS
I THE YEZIDEE
II THE YELLOW SNAKE
III GREY MAGIC
IV BODY AND SOUL
V THE ASSASSINS
VI IN BATTLE
VII THE BRIDAL
VIII THE MAN IN WHITE
IX THE WEST WIND
X AT THE RITZ
XI YULUN THE BELOVED
XII HIS EXCELLENCY
XIII SA-N'SA
XIV A DEATH-TRAIL
XV IN THE FIRELIGHT
XVI THE PLACE OF PRAYER
XVII THE SLAYER OF SOULS
THE SLAYER OF SOULS
CHAPTER I
THE YEZIDEE
Only when the _Nan-yang Maru_ sailed from Yuen-San did her terriblesense of foreboding begin to subside.
For four years, waking or sleeping, the awful subconsciousness ofsupreme evil had never left her.
But now, as the Korean shore, receding into darkness, grew dimmer anddimmer, fear subsided and grew vague as the half-forgotten memory ofhorror in a dream.
She stood near the steamer's stern apart from other passengers, aslender, lonely figure in her silver-fox furs, her ulster and smartlittle hat, watching the lights of Yuen-San grow paler and smaller alongthe horizon until they looked like a level row of stars.
Under her haunted eyes Asia was slowly dissolving to a streak of vapourin the misty lustre of the moon.
Suddenly the ancient continent disappeared, washed out by a wave againstthe sky; and with it vanished the last shreds of that accursed nightmarewhich had possessed her for four endless years. But whether during thoseunreal years her soul had only been held in bondage, or whether, as shehad been taught, it had been irrevocably destroyed, she still remaineduncertain, knowing nothing about the death of souls or how it wasaccomplished.
As she stood there, her sad eyes fixed on the misty East, a passengerpassing--an Englishwoman--paused to say something kind to the youngAmerican; and added, "if there is anything my husband and I can do itwould give us much pleasure." The girl had turned her head as though notcomprehending. The other woman hesitated.
"This is Doctor Norne's daughter, is it not?" she inquired in a pleasantvoice.
"Yes, I am Tressa Norne.... I ask your pardon.... Thank you, madam:--Iam--I seem to be--a trifle dazed----"
"What wonder, you poor child! Come to us if you feel need ofcompanionship."
"You are very kind.... I seem to wish to be alone, somehow."
"I understand.... Good-night, my dear."
Late the next morning Tressa Norne awoke, conscious for the first timein four years that it was at last her own familiar self stretched outthere on the pillows where sunshine streamed through the porthole. Allthat day she lay in her bamboo steamer chair on deck. Sun and windconspired to dry every tear that wet her closed lashes. Her dark, glossyhair blew about her face; scarlet tinted her full lips again; the tensehands relaxed. Peace came at sundown.
That evening she took her Yu-kin from her cabin and found a chair on thedeserted hurricane deck.
And here, in the brilliant moonlight of the China Sea, she curled upcross-legged on the deck, all alone, and sounded the four futile stringsof her moon-lute, and hummed to herself, in a still voice, old songs shehad sung in Yian before the tragedy. She sang the tent-song called_Tchinguiz_. She sang _Camel Bells_ and _The Blue Bazaar_,--children'ssongs of the Yiort. She sang the ancient Khiounnou song called "TheSaghalien":
_I_
_In the month of Saffar Among the river-reeds I saw two horsemen Sitting on their steeds. Tulugum! Heitulum! By the river-reeds_
_II_
_In the month of Saffar A demon guards the ford. Tokhta, my Lover! Draw your shining sword! Tulugum! Heitulum! Slay him with your sword!_
_III_
_In the month of Saffar Among the water-weeds I saw two horsemen Fighting on their steeds. Tulugum! Heitulum! How my lover bleeds!_
_IV_
_In the month of Saffar, The Year I should have wed-- The Year of The Panther-- My lover lay dead,-- Tulugum! Heitulum! Dead without a head._
And songs like these--the one called "Keuke Mongol," and an ancient airof the Tchortchas called "The Thirty Thousand Calamities," and someChinese boatmen's songs which she had heard in Yian before the tragedy;these she hummed to herself there in the moonlight playing on herround-faced, short-necked lute of four strings.
Terror indeed seemed ended for her, and in her heart a greatoverwhelming joy was welling up which seemed to overflow across theentire moonlit world.
* * * * *
She had no longer any fear; no premonition of further evil. Among thefew Americans and English aboard, something of her story was alreadyknown. People were kind; and they were also considerate enough to subduetheir sympathetic curiosity when they discovered that this youngAmerican girl shrank from any mention of what had happened to her duringthe last four years of the Great World War.
It was evident, also, that she preferred to remain aloof; and thisinclination, when finally understood, was respected by her fellowpassengers. The clever, efficient and polite Japanese officers and crewof the _Nan-yang Maru_ were invariably considerate and courteous to her,and they remained nicely reticent, although they also knew the mainoutline of her story and very much desired to know more. And so,surrounded now by the friendly security of civilised humanity, TressaNorne, reborn to light out of hell's own shadows, awoke from four yearsof nightmare which, after all, perhaps, never had seemed entirelyactual.
And now God's real sun warmed her by day; His real moon bathed her increamy coolness by night; sky and wind and wave thrilled her with theirblessed assurance that this was once more the real world which stretchedillimitably on every side from horizon to horizon; and the fair facesand pleasant voices of her own countrymen made the past seem only aghastly dream that never again could enmesh her soul with its web ofsorcery.
* * * * *
And now the days at sea fled very swiftly; and when at last the GoldenGate was not far away she had finally managed to persuade herself thatnothing really can harm the human soul; that the monstrous devil-yearswere ended, never again to return; that in this vast, clean WesternContinent there could be no occult threat to dread, no giga
ntic menaceto destroy her body, no secret power that could consign her soul to thedreadful abysm of spiritual annihilation.
* * * * *
Very early that morning she came on deck. The November day wasdelightfully warm, the air clear save for a belt of mist low on thewater to the southward.
She had been told that land would not be sighted for twenty-four hours,but she went forward and stood beside the starboard rail, searching thehorizon with the enchanted eyes of hope.
As she stood there a Japanese ship's officer crossing the deck, forward,halted abruptly and stood staring at something to the southward.
At the same moment, above the belt of mist on the water, and perfectlyclear against the blue sky above, the girl saw a fountain of gold firerise from the fog, drift upward in the daylight, slowly assume theincandescent outline of a serpentine creature which leisurely uncoiledand hung there floating, its lizard-tail undulating, its feet with theirfive stumpy claws closing, relaxing, like those of a living reptile. Fora full minute this amazing shape of fire floated there in the sky,brilliant in the morning light, then the reptilian form faded, died out,and the last spark vanished in the sunshine.
When the Japanese officer at last turned to resume his promenade, henoticed a white-faced girl gripping a stanchion behind him as though shewere on the point of swooning. He crossed the deck quickly. TressaNorne's eyes opened.
"Are you ill, Miss Norne?" he asked.
"The--the Dragon," she whispered.
The officer laughed. "Why, that was nothing but Chinese day-fireworks,"he explained. "The crew of some fishing boat yonder in the fog isamusing itself." He looked at her narrowly, then with a nice little bowand smile he offered his arm: "If you are indisposed, perhaps you mightwish to go below to your stateroom, Miss Norne?"
She thanked him, managed to pull herself together and force a ghost of asmile.
He lingered a moment, said something cheerful about being nearly home,then made her a punctilious salute and went his way.
Tressa Norne leaned back against the stanchion and closed her eyes. Herpallor became deathly. She bent over and laid her white face in herfolded arms.
After a while she lifted her head, and, turning very slowly, stared atthe fog-belt out of frightened eyes.
And saw, rising out of the fog, a pearl-tinted sphere which graduallymounted into the clear daylight above like the full moon's phantom inthe sky.
Higher, higher rose the spectral moon until at last it swam in the veryzenith. Then it slowly evaporated in the blue vault above.
A great wave of despair swept her; she clung to the stanchion, staringwith half-blinded eyes at the flat fog-bank in the south.
But no more "Chinese day-fireworks" rose out of it. And at length shesummoned sufficient strength to go below to her cabin and lie there,half senseless, huddled on her bed.
* * * * *
When land was sighted, the following morning, Tressa Norne had lived acentury in twenty-four hours. And in that space of time her agonisedsoul had touched all depths.
But now as the Golden Gate loomed up in the morning light, rage, terror,despair had burned themselves out. From their ashes within her mindarose the cool wrath of desperation armed for anything, wary, alert,passionately determined to survive at whatever cost, recklessly ready tofight for bodily existence.
That was her sole instinct now, to go on living, to survive, no matterat what price. And if it were indeed true that her soul had been slain,she defied its murderers to slay her body also.
* * * * *
That night, at her hotel in San Francisco, she double-locked her doorand lay down without undressing, leaving all lights burning and anautomatic pistol underneath her pillow.
Toward morning she fell asleep, slept for an hour, started up in awfulfear. And saw the double-locked door opposite the foot of her bed slowlyopening of its own accord.
Into the brightly illuminated room stepped a graceful young man in fullevening dress carrying over his left arm an overcoat, and in his otherhand a top hat and silver tipped walking-stick.
With one bound the girl swung herself from the bed to the carpet andclutched at the pistol under her pillow.
"Sanang!" she cried in a terrible voice.
"Keuke Mongol!" he said, smilingly.
For a moment they confronted each other in the brightly lighted bedroom,then, partly turning, he cast a calm glance at the open door behind him;and, as though moved by a wind, the door slowly closed. And she heardthe key turn of itself in the lock, and saw the bolt slide smoothly intoplace again.
Her power of speech came back to her presently--only a broken whisper atfirst: "Do you think I am afraid of your accursed magic?" she managed togasp. "Do you think I am afraid of you, Sanang?"
"You are afraid," he said serenely.
"You lie!"
"No, I do not lie. To one another the Yezidees never lie."
"You lie again, assassin! I am no Yezidee!"
He smiled gently. His features were pleasing, smooth, and regular; hischeek-bones high, his skin fine and of a pale and delicate ivory colour.Once his black, beautifully shaped eyes wandered to the levelled pistolwhich she now held clutched desperately close to her right hip, and aslightly ironical expression veiled his gaze for an instant.
"Bullets?" he murmured. "But you and I are of the Hassanis."
"The third lie, Sanang!" Her voice had regained its strength. Tense,alert, blue eyes ablaze, every faculty concentrated on the terriblebusiness before her, the girl now seemed like some supple leopardesspoised on the swift verge of murder.
"Tokhta!"[1] She spat the word. "Any movement toward a hidden weapon,any gesture suggesting recourse to magic--and I kill you, Sanang,exactly where you stand!"
[Footnote 1: "Look out!" Nomad-Mongol dialect.]
"With a pistol?" He laughed. Then his smooth features altered subtly. Hesaid: "Keuke Mongol, who call yourself Tressa Norne,--Keuke--heavenlyazure-blue,--named so in the temple because of the colour of youreyes--listen attentively, for this is the Yarlig which I bring to you byword of mouth from Yian, as from Yezidee to Yezidee:
"Here, in this land called the United States of America, the Templegirl, Keuke Mongol, who has witnessed the mysteries of Erlik and whounderstands the magic of the Sheiks-el-Djebel, and who has seen MountAlamout and the eight castles and the fifty thousand Hassanis in whiteturbans and in robes of white;--_you_--Azure-blue eyes--heed theYarlig!--or may thirty thousand calamities overtake you!"
There was a dead silence; then he went on seriously: "It is decreed: Youshall cease to remember that you are a Yezidee, that you are of theHassanis, that you ever have laid eyes on Yian the Beautiful, that youever set naked foot upon Mount Alamout. It is decreed that you remembernothing of what you have seen and heard, of what has been told andtaught during the last four years reckoned as the Christians reckon fromour Year of the Bull. Otherwise--my Master sends you this foryour--_convenience_."
Leisurely, from under his folded overcoat, the young man produced a rollof white cloth and dropped it at her feet and the girl shrank aside,shuddering, knowing that the roll of white cloth was meant for herwinding-sheet.
Then the colour came back to lip and cheek; and, glancing up from thesoft white shroud, she smiled at the young man: "Have you ended yourOriental mummery?" she asked calmly. "Listen very seriously in yourturn, Sanang, Sheik-el-Djebel, Prince of the Hassanis who, God knowswhen and how, have come out into the sunshine of this clean and decentcountry, out of a filthy darkness where devils and sorcerers make eartha hell.
"If you, or yours, threaten me, annoy me, interfere with me, I shall goto our civilised police and tell all I know concerning the Yezidees. Imean to live. Do you understand? You know what you have done to me andmine. I come back to my own country alone, without any living kin, poor,homeless, friendless,--and, perhaps, damned. I intend, nevertheless, tosurvive. I shall not relax my clutch on bodily existence wha
tever theYezidees may pretend to have done to my soul. I am determined to live inthe body, anyway."
He nodded gravely.
She said: "Out at sea, over the fog, I saw the sign of Yu-lao in firefloating in the day-sky. I saw his spectral moon rise and vanish inmid-heaven. I understood. But----" And here she suddenly showed an edgeof teeth under the full scarlet upper lip: "Keep your signs and yourshrouds to yourself, dog of a Yezidee!--toad!--tortoise-egg!--he-goatwith three legs! Keep your threats and your messages to yourself! Keepyour accursed magic to yourself! Do you think to frighten me with yoursorcery by showing me the Moons of Yu-lao?--by opening a bolted door? Iknow more of such magic than do you, Sanang--Death Adder of Alamout!"
Suddenly she laughed aloud at him--laughed insultingly in hisexpressionless face:
"I saw you and Gutchlug Khan and your cowardly Tchortchas inred-lacquered jackets slink out of the Temple of Erlik where the bronzegong thundered and a cloud settled down raining little yellow snakes allover the marble steps--all over you, Prince Sanang! You were _afraid_,my Tougtchi!--you and Gutchlug and your red Tchortchas with theirhalberds all dripping with human entrails! And I saw you mount andgallop off into the woods while in the depths of the magic cloud whichrained little yellow snakes all around you, we temple girls laughed andmocked at you--at you and your cowardly Tchortcha horsemen."
A slight tinge of pink came into the young man's pale face. Tressa Nornestepped nearer, her levelled pistol resting on her hip.
"Why did you not complain of us to your Master, the Old Man of theMountain?" she asked jeeringly. "And where, also, was your Yezidee magicwhen it rained little snakes?--What frightened you away--who had boldlycome to seize a temple girl--you who had screwed up your couragesufficiently to defy Erlik in his very shrine and snatch from his templea young thing whose naked body wrapped in gold was worth the chance ofdeath to you?"
The young man's top-hat dropped to the floor. He bent over to pick itup. His face was quite expressionless, quite colourless, now.
"I went on no such errand," he said with an effort. "I went with athousand prayers on scarlet paper made in----"
"A lie, Yezidee! You came to seize _me_!"
He turned still paler. "By Abu, Omar, Otman, and Ali, it is not true!"
"You lie!--by the Lion of God, Hassini!"
She stepped closer. "And I'll tell you another thing you fear--youYezidee of Alamout--you robber of Yian--you sorcerer of Sabbah Khan, andchief of his sect of Assassins! You fear this native land of mine,America; and its laws and customs, and its clear, clean sunshine; andits cities and people; and its police! Take that message back. WeAmericans fear nobody save the true God!--nobody--neither Yezidee norHassani nor Russ nor German nor that sexless monster born of hell andcalled the Bolshevik!"
"Tokhta!" he cried sharply.
"Damn you!" retorted the girl; "get out of my room! Get out of my sight!Get out of my path! Get out of my life! Take that to your Master ofMount Alamout! I do what I please; I go where I please; I live as Iplease. And if I please, _I turn against him_!"
"In that event," he said hoarsely, "there lies your winding-sheet on thefloor 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 youYezidees tell me, that you have caught my soul in a net and that yoursorcerers really control its destiny.
"But damned or not, I passionately desire to live. And I am cowardenough to hold my peace for the sake of living. So--I remain silent. Ihave no stomach to defy the Yezidees; because, if I do, sooner or laterI shall be killed. I know it. I have no desire to die for others--toperish for the sake of the common good. I am young. I have suffered toomuch; I am determined to live--and let my soul take its chances betweenGod 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 toopen bolted doors as well as you do. And I know _other things_. And ifyou ever again come to me in this life I shall first torture you, thenslay you. Then I shall tell all!... and unroll my shroud."
"I keep your word of promise until you break it," he interruptedhastily. "Yarlig! It is decreed!" And then he slowly turned as though toglance over his shoulder at the locked and bolted door.
"Permit me to open it for you, Prince Sanang," said the girl scornfully.And she gazed steadily at the door.
Presently, all by itself, the key turned in the lock, the bolt slidback, the door gently opened.
Toward it, white as a corpse, his overcoat on his left arm, his stickand top-hat in the other hand, crept the young man in his faultlessevening garb.
Then, as he reached the threshold, he suddenly sprang aside. A smallyellow snake lay coiled there on the door sill. For a full throbbingminute the young man stared at the yellow reptile in unfeigned horror.Then, very cautiously, he moved his fascinated eyes sideways and gazedin silence at Tressa Norne.
The girl laughed.
"Sorceress!" he burst out hoarsely. "Take that accursed thing from mypath!"
"What thing, Sanang?" At that his dark, frightened eyes stole toward thethreshold again, seeking the little snake. But there was no snake there.And when he was certain of this he went, twitching and trembling allover.
Behind him the door closed softly, locking and bolting itself.
And behind the bolted door in the brightly lighted bedroom Tressa Nornefell on both knees, her pistol still clutched in her right hand, callingpassionately upon Christ to forgive her for the dreadful ability she haddared to use, and begging Him to save her body from death and her soulfrom the snare of the Yezidee.
