The E. Hoffmann Price Fantasy & Science Fiction

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “Beastly awkward,” Powell muttered as he stalked from the hut.

  The tall Afghan moved from the foot of Nur Mahal’s cot and toward the door. “Sahib,” he said, “now that these sons of wild pigs are gone, I will tell thee something. Be of good cheer. As long as you watch here, I also watch, and I shall slay no one as long as you are busy attending to her wounds as you once did mine.”

  Steele sighed. He was considerably relieved. “That’s fine, Achmet.”

  “Later, there will be enough time to do that which is to be done,” the Afghan explained.

  CHAPTER 7

  Another devil-haunted Burmese night, when every furtive stirring and twittering outside the hut frayed Steele’s nerves. He was still watching beside the nautch girl’s cot. A kerosene flare cast a flickering yellowish light on her immobile features. Every other resource having failed, Steele had administered opiates to blot out Nur Mahal’s delirium.

  Fear, rather than fever induced by infection, was the danger. If he could keep her from worrying herself to death, her natural vitality would have a chance. Her sister’s fate, much more than her own injuries, held Nur Mahal’s life in the balance.

  Steele was nodding from weariness. He had been guarding a secret from Powell, and most of all from Achmet, who still squatted in the doorway. Only the haggard American had gotten a close look at Nur Mahal. He was no longer entirely certain that leopard claws and fangs had caused her wounds. The other victim, beyond any help, had been turned over to those who laid out the dead; the nautch girl was the first one to receive close scrutiny.

  Steele had long since forgotten the difference between being asleep and awake. Nur Mahal, unevenly divided between terror and opium, was beginning to make him wonder what difference there was between life and death. And thinking of those curious wounds had ended by making him doubt whether more than a hair divided man and beast.

  He cursed that treacherous memory which had exhumed the sense if not the exact words of Iacobus Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer. His first verdict on the opinions of the two German priests had been, “Wretched superstition!” Bit by bit he modified that to, “Logical, but impossible.” And now he not only admitted the logic, but failed to deny the possibility.

  Burma had been getting under his skin. The uncounted millions of malignant nats, the sorcerers who peopled the forest, the tattooed symbols the natives wore to counteract the oppression of Thagya-Min, Lord of Demon-Land: these things became increasingly real to Steele during his long vigil beside Nur Mahal. He told himself that oft-repeated suggestions were poisoning his mind. Then he asked himself, “But what suggested these things to the natives?”

  The answer was remorseless enough: Burma and her breathing soil.

  He started, jerked violently, and sat upright. Nur Mahal was stirring. As the opiate wore off, she murmured uneasily. Her thin hands, almost transparent in the light, rose in a clawing gesture. He could not understand what she said; he was not even sure that it was in Hindustani.

  Steele fumbled for a cigarette. He had none. He glanced toward the door. The big Afghan no longer crouched at the entrance.

  “Achmet!” He listened, heard no stirring outside, nor any reply. He raised his voice. “Achmet!”

  The Afghan was beyond earshot, or he would have answered. His revolver lay on a packing-case near the door. It was loaded with the hand-cast silver bullets. He had apparently left his master a charmed weapon to take the place of the rifle which had so consistently failed.

  And there was another inference: Achmet’s pent-up wrath and fear had sent him out to settle Kirby.

  The camp was beyond hailing distance. Steele could not abandon his patient for long enough to get in touch with Powell. He was trembling, not from any ordinary fear, but from a premonition. He began to feel that this eerie drama was marching to a climax; that one careless move would undo all his work. But it would be almost as bad, if Achmet ran amuck and cut Kirby to pieces. Stolid, plodding British law would show the loyal fellow no consideration.

  Steele reached for his rifle. He stepped out into the chilly mists of the jungle. The moon was clearing the treetops that fringed the clearing. The night had become a whirl of silver glamour and deception. No small animals made any disturbance, nor did any birds cry out or twitter. Strangely, the murmuring forest had become a tomb tenanted by a haggard man, and a girl who wavered between life and death.

  Steele raised the heavy weapon to his shoulder. He fired one barrel, and as the clearing’s farther side threw back the blast, he cut loose with the second charge. That would arouse Powell and the whole camp, and interfere with Achmet’s plans.

  The spare cartridges were on the improvised table, near Nur Mahal’s cot. This was hardly more than three strides, but Steele had no chance to reload. The matting wall of the hut parted, and the spotted slayer entered. The beast flowed through the breach, and into the room.

  For an instant they faced each other. The leopard snarled, and its tail lashed slowly. Its silken hide rippled, and its phosphorescent eyes radiated malevolence beyond that of any animal. From long experience with hunters, the beast knew that the rifle was empty; thus it was no longer necessary to wait for the watcher to doze. The only problem now was to take the choice of victims.

  Steele was far heavier than the undersized Burmese the brute had carried away, or the frail nautch girl. In that instant of appraisal, he sensed what the leopard’s choice would be. As the great cat whirled toward the cot, Steele snatched Achmet’s revolver. He had to move too fast for any chance of aim.

  The blast shook the flimsy shelter. Steele moved as in a nightmare in which time had ceased. Only split seconds had passed since he emptied the express rifle. Powell and his men would scarcely be on the way. It would all be over before they arrived.

  The leopard wheeled from Nur Mahal. Any other of its kind would have fled, since a way of retreat was open; but Satan in a spotted coat had come to Kokogon, and Steele’s blazing weapon had not yet left his hip when the beast lunged. This would be hand to hand. Whether or not he riddled the beast, the long fangs and raking claws would finish him.

  He flung himself aside and thrust out the heavy revolver to ward off the attack. If that first leap missed, he had a chance.

  The leopard shouldered Steele off balance, just as he jerked another shot. The barrel burst, half blinding him with flecks of burning powder. Achmet’s hand-loaded cartridges had kicked back, leaving the gunner stunned and unarmed, the useless butt and warped breech mechanism in his bleeding hand.

  The leopard, missing its victim, flashed in a silken arc through the doorway. Steele did not see it land and whirl, ready to close in again. He had snatched the rifle and was bounding toward the cartridges on the little table. Whether his trembling hands could shove them into the breech in time was an open question.

  Then he heard a yell. Still fumbling with the shells, Steele sidestepped, facing the doorway. The crouching leopard’s leap was checked before it fairly began. An arc of frosty metal blazed in the moonglow, and something dark dropped from the tree near the hut. It masked some of the beast’s body.

  There was a terrific snarling, a man’s guttural voice, and the rise and fall of a blade. Achmet, dropping from overhead, had struck with his tulwar. As he hacked, he cried above the chunk of steel biting flesh, “I split him from end to end, sahib! Yea, the slayer and spoiler is slain!”

  A huddle of fur twitched in a spreading pool of blood. Steele was dazed and trembling. In the distance, he heard shouting: Powell, and the chatter of natives aroused by the firing.

  “Your silver bullets nearly finished me! The next time you load any cartridges, don’t ram the slugs too tight. Not with smokeless powder, you big ape. That’s a different matter from the kind you fellows use back home. But what were you doing up in that tree?”

  The Afghan wiped his tulwar on his baggy trousers. “I hid there, sahib, knowing that
you would presently call me. And when I did not answer, you would begin shouting ‘damn’ after the fashion of the infidels, saving your honor’s presence. Then the shaitan-leopard would know you were alone, and when he attacked—”

  “Nice,” said Steele, “except that he slipped from the rear, and nearly finished me before you got into action. But it worked, and—” Then he saw Achmet’s change of expression.

  His glance followed the Afghan’s gesture. “Look—ya chahar yar! O Four Companions of the Holy Prophet! The demon leopard is becoming a man!”

  Steele stood there and watched it happen. He could not speak. He could only stare. The blood-splashed tawny body was becoming tenuous and misty. He could almost see through it. Its shape was altering, as though a figure of sea foam were slowly collapsing. When the dissolution was complete, he would know what was dark and solid beneath that thinning phantom shape.

  Shrubbery crashed, torches flared. Powell and a dozen natives came on the run. “I say, what’s all the shooting?” Then he saw Steele’s face and Achmet’s gesture, and the thing that lay on the red ground. Powell licked his lips and stuttered. “By Jove! The leopard. But it’s collapsing. Like a blasted omelette, if you know what I mean.”

  Achmet was saying, “I betake me to the Lord of the Daybreak for refuge against Satan the Stoned! It is not a leopard, but a man!”

  He was right. Kirby, slashed and stabbed, was now plain. He groaned and twisted. His lips were curled back in a snarl that showed his white teeth. Some incredible vitality still kept him alive. But the illusion of tawny fur and spots still persisted. That was what sickened Steele; he did not know whether this was a beast to be put out of its misery, or a human being who should get the last vain assistance which his own kind could render.

  “Kirby!” Powell muttered, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

  A snarl. A shudder. The phosphorescent eyes glazed. And as a match flame winking out, the last trace of illusion faded. The natives fled, screeching, now that their suspicions were confirmed. Dead or alive, a wizard is a fearsome thing. Achmet would have done the same, but if the sahibs could stand fast, so could he. But he muttered.

  Finally Powell said, “Ghastly! Simply can’t believe it, but there it was. Glad I saw it happen. If you’d told me this, I’d have been forced to conclude your man Achmet had made good his threat. That you were—ah—lying to save his hide.” Steele nodded and said nothing. Powell had to have reasons; what had happened upset all his convictions. He demanded, “How do you account for it? Why couldn’t anyone kill it until now? Speak up, man! Blast it, you were telling me something about a chap named Sprenger, and another one, Kramer—here, the other night.”

  “So I was. Kirby himself dropped a hint the first day I arrived, though he probably wasn’t aware of it. He told me that last season he aroused antagonism among some of the native wizards by felling a sacred tree which blocked a runway leading from the forest to the creek.

  “But no one will ever know just how the wizards put a curse on Kirby, to make him prowl around at night and become a leopard.”

  “Curse!” Powell had to deny himself any admissions that would confirm what he had seen. “A leopard’s body and bones can’t become those of a man, and then change back again.”

  Steele smiled and made a helpless gesture. “Possibly not. What I mean is that what we saw was not actually leopard form. We saw Kirby, and his beast-personality was uppermost, so strongly that its impact made us for the moment visualize a leopard. Those priests, Iacobus Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer, as I was on the verge of telling you the other night, suggested that the transformation of human to animal is only apparent, because of a spell laid upon the eyes of all beholders.”

  “Ah—you mean, this poor devil’s obsession was so strong that we joined him in believing? Like a bally hypnotist’s suggestion?”

  “That’s as close to it as we can ever come,” Steele answered. “And it likewise hints at the reason for my rotten shooting. A lot of it doubtless was nerves, the uncanniness of everything shaking me in spite of myself. Then again, Kirby might not have been on all fours. But with the leopard image so deeply burned into me, I thought I saw a crouching beast, and fired accordingly. So I drove the bullets between his knees, for instance.”

  Powell frowned, nodded, and muttered something about hypnotism. Having a definition put him more at ease. Then he looked up and demanded, “But this Afghan chap? Very successful.”

  “When he dropped from the tree, milling that tulwar, he covered more ground than any number of bullets. Regardless of posture or illusion, Kirby could not avoid being slashed. And Kirby, I think, could not have been conscious of what he did by night. The poor devil was the most bewildered and harassed of us all, when he shook off the leopard obsession and became himself.”

  Powell tugged at his mustaches. “Those blasted Burmese wizards!” he muttered, uneasily.

  Then he said, “Nice work, old chap. I mean, your man Achmet seems to have qualified for the reward. Frightfully embarrassing, putting it that way, but he was swinging the tulwar, you know.”

  Steele sighed. “I’m glad I didn’t win. With the way it turned out, I couldn’t accept it. Perhaps Kirby did have some underhanded reason for offering you forged credentials, but God knows, he didn’t plan to become anything like that.”

  They turned to tell the tall Afghan that he had earned more rupees than any of his clan had seen in generations; but Achmet was no longer standing by. He was in the hut, kneeling beside the nautch girl.

  “El hamdulilahi!” he was muttering. “Praise be to Allah, the fever is gone and Satan the Stoned has flown away.”

  She was still unconscious, but he would be there when the opiate lost its hold.

  Powell said to Steele, “Lucky beggar, that chap. Seems as though he’ll be collecting a double reward.”

  KHOSRU’S GARDEN

  Originally published in Weird Tales, May 1940.

  Life was becoming somewhat too bewildered, too perplexing for Elmer Bayne. He had just made two startling discoveries. The first should not have amazed him, but it did. His wife, Elise was in love with Hillman Terry, a clever fellow who could arrange almost anything.

  No one else was astonished, or even especially interested, except for mildly wondering when Bayne would wake up. Someone at the club suggested that he would someday need a comptometer to total Elise’s score. This exaggeration had enough truth to make good irony.

  Bayne’s other discovery was a secret, and one he carefully guarded. Before making any use of his new power, he waited until Elise drove to Del Monte to watch a polo match. Hillman Terry did play polo, but there were neither enough games nor horses to account for such constant activity.

  The first proof of this new power was made the day after that night on the terrace, when he had seen the lovers without himself being seen. Alone, in the large beamed living-room which overlooked Atherton and the distant bay, Bayne had been sitting there trying to think it out. He was tall and blondish, and except for his eyes, he did not look as gentle and bewildered as he actually was; though anyone could see that Bayne was inclined to be scholarly, at least when not at work.

  “Tolerance,” he said to himself, as his eyes went slightly out of focus from long staring at the shimmering web of the antique garden carpet that filled a whole panel of the opposite wall. “Tolerance. I can’t expect Elise to be serious-minded. Maybe she’s gone too far this time, but she’s young and frivolous and can’t help it.”

  No doubt that Elise was frivolous; vivacious, with a high gloss and a hard finish, but she wasn’t much younger than Bayne. She merely thought she was. Thoughts are strange things, as Bayne was about to discover.

  “I must be modern,” he lectured himself. “Resentment reflects back. It mends nothing and it damages much.”

  He was not quite able to define “modern.” This made his sandy brows pucker in a small fro
wn, a scholarly frown rather than one of exasperation. “Modern,” he repeated. “It seems to mean too many Martinis, and trying to kiss everyone at the cocktail party. That’s not so bad, in itself. But it doesn’t stop there.”

  He was not afraid of women, and they liked him well enough, but Bayne was not inclined to seek such revenge. Nor could he lecture Elise. That would be uncivilized, a falling off of human dignity. His reasoning went in circles. Every once in a while, indignation gained enough to make him pace the length of the long, shadowy room. His footfalls were soundless.

  An unusually large Boukhara carpet masked the parquetry. It had come from an emir’s palace, and it shimmered like a monstrous garnet. Neither Bayne nor anyone else had ever appraised it. Such things are beyond valuation, no matter what one pays for them. So, Bayne told himself, was Elise’s dignity, but how establish that point without mutual resentment?

  He seated himself again, touched light to a cigarette, and promptly extinguished it. His head ached a little, his eyelids had an irritating twitch. So did his feet. He kicked off his slippers. In spite of his efforts to be civilized and tolerant, he was becoming good and sore about Elise and Terry. So he forced himself to consider the Garden Carpet that hung on the opposite wall. Like the one on the floor, it had also come from a palace, and it was incredibly fine and rare.

  Bayne was a collector of fine things, though at times he had his doubts when he considered Elise. But for the moment, he did not regard the splendid shimmering web as a museum prize. It was rather a sedative. Whenever he looked at it intently, resentment thinned, vanished; the world centered in that Persian landscape. An artificial world, ordained by an artist whose soul had been in harmony with all things; the sort of place in which Bayne would like to live.

  Sometimes, of late, he had begun to consider the Garden Carpet as a gate into another realm. On this certain afternoon, the fancy became a wish. Without any conscious intent, he rose, barefooted, and walked slowly toward the hanging carpet.