by Harold Lamb
“How dress these precious masked servants of Bon?”
“How should I know, honorable warrior?”
Khlit stared at Lo Ch'un, scowling. A change had come over the wrinkled face of the Chinaman. All expression had faded from his half-shut eyes. His voice was smooth as before, but less assured.
It was clear to the Cossack that his host regretted his speech of a moment ago. Wherefore? Perhaps the woman at the curtain had warned Lo Ch'un. Perhaps it was the mention of Bator Khan. Khlit rose and grasped the shoulder of Lo Ch'un.
“Harken, keeper of a dirty house,” he whispered. “I shall stay in Khoten. If I meet with ill treatment from those you call the black hats, I shall have a tale to tell them of a loose tongued Lo Ch'un. Meditate upon that. The priests like not to have their secrets talked of.”
The dim eyes of the tavern-keeper widened slightly and he licked his lips. With a sudden motion he shook himself from the Cossack and vanished behind the curtain.
VIII
Khlit smiled to himself, well pleased. If Lo Ch'un was actually under the kang of the priests, the man might tell them that Khlit purposed to remain in Khoten. Which would be well, considering that the Cossack doubted not Hamar planned to be on his way shortly.
Doubtless the three fugitives had stopped at Khoten but for provisions. Khlit turned this over in his mind. If he had been in Chauna Singh's place he would have sent one man in for the food and remained without the town. Surely it was dangerous for Nur-Jahan here.
But then, he reasoned, Chauna Singh—shrewd in fighting— was a blunt man, of few brains. On the other hand, Hamar should have known better than to come to Khoten. Well, after all, the crafty minstrel had been obliged to follow the other two. He had had no chance, owing to the intrusion of Bator Khan, to confer with them before they left the caravansary.
Where was Hamar? Had he found the other two? What was keeping him?
Khlit yawned, for he was sleepy. It would not do for him to fall asleep here in the house of Lo Ch'un. He determined to go forth and seek the minstrel.
As the Cossack pushed through the door, he saw, from the corner of his eye, a man rise from a table and follow. Khlit continued on his way, but once in the shadows beside the door frame— darkness had fallen on the town—he drew back against the wall. Experience had taught him it was not well to let another come after him from a place where were many enemies.
No sooner had he done so than another appeared in the doorway, peering into the dark street. Light shone on him from within and his features struck Khlit as familiar. It was a surly rascal in tattered garments—one of the men of Bator Khan.
The fellow looked up and down the street, muttering to himself. He did not see the Cossack in the deep shadows beside him. Then he stepped forward into the gloom at a quick pace. It was clear to Khlit that the man was seeking to follow him and angered at having missed him.
Khlit wasted no time in slipping after the camel driver. Two could play at that simple game, and if the other was interested in him he might do well to observe whither the man went.
The Cossack's keen brain was active as he pressed after the hurrying servant, keeping in the deep shadows of the low buildings. There was no moon, but occasional gleams from doorways served to reveal his guide.
Bator Khan must have arrived in Khoten. Moreover Khlit and Hamar had been traced to the tavern. How? Well, it mattered not. But Bator Khan alone could not have located them so speedily. Others must have given him information.
Here were tidings for Hamar and Chauna Singh when he met them. Khlit grinned to himself. The Rajput and the minstrel had shown little liking for his advice. Let them lie in the bed they had made for themselves! But there was the girl, Nur-Jahan— aye, Nur-Jahan.
Khlit paused. From a lighted door had come a fellow who spoke to the camel driver. The two whispered together. At once the man he was following turned aside down an alley.
The Cossack did not hesitate. Freeing a pistol in his belt, he made after the man. Boldness was Khlit's policy in any hazard. He had learned that it paid best to be on the move when there was danger afoot and leave indecision to his enemies.
Gloom was thick in the alley, and thick also the stench of decayed meat, fish oil, and dirt that filled it. The man ahead was running now, which was fortunate, for Khlit traced him by ear, trotting as lightly as his heavy boots permitted.
Down the alley into another the two passed; from thence to a wide square—evidently a bazaar—where crowds loitered. The light was better here and the Cossack kept his man in sight until both halted before the shadowy pile of a massive building.
Khlit scanned the bulk of the place in the gloom. He made out a stone structure, windows unlit, a dim lantern over the postern door where his companion knocked.
A small panel opened in the upper half of the door and the camel driver was subjected to a long inspection. Whispered words passed between him and the person within. Whereupon the door swung open, the servant passed inside and a tall form in mail and a black cloak appeared.
It was a spearman, helmeted and grim of visage. He yawned sleepily, leaning on the haft of his weapon.
So, Khlit thought, the place—whatever it might be—was guarded. A building of that size could only be a temple or palace. And it had not the look of the latter. Khlit yearned to see what was within. The spearman did not look overshrewd.
The Cossack had learned that it was easier to get out of a building than to get in—easier sometimes than to find a place of safety else—where among many enemies. Still, it would hardly do to use violence on the spearman. He might have comrades within.
Khlit swaggered up to the man.
“Bator Khan sends me,” he said briefly in Uigur. “A message for those within.”
He was watching the fellow's face keenly. At a sign of suspicion the Cossack would have turned back. But the bearded countenance was sleepily indifferent.
“It is well,” the other growled. “If you see one of the black hats about, bid him send me a relief. The men within must have weighty business on hand, for they hum through the corridors like a swarm of insects. But I must eat and sleep.”
Khlit passed him by without reply. He found himself in a low, long hall. At one side was a bare chamber, evidently a guard room, and empty. The Cossack paced the length of the corridor warily. At the end a flight of stone steps led upward.
These he ascended to an ill-lighted hall where two men— Chinamen—sat on benches that ran around the wall. They were dressed as servants, and unarmed. Khlit spoke to them gruffly.
“The man at the gate bids the black hats send him a relief.”
One arose at this and Khlit motioned impatiently at the other. Both left the chamber with the submissiveness of the underlings of their race. Khlit judged them little better than slaves.
He was about to go forward, when he paused in his tracks. A strong, clear voice had spoken. Yet Khlit saw that there was no one in the room with him. The voice had seemed but a few paces distant.
Again it came, loud but muffled. Whispers repeated the words from the corners of the chamber, and fainter whispers down the stairs.
A cold tremor touched Khlit's back and he swore under his breath. Was the room filled with men he could not see? What manner of place was this?
Then he realized the cause of the mystery. The room was lofty, of bare stone. The voice came from an adjoining corridor and the echoes of the empty halls carried the sound to where he stood.
IX
Grim and desolate was the abode of Bon, the Destroyer, in the city of Khoten. Narrow embrasures formed the windows. In the great hall of the temple proper were ranged the fetishes—miniatures of the monstrous idols in the main temple of Bon in the mountains.
In the annals of the ancient city of Khoten it is written that the secrets of Bon were safeguarded jealously. Access to the temple was difficult. Those who came to speak to the bonpas—priests— were not allowed to see the face of the man they conversed with. Especially was
this true when one of the higher order of the mountain temple visited the Khoten sanctuary.
So a reception room was contrived, artfully designed so that the priest standing behind a curtain in the room would have his words carried to the ears of his visitor by echoes. The visitors stood sometimes in the chamber itself, on the outer side of the curtain, sometimes in the hall at the head of the entrance stairs— according to their degree of intimacy with the bonpas.
For the rest, the sanctuary was a place of silence, ill-omened. For the bonpas were worshipers not of Buddha or Brahma, but of Bon, the incarnate spirit of power, drawing strength through destruction and death. Thus they were allied to the tantiik sect of Kali, the four-armed.
In their halls few men showed their faces. By night men and women were brought into the halls, who left them cringing or laughing aloud, vacantly as those whose minds are disordered.
Bator Khan and his servant being followers of the bonpas were admitted to the reception chamber on the night that the Turkoman's caravan came to Khoten.
They stood uneasily before a heavy black curtain which stretched the length of the room. At one end of this curtain was placed a priest of Bon, masked—as was their habit during a ceremonial or a visit from their superiors of the mountain temple. This mask was merely a bag-like length of cloth, dropping over the face from the black hat and painted gruesomely to awe those who visited the sanctuary.
The black hat itself consisted of a helmet-like cap of felt—to distinguish the followers of Bon from the yellow hats, who were servants of the Dalai Lama of Lhassa. In addition, the bonpa by the curtain held—as sigil of his office—a trumpet of human bone.
“Your message!” he whispered to the two. “He who waits behind the curtain is impatient of delay.”
Bator Khan's pig-like face was moist from perspiration.
“I was sent, O favored of Bon,” he repeated huskily, “into the desert to seek the woman Nur-Jahan. Behold, I was aided by the god, for I came upon them in a caravansary. They be four—three men, two warriors, and the third a wandering musician—and a woman. Surely this is Nur-Jahan. I followed the four into Khoten, where I dispatched my men to find their abiding place.”
He paused, licking his thick lips. The attendant by the curtain regarded him impassively from the mask.
“This man—” he pointed to the camel driver—“found Hamar, the minstrel, and the old warrior at the noisome house of Lo Ch'un. Hamar went forth into the streets and we saw him not, owing to some black sorcery of which the man is master.” There was no response from the voice behind the curtain— naught save the echoes of the Turkoman's hurried words.
“As to Chauna Singh and the woman,” continued Bator Khan, “they hide in the slave market. Truly, I do not think that Hamar has seen them yet. This man of mine has kept watch on the one at Lo Ch'un's. That is all, may it please the Presence.”
Still there was no response. The camel driver paled visibly and stared at the curtain. Bator Khan breathed heavily. The grim mask of the attendant leered at them sardonically.
“I found the woman Nur-Jahan,” protested Bator Khan defensively.
There was the sound of a laugh from the curtain, a sound taken up and passed down the corridor fitfully. The Turkoman shivered slightly.
“Dog of a dog's begetting,” he heard, “think you to trick those who serve the gods—with lies? You were sent to find and slay the woman Nur-Jahan. Have you done so? Blunderer— braggart—heart-of-a-jackal—vermin-of-a-dunghill! The enemies of Bon have clouded your wits. We have heard what passed at the caravansary.”
Bator Khan would have spoken, but the voice went on swiftly.
“In the desert you had the four at your mercy. By a device of the minstrel, Hamar, the woman escaped. You have not seen her since. Speak, is not this the truth?”
The Turkoman gulped and muttered—
“Aye.”
“What has the camel driver to say?”
The man started and glanced furtively to the door through which he had come. But a motion of the masked priest brought his gaze to the curtain.
“O exalted-of-the-gods, source-of-divine-wisdom,” he chattered, “hear the follower who is less than the dirt beneath the hoofs of your horse. I watched the man Khlit at the tavern. He talked long with Lo Ch'un in a tongue I knew not. So I dispatched word to him by one of the harlots of the place to guard well his tongue. Then, when the tall plainsman left, I followed, and I— I—”
His eyes widened and he lifted hand to mouth as he sought for words.
“And he escaped your sight?”
“Aye—it was dark—a comrade of Bon sent me hither—I did my best!”
The man fell on his knees, raising arms over head.
“Fate has written a seal on your forehead, driver of camels,” observed the priest behind the curtain.
“It was dark!” cried the ruffian.
“Is Bon to be served by such as you?” the voice rang out mockingly. “Nay, the god has better servants. Harken, Bator Khan. The day after the morrow is the feast day of Bon, the Destroyer. You know the rites of the feast day. The hand of Bon will be stretched over the city, and the god will rise in his strength. He must be worshiped. There will be a sacrifice.”
Bator Khan lifted a hand to wipe the moisture from his brow.
“Votaries of the god,” cried the voice, “will offer their lives. Lo, the home of the god is in the sacred mountains of Himachal, to the south. There is his sanctuary. The votaries will walk, unarmed and afoot, into the mountains, up, over the snowline. No man—not even a priest of the temple—may molest them. They will die in the summits of Himachal. Will you and the carrion that is your man offer yourselves as votaries?”
The echoes growled the words, drawn out into a long sound that was almost a shriek.
“Sacred Himachal is the abode of Mansarowar, the beast Man-sarowar. Lo, the mountain abode is the fulfillment of human desires, Bator Khan—and human death. Those who journey up bearing the mark of Bon will not return. Should they come back— if they survived the cold of the summits—to Khoten, the hand of the bonpas would slay them, slowly as if they were smitten with leprosy.”
The wretched men stared blindly at the black curtain. But when Bator Khan had made as if to speak, the voice went on.
“But you are too miserable an offering for Bon. Live then, for a time—it will not be long. Fate has set its mark on you. Meanwhile, the priest will see that Nur-Jahan and her men do not leave the city. When the feast comes, they will be sought out and brought into the crowd of worshipers. There a cry will be raised against them, and they will have heart and bowels torn out by the followers of the god. It will be a pleasing sight. Now, away from here and live—if you can escape the writing of fate.” Whereupon the two turned and ran from the chamber. The masked priest watched them pass into the corridor. Then he moved his head alertly. From the outer hall, below the steps came the clash of weapons and a cry.
The priest hesitated, glancing at the motionless curtain. The ways of the man behind the curtain were sometimes secret and past knowing. Yet he had not known that the two were to be slain as they left. A second clamor, ended by a heavy fall, aroused his suspicions and he ran out into the hall above the stairs. Two frightened servants joined him.
The three descended the stairs and passed into the entrance corridor. There they halted. The bodies of Bator Khan and the camel driver were prone on the stone floor. The mail-clad form of the spear-man who had been sentry at the gate sprawled over them on hands and knees. His weapon lay beside him, the point severed from the haft.
The masked priest bent over him as the man sank to the floor, groaning weakly. A thin stream of blood trickled from his neck. “Fool!” cried the priest. “Have you slain the Turkoman?” The other coughed bestially, shaking his head. He was near death. “Another—a curved sword.”
He pointed to the door which was open.
The priest and the servants ran out. In the shadows of the street a tall figure show
ed for an instant, then vanished.
The masked priest made as if to follow, then hesitated. Three armed men had been struck down in the space of a minute—and he did not follow.
X
Khlit and Hamar had waited in the ebony and lacquered room over the tavern of Lo Ch'un for the space of a day. The Cossack liked the room little. Tarnished silk covered the walls, and the varied odors of the alley outside, issuing through a circular window, did not relieve the smell of musk which pervaded the place.
Now and then the women of the place—girls of China, Samarkand, with one or two Georgians—peered in through the hangings of the single door but did not linger, seeing who was within. Khlit sat on a bench against the further wall wiping his sword with a fragment of silk and watching the door, while Hamar squatted beside him, tuning his guitar softly.
They had seen nothing of Nur-Jahan or Chauna Singh since their arrival in Khoten. Hamar reported that the two must be among the caravans of the slave market.
Evidently, thought Khlit, the girl and the Rajput had been kept from coming to the tavern. That they had not fallen into the hands of the bonpas he knew from the talk he had overheard in the temple of Bon. Nur-Jahan, he reasoned, had guessed at the peril she faced in the streets of Khoten and had remained in hiding.
The death of the three in the hall of the temple caused him no second thought. Not otherwise could he have escaped from the place, and they had had time to draw their weapons.
He had told the minstrel of what passed the night before.
“It is fate.” Hamar waved a lean hand, sniffing at a perfume he carried in a flask about his throat. “Higher than the scheming of the servants of the gods, khan, is the unalterable will which brings death to all things. What is to be, will be. What are the gods? Men worship them because they fear them. A dozen priesthoods wax fat on fear. They say there are good deities. How can it be so?”
Khlit fingered the gold cross at his neck.
“This is an evil place, Hamar,” he observed. “A city in the waste of a desert—caravans that hold revelry herein—black priests that hold the city in their power. Hey! I have not seen the cross of a church for many Winters.”