by Harold Lamb
Above their heads the dark pile of a building took shape amid the rain. It was lofty, rising from a walled courtyard. A tower surmounted the gateway.
For an instant the rain dwindled, and, a fresh wind springing up, Khlit saw that the wall they had been following shielded a cliff. The mass of the building they had come to lay against the edge of the cliff.
Out and below them he glimpsed a level plain cut by a winding river.
“The valley of the Indus!” cried Nur-Jahan, stirring in the Rajput's hold. “We must be near to Leh!”
Hamar laughed and stretched his thin arms overhead.
“Aye—near!” he muttered. “A slave upon a buffalo might ride to Leh within two days—but we are not at Leh. Ho, between us and there be the men of Jahangir. But we be here. Come, we are late!”
With that he hurried under the gate into the courtyard, pulling at the bridle of the horse. As he did so the rain closed in again, shutting off the sight of the valley. Khlit stumbled after the horse. But within the court he hesitated.
No men were to be seen. No windows showed in the stone walls which disappeared into the mist overhead. Shadows wreathed the corners. Before them was an iron-studded door. Complete silence reigned in the place.
For a moment the mind of the Cossack was prey to illusion. He had a fancy that their week's journey had taken them nowhere— that they were still at Khoten. A chord of memory had been touched and wrought the illusion. Then again, in the shadows of the court he fancied shapes appeared and moved.
Against the wall was a shadowy form, monstrous and cold. It was an animal of gigantic form—or was it an animal? He had heard priests tell of Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, and Hanu-man, the monkey-god.
Then Khlit shook his head savagely and saw that what he beheld was a stone image at one side of the door—an elephant of red sandstone with a figure mounted astride its neck.
Other shadows issued from the door—a light gleamed within. The people of the place had sighted them and were coming out. Khlit saw Nur-Jahan slip from the horse. It was well, he thought, for the woman must be faint. And he swore gruffly, because he had shivered again.
Then a gray shadow wheeled and brushed past him. Khlit drew back, staring. Surely this was Chauna Singh bent over the neck of the horse, riding from the place!
He drew his hand across his brow, cursing. The form was gone. But hoofs echoed on the road behind him, fading into the distance.
Why had Chauna Singh done this? Khlit knew not. He felt hands touch him and stumbled forward again.
These were shadows, he told himself. Yet without doubt they were men, for they touched him. Why could he not see their faces? Again came the illusive memory—this was Khoten, not Kashmir.
How could that be? Khlit summoned his strength and tried to see what was around him. He wished to see the men, not shadows. Yet they were not all men—some were women. Torchlight was in his eyes now, blinding him, for he had been in semidarkness for many hours.
The hands that were guiding him pushed him forward. A door closed behind him. The torches went before him down a hall—up some steps—into another hall. He heard voices which he did not understand.
His knee touched a bench and he sat upon it, for he was very weary. So much so that he had no desire for food. He craved rest and sleep. Here was warmth and shelter from the rain that had beat upon him for two days and a night. Rest—and sleep.
The torches went away. Khlit's head dropped on his shoulder— and he slept.
Only fitfully. For he woke from time to time, hearing a noise which disturbed him. It was a deep, echoing sound, like the beat of temple drums. After a long while Khlit lifted his head. Men were standing near him and the torches had come again.
Then Khlit knew what his memory had been trying to tell him. The place they had come to in the mist was like to the temple of Khoten—the sound of the drums was the same. The courtyard had been the same.
He looked full into the face of Hamar.
“Tell me, minstrel,” he muttered, “be we in Kashmir or back in the devil temple of Khoten?”
Hamar smiled, and the fever was still in his eyes.
“We were long in coming, khan. But I guided you truly. You and Nur-Jahan are in a temple—aye, but not that of Khoten. 'Tis the home of the god Bon, the shrine of the master of Himachal in Kashmir—and I have brought you here.”
XVII
Then Khlit looked about him. Several men in dark robes stood near, bearing torches. By their light he saw Nur-Jahan beside him, erect and silent, his sheepskin coat thrown from her shoulders, her garments shrunk to her slender body by the wet.
Others sat on benches in the shadows by the walls. They were white of face and wore the dress of the black priests. A long chamber stretched before him, lighted after a fashion by candles. At the end of the chamber was a dais of stone.
On this pedestal Khlit could see twin shapes that resembled feet of monstrous size. The rest of the form was hidden by a curtain which hung from the ceiling.
Again the sound of the gongs came to him, and Nur-Jahan spoke.
“You have brought us—here—Hamar? You who were my friend?”
“Aye,” said the minstrel slowly. “But what is friendship? Two leaves drifting together down the highway at the wind's touch. Lo, I am a servant of Bon. The other gods are small beside Bon. For greater than the many-faced gods is fate. And death is one with fate. Death is the power that holds us in its grasp—and I am a servant of death.”
He paused, to glance fleetingly at the curtain in the shadows. When he spoke again his voice was gentle.
“There lived one man, Nur-Jahan, who was strong enough to wrestle with fate. That was Akbar, the Mogul. Out of the threads of life his hands wove the fabric of an empire. He saw beyond the many shrines of the gods—Muslim or Brahman. He sought a greater wisdom than theirs. Even to the temple of Bon he came and bent his head.”
A murmur of assent issued from the lips of the men who sat by the wall. Nur-Jahan stared at them proudly.
“The word of Akbar was law among us, Nur-Jahan,” went on the minstrel. “His last thought was for his empire. A mighty man and strong, he. But he yielded to the call of death. And he ordered your death, for he foresaw trouble if you were joined to Jahangir.”
Khlit rose to his feet, the stupor of sleep clearing from his brain.
No one heeded him. The passive silence of the watchers irked him. Here was an evil place.
“The servants of Bon,” cried a voice from the gloom, “are enemies of the Muslims. The death of Nur-Jahan will be pleasing to the god.”
“Aye,” assented Hamar softly, “it is so. You have sharp eyes and wit, Nur-Jahan, beloved of the Mogul. But you were blind— you and the two fools who served you. I was the messenger of Bon, sent to Khoten to bring you hither. It was I who kept Bator Khan from striving to take your life in the desert of Gobi. For your two fools are strong of limb and they were watching the dog of a Turkoman. So I waited.”
“False to your salt!” mocked the girl.
“Nay, what is faith among men but an idle word? At Khoten I sought for you long, but Chauna Singh had hidden you well, and so I and those who served me might not harm you—then. Before the temple of Bon in the city your death was decreed. Yet, for once, your wit saved you—when you offered yourself a sacrifice.” “Was I one to be a victim to the mummery of the black priests?”
“Nay, Nur-Jahan, it is better so. You have given yourself to Bon, and the god will have your sacrifice. In the mountains I feared lest my feeble strength fail, and I should not guide you here. So I played the mystical music of Bon and was heartened.” Khlit held himself erect by an effort of will. His endurance had been sapped by the last three days, and he knew that he had not the strength to lift a weapon. Age had taken from him the vigor that was Chauna Singh's. Indeed, the priests had not troubled to take his sword. In the brief silence came the ceaseless beat of the temple gongs.
“By the Lake of Lamdok Tso,” smiled Ha
mar, “I thought that the will of the Rajput would rob me of your death. But fate had willed that it was not to be by his hand.”
“Aye,” said a voice, “they bound themselves over to the god, and thus it shall be.”
“Well I knew the way to this temple, Nur-Jahan. I prayed for strength to finish my task—and it was given me.”
XVIII
Khlit glanced around from face to face. He saw the same thing mirrored in all—the blood lust that had stirred the crowd in Khoten.
The beauty of Nur-Jahan only excited them further. The girl was pale, her thin cheeks ringed by dark, wet hair. But her eyes were proud.
Here was a true daughter of kings, thought the Cossack. Worn by the hardships they had been through, she still had spirit to confront those who hungered for her death.
“Better the swift hand of the Rajput!” she cried. “Than this thing of evil!”
“Nay, Nur-Jahan, queen among women,” smiled the minstrel-priest. “Chauna Singh is but a man. When he lifted his eyes in the courtyard and saw whither he had been brought, he fled. Here your blood will be laid before a god. You have sought to grasp the scepter of an empire in your lotus-hand, Nur-Jahan, but no one can wrest life from death. That which causes life causes also death.”
Khlit missed the sound that had been echoing through the hall. The temple gongs were silent.
“We shall not delay further, Nur-Jahan,” said a hard voice.
Khlit swayed and cursed his weakness. If he had been able to lift sword he would have flung himself upon the man who had betrayed them. But such was his weakness that he could not speak. Not so Nur-Jahan. The girl's dark eyes flashed.
“Ho, priest!” she cried. “Your folly has made you mad. Think you, when Jahangir hears of this, he will leave one stone upon another, of this temple? Will one of you—” she swept an arm at the watchers—“save his life, if you slay me? The arm of the Mogul is long, and his love is everlasting as the hills.”
“How shall he know?” Hamar smiled. “The khan who came with you will die at the same time. And Chauna Singh, remembering what he himself had planned to do, will not dare speak.
Jahangir will not know. No tales pass beyond the walls of this temple.”
Khlit shook his head, for he thought that the illusions of a few hours ago were returning. Voices came to his keen ears from without, and the halls of the temple echoed strangely. Nur-Jahan's cheeks, instead of being pale, had flushed, suddenly.
“Will you slay a woman, Hamar,” she cried loudly, “in this place of evil—and a woman who is loved of the Mogul?”
“Aye!” cried the voices around the wall, “for she has given herself!”
The sounds without grew in volume, swelling over the cries of the priests. Khlit wondered if many were coming to the hall. He knew not the customs of these temples. And still the clamor grew. Men rose along the wall and slipped from the door. Others glanced about uneasily.
Nur-Jahan had not ceased speaking. But Khlit paid no further heed to her. He had heard a sound which stirred his blood. Was it more of the mummery of the black priests? He knew not.
And then the girl fell silent. And silence held the room, with those who remained within it.
Hamar's eyes turned from them to the door. And Khlit saw that he was troubled. The gaze of the others followed that of the minstrel.
A crashing blow sounded somewhere below them. At once the muffled sounds swelled clearer, as if a gateway had been opened. And Khlit laughed. He had heard what he knew well—the echo of horses' hoofs—many of them—upon stone.
The priests rose and hurried to the door. Hamar stared blankly. Came a pistol shot, followed by the ring of weapons. Nur-Jahan caught Khlit's arm.
“Back!” she whispered. “Into the shadows.”
And then Khlit was standing, sword in hand, in the gloom by the foot of the god Bon. The tumult increased to a roar—a shout from many throats.
“Ho! Nila-ghora ki aswar!”
“The battle-cry of the Rajputs, khan,” whispered the girl, her eyes proud. “Said I not Jahangir was lord of swift swords? Harken—they are riding their horses into the temple. They have come to meet me—Jahangir has sent his men to meet me!” Khlit saw the bent form of Hamar scramble to the door, then pause, looking around wildly. A pistol cracked without the door and the man clutched the air, screaming. A wind swept into the place, blotting out many of the candles. On the stone floor the scattered torches were smouldering into embers.
Khlit roused himself to understanding of what had happened. “Nay,” he laughed, “Chauna Singh has paid his debt. The Rajput has brought hither the men from Leh. It is well.”
Whereupon, being weary, he sat down on the dais. And was asleep on the instant, his head pillowed on the foot of the god Bon.
Appendix
Adventure magazine, where all of the tales in this volume first appeared, maintained a letter column titled “The Camp-Fire.” As a descriptor, “letter column” does not quite do this regular feature justice. Adventure was published two and sometimes three times a month, and as a result of this frequency and the interchange of ideas it fostered, “The Camp-Fire” was really more like an Internet bulletin board of today than a letter column found in today's quarterly or even monthly magazines. It featured letters from readers, editorial notes, and essays from writers. If a reader had a question or even a quibble with a story, he could write in, and the odds were that the letter would not only be printed but that the story's author would draft a response.
Harold Lamb and other contributors frequently wrote lengthy letters that further explained some of the historical details that appeared in their stories. The letters about the stories included in this volume, with introductory comments by Adventure editor Arthur Sullivan Hoffman, follow, and appear in order of publication. The date of the issue of Adventure is indicated, along with the title of the Lamb story that appeared in the issue. Lamb did not write a letter about every story. Interestingly, despite previous information to the contrary, Hoffman's comments seem to indicate that Lamb drafted the first two letters here—and, following logically upon that, the first four or five Khlit the Cossack stories—while still in the army.
August 3, 1918: “Alamut”
An interesting word from H. A. Lamb concerning his story in this issue. Mr. Lamb, like several others of our writer's brigade, is still able to furnish us occasional stories though in the Army.
Alamut is not a creation of the author. It was one of the four castles of the Refik. The latter are more commonly known as the Ismailians, a sect that separated themselves from the other Mohammedans.
A secret empire, wielding murderous power, more powerful than the Knights Templars, the Council of Twelve, or the Ku Klux Klan! The “Old Man of the Mountain,” a master of the empire so feared by his subjects that two of them threw themselves from the high walls of a castle at the bidding of a priest in order to impress a foreign envoy! A paradise so devilishly ingenious that the warriors of the Refik threw away their lives readily in order to return, as they supposed, to the joys of the Ismailian paradise!
These were startling particulars, even for the adventurous times of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They proved, however, to be history and not legend. The dynasty of the Assassins, as the rulers of Alamut were called, holds its place among the kings of Persia. The Old Man of the Mountains, who should more correctly be called the Sheik of the Mountains, was known to travelers and historians from Marco Polo to Mirkhond. As to the paradise, it is not known whether its power for evil lay in the effects of the drug hashish or in an actual scene of splendor and license.
The power of the Assassins was broken by Hulagu Khan and his Tatars some two hundred and fifty years before the time of Khlit, but nests of the Ismailians survived until the end of the eighteenth century, and as a religious sect the Ismailians number many followers today—deprived, of course, of the secret terror of the ancient daggers.
October 18, 1918: “The Mighty Manslayer”
Camp Wadsworth, Spartanburg
Alamut existed, and its conquest by Hulagu Khan is history. Settlements of the Refik survived as late as 1700. I have taken the liberty of putting one in the ruins of Alamut, and giving it a good deal of political or rather predatory power. The organization of the Refik, under rule of the “old Man of the Mountain,” is historical. You have probably heard of the Refik as Ismailians. Marco Polo started me on the trail of the Old Man of the Mountain, and the trail led to a bit of hidden history that proved rather weird.
December 18, 1918: “The White Khan”
In taking us back to the days of Tatar power in Asia during the thirteenth century, Mr. Lamb's stories are giving most of us a new experience. I'm afraid he flatters most of us when in a note to me he says “One of the songs in 'The white Khan' is from Li Po, a Chinese poet of medieval days. I don't think it's necessary to mention Li Po's name in the notes, as he is more or less of a classic. The other poem of the tale, 'The Men of W'ang,' is my own fabrication.”
He flatters me, anyhow. Doubtless some of you already were familiar with Li Po, but if any one of you can prove he knows less than I do about that, or any other, Chinese poet, I'll pay his expenses to New York just for the privilege of looking at him.
But most of us have heard of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan and Timurlane or Tamerlane, one or all of them, and few names can so magically conjure up the odor of adventure, romance, and mystery. Little enough we know, so when Mr. Lamb turns his searchlight back through the mists of history and makes the forgotten and mysterious ages a living picture before our eyes we are grateful to him for more than a good story.
Tatars, or Mongols, conquered most of the known world. The Tatar armies, advancing from their homeland just south of Laik Baikal, swept over Cathay (China), Black Cathay (Kara Kitai) Turkestan, and the Han or Kin Empire (Southern China).