He added with barely discernible irony: “And my daughter’s.”
Now it was I who walked to the window, and stood with my back to him. Absently, I noted that the rain had stopped and the sun was breaking through the clouds. He was lying—but in which of his two interpretations were the lies the fewer? No sorcerer could have set the stage of Dahut’s towers in New York and Ys, nor have directed my experiences there, real or imagined; nor been fugleman to what had happened after the rites of last night. Only a sorceress could have managed those things.
Also, there were other weak spots to that second explanation. But the one indissoluble rock on which it split was that McCann, flying over this place, had also seen the corposants, the rotting lights of the dead…had seen the black and formless shape squatting upon the Cairn…glimpsed figures weaving among the standing stones before the fog had covered all.
Which of the two stories did de Keradel want me to believe? Which was it better for me to pretend to believe? That he had never really trusted me, I knew. Was this a sort of Lady or the Tiger trap? Which door ought I open?
The thought that had been forming in my mind grew clear. I turned to him with what I hoped was the precise mixture of chagrin and admiration. I said:
“Frankly, de Keradel, I don’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. After all, you know, you did take me up on the mountain and show me the kingdoms of Earth, and a part of me rejoiced exceedingly at the prospect and was perfectly willing to sign over to you. If a tenderer part is set at ease because it was mirage, still the sterner part wishes it had been true. And I am divided between resentment that you should make me the subject of such an experiment, and admiration for your perfect workmanship.”
I sat down and added, carelessly: “I take it that now you have made everything plain, the experiment is ended.”
The pale blue eyes dwelt upon me; he answered, slowly: “It is ended—so far as I am concerned.”
Well did I know it wasn’t, and well did I know I was as much a prisoner as ever; but I lighted a cigarette, and asked: “I suppose, then, I am free to go whenever I choose?”
“An unnecessary question,” the pale eyes narrowed, “if you have accepted my commonsense interpretation of your experiences.”
I laughed: “It was an echo of my servitude to you. One does not so quickly feel himself free of such fetters of illusion as you forge, de Keradel. By the way, I’d like to send a telegram to Dr. Bennett.”
“I am sorry,” he said, “but the storm has broken the wire between us and the village.”
I said: “I am sure it has. But what I would like to wire Dr. Bennett is that I like it here, and intend to remain as long as I am welcome. That the matter in which we have been so interested has been explained to my complete satisfaction, and to drop it. That there is nothing for him to worry about, and that I will amplify all this later by letter.”
Pausing, I looked him straight in the eyes: “We would collaborate in that letter—you and I.”
He leaned back, appraising me with expressionless face, but I had not missed the flicker of astonishment when I had made my proposal. He was nibbling at the bait, although he had not yet swallowed it. He asked:
“Why?”
“Because of you,” I said, and walked over to him: “De Keradel, I want to stay here. With you. But not as one held by ancestral memories. Not by an imagination stimulated or guided by you or your daughter. Nor by suggestion nor sorcery. I want to stay here wide-awake and all myself. Nor have the charms of your daughter anything to do with that desire. I care little for women, de Keradel, except for the naked lady they name Truth. It is because of you, solely because of you, that I want to stay.”
Again he asked: “Why?”
But he had taken the bait. His guard had dropped. Every symphony has its chord, and every chord its dominant note. So has every man and every woman. Discover that note, and learn just how and when to sound it—and man or woman is yours. De Keradel’s dominant was vanity—egotism. I struck it heavily.
“Never, I think, has a de Carnac named a de Keradel—Master. Never asked to sit at a de Keradel’s feet and learn. I know enough of the histories of our clans to be sure of that. Well, it has come to pass. All my life I have sought to lift Truth’s veil. I think you can do that, de Keradel. Therefore—I would stay.”
He asked, curiously: “Which of my two stories do you believe?”
I laughed: “Both and neither. Otherwise would I deserve to be your acolyte?”
He said, almost wistfully: “I wish I could trust you…Alain de Carnac! There is much that we could do together.”
I answered: “Whether you trust me or do not, I cannot see how I, being here, can harm you. If I should disappear or, for example, appear to have killed myself or seem to have gone insane…that, of course, might harm you.”
He shook his head, absently; with a chillingly convincing indifference: “I could be rid of you very easily, de Carnac and there would be no necessity of explanations, but I wish I could trust you.”
I said: “If you have nothing to lose by it—why not?”
He said, slowly: “I will.”
He picked up the bowl of sacrifice in his hands, and weighed it. He dropped it on the table. Stretching both hands out toward me but without touching me, he did with them that to which, knowing what was in my heart against him, I could not respond. It was an immemorially ancient gesture, a holy gesture that had been taught to me in Tibet by a lama whose life I had saved…and the way de Keradel made that gesture defiled it, although it still held within it the obligation…an obligation beyond life.
Dahut saved me. A sudden flood of sunshine poured into the room. She came through toward us. If anything could have made me believe without reservation, de Keradel’s second and commonsense version it would have been Dahut walking through that sunshine. She had on her riding breeches and boots, and a sea-green silk shirt that just matched the color of her eyes, and a beret on her silver gilt hair that was exactly the same green. Coming through the sunshine toward me like this, she knocked de Keradel and everything else out of my head.
She said: “Hello, Alan. It’s cleared. Let’s take a canter.”
She saw the bowl of sacrifice. Her eyes dilated so that I could see the whites both above and below them…and how the orchid hell sparks danced…
De Keradel’s face whitened. Then comprehension came into it…a warning, a message, darted from him to her. The Demoiselle’s lids dropped, the long lashes swept her cheeks. All this in a split second. I said, carelessly, as though I had observed nothing:
“Fine. I’ll change my clothes.”
I had known damned well that de Keradel hadn’t put that bowl of sacrifice beside me. Now I knew just as damned well that Dahut hadn’t, either.
Then who had?
I stepped into my room…again I seemed to hear the buzzing…Alan, beware of Dahut…
Maybe the shadows were going to be kind to me again.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE HOUNDS OF DAHUT
Whatever the mystery of the bowl, Dahut’s invitation was a break I hadn’t hoped for. I got into my riding togs with haste. I had the idea that the conversation between her and her father would not be entirely amicable, and I didn’t want her to have time to change her mind about that gallop. Probably I would not be able to get to the village, but I ought to be able to make the rock where the patient fishermen waited.
I wrote a note to McCann: “Be at the rock tonight from eleven until four. If I don’t show up, be there tomorrow night between the same hours. Same holds for night after tomorrow. If you then haven’t heard from me, tell Ricori I say to use his own judgment.”
Ricori should have landed by then. And if by then I had not been able to get a message to McCann, it would mean that I was in a tight corner—if, indeed, I was in any shape to be in any corner whatsoever. I banked upon Ricori’s resourcefulness and ruthlessness as adequate to meet de Keradel’s own. Also, he would act swiftly. I wro
te the note in duplicate, since after all I might be able to get to the village. I put one in a two-ounce bottle, stoppering it tightly. The other I put it my pocket.
I went downstairs whistling, giving artless warning of my approach. I went into the room as though I had not a care nor a suspicion in the world. Nor was I entirely acting; I did have a heady sense of elation; somewhat like that of a fighter who has lost round after round with an opponent whose style has been devastatingly unfamiliar, but who suddenly gets the key to it and knows he can meet it.
The Demoiselle was standing beside the fireplace, switching at her boots with her quirt. De Keradel was still at the table’s head, scrunched down a bit, more stolid than I had seen him. The bowl of sacrifice was nowhere in sight. The Demoiselle was rather like a beautiful wasp; De Keradel a quite small Gibraltar repelling stings. I laughed as that comparison came into my head.
Dahut said: “You are gay.”
I said: “Indeed I am. Gayer than—” I looked at de Keradel “-than I have been for years.”
She did not miss that look, nor his faint answering smile. She said: “Let us go. You are sure you will not join us, my father?”
De Keradel shook his head: “I have much to do.”
We went out to the stables. She took the same leggy bay, and I the roan. For a time she rode a little ahead of me, silent; then dropped back. She said: “You are as gay as though you rode to meet a loved woman.”
I said: “I hope to meet her. But not on this ride, Dahut.”
She whispered: “Is it—Helen?”
“No, Dahut—although Helen has many of her attributes.”
“Who is she?”
“You don’t know her very well, Dahut. She wears no clothes, except a veil over her face. Her name is Truth. Your father has promised me to lift her veil.”
She reined closer; grasped my wrist: “He promised that—to you?”
I said, casually: “Yes. And he rather more than intimated that he need not call you in to assist.”
“Why do you tell me this?” Her fingers tightened on my wrist.
“Because, Dahut, I am exceedingly anxious to meet this naked lady Truth with no veil over her face. And I have a feeling that unless from now on I answer all questions with perfect candor, our meeting will be delayed.”
She said, dangerously: “Do not play with me. Why did you tell me that?”
“I am not playing with you at all, Dahut. I am only being bluntly honest. So much so that I will give you my secondary reason.”
“And that?”
“Divide—and rule,” I answered.
She stared at me, uncomprehendingly.
“They tell a story in India,” I said. “It is one of their jatakas or animal fables. Tiger Queen and Lion King could not agree. Their enmity upset the jungle. At last they made a bargain. They were to sit on the pans of a balance suspended just over a pool filled with crocodiles. The heavier one obviously would drop into the water, to the delight of the crocodiles. Tiger Queen and Lion King sat on the scales. Each weighed exactly the same. But an ant had hidden himself mid-beam with a grain of sand in his mandibles. ‘Ho!’ he cried. ‘Who bids? And what is bid?’ Thus he cried, this humble ant, to Tiger Queen and Lion King. And a grain of sand in his mandibles was life or death to one of them.”
Dahut asked, breathlessly: “Which lived?”
I laughed: “The story does not say.”
She knew what I now meant, and I watched the color creep into her cheeks and the sparks dance in her eyes. She dropped my wrist. She said:
“My father is truly pleased with you, Alan.”
“I think you told me that once before, Dahut—but no gayety followed.”
She whispered: “And I seem to have heard you speaking like this before…and there was no gayety thereafter for me…” Again she grasped my wrist:
“But I am not pleased, Alan.”
“I am sorry, Dahut.”
She said: “Despite his wisdom, my father is rather ingenuous. But I am not.”
“Fine,” I said, heartily. “Nor am I. I loathe ingenuousness. But I have not as yet observed any naivete about your father.”
Her grip upon my wrist tightened: “This Helen…how much does she resemble the naked but veiled lady of your quest?”
My pulse leaped: I could not help it; she felt it. She said, sweetly: “You do not know? You have had no opportunity, I take it, for…comparison.”
There was mercilessness in the rippling of the little waves of her laughter: “Continue to be gay, my Alan. Perhaps, some day, I shall give you that opportunity.”
She tapped her horse with her crop, and cantered off. I ceased feeling gay. Why the devil had I allowed Helen to be brought into the talk? Not choked mention of her off at the beginning? I followed close behind Dahut, but she did not look at me, nor speak. We went along for a mile or two, and came out on that haunted meadow of the crouching bushes. Here she seemed to regain her good-humor, dropped back beside me. She said:
“Divide—and rule. It is a wise saying, that. Whose is it, Alan?”
I said: “So far as I know, some old Roman’s. Napoleon quoted it.”
“The Romans were wise, very wise. Suppose I told my father that you had put this thought into my head?”
I said, indifferently: “Why not? Yet if it has not already occurred to him, why forearm him against yourself?”
She said, thoughtfully: “You are strangely sure of yourself today.”
“If I am,” I answered, “it is because there is nothing but the truth in me. So if there are any questions upon the tip of your lovely tongue whose truthful answers might offend your beautiful ears—do not ask them of me.”
She bent her head, and went scudding over the meadow. We came to the breast of rock which I had scaled on our first ride. I dropped from my horse and began to climb. I reached the top, and turning, saw that she, too, had dismounted and was looking up at me, irresolutely. I waved to her, and sat down upon the rock. The fishing boat was a few hundred yards away. I threw a stone or two idly into the water, then flipped out the small bottle in which was the note to McCann. One of the men stood up, stretched, and began to pull up the anchors. I called out to him: “Any luck?”
Dahut was standing beside me. A ray of the setting sun struck the neck of the small bottle, and it glinted. She watched it for a moment, looked at the fishermen, then at me. I said: “What is that? A fish?” And threw a stone at the glint. She did not answer; stood studying the men in the boat. They rowed between us and the bottle, turned the breast of rock and passed out of sight. The bottle still glinted, rising and falling in the swell.
She half lifted her hand, and I could have sworn that a ripple shot across the water straight to the bottle, and an eddy caught it, sending it swirling toward us.
I stood up, and caught her by the shoulders, raised her face to mine and kissed her. She clung to me, quivering. I took her hands, and they were cold, and helped her down the breast of rock. Toward the bottom, I lifted her in my arms and carried her. I set her on her feet beside her horse. Her long fingers slipped around my throat, half-strangling me; she pressed her lips to mine in a kiss that left me breathless. She leaped on the bay and gave it the quirt, mercilessly. She was off over the meadow, swift as a racing shadow.
I looked after her, stupidly. I mounted the roan…
I hesitated, wondering whether to ascend the breast again to see if McCann’s men had come back and retrieved the bottle. I decided I’d better not risk it, and rode after Dahut.
She kept far ahead of me, never looking back. At the door of the old house she flung herself from the back of the bay, gave it a little slap, and went quickly in. The bay trotted over to the stables. I turned across the field and rode into the grove of oaks. I remembered it so well that I knew precisely when I would reach its edge and face the monoliths.
I reached the edge, and there were the standing stones, a good two hundred of them lifting up from a ten-acre plain and hidden from the sea
by a pine-thatched granite ridge. They were not gray as they had been under fog. They were stained red by the setting sun. In their center squatted the Cairn, sullen, enigmatic, and evil.
The roan would not pass the threshold of the grove. He raised his head and sniffed at the wind and whinnied; he began to shiver and to sweat, and the whinny grew shrill with fear. He swerved and swung back into the oaks. I gave him his head.
Dahut sat at the head of the table. Her father had gone somewhere in the yacht and might not return that night, she had said…I wondered, but not aloud, if he were collecting more paupers for the sacrifices.
He had not been there when I had come in from the ride. Nor, until I had sat down at the table, had I seen Dahut. I had gone up to my room and bathed and dressed leisurely. I had set my ear to the tapestry and had searched again for the hidden spring; and had heard and found nothing. A kneeling servant had announced that dinner was ready. It interested me that he did not address me as his Lord of Carnac.
Dahut wore a black dress, for the first time since I had met her. There wasn’t much of it, but what there was showed her off beautifully. She looked tired; not wilty nor droopy, but in some odd fashion like a sea flower that was at its best at high tide and was now marking time through the low. I felt a certain pity for her. She raised her eyes to mine, and they were weary. She said:
The A. Merritt Megapack Page 196