by Talbot Mundy
After that, no doubt, the ten would turn on Andrew, justifying one crime with another — partly because he had not brought opium and they felt cheated — partly because he was a peling who had neither right nor privilege in Tibet — partly because his baggage contained more, perhaps richer loot — and they were brigands — and there was violence awake in the blue gloom. During one immeasurable moment Elsa visioned the furious, sensuous face of Bulah Singh’s woman. The fierce eyes turned blood-red, then faded and the face died away in the dark. It meant something. But what did it mean?
The strained silence continued during twenty heartbeats. Andrew was poker- faced, but behind that almost Red Indian calm he was searching frantically for the right thought, idea, word, action. He was tempted, but he didn’t trust himself to try, to pronounce the Tibetan sacred syllable. It might act like oil on a raging sea. It might. He had known it to work, once, when Tom Grayne did it. But the least mispronunciation of the complicated vowel would be fatal. Even properly pronounced it might seem like a challenge to the old magician’s powers. One doesn’t wisely challenge a magician at his own game. Seconds sped like lightning. Thought sped faster than the seconds.
Somehow — before von Klaus could recover his malignant wits — he must change the mood of a dozen Tibetans. The incredible old black magician, whose philosophy was fear — fraud — hatred, was as pleased as a saint by the loss of the opium! But like a lean black leopard he was also hungry to flex his claws again — to feel and to use the power that opium would have undone as surely as death. Opium would have stolen and softened the wills of the thoughtless brigands who were the subjects of his necromantic skill. He needed his subjects headstrong, healthy, free to be manipulated. No opium to dull their reactions to suggestion! So far, good. It was in his power now to credit his own magic with having changed opium into sugar. If he should so choose. Broadcasted like a bell’s vibration, his magic power — so he was telling himself — must have reached Andrew in the mountains — touched him. Being woven of fear, it had made Andrew afraid of the stuff that the magician hated. Andrew must have thrown the opium away the moment the good black magic touched his thought. The cunning pride of the accomplished craftsman was in the old magician’s eyes. He believed in his magic. Why shouldn’t he? There was also cupidity. Sugar is wealth — in Tibet, before the lower passes open in the spring.
It did not occur to Andrew to wonder how he knew all this. He knew it, without effort, in a moment of time — or rather, in a moment in which there was no time.
But, beneath the surface-satisfaction in the magician’s eyes was the leopard-like furtive terror that moves like lightning when it does move. Andrew read that. He intuitively recognized it. It was like a gang leader’s hidden fear of his own killers. The same fear and no other that makes generals send unready troops against prepared positions — that makes a Hitler purge his own supporters — that makes financiers kill themselves — makes men on the witness stand swear others’ lives away.
Those brigands knew the pricelessness of opium. They cared not one dead egg of a last year’s louse for a magician’s ethics. If they should believe — as they might, as they were simple enough to believe — that he had changed opium into sugar, they were likelier than not to bid him try some more of his magic, this time against bullets: let him change those into butter. Crude, vulgarly humorous, easily angered men, greedy as dogs. And, as magicians know, bullets obey laws that magic only very rarely can resist. Ten bullets are ten times worse than one.
So it was thought against thought, with Elsa at the moment too tired and scared to help, sickened by glimpsed visions of Bulah Singh’s woman — von Klaus, hurt badly, groaning through set teeth, spiteful, rolling over on his belly to watch for a chance to wreck whatever plan Andrew might invent — ten brigands, whose Mongolian smiles could harden just as suddenly as water changes into ice at sunset. Moist-lipped, they were considering Elsa, viewed as loot, not necessarily for her fur coat and her necklace.
For the space of no longer than twenty heartbeats, ten thousand thoughts a second poured through Andrew’s mind. Not least was the thought that Elsa’s and Nancy Strong’s defense would be a passionate Christian outpouring of magic against magic — good against evil. But Andrew was seeking a means of attack. The old black magician — above good and beneath evil — was murmuring spells. His brigands watched his lips-wishing. They wished to be told to do that which they wanted to do. They were breathing in time to the drumbeats. And now Elsa’s lips were moving. Andrew could feel her influence. He knew the nature of the loving-kindness that appealed to heart, not brain. But his heart, that beat trip-hammer blows rebelliously out of time to the drumbeat, revolted in that crisis at the too sweet sentimental means that Christians use. He was in no mood for appeasement by humility. Perhaps von Klaus had blasphemed better than he knew. Some shaft of scorn had struck its mark? The thought of lamb-to-the-slaughter Jesus turned Andrew’s stomach. He craved not a physical fight, but a fight against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.
He judged he must not stand up — not yet. He must not move his right hand — yet. The automatic, each time he breathed, felt comforting, but he mustn’t move his hand toward it — mustn’t use it — mustn’t appeal unto Caesar. The slightest thoughtless motion might launch a volley of ten bullets. He wished he did dare to stand up. He liked daring to do things. On his feet he always felt better command of himself. He wished, too, that thought wouldn’t sweep through his mind like endless comets’ tails. He needed to concentrate. He couldn’t. He wondered why not. As he stared at the old magician’s eyes, his own past came back to him — timeless — layer on layer of memories, interwoven and simultaneous, but as distinct each from the other as the phases of a long dream. The magician’s force was like dark lightning, blindly searching and revealing only Andrew’s own thoughts, to himself, not to the magician.
“Where have you seen the magician’s face?”
No one had spoken. Elsa was staring at space with wide eyes. But he heard words again, within his consciousness — composite voices — many in one — Elsa’s — Tom Grayne’s — Nancy Strong’s — Morgan Lewis’s — Bulah Singh’s — all asking one question, that he had never answered because it always, whoever asked it, froze him into silence.
“Why did you leave the United States?”
The tum-tu-to tum-tu-to drumbeat in the next room insisted on the question — emphasized it — over and over: “where have you seen the ma—”
Memories — memories — millions, like a jackdaw’s jumbled hoard of postage stamps, but gradually thinning down to three-two-one:
“Where have you seen the magician’s face?”
Cincinnati — Chicago — Cleveland. School — university — law — teachers — professors — judges. Andrew the boy, in his secret heart of hearts a knight in armor — heavy that armor! — but, as Mark Twain made King Arthur say, “a man stands straight in it”! Good doctrine, that! Nevertheless, he would never forgive Mark Twain for his gibes at the Quest for the Holy Grail. “Grailing — the boys went grailing.” Andrew had done nothing else, all his days, but go grailing — in school, university, courthouse — grailing, setting a course by the farthest stars — and at war — to the death — to the end — against — against what? He had never named it.
Tum-tu-tu-tum-tu-tu ... “Where have you — seen the ma—”
In the beginning it was a drawing of Satan stalking Jesus, in a book for children, compulsory reading before he rebelled from Sunday School. Later, superimposed on that was Mephistopheles from a library copy of Goethe’s Faust. Subsequently added were some heel politicians, a political boss, an evangelist, some judges, pimps, lawyers, bondsmen, political women — homosexuals — a whorehouse madam — two or three authors — a banker — a doctor — a couple of Jews — policemen, taxi drivers, senators — some congressmen — an editor — two reporters — every single lying face that Andrew had ever seen and hated — mixed into one monstrous image of all evil �
� a living, personal devil.
Tum-tu-tu— “Where have you — Tum-tu-tu — seen the ma—”
Von Klaus hoarsely shattered the silence: “Shoot! You God-damned idiot! Shoot!”
Andrew heard him. But the German was out of the picture. He didn’t count. Andrew stared at the magician’s face, learning something, all on his own. He had always known it. But he hadn’t learned it. So he had never known that he knew it. Now, as he stared during twenty heartbeats while time stood still, he knew he could never again forget.
Tum-tu-tu-tum-tu-tu ... Evil is — organized — living intelligent — The hell with Nancy Strong’s stuff! The hell with compromise and false peace! There, gazing at him through the old magician’s eyes, was Evil — Evil itself — Satan! As surely as God looks through the eyes of honesty, Satan sees men and women through the eyes of hatred and envy and fear — sees them no otherwise — can see no otherwise!
He was looking straight into the eyes of Evil — giving it power by hating it — lending his brain to its brain and his strength to its strength. He, himself, Andrew, had imagined, created, made real, breathed the breath of life into a mental picture through which, and through the old magician’s eyes. Evil could see straight into his soul. Divinity that shapes our ends is good and evil. Evil also is divine. Choose! Choose! The loser is the fool on both sides of the fence!
Tum-tu-tu-tum-tu-tu ...
“Shoot!” von Klaus repeated. “Kill him!”
Elsa felt the torture of turmoil in Andrew’s thought. She began to murmur the Lord’s Prayer. But Andrew knew what he needed. The hell with solemnity! He needed laughter — Rabelaisian, irreverent, blasphemous laughter, to break the hold Evil had on him, by mocking, ridiculing, recognizing as a lie the false mask he had made in his mind of the faces of men. Good and evil? Good or evil! Which?
It came to him between two heartbeats. The old magician was between the devil and the deep sea — evil’s high priest, trying to do good for the sake of greater evil! His sudden impulse was to whistle, because he always whistled a tune when an idea dawned. But the Tibetans would have called that devil-music. He began to hum — smile — laugh. Then he broke into song. And for the millionth time since 1917 “The Lady from Armentières” did duty as Joan of Arc. The opprobrious, dissolute, bawdy, undignified “Lady from Armèntieres.”
He had been beaten — he knew it — until that ribald nonsense flowed into his thought and he perceived that all solemnity is a lying mockery of God. No truth is solemn. It can’t be — can’t possibly be. Solemnity is a clowning camouflage. To be solemn about evil, and to hate it, is to dignify it and to be and become and remain the bewildered wretch of whom St. Paul spoke: “for the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.”
So Andrew sang:
“The French they are a funny race —
Parlez-vous!
They fight with their feet and—”
Lung-gom-pa recognized force up and coming — force on the march! He instantly retorted with a mantra to protect himself from that incomprehensible hymn! The brigands joined in, beating the air with their right hands, drowning Andrew’s voice — not sure yet whether he was wishing on them poisonous peling curses, or blessing them with appetites to enjoy the sugar. They could see he was full of laughter.
But they took no chances. They howled a counter-barrage of invocations to a thousand saints who represented forces of earth and sky.
Through that din, pitched to a harsh yell against Andrew’s “Hinkey-dinkey parlez-vous,” came von Klaus’s voice:
“Kill them! Shoot, you Lümmmel! Jetst ist die Gelegenheit — the chance — the opportunity! Shoot!”
Elsa suppressed a scream as the nearest Tibetan kicked von Klaus in the face. He lay still after that. He had sense enough to pretend to be worse hurt than he was.
“Easy,” said Andrew, “easy.” He touched Elsa’s hand. The shouting died to a snarling hum like a hornets’ evensong. “Now I wish I were a killer.”
“Don’t, Andrew! Please don’t!”
“I won’t. Don’t worry. I’m afraid to.”
“Good!”
“No. Bad. But there’s a chance in a million he didn’t betray Fu Ling.”
“But, Andrew, are we his judges? Even if he did betray him, are we—”
“Each to his own decision. I’ll give him one more chance. You sit still.”
Andrew stood up. That stopped the Tibetans’ humming. Dead silence fell, except for that infernal drumbeat that had died down almost to a mutter. Lung-gom-pa resumed the subtle swaying movement that suggested a cobra. Andrew spoke to von Klaus:
“Did you, or didn’t you send Fu Ling to his death?”
After a second’s pause the German snarled back: “Is that any of your damned business?”
“Right. Neither are you. The hell with you. That’s final.”
“Andrew! Andrew! Please!”
Von Klaus struggled into a sitting position, holding both hands to his groin. His beard was bloody. It made his mouth look horrible. It made his words sound bloody.
“The hell with your illusions of importance! So you think you can ignore me? You will do what I tell you or die! If I die, you die. If I live, you live. If we both live, you shall obey me, because I insist on it. If we both die, what becomes of your woman?” In spite of pain he contrived a mock-courteous gesture toward Elsa. His mouth and beard looked unseductive but he did change his voice a little: “Gnädiges Fräulein, machen Sie schnell! Wenn Sie — if you can influence this blockhead, do it! Now!”
But the fictional, fanciful “Lady from Armentières” had scattered Andrew’s reverence for influence of any kind whatever. Elsa knew it had happened. She couldn’t reach him any longer. Even when she touched his hand she couldn’t reach his thought. Andrew was someone to follow. He couldn’t be led. Mental images of Nancy Strong, Morgan Lewis, and Lobsang Pun’s broken photograph, were looming from nowhere and fading again, forced out of Andrew’s mind by his own will. He knew Elsa was trying to flood his consciousness with spiritual visions, to produce peace. He preferred war. He would go grailing henceforth in new armor, with a new weapon. He aimed his inner laughter straight at the vision of Nancy Strong. Before she faded he thought she laughed. Mocking him? Swell! The hell with her. He only hesitated whether to try his own crude Tibetan, that might arouse the magician’s scorn and remind the brigands to distrust him — or whether to trust Elsa to interpret without talking back. He decided on Elsa:
“Quick! Ask Lung-gom-pa: Does he accept the sugar?”
“He says yes, he accepts it.”
“As a gift?”
“As a gift.”
“Very well. Now ask those ten men. Do they wish to possess the opium that von Klaus pretended was in this bag?”
She interpreted. They breathed hard. There was a murmur of incredulous but excited assent.
“They do want it?”
“They do. But, Andrew—”
“Please don’t interrupt. Tell them — word for word exactly as I say it—”
“Very well. If it’s possible. At least I won’t change the meaning.”
“This man von Klaus has been using the bastard’s mother to make look-see magic. They know that, don’t they?”
There was time to look around while Elsa translated. Lung-gom-pa leaned forward between the blue lights. The flickering skull-lamp’s shadow masked his lower face, but it revealed his tortured eyes that speculated — yes — no — yes — no. It was in his power to kill. At a click of his tongue there’d be ten bullets. But perhaps better not. Better wait. Better listen a while.
Down on his belly, his groin against the floor to relieve the pain, von Klaus, too, watched, listened, speculated. Even though he might not save himself, he would spoil Andrew’s game. There was no possible mistake about his intention. Elsa spoke:
“Yes, Andrew. They say they know what the woman has done.”
“Tell them to send for the woman!”
“Andrew! — First I want to—”
“Send for the woman!” Von Klaus cut in before she could speak. There was an excited laugh in his voice. It was not pain alone that made his eyes burn. He saw his chance. “Jawohl! Yes. Make an end! Tell her to bring in the head of John Baptist!”
“He’s off his nut,” said Andrew.
“Andrew, he isn’t. He’s—”
“Tell them to send for the woman.”
Elsa interpreted. Von Klaus grinned, listened, waited, watched the old magician teeter on the brink of yes, no — yes, no. Slowly the magician’s fear of his men outweighed the craving to be the source of thou shalt — thou shalt not. His men wanted the woman brought in. They wanted to know Andrew’s purpose. Above all, they wanted that opium. Evil must be obeyed or perish. All tyrants know that. Pilate knew it. Better the command that will be readily obeyed. He murmured to the man beside him, who got up, swaggered to the door, whispered to the door guard. The door guard looked doubtful, or it might be fearful. But his not to reason why. He nodded — shouldered his rifle. The door slammed shut behind him.
“Now!” Von Klaus gloated. But he waited, in pain, bleeding. He chose not to waste the prodigious effort it cost to raise himself on an elbow and speak distinctly. He was trying to anticipate Andrew’s next move. There was almost no sound but that muttering drumbeat.
Elsa whispered to Andrew:
“There’s death. I can’t see whose. It’s—”
Von Klaus spoke, slowly, letting the words linger because he loved them:
“Mister Cunning Gunning! Why did Bulah Singh’s Salome leave this room with a knife in her fist? Who plays John Baptist?”
He laid his forehead on his forearm, fighting the pain in his groin, recovering strength to carry on. Elsa whispered again:
“Andrew, this won’t be the way you expect. There’s something reversed — it’s turned backward — I don’t understand it. It’s—”