The Sacrifice

by Sarban

  ‘Herali ceased pacing up and down the chamber and looked at him. Then, slowly, she began to smile. Thelou was lazy and slow-witted, but in some things he was inventive enough. She had seen some things he had ordered done to his slaves and she knew that it amused him to go down to the prison when there were criminals to be put to death in the slow Mauritanian way.

  ‘ “Well done,” she said. “I see that you have regard enough for me to resent an insult to me and that there are some things that will make you prefer a saddle to your bed. Ah! now I begin to feel my breath come easier! I have seen instruments in your castle, have I not? And small cages?”

  ‘So, while Tathnarzuk rode off rapidly on his mule, alone, through the darkness to the north east, they prepared to pursue him.

  ‘It was the custom in those days in Mauritania, and long afterwards, even after the coming of Islam into Africa, for the kings to form their bodyguard, whose duty was the immediate protection of their persons at all hours, not from male warriors but from young women. It had been found through long experience that these were more devoted to the king’s person, more watchful of his safety, more jealous of his dignity and more obedient than any young men; and, indeed, they were more furious in battle, when they attacked under the king’s eye. Other nations in Africa copied this practice of the Mauritanians, and it persisted in the negro kingdoms beyond the river almost down to this day.

  ‘Herali, whom, after the King, the bodyguard worshipped because of her beauty and her prowess in all the exercises they loved and because of the favours she was zealous in obtaining for them, Herali, then, secretly ordered a squadron of twenty of the guards to mount at midnight with her and her brother, and they rode out through a private postern of the city, neither the bodyguard asking on what service they were going nor the warders at the private gate challenging them.

  ‘They laughed and rode easily, for they had but one enemy to deal with and he a dwarf and mounted on an ambling mule. But in the dawn Tathnarzuk began to hear rumours of their pursuit: the loud-voiced plovers that fly in the dark warned him, and by and by the little black-and-white chat that mourns alone in the stony deserts was flitting beside his mule and perching on the rocks ahead of him and telling him the numbers of his pursuers and their distance behind him. All day he rode hard and received continual intelligence of the troop that was on his traces, and when night fell again he still had not seen their dust. For many days he rode, pausing only the briefest time to rest his beast and himself, and because he knew the country he made good speed; moreover, in all the valleys and difficult places of the hills and at the crossings of the rivers he found kind guides to show him the nearest ways, while his pursuers were often at a loss and the greater speed of their horses was little advantage to them. Nevertheless, when she found that they did not soon overtake him, Herali’s heart swelled with rage and spite again and she seemed to hear on the wind Tathnarzuk’s voice taunting her, mocking her injured pride, that she, the best rider among the maidens of Mauritania, mounted on the best mare in the King’s stable could not ride down a little top-heavy dwarf who rode his old mule like a baby in a pannier. Her lips writhed back and she drew in the mocking wind through her teeth and rode on at so furious a rate that Thelou groaned and cursed and dropped far behind, coming painfully up to overtake them when they halted.

  ‘Tathnarzuk’s poor beast wearied at length, and one day in the afternoon, on looking back he saw the dust of his pursuers. But ahead of him in the far distance he saw the desert rising to a long, broken crest of rocks: the boundary of his kingdom. That same line of great rocks, tumbled along the ridge, that you passed through when you escaped from the storm just now. If he could but reach those rocks he would be safe.

  ‘So on he rode, urging his tired mule; but the troop behind drew ever nearer, and at last he could hear the great bull-voice of Thelou bellowing above the drumming of the hooves; and every time he looked back now he saw the weapons in the girls’ hands flash more brightly. Ahead of them all rode Herali and she held in her left hand a short horseman’s bow of oryx horn.

  ‘Now the distance was barely above a longbow shot and Tathnarzuk saw that he could never reach the rocks in time. He cast one last look behind and then raised his eyes to the boundary of his kingdom and exerting the utmost power of his lungs he cried out the most powerful incantation known to him, if he were yet near enough for them to hear him.

  ‘Herali fitted an arrow to her bow and loosed it. The shaft struck Tathnarzuk’s mule in the haunch and it staggered and all the troop behind gave a shrill shout of triumph. Tathnarzuk drew his short sword and prepared to die.

  ‘Then between him and Herali there surged up from the dry surface of the desert a wall of black-brown dust. High, high, it soared, thickening and lengthening, streaming swifter than an arrow far out to left and right, then curving and encircling. It was as impenetrable as the blackest night and within it the wind-genii screamed their battle songs and the sand-genii charged, blasting and burning on the blinded foe.’

  V

  Alison stretched out her legs which had become cramped through sitting curled up on the divan. She gave a little sympathetic groan.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to describe that part. We know just how that feels and what it sounds like.’

  ‘And so that’s how the legend explains the curious way the standstorms blow here, is it? I hope not. We came a bit too near that ourselves to make it a good story.’

  Their host smiled.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘they did not die. They were rescued in the nick of time, just as you were this morning. In fact, if the legend is true, it is to some of their descendants that you owe your own lives. Well, the story of Tathnarzuk is really finished, because he never went abroad into the kingdoms of the tall human beings again and he never had any more adventures that human beings would call adventures.’

  ‘Oh, but what happened to Herali?’ Nicola asked. ‘I should like to hear that, if there’s time.’

  ‘There is time,’ he said. ‘It is soon told.’

  ‘Well, then, Tathnarzuk crossed the borders of his kingdom. His old mule fell and died among the rocks and he came down this deep cleft in his own awkward way and entered this palace of caverns. For this place you are now is Tathnarzuk’s own home, if the story is to be believed.

  ‘His own people, the little dwarfs of the marsh, were all assembled to greet him, for they had heard of his flight and the vengeful pursuit of Zuwar’s children, and they had mourned for him, scarcely believing it possible that he should escape. Now therefore they rejoiced and exulted over the defeat of his enemies.

  ‘Tathnarzuk related all that had passed at the court of King Zuwar, repeating the very words of Thelou and Herali which burned still upon his heart. And the dwarfs struck their hands together in indignation and cursed the children of Zuwar.

  ‘ “Arrogant, cruel and contemptuous are these people of Mauritania,” they said. “In times past they have hunted us like hares and speared us like fish. Never have we had any of them in our power before. Thou hast avenged us all, Tathnarzuk. After the genii have done their work with them and the vultures have left their skeletons clean we will go up and gather their skulls for drinking bowls and thou shalt have Herali’s mounted on a golden stem and Thelou’s we will make into a washing pot.”

  ‘ “No,” said Tathnarzuk. “They are the children of a King who was the brother of Hazroar who was kind to me; and though they would have inflicted numberless indignities on me and perhaps given me a slow death, I may not kill them. Besides that, you have never seen any creature half so lovely as this Herali is and if once you see her you will prefer her skull with the flesh on it and the eyes in the sockets and the lips able to implore mercy. Oh, I know there are no beings on the earth or in the water to whom vengeance tastes sweeter than to us; but is it not sweeter to have arrogant spines bowing in subjection to us than to carve their dry joints for candlesticks? By my plan we shall both have the satisfaction of humblin
g our enemies and of procuring a lasting profit, convenience and pleasure to our state.”

  ‘They all gathered about him and listened intently to what he unfolded to them, and when he had finished they gave a great shout of amazement and delight at the ingenuity of what he proposed. Then, swiftly and without confusion, being so apt for all kinds of work requiring cunning and skilled combination of hands, they ordered themselves in bands to carry out the necessary tasks.

  ‘First Tathnarzuk communicated again with the genii and then he and a band of dwarfs climbed up to the desert, and took their station among the great rocks on the ridge. Then the sand-genii drove the Mauritanians as herd-dogs drive cattle, and sent them reeling, blinded by the dust and maddened by heat and thirst, towards the ambush of the dwarfs. One by one the dwarfs captured them with those instruments of thongs and bronze balls with which they used to capture gazelle, waiting for them at the drinking places and throwing the weighted thongs to entangle their legs. Herali and Thelou and all the bodyguard were secured in this manner and the dwarfs also captured most of their horses and bound their captives upon them and led them down to the lake shore. Then Tathnarzuk bade the genii return to their caverns, and the dust settled on the desert once more.

  ‘The dwarfs took Herali and the girls of the bodyguard and imprisoned them in certain cells of the rock closed by gates of bronze. They cared for them attentively, supplying them with everything they could wish for, except, indeed, their liberty. But Thelou they took out to an island in the lake, a rocky islet some distance from this cliff, which you will see when you go out to swim. They stripped him of his princely clothes and riveted a fetter round his ankle and allowed him the liberty of a long chain, the other end of which was attached to a staple firmly cemented in the rock, so that he could walk on a small plot of grass there is on the islet, bathe from the rocks and take shelter in a cave. All this they did while he was still exhausted and half dead from the sandstorm. When his strength was restored they were afraid of him, for he could have picked any one of them up with one hand and dashed his brains out against the rocks. But he could not break the bronze chain though he heaved at it with all his might and lashed the links violently against sharp edges of stone, roaring all the time like a lion in his rage. The little dwarfs sat in their skiffs off the island and watched him, marvelling at his rage and strength; and they tamed him, as they tamed wild beasts which they took alive from time to time—with hunger. When he was quiet they brought provisions which they pushed within his reach with long forks.

  ‘For ten days or so the dwarfs were busy from dawn to dark, gathering the materials they needed, plying their tools in their workshops, making paints and varnishes, refining various resins and gums, cutting and stitching leather and parchments and trimming and fitting together the apparatus Tathnarzuk had designed for his purpose.

  ‘When all the work was finished to Tathnarzuk’s satisfaction, he called the whole nation of dwarfs together and they assembled in a place which you will see, below our great terrace here. The rocks there form a big pool where the water is still and clear—it is an excellent place to swim in—and there is only a narrow outlet to the lake itself. That outlet Tathnarzuk had had closed by a wooden gate. The dwarfs gathered on the broad pavement of the rocks about the pool and brought with them the gear they had been working on.

  ‘A party of the dwarfs then brought out Herali from the prison through tunnels which lead down directly to the pool. They held her securely by light chains, for she too could have been as dangerous amongst them as a lioness. Drawing on the chains they forced her to her knees and slipped the chains through rings fastened in the rock so that she could not rise to her full height. Kneeling thus, she was little taller than they were. She blinked in the sunlight, and as her eyes strengthened, stared about her seeking some assistance or way of escape. Then she looked out over the lake and saw Thelou sitting listlessly on a rock on the strand of his islet and she cried out to him to help her. But Thelou only lifted his chain to show her that he was helpless. Then all the dwarfs laughed and clapped their hands in joy and triumph.

  ‘Now Tathnarzuk came forward, and taking his stand in front of Herali, he spoke, not tauntingly, but quietly and with the authority of a prince. He threw his thumb towards the fat man tethered on the islet.

  ‘ “See, Herali,” he said. “Who is now the beast? We have chained the bull up lest he tread on any frogs; and that shall be his pasture for the rest of his life. Do not pity him: the chain permits him as much exercise as he has ever willingly taken in his life. For the rest, there is nothing in his great carcass but bodily appetites and those shall be well enough satisfied.”

  ‘Herali looked defiantly at him. “My father will come with a thousand men,’ she said. ‘He will flay you all alive and carry your skins back to dry in the wind at the door of his pavilion.”

  ‘ “He may come with ten thousand,” replied Tathnarzuk tranquilly. “Their bones will all bleach where yours would be lying now if I had nothing in my head but what you Mauritanians have in yours: a knowledge of the ways to kill. The forces that defend this kingdom are the forces that art and learning can muster and against them all your father’s troops can no more contend than a troop of gazelle could contend against a regiment of your mounted bowmen. Where is the power, do you think, Herali, that brought the invincible genii into battle against you? Where is the power that cut those mazy caverns in the resistant rock where you have been fast imprisoned? Where the power that dressed these massy blocks of stone and lifted them and laid them with exactness in the place designed for them? Where is the power that forged the tough links of this chain that binds you? It is here, Herali, here in this over-big head. I speak a language you will never understand, but this much you can comprehend: I came to your father’s court on a foolish errand. I was taught a lesson. Well and good. I departed in peace and asked nothing but to forget your people and to be forgotten by them. But you made war on me. You made war on me, Herali, and you lost. You are my slave now by the right of capture. If you know nothing else, you know the law of war, and that is that the vanquished are the victor’s cattle to do with as he likes. What would you have done with me, if you had captured me?”

  ‘Herali looked out once more to where Thelou was chained on the islet; then she looked round at all those crooked little creatures who were scowling with anger or grinning with malice, and finally she looked at the clear, deep pool and she was afraid.

  ‘ “I would rather be killed than chained up for life,” she said in a low voice. “Only—a quick death. Are you going to drown me?”

  ‘ “No,” said Tathnarzuk. “We shall not kill you. We are craftsmen, Herali. Our pleasure is in making beautiful things and preserving them; not in destroying them. We kill under necessity, not for sport. We are neither warriors nor hunters. Indeed, how could we be? Look at our ridiculous little bodies; look at our absurd, short legs. We cannot master horses on which to ride and drive gazelles and ostriches and wild asses; we cannot climb the mountains and stride the rocky ridges in pursuit of the wild sheep and the ibex; even the low shores of the lake are a rough and painful country for us, and what to you would be an easy stroll through the forest is a journey of great toil and labour to us; think how we sweat and grunt as we flounder among the harsh tussocks and the soft mud of the marsh, where you with your long legs would wade to go wild-fowling as actively as herons; though the lake is our home we cannot even swim well; you have called us frogs, but we lack their useful hind limbs. We have nothing but our heads, Herali: our heads, full of ingenious contrivance. We are great contrivers of engines to help out our deficiencies: and this is the use we shall make of you; these long legs of yours, which raise you in your estimation so far above us, and these strong, straight bodies of yours shall be steeds to take us easily and swiftly where we wish to go on land or water.”

  ‘He drew back a pace or two and the dwarfs then seized her and took off her rich riding clothes. Many of them had never before seen either man o
r woman of the tall people. They crowded about her wondering at the fairness and smoothness of her skin, admiring her suppleness and grace, appraising what strength and vigour were in those straight, long limbs and in the muscles and firm flesh of her body. Many small hands held her and when she was quiet again, Tathnarzuk said:

  ‘ “You are beautiful and strong, Herali, like a wild mare. And now, like a wild mare you must be broken and tamed. These blue waters are the plains of my kingdom and through those you must learn to carry me.”

  ‘The chief craftsmen among the dwarfs then brought forward the contrivances they had made to Tathnarzuk’s design, and while others held her and turned her about conveniently for their purpose they fitted the things to her body.

  ‘First, they took a kind of keel or float on which she would be buoyed up as a child learning to swim supports himself on an inflated goat skin while he paddles with his arms and legs. This float was shaped something like the hull of their canoes; made of a framework of thin rods of the pliant, light aleb wood over which tough, well-cured membranes of the intestines of wild cattle were tightly stretched and sewn, then varnished with a refined resin of the marsh-pine to make them durable and impermeable. The top of the float was slightly hollowed and so shaped that it fitted snugly to her belly and ribs and close up to her breasts. They secured it firmly with straps that would not slacken or chafe.

  ‘They then fastened to her feet a sort of long shoe which simulated the hind feet of a frog, the bones being fibrous, thin canes and the web made of a material which the dwarfs produced from the milky juice of the ushr tree, which, being coagulated and treated by heat and other processes, could be worked into thin sheets, elastic, light and tough as living tissue.