His face was very bright and beautiful. A kindly face, too, with patient, smiling lips. But in the eyes a spirit lurked that made less incongruous the gaping, intolerant jaws of the serpent crest above it. And every plume about him flickered wavering, as if in some draft that blew on him alone, for the air in the place was still.
* * * * *
Looking beyond him, Colin perceived that the floored space beneath the shaft had filled with thronging people.
Very strange folk they were, and at the same time extraordinarily familiar. Like old friends in masqueraders' robes he knew each one, and recalled the names of them in different lands.
There was him whose flowing robes were woven of the beaded gray rain. White foam was his beard, and his eyes like blue ice-caverns. Tlaloc was he, Neptune, and Mananan, son of that great one who dwells forever invisible in the Slieve Fuad.
But his robes were not all gray. At one side they were struck through to rainbow hues by another who stood behind him. That was Lugh, the shining one; Tonathiu, the fiery one; Amen-Ra, of the Egyptians; Apollo, of the Greeks.
Meztli, with his paler fire, was there; Centeotl, who is Ceres and also Dana, mother of gods; Tlapotlazenan, with her flasks of healing, and Tezatzoncatl, merry of face and wreathed like Bacchus.
They and many others of friendly appearance stood behind their spokesman; but a demon leered across Colin's body, and the mouth of him was wide and cruel.
"Shall I wait?" said Nacoc-Yaotl.
"Yes, for the man is mine! But yesterday he was claimed for me in Tlapallan!"
"But yesterday he was claimed for me also, and--but yesterday Tlapallan fell. Did you save your servants?"
"Tlapallan's time was ended, and I might not save them. But death is little. I have fought you for this man's life because I love him, but slay him now if you will, for my children do not fear death. Slay him and spare this other deed, which is forbidden!"
"Did you forbid it when my white hounds roamed the hills?"
"Your hounds served a sacred use--to guard Tlapallan. Moreover, in their making only your power, not your spirit, went into them. Their violence was the clean violence that fights, but not for malice. For the sake of their origin those hounds stood equal with the mighty guardians. But the hounds you send forth today are fouler than foul. Evil is their service, and their nature an infinite degradation!"
"They are as I wish them."
"Then degrade beasts only, or such beasts as are human only in form. Claim service of your own, black one, but this is my child! I have followed him through many lands and I know him well. His spirit has flamed to the courage of my breath; I have sung to him on the plains, and lulled him to sleep in the forests. He is one of my clean-hearted children, and you may not corrupt him."
"He has traversed my waters," muttered a new voice, deep and thunderous as distant breakers. "In our play we hurled great billows, the Lord of the Air and I. We hurled them against him, and he was not afraid!"
"I have set my burning mark upon him!" Tonathiu spoke, a hissing whisper, "I have tested him well, and the fire of my own spirit was not more steadfast than his!"
"Beware of us, oh, mine enemy!" The feathered one's countenance grew bright and fierce, even as the glory of Tonathiu. Wildly waved his turbulent plumes, and raising his serpent-staff he shook it like a spear. "Beware of us, for our patience is nearly ended! Tlapallan fell, but its time was finished. Think not that we will stand idle forever while you destroy our children! The Lord of the Air guards his own!"
"There is a house on a hill," sneered the demon, "that you did not guard."
"You know otherwise. Not against me did you send your emissaries, but against this man, who had been claimed for me, and against his loved one. Knowing that your own claim on him was false --"
"Not so false now as then!" murmured Nacoc-Yaotl.
"I say," continued the other sternly, "knowing that you might not corrupt him, you sought the lesser satisfaction of killing. Not against me were your emissaries sent; but was it not my staff--my little broken staff--that sent back the first crawling up a blood-stained stream? Was it not my shield--my little broken shield--that kept the second, the glimmering worm, at bay till my child should awaken? For the third, no ward of mine was needed. But the fourth--was it not my great voice roaring in the trees that called my child away from a force too strong for him?"
"There is no question," retorted Nacoo-Yaotl, and there was a sneer in his tone that was very like Kennedy's, "there could be no question that before you were Lord of the Air you were a man! So do men boast of their most trifling deeds. The end of it all is--your child, or this that was your child, lies here. What protection do you offer him now, most powerful one?"
There came a pause and a silence. The other gods stirred restlessly, as in anger, but Quetzalcoatl's face grew patient again, and when he spoke it was in a voice of pleading, gentle as the wind of spring.
"He is not yours! Oh, Nacoc-Yaotl, once you were called Telpuctli the Young, and Tezcatlipoca, Shining Mirror! You rewarded the just, and for the wrong-doer you had mercy to bestow. Remember your youth, Telpuctli, and be merciful!"
But the Evil God only grinned wider.
"Men made me what I am, and for that I hate them! In all Anahuac there was no mercy among them. In the shrieks of the bloody sacrifice, in the cries of babes murdered upon my altars, in the steam that arose from the unspeakable feast, the mirror of Tezcatlipoca was fouled and dimmed; Telpuctli grew black, old and cruel!
"I am Nacoc-Yaotl, creator of hatreds, and why should I alone of the gods walk unrecognized? To Tlaloc are the rains, floods, clouds, and the billows. All these are his visible servants. Tonathiu is seen of all; and you, Lord of the Air, you are heard in the forests. In the day of your anger men know you and bow down in fear.
"But I, who am stronger than any, must work in secret! My own bond servants deny me. Many centuries I sat patient in Tlapallan, working in secret, restricted by the very priests that served me. Till there came to our hills a man who was mine from birth. Even he, being man, I must delude, lest in full knowledge of its service the weak vessel be shattered.
"'The Fortress of Fear,' he has named this, but it has a truer and more secret name--The Birthplace of Corruption!'
"Yet he has been an apt tool. Look about you in this, the seat he prepared for me, unknowing. Free runs my will today and freer shall it run tomorrow. Hate breeds hate, and demon produces demon. How fast have their numbers increased! He is pleased like a child, and believes that he shall rule the world! He! That empty, hollow reed through which my will runs!
"But through all, and despite his coward soul, I have brought this blind slave of mine to dare that for which I waited through the centuries! We have come at last to the utter corruption of man!
* * * * *
"Here lies the first who shall wear my outer livery because he has worn it once in his heart, but he is not the last. You have said that in the deed about to be performed I break an immutable law, and I know the law you mean. It is the right of the soul, which may not be utterly damned without its own consent. We will test that law. Here, in the person of one man, lies the fate of all mankind--whom I hate!
"If I succeed--as I shall succeed--then a barrier goes down which has long withheld me from my own. No longer shall I need my blind and foolish tool, who has thought to use my power to further his small and futile ambitions. From that hour I am free indeed. He whose heart I may stamp but once with my seal, I shall claim for my own! All--all--body and spirit together--as I claim this man! He has slain at my bidding, your perfect one. Protect him if you can!
"And when you fail--as you must, for you are weak cowards all, who fear to overstep boundaries and lose your godhead--when you fail, think well on this:
"In the day of the full corruption, and when each hater shall wear the foul outer form of his hatred, who, think you, will be best worshipped of the gods?"
There was silence. Then the dull, distant breakers roared again.<
br />
"I am Tlaloc! I bear the ships of man--my rains water his fields. Shall I serve a race of demons?"
"It may not be!" Tonathiu went ruddy, as if he peered through storm mists. "Shall I behold only devils as the world turns under me?"
"It may not be! It may not be!" The cry was echoed by the lesser gods, till one voice sang clear above the rest--the wind's voice, chanting forever round the world.
"It shall not bet Beware of me, O mine enemy! I am the Lord of the Air, without whom no thing lives. Fire, the pure, is my playfellow, and the whelming flood, my friend. But ere ever I was a god I was a man! Man is my brother! Better than all I love him! I am the song of his heart and the strength of his spirit! Courage am I, and hope, and the breath of the wild, sweet places! It is you who have flung down the challenge! It is I who take it up! Beware of me, O mine enemy, for the day of my patience is ended!"
The singing checked abruptly, and the god's face, bright and fierce even as Tonathiu's, darkened, grew dimmer.
About him and all of them the mist closed in, obscuring the clearness of Colin's vision. Like a premonition of evil the dark mist closed and thickened. When the Feathered One spoke again it was in a mere whisper. Colin could not be sure if he heard with his ears, or if the whisper and faint answering voice were equally in the bounds of his own brain.
"Claim your own, Nacoc-Yaotl, but not this man! It is forbidden. You cannot do it!"
"Why not, pray? One of the rabbits that went to make the stalking terrors behind you could have been no more in my power than he is!"
"No," retorted that dim voice. "A rabbit--perhaps. Yourself--by all means. But a real man--no!"
"You flatter him! Again--why not?"
"It won't be allowed, that's all. Were you really the clever devil you think you are, you'd know it!"
The conversation had taken on a reminiscent tang that puzzled Colin, and at the same time deeply depressed him. He had an idea, too, that just here someone should come in and--yes, there lurched Genghis Khan down a lane opened for him between the now barely visible ranks of the gods. Again he was dragging that unlucky and persistent corpse. Having laid it solemnly before the font, he somersaulted off like, a black catherine-wheel, to vanish in the mist.
"Marco--and dead!" said Nacoc-Yaotl.
At the words a soft, murmurous sound swept the mist, ice mind mourning through a forest.
"Dead," continued the demon, "by the angry hand of my servant!"
"By the just hand of mine!" murmured Colin's defender.
"No, for he knew no reason to kill. I rose up in his heart suddenly--and lo! he obeyed me! Obedience is the test. Why should I not give my servant what form I choose?"
Again there was silence. Colin began to think that to the last question no answer would be vouchsafed, and his depression increased. He would have liked to hear it answered--answered in some definite, satisfactory way, that would have convinced himself as well as the demon.
But now the vapors had swallowed all the friendly gods save the Lord of the Air, and his face changed yet more--changed and humanized, till suddenly Colin knew it for the face of Maxatla, that young captain preferred by the Moth Girl on Tlapallan Lake.
Striding forward he laid a hand on Colin's shoulder.
"I claim this man," he cried in a stern, sweet voice, that was unmistakably human. "I claim him in the name of the Feathered Serpent! Let any servant of Nacoc-Yaotl lay hand on him at his peril!"
And Nacoc-Yaotl answered: "You little fool! Unless you wish to lie in his place, go away! I am tired of having my work broken in on by a silly, superstitious girl. Now, for God's sake, if you know what's good for you, clear out of here and stay out!"
CHAPTER XXIX
A Golden Flask
Table of Contents
The Black God's reply to Maxatla struck Colin as highly incongruous. He wondered what the young captain would, say to it, and so wondering, opened his eyes.
With the suddenness of a blow the basin, that had been as obligingly transparent as his eyelids, shut in solid around him. The demon-fate above flashed back into Kennedy's, with its sneer and its enormous glasses.
It occurred to Colin that he had been dreaming; but he did actually lie in that golden basin, and there was actually a hand on his shoulder. By twisting his cramped neck a little he could see it. If it were Maxatla's, however, that young warrior possessed marvelously delicate fingers. -
Desiring above everything to identify the owner of that hand, Colin tried to raise himself. The ropes which had been on his arms were gone, his coat had been removed, and the flannel shirt under it half unfastened. But though free of bonds, he was so weak that the Lord of Fear easily pushed him back and held him there.
"Anesthetic wearing off," he heard Kennedy mutter, and then Maxatla spoke again.
"I shall not go--not without my lord. Between us there is the Golden Thread that may not be broken --"
"What on earth are you raving about now?"
"You are as discourteous as evil," she retorted quite calmly. "When, first I saw my lord, that night he came to your pitiful Fortress of Fear and I knew that its end was destined--when first I saw him in the passage outside my door, great and kind and noble--then I saw that which glimmered between us. Centeotl, who weaves the fruitfields on her looms, spins also the Golden Thread, for a sign between those who are destined. To not all is it given, but none who receive it may break it. Through all the distance I felt his need calling me --"
"Distance!" sneered Kennedy. "You can't have got very far away from here in that costume!"
"I have been far," was the retort, given with a placid dignity that nothing could shake. "For my dress, it was woven for me by the Lady Astrid, my own dear mother, ere she was taken home by the gods. Into it she wove many charms of love, and because of those charms, while I wear it no great harm may befall me."
"Oh, is that why you've hung onto it like grim death all this time? Lord, I never find out anything about your actions without uncovering a new superstition! You'd be an interesting study, if I had time for it. Now, before you clear out of here, tell me in three words where you have been, and--by Jove! You know what killed Marco! Or did you do it yourself?"
"I had no need. Because I spoke some thoughts of him and the vile passion he called love--because I promised to die before I would mate with him--he loosed upon me the devil-man there. So he was slain by one whom my prayers brought to aid me."
The leisurely, quiet statement brought an impatient grunt from Kennedy, but for Colin something at last slid off his conscience that had lain like a deadening weight. Repent Marco's killing? There had been cause, and to spare, for it! He had never supposed that Khan's murderous attack on the girl had been not only countenanced, but--commanded! Weakling? So are the rattlesnake and the gila-monster--but men hardly hesitated to crush them for that!
Colin stirred again, and Kennedy's attention came back to him.
"You go!" he said to the intruder. "I'll attend to your case later. Go--or I swear I'll loose that on you which prayer won't save you from!"
"I shall not go," she repeated. "Is there no warning that you will heed? Have you forgotten how, upon the first visit of my lord, your Fortress of Fear quivered, groaning in every stone and timber? To one less blind than you, it would have been sign enough that his coming presaged the end."
"You little fool, this house is centuries old. A place so old as this will often shake and settle by its own weight"
"You have made it the seat of Nacoc-Yaotl, and only a god could shake it! The Lord of the Air is patient, but I think that tonight he will set his foot at last on his enemy's neck. A great wind blows without--a great and awful wind! I tell you, the Feathered Serpent tears even now, at the roof-beams of this temple of evil. The end is near and--ah-h!"
Even Kennedy started, drawing back from the font and casting an anxious eye about his "work-room."
As on the evening of Colin's first visit, a long-drawn, grating moan was shaking the very walls; a
strange, ominous, vibrating sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once, and brought with it a feeling of nausea and vague terror. It was answered by a hideous concerted wail from the monstrosities of the swamp. At his master's back appeared Genghis Khan, chattering and cringing.
Released for a moment, Colin sat up. Where he got strength for that act he did not know, unless it had flowed into him from the fragile forgers on his shoulder.
There she stood, his Dusk Lady, the cloak flung back from her beautiful, worn, green gown, one hand still laid on her "lord," and on her face the look of a pale young prophetess.
"Warning!" she cried. "Warning! Maker of Hatreds, the end of patience is upon you!"
Like a pale young prophetess the Dusk Lady stood, but her voice rang on silence, for the groaning sound had passed, and with its cessation, the creatures of the mire had resumed their habit of quiet.
All seemed as before. All as before, save that the swamp's level seemed strangely higher, and over its edge at one side the head of a serpent had appeared. It crept forward a very little way and lay still. Unlike the gatekeeper, this serpent was black--black with a polished gleam--black like the teotetl, the sacred marble, from which had been carved a body for the Maker of Hatreds.
As the sound and vibration ceased, and Kennedy's hasty glance discerned nothing come of them, he turned angrily toward the girl.
Then he swore, and a moment later had flung both arms about his resurgent captive. But from some source Colin had certainly derived an influx of energy, enough at least for a struggle. Kennedy addressed a sharp command to his apish ally; but Khan held off, cowering back toward the dais and at last springing upon it to crouch beside its deity.
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