Part 1 (2/2)
I
DEATH STRIKES A KING
The king of Vendhya was dying Through the hot, stifling night the tes boomed and the conchs roared Their claold-doled on the velvet-cushi+oned dais Beads of sweat glistened on his dark skin; his fingers twisted the gold-worked fabric beneath hi; no spear had touched him, no poison lurked in his wine But his veins stood out like blue cords on his temples, and his eyes dilated with the nearness of death Tre down to hi him with passionate intensity, was his sister, the Devi Yasrown old in the royal court
She threw up her head in a gusty gesture of wrath and despair as the thunder of the distant drums reached her ears
”The priests and their clamor!” she exclaimed ”They are no wiser than the leeches who are helpless! Nay, he dies and none can say why He is dying now and I stand here helpless, ould burn the whole city and spill the blood of thousands to save him”
”Not a ht be, Devi,” answered the wazam
”This poison ”
”I tell you it is not poison!” she cried ”Since his birth he has been guarded so closely that the cleverest poisoners of the East could not reach hi on the Tower of the Kites can testify to attempts which were made and which failed As you well know, there are ten men and ten women whose sole duty is to taste his food and wine, and fifty aruard it now No, it is not poison; it is sorcery black, ghastlyspoke; his livid lips did not lassy eyes But his voice rose in an eery call, indistinct and far away, as if he called to her froulfs
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”Yasmina! Yasmina! My sister, where are you? I can not find you All is darkness, and the roaring of great winds!”
”Brother!” cried Yasrasp ”I am here! Do you not know me ”
Her voice died at the utter vacancy of his face A low confused irls at the foot of the dais whiuish
In another part of the city astreet in which torches tossed luridly, slea rose froed his broad shoulders and turned back into the arabesqued chamber He was a tallis not yet dead, but the dirge is sounded,” he said to another ed on a mat in a corner This reen turban was on his head His expression was tranquil, his gaze impersonal
”The people knoill never see another dawn,” this , searching stare
”What I can not understand,” he said, ”is why I have had to wait so long for yournohy could they not have slain hioverned by cosreen turban ”The stars direct these actions, as in other affairs Not even my masters can alter the stars Not until the heavens were in the proper order could they perforer-nail he mapped the constellations on the ed evil for the king of Vendhya; the stars are in tur such juxtaposition, the invisible guardians are removed from the spirit of Bhunda Chand A path is opened in the unseen realhty poere put in play along that path”
”Point of contact?” inquired the other ”Do you mean that lock of Bhunda Chand's hair?”
”Yes All discarded portions of the huible connections The priests of Asura have a di of this truth, and so all nail- 13
tris, hair and other waste products of the persons of the royal family are carefully reduced to ashes and the ashes hidden But at the urgent entreaty of the princess of Khosala, who loved Bhunda Chand vainly, he gave her a lock of his long black hair as a token of remembrance When olden, jewel-crusted case, was stolen from under her pillohile she slept, and another substituted, so like the first that she never knew the difference Then the genuine lock travelled by ca road to Peshkhauri, thence up the Zhaibar Pass, until it reached the hands of those for whom it was intended”
”Only a lock of hair,” murmured the nobleman
”By which a soul is drawn fro space,” returned the man on the mat
The nobleman studied him curiously
”I do not know if you are a man or a demon, Khemsa,” he said at last ”Few of us are e seem I, whom the Kshatriyas know as Kerireater a masquerader than most men They are all traitors in one way or another, and half of them know not whom they serve There at least I have no doubts; for I serve King Yezdigerd of Turan”
”And I the Black Seers of Yireater than yours, for they have accoerd could not with a hundred thousand swords”
Outside, the moan of the tortured thousands shuddered up to the stars which crusted the sweating Vendhyan night, and the conchs bellowed like oxen in pain
In the gardens of the palace the torches glinted on polished helold-chased corselets All the noble-born fighting-reat palace or about it, and at each broad-arched gate and door fifty archers stood on guard, with bows in their hands But Death stalked through the royal palace and none could stay his ghostly tread
On the dais under the golden doain his voice caain the Devi bent to hi with a fear that was darker than the terror of death
”Yas cry, from realms immeasurable ”Aid me! I ah the wind-blown darkness They seek to snap the silver cord that bindsbody They cluster around me; their 14
hands are taloned, their eyes are red like fla in darkness Aie, save ers sear me like fire! They would slaybefore me? Aie!”
At the terror in his hopeless cry Yasmina screamed uncontrollably and threw herself bodily upon hiuish He was torn by a terrible convulsion; foaers left their lassy blankness passed from his eyes like smoke blown fronition
”Brother!” she sobbed ”Brother ”
”Swift!” he gasped, and his weakening voice was rational ”I knohat brings me to the pyre I have been on a far journey and I understand I have been ensorceled by the wizards of the Himelians They drew my soul out of my body and far away, into a stone room There they strove to break the silver cord of life, and thrust ht-weird their sorcery summoned up from hell Ah! I feel their pull upon ht s to my body, but its hold weakens Quick kill me, before they can trapher naked breasts
”Swiftly, I co whisper ”You have never disobeyed me obey my last command! Send my soul clean to Asura! Haste, lest you daaunt of darkness Strike, I co wildly, Yased it to the hilt in his breast He stiffened and then went li his dead lips Yasmina hurled herself face-down on the rush-covered floor, beating the reeds with her clenched hands
Outside, the gongs and conchs brayed and thundered and the priests gashed themselves with copper knives