CHAPTER XIV
A DEATH TRAIL
The way to Fool's Acre was under a tangled canopy of thorns, underrotting windfalls of grey mirch, through tunnel after tunnel of fallendebris woven solidly by millions of strands of tough cat-briers whichcut the flesh like barbed wire.
There was blood on Tressa, where her flannel shirt had been pierced in ascore of places. Cleves and Selden had been painfully slashed.
Silent, thread-like streams flowed darkling under the tangled mass thatroofed them. Sometimes they could move upright; more often they werebent double; and there were long stretches where they had to creepforward on hands and knees through sparse wild grasses, soft, rottensoil, or paths of sphagnum which cooled their feverish skin in velvety,icy depths.
At noon they rested and ate, lying prone under the matted roof of theirtunnel.
Cleves and Selden had their rifles. Tressa lay like a slender boy, herbrier-torn hands empty.
And, as she lay there, her husband made a sponge of a handful ofsphagnum moss, and bathed her face and her arms, cleansing the driedblood from the skin, while the girl looked up at him out of grave,inscrutable eyes.
* * * * *
The sun hung low over the wilderness when they came to the woods ofFool's Acre. They crept cautiously out of the briers, among ferns andopen spots carpeted with pine needles and dead leaves which werebeginning to burn ruddy gold under the level rays of the sun.
Lying flat behind an enormous oak, they remained listening for a while.Selden pointed through the woods, eastward, whispering that the housestood there not far away.
"Don't you think we might risk the chance and use our rifles?" askedCleves in a low voice.
"No. It is the Tchor-Dagh that confronts us. I wish to talk to Sansa,"she murmured.
A moment later Selden touched her arm.
"My God," he breathed, "who is that!"
"It is Sansa," said Tressa calmly, and sat up among the ferns. And thenext instant Sansa stepped daintily out of the red sunlight and seatedherself among them without a sound.
Nobody spoke. The newcomer glanced at Selden, smiled slightly, blushed,then caught a glimpse of Cleves where he lay in the brake, and amischievous glimmer came into her slanting eyes.
"Did I not tell my lord truths?" she inquired in a demure whisper. "Assurely as the sun is a dragon, and the flaming pearl burns between hisclaws, so surely burns the soul of Heart of Flame between thy guardinghands. There are as many words as there are demons, my lord, but it iswritten that _Niaz_ is the greatest of all words save only the name ofGod."
She laughed without any sound, sweetly malicious where she sat among theferns.
"Heart of Flame," she said to Tressa, "you called me and I _made theeffort_."
"Darling," said Tressa in her thrilling voice, "the Yezidees are makingliving things out of dust,--as Sanang Noiane made that thing in theTemple.... And slew it before our eyes."
"The Tchor-Dagh," said Sansa calmly.
"The Tchor-Dagh," whispered Tressa.
Sansa's smooth little hands crept up to the collar of her odd, bluetunic; grasped it.
"In the name of God the Merciful," she said without a tremor, "listen tome, Heart of Flame, and may my soul be ransom for yours!"
"I hear you, Sansa."
Sansa said, her fingers still grasping the embroidered collar of hertunic:
"Yonder, behind walls, two Tower Chiefs meddle with the Tchor-Dagh,making living things out of the senseless dust they scrape from thegarden."
Selden moistened his dry lips. Sansa said:
"The Yezidees who have come into this wilderness are Arrak Sou-Sou, theSquirrel; and Tiyang Khan.... May God remember them in Hell!"
"May God remember them," said Tressa mechanically.
"And these two Yezidee Sorcerers," continued Sansa coolly, "haveadvanced thus far in the Tchor-Dagh; for they now roam these woods,digging like demons, for the roots of Ginseng; and thou knowest, O Heartof Flame, what that indicates."
"Does Ginseng grow in these woods!" exclaimed Tressa with a new terrorin her widening eyes.
"Ginseng grows here, little Rose-Heart, and the roots are as perfect ashuman bodies. And Tiyang Khan squats in the walled garden moulding theGinseng roots in his unclean hands, while Sou-Sou the Squirrel scratchesamong the dead leaves of the woods for roots as perfect as a naked humanbody.
"All day long the Sou-Sou rummages among the trees; all day long Tiyangpats and rubs and moulds the Ginseng roots in his skinny fingers. It isthe Tchor-Dagh, Heart of Flame. And these Sorcerers must be destroyed."
"Are their bodies here?"
"Arrak is in the body. And thus it shall be accomplished: listenattentively, Rose Heart Afire!--I shall remain here with----" she lookedat Selden and flushed a trifle, "--with you, my lord. And when theSquirrel comes a-digging, so shall my lord slay him with a bullet....And when I hear his soul bidding his body farewell, then I shall makeprisoner his soul.... And send it to the Dark Star.... And the restshall be in the hands of Allah."
She turned to Tressa and caught her hands in both of her own:
"It is written on the Iron Pages," she whispered, "that we belong toErlik and we return to him. But in the Book of Gold it is writtenotherwise: 'God preserve us from Satan who was stoned!' ... Therefore,in the name of Allah! Now then, Heart of Flame, do your duty!"
A burning flush leaped over Tressa's features.
"Is my soul, then, my own!"
"It belongs to God," said Sansa gravely.
"And--Sanang?"
"God is greatest."
"But--was God there--at the Lake of the Ghosts?"
"God is everywhere. It is so written in the Book of Gold," repliedSansa, pressing her hands tenderly.
"Recite the Fatha, Heart of Flame. Thy lips shall not stiffen; Godlistens."
Tressa rose in the sunset glory and stood as though dazed, and allcrimsoned in the last fiery bars of the declining sun.
Cleves also rose.
Sansa laughed noiselessly: "My lord would go whither thou goest, Heartof Fire!" she whispered. "And thy ways shall be his ways!"
Tressa's cheeks flamed and she turned and looked at Cleves.
Then Sansa rose and laid a hand on Tressa's arm and on her husband's:
"Listen attentively. Tiyang Khan must be destroyed. The signal soundswhen my lord's rifle-shot makes a loud noise here among these trees."
"Can I prevail against the Tchor-Dagh?" asked Tressa, steadily.
"Is not that event already in God's hands, darling?" said Sansa softly.She smiled and resumed her seat beside Selden, amid the drooping fernfronds.
"Bid thy dear lord leave his rifle here," she added quietly.
Cleves laid down his weapon. Selden pointed eastward in silence.
So they went together into the darkening woods.
* * * * *
In the dusk of heavy foliage overhanging the garden, Tressa lay flat asa lizard on the top of the wall. Beside her lay her husband.
In the garden below them flowers bloomed in scented thickets, borderedby walks of flat stone slabs split from boulders. A little lawn, verygreen, centred the garden.
And on this lawn, in the clear twilight still tinged with the sombrefires of sundown, squatted a man dressed in a loose white garment.
Save for a twisted breadth of white cloth, his shaven head was bare. Hissinewy feet were naked, too, the lean, brown toes buried in the grass.
Tressa's lips touched her husband's ear.
"Tiyang Khan," she breathed. "Watch what he does!"
Shoulder to shoulder they lay there, scarcely daring to breathe. Theireyes were fastened on the Mongol Sorcerer, who, squatted below on hishaunches, grave and deliberate as a great grey ape, continued busy withthe obscure business which so intently preoccupied him.
In a short semi-circle on the grass in front of him he had placed adozen wild Ginseng roots. The roots were enormous, astoundingly shapedlike the human bod
y, almost repulsive in their weird symmetry.
The Yezidee had taken one of these roots into his hands. Squatting therein the semi-dusk, he began to massage it between his long, muscularfingers, rubbing, moulding, pressing the root with caressingdeliberation.
His unhurried manipulation, for a few moments, seemed to produce noresult. But presently the Ginseng root became lighter in colour and moresupple, yielding to his fingers, growing ivory pale, sinuously limber ina newer and more delicate symmetry.
"Look!" gasped Cleves, grasping his wife's arm. "_What_ is that mandoing?"
"The Tchor-Dagh!" whispered Tressa. "Do you see what lies twisting therein his hands?"
The Ginseng root had become the tiny naked body of a woman--a littleivory-white creature, struggling to escape between the hands that hadcreated it--dark, powerful, masterly hands, opening leisurely now, andreleasing the living being they had fashioned.
The thing scrambled between the fingers of the Sorcerer, leaped into thegrass, ran a little way and hid, crouched down, panting, almost hiddenby the long grass. The shocked watchers on the wall could still see thecreature. Tressa felt Cleves' body trembling beside her. She rested acool, steady hand on his.
"It is the Tchor-Dagh," she breathed close to his face. "The MongolSorcerer is becoming formidable."
"Oh, God!" murmured Cleves, "that thing he made is _alive_! I saw it. Ican see it hiding there in the grass. It's frightened--breathing! It'salive!"
His pistol, clutched in his right hand, quivered. His wife laid her handon it and cautiously shook her head.
"No," she said, "that is of no use."
"But what that Yezidee is doing is--is blasphemous----"
"Watch him! His mind is stealthily feeling its way among the laws andsecrets of the Tchor-Dagh. He has found a thread. He is following itthrough the maze into hell's own labyrinth! He has created a tiny thingin the image of the Creator. He will try to create a larger being now.Watch him with his Ginseng roots!"
Tiyang, looming ape-like on his haunches in the deepening dusk, mouldedand massaged the Ginseng roots, one after another. And one afteranother, tiny naked creatures wriggled out of his palms between hisfingers and scuttled away into the herbage.
Already the dim lawn was alive with them, crawling, scurrying throughthe grass, creeping in among the flower-beds, little, ghostly-whitethings that glimmered from shade into shadow like moonbeams.
Tressa's mouth touched her husband's ear:
"It is for the secret of Destruction that the Yezidee seeks. But firsthe must learn the secret of creation. He is learning.... And he mustlearn no more than he has already learned."
"That Yezidee is a living man. Shall I fire?"
"No."
"I can kill him with the first shot."
"Hark!" she whispered excitedly, her hand closing convulsively on herhusband's arm.
The whip-crack of a rifle-shot still crackled in their ears.
Tiyang had leaped to his feet in the dusk, a Ginseng root, half-alive,hanging from one hand and beginning to squirm.
Suddenly the first moonbeam fell across the wall. And in its lustreTressa rose to her knees and flung up her right hand.
Then it was as though her palm caught and reflected the moon's ray, andhurled it in one blinding shaft straight into the dark visage ofTiyang-Khan.
The Yezidee fell as though he had been pierced by a shaft of steel, andlay sprawling there on the grass in the ghastly glare.
And where his features had been there gaped only a hole into the head.
Then a dreadful thing occurred; for everywhere the grass swarmed withthe little naked creatures he had made, running, scrambling, scuttling,darting into the black hole which had been the face of Tiyang-Khan.
They poured into the awful orifice, crowding, jostling one another soviolently that the head jerked from side to side on the grass, awabbling, inert, soggy mass in the moonlight.
And presently the body of Tiyang-Khan, Warden of the Rampart of Gog andMagog, and Lord of the Seventh Tower, began to burn with white fire--alow, glimmering combustion that seemed to clothe the limbs like anincandescent mist.
On the wall knelt Tressa, the glare from her lifted hand streaming overthe burning form below.
Cleves stood tall and shadowy beside his wife, the useless pistolhanging in his grasp.
Then, in the silence of the woods, and very near, they heard Sansalaughing. And Selden's anxious voice:
"Arrak is dead. The Sou-Sou hangs across a rock, head down, like a shotsquirrel. Is all well with you?"
"Tiyang is on his way to his star," said Tressa calmly. "Somewhere inthe world his body has bid its mind farewell.... And so his body maylive for a little, blind, in mental darkness, fed by others, and lockedin all day, all night, until the end."
Sansa, at the base of the wall, turned to Selden.
"Shall I bring my body with me, one day, my lord?" she asked demurely.
"Oh, Sansa----" he whispered, but she placed a fragrant hand across hislips and laughed at him in the moonlight.