E. Hoffmann Price's Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK® Read online

  “Bint el Kafir!” Landon stared incredulously as one who has thrust upon him in one swift moment all the confusion and doubt of a lifetime. “Infidel’s Daughter…and yet a moment ago… Sarpanit!”

  And before that unearthly radiance Landon sank to his knees, stricken with an overwhelming wonder; forgetful of all save the transfiguration, the immeasurable loveliness of the Infidel’s Daughter, whose low voice murmured incredible words.

  “You have seen, and now you believe. Ismeddin sought to save you from your fate by putting your computations in error, so that the stars to which you chanted your mummeries were not those that ruled my avatar. Yet he knew that by the force of your desire you might call me from across the Border; and thus, despite his deception, he was uneasy; and conspired with the cabaret girl, your guest, to tempt you from Sarpanit incarnate and tangible. But it made little difference what you said, what rites you performed or omitted, what stars were at the zenith or nadir. I am here, Adôn, as I promised…”

  Landon raised his eyes, then dropped them before the increasing splendor and glory of the Infidel’s Daughter.

  “It mattered little,” she continued, “for the force of your desire and the spell of your vision sufficed. I danced before you in your pavilion at Koyunjik, and sang to you of the Hundred and One Strange Kisses. And I whispered in your ear the missing name, the hidden name which even Ismeddin did not know… Kadishtu… Now do you believe?

  “Thus despite the mummeries you performed, despite the ziggurât you built, I came from across the Border and assumed mortal form. Therefore rise, and admire the full splendor of that which you yourself created: for there are no gods save only those created by the fancy of man.”

  And Landon, godlike and exalted, rose to claim the first of the Hundred and One Strange Kisses.

  CHAPTER 5

  In accordance with their plan, the saffron-robed avengers gathered in the grove about the ziggurât, and in double column marched to the massive gate which, as they had expected, was locked and barred.

  One of the Knights drew from beneath his robe a small cylinder of acetylene; another had regulating valves, a torch, and hose; and finally, a small cylinder of compressed oxygen. These parts were swiftly assembled; then the striking of a match, and a broad flare of flame which diminished in size and increased in intensity as the oxygen was cut in: so that when it was adjusted, there was but a fine pencil of blue-white flame, an eighth of an inch long, but of dazzling, unearthly brilliance. The Knights averted their faces as one of their number advanced with the hissing tip of flame and applied it to one of the bars. A tiny spot on the metal became red-hot; and then, as the operator released the cutting jet, a shower of incandescent steel sprayed onto the paving; and in a few seconds the bar was cut clean as though sawed through. Again and again the torch was applied, until five bars were cut. And then the flame was cut off, leaving the darkness trebly black by contrast.

  The avengers paused, awestricken by the black depths beyond them.

  “Follow me!” commanded the Grand Master, stepping forward into the breach.

  One of the Knights flashed an electric torch. Another followed suit. Slim pencils of light revealed a staircase leading to the second stage of the ziggurât. Noiseless as shadows they picked their way up thickly carpeted steps.

  Not a word was whispered. The silence hung like an oppressing fog. And then the Knights, emerging on the second stage of the ziggurât, found themselves in a room pervaded with a pale, shimmering twilight, which revealed the ascent to the succeeding stage, flanked by grim, foreboding figures of winged bulls whose human heads, bearded and mitered, stared solemnly at the invaders.

  Out of the shadows leaped a white-bearded apparition: Ismeddin, seeing that flight was impossible, was determined to render a good account of himself. Twice he fired; and then his pistol jammed. His long-bladed kanijar rose and fell in the mêlée, until the tap of a blackjack swept away the old man’s senses in one paralyzing instant.

  The wounded were carried to the ground level; the remainder advanced, searching each apartment of the lower stages, working their way up, stage by stage, to the last, at whose great door they paused.

  Out of the silence came the rich tones of him they sought, lifting his voice in sonorous, foreign accents: and then the tinkle of bracelets, and a woman’s laughter.

  “We’ve got them both!” exulted the Grand Master. He tried the door; found it barred. “Bring on the torch!”

  Again that fierce flame flared wide, and then drew down to a pencil of dazzling blue whiteness. But this time in vain: for the massive door of the seventh stage was of plates and ponderous bars of bronze, against which no cutting torch can operate.

  Hammers, chisels, hatchets and bars of iron were drawn from beneath the saffron robes of the Knights: and likewise, in anticipation of their ultimate entry, they produced and laid to one side cords, whips, and small cans of oil.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Adôn,” murmured the Infidel’s Daughter as she withdrew from Landon’s embrace, “they have come to take the cabaret girl.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. Listen…”

  A dull tapping; and then a voice from without muffled by the thickness of the massive door.

  “Let us in. We only want the girl.”

  “Come in and get her!” mocked Landon.

  “If we have to force this door, you’ll get what’s coming to her.”

  “Try and force it!” And then, to the girl: “There is no other exit. Still—” And his eye paused, regarding an ancient, bull-headed mace that hung on the wall. “I’ll give them a surprise.”

  He advanced toward the ponderous door.

  “Don’t!” protested the Infidel’s Daughter.

  “Single-handed—”

  “No. In this ziggurât you called me from the shadows. Away from here I can have no existence. The mortal frame of her who sought shelter with you has been consumed in the fire of your vision, so that she is not; nor was she ever. You, you can leave; single-handed, fight your way out. But me you must leave behind, if you leave at all.”

  “Fight my way out, and leave you behind?”

  “Yes. For they can not harm or even touch me. The cabaret girl, yes; but not Bint el Kafir, not Sarpanit who has crossed the Border.”

  The besiegers were making no headway, no impression on the massive door which a hundred men with battering rams could not force.

  “Nor can they pass that door until your vision has been fulfilled to the uttermost—”

  “What further, Kadishtu?” wondered Landon, drunk with the splendor from across the Border.

  “Thus far I have not overstepped human bounds; nor did I intend to until the end of this avatar, a long time from this first evening. For you are a man after my own heart, Adôn, and no mortal woman could love you as I do: so that I would have withheld the Hundred and First Kiss until the Lords of the Sign recalled me, for no mortal may live to tell of its mystery. But those meddling fools—” She evaded his embrace, then continued, “But think well, Adôn. You can fight your way to freedom and escape. Me they will not find, for now I am not, save in your mind alone. The one they think they seek, the cabaret girl, has ceased to exist: for she served but to bring me to you. Therefore save yourself. And go your way, knowing what you have done. Knowing also that there is nothing before you: for you can not a second time call me from across the Border. If you wish…take your vision to its uttermost, and be consumed entirely, even as was Naram-sin of Agade, whom you saw asleep in my villa on Djeb el Kafir…or go your way, to live long and emptily, without having tasted the fullness of your destiny. That door will hold until you open it to scatter those fools before you…or until like Naram-sin you have been calcined in the mystery of the Hundred and First Kiss… Choose, Adôn!”

  Forgotten were the vengeful
Knights who vainly battered the massive brazen door; forgotten was all peril, all the past and its multitudinous turmoils and imbroglios; forgotten all save the wonder and radiance of the Infidel’s Daughter, Sarpanit whom he had called from across the Border, the Bright and Shining One whose smoldering eyes transfixed him, whose serpentine arms invited him, whose low, rippling voice murmured of incredible bliss and wonder beyond human endurance.

  Landon dropped the heavy mace and turned from the brazen door.

  “I have chosen.”

  The Lord of the Sign flamed fiercely as a bead of flame threaded on a silver wire…

  * * * *

  Even bronze has its limits. So that, failing by sheer force, the Knights finally succeeded with mallets and chisels. As the great door yielded, they wondered at the silence within, and at the overpowering, deadly sweetness that enveloped them, a dizzying, intoxicating, maddening sweetness that made their senses whirl and falter in confusion.

  The Knights in their amazement forgot the girl they sought, and stared at the exalted, godlike features of the sleeper, that fierce outlaw whose hard eyes and haughty air had so long baffled them. On the shoulder of his purple robe they saw a strand of blue-black hair. On his forehead was a rosy imprint, as of the kiss of heavily rouged lips.

  “Come to life!” growled the Grand Master with nervous gruffness. Then, remembering his mission: “Where is she?”

  He shook the sleeper by the shoulder.

  “Lord Christ!” he shrieked; “nothing but skin and bones!”

  “Nothing but skin and bones!” echoed a mocking, deathly bitter voice from the shadows of the far corner of the shrine. The Infidel’s Daughter, wraithlike, shadowy as a wisp of smoke, confronted them. “Fools! Meddlers!” continued that passionless, cold voice: “To save him from your stupidity which would have killed his soul too many years in advance of his body, I took the life of him who evoked me from the shadows and gave me human form. So take what is left of him…skin and bones!”

  Her laugh was like the touch of a frosty blade…like the whisperings of an evil spirit.

  The Grand Master was the first to reach the door. He tripped on his saffron robe, fell headlong down the stairs. And before sunrise he died, babbling of skin and bones, and of a girl and her poisonous, evil laugh.

  As the sun rose, Ismeddin, whose tough skull had survived the blow that had stunned him, emerged from behind the winged bull where the invaders had tossed him.

  The old man knew better than to touch the form of his master, or to disturb the curiously wrought silver diadem that lay in the hollow of Landon’s shoulder.

  “He found her in spite of me…and perhaps he will forgive my treason…” And then, with profound obeisance, “Es salaam aleika, saidi!”

  THIRSTY BLADES

  (written with Otis Adelbert Kline)

  Originally published in Weird Tales, February 1930.

  The side entrance to the caravanserai was closed. Well then, back down the alley, and around the corner to the main gate. But when Rankin turned to retrace his steps, he saw that it might be a long way from there to any other place. For to his right and left were blank walls; at his back, a closed gate; and in front, a crescent of drawn blades was closing in on him. Behind the six advancing swordsmen rode their commander. He reined in his Barbary stallion, stroked his beard—henna red, as Rankin could see plainly in the white moonlight—and settled back to enjoy the spectacle.

  “Click-click-click!” mocked the hammer of Rankin’s .45 as it fell on a succession of empty chambers.

  The red-bearded chief smiled. And Rankin knew that more than his own carelessness was responsible for the unloading of that revolver. Someone had worked fast and skillfully as Rankin reclined in the souk that afternoon, smoking a narghileh, sipping bitter Abyssinian coffee, and pondering on how to extricate the lady Azizah from the peril that was descending from the mountains of Kurdistan.

  Shoulder to shoulder the assailants advanced. Their steps were deliberate, now that they were certain rather than hopeful that the .45 had not been reloaded. Six lean swordsmen from the desert, grim phantoms whose curved blades gleamed frostily in the moonlight; curved scimitars whose drawing cut shears from shoulder to hip with one swift stroke.

  Rankin drew his scimitar, cursed the disguise that had forbidden his favorite saber, and came on guard. The six paused a moment in their advance. One of them, they knew, must close with their prey, while the other five hacked him to pieces. And the sentence of that one was written; for their victim’s frenzy would not be tempered with any hope of escape. One of them was even now a dead man…

  One…two…three paces…

  Rankin dropped his point and laughed.

  The line wavered. It takes courage to assault a madman.

  A long, fierce lunge, and a deadly swift flicker of steel; and Rankin withdrew from the melee, on guard again. That sudden assault from beyond probable striking-distance had caught them off balance; one of them was even now a dead man, shorn half asunder.

  Then they closed in. Rankin’s footwork saved him, and during that instant of grace, his blade again hit deep as he evaded the charge.

  “Mashallah”! gasped the red-bearded chief as he spurred his horse a pace forward.

  There were only four to continue the attack, but their assault would be a reckless whirlwind of steel. No more sidestepping or retreating for Rankin.

  “—hacked to pieces in some side street of Tekrit—” flashed through his mind. Ismeddin the Darvish was right.

  And then he saw the chief draw his blade.

  “Horse and foot! Christ, if I could only get him!” prayed Rankin.

  Time had ceased. He remembered how very slowly a swift blade approaches when one is in the last extremity. He could parry, cut, retreat, parry again, cut—and then the chief on horse would cut him down. But there was plenty of time…

  Then something on the wall behind Rankin cast its shadow over him: attack from the rear.

  “They are thorough in Tekrit!” flashed through his mind as the very end of that interminable instant came in an irresistibly flailing mill of blades.

  Clack-clack-click! And a silent stroke that bit flesh. Clack-clack—

  “Halt!” roared the chief from his Barbary horse.

  His upraised blade swept down. In response to his signal, something soft and clinging dropped from the wall and enveloped Rankin. Snared in a net!

  The three surviving footmen sheathed their blades, seized Rankin, now firmly enmeshed in the silken net, shouldered him, and followed their chief.

  “Well,” reflected Rankin, as he resigned himself to captivity, “if I’m hacked to pieces at all, it probably won’t be in a side street… I wonder if Ismeddin foresaw this?

  “And this only the 11th of Nisan…two more like this, and I’ll be in good training for that black swordsman in the vault…

  “They expected me—just staring at that girl had nothing to do with it,” Rankin assured himself by way of minimizing the folly of having stared too intently into the eyes of the veiled woman who had that afternoon appraised him from the height of her glittering litter.

  But Rankin knew that there was a direct connection between the sanguinary combat of a few moments ago, and the exchange of glances between him and the veiled girl whose gorgeously adorned litter had followed the red-bearded dignitary through the souk. There was but one conclusion: the girl had called the redbeard’s attention to Rankin.

  Well, and so be it then! For those were the eyes of Azizah who so often had accompanied Suleiman Baalshem in that haunting, recurring dream that for twenty years had driven Rankin the length and breadth of Asia, and across all the lands of Islam. He was attaining his goal, even if only to meet the thirsty blades whereof Ismeddin had spoken.

  The chief of his assailants, then, must be
the Shareef, Sayyid Yussuf, the girl’s uncle and guardian. In which case, all the better: at least Rankin was not in the hands of the devil-worshipers who had been filtering out of Kurdistan to celebrate their dreadful sabbat in that ravine two days’ ride from Tekrit…and thus and thus Rankin speculated…with never a passer-by to intrude on the unreality of it all.

  * * * *

  The chief at last drew up before a massive, iron-studded gate that was firmly hinged to the heavy masonry jamb and wall. He thumped the brazen lock-plate with the pommel of his scimitar. The door opened without a challenge from the porter within. The redbeard dismounted and signaled his men-at-arms to release Rankin from his silken web.

  At the end of a long, narrow passage, they turned into a courtyard where fountains sprayed mistily in the moonlight. Rankin’s captors released their grip on his arms; and one of them presented Rankin’s scimitar, hilt foremost.

  Rankin accepted the blade and glanced sharply about him. More combat?

  The chief smiled. “You are among friends, Saidi Rankin.”

  “Your playmates didn’t look so friendly,” retorted Rankin.

  “I am Absál, the son of our lord the Shareef,” continued the redbeard, “and my six playmates were only to assure me of your identity. There are others on the same mission that leads you to Tekrit. Anyway, before I could signal Silat up there on the wall with his net, three of my men were out of action.”

  “One should,” agreed Rankin, “always be sure of a stranger’s identity. But what if they had cut me into many small pieces?”