The Slayer of Souls

Neither of them spoke again for some minutes. Recklow's cigar went wrong; he rose and found another and returned to the fire, but did not light it.

"It's a rotten day, isn't it?" he said with a shiver, and dumped a scuttle of coal on the fire.

They watched the blue flames playing over the grate.

Tressa said: "I could no more help falling in love with him than I could stop my heart beating… But I did not dream that anybody knew."

"Don't you think he ought to know?"

"Why? He is not in love with me."

"Are you sure, Mrs. Cleves?"

"Yes. He is wonderfully sweet and kind. But he could not fall in love with a girl who has been what I have been."

Recklow smiled. "What have you been, Tressa Norne?"

"You know."

"A temple-girl at Yian?"

"And at the Lake of the Ghosts," she said in a low voice.

"What of it?"

"I can not tell you, Mr. Recklow… Only that I lost my soul in the Yezidee Temple – "

"That is untrue!"

"I wish it were untrue… My husband tells me that nothing can really harm the soul. I try to believe him… But Erlik lives. And when my soul at last shall escape my body, it shall not escape the Slayer of Souls."

"That is monstrously untrue – "

"No. I tell you that Prince Sanang slew my soul. And my soul's ghost belongs to Erlik. How can any man fall in love with such a girl?"

"Why do you say that Sanang slew your soul?" asked Recklow, peering at her averted face through the reddening firelight.

She lay still in her chair for a moment, then turned suddenly on him:

"He did slay it! He came to the Lake of the Ghosts as my lover; he meant to have done it there; but I would not have him – would not listen, nor suffer his touch! – I mocked at him and his passion. I laughed at his Tchortchas. They were afraid of me! – "

She half rose from her chair, grasped the arms, then seated herself again, her eyes ablaze with the memory of wrongs.

"How dare I show my dear lord that I am in love with him when Sanang's soul caught my soul out of my body one day – surprised my soul while my body lay asleep in the Yezidee Temple! – and bore it in his arms to the very gates of hell!"

"Good God," whispered Recklow, "what do you mean? Such things can't happen."

"Why not? They do happen. I was caught unawares… It was one golden afternoon, and Yulan and Sansa and I were eating oranges by the fountain in the inner shrine. And I lay down by the pool and made the effort– you understand?"

"Yes."

"Very well. My soul left my body asleep and I went out over the tops of the flowers – idly, without aim or intent – as the winds blow in summer… It was in the Wood of the White Moth that I saw Sanang's soul flash downward like a streak of fire and wrap my soul in flame!.. And, in a flash, we were at the gates of hell before I could free myself from his embrace… Then, by the Temple pool, among the oranges, I cried out asleep; and my terrified body sat up sobbing and trembling in Yulun's arms. But the Slayer of Souls had slain mine in the Wood of the White Moth – slain it as he caught me in his flaming arms… And now you know why such a woman as I dare not bend to kiss the dust from my dear Lord's feet – Aie-a! Aie-a! I who have lost my girl's soul to him who slew it in the Wood of the White Moth!"

She sat rocking in her chair in the red firelight, her hands framing her lovely face, her eyes staring straight ahead as though they saw opening before them through the sombre shadows of that room all the dread magic of the East where the dancing flame of Sanang's blazing soul lighted their path to hell through the enchanted forest.

Recklow had grown pale, but his voice was steady.

"I see no reason," he said, "why your husband should not love you."

"I tell you my girl's soul belonged to Sanang – was part of his, for an instant."

"It is burned pure of dross."

"It is burned."

Recklow remained silent. Tressa lay deep in her armchair, twisting her white fingers.

"What makes him so late?" she said… "I sent my soul out twice to look for him, and could not find him."

"Send it again," said Recklow, fearfully.

For ten minutes the girl lay as though asleep, then her eyes unclosed and she said drowsily: "I can not find him."

"Did – did you learn anything while – while you were – away?" asked Recklow cautiously.

"Nothing. There is a thick darkness out there – I mean a darkness gathering over the whole land. It is like a black fog. When the damned pray to Erlik there is a darkness that gathers like a brown mist – "

Her voice ceased; her hands tightened on the arms of her chair.

"That is what Sanang is doing!" she said in a breathless voice.

"What?" demanded Recklow.

"Praying! That is what he is doing! A million perverted minds which he has seized and obsessed are being concentrated on blasphemous prayers to Erlik! Sanang is directing them. Do you understand the terrible power of a million minds all willing, in unison, the destruction of good and the triumph of evil? A million human minds! More! For that is what he is doing. That is the thick darkness that is gathering over the entire Western world. It is the terrific materialisation of evil power from evil minds, all focussed upon the single thought that evil must triumph and good die!"

She sat, gripping the arms of her chair, pale, rigid, terribly alert, dreadfully enlightened, now, concerning the awful and new menace threatening the sanity of mankind.

She said in her steady, emotionless voice: "When the Yezidee Sorcerers desire to overwhelm a nomad people – some yort perhaps that has resisted the Sheiks of the Eight Towers, then the Slayer of Souls rides with his Black Banners to the Namaz-Ga or Place of Prayer.

"Two marble bridges lead to it. There are fourteen hundred mosques there. Then come the Eight, each with his shroud, chanting the prayers for those dead in hell. And there the Yezidees pray blasphemously, all their minds in ferocious unison… And I have seen a little yort full of Broad Faces with their slanting eyes and sparse beards, sicken and die, and turn black in the sun as though the plague had breathed on them. And I have seen the Long Noses and bushy beards of walled towns wither and perish in the blast and blight from the Namaz-Ga where the Slayer of Souls sat his saddle and prayed to Erlik, and half a million Yezidees prayed in blasphemous unison."

Recklow's head rested on his left hand. The other, unconsciously, had crept toward his pistol – the weapon which had become so useless in this awful struggle between this girl and the loosened forces of hell.

"Is that what you think Sanang is about?" he asked heavily.

"Yes. I know it. He has seized the minds of a million men in America. Every anarchist is to-day concentrating in one evil and supreme mental effort, under Sanang's direction, to will the triumph of evil and the doom of civilisation… I wish my husband would come home."

"Tressa?"