The A. Merritt Megapack Read online

  Herndon said evenly: “It was in a small hidden crypt in the Imperial Palace. We broke into the crypt quite by”—he hesitated—“well, call it accident. As soon as I saw it I knew I must have it. What do you think of it?”

  “Think!” I cried. “Think! Why, it’s the most marvelous thing that the hands of man ever made! What is that stone? Jade?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Herndon. “But come here. Stand just in front of me.”

  He switched out the lights in the room. He turned another switch, and on the glass oposite me three shaded electrics threw their rays into its mirror-like oval.

  “Watch!” said Herndon. “Tell me what you see!”

  I looked into the glass. At first I could see nothing but the rays shining farther, farther—back into infinite distances, it seemed. And then.

  “Good God!” I cried, stiffening with horror. “Jim, what hellish thing is this?”

  “Steady, old man,” came Herndon’s voice. There was relief and a curious sort of joy in it. “Steady; tell me what you see.”

  I said: “I seem to see through infinite distances—and yet what I see is as close to me as though it were just on the other side of the glass. I see a cleft that cuts through two masses of darker green. I see a claw, a gigantic, hideous claw that stretches out through the cleft. The claw has seven talons that open and close—open and close. Good God, such a claw, Jim! It is like the claws that reach out from the holes in the lama’s hell to grip the blind souls as they shudder by!”

  “Look, look farther, up through the cleft, above the claw. It widens. What do you see?”

  I said: “I see a peak rising enormously high and cutting the sky like a pyramid. There are flashes of flame that dart from behind and outline it. I see a great globe of light like a moon that moves slowly out of the flashes; there is another moving across the breast of the peak; there is a third that swims into the flame at the farthest edge—”

  “The seven moons of Rak,” whispered Herndon, as though to himself. “The seven moons that bathe in the rose flames of Rak which are the fires of life and that circle Lalil like a diadem. He upon whom the seven moons of Rak have shone is bound to Lalil for this life, and for ten thousand lives.”

  He reached over and turned the switch again. The lights of the room sprang up.

  “Jim,” I said, “it can’t be real! What is it? Some devilish illusion in the glass?”

  He unfastened the bandages about his chest.

  “The claw you saw had seven talons,” he answered quietly. “Well, look at this.”

  Across the white flesh of his breast, from left shoulder to the lower ribs on the right, ran seven healing furrows. They looked as though they had been made by a gigantic steel comb that had been drawn across him. They gave one the thought they had been ploughed.

  “The claw made these,” he said as quietly as before.

  “Ward,” he went on, before I could speak, “I wanted you to see—what you’ve seen. I didn’t know whether you would see it. I don’t know whether you’ll believe me even now. I don’t suppose I would if I were in your place—still—”

  He walked over and threw the hood upon the Dragon Glass.

  “I’m going to tell you,” he said. “I’d like to go through it—uninterrupted. That’s why I cover it.

  “I don’t suppose,” he began slowly—“I don’t suppose, Ward, that you’ve ever heard of Rak the WonderWorker, who lived somewhere back at the beginning of things, nor how the Greatest Wonder-Worker banished him somewhere outside the world?”

  “No,” I said shortly, still shaken by the sight.

  “It’s a big part of what I’ve got to tell you,” he went on. “Of course you’ll think it rot, but—I came across the legend in Tibet first. Then I ran across it again—with the names changed, of course—when I was getting away from China.

  “I take it that the gods were still fussing around close to man when Rak was born. The story of his parentage is somewhat scandalous. When he grew older Rak wasn’t satisfied with just seeing wonderful things being done. He wanted to do them himself, and he—well, he studied the method. After a while the Greatest Wonder-Worker ran across some of the things Rak had made, and he found them admirable—a little too admirable. He didn’t like to destroy the lesser wonderworker because, so the gossip ran, he felt a sort of responsibility. So he gave Rak a place somewhere—outside the world—and he gave him power over every one out of so many millions of births to lead or lure or sweep that soul into his domain so that he might build up a people—and over his people Rak was given the high, the low, and the middle justice.

  “And outside the world Rak went. He fenced his domain about with clouds. He raised a great mountain, and on its flank he built a city for the men and women who were to be his. He circled the city with wonderful gardens, and he placed in the gardens many things, gome good and some very—terrible. He set around the mountain’s brow seven moons for a diadem, and he fanned behind the mountain a fire which is the fire of life, and through which the moons pass eternally to be born again.” Herndon’s voice sank to a whisper.

  “Through which the moons pass,” he said. “And with them the souls of the people of Rak. They pass through the fires and are born again—and again—for ten thousand lives. I have seen the moons of Rak and the souls that march with them into the fires. There is no sun in the land—only the new-born moons that shine green on the city and on the gardens.”

  “Jim,” I cried impatiently. “What in the world are you talking about? Wake up, man! What’s all that nonsense got to do with this?”

  I pointed to the hooded Dragon Glass.

  “That,” he said. “Why, through that lies the road to the gardens of Rak!”

  The heavy gun dropped from my hand as I stared at him, and from him to the glass and back again. He smiled and pointed to his bandaged breast.

  He said: “I went straight through to Peking with the Allies. I had an idea what was coming, and I wanted to be in at the death. I was among the first to enter the Forbidden City. I was as mad for loot as any of them. It was a maddening sight, Ward. Soldiers with their arms full of precious stuff even Morgan couldn’t buy; soldiers with wonderful necklaces around their hairy throats and their pockets stuffed with jewels; soldiers with their shirts bulging treasures the Sons of Heaven had been hoarding for centuries! We were Goths sacking imperial Rome. Alexander’s hosts pillaging that ancient gemmed courtezan of cities, royal Tyre! Thieves in the great ancient scale, a scale so great that it raised even thievery up to something heroic.

  “We reached the throne-room. There was a little passage leading off to the left, and my men and I took it. We came into a small octagonal room. There was nothing in it except a very extraordinary squatting figure of jade. It squatted on the floor, its back turned toward us. One of my men stooped to pick it up. He slipped. The figure flew from his hand and smashed into the wall. A slab swung outward. By a—well, call it a fluke, we had struck the secret of the little octagonal room!

  “I shoved a light through the aperture. It showed a crypt shaped like a cylinder. The circle of the floor was about ten feet in diameter. The walls were covered with paintings, Chinese characters, queer-looking animals, and things I can’t well describe. Around the room, about seven feet up, ran a picture. It showed a sort of island floating off into space. The clouds lapped its edges like frozen seas full of rainbows. There was a big pyramid of a mountain rising out of the side of it. Around its peak were seven moons, and over the peak—a face!

  “I couldn’t place that face and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It wasn’t Chinese, and it wasn’t of any other race I’d ever seen. It was as old as the world and as young as tomorrow. It was benevolent and malicious, cruel and kindly, merciful and merciless, saturnine as Satan and as joyous as Apollo. The eyes were as yellow as buttercups, or as the sunstone on the crest of the Feathered Serpent they worship down in the Hidden Temple of Tuloon. And they were as wise as Fate.

  “‘There’s som
ething else here, sir,’ said Martin—you remember Martin, my first officer. He pointed to a shrouded thing on the side. I entered, and took from the thing a covering that fitted over it like a hood. It was the Dragon Glass!

  “The moment I saw it I knew I had to have it—and I knew I would have it. I felt that I did not want to get the thing away any more than the thing itself wanted to get away. From the first I thought of the Dragon Glass as something alive. Just as much alive as you and I are. Well, I did get it away. I got it down to the yacht, and then the first odd thing happened.

  “You remember Wu-Sing, my boat steward? You know the English Wu-Sing talks. Atrocious! I had the Dragon Glass in my stateroom. I’d forgotten to lock the door. I heard a whistle of sharply indrawn breath. I turned, and there was Wu-Sing. Now, you know that Wu-Sing isn’t what you’d call intelligent-looking. Yet as he stood there something seemed to pass over his face, and very subtly change it. The stupidity was wiped out as though a sponge had been passed over it. He did not raise his eyes, but he said, in perfect English, mind you; ‘Has the master augustly counted the cost of his possession?’

  “I simply gaped at him.

  “‘Perhaps,’ he continued, ‘the master has never heard of the illustrious Hao-Tzan? Well, he shall hear.’

  “Ward, I couldn’t move or speak. But I know now it wasn’t sheer astonishment that held me. I listened while Wu-Sing went on to tell in polished phrase the same story that I had heard in Tibet, only there they called him Rak instead of Hao-Tzan. But it was the same story.

  “‘And,’ he finished, ‘before he journeyed afar, the illustrious Hao-Tzan caused a great marvel to be wrought. He called it the Gateway.’ Wu-Sing waved his hand to the Dragon Glass. ‘The master has it. But what shall he who has a Gateway do but pass through it? Is it not better to leave the Gateway behind—unless he dare go through it?’

  “He was silent. I was silent, too. All I could do was wonder where the fellow had so suddenly got his command of English. And then Wu-Sing straightened. For a moment his eyes looked into mine. They were as yellow as buttercups, Ward, and wise, wise! My mind rushed back to the little room behind the panel. Ward—the eyes of Wu-Sing were the eyes of the face that brooded over the peak of the moons!

  “And all in a moment, the face of Wu-Sing dropped back into its old familiar stupid lines. The eyes he turned to me were black and clouded. I jumped from my chair.

  “‘What do you mean, you yellow fraud!’ I shouted. ‘What do you mean by pretending all this time that you couldn’t talk English?’

  “He looked at me stupidly, as usual. He whined in his pidgin that he didn’t understand; that he hadn’t spoken a word to me until then. I couldn’t get anything else out of him, although I nearly frightened his wits out. I had to believe him. Besides, I had seen his eyes. Well, I was fair curious by this time, and I was more anxious to get the glass home safely than ever.

  “I got it home. I set it up here, and I fixed those lights as you saw them. I had a sort of feeling that the glass was waiting—for something. I couldn’t tell just what. But that it was going to be rather important, I knew—”

  He suddenly thrust his head into his hands, and rocked to and fro.

  “How long, how long,” he moaned, “how long, Santhu?”

  “Jim!” I cried. “Jim! What’s the matter with you?”

  He straightened. “In a moment you’ll understand,” he said.

  And then, as quietly as before: “I felt that the glass was waiting. The night I disappeared I couldn’t sleep. I turned out the lights in the room; turned them on around the glass and sat before it. I don’t know how long I sat, but all at once I jumped to my feet. The dragons seemed to be moving! They were moving! They were crawling round and round the glass. They moved faster and faster. The thirteenth dragon spun about the topaz globe. They circled faster and faster until they were nothing but a halo of crimson and gold flashes. As they spun, the glass itself grew misty, mistier, mistier still, until it was nothing but a green haze. I stepped over to touch it. My hand went straight on through it as though nothing were there.

  “I reached in—up to the elbow, up to the shoulder. I felt my hand grasped by warm little fingers. I stepped through—”

  “Stepped through the glass?” I cried.

  “Through it,” he said, “and then—I felt another little hand touch my face. I saw Santhu!

  “Her eyes were as blue as the corn flowers, as blue as the big sapphire that shines in the forehead of Vishnu, in his temple at Benares. And they were set wide, wide apart. Her hair was blue-black, and fell in two long braids between her little breasts. A golden dragon crowned her, and through its paws slipped the braids. Another golden dragon girded her. She laughed into my eyes, and drew my head down until my lips touched hers. She was lithe and slender and yielding as the reeds that grow before the Shrine of Hathor that stands on the edge of the Pool of Djeeba. Who Santhu is or where she came from—how do I know? But this I know—she is lovelier than any woman who ever lived on earth. And she is a woman!

  “Her arms slipped from about my neck and she drew me forward. I looked about me. We stood in a cleft between two great rocks. The rocks were a soft green, like the green of the Dragon Glass. Behind us was a green mistiness. Before us the cleft ran only a little distance. Through it I saw an enormous peak jutting up like a pyramid, high, high into a sky of chrysoprase. A soft rose radiance pulsed at its sides, and swimming slowly over its breast was a huge globe of green fire. The girl pulled me towards the opening. We walked on silently, hand in hand. Quickly it came to me—Ward, I was in the place whose pictures had been painted in the room of the Dragon Glass!

  “We came out of the cleft and into a garden. The Gardens of Many-Columned Iram, lost in the desert because they were too beautiful, must have been like that place. There were strange, immense trees whose branches were like feathery plumes and whose plumes shone with fires like those that clothe the feet of Indra’s dancers. Strange flowers raised themselves along our path, and their hearts glowed like the glow-worms that are fastened to the rainbow bridge to Asgard. A wind sighed through the plumed trees, and luminous shadows drifted past their trunks. I heard a girl laugh, and the voice of a man singing.

  “We went on. Once there was a low wailing far in the garden, and the girl threw herself before me, her arms outstretched. The wailing ceased, and we went on. The mountain grew plainer. I saw another great globe of green fire swing out of the rose flashes at the right of the peak. I saw another shining into the glow at the left. There was a curious trail of mist behind it. It was a mist that had tangled in it a multitude of little stars. Everything was bathed in a soft green light—such a light as you would have if you lived within a pale emerald.

  “We turned and went along another little trail. The little trail ran up a little hill, and on the hill was a little house. It looked as though it was made of ivory. It was a very odd little house. It was more like the Jain pagodas at Brahmaputra than anything else. The walls glowed as though they were full light. The girl touched the wall, and a panel slid away. We entered, and the panel closed after us.

  “The room was filled with a whispering yellow light. I say whispering because that is how one felt about it. It was gentle and alive. A stairway of ivory ran up to another room above. The girl pressed me toward it. Neither of us had uttered a word. There was a spell of silence upon me. I could not speak. There seemed to be nothing to say. I felt a great rest and a great peace—as though I had come home. I walked up the stairway and into the room above. It was dark except for a bar of green light that came through the long and narrow window. Through it I saw the mountain and its moons. On the floor was an ivory head-rest and some silken cloths. I felt suddenly very sleepy. I dropped to the cloths and at once was asleep.

  “When I awoke the girl with the cornflower eyes was beside me! She was sleeping. As I watched, her eyes opened. She smiled and drew me to her—

  “I do not know why, but a name came to me. ‘Santhu!’ I cr
ied. She smiled again, and I knew that I had called her name. It seemed to me that I remembered her, too, out of immeasurable ages. I arose and walked to the window. I looked toward the mountain. There were now two moons on its breast. And then I saw the city that lay on the mountain’s flank. It was such a city as you see in dreams, or as the tale-tellers of El-Bahara fashion out of the mirage. It was all of ivory and shining greens and flashing blues and crimsons. I could see people walking about its streets. There came the sound of little golden bells chiming.

  “I turned toward the girl. She was sitting up, her hands clasped about her knees, watching me. Love came, swift and compelling. She arose—I took her in my arms—

  “Many times the moons circled the mountains, and the mist held the little, tangled stars passing with them. I saw no one but Santhu; no thing came near us. The trees fed us with fruits that had in them the very essences of life. Yes, the fruit of the Tree of Life that stood in Eden must have been like the fruit of those trees. We drank of green water that sparkled with green fires, and tasted like the wine Osiris gives the hungry souls in Amenti to strengthen them. We bathed in pools of carved stone that welled with water yellow as amber. Mostly we wandered in the gardens. There were many wonderful things in the gardens. They were very unearthly. There was no day nor night. Only the green glow of the ever-circling moons. We never talked to each other. I don’t know why. Always there seemed nothing to say.

  “Then Santhu began to sing to me. Her songs were strange songs. I could not tell what the words were. But they built up pictures in my brain. I saw Rak the Wonder-Worker fashioning his gardens, and filling them with things beautiful and things—evil. I saw him raise the peak, and knew that it was Lalil; saw him fashion the seven moons and kindle the fires that are the fires of life. I saw him build his city, and I saw men and women pass into it from the world through many gateways.