The Slayer of SoulsChambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
Science
The Slayer of Souls
Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
Conspiracies -- Fiction; Fantasy fiction; Magic -- Fiction
“I threw a big rose without a stem upon the shroud,” she exclaimed,
“and I cried out, ‘Niaz!’ which means, ‘Courage,’ and I mocked him,
saying, ‘Djamouk Khagan,’ when he was only a Khan, of course; and I
laughed and rubbed one finger against the other, crying out, ‘Toug ia
glachakho!’ which means, ‘The toug is anointed.’ And which was very
impudent of me, because Djamouk was a Sheik-el-Djebel and Khan of the
Fifth Tower, and entitled to a toug and to eight men and a Toughtchi.
And it is a grave offence to mock at the anointing of a toug.”
She paused, breathless, her splendid azure eyes sparkling with the
memory of that girlish mischief. Then their brilliancy faded; she bit
her lip and stole an uncertain glance at her husband.
And after a pause she explained in a very subdued voice that the “Iagla
michi,” or action of “greasing the toug,” or standard, was done when a
severed human head taken in battle was cast at the foot of the lance
shaft stuck upright in the ground.
“You see,” she said sadly, “we temple girls, being already damned,
cared little what we said, even to such a terrible man as Djamouk Khan.
And even had the ghost of old Tchinguiz Khagan himself come to the
temple and looked at us out of his tawny eyes, I think we might have
done something saucy.”
Tressa’s pretty face was spiritless, now; she leaned back in her
armchair and they heard an unconscious sigh escape her.
“Ai-ya! Ai-ya!” she murmured to herself, “what crazy things we did on
the rose-marble steps, Yulun and I, so long—so long ago.”
Cleves got up and went over to stand beside his wife’s chair.
“What happened is this,” he said heavily. “During my wife’s
convalescence after that Yarghouz affair, she found herself, at a
certain moment, clairvoyant. And she thought she saw—she _did_
see—Sanang, and an Asiatic she recognised as being one of the chiefs of
the Assassins sect, whose name is Djamouk.
“But, except that it was somewhere near the sea—some summer colony
probably on the Atlantic coast—she does not know where this pair of
jailbirds roost. And this is what we have come here to report.”
Benton, politely appalled, tried not to look incredulous. But it was
evident that Selden and Recklow had no doubts.
“Of course,” said Recklow calmly, “the thing to do is for you and your
wife to try to find this place she saw.”
“Make a tour of all such ocean-side resorts until Mrs. Cleves
recognises the place she saw,” added Selden. And to Recklow he added:
“I believe there are several perfectly genuine cases on record where
clairvoyants have aided the police.”
“Several authentic cases,” said Recklow quietly. But Benton’s face was
a study.
Tressa looked up at her husband. He dropped his hand reassuringly on
her shoulder and nodded with a slight smile.
“There—there was something else,” she said with considerable
hesitation—“something not quite in line of duty—perhaps——”
“It seems to concern Benton,” added Cleves, smiling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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