The Bracelet Betrays

Chapter Twenty-Two

That was a hidden way, in truth. How Sigurd followed it in the glimmering fog, by what signs led, Kenton could not tell. But the Viking walked along, unhesitant. Close behind him waddled Gigi and from time to time he saw Sigurd point here and there as though he were explaining the way. Soon he was sure of this, for frequently the Ninevite would pause as though to have instructions repeated. What they whispered he could not hear. Six feet behind them strode the Persian, with Kenton the same distance behind him.

Between high rocks covered with the golden ferns the narrow road ran, and through thickets where the still air was languorous with the scent of myriads of strange blossoms; through dense clumps of slender trunks which were like bamboo stems all lacquered scarlet, and through groves where trees grew primly in parklike precision and under which the tarnished silver shadows were thick. Their steps made no sound on the soft moss. They had long lost the murmur of the sea. Sound of any kind around them there was none.

At the skirt of one of these ordered groves the Viking paused.

“This is the place of Nergal’s sacrifice,” he whispered. “I go to see if any of Nergal’s black dogs are about. Wait for me here.”

He melted into the mists. They waited, silent. For each felt that something evil, some hideous malignity lay sleeping within those trees and if they spoke or moved it would awaken, reach out, draw them to it. That wood was saturated with evil. And out of it, as though the sleeping evil breathed, pulsed the sickly sweet and charnel odor that had hung in Klaneth’s cabin.

Silently as he had gone, Sigurd returned.

“No black robes there,” he said softly. “Yet—something of their dark god dwells in that grove always. Eager am I to pass this place. Go softly and quickly. Speak not again to me, Gigi, until I bid you.”

Softly, quickly they went, skirting that place of evil with cold sweat on Kenton’s brow and hands. At last Sigurd paused, exhaled a vast sigh of relief.

“I like not that grove,” he said. “And you would like it even less than you did if you knew what Nergal’s priests do therein. Even you, Zubran, would lose some of that weariness of which so often you complain.”

“Good!” replied the Persian blandly. “Viking, I thank you. Now when I am Lord of Emakhtila I will save some of Nergal’s priests that they may come there and perform before me.”

“Thor shield us!” The Viking made the sign of the Hammer. “Talk not like that, Zubran—not here. Quick!”

He led them with increased speed. Soon Gigi and he were whispering as before. And now the way began to climb steeply. On they went and higher and higher. They passed through a long and deep ravine in which the glimmering, misty light was hardly strong enough for them to pick their way over the bowlders that strewed it.

They passed out of it between two huge monoliths—and halted. For abruptly the silence that had enveloped them was broken. Before them was nothing but the wall of the mists, but from them and far, far below came a murmuring, a humming as of a great city; came, too, the creaking of masts, the rattle of gear, the splashing of oars and now and then a shouting, darting up like a kite from the vague clamor.

“The harbor,” whispered Sigurd, and pointed downward to the right. “We are high above it. Emakhtila lies beneath us—close. And there, blood-brother,”—he pointed again downward and a little to the left—“there is the Temple of the Seven Zones.”

Kenton followed the pointing finger. A mighty mass loomed darkly in the silvery haze, its nebulous outlines cone-shaped, its top flattened. His heart quickened.

“On, Sigurd,” he bade, trembling.

Down they went, and ever down. Again the way was hidden by trees and rocks, but as they went through what must have been open spaces the murmuring of the city came to them ever louder and louder. And ever the great bulk of the temple grew plainer, climbing higher and higher into the heavens as they descended. And ever the mists hid the city from them.

Abruptly they came to a high stone wall. Here Sigurd swiftly turned and led them into a grove of trees, thick, heavily shadowed. Through the trees they slipped, following the Viking who now went on with even greater caution than he had shown at the place of sacrifice.

At last he peered out from behind an enormous trunk, beckoned them. They clustered about him. Beyond the trees was a deep rutted, broad roadway.

“A road into the city,” he said. “A free road on which we can walk without fear.”

They clambered down a high bank and took that road, walking now side by side. Soon the trees gave way to fields, cultivated as far as the mists would let them see; fields filled with high plants whose leaves were shaped like those of the corn, but saffron yellow instead of green and instead of ears long pannicles of gleaming white grains; rows of bushes on whose branches shone berries green as emeralds; strange fruits; tree-stemmed vines from which fell curious star-shaped gourds.

They saw houses, two-storied invariably; blocklike with smaller cubes for wings, like those a child makes with its nursery blocks. They were painted startlingly—both in colors and patterns. Façades striped with alternate vertical yard wide bands of blue and yellow, façades of dull blue through which darted scarlet zigzags like the conventionalized lightning bolt. Broad horizontal bands of crimson barred with stripes of green.

The road narrowed, became a thoroughfare paved with blocks that felt beneath the feet like volcanic rock—tufa. The painted houses became thicker. Men and women passed them, brown faced and black, clad alike in one sleeveless white garment cut short just below the knees. On the right wrist of each of these was a bronze ring from which fell a half dozen links of chain. They carried burdens—jugs, baskets of the odd fruits and gourds, loaves of bread colored ruddy brown, flat cakes a foot across. They glanced at the four curiously as they passed.

“Slaves,” said Sigurd.

Now the painted houses stood solidly, side by side. These were galleried and on the galleries were flowering trees and plants like those upon the rosy cabin of the ship. From some of them women leaned and called out to them as they went by.

They passed out of this street into a roaring thoroughfare thronged with people. And here Kenton halted in sheer amazement. Wonder and surprise he had thought gone with that old self of his. But at this sight they flamed up anew.

At the far end of the thoroughfare loomed the huge bulk of the temple. Its sides were lined with shops. At their doors stood men crying out their wares. Banners fell from them on which in woven silk ran the cuneiform letters that told their goods.

Past him walked Assyrians, men of Nineveh and of Babylon with curled heads and ringleted beards; hook nosed, fierce eyed Phœnicians; sloe-eyed, muslin skirted Egyptians; Ethiopians with great golden circlets in their ears; almond lidded, smiling yellow men. Soldiers in cuirasses of linked mail, archers with quivers on back and bows in hand strode by him, priests in robes of black and crimson and blue. Stood in front of him for an instant a ruddy skinned, smooth muscled warrior who carried upon one shoulder the double bladed ax of ancient Crete. Over his other shoulder lay the white arm of a sandalled woman in oddly modern pleated and patterned skirt, snake girdled and with high, white breast peeping from her opened and as oddly modern blouse. A Minoan and his mate he knew the pair to be, two who had perhaps watched the youths and maids who were Athens’ tribute to the Minotaur go through the door of the labyrinth to the lair where the monstrous man-bull awaited them.

And there went a cuirassed Roman, gripping a wicked short sword of bronze that might have, and probably did, help cut out the paths the first Cæsar trod. Behind him a giant Gaul with twisted locks and eyes as coldly blue as Sigurd’s own.

Up and down along the center of the thoroughfare rode men and women in litters borne on the shoulders of slaves. His eyes followed a Grecian girl, long limbed and lithe, with hair as yellow as the ripened wheat. They followed, too, a hot eyed Carthaginian girl lovely enough to be a bride of Baal who leaned over the side of her litter and smiled at him.

“I am hungry and I thirst,” grunted Sigurd. “Why do we stand here? Let us be going.”

And suddenly Kenton realized that this pageant of past ages could be no strange thing to them who were also of that past. He nodded assent. They swung into the crowd and stopped at last before a place wherein men sat eating and drinking.

“Better for us to enter two by two,” said Gigi. “Klaneth seeks four men and we are four strangers. Wolf, go you in first with Sigurd. Zubran and I will follow—but speak not to us when we enter.”

The shopkeeper set food before them and high beakers of red wine. He was garrulous; he asked them when they had made harbor; if their voyage had been a good one.

“It is a good time not to be at sea,” he said. “Storm comes—and a great one. I pray to Nabu, Dispenser of Waters, that he hold it until Bel’s worship is ended. I close my shop later to see that new priestess of Bel’s they talk so much about.”

Kenton’s face had been bent over, his cap veils hiding it. But at this he raised it and stared full into the man’s face.

And the shopkeeper blenched, faltered, stared back at him with wide eyes!

Had he been recognized? His hand sought stealthily his sword.

“Pardon!” gasped the shopkeeper. “I know you not—” Then abruptly he peered closer, straightened and laughed. “By Bel! I thought you were—another. Gods! How you look like him!”

He hurried away. Kenton looked after him, puzzled. Was his departure a ruse? Had he really recognized him as the man Klaneth sought? It could not be. His fright had been too real; his relief too sincere. Who was it then that Kenton looked like to bring forth this fright and relief? They finished their food quickly, paid from the gold they had taken from the galley; passed out into the street.

Almost at once Gigi and the Persian joined them.

“To the temple,” ordered Kenton. Two by two they sauntered down the street, not hurrying, like men just in from a long voyage. But as they went Kenton, with an ever growing puzzlement and apprehension, saw now one and now another glance at him, pause as though in wonder and then, averting eyes, go swiftly by. The others saw it, too.

“Draw the cap cloths about your face,” said Gigi, uneasily. “I like not the way they stare. And yet—if they thought they knew you—would they not set the soldiers on you? But they do not—they go by as though afraid.”

Briefly he told him and Zubran of the shopkeeper and what he had said.

“That is bad.” Gigi shook his head. “It draws attention to us. Now who can it be you so resemble that those who look at you grow frightened? Well—hide your face as best you can.”

And this Kenton did, keeping his head bent as he walked. Nevertheless folks still turned to stare at him.

The street entered a broad park. People were strolling over its sward, sitting on benches of stone, gigantic roots of trees whose trunks were thick as the sequoia and whose branches were lost in the slowly thickening mists. And when they had gone a little way Sigurd turned off the highway into this park.

“Blood-brother,” he said. “Gigi is right. They stare at you too much. Now it comes to me that better for you and for us will it be if you go no further. Better hiding place for you than this I know none. Therefore sit you here upon this bench. Bow your head as though asleep or drunken. There are few here and they will be fewer as the temple court fills. The mists hide you from those who pass along the street. Here you should be safe. The three of us will go on to the temple and study that stairway. Then we will return to you and we will all take counsel.”

He knew the Viking was right. Steadily at the turned heads and whispering his unease had grown. And yet—it was hard to remain here, not to see for himself that place where Sharane lay captive, leave to others the chance of finding way to her. And yet—Sigurd was right.

“Courage, brother,” said Sigurd gently as they left him. “Odin has held off the storm for us. Odin will help us get your woman.”

Now for a time, a long, long time, it seemed to him, he sat upon that bench with face covered by hands. Stronger and stronger grew that desire to see for himself Sharane’s prison, study its weaknesses. After all, his comrades were not as interested as he; their eyes not sharpened by love and pity. He might succeed where they would fail; his sharpened eyes see what theirs would miss. And at last the desire mastered him. He arose from the bench, made his way back to the thronged street. But when it was a few steps away, he turned and went along through the park, paralleling it but not going out on it.

And in a short while he came to the end of the park and stood, half hidden, looking out.

Directly before him, not fifty yards away, arose the immense bulk of the Temple of the Seven Zones!

It blocked his vision like a colossal barrier. How great its base must be he could not tell; he estimated that it must cover ten or more acres. It was conical, smooth built of some material whose character he could not even guess. The great stairway coiled round it like a serpent. And now he saw why it was called the Temple of the Seven Zones. For a hundred feet up from its base it shone like burnished silver. There a circular terrace bit into the cone. Above that terrace for another hundred feet the cone was covered with some metal of red gold color, rich orange. Came another terrace and above that a façade of jet black, dull and dead. Again the terrace. Above them the mists hid the walls, but he thought that through them he could see a glint of flaming scarlet and over it a blue shadow.

His eyes followed the girdling stairway. He stepped forward that he might see a little better. Broad steps led up from its base to a wide platform on which stood many men in armor. That, he thought, was the garrison which they must either trick or overcome before they could climb these steps. His heart sank as he counted the soldiers that guarded it.

He looked beyond them and stood, thoughts racing. The rise of the stairway from the platform of the guards was gradual. About a thousand feet away the park came close to the side of the temple. There was a clump of high trees whose branches almost touched the stairway at that point. Gigi’s rope and grapple! Ah, wise was the Ninevite anticipating some such chance, he thought. Kenton was the lightest of the four—he could climb those trees, drop to the stairway, or if that were not possible, cast the grapple over the wall of it, swing in and climb up the rope and over!

Then he could drop that rope for the three to swarm it. It could be done! And if in such storm as Sigurd prophesied, with certainty of giving no alarm to the garrison below.

Exultation swept him. Some sixth sense woke him from it; whispered warning. He started, saw that the space between him and the temple was empty of people; saw an officer of the garrison standing at the base of the steps watching him.

Swiftly Kenton turned; swiftly skirted the street until he was back to where he had first gone from his bench; found that bench and seated himself on it as he had been before—bent over, face in hands.

He could not see that same officer beckon another, speak quickly to him, then run across the deserted stretch, and enter the wooded park close behind him. Nor did he see that officer stealing along a hundred paces in the rear, keeping him in sight until he had reached the bench.

But as he sat there, he felt someone drop down beside him.

“What is the matter, sailor?” came a voice, roughly kind. “If you are sick why not go home?”

Kenton spoke huskily, keeping his face covered.

“Too much of Emakhtila wine,” he answered. “Leave me be. It will pass.”

“Ho!” laughed the other, and gripped his arm about the elbow. “Look up. Better seek home before the tempest breaks.”

“No, no,” said Kenton, thickly. “Never mind the tempest. Water will help me.”

The hand dropped from his arm. For a space, whoever it was beside him, was silent. Then he arose.

“Right, sailor,” he said heartily. “Stay here. Stretch out on the bench and sleep a little. The gods be with you!”

“And with you,” muttered Kenton. He heard the footsteps of that brief companionship retreating. Cautiously he turned his head, looked in their direction. There were several figures walking there among the trees. One was an old man in a long blue cloak; another an officer dressed like those he had seen on the great stairway; a sailor; a hurrying citizen. Which of them had sat beside him?

He wondered idly for a moment, then his mind filled again with plannings to reach Sharane. Abruptly another thought came—the man who had sat beside him had gripped his arm, gripped it where Sharane’s bracelet bound. And that officer—the soldier from the garrison! Was it he? Had he followed him?

He sat bolt upright, clapped his right hand on the sleeve of the leather shirt under which was the bracelet. His hand touched—the bracelet! The sleeve had been slit by a knife to reveal it!

It had been the officer! He had seen and followed him! He had felt the bracelet and cut the sleeve to see if it were that golden circlet which Gigi had said would betray him more swiftly than the earrings would Gigi!

That a sacrifice was demanded of all four! He had not made that sacrifice.

And the bracelet had betrayed him!

The soldier? He had gone to bring help, of course. That was why he had counseled him to stay there—to sleep a while! Almost he laughed at the irony of that last.

He leaped to his feet—to run. Before he could take a step there was a rustling behind him, a trampling. A heavy cloth was thrown over his head like a bag. Hands clutched his throat. Other hands wound strand after strand of rope around his arms, pinioning them to his sides.

“Take that cloth off his face—but keep your hands around his throat,” said a cold dead voice.

His head was freed. He looked straight into the dead eyes of Klaneth!

Then from the double ring of soldiers around him came a gasp of amazement, a movement of terror. The officer stepped forward, stared at him incredulously.

“Mother of the gods!” he groaned, and knelt at Kenton’s feet. “Lord—I did not know—” He leaped up, set knife to his bonds.

“Stop!” Klaneth spoke. “It is the man! Look again!”

Trembling, the officer studied Kenton’s face, lifted the cap veils; swore.

“Gods!” he exclaimed, “but I thought it was—”

“And it is not,” interposed Klaneth, smoothly. His eyes gloated over Kenton. He reached down into his belt, drew from it the sword of Nabu.

“Hold!” The officer quietly took it from him. “This man is my prisoner until I deliver him to the Sultan. And till then I keep his sword.”

The phosphorescence in the pupils of the black priest glowed.

“He goes straight to Nergal’s House,” he rumbled. “Best beware, captain, how you cross Klaneth.”

“Cross or no cross,” replied the officer, “I am the Sultan’s man. His orders I obey. And you know as well as I do that he has commanded all prisoners to be brought before him first—no matter what even high priests may say. Besides,” he added slyly, “there is that matter of the reward. Best to get this capture a matter of record. The Sultan is a just man.”

The black priest stood silent, fingering his cruel mouth. The officer laughed.

“March!” he snapped. “To the temple. If this man escapes—all your lives for his.”

In a triple ring of the soldiers walked Kenton. On one side of him strode the officer; on the other the black priest, evil, gloating gaze never leaving him; Klaneth, licking his merciless lips and with hell fire bright in his eyes.

Thus they passed through the wooded park, out into the wondering street and at last through a high archway, and were swallowed up within a gateway of the temple.