The Ship Returns

Chapter Four

Again, one by one, he went over them—each toy. His fingers lingered on the leaning woman; caressed her. No life was there, no warmth, no pulse—gem-hard, gem-cold, exquisite.

Only toys?

Then why, as his hand rested on the silver crescent upon her brows, did some gladness well up from unknown depths within him, banishing his amaze? A hot new life swept like a roaring wave through every vein. What was it that shouted within him, exultant—telling him that his commerce with this Ship of Ishtar had but begun?

Abruptly, he withdrew his hand; unhooked a silken hanging from the wall and threw it over the shining bark.

This done, he went to the bathroom and examined the bruise on his head. It was tender enough, but nothing serious. He might have fallen upon the floor of his room, he thought as he touched it, overcome by those strange perfumes.

But—he knew he had not!

An hour with cold compresses fairly well removed all outward marks on it. At seven thirty he dined; and dined well. Wherever he was bound, he would be no worse for being well provisioned. That the ship would return for him he never for an instant doubted.

“You needn’t bother about me any more tonight, Jevins,” he told his man. “I’ve some writing to do—some very important work. If any one calls, tell them I’m away for the night. I’m going to lock myself in—and I don’t want to be disturbed for anything less than Gabriel’s trumpet.”

Jevins, a heritage from Kenton’s father, smiled.

“All right, Master John,” he answered. “I’ll not let anybody bother you.”

“It’s really important.” Kenton rested a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “I think—probably—it will be—well, the most important work of my life,” he ended, whimsically.

And with what spirit of prophecy he did not then dream.

“Trust me, Master John,” said old Jevins.

Kenton passed on to his bedroom, entirely satisfied. He would have no interruptions now. Jevins would see to that. He caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror and paused. Hardly the costume this, if he were going voyaging on the ship.

He stripped; then rummaged among some costumes he had brought home with him years ago from Persia. He picked out a silken vest, a silken and embroidered tunic; he slipped his arms through them. A pair of wide pantaloons with a broad blue woven girdle; he put them on. He thrust his feet in a pair of curved Turkish slippers.

His gaze fell upon an ancient cloak he had picked up in Mosul. It was very old, very beautiful. Untold centuries had softened its blue; through its azure web and woof great silvery serpents writhed, half hidden, cabalistically entwined.

He threw it over his shoulders; caught another glimpse of himself in the mirror and stared, astonished. Could this be he—this youthful, adventurous Sultan, whose keen, dark face stared back at him? The blue and silver cloak made him seem taller than even his six feet warranted. There was a look of power about him, too—curious how subtly changed his face, his carriage!

Could it be the cloak?

The cloak!

That reminded him—there was a detail missing; the strange blade that had been wrapped in that same garment when he had bought it. He found the weapon; balanced it in his hand.

An odd enough weapon this, in truth! Silvery serpents twined about its hilt. At the end of that hilt gleamed a single blue gem, cabochon cut; not a sapphire; some jewel he did not know. Below the hilt was a strong rod of bronze eight inches in length and round as a staff. This staff flattened out into a lean-shaped, razor-edged sword blade, two feet long and full six inches at its greatest width; a blade oddly like the assagais of the Zulus. He thrust it into his girdle; felt now that he was fully dressed for his part.

He opened the bedroom door cautiously; listened. He slipped through and back to the room where the ship lay. Lifting its shroudings he drew one deep breath of wonder at its beauty; then turned off the electrics.

As his eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness he caught a dim shimmering where the ship rested; faint reflections from the Avenue’s lights penetrating the window hangings.

How silent the room had become!

It was filling with silence as a vessel fills with water!

Now a sound broke the stillness; the lapping of little waves; numerous, languorous, caressing. He realized that his eyes were closed; strove with all his might to open them. The lapping of the waves came closer. By an effort he half raised his lids.

There was a wide mist opposite him, a globular mist of silver drifting down upon him as though it were the curved breast of another world.

An impacting world?

No—an interpenetrating world!

Fleeting, incredibly swift, was that comprehension; in the infinitely small point of time it sparked through his mind he knew it for revelation; explanation; the only key to—the inexplicable.

By light of that spark Kenton saw the globe upon which he lived—not for what it seems, but for what it is—an etheric vibration—an etheric vibration between the intervals of whose pulsing pulsed the electrons of other interlaced worlds upon worlds; children of that primal force whose vibrations are matter in all the guises that we know—and that we do not know.

He visualized these worlds and his own as congeries of electrons, each in reality as wide apart as the planets from each other; as those same planets from the sun. He saw through the abysses of space between these specks myriads of similar congeries grouped into unseen, unseeable worlds; each world spinning, whirling, yet untouching and untouched by any other; interlaced; interlocked; interpenetrating.

Embracing worlds keyed to lower and to higher pitch than ours, and each in utter ignorance of the other embrace. Worlds moving through and about us. Worlds registering no more upon each other than do the thousands of wireless messages upon the receiver untuned to receive them. Worlds interfering with each other no more than do the dozen messages that, freed from contact with each other by their varying scales of vibration, pass simultaneously over a single wire.

On one of these interpenetrating worlds sailed this Ship of Ishtar.

The jeweled shape there was not the ship itself. It was the key that opened the door of Kenton’s world into that of the ship’s; the mechanism that attuned him to that other world’s vibrations.

Swift came that revelation; swiftly it fled.

Through the silver mist the ship drifted down upon him, its oars motionless, its sail but half filled. Wavelets crisped at its sickled bow; wavelets of palest blue with fine laced edges of white foam. Half his room was lost now in the ripples of that approaching sea. The part of his room on which he stood and watched seemed to be many feet above those waves—so far below were they that the deck of the ship was level with his feet.

Closer drew the ship and as it drifted lazily on, Kenton drew further back from the waves rippling toward him as lazily.

He wondered why he heard no rushing winds, nor clamoring tempests.

No sound save the faint whispering of the lace tipped waves.

Now Kenton’s back was against the wall of his room. Before him stretched the turquoise ocean, the ship seemingly not more than six feet away.

Kenton leaped—straight for the ship.

Winds roared about him now; winds vast as those that swirl within the unfathomable abyss the Norsemen called Ganungagap, within whose womb from mated fire and ice was born the giant whose skull was made the sky, and from whose flesh and bones was moulded earth. The vast winds roared and howled about him—yet again he felt them not.

Suddenly the vast winds were still. His feet struck solid surface. Gasping, he opened his eyes. He stood upon the ivoried deck facing the rosy cabin with its blossoming little trees and its flocks of crimson billed, vermilion footed doves.

Between him and the cabin’s door stood a girl, her soft brown eyes filled with awe and wonder and that same startled disbelief that he had seen in the shadow-filled eyes of Sharane when her gaze had fallen upon him at the foot of the emerald mast.

Even through his whirling senses he knew that this girl was lovely. Her red mouth was open like a surprised child; her bluish black hair hung in soft ringlets over her white shoulders; silken folds of filmy green fluttered about her, revealing curves too full for maidenhood. Yet her eyes were innocent and her voice almost childishly sweet as she spoke to him.

“Are you the Lord Nabu that you come thus out of the air and in his cloak of wisdom, his serpents twining within it?” she murmured. “Nay—that cannot be! For Nabu is very old and you are young! Are you his messenger?”

She dropped to her knees; crossed her hands, palms outward, over her forehead.

“I am not the Lord Nabu,” Kenton heard himself say—and vaguely he wondered how he could so clearly understand her speech, answer it so readily. “Maybe I have been sent by him. I do not know.”

But the girl had leaped to her feet; sprung to the closed door of the rosy temple.

“Kadishtu!” she struck softly upon it. “Holy One! My Lady Sharane—a messenger from our Lord Nabu.”

Kenton turned and looked behind him. His glance traveled over the pit of the oarsmen. They seemed asleep, bare bodies bent over their oars, their heads bowed. The golden bearded warrior had vanished from the black deck, but the satyr priest of the serpent drum was there. Upon his ugly face was stamped stark and ludicrous amazement. The frog mouth lolled open; the little eyes protruded; one huge paw swung over the drum-head as though about to beat alarm. Kenton saw that the huge torso was balanced upon a pair of grotesquely bowed legs, short as the arms were long. Above the waist the drummer was a giant; below it a dwarf.

The black, deep-set eyes searched him—then the corners of the slit mouth lifted, the face creased into a thousand wrinkles. The drummer had smiled at him. The hovering paw drew away from the drum-head; waved a greeting, sardonic but reassuring, warning, too—for a long thumb thrust toward the black cabin.

The door of the rosy cabin was flung open. On its lintel stood the crescented woman of the red-gold hair, the woman named Sharane. Her eyes were full of wonder; an uncertain recognition within them, too. She looked beyond him to the drummer. He followed her glance. The drummer seemed to sleep.

“Watch, Satalu,” she whispered to the girl.

She caught Kenton’s hand; drew him swiftly, softly within the rosy cabin; closed the door behind them.

The cabin was surprisingly large; fragrant; filled with a rose pearl light. Two girls were there who stared at him with eyes filled with wonder; one was fair-haired, blue-eyed; the second black-tressed as the one without. The Lady Sharane dropped his hand, ran to them, thrust them toward the door.

“Out!” she cried. “Out and watch with Satalu. And gossip not together of this, lest Gigi wake and hear you and the Black Worm be warned.”

The pair slipped from the cabin. Sharane flew to another door; opened it. Kenton caught a glimpse of another cabin and in it other girls as lovely as those who had gone, and as startled as they. He saw javelins leaning against a wall, racks of arrows, great bows, short swords. Only a glimpse of these he had, for with one short whispered command Sharane closed this door; locked it.

She stood, regarding Kenton. She came close, looked deep into his eyes, measured his tall body. She stretched out slim fingers; with them touched his eyes, his mouth, his neck—as though to assure herself that he was real. At her touch strange thrillings ran through him.

Desire swift and flaming!

She cupped his hands in hers and bowed and set her brows against his wrists; the waves of her hair bathed them. They were silken strands of nets to which his heart flew like a bird eager to be trapped. He steadied himself; he drew his hands from hers, roughly; braced himself against her lure. She lifted her head; regarded him.

“What has the Lord Nabu to say to me through his messenger?” The mellow voice rocked Kenton with perilous sweetnesses, subtle provocations. “Is the strife to end? What is your word to me, messenger? Surely will I listen—for in his wisdom has not the Lord of Wisdom sent one to whom to listen is not—difficult?”

There was a flash of coquetry in the misty eyes turned for an instant to his—like the flirt of a roguish fan. Still thrilling to her closeness, groping for some firm ground upon which to stand in this unfamiliar world, Kenton sought for words.

Desperately, playing for time, he looked about the cabined space.