El Borak and Other Desert Adventures (87 page)

“What does any man want who comes to a nest of outlaws?”

“He might come as a spy,” pointed out the Shaykh.

Gordon laughed at him. “For whom?”

“How did you know the Road?”

Gordon took refuge in the obscurity of Eastern subtlety.

“I followed the vultures; they always lead me to my goal.”

“They should,” was the grim reply. “You have fed them full often enough. What of the Mongol who watched the cleft?”

“Dead; he wouldn’t listen to reason.”

“The vultures follow you, not you the vultures,” commented the Shaykh. “Why did you not send word to me of your coming?”

“Send word by whom? Last night as I camped in the Gorge of Ghosts, resting my horses before I pushed on to Shalizahr, a gang of your fools fell on my party in the darkness, killed one and carried another away. The fourth man was frightened and ran away. I came on alone as soon as the moon rose.”

“They were Yezidees, whose duty it is to watch the Gorge of Ghosts. They did not know you sought me. They limped into the city at dawn, with one man dying and most of the others sorely wounded, and swore that they had slain a
sahib
and his servants in the Gorge of Ghosts. Evidently they feared to admit that they ran away, leaving you alive. They shall smart for their lie. But you have not told me why you came here.”

“I seek refuge. And I bring news. The man you sent to kill the Amir wounded him and was himself cut to pieces by the Uzbek guardsmen.”

The Persian shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

“Your news is stale. We knew that before the noon of the day after the night the execution was attempted. And we have since learned that the Amir will live, because an English physician cleansed the wounds of the poison which was on the dagger.”

That sounded like black magic, until Gordon remembered the pigeons in
the courtyard. Carrier birds, of course, and agents in Kabul to release them with the messages.

“We have kept our secret well,” said the Persian. “Since you knew of Shalizahr and the Road to Shalizahr, you must have been told of it by some one of the Brotherhood. Did Bagheela send you?”

Gordon recognized the trap laid for him and avoided it. He had no idea who Bagheela was, and this question was too obviously a bait an imposter might be tempted to seize.

“I don’t know the man you call Bagheela,” he answered. “I don’t have to be told secrets. I learn them for myself. I came here because I had to have a hideout. I’m out of favor at Kabul, and the English would have me shot if they could catch me.”

One of the most persistent legends in circulation about Gordon is that he is an enemy of the English. This has its basis in his refusal to be awed by gold braid and brass buttons, and in his comings and goings in tranquil disregard of all rules and regulations. He has no reverance for authority which bedecks itself in pomp and arrogance, and as a result is hated by certain types of officials, both civilian and military. But the men who actually rule India are his friends, and have profited by his aid again and again.

But the Persian had no way of knowing this. To the Shaykh El Borak was merely a lawless adventurer, not quite gone native, but still beyond the pale of respectability, and quite likely to fall foul of the government at any time.

He said some thing in scholarly and archaic Persian and Gordon, knowing he would not change the language of their conversation without a subtle reason, feigned ignorance of the tongue. Sometimes Oriental deviousness is childishly transparent.

The Shaykh spoke to one of the blacks, and that giant stolidly drew a silver hammer from his girdle and smote a golden gong hanging by the tapestries. The echoes had scarcely died away when the bronze doors opened long enough to admit a slim man in plain silken robes who stood bowing before the dais — a Persian, like the Shaykh. The latter addressed him as Musa, and questioned him in the tongue he had just tested on Gordon. Musa replied in the same language.

“Do you know this man?”

“Aye,
ya sidna.”

“Have our spies included him in their reports?”

“Aye,
ya sidna
. The last despatch from Kabul bore word of him. On the night that your servant attempted to execute the Amir, this man talked with the Amir secretly, an hour or so before the attack was made. After leaving the palace hurriedly, he fled from the city with three men, and was seen riding along the road that leads to the village of the outlaw, Baber Khan of Khor. He
was pursued by a horseman from Kabul, but whether he gave up the chase or was slain by the men of Khor, I do not know.”

Gordon, lounging on the divan and showing no sign to betray his understanding of what was being said, realized two things: the spy system of the Hidden Ones was more far-reaching than he had guessed; and a chain of misinterpreted circumstances were working in his favor. It was natural for these men to think that he had fled from Kabul under the shadow of royal displeasure. That he should ride for the village of an outlaw would seem to clinch the matter, as well as the fact of his “pursuit” by a horseman from Kabul — obviously not recognized as Lal Singh.

“You have my leave to go.”

Musa bowed and departed, closing the doors, and the Shaykh meditated in silence for a space. Presently he lifted his head, as if coming to a decision, and said: “I believe you are telling the truth. You fled from Kabul, to Khor, where no friend of the Amir would be welcome. Your enmity toward the English is well known. We need such a man as you. But I can not initiate you into the Brotherhood until Bagheela sees and passes on you. He is not now in Shalizahr, but will be here by tomorrow dawn.

“In the meantime I would like to know how your learned of our society and of our city.”

Gordon shrugged his shoulders.

“I hear the secrets the wind sings as it blows through the branches of the dry tamarisks; and the tales the men of the caravans whisper about the dung-fires in the
serais.”

“Then you know our purpose? Our ambition?”

“I know what you call yourselves.” Gordon’s answer was purposely ambiguous, for he was groping his way, guided more by intuition and guesswork than by actual knowledge. His sole means of identification of the cult with which he was dealing was the title the Arab had given the Persian — the title of the lord of an ancient and mysterious race. That race and that title had once existed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, but both were clouded by the legends and myths of many centuries.

“Do you know what my title means?” asked the Shaykh suddenly, as if guessing Gordon’s thoughts.

“Shaykh ez Zurim — Lord of the Zurim,” answered Gordon. “The Zurim were a pre-Canaanitish race who lived in Syria before the coming of the Semitic tribes. They were given to heathenish worship and practised all kinds of black magic and human sacrifice. The Israelites destroyed the last remnants of them.”

“So say the historians,” sneered the Shaykh. “But the descendents of the Zurim still dwell in the mountains of Syria.”

“I suspected as much,” said Gordon. “Their practises persisted in a devil-worshipping cult of the same name. I’ve heard tales of it, but until recently I set them all down as legends.”

“Aye!” exclaimed the Persian. “The world deems them legends — but since the Beginning of Happenings the Fire of Zurim has not been wholly extinguished — though for more than a century it smoldered to glowing coals.”

“I’ve always suspected the existence of cults in the East that reach back before the time of Mohammed,” said Gordon, slowly.

“You speak the truth! And the society of the Hidden Ones is the oldest of all. It lies behind and beyond Islam, Buddha or Brahma. It recognizes no difference in race or religion.

“In the ancient past its branches extended all over the East, from Mongolia to Egypt. Mohammed thought he had destroyed the cult in Arabia, but he only broke one of its branches.

“Men of many races belong, and have belonged, to the society of the Hidden Ones. In the long, long ago the Zurim were only one branch, though from their race the priests of the cult were chosen. In later days the Assassins of Mount Alamut were a branch of the Hidden Ones, as were the Druses who worship the Gold Calf, the Yezidees of Mount Lalesh, and the Mongol Sons of Yellow Erlik. In Egypt, Syria, Persia and India were bands of the cult, cloaked in mystery and only half-suspected by the races among which they dwelt. But as the centuries passed these groups became isolated and fell apart, each branch going its separate way, and each dwindling in strength and importance because of a lack of unity.

“In olden days the Hidden Ones swayed the destinies of empires. They did not lead armies in the field, but they fought by poison and fire and the triple-bladed dagger that bit in the dark. Their scarlet-cloaked emissaries of death went forth to do the bidding of the Shaykh ez Zurim, and kings died in Cairo, in Jerusalem, in Samarcand, in Brusa.

“And I am a descendent of that one who was Shaykh ez Zurim in the days of Saladin — he who was the unseen, unguessed master of Hassan ibn Sabah, the Old Man of the Mountain. All Asia feared the Shaykh al Jebal, but he only did the bidding of the Shaykh ez Zurim!”

A fanatical gleam lit the dark eyes.

“Throughout my youth I dreamed of the former greatness of the cult, into which I was initiated when I was but a child. Wealth that flowed suddenly from the barren lands of my estate — western money that came to me from minerals found there — made the dream become reality. Othman el Aziz became Shaykh ez Zurim, the first to hold the title in a hundred years.

“The creed of the Hidden Ones is broad and deep as the sea, ignoring racial and religious differences, uniting men of opposing sects. Strand by strand I
drew together and united the separate branches of the cult. My emissaries travelled throughout Asia, seeking members of the ancient society and finding them — in teeming cities, among barren mountains, in the silence of upland deserts. Slowly, surely, my band has grown, for I have not only united all the various branches of the cult, but have gained new recruits among the bold and desperate spirits of a score of races. All are one before the Fire of Zurim; I have among my followers Moslems, Buddhists, Hindus, devil-worshippers.

“Four years ago I came with my followers to this city, then a crumbling mass of ruins, unknown to the hillmen because their superstitious legends made them shun this region. Centuries ago it was a city of the Assassins, and was laid waste by the Mongols. When I came the buildings were crumbled stone, the canals filled with rubble, the groves grown wild and tangled. It took three years to rebuild it, and most of my fortune went into the labor, for bringing material here secretly was tedious and dangerous work. We brought it out of Persia, over the old caravan route from the west, and up an ancient ramp on the western side of the plateau, which I have since destroyed. But at last I looked upon forgotten Shalizahr as it was in the days of the ancient Shaykhs.

“It does no harm for you to know these secrets. If Bagheela does not approve of you, your knowledge will die with you. If he does, then you have learned no more than you will learn in any event as a Hidden One.

“You can rise high in the empire I am building. Three years I was preparing. Then I began to strike. Within the last year my
fedauis
have gone forth with poisoned daggers as they went forth in the old days, knowing no law but my will, incorruptible, invincible.”

“And your ultimate ambition?”

“Have you not guessed it?” The Persian almost whispered it, his eyes wide and blank with his strange fanaticism.

“Who wouldn’t? But I’d rather hear it from your lips.”

“I will rule all Asia! I will control the destinies of the world! Kings on their thrones will be but puppets dancing on my strings. Those who dare disobey my commands shall die! Soon none will dare disobey. All power will be mine. Power! Allah! What is greater under Paradise?”

Gordon did not reply. He was comparing the Shaykh’s repeated references to his absolute power with his remarks concerning the mysterious Bagheela who must decide Gordon’s status. This seemed to indicate that Othman’s authority was not supreme in Shalizahr, after all. Gordon wondered who Bagheela was. The term meant panther, and was probably a title like his own native name of El Borak.

“Where is the Sikh, Lal Singh?” he demanded abruptly. “Your Yezidees carried him away, after they murdered Ahmed Shah.”

Othman’s expression of surprize was overdone.

“I do not know to whom you refer. The Yezidees brought back no captive with them from the Gorge of Ghosts.”

Gordon knew he was lying, but also realized that it would be useless to push his questioning further at that time. He could not imagine why Othman should deny knowledge of the Sikh, whom he was sure had been brought into the city, but it might be dangerous to press the matter, after a formal denial by the Persian.

The Shaykh motioned to the black who again smote the gong, and again Musa entered, salaaming.

“Musa will show you to a chamber where food and drink will be brought you,” he said. “You are not a prisoner, of course. No guard will be placed over you. But I must ask you not to leave your chamber until I send for you. My men are suspicious of
Feringhi
, and until you are formally initiated into the society —”

There was no need to finish the sentence.

The impassive Musa conducted Gordon through the bronze doors, past the files of glittering guardsmen, and along a narrow, winding corridor which branched off from the broad hallway. Some distance from the audience chamber he led Gordon into a chamber with a domed ceiling of ivory and sandal-wood and one heavy, brass-bound mahogany door. There were no windows. Air and light circulated through concealed apertures in the dome. The walls were hung with rich tapestries, the floor hidden by cushion-strewn rugs.

Musa bowed himself out without a word, shutting the door behind him, and Gordon seated himself on a velvet divan. This was the most bizarre situation he had ever found himself in, during the course of a life packed with wild adventures and bloody episodes. He felt out of place in his boots and dusty khakis, in this mysterious city that turned the clock of Time back nearly a thousand years. There was a curious sensation of having strayed out of his own age into a lost and forgotten Past.