He caught Marta, jerking her off balance. Her ankle twisted, and she toppled, thumped to the tiles, toes pointing skyward, and skirts bunching about her hips. Ostrom crashed, smacked his head against the coping of the fountain.
Baylor stood there, numb and cold and sick. Something devilish had maddened him; for an instant, he had counted on the impact of the man’s head against the stone. Now it was over, and once more, he was the Baylor who absorbed Ostrom’s condescending remarks as fair penance for what went on during Ostrom’s tours of inspection.
He stumbled forward. Marta untangled herself and sat up. “I don’t know what came over me,” Baylor muttered, and knelt beside Ostrom. Then, “He’s not hurt badly. But he would have been, if he’d not barged into you and spun instead of landing squarely against that coping.”
In a few minutes, Ostrom had recovered enough to sit up. His eyes were normal; there was no fracture or severe concussion. He said, dazedly, “I don’t know why I said that—I don’t blame you much.”
He refused assistance, and walked slowly toward his waiting car, while Marta went to get her hat. Baylor went with her. They had only a moment, and he had just time to say, “I’m scared. I never flew off the handle this way.”
“He never was so nasty before,” she countered, and clung to him, lip to lip, for a moment. Then, drawing away: “Barry—you do look worried. It’s over—he’s not hurt—”
“I went to see a magician,” he told her, and without waiting for an answer, he turned his back.
When he heard the engine start, he returned to the garden, and yelled for Zohrab. “Brandy! And hurry up.”
When the old man brought the liquor, he asked, “What else, sir?”
“Get out! Take the night off.”
Baylor sat down to think it over. He had resented Ostrom ever since meeting him; but ever since that accidental meeting with Marta, and the kisses which had followed, he had controlled his resentment toward the man, mainly from his feeling of guilt. And this momentary urge toward murder frightened Baylor as much as the illusions of Aisha’s cave had upset him. It was as though he had gotten his first real look into himself, and had gazed into horrifying depths whose existence he had never before suspected.
He was not the man to will another’s death; urging Marta to leave was bad enough. This reversal of all principle could only be because of the symbols woven in Aisha’s web. The accident of Marta’s twisting ankle was all that had prevented the full working out of his murder-wish.
Aisha’s magic was working, and that it had missed by a hair was no consolation. Such things took time to build up. The symbols of that which he was to do had merely been not quite complete enough for an irrevocable move.
Baylor poured a number of drinks. They did not help. Finally, he went into the house to stretch out on the lounge and clear his head. A strange half-sleep followed: a nightmarish state in which his thoughts fought among themselves. He was not sure whether he was awake or asleep, lying or walking.
Cold metal startled him. He was getting a pistol from his dresser, a weapon that had accumulated dust for months. Fully aroused, he dropped the gun, and for moments, stared at it.
There was only one thing to do. Luckily, Zohrab was out. For a sickening moment, Baylor knew why he had given the old man a night off; the answer was unpleasant.
He went into the garden and got a shovel. Then he pried a flagstone loose, and began digging. He could finish his task before Zohrab returned. There was no place, except in the tiled area, where he could dig without later arousing the old man’s curiosity. If Zohrab saw freshly turned earth, he would suspect a treasure cache, made during his absence, and he would surely dig, particularly after this unusual night off.
Seepage from the garden and fountain made the task easier. He did not need a pick. In a few minutes, the hole was better than knee deep.
Then a car drew up. Someone was tapping at the porter’s lodge. There were few Europeans in Shiraz, and none of them would call at this hour. He resolved to ignore the summons, but curiosity whipped him as he stood there. At last a woman called, “Zohrab! Do wake up!”
He dropped his shovel and hurried to the gate.
Marta was waiting.
“Barry, let me in!”
In the moonlight, he could see the tension of her face, the feverish brightness of her eyes, the tightness of the hands which clutched the grillwork. Marta wore only a gown under her robe. Always before now, she had arrived fully dressed; the negligee which she put on for lounging in the garden was what she had brought the first time she came to his house alone.
“Zohrab’s out.” Then, as he turned the key, “What’s wrong?”
She flung herself into his arms. “Oh, Barry! I’m half mad!”
“How is Allan?” He pried himself loose from her clinging embrace, held her away from him. “Is he—?”
“Sleeping. It’s not that, thank God! He’s not badly hurt, just muttering. He took a sedative. It’s me.” She buried her face against his shoulder.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Nightmares, horrible things. Death all around. I had to see you.”
As Barry Baylor went with her across the garden, he knew what had disturbed Marta. He said, “No use hiding it from me. You’d hardly gotten to sleep when you began to plan for your…freedom.”
She stared, eyed him. “It was just a nightmare.”
“I consulted a magician.”
Then he told her all about his ride to Aisha’s cave. Marta cut in, “I understand. Something terrible is driving us. I’d better leave. Before—before—” She stopped when she saw the spade and the gaping black hole which looked up at the moon; her color receded. She did not need to speak the question in her eyes.
Baylor said, “That pistol. I’m burying it deep, so deep I can’t get at it quickly.”
His purpose was so fixed that in spite of her having said that she had better leave, he resumed his work. The weirdness of the night pushed out all thought of kisses beside the fountain. He scarcely noticed the lovely legs exposed when the breeze whipped Marta’s gown. He did not speak until the shovel struck something metallic.
It was the lid of a pot. He exclaimed and lifted it. At the gasp which followed, Marta sank to her knees and peered into the hole. “My God—Barry—it’s gold!”
He had a handful of dull yellow coins: ancient mohurs, darics, pieces struck by forgotten Sassanian kings, and buried by a former owner of the villa. After wrenching at the pot, Baylor had to dig some more. At last he raised it to the surface.
The hoard weighed well over a hundred pounds.
“We can leave,” he said, and laughed until the sound in his own ears restrained him. “We can go home!”
“Oh, Barry!” Marta cried, hysterically. “We’re rich—the magic has worked—it’s fantastic—”
They lugged the pot into the house. It took Baylor little time to refill the hole, and tamp the flagstone back into place. With a broom, he scattered the excess earth across the flower beds.
As they went back into the house, he caught her in his arms. “It’s worked—it’s a sign—all this craziness to make me dig, to make you come over and be with me when I found it!”
He hoped, during one chilly moment, that Allan Ostrom had suffered no more than a superficial concussion; that he had taken nothing but a sedative. The uncanny sequence of events still troubled him. But that qualm faded before Marta’s kisses, and with her closely pressed against him, his forebodings faded.
At last she stirred drowsily in his arms, and sighed. “I must go back. I shouldn’t have left him tonight. I’ll think of a way of telling him in the morning, or the next day, when his head is clear.”
Chapter 3
“Shoot and Be Damned!”
The weaver in the cave had many webs under her finger tips. Baylor scarcely expect
ed Aisha to concentrate on the pattern which was to reshape three foreign lives. But the pot of Sassanian gold was just the start.
The government took over the truck line which employed Ostrom. High officials gave all the fancy jobs to their relatives, or to old employees who had enough cash salted down to enable them to dig up “presents.” Now that the business was running at a profit, the men who had developed it had to pay a bribe to retain their jobs.
Their ability to pay was assumed: no one could imagine that Ostrom and his fellows had not embezzled or grafted themselves rich. The officials, according to their lights, were merely levying a roundabout income tax.
While all this was an old story to Baylor, it came as a shock to Ostrom, who, having lived up to his income, could not pay off.
“He’s worried,” Marta said, when she told Baylor the news. “Dead drunk—he’s never done that before—Barry, I can’t leave him now!”
“Oh, hell!” Baylor jerked himself clear of her, and leaped to his feet. “Can’t leave him when he’s on top of the heap, can’t leave him when he’s gotten a kick in the chin. Go back home where you belong!”
Marta snapped up, brushed her skirt into place. Then the angry flush faded from her cheeks. “It was his pride, Barry. That’s why I couldn’t leave him before—because he’d lose face. And now I’ve got to stick, till he gets a fresh start, somewhere, somehow.”
“And he’ll stay here, trying to beat the system, trying to prove he’s good!”
She nodded. “So I can’t ditch him, can I?”
Baylor shrugged, helplessly. “I guess not.”
Marta came closer. “I’m scared, too. You’ve started something terrible. That witchcraft is real—it’s working.”
“Working, yes,” he exclaimed, fiercely, and drew her to him. “Against me, against us!”
“Barry,” she gasped. “Let me go. He might miss me.”
But Baylor would not release her. The pressure of her shapely body inflamed him, made him reckless, intoxicated him so that the sinister forces he had set in motion no longer oppressed and terrified him. The only reality was Marta, and he had to have her, all the time, entirely for himself.
“Barry—you mustn’t—he might—”
But his kisses stifled her protests. With an inarticulate cry, she yielded to his insistent embrace. He snapped off the light, and like two drunken persons they fumbled their way back to the lounge.
This might force the issue. Let Ostrom find out. Then Marta would no longer have any choice. That would be the logical goal of all this witchcraft.
“We’re crazy,” she sighed, “but I don’t care…I love it…”
Later, she sat up, and smoothed her rumpled dress. “It’s so simple, darling,” Marta said. “I won’t see you anymore.”
“What?”
She laughed softly. “Wait! I said it was so simple. Aisha has twisted our fate into knots to bring us together. I don’t know what bargain you made, but something is keeping her to her bargain. Now, if I refuse to see you, there is only one way she can carry on—give Allan a break, so I can leave without quitting him when he’s down.”
“Club fate into line?”
He spoke the words slowly; their meaning was expanding in his fancy. Actually, he had already done just that when he had ignored Aisha’s warning; his will and his persistence, it seemed, had compelled her to weave a new pattern for three destinies. And Marta’s opposition to one detail would compel Aisha to vary the pattern.
He remembered the hundreds of rugs he had bought in his years in Persia; he remembered the many whose design had changed its motif during the many months of weaving. Weavers did diverge from their original plans; certainly Aisha could.
Baylor rode across the moon-drenched plain, and then into the mountains which towered high above the plateau. Snowcaps gleamed; the wind whined and wailed, penetrating his sheepskin jacket. But the thaw had started, and for all the chill, great masses of snow tore loose from the upper heights, thundered down the steep slopes with an express train rumble.
Aisha was not alone in the cavern. A slim and shapely girl sat cross-legged on a mat beside the hearth. She made a pretense of raising her veil, but the gesture was slow, and she gave Baylor time to see her striking beauty. And when the transparent gauze did dim the smooth contours of a face the color of old ivory, her dark eyes still peered over the edge, incredible and fascinating eyes whose depths amazed Baylor.
One tiny foot peeped from the folds of her embroidered tunic. The garment snuggled about her bosom, outlining its roundness; the collar was high, concealing her throat, but the entire effect was to make a tantalizing display which challenged the eye.
The exquisite stranger fascinated Baylor. The faint slant of her eyes suggested a Turki, but her cheek bones were not quite prominent enough. She was a lovely riddle; and he wondered what complaint against destiny brought her to this eerie spot.
“Wait, I will call her,” the girl said, and went back into the darkness of the cave.
Presently, Aisha came out, alone, and greeted him; Aisha, uglier and greasier than ever, was giving her talons a rest from their task. She gave him no time to explain his mission. She gestured toward the looms. “O Man, with all these fates to weave, I must hear your impatience? Go back! Or must I tell you what to do with the golden hoard you found?”
She rose, claws raised, and cursed him.
Baylor retreated before the repulsive hag. That she knew of the gold dispelled any lingering doubt as to her powers. He dared not risk her wrath, lest she weave some devilish symbol into the web of his fate.
As he rode back toward the plain, he realized that his problem was simple enough. A well placed bribe, no more than the top layer of that buried treasure, would put Ostrom back in command. Baylor wondered why he had not thought of that before. That would settle Marta’s last scruple.
* * * *
For the next few days, he called on Persian dignitaries. Bribery was a matter of finesse, rather than blunt propositions. There were ceremonial calls, and return calls; interminable tea drinking, and dinners which lasted until dawn. But long before Baylor was anywhere near the bottom of his pot of gold, Ostrom was reinstated, and with a thousand politenesses.
There had been an error. A reconsideration. The company could not do without his distinguished services. So he went out again, supervising the route and its many stations.
Meanwhile, Marta was holding to her resolution. Night after night, Baylor waited, and vainly. She was forcing Aisha’s hand, forcing the weaver of destiny.
And Aisha’s magic, he finally began to believe, must have failed. Where for a while events had dizzied him, now nothing was happening. Then it occurred to him that far from being inactive, Aisha was hitting back, at Marta and her way of forcing a change in the design.
That her absence was deliberate made Baylor’s loneliness and his desire for her overpowering. Finally he decided to upset the agreement which he and Marta had made at the very start: that he would never enter the house during Ostrom’s absence.
Baylor knew every angle and corner of Ostrom’s villa. It was simple enough for him to find crumbling masonry which gave him a toehold; and in a moment, he had scaled the wall. Then he picked his way across the garden, and into the shadows of the plane trees which shaded the house.
There was a light in Marta’s window. He climbed into the nearby tree, and worked his way out on a limb. In spite of the hour, he was taking no chances on meeting a restless servant.
Since Marta was awake, her maid might be on duty. Then, as he came nearer to the stuccoed wall, Baylor saw that she was alone, stretched out on a couch. Beside her was a tray full of cigarette butts, most of them half smoked. She stirred restlessly as he crouched among the leaves, watching the play of light that brought glints of white skin through the sheet chiffon of her gown. High breasted, slim and lovely, and litt
le more than a yard away: the long, luscious sweep of her legs, the rise and fall of her bosom behind the lace panel of the neck yoke, all this tempted him, egged him on; but most of all, there was the somberness of her eyes, the strain which puckered her brow, told him how difficult it was to keep to her resolution.
The branch dipped a little. Twigs brushed the sash. Marta started, sat up. He said, in a low voice, “I had to see you.”
She hurried to the window. “Oh, Barry! You mustn’t! Go back home. Suppose he returned?”
“Come down into the garden.”
She took her head. “I’m afraid.”
“Then I’m coming in.”
“Oh, no! Don’t—”
The branch dipped under Baylor’s weight. He leaned forward to reach the sill. “Watch out!” Marta cried in dismay.
“It’ll hold. Nothing to it.”
By all reason, Baylor was right. Yet there was a crack, a lurch; the limb yielded suddenly. He just missed his hold, and crashed from branch to branch. He thumped to the ground; the impact stunned him. He could not catch his breath, nor could he move, but he was fully conscious, and hoping that Marta’s cry of dismay would not arouse any of the servants.
In a moment, she was in the garden and beside Baylor, and the branch which had followed him to the ground. “Barry, darling, are you hurt?”
“I’ll be all right—in a minute,” he said through clenched teeth, and tried to sit up.
She slipped an arm about him. A sharp twinge of pain cut into his effort. He groaned, and for a moment, his head was pillowed against her bosom. But before he could make a further effort, a flashlight blazed. Reaching through Marta’s thin gown, it picked out her bare legs and shoulders, gleamed from her streaming hair.
Allan Ostrom had returned. He cursed, whipped a pistol into line. “Lucky I came back tonight, you son of a bitch!”
Baylor knew that Ostrom would fire; the broken branch told what had been going on, and in Iran, no one would question the right to cut down an intruder. Aisha’s magic had tricked Baylor.
The 11th Golden Age of Weird Fiction Page 34
