The 11th Golden Age of Weird Fiction

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “Shoot and be damned to you!”

  Chapter 4

  Daughter of a Witch

  Baylor’s body was paralyzed, and what followed numbed his wits. Marta flung herself in front of him, more to distract Ostrom than from any chance of shielding her lover. But that was not what checked Ostrom’s fire.

  A gray mist, coming from nowhere, swirled about him. The haze thickened, blurring the outlines of his face and form. There were bands of mist, ribbons of mist, gray serpent forms which licked and lapped and twined, layer after layer; the tenuous bonds multiplied until Ostrom seemed to sag and crumple under their force. They could not possibly have weight, Baylor told himself, yet such was their effect on the man with the gun.

  The hate-twisted face was blurred, it became more and more remote. Fear and utter amazement now shaped Ostrom’s features. He let the gun drop, and clawed at his throat, straining as he did so. His mouth worked, but there was no sound.

  Then the haze thinned, and once more the two faced each other. Baylor’s sense of time was entirely warped. There was no expression for the duration of this weird thing; he could be sure of nothing other than that Aisha’s uncanny power had reached from the cavern of destiny.

  With a painful effort, Baylor sat up. Ostrom said, in the voice of a person still numb from shock, “I’m glad I didn’t fire. That’s not the way. Come in, I have to talk to you. Both of you.”

  Baylor rose, and limped into the house. With each step, he was regaining a bit more control; he had not suffered more than a nasty impact.

  Marta picked up the pistol. She seemed quite unaware that what she wore was scarcely a token garment.

  “You were spying,” she accused. “Well, now you know. I don’t have to tell you.”

  “Hardly spying.” Ostrom turned to Baylor. “I lost my head. You practically bought her, or tried to. That is quite intolerable.”

  Deliberate, precise, poised Ostrom was himself again.

  “Bought her?” Baylor echoed. He nearly added, “That wasn’t necessary!”

  “Bribing those officials to reinstate me. Everyone knows that. Even I finally heard, on the road. And soon there will be guesses as to why. That is infinitely worse than if you had taken her outright.”

  Baylor nodded. Ostrom was right. There was no use trying to tell this logical man how it had all started. Baylor could only say, “She couldn’t leave you after you’d been double-crossed by the official crowd. And she wouldn’t see me. So I fairly broke in.”

  “I was assured, along the road, that you would be doing something of the sort, so I contrived to return unexpectedly. Not spying, but acting on almost certain knowledge. The knowledge of everyone but myself. And there is only one way of settling this.”

  “How?”

  “We will go into the mountains by separate routes. We will meet, and only one of us will return. My disappearance, or yours, will settle things nicely for the survivor.”

  Marta cried, “You sound like a movie thriller! Can’t you be grown up? You’re planning murder—for him or for yourself—because you feel you’ve lost face, because you think he tried to buy me. And then you turn around and propose making me the prize of a duel!”

  Ostrom said, coldly and deliberately, “You really do not enter into this. The point is that I’ve been put into a false position.”

  Marta turned on Baylor: “You don’t have to accept this insane challenge! Don’t you dare accept—I’ll never look at you again if—if—good God, don’t you see what he’s trying to do? If you did win, you’d still lose! He’s my husband, and if you killed him—Barry, don’t you see how impossible, how horrible that’d be?”

  Ostrom brightened, perceptibly enjoying his triumph; it was clear that he was pleased by Marta’s having caught the full meaning of his challenge. Win or lose, he would have his vengeance.

  Baylor said, after a long silence, “I’m in the wrong. Pointing a gun at you would be difficult, even in self-defense.”

  “I’d thought of that,” Ostrom admitted.

  “Something cheated you out of your chance, a few minutes ago. But you’re entitled to it.” He ignored Marta’s cry, and shook her hand from his arm. “So, to keep it from being formal and deliberate, you come from the north on the Takht-i-Khosru trail, and I’ll head upgrade to meet you, around noon, when the light won’t blind either of us. We’ll fire on sight.”

  “Barry! Regardless of what happens—”

  Baylor sighed. “He’s entitled to his chance.”

  He turned his back on the two, and left.

  Within the hour, he was riding up the Takht-i-Khosru trail, toward Aisha’s cave. While he had a trick for evading the issue which Ostrom in pride and stubbornness was trying to force, Baylor was afraid that Aisha’s devilish magic would upset the plan.

  The entire chain of circumstance was now quite beyond any stretching of coincidence. The pattern of the web was forcing him and Ostrom and Marta, warping the judgment of each. Thus Baylor feared to decline the challenge, feared to risk persuading Marta to pack up and leave Iran, and not because of the stigma of cowardice, for that would not matter, once he was out of the country. His apprehension was deeper. He felt now that any attempt to evade the weaver’s magic would end fatally. Each time he thought of flight, he pictured an accident to Marta.

  When he reached the cave, he found the lovely Turki girl sitting by the fire. She lowered her veil a little, and smiled, and said, “Mother is not here.”

  “Mother?” he echoed, perplexedly.

  “Yes. I am Shireen, the daughter of Aisha. I have been in Mosul, studying magic. When she goes to the mercy of Allah, I will weave in her place. The fallen angels, Harut and Marut, taught her, many years ago, and now they have taught me.”

  Shireen was exquisite. However much the close fitting and high necked tunic concealed her body, its gleaming surface betrayed the splendid curves beneath. An invitation lurked at the corners of her mouth, and it was reflected in the depths of her great dark eyes when she said, “Be pleased to wait, and welcome, though only Allah knows when she returns.”

  She made room for him on the hearth rug. Her perfume was heady, and when her satin sleeve brushed his arm, the thrill made Baylor tingle from head to foot. Though her mother was incredibly ugly, Shireen was young, and lovely as Lilith; the speculative gleam in her eyes gave Baylor hope.

  But Shireen had read his thought.

  “You came to change the pattern of your web. You forget that I will remind her, and Allah alone knows what punishment my mother would think of!”

  “But you’re her daughter. After all—”

  Shireen shrugged. “You want the red-haired Ferinshi woman, but you do not wish to pay the price of destiny. A man must die, and you shrink from that. Since you love her so little, you might love me instead. And then there would be no blood guilt, and all would be well.”

  “But I’d lose her—” He made a helpless gesture. “There would be no point to it all, the web had best never been started!”

  “You do not care for me, yet you ask me to break the law?”

  “Two women—that is not our custom,” he protested.

  Shireen sighed. “Ya kbudaya! Against such love, there is no answer. But the study of magic is long and lonesome…”

  Baylor could not be sure who made the first advance. All he knew was that he had Shireen in his arms, and that her eager lips pressed against his mouth, that her breast flattened against him.

  The embers dimmed, and weird mists swirled from the further depths, blotting out all the many looms, shutting out all but the ruddy glow of the hearth. Finally Shireen stirred languidly in his embrace, and smoothed out her rumpled tunic.

  “Now I will weave so that you will have your heart’s desire, and without blood guilt on your hands, and more than that is not permitted.”

  She took his hand, and
he followed her into the mist veils through which he could barely distinguish the web of his fate: and for a long time, he watched her as she unraveled certain knots, and rewove with other colors and in other lines. And all through the intricate Shirazi pattern, he could pick the shapes which symbolized himself, and Marta, and Ostrom: though these things were beyond his reading, he knew that all would be well.

  It was nearly dawn when he left the cave. Shireen’s eyes were somber, and she sighed, then said, “We will meet once more, and then I put the seal to your fate.”

  Baylor mounted and rode up the trail of destiny. The plan which he had shaped before he met Shireen could not fail, now that he had persuaded her to offset her mother’s devilish irony.

  Chapter 5

  All Is Illusion

  It was nearly noon when he reached the region where he was to meet Ostrom. Water from melting snow caps trickled across the trail, and down the steep banks into the ravine below. Here and there, boulders which had fallen from the upper slopes dotted the way. Baylor dismounted, drew his pistol, and marched on.

  He was breathless, though more from excitement than from the altitude. Though the sun would not shine into the eyes of either combatant, the glare from snow patches would make for difficult shooting; and this was what he needed.

  Presently, as he approached a brow beyond which there was a long, level stretch which snaked along the brink of a steep drop, he heard the laboring of an engine. Someone was driving from the north, coming up the grade which led to the further end of the level zone.

  From a distance, he recognized the car. Ostrom was at the wheel. Baylor halted, waved. The car pulled up, well beyond accurate pistol range, and Ostrom advanced on foot. He shouted something which the wind distorted, so that Baylor could not understand the words, but the glint of metal, and the accompanying gesture made it clear that Ostrom had recognized him and was ready.

  Baylor advanced perhaps twenty paces. Then he halted, leveled his weapon. It was very simple, after all. Trick Ostrom into shooting prematurely, with not one chance in a thousand of scoring; then refuse to return his fire. Having had his chance, he would be satisfied. His own wits, and the hours spent in persuading Shireen would avert what Aisha had devised.

  When Ostrom halted, Baylor’s life hung on another man’s trigger finger. The distance was appallingly short. For an instant, every instinct urged him to defend himself. He was dizzy. The rocky trail seemed to billow beneath his feet. There was a rumbling in his ears.

  Ostrom’s arm jerked. The pistol bounced up. A slug whacked past, a few inches wide of Baylor’s head, and zinged from the rocky wall. Ostrom sagged. He yelled, hoarsely, “Fire! Get it over. Come closer if you’re afraid you’ll miss!”

  True to his word, he was shooting only once.

  Then it occurred to Baylor that his gesture would have to be decisive, and beyond misunderstanding. He raised his pistol and fired almost straight up. Then he started forward, pocketing his weapon. Ostrom’s crazy sense of honor should now be satisfied.

  Ostrom’s expression changed. He started, gestured, whirled about to dash for his car. The roaring in Baylor’s ears became louder. In an instant, he realized that the rumbling was real, and not illusion. Rock fragments peppered the trail. The pistol concussion, perhaps the impact of the bullet, far up on the snow-laden ledge, had started an avalanche. And Ostrom, steady enough when facing a gun, was now gripped by panic. He was running toward the spot where the main force of the snow slide would strike, instead of in the opposite direction.

  Ostrom stumbled. That gave Baylor a shred of hope. He raced toward the man, shouting at the top of his voice; he had to check him. Marta would never believe that an avalanche, and not a bullet had settled the issue.

  Too late, Ostrom understood. He regained his feet, turned. He was within arm’s reach of Baylor when the fringe of the slide enveloped them. Its further limit engulfed the car.

  The seconds which followed were a choking darkness which roared and drummed and thundered; a flailing, a pounding, a crazy whirling and spinning from which nothing could emerge whole and alive. Yet Baylor did not quite lose touch of Ostrom. Once a tree checked their descent. And then, as the slope tapered off, a larger tree deflected the rush of snow and earth and rock.

  Baylor managed to crawl clear. Though with difficulty, he could still move; but Ostrom was finished. Shireen, though keeping her word, had played a trick worthy of her mother. Baylor was exonerated. Since he could not extricate Ostrom without help, there would be witnesses to clear him in Marta’s eyes.

  Painfully, he worked his way up the steep slope, and toward the car, which had not been swept over the side. But when he reached the top, he saw that he would have to ride his horse. The wheels were hopelessly fouled with debris.

  And he learned then what he had not theretofore suspected—Marta had accompanied Ostrom. Rock fragments weighted the robe which almost concealed her in the back seat. She cried out at his touch, then looked up, eyes charged with pain. Her lips were bluish, her face was paper white.

  “You’ll have to get help,” she gasped. “You can’t move me by yourself. I couldn’t stand it.”

  He knelt on the littered running board, wiped her forehead, wiped the red froth which trailed from the corner of her mouth. “Marta, my God! Why—how did you—?”

  “I was afraid—he’d ambush you—I hid—under the robe—I saw the slide—but I thought—oh, I guess I was too shocked by what had gone before—I didn’t start to move till—too—late.”

  He knew now that he could not, single handed, help her in any way. Neither was there time to be wasted in bringing a doctor all the way from Shiraz. The thing to do was get a litter, and have porters carry her. He said, “I have to leave you here. There’s something wrong with your back. I’ll get porters. We’ll tie you to a litter. Anything else, and you’d hurt yourself even more.”

  “I know, Barry. I’m not afraid. I’m glad I came. I saw what you did—I know why, too—it’s part of the game, darling—we’re free, now—everything’s worked out, and this is just part of what we have to pay—but I’m not afraid, the pattern’s finished—”

  He made her as comfortable as he could, arranged the robe as a shelter from wind and sun, then fought his way across the stretch of debris.

  Perhaps pack animals could drag the car clear, once men with shovels and levers pried away the rocks and mud. But everything was impossible. The quickest relief he could get would take far too long. Staying with Marta was useless; so was leaving her. He spurred his horse, charged crazily down the slope up which he had so slowly crawled.

  It all hung on the witch pattern. Whatever was woven into the web of wizardry was what would happen. Aisha and her daughter were the nearest help. Were it not for that, he would surely stop and empty his pistol into them. And then his agony of rage, lacking any nearer object, turned back against himself. The impact numbed him. He had done all this himself. This was the result of his effort to unbind himself and two others from their destinies.

  And since he now hated himself as much as he did the weird woman and her daughter, he became calm, riding with skill and ferocity he had never imagined possible. Somehow, he kept from throwing his horse; or perhaps there was the web of wizardry to keep him on the road.

  “They’ll help—they have to help—”

  Whether with magic or with mundane device, he did not know. This time he would force them to change the pattern. Twice he had failed in his purpose, twice he had compromised, but now he would succeed.

  He flung himself from the winded horse and ran the last dozen yards. Shireen, hearing the hoof beats, came to the entrance of the cave. He thrust her aside, and demanded, “Where’s Aisha?”

  “She returns when she will.”

  “Then change the pattern! Now! Don’t ask me what you’ve done—you know, you know too well—you said that I’d be back, and you knew why yo
u said it.”

  Shireen retreated before his fury. He advanced a pace, but did not quite manage to seize her arm. “Change it! Weave life and help for her! Now!”

  Shireen made a helpless gesture. “I had nothing to do with it. I was lonely, and you pleased me, and so I tied knots to please you.”

  This might well be the truth, but Baylor was beyond reason or compromise. He drew his pistol. “Get to work.”

  Shireen made a fluent move which tricked his eye. The satin tunic spread back over her shoulder, lingered at her breast, slowly sank to her hips, and then cascaded in a shimmering heap about her ankles. “Do you still threaten me, strong man? Fire, I am waiting.”

  A moment passed. His jaw ached from the grimness of his tension. He dared not waver. He forced his hatred to grow until it blotted out all that sleek beauty before him. Until he was filled with the will to destroy her, she would mock him; more than a threat was needed.

  And the girl still smiled, sadly, and shook her lovely head. “You were warned, oh Man! Warned according to the law. She will live, but who knows how long you will love what is left of her? This is not my doing, this is not my mother’s doing, this is the law. No man may outstep his destiny without paying a forfeit. You asked that there be no blood guilt on your head, and there is none. And if your pistol can change the law, do with me as you please.”

  His fierce glance wavered. For the first time, he dared to look past Shireen. He was the slave of the web, rather than of her will. Cutting her down—

  He shouted his triumph as he knocked her asprawl in his haste to get at the completed web which shimmered on the little loom. He slashed the warp threads which held it to the beam, and bounded toward the hearth.

  Shireen screamed and scrambled from the rocky floor.

  “Don’t! Don’t do that!”

  She clawed him, clung to him. He stumbled, and they rolled against the wall. There was no understanding what Shireen gasped. He kicked himself clear of her, seized the web, and flung it into the glowing embers.