Charlie Chan in the Temple of the Golden Horde

by Michael Collins

  Forbes gave the detective directions to the isolated temple, and Chan went out into the night to his car.

  As he drove off, the night fog of the Northern California coast thickened over the wooded land.

  The fog drifted around the high iron gates of the isolated estate on Half Moon Bay, and nothing moved in the chill night as Charlie Chan parked. He got out, and in the distance through the bars of the gate he saw three buildings shrouded by trees. There was a small light in the one building nearest the sea, but the other two were dark.

  The large main gate was locked, but Chan soon found the side gate in the high fence. It was unlocked. It creaked open on rusted hinges, and Chan slipped through into the silent grounds. He stood for a time listening in the thick mist, then began to walk silently up a curving gravel drive.

  A half a mile in from the gate the first building loomed up through the night and fog - a silent, Chinese pagoda!

  It was on a rise of ground facing the sea a few hundred yards away. Wreathed in the night mist, the curved pyramid of its red-lacquered roof towered three-stories high, and fierce dragon-heads snarled in silence from the curved-up corners of the high roof. Dark teak pillars held up the red roof of the open porch all around, and the outer walls were all teak and colored tile. There were no windows.

  A circular, latticed gate guarded the entry portal. It wasn’t locked, and Chan pushed it open and entered the dark gloom of tie interior. Sweet, thick incense greeted him, and as his eyes became accustomed to the dark inside, he saw a tall, bare altar that had been carved from a single giant boulder. It stood at the very rear of the high room, and still retained its natural shape. A row of tiny candles burned on either side, set in deep, dark blue containers and almost invisible - moving only faintly like the wind itself.

  A live tree grew from a patch of bare earth behind the stone altar up through an opening in the ceiling, and paintings of harsh mountains stood on each side of the tree. Above it all was a vaulted dome painted a sky blue with painted white clouds, and a painted representation of Genghis Khan, and the single word - Tengri. Chan stared up at the strange altar and painted sky, and spoke softly to himself:

  “Tengri, the blue sky of Genghis Khan.”

  The rest of the large room was absolutely bare, without seats of any kind, and magical circles painted on the bare wood floor as if the worshippers sat in circular groups. Magical symbols were drawn on all the walls, and two Shaman costumes hung near the stone altar, costumes not very different from those of Amer-Indian medicine men.

  A Shamanist temple, for worshipers of the sky, mountains, rocks, forest and wind. Of the “spirits” present in these powers of nature who could be contacted only by the magic of the Shaman, the intercessor between the spirits of nature and the people. An ancient religion, primitive, and strange in modern America. Out of place in the modern world, barbaric superstition, and yet, as Chan stood alone in the dark temple he seemed to feel the powers of nature, hear the howl of the forest wind.

  Wind somewhere that was almost a scream.

  A demon of the wind, and a scream…

  A real scream!

  No wind, no demon - a human scream, and close by.

  Chan turned in the dark temple and started to run toward the round entry portal. The scream was close out in the night, and not a scream, exactly, but more a wild cry of terror. A series of terrified cries, wild and almost hysterical, frantic and moving out there in the night as if someone was fleeing from a mortal danger.

  Chan was half way from the altar to the entry portal when the almost-animal cries became very close, and echoed inside the temple itself. Chan stopped.

  V

  THE GIRL stood just inside the entry portal, her burning eyes searching wildly from side to side, her cries now low moans of fear. A tall, thin girl in her early twenties, pretty, with long blonde hair, a sensual mouth, and wide brown eyes. Manic eyes, hysterical, half-insane. She wore a long, flowing white Oriental robe, but she wasn’t Oriental. A Caucasian girl, and the white robe was stained with dirt and grass.

  Chan stepped forward, “Don’t be afraid, Miss -“

  “Ahhhh -!”

  The girl shrank back against a wall, her whole thin body trembling violently, her eyes staring crazily.

  “Please, I will not harm -“

  Chan saw the knife then. A long, thin Oriental dagger with a red-jeweled handle and a needle-sharp ten-inch blade. The girl held it out in front of her.

  With a cry, she leaped toward the detective, the knife held high and aimed at his heart.

  Startled, Chan stepped backward. His rear foot slipped on the bare wood floor, and he fell. The girl was on him, the dagger gleaming in the dark straight down at his chest!

  The dagger plunged down.

  Chan, all his muscles trained by years of T’ai-Chi-Chuan, caught her wrist and rolled aside in one fluid movement. The Chinese system of physical fitness and self-defense had kept him powerful and supple beyond his years, and the violent girl was helpless in his grip. The dagger fell to the floor, and Chan rose swiftly to his feet still grasping the girl’s wrist.

  “Stand still,” he said sharply. The tall girl glared at him, breathing hard from the fight. Her face was as pale as her white robe, and her dilated eyes rolled in her head like dark marbles floating in liquid. Chan studied her. There was hysteria in her eyes, and terror. The detective made his voice gentle to soothe and calm her:

  “Of what are you so frightened, my child?”

  The girl shrank back in the shadows of the eerie temple. She whimpered, and her lips parted to speak - but the voice that spoke wasn’t her voice!

  A deep, masculine voice from the entry portal to the dark temple, said, “She is a sick girl, afraid of herself.”

  He was a tall, elegant man in a gray tweed business suit, and he came into the temple carrying a flashlight and talking to the girl, “The shadows won’t hurt you, Angela. Nothing is going to hurt you. I’ve come to help you.”

  His handsome face was tanned, his dark hair flecked with gray, and his suit custom made. He had an aura of authority, and his sharp brown eyes were angry under their calm surface. He, too, was breathing hard as if he’d been running. Chan watched him as he went on calming the girl, speaking to her in a soft, hypnotic voice.

  “The fear of shadows,” Chan said, “can be lethal when accompanied by a dagger in the hand.”

  He held up the knife he had taken from the girl. The tall man glared at the detective.

  “Why do you think I’ve been looking for her before she hurt herself? But her fears are our concern,” the tall man said. “What the devil are you doing here, and who are you?”

  “I’m here to speak with the Khan of Temple on the matter of an accident to Benny Chan,” Chan said quietly. “My name is also Chan, Inspector of the Honolulu Police Department.”

  The tall man seemed to hesitate. “Chan? You’re a relative of poor Benny’s?”

  “Perhaps distant, all Chan’s are of one ancient family, but I did not know the drowned man. I’m here as a policeman and not as a relation.”

  A sudden wariness came over the tall man. He tried to hide it, but it was there. He glanced at the girl. Chan saw that the girl was now staring at him, an odd light in her manic eyes. A hint of purpose under the hysteria that shook her. The tall man spoke quietly, his voice controlled:

  “A Honolulu policeman? Why would the Honolulu police be concerned with an accident here?”

  “Benny Chan’s sister asked that I give some small assistance to the local police.”

  “But Benny’s death was a simple accident, the police here have confirmed that.”

  “Undoubtedly true, then,” Chan said with a faint smile, “all that remains is to remove sisterly doubts. I’m certain the Khan of this Temple can do that, and perhaps yourself, Mr. -?”

  “Well -” the tall man began, and frowned. “Of course, Inspector, we’ll help all we can. I’m Carleton Sedgwick, lawyer for the Temple. I conduct all outsid
e business, but I really don’t see what more I can do for the police that I haven’t already done. Poor Benny was simply returning from an errand and must have lost his way in the fog and fallen into the ocean. He wasn’t very bright, you know.”

  “The retarded have some difficulty with the large world,” Chan observed, “but usually they become most familiar with the small world where they live. Like blind men, retarded people are more careful than normal people, stay with what they know. It’s odd that he lost his way on the grounds he called home.”

  Carleton Sedgwick nodded. “True, Inspector, but Benny was easily panicked like most retarded people. He was late in coming home that night, it was dark and foggy, and perhaps some innocent occurrence frightened him and he simply lost his head.”

  “Sounds very logical,” Chan agreed. “Perhaps you are aware of some such occurrence that night? Saw or heard something?”

  “I’m afraid not. I wasn’t here, and the Khan and Princess were in their residence. None of us knew Benny had returned. In fact, we became worried by morning and called the police. Benny was carrying a priceless ancient scroll, and we found his pickup truck outside the gate.”

  “And Benny Chan was found at last in the ocean,” Chan said.

  “Tragic,” Sedgwick said.

  Chan nodded thoughtfully. “You have been a lawyer for the Temple long, Mr. Sedgwick? Do they have much need for a lawyer?”

  “I’ve been their lawyer for six years, and I’m afraid they do need a lawyer often. People do not always like alien rites, Inspector. They become angry or scared by what they don’t understand, try to shut us down or worse. Then I go to work.”

  Chan nodded, and looked at the now silent girl. “This young woman is a member of the Temple?”

  “In a way, Inspector. A candidate for inclusion,” Sedgwick said. “We have what other religions would call a ‘Retreat House.’ A place of therapy for those disturbed by the chaos of the outside world. A sanctuary for contemplation and solace, peace and understanding, for exorcism of the hidden evils inside.”

  “You are, then, psychiatrists?”

  “No, certainly not!” Sedgwick snapped. “That would be illegal, and you know it. The Khan only instructs in ancient methods of self-control, of contemplation, of the peace that comes with oneness with the universe. He initiates the sufferers in the Rites of The Golden Horde to exorcise their private demons.”

  “You, yourself, are a believer, Mr. Sedgwick?”

  “I’m afraid it isn’t my calling,” the lawyer said stiffly. “But I have seen the Khan do fine work with those who need aid.”

  “The process is not yet effective with Miss Smith,” Chan said dryly. “Or perhaps some event has caused a sudden relapse?”

  “Nothing has -” Sedgwick began.

  The scream that echoed through the temple was half moan, half cry of terror; half fear and half anguish. Angela Smith’s scream-moan. She had never taken her eyes from Chan all the time he had been talking to Carleton Sedgwick, and now her scream flowed through the dark temple like something alive, detached.

  Her eyes never moved, staring at Chan and at the same time staring at something unseen beyond him, and her mouth open and screaming by itself unconnected to her eyes.

  “The scroll!” the girl cried, moaning in horror, shrinking back, her arm up as if to protect herself. “It’s sacred! The scroll, violated! Unclean! I saw him! He violated the sacred scroll! Pursued! They have come for him! The demons!”

  Her scream rose again, shattering the night, “The demons! I see them! Oh… Oh… Don’t touch me… don’t…”

  Chan’s dark eyes narrowed. “Who do the demons pursue?”

  “I see them! Don’t let them touch me!” Angela Smith cried.

  Chan watched her. She twisted and thrashed as if slimy things were all over her, and her dilated eyes were enormous in the dim temple. Something about her - drugged? Her brain flipped out, a bad trip, seeing demons?

  “Miss Smith,” Chan urged, “what do you see? Where?”

  Her head swung back and forth, thrashing. “No faces! They have no faces! Oh, God, the scroll has been violated! Oh -“

  Sedgwick was pale. “Angela! Stop! There are no -“

  “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!” the girl cried an animal cry, torn from somewhere deep inside her frail body.

  The cry - and then she ran! Ran for the open portal of the eerie temple. Suddenly, before Chan or Carleton Sedgwick could move, Angela Smith was at the open portal.

  “Quick!” Chan hissed.

  They both took a step, and stopped.

  The girl had stopped. Frozen. She stared straight ahead at the open portal. Something moved in the shadows of the portal.

  The girl stared, silent. She stepped back.

  Chan watched the portal.

  It came into the temple, an apparition in the skin of some wild animal. It had the head of a great, horned Yak, the tail of a snow tiger, and long streamers of horsehair hanging from its spread arms. A tall staff in one paw hung with the tails of small beasts, a rattle in the other paw that whirred in the silent temple as the apparition swung it in a rapid circle like some aboriginal bull-roarer.

  Its mouth opened and a sound came out like the wind sweeping across a vast, bare plain.

  Angela Smith stared, suddenly calm, transfixed.

  VI

  THE APPARITION stepped into the temple, its arms flung wide, its mouth open. “Spirits come free!” The apparition cried in a deep, clear voice in English. “Spirit of the wind! Spirit of the forest! Spirit of the river! Spirit of the blue sky! Enter this child of the great Khan!”

  Angela Smith stood immobile, her pale face turned up to the sky of the macabre temple, her whole body now quiet, calm. The apparition - the Mongol Shaman - waved his staff, whirled his rattle, and cried out again. The same words, but in some other language now. A language Chan recognized as Mongolian.

  And once more in Mongolian and then again in English - “Oh spirits of the land enter and destroy the demons of the dark! Ride down the wind and sky, trample the evil demons with the thunder of your pony’s hooves! Strike them with your sword! Bring the clear blue sky of the great Khan into her body! Release her! Show us a sign of your power!”

  Arms wide, the shaman then uttered Mongolian words Chan didn’t know. Magical words, meaningless, their meaning lost long ago in the sands of history and time. Magical incantations, repeated over and over as a change came over Angela Smith.

  A color seemed to come slowly into her pale face. Her eyes cleared, brightened, almost smiled. Her young lips moved in a silent incantation of her own, and then, slowly, her whole tall body went limp and she sank to her knees with her eyes turned up toward the sky of the dark temple.

  She knelt there, calm, breathing easily now, and then her clear eyes turned to the shaman with something that Chan saw was close to love. If not sensual love, then devotion, trust, a deep and quiet peace.

  “Now you will rest, child,” the shaman said.

  Carleton Sedgwick said, “Remarkable, Li! A great power is in you, a power for good.”

  “No,” the shaman said quietly in English now, “the power is in her, in the belief. I am only the instrument through which the believer recognizes his own peace and good.”

  Then the weird apparition of the shaman reached up and removed the horned Yak head revealing the small, thin face of a Chinese man in his mid-fifties. A deeply lined face, clean-shaven, with burning black eyes that were amazingly gentle despite the obvious fire in them, that turned toward Chan.

  “Who is our guest, Carleton?”

  Sedgwick nodded to Chan, “He says his name is Chan, a detective from Honolulu. Inspector, this is Li Po, the Khan of The Temple of The Golden Horde.”

  “Honored,” Chan said with a small bow.

  The Khan, Li Po, frowned and then suddenly smiled. “Chan? The famous Charlie Chan? It is Li Po who is honored. Our small temple rejoices in such an eminent presence!”

  “Fame is a thing of the
mist,” Chan said. “Your power to exorcise demons of troubled minds is greater than my fleeting honors.”

  Before Khan Li Po could reply again, there was a liquid, sibilant sound at the portal of the temple. A swishing like some great bird in the night, and a small woman in voluminous, brocaded silk robes seemed to sweep into the temple.

  “He must go, Khan! He violates the temple!”

  She was a tiny woman, Oriental but not Chinese, with a low, cultured voice. In her early forties, her small, beautiful face was as unlined as the face of a child. Under the stiff robe her tiny body was as slim as a girl. But her almond eyes were not the eyes of a child or of a girl. There was something powerful about her tiny figure, imposing.

  “A stranger,” she cried, “he pollutes the Temple!”

  Chan said, “Are not all men brothers under the blue sky of the great Kahn, Tengri?”

  “It is true, Princess,” the Khan said. “Tengri is for all.”

  The Khan’s voice had a trance-like gentleness like something from another world. Chan studied the thin leader of the Temple from under hooded eyes. Was the man under some kind of drug? It wasn’t unusual for cults to use drugs to heighten their senses, or to tranquilize them into a state of euphoria.

  Carleton Sedgwick was also watching the Khan, though trying not to show he was. The tall lawyer had stepped closer to the small, fiery woman who also watched the shaman. Chan had the sudden sensation that the lawyer and the tiny woman were a team, joined together. The woman herself was glaring at the Khan, her tiny foot tapping in a kind of anger.

  The Khan, Li Po, seemed to hear the tapping of the woman’s foot, and his eyes blinked. He came out of the trance-like state. He nodded to Chan.

  “Humble apologies, Inspector Chan, I fail to introduce my wife, this lady before you. I present Madame Li, Snow Princess of The Golden Horde.”

  Chan bowed to cover his surprise. The tiny woman was the wife of the Khan, and yet…? Had Chan’s impression that Madame Li and Sedgwick were, somehow, a team been erroneous? No, he didn’t think so. There was something between the tiny woman and the lawyer, something shared, but perhaps, only for the moment. Something about the girl, Angela Smith? He hid behind a smile.