L. Camp - The Exotic Enchanter

“Worshippers of Kali, who offer her human lives?” Randhir shook his head ever so slightly. “I think not. They are thieves, and though they may murder, it is only to gain the gold in their victims’ purses. No, they worship Kartikeya.”

Shea hoped he was right.

“You know a surprising amount, for foreigners,” Randhir said, eyeing Chalmers narrowly — but the psychologist was saved from a reply because, just then, they passed in among the trees, and Randhir had to turn to chop secretly into the bark of a tree as they passed. The action triggered realization in Shea — the rajah was blazing his path! His constant scrutiny of his surroundings wasn’t shiftiness or fear — he was memorizing landmarks! He was planning to escape, then come back with an army!

They walked for another ten minutes then the trail opened out into a large clearing, but the light of the moon was blocked by a huge sheet of rook that reared up at the far side of the glade like a butte in the desert — or like a painter’s canvas, because the bottom ten feet or so were decorated with vermilion handprints. Shea wondered what they signified, but the psychologist in him decided he didn’t want to know.

Charya walked up to it and bowed low, then knelt and pulled up a tuft of grass. He beckoned, saying, “Come, new boy! Aid me here!”

Shea started to step forward, but Rajah Randhir brushed past him and stooped to help the robber captain. They heaved, and Shea saw they were both holding on to an iron ring.

“Replace your divots,” Chalmers muttered.

As they heaved, a trapdoor opened in the ground. A shaft of light poured out, and a hubbub of voices drowned the night noises. Some of the voices were shouting, some singing loudly and off-key, and beneath them, Shea definitely heard the clink of glasses. Some of the voices, he was quite sure, were female.

“This is the ken,” Charya said. He turned, stepping down into the hole, and commanded, “Follow me!”

Shea’s hair stood on end, but the rajah very calmly stepped down into the hole as Charya sank from sight, and the robber behind Shea growled, “Hurry up! I thirst!”

“If they’re eager for it,” Chalmers murmured, “it can’t be all that dangerous.”

Shea nodded reluctantly and stepped forward. As he came to the hole, he saw a ladder stretching downward. It was made of bamboo and looked entirely too flimsy to hold him, but both the captain and Randhir looked to be heavier than he was, so he swallowed heavily, braced a band against the trapdoor, and stepped down onto the ladder. It held — It didn’t even sway — and he descended a rung at a time, Chalmers following him.

He stepped off and turned around to find himself in a large cave with troughs of water against the walls and suits of silk and fine cotton hanging on racks. Charya began to wash away his night makeup, and Shea’s hair tried to stand up as he realized part of what was flowing off the man’s hands was dried blood. Randhir started washing, too, then stood back and watched philosophically as the robbers filed down off the ladder and went to wash off the dirt and brick-dust of the night’s work — and the dried blood. That done, they took off their turbans, and Shea found out why the fabric rose so high — it was concealing a heap of hair, The men started to comb out their long, disheveled, dusty locks, then to rearrange them and wind clean, colorful turbans around it. Recoiffured, they turned to annointing their clean skins with perfumed oil.

“Come, strangers! Refresh yourselves!” one man cried.

“A chance to acquire local dress, Harold,” Chalmers muttered, and Shea called, “Why, yes, thanks! Don’t mind if I do!”

As he washed. Shea kept an eye on the men around him. Some had long, slender daggers hung to lanyards lashed around their waists, some had little bags slung under their left arms, and some, oddly, wore kerchiefs around their necks.

As they finished dressing, the gang members leaped through a curtained archway with whoops of delight. Charya took his time, though, robing himself in splendid brocade over silken trousers, and Shea wasn’t about to go through the curtains ahead of him. Nether was Chalmers, of course, and It didn’t surprise Shea to see that Randhir waited upon the robber-captain’s pleasure, too. He began to suspect that Charya was dawdling, and sure enough, most of the gang had gone before he led the way through.

They came out into a huge cavern, lighted by torches fixed to the stone walls — and if they gave off light they gave off smoke as well, but that didn’t matter much, because the floor was crowded with men sitting cross-legged with water pipes before them and bumpers of something alcoholic by their sides. Carpets of every kind, from the choicest tapestry to the coarsest rug, were spread out under the smokers, and were strewn with bags, wallets, weapons, heaps of booty, and here and there, a grappling couple — for them were women among the men, carrying trays and mugs, and dispensing kisses as freely as food and drink. Here a thief made a ribald comment at a waitress, and she answered him back with both sauciness and earthiness. Here and there a waitress gave a shriek of delight — at least Shea hoped it was delight — as one of her “customers” pulled her down from a contest of wits to a wrestling match.

A pretty young woman saw Charya and struck a gong beside the archway. At its brazen note, all the robbers stopped what they were doing and turned to him, clapping. The captain stood there with a glittering grin, drinking in the applause. As it slackened, he threw out an arm toward the Rajah — and, incidentally, Shea and Chalmers — and cried, “Make shanti to our new companions.”

“Shanti!” the robbers cried with one voice, and suited the action to the word. Randhir smiled and bowed to them. Watching him in the lamplight, Shea could only think It was lucky for him that the light was so dim — even this close, he couldn’t make out the horsehair that flattened his nose.

“What of the score of the evening, Captain?” one man called out.

Charya grinned. “I’ve scarcely had time to count it all — but I have numbered the bags of loot. There are twenty, and at a guess, we have hauled more booty tonight than ever before!”

The robbers gave shouts of approval, applauding and hooting.

“Eat, drink, and be merry!” Charya cried. “You have earned it!”

The robbers answered with a shout of agreement and settled down to some serious debauchery.

But even the most decadent must grow sleepy, and these particular debauchers had put in a hard night’s work before they began debauching. It took four or five hours, but the flaring torches began to burn out, and one by one, the robbers began to nod, then to lie down and pull up a cushion for a pillow. Some rolled themselves up in the rugs and covered their heads; all fell asleep right where they lay. They dropped off by twos an threes, until only the thieves right next to the wall were still sitting upright, and that was only because they were leaning back against it. Even they were nodding drowsily or leaning to one side; they might have been technically awake, but they were too stupefied with opium or hashish to really be aware of anything.

Shea and Chalmers still sat with the Rajah, not feeling at all safe, the more so because they were among the few still awake. “Feign drowsiness.” Randhir muttered to them, “or our heads will be forfeit.” He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the smoke coming from Shea’s hookah. “What manner of hashish is that?”

“One that couldn’t stupefy a mouse,” Shea didn’t bother telling the king that he had chanted a singing commercial for a brand of cigarettes while he was lighting up.

A servant woman strolled by them, looking about for anyone needing attention. She glanced at the rajah, then looked again, staring in alarm. Randhir tensed for action, but the woman gave a quick, furtive glance about her, then knelt down by the rajah and busied herself tidying up about him. “Maesty!” the hissed. “O Rajah! How came you with these wicked men?”