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"Tell me, ancient one," he said, "not of thy loves but of
thyself. Who are you? What do you here in the pits of O-Tar?"
"I might ask you the same, young man," replied the other. "Few
there are who visit the pits other than the dead, except my
pupils--ey! That is it--you are new pupils! Good! But never
before have they sent a woman to learn the great art from the
greatest artist. But times have changed. Now, in my day the women
did no work--they were just for kissing and loving. Ey, those
were the women. I mind the one we captured in the south--ey! she
was a devil, but how she could love. She had breasts of marble
and a heart of fire. Why, she --"
"Yes, yes," interrupted Turan; "we are pupils, and we are anxious
to get to work. Lead on and we will follow."
"Ey, yes! Ey, yes! Come! All is rush and hurry as though there
were not another countless myriad of ages ahead. Ey, yes! as many
as lie behind. Two thousand years have passed since I broke my
shell and always rush, rush, rush, yet I cannot see that aught
has been accomplished. Manator is the same today as it was
then--except the girls. We had the girls then. There was one that
I gained upon The Fields of Jetan. Ey, but you should have seen
--"
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"Lead on!" cried Turan. "After we are at work you shall tell us
of her."
"Ey, yes," said the old fellow and shuffled off down a dimly
lighted passage. "Follow me!"
"You are going with him?" asked Tara.
"Why not?" replied Turan. "We know not where we are, or the way
from these pits; for I know not east from west; but he doubtless
knows and if we are shrewd we may learn from him that which we
would know. At least we cannot afford to arouse his suspicions";
and so they followed him--followed along winding corridors and
through many chambers, until they came at last to a room in which
there were several marble slabs raised upon pedestals some three
feet above the floor and upon each slab lay a human corpse.
"Here we are," exclaimed the old man. "These are fresh and we
shall have to get to work upon them soon. I am working now on one
for The Gate of Enemies. He slew many of our warriors. Truly is
he entitled to a place in The Gate. Come, you shall see him."
He led them to an adjoining apartment. Upon the floor were many
fresh, human bones and upon a marble slab a mass of shapeless
flesh.
"You will learn this later," announced the old man; "but it will
not harm you to watch me now, for there are not many thus
prepared, and it may be long before you will have the opportunity
to see another prepared for The Gate of Enemies. First, you see,
I remove all the bones, carefully that the skin may be damaged as
little as possible. The skull is the most difficult, but it can
be removed by a skilful artist. You see, I have made but a single
opening. This I now sew up, and that done, the body is hung so,"
and he fastened a piece of rope to the hair of the corpse and
swung the horrid thing to a ring in the ceiling. Directly below
it was a circular manhole in the floor from which he removed the
cover revealing a well partially filled with a reddish liquid.
"Now we lower it into this, the formula for which you shall learn
in due time. We fasten it thus to the bottom of the cover, which
we now replace. In a year it will be ready; but it must be
examined often in the meantime and the liquid kept above the
level of its crown. It will be a very beautiful piece, this one,
when it is ready.
"And you are fortunate again, for there is one to come out
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today." He crossed to the opposite side of the room and raised
another cover, reached in and dragged a grotesque looking figure
from the hole. It was a human body, shrunk by the action of the
chemical in which it had been immersed, to a little figure scarce
a foot high.
"Ey! is it not fine?" cried the little old man. "Tomorrow it will
take its place in The Gate of Enemies." He dried it off with
cloths and packed it away carefully in a basket. "Perhaps you
would like to see some of my life work," he suggested, and
without waiting for their assent led them to another apartment, a
large chamber in which were forty or fifty people. All were
sitting or standing quietly about the walls, with the exception
of one huge warrior who bestrode a great thoat in the very center
of the room, and all were motionless. Instantly there sprang to
the minds of Tara and Turan the rows of silent people upon the
balconies that lined the avenues of the city, and the noble array
of mounted warriors in The Hall of Chiefs, and the same
explanation came to both but neither dared voice the question
that was in his mind, for fear of revealing by his ignorance the
fact that they were strangers in Manator and therefore impostors
in the guise of pupils.
"It is very wonderful," said Turan. "It must require great skill
and patience and time."
"That it does," replied the old man, "though having done it so
long I am quicker than most; but mine are the most natural. Why,
I would defy the wife of that warrior to say that insofar as
appearances are concerned he does not live," and he pointed at
the man upon the thoat. "Many of them, of course, are brought
here wasted or badly wounded and these I have to repair. That is
where great skill is required, for everyone wants his dead to
look as they did at their best in life; but you shall learn--to
mount them and paint them and repair them and sometimes to make
an ugly one look beautiful. And it will be a great comfort to be
able to mount your own. Why, for fifteen hundred years no one has
mounted my own dead but myself.
"I have many, my balconies are crowded with them; but I keep a
great room for my wives. I have them all, as far back as the
first one, and many is the evening I spend with them--quiet
evenings and very pleasant. And then the pleasure of preparing
them and making them even more beautiful than in life partially
recompenses one for their loss. I take my time with them, looking
for a new one while I am working on the old. When I am not sure
about a new one I bring her to the chamber where my wives are,
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and compare her charms with theirs, and there is always a great
satisfaction at such times in knowing that they will not object.
I love harmony."
"Did you prepare all the warriors in The Hall of Chiefs?" asked
Turan.
"Yes, I prepare them and repair them," replied the old man.
"O-Tar will trust no other. Even now I have two in another room
who were damaged in some way and brought down to me. O-Tar does
not like to have them gone long, since it leaves two riderless
thoats in the Hall; but I shall have them ready presently. He
wants them all there in the event any momentous question arises
upon which the living jeds cannot agree, or do not agree with
O-Tar. Such questions he carries to the jeds in The Hall of
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