The Jade God by Alan Sullivan (snow like ashes series txt) 📕

Martin, and if you ask why I didn’t give it up long ago, I can’t tell you, except that I knew another was coming after me, and then another, but I would only see them once. When I got here, I knew by Martin’s face that the god was not far off. So now”⁠—here he glanced dominantly at Derrick⁠—“this thing must go back with me. The god of all evil lives in it, and whoever keeps it will be cursed. Joy will die for him, and fear will come, and love be changed to a dream of terror. God hides in that stone, and sacrifices must be made in front of it. What becomes of me does not matter. The woman killed the man, because the image commanded her. She could not help it, her love being turned to gall. And this is only the beginning of what must come if the image stays in your keeping.”

The voice lifted with a strange domination that brooked no interruption, and the peddler’s features took on a look of exalted prophecy. “What do the children of today know of the wisdom that dwelt in the hills of Mong when England was peopled by half-naked savages? They are like children with toys they do not understand. Gautama opened the books of good and evil that all might read. You of the West have read not at all; Lung Sen read only the evil, and he is dead; and this man from an English village disobeyed the law and passed at the hand of one who struck when her eyes were closed. When after two years they opened, she struck again, but this time at herself. She was asleep, but the god never sleeps. So if you do not give it to me, then make an end of me quickly, and prepare for the next messenger, who is now on his way, and will not ask, but take.”

Silence descended in the cell. Burke’s eyes were half closed, as though he peered at visions hitherto unguessed. A cart creaked in the distance but did not break the spell. Derrick had an abiding sensation that from the East a hand had reached out and touched the village of Bamberley into a strange sleep. Martin sat motionless, reliving the past, while the peddler clasped his lean fingers, a look of intense abstraction on his dark smooth face. Derrick was aware that he felt amazingly impotent, and with difficulty made an indefinite gesture.

“Sergeant,” he said, after a long pause, “I make no charge against Martin and will go bail for his appearance at the inquest when wanted.”

The big man jerked himself together, stood up, groped in his pocket, and produced a key. There was a click of steel. Martin was a free man.

“You might go back to the cottage now,” said Derrick, looking him full in the eye.

The gardener nodded, shook himself like a wet dog, said one sibilant word of farewell to the peddler, and vanished. His step was still audible when Burke fastened an inquiring look on Blunt.

“What about this man, sir? Are you going to let him down as easy as that?”

“I take it that the only charge is of attempted theft?”

“That’s right, but I wouldn’t be so sure about bail in this case.”

“And the only damage is to the French window?”

“That’s for you to say, sir. It’s your house.”

Derrick turned to Blunt. “You have come here in search of a certain thing. In that I believe you have told the truth, but as to what may follow if you don’t get it, that’s another story. I do accept what you said about the image, and that it has for some reason an evil effect. It is not necessary to go into that any further, but since the thing is evil, it should no longer exist, and⁠—”

Blunt leaped to his feet. “What are you going to do?”

“First leave it to the sergeant to decide whether he keeps you here till the inquest, and⁠—”

“I’ll certainly do that,” put in Burke.

“Well, after that’s over there will be no reason for you to stay in England any longer. You can go back to the Mong Hills and tell them that the image does not exist. It won’t.”

“You’ll destroy it?” whispered Blunt, aghast.

“Yes. If it’s the evil thing you say, and I believe you, it ought to be destroyed. If it isn’t, you’ve been lying, which I don’t believe. I’ve learned something from all this, Blunt,” he added thoughtfully, “and my mind is made up. Good morning, sergeant.”

XII “I Love You!”

Derrick got back to Beech Lodge in time for lunch and plunged at once into a vastly different atmosphere. The house was servantless, and this very fact had kept Edith too busy to indulge in any morbid reflections, even had her resilient nature felt so inclined. She was moved by the knowledge that her brother had been under a strain which, however incomprehensible to herself, was nevertheless to him very real. It was reflected in his eyes, his restless manner, and the notes that had lain untouched for weeks. She wanted him to get back to his work, to be normal, and above all things happy. She recognized and admired the creative side of him, made allowances for what she considered the essential vagaries of his temperament, and had long since decided to sacrifice herself if necessary on so unusual an altar. She could feel for him, if not with him.

So, returning from the grim scene of Bamberley jail, he found an energetic, practical young person, obviously full of work, and over whom hung but little of the tragedy of the immediate past. She supplied the touch that the moment demanded. He welcomed this, leaned on it far more than he realized, and sat down at the table with a feeling of prodigious relief. The hand of the domestic artist was visible here, and if at times the diaphanous shape of the stiff figure