Burn, Witch, Burn!

and away. He followed her-he had been a woodsman and knew how to go softly, and she did not know

he was following her. She came to a crossroads. There was a new moon shining, and some prayer she

made to this new moon. Then she dug a hole, and placed the doll of dough in that hole. And then she

defiled it. After this she said:

"'Zaru (it was this man's name)! Zaru! Zaru! I love you. When this image is rotted away you must run

after me as the dog after the bitch. You are mine, Zaru, soul and body. As the image rots, you become

mine. When the image is rotted, you are all mine. Forever and forever and forever!'

"She covered the image with earth. He leaped upon her, and strangled her. He would have dug up the

image, but he heard voices and was more afraid and ran. He did not go back to the village. He made his

way to America.

"He told me that when he was out a day on that journey, he felt hands clutching at his loins-dragging him

to the rail, to the sea. Back to the village, to the girl. By that, he knew he had not killed her. He fought the

hands. Night after night he fought them. He dared not sleep, for when he slept he dreamed he was there

at the cross-roads, the girl beside him-and three times he awakened just in time to check himself from

throwing himself into the sea.

"Then the strength of the hands began to weaken. And at last, but not for many months, he felt them no

more. But still he went, always afraid, until word came to him from the village. He had been right-he had

not killed her. But later someone else did. That girl had what you have named the dark wisdom. Si!

Perhaps it turned against her at the end-as in the end it turned against the witch we knew."

I said: "It is curious that you should say that, Ricori…strange that you should speak of the dark wisdom

turning against the one who commands it…but of that I will speak later. Love and hate and power-three

lusts-always these seem to have been the three legs of the tripod on which burns the dark flame; the

supports of the stage from which the death-dolls leap…

"Do you know who is the first recorded Maker of Dolls? No? Well, he was a God, Ricori. His name

was Khnum. He was a God long and long before Yawvah of the Jews, who was also a maker of dolls,

you will recall, shaping two of them in the Garden of Eden; animating them; but giving them only two

inalienable rights-first, the right to suffer; second, the right to die. Khnum was a far more merciful God.

He did not deny the right to die-but he did not think the dolls should suffer; he liked to see them enjoy

themselves in their brief breathing space. Khnum was so old that he had ruled in Egypt ages before the

Pyramids or the Sphinx were thought of. He had a brother God whose name was Kepher, and who had

the head of a Beetle. It was Kepher who sent a thought rippling like a little wind over the surface of

Chaos. That, thought fertilized Chaos, and from it the world was born…

"Only a ripple over the surface, Ricori! If it had pierced the skin of Chaos…or thrust even deeper…into its

heart…what might not mankind now be? Nevertheless, rippling, the thought achieved the superficiality

that is man. The work of Khnum thereafter was to reach into the wombs of women and shape the body

of the child who lay within. They called him the Potter-God. He it was who, at the command of Amen,

greatest of the younger Gods, shaped the body of the great Queen Hat-shep-sut whom Amen begot,

lying beside her mother in the likeness of the Pharaoh, her husband. At least, so wrote the priests of her

day.

"But a thousand years before this there was a Prince whom Osiris and Isis loved greatly-for his beauty,

his courage and his strength. Nowhere on earth, they thought, was there a woman fit for him. So they

called Khnum, the Potter-God, to make one. He came, with long hands like those of…Madame

Mandilip…like hers, each finger alive. He shaped the clay into a woman so beautiful that even the

Goddess Isis felt a touch of envy. They were severely practical Gods, those of old Egypt, so they threw

the Prince into a sleep, placed the woman beside him, and compared-the word in the ancient papyrus is

'fitted'-them. Alas! She was not harmonious. She was too small. So Khnum made another doll. But this

was too large. And not until six were shaped and destroyed was true harmony attained, the Gods

satisfied, the fortunate Prince given his perfect wife-who had been a doll.

"Ages after, in the time of Rameses III, it happened that there was a man who sought for and who found

this secret of Khnum, the Potter-God. He had spent his whole life in seeking it. He was old and bent and

withered; but the desire for women was still strong within him. All that he knew to do with that secret of

Khnum was to satisfy that desire. But he felt the necessity of a model. Who were the fairest of women

whom he could use as models? The wives of the Pharaoh, of course. So this man made certain dolls in

the shape and semblance of those who accompanied the Pharaoh when he visited his wives. Also, he