Conan Compilation - The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian Part 65

followed gave Conan and the girl an opportunity to escape.368.

Unt.i.tled Synopsis (The Scarlet Citadel)

The story begins with the conclusion of a battle in which king Conan of Aquilonia has been defeated by the armies of Koth and Ophir. Amalrus, king of Ophir sent word to Conan that Strabonus, king of Koth, is ravaging his dominions, and urged Conan to aid him. Conan marched with five thousand hors.e.m.e.n, no archers or infantry, and on the plains of Ophir was met by Strabonus with ten thousand men, knights, archers and slingers, to which was added an Ophirian army of fifteen thousand men. Conan's small army was riddled with arrows, and cut to pieces. Conan himself, the sole survivor, is captured by Strabonus, or rather by his magician, Tsothalanti, an evil mysterious ancient who is the real power in Koth. Tsoth scratches Conan with a stylus dipped in poison extracted from the purple lotus, which induces muscular paralysis. Conan is carried to Khorshemish, Strabonus' capital, where an effort is made to persuade him to abdicate in favor of prince Arpello, an Aquilonian n.o.ble secretly in league with Strabonus. He profanely refuses, and is borne into a subterranean tunnel below Tsotha's citadel, chained to the wall and left to his fate. In these tunnels Tsotha works his magic. A dim candle overhead throws a half circle of light about Conan, and soon a gigantic serpent, eighty feet long, glides out of the darkness, rears itself above Conan, and a drop of its poison falls on his naked thigh, making a permanent scar. At this moment, however, a huge black man enters, says that Conan, when a pirate on the coasts of Cush, slew his brother. He prepares to behead Conan, but the serpent glides out of the dark again and seizes him. The keys fall at Conan's feet, and he frees himself. He seeks to escape, but a soldier locks the door from without, though Conan thrusts him through the bars. He finds a rival wizard imprisoned, and frees him, and this wizard summons a huge bird or dragon, on which Conan rides back to Aquilonia, raises an army, and defeats the Kothians.

369.

Unt.i.tled Synopsis (Black Colossus)

Shevatas, a Zamorian thief, came to the ruined city of Kuthchemes in the Stygian desert. Once a river ran through it, a tributary to that river which the Stygians call the Styx, the Kothians the Stygus, and the Nemedians the Nilas. But for many centuries the river bed had been dry, and the ruins of Kuthchemes stood up dim and shattered in the moon. There in old times had ruled the magician Thugra Khotan, high priest of Set the Old Serpent, and his tomb still reared its gold-worked marble crest above the ruins. A curse rested on that ancient land, but Shevatas, l.u.s.ting for the treasure reputed hidden in the tomb, entered by a secret way, unlocking the great door from without and slaying with a sword poisoned in its own venom, the great serpent that guarded the sepulcher. As he entered the gloom-shadowed vault, he screamed as a shadowy shape moved and stirred and heaved up in the darkness he screamed, and then silence fell over the ruins of Kuthchemes.

At that time there was an independant south-Kothian kingdom the princ.i.p.ality of Khoraspar whose young ruler, count Khossa, had defied his king and set up a kingdom of his own. The population was partly Kothian, partly Shemite, ruled over by an aristocratic caste of pure Hyborians. At the time Khossa was a captive in Ophir, whose king was hesitating between accepting a ransom from the Khorasparans, or handing him over to the king of Koth.

Khoraspar, meanwhile, was ruled by the princess Yasmela. Then came word of invasion from the southern desert. A new prophet had risen among the nomadic Shemites, a great magician who called himself Natohk the Veiled, as he always wore a veil. This prophet worked black magic, and enlisted in his cause a rebel Stygian prince, brother of the king, who had been defeated and driven into the desert. The allies were preparing to march against the Hyborian peoples, and the first country in their path was Khoraspar.

Yamela was haunted by a spectral, shapeless figure with blazing unnatural eyes, which stood in the shadows of her chamber, while her maids slept, and whispered hideous threats and oscenities to her. Terrified and unnerved, she sought an ancient oracle in a subterranean chamber of the palace. She stripped her most beautiful maid and stretched her whimpering on the altar, but did not have courage or cruelty to sacrifice her. But a strange voice whispered out of the air, and bade her select the first man she met, to lead her army. Officers were deserting, bribed by the king of Koth, or terrified by the reports of the veiled magician. The princess went out into the street veiled, and the first man she met was a captain of the mercenaries, Conan the Cimmerian, reeling along the deserted street, drunk. She doubted the oracle, but brought him into the palace, having to endure a good deal of amorous mauling at his hands. There she revealed herself to him, which startled him. He drew his sword to hack his way to freedom, but she rea.s.sured him, and put him in command of the remnants of an army left her by desertion a troop of loyal n.o.blemen, a regiment of Shemite archers, and the mercenaries Gundermen,

370.Aquilonians, Hyperboreans and Nemedians.

They marched to meet the allies where the hills ran down into the desert. A vast fog rolled up from the south, and in it came the thousands of Natohk. But a wind blew it away, and in the battle that followed, Conan and his men were triumphant, by the intercession of an old, old Kothian G.o.d, and Conan overthrew Natohk, who was Thugra Khotan. And Conan was triumphant.

371.

Unt.i.tled Fragment

The battlefield stretched silent, crimson pools among the still sprawling figures seeming to reflect the lurid red-streamered sunset sky. Furtive figures slunk from the tall gra.s.s; birds of prey dropped down on mangled heaps with a rustle of dusky wings. Like harbingers of Fate a wavering line of herons flapped slowly away toward the reed-grown banks of the river. No rumble of chariot-wheel or peal of trumpet disturbed the unseeing stillness. The silence of death followed the thundering of battle.

Yet one figure moved through that wide-strewn field of ruin pygmy-like against the vast dully crimson sky. The fellow was a Cimmerian, a giant with a black mane and smoldering blue eyes. His girdled loin-cloth and high-strapped sandals were splashed with blood. The great sword he trailed in his right hand was stained to the cross-piece. There was a ghastly wound in his thigh, which caused him to limp as he walked. Carefully yet impatiently he moved among the dead, limping from corpse to corpse, and swearing wrathfully as he did so. Others had been before him; not a bracelet, gemmed dagger, or silver breastplate rewarded his search. He was a wolf who had lingered too long at the blood-letting, while jackals stripped the prey.

Glaring out across the littered plain, he saw no body unstripped or moving. The knives of the mercenaries and camp-followers had been at work. Straightening up from his fruitless quest, he glanced uncertainly afar off across the deepening plain, to where the towers of the city gleamed faintly in the sunset. Then he turned quickly as a low tortured cry reached his ears. That meant a wounded man, living, therefore presumably unlooted. He limped quickly toward the sound, and coming to the edge of the plain, parted the first straggling reeds and glared down at the figure which writhed feebly at his feet.

It was a girl that lay there. She was naked, her white limbs cut and bruised. Blood was clotted in her long dark hair. There was unseeing agony in her dark eyes and she moaned in delirium.

The Cimmerian stood looking down at her, and his eyes were momentarily clouded by what would have been an expression of pity in another man. He lifted his sword to put the girl out of her misery, and as the blade hovered above her, she whimpered again like a child in pain. The great sword halted in midair, and the Cimmerian stood for an instant like a bronze statue. Then sheathing the blade with sudden decision, he bent and lifted the girl in his mighty arms. She struggled blindly but weakly. Carrying her carefully, he limped toward the reed-masked riverbank some distance away.In the city of Yaralet, when night came on, the people barred windows and bolted doors, and

372.sat behind their barriers shuddering, with candles burning before their household G.o.ds until dawn etched the minarets. No watchmen walked the streets, no painted wenches beckoned from the shadows, no thieves stole nimbly through the winding alleys. Rogues, like honest people, shunned the shadowed ways, gathering in foul-smelling dens, or candle-lighted taverns.

From dusk to dawn Yaralet was a city of silence, her streets empty and desolate.

Exactly what they feared, the people did not know. But they had ample evidence that it was no empty dream they bolted their doors against. Men whispered of slinking shadows, glimpsed from barred windows of hurrying shapes alien to humanity and sanity. They told of doorways splintering in the night, and the cries and shrieks of humans followed by significant silence; and they told of the rising sun etching broken doors that swung in empty houses, whose occupants were seen no more.

Even stranger, they told of the swift rumble of phantom chariot-wheels along the empty streets in the darkness before dawn, when those who heard dared not look forth. One child looked forth, once, but he was instantly stricken mad and died screaming and frothing, without telling what he saw when he peered from his darkened window.

On a certain night, then, while the people of Yaralet shivered in their bolted houses, a strange conclave was taking place in the small velvet-hung taper-lighted chamber of Atalis, whom some called a philosopher and others a rogue. Atalis was a slender man of medium height, with a splendid head and the features of a shrewd merchant. He was clad in a plain robe of rich fabric, and his head was shaven to denote devotion to study and the arts. As he talked he unconsciously gestured with his left hand. His right arm lay across his lap at an unnatural angle. From time to time a spasm of pain contorted his features, at which time his right foot, hidden under the long robe, would twist back excrucriatingly upon his ankle.

He was talking to one whom the city of Yaralet knew, and praised, as Prince Than. The prince was a tall lithe man, young and undeniably handsome. The firm outline of his limbs and the steely quality of his grey eyes belied the slightly effeminate suggestion of his curled black locks, and feathered velvet cap.

373.

Unt.i.tled Synopsis

The setting: The city of Shumballa, in the land of Kush, which lies south of Stygia, in the vast gra.s.s lands. It was the capital of Kush, the population of which was composed of black people, brutal and warlike, known as Gallahs; they were ruled by a caste of dusky aristocrats, known as Chagas, who claimed descent from a band of Stygians who long ago wandered southward and set up a kingdom, of which Kush was the remnant. There were only a few hundred of these, but they maintained their position by intrigue and ferocity.

The people: The mad, degenerate king of Kush; his handsome, cruel, sensual sister, Tananda; Tuthmes, a rebellious n.o.bleman of royal blood; Diana, a Nemedian captive; Agara, a fanatical Gallah witch-finder; Conan the Cimmerian.

The plot: A commander of the Gallah warriors, a black man, having incurred the displeasure of Tananda, was cast into prison, in the upper room of a tall tower. He awoke in the night, to be murdered by a pig-like monster which had scaled the tower-wall and torn the bars from the window. This monster was a survival of a forgotten age, controlled by a dusky adventurer from Kordafan. An hour later the body of the commander was discovered, and a man ran to Tuthmes, to tell him of it. From the marks and prints, it was evident that no human being had killed the commander. Tuthmes told the man that the time was ripe to stir up the Gallahs against the king and his sister, and told him to find Agara, the black witch-finder, and hint to him that Tananda had had the commander murdered. Tuthmes then went upon his roof, to brood over the walled city and the myriad mud huts of the Gallahs spreading into the plains beyond the wall. He, himself, had sent the monster to murder the commander in order to throw suspicion on Tananda, who was the real ruler of Kush. He plotted the overthrow of the ruling dynasty and the making of himself king, with the aid of the Gallahs. But it was a risky task, for the Gallahs had been murmuring, feeling that a pure black king should sit on the throne of Kush. Tuthmes sent for a white woman to present to the king, plotting to effect his ruin through her. His emissary bought a Nemedian girl, Diana, from a Shemitish slave-trader, who had captured her from an Argossean trading vessel.

Shortly thereafter Tananda were riding through the city outside the walls, which was known as Punt, when Agara appeared and stirred up the people against her. Her escort were murdered, and she was dragged from her saddle and stripped naked by the mob, who were about to tear her to pieces when she was rescued by Conan, who had just arrived in Shumballa, a wandering adventurer who had recently been a corsair. She had the captain of the guard speared by his own men, and made Conan captain. Shortly thereafter he put down a rising of the blacks, and

374.was greatly esteemed by the king.

Diana was brought to Tuthmes, who gave her her orders and sent her to the king; but Tananda had her kidnaped, and Conan, seeing her, became vastly interested in her.

Agara, by his magic had discovered Tuthmes' part in the murder of the black commander, and accusing Tuthmes, was by him seized and tortured to death or so Tuthmes thought. Tuthmes, seeing that he could not overthrow the king as long as Conan lived, sent his Kordafan monster to murder Conan.

Tananda ordered Diana to tell her the details of Tuthmes' plot, but the girl refused, for Tuthmes had frightened her almost into insanity. Tananda whipped her, and Conan entered and put a stop to it. Tanada in a fury threatened him, and he laughed at her, and taking the girl, went to his house.

In the great square of the inner city, a sorcerer was being tortured, while a great mob looked on and jeered. Conan, attacked at his house by the monster, wounded it mortally and pursued it into the square, where it rushed to its master, the Kordafan, and fell dead. The frenzied mob tore the Kordafan to pieces, and then appeared Ageera, who denounced Tuthmes. He was likewise slain by the mob, and then the blacks rose and destroyed Shumballa, and Conan and Diana escaped.

375.

Unt.i.tled Draft

Amboola awakened slowly, his senses still sluggish from the wine he had guzzled the night before. For a muddled moment he could not remember where he was; the moonlight, streaming through the barred window, shone on unfamiliar surroundings. Then he remembered that he was lying in the upper cell of the prison tower where the anger of Tanada, sister to the king of Kush, had consigned him. It was no ordinary cell, for even Tanada had not dared to go too far in her punishment of the commander of the black spearmen which were the strength of Kush's army. There were carpets and tapestries and silk-covered couches, and jugs of wine he remembered that he had been awakened and wondered why.

His gaze wandered to the square of barred moonlight that was the window, and he saw something that partially sobered him, and straightened his blurred gaze. The bars of that window were bent and buckled, and twisted back. It must have been the noise of their rending that had awakened him. But what could have bent them? And where was whatever had so bent them? Suddenly he was completely sober, and an icy sensation wandered up his spine.

Something had entered through that window; something was in the room with him.

With a low cry he started up on his couch and stared about him; and he froze at the sight of the motionless, statue-like figure that stood at the head of his couch. An icy hand clutched the heart of Amboola which had never known fear. That silent, greyish shape did not move nor speak; it stood there in the shadowy moonlight, misshapen, deformed, its outline outside the bounds of sanity. Staring wildly Amboola made out a pig-like head, snouted, covered with coa.r.s.e bristles -but the thing stood upright and its thick, hair-covered arms ended in rudimentary hands

Amboola shrieked and sprang up and then the motionless thing moved, with the paralyzing speed of a monster in a nightmare. The black man had one frenzied vision of champing, foaming jaws, of great chisel-like tusks flashing in the moonlight. . . . . . presently the moonlight fell on a black shape sprawled amidst the dabbled coverings of the couch on the floor; a greyish, shambling form moved silently across the chamber toward the window whose broken bars leaned out against the stars.

.2.

"Tuthmes!" The voice was urgent; urgent as the fist that hammered on the teak door of the chamber where slept Shumballa's most ambitious n.o.bleman. "Tuthmes! Let me in! The devil is loose in Shumballa!"

The door was opened, and the speaker burst into the room a lean, wiry man in a white djebbeh, dark skinned, the whites of his eyes gleaming. He was met by Tuthmes, tall, slender,

376.dusky, with the straight features of his caste.

"What are you saying, Afari?"

Afari closed the door before he answered; he was panting as if from a long run. He was shorter than Tuthmes, and the negroid was more predominant in his features.

"Amboola! He is dead! In the Red Tower!"

"What?" exclaimed Tuthmes. "Tananda dared execute him?"

"No! No, no! She would not be such a fool, surely. He was not executed, but murdered.

Something broke through the bars of his cell, and tore his throat out, and stamped in his ribs, and broke his skull Set, I have seen many dead men, but never one less lovely in his death than Amboola! Tuthmes, it is the work of some demon! His throat was bitten out, and the prints of the teeth were not like those of a lion or an ape. It was as if they had been made by chisels, sharp as razors!"

"When was this done?"

"Sometime about midnight. Guards in the lower part of the tower, watching the stair that leads up to the cell in which he was imprisoned, heard him cry out, and rushing up the stairs, burst into the cell and found him lying as I have said. I was sleeping in the lower part of the tower as you bade me, and having seen, I came straight here, bidding the guards say naught to anyone."