Conan Pastiche - Conan Part 13

"And did you drive him back to the Temple?"

"No. He bade me stop at Promero's house. There he dismissed me, ordering me to return for him shortly after midnight."

"What time was this?"

"Shortly after dusk. The streets were almost deserted."

"What did you do then?"

"I returned to the slave quarters, where I remained until it was time to go to Promero's house. I drove straight there, and your men seized me as I talked with Promero in his door."

"Have you no idea why Kallian went to Promero's house?"

"He didn't speak of his business to his slaves."

Demetrio turned to Promero. "What do you know about this?"

"Naught." The clerk's teeth chattered as he spoke.

"Did Kallian Publico come to your house as the charioteer says?"

"Aye, sir."

"How long did he stay?"

"Only a short while. Then he left."

"Did he go from your house to the Temple?"

"I do not know!" The clerk's voice was shrill.

"Why did he come to your house?"

"To-to talk matters of business with me."

"You lie," said Demetrio. "Why did he come to your house?"

I don't know! I know nothing!" Promero's voice became hysterical. "I had nothing to do with it-"

"Make him talk, Dionus," snapped Demetrio. Dionus grunted and nodded to one of his men who, grinning savagely, moved toward the two captives.

"Do you know who I am?" he growled, thrusting his head forward and staring at his shrinking prey.

"You're Posthumo," answered the clerk sullenly. "You gouged out a girl's eye in the Court of Justice because she would not incriminate her lover."

"I always get what I go after!" bellowed the guardsman. The veins in his thick neck swelled and his face grew purple as he seized the wretched clerk by the collar of his tunic, twisting it so that the man was half strangled.

"Speak up, rat!" he growled. "Answer the inquisitor!"

"Oh, Mitra, mercy!" screamed the wretch. "I swear-

Posthumo slapped him terrifically, first on one side of the face and then on the other, then flung him to the floor and kicked him with vicious accuracy.

"Mercy!" moaned the victim. "I'll tell-I'll tell anything-

"Then get up, you cur!" roared Posthumo. "Don't lie there whining!"

Dionus shot a quick glance at Conan to see if he were properly impressed. "You see what happens to those who cross the police," he said.

Conan spat with a sneer of contempt. "He's a weakling and a fool," he growled. "Let one of you touch me, and I'll spill his guts on the floor."

"Are you ready to talk?" asked Demetrio wearily.

"All I know," sobbed the clerk as he dragged himself to his feet, whimpering like a beaten dog, "is that Kallian came to my house shortly after I arrived-I left the temple when he did-and sent his chariot away. He threatened me with dismissal if I ever spoke of it. I am a poor man, my lords, without friends or favor. Without my position with him, I shall starve."

"What's that to me?" said Demetrio. "How long did he remain at your house?"

"Until perhaps half an hour before midnight. Then he left, saying that he was going to the Temple and would return after he had done what he wished to do there."

"What did he mean to do there?"

Promero hesitated, but a shuddering glance at the grinning Posthumo, doubling his huge first, soon opened his lips. "There was something in the Temple he wished to examine."

"But why should he come here alone, and in such secrecy?"

"Because the thing was not his property. It arrived at dawn, in a caravan from the south. The men of the caravan knew nothing of it, except that it had been placed with them by the men of a caravan from Stygia and was meant for Caranthes of Hanumar, priest of Ibis. The master of the caravan had been paid by these other men to deliver it directly to Caranthes, but the rascal wished to proceed straight to Aquilonia by the road on which Hanumar does not lie. So he asked if he might leave it in the Temple until Caranthes could send for it.

"Kallian agreed and told him that he himself would send a servant to inform Caranthes. But, after the men had gone and I spoke of the runner, Kallian forbade me to send him. He sat brooding over what the men had left."

"And what was that?"

"A sort of sarcophagus, such as is found in ancient Stygian tombs. But this one was round, like a covered metal bowl. Its composition was like copper, but harder, and it was carved with hieroglyphics like those on ancient menhirs in southern Stygia. The lid was made fast to the body by carven copperlike bands."

"What was in it?"

"The men of the caravan did not know. They only said that those who gave it to them said that it was a priceless relic found among the tombs far beneath the pyramids and sent to Caranthes 'because of the love which the sender bore the priest of Ibis.' Kallian Publico believed that it contained the diadem of the giant-kings, of the people who dwelt in that dark land before the ancestors of the Stygians came there. He showed me a design carved on the lid, which he swore was the shape of the diadem that legend tells us the monster-kings wore.

He determined to open the bowl to see what it contained. He became like a madman when he thought of the fabled diadem, set with strange jewels known only to the ancient race, a single one of which would be worth more than all the jewels of the modern world.

"I warned him against it But, a short time before midnight, he went alone to the Temple, hiding in the shadows until the watchman had pa.s.sed to the other side of the building, then letting himself in with his belt key. I watched him from the shadows of the silk shop until he entered, then returned to my own house. If the diadem, or anything else of great value, were in the bowl, he intended hiding it elsewhere in the Temple and slipping out again. Then on the morrow he would raise a great hue and cry, saying that thieves had broken into his house and stolen Caranthes' property. None would know of his prowlings but the charioteer and I, and neither of us would betray him."

"But the watchman?" objected Demetrio.

"Kallian did not intend to be seen by him; he planned to have him crucified as an accomplice of the thieves," answered Promero. Arus gulped and turned pale as the duplicity of his employer came home to him.

"Where is this sarcophagus?" asked Demetrio. Promero pointed, the inquisitor grunted. "So! The very room in which Kallian must have been attacked."

Promero twisted his thin hands. "Why should a man in Stygia send Caranthes a gift? Ancient G.o.ds and queer mummies have come up the caravan roads before, but who loves the priest of Ibis so well in Stygia, where they still worship the arch-demon Set, who coils among the tombs in the darkness? The G.o.d Ibis has fought Set since the first dawn of the earth, and Caranthes has fought Set's priests all his life.

There is something dark and hidden here."