It was the stealthy opening of a door which awakened the Cimmerian. He
did not awake as civilized men do, drowsy and drugged and stupid. He
awoke instantly, with a clear mind, recognizing the sound that had
interrupted his sleep. Lying there tensely in the dark he saw the outer
door slowly open. In a widening crack of starlit sky he saw framed a
great black bulk, broad, stooping shoulders and a misshapen head blocked
out against the stars.
Conan felt the skin crawl between his shoulders. He had bolted that door
securely. How could it be opening now, save by supernatural agency? And
how could a human being possess a head like that outlined against the
stars? All the tales he had heard in the Zuagir tents of devils and
goblins came back to bead his flesh with clammy sweat. Now the monster
slid noiselessly into the room, with a crouching posture and a shambling
gait; and a familiar scent assailed the Cimmerian's nostrils, but did
not reassure him, since Zuagir legendry represented demons as smelling
like that.
Noiselessly Conan coiled his long legs under him; his naked sword was in
his right hand, and when he struck it was as suddenly and murderously as
a tiger lunging out of the dark. Not even a demon could have avoided
that catapulting charge. His sword met and clove through flesh and bone,
and something went heavily to the floor with a strangling cry. Conan
crouched in the dark above it, sword dripping in his hand. Devil or
beast or man, the thing was dead there on the floor. He sensed death as
any wild thing senses it. He glared through the half-open door into the
starlit court beyond. The gate stood open, but the court was empty.
Conan shut the door but did not bolt it. Groping in the darkness he
found the lamp and lighted it. There was enough oil in it to burn for a
minute or so. An instant later he was bending over the figure that
sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood.
It was a gigantic black man, naked but for a loin-cloth. One hand still
grasped a knotty-headed bludgeon. The fellow's kinky wool was built up
into horn-like spindles with twigs and dried mud. This barbaric coiffure
had given the head its misshapen appearance in the starlight. Provided
with a clue to the riddle, Conan pushed back the thick red lips, and
grunted as he stared down at teeth filed to points.
He understood now the mystery of the strangers who had disappeared from
the house of Aram Baksh; the riddle of the black drum thrumming out
there beyond the palm groves, and of that pit of charred bones--that pit
where strange meat might be roasted under the stars, while black beasts
squatted about to glut a hideous hunger. The man on the floor was a
cannibal slave from Darfar.
There were many of his kind in the city. Cannibalism was not tolerated
openly in Zamboula. But Conan knew now why people locked themselves in
so securely at night, and why even beggars shunned the open alleys and
doorless ruins. He grunted in disgust as he visualized brutish black
shadows skulking up and down the nighted streets, seeking human
prey--and such men as Aram Baksh to open the doors to them. The
innkeeper was not a demon; he was worse. The slaves from Darfar were
notorious thieves; there was no doubt that some of their pilfered loot
found its way into the hands of Aram Baksh. And in return he sold them
human flesh.
Conan blew out the light, stepped to the door and opened it, and ran his
hand over the ornaments on the outer side. One of them was movable and
worked the bolt inside. The room was a trap to catch human prey like
rabbits. But this time instead of a rabbit it had caught a saber-toothed
tiger.
Conan returned to the other door, lifted the bolt and pressed against
it. It was immovable and he remembered the bolt on the other side. Aram
was taking no chances either with his victims or the men with whom he
dealt. Buckling on his sword-belt, the Cimmerian strode out into the
court, closing the door behind him. He had no intention of delaying the
settlement of his reckoning with Aram Baksh. He wondered how many poor
devils had been bludgeoned in their sleep and dragged out of that room
and down the road that ran through the shadowed palm groves to the
roasting-pit.
He halted in the court. The drum was still muttering, and he caught the
reflection of a leaping red glare through the groves. Cannibalism was
more than a perverted appetite with the black men of Darfar; it was an
integral element of their ghastly cult. The black vultures were already
in conclave. But whatever flesh filled their bellies that night, it
would not be his.
To reach Aram Baksh he must climb one of the walls which separated the
small enclosure from the main compound. They were high, meant to keep
out the man-eaters; but Conan was no swamp-bred black man; his thews had
been steeled in boyhood on the sheer cliffs of his native hills. He was
standing at the foot of the nearer wall when a cry echoed under the
trees.
In an instant Conan was crouching at the gate, glaring down the road.
The sound had come from the shadows of the huts across the road. He
heard a frantic choking and gurgling such as might result from a
desperate attempt to shriek, with a black hand fastened over the
victim's mouth. A close-knit clump of figures emerged from the shadows
beyond the huts, and started down the road--three huge black men
carrying a slender, struggling figure between them. Conan caught the
glimmer of pale limbs writhing in the starlight, even as, with a
convulsive wrench, the captive slipped from the grasp of the brutal
fingers and came flying up the road, a supple young woman, naked as the
day she was born. Conan saw her plainly before she ran out of the road
and into the shadows between the huts. The blacks were at her heels, and
back in the shadows the figures merged and an intolerable scream of
anguish and horror rang out.
Stirred to red rage by the ghoulishness of the episode, Conan raced
across the road.
Neither victim nor abductors were aware of his presence until the soft
swish of the dust about his feet brought them about, and then he was
almost upon them, coming with the gusty fury of a hill wind. Two of the
blacks turned to meet him, lifting their bludgeons. But they failed to
estimate properly the speed at which he was coming. One of them was
down, disemboweled, before he could strike, and wheeling cat-like, Conan
evaded the stroke of the other's cudgel and lashed in a whistling
counter-cut. The black's head flew into the air; the headless body took
three staggering steps, spurting blood and clawing horribly at the air
with groping hands, and then slumped to the dust.
The remaining cannibal gave back with a strangled yell, hurling his
captive from him. She tripped and rolled in the dust, and the black fled
in blind panic toward the city. Conan was at his heels. Fear winged the
black feet, but before they reached the easternmost hut, he sensed death
at his back, and bellowed like an ox in the slaughter-yards.
'Black dog of hell!' Conan drove his sword between the dusky shoulders
with such vengeful fury that the broad blade stood out half its length
from the black breast. With a choking cry the black stumbled headlong,
and Conan braced his feet and dragged out his sword as his victim fell.
Only the breeze disturbed the leaves. Conan shook his head as a lion
shakes its mane and growled his unsatiated blood-lust. But no more
shapes slunk from the shadows, and before the huts the starlit road
stretched empty. He whirled at the quick patter of feet behind him, but
it was only the girl, rushing to throw herself on him and clasp his neck
in a desperate grasp, frantic from terror of the abominable fate she had
just escaped.
'Easy, girl,' he grunted. 'You're all right. How did they catch you?'
She sobbed something unintelligible. He forgot all about Aram Baksh as
he scrutinized her by the light of the stars. She was white, though a
very definite brunette, obviously one of Zamboula's many mixed breeds.
She was tall, with a slender, supple form, as he was in a good position
to observe. Admiration burned in his fierce eyes as he looked down on
her splendid bosom and her lithe limbs, which still quivered from fright
and exertion. He passed an arm around her flexible waist and said,
reassuringly: 'Stop shaking, wench; you're safe enough.'
His touch seemed to restore her shaken sanity. She tossed back her
thick, glossy locks and cast a fearful glance over her shoulder, while
she pressed closer to the Cimmerian as if seeking security in the
contact.
'They caught me in the streets,' she muttered, shuddering. 'Lying in
wait, beneath a dark arch--black men, like great, hulking apes! Set have
mercy on me! I shall dream of it!'
'What were you doing out on the streets this time of night?' he
inquired, fascinated by the satiny feel of her sleek skin under his
questing fingers.
She raked back her hair and stared blankly up into his face. She did not
seem aware of his caresses.
'My lover,' she said. 'My lover drove me into the streets. He went mad
and tried to kill me. As I fled from him I was seized by those beasts.'
'Beauty like yours might drive a man mad,' quoth Conan, running his
fingers experimentally through her glossy tresses.
She shook her head, like one emerging from a daze. She no longer
trembled, and her voice was steady.
'It was the spite of a priest--of Totrasmek, the high priest of Hanuman,
who desires me for himself--the dog!'
'No need to curse him for that,' grinned Conan. 'The old hyena has
better taste than I thought.'
She ignored the bluff compliment. She was regaining her poise swiftly.
'My lover is a--a young Turanian soldier. To spite me, Totrasmek gave
him a drug that drove him mad. Tonight he snatched up a sword and came
at me to slay me in his madness, but I fled from him into the streets.
The negroes seized me and brought me to this--_what was that?_'
Conan had already moved. Soundlessly as a shadow he drew her behind the
nearest hut, beneath the straggling palms. They stood in tense
stillness, while the low mutterings both had heard grew louder until
voices were distinguishable. A group of negroes, some nine or ten, were
coming along the road from the direction of the city. The girl clutched
Conan's arm and he felt the terrified quivering of her supple body
against his.
Now they could understand the gutturals of the black men.
'Our brothers have already assembled at the pit,' said one. 'We have had
no luck. I hope they have enough for us.'
'Aram promised us a man,' muttered another, and Conan mentally promised
Aram something.
'Aram keeps his word,' grunted yet another. 'Many a man we have taken
from his tavern. But we pay him well. I myself have given him ten bales
of silk I stole from my master. It was good silk, by Set!'
The blacks shuffled past, bare splay feet scuffing up the dust, and
their voices dwindled down the road.
'Well for us those corpses are lying behind these huts,' muttered Conan.
'If they look in Aram's death-room they'll find another. Let's begone.'
'Yes, let us hasten!' begged the girl, almost hysterical again. 'My
lover is wandering somewhere in the streets alone. The negroes may take
him.'
'A devil of a custom this is!' growled Conan, as he led the way toward
the city, paralleling the road but keeping behind the huts and
straggling trees. 'Why don't the citizens clean out these black dogs?'
'They are valuable slaves,' murmured the girl. 'There are so many of
them they might revolt if they were denied the flesh for which they
lust. The people of Zamboula know they skulk the streets at night, and
all are careful to remain within locked doors, except when something
unforeseen happens, as it did to me. The blacks prey on anything they
catch, but they seldom catch anybody but strangers. The people of
Zamboula are not concerned with the strangers that pass through the
city.
'Such men as Aram Baksh sell these strangers to the blacks. He would not
dare attempt such a thing with a citizen.'
Conan spat in disgust, and a moment later led his companion out into the
road which was becoming a street, with still, unlighted houses on each
side. Slinking in the shadows was not congenial to his nature.
'Where do you want to go?' he asked. The girl did not seem to object to
his arm about her waist.
'To my house, to rouse my servants,' she answered. 'To bid them search
for my lover. I do not wish the city--the priests--anyone--to know of
his madness. He--he is a young officer with a promising future. Perhaps
we can drive this madness from him if we can find him.'
'If _we_ find him?' rumbled Conan. 'What makes you think I want to spend
the night scouring the streets for a lunatic?'
She cast a quick glance into his face, and properly interpreted the
gleam in his blue eyes. Any woman could have known that he would follow
her wherever she led--for a while, at least. But being a woman, she
concealed her knowledge of that fact.
'Please,' she began with a hint of tears in her voice, 'I have no one
else to ask for help--you have been kind--'
'All right!' he grunted. 'All right! What's the young reprobate's name?'
'Why--Alafdhal. I am Zabibi, a dancing-girl. I have danced often before
the satrap, Jungir Khan, and his mistress Nafertari, and before all the
lords and royal ladies of Zamboula. Totrasmek desired me, and because I
repulsed him, he made me the innocent tool of his vengeance against
Alafdhal. I asked a love potion of Totrasmek, not suspecting the depth
of his guile and hate. He gave me a drug to mix with my lover's wine,
and he swore that when Alafdhal drank it, he would love me even more
madly than ever, and grant my every wish. I mixed the drug secretly with
my lover's wine. But having drunk, my lover went raving mad and things
came about as I have told you. Curse Totrasmek, the hybrid snake--ahhh!'
She caught his arm convulsively and both stopped short. They had come
into a district of shops and stalls, all deserted and unlighted, for the
hour was late. They were passing an alley, and in its mouth a man was
standing, motionless and silent. His head was lowered, but Conan caught
the weird gleam of eery eyes regarding them unblinkingly. His skin
crawled, not with fear of the sword in the man's hand, but because of
the uncanny suggestion of his posture and silence. They suggested
madness. Conan pushed the girl aside and drew his sword.
'Don't kill him!' she begged. 'In the name of Set, do not slay him! You
are strong--overpower him!'
'We'll see,' he muttered, grasping his sword in his right hand and
clenching his left into a mallet-like fist.
He took a wary step toward the alley--and with a horrible moaning laugh
the Turanian charged. As he came he swung his sword, rising on his toes
as he put all the power of his body behind the blows. Sparks flashed
blue as Conan parried the blade, and the next instant the madman was
stretched senseless in the dust from a thundering buffet of Conan's left
fist.
The girl ran forward.
'Oh, he is not--he is not--'
Conan bent swiftly, turned the man on his side and ran quick fingers
over him.
'He's not hurt much,' he grunted. 'Bleeding at the nose, but anybody's
likely to do that, after a clout on the jaw. He'll come to after a bit,
and maybe his mind will be right. In the meantime I'll tie his wrists
with his sword-belt--so. Now where do you want me to take him?'
'Wait!' She knelt beside the senseless figure, seized the bound hands
and scanned them avidly. Then, shaking her head as if in baffled
disappointment, she rose. She came close to the giant Cimmerian, and
laid her slender hands on his arching breast. Her dark eyes, like wet
black jewels in the starlight, gazed up into his.
'You are a man! Help me! Totrasmek must die! Slay him for me!'
'And put my neck into a Turanian noose?' he grunted.
'Nay!' The slender arms, strong as pliant steel, were around his corded
neck. Her supple body throbbed against his. 'The Hyrkanians have no love
for Totrasmek. The priests of Set fear him. He is a mongrel, who rules
men by fear and superstition. I worship Set, and the Turanians bow to
Erlik, but Totrasmek sacrifices to Hanuman the accursed! The Turanian
lords fear his black arts and his power over the hybrid population, and
they hate him. If he were slain in his temple at night, they would not
seek his slayer very closely.'
'And what of his magic?' rumbled the Cimmerian.
'You are a fighting-man,' she answered. 'To risk your life is part of
your profession.'
'For a price,' he admitted.
'There will be a price!' she breathed, rising on tiptoe, to gaze into
his eyes.
The nearness of her vibrant body drove a flame through his veins. The
perfume of her breath mounted to his brain. But as his arms closed about
her supple figure she avoided them with a lithe movement, saying: 'Wait!
First serve me in this matter.'
'Name your price.' He spoke with some difficulty.
'Pick up my lover,' she directed, and the Cimmerian stooped and swung
the tall form easily to his broad shoulder. At the moment he felt as if
he could have toppled over Jungir Khan's palace with equal ease. The
girl murmured an endearment to the unconscious man, and there was no
hypocrisy in her attitude. She obviously loved Alafdhal sincerely.
Whatever business arrangement she made with Conan would have no bearing
on her relationship with Alafdhal. Women are more practical about these
things than men.
'Follow me!' She hurried along the street, while the Cimmerian strode
easily after her, in no way discomforted by his limp burden. He kept a
wary eye out for black shadows skulking under arches, but saw nothing
suspicious. Doubtless the men of Darfar were all gathered at the
roasting-pit. The girl turned down a narrow side street, and presently
knocked cautiously at an arched door.
Almost instantly a wicket opened in the upper panel, and a black face
glanced out. She bent close to the opening, whispering swiftly. Bolts
creaked in their sockets, and the door opened. A giant black man stood
framed against the soft glow of a copper lamp. A quick glance showed
Conan the man was not from Darfar. His teeth were unfiled and his kinky
hair was cropped close to his skull. He was from the Wadai.
At a word from Zabibi, Conan gave the limp body into the black's arms,
and saw the young officer laid on a velvet divan. He showed no signs of
returning consciousness. The blow that had rendered him senseless might
have felled an ox. Zabibi bent over him for an instant, her fingers
nervously twining and twisting. Then she straightened and beckoned the
Cimmerian.
The door closed softly, the locks clicked behind them, and the closing
wicket shut off the glow of the lamps. In the starlight of the street
Zabibi took Conan's hand. Her own hand trembled a little.
'You will not fail me?'
He shook his maned head, massive against the stars.
'Then follow me to Hanuman's shrine, and the gods have mercy on our
souls!'
Along the silent streets they moved like phantoms of antiquity. They
went in silence. Perhaps the girl was thinking of her lover lying
senseless on the divan under the copper lamps; or was shrinking with
fear of what lay ahead of them in the demon-haunted shrine of Hanuman.
The barbarian was thinking only of the woman moving so supplely beside
him. The perfume of her scented hair was in his nostrils, the sensuous
aura of her presence filled his brain and left room for no other
thoughts.
Once they heard the clank of brass-shod feet, and drew into the shadows
of a gloomy arch while a squad of Pelishtim watchmen swung past. There
were fifteen of them; they marched in close formation, pikes at the
ready, and the rearmost men had their broad brass shields slung on their
backs, to protect them from a knife-stroke from behind. The skulking
menace of the black man-eaters was a threat even to armed men.
As soon as the clang of their sandals had receded up the street, Conan
and the girl emerged from their hiding-place and hurried on. A few
moments later they saw the squat, flat-topped edifice they sought
looming ahead of them.
The temple of Hanuman stood alone in the midst of a broad square, which
lay silent and deserted beneath the stars. A marble wall surrounded the
shrine, with a broad opening directly before the portico. This opening
had no gate or any sort of barrier.
'Why don't the blacks seek their prey here?' muttered Conan. 'There's
nothing to keep them out of the temple.'
He could feel the trembling of Zabibi's body as she pressed close to
him.
'They fear Totrasmek, as all in Zamboula fear him, even Jungir Khan and
Nafertari. Come! Come quickly, before my courage flows from me like
water!'
The girl's fear was evident, but she did not falter. Conan drew his
sword and strode ahead of her as they advanced through the open gateway.
He knew the hideous habits of the priests of the East, and was aware
that an invader of Hanuman's shrine might expect to encounter almost any
sort of nightmare horror. He knew there was a good chance that neither
he nor the girl would ever leave the shrine alive, but he had risked his
life too many times before to devote much thought to that consideration.
They entered a court paved with marble which gleamed whitely in the
starlight. A short flight of broad marble steps led up to the pillared
portico. The great bronze doors stood wide open as they had stood for
centuries. But no worshippers burnt incense within. In the day men and
women might come timidly into the shrine and place offerings to the
ape-god on the black altar. At night the people shunned the temple of
Hanuman as hares shun the lair of the serpent.
Burning censers bathed the interior in a soft weird glow that created an
illusion of unreality. Near the rear wall, behind the black stone altar,
sat the god with his gaze fixed for ever on the open door, through which
for centuries his victims had come, dragged by chains of roses. A faint
groove ran from the sill to the altar, and when Conan's foot felt it, he
stepped away as quickly as if he had trodden upon a snake. That groove
had been worn by the faltering feet of the multitude of those who had
died screaming on that grim altar.
Bestial in the uncertain light Hanuman leered with his carven mask. He
sat, not as an ape would crouch, but cross-legged as a man would sit,
but his aspect was no less simian for that reason. He was carved from
black marble, but his eyes were rubies, which glowed red and lustful as
the coals of hell's deepest pits. His great hands lay upon his lap,
palms upward, taloned fingers spread and grasping. In the gross emphasis
of his attributes, in the leer of his satyr-countenance, was reflected
the abominable cynicism of the degenerate cult which deified him.
The girl moved around the image, making toward the back wall, and when
her sleek flank brushed against a carven knee, she shrank aside and
shuddered as if a reptile had touched her. There was a space of several
feet between the broad back of the idol and the marble wall with its
frieze of gold leaves. On either hand, flanking the idol, an ivory door
under a gold arch was set in the wall.
'Those doors open into each end of a hair-pin shaped corridor,' she said
hurriedly. 'Once I was in the interior of the shrine--once!' She
shivered and twitched her slim shoulders at a memory both terrifying and
obscene. 'The corridor is bent like a horseshoe, with each horn opening
into this room. Totrasmek's chambers are enclosed within the curve of
the corridor and open into it. But there is a secret door in this wall
which opens directly into an inner chamber--'
She began to run her hands over the smooth surface, where no crack or
crevice showed. Conan stood beside her, sword in hand, glancing warily
about him. The silence, the emptiness of the shrine, with imagination
picturing what might lie behind that wall, made him feel like a wild
beast nosing a trap.
'Ah!' The girl had found a hidden spring at last; a square opening gaped
blackly in the wall. 'Set!' she screamed, and even as Conan leaped
toward her, he saw that a great misshapen hand had fastened itself in
her hair. She was snatched off her feet and jerked head-first through
the opening. Conan, grabbing ineffectually at her, felt his fingers slip
from a naked limb, and in an instant she had vanished and the wall
showed blank as before. Only from beyond it came briefly the muffled
sounds of a struggle, a scream, faintly heard, and a low laugh that made
Conan's blood congeal in his veins.