The cliffs rose sheer from the jungle, towering ramparts of stone that
glinted jade-blue and dull crimson in the rising sun, and curved away
and away to east and west above the waving emerald ocean of fronds and
leaves. It looked insurmountable, that giant palisade with its sheer
curtains of solid rock in which bits of quartz winked dazzlingly in the
sunlight. But the man who was working his tedious way upward was already
halfway to the top.
He came of a race of hillmen, accustomed to scaling forbidding crags,
and he was a man of unusual strength and agility. His only garment was a
pair of short red silk breeks, and his sandals were slung to his back,
out of his way, as were his sword and dagger.
The man was powerfully built, supple as a panther. His skin was bronzed
by the sun, his square-cut black mane confined by a silver band about
his temples. His iron muscles, quick eyes and sure feet served him well
here, for it was a climb to test these qualities to the utmost. A
hundred and fifty feet below him waved the jungle. An equal distance
above him the rim of the cliffs was etched against the morning sky.
He labored like one driven by the necessity of haste; yet he was forced
to move at a snail's pace, clinging like a fly on a wall. His groping
hands and feet found niches and knobs, precarious holds at best, and
sometimes he virtually hung by his finger nails. Yet upward he went,
clawing, squirming, fighting for every foot. At times he paused to rest
his aching muscles, and, shaking the sweat out of his eyes, twisted his
head to stare searchingly out over the jungle, combing the green expanse
for any trace of human life or motion.
Now the summit was not far above him, and he observed, only a few feet
above his head, a break in the sheer stone of the cliff. An instant
later he had reached it--a small cavern, just below the edge of the rim.
As his head rose above the lip of its floor, he grunted. He clung there,
his elbows hooked over the lip. The cave was so tiny that it was little
more than a niche cut in the stone, but held an occupant. A shriveled
mummy, cross-legged, arms folded on the withered breast upon which the
shrunken head was sunk, sat in the little cavern. The limbs were bound
in place with rawhide thongs which had become mere rotted wisps. If the
form had ever been clothed, the ravages of time had long ago reduced the
garments to dust. But thrust between the crossed arms and the shrunken
breast there was a roll of parchment, yellowed with age to the color of
old ivory.
The climber stretched forth a long arm and wrenched away this cylinder.
Without investigation he thrust it into his girdle and hauled himself up
until he was standing in the opening of the niche. A spring upward and
he caught the rim of the cliffs and pulled himself up and over almost
with the same motion.
There he halted, panting, and stared downward.
It was like looking into the interior of a vast bowl, rimmed by a
circular stone wall. The floor of the bowl was covered with trees and
denser vegetation, though nowhere did the growth duplicate the jungle
denseness of the outer forest. The cliffs marched around it without a
break and of uniform height. It was a freak of nature, not to be
paralleled, perhaps, in the whole world: a vast natural amphitheater, a
circular bit of forested plain, three or four miles in diameter, cut off
from the rest of the world, and confined within the ring of those
palisaded cliffs.
But the man on the cliffs did not devote his thoughts to marveling at
the topographical phenomenon. With tense eagerness he searched the
tree-tops below him, and exhaled a gusty sigh when he caught the glint
of marble domes amidst the twinkling green. It was no myth, then; below
him lay the fabulous and deserted palace of Alkmeenon.
Conan the Cimmerian, late of the Baracha Isles, of the Black Coast, and
of many other climes where life ran wild, had come to the kingdom of
Keshan following the lure of a fabled treasure that outshone the hoard
of the Turanian kings.
Keshan was a barbaric kingdom lying in the eastern hinterlands of Kush
where the broad grasslands merge with the forests that roll up from the
south. The people were a mixed race, a dusky nobility ruling a
population that was largely pure negro. The rulers--princes and high
priests--claimed descent from a white race which, in a mythical age, had
ruled a kingdom whose capital city was Alkmeenon. Conflicting legends
sought to explain the reason for that race's eventual downfall, and the
abandonment of the city by the survivors. Equally nebulous were the
tales of the Teeth of Gwahlur, the treasure of Alkmeenon. But these
misty legends had been enough to bring Conan to Keshan, over vast
distances of plain, river-laced jungle, and mountains.
He had found Keshan, which in itself was considered mythical by many
northern and western nations, and he had heard enough to confirm the
rumors of the treasure that men called the Teeth of Gwahlur. But its
hiding-place he could not learn, and he was confronted with the
necessity of explaining his presence in Keshan. Unattached strangers
were not welcome there.
But he was not nonplussed. With cool assurance he made his offer to the
stately plumed, suspicious grandees of the barbarically magnificent
court. He was a professional fighting-man. In search of employment (he
said) he had come to Keshan. For a price he would train the armies of
Keshan and lead them against Punt, their hereditary enemy, whose recent
successes in the field had aroused the fury of Keshan's irascible king.
This proposition was not so audacious as it might seem. Conan's fame had
preceded him, even into distant Keshan; his exploits as a chief of the
black corsairs, those wolves of the southern coasts, had made his name
known, admired and feared throughout the black kingdoms. He did not
refuse tests devised by the dusky lords. Skirmishes along the borders
were incessant, affording the Cimmerian plenty of opportunities to
demonstrate his ability at hand-to-hand fighting. His reckless ferocity
impressed the lords of Keshan, already aware of his reputation as a
leader of men, and the prospects seemed favorable. All Conan secretly
desired was employment to give him legitimate excuse for remaining in
Keshan long enough to locate the hiding-place of the Teeth of Gwahlur.
Then there came an interruption. Thutmekri came to Keshan at the head of
an embassy from Zembabwei.
Thutmekri was a Stygian, an adventurer and a rogue whose wits had
recommended him to the twin kings of the great hybrid trading kingdom
which lay many days' march to the east. He and the Cimmerian knew each
other of old, and without love. Thutmekri likewise had a proposition to
make to the king of Keshan, and it also concerned the conquest of
Punt--which kingdom, incidentally, lying east of Keshan, had recently
expelled the Zembabwan traders and burned their fortresses.
His offer outweighed even the prestige of Conan. He pledged himself to
invade Punt from the east with a host of black spearmen, Shemitish
archers, and mercenary swordsmen, and to aid the king of Keshan to annex
the hostile kingdom. The benevolent kings of Zembabwei desired only a
monopoly of the trade of Keshan and her tributaries--and, as a pledge
of good faith, some of the Teeth of Gwahlur. These would be put to no
base usage. Thutmekri hastened to explain to the suspicious chieftains;
they would be placed in the temple of Zembabwei beside the squat gold
idols of Dagon and Derketo, sacred guests in the holy shrine of the
kingdom, to seal the covenant between Keshan and Zembabwei. This
statement brought a savage grin to Conan's hard lips.
The Cimmerian made no attempt to match wits and intrigue with Thutmekri
and his Shemitish partner, Zargheba. He knew that if Thutmekri won his
point, he would insist on the instant banishment of his rival. There was
but one thing for Conan to do: find the jewels before the king of Keshan
made up his mind and flee with them. But by this time he was certain
that they were not hidden in Keshia, the royal city which was a swarm of
thatched huts crowding about a mud wall that enclosed a palace of stone
and mud and bamboo.
While he fumed with nervous impatience, the high priest Gorulga
announced that before any decision could be reached, the will of the
gods must be ascertained concerning the proposed alliance with Zembabwei
and the pledge of objects long held holy and inviolate. The oracle of
Alkmeenon must be consulted.
This was an awesome thing, and it caused tongues to wag excitedly in
palace and bee-hive hut. Not for a century had the priests visited the
silent city. The oracle, men said, was the Princess Yelaya, the last
ruler of Alkmeenon, who had died in the full bloom of her youth and
beauty, and whose body had miraculously remained unblemished throughout
the ages. Of old, priests had made their way into the haunted city, and
she had taught them wisdom. The last priest to seek the oracle had been
a wicked man, who had sought to steal for himself the curiously cut
jewels that men called the Teeth of Gwahlur. But some doom had come upon
him in the deserted palace, from which his acolytes, fleeing, had told
tales of horror that had for a hundred years frightened the priests from
the city and the oracle.
But Gorulga, the present high priest, as one confident in his knowledge
of his own integrity, announced that he would go with a handful of
followers to revive the ancient custom. And in the excitement tongues
buzzed indiscreetly, and Conan caught the clue for which he had sought
for weeks--the overheard whisper of a lesser priest that sent the
Cimmerian stealing out of Keshia the night before the dawn when the
priests were to start.
Riding as hard as he dared for a night and a day and a night, he came in
the early dawn to the cliffs of Alkmeenon, which stood in the
southwestern corner of the kingdom, amidst uninhabited jungle which was
taboo to common men. None but the priests dared approach the haunted
vale within a distance of many miles. And not even a priest had entered
Alkmeenon for a hundred years.
No man had ever climbed these cliffs, legends said, and none but the
priests knew the secret entrance into the valley. Conan did not waste
time looking for it. Steeps that balked these people, horsemen and
dwellers of plain and level forest, were not impossible for a man born
in the rugged hills of Cimmeria.
Now on the summit of the cliffs he looked down into the circular valley
and wondered what plague, war or superstition had driven the members of
that ancient race forth from their stronghold to mingle with and be
absorbed by the tribes that hemmed them in.
This valley had been their citadel. There the palace stood, and there
only the royal family and their court dwelt. The real city stood outside
the cliffs. Those waving masses of green jungle vegetation hid its
ruins. But the domes that glistened in the leaves below him were the
unbroken pinnacles of the royal palace of Alkmeenon which had defied the
corroding ages.
Swinging a leg over the rim he went down swiftly. The inner side of the
cliffs was more broken, not quite so sheer. In less than half the time
it had taken him to ascend the outer side, he dropped to the swarded
valley floor.
With one hand on his sword, he looked alertly about him. There was no
reason to suppose men lied when they said that Alkmeenon was empty and
deserted, haunted only by the ghosts of the dead past. But it was
Conan's nature to be suspicious and wary. The silence was primordial;
not even a leaf quivered on a branch. When he bent to peer under the
trees, he saw nothing but the marching rows of trunks, receding and
receding into the blue gloom of the deep woods.
Nevertheless he went warily, sword in hand, his restless eyes combing
the shadows from side to side, his springy tread making no sound on the
sward. All about him he saw signs of an ancient civilization; marble
fountains, voiceless and crumbling, stood in circles of slender trees
whose patterns were too symmetrical to have been a chance of nature.
Forest-growth and underbrush had invaded the evenly planned groves, but
their outlines were still visible. Broad pavements ran away under the
trees, broken, and with grass growing through the wide cracks. He
glimpsed walls with ornamental copings, lattices of carven stone that
might once have served as the walls of pleasure pavilions.
Ahead of him, through the trees, the domes gleamed and the bulk of the
structure supporting them became more apparent as he advanced.
Presently, pushing through a screen of vine-tangled branches, he came
into a comparatively open space where the trees straggled, unencumbered
by undergrowth, and saw before him the wide, pillared portico of the
palace.
As he mounted the broad marble steps, he noted that the building was in
far better state of preservation than the lesser structures he had
glimpsed. The thick walls and massive pillars seemed too powerful to
crumble before the assault of time and the elements. The same enchanted
quiet brooded over all. The cat-like pad of his sandaled feet seemed
startlingly loud in the stillness.
Somewhere in this palace lay the effigy or image which had in times past
served as oracle for the priests of Keshan. And somewhere in the palace,
unless that indiscreet priest had babbled a lie, was hidden the treasure
of the forgotten kings of Alkmeenon.
Conan passed into a broad, lofty hall, lined with tall columns, between
which arches gaped, their door long rotted away. He traversed this in a
twilight dimness, and at the other end passed through great
double-valved bronze doors which stood partly open, as they might have
stood for centuries. He emerged into a vast domed chamber which must
have served as audience hall for the kings of Alkmeenon.
It was octagonal in shape, and the great dome up to which the lofty
ceiling curved obviously was cunningly pierced, for the chamber was much
better lighted than the hall which led to it. At the farther side of the
great room there rose a dais with broad lapis-lazuli steps leading up to
it, and on that dais there stood a massive chair with ornate arms and a
high back which once doubtless supported a cloth-of-gold canopy. Conan
grunted explosively and his eyes lit. The golden throne of Alkmeenon,
named in immemorial legendry! He weighed it with a practised eye. It
represented a fortune in itself, if he were but able to bear it away.
Its richness fired his imagination concerning the treasure itself, and
made him burn with eagerness. His fingers itched to plunge among the
gems he had heard described by story-tellers in the market squares of
Keshia, who repeated tales handed down from mouth to mouth through the
centuries--jewels not to be duplicated in the world, rubies, emeralds,
diamonds, bloodstones, opals, sapphires, the loot of the ancient world.
He had expected to find the oracle-effigy seated on the throne, but
since it was not, it was probably placed in some other part of the
palace, if, indeed, such a thing really existed. But since he had turned
his face toward Keshan, so many myths had proved to be realities that he
did not doubt that he would find some kind of image or god.
Behind the throne there was a narrow arched doorway which doubtless had
been masked by hangings in the days of Alkmeenon's life. He glanced
through it and saw that it let into an alcove, empty, and with a narrow
corridor leading off from it at right angles. Turning away from it, he
spied another arch to the left of the dais, and it, unlike the others,
was furnished with a door. Nor was it any common door. The portal was of
the same rich metal as the throne, and carved with many curious
arabesques.
At his touch it swung open so readily that its hinges might recently
have been oiled. Inside he halted, staring.
He was in a square chamber of no great dimensions, whose marble walls
rose to an ornate ceiling, inlaid with gold. Gold friezes ran about the
base and the top of the walls, and there was no door other than the one
through which he had entered. But he noted these details mechanically.
His whole attention was centered on the shape which lay on an ivory dais
before him.
He had expected an image, probably carved with the skill of a forgotten
art. But no art could mimic the perfection of the figure that lay before
him.
It was no effigy of stone or metal or ivory. It was the actual body of a
woman, and by what dark art the ancients had preserved that form
unblemished for so many ages Conan could not even guess. The very
garments she wore were intact--and Conan scowled at that, a vague
uneasiness stirring at the back of his mind. The arts that preserved the
body should not have affected the garments. Yet there they were--gold
breast-plates set with concentric circles of small gems, gilded sandals,
and a short silken skirt upheld by a jeweled girdle. Neither cloth nor
metal showed any signs of decay.
Yelaya was coldly beautiful, even in death. Her body was like alabaster,
slender yet voluptuous; a great crimson jewel gleamed against the darkly
piled foam of her hair.
Conan stood frowning down at her, and then tapped the dais with his
sword. Possibilities of a hollow containing the treasure occurred to
him, but the dais rang solid. He turned and paced the chamber in some
indecision. Where should he search first, in the limited time at his
disposal? The priest he had overheard babbling to a courtesan had said
the treasure was hidden in the palace. But that included a space of
considerable vastness. He wondered if he should hide himself until the
priests had come and gone, and then renew the search. But there was a
strong chance that they might take the jewels with them when they
returned to Keshia. For he was convinced that Thutmekri had corrupted
Gorulga.
Conan could predict Thutmekri's plans from his knowledge of the man. He
knew that it had been Thutmekri who had proposed the conquest of Punt to
the kings of Zembabwei, which conquest was but one move toward their
real goal--the capture of the Teeth of Gwahlur. Those wary kings would
demand proof that the treasure really existed before they made any
move. The jewels Thutmekri asked as a pledge would furnish that proof.
With positive evidence of the treasure's reality, the kings of Zembabwei
would move. Punt would be invaded simultaneously from the east and the
west, but the Zembabwans would see to it that the Keshani did most of
the fighting, and then, when both Punt and Keshan were exhausted from
the struggle the Zembabwans would crush both races, loot Keshan and take
the treasure by force, if they had to destroy every building and torture
every living human in the kingdom.
But there was always another possibility: if Thutmekri could get his
hands on the hoard, it would be characteristic of the man to cheat his
employers, steal the jewels for himself and decamp, leaving the
Zembabwan emissaries holding the sack.
Conan believed that this consulting of the oracle was but a ruse to
persuade the king of Keshan to accede to Thutmekri's wishes--for he
never for a moment doubted that Gorulga was as subtle and devious as all
the rest mixed up in this grand swindle. Conan had not approached the
high priest himself, because in the game of bribery he would have no
chance against Thutmekri, and to attempt it would be to play directly
into the Stygian's hands. Gorulga could denounce the Cimmerian to the
people, establish a reputation for integrity, and rid Thutmekri of his
rival at one stroke. He wondered how Thutmekri had corrupted the high
priest, and just what could be offered as a bribe to a man who had the
greatest treasure in the world under his fingers.
At any rate he was sure that the oracle would be made to say that the
gods willed it that Keshan should follow Thutmekri's wishes, and he was
sure, too, that it would drop a few pointed remarks concerning himself.
After that Keshia would be too hot for the Cimmerian, nor had Conan had
any intention of returning when he rode away in the night.
The oracle chamber held no clue for him. He went forth into the great
throne-room and laid his hands on the throne. It was heavy, but he could
tilt it up. The floor beneath, a thick marble dais, was solid. Again he
sought the alcove. His mind clung to a secret crypt near the oracle.
Painstakingly he began to tap along the walls, and presently his taps
rang hollow at a spot opposite the mouth of the narrow corridor. Looking
more closely he saw that the crack between the marble panel at that
point and the next was wider than usual. He inserted a dagger-point and
pried.
Silently the panel swung open, revealing a niche in the wall, but
nothing else. He swore feelingly. The aperture was empty, and it did not
look as if it had ever served as a crypt for treasure. Leaning into the
niche he saw a system of tiny holes in the wall, about on a level with
a man's mouth. He peered through, and grunted understandingly. That was
the wall that formed the partition between the alcove and the oracle
chamber. Those holes had not been visible in the chamber. Conan grinned.
This explained the mystery of the oracle, but it was a bit cruder than
he had expected. Gorulga would plant either himself or some trusted
minion in that niche, to talk through the holes, and the credulous
acolytes would accept it as the veritable voice of Yelaya.
Remembering something, the Cimmerian drew forth the roll of parchment he
had taken from the mummy and unrolled it carefully, as it seemed ready
to fall to pieces with age. He scowled over the dim characters with
which it was covered. In his roaming about the world the giant
adventurer had picked up a wide smattering of knowledge, particularly
including the speaking and reading of many alien tongues. Many a
sheltered scholar would have been astonished at the Cimmerian's
linguistic abilities, for he had experienced many adventures where
knowledge of a strange language had meant the difference between life
and death.
These characters were puzzling, at once familiar and unintelligible, and
presently he discovered the reason. They were the characters of archaic
Pelishtim, which possessed many points of difference from the modern
script, with which he was familiar, and which, three centuries ago, had
been modified by conquest by a nomad tribe. This older, purer script
baffled him. He made out a recurrent phrase, however, which he
recognized as a proper name: Bît-Yakin. He gathered that it was the name
of the writer.
Scowling, his lips unconsciously moving as he struggled with the task,
he blundered through the manuscript, finding much of it untranslatable
and most of the rest of it obscure.
He gathered that the writer, the mysterious Bît-Yakin, had come from
afar with his servants, and entered the valley of Alkmeenon. Much that
followed was meaningless, interspersed as it was with unfamiliar phrases
and characters. Such as he could translate seemed to indicate the
passing of a very long period of time. The name of Yelaya was repeated
frequently, and toward the last part of the manuscript it became
apparent that Bît-Yakin knew that death was upon him. With a slight
start Conan realized that the mummy in the cavern must be the remains of
the writer of the manuscript, the mysterious Pelishtim, Bît-Yakin. The
man had died, as he had prophesied, and his servants, obviously, had
placed him in that open crypt, high up on the cliffs, according to his
instructions before his death.
It was strange that Bît-Yakin was not mentioned in any of the legends of
Alkmeenon. Obviously he had come to the valley after it had been
deserted by the original inhabitants--the manuscript indicated as
much--but it seemed peculiar that the priests who came in the old days
to consult the oracle had not seen the man or his servants. Conan felt
sure that the mummy and this parchment were more than a hundred years
old. Bît-Yakin had dwelt in the valley when the priests came of old to
bow before dead Yelaya. Yet concerning him the legends were silent,
telling only of a deserted city, haunted only by the dead.
Why had the man dwelt in this desolate spot, and to what unknown
destination had his servants departed after disposing of their master's
corpse?
Conan shrugged his shoulders and thrust the parchment back into his
girdle--he started violently, the skin on the backs of his hands
tingling. Startlingly, shockingly in the slumberous stillness, there had
boomed the deep strident clangor of a great gong!
He wheeled, crouching like a great cat, sword in hand, glaring down the
narrow corridor from which the sound had seemed to come. Had the priests
of Keshia arrived? This was improbable, he knew; they would not have had
time to reach the valley. But that gong was indisputable evidence of
human presence.
Conan was basically a direct-actionist. Such subtlety as he possessed
had been acquired through contact with the more devious races. When
taken off guard by some unexpected occurrence, he reverted instinctively
to type. So now, instead of hiding or slipping away in the opposite
direction as the average man might have done, he ran straight down the
corridor in the direction of the sound. His sandals made no more sound
than the pads of a panther would have made; his eyes were slits, his
lips unconsciously asnarl. Panic had momentarily touched his soul at the
shock of that unexpected reverberation, and the red rage of the
primitive that is wakened by threat of peril always lurked close to the
surface of the Cimmerian.
He emerged presently from the winding corridor into a small open court.
Something glinting in the sun caught his eye. It was the gong, a great
gold disk, hanging from a gold arm extending from the crumbling wall. A
brass mallet lay near, but there was no sound or sight of humanity. The
surrounding arches gaped emptily. Conan crouched inside the doorway for
what seemed a long time. There was no sound or movement throughout the
great palace. His patience exhausted at last, he glided around the curve
of the court, peering into the arches, ready to leap either way like a
flash of light, or to strike right or left as a cobra strikes.
He reached the gong, stared into the arch nearest it. He saw only a dim
chamber, littered with the debris of decay. Beneath the gong the
polished marble flags showed no footprints, but there was a scent in the
air--a faintly fetid odor he could not classify; his nostrils dilated
like those of a wild beast as he sought in vain to identify it.
He turned toward the arch--with appalling suddenness the seemingly solid
flags splintered and gave way under his feet. Even as he fell he spread
wide his arms and caught the edges of the aperture that gaped beneath
him. The edges crumbled off under his clutching fingers. Down into utter
darkness he shot, into black icy water that gripped him and whirled him
away with breathless speed.