The Hour of the Dragon

by Robert E. Howard

  10

  A Coin from Acheron

  Not all his guides entered the chamber. When the door closed, Conan sawonly one man standing before him--a slim figure, masked in a black cloakwith a hood. This the man threw back, disclosing a pale oval of a face,with calm, delicately chiseled features.

  The king set Albiona on her feet, but she still clung to him and staredapprehensively about her. The chamber was a large one, with marble wallspartly covered with black velvet hangings and thick rich carpets on themosaic floor, laved in the soft golden glow of bronze lamps.

  Conan instinctively laid a hand on his hilt. There was blood on hishand, blood clotted about the mouth of his scabbard, for he had sheathedhis blade without cleansing it.

  'Where are we?' he demanded.

  The stranger answered with a low, profound bow in which the suspiciousking could detect no trace of irony.

  'In the temple of Asura, your Majesty.'

  Albiona cried out faintly and clung closer to Conan, staring fearfullyat the black, arched doors, as if expecting the entry of some grislyshape of darkness.

  'Fear not, my lady,' said their guide. 'There is nothing here to harmyou, vulgar superstition to the contrary. If your monarch wassufficiently convinced of the innocence of our religion to protect usfrom the persecution of the ignorant, then certainly one of his subjectsneed have no apprehensions.'

  'Who are you?' demanded Conan.

  'I am Hadrathus, priest of Asura. One of my followers recognized youwhen you entered the city, and brought the word to me.'

  Conan grunted profanely.

  'Do not fear that others discovered your identity,' Hadrathus assuredhim. 'Your disguise would have deceived any but a follower of Asura,whose cult it is to seek below the aspect of illusion. You were followedto the watch tower, and some of my people went into the tunnel to aidyou if you returned by that route. Others, myself among them, surroundedthe tower. And now, King Conan, it is yours to command. Here in thetemple of Asura you are still king.'

  'Why should you risk your lives for me?' asked the king.

  'You were our friend when you sat upon your throne,' answered Hadrathus.'You protected us when the priests of Mitra sought to scourge us out ofthe land.'

  Conan looked about him curiously. He had never before visited the templeof Asura, had not certainly known that there was such a temple inTarantia. The priests of the religion had a habit of hiding theirtemples in a remarkable fashion. The worship of Mitra was overwhelminglypredominant in the Hyborian nations, but the cult of Asura persisted, inspite of official ban and popular antagonism. Conan had been told darktales of hidden temples where intense smoke drifted up incessantly fromblack altars where kidnapped humans were sacrificed before a greatcoiled serpent, whose fearsome head swayed for ever in the hauntedshadows.

  Persecution caused the followers of Asura to hide their temples withcunning art, and to veil their rituals in obscurity; and this secrecy,in turn, evoked more monstrous suspicions and tales of evil.

  But Conan's was the broad tolerance of the barbarian, and he had refusedto persecute the followers of Asura or to allow the people to do so onno better evidence than was presented against them, rumors andaccusations that could not be proven. 'If they are black magicians,' hehad said, 'how will they suffer you to harry them? If they are not,there is no evil in them. Crom's devils! Let men worship what gods theywill.'

  At a respectful invitation from Hadrathus he seated himself on an ivorychair, and motioned Albiona to another, but she preferred to sit on agolden stool at his feet, pressing close against his thigh, as ifseeking security in the contact. Like most orthodox followers of Mitra,she had an intuitive horror of the followers and cult of Asura,instilled in her infancy and childhood by wild tales of human sacrificeand anthropomorphic gods shambling through shadowy temples.

  Hadrathus stood before them, his uncovered head bowed.

  'What is your wish, your Majesty?'

  'Food first,' he grunted, and the priest smote a golden gong with asilver wand.

  Scarcely had the mellow notes ceased echoing when four hooded figurescame through a curtained doorway bearing a great four-legged silverplatter of smoking dishes and crystal vessels. This they set beforeConan, bowing low, and the king wiped his hands on the damask, andsmacked his lips with unconcealed relish.

  'Beware, your Majesty!' whispered Albiona. 'These folk eat human flesh!'

  'I'll stake my kingdom that this is nothing but honest roast beef,'answered Conan. 'Come, lass, fall to! You must be hungry after theprison fare.'

  Thus advised, and with the example before her of one whose word was theultimate law to her, the countess complied, and ate ravenously thoughdaintily, while her liege lord tore into the meat joints and guzzled thewine with as much gusto as if he had not already eaten once that night.

  'You priests are shrewd, Hadrathus,' he said, with a great beef-bone inhis hands and his mouth full of meat. 'I'd welcome your service in mycampaign to regain my kingdom.'

  Slowly Hadrathus shook his head, and Conan slammed the beef-bone down onthe table in a gust of impatient wrath.

  'Crom's devils! What ails the men of Aquilonia? First Servius--now you!Can you do nothing but wag your idiotic heads when I speak of oustingthese dogs?'

  Hadrathus sighed and answered slowly: 'My lord, it is ill to say, and Ifain would say otherwise. But the freedom of Aquilonia is at an end.Nay, the freedom of the whole world may be at an end! Age follows age inthe history of the world, and now we enter an age of horror and slavery,as it was long ago.'

  'What do you mean?' demanded the king uneasily.

  Hadrathus dropped into a chair and rested his elbows on his thighs,staring at the floor.

  'It is not alone the rebellious lords of Aquilonia and the armies ofNemedia which are arrayed against you,' answered Hadrathus. 'It issorcery--grisly black magic from the grim youth of the world. An awfulshape has risen out of the shades of the Past, and none can stand beforeit.'

  'What do you mean?' Conan repeated.

  'I speak of Xaltotun of Acheron, who died three thousand years ago, yetwalks the earth today.'

  Conan was silent, while in his mind floated an image--the image of abearded face of calm inhuman beauty. Again he was haunted by a sense ofuneasy familiarity. Acheron--the sound of the word roused instinctivevibrations of memory and associations in his mind.

  'Acheron,' he repeated. 'Xaltotun of Acheron--man, are you mad? Acheronhas been a myth for more centuries than I can remember. I've oftenwondered if it ever existed at all.'

  'It was a black reality,' answered Hadrathus, 'an empire of blackmagicians, steeped in evil now long forgotten. It was finally overthrownby the Hyborian tribes of the west. The wizards of Acheron practisedfoul necromancy, thaumaturgy of the most evil kind, grisly magic taughtthem by devils. And of all the sorcerers of that accursed kingdom, nonewas so great as Xaltotun of Python.'

  'Then how was he ever overthrown?' asked Conan skeptically.

  'By some means a source of cosmic power which he jealously guarded wasstolen and turned against him. That source has been returned to him, andhe is invincible.'

  Albiona, hugging the headsman's black cloak about her, stared from thepriest to the king, not understanding the conversation. Conan shook hishead angrily.

  'You are making game of me,' he growled. 'If Xaltotun has been deadthree thousand years, how can this man be he? It's some rogue who'staken the old one's name.'

  Hadrathus leaned to an ivory table and opened a small gold chest whichstood there. From it he took something which glinted dully in the mellowlight--a broad gold coin of antique minting.

  'You have seen Xaltotun unveiled? Then look upon this. It is a coinwhich was stamped in ancient Acheron, before its fall. So pervaded withsorcery was that black empire, that even this coin has its uses inmaking magic.'

  Conan took it and scowled down at it. There was no mistaking its greatantiquity. Conan had handled many coins in the years of his plunderings,and had a good practical know
ledge of them. The edges were worn and theinscription almost obliterated. But the countenance stamped on one sidewas still clear-cut and distinct. And Conan's breath sucked in betweenhis clenched teeth. It was not cool in the chamber, but he felt aprickling of his scalp, an icy contraction of his flesh. The countenancewas that of a bearded man, inscrutable, with a calm inhuman beauty.

  'By Crom! It's he!' muttered Conan. He understood, now, the sense offamiliarity that the sight of the bearded man had roused in him from thefirst. He had seen a coin like this once before, long ago in a far land.

  With a shake of his shoulders he growled: 'The likeness is only acoincidence--or if he's shrewd enough to assume a forgotten wizard'sname, he's shrewd enough to assume his likeness.' But he spoke withoutconviction. The sight of that coin had shaken the foundations of hisuniverse. He felt that reality and stability were crumbing into an abyssof illusion and sorcery. A wizard was understandable; but this wasdiabolism beyond sanity.

  'We cannot doubt that it is indeed Xaltotun of Python,' said Hadrathus.'He it was who shook down the cliffs at Valkia, by his spells thatenthrall the elementals of the earth--he it was who sent the creature ofdarkness into your tent before dawn.'

  Conan scowled at him. 'How did you know that?'

  'The followers of Asura have secret channels of knowledge. That does notmatter. But do you realize the futility of sacrificing your subjects ina vain attempt to regain your crown?'

  Conan rested his chin on his fist, and stared grimly into nothing.Albiona watched him anxiously, her mind groping bewildered in the mazesof the problem that confronted him.

  'Is there no wizard in the world who could make magic to fightXaltotun's magic?' he asked at last.

  Hadrathus shook his head. 'If there were, we of Asura would know of him.Men say our cult is a survival of the ancient Stygian serpent-worship.That is a lie. Our ancestors came from Vendhya, beyond the Sea ofVilayet and the blue Himelian mountains. We are sons of the East, notthe South, and we have knowledge of all the wizards of the East, who aregreater than the wizards of the West. And not one of them but would be astraw in the wind before the black might of Xaltotun.'

  'But he was conquered once,' persisted Conan.

  'Aye; a cosmic source was turned against him. But now that source isagain in his hands, and he will see that it is not stolen again.'

  'And what is this damnable source?' demanded Conan irritably.

  'It is called the Heart of Ahriman. When Acheron was overthrown, theprimitive priest who had stolen it and turned it against Xaltotun hid itin a haunted cavern and built a small temple over the cavern. Thricethereafter the temple was rebuilt, each time greater and moreelaborately than before, but always on the site of the original shrine,though men forgot the reason therefor. Memory of the hidden symbol fadedfrom the minds of common men, and was preserved only in priestly booksand esoteric volumes. Whence it came no one knows. Some say it is theveritable heart of a god, others that it is a star that fell from theskies long ago. Until it was stolen, none had looked upon it for threethousand years.

  'When the magic of the Mitran priests failed against the magic ofXaltotun's acolyte, Altaro, they remembered the ancient legend of theheart, and the high priest and an acolyte went down into the dark andterrible crypt below the temple into which no priest had descended forthree thousand years. In the ancient iron-bound volumes which speak ofthe Heart in their cryptic symbolism, it is also told of a creature ofdarkness left by the ancient priest to guard it.

  'Far down in a square chamber with arched doorways leading off intoimmeasurable blackness, the priest and his acolytes found a black stonealtar that glowed dimly with inexplicable radiance.

  'On that altar lay a curious gold vessel like a double-valved sea-shellwhich clung to the stone like a barnacle. But it gaped open and empty.The Heart of Ahriman was gone. While they stared in horror, the keeperof the crypt, the creature of darkness, came upon them and mangled thehigh priest so that he died. But the acolyte fought off the being--amindless, soulless waif of the pits brought long ago to guard theHeart--and escaped up the long black narrow stairs carrying the dyingpriest, who before he died, gasped out the news to his followers, badethem submit to a power they could not overcome, and commanded secrecy.But the word has been whispered about among the priests, and we of Asuralearned of it.'

  'And Xaltotun draws his power from this symbol?' asked Conan, stillskeptical.

  'No. His power is drawn from the black gulf. But the Heart of Ahrimancame from some far universe of flaming light, and against it the powersof darkness cannot stand, when it is in the hands of an adept. It islike a sword that might smite at him, not a sword with which he cansmite. It restores life, and can destroy life. He has stolen it, not touse against his enemies, but to keep them from using it against him.'

  'A shell-shaped bowl of gold on a black altar in a deep cavern,' Conanmuttered, frowning as he sought to capture the illusive image. 'Thatreminds me of something I have heard or seen. But what, in Crom's name,is this notable Heart?'

  'It is in the form of a great jewel, like a ruby, but pulsing withblinding fire with which no ruby ever burned. It glows like livingflame--'

  But Conan sprang suddenly up and smote his right fist into his left palmlike a thunderclap.

  'Crom!' he roared, 'What a fool I've been! The Heart of Ahriman! Theheart of my kingdom! Find the heart of my kingdom, Zelata said. By Ymir,it was the jewel I saw in the green smoke, the jewel which Tarascusstole from Xaltotun while he lay in the sleep of the black lotus!'

  Hadrathus was also on his feet, his calm dropped from him like agarment.

  'What are you saying? The Heart stolen from Xaltotun?'

  'Aye!' Conan boomed. 'Tarascus feared Xaltotun and wanted to cripple hispower, which he thought resided in the Heart. Maybe he thought thewizard would die if the Heart was lost. By Crom--ahhh!' With a savagegrimace of disappointment and disgust he dropped his clenched hand tohis side.

  'I forgot. Tarascus gave it to a thief to throw into the sea. By thistime the fellow must be almost to Kordava. Before I can follow him he'lltake ship and consign the Heart to the bottom of the ocean.'

  'The sea will not hold it!' exclaimed Hadrathus, quivering withexcitement. 'Xaltotun would himself have cast it into the ocean longago, had he not known that the first storm would carry it ashore. But onwhat unknown beach might it not land!'

  'Well,' Conan was recovering some of his resilient confidence, 'there'sno assurance that the thief will throw it away. If I know thieves--and Ishould, for I was a thief in Zamora in my early youth--he won't throw itaway. He'll sell it to some rich trader. By Crom!' he strode back andforth in his growing excitement. 'It's worth looking for! Zelata bade mefind the heart of my kingdom, and all else she showed me proved to betruth. Can it be that the power to conquer Xaltotun lurks in thatcrimson bauble?'

  'Aye! My head upon it!' cried Hadrathus, his face lightened with fervor,his eyes blazing, his fists clenched. 'With it in our hands we can darethe powers of Xaltotun! I swear it! If we can recover it, we have aneven chance of recovering your crown and driving the invaders from ourportals. It is not the swords of Nemedia that Aquilonia fears, but theblack arts of Xaltotun.'

  Conan looked at him for a space, impressed by the priest's fire.

  'It's like a quest in a nightmare,' he said at last. 'Yet your wordsecho the thought of Zelata, and all else she said was truth. I'll seekfor this jewel.'

  'It holds the destiny of Aquilonia,' said Hadrathus with conviction. 'Iwill send men with you--'

  'Nay!' exclaimed the king impatiently, not caring to be hampered bypriests on his quest, however skilled in esoteric arts. 'This is a taskfor a fighting man. I go alone. First to Poitain, where I'll leaveAlbiona with Trocero. Then to Kordava, and to the sea beyond, ifnecessary. It may be that, even if the thief intends carrying outTarascus' order, he'll have some difficulty finding an outbound ship atthis time of the year.'

  'And if you find the Heart,' cried Hadrathus, 'I will prepare the wayfor your conques
t. Before you return to Aquilonia I will spread the wordthrough secret channels that you live and are returning with a magicstronger than Xaltotun's. I will have men ready to rise on your return.They will rise, if they have assurance that they will be protected fromthe black arts of Xaltotun.

  'And I will aid you on your journey.'

  He rose and struck a gong.

  'A secret tunnel leads from beneath this temple to a place outside thecity wall. You shall go to Poitain on a pilgrim's boat. None will daremolest you.'

  'As you will.' With a definite purpose in mind Conan was afire withimpatience and dynamic energy. 'Only let it be done swiftly.'

  * * * * *

  In the meantime events were moving not slowly elsewhere in the city. Abreathless messenger had burst into the palace where Valerius wasamusing himself with his dancing-girls, and throwing himself on hisknee, gasped out a garbled story of a bloody prison break and the escapeof a lovely captive. He bore also the news that Count Thespius, to whomthe execution of Albiona's sentence had been entrusted, was dying andbegging for a word with Valerius before he passed.

  Hurriedly cloaking himself, Valerius accompanied the man through variouswinding ways, and came to a chamber where Thespius lay. There was nodoubt that the count was dying; bloody froth bubbled from his lips ateach shuddering gasp. His severed arm had been bound to stop the flow ofblood, but even without that, the gash in his side was mortal.

  Alone in the chamber with the dying man, Valerius swore softly.

  'By Mitra, I had believed that only one man ever lived who could strikesuch a blow.'

  'Valerius!' gasped the dying man. 'He lives! Conan lives!'

  'What are you saying?' ejaculated the other.

  'I swear by Mitra!' gurgled Thespius, gagging on the blood that gushedto his lips. 'It was he who carried off Albiona! He is not dead--nophantom come back from hell to haunt us. He is flesh and blood, and moreterrible than ever. The alley behind the tower is full of dead men.Beware, Valerius--he has come back--to slay us all--'

  A strong shudder shook the blood-smeared figure, and Count Thespius wentlimp.

  Valerius frowned down at the dead man, cast a swift glance about theempty chamber, and stepping swiftly to the door, cast it open suddenly.The messenger and a group of Nemedian guardsmen stood several paces downthe corridor. Valerius muttered something that might have indicatedsatisfaction.

  'Have all the gates been closed?' he demanded.

  'Yes, your Majesty.'

  'Triple the guards at each. Let no one enter or leave the city withoutstrictest investigation. Set men scouring the streets and searching thequarters. A very valuable prisoner has escaped, with the aid of anAquilonian rebel. Did any of you recognize the man?'

  'No, your Majesty. The old watchman had a glimpse of him, but could onlysay that he was a giant, clad in the black garb of the executioner,whose naked body we found in an empty cell.'

  'He is a dangerous man,' said Valerius. 'Take no chances with him. Youall know the Countess Albiona. Search for her, and if you find her, killher and her companion instantly. Do not try to take them alive.'

  Returning to his palace chamber, Valerius summoned before him four menof curious and alien aspect. They were tall, gaunt, of yellowish skin,and immobile countenances. They were very similar in appearance, cladalike in long black robes beneath which their sandaled feet were justvisible. Their features were shadowed by their hoods. They stood beforeValerius with their hands in their wide sleeves; their arms folded.Valerius looked at them without pleasure. In his far journeyings he hadencountered many strange races.

  'When I found you starving in the Khitan jungles,' he said abruptly,'exiles from your kingdom, you swore to serve me. You have served mewell enough, in your abominable way. One more service I require, andthen I set you free of your oath.

  'Conan the Cimmerian, king of Aquilonia, still lives, in spite ofXaltotun's sorcery--or perhaps because of it. I know not. The dark mindof that resurrected devil is too devious and subtle for a mortal man tofathom. But while Conan lives I am not safe. The people accepted me asthe lesser of two evils, when they thought he was dead. Let him reappearand the throne will be rocking under my feet in revolution before I canlift my hand.

  'Perhaps my allies mean to use him to replace me, if they decide I haveserved my purpose. I do not know. I do know that this planet is toosmall for two kings of Aquilonia. Seek the Cimmerian. Use your uncannytalents to ferret him out wherever he hides or runs. He has many friendsin Tarantia. He had aid when he carried off Albiona. It took more thanone man, even such a man as Conan, to wreak all that slaughter in thealley outside the tower. But no more. Take your staffs and strike histrail. Where that trail will lead you, I know not. But find him! Andwhen you find him, slay him!'

  The four Khitans bowed together, and still unspeaking, turned and paddednoiselessly from the chamber.