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As the first tinge of dawn reddened the sea, a small boat with asolitary occupant approached the cliffs. The man in the boat was apicturesque figure. A crimson scarf was knotted about his head; hiswide silk breeches, of flaming hue, were upheld by a broad sash whichlikewise supported a scimitar in a shagreen scabbard. His gilt-workedleather boots suggested the horseman rather than the seaman, but hehandled his boat with skill. Through his widely open white silk shirtshowed his broad muscular breast, burned brown by the sun.
The muscles of his heavy bronzed arms rippled as he pulled the oars withan almost feline ease of motion. A fierce vitality that was evident ineach feature and motion set him apart from common men; yet hisexpression was neither savage nor somber, though the smoldering blueeyes hinted at ferocity easily wakened. This was Conan, who had wanderedinto the armed camps of the _kozaks_ with no other possession than hiswits and his sword, and who had carved his way to leadership among them.
He paddled to the carven stair as one familiar with his environs, andmoored the boat to a projection of the rock. Then he went up the wornsteps without hesitation. He was keenly alert, not because heconsciously suspected hidden danger, but because alertness was a part ofhim, whetted by the wild existence he followed.
What Ghaznavi had considered animal intuition or some sixth sense wasmerely the razor-edge faculties and savage wit of the barbarian. Conanhad no instinct to tell him that men were watching him from a covertamong the reeds of the mainland.
As he climbed the cliff, one of these men breathed deeply and stealthilylifted a bow. Jehungir caught his wrist and hissed an oath into his ear.'Fool! Will you betray us? Don't you realize he is out of range? Let himget upon the island. He will go looking for the girl. We will stay hereawhile. He _may_ have sensed our presence or guessed our plot. He mayhave warriors hidden somewhere. We will wait. In an hour, if nothingsuspicious occurs, we'll row up to the foot of the stair and await himthere. If he does not return in a reasonable time, some of us will goupon the island and hunt him down. But I do not wish to do that if itcan be helped. Some of us are sure to die if we have to go into the bushafter him. I had rather catch him descending the stair, where we canfeather him with arrows from a safe distance.'
Meanwhile the unsuspecting _kozak_ had plunged into the forest. He wentsilently in his soft leather boots, his gaze sifting every shadow ineagerness to catch sight of the splendid tawny-haired beauty of whom hehad dreamed ever since he had seen her in the pavilion of Jehungir Aghaby Fort Ghori. He would have desired her even if she had displayedrepugnance toward him. But her cryptic smiles and glances had fired hisblood, and with all the lawless violence which was his heritage hedesired that white-skinned golden-haired woman of civilization.
He had been on Xapur before. Less than a month ago he had held a secretconclave here with a pirate crew. He knew that he was approaching apoint where he could see the mysterious ruins which gave the island itsname, and he wondered if he would find the girl hiding among them. Evenwith the thought he stopped as though struck dead.
Ahead of him, among the trees, rose something that his reason told himwas not possible. _It was a great dark green wall, with towers rearingbeyond the battlements._
Conan stood paralyzed in the disruption of the faculties whichdemoralizes anyone who is confronted by an impossible negation ofsanity. He doubted neither his sight nor his reason, but something wasmonstrously out of joint. Less than a month ago only broken ruins hadshowed among the trees. What human hands could rear such a mammoth pileas now met his eyes, in the few weeks which had elapsed? Besides, thebuccaneers who roamed Vilayet ceaselessly would have learned of any workgoing on on such a stupendous scale, and would have informed the_kozaks_.
There was no explaining this thing, but it was so. He was on Xapur andthat fantastic heap of towering masonry was on Xapur, and all wasmadness and paradox; yet it was all true.
He wheeled back through the jungle, down the carven stair and across theblue waters to the distant camp at the mouth of the Zaporoska. In thatmoment of unreasoning panic even the thought of halting so near theinland sea was repugnant. He would leave it behind him, would quit thearmed camps and the steppes, and put a thousand miles between him andthe blue mysterious East where the most basic laws of nature could beset at naught, by what diabolism he could not guess.
For an instant the future fate of kingdoms that hinged on this gay-cladbarbarian hung in the balance. It was a small thing that tipped thescales--merely a shred of silk hanging on a bush that caught his uneasyglance. He leaned to it, his nostrils expanding, his nerves quivering toa subtle stimulant. On that bit of torn cloth, so faint that it was lesswith his physical faculties than by some obscure instinctive sense thathe recognized it, lingered the tantalizing perfume that he connectedwith the sweet firm flesh of the woman he had seen in Jehungir'spavilion. The fisherman had not lied, then; she _was_ here! Then in thesoil he saw a single track of a bare foot, long and slender, but a man'snot a woman's, and sunk deeper than was natural. The conclusion wasobvious; the man who made that track was carrying a burden, and whatshould it be but the girl the _kozak_ was seeking?
He stood silently facing the dark towers that loomed through the trees,his eyes slits of blue bale-fire. Desire for the yellow-haired womanvied with a sullen primordial rage at whoever had taken her. His humanpassion fought down his ultra-human fears, and dropping into thestalking crouch of a hunting panther, he glided toward the walls, takingadvantage of the dense foliage to escape detection from the battlements.
As he approached he saw that the walls were composed of the same greenstone that had formed the ruins, and he was haunted by a vague sense offamiliarity. It was as if he looked upon something he had never seenbefore, but had dreamed of, or pictured mentally. At last he recognizedthe sensation. The walls and towers followed the plan of the ruins. Itwas as if the crumbling lines had grown back into the structures theyoriginally were.
No sound disturbed the morning quiet as Conan stole to the foot ofthe wall which rose sheer from the luxuriant growth. On the southernreaches of the inland sea the vegetation was almost tropical. He saw noone on the battlements, heard no sounds within. He saw a massive gate ashort distance to his left, and had had no reason to suppose that itwas not locked and guarded. But he believed that the woman he soughtwas somewhere beyond that wall, and the course he took wascharacteristically reckless.
Above him vine-festooned branches reached out toward the battlements. Hewent up a great tree like a cat, and reaching a point above the parapet,he gripped a thick limb with both hands, swung back and forth at arm'slength until he had gained momentum, and then let go and catapultedthrough the air, landing cat-like on the battlements. Crouching there hestared down into the streets of a city.
The circumference of the wall was not great, but the number of greenstone buildings it contained was surprizing. They were three or fourstories in height, mainly flat-roofed, reflecting a fine architecturalstyle. The streets converged like the spokes of a wheel into anoctagon-shaped court in the center of the town which gave upon a loftyedifice, which, with its domes and towers, dominated the whole city. Hesaw no one moving in the streets or looking out of the windows, thoughthe sun was already coming up. The silence that reigned there might havebeen that of a dead and deserted city. A narrow stone stair ascended thewall near him; down this he went.
Houses shouldered so closely to the wall that half-way down the stair hefound himself within arm's length of a window, and halted to peer in.There were no bars, and the silk curtains were caught back with satincords. He looked into a chamber whose walls were hidden by dark velvettapestries. The floor was covered with thick rugs, and there werebenches of polished ebony, and an ivory dais heaped with furs.
He was about to continue his descent, when he heard the sound of someoneapproaching in the street below. Before the unknown person could comeround a corner and see him on the stair, he stepped quickly across theintervening space and dropped lightly into the room, drawing hisscimita
r. He stood for an instant statue-like; then as nothing happenedhe was moving across the rugs toward an arched doorway when a hangingwas drawn aside, revealing a cushioned alcove from which a slender,dark-haired girl regarded him with languid eyes.
Conan glared at her tensely, expecting her momentarily to startscreaming. But she merely smothered a yawn with a dainty hand, rose fromthe alcove and leaned negligently against the hanging which she heldwith one hand.
She was undoubtedly a member of a white race, though her skin was verydark. Her square-cut hair was black as midnight, her only garment a wispof silk about her supple hips.
Presently she spoke, but the tongue was unfamiliar to him, and he shookhis head. She yawned again, stretched lithely, and without any show offear or surprize, shifted to a language he did understand, a dialect ofYuetshi which sounded strangely archaic.
'Are you looking for someone?' she asked, as indifferently as if theinvasion of her chamber by an armed stranger were the most common thingimaginable.
'Who are you?' he demanded.
'I am Yateli,' she answered languidly. 'I must have feasted late lastnight, I am so sleepy now. Who are you?'
'I am Conan, a _hetman_ among the _kozaks_,' he answered, watching hernarrowly. He believed her attitude to be a pose, and expected her to tryto escape from the chamber or rouse the house. But, though a velvet ropethat might be a signal cord hung near her, she did not reach for it.
'Conan,' she repeated drowsily. 'You are not a Dagonian. I suppose youare a mercenary. Have you cut the heads off many Yuetshi?'
'I do not war on water rats!' he snorted.
'But they are very terrible,' she murmured. 'I remember when they wereour slaves. But they revolted and burned and slew. Only the magic ofKhosatral Khel has kept them from the walls--' She paused, a puzzledlook struggling with the sleepiness of her expression. 'I forgot,' shemuttered. 'They _did_ climb the walls, last night. There was shoutingand fire, and people calling in vain on Khosatral.' She shook her headas if to clear it. 'But that can not be,' she murmured, 'because I amalive, and I thought I was dead. Oh, to the devil with it!'
She came across the chamber, and taking Conan's hand, drew him to thedais. He yielded in bewilderment and uncertainty. The girl smiled athim like a sleepy child; her long silky lashes drooped over dusky,clouded eyes. She ran her fingers through his thick black locks as if toassure herself of his reality.
'It was a dream,' she yawned. 'Perhaps it's all a dream. I feel like adream now. I don't care. I can't remember something--I haveforgotten--there is something I can not understand, but I grow so sleepywhen I try to think. Anyway, it doesn't matter.'
'What do you mean?' he asked uneasily. 'You said they climbed the wallslast night? Who?'
'The Yuetshi. I thought so, anyway. A cloud of smoke hid everything, buta naked, blood-stained devil caught me by the throat and drove his knifeinto my breast. Oh, it hurt! But it was a dream, because see, there isno scar.' She idly inspected her smooth bosom, and then sank uponConan's lap and passed her supple arms around his massive neck. 'I cannot remember,' she murmured, nestling her dark head against his mightybreast. 'Everything is dim and misty. It does not matter. You are nodream. You are strong. Let us live while we can. Love me!'
He cradled the girl's glossy head in the bend of his heavy arm, andkissed her full red lips with unfeigned relish.
'You are strong,' she repeated, her voice waning. 'Love me--love--' Thesleepy murmur faded away; the dusky eyes closed, the long lashesdrooping over the sensuous cheeks; the supple body relaxed in Conan'sarms.
He scowled down at her. She seemed to partake of the illusion thathaunted this whole city, but the firm resilience of her limbs under hisquesting fingers convinced him that he had a living human girl in hisarms, and not the shadow of a dream. No less disturbed, he hastily laidher on the furs upon the dais. Her sleep was too deep to be natural. Hedecided that she must be an addict of some drug, perhaps like the blacklotus of Xuthal.
Then he found something else to make him wonder. Among the furs on thedais was a gorgeous spotted skin, whose predominant hue was golden. Itwas not a clever copy, but the skin of an actual beast. And that beast,Conan knew, had been extinct for at least a thousand years; it was thegreat golden leopard which figures so predominantly in Hyborianlegendry, and which the ancient artists delighted to portray in pigmentsand marble.
Shaking his head in bewilderment, Conan passed through the archway intoa winding corridor. Silence hung over the house, but outside he heard asound which his keen ears recognized as something ascending the stair onthe wall from which he had entered the building. An instant later he wasstartled to hear something land with a soft but weighty thud on thefloor of the chamber he had just quitted. Turning quickly away, hehurried along the twisting hallway until something on the floor beforehim brought him to a halt.
It was a human figure, which lay half in the hall and half in an openingthat obviously was normally concealed by a door which was a duplicate ofthe panels of the wall. It was a man, dark and lean, clad only in a silkloin-cloth, with a shaven head and cruel features, and he lay as ifdeath had struck him just as he was emerging from the panel. Conan bentabove him, seeking the cause of his death, and discovered him to bemerely sunk in the same deep sleep as the girl in the chamber.
But why should he select such a place for his slumbers? While meditatingon the matter, Conan was galvanized by a sound behind him. Something wasmoving up the corridor in his direction. A quick glance down it showedthat it ended in a great door which might be locked. Conan jerked thesupine body out of the panel-entrance and stepped through, pulling thepanel shut after him. A click told him it was locked in place. Standingin utter darkness, he heard a shuffling tread halt just outside thedoor, and a faint chill trickled along his spine. That was no humanstep, nor that of any beast he had ever encountered.
There was an instant of silence, then a faint creak of wood and metal.Putting out his hand he felt the door straining and bending inward, asif a great weight were being steadily borne against it from the outside.As he reached for his sword, this ceased and he heard a strangeslobbering mouthing that prickled the short hairs on his scalp. Scimitarin hand he began backing away, and his heels felt steps, down which henearly tumbled. He was in a narrow staircase leading downward.
He groped his way down in the blackness, feeling for, but not finding,some other opening in the walls. Just as he decided that he was nolonger in the house, but deep in the earth under it, the steps ceased ina level tunnel.
The Devil in Iron Page 4