Conan approached Diana. 'Tuthmes has taste,' he said. 'But the lass has been frightened out of her wits. No tale you got out of her would be worth the hearing. Give her to me, and I'll show you what a little kindness can do.'
'You, kind? Ha! Mind your own affairs, Conan, and I will mind mine. You should be posting your guardsmen against tonight's gathering.' Tananda spoke sharply to Diana: 'Now speak, hussy, damn your soul!' The whip hissed as she drew back her arm for another lash.
Moving with the effortless speed of a lion, Conan caught Tananda's wrist and twisted the whip out of her hand.
'Let me go!' she screamed. 'You dare to use force on me? I'll have you—I'll—I'll—'
'You'll what?' said Conan calmly. He tossed the whip into a corner, drew his dagger, and cut the rope that bound Diana's wrists. Tananda's servants exchanged uneasy glances.
'Mind your royal dignity, Highness!' grinned Conan, gathering Diana into his arms. 'Remember that, with me in command of the guard, you have at least a chance. Without me—well, you know the answer to that. I shall see you at the torture.'
He strode toward the door, carrying the Nemedian girl. Screaming with rage, Tananda picked up the discarded whip and hurled it after him. The handle struck his broad back, and the whip fell to the floor.
'Just because she has a fish-belly skin like yours, you prefer her to me!' shrieked Tananda. 'You shall rue your insolence!'
With a rumbling laugh, Conan walked out. Tananda sank to the floor, beating the marble with her fists and weeping with frustration.
Moments later, Shubba, driving Tuthmes' chariot back toward his master's house, passed Conan's dwelling. He was astonished to see Conan, carrying a naked girl in his arms, entering his front door.
Shubba shook the reins and hastened on his way.
VI
Dark Counsel
The first lamps had been lit against the dusk as Tuthmes sat in his chamber with Shubba and with Muru, the tall Kordafan sorcerer. Shubba, glancing uneasily at his master, had finished his tale.
'I see that I did not credit Tananda with her full measure of suspiciousness,' said Tuthmes. 'A pity to waste so promising an instrument as that Nemedian girl, but not every shaft strikes the butt.
The question, however, is: what shall we do next? Has anyone seen Ageera?'
'Nay, my lord,' said Shubba. 'He vanished after stirring up that riot against Tananda—very prudently, if I may say so. Some say he has left Meroe; some, that he lurks in the temple of Jullah, working divinations by day and night.'
'If our divine queen had the wit of a worm,' sneered Tuthmes, 'she would invade that devil-devil house with a few stout guardsmen and hang the priests to their own rooftree.' His two companions started and shifted their eyes uneasily. 'I know; you are all terrified of their spells and spooks. Well, let us see. The girl is now useless to us. If Tananda failed to wring our secrets from her, Conan will do so by gentler means, and in his house she will learn naught of interest to us anyway. She must die forthwith. Muru, can you send your demon to Conan's house while he is commanding his guardsmen this evening, to make away with the wench?'
'That I can, master,' replied the Kordafan. 'Should I not command it to stay there until Conan returns and slay him, too? For I see that you will never be king whilst Conan lives. As long as he holds his present post, he will fight like a devil to protect the queen, his leman, because he so promised to do, regardless of how he and she may quarrel otherwise.'
Shubba added: 'Even if we got rid of Tananda, Conan would still stand in our way. He might become king himself. He is practically the uncrowned king of Kush now—the queen's confidant and lover. His guardsmen love him, swearing that despite his white skin he is really a black man like themselves inside.'
'Good,' said Tuthmes. 'Let us dispose of the twain at the same time. I shall be watching the torture of Aahmes in the main square, so that none shall say that I had a hand in the slaying.'
'Why not set the demon on Tananda, also?' asked Shubba.
'It is not yet time. First, I must align the other nobles behind my claim to the throne, and this will not be easy. Too many of them, as well, fancy themselves as king of Kush. Until my faction grows stronger, my hold on the throne would be as insecure as Tananda's now is. So I am satisfied to wait, meanwhile letting her hang herself by her own excesses.'
VII
The Fate of a Kingdom
In the main square of the Inner City, Prince Aahmes was tied to a stake in the centre. Aahmes was a plump, brown-skinned young man, whose very innocence in matters of politics, it seemed, had enabled Afari to trap him by a false accusation.
Bonfires in the corners of the square and lines of torches illuminated an infernal scene. Between the stake and the royal palace stood a low platform, on which sat Tananda. Around the platform, royal guards were ranked three deep.
The fires shone redly on the long blades of their spears, their shields of elephant hide, and the plumes of their headdresses.
To one side of the square, Conan sat his horse at the head of a company of mounted guardsmen with lances erect. In the distance, lightning rippled through high-piled clouds.
In the centre, where Lord Aahmes was tied, more guardsmen kept a space clear. In the space, the royal executioner was heating the instruments of his calling over a little forge. The rest of the square was jammed with most of the folk of Merofi, mingled in one vast, indiscriminate throng. The torchlight picked out white eyeballs and teeth against dark skins. Tuthmes and his servants formed a solid clump in the front row.
Conan looked over the throng with dark foreboding. All had been orderly so far; but who knew what would happen when primitive passions were stirred? A nameless anxiety nagged at the back of his mind. As time passed, this anxiety became fixed, not on the fate of the headstrong queen, but on the Nemedian girl whom he had left at his house. He had left her with only a single servant, a black woman, because he had needed all his guardsmen to control the gathering in the square.
In the few hours he had known Diana, Conan had become much taken with her. Sweet, gentle, and perhaps even a virgin, she contrasted in every way with the fiery, temptestuous, passionate, cruel, sensual Tananda.
Being Tananda's lover was certainly exciting, but after a time Conan thought he might prefer someone less stormy for a change. Knowing Tananda, he would not have put it past her to have sent one of her servants to murder Diana while Conan was otherwise occupied.
In the centre of the square, the executioner blew on his little charcoal fire with a bellows. He held up an instrument, which glowed a bright cherry red in the dark. He approached the prisoner. Conan could not hear over the murmur of the crowd, but he knew that the executioner was asking Aahmes for details of his plot The captive shook his head.
It was as though a voice were speaking inside Conan's mind, urging him to return to his house. In the Hyborian lands, Conan had listened to the speculations of priests and philosophers. They had argued over the existence of guardian spirits and over the possibility of direct communication from mind to mind. Being convinced that they were all mad, he had not paid much attention at the time. Now, however, he thought he knew what they were talking about. He tried to dismiss the sensation as mere imagination; but it returned, stronger than ever.
At last Conan told his adjutant: 'Mongo, take command until I return.'
'Whither go you, Lord Conan?' asked the black.
'To ride through the streets, to be sure no gang of rascals has gathered under cover of darkness. Keep things under control; I shall soon be back.'
Conan turned his horse and trotted out of the square. The crowd opened to let him pass. The sensation in his head was stronger than ever. He clucked his steed to an easy canter and presently drew rein in front of his dwelling. A faint rumble of thunder sounded.
The house was dark, save for a single light in the back. Conan dismounted, tied his horse, and entered, hand on hilt. At that instant he heard a frightful scream, which he recognised as the voice of
Diana.
With a sulfurous oath, Conan rushed headlong into the house, tearing out his sword. The scream came from the living room, which was dark save for the stray beams of a single candle that burned in the kitchen.
At the door of the living room, Conan halted, transfixed by the scene before him. Diana cowered on a low settee strewn with leopard skins, her white limbs unveiled by the disarray of her silken shift. Her blue eyes were dilated with terror.
Hanging in the centre of the room, a grey, coiling mist was taking shape and form. The seething fog had already partly condensed into a hulking, monstrous form with sloping, hairy shoulders and thick, bestial limbs. Conan glimpsed the creature's misshapen head with its bristling, piglike snout and tusked, champing jaws.
The thing had solidified out of thin air, materializing by some demonic magic. Primal legends rose in Conan's mind—whispered tales of horrid, shambling things that prowled the dark and slew with inhuman fury. For half a heartbeat his atavistic fears made him hesitate. Then, with a snarl of rage, he sprang forward to give battle— and tripped over the body of the black woman servant, who had fainted and lay just inside the doorway. Conan fell sprawling, the sword flying from his hand.
At the same instant the monster, with supernatural quickness, whirled and launched itself at Conan in a gigantic bound. As Conan fell flat, the demon passed clear over his body and fetched up against the wall of the hall outside.
The combatants were on their feet in an instant. As the monster sprang upon Conan anew, a flash of lightning outside gleamed upon its great chisel tusks. The Cimmerian thrust his left elbow up under its jaw, while he fumbled with his right hand for his dagger.
The demon's hairy arms encircled Conan's body with crushing force; a smaller man's back would have been broken. Conan heard his clothing rip as the blunt nails of its hands dug in, and a couple of links of his mail shirt snapped with sharp, metallic sounds. Although the weight of the demon was about the same as the Cimmerian's, its strength was incredible. As he strained every muscle, Conan felt his left forearm being bent slowly back, so that the snouted jaws came closer and closer to his face.
In the semidark, the two stamped and staggered about like partners in some grotesque dance. Conan fumbled for his dagger, while the demon brought its tusks ever nearer. Conan realised that his belt must have become awry, so that the dagger was out of reach. He felt even his titanic strength ebbing, when something cold was thrust into his groping right hand. It was the hilt of his sword, which Diana had picked up and now pressed into his grasp.
Drawing back his right arm, Conan felt with his point for a place in the body of his assailant. Then he thrust. The monster's skin seemed of unnatural toughness, but a mighty heave drove the blade home.
Spasmodically champing its jaws, the creature uttered a bestial grunt.
Conan stabbed again and again, but the shaggy brute did not even seem to feel the bite of the steel. The demonic arms dragged the Cimmerian into an ever closer, bone-crushing embrace. The chisel-toothed jaws came closer and closer to his face. More links of his mail shirt parted with musical snapping sounds. Rough claws ripped his tunic and dug bloody furrows in his sweat-smeared back. A viscous fluid from the creature's wounds, which did not feel like any normal blood, ran down the front of Conan's garments.
At length, doubling both legs and driving them into the thing's belly with every ounce of strength remaining to him, Conan tore himself free.
He staggered to his feet, dripping gore. As the demon shuffled toward him again, swinging its apelike arms for another grapple, Conan, with both hands on his hilt, swung his sword in a desperate arc. The blade bit into the monster's neck, half severing it. The mighty blow would have decapitated two or even three human foes at once, but the demon's tissues were tougher than those of mortal men.
The demon staggered back and crashed to the floor. As Conan stood panting, with dripping blade, Diana threw her arms about his neck. 'I'm so glad—I prayed to Ishtar to send you—'
'There, there,' said Conan, comforting the girl with rough caresses. 'I may look ready for the grave, but I can still stand—'
He broke off, eyes wide. The dead thing rose, its malformed head wobbling on its half-severed neck. It lurched to the door, tripped over the still-unconscious body of the Negro servant woman, and staggered out into the night.
'Crom and Mitra!' gasped Conan. Pushing the girl aside, he growled:
'Later, later! You're a good lass, but I must follow that thing. That's the demon of the night they talk about, and by Crom, I'll find out where it comes from!'
He reeled out, to find his horse gone. A length of rein attached to the hitching ring told that the animal had broken its tether in panic at the demon's appearance.
Moments later. Conan reappeared in the square. As he rammed his way through the crowd, which had burst into a roar of excitement, he saw the monster stagger and fall in front of the tall Kordafan wizard in Tuthmes' group. In its final throes, it laid its head at the sorcerer's feet.
Screams of rage arose from the crowd, which recognised the monster as the demon that for years had terrified Meroe from time to time.
Although the guardsmen still struggled to keep the space around the torture stake open, hands reached from the sides and back to pull Muru down. In the confused uproar, Conan caught a few snatches of speech:
'Slay him! He is the demon's master! Kill him!'
A sudden hush fell. In the clear space, Ageera had suddenly appeared, his shaven head painted to resemble a skull. It was as if he had somehow bounded over the heads of the crowd to land in the clearing.
'Why slay the tool and not the man who wields it?' he shrieked. He pointed at Tuthmes. 'There stands he whom the Kordafan served! At his command, the demon slew Amboola! My spirits have told me, in the silence of the temple of Jullah! Slay him, too!'
As more hands dragged down the screaming Tuthmes, Ageera pointed toward the platform on which sat the queen. 'Slay all the lords! Cast off your bonds! Kill the masters! Be free men again and not slaves! Kill, kill, kill!'
Conan could barely keep his feet in the buffeting of the crowd, which surged this way and that, chanting: 'Kill, kill, kill!' Here and there a screaming lord was brought down and torn to pieces.
Conan struggled toward his mounted guards, by means of whom he still hoped to clear the square. Then, over the heads of the mob, he saw a sight that changed his plans. A royal guardsman, standing with his back to the platform, turned about and hurled his spear straight at the queen, whom he was supposed to protect. The spear went through her glorious body as if through butter. As she slumped in her seat, a dozen more spears found their mark in her. At the fall of their ruler, the mounted guardsmen joined the rest of the tribesmen in the massacre of the ruling caste.
Moments later, Conan, battered and disheveled but leading another horse, appeared at his dwelling. He tied the animal, rushed inside, and brought a bag of coins out of its hiding place.
'Let's go!' he barked at Diana. 'Grab a loaf of bread! Where in the cold Hells of Niflheim is my shield? Ah, here!'
'But don't you want to take those nice things—'
'No time; the browns are done for. Hold my girdle while you ride behind me. Up with you, now!'
With its double burden, the horse galloped heavily through the Inner City, through a rabble of looters and rioters, pursuers and pursued.
One man, who leaped for the animal's bridle, was ridden down with a shriek and a snapping of bones; others scrambled madly out of the way.
Out through the great bronze gates they rode, while behind them the houses of the nobility blazed up into yellow pyramids of flame.
Overhead lightning flashed, thunder roared, and rain came pelting down like a waterfall.
An hour later, the rain had slackened to a drizzle. The horse moved at a slow walk, picking its way through the darkness.
'We're still on the Stygian road,' grumbled Conan, striving to pierce the dark with his gaze. 'When the rain stops, we'll
stop, too, to dry off and get a little sleep.'
'Where are we going?' said the high, gentle voice of Diana.
'I don't know; but I'm tired of the black countries. You cannot do anything with these people; they are as hidebound and as thick-headed as the barbarians of my own north country—the Cimmerians and Æsir and Vanir. I am minded to have another try at civilisation.'
'And what about me?'
'What do you want? I'll send you home or keep you with me, whichever you like.'
'I think,' she said in a small voice, 'that in spite of the wet and everything, I like things as they are.'
Conan grinned silently in the darkness and urged the horse to a trot.
Conan and the Emerald Lotus
John C. Hocking
Prologue
Ethram-Fal stood in the ancient chamber and looked upon bones. Dark and pitted, they lay strewn in the thick dust of the stone floor. Ruddy torchlight flared, filling the circular room with leaping shadows. A tall soldier in full armour stood motionless beside the single doorway, torch held high in one steady hand.
Ethram-Fal knelt, his grey robes rustling, and pulled an ornate dagger of irregular shape from a concealed sheath. Though he was a young man, the sorcerer's hunched and shrunken form gave the impression of great age. Thin hair of mouse-brown was beginning to grow from a scalp recently shaved clean. He frowned in contemplation, furrowing his bulbous and malformed brow. He probed among the bones and dust with the dagger's tip and felt the slow welling of despair.
It's dead now, he thought. Of course it's dead now, but I had hoped that there would be something remaining, if only husks. The dagger tip disturbed the dust of centuries, revealing nothing. Ethram-Fal stood suddenly, and the soldier with the torch flinched.
'Fangs of Set,' he cursed. 'Have I come so far for nothing?' His voice was a hollow echo. The sorcerer looked up. The ceiling of the circular room was so high that it was lost in the flickering darkness beyond the torchlight's reach. An even band of engraved hieroglyphics ran around the walls at twice the height of a man. The markings seemed to writhe tortuously in the dim light.
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