The Corinthian still cowered on the gallery where he had left her. He caught her wrist and yanked her to her feet, grunting: 'I guess it’s time to go!'
Too bemused with terror to be fully aware of what was going on, the girl suffered herself to be led across the dizzy span. It was not until they were poised over the rushing water that she looked down, voiced a startled yelp and would have fallen but for Conan’s massive arm about her. Growling an objurgation in her ear, he snatched her up under his free arm and swept her, in a flutter of limply waving arms and legs, across the arch and into the aperture that opened at the other end. Without bothering to set her on her feet, he hurried through the short tunnel into which this aperture opened. An instant later they emerged upon a narrow ledge on the outer side of the cliffs that circled the valley. Less than a hundred feet below them the jungle waved in the starlight.
Looking down, Conan vented a gusty sigh of relief. He believed that he could negotiate the descent, even though burdened with the jewels and the girl; although he doubted if even he, unburdened, could have ascended at that spot. He set the chest, still smeared with Gorulga’s blood and clotted with his brains, on the ledge, and was about to remove his girdle in order to tie the box to his back, when he was galvanized by a sound behind him, a sound sinister and unmistakable.
'Stay here!' he snapped at the bewildered Corinthian. 'Don’t move!' And drawing his sword, he glided into the tunnel, glaring back into the cavern.
Half way across the upper span he saw a grey, deformed shape. One of the servants of Bit-Yakin was on his trail. There was no doubt that the brute had seen them and was following them. Conan did not hesitate. It might be easier to defend the mouth of the tunnel – but this fight must be finished quickly, before the other servants could return.
He ran out on the span, straight toward the oncoming monster. It was no ape, neither was it a man. It was some shambling horror spawned in the mysterious, nameless jungles of the south, where strange life teemed in the reeking rot without the dominance of man, and drums thundered in temples that had never known the tread of a human foot. How the ancient Pelishtim had gained lordship over them – and with it eternal exile from humanity – was a foul riddle about which Conan did not care to speculate, even if he had had opportunity.
Man and monster they met at the highest arch of the span, where, a hundred feet below, rushed the furious black water. As the monstrous shape with its leprous grey body and the features of a carven, unhuman idol, loomed over him, Conan struck as a wounded tiger strikes, with every ounce of thew and fury behind the blow. That stroke would have sheared a human body asunder; but the bones of the servant of Bit-Yakin were like tempered steel. Yet even tempered steel could not wholly have withstood that furious stroke. Ribs and shoulder bone parted and blood spouted from the great gash.
There was no time for a second stroke. Before the Cimmerian could lift his blade again or spring clear, the sweep of a giant arm knocked him from the span as a fly is flicked from a wall. As he plunged downward the rush of the river was like a knell in his ears, but his twisting body fell half-way across the lower arch. He wavered there precariously for one blood-chilling instant, then his clutching fingers hooked over the further edge, and he scrambled to safety, his sword still in his other hand.
As he sprang up, he saw the monster, spurting blood hideously, rush toward the cliff-side of the bridge, obviously intending to descend the stair that connected the arches and renew the battle. At the very ledge the brute paused in mid-flight – and Conan saw it too – Muriela, with the jewel chest under her arm, stood staring wildly in the mouth of the tunnel.
With a triumphant bellow the monster scooped her up under one arm, snatched the jewel chest with the other hand as she dropped it, and turning, lumbered back across the bridge. Conan cursed with passion and ran for the other side also. He doubted if he could climb the stair to the higher arch in time to catch the brute before it could plunge into the labyrinths of tunnels on the other side.
But the monster was slowing, like clock-work running down. Blood gushed in torrents from that terrible gash in his breast, and he lurched drunkenly from side to side. Suddenly he stumbled, reeled and toppled sidewise – pitched headlong from the arch and hurtled downward. Girl and jewel chest fell from his nerveless hands and Muriela’s scream rang terribly above the snarl of the water below.
Conan was almost under the spot from which the creature had fallen. The monster struck the lower arch glancingly and shot off, but the writhing figure of the girl struck and clung, and the chest hit the edge of the span near her. One falling object struck on one side of Conan and one on the other. Either was within arm’s length; for the fraction of a split second the chest teetered on the edge of the bridge, and Muriela clung by one arm, her face turned desperately toward Conan, her eyes dilated with the fear of death and her lips parted in a haunting cry of despair.
Conan did not hesitate, nor did he even glance toward the chest that held the wealth of an epoch. With a quickness that would have shamed the spring of a hungry jaguar, he swooped, grasped the girl’s arm just as her fingers slipped from the smooth stone, and snatched her up on the span with one explosive heave. The chest toppled on over and struck the water ninety feet below, whither the body of the servant of Bit-Yakin had already vanished. A splash, a jetting flash of foam marked where the Teeth of Gwahlur disappeared for ever from the sight of man.
Conan scarcely wasted a downward glance. He darted across the span and ran up the cliff stair like a cat, carrying the limp girl as if she had been an infant. A hideous ululation caused him to glance over his shoulder as he reached the higher arch, to see the other servants streaming back into the cavern below, blood dripping from their bared fangs. They raced up the stair that wound up from tier to tier, roaring vengefully, but he slung the girl unceremoniously over his shoulder, dashed through the tunnel and went down the cliffs like an ape himself, dropping and springing from hold to hold with breakneck recklessness. When the fierce countenances looked over the ledge of the aperture, it was to see the Cimmerian and the girl disappearing into the forest that surrounded the cliffs.
'Well,' said Conan, setting the girl on her feet within the sheltering screen of branches, 'we can take our time now. I don’t think those brutes will follow us outside the valley. Anyway, I’ve got a horse tied at a water-hole close by, if the lions haven’t eaten him. Crom’s devils! What are you crying about now?'
She covered her tear-stained face with her hands, and her slim shoulders shook with sobs.
'I lost the jewels for you,' she wailed miserably. 'It was my fault. If I’d obeyed you and stayed out on the ledge, that brute would never have seen me. You should have caught the gems and let me drown!'
'Yes, I suppose I should,' he agreed. 'But forget it. Never worry about what’s past. And stop crying, will you? That’s better. Come on.'
'You mean you’re going to keep me? Take me with you?' she asked hopefully.
'What else do you suppose I’d do with you?' He ran an approving glance over her voluptuous figure and grinned at the torn skirt which revealed a generous expanse of tempting ivory-tinted curves. 'I can use an actress like you. There’s no use going back to Keshia. There’s nothing in Keshan now that I want. We’ll go to Punt. The people of Punt worship an ivory woman, and they wash gold out of the rivers in wicker baskets. I’ll tell them that Keshan is intriguing with Thutmekri to enslave them – which is true – and that the gods have sent me to protect them – for about a houseful of gold. If I can manage to smuggle you into their temple to exchange places with their ivory goddess, we’ll skin them out of their jaw teeth before we get through with them!'
The Ivory Goddess
L. Sprague de Camp & Lin Carter
Home on winds from the west, the sound of drums beat fast in the temple tower, flamingo pink in the setting sun. in its sunlit wall the shadow of Zaramba, chief priest of I'nut, stood transfixed, his attenuated form resembling a Htiik. The figure etched upon the wall
was no darker than the black man whose shape it mimicked, although the outlined beak was but a pointed tuft of hair that decorated the front of his woolly pate.
Zaramba tossed back the cowl of his short purple robe and listened intently, straining to catch the message that pulsed out of the west. His drummer, clad only in a linen loin cloth, squatted beside two - now voiceless - hollow logs that served as temple drums, and marked each note as the distant roll of a great drum irregularly alternated with the clack of a lesser.
At length the drummer turned a sombre face. 'Bad news,' he said.
'What says the message?' asked Zaramba.
'Keshan has been plagued by the intrigue of foreigners. The king has expelled all strangers. Priests of the shrine of Alkmeenon were massacred by demons, one priest alone escaping to tell the tale. The scoundrels who wrought this evil are on their way to Punt. Let the men of Punt beware!'
'I needs must tell the king,' said Zaramba. 'Send a message to our brother priests in Keshan to thank them for their warning.'
The drummer raised his sticks and pounded the logs in a rattling code, as Zaramba hastened from the tower and bent his steps toward the royal palace of sun-dried mud, which raised its towers in the centre of Kassali, the capital of Punt.
Days passed. The sun of late afternoon stood far down in the western sky, where long clouds lay athwart the deepening azure like red banners floating on the winds of war. From the grassy hill whereon the painted temple stood, the city stretched all round. The low sun gleamed on the gold and crystal ornaments that topped the dun-brown palace in the middle distance and lent sparkle to the temple on the hill.
Eastward, beyond the city, a stretch of forest encroached upon the uplands, and from the far side of these clustered trees, now issued two figures mounted on wiry Stygiatt ponies.
In the lead rose a huge man, nearly naked, his massive arms, broad shoulders, and deeply-arched chest burnt to bronzen hue. His only garments were a pair of ragged silken creeks, a leathern baldric, and sandals of rhinoceros hide. A belt of crocodile skin, which upheld the breeches, also supported a dirk in its sheath, and from the baldric hung a long, straight sword in a lacquered wooden scabbard.
The man's thick mane of coarse, blue-black hair was square-cut at the nape of his neck. Smouldering eyes of volcanic blue stared out beneath thick, drawn brows. The man Bowled as a gust of wind disordered his sable mane. Not long before, he had worn a circlet of beaten silver around his brows, denoting him a general of the Keshani hosts. But I lie metal he had sold in Kassali to a Shemitish trader for food and other needfuls now carried in a sack, along with a meagre roll of possessions, on the back of the pack horse he obtained.
Emerging from the forest cover, the man pulled up his pony and rose in his stirrups to stare about. Satisfied that they were unobserved, he gestured to his companion to follow.
This was a girl who slumped with exhaustion in her saddle. She was nearly as nude as the man, for generous areas of smooth, soft flesh gleamed through the rents of her scanty raiment of silken cloth. Her hair was a foam of jet-black curls, and her oval features framed eyes as lustrous as black opals.
As the weary girl caught up with him, the man thumped his heels against the ribs of his mount and trotted out upon the savannah. The westerly sun was setting in a sea of flame us they crossed the grassy flatland and reached the sombre hills.
Conan of Cimmeria, soldier, adventurer, pirate, rogue, and thief, had come to the land of Punt with his love of the moment, the Corinthian dancing girl Muriela, former slave of Zargheba. They came to search for treasure, having escaped a hideous death at the hands of the priests of Keshan.
There Zargheba, his slave-girl Muriela, and his Stygian partner Thutmekri had concocted a plan to steal from the temple of Alkmeenon a chest of precious gems just when Conan. then a hireling general in Keshan. had set afoot a
similar scheme. When all their plots were foiled and Zargheba fell victim to the supernatural guardians of the shrine, Conan and Muriela fled together from Keshan ahead of the vengeful Thutmekri and the furious, scandalized priests.
When Muriela's impersonation of the goddess Yelaya became known throughout the land, Thutmekri and his retinue narrowly escaped being thrown to the royal crocodiles. The Stygian claimed innocence in the blasphemous plot and strove to lay the blame on his enemy Conan. But the incensed priests refused to listen to his plaints, and he and his men departed hastily under cover of darkness and came to the land of Punt.
In Punt, the Stygian made his way to Kassali, the capital, where the mud-brick palace of King Lalibeha reared its towers, spangled with ornaments of glass and gold, into the blue tropical sky. Arguing that the Keshanis planned an invasion of Punt, the wily Thutmekri offered his services to the black ruler.
The king's advisers scoffed. The armies of Punt and Keshan, they said, were too evenly matched for either to attack the other with reasonable hope of success. They Stygian then claimed that the king of Keshan had formed a secret alliance with the twin monarchs of the south-easterly kingdom of Zernbabwei to grind Punt between them. He promised, if accorded gold and plunder, to train the black legions of Punt in the skills of civilised war and swore that he could lead the Puntish hosts to the destruction of Keshan.
Thutmekri was not alone in his search in Punt for wealth and power. The riches of Punt also drew Conan and Muriela; for there, it was said, people sieved golden nuggets the size of goose eggs in the sandy beds of sparkling mountain streams. There, too, the devout worshipped the goddess Nebethet, whose likeness was carved in ivory inlaid with diamonds, sapphires, and pearls from the farthest seas.
The flight from Alkmeenon had told upon the strength of Muriela, who had hoped to stop in Kassali long enough to recover; but when Conan learned that Thutmekri had preceded him thither, he abruptly changed his plans, bought supply of food, and left the city. The Cimmerian now
schemed to have the Corinthian girl, an accomplished actress, impersonate the goddess Nebethet, reasoning that the priests of Punt would not refuse to share their wealth when so instructed by their goddess. Conan would, in return, humbly obey the goddess's command to lead the Puntian army and defend the land against invasion.
Muriela doubted the wisdom of this plan. She pointed out that such a scheme had failed in the shrine of Alkmeenon and that their enemy, Thutmekri, had already arrived in Kassali and was closeted with King Lalibeha.
Conan growled: 'Lucky that trader fellow, Nahor, warned us of Thutmekri's arrival before I sought an audience with the king. I could never match wits with that slippery devil. He would have denounced us to the king, and the fat would have been in the fire.'
'Oh, Conan!' whimpered Muriela. 'Give up this mad scheme! Nahor offered you a post in his caravan...'
Conan snorted, 'Take Nahor's piddling pay as a caravan guard, when there's a fortune for the finding here in Punt? Not I!'
Before the first stars ventured forth upon the plain of evening, Conan and Muriela reached the hill they sought. Here in an uninhabited place stood the shrine-temple of the Puntish divinity, Nebethet. There was something about the place - the emptiness, the silence, the sombre gloom draping (he hills in velvet .cloaks - that sent a chill of premonition into Muriela's heart.
Nor was the sight of the shrine reassuring when, having wound up the steep slope, they caught their first glimpse of it. It was a round, domed building of white marble, rare in I his land of dun mud-brick walls and roofs of thatch. The barred portal resembled a mouth with bared fangs and was flanked on the second storey by two square windows like empty eye sockets. A great silver skull, the edifice grinned down on them in the light of the gibbous moon, a lonely sentinel guarding a grim and silent land that stretched away on either side in barren desolation.
Muriela shuddered. 'The gate is barred. Let us go, Conan.'
'We stay,' muttered Conan. 'We will go in if I have to carve a way into this skull-shaped pile. Hold the horses.'
Conan swung off his mount, handed his reins to the tremblin
g girl, and examined the entrance. The portal was blocked by a huge portcullis of bronze, green with age. Conan heaved upon the structure; but, although the massive muscles of his arms and chest writhed like pythons, the portcullis would not budge.
'If one way does not serve, we'll try another,' he grunted, returning to Muriela and the horses. From the sack strapped to the spare horse, he took a coil of rope, to which was attached a small grapnel. Then he disappeared around a curve of the building, leaving the fearful girl alone in the eerie place. As time passed, her fear turned into stark terror; and when a low voice called her name, she cried aloud.
'Here, wench, here!'
Startled, she looked up. At one of the dark windows above the portal, Conan waved at her.
'Tie the nags,' he said. 'And forget not to loosen their girths.'
When she had tethered the beasts to one of the bars of the toothy portal, he added, 'Grasp this and sit in the loop I have made.'
The rope snaked down, and when she was seated in the bight, he hauled her up, hand over hand. The grazing horses and the grinning entrance wobbled and spun beneath her in the light of the rising moon. She bit her lip and closed her eyes; and her knuckles were alabaster as she clung to the rope. Soon Conan's strong arms closed about her. She felt' the cold slickness of the marble sill against her bare thighs as he drew her slim weight in through the casement. When at last the flooring held firm beneath her feet, she breathed a sigh of relief, and her eyes fluttered open.
There was nothing in her new surroundings to give rise to superstitious fear. She stood in a small empty room, the stone walls of which were bare of ornament. Across the room she saw the outlines of a trapdoor, propped open by a stick of wood.
The Conan Chronology Page 510