JEWELS OF GWAHLUR



                        By Robert E. Howard



    [Transcriber's Note: This etext was first published in Weird Tales

    March 1935. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the

    U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]









1 Paths of Intrigue





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.









2 A Goddess Awakens





The Cimmerian at first made no attempt to fight the current that was

sweeping him through lightless night. He kept himself afloat, gripping

between his teeth the sword, which he had not relinquished, even in his

fall, and did not even seek to guess to what doom he was being borne.

But suddenly a beam of light lanced the darkness ahead of him. He saw

the surging, seething black surface of the water, in turmoil as if

disturbed by some monster of the deep, and he saw the sheer stone walls

of the channel curved up to a vault overhead. On each side ran a narrow

ledge, just below the arching roof, but they were far out of his reach.

At one point this roof had been broken, probably fallen in, and the

light was streaming through the aperture. Beyond that shaft of light was

utter blackness, and panic assailed the Cimmerian as he saw he would be

swept on past that spot of light, and into the unknown blackness again.



Then he saw something else: bronze ladders extended from the ledges to

the water's surface at regular intervals, and there was one just ahead

of him. Instantly he struck out for it, fighting the current that would

have held him to the middle of the stream. It dragged at him as with

tangible, animate slimy hands, but he buffeted the rushing surge with

the strength of desperation and now drew closer and closer inshore,

fighting furiously for every inch. Now he was even with the ladder and

with a fierce, gasping plunge he gripped the bottom rung and hung on,

breathless.



A few seconds later he struggled up out of the seething water, trusting

his weight dubiously to the corroded rungs. They sagged and bent, but

they held, and he clambered up onto the narrow ledge which ran along the

wall scarcely a man's length below the curving roof. The tall Cimmerian

was forced to bend his head as he stood up. A heavy bronze door showed

in the stone at a point even with the head of the ladder, but it did not

give to Conan's efforts. He transferred his sword from his teeth to its

scabbard, spitting blood--for the edge had cut his lips in that fierce

fight with the river--and turned his attention to the broken roof.



He could reach his arms up through the crevice and grip the edge, and

careful testing told him it would bear his weight. An instant later he

had drawn himself up through the hole, and found himself in a wide

chamber, in a state of extreme disrepair. Most of the roof had fallen

in, as well as a great section of the floor, which was laid over the

vault of a subterranean river. Broken arches opened into other chambers

and corridors, and Conan believed he was still in the great palace. He

wondered uneasily how many chambers in that palace had underground water

directly under them, and when the ancient flags or tiles might give way

again and precipitate him back into the current from which he had just

crawled.



And he wondered just how much of an accident that fall had been. Had

those rotten flags simply chanced to give way beneath his weight, or was

there a more sinister explanation? One thing at least was obvious: he

was not the only living thing in that palace. That gong had not sounded

of its own accord, whether the noise had been meant to lure him to his

death, or not. The silence of the palace became suddenly sinister,

fraught with crawling menace.



Could it be someone on the same mission as himself? A sudden thought

occurred to him, at the memory of the mysterious Bît-Yakin. Was it not

possible that this man had found the Teeth of Gwahlur in his long

residence in Alkmeenon--that his servants had taken them with them when

they departed? The possibility that he might be following a

will-o'-the-wisp infuriated the Cimmerian.



Choosing a corridor which he believed led back toward the part of the

palace he had first entered, he hurried along it, stepping gingerly as

he thought of that black river that seethed and foamed somewhere below

his feet.



His speculations recurrently revolved about the oracle chamber and its

cryptic occupant. Somewhere in that vicinity must be the clue to the

mystery of the treasure, if indeed it still remained in its immemorial

hiding-place.



The great palace lay silent as ever, disturbed only by the swift passing

of his sandaled feet. The chambers and halls he traversed were crumbling

into ruin, but as he advanced the ravages of decay became less apparent.

He wondered briefly for what purpose the ladders had been suspended from

the ledges over the subterranean river, but dismissed the matter with a

shrug. He was little interested in speculating over unremunerative

problems of antiquity.



He was not sure just where the oracle chamber lay, from where he was,

but presently he emerged into a corridor which led back into the great

throne-room under one of the arches. He had reached a decision; it was

useless for him to wander aimlessly about the palace, seeking the hoard.

He would conceal himself somewhere here, wait until the Keshani priests

came, and then, after they had gone through the farce of consulting the

oracle, he would follow them to the hiding-place of the gems, to which

he was certain they would go. Perhaps they would take only a few of the

jewels with them. He would content himself with the rest.



Drawn by a morbid fascination, he re-entered the oracle chamber and

stared down again at the motionless figure of the princess who was

worshipped as a goddess, entranced by her frigid beauty. What cryptic

secret was locked in that marvelously molded form?



He started violently. The breath sucked through his teeth, the short

hairs prickled at the back of his scalp. The body still lay as he had

first seen it, silent, motionless, in breast-plates of jeweled gold,

gilded sandals and silken shirt. But now there was a subtle difference.

The lissom limbs were not rigid, a peach-bloom touched the cheeks, the

lips were red--



With a panicky curse Conan ripped out his sword.



'Crom! She's alive!'



At his words the long dark lashes lifted; the eyes opened and gaped up

at him inscrutably, dark, lustrous, mystical. He glared in frozen

speechlessness.



She sat up with a supple ease, still holding his ensorceled stare.



He licked his dry lips and found voice.



'You--are--are you Yelaya?' he stammered.



'I am Yelaya!' The voice was rich and musical, and he stared with new

wonder. 'Do not fear. I will not harm you if you do my bidding.'



'How can a dead woman come to life after all these centuries?' he

demanded, as if skeptical of what his senses told him. A curious gleam

was beginning to smolder in his eyes.



She lifted her arms in a mystical gesture.



'I am a goddess. A thousand years ago there descended upon me the curse

of the greater gods, the gods of darkness beyond the borders of light.

The mortal in me died; the goddess in me could never die. Here I have

lain for so many centuries, to awaken each night at sunset and hold my

court as of yore, with specters drawn from the shadows of the past. Man,

if you would not view that which will blast your soul for ever, get

hence quickly! I command you! Go!' The voice became imperious, and her

slender arm lifted and pointed.



Conan, his eyes burning slits, slowly sheathed his sword, but he did not

obey her order. He stepped closer, as if impelled by a powerful

fascination--without the slightest warning he grabbed her up in a

bear-like grasp. She screamed a very ungoddess-like scream, and there

was a sound of ripping silk, as with one ruthless wrench he tore off her

skirt.



'Goddess! Ha!' His bark was full of angry contempt. He ignored the

frantic writhings of his captive. 'I thought it was strange that a

princess of Alkmeenon would speak with a Corinthian accent! As soon as

I'd gathered my wits I knew I'd seen you somewhere. You're Muriela,

Zargheba's Corinthian dancing-girl. This crescent-shaped birthmark on

your hip proves it. I saw it once when Zargheba was whipping you.

Goddess! Bah!' He smacked the betraying hip contemptuously and

resoundingly with his open hand, and the girl yelped piteously.



All her imperiousness had gone out of her. She was no longer a mystical

figure of antiquity, but a terrified and humiliated dancing-girl, such

as can be bought at almost any Shemitish market-place. She lifted up her

voice and wept unashamedly. Her captor glared down at her with angry

triumph.



'Goddess! Ha! So you were one of the veiled women Zargheba brought to

Keshia with him. Did you think you could fool me, you little idiot? A

year ago I saw you in Akbitana with that swine, Zargheba, and I don't

forget faces--or women's figures. I think I'll--'



Squirming about in his grasp she threw her slender arms about his

massive neck in an abandon of terror; tears coursed down her cheeks, and

her sobs quivered with a note of hysteria.



'Oh, please don't hurt me! Don't! I had to do it! Zargheba brought me

here to act as the oracle!'



'Why, you sacrilegious little hussy!' rumbled Conan. 'Do you not fear

the gods? Crom! is there no honesty anywhere?'



'Oh, please!' she begged, quivering with abject fright. 'I couldn't

disobey Zargheba. Oh, what shall I do? I shall be cursed by these

heathen gods!'



'What do you think the priests will do to you if they find out you're an

impostor?' he demanded.



At the thought her legs refused to support her, and she collapsed in a

shuddering heap, clasping Conan's knees and mingling incoherent pleas

for mercy and protection with piteous protestations of her innocence of

any malign intention. It was a vivid change from her pose as the ancient

princess, but not surprising. The fear that had nerved her then was now

her undoing.



'Where is Zargheba?' he demanded. 'Stop yammering, damn it, and answer

me.'



'Outside the palace,' she whimpered, 'watching for the priests.'



'How many men with him?'



'None. We came alone.'



'Ha!' It was much like the satisfied grunt of a hunting lion. 'You must

have left Keshia a few hours after I did. Did you climb the cliffs?'



She shook her head, too choked with tears to speak coherently. With an

impatient imprecation he seized her slim shoulders and shook her until

she gasped for breath.



'Will you quit that blubbering and answer me? How did you get into the

valley?'



'Zargheba knew the secret way,' she gasped. 'The priest Gwarunga told

him, and Thutmekri. On the south side of the valley there is a broad

pool lying at the foot of the cliffs. There is a cave-mouth under the

surface of the water that is not visible to the casual glance. We ducked

under the water and entered it. The cave slopes up out of the water

swiftly and leads through the cliffs. The opening on the side of the

valley is masked by heavy thickets.'



'I climbed the cliffs on the east side,' he muttered. 'Well, what then?'



'We came to the palace and Zargheba hid me among the trees while he went

to look for the chamber of the oracle. I do not think he fully trusted

Gwarunga. While he was gone I thought I heard a gong sound, but I was

not sure. Presently Zargheba came and took me into the palace and

brought me to this chamber, where the goddess Yelaya lay upon the dais.

He stripped the body and clothed me in the garments and ornaments. Then

he went forth to hide the body and watch for the priests. I have been

afraid. When you entered I wanted to leap up and beg you to take me away

from this place, but I feared Zargheba. When you discovered I was alive,

I thought I could frighten you away.'



'What were you to say as the oracle?' he asked.



'I was to bid the priests to take the Teeth of Gwahlur and give some of

them to Thutmekri as a pledge, as he desired, and place the rest in the

palace at Keshia. I was to tell them that an awful doom threatened

Keshan if they did not agree to Thutmekri's proposals. And, oh, yes, I

was to tell them that you were to be skinned alive immediately.'



'Thutmekri wanted the treasure where he--or the Zembabwans--could lay

hand on it easily,' muttered Conan, disregarding the remark concerning

himself. 'I'll carve his liver yet--Gorulga is a party to this swindle,

of course?'



'No. He believes in his gods, and is incorruptible. He knows nothing

about this. He will obey the oracle. It was all Thutmekri's plan.

Knowing the Keshani would consult the oracle, he had Zargheba bring me

with the embassy from Zembabwei, closely veiled and secluded.'



'Well, I'm damned!' muttered Conan. 'A priest who honestly believes in

his oracle, and can not be bribed. Crom! I wonder if it was Zargheba who

banged that gong. Did he know I was here? Could he have known about

that rotten flagging? Where is he now, girl?'



'Hiding in a thicket of lotus trees, near the ancient avenue that leads

from the south wall of the cliffs to the palace,' she answered. Then she

renewed her importunities. 'Oh, Conan, have pity on me! I am afraid of

this evil, ancient place. I know I have heard stealthy footfalls padding

about me--oh, Conan, take me away with you! Zargheba will kill me when I

have served his purpose here--I know it! The priests, too, will kill me

if they discover my deceit.



'He is a devil--he bought me from a slave-trader who stole me out of a

caravan bound through southern Koth, and has made me the tool of his

intrigues ever since. Take me away from him! You can not be as cruel as

he. Don't leave me to be slain here! Please! Please!'



She was on her knees, clutching at Conan hysterically, her beautiful

tear-stained face upturned to him, her dark silken hair flowing in

disorder over her white shoulders. Conan picked her up and set her on

his knee.



'Listen to me. I'll protect you from Zargheba. The priests shall not

know of your perfidy. But you've got to do as I tell you.'



She faltered promises of explicit obedience, clasping his corded neck as

if seeking security from the contact.



'Good. When the priests come, you'll act the part of Yelaya, as Zargheba

planned--it'll be dark, and in the torchlight they'll never know the

difference. But you'll say this to them: "It is the will of the gods

that the Stygian and his Shemitish dogs be driven from Keshan. They are

thieves and traitors who plot to rob the gods. Let the Teeth of Gwahlur

be placed in the care of the general Conan. Let him lead the armies of

Keshan. He is beloved of the gods."'



She shivered, with an expression of desperation, but acquiesced.



'But Zargheba?' she cried. 'He'll kill me!'



'Don't worry about Zargheba,' he grunted. 'I'll take care of that dog.

You do as I say. Here, put up your hair again. It's fallen all over your

shoulders. And the gem's fallen out of it.'



He replaced the great glowing gem himself, nodding approval.



'It's worth a room full of slaves, itself alone. Here, put your skirt

back on. It's torn down the side, but the priests will never notice it.

Wipe your face. A goddess doesn't cry like a whipped schoolgirl. By

Crom, you do look like Yelaya, face, hair, figure and all! If you act

the goddess with the priests as well as you did with me, you'll fool

them easily.'



'I'll try,' she shivered.



'Good; I'm going to find Zargheba.'



At that she became panicky again.



'No! Don't leave me alone! This place is haunted!'



'There's nothing here to harm you,' he assured her impatiently. 'Nothing

but Zargheba, and I'm going to look after him. I'll be back shortly.

I'll be watching from close by in case anything goes wrong during the

ceremony; but if you play your part properly, nothing will go wrong.'



And turning, he hastened out of the oracle chamber; behind him Muriela

squeaked wretchedly at his going.



Twilight had fallen. The great rooms and halls were shadowy and

indistinct; copper friezes glinted dully through the dusk. Conan strode

like a silent phantom through the great halls, with a sensation of being

stared at from the shadowed recesses by invisible ghosts of the past. No

wonder the girl was nervous amid such surroundings.



He glided down the marble steps like a slinking panther, sword in hand.

Silence reigned over the valley, and above the rim of the cliffs stars

were blinking out. If the priests of Keshia had entered the valley there

was not a sound, not a movement in the greenery to betray them. He made

out the ancient broken-paved avenue, wandering away to the south, lost

amid clustering masses of fronds and thick-leaved bushes. He followed it

warily, hugging the edge of the paving where the shrubs massed their

shadows thickly, until he saw ahead of him, dimly in the dusk, the clump

of lotus-trees, the strange growth peculiar to the black lands of Kush.

There, according to the girl, Zargheba should be lurking. Conan became

stealth personified. A velvet-footed shadow, he melted into the

thickets.



He approached the lotus grove by a circuitous movement, and scarcely the

rustle of a leaf proclaimed his passing. At the edge of the trees he

halted suddenly, crouched like a suspicious panther among the deep

shrubs. Ahead of him, among the dense leaves, showed a pallid oval, dim

in the uncertain light. It might have been one of the great white

blossoms which shone thickly among the branches. But Conan knew that it

was a man's face. And it was turned toward him. He shrank quickly deeper

into the shadows. Had Zargheba seen him? The man was looking directly

toward him. Seconds passed. That dim face had not moved. Conan could

make out the dark tuft below that was the short black beard.



And suddenly Conan was aware of something unnatural. Zargheba, he knew,

was not a tall man. Standing erect, his head would scarcely top the

Cimmerian's shoulder; yet that face was on a level with Conan's own. Was

the man standing on something? Conan bent and peered toward the ground

below the spot where the face showed, but his vision was blocked by

undergrowth and the thick boles of the trees. But he saw something else,

and he stiffened. Through a slot in the underbrush he glimpsed the stem

of the tree under which, apparently, Zargheba was standing. The face

was directly in line with that tree. He should have seen below that

face, not the tree-trunk, but Zargheba's body--but there was no body

there.



Suddenly tenser than a tiger who stalks his prey, Conan glided deeper

into the thicket, and a moment later drew aside a leafy branch and

glared at the face that had not moved. Nor would it ever move again, of

its own volition. He looked on Zargheba's severed head, suspended from

the branch of the tree by its own long black hair.









3 The Return of the Oracle





Conan wheeled supplely, sweeping the shadows with a fiercely questing

stare. There was no sign of the murdered man's body; only yonder the

tall lush grass was trampled and broken down and the sward was dabbled

darkly and wetly. Conan stood scarcely breathing as he strained his ears

into the silence. The trees and bushes with their great pallid blossoms

stood dark, still and sinister, etched against the deepening dusk.



Primitive fears whispered at the back of Conan's mind. Was this the work

of the priests of Keshan? If so, where were they? Was it Zargheba, after

all, who had struck the gong? Again there rose the memory of Bît-Yakin

and his mysterious servants. Bît-Yakin was dead, shriveled to a hulk of

wrinkled leather and bound in his hollowed crypt to greet the rising sun

for ever. But the servants of Bît-Yakin were unaccounted for. There was

no proof they had ever left the valley.



Conan thought of the girl, Muriela, alone and unguarded in that great

shadowy palace. He wheeled and ran back down the shadowed avenue, and he

ran as a suspicious panther runs, poised even in full stride to whirl

right or left and strike death blows.



The palace loomed through the trees, and he saw something else--the glow

of fire reflecting redly from the polished marble. He melted into the

bushes that lined the broken street, glided through the dense growth and

reached the edge of the open space before the portico. Voices reached

him; torches bobbed and their flare shone on glossy ebon shoulders. The

priests of Keshan had come.



They had not advanced up the wide, overgrown avenue as Zargheba had

expected them to do. Obviously there was more than one secret way into

the valley of Alkmeenon.



They were filing up the broad marble steps, holding their torches high.

He saw Gorulga at the head of the parade, a profile chiseled out of

copper, etched in the torch glare. The rest were acolytes, giant black

men from whose skins the torches struck highlights. At the end of the

procession there stalked a huge negro with an unusually wicked cast of

countenance, at the sight of whom Conan scowled. That was Gwarunga, whom

Muriela had named as the man who had revealed the secret of the

pool-entrance to Zargheba. Conan wondered how deeply the man was in the

intrigues of the Stygian.



He hurried toward the portico, circling the open space to keep in the

fringing shadows. They left no one to guard the entrance. The torches

streamed steadily down the long dark hall. Before they reached the

double-valved door at the other end, Conan had mounted the other steps

and was in the hall behind them. Slinking swiftly along the column-lined

wall, he reached the great door as they crossed the huge throne-room,

their torches driving back the shadows. They did not look back. In

single file, their ostrich plumes nodding, their leopard-skin tunics

contrasting curiously with the marble and arabesqued metal of the

ancient palace, they moved across the wide room and halted momentarily

at the golden door to the left of the throne-dais.



Gorulga's voice boomed eerily and hollowly in the great empty space,

framed in sonorous phrases unintelligible to the lurking listener; then

the high priest thrust open the golden door and entered, bowing

repeatedly from his waist, and behind him the torches sank and rose,

showering flakes of flame, as the worshippers imitated their master. The

gold door closed behind them, shutting out sound and sight, and Conan

darted across the throne-chamber and into the alcove behind the throne.

He made less sound than a wind blowing across the chamber.



Tiny beams of light streamed through the apertures in the wall, as he

pried open the secret panel. Gliding into the niche, he peered through.

Muriela sat upright on the dais, her arms folded, her head leaning back

against the wall, within a few inches of his eyes. The delicate perfume

of her foamy hair was in his nostrils. He could not see her face, of

course, but her attitude was as if she gazed tranquilly into some far

gulf of space, over and beyond the shaven heads of the black giants who

knelt before her. Conan grinned with appreciation. 'The little slut's an

actress,' he told himself. He knew she was shriveling with terror, but

she showed no sign. In the uncertain flare of the torches she looked

exactly like the goddess he had seen lying on that same dais, if one

could imagine that goddess imbued with vibrant life.



Gorulga was booming forth some kind of a chant in an accent unfamiliar

to Conan, and which was probably some invocation in the ancient tongue

of Alkmeenon, handed down from generation to generation of high priests.

It seemed interminable. Conan grew restless. The longer the thing

lasted, the more terrific would be the strain on Muriela. If she

snapped--he hitched his sword and dagger forward. He could not see the

little trollop tortured and slain by these men.



But the chant--deep, low-pitched and indescribably ominous--came to a

conclusion at last, and a shouted acclaim from the acolytes marked its

period. Lifting his head and raising his arms toward the silent form on

the dais, Gorulga cried in the deep, rich resonance that was the natural

attribute of the Keshani priest: 'Oh, great goddess, dweller with the

great one of darkness, let thy heart be melted, thy lips opened for the

ears of thy slave whose head is in the dust beneath thy feet! Speak,

great goddess of the holy valley! Thou knowest the paths before us; the

darkness that vexes us is as the light of the midday sun to thee. Shed

the radiance of thy wisdom on the paths of thy servants! Tell us, oh

mouthpiece of the gods: what is their will concerning Thutmekri the

Stygian?'



The high-piled burnished mass of hair that caught the torchlight in dull

bronze gleams quivered slightly. A gusty sigh rose from the blacks, half

in awe, half in fear. Muriela's voice came plainly to Conan's ears in

the breathless silence, and it seemed, cold, detached, impersonal,

though the Cimmerian winced at the Corinthian accent.



'It is the will of the gods that the Stygian and his Shemitish dogs be

driven from Keshan!' She was repeating his exact words. 'They are

thieves and traitors who plot to rob the gods. Let the Teeth of Gwahlur

be placed in the care of the general Conan. Let him lead the armies of

Keshan. He is beloved of the gods!'



There was a quiver in her voice as she ended, and Conan began to sweat,

believing she was on the point of an hysterical collapse. But the blacks

did not notice, any more than they identified the Corinthian accent, of

which they knew nothing. They smote their palms softly together and a

murmur of wonder and awe rose from them. Gorulga's eyes glittered

fanatically in the torchlight.



'Yelaya has spoken!' he cried in an exalted voice. 'It is the will of

the gods! Long ago, in the days of our ancestors, they were made taboo

and hidden at the command of the gods, who wrenched them from the awful

jaws of Gwahlur the king of darkness, in the birth of the world. At the

command of the gods the teeth of Gwahlur were hidden; at their command

they shall be brought forth again. Oh star-born goddess, give us your

leave to go to the secret hiding-place of the Teeth to secure them for

him whom the gods love!'



'You have my leave to go!' answered the false goddess, with an imperious

gesture of dismissal that set Conan grinning again, and the priests

backed out, ostrich plumes and torches rising and falling with the

rhythm of their genuflexions.



The gold door closed and with a moan, the goddess fell back limply on

the dais. 'Conan!' she whimpered faintly. 'Conan!'



'Shhh!' he hissed through the apertures, and turning, glided from the

niche and closed the panel. A glimpse past the jamb of the carven door

showed him the torches receding across the great throne-room, but he was

at the same time aware of a radiance that did not emanate from the

torches. He was startled, but the solution presented itself instantly.

An early moon had risen and its light slanted through the pierced dome

which by some curious workmanship intensified the light. The shining

dome of Alkmeenon was no fable, then. Perhaps its interior was of the

curious whitely flaming crystal found only in the hills of the black

countries. The light flooded the throne-room and seeped into the

chambers immediately adjoining.



But as Conan made toward the door that led into the throne-room, he was

brought around suddenly by a noise that seemed to emanate from the

passage that led off from the alcove. He crouched at the mouth, staring

into it, remembering the clangor of the gong that had echoed from it to

lure him into a snare. The light from the dome filtered only a little

way into that narrow corridor, and showed him only empty space. Yet he

could have sworn that he had heard the furtive pad of a foot somewhere

down it.



While he hesitated, he was electrified by a woman's strangled cry from

behind him. Bounding through the door behind the throne, he saw an

unexpected spectacle in the crystal light.



The torches of the priests had vanished from the great hall outside--but

one priest was still in the palace: Gwarunga. His wicked features were

convulsed with fury, and he grasped the terrified Muriela by the throat,

choking her efforts to scream and plead, shaking her brutally.



'Traitress!' Between his thick red lips his voice hissed like a cobra.

'What game are you playing? Did not Zargheba tell you what to say? Aye,

Thutmekri told me! Are you betraying your master, or is he betraying his

friends through you? Slut! I'll twist off your false head--but first

I'll--'



A widening of his captive's lovely eyes as she stared over his shoulder

warned the huge black. He released her and wheeled, just as Conan's

sword lashed down. The impact of the stroke knocked him headlong

backward to the marble floor, where he lay twitching, blood oozing from

a ragged gash in his scalp.



Conan started toward him to finish the job--for he knew that the

priest's sudden movement had caused the blade to strike flat--but

Muriela threw her arms convulsively about him.



'I've done as you ordered!' she gasped hysterically. 'Take me away! Oh,

please take me away!'



'We can't go yet,' he grunted. 'I want to follow the priests and see

where they get the jewels. There may be more loot hidden there. But you

can go with me. Where's the gem you wore in your hair?'



'It must have fallen out on the dais,' she stammered, feeling for it. 'I

was so frightened--when the priests left I ran out to find you, and this

big brute had stayed behind, and he grabbed me--'



'Well, go get it while I dispose of this carcass,' he commanded. 'Go on!

That gem is worth a fortune itself.'



She hesitated, as if loth to return to that cryptic chamber; then, as he

grasped Gwarunga's girdle and dragged him into the alcove, she turned

and entered the oracle room.



Conan dumped the senseless black on the floor, and lifted his sword. The

Cimmerian had lived too long in the wild places of the world to have any

illusions about mercy. The only safe enemy was a headless enemy. But

before he could strike, a startling scream checked the lifted blade. It

came from the oracle chamber.



'Conan! Conan! She's come back!' The shriek ended in a gurgle and a

scraping shuffle.



With an oath Conan dashed out of the alcove, across the throne dais and

into the oracle chamber, almost before the sound had ceased. There he

halted, glaring bewilderedly. To all appearances Muriela lay placidly on

the dais, eyes closed as in slumber.



'What in thunder are you doing?' he demanded acidly. 'Is this any time

to be playing jokes--'



His voice trailed away. His gaze ran along the ivory thigh molded in the

close-fitting silk skirt. That skirt should gape from girdle to hem. He

knew, because it had been his own hand that tore it as he ruthlessly

stripped the garment from the dancer's writhing body. But the skirt

showed no rent. A single stride brought him to the dais and he laid his

hand on the ivory body--snatched it away as if it had encountered hot

iron instead of the cold immobility of death.



'Crom!' he muttered, his eyes suddenly slits of bale-fire. 'It's not

Muriela! It's Yelaya!'



He understood now that frantic scream that had burst from Muriela's lips

when she entered the chamber. The goddess had returned. The body had

been stripped by Zargheba to furnish the accouterments for the

pretender. Yet now it was clad in silk and jewels as Conan had first

seen it. A peculiar prickling made itself manifest among the short hairs

at the base of Conan's scalp.



'Muriela!' he shouted suddenly. 'Muriela! Where the devil are you?'



The walls threw back his voice mockingly. There was no entrance that he

could see except the golden door, and none could have entered or

departed through that without his knowledge. This much was

indisputable: Yelaya had been replaced on the dais within the few

minutes that had elapsed since Muriela had first left the chamber to be

seized by Gwarunga; his ears were still tingling with the echoes of

Muriela's scream, yet the Corinthian girl had vanished as if into thin

air. There was but one explanation that offered itself to the Cimmerian,

if he rejected the darker speculation that suggested the

supernatural--somewhere in the chamber there was a secret door. And even

as the thought crossed his mind, he saw it.



In what had seemed a curtain of solid marble, a thin perpendicular crack

showed, and in the crack hung a wisp of silk. In an instant he was

bending over it. That shred was from Muriela's torn skirt. The

implication was unmistakable. It had been caught in the closing door and

torn off as she was borne through the opening by whatever grim beings

were her captors. The bit of clothing had prevented the door from

fitting perfectly into its frame.



Thrusting his dagger-point into the crack, Conan exerted leverage with a

corded forearm. The blade bent, but it was of unbreakable Akbitanan

steel. The marble door opened. Conan's sword was lifted as he peered

into the aperture beyond, but he saw no shape of menace. Light filtering

into the oracle chamber revealed a short flight of steps cut out of

marble. Pulling the door back to its fullest extent, he drove his dagger

into a crack in the floor, propping it open. Then he went down the steps

without hesitation. He saw nothing, heard nothing. A dozen steps down,

the stair ended in a narrow corridor which ran straight away into gloom.



He halted suddenly, posed like a statue at the foot of the stair,

staring at the paintings which frescoed the walls, half visible in the

dim light which filtered down from above. The art was unmistakably

Pelishtim; he had seen frescoes of identical characteristics on the

walls of Asgalun. But the scenes depicted had no connection with

anything Pelishtim, except for one human figure, frequently recurrent: a

lean, white-bearded old man whose racial characteristics were

unmistakable. They seemed to represent various sections of the palace

above. Several scenes showed a chamber he recognized as the oracle

chamber with the figure of Yelaya stretched upon the ivory dais and huge

black men kneeling before it. And there were other figures, too--figures

that moved through the deserted palace, did the bidding of the

Pelishtim, and dragged unnamable things out of the subterranean river.

In the few seconds Conan stood frozen, hitherto unintelligible phrases

in the parchment manuscript blazed in his brain with chilling clarity.

The loose bits of the pattern clicked into place. The mystery of

Bît-Yakin was a mystery no longer, nor the riddle of Bît-Yakin's

servants.



Conan turned and peered into the darkness, an icy finger crawling along

his spine. Then he went along the corridor, cat-footed, and without

hesitation, moving deeper and deeper into the darkness as he drew

farther away from the stair. The air hung heavy with the odor he had

scented in the court of the gong.



Now in utter blackness he heard a sound ahead of him--the shuffle of

bare feet, or the swish of loose garments against stone, he could not

tell which. But an instant later his outstretched hand encountered a

barrier which he identified as a massive door of carven metal. He pushed

against it fruitlessly, and his sword-point sought vainly for a crack.

It fitted into the sill and jambs as if molded there. He exerted all his

strength, his feet straining against the door, the veins knotting in his

temples. It was useless; a charge of elephants would scarcely have

shaken that titanic portal.



As he leaned there he caught a sound on the other side that his ears

instantly identified--it was the creak of rusty iron, like a lever

scraping in its slot. Instinctively action followed recognition so

spontaneously that sound, impulse and action were practically

simultaneous. And as his prodigious bound carried him backward, there

was the rush of a great bulk from above, and a thunderous crash filled

the tunnel with deafening vibrations. Bits of flying splinters struck

him--a huge block of stone, he knew from the sound, dropped on the spot

he had just quitted. An instant's slower thought or action and it would

have crushed him like an ant.



Conan fell back. Somewhere on the other side of that metal door Muriela

was a captive, if she still lived. But he could not pass that door, and

if he remained in the tunnel another block might fall, and he might not

be so lucky. It would do the girl no good for him to be crushed into a

purple pulp. He could not continue his search in that direction. He must

get above ground and look for some other avenue of approach.



He turned and hurried toward the stair, sighing as he emerged into

comparative radiance. And as he set foot on the first step, the light

was blotted out, and above him the marble door rushed shut with a

resounding reverberation.



Something like panic seized the Cimmerian then, trapped in that black

tunnel, and he wheeled on the stair, lifting his sword and glaring

murderously into the darkness behind him, expecting a rush of ghoulish

assailants. But there was no sound or movement down the tunnel. Did the

men beyond the door--if they were men--believe that he had been disposed

of by the fall of the stone from the roof, which had undoubtedly been

released by some sort of machinery?



Then why had the door been shut above him? Abandoning speculation, Conan

groped his way up the steps, his skin crawling in anticipation of a

knife in his back at every stride, yearning to drown his semi-panic in a

barbarous burst of blood-letting.



He thrust against the door at the top, and cursed soulfully to find that

it did not give to his efforts. Then as he lifted his sword with his

right hand to hew at the marble, his groping left encountered a metal

bolt that evidently slipped into place at the closing of the door. In an

instant he had drawn this bolt, and then the door gave to his shove. He

bounded into the chamber like a slit-eyed, snarling incarnation of fury,

ferociously desirous to come to grips with whatever enemy was hounding

him.



The dagger was gone from the floor. The chamber was empty; and so was

the dais. Yelaya had again vanished.



'By Crom!' muttered the Cimmerian. 'Is she alive, after all?'



He strode out into the throne-room, baffled, and then, struck by a

sudden thought, stepped behind the throne and peered into the alcove.

There was blood on the smooth marble where he had cast down the

senseless body of Gwarunga--that was all. The black man had vanished as

completely as Yelaya.









4 The Teeth of Gwahlur





Baffled wrath confused the brain of Conan the Cimmerian. He knew no more

how to go about searching for Muriela than he had known how to go about

searching for the Teeth of Gwahlur. Only one thought occurred to him--to

follow the priests. Perhaps at the hiding-place of the treasure some

clue would be revealed to him. It was a slim chance, but better than

wandering about aimlessly.



As he hurried through the great shadowy hall that led to the portico, he

half expected the lurking shades to come to life behind him with rending

fangs and talons. But only the beat of his own rapid heart accompanied

him into the moonlight that dappled the shimmering marble.



At the foot of the wide steps he cast about in the bright moonlight for

some sign to show him the direction he must go. And he found it--petals

scattered on the sward told where an arm or garment had brushed against

a blossom-laden branch. Grass had been pressed down under heavy feet.

Conan, who had tracked wolves in his native hills, found no

insurmountable difficulty in following the trail of the Keshani priests.



It led away from the palace, through masses of exotic-scented shrubbery

where great pale blossoms spread their shimmering petals, through

verdant, tangled bushes that showered blooms at the touch, until he came

at last to a great mass of rock that jutted like a titan's castle out

from the cliffs at a point closest to the palace, which, however, was

almost hidden from view by vine-interlaced trees. Evidently that

babbling priest in Keshia had been mistaken when he said the Teeth were

hidden in the palace. This trail had led him away from the place where

Muriela had disappeared, but a belief was growing in Conan that each

part of the valley was connected with that palace by subterranean

passages.



Crouching in the deep velvet-black shadows of the bushes, he scrutinized

the great jut of rock which stood out in bold relief in the moonlight.

It was covered with strange, grotesque carvings, depicting men and

animals, and half-bestial creatures that might have been gods or devils.

The style of art differed so strikingly from that of the rest of the

valley, that Conan wondered if it did not represent a different era and

race, and was itself a relic of an age lost and forgotten at whatever

immeasurably distant date the people of Alkmeenon had found and entered

the haunted valley.



A great door stood open in the sheer curtain of the cliff, and a

gigantic dragon head was carved about it so that the open door was like

the dragon's gaping mouth. The door itself was of carven bronze and

looked to weigh several tons. There was no lock that he could see, but

a series of bolts showing along the edge of the massive portal, as it

stood open, told him that there was some system of locking and

unlocking--a system doubtless known only to the priests of Keshan.



The trail showed that Gorulga and his henchmen had gone through that

door. But Conan hesitated. To wait until they emerged would probably

mean to see the door locked in his face, and he might not be able to

solve the mystery of its unlocking. On the other hand, if he followed

them in, they might emerge and lock him in the cavern.



Throwing caution to the winds, he glided silently through the great

portal. Somewhere in the cavern were the priests, the Teeth of Gwahlur,

and perhaps a clue to the fate of Muriela. Personal risks had never yet

deterred the Cimmerian from any purpose.



Moonlight illumined, for a few yards, the wide tunnel in which he found

himself. Somewhere ahead of him he saw a faint glow and heard the echo

of a weird chanting. The priests were not so far ahead of him as he had

thought. The tunnel debouched into a wide room before the moonlight

played out, an empty cavern of no great dimensions, but with a lofty,

vaulted roof, glowing with a phosphorescent encrustation, which, as

Conan knew, was a common phenomenon in that part of the world. It made a

ghostly half-light, in which he was able to see a bestial image

squatting on a shrine and the black mouths of six or seven tunnels

leading off from the chamber. Down the widest of these--the one directly

behind the squat image which looked toward the outer opening--he caught

the gleam of torches wavering, whereas the phosphorescent glow was

fixed, and heard the chanting increase in volume.



Down it he went recklessly, and was presently peering into a larger

cavern than the one he had just left. There was no phosphorus here, but

the light of the torches fell on a larger altar and a more obscene and

repulsive god squatting toad-like upon it. Before this repugnant deity

Gorulga and his ten acolytes knelt and beat their heads upon the ground,

while chanting monotonously. Conan realized why their progress had been

so slow. Evidently approaching the secret crypt of the Teeth was a

complicated and elaborate ritual.



He was fidgeting in nervous impatience before the chanting and bowing

were over, but presently they rose and passed into the tunnel which

opened behind the idol. Their torches bobbed away into the nighted

vault, and he followed swiftly. Not much danger of being discovered. He

glided along the shadows like a creature of the night, and the black

priests were completely engrossed in their ceremonial mummery.

Apparently they had not even noticed the absence of Gwarunga.



Emerging into a cavern of huge proportions, about whose upward curving

walls gallery-like ledges marched in tiers, they began their worship

anew before an altar which was larger, and a god which was more

disgusting, than any encountered thus far.



Conan crouched in the black mouth of the tunnel, staring at the walls

reflecting the lurid glow of the torches. He saw a carven stone stair

winding up from tier to tier of the galleries; the roof was lost in

darkness.



He started violently and the chanting broke off as the kneeling blacks

flung up their heads. An inhuman voice boomed out high above them. They

froze on their knees, their faces turned upward with a ghastly blue hue

in the sudden glare of a weird light that burst blindingly up near the

lofty roof and then burned with a throbbing glow. That glare lighted a

gallery and a cry went up from the high priest, echoed shudderingly by

his acolytes. In the flash there had been briefly disclosed to them a

slim white figure standing upright in a sheen of silk and a glint of

jewel-crusted gold. Then the blaze smoldered to a throbbing, pulsing

luminosity in which nothing was distinct, and that slim shape was but

a shimmering blue of ivory.



'Yelaya!' screamed Gorulga, his brown features ashen. 'Why have you

followed us? What is your pleasure?'



That weird unhuman voice rolled down from the roof, re-echoing under

that arching vault that magnified and altered it beyond recognition.



'Woe to the unbelievers! Woe to the false children of Keshia! Doom to

them which deny their deity!'



A cry of horror went up from the priests. Gorulga looked like a shocked

vulture in the glare of the torches.



'I do not understand!' he stammered. 'We are faithful. In the chamber of

the oracle you told us--'



'Do not heed what you heard in the chamber of the oracle!' rolled that

terrible voice, multiplied until it was as though a myriad voices

thundered and muttered the same warning. 'Beware of false prophets and

false gods! A demon in my guise spoke to you in the palace, giving false

prophecy. Now harken and obey, for only I am the true goddess, and I

give you one chance to save yourselves from doom!



'Take the Teeth of Gwahlur from the crypt where they were placed so long

ago. Alkmeenon is no longer holy, because it has been desecrated by

blasphemers. Give the Teeth of Gwahlur into the hands of Thutmekri, the

Stygian, to place in the sanctuary of Dragon and Derketo. Only this can

save Keshan from the doom the demons of the night have plotted. Take the

Teeth of Gwahlur and go: return instantly to Keshia; there give the

jewels to Thutmekri, and seize the foreign devil Conan and flay him

alive in the great square.'



There was no hesitation in obeying. Chattering with fear the priests

scrambled up and ran for the door that opened behind the bestial god.

Gorulga led the flight. They jammed briefly in the doorway, yelping as

wildly waving torches touched squirming black bodies; they plunged

through, and the patter of their speeding feet dwindled down the tunnel.



Conan did not follow. He was consumed with a furious desire to learn the

truth of this fantastic affair. Was that indeed Yelaya, as the cold

sweat on the backs of his hands told him, or was it that little hussy

Muriela, turned traitress after all? If it was--



Before the last torch had vanished down the black tunnel he was bounding

vengefully up the stone stair. The blue glow was dying down, but he

could still make out that the ivory figure stood motionless on the

gallery. His blood ran cold as he approached it, but he did not

hesitate. He came on with his sword lifted, and towered like a threat of

death over the inscrutable shape.



'Yelaya!' he snarled. 'Dead as she's been for a thousand years! Ha!'



From the dark mouth of a tunnel behind him a dark form lunged. But the

sudden, deadly rush of unshod feet had reached the Cimmerian's quick

ears. He whirled like a cat and dodged the blow aimed murderously at his

back. As the gleaming steel in the dark hand hissed past him, he struck

back with the fury of a roused python, and the long straight blade

impaled his assailant and stood out a foot and a half between his

shoulders.



'So!' Conan tore his sword free as the victim sagged to the floor,

gasping and gurgling. The man writhed briefly and stiffened. In the

dying light Conan saw a black body and ebon countenance, hideous in the

blue glare. He had killed Gwarunga.



Conan turned from the corpse to the goddess. Thongs about her knees and

breast held her upright against a stone pillar, and her thick hair,

fastened to the column, held her head up. At a few yards' distance these

bonds were not visible in the uncertain light.



'He must have come to after I descended into the tunnel,' muttered

Conan. 'He must have suspected I was down there. So he pulled out the

dagger'--Conan stooped and wrenched the identical weapon from the

stiffening fingers, glanced at it and replaced it in his own

girdle--'and shut the door. Then he took Yelaya to befool his brother

idiots. That was he shouting a while ago. You couldn't recognize his

voice, under this echoing roof. And that bursting blue flame--I thought

it looked familiar. It's a trick of the Stygian priests. Thutmekri must

have given some of it to Gwarunga.'



He could easily have reached this cavern ahead of his companions.

Evidently familiar with the plan of the caverns by hearsay or by maps

handed down in the priestcraft, he had entered the cave after the

others, carrying the goddess, followed a circuitous route through the

tunnels and chambers, and ensconced himself and his burden on the

balcony while Gorulga and the other acolytes were engaged in their

endless rituals.



The blue glare had faded, but now Conan was aware of another glow,

emanating from the mouth of one of the corridors that opened on the

ledge. Somewhere down that corridor there was another field of

phosphorus, for he recognized the faint steady radiance. The corridor

led in the direction the priests had taken, and he decided to follow it,

rather than descend into the darkness of the great cavern below.

Doubtless it connected with another gallery in some other chamber, which

might be the destination of the priests. He hurried down it, the

illumination growing stronger as he advanced, until he could make out

the floor and the walls of the tunnel. Ahead of him and below he could

hear the priests chanting again.



Abruptly a doorway in the left-hand wall was limned in the phosphorus

glow, and to his ears came the sound of soft, hysterical sobbing. He

wheeled, and glared through the door.



He was looking again into a chamber hewn out of solid rock, not a

natural cavern like the others. The domed roof shone with the

phosphorous light, and the walls were almost covered with arabesques of

beaten gold.



Near the farther wall on a granite throne, staring for ever toward the

arched doorway, sat the monstrous and obscene Pteor, the god of the

Pelishtim, wrought in brass, with his exaggerated attributes reflecting

the grossness of his cult. And in his lap sprawled a limp white figure.



'Well, I'll be damned!' muttered Conan. He glanced suspiciously about

the chamber, seeing no other entrance or evidence of occupation, and

then advanced noiselessly and looked down at the girl whose slim

shoulders shook with sobs of abject misery, her face sunk in her arms.

From thick bands of gold on the idol's arms slim gold chains ran to

smaller bands on her wrists. He laid a hand on her naked shoulder and

she started convulsively, shrieked, and twisted her tear-stained face

toward him.



'Conan!' She made a spasmodic effort to go into the usual clinch, but

the chains hindered her. He cut through the soft gold as close to her

wrists as he could, grunting: 'You'll have to wear these bracelets until

I can find a chisel or a file. Let go of me, damn it! You actresses are

too damned emotional. What happened to you, anyway?'



'When I went back into the oracle chamber,' she whimpered, 'I saw the

goddess lying on the dais as I'd first seen her. I called out to you and

started to run to the door--then something grabbed me from behind. It

clapped a hand over my mouth and carried me through a panel in the wall,

and down some steps and along a dark hall. I didn't see what it was that

had hold of me until we passed through a big metal door and came into a

tunnel whose roof was alight, like this chamber.



'Oh, I nearly fainted when I saw! They are not humans! They are gray,

hairy devils that walk like men and speak a gibberish no human could

understand. They stood there and seemed to be waiting, and once I

thought I heard somebody trying the door. Then one of the things pulled

a metal lever in the wall, and something crashed on the other side of

the door.



'Then they carried me on and on through winding tunnels and up stone

stairways into this chamber, where they chained me on the knees of this

abominable idol, and then they went away. Oh, Conan, what are they?'



'Servants of Bît-Yakin,' he grunted. 'I found a manuscript that told me

a number of things, and then stumbled upon some frescoes that told me

the rest. Bît-Yakin was a Pelishtim who wandered into the valley with

his servants after the people of Alkmeenon had deserted it. He found the

body of Princess Yelaya, and discovered that the priests returned from

time to time to make offerings to her, for even then she was worshipped

as a goddess.



'He made an oracle of her, and he was the voice of the oracle, speaking

from a niche he cut in the wall behind the ivory dais. The priests never

suspected, never saw him or his servants for they always hid themselves

when the men came. Bît-Yakin lived and died here without ever being

discovered by the priests. Crom knows how long he dwelt here, but it

must have been for centuries. The wise men of the Pelishtim know how to

increase the span of their lives for hundreds of years. I've seen some

of them myself. Why he lived here alone, and why he played the part of

oracle no ordinary human can guess, but I believe the oracle part was to

keep the city inviolate and sacred, so he could remain undisturbed. He

ate the food the priests brought as an offering to Yelaya, and his

servants ate other things--I've always known there was a subterranean

river flowing away from the lake where the people of the Puntish

highlands throw their dead. That river runs under this palace. They have

ladders hung over the water where they can hang and fish for the corpses

that come floating through. Bît-Yakin recorded everything on parchment

and painted walls.



'But he died at last, and his servants mummified him according to

instructions he gave them before his death, and stuck him in a cave in

the cliffs. The rest is easy to guess. His servants, who were even more

nearly immortal than he, kept on dwelling here, but the next time a high

priest came to consult the oracle, not having a master to restrain them,

they tore him to pieces. So since then--until Gorulga--nobody came to

talk to the oracle.



'It's obvious they've been renewing the garments and ornaments of the

goddess, as they'd seen Bît-Yakin do. Doubtless there's a sealed chamber

somewhere where the silks are kept from decay. They clothed the goddess

and brought her back to the oracle room after Zargheba had stolen her.

And by the way, they took off Zargheba's head and hung it in a thicket.'



She shivered, yet at the same time breathed a sigh of relief.



'He'll never whip me again.'



'Not this side of hell,' agreed Conan. 'But come on. Gwarunga ruined my

chances with his stolen goddess. I'm going to follow the priests and

take my chance of stealing the loot from them after they get it. And you

stay close to me. I can't spend all my time looking for you.'



'But the servants of Bît-Yakin!' she whispered fearfully.



'We'll have to take our chance,' he grunted. 'I don't know what's in

their minds, but so far they haven't shown any disposition to come out

and fight in the open. Come on.'



Taking her wrist he led her out of the chamber and down the corridor. As

they advanced they heard the chanting of the priests, and mingling with

the sound the low sullen rushing of waters. The light grew stronger

above them as they emerged on a high-pitched gallery of a great cavern

and looked down on a scene weird and fantastic.



Above them gleamed the phosphorescent roof; a hundred feet below them

stretched the smooth floor of the cavern. On the far side this floor was

cut by a deep, narrow stream brimming its rocky channel. Rushing out of

impenetrable gloom, it swirled across the cavern and was lost again in

darkness. The visible surface reflected the radiance above; the dark

seething waters glinted as if flecked with living jewels, frosty blue,

lurid red, shimmering green, an ever-changing iridescence.



Conan and his companion stood upon one of the gallery-like ledges that

banded the curve of the lofty wall, and from this ledge a natural bridge

of stone soared in a breath-taking arch over the vast gulf of the cavern

to join a much smaller ledge on the opposite side, across the river. Ten

feet below it another, broader arch spanned the cave. At either end a

carven stair joined the extremities of these flying arches.



Conan's gaze, following the curve of the arch that swept away from the

ledge on which they stood, caught a glint of light that was not the

lurid phosphorus of the cavern. On that small ledge opposite them there

was an opening in the cave wall through which stars were glinting.



But his full attention was drawn to the scene beneath them. The priests

had reached their destination. There in a sweeping angle of the cavern

wall stood a stone altar, but there was no idol upon it. Whether there

was one behind it, Conan could not ascertain, because some trick of the

light, or the sweep of the wall, left the space behind the altar in

total darkness.



The priests had stuck their torches into holes in the stone floor,

forming a semicircle of fire in front of the altar at a distance of

several yards. Then the priests themselves formed a semicircle inside

the crescent of torches, and Gorulga, after lifting his arms aloft in

invocation, bent to the altar and laid hands on it. It lifted and tilted

backward on its hinder edge, like the lid of a chest, revealing a small

crypt.



Extending a long arm into the recess, Gorulga brought up a small brass

chest. Lowering the altar back into place, he set the chest on it, and

threw back the lid. To the eager watchers on the high gallery it seemed

as if the action had released a blaze of living fire which throbbed and

quivered about the opened chest. Conan's heart leaped and his hand

caught at his hilt. The Teeth of Gwahlur at last! The treasure that

would make its possessor the richest man in the world! His breath came

fast between his clenched teeth.



Then he was suddenly aware that a new element had entered into the light

of the torches and of the phosphorescent roof, rendering both void.

Darkness stole around the altar, except for that glowing spot of evil

radiance cast by the teeth of Gwahlur, and that grew and grew. The

blacks froze into basaltic statues, their shadows streaming grotesquely

and gigantically out behind them.



The altar was laved in the glow now, and the astounded features of

Gorulga stood out in sharp relief. Then the mysterious space behind the

altar swam into the widening illumination. And slowly with the crawling

light, figures became visible, like shapes growing out of the night and

silence.



At first they seemed like gray stone statues, those motionless shapes,

hairy, man-like, yet hideously human; but their eyes were alive, cold

sparks of gray icy fire. And as the weird glow lit their bestial

countenances, Gorulga screamed and fell backward, throwing up his long

arms in a gesture of frenzied horror.



But a longer arm shot across the altar and a misshapen hand locked on

his throat. Screaming and fighting, the high priest was dragged back

across the altar; a hammer-like fist smashed down, and Gorulga's cries

were stilled. Limp and broken he sagged across the altar, his brains

oozing from his crushed skull. And then the servants of Bît-Yakin surged

like a bursting flood from hell on the black priests who stood like

horror-blasted images.



Then there was slaughter, grim and appalling.



Conan saw black bodies tossed like chaff in the inhuman hands of the

slayers, against whose horrible strength and agility the daggers and

swords of the priests were ineffective. He saw men lifted bodily and

their heads cracked open against the stone altar. He saw a flaming

torch, grasped in a monstrous hand, thrust inexorably down the gullet of

an agonized wretch who writhed in vain against the arms that pinioned

him. He saw a man torn in two pieces, as one might tear a chicken, and

the bloody fragments hurled clear across the cavern. The massacre was as

short and devastating as the rush of a hurricane. In a burst of red

abysmal ferocity it was over, except for one wretch who fled screaming

back the way the priests had come, pursued by a swarm of blood-dabbled

shapes of horror which reached out their red-smeared hands for him.

Fugitive and pursuers vanished down the black tunnel, and the screams of

the human came back dwindling and confused by the distance.



Muriela was on her knees clutching Conan's legs, her face pressed

against his knee and her eyes tightly shut. She was a quaking, quivering

mold of abject terror. But Conan was galvanized. A quick glance across

at the aperture where the stars shone, a glance down at the chest that

still blazed open on the blood-smeared altar, and he saw and seized the

desperate gamble.



'I'm going after that chest!' he grated. 'Stay here!'



'Oh, Mitra, no!' In an agony of fright she fell to the floor and caught

at his sandals. 'Don't! Don't! Don't leave me!'



'Lie still and keep your mouth shut!' he snapped, disengaging himself

from her frantic clasp.



He disregarded the tortuous stair. He dropped from ledge to ledge with

reckless haste. There was no sign of the monsters as his feet hit the

floor. A few of the torches still flared in their sockets, the

phosphorescent glow throbbed and quivered, and the river flowed with an

almost articulate muttering, scintillant with undreamed radiances. The

glow that had heralded the appearance of the servants had vanished with

them. Only the light of the jewels in the brass chest shimmered and

quivered.



He snatched the chest, noting its contents in one lustful

glance--strange, curiously shapen stones that burned with an icy,

non-terrestrial fire. He slammed the lid, thrust the chest under his

arm, and ran back up the steps. He had no desire to encounter the

hellish servants of Bît-Yakin. His glimpse of them in action had

dispelled any illusion concerning their fighting ability. Why they had

waited so long before striking at the invaders he was unable to say.

What human could guess the motives or thoughts of these monstrosities?

That they were possessed of craft and intelligence equal to humanity had

been demonstrated. And there on the cavern floor lay crimson proof of

their bestial ferocity.



The Corinthian girl 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 girl. 'Don't move!'

And drawing his sword, he glided into the tunnel, glaring back into the

cavern.



Halfway across the upper span he saw a gray deformed shape. One of the

servants of Bît-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 gray 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 Bît-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 twisted body

fell halfway across the lower arch. He wavered there precariously for

one blood-chilling instant, then his clutching fingers hooked over the

farther 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-end of the bridge, obviously intending to descend the

stair that connected the arches and renew the feud. 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 labyrinth of tunnels on the other side.



But the monster was slowing, like clockwork running down. Blood gushed

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, where the body of the servant of Bît-Yakin had

already vanished. A splash, a jetting flash of foam marked where the

Teeth of Gwahlur disappeared for ever from the sight of the 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 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 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!'