Conan the adaptable, p.31
Conan the Adaptable, page 31
Feeling for flint and steel, he struck fire to tinder and lighted the torch, then turning to the crumpled shape in the center of the room, he halted in amazement. The man who lay there in a widening pool of crimson was tall, powerfully built and hairy as an ape—Mahmoud. The man’s scimitar was in his scabbard, but a wicked dagger lay by his right hand.
“He had no quarrel with me,” growled Conan, puzzled. “What—” He stopped again. The door was still bolted from within, but in what had been a blank wall to the casual gaze, a black opening gaped—a secret doorway through which Mahmoud had come. Conan closed it and with sudden purpose pulled his coif in place and donned his helmet. Then taking up his shield, he opened the door and strode forth into the torchlighted corridor. All was silence, broken only by the tramp of his iron-clad feet on the bare flags. The sounds of revelry had ceased and a ghostly stillness hung over Bab-El-Shaithan.
In a few minutes he stood before the door of Skol Abdhur’s chamber and saw there what he had half-expected. The Keshan Abdullah lay before the threshold, disemboweled, and his woolly head half severed from his body. Conan thrust open the door; the candles still burned. On the floor, in the blood-soaked ruins of the torn divan lay the gashed and naked body of Skol Abdhur the Butcher. The corpse was slashed and hacked horribly, but it was evident to Conan that Skol had died in drunken sleep with no chance to fight for his life. It was some obscure hysteria or frantic hatred that had led his slayer or slayers to so disfigure his dead body. His garments lay near him, ripped to shreds. Conan smiled grimly, nodding.
“So the Blood of Belshazzar drank your life at last, Skol,” said he.
Turning toward the doorway he again scanned the body of the Keshan.
“More than one slew these men,” he muttered, “and the Keshan gave scathe to one, at least.”
The black still gripped his great scimitar, and the edge was nicked and bloodstained.
At that moment a quick rattle of steps sounded on the flags and the affrighted face of Jacob peered in at the door. His eyes flared wide and he opened his mouth to the widest extent to give vent to an ear-piercing screech.
“Shut up, you fool,” snarled Conan disgusted, but Jacob gibbered wildly.
“Spare my life, most noble lord! I will not tell anyone that you slew Skol—I swear—”
“Be quiet, Zamoran,” growled Conan. “I did not slay Skol and I will not harm you.”
This somewhat reassured Jacob, whose eyes narrowed with sudden avarice.
“Have you found the gem?” he chattered, running into the chamber. “Swift, let us search for it and begone—I should not have shrieked but I feared the noble lord would slay me—yet perchance it was not heard—”
“It was heard,” growled the Cimmerian. “And here are the warriors.”
The tramp of many hurried feet was heard and a second later the door was thronged with bearded faces. Conan noted the men blinked and gaped like owls, more like men roused from deep sleep than drunken men. Bleary-eyed, they gripped their weapons and ogled, a ragged, bemused horde. Jacob shrank back, trying to flatten himself against the wall, while Conan faced them, bloodstained sword still in his hand.
“Erlik!” ejaculated the man, rubbing his eyes. “The Cimmerian and the Zamoran have murdered Skol!”
“A lie,” growled Conan menacingly. “I know not who slew this drunkard.”
Tisolino di Strozza came into the chamber, followed by the other chiefs. Conan saw Nadir Tous, Kojar Mirza, Shalmar Khor, Yussef el Mekru and Justus Zenor. Toghrul Khan, Kai Shah and Musa bin Daoud were nowhere in evidence, and where Mahmoud was, the Cimmerian well knew.
“The jewel!” exclaimed a man excitedly. “Let us look for the gem!”
“Be quiet, fool,” snapped Nadir Tous, a light of baffled fury growing in his eyes. “Skol has been stripped; be sure who slew him took the gem.”
All eyes turned toward Conan.
“Skol was a hard master,” said Tisolino. “Give us the jewel, lord Conan, and you may go your way in peace.”
Conan swore angrily; had not, he thought, even as he replied, the Hyrkanian's eyes widened when they first fell on him?
“I have not your cursed jewel; Skol was dead when I came to his room.”
“Aye,” jeered Kojar Mirza, “and blood still wet on your blade.” He pointed accusingly at the weapon in Conan’s hand, whose blue steel, traced with Norse runes, was stained a dull red.
“That is the blood of Mahmoud,” growled Conan, “who stole into my cell to slay me and whose corpse now lies there.”
His eyes were fixed with fierce intensity on di Strozza’s face but the Hyrkanian's expression altered not a whit.
“I will go to the chamber and see if he speaks truth,” said di Strozza, and Nadir Tous smiled a deadly smile.
“You will remain here,” said the Iranistani, and his ruffians closed menacingly around the tall Hyrkanian. “Go you, Selim.” And one of his men went grumbling. Di Strozza shot a swift glance of terrible hatred and suppressed wrath at Nadir Tous, then stood imperturbably; but Conan knew that the Hyrkanian was wild to escape from that room.
“There have been strange things done tonight in Bab-El-Shaithan,” growled Shalmar Khor. “Where are Kai Shah and the Khauranian—and that pagan from who knows where? And who drugged the wine?”
“Aye!” exclaimed Nadir Tous, “who drugged the wine which sent us all into the sleep from which we but a few moments ago awakened? And how is it that you, di Strozza, were awake when the rest of us slept?”
“I have told you, I drank the wine and fell asleep like the rest of you,” answered the Hyrkanian coldly. “I awoke a few moments earlier, that is all, and was going to my chamber when the horde of you came along.”
“Mayhap,” answered Nadir Tous, “but we had to put a scimitar edge to your throat before you would come with us.”
“Why did you wish to come to Skol’s chamber anyway?” countered di Strozza.
“Why,” answered the Iranistani, “when we awoke and realized we had been drugged, Shalmar Khor suggested that we go to Skol’s chamber and see if he had flown with the jewel—”
“You lie!” exclaimed the Circassian. “That was Kojar Mirza who said that—”
“Why this delay and argument!” cried Kojar Mirza. “We know this Cimmerian was the last to be admitted to Skol this night. There is blood on his blade—we found him standing above the slain! Cut him down!”
And drawing his scimitar he stepped forward, his warriors surging in behind him. Conan placed his back to the wall and braced his feet to meet the charge. But it did not come; the tense figure of the giant Cimmerian was so fraught with brooding menace, the eyes glaring so terribly above the skull-adorned shield, that even the wild man faltered and hesitated, though a score of men thronged the room and many more than that number swarmed in the corridor outside. And as he wavered the Iranistani Selim elbowed his way through the band, shouting: “The Cimmerian spoke truth! Mahmoud lies dead in the lord Conan’s chamber!”
“That proves nothing,” said the Hyrkanian quietly. “He might have slain Skol after he slew the Lur.”
An uneasy and bristling silence reigned for an instant. Conan noted that now Skol lay dead, the different factions made no attempt to conceal their differences. Nadir Tous, Kojar Mirza and Shalmar Khor stood apart from each other and their followers bunched behind them in glaring, weapon-thumbing groups. Yussef el Mekru and Justus Zehor stood aside, looking undecided; only di Strozza seemed oblivious to this cleavage of the robber band.
The Hyrkanian was about to say more, when another figure shouldered men aside and strode in. It was the Seljuk, Kai Shah, and Conan noted that he lacked his mail shirt and that his garments were different from those he had worn earlier in the night. More, his left arm was bandaged and bound close to his chest and his dark face was somewhat pale.
At the sight of him di Strozza’s calm for the first time deserted him; he started violently.
“Where is Musa bin Daoud?” he exclaimed.
“Aye!” answered the Turanian angrily. “Where is Musa bin Daoud?”
“I left him with you!” cried di Strozza fiercely, while the others gaped, not understanding this byplay.
“But you planned with him to elude me,” accused the Seljuk.
“You are mad!” shouted di Strozza, losing his self-control entirely.
“Mad?” snarled the Turanian. “I have been searching for the dog through the dark corridors. If you and he are acting in good faith, why did you not return to the chamber, when you went forth to meet Mahmoud whom we heard coming along the corridor? When you came not back I stepped to the door to peer out for you, and when I turned back, Musa had darted through some secret opening like a rat—”
Di Strozza almost frothed at the mouth. “You fool!” he screamed, “keep silent!”
“I will see you in Gehennum and all our throats cut before I let you cozen me!” roared the Turanian, ripping out his scimitar. “What have you done with Musa?”
“You fool of Hell,” raved di Strozza, “I have been in this chamber ever since I left you! You knew that Khauranian dog would play us false if he got the opportunity and—”
And at that instant when the air was already supercharged with tension, a terrified slave rushed in at a blind, stumbling run, to fall gibbering at di Strozza’s feet.
“The gods!” he howled. “The black gods! Aie! The cavern under the floors and the djinn in the rock!”
“What are you yammering about, dog?” roared the Hyrkanian, knocking the slave to the floor with an open-handed blow.
“I found the forbidden door open,” screeched the fellow. “A stair goes down—it leads into a fearful cavern with a terrible altar on which frown gigantic demons—and at the foot of the stairs—the lord Musa—”
“What!” di Strozza’s eyes blazed and he shook the slave as a dog shakes a rat.
“Dead!” gasped the wretch between chattering teeth.
Cursing terribly, di Strozza knocked men aside in his rush to the door; with a vengeful howl Kai Shah pelted after him, slashing right and left to clear a way. Men gave back from his flashing blade, howling as the keen edge slit their skins. The Hyrkanian and his erstwhile comrade ran down the corridor, di Strozza dragging the screaming slave after him, and the rest of the pack gave tongue in rage and bewilderment and took after them. Conan swore in amazement and followed, determined to see the mad game through.
Down winding corridors di Strozza led the pack, down broad stairs, until he came to a huge iron door that now swung open. Here the horde hesitated.
“This is in truth the forbidden door,” muttered an soldier. “The brand is on my back that Skol put there merely because I lingered too long before it once.”
“Aye,” agreed a Iranistani. “It leads into places once sealed up by the Shemites long ago. None but Skol ever passed through that door—he and the Keshan and the captives who came not forth. It is a haunt of devils.”
Di Strozza snarled in disgust and strode through the doorway. He had snatched a torch as he ran and he held this high in one hand. Broad steps showed, leading downward, and cut out of solid rock. They were on the lower floor of the castle; these steps led into the bowels of the earth. As di Strozza strode down, dragging the howling, naked slave, the high-held torch lighting the black stone steps and casting long shadows into the darkness before them, the Hyrkanian looked like a demon dragging a soul into Hell.
Kai Shah was close behind him with his drawn scimitar, with Nadir Tous and Kojar Mirza crowding him close. The ragged crew had, with unaccustomed courtesy, drawn back to let the lord Conan through and now they followed, uneasily and casting apprehensive glances to all sides.
Many carried torches, and as their light flowed into the depths below a medley of affrighted yells went up. From the darkness huge evil eyes glimmered and titanic shapes loomed vaguely in the gloom. The mob wavered, ready to stampede, but di Strozza strode stolidly downward and the pack called on Allah and followed. Now the light showed a huge cavern in the center of which stood a black and utterly abhorrent altar, hideously stained, and flanked with grinning skulls laid out in strangely systematic lines. The horrific figures were disclosed to be huge images, carved from the solid rock of the cavern walls, strange, bestial, gigantic gods, whose huge eyes of some glassy substance caught the torchlight.
The blood in Conan sent a shiver down his spine. Acheron built the foundations of this fortress? Bah—no ancient race ever carved such gods as these. No; an aura of unspeakable antiquity brooded over this grim cavern, as if the forbidden door were a mystic threshold over which the adventurer stepped into an elder world. No wonder mad dreams were here bred in the frenzied brain of Skol Abdhur. These gods were grim vestiges of an older, darker race than Acheron or Atlantis—a people long faded into the gloom of antiquity. Some still more ancient, more abysmal people.
The age of Hyboria was as dawn before these ancient figures, yet doubtless many kings bowed to these gods, as Yildiz bowed to many gods before his maddened brain made himself a deity.
At the foot of the stairs lay a crumpled shape—Musa bin Daoud. His face was twisted in horror. A medley of shouts went up: “The djinn have taken the Khauranian! Let us begone! This is an evil place!”
“Be silent, you fools!” roared Nadir Tous. “A mortal blade slew Musa—see, he has been slashed through the breast and his bones are broken. See how he lies. Someone slew him and flung him down the stairs—”
The Iranistani'svoice trailed off, as his gaze followed his own pointing fingers. Musa’s left arm was outstretched and his fingers had been hacked away.
“He held something in that hand,” whispered Nadir Tous. “So hard he gripped it that his slayer was forced to cut off his fingers to obtain it—”
Men thrust torches into niches on the wall and crowded nearer, their superstitious fears forgotten.
“Aye!” exclaimed Conan, having pieced together some of the bits of the puzzle in his mind. “It was the gem! Musa and Kai Shah and di Strozza killed Skol, and Musa had the gem. There was blood on Abdullah’s sword and Kai Shah has a broken arm—shattered by the sweep of the Keshan’s great scimitar. Whoever slew Musa has the gem.”
Di Strozza screamed like a wounded panther. He shook the wretched slave.
“Dog, have you the gem?”
The slave began a frenzied denial, but his voice broke in a ghastly gurgle as di Strozza, in a very fit of madness, jerked his sword edge across the wretch’s throat and flung the blood-spurting body from him. The Hyrkanian whirled on Kai Shah.
“You slew Musa!” he screamed. “He was with you last! You have the gem!”
“You lie!” exclaimed the Turanian, his dark face an ashy pallor. “You slew him yourself—”
His words ended in a gasp as di Strozza, foaming at the mouth and all sanity gone from his eyes, ran his sword straight through the Turanian’s body. Kai Shah swayed like a sapling in the wind; then as di Strozza withdrew the blade, the Seljuk hacked through the Hyrkanian's temple, and as Kai Shah reeled, dying on his feet but clinging to life with the tenacity of the Turanian, Nadir Tous leaped like a panther and beneath his flashing scimitar Kai Shah dropped dead across the dead Hyrkanian.
Forgetting all else in his lust for the gem, Nadir Tous bent over his victim, tearing at his garments—bent further as if in a deep salaam and sank down on the dead men, his own skull split to the teeth by Kojar Mirza’s stroke. The man bent to search the Turanian, but straightened swiftly to meet the attack of Shalmar Khor. In an instant the scene was one of ravening madness, where men hacked and slew and died blindly. The flickering torches lit the scene, and Conan, backing away toward the stairs, swore amazedly. He had seen men go mad before, but this exceeded anything he had ever witnessed.
Kojar Mirza slew Selim and wounded another, but Shalmar Khor slashed through his arm-muscles, Justus Zehor ran in and stabbed the man in the ribs, and Kojar Mirza went down, snapping like a dying wolf, to be hacked to pieces.
Justus Zehor and Yussef el Mekru seemed to have taken sides at last; he had thrown in his lot with Shalmar Khor, while the Shemite rallied to him some Turanians. But besides these loosely knit bands of rivals, various warriors, mainly the Iranistanis of Nadir Tous, raged through the strife, foaming at the mouth and striking all impartially. In an instant a dozen men were down, dying and trampled by the living. Justus Zehor fought with a long knife in each hand and he wrought red havoc before he sank, skull cleft, throat slashed and belly ripped up.
Even while they fought, the warriors had managed to tear to shreds the clothing of Kai Shah and di Strozza. Finding naught there, they howled like wolves and fell to their deadly work with new frenzy. A madness was on them; each time a man fell, others seized him, ripping his garments apart in search for the gem, slashing at each other as they did so.
Conan saw Jacob trying to steal to the stairs, and even as the Cimmerian decided to withdraw himself, a thought came to the brain of Yussef el Mekru. Shemite-like, the Yemenite had fought more coolly than the others, and perhaps he had, even in the frenzy of combat, decided on his own interests. Possibly, seeing that all the leaders were down except Shalmar Khor, he decided it would be best to reunite the band, if possible, and it could be best done by directing their attention against a common foe. Perhaps he honestly thought that since the gem had not been found, Conan had it. At any rate, the Sheikh suddenly tore away and pointing a lean arm toward the giant figure at the foot of the stairs, screamed: “There, there! There stands the thief! Slay the Nazarene!”
It was good psychology. There was an instant of bewildered pause in the battle, then a bloodthirsty howl went up and from a tangled battle of rival factions, the brawl became instantly a charge of a solid compact body that rushed wild-eyed on Conan howling: “Slay the Cimmerian!”
Conan snarled in disgusted irritation. He should have anticipated that. No time to escape now; he braced himself and met the charge. A man, rushing in headlong, was impaled on the Cimmerian’s long blade, and a giant Circassian, hurling his full weight on the kite-shaped shield, rebounded as from an iron tower. Conan thundered his battle cry in a deep-toned roar that drowned the howls of the attackers; he freed his blade and swung the heavy weapon in a crashing arc. Swords shivered to singing sparks and the warriors gave back. They plunged on again as Yussef el Mekru lashed them with burning words. A big soldier broke his sword on Conan’s helmet and went down with his skull split. A Turanian slashed at the Cimmerian’s face and howled as his wrist was caught on the sword, and the hand flew from it.
