HYBORIANAGE - Вклад участника [ru]

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«The Tower of the Elephant»/«Башня слона»

2017-12-13T13:44:58Z

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«The Scarlet Citadel»/«Алая цитадель»

2017-12-13T13:44:21Z

«The Devil in Iron»/«Железный демон»

2017-12-13T13:44:10Z

Bingam:

«The Phoenix on the Sword»/«Феникс на мече»

2017-12-13T13:43:19Z

Bingam:

«The Phoenix on the Sword»/«Феникс на мече»

2017-12-13T13:43:05Z

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«The Phoenix on the Sword»/«Феникс на мече»

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=«The Phoenix on the Sword»=

__TOC__

== I ==

''"Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars--Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet."--The Nemedian Chronicles.''

Over shadowy spire's and gleaming towers lay the ghostly darkness and silence that runs before dawn. Into a dim alley, one of a veritable labyrinth of mysterious winding ways, four masked figures came hurriedly from a door which a dusky hand furtively opened. They spoke not but went swiftly into the gloom, cloaks wrapped closely about them; as silently as the ghosts of murdered men they disappeared in the darkness. Behind them a sardonic countenance was framed in the partly opened door; a pair of evil eyes glittered malevolently in the gloom.

"Go into the night, creatures of the night," a voice mocked. "Oh, fools, your doom hounds your heels like a blind dog, and you know it not." The speaker closed the door and bolted it, then turned and went up the corridor, candle in hand. He was a somber giant, whose dusky skin revealed his Stygian blood. He came into an inner chamber, where a tall, lean man in worn velvet lounged like a great lazy cat on a silken couch, sipping wine from a huge golden goblet.

"Well, Ascalante," said the Stygian, setting down the candle, "your dupes have slunk into the streets like rats from their burrows. You work with strange tools."

"Tools?" replied Ascalante. "Why, they consider me that. For months now, ever since the Rebel Four summoned me from the southern desert, I have been living in the very heart of my enemies, hiding by day in this obscure house, skulking through dark alleys and darker corridors at night. And I have accomplished what those rebellious nobles could not. Working through them, and through other agents, many of whom have never seen my face, I have honeycombed the empire with sedition and unrest. In short I, working in the shadows, have paved the downfall of the king who sits throned in the sun. By Mitra, I was a statesman before I was an outlaw."

"And these dupes who deem themselves your masters?"

"They will continue to think that I serve them, until our present task is completed. Who are they to match wits with Ascalante? Volmana, the dwarfish count of Karaban; Gromel, the giant commander of the Black Legion; Dion, the fat baron of Attalus; Rinaldo, the hare-brained minstrel. I am the force which has welded together the steel in each, and by the clay in each, I will crush them when the time comes. But that lies in the future; tonight the king dies."

"Days ago I saw the imperial squadrons ride from the city," said the Stygian. "They rode to the frontier which the heathen Picts assail--thanks to the strong liquor which I've smuggled over the borders to madden them. Dion's great wealth made that possible. And Volmana made it possible to dispose of the rest of the imperial troops which remained in the city. Through his princely kin in Nemedia, it was easy to persuade King Numa to request the presence of Count Trocero of Poitain, seneschal of Aquilonia; and of course, to do him honor, he'll be accompanied by an imperial escort, as well as his own troops, and Prospero, King Conan's rightÂhand man. That leaves only the king's personal bodyguard in the city--beside3 the Black Legion. Through Gromel I've corrupted a spendthrift officer of that guard, and bribed him to lead his men away from the king's door at midnight.

"Then, with sixteen desperate rogues of mine, we enter the palace by a secret tunnel. After the deed is done, even if the people do not rise to welcome us, Gromel's Black Legion will be sufficient to hold the city and the crown."

"And Dion thinks that crown will be given to him?"

"Yes. The fat fool claims it by reason of a trace of royal blood. Conan makes a bad mistake in letting men live who still boast descent from the old dynasty, from which he tore the crown of Aquilonia.

"Volmana wishes to be reinstated in royal favor as he was under the old regime, so that he may lift his poverty-ridden estates to their former grandeur. Gromel hates Pallantides, commander of the Black Dragons, and desires the command of the whole army, with all the stubbornness of the Bossonian. Alone of us all, Rinaldo has no personal ambition. He sees in Conan a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land. He idealizes the king whom Conan killed to get the crown, remembering only that he occasionally patronized the arts, and forgetting the evils of his reign, and he is making the people forget. Already they openly sing The Lament for the King in which Rinaldo lauds the sainted villain and denounces Conan as 'that black-hearted savage from the abyss.' Conan laughs, but the people snarl."

"Why does he hate Conan?"

"Poets always hate those in power. To them perfection is always just behind the last corner, or beyond the next. They escape the present in dreams of the past and future. Rinaldo is a flaming torch of idealism, rising, as he thinks, to overthrow a tyrant and liberate the people. As for me--well, a few months ago I had lost all ambition but to raid the caravans for the rest of my life; now old dreams stir. Conan will die; Dion will mount the throne. Then he, too, will die. One by one, all who oppose me will die--by fire, or steel, or those deadly wines you know so well how to brew. Ascalante, king of Aquilonia! How like you the sound of it?"

The Stygian shrugged his broad shoulders.

"There was a time," he said with unconcealed bitterness, "when I, too, had my ambitions, beside which yours seem tawdry and childish. To what a state I have fallen! My old-time peers and rivals would stare indeed could they see Thoth-amon of the Ring serving as the slave of an outlander, and an outlaw at that; and aiding in the petty ambitions of barons and kings!"

"You laid your trust in magic and mummery," answered Ascalante carelessly. "I trust my wits and my sword."

"Wits and swords are as straws against the wisdom of the Darkness," growled the Stygian, his dark eyes flickering with menacing lights and shadows. "Had I not lost the Ring, our positions might be reversed."

"Nevertheless," answered the outlaw impatiently, "you wear the stripes of my whip on your back, and are likely to continue to wear them."

"Be not so sure!" the fiendish hatred of the Stygian glittered for an instant redly in his eyes. "Some day, somehow, I will find the Ring again, and when I do, by the serpent-fangs of Set, you shall pay--"

The hot-tempered Aquilonian started up and struck him heavily across the mouth. Thoth reeled back, blood starting from his lips.

"You grow overbold, dog," growled the outlaw. "Have a care; I am still your master who knows your dark secret. Go upon the housetops and shout that Ascalante is in the city plotting against the king--if you dare."

"I dare not," muttered the Stygian, wiping the blood from his lips.

"No, you do not dare," Ascalante grinned bleakly. "For if I die by your stealth or treachery, a hermit priest in the southern desert will know of it, and will break the seal of a manuscript I left in his hands. And having read, a word will be whispered in Stygia, and a wind will creep up from the south by midnight. And where will you hide your head, Thoth-amon?"

The slave shuddered and his dusky face went ashen.

"Enough!" Ascalante changed his tone peremptorily. "I have work for you. I do not trust Dion. I bade him ride to his country estate and remain there until the work tonight is done. The fat fool could never conceal his nervousness before the king today. Ride after him, and if you do not overtake him on the road, proceed to his estate and remain with him until we send for him. Don't let him out of your sight. He is mazed with fear, and might bolt--might even rush to Conan in a panic, and reveal the whole plot, hoping thus to save his own hide. Go!"

The slave bowed, hiding the hate in his eyes, and did as he was bidden. Ascalante turned again to his wine. Over the jeweled spires was rising a dawn crimson as blood.

== II ==

When I was a fighting man, the kettle drums they beat, The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet; But now I am a great king, the people hound my track With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back.

The room was large and ornate, with rich tapestries on the polished-panelled walls, deep rugs on the ivory floor, and with the lofty ceiling adorned with intricate carvings and silver scrollwork. Behind an ivory, gold-inlaid writing-table sat a man whose broad shoulders and sun-browned skin seemed out of place among those luxuriant surroundings. He seemed more a part of the sun and winds and high places of the outlands. His slightest movement spoke of steel-spring muscles knit to a keen brain with the co-ordination of a born fighting man. There was nothing deliberate or measured about his actions. Either he was perfectly at rest--still as a bronze statue--or else he was in motion, not with the jerky quickness of overtense nerves, but with a catlike speed that blurred the sight which tried to follow him.

His garments were of rich fabric, but simply made. He wore no ring or ornaments, and his square-cut black mane was confined merely by a cloth-of-silver band about his head.

Now he laid down the golden stylus with which he had been laboriously scrawling on waxed papyrus, rested his chin on his fist, and fixed his smoldering blue eyes enviously on the man who stood before him. This person was occupied in his own affairs at the moment, for he was taking up the laces of his gold-chased armor, and abstractedly whistling--a rather unconventional performance, considering that he was in the presence of a king.

"Prospero," said the man at the table, "these matters of statecraft weary me as all the fighting I have done never did."

"All part of the game, Conan," answered the dark-eyed Poitainian. "You are king--you must play the part."

"I wish I might ride with you to Nemedia," said Conan enviously. "It seems ages since I had a horse between my knees--but Publius says that affairs in the city require my presence. Curse him!

"When I overthrew the old dynasty," he continued, speaking with the easy familiarity which existed only between the Poitainian and himself, "it was easy enough, though it seemed bitter hard at the time. Looking back now over the wild path I followed, all those days of toil, intrigue, slaughter and tribulation seem like a dream.

"I did not dream far enough, Prospero. When King Numedides lay dead at my feet and I tore the crown from his gory head and set it on my own, I had reached the ultimate border of my dreams. I had prepared myself to take the crown, not to hold it. In the old free days all I wanted was a sharp sword and a straight path to my enemies. Now no paths are straight and my sword is useless.

"When I overthrew Numedides, then I was the Liberator--now they spit at my shadow. They have put a statue of that swine in the temple of Mitra, and people go and wail before it, hailing it as the holy effigy of a saintly monarch who was done to death by a red-handed barbarian. When I led her armies to victory as a mercenary, Aquilonia overlooked the fact that I was a foreigner, but now she can not forgive me.

"Now in Mitra's temple there come to burn incense to Numedides' memory, men whom his hangmen maimed and blinded, men whose sons died in his dungeons, whose wives and daughters were dragged into his seraglio. The fickle fools!"

"Rinaldo is largely responsible," answered Prospero, drawing up his sword belt another notch. "He sings songs that make men mad. Hang him in his jester's garb to the highest tower in the city. Let him make rimes for the vultures."

Conan shook his lion head. "No, Prospero, he's beyond my reach. A great poet is greater than any king. His songs are mightier than my scepter; for he has near ripped the heart from my breast when he chose to sing for me. I shall die and be forgotten, but Rinaldo's songs will live for ever.

"No, Prospero," the king continued, a somber look of doubt shadowing his eyes, "there is something hidden, some undercurrent of which we are not aware. I sense it as in my youth I sensed the tiger hidden in the tall grass. There is a nameless unrest throughout the kingdom. I am like a hunter who crouches by his small fire amid the forest, and hears stealthy feet padding in the darkness, and almost sees the glimmer of burning eyes. If I could but come to grips with something tangible, that I could cleave with my sword! I tell you, it's not by chance that the Picts have of late so fiercely assailed the frontiers, so that the Bossonians have called for aid to beat them back. I should have ridden with the troops."

"Publius feared a plot to trap and slay you beyond the frontier," replied Prospero, smoothing his silken surcoat over his shining mail, and admiring his tall lithe figure in a silver mirror. "That's why he urged you to remain in the city. These doubts are born of your barbarian instincts. Let the people snarl! The mercenaries are ours, and the Black Dragons, and every rogue in Poitain swears by you. Your only danger is assassination, and that's impossible, with men of the imperial troops guarding you day and night. What are you working at there?"

"A map," Conan answered with pride. "The maps of the court show well the countries of south, east and west, but in the north they are vague and faulty. I am adding the northern lands myself. Here is Cimmeria, where I was born. And--"

"Asgard and Vanaheim," Prospero scanned the map. "By Mitra, I had almost believed those countries to have been fabulous."

Conan grinned savagely, involuntarily touching the scars on his dark face. "You had known otherwise, had you spent your youth on the northern frontiers of Cimmeria! Asgard lies to the north, and Vanaheim to the northwest of Cimmeria, and there is continual war along the borders."

"What manner of men are these northern folk?" asked Prospero.

"Tall and fair and blue-eyed. Their god is Ymir, the frost-giant, and each tribe has its own king. They are wayward and fierce. They fight all day and drink ale and roar their wild songs all night."

"Then I think you are like them," laughed Prospero. "You laugh greatly, drink deep and bellow good songs; though I never saw another Cimmerian who drank aught but water, or who ever laughed, or ever sang save to chant dismal dirges."

"Perhaps it's the land they live in," answered the king. "A gloomier land never was--all of hills, darkly wooded, under skies nearly always gray, with winds moaning drearily down the valleys."

"Little wonder men grow moody there," quoth Prospero with a shrug of his shoulders, thinking of the smiling sun-washed plains and blue lazy rivers of Poitain, Aquilonia's southernmost province.

"They have no hope here or hereafter," answered Conan. "Their gods are Crom and his dark race, who rule over a sunless place of everlasting mist, which is the world of the dead. Mitra! The ways of the AEsir were more to my liking."

"Well," grinned Prospero, "the dark hills of Cimmeria are far behind you. And now I go. I'll quaff a goblet of white Nemedian wine for you at Numa's court."

"Good," grunted the king, "but kiss Numa's dancing girls for yourself only, lest you involve the states!"

His gusty laughter followed Prospero out of the chamber.

== III ==

Under the caverned pyramids great Set coils asleep; Among the shadows of the tombs his dusky people creep. I speak the Word from the hidden gulfs that never knew the sun Send me a servant for my hate, oh scaled and shining One!

The sun was setting, etching the green and hazy blue of the forest in brief gold. The waning beams glinted on the thick golden chain which Dion of Attalus twisted continually in his pudgy hand as he sat in the flaming riot of blossoms and flowerÂtrees which was his garden. He shifted his fat body on his marble seat and glanced furtively about, as if in quest of a lurking enemy. He sat within a circular grove of slender trees, whose interlapping branches cast a thick shade over him. Near at hand a fountain tinkled silverly, and other unseen fountains in various parts of the great garden whispered an everlasting symphony.

Dion was alone except for the great dusky figure which lounged on a marble bench close at hand, watching the baron with deep somber eyes. Dion gave little thought to Thoth-amon. He vaguely knew that he was a slave in whom Ascalante reposed much trust, but like so many rich men, Dion paid scant heed to men below his own station in life.

"You need not be so nervous," said Thoth. "The plot can not fail."

"Ascalante can make mistakes as well as another," snapped Dion, sweating at the mere thought of failure.

"Not he," grinned the Stygian savagely, "else I had not been his slave, but his master. "

"What talk is this?" peevishly returned Dion, with only half a mind on the conversation.

Thoth-amon's eyes narrowed. For all his iron self-control, he was near bursting with long pent-up shame, hate and rage, ready to take any sort of a desperate chance. What he did not reckon on was the fact that Dion saw him, not as a human being with a brain and a wit, but simply a slave, and as such, a creature beneath notice.

"Listen to me," said Thoth. "You will be king. But you little know the mind of Ascalante. You can not trust him, once Conan is slain. I can help you. If you will protect me when you come to power, I will aid you.

"Listen, my lord. I was a great sorcerer in the south. Men spoke of ThothÂamon as they spoke of Rammon. King Ctesphon of Stygia gave me great honor, casting down the magicians from the high places to exalt me above them. They hated me, but they feared me, for I controlled beings from outside which came at my call and did my bidding. By Set, mine enemy knew not the hour when he might awake at midnight to feel the taloned fingers of a nameless horror at his throat! I did dark and terrible magic with the Serpent Ring of Set, which I found in a nighted tomb a league beneath the earth, forgotten before the first man crawled out of the slimy sea.

"But a thief stole the Ring and my power was broken. The magicians rose up to slay me, and I fled. Disguised as a camel driver, I was travelling in a caravan in the land of Koth, when Ascalante's reavers fell upon us. All in the caravan were slain except myself; I saved my life by revealing my identity to Ascalante and swearing to serve him. Bitter has been that bondage!

"To hold me fast, he wrote of me in a manuscript, and sealed it and gave it into the hands of a hermit who dwells on the southern borders of Koth. I dare not strike a dagger into him while he sleeps, or betray him to his enemies, for then the hermit would open the manuscript and read--thus Ascalante instructed him. And he would speak a word in Stygia--"

Again Thoth shuddered and an ashen hue tinged his dusky skin.

"Men knew me not in Aquilonia," he said. "But should my enemies in Stygia learn my whereabouts, not the width of half a world between us would suffice to save me from such a doom as would blast the soul of a bronze statue. Only a king with castles and hosts of swordsmen could protect me. So I have told you my secret, and urge that you make a pact with me. I can aid you with my wisdom, and you can protect me. And some day I will find the Ring--"

"Ring? Ring?" Thoth had underestimated the man's utter egoism. Dion had not even been listening to the slave's words, so completely engrossed was he in his own thoughts, but the final word stirred a ripple in his self-centeredness.

"Ring?" he repeated. "That makes me remember--my ring of good fortune. I had it from a Shemitish thief who swore he stole it from a wizard far to the south, and that it would bring me luck. I paid him enough, Mitra knows. By the gods, I need all the luck I can have, what with Volmana and Ascalante dragging me into their bloody plots--I'll see to the ring."

Thoth sprang up, blood mounting darkly to his face, while his eyes flamed with the stunned fury of a man who suddenly realizes the full depths of a fool's swinish stupidity. Dion never heeded him. Lifting a secret lid in the marble seat, he fumbled for a moment among a heap of gewgaws of various kinds--barbaric charms, bits of bones, pieces of tawdry jewelry--luck pieces and conjures which the man's superstitious nature had prompted him to collect.

"Ah, here it is!" He triumphantly lifted a ring of curious make. It was of a metal like copper, and was made in the form of a scaled serpent, coiled in three loops, with its tail in its mouth. Its eyes were yellow gems which glittered balefully. Thoth-amon cried out as if he had been struck, and Dion wheeled and gaped, his face suddenly bloodless. The slave's eyes were blazing, his mouth wide, his huge dusky hands outstretched like talons.

"The Ring! By Set! The Ring!" he shrieked. "My Ring--stolen from me--" Steel glittered in the Stygian's hand and with a heave of his great dusky shoulders he drove the dagger into the baron's fat body. Dion's high thin squeal broke in a strangled gurgle and his whole flabby frame collapsed like melted butter. A fool to the end, he died in mad terror, not knowing why. Flinging aside the crumpled corpse, already forgetful of it, Thoth grasped the ring in both hands, his dark eyes blazing with a fearful avidness.

"My Ring!" he whispered in terrible exultation. "My power!"

How long he crouched over the baleful thing, motionless as a statue, drinking the evil aura of it into his dark soul, not even the Stygian knew. When he shook himself from his revery and drew back his mind from the nighted abysses where it had been questing, the moon was rising, casting long shadows across the smooth marble back of the garden seat, at the foot of which sprawled the darker shadow which had been the lord of Attalus.

"No more, Ascalante, no more!" whispered the Stygian, and his eyes burned red as a vampire's in the gloom. Stooping, he cupped a handful of congealing blood from the sluggish pool in which his victim sprawled, and rubbed it in the copper serpent's eyes until the yellow sparks were covered by a crimson mask.

"Blind your eyes, mystic serpent," he chanted in a blood-freezing whisper. "Blind your eyes to the moonlight and open them on darker gulfs! What do you see, oh serpent of Set? Whom do you call from the gulfs of the Night? Whose shadow falls on the waning Light? Call him to me, oh serpent of Set!"

Stroking the scales with a peculiar circular motion of his fingers, a motion which always carried the fingers back to their starting place, his voice sank still lower as he whispered dark names and grisly incantations forgotten the world over save in the grim hinterlands of dark Stygia, where monstrous shapes move in the dusk of the tombs.

There was a movement in the air about him, such a swirl as is made in water when some creature rises to the surface. A nameless, freezing wind blew on him briefly, as if from an opened door. Thoth felt a presence at his back, but he did not look about. He kept his eyes fixed on the moonlit space of marble, on which a tenuous shadow hovered. As he continued his whispered incantations, this shadow grew in size and clarity, until it stood out distinct and horrific. Its outline was not unlike that of a gigantic baboon, but no such baboon ever walked the earth, not even in Stygia. Still Thoth did not look, but drawing from his girdle a sandal of his master--always carried in the dim hope that he might be able to put it to such use--he cast it behind him.

"Know it well, slave of the Ring!" he exclaimed. "Find him who wore it and destroy him! Look into his eyes and blast his soul, before you tear out his throat! Kill him! Aye," in a blind burst of passion, "and all with him!"

Etched on the moonlit wall Thoth saw the horror lower its misshapen head and take the scent like some hideous hound. Then the grisly head was thrown back and the thing wheeled and was gone like a wind through the trees. The Stygian flung up his arms in maddened exultation, and his teeth and eyes gleamed in the moonlight.

A soldier on guard without the walls yelled in startled horror as a great loping black shadow with flaming eyes cleared the wall and swept by him with a swirling rush of wind. But it was gone so swiftly that the bewildered warrior was left wondering whether it had been a dream or a hallucination.

== IV ==

When the world was young and men were weak, and the fiends of the night walked free, I strove with Set by fire and steel and the juice of the upas-tree; Now that I sleep in the mount's black heart, and the ages take their toll, Forget ye him who fought with the Snake to save the human soul?

Alone in the great sleeping chamber with its high golden dome King Conan slumbered and dreamed. Through swirling gray mists he heard a curious call, faint and far, and though he did not understand it, it seemed not within his power to ignore it. Sword in hand he went through the gray mist, as a man might walk through clouds, and the voice grew more distinct as he proceeded until he understood the word it spoke--it was his own name that was being called across the gulfs of Space or Time.

Now the mists grew lighter and he saw that he was in a great dark corridor that seemed to be cut in solid black stone. It was unlighted, but by some magic he could see plainly. The floor, ceiling and walls were highly polished and gleamed dull, and they were carved with the figures of ancient heroes and half-forgotten gods. He shuddered to see the vast shadowy outlines of the Nameless Old Ones, and he knew somehow that mortal feet had not traversed the corridor for centuries.

He came upon a wide stair carved in the solid rock, and the sides of the shaft were adorned with esoteric symbols so ancient and horrific that King Conan's skin crawled. The steps were carven each with the abhorrent figure of the Old Serpent, Set, so that at each step he planted his heel on the head of the Snake, as it was intended from old times. But he was none the less at ease for all that.

But the voice called him on, and at last, in darkness that would have been impenetrable to his material eyes, he came into a strange crypt, and saw a vague white-bearded figure sitting on a tomb. Conan's hair rose up and he grasped his sword, but the figure spoke in sepulchral tones.

"Oh man, do you know me?"

"Not I, by Crom!" swore the king.

"Man," said the ancient, "I am Epemitreus."

"But Epemitreus the Sage has been dead for fifteen hundred years!" stammered Conan.

"Harken!" spoke the other commandingly. "As a pebble cast into a dark lake sends ripples to the further shores, happenings in the Unseen world have broken like waves on my slumber. I have marked you well, Conan of Cimmeria, and the stamp of mighty happenings and great deeds is upon you. But dooms are loose in the land, against which your sword can not aid you."

"You speak in riddles," said Conan uneasily. "Let me see my foe and I'll cleave his skull to the teeth."

"Loose your barbarian fury against your foes of flesh and blood," answered the ancient. "It is not against men I must shield you. There are dark worlds barely guessed by man, wherein formless monsters stalk--fiends which may be drawn from the Outer Voids to take material shape and rend and devour at the bidding of evil magicians. There is a serpent in your house, oh king--an adder in your kingdom, come up from Stygia, with the dark wisdom of the shadows in his murky soul. As a sleeping man dreams of the serpent which crawls near him, I have felt the foul presence of Set's neophyte. He is drunk with terrible power, and the blows he strikes at his enemy may well bring down the kingdom. I have called you to me, to give you a weapon against him and his hell hound pack."

"But why?" bewilderedly asked Conan. "Men say you sleep in the black heart of Golamira, whence you send forth your ghost on unseen wings to aid Aquilonia in times of need, but I--I am an outlander and a barbarian."

"Peace!" the ghostly tones reverberated through the great shadowy cavern. "Your destiny is one with Aquilonia. Gigantic happenings are forming in the web and the womb of Fate, and a blood-mad sorcerer shall not stand in the path of imperial destiny. Ages ago Set coiled about the world like a python about its prey. All my life, which was as the lives of three common men, I fought him. I drove him into the shadows of the mysterious south, but in dark Stygia men still worship him who to us is the archdemon. As I fought Set, I fight his worshippers and his votaries and his acolytes. Hold out your sword."

Wondering, Conan did so, and on the great blade, close to the heavy silver guard, the ancient traced with a bony finger a strange symbol that glowed like white fire in the shadows. And on the instant crypt, tomb and ancient vanished, and Conan, bewildered, sprang from his couch in the great golden-domed chamber. And as he stood, bewildered at the strangeness of his dream, he realized that he was gripping his sword in his hand. And his hair prickled at the nape of his neck, for on the broad blade was carven a symbol--the outline of a phoenix. And he remembered that on the tomb in the crypt he had seen what he had thought to be a similar figure, carven of stone. Now he wondered if it had been but a stone figure, and his skin crawled at the strangeness of it all.

Then as he stood, a stealthy sound in the corridor outside brought him to life, and without stopping to investigate, he began to don his armor; again he was the barbarian, suspicious and alert as a gray wolf at bay.

== V ==

What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs--I was a man before I was a king.

Through the silence which shrouded the corridor of the royal palace stole twenty furtive figures. Their stealthy feet, bare or cased in soft leather, made no sound either on thick carpet or bare marble tile. The torches which stood in niches along the halls gleamed red on dagger, sword and keen-edged ax.

"Easy all!" hissed Ascalante. "Stop that cursed loud breathing, whoever it is! The officer of the night guard has removed most of the sentries from these halls and made the rest drunk, but we must be careful, just the same. Back! Here come the guard!"

They crowded back behind a cluster of carven pillars, and almost immediately ten giants in black armor swung by at a measured pace. Their faces showed doubt as they glanced at the officer who was leading them away from their post of duty. This officer was rather pale; as the guard passed the hiding places of the conspirators, he was seen to wipe the sweat from his brow with a shaky hand. He was young, and this betrayal of a king did not come easy to him. He mentally cursed the vainglorious extravagance which had put him in debt to the moneylenders and made him a pawn of scheming politicians.

The guardsmen clanked by and disappeared up the corridor.

"Good!" grinned Ascalante. "Conan sleeps unguarded. Haste! If they catch us killing him, we're undone--but few men will espouse the cause of a dead king."

"Aye, haste!" cried Rinaldo, his blue eyes matching the gleam of the sword he swung above his head. "My blade is thirsty! I hear the gathering of the vultures! On!"

They hurried down the corridor with reckless speed and stopped before a gilded door which bore the royal dragon symbol of Aquilonia.

"Gromel!" snapped Ascalante. "Break me this door open!"

The giant drew a deep breath and launched his mighty frame against the panels, which groaned and bent at the impact. Again he crouched and plunged. With a snapping of bolts and a rending crash of wood, the door splintered and burst inward.

"In!" roared Ascalante, on fire with the spirit of the deed.

"In!" yelled Rinaldo. "Death to the tyrant!"

They stopped short. Conan faced them, not a naked man roused mazed and unarmed out of deep sleep to be butchered like a sheep, but a barbarian wide-awake and at bay, partly armored, and with his long sword in his hand.

For an instant the tableau held--the four rebel noblemen in the broken door, and the horde of wild hairy faces crowding behind them--all held momentarily frozen by the sight of the blazing-eyed giant standing sword in hand in the middle of the candle-lighted chamber. In that instant Ascalante beheld, on a small table near the royal couch, the silver scepter and the slender gold circlet which was the crown of Aquilonia, and the sight maddened him with desire.

"In, rogues!" yelled the outlaw. "He is one to twenty and he has no helmet!"

True; there had been lack of time to don the heavy plumed casque, or to lace in place the sideplates of the cuirass, nor was there now time to snatch the great shield from the wall. Still, Conan was better protected than any of his foes except Volmana and Gromel, who were in full armor.

The king glared, puzzled as to their identity. Ascalante he did not know; he could not see through the closed vizors of the armored conspirators, and Rinaldo had pulled his slouch cap down above his eyes. But there was no time for surmise. With a yell that rang to the roof, the killers flooded into the room, Gromel first. He came like a charging bull, head down, sword low for the disembowelling thrust. Conan sprang to meet him, and all his tigerish strength went into the arm that swung the sword. In a whistling arc the great blade flashed through the air and crashed on the Bossonian's helmet. Blade and casque shivered together and Gromel rolled lifeless on the floor. Conan bounded back, still gripping the broken hilt.

"Gromel!" he spat, his eyes blazing in amazement, as the shattered helmet disclosed the shattered head; then the rest of the pack were upon him. A dagger point raked along his ribs between breastplate and backplate, a sword edge flashed before his eyes. He flung aside the dagger wielder with his left arm, and smashed his broken hilt like a cestus into the swordsman's temple. The man's brains spattered in his face.

"Watch the door, five of you!" screamed Ascalante, dancing about the edge of the singing steel whirlpool, for he feared that Conan might smash through their midst and escape. The rogues drew back momentarily, as their leader seized several and thrust them toward the single door, and in that brief respite Conan leaped to the wall and tore therefrom an ancient battle-ax which, untouched by time, had hung there for half a century.

With his back to the wall he faced the closing ring for a flashing instant, then leaped into the thick of them. He was no defensive fighter; even in the teeth of overwhelming odds he always carried the war to the enemy. Any other man would have already died there, and Conan himself did not hope to survive, but he did ferociously wish to inflict as much damage as he could before he fell. His barbaric soul was ablaze, and the chants of old heroes were singing in his ears.

As he sprang from the wall his ax dropped an outlaw with a severed shoulder, and the terrible backhand return crushed the skull of another. Swords whined venomously about him, but death passed him by breathless margins. The Cimmerian moved in, a blur of blinding speed. He was like a tiger among baboons as he leaped, side-stepped and spun, offering an ever-moving target, while his ax wove a shining wheel of death about him.

For a brief space the assassins crowded him fiercely, raining blows blindly and hampered by their own numbers; then they gave back suddenly--two corpses on the floor gave mute evidence of the king's fury, though Conan himself was bleeding from wounds on arm, neck and legs.

"Knaves!" screamed Rinaldo, dashing off his feathered cap, his wild eyes glaring. "Do ye shrink from the combat? Shall the despot live? Out on it!"

He rushed in, hacking madly, but Conan, recognizing him, shattered his sword with a short terrific chop and with a powerful push of his open hand sent him reeling to the floor. The king took Ascalante's point in his left arm, and the outlaw barely saved his life by ducking and springing backward from the swinging ax. Again the wolves swirled in and Conan's ax sang and crushed. A hairy rascal stooped beneath its stroke and dived at the king's legs, but after wrestling for a brief instant at what seemed a solid iron tower, glanced up in time to see the ax falling, but not in time to avoid it. In the interim one of his comrades lifted a broadsword with both hands and hewed through the king's left shoulderplate, wounding the shoulder beneath. In an instant Conan's cuirass was full of blood.

Volmana, flinging the attackers right and left in his savage impatience, came plowing through and hacked murderously at Conan's unprotected head. The king ducked deeply and the sword shaved off a lock of his black hair as it whistled above him. Conan pivoted on his heel and struck in from the side. The ax crunched through the steel cuirass and Volmana crumpled with his whole left side caved in.

"Volmana!" gasped Conan breathlessly. "I'll know that dwarf in Hell--" He straightened to meet the maddened rush of Rinaldo, who charged in wild and wide open, armed only with a dagger. Conan leaped back, lifting his ax.

"Rinaldo!" his voice was strident with desperate urgency. "Back! I would not slay you--"

"Die, tyrant!" screamed the mad minstrel, hurling himself headlong on the king. Conan delayed the blow he was loth to deliver, until it was too late. Only when he felt the bite of the steel in his unprotected side did he strike, in a frenzy of blind desperation.

Rinaldo dropped with his skull shattered, and Conan reeled back against the wall, blood spurting from between the fingers which gripped his wound.

"In, now, and slay him!" yelled Ascalante.

Conan put his back against the wall and lifted his ax. He stood like an image of the unconquerable primordial--legs braced far apart, head thrust forward, one hand clutching the wall for support, the other gripping the ax on high, with the great corded muscles standing out in iron ridges, and his features frozen in a death snarl of fury--his eyes blazing terribly through the mist of blood which veiled them. The men faltered--wild, criminal and dissolute though they were, yet they came of a breed men called civilized, with a civilized background; here was the barbarian--the natural killer. They shrank back--the dying tiger could still deal death.

Conan sensed their uncertainty and grinned mirthlessly and ferociously. "Who dies first?" he mumbled through smashed and bloody lips.

Ascalante leaped like a wolf, halted almost in midair with incredible quickness and fell prostrate to avoid the death which was hissing toward him. He frantically whirled his feet out of the way and rolled clear as Conan recovered from his missed blow and struck again. This time the ax sank inches deep into the polished floor close to Ascalante's revolving legs.

Another misguided desperado chose this instant to charge, followed halfÂheartedly by his fellows. He intended killing Conan before the Cimmerian could wrench his ax from the floor, but his judgment was faulty. The red ax lurched up and crashed down and a crimson caricature of a man catapulted back against the legs of the attackers.

At that instant a fearful scream burst from the rogues at the door as a black misshapen shadow fell across the wall. All but Ascalante wheeled at that cry, and then, howling like dogs, they burst blindly through the door in a raving, blaspheming mob, and scattered through the corridors in screaming flight.

Ascalante did not look toward the door; he had eyes only for the wounded king. He supposed that the noise of the fray had at last roused the palace, and that the loyal guards were upon him, though even in that moment it seemed strange that his hardened rogues should scream so terribly in their flight. Conan did not look toward the door because he was watching the outlaw with the burning eyes of a dying wolf. In this extremity Ascalante's cynical philosophy did not desert him.

"All seems to be lost, particularly honor," he murmured. "However, the king is dying on his feet--and--" Whatever other cogitation might have passed through his mind is not to be known; for, leaving the sentence uncompleted, he ran lightly at Conan just as the Cimmerian was perforce employing his ax arm to wipe the blood from his blinded eyes.

But even as he began his charge, there was a strange rushing in the air and a heavy weight struck terrifically between his shoulders. He was dashed headlong and great talons sank agonizingly in his flesh. Writhing desperately beneath his attacker, he twisted his head about and stared into the face of nightmare and lunacy. Upon him crouched a great black thing which he knew was born in no sane or human world. Its slavering black fangs were near his throat and the glare of its yellow eyes shrivelled his limbs as a killing wind shrivels young corn.

The hideousness of its face transcended mere bestiality. It might have been the face of an ancient, evil mummy, quickened with demoniac life. In those abhorrent features the outlaw's dilated eyes seemed to see, like a shadow in the madness that enveloped him, a faint and terrible resemblance to the slave Thoth-amon. Then Ascalante's cynical and all-sufficient philosophy deserted him, and with a ghastly cry he gave up the ghost before those slavering fangs touched him.

Conan, shaking the blood drops from his eyes, stared frozen. At first he thought it was a great black hound which stood above Ascalante's distorted body; then as his sight cleared he saw that it was neither a hound nor a baboon.

With a cry that was like an echo of Ascalante's death shriek, he reeled away from the wall and met the leaping horror with a cast of his ax that had behind it all the desperate power of his electrified nerves. The flying weapon glanced singing from the slanting skull it should have crushed, and the king was hurled half-way across the chamber by the impact of the giant body.

The slavering jaws closed on the arm Conan flung up to guard his throat, but the monster made no effort to secure a death-grip. Over his mangled arm it glared fiendishly into the king's eyes, in which there began to be mirrored a likeness of the horror which stared from the dead eyes of Ascalante. Conan felt his soul shrivel and begin to be drawn out of his body, to drown in the yellow wells of cosmic horror which glimmered spectrally in the formless chaos that was growing about him and engulfing all life and sanity. Those eyes grew and became gigantic, and in them the Cimmerian glimpsed the reality of all the abysmal and blasphemous horrors that lurk in the outer darkness of formless voids and nighted gulfs. He opened his bloody lips to shriek his hate and loathing, but only a dry rattle burst from his throat.

But the horror that paralyzed and destroyed Ascalante roused in the Cimmerian a frenzied fury akin to madness. With a volcanic wrench of his whole body he plunged backward, heedless of the agony of his torn arm, dragging the monster bodily with him. And his outflung hand struck something his dazed fighting brain recognized as the hilt of his broken sword. Instinctively he gripped it and struck with all the power of nerve and thew, as a man stabs with a dagger. The broken blade sank deep and Conan's arm was released as the abhorrent mouth gaped as in agony. The king was hurled violently aside, and lifting himself on one hand he saw, as one mazed, the terrible convulsions of the monster from which thick blood was gushing through the great wound his broken blade had torn. And as he watched, its struggles ceased and it lay jerking spasmodically, staring upward with its grisly dead eyes. Conan blinked and shook the blood from his own eyes; it seemed to him that the thing was melting and disintegrating into a slimy unstable mass.

Then a medley of voices reached his ears, and the room was thronged with the finally roused people of the court--knights, peers, ladies, men-at-arms, councillors--all babbling and shouting and getting in one another's way. The Black Dragons were on hand, wild with rage, swearing and ruffling, with their hands on their hilts and foreign oaths in their teeth. Of the young officer of the door guard nothing was seen, nor was he found then or later, though earnestly sought after.

"Gromel! Volmana! Rinaldo!" exclaimed Publius, the high councillor, wringing his fat hands among the corpses. "Black treachery! Some one shall dance for this! Call the guard."

"The guard is here, you old fool!" cavalierly snapped Pallantides, commander of the Black Dragons, forgetting Publius' rank in the stress of the moment. "Best stop your caterwauling and aid us to bind the king's wounds. He's like to bleed to death."

"Yes, yes!" cried Publius, who was a man of plans rather than action. "We must bind his wounds. Send for every leech of the court! Oh, my lord, what a black shame on the city! Are you entirely slain?"

"Wine!" gasped the king from the couch where they had laid him. They put a goblet to his bloody lips and he drank like a man half dead of thirst.

"Good!" he grunted, falling back. "Slaying is cursed dry work."

They had stanched the flow of blood, and the innate vitality of the barbarian was asserting itself.

"See first to the dagger wound in my side," he bade the court physicians.

"Rinaldo wrote me a deathly song there, and keen was the stylus."

"We should have hanged him long ago," gibbered Publius. "No good can come of poets--who is this?"

He nervously touched Ascalante's body with his sandalled toe.

"By Mitra!" ejaculated the commander. "It is Ascalante, once count of Thune! What devil's work brought him up from his desert haunts?"

"But why does he stare so?" whispered Publius, drawing away, his own eyes wide and a peculiar prickling among the short hairs at the back of his fat neck. The others fell silent as they gazed at the dead outlaw.

"Had you seen what he and I saw," growled the king, sitting up despite the protests of the leeches, "you had not wondered. Blast your own gaze by looking at--" He stopped short, his mouth gaping, his finger pointing fruitlessly. Where the monster had died, only the bare floor met his eyes.

"Crom!" he swore. "The thing's melted back into the foulness which bore it!" "The king is delirious," whispered a noble. Conan heard and swore with barbaric oaths.

"By Badb, Morrigan, Macha and Nemain!" he concluded wrathfully. "I am sane! It was like a cross between a Stygian mummy and a baboon. It came through the door, and Ascalante's rogues fled before it. It slew Ascalante, who was about to run me through. Then it came upon me and I slew it--how I know not, for my ax glanced from it as from a rack. But I think that the Sage Epemitreus had a hand in it--"

"Hark how he names Epemitreus, dead for fifteen hundred years!" they whispered to each other.

"By Ymir!" thundered the king. "This night I talked with Epemitreus! He called to me in my dreams, and I walked down a black stone corridor carved with old gods, to a stone stair on the steps of which were the outlines of Set, until I came to a crypt, and a tomb with a phoenix carved on it--"

"In Mitra's name, lord king, be silent!" It was the high priest of Mitra who cried out, and his countenance was ashen.

Conan threw up his head like a lion tossing back its mane, and his voice was thick with the growl of the angry lion.

"Am I a slave, to shut my mouth at your command?"

"Nay, nay, my lord!" The high priest was trembling, but not through fear of the royal wrath. "I meant no offense." He bent his head close to the king and spoke in a whisper that carried only to Conan's ears.

"My lord, this is a matter beyond human understanding. Only the inner circle of the priestcraft know of the black stone corridor carved in the black heart of Mount Golamira, by unknown hands, or of the phoenix-guarded tomb where Epemitreus was laid to rest fifteen hundred years ago. And since that time no living man has entered it, for his chosen priests, after placing the Sage in the crypt, blocked up the outer entrance of the corridor so that no man could find it, and today not even the high priests know where it is. Only by word of mouth, handed down by the high priests to the chosen few, and jealously guarded, does the inner circle of Mitra's acolytes know of the resting place of Epemitreus in the black heart of Golamira. It is one of the Mysteries, on which Mitra's cult stands."

"I can not say by what magic Epemitreus brought me to him," answered Conan. "But I talked with him, and he made a mark on my sword. Why that mark made it deadly to demons, or what magic lay behind the mark, I know not; but though the blade broke on Gromel's helmet, yet the fragment was long enough to kill the horror."

"Let me see your sword," whispered the high priest from a throat gone suddenly dry.

Conan held out the broken weapon and the high priest cried out and fell to his knees.

"Mitra guard us against the powers of darkness!" he gasped. "The king has indeed talked with Epemitreus this night! There on the sword--it is the secret sign none might make but him--the emblem of the immortal phoenix which broods for ever over his tomb! A candle, quick! Look again at the spot where the king said the goblin died!"

It lay in the shade of a broken screen. They threw the screen aside and bathed the floor in a flood of candle light. And a shuddering silence fell over the people as they looked. Then some fell on their knees calling on Mitra, and some fled screaming from the chamber.

There on the floor where the monster had died, there lay, like a tangible shadow, a broad dark stain that could not be washed out; the thing had left its outline clearly etched in its blood, and that outline was of no being of a sane and normal world. Grim and horrific it brooded there, like the shadow cast by one of the apish gods that squat on the shadowy altars of dim temples in the dark land of Stygia.

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=«Феникс на мече»=

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{{Шаблон:Texts}}

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«The Devil in Iron»/«Железный демон»

2017-12-13T13:42:39Z

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«The Devil in Iron»/«Железный демон»

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=«The Devil in Iron»=

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== I ==

The fisherman loosened his knife in its scabbard. The gesture was instinctive, for what he feared was nothing a knife could slay, not even the saw-edged crescent blade of the Yuetshi that could disembowel a man with an upward stroke. Neither man nor beast threatened him in the solitude which brooded over the castellated isle of Xapur.

He had climbed the cliffs, passed through the jungle that bordered them, and now stood surrounded by evidences of a vanished state. Broken columns glimmered among the trees, the straggling lines of crumbling walls meandered off into the shadows, and under his feet were broad paves, cracked and bowed by roots growing beneath.

The fisherman was typical of his race, that strange people whose origin is lost in the gray dawn of the past, and who have dwelt in their rude fishing huts along the southern shore of the Sea of Vilayet since time immemorial. He was broadly built, with long, apish arms and a mighty chest, but with lean loins and thin, bandy legs. His face was broad, his forehead low and retreating, his hair thick and tangled. A belt for a knife and a rag for a loin cloth were all he wore in the way of clothing.

That he was where he was proved that he was less dully incurious than most of his people. Men seldom visited Xapur. It was uninhabited, all but forgotten, merely one among the myriad isles which dotted the great inland sea. Men called it Xapur, the Fortified, because of its ruins, remnants of some prehistoric kingdom, lost and forgotten before the conquering Hyborians had ridden southward. None knew who reared those stones, though dim legends lingered among the Yuetshi which half intelligibly suggested a connection of immeasurable antiquity between the fishers and the unknown island kingdom.

But it had been a thousand years since any Yuetshi had understood the import of these tales; they repeated them now as a meaningless formula, a gibberish framed to their lips by custom. No Yuetshi had come to Xapur for a century. The adjacent coast of the mainland was uninhabited, a reedy marsh given over to the grim beasts that haunted it. The fisher's village lay some distance to the south, on the mainland. A storm had blown his frail fishing craft far from his accustomed haunts and wrecked it in a night of flaring lightning and roaring waters on the towering cliffs of the isle. Now, in the dawn, the sky shone blue and clear; the rising sun made jewels of the dripping leaves. He had climbed the cliffs to which he had clung through the night because, in the midst of the storm, he had seen an appalling lance of lightning fork out of the black heavens, and the concussion of its stroke, which had shaken the whole island, had been accompanied by a cataclysmic crash that he doubted could have resulted from a riven tree.

A dull curiosity had caused him to investigate; and now he had found what he sought, and an animal-like uneasiness possessed him, a sense of lurking peril.

Among the trees reared a broken domelike structure, built of gigantic blocks of the peculiar ironlike green stone found only on the islands of Vilayet. It seemed incredible that human hands could have shaped and placed them, and certainly it was beyond human power to have overthrown the structure they formed. But the thunderbolt had splintered the ton-heavy blocks like so much glass, reduced others to green dust, and ripped away the whole arch of the dome.

The fisherman climbed over the debris and peered in, and what he saw brought a grunt from him. Within the ruined dome, surrounded by stone dust and bits of broken masonry, lay a man on a golden block. He was clad in a sort of skirt and a shagreen girdle. His black hair, which fell in a square mane to his massive shoulders, was confined about his temples by a narrow gold band. On his bare, muscular breast lay a curious dagger with a jeweled pommel, a shagreen-bound hilt, and a broad, crescent blade. It was much like the knife the fisherman wore at his hip, but it lacked the serrated edge and was made with infinitely greater skill.

The fisherman lusted for the weapon. The man, of course, was dead; had been dead for many centuries. This dome was his tomb. The fisherman did not wonder by what art the ancients had preserved the body in such a vivid likeness of life, which kept the muscular limbs full and unshrunken, the dark flesh vital. The dull brain of the Yuetshi had room only for his desire for the knife with its delicate, waving lines along the dully gleaming blade.

Scrambling down into the dome, he lifted the weapon from the man's breast. As he did so, a strange and terrible thing came to pass. The muscular, dark hands knotted convulsively, the lids flared open, revealing great, dark, magnetic eyes, whose stare struck the startled fisherman like a physical blow. He recoiled, dropping the jeweled dagger in his perturbation. The man on the dais heaved up to a sitting position, and the fisherman gaped at the full extent of his size, thus revealed. His narrowed eyes held the Yuetshi, and in those slitted orbs he read neither friendliness nor gratitude; he saw only a fire as alien and hostile as that which burns in the eyes of a tiger.

== II ==

Jehungir Agha, lord of Khawarizm and keeper of the costal border, scanned once more the ornate parchment scroll with its peacock seal and laughed shortly and sardonically.

“Well?” bluntly demanded his counsellor Ghaznavi.

Jehungir shrugged his shoulders. He was a handsome man, with the merciless pride of birth and accomplishment.

“The king grows short of patience,” he said. “In his own hand he complains bitterly of what he calls my failure to guard the frontier. By Tarim, if i cannot deal a blow to these robbers of the steppes, Khawarizm may own a new lord.”

Ghaznavi tugged his gray-shot beard in meditation. Yezdigerd, king of Turan, was the mightiest monarch in the world. In his palace in the great port city of Aghrapur was heaped the plunder of empires. His fleets of purple-sailed war galleys had made Vilayet an Hyrkanian lake. The dark-skinned people of Zamora paid him tribute, as did the eastern provinces of Koth. The Shemites bowed to his rule as far west as Shushan. His armies ravaged the borders of Stygia in the south and the snowy lands of the Hyperboreans in the north. His riders bore torch and sword westward into Brythunia and Ophir and Corinthia, even to the borders of Nemedia. His gilt-helmeted swordsmen had trampled hosts under their horses' hoofs, and walled cities went up in flames at his command. In the glutted slave markets of Aghrapur, Sultanapur, Khawarizm, Shahpur, and Khorusun, women were sold for three small silver coins — blonde Brythunians, tawny Stygians, dark-haired Zamorians, ebon Kushites, olive-skinned Shemites.

Yet, while his swift horsemen overthrew armies far from his frontiers, at his very borders an audacious foe plucked his beard with a red-dripping and smoke-stained hand.

On the broad steppes between the Sea of Vilayet and the borders of the easternmost Hyborian kingdoms, a new race had sprung up in the past half-century, formed originally of fleeing criminals, broken men, escaped slaves, and deserting soldiers. They were men of many crimes and countries, some born on the steppes, some fleeing from the kingdoms in the West. They were called kozak, which means wastrel.

Dwelling on the wild, open steppes, owning no law but their own peculiar code, they had become a people capable even of defying the Grand Monarch. Ceaselessly they raided the Turanian frontier, retiring in the steppes when defeated; with the pirates of Vilayet, men of much the same breed, they harried the coast, preying off the merchant ships which plied between the Hyrkanian ports.

“How am I to crush these wolves?” demanded Jehungir. “If I follow them into the steppes, I run the risk either of being cut off and destroyed, or of having them elude me entirely and burn the city in my absence. Of late they have been more daring than ever.”

“That is because of the new chief who has risen among them,” answered Ghaznavi. “You know whom I mean.”

“Aye!” replied Jehungir feelingly. “It is that devil Conan; he is even wilder than the kozaks, yet he is crafty as a mountain lion.”

“It is more through wild animal instinct than through intelligence,” answered Ghaznavi. “The other kozaks are at least descendants of civilized men. He is a barbarian. But to dispose of him would be to deal them a crippling blow.”

“But how?” demanded Jehungir. “He has repeatedly cut his way out of spots that seemed certain death for him. And, instinct or cunning, he has avoided or escaped every trap set for him.”

“For every beast and for every man there is a trap he will not escape,” quoth Ghaznavi. “When we have parleyed with the kozaks for the ransom of captives, I have observed this man Conan. He has a keen relish for women and strong drink. Have your captive Octavia fetched here.”

Jehungir clapped his hands, and an impressive Kushite eunuch, an image of shining ebony in silken pantaloons, bowed before him and went to do his bidding. Presently he returned, leading by the wrist a tall, handsome girl, whose yellow hair, clear eyes, and fair skin identified her as a pure-blooded member of her race. Her scanty silk tunic, girded at the waist, displayed the marvelous contours of her magnificent figure. Her fine eyes flashed with resentment and her red lips were sulky, but submission had been taught her during her captivity. She stood with hanging head before her master until he motioned her to a seat on the divan beside him. Then he looked inquiringly at Ghaznavi.

“We must lure Conan away from the kozaks,” said the counsellor abruptly. “Their war camp is at present pitched somewhere on the lower reaches of the Zaporoska River — which, as you well know, is a wilderness of reeds, a swampy jungle in which our last expedition was cut to pieces by those masterless devils.”

“I am not likely to forget that,” said Jehungir wryly.

“There is an uninhabited island near the mainland,” said Ghaznavi, “known as Xapur, the Fortified, because of some ancient ruins upon it. There is a peculiarity about it which makes it perfect for our purpose. It has no shoreline but rises sheer out of the sea in cliffs a hundred and fifty feet tall. Not even an ape could negotiate them. The only place where a man can go up or down is a narrow path on the western side that has the appearance of a worn stair, carved into the solid rock of the cliffs.

“If we could trap Conan on that island, alone, we could hunt him down at our leisure, with bows, as men hunt a lion.”

“As well wish for the moon,” said Jehungir impatiently. “Shall we send him a messenger, bidding him climb the cliffs and await our coming?”

“In effect, yes!” Seeing Jehungir's look of amazement, Ghaznavi continued: “We will ask for a parley with the kozaks in regard to prisoners, at the edge of the steppes by Fort Ghori. As usual, we will go with a force and encamp outside the castle. They will come, with an equal force, and the parley will go forward with the usual distrust and suspicion. But this time we will take with us, as if by casual chance, your beautiful captive.” Octavia changed color and listened with intensified interest as the counsellor nodded toward her. “She will use all her wiles to attract Conan's attention. That should not be difficult. To that wild reaver, she should appear a dazzling vision of loveliness. Her vitality and substantial figure should appeal to him more vividly than would one of the doll-like beauties of your seraglio.”

Octavia sprang up, her white fists clenched, her eyes blazing and her figure quivering with outraged anger.

“You would force me to play the trollop with this barbarian?” she exclaimed. “I will not! I am no market-block slut to smirk and ogle at a steppes robber. I am the daughter of a Nemedian lord—”

“You were of the Nemedian nobility before my riders carried you off,” returned Jehungir cynically. “Now you are merely a slave who will do as she is bid.”

“I will not!” she raged.

“On the contrary,” rejoined Jehungir with studied cruelty, “you will. I like Ghaznavi's plan. Continue, prince among counsellors.”

“Conan will probably wish to buy her. You will refuse to sell her, of course, or to exchange her for Hyrkanian prisoners. He may then try to steal her, or take her by force — though I do not think even he would break the parley truce. Anyway, we must be prepared for whatever he might attempt.

“Then, shortly after the parley, before he has time to forget all about her, we will send a messenger to him, under a flag of truce, accusing him of stealing the girl and demanding her return. He may kill the messenger, but at least he will think that she has escaped.

“Then we will send a spy — a Yuetishi fisherman will do — to the kozak camp, who will tell Conan that Octavia is hiding on Xapur. If I know my man, he will go straight to that place.”

“But we do not know that he will go alone,” Jehungir argued.

“Does a man take a band of warriors with him, when going to a rendezvous with a woman he desires?” retorted Ghaznavi. “The chances are all that he will go alone. But we will take care of the other alternative. We will not await him on the island, where we might be trapped ourselves, but among the reeds of a marshy point, which juts out to within a thousand yards of Xapur. If he brings a large force, we'll beat a retreat and think up another plot. If he comes alone or with a small party, we will have him. Depend upon it, he will come, remembering your charming slave's smiles and meaning glances.”

“I will never descend to such shame!” Octavia was wild with fury and humiliation. “I will die first!”

“You will not die, my rebellious beauty,” said Jehungir, “but you will be subjected to a very painful and humiliating experience.”

He clapped his hands, and Octavia palled. This time it was not the Kushite who entered, but a Shemite, a heavily muscled man of medium height with a short, curled, blue-black beard.

“Here is work for you, Gilzan,” said Jehungir. “Take this fool, and play with her awhile. Yet be careful not to spoil her beauty.”

With an inarticulate grunt the Shemite seized Octavia's wrist, and at the grasp of his iron fingers, all the defiance went out of her. With a piteous cry she tore away and threw herself on her knees before her implacable master, sobbing incoherently for mercy.

Jehungir dismissed the disappointed torturer with a gesture, and said to Ghaznavi: “If your plan succeeds, I will fill your lap with gold.”

Suddenly the man rose and towered above him, menace in his every aspect. There was no room in the fisherman's dull brain for fear, at least for such fear as might grip a man who has just seen the fundamental laws of nature defied. As the great hands fell to his shoulders, he drew his saw-edged knife and struck upward with the same motion. The blade splintered against the stranger's corded belly as against a steel column, and then the fisherman's thick neck broke like a rotten twig in the giant hands.

== III ==

In the darkness before dawn, an unaccustomed sound disturbed the solitude that slumbered over the reedy marshes and the misty waters of the coast. It was not a drowsy waterfowl nor a waking beast. It was a human who struggled through the thick reeds, which were taller than a man's head.

It was a woman, had there been anyone to see, tall, and yellow-haired, her splendid limbs molded by her draggled tunic. Octavia had escaped in good earnest, every outraged fiber of her still tingling from her experience in a captivity that had become unendurable.

Jehungir's mastery of her had been bad enough; but with deliberate fiendishness Jehungir had given her to a nobleman whose name was a byword for degeneracy even in Khawarizm.

Octavia's resilient flesh crawled and quivered at her memories. Desperation had nerved her climb from Jelal Khan's castle on a rope made of strips from torn tapestries, and chance had led her to a picketed horse. She had ridden all night, and dawn found her with a foundered steed on the swampy shores of the sea. Quivering with the abhorence of being dragged back to the revolting destiny planned for her by Jelal Khan, she plunged into the morass, seeking a hiding place from the pursuit she expected. When the reeds grew thinner around her and the water rose about her thighs, she saw the dim loom of an island ahead of her. A broad span of water lay between, but she did not hesitate. She waded out until the low waves were lapping about her waist; then she struck out strongly, swimming with a vigor that promised unusual endurance.

As she neared the island, she saw that it rose sheer from the water in castlelike cliffs. She reached them at last but found neither ledge to stand on below the water, nor to cling to above. She swam on, following the curve of the cliffs, the strain of her long flight beginning to weight her limbs. Her hands fluttered along the sheer stone, and suddenly they found a depression. With a sobbing gasp of relief, she pulled herself out of the water and clung there, a dripping white goddess in the dim starlight.

She had come upon what seemed to be steps carved in the cliff. Up them she went, flattening herself against the stone as she caught a faint clack of muffled oars. She strained her eyes and thought she made out a vague bulk moving toward the reedy point she had just quitted. But it was too far away for her to be sure in the darkness, and presently the faint sound ceased and she continued her climb. If it were her pursuers, she knew of no better course than to hide on the island. She knew that most of the islands off that marshy coast were uninhabited. This might be a pirate's lair, but even pirates would be preferable to the beast she had escaped.

A vagrant thought crossed her mind as she climbed, in which she mentally compared her former master with the kozak chief with whom — by compulsion — she had shamefully flirted in the pavillions of the camp by Fort Ghori, where the Hyrkanian lords had parleyed with the warriors of the steppes. His burning gaze had frightened and humiliated her, but his cleanly elemental fierceness set him above Jelal Khan, a monster such as only an overly opulent civilization can produce.

She scrambled up over the cliff edge and looked timidly at the dense shadows which confronted her. The trees grew close to the cliffs, presenting a solid mass of blackness. Something whirred above her head and she cowered, even though realizing it was only a bat.

She did not like the looks of those ebony shadows, but she set her teeth and went toward them, trying not to think of snakes. Her bare feet made no sound in the spongy loam under the trees.

Once among them, the darkness closed frighteningly about her. She had not taken a dozen steps when she was no longer able to look back and see the cliffs and the sea beyond. A few steps more and she became hopelessly confused and lost her sense of direction. Through the tangled branches not even a star peered. She groped and floundered on, blindly, and then came to a sudden halt.

Somewhere ahead there began the rhythmical booming of a drum. It was not such a sound as she would have expected to hear in that time and place. Then she forgot it as she was aware of a presence near her. She could not see, but she knew that something was standing beside her in the darkness.

With a stifled cry she shrank back, and as she did so, something that even in her panic she recognized as a human arm curved about her waist. She screamed and threw all her supple young strength into a wild lunge for freedom, but her captor caught her up like a child, crushing her frantic resistance with ease. The silence with which her frenzied pleas and protests were received added to her terror as she felt herself being carried through the darkness toward the distant drum, which still pulsed and muttered.

== IV ==

As the first tinge of dawn reddened the sea, a small boat with a solitary occupant approached the cliffs. The man in the boat was a picturesque figure. A crimson scarf was knotted about his head; his wide silk breeches, of flaming hue, were upheld by a broad sash, which likewise supported a scimitar in a shagreen scabbard. His gilt-worked leather boots suggested the horseman rather than the seaman, but he handled his boat with skill. Through his widely open white silk shirt showed his broad, muscular breast, burned brown by the sun.

The muscles of his heavy, bronzed arms rippled as he pulled the oars with an almost feline ease of motion. A fierce vitality that was evident in each feature and motion set him apart from the common men; yet his expression was neither savage nor somber, though the smoldering blue eyes hinted at ferocity easily wakened. This was Conan, who had wandered into the armed camps of the kozaks with no other possession than his wits and his sword, and who had carved his way to leadership among them.

He paddled to the carven stair as one familiar with his environs and moored the boat to a projection of the rock. Then he went up the worn steps without hesitation. He was keenly alert, not because he consciously suspected hidden danger, but because alertness was a part of him, whetted by the wild existence he followed.

What Ghaznavi had considered animal intuition or some sixth sense was merely the razor-edged faculties and savage wit of the barbarian. Conan had no instinct to tell him that men were watching him from a covert among the reeds of the mainland.

As he climbed the cliff, one of these men breathed deeply and stealthily lifted a bow. Jehungir caught his wrist and hissed an oath into his ear. “Fool! Will you betray us? Don't you realize he is out of range? Let him get upon the island. He will go looking for the girl. We will stay here awhile. He may have sensed our presence or guessed our plot. He may have warriors hidden somewhere. We will wait. In an hour, if nothing suspicious occurs, we'll row up to the foot of the stair and wait him there. If he does not return in a reasonable time, some of us will go upon the island and hunt him down. But I do not wish to do that if it can be helped. Some of us are sure to die if we have to go into the bush after him. I had rather catch him with arrows from a safe distance.”

Meanwhile, the unsuspecting kozak had plunged into a forest. He went silently in his soft leather boots, his gaze sifting every shadow in eagerness to catch sight of the splendid, tawny-haired beauty of whom he had dreamed ever since he had seen her in the pavilion of Jehungir Agha by Fort Ghori. He would have desired her even if she had displayed repugnance toward him. But her cryptic smiles and glances had fired his blood, and with all the lawless violence which was his heritage he desired that white-skinned, golden-haired woman of civilization.

He had been on Xapur before. Less than a month ago, he had held a secret conclave here with a pirate crew. He knew that he was approaching a point where he could see the mysterious ruins which gave the island its name, and he wondered if he could find the girl hiding among them. Even with the thought, he stopped as though struck dead.

Ahead of him, among the trees, rose something that his reason told him was not possible. It was a great dark green wall, with towers rearing beyond the battlements.

Conan stood paralyzed in the disruption of the faculties which demoralizes anyone who is confronted by an impossible negation of sanity. He doubted neither his sight nor his reason, but something was monstrously out of joint. Less than a month ago, only broken ruins had showed among the trees. What human hands could rear such a mammoth pile as now met his eyes, in the few weeks which had elapsed? Besides, the buccaneers who roamed Vilyet ceaselessly would have learned of any work going on on such stupendous scale and would have informed the kozaks.

There was no explaining this thing, but it was so. he was on Xapur, and that fantastic heap of towering masonry was on Xapur, and all was madness and paradox; yet it was all true.

He wheeled to race back through the jungle, down the carven stair and across the blue waters to the distant camp at the mouth of the Zaporoska. In that moment of unreasoning panic, even the thought of halting so near the inland sea was repugnant. He would leave it behind him, would quit the armed camps and the steppes and put a thousand miles between him and the blue, mysterious East where the most basic laws of nature could be set at naught, by what diabolism he could not guess.

For an instant, the future fate of kingdoms that hinged on this gay-clad barbarian hung in the balance. It was a small thing that tipped the scales — merely a shred of silk hanging on a bush that caught his uneasy glance. He leaned to it, his nostrils expanding, his nerves quivering to a subtle stimulant. On that bit of torn cloth, so faint that it was less with his physical faculties than by some obscure instinctive sense that he recognized it, lingered the tantalizing perfume that he connected with the sweet, firm flesh of the woman he had seen in Jehugir's pavilion. The fisherman had not lied, then; she was here! Then in the soil he saw a single track in the loam, the track of a bare foot, long and slender, but a man's, not a woman's, and sunk deeper than was natural. The conclusion was obvious; the man who made that track was carrying a burden, and what should it be but the girl the kozak was seeking?

He stood silently facing the dark towers that loomed through the trees, his eyes slits of blue balefire. Desire for the yellow-haired woman vied with a sullen, primordial rage at whoever had taken her. His human passion fought down his ultra-human fears, and dropping into the stalking crouch of a hunting panther, he glided toward the walls, taking advantage of the dense foliage to escape detection from the battlements.

As he approached, he saw that the walls were composed of the same green stone that had formed the ruins, and he was haunted by a vague sense of familiarity. It was as if he looked upon something he had never before seen but had dreamed of or pictured mentally. At last he recognized the sensation. The walls and towers followed the plan of the ruins. It was as if the crumbling lines had grown back into the structures they originally were.

No sound disturbed the morning quiet as Conan stole to the foot of the wall, which rose sheer from the luxuriant growth. On the southern reaches of the inland sea, the vegetation was almost tropical. He saw no one on the battlements, heard no sounds within. He saw a massive gate a short distance to his left and had no reason to suppose that it was not locked and guarded. But he believed that the woman he sought was somewhere beyond that wall, and the course he took was characteristically reckless.

Above him, vine-festooned branches reached out toward the battlements. He went up a great tree like a cat, and reaching a point above the parapet, he gripped a thick limb with both hands, swung back and forth at arm's length until he had gained momentum, and then let go and catapulted through the air, landing catlike on the battlements. Crouching there, he stared down into the streets of a city.

The circumference of the wall was not great, but the number of green stone buildings it contained was surprising. They were three or four stories in height, mainly flat-roofed, reflecting a fine architectural style. The streets converged like the spokes of a wheel into an octagon-shaped court in the centre of the town, which gave upon a lofty edifice, which, with its domes and towers, dominated the whole city. He saw no one moving in the streets or looking out of the windows, though the sun was already coming up. The silence that reigned there might have been that of a dead and deserted city. A narrow stone stair ascended the wall near him; down this he went.

Houses shouldered so closely to the wall that halfway down the stair, he found himself within arm's length of a window and halted to peer in. There were no bars, and the silk curtains were caught back with satin cords. He looked into a chamber whose walls were hidden by dark velvet tapestries. The floor was covered with thick rugs, and there were benches of polished ebony and an ivory dais heaped with furs.

He was about to continue his descent, when he heard the sound of someone approaching in the street below. Before the unknown person could round a corner and see him on the stair, he stepped quickly across the intervening space and dropped lightly into the room, drawing his scimitar. He stood for an instant statue-like; then, as nothing happened, he was moving across the rugs toward an arched doorway, when a hanging was drawn aside, revealing a cushioned alcove from which a slender, dark-haired girl regarded him with languid eyes.

Conan glared at her tensely, expecting her momentarily to start screaming. But she merely smothered a yawn with a dainty hand, rose from the alcove, and leaned negligently against the hanging which she held with one hand.

She was undoubtedly a member of a white race, though her skin was very dark. Her square-cut hair was black as midnight, her only garment a wisp of silk about her supple hips.

Presently she spoke, but the tongue was unfamiliar to him, and he shook his head. She yawned again, stretched lithely and, without any show of fear or surprise, shifted to a language he did understand, a dialect of Yuetshi which sounded strangely archaic.

“Are you looking for someone?” she asked, as indifferently as if the invasion of her chamber by an armed stranger were the most common thing imaginable.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“I am Yateli,” she answered languidly. “I must have feasted late last night, I am so sleepy now. Who are you?”

“I am Conan, a hetman among the kozaks,” he answered, watching her narrowly. He believed her attitude to be a pose and expected her to try to escape from the chamber or rouse the house. But, though a velvet rope that might be a signal cord hung near her, she did not reach for it.

“Conan,” she repeated drowsily. “You are not a Dagonian. I suppose you are a mercenary. Have you cut the heads off many Yuetshi?”

“I do not war on water rats!” he snorted.

“But they are very terrible,” she murmured. “I remember when they were our slaves. But they revolted and burned and slew. Only the magic of Khosatral Khel has kept them from the walls—” she paused, a puzzled look struggling with the sleepiness of her expression. “I forgot,” she muttered. “They did climb the walls, last night. There was shouting and fire, and the people calling in vain on Khosatral.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “But that cannot be,” she murmured, “because I am alive, and I thought I was dead. Oh, to the devil with it!”

She came across the chamber, and taking Conan's hand, drew him to the dais. He yielded in bewilderment and uncertainty. The girl smiled at him like a sleepy child; her long silky lashes drooped over dusky, clouded eyes. She ran her fingers through his thick black locks as if to assure herself of his reality.

“It was a dream,” she yawned. “Perhaps it's all a dream. I feel like a dream now. I don't care. I can't remember something — I have forgotten — there is something I cannot understand, but I grow so sleepy when I try to think. Anyway, it doesn't matter.”

“What do you mean?” he asked uneasily. “You said they climbed the walls last night? Who?”

“The Yuetshi. I thought so, anyway. A cloud of smoke hid everything, but a naked, bloodstained devil caught me by the throat and drove his knife into my breast. Oh, it hurt! But it was a dream, because see, there is no scar.” She idly inspected her smooth bosom, and then sank upon Conan's lap and passed her supple arms about his massive neck. “I cannot remember,” she murmured, nestling her dark head against his mighty breast. “Everything is dim and misty. It does not matter. You are no dream. You are strong. Let us live while we can. Love me!”

He cradled the girl's glossy head in the bend of his heavy arm and kissed her full red lips with unfeigned relish.

“You are strong,” she repeated, her voice waning. “Love me — love —” The sleepy murmur faded away; the dusky eyes closed, the long lashes drooping over the sensuous cheeks; the supple body relaxed in Conan's arms.

He scowled down at her. She seemed to partake of the illusion that haunted this whole city, but the firm resilience of her limbs under his questing fingers convinced him that he had a living human girl in his arms, and not the shadow of a dream. No less disturbed, he hastily laid her on the furs upon the dais. Her sleep was too deep to be natural. He decided that she must be an addict of some drug, perhaps like the black lotus of Xuthal.

Then he found something else to make him wonder. Among the furs on the dais was a gorgeous spotted skin, whose predominant hue was golden. It was not a clever copy, but the skin of an actual beast. And that beast, Conan knew, had been extinct for at least a thousand years; it was the great golden leopard which figures so prominently in Hyborian legendry, and which the ancient artists delighted to portray in pigments and marble.

Shaking his head in bewilderment, Conan passed through the archway into a winding corridor. Silence hung over the house, but outside he heard a sound which his keen ears recognized as something ascending the stair on the wall from which he had entered the building. An instant later he was startled to hear something land with a soft but weighty thud on the floor of the chamber he had just quitted. Turning quickly away, he hurried along the twisting hallway until something on the floor before him brought him to a halt.

It was a human figure, which lay half in the hall and half in an opening that obviously was normally concealed by a door, which was a duplicate of the panels of the wall. It was a man, dark and lean, clad only in a silk loincloth, with a shaven head and cruel features, and he lay as if death had struck him just as he was emerging from the panel. Conan bent above him, seeking the cause of his death, and discovered him to be merely sunk in the same deep sleep as the girl in the chamber.

But why should he select such a place for his slumbers? While meditating on the matter, Conan was galvanized by a sound behind him. Something was moving up the corridor in his direction. A quick glance down it showed that it ended in a great door, which might be locked. Conan jerked the supine body out of the panel entrance and stepped through, pulling the panel shut after him. A click told him it was locked in place. Standing in utter darkness, he heard a shuffling tread halt just outside the door, and a faint chill trickled along his spine. That was no human step, nor that of any beast he had ever encountered.

There was an instant of silence, then a faint creak of wood and metal. Putting out his hand he felt the door straining and bending inward, as if a great weight were being steadily borne against it from the outside. As he reached for his sword, this ceased and he heard a strange, slobbering mouthing that prickled the short hairs on his scalp. Scimitar in hand, he began backing away, and his heels felt steps, down which he nearly tumbled. He was in a narrow staircase leading downward.

He groped his way down in the blackness, feeling for, but not finding, some other opening in the walls. Just as he decided that he was no longer in the house, but deep in the earth under it, the steps ceased in a level tunnel.

== V ==

Along the dark, silent tunnel Conan groped, momentarily dreading a fall into some unseen pit; but at last his feet struck steps again, and he went up them until he came to a door on which his fumbling fingers found a metal catch. He came out into a dim and lofty room of enormous proportions. Fantastic columns marched about the mottled walls, upholding a ceiling, which, at once translucent and dusky, seemed like a cloudy midnight sky, giving an illusion of impossible height. If any light filtered in from the outside, it was curiously altered.

In a brooding twilight, Conan moved across the bare green floor. The great room was circular, pierced on one side by the great, bronze valves of a giant door. Opposite this, on a dais against the wall, up to which led broad curving steps, there stood a throne of copper, and when Conan saw what was coiled on this throne, he retreated hastily, lifting his scimitar.

Then, as the thing did not move, he scanned it more closely and presently mounted the glass steps and stared down at it. It was a gigantic snake, apparently carved of some jadelike substance. Each scale stood out as distinctly as in real life, and the iridescent colors were vividly reproduced. The great wedge-shaped head was half submerged in the folds of its trunk; so neither the eyes nor jaws were visible. Recognition stirred in his mind. The snake was evidently meant to represent one of those grim monsters of the marsh, which in past ages had haunted the reedy edges of Vilayet's southern shores. But, like the golden leopard, they had been extinct for hundreds of years. Conan had seen rude images of them, in minature, among the idol huts of the Yuetshi, and there was a description of them in the Book of Skelos, which drew on prehistoric sources.

Conan admired the scaly torso, thick as his thigh and obviously of great length, and he reached out and laid a curious hand on the thing. And as he did so, his heart nearly stopped. An icy chill congealed the blood in his veins and lifted the short hair on his scalp. Under his hand there was not the smooth, brittle surface of glass or metal or stone, but the yielding, fibrous mass of a living thing. He felt cold, sluggish life flowing under his fingers.

His hand jerked back in instinctive repulsion. Sword shaking in his grasp, horror and revulsion and fear almost choking him, he backed away and down the glass steps with painful care, glaring in awful fascinastion at the grisly thing that slumbered on the copper throne. It did not move.

He reached the bronze door and tried it, with his heart in his teeth, sweating with fear that he should find himself locked in with that slimy horror. But the valves yielded to his touch, and he glided though and closed them behind him.

He found himself in a wide hallway with lofty, tapestried walls, where the light was the same twilight gloom. It made distant objects indistinct, and that made him uneasy, rousing thoughts of serpents gliding unseen through the dimness. A door at the other end seemed miles away in the illusive light. Nearer at hand, the tapestry hung in such a way as to suggest an opening behind it, and lifting it cautiously he discovered a narrow stair leading up.

While he hesitated he heard, in the great room he had just left, the same shuffling tread he had heard outside the locked panel. Had he been followed through the tunnel? He went up the stair hastily, dropping the tapestry in place behind him.

Emerging presently into a twisting corridor, he took the first doorway he came to. He had a twofold purpose in his apparently aimless prowling; to escape from the building and its mysteries, and to find the Nemedian girl who, he felt, was imprisoned somewhere in this palace, temple, or whatever it was. He believed it was the great domed edifice at the center of the city, and it was likely that here dwelt the ruler of the town, to whom a captive woman would doubtless be brought.

He found himself in a chamber, not another corridor, and was about to retrace his steps, when he heard a voice which came from behind one of the walls. There was no door in that wall, but he leaned close and heard distinctly. And an icy chill crawled slowly along his spine. The tongue was Nemedian, but the voice was not human. There was a terifying resonance about it, like a bell tolling at midnight.

“There was no life in the Abyss, save that which was incorporated in me,” it tolled. “Nor was there light, nor motion, nor any sound. Only the urge behind and beyond life guided and impelled me on my upward journey, blind, insensate, inexorable. Through ages upon ages, and the changeless strata of darkness I climbed—”

Ensorcelled by that belling resonance, Conan crouched forgetful of all else, until its hypnotic power caused a strange replacement of faculties and perception, and sound created the illusion of sight. Conan was no longer aware of the voice, save as far-off rhythmical waves of sound. Transported beyond his age and his own individuality, he was seeing the transmutation of the being men called Khosatral Khel which crawled up from Night and the Abyss ages ago to clothe itself in the substance of the material universe.

But human flesh was too frail, too paltry to hold the terrific essence that was Khosatral Khel. So he stood up in the shape and aspect of a man, but his flesh was not flesh; nor the bone, bone; nor blood, blood. He became a blasphemy against all nature, for he caused to live and think and act a basic substance that before had never known the pulse and stir of animate being.

He stalked through the world as a god, for no earthly weapon could harm him, and to him a century was like an hour. In his wanderings he came upon a primitive people inhabiting the island of Dagonia, and it pleased him to give this race culture and civilization, and by his aid they built the city of Dagon and they abode there and worshipped him. Strange and grisly were his servants, called from the dark corners of the planet where grim survivals of forgotten ages yet lurked. His house in Dagon was connected with every other house by tunnels through which his shaven-headed priests bore victims for the sacrifice.

But after many ages, a fierce and brutish people appeared on the shores of the sea. They called themselves Yuetshi, and after a fierce battle were defeated and enslaved, and for nearly a generation they died on the altars of Khosatral.

His sorcery kept them in bonds. Then their priest, a strange, gaunt man of unknown race, plunged into the wilderness, and when he returned he bore a knife that was of no earthly substance. It was forged of a meteor, which flashed through the sky like a flaming arrow and fell in a far valley. The slaves rose. Their saw-edged crescents cut down the men of Dagon like sheep, and against that unearthly knife the magic of Khosatral was impotent. While carnage and slaughter bellowed through the red smoke that choked the streets, the grimmest act of that grim drama was played in the cryptic dome behind the great daised chamber with its copper throne and its walls mottled like the skin of serpents.

From that dome, the Yuetshi priest emerged alone. He had not slain his foe, because he wished to hold the threat of his loosing over the heads of his own rebellious subjects. He had left Khosatral lying upon the golden dais with the mystic knife across his breast for a spell to hold him senseless and inanimate until doomsday.

But the ages passed and the priest died, the towers of deserted Dagon crumbled, the tales became dim, and the Yuetshi were reduced by plagues and famines and war to scattered remnants, dwelling in squalor along the seashore.

Only the cryptic dome resisted the rot of time, until a chance thunderbolt and the curiosity of a fisherman lifted from the breast of the god the magic knife and broke the spell. Khosatral Khel rose and lived and waxed mighty once more. It pleased him to restore the city as it was in the days before its fall. By his necromancy he lifted the towers from the dust of forgotten millenia, and the folk which had been dust for ages moved in life again.

But folk who have tasted of death are only partly alive. In the dark corners of their souls and minds, death still lurks unconquered. By night the people of Dagon moved and loved, hated and feasted, and remembered the fall of Dagon and their own slaughter only as a dim dream; they moved in an enchanted mist of illusion, feeling the strangeness of their existence but not inquiring the reasons therefor. With the coming of day, they sank into deep sleep, to be roused again only by the coming of night, which is akin to death.

All this rolled in a terrible panorama before Conan's consciousness as he crouched beside the tapestried wall. His reason stasggered. All certainty and sanity were swept away, leaving a shadowy universe through which stole hooded figures of grisly potentialities. Through the belling of the voice, which was like a tolling of triumph over the ordered laws of a sane planet, a human sound anchored Conan's mind from its flight through spheres of madness. It was the hysterical sobbing of a woman.

Involuntarily he sprung up.

== VI ==

Jehungir Agha waited with growing impatience in his boat among the reeds. More than an hour passed, and Conan had not reappeared. Doubtless he was still searching the island for the girl he thought to be hidden there. But another surmise occurred to the Agha. Suppose the hetman had left his warriors near by, and that they should grow suspicious and come to investigate his long absence? Jehungir spoke to the oarsmen, and the long boat slid from among the reeds and glided toward the carven stairs.

Leaving half a dozen men in the boat, he took the rest, ten mighty archers of Khawarizm, in spired helmets and tiger-skin cloaks. Like hunters invading the retreat of the lion, they stole forward under the trees, arrows on strings. Silence reigned over the forest except when a great green thing that might have been a parrot swirled over their heads with a low thunder of broad wings and then sped off through the trees. With a sudden gesture, Jehungir halted his party, and they stared incredulously at the towers that showed through the verdure in the distance.

“Tarim!” muttered Jehungir. “The pirates have rebuilt the ruins! Doubtless Conan is there. We must investigate this. A fortified town this close to the mainland! — Come!”

With renewed caution, they glided through the trees. The game had altered; from pursuers and hunters they had become spies.

And as they crept through the tangled gowth, the man they sought was in peril more deadly than their filigreed arrows.

Conan realized with a crawling of his skin that beyond the wall the belling voice had ceased. He stood motionless as a statue, his gaze fixed on a curtained door through which he knew that a culminating horror would presently appear.

It was dim and misty in the chamber, and Conan's hair began to lift on his scalp as he looked. He saw a head and a pair of gigantic shoulders grow out of the twilight doom. There was no sound of footsteps, but the great dusky form grew more distinct until Conan recognized the figure of a man. He was clad in sandals, a skirt, and a broad shagreen girdle. His square-cut mane was confined by a circle of gold. Conan stared at the sweep of the monstrous shoulders, the breadth of swelling breast, the bands and ridges and clusters of muscles on torso and limbs. The face was without weakness and without mercy. The eyes were balls of dark fire. And Conan knew that this was Khosatral Khel, the ancient from the Abyss, the god of Dagonia.

No word was spoken. No word was necessary. Khosatral spread his great arms, and Conan, crouching beneath them, slashed at the giant's belly. Then he bounded back, eyes blazing with surprise. The keen edge had rung on the mighty body as on an anvil, rebounding without cutting. Then Khosatral came upon him in an irresistible surge.

There was a fleeting concussion, a fierce writhing and intertwining of limbs and bodies, and then Conan sprang clear, every thew quivering from the violence of his efforts; blood started where the grazing fingers had torn the skin. In that instant of contact, he had experienced the ultimate madness of blasphemed nature; no human flesh had bruised his, but metal animated and sentient; it was a body of living iron which opposed his.

Khosatral loomed above the warrior in the gloom. Once let those great fingers lock and they would not loosen until the human body hung limp in their grasp. In that twilit chamber it was as if a man fought with a dream-monster in a nightmare.

Flinging down his useless sword, Conan caught up a heavy bench and hurled it with all his power. It was such a missile as few men could even lift. On Khosatral's mighty breast it smashed into shreds and splinters. It did not even shake the giant on his braced legs. His face lost something of its human aspect, a nimbus of fire played about his awesome head, and like a moving tower he came on.

With a desperate wrench Conan ripped a whole section of tapestry from the wall and whirling it, with a muscular effort greater than that required for throwing the bench, he flung it over the giant's head. For an instant Khosatral floundered, smothered and blinded by the clinging stuff that resisted his strength as wood or steel could not have done, and in that instant Conan caught up his scimitar and shot out into the corridor. Without checking his speed, he hurled himself through the door of the adjoining chamber, slammed the door, and shot the bolt.

Then as he wheeled, he stopped short, all the blood in him seeming to surge to his head. Crouching on a heap of silk cushions, golden hair streaming over her naked shoulders, eyes blank with terror, was the woman for whom he had dared so much. He almost forgot the horror at his heels until a splintering crash behind him brought him to his senses. He caught up the girl and sprang for the opposite door. She was too helpless with fright either to resist or to aid him. A faint whimper was the only sound of which she seemed capable.

Conan wasted no time trying the door. A shattering stroke of his scimitar hewed the lock asunder, and as he sprang through to the stair that loomed beyond it, he saw the head and shoulders of Khosatral crash through the other door. The colossus was splintering the massive panels as if they were of cardboard.

Conan raced up the stair, carrying the big girl over one shoulder as easily as if she had been a child. Where he was going he had no idea, but the stair ended at the door of a round, domed chamber. Khosatral was coming up the stair behind them, silently as a wind of death, and as swiftly.

The chamber's walls were of solid steel, and so was the door. Conan shut it and dropped in place the great bars with which it was furnished. The thought struck him that this was Khosatral's chamber, where he locked himself in to sleep securely from the monsters he had loosed from the Pits to do his bidding.

Hardly were the bolts in place when the great door shook and trembled to the giant's assault. Conan shrugged his shoulders. This was the end of the trail. There was no other door in the chamber, nor any window. Air, and the strange misty light, evidently came from interstices in the dome. He tested the nicked edge of his scimitar, quite cool now that he was at bay. He had done his volcanic best to escape; when the giant came crashing through that door, he would explode in another savage onslaught with the useless sword, not because he expected it to do any good, but because it was his nature to die fighting. For the moment there was no course of action to take, and his calmness was not forced or feigned.

The gaze he turned on his fair companion was as admiring and intense as if he had a hundred years to live. He had dumped her unceremoniously on the floor when he turned to close the door, and she had risen to her knees, mechanically arranging her streaming locks and her scanty garment. Conan's fierce eyes glowed with approval as they devoured her thick golden hair, her clear, wide eyes, her milky skin, sleek with exuberant health, the firm swell of her breasts, the contours of her splendid hips.

A low cry escaped her as the door shook and a bolt gave way with a groan.

Conan did not look around. He knew the door would hold a little while longer.

“They told me you had escaped,” he said. “A Yuetshi fisher told me you were hiding here. What is your name?”

“Octavia,” she gasped mechanically. Then words came in a rush. She caught at him with desperate fingers. “Oh Mitra! what nightmare is this? The people — the dark-skinned people — one of them caught me in the forest and brought me here. They carried me to — to that — that thing. He told me — he said — am I mad? Is this a dream?”

He glanced at the door which bulged inward as if from the impact of a battering-ram.

“No,” he said; “it's no dream. That hinge is giving way. Strange that a devil has to break down a door like a common man; but after all, his strength itself is a diabolism.”

“Can you not kill him?” she panted. “You are strong.”

Conan was too honest to lie to her. “If a mortal man could kill him, he'd be dead now,” he answered. “I nicked my blade on his belly.”

Her eyes dulled. “Then you must die, and I must — oh Mitra!” she screamed in sudden frenzy, and Conan caught her hands, fearing that she would harm herself. “He told me what he was going to do to me!” she panted. “Kill me! Kill me with your sword before he bursts the door!”

Conan looked at her and shook his head.

“I'll do what I can,” he said. “That won't be much, but it'll give you a chance to get past him down the stair. Then run for the cliffs. I have a boat tied at the foot of the steps. If you can get out of the palace, you may escape him yet. The people of this city are all asleep.”

She dropped her head in her hands. Conan took up his scimitar and moved over to stand before the echoing door. One watching him would not have realized that he was waiting for a death he regarded as inevitable. His eyes smoldered more vividly; his muscular hand knotted harder on his hilt; that was all.

The hinges had given under the giant's terrible assault, and the door rocked crazily, held only by the bolts. And these solid steel bars were buckling, bending, bulging out of their sockets. Conan watched in an almost impersonal fascination, envying the monster his inhuman strength.

Then, without warning, the bombardment ceased. In the stillness, Conan heard other noises on the landing outside — the beat of wings, and a muttering voice that was like the whining of wind through midnight branches. Then presently there was silence, but there was a new feel in the air. Only the whetted instincts of barbarism could have sensed it, but Conan knew, without seeing or hearing him leave, that the master of Dagon no longer stood outside the door.

He glared through a crack that had been started in the steel of the portal. The landing was empty. He drew the warped bolts and cautiously pulled aside the sagging door. Khosatral was not on the stair, but far below he heard the clang of a metal door. He did not know whether the giant was plotting new deviltries or had been summoned away by that muttering voice, but he wasted no time in conjectures.

He called to Octavia, and the new note in his voice brought her up to her feet and to his side almost without her conscious volition.

“What is it?” she gasped.

“Don't stop to talk!” He caught her wrist. “Come on!” The chance for action had transformed him; his eyes blazed, his voice crackled. “The knife!” he muttered, while almost dragging the girl down the stair in his fierce haste. “The magic Yuetshi blade! He left it in the dome! I—” his voice died suddenly as a clear mental picture sprang up before him. That dome adjoined the great room where stood the copper throne — sweat started out on his body. The only way to that dome was through that room with the copper throne and the foul thing that slumbered in it.

But he did not hesitate. Swiftly they descended the stair, crossed the chamber, descended the next stair, and came into the great dim hall with its mysterious hangings. They had seen no sign of the colossus. Halting before the great bronze-valved door, Conan caught Octavia by her shoulders and shook her in his intensity.

“Listen!” he snapped. “I'm going into the room and fasten the door. Stand here and listen; if Khosatral comes, call to me. If you hear me cry out for you to go, run as though the Devil were on your heels — which he probably will be. Make for that door at the other end of the hall, because I'll be past helping you. I'm going for the Yuetshi knife!”

Before she could voice the protest her lips were framing, he had slid through the valves and shut them behind him. He lowered the bolt cautiously, not noticing that it could be worked from the outside. In the dim twilight his gaze sought that grim copper throne; yes, the scaly brute was still there, filling the throne with its loathsome coils. He saw a door behind the throne and knew that it led into the dome. But to reach it he must mount the dais, a few feet from the throne itself.

A wind blowing across the green floor would have made more noise than Conan's slinking feet. Eyes glued on the sleeping reptile he reached the dais and mounted the glass steps. The snake had not moved. He was reaching for the door . . .

The bolt on the bronze portal clanged and Conan stifled an awful oath as he saw Octavia come into the room. She stared about, uncertain in the deeper gloom, and he stood frozen, not daring to shout a warning. Then she saw his shadowy figure and ran toward the dais, crying: “I want to go with you! I'm afraid to stay alone — oh!“ She threw up her hands with a terrible scream as for the first time she saw the occupant of the throne. The wedge-shaped head had lifted from its coils and thrust out toward her on a yard of shining neck.

Then with a smooth, flowing motion, it began to ooze from the throne, coil by coil, its ugly head bobbing in the direction of the paralyzed girl.

Conan cleared the space between him and the throne with a desperate bound, his scimitar swinging with all his power. And with such blinding speed did the serpent move that it whipped about and met him in full midair, lapping his limbs and body with half a dozen coils. His half-checked stroke fell futilely as he crashed down on the dais, gashing the scaly trunk but not severing it.

Then he was writhing on the glass steps with fold after slimy fold knotting about him, twisting, crushing, killing him. His right arm was still free, but he could get no purchase to strike a killing blow, and he knew one blow must suffice. With a groaning convulsion of muscular expansion that bulged his veins almost to bursting on his temples and tied his muscles in quivering, tortured knots, he heaved up on his feet, lifting almost the full weight of that forty-foot devil.

An instant he reeled on wide-braced legs, feeling his ribs caving in on his vitals and his sight growing dark, while his scimitar gleamed above his head. Then it fell, shearing through the scales and flesh and vertebrae. And where there had been one huge, writhing cable, now there were horribly two, lashing and flopping in the death throes. Conan staggered away from their blind strokes. He was sick and dizzy, and blood oozed from his nose. Groping in a dark mist he clutched Octavia and shook her until she gasped for breath.

“Next time I tell you to stay somewhere,” he gasped, “you stay!”

He was too dizzy even to know whether she replied. Taking her wrist like a truant schoolgirl, he led her around the hideous stumps that still loomed and knotted on the floor. Somewhere, in the distance, he thought he heard men yelling, but his ears were still roaring so that he could not be sure.

The door gave to his efforts. If Khosatral had placed the snake there to guard the thing he feared, evidently he considered it ample precaution. Conan half expected some other monstrosity to leap at him with the opening of the door, but in the dimmer light he saw only the vague sweep of the arch above, a dully gleaming block of gold, and a half-moon glimmer on the stone.

With a gasp of gratification, he scooped it up and did not linger for further exploration. He turned and fled across the room and down the great hall toward the distant door that he felt led to the outer air. He was correct. A few minutes later he emerged into the silent streets, half carrying, half guiding his companion. There was no one to be seen, but beyond the western wall there sounded cries and moaning wails that made Octavia tremble. He led her to the southwestern wall and without difficulty found a stone stair that mounted the rampart. He had appropriated a thick tapestry rope in the great hall, and now, having reached the parapet, he looped the soft, strong cord about the girl's hips and lowered her to the earth. Then, making one end fast to a merlon, he slid down after her. There was but one way of escape from the island — the stair on the western cliffs. In that direction he hurried, swinging wide around the spot from which had come the cries and the sound of terrible blows.

Octavia sensed that grim peril lurked in those leafy fastnesses. Her breath came pantingly and she pressed close to her protector. But the forest was silent now, and they saw no shape of menace until they emerged from the trees and glimpsed a figure standing on the edge of the cliffs.

Jehungir Agha had escaped the doom that had overtaken his warriors when an iron giant sallied suddenly from the gate and battered and crushed them into bits of shredded flesh and splintered bone. When he saw the swords of his archers break on that manlike juggernaut, he had known it was no human foe they faced, and he had fled, hiding in the deep woods until the sounds of slaughter ceased. Then he crept back to the stair, but his boatmen were not waiting for him.

They had heard the screams, and presently, waiting nervously, had seen, on the cliff above them, a blood-smeared monster waving gigantic arms in awful triumph. They had waited for no more. When Jehungir came upon the cliffs, they were just vanishing among the reeds beyond earshot. Khosatral was gone — had either returned to the city or was prowling the forest in search of the man who had escaped him outside the walls.

Jehungir was just preparing to descend the stairs and depart in Conan's boat, when he saw the hetman and the girl emerge from the trees. The experience which had congealed his blood and almost blasted his reason had not altered Jehungir's intentions towards the kozak chief. The sight of the man he had come to kill filled him with gratification. He was astonished to see the girl he had given to Jelal Khan, but he wasted no time on her. Lifting his bow he drew the shaft to its head and loosed. Conan crouched and the arror splintered on a tree, and Conan laughed.

“Dog!” he taunted. “You can't hit me! I was not born to die on Hyrkanian steel! Try again, pig of Turan!”

Jehungir did not try again. That was his last arrow. He drew his scimitar and advanced, confident in his spired helmet and close-meshed mail. Conan met him halfway in a blinding whirl of swords. The curved blades ground together, sprang apart, circled in glittering arcs that blurred the sight which tried to follow them. Octavia, watching, did not see the stroke, but she heard its chopping impact and saw Jehungir fall, blood spurting from his side where the Cimmerian's steel had sundered his mail and bitten to his spine.

But Octavia's scream was not caused by the death of her former master. With a crash of bending boughs, Khosatral Khel was upon them. The girl could not flee; a moaning cry escaped her as her knees gave way and pitched her groveling to the sward.

Conan, stooping above the body of the Agha, made no move to escape. Shifting his reddened scimitar to his left hand, he drew the great half-blade of the Yuetshi. Khosatral Khel was towering above him, his arms lifted like mauls, but as the blade caught the sheen of the sun, the giant gave back suddenly.

But Conan's blood was up. He rushed in, slashing with the crescent blade. And it did not splinter. Under its edge, the dusky metal of Khosatral's body gave way like common flesh beneath a cleaver. From the deep gash flowed a strange ichor, and Khosatral cried out like the dirging of a great bell. His terrible arms flailed down, but Conan, quicker than the archers who had died beneath those awful flails, avoided their strokes and struck again and yet again. Khosatral reeled and tottered; his cries were awful to hear, as if metal were given a tongue of pain, as if iron shrieked and bellowed under torment.

Then, wheeling away, he staggered into the forest; he reeled in his gait, crashed through bushes, and caromed off trees. Yet though Conan followed him with the speed of hot passion, the walls and towers of Dagon loomed through the trees before the man came with dagger-reach of the giant.

Then Khosatral turned again, flailing the air with desperate blows, but Conan, fired to beserk fury, was not to be denied. As a panther strikes down a bull moose at bay, so he plunged under the bludgeoning arms and drove the crescent blade to the hilt under the spot wheer a human's heart would be.

Khosatral reeled and fell. In the shape of a man he reeled, but it was not the shape of a man that struck the loam. Where there had been the likeness of a human face, there was no face at all, and the metal limbs melted and changed . . . Conan, who had not shrunk from Khosatral living, recoiled blenching for Khosatral dead, for he had witnessed an awful transmutation; in his dying throes Khosatral Khel had become again the thing that had crawled up from the Abyss millennia gone. Gagging with intolerable repugnance, Conan turned to flee the sight; and he was suddenly aware that the pinnacles of Dagon no longer glimmered through the trees. They had faded like smoke — the battlements, the crenellated towers, the great bronze gates, the velvets, the gold, the ivory, and the dark-haired women, and the men with their shaven skulls. With the passing of the inhuman intellect which had given them rebirth, they had faded back into the dust which they had been for ages uncounted. Only the stumps of broken columns rose above crumbling walls and broken paves and shattered dome. Conan again looked upon the ruins of Xapur as he remembered them.

The wild hetman stood like a statue for a space, dimly grasping something of the cosmic tragedy of the fitful ephemera called mankind and the hooded shapes of darkness which prey upon it. Then as he heard his voice called in accents of fear, he started, as one awakening from a dream, glanced again at the thing on the ground, shuddered and turned away toward the cliffs and the girl that waited there.

She was peering fearfully under the trees, and she greeted him with a half-stifled cry of relief. He had shaken off the dim monstrous visions which had momentarily haunted him, and was his exuberant self again.

“Where is he?” she shuddered.

“Gone back to Hell whence he crawled,” he replied cheerfully. “Why didn't you climb the stair and make your escape in my boat?”

“I wouldn't desert—” she began, then changed her mind, and amended rather sulkily, “I have nowhere to go. The Hyrkanians would enslave me again, and the pirates would—”

“What of the kozaks?” he suggested.

“Are they better than the pirates?” she asked scornfully. Conan's admiration increased to see how well she had recovered her poise after having endured such frantic terror. Her arrogance amused him.

“You seemed to think so in the camp by Ghori,” he answered. “You were free enough with your smiles then.”

Her red lips curled in disdain. “Do you think I was enamored of you? Do you dream that I would have shamed myself before an ale-guzzling, meat-gorging barbarian unless I had to? My master — whose body lies there — forced me to do as i did.”

“Oh!” Conan seemed rather crestfallen. Then he laughed with undiminished zest. “No matter. You belong to me now. Give me a kiss.”

“You dare ask—” she began angrily, when she felt herself snatched off her feet and crushed to the hetman's muscular breast. She fought him fiercely, with all the supple strength of her magnificent youth, but he only laughed exuberantly, drunk with the possession of this splendid creature writhing in his arms.

He crushed her struggles easily, drinking the nectar of her lips with all the unrestrained passion that was his, until the arms that strained against them melted and twined convulsively about his massive neck. Then he laughed down into the clear eyes, and said: “Why should not a chief of the Free People be preferable to a city-bred dog of Turan?”

She shook back her tawny locks, still tingling in every nerve from the fire of his kisses. She did not loosen her arms from his neck. “Do you deem yourself an Agha's equal?” she challenged.

He laughed and strode with her in his arms toward the stair. “You shall judge,” he boasted. “I'll burn Khawarizm for a torch to light your way to my tent.”

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Черновик «Волки у границы»/«Wolves Beyond the Border»

2017-12-11T16:55:16Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «'''Перевод Г. Корчагина''' <center>'''Глава 1'''</center> Меня разбудил глухой рокот барабана. Лёжа с…»

'''Перевод Г. Корчагина'''

<center>'''Глава 1'''</center>

Меня разбудил глухой рокот барабана. Лёжа среди кустов, послуживших мне укрытием, я высматривал источник звуков, столь обманчивых в этом дремучем лесу. Раздавались они где-то далеко, в непосредственной близости заросли безмолвствовали. Надо мной сплелись, создав плотную крышу, ежевика и вьюны, а выше заслоняла небо мрачная арка из ветвей деревьев-гигантов. Через этот лиственный свод не проглядывала ни единая звездочка. Не было в небе и луны, ночь выдалась чёрная, как ненависть ведьмы.

Что ж, тем лучше для меня. Если я не вижу своих врагов, то и они меня не заметят.

Однако сквозь ночь кралась зловещая барабанная дробь. Бум-бум-бум... Размеренные, монотонные звуки, будто безымянное лесное чудище посвящало кого-то в свои нечестивые тайны. Ошибиться было невозможно: это боевой барабан пиктов, по нему бьют ладони раскрашенного дикаря из свирепого племени, что обитает в дебрях за границей Западной Марки.

За этой границей находился и я, разведчик-одиночка. Прятался в ежевике посреди громадного леса, где едва ли не от первого рассвета Времен неистовствовали обнаженные исчадия ада.

Наконец удалось понять: барабан находится на западе, и вряд ли очень далеко. Я поспешил затянуть потуже пояс, обременённый ножом и боевым топориком в шитых бисером чехлах, надел тетиву на увесистый лук и проверил, не сорвался ли с левого бедра колчан; в кромешной мгле пришлось всё это делать на ощупь. После чего я выполз из кустов и осторожно двинулся на звуки.

Не верилось, что барабан гремит из-за меня. Если я обнаружен людьми леса — не далекий рокот стал бы тому подтверждением, а нечаянный удар ножа в горло. Но раз уж я проник в пиктскую чащобу, нельзя не замечать тайные знаки, нельзя не ломать голову над их грозным смыслом. Быть может, они пророчат беду для белокожих чужаков, чьи разбросанные по вырубкам хижины грозят здешней вековой глуши. Быть может, они сулят пожары и пытки, и ночной звездопад огненных стрел, и кровавый топор, гуляющий по черепам взрослых и детей.

Так и шёл я в кромешной темноте девственного леса, пробирался ощупью среди огромных колод, временами опускался на четвереньки. То и дело какая-нибудь ползучая тварь подворачивалась под руку или даже касалась лица, и тогда сердце мое уходило в пятки. В этих зарослях водились большущие змеи, они любили, обвив хвостом ветку, свешиваться над тропой в ожидании добычи. Но те, кого я искал, были опаснее самой хитрой и самой ядовитой змеи. Их барабан теперь говорил громче, вынуждая меня удвоить, утроить чуткость.

И вот я заметил красный сполох меж деревьев, услышал дикарские голоса, что сливались с рыком барабана.

Чем бы ни занимались варвары на чёрной прогалине, какие бы богомерзкие ритуалы ни вершили, они наверняка расставили вокруг сторожей. А пикт может подолгу стоять недвижим и неслышим, и не отличишь его от деревьев в ночном лесу, пока не метнется к твоему сердцу сталь. Я весь покрылся мурашками, ожидая встречи с кем-нибудь из этих грозных часовых, но сделать ничего не мог, разве что держать перед собой нож в вытянутой руке. Ободряла лишь одна мысль: даже пикт не заметит крадущегося человека среди такой густой растительности в такую облачную ночь.

Вновь передо мной появился свет костра, на его фоне мелькали чёрные силуэты, будто демоны возле красного адского пламени. Прокравшись меж тесно стоящими кустами тамариска, я увидел в чёрной кайме зарослей широкую поляну и движущиеся на ней тела.

Там было сорок-пятьдесят пиктов, в одних лишь набедренных повязках, в чудовищной раскраске. Они сидели широким полукругом, спиной ко мне, и смотрели на огонь. Клан ястреба, или онаяга, судя по перьям в густых чёрных гривах. Посреди поляны стоял грубый алтарь из уложенных друг на друга валунов, и при виде его я вновь похолодел от страха. Ведь я уже видел такие алтари, сплошь покрытые копотью и засохшей кровью. Правда, еще ни разу зверские обряды пиктов не отправлялись на моих глазах, но доводилось слышать рассказы тех, кто побывал в их стране пленником или, как я сейчас, лазутчиком.

Между костром и алтарём плясал разряженный в перья шаман; медленные движения тела и рук, шаркающие шаги делали танец неописуемо гротесковым. Перья взлетали и опадали, а черты лица прятались под алой демонической маской — ну точно ухмыляющаяся морда лешего.

В фокусе полукруга воинов сидел на корточках дикарь, и зажатый между его колен барабан отзывался на удары низким злым рыком — словно раскаты далекого грома.

Между воинами и пляшущим шаманом стоял человек, к племени пиктов не принадлежавший. Ростом не ниже меня, с белой кожей, на которой играли отсветы костра. Из одежды на нем — только набедренная повязка из шкуры важенки и мокасины; из украшений — узор на теле да перо ястреба в волосах. Наверное, это лигуриец, белый дикарь из тех, что малыми племенами живут в великом лесу, порой воюя с пиктами, порой замиряясь и даже заключая союзы. Кожа у лигурийца не темнее аквилонской. Пикты тоже принадлежат к белой расе, то есть они не желтые, не красные и не коричневые, но зато смуглы, черноглазы и черноволосы. И уж точно ни пикты, ни лигурийцы не считаются белыми у жителей Западной Марки, относящих к этой расе только людей с хайборийской кровью.

И тут я увидел, как три воина затаскивают в круг света человека. Это был пикт, нагой и окровавленный. По перу, чудом удержавшемуся в спутанных волосах, я узнал выходца из клана ворона — врага ястребов с незапамятных времен. Связанного по рукам и ногам пленника бросили на алтарь. Я видел, как взбухают и корчатся в отсветах костра мышцы, но тщетно бедняга пытался разорвать сыромятные ремни.

Вновь шаман пустился в пляс, выделывая мудреные коленца вокруг алтаря, а барабанщик теперь лупил так, словно в него вселился демон. И тут вдруг с простертой над поляной ветви сорвалась исполинская змея, из тех, о которых я уже упоминал. По её чешуе бегали отблески, из пасти выстреливал раздвоенный язык, но воины не выказывали страха, хоть змея и проползала в считанных локтях от иных. Ну и дивные же дела! Я-то знал: у пиктов нет врагов опаснее этих тварей.

Перед грудой камней чудище выгнуло шею, подняло голову; глядя ему в глаза, по другую сторону алтаря двигался в танце шаман. Корчились его туловище и руки, едва шевелились ноги, и змея тоже пустилась в пляс, извивалась и качалась, будто загипнотизированная. Из-под шаманской маски вырвался жуткий свист — похоже звучит ветер в сухих камышах лимана. Гигантская рептилия тянулась вверх, медленно поднималась все выше и выше, а затем принялась обвивать алтарь вместе с распластанным на нем человеком, и вот уже все его тело скрылось под радужными петлями, видна только голова, да и над нею грозно нависла башка гада.

Свист превратился в визг, а тот перерос в крещендо полного торжества, и шаман бросил что-то в огонь. Поднялся большой зеленый клуб, дымом заволокло алтарь, сделав нечёткими, почти иллюзорными очертания рептилии и человека. Но я угадывал корчи в толще этого дыма, я понимал, что там происходят страшные метаморфозы — черты разных существ расплывались и сливались, и вот уже нельзя судить, кому какие принадлежат. По сидящим пиктам пробежала дрожь, словно стонущий ветер хлестнул по ветвям ночного леса.

Вскоре дым развеялся. Человек и змея лежали недвижно, и я обоих принял за мертвых. Но шаман схватил пресмыкающееся за хвост, и смотал покорное тулово с алтаря, и небрежно уронил наземь, и столкнул с груды камней человеческое тело, и разрезал на запястьях и лодыжках сыромятные ремешки. А затем снова закружил в танце, корчась телом и дико жестикулируя руками.

И вдруг человек из клана ворона зашевелился. Но не встал. Голова его качалась из стороны в сторону, и я видел, как выстреливает и прячется язык. Клянусь Митрой, он извивался, отползая от огня на животе. Точь-в-точь змея!

Вдруг тело этой «змеи» сотрясли конвульсии. Выгнув шею, она вскинулась почти во весь рост, затем упала и снова вздыбилась, тщетно и страшно — вот так же, тщетно и страшно, пытается встать человек с отрубленными конечностями.

Дикое завывание пиктов заставило содрогнуться саму ночь, и на меня, затаившегося в кустах, накатила тошнота. Теперь я понял суть этой мерзкой и жуткой церемонии. До меня уже доходили слухи о ней. С помощью чёрного первобытного колдовства, затаившегося с незапамятных времен в чреве этого девственного леса, шаман отомстил пленному врагу, переселив его душу в змеиное тело. И обезумевшие от крови пикты вопили при этом, точно демоны ада.

Жертвы корчились в агонии бок о бок, человек и рептилия, пока не сверкнул меч в руке шамана и не упали обе головы. И боги тому свидетели: если змеиное тулово только пару раз дернулось и застыло, то человеческое каталось, извивалось и билось — ну точь-в-точь обезглавленная змея!

Я же был охвачен смертельной слабостью и дурнотой, да и найдется ли на свете белый, способный хладнокровно глядеть на такую гнусную бесовщину? А дикари в боевой раскраске завывали, похабно жестикулировали над мертвецами, упивались их горьким роком. По мне, так это вовсе не люди, а подлые исчадия мира Тьмы, порожденные только для душегубства. Шаман развернулся прыжком, и оказался лицом к полукругу воинов, и сорвал маску, и завыл по-волчьи. И я узнал это лицо, освещенное костром. Тотчас все страхи и отвращение были вытеснены буйным гневом, и вылетели из головы мысли об осторожности и даже о долге, что привел меня сюда. Ведь этот шаман — не кто-нибудь, а сам Тианога из племени южных ястребов. Это он сжег заживо сына Джона Гайтера, моего друга и я, обуреваемый ненавистью, действовал почти инстинктивно. Сорвал с плеча лук, наложил стрелу и выпустил её, и все это — в один миг. Не слишком ярко горел костер, зато до цели было рукой подать, к тому же мы, жители Западной Марки, вырастаем под звон тетивы. Старый Тианога лишь мяукнул по-кошачьи да пал навзничь, а прочие взвыли от изумления при виде дрожащего над его грудью древка. Круто развернулся долговязый воин, и я в первый раз смог увидеть его лицо. Клянусь Митрой, это было лицо белого человека!

Пораженный до глубины души, я даже оцепенел на несколько мгновений. А вот пикты времени не теряли. Сорвались с места, быстрые и гибкие, как пантеры, кинулись в лес ловить вражьего стрелка.

И успели достигнуть первых кустов, прежде чем я разорвал путы страха и изумления, вскочил и пустился наутёк, пригибаясь под ветвями и огибая стволы. В такой кромешной мгле только инстинкт спасал от столкновений с препятствиями. Но зато пикты не смогут напасть на след, им тоже придется действовать наугад.

Спеша на север, я вдруг услышал завывания позади — от столь чудовищных, полных кровожадной злобы воплей любая душа уйдет в пятки. Все ясно: дикари выдернули из груди шамана стрелу и поняли, что она сделана рукой белого человека. И лютая ненависть ко мне только добавит сил преследователям. Я бежал, и сердце колотилось от страха и напряжения; в глазах ещё стояли картины разыгравшегося на поляне кошмара. И этот белый человек, хайбориец,— он держался не как пленник, а как почетный гость. Ему оставили оружие — я успел заметить нож и топорик на поясе. Неужели возможна подобная мерзость? Не привиделось ли мне все это действо? Еще ни разу не дозволялось белому смотреть на танец меняющейся змеи. Это мог сделать лишь пленник, как тот несчастный из племени воронов, или шпион вроде меня.

Как понимать случившееся? Что оно сулит моему народу? Помимо страха меня обуревали самые дурные предчувствия. Они-то и заставили почти забыть о благоразумии. Осторожность уступила спешке; будь иначе, я бы не налетел на то проклятое дерево! Если бы не шум, ближайший пикт пробежал бы мимо, не увидел бы меня в чёрной ночи.

Позади меня больше не орали дикари, но я знал: пикты охотятся, точно волки с горящими глазами. Они растянулись в длинную дугу и прочесывают лес. Мой след пока не взяли, потому и молчат. Такой у них обычай — преследовать добычу без единого звука, пока она не окажется вблизи, в одном верном рывке.

Воин, услышавший звуки моего бегства, либо охотился в одиночку, либо оторвался от шайки, забежав далеко вперед. Возможно, он и вовсе не участвовал в погоне, а просто сторожил здесь, чтобы на его приятелей не напали с севера.

Как бы там ни было, он услышал, как я приближаюсь бегом, и ринулся на меня в непроглядной мгле, как сущий демон. Но его выдал слабый топот босых ног, и я успел резко повернуться навстречу.

Ночью пикты видят как кошки, и не могло быть сомнений: я обнаружен врагом. Но одно дело — обнаружить, и другое — хорошо разглядеть; дикарю я казался чёрным пятном. Занесенный им нож встретился с выброшенным навстречу топором; миг спустя мой собственный нож вошел в грудь врага, и от лиственного свода отразился смертный вопль — точно клич самого рока.

Ему вторил свирепый рёв на юге. Преследователи совсем близко, в нескольких сотнях шагов. Теперь они точно знают, где добыча, и мчатся по лесу, высунув по-волчьи языки.

Я припустил что было духу, жертвуя всякой осторожностью ради быстроты и полагаясь на удачу. Авось не налечу в потёмках на дерево, не раскрою себе череп.

Но вдруг деревья расступились, исчезли кусты. Не свет ли забрезжил меж ветвями там, впереди? Да, это луна, на небе слегка убавилось туч.

Я мчался по этому редкому лесу, как проклятая душа, травимая демонами на адской охоте. Вопли позади звучали всё громче и громче, кровожадные твари уже ликовали. И вдруг ослабли крики, торжество сменилось гневом и досадой — еще бы, ни один пикт не сравнится в беге без препятствий с белым воином из Западной Марки.

Правда, пикты могли быть и впереди — как одиночки-разведчики, так и военные отряды. Но повезло — размалёванные призраки не бросались на меня из теней. Наконец я продрался через кусты к ручью и увидел впереди меж деревьев свет. Это могла быть только крепостца Кваньяра, самый северный аванпост Шохиры.

<center>'''Глава 2'''</center>

Прежде чем продолжать эту хронику кровавых лет, наверное, надо рассказать о себе и объяснить, почему я в одиночку отправился в Дебри пиктов.

Меня зовут Гэлт, сын Хагара. Я родился в провинции Конаджохара. Когда мне было десять, пикты прорвались за Чёрную реку, и обрушились на крепость Тусцелан, и убили там всех до одного, и очистили провинцию от поселенцев, изгнав их на восток, за Громовую реку. Конаджохара снова приросла к пустошам, населённым только дикими зверьми и людьми. Её бывшие жители разбрелись по Западной Марке и осели в Шошире, Каунаваге и Орискавни, но многие, в их числе моя семья, подались на юг и нашли пристанище на реке Боевой Конь, возле крепости Тандары. Позже к ним добавился люд из старых провинций, где случился переизбыток населения; и вот возник край под названием вольная провинция Тандара, отличавшийся от других, расположенных восточнее болот. Те земли достались от королевских щедрот самым родовитым дворянам и под властью этих дворян обустраивались и заселялись. Совсем другая судьба у Тандары, её свободные поселенцы отвоевали у чащоб без содействия аквилонской знати. Мы не платили податей никаким баронам. Никто из самых родовитых дворян не ставил над нами управляющих, мы их выбирали сами, из своей среды, и эти управляющие отвечали только перед королем. Мы собственными руками возводили крепости и этими же руками их защищали. И в дни войны, и в дни мира мы обходились своими силами. Видит бог, мирных дней на нашу долю выпало немного, ибо не утихала распря между нами и свирепыми соседями — пантерой, аллигатором и другими пиктскими кланами.

Вопреки всему мы процветали и редко задавались вопросом, что творится восточнее болот, в королевстве, откуда пришли наши деды. Но вот и до нашей глуши долетел грохот сотрясшей Аквилонию катастрофы. Пришла весть о гражданской войне, о том, как мятежники вырывают трон у древней династии. Искры этого пожара зажгли наше приграничье, и сосед восстал на соседа, брат — на брата. На аквилонских равнинах сражались и убивали рыцари в сияющей стали... Вот почему я в одиночку пересекал дебри между Тандарой и Шохирой, спешил донести известия, способные изменить судьбу всей Западной Марки.

Кваньяра — крепость-невеличка, квадрат земли, обнесенный палисадом из заостренных бревен, на берегу ручья с названием Нож. Я уже видел, как вьется флаг на фоне бледной утренней зари — флаг с гербом провинции. А ведь раньше над ним висел королевский штандарт с золотым змеем! Это могло значить многое. Или не значить ничего. Мы, жители приграничных земель, мало смыслим в традициях, этикете и тому подобных игрушках, столь дорогих королям в странах за болотами.

Я перебрался через Нож по мелководью и на другом берегу встретился с лесовиком, долговязым мужчиной в одежде из оленьей кожи. Узнав, что я пришел из Тандары, он воскликнул:

— О Митра! Видать, и правда дело срочное, коли ты не кружным путем пустился, а напрямик через лес.

Ведь Тандара, как я уже упоминал, лежала наособицу от других провинций. Между ней и болотами Боссонских пределов протянулась Малая пустошь. Безопасная дорога пересекала и пустошь, и болота и задевала соседние провинции, а это слишком длинный и скучный путь.

Он стал меня пытать, что нового в Тандаре; я же отвечал скупо. Мол, сам почти ничего не знаю, только что вернулся из долгой разведки на земле племени выдры. В этом не было правды. Но я не знал политической ситуации в Шохире, а потому решил осторожничать. Затем я спросил, в крепости ли сейчас сын Хакона Строма, и услышал в ответ: нужный мне человек не в Кваньяре, а в городе Шондара, это несколькими милями восточнее.

— Надеюсь, Тандара объявит своим правителем Конана,— произнес он с жаром.— Не скрою, мы-то свой выбор уже сделали, окончательно и бесповоротно. Эх, кабы не злая моя судьба, я бы не торчал здесь с горсткой парней, не стерег бы границу в ожидании набега пиктов. Я бы с радостью променял свой лук и охотничью рубаху на место в рядах нашей армии. Сейчас бы стоял на речке Огаха, у Тенитеи, и готовился бы задать взбучку Брокасу Торскому и его проклятым отступникам.

Я ни слова на это не сказал, хотя изумление мое было преизрядным. Вот это да! Ведь барон Торский — владетель Каунаваги, а не Шоширы, чей покровитель — Тасперас Кормонский.

— А где же Тасперас? — спросил я, и охотник, чуть подумав, ответил:

— Отбыл в Аквилонию сражаться на стороне Конана.

И посмотрел на меня в упор, как будто заподозрил шпиона. Тогда я осторожно проговорил:

— В лесу я видел человека из Шохиры. У него какие-то дела с пиктами, судя по тому, что он среди них живет, голый и размалеванный, и даже участвует в кровавых церемониях, и...

Гримаса ненависти, исказившая лицо шохирца, заставила меня осечься.

— Да будь ты проклят! — воскликнул он в негодовании.— Какого демона сюда явился? Чтобы оскорблять?

А ведь и правда, назвать жителя Западной Марки предателем — значит нанести смертельное оскорбление. Но я пошел на это осознанно. Теперь ясно: моему собеседнику ничего не известно о том ренегате. Не желая выдавать лишних сведений, я мягко сказал охотнику, что он не так меня понял.

— Все я понял отлично,— процедил он, кипя.— Смуглая кожа и южный акцент позволяют заподозрить в тебе лазутчика из Каунаваги. Но даже если ты не лазутчик, все равно не можешь хамить шохирцам безнаказанно. Не будь я на посту, снял бы пояс и показал тебе, чего стоит наш брат в драке.

— Мне ссориться не с руки,— сказал я.— Но путь мой лежит в Шохиру, можем встретиться там, как с поста сменишься. Было бы желание.

— Скоро встретимся,— мрачно посулил он.— Я Шторм, сын Грома, в Шохире меня каждая собака знает.

Я оставил его на берегу речки и пошел дальше, а он смотрел вслед, поглаживая рукояти топорика и ножа — наверное, боролся с желанием запустить мне в затылок что-нибудь тяжелое и острое. Встречаться с другими сторожами что-то вдруг расхотелось, поэтому крепостцу я обогнул по широкой дуге. В столь неспокойные времена достаточно любого неосторожного слова, чтобы тебя приняли за шпиона,— а со шпионами, вестимо, на войне разговор короткий. В косматой башке у этого Шторма, сына Грома, явно зародилось подозрение, и он был бы рад задержать меня и доставить в крепость для разбирательства. Но сделать это не позволило уязвленное достоинство — для таких, как он, честь важнее всего. Да, лихие наступили времена — прежде никому бы не пришло в голову подозревать и допрашивать белого человека, идущего через границу. Налетел кровавый вихрь, и все смешалось, и теперь владетель Каунаваги вторгается в земли соседей.

Вокруг крепости на несколько сот шагов был вырублен лес. Беспрепятственно преодолев расчищенный участок, я двинулся параллельно стене и ни единой души не встретил, хоть и пересек несколько выходящих из Кваньяры дорог.

Огибая вырубки и фермы, я направлялся на восток, и солнце висело не так уж высоко в небе, когда показались крыши Шондары. Лес заканчивался менее чем в полумиле от городка, одного из самых пригожих на этой приграничной земле, на диво красивого для приграничья: одни дома целиком сложены из бруса, другие — каркасные; некоторые покрашены и всё без исключения опрятны. Чем-чем, а каркасными домами моя Тандара похвастаться не может. Но не отсутствие рва и даже частокола показалось мне самым странным. В Тандаре любая постройка в первую очередь предназначена для обороны и лишь во вторую — для жилья или хранения. Поэтому не деревни разбросаны по провинции, а хижины, каждая из них по сути маленькая цитадель.

Здесь же крепость стояла справа от поселения, посреди луга. Имела она и палисад, и ров и величиной едва ли не превосходила Кваньяру. И над стеной я заметил движущиеся головы, все в шлемах или шапках. И на флаге красовался только крылатый сокол Шохиры. Понятно, почему больше нет золотого льва на черном поле, знамени отряда наёмников, которым командовал Конан, будучи военачальником на аквилонской службе.

Слева я увидел на краю леса большой каменный дом в окружении лужаек и клумб. Поместье Валериана, самого крупного в западной части Шохиры землевладельца. Этого дворянина я никогда не видел, но был наслышан о его богатстве и могуществе. Теперь его дом выглядел брошенным.

Как, впрочем, и городок. По крайней мере, я почти не замечал взрослых мужчин. Женщин и детей хватало. Неужто мужчины собрали здесь свои семьи, рассудив, что так безопаснее? Когда я пошел по улице, множество глаз подозрительно следили за мной. Но никто ко мне не обращался с вопросами, а те, к кому обращался я, если и отвечали, то односложно и уклончиво.

В таверне считанные старики и калеки сидели у залитых пивом столов и разговаривали полушепотом, все дружно умолкли, стоило в дверном проеме появиться чужаку в изорванной кожаной одежде. И каждая пара глаз недоуменно уставилась на меня.

Я спросил насчет Хакона, сына Строма, и услышал от хозяина таверны, что Хакон уехал поутру в Тенитею, где стоят лагерем ополченцы, но должен вскорости вернуться.

Голод и усталость напомнили о себе. Я поел, чувствуя на себе вопросительные взгляды, а потом хозяин постелил для меня в углу медвежью шкуру, я лег и уснул как убитый. А вечером приехал Хакон, сын Строма, и разбудил меня.

Хакон — человек высокий, плечистый и жилистый, как и большинство жителей Западной Марки,— носил такой же наряд, как у меня: охотничья рубашка и штаны из оленьей кожи, с бахромой, и мокасины. С ним пришло полдюжины лесовиков; рассевшись на длинной скамье у двери, они поглядывали на меня над кружками с пивом.

Когда я назвался и заявил, что принес для Хакона весточку, присмотрелся ко мне и пригласил за стол, ломившийся под тяжестью кожаных кружек с пенным напитком. — Ведомо ли тебе, как обстоят дела в Тандаре? — спросил я.

— Сюда ничего достоверного не доходит, слухи одни.

— Вот для того я и пришел. С вестью от Бранта, сына Драго, губернатора Тандары, и от совета капитанов. И этот знак подтверждает, что мне можно верить.— С этими словами я макнул палец в пену и нарисовал на столе символ, тотчас его стерев.

Хакон кивнул, глаза его заинтересованно блеснули.

— Вот что велено передать,— продолжал я.— Тандара признала власть Конана. Она готова помогать его друзьям и давать отпор его врагам.

Тут он обрадованно заулыбался и тепло сжал мою смуглую руку грубыми пальцами.

— Вот и славно! — воскликнул Хакон.— Ничего другого я и не ждал.

— Разве могут тандарцы забыть Конана? — произнес я.— Ведь даже я, хоть был в ту пору только мальчишкой, запомнил, как он служил разведчиком в лесах Конаджохары. Когда к нам прискакал гонец и сообщил, что Пуантен поднял восстание, что Конан решил сесть на трон и просит у нас даже не добровольцев в армию, а лишь лояльности,— ответ наш был прост:

«Мы не забыли Конаджохару». После этого на нас двинулся по болотам барон Аттелиус, но мы устроили засаду в Малой пустоши и посекли войско на куски. Теперь, пожалуй, можно не опасаться нашествия на Тандару.

— Хотел бы я то же самое о Шохире сказать,— нахмурился мой собеседник.— Послали мы гонца к барону Тасперасу, а он в ответ: поступайте, как знаете. Сам он принёс присягу Конану, примкнул к повстанцам, но рекрутов на западе набирать не намерен. И барон, и Конан понимают, что Западная Марка должна охранять границу, здесь каждый боец на счету. Однако Тасперас вывел свои войска из крепостей, и теперь их гарнизоны состоят только из нас, лесовиков. На нашей земле не обошлось без мелких стычек, особенно в городах вроде Койаги, где много лояльных Нумедидесу помещиков. Но они частью сбежали в Каунавагу вместе со своими присными либо смирились и пообещали тихо сидеть у себя в замках,— к примеру, так поступил лорд Валериан Шондарский. Ушедшие лоялисты поклялись вернуться и всем нам перерезать глотки. Брокас, между прочим, уже выступил с войском и пересек границу. В Каунаваге он первый богатей и предводитель дворянства. Сюда доходят слухи о том, как знатная сволочь измывается над сочувствующим Конану простонародьем.

Ничуть не удивленный, я кивнул. Каунавага — самая большая, богатая и густонаселенная провинция Западной Марки. Тамошняя знать весьма влиятельна, чего не скажешь о нашей, тандарской. У нас титулованных особ с толстыми денежными мешками по пальцам можно пересчитать, и не дай Митра, чтобы их прибавилось.

— Брокас, пёс, требует, чтобы мы поклялись в верности Нумедидесу,— продолжал Хакон.— Сдаётся мне, этот болван вознамерился усмирить всю Западную Марку — авось за такую услугу Нумедидес сделает его своим наместником. Его армия состоит из аквилонской тяжелой конницы, боссонских лучников, каунавагских ополченцев, шохирских ренегатов. Сейчас он стоит в Койаге, это десять миль за рекой Огаха. А в Тенитее собралась уйма беженцев из разоренной им восточной земли. Но мы не боимся Брокаса, хоть у него и численное превосходство. Чтобы на нас напасть, необходимо переправиться через Огаху. А там хорошо укреплен западный берег и дорога завалена — коннице не пройти.

— А вот это уже напрямую относится к моей задаче,— сказал я.— Мне разрешено предложить подмогу: сто пятьдесят лесовиков. Понимаю, это не бог весть что. Но тандарское войско не сражается на чужой земле, такой уж у нас обычай. Даже не будь его, мы бы не смогли дать больше, поскольку сейчас идет война с кланом пантеры.

— Что ж, это хорошая новость для нашего командира.

— Как?! — воскликнул я.— Разве не ты командуешь гарнизоном Кваньяры?

— Нет,— ответил Хакон.— Дирк, сын Строма, мой брат.

— Эх, знал бы — сразу бы к нему пошёл,— вздохнул я.— Брант, сын Драго, думает, что ты здесь главный. Впрочем, не важно.

— Ну, еще по кружечке, и мы пойдем в крепость, так что Дирк получит известие из первых рук. Что же до меня, то мой потолок — маленький отряд разведчиков. Командовать целой крепостью очень уж хлопотно.

Как я вскоре понял, Хакон и вправду не годился в начальники большому отряду, очень уж рисков и тороплив. Хотя и отчаянной храбрости ему было не занимать.

— Как я понял, на границе с вашей стороны не войско стоит, редкая цепь сторожей,— заметил я.— А что пикты?

— Мы договорились о перемирии, они слово держат,— ответил Хакон.— Вот уже который месяц на границе тихо. В смысле, нет серьезных боев, ну а поединки — обычное дело.

— Похоже, усадьба Валериана брошена.

— Нет, Валериан там, с горсткой челяди. А вот где его дружина, неизвестно. Куда-то он ее отослал. Кабы не его посул держаться в стороне, мы бы его посадили под замок. Пикты себе позволяют якшаться с очень немногими из белых, и Валериан — в их числе... А ну как он подговаривает дикарей к набегу — мы тогда враз окажемся меж двух огней. К нему прислушиваются ястребы, рыси и черепахи. Говорят, он даже побывал в стойбищах волков и вернулся живым.

А вот это очень и очень странно, подумал я. Племя волка — это название знаменитого своей воинственностью и свирепостью союза нескольких кланов. Его земли лежат на западе, за охотничьими угодьями трёх упомянутых Хаконом племён. И хотя обычно волки держатся в стороне от границы, жители Шохиры привыкли учитывать угрозу их яростного нашествия.

Хакон глянул на вошедшего в таверну долговязого мужчину в сапогах, коротких штанах и алом плаще.

— Валериан собственной персоной,— шепнул он мне.

Я вздрогнул от неожиданности и тотчас оказался на ногах.

— Это же он,— показал я рукой.— Он был ночью по ту сторону границы, в стане ястребов, любовался танцем меняющейся змеи!

Валериан услышал и резко повернулся ко мне. От его лица отлила кровь, глаза блеснули, как у пантеры. Хакон тоже резко встал.

— Да что ты говоришь?! — вскричал он.— Валериан пообещал...

— Плевать! — воскликнул я в гневе, устремляясь на высокого помещика.— Я лежал в кустах тамариска и видел всё! Ни с каким другим не спутаю эту мерзкую физиономию! Клянусь, он там был, голый и раскрашенный, как самый настоящий пикт...

— Лжешь, демон тебя побери! — вскричал Валериан и сорвал с себя плащ одной рукой, а другой схватился за меч.

Но прежде чем он успел обнажить клинок, я налетел на него и повалил на пол. Он вцепился мне в горло, брызгая слюной, как безумец, и исторгая проклятия. Раздался частый топот множества ног, а затем мускулистые мужские руки растащили нас в разные стороны. Они крепко держали Валериана, а тот, белый как мел, стоял, и скалился, и злобно шипел, и сжимал в кулаке оторванный ворот моей рубашки.

— Отпустите меня, собаки! — рычал он.— Уберите сивые лапы, смерды! Я всажу этому клеветнику в челюсть крюк и подвешу...

— Нет никакой клеветы,— перебил я спокойно.— Ночью я лежал в кустах и видел, как старый Тейанога вытащил из сына вождя воронов душу и поместил её в тело древесной змеи. Это моя стрела уложила шамана. И тебя я там видел. Ты, белый человек, голый и раскрашенный, был в племени своим.

— Если это правда...— начал Хакон.

— Правда, и есть доказательство!— перебил я. — Да вы сами посмотрите! На грудь!

В схватке я успел порвать на Валериане спереди камзол и рубашку, и в тусклом свете таверны теперь виднелись расплывчатые контуры белого черепа. Пикты его рисуют лишь в одном случае: когда замышляют войну с белокожими. Должно быть, негодяй пытался смыть, но у дикарей очень стойкая краска.

— Разоружить! — приказал побледневший от ненависти Хакон.

— Отдай ворот,— потребовал я, но помещик плюнул в меня и засунул добычу себе за пазуху.

— Бунтовщик! — прорычал он.— Я его привяжу к петле, которая затянется на твоей шее.

Хакон, похоже, не знал, как поступить.

— Отведем его в крепость,— предложил я. — Пусть решает командир. Явно неспроста этот негодяй участвовал в танце змеи. Те пикты раскрасились к войне, и Валериан, судя по рисунку на груди, намеревался им в этом деле пособить.

— Просто не могу поверить, клянусь великим Митрой,— сокрушался Хакон.— Чтобы белый человек да обрёк своих друзей и соседей этим размалеванным демонам!

Помещик на это ничего не сказал. Двое крепких лесовиков держали его за руки, а он кривил тонкие губы, скалился и рычал, в глазах пылали жёлтые адские огни. Самый настоящий безумец!

А Хакон все колебался. Отпустить Валериана он не мог — ведь этот негодяй совершил преступление, он замышлял сдать врагу крепость.

— Но народ потребует объяснений аресту,— сам себе возражал командир разведчиков,— и, когда узнает, что пикты раскрасились для войны, поднимется паника. Давайте-ка вот что сделаем. Посадим Валериана под замок и вызовем Дирка. Пусть он сам разбирается.

— По мне, так это очень опасная полумера,— хмуро предупредил я,— но главный здесь ты, тебе и решать.

Мы осторожно вывели предателя через чёрный ход и доставили в тюрьму. Очень кстати пришлись сумерки, никто из посторонних на нас внимания не обратил; почти все горожане уже сидели по домам. Тюрьма — небольшая бревенчатая изба — стояла наособицу от города, из чётырех камер только одна не пустовала, в ней томился жирный громила, чья вина заключалась в пьяной уличной драке. На нового узника он вытаращился в крайнем изумлении. А Валерий не обронил ни словечка, когда Хакон запирал за ним решетчатую дверь и отдавал помощнику приказ сторожить. Но в демонических глазах на бледном, как смертная маска, лице все пылал огонь. Негодяй даже проводил нас дерзким хохотом.

— Ты оставил только одного сторожа? — спросил я у Хакона.

— А что, мало? — удивился он.— Никто не придет на выручку Валериану, а ему самому нипочем не вынести дверь.

Я не разделял уверенности Хакона, но, как ни крути, меня его дела не касались. Поэтому я смолчал.

Мы отправились в крепость, и там я поговорил с Дирком, сыном Строма, управлявшим городом в отсутствие Джона, сына Строма, которого Тасперас назначил губернатором. Сам Тасперас командовал отрядом ополченцев под Тенитеей.

Выслушав мой рассказ, он помрачнел как туча и пообещал, как только выдастся свободное время, побывать в тюрьме и допросить Валериана. Правда, он сомневался, что предатель заговорит, ведь этот знатный подонок славится упрямством и спесью. Джон обрадовался предложению от Тандары и сказал, что найдёт кого послать с ответом, если я пожелаю задержаться в Шохире. Я пожелал.

Потом я вернулся в таверну, чтобы хорошенько выспаться, а поутру вместе с Хаконом отправиться в Тенитею. Он получил от своих разведчиков донесение, что Брокас по-прежнему стоит лагерем. Дожидается, когда Валериан поведёт пиктов через границу, предположил я. Хакон же по-прежнему сомневался и мои доводы пропускал мимо ушей: Валериан, говорил он, давно уже на короткой ноге с пиктами, вот и в этот раз, наверное, побывал у них просто с дружеским визитом. Так ведь еще ни один белый человек, возражал я, как бы близко ни сходился с дикарями, к танцу змеи допущен не был. Никаких сомнений: Валериана приняли в клан на правах родича.

<center>'''Глава 3'''</center>

Я проснулся внезапно и резко сел на своем ложе. Увидел, что окно распахнуто настежь — не только рамы, но и ставни. Комнату не боялись проветривать, она находилась на втором этаже, и не было рядом дерева, по которому смог бы взобраться вор.

Но ведь какой-то шум разбудил меня. В окне я видел звёздное небо, частью скрытое бесформенным, изрядной величины силуэтом. Я спустил ноги с кровати и, нашаривая топорик, выкрикнул: «Кто?» Таинственный гость с потрясающей быстротой оказался рядом, и я не успел даже встать, как что-то захлестнулось на шее, сдавило, перекрыло путь воздуху. Почти к самому лицу моему придвинулась смутная и страшная образина, но толком разглядеть удалось лишь пару горящих красных глаз да заостренную кверху голову. В нос мне ударило острое звериное зловоние.

Удалось поймать запястье — волосатое, как у обезьяны, широкое, со стальными мышцами. Тут же мне под другую руку попался топорик, я его вскинул и с одного удара проломил череп. Тварь отвалилась, а я выпрямился, задыхаясь, кашляя и дрожа. Нашёл кресало и трут, зажег свечу и с изумлением увидел простертое на полу чудовище.

Оно было человекообразным, но все какое-то кривое, бесформенное, покрытое густым мехом. Длинные черные ногти — ни дать ни взять, когти зверя. Скошенная нижняя челюсть, низкий лоб — как у обезьяны. Я догадался, кто это. Мы их называли чаканами, полулюдей, обитающих в глубине леса.

Тут раздался стук в дверь, а затем и голос — Хакон явился выяснить, что случилось. Я предложил войти. Он вбежал с топором в руке и при виде мертвеца вытаращил глаза.

— Это же чакан! — ахнул он.— Я таких встречал далеко на западе! А что это у него в лапе?

У меня по коже мороз прошел — тварь сжимала в окостенелых пальцах тряпицу. Ту самую, которую попыталась затянуть на моей шее.

— Эти существа — превосходные нюхачи, даже борзым собакам нечета,— медленно объяснял Хакон.— Доходили слухи, будто пикты их ловят и приручают, чтобы врагов выслеживать. Но как Валериан ухитрился обзавестись чаканом?

— Того не ведаю,— проворчал я,— но кто как не он мог дать мой воротник зверю, чтобы тот нашел меня по запаху и удавил? Надо идти в тюрьму, и немедля.

Хакон разбудил своих людей, и мы устремились в тюрьму. Но нашли только сторожа, лежащего с перерезанным горлом на полу в бывшей камере Валериана. Хакон застыл, будто в камень обратясь, а несколько мгновений спустя раздался слабый зов из соседней клетки. Через решетку на нас смотрел бледный пьянчуга.

— Сбежал Валериан,— сообщил он.— С час назад лежу это я на нарах и вдруг просыпаюсь от какого-то звука. И вижу: из теней появляется незнакомая темная женщина и идет прямо к сторожу. Он лук вскидывает и велит остановиться, а она только смеется. И от этого смеха он в оцепенение впадает, стоит столбом и таращится... А она у него нож из-за пояса выхватывает и по горлу — вжик! Тут ему и конец. Ведьма берет его ключи, отпирает дверь, и выходит Валериан, хохочет, будто выпущенный из преисподней демон, и целует спасительницу, и она радуется вместе с ним. Между прочим, она пришла не одна — следом в тюрьму проскользнула какая-то тварь, страшная, хоть я и почти ничего не разглядел, фонарь, что под притолокой висит, очень уж слаб. Но я слышал, как ведьма сказала: надо бы и этого олуха прикончить, к чему нам свидетели. Видит Митра, я едва сам не окочурился с перепугу, лежу и не дышу. А Валериан в ответ: да он же пьян мертвецки, какой из него свидетель? Меня пьяницей назвал, каково? Вот попадись он мне, ужо посчитаюсь... Когда выходили, он сказал, что велит своему слуге исполнить одно поручение, а потом они пойдут в хижину на берегу Рысьего ручья и там встретятся с верными людьми, что прячутся в лесу с тех пор, как он их выслал из усадьбы. Сказал, к ним придет Тейанога, после чего они пересекут границу и примкнут к пиктам. Чтобы потом привести дикарей сюда и перерезать нам глотки.

В сиянии фонаря Хакон был бледен, как сама смерть.

— И что же это за женщина? — поинтересовался я.

— Его любовница,— ответил Хакон.— В ней половина крови ястребов, половина — лигурийцев. Ее еще называют ведьмой Скандары. Слыхал я об этой мерзавке, но видеть не случалось. Выходит, зря я не верил тому, что рассказывают о ней и о Валериане.

— Надо же, а я-то думал, что прикончил старика Тейаногу,— пробормотал я.— Своими глазами видел, как дрожало над его грудью оперение стрелы. Неужто он от смерти заговорен?

Ну да ладно. Что делать будем?

— Надо пойти на берег Рысьего ручья, к той хижине, и всех перебить,— решил Хакон.— Если пикты пересекут границу, здесь воцарится сущий ад. А у нас бойцов в обрез — ни из крепости подмоги не получить, ни из города. Ничего, своими силами обойдемся. И не важно, сколько людей будет на Рысьем ручье,— мы их захватим врасплох.

Мы вышли сразу же, не дожидаясь, когда рассветет. Кругом стояла тишина, мерцали сквозь дымку звезды. На западе высился безмолвный лес, от него веяло первобытной свирепостью, немой угрозой.

Продвигались мы гуськом. Лук с натянутой тетивой — в левой руке, топорик — в правой. По росистой траве мокасины ступали совершенно бесшумно. Мы растворились в чаще и вскоре нашли тропу, что петляла меж дубов и ольхи. Тут отряд растянулся, чтобы между каждым было футов пятнадцать. Хакон шагал впереди. Неожиданно мы спустились в травянистый овраг и увидели тусклый свет, он сочился через трещины в ставнях. Вот она, хижина!

По сигналу Хакона мы остановились, и он шепотом приказал своим людям ждать. Мы с ним отправились на разведку. Подкрались к часовому и споро убрали этого шохирского изменника,— возможно, он услышал наше приближение, но не успел даже пикнуть. Я никогда не забуду, с каким свирепым удовлетворением Хакон выпускал воздух через стиснутые зубы, погружая нож в сердце врага.

Припрятав тело в высокой сырой траве, мы подобрались к стене хижины и рискнули посмотреть в трещины. Увидели Валериана с яростно горящими глазами. Его любовницу, смуглую красавицу дикарку в набедренной повязке из оленьей кожи и расшитых бисером мокасинах, с золотой узорчатой лентой, стягивающей на затылке иссиня-черные волосы. Полдюжины шохирцев, мрачных громил в крестьянских куртках и штанах из шерсти, с тесаками на поясах. Троих лесовиков в одежде из оленьей кожи. Несколько гандерландцев, одетых в кольчуги и блестящие поножи, крепышей с соломенного цвета волосами, выбивающимися из-под шлемов. Гандерландца в наших краях проще простого узнать по стальному цвету глаз, резкому акценту и ловкости в обращении с мечом и кинжалом. Это очень хорошие бойцы, безжалостные, дисциплинированные. Их охотно принимают к себе в дружины крупные землевладельцы.

Мы послушали их разговор и смех. Валериан хвастал, как он сбежал из тюрьмы, а затем подослал своего помощника к «проклятому тандарцу». Шохирские ренегаты сулили всяческие кары бывшим друзьям. Лесовики больше помалкивали да слушали. Гандерландцы держались непринужденно, шутили, пряча под маской веселья беспощадную натуру. А девушка-полукровка, которую остальные звали Кварадой, хохотала и поддразнивала Валериана, который ей отвечал хмурыми улыбками.

Хакон дрожал от злости, слушая, как негодяй обещает соблазнить пиктов, повести их за собой через границу и ударом в спину разгромить шохирцев, когда Брокас обрушится на них из Койаги.

Вдруг раздался легкий топот, мы прижались к стене и увидели, как отворяется дверь и входят семеро пиктов — грозных воинов в раскраске и перьях. Их привел Тейанога, грудь его была в бинтах,— все-таки моя стрела продырявила эти могучие мышцы. Неужто старик и впрямь оборотень, которого нельзя убить оружием смертных? Сам он именно это утверждал, и многие верили.

Мы с Хаконом не шевелились, целиком обратясь в слух. Старый демон принёс вести. Если не будет заключен союз с сильным племенем волков, ястребы, рыси и черепахи не решатся на набег. Пока-де они будут драться с шохирцами, на их земли обрушатся волки и все разорят. А значит, сказал шаман, надо собирать совет вождей на краю болота Призраков, а этому не бывать, если не удастся замирить волков с живущими на болоте ящерицами. Так что Валериан должен пойти на болото Призраков и потолковать с ящерицами — может, тогда волки согласятся примкнуть к другим.

Хакон велел мне ползти за нашими, и я понял: он решил напасть, несмотря на то, что у врага численное превосходство. Но мне и самому не терпелось ударить, до того возмутил меня подслушанный гнусный план. Я бесшумно прокрался назад, и, как только мы с товарищами приблизились к Хакону, он устремился к двери и обрушил на неё боевой топор.

Мы же, не теряя ни мгновения, разбили ставни и пустили в окна стрелы.

Охваченный паникой противник даже не пытался удержать постройку. Погасли второпях сброшенные свечи, но было поздно — в хижине возник пожар, помогая нам бить без промаха. Толпа ринулась в двери, несколько человек легло в проёме, но другие выскочили и схватились с нами. Храбрости хватило ненадолго — уцелевшие бросились врассыпную и исчезли в чаще, возле хижины остались только убитые гандерландцы, шохирцы и пикты. А в хижине замешкался Валериан со своей девицей. Но вот они выскочили, и полукровка с хохотом ударила чем-то оземь. Раздался звон стекла, и вмиг все кругом заволокло зловонным дымом, под его прикрытием негодяям удалось бежать.

В отчаянной схватке нас уцелело лишь четверо, но мы сразу пустились в погоню, отправив раненого товарища в город — рассказать о случившемся.

След уводил в гущу леса.

{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Черновик без названия («Drums of Tombalku»/«Барабаны Томбалку»)

2017-12-11T16:54:22Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «'''Перевод К. Плешкова''' <center>Глава 1</center> Трое сидели на корточках возле источника под…»

'''Перевод К. Плешкова'''

<center>Глава 1</center>

Трое сидели на корточках возле источника под закатными лучами солнца, окрашивавшими пустыню в коричнево-красные тона. Один из них был белым, и его звали Амальрик; двое других были ганатами, одетыми в лохмотья, едва прикрывавшие их жилистые черные фигуры. Звали их Гобир и Сайду; сгорбившись возле источника, они напоминали стервятников.

Рядом шумно пережевывал свою жвачку верблюд, и пара усталых лошадей тщетно тыкалась мордами в голый песок. Люди угрюмо жевали сушеные финики; чернокожие сосредоточенно работали челюстями, белый же время от времени бросал взгляд на тусклое красное небо или вдаль на однообразную равнину, туда, где собирались и сгущались тени. Он первым увидел всадника, который подъехал к ним и резко дернул за поводья, подняв коня на дыбы.

Всадник был гигантского роста, и его еще более чёрная, чем у других двоих, кожа, так же как толстые губы и раздувающиеся ноздри, выдавали в нем негритянскую кровь. Его широкие шелковые шаровары, собранные вокруг голых лодыжек, поддерживал широкий пояс, несколько раз обмотанный вокруг громадного живота, и на поясе этом висела кривая сабля, которую мало кто смог бы поднять одной рукой.

Сабля эта была знаменита повсюду, где ездили на своих лошадях темнокожие сыны пустыни. Это был Тилутан, гордость ганатов.

Поперёк луки его седла лежала или, вернее, свисала безвольная фигура. Сквозь зубы ганатов со свистом вырвался воздух, когда они увидели белые руки и ноги. Через луку седла Тилутана была переброшена белая девушка, лицом вниз, и ее длинные волосы черной волной падали на стремя. Негр улыбнулся, сверкнув белыми зубами, и небрежно сбросил её на песок, где она так и осталась лежать без чувств. Гобир и Сайду инстинктивно повернулись к Амальрику, и Тилутан посмотрел на него, сидя в седле. Трое чёрных против одного белого. Появление на сцене белой женщины слегка меняло атмосферу.

Амальрик был единственным, кто, казалось, не обращал внимания на возникшую напряженность. Рассеянно отбросив назад непослушные жёлтые волосы, он безразлично посмотрел на обмякшее тело девушки. Если в его серых глазах на мгновение что-то и промелькнуло, то остальные этого не заметили.

Тилутан спрыгнул с седла, пренебрежительно бросив поводья Амальрику.

— Займись моим конем,— сказал он.— Видит Джил, я так и не нашёл пустынную антилопу, зато нашёл эту девчонку. Она шла, шатаясь, через пески и упала незадолго до моего приближения. Видимо, лишилась чувств от усталости и жажды. Освободите место, шакалы, чтобы я смог напоить её.

Рослый негр уложил девушку возле источника и начал омывать ей лицо и запястья, а затем влил несколько капель между её потрескавшихся губ. Вскоре она застонала и слабо пошевелилась. Гобир и Сайду присели на корточки, положив руки на колени и глядя на неё через большое плечо Тилутана. Амальрик стоял чуть поодаль, не проявляя особого интереса.

— Приходит в себя,— сообщил Гобир.

Сайду ничего не сказал, но невольно по-звериному облизнул толстые губы.

Амальрик окинул бесстрастным взглядом простертую на земле фигуру, от рваных сандалий до копны блестящих чёрных волос. Единственную её одежду составляло подпоясанное кушаком платье. Руки, шея и часть груди оставались открытыми, а юбка заканчивалась в нескольких дюймах выше колен. Именно к ним были прикованы напряженные хищные взгляды ганатов, вбирая в себя мягкие очертания ее тела, почти детские, но уже округлившиеся от расцветающей женственности.

Амальрик пожал плечами.

— Кто после Тилутана? — небрежно спросил он.

Две головы с налитыми кровью глазами повернулись к нему, затем чернокожие уставились друг на друга. Казалось, между ними внезапно проскочила электрическая искра.

— Не деритесь,— посоветовал Амальрик.— Бросьте кости.

Он полез под поношенную рубаху и уронил перед ними пару костей. Их тут же схватила похожая на клешню рука.

— Ага! — согласился Гобир.— Бросим — и победитель идет после Тилутана!

Амальрик покосился на черного гиганта, который всё ещё склонялся над пленницей, возвращая жизнь в её измученное тело. Ее окаймленные длинными ресницами веки шевельнулись и фиолетовые глаза в замешательстве уставились в лицо плотоядно смотревшего на неё чернокожего. С толстых губ Тилутана сорвался радостный возглас. Сняв с пояса флягу, он поднес её ко рту девушки. Она машинально выпила вина. Амальрик избегал ее блуждающего взгляда; один белый и трое черных — и каждый из них равен ему по силам.

Гобир и Сайду склонились над костями; Сайду взял их в ладонь, подышал на них на счастье, встряхнул и бросил.

Две головы, похожие на головы стервятников, склонились над вращающимися в тусклом свете кубиками. Амальрик вытащил меч и ударил — одним движением. Клинок рассек толстую шею, разрубив горло, и Гобир упал на кости, разбрызгивая вокруг кровь. Голова его висела на клочке кожи.

В то же мгновение Сайду вскочил со свойственной жителю пустыни быстротой на ноги и яростно рубанул по голове убийцы. Амальрик едва успел принять удар на поднятый меч. Просвистевшая в воздухе сабля зацепила тупой стороной клинка голову Амальрика, и он пошатнулся. Выпустив меч, он обхватил Сайду обеими руками, не давая ему воспользоваться саблей. Казалось, будто жилистое тело под лохмотьями пустынного жителя состоит из стальных канатов.

Тилутан, сразу же поняв, что происходит, бросил девушку и, взревев, поднялся. Размахивая огромной саблей, он бросился к дерущимся, словно разъяренный бык. При виде его Амальрик похолодел. Сайду дергался и извивался — ему мешала сабля, которую он всё ещё тщетно пытался применить против своего противника. Их ноги вздымали песок, их тела бились друг о друга. Амальрик ударил пяткой сандалии по голой ступне ганата, чувствуя, как поддаются кости. Сайду взвыл и, судорожно дернувшись, навалился на Амальрика всем телом. Они шатались, словно пьяные, когда Тилутан нанес удар, вложив в него всю силу своих широких плеч. Амальрик почувствовал под своей рукой скрежет стали, глубоко вошедшей в тело Сайду. Ганат издал предсмертный вопль и, извиваясь в конвульсиях, вырвался из захвата Амальрика. Тилутан взревел, яростно ругаясь, и, освободив саблю, отшвырнул умирающего в сторону, но, прежде чем он успел нанести новый удар, Амальрик, по коже которого бежали мурашки от ужаса перед громадным кривым клинком, сцепился с ним.

Его охватило отчаяние, когда он ощутил силу негра. Тилутан оказался умнее, чем Сайду. Бросив саблю, он с ревом схватил Амальрика обеими руками за горло. Громадные чёрные пальцы были подобны железу, и Амальрик, тщетно пытаясь освободиться, упал, прижатый к земле огромным весом ганата. Он трясся, словно крыса в зубах собаки. Голова его с силой ударялась о песок. Точно в красном тумане он увидел разъяренную физиономию негра, растянутые в зверской ухмылке чёрные губы, оскал блестящих зубов. Из чёрного горла раздавалось звериное рычание. — Ты хочешь её, белый пес? — рычал ганат, охваченный яростью и похотью.— Арррргх! Я сломаю тебе шею! Я вырву твоё горло! Я отрублю тебе голову и заставлю девчонку ее целовать!

Голова Амальрика в последний раз жестоко ударилась о плотный песок, и Тилутан, приподняв, швырнул его на землю, охваченный звериной страстью. Поднявшись, негр побежал, ссутулившись, словно обезьяна, к тому месту, где лежала, словно огромный стальной полумесяц, его сабля, и подхватил её. С яростным воплем он повернулся и бросился на Амальрика, высоко подняв клинок. Амальрик медленно поднялся ему навстречу, ошеломленный и потрясенный, едва держась на ногах.

Пояс Тилутана размотался во время схватки, и теперь конец его обвился вокруг ног. Споткнувшись, он упал головой вперед, выбросив перед собой руки. Сабля вылетела из его ладони.

Амальрик схватил саблю и, пошатываясь, шагнул вперед. Пустыня плыла у него перед глазами. В полутьме он вдруг увидел, как лицо Тилутана внезапно стало пепельно-серым. Широкий рот раскрылся, глаза закатились. Негр застыл, опираясь на колено и одну руку, словно не в силах пошевелиться. Затем сабля опустилась, разрубив круглую бритую голову до подбородка, где ее остановила тошнотворная судорога. Амальрику показалось, будто чёрное лицо разделила красная линия, растворяющаяся в сумерках, а затем его мгновенно окутала тьма.

Что-то мягкое и холодное настойчиво касалось лица Амальрика. Он слепо пошарил рукой, наткнувшись на тёплое и упругое. Затем его зрение прояснилось, и он увидел перед собой лицо, обрамленное блестящими чёрными волосами. Словно в трансе, он смотрел на него, не в силах произнести ни слова, жадно задерживая взгляд на каждой детали полных красных губ, фиолетовых глаз и алебастровой шеи. С удивлением он обнаружил, что видение что-то говорит ему тихим мелодичным голосом. Слова были чужими, но казались знакомыми. Маленькая белая рука, державшая мокрый комок шелка, мягко прошлась по его гудящей голове и лицу. Он сел, чувствуя легкое головокружение.

Была ночь, и небо было усеяно звёздами. Верблюд все так же продолжал жевать жвачку, беспокойно ржала лошади. Невдалеке лежало громадное чёрное тело, вокруг рассеченной головы которого расплывалась кошмарная лужа из крови и мозгов. Амальрик посмотрел на девушку, которая сидела рядом, что-то говоря на своем незнакомом языке. По мере того как туман у него в голове рассеивался, он начал её понимать. Вызвав в памяти полузабытые языки, которые он изучал и на которых говорил в прошлом, он вспомнил язык, которым пользовались ученые в южной провинции Коф.

— Кто ты? — спросил он, беря маленькую руку в свои жёсткие пальцы.

— Я Лисса.— Имя её звучало почти как шёпот, журчание небольшого ручейка.— Я рада, что ты пришёл в себя. Я боялась, что ты умер.

— Еще немного, и так бы оно и было,— пробормотал он, глядя на внушавший ужас труп, который еще недавно был Тилутаном.

Она побледнела и не стала смотреть в ту сторону. Рука её дрожала, и Амальрику показалось, будто он чувствует, как быстро бьётся её сердце.

— Это было ужасно,— проговорила она.— Словно кошмарный сон. Ярость... и удары... и кровь...

— Могло быть и хуже,— проворчал он.

Казалось, будто она ощущает любую перемену в его голосе или настроении. Её свободная рука робко потянулась к его плечу.

— Я вовсе не хотела тебя обидеть. Очень смело с твоей стороны рисковать жизнью ради незнакомого человека. Ты столь же благороден, как и рыцари, о которых я читала.

Он быстро посмотрел на неё. Взгляд её широко раскрытых глаз встретился с его взглядом, отражая лишь ту мысль, которую она только что высказала вслух. Он заговорил было, но передумал и сказал другое.

— Что ты делаешь в пустыне?

— Я пришла из Газала,— ответила она.— Я... я убежала.

Я не могла больше выдержать. Но было очень жарко, я была одна и очень устала, и вокруг был один только песок и песок — и сверкающее голубое небо. Песок жег мне ноги, и мои сандалии быстро порвались. Мне очень хотелось пить, и моя фляжка быстро опустела. А потом мне захотелось вернуться в Газал, но я не знала, в какую сторону идти — всё выглядело совершенно одинаково. Я страшно перепугалась и побежала в ту сторону, где, как я думала, должен был быть Газал. Потом я почти ничего не помню; я бежала, пока больше не смогла бежать, и, видимо, прилегла на горячий песок. Я помню, как я поднялась и пошла, шатаясь, дальше, а потом, кажется, кто-то закричал, и я увидела чернокожего человека, который ехал ко мне на чёрном коне, а потом ничего больше не помню... А когда пришла в себя, обнаружила, что моя голова лежит на коленях у мужчины, а он поит меня вином. Потом были крики, сражение...— Она содрогнулась.— Как только все закончилось, я перебралась туда, где ты лежал словно меётвый, и попыталась привести тебя в...

— Почему? — спросил он.

Девушка, похоже, слегка растерялась.

— Ну,— пробормотала она,— ведь ты был ранен, и... в общем, любой поступил бы так же. Кроме того, я поняла, что ты сражался, чтобы защитить меня от этих чернокожих. Люди в Газале всегда говорили, что чёрные злые и что они нападают на беспомощных.

— Это касается далеко не только чёрных,— заметил Амальрик.— Где этот Газал?

— Вряд ли далеко,— ответила она.— Я шла целый день — и не знаю, как далеко увёз меня чернокожий, после того как нашёл. Но он, скорее всего, обнаружил меня незадолго до заката, так что вряд ли мог далеко уехать.

— В какой стороне? — спросил он.

— Не знаю. Я шла на восток, когда покинула город.

— Город? — пробормотал он.— В дне пути от этого места? Я думал, тут на тысячи миль только пустыня.

— Газал находится в пустыне,— ответила она.— Он построен среди пальм, в оазисе.

Отодвинув девушку в сторону, он поднялся на ноги и негромко выругался, ощупав горло: кожа была вся в царапинах и ссадинах. Осмотрев по очереди троих чернокожих, он понял, что все они мертвы. Затем оттащил их одного за другим подальше в пустыню. Где-то начали тявкать шакалы. Вернувшись к источнику, возле которого терпеливо продолжала сидеть девушка, он снова выругался, найдя лишь чёрного коня Тилутана и верблюда. Остальные лошади оборвали привязь и ускакали прочь во время схватки.

Подойдя к девушке, Амальрик протянул ей горсть сушеных фиников. Она жадно принялась есть, пока он сидел и смотрел на нее, подперев руками подбородок и чувствуя, как в нем нарастает нетерпение.

— Почему ты сбежала? — неожиданно спросил он.— Ты рабыня?

— У нас в Газале нет рабов,— ответила она.— Я просто устала — устала от вечного однообразия. Я желала посмотреть мир, хоть частицу его. Скажи, из какой ты страны?

— Я родился в западных горах Аквилонии,— ответил он.

Она хлопнула в ладоши, словно обрадованный ребенок.

— Я знаю, где это! Я видела ее на картах. Это самая западная страна хайборийцев, и король там — Эпей-меченосец.

Амальрик резко поднял голову, ошеломленно уставившись на свою спутницу.

— Эпей? Да ведь Эпей умер девятьсот лет назад. Короля зовут Вилерий.

— Ну да, конечно,— смущенно проговорила она.— Я глупая. Конечно, Эпей был королем девятьсот лет назад, как ты говоришь. Но расскажи мне... расскажи о мире!

— Ну... мир очень велик, — в некотором замешательстве ответил он.— Ты никогда не путешествовала?

— Я впервые оказалась за стенами Газала,— заявила она.

Взгляд его был прикован к белым округлостям ее груди. Сейчас его не интересовали ее приключения, и Газал мог с тем же успехом быть самой преисподней.

Он попытался что-то сказать, затем, передумав, грубо обнял её, напрягшись в ожидании борьбы. Но никакого сопротивления не встретил. Её мягкое податливое тело лежало у него на коленях, и она смотрела на него — слегка удивленно, но без страха или смущения, словно ребенок, подчиняющийся какой-то новой игре. Что-то в её прямом взгляде привело его в замешательство. Если бы она кричала, плакала, сопротивлялась или понимающе улыбалась, он бы знал, что с ней делать.

— Кто ты? — грубо спросил он.— У тебя не солнечный удар, и ты не играешь со мной в какую-то игру. Судя по твоей речи, ты отнюдь не деревенская девица, невинная в своем невежестве. И, тем не менее, похоже, ты ничего не знаешь о мире и его обычаях.

— Я дочь Газала,— беспомощно ответила она.— Если бы ты увидел Газал, возможно, ты бы понял.

Он поднял её и уложил на песок. Встав, он принес и расстелил попону.

— Спи, Лисса.— Голос его звучал хрипло из-за борющихся друг с другом чувств.— Завтра я собираюсь увидеть Газал.

На рассвете они двинулись на запад. Альмарик посадил Лиссу на верблюда, показав ей, как держать равновесие. Она вцепилась в седло обеими руками, демонстрируя, что ничего не знает о верблюдах, к очередному удивлению молодого аквилонца. Выросшая в пустыне, она никогда прежде не сидела на верблюде, так же как до предыдущей ночи не ездила на лошади. Амальрик соорудил ей нечто вроде плаща, и она надела его, не спрашивая, откуда он взялся, приняв дар так же, как и все, что он для нее делал,— с благодарностью, но слепо, не выясняя причины. Амальрик умолчал о том, что защищающий ее от солнца шелк когда-то прикрывал чёрную кожу её похитителя.

Пока они ехали, она снова стала просить его рассказать что-нибудь о мире — так ребенок просит сказку.

— Я знаю, что Аквилония далеко от этой пустыни,— сказала она.— Между ними лежит Стигия, и земли Шема, и другие страны. Как так получилось, что ты оказался здесь, столь далеко от родины?

Какое-то время он ехал молча, держа в руке повод верблюда.

— Аргос и Стигия воевали друг с другом,— неожиданно сказал он.— В войну оказался втянут Коф. Кофийцы требовали одновременного вторжения в Стигию. Аргос поднял армию наёмников, которые сели на корабли и поплыли вдоль побережья на юг. В то же время войско Кофа собиралось вторгнуться в Стигию по земле. Я был одним из этих наёмников. Мы встретились со стигийским флотом и победили его, заставив отступить назад в Шем. Мы должны были высадиться и разграбить город, а затем продвигаться по течению Стикса — но адмирал был осторожен. Нашим предводителем был принц Запайо да Кова, зингарец. Мы шли на юг, пока не достигли покрытых джунглями побережий Куша. Там корабли бросили якорь, и мы пошли на восток, вдоль стигийской границы, сжигая и грабя всё на своем пути. Мы намеревались повернуть в определенном месте на север и нанести удар в сердце Стигии, соединившись с кофийцами, которые должны были наступать с севера. Затем пришло известие, что нас предали. Коф заключил сепаратный мир со стигийцами. Одна стигийская армия шла на юг, чтобы перехватить нас, в то время как другая уже отрезала нас от побережья.

У принца Запайо в отчаянии возникла безумная идея идти на восток, надеясь пройти вдоль стигийской границы и, в конце концов, достичь восточных земель Шема. Но армия с севера нас догнала. Мы повернулись и побежали. Весь день мы сражались и теснили их к нашему лагерю. Но на следующий день преследовавшая нас армия подошла с запада, и наше войско перестало существовать. Мы были разбиты, сокрушены, уничтожены. Мало кому удалось бежать. Но когда наступила ночь, я сумел вырваться вместе со своим товарищем, киммерийцем по имени Конан, человеком с силой быка.

Мы двинулись на юг в пустыню, поскольку идти больше было некуда. Конан уже бывал раньше в этой части мира и считал, что у нас есть шанс выжить. Далеко на юге мы нашли оазис, но стигийские всадники напали на нас, и снова пришлось бежать от оазиса к оазису, страдая от голода и жажды, пока мы не оказались в незнакомой бесплодной местности, где не было ничего, кроме сверкающего неба и голого песка. Мы ехали и ехали, и лошади уже шатались под нами, а мы сами сходили с ума. Однажды ночью мы увидели огни и поехали на них, в отчаянии надеясь обрести друзей. Как только мы подъехали ближе, нас встретил град стрел. Лошадь Конана была ранена и встала на дыбы, сбросив всадника. Вероятно, он сломал шею, поскольку больше не шевелился. Мне как-то удалось скрыться в темноте, хотя лошадь пала подо мной. Я успел лишь мельком увидеть нападавших — высоких, стройных и смуглых, в непривычной моему глазу варварской одежде.

Я двинулся пешком через пустыню и наткнулся на троих стервятников, которых ты видела вчера. Это были шакалы-ганаты из воровского племени, люди смешанной крови — негритянской и Митре одному известно, какой еще. При мне не было ничего, что могло бы им пригодиться,— только поэтому меня и не убили. Целый месяц я бродил и воровал вместе с ними, поскольку больше мне ничего не оставалось.

— Я не знала, что так бывает,— тихо произнесла девушка.— У нас ходят разговоры о царящих в мире войнах и жестокости, но ведь это так далеко, что вообще кажется сном... Но когда ты рассказываешь о предательстве и сражениях, я как будто я сама все это вижу.

— Что, неужели враги никогда не нападали на Газал? — спросил Амальрик.

Она покачала головой:

— Люди обходят Газал далеко стороной. Иногда я видела на горизонте вереницы чёрных точек, по словам стариков, это войска, идущие на войну, но они не приближались к Газалу.

Амальрику стало не по себе. В этой безжизненной на вид пустыне обитали некоторые из самых жестоких племен на земле — ганаты, рыскавшие далеко на востоке; тибу, люди в масках, ушедшие, как он считал, дальше на юг; а где-то на юго-западе простиралась полумифическая империя Томбалку, ею правили варвары. Казалось невероятным, что город посреди этих диких земель мог существовать в столь глухой изоляции.

Когда он отвел взгляд, его охватили сомнения. Не случился ли у девушки солнечный удар? Не демон ли это в женском обличье, вышедший из пустыни, чтобы заманить его в смертельную ловушку? Одного взгляда на то, как она по-детски цепляется за высокую луку верблюжьего седла, было достаточно, чтобы развеять подобные подозрения. Однако его вновь охватили сомнения. Не околдован ли он ею?

Они продвигались на запад, лишь однажды остановились, чтобы поесть фиников и выпить воды. Амальрик соорудил хрупкое укрытие из своего меча, ножен и попон, чтобы защитить ее от пылающего солнца. Девушка так устала от верховой езды, что ее пришлось снимать с верблюда. Вновь ощутив возбуждающую сладость ее мягкого тела, он почувствовал, как его охватывает страсть, и несколько мгновений стоял неподвижно, опьяненный её близостью, прежде чем уложить её в тени импровизированной палатки.

Его чуть ли не злил её прямой взгляд, её покорность, с которой она отдавала своё юное тело в его объятия. Казалось, будто она не осознает того, что может ей повредить; эта невинная доверчивость вызывала у него чувство стыда и беспричинный гнев.

Когда они ели, он не ощущал вкуса фиников, жадно любуясь гибкой юной фигурой. Она же, казалось, этого не замечала. Когда он поднимал ее, чтобы снова посадить на верблюда, и её руки инстинктивно обхватили его за шею, он вздрогнул, но всё же усадил девушку в седло, и они опять двинулись в путь.

Солнце уже садилось. Лисса показала вперед и крикнула:

— Смотри! Башни Газала!

Он увидел их на краю пустыни — шпили и минареты, возвышавшиеся зеленым пятном на фоне голубого неба. Не будь рядом девушки, он бы подумал, что это город-призрак или мираж. Он с любопытством посмотрел на Лиссу; та не проявляла особой радости по поводу возвращения домой. Она вздохнула, и её стройные плечи слегка опустились.

По мере того как они приближались к городу, стали видны новые подробности. Прямо из песка пустыни вырастала стена, окружавшая башни. Амальрик увидел, что стена во многих местах осыпается. Башни тоже выглядели не лучшим образом. Крыши провалились, на стене недоставало зубцов, шпили кренились словно пьяные. Его охватил страх, не едет ли он в город мертвых в сопровождении вампира? Быстрый взгляд на девушку придал ему уверенности. Никакой демон не может скрываться под столь божественной внешностью. Она посмотрела на него, и в глазах её словно застыл немой вопрос. Девушка нерешительно повернулась в сторону пустыни, затем, глубоко вздохнув, вновь обратила свой взгляд на город, словно охваченная странным отчаянием человека, покорившегося судьбе.

Через дыры в зеленой стене Амальрик увидел двигавшиеся внутри города человеческие силуэты. Никто не приветствовал их, когда они въехали через широкий пролом в стене и оказались на широкой улице. Вблизи, в лучах заходящего солнца, картина упадка стала более явной. Трава росла прямо на улицах, пробиваясь сквозь разбитую мостовую; травой покрылись и небольшие площади. Улицы и дворы были усыпаны кусками отвалившейся каменной кладки.

Купола потрескались, с них слезла краска. Повсюду следы разрушения. И тут Амальрик увидел уцелевшее строение — сверкающую красную круглую башню на юго-восточной окраине города. Она резко выделялась на фоне руин.

Амальрик показал:

— Почему эта башня не разрушена, как остальные?

Лисса побледнела, вся дрожа, и вцепилась в его руку.

— Не говори о ней! — прошептала она.— Не смотри! И даже не думай!

Амальрик нахмурился. Теперь башня казалась змеиной головой, возвышавшейся среди руин и запустения.

Молодой аквилонец осторожно огляделся. Он вовсе не был уверен, что жители Газала примут его с распростертыми объятиями. Он видел бродивших по улицам людей. Они останавливались и смотрели на него, и почему-то у него по коже бежали мурашки. Вид у жителей города был вполне доброжелательный, и взгляды их были спокойны. Но их, казалось, почти ничто не интересовало. Они не пытались ни подойти к нему, ни заговорить с ним. Конечно, появление в городе вооруженного всадника из пустыни могло быть самым обычным делом, но Амальрик знал, что это не так, и от столь легкомысленного приёма со стороны жителей Газала ему становилось не по себе.

К ним обратилась Лисса, показывая на Амальрика, которого держала за руку, словно любящий ребенок.

— Это Амальрик из Аквилонии, он спас меня от чернокожих и доставил домой.

Послышался вежливый приветственный ропот, и несколько горожан подошли к ним, протягивая руки. Амальрик подумал, что ему никогда не приходилось видеть столь доброжелательно-отсутствующих лиц, в глазах не читалось ни страха, ни удивления. Однако это не были глаза тупых баранов — скорее людей, погруженных в мечты.

У него возникло ощущение нереальности происходящего; он с трудом понимал, что ему говорят эти странные люди в шёлковых туниках и мягких сандалиях, рассеянно и бесцельно перемещавшиеся среди блеклых руин. Рай, мираж? Но мысль о зловещей красной башне вносила диссонирующую ноту.

Один из прохожих, с гладким лицом, но серебристыми волосами, спросил:

— Аквилония? Мы слышали, что в нее вторгся король Немедии Брагор. Чем закончилась война?

— Его прогнали,— коротко ответил Амальрик, едва сдерживая дрожь. Прошло девятьсот лет с тех пор, как Брагор повел своих воинов через границу Аквилонии.

Вопросов больше не последовало, люди разошлись, и Лисса потянула его за руку. Он повернулся, пожирая ее глазами, в мире иллюзий и мечты лишь она одна была реальной, и тело ее было ароматным и осязаемым, словно сливки и мёд.

— Идем, нужно отдохнуть и поесть.

— А эти люди? — возразил он.— Ты не расскажешь им о своих приключениях?

— Их это не заинтересует, разве что на несколько минут,— ответила она.— Они немного послушают, а потом разойдутся. Вряд ли они даже знали о моем отсутствии. Идём!

Амальрик повёл верблюда и лошадь в закрытый дворик, где росла высокая трава и из разбитого фонтана сочилась в мраморный желоб вода. Привязав там животных, он последовал за Лиссой. Взяв за руку, она повела его через двор под арку. Наступила ночь. В открытом небе над двором ярко сверкали звёзды, подчёркивая очертания зубчатых башен. Лисса прошла через ряд тёмных комнат — судя по тому, как уверенно она двигалась, здешняя обстановка была ей хорошо знакома. Амальрик осторожно шёл следом за ней, держась за руку. Путь оказался не слишком приятным. В кромешной тьме висел запах пыли и гнили. Под ногами иногда попадались осколки черепицы и ветхие ковры. Затем сквозь пролом в крыше снова проглянули звёзды, и он увидел тусклый извилистый коридор, увешанный гнилыми гобеленами. Они шелестели на слабом ветру, и звук этот напоминал шёпот ведьм, от него дыбом вставали волосы.

Они вошли в комнату, слабо освещенную звёздами через открытые окна, и Лисса, отпустив его руку, пошарила в темноте и достала нечто вроде светильника — стеклянный шарик, испускавший золотое сияние. Она поставила его на мраморный стол и показала Амальрику на устланное шелками ложе. Снова пошарив в таинственной нише, достала золотой сосуд с вином и другие, с незнакомой Амальрику едой. Там были плоды, напоминавшие финики, прочие, бледные и показавшиеся ему безвкусными, он не узнал. Вино было приятным на вкус, но совсем не крепким.

Сев на мраморное сиденье напротив, Лисса приступила к неспешной трапезе.

— Что это за место? — спросил он.— Ты такая же, как те люди,— но странным образом на них не похожа.

— Говорят, что я похожа на наших предков,— ответила Лисса.— Много лет назад они пришли в пустыню и построили этот город в большом оазисе, который на самом деле состоит лишь из нескольких источников. Камень они взяли из руин гораздо более древнего города. Только красная башня...— Голос ее оборвался, и она бросила беспокойный взгляд на усыпанное звездами небо за окном.— Только красная башня уже тогда стояла здесь. И была пуста.

Наши предки, которые назывались газали, когда-то жили в южном Кофе. Они славились своей учёностью и мудростью. Но они хотели возродить культ Митры, от которого кофийцы давно отказались, и король изгнал их из своего королевства. И они ушли на юг — жрецы, ученые, мудрецы, учителя, вместе со своими рабами-шемитами.

Они возвели в пустыне Газал, но почти сразу же после завершения строительства рабы взбунтовались и бежали, смешавшись с дикими племенами пустыни. К ним вовсе неплохо относились, но однажды ночью пришло некое известие, заставившее их в ужасе бежать из города в пустыню. Мой народ остался жить здесь, научившись производить еду и питье из подручных материалов. Его познания были просто удивительны. Когда рабы бежали, они забрали с собой всех верблюдов, лошадей и ослов. Никакой связи с внешним миром не было. В Газале есть целые комнаты, полные книг и свитков, но всем им самое меньшее девятьсот лет — именно столько времени прошло с тех пор, как мой народ бежал из Кофа. С тех пор ни один человек из внешнего мира никогда не бывал в Газале. И племя медленно исчезает. Люди столь глубоко ушли в себя, в свои мечты, что лишились всех человеческих страстей и стремлений. Город превращается в руины, и никто и пальцем не пошевелит, чтобы его отстроить. А когда...— она вздрогнула,— когда пришёл ужас, они не смогли ни бежать, ни сражаться.

— О чём ты? — прошептал он, чувствуя, как по спине пробежал холодок.

Шорох истлевших портьер в тёмных коридорах вселял неясный страх в его душу.

Лисса покачала головой. Встав, она обошла вокруг мраморного стола и положила руки Амальрику на плечи. В её глазах застыли слезы и ужас, а еще отчаянная тоска, от которой у него перехватило горло. Машинально он провел рукой по ее гибкому телу и почувствовал, что она вся дрожит.

— Обними меня! — умоляюще попросила она.— Мне страшно! О, я мечтала о таком мужчине, как ты. Я не такая, как мой народ; они мертвецы, бродящие по забытым улицам, но я живая. Я теплая и чувствующая. Я испытываю голод и жажду, и я хочу жить. Мне невыносимы молчаливые улицы, разрушенные залы и унылые люди Газала, хотя ничего другого я никогда не знала. Вот почему я сбежала — мне хотелось жить...

Она неудержимо разрыдалась в его объятиях. Волосы её упали на его лицо; от её запаха у него закружилась голова. Её тугое тело напряглось. Она лежала у него на коленях, обхватив его руками за шею. Прижав её к груди, он приник губами к ее губам. Он покрывал горячими поцелуями её глаза, губы, щеки, волосы, горло, грудь, пока её рыдания не сменились судорожными вздохами. Охватившая его страсть не имела ничего общего с жестокостью насильника. Страсть, спавшая в ней, пробудилась, нахлынув одной всеобъемлющей волной. Светящийся золотой шар, сбитый его рукой, упал на пол и погас. Лишь звезды заглядывали в окна.

Лежа в объятиях Амальрика на устланном шелками ложе, Лисса раскрыла ему свою душу, шепча о мечтах, надеждах и желаниях — детских, трогательных, страшных.

— Я заберу тебя отсюда,— пробормотал он.— Завтра. Ты права. Газал — город мертвых, мы найдем жизнь во внешнем мире. Он жесток, груб, безжалостен — но всё равно лучше, чем эта живая смерть...

Ночь разорвал пронзительный предсмертный крик, полный ужаса и отчаяния. От этого звука на коже Амальрика проступил холодный пот. Он хотел было вскочить, но Лисса в страхе цеплялась за него.

— Нет, нет! — судорожно шептала она.— Не уходи! Останься!

— Но там кого-то убивают! — воскликнул он, нашаривая меч.

Крики, казалось, доносились с другой стороны двора. С ними смешивался неописуемый звук раздираемой плоти. Крики становились всё тише, полные безнадежной агонии, пока не смолкли окончательно.

— Я слышал подобные крики от людей, умирающих под пытками! — пробормотал Амальрик, дрожа от ужаса.— Что там происходит?

Лисса тряслась от страха. Он чувствовал, как отчаянно бьется ее сердце.

— Это тот самый ужас, о котором я говорила! — прошептала она.— Ужас, обитающий в красной башне. Он появился очень давно — некоторые говорят, будто он жил там еще в древние времена и вернулся после постройки Газала. Он пожирает людей. Из башни вылетают летучие мыши. Никто не знает, что он такое, поскольку из видевших его никто не остался в живых. Это бог или демон. Вот почему бежали рабы; вот почему жители пустыни обходят Газал стороной. Многие из нас погибли в его чудовищном брюхе. В конце концов, не останется никого, и он станет править опустевшим городом; говорят, что он правил руинами, из которых построили Газал.

— Почему люди остались здесь и отдают себя на съедение? — спросил он.

— Не знаю,— всхлипнула она,— они словно во сне...

— Гипноз,— пробормотал Амальрик.— Гипноз вкупе с упадком. Я видел их глаза. Этот демон их загипнотизировал. О, Митра, что за омерзительная тайна?

Лисса прижалась к нему, уткнувшись лицом в грудь.

— Но что нам делать? — тревожно спросил он.

— Сделать ничего нельзя,— прошептала она.— Твой меч не поможет. Возможно, ужас не причинит нам зла. Он уже взял сегодня свою жертву. Нам придётся ждать, словно овцам — мясника.

— Будь я проклят, если стану ждать! — возбужденно воскликнул Амальрик.— Мы не будем дожидаться утра. Уедем сейчас. Собери еды и питья. Я возьму лошадь и верблюда и выведу их со двора. Встретимся на улице!

Поскольку неизвестное чудовище уже нанесло удар, Амальрик считал, что оставить девушку одну на несколько минут будет вполне безопасно. Однако по коже у него ползли мурашки, пока он пробирался на ощупь по петляющему коридору и через темные комнаты с шелестящими на стенах портьерами. Животные беспокойно жались друг к другу во дворе, где он их оставил. Жеребец тревожно заржал и ткнулся в него мордой, словно чуя беду в безветренной ночи.

Оседлав и взнуздав животных, он поспешно повел их через узкий проход со двора. Несколько минут спустя он уже стоял на освещенной звездами улице. Через мгновение раздался отчаянный вопль, от которого у него пошёл мороз по коже. Крик доносился со стороны комнаты, где он оставил Лиссу.

Дико заорав в ответ, он выхватил меч и, пробежав через двор, нырнул в окно. Золотой шар снова светился, отбрасывал по углам черные тени. Шелка были разбросаны на полу, мраморное сиденье опрокинуто. Но комната была пуста.

Ощутив внезапный приступ слабости, Амальрик опёрся о мраморный стол, чувствуя, как тусклый свет плывёт перед глазами. Затем его охватила безумная ярость. Красная башня! Наверняка именно туда демон унес свою жертву!

Снова метнувшись через двор, он помчался по улицам в сторону башни, светившейся адским сиянием на фоне звезд. Улицы шли не прямо, и он бежал напролом через молчаливые черные здания и дворы, где ночной ветер качал высокий бурьян.

Впереди него, окружая красную башню, возвышались руины, еще более древние, чем весь остальной город. Судя по всему, здесь никто не жил. Осыпающаяся каменная кладка угрожающе шаталась и раскачивалась, а красная башня поднималась среди этих останков, словно ядовитый цветок над развалинами склепа.

Чтобы добраться до башни, нужно было преодолеть руины. Он безрассудно устремился к чёрной громаде. Найдя дверь, вошел внутрь, выставив перед собой меч. Затем его взору явилось то, что порой можно увидеть в фантастических снах. Далеко впереди тянулся длинный коридор, залитый тусклым светом, с чёрных стен свисали загадочные гобелены, от вида которых бросало в дрожь. В дальнем конце коридора он увидел удаляющийся силуэт... Затем видение исчезло, и вместе с ним исчезло зловещее сияние. Альмарик стоял в безмолвной темноте, ничего не видя и не слыша и думая лишь о сгорбленной белой фигуре, тащившей безжизненное человеческое тело по длинному чёрному коридору. Пробираясь на ощупь вперёд, он вдруг вспомнил мрачную легенду, которую бормотали ему возле угасающего костра в увенчанной черепами хижине черного колдуна,— легенду о боге, обитавшем в красном доме в разрушенном городе, которому поклонялись последователи мрачного культа в тёмных джунглях по берегам медленных угрюмых рек. Вспомнилось ему и заклинание, которое шептали ему на ухо жуткие голоса, когда ночь затаила дыхание, прекратили рычать львы у реки и даже листья пальм перестали тереться друг о друга.

«Оллам-онга»,— шептал чёрный ветер в темном коридоре. «Оллам-онга»,— шептала пыль под его осторожными шагами. На лбу у него выступил пот, меч дрожал в руке. Он пробирался через обитель бога, и страх сжимал ему горло костлявой рукой. «Обитель бога» — эти слова наполняли его безотчетным ужасом. На него обрушились все древние первобытные страхи, словно пытаясь раздавить его слабую человеческую сущность, пока он шел через темный дом.

Перед ним возникло сияние, столь слабое, что его едва можно было различить, он понял, что приближается к самой башне. Вскоре он нашёл сводчатую дверь и начал карабкаться по лестнице с чересчур высокими ступенями. По мере того как он поднимался, в нём все больше закипала слепая ярость — последняя защита человечества от колдовства и всех враждебных сил Вселенной — и он забыл о своих страхах. Он лез всё выше и выше в густой зловещей тьме, пока не оказался в комнате, освещенной странным сиянием.

Амальрик остановился, чувствуя, как язык прилипает к небу. Голый белый мужчина смотрел на него, сложив на алебастровой груди могучие руки. Черты его лица были классическими, идеально очерченными, нечеловеческой красоты. Но в глазах пылал огонь, какого нельзя увидеть в глазах человека. В глазах этих Амальрик увидел пламя преисподней, застывшее среди чудовищного сумрака.

Затем очертания стоящей перед ним фигуры начали расплываться и мерцать. Страшным усилием воли разорвав путы молчания, аквилонец произнес таинственное заклинание. И когда жуткие слова нарушили тишину, белый великан замер, и его очертания вновь стали ясными и четкими на золотом фоне.

— Нападай же, будь ты проклят! — истерически крикнул Амальрик.— Я пленил тебя в твоей человеческой оболочке! Чёрный колдун говорил правду! Он на самом деле дал мне повелевающее слово! Нападай, Оллам-онга,— покаты не разрушишь заклятие, сожрав мое сердце, ты такой же человек, как и я!

С ревом, подобным завыванию чёрного ветра, существо бросилось на него. Амальрик отскочил в сторону, избежав рук, обладавших силой смерча. Единственный когтистый палец, зацепившийся за его рубаху, сорвал её, словно гнилые лохмотья. Но Амальрик, которому ужас придал быстроты, развернулся и вонзил меч в спину твари, так что конец его вышел на фут из широкой груди.

Адский предсмертный вопль сотряс башню; чудовище кинулось на Амальрика, но юноша отскочил и взбежал по ступеням на возвышение. Схватив мраморное кресло, он бросил его вниз. Массивный снаряд попал прямо в лицо монстру, и тот покатился по ступеням. Истекая кровью, чудовище поднялось и вновь попыталось добраться до Амальрика. В отчаянии он поднял нефритовую скамью, застонав от напряжения, и швырнул её.

От удара каменной громады Оллам-онга опрокинулся на ступени и остался лежать среди обломков мрамора, залитых его кровью. Последним отчаянным усилием он приподнялся на руках, закатил глаза и издал жуткий вопль. Амальрик вздрогнул и в страхе попятился. И на крик чудовища ответили. Откуда-то сверху, словно эхо, донеслись такие же вопли. Затем искалеченная белая фигура обмякла среди окровавленных обломков. И Амальрик понял, что одного из богов Куша больше нет. Вместе с этой мыслью пришел слепой, безрассудный страх.

Словно в тумане, он сбежал по ступеням, стараясь держаться подальше от лежавшей на полу твари. Казалось, сама ночь взывает к мести, ошеломленная подобным святотатством. На него нахлынула волна страха, готового поглотить его торжествующий над победой разум.

Едва успев поставить ногу на первую ступень лестницы, он замер как вкопанный. Из темноты к нему поднималась Лисса, протягивая белые руки. Глаза ее были полны ужаса.

— Амальрик! — послышался её крик.

Он заключил её в объятия.

— Я увидела,— всхлипнула она,— как он тащит по коридору мертвеца, закричала и убежала. А потом вернулась, услышала твой крик и поняла, что ты отправился искать меня в красную башню...

— И пришла, чтобы разделить со мной судьбу,— едва слышно проговорил он.

Дрожа, она попыталась заглянуть ему за спину, но он закрыл ей глаза руками и развернул её кругом. Ей лучше было не видеть того, что лежало на залитом кровью полу. Когда он отчасти вёл, отчасти нёс ее по темной лестнице, он оглянулся через плечо и увидел, что обнаженной белой фигуры среди разбитого мрамора больше нет. Заклинание удерживало Оллам-онгу в его человеческой форме при жизни, но не после смерти. Амальрика на мгновение охватила слепота, затем он поспешно повёл Лиссу вниз по лестнице и через тёмные руины.

Он не замедлял шага, пока они не добрались до улицы, где жались друг к другу верблюд и жеребец. Быстро посадив девушку на верблюда, он вскочил на жеребца. Взяв верблюда под уздцы, он направился прямо к разбитой стене. Несколько минут спустя он облегченно вздохнул. Прохладный воздух пустыни остудил его кровь, в нем больше не чувствовалось запаха разложения и омерзительной древности.

С луки его седла свисала маленькая фляга с водой. У них не было еды, а меч остался в красной башне — он не осмелился к нему прикоснуться. Им предстоял путь через пустыню без воды и оружия, но это казалось меньшей неприятностью, чем ужас оставшегося позади города.

Они ехали молча. Амальрик направился на юг — где-то в той стороне был источник. На рассвете, когда они поднялись на песчаный холм, он оглянулся и посмотрел на Газал, казавшийся нереальным в розовом свете,— и оцепенел, а Лисса вскрикнула. Через пролом в стене выехали семеро всадников на чёрных верховых животных, одетые в чёрное с головы до ног. В Газале не было лошадей. Амальрика охватил ужас, и, повернувшись, он поспешил дальше. Взошло солнце — сперва красное, потом золотое, а потом оно превратилось в белый огненный шар. Беглецы продолжали свой путь, шатаясь от жары и усталости, ослеплённые ярким солнцем. Время от времени они смачивали водой губы. А позади них размеренно двигались семь чёрных точек. Наступал вечер, солнце покраснело и начало опускаться к краю пустыни. Словно холодная лапа сжала сердце Амальрика — по мере того как становилось всё темнее, всадники всё приближались. Амальрик посмотрел на Лиссу, и у него вырвался стон. Его жеребец споткнулся и упал. Солнце зашло, и луну внезапно заслонила тень в форме летучей мыши. В наступившей тьме вспыхнули красным звёзды, и Амальрик услышал позади нарастающий гул, похожий на шум ветра. На фоне ночного неба возникла быстро приближающаяся чёрная масса, в которой мерцали внушающие страх огни.

— Беги, девочка! — в отчаянии крикнул он.— Уходи, спасайся — им нужен я!

В ответ она соскользнула с верблюда и обхватила Амальрика руками.

— Я умру с тобой!

Семь чёрных силуэтов мчались подобно вихрю. Под капюшонами сверкали зловещие огни, казалось, будто беглецы слышат клацанье челюстей. Неожиданно мимо Амальрика и его жеребца промчалась лошадь, неясные очертания которой вырисовывались в неестественной тьме. Послышался звук столкновения — неизвестный наездник врезался в приближающуюся группу. Лошадь отчаянно заржала, и незнакомый голос что-то проревел на странном языке. Где-то в ночи ему ответили другие голоса.

Судя по всему, происходила жестокая схватка. Стучали конские копыта, слышались звуки чудовищных ударов, и крепко ругался всё тот же зычный голос. Затем неожиданно взошла луна, осветив фантастическую сцену.

Человек на гигантской лошади вертелся на месте, нанося удары словно по воздуху, а с другой стороны приближалась дикая орда всадников, их кривые мечи сверкали в лунном свете. За вершиной холма исчезали семь чёрных фигур, плащи которых развевались подобно крыльям летучих мышей.

Амальрика окружили дикари, которые спрыгнули со своих лошадей и столпились вокруг. Его схватили жилистые голые руки, что-то рычали яростные, похожие на ястребиные, смуглые лица. Лисса закричала. Затем нападавших разбросал в стороны человек на огромной лошади, проехавший через толпу. Наклонившись в седле, он внимательно посмотрел на Амальрика.

— Демон! — прорычал он.— Амальрик из Аквилонии!

— Конан! — изумленно воскликнул Амальрик.— Конан! Ты жив!

— Более жив, чем ты, похоже,— ответил тот.— Клянусь Кромом, ты выглядишь так, будто все демоны этой пустыни охотились за тобой всю ночь! Что за твари за тобой гнались? Я объезжал наш лагерь, чтобы убедиться, что нигде не скрываются враги, как вдруг услышал топот и поехал на него. Видит Кром, я оказался среди этих демонов, прежде чем успел понять, что происходит. У меня был в руке меч, и я начал разить направо и налево — клянусь, их глаза сверкали во тьме подобно огню! Я знаю, что мой клинок не промахивался, но, когда вышла луна, они исчезли, словно дуновение ветра. Кто они, люди или демоны?

— Вампиры, посланные из преисподней,— содрогнувшись, ответил Амальрик.— Не спрашивай меня больше, есть кое-что, чего не стоит обсуждать.

Конан не стал настаивать и никак не проявил своего недоверия.

— Вижу, ты сумел найти себе женщину даже в пустыне,— покосился он на Лиссу, которая прижалась к Амальрику, в страхе глядя на окруживших их дикарей.— Вина! — прорычал Конан.— Несите фляги! Сюда! — Схватив брошенную ему кожаную флягу, он вложил ее в руку Амальрика.— Дай глоток девушке и выпей сам,— посоветовал он.— Потом мы посадим вас на лошадей и отвезем в лагерь. Вам нужны еда, отдых и сон.

Привели укрытую богатой попоной лошадь, и Амальрику помогли сесть в седло; затем ему передали на руки девушку, и они двинулись на юг, в окружении жилистых смуглых полуголых всадников. Конан ехал впереди, напевая походную песню наёмников.

— Кто это? — прошептала Лисса, обнимая Амальрика за шею, он держал ее в седле перед собой.

— Конан из Киммерии,— ответил Амальрик.— Человек, с которым я блуждал в пустыне после разгрома наёмников.

Это те самые люди, которые свалили его с коня. Я оставил его лежать под их копьями, думая, что он мёртв. А теперь он явно ими командует, и они его уважают.

— Он ужасный человек,— сказала она.

Амальрик улыбнулся:

— Ты никогда прежде не видела белого варвара. Он бродяга, мародер и убийца, но у него есть свой моральный кодекс. Не думаю, что нам стоит его опасаться.

В душе он не был в этом столь уверен. В определенном смысле можно было считать, что он лишился дружбы Конана, когда уехал в пустыню, оставив бесчувственного киммерийца лежать на земле. Но он не знал тогда, что Конан не мертв. Амальрика преследовали сомнения. Будучи по-дикарски преданной своим товарищам, дикая натура Конана не видела причин, по которым нельзя было грабить весь остальной мир. Он жил своим мечом. Амальрик едва подавил дрожь при мысли о том, что может случиться, если Конан пожелает себе Лиссу.

Позднее, когда они поели и напились в лагере всадников, Амальрик сидел у костра перед палаткой Конана, Лисса, укрытая шелковой накидкой, дремала, положив голову ему на колени. А напротив него играли отблески огня на лице Конана, сменяя свет тенью.

— Кто эти люди? — спросил молодой аквилонец.

— Всадники Томбалку,— ответил киммериец.

— Томбалку! — воскликнул Амальрик.— Значит, это не миф!

— Вовсе нет! — подтвердил Конан.— Когда моя проклятая лошадь упала вместе со мной, меня оглушило, а когда я пришел в себя, эти демоны связали меня по рукам и ногам. Это меня разозлило, и я разорвал несколько веревок, но они сразу же набрасывали новые — мне не удалось полностью освободить даже руку. Но им моя сила казалась невероятной...

Амальрик молча смотрел на Конана. Он был столь же высок и широкоплеч, как и Тилутан, но без излишнего веса, которым обладал негр. Киммериец мог сломать ганату шею голыми руками.

— Они решили отвезти меня в свой город, вместо того чтобы убить на месте,— продолжал Конан.— Считали, что такой человек, как я, будет долго умирать под пытками и они смогут как следует развлечься. Они связали меня, посадили на лошадь без седла, и мы поехали в Томбалку. В Томбалку два короля. Меня поставили перед ними — худым смуглым демоном по имени Зебех и большим толстым негром, который дремал на троне из слоновой кости. Они говорили на диалекте, который я немного понимал, очень похожем на язык западных мандинго, живущих на побережье. Зебех спросил смуглого жреца Дауру, что со мной делать, и Даура бросил кости, а потом сказал, что с меня следует живьем содрать кожу перед алтарем Джила. Все бурно возрадовались, и их голоса разбудили короля-негра.

Я плюнул в Дауру и откровенно его обругал, как и самих королей, и потребовал хорошего вина перед казнью и проклял их, назвав ворами, трусами и сыновьями шлюх.

Услышав это, чёрный король очнулся, сел и вытаращился на меня, а потом встал и крикнул: «Амра!» Я узнал его — Сакумбе из племени суба с Чёрного побережья, толстый искатель приключений, которого я хорошо знал, когда был корсаром в тех краях. Он торговал слоновой костью, золотым песком и рабами и мог обмануть самого демона, так вот, когда этот чёрный вонючий демон узнал меня, он сошел с трона и радостно обнял и снял путы собственными руками. Затем он объявил, что я Амра, Лев, его друг, и что меня никто не смеет тронуть. Последовал долгий спор, поскольку Зебех и Даура хотели моей шкуры. Но Сакумбе позвал своего чародея Аскию, и он пришёл, весь в перьях, колокольчиках и змеиной коже,— колдун с Чёрного побережья и сын демона, если таковой существует.

Аския танцевал и читал заклинания, а затем объявил, что Сакумбе — избранник Аджуджо Тёмного, и все чернокожие из Томбалку закричали, и Зебеху пришлось уступить.

Дело в том, что чернокожие в Томбалку обладают реальной властью. Несколько веков назад афаки, шемитский народ, пришли в южную пустыню и основали королевство Томбалку. Они смешались с пустынными неграми, и в результате возникла смуглая раса с прямыми волосами, которая до сих пор скорее белая, чем чёрная. Они являются господствующей кастой в Томбалку, но находятся в меньшинстве, и черный король всегда сидит на троне рядом с правителем-афаки.

Афаки победили кочевников юго-западной пустыни и негритянские племена саванн, которые лежат на юге. Например, эти всадники — из народа тибу, смешанной стигийской и негритянской крови.

Так вот, Сакумбе — посредством Аскии — реально правит Томбалку. Афаки поклоняются Джилу, но чёрные поклоняются Аджуджо Тёмному и его родне. Аския пришёл в Томбалку вместе с Сакумбе и возродил культ Аджуджо, который пришёл в упадок из-за жрецов-афаки. Аския с помощью чёрной магии победил колдовство афаки, и чернокожие провозгласили его пророком, посланным тёмными богами.

Влияние Сакумбе и Аскии растёт, в то время как Зебеха и Дауры — убывает.

Итак, поскольку я оказался другом Сакумбе и Аския высказался в мою пользу, чернокожие встретили меня аплодисментами. Сакумбе подстроил так, чтобы Кордофо, командира конницы, отравили, и дал мне его пост, что обрадовало негров и возмутило афаки.

Тебе понравится Томбалку! Он создан для таких людей, как мы! Здесь полдюжины могущественных группировок, которые строят заговоры и интриги друг против друга, в тавернах и на улицах постоянные драки, все время совершаются тайные убийства, увечья, казни. И здесь есть женщины, золото, вино — все, что нужно наёмнику! А я в почёте, и у меня есть власть!

Клянусь Кромом, Амальрик, ты появился как раз вовремя! Что такое, в чём дело? Что-то не вижу у тебя того энтузиазма, что был когда-то!

— Прости меня, Конан,— вздохнул Амальрик.— Мне интересно, но я устал и хочу спать.

Но аквилонец думал совсем не о золоте, женщинах и интригах, а о девушке, которая дремала у него на коленях, его вовсе не радовала мысль о том, что она может оказаться в описанной Конаном стихии интриг и кровопролитий. Что-то слегка изменилось в Амальрике, хотя сам он этого почти не осознавал.
{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Фрагмент без названия («Рука Нергала»/«The Hand of Nergal»)

2017-12-11T16:53:07Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «'''Перевод Г. Корчагина''' <center>1</center>         На поле сражения опустила…»

'''Перевод Г. Корчагина'''

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        На поле сражения опустилась тишина; казалось, алые лужи между лежащими вповалку телами отражают багрянец закатного неба. В высокой траве появлялись и исчезали силуэты крадущихся зверей, птицы-падальщицы с шорохом тёмных крыл опускались на груды трупов. Словно вестники погибели, неровной чертой медленно пролетели к заросшим тростником берегам реки цапли. Ни грохот колесниц, ни зов рожка не нарушали эту сверхъестественную тишину. Следом за громом битвы наступило безмолвие смерти.

        Всё же одна человеческая фигурка двигалась на усеянном мертвыми телами поле, она казалась карликом на фоне огромного тускло-малинового неба. Человеком этим был Конан, великан с гривой чёрных волос и горящими синими глазами. Его прихваченная ремнем набедренная повязка и сандалии с высокой шнуровкой были забрызганы кровью. Огромный меч, который он держал в руке, был в крови по самую крестовину. На бедре зияла страшная рана, вынуждавшая его сильно хромать. Осторожно, но нетерпеливо пробирался он от павшего к павшему и тихо ругался при этом. До него здесь побывали другие, и ни браслет, ни кинжал с каменьями на рукоятке, ни серебряная нагрудная пластина не вознаградили его поиски.

        Слишком долго волк занимался кровопролитием — тем временем шакалы успели обглодать добычу до костей.

        Озирая равнину, он не увидел ни одного шевелящегося тела, ни одного нераздетого трупа. Ножи наёмников и обозников довели дело до конца. Прекратив бесплодный поиск, Конан выпрямился и устремил хмурый взгляд вдаль, за долину, туда, где в закатном сумраке слабо отсвечивали городские башни. И вдруг он резко обернулся — его ушей коснулся тихий, но полный муки стон, где-то поблизости лежал раненый. А раненый — значит, не ограбленный.

        Конан торопливо заковылял на звуки, добрался до края долины, раздвинул жёсткие тростники и увидел у своих ног скорченное человеческое тело. Перед ним лежала девушка. Обнаженная, белые руки и ноги покрыты ссадинами и синяками, длинные темные волосы в запекшейся крови. В черных глазах застыло невыносимое страдание; она стонала в бреду.

        Варвар стоял, глядя на неё, и на миг его взор затуманился чем-то похожим на жалость или сострадание. Конан хотел было избавить девушку от страшной участи, но, когда клинок приблизился к её груди, она вдруг заплакала, как дитя от боли. Огромный меч замер, застыл на мгновение, и киммериец словно обратился в бронзовую статую. Решившись, он убрал меч в ножны, наклонился и поднял девушку на могучие руки. Она слепо, вяло сопротивлялась. Аккуратно держа её, Конан захромал к текущей где-то рядом, за тростниками, реке.

<center>2</center>

        Когда в городе Яралет наступала ночь, жители запирали на засовы ставни и двери, зажигали свечи на домашних алтарях и, дрожа, сидели в своих убежищах, пока снаружи рассвет не обрисовывал минареты. По улицам до утра не ходили стражники, размалеванные шлюхи не манили прохожих из дверных проёмов, воры не крались по петляющим улочкам. Преступники, как и честные люди, предпочитали держаться подальше от темных закоулков, собирались в зловонных притонах или в освещаемых тавернах. От заката до рассвета Яралет был городом безмолвия. Его улицы и площади словно вымирали.

        Люди даже не знали толком, чего они боятся. Но свидетельств тому, что вовсе не пустые подозрения вынуждают их запирать двери, хватало с избытком. Ходили слухи о дверях, разлетевшихся в щепки посреди ночи, о разоренных домах, чьих жильцов больше никто и никогда не видел. Были истории и пострашнее — о призрачной колеснице, грохочущей по пустым улицам в предрассветной мгле, о жутких человеческих воплях, за которыми наступает зловещая тишина; слышавшие это не рисковали выяснять, что произошло. Один мальчишка осмелился, но вмиг сошел с ума и умер в криках и корчах, никому не сказав об увиденном из неосвещенного окна.

        Однажды ночью, когда жители Яралета стучали зубами взаперти, странный разговор произошел в задрапированной бархатом комнате Аталиса, которого одни считали философом, а другие мошенником. Аталис был красив — худощавый, среднего роста, благородный обличьем, но с повадками хитрого купца. Он брил голову в знак преданности науке и искусству и носил наряд простого кроя, но из дорогой ткани. Говоря, он безотчетно жестикулировал левой рукой; правая лежала на коленях, согнутая под неестественным углом. Время от времени его черты искажались спазмом боли, и при этом правая нога, скрытая под длинным подолом, прогибалась назад в колене.

        Говорил он с тем, кого город Яралет знал и чествовал как принца Тана. Молодой принц был высок, гибок и бесспорно хорош собой. Крепость тела и серая сталь глаз несколько противоречили женственно вьющимся чёрным волосам и бархатной шляпе с пером.
{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Синопсис без названия («Черный колосс»/«Black Colossus»)

2017-12-11T16:52:17Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «'''Перевод Г. Корчагина'''         Заморийский вор Шиватас входит в горо…»

'''Перевод Г. Корчагина'''

        Заморийский вор Шиватас входит в город Кутхемес, расположенный в стигийской пустыне. Когда-то здесь текла река, приток той реки, которую стигийцы называют Стикс, кофийцы — Стигс, а немедийцы — Нилус. Но за многие века высохло ее ложе, теперь в лунном свете смутно виднеются истресканные камни руин Кутхемеса. В незапамятные времена здесь правил волшебник Туграхотон, верховный жрец Сета, Старого Змея, и среди развалин по-прежнему высится позлащенный мраморный свод его усыпальницы.

        На этой древней земле лежит проклятие. Шиватас, алчущий клада, что лежит, если верить легенде, в гробнице, проникает туда потайным путем, отпирает огромную дверь изнутри и убивает стража, исполинскую змею, мечом, смоченным в ее собственном яде. Войдя в сумрачный склеп, он кричит от ужаса — во мраке шевелится, поднимается темный силуэт, затем вновь на развалины Кутхемеса опускается мертвая тишина.

        В южнокофийском княжестве Хораспар его молодой правитель, князь Хосса, выходит из подчинения королю и устанавливает свою абсолютную власть. Хораспар населён частью кофийцами, частью шемитами, а управляет им аристократическая каста, состоящая из чистокровных хайборийцев.

        В то время, когда разворачивается действие повести, Хосса — пленник в Офире, и офирский король колеблется в выборе, вернуть ли ему князя за выкуп хораспарийцам или выдать повелителю Кофа.

        Хораспар пребывает под властью княжны Ясмелы. Внезапно приходит весть о вторжении врагов из южной пустыни. Среди кочевых шемитов появился новый пророк, именующий себя Натоком и всегда прячущий лицо под вуалью. Этот пророк владеет чёрной магией, он заполучил в сторонники мятежного стигийского принца, брата короля, изгнанного в пустыню. Всадники подготовились к походу на хайборийские земли, и первое государство на их пути — Хораспар.

        Ясмела живет в страхе, её донимает призрак. Бесформенная сущность с жуткими пылающими глазами то и дело возникает в сумраке её покоев, пока спят служанки, шепчет чудовищные угрозы и оскорбления.

        Полуживая от страха Ясмела решает обратиться к древнему оракулу, находящемуся в зале под дворцом. Княжна раздевает самую красивую служанку и бросает, плачущую, на алтарь, но ей не хватает отваги или жестокости принести в жертву человека. Невесть откуда раздается дивный шепот, голос оракула убеждает отдать под начало армию первому же встречному мужчине. Она осталась без военачальников — кто дезертировал, подкупленный королем Кофа, кто запуган слухами о маге с вуалью.

        Княжна сама надевает вуаль и выходит на городские улицы, и первым встречным оказывается не кто иной, как командир отряда наемников киммериец Конан; шатаясь от выпитого, он бредёт по улице. Эта встреча заставляет Ясмелу усомниться в оракуле, но всё же она приводит варвара во дворец, подвергаясь по пути любовным приставаниям. Там она называет себя, чем повергает киммерийца в шок. Он выхватывает меч, чтобы проложить себе дорогу наружу, но княжна его успокаивает и отдаёт под его начало жалкие остатки дезертировавшей армии: отряд верных дворян, полк шемитских лучников, а также наёмников: гандерландцев, аквилонцев, гиперборейцев и немедийцев.

        Войско отправляется на холмы, чьи склоны полого спускаются в пустыню. Навстречу по земле катится огромная туча, в ней шествуют тысячи воинов Натока. Но ветер разгоняет туман, Конан и его армия вступают в битву и, при содействии очень древнего кофийского бога, побеждают Натока, он же Туграхотан.
{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Синопсис без названия («Час Дракона»/«Hour of the Dragon»)

2017-12-11T16:51:26Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «'''Перевод К. Плешкова'''         В начале сюжета четыре человека в пок…»

'''Перевод К. Плешкова'''

        В начале сюжета четыре человека в покоях немедийского замка вернули к жизни стигийскую мумию, которой было много тысяч лет. Один из них был могущественным немедийским бароном с немалыми амбициями. Второй — младший брат короля Немедии. Третий был претендентом на трон Аквилонии. Четвертый — жрецом Митры, которого изгнали из ордена за изучение запрещённого искусства магии. Мумия принадлежала древнему чародею, хайборийцу из королевства, уничтоженного немедийцами, аквилонцами и аргосцами. Королевство это называлось Ахерон, а его столица — Пифон. Много веков назад народ Ахерона, более цивилизованный, чем их соседи на востоке и западе, правил империей, которая включала в себя территории, позднее ставшие южной Немедией и Бритунией, большую часть Коринфии, большую часть Офира, западный Коф и западные земли Шема, северный Аргос и восточную Аквилонию. После захвата и разрушения Ахерона его более дикими западными соседями их величайший чародей бежал в Стигию и жил там, пока его не отравил стигийский жрец Сета Старый Змей. Затем его мумифицировали с помощью необычной процедуры, не удаляя никаких жизненно важных органов, и мумию поместили в тайный храм. Оттуда, по наущению заговорщиков, ее похитили воры из Заморы. Немедийского барона звали Амальрик; брата короля звали Тараск; аквилонского претендента звали Валерий; жреца звали Ораст; чародея звали Ксальтотун. Валерий был беззаботным молодым бродягой, высоким и светловолосым, насмехавшимся над самим собой и всем остальным, но отважным бойцом. Он был дальним родственником аквилонского короля, убитого Конаном из Киммерии, когда тот занял трон Аквилонии. Король изгнал его, и он скитался по миру как солдат удачи, пока интриги Амальрика не заставили его вернуться. Он должен был помочь заговорщикам посадить Тараска на немедийский трон, а затем его самого должны были посадить на трон Аквилонии. Амальрик был крепко сложен, смугл и безжалостен, и у него имелись свои собственные цели. Он хотел посадить на трон своих марионеток, а затем свергнуть обоих, чтобы, в конце концов, самому сесть на трон объединённых государств. Тараск был невысоким смуглым молодым человеком, хитрым, отважным и чувственным, но при этом марионеткой в руках Амальрика. Ораст был высокого роста, с мягкими белыми руками, дилетант в чёрной магии. Ксальтотун, которого заклинания вернули к жизни, был высоким, с быстрыми сильными руками, странным завораживающим взглядом и густыми чёрными волосами. Он выслушал рассказ обо всём, что произошло после его смерти, и согласился им помочь. Но прежде чем он сможет вернуть себе полную магическую силу, они должны украсть для него драгоценный камень, называвшийся Сердце Аримана, который хранился в тайном месте в королевстве Аквилония. Камень этот отобрали у него, когда пал Пифон, и потому он вынужден был бежать в Стигию. Чародей тайно планировал восстановить древнее королевство Ахерон.

        Потомков народа Ахерона было намного больше, чем считалось; они жили в горных крепостях, сообществами в больших городах или были разбросаны по всему королевству, выполняя роль жрецов, слуг, секретарей и писцов. Камень был похищен, король Немедии убит с помощью чёрной магии, и Тараск сел на трон. Затем войска Немедии выступили против Аквилонии. В палатке ночью перед сражением Конану из Киммерии приснился сон, в котором он увидел многие события из своего прошлого. Он видел странные фигуры и события и, проснувшись в поту от страха, позвал к себе своих капитанов. Наступал рассвет, и войска пришли в движение. В палатке короля появилась странная фигура в капюшоне, и Конана охватил непонятный паралич. Он не мог выехать на битву, и тогда привели обычного воина, который был очень на него похож, надели на него королевские доспехи, и он двинулся вперед под большим знаменем с изображением льва. Но он погиб, отважно сражаясь, и разбитое аквилонское войско обратилось в бегство. На Конана, беспомощно лежавшего в своей палатке, напали немедийские рыцари, его охрану зарезали. Он сражался мечом, держась за шест палатки, пока Ксальтотун не победил его с помощью магии. Его тайно посадили в повозку и переправили в столицу Немедии, поскольку Амальрик не хотел, чтобы стало известно о том, что погиб вовсе не король. Конана бросили в яму под дворцом, где на него напала гигантская обезьяна. Но девушка из обоза Тараска дала Конану кинжал, которым он убил зверя, после чего сбежал. Придя во дворец Тараска, чтобы его убить, он увидел, как король дает какому-то человеку драгоценный камень и мешок золота и приказывает бросить камень в море. Камень этот, хотя Конан о том и не знал, был Сердцем Аримана, которое Тараск похитил у чародея, поскольку боялся его и слабо представлял себе намерения Ксальтотуна. Конан ударил Тараска кинжалом, но промахнулся, а затем, покинув город, начал пробираться к аквилонской границе. Добравшись до границы, он узнал, что его народ считает его мёртвым, что бароны воюют друг с другом, что Валерий, появившийся на восточной границе вместе с немедийской армией, разбил войска, посланные против него баронами, захватил столицу и толпа, опасавшаяся чужеземного вторжения, объявила его своим королем. Гандерланд на севере и Пуантен на юге сохранили независимость, Гандерланд отчасти, а Пуантен полностью, и Конан направился на юг, чтобы объединиться с графом Тросеро, своим советником, который удерживал перевалы, ведущие к равнинам Зингары. Но сперва он поехал в свою столицу, которая была в руках Валерия, так как старый колдун в горах восточной Аквилонии рассказал ему таинственную историю о Сердце Аримана и показал видения внутри плававшего в дыму кристалла — о ворах из Заморы, ограбивших стигийский храм и похитивших огненный драгоценный камень из подземной пещеры под городом. Туда Конан и отправился, и его признали и помогли ему его преданные вассалы, а спустившись в пещеру, он обнаружил, что камень исчез, и ему пришлось жестоко сражаться с невидимой тварью, которая его охраняла. Вырвавшись из пещеры, он, наконец, понял, что Сердце Аримана — тот самый драгоценный камень, который Тараск дал незнакомцу; однако он надежно спрятал лошадь и доспехи и отправился в Пуантен, где обнаружил Тросеро, удерживавшего горные перевалы от войск Валерия. Тем временем Ксальтотун не знал о потере своего камня, поскольку хранил его в навсегда запертой золотой шкатулке и без устали применял к нему свою магию. Лишь более сильной магии могло потребоваться Сердце Аримана. Но Конана узнали в его столице, и за ним пустились в погоню, в то время как другие отправились с этой новостью в Немедию. Конан сразился на перевалах и вместе с пуантенцами разбил немедийцев. Но у Тросеро было недостаточно воинов, чтобы вторгнуться в Аквилонию и победить немедийцев и поддерживавших Валерия баронов, и его люди боялись магии Ксальтотуна. Они убедили Конана остаться и править ими как отдельным королевством, а также завоевать Зингару, но он решил последовать за человеком, забравшим Сердце Аримана, и поехал в сторону ворот Аргоса.
{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Синопсис без названия («Рыло во тьме»/«The Snout in the Dark»)

2017-12-11T16:50:46Z

Bingam:

'''Перевод Г. Корчагина'''

'''Место действия.'''

         Город Шумбалла в стране Куш, расположенной южнее Стигии, на огромных травянистых равнинах. Шумбалла — столица Куша, населена чернокожими людьми, жестокими и воинственными, известными как галлахи. Ими управляет каста смуглых чагасов, называющих себя потомками стигийских воинов, отряд которых очень давно пришел на юг и основал королевство. Этих аристократов всего лишь несколько сот, но они сохраняют свое положение благодаря интригам и жестокости.

'''Герои.'''

        Король Куша — безумный дегенерат; его красивая, жестокая, страстная сестра Тананда; Тутмес, мятежный аристократ королевской крови; Диана, пленная немедийка; Агара, фанатичный галлахский шаман; киммериец Конан.

'''Сюжет.'''

         Чернокожий начальник галлахских воинов навлек на себя гнев Тананды, был арестован и заперт в башне. Он просыпается, чтобы погибнуть от зубов свинообразного монстра, который взобрался по стене и вырвал решетку из окна. Это очень древнее чудовище, управляет им смуглый авантюрист из Кордафана.

        Труп обнаруживают, и к Тутмесу прибегает один из заговорщиков. По его словам, с заключенным расправилось вовсе не человеческое существо. Тутмес говорит вестнику, что настало время поднять галлахов против короля и его сестры, приказывает найти черного колдуна Агару и намекнуть, что вождя убила Тананда. Затем Тутмес поднимается на крышу своего жилища и размышляет, глядя на городские стены, на огромное скопление глинобитных галлахских хижин, усеявших равнину за крепостной стеной. Это он отправил чудовище, добиваясь, чтобы подозрение пало на Тананду, которая является истинным правителем Куша.

        Тутмес замыслил низвергнуть правящую династию с помощью галлахов и стать королём. Но это очень рискованная затея, поскольку галлахи считают, что на троне Куша должен сидеть человек с чёрной кожей. Тутмес посылает за белой женщиной, намереваясь подарить ее королю — по его плану, глупец быстрее умрет с помощью этого «подарка». Его слуга покупает юную немедийку Диану у шемитского работорговца, захватившего её вместе с другой добычей на аргосском купеческом судне.

        Вскоре после этого Тананда едет по городу за пределами крепостной стены. Город называется Пунт. Появляется Агара и натравливает на неё толпу. Её свита погибает, а саму Тананду стаскивает с седла и раздевает догола толпа, готовая разорвать её на куски. Но тут её спасает только что прибывший в Шумбаллу Конан, бродячий искатель приключений, недавно бывший пиратом.

        Аристократ, командовавший гвардейцами Тананды, заколот своими людьми, и Конану достается его должность. Через некоторое время он подавляет бунт чернокожих и получает щедрое вознаграждение от короля. К Тутмесу приводят Диану. Она получает от него распоряжения и отправляется к королю. Но Тананда выкрадывает немедийку, и Конан, увидев девушку, увлекается ею.

        С помощью магии Агара узнает о роли Тутмеса в судьбе чёрного военачальника. По приказу Тутмеса колдуна хватают, чтобы замучить до смерти. Глава заговора, видя, что не сможет свергнуть короля, пока жив Конан, напускает на него кордафанское чудище.

        Тананда приказывает Диане раскрыть подробности замысла Тутмеса, но девушка отказывается. Хозяин запугал её почти до безумия. Тананда бьёт её кнутом, входит Конан и прекращает это. В бешенстве властительница угрожает ему, но он лишь смеётся в ответ и уводит девушку в свой дом.

        На огромной площади внутреннего города, на глазах у бесчисленных зевак, пытают колдуна. Возвращаясь домой, Конан подвергается нападению монстра, смертельно ранит его и преследует до площади, где чудовище подбегает к своему повелителю-кордафанцу и падает замертво. Охваченная ужасом толпа разрывает кордафанца на куски, затем появляется Агара и обвиняет Тутмеса. Его тоже убивает толпа. Чернокожие восстают и разрушают Шумбаллу, а Конан с Дианой спасаются бегством.
{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Синопсис без названия («Рыло во тьме»/«The Snout in the Dark»)

2017-12-11T16:50:31Z

Bingam:

'''Перевод Г. Корчагина'''
'''Место действия.'''

         Город Шумбалла в стране Куш, расположенной южнее Стигии, на огромных травянистых равнинах. Шумбалла — столица Куша, населена чернокожими людьми, жестокими и воинственными, известными как галлахи. Ими управляет каста смуглых чагасов, называющих себя потомками стигийских воинов, отряд которых очень давно пришел на юг и основал королевство. Этих аристократов всего лишь несколько сот, но они сохраняют свое положение благодаря интригам и жестокости.

'''Герои.'''

        Король Куша — безумный дегенерат; его красивая, жестокая, страстная сестра Тананда; Тутмес, мятежный аристократ королевской крови; Диана, пленная немедийка; Агара, фанатичный галлахский шаман; киммериец Конан.

'''Сюжет.'''

         Чернокожий начальник галлахских воинов навлек на себя гнев Тананды, был арестован и заперт в башне. Он просыпается, чтобы погибнуть от зубов свинообразного монстра, который взобрался по стене и вырвал решетку из окна. Это очень древнее чудовище, управляет им смуглый авантюрист из Кордафана.

        Труп обнаруживают, и к Тутмесу прибегает один из заговорщиков. По его словам, с заключенным расправилось вовсе не человеческое существо. Тутмес говорит вестнику, что настало время поднять галлахов против короля и его сестры, приказывает найти черного колдуна Агару и намекнуть, что вождя убила Тананда. Затем Тутмес поднимается на крышу своего жилища и размышляет, глядя на городские стены, на огромное скопление глинобитных галлахских хижин, усеявших равнину за крепостной стеной. Это он отправил чудовище, добиваясь, чтобы подозрение пало на Тананду, которая является истинным правителем Куша.

        Тутмес замыслил низвергнуть правящую династию с помощью галлахов и стать королём. Но это очень рискованная затея, поскольку галлахи считают, что на троне Куша должен сидеть человек с чёрной кожей. Тутмес посылает за белой женщиной, намереваясь подарить ее королю — по его плану, глупец быстрее умрет с помощью этого «подарка». Его слуга покупает юную немедийку Диану у шемитского работорговца, захватившего её вместе с другой добычей на аргосском купеческом судне.

        Вскоре после этого Тананда едет по городу за пределами крепостной стены. Город называется Пунт. Появляется Агара и натравливает на неё толпу. Её свита погибает, а саму Тананду стаскивает с седла и раздевает догола толпа, готовая разорвать её на куски. Но тут её спасает только что прибывший в Шумбаллу Конан, бродячий искатель приключений, недавно бывший пиратом.

        Аристократ, командовавший гвардейцами Тананды, заколот своими людьми, и Конану достается его должность. Через некоторое время он подавляет бунт чернокожих и получает щедрое вознаграждение от короля. К Тутмесу приводят Диану. Она получает от него распоряжения и отправляется к королю. Но Тананда выкрадывает немедийку, и Конан, увидев девушку, увлекается ею.

        С помощью магии Агара узнает о роли Тутмеса в судьбе чёрного военачальника. По приказу Тутмеса колдуна хватают, чтобы замучить до смерти. Глава заговора, видя, что не сможет свергнуть короля, пока жив Конан, напускает на него кордафанское чудище.

        Тананда приказывает Диане раскрыть подробности замысла Тутмеса, но девушка отказывается. Хозяин запугал её почти до безумия. Тананда бьёт её кнутом, входит Конан и прекращает это. В бешенстве властительница угрожает ему, но он лишь смеётся в ответ и уводит девушку в свой дом.

        На огромной площади внутреннего города, на глазах у бесчисленных зевак, пытают колдуна. Возвращаясь домой, Конан подвергается нападению монстра, смертельно ранит его и преследует до площади, где чудовище подбегает к своему повелителю-кордафанцу и падает замертво. Охваченная ужасом толпа разрывает кордафанца на куски, затем появляется Агара и обвиняет Тутмеса. Его тоже убивает толпа. Чернокожие восстают и разрушают Шумбаллу, а Конан с Дианой спасаются бегством.
{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Синопсис без названия («Рыло во тьме»/«The Snout in the Dark»)

2017-12-11T16:50:12Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «'''Перевод Г. Корчагина''' '''Место действия.'''          Город Шумбалла в с…»

'''Перевод Г. Корчагина'''
'''Место действия.'''
         Город Шумбалла в стране Куш, расположенной южнее Стигии, на огромных травянистых равнинах. Шумбалла — столица Куша, населена чернокожими людьми, жестокими и воинственными, известными как галлахи. Ими управляет каста смуглых чагасов, называющих себя потомками стигийских воинов, отряд которых очень давно пришел на юг и основал королевство. Этих аристократов всего лишь несколько сот, но они сохраняют свое положение благодаря интригам и жестокости.

'''Герои.'''
        Король Куша — безумный дегенерат; его красивая, жестокая, страстная сестра Тананда; Тутмес, мятежный аристократ королевской крови; Диана, пленная немедийка; Агара, фанатичный галлахский шаман; киммериец Конан.

'''Сюжет.'''
         Чернокожий начальник галлахских воинов навлек на себя гнев Тананды, был арестован и заперт в башне. Он просыпается, чтобы погибнуть от зубов свинообразного монстра, который взобрался по стене и вырвал решетку из окна. Это очень древнее чудовище, управляет им смуглый авантюрист из Кордафана.

        Труп обнаруживают, и к Тутмесу прибегает один из заговорщиков. По его словам, с заключенным расправилось вовсе не человеческое существо. Тутмес говорит вестнику, что настало время поднять галлахов против короля и его сестры, приказывает найти черного колдуна Агару и намекнуть, что вождя убила Тананда. Затем Тутмес поднимается на крышу своего жилища и размышляет, глядя на городские стены, на огромное скопление глинобитных галлахских хижин, усеявших равнину за крепостной стеной. Это он отправил чудовище, добиваясь, чтобы подозрение пало на Тананду, которая является истинным правителем Куша.

        Тутмес замыслил низвергнуть правящую династию с помощью галлахов и стать королём. Но это очень рискованная затея, поскольку галлахи считают, что на троне Куша должен сидеть человек с чёрной кожей. Тутмес посылает за белой женщиной, намереваясь подарить ее королю — по его плану, глупец быстрее умрет с помощью этого «подарка». Его слуга покупает юную немедийку Диану у шемитского работорговца, захватившего её вместе с другой добычей на аргосском купеческом судне.

        Вскоре после этого Тананда едет по городу за пределами крепостной стены. Город называется Пунт. Появляется Агара и натравливает на неё толпу. Её свита погибает, а саму Тананду стаскивает с седла и раздевает догола толпа, готовая разорвать её на куски. Но тут её спасает только что прибывший в Шумбаллу Конан, бродячий искатель приключений, недавно бывший пиратом.

        Аристократ, командовавший гвардейцами Тананды, заколот своими людьми, и Конану достается его должность. Через некоторое время он подавляет бунт чернокожих и получает щедрое вознаграждение от короля. К Тутмесу приводят Диану. Она получает от него распоряжения и отправляется к королю. Но Тананда выкрадывает немедийку, и Конан, увидев девушку, увлекается ею.

        С помощью магии Агара узнает о роли Тутмеса в судьбе чёрного военачальника. По приказу Тутмеса колдуна хватают, чтобы замучить до смерти. Глава заговора, видя, что не сможет свергнуть короля, пока жив Конан, напускает на него кордафанское чудище.

        Тананда приказывает Диане раскрыть подробности замысла Тутмеса, но девушка отказывается. Хозяин запугал её почти до безумия. Тананда бьёт её кнутом, входит Конан и прекращает это. В бешенстве властительница угрожает ему, но он лишь смеётся в ответ и уводит девушку в свой дом.

        На огромной площади внутреннего города, на глазах у бесчисленных зевак, пытают колдуна. Возвращаясь домой, Конан подвергается нападению монстра, смертельно ранит его и преследует до площади, где чудовище подбегает к своему повелителю-кордафанцу и падает замертво. Охваченная ужасом толпа разрывает кордафанца на куски, затем появляется Агара и обвиняет Тутмеса. Его тоже убивает толпа. Чернокожие восстают и разрушают Шумбаллу, а Конан с Дианой спасаются бегством.
{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Синопсис без названия («Люди Черного Круга»/«The People of the Black Circle»)

2017-12-11T16:48:54Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «'''Перевод К. Плешкова'''         Король Вендии Бунда Чанд умирал в своё…»

'''Перевод К. Плешкова'''

        Король Вендии Бунда Чанд умирал в своём дворце в столице королевства Айодии. Его младшая сестра Деви Жасмина не могла понять, отчего он умирает, поскольку его не отравили и не ранили. Лёжа на смертном одре, он обратился к ней голосом, словно доносившимся из продуваемой ветрами бездны, и сказал, что чародеи заточили его душу в каменную башню на высокой горе, где ветер завывает в ночи среди упирающихся в звезды вершин. Они пытались поместить его душу в тело мерзкой ночной твари, и, когда его сознание на мгновение прояснилось, он умолил сестру вонзить клинок с украшенной драгоценными камнями рукояткой и золотой гардой в его сердце, чтобы отправить его душу к Асуре, прежде чем чародеи смогут вновь утащить её в башню на каменном утёсе. Пока он умирал, в городе стонали и гремели колокола храмов и гудели раковины, а в комнате, решетчатый балкон которой выходил на длинную улицу, где факелы отбрасывали мертвенно-бледный свет, человек по имени Керим Шах, дворянин из Иранистана, с таинственным видом наблюдал за тысячами рыдающих людей. Обратившись к человеку по имени Хемса, носившему простой плащ из верблюжьей шерсти, он спросил, почему молодого короля нельзя было уничтожить таким же образом месяцы или годы тому назад. На что Хемса ответил, что даже магией правят звезды. Звезды расположились надлежащим образом для уничтожения Бунды Чанда — Змеи в Королевском доме. Он сказал, что прядь чёрных волос короля была отправлена верблюжьим караваном через реку Юмда в Пешкаури, охраняющий перевал Забар, вверх по Забару в холмы Гулистана. Прядь волос в золотой шкатулке, инкрустированной драгоценными камнями, была похищена у принцессы Хосалы, которая безответно любила Бунду Чанда и выпросила у него этот маленький подарок на память. С помощью пряди волос, образовавшей связь между королем и ними — ибо отрезанные части человеческого тела обладают невидимой связью с живым телом,— культ чародеев, которых называли Ракшасами, а сами они называли себя Черными Колдунами, совершил колдовство, лишившее молодого короля жизни и почти лишившее его души. Керим Шах признался в разговоре, о чём Хемса уже знал, что он не принц из Иранистана, но гирканец, вождь из Турана и посланник Ездигерда, короля Турана и самого могущественного императора Востока, правившего на берегах моря Вилайет. Бунда Чанд победил туранцев в великой битве на реке Юмда. Ездигерд, замышляя его умерщвление, послал Керим Шаха в Вендию, чтобы тот попытался победить воинов-кшатриев с помощью колдовства, там, где не удастся сделать этого силой. Тем временем во дворце Деви Жасмина пронзила сердце брата кинжалом, чтобы спасти его душу, а затем упала без чувств на устланный тростником пол, в то время как снаружи жрецы выли и наносили себе раны медными кинжалами под резкий звон гонгов.

        Затем действие переместилось в Пешкаури, в тень гор Гулистана. Племена Гулистана состояли в родстве с жителями Иранистана, но были более дикими. Войска Турана прошли через их долины, но не победили горные племена. Главные города были в руках туранцев, но столица Гулистана, чьё правление племена признавали редко, была свободна, и туранцы не пытались обложить налогами или как-то иначе притеснять горцев. Правитель Пешкаури захватил в плен семерых афгулов и в соответствии с указаниями из Айодии послал известие в горы, что их вождь, Конан, бродяга с запада, ставший известным горным бандитом, должен явиться и лично вести переговоры об их освобождении. Но Конан был осторожен, так как кшатрии не всегда соблюдали свои договоренности с горными племенами. Ночью правитель был в своих покоях, широкое окно которых, открытое, чтобы прохладный горный ветер умерил жару равнин, находилось рядом с крепостной стеной. Через него он мог видеть синее химелийское ночное небо, испещрённое большими белыми звездами. Он писал письмо на пергаменте золотым пером, окуная его в сок лотоса, когда к нему пришла женщина в маске и тонком полупрозрачном плаще, который не скрывал богатого шелкового жилета, пояса и шаровар; туфли были расшиты золотом, а головной убор, поддерживавший падавшую ниже груди вуаль, был перевязан позолоченным шнуром, украшенным золотым полумесяцем. Правитель узнал Деви и заговорил с ней, упомянув о беспорядках среди горных племён и о неистовстве их вождя-чужака Конана, совершавшего набеги до самых стен Пешкаури. На самом деле это происходило не внутри стен, но в большой крепости за ними, у подножия холмов. Она ответила, что ей стало известно о причастности к смерти её брата чародеев, известных как Чёрные Колдуны, а поскольку было бы недальновидно вести в горы войско кшатриев, она намеревалась отомстить с помощью одного из племенных вождей. Она приказала правителю потребовать в качестве цены за жизнь семерых афгулов уничтожение Черных Колдунов. Затем она ушла, но, еще не добравшись до своих покоев, вспомнила, что хотела сказать ему кое-что еще, и вернулась. Возможно, она увидела коня у внешней стены.

        Тем временем правитель услышал, как что-то упало на крепостную стену с башни, а мгновение спустя в окно прыгнул человек с длинным, в целый ярд, забарским ножом в руке и приказал правителю молчать. Это был Конан, вождь афгулов, высокий, сильный и крепко сложенный, одетый как горец, что казалось несколько неуместным, поскольку он был не уроженцем Востока, а варваром-киммерийцем. Он требовательно спросил, чего хотел от него правитель, и, когда тот ответил, у разбойника возникли подозрения. В это мгновение вошла Деви, правитель встревожено выкрикнул ее имя, и Конан, поняв, кто она такая, оглушил правителя рукояткой ножа, схватил Деви, выпрыгнул через окно на карниз, вскочил на коня и с ликующим криком поскакал в горы. Правитель отправил в погоню за ним группу всадников.

        Тем временем девушка, игравшая роль шпионки Хемсы, принесла ему известие. Правитель и Керим Шах последовали за Деви в Пешкаури. Девушка посоветовала Хемсе воспользоваться своими знаниями чёрной магии — знаниями, которыми учителя запретили ему пользоваться без их разрешения,— и стать богатым. Идея ее заключалась в том, чтобы уничтожить семерых пленников — поскольку она знала, что частью выкупа, которую Конан потребует за Деви, станет их освобождение,— а затем последовать за Конаном в горы, забрать у него девушку и получить выкуп самим. Убив пленников, они могли выиграть время. Хемса проник в тюрьму и убил их с помощью чёрной магии, и они с девушкой отправились в горы. Тем временем Керим Шах услышал о похищении — хотя правитель пытался сохранить это в тайне и послал гонца в Секундерам, чтобы сообщить о случившемся тамошнему сатрапу и убедить его послать на юг достаточно сильное войско, чтобы отобрать Деви у горцев. Сам же отправился в горы, взяв с собой несколько человек из Иракзая, которых он подкупил. Тем временем Конан, направлявшийся в страну афгулов, граничившую с Забарским перевалом, покалечил коня и, преследуемый кшатриями, был вынужден искать убежища среди вазулов. Вождь вазулов был его другом, но Хемса, следовавший за ним по пятам, убил вождя, и воины попытались отобрать у Конана Деви. После яростного сражения Конан победил, забрав её с собой, а встретив Хемсу, не поддался его магии, после чего увидел, как его и девушку уничтожает магия более сильная. Черные Колдуны наконец дали о себе знать. Они забрали у него Деви и унесли в свою башню. Он случайно встретился с Керим Шахом, и туранец, услышав, что Черные Колдуны обратились против него, пошел вместе со своими иракзаями и Конаном. Во время штурма башни погибли все, кроме Конана и Керим Шаха. Затем им пришлось сражаться за девушку, и Конан победил. Тем временем со стороны Секундерама подошло войско и обрушилось на афгулов, захватив их врасплох. Войско кшатриев наступало со стороны долины, и Деви завоевала себе свободу, заключив договор с Конаном и бросив своих воинов в битву, в которой туранцы были сокрушены и обращены в бегство. Затем он вернул её целой и невредимой ее народу.
{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Синопсис без названия («В зале мертвецов»/«The Hall of the Dead»)

2017-12-11T16:48:03Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «'''Перевод Г. Корчагина'''         По узкому ущелью продвигается неболь…»

'''Перевод Г. Корчагина'''

        По узкому ущелью продвигается небольшой отряд заморийских воинов под началом Нестора, гандерландского наёмника. Они преследуют киммерийца Конана, чьи кражи у богатых купцов и ноблей привели в бешенство правителя ближайшего заморийского города. Конан сбежал оттуда и направился в горы. Стены ущелья круты, а дно заросло высокой и густой травой. Пробираясь через траву во главе своего отряда, Нестор вдруг падает, обо что-то споткнувшись. Это натянутый Конаном сыромятный ремень, и он срывает подпорку; с горы сходит камнепад, заваливая всех воинов, кроме Нестора, который отделывается только ссадинами и ушибами на теле да царапинами и вмятинами на доспехах. Разъяренный наёмник идет дальше, по следу в одиночку и добирается до плато, где стоит безлюдный город древних; на окраине он встречает Конана. Не ожидавший нападения киммериец в отчаянной схватке все же ухитряется оглушить противника ударом меча о шлем, после чего углубляется в город, считая его вымершим. Нестор приходит в чувство и снова преследует киммерийца. Тем временем Конан успевает перебраться через городскую стену — ворота оказываются заперты — и встречает обитающее там чудовище. С ним удается покончить, сбросив ему на голову с возвышения каменные блоки; затем Конан спускается и разрубает труп на куски.

       Он добирается до огромного дворца, вытесанного из каменного холма в центре города, и пытается найти вход, но тут его настигает Нестор с мечом в руке. Конан, преодолевая неприязнь, предлагает ему заняться поиском легендарного сокровища вдвоем, вместо того чтобы драться. Спор завершается согласием гандерландца, они проникают во дворец и, в конце концов, находят большой зал с сокровищами; но там же лежат воины давно минувшей эпохи. Они как живые, хоть и не дышат.

        Кладоискатели вдоволь запасаются золотом и драгоценными камнями и бросают кости — кому владеть сверхъестественной красоты самоцветами, украшающими алтарь, на котором покоится яшмовая змея — вероятно, служившая древним жителям города идолом. Выиграв, Конан отдает собранные ранее драгоценности Нестору, а себе берет каменья и яшмовую змею с алтаря. Но как только поднимает ее, оживают древние воины, и разгорается страшная битва. Чудом ворам удается унести ноги. Исполинские воины выбегают следом за ними из дворца — и тотчас под лучами солнца превращаются в горстки праха.

       Чудовищной силы подземные толчки сотрясают руины, и охотники за сокровищами расстаются. Конан возвращается в заморийский город, встречается с подружкой в таверне, а когда хмель ударяет ему в голову, щедро рассыпает самоцветы по залитому пивом столу. К его изумлению, они вмиг обращаются зеленой пылью. Тогда он решает проверить яшмовую змейку, лежащую в кожаной суме. Девушка поднимает суму и с испуганным криком роняет — внутри, по ее словам, что-то шевелится. Тут в таверну входит судья со стражей, чтобы арестовать Конана. Киммериец встает спиной к стене и вынимает меч. Прежде чем послать воинов в атаку на вора, судья завладевает его сумой.

        Нестор тоже возвращается в город. С его золотом ничего не сделалось; он напивается и рассказывает собутыльникам о своих и Конана приключениях в мертвом городе.

        Когда его пытаются схватить стражники, он, хоть и изрядно пьяный, отбивается и убегает.

        Судья запускает руку в суму и с воплем отбрасывает ее — жирные пальцы обвиты живой змейкой. В поднявшейся суматохе Конану и его подружке удается улизнуть.
{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Синопсис без названия («Алая цитадель»/«The Scarlet Citadel»)

2017-12-11T16:47:17Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «'''Перевод Г. Корчагина'''         Повесть начинается с последней сцены…»

'''Перевод Г. Корчагина'''

        Повесть начинается с последней сцены битвы, в которой король Аквилонии Конан побежден армиями Кофа и Офира. Властитель Офира Амальрус отправил весть Конану о том, что король Кофа Страбонус вторгся в его владения, и призвал киммерийца на помощь. Тот вышел с пятью тысячами конницы, без пехоты, и на равнинах Офира встретил Страбонуса с десятитысячной армией из рыцарей, лучников и пращников; его поддерживало пятнадцатитысячное войско офирцев. Они засыпали стрелами, разрезали на части дружину Конана и уничтожили её без остатка. Единственный выживший, король Аквилонии попадает в плен к Страбонусу, а вернее, к его магу Тзота-Ланти — этот загадочный свирепый старец обладает истинной властью над Кофом. Тзота царапает Конана стилом, смазанным ядом пурпурного лотоса, отчего наступает мышечный паралич. Конана перевозят в Хоршемиш, столицу Страбонуса, и там пытаются склонить к отречению от престола в пользу Арпелло, аквилонского нобля, вступившего в тайный сговор со Страбонусом. Конан отвечает грубым отказом, его отводят в подземный лабиринт под цитаделью Тзоты и приковывают к стене. В этом подземелье Тзота вершит свое чародейство.

        Над головой Конана тускло горит лампада, бросая на пол световой полукруг. Вскоре чудовищная сорокафутовая змея выползает из мглы, вздымается над Конаном, и с оскаленных зубов падают на его обнаженное бедро капли слюны, от которых останутся шрамы на всю жизнь. В этот миг появляется огромный черный мужчина и заявляет, что Конан, в бытность пиратом у берегов Куша, убил его брата. Он намерен обезглавить Конана, но из темноты снова выныривает змея и хватает его. К ногам Конана падают ключи, и он избавляется от оков.

        Но выбраться тем же путем, что и вошёл, не удается — подоспевший стражник запер дверь снаружи, хотя Конан успевает нанести ему смертельный удар через решетку. Киммериец находит в подземелье товарища по несчастью, волшебника, и освобождает его. Волшебник вызывает то ли огромную птицу, то ли дракона; верхом на этом существе Конан возвращается в Аквилонию, поднимает армию и громит кофийцев.

{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Синопсис без названия («Drums of Tombalku»/«Барабаны Томбалку»)

2017-12-11T16:46:37Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «'''Перевод К. Плешкова'''         Амальрик, сын дворянина из великого ро…»

'''Перевод К. Плешкова'''

        Амальрик, сын дворянина из великого рода Валериев из западной Аквилонии, остановился возле окруженного пальмами источника в лежащей к югу от Стигии обширной пустыне, вместе с двумя своими спутниками из разбойничьего племени ганатов, негритянского народа с примесью шемитской крови. Ганатов, которые были с Амальриком, звали Гобир и Сайду. На самом закате, когда они собирались съесть свой скромный ужин из сушеных фиников, подъехал третий их соплеменник — Тилутан, черный гигант, знаменитый своей жестокостью и владением мечом. Через луку его седла была перекинута бесчувственная белая девушка, которую он нашел в пустыне умирающей от истощения и жажды, когда охотился на редкую пустынную антилопу. Опустив девушку на землю возле источника, он начал приводить её в сознание. Гобир и Сайду смотрели на Амальрика, ожидая, что тот попытается её спасти, но он притворился, будто судьба её ему безразлична, и лишь спросил, кто из них возьмёт девушку после того, как Тилутан от неё устанет. Начался спор, и он бросил пару костей, сказав, чтобы ганаты разыграли её между собой. Когда они склонились над костями, он вытащил меч и рассек череп Гобира. Сайду тут же набросился на него, и Тилутан, бросив девушку, кинулся к нему на подмогу. Амальрик развернулся кругом, вынудив Сайду принять удар на себя, и, швырнув раненого в объятия Тилутана, сцепился с гигантом. Тилутан повалил Амальрика на землю и начал его душить, а затем поднялся, чтобы вытащить свою грозную саблю и отсечь голову аквилонцу. Но когда он бросился на противника, его пояс размотался, он наступил на него и упал. Сабля вылетела из его руки, Амальрик схватил её и почти снёс Тилутану голову, после чего лишился чувств. Когда он снова пришёл в себя, девушка брызгала ему в лицо водой. Выяснилось, что она говорит на языке, похожем на кофийский, и они могут понимать друг друга. Она сообщила, что ее зовут Лисса; она оказалась очень красивой, с белой нежной кожей, фиолетовыми глазами и волнистыми волосами. При виде её невинности дикому молодому солдату удачи стало стыдно, и он отказался от своего намерения её изнасиловать. Она предположила, что он сражался со своими спутниками лишь ради того, чтобы её спасти, и он не стал её разубеждать. Она сказала, что родом из города Газала, находившегося недалеко на юго-востоке. Она убежала из Газала пешком, у неё кончились запасы воды, и она лишилась чувств незадолго до того, как её обнаружил Тилутан. Амальрик посадил её на верблюда, сам сел на лошадь — остальные животные разорвали верёвки и убежали в пустыню во время драки своих хозяев,— и рассвет застал путников на пути к Газалу. Амальрик был потрясён, увидев, что город лежит в руинах, за исключением башни на юго-восточной окраине. Когда он сказал об этом, Лисса побледнела и стала умолять его больше на эту тему не говорить. Он обнаружил, что тамошний народ состоит из добродушных мечтателей, не обладавших практичным складом ума и в основном предававшихся стихосложению и праздным Размышлениям. Племя было немногочисленным, и оно вымирало. Эти люди пришли в пустыню и построили город в оазисе много лет назад — культурный и учёный народ, не знавший войн. На них никогда не нападали свирепые и жесткие племена кочевников, поскольку Газал внушал им суеверный страх, и они поклонялись существу, обитавшему в юго-восточной башне. Амальрик рассказал Лиссе свою историю — о том, что он был солдатом войска Аргоса, под командованием зингарского принца Запайо да Кова, который прошел на кораблях вдоль кушитского побережья, высадился в южной Стигии и пытался вторгнуться в королевство с этого направления, в то время как войска Кофа наступали с севера. Но Коф предательски заключил мир со Стигией, и войско на юге оказалось в ловушке. Путь к бегству в сторону моря был отрезан, и они пытались пробиваться на восток, надеясь захватить земли шемитов. Но войско было полностью уничтожено в пустыне. Амальрик бежал вместе со своим товарищем Конаном, великаном-киммерийцем, но на них напала банда диких смуглых всадников в странной одежде, и Конан был сражен. Уйдя с места трагедии под покровом ночи, Амальрик блуждал в пустыне, страдая от голода и жажды, пока не наткнулся на троих стервятников-ганатов. Он говорил о нереальности города Газала, и Лисса рассказала ему о своем детском, но страстном желании вырваться из застойного окружения и увидеть мир. Она отдалась ему столь же естественно, как и любой ребенок, и, когда они лежали вместе на устланном шелками ложе в освещенной лишь звездным светом комнате, из близлежащего строения послышались жуткие крики. Амальрик хотел пойти посмотреть, что там происходит, но Лисса прижалась к нему, дрожа, и рассказала о тайне одинокой башни. Там обитало сверхъестественное чудовище, которое время от времени спускалось в город и пожирало одного из его жителей. Что это было за существо, Лисса не знала. Но она рассказывала о летучих мышах, вылетавших на закате из башни и возвращавшихся на рассвете, и о жалобных воплях жертв, уносимых в таинственную башню. Слова ее устрашили Амальрика, он узнал в этом существе таинственное божество, культ которого исповедовали некоторые негритянские племена. Он убедил Лиссу бежать вместе с ним до рассвета — жители Газала настолько утратили инициативу, что стали полностью беспомощными, не способными сражаться или спасаться, словно загипнотизированные, что, как полагал молодой аквилонец, и имело место. Он пошёл подготовить верховых животных, а когда возвращался, услышал жуткий вопль Лиссы. Бросившись в комнату, он обнаружил, что та пуста. Уверенный, что Лиссу схватило чудовище, он устремился к башне, взбежал по лестнице и оказался в помещении, где обнаружил белого мужчину странной красоты. Вспомнив древнее заклинание, услышанное от старого кушитского жреца одного из соперничающих культов, Амальрик произнес его, связав демона в его человеческой форме. Затем последовала страшная битва, в которой он пронзил мечом сердце чудовища. Умирая, оно жутко завопило, призывая к мести, и ему ответили голоса из воздуха. Затем оно обрело свой истинный облик, и Амальрик в ужасе бежал. У подножия лестницы он встретил Лиссу. Ее напугал вид твари, тащившей по коридорам свою человеческую добычу, и она, охваченная неудержимой паникой, убежала и спряталась. Поняв, что её любовник отправился в башню её искать, она пришла разделить с ним его судьбу. Обняв, он повел её туда, где оставил животных. Был уже рассвет, когда они выехали из города — она на верблюде, а он на лошади. Оглянувшись на спящий город, в котором вообще не было животных, они увидели, что их преследуют семеро всадников в черных одеждах на худых черных лошадях. Беглецов охватила паника, поскольку они поняли, что эти всадники — не люди. Весь день они безжалостно гнали своих животных на запад, к далекому побережью. Они не нашли воды, и лошадь выбилась из сил незадолго до захода солнца. Все это время черные фигуры неустанно преследовали их, и, когда наступили сумерки, они начали быстро приближаться. Амальрик понял, что это мерзкие твари, вызванные из преисподней предсмертным криком чудовища в башне. Когда стемнело, преследователи были уже рядом. Тень в форме летучей мыши заслонила луну, и беглецы почувствовали могильный запах охотников. Внезапно верблюд споткнулся и упал, и демоны окружили его. Лисса закричала. Затем раздался стук копыт, кто-то рявкнул, и демонов смела прочь стремительная атака группы всадников. Их предводитель спешился и склонился над обессиленными юношей и девушкой, а когда показалась луна, выругался знакомым голосом. Это был киммериец Конан. Разбили лагерь, и беглецам дали еды и воды. Спутниками Конана были смуглые люди дикого вида, до этого напавшие на него и Амальрика,— всадники из Томбалку, полумифического пустынного города, короли которого подчинили себе племена юго-западной пустыни и негритянские народы степей. Конан рассказал им, что его оглушили и увезли в далекий город, чтобы показать королям Томбалку. Королей этих всегда было двое, хотя один из них был, как правило, лишь номинальной фигурой. Представ перед королями, он был обречён умереть под пытками, но потребовал, чтобы ему дали выпить, а затем осыпал обоих королей ругательствами. Услышав это, один из них очнулся от дремоты и с интересом посмотрел на него. Король этот был большим толстым негром, второй же — худым смуглым человеком по имени Зебех. Негр уставился на Конана и приветствовал его именем Амра — Лев. Чернокожего звали Сакумбе, и он был искателем приключений с западного побережья, знавшим Конана по тем временам, когда тот опустошал побережье корсарскими набегами. Он стал одним из королей Томбалку отчасти благодаря поддержке негритянского населения, отчасти же благодаря махинациям фанатика-жреца Аскии, который имел власть над жрецом Зебеха Даурой. Конан тотчас же был освобождён и назначен на высокий пост генерала всех всадников — поскольку, по странному совпадению, прежний его обладатель, некий Кордофо, был отравлен. В Томбалку существовали различные группировки — Зебех и его смуглые жрецы, родственники Кордофо ненавидевшие как Зебеха, так и Сакумбе, и Сакумбе со своими сторонниками, из которых наиболее могущественным был сам Конан. Всё это Конан рассказал Амальрику, и на следующий день они двинулись в сторону Томбалку. Конан ехал туда, чтобы изгнать с той земли воров-ганатов. Через три дня они добрались до Томбалку, фантастического города, находившегося среди песков пустыни, рядом с оазисом со множеством источников. В этом городе говорили на многих языках. Господствующей кастой были основатели города, воинственный смуглый народ потомков афаки, шемитского племени, которое пришло в пустыню несколько столетий назад и слилось с негритянскими народами. Подчинявшиеся им племена включали в себя тибу, пустынный народ смешанной негритянско-стигийской крови, а также багирми, мандинго, донгола, борну и другие негритянские племена южных саванн. Они прибыли в Томбалку как раз вовремя, чтобы стать свидетелями ужасной казни Дауры, жреца афаки, которую совершил Аския. Афаки были в ярости, но ничего не могли поделать против решимости и стойкости их черных вассалов, которых они учили искусству войны. Сакумбе, когда-то отличавшийся отвагой, энергией и искусством политики, деградировал в горообразную массу жира, которую не интересовало ничего, кроме женщин и вина. Конан сыграл с ним в кости и, подпоив, предложил совместными силами устранить Зебеха. Киммериец сам хотел стать королем Томбалку. Аскию обманом уговорили обвинить Зебеха, за чем последовала кровавая гражданская война, в которой афаки были побеждены, а Зебех бежал из города вместе со своими всадниками. Конан занял место рядом с Сакумбе, но, несмотря на все его старания, оказалось, что негр — настоящий правитель города, в силу своего происхождения от черной расы. Тем временем у Аскии возникли подозрения в отношении Амальрика, и в конце концов, он обвинил его в убийстве бога, жрецом которого он был, и потребовал, чтобы его и девушку подвергли пыткам. Конан отказался, и Сакумбе, полностью находившийся во власти киммерийца, его поддержал. Тогда Аския обратил свой гнев против Сакумбе и уничтожил его с помощью ужасной магии. Конан, поняв, что после гибели Сакумбе чернокожие растерзают его и его друзей, позвал за собой Амальрика и начал прокладывать себе путь через толпу разъяренных воинов. Пока оба товарища пытались добраться до внешних стен, Зебех и его афаки атаковали город, и в дикой кроваво-огненной бойне Томбалку был почти полностью уничтожен. Конану, Амальрику и Лиссе удалось бежать.

{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Синопсис без названия («...И родится ведьма»/«A Witch Shall Be Born»)

2017-12-11T16:45:49Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «'''Перевод К. Плешкова'''         В начале сюжета Тарамис, королева Хаур…»

'''Перевод К. Плешкова'''

        В начале сюжета Тарамис, королева Хаурана, проснулась в своих покоях, увидев на покрытой бархатными портьерами стене светящееся пятно. В этом пятне она разглядела голову своей сестры Саломэ, которую вскоре после рождения отнесли в пустыню умирать, так как на груди у нее была колдовская метка — кроваво-красный полумесяц. Из последовавшего разговора стало ясно, что, поскольку много веков назад тогдашняя королева Хаурана сожительствовала с демоном из незапамятных времен, время от времени в королевской семье должна рождаться ведьма. Саломэ сказала, что ведьмы всегда носили имя Саломэ и так будет всегда. Ее, сестру-близнеца, отнесли в пустыню, но ее нашел кхитайский маг, путешествовавший из Стигии с караваном. Он узнал колдовскую метку, подобрал девочку и воспитал её, обучив многим тайным искусствам. Теперь она вернулась, чтобы захватить трон. Её учитель прогнал её, так как она не овладела истинным колдовством во вселенских масштабах и стала лишь шлюхой-ведьмой. Ей встретился кофийский искатель приключений, командовавший армией профессиональных бойцов из западных городов Шема. Человек этот пришел в Хауран и попросил руки королевы Тарамис. В то время он стоял лагерем со своим войском за городскими стенами. Ворота тщательно охранялись, поскольку Тарамис ему не доверяла. Саломэ сказала Тарамис, что пришла во дворец тайно, опоив всех королевских слуг. Она сказала также, что её, Тарамис, бросят в тюрьму, а она, Саломэ, будет править вместо неё. В это мгновение вошел кофиец, и Саломэ цинично отдала ему свою сестру, чтобы тот её изнасиловал, а сама пошла к воротам и распорядилась впустить шемитов.

        В следующей сцене молодого воина перевязывает его перепуганная возлюбленная, в то время как он рассказывает ей о предательстве. Королева Тарамис, судя по всему, приказала своим ошеломленным ратникам впустить шемитов в город. После этого она объявила, что сделает кофийца королем, который будет править рядом с ней. Из верных войск у Тарамис оставалась только личная гвардия, её вырезали шемиты, за исключением капитана гвардии, киммерийца Конана, который отказался поверить, что Тарамис — действительно Тарамис. Он клялся, что это некий демон, обретший ее форму, и отчаянно сражался, прежде чем его одолели. Молодой воин сказал, что кофиец приказал распять его за городской стеной. Так и случилось; Конан отгонял стервятников зубами и привлек внимание вожака разбойников, который рыскал возле стен в надежде на поживу. Это был Ольгерд Владислав, запорожец, или козак, который пришел из степей и обосновался среди кочевых шемитских племен пустыни. Он освободил Конана и взял его к себе в шайку после жестокой проверки на выносливость.

        Тем временем — как следовало из письма посетившего Хауран ученого — Саломэ, выдавая себя за Тарамис, упразднила культ Иштар, заполнила храмы непристойными изображениями, ввела человеческие жертвоприношения и поместила в святилище чудовищного монстра из преисподней. Молодой воин, убежденный, что Тарамис убили или посадили в тюрьму и на её месте правит обманщица, проник во дворец и тюрьму, переодетый нищим, и Саломэ, которая пытала сестру, показывая ей голову ее верного советника, бросила голову нищему, чтобы от нее избавиться, и невольно выдала тайну. Он поспешил к Конану с новостями. Конан тем временем, желая отомстить кофийцу, собрал большое войско из кочевников. Ольгерд намеревался захватить и разграбить Хауран, но Конан сверг его и объявил о своём намерении спасти Тарамис и вернуть её на трон.

        Молодой воин освободил Тарамис из тюрьмы, но Саломэ загнала их в храм. Конан победил кофийца, ворвался в город и уничтожил монстра. Кофийца распяли, и Тарамис снова вернулась на трон.
{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Краткая биография Роберта Ирвина Говарда по Расти Бёрку - 4

2017-12-11T16:16:09Z

Bingam:

Отказ Новелин стать женой и домохозяйкой, несомненно, оказал некоторое влияние на Говарда, и понятно, что его прогрессивное отношение к женщинам отодвинулось на задний план. Длинное письмо Гарольду Прису в 1928 году представляет собой страстную защиту женщин: «Мужчины были в ногах у женщин на протяжении многих веков и нашей цивилизации, плохой или хорошей, мы обязаны влиянию женщин». Хотя многие из его женских персонажей - просто напросто поддержка (как многие из мужчин), очевидно, что под влиянием своей матери Говард сочувствовал женщинам больше, чем можно было ожидать от человека того времени. Действительно, некоторые из главных писательниц фэнтези, таких как К.Л. Мур, Ли Брэкетт, Джессика Сэлмонсон, и Нэнси Коллинс, выражали свое восхищение темной Агнес де ла Фер.

Тем временем в 1935 году матери Говарда становилось все хуже и хуже. Ей все чаще требовалась госпитализация то в санатории, то в больнице, и даже притом, что доктор Говард получал скидку на услуги, медицинские счета неизменно росли. Роберт столкнулся с дилеммой – появилась такая острая потребность в деньгах как никогда, но у него было мало времени, чтобы заработать достаточно для решения этой проблемы. «Сверхъестественные истории» должны были ему около 800$, и платежи запаздывали. Когда у доктора Говарда закончились и без того скудные сбережения, он начал практиковать на дому, и вел прием больных круглосуточно. В итоге отец и сын наняли женщин, чтобы следить за порядком в доме, это еще больше наполнило дом людьми и предоставило Роберту возможность в спокойной обстановке сконцентрироваться на письме. Вместе с отчаянием, которое он чувствовал, видя, что мать находится на пороге смерти, Говард испытывал огромное напряжение. Видимо это и привело к тому, что молодой автор заблаговременно принял решение не жить без матери.

Его поступок не был импульсивным. В течение многих лет он говорил партнерам, таким как Клайд Смит, что он убьет себя, так или иначе, если не будет нужен своей матери. Большая часть его поэзии и вообще написанного в течение 1920-1930-ых гг. отчетливо отражает суицидальный характер его настроения. Его нисколько не прельщало жить для себя, такая жизнь виделась ему только как утомительный труд по воле других, со скудным шансом на успех и небольшую драгоценную свободу. Однажды, в 1925 году, он написал Смиту, в то время, когда думал, что подвел своих друзей:

«Я сидел и думал. Мои мысли бежали, жить и быть неудачником, мучиться всю мою жизнь и наконец, уйти, неудачник среди неудачников ИЛИ?»

В письме Фарнсуорту Райту от 1931 года содержится несколько утверждений Говарда на общие темы: «Будучи среднестатистическим человеком, рассказ о моей жизни будет просто унылым повествованием о серых буднях и тяжком труде, мучительной борьбе против бедности... Жизнь не стоит того, если есть кто – то, кто считает себя во власти над вами... Я - просто один из огромной толпы, в которой все, так или иначе, существуют ради того, чтоб набить свои животы... Время от времени один из нас понимает, что идти дальше слишком трудно и пускает себе пулю в лоб, но все это играючи, я считаю».

Письма Говарда часто вызывают ощущение, что он был неприспособлен к жизни в холодном и антагонистическом мире: «Чем я старше, тем больше я ощущаю бесчувственное недружелюбное отношение мира в целом». Почти во всех его произведениях его герои - чужаки или изгои на враждебной земле. Возможно, его опыт детства «без корней», привел к этому ощущению себя как изгоя, в связи с постоянными переездами отца то в один город, то в другой. В некоторых письмах к Лавкрафту он выражал другое мнение на эту тему: чувство, что он родился не в свое время. Одной из причин их дискуссий на тему «варварство против цивилизации» было выраженное желание Говарда родиться в варварской эпохе в Германии или Галлии; он часто жаловался на то, что ему приходиться жить слишком поздно и принимать участие в освоении приграничной местности. «Мне только жаль, что я не родился раньше – хотя бы на тридцать лет раньше. Если бы было так, я бы захватил только конец этой трудной эры, я был бы слишком молод, чтобы понять ее суть. Когда я смотрю на открывающиеся перспективы этих лет, со всеми «усовершенствованиями», «изобретениями» и «достижениями», я бесконечно благодарен, что я не моложе. Мне было бы очень жаль быть старше, намного старше. Каждый человек хочет пережить промежуток своей жизни. Но я думаю, едва ли стоит жить в этом времени. Я хотел бы покончить со своей молодостью; и возможно природная энергия и избыток юношеской активности приведут меня к среднему возрасту. Милостивый Боже, как подумаю, что можно жить в семьдесят лет!»

Говард также, кажется, питал отвращение от одной мысли, что можно постареть и стать слабым. За месяц до своей смерти он написал Августу Дерлету: «Смерть к старости неизбежна, и все же, так или иначе, мне часто кажется, что умереть молодым намного страшнее. Когда человек умирает в молодости, он не особенно страдает, а у стариков есть только жизнь как таковая, и, по-моему, умереть слабым и старым более трагично, чем потерять жизнь в самом ее начале. Я не хочу жить, чтобы быть старым. Я хочу умереть, когда мое время настанет, быстро и внезапно, полным сил и здоровья».

Для молодого человека, Говард, кажется, слишком преувеличивал смысл старения. Когда ему был всего 24 года, он написал Гарольду Прису: «Меня часто посещает осознание того, что мои лучшие дни, умственно и физически, давно прошли». Новелин Прайс вспоминает, что когда они встречались, между 1934 и 1935 годами, Говард часто говорил, что он «в осени своей жизни», повторяя фразу из Макбет: «я жил достаточно долго, в моей жизни … настала осень...»

В письме к Дерлету в мае 1936 года Говард упоминал: «За год я не написал почти ни одного рассказа, хотя я думал над сюжетом об экспедиции Коронэдо на Стэйкд - Плейнс в 1541». Это значит, что «Нехт Самерхенд» / «Nekht Semerkeht» была бы последней историей, расказанной Говардом, начав ее, он в значительной мере обращается к идее самоубийства. «Игра не стоит свеч», думает герой де Гусман.

«О, конечно нами управляет исключительно причина, даже когда причина говорит нам, что лучше умереть, чем жить! Не разум делает нас живыми - и заставляет убивать, чтобы жить - но слепой неразумный инстинкт животного».

«Эрнандо де Гусман не пытался обманывать себя, этому была некоторая интеллектуальная причина, тогда, почему он не оставил предсмертную борьбу и приставил дуло своего пистолета к голове; оставьте существование, вкус которого давно меньше, чем боль».

Говард очень тщательно спланировал свою смерть. Он обговорил со своим литературным агентом Отисом Кляйном все детали на случай непредвиденной кончины. Он тщательно привел в порядок все рукописи, которые должен был отправить в «Weird Tales» или в агентство к Кляйну с инструкциями относительно того, куда их нужно было отправить. Он приобрел оружие - «Кольт» 38-го калибра у друга, который даже не догадывался о его намерениях. Его отец, скорее всего, спрятал собственное оружие Роберта, зная, на что он способен. Он сказал, что видел, как его сын делал приготовления на случай, смерти миссис Говард и что попытался следить за Робертом, но не ожидал, что тот будет действовать прежде, чем его мать умрет.

Эстер Говард впала в кому в последний раз 8-ого июня 1936 года. 10-ого июня Роберт поехал в Браунвуд и заплатил за место для трех могил на кладбище, которые выбрал с бесконечной заботой. Он спросил доктора Дж. В. Дилла, друга своего отца, который приехал, чтобы быть с доктором Говардом во время последней болезни его жены, можно ли выжить, прострелив себе мозг. Не подозревая, что задумал Роберт, доктор сказал ему, что такая рана определенно смертельна. Вечером накануне, Роберт разуверил отца в своих смертельных намерениях, пребывая «в почти веселом настроении... Он пришел ко мне ночью, обнял меня рукой и сказал, надо встряхнуться, что перед этим все равны, все пройдут через это». Утром 11 июня Роберт спросил медсестру, ухаживающую за миссис Говард, придет ли она в себя, и услышал отрицательный ответ.

Роберт Говард встал и ушел в свою комнату, где он напечатал двустишие в четыре строки на пишущей машинке Ундервуд, которая служила ему десять лет:

«Труд завершен. Исчезло все. <br />

Пир кончился печальный.<br />

И лампы гаснут в тишине...<br />

Что впереди?<br />

Костер лишь погребальный.»<br />

(перевод А. Андреева)

Потом он вышел из дома и сел в свой Шевроле 1931 года выпуска. Нанятая кухарка сказала потом, что видела, как он поднимал свои руки в молитве. Молился ли он или готовил оружие? Потом она услышала выстрел и увидела, как Роберт резко упал на руль. Она закричала. Отец Роберта и доктор Дилл подбежали к машине и перенесли его тело в дом. Он выстрелил выше правого уха, пуля прошла насквозь. Крепкое здоровье Роберта позволило ему прожить с этой ужасной раной еще почти восемь часов. Он умер где-то в 16:00 в четверг 11 июня 1936 года, не приходя сознание. Его мать умерла на следующий день, тоже не приходя в сознание. 14 июня состоялись двойные похороны, и мать и сына перевезли в Браунвуд и похоронили на мемориальном кладбище Гринлиф.

Это - прискорбный постскриптум, самоубийство Роберта Э. Говарда сгустило краски в интерпретации его умственного здоровья. Потому как трудно утверждать, что убийство в возрасте 30 лет является «нормальным» поведением, самоубийство часто - очень сложный ответ на реальные или кажущиеся проблемы. Люди по разным причинам лишают себя жизни, и не все они находятся в депрессии или отчаянии. Двойное несчастье, что поступок Говарда совпал со смертью его матери, которая стала причиной неизбежного, но, по-моему, он убил себя из отчаяния. Это, в свою очередь, привело к предположению - без особых на то оснований - что он был «противоестественно» зависим от своей матери. Может если бы ему не приходилось заботиться о ней, Роберт ушел бы из жизни еще раньше. Или если бы его кто-то поддержал в тот сложный период, Роберт сделал бы это после ее смерти. Об этом наверняка теперь никто не узнает. Нельзя связать его самоубийство исключительно со смертью матери, игнорируя ряд других факторов.

Мнения относительно состояния Говарда ужасно расходятся, от «психотического» и «старадающего Эдиповым комплексом» до предположений, что он был довольно нормальным парнем, который не перенес переживаний. В соответствии с доказательством в его собственным письмах, а также, как утверждали его друзья, мы, конечно, знаем, что у него была склонность к темным мыслям. С другой стороны, мемуары тех, кто знал его лучше всего - Тевиса Клайда Смита, Новелин Прайс и Гарольда Приса - показывают, что они считали его нормальным, и потом он был интеллектуальным и отзывчивым другом. Если он был иногда эксцентричен в манере одеваться или в поведении, то, возможно, как сказала Новелин Прайс своему соседу по комнате потому что: «Он пытается сказать людям, что он - писатель, а писатели имеют право быть странными. Они думают, что он сумасшедший, но он всего на всего демонстрирует им, насколько сумасшедшим он может быть». Это отношение действительно отражено в некоторых письмах Говарда к Смиту и Прису. Интересен тот факт, что большая часть предположений об умственном здоровье Говарда возникла от людей с минимальными познаниями в этой области, либо полным их отсутствием. Один человек, Чарльз Грэмлич, профессор психологии и писатель-фантаст, написал: «Независимо от того, насколько некоторым людям хочется думать, что Говард был сумасшедшим, это не так. Назовите его эксцентричным, и я соглашусь с этим. Назовите сумасшедшими его методы, которые некоторые из нас называют сумасшедшими, я приму это. Но он не был клинически болен... По-моему Говард был сумасшедшим не больше других. Зато он был лучшим автором».

Доктор Айзек М. Говард пережил свою жену и сына на восемь лет. Его здоровье ухудшалось из-за развившегося диабета и ему пришлось оставить практику и переехать в 1940 году в Рэнджер, штат Техас, куда его пригласил Доктор П.М. Кайкендал жить с его семьей и помогать ему в западно-техасской клинике и госпитале. Он умер в ноябре 1944 года, оставив все состояние доктору Кайкендалу.

После смерти Говарда «Weird Tales» издавали произведения Говарда на протяжении нескольких лет, пока редактором оставался Фарнсуорт Райт. В августе 1946 года Дерлет, используя данные агенства «Arkham House», первоначально созданный, чтобы издать работу Х. Ф. Лавкрафта, выпустил сборник лучших рассказов Говарда под названием «Череп и другие». Маленький журнал, «The Avon Fantasy Reader» / «Эйвон фэнтези ридер», включил несколько историй Говарда в свой 18-ый выпуск в конце 1940-ых, а в начале 1950-ых - научный фантаст и издатель фантастики, Гноум Пресс, издал рассказы о Конане в твердом переплете. В 1960-ых, книги о Конана с рисунками Франка Фрэзетта, принесли Роберту Говарду известность наравне с Дж.Р.Р Толкиеном и Эдгаром Райсом Берроузом. В 1970-ых, при содействии Гленна Лорда, увидел свет сборник «Howard boom» / «Бум вокруг Говарда», и читатели познакомились с потрясающим разнообразием работ продуктивного автора. Период бума продолжался на протяжении следующих десяти лет благодаря комиксам и журналам, которые были посвящены Конану, иногда другим персонажам Говарда, и публиковали статьи об авторе и его творчестве. В 1980-ых Конан появился на экране, хотя в настолько искаженном виде, что в нем трудно было узнать Говардовского Конана, и получил признании во всем мире. В то же самое время, нарастающая активность среди авторов и критиков фантастики привела к тому, что к работам Говарда начали относиться серьезно как к литературе, а не отвергать как простое, уводящее от проблем чтиво. К концу 80-ых общественная организация Кросс Плейнс «Project Pride» / «Проект гордость» купила дом Говарда и своими силами и силами его поклонников со всего света, дом автора теперь восстановлен и является национальным историческим местом. Каждый июнь «Project Pride» и спонсоры Кросс Плейнс принимают множество посетителей, приезжающих, чтобы посетить дом Говарда и увидеть где жил автор.

До смерти Роберт Э. Говард сочинял свои мифические и таинственные рассказы в течение всего лишь дюжины лет, только четыре из которых он посвятил своему самому известному созданию, Конану. Все же сегодня, спустя более чем 60 лет после его смерти, приключения Хайборийского героя и большинство других работ Говарда продолжаются. В отличие от многих своих современников-фантастов, богатое воображение Говарда и энергичные рассказы завоевывают новых поклонников в каждом следующем поколении. Его работы вдохновили бесчисленных последователей и пусть переведены не на многие языки, зато занимают свое место в разных СМИ таких как комиксы, фильмы, телевидение. А за ними следуют фан-клубы и публикации, любительское агентство печати, основанное в 1972 году, все еще действующее, а теперь простирающееся во всемирной паутине. В самом деле, Роберт И. Говард, как Конан, один для всех.

== Дополнительные Источники информации о жизни Роберта И. Говарда:==

#'''The Last Celt: A Bio-Bibliography of Robert E. Howard''', by Glenn Lord (West Kingston, RI: Donald M. Grant, Publisher, 1976). Содержит автобиографический материал Говарда из школьных эссе и писем, биографических и мемуарных статей Гленна Лорда, И. Хоффманна Прайса, Г.Ф. Лавкрафта и Гарольда Приса в дополнение к обширной библиографии творчества Говарда.

#'''One Who Walked Alone: Robert E. Howard, The Final Years, by Novalyne Price Ellis''' (West Kingston, RI: Donald M. Grant, Publisher, 1986). Биография заключительных двух лет Говарда, написанная женщиной, которая встречалась с ним: бесспорно лучший рассказ очевидца Говарда, особенно в течение этого периода.

#'''Robert E. Howard: Selected Letters 1923-1930, and Robert E. Howard: Selected Letters 1931-1936''', edited by Glenn Lord (West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1989 and 1991). Широко аннотируемые письма Тевису Клайду Смиту, Гарольду Прису, Г.Ф. Лавкрафту, Кларку Аштону Смиту и другим.

#'''Robert E. Howard: Selected Letters 1923-1930, and Robert E. Howard: Selected Letters 1931-1936''', edited by Glenn Lord (West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1989 and 1991). Полуавтобиографический роман, который освещает период с 1924 по 1928 гг. Хотя хронологическая последовательность иногда изменяется, и определенные эпизоды, несомненно, преукрашены, этот разоблачающий документ раскрывает путь Говарда как профессионального автора.

#'''Dark Valley Destiny: The Life of Robert E. Howard''', by L. Sprague de Camp, Catherine Crook de Camp, and Jane Whittington Griffin (NY: Bluejay Books, 1983). «Стандартная» биография, написанная де Кампом. Можно порекомендовать эту книгу, поскольку неутомимый исследователь де Камп разыскал и взял интервью у многих партнеров Говарда и родственников прежде, чем они скончались. Однако преподносит информацию таким образом, чтобы поддержать предвзятое представление о Говарде, не всегда благоприятное, и фактически подвергающее сомнению не только его интерпретации, но и многие из его «фактов». Ничто в книге не должно быть принято без оглядки на другие источники.

#'''Report on a Writing Man, and Other Reminiscences of Robert E. Howard''', by Tevis Clyde Smith (West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1991). Коллекция всех статей, написанных о Говарде одним из его самых близких друзей.

#'''Day of the Stranger: Further Memories of Robert E. Howard''', by Novalyne Price Ellis (West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1989). Интервью с госпожой Эллис, радио-пьеса, написанная ею, в которой главный герой – Говард, и ее речь, произнесенная на банкете в чести Говарда в 1988 на Всемирном Съезде Научной фантастики.

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== Ссылки ==

http://www.rehupa.com/short_bio.htm

<div align="right">© '''Перевод Александры Валькович'''.</div>

Краткая биография Роберта Ирвина Говарда по Расти Бёрку - 3

2017-12-11T16:15:41Z

Bingam:

В те же летние выходные в 1927 году, когда он встретил Гарольда Приса в Остине, Говард купил произведение Г.К.Честертона «Баллада о белом коне». В нем Честертон сводил кельтов, бриттов и англосаксов под предводительством короля Альфреда в битве христиан с северными захватчиками 9-го века - норвежцами и датчанами. Говард восторгается поэмой в письме к Клайду Смиту. Видимо именно это вдохновило его на создание «The Ballad of King Geraint» / «Баллада о короле Герайнте», в которой разные кельтские народы ранней Британии самоотверженно противостоят захватчикам Англов, Саксов и Ютов. Концепция Честертона «смешения истории», что «главная ценность легенды, в том, что можно смешивать столетия сохраняя настрой», нашла отклик у Говарда. Именно так он и делал, особенно создавая Хайборийскую эру Конана, которая объединяет множество других исторических эр и культур: от средневековой Европы (Аквилония и Пойтейн) до Америки (дебри пиктов), и от русских казаков до пиратов елизаветинской Англии (Свободное Братство). Говард попросту переплавил всю историю, что позволяло ему изображать то, что он видел, как универсальные составляющие человеческой природы так же четко, будто он наблюдает за всем этим со стороны.

Узнав, что Гарольд Прис разделяет его интерес к кельтам, он оживленно начал работать над циклом о кельтах. В его письмах к Прису и Клайду Смиту в промежутке 1928-1930 гг. горячо обсуждается история Ирландии, ее легенды и поэзия - он даже немного изучил основы Гэльского языка и всерьез занялся изучением генеалогии. Ирландские и Кельтские мотивы начали преобладать в его поэзии, и к 1930 году он был готов применить свои новые знания в работе. В соответствии со своим принципом - использовать старое для создания нового, он сначала ввел ирландский персонаж в рассказ с двумя уже известными героями. Кормак из графства Коннахт из рассказа «Kings of the Night» / «Короли ночи» зачастую остается в тени Брана Мак Морна и короля Кулла, хотя история противостояния римским легионам рассказана от имени ирландского короля Кормака.

В течение 1930 года Говард написал множество рассказов о Гэльских героях, отвергнутых кланом и государством. Турлоф О'Брайен и Кормак Мак Арт - разбойники XI-ого века, которые сражались на стороне даннов и саксов против других северных мореплавателей. Хотя он смог продать два рассказа о Турлофе в «Сверхъестественные истории» - «Черный человек» / «The Dark Man» и «Боги Бал-Сагота» / «The Gods of Bal-Sagoth» - рассказы о Кормаке не имели успеха, поскольку в них не было ничего «сверхъестественного» (один рассказ о Кормаке со сверхъестественной темой остался незаконченным).

В июне 1930 года Говард получил письмо от Фарнсуорта Райта, в котором сообщалось, что «Сверхъестественные истории» планируют выпустить похожий журнал с восточной тематикой и просят его о содействии. Эта просьба оживила жадный интерес автора к Востоку, особенно Среднему Востоку, и он написал несколько своих лучших рассказов для нового журнала «Oriental Stories». В 1933 году журнал переименовали в «Волшебный ковер» / «Magic Carpet Magazine», который закрылся в 1934 году после январского выпуска. Хотя эти рассказы были о времени крестоносцев, или монгольских и исламских завоевателях, они неизменно напоминали кельтских героев. Одним из них был Кормак Фитц Жоффрей, нормано-ирландский крестоносец, которого Говард называл «самым мрачным персонажем», что является несправедливой недооценкой истины. «За тридцать лет своей бурной жизни у Кормака редко были часы мира и покоя. Ненавидимый ирландцами и презираемый норманами, он безжалостно отомстил всем, кто плохо к нему относился». Кормака можно смело назвать самым антиобщественным персонажем, проникшим в «темное сердце человеческого насилия» глубже, чем любой другой, хотя Кагал Руад O'Доннел («The Sowers of the Thunder» / «Рождающие гром») и Дональд МакДиса («The Lord of Samarcand» / «Повелитель Самарканда») могли бы составить ему конкуренцию. И Джон Норвалд, англичанин, чья ненависть сохраняется в течение 23 лет, чтобы дать выход жуткой мести в «The Lion of Tiberias» / «Лев Тиверии».

В августе 1930 года, Говард писал Фарнсуорту Райту, нахваливая рассказ Г.Ф. Лавкрафта «The Rats in the Walls» / «Крысы в стенах», который только что был напечатан в «Сверхъестественных историях». В письме, он отметил использование фразы на Гэльском языке и заметил, что Лавкрафт мог бы удержаться от описания ситуации на Британских островах. Райт послал письмо Лавкрафту, который откровенно не предполагал, что кто-то заметит, как свободно он владеет древним языком. Он написал Говарду, чтобы установить верность фразы, тем самым, начав одну из самых длинных и интересных переписок в истории всей литературы фэнтези. В течение следующих шести лет Говард и Лавкрафт обсуждали преимущества цивилизации перед варварством, городов и общества перед окраинами, интеллектуального перед физическим, искусства перед торговлей и многое другое. Сначала Говард был почтительным по отношению к Лавкрафту, которого он (подобно многим своим коллегам) считал выдающимся автором фантастики своего времени. Но постепенно Говард начал более решительно отстаивать свои взгляды, и, в конечном счете, мог высказаться с язвительным сарказмом, например, напомнить, как «цивилизованная» Италия участвовала в бомбардировке Эфиопии в 1935 году (Лавкрафт был поклонником режима Муссолини и фашизма).

Эти письма - источник информации о путешествиях Говарда и его деятельности в течение этих лет, а также его взгляды на многие вещи. Они также освещают растущий интерес к местной истории и знаниям, интерес, который зародили Лавкрафт, Прайс Хоффманн (единственный автор «Сверхъестественных историй», с которым он встречался лично) и Август Дерлет. Они демонстрируют развитие новой личности, техасца, в жизни которого главное место занимает беллетристика и в последней части его жизни - письма. Жаль, что у этой личности не было возможности развиваться дальше, поскольку судя по его письмам, он мог бы стать величайшим западным автором.

Еще до этого в 1932 году Говард купил свой собственный автомобиль, и с родителями путешествовал по Техасу, навещая друзей и родственников, а также для здоровья его матери, которое серьезно ухудшалось. После того, как он купил свой седан Шевроле, его друзья Линдси Тайсон и Труетт Винсон присоединялись к нему в дальних поездках, от Форт-Уэрта до Долины Рио-Гранде, и от Восточных месторождений нефти Техаса до Нью-Мексико. Его письма к Лавкрафту обширно описывают географию и историю этих мест, и являются прекрасными путеводителями, не говоря уже о том, что они были как глоток свежего воздуха в жизни Говарда.

Его переписка с Лавкрафтом, кажется, вдохновила молодого автора попытаться создать рассказы, подобные тем, что создает признанный мастер. Первое такое творение, «The Children of the Night» / «Дети Ночи» также имеет некоторые ключевые особенности Говарда, как расовая память и ненависть, кельтский воин и примитивная подземная раса. Последовали и другие рассказы в стиле Лавкрафта, такие как «Тварь на крыше» / «The Thing on the Roof» и «Черный камень» / «The Black Stone», представляющие собой вклад Говарда в «Мифы Ктулху» / «Cthulhu Mythos», дьявольская «Черная Книга» / «Black Book» или «Безымянные культы» / «Nameless Cults» (позже дублированные как «Unaussprechlichen Kulten») фон Юнтца и безумного поэта Джастина Джеффри. Влияние Лавкрафта было последней каплей в сочетании с бурным воображением, необходимой для создания самой популярной и длинной работы Говарда - его рассказы о Конане-киммерийце.

В письме к Лавкрафту в апреле 1932 года, Говард описывал в общих чертах свое последнее творение: «Я работаю над новым героем, и новой эпохой для него. Хайборийская эра давно забыта людьми, я оставил классические названия, и изменил мифы. [Фарнсуорт] Райт отклонил большинство серий, но одну я ему все-таки продал – «Феникс на мече» / «The Phoenix on the Sword», о приключениях киммерийского короля Конана, в королевстве Аквилония». В постскриптуме к тому же письму он написал: «Райт взял еще один рассказ о Конане киммерийском, «Слоновая башня» / «The Tower of the Elephant», действие которого происходит среди украшенных драгоценными камнями башен в проклятой Заморе, часто посещаемых пауком. В то время Конан еще не принял королевский сан и был обычным вором».

Намного позже, Говард сказал бы поклонникам, что «Конан просто возник в моем уме несколько лет назад, когда я остановился в небольшом пограничном городе в низовьи Рио-Гранде. Я не создавал его сознательно. Он просто преследовал меня, появившийся полностью из забытья, он вынудил меня начать работу над сагой о его приключениях». Своему другу, писателю Кларку Эштону Смиту он сказал: «Пока я не захожу так далеко, чтобы полагать, что истории созданы фактически под влиянием алкоголя или чего-то еще (хотя я настроен против категорического отрицания чего-либо), я иногда задавался вопросом, возможно но ли, чтобы неведомые силы прошлого или настоящего - или даже будущего – проявили себя сквозь мысли и действия живущих людей. Это происходило со мной особенно, когда я писал первые истории о Конане. Я знаю, что в течение многих месяцев я был неспособен создать что-нибудь, что можно было бы продать. Тогда казалось, что человек Конан появился в моей голове внезапно, без особого труда с моей стороны, и поток историй стремительно вытекал из-под моей ручки - или скорее моей пишущей машинки - почти без усилия с моей стороны. Я, казалось, не создавал, а скорее связывал события, которые произошли. События переполняли мое воображение настолько быстро, что я едва успевал за ними. В течение многих недель я только и делал, что писал о приключениях Конана. Он полностью овладел моими мыслями и вытеснил все, что мешало мне писать».

Созданный без особых усилий со стороны Говарда, Конан, несомненно, один из наиболее полностью реализованных персонажей Говарда. “Небольшой пограничный город”, где он сначала явился автору, это во всей вероятности Мишен, штат Техас, где Говарды были в начале 1932 года. На листе со стихотворением Говарда «Киммерия» /«Cimmeria», который он послал Эмилю Петайя, было подписано: «Написано в Мишене, Техас, февраль 1932»; рассуждая о горной стране с видом на Фредериксберг в тумане зимнего дождя». Очевидно этот «бесконечный пейзаж - холм на холме, один склон выше другого, каждый окружен как братьями» вызвал что-то в подсознании автора. Первая строчка стихотворения: «Я помню». Он объяснял Смиту: «Какой-то механизм в моем подсознании выбрал главные характерные черты боксеров-профессионалов, бандитов, контрабандистов, хулиганов с месторождений нефти, игроков и честных рабочих, я объединил их всех, переплавил, и получил Конана-киммерийца».

Однако, как и с предыдущими героями, первое приключение Конана не было оригинальным. Следуя проверенному принципу, Говард стер пыль с непроданной истории о короле Кулле, «Сим топором я буду править!» / «By This Axe I Rule» и добавил фантастический сюжет. В результате появился «Феникс на мече» / «The Phoenix on the Sword» (декабрь 1932 г.), в котором читатели «Сверхъестественных историй» познакомились с киммерийцем, который в течение следующих трех лет будет соперничать с Сибери Куинном, тайным детективом Жюля де Грандена, как самый популярный герой журнала. Хайборийская эра, соединение истории человечества и культур, дала ему возможность свободно помещать своего героя в мириады разных событий, исследовать человеческую сущность и историю, и попробовать силы в новых жанрах. Весной 1933 года, Говард нанял Отиса Адальберта Кляйна в качестве своего агента, продолжая работать только со «Сверхъестественными историями». При давлении Кляйна, и в связи со срочной потребностью в деньгах, связанной с ухудшением здоровья его матери и сопутствующими медицинскими расходами, Говард начал трудиться в поте лица, стараясь написать как можно больше различных рассказов для разных журналов. Конан, благодаря способности свободно существовать в разных уголках мира, обеспечивал выгодное дело автору, который пробует силы в новом жанре. В итоге, мы имеем множество рассказов о Конане в разных жанрах: детективный роман «Бог из чаши» / «The God in the Bowl», пиратские истории «Колодец черных демонов» / «The Pool of the Black One» и «Черный чужак» / «The Black Stranger», пограничные истории («По ту сторону Чёрной реки» / «Beyond the Black River»), и несколько восточных приключений («...Родится ведьма» / «A Witch Shall Be Born», «Людоеды Замбулы» / «The Man-Eaters of Zamboula», «Люди черного круга» / «The People of the Black Circle»).

Карьеры Конана и его создателя чуть было не оборвались из-за автомобильной аварии. Ночью 29 декабря 1933 года, Говард с тремя товарищами возвращались из Браунвуда. Стоял туман, и шел дождь. Роберт врезался передней частью автомобиля в серый флагшток, установленный посреди улицы в городе Райзинг Стар. Один вылетел через лобовое стекло, другой повредил ногу. Сам Говард “налетел на руль с такой силой, что я смял его своей грудной клеткой», и рассек челюсть осколком стекла, так, что была видна голая кость. «Все убытки возместили на удивление быстро», - писал Говард. «Город, где произошел несчастный случай, помог мне оплатить ремонт моего автомобиля, а флагшток был удален – видимо надо было, чтобы погиб один из граждан, прежде чем это было сделано».

К 1932, Говард обратил свое внимание на родные места, и вместе со своим другом Клайдом Смитом (который продолжал писать несколько книг по местной истории) он начал исследовать первоначальные дни Техаса. Сначала он написал несколько добротных фантастических рассказов, действие которых происходит в этой местности, таких как «Ужас из кургана» / «The Horror From the Mound», «Сердце старого Гарфилда» / «Old Garfield's Heart», и «Человек на земле» / «The Man on the Ground». Однако в 1934 году на сцену ворвался его самый успешный западный герой, Брекенридж Элкинс с Медвежьей Речки, штат Невада. Элкинс был огромен как гора, удивительные приключения которого напоминают невероятные истории о Пекосе Билле. Верный своему принципу, Говард начал писать по знакомому сценарию. В рассказе «Спустившийся с гор» / «Mountain Man», который появился в выпуске март/апрель 1934 года в «Action Stories», действующее лицо Элкинс, замешан в состязании из-за схожести с другим. Это – рассказ о Стиве Костигане, перенесенный в западный пограничный городок с остроумными диалогами, от которых режет слух местному населению. Восхитительное, житейское чувство юмора истории показывает Говарда с другой стороны, и некоторым читателям, которые склонны думать о нем, как темном и погружённом в раздумья, может показаться не знакомым. Брекенридж Элкинс появлялся в каждом выпуске «Action Stories» более двух лет и оказался настолько популярным, что, когда редактор перешел в «Сокровищницу» / «Argosy», он попросил Говарда создать подобную серию рассказов для этого журнала.

В 1934-м в Кросс Плейнс приехала новая школьная учительница, которая сыграет важную роль в жизни Роберта Говарда. Он встретился с Новелин Прайс примерно через год, после того как был представлен ей их общим другом Клайдом Смитом. Переехав в Кросс Плейнс, Новелин несколько раз пыталась позвонить Говарду, но его мать все время отвечала, что он то не может подойти к телефону, то его нет в городе. В конце концов, утомленная этими выходками, она попросила своего кузена отвезти ее к дому Говарда, где ее довольно прохладно встретил его отец. Сам Роберт был более приветлив. Это было началом иногда нежных, иногда бурных отношений. Впервые рядом с ним постоянно был человек, разделявший его интересы - и это была женщина! Однако его настойчивость в том, что он сам должен заботиться о своей больной матери, которая, как казалось Новелин, больше нуждается в услугах профессиональной медсестры, раздражала ее так же, как и его отказ посещать общественные мероприятия. Мысль о женитьбе часто приходила им в голову и даже иногда обсуждалась, но, в то же время, их чувства не совпадали. Когда она говорила о любви, он отстаивал свою свободу. Когда он думал, что готов на серьезные отношения, она видела только их непреодолимые различия. Это были два страстных, отчаянно независимых человека, которые были созданы для пылких и захватывающих отношений, но быть вместе им было не суждено. Весной в 1936 году, Новелин поступила на повышение квалификации в штате Луизиана и уехал из Кросс Плейнс.

Существует мнение, что решительная молодая школьная учительница могла вдохновить Говарда на создание своих зловещих женщин-воинов, особенно Агнес де ла Фер («Воительница» / «Sword Woman») и «Валерия из красного братства» / «Valeria of the Red Brotherhood» («Red Nails» / «Красные гвозди»), но не имеет серьезных оснований. Уже в 1928 году в рассказе , «The Isle of Pirates» / «Остров смерти» изображена сумасбродная Хэлен Тэврел, которая хвасталась: «Я, наверно, самый прекрасный стрелок в мире, но больше я люблю клинок». Потом появилась Белит - королева черного побережья, («Queen of the Black Coast»), предводительница корсаров, странствующих по морям Хайборийской эры и первая любовь Конана. А в «Тени стервятника» («The Shadow of the Vulture») («Восточные рассказы», январь 1934) рыжеволосая Соня из Рогатино, русская девушка с огненно-рыжими косами, найдена в разгар осады Вены при Сулеймане Великом в 1529 году (вооруженная посерьезнее, чем ее тезка из комиксов). Однако, Валерия, и особенно Агнес, выражают наиболее положительные представления Говарда о женщинах. «Всегда мужчины на первом месте!», - кричит Агнес, когда Жискар де Клиссон убеждает ее надеть юбку. «А женщина должна знать свое место: пусть доит коров, прядет, шьет, печет пироги и носит детей, пусть не выходит за порог и не приказывает своему господину и хозяину! Вот ещё! Я плевала на всех вас! Ни один живой человек, осмелившийся напасть на меня не выживет, и прежде, чем я умру, я докажу это всему миру!»

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== Ссылки ==

http://www.rehupa.com/short_bio.htm

<div align="right">© '''Перевод Александры Валькович'''.</div>

Краткая биография Роберта Ирвина Говарда по Расти Бёрку - 2

2017-12-11T16:15:07Z

Bingam:

У авторов, работающих в жанре фэнтези, было только два пути к успеху. Одним было создание персонажа, который будет интересовать читателей так, чтобы они хотели снова и снова читать о нем, приводя таким образом редакторов в восторг. Вторым был универсальность: автор, который мог создавать разнотипные рассказы мог продавать их в разные журналы. В одном письме Говард писал: "журналы, специализирующиеся на фэнтези и научной фантастике стремятся к высокому рейтингу... в газетных киосках только и видно журналы с рассказами о диком западе, гангстерах, сражениях и т.д.".

К счастью, Роберт Ирвин Говард был из тех, кто сочетал в себе умение создавать запоминающиеся и желанные для читателей персонажи, а также писать в разных литературных жанрах. Тем не менее, в отличие от многих его современников, которые еще долго могли продолжать писать о своих персонажах после того, как вдохновение оставило их, Говард обнаружил, что он не мог удержать сюжетную линию на протяжении серийных рассказов. В письме к Кларку Эштону Смиту о Конане в 1933 году, он признавал: «Боюсь, наступит время, когда я вдруг пойму, что просто не в состоянии написать о нем убедительно. Это уже случалось раньше почти со всеми моими многочисленными персонажами; я вдруг чувствую, что не понимаю, что писать дальше, как будто кто-то стоял за моей спиной и направлял меня, и вдруг развернулся и ушел, а мне ничего не остается как искать другого героя». После смерти Говарда, Лавкрафт сказал, что «секрет мастерства Говарда в том, что он оставлял частичку себя в каждом произведении». Менее восприимчивые критики высказывали мнение, что герои Говарда были по существу сделаны из одного теста, но если это правда, то у Говарда не должно было быть проблем с продолжением рассказов о Кулле, Соломоне Кейне, Бране Мак Морне и других. Исследователь творчества Роберта Е. Говарда Патрис Луине нашел этому более подходящее объяснение: его герои отражают этапы эмоционального развития писателя. В процессе взросления, личность персонажа меняется не значительно (это сходная черта его героев), но меняются его взгляды на мир (поэтому созерцательному и иногда нерешительному Куллу на смену приходит более беспечный и решительный Конан). Говард иногда терял интерес к своим героям, поскольку становился старше и «переростал» их психологически, а потому не мог убедительно выражать их точку зрения.

Очень интересный персонаж с точки зрения психологии - Френсис Ксавье Гордон, или Аль Борак. По словам Говарда, он впервые создал Гордона в 10 лет, немного раньше, чем стал записывать свои сочинения на бумагу. В самых ранних из сохраненных рассказов, написанных подростком Говардом, Гордон, хорошо известный Британской Секретной Службе, путешествовал по миру в поисках приключений. Прообразом для него служили Ричард Фрэнсис Бёртон, Джон Николсон и Чарльз Гордон. На сегодняшний день ни один из этих ранних рассказов не завершен. Годами позже в декабре 1934 года в «Top-Notch» / «Высший уровень» появился рассказ «The Daughter of Erlik Khan» / «Дочь Эрлик-хана», в котором этот бывший техасский гангстер приехал на средний Восток. В Гордоне четко просматривается страсть юного Говарда к Востоку, отголоски подвигов Лоуренса в Аравии и вымысел Тэлбота Мунди. Однако почему этот персонаж должен был ждать в течение, по крайней мере, десяти лет, даже после того, как Говард начал писать цикл восточных рассказов в 1930 году, остается загадкой, зато интересно сравнить утонченного мирового путешественника из самых ранних рассказов с закаленным воином в более поздних.

В дальнейшем молодой Говард обращает взор на древнюю Великобританию для создания Брана Мак Морна. Когда Роберту было 13, его отец привез семью в Новый Орлеан, где обучался в аспирантуре. Там, в общественной библиотеке Роберт прочитал книгу по Британской истории, из которой он узнал о небольшой темной средиземноморской расе, населявшей Британские Острова до прибытия Кельтов. Этих людей называли пиктами, и они сильно будоражили воображение молодого Роберта. «Автор описал коренных жителей лучше любого историка. Его пикты были хитрыми, таинственными, невраждебными, но в то же время примитивными по сравнению с другими, что было истинной правдой. Я сопереживал им и принимал их как связующе звено с древностью. Я сделал их сильной воинственной расой варваров, создал благородную историю с почестями и былой славой, и создал им великого короля – неповторимого Брана Мак Морна». Как и в случае с Аль Бораком, подвиги Брана будут записаны некоторое время спустя. Самое раннее упоминание об этом герое было в 1923 году в письме к его другу Смиту, в котором Говард называет Брана среди других персонажей книги, которую он пишет (которая частично не сохранилась). В одной из ранних продаж Говарда в «Сверхъестественных историях», «Потерянная раса», речь идет о пиктах, но вождя в рассказе зовут Берул, а не Бран. В начале 1926 года Говард написал рассказ «Men of the Shadows» / «Люди-тени», в котором Бран – великий вождь, а не король. Только однажды в 1930 году, когда он написал рассказ «Kings of the Night» / «Короли ночи», Говард сделал Брана королем... и даже выше. В том же году Говард написал рассказ «The Dark Man» / «Темный Человек», действие происходит в 11-ом столетии, в котором Бран становится богом для оставшихся пиктов. Любопытно, что в большинстве работ Говарда, рассказ ведется с позиции главного героя (даже когда речь идет от третьего лица), а в рассказах о Бране нет. Говард сам признает это в разговоре с Лавкрафтом: «Только в моем последнем рассказе о Бране, «Worms of the Earth» / «Черви Земли», я все видел глазами пиктов и говорил на языке пиктов!" Этот рассказ один из лучших и последний, в котором появляется Бран.

В 16 лет, Говард создал другого героя, Соломона Кейна, пуританина, который путешествует по миру и борется за справедливость. Как сказал Говард: «Возможно, он стал результатом восхищения определенным типом воина, который существовал в шестнадцатом веке: холодный, со стальными нервами». Как и с Аль Бораком и Браном Мак Морном, приключения Соломона Кейна не были написаны сразу, но осенью 1927 года, Говард завершил историю под названием «Solomon Kane» («Соломон Кейн»), в котором его герой выслеживал злодея Волка (Le Loup), начиная с Европейского леса, и, заканчивая финальным поединком в загадочных джунглях Африки. Рассказ был опубликован в одном из самых популярных журналов фэнтези – «Argosy All-Story». Он весьма ободрился, когда помощник главного редактора сообщил ему задушевным тоном замечания, и в то же время сообщил: «Вам, кажется, удается сочетать качество своих рассказов и их количество». Говард говорил Клайду Смиту, что сперва он писал рассказ для «Сверхъестественных историй», но решил сначала попытать удачи в «Argosy»; он фактически послал этот рассказ в «Сверхъестественные истории» без изменений. Он был принят, но Говарда попросили дать ему другое название. Рассказ появился в августе 1928 года под заголовком «Red Shadows» / «Красные тени».

В каком-то смысле, Кейн - один из самых сложных и завораживающих персонажей Говарда. Его подвиги, кажется, происходят в основном, во время правления Елизаветы I, некоторые события происходят в Англии и на континенте, но именно в Африке Кейн сталкивается лицом к лицу с самыми серьезными испытаниями. Среди самых ярких событий в Африке - открытие древней атлантической колонии, управляемой похотливой, не совсем в своем уме, королевой («The Moon of Skulls» / « Луна черепов»), племени зомби (The «Hills of the Dead» / «Холмы смерти») и деревни, страдающей от нападений крылатых гарпий («Wings in the Night» / «Крылья в ночи»). На протяжении всех своих приключений, Кейн убежден, что он - слуга Божий, пусть даже он носит талисман, который ему дал кровный брат Н'Лонга, «могущественный труженик неизвестной магии», с которым он впервые столкнулся в «Красных тенях». Цитируя автора, «вся его жизнь [Кейна] проходила в защите слабых и обездоленных во всем мире; он никогда не спрашивал себя для чего. Это было его одержимостью, движущей силой его жизни…. Если же он задумывался об этом, он считал себя исполнителем воли бога, божьим избранником, чтобы очистить мир от грешников». На протяжении всех рассказов, ощущение божественного предназначения Кейна смешано с чувством вины за свою тягу к острым ощущениям. Кейн был первым постоянным персонажем Говарда, не на одну-две публикации: с 1928 по 1932 гг. в «Сверхъестественных историях» появились семь рассказов о Кейне, и он до сих пор одинаково любим и читателями, и другими авторами жанра фэнтези.

Согласно наполовину автобиографическому роману «Post Oaks and Sand Roughs» / «Корабельные дубы и песчаные холмы», где-то осенью 1926 года, когда он посещал бухгалтерские курсы в Академии Говарда Пейна, он начал «дикое фэнтези под названием «The Phantom Empire» / «Призрачная империя», которое он отложил частично готовое, а потом забыл». Следующим летом «он наткнулся на «Призрачную империю», забытую на несколько месяцев, завершил ее, а затем снова отложил в сторону и забыл». Через какое-то время, он «снова обнаружил «Призрачную империю», переписал и снова забросил». В сентябре 1927 года, он, наконец, передал рассказ в «Сверхъестественные истории», и вскоре его приняли, пообещав за публикацию 100 долларов – такую сумму ему еще не предлагали. Пройдет больше года прежде, чем этот рассказ опубликуют в августе 1929 года. Название, как сказано в «Post Oaks and Sand Roughs», правда, немного другое: рассказ назывался «The Shadow Kingdom» / «Королевство теней». Это первая публикация о короле Кулле. Считается, что это первый настоящий пример жанра «меча и магии» - сочетание отважных приключений с элементами фантастики и ужаса.

Говард сказал: «Король Кулл отличается от других (то есть, Аль Борака, Брана Мак Морна и Соломона Кейна) тем, что он появился на бумаге в момент создания, а те сначала долго существовали лишь в моей голове. Фактически, он сначала появился как второстепенный персонаж в неопубликованном рассказе. По крайней мере, он был задуман как герой второстепенный, но мне ничего не удавалось, пока он не начал доминировать». Эта первоначальная идея была очевидна в рассказе «Бегство из Атлантиды», который написан в первой половине 1925 года, когда Говарду было 19. Этот небольшой рассказ о том, как молодой Кулл дарит быструю смерть девушке, которая нарушила племенной обычай и должна была сгореть на костре, а сам спасается бегством. Строгие традиции, обычаи, табу и законы - частая тема в рассказах о Кулле. В этом рассказе мы узнаем, что Кулла приютило племя Приморских гор Атлантиды, обнаружившее его блуждающим в дебрях. Он не знает ничего о своем происхождении, но у него есть мечта - стать королем Валузии, величайшей цивилизации своего времени.

Для рассказов о Кулле Говард, впервые создал эпоху до катаклизмов, эпоху существовавшую задолго до того как начали записывать историю мира. Атлантида и Лемурия еще не исчезли в морях, но они были населены не продвинутыми, утопическими цивилизациями, а примитивными дикарями. Существовал континент Турия, который мог похвастать большими цивилизациями, а также загадочными доисторическими расами. Первый опубликованный рассказ о Кулле, «Королевство теней», как раз об одном из этих доисторических народов, и - шедевр полнейшей паранойи. Раса змеелюдей, задумала убить короля, приняв облик Кулла и его единомышленников, чтобы захватить власть над древним королевством Валузии. В этом рассказе Кулл сначала встречает Брула, пиктского воина, который станет его другом и товарищем по оружию на протяжении всех остальных рассказов. Вместе они раскрывают и расстраивают планы заговорщиков в самый кульминационный момент, который Говард описывает в своих лучших традициях. Еще только один рассказ о короле Кулле был опубликован в течение жизни Говарда, «Зеркала Тузун Туна» / «The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune», поэтическая басня со сложным философским смыслом, которая была опубликована спустя месяц после «Королевства теней». Хотя Говард написал еще, по крайней мере, шесть других рассказов о Кулле, некоторые из которых являются ярким примером жанра «меча и магии», ни один из них не был опубликован. В 1934 году, когда Г. Лавкрафт похвалил рассказы о Кулле и уговаривал написать еще, Говард ответил, что поверит, если он попытается написать так, чтобы «нереальность... стала явью». После смерти Говарда, Лавкрафт заметил в беседе с коллегой Хоффманном Прайсом, что «серия о короле Кулле, кажется, достигает необъяснимых высот» в карьере молодой техасца, и другие писатели-фантасты его поддержали.

Если 1928 год был годом прорыва Говарда в «Сверхъестественных историях», то 1929-й был моментом переломным. В этом году 23-летний автор начал продавать свои работы в другие журналы, в первую очередь удивительные рассказы о боксе. Под псевдонимом Джон Тэверел, Говард сочинил «Дух Тома Молинье»/ «The Spirit of Tom Molyneaux», рассказ о боксе и призраках, опубликованный под заголовком «Сошествие на ринг» / «The Apparition in the Prize Ring» в «Рассказах о приведениях» / «Ghost Stories». В июле после долгих раздумий в журнале «Argosy» наконец опубликовали рассказ Говарда: «Ужас толпы» / «Crowd-Horror» - психологический триллер о боксере, который криками толпы из умного и умелого боксера превращается в животное, дико размахивающего кулаками. Еще более важное событие произошло в июле 1929 года. «Fight Stories» опубликовали первый рассказ о мореплавателе Стиве Костигане, о разгульном торговце, который с трудом преодолевает путешествие по миру, потому как повсеместно попадает в забавные происшествия.

Некоторые критики заметили, что произведения Говарда можно разделить на циклы. Они иногда пересекаются, но эти циклы могут приоткрыть нам секреты Говарда. Наиболее отчетливо выраженные периоды – рассказы о боксе со Стивом Костиганом, героическое фэнтези с Конаном, восточные приключения с Аль Бораком и рассказы о западе. На момент своей смерти он находился в западном цикле. При внимательном прочтении писем и рассказов Говарда можно увидеть, что, создавая новый персонаж, ему нужно было максимально интересоваться им и погрузиться в него, заговорить его словами. На начальном этапе его творчества это не так заметно, зато становится очевидным, глядя на Стива Костигана.

Сначала Роберт Говард спокойно относился к боксу, но к тому времени как он познакомился с Клайдом Смитом в Браунвуде, бокс стал его страстью. Он боксировал со своими друзьями при любой возможности, и при случае помогал в проведении боев в местных клубах Кросс Плейнс. Работая в аптеке Робертсона, он подружился с человеком, работающим на нефтяном месторождении, который представил его любителю боев в местном клубе. Вскоре он становится частым участником этих боев. С конца 1925 по 1928, Говард серьезно занимался боксом и имел внушительные пропорции. Он жадно читал о боксерах и не пропускал ни единого матча. К началу 1929 года он начал писать рассказы о боксе, в которых бокс смешивался с таинственными сюжетами (возможно, потому что знал, что это будет продаваться). С первым рассказом о Стиве Костигане, «Змеиная яма» / «The Pit of the Serpent», в июле 1929 года в «Fight Stories», он обнаружил, что этот рынок, так же устойчив, как и «Сверхъестественные истории», по крайней мере, до тех пор, пока Великая депрессия не «отправила в нокаут» «Fight Stories» и «Action Stories» в 1932 году.

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== Ссылки ==

http://www.rehupa.com/short_bio.htm

<div align="right">© '''Перевод Александры Валькович'''.</div>

Краткая биография Роберта Ирвина Говарда по Расти Бёрку

2017-12-11T16:14:39Z

Bingam:

Роберт Ирвин (Эрвин) Говард (Хоуард) (1906-1936) занимает почетное место среди величайших авторов боевиков и приключенческих рассказов. Создатель Конана-киммерийца, Кула из Атлантиды, Соломона Кейна, Брана Мак Морна, Аль Борака, мореплавателя Стива Костигана и многих других незабываемых героев, Говард (известный миллионам своих поклонников как РИГ (англ. REH)), за неполные 12 лет своей карьеры, написал больше сотни рассказов для беллетристических журналов того времени. Не смотря на то, что он был известен как основоположник жанра «меча и магии» и создатель Конана-варвара, его репутация в некоторой степени напоминала палку о двух концах. С одной стороны она помогла удержать интерес к его работам на протяжении шести десятилетий после смерти, но с другой - затмила непревзойденный размах его воображения, его талант переплетать разные жанры и его способность скроить, будто из лоскутов, странный мир магии, как в прозе, так и в поэзии.

Роберт Ирвин Говард опубликовал большинство своих самых знаменитых работ в журнале «Сверхъестественные истории» («Weird Tales»), где печатались известные авторы фэнтези и научной фантастики.

Тем не менее, его рассказы публиковались также в других изданиях, таких как «Action Stories» / «Экшн-истории», «Argosy» / «Сокровищница», «Fight Stories» / «Бойцовские истории», «Oriental Stories» / «Восточные рассказы», «Spicy Adventure» / «Увлекательное приключение», «Sport Story» / «Спортивные рассказы», «Strange Detective» / «Удивительный детектив» и многих других. Неудивительно, что его рассказы пользовались большой популярностью у читателей того времени, захватывающие, полные риска и приключений, с яркими, неординарными персонажами. Его произведения были непревзойденными и незаметно затягивали в водоворот событий. Даже после смерти его книги переиздаются вновь и вновь, а герои живут на страницах произведений других авторов. То, что он, спустя более чем полвека продолжает завоевывать сердца новых поклонников благодаря книгам, комиксам, экранизациям является лучшим доказательством его мастерства. Его работы также вдохновили последующие поколения авторов фэнтези. И теперь герои «меча и магии» покоряют неизведанные просторы интернета.

Роберт Ирвин Говард родился 22 января (возможно 24 января) в 1906 году в Пистере, штат Техас, в «захудалом городишке, который когда-то был животноводческим центром», в Округе Паркер, немного западнее Форт-Уэрта. Неразбериха, связанная с датой его рождения, возникла из-за того, что Говард праздновал день рождения 22 января (эту дату он сообщил энциклопедическому справочнику «Кто есть кто среди североамериканских авторов»), хотя в Округе Паркер запись о его рождении от 24 января. Но так как его отец также называл дату рождения Роберта 22 января, то вероятно это и есть верная дата.

Говарды жили в округе Пало Пинто на берегах ручья Дак Вэли (Темная Долина), когда родился Роберт. Его отец, Доктор Айзек Мордекай Говард, временно перевез свою жену в более крупный Пистер по-видимому для того, чтобы обеспечить ей более квалифицированный медицинский уход во время беременности. Эстер Джейн Ирвин Говард, мать Роберта, не отличалась крепким здоровьем и тяжело переносила беременность: в семье Эстер были больные туберкулезом, и сама Эстер почти все время болела. Айзек Говард был сельским доктором, и его профессия была связана с постоянными длительными поездками. Переехав в Кросс Плейнс, он мог быть уверен, что его жена будет получать необходимое медицинское обслуживание, когда родится их первый, и как позже выяснится, единственный ребенок.

Айзек Говард, обладая страстью к путешествиям, не мог долго оставаться на одном месте. Его семья часто переезжала в поисках лучших и новых возможностей. К восьми годам Роберт пожил, по крайней мере, в семи разных городах Техаса, далеко разбросанных друг от друга. В 1915 году семья переезжает в городок Кросс Кат в округе Браун, в 1917 в Беркетт (в округе Колеман) и, наконец, в Кросс Плейнс (округ Каллахан) в 1919 году, где пройдут годы Роберта и его матери.

Кросс Плейнс в 1920-ых был небольшим городом с населением приблизительно 2000 людей. Подобно большинству населенных пунктов в центре западного Техаса, он появился рядом с нефтяными скважинами, которые привлекали сотни, и даже тысячи, временных поселенцев, которые устанавливали палатки за пределами города или арендовали комнаты и ночлег в частных домах. Приезжие, строители нефтяных вышек, бурильщики, монтажники-высотники и другие рабочие, которые работали на нефтяных источниках, привлекали искателей легкой наживы: торговцев гамбургерами, авантюристов и проституток, которые предлагали "приятное времяпровождение», убийц, воров и прочих мошенников. Нефтяной бум мог бы стремительно превратить небольшое сонное общество в большой город и серьезно изменить привычный уклад. Но приезжие, заполонившие Кросс Плейнс, сделали его преступным и еще более диким. Один житель вспоминает, как его семья ездила субботним вечером в город, чтобы просто посмотреть на людей, надеясь, что будут драки.

В то неспокойное время Говард писал: «Я могу сказать только одно о нефтяном буме: он очень быстро научит даже ребенка, что жизнь скверная штука». Подобно тому, как быстро город вырос, так же быстро он пришел в упадок: вместе с нефтью город покинули рабочие и спекулянты. Влияние этого бума, а затем спада отражается в последующих замыслах о росте и упадке цивилизации - что общество строится смелыми и отважными первопроходцами, за которыми затем следуют другие, которые приносят с собой упадок и разруху, они наслаждаются плодами того общества, но ничего не делают для дальнейшего роста, и таким образом, неизбежно, это общество будет разлагаться или будет завоевано новым поколением смельчаков.

Роберт Говард посещал местную среднюю школу, где он запомнился как вежливый и не очень общительный мальчик. Чтобы заработать на карманные деньги, он брался за любую работу, включая вывоз мусора, доставку белья для химчистки, он был и клерком в магазине, и грузчиком на вокзале. У него было несколько близких друзей среди местных мальчишек, но никто не разделял его интереса к литературе, который видимо был привит еще в раннем возрасте его матерью, горячей поклонницей поэзии. Он читал запоями, и приходил в школу даже летом, чтобы найти, что почитать. Это демонстрирует его любовь к чтению, что большая редкость в таких отдаленных местах, где к тому же нет библиотек, а тем более книжных лавок. Говард «проглатывал» книги одну за другой, поражая своей способностью доставать книги. Друзья считали, что он листает страницы быстрее, чем кто-либо сможет что-нибудь прочитать. Позже он мог вспомнить прочитанное так ясно, как будто прочитал это вчера. Его друг Линдси Тайсон удивлялся, что Говард запомнил «Поэму о старом моряке» / «The Rime of the Ancient Mariner» всего после двух прочтений.

Библиотека Говарда, переданная его отцом в колледж, где он учился, после смерти сына, демонстрирует широкий диапазон литературных жанров. В круг его интересов входили, прежде всего, история и художественная литература, а также биографии исторических деятелей, поэзия, антропология, история Техаса и эротика. Незадолго до смерти, Говард писал о своих любимых авторах знаменитому писателю-фантасту Говарду Лавкрафту, с которым он постоянно переписывался. В этот список вошли Артур Конан Дойль, Джек Лондон, Марк Твен, Сакс Ромер, Тэлбот Манди, Гарольд Лэм, Генри Райдер Хаггард, Редьярд Киплинг, Вальтер Скотт, Амброз Бирс, Эдгар Алан По и собственно Лавкрафт. Большой поклонник поэзии, Говард старался достать произведения Роберта Сервиса, Киплинга, Сидни Ланира, По, Уолтера де Ла Марэ, Омара Хайяма, Генри Герберта Нибса, Честертона, Оскара Уайльда, Теннисона, Альфреда Нойза, Лавкрафта и других.

Помимо чтения, Роберт Говард страстно любил рассказывать истории, сочиняя «на ходу». Точно известно, что он часто делал это очень громко и к тому же среди ночи, чем сильно раздражал соседей. Его приятели в Кросс Кат также вспоминают, что он любил, чтобы они разыгрывали его рассказы. Позже подобным способом он развлекал своих друзей-литераторов, но произведения уже были более совершенными. Казалось, он никогда не уставал рассказывать разные небылицы, но все же обычно он не любил говорить о том, над чем он в то время трудился. Он как-то поделился со своей подругой Новелин Прайс, что если сначала расскажет историю, то потом не может изложить ее на бумаге. Тем не менее, иногда его устные рассказы служили вдохновением для написания своих произведений. Также Говард любил слушать, как другие рассказывают разные истории и небылицы. Его письма показывают как юным мальчиком, он дрожал и боялся приведений из рассказов семейного повара, своей бабушки и других. Он также находил старожилов и уговаривал их поделиться воспоминаниями о своей молодости. Возможно, это хорошее качество и позволяло ему так искусно завязывать сюжет своих произведений.

Казалось, что Говард решил стать писателем с детства. В письме к Лавкрафту он говорит, что написал свой первый рассказ, когда ему было «девять или десять», и начальник почтового отделения в Беркетте вспоминает, что он начал писать первые рассказы как раз в это время и тогда же начал выражать свое стремление стать писателем. Его первая публикация была, когда ему только исполнилось 15, а первая настоящая работа – «Копье и Клык», короткая новелла о кроманьонце, который спасает свою соплеменницу от неандертальца – в 18 лет. Говард всегда настаивал, что он выбрал профессию писателя просто потому, что это давало ему возможность быть хозяином самому себе: «Я мог изучать право, или заняться чем-то другим, мое сочинительство не мешает мне быть свободным, свобода – это моя страсть, почти одержимость.... Личная свобода может быть фантомом, но я думаю любой согласится, что в писательстве свободы больше, чем в работе до изнеможения на заводе, или работая, как я, по 14 часов семь дней в неделю, за стойкой. Я работал по 18 часов в день на своей пишущей машинке, но это был мой собственный выбор.... Сколько себя помню, я всегда стремился, чтобы литература стала делом всей моей жизни, и даже когда я еще не имел такого оглушительного успеха в этом деле, я трудился, по крайней мере, несколько лет, чтобы теперь, не маяться на монотонной работе». Как бы там ни было, однажды выбрав свой путь, Говард никогда не отклонялся от него, несмотря на все препятствия. Как позже он сказал на Лавкрафту: «...Не так-то просто заниматься делом, совершенно неизвестным и чуждым людям, среди которых тебе определено быть судьбой; профессии, которая кажется призрачной, далекой и недостижимой, как берега Европы.... Сама мысль, о том, что человек может жить, посвятив себя творчеству, в этом циничном мире, кажется настолько нереальной, что даже сегодня мне иногда самому не вериться в это. Тем не менее, в возрасте пятнадцати лет... имея только смутные представления, я начал свой путь в профессии, которую сам выбрал».

В школе Кросс Плейнс было только десять классов, но, чтобы поступить в университет, Роберту Говарду нужно было закончить одиннадцатый класс. Поэтому осенью 1922 года, когда Роберту было 16 лет, они с матерью переехали Браунвуд, центр округа Браун, который был больше, чем Кросс Плейнс, чтобы Роберт мог окончить среднюю школу. Именно там Говард встретил Труетта Винсона и Смита Клайда, с которыми продолжал общаться до конца дней. Они разделяли его интерес к литературе и сочинительству, а Смит особенно проникся его страстью к поэзии. Также в браунвудской школе Говард впервые ощутил волнение, которое чувствует автор, чьи произведения публикуются: два из его рассказов завоевали денежные премии и публикацию в школьной газете «Сплетник» / «The Tattler» (22 Декабря, 1922), и еще три были напечатаны весной.

После окончания средней школы, Говард вернулся в Кросс Плейнс. Его отец особенно хотел, чтобы Роберт учился в колледже, скорее всего, надеясь, что тот пойдет по его стопам и станет врачом. Но у Роберта не было способности к медицине, и полностью отсутствовал интерес к науке. Он также испытывал отвращение по отношению к школе, как он объяснил позже Лавкрафту: " Я ненавижу школу, я ненавижу даже воспоминания о ней. Она не вызывала ни малейшего интереса; у меня не было проблем в обучении, не считая арифметики. Я сразу понял, что у меня с ней будут проблемы. Я был не лучшим среди одноклассников, кроме истории, но и не болтался в хвосте. Я просто делал достаточно, чтобы не вылететь из школы, и я не жалею о том, что не занимался более усердно. Но что я ненавидел в школе, так это регламентированность всех моих действий, необходимость все выполнять по часам; но более всего - то, что кто-то может считать себя авторитетом для меня, с правом лезть в мои дела и мысли». В конечном счете, он пошел на курсы бухгалтерии, машинописи и стенографии в Колледже Говарда Пейна в Браунвуде. Несмотря на его интерес к истории, антропологии и литературе, Говард никогда раньше не брал курсы по этим предметам.

После окончания школы весной 1923 года и вплоть до окончания курсов весной 1927 года, он продолжил писать. В это время он, наконец, сделал свою первую профессиональную продажу, когда «Сверхъестественные истории» приняли рассказ «Spear and Fang» / «Копье и Клык», но также получил много отказов. «Сверхъестественные истории» опубликовали и другие его рассказы: «In the Forest of Villefere» / «В лесу Виллефэр», короткий рассказ об оборотне, опубликованный в августе 1925 (спустя месяц после долгожданной публикации рассказа «Копье и Клык»), затем рассказ «Когда восходит полная луна» / «Wolfshead», являющийся продолжением «В лесу Виллефэр», появляется в апреле 1926 года, а «Затерянная раса» / «The Lost Race», рассказ о ранней Великобритании — в январе 1927 года. Получив первые гонорары, молодой автор понял, что деньги приходят не так быстро, как хотелось бы, поэтому в это время он работал в разных местах. Он пробовал работать корреспондентом на нефтяных промыслах, но выяснилось, что ему не нравиться брать интервью у людей, которых он не знал или говорить на темы, не интересующие его. Он попробовал себя в стенографии, и как служащий, и как независимый стенографист, но обнаружил, что это у него получалось не очень хорошо, и бросил эту затею. Он работал помощником геолога на нефтяных месторождениях, и эта работа ему нравилась, но однажды он получил сильный тепловой удар. Выяснилось, что у него серьезные проблемы с сердцем и нужно избегать стрессовых ситуаций, так что он был рад, когда геолог закончил свои исследования и покинул город. Когда он получил гонорар за рассказ «Когда восходит полная луна», он был обескуражен. Он немедленно брался за любую работу: продавал содовую и служил в аптеке Робертсона, работу, которую он презирал и, которая требовала так много времени, что не оставалось ни на творчество, ни на отдых. У него с отцом был договор: если за год Роберт не добьется успеха как писатель, то будет искать работу бухгалтера.

Летом 1927 года, Роберт Говард встретил Гарольда Приса, с которым потом будет вести дружескую переписку в течение следующих нескольких лет. Это тот самый Прис, который разжег интерес Говарда к культуре ирландцев и кельтов. В эти же выходные, он также встретил Бута Муни, который стал редактором их литературного объединения «Junto» («Тайный союз»), в который входили Говард, Прис, Клайд Смит, Труетт Винсон и другие около двух лет.

После окончания курсов, Говард всерьез решил стать профессиональным писателем. К началу 1928 года стало ясно, что он обретет успех, и в самом деле он никогда больше не брался за другую работу. В 1928 году «Сверхъестественные истории» опубликовали четыре рассказа (включая первый рассказ о Соломоне Кейне, «Red Shadows» / «Красные тени») и пять стихотворений. С тех пор вплоть до его смерти в июне 1936 года, рассказы или стихи Говарда появлялись в трех из четырех выпусков журнала.

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|<center>[[Краткая биография Роберта Ирвина Говарда по Расти Бёрку - 3|'''3''']]</center>

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<div align="right">© '''Перевод Александры Валькович'''.</div>

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2017-12-11T16:13:39Z

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«Roques in the House»/«Сплошь негодяи в доме»

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«Red Nails»/«Гвозди с красными шляпками»

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=«Red Nails»=
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== The Skull on the Crag ==

The woman on the horse reined in her weary steed. It stood with its legs wide-braced, its head drooping, as if it found even the weight of the gold-tassled, red-leather bridle too heavy. The woman drew a booted foot out of the silver stirrup and swung down from the gilt-worked saddle. She made the reins fast to the fork of a sapling, and turned about, hands on her hips, to survey her surroundings.

They were not inviting. Giant trees hemmed in the small pool where her horse had just drunk. Clumps of undergrowth limited the vision that quested under the somber twilight of the lofty arches formed by intertwining branches. The woman shivered with a twitch of her magnificent shoulders, and then cursed.

She was tall, full-bosomed, and large-limbed, with compact shoulders. Her whole figure reflected an unusual strength, without detracting from the femininity of her appearance. She was all woman, in spite of her bearing and her garments. The latter were incongruous, in view of her present environs. Instead of a skirt she wore short, wide-legged silk breeches, which ceased a hand's breadth short of her knees, and were upheld by a wide silken sash worn as a girdle. Flaring-topped boots of soft leather came almost to her knees, and a low-necked, wide-collared, wide-sleeved silk shirt completed her costume. On one shapely hip she wore a straight double-edged sword, and on the other a long dirk. Her unruly golden hair, cut square at her shoulders, was confined by a band of crimson satin.

Against the background of somber, primitive forest she posed with an unconscious picturesqueness, bizarre and out of place. She should have been posed against a background of sea clouds, painted masts, and wheeling gulls. There was the color of the sea in her wide eyes. And that was at it should have been, because this was Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, whose deeds are celebrated in song and ballad wherever seafarers gather.

She strove to pierce the sullen green roof of the arched branches and see the sky which presumably lay above it, but presently gave it up with a muttered oath.

Leaving her horse tied, she strode off toward the east, glancing back toward the pool from time to time in order to fix her route in her mind. The silence of the forest depressed her. No birds sang in the lofty boughs, nor did any rustling in the bushes indicate the presence of small animals. For leagues she had traveled in a realm of brooding stillness, broken only by the sounds of her own flight.

She had slaked her thirst at the pool, but now felt the gnawings of hunger and began looking about for some of the fruit on which she had sustained herself since exhausting the food originally in her saddlebags.

Ahead of her, presently, she saw an outcropping of dark, flintlike rock that sloped upward into what looked like a rugged crag rising among the trees. Its summit was lost to view amidst a cloud of encircling leaves. Perhaps its peak rose above the treetops, and from it she could see what lay beyond--if, indeed, anything lay beyond but more of this apparently illimitable forest through which she had ridden for so many days.

A narrow ridge formed a natural ramp that led up the steep face of the crag. After she had ascended some fifty feet, she came to the belt of leaves that surrounded the rock. The trunks of the trees did not crowd close to the crag, but the ends of their lower branches extended about it, veiling it with their foliage. She groped on in leafy obscurity, not able to see either above or below her; but presently she glimpsed blue sky, and a moment later came out in the clear, hot sunlight and saw the forest roof stretching away under her feet.

She was standing on a broad shelf which was about even with the treetops, and from it rose a spirelike jut that was the ultimate peak of the crag she had climbed. But something else caught her attention at the moment. Her foot had struck something in the litter of blown dead leaves which carpeted the shelf. She kicked them aside and looked down on the skeleton of a man. She ran an experienced eye over the bleached frame, but saw no broken bones nor any sign of violence. The man must have died a natural death; though why he should have climbed a tall crag to die she could not imagine.

She scrambled up to the summit of the spire and looked toward the horizons. The forest roof--which looked like a floor from her vantage point--was just as impenetrable as from below. She could not even see the pool by which she had left her horse. She glanced northward, in the direction from which she had come. She saw only the rolling green ocean stretching away and away, with just a vague blue line in the distance to hint of the hill range she had crossed days before, to plunge into this leafy waste.

West and east the view was the same; though the blue hill-line was lacking in those directions. But when she turned her eyes southward she stiffened and caught her breath. A mile away in that direction the forest thinned out and ceased abruptly, giving way to a cactus-dotted plain. And in the midst of that plain rose the walls and towers of a city. Valeria swore in amazement. This passed belief. She would not have been surprised to sight human habitations of another sort--the beehive-shaped huts of the black people, or the cliff-dwellings of the mysterious brown race which legends declared inhabited some country of this unexplored region. But it was a startling experience to come upon a walled city here so many long weeks' march from the nearest outposts of any sort of civilization.

Her hands tiring from clinging to the spirelike pinnacle, she let herself down on the shelf, frowning in indecision. She had come far--from the camp of the mercenaries by the border town of Sukhmet amidst the level grasslands, where desperate adventurers of many races guard the Stygian frontier against the raids that come up like a red wave from Darfar. Her flight had been blind, into a country of which she was wholly ignorant. And now she wavered between an urge to ride directly to that city in the plain, and the instinct of caution which prompted her to skirt it widely and continue her solitary flight.

Her thoughts were scattered by the rustling of the leaves below her. She wheeled catlike, snatched at her sword; and then she froze motionless, staring wide-eyed at the man before her.

He was almost a giant in stature, muscles rippling smoothly under his skin, which the sun had burned brown. His garb was similar to hers, except that he wore a broad leather belt instead of a girdle. Broadsword and poniard hung from his belt.

"Conan, the Cimmerian!" ejaculated the woman. "What are you doing on my trail?"

He grinned hardly, and his fierce blue eyes burned with a light any woman could understand as they ran over her magnificent figure, lingering on the swell of her splendid breasts beneath the light shirt, and the clear white flesh displayed between breeches and boot-tops.

"Don't you know?" he laughed. "Haven't I made my admiration for you plain ever since I first saw you?"

"A stallion could have made it no plainer," she answered disdainfully. "But I never expected to encounter you so far from the ale barrels and meatpots of Sukhmet. Did you really follow me from Zarallo's camp, or were you whipped forth for a rogue?"

He laughed at her insolence and flexed his mighty biceps.

"You know Zarallo didn't have enough knaves to whip me out of camp," he grinned. "Of course I followed you. Lucky thing for you, too, wench! When you knifed that Stygian officer, you forfeited Zarallo's favor, and protection, and you outlawed yourself with the Stygians."

"I know it," she replied sullenly. "But what else could I do? You know what my provocation was."

"Sure," he agreed. "If I'd been there, I'd have knifed him myself. But if a woman must live in the war camps of men, she can expect such things."

Valeria stamped her booted foot and swore.

"Why won't men let me life a man's life?"

"That's obvious!" Again his eager eyes devoured her. "But you were wise to run away. The Stygians would have had you skinned. That officer's brother followed you; faster than you thought, I don't doubt. He wasn't far behind you when I caught up with him. His horse was better than yours. He'd have caught you and cut your throat within a few more miles."

"Well?" she demanded.

"Well what?" He seemed puzzled.

"What of the Stygian?"

"Why, what do you suppose?" he returned impatiently. "I killed him, of course, and left his carcass for the vultures. That delayed me, though, and I almost lost your trail when you crossed the rocky spurs of the hills. Otherwise I'd have caught up with you long ago."

"And now you think you'll drag me back to Zarallo's camp?" she sneered.

"Don't talk like a fool," he grunted. "Come, girl, don't be such a spitfire. I'm not like that Stygian you knifed, and you know it."

"A penniless vagabond," she taunted.

He laughed at her.

"What do you call yourself? You haven't enough money to buy a new seat for your breeches. Your disdain doesn't deceive me. You know I've commanded bigger ships and more men than you ever did in your life. As for being penniless--what rover isn't, most of the time? I've squandered enough gold in the seaports of the world to fill a galleon. You know that, too."

"Where are the fine ships and the bold lads you commanded now?" she sneered.

"At the bottom of the sea, mostly," he replied cheerfully. "The Zingarans sank my last ship off the Shemite shore--that's why I joined Zarallo's Free Companions. But I saw I'd been stung when we marched to the Darfar border. The pay was poor and the wine was sour, and I don't like black women. And that's the only kind that came to our camp at Sukhmet--rings in their noses and their teeth filed--bah! Why did you join Zarallo? Sukhmet's a long way from salt water."

"Red Ortho wanted to make me his mistress," she answered sullenly. "I jumped overboard one night and swam ashore when we were anchored off the Kushite coast. Off Zabhela, it was. There was a Shemite trader told me that Zarallo had brought his Free Companies south to guard the Darfar border. No better employment offered. I joined an east-bound caravan and eventually came to Sukhmet."

"It was madness to plunge southward as you did," commented Conan, "but it was wise, too, for Zarallo's patrols never thought to look for you in this direction. Only the brother of the man you killed happened to strike your trail."

"And now what do you intend doing?" she demanded.

"Turn west," he answered. "I've been this far south, but not this far east. Many days' traveling to the west will bring us to the open savannas, where the black tribes graze their cattle. I have friends among them. We'll get to the coast and find a ship. I'm sick of the jungle."

"Then be on your way," she advised. "I have other plans."

"Don't be a fool!" He showed irritation for the first time. "You can't keep on wandering through this forest."

"I can if I choose."

"But what do you intend doing?"

"That's none of your affair," she snapped.

"Yes, it is," he answered calmly. "Do you think I've followed you this far, to turn around and ride off empty-handed? Be sensible, wench. I'm not going to harm you."

He stepped toward her, and she sprang back, whipping out her sword.

"Keep back, you barbarian dog! I'll spit you like a roast pig!"

He halted, reluctantly, and demanded: "Do you want me to take that toy away from you and spank you with it?"

"Words! Nothing but words!" she mocked, lights like the gleam of the sun on blue water dancing in her reckless eyes.

He knew it was the truth. No living man could disarm Valeria of the Brotherhood with his bare hands. He scowled, his sensations a tangle of conflicting emotions. He was angry, yet he was amused and filled with admiration for her spirit. He burned with eagerness to seize that splendid figure and crush it in his iron arms, yet he greatly desired not to hurt the girl. He was torn between a desire to shake her soundly, and a desire to caress her. He knew if he came any nearer her sword would be sheathed in his heart. He had seen Valeria kill too many men in border forays and tavern brawls to have any illusions about her. He knew she was as quick and ferocious as a tigress. He could draw his broadsword and disarm her, beat the blade out of her hand, but the thought of drawing a sword on a woman, even without intent of injury, was extremely repugnant to him.

"Blast your soul, you hussy!" he exclaimed in exasperation. "I'm going to take off your--"

He started toward her, his angry passion making him reckless, and she poised herself for a deadly thrust. Then came a startling interruption to a scene at once ludicrous and perilous.

"What's that?"

It was Valeria who exclaimed, but they both started violently, and Conan wheeled like a cat, his great sword flashing into his hand. Back in the forest had burst forth an appalling medley of screams--the screams of horses in terror and agony. Mingled with their screams there came the snap of splintering bones.

"Lions are slaying the horses!" cried Valeria.

"Lions, nothing!" snorted Conan, his eyes blazing. "Did you hear a lion roar? Neither did I! Listen to those bones snap--not even a lion could make that much noise killing a horse."

He hurried down the natural ramp and she followed, their personal feud forgotten in the adventurers' instinct to unite against common peril. The screams had ceased when they worked their way downward through the green veil of leaves that brushed the rock.

"I found your horse tied by the pool back there," he muttered, treading so noiselessly that she no longer wondered how he had surprised her on the crag. "I tied mine beside it and followed the tracks of your boots. Watch, now!"

They had emerged from the belt of leaves, and stared down into the lower reaches of the forest. Above them the green roof spread its dusky canopy. Below them the sunlight filtered in just enough to make a jade-tinted twilight. The giant trunks of trees less than a hundred yards away looked dim and ghostly.

"The horses should be beyond that thicket, over there," whispered Conan, and his voice might have been a breeze moving through the branches. "Listen!"

Valeria had already heard, and a chill crept through her veins; so she unconsciously laid her white hand on her companion's muscular brown arm. From beyond the thicket came the noisy crunching of bones and the loud rending of flesh, together with the grinding, slobbering sounds of a horrible feast.

"Lions wouldn't make that noise," whispered Conan. "Something's eating our horses, but it's not a lion--Crom!"

The noise stopped suddenly, and Conan swore softly. A suddenly risen breeze was blowing from them directly toward the spot where the unseen slayer was hidden.

"Here it comes!" muttered Conan, half lifting his sword.

The thicket was violently agitated, and Valeria clutched Conan's arm hard. Ignorant of jungle lore, she yet knew that no animal she had ever seen could have shaken the tall brush like that.

"It must be as big as an elephant," muttered Conan, echoing her thought. "What the devil--" His voice trailed away in stunned silence.

Through the thicket was thrust a head of nightmare and lunacy. Grinning jaws bared rows of dripping yellow tusks; above the yawning mouth wrinkled a saurian-like snout. Huge eyes, like those of a python a thousand times magnified, stared unwinkingly at the petrified humans clinging to the rock above it. Blood smeared the scaly, flabby lips and dripped from the huge mouth.

The head, bigger than that of a crocodile, was further extended on a long scaled neck on which stood up rows of serrated spikes, and after it, crushing down the briars and saplings, waddled the body of a titan, a gigantic, barrel-bellied torso on absurdly short legs. The whitish belly almost raked the ground, while the serrated backbone rose higher than Conan could have reached on tiptoe. A long spiked tail, like that of a gargantuan scorpion, trailed out behind.

"Back up the crag, quick!" snapped Conan, thrusting the girl behind him. "I don't think he can climb, but he can stand on his hind legs and reach us--"

With a snapping and rending of bushes and saplings, the monster came hurtling through the thickets, and they fled up the rock before him like leaves blown before a wind. As Valeria plunged into the leafy screen a backward glance showed her the titan rearing up fearsomely on his massive hind legs, even as Conan had predicted. The sight sent panic racing through her. As he reared, the beast seemed more gigantic than ever; his snouted head towered among the trees. Then Conan's iron hand closed on her wrist and she was jerked headlong into the blinding welter of the leaves, and out again into the hot sunshine above, just as the monster fell forward with his front feet on the crag with an impact that made the rock vibrate.

Behind the fugitives the huge head crashed through the twigs, and they looked down for a horrifying instant at the nightmare visage framed among the green leaves, eyes flaming, jaws gaping. Then the giant tusks clashed together futilely, and after that the head was withdrawn, vanishing from their sight as if it had sunk in a pool.

Peering down through broken branches that scraped the rock, they saw it squatting on its haunches at the foot of the crag, staring unblinkingly up at them.

Valeria shuddered.

"How long do you suppose he'll crouch there?"

Conan kicked the skull on the leaf-strewn shelf.

"That fellow must have climbed up here to escape him, or one like him. He must have died of starvation. There are no bones broken. That thing must be a dragon, such as the black people speak of in their legends. If so, it won't leave here until we're both dead."

Valeria looked at him blankly, her resentment forgotten. She fought down a surging of panic. She had proved her reckless courage a thousand times in wild battles on sea and land, on the blood-slippery decks of burning war ships, in the storming of walled cities, and on the trampled sandy beaches where the desperate men of the Red Brotherhood bathed their knives in one another's blood in their fights for leadership. But the prospect now confronting her congealed her blood. A cutlass stroke in the heat of battle was nothing; but to sit idle and helpless on a bare rock until she perished of starvation, besieged by a monstrous survival of an elder age--the thought sent panic throbbing through her brain.

"He must leave to eat and drink," she said helplessly.

"He won't have to go far to do either," Conan pointed out. "He's just gorged on horse meat and, like a real snake, he can go for a long time without eating or drinking again. But he doesn't sleep after eating, like a real snake, it seems. Anyway, he can't climb this crag."

Conan spoke imperturbably. He was a barbarian, and the terrible patience of the wilderness and its children was as much a part of him as his lusts and rages. He could endure a situation like this with a coolness impossible to a civilized person.

"Can't we get into the trees and get away, traveling like apes through the branches?" she asked desperately.

He shook his head. "I thought of that. The branches that touch the crag down there are too light. They'd break with our weight. Besides, I have an idea that devil could tear up any tree around here by its roots."

"Well, are we going to sit here on our rumps until we starve, like that?" she cried furiously, kicking the skull clattering across the ledge. "I won't do it! I'll go down there and cut his damned head off--"

Conan had seated himself on a rocky projection at the foot of the spire. He looked up with a glint of admiration at her blazing eyes and tense, quivering figure, but, realizing that she was in just the mood for any madness, he let none of his admiration sound in his voice.

"Sit down," he grunted, catching her by her wrist and pulling her down on his knee. She was too surprised to resist as he took her sword from her hand and shoved it back in its sheath. "Sit still and calm down. You'd only break your steel on his scales. He'd gobble you up at one gulp, or smash you like an egg with that spiked tail of his. We'll get out of this jam some way, but we shan't do it by getting chewed up and swallowed."

She made no reply, nor did she seek to repulse his arm from about her waist. She was frightened, and the sensation was new to Valeria of the Red Brotherhood. So she sat on her companion's--or captor's--knee with a docility that would have amazed Zarallo, who had anathematized her as a she-devil out of Hell's seraglio.

Conan played idly with her curly yellow locks, seemingly intent only upon his conquest. Neither the skeleton at his feet nor the monster crouching below disturbed his mind or dulled the edge of his interest.

The girl's restless eyes, roving the leaves below them, discovered splashes of color among the green. It was fruit, large, darkly crimson globes suspended from the boughs of a tree whose broad leaves were a peculiarly rich and vivid green. She became aware of both thirst and hunger, though thirst had not assailed her until she knew she could not descend from the crag to find food and water.

"We need not starve," she said. "There is fruit we can reach."

Conan glanced where she pointed.

"If we ate that we wouldn't need the bite of a dragon," he grunted. "That's what the black people of Kush call the Apples of Derketa. Derketa is the Queen of the Dead. Drink a little of that juice, or spill it on your flesh, and you'd be dead before you could tumble to the foot of this crag."

"Oh!"

She lapsed into dismayed silence. There seemed no way out of their predicament, she reflected gloomily. She saw no way of escape, and Conan seemed to be concerned only with her supple waist and curly tresses. If he was trying to formulate a plan of escape, he did not show it.

"If you'll take your hands off me long enough to climb up on that peak," she said presently, "you'll see something that will surprise you."

He cast her a questioning glance, then obeyed with a shrug of his massive shoulders. Clinging to the spirelike pinnacle, he stared out over the forest roof.

He stood a long moment in silence, posed like a bronze statue on the rock.

"It's a walled city, right enough," he muttered presently. "Was that where you were going, when you tried to send me off alone to the coast?"

"I saw it before you came. I knew nothing of it when I left Sukhmet."

"Who'd have thought to find a city here? I don't believe the Stygians ever penetrated this far. Could black people build a city like that? I see no herds on the plain, no signs of cultivation, or people moving about."

"How can you hope to see all that, at this distance?" she demanded.

He shrugged his shoulders and dropped down on the shelf.

"Well, the folk of the city can't help us just now. And they might not, if they could. The people of the Black Countries are generally hostile to strangers. Probably stick us full of spears--"

He stopped short and stood silent, as if he had forgotten what he was saying, frowning down at the crimson spheres gleaming among the leaves.

"Spears!" he muttered. "What a blasted fool I am not to have thought of that before! That shows what a pretty woman does to a man's mind."

"What are you talking about?" she inquired.

Without answering her question, he descended to the belt of leaves and looked down through them. The great brute squatted below, watching the crag with the frightful patience of the reptile folk. So might one of his breed have glared up at their troglodyte ancestors, treed on a high-flung rock, in the dim dawn ages. Conan cursed him without heat, and began cutting branches, reaching out and severing them as far from the end as he could reach. The agitation of the leaves made the monster restless. He rose from his haunches and lashed his hideous tail, snapping off saplings as if they had been toothpicks. Conan watched him warily from the corner of his eye, and just as Valeria believed the dragon was about to hurl himself up the crag again, the Cimmerian drew back and climbed up to the ledge with the branches he had cut. There were three of these, slender shafts about seven feet long, but not larger than his thumb. He had also cut several strands of tough, thin vine.

"Branches too light for spear-hafts, and creepers no thicker than cords," he remarked, indicating the foliage about the crag. "It won't hold our weight--but there's strength in union. That's what the Aquilonian renegades used to tell us Cimmerians when they came into the hills to raise an army to invade their own country. But we always fight by clans and tribes."

"What the devil has that got to do with those sticks?" she demanded.

"You wait and see."

Gathering the sticks in a compact bundle, he wedged his poniard hilt between them at one end. Then with the vines he bound them together and, when he had completed his task, he had a spear of no small strength, with a sturdy shaft seven feet in length.

"What good will that do?" she demanded. "You told me that a blade couldn't pierce his scales--"

"He hasn't got scales all over him," answered Conan. "There's more than one way of skinning a panther."

Moving down to the edge of the leaves, he reached the spear up and carefully thrust the blade through one of the Apples of Derketa, drawing aside to avoid the darkly purple drops that dripped from the pierced fruit. Presently he withdrew the blade and showed her the blue steel stained a dull purplish crimson.

"I don't know whether it will do the job or not," quoth he. "There's enough poison there to kill an elephant, but--well, we'll see."

Valeria was close behind him as he let himself down among the leaves. Cautiously holding the poisoned pike away from him, he thrust his head through the branches and addressed the monster.

"What are you waiting down there for, you misbegotten offspring of questionable parents?" was one of his more printable queries. "Stick your ugly head up here again, you long-necked brute--or do you want me to come down there and kick you loose from your illegitimate spine?"

There was more of it--some of it crouched in eloquence that made Valeria stare, in spite of her profane education among the seafarers. And it had its effect on the monster. Just as the incessant yapping of a dog worries and enrages more constitutionally silent animals, so the clamorous voice of a man rouses fear in some bestial bosoms and insane rage in others. Suddenly and with appalling quickness, the mastodonic brute reared up on its mighty hind legs and elongated its neck and body in a furious effort to reach this vociferous pigmy whose clamor was disturbing the primeval silence of its ancient realm.

But Conan had judged his distance with precision. Some five feet below him the mighty head crashed terribly but futilely through the leaves. And as the monstrous mouth gaped like that of a great snake, Conan drove his spear into the red angle of the jawbone hinge. He struck downward with all the strength of both arms, driving the long poniard blade to the hilt in flesh, sinew and bone.

Instantly the jaws clashed convulsively together, severing the triple-pieced shaft and almost precipitating Conan from his perch. He would have fallen but for the girl behind him, who caught his sword-belt in a desperate grasp. He clutched at a rocky projection, and grinned his thanks back at her.

Down on the ground the monster was wallowing like a dog with pepper in its eyes. He shook his head from side to side, pawed at it, and opened his mouth repeatedly to its widest extent. Presently he got a huge front foot on the stump of the shaft and managed to tear the blade out. Then he threw up his head, jaws wide and spouting blood, and glared up at the crag with such concentrated and intelligent fury that Valeria trembled and drew her sword. The scales along his back and flanks turned from rusty brown to a dull lurid red. Most horribly the monster's silence was broken. The sounds that issued from his blood-streaming jaws did not sound like anything that could have been produced by an earthly creation.

With harsh, grating roars, the dragon hurled himself at the crag that was the citadel of his enemies. Again and again his mighty head crashed upward through the branches, snapping vainly on empty air. He hurled his full ponderous weight against the rock until it vibrated from base to crest. And rearing upright he gripped it with his front legs like a man and tried to tear it up by the roots, as if it had been a tree.

This exhibition of primordial fury chilled the blood in Valeria's veins, but Conan was too close to the primitive himself to feel anything but a comprehending interest. To the barbarian, no such gulf existed between himself and other men, and the animals, as existed in the conception of Valeria. The monster below them, to Conan, was merely a form of life differing from himself mainly in physical shape. He attributed to it characteristics similar to his own, and saw in its wrath a counterpart of his rages, in its roars and bellowings merely reptilian equivalents to the curses he had bestowed upon it. Feeling a kinship with all wild things, even dragons, it was impossible for him to experience the sick horror which assailed Valeria at the sight of the brute's ferocity.

He sat watching it tranquilly, and pointed out the various changes that were taking place in its voice and actions.

"The poison's taking hold," he said with conviction.

"I don't believe it." To Valeria it seemed preposterous to suppose that anything, however lethal, could have any effect on that mountain of muscle and fury.

"There's pain in his voice," declared Conan. "First he was merely angry because of the stinging in his jaw. Now he feels the bite of the poison. Look! He's staggering. He'll be blind in a few more minutes. What did I tell you?"

For suddenly the dragon had lurched about and went crashing off through the bushes.

"Is he running away?" inquired Valeria uneasily.

"He's making for the pool!" Conan sprang up, galvanized into swift activity. "The poison makes him thirsty. Come on! He'll be blind in a few moments, but he can smell his way back to the foot of the crag, and if our scent's here still, he'll sit there until he dies. And others of his kind may come at his cries. Let's go!"

"Down there?" Valeria was aghast.

"Sure! We'll make for the city! They may cut our heads off there, but it's our only chance. We may run into a thousand more dragons on the way, but it's sure death to stay here. If we wait until he dies, we may have a dozen more to deal with. After me, in a hurry!"

He went down the ramp as swiftly as an ape, pausing only to aid his less agile companion, who, until she saw the Cimmerian climb, had fancied herself the equal of any man in the rigging of a ship or on the sheer face of a cliff.

They descended into the gloom below the branches and slid to the ground silently, though Valeria felt as if the pounding of her heart must surely be heard from far away. A noisy gurgling and lapping beyond the dense thicket indicated that the dragon was drinking at the pool.

"As soon as his belly is full he'll be back," muttered Conan. "It may take hours for the poison to kill him--if it does at all."

Somewhere beyond the forest the sun was sinking to the horizon. The forest was a misty twilight place of black shadows and dim vistas. Conan gripped Valeria's wrist and glided away from the foot of the crag. He made less noise than a breeze blowing among the tree trunks, but Valeria felt as if her soft boots were betraying their flight to all the forest.

"I don't think he can follow a trail," muttered Conan. "But if a wind blew our body scent to him, he could smell us out."

"Mitra, grant that the wind blow not!" Valeria breathed.

Her face was a pallid oval in the gloom. She gripped her sword in her free hand, but the feel of the shagreen-bound hilt inspired only a feeling of helplessness in her.

They were still some distance from the edge of the forest when they heard a snapping and crashing behind them. Valeria bit her lip to check a cry.

"He's on our trail!" she whispered fiercely.

Conan shook his head.

"He didn't smell us at the rock, and he's blundering about through the forest trying to pick up our scent. Come on! It's the city or nothing now! He could tear down any tree we'd climb. If only the wind stays down--"

They stole on until the trees began to thin out ahead of them. Behind them the forest was a black impenetrable ocean of shadows. The ominous crackling still sounded behind them, as the dragon blundered in his erratic course.

"There's the plain ahead," breathed Valeria. "A little more and we'll--"

"Crom!" swore Conan.

"Mitra!" whispered Valeria.

Out of the south a wind had sprung up.

It blew over them directly into the black forest behind them. Instantly a horrible roar shook the woods. The aimless snapping and crackling of the bushes changed to a sustained crashing as the dragon came like a hurricane straight toward the spot from which the scent of his enemies was wafted.

"Run!" snarled Conan, his eyes blazing like those of a trapped wolf. "It's all we can do!"

Sailor's boots are not made for sprinting, and the life of a pirate does not train one for a runner. Within a hundred yards Valeria was panting and reeling in her gait, and behind them the crashing gave way to a rolling thunder as the monster broke out of the thickets and into the more open ground.

Conan's iron arm about the woman's waist half lifted her; her feet scarcely touched the earth as she was borne along at a speed she could never have attained herself. If he could keep out of the beast's way for a bit, perhaps that betraying wind would shift--but the wind held, and a quick glance over his shoulder showed Conan that the monster was almost upon them, coming like a war-galley in front of a hurricane. He thrust Valeria from him with a force that sent her reeling a dozen feet to fall in a crumpled heap at the foot of the nearest tree, and the Cimmerian wheeled in the path of the thundering titan.

Convinced that his death was upon him, the Cimmerian acted according to his instinct, and hurled himself full at the awful face that was bearing down on him. He leaped, slashing like a wildcat, felt his sword cut deep into the scales that sheathed the mighty snout--and then a terrific impact knocked him rolling and tumbling for fifty feet with all the wind and half the life battered out of him.

How the stunned Cimmerian regained his feet, not even he could have ever told. But the only thought that filled his brain was of the woman lying dazed and helpless almost in the path of the hurtling fiend, and before the breath came whistling back into his gullet he was standing over her with his sword in his hand.

She lay where he had thrown her, but she was struggling to a sitting posture. Neither tearing tusks nor trampling feet had touched her. It had been a shoulder or front leg that struck Conan, and the blind monster rushed on, forgetting the victims whose scent it had been following, in the sudden agony of its death throes. Headlong on its course it thundered until its low-hung head crashed into a gigantic tree in its path. The impact tore the tree up by the roots and must have dashed the brains from the misshapen skull. Tree and monster fell together, and the dazed humans saw the branches and leaves shaken by the convulsions of the creature they covered--and then grow quiet.

Conan lifted Valeria to her feet and together they started away at a reeling run. A few moments later they emerged into the still twilight of the treeless plain.

Conan paused an instant and glanced back at the ebon fastness behind them. Not a leaf stirred, nor a bird chirped. It stood as silent as it must have stood before Man was created.

"Come on," muttered Conan, taking his companion's hand. "It's touch and go now. If more dragons come out of the woods after us--"

He did not have to finish the sentence.

The city looked very far away across the plain, farther than it had looked from the crag. Valeria's heart hammered until she felt as if it would strangle her. At every step she expected to hear the crashing of the bushes and see another colossal nightmare bearing down upon them. But nothing disturbed the silence of the thickets.

With the first mile between them and the woods, Valeria breathed more easily. Her buoyant self-confidence began to thaw out again. The sun had set and darkness was gathering over the plain, lightened a little by the stars that made stunted ghosts out of the cactus growths.

"No cattle, no plowed fields," muttered Conan. "How do these people live?"

"Perhaps the cattle are in pens for the night," suggested Valeria, "and the fields and grazing-pastures are on the other side of the city."

"Maybe," he grunted. "I didn't see any from the crag, though."

The moon came up behind the city, etching walls and towers blackly in the yellow glow. Valeria shivered. Black against the moon the strange city had a somber, sinister look.

Perhaps something of the same feeling occurred to Conan, for he stopped, glanced about him, and grunted: "We'll stop here. No use coming to their gates in the night. They probably wouldn't let us in. Besides, we need rest, and we don't know how they'll receive us. A few hours' sleep will put us in better shape to fight or run."

He led the way to a bed of cactus which grew in a circle--a phenomenon common to the southern desert. With his sword he chopped an opening, and motioned Valeria to enter.

"We'll be safe from the snakes here, anyhow."

She glanced fearfully back toward the black line that indicated the forest some six miles away.

"Suppose a dragon comes out of the woods?"

"We'll keep watch," he answered, though he made no suggestion as to what they would do in such an event. He was staring at the city, a few miles away. Not a light shone from spire or tower. A great black mass of mystery, it reared cryptically against the moonlit sky.

"Lie down and sleep. I'll keep the first watch."

She hesitated, glancing at him uncertainly, but he sat down cross-legged in the opening, facing toward the plain, his sword across his knees, his back to her. Without further comment she lay down on the sand inside the spiky circle.

"Wake me when the moon is at its zenith," she directed.

He did not reply nor look toward her. Her last impression, as she sank into slumber, was of his muscular figure, immobile as a statue hewn out of bronze, outlined against the low-hanging stars.

== By the Blaze of the Fire Jewels ==

Valeria awoke with a start, to the realization that a grey dawn was stealing over the plain.

She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Conan squatted beside the cactus, cutting off the thick pears and dexterously twitching out the spikes.

"You didn't awake me," she accused. "You let me sleep all night!"

"You were tired," he answered. "Your posterior must have been sore, too, after that long ride. You pirates aren't used to horseback."

"What about yourself?" she retorted.

"I was a kozak before I was a pirate," he answered. "They live in the saddle. I snatch naps like a panther watching beside the trail for a deer to come by. My ears keep watch while my eyes sleep."

And indeed the giant barbarian seemed as much refreshed as if he had slept the whole night on a golden bed. Having removed the thorns, and peeled off the tough skin, he handed the girl a thick, juicy cactus leaf.

"Skin your teeth in that pear. It's food and drink to a desert man. I was a chief of the Zuagirs once--desert men who live by plundering the caravans."

"Is there anything you haven't done?" inquired the girl, half in derision and half in fascination.

"I've never been king of an Hyborean kingdom," he grinned, taking an enormous mouthful of cactus. "But I've dreamed of being even that. I may be too, some day. Why shouldn't I?"

She shook her head in wonder at his calm audacity, and fell to devouring her pear. She found it not unpleasing to the palate, and full of cool and thirst-satisfying juice. Finishing his meal, Conan wiped his hands in the sand, rose, ran his fingers through his thick black mane, hitched up his sword belt and said:

"Well, let's go. If the people in that city are going to cut our throats they may as well do it now, before the heat of the day begins."

His grim humor was unconscious, but Valeria reflected that it might be prophetic. She too hitched her sword belt as she rose. Her terrors of the night were past. The roaring dragons of the distant forest were like a dim dream. There was a swagger in her stride as she moved off beside the Cimmerian. Whatever perils lay ahead of them, their foes would be men. And Valeria of the Red Brotherhood had never seen the face of the man she feared.

Conan glanced down at her as she strode along beside him with her swinging stride that matched his own.

"You walk more like a hillman than a sailor," he said. "You must be an Aquilonian. The suns of Darfar never burnt your white skin brown. Many a princess would envy you."

"I am from Aquilonia," she replied. His compliments no longer irritated her. His evident admiration pleased her. For another man to have kept her watch while she slept would have angered her; she had always fiercely resented any man's attempting to shield or protect her because of her sex. But she found a secret pleasure in the fact that this man had done so. And he had not taken advantage of her fright and the weakness resulting from it. After all, she reflected, her companion was no common man.

The sun rose up behind the city, turning the towers to a sinister crimson.

"Black last night against the moon," grunted Conan, his eyes clouding with the abysmal superstition of the barbarian. "Blood-red as a threat of blood against the sun this dawn. I do not like this city."

But they went on, and as they went Conan pointed out the fact that no road ran to the city from the north.

"No cattle have trampled the plain on this side of the city," said he. "No plowshare has touched the earth for years, maybe centuries. But look: once this plain was cultivated."

Valeria saw the ancient irrigation ditches he indicated, half filled in places, and overgrown with cactus. She frowned with perplexity as her eyes swept over the plain that stretched on all sides of the city to the forest edge, which marched in a vast, dim ring. Vision did not extend beyond that ring.

She looked uneasily at the city. No helmets or spearheads gleamed on battlements, no trumpets sounded, no challenge rang from the towers. A silence as absolute as that of the forest brooded over the walls and minarets.

The sun was high above the eastern horizon when they stood before the great gate in the northern wall, in the shadow of the lofty rampart. Rust flecked the iron bracings of the mighty bronze portal. Spiderwebs glistened thickly on hinge and sill and bolted panel.

"It hasn't been opened for years!" exclaimed Valeria.

"A dead city," grunted Conan. "That's why the ditches were broken and the plain untouched."

"But who built it? Who dwelt here? Where did they go? Why did they abandon it?"

"Who can say? Maybe an exiled clan of Stygians built it. Maybe not. It doesn't look like Stygian architecture. Maybe the people were wiped out by enemies, or a plague exterminated them."

"In that case their treasures may still be gathering dust and cobwebs in there," suggested Valeria, the acquisitive instincts of her profession waking in her; prodded, too, by feminine curiosity. "Can we open the gate? Let's go in and explore a bit."

Conan eyed the heavy portal dubiously, but placed his massive shoulder against it and thrust with all the power of his muscular calves and thighs. With a rasping screech of rusty hinges the gate moved ponderously inward, and Conan straightened and drew his sword. Valeria stared over his shoulder, and made a sound indicative of surprise.

They were not looking into an open street or court as one would have expected. The opened gate, or door, gave directly into a long, broad hall which ran away and away until its vista grew indistinct in the distance. It was of heroic proportions, and the floor of a curious red stone, cut in square tiles, that seemed to smolder as if with the reflection of flames. The walls were of a shiny green material.

"Jade, or I'm a Shemite!" swore Conan.

"Not in such quantity!" protested Valeria.

"I've looted enough from the Khitan caravans to know what I'm talking about," he asserted. "That's jade!"

The vaulted ceiling was of lapis lazuli, adorned with clusters of great green stones that gleamed with a poisonous radiance.

"Green fire-stones," growled Conan. "That's what the people of Punt call them. They're supposed to be the petrified eyes of those prehistoric snakes the ancients called Golden Serpents. They glow like a cat's eyes in the dark. At night this hall would be lighted by them, but it would be a hellishly weird illumination. Let's look around. We might find a cache of jewels."

"Shut the door," advised Valeria. "I'd hate to have to outrun a dragon down this hall."

Conan grinned, and replied: "I don't believe the dragons ever leave the forest."

But he complied, and pointed out the broken bolt on the inner side.

"I thought I heard something snap when I shoved against it. That bolt's freshly broken. Rust has eaten nearly through it. If the people ran away, why should it have been bolted on the inside?"

"They undoubtedly left by another door," suggested Valeria.

She wondered how many centuries had passed since the light of outer day had filtered into that great hall through the open door. Sunlight was finding its way somehow into the hall, and they quickly saw the source. High up in the vaulted ceiling skylights were set in slot-like openings--translucent sheets of some crystalline substance. In the splotches of shadow between them, the green jewels winked like the eyes of angry cats. Beneath their feet the dully lurid floor smoldered with changing hues and colors of flame. It was like treading the floors of Hell with evil stars blinking overhead.

Three balustraded galleries ran along on each side of the hall, one above the other.

"A four-storied house," grunted Conan, "and this hall extends to the roof. It's long as a street. I seem to see a door at the other end."

Valeria shrugged her white shoulders.

"Your eyes are better than mine, then, though I'm accounted sharp-eyed among the sea-rovers."

They turned into an open door at random, and traversed a series of empty chambers, floored like the hall, and with walls of the same green jade, or of marble or ivory or chalcedony, adorned with friezes of bronze, gold, or silver. In the ceilings the green fire-gems were set, and their light was as ghostly and illusive as Conan had predicted. Under the witch-fire glow the intruders moved like specters.

Some of the chambers lacked this illumination, and their doorways showed black as the mouth of the Pit. These Conan and Valeria avoided, keeping always to the lighted chambers.

Cobwebs hung in the corners, but there was no perceptible accumulation of dust on the floor, or on the tables and seats of marble, jade, or carnelian which occupied the chambers. Here and there were rugs of that silk known as Khitan which is practically indestructible. Nowhere did they find any windows, or doors opening into streets or courts. Each door merely opened into another chamber or hall.

"Why don't we come to a street?" grumbled Valeria. "This palace or whatever we're in must be as big as the king of Turan's seraglio."

"They must not have perished of plague," sad Conan, meditating upon the mystery of the empty city. "Otherwise we'd find skeletons. Maybe it became haunted, and everybody got up and left. Maybe--"

"Maybe, hell!" broke in Valeria rudely. "We'll never know. Look at these friezes. They portray men. What race do they belong to?"

Conan scanned them and shook his head.

"I never saw people exactly like them. But there's the smack of the East about them--Vendhya, maybe, or Kosala."

"Were you a king in Kosala?" she asked, masking her keen curiosity with derision.

"No. But I was a war chief of the Afghulis who live in the Himelian mountains above the borders of Vendhya. These people favor the Kosalans. But why should Kosalans be building a city this far to the west?"

The figures portrayed were those of slender, olive-skinned men and women, with finely chiseled, exotic features. They wore filmy robes and many delicate jeweled ornaments, and were depicted mostly in attitudes of feasting, dancing, or lovemaking.

"Easterners, all right," grunted Conan, "but from where I don't know. They must have lived a disgustingly peaceful life, though, or they'd have scenes of wars and fights. Let's go up those stairs."

It was an ivory spiral that wound up from the chamber in which they were standing. They mounted three flights and came into a broad chamber on the fourth floor, which seemed to be the highest tier in the building. Skylights in the ceiling illuminated the room, in which light the fire-gems winked pallidly. Glancing through the doors they saw, except on one side, a series of similarly lighted chambers. This other door opened upon a balustraded gallery that overhung a hall much smaller than the one they had recently explored on the lower floor.

"Hell!" Valeria sat down disgustedly on a jade bench. "The people who deserted this city must have taken all their treasures with them. I'm tired of wandering through these bare rooms at random."

"All these upper chambers seem to be lighted," said Conan. "I wish we could find a window that overlooked the city. Let's have a look through that door over there."

"You have a look," advised Valeria. "I'm going to sit here and rest my feet."

Conan disappeared through the door opposite that one opening upon the gallery, and Valeria leaned back with her hands clasped behind her head, and thrust her booted legs out in front of her. These silent rooms and halls with their gleaming green clusters of ornaments and burning crimson floors were beginning to depress her. She wished they could find their way out of the maze into which they had wandered and emerge into a street. She wondered idly what furtive, dark feet had glided over those flaming floors in past centuries, how many deeds of cruelty and mystery those winking ceiling-gems had blazed down upon.

It was a faint noise that brought her out of her reflections. She was on her feet with her sword in her hand before she realized what had disturbed her. Conan had not returned, and she knew it was not he that she had heard.

The sound had come from somewhere beyond the door that opened on to the gallery. Soundlessly in her soft leather boots she glided through it, crept across the balcony and peered down between the heavy balustrades.

A man was stealing along the hall.

The sight of a human being in this supposedly deserted city was a startling shock. Crouching down behind the stone balusters, with every nerve tingling, Valeria glared down at the stealthy figure.

The man in no way resembled the figures depicted on the friezes. He was slightly above middle height, very dark, though not Negroid. He was naked but for a scanty silk clout that only partly covered his muscular hips, and a leather girdle, a hand's breadth broad, about his lean waist. His long black hair hung in lank strands about his shoulders, giving him a wild appearance. He was gaunt, but knots and cords of muscles stood out on his arms and legs, without that fleshy padding that presents a pleasing symmetry of contour. He was built with an economy that was almost repellent.

Yet it was not so much his physical appearance as his attitude that impressed the woman who watched him. He slunk along, stooped in a semi-crouch, his head turning from side to side. He grasped a wide-tipped blade in his right hand and she saw it shake with the intensity of the emotion that gripped him. He was afraid, trembling in the grip of some dire terror. When he turned his head she caught the blaze of wild eyes among the lank strands of black hair.

He did not see her. On tiptoe he glided across the hall and vanished through an open door. A moment later she heard a choking cry, and then silence fell again.

Consumed with curiosity, Valeria glided along the gallery until she came to a door above the one through which the man had passed. It opened into another, smaller gallery that encircled a large chamber.

This chamber was on the third floor, and its ceiling was not so high as that of the hall. It was lighted only by the fire-stones, and their weird green glow left the spaces under the balcony in shadows.

Valeria's eyes widened. The man she had seen was still in the chamber.

He lay face down on a dark crimson carpet in the middle of the room. His body was limp, his arms spread wide. His curved sword lay near him.

She wondered why he should lie there so motionless. Then her eyes narrowed as she stared down at the rug on which he lay. Beneath and about him the fabric showed a slightly different color, a deeper, brighter crimson.

Shivering slightly, she crouched down closer behind the balustrade, intently scanning the shadows under the overhanging gallery. They gave up no secret.

Suddenly another figure entered the grim drama. He was a man similar to the first, and he came in by a door opposite that which gave upon the hall.

His eyes glared at the sight of the man on the floor, and he spoke something in a staccato voice that sounded like "Chicmec!" The other did not move.

The man stepped quickly across the floor, bent, gripped the fallen man's shoulder and turned him over. A choking cry escaped him as the head fell back limply, disclosing a throat that had been severed from ear to ear.

The man let the corpse fall back upon the blood-stained carpet, and sprang to his feet, shaking like a windblown leaf. His face was an ashy mask of fear. But with one knee flexed for flight, he froze suddenly, became as immobile as an image, staring across the chamber with dilated eyes.

In the shadows beneath the balcony a ghostly light began to glow and grow, a light that was not part of the fire-stone gleam. Valeria felt her hair stir as she watched it; for, dimly visible in the throbbing radiance, there floated a human skull, and it was from this skull--human yet appallingly misshapen--that the spectral light seemed to emanate. It hung there like a disembodied head, conjured out of night and the shadows, growing more and more distinct; human, and yet not human as she knew humanity.

The man stood motionless, an embodiment of paralyzed horror, staring fixedly at the apparition. The thing moved out from the wall and a grotesque shadows moved with it. Slowly the shadow became visible as a man-like figure whose naked torso and limbs shone whitely, with the hue of bleached bones. The bare skull on its shoulders grinned eyelessly, in the midst of its unholy nimbus, and the man confronting it seemed unable to take his eyes from it. He stood still, his sword dangling from nerveless fingers, on his face the expression of a man bound by the spells of a mesmerist.

Valeria realized that it was not fear alone that paralyzed him. Some hellish quality of that throbbing glow had robbed him of his power to think and act. She herself, safely above the scene, felt the subtle impact of a nameless emanation that was a threat to sanity.

The horror swept toward its victim and he moved at last, but only to drop his sword and sink to his knees, covering his eyes with his hands. Dumbly he awaited the stroke of the blade that now gleamed in the apparition's hand as it reared above him like Death triumphant over mankind.

Valeria acted according to the first impulse of her wayward nature. With one tigerish movement she was over the balustrade and dropping to the floor behind the awful shape. It wheeled at the thud of her soft boots on the floor, but even as it turned, her keen blade lashed down and a fierce exultation swept her as she felt the edge cleave solid flesh and mortal bone.

The apparition cried out gurglingly and went down, severed through the shoulder, breastbone and spine, and as it fell the burning skull rolled clear, revealing a lank mop of black hair and a dark face twisted in the convulsions of death. Beneath the horrific masquerade there was a human being, a man similar to the one kneeling supinely on the floor.

The latter looked up at the sound of the blow and the cry, and now he glared in wild-eyed amazement at the whiteskinned woman who stood over the corpse with a dripping sword in her hand.

He staggered up, yammering as if the sight had almost unseated his reason. She was amazed to realize that she understood him. He was gibbering in the Stygian tongue, though in a dialect unfamiliar to her.

"Who are you? Whence come you? What do you in Xuchotl?" Then rushing on, without waiting for her to reply: "But you are a friend--goddess or devil, it makes no difference! You have slain the Burning Skull! It was but a man beneath it, after all! We deemed it a demon they conjured up out of the catacombs! Listen!"

He stopped short in his ravings and stiffened, straining his ears with painful intensity. The girl heard nothing.

"We must hasten!" he whispered. "They are west of the Great Hall! They may be all around us here! They may be creeping upon us even now!"

He seized her wrist in a convulsive grasp she found hard to break.

"Whom do you mean by 'they'?" she demanded.

He stared at her uncomprehendingly for an instant, as if he found her ignorance hard to understand.

"They?" he stammered vaguely. "Why--why, the people of Xotalanc! The clan of the man you slew. They who dwell by the eastern gate."

"You mean to say this city is inhabited?" she exclaimed.

"Aye! Aye!" He was writhing in the impatience of apprehension. "Come away! Come quick! We must return to Tecuhltli!"

"Where is that?" she demanded.

"The quarter by the western gate!" He had her wrist again and was pulling her toward the door through which he had first come. Great beads of perspiration dripped from his dark forehead, and his eyes blazed with terror.

"Wait a minute!" she growled, flinging off his hand. "Keep your hands off me, or I'll split your skull. What's all this about? Who are you? Where would you take me?"

He took a firm grip on himself, casting glances to all sides, and began speaking so fast his words tripped over each other.

"My name is Techotl. I am of Techultli. I and this man who lies with his throat cut came into the Halls of Silence to try and ambush some of the Xotalancas. But we became separated and I returned here to find him with his gullet slit. The Burning Skull did it, I know, just as he would have slain me had you not killed him. But perhaps he was not alone. Others may be stealing from Xotalanc! The gods themselves blench at the fate of those they take alive!"

At the thought he shook as with an ague and his dark skin grew ashy. Valeria frowned puzzledly at him. She sensed intelligence behind this rigmarole, but it was meaningless to her.

She turned toward the skull, which still glowed and pulsed on the floor, and was reaching a booted toe tentatively toward it, when the man who called himself Techotl sprang forward with a cry.

"Do not touch it! Do not even look at it! Madness and death lurk in it. The wizards of Xotalanc understand its secret--they found it in the catacombs, where lie the bones of terrible kings who ruled in Xuchotl in the black centuries of the past. To gaze upon it freezes the blood and withers the brain of a man who understands not its mystery. To touch it causes madness and destruction."

She scowled at him uncertainly. He was not a reassuring figure, with his lean, muscle-knotted frame, and snaky locks. In his eyes, behind the glow of terror, lurked a weird light she had never seen in the eyes of a man wholly sane. Yet he seemed sincere in his protestations.

"Come!" he begged, reaching for her hand, and then recoiling as he remembered her warning. "You are a stranger. How you came here I do not know, but if you were a goddess or a demon, come to aid Tecuhltli, you would know all the things you have asked me. You must be from beyond the great forest, whence our ancestors came. But you are our friend, or you would not have slain my enemy. Come quickly, before the Xotalancas find us and slay us!"

From his repellent, impassioned face she glanced to the sinister skull, smoldering and glowing on the floor near the dead man. It was like a skull seen in a dream, undeniably human, yet with disturbing distortions and malformations of contour and outline. In life the wearer of that skull must have presented an alien and monstrous aspect. Life? It seemed to possess some sort of life of its own. Its jaws yawned at her and snapped together. Its radiance grew brighter, more vivid, yet the impression of nightmare grew too; it was a dream; all life was a dream--it was Techotl's urgent voice which snapped Valeria back from the dim gulfs whither she was drifting.

"Do not look at the skull! Do not look at the skull!" It was a far cry from across unreckoned voids.

Valeria shook herself like a lion shaking his mane. Her vision cleared. Techotl was chattering: "In life it housed the awful brain of a king of magicians! It holds still the life and fire of magic drawn from outer spaces!"

With a curse Valeria leaped, lithe as a panther, and the skull crashed to flaming bits under her swinging sword. Somewhere in the room, or in the void, or in the dim reaches of her consciousness, an inhuman voice cried out in pain and rage.

Techotl's hand was plucking at her arm and he was gibbering: "You have broken it! You have destroyed it! Not all the black arts of Xotalanc can rebuild it! Come away! Come away quickly, now!"

"But I can't go," she protested. "I have a friend somewhere near by--"

The flare of his eyes cut her short as he stared past her with an expression grown ghastly. She wheeled just as four men rushed through as many doors, converging on the pair in the center of the chamber.

They were like the others she had seen, the same knotted muscles bulging on otherwise gaunt limbs, the same lank blue-black hair, the same mad glare in their wild eyes. They were armed and clad like Techotl, but on the breast of each was painted a white skull.

There were no challenges or war cries. Like blood-mad tigers the men of Xotalanc sprang at the throats of their enemies. Techotl met them with the fury of desperation, ducked the swipe of a wide-headed blade, and grappled with the wielder, and bore him to the floor where they rolled and wrestled in murderous silence.

The other three swarmed on Valeria, their weird eyes red as the eyes of mad dogs.

She killed the first who came within reach before he could strike a blow, her long straight blade splitting his skull even as his own sword lifted for a stroke. She side-stepped a thrust, even as she parried a slash. Her eyes danced and her lips smiled without mercy. Again she was Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, and the hum of her steel was like a bridal song in her ears.

Her sword darted past a blade that sought to parry, and sheathed six inches of its point in a leather-guarded midriff. The man gasped agonizedly and went to his knees, but his tall mate lunged in, in ferocious silence, raining blow on blow so furiously that Valeria had no opportunity to counter. She stepped back coolly, parrying the strokes and watching for her chance to thrust home. He could not long keep up that flailing whirlwind. His arm would tire, his wind would fail; he would weaken, falter, and then her blade would slide smoothly into his heart. A sidelong glance showed her Techotl kneeling on the breast of his antagonist and striving to break the other's hold on his wrist and to drive home a dagger.

Sweat beaded the forehead of the man facing her, and his eyes were like burning coals. Smite as he would, he could not break past nor beat down her guard. His breath came in gusty gulps, his blows began to fall erratically. She stepped back to draw him out--and felt her thighs locked in an iron grip. She had forgotten the wounded man on the floor.

Crouching on his knees, he held her with both arms locked about her legs, and his mate croaked in triumph and began working his way around to come at her from the left side. Valeria wrenched and tore savagely, but in vain. She could free herself of this clinging menace with a downward flick of her sword, but in that instant the curved blade of the tall warrior would crash through her skull. The wounded man began to worry at her bare thigh with his teeth like a wild beast.

She reached down with her left hand and gripped his long hair, forcing his head back so that his white teeth and rolling eyes gleamed up at her. The tall Xotalanc cried out fiercely and leaped in, smiting with all the fury of his arm. Awkwardly she parried the stroke, and it beat the flat of her blade down on her head so that she saw sparks flash before her eyes, and staggered. Up went the sword again, with a low, beast-like cry of triumph--and then a giant form loomed behind the Xotalanc and steel flashed like a jet of blue lightning. The cry of the warrior broke short and he went down like an ox beneath the pole-ax, his brains gushing from his skull that had been split to the throat.

"Conan!" gasped Valeria. In a gust of passion she turned on the Xotalanc whose long hair she still gripped in her left hand. "Dog of Hell!" Her blade swished as it cut the air in an upswinging arc with a blur in the middle, and the headless body slumped down, spurting blood. She hurled the severed head across the room.

"What the devil's going on here?" Conan bestrode the corpse of the man he had killed, broadsword in hand, glaring about him in amazement.

Techotl was rising from the twitching figure of the last Xotalanc, shaking red drops from his dagger. He was bleeding from the stab deep in the thigh. He stared at Conan with dilated eyes.

"What is all this?" Conan demanded again, not yet recovered from the stunning surprise of finding Valeria engaged in a savage battle with this fantastic figures in a city he had thought empty and uninhabited. Returning from an aimless exploration of the upper chambers to find Valeria missing from the room where he had left her, he had followed the sounds of strife that burst on his dumfounded ears.

"Five dead dogs!" exclaimed Techotl, his flaming eyes reflecting a ghastly exultation. "Five slain! Five crimson nails for the black pillar! The gods of blood be thanked!"

He lifted quivering hands on high, and then, with the face of a fiend, he spat on the corpses and stamped on their faces, dancing in his ghoulish glee. His recent allies eyed him in amazement, and Conan asked, in the Aquilonian tongue: "Who is this madman?"

Valeria shrugged her shoulders.

"He says his name's Techotl. From his babblings I gather that his people live at one end of this crazy city, and these others at the other end. Maybe we'd better go with him. He seems friendly, and it's easy to see that the other clan isn't."

Techotl had ceased his dancing and was listening again, his head tilted sidewise, dog-like, triumph struggling with fear in his repellent countenance.

"Come away, now!" he whispered. "We have done enough! Five dead dogs! My people will welcome you! They will honor you! But come! It is far to Tecuhltli. At any moment the Xotalancs may come on us in numbers too great even for your swords."

"Lead the way," grunted Conan.

Techotl instantly mounted a stair leading up to the gallery, beckoning them to follow him, which they did, moving rapidly to keep on his heels. Having reached the gallery, he plunged into a door that opened toward the west, and hurried through chamber after chamber, each lighted by skylights or green fire-jewels.

"What sort of place can this be?" muttered Valeria under her breath.

"Crom knows!" answered Conan. "I've seen his kind before, though. They live on the shores of Lake Zuad, near the border of Kush. They're a sort of mongrel Stygians, mixed with another race that wandered into Stygia from the east some centuries ago and were absorbed by them. They're called Tlazitlans. I'm willing to bet it wasn't they who built this city, though."

Techotl's fear did not seem to diminish as they drew away from the chamber where the dead men lay. He kept twisting his head on his shoulder to listen for sounds of pursuit, and stared with burning intensity into every doorway they passed.

Valeria shivered in spite of herself. She feared no man. But the weird floor beneath her feet, the uncanny jewels over her head, dividing the lurking shadows among them, the stealth and terror of their guide, impressed her with a nameless apprehension, a sensation of lurking, inhuman peril.

"They may be between us and Tecuhltli!" he whispered once. "We must beware lest they be lying in wait!"

"Why don't we get out of this infernal palace, and take to the streets?" demanded Valeria.

"There are no streets in Xuchotl," he answered. "No squares nor open courts. The whole city is built like one giant palace under one great roof. The nearest approach to a street is the Great Hall which traverses the city from the north gate to the south gate. The only doors opening into the outer world are the city gates, through which no living man has passed for fifty years."

"How long have you dwelt here?" asked Conan.

"I was born in the castle of Tecuhltli thirty-five years ago. I have never set foot outside the city. For the love of the gods, let us go silently! These halls may be full of lurking devils. Olmec shall tell you all when we reach Tecuhltli."

So in silence they glided on with the green fire-stones blinking overhead and the flaming floors smoldering under their feet, and it seemed to Valeria as if they fled through Hell, guided by a dark-faced lank-haired goblin.

Yet it was Conan who halted them as they were crossing an unusually wide chamber. His wilderness-bred ears were keener even than the ears of Techotl, whetted though his were by a lifetime of warfare in this silent corridors.

"You think some of your enemies may be ahead of us, lying in ambush?"

"They prowl through these rooms at all hours," answered Techotl, "as do we. The halls and chambers between Tecuhltli and Xotalanc are a disputed region, owned by no man. We call it the Halls of Silence. Why do you ask?"

"Because men are in the chambers ahead of us," answered Conan. "I heard steel clink against stone."

Again a shaking seized Techotl, and he clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering.

"Perhaps they are your friends," suggested Valeria.

"We dare not chance it," he panted, and moved with frenzied activity. He turned aside and glided through a doorway on the left which led into a chamber from which an ivory staircase wound down into darkness.

"This leads to an unlighted corridor below us!" he hissed, great beads of perspiration standing out on his brow. "They may be lurking there, too. It may all be a trick to draw us into it. But we must take the chance that they have laid their ambush in the rooms above. Come swiftly now!"

Softly as phantoms they descended the stair and came to the mouth of a corridor black as night. They crouched there for a moment, listening, and then melted into it. As they moved along, Valeria's flesh crawled between her shoulders in momentary expectation of a sword-thrust in the dark. But for Conan's iron fingers gripping her arm she had no physical cognizance of her companions. Neither made as much noise as a cat would have made. The darkness was absolute. One hand, outstretched, touched a wall, and occasionally she felt a door under her fingers. The hallway seemed interminable.

Suddenly they were galvanized by a sound behind them. Valeria's flesh crawled anew, for she recognized it as the soft opening of a door. Men had come into the corridor behind them. Even with the thought she stumbled over something that felt like a human skull. It rolled across the floor with an appalling clatter.

"Run!" yelped Techotl, a note of hysteria in his voice, and was away down the corridor like a flying ghost.

Again Valeria felt Conan's hand bearing her up and sweeping her along as they raced after their guide. Conan could see in the dark no better than she, but he possessed a sort of instinct that made his course unerring. Without his support and guidance she would have fallen or stumbled against the wall. Down the corridor they sped, while the swift patter of flying feet drew closer and closer, and then suddenly Techotl panted: "Here is the stair! After me, quick! Oh, quick!"

His hand came out of the dark and caught Valeria's wrist as she stumbled blindly on the steps. She felt herself half dragged, half lifted up the winding stair, while Conan released her and turned on the steps, his ears and instincts telling him their foes were hard at their backs. And the sounds were not all those of human feet.

Something came writhing up the steps, something that slithered and rustled and brought a chill in the air with it. Conan lashed down with his great sword and felt the blade shear through something that might have been flesh and bone, and cut deep into the stair beneath. Something touched his foot that chilled like the touch of frost, and then the darkness beneath him was disturbed by a frightful thrashing and lashing, and a man cried out in agony.

The next moment Conan was racing up the winding staircase, and through a door that stood open at the head.

Valeria and Techotl were already through, and Techotl slammed the door and shot a bolt across it--the first Conan had seen since they had left the outer gate.

Then he turned and ran across the well-lighted chamber into which they had come, and as they passed through the farther door, Conan glanced back and saw the door groaning and straining under heavy pressure violently applied from the other side.

Though Techotl did not abate either his speed or his caution, he seemed more confident now. He had the air of a man who had come into familiar territory, within call of friends.

But Conan renewed his terror by asking: "What was that thing I fought on the stairs?"

"The men of Xotalanc," answered Techotl, without looking back. "I told you the halls were full of them."

"This wasn't a man," grunted Conan. "It was something that crawled, and it was as cold as ice to the touch. I think I cut it asunder. It fell back on the men who were following us, and must have killed one of them in its death throes."

Techotl's head jerked back, his face ashy again. Convulsively he quickened his pace.

"It was the Crawler! A monster they have brought out of the catacombs to aid them! What it is, we do not know, but we have found our people hideously slain by it. In Set's name, hasten! If they put it on our trail, it will follow us to the very doors of Tecuhltli!"

"I doubt it," grunted Conan. "That was a shrewd cut I dealt it on the stair."

"Hasten! Hasten!" groaned Techotl.

They ran through a series of green-lit chambers, traversed a broad hall, and halted before a giant bronze door.

Techotl said: "This is Tecuhltli!"

== The People of the Feud ==

Techotl smote on the bronze door with his clenched hand, and then turned sidewise, so that he could watch back along the hall.

"Men have been smitten down before this door, when they thought they were safe," he said.

"Why don't they open the door?" asked Conan.

"They are looking at us through the Eye," answered Techotl. "They are puzzled at the sight of you." He lifted his voice and called: "Open the door, Excelan! It is I, Techotl, with friends from the great world beyond the forest!--They will open," he assured his allies.

"They'd better do it in a hurry, then," said Conan grimly. "I hear something crawling along the floor beyond the hall."

Techotl went ashy again and attacked the door with his fists, screaming: "Open, you fools, open! The Crawler is at our heels!"

Even as he beat and shouted, the great bronze door swung noiselessly back, revealing a heavy chain across the entrance, over which spearheads bristled and fierce countenances regarded them intently for an instant. Then the chain was dropped and Techotl grasped the arms of his friends in a nervous frenzy and fairly dragged them over the threshold. A glance over his shoulder just as the door was closing showed Conan the long dim vista of the hall, and dimly framed at the other end an ophidian shape that writhed slowly and painfully into view, flowing in a dull-hued length from a chamber door, its hideous bloodstained head wagging drunkenly. Then the closing door shut off the view.

Inside the square chamber into which they had come heavy bolts were drawn across the door, and the chain locked into place. The door was made to stand the battering of a siege. Four men stood on guard, of the same lank-haired, dark-skinned breed as Techotl, with spears in their hands and swords at their hips. In the wall near the door there was a complicated contrivance of mirrors which Conan guessed was the Eye Techotl had mentioned, so arranged that a narrow, crystal-paned slot in the wall could be looked through from within without being discernible from without. The four guardsmen stared at the strangers with wonder, but asked no question, nor did Techotl vouchsafe any information. He moved with easy confidence now, as if he had shed his cloak of indecision and fear the instant he crossed the threshold.

"Come!" he urged his new-found friends, but Conan glanced toward the door.

"What about those fellows who were following us? Won't they try to storm that door?"

Techotl shook his head.

"They know they cannot break down the Door of the Eagle. They will flee back to Xotalanc, with their crawling fiend. Come! I will take you to the rulers of Tecuhltli."

One of the four guards opened the door opposite the one by which they had entered, and they passed through into a hallway which, like most of the rooms on that level, was lighted by both the slot-like skylights and the clusters of winking fire-gems. But unlike the other rooms they had traversed, this hall showed evidences of occupation. Velvet tapestries adorned the glossy jade walls, rich rugs were on the crimson floors, and the ivory seats, benches and divans were littered with satin cushions.

The hall ended in an ornate door, before which stood no guard. Without ceremony Techotl thrust the door open and ushered his friends into a broad chamber, where some thirty dark-skinned men and women lounged on satin-covered couches sprang up with exclamations of amazement.

The men, all except one, were of the same type as Techotl, and the women were equally dark and strange-eyed, though not unbeautiful in a weird dark way. They wore sandals, golden breastplates, and scanty silk skirts supported by gem-crusted girdles, and their black manes, cut square at their naked shoulders, were bound with silver circlets.

On a wide ivory seat on a jade dais sat a man and a woman who differed subtly from the others. He was a giant, with an enormous sweep of breast and the shoulders of a bull. Unlike the others, he was bearded, with a thick, blue-black beard which fell almost to his broad girdle. He wore a robe of purple silk which reflected changing sheens of color with his every movement, and one wide sleeve, drawn back to his elbow, revealed a forearm massive with corded muscles. The band which confined his blue-black locks was set with glittering jewels.

The woman beside him sprang to her feet with a startled exclamation as the strangers entered, and her eyes, passing over Conan, fixed themselves with burning intensity on Valeria. She was tall and lithe, by far the most beautiful woman in the room. She was clad more scantily even than the others; for instead of a skirt she wore merely a broad strip of gilt-worked purple cloth fastened to the middle of her girdle which fell below her knees. Another strip at the back of her girdle completed that part of her costume, which she wore with a cynical indifference. Her breast-plates and the circlet about her temples were adorned with gems. In her eyes alone of all the dark-skinned people there lurked no brooding gleam of madness. She spoke no word after her first exclamation; she stood tensely, her hands clenched, staring at Valeria.

The man on the ivory seat had not risen.

"Prince Olmec," spoke Techotl, bowing low, with arms outspread and the palms of his hands turned upward, "I bring allies from the world beyond the forest. In the Chamber of Techotl the Burning Skull slew Chicmec, my companion--"

"The Burning Skull!" It was a shuddering whisper of fear from the people of Tecuhltli.

"Aye! Then came I, and found Chicmec lying with his throat cut. Before I could flee, the Burning Skull came upon me, and when I looked upon it my blood became as ice and the marrow of my bones melted. I could neither fight nor run. I could only await the stroke. Then came this white-skinned woman and struck him down with her sword; and lo, it was only a dog of Xotalanc with white paint upon his skin and the living skull of an ancient wizard upon his head! Now that skull lies in many pieces, and the dog who wore it is a dead man!"

An indescribably fierce exultation edged the last sentence, and was echoed in the low, savage exclamations from the crowding listeners.

"But wait!" exclaimed Techotl. "There is more! While I talked with the woman, four Xotalancs came upon us! One I slew--there is the stab in my thigh to prove how desperate was the fight. Two the woman killed. But we were hard pressed when this man came into the fray and split the skull of the fourth! Aye! Five crimson nails there are to be driven into the pillar of vengeance!"

He pointed to a black column of ebony which stood behind the dais. Hundreds of red dots scarred its polished surface--the bright scarlet heads of heavy copper nails driven into the black wood.

"Five red nails for five Xotalanca lives!" exulted Techotl, and the horrible exultation in the faces of the listeners made them inhuman.

"Who are these people?" asked Olmec, and his voice was like the low, deep rumble of a distant bull. None of the people of Xuchotl spoke loudly. It was as if they had absorbed into their souls the silence of the empty halls and deserted chambers.

"I am Conan, a Cimmerian," answered the barbarian briefly. "This woman is Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, an Aquilonian pirate. We are deserters from an army on the Darfar border, far to the north, and are trying to reach the coast."

The woman on the dais spoke loudly, her words tripping in her haste.

"You can never reach the coast! There is no escape from Xuchotl! You will spend the rest of your lives in this city!"

"What do you mean," growled Conan, clapping his hand to his hilt and stepping about so as to face both the dais and the rest of the room. "Are you telling us we're prisoners?"

"She did not mean that," interposed Olmec. "We are your friends. We would not restrain you against your will. But I fear other circumstances will make it impossible for you to leave Xuchotl."

His eyes flickered to Valeria, and he lowered them quickly.

"This woman is Tascela," he said. "She is a princess of Tecuhltli. But let food and drink be brought our guests. Doubtless they are hungry, and weary from their long travels."

He indicated an ivory table, and after an exchange of glances, the adventurers seated themselves. The Cimmerian was suspicious. His fierce blue eyes roved about the chamber, and he kept his sword close to his hand. But an invitation to eat and drink never found him backward. His eyes kept wandering to Tascela, but the princess had eyes only for his white-skinned companion.

Techotl, who had bound a strip of silk about his wounded thigh, placed himself at the table to attend to the wants of his friends, seeming to consider it a privilege and honor to see after their needs. He inspected the food and drink the others brought in gold vessels and dishes, and tasted each before he placed it before his guests. While they ate, Olmec sat in silence on his ivory seat, watching them from under his broad black brows. Tascela sat beside him, chin cupped in her hands and her elbows resting on her knees. Her dark, enigmatic eyes, burning with a mysterious light, never left Valeria's supple figure. Behind her seat a sullen handsome girl waved an ostrich-plume fan with a slow rhythm.

The food was fruit of an exotic kind unfamiliar to the wanderers, but very palatable, and the drink was a light crimson wine that carried a heady tang.

"You have come from afar," said Olmec at last. "I have read the books of our fathers. Aquilonia lies beyond the lands of the Stygians and the Shemites, beyond Argos and Zingara; and Cimmeria lies beyond Aquilonia."

"We have each a roving foot," answered Conan carelessly.

"How you won through the forest is a wonder to me," quoth Olmec. "In bygone days a thousand fighting men scarcely were able to carve a road through its perils."

"We encountered a bench-legged monstrosity about the size of a mastodon," said Conan casually, holding out his wine goblet which Techutl filled with evident pleasure. "But when we'd killed it we had no further trouble."

The wine vessel slipped from Techotl's hand to crash on the floor. His dusky skin went ashy. Olmec started to his feet, an image of stunned amazement, and a low gasp of awe or terror breathed up from the others. Some slipped to their knees as if their legs would not support them. Only Tascela seemed not to have heard. Conan glared about him bewilderedly.

"What's the matter? What are you gaping about?"

"You--you slew the dragon-god?"

"God? I killed a dragon. Why not? It was trying to gobble us up."

"But dragons are immortal!" exclaimed Olmec. "They slay each other, but no man ever killed a dragon! The thousand fighting men of our ancestors who fought their way to Xuchotl could not prevail against them! Their swords broke like twigs against their scales!"

"If your ancestors had thought to dip their spears in the poisonous juice of Derketa's Apples," quoth Conan, with his mouth full, "and jab them in the eyes or mouth or somewhere like that, they'd have seen that dragons are no more immortal than any other chunk of beef. The carcass lies at the edge of the trees, just within the forest. If you don't believe me, go and look for yourself."

Olmec shook his head, not in disbelief but in wonder.

"It was because of the dragons that our ancestors took refuge in Xuchotl," said he. "They dared not pass through the plain and plunge into the forest beyond. Scores of them were seized and devoured by the monsters before they could reach the city."

"Then your ancestors didn't build Xuchotl?" asked Valeria.

"It was ancient when they first came into the land. How long it had stood here, not even its degenerate inhabitants knew."

"Your people came from Lake Zuad?" questioned Conan.

"Aye. More than half a century ago a tribe of the Tlazitlans rebelled against the Stygian king, and, being defeated in battle, fled southward. For many weeks they wandered over grasslands, desert and hills, and at last they came into the great forest, a thousand fighting men with their women and children.

"It was in the forest that the dragons fell upon them and tore many to pieces; so the people fled in a frenzy of fear before them, and at last came into the plain and saw the city of Xuchotl in the midst of it.

"They camped before the city, not daring to leave the plain, for the night was made hideous with the noise of the battling monsters through the forest. They made war incessantly upon one another. Yet they came not into the plain.

"The people of the city shut their gates and shot arrows at our people from the walls. The Tlazitlans were imprisoned on the plain, as if the ring of the forest had been a great wall; for to venture into the woods would have been madness.

"That night there came secretly to their camp a slave from the city, one of their own blood, who with a band of exploring soldiers had wandered into the forest long before, when he was a young man. The dragons had devoured all his companions, but he had been taken into the city to dwell in servitude. His name was Tolkemec." A flame lighted the dark eyes at mention of the name, and some of the people muttered obscenely and spat. "He promised to open the gates to the warriors. He asked only that all captives taken be delivered into his hands.

"At dawn he opened the gates. The warriors swarmed in and the halls of Xuchotl ran red. Only a few hundred folk dwelt there, decaying remnants of a once great race. Tolkemec said they came from the east, long ago, from Old Kosala, when the ancestors of those who now dwell in Kosala came up from the south and drove forth the original inhabitants of the land. They wandered far westward and finally found this forest-girdled plain, inhabited then by a tribe of black people.

"These they enslaved and set to building a city. From the hills to the east they brought jade and marble and lapis lazuli, and gold, silver, and copper. Herds of elephants provided them with ivory. When their city was completed, they slew all the black slaves. And their magicians made a terrible magic to guard the city; for by their necromantic arts they re-created the dragons which had once dwelt in this lost land, and whose monstrous bones they found in the forest. Those bones they clothed in flesh and life, and the living beasts walked the earth as they walked it when time was young. But the wizards wove a spell that kept them in the forest and they came not into the plain.

"So for many centuries the people of Xuchotl dwelt in their city, cultivating the fertile plain, until their wise men learned how to grow fruit within the city--fruit which is not planted in soil, but obtains its nourishment out of the air--and then they let the irrigation ditches run dry and dwelt more and more in luxurious sloth, until decay seized them. They were a dying race when our ancestors broke through the forest and came into the plain. Their wizards had died, and the people had forgot their ancient necromancy. They could fight neither by sorcery nor the sword.

"Well, our fathers slew the people of Xuchotl, all except a hundred which were given living into the hands of Tolkemec, who had been their slave; and for many days and nights the halls re-echoed to their screams under the agony of his tortures.

"So the Tlazitlans dwelt here, for a while in peace, ruled by the brothers Tecuhltli and Xotalanc, and by Tolkemec. Tolkemec took a girl of the tribe to wife, and because he had opened the gates, and because he knew many of the arts of the Xuchotlans, he shared the rule of the tribe with the brothers who had led the rebellion and the flight.

"For a few years, then, they dwelt at peace within the city, doing little but eating, drinking, and making love, and raising children. There was no necessity to till the plain, for Tolkemec taught them how to cultivate the air-devouring fruits. Besides, the slaying of the Xuchotlans broke the spell that held the dragons in the forest, and they came nightly and bellowed about the gates of the city. The plain ran red with the blood of their eternal warfare, and it was then that--" He bit his tongue in the midst of the sentence, then presently continued, but Valeria and Conan felt that he had checked an admission he had considered unwise.

"Five years they dwelt in peace. Then"--Olmec's eyes rested briefly on the silent woman at his side--"Xotalanc took a woman to wife, a woman whom both Tecuhltli and old Tolkemec desired. In his madness, Tecuhltli stole her from her husband. Aye, she went willingly enough. Tolkemec, to spite Xotalanc, aided Tecuhltli. Xotalanc demanded that she be given back to him, and the council of the tribe decided that the matter should be left to the woman. She chose to remain with Tecuhltli. In wrath Xotalanc sought to take her back by force, and the retainers of the brothers came to blows in the Great Hall.

"There was much bitterness. Blood was shed on both sides. The quarrel became a feud, the feud an open war. From the welter three factions emerged--Tecuhltli, Xotalanc, and Tolkemec. Already, in the days of peace, they had divided the city between them. Tecuhltli dwelt in the western quarter of the city, Xotalanc in the eastern, and Tolkemec with his family by the southern gate.

"Anger and resentment and jealousy blossomed into bloodshed and rape and murder. Once the sword was drawn there was no turning back; for blood called for blood, and vengeance followed swift on the heels of atrocity. Tecuhltli fought with Xotalanc, and Tolkemec aided first one and then the other, betraying each faction as it fitted his purposes. Tecuhltli and his people withdrew into the quarter of the western gate, where we now sit. Xuchotl is built in the shape of an oval. Tecuhltli, which took its name from its prince, occupies the western end of the oval. The people blocked up all doors connecting the quarter with the rest of the city, except one on each floor, which could be defended easily. They went into the pits below the city and built a wall cutting off the western end of the catacombs, where lie the bodies of the ancient Xuchotlans, and of those Tlazitlans slain in the feud. They dwelt as in a besieged castle, making sorties and forays on their enemies.

"The people of Xotalanc likewise fortified the eastern quarter of the city, and Tolkemec did likewise with the quarter by the southern gate. The central part of the city was left bare and uninhabited. Those empty halls and chambers became a battleground, and a region of brooding terror.

"Tolkemec warred on both clans. He was a fiend in the form of a human, worse than Xotalanc. He knew many secrets of the city he never told the others. From the crypts of the catacombs he plundered the dead of their grisly secrets--secrets of ancient kings and wizards, long forgotten by the degenerate Xuchotlans our ancestors slew. But all his magic did not aid him the night we of Tecuhltli stormed his castle and butchered all his people. Tolkemec we tortured for many days."

His voice sank to a caressing slur, and a faraway look grew in his eyes, as if he looked back over the years to a scene which caused him intense pleasure.

"Aye, we kept the life in him until he screamed for death as for a bride. At last we took him living from the torture chamber and cast him into a dungeon for the rats to gnaw as he died. From that dungeon, somehow, he managed to escape, and dragged himself into the catacombs. There without doubt he died, for the only way out of the catacombs beneath Tecuhltli is through Tecuhltli, and he never emerged by that way. His bones were never found and the superstitious among our people swear that his ghost haunts the crypts to this day, wailing among the bones of the dead. Twelve years ago we butchered the people of Tolkemec, but the feud raged on between Tecuhltli and Xotalanc, as it will rage until the last man, the last woman is dead.

"It was fifty years ago that Tecuhltli stole the wife of Xotalanc. Half a century the feud has endured. I was born in it. All in this chamber, except Tascela, were born in it. We expect to die in it.

"We are a dying race, even as were those Xuchotlans our ancestors slew. When the feud began there were hundreds in each faction. Now we of Tecuhltli number only these you see before you, and the men who guard the four doors: forty in all. How many Xotalancas there are we do not know, but I doubt if they are much more numerous than we. For fifteen years no children have been born to us, and we have seen none among the Xotalancas.

"We are dying, but before we die we will slay as many of the men of Xotalanc as the gods permit."

And with his weird eyes blazing, Olmec spoke long of that grisly feud, fought out in silent chambers and dim halls under the blaze of the green fire-jewels, on floors smoldering with the flames of hell and splashed with deeper crimson from severed veins. In that long butchery a whole generation had perished. Xotalanc was dead, long ago, slain in a grim battle on an ivory stair. Tecuhltli was dead, flayed alive by the maddened Xotalancas who had captured him.

Without emotion Olmec told of hideous battles fought in black corridors, of ambushes on twisting stairs, and red butcheries. With a redder, more abysmal gleam in his deep dark eyes he told of men and women flayed alive, mutilated and dismembered, of captives howling under tortures so ghastly that even the barbarous Cimmerian grunted. No wonder Techotl had trembled with the terror of capture! Yet he had gone forth to slay if he could, driven by hate that was stronger than his fear. Olmec spoke further, of dark and mysterious matters, of black magic and wizardry conjured out of the black night of the catacombs, of weird creatures invoked out of darkness for horrible allies. In these things the Xotalancas had the advantage, for it was in the eastern catacombs where lay the bones of the greatest wizards of the ancient Xuchotlans, with their immemorial secrets.

Valeria listened with morbid fascination. The feud had become a terrible elemental power driving the people of Xuchotl inexorably on to doom and extinction. It filled their whole lives. They were born in it, and they expected to die in it. They never left their barricaded castle except to steal forth into the Halls of Silence that lay between the opposing fortresses, to slay and be slain. Sometimes the raiders returned with frantic captives, or with grim tokens of victory in fight. Sometimes they did not return at all, or returned only as severed limbs cast down before the bolted bronze doors. It was a ghastly, unreal nightmare existence these people lived, shut off from the rest of the world, caught together like rabid rats in the same trap, butchering one another through the years, crouching and creeping through the sunless corridors to maim and torture and murder.

While Olmec talked, Valeria felt the blazing eyes of Tascela fixed upon her. The princess seemed not to hear what Olmec was saying. Her expression, as he narrated victories or defeats, did not mirror the wild rage or fiendish exultation that alternated on the faces of the other Tecuhltli. The feud that was an obsession to her clansmen seemed meaningless to her. Valeria found her indifferent callousness more repugnant than Olmec's naked ferocity.

"And we can never leave the city," said Olmec. "For fifty years on one has left it except those--" Again he checked himself.

"Even without the peril of the dragons," he continued, "we who were born and raised in the city would not dare leave it. We have never set foot outside the walls. We are not accustomed to the open sky and the naked sun. No; we were born in Xuchotl, and in Xuchotl we shall die."

"Well," said Conan, "with your leave we'll take our chances with the dragons. This feud is none of our business. If you'll show us to the west gate we'll be on our way."

Tascela's hands clenched, and she started to speak, but Olmec interrupted her: "It is nearly nightfall. If you wander forth into the plain by night, you will certainly fall prey to the dragons."

"We crossed it last night, and slept in the open without seeing any," returned Conan.

Tascela smiled mirthlessly. "You dare not leave Xuchotl!"

Conan glared at her with instinctive antagonism; she was not looking at him, but at the woman opposite him.

"I think they dare," stated Olmec. "But look you, Conan and Valeria, the gods must have sent you to us, to cast victory into the laps of the Tecuhltli! You are professional fighters--why not fight for us? We have wealth in abundance--precious jewels are as common in Xuchotl as cobblestones are in the cities of the world. Some the Xuchotlans brought with them from Kosala. Some, like the firestones, they found in the hills to the east. Aid us to wipe out the Xotalancas, and we will give you all the jewels you can carry."

"And will you help us destroy the dragons?" asked Valeria. "With bows and poisoned arrows thirty men could slay all the dragons in the forest."

"Aye!" replied Olmec promptly. "We have forgotten the use of the bow, in years of hand-to-hand fighting, but we can learn again."

"What do you say?" Valeria inquired of Conan.

"We're both penniless vagabonds," he grinned hardily. "I'd as soon kill Xotalancas as anybody."

"Then you agree?" exclaimed Olmec, while Techotl fairly hugged himself with delight.

"Aye. And now suppose you show us chambers where we can sleep, so we can be fresh tomorrow for the beginning of the slaying."

Olmec nodded, and waved a hand, and Techotl and a woman led the adventurers into a corridor which led through a door off to the left of the jade dais. A glance back showed Valeria Olmec sitting on his throne, chin on knotted fist, staring after them. His eyes burned with a weird flame. Tascela leaned back in her seat, whispering to the sullen-faced maid, Yasala, who leaned over her shoulder, her ear to the princess's moving lips.

The hallway was not so broad as most they had traversed, but it was long. Presently the woman halted, opened a door, and drew aside for Valeria to enter.

"Wait a minute," growled Conan. "Where do I sleep?"

Techotl pointed to a chamber across the hallway, but one door farther down. Conan hesitated, and seemed inclined to raise an objection, but Valeria smiled spitefully at him and shut the door in his face. He muttered something uncomplimentary about women in general, and strode off down the corridor after Techotl.

In the ornate chamber where he was to sleep, he glanced up at the slot-like skylights. Some were wide enough to admit the body of a slender man, supposing the glass were broken.

"Why don't the Xotalancas come over the roofs and shatter those skylights?" he asked.

"They cannot be broken," answered Techotl. "Besides, the roofs would be hard to clamber over. They are mostly spires and domes and steep ridges."

He volunteered more information about the "castle" of Tecuhltli. Like the rest of the city it contained four stories, or tiers of chambers, with towers jutting up from the roof. Each tier was named; indeed, the people of Xuchotl had a name for each chamber, hall, and stair in the city, as people of more normal cities designate streets and quarters. In Tecuhltli the floors were named The Eagle's Tier, The Ape's Tier, The Tiger's Tier and The Serpent's Tier, in the order as enumerated, The Eagle's Tier being the highest, or fourth, floor.

"Who is Tascela?" asked Conan. "Olmec's wife?"

Techotl shuddered and glanced furtively about him before answering.

"No. She is--Tascela! She was the wife of Xotalanc--the woman Tecuhltli stole, to start the feud."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Conan. "That woman is beautiful and young. Are you trying to tell me that she was a wife fifty years ago?"

"Aye! I swear it! She was a full-grown woman when the Tlazitlans journeyed from Lake Zuad. It was because the king of Stygia desired her for a concubine that Xotalanc and his brother rebelled and fled into the wilderness. She is a witch, who possesses the secret of perpetual youth."

"What's that?" asked Conan.

Techotl shuddered again.

"Ask me not! I dare not speak. It is too grisly, even for Xuchotl!"

And touching his finger to his lips, he glided from the chamber.

== Scent of Black Lotus ==

Valeria unbuckled her sword belt and laid it with the sheathed weapon on the couch where she meant to sleep. She noted that the doors were supplied with bolts, and asked where they led.

"Those lead to adjoining chambers," answered the woman, indicating the doors on right and left. "That one?"--pointing to a copper-bound door opposite that which opened into the corridor--"leads to a corridor which runs to a stair that descends into the catacombs. Do not fear; naught can harm you here."

"Who spoke of fear?" snapped Valeria. "I just like to know what sort of harbor I'm dropping anchor in. No, I don't want you to sleep at the foot of my couch. I'm not accustomed to being waited on--not by women, anyway. You have my leave to go."

Alone in the room, the pirate shot the bolts on all the doors, kicked off her boots and stretched luxuriously out on the couch. She imagined Conan similarly situated across the corridor, but her feminine vanity prompted her to visualize him as scowling and muttering with chagrin as he cast himself on his solitary couch, and she grinned with gleeful malice as she prepared herself for slumber.

Outside, night had fallen. In the halls of Xuchotl the green fire-jewels blazed like the eyes of prehistoric cats. Somewhere among the dark towers, a night wind moaned like a restless spirit. Through the dim passages, stealthy figures began stealing, like disembodied shadows.

Valeria awoke suddenly on her couch. In the dusky emerald glow of the fire-gems she saw a shadowy figure bending over her. For a bemused instant the apparition seemed part of the dream she had been dreaming. She had seemed to lie on the couch in the chamber as she was actually lying, while over her pulsed and throbbed a gigantic black blossom so enormous that it hid the ceiling. Its exotic perfume pervaded her being, inducing a delicious, sensuous languor that was something more and less than sleep. She was sinking into scented billows of insensible bliss, when something touched her face. So supersensitive were her drugged senses, that the light touch was like a dislocating impact, jolting her rudely into full wakefulness. Then it was that she saw, not a gargantuan blossom, but a dark-skinned woman standing above her.

With the realization came anger and instant action. The woman turned lithely, but before she could run Valeria was on her feet and had caught her arm. She fought like a wildcat for an instant, and then subsided as she felt herself crushed by the superior strength of her captor. The pirate wrenched the woman around to face her, caught her chin with her free hand and forced her captive to meet her gaze. It was the sullen Yasala, Tascela's maid.

"What the devil were you doing bending over me? What's that in your hand?"

The woman made no reply, but sought to cast away the object. Valeria twisted her arm around in front of her, and the thing fell to the floor--a great black exotic blossom on a jade-green stem, large as a woman's head, to be sure, but tiny beside the exaggerated vision she had seen.

"The black lotus!" said Valeria between her teeth. "The blossom whose scent brings deep sleep. You were trying to drug me! If you hadn't accidentally touched my face with the petals, you'd have--why did you do it? What's your game?"

Yasala maintained a sulky silence, and with an oath Valeria whirled her around, forced her to her knees and twisted her arm up behind her back.

"Tell me, or I'll tear your arm out of its socket!"

Yasala squirmed in anguish as her arm was forced excruciatingly up between her shoulder blades, but a violent shaking of her head was the only answer she made.

"Slut!" Valeria cast her from her to sprawl on the floor. The pirate glared at the prostrate figure with blazing eyes. Fear and the memory of Tascela's burning eyes stirred in her, rousing all her tigerish instincts of self-preservation. These people were decadent; any sort of perversity might be expected to be encountered among them. But Valeria sensed here something that moved behind the scenes, some secret terror fouler than common degeneracy. Fear and revulsion of this weird city swept her. These people were neither sane nor normal; she began to doubt if they were even human. Madness smoldered in the eyes of them all--all except the cruel, cryptic eyes of Tascela, which held secrets and mysteries more abysmal than madness.

She lifted her head and listened intently. The halls of Xuchotl were as silent as if it were in reality a dead city. The green jewels bathed the chamber in a nightmare glow, in which the eyes of the woman on the floor glittered eerily up at her. A thrill of panic throbbed through Valeria, driving the last vestige of mercy from her fierce soul.

"Why did you try to drug me?" she muttered, grasping the woman's black hair, and forcing her head back to glare into her sullen, long-lashed eyes. "Did Tascela send you?"

No answer. Valeria cursed venomously and slapped the woman first on one cheek and then the other. The blows resounded through the room, but Yasala made no outcry.

"Why don't you scream?" demanded Valeria savagely. "Do you fear someone will hear you? Whom do you fear? Tascela? Olmec? Conan?"

Yasala made no reply. She crouched, watching her captor with eyes baleful as those of a basilisk. Stubborn silence always fans anger. Valeria turned and tore a handful of cords from a near-by hanging.

"You sulky slut!" she said between her teeth. "I'm going to strip you stark naked and tie you across that couch and whip you until you tell me what you were doing here, and who sent you!"

Yasala made no verbal protest, nor did she offer any resistance, as Valeria carried out the first part of her thereat with a fury that her captive's obstinacy only sharpened. Then for a space there was no sound in the chamber except the whistle and crackle of hard-woven silken cords on naked flesh. Yasala could not move her fast-bound hands or feet. Her body writhed and quivered under the chastisement, her head swayed from side to side in rhythm with the blows. Her teeth were sunk into her lower lip and a trickle of blood began as the punishment continued. But she did not cry out.

The pliant cords made no great sound as they encountered the quivering body of the captive; only a sharp crackling snap, but each cord left a red streak across Yasala's dark flesh. Valeria inflicted the punishment with all the strength of her war-hardened arm, with all the mercilessness acquired during a life where pain and torment were daily happenings, and with all the cynical ingenuity which only a woman displays toward a woman. Yasala suffered more, physically and mentally, than she would have suffered under a lash wielded by a man, however strong.

It was the application of this feminine cynicism which at last tamed Yasala.

A low whimper escaped from her lips, and Valeria paused, arm lifted, and raked back a damp yellow lock. "Well, are you going to talk?" she demanded. "I can keep this up all night, if necessary."

"Mercy!" whispered the woman. "I will tell."

Valeria cut the cords from her wrists and ankles, and pulled her to her feet. Yasala sank down on the couch, half reclining on one bare hip, supporting herself on her arm, and writhing at the contact of her smarting flesh with the couch. She was trembling in every limb.

"Wine!" she begged, dry-lipped, indicating with a quivering hand a gold vessel on an ivory table. "Let me drink. I am weak with pain. Then I will tell you all."

Valeria picked up the vessel, and Yasala rose unsteadily to receive it. She took it, raised it toward her lips--then dashed the contents full into the Aquilonian's face. Valeria reeled backward, shaking and clawing the stinging liquid out of her eyes. Through a smarting mist she saw Yasala dart across the room, fling back a bolt, throw open the copper-bound door and run down the hall. The pirate was after her instantly, sword out and murder in her heart.

But Yasala had the start, and she ran with the nervous agility of a woman who has just been whipped to the point of hysterical frenzy. She rounded a corner in the corridor, yards ahead of Valeria, and when the pirate turned it, she saw only an empty hall, and at the other end a door that gaped blackly. A damp moldy scent reeked up from it, and Valeria shivered. That must be the door that led to the catacombs. Yasala had taken refuge among the dead.

Valeria advanced to the door and looked down a flight of stone steps that vanished quickly into utter blackness. Evidently it was a shaft that led straight to the pits below the city, without opening upon any of the lower floors. She shivered slightly at the thought of the thousands of corpses lying in their stone crypts down there, wrapped in their moldering cloths. She had no intention of groping her way down those stone steps. Yasala doubtless knew every turn and twist of the subterranean tunnels.

She was turning back, baffled and furious, when a sobbing cry welled up from the blackness. It seemed to come from a great depth, but human words were faintly distinguishable, and the voice was that of a woman. "Oh, help! Help, in Set's name! Ahhh!" It trailed away, and Valeria thought she caught the echo of a ghostly tittering.

Valeria felt her skin crawl. What had happened to Yasala down there in the thick blackness? There was no doubt that it had been she who had cried out. But what peril could have befallen her? Was a Xotalanca lurking down there? Olmec had assured them that the catacombs below Tecuhltli were walled off from the rest, too securely for their enemies to break through. Besides, that tittering had not sounded like a human being at all.

Valeria hurried back down the corridor, not stopping to close the door that opened on the stair. Regaining her chamber, she closed the door and shot the bolt behind her. She pulled on her boots and buckled her sword-belt about her. She was determined to make her way to Conan's room and urge him, if he still lived, to join her in an attempt to fight their way out of that city of devils.

But even as she reached the door that opened into the corridor, a long-drawn scream of agony rang through the halls, followed by the stamp of running feet and the loud clangor of swords.

== Twenty Red Nails ==

Two warriors lounged in the guardroom on the floor known as the Tier of the Eagle. Their attitude was casual, though habitually alert. An attack on the great bronze door from without was always a possibility, but for many years no such assault had been attempted on either side.

"The strangers are strong allies," said one. "Olmec will move against the enemy tomorrow, I believe."

He spoke as a soldier in a war might have spoken. In the miniature world of Xuchotl each handful of feudists was an army, and the empty halls between the castles was the country over which they campaigned.

The other meditated for a space.

"Suppose with their aid we destroy Xotalanc," he said. "What then, Xatmec?"

"Why," returned Xatmec, "we will drive red nails for them all. The captives we will burn and flay and quarter."

"But afterward?" pursued the other. "After we have slain them all? Will it not seem strange to have no foe to fight? All my life I have fought and hated the Xotalancas. With the feud ended, what is left?"

Xatmec shrugged his shoulders. His thoughts had never gone beyond the destruction of their foes. They could not go beyond that.

Suddenly both men stiffened at a noise outside the door.

"To the door, Xatmec!" hissed the last speaker. "I shall look through the Eye--"

Xatmec, sword in hand, leaned against the bronze door, straining his ear to hear through the metal. His mate looked into the mirror. He started convulsively. Men were clustered thickly outside the door; grim, dark-faced men with swords gripped in their teeth--and their fingers thrust into their ears. One who wore a feathered headdress had a set of pipes which he set to his lips, and even as the Tecuhltli started to shout a warning, the pipes began to skirl.

The cry died in the guard's throat as the thin, weird piping penetrated the metal door and smote on his ears. Xatmec leaned frozen against the door, as if paralyzed in that position. His face was that of a wooden image, his expression one of horrified listening. The other guard, farther removed from the source of the sound, yet sensed the horror of what was taking place, the grisly threat that lay in that demoniac fifing. He felt the weird strains plucking like unseen fingers at the tissues of his brain, filling him with alien emotions and impulses of madness. But with a soul-tearing effort he broke the spell, and shrieked a warning in a voice he did not recognize as his own.

But even as he cried out, the music changed to an unbearable shrilling that was like a knife in the eardrums. Xatmec screamed in sudden agony, and all the sanity went out of his face like a flame blown out in a wind. Like a madman he ripped loose the chain, tore open the door and rushed out into the hall, sword lifted before his mate could stop him. A dozen blades struck him down, and over his mangled body the Xotalancas surged into the guardroom, with a long-drawn, blood-mad yell that sent the unwonted echoes reverberating.

His brain reeling from the shock of it all, the remaining guard leaped to meet them with goring spear. The horror of the sorcery he had just witnessed was submerged in the stunning realization that the enemy were in Tecuhltli. And as his spearhead ripped through a dark-skinned belly he knew no more, for a swinging sword crushed his skull, even as wild-eyed warriors came pouring in from the chambers behind the guardroom.

It was the yelling of men and the clanging of steel that brought Conan bounding from his couch, wide awake and broadsword in hand. In an instant he had reached the door and flung it open, and was glaring out into the corridor just as Techotl rushed up it, eyes blazing madly.

"The Xotalancas!" he screamed, in a voice hardly human. "They are within the door!"

Conan ran down the corridor, even as Valeria emerged from her chamber.

"What the devil is it?" she called.

"Techotl says the Xotalancas are in," he answered hurriedly. "That racket sounds like it."

With the Tecuhltli on their heels they burst into the throne room and were confronted by a scene beyond the most frantic dream of blood and fury. Twenty men and women, their black hair streaming, and the white skulls gleaming on their breasts, were locked in combat with the people of Tecuhltli. The women on both sides fought as madly as the men, and already the room and the hall beyond were strewn with corpses.

Olmec, naked but for a breech-clout, was fighting before his throne, and as the adventurers entered, Tascela ran from an inner chamber with a sword in her hand.

Xatmec and his mate were dead, so there was none to tell the Tecuhltli how their foes had found their way into their citadel. Nor was there any to say what had prompted that mad attempt. But the losses of the Xotalancas had been greater, their position more desperate, than the Tecuhltli had known. The maiming of their scaly ally, the destruction of the Burning Skull, and the news, gasped by a dying man, that mysterious white-skin allies had joined their enemies, had driven them to the frenzy of desperation and the wild determination to die dealing death to their ancient foes.

The Tecuhltli, recovering from the first stunning shock of the surprise that had swept them back into the throne room and littered the floor with their corpses, fought back with an equally desperate fury, while the doorguards from the lower floors came racing to hurl themselves into the fray. It was the deathfight of rabid wolves, blind, panting, merciless. Back and forth it surged, from door to dais, blades whickering and striking into flesh, blood spurting, feet stamping the crimson floor where redder pools were forming. Ivory tables crashed over, seats were splintered, velvet hangings torn down were stained red. It was the bloody climax of a bloody half-century, and every man there sensed it.

But the conclusion was inevitable. The Tecuhltli outnumbered the invaders almost two to one, and they were heartened by that fact and by the entrance into the melee of their light-skinned allies.

These crashed into the fray with the devastating effect of a hurricane plowing through a grove of saplings. In sheer strength no three Tlazitlans were a match for Conan, and in spite of his weight he was quicker on his feet than any of them. He moved through the whirling, eddying mass with the surety and destructiveness of a gray wolf amidst a pack of alley curs, and he strode over a wake of crumpled figures.

Valeria fought beside him, her lips smiling and her eyes blazing. She was stronger than the average man, and far quicker and more ferocious. Her sword was like a living thing in her hand. Where Conan beat down opposition by the sheer weight and power of his blows, breaking spears, splitting skulls and cleaving bosoms to the breastbone, Valeria brought into action a finesse of swordplay that dazzled and bewildered her antagonists before it slew them. Again and again a warrior, heaving high his heavy blade, found her point in his jugular before he could strike. Conan, towering above the field, strode through the welter smiting right and left, but Valeria moved like an illusive phantom, constantly shifting, and thrusting and slashing as she shifted. Swords missed her again and again as the wielders flailed the empty air and died with her point in their hearts or throats, and her mocking laughter in their ears.

Neither sex nor condition was considered by the maddened combatants. The five women of the Xotalancas were down with their throats cut before Conan and Valeria entered the fray, and when a man or woman went down under the stamping feet, there was always a knife ready for the helpless throat, or a sandaled foot eager to crush the prostrate skull.

From wall to wall, from door to door rolled the waves of combat, spilling over into adjoining chambers. And presently only Tecuhltli and their white-skinned allies stood upright in the great throne room. The survivors stared bleakly and blankly at each other, like survivors after Judgement Day or the destruction of the world. On legs wide-braced, hands gripping notched and dripping swords, blood trickling down their arms, they stared at one another across the mangled corpses of friends and foes. They had no breath left to shout, but a bestial mad howling rose from their lips. It was not a human cry of triumph. It was the howling of a rabid wolf-pack stalking among the bodies of its victims.

Conan caught Valeria's arm and turned her about.

"You've got a stab in the calf of your leg," he growled.

She glanced down, for the first time aware of a stinging in the muscles of her leg. Some dying man on the floor had fleshed his dagger with his last effort.

"You look like a butcher yourself," she laughed.

He shook a red shower from his hands.

"Not mine. Oh, a scratch here and there. Nothing to bother about. But that calf ought to be bandaged."

Olmec came through the litter, looking like a ghoul with his naked massive shoulders splashed with blood, and his black beard dabbled in crimson. His eyes were red, like the reflection of flame on black water.

"We have won!" he croaked dazedly. "The feud is ended! The dogs of Xotalanc lie dead! Oh, for a captive to flay alive! Yet it is good to look upon their dead faces. Twenty dead dogs! Twenty red nails for the black column!"

"You'd best see to your wounded," grunted Conan, turning away from him. "Here, girl, let me see that leg."

"Wait a minute!" she shook him off impatiently. The fire of fighting still burned brightly in her soul. "How do we know these are all of them? These might have come on a raid of their own."

"They would not split the clan on a foray like this," said Olmec, shaking his head, and regaining some of his ordinary intelligence. Without his purple robe the man seemed less like a prince than some repellent beast of prey. "I will stake my head upon it that we have slain them all. There were less of them than I dreamed, and they must have been desperate. But how came they in Tecuhltli?"

Tascela came forward, wiping her sword on her naked thigh, and holding in her other hand an object she had taken from the body of the feathered leader of the Xotalancas.

"The pipes of madness," she said. "A warrior tells me that Xatmec opened the door to the Xotalancas and was cut down as they stormed into the guardroom. This warrior came to the guardroom from the inner hall just in time to see it happen and to hear the last of a weird strain of music which froze his very soul. Tolkemec used to talk of these pipes, which the Xuchotlans swore were hidden somewhere in the catacombs with the bones of the ancient wizard who used them in his lifetime. Somehow the dogs of Xotalanc found them and learned their secret."

"Somebody ought to go to Xotalanc and see if any remain alive," said Conan. "I'll go if somebody will guide me."

Olmec glanced at the remnants of his people. There were only twenty left alive, and of these several lay groaning on the floor. Tascela was the only one of the Tecuhltli who had escaped without a wound. The princess was untouched, though she had fought as savagely as any.

"Who will go with Conan to Xotalanc?" asked Olmec.

Techotl limped forward. The wound in his thigh had started bleeding afresh, and he had another gash across his ribs.

"I will go!"

"No, you won't," vetoed Conan. "And you're not going either, Valeria. In a little while that leg will be getting stiff."

"I will go," volunteered a warrior, who was knotting a bandage about a slashed forearm.

"Very well, Yanath. Go with the Cimmerian. And you, too, Topal." Olmec indicated another man whose injuries were slight. "But first aid to lift the badly wounded on these couches where we may bandage their hurts."

This was done quickly. As they stooped to pick up a woman who had been stunned by a warclub, Olmec's beard brushed Topal's ear. Conan thought the prince muttered something to the warrior, but he could not be sure. A few moments later he was leading his companions down the hall.

Conan glanced back as he went out the door, at that shambles where the dead lay on the smoldering floor, blood-stained dark limbs knotted in attitudes of fierce muscular effort, dark faces frozen in masks of hate, glassy eyes glaring up at the green fire-jewels which bathed the ghastly scene in a dusky emerald witchlight. Among the dead the living moved aimlessly, like people moving in a trance. Conan heard Olmec call a woman and direct her to bandage Valeria's leg. The pirate followed the woman into an adjoining chamber, already beginning to limp slightly.

Warily the two Tecuhltli led Conan along the hall beyond the bronze door, and through chamber after chamber shimmering in the green fire. They saw no one, heard no sound. After they crossed the Great Hall which bisected the city from north to south, their caution was increased by the realization of their nearness to enemy territory. But chambers and halls lay empty to their wary gaze, and they came at last along a broad dim hallway and halted before a bronze door similar to the Eagle Door of Tecuhltli. Gingerly they tried it, and it opened at silently under their fingers. Awed, they started into the green-lit chambers beyond. For fifty years no Tecuhltli had entered those halls save as a prisoner going to a hideous doom. To go to Xotalanc had been the ultimate horror that could befall a man of the western castle. The terror of it had stalked through their dreams since earliest childhood. To Yanath and Topol that bronze door was like the portal of hell.

They cringed back, unreasoning horror in their eyes, and Conan pushed past them and strode into Xotalanc.

Timidly they followed him. As each man set foot over the threshold he stared and glared wildly about him. But only their quick, hurried breathing disturbed the silence.

They had come into a square guardroom, like that behind the Eagle Door of Tecuhltli, and, similarly, a hall ran away from it to a broad chamber that was a counterpart of Olmec's throne room.

Conan glanced down the hall with its rugs and divans and hangings, and stood listening intently. He heard no noise, and the rooms had an empty feel. He did not believe there were any Xotalancas left alive in Xuchotl.

"Come on," he muttered, and started down the hall.

He had not gone far when he was aware that only Yanath was following him. He wheeled back to see Topal standing in an attitude of horror, one arm out as if to fend off some threatening peril, his distended eyes fixed with hypnotic intensity on something protruding from behind a divan.

"What the devil?" Then Conan saw what Topal was staring at, and he felt a faint twitching of the skin between his giant shoulders. A monstrous head protruded from behind the divan, a reptilian head, broad as the head of a crocodile, with down-curving fangs that projected over the lower jaw. But there was an unnatural limpness about the thing, and the hideous eyes were glazed.

Conan peered behind the couch. It was a great serpent which lay there limp in death, but such a serpent as he had never seen in his wanderings. The reek and chill of the deep black earth were about it, and its color was an indeterminable hue which changed with each new angle from which he surveyed it. A great wound in the neck showed what had caused its death.

"It is the Crawler!" whispered Yanath.

"It's the thing I slashed on the stair," grunted Conan. "After it trailed us to the Eagle Door, it dragged itself here to die. How could the Xotalancas control such a brute?"

The Tecuhltli shivered and shook their heads.

"They brought it up from the black tunnels below the catacombs. They discovered secrets unknown to Tecuhltli."

"Well, it's dead, and if they'd had any more of them, they'd have brought them along when they came to Tecuhltli. Come on."

They crowded close at his heels as he strode down the hall and thrust on the silver-worked door at the other end.

"If we don't find anybody on this floor," he said, "we'll descend into the lower floors. We'll explore Xotalanc from the roof to the catacombs. If Xotalanc is like Tecuhltli, all the rooms and halls in this tier will be lighted--what the devil!"

They had come into the broad throne chamber, so similar to that one in Tecuhltli. There were the same jade dais and ivory seat, the same divans, rugs and hangings on the walls. No black, red-scarred column stood behind the throne-dais, but evidences of the grim feud were not lacking.

Ranged along the wall behind the dais were rows of glass-covered shelves. And on those shelves hundreds of human heads, perfectly preserved, stared at the startled watchers with emotionless eyes, as they had stared for only the gods knew how many months and years.

Topal muttered a curse, but Yanath stood silent, the mad light growing in his wide eyes. Conan frowned, knowing that Tlazitlan sanity was hung on a hair-trigger.

Suddenly Yanath pointed to the ghastly relics with a twitching finger.

"There is my brother's head!" he murmured. "And there is my father's younger brother! And there beyond them is my sister's eldest son!"

Suddenly he began to weep, dry-eyed, with harsh, loud sobs that shook his frame. He did not take his eyes from the heads. His sobs grew shriller, changed to frightful, high-pitched laughter, and that in turn became an unbearable screaming. Yanath was stark mad.

Conan laid a hand on his shoulder, and as if the touch had released all the frenzy in his soul, Yanath screamed and whirled, striking at the Cimmerian with his sword. Conan parried the blow, and Topal tried to catch Yanath's arm. But the madman avoided him and with froth flying from his lips, he drove his sword deep into Topal's body. Topal sank down with a groan, and Yanath whirled for an instant like a crazy dervish; then he ran at the shelves and began hacking at the glass with his sword, screeching blasphemously.

Conan sprang at him from behind, trying to catch him unaware and disarm him, but the madman wheeled and lunged at him, screaming like a lost soul. Realizing that the warrior was hopelessly insane, the Cimmerian side-stepped, and as the maniac went past, he swung a cut that severed the shoulder-bone and breast, and dropped the man dead beside his dying victim.

Conan bent over Topal, seeing that the man was at his last gasp. It was useless to seek to stanch the blood gushing from the horrible wound.

"You're done for, Topal," grunted Conan. "Any word you want to send to your people?"

"Bend closer," gasped Topal, and Conan complied--and an instant later caught the man's wrist as Topal struck at his breast with a dagger.

"Crom!" swore Conan. "Are you mad, too?"

"Olmec ordered it!" gasped the dying man. "I know not why. As we lifted the wounded upon the couches he whispered to me, bidding me to slay you as we returned to Tecuhltli--" And with the name of his clan on his lips, Topal died.

Conan scowled down at him in puzzlement. This whole affair had an aspect of lunacy. Was Olmec mad, too? Were all the Tecuhltli madder than he had realized? With a shrug of his shoulders he strode down the hall and out of the bronze door, leaving the dead Tecuhltli lying before the staring dead eyes of their kinsmen's heads.

Conan needed no guide back through the labyrinth they had traversed. His primitive instinct of direction led him unerringly along the route they had come. He traversed it as warily as he had before, his sword in his hand, and his eyes fiercely searching each shadowed nook and corner; for it was his former allies he feared now, not the ghosts of the slain Xotalancas.

He had crossed the Great Hall and entered the chambers beyond when he heard something moving ahead of him--something which gasped and panted, and moved with a strange, floundering, scrambling noise. A moment later Conan saw a man crawling over the flaming floor toward him--a man whose progress left a broad bloody smear on the smoldering surface. It was Techotl and his eyes were already glazing; from a deep gash in his breast blood gushed steadily between the fingers of his clutching hand. With the other he clawed and hitched himself along.

"Conan," he cried chokingly, "Conan! Olmec has taken the yellow-haired woman!"

"So that's why he told Topal to kill me!" murmured Conan, dropping to his knee beside the man, who his experienced eye told him was dying. "Olmec isn't as mad as I thought."

Techotl's groping fingers plucked at Conan's arm. In the cold, loveless, and altogether hideous life of the Tecuhltli, his admiration and affection for the invaders from the outer world formed a warm, human oasis, constituted a tie that connected him with a more natural humanity that was totally lacking in his fellows, whose only emotions were hate, lust, and the urge of sadistic cruelty.

"I sought to oppose him," gurgled Techotl, blood bubbling frothily to his lips. "But he struck me down. He thought he had slain me, but I crawled away. Ah, Set, how far I have crawled in my own blood! Beware, Conan! Olmec may have set an ambush for your return! Slay Olmec! He is a beast. Take Valeria and flee! Fear not to traverse the forest. Olmec and Tascela lied about the dragons. They slew each other years ago, all save the strongest. For a dozen years there has been only one dragon. If you have slain him, there is naught in the forest to harm you. He was the god Olmec worshipped; and Olmec fed human sacrifices to him, the very old and the very young, bound and hurled from the wall. Hasten! Olmec has taken Valeria to the Chamber of the--"

His head slumped down and he was dead before it came to rest on the floor.

Conan sprang up, his eyes like live coals. So that was Olmec's game, having first used the strangers to destroy his foes! He should have known that something of the sort would be going on in that black-bearded degenerate's mind.

The Cimmerian started toward Tecuhltli with reckless speed. Rapidly he reckoned the numbers of his former allies. Only twenty-one, counting Olmec, had survived that fiendish battle in the throne room. Three had died since, which left seventeen enemies with which to reckon. In his rage Conan felt capable of accounting for the whole clan single-handed.

But the innate craft of the wilderness rose to guide his berserk rage. He remembered Techotl's warning of an ambush. It was quite probable that the prince would make such provisions, on the chance that Topal might have failed to carry out his order. Olmec would be expecting him to return by the same route he had followed in going to Xotalanc.

Conan glanced up at a skylight under which he was passing and caught the blurred glimmer of stars. They had not yet begun to pale for dawn. The events of the night had been crowded into a comparatively short space of time.

He turned aside from his direct course and descended a winding staircase to the floor below. He did not know where the door was to be found that let into the castle on that level, but he knew he could find it. How he was to force the locks he did not know; he believed that the doors of Tecuhltli would all be locked and bolted, if for no other reason than the habits of half a century. But there was nothing else but to attempt it.

Sword in hand, he hurried noiselessly on through a maze of green-lit or shadowy rooms and halls. He knew he must be near Tecuhltli, when a sound brought him up short. He recognized it for what it was--a human being trying to cry out through a stifling gag. It came from somewhere ahead of him, and to the left. In those deathly-still chambers a small sound carried a long way.

Conan turned aside and went seeking after the sound, which continued to be repeated. Presently he was glaring through a doorway upon a weird scene. In the room into which he was looking a low rack-like frame of iron lay on the floor, and a giant figure was bound prostrate upon it. His head rested on a bed of iron spikes, which were already crimson-pointed with blood where they had pierced his scalp. A peculiar harness-like contrivance was fastened about his head, though in such a manner that the leather band did not protect his scalp from the spikes. This harness was connected by a slender chain to the mechanism that upheld a huge iron ball which was suspended above the captive's hairy breast. As long as the man could force himself to remain motionless the iron ball hung in its place. But when the pain of the iron points caused him to lift his head, the ball lurched downward a few inches. Presently his aching neck muscles would no longer support his head in its unnatural position and it would fall back on the spikes again. It was obvious that eventually the ball would crush him to a pulp, slowly and inexorably. The victim was gagged, and above the gag his great black ox-eyes rolled wildly toward the man in the doorway, who stood in silent amazement. The man on the rack was Olmec, prince of Tecuhltli.

== The Eyes of Tascela ==

"Why did you bring me into this chamber to bandage my leg?" demanded Valeria. "Couldn't you have done it just as well in the throne room?"

She sat on a couch with her wounded leg extended upon it, and the Tecuhltli woman had just bound it with silk bandages. Valeria's red-stained sword lay on the couch beside her.

She frowned as she spoke. The woman had done her task silently and efficiently, but Valeria liked neither the lingering, caressing touch of her slim fingers nor the expression in her eyes.

"They have taken the rest of the wounded into the other chambers," answered the woman in the soft speech of the Tecuhltli women, which somehow did not suggest either softness or gentleness in the speakers. A little while before, Valeria had seen this same woman stab a Xotalanca woman through the breast and stamp the eyeballs out of a wounded Xotalanca man.

"They will be carrying the corpses of the dead down into the catacombs," she added, "lest the ghosts escape into the chambers and dwell there."

"Do you believe in ghosts?" asked Valeria.

"I know the ghost of Tolkemec dwells in the catacombs," she answered with a shiver. "Once I saw it, as I crouched in a crypt among the bones of a dead queen. It passed by in the form of an ancient man with flowing white beard and locks, and luminous eyes that blazed in the darkness. It was Tolkemec; I saw him living when I was a child and he was being tortured."

Her voice sank to a fearful whisper: "Olmec laughs, but I know Tolkemec's ghost dwells in the catacombs! They say it is rats which gnaw the flesh from the bones of the newly dead--but ghosts eat flesh. Who knows but that--"

She glanced up quickly as a shadow fell across the couch. Valeria looked up to see Olmec gazing down at her. The prince had cleansed his hands, torso, and beard of the blood that had splashed them; but he had not donned his robe, and his great dark-skinned hairless body and limbs renewed the impression of strength bestial in its nature. His deep black eyes burned with a more elemental light, and there was the suggestion of a twitching in the fingers that tugged at his thick blue-black beard.

He stared fixedly at the woman, and she rose and glided from the chamber. As she passed through the door she cast a look over her shoulder at Valeria, a glance full of cynical derision and obscene mockery.

"She has done a clumsy job," criticized the prince, coming to the divan and bending over the bandage. "Let me see--"

With a quickness amazing in one of his bulk he snatched her sword and threw it across the chamber. His next move was to catch her in his giant arms.

Quick and unexpected as the move was, she almost matched it; for even as he grabbed her, her dirk was in her hand and she stabbed murderously at his throat. More by luck than skill he caught her wrist, and then began a savage wrestling-match. She fought him with fists, feet, knees, teeth, and nails, with all the strength of her magnificent body and all the knowledge of hand-to-hand fighting she had acquired in her years of roving and fighting on sea and land. It availed her nothing against his brute strength. She lost her dirk in the first moment of contact, and thereafter found herself powerless to inflict any appreciable pain on her giant attacker.

The blaze in his weird black eyes did not alter, and their expression filled her with fury, fanned by the sardonic smile that seemed carved upon his bearded lips. Those eyes and that smile contained all the cruel cynicism that seethes below the surface of a sophisticated and degenerate race, and for the first time in her life Valeria experienced fear of a man. It was like struggling against some huge elemental force; his iron arms thwarted her efforts with an ease that sent panic racing through her limbs. He seemed impervious to any pain she could inflict. Only once, when she sank her white teeth savagely into his wrist so that the blood started, did he react. And that was to buffet her brutally upon the side of the head with his open hand, so that stars flashed before her eyes and her head rolled on her shoulders.

Her shirt had been torn open in the struggle, and with cynical cruelty he rasped his thick beard across her bare breasts, bringing the blood to suffuse the fair skin, and fetching a cry of pain and outraged fury from her. Her convulsive resistance was useless; she was crushed down on a couch, disarmed and panting, her eyes blazing up at him like the eyes of a trapped tigress.

A moment later he was hurrying from the chamber, carrying her in his arms. She made no resistance, but the smoldering of her eyes showed that she was unconquered in spirit, at least. She had not cried out. She knew that Conan was not within call, and it did not occur to her that any in Tecuhltli would oppose their prince. But she noticed that Olmec went stealthily, with his head on one side as if listening for sounds of pursuit, and he did not return to the throne chamber. He carried her through a door that stood opposite that through which he had entered, crossed another room and began stealing down a hall. As she became convinced that he feared some opposition to the abduction, she threw back her head and screamed at the top of her lusty voice.

She was rewarded by a slap that half-stunned her, and Olmec quickened his pace to a shambling run.

But her cry had been echoed and, twisting her head about, Valeria, through the tears and stars that partly blinded her, saw Techotl limping after them.

Olmec turned with a snarl, shifting the woman to an uncomfortable and certainly undignified position under one huge arm, where he held her writhing and kicking vainly, like a child.

"Olmec!" protested Techotl. "You cannot be such a dog as to do this thing! She is Conan's woman! She helped us slay the Xotalancas, and--"

Without a word Olmec balled his free hand into a huge fist and stretched the wounded warrior senseless at his feet. Stooping, and hindered not at all by the struggles and imprecations of his captive, he drew Techotl's sword from its sheath and stabbed the warrior in the breast. Then casting aside the weapon, he fled on along the corridor. He did not see a woman's dark face peer cautiously after him from behind a hanging. It vanished, and presently Techotl groaned and stirred, rose dazedly and staggered drunkenly away, calling Conan's name.

Olmec hurried on down the corridor, and descended a winding ivory staircase. He crossed several corridors and halted at last in a broad chamber whose doors were veiled with heavy tapestries, with one exception--a heavy bronze door similar to the Door of the Eagle on the upper floor.

He was moved to rumble, pointing to it: "That is one of the outer doors of Tecuhltli. For the first time in fifty years it is unguarded. We need not guard it now, for Xotalanc is no more."

"Thanks to Conan and me, you bloody rogue!" sneered Valeria, trembling with fury and the shame of physical coercion. "You treacherous dog! Conan will cut your throat for this!"

Olmec did not bother to voice his belief that Conan's own gullet had already been severed according to his whispered command. He was too utterly cynical to be at all interested in her thoughts or opinions. His flame-lit eyes devoured her, dwelling burningly on the generous expanses of clear white flesh exposed where her shirt and breeches had been torn in the struggle.

"Forget Conan," he said thickly. "Olmec is lord of Xuchotl. Xotalanc is no more. There will be no more fighting. We shall spend our lives in drinking and love-making. First let us drink!"

He seated himself on an ivory table and pulled her down on his knees, like a dark-skinned satyr with a white nymph in his arms. Ignoring her un-nymphlike profanity, he held her helpless with one great arm about her waist while the other reached across the table and secured a vessel of wine.

"Drink!" he commanded, forcing it to her lips, as she writhed her head away.

The liquor slopped over, stinging her lips, splashing down on her naked breasts.

"Your guest does not like your wine, Olmec," spoke a cool, sardonic voice.

Olmec stiffened; fear grew in his flaming eyes. Slowly he swung his great head about and stared at Tascela, who paused negligently in the curtained doorway, one hand on her smooth hip. Valeria twisted herself about in his iron grip, and when she met the burning eyes of Tascela, a chill tingled along her supple spine. New experiences were flooding Valeria's proud soul that night. Recently she had learned to fear a man; now she knew what it was to fear a woman.

Olmec sat motionless, a gray pallor growing under his swarthy skin. Tascela brought her other hand from behind her and displayed a small gold vessel.

"I feared she would not like your wine, Olmec," purred the princess, "so I brought some of mine, some I brought with me long ago from the shores of Lake Zuad--do you understand, Olmec?"

Beads of sweat stood out suddenly on Olmec's brow. His muscles relaxed, and Valeria broke away and put the table between them. But though reason told her to dart from the room, some fascination she could not understand held her rigid, watching the scene.

Tascela came toward the seated prince with a swaying, undulating walk that was mockery in itself. Her voice was soft, slurringly caressing, but her eyes gleamed. Her slim fingers stroked his beard lightly.

"You are selfish, Olmec," she crooned, smiling. "You would keep our handsome guest to yourself, though you knew I wished to entertain her. You are much at fault, Olmec!"

The mask dropped for an instant; he eyes flashed, her face was contorted and with an appalling show of strength her hand locked convulsively in his beard and tore out a great handful. This evidence of unnatural strength was no more terrifying than the momentary baring of the hellish fury that raged under her bland exterior.

Olmec lurched up with a roar, and stood swaying like a bear, his mighty hands clenching and unclenching.

"Slut!" His booming voice filled the room. "Witch! She-devil! Tecuhltli should have slain you fifty years ago! Begone! I have endured too much from you! This white-skinned wench is mine! Get hence before I slay you!"

The princess laughed and dashed the blood-stained strands into his face. Her laughter was less merciful than the ring of flint on steel.

"Once you spoke otherwise, Olmec," she taunted. "Once, in your youth, you spoke words of love. Aye, you were my lover once, years ago, and because you loved me, you slept in my arms beneath the enchanted lotus--and thereby put into my hands the chains that enslaved you. You know you cannot withstand me. You know I have but to gaze into your eyes, with the mystic power a priest of Stygia taught me, long ago, and you are powerless. You remember the night beneath the black lotus that waved above us, stirred by no worldly breeze; you scent again the unearthly perfumes that stole and rose like a cloud about you to enslave you. You cannot fight against me. You are my slave as you were that night--as you shall be so long as you live, Olmec of Xuchotl!"

Her voice had sunk to a murmur like the rippling of a stream running through starlit darkness. She leaned close to the prince and spread her long tapering fingers upon his giant breast. His eyes glared, his great hands fell limply to his sides.

With a smile of cruel malice, Tascela lifted the vessel and placed it to his lips.

"Drink!"

Mechanically the prince obeyed. And instantly the glaze passed from his eyes and they were flooded with fury, comprehension and an awful fear. His mouth gaped, but no sound issued. For an instant he reeled on buckling knees, and then fell in a sodden heap on the floor.

His fall jolted Valeria out of her paralysis. She turned and sprang toward the door, but with a movement that would have shamed a leaping panther, Tascela was before her. Valeria struck at her with her clenched fist, and all the power of her supple body behind the blow. It would have stretched a man senseless on the floor. But with a lithe twist of her torso, Tascela avoided the blow and caught the pirate's wrist. The next instant Valeria's left hand was imprisoned and, holding her wrists together with one hand, Tascela calmly bound them with a cord she drew from her girdle. Valeria thought she had tasted the ultimate in humiliation already that night, but her shame at being manhandled by Olmec was nothing to the sensations that now shook her supple frame. Valeria had always been inclined to despise the other members of her sex; and it was overwhelming to encounter another woman who could handle her like a child. She scarcely resisted at all when Tascela forced her into a chair and, drawing her bound wrists down between her knees, fastened them to the chair.

Casually stepping over Olmec, Tascela walked to the bronze door and shot the bolt and threw it open, revealing a hallway without.

"Opening upon this hall," she remarked, speaking to her feminine captive for the first time, "there is a chamber which in old times was used as a torture room. When we retired into Tecuhltli, we brought most of the apparatus with us, but there was one piece too heavy to move. It is still in working order. I think it will be quite convenient now."

An understanding flame of terror rose in Olmec's eyes. Tascela strode back to him, bent and gripped him by the hair.

"He is only paralyzed temporarily," she remarked conversationally. "He can hear, think, and feel--aye, he can feel very well indeed!"

With which sinister observation she started toward the door, dragging the giant bulk with an ease that made the pirate's eyes dilate. She passed into the hall and moved down it without hesitation, presently disappearing with her captive into a chamber that opened into it, and whence shortly thereafter issued the clank of iron.

Valeria swore softly and tugged vainly, with her legs braced against the chair. The cords that confined her were apparently unbreakable.

Tascela presently returned alone; behind her a muffled groaning issued from the chamber. She closed the door but did not bolt it. Tascela was beyond the grip of habit, as she was beyond the touch of other human instincts and emotions.

Valeria sat dumbly, watching the woman in whose slim hands, the pirate realized, her destiny now rested.

Tascela grasped her yellow locks and forced back her head, looking impersonably down into her face. But the glitter in her dark eyes was not impersonable.

"I have chosen you for a great honor," she said. "You shall restore the youth of Tascela. Oh, you stare at that! My appearance is that of youth, but through my veins creeps the sluggish chill of approaching age, as I have felt it a thousand times before. I am old, so old I do not remember my childhood. But I was a girl once, and a priest of Stygia loved me, and gave me the secret of immortality and youth everlasting. He died, then--some said by poison. But I dwelt in my palace by the shores of Lake Zuad and the passing years touched me not. So at last a king of Stygia desired me, and my people rebelled and brought me to this land. Olmec called me a princess. I am not of royal blood. I am greater than a princess. I am Tascela, whose youth your own glorious youth shall restore."

Valeria's tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. She sensed here a mystery darker than the degeneracy she had anticipated.

The taller woman unbound the Aquilonian's wrists and pulled her to her feet. It was not fear of the dominant strength that lurked in the princess' limbs that made Valeria a helpless, quivering captive in her hands. It was the burning, hypnotic, terrible eyes of Tascela.

== He Comes from the Dark ==

"Well, I'm a Kushite!"

Conan glared down at the man on the iron rack.

"What the devil are you doing on that thing?"

Incoherent sounds issued from behind the gag and Conan bent and tore it away, evoking a bellow of fear from the captive; for his action caused the iron ball to lurch down until it nearly touched the broad breast.

"Be careful, for Set's sake!" begged Olmec.

"What for?" demanded Conan. "Do you think I care what happens to you? I only wish I had time to stay here and watch that chunk of iron grind your guts out. But I'm in a hurry. Where's Valeria?"

"Loose me!" urged Olmec. "I will tell you all!"

"Tell me first."

"Never!" The prince's heavy jaws set stubbornly.

"All right." Conan seated himself on a near-by bench. "I'll find her myself, after you've been reduced to a jelly. I believe I can speed up that process by twisting my sword-point around in your ear," he added, extending the weapon experimentally.

"Wait!" Words came in a rush from the captive's ashy lips. "Tascela took her from me. I've never been anything but a puppet in Tascela's hands."

"Tascela?" snorted Conan, and spat. "Why, the filthy--"

"No, no!" panted Olmec. "It's worse than you think. Tascela is old--centuries old. She renews her life and her youth by the sacrifice of beautiful young women. That's one thing that has reduced the clan to its present state. She will draw the essence of Valeria's life into her own body, and bloom with fresh vigor and beauty."

"Are the doors locked?" asked Conan, thumbing his sword edge.

"Aye! But I know a way to get into Tecuhltli. Only Tascela and I know, and she thinks me helpless and you slain. Free me and I swear I will help you rescue Valeria. Without my help you cannot win into Tecuhltli; for even if you tortured me into revealing the secret, you couldn't work it. Let me go, and we will steal on Tascela and kill her before she can work magic--before she can fix her eyes on us. A knife thrown from behind will do the work. I should have killed her thus long ago, but I feared that without her to aid us the Xotalancas would overcome us. She needed my help, too; that's the only reason she let me live this long. Now neither needs the other, and one must die. I swear that when we have slain the witch, you and Valeria shall go free without harm. My people will obey me when Tascela is dead."

Conan stooped and cut the ropes that held the prince, and Olmec slid cautiously from under the great ball and rose, shaking his head like a bull and muttering imprecations as he fingered his lacerated scalp. Standing shoulder to shoulder the two men presented a formidable picture of primitive power. Olmec was as tall as Conan, and heavier; but there was something repellent about the Tlazitlan, something abysmal and monstrous that contrasted unfavorably with the clean-cut, compact hardness of the Cimmerian. Conan had discarded the remnants of his tattered, blood-soaked shirt, and stood with his remarkable muscular development impressively revealed. His great shoulders were as broad as those of Olmec, and more cleanly outlined, and his huge breast arched with a more impressive sweep to a hard waist that lacked the paunchy thickness of Olmec's midsection. He might have been an image of primal strength cut out of bronze. Olmec was darker, but not from the burning of the sun. If Conan was a figure out of the dawn of time, Olmec was a shambling, somber shape from the darkness of time's pre-dawn.

"Lead on," demanded Conan. "And keep ahead of me. I don't trust you any farther than I can throw a bull by the tail."

Olmec turned and stalked on ahead of him, one hand twitching slightly as it plucked at his matted beard.

Olmec did not lead Conan back to the bronze door, which the prince naturally supposed Tascela had locked, but to a certain chamber on the border of Tecuhltli.

"This secret has been guarded for half a century," he said. "Not even our own clan knew of it, and the Xotalancas never learned. Tecuhltli himself built this secret entrance, afterwards slaying the slaves who did the work for he feared that he might find himself locked out of his own kingdom some day because of the spite of Tascela, whose passion for him soon changed to hate. But she discovered the secret, and barred the hidden door against him one day as he fled back from an unsuccessful raid, and the Xotalancas took him and flayed him. But once, spying upon her, I saw her enter Tecuhltli by this route, and so learned the secret."

He pressed upon a gold ornament in the wall, and a panel swung inward, disclosing an ivory stair leading upward.

"This stair is built within the wall," said Olmec. "It leads up to a tower upon the roof, and thence other stairs wind down to the various chambers. Hasten!"

"After you, comrade!" retorted Conan satirically, swaying his broadsword as he spoke, and Olmec shrugged his shoulders and stepped onto the staircase. Conan instantly followed him, and the door shut behind them. Far above a cluster of fire-jewels made the staircase a well of dusky dragon-light.

They mounted until Conan estimated that they were above the level of the fourth floor, and then came out into a cylindrical tower, in the domed roof of which was set the bunch of fire-jewels that lighted the stair. Through gold-barred windows, set with unbreakable crystal panes, the first windows he had seen in Xuchotl, Conan got a glimpse of high ridges, domes and more towers, looming darkly against the stars. He was looking across the roofs of Xuchotl.

Olmec did not look through the windows. He hurried down one of the several stairs that wound down from the tower, and when they had descended a few feet, this stair changed into a narrow corridor that wound tortuously on for some distance. It ceased at a steep flight of steps leading downward. There Olmec paused.

Up from below, muffled, but unmistakable, welled a woman's scream, edged with fright, fury, and shame. And Conan recognized Valeria's voice.

In the swift rage roused by that cry, and the amazement of wondering what peril could wring such a shriek from Valeria's reckless lips, Conan forgot Olmec. He pushed past the prince and started down the stair. Awakening instinct brought him about again, just as Olmec strruck with his great mallet-like fist. The blow, fierce and silent, was aimed at the base of Conan's brain. But the Cimmerian wheeled in time to receive the buffet on the side of his neck instead. The impact would have snapped the vertebrae of a lesser man. As it was, Conan swayed backward, but even as he reeled he dropped his sword, useless at such close quarters, and grasped Olmec's extended arm, dragging the prince with him as he fell. Headlong they went down the steps together, in a revolving whirl of limbs and heads and bodies. And as they went, Conan's iron fingers found and locked in Olmec's bull-throat.

The barbarian's neck and shoulder felt numb from the sledge-like impact of Olmec's huge fist, which had carried all the strength of the massive forearm, thick triceps and great shoulder. But this did not affect his ferocity to any appreciable extent. Like a bulldog he hung on grimly, rolled, until at last they struck an ivory panel-door at the bottom with such and impact that they splintered it its full length and crashed through its ruins. But Olmec was already dead, for those iron fingers had crushed out his life and broken his neck as they fell.

Conan rose, shaking the splinters from his great shoulders, blinking blood and dust out of his eyes.

He was in the great throne room. There were fifteen people in that room besides himself. The first person he saw was Valeria. A curious black altar stood before the throne-dais. Ranged about it, seven black candles in golden candlesticks sent up oozing spirals of thick green smoke, disturbingly scented. These spirals united in a cloud near the ceiling, forming a smoky arch above the altar. On that altar lay Valeria, stark naked, her white flesh gleaming in shocking contrast to the glistening ebon stone. She was not bound. She lay at full length, her arms stretched out above her head to their fullest extent. At the head of the altar knelt a young man, holding her wrists firmly. A young woman knelt at the other end of the altar, grasping her ankles. Between them she could neither rise nor move.

Eleven men and women of Tecuhltli knelt dumbly in a semicircle, watching the scene with hot, lustful eyes.

On the ivory throne-seat Tascela lolled. Bronze bowls of incense rolled their spirals about her; the wisps of smoke curled about her naked limbs like caressing fingers. She could not sit still; she squirmed and shifted about with sensuous abandon, as if finding pleasure in the contact of the smooth ivory with her sleek flesh.

The crash of the door as it broke beneath the impact of the hurtling bodies caused no change in the scene. The kneeling men and women merely glanced incuriously at the corpse of their prince and at the man who rose from the ruins of the door, then swung their eyes greedily back to the writhing white shape on the black altar. Tascela looked insolently at him, and sprawled back on her seat, laughing mockingly.

"Slut!" Conan saw red. His hands clenched into iron hammers as he started for her. With his first step something clanged loudly and steel bit savagely into his leg. He stumbled and almost fell, checked in his headlong stride. The jaws of an iron trap had closed on his leg, with teeth that sank deep and held. Only the ridged muscles of his calf saved the bone from being splintered. The accursed thing had sprung out of the smoldering floor without warning. He saw the slots now, in the floor where the jaws had lain, perfectly camouflaged.

"Fool!" laughed Tascela. "Did you think I would not guard against your possible return? Every door in this chamber is guarded by such traps. Stand there and watch now, while I fulfill the destiny of your handsome friend! Then I will decide your own."

Conan's hand instinctively sought his belt, only to encounter an empty scabbard. His sword was on the stair behind him. His poniard was lying back in the forest, where the dragon had torn it from his jaw. The steel teeth in his leg were like burning coals, but the pain was not as savage as the fury that seethed in his soul. He was trapped, like a wolf. If he had had his sword he would have hewn off his leg and crawled across the floor to slay Tascela. Valeria's eyes rolled toward him with mute appeal, and his own helplessness sent red waves of madness surging through his brain.

Dropping on the knee of his free leg, he strove to get his fingers between the jaws of the trap, to tear them apart by sheer strength. Blood started from beneath his fingernails, but the jaws fitted close about his leg in a circle whose segments jointed perfectly, contracted until there was no space between his mangled flesh and the fanged iron. The site of Valeria's naked body added flame to the fire of his rage.

Tascela ignored him. Rising languidly from her seat she swept the ranks of her subjects with a searching glance, and asked: "Where are Xamec, Zlanath and Tachic?"

"They did not return from the catacombs, princess," answered a man. "Like the rest of us, they bore bodies of the slain into the crypts, but they have not returned. Perhaps the ghost of Tolkemec took them."

"Be silent, fool!" she ordered harshly. "The ghost is a myth."

She came down from her dais, playing with a thin gold-hilted dagger. Her eyes burned like nothing on the hither side of hell. She paused beside the altar and spoke in the tense stillness.

"Your life shall make me young, white woman!" she said. "I shall lean upon your bosom and place my lips over yours, and slowly--ah, slowly!--sink this blade through your heart, so that your life, fleeing your stiffening body, shall enter mine, making me bloom again with youth and with life everlasting!"

Slowly, like a serpent arching toward its victim, she bent down through the writhing smoke, closer and closer over the now motionless woman who stared up into her glowing dark eyes--eyes that grew larger and deeper, blazing like black moons in the swirling smoke.

The kneeling people gripped their hands and held their breath, tense for the bloody climax, and the only sound was Conan's fierce panting as he strove to tear his leg from the trap.

All eyes were glued on the altar and the white figure there; the crash of a thunderbolt could hardly have broken the spell, yet it was only a low cry that shattered the fixity of the scene and bought all whirling about--a low cry, yet one to make the hair stand up stiffly on the scalp. They looked, and they saw.

Framed in the door to the left of the dais stood a nightmare figure. It was a man, with a tangle of white hair and a matted white beard that fell over his breast. Rags only partly covered his gaunt frame, revealing half-naked limbs strangely unnatural in appearance. The skin was not like that of a normal human. There was a suggestion of scaliness about it, as if the owner had dwelt long under conditions almost antithetical to those conditions under which human life ordinarily thrives. And there was nothing at all human about the eyes that blazed from the tangle of white hair. They were great gleaming disks that started unwinkingly, luminous, whitish, and without a hint of normal emotion or sanity. The mouth gaped, but no coherent words issued--only a high-pitched tittering.

"Tolkemec!" whispered Tascela, livid, while the others crouched in speechless horror. "No myth, then, no ghost! Set! You have dwelt for twelve years in darkness! Twelve years among the bones of the dead! What grisly food did you find? What mad travesty of life did you live, in the stark blackness of that eternal night? I see now why Xamec and Zlanath and Tachic did not return from the catacombs--and never will return. But why have you waited so long to strike? Were you seeking something, in the pits? Some secret weapon you knew was hidden there? And have you found it at last?"

That hideous tittering was Tolkemec's only reply, as he bounded into the room with a long leap that carried him over the secret trap before the door--by chance, or by some faint recollection of the ways of Xuchotl. He was not mad, as a man is mad. He had dwelt apart from humanity so long that he was no longer human. Only an unbroken thread of memory embodied in hate and the urge for vengeance had connected him with the humanity from which he had been cut off, and held him lurking near the people he hated. Only that thin string had kept him from racing and prancing off for ever into the black corridors and realms of the subterranean world he had discovered, long ago.

"You sought something hidden!" whispered Tascela, cringing back. "And you have found it! You remember the feud! After all these years of blackness, you remember!"

For in the lean hand of Tolkemec now waved a curious jade-hued wand, on the end of which glowed a knob of crimson shaped like a pomegranate. She sprang aside as he thrust it out like a spear, and a beam of crimson fire lanced from the pomegranate. It missed Tascela, but the woman holding Valeria's ankles was in the way. It smote between her shoulders. There was a sharp crackling sound and the ray of fire flashed from her bosom and struck the black altar, with a snapping of blue sparks. The woman toppled sidewise, shriveling and withering like a mummy even as she fell.

Valeria rolled from the altar on the other side, and started for the opposite wall on all fours. For hell had burst loose in the throne room of dead Olmec.

The man who had held Valeria's hands was the next to die. He turned to run, but before he had taken half a dozen steps, Tolkemec, with an agility appalling in such a frame, bounded around to a position that placed the man between him and the altar. Again the red fire-beam flashed and the Tecuhltli rolled lifeless to the floor, as the beam completed its course with a burst of blue sparks against the altar.

Then began the slaughter. Screaming insanely the people rushed about the chamber, caroming from one another, stumbling and falling. And among them Tolkemec capered and pranced, dealing death. They could not escape by the doors; for apparently the metal of the portals served like the metal veined stone altar to complete the circuit for whatever hellish power flashed like thunderbolts from the witch-wand the ancient waved in his hand. When he caught a man or a woman between him and a door or the altar, that one died instantly. He chose no special victim. He took them as they came, with his rags flapping about his wildly gyrating limbs, and the gusty echoes of his tittering sweeping the room above the screams. And bodies fell like falling leaves about the altar and at the doors. One warrior in desperation rushed at him, lifting a dagger, only to fall before he could strike. But the rest were like crazed cattle, with no thought for resistance, and no chance of escape.

The last Tecuhltli except Tascela had fallen when the princess reached the Cimmerian and the girl who had taken refuge beside him. Tascela bent and touched the floor, pressing a design upon it. Instantly the iron jaws released the bleeding limb and sank back into the floor.

"Slay him if you can!" she panted, and pressed a heavy knife into his hand. "I have no magic to withstand him!"

With a grunt he sprang before the woman, not heeding his lacerated leg in the heat of the fighting lust. Tolkemec was coming toward him, his weird eyes ablaze, but he hesitated at the gleam of the knife in Conan's hand. Then began a grim game, as Tolkemec sought to circle about Conan and get the barbarian between him and the altar or a metal door, while Conan sought to avoid this and drive home his knife. The women watched tensely, holding their breath.

There was no sound except the rustle and scrape of quick-shifting feet. Tolkemec pranced and capered no more. He realized that grimmer game confronted him than the people who had died screaming and fleeing. In the elemental blaze of the barbarian's eyes he read an intent deadly as his own. Back and forth they weaved, and when one moved the other moved as if invisible threads bound them together. But all the time Conan was getting closer and closer to his enemy. Already the coiled muscles of his thighs were beginning to flex for a spring, when Valeria cried out. For a fleeting instant a bronze door was in line with Conan's moving body. The red line leaped, searing Conan's flank as he twisted aside, and even as he shifted he hurled the knife. Old Tolkemec went down, truly slain at last, the hilt vibrating on his breast.

Tascela sprang--not toward Conan, but toward the wand where it shimmered like a live thing on the floor. But as she leaped, so did Valeria, with a dagger snatched from a dead man; and the blade, driven with all the power of the pirate's muscles, impaled the princess of Tecuhltli so that the point stood out between her breasts. Tascela screamed once and fell dead, and Valeria spurned the body with her heel as it fell.

"I had to do that much, for my own self-respect!" panted Valeria, facing Conan across the limp corpse.

"Well, this cleans up the feud," he grunted. "It's been a hell of a night! Where did these people keep their food? I'm hungry."

"You need a bandage on that leg." Valeria ripped a length of silk from a hanging and knotted it about her waist, then tore off some smaller strips which she bound efficiently about the barbarian's lacerated limb.

"I can walk on it," he assured her. "Let's begone. It's dawn, outside this infernal city. I've had enough of Xuchotl. It's well the breed exterminated itself. I don't want any of their accursed jewels. They might be haunted."

"There is enough clean loot in the world for you and me," she said, straightening to stand tall and splendid before him.

The old blaze came back in his eyes, and this time she did not resist as he caught her fiercely in his arms.

"It's a long way to the coast," she said presently, withdrawing her lips from his.

"What matter?" he laughed. "There's nothing we can't conquer. We'll have our feet on a ship's deck before the Stygians open their ports for the trading season. And then we'll show the world what plundering means!"
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=«Гвозди с красными шляпками»=
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«Red Nails»/«Гвозди с красными шляпками»

2017-12-11T15:59:48Z

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«Red Nails»/«Гвозди с красными шляпками»
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== The Skull on the Crag ==

The woman on the horse reined in her weary steed. It stood with its legs wide-braced, its head drooping, as if it found even the weight of the gold-tassled, red-leather bridle too heavy. The woman drew a booted foot out of the silver stirrup and swung down from the gilt-worked saddle. She made the reins fast to the fork of a sapling, and turned about, hands on her hips, to survey her surroundings.

They were not inviting. Giant trees hemmed in the small pool where her horse had just drunk. Clumps of undergrowth limited the vision that quested under the somber twilight of the lofty arches formed by intertwining branches. The woman shivered with a twitch of her magnificent shoulders, and then cursed.

She was tall, full-bosomed, and large-limbed, with compact shoulders. Her whole figure reflected an unusual strength, without detracting from the femininity of her appearance. She was all woman, in spite of her bearing and her garments. The latter were incongruous, in view of her present environs. Instead of a skirt she wore short, wide-legged silk breeches, which ceased a hand's breadth short of her knees, and were upheld by a wide silken sash worn as a girdle. Flaring-topped boots of soft leather came almost to her knees, and a low-necked, wide-collared, wide-sleeved silk shirt completed her costume. On one shapely hip she wore a straight double-edged sword, and on the other a long dirk. Her unruly golden hair, cut square at her shoulders, was confined by a band of crimson satin.

Against the background of somber, primitive forest she posed with an unconscious picturesqueness, bizarre and out of place. She should have been posed against a background of sea clouds, painted masts, and wheeling gulls. There was the color of the sea in her wide eyes. And that was at it should have been, because this was Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, whose deeds are celebrated in song and ballad wherever seafarers gather.

She strove to pierce the sullen green roof of the arched branches and see the sky which presumably lay above it, but presently gave it up with a muttered oath.

Leaving her horse tied, she strode off toward the east, glancing back toward the pool from time to time in order to fix her route in her mind. The silence of the forest depressed her. No birds sang in the lofty boughs, nor did any rustling in the bushes indicate the presence of small animals. For leagues she had traveled in a realm of brooding stillness, broken only by the sounds of her own flight.

She had slaked her thirst at the pool, but now felt the gnawings of hunger and began looking about for some of the fruit on which she had sustained herself since exhausting the food originally in her saddlebags.

Ahead of her, presently, she saw an outcropping of dark, flintlike rock that sloped upward into what looked like a rugged crag rising among the trees. Its summit was lost to view amidst a cloud of encircling leaves. Perhaps its peak rose above the treetops, and from it she could see what lay beyond--if, indeed, anything lay beyond but more of this apparently illimitable forest through which she had ridden for so many days.

A narrow ridge formed a natural ramp that led up the steep face of the crag. After she had ascended some fifty feet, she came to the belt of leaves that surrounded the rock. The trunks of the trees did not crowd close to the crag, but the ends of their lower branches extended about it, veiling it with their foliage. She groped on in leafy obscurity, not able to see either above or below her; but presently she glimpsed blue sky, and a moment later came out in the clear, hot sunlight and saw the forest roof stretching away under her feet.

She was standing on a broad shelf which was about even with the treetops, and from it rose a spirelike jut that was the ultimate peak of the crag she had climbed. But something else caught her attention at the moment. Her foot had struck something in the litter of blown dead leaves which carpeted the shelf. She kicked them aside and looked down on the skeleton of a man. She ran an experienced eye over the bleached frame, but saw no broken bones nor any sign of violence. The man must have died a natural death; though why he should have climbed a tall crag to die she could not imagine.

She scrambled up to the summit of the spire and looked toward the horizons. The forest roof--which looked like a floor from her vantage point--was just as impenetrable as from below. She could not even see the pool by which she had left her horse. She glanced northward, in the direction from which she had come. She saw only the rolling green ocean stretching away and away, with just a vague blue line in the distance to hint of the hill range she had crossed days before, to plunge into this leafy waste.

West and east the view was the same; though the blue hill-line was lacking in those directions. But when she turned her eyes southward she stiffened and caught her breath. A mile away in that direction the forest thinned out and ceased abruptly, giving way to a cactus-dotted plain. And in the midst of that plain rose the walls and towers of a city. Valeria swore in amazement. This passed belief. She would not have been surprised to sight human habitations of another sort--the beehive-shaped huts of the black people, or the cliff-dwellings of the mysterious brown race which legends declared inhabited some country of this unexplored region. But it was a startling experience to come upon a walled city here so many long weeks' march from the nearest outposts of any sort of civilization.

Her hands tiring from clinging to the spirelike pinnacle, she let herself down on the shelf, frowning in indecision. She had come far--from the camp of the mercenaries by the border town of Sukhmet amidst the level grasslands, where desperate adventurers of many races guard the Stygian frontier against the raids that come up like a red wave from Darfar. Her flight had been blind, into a country of which she was wholly ignorant. And now she wavered between an urge to ride directly to that city in the plain, and the instinct of caution which prompted her to skirt it widely and continue her solitary flight.

Her thoughts were scattered by the rustling of the leaves below her. She wheeled catlike, snatched at her sword; and then she froze motionless, staring wide-eyed at the man before her.

He was almost a giant in stature, muscles rippling smoothly under his skin, which the sun had burned brown. His garb was similar to hers, except that he wore a broad leather belt instead of a girdle. Broadsword and poniard hung from his belt.

"Conan, the Cimmerian!" ejaculated the woman. "What are you doing on my trail?"

He grinned hardly, and his fierce blue eyes burned with a light any woman could understand as they ran over her magnificent figure, lingering on the swell of her splendid breasts beneath the light shirt, and the clear white flesh displayed between breeches and boot-tops.

"Don't you know?" he laughed. "Haven't I made my admiration for you plain ever since I first saw you?"

"A stallion could have made it no plainer," she answered disdainfully. "But I never expected to encounter you so far from the ale barrels and meatpots of Sukhmet. Did you really follow me from Zarallo's camp, or were you whipped forth for a rogue?"

He laughed at her insolence and flexed his mighty biceps.

"You know Zarallo didn't have enough knaves to whip me out of camp," he grinned. "Of course I followed you. Lucky thing for you, too, wench! When you knifed that Stygian officer, you forfeited Zarallo's favor, and protection, and you outlawed yourself with the Stygians."

"I know it," she replied sullenly. "But what else could I do? You know what my provocation was."

"Sure," he agreed. "If I'd been there, I'd have knifed him myself. But if a woman must live in the war camps of men, she can expect such things."

Valeria stamped her booted foot and swore.

"Why won't men let me life a man's life?"

"That's obvious!" Again his eager eyes devoured her. "But you were wise to run away. The Stygians would have had you skinned. That officer's brother followed you; faster than you thought, I don't doubt. He wasn't far behind you when I caught up with him. His horse was better than yours. He'd have caught you and cut your throat within a few more miles."

"Well?" she demanded.

"Well what?" He seemed puzzled.

"What of the Stygian?"

"Why, what do you suppose?" he returned impatiently. "I killed him, of course, and left his carcass for the vultures. That delayed me, though, and I almost lost your trail when you crossed the rocky spurs of the hills. Otherwise I'd have caught up with you long ago."

"And now you think you'll drag me back to Zarallo's camp?" she sneered.

"Don't talk like a fool," he grunted. "Come, girl, don't be such a spitfire. I'm not like that Stygian you knifed, and you know it."

"A penniless vagabond," she taunted.

He laughed at her.

"What do you call yourself? You haven't enough money to buy a new seat for your breeches. Your disdain doesn't deceive me. You know I've commanded bigger ships and more men than you ever did in your life. As for being penniless--what rover isn't, most of the time? I've squandered enough gold in the seaports of the world to fill a galleon. You know that, too."

"Where are the fine ships and the bold lads you commanded now?" she sneered.

"At the bottom of the sea, mostly," he replied cheerfully. "The Zingarans sank my last ship off the Shemite shore--that's why I joined Zarallo's Free Companions. But I saw I'd been stung when we marched to the Darfar border. The pay was poor and the wine was sour, and I don't like black women. And that's the only kind that came to our camp at Sukhmet--rings in their noses and their teeth filed--bah! Why did you join Zarallo? Sukhmet's a long way from salt water."

"Red Ortho wanted to make me his mistress," she answered sullenly. "I jumped overboard one night and swam ashore when we were anchored off the Kushite coast. Off Zabhela, it was. There was a Shemite trader told me that Zarallo had brought his Free Companies south to guard the Darfar border. No better employment offered. I joined an east-bound caravan and eventually came to Sukhmet."

"It was madness to plunge southward as you did," commented Conan, "but it was wise, too, for Zarallo's patrols never thought to look for you in this direction. Only the brother of the man you killed happened to strike your trail."

"And now what do you intend doing?" she demanded.

"Turn west," he answered. "I've been this far south, but not this far east. Many days' traveling to the west will bring us to the open savannas, where the black tribes graze their cattle. I have friends among them. We'll get to the coast and find a ship. I'm sick of the jungle."

"Then be on your way," she advised. "I have other plans."

"Don't be a fool!" He showed irritation for the first time. "You can't keep on wandering through this forest."

"I can if I choose."

"But what do you intend doing?"

"That's none of your affair," she snapped.

"Yes, it is," he answered calmly. "Do you think I've followed you this far, to turn around and ride off empty-handed? Be sensible, wench. I'm not going to harm you."

He stepped toward her, and she sprang back, whipping out her sword.

"Keep back, you barbarian dog! I'll spit you like a roast pig!"

He halted, reluctantly, and demanded: "Do you want me to take that toy away from you and spank you with it?"

"Words! Nothing but words!" she mocked, lights like the gleam of the sun on blue water dancing in her reckless eyes.

He knew it was the truth. No living man could disarm Valeria of the Brotherhood with his bare hands. He scowled, his sensations a tangle of conflicting emotions. He was angry, yet he was amused and filled with admiration for her spirit. He burned with eagerness to seize that splendid figure and crush it in his iron arms, yet he greatly desired not to hurt the girl. He was torn between a desire to shake her soundly, and a desire to caress her. He knew if he came any nearer her sword would be sheathed in his heart. He had seen Valeria kill too many men in border forays and tavern brawls to have any illusions about her. He knew she was as quick and ferocious as a tigress. He could draw his broadsword and disarm her, beat the blade out of her hand, but the thought of drawing a sword on a woman, even without intent of injury, was extremely repugnant to him.

"Blast your soul, you hussy!" he exclaimed in exasperation. "I'm going to take off your--"

He started toward her, his angry passion making him reckless, and she poised herself for a deadly thrust. Then came a startling interruption to a scene at once ludicrous and perilous.

"What's that?"

It was Valeria who exclaimed, but they both started violently, and Conan wheeled like a cat, his great sword flashing into his hand. Back in the forest had burst forth an appalling medley of screams--the screams of horses in terror and agony. Mingled with their screams there came the snap of splintering bones.

"Lions are slaying the horses!" cried Valeria.

"Lions, nothing!" snorted Conan, his eyes blazing. "Did you hear a lion roar? Neither did I! Listen to those bones snap--not even a lion could make that much noise killing a horse."

He hurried down the natural ramp and she followed, their personal feud forgotten in the adventurers' instinct to unite against common peril. The screams had ceased when they worked their way downward through the green veil of leaves that brushed the rock.

"I found your horse tied by the pool back there," he muttered, treading so noiselessly that she no longer wondered how he had surprised her on the crag. "I tied mine beside it and followed the tracks of your boots. Watch, now!"

They had emerged from the belt of leaves, and stared down into the lower reaches of the forest. Above them the green roof spread its dusky canopy. Below them the sunlight filtered in just enough to make a jade-tinted twilight. The giant trunks of trees less than a hundred yards away looked dim and ghostly.

"The horses should be beyond that thicket, over there," whispered Conan, and his voice might have been a breeze moving through the branches. "Listen!"

Valeria had already heard, and a chill crept through her veins; so she unconsciously laid her white hand on her companion's muscular brown arm. From beyond the thicket came the noisy crunching of bones and the loud rending of flesh, together with the grinding, slobbering sounds of a horrible feast.

"Lions wouldn't make that noise," whispered Conan. "Something's eating our horses, but it's not a lion--Crom!"

The noise stopped suddenly, and Conan swore softly. A suddenly risen breeze was blowing from them directly toward the spot where the unseen slayer was hidden.

"Here it comes!" muttered Conan, half lifting his sword.

The thicket was violently agitated, and Valeria clutched Conan's arm hard. Ignorant of jungle lore, she yet knew that no animal she had ever seen could have shaken the tall brush like that.

"It must be as big as an elephant," muttered Conan, echoing her thought. "What the devil--" His voice trailed away in stunned silence.

Through the thicket was thrust a head of nightmare and lunacy. Grinning jaws bared rows of dripping yellow tusks; above the yawning mouth wrinkled a saurian-like snout. Huge eyes, like those of a python a thousand times magnified, stared unwinkingly at the petrified humans clinging to the rock above it. Blood smeared the scaly, flabby lips and dripped from the huge mouth.

The head, bigger than that of a crocodile, was further extended on a long scaled neck on which stood up rows of serrated spikes, and after it, crushing down the briars and saplings, waddled the body of a titan, a gigantic, barrel-bellied torso on absurdly short legs. The whitish belly almost raked the ground, while the serrated backbone rose higher than Conan could have reached on tiptoe. A long spiked tail, like that of a gargantuan scorpion, trailed out behind.

"Back up the crag, quick!" snapped Conan, thrusting the girl behind him. "I don't think he can climb, but he can stand on his hind legs and reach us--"

With a snapping and rending of bushes and saplings, the monster came hurtling through the thickets, and they fled up the rock before him like leaves blown before a wind. As Valeria plunged into the leafy screen a backward glance showed her the titan rearing up fearsomely on his massive hind legs, even as Conan had predicted. The sight sent panic racing through her. As he reared, the beast seemed more gigantic than ever; his snouted head towered among the trees. Then Conan's iron hand closed on her wrist and she was jerked headlong into the blinding welter of the leaves, and out again into the hot sunshine above, just as the monster fell forward with his front feet on the crag with an impact that made the rock vibrate.

Behind the fugitives the huge head crashed through the twigs, and they looked down for a horrifying instant at the nightmare visage framed among the green leaves, eyes flaming, jaws gaping. Then the giant tusks clashed together futilely, and after that the head was withdrawn, vanishing from their sight as if it had sunk in a pool.

Peering down through broken branches that scraped the rock, they saw it squatting on its haunches at the foot of the crag, staring unblinkingly up at them.

Valeria shuddered.

"How long do you suppose he'll crouch there?"

Conan kicked the skull on the leaf-strewn shelf.

"That fellow must have climbed up here to escape him, or one like him. He must have died of starvation. There are no bones broken. That thing must be a dragon, such as the black people speak of in their legends. If so, it won't leave here until we're both dead."

Valeria looked at him blankly, her resentment forgotten. She fought down a surging of panic. She had proved her reckless courage a thousand times in wild battles on sea and land, on the blood-slippery decks of burning war ships, in the storming of walled cities, and on the trampled sandy beaches where the desperate men of the Red Brotherhood bathed their knives in one another's blood in their fights for leadership. But the prospect now confronting her congealed her blood. A cutlass stroke in the heat of battle was nothing; but to sit idle and helpless on a bare rock until she perished of starvation, besieged by a monstrous survival of an elder age--the thought sent panic throbbing through her brain.

"He must leave to eat and drink," she said helplessly.

"He won't have to go far to do either," Conan pointed out. "He's just gorged on horse meat and, like a real snake, he can go for a long time without eating or drinking again. But he doesn't sleep after eating, like a real snake, it seems. Anyway, he can't climb this crag."

Conan spoke imperturbably. He was a barbarian, and the terrible patience of the wilderness and its children was as much a part of him as his lusts and rages. He could endure a situation like this with a coolness impossible to a civilized person.

"Can't we get into the trees and get away, traveling like apes through the branches?" she asked desperately.

He shook his head. "I thought of that. The branches that touch the crag down there are too light. They'd break with our weight. Besides, I have an idea that devil could tear up any tree around here by its roots."

"Well, are we going to sit here on our rumps until we starve, like that?" she cried furiously, kicking the skull clattering across the ledge. "I won't do it! I'll go down there and cut his damned head off--"

Conan had seated himself on a rocky projection at the foot of the spire. He looked up with a glint of admiration at her blazing eyes and tense, quivering figure, but, realizing that she was in just the mood for any madness, he let none of his admiration sound in his voice.

"Sit down," he grunted, catching her by her wrist and pulling her down on his knee. She was too surprised to resist as he took her sword from her hand and shoved it back in its sheath. "Sit still and calm down. You'd only break your steel on his scales. He'd gobble you up at one gulp, or smash you like an egg with that spiked tail of his. We'll get out of this jam some way, but we shan't do it by getting chewed up and swallowed."

She made no reply, nor did she seek to repulse his arm from about her waist. She was frightened, and the sensation was new to Valeria of the Red Brotherhood. So she sat on her companion's--or captor's--knee with a docility that would have amazed Zarallo, who had anathematized her as a she-devil out of Hell's seraglio.

Conan played idly with her curly yellow locks, seemingly intent only upon his conquest. Neither the skeleton at his feet nor the monster crouching below disturbed his mind or dulled the edge of his interest.

The girl's restless eyes, roving the leaves below them, discovered splashes of color among the green. It was fruit, large, darkly crimson globes suspended from the boughs of a tree whose broad leaves were a peculiarly rich and vivid green. She became aware of both thirst and hunger, though thirst had not assailed her until she knew she could not descend from the crag to find food and water.

"We need not starve," she said. "There is fruit we can reach."

Conan glanced where she pointed.

"If we ate that we wouldn't need the bite of a dragon," he grunted. "That's what the black people of Kush call the Apples of Derketa. Derketa is the Queen of the Dead. Drink a little of that juice, or spill it on your flesh, and you'd be dead before you could tumble to the foot of this crag."

"Oh!"

She lapsed into dismayed silence. There seemed no way out of their predicament, she reflected gloomily. She saw no way of escape, and Conan seemed to be concerned only with her supple waist and curly tresses. If he was trying to formulate a plan of escape, he did not show it.

"If you'll take your hands off me long enough to climb up on that peak," she said presently, "you'll see something that will surprise you."

He cast her a questioning glance, then obeyed with a shrug of his massive shoulders. Clinging to the spirelike pinnacle, he stared out over the forest roof.

He stood a long moment in silence, posed like a bronze statue on the rock.

"It's a walled city, right enough," he muttered presently. "Was that where you were going, when you tried to send me off alone to the coast?"

"I saw it before you came. I knew nothing of it when I left Sukhmet."

"Who'd have thought to find a city here? I don't believe the Stygians ever penetrated this far. Could black people build a city like that? I see no herds on the plain, no signs of cultivation, or people moving about."

"How can you hope to see all that, at this distance?" she demanded.

He shrugged his shoulders and dropped down on the shelf.

"Well, the folk of the city can't help us just now. And they might not, if they could. The people of the Black Countries are generally hostile to strangers. Probably stick us full of spears--"

He stopped short and stood silent, as if he had forgotten what he was saying, frowning down at the crimson spheres gleaming among the leaves.

"Spears!" he muttered. "What a blasted fool I am not to have thought of that before! That shows what a pretty woman does to a man's mind."

"What are you talking about?" she inquired.

Without answering her question, he descended to the belt of leaves and looked down through them. The great brute squatted below, watching the crag with the frightful patience of the reptile folk. So might one of his breed have glared up at their troglodyte ancestors, treed on a high-flung rock, in the dim dawn ages. Conan cursed him without heat, and began cutting branches, reaching out and severing them as far from the end as he could reach. The agitation of the leaves made the monster restless. He rose from his haunches and lashed his hideous tail, snapping off saplings as if they had been toothpicks. Conan watched him warily from the corner of his eye, and just as Valeria believed the dragon was about to hurl himself up the crag again, the Cimmerian drew back and climbed up to the ledge with the branches he had cut. There were three of these, slender shafts about seven feet long, but not larger than his thumb. He had also cut several strands of tough, thin vine.

"Branches too light for spear-hafts, and creepers no thicker than cords," he remarked, indicating the foliage about the crag. "It won't hold our weight--but there's strength in union. That's what the Aquilonian renegades used to tell us Cimmerians when they came into the hills to raise an army to invade their own country. But we always fight by clans and tribes."

"What the devil has that got to do with those sticks?" she demanded.

"You wait and see."

Gathering the sticks in a compact bundle, he wedged his poniard hilt between them at one end. Then with the vines he bound them together and, when he had completed his task, he had a spear of no small strength, with a sturdy shaft seven feet in length.

"What good will that do?" she demanded. "You told me that a blade couldn't pierce his scales--"

"He hasn't got scales all over him," answered Conan. "There's more than one way of skinning a panther."

Moving down to the edge of the leaves, he reached the spear up and carefully thrust the blade through one of the Apples of Derketa, drawing aside to avoid the darkly purple drops that dripped from the pierced fruit. Presently he withdrew the blade and showed her the blue steel stained a dull purplish crimson.

"I don't know whether it will do the job or not," quoth he. "There's enough poison there to kill an elephant, but--well, we'll see."

Valeria was close behind him as he let himself down among the leaves. Cautiously holding the poisoned pike away from him, he thrust his head through the branches and addressed the monster.

"What are you waiting down there for, you misbegotten offspring of questionable parents?" was one of his more printable queries. "Stick your ugly head up here again, you long-necked brute--or do you want me to come down there and kick you loose from your illegitimate spine?"

There was more of it--some of it crouched in eloquence that made Valeria stare, in spite of her profane education among the seafarers. And it had its effect on the monster. Just as the incessant yapping of a dog worries and enrages more constitutionally silent animals, so the clamorous voice of a man rouses fear in some bestial bosoms and insane rage in others. Suddenly and with appalling quickness, the mastodonic brute reared up on its mighty hind legs and elongated its neck and body in a furious effort to reach this vociferous pigmy whose clamor was disturbing the primeval silence of its ancient realm.

But Conan had judged his distance with precision. Some five feet below him the mighty head crashed terribly but futilely through the leaves. And as the monstrous mouth gaped like that of a great snake, Conan drove his spear into the red angle of the jawbone hinge. He struck downward with all the strength of both arms, driving the long poniard blade to the hilt in flesh, sinew and bone.

Instantly the jaws clashed convulsively together, severing the triple-pieced shaft and almost precipitating Conan from his perch. He would have fallen but for the girl behind him, who caught his sword-belt in a desperate grasp. He clutched at a rocky projection, and grinned his thanks back at her.

Down on the ground the monster was wallowing like a dog with pepper in its eyes. He shook his head from side to side, pawed at it, and opened his mouth repeatedly to its widest extent. Presently he got a huge front foot on the stump of the shaft and managed to tear the blade out. Then he threw up his head, jaws wide and spouting blood, and glared up at the crag with such concentrated and intelligent fury that Valeria trembled and drew her sword. The scales along his back and flanks turned from rusty brown to a dull lurid red. Most horribly the monster's silence was broken. The sounds that issued from his blood-streaming jaws did not sound like anything that could have been produced by an earthly creation.

With harsh, grating roars, the dragon hurled himself at the crag that was the citadel of his enemies. Again and again his mighty head crashed upward through the branches, snapping vainly on empty air. He hurled his full ponderous weight against the rock until it vibrated from base to crest. And rearing upright he gripped it with his front legs like a man and tried to tear it up by the roots, as if it had been a tree.

This exhibition of primordial fury chilled the blood in Valeria's veins, but Conan was too close to the primitive himself to feel anything but a comprehending interest. To the barbarian, no such gulf existed between himself and other men, and the animals, as existed in the conception of Valeria. The monster below them, to Conan, was merely a form of life differing from himself mainly in physical shape. He attributed to it characteristics similar to his own, and saw in its wrath a counterpart of his rages, in its roars and bellowings merely reptilian equivalents to the curses he had bestowed upon it. Feeling a kinship with all wild things, even dragons, it was impossible for him to experience the sick horror which assailed Valeria at the sight of the brute's ferocity.

He sat watching it tranquilly, and pointed out the various changes that were taking place in its voice and actions.

"The poison's taking hold," he said with conviction.

"I don't believe it." To Valeria it seemed preposterous to suppose that anything, however lethal, could have any effect on that mountain of muscle and fury.

"There's pain in his voice," declared Conan. "First he was merely angry because of the stinging in his jaw. Now he feels the bite of the poison. Look! He's staggering. He'll be blind in a few more minutes. What did I tell you?"

For suddenly the dragon had lurched about and went crashing off through the bushes.

"Is he running away?" inquired Valeria uneasily.

"He's making for the pool!" Conan sprang up, galvanized into swift activity. "The poison makes him thirsty. Come on! He'll be blind in a few moments, but he can smell his way back to the foot of the crag, and if our scent's here still, he'll sit there until he dies. And others of his kind may come at his cries. Let's go!"

"Down there?" Valeria was aghast.

"Sure! We'll make for the city! They may cut our heads off there, but it's our only chance. We may run into a thousand more dragons on the way, but it's sure death to stay here. If we wait until he dies, we may have a dozen more to deal with. After me, in a hurry!"

He went down the ramp as swiftly as an ape, pausing only to aid his less agile companion, who, until she saw the Cimmerian climb, had fancied herself the equal of any man in the rigging of a ship or on the sheer face of a cliff.

They descended into the gloom below the branches and slid to the ground silently, though Valeria felt as if the pounding of her heart must surely be heard from far away. A noisy gurgling and lapping beyond the dense thicket indicated that the dragon was drinking at the pool.

"As soon as his belly is full he'll be back," muttered Conan. "It may take hours for the poison to kill him--if it does at all."

Somewhere beyond the forest the sun was sinking to the horizon. The forest was a misty twilight place of black shadows and dim vistas. Conan gripped Valeria's wrist and glided away from the foot of the crag. He made less noise than a breeze blowing among the tree trunks, but Valeria felt as if her soft boots were betraying their flight to all the forest.

"I don't think he can follow a trail," muttered Conan. "But if a wind blew our body scent to him, he could smell us out."

"Mitra, grant that the wind blow not!" Valeria breathed.

Her face was a pallid oval in the gloom. She gripped her sword in her free hand, but the feel of the shagreen-bound hilt inspired only a feeling of helplessness in her.

They were still some distance from the edge of the forest when they heard a snapping and crashing behind them. Valeria bit her lip to check a cry.

"He's on our trail!" she whispered fiercely.

Conan shook his head.

"He didn't smell us at the rock, and he's blundering about through the forest trying to pick up our scent. Come on! It's the city or nothing now! He could tear down any tree we'd climb. If only the wind stays down--"

They stole on until the trees began to thin out ahead of them. Behind them the forest was a black impenetrable ocean of shadows. The ominous crackling still sounded behind them, as the dragon blundered in his erratic course.

"There's the plain ahead," breathed Valeria. "A little more and we'll--"

"Crom!" swore Conan.

"Mitra!" whispered Valeria.

Out of the south a wind had sprung up.

It blew over them directly into the black forest behind them. Instantly a horrible roar shook the woods. The aimless snapping and crackling of the bushes changed to a sustained crashing as the dragon came like a hurricane straight toward the spot from which the scent of his enemies was wafted.

"Run!" snarled Conan, his eyes blazing like those of a trapped wolf. "It's all we can do!"

Sailor's boots are not made for sprinting, and the life of a pirate does not train one for a runner. Within a hundred yards Valeria was panting and reeling in her gait, and behind them the crashing gave way to a rolling thunder as the monster broke out of the thickets and into the more open ground.

Conan's iron arm about the woman's waist half lifted her; her feet scarcely touched the earth as she was borne along at a speed she could never have attained herself. If he could keep out of the beast's way for a bit, perhaps that betraying wind would shift--but the wind held, and a quick glance over his shoulder showed Conan that the monster was almost upon them, coming like a war-galley in front of a hurricane. He thrust Valeria from him with a force that sent her reeling a dozen feet to fall in a crumpled heap at the foot of the nearest tree, and the Cimmerian wheeled in the path of the thundering titan.

Convinced that his death was upon him, the Cimmerian acted according to his instinct, and hurled himself full at the awful face that was bearing down on him. He leaped, slashing like a wildcat, felt his sword cut deep into the scales that sheathed the mighty snout--and then a terrific impact knocked him rolling and tumbling for fifty feet with all the wind and half the life battered out of him.

How the stunned Cimmerian regained his feet, not even he could have ever told. But the only thought that filled his brain was of the woman lying dazed and helpless almost in the path of the hurtling fiend, and before the breath came whistling back into his gullet he was standing over her with his sword in his hand.

She lay where he had thrown her, but she was struggling to a sitting posture. Neither tearing tusks nor trampling feet had touched her. It had been a shoulder or front leg that struck Conan, and the blind monster rushed on, forgetting the victims whose scent it had been following, in the sudden agony of its death throes. Headlong on its course it thundered until its low-hung head crashed into a gigantic tree in its path. The impact tore the tree up by the roots and must have dashed the brains from the misshapen skull. Tree and monster fell together, and the dazed humans saw the branches and leaves shaken by the convulsions of the creature they covered--and then grow quiet.

Conan lifted Valeria to her feet and together they started away at a reeling run. A few moments later they emerged into the still twilight of the treeless plain.

Conan paused an instant and glanced back at the ebon fastness behind them. Not a leaf stirred, nor a bird chirped. It stood as silent as it must have stood before Man was created.

"Come on," muttered Conan, taking his companion's hand. "It's touch and go now. If more dragons come out of the woods after us--"

He did not have to finish the sentence.

The city looked very far away across the plain, farther than it had looked from the crag. Valeria's heart hammered until she felt as if it would strangle her. At every step she expected to hear the crashing of the bushes and see another colossal nightmare bearing down upon them. But nothing disturbed the silence of the thickets.

With the first mile between them and the woods, Valeria breathed more easily. Her buoyant self-confidence began to thaw out again. The sun had set and darkness was gathering over the plain, lightened a little by the stars that made stunted ghosts out of the cactus growths.

"No cattle, no plowed fields," muttered Conan. "How do these people live?"

"Perhaps the cattle are in pens for the night," suggested Valeria, "and the fields and grazing-pastures are on the other side of the city."

"Maybe," he grunted. "I didn't see any from the crag, though."

The moon came up behind the city, etching walls and towers blackly in the yellow glow. Valeria shivered. Black against the moon the strange city had a somber, sinister look.

Perhaps something of the same feeling occurred to Conan, for he stopped, glanced about him, and grunted: "We'll stop here. No use coming to their gates in the night. They probably wouldn't let us in. Besides, we need rest, and we don't know how they'll receive us. A few hours' sleep will put us in better shape to fight or run."

He led the way to a bed of cactus which grew in a circle--a phenomenon common to the southern desert. With his sword he chopped an opening, and motioned Valeria to enter.

"We'll be safe from the snakes here, anyhow."

She glanced fearfully back toward the black line that indicated the forest some six miles away.

"Suppose a dragon comes out of the woods?"

"We'll keep watch," he answered, though he made no suggestion as to what they would do in such an event. He was staring at the city, a few miles away. Not a light shone from spire or tower. A great black mass of mystery, it reared cryptically against the moonlit sky.

"Lie down and sleep. I'll keep the first watch."

She hesitated, glancing at him uncertainly, but he sat down cross-legged in the opening, facing toward the plain, his sword across his knees, his back to her. Without further comment she lay down on the sand inside the spiky circle.

"Wake me when the moon is at its zenith," she directed.

He did not reply nor look toward her. Her last impression, as she sank into slumber, was of his muscular figure, immobile as a statue hewn out of bronze, outlined against the low-hanging stars.

== By the Blaze of the Fire Jewels ==

Valeria awoke with a start, to the realization that a grey dawn was stealing over the plain.

She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Conan squatted beside the cactus, cutting off the thick pears and dexterously twitching out the spikes.

"You didn't awake me," she accused. "You let me sleep all night!"

"You were tired," he answered. "Your posterior must have been sore, too, after that long ride. You pirates aren't used to horseback."

"What about yourself?" she retorted.

"I was a kozak before I was a pirate," he answered. "They live in the saddle. I snatch naps like a panther watching beside the trail for a deer to come by. My ears keep watch while my eyes sleep."

And indeed the giant barbarian seemed as much refreshed as if he had slept the whole night on a golden bed. Having removed the thorns, and peeled off the tough skin, he handed the girl a thick, juicy cactus leaf.

"Skin your teeth in that pear. It's food and drink to a desert man. I was a chief of the Zuagirs once--desert men who live by plundering the caravans."

"Is there anything you haven't done?" inquired the girl, half in derision and half in fascination.

"I've never been king of an Hyborean kingdom," he grinned, taking an enormous mouthful of cactus. "But I've dreamed of being even that. I may be too, some day. Why shouldn't I?"

She shook her head in wonder at his calm audacity, and fell to devouring her pear. She found it not unpleasing to the palate, and full of cool and thirst-satisfying juice. Finishing his meal, Conan wiped his hands in the sand, rose, ran his fingers through his thick black mane, hitched up his sword belt and said:

"Well, let's go. If the people in that city are going to cut our throats they may as well do it now, before the heat of the day begins."

His grim humor was unconscious, but Valeria reflected that it might be prophetic. She too hitched her sword belt as she rose. Her terrors of the night were past. The roaring dragons of the distant forest were like a dim dream. There was a swagger in her stride as she moved off beside the Cimmerian. Whatever perils lay ahead of them, their foes would be men. And Valeria of the Red Brotherhood had never seen the face of the man she feared.

Conan glanced down at her as she strode along beside him with her swinging stride that matched his own.

"You walk more like a hillman than a sailor," he said. "You must be an Aquilonian. The suns of Darfar never burnt your white skin brown. Many a princess would envy you."

"I am from Aquilonia," she replied. His compliments no longer irritated her. His evident admiration pleased her. For another man to have kept her watch while she slept would have angered her; she had always fiercely resented any man's attempting to shield or protect her because of her sex. But she found a secret pleasure in the fact that this man had done so. And he had not taken advantage of her fright and the weakness resulting from it. After all, she reflected, her companion was no common man.

The sun rose up behind the city, turning the towers to a sinister crimson.

"Black last night against the moon," grunted Conan, his eyes clouding with the abysmal superstition of the barbarian. "Blood-red as a threat of blood against the sun this dawn. I do not like this city."

But they went on, and as they went Conan pointed out the fact that no road ran to the city from the north.

"No cattle have trampled the plain on this side of the city," said he. "No plowshare has touched the earth for years, maybe centuries. But look: once this plain was cultivated."

Valeria saw the ancient irrigation ditches he indicated, half filled in places, and overgrown with cactus. She frowned with perplexity as her eyes swept over the plain that stretched on all sides of the city to the forest edge, which marched in a vast, dim ring. Vision did not extend beyond that ring.

She looked uneasily at the city. No helmets or spearheads gleamed on battlements, no trumpets sounded, no challenge rang from the towers. A silence as absolute as that of the forest brooded over the walls and minarets.

The sun was high above the eastern horizon when they stood before the great gate in the northern wall, in the shadow of the lofty rampart. Rust flecked the iron bracings of the mighty bronze portal. Spiderwebs glistened thickly on hinge and sill and bolted panel.

"It hasn't been opened for years!" exclaimed Valeria.

"A dead city," grunted Conan. "That's why the ditches were broken and the plain untouched."

"But who built it? Who dwelt here? Where did they go? Why did they abandon it?"

"Who can say? Maybe an exiled clan of Stygians built it. Maybe not. It doesn't look like Stygian architecture. Maybe the people were wiped out by enemies, or a plague exterminated them."

"In that case their treasures may still be gathering dust and cobwebs in there," suggested Valeria, the acquisitive instincts of her profession waking in her; prodded, too, by feminine curiosity. "Can we open the gate? Let's go in and explore a bit."

Conan eyed the heavy portal dubiously, but placed his massive shoulder against it and thrust with all the power of his muscular calves and thighs. With a rasping screech of rusty hinges the gate moved ponderously inward, and Conan straightened and drew his sword. Valeria stared over his shoulder, and made a sound indicative of surprise.

They were not looking into an open street or court as one would have expected. The opened gate, or door, gave directly into a long, broad hall which ran away and away until its vista grew indistinct in the distance. It was of heroic proportions, and the floor of a curious red stone, cut in square tiles, that seemed to smolder as if with the reflection of flames. The walls were of a shiny green material.

"Jade, or I'm a Shemite!" swore Conan.

"Not in such quantity!" protested Valeria.

"I've looted enough from the Khitan caravans to know what I'm talking about," he asserted. "That's jade!"

The vaulted ceiling was of lapis lazuli, adorned with clusters of great green stones that gleamed with a poisonous radiance.

"Green fire-stones," growled Conan. "That's what the people of Punt call them. They're supposed to be the petrified eyes of those prehistoric snakes the ancients called Golden Serpents. They glow like a cat's eyes in the dark. At night this hall would be lighted by them, but it would be a hellishly weird illumination. Let's look around. We might find a cache of jewels."

"Shut the door," advised Valeria. "I'd hate to have to outrun a dragon down this hall."

Conan grinned, and replied: "I don't believe the dragons ever leave the forest."

But he complied, and pointed out the broken bolt on the inner side.

"I thought I heard something snap when I shoved against it. That bolt's freshly broken. Rust has eaten nearly through it. If the people ran away, why should it have been bolted on the inside?"

"They undoubtedly left by another door," suggested Valeria.

She wondered how many centuries had passed since the light of outer day had filtered into that great hall through the open door. Sunlight was finding its way somehow into the hall, and they quickly saw the source. High up in the vaulted ceiling skylights were set in slot-like openings--translucent sheets of some crystalline substance. In the splotches of shadow between them, the green jewels winked like the eyes of angry cats. Beneath their feet the dully lurid floor smoldered with changing hues and colors of flame. It was like treading the floors of Hell with evil stars blinking overhead.

Three balustraded galleries ran along on each side of the hall, one above the other.

"A four-storied house," grunted Conan, "and this hall extends to the roof. It's long as a street. I seem to see a door at the other end."

Valeria shrugged her white shoulders.

"Your eyes are better than mine, then, though I'm accounted sharp-eyed among the sea-rovers."

They turned into an open door at random, and traversed a series of empty chambers, floored like the hall, and with walls of the same green jade, or of marble or ivory or chalcedony, adorned with friezes of bronze, gold, or silver. In the ceilings the green fire-gems were set, and their light was as ghostly and illusive as Conan had predicted. Under the witch-fire glow the intruders moved like specters.

Some of the chambers lacked this illumination, and their doorways showed black as the mouth of the Pit. These Conan and Valeria avoided, keeping always to the lighted chambers.

Cobwebs hung in the corners, but there was no perceptible accumulation of dust on the floor, or on the tables and seats of marble, jade, or carnelian which occupied the chambers. Here and there were rugs of that silk known as Khitan which is practically indestructible. Nowhere did they find any windows, or doors opening into streets or courts. Each door merely opened into another chamber or hall.

"Why don't we come to a street?" grumbled Valeria. "This palace or whatever we're in must be as big as the king of Turan's seraglio."

"They must not have perished of plague," sad Conan, meditating upon the mystery of the empty city. "Otherwise we'd find skeletons. Maybe it became haunted, and everybody got up and left. Maybe--"

"Maybe, hell!" broke in Valeria rudely. "We'll never know. Look at these friezes. They portray men. What race do they belong to?"

Conan scanned them and shook his head.

"I never saw people exactly like them. But there's the smack of the East about them--Vendhya, maybe, or Kosala."

"Were you a king in Kosala?" she asked, masking her keen curiosity with derision.

"No. But I was a war chief of the Afghulis who live in the Himelian mountains above the borders of Vendhya. These people favor the Kosalans. But why should Kosalans be building a city this far to the west?"

The figures portrayed were those of slender, olive-skinned men and women, with finely chiseled, exotic features. They wore filmy robes and many delicate jeweled ornaments, and were depicted mostly in attitudes of feasting, dancing, or lovemaking.

"Easterners, all right," grunted Conan, "but from where I don't know. They must have lived a disgustingly peaceful life, though, or they'd have scenes of wars and fights. Let's go up those stairs."

It was an ivory spiral that wound up from the chamber in which they were standing. They mounted three flights and came into a broad chamber on the fourth floor, which seemed to be the highest tier in the building. Skylights in the ceiling illuminated the room, in which light the fire-gems winked pallidly. Glancing through the doors they saw, except on one side, a series of similarly lighted chambers. This other door opened upon a balustraded gallery that overhung a hall much smaller than the one they had recently explored on the lower floor.

"Hell!" Valeria sat down disgustedly on a jade bench. "The people who deserted this city must have taken all their treasures with them. I'm tired of wandering through these bare rooms at random."

"All these upper chambers seem to be lighted," said Conan. "I wish we could find a window that overlooked the city. Let's have a look through that door over there."

"You have a look," advised Valeria. "I'm going to sit here and rest my feet."

Conan disappeared through the door opposite that one opening upon the gallery, and Valeria leaned back with her hands clasped behind her head, and thrust her booted legs out in front of her. These silent rooms and halls with their gleaming green clusters of ornaments and burning crimson floors were beginning to depress her. She wished they could find their way out of the maze into which they had wandered and emerge into a street. She wondered idly what furtive, dark feet had glided over those flaming floors in past centuries, how many deeds of cruelty and mystery those winking ceiling-gems had blazed down upon.

It was a faint noise that brought her out of her reflections. She was on her feet with her sword in her hand before she realized what had disturbed her. Conan had not returned, and she knew it was not he that she had heard.

The sound had come from somewhere beyond the door that opened on to the gallery. Soundlessly in her soft leather boots she glided through it, crept across the balcony and peered down between the heavy balustrades.

A man was stealing along the hall.

The sight of a human being in this supposedly deserted city was a startling shock. Crouching down behind the stone balusters, with every nerve tingling, Valeria glared down at the stealthy figure.

The man in no way resembled the figures depicted on the friezes. He was slightly above middle height, very dark, though not Negroid. He was naked but for a scanty silk clout that only partly covered his muscular hips, and a leather girdle, a hand's breadth broad, about his lean waist. His long black hair hung in lank strands about his shoulders, giving him a wild appearance. He was gaunt, but knots and cords of muscles stood out on his arms and legs, without that fleshy padding that presents a pleasing symmetry of contour. He was built with an economy that was almost repellent.

Yet it was not so much his physical appearance as his attitude that impressed the woman who watched him. He slunk along, stooped in a semi-crouch, his head turning from side to side. He grasped a wide-tipped blade in his right hand and she saw it shake with the intensity of the emotion that gripped him. He was afraid, trembling in the grip of some dire terror. When he turned his head she caught the blaze of wild eyes among the lank strands of black hair.

He did not see her. On tiptoe he glided across the hall and vanished through an open door. A moment later she heard a choking cry, and then silence fell again.

Consumed with curiosity, Valeria glided along the gallery until she came to a door above the one through which the man had passed. It opened into another, smaller gallery that encircled a large chamber.

This chamber was on the third floor, and its ceiling was not so high as that of the hall. It was lighted only by the fire-stones, and their weird green glow left the spaces under the balcony in shadows.

Valeria's eyes widened. The man she had seen was still in the chamber.

He lay face down on a dark crimson carpet in the middle of the room. His body was limp, his arms spread wide. His curved sword lay near him.

She wondered why he should lie there so motionless. Then her eyes narrowed as she stared down at the rug on which he lay. Beneath and about him the fabric showed a slightly different color, a deeper, brighter crimson.

Shivering slightly, she crouched down closer behind the balustrade, intently scanning the shadows under the overhanging gallery. They gave up no secret.

Suddenly another figure entered the grim drama. He was a man similar to the first, and he came in by a door opposite that which gave upon the hall.

His eyes glared at the sight of the man on the floor, and he spoke something in a staccato voice that sounded like "Chicmec!" The other did not move.

The man stepped quickly across the floor, bent, gripped the fallen man's shoulder and turned him over. A choking cry escaped him as the head fell back limply, disclosing a throat that had been severed from ear to ear.

The man let the corpse fall back upon the blood-stained carpet, and sprang to his feet, shaking like a windblown leaf. His face was an ashy mask of fear. But with one knee flexed for flight, he froze suddenly, became as immobile as an image, staring across the chamber with dilated eyes.

In the shadows beneath the balcony a ghostly light began to glow and grow, a light that was not part of the fire-stone gleam. Valeria felt her hair stir as she watched it; for, dimly visible in the throbbing radiance, there floated a human skull, and it was from this skull--human yet appallingly misshapen--that the spectral light seemed to emanate. It hung there like a disembodied head, conjured out of night and the shadows, growing more and more distinct; human, and yet not human as she knew humanity.

The man stood motionless, an embodiment of paralyzed horror, staring fixedly at the apparition. The thing moved out from the wall and a grotesque shadows moved with it. Slowly the shadow became visible as a man-like figure whose naked torso and limbs shone whitely, with the hue of bleached bones. The bare skull on its shoulders grinned eyelessly, in the midst of its unholy nimbus, and the man confronting it seemed unable to take his eyes from it. He stood still, his sword dangling from nerveless fingers, on his face the expression of a man bound by the spells of a mesmerist.

Valeria realized that it was not fear alone that paralyzed him. Some hellish quality of that throbbing glow had robbed him of his power to think and act. She herself, safely above the scene, felt the subtle impact of a nameless emanation that was a threat to sanity.

The horror swept toward its victim and he moved at last, but only to drop his sword and sink to his knees, covering his eyes with his hands. Dumbly he awaited the stroke of the blade that now gleamed in the apparition's hand as it reared above him like Death triumphant over mankind.

Valeria acted according to the first impulse of her wayward nature. With one tigerish movement she was over the balustrade and dropping to the floor behind the awful shape. It wheeled at the thud of her soft boots on the floor, but even as it turned, her keen blade lashed down and a fierce exultation swept her as she felt the edge cleave solid flesh and mortal bone.

The apparition cried out gurglingly and went down, severed through the shoulder, breastbone and spine, and as it fell the burning skull rolled clear, revealing a lank mop of black hair and a dark face twisted in the convulsions of death. Beneath the horrific masquerade there was a human being, a man similar to the one kneeling supinely on the floor.

The latter looked up at the sound of the blow and the cry, and now he glared in wild-eyed amazement at the whiteskinned woman who stood over the corpse with a dripping sword in her hand.

He staggered up, yammering as if the sight had almost unseated his reason. She was amazed to realize that she understood him. He was gibbering in the Stygian tongue, though in a dialect unfamiliar to her.

"Who are you? Whence come you? What do you in Xuchotl?" Then rushing on, without waiting for her to reply: "But you are a friend--goddess or devil, it makes no difference! You have slain the Burning Skull! It was but a man beneath it, after all! We deemed it a demon they conjured up out of the catacombs! Listen!"

He stopped short in his ravings and stiffened, straining his ears with painful intensity. The girl heard nothing.

"We must hasten!" he whispered. "They are west of the Great Hall! They may be all around us here! They may be creeping upon us even now!"

He seized her wrist in a convulsive grasp she found hard to break.

"Whom do you mean by 'they'?" she demanded.

He stared at her uncomprehendingly for an instant, as if he found her ignorance hard to understand.

"They?" he stammered vaguely. "Why--why, the people of Xotalanc! The clan of the man you slew. They who dwell by the eastern gate."

"You mean to say this city is inhabited?" she exclaimed.

"Aye! Aye!" He was writhing in the impatience of apprehension. "Come away! Come quick! We must return to Tecuhltli!"

"Where is that?" she demanded.

"The quarter by the western gate!" He had her wrist again and was pulling her toward the door through which he had first come. Great beads of perspiration dripped from his dark forehead, and his eyes blazed with terror.

"Wait a minute!" she growled, flinging off his hand. "Keep your hands off me, or I'll split your skull. What's all this about? Who are you? Where would you take me?"

He took a firm grip on himself, casting glances to all sides, and began speaking so fast his words tripped over each other.

"My name is Techotl. I am of Techultli. I and this man who lies with his throat cut came into the Halls of Silence to try and ambush some of the Xotalancas. But we became separated and I returned here to find him with his gullet slit. The Burning Skull did it, I know, just as he would have slain me had you not killed him. But perhaps he was not alone. Others may be stealing from Xotalanc! The gods themselves blench at the fate of those they take alive!"

At the thought he shook as with an ague and his dark skin grew ashy. Valeria frowned puzzledly at him. She sensed intelligence behind this rigmarole, but it was meaningless to her.

She turned toward the skull, which still glowed and pulsed on the floor, and was reaching a booted toe tentatively toward it, when the man who called himself Techotl sprang forward with a cry.

"Do not touch it! Do not even look at it! Madness and death lurk in it. The wizards of Xotalanc understand its secret--they found it in the catacombs, where lie the bones of terrible kings who ruled in Xuchotl in the black centuries of the past. To gaze upon it freezes the blood and withers the brain of a man who understands not its mystery. To touch it causes madness and destruction."

She scowled at him uncertainly. He was not a reassuring figure, with his lean, muscle-knotted frame, and snaky locks. In his eyes, behind the glow of terror, lurked a weird light she had never seen in the eyes of a man wholly sane. Yet he seemed sincere in his protestations.

"Come!" he begged, reaching for her hand, and then recoiling as he remembered her warning. "You are a stranger. How you came here I do not know, but if you were a goddess or a demon, come to aid Tecuhltli, you would know all the things you have asked me. You must be from beyond the great forest, whence our ancestors came. But you are our friend, or you would not have slain my enemy. Come quickly, before the Xotalancas find us and slay us!"

From his repellent, impassioned face she glanced to the sinister skull, smoldering and glowing on the floor near the dead man. It was like a skull seen in a dream, undeniably human, yet with disturbing distortions and malformations of contour and outline. In life the wearer of that skull must have presented an alien and monstrous aspect. Life? It seemed to possess some sort of life of its own. Its jaws yawned at her and snapped together. Its radiance grew brighter, more vivid, yet the impression of nightmare grew too; it was a dream; all life was a dream--it was Techotl's urgent voice which snapped Valeria back from the dim gulfs whither she was drifting.

"Do not look at the skull! Do not look at the skull!" It was a far cry from across unreckoned voids.

Valeria shook herself like a lion shaking his mane. Her vision cleared. Techotl was chattering: "In life it housed the awful brain of a king of magicians! It holds still the life and fire of magic drawn from outer spaces!"

With a curse Valeria leaped, lithe as a panther, and the skull crashed to flaming bits under her swinging sword. Somewhere in the room, or in the void, or in the dim reaches of her consciousness, an inhuman voice cried out in pain and rage.

Techotl's hand was plucking at her arm and he was gibbering: "You have broken it! You have destroyed it! Not all the black arts of Xotalanc can rebuild it! Come away! Come away quickly, now!"

"But I can't go," she protested. "I have a friend somewhere near by--"

The flare of his eyes cut her short as he stared past her with an expression grown ghastly. She wheeled just as four men rushed through as many doors, converging on the pair in the center of the chamber.

They were like the others she had seen, the same knotted muscles bulging on otherwise gaunt limbs, the same lank blue-black hair, the same mad glare in their wild eyes. They were armed and clad like Techotl, but on the breast of each was painted a white skull.

There were no challenges or war cries. Like blood-mad tigers the men of Xotalanc sprang at the throats of their enemies. Techotl met them with the fury of desperation, ducked the swipe of a wide-headed blade, and grappled with the wielder, and bore him to the floor where they rolled and wrestled in murderous silence.

The other three swarmed on Valeria, their weird eyes red as the eyes of mad dogs.

She killed the first who came within reach before he could strike a blow, her long straight blade splitting his skull even as his own sword lifted for a stroke. She side-stepped a thrust, even as she parried a slash. Her eyes danced and her lips smiled without mercy. Again she was Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, and the hum of her steel was like a bridal song in her ears.

Her sword darted past a blade that sought to parry, and sheathed six inches of its point in a leather-guarded midriff. The man gasped agonizedly and went to his knees, but his tall mate lunged in, in ferocious silence, raining blow on blow so furiously that Valeria had no opportunity to counter. She stepped back coolly, parrying the strokes and watching for her chance to thrust home. He could not long keep up that flailing whirlwind. His arm would tire, his wind would fail; he would weaken, falter, and then her blade would slide smoothly into his heart. A sidelong glance showed her Techotl kneeling on the breast of his antagonist and striving to break the other's hold on his wrist and to drive home a dagger.

Sweat beaded the forehead of the man facing her, and his eyes were like burning coals. Smite as he would, he could not break past nor beat down her guard. His breath came in gusty gulps, his blows began to fall erratically. She stepped back to draw him out--and felt her thighs locked in an iron grip. She had forgotten the wounded man on the floor.

Crouching on his knees, he held her with both arms locked about her legs, and his mate croaked in triumph and began working his way around to come at her from the left side. Valeria wrenched and tore savagely, but in vain. She could free herself of this clinging menace with a downward flick of her sword, but in that instant the curved blade of the tall warrior would crash through her skull. The wounded man began to worry at her bare thigh with his teeth like a wild beast.

She reached down with her left hand and gripped his long hair, forcing his head back so that his white teeth and rolling eyes gleamed up at her. The tall Xotalanc cried out fiercely and leaped in, smiting with all the fury of his arm. Awkwardly she parried the stroke, and it beat the flat of her blade down on her head so that she saw sparks flash before her eyes, and staggered. Up went the sword again, with a low, beast-like cry of triumph--and then a giant form loomed behind the Xotalanc and steel flashed like a jet of blue lightning. The cry of the warrior broke short and he went down like an ox beneath the pole-ax, his brains gushing from his skull that had been split to the throat.

"Conan!" gasped Valeria. In a gust of passion she turned on the Xotalanc whose long hair she still gripped in her left hand. "Dog of Hell!" Her blade swished as it cut the air in an upswinging arc with a blur in the middle, and the headless body slumped down, spurting blood. She hurled the severed head across the room.

"What the devil's going on here?" Conan bestrode the corpse of the man he had killed, broadsword in hand, glaring about him in amazement.

Techotl was rising from the twitching figure of the last Xotalanc, shaking red drops from his dagger. He was bleeding from the stab deep in the thigh. He stared at Conan with dilated eyes.

"What is all this?" Conan demanded again, not yet recovered from the stunning surprise of finding Valeria engaged in a savage battle with this fantastic figures in a city he had thought empty and uninhabited. Returning from an aimless exploration of the upper chambers to find Valeria missing from the room where he had left her, he had followed the sounds of strife that burst on his dumfounded ears.

"Five dead dogs!" exclaimed Techotl, his flaming eyes reflecting a ghastly exultation. "Five slain! Five crimson nails for the black pillar! The gods of blood be thanked!"

He lifted quivering hands on high, and then, with the face of a fiend, he spat on the corpses and stamped on their faces, dancing in his ghoulish glee. His recent allies eyed him in amazement, and Conan asked, in the Aquilonian tongue: "Who is this madman?"

Valeria shrugged her shoulders.

"He says his name's Techotl. From his babblings I gather that his people live at one end of this crazy city, and these others at the other end. Maybe we'd better go with him. He seems friendly, and it's easy to see that the other clan isn't."

Techotl had ceased his dancing and was listening again, his head tilted sidewise, dog-like, triumph struggling with fear in his repellent countenance.

"Come away, now!" he whispered. "We have done enough! Five dead dogs! My people will welcome you! They will honor you! But come! It is far to Tecuhltli. At any moment the Xotalancs may come on us in numbers too great even for your swords."

"Lead the way," grunted Conan.

Techotl instantly mounted a stair leading up to the gallery, beckoning them to follow him, which they did, moving rapidly to keep on his heels. Having reached the gallery, he plunged into a door that opened toward the west, and hurried through chamber after chamber, each lighted by skylights or green fire-jewels.

"What sort of place can this be?" muttered Valeria under her breath.

"Crom knows!" answered Conan. "I've seen his kind before, though. They live on the shores of Lake Zuad, near the border of Kush. They're a sort of mongrel Stygians, mixed with another race that wandered into Stygia from the east some centuries ago and were absorbed by them. They're called Tlazitlans. I'm willing to bet it wasn't they who built this city, though."

Techotl's fear did not seem to diminish as they drew away from the chamber where the dead men lay. He kept twisting his head on his shoulder to listen for sounds of pursuit, and stared with burning intensity into every doorway they passed.

Valeria shivered in spite of herself. She feared no man. But the weird floor beneath her feet, the uncanny jewels over her head, dividing the lurking shadows among them, the stealth and terror of their guide, impressed her with a nameless apprehension, a sensation of lurking, inhuman peril.

"They may be between us and Tecuhltli!" he whispered once. "We must beware lest they be lying in wait!"

"Why don't we get out of this infernal palace, and take to the streets?" demanded Valeria.

"There are no streets in Xuchotl," he answered. "No squares nor open courts. The whole city is built like one giant palace under one great roof. The nearest approach to a street is the Great Hall which traverses the city from the north gate to the south gate. The only doors opening into the outer world are the city gates, through which no living man has passed for fifty years."

"How long have you dwelt here?" asked Conan.

"I was born in the castle of Tecuhltli thirty-five years ago. I have never set foot outside the city. For the love of the gods, let us go silently! These halls may be full of lurking devils. Olmec shall tell you all when we reach Tecuhltli."

So in silence they glided on with the green fire-stones blinking overhead and the flaming floors smoldering under their feet, and it seemed to Valeria as if they fled through Hell, guided by a dark-faced lank-haired goblin.

Yet it was Conan who halted them as they were crossing an unusually wide chamber. His wilderness-bred ears were keener even than the ears of Techotl, whetted though his were by a lifetime of warfare in this silent corridors.

"You think some of your enemies may be ahead of us, lying in ambush?"

"They prowl through these rooms at all hours," answered Techotl, "as do we. The halls and chambers between Tecuhltli and Xotalanc are a disputed region, owned by no man. We call it the Halls of Silence. Why do you ask?"

"Because men are in the chambers ahead of us," answered Conan. "I heard steel clink against stone."

Again a shaking seized Techotl, and he clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering.

"Perhaps they are your friends," suggested Valeria.

"We dare not chance it," he panted, and moved with frenzied activity. He turned aside and glided through a doorway on the left which led into a chamber from which an ivory staircase wound down into darkness.

"This leads to an unlighted corridor below us!" he hissed, great beads of perspiration standing out on his brow. "They may be lurking there, too. It may all be a trick to draw us into it. But we must take the chance that they have laid their ambush in the rooms above. Come swiftly now!"

Softly as phantoms they descended the stair and came to the mouth of a corridor black as night. They crouched there for a moment, listening, and then melted into it. As they moved along, Valeria's flesh crawled between her shoulders in momentary expectation of a sword-thrust in the dark. But for Conan's iron fingers gripping her arm she had no physical cognizance of her companions. Neither made as much noise as a cat would have made. The darkness was absolute. One hand, outstretched, touched a wall, and occasionally she felt a door under her fingers. The hallway seemed interminable.

Suddenly they were galvanized by a sound behind them. Valeria's flesh crawled anew, for she recognized it as the soft opening of a door. Men had come into the corridor behind them. Even with the thought she stumbled over something that felt like a human skull. It rolled across the floor with an appalling clatter.

"Run!" yelped Techotl, a note of hysteria in his voice, and was away down the corridor like a flying ghost.

Again Valeria felt Conan's hand bearing her up and sweeping her along as they raced after their guide. Conan could see in the dark no better than she, but he possessed a sort of instinct that made his course unerring. Without his support and guidance she would have fallen or stumbled against the wall. Down the corridor they sped, while the swift patter of flying feet drew closer and closer, and then suddenly Techotl panted: "Here is the stair! After me, quick! Oh, quick!"

His hand came out of the dark and caught Valeria's wrist as she stumbled blindly on the steps. She felt herself half dragged, half lifted up the winding stair, while Conan released her and turned on the steps, his ears and instincts telling him their foes were hard at their backs. And the sounds were not all those of human feet.

Something came writhing up the steps, something that slithered and rustled and brought a chill in the air with it. Conan lashed down with his great sword and felt the blade shear through something that might have been flesh and bone, and cut deep into the stair beneath. Something touched his foot that chilled like the touch of frost, and then the darkness beneath him was disturbed by a frightful thrashing and lashing, and a man cried out in agony.

The next moment Conan was racing up the winding staircase, and through a door that stood open at the head.

Valeria and Techotl were already through, and Techotl slammed the door and shot a bolt across it--the first Conan had seen since they had left the outer gate.

Then he turned and ran across the well-lighted chamber into which they had come, and as they passed through the farther door, Conan glanced back and saw the door groaning and straining under heavy pressure violently applied from the other side.

Though Techotl did not abate either his speed or his caution, he seemed more confident now. He had the air of a man who had come into familiar territory, within call of friends.

But Conan renewed his terror by asking: "What was that thing I fought on the stairs?"

"The men of Xotalanc," answered Techotl, without looking back. "I told you the halls were full of them."

"This wasn't a man," grunted Conan. "It was something that crawled, and it was as cold as ice to the touch. I think I cut it asunder. It fell back on the men who were following us, and must have killed one of them in its death throes."

Techotl's head jerked back, his face ashy again. Convulsively he quickened his pace.

"It was the Crawler! A monster they have brought out of the catacombs to aid them! What it is, we do not know, but we have found our people hideously slain by it. In Set's name, hasten! If they put it on our trail, it will follow us to the very doors of Tecuhltli!"

"I doubt it," grunted Conan. "That was a shrewd cut I dealt it on the stair."

"Hasten! Hasten!" groaned Techotl.

They ran through a series of green-lit chambers, traversed a broad hall, and halted before a giant bronze door.

Techotl said: "This is Tecuhltli!"

== The People of the Feud ==

Techotl smote on the bronze door with his clenched hand, and then turned sidewise, so that he could watch back along the hall.

"Men have been smitten down before this door, when they thought they were safe," he said.

"Why don't they open the door?" asked Conan.

"They are looking at us through the Eye," answered Techotl. "They are puzzled at the sight of you." He lifted his voice and called: "Open the door, Excelan! It is I, Techotl, with friends from the great world beyond the forest!--They will open," he assured his allies.

"They'd better do it in a hurry, then," said Conan grimly. "I hear something crawling along the floor beyond the hall."

Techotl went ashy again and attacked the door with his fists, screaming: "Open, you fools, open! The Crawler is at our heels!"

Even as he beat and shouted, the great bronze door swung noiselessly back, revealing a heavy chain across the entrance, over which spearheads bristled and fierce countenances regarded them intently for an instant. Then the chain was dropped and Techotl grasped the arms of his friends in a nervous frenzy and fairly dragged them over the threshold. A glance over his shoulder just as the door was closing showed Conan the long dim vista of the hall, and dimly framed at the other end an ophidian shape that writhed slowly and painfully into view, flowing in a dull-hued length from a chamber door, its hideous bloodstained head wagging drunkenly. Then the closing door shut off the view.

Inside the square chamber into which they had come heavy bolts were drawn across the door, and the chain locked into place. The door was made to stand the battering of a siege. Four men stood on guard, of the same lank-haired, dark-skinned breed as Techotl, with spears in their hands and swords at their hips. In the wall near the door there was a complicated contrivance of mirrors which Conan guessed was the Eye Techotl had mentioned, so arranged that a narrow, crystal-paned slot in the wall could be looked through from within without being discernible from without. The four guardsmen stared at the strangers with wonder, but asked no question, nor did Techotl vouchsafe any information. He moved with easy confidence now, as if he had shed his cloak of indecision and fear the instant he crossed the threshold.

"Come!" he urged his new-found friends, but Conan glanced toward the door.

"What about those fellows who were following us? Won't they try to storm that door?"

Techotl shook his head.

"They know they cannot break down the Door of the Eagle. They will flee back to Xotalanc, with their crawling fiend. Come! I will take you to the rulers of Tecuhltli."

One of the four guards opened the door opposite the one by which they had entered, and they passed through into a hallway which, like most of the rooms on that level, was lighted by both the slot-like skylights and the clusters of winking fire-gems. But unlike the other rooms they had traversed, this hall showed evidences of occupation. Velvet tapestries adorned the glossy jade walls, rich rugs were on the crimson floors, and the ivory seats, benches and divans were littered with satin cushions.

The hall ended in an ornate door, before which stood no guard. Without ceremony Techotl thrust the door open and ushered his friends into a broad chamber, where some thirty dark-skinned men and women lounged on satin-covered couches sprang up with exclamations of amazement.

The men, all except one, were of the same type as Techotl, and the women were equally dark and strange-eyed, though not unbeautiful in a weird dark way. They wore sandals, golden breastplates, and scanty silk skirts supported by gem-crusted girdles, and their black manes, cut square at their naked shoulders, were bound with silver circlets.

On a wide ivory seat on a jade dais sat a man and a woman who differed subtly from the others. He was a giant, with an enormous sweep of breast and the shoulders of a bull. Unlike the others, he was bearded, with a thick, blue-black beard which fell almost to his broad girdle. He wore a robe of purple silk which reflected changing sheens of color with his every movement, and one wide sleeve, drawn back to his elbow, revealed a forearm massive with corded muscles. The band which confined his blue-black locks was set with glittering jewels.

The woman beside him sprang to her feet with a startled exclamation as the strangers entered, and her eyes, passing over Conan, fixed themselves with burning intensity on Valeria. She was tall and lithe, by far the most beautiful woman in the room. She was clad more scantily even than the others; for instead of a skirt she wore merely a broad strip of gilt-worked purple cloth fastened to the middle of her girdle which fell below her knees. Another strip at the back of her girdle completed that part of her costume, which she wore with a cynical indifference. Her breast-plates and the circlet about her temples were adorned with gems. In her eyes alone of all the dark-skinned people there lurked no brooding gleam of madness. She spoke no word after her first exclamation; she stood tensely, her hands clenched, staring at Valeria.

The man on the ivory seat had not risen.

"Prince Olmec," spoke Techotl, bowing low, with arms outspread and the palms of his hands turned upward, "I bring allies from the world beyond the forest. In the Chamber of Techotl the Burning Skull slew Chicmec, my companion--"

"The Burning Skull!" It was a shuddering whisper of fear from the people of Tecuhltli.

"Aye! Then came I, and found Chicmec lying with his throat cut. Before I could flee, the Burning Skull came upon me, and when I looked upon it my blood became as ice and the marrow of my bones melted. I could neither fight nor run. I could only await the stroke. Then came this white-skinned woman and struck him down with her sword; and lo, it was only a dog of Xotalanc with white paint upon his skin and the living skull of an ancient wizard upon his head! Now that skull lies in many pieces, and the dog who wore it is a dead man!"

An indescribably fierce exultation edged the last sentence, and was echoed in the low, savage exclamations from the crowding listeners.

"But wait!" exclaimed Techotl. "There is more! While I talked with the woman, four Xotalancs came upon us! One I slew--there is the stab in my thigh to prove how desperate was the fight. Two the woman killed. But we were hard pressed when this man came into the fray and split the skull of the fourth! Aye! Five crimson nails there are to be driven into the pillar of vengeance!"

He pointed to a black column of ebony which stood behind the dais. Hundreds of red dots scarred its polished surface--the bright scarlet heads of heavy copper nails driven into the black wood.

"Five red nails for five Xotalanca lives!" exulted Techotl, and the horrible exultation in the faces of the listeners made them inhuman.

"Who are these people?" asked Olmec, and his voice was like the low, deep rumble of a distant bull. None of the people of Xuchotl spoke loudly. It was as if they had absorbed into their souls the silence of the empty halls and deserted chambers.

"I am Conan, a Cimmerian," answered the barbarian briefly. "This woman is Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, an Aquilonian pirate. We are deserters from an army on the Darfar border, far to the north, and are trying to reach the coast."

The woman on the dais spoke loudly, her words tripping in her haste.

"You can never reach the coast! There is no escape from Xuchotl! You will spend the rest of your lives in this city!"

"What do you mean," growled Conan, clapping his hand to his hilt and stepping about so as to face both the dais and the rest of the room. "Are you telling us we're prisoners?"

"She did not mean that," interposed Olmec. "We are your friends. We would not restrain you against your will. But I fear other circumstances will make it impossible for you to leave Xuchotl."

His eyes flickered to Valeria, and he lowered them quickly.

"This woman is Tascela," he said. "She is a princess of Tecuhltli. But let food and drink be brought our guests. Doubtless they are hungry, and weary from their long travels."

He indicated an ivory table, and after an exchange of glances, the adventurers seated themselves. The Cimmerian was suspicious. His fierce blue eyes roved about the chamber, and he kept his sword close to his hand. But an invitation to eat and drink never found him backward. His eyes kept wandering to Tascela, but the princess had eyes only for his white-skinned companion.

Techotl, who had bound a strip of silk about his wounded thigh, placed himself at the table to attend to the wants of his friends, seeming to consider it a privilege and honor to see after their needs. He inspected the food and drink the others brought in gold vessels and dishes, and tasted each before he placed it before his guests. While they ate, Olmec sat in silence on his ivory seat, watching them from under his broad black brows. Tascela sat beside him, chin cupped in her hands and her elbows resting on her knees. Her dark, enigmatic eyes, burning with a mysterious light, never left Valeria's supple figure. Behind her seat a sullen handsome girl waved an ostrich-plume fan with a slow rhythm.

The food was fruit of an exotic kind unfamiliar to the wanderers, but very palatable, and the drink was a light crimson wine that carried a heady tang.

"You have come from afar," said Olmec at last. "I have read the books of our fathers. Aquilonia lies beyond the lands of the Stygians and the Shemites, beyond Argos and Zingara; and Cimmeria lies beyond Aquilonia."

"We have each a roving foot," answered Conan carelessly.

"How you won through the forest is a wonder to me," quoth Olmec. "In bygone days a thousand fighting men scarcely were able to carve a road through its perils."

"We encountered a bench-legged monstrosity about the size of a mastodon," said Conan casually, holding out his wine goblet which Techutl filled with evident pleasure. "But when we'd killed it we had no further trouble."

The wine vessel slipped from Techotl's hand to crash on the floor. His dusky skin went ashy. Olmec started to his feet, an image of stunned amazement, and a low gasp of awe or terror breathed up from the others. Some slipped to their knees as if their legs would not support them. Only Tascela seemed not to have heard. Conan glared about him bewilderedly.

"What's the matter? What are you gaping about?"

"You--you slew the dragon-god?"

"God? I killed a dragon. Why not? It was trying to gobble us up."

"But dragons are immortal!" exclaimed Olmec. "They slay each other, but no man ever killed a dragon! The thousand fighting men of our ancestors who fought their way to Xuchotl could not prevail against them! Their swords broke like twigs against their scales!"

"If your ancestors had thought to dip their spears in the poisonous juice of Derketa's Apples," quoth Conan, with his mouth full, "and jab them in the eyes or mouth or somewhere like that, they'd have seen that dragons are no more immortal than any other chunk of beef. The carcass lies at the edge of the trees, just within the forest. If you don't believe me, go and look for yourself."

Olmec shook his head, not in disbelief but in wonder.

"It was because of the dragons that our ancestors took refuge in Xuchotl," said he. "They dared not pass through the plain and plunge into the forest beyond. Scores of them were seized and devoured by the monsters before they could reach the city."

"Then your ancestors didn't build Xuchotl?" asked Valeria.

"It was ancient when they first came into the land. How long it had stood here, not even its degenerate inhabitants knew."

"Your people came from Lake Zuad?" questioned Conan.

"Aye. More than half a century ago a tribe of the Tlazitlans rebelled against the Stygian king, and, being defeated in battle, fled southward. For many weeks they wandered over grasslands, desert and hills, and at last they came into the great forest, a thousand fighting men with their women and children.

"It was in the forest that the dragons fell upon them and tore many to pieces; so the people fled in a frenzy of fear before them, and at last came into the plain and saw the city of Xuchotl in the midst of it.

"They camped before the city, not daring to leave the plain, for the night was made hideous with the noise of the battling monsters through the forest. They made war incessantly upon one another. Yet they came not into the plain.

"The people of the city shut their gates and shot arrows at our people from the walls. The Tlazitlans were imprisoned on the plain, as if the ring of the forest had been a great wall; for to venture into the woods would have been madness.

"That night there came secretly to their camp a slave from the city, one of their own blood, who with a band of exploring soldiers had wandered into the forest long before, when he was a young man. The dragons had devoured all his companions, but he had been taken into the city to dwell in servitude. His name was Tolkemec." A flame lighted the dark eyes at mention of the name, and some of the people muttered obscenely and spat. "He promised to open the gates to the warriors. He asked only that all captives taken be delivered into his hands.

"At dawn he opened the gates. The warriors swarmed in and the halls of Xuchotl ran red. Only a few hundred folk dwelt there, decaying remnants of a once great race. Tolkemec said they came from the east, long ago, from Old Kosala, when the ancestors of those who now dwell in Kosala came up from the south and drove forth the original inhabitants of the land. They wandered far westward and finally found this forest-girdled plain, inhabited then by a tribe of black people.

"These they enslaved and set to building a city. From the hills to the east they brought jade and marble and lapis lazuli, and gold, silver, and copper. Herds of elephants provided them with ivory. When their city was completed, they slew all the black slaves. And their magicians made a terrible magic to guard the city; for by their necromantic arts they re-created the dragons which had once dwelt in this lost land, and whose monstrous bones they found in the forest. Those bones they clothed in flesh and life, and the living beasts walked the earth as they walked it when time was young. But the wizards wove a spell that kept them in the forest and they came not into the plain.

"So for many centuries the people of Xuchotl dwelt in their city, cultivating the fertile plain, until their wise men learned how to grow fruit within the city--fruit which is not planted in soil, but obtains its nourishment out of the air--and then they let the irrigation ditches run dry and dwelt more and more in luxurious sloth, until decay seized them. They were a dying race when our ancestors broke through the forest and came into the plain. Their wizards had died, and the people had forgot their ancient necromancy. They could fight neither by sorcery nor the sword.

"Well, our fathers slew the people of Xuchotl, all except a hundred which were given living into the hands of Tolkemec, who had been their slave; and for many days and nights the halls re-echoed to their screams under the agony of his tortures.

"So the Tlazitlans dwelt here, for a while in peace, ruled by the brothers Tecuhltli and Xotalanc, and by Tolkemec. Tolkemec took a girl of the tribe to wife, and because he had opened the gates, and because he knew many of the arts of the Xuchotlans, he shared the rule of the tribe with the brothers who had led the rebellion and the flight.

"For a few years, then, they dwelt at peace within the city, doing little but eating, drinking, and making love, and raising children. There was no necessity to till the plain, for Tolkemec taught them how to cultivate the air-devouring fruits. Besides, the slaying of the Xuchotlans broke the spell that held the dragons in the forest, and they came nightly and bellowed about the gates of the city. The plain ran red with the blood of their eternal warfare, and it was then that--" He bit his tongue in the midst of the sentence, then presently continued, but Valeria and Conan felt that he had checked an admission he had considered unwise.

"Five years they dwelt in peace. Then"--Olmec's eyes rested briefly on the silent woman at his side--"Xotalanc took a woman to wife, a woman whom both Tecuhltli and old Tolkemec desired. In his madness, Tecuhltli stole her from her husband. Aye, she went willingly enough. Tolkemec, to spite Xotalanc, aided Tecuhltli. Xotalanc demanded that she be given back to him, and the council of the tribe decided that the matter should be left to the woman. She chose to remain with Tecuhltli. In wrath Xotalanc sought to take her back by force, and the retainers of the brothers came to blows in the Great Hall.

"There was much bitterness. Blood was shed on both sides. The quarrel became a feud, the feud an open war. From the welter three factions emerged--Tecuhltli, Xotalanc, and Tolkemec. Already, in the days of peace, they had divided the city between them. Tecuhltli dwelt in the western quarter of the city, Xotalanc in the eastern, and Tolkemec with his family by the southern gate.

"Anger and resentment and jealousy blossomed into bloodshed and rape and murder. Once the sword was drawn there was no turning back; for blood called for blood, and vengeance followed swift on the heels of atrocity. Tecuhltli fought with Xotalanc, and Tolkemec aided first one and then the other, betraying each faction as it fitted his purposes. Tecuhltli and his people withdrew into the quarter of the western gate, where we now sit. Xuchotl is built in the shape of an oval. Tecuhltli, which took its name from its prince, occupies the western end of the oval. The people blocked up all doors connecting the quarter with the rest of the city, except one on each floor, which could be defended easily. They went into the pits below the city and built a wall cutting off the western end of the catacombs, where lie the bodies of the ancient Xuchotlans, and of those Tlazitlans slain in the feud. They dwelt as in a besieged castle, making sorties and forays on their enemies.

"The people of Xotalanc likewise fortified the eastern quarter of the city, and Tolkemec did likewise with the quarter by the southern gate. The central part of the city was left bare and uninhabited. Those empty halls and chambers became a battleground, and a region of brooding terror.

"Tolkemec warred on both clans. He was a fiend in the form of a human, worse than Xotalanc. He knew many secrets of the city he never told the others. From the crypts of the catacombs he plundered the dead of their grisly secrets--secrets of ancient kings and wizards, long forgotten by the degenerate Xuchotlans our ancestors slew. But all his magic did not aid him the night we of Tecuhltli stormed his castle and butchered all his people. Tolkemec we tortured for many days."

His voice sank to a caressing slur, and a faraway look grew in his eyes, as if he looked back over the years to a scene which caused him intense pleasure.

"Aye, we kept the life in him until he screamed for death as for a bride. At last we took him living from the torture chamber and cast him into a dungeon for the rats to gnaw as he died. From that dungeon, somehow, he managed to escape, and dragged himself into the catacombs. There without doubt he died, for the only way out of the catacombs beneath Tecuhltli is through Tecuhltli, and he never emerged by that way. His bones were never found and the superstitious among our people swear that his ghost haunts the crypts to this day, wailing among the bones of the dead. Twelve years ago we butchered the people of Tolkemec, but the feud raged on between Tecuhltli and Xotalanc, as it will rage until the last man, the last woman is dead.

"It was fifty years ago that Tecuhltli stole the wife of Xotalanc. Half a century the feud has endured. I was born in it. All in this chamber, except Tascela, were born in it. We expect to die in it.

"We are a dying race, even as were those Xuchotlans our ancestors slew. When the feud began there were hundreds in each faction. Now we of Tecuhltli number only these you see before you, and the men who guard the four doors: forty in all. How many Xotalancas there are we do not know, but I doubt if they are much more numerous than we. For fifteen years no children have been born to us, and we have seen none among the Xotalancas.

"We are dying, but before we die we will slay as many of the men of Xotalanc as the gods permit."

And with his weird eyes blazing, Olmec spoke long of that grisly feud, fought out in silent chambers and dim halls under the blaze of the green fire-jewels, on floors smoldering with the flames of hell and splashed with deeper crimson from severed veins. In that long butchery a whole generation had perished. Xotalanc was dead, long ago, slain in a grim battle on an ivory stair. Tecuhltli was dead, flayed alive by the maddened Xotalancas who had captured him.

Without emotion Olmec told of hideous battles fought in black corridors, of ambushes on twisting stairs, and red butcheries. With a redder, more abysmal gleam in his deep dark eyes he told of men and women flayed alive, mutilated and dismembered, of captives howling under tortures so ghastly that even the barbarous Cimmerian grunted. No wonder Techotl had trembled with the terror of capture! Yet he had gone forth to slay if he could, driven by hate that was stronger than his fear. Olmec spoke further, of dark and mysterious matters, of black magic and wizardry conjured out of the black night of the catacombs, of weird creatures invoked out of darkness for horrible allies. In these things the Xotalancas had the advantage, for it was in the eastern catacombs where lay the bones of the greatest wizards of the ancient Xuchotlans, with their immemorial secrets.

Valeria listened with morbid fascination. The feud had become a terrible elemental power driving the people of Xuchotl inexorably on to doom and extinction. It filled their whole lives. They were born in it, and they expected to die in it. They never left their barricaded castle except to steal forth into the Halls of Silence that lay between the opposing fortresses, to slay and be slain. Sometimes the raiders returned with frantic captives, or with grim tokens of victory in fight. Sometimes they did not return at all, or returned only as severed limbs cast down before the bolted bronze doors. It was a ghastly, unreal nightmare existence these people lived, shut off from the rest of the world, caught together like rabid rats in the same trap, butchering one another through the years, crouching and creeping through the sunless corridors to maim and torture and murder.

While Olmec talked, Valeria felt the blazing eyes of Tascela fixed upon her. The princess seemed not to hear what Olmec was saying. Her expression, as he narrated victories or defeats, did not mirror the wild rage or fiendish exultation that alternated on the faces of the other Tecuhltli. The feud that was an obsession to her clansmen seemed meaningless to her. Valeria found her indifferent callousness more repugnant than Olmec's naked ferocity.

"And we can never leave the city," said Olmec. "For fifty years on one has left it except those--" Again he checked himself.

"Even without the peril of the dragons," he continued, "we who were born and raised in the city would not dare leave it. We have never set foot outside the walls. We are not accustomed to the open sky and the naked sun. No; we were born in Xuchotl, and in Xuchotl we shall die."

"Well," said Conan, "with your leave we'll take our chances with the dragons. This feud is none of our business. If you'll show us to the west gate we'll be on our way."

Tascela's hands clenched, and she started to speak, but Olmec interrupted her: "It is nearly nightfall. If you wander forth into the plain by night, you will certainly fall prey to the dragons."

"We crossed it last night, and slept in the open without seeing any," returned Conan.

Tascela smiled mirthlessly. "You dare not leave Xuchotl!"

Conan glared at her with instinctive antagonism; she was not looking at him, but at the woman opposite him.

"I think they dare," stated Olmec. "But look you, Conan and Valeria, the gods must have sent you to us, to cast victory into the laps of the Tecuhltli! You are professional fighters--why not fight for us? We have wealth in abundance--precious jewels are as common in Xuchotl as cobblestones are in the cities of the world. Some the Xuchotlans brought with them from Kosala. Some, like the firestones, they found in the hills to the east. Aid us to wipe out the Xotalancas, and we will give you all the jewels you can carry."

"And will you help us destroy the dragons?" asked Valeria. "With bows and poisoned arrows thirty men could slay all the dragons in the forest."

"Aye!" replied Olmec promptly. "We have forgotten the use of the bow, in years of hand-to-hand fighting, but we can learn again."

"What do you say?" Valeria inquired of Conan.

"We're both penniless vagabonds," he grinned hardily. "I'd as soon kill Xotalancas as anybody."

"Then you agree?" exclaimed Olmec, while Techotl fairly hugged himself with delight.

"Aye. And now suppose you show us chambers where we can sleep, so we can be fresh tomorrow for the beginning of the slaying."

Olmec nodded, and waved a hand, and Techotl and a woman led the adventurers into a corridor which led through a door off to the left of the jade dais. A glance back showed Valeria Olmec sitting on his throne, chin on knotted fist, staring after them. His eyes burned with a weird flame. Tascela leaned back in her seat, whispering to the sullen-faced maid, Yasala, who leaned over her shoulder, her ear to the princess's moving lips.

The hallway was not so broad as most they had traversed, but it was long. Presently the woman halted, opened a door, and drew aside for Valeria to enter.

"Wait a minute," growled Conan. "Where do I sleep?"

Techotl pointed to a chamber across the hallway, but one door farther down. Conan hesitated, and seemed inclined to raise an objection, but Valeria smiled spitefully at him and shut the door in his face. He muttered something uncomplimentary about women in general, and strode off down the corridor after Techotl.

In the ornate chamber where he was to sleep, he glanced up at the slot-like skylights. Some were wide enough to admit the body of a slender man, supposing the glass were broken.

"Why don't the Xotalancas come over the roofs and shatter those skylights?" he asked.

"They cannot be broken," answered Techotl. "Besides, the roofs would be hard to clamber over. They are mostly spires and domes and steep ridges."

He volunteered more information about the "castle" of Tecuhltli. Like the rest of the city it contained four stories, or tiers of chambers, with towers jutting up from the roof. Each tier was named; indeed, the people of Xuchotl had a name for each chamber, hall, and stair in the city, as people of more normal cities designate streets and quarters. In Tecuhltli the floors were named The Eagle's Tier, The Ape's Tier, The Tiger's Tier and The Serpent's Tier, in the order as enumerated, The Eagle's Tier being the highest, or fourth, floor.

"Who is Tascela?" asked Conan. "Olmec's wife?"

Techotl shuddered and glanced furtively about him before answering.

"No. She is--Tascela! She was the wife of Xotalanc--the woman Tecuhltli stole, to start the feud."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Conan. "That woman is beautiful and young. Are you trying to tell me that she was a wife fifty years ago?"

"Aye! I swear it! She was a full-grown woman when the Tlazitlans journeyed from Lake Zuad. It was because the king of Stygia desired her for a concubine that Xotalanc and his brother rebelled and fled into the wilderness. She is a witch, who possesses the secret of perpetual youth."

"What's that?" asked Conan.

Techotl shuddered again.

"Ask me not! I dare not speak. It is too grisly, even for Xuchotl!"

And touching his finger to his lips, he glided from the chamber.

== Scent of Black Lotus ==

Valeria unbuckled her sword belt and laid it with the sheathed weapon on the couch where she meant to sleep. She noted that the doors were supplied with bolts, and asked where they led.

"Those lead to adjoining chambers," answered the woman, indicating the doors on right and left. "That one?"--pointing to a copper-bound door opposite that which opened into the corridor--"leads to a corridor which runs to a stair that descends into the catacombs. Do not fear; naught can harm you here."

"Who spoke of fear?" snapped Valeria. "I just like to know what sort of harbor I'm dropping anchor in. No, I don't want you to sleep at the foot of my couch. I'm not accustomed to being waited on--not by women, anyway. You have my leave to go."

Alone in the room, the pirate shot the bolts on all the doors, kicked off her boots and stretched luxuriously out on the couch. She imagined Conan similarly situated across the corridor, but her feminine vanity prompted her to visualize him as scowling and muttering with chagrin as he cast himself on his solitary couch, and she grinned with gleeful malice as she prepared herself for slumber.

Outside, night had fallen. In the halls of Xuchotl the green fire-jewels blazed like the eyes of prehistoric cats. Somewhere among the dark towers, a night wind moaned like a restless spirit. Through the dim passages, stealthy figures began stealing, like disembodied shadows.

Valeria awoke suddenly on her couch. In the dusky emerald glow of the fire-gems she saw a shadowy figure bending over her. For a bemused instant the apparition seemed part of the dream she had been dreaming. She had seemed to lie on the couch in the chamber as she was actually lying, while over her pulsed and throbbed a gigantic black blossom so enormous that it hid the ceiling. Its exotic perfume pervaded her being, inducing a delicious, sensuous languor that was something more and less than sleep. She was sinking into scented billows of insensible bliss, when something touched her face. So supersensitive were her drugged senses, that the light touch was like a dislocating impact, jolting her rudely into full wakefulness. Then it was that she saw, not a gargantuan blossom, but a dark-skinned woman standing above her.

With the realization came anger and instant action. The woman turned lithely, but before she could run Valeria was on her feet and had caught her arm. She fought like a wildcat for an instant, and then subsided as she felt herself crushed by the superior strength of her captor. The pirate wrenched the woman around to face her, caught her chin with her free hand and forced her captive to meet her gaze. It was the sullen Yasala, Tascela's maid.

"What the devil were you doing bending over me? What's that in your hand?"

The woman made no reply, but sought to cast away the object. Valeria twisted her arm around in front of her, and the thing fell to the floor--a great black exotic blossom on a jade-green stem, large as a woman's head, to be sure, but tiny beside the exaggerated vision she had seen.

"The black lotus!" said Valeria between her teeth. "The blossom whose scent brings deep sleep. You were trying to drug me! If you hadn't accidentally touched my face with the petals, you'd have--why did you do it? What's your game?"

Yasala maintained a sulky silence, and with an oath Valeria whirled her around, forced her to her knees and twisted her arm up behind her back.

"Tell me, or I'll tear your arm out of its socket!"

Yasala squirmed in anguish as her arm was forced excruciatingly up between her shoulder blades, but a violent shaking of her head was the only answer she made.

"Slut!" Valeria cast her from her to sprawl on the floor. The pirate glared at the prostrate figure with blazing eyes. Fear and the memory of Tascela's burning eyes stirred in her, rousing all her tigerish instincts of self-preservation. These people were decadent; any sort of perversity might be expected to be encountered among them. But Valeria sensed here something that moved behind the scenes, some secret terror fouler than common degeneracy. Fear and revulsion of this weird city swept her. These people were neither sane nor normal; she began to doubt if they were even human. Madness smoldered in the eyes of them all--all except the cruel, cryptic eyes of Tascela, which held secrets and mysteries more abysmal than madness.

She lifted her head and listened intently. The halls of Xuchotl were as silent as if it were in reality a dead city. The green jewels bathed the chamber in a nightmare glow, in which the eyes of the woman on the floor glittered eerily up at her. A thrill of panic throbbed through Valeria, driving the last vestige of mercy from her fierce soul.

"Why did you try to drug me?" she muttered, grasping the woman's black hair, and forcing her head back to glare into her sullen, long-lashed eyes. "Did Tascela send you?"

No answer. Valeria cursed venomously and slapped the woman first on one cheek and then the other. The blows resounded through the room, but Yasala made no outcry.

"Why don't you scream?" demanded Valeria savagely. "Do you fear someone will hear you? Whom do you fear? Tascela? Olmec? Conan?"

Yasala made no reply. She crouched, watching her captor with eyes baleful as those of a basilisk. Stubborn silence always fans anger. Valeria turned and tore a handful of cords from a near-by hanging.

"You sulky slut!" she said between her teeth. "I'm going to strip you stark naked and tie you across that couch and whip you until you tell me what you were doing here, and who sent you!"

Yasala made no verbal protest, nor did she offer any resistance, as Valeria carried out the first part of her thereat with a fury that her captive's obstinacy only sharpened. Then for a space there was no sound in the chamber except the whistle and crackle of hard-woven silken cords on naked flesh. Yasala could not move her fast-bound hands or feet. Her body writhed and quivered under the chastisement, her head swayed from side to side in rhythm with the blows. Her teeth were sunk into her lower lip and a trickle of blood began as the punishment continued. But she did not cry out.

The pliant cords made no great sound as they encountered the quivering body of the captive; only a sharp crackling snap, but each cord left a red streak across Yasala's dark flesh. Valeria inflicted the punishment with all the strength of her war-hardened arm, with all the mercilessness acquired during a life where pain and torment were daily happenings, and with all the cynical ingenuity which only a woman displays toward a woman. Yasala suffered more, physically and mentally, than she would have suffered under a lash wielded by a man, however strong.

It was the application of this feminine cynicism which at last tamed Yasala.

A low whimper escaped from her lips, and Valeria paused, arm lifted, and raked back a damp yellow lock. "Well, are you going to talk?" she demanded. "I can keep this up all night, if necessary."

"Mercy!" whispered the woman. "I will tell."

Valeria cut the cords from her wrists and ankles, and pulled her to her feet. Yasala sank down on the couch, half reclining on one bare hip, supporting herself on her arm, and writhing at the contact of her smarting flesh with the couch. She was trembling in every limb.

"Wine!" she begged, dry-lipped, indicating with a quivering hand a gold vessel on an ivory table. "Let me drink. I am weak with pain. Then I will tell you all."

Valeria picked up the vessel, and Yasala rose unsteadily to receive it. She took it, raised it toward her lips--then dashed the contents full into the Aquilonian's face. Valeria reeled backward, shaking and clawing the stinging liquid out of her eyes. Through a smarting mist she saw Yasala dart across the room, fling back a bolt, throw open the copper-bound door and run down the hall. The pirate was after her instantly, sword out and murder in her heart.

But Yasala had the start, and she ran with the nervous agility of a woman who has just been whipped to the point of hysterical frenzy. She rounded a corner in the corridor, yards ahead of Valeria, and when the pirate turned it, she saw only an empty hall, and at the other end a door that gaped blackly. A damp moldy scent reeked up from it, and Valeria shivered. That must be the door that led to the catacombs. Yasala had taken refuge among the dead.

Valeria advanced to the door and looked down a flight of stone steps that vanished quickly into utter blackness. Evidently it was a shaft that led straight to the pits below the city, without opening upon any of the lower floors. She shivered slightly at the thought of the thousands of corpses lying in their stone crypts down there, wrapped in their moldering cloths. She had no intention of groping her way down those stone steps. Yasala doubtless knew every turn and twist of the subterranean tunnels.

She was turning back, baffled and furious, when a sobbing cry welled up from the blackness. It seemed to come from a great depth, but human words were faintly distinguishable, and the voice was that of a woman. "Oh, help! Help, in Set's name! Ahhh!" It trailed away, and Valeria thought she caught the echo of a ghostly tittering.

Valeria felt her skin crawl. What had happened to Yasala down there in the thick blackness? There was no doubt that it had been she who had cried out. But what peril could have befallen her? Was a Xotalanca lurking down there? Olmec had assured them that the catacombs below Tecuhltli were walled off from the rest, too securely for their enemies to break through. Besides, that tittering had not sounded like a human being at all.

Valeria hurried back down the corridor, not stopping to close the door that opened on the stair. Regaining her chamber, she closed the door and shot the bolt behind her. She pulled on her boots and buckled her sword-belt about her. She was determined to make her way to Conan's room and urge him, if he still lived, to join her in an attempt to fight their way out of that city of devils.

But even as she reached the door that opened into the corridor, a long-drawn scream of agony rang through the halls, followed by the stamp of running feet and the loud clangor of swords.

== Twenty Red Nails ==

Two warriors lounged in the guardroom on the floor known as the Tier of the Eagle. Their attitude was casual, though habitually alert. An attack on the great bronze door from without was always a possibility, but for many years no such assault had been attempted on either side.

"The strangers are strong allies," said one. "Olmec will move against the enemy tomorrow, I believe."

He spoke as a soldier in a war might have spoken. In the miniature world of Xuchotl each handful of feudists was an army, and the empty halls between the castles was the country over which they campaigned.

The other meditated for a space.

"Suppose with their aid we destroy Xotalanc," he said. "What then, Xatmec?"

"Why," returned Xatmec, "we will drive red nails for them all. The captives we will burn and flay and quarter."

"But afterward?" pursued the other. "After we have slain them all? Will it not seem strange to have no foe to fight? All my life I have fought and hated the Xotalancas. With the feud ended, what is left?"

Xatmec shrugged his shoulders. His thoughts had never gone beyond the destruction of their foes. They could not go beyond that.

Suddenly both men stiffened at a noise outside the door.

"To the door, Xatmec!" hissed the last speaker. "I shall look through the Eye--"

Xatmec, sword in hand, leaned against the bronze door, straining his ear to hear through the metal. His mate looked into the mirror. He started convulsively. Men were clustered thickly outside the door; grim, dark-faced men with swords gripped in their teeth--and their fingers thrust into their ears. One who wore a feathered headdress had a set of pipes which he set to his lips, and even as the Tecuhltli started to shout a warning, the pipes began to skirl.

The cry died in the guard's throat as the thin, weird piping penetrated the metal door and smote on his ears. Xatmec leaned frozen against the door, as if paralyzed in that position. His face was that of a wooden image, his expression one of horrified listening. The other guard, farther removed from the source of the sound, yet sensed the horror of what was taking place, the grisly threat that lay in that demoniac fifing. He felt the weird strains plucking like unseen fingers at the tissues of his brain, filling him with alien emotions and impulses of madness. But with a soul-tearing effort he broke the spell, and shrieked a warning in a voice he did not recognize as his own.

But even as he cried out, the music changed to an unbearable shrilling that was like a knife in the eardrums. Xatmec screamed in sudden agony, and all the sanity went out of his face like a flame blown out in a wind. Like a madman he ripped loose the chain, tore open the door and rushed out into the hall, sword lifted before his mate could stop him. A dozen blades struck him down, and over his mangled body the Xotalancas surged into the guardroom, with a long-drawn, blood-mad yell that sent the unwonted echoes reverberating.

His brain reeling from the shock of it all, the remaining guard leaped to meet them with goring spear. The horror of the sorcery he had just witnessed was submerged in the stunning realization that the enemy were in Tecuhltli. And as his spearhead ripped through a dark-skinned belly he knew no more, for a swinging sword crushed his skull, even as wild-eyed warriors came pouring in from the chambers behind the guardroom.

It was the yelling of men and the clanging of steel that brought Conan bounding from his couch, wide awake and broadsword in hand. In an instant he had reached the door and flung it open, and was glaring out into the corridor just as Techotl rushed up it, eyes blazing madly.

"The Xotalancas!" he screamed, in a voice hardly human. "They are within the door!"

Conan ran down the corridor, even as Valeria emerged from her chamber.

"What the devil is it?" she called.

"Techotl says the Xotalancas are in," he answered hurriedly. "That racket sounds like it."

With the Tecuhltli on their heels they burst into the throne room and were confronted by a scene beyond the most frantic dream of blood and fury. Twenty men and women, their black hair streaming, and the white skulls gleaming on their breasts, were locked in combat with the people of Tecuhltli. The women on both sides fought as madly as the men, and already the room and the hall beyond were strewn with corpses.

Olmec, naked but for a breech-clout, was fighting before his throne, and as the adventurers entered, Tascela ran from an inner chamber with a sword in her hand.

Xatmec and his mate were dead, so there was none to tell the Tecuhltli how their foes had found their way into their citadel. Nor was there any to say what had prompted that mad attempt. But the losses of the Xotalancas had been greater, their position more desperate, than the Tecuhltli had known. The maiming of their scaly ally, the destruction of the Burning Skull, and the news, gasped by a dying man, that mysterious white-skin allies had joined their enemies, had driven them to the frenzy of desperation and the wild determination to die dealing death to their ancient foes.

The Tecuhltli, recovering from the first stunning shock of the surprise that had swept them back into the throne room and littered the floor with their corpses, fought back with an equally desperate fury, while the doorguards from the lower floors came racing to hurl themselves into the fray. It was the deathfight of rabid wolves, blind, panting, merciless. Back and forth it surged, from door to dais, blades whickering and striking into flesh, blood spurting, feet stamping the crimson floor where redder pools were forming. Ivory tables crashed over, seats were splintered, velvet hangings torn down were stained red. It was the bloody climax of a bloody half-century, and every man there sensed it.

But the conclusion was inevitable. The Tecuhltli outnumbered the invaders almost two to one, and they were heartened by that fact and by the entrance into the melee of their light-skinned allies.

These crashed into the fray with the devastating effect of a hurricane plowing through a grove of saplings. In sheer strength no three Tlazitlans were a match for Conan, and in spite of his weight he was quicker on his feet than any of them. He moved through the whirling, eddying mass with the surety and destructiveness of a gray wolf amidst a pack of alley curs, and he strode over a wake of crumpled figures.

Valeria fought beside him, her lips smiling and her eyes blazing. She was stronger than the average man, and far quicker and more ferocious. Her sword was like a living thing in her hand. Where Conan beat down opposition by the sheer weight and power of his blows, breaking spears, splitting skulls and cleaving bosoms to the breastbone, Valeria brought into action a finesse of swordplay that dazzled and bewildered her antagonists before it slew them. Again and again a warrior, heaving high his heavy blade, found her point in his jugular before he could strike. Conan, towering above the field, strode through the welter smiting right and left, but Valeria moved like an illusive phantom, constantly shifting, and thrusting and slashing as she shifted. Swords missed her again and again as the wielders flailed the empty air and died with her point in their hearts or throats, and her mocking laughter in their ears.

Neither sex nor condition was considered by the maddened combatants. The five women of the Xotalancas were down with their throats cut before Conan and Valeria entered the fray, and when a man or woman went down under the stamping feet, there was always a knife ready for the helpless throat, or a sandaled foot eager to crush the prostrate skull.

From wall to wall, from door to door rolled the waves of combat, spilling over into adjoining chambers. And presently only Tecuhltli and their white-skinned allies stood upright in the great throne room. The survivors stared bleakly and blankly at each other, like survivors after Judgement Day or the destruction of the world. On legs wide-braced, hands gripping notched and dripping swords, blood trickling down their arms, they stared at one another across the mangled corpses of friends and foes. They had no breath left to shout, but a bestial mad howling rose from their lips. It was not a human cry of triumph. It was the howling of a rabid wolf-pack stalking among the bodies of its victims.

Conan caught Valeria's arm and turned her about.

"You've got a stab in the calf of your leg," he growled.

She glanced down, for the first time aware of a stinging in the muscles of her leg. Some dying man on the floor had fleshed his dagger with his last effort.

"You look like a butcher yourself," she laughed.

He shook a red shower from his hands.

"Not mine. Oh, a scratch here and there. Nothing to bother about. But that calf ought to be bandaged."

Olmec came through the litter, looking like a ghoul with his naked massive shoulders splashed with blood, and his black beard dabbled in crimson. His eyes were red, like the reflection of flame on black water.

"We have won!" he croaked dazedly. "The feud is ended! The dogs of Xotalanc lie dead! Oh, for a captive to flay alive! Yet it is good to look upon their dead faces. Twenty dead dogs! Twenty red nails for the black column!"

"You'd best see to your wounded," grunted Conan, turning away from him. "Here, girl, let me see that leg."

"Wait a minute!" she shook him off impatiently. The fire of fighting still burned brightly in her soul. "How do we know these are all of them? These might have come on a raid of their own."

"They would not split the clan on a foray like this," said Olmec, shaking his head, and regaining some of his ordinary intelligence. Without his purple robe the man seemed less like a prince than some repellent beast of prey. "I will stake my head upon it that we have slain them all. There were less of them than I dreamed, and they must have been desperate. But how came they in Tecuhltli?"

Tascela came forward, wiping her sword on her naked thigh, and holding in her other hand an object she had taken from the body of the feathered leader of the Xotalancas.

"The pipes of madness," she said. "A warrior tells me that Xatmec opened the door to the Xotalancas and was cut down as they stormed into the guardroom. This warrior came to the guardroom from the inner hall just in time to see it happen and to hear the last of a weird strain of music which froze his very soul. Tolkemec used to talk of these pipes, which the Xuchotlans swore were hidden somewhere in the catacombs with the bones of the ancient wizard who used them in his lifetime. Somehow the dogs of Xotalanc found them and learned their secret."

"Somebody ought to go to Xotalanc and see if any remain alive," said Conan. "I'll go if somebody will guide me."

Olmec glanced at the remnants of his people. There were only twenty left alive, and of these several lay groaning on the floor. Tascela was the only one of the Tecuhltli who had escaped without a wound. The princess was untouched, though she had fought as savagely as any.

"Who will go with Conan to Xotalanc?" asked Olmec.

Techotl limped forward. The wound in his thigh had started bleeding afresh, and he had another gash across his ribs.

"I will go!"

"No, you won't," vetoed Conan. "And you're not going either, Valeria. In a little while that leg will be getting stiff."

"I will go," volunteered a warrior, who was knotting a bandage about a slashed forearm.

"Very well, Yanath. Go with the Cimmerian. And you, too, Topal." Olmec indicated another man whose injuries were slight. "But first aid to lift the badly wounded on these couches where we may bandage their hurts."

This was done quickly. As they stooped to pick up a woman who had been stunned by a warclub, Olmec's beard brushed Topal's ear. Conan thought the prince muttered something to the warrior, but he could not be sure. A few moments later he was leading his companions down the hall.

Conan glanced back as he went out the door, at that shambles where the dead lay on the smoldering floor, blood-stained dark limbs knotted in attitudes of fierce muscular effort, dark faces frozen in masks of hate, glassy eyes glaring up at the green fire-jewels which bathed the ghastly scene in a dusky emerald witchlight. Among the dead the living moved aimlessly, like people moving in a trance. Conan heard Olmec call a woman and direct her to bandage Valeria's leg. The pirate followed the woman into an adjoining chamber, already beginning to limp slightly.

Warily the two Tecuhltli led Conan along the hall beyond the bronze door, and through chamber after chamber shimmering in the green fire. They saw no one, heard no sound. After they crossed the Great Hall which bisected the city from north to south, their caution was increased by the realization of their nearness to enemy territory. But chambers and halls lay empty to their wary gaze, and they came at last along a broad dim hallway and halted before a bronze door similar to the Eagle Door of Tecuhltli. Gingerly they tried it, and it opened at silently under their fingers. Awed, they started into the green-lit chambers beyond. For fifty years no Tecuhltli had entered those halls save as a prisoner going to a hideous doom. To go to Xotalanc had been the ultimate horror that could befall a man of the western castle. The terror of it had stalked through their dreams since earliest childhood. To Yanath and Topol that bronze door was like the portal of hell.

They cringed back, unreasoning horror in their eyes, and Conan pushed past them and strode into Xotalanc.

Timidly they followed him. As each man set foot over the threshold he stared and glared wildly about him. But only their quick, hurried breathing disturbed the silence.

They had come into a square guardroom, like that behind the Eagle Door of Tecuhltli, and, similarly, a hall ran away from it to a broad chamber that was a counterpart of Olmec's throne room.

Conan glanced down the hall with its rugs and divans and hangings, and stood listening intently. He heard no noise, and the rooms had an empty feel. He did not believe there were any Xotalancas left alive in Xuchotl.

"Come on," he muttered, and started down the hall.

He had not gone far when he was aware that only Yanath was following him. He wheeled back to see Topal standing in an attitude of horror, one arm out as if to fend off some threatening peril, his distended eyes fixed with hypnotic intensity on something protruding from behind a divan.

"What the devil?" Then Conan saw what Topal was staring at, and he felt a faint twitching of the skin between his giant shoulders. A monstrous head protruded from behind the divan, a reptilian head, broad as the head of a crocodile, with down-curving fangs that projected over the lower jaw. But there was an unnatural limpness about the thing, and the hideous eyes were glazed.

Conan peered behind the couch. It was a great serpent which lay there limp in death, but such a serpent as he had never seen in his wanderings. The reek and chill of the deep black earth were about it, and its color was an indeterminable hue which changed with each new angle from which he surveyed it. A great wound in the neck showed what had caused its death.

"It is the Crawler!" whispered Yanath.

"It's the thing I slashed on the stair," grunted Conan. "After it trailed us to the Eagle Door, it dragged itself here to die. How could the Xotalancas control such a brute?"

The Tecuhltli shivered and shook their heads.

"They brought it up from the black tunnels below the catacombs. They discovered secrets unknown to Tecuhltli."

"Well, it's dead, and if they'd had any more of them, they'd have brought them along when they came to Tecuhltli. Come on."

They crowded close at his heels as he strode down the hall and thrust on the silver-worked door at the other end.

"If we don't find anybody on this floor," he said, "we'll descend into the lower floors. We'll explore Xotalanc from the roof to the catacombs. If Xotalanc is like Tecuhltli, all the rooms and halls in this tier will be lighted--what the devil!"

They had come into the broad throne chamber, so similar to that one in Tecuhltli. There were the same jade dais and ivory seat, the same divans, rugs and hangings on the walls. No black, red-scarred column stood behind the throne-dais, but evidences of the grim feud were not lacking.

Ranged along the wall behind the dais were rows of glass-covered shelves. And on those shelves hundreds of human heads, perfectly preserved, stared at the startled watchers with emotionless eyes, as they had stared for only the gods knew how many months and years.

Topal muttered a curse, but Yanath stood silent, the mad light growing in his wide eyes. Conan frowned, knowing that Tlazitlan sanity was hung on a hair-trigger.

Suddenly Yanath pointed to the ghastly relics with a twitching finger.

"There is my brother's head!" he murmured. "And there is my father's younger brother! And there beyond them is my sister's eldest son!"

Suddenly he began to weep, dry-eyed, with harsh, loud sobs that shook his frame. He did not take his eyes from the heads. His sobs grew shriller, changed to frightful, high-pitched laughter, and that in turn became an unbearable screaming. Yanath was stark mad.

Conan laid a hand on his shoulder, and as if the touch had released all the frenzy in his soul, Yanath screamed and whirled, striking at the Cimmerian with his sword. Conan parried the blow, and Topal tried to catch Yanath's arm. But the madman avoided him and with froth flying from his lips, he drove his sword deep into Topal's body. Topal sank down with a groan, and Yanath whirled for an instant like a crazy dervish; then he ran at the shelves and began hacking at the glass with his sword, screeching blasphemously.

Conan sprang at him from behind, trying to catch him unaware and disarm him, but the madman wheeled and lunged at him, screaming like a lost soul. Realizing that the warrior was hopelessly insane, the Cimmerian side-stepped, and as the maniac went past, he swung a cut that severed the shoulder-bone and breast, and dropped the man dead beside his dying victim.

Conan bent over Topal, seeing that the man was at his last gasp. It was useless to seek to stanch the blood gushing from the horrible wound.

"You're done for, Topal," grunted Conan. "Any word you want to send to your people?"

"Bend closer," gasped Topal, and Conan complied--and an instant later caught the man's wrist as Topal struck at his breast with a dagger.

"Crom!" swore Conan. "Are you mad, too?"

"Olmec ordered it!" gasped the dying man. "I know not why. As we lifted the wounded upon the couches he whispered to me, bidding me to slay you as we returned to Tecuhltli--" And with the name of his clan on his lips, Topal died.

Conan scowled down at him in puzzlement. This whole affair had an aspect of lunacy. Was Olmec mad, too? Were all the Tecuhltli madder than he had realized? With a shrug of his shoulders he strode down the hall and out of the bronze door, leaving the dead Tecuhltli lying before the staring dead eyes of their kinsmen's heads.

Conan needed no guide back through the labyrinth they had traversed. His primitive instinct of direction led him unerringly along the route they had come. He traversed it as warily as he had before, his sword in his hand, and his eyes fiercely searching each shadowed nook and corner; for it was his former allies he feared now, not the ghosts of the slain Xotalancas.

He had crossed the Great Hall and entered the chambers beyond when he heard something moving ahead of him--something which gasped and panted, and moved with a strange, floundering, scrambling noise. A moment later Conan saw a man crawling over the flaming floor toward him--a man whose progress left a broad bloody smear on the smoldering surface. It was Techotl and his eyes were already glazing; from a deep gash in his breast blood gushed steadily between the fingers of his clutching hand. With the other he clawed and hitched himself along.

"Conan," he cried chokingly, "Conan! Olmec has taken the yellow-haired woman!"

"So that's why he told Topal to kill me!" murmured Conan, dropping to his knee beside the man, who his experienced eye told him was dying. "Olmec isn't as mad as I thought."

Techotl's groping fingers plucked at Conan's arm. In the cold, loveless, and altogether hideous life of the Tecuhltli, his admiration and affection for the invaders from the outer world formed a warm, human oasis, constituted a tie that connected him with a more natural humanity that was totally lacking in his fellows, whose only emotions were hate, lust, and the urge of sadistic cruelty.

"I sought to oppose him," gurgled Techotl, blood bubbling frothily to his lips. "But he struck me down. He thought he had slain me, but I crawled away. Ah, Set, how far I have crawled in my own blood! Beware, Conan! Olmec may have set an ambush for your return! Slay Olmec! He is a beast. Take Valeria and flee! Fear not to traverse the forest. Olmec and Tascela lied about the dragons. They slew each other years ago, all save the strongest. For a dozen years there has been only one dragon. If you have slain him, there is naught in the forest to harm you. He was the god Olmec worshipped; and Olmec fed human sacrifices to him, the very old and the very young, bound and hurled from the wall. Hasten! Olmec has taken Valeria to the Chamber of the--"

His head slumped down and he was dead before it came to rest on the floor.

Conan sprang up, his eyes like live coals. So that was Olmec's game, having first used the strangers to destroy his foes! He should have known that something of the sort would be going on in that black-bearded degenerate's mind.

The Cimmerian started toward Tecuhltli with reckless speed. Rapidly he reckoned the numbers of his former allies. Only twenty-one, counting Olmec, had survived that fiendish battle in the throne room. Three had died since, which left seventeen enemies with which to reckon. In his rage Conan felt capable of accounting for the whole clan single-handed.

But the innate craft of the wilderness rose to guide his berserk rage. He remembered Techotl's warning of an ambush. It was quite probable that the prince would make such provisions, on the chance that Topal might have failed to carry out his order. Olmec would be expecting him to return by the same route he had followed in going to Xotalanc.

Conan glanced up at a skylight under which he was passing and caught the blurred glimmer of stars. They had not yet begun to pale for dawn. The events of the night had been crowded into a comparatively short space of time.

He turned aside from his direct course and descended a winding staircase to the floor below. He did not know where the door was to be found that let into the castle on that level, but he knew he could find it. How he was to force the locks he did not know; he believed that the doors of Tecuhltli would all be locked and bolted, if for no other reason than the habits of half a century. But there was nothing else but to attempt it.

Sword in hand, he hurried noiselessly on through a maze of green-lit or shadowy rooms and halls. He knew he must be near Tecuhltli, when a sound brought him up short. He recognized it for what it was--a human being trying to cry out through a stifling gag. It came from somewhere ahead of him, and to the left. In those deathly-still chambers a small sound carried a long way.

Conan turned aside and went seeking after the sound, which continued to be repeated. Presently he was glaring through a doorway upon a weird scene. In the room into which he was looking a low rack-like frame of iron lay on the floor, and a giant figure was bound prostrate upon it. His head rested on a bed of iron spikes, which were already crimson-pointed with blood where they had pierced his scalp. A peculiar harness-like contrivance was fastened about his head, though in such a manner that the leather band did not protect his scalp from the spikes. This harness was connected by a slender chain to the mechanism that upheld a huge iron ball which was suspended above the captive's hairy breast. As long as the man could force himself to remain motionless the iron ball hung in its place. But when the pain of the iron points caused him to lift his head, the ball lurched downward a few inches. Presently his aching neck muscles would no longer support his head in its unnatural position and it would fall back on the spikes again. It was obvious that eventually the ball would crush him to a pulp, slowly and inexorably. The victim was gagged, and above the gag his great black ox-eyes rolled wildly toward the man in the doorway, who stood in silent amazement. The man on the rack was Olmec, prince of Tecuhltli.

== The Eyes of Tascela ==

"Why did you bring me into this chamber to bandage my leg?" demanded Valeria. "Couldn't you have done it just as well in the throne room?"

She sat on a couch with her wounded leg extended upon it, and the Tecuhltli woman had just bound it with silk bandages. Valeria's red-stained sword lay on the couch beside her.

She frowned as she spoke. The woman had done her task silently and efficiently, but Valeria liked neither the lingering, caressing touch of her slim fingers nor the expression in her eyes.

"They have taken the rest of the wounded into the other chambers," answered the woman in the soft speech of the Tecuhltli women, which somehow did not suggest either softness or gentleness in the speakers. A little while before, Valeria had seen this same woman stab a Xotalanca woman through the breast and stamp the eyeballs out of a wounded Xotalanca man.

"They will be carrying the corpses of the dead down into the catacombs," she added, "lest the ghosts escape into the chambers and dwell there."

"Do you believe in ghosts?" asked Valeria.

"I know the ghost of Tolkemec dwells in the catacombs," she answered with a shiver. "Once I saw it, as I crouched in a crypt among the bones of a dead queen. It passed by in the form of an ancient man with flowing white beard and locks, and luminous eyes that blazed in the darkness. It was Tolkemec; I saw him living when I was a child and he was being tortured."

Her voice sank to a fearful whisper: "Olmec laughs, but I know Tolkemec's ghost dwells in the catacombs! They say it is rats which gnaw the flesh from the bones of the newly dead--but ghosts eat flesh. Who knows but that--"

She glanced up quickly as a shadow fell across the couch. Valeria looked up to see Olmec gazing down at her. The prince had cleansed his hands, torso, and beard of the blood that had splashed them; but he had not donned his robe, and his great dark-skinned hairless body and limbs renewed the impression of strength bestial in its nature. His deep black eyes burned with a more elemental light, and there was the suggestion of a twitching in the fingers that tugged at his thick blue-black beard.

He stared fixedly at the woman, and she rose and glided from the chamber. As she passed through the door she cast a look over her shoulder at Valeria, a glance full of cynical derision and obscene mockery.

"She has done a clumsy job," criticized the prince, coming to the divan and bending over the bandage. "Let me see--"

With a quickness amazing in one of his bulk he snatched her sword and threw it across the chamber. His next move was to catch her in his giant arms.

Quick and unexpected as the move was, she almost matched it; for even as he grabbed her, her dirk was in her hand and she stabbed murderously at his throat. More by luck than skill he caught her wrist, and then began a savage wrestling-match. She fought him with fists, feet, knees, teeth, and nails, with all the strength of her magnificent body and all the knowledge of hand-to-hand fighting she had acquired in her years of roving and fighting on sea and land. It availed her nothing against his brute strength. She lost her dirk in the first moment of contact, and thereafter found herself powerless to inflict any appreciable pain on her giant attacker.

The blaze in his weird black eyes did not alter, and their expression filled her with fury, fanned by the sardonic smile that seemed carved upon his bearded lips. Those eyes and that smile contained all the cruel cynicism that seethes below the surface of a sophisticated and degenerate race, and for the first time in her life Valeria experienced fear of a man. It was like struggling against some huge elemental force; his iron arms thwarted her efforts with an ease that sent panic racing through her limbs. He seemed impervious to any pain she could inflict. Only once, when she sank her white teeth savagely into his wrist so that the blood started, did he react. And that was to buffet her brutally upon the side of the head with his open hand, so that stars flashed before her eyes and her head rolled on her shoulders.

Her shirt had been torn open in the struggle, and with cynical cruelty he rasped his thick beard across her bare breasts, bringing the blood to suffuse the fair skin, and fetching a cry of pain and outraged fury from her. Her convulsive resistance was useless; she was crushed down on a couch, disarmed and panting, her eyes blazing up at him like the eyes of a trapped tigress.

A moment later he was hurrying from the chamber, carrying her in his arms. She made no resistance, but the smoldering of her eyes showed that she was unconquered in spirit, at least. She had not cried out. She knew that Conan was not within call, and it did not occur to her that any in Tecuhltli would oppose their prince. But she noticed that Olmec went stealthily, with his head on one side as if listening for sounds of pursuit, and he did not return to the throne chamber. He carried her through a door that stood opposite that through which he had entered, crossed another room and began stealing down a hall. As she became convinced that he feared some opposition to the abduction, she threw back her head and screamed at the top of her lusty voice.

She was rewarded by a slap that half-stunned her, and Olmec quickened his pace to a shambling run.

But her cry had been echoed and, twisting her head about, Valeria, through the tears and stars that partly blinded her, saw Techotl limping after them.

Olmec turned with a snarl, shifting the woman to an uncomfortable and certainly undignified position under one huge arm, where he held her writhing and kicking vainly, like a child.

"Olmec!" protested Techotl. "You cannot be such a dog as to do this thing! She is Conan's woman! She helped us slay the Xotalancas, and--"

Without a word Olmec balled his free hand into a huge fist and stretched the wounded warrior senseless at his feet. Stooping, and hindered not at all by the struggles and imprecations of his captive, he drew Techotl's sword from its sheath and stabbed the warrior in the breast. Then casting aside the weapon, he fled on along the corridor. He did not see a woman's dark face peer cautiously after him from behind a hanging. It vanished, and presently Techotl groaned and stirred, rose dazedly and staggered drunkenly away, calling Conan's name.

Olmec hurried on down the corridor, and descended a winding ivory staircase. He crossed several corridors and halted at last in a broad chamber whose doors were veiled with heavy tapestries, with one exception--a heavy bronze door similar to the Door of the Eagle on the upper floor.

He was moved to rumble, pointing to it: "That is one of the outer doors of Tecuhltli. For the first time in fifty years it is unguarded. We need not guard it now, for Xotalanc is no more."

"Thanks to Conan and me, you bloody rogue!" sneered Valeria, trembling with fury and the shame of physical coercion. "You treacherous dog! Conan will cut your throat for this!"

Olmec did not bother to voice his belief that Conan's own gullet had already been severed according to his whispered command. He was too utterly cynical to be at all interested in her thoughts or opinions. His flame-lit eyes devoured her, dwelling burningly on the generous expanses of clear white flesh exposed where her shirt and breeches had been torn in the struggle.

"Forget Conan," he said thickly. "Olmec is lord of Xuchotl. Xotalanc is no more. There will be no more fighting. We shall spend our lives in drinking and love-making. First let us drink!"

He seated himself on an ivory table and pulled her down on his knees, like a dark-skinned satyr with a white nymph in his arms. Ignoring her un-nymphlike profanity, he held her helpless with one great arm about her waist while the other reached across the table and secured a vessel of wine.

"Drink!" he commanded, forcing it to her lips, as she writhed her head away.

The liquor slopped over, stinging her lips, splashing down on her naked breasts.

"Your guest does not like your wine, Olmec," spoke a cool, sardonic voice.

Olmec stiffened; fear grew in his flaming eyes. Slowly he swung his great head about and stared at Tascela, who paused negligently in the curtained doorway, one hand on her smooth hip. Valeria twisted herself about in his iron grip, and when she met the burning eyes of Tascela, a chill tingled along her supple spine. New experiences were flooding Valeria's proud soul that night. Recently she had learned to fear a man; now she knew what it was to fear a woman.

Olmec sat motionless, a gray pallor growing under his swarthy skin. Tascela brought her other hand from behind her and displayed a small gold vessel.

"I feared she would not like your wine, Olmec," purred the princess, "so I brought some of mine, some I brought with me long ago from the shores of Lake Zuad--do you understand, Olmec?"

Beads of sweat stood out suddenly on Olmec's brow. His muscles relaxed, and Valeria broke away and put the table between them. But though reason told her to dart from the room, some fascination she could not understand held her rigid, watching the scene.

Tascela came toward the seated prince with a swaying, undulating walk that was mockery in itself. Her voice was soft, slurringly caressing, but her eyes gleamed. Her slim fingers stroked his beard lightly.

"You are selfish, Olmec," she crooned, smiling. "You would keep our handsome guest to yourself, though you knew I wished to entertain her. You are much at fault, Olmec!"

The mask dropped for an instant; he eyes flashed, her face was contorted and with an appalling show of strength her hand locked convulsively in his beard and tore out a great handful. This evidence of unnatural strength was no more terrifying than the momentary baring of the hellish fury that raged under her bland exterior.

Olmec lurched up with a roar, and stood swaying like a bear, his mighty hands clenching and unclenching.

"Slut!" His booming voice filled the room. "Witch! She-devil! Tecuhltli should have slain you fifty years ago! Begone! I have endured too much from you! This white-skinned wench is mine! Get hence before I slay you!"

The princess laughed and dashed the blood-stained strands into his face. Her laughter was less merciful than the ring of flint on steel.

"Once you spoke otherwise, Olmec," she taunted. "Once, in your youth, you spoke words of love. Aye, you were my lover once, years ago, and because you loved me, you slept in my arms beneath the enchanted lotus--and thereby put into my hands the chains that enslaved you. You know you cannot withstand me. You know I have but to gaze into your eyes, with the mystic power a priest of Stygia taught me, long ago, and you are powerless. You remember the night beneath the black lotus that waved above us, stirred by no worldly breeze; you scent again the unearthly perfumes that stole and rose like a cloud about you to enslave you. You cannot fight against me. You are my slave as you were that night--as you shall be so long as you live, Olmec of Xuchotl!"

Her voice had sunk to a murmur like the rippling of a stream running through starlit darkness. She leaned close to the prince and spread her long tapering fingers upon his giant breast. His eyes glared, his great hands fell limply to his sides.

With a smile of cruel malice, Tascela lifted the vessel and placed it to his lips.

"Drink!"

Mechanically the prince obeyed. And instantly the glaze passed from his eyes and they were flooded with fury, comprehension and an awful fear. His mouth gaped, but no sound issued. For an instant he reeled on buckling knees, and then fell in a sodden heap on the floor.

His fall jolted Valeria out of her paralysis. She turned and sprang toward the door, but with a movement that would have shamed a leaping panther, Tascela was before her. Valeria struck at her with her clenched fist, and all the power of her supple body behind the blow. It would have stretched a man senseless on the floor. But with a lithe twist of her torso, Tascela avoided the blow and caught the pirate's wrist. The next instant Valeria's left hand was imprisoned and, holding her wrists together with one hand, Tascela calmly bound them with a cord she drew from her girdle. Valeria thought she had tasted the ultimate in humiliation already that night, but her shame at being manhandled by Olmec was nothing to the sensations that now shook her supple frame. Valeria had always been inclined to despise the other members of her sex; and it was overwhelming to encounter another woman who could handle her like a child. She scarcely resisted at all when Tascela forced her into a chair and, drawing her bound wrists down between her knees, fastened them to the chair.

Casually stepping over Olmec, Tascela walked to the bronze door and shot the bolt and threw it open, revealing a hallway without.

"Opening upon this hall," she remarked, speaking to her feminine captive for the first time, "there is a chamber which in old times was used as a torture room. When we retired into Tecuhltli, we brought most of the apparatus with us, but there was one piece too heavy to move. It is still in working order. I think it will be quite convenient now."

An understanding flame of terror rose in Olmec's eyes. Tascela strode back to him, bent and gripped him by the hair.

"He is only paralyzed temporarily," she remarked conversationally. "He can hear, think, and feel--aye, he can feel very well indeed!"

With which sinister observation she started toward the door, dragging the giant bulk with an ease that made the pirate's eyes dilate. She passed into the hall and moved down it without hesitation, presently disappearing with her captive into a chamber that opened into it, and whence shortly thereafter issued the clank of iron.

Valeria swore softly and tugged vainly, with her legs braced against the chair. The cords that confined her were apparently unbreakable.

Tascela presently returned alone; behind her a muffled groaning issued from the chamber. She closed the door but did not bolt it. Tascela was beyond the grip of habit, as she was beyond the touch of other human instincts and emotions.

Valeria sat dumbly, watching the woman in whose slim hands, the pirate realized, her destiny now rested.

Tascela grasped her yellow locks and forced back her head, looking impersonably down into her face. But the glitter in her dark eyes was not impersonable.

"I have chosen you for a great honor," she said. "You shall restore the youth of Tascela. Oh, you stare at that! My appearance is that of youth, but through my veins creeps the sluggish chill of approaching age, as I have felt it a thousand times before. I am old, so old I do not remember my childhood. But I was a girl once, and a priest of Stygia loved me, and gave me the secret of immortality and youth everlasting. He died, then--some said by poison. But I dwelt in my palace by the shores of Lake Zuad and the passing years touched me not. So at last a king of Stygia desired me, and my people rebelled and brought me to this land. Olmec called me a princess. I am not of royal blood. I am greater than a princess. I am Tascela, whose youth your own glorious youth shall restore."

Valeria's tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. She sensed here a mystery darker than the degeneracy she had anticipated.

The taller woman unbound the Aquilonian's wrists and pulled her to her feet. It was not fear of the dominant strength that lurked in the princess' limbs that made Valeria a helpless, quivering captive in her hands. It was the burning, hypnotic, terrible eyes of Tascela.

== He Comes from the Dark ==

"Well, I'm a Kushite!"

Conan glared down at the man on the iron rack.

"What the devil are you doing on that thing?"

Incoherent sounds issued from behind the gag and Conan bent and tore it away, evoking a bellow of fear from the captive; for his action caused the iron ball to lurch down until it nearly touched the broad breast.

"Be careful, for Set's sake!" begged Olmec.

"What for?" demanded Conan. "Do you think I care what happens to you? I only wish I had time to stay here and watch that chunk of iron grind your guts out. But I'm in a hurry. Where's Valeria?"

"Loose me!" urged Olmec. "I will tell you all!"

"Tell me first."

"Never!" The prince's heavy jaws set stubbornly.

"All right." Conan seated himself on a near-by bench. "I'll find her myself, after you've been reduced to a jelly. I believe I can speed up that process by twisting my sword-point around in your ear," he added, extending the weapon experimentally.

"Wait!" Words came in a rush from the captive's ashy lips. "Tascela took her from me. I've never been anything but a puppet in Tascela's hands."

"Tascela?" snorted Conan, and spat. "Why, the filthy--"

"No, no!" panted Olmec. "It's worse than you think. Tascela is old--centuries old. She renews her life and her youth by the sacrifice of beautiful young women. That's one thing that has reduced the clan to its present state. She will draw the essence of Valeria's life into her own body, and bloom with fresh vigor and beauty."

"Are the doors locked?" asked Conan, thumbing his sword edge.

"Aye! But I know a way to get into Tecuhltli. Only Tascela and I know, and she thinks me helpless and you slain. Free me and I swear I will help you rescue Valeria. Without my help you cannot win into Tecuhltli; for even if you tortured me into revealing the secret, you couldn't work it. Let me go, and we will steal on Tascela and kill her before she can work magic--before she can fix her eyes on us. A knife thrown from behind will do the work. I should have killed her thus long ago, but I feared that without her to aid us the Xotalancas would overcome us. She needed my help, too; that's the only reason she let me live this long. Now neither needs the other, and one must die. I swear that when we have slain the witch, you and Valeria shall go free without harm. My people will obey me when Tascela is dead."

Conan stooped and cut the ropes that held the prince, and Olmec slid cautiously from under the great ball and rose, shaking his head like a bull and muttering imprecations as he fingered his lacerated scalp. Standing shoulder to shoulder the two men presented a formidable picture of primitive power. Olmec was as tall as Conan, and heavier; but there was something repellent about the Tlazitlan, something abysmal and monstrous that contrasted unfavorably with the clean-cut, compact hardness of the Cimmerian. Conan had discarded the remnants of his tattered, blood-soaked shirt, and stood with his remarkable muscular development impressively revealed. His great shoulders were as broad as those of Olmec, and more cleanly outlined, and his huge breast arched with a more impressive sweep to a hard waist that lacked the paunchy thickness of Olmec's midsection. He might have been an image of primal strength cut out of bronze. Olmec was darker, but not from the burning of the sun. If Conan was a figure out of the dawn of time, Olmec was a shambling, somber shape from the darkness of time's pre-dawn.

"Lead on," demanded Conan. "And keep ahead of me. I don't trust you any farther than I can throw a bull by the tail."

Olmec turned and stalked on ahead of him, one hand twitching slightly as it plucked at his matted beard.

Olmec did not lead Conan back to the bronze door, which the prince naturally supposed Tascela had locked, but to a certain chamber on the border of Tecuhltli.

"This secret has been guarded for half a century," he said. "Not even our own clan knew of it, and the Xotalancas never learned. Tecuhltli himself built this secret entrance, afterwards slaying the slaves who did the work for he feared that he might find himself locked out of his own kingdom some day because of the spite of Tascela, whose passion for him soon changed to hate. But she discovered the secret, and barred the hidden door against him one day as he fled back from an unsuccessful raid, and the Xotalancas took him and flayed him. But once, spying upon her, I saw her enter Tecuhltli by this route, and so learned the secret."

He pressed upon a gold ornament in the wall, and a panel swung inward, disclosing an ivory stair leading upward.

"This stair is built within the wall," said Olmec. "It leads up to a tower upon the roof, and thence other stairs wind down to the various chambers. Hasten!"

"After you, comrade!" retorted Conan satirically, swaying his broadsword as he spoke, and Olmec shrugged his shoulders and stepped onto the staircase. Conan instantly followed him, and the door shut behind them. Far above a cluster of fire-jewels made the staircase a well of dusky dragon-light.

They mounted until Conan estimated that they were above the level of the fourth floor, and then came out into a cylindrical tower, in the domed roof of which was set the bunch of fire-jewels that lighted the stair. Through gold-barred windows, set with unbreakable crystal panes, the first windows he had seen in Xuchotl, Conan got a glimpse of high ridges, domes and more towers, looming darkly against the stars. He was looking across the roofs of Xuchotl.

Olmec did not look through the windows. He hurried down one of the several stairs that wound down from the tower, and when they had descended a few feet, this stair changed into a narrow corridor that wound tortuously on for some distance. It ceased at a steep flight of steps leading downward. There Olmec paused.

Up from below, muffled, but unmistakable, welled a woman's scream, edged with fright, fury, and shame. And Conan recognized Valeria's voice.

In the swift rage roused by that cry, and the amazement of wondering what peril could wring such a shriek from Valeria's reckless lips, Conan forgot Olmec. He pushed past the prince and started down the stair. Awakening instinct brought him about again, just as Olmec strruck with his great mallet-like fist. The blow, fierce and silent, was aimed at the base of Conan's brain. But the Cimmerian wheeled in time to receive the buffet on the side of his neck instead. The impact would have snapped the vertebrae of a lesser man. As it was, Conan swayed backward, but even as he reeled he dropped his sword, useless at such close quarters, and grasped Olmec's extended arm, dragging the prince with him as he fell. Headlong they went down the steps together, in a revolving whirl of limbs and heads and bodies. And as they went, Conan's iron fingers found and locked in Olmec's bull-throat.

The barbarian's neck and shoulder felt numb from the sledge-like impact of Olmec's huge fist, which had carried all the strength of the massive forearm, thick triceps and great shoulder. But this did not affect his ferocity to any appreciable extent. Like a bulldog he hung on grimly, rolled, until at last they struck an ivory panel-door at the bottom with such and impact that they splintered it its full length and crashed through its ruins. But Olmec was already dead, for those iron fingers had crushed out his life and broken his neck as they fell.

Conan rose, shaking the splinters from his great shoulders, blinking blood and dust out of his eyes.

He was in the great throne room. There were fifteen people in that room besides himself. The first person he saw was Valeria. A curious black altar stood before the throne-dais. Ranged about it, seven black candles in golden candlesticks sent up oozing spirals of thick green smoke, disturbingly scented. These spirals united in a cloud near the ceiling, forming a smoky arch above the altar. On that altar lay Valeria, stark naked, her white flesh gleaming in shocking contrast to the glistening ebon stone. She was not bound. She lay at full length, her arms stretched out above her head to their fullest extent. At the head of the altar knelt a young man, holding her wrists firmly. A young woman knelt at the other end of the altar, grasping her ankles. Between them she could neither rise nor move.

Eleven men and women of Tecuhltli knelt dumbly in a semicircle, watching the scene with hot, lustful eyes.

On the ivory throne-seat Tascela lolled. Bronze bowls of incense rolled their spirals about her; the wisps of smoke curled about her naked limbs like caressing fingers. She could not sit still; she squirmed and shifted about with sensuous abandon, as if finding pleasure in the contact of the smooth ivory with her sleek flesh.

The crash of the door as it broke beneath the impact of the hurtling bodies caused no change in the scene. The kneeling men and women merely glanced incuriously at the corpse of their prince and at the man who rose from the ruins of the door, then swung their eyes greedily back to the writhing white shape on the black altar. Tascela looked insolently at him, and sprawled back on her seat, laughing mockingly.

"Slut!" Conan saw red. His hands clenched into iron hammers as he started for her. With his first step something clanged loudly and steel bit savagely into his leg. He stumbled and almost fell, checked in his headlong stride. The jaws of an iron trap had closed on his leg, with teeth that sank deep and held. Only the ridged muscles of his calf saved the bone from being splintered. The accursed thing had sprung out of the smoldering floor without warning. He saw the slots now, in the floor where the jaws had lain, perfectly camouflaged.

"Fool!" laughed Tascela. "Did you think I would not guard against your possible return? Every door in this chamber is guarded by such traps. Stand there and watch now, while I fulfill the destiny of your handsome friend! Then I will decide your own."

Conan's hand instinctively sought his belt, only to encounter an empty scabbard. His sword was on the stair behind him. His poniard was lying back in the forest, where the dragon had torn it from his jaw. The steel teeth in his leg were like burning coals, but the pain was not as savage as the fury that seethed in his soul. He was trapped, like a wolf. If he had had his sword he would have hewn off his leg and crawled across the floor to slay Tascela. Valeria's eyes rolled toward him with mute appeal, and his own helplessness sent red waves of madness surging through his brain.

Dropping on the knee of his free leg, he strove to get his fingers between the jaws of the trap, to tear them apart by sheer strength. Blood started from beneath his fingernails, but the jaws fitted close about his leg in a circle whose segments jointed perfectly, contracted until there was no space between his mangled flesh and the fanged iron. The site of Valeria's naked body added flame to the fire of his rage.

Tascela ignored him. Rising languidly from her seat she swept the ranks of her subjects with a searching glance, and asked: "Where are Xamec, Zlanath and Tachic?"

"They did not return from the catacombs, princess," answered a man. "Like the rest of us, they bore bodies of the slain into the crypts, but they have not returned. Perhaps the ghost of Tolkemec took them."

"Be silent, fool!" she ordered harshly. "The ghost is a myth."

She came down from her dais, playing with a thin gold-hilted dagger. Her eyes burned like nothing on the hither side of hell. She paused beside the altar and spoke in the tense stillness.

"Your life shall make me young, white woman!" she said. "I shall lean upon your bosom and place my lips over yours, and slowly--ah, slowly!--sink this blade through your heart, so that your life, fleeing your stiffening body, shall enter mine, making me bloom again with youth and with life everlasting!"

Slowly, like a serpent arching toward its victim, she bent down through the writhing smoke, closer and closer over the now motionless woman who stared up into her glowing dark eyes--eyes that grew larger and deeper, blazing like black moons in the swirling smoke.

The kneeling people gripped their hands and held their breath, tense for the bloody climax, and the only sound was Conan's fierce panting as he strove to tear his leg from the trap.

All eyes were glued on the altar and the white figure there; the crash of a thunderbolt could hardly have broken the spell, yet it was only a low cry that shattered the fixity of the scene and bought all whirling about--a low cry, yet one to make the hair stand up stiffly on the scalp. They looked, and they saw.

Framed in the door to the left of the dais stood a nightmare figure. It was a man, with a tangle of white hair and a matted white beard that fell over his breast. Rags only partly covered his gaunt frame, revealing half-naked limbs strangely unnatural in appearance. The skin was not like that of a normal human. There was a suggestion of scaliness about it, as if the owner had dwelt long under conditions almost antithetical to those conditions under which human life ordinarily thrives. And there was nothing at all human about the eyes that blazed from the tangle of white hair. They were great gleaming disks that started unwinkingly, luminous, whitish, and without a hint of normal emotion or sanity. The mouth gaped, but no coherent words issued--only a high-pitched tittering.

"Tolkemec!" whispered Tascela, livid, while the others crouched in speechless horror. "No myth, then, no ghost! Set! You have dwelt for twelve years in darkness! Twelve years among the bones of the dead! What grisly food did you find? What mad travesty of life did you live, in the stark blackness of that eternal night? I see now why Xamec and Zlanath and Tachic did not return from the catacombs--and never will return. But why have you waited so long to strike? Were you seeking something, in the pits? Some secret weapon you knew was hidden there? And have you found it at last?"

That hideous tittering was Tolkemec's only reply, as he bounded into the room with a long leap that carried him over the secret trap before the door--by chance, or by some faint recollection of the ways of Xuchotl. He was not mad, as a man is mad. He had dwelt apart from humanity so long that he was no longer human. Only an unbroken thread of memory embodied in hate and the urge for vengeance had connected him with the humanity from which he had been cut off, and held him lurking near the people he hated. Only that thin string had kept him from racing and prancing off for ever into the black corridors and realms of the subterranean world he had discovered, long ago.

"You sought something hidden!" whispered Tascela, cringing back. "And you have found it! You remember the feud! After all these years of blackness, you remember!"

For in the lean hand of Tolkemec now waved a curious jade-hued wand, on the end of which glowed a knob of crimson shaped like a pomegranate. She sprang aside as he thrust it out like a spear, and a beam of crimson fire lanced from the pomegranate. It missed Tascela, but the woman holding Valeria's ankles was in the way. It smote between her shoulders. There was a sharp crackling sound and the ray of fire flashed from her bosom and struck the black altar, with a snapping of blue sparks. The woman toppled sidewise, shriveling and withering like a mummy even as she fell.

Valeria rolled from the altar on the other side, and started for the opposite wall on all fours. For hell had burst loose in the throne room of dead Olmec.

The man who had held Valeria's hands was the next to die. He turned to run, but before he had taken half a dozen steps, Tolkemec, with an agility appalling in such a frame, bounded around to a position that placed the man between him and the altar. Again the red fire-beam flashed and the Tecuhltli rolled lifeless to the floor, as the beam completed its course with a burst of blue sparks against the altar.

Then began the slaughter. Screaming insanely the people rushed about the chamber, caroming from one another, stumbling and falling. And among them Tolkemec capered and pranced, dealing death. They could not escape by the doors; for apparently the metal of the portals served like the metal veined stone altar to complete the circuit for whatever hellish power flashed like thunderbolts from the witch-wand the ancient waved in his hand. When he caught a man or a woman between him and a door or the altar, that one died instantly. He chose no special victim. He took them as they came, with his rags flapping about his wildly gyrating limbs, and the gusty echoes of his tittering sweeping the room above the screams. And bodies fell like falling leaves about the altar and at the doors. One warrior in desperation rushed at him, lifting a dagger, only to fall before he could strike. But the rest were like crazed cattle, with no thought for resistance, and no chance of escape.

The last Tecuhltli except Tascela had fallen when the princess reached the Cimmerian and the girl who had taken refuge beside him. Tascela bent and touched the floor, pressing a design upon it. Instantly the iron jaws released the bleeding limb and sank back into the floor.

"Slay him if you can!" she panted, and pressed a heavy knife into his hand. "I have no magic to withstand him!"

With a grunt he sprang before the woman, not heeding his lacerated leg in the heat of the fighting lust. Tolkemec was coming toward him, his weird eyes ablaze, but he hesitated at the gleam of the knife in Conan's hand. Then began a grim game, as Tolkemec sought to circle about Conan and get the barbarian between him and the altar or a metal door, while Conan sought to avoid this and drive home his knife. The women watched tensely, holding their breath.

There was no sound except the rustle and scrape of quick-shifting feet. Tolkemec pranced and capered no more. He realized that grimmer game confronted him than the people who had died screaming and fleeing. In the elemental blaze of the barbarian's eyes he read an intent deadly as his own. Back and forth they weaved, and when one moved the other moved as if invisible threads bound them together. But all the time Conan was getting closer and closer to his enemy. Already the coiled muscles of his thighs were beginning to flex for a spring, when Valeria cried out. For a fleeting instant a bronze door was in line with Conan's moving body. The red line leaped, searing Conan's flank as he twisted aside, and even as he shifted he hurled the knife. Old Tolkemec went down, truly slain at last, the hilt vibrating on his breast.

Tascela sprang--not toward Conan, but toward the wand where it shimmered like a live thing on the floor. But as she leaped, so did Valeria, with a dagger snatched from a dead man; and the blade, driven with all the power of the pirate's muscles, impaled the princess of Tecuhltli so that the point stood out between her breasts. Tascela screamed once and fell dead, and Valeria spurned the body with her heel as it fell.

"I had to do that much, for my own self-respect!" panted Valeria, facing Conan across the limp corpse.

"Well, this cleans up the feud," he grunted. "It's been a hell of a night! Where did these people keep their food? I'm hungry."

"You need a bandage on that leg." Valeria ripped a length of silk from a hanging and knotted it about her waist, then tore off some smaller strips which she bound efficiently about the barbarian's lacerated limb.

"I can walk on it," he assured her. "Let's begone. It's dawn, outside this infernal city. I've had enough of Xuchotl. It's well the breed exterminated itself. I don't want any of their accursed jewels. They might be haunted."

"There is enough clean loot in the world for you and me," she said, straightening to stand tall and splendid before him.

The old blaze came back in his eyes, and this time she did not resist as he caught her fiercely in his arms.

"It's a long way to the coast," she said presently, withdrawing her lips from his.

"What matter?" he laughed. "There's nothing we can't conquer. We'll have our feet on a ship's deck before the Stygians open their ports for the trading season. And then we'll show the world what plundering means!"
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«Queen of the Black Coast»/«Королева Чёрного Побережья»

2017-12-11T15:58:35Z

Bingam: Новая страница: ««Queen of the Black Coast»/«Королева Чёрного Побережья» {| border="0" width="100%" height="700px" class="simple" style="margin: 0em;"…»

«Queen of the Black Coast»/«Королева Чёрного Побережья»
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{{Шаблон:Texts}}

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«Black Colossus»/«Чёрный колосс»

2017-12-11T15:57:38Z

Карты

2017-12-11T15:56:20Z

Bingam:

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[[Файл:Map2.gif|700px]]

{{Image label|x=0.30 |y=0.045 |scale=700|text=[[Ванахейм|● Ванахейм]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.47 |y=0.05 |scale=700|text=[[Асгард|● Асгард]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.96 |y=0.4 |scale=700|text=[[Кхитай|● Кхитай →]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.41 |y=0.737|scale=700|text=[[Стигия|● Стигия]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.46 |y=0.76|scale=700|text=[[Чёрные королевства|● Чёрные королевства]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.23|y=0.35 |scale=700|text=[[Аквилония|● Аквилония]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.35 |y=0.21 |scale=700|text=[[Киммерия|● Киммерия]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.117 |y=0.259 |scale=700|text=[[Пиктские пустоши|● Пиктские пустоши]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.47 |y=0.263 |scale=700|text=[[Пограничное королевство|● Пограничное королевство]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.58|y=0.150|scale=700|text=[[Гиперборея|● Гиперборея]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.72 |y=0.31 |scale=700|text=[[Туран|● Туран]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.50 |y=0.55 |scale=700|text=[[Коф|● Коф]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.53 |y=0.60 |scale=700|text=[[Хорайя|● Хорайя]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.67 |y=0.53 |scale=700|text=[[Хауран|● Хауран]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.43 |y=0.64 |scale=700|text=[[Шем|● Шем]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.95 |y=0.65 |scale=700|text=[[вендия|● Вендия →]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.35 |y=0.47 |scale=700|text=[[Офир|● Офир]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.48 |y=0.459 |scale=700|text=[[Коринфия|● Коринфия]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.63 |y=0.43 |scale=700|text=[[Замора|● Замора]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.93 |y=0.23 |scale=700|text=[[Гиркания|● Гиркания]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.41 |y=0.35 |scale=700|text=[[Немедия|● Немедия]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.54 |y=0.32 |scale=700|text=[[Бритуния|● Бритуния]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.1 |y=0.49 |scale=700|text=[[Зингара|● Зингара]]}}

{{Image label|x=0.21 |y=0.56 |scale=700|text=[[Аргос|* Аргос]]}}

</div>

'''Роберт Ирвин Говард нарисовал три карты Хайбории.'''

<div class="tleft" style="clear:none">[[Файл:1mapREH.jpg|300px|thumb|Первая карта Хайбории, нарисованная в 1932 году Робертом Говардом. Опубликована в 2003 г. в книге «The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian», издательство Del Rey Books.]]</div>

<div class="tleft" style="clear:none">[[Файл:2mapREH.jpg|300px|thumb|Вторая карта Хайбории, нарисованная в 1932 году Робертом Говардом. Опубликована в 2003 г. в книге «The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian», издательство Del Rey Books.]]</div>

<div class="tleft" style="clear:none">[[Файл:MAP REH.jpg|300px|thumb|Третья карта нарисована в 1936 г. и опубликована в книге «The Conquering Sword of Conan» (2005 г.), издательство Del Rey Books.]]</div><br clear="all" />

=Ссылки=

Статьи Дейла Риппке о картографических курьёзах Хайборийской эры:

*http://thedarkstormfiles.blogspot.com/2010/12/ciudad-de-ladrones-aka-city-of-thieves.html

*http://thedarkstormfiles.blogspot.com/

{{Шаблон:Main}}

Шаблон:Texts

2017-12-11T15:55:20Z

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|}<noinclude>

[[Категория: Шаблоны]]</noinclude>

Персонажи Саги о Конане

2017-12-11T15:52:57Z

Bingam:

Более ста имен персонажей мы встречаем в историях Роберта Говарда о Конане.
*Agha Shupras «Black Colossus»
*Ajaga’s brother «The Scarlet Citadel»
*Akivasha «The Hour of the Dragon»
*Alafdahl «Shadows in Zamboula»
*Albiona «The Hour of the Dragon»
*Amalric «Black Colossus», «The Hour of the Dragon»
*Amalrus «The Scarlet Citadel»
*Aram Baksh «Shadows in Zamboula»
*Arpello «The Scarlet Citadel»
*Ascalante «The Phoenix on the Sword»
*Athemides «The Scarlet Citadel»
*Athicus «Rogues in the House»
----
*Baal-Pteor «Shadows in Zamboula»
*Balthus «Beyond the Black River»
*Belit «Queen of the Black Coast»
*Beloso «The Hour of the Dragon»
*Black Seers of Mount Yimsha «The People of the Black Circle»
----
*Conan
*Constantius «A Witch Shall Be Born»
*Count Thespides «Black Colossus»
----
*Dion «The Phoenix on the Sword»
----
*Epemitreus «The Phoenix on the Sword»
----
*Ghaznavi - counsellor to Jehungir Agha «The Devil in Iron»
*Gilzan - Shemite torturer under Jehungir «The Devil in Iron»
*Gorulga «Jewels of Gwahlur»
*Gromel «The Phoenix on the Sword»
*Gwarunga «Jewels of Gwahlur»
----
*Hadrathus «The Hour of the Dragon»
----
*Jehungir Agha - lord of the city of Khawarizm «The Devil in Iron»
----
*Khemsa «The People of the Black Circle»
*Kumbanigash «A Witch Shall Be Born»
----
*Lords of the Black Circle «The People of the Black Circle»
----
*Master of Yimsha «The People of the Black Circle»
*Muriela «Jewels of Gwahlur»
*Murilo «Rogues in the House»
----
*Nabonidus «Rogues in the House»
*Natala «The Slithering Shadow»
*Natohk «Black Colossus»
*N'Gora «Queen of the Black Coast»
*Numedides «The Phoenix on the Sword»
*N'Yaga «Queen of the Black Coast»
----
*Octavia - Nemedian princess «The Devil in Iron»
*Olgerd Vladislav «A Witch Shall Be Born»
*Olivia «Shadows in the Moonlight»
*Olmec «Red Nails»
*Orastes «The Hour of the Dragon»
----
*Pallantides «The Hour of the Dragon», «The Phoenix on the Sword»
*Pelias «The Scarlet Citadel»
*Petreus «Rogues in the House»
*Prince Kutamun «Black Colossus»
*Princess Yasmela «Black Colossus»
*Prospero «The Hour of the Dragon», «The Phoenix on the Sword», «The Scarlet Citadel»
*Publio «The Hour of the Dragon»
*Publius «The Phoenix on the Sword», «The Scarlet Citadel»
----
*Queen Taramis «A Witch Shall Be Born»
----
*Rinaldo «The Phoenix on the Sword»
----
*Salome «A Witch Shall Be Born»
*Sancha «The Pool of the Black One»
*Sergius «Shadows in the Moonlight»
*Servius Galannus «The Hour of the Dragon»
*Shah Amurath «Shadows in the Moonlight»
*Shevatas «Black Colossus»
*Shukeli «The Scarlet Citadel»
*Slasher «Beyond the Black River»
*Strabonus «The Scarlet Citadel»
----
*Tarascus «The Hour of the Dragon»
*Tascela «Red Nails»
*Taurus «Black Colossus»
*Taurus «The Tower of the Elephant»
*Techotl «Red Nails»
*Thalis «The Slithering Shadow»
*Thaug «A Witch Shall Be Born»
*Thoth-Amon «The Hour of the Dragon», «The Phoenix on the Sword»
*Thothmerki «The Hour of the Dragon»
*Thutmekri «Jewels of Gwahlur»
*Thutothmes «The Hour of the Dragon»
*Tiberias «Beyond the Black River»
*Tito «Queen of the Black Coast»
*Tolkemec «Red Nails»
*Totrasmek «Shadows in Zamboula»
*Trocero «The Hour of the Dragon», «The Scarlet Citadel»
*Tsotha-lanti «The Scarlet Citadel»
----
*Unnamed Kushite eunuch «The Devil in Iron»
*Unnamed Yuetshi fisherman «The Devil in Iron»
----
*Valannus «Beyond the Black River, The Hour of the Dragon»
*Valbroso «The Hour of the Dragon»
*Valeriarraq «Red Nails»
*Valerius «A Witch Shall Be Born», «The Hour of the Dragon»
*Vateesa «Black Colossus»
*Volmana «The Phoenix on the Sword»
----
*Xaltotun «The Hour of the Dragon»
----
*Yag-Kosha (Yogah) «The Tower of the Elephant»
*Yara «The Tower of the Elephant»
*Yasmina «The People of the Black Circle»
*Yezdigerd «The Devil in Iron»
----
*Zabibi «Shadows in Zamboula»
*Zaporavo «The Pool of the Black One»
*Zargheba «Jewels of Gwahlur»
*Zelata «The Hour of the Dragon»
*Zenobia «The Hour of the Dragon»
*Zogar Sag «Beyond the Black River»

{{Шаблон:Main}}

Шаблон:Synopsis

2017-12-11T15:42:46Z

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|[[Image:Synopsis.png|50px|left]]<br>   Вернуться в категорию [[Синопсисы]].

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[[Категория: Шаблоны]]</noinclude>

Шаблон:Image label

2017-12-11T15:42:06Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «<includeonly><div style="position:absolute;left:{{#expr:{{{x|0}}}*{{{scale|1}}}-6}}px;top:{{#expr:{{{y|0}}}*{{{scale|1}}}-8}}px">{{{text}}}</div></includeonly><no…»

<includeonly><div style="position:absolute;left:{{#expr:{{{x|0}}}*{{{scale|1}}}-6}}px;top:{{#expr:{{{y|0}}}*{{{scale|1}}}-8}}px">{{{text}}}</div></includeonly><noinclude>

[[Категория: Шаблоны]]

</noinclude>

Черновик без названия («Рыло во тьме»/«The Snout in the Dark»)

2017-12-11T15:40:50Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «'''Перевод Г. Корчагина''' <center>1</center> Амбула просыпался медленно, чувства его были притупл…»

'''Перевод Г. Корчагина'''

<center>1</center>

Амбула просыпался медленно, чувства его были притуплены выпитым накануне вином. Он не сразу сообразил, где находится. В лунном свете, падающем сквозь оконную решетку, проглядывала незнакомая обстановка.

Затем он вспомнил, что лежит в верхней камере тюремной башни, куда заключен по приказу разгневанной Тананды, сестры кушитского короля. Это необычная камера, ведь даже Тананда не осмелилась слишком далеко зайти, наказывая предводителя чёрных копейщиков, которые составляли ядро кушитской армии. Ковры, гобелены, обтянутые шелком диваны и кувшины с вином... Что-то его разбудило, вспомнил он. Но что?

Взгляд его скользнул к зарешеченному квадрату лунного сияния. Увиденное в окне отчасти согнало с Амбулы хмель и заставило напрячь затуманенные глаза. Прутья решетки были скрючены, изогнуты. Должно быть, скрежет железа и разбудил его.

Но разве существует на свете сила, способная погнуть эти прутья? И где же тот, кому это удалось? Тут он протрезвел окончательно, мороз прошел по коже. Кто-то пробрался через окно, и этот кто-то здесь, в одной комнате с Амбулой. С тихим стоном он зашевелился на ложе, начал озираться. И обмер при виде неподвижной как статуя фигуры, что стояла в головах его ложа.

Сердце Амбулы, не ведавшего доселе страха, сжала ледяная рука. Безмолвный обладатель сероватого силуэта не шевелился и не говорил, он лишь стоял в лунном сумраке, бесформенный, жуткий, и с его обликом никогда бы не смог смириться здравый рассудок. В ужасе глядевший на него Амбула различил голову кабана, с рылом и жесткой щетиной,— но тварь стояла вертикально, покрытые шерстью передние конечности заканчивались рудиментарными кистями.

Амбула взвизгнул и подскочил, и тут же пришла в движение тварь, с парализующей быстротой чудовища из кошмара.

В мозгу воина на миг отпечаталась картина чавкающей слюнявой пасти, длинные как стамески клыки блеснули в лунном сиянии, и в следующий миг лунный свет упал на чёрное тело, простертое среди смятых покрывал на ложе. Затем серая неуклюжая туша бесшумно двинулась по залу к окну, где скорчились на фоне звездного неба изуродованные прутья.

<center>2</center>

— Тутмес! — Голос был настойчив, как и стук кулака в тиковую дверь комнаты, где спал самый амбициозный аристократ Шумбаллы.— Тутмес! Впусти меня! В Шумбалле объявился демон!

Распахнулась дверь, и в комнату ворвался худой жилистый человек в белой джеббе, темнокожий, с блестящими белками глаз. Его встретил Тутмес — высокий, красивый, с выраженными чертами его касты.

— О чем ты, Афари?

Прежде чем ответить, Афари затворил дверь, тяжело дыша после долгого бега. Он был ниже, чем Тутмес, и в его внешности преобладали негроидные признаки.

— Амбула! Мёртв! В Красной башне!

— Что?! — воскликнул Тутмес— Тананда все-таки решилась его казнить?

— Нет! Нет! Она не так глупа. Это не казнь, а убийство. Кто-то вломился в его камеру через решетку и разорвал ему глотку, растоптал ребра, проломил череп... О Сет! Уж я-то навидался мертвецов на своем веку, но все они — сущие красавцы по сравнению с покойным Амбулой. Нет, Тутмес, это работа какого-то демона. Горло Амбулы перегрызено, и следы зубов не похожи на львиные или обезьяньи. Они как будто оставлены острейшими стамесками.

— Когда это произошло?

— Около полуночи. Стражники в нижней части башни, следившие за лестницей, что ведет в его камеру, услышали вопли. Помчались наверх и обнаружили изувеченное тело. Как ты и приказал, я ночевал в караулке. Поднялся на шум и убедил стражников держать язык за зубами.

Тутмес улыбнулся, и эта улыбка была неприятной на вид.

— Боги и демоны помогают смелому,— философски изрек он.— Как бы ни желала Тананда смерти Амбуле, я не верю, что это её рук дело. Когда она посадила его под арест, чёрные здорово разозлились. Так что и дальше держать его под замком она не могла. Но это происшествие дает нам оружие против неё. Ведь галлахи решат, что убийца — она. Любое недовольство династией нам на пользу. Ступай же и нанеси удар, прежде чем о случившемся узнает король. Первым делом приведи отряд чернокожих копейщиков в Красную башню и казни стражников за сон на посту. Пусть всем станет известно, что это сделано по моему приказу. Галлахам понравится, что я отомстил за их предводителя. Убей стражников, прежде чем это сделает Тананда. Потом отправляйся в Пунт и найди старика Агару, колдуна. Не говори ему напрямик о преступлении Тананды, но дай понять.

Афари содрогнулся:

— Чтобы простой человек да обманул этого чёрного демона? У него глаза как красные угли, и смотрят они в неведомые бездны. Я видел, как он заставлял мертвецов подниматься и ходить, причём их голые черепа щелкали челюстями и скрежетали зубами.

— А ты не обманывай,— посоветовал Тутмес— Лишь намекни на свои подозрения. Пусть Амбулу погубил демон, но кто, как не человек, вызвал его из мрака? И почему этим кем-то не может быть Тананда?

Когда Афари ушел, напряженно обдумывая приказ хозяина, Тутмес накинул на голое тело шелковый плащ и поднялся по короткой, но широкой лестнице из полированного красного дерева на плоскую крышу своего дворца. Он глянул за парапет — внизу лежали тихие улицы внутреннего города Шумбаллы, дворцы и сады, и огромная площадь, где в мгновение ока могла собраться тысяча всадников из прилегающих казарм.

Посмотрев дальше, он увидел исполинские бронзовые ворота, а за ними внешний город. Его называли Пунтом, тогда как внутренний — Эль-Шеббехом. Шумбалла стояла посреди великой равнины, расстилавшейся от горизонта до горизонта; лишь кое-где гладь нарушалась грядой невысоких холмов. Узкая, глубокая река, петлявшая по травянистой земле, касалась городских околиц. От Пунта Эль-Шеббех отделяла высокая и толстая стена, она окружала дворцы правящей касты, которая состояла из потомков стигийцев, столетия назад двинувшихся на юг, чтобы создать империю и смешать свою гордую кровь с кровью темнокожих подданных.

Эль-Шеббех был построен на славу. Четкий рисунок улиц и площадей, каменные здания, ухоженные парки. Пунт являл собой наобум расползшиеся трущобы: земляные хижины, кривые тесные улочки, площади, которые можно было назвать таковыми с огромной натяжкой. В Пунте жили чернокожие аборигены Куша, галлахи. В Эль-Шеббехе — аристократы-чагасы, а также их слуги и черные всадники-гвардейцы.

Тутмес обвел взглядом широкое пространство, заполненное хижинами. На убогих площадях горели костры, на улицах раскачивались факелы прохожих, время от времени доносился отрывок песни, в ритмичном варварском речитативе сквозил то ли гнев, то ли кровожадность. Тутмес содрогнулся и плотнее закутался в плащ.

Идя по крыше, он остановился подле человека, спящего под пальмой в искусственном саду. Разбуженный пинком, человек вскочил на ноги.

— Дело сделано,— сообщил Тутмес— Амбула мёртв, и до рассвета весь Пунт будет знать, что бедняга убит Танандой.

— А... демон? — прошептал, содрогаясь, человек.

— Тсс! Вернулся во мглу, откуда и был вызван. А тебе, Шубба, настало время отправляться в путь. Ищи у шемитов подходящую женщину — женщину с белой кожей. Как найдешь, немедленно доставь сюда. Если вернешься до восхода луны, я дам тебе серебра столько же, сколько будет весить твоя находка. Если не выполнишь поручение, твоя голова украсит эту пальму.

Шубба преклонил колена и коснулся лбом пыльной крыши, после чего бегом устремился вниз.

Тутмес снова посмотрел на Пунт. Костры теперь горели ярче, и в монотонном рокоте барабана чудилось что-то зловещее. И тут вверх по лестнице взлетел зверский многоголосый рев.

— Узнали, что Амбула мёртв,— пробормотал Тутмес, и опять его сотрясла сильная дрожь.

<center>3</center>

Жизнь Пунта шла своим привычным путём на грязных улицах. В дверных проёмах кривых домишек сидели на корточках крепкие чернокожие люди, другие валялись на земле в тени. Женщины носили на головах кувшины с водой и корзины с пищей. В пыли играли и дрались дети, пронзительно хохоча и вереща. На площадях негры шумно торговали бананами, пивом и коваными бронзовыми украшениями. Над жаровнями с углём гнули спины кузнецы, усердно стучали молотами по наконечникам копий. Пот, веселье, гнев, нагота,— на все это, без разбора, раскаленное солнце обрушивало свои лучи.

Внезапно монотонность нарушилась, к музыке пунтийского дня добавилась новая нота. Грохот копыт сопровождал появление группы всадников. Полдюжины мужчин сопровождали женщину — смуглокожую, с черными волосами, стянутыми на затылке золотистой лентой. Единственным одеянием наездницы, если не считать сандалий, служила короткая юбка из золотистой ткани, прихваченная на талии пряжкой. Её облик говорил о силе духа, отважные искрящиеся глаза глядели вызывающе, властно. Она с легкостью управляла жеребцом, держа широкий, с мужскую ладонь, алый кожаный повод с каменьями и позолотой, опираясь на широкие серебряные стремена.

Там, где она проезжала, мигом смолкал городской шум. Чёрные лица мрачнели, в глазах зажигались искры. Негры поворачивали головы, шептали друг другу в уши; шёпот нарастал, превращаясь в зловещий ропот.

Ехавший рядом с женщиной юноша занервничал. Он прикинул расстояние до бронзовых ворот, еще не видимых за домами с плоскими крышами, и пробормотал:

— Тананда, народ обозлён. Поездка через Пунт — опрометчивый поступок.

— Все чёрные псы Куша не заставят меня отказаться от охоты,— ответила женщина.— Кто-нибудь из них посмеет угрожать — дави конём.

— Сказать проще, чем сделать,— проворчал юноша, оглядывая безмолвную толпу.— Они выходят из домов и заполняют улицы... Будь осторожна, Тананда!

Они выехали на широкую грязную площадь, где кишела чёрная толпа. К площади примыкала глинобитная хижина. Это сооружение было повыше соседних, и над дверным проёмом висела гроздь черепов.

Это был храм Юллаха — чёрный народ боготворил его в пику змеебогу Сету, которому поклонялись чагасы, подражая своим стигийским предкам. Скопившиеся на площади негры угрюмо смотрели на всадников. Веяло угрозой, и обеспокоенная Тананда не заметила, как на другом краю площади появился еще один всадник, выехавший из улочки. В другое время всадник с легкостью привлек бы к себе внимание, ведь он не принадлежал ни к чагасам, ни к галлахам, а был белым, могучего телосложения, в кольчуге и шлеме, с алым плащом, развевающимся за плечами.

— Эти псы вздумали бунтовать! — пробормотал рядом с Танандой юноша, до половины вытащив из ножен кривой клинок. Остальные гвардейцы, такие же чёрные, как и окружающий их народ, сплотились вокруг неё, но мечей не обнажили. Глухой зловещий ропот нарастал, но враждебных действий толпа не предпринимала.

— Идём на прорыв! — приказала Тананда и погнала коня вперёд.

Толпа угрюмо раздавалась на её пути, и вдруг из капища вышел тощий чёрный человек. Это был старый Агара, одетый только в набедренную повязку. Наставив палец на Тананду, он прокричал:

— Вот едет та, чьи руки в крови! Та, что убила Амбулу!

Крик его стал той искрой, что вызвала взрыв. Над толпой поднялся оглушительный рёв, негры бросились вперед с воплем «Смерть Тананде!». Миг спустя сотня чёрных рук вцепилась в ноги всадников. Юноша вклинился между толпой и повелительницей, но брошенный чёрной рукой камень расколол ему череп. Гвардейцы пустили в ход оружие, но продержались недолго. Их стащили с седел и забили до смерти.

Охваченная ужасом Тананда закричала, поднимая коня на дыбы. И в коня, и в наездницу вцепились многочисленные горожане, и мужчины, и женщины.

Какой-то великан ухватил её за бедро и стащил с седла, прямо в нетерпеливые жестокие руки. Сорванная с нее юбка полетела вверх, сопровождаемая взрывом первобытного хохота. Негритянка плюнула ей в лицо и сдернула нагрудник, оцарапав грудь чёрными ногтями. Прилетел камень и рассадил кожу на голове. Тананду рвали многочисленные руки, казалось, еще миг, и её расчленят. Она увидела зажатый в чёрной кисти камень, его хозяин прорывался к ней с явным намерением раскроить череп. Сверкали ножи. Невероятная теснота мешала убийцам довести дело до конца.

— В дом демонов её! — раздался вдруг крик, вызвав одобрительный гомон, и Тананда почувствовала, как ее полунесут-полутащат через беснующуюся толпу, хватая за руки, за ноги, за что только можно схватить. И вдруг толпа пошатнулась от удара чудовищной силы — это всадник разогнал коня и врезался в неё.

С криками валились люди, сокрушаемые тяжелыми копытами. В полуобмороке Тананда увидела возвышающийся над толпой силуэт, покрытое шрамами лицо над стальным шлемом, плащ, вздымающийся над могучими окольчуженными плечами, и раз за разом взлетающий огромный меч, с которого срывались алые брызги.

Но откуда-то из гущи толпы ужалило копье, выпустив жеребцу внутренности. Он заржал, запнулся и повалился набок, но всадник успел спрыгнуть, рубя направо и налево. Копья и ножи отскакивали от его шлема и от щита, который он держал на левой руке, широкий меч рассекал плоть и кость, раскалывал черепа, выбрасывал мозги и кишки на кровавую пыль.

Перед этим натиском не могли устоять плоть и кровь. Очистив пространство, он остановился, подхватил бесчувственную девушку и, прикрывая ее щитом, попятился, безжалостно прорубая себе дорогу. Добравшись до угла стены, опустил Тананду на землю и встал перед ней, отражая натиск рычащей и вопящей толпы.

Загремели копыта, на площадь вылетел большой отряд всадников, сметая с пути бунтовщиков. Приблизился начальник, огромный негр в роскошном облачении из алого шелка и позолоченной кожи.

— Ты не спешил,— сказала Тананда, успевшая встать и вернуть себе гордый облик.

Негр посерел от страха, но, прежде чем он успел обернуться, Тананда сделала знак, и его заметили ближайшие стражники. Один из них вскинул копье обеими руками и с такой силой ударил между лопаток своему командиру, что наконечник вышел из груди. Гвардеец упал на колени, и еще полдюжины копий закончили дело.

Тананда тряхнула длинными черными кудрями, с которых давно слетела лента, и повернулась к Конану. Из многочисленных ссадин на ее груди и бедрах сочилась кровь, волосы беспорядочно рассыпались по спине. Она была нага, как в тот день, когда родилась.

Красавица смотрела на Конана без малейшего смущения или неуверенности, и он ответил взглядом, полным восхищения ее статью и отвагой и спелостью смуглого тела.

— Кто ты? — спросила она.

— Конан, киммериец.

— Что делаешь в Шумбалле?

— Приехал в поисках удачи. Недавно я был пиратом.

— Вот как? — В тёмных глазах засветилось любопытство.— До нас доходили слухи о том, кого прозвали Амра Лев. Но если ты больше не пират, то кто ты?

— Нищий бродяга.

Она отрицательно покачала головой:

— Клянусь Сетом, это не так. Ты командир королевской гвардии.

Он бросил взгляд на труп в шелке и позолоченной коже, это зрелище не помешало ухмылке появиться на его лице.

<center>4</center>

Шубба вернулся в Шумбаллу, пришёл в комнату Тутмеса, где на мраморном полу лежали леопардовые шкуры.

— Я нашел женщину, которая тебе нужна,— сообщил он.— Это юная немедийка, захваченная пиратами на аргосском купеческом судне. За неё шемит-работорговец взял с меня много широких золотых пластинок.

— Дай-ка взглянуть,— приказал Тутмес, и Шубба вышел из комнаты, чтобы через миг вернуться, таща за руку девушку.

Она была красива, белое тело разительно отличалось от коричневых и чёрных, к которым привык Тутмес. Её вьющиеся волосы золотым каскадом спадали на плечи. Одета она была только в изорванную тунику, которую Шубба сдёрнул, оставив рабыню в чём мать родила.

Тутмес задумчиво кивнул:

— Удачное приобретение. Не будь ставкой в игре трон, я бы придержал красотку для себя. Ты научил ее кушитскому языку, как я приказал?

— Да. В городе шемитов и потом, пока мы добирались с караваном. Я делал науку более доходчивой с помощью плетки, на шемитский манер. Ее зовут Дианой.

Тутмес уселся на диван и жестом велел девушке расположиться перед ним на полу.

— Я собираюсь тебя подарить королю Куша,— сообщил он.— Ты станешь его рабыней, но на самом деле ты принадлежишь мне. Я буду регулярно передавать распоряжения, и ты обязана их выполнять. Король дегенерат, слизняк, распутное ничтожество, и такой красавице не составит труда полностью его подчинить. Но чтобы тебя не соблазняла мысль о неподчинении, чтобы ты не посмела вообразить, будто я не достану тебя в королевском дворце, я сейчас продемонстрирую свою власть над тобой.

Он взял её за руку и повёл по коридору, вниз по каменной лестнице, в длинную, слабо освещенную комнату. Она была перегорожена стеной, сделанной из цельного кристалла, толщиной в три фута, но прозрачной как вода. И такой крепости, что могла бы выдержать удар слона.

Он подвёл девушку к стене и приказал стоять и смотреть, а сам отошел назад. Внезапно свет погас. Девушка ждала во мгле, красивое тело дрожало от страха. Потом впереди возникло сияние, выделив из мглы огромную бесформенную голову. Диана увидела звериное рыло, похожие на стамески зубы, щетину, Когда этот ужас двинулся к ней, она закричала, повернулась и бросилась бежать, забыв о кристаллической преграде, способной её защитить.

Она прибежала прямо в объятия Тутмеса, и он прошептал ей на ухо:

— Только что ты видела моего слугу. Не подведи, иначе от него не спрячешься нигде.

Когда он прошипел что-то еще, она лишилась чувств.

Тутмес отнес её наверх и поручил заботам чернокожего знахаря, приказав накормить, умыть, расчесать, надушить и одеть для отправки к королю.

{{Шаблон:Synopsis}}

Доспехи

2017-12-11T15:37:40Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «<big>'''Доспехи в Хайбории'''</big> Данная статья ставит своей целью помочь читателям, да и авт…»

<big>'''Доспехи в Хайбории'''</big>

Данная статья ставит своей целью помочь читателям, да и авторам разобраться в том какие виды доспехов существовали в Хайбории, в период жизни Конана. Для начала определимся с эпохой, для этого достаточно внимательно изучить рассказы Роберта Говарда, который весьма щедр на информацию. Ориентировочно западную часть Хайбории можно отнести к 12 – 15 веку, на это указывает использование двуручных мечей, лат, арбалетов с воротом.Теперь же рассмотрим детально каждый вид доспеха, который мог иметь хождение в той или иной области Хайбории.
[[Файл:Image011.jpg|220px|thumb|Сегментарный доспех]]

== Матерчатые доспехи ==
Матерчатые доспехи (стеганки) – представляют собой броню, сшитую из нескольких (до 30) слоев ткани, простеганных вдоль или поперек. Сами по себе дают владельцу защиту лишь от коротких рубящих мечей и кинжалов. Стеганки легко пробивались копьями и колюще-рубящими мечами. Топоры и дубины, даже не пробивая доспех, ломали кость под ним. При дальнейшем наращивании слоев доспех становился слишком тяжелым и неудобным из-за жары. Более-менее приемлемую защиту матерчатый доспех давал лишь от стрел из простых луков. Такой доспех стоил недорого, но быстро выходил из строя. Сам по себе в мире Хайбории уже не использовался, но зато его применяли совокупно с другими видами доспехов, например, одевали под кольчуги, латы, чешуи. В этом случае стеганка амортизировала удары по основной броне, и в тоже время была дополнительной помехой, когда основная броня была пробита. Поэтому в качестве поддоспешника стеганка использовалась очень широко. Со временем конструкция стеганки усложнилась и стали применять набивные материалы, например, конский волос или пенька.Стоит отдельно отметить то, что дополнительно поддоспешник могли одевать уже на основной доспех, в этом случае воин получал неплохую защиту от лучных стрел, которые «вязли» в многослойной ткани.Попоны лошадей рыцарей были изготовлены именно из стеганной ткани, которую обычно стремились усилить кусками кольчуги.

== Кожаные доспехи ==
[[Файл:Kiras.jpg|100px|thumb|left|Кожаная кираса]]
Кожаные доспехи – следующее звено эволюции в броне. Для кожаных доспехов обычно использовали кожу свиней, волов, буйволов, рептилий, лучшей считалась кожа носорога. Для придания дополнительной жесткости кожу вываривали в масле или дубили. Вес кожаной кирасы составлял примерно 4 кг.Кожаный доспех уже мог защитить от легких мечей, или кинжалов, но по-прежнему удар топора или дубины мог быть фатальным.И снова, во время Конана этот доспех в чистом виде не использовался, но к примеру кожаную кирасу, с набитыми пластинками могли использовать поверх кольчуги, да и просто, саму по себе, например, лучники или арбалетчики.

== Кольчуги ==
<div class="tright" style="clear:none">[[Файл:Kolchuga.jpg|thumb|Кольчуга]] </div>
<div class="tright" style="clear:none">[[Файл:Dospex.jpg|thumb|100px|Кольчато-пластинчатый доспех]] </div>
Кольчуги – наиболее популярный вид доспеха, изготовлялся из мягкой проволоки, поскольку твердая была хрупкая и ломалась от удара. Кольчуга могла защитить от рассекающего удара мечом, но рубящий, а тем более колющий удар по-прежнему нес опасность. Недостаточная жесткость все так же позволяла нанести тяжелую или фатальную травму топором, дубиной, булавой или молотом. Несмотря на эти недостатки, кольчуга была очень популярна, тому причиной относительно небольшой вес, возможность в походных условиях залатать доспех самостоятельно, относительная дешевизна изготовления и большой срок службы. При совместном использовании с поддоспешником, кольчуга давала более ощутимую защиту, так как поддевка добавляла еще 2-3 сантиметра между кольчугой и телом – раны вследствие этого были не такие глубокие, стрелы пробив кольчугу, вязли в поддевке. Вес кольчуги был до 10 кг.Плетение обычно было одинарное (4:1, т.е. одно кольцо держало 4 соседних) гораздо реже – двойное (6:1), например, для знати или воинской элиты. Кольчугу изготавливали в самых разнообразных вариациях, с капюшоном и без, с рукавами и без, с рукавами различной длины, да и сама кольчуга могла быть как ниже колен, так и лишь до середины бедра. Обычный вес кольчуги составлял 8 кг, поэтому иногда кольчуги одевали две.Этот вид доспеха получил самое широкое распространение, у Говарда кольчуги носят как нордхеймцы, так и стигийцы, не говоря уже о аквилонцах или шемитах.Со временем кольчуга в странах Востока эволюционировала в кольчато-платинчатый доспех, когда в кольчугу вплетали металлические полосы, и это не сказывалось на подвижности и гибкости воина, зато пробить этот доспех было уже совсем не просто. Тем более, когда сверху одевали дополнительные элементы защиты – нагрудники, наручи и т.п.Другой ветвью развития кольчуги панцирное плетение, т.е. использование плоских колец, в этом случае плетение было только одинарное. Такие кольчуги были немного жестче, чем обычны, но стрелу или удар меча держали гораздо лучше.

==Чешуйчатый доспех==
<div class="tright" style="clear:none">[[Файл:Image008.jpg|right|90px|thumb]]</div>
Чешуйчатый доспех использовал в своей основе небольшие металлические пластинки, внешним видом похожие на чешую, когда каждый последующий ряд прикрывает предыдущий. Трудоемкость изготовления была очень высока, но и защита обеспечивалась очень хорошая, как от мечей, так и стрел. Главным же недостатком очень большой вес, чешуя, закрывавшая лишь туловище, весила до 25 кг. Отличие ламелляра от более сложного бригантинного доспеха в том, что пластинки скреплялись между собой шнурами или кольцами, т.е. цельной основы не было.Тут надо отметить, что для всадников изготавливали ламелляр, а для пеших воинов – ламеллярный доспех. В чем разница, для всадников (ламелляр) чешуя шла рядами снизу вверх, так, чтобы при ударе копьем наконечник соскользнул вверх. Для пехоты же нужно было обратное, чтобы удар по чешуе соскользнул вниз. Лучники, использовавшие чешую, вынуждены были сверху накрывать ее накидкой, чтобы тетива не цеплялась на саму чешую и заклепки.

== Бригантины ==
[[Файл:Brig.jpg‎|thumb|220px|Бригантина]]
Бригантины, этот вид доспеха обязан своим рождением накидкам, которые массово использовали поверх обычного доспеха, для защиты его от дождя, снега, да и просто чтобы исключить нагревание доспеха солнцем. Со временем накидки стали усиливать металлическими пластинками, что и привело к созданию бригантины.Первоначально самые простые варианты представляли собой всю ту же накидку, на которую были наклепаны довольно большие по размерам пластины, причем зачастую с зазорами, так как первой задачей было защитить наиболее уязвимые органы и части тела. Затем бригантина эволюционировала, пластины стали мельче, но при этом шли в сплошную и перекрывали друг друга.Этот тип бригантины продержался дольше всего, несмотря на все тот же недостаток – недостаточную прочность. Мелкопластинчатая бригантина могла дополнительно усиливаться грудной пластиной, приклепанной прямо поверх основной брони. В целом это вид бригантины был весьма распространен в Хайбории, его широко использовала как тяжелая пехота, так и рыцари, не обладавшие достаточными деньгами, для покупки подогнанной по фигуре крупнопластинчатной бригантины.

Полной бригантины, закрывавшей все тело создано так и не было, ввиду слишком большого веса этого типа брони.

На Востоке гораздо большее распространение получил ламинарный, или сегментарный доспех, принцип которого заключался в перекрывании стальными полосами друг друга. Плюсами ламинара была простота изготовления, относительная дешевизна, жесткость конструкции, минусом – большая неудобность, чем у чешуйчатого доспеха, вследствие все той же высокой жесткости.

==Латы==
[[Файл:Image013.png|thumb]]Латы – доспехи из объемных, цельнокованых деталей давали наилучшую защиту и пробить их можно было только специальным оружием – пиками, двуручниками, клевцами. Именно латы давали наилучшую защиту от стрел, как лучных, так и арбалетных. В первую очередь это обеспечивалось тем, что латы изготовлялись специально такой формы, что стрелы (да и мечи, пики и прочее оружие) «соскальзывали» с брони. При удачном стечении обстоятельств (например, вектор стрелы был строго, или почти строго перпендикулярен поверхности лат; небольшая дистанция выстрела, отсутствие ветра и дождя) арбалетная стрела с граненым или шиповидным наконечником могла пробить латы, но под латами обязательно был поддоспешник, который гасил энергию стрелы окончательно. Так что даже формально пробитые латы еще не означали смертельного ранения воина, их одевшего.

Вес лат доходил до 25 кг, вес с кольчугой и поддоспешником мог доходить до 35-40. Поэтому использовать и латы и кольчугу одновременно могли только очень выносливые и сильные люди. Вследствие чего латы большей частью использовались без кольчуги, но на поддоспешник нашивались ее куски, как раз в те места, которые и были уязвимы, такие как сочленения лат и подмышки.

Для турниров обычно использовались специальные латы, весом вдвое больше обычных. В бою они никогда не применялись, да и ко всему прочему турнирные доспехи для сражения копьями были уже не годны для сражения на мечах, или просто пешим.

<big>'''Рассмотрим отдельные элементы остальной брони.'''</big>

==Шлемы==
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Шлемы – используются массово и широко, как стальные сплошные (в западных странах Хайбории), так и составные из подручных материалов – рога, кости (варварские и дикарские страны). Рыцари в конной атаке предпочитают использовать глухие шлемы, которые опираются на плечи, или специальные воротники – в таком случае удар по шлему распределяется равномерно. В копейной конной атаке этот вид шлема зарекомендовал себя очень хорошо. Когда же дело доходило до индивидуальных поединков, например на мечах шлем просто сбрасывали с головы, но он оставался пристегнутым к доспехам. Поскольку в этом случае тяжеловооруженный воин становился уязвимым (кольчужный капюшон не защищал от прямых ударов) воины стали носить два шлема, один – кадкой, второй маленький, под ним. Но это было тоже не очень удобно, поэтому стали использовать откидывающееся забрало, различных вариантов и конструкций. В начале копейной атаки шлем закрыт наглухо, при переходе на индивидуальные поединки забрало откидывали, таким образом воин сам мог подгонять шлем под конкретную ситуацию на поле боя.

Лучники и арбалетчики применяют открытые шлемы – в которых удобно целиться (в этом случае незаменим железный шлем с полями, защищающий голову от стрел падающих навесом), пехота – всевозможные конструкции с поносьями, нащечниками, козырьками и тому подобные.

==Наплечники==
Наплечники – использовались тяжеловооруженными воинами, обычно этот элемент доспехов был стальным или железным. Лучники и арбалетчики наплечники не использовали, так как их конструкция такова, что они мешают стрелять.

==Наручи==
[[Файл:Image023.jpg|150px|thumb|Наручи]]
Наручи – защищают часть руки от локтя до запястья, использовались массово и повсеместно, в самом простом варианте это были просто обмотанные ремнями шкуры, в более совершенном варианте – из нескольких слоев кожи, зачастую укрепленных продольными металлическими полосами, более совершенные – сплошные кованные пластины приклепанные к кожаной основе, ну и самый лучший вариант – цельнокованые и трубчатые.

==Перчатки==
Перчатки – лучники и арбалетчики их практически не использовали, по крайне мере при стрельбе. Легкая пехота и кавалерия применяли кожаные перчатки, усиленные кольчугой, или металлическими пластинками. И лишь рыцари (тяжеловооруженные воины) имели латные перчатки.

==Поножи==
Поножи – защищали ноги от лодыжки до колена, иногда выше его. Как и в случае с наручами использовались наклепанные пластины, куски кольчуги и цельнолитые элементы.Помимо этого тяжеловооруженные воины могли использовать различные конструкции наколенников, юбок, паховых щитков.

Для защиты доспехов от ржавчины, да и от излишнего нагревания в жарком климате, их закрывали всевозможными накидками. Иногда кольчуги просто смазывали жиром. Воины побогаче использовали воронение, ну а если кошелек был полон – то могли посеребрить или позолотить доспех. Широкого распространение последние два метода не получили, тому виной большая цена исходных материалов и ядовитость паров ртути, применяемой в самом процессе.

=Украшение=
С боевыми доспехами связано несколько распространенных заблуждений, например, то, что в латах можно плавать, или то, что боевые доспехи украшались алмазами, сапфирами, рубинами и прочим гламуром. Это ерунда. Доспехи действительно могли украшать - накидками на доспехи, кожаными и деревянными фигурками, крепившимися на шлем, лишь на время какого-либо праздника, или на время турнира. Иногда могли делать чеканку или инкрустацию другим металлом, насечки или гравировку. Вышедшие из строя латы, не подлежащие ремонту обычно рубили на куски и использовали для изготовления бригантин, поэтому желающих украшать латы было немного.Чаще всего все украшение заключалось лишь с праздничной накидке и только.Следующее заблуждение касается того, что рыцарь как влазил в доспехи лет в 13, то вылазил из них лишь затем, чтобы одеть другой, больший. На самом деле латы одевали лишь перед боем и только, чаще всего они ехали отдельно сами по себе в обозе, или на другой лошади, вплоть до того момента, когда они понадобятся.

=Защита=
В чистом виде ни один из доспехов полной защиты не дает, поэтому используется всевозможное комбинирование различных типов доспехов: кольчуг, стеганок, бригантин, ламелляров, иногда - лат. Прямой удар мечом в забрало или пикой в грудь были в большинстве случаев смертельным, удар топора по наручу ломал не сам наруч, а кость под ним, удар моргенштерном или топором ломал три-четыре ребра через кольчугу и поддевку. Тогда какой смысл в доспехах? Доспехи предназначены отвести скользящий удар, случайную стрелу, для отражения прямого удара была только реакция и щит. Кстати именно поэтому доспехам старались придать максимально обтекаемую форму, чтобы свести к минимуму количество попаданий по самому доспеху под прямым углом.

Выбор же конкретного вида доспеха в первую очередь зависит от ключевой специальности конкретного воина. Если это лучник – он вполне может обойтись без кольчуги, поножей, наплечников. Ему необходима хорошая защита туловища (бригантина или чешуя, в самом простом случае жилет с наклепанными пластинками), головы (шлем с хорошим обзором, а еще лучше с полями) и наручи. Арбалетчик экипирован примерно так же, разве что его лучше прикрыть щитом, поскольку он ввиду своей неподвижности при подготовке оружия к стрельбе представляет собой очень хорошую мишень. Пехотинцу же как минимум необходима кольчуга и чешуя или бригантина, на крайний случай хотя бы просто металлические пластины на ремнях, закрывающие особо уязвимые места. Тяжелому пехотинцу без ламелляра или мелкопластинчатой бригантины уже никак не обойтись, равно как и без защиты ног (поножей, наколенников, шоссов) и головы (шлем с хорошим обзором). Тяжелая пехота экипирована по полной, насколько позволяет кошелек: кольчуги более плотного плетения (иногда кольчуги две), нагрудник (если денег немного – чешуя, если побольше – бригантина, если совсем много – бригантина с подгонкой по фигуре). Ну и куда же без сплошного шлема, наплечников, наручей, поножей, шоссов и всего. Тяжелая кавалерия, воины владеющие двуручным оружием (специфика которого такова, что прикрыть такого воина практически невозможно) - закованы в латы.

=Обзор по регионам Хайбории=
Но это все касаемо западной части Хайбории. В восточной гораздо шире используют сегментарный (ламинарный) доспех, все ту же чешую, кольчуги и всевозможные стеганные халаты. Это напрямую связно с использованием в этом регионе большей частью легких сабель, копий, луков. Тяжелое двуручное оружие отсутствует как класс, поэтому латной брони нет как таковой. Отдельного упоминания заслуживают шлемы с личинами (масками), и усиление кольчуг зерцалами – металлическими пластинами, одеваемыми с помощью ремней сверху, на основную броню.Это касаемо Турана, Гиркании, Заморы, Вендии, Кхитая.

В южной части Хайбории доспехи кроме стигийцев практически не используют, ну разве что шкуры животных с плотным и толстым мехом. Против железного оружия это помогает мало, но там где оно еще не известно, этот вид защиты популярен.

Северная часть Хайбории. Здесь исключение составляют киммерийцы, они доспехи не используют в принципе (кроме шкур и ремней, обмотанных вокруг тела). Другие народы массово применяют все те же кольчуги. Иногда усиленные дополнительными пластинчатыми элементами.

<div align="right">'''Автор: Карл Легдикайдинен''' </div>

[[Категория:Хайбория]]

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Булава и молот

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== Булава ==

[[Файл:M1.jpg|left|thumb|200px]]

[[Файл:M2.jpg|thumb|100px]]

Прообразом булавы послужила дубина, простое, но очень эффективное оружие. Сначала это оружие получило большое распространение среди крестьян (в первую очередь из-за простоты изготовления, убойности и несложности использования), позднее палицы и булавы взяли на вооружение всадники. Он ударов дубины доспехи практически не спасали.

Развитие же самих доспехов привело к дальнейшему совершенствованию булавы в моргенштерн, когда на длинную рукоять укреплялось цилиндрическое или шарообразное навершие с шипами, чтобы можно было разорвать кольчугу. Наиболее удачной была признана цилиндрическая форма навершия булавы.

Когда на цилиндрическое навершие добавлялись «лепестки» тогда булава превращалась в шестопер. Кромки лепестков затачивались. Длина обычной булавы составляла 50-60 см., двуручные были длиннее.

== Молот ==

[[Файл:M3.jpg|thumb|100px]]

Боевой молот применялся на равных с булавой. Он позволял наносить увечья, зачастую не пробивая самих доспехов. Боевые молоты все так же широко использовала как пехота, так и конница. Немалому росту популярности этого вида оружия способствовало появление пластинчатого доспеха.

Позднее появление лат привело к дальнейшей модернизации молота, ему стали придавать клювообразную форму, такой молот получил название - чекан. Причем рукоять делалась как короткой, так и очень длинной. Благодаря такой форме чекан мог пробить пластинчатый доспех и нанести тяжелое увечье, однако был и минус, подобное оружие часто застревало в самом доспехе, поэтому воин был вынужден иметь «на всякий случай» дополнительное оружие.

Плюсы булавы – прямой удар можно было отразить только щитом, возможность покалечить врага не пробивая доспехи, невысокая стоимость изготовления оружия, минимальные требования к навыкам для использования, оружие не требовало такого ухода, как мечи или топоры. Минусы – слишком большой вес оружия, мощный удар оборачивался большим временем на возврат оружия в боевую позицию.

<div align="right">'''Автор: Карл Легдикайдинен''' </div>

{{Шаблон:Оружие}}

[[Категория:Оружие]]

Шаблон:Оружие

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[[Категория: Шаблоны]]</noinclude>

Меч

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Bingam: Новая страница: «200px Меч – колюще-рубящее длиноклинковое оружие, состоит из лезвия, кресто…»

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Меч – колюще-рубящее длиноклинковое оружие, состоит из лезвия, крестовины (гарды), рукояти и головки (яблока). Чтобы рукоять не скользила в руке, её обматывали кожей или проволокой, иногда же использовались деревянные накладки. Ножны изготовлялись из дерева, кожи и металла, изнутри иногда ножны обкладывались коротко стриженый овчиной. Вещества, содержащиеся в шерсти позволяют клинок уберегать от ржавчины. Впрочем, для предотвращения образования ржи могли использовать различные пасты, на основе жиров растительного происхождения.

=Виды=

== Короткие ==

Короткие мечи имели длину клинка от 40 см, использовались в качестве дополнительного оружия лучниками и егерями, копьеносцами и моряками, и даже некоторые владельцы двуручных мечей подстраховывались и вешали на пояс «на всякий случай» короткий меч, который как нельзя лучше подходил для суматошной рубки. Особенно прославились фильшионы (фальчионы), короткие мечи, с расширяющимся к концу лезвием. Двуручные фальшионы были оружием палачей. Кроме этого короткий меч достаточно удобен как в лесу, так и городе, поэтому его охотно использовали также воры и грабители, охотники и купцы, горожане и ремесленники. Невысокая сложность изготовления также способствовала широкому распространению короткого меча.

== Длинные ==

Длинные мечи появились одновременно с появлением стремян и кольчуг, так как потребовалось увеличить дистанцию поражения и вес оружия. Длина клинка увеличилась до 75 - 85 см, ширина 5 см., рукоять – 10 см, вес до полутора килограмм, перекладина гарды могла немного выгибаться вверх. Рукоять для баланса снабжалась большим, иногда в кулак, «яблоком».

Подобные мечи широко применялись преимущественно профессиональными воинами, как регулярными частями, так и наемниками.

== Тяжелые ==

Совершенствование брони вынудило оружейников изготавливать еще более тяжелые мечи, которые теперь стремились сделать более узкими, пригодными для того чтобы колоть. Из-за увеличения веса меча пришлось увеличить рукоять, для того чтобы можно было брать его двумя руками. Полутораручный (полуторный) меч использовали как с щитом, так и без, в первом случае требовался достаточно сильный человек. Разновидностью полутораручного меча является «бастрад», у него добавлена еще одна гарда в первой четверти клинка. Ухватив меч за рукоять и пяту, можно было увеличить силу удара.

== Двуручные ==

Двуручные мечи – оружие элитной пехоты. Ими обрубали древки копий и пик, подсекали ноги лошадям. Особенностью этого типа мечей является отсутствие заточки первой (от гарды) трети клинка, так как эта часть меча все равно не использовалась. Размер двуручных мечей доходил до 2- метров, вес до 8 кг. Ни подойти, ни прикрыть воина с двуручником было практически невозможно. Для переноски за спиной использовались специальные ремни или меч просто ложили на плечо. Усиление доспехов привело к очередному изменению меча, его стали делать граненым, так было значительно проще пробить как латы, так и кольчугу. Вопреки устоявшимся штампам боевое оружие практически не украшали, хотя могла иметь место чеканка или художественное литье, но обычно отделка была простая и носила поверхностный характер.

== Парадные ==

А вот парадное и церемониальное оружие могло украшаться и золотом и драгоценными камнями. На востоке были распространены изогнутые мечи и их всевозможные разновидности, ятаганы и сабли. Не последнюю роль в этом сыграло широкое распространение кавалерии.

== Изогнутые ==

У изогнутых мечей центр тяжести располагался примерно посередине клинка, подобное расположение позволяет нанести мощный, рубящий удар. Причем при меньших размерах и весе ятаган или сабля могли сделать то же самое, что и длинный рыцарский меч. Недостаток такого оружия в одной рубящей кромке.

<div align="right">'''Автор: Карл Легдикайдинен''' </div>

{{Шаблон:Оружие}}

[[Категория:Оружие]]

Категория:Оружие

2017-12-11T15:34:13Z

Bingam:

*[[Булава и молот]]
*[[Меч]]

Категория:Оружие

2017-12-11T15:33:49Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «*Булава и молот *Меч»

*Булава и молот
*Меч

Тексты и переводы

2017-12-11T15:29:37Z

Bingam:

__NOTOC__

{| border="0" width="100%" height="700px" class="simple" style="margin: 0em;"

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=Тексты на английском=

==Essays==

*[[История Хайборийской Эры|«The Hyborian Age»]].

==Conan the Barbarian==

*[[«The Phoenix on the Sword»/«Феникс на мече»|«The Phoenix on the Sword»]].

*[[«The Scarlet Citadel»/«Алая цитадель»|«The Scarlet Citadel»]].

*[[«The Tower of the Elephant»/«Башня слона»|«The Tower of the Elephant»]].

*[[«Black Colossus»/«Чёрный колосс»|«Black Colossus»]].

*«The Slithering Shadow».

*«The Pool of the Black One».

*[[«Roques in the House»/«Сплошь негодяи в доме»|«Roques in the House»]].

*«Shadows in the Moonlight».

*[[«Queen of the Black Coast»/«Королева Чёрного Побережья»|«Queen of the Black Coast»]].

*«The People of the Black Circle».

*«A Witch Shall Be Born».

*«Jewels of Gwahlur».

*«Beyond the Black River».

*[[«The Devil in Iron»/«Железный демон»|«The Devil in Iron»]].

*«Shadows in Zamboula».

*«Hour of the Dragon».

*[[«Red Nails»/«Гвозди с красными шляпками»|«Red Nails»]].

*«The God in the Bowl».

*«The Frost Giant’s Daughter».

*«Drums of Tombalku».

*«The Vale of Lost Women».

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=Тексты на русском=

==Эссе==

*[[История Хайборийской Эры|«Гиборийская эра»]].

==Конан-варвар==

*[[«The Phoenix on the Sword»/«Феникс на мече»|«Феникс на мече»]].

*[[«The Scarlet Citadel»/«Алая цитадель»|«Алая цитадель»]].

*[[«The Tower of the Elephant»/«Башня слона»|«Башня слона»]].

*[[«Black Colossus»/«Чёрный колосс»|«Чёрный колосс»]].

*«Ползущая тень».

*«Бассейн черных демонов».

*[[«Roques in the House»/«Сплошь негодяи в доме»|«Сплошь негодяи в доме»]].

*«Тени в лунном свете».

*«Королева Чёрного Побережья».

*«Люди черного круга».

*«Родится ведьма».

*«Сокровища Гвалура».

*«За Чёрной рекой».

*[[«The Devil in Iron»/«Железный демон»|«Железный демон»]].

*«Тени Замбулы».

*«Час дракона».

*[[«Red Nails»/«Гвозди с красными шляпками»|«Гвозди с красными шляпками»]].

*«Бог из чаши».

*«Дочь ледяного гиганта».

*«Барабаны Томбалку».

*«Долина пропавших женщин».

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Тексты и переводы

2017-12-11T15:28:30Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «__NOTOC__ {| border="0" width="100%" height="700px" class="simple" style="margin: 0em;" |- | style="vertical-align:top;"| {| border="0" width="100%" heigh…»

Ссылки

2017-12-11T15:27:36Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «=Официальные сайты, посвященные творчеству Роберта И. Говарда= *http://www.conan.com/ - американск…»

=Официальные сайты, посвященные творчеству Роберта И. Говарда=

*http://www.conan.com/ - американский сайт.

*http://www.rehupa.com/ - американский блог о жизни и творчестве Роберта И. Говарда.

*http://robert-howard.net/ - сайт, посвященный писателю Роберту Говарду.

=Википедии, энциклопедии=

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Howard - статья о Роберте И. Говарде на американской википедии.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Barbarian - статья о Конане-варваре на американской википедии.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyborian_Age - статья о Хайборийской Эре на американской википедии.

*http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Robert_Ervin_Howard - оригинальные тексты Роберта И. Говарда.

*http://conan.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page - американская вики-энциклопедия.

*http://wiki.cimmeria.ru/index.php/ - российская вики-энциклопедия.

=Форумы=

*http://www.conan.com/invboard/ - американский форум.

*http://cthulhuhammer.mybb.ru/ - российский форум.

=Разное=

*http://www.thecimmerian.com/

*http://hyboria.xoth.net/index.htm

*http://amrathelion.com/

*http://ssword.eto-ya.com/ - блог о жанре "Меча и магии".

*http://www.fantlab.ru/autor59/ - о Роберте И. Говарде на фантлабе.

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Синопсисы

2017-12-11T15:27:04Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «Синопсисы, фрагменты и черновики рассказов Роберта Говарда о Конане. *Синопсис без наз…»

Синопсисы, фрагменты и черновики рассказов Роберта Говарда о Конане.

*[[Синопсис без названия («В зале мертвецов»/«The Hall of the Dead»)|Синопсис без названия]] («В зале мертвецов»/«The Hall of the Dead»). Перевод Г.Корчагина.

*[[Синопсис без названия («Алая цитадель»/«The Scarlet Citadel»)|Синопсис без названия]] («Алая цитадель»/«The Scarlet Citadel»). Перевод Г. Корчагина.

*[[Синопсис без названия («Черный колосс»/«Black Colossus»)|Синопсис без названия]] («Черный колосс»/«Black Colossus»). Перевод Г. Корчагина.

*[[Фрагмент без названия («Рука Нергала»/«The Hand of Nergal»)|Фрагмент без названия]] («Рука Нергала»/«The Hand of Nergal»). Перевод Г. Корчагина.

*[[Синопсис без названия («Рыло во тьме»/«The Snout in the Dark»)|Синопсис без названия]] («Рыло во тьме»/«The Snout in the Dark»). Перевод Г. Корчагина.

*[[Черновик без названия («Рыло во тьме»/«The Snout in the Dark»)|Черновик без названия]] («Рыло во тьме»/«The Snout in the Dark»). Перевод Г. Корчагина.

*[[Синопсис без названия («Люди Черного Круга»/«The People of the Black Circle»)|Синопсис без названия]] («Люди Черного Круга»/«The People of the Black Circle») Перевод К. Плешкова.

*[[Синопсис без названия («Drums of Tombalku»/«Барабаны Томбалку»)|Синопсис без названия]] («Drums of Tombalku»/«Барабаны Томбалку»). Перевод К. Плешкова.

*[[Черновик без названия («Drums of Tombalku»/«Барабаны Томбалку»)|Черновик без названия]] («Drums of Tombalku»/«Барабаны Томбалку»). Перевод К. Плешкова.

*[[Синопсис без названия («Час Дракона»/«Hour of the Dragon»)|Синопсис без названия]] («Час Дракона»/«Hour of the Dragon»). Перевод К. Плешкова.

*[[Синопсис без названия («...И родится ведьма»/«A Witch Shall Be Born»)|Синопсис без названия]] («...И родится ведьма»/«A Witch Shall Be Born»). Перевод К. Плешкова.

*[[Черновик «Волки у границы»/«Wolves Beyond the Border»]]. Перевод Г. Корчагина.

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Роберт Говард

2017-12-11T15:26:20Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «Ро́берт И́рвин Го́вард (англ. Robert Ervin Howard; 22 января, 1906 — 11 июня, 1936) - родился в городе Пест…»

Ро́берт И́рвин Го́вард (англ. Robert Ervin Howard; 22 января, 1906 — 11 июня, 1936) - родился в городе Пестер, штат Техас. Семья Говарда часто переезжала с места на место, пока не обосновалась в 1919 году в Кросс Плэйнс. Еще во время учебы в школе Роберт начал посылать рассказы в разные журналы. Первой его профессиональной публикацией стал рассказ «Копье и клык», напечатанный в «Weird Tales» в 1925 году.

После окончания школы Говард работал секретарем в нотариальной конторе, чернорабочим в геологической партии, репортером в газетах, в аптеке. В конце 1926 года, убедившись, что писательство его не прокормит, окончил бухгалтерские курсы при колледже Ховарда Пэйна в Браунвуде. Там он снова начинает писать — большей частью юмористические рассказы для газеты колледжа, однако несколько рассказов посылает и в журналы.

В 1928 году его снова начинают издавать — сначала серию рассказов о Соломоне Кейне, затем — о Кулле. С 1930 года Роберт Говард становится постоянным автором журналов «Weird Tales», «Oriental Stories» и «Fight Stories». В 1932 году в «Weird Tales» публикуются первые рассказы циклов о Бране Мак Морне и Конане. Дела у Говарда идут на лад, он регулярно публикуется.

Однако в 1935 году мать Роберта Говарда переносит тяжелую операцию, после которой впадает в кому. Говард, не в силах смириться с этим, покончил счеты с жизнью, застрелившись в своем автомобиле. Мать Говарда пережила его лишь на несколько часов.

== См. также ==

*[[Краткая биография Роберта Ирвина Говарда по Расти Бёрку]]

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Персонажи Саги о Конане

2017-12-11T15:25:46Z

Bingam: Новая страница: «Более ста имен персонажей мы встречаем в историях Роберта Говарда о Конане. *Agha Shupras «Black…»

Более ста имен персонажей мы встречаем в историях Роберта Говарда о Конане.

*Agha Shupras «Black Colossus»

*Ajaga’s brother «The Scarlet Citadel»

*Akivasha «The Hour of the Dragon»

*Alafdahl «Shadows in Zamboula»

*Albiona «The Hour of the Dragon»

*Amalric «Black Colossus», «The Hour of the Dragon»

*Amalrus «The Scarlet Citadel»

*Aram Baksh «Shadows in Zamboula»

*Arpello «The Scarlet Citadel»

*Ascalante «The Phoenix on the Sword»

*Athemides «The Scarlet Citadel»

*Athicus «Rogues in the House»

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*Baal-Pteor «Shadows in Zamboula»

*Balthus «Beyond the Black River»

*Belit «Queen of the Black Coast»

*Beloso «The Hour of the Dragon»

*Black Seers of Mount Yimsha «The People of the Black Circle»

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*Conan

*Constantius «A Witch Shall Be Born»

*Count Thespides «Black Colossus»

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*Dion «The Phoenix on the Sword»

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*Epemitreus «The Phoenix on the Sword»

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*Ghaznavi - counsellor to Jehungir Agha «The Devil in Iron»

*Gilzan - Shemite torturer under Jehungir «The Devil in Iron»

*Gorulga «Jewels of Gwahlur»

*Gromel «The Phoenix on the Sword»

*Gwarunga «Jewels of Gwahlur»

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*Hadrathus «The Hour of the Dragon»

----

*Jehungir Agha - lord of the city of Khawarizm «The Devil in Iron»

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*Khemsa «The People of the Black Circle»

*Kumbanigash «A Witch Shall Be Born»

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*Lords of the Black Circle «The People of the Black Circle»

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*Master of Yimsha «The People of the Black Circle»

*Muriela «Jewels of Gwahlur»

*Murilo «Rogues in the House»

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*Nabonidus «Rogues in the House»

*Natala «The Slithering Shadow»

*Natohk «Black Colossus»

*N'Gora «Queen of the Black Coast»

*Numedides «The Phoenix on the Sword»

*N'Yaga «Queen of the Black Coast»

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*Octavia - Nemedian princess «The Devil in Iron»

*Olgerd Vladislav «A Witch Shall Be Born»

*Olivia «Shadows in the Moonlight»

*Olmec «Red Nails»

*Orastes «The Hour of the Dragon»

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*Pallantides «The Hour of the Dragon», «The Phoenix on the Sword»

*Pelias «The Scarlet Citadel»

*Petreus «Rogues in the House»

*Prince Kutamun «Black Colossus»

*Princess Yasmela «Black Colossus»

*Prospero «The Hour of the Dragon», «The Phoenix on the Sword», «The Scarlet Citadel»

*Publio «The Hour of the Dragon»

*Publius «The Phoenix on the Sword», «The Scarlet Citadel»

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*Queen Taramis «A Witch Shall Be Born»

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*Rinaldo «The Phoenix on the Sword»

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*Salome «A Witch Shall Be Born»

*Sancha «The Pool of the Black One»

*Sergius «Shadows in the Moonlight»

*Servius Galannus «The Hour of the Dragon»

*Shah Amurath «Shadows in the Moonlight»

*Shevatas «Black Colossus»

*Shukeli «The Scarlet Citadel»

*Slasher «Beyond the Black River»

*Strabonus «The Scarlet Citadel»

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*Tarascus «The Hour of the Dragon»

*Tascela «Red Nails»

*Taurus «Black Colossus»

*Taurus «The Tower of the Elephant»

*Techotl «Red Nails»

*Thalis «The Slithering Shadow»

*Thaug «A Witch Shall Be Born»

*Thoth-Amon «The Hour of the Dragon», «The Phoenix on the Sword»

*Thothmerki «The Hour of the Dragon»

*Thutmekri «Jewels of Gwahlur»

*Thutothmes «The Hour of the Dragon»

*Tiberias «Beyond the Black River»

*Tito «Queen of the Black Coast»

*Tolkemec «Red Nails»

*Totrasmek «Shadows in Zamboula»

*Trocero «The Hour of the Dragon», «The Scarlet Citadel»

*Tsotha-lanti «The Scarlet Citadel»

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*Unnamed Kushite eunuch «The Devil in Iron»

*Unnamed Yuetshi fisherman «The Devil in Iron»

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*Valannus «Beyond the Black River, The Hour of the Dragon»

*Valbroso «The Hour of the Dragon»

*Valeriarraq «Red Nails»

*Valerius «A Witch Shall Be Born», «The Hour of the Dragon»

*Vateesa «Black Colossus»

*Volmana «The Phoenix on the Sword»

----

*Xaltotun «The Hour of the Dragon»

----

*Yag-Kosha (Yogah) «The Tower of the Elephant»

*Yara «The Tower of the Elephant»

*Yasmina «The People of the Black Circle»

*Yezdigerd «The Devil in Iron»

----

*Zabibi «Shadows in Zamboula»

*Zaporavo «The Pool of the Black One»

*Zargheba «Jewels of Gwahlur»

*Zelata «The Hour of the Dragon»

*Zenobia «The Hour of the Dragon»

*Zogar Sag «Beyond the Black River»

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