The Bloody Crown of Conan 
Robert Howard


The People of the Black Circle 
I
DEATH STRIKES A KING 
The king of Vendhya was dying. Through the hot, stifling night the temple gongs boomed and 
the conchs roared. Their clamor was a faint echo in the gold-domed chamber where Bunda 
Chand struggled on the velvet-cushioned dais. Beads of sweat glistened on his dark skin; his 
fingers twisted the gold-worked fabric beneath him. He was young; no spear had touched him, 
no poison lurked in his wine. But his veins stood out like blue cords on his temples, and his 
eyes dilated with the nearness of death. Trembling slave-girls knelt at the foot of the dais, and 
leaning down to him, watching him with passionate intensity, was his sister, the Devi Yasmina. 
With her was the wazam, a noble grown old in the royal court. 
She threw up her head in a gusty gesture of wrath and despair as the thunder of the distant 
drums reached her ears. 
“The priests and their clamor!” she exclaimed. “They are no wiser than the leeches who are 
helpless! Nay, he dies and none can say why. He is dying now – and I stand here helpless, who 
would burn the whole city and spill the blood of thousands to save him.” 
“Not a man of Ayodhya but would die in his place, if it might be, Devi,” answered the wazam. 
“This poison – ” 
“I tell you it is not poison!” she cried. “Since his birth he has been guarded so closely that the 
cleverest poisoners of the East could not reach him. Five skulls bleaching on the Tower of the 
Kites can testify to attempts which were made – and which failed. As you well know, there are 
ten men and ten women whose sole duty is to taste his food and wine, and fifty armed warriors 
guard his chamber as they guard it now. No, it is not poison; it is sorcery – black, ghastly 
magic – ” 
She ceased as the king spoke; his livid lips did not move, and there was no recognition in his 
glassy eyes. But his voice rose in an eery call, indistinct and far away, as if he called to her 
from beyond vast, wind-blown gulfs. 
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“Yasmina! Yasmina! My sister, where are you? I can not find you. All is darkness, and the 
roaring of great winds!” 
“Brother!” cried Yasmina, catching his limp hand in a convulsive grasp. “I am here! Do you 
not know me – ” 
Her voice died at the utter vacancy of his face. A low confused moaning waned from his 
mouth. The slave-girls at the foot of the dais whimpered with fear, and Yasmina beat her breast 
in her anguish. 
In another part of the city a man stood in a latticed balcony overlooking a long street in which 
torches tossed luridly, smokily revealing upturned dark faces and the whites of gleaming eyes. 
A long-drawn wailing rose from the multitude. 
The man shrugged his broad shoulders and turned back into the arabesqued chamber. He was a 
tall man, compactly built, and richly clad. 
“The king is not yet dead, but the dirge is sounded,” he said to another man who sat crosslegged 
on a mat in a corner. This man was clad in a brown camel-hair robe and sandals, and a 
green turban was on his head. His expression was tranquil, his gaze impersonal. 
“The people know he will never see another dawn,” this man answered. 
The first speaker favored him with a long, searching stare. 
“What I can not understand,” he said, “is why I have had to wait so long for your masters to 
strike. If they have slain the king now, why could they not have slain him months ago?” 
“Even the arts you call sorcery are governed by cosmic laws,” answered the man in the green 
turban. “The stars direct these actions, as in other affairs. Not even my masters can alter the 
stars. Not until the heavens were in the proper order could they perform this necromancy.” 
With a long, stained finger-nail he mapped the constellations on the marble-tiled floor. “The 
slant of the moon presaged evil for the king of Vendhya; the stars are in turmoil, the Serpent in 
the House of the Elephant. During such juxtaposition, the invisible guardians are removed from 
the spirit of Bhunda Chand. A path is opened in the unseen realms, and once a point of contact 
was established, mighty powers were put in play along that path.” 
“Point of contact?” inquired the other. “Do you mean that lock of Bhunda Chand’s hair?” 
“Yes. All discarded portions of the human body still remain part of it, attached to it by 
intangible connections. The priests of Asura have a dim inkling of this truth, and so all nail- 
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trimmings, hair and other waste products of the persons of the royal family are carefully 
reduced to ashes and the ashes hidden. But at the urgent entreaty of the princess of Khosala, 
who loved Bhunda Chand vainly, he gave her a lock of his long black hair as a token of 
remembrance. When my masters decided upon his doom, the lock, in its golden, jewel-crusted 
case, was stolen from under her pillow while she slept, and another substituted, so like the first 
that she never knew the difference. Then the genuine lock travelled by camel-caravan up the 
long, long road to Peshkhauri, thence up the Zhaibar Pass, until it reached the hands of those 
for whom it was intended.” 
“Only a lock of hair,” murmured the nobleman. 
“By which a soul is drawn from its body and across gulfs of echoing space,” returned the man 
on the mat. 
The nobleman studied him curiously. 
“I do not know if you are a man or a demon, Khemsa,” he said at last. “Few of us are what we 
seem. I, whom the Kshatriyas know as Kerim Shah, a prince from Iranistan, am no greater a 
masquerader than most men. They are all traitors in one way or another, and half of them know 
not whom they serve. There at least I have no doubts; for I serve King Yezdigerd of Turan.” 
“And I the Black Seers of Yimsha,” said Khemsa; “and my masters are greater than yours, for 
they have accomplished by their arts what Yezdigerd could not with a hundred thousand 
swords.” 
Outside, the moan of the tortured thousands shuddered up to the stars which crusted the 
sweating Vendhyan night, and the conchs bellowed like oxen in pain. 
In the gardens of the palace the torches glinted on polished helmets and curved swords and 
gold-chased corselets. All the noble-born fighting-men of Ayodhya were gathered in the great 
palace or about it, and at each broad-arched gate and door fifty archers stood on guard, with 
bows in their hands. But Death stalked through the royal palace and none could stay his ghostly 
tread. 
On the dais under the golden dome the king cried out again, racked by awful paroxysms. Again 
his voice came faintly and far away, and again the Devi bent to him, trembling with a fear that 
was darker than the terror of death. 
“Yasmina!” Again that far, weirdly dreeing cry, from realms immeasurable. “Aid me! I am far 
from my mortal house! Wizards have drawn my soul through the wind-blown darkness. They 
seek to snap the silver cord that binds me to my dying body. They cluster around me; their 
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hands are taloned, their eyes are red like flame burning in darkness. Aie, save me, my sister! 
Their fingers sear me like fire! They would slay my body and damn my soul! What is this they 
bring before me? – Aie!” 
At the terror in his hopeless cry Yasmina screamed uncontrollably and threw herself bodily 
upon him in the abandon of her anguish. He was torn by a terrible convulsion; foam flew from 
his contorted lips and his writhing fingers left their marks on the girl’s shoulders. But the 
glassy blankness passed from his eyes like smoke blown from a fire, and he looked up at his 
sister with recognition. 
“Brother!” she sobbed. “Brother – ” 
“Swift!” he gasped, and his weakening voice was rational. “I know now what brings me to the 
pyre. I have been on a far journey and I understand. I have been ensorceled by the wizards of 
the Himelians. They drew my soul out of my body and far away, into a stone room. There they 
strove to break the silver cord of life, and thrust my soul into the body of a foul night-weird 
their sorcery summoned up from hell. Ah! I feel their pull upon me now! Your cry and the grip 
of your fingers brought me back, but I am going fast. My soul clings to my body, but its hold 
weakens. Quick – kill me, before they can trap my soul for ever!” 
“I can not!” she wailed, smiting her naked breasts. 
“Swiftly, I command you!” There was the old imperious note in his failing whisper. “You have 
never disobeyed me – obey my last command! Send my soul clean to Asura! Haste, lest you 
damn me to spend eternity as a filthy gaunt of darkness. Strike, I command you! Strike!” 
Sobbing wildly, Yasmina plucked a jeweled dagger from her girdle and plunged it to the hilt in 
his breast. He stiffened and then went limp, a grim smile curving his dead lips. Yasmina hurled 
herself face-down on the rush-covered floor, beating the reeds with her clenched hands. 
Outside, the gongs and conchs brayed and thundered and the priests gashed themselves with 
copper knives. 
II 
A BARBARIAN FROM THE HILLS 
Chunder Shan, governor of Peshkhauri, laid down his golden pen and carefully scanned that 
which he had written on parchment that bore his official seal. He had ruled Peshkhauri so long 
only because he weighed his every word, spoken or written. Danger breeds caution, and only a 
wary man lives long in that wild country where the hot Vendhyan plains meet the crags of the 
Himelians. An hour’s ride westward or northward and one crossed the border and was among 
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the hills where men lived by the law of the knife. 
The governor was alone in his chamber, seated at his ornately-carven table of inlaid ebony. 
Through the wide window, open for the coolness, he could see a square of the blue Himelian 
night, dotted with great white stars. An adjacent parapet was a shadowy line, and further 
crenelles and embrasures were barely hinted at in the dim starlight. The governor’s fortress was 
strong, and situated outside the walls of the city it guarded. The breeze that stirred the 
tapestries on the wall brought faint noises from the streets of Peshkhauri – occasional snatches 
of wailing song, or the thrum of a cithern. 
The governor read what he had written, slowly, with his open hand shading his eyes from the 
bronze butter-lamp, his lips moving. Absently, as he read, he heard the drum of horses’ hoofs 
outside the barbican, the sharp staccato of the guards’ challenge. He did not heed, intent upon 
his letter. It was addressed to the wazam of Vendhya, at the royal court of Ayodhya, and it 
stated, after the customary salutations: 
“Let it be known to your excellency that I have faithfully carried out your excellency’s 
instructions. The seven tribesmen are well guarded in their prison, and I have repeatedly sent 
word into the hills that their chief come in person to bargain for their release. But he has made 
no move, except to send word that unless they are freed he will burn Peshkhauri and cover his 
saddle with my hide, begging your excellency’s indulgence. This he is quite capable of 
attempting, and I have tripled the numbers of the lance guards. The man is not a native of 
Ghulistan. I can not with certainty predict his next move. But since it is the wish of the Devi – ” 
He was out of his ivory chair and on his feet facing the arched door, all in one instant. He 
snatched at the curved sword lying in its ornate scabbard on the table, and then checked the 
movement. 
It was a woman who had entered unannounced, a woman whose gossamer robes did not 
conceal the rich garments beneath any more than they concealed the suppleness and beauty of 
her tall, slender figure. A filmy veil fell below her breasts, supported by a flowing head-dress 
bound about with a triple gold braid and adorned with a golden crescent. Her dark eyes 
regarded the astonished governor over the veil, and then with an imperious gesture of her white 
hand, she uncovered her face. 
“Devi!” The governor dropped to his knee before her, his surprize and confusion somewhat 
spoiling the stateliness of his obeisance. With a gesture she motioned him to rise, and he 
hastened to lead her to the ivory chair, all the while bowing level with his girdle. But his first 
words were of reproof. 
“Your majesty! This was most unwise! The border is unsettled. Raids from the hills are 
incessant. You came with a large attendance?” 
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“An ample retinue followed me to Peshkhauri,” she answered. “I lodged my people there and 
came on to the fort with my maid, Gitara.” 
Chunder Shan groaned in horror. 
“Devi! You do not understand the peril. An hour’s ride from this spot the hills swarm with 
barbarians who make a profession of murder and rapine. Women have been stolen and men 
stabbed between the fort and the city. Peshkhauri is not like your southern provinces – ” 
“But I am here, and unharmed,” she interrupted with a trace of impatience. “I showed my 
signet ring to the guard at the gate, and to the one outside your door, and they admitted me 
unannounced, not knowing me, but supposing me to be a secret courier from Ayodhya. Let us 
not now waste time. 
“You have received no word from the chief of the barbarians?” 
“None save threats and curses, Devi. He is wary and suspicious. He deems it a trap, and 
perhaps he is not to be blamed. The Kshatriyas have not always kept their promises to the hill 
people.” 
“He must be brought to terms!” broke in Yasmina, the knuckles of her clenched hands showing 
white. 
“I do not understand.” The governor shook his head. “When I chanced to capture these seven 
hillmen, I reported their capture to the wazam, as is the custom, and then, before I could hang 
them, there came an order to hold them and communicate with their chief. This I did, but the 
man holds aloof, as I have said. These men are of the tribe of Afghulis, but he is a foreigner 
from the west, and he is called Conan. I have threatened to hang them tomorrow at dawn, if he 
does not come.” 
“Good!” exclaimed the Devi. “You have done well. And I will tell you why I have given these 
orders. My brother – ” she faltered, choking, and the governor bowed his head, with the 
customary gesture of respect for a departed sovereign. 
“The king of Vendhya was destroyed by magic,” she said at last. “I have devoted my life to the 
destruction of his murderers. As he died he gave me a clue, and I have followed it. I have read 
the Book of Skelos, and talked with nameless hermits in the caves below Jhelai. I learned how, 
and by whom, he was destroyed. His enemies were the Black Seers of Mount Yimsha.” 
“Asura!” whispered Chunder Shan, paling. 
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Her eyes knifed him through. “Do you fear them?” 
“Who does not, your majesty?” he replied. “They are black devils, haunting the uninhabited 
hills beyond the Zhaibar. But the sages say that they seldom interfere in the lives of mortal 
men.” 
“Why they slew my brother I do not know,” she answered. “But I have sworn on the altar of 
Asura to destroy them! And I need the aid of a man beyond the border. A Kshatriya army, 
unaided, would never reach Yimsha.” 
“Aye,” muttered Chunder Shan. “You speak the truth there. It would be a fight every step of 
the way, with hairy hillmen hurling down boulders from every height, and rushing us with their 
long knives in every valley. The Turanians fought their way through the Himelians once, but 
how many returned to Khurusun? Few of those who escaped the swords of the Kshatriyas, after 
the king, your brother, defeated their host on the Jhumda River, ever saw Secunderam again.” 
“And so I must control men across the border,” she said, “men who know the way to Mount 
Yimsha – ” 
“But the tribes fear the Black Seers and shun the unholy mountain,” broke in the governor. 
“Does the chief, Conan, fear them?” she asked. 
“Well, as to that,” muttered the governor, “I doubt if there is anything that devil fears.” 
“So I have been told. Therefore he is the man I must deal with. He wishes the release of his 
seven men. Very well; their ransom shall be the heads of the Black Seers!” Her voice 
thrummed with hate as she uttered the last words, and her hands clenched at her sides. She 
looked an image of incarnate passion as she stood there with her head thrown high and her 
bosom heaving. 
Again the governor knelt, for part of his wisdom was the knowledge that a woman in such an 
emotional tempest is as perilous as a blind cobra to any about her. 
“It shall be as you wish, your majesty.” Then as she presented a calmer aspect, he rose and 
ventured to drop a word of warning. “I can not predict what the chief Conan’s action will be. 
The tribesmen are always turbulent, and I have reason to believe that emissaries from the 
Turanians are stirring them up to raid our borders. As your majesty knows, the Turanians have 
established themselves in Secunderam and other northern cities, though the hill tribes remain 
unconquered. King Yezdigerd has long looked southward with greedy lust and perhaps is 
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seeking to gain by treachery what he could not win by force of arms. I have thought that Conan 
might well be one of his spies.” 
“We shall see,” she answered. “If he loves his followers, he will be at the gates at dawn, to 
parley. I shall spend the night in the fortress. I came in disguise to Peshkhauri, and lodged my 
retinue at an inn instead of the palace. Besides my people, only yourself knows of my presence 
here.” 
“I shall escort you to your quarters, your majesty,” said the governor, and as they emerged 
from the doorway, he beckoned the warrior on guard there, and the man fell in behind them, 
spear held at salute. The maid waited, veiled like her mistress, outside the door, and the group 
traversed a wide, winding corridor, lighted by smoky torches, and reached the quarters reserved 
for visiting notables – generals and viceroys, mostly; none of the royal family had ever honored 
the fortress before. Chunder Shan had a perturbed feeling that the suite was not suitable to such 
an exalted personage as the Devi, and though she sought to make him feel at ease in her 
presence, he was glad when she dismissed him and he bowed himself out. All the menials of 
the fort had been summoned to serve his royal guest – though he did not divulge her identity – 
and he stationed a squad of spearmen before her doors, among them the warrior who had 
guarded his own chamber. In his preoccupation he forgot to replace the man. 
The governor had not been gone long from her, when Yasmina suddenly remembered 
something else which she had wished to discuss with him, but had forgotten until that moment. 
It concerned the past actions of one Kerim Shah, a nobleman from Iranistan, who had dwelt for 
awhile in Peshkhauri before coming on to the court at Ayodhya. A vague suspicion concerning 
the man had been stirred by a glimpse of him in Peshkhauri that night. She wondered if he had 
followed her from Ayodhya. Being a truly remarkable Devi, she did not summon the governor 
to her again, but hurried out into the corridor alone, and hastened toward his chamber. 
Chunder Shan, entering his chamber, closed the door and went to his table. There he took the 
letter he had been writing and tore it to bits. Scarcely had he finished when he heard something 
drop softly onto the parapet adjacent to the window. He looked up to see a figure loom briefly 
against the stars, and then a man dropped lightly into the room. The light glinted on a long 
sheen of steel in his hand. 
“Shhhh!” he warned. “Don’t make a noise, you bastard, or I’ll send the devil a henchman!” 
The governor checked his motion toward the sword on the table. He was within reach of the 
yard-long Zhaibar knife that glittered in the intruder’s fist, and he knew the desperate quickness 
of a hillman. 
The invader was a tall man, at once strong and supple. He was dressed like a hillman, but his 
dark features and blazing blue eyes did not match his garb. Chunder Shan had never seen a 
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man like him; he was not an Easterner, but some barbarian from the West. But his aspect was 
as untamed and formidable as any of the hairy tribesmen who haunt the hills of Ghulistan. 
“You come like a thief in the night,” commented the governor, recovering some of his 
composure, although he remembered that there was no guard within call. Still, the hillman 
could not know that. 
“I climbed a bastion,” snarled the intruder. “A guard thrust his head over the battlement in time 
for me to rap it with my knife hilt.” 
“You are Conan?” 
“Who else? You sent word into the hills that you wished for me to come and parley with you. 
Well, by Crom, I’ve come! Keep away from that table or I’ll gut you.” 
“I merely wish to seat myself,” answered the governor, carefully sinking into the ivory chair, 
which he wheeled away from the table. Conan moved restlessly before him, glancing 
suspiciously at the door, thumbing the razor edge of his three-foot knife. He did not walk like 
an Afghuli, and was bluntly direct where the East is subtle. 
“You have seven of my men,” he said abruptly. “You refused the ransom I offered. What the 
devil do you want?” 
“Let us discuss terms,” answered Chunder Shan cautiously. 
“Terms?” There was a timbre of dangerous anger in his voice. “What do you mean? Haven’t I 
offered you gold?” 
Chunder Shan laughed. 
“Gold? There is more gold in Peshkhauri than you ever saw.” 
“You’re a liar,” retorted Conan. “I’ve seen the suk of the goldsmiths in Khurusun.” 
“Well – more than any Afghuli ever saw,” amended Chunder Shan. “And it is but a drop of all 
the treasure of Vendhya. Why should we desire gold? It would be more to our advantage to 
hang these seven thieves.” 
Conan ripped out a sulphurous oath and the long blade quivered in his grip as the muscles rose 
in ridges on his brown arm. 
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“I’ll split your head like a ripe melon!” 
A wild blue flame flickered in the hillman’s eyes, but Chunder Shan shrugged his shoulders, 
though keeping an eye on the keen steel. 
“You can kill me easily, and probably escape over the wall afterwards. But that would not save 
the seven tribesmen. They would surely hang them. And these men are headmen among the 
Afghulis.” 
“I know it,” snarled Conan. “The tribe is baying like wolves at my heels because I have not 
secured their release. Tell me in plain words what you want, because by Crom, if there’s no 
other way, I’ll raise a horde and lead it to the very gates of Peshkhauri!” 
Looking at the man as he stood squarely, knife in fist and eyes glaring, Chunder Shan did not 
doubt that he was capable of it. The governor did not believe any hill-horde could take 
Peshkhauri, but he did not wish a devastated countryside. 
“There is a mission you must perform,” he said, choosing his words with as much care as if 
they had been razors. “There – ” 
Conan had sprung back, wheeling to face the door at the same instant, lips asnarl. His barbarian 
ears had caught the sound noiseless to Chunder Shan – the quick tread of soft slippers outside 
the door. The next instant the door was thrown open and a slim, silk-robed form entered 
hastily, pulling the door shut – then stopping short at the sight of the hillman. 
Chunder Shan sprang up, his heart jumping into his mouth. 
“Devi!” he cried involuntarily, losing his head momentarily in his fright. 
“Devi ! ” It was like an explosive echo from the hillman’s lips. Chunder Shan saw recognition 
and intent flame up in the fierce blue eyes. The governor shouted desperately and caught at his 
sword, but the hillman moved with the devastating speed of a hurricane. He sprang, knocked 
the governor sprawling with a savage blow of his knife hilt, swept up the astounded Devi in 
one brawny arm and leaped for the window. Chunder Shan, struggling frantically to his feet, 
saw the man poise an instant on the sill, in a flutter of silken skirts and white limbs that was his 
royal captive, and heard his fierce, exultant snarl: “Now dare to hang my men!” and then Conan 
leaped to the parapet and was gone. A wild scream floated back to the governor’s ears. 
“Guard! Guard!” screamed the governor, struggling up and running drunkenly to the door. He 
tore it open and reeled into the hall. His shouts re-echoed along the corridors and warriors came 
running, gaping to see the governor holding his broken head, from which the blood streamed. 
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“Turn out the lancers!” he roared. “There has been an abduction!” Even in his frenzy he had 
enough sense left to withhold the full truth. He stopped short as he heard a sudden drum of 
hoofs outside, a frantic scream and a wild yell of barbaric exultation. 
Followed by the bewildered guardsmen, the governor raced for the stair. In the courtyard of the 
fort a force of lancers always stood by saddled steeds, ready to ride at an instant’s notice. 
Chunder Shan sent this squadron flying after the fugitive, though his head swam so he had to 
hold with both hands to the saddle. He did not divulge the identity of the victim, but said 
merely that the noblewoman who had borne the royal signet-ring had been carried away by the 
chief of the Afghulis. The abductor was out of sight and hearing, but they knew the path he 
would strike – the road that runs straight to the mouth of the Zhaibar. There was no moon; 
peasant huts rose dimly in the starlight. Behind them fell away the grim bastion of the fort, and 
the towers of Peshkhauri. Ahead of them loomed the black walls of the Himelians. 
III 
KHEMSA USES MAGIC 
In the confusion that reigned in the fortress while the guard was being turned out, no one 
noticed that the girl who had accompanied the Devi slipped out the great arched gate and 
vanished in the darkness. She ran straight for the city, her garments tucked high. She did not 
follow the open road, but cut straight through fields and over slopes, avoiding fences and 
leaping irrigation ditches as surely as if it were broad daylight, and as easily as if she were a 
trained masculine runner. The hoof-drum of the guardsmen had faded away up the hill road 
before she reached the city wall. She did not go to the great gate, beneath whose arch men 
leaned on spears and craned their necks into the darkness, discussing the unwonted activity 
about the fortress. She skirted the wall until she reached a certain point where the spire of a 
tower was visible above the battlements. Then she placed her hands to her mouth and voiced a 
low weird call that carried strangely. 
Almost instantly a head appeared at an embrasure and a rope came wriggling down the wall. 
She seized it, placed a foot in the loop at the end, and waved her arm. Then quickly and 
smoothly she was drawn up the sheer stone curtain. An instant later she scrambled over the 
merlons and stood up on a flat roof which covered a house that was built against the wall. 
There was an open trap there, and a man in a camel-hair robe who silently coiled the rope, not 
showing in any way the strain of exertion from hauling a full-grown woman up a forty foot 
wall. 
“Where is Kerim Shah?” she gasped, panting after her long run. 
“Asleep in the house below. You have news?” 
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“Conan has stolen the Devi out of the fortress and carried her away into the hills!” She blurted 
out her news in a rush, the words stumbling over each other. 
Khemsa showed no emotion, but merely nodded his turbaned head. 
“Kerim Shah will be glad to hear that,” he said. 
“Wait!” The girl threw her supple arms about his neck. She was panting hard, but not only 
from exertion. Her eyes blazed like black jewels in the starlight. Her upturned face was close to 
Khemsa’s, but though he submitted to her embrace, he did not return it. 
“Do not tell the Hyrkanian!” she panted. “Let us use this knowledge ourselves! The governor 
has gone into the hills with his riders, but he might as well chase a ghost. He has not told 
anyone that it was the Devi who was kidnapped. None in Peshkhauri or the fort knows it except 
us!” 
“But what good does it do us?” the man expostulated. “My masters sent me with Kerim Shah 
to aid him in every way – ” 
“Aid yourself!” she cried fiercely. “Shake off your yoke!” 
“You mean – disobey my masters?” he gasped, and she felt his whole body turn cold under her 
arms. 
“Aye!” she shook him in the fury of her emotion. “You too are a magician! Why will you be a 
slave, using your powers only to elevate others? Use your arts for yourself!” 
“That is forbidden!” He was shaking as if with an ague. “I am not one of the Black Circle. Only 
by the command of the masters do I dare to use the knowledge they have taught me.” 
“But you can use it!” she argued passionately. “Do as I beg you! Of course Conan has taken 
the Devi to hold as hostage against the seven tribesmen in the governor’s prison. Destroy them, 
so Chunder Shan can not use them to buy back the Devi. Then let us go into the mountains and 
take her from the Afghulis. They can not stand against your sorcery with their knives! The 
treasure of the Vendhyan kings will be ours as ransom – and then when we have it in our 
hands, we can trick them, and sell her to the king of Turan. We shall have wealth beyond our 
maddest dreams! With it we can buy warriors! We will take Khorbhul, oust the Turanians from 
the hills, and send our hosts southward; become king and queen of an empire!” 
Khemsa too was panting, shaking like a leaf in her grasp; his face showed grey in the starlight, 
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beaded with great drops of perspiration. 
“I love you!” she cried fiercely, writhing her body against his, almost strangling him in her 
wild embrace, shaking him in her abandon. “I will make a king of you! For love of you I 
betrayed my mistress; for love of me betray your masters! Why fear the Black Seers? By your 
love for me you have broken one of their laws already! Break the rest! You are strong as they!” 
A man of ice could not have withstood the searing heat of her passion and fury. With an 
inarticulate cry he crushed her to him, bending her backward and showering gasping kisses on 
her eyes, face and lips. 
“I’ll do it!” His voice was thick with laboring emotions. He staggered like a drunken man. 
“The arts they have taught me shall work for me, not for my masters. We shall be rulers of the 
world – of the world – ” 
“Come then!” Twisting lithely out of his embrace, she seized his hand and led him toward the 
trap-door. “First we must make sure that the governor does not exchange those seven Afghulis 
for the Devi.” 
He moved like a man in a daze, until they had descended a ladder and she paused in the 
chamber below. Kerim Shah lay on a couch motionless, an arm across his face as though to 
shield his sleeping eyes from the soft light of a brass lamp. She plucked Khemsa’s arm and 
made a quick gesture across her own throat. Khemsa lifted his hand, then his expression 
changed and he drew away. 
“I have eaten his salt,” he muttered. “Besides he can not interfere with us.” He led the girl 
through a door that opened on a winding stair. After their soft tread had faded into silence, the 
man on the couch sat up. Kerim Shah wiped the sweat from his face. A knife thrust he did not 
dread, but he feared Khemsa as a man fears a poisonous reptile. 
“People who plot on roofs should remember to lower their voices,” he muttered. “But as 
Khemsa has turned against his masters, and as he was my only contact with them, I can count 
on their aid no longer. From now on I play the game in my own way.” 
Rising to his feet he went quickly to a table, drew pen and parchment from his girdle and 
scribbled a few succinct lines. 
“To Khosru Khan, governor of Secunderam: the Cimmerian Conan has carried the Devi 
Yasmina to the villages of the Afghulis. It is an opportunity to get the Devi into our hands, as 
the king has so long desired. Send three thousand horsemen at once. I will meet them in the 
valley of Gurashah with native guides.” And he signed it with a name that was not in the least 
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like Kerim Shah. 
Then from a golden cage he drew forth a carrier pigeon, to whose leg he made fast the 
parchment, rolled into a tiny cylinder and secured with gold wire. Then he went quickly to a 
casement and tossed the bird into the night. It wavered on fluttering wings, balanced, and was 
gone like a flitting shadow. Catching up helmet, sword and cloak, Kerim Shah hurried out of 
the chamber and down the winding stair. 
The prison quarters of Peshkhauri were separated from the rest of the city by a massive wall, in 
which was set a single iron-bound door under an arch. Over the arch burned a lurid red cresset, 
and beside the door stood – or squatted – a warrior with spear and shield. 
This warrior, leaning on his spear, and yawning from time to time, started suddenly to his feet. 
He had not thought he had dozed, but a man was standing before him, a man he had not heard 
approach. The man wore a camel-hair robe and a green turban. In the flickering light of the 
cresset his features were shadowy, but a pair of lambent eyes shone surprizingly in the lurid 
glow. 
“Who comes?” demanded the warrior, presenting his spear. “Who are you?” 
The stranger did not seem perturbed, though the spear point touched his bosom. His eyes held 
the warrior’s with strange intensity. 
“What are you obliged to do?” he asked, strangely. 
“To guard the gate!” The warrior spoke thickly and mechanically; he stood rigid as a statue, his 
eyes slowly glazing. 
“You lie! You are obliged to obey me! You have looked into my eyes, and your soul is no 
longer your own. Open that door!” 
Stiffly, with the wooden features of an image, the guard wheeled about, drew a great key from 
his girdle, turned it in the massive lock and swung open the door. Then he stood at attention, 
his unseeing stare straight ahead of him. 
A woman glided from the shadows and laid an eager hand on the mesmerist’s arm. 
“Bid him fetch us horses, Khemsa,” she whispered. 
“No need of that,” answered the Rakhsha. Lifting his voice slightly he spoke to the guardsman. 
“I have no more use for you. Kill yourself!” 
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Like a man in a trance the warrior thrust the butt of his spear against the base of the wall, and 
placed the keen head against his body, just below the ribs. Then slowly, stolidly, he leaned 
against it with all his weight, so that it transfixed his body and came out between his shoulders. 
Sliding down the shaft he lay still, the spear jutting above him its full length, like a horrible 
stalk growing out of his back. 
The girl stared down at him in morbid fascination, until Khemsa took her arm and led her 
through the gate. Torches lighted a narrow space between the outer wall and a lower inner one, 
in which were arched doors at regular intervals. A warrior paced this enclosure, and when the 
gate opened he came sauntering up, so secure in his knowledge of the prison’s strength that he 
was not suspicious until Khemsa and the girl emerged from the archway. Then it was too late. 
The Rakhsha did not waste time in hypnotism, though his action savored of magic to the girl. 
The guard lowered his spear threateningly, opening his mouth to shout an alarm that would 
bring spearmen swarming out of the guard-rooms at either end of the alley-way. Khemsa 
flicked the spear aside with his left hand, as a man might flick a straw, and his right flashed out 
and back, seeming gently to caress the warrior’s neck in passing. And the guard pitched on his 
face without a sound, his head lolling on a broken neck. 
Khemsa did not glance at him, but went straight to one of the arched doors and placed his open 
hand against the heavy bronze lock. With a rending shudder the portal buckled inward. As the 
girl followed him through, she saw that the thick teak wood hung in splinters, the bronze bolts 
were bent and twisted from their sockets, and the great hinges broken and disjointed. A 
thousand pound battering ram with forty men to swing it could have shattered the barrier no 
more completely. Khemsa was drunk with freedom and the exercise of his power, glorying in 
his might and flinging his strength about as a young giant exercises his thews with unnecessary 
vigor in the exultant pride of his prowess. 
The broken door let them into a small courtyard, lit by a cresset. Opposite the door was a wide 
grille of iron bars. A hairy hand was visible, gripping one of these bars, and in the darkness 
behind them glimmered the whites of eyes. 
Khemsa stood silent for a space, gazing into the shadows from which those glimmering eyes 
gave back his stare with burning intensity. Then his hand went into his robe and came out 
again, and from his opening fingers a shimmering feather of sparkling dust sifted to the flags. 
Instantly a flare of green fire lighted the enclosure. In the brief glare the forms of seven men, 
standing motionless behind the bars, were limned in vivid detail; tall, hairy men in ragged 
hillmen’s garments. They did not speak, but in their eyes blazed the fear of death, and their 
hairy fingers gripped the bars. 
The fire died out but the glow remained, a quivering ball of lambent green that pulsed and 
shimmered on the flags before Khemsa’s feet. The wide gaze of the tribesmen was fixed upon 
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it. It wavered, elongated; it turned into a luminous green smoke spiralling upward. It twisted 
and writhed like a great shadowy serpent, then broadened and billowed out in shining folds and 
whorls. It grew to a cloud moving silently over the flags – straight toward the grille. The men 
watched its coming with dilated eyes; the bars quivered with the grip of their desperate fingers. 
Bearded lips parted but no sound came forth. The green cloud rolled on the bars and blotted 
them from sight; like a fog it oozed through the grille and hid the men within. From the 
enveloping folds came a strangled gasp, as of a man plunged suddenly under the surface of 
water. That was all. 
Khemsa touched the girl’s arm, as she stood with parted lips and dilated eyes. Mechanically 
she turned away with him, looking back over her shoulder. Already the mist was thinning; 
close to the bars she saw a pair of sandalled feet, the toes turned upward – she glimpsed the 
indistinct outlines of seven still, prostrate shapes – 
“And now for a steed swifter than the fastest horse ever bred in a mortal stable,” Khemsa was 
saying. “We will be in Afghulistan before dawn.” 
IV 
AN ENCOUNTER IN THE PASS 
Yasmina Devi could never clearly remember the details of her abduction. The unexpectedness 
and violence stunned her; she had only a confused impression of a whirl of happenings – the 
terrifying grip of a mighty arm, the blazing eyes of her abductor, and his hot breath burning on 
her flesh. The leap through the window to the parapet, the mad race across battlements and 
roofs when the fear of falling froze her, the reckless descent of a rope bound to a merlon – he 
went down almost at a run, his captive folded limply over his brawny shoulder – all this was a 
befuddled tangle in the Devi’s mind. She retained a more vivid memory of him running fleetly 
into the shadows of the trees, carrying her like a child, and vaulting into the saddle of a fierce 
Bhalkhana stallion which reared and snorted. Then there was a sensation of flying, and the 
racing hoofs were striking sparks of fire from the flinty road as the stallion swept up the slopes. 
As the girl’s mind cleared, her first sensations were furious rage and shame. She was appalled. 
The rulers of the golden kingdoms south of the Himelians were considered little short of 
divine; and she was the Devi of Vendhya! Fright was submerged in regal wrath. She cried out 
furiously and began struggling. She, Yasmina, to be carried on the saddle-bow of a hill chief, 
like a common wench of the market-place! He merely hardened his massive thews slightly 
against her writhings, and for the first time in her life she experienced the coercion of superior 
physical strength. His arms felt like iron about her slender limbs. He glanced down at her and 
grinned hugely. His teeth glimmered whitely in the starlight. The reins lay loose on the 
stallion’s flowing mane, and every thew and fiber of the great beast strained as he hurtled along 
the boulder-strewn trail. But Conan sat easily, almost carelessly, in the saddle, riding like a 
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centaur. 
“You hill-bred dog!” she panted, quivering with the impact of shame, anger and the realization 
of helplessness. “You dare – you dare! Your life shall pay for this! Where are you taking me?” 
“To the villages of Afghulistan,” he answered, casting a glance over his shoulder. Behind them, 
beyond the slopes they had traversed, torches were tossing on the walls of the fortress and he 
glimpsed a flare of light that meant the great gate had been opened. And he laughed, a deepthroated 
boom gusty as the hill wind. 
“The governor has sent his riders after us,” he laughed. “By Crom, we will lead him a merry 
chase! What do you think, Devi – will they pay seven lives for a Kshatriya princess?” 
“They will send an army to hang you and your spawn of devils,” she promised him with 
conviction. He laughed gustily and shifted her to a more comfortable position in his arms. But 
she took this as a fresh outrage, and renewed her vain struggles, until she saw that her efforts 
were only amusing him. Besides, her light silken garments, floating on the wind, were being 
outrageously disarranged by her struggles. She concluded that a scornful submission was the 
better part of dignity, and lapsed into a smoldering quiescence. 
She felt even her anger being submerged by awe as they entered the mouth of the Pass, 
lowering like a black well mouth in the blacker walls that rose like colossal ramparts to bar 
their way. It was as if a gigantic knife had cut the Zhaibar out of walls of solid rock. On either 
hand sheer slopes pitched up for thousands of feet, and the mouth of the Pass was dark as hate. 
Even Conan could not see with any accuracy, but he knew the road, even by night. And 
knowing that armed men were racing through the starlight after him, he did not check the 
stallion’s speed. The great brute was not yet showing fatigue. He thundered along the road that 
followed the valley bed, labored up a slope, swept along a low ridge where treacherous shale 
on either hand lurked for the unwary, and came upon a trail that followed the lap of the lefthand 
wall. 
Not even Conan could spy, in that darkness, an ambush set by Zhaibar tribesmen. It was as 
they swept past the black mouth of a gorge that opened into the Pass that a javelin swished 
through the air and thudded home behind the stallion’s straining shoulder. The great beast let 
out his life in a shuddering sob and stumbled, going headlong in full mid-stride. But Conan had 
recognized the flight and stroke of the javelin, and he acted with spring-steel quickness. 
As the horse fell he leaped clear, holding the girl aloft to guard her from striking boulders. He 
hit on his feet like a cat, thrust her into a cleft of rock, and wheeled toward the outer darkness, 
drawing his knife. 
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Yasmina, confused by the rapidity of events, not quite sure just what had happened, saw a 
vague shape rush out of the darkness, bare feet slapping softly on the rock, ragged garments 
whipping on the wind of his haste. She glimpsed the flicker of steel, heard the lightning crack 
of stroke, parry and counter-stroke, and the crunch of bone as Conan’s long knife split the 
other’s skull. 
Conan sprang back, crouching in the shelter of the rocks. Out in the night men were moving 
and a stentorian voice roared: “What, you dogs! Do you flinch? In, curse you, and take them!” 
Conan started, peered into the darkness and lifted his voice. 
“Yar Afzal! Is it you?” 
There sounded a startled imprecation, and the voice called warily. 
“Conan? Is it you, Conan?” 
“Aye!” The Cimmerian laughed. “Come forth, you old war-dog. I’ve slain one of your men.” 
There was movement among the rocks, a light flared dimly, and then a flame appeared and 
came bobbing toward him, and as it approached, a fierce bearded countenance grew out of the 
darkness. The man who carried it held it high, thrust forward, and craned his neck to peer 
among the boulders it lighted, the other hand gripping a great curved tulwar. Conan stepped 
forward, sheathing his knife, and the other roared a greeting. 
“Aye, it is Conan! Come out of your rocks, dogs! It is Conan!” 
Others pressed into the wavering circle of light – wild, ragged, bearded men, with eyes like 
wolves, and long blades in their fists. They did not see Yasmina, for she was hidden by 
Conan’s massive body. But peeping from her covert, she knew icy fear for the first time that 
night. These men were more like wolves than human beings. 
“What are you hunting in the Zhaibar by night, Yar Afzal?” Conan demanded of the burly 
chief. He grinned like a bearded ghoul. 
“Who knows what might come up the Pass after dark? We Wazulis are night hawks. But what 
of you, Conan?” 
“I have a prisoner,” answered the Cimmerian. And moving aside he disclosed the cowering 
girl. Reaching a long arm into the crevice he drew her trembling forth. Her imperious bearing 
was gone. She stared timidly at the ring of bearded faces that hemmed her in, and was grateful 
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for the strong arm that clasped her possessively. The torch was thrust close to her, and there 
was a sucking intake of breath about the ring. 
“She is my captive,” Conan warned, glancing pointedly at the feet of the man he had slain, just 
visible within the ring of light. “I was taking her to Afghulistan, but now you have slain my 
horse, and the Kshatriyas are close behind me.” 
“Come with us to my village,” suggested Yar Afzal. “We have horses hidden in the gorge. 
They can never follow us in the darkness. They are close behind you, you say?” 
“So close that I hear now the clink of their hoofs on the flint,” answered Conan grimly. 
Instantly there was movement; the torch was dashed out and the ragged shapes melted like 
phantoms into the darkness. Conan swept up the Devi in his arms, and she did not resist. The 
rocky ground hurt her slim feet in their soft slippers and she felt very small and helpless in that 
brutish, primordial blackness among those colossal, nighted crags. 
Feeling her shiver in the wind that moaned down the defiles, Conan jerked a ragged cloak from 
its owner’s shoulders and wrapped it about her. He also hissed a warning in her ear, ordering 
her to make no sound. She did not hear the distant clink of shod hoofs on rock that warned the 
keen-eared hillmen; but she was far too frightened to disobey, in any event. 
She could see nothing but a few faint stars far above, but she knew by the deepening darkness 
when they entered the gorge mouth. There was a stir about them, the uneasy movement of 
horses. A few muttered words, and Conan mounted the horse of the man he had killed, lifting 
the girl up in front of him. Like phantoms except for the click of their hoofs, the band swept 
away up the shadowy gorge. Behind them on the trail they left the dead horse and the dead 
man, which were found less than half an hour later by the riders from the fortress, who 
recognized the man as a Wazuli and drew their own conclusions accordingly. 
Yasmina, snuggled warmly in her captor’s arms, grew drowsy in spite of herself. The motion 
of the horse, though it was uneven, uphill and down, yet possessed a certain rhythm which 
combined with weariness and emotional exhaustion to force sleep upon her. She had lost all 
sense of time or direction. They moved in soft thick darkness, in which she sometimes 
glimpsed vaguely gigantic walls sweeping up like black ramparts, or great crags shouldering 
the stars; at times she sensed echoing depths beneath them, or felt the wind of dizzy heights 
blowing cold about her. Gradually these things faded into a dreamy unwakefulness in which 
the clink of hoofs and the creak of saddles were like the irrelevant sounds in a dream. 
She was vaguely aware when the motion ceased and she was lifted down and carried a few 
steps. Then she was laid down on something soft and rustling, and something – a folded coat 
perhaps – was thrust under her head, and the cloak in which she was wrapped was carefully 
tucked about her. She heard Yar Afzal laugh. 
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“A rare prize, Conan; fit mate for a chief of the Afghulis.” 
“Not for me,” came Conan’s answering rumble. “This wench will buy the lives of my seven 
headmen, blast their souls.” 
That was the last she heard as she sank into dreamless slumber. 
She slept while armed men rode through the dark hills, and the fate of kingdoms hung in the 
balance. Through the shadowy gorges and defiles that night there rang the hoofs of galloping 
horses, and the starlight glimmered on helmets and curved blades, until the ghoulish shapes 
that haunt the crags stared into the darkness from ravine and boulder and wondered what things 
were afoot. 
A band of these sat gaunt horses in the black pit-mouth of a gorge as the hurrying hoofs swept 
past. Their leader, a well-built man in a helmet and gilt-braided cloak, held up his hand 
warningly, until the riders had sped on. Then he laughed softly. 
“They must have lost the trail! Or else they have found that Conan has already reached the 
Afghuli villages. It will take many riders to smoke out that hive. There will be squadrons riding 
up the Zhaibar by dawn.” 
“If there is fighting in the hills there will be looting,” muttered a voice behind him, in the 
dialect of the Irakzai. 
“There will be looting,” answered the man with the helmet. “But first it is our business to reach 
the valley of Gurashah and await the riders that will be galloping southward from Secunderam 
before daylight.” 
He lifted his reins and rode out of the defile, his men falling in behind him – thirty ragged 
phantoms in the starlight. 
V
THE BLACK STALLION 
The sun was well up when Yasmina awoke. She did not start and stare blankly, wondering 
where she was. She awoke with full knowledge of all that had occurred. Her supple limbs were 
stiff from her long ride, and her firm flesh still seemed to feel the contact of the muscular arms 
that had borne her so far. 
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She was lying on a sheepskin covering a pallet of leaves on a hard-beaten dirt floor. A folded 
sheepskin coat was under her head, and she was wrapped in a ragged cloak. She was in a large 
room, the walls of which were crudely but strongly built of uncut rocks, plastered with sunbaked 
mud. Heavy beams supported a roof of the same kind, in which showed a trap-door up to 
which led a ladder. There were no windows in the thick walls, only loop-holes. There was one 
door, a sturdy bronze affair that must have been looted from some Vendhyan border tower. 
Opposite it was a wide opening in the wall, with no door, but several strong wooden bars in 
place. Beyond them Yasmina saw a magnificent black stallion munching a pile of dried grass. 
The building was fort, dwelling-place and stable in one. 
At the other end of the room a girl in the vest and baggy trousers of a hillwoman squatted 
beside a small fire, cooking strips of meat on an iron grid laid over blocks of stone. There was a 
sooty cleft in the wall a few feet from the floor, and some of the smoke found its way out there. 
The rest floated in blue wisps about the room. 
The hill-girl glanced at Yasmina over her shoulder, displaying a bold, handsome face, and then 
continued her cooking. Voices boomed outside, then the door was kicked open, and Conan 
strode in. He looked more enormous than ever with the morning sunlight behind him, and 
Yasmina noted some details that had escaped her the night before. His garments were clean and 
not ragged. The broad Bakhariot girdle that supported his knife in its ornamented scabbard 
would have matched the robes of a prince, and there was a glint of fine Turanian mail under his 
shirt. 
“Your captive is awake, Conan,” said the Wazuli girl, and he grunted, strode up to the fire and 
swept the strips of mutton off into a stone dish. The squatting girl laughed up at him, with some 
spicy jest, and he grinned wolfishly, and hooking a toe under her haunches, tumbled her 
sprawling onto the floor. She seemed to derive considerable amusement from this bit of rough 
horse-play, but Conan paid no more heed to her. Producing a great hunk of bread from 
somewhere, with a copper jug of wine, he carried the lot to Yasmina, who had risen from her 
pallet and was regarding him doubtfully. 
“Rough fare for a Devi, girl, but our best,” he grunted. “It will fill your belly, at least.” 
He set the platter on the floor and she was suddenly aware of a ravenous hunger. Making no 
comment she seated herself cross-legged on the floor, and taking the dish in her lap, she began 
to eat, using her fingers, which were all she had in the way of table utensils. After all, 
adaptability is one of the tests of true aristocracy. Conan stood looking down at her, his thumbs 
hooked in his girdle. He never sat cross-legged, after the Eastern fashion. 
“Where am I?” she asked abruptly. 
“In the hut of Yar Afzal, the chief of the Khurum Wazulis,” he answered. “Afghulistan lies a 
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good many miles further on to the west. We’ll hide here awhile. The Kshatriyas are beating up 
the hills for you – several of their squads have been cut up by the tribes already.” 
“What are you going to do?” she asked. 
“Keep you until Chunder Shan is willing to trade back my seven cow-thieves,” he grunted. 
“Women of the Wazulis are crushing ink out of shoki leaves, and after awhile you can write a 
letter to the governor.” 
A touch of her old imperious wrath shook her, as she thought how maddeningly her plans had 
gone awry, leaving her captive of the very man she had plotted to get into her power. She flung 
down the dish, with the remnants of her meal, and sprang to her feet, tense with anger. 
“I will not write a letter! If you do not take me back, they will hang your seven men, and a 
thousand more besides!” 
The Wazuli girl laughed mockingly, Conan scowled, and then the door opened and Yar Afzal 
came swaggering in. The Wazuli chief was as tall as Conan, and of greater girth, but he looked 
fat and slow beside the hard compactness of the Cimmerian. He plucked his red-stained beard 
and stared meaningly at the Wazuli girl, and that wench rose and skurried out without delay. 
Then Yar Afzal turned to his guest. 
“The damnable people murmur, Conan,” quoth he. “They wish me to murder you and take the 
girl to hold for ransom. They say that anyone can tell by her garments that she is a noble lady. 
They say why should the Afghuli dogs profit by her, when they take the risk of guarding her?” 
“Lend me your horse,” said Conan. “I’ll take her and go.” 
“Pish!” boomed Yar Afzal. “Do you think I can’t handle my own people? I’ll have them 
dancing in their shirts if they cross me! They don’t love you – or any outlander – but you saved 
my life once, and I will not forget. Come out, though, Conan; a scout has returned.” 
Conan hitched at his girdle and followed the chief outside. They closed the door after them, 
and Yasmina peeped through a loop-hole. She looked out on a level space before the hut. At 
the further end of that space there was a cluster of mud and stone huts, and she saw naked 
children playing among the boulders, and the slim, erect women of the hills going about their 
tasks. 
Directly before the chief’s hut a circle of hairy, ragged men squatted, facing the door. Conan 
and Yar Afzal stood a few paces before the door, and between them and the ring of warriors 
another man sat cross-legged. This one was addressing his chief in the harsh accents of the 
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Wazuli which Yasmina could scarcely understand, though as part of her royal education she 
had been taught the languages of Iranistan and the kindred tongues of Ghulistan. 
“I talked with a Dagozai who saw the riders last night,” said the scout. “He was lurking near 
when they came to the spot where we ambushed the lord Conan. He overheard their speech. 
Chunder Shan was with them. They found the dead horse, and one of the men recognized it as 
Conan’s. Then they found the man Conan slew, and knew him for a Wazuli. So it seemed to 
them that Conan had been slain and the girl taken by the Wazuli, so they turned aside from 
their purpose of following to Afghulistan. But they did not know from which village the dead 
man was come, and we had left no trail a Kshatriya could follow. 
“So they rode to the nearest Wazuli village, which was the village of Jugra, and burnt it and 
slew many of the people. But the men of Khojur came upon them in darkness and slew some of 
them, and wounded the governor. So the survivors retired down the Zhaibar in the darkness 
before dawn. But they returned with reinforcements before sunrise, and there has been 
skirmishing and fighting in the hills all morning. It is said that a great army is being raised to 
sweep the hills about the Zhaibar. The tribes are whetting their knives and laying ambushes in 
every pass from here to Gurashah valley. Moreover, Kerim Shah has returned to the hills.” 
A grunt went around the circle and Yasmina leaned closer to the loop-hole at the name she had 
begun to mistrust. 
“Where went he?” demanded Yar Afzal. 
“The Dagozai did not know; with him were thirty Irakzai of the lower villages. They rode into 
the hills and disappeared.” 
“These Irakzai are jackals that follow a lion for crumbs,” growled Yar Afzal. “They have been 
lapping up the coins Kerim Shah scatters among the border tribes to buy men like horses. I like 
him not, for all he is our kinsman from Iranistan.” 
“He’s not even that,” said Conan. “I know him of old. He’s an Hyrkanian, a spy of 
Yezdigerd’s. If I catch him I’ll hang his hide to a tamarisk.” 
“But the Kshatriyas!” clamored the men in the semi-circle. “Are we to squat on our haunches 
until they smoke us out? They will learn at last in which Wazuli village the wench is held! We 
are not loved by the Zhaibari; they will help the Kshatriyas hunt us out.” 
“Let them come,” grunted Yar Afzal. “We can hold the defiles against a host.” 
One of the men leaped up and shook his fist at Conan. 
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“Are we to take all the risks while he reaps the rewards?” he howled. “Are we to fight his 
battles for him?” 
With a stride Conan reached him and bent slightly to stare full into his hairy face. The 
Cimmerian had not drawn his long knife, but his left hand grasped the scabbard, jutting the hilt 
suggestively forward. 
“I ask no man to fight my battles,” he said softly. “Draw your blade if you dare, you yapping 
dog!” 
The Wazuli started back, snarling like a cat. 
“Dare to touch me and here are fifty men to rend you apart!” he screeched. 
“What!” roared Yar Afzal, his face purpling with wrath. His whiskers bristled, his belly 
swelled with his rage. “Are you chief of Khurum? Do the Wazulis take orders from Yar Afzal, 
or from a low-bred cur?” 
The man cringed before his invincible chief, and Yar Afzal, striding up to him, seized him by 
the throat and choked him until his face was turning black. Then he hurled the man savagely 
against the ground and stood over him with his tulwar in his hand. 
“Is there any who questions my authority?” he roared, and his warriors looked down sullenly as 
his bellicose glare swept their semi-circle. Yar Afzal grunted scornfully and sheathed his 
weapon with a gesture that was the apex of insult. Then he kicked the fallen agitator with a 
concentrated vindictiveness that brought howls from his victim. 
“Get down the valley to the watchers on the heights and bring word if they have seen 
anything,” commanded Yar Afzal, and the man went, shaking with fear and grinding his teeth 
with fury. 
Yar Afzal then seated himself ponderously on a stone, growling in his beard. Conan stood near 
him, legs braced apart, thumbs hooked in his girdle, narrowly watching the assembled warriors. 
They stared at him sullenly, not daring to brave Yar Afzal’s fury, but hating the foreigner as 
only a hillman can hate. 
“Now listen to me, you sons of nameless dogs, while I tell you what the lord Conan and I have 
planned to fool the Kshatriyas –” the boom of Yar Afzal’s bull-like voice followed the 
discomfited warrior as he slunk away from the assembly. 
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The man passed by the cluster of huts, where women who had seen his defeat laughed at him 
and called stinging comments, and hastened on along the trail that wound among spurs and 
rocks toward the valley head. 
Just as he rounded the first turn that took him out of sight of the village, he stopped short, 
gaping stupidly. He had not believed it possible for a stranger to enter the valley of Khurum 
without being detected by the hawk-eyed watchers along the heights, yet a man sat crosslegged 
on a low ledge beside the path – a man in a camel-hair robe and a green turban. 
The Wazuli’s mouth gaped for a yell, and his hand leaped to his knife hilt. But at that instant 
his eyes met those of the stranger and the cry died in his throat, his fingers went limp. He stood 
like a statue, his own eyes glazed and vacant. 
For minutes the scene held motionless, then the man on the ledge drew a cryptic symbol in the 
dust on the rock with his forefinger. The Wazuli did not see him place anything within the 
compass of that emblem, but presently something gleamed there – a round, shiny black ball 
that looked like polished jade. The man in the green turban took this up and tossed it to the 
Wazuli who mechanically caught it. 
“Carry this to Yar Afzal,” he said, and the Wazuli turned like an automaton and went back 
along the path, holding the black jade ball in his outstretched hand. He did not even turn his 
head to the renewed jeers of the women as he passed the huts. He did not seem to hear. 
The man on the ledge gazed after him with a cryptic smile. A girl’s head rose above the rim of 
the ledge and she looked at him with admiration and a touch of fear that had not been present 
the night before. 
“Why did you do that?” she asked. 
He ran his fingers through her dark locks caressingly. 
“Are you still dizzy from your flight on the horse-of-air that you doubt my wisdom?” he 
laughed. “As long as Yar Afzal lives, Conan will bide safe among the Wazuli fighting-men. It 
would be easier, even for me, to trap the Cimmerian as he flees alone with the girl, than to seek 
to slay him and take her from among them. It takes no wizard to predict what the Wazulis will 
do, and what Conan will do, when my victim hands the globe of Yezud to the chief of 
Khurum.” 
Back before the hut, Yar Afzal halted in the midst of some tirade, surprized and displeased to 
see the man he had sent up the valley, pushing his way through the throng. 
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“I bade you go to the watchers!” the chief bellowed. “You have not had time to come from 
them!” 
The other did not reply; he stood woodenly, staring vacantly into the chief’s face, his palm 
outstretched holding the jade ball. Conan, looking over Yar Afzal’s shoulder, murmured 
something and reached to touch the chief’s arm, but as he did so, Yar Afzal, in a paroxysm of 
anger, struck the man with his clenched fist and felled him like an ox. As he fell the jade sphere 
rolled to Yar Afzal’s foot and the chief, seeming to see it for the first time, bent and picked it 
up. The men, staring perplexedly at their senseless comrade, saw their chief bend, but they did 
not see what he picked up from the ground. 
Yar Afzal straightened, glanced at the jade, and made a motion to thrust it into his girdle. 
“Carry that fool to his hut,” he growled. “He has the look of a lotus-eater. He returned me a 
blank stare. I – aie!” 
In his right hand, moving toward his girdle, he had suddenly felt movement where movement 
should not be. His voice died away as he stood and glared at nothing; and inside his clenched 
right hand he felt the quivering of change, of motion, of life. He no longer held a smooth 
shining sphere in his fingers. And he dared not look; his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, 
and he could not open his hand. His astonished warriors saw Yar Afzal’s eyes distend, the 
color ebb from his face. Then suddenly a bellow of agony burst from his bearded lips; he 
swayed and fell as if struck by lightning, his right arm tossed out in front of him. Face down he 
lay, and from between his opening fingers crawled a spider – a hideous, black, hairy-legged 
monster whose body shone like black jade. The men yelled and gave back suddenly, and the 
creature scuttled into a crevice of the rocks and disappeared. 
The warriors started up, glaring wildly, and a voice rose above their clamor, a far-carrying 
voice of command which came from none knew where. Afterwards each man there – who still 
lived – denied that he had shouted, but all there heard it. 
“Yar Afzal is dead! Kill the outlander!” 
That shout focussed their whirling minds as one. Doubt, bewilderment and fear vanished in the 
uproaring surge of the blood-lust. A furious yell rent the skies as the tribesmen responded 
instantly to the suggestion. They came headlong across the open space, cloaks flapping, eyes 
blazing, knives lifted. 
Conan’s action was as quick as theirs. As the voice shouted he sprang for the hut door. But 
they were closer to him than he was to the door, and with one foot on the sill he had to wheel 
and parry the swipe of a yard-long blade. He split the man’s skull – ducked another swinging 
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knife and gutted the wielder – felled a man with his left fist and stabbed another in the belly – 
and heaved back mightily against the closed door with his shoulders. Hacking blades were 
nicking chips out of the jambs about his ears, but the door flew open under the impact of his 
shoulders, and he went stumbling backward into the room. A bearded tribesman, thrusting with 
all his fury as Conan sprang back, over-reached and pitched head-first through the doorway. 
Conan stooped, grasped the slack of his garments and hauled him clear, and slammed the door 
in the faces of the men who came surging into it. Bones snapped under the impact, and the next 
instant Conan slammed the bolts into place and whirled with desperate haste to meet the man 
who sprang from the floor and tore into action like a madman. 
Yasmina cowered in a corner, staring in horror as the two men fought back and forth across the 
room, almost trampling her at times; the flash and clangor of their blades filled the room, and 
outside the mob clamored like a wolf-pack, hacking deafeningly at the bronze door with their 
long knives, and dashing huge rocks against it. Somebody fetched a tree trunk, and the door 
began to stagger under the thunderous assault. Yasmina clasped her ears, staring wildly. 
Violence and fury within, cataclysmic madness without. The stallion in his stall neighed and 
reared, thundering with his heels against the walls. He wheeled and launched his hoofs through 
the bars just as the tribesman, backing away from Conan’s murderous swipes, stumbled against 
them. His spine cracked in three places like a rotten branch and he was hurled headlong against 
the Cimmerian, bearing him backward so they both crashed to the beaten floor. Yasmina cried 
out and ran forward; to her dazed sight it seemed that both were slain. She reached them just as 
Conan threw aside the corpse and rose. She caught his arm, trembling from head to foot. 
“Oh, you live! I thought – I thought you were dead!” 
He glanced down at her quickly, into the pale, upturned face and the wide staring dark eyes. 
“Why are you trembling?” he demanded. “Why should you care if I live or die?” 
A vestige of her poise returned to her, and she drew away, making a rather pitiful attempt at 
playing the Devi. 
“You are preferable to those wolves howling without,” she answered, gesturing toward the 
door, the stone sill of which was beginning to splinter away. 
“That won’t hold long,” he muttered, then turned and went swiftly to the stall of the stallion. 
Yasmina clenched her hands and caught her breath as she saw him tear aside the splintered bars 
and go into the stall with the maddened beast. The stallion reared above him, neighing terribly, 
hoofs lifted, eyes and teeth flashing and ears laid back, but Conan leaped and caught his mane 
and with a display of sheer strength that seemed impossible, dragged the beast down on his 
forelegs. The steed snorted and quivered, but stood still while the man bridled him and clapped 
on the gold-worked saddle, with the wide silver stirrups. 
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Wheeling the beast around in the stall, Conan called quickly to Yasmina, and the girl came, 
sidling nervously past the stallion’s heels. Conan was working at the stone wall, talking swiftly 
as he worked. 
“A secret door in the wall here, that not even the Wazuli know about. Yar Afzal showed it to 
me once when he was drunk. It opens out into the mouth of the ravine behind the hut. Ha!” 
As he tugged at a projection that seemed casual, a whole section of the wall slid back on oiled 
iron runners. Looking through, the girl saw a narrow defile opening in a sheer stone wall within 
a few feet of the hut’s back wall. Then Conan sprang into the saddle and hauled her up before 
him. Behind them the great door groaned like a living thing and crashed in and a yell rang to 
the roof as the entrance was instantly flooded with hairy faces and knives in hairy fists. And 
then the great stallion went through the wall like a javelin from a catapult, and thundered into 
the defile, running low, foam flying from the bit-rings. 
That move came as an absolute surprize to the Wazulis. It was a surprize, too, to those stealing 
down the ravine. It happened so quickly – the hurricane-like charge of the great horse – that a 
man in a green turban was unable to get out of the way. He went down under the frantic hoofs, 
and a girl screamed. Conan got one glimpse of her as they thundered by – a slim, dark girl in 
silk trousers and a jeweled breast-band, flattening herself against the ravine wall. Then the 
black horse and his riders were gone up the gorge like the spume blown before a storm, and the 
men who came tumbling through the wall into the defile after them met that which changed 
their yells of blood-lust to shrill screams of fear and death. 
VI 
THE MOUNTAIN OF THE BLACK SEERS 
“Where now?” Yasmina was trying to sit erect on the rocking saddle bow, clutching to her 
captor. She was conscious of a recognition of shame that she should not find unpleasant the 
feel of his muscular flesh under her fingers, but under that too was a wicked little tingle that 
would not be denied. 
“To Afghulistan,” he answered. “It’s a perilous road, but the stallion will carry us easily, unless 
we fall in with some of your friends, or my tribal enemies. Now that Yar Afzal is dead, those 
damned Wazulis will be on our heels. I’m surprized we haven’t sighted them behind us 
already.” 
“Who was that man you rode down?” she asked. 
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“I don’t know. I never saw him before. He’s no Ghuli, that’s certain. What the devil he was 
doing there is more than I can say. There was a girl with him, too.” 
“Yes.” Her gaze was shadowed. “I can not understand that. That girl was my maid, Gitara. Do 
you suppose she was coming to aid me? That the man was a friend? If so, the Wazulis have 
captured them both.” 
“Well,” he answered, “there’s nothing we can do. If we go back, they’ll skin us both. I can’t 
understand how a girl like that could get this far into the mountains with only one man – and he 
a robed scholar, for that’s what he looked like. There’s something infernally queer in all this. 
That fellow Yar Afzal beat and sent away – he moved like a man walking in his sleep. I’ve 
seen the priests of Zamora perform their abominable rituals in their forbidden temples, and 
their victims had a stare like that man. The priests looked into their eyes and muttered 
incantations, and then the people became like walking dead men, with glassy eyes, doing as 
they were ordered. 
“And then I saw what the fellow had in his hand, which Yar Afzal picked up. It was like a big 
black jade bead, such as the temple girls of Yezud wear when they dance before the black stone 
spider which is their god. Yar Afzal held it in his hand, and he didn’t pick up anything else. Yet 
when he fell dead a spider, like the god at Yezud, only smaller, ran out of his fingers. And then, 
when the Wazulis stood uncertain there, a voice cried out for them to kill me, and I know that 
voice didn’t come from any of the warriors, nor from the women who watched by the huts. It 
seemed to come from above.” 
Yasmina did not reply. She glanced at the stark outlines of the mountains all about them and 
shuddered. Her soul shrank from their gaunt brutality. This was a grim, naked land where 
anything might happen. Age-old traditions invested it with shuddersome horror for anyone 
born in the hot, luxuriant southern plains. 
The sun was high, beating down with fierce heat, yet the wind that blew in fitful gusts seemed 
to sweep off slopes of ice. Once she heard a strange rushing above them that was not the sweep 
of the wind, and from the way Conan looked up, she knew it was not a common sound to him, 
either. She thought that a strip of the cold blue sky was momentarily blurred, as if some all but 
invisible object had swept between it and herself, but she could not be sure. Neither made any 
comment, but Conan loosened his knife in his scabbard. 
They were following no marked trail, but dipping down into ravines so deep the sun never 
struck bottom, laboring up steep slopes where loose shale threatened to slide from beneath their 
feet, and following knife-edge ridges with blue-hazed echoing depths on either hand. 
The sun had passed its zenith when they came to a narrow trail winding among the crags. 
Conan reined the horse aside and followed it southward, going almost at right angles to their 
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former course. 
“A Galzai village is at one end of this trail,” he explained. “Their women follow it to a well, for 
water. You need new garments.” 
Glancing down at her filmy attire, Yasmina agreed with him. Her cloth-of-gold slippers were in 
tatters, her robes and silken under-garments torn to shreds that scarcely held together decently. 
Garments meant for the streets of Peshkhauri were scarcely appropriate for the crags of the 
Himelians. 
Coming to a crook in the trail, Conan dismounted, helped Yasmina down and waited. Presently 
he nodded, though she heard nothing. 
“A woman coming along the trail,” he remarked. In sudden panic she clutched his arm. 
“You will not – not kill her?” 
“I don’t kill women ordinarily,” he grunted; “though some of these hill women are she-wolves. 
No,” he grinned as at a huge jest. “By Crom, I’ll pay for her clothes! How is that?” He 
displayed a handful of gold coins, and replaced all but the largest. She nodded, much relieved. 
It was perhaps natural for men to slay and die; her flesh crawled at the thought of watching the 
butchery of a woman. 
Presently a woman appeared around the crook of the trail – a tall, slim Galzai girl, straight as a 
young sapling, bearing a great empty gourd. She stopped short and the gourd fell from her 
hands when she saw them; she wavered as though to run, then realized that Conan was too 
close to her to allow her to escape, and so stood still, staring at them with an expression mixed 
of fear and curiosity. 
Conan displayed the gold coin. 
“If you will give this woman your garments,” he said, “I will give you this money.” 
The response was instant. The girl smiled broadly with surprize and delight, and, with the 
disdain of a hill woman for prudish conventions, promptly yanked off her sleeveless 
embroidered vest, slipped down her wide trousers and stepped out of them, twitched off her 
wide-sleeved shirt, and kicked off her sandals. Bundling them all in a bunch, she proffered 
them to Conan, who handed them to the astonished Devi. 
“Get behind that rock and put these on,” he directed, further proving himself no native hillman. 
“Fold your robes up into a bundle and bring them to me when you come out.” 
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“The money!” clamored the hill girl, stretching out her hands eagerly. “The gold you promised 
me!” 
Conan flipped the coin to her, she caught it, bit, then thrust it into her hair, bent supplely and 
caught up the gourd and went on down the path, as devoid of self-consciousness as of 
garments. Conan waited with some impatience while the Devi, for the first time in her 
pampered life, dressed herself. When she stepped from behind the rock he swore in surprize, 
and she felt a curious rush of emotions at the unrestrained admiration burning in his fierce blue 
eyes. She felt shame, embarrassment, yet a stimulation of vanity she had never before 
experienced, and the same naughty tingling she had felt before when meeting the impact of his 
eyes or the grasp of his arms. He laid a heavy hand on her shoulder and turned her about, 
staring avidly at her from all angles. 
“By Crom!” said he. “In those smoky, mystic robes you were aloof and cold and far-off as a 
star! Now you are a woman of warm flesh and blood! You went behind that rock as the Devi of 
Vendhya; you come out as a hill girl – though a thousand times more beautiful than any wench 
of the Zhaibar! You were a goddess – now you are real!” 
He spanked her resoundingly, and she, recognizing this as merely another expression of 
admiration, did not feel particularly outraged. It was indeed as if the changing of her garments 
had wrought a change in her personality. The feelings and sensations she had suppressed rose 
to domination in her now, as if the queenly robes she had cast off had been material shackles 
and inhibitions. 
But Conan, in his renewed admiration, did not forget that peril lurked all about them. The 
further they drew away from the region of the Zhaibar, the less likely he was to encounter any 
Kshatriya troops. On the other hand he had been listening all throughout their flight for sounds 
that would tell him the vengeful Wazulis of Khurum were on their heels. 
Swinging the Devi up, he followed her into the saddle and again reined the stallion westward. 
The bundle of garments she had given him, he hurled over a cliff, to fall into the depths of a 
thousand-foot gorge. 
“Why did you do that?” she asked. “Why did you not give them to the girl?” 
“The riders from Peshkhauri are combing these hills,” he said. “They’ll be ambushed and 
harried at every turn, and by way of reprisal they’ll destroy every village they can take. They 
may turn westward any time. If they found a girl wearing your garments, they’d torture her into 
talking, and she might put them on my trail.” 
“What will she do?” asked Yasmina. 
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“Go back to her village and tell her people that a stranger stripped her and raped her,” he 
answered. “She’ll have them on our track, alright. But she had to go on and get the water first; 
if she dared go back without it, they’d whip the skin off her. That gives us a long start. They’ll 
never catch us. By nightfall we’ll cross the Afghuli border.” 
“There are no paths or signs of human habitation in these parts,” she commented. “Even for the 
Himelians this region seems singularly deserted. We have not seen a trail since we left the one 
where we met the Galzai woman.” 
For answer he pointed to the northwest, where she glimpsed a peak in a notch of the crags. 
“Yimsha,” grunted Conan. “The tribes build their villages as far from that mountain as they 
can.” 
She was instantly rigid with attention. 
“Yimsha!” she whispered. “The mountain of the Black Seers!” 
“So they say,” he answered. “This is as near as I ever approached it. I have swung north to 
avoid any Kshatriya troops that might be prowling through the hills. The regular trail from 
Khurum to Afghulistan lies further south. 
She was staring at the distant peak with avid intentness. Her nails bit into her pink palms. 
“How long would it take to reach Yimsha from this point?” 
“All the rest of the day, and all night,” he answered, and grinned. “Do you want to go there? By 
Crom, it’s no place for an ordinary human, from what the hill people say.” 
“Why do they not gather and destroy the devils that inhabit it?” she demanded. 
“Wipe out wizards with swords? Anyway, they never interfere with people, unless the people 
interfere with them. I never saw one of them, though I’ve talked with men who swore they had. 
They say they’ve glimpsed people from the tower among the crags at sunset or sunrise – tall, 
silent men in black robes.” 
“Would you be afraid to attack them?” 
“I?” The idea seemed a new one to him. “Why, if they imposed upon me, it would be my life or 
theirs. But I have nothing to do with them. I came to these mountains to raise a following of 
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human beings, not to war with wizards.” 
Yasmina did not at once reply. She stared at the peak as at a human enemy, feeling all her 
anger and hatred stir in her bosom anew. And another feeling began to take dim shape. She had 
plotted to hurl against the masters of Yimsha the man in whose arms she was now carried. 
Perhaps there was another way, besides the method she had planned, to accomplish her 
purpose. She could not mistake the look that was beginning to dawn in this wild man’s eyes as 
they rested on her. Kingdoms have fallen when a woman’s slim white hands pulled the strings 
of destiny – suddenly she stiffened, pointing. 
“Look!” 
Just visible on the distant peak there hung a cloud of peculiar aspect. It was a frosty crimson in 
color, veined with sparkling gold. This cloud was in motion; it rotated, and as it whirled it 
contracted. It dwindled to a spinning taper that flashed in the sun. And suddenly it detached 
itself from the snow-tipped peak, floated out over the void like a gay-hued feather, and became 
invisible against the cerulean sky. 
“What could that have been?” asked the girl uneasily, as a shoulder of rock shut the distant 
mountain from view; the phenomenon had been disturbing, even in its beauty. 
“The hillmen call it Yimsha’s Carpet, whatever the devil that means,” answered Conan. “I’ve 
seen five hundred of them running as if the devil were at their heels, to hide themselves in 
caves and crags, because they saw that crimson cloud float up from the peak. What the hell!” 
They had advanced through a narrow, knife-cut gash between turreted walls, and emerged upon 
a broad ledge, flanked by a series of rugged slopes on one hand, and a gigantic precipice on the 
other. The dim trail followed this ledge, bent around a shoulder and reappeared at intervals far 
below, working a tedious way downward. And emerging from the gut that opened upon the 
ledge, the black stallion halted short, snorting. Conan urged him on impatiently, and the horse 
snorted and threw his head up and down, quivering and straining as if against an invisible 
barrier. 
Conan swore and swung off, lifting Yasmina down with him. He went forward, with a hand 
thrown out before him as if expecting to encounter unseen resistance, but there was nothing to 
hinder him, though when he tried to lead the horse, it neighed shrilly and jerked back. Then 
Yasmina cried out, and Conan wheeled, hand starting to knife hilt. 
Neither of them had seen him come, but he stood there, with his arms folded, a man in a camelhair 
robe and a green turban. Conan grunted with surprize to recognize the man the stallion had 
spurned in the ravine outside the Wazuli village. 
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“Who the devil are you?” he demanded. 
The man did not answer. Conan noticed that his eyes were wide, fixed, and of a peculiar 
luminous quality. And those eyes held his like a magnet. 
Khemsa’s sorcery was based on hypnotism, as is the case with most Eastern magic. The way 
has been prepared for the hypnotist for untold centuries of generations who have lived and died 
in the firm conviction of the reality and power of hypnotism, building up, by mass thought and 
practise, a colossal though intangible atmosphere against which the individual, steeped in the 
traditions of the land, finds himself helpless. 
But Conan was not a son of the East. Its traditions were meaningless to him; he was the product 
of an utterly alien atmosphere. Hypnotism was not even a myth in Cimmeria. The heritage that 
prepared a native of the East for submission to the mesmerist was not his. 
He was aware of what Khemsa was trying to do to him; but he felt the impact of the man’s 
uncanny power only as a vague impulsion, a tugging and pulling that he could shake off as a 
man shakes spider webs from his garments. 
Aware of hostility and black magic, he ripped out his long knife and lunged, as quick on his 
feet as a mountain lion. 
But hypnotism was not all of Khemsa’s magic. Yasmina, watching, did not see by what 
roguery of movement or illusion the man in the green turban avoided the terrible 
disembowelling thrust. But the keen blade whickered between side and lifted arm, and to 
Yasmina it seemed that Khemsa merely brushed his open palm lightly against Conan’s bullneck. 
But the Cimmerian went down like a slain ox. 
Yet Conan was not dead; breaking his fall with his left hand, he slashed at Khemsa’s legs even 
as he went down, and the Rakhsha avoided the scythe-like swipe only by a most unwizardly 
bound backward. Then Yasmina cried out sharply as she saw a woman she recognized as 
Gitara glide out from among the rocks and come up to the man. The greeting died in the Devi’s 
throat as she saw the malevolence in the girl’s beautiful face. 
Conan was rising slowly, shaken and dazed by the cruel craft of that blow which, delivered 
with an art forgotten of men before Atlantis sank, would have broken like a rotten twig the 
neck of a lesser man. Khemsa gazed at him cautiously and a trifle uncertainly. The Rakhsha 
had learned the full flood of his own power when he faced at bay the knives of the maddened 
Wazulis in the ravine behind Khurum village; but the Cimmerian’s resistance had perhaps 
shaken his new-found confidence a trifle. Sorcery thrives on success, not on failure. 
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He stepped forward, lifting his hand – then halted as if frozen, head tilted back, eyes wide 
open, hand raised. In spite of himself Conan followed his gaze, and so did the women – the girl 
cowering by the trembling stallion, and the girl beside Khemsa. 
Down the mountain-slopes, like a whorl of shining dust blown before the wind, a crimson, 
conoid cloud came dancing. Khemsa’s dark face turned ashen; his hand began to tremble, then 
sank to his side. The girl beside him, sensing the change in him, stared at him inquiringly. 
The crimson shape left the mountain-slope and came down in a long arching swoop. It struck 
the ledge between Conan and Khemsa, and the Rakhsha gave back with a stifled cry. He 
backed away, pushing the girl Gitara back with groping, fending hands. 
The crimson cloud balanced like a spinning top for an instant, whirling in a dazzling sheen on 
its point. Then without warning it was gone, vanished as a bubble vanishes when burst. There 
on the ledge stood four men. It was miraculous, incredible, impossible, yet it was true. They 
were not ghosts or phantoms. They were four tall men, with shaven, vulture-like heads, and 
black robes that hid their feet. Their hands were concealed by their wide sleeves. They stood in 
silence, their naked heads nodding slightly in unison. They were facing Khemsa, but behind 
them Conan felt his own blood turning to ice in his veins. Rising he backed stealthily away, 
until he felt the stallion’s shoulder trembling against his back, and the Devi crept into the 
shelter of his arm. There was no word spoken. Silence hung like a stifling pall. 
All four of the men in black robes stared at Khemsa. Their vulture-like faces were immobile, 
their eyes introspective and contemplative. But Khemsa shook like a man in an ague. His feet 
were braced on the rock, his calves straining as if in physical combat. Sweat ran in streams 
down his dark face. His right hand locked on something under his brown robe so desperately 
that the blood ebbed from that hand and left it white. His left hand fell on the shoulder of 
Gitara and clutched in agony like the grasp of a drowning man. She did not flinch or whimper, 
though his fingers dug like talons into her firm flesh. 
Conan had witnessed hundreds of battles in his wild life, but never one like this, wherein four 
diabolical wills sought to beat down one lesser but equally devilish will that opposed them. But 
he only faintly sensed the monstrous quality of that hideous struggle. With his back to the wall, 
driven to bay by his former masters, Khemsa was fighting for his life with all the dark power, 
all the frightful knowledge they had taught him through long, grim years of neophytism and 
vassalage. 
He was stronger than even he had guessed, and the free exercise of his powers in his own 
behalf had tapped unsuspected reservoirs of forces. And he was nerved to super-energy by 
frantic fear and desperation. He reeled before the merciless impact of those hypnotic eyes, but 
he held his ground. His features were distorted into a bestial grin of agony from which dripped 
bloody sweat, and his limbs were twisted as in a rack. It was a war of souls, of frightful brains 
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steeped in lore forbidden to men for a million years, of mentalities which had plumbed the 
abysses and explored the dark stars where spawn the shadows. 
Yasmina understood this better than did Conan. And she dimly understood why Khemsa could 
withstand the concentrated impact of those four hellish wills which might have blasted into 
atoms the very rock on which he stood. The reason was the girl that he clutched with the 
strength of his despair. She was like an anchor to his staggering soul, battered by the waves of 
those psychic emanations. His weakness was now his strength. His love for the girl, violent and 
evil though it might be, was yet a tie that bound him to the rest of humanity, providing an 
earthly leverage for his will, a chain that his inhuman enemies could not break. At least not 
break through Khemsa. 
They realized that before he did. And one of them turned his gaze from the Rakhsha full upon 
Gitara. There was no battle there. The girl shrank and wilted like a leaf in the drouth. 
Irresistibly impelled, she tore herself from her lover’s arms before he realized what was 
happening. Then a hideous thing came to pass. She began to back toward the precipice, facing 
her tormentors, her eyes wide and blank as dark gleaming glass from behind which a lamp has 
been blown out. Khemsa groaned and staggered toward her, falling into the trap set for him. A 
divided mind could not maintain the unequal battle. He was beaten, a straw in their hands. The 
girl went backward, walking like an automaton, and Khemsa reeled drunkenly after her, hands 
vainly outstretched, groaning, slobbering in his pain, his feet moving heavily like dead things. 
On the very brink she paused, standing stiffly, her heels on the edge, and he fell on his knees 
and crawled whimpering toward her, groping for her, to drag her back from destruction. And 
just before his clumsy fingers touched her, one of the wizards laughed, like the sudden, bronze 
note of a bell in hell. The girl reeled suddenly, and consummate climax of exquisite cruelty, 
reason and understanding flooded back into her eyes which flared with awful fear. She 
screamed, clutched wildly at her lover’s straining hands, and then, unable to save herself, fell 
headlong with a moaning cry. 
Khemsa hauled himself to the edge and stared over, haggardly, his lips working as he mumbled 
to himself. Then he turned and stared for a long minute at his torturers, with wide eyes that 
held no human light. And then with a cry that almost burst the rocks, he reeled up and came 
rushing toward them, a knife lifted in his hand. 
One of the Rakhshas stepped forward and stamped his foot, and as he stamped, there came a 
rumbling that grew swiftly to a grinding roar. Where his foot struck, a crevice opened in the 
solid rock that widened instantly. Then, with a deafening crash, a whole section of the ledge 
gave way. There was a last glimpse of Khemsa, with arms wildly upflung, and then he 
vanished amidst the roar of the avalanche that thundered down into the abyss. 
The four looked contemplatively at the ragged edge of rock that formed the new rim of the 
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precipice, and then turned suddenly. Conan, thrown off his feet by the shudder of the mountain, 
was rising, lifting Yasmina. He seemed to move as slowly as his brain was working. He was 
befogged and stupid. He realized that there was desperate need for him to lift the Devi on the 
black stallion, and ride like the wind, but an unaccountable sluggishness weighted his every 
thought and action. 
And now the wizards had turned toward him; they raised their arms, and to his horrified sight, 
he saw their outlines fading, dimming, becoming hazy and nebulous, as a crimson smoke 
billowed around their feet and rose about them. They were blotted out by a sudden whirling 
cloud – and then he realized that he too was enveloped in a blinding crimson mist – he heard 
Yasmina scream and the stallion cried out like a woman in pain. The Devi was torn from his 
arm and as he lashed out with his knife blindly, a terrific blow like a gust of storm wind 
knocked him sprawling against a rock. Dazedly he saw a crimson conoid cloud spinning up and 
over the mountain slopes. Yasmina was gone, and so were the four men in black. Only the 
terrified stallion shared the ledge with him. 
VII 
ON TO YIMSHA 
As mists vanish before a strong wind, the cobwebs vanished from Conan’s brain. With a 
searing curse he leaped into the saddle and the stallion reared neighing beneath him. He glared 
up the slopes, hesitated, and then turned down the trail in the direction he had been going when 
halted by Khemsa’s trickery. But now he did not ride at a measured gait. He shook loose the 
reins and the stallion went like a thunder-bolt, as if frantic to lose hysteria in violent physical 
exertion. Across the ledge and around the crag and down the narrow trail threading the great 
steep they plunged at break-neck speed. The path followed a fold of rock, winding 
interminably down from tier to tier of striated escarpment, and once, far below, Conan got a 
glimpse of the ruin that had fallen – a mighty pile of broken stone and boulders at the foot of a 
gigantic cliff. 
The valley floor was still far below him when he reached a long and lofty ridge that led out 
from the slope like a natural causeway. Out upon this he rode, with an almost sheer drop on 
either hand. He could trace ahead of him the trail he had to follow; far ahead it dropped down 
from the ridge, and made a great horseshoe back into the river-bed at his left hand. He cursed 
the necessity of traversing those miles, but it was the only way. To try to descend to the lower 
lap of the trail here would be to attempt the impossible. Only a bird could get to the river-bed 
with a whole neck. 
So he urged on the wearying stallion, until a clink of hoofs reached his ears, welling up from 
below. Pulling up short and reining to the lip of the cliff, he stared down into the dry river-bed 
that wound along the foot of the ridge. Along that gorge rode a motley throng – bearded men 
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on half-wild horses, five hundred strong, bristling with weapons. And Conan shouted suddenly, 
leaning over the edge of the cliff, three hundred feet above them. 
At his shout they reined back, and five hundred bearded faces were tilted up toward him; a 
deep, clamorous roar filled the canyon. Conan did not waste words. 
“I was riding for Ghor!” he roared. “I had not hoped to meet you dogs on the trail. Follow me 
as fast as your nags can push! I’m going to Yimsha, and – ” 
“Traitor!” The howl was like a dash of ice water in his face. 
“What?” He glared down at them, jolted speechless. He saw wild eyes blazing up at him, faces 
contorted with fury, fists brandishing blades. 
“Traitor!” they roared back, whole-heartedly. “Where are the seven chiefs held captive in 
Peshkhauri?” 
“Why, in the governor’s prison, I suppose,” he answered. 
A blood-thirsty yell from a hundred throats answered him, with such a waving of weapons and 
a clamor that he could not understand what they were saying. He beat down the din with a bulllike 
roar, and bellowed: “What devil’s play is this? Let one of you speak, so I can understand 
what you mean!” 
A gaunt old chief elected himself to this position, shook his tulwar at Conan as a preamble, and 
shouted accusingly: “You would not let us go raiding Peshkhauri to rescue our brothers!” 
“No, you fools!” roared the exasperated Cimmerian. “Even if you’d breached the wall, which is 
unlikely, they’d have hanged the prisoners before you could reach them.” 
“And you went alone to traffic with the governor!” yelled the Afghuli, working himself into a 
frothing frenzy. 
“Well?” 
“Where are the seven chiefs?” howled the old chief, making his tulwar into a glimmering 
wheel of steel about his head. “Where are they? Dead!” 
“What!” Conan nearly fell off his horse in his surprize. 
“Aye, dead!” Five hundred blood-thirsty voices assured him. The old chief brandished his arms 
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and got the floor again. “They were not hanged!” he screeched. “A Wazuli in another cell saw 
them die! The governor sent a wizard to slay them by craft!” 
“That must be a lie,” said Conan. “The governor would not dare. Last night I talked with him – 
”
The admission was unfortunate. A yell of hate and accusation split the skies. 
“Aye! You went to him alone! To betray us! It is no lie. The Wazuli escaped through the doors 
the wizard burst in his entry, and told the tale to our scouts whom he met in the Zhaibar. They 
had been sent forth to search for you, when you did not return. When they heard the Wazuli’s 
tale, they returned with all haste to Ghor, and we saddled our steeds and girt our swords!” 
“And what do you fools mean to do?” demanded the Cimmerian. 
“To avenge our brothers!” they howled. “Death to the Kshatriyas! Slay him, brothers, he is a 
traitor!” 
Arrows began to rattle around him. Conan rose in his stirrups, striving to make himself heard 
above the tumult, and then, with a roar mingled of rage, defiance and disgust, he wheeled and 
galloped back up the trail. Behind him and below him the Afghulis came pelting, mouthing 
their rage, too furious even to remember that the only way they could reach the height whereon 
he rode was to traverse the river-bed in the other direction, make the broad bend and follow the 
twisting trail up over the ridge. When they did remember this, and turned back, their repudiated 
chief had almost reached the point where the ridge joined the escarpment. 
At the cliff he did not take the trail by which he had descended, but turned off on another, a 
mere trace along a rock-fault, where the stallion scrambled for footing. He had not ridden far 
when the stallion snorted and shied back from something lying in the trail. Conan stared down 
on the travesty of a man, a broken, shredded, bloody heap that gibbered and gnashed splintered 
teeth. 
Only the dark gods that rule over the grim destinies of wizards know how Khemsa dragged his 
shattered body from beneath that awful cairn of fallen rocks and up the steep slope to the trail. 
Impelled by some obscure reason, Conan dismounted and stood looking down at the ghastly 
shape, knowing that he was witness of a thing miraculous and opposed to nature. The Rakhsha 
lifted his gory head and his strange eyes, glazed with agony and approaching death, rested on 
Conan with recognition. 
“Where are they?” It was a racking croak not even remotely resembling a human voice. 
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“Gone back to their damnable castle on Yimsha,” grunted Conan. “They took the Devi with 
them.” 
“I will go!” muttered the man. “I will follow them! They killed Gitara; I will kill them – the 
acolytes, the Four of the Black Circle, the Master himself! Kill – kill them all!” He strove to 
drag his mutilated frame along the rock, but not even his indomitable will could animate that 
gory mass longer, where the splintered bones hung together only by torn tissue and ruptured 
fiber. 
“Follow them!” raved Khemsa, drooling a bloody slaver. “Follow!” 
“I’m going to,” growled Conan. “I went to fetch my Afghulis, but they’ve turned on me. I’m 
going on to Yimsha alone. I’ll have the Devi back if I have to tear down that damned mountain 
with my bare hands. I didn’t think the governor would dare kill my headmen, when I had the 
Devi, but it seems he did. I’ll have his head for that. She’s no use to me now as a hostage, but – 
”
“The curse of Yizil on them!” gasped Khemsa. “Go! I am dying. Wait – take my girdle.” He 
tried to fumble with a mangled hand at his tatters, and Conan, understanding what he sought to 
convey, bent and drew from about his gory waist a girdle of curious aspect. 
“Follow the golden vein through the abyss,” muttered Khemsa. “Wear the girdle. I had it from 
a Stygian priest. It will aid you, though it failed me at last. Break the crystal globe with the four 
golden pomegranates. Beware of the Master’s transmutations – I am going to Gitara – she is 
waiting for me in hell – aie, ya Skelos yar!” And so he died. 
Conan stared down at the girdle. The hair of which it was woven was not horse-hair. He was 
convinced that it was woven of the thick black tresses of a woman. Set in the thick mesh were 
tiny jewels such as he had never seen. The buckle was strangely made, in the form of a golden 
serpent head, flat, wedge-shaped and scaled with curious art. A strong shudder shook Conan as 
he handled it, and he turned as though to cast it over the precipice; then he hesitated, and 
finally buckled it about his waist, under the Bakhariot girdle. Then he mounted and pushed on. 
The sun had sunk behind the crags. He climbed the trail in the vast shadow of the cliffs that 
was thrown out like a dark blue mantle over valleys and ridges far below. He was not far from 
the crest when, edging around the shoulder of a jutting crag, he heard the clink of shod hoofs 
ahead of him. He did not turn back. Indeed, so narrow was the path that the stallion could not 
have wheeled his great body upon it. He rounded the jut of the rock and came onto a portion of 
the path that broadened somewhat. A chorus of threatening yells broke on his ear, but his 
stallion pinned a terrified horse hard against the rock, and Conan caught the arm of the rider in 
an iron grip, checking the lifted sword in mid-air. 
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“Kerim Shah!” muttered Conan, red glints smoldering luridly in his eyes. The Turanian did not 
struggle; they sat their horses almost breast to breast, Conan’s fingers locking the other’s 
sword-arm. Behind Kerim Shah filed a group of lean Irakzai on gaunt horses. They glared like 
wolves, fingering bows and knives, but rendered uncertain because of the narrowness of the 
path and the perilous proximity of the abyss that yawned beneath them. 
“Where is the Devi?” demanded Kerim Shah. 
“What’s it to you, you Hyrkanian spy?” snarled Conan. 
“I know you have her,” answered Kerim Shah. “I was on my way northward with some 
tribesmen when we were ambushed by enemies in Shalizah Pass. Many of my men were slain, 
and the rest of us harried through the hills like jackals. When we had beaten off our pursuers, 
we turned westward, toward Amir Jehun Pass, and this morning we came upon a Wazuli 
wandering through the hills. He was quite mad, but I learned much from his incoherent 
gibberings before he died. I learned that he was the sole survivor of a band which followed a 
chief of the Afghulis and a captive Kshatriya woman into a gorge behind Khurum village. He 
babbled much of a man in a green turban whom the Afghuli rode down, but who, when 
attacked by the Wazulis who pursued, smote them with a nameless doom that wiped them out 
as a gust of wind-driven fire wipes out a cluster of locusts. 
“How that one man escaped, I do not know, nor did he; but I knew from his maunderings that 
Conan of Ghor had been in Khurum with his royal captive. And as we made our way through 
the hills, we overtook a naked Galzai girl bearing a gourd of water, who told us a tale of having 
been stripped and ravished by a giant foreigner in the garb of an Afghuli chief, who, she said, 
gave her garments to a Vendhyan woman who accompanied him. She said you rode westward.” 
Kerim Shah did not consider it necessary to explain that he had been on his way to keep his 
rendezvous with the expected troops from Secunderam when he found his way barred by 
hostile tribesmen. The road to Gurashah valley through Shalizah Pass was longer than the road 
that wound through Amir Jehun Pass, but the latter traversed part of the Afghuli country, which 
Kerim Shah had been anxious to avoid until he came with an army. Barred from the Shalizah 
road, however, he had turned to the forbidden route, until news that Conan had not yet reached 
Afghulistan with his captive had caused him to turn southward and push on recklessly in the 
hope of overtaking the Cimmerian in the hills. 
“So you had better tell me where the Devi is,” suggested Kerim Shah. “We outnumber you – ” 
“Let one of your dogs nock a shaft and I’ll throw you over the cliff,” Conan promised. “It 
wouldn’t do you any good to kill me, anyhow. Five hundred Afghulis are on my trail, and if 
they find you’ve cheated them, they’ll flay you alive. Anyway, I haven’t got the Devi. She’s in 
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the hands of the Black Seers of Yimsha.” 
“Tarim!” swore Kerim Shah softly, shaken out of his poise for the first time. “Khemsa – ” 
“Khemsa’s dead,” grunted Conan. “His masters sent him to hell on a landslide. And now get 
out of my way. I’d be glad to kill you if I had the time, but I’m on my way to Yimsha.” 
“I’ll go with you,” said the Turanian abruptly. 
Conan laughed at him. “Do you think I’d trust you, you Hyrkanian dog?” 
“I don’t ask you to,” returned Kerim Shah. “We both want the Devi. You know my reason; 
King Yezdigerd desires to add her kingdom to his empire, and herself to his seraglio. And I 
knew you, in the days when you were a hetman of the kozak steppes, so I know your ambition 
is wholesale plunder. You want to loot Vendhya, and to twist out a huge ransom for Yasmina. 
Well, let us for the time being, without any illusions about one another, unite our forces, and 
try to rescue the Devi from the Seers. If we succeed, and live, we can fight it out to see who 
keeps her.” 
Conan narrowly scrutinized the other for a moment, and then nodded, releasing the Turanian’s 
arm. “Agreed; what about your men?” 
Kerim Shah turned to the silent Irakzai and spoke briefly: “This chief and I are going to 
Yimsha to fight the wizards. Will you go with us, or stay here to be flayed by the Afghulis who 
are following this man?” 
They looked at him with eyes grimly fatalistic. They were doomed and they knew it – had 
known it ever since the singing arrows of the ambushed Dagozai had driven them back from 
the pass of Shalizah. The men of the lower Zhaibar had too many reeking blood-feuds among 
the crag-dwellers. They were too small a band to fight their way back through the hills to the 
villages of the border, without the guidance of the crafty Turanian. They counted themselves as 
dead already, so they made the reply that only dead men would make: “We will go with thee 
and die on Yimsha.” 
“Then in Crom’s name let us begone,” grunted Conan, fidgeting with impatience as he stared 
into the blue gulfs of the deepening twilight. “My wolves were hours behind me, but we’ve lost 
a devilish lot of time.” 
Kerim Shah backed his steed from between the black stallion and the cliff, sheathed his sword 
and cautiously turned the horse. Presently the band was filing up the path as swiftly as they 
dared. They came out upon the crest nearly a mile east of the spot where Khemsa had halted 
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the Cimmerian and the Devi. The path they had traversed was a perilous one, even for hillmen, 
and for that reason Conan had avoided it that day when carrying Yasmina, though Kerim Shah, 
following him, had taken it supposing the Cimmerian had done likewise. Even Conan sighed 
with relief when the horses scrambled up over the last rim. They moved like phantom riders 
through an enchanted realm of shadows. The soft creak of leather, the clink of steel marked 
their passing, then again the dark mountain slopes lay naked and silent in the starlight. 
VIII 
YASMINA KNOWS STARK TERROR 
Yasmina had time but for one scream when she felt herself enveloped in that crimson whorl 
and torn from her protector with appalling force. She screamed once, and then she had no 
breath to scream. She was blinded, deafened, rendered mute and eventually senseless by the 
terrific rushing of the air about her. There was a dazed consciousness of dizzy height and 
numbing speed, a confused impression of natural sensations gone mad, and then vertigo and 
oblivion. 
A vestige of these sensations clung to her as she recovered consciousness so she cried out and 
clutched wildly as though to stay a headlong and involuntary flight. Her fingers closed on soft 
fabric and a relieving sense of stability pervaded her. She took cognizance of her surroundings. 
She was lying on a dais covered with black velvet. This dais stood in a great, dim room whose 
walls were hung with dusky tapestries across which crawled dragons reproduced with repellant 
realism. Floating shadows merely hinted at the lofty ceiling, and gloom that lent itself to 
illusion lurked in the corners. There seemed to be neither windows nor doors in the walls, or 
else they were concealed by the nighted tapestries. Where the dim light came from, Yasmina 
could not determine. The great room was a realm of mysteries, of shadows, and shadowy 
shapes in which she could not have sworn to observe movement, yet which invaded her mind 
with a dim and formless terror. 
But her gaze fixed itself on a tangible object. On another, smaller dais of jet, a few feet away, a 
man sat cross-legged, gazing contemplatively at her. His long black velvet robe, embroidered 
with gold thread, fell loosely about him, masking his figure. His hands were folded in his 
sleeves. There was a velvet cap upon his head. His face was calm, placid, not unhandsome, his 
eyes lambent and slightly oblique. He did not move a muscle as he sat regarding her, nor did 
his expression alter when he saw she was conscious. 
Yasmina felt fear crawl like a trickle of ice water down her supple spine. She lifted herself on 
her elbows and stared apprehensively at the stranger. 
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“Who are you?” she demanded; her voice sounded brittle and inadequate. 
“I am the Master of Yimsha.” The tone was rich and resonant, like the mellow notes of a 
temple bell. 
“Why did you bring me here?” she demanded. 
“Were you not seeking me?” 
“If you are one of the Black Seers – yes!” she answered recklessly, believing that he could read 
her thoughts anyway. 
He laughed softly and chills crawled up and down her spine again. 
“You would turn the wild children of the hills against the Seers of Yimsha!” he smiled. “I have 
read it in your mind, princess. Your weak, human mind, filled with petty dreams of hate and 
revenge.” 
“You slew my brother!” A rising tide of anger was vying with her fear; her hands were 
clenched, her lithe body rigid. “Why did you persecute him? He never harmed you. The priests 
say the Seers are above meddling in human affairs. Why did you destroy the king of Vendhya?” 
“How can an ordinary human understand the motives of a Seer?” returned the Master equably. 
“My acolytes in the temples of Turan, who are the priests behind the priests of Tarim, urged me 
to bestir myself in behalf of Yezdigerd. For reasons of my own, I complied. How can I explain 
my mystic reasons to your puny intellect? You could not understand.” 
“I understand this: that my brother died!” Tears of grief and rage shook in her voice. She rose 
upon her knees and stared at him with wide blazing eyes, as supple and dangerous as a shepanther 
in that moment. 
“As Yezdigerd desired,” agreed the Master calmly. “For awhile it was my whim to further his 
ambitions.” 
“Is Yezdigerd your vassal?” Yasmina tried to keep the timbre of her voice unaltered. She had 
felt her knee pressing something hard and symmetrical under a fold of velvet. Subtly she 
shifted her position, moving her hand under the fold. 
“Is the dog that licks up the offal in the temple yard the vassal of the god?” returned the 
Master. He did not seem to notice the actions she sought to dissemble. Concealed by the velvet, 
her fingers closed on what she knew was the golden hilt of a dagger. She bent her head to hide 
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the light of triumph in her eyes. 
“I am weary of Yezdigerd,” said the Master. “I have turned to other amusements – ha!” 
With a fierce cry Yasmina sprang like a jungle cat, stabbing murderously. Then she stumbled 
and slid to the floor, where she cowered staring up at the man on the dais. He had not moved; 
his cryptic smile was unchanged. Tremblingly she lifted her hand and stared at it with dilated 
eyes. There was no dagger in her fingers; they grasped a stalk of golden lotus, the crushed 
blossoms drooping on the bruised stem. 
She dropped it as if it had been a viper, and scrambled away from the proximity of her 
tormentor. She returned to her own dais, because that was at least more dignified for a queen 
than grovelling on the floor at the feet of a sorcerer, and eyed him apprehensively, expecting 
reprisals. 
But the Master made no move. 
“All substance is one to him who holds the key of the cosmos,” he said cryptically. “To an 
adept nothing is immutable. At will steel blossoms bloom in unnamed gardens, or flowerswords 
flash in the moonlight.” 
“You are a devil,” she sobbed. 
“Not I!” he laughed. “I was born on this planet, long ago. Once I was a common man, nor have 
I lost all human attributes in the numberless eons of my adept-ship. A human steeped in the 
dark arts is greater than a devil. I am of human origin, but I rule demons. You have seen the 
Lords of the Black Circle – it would blast your soul to hear from what far realm I summoned 
them and from what doom I guard them with ensorcelled crystal and golden serpents. 
“But only I can rule them. My foolish Khemsa thought to make himself great – poor fool, 
bursting material doors and hurtling himself and his mistress through the air from hill to hill! 
Yet if he had not been destroyed his power might have grown to rival mine.” 
He laughed again. “And you, poor, silly thing! Plotting to send a hairy hill chief to storm 
Yimsha! It was such a jest that I myself could have designed, had it occurred to me, that you 
should fall in his hands. And I read in your childish mind an intention to seduce by your 
feminine wiles to attempt your purpose, anyway. 
“But for all your stupidity, you are a woman fair to look upon. It is my whim to keep you for 
my slave.” 
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The daughter of a thousand proud emperors gasped with shame and fury at the word. 
“You dare not!” 
His mocking laughter cut her like a whip across her naked shoulders. 
“The king dares not trample a worm in the road! Little fool, do you not realize that your royal 
pride is no more to me than a straw blown on the wind? I, who have known the kisses of the 
queens of Hell! You have seen how I deal with a rebel!” 
Cowed and awed, the girl crouched on the velvet-covered dais. The light grew dimmer and 
more phantom-like. The features of the Master became shadowy. His voice took on a newer 
tone of command. 
“I will never yield to you!” Her voice trembled with fear but it carried a ring of resolution. 
“You will yield,” he answered with horrible conviction. “Fear and pain shall teach you. I will 
lash you with horror and agony to the last quivering ounce of your endurance, until you 
become as melted wax to be bent and molded in my hands as I desire. You shall know such 
discipline as no mortal woman ever knew, until my slightest command is to you as the 
unalterable will of the gods. And first, to humble your pride, you shall travel back through the 
lost ages, and view all the shapes that have been you. Aie, yil la khosa!” 
At these words the shadowy room swam before Yasmina’s affrighted gaze. The roots of her 
hair prickled her scalp, and her tongue clove to her palate. Somewhere a gong sounded a deep, 
ominous note. The dragons on the tapestries glowed like blue fire, and then faded out. The 
Master on his dais was but a shapeless shadow. The dim light gave way to soft, thick darkness, 
almost tangible, that pulsed with strange radiations. She could no longer see the Master. She 
could see nothing. She had a strange sensation that the walls and ceiling had withdrawn 
immensely from her. 
Then somewhere in the darkness a glow began, like a firefly that rhythmically dimmed and 
quickened. It grew to a golden ball, and as it expanded its light grew more intense, flaming 
whitely. It burst suddenly, showering the darkness with white sparks that did not illumine the 
shadows. But like an impression left in the gloom, a faint luminance remained, and revealed a 
slender dusky shaft shooting up from the shadowy floor. Under the girl’s dilated gaze it spread, 
took shape; stems and broad leaves appeared, and great black poisonous blossoms that towered 
above her as she cringed against the velvet. A subtle perfume pervaded the atmosphere. It was 
the dread figure of the black lotus that had grown up as she watched, as it grows in the haunted, 
forbidden jungles of Khitai. 
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The broad leaves were murmurous with evil life. The blossoms bent toward her like sentient 
things, nodding serpent-like on pliant stems. Etched against soft, impenetrable darkness it 
loomed over her, gigantic, blackly visible in some mad way. Her brain reeled with the drugging 
scent and she sought to crawl from the dais. Then she clung to it as it seemed to be pitching at 
an impossible slant. She cried out with terror and clung to the velvet, but she felt her fingers 
ruthlessly torn away. There was a sensation as of all sanity and stability crumbling and 
vanishing. She was a quivering atom of sentiency driven through a black, roaring, icy void by a 
thundering wind that threatened to extinguish her feeble flicker of animate life like a candle 
blown out in a storm. 
Then there came a period of blind impulse and movement, when the atom that was she mingled 
and merged with myriad other atoms of spawning life in the yeasty morass of existence, 
molded by formative forces until she emerged again a conscious individual, whirling down an 
endless spiral of lives. 
In a mist of terror she relived all her former existences, recognized and was again all the bodies 
that had carried her ego throughout the changing ages. She bruised her feet again over the long, 
long weary road of life that stretched out behind her into the immemorial Past. Back beyond 
the dimmest dawns of Time she crouched shuddering in primordial jungles, hunted by 
slavering beasts of prey. Skin-clad, she waded thigh-deep in rice-swamps, battling with 
squawking water-fowl for the precious grains. She labored with the oxen to drag the pointed 
stick through the stubborn soil, and she crouched endlessly over looms in peasant huts. 
She saw walled cities burst into flame, and fled screaming before the slayers. She reeled naked 
and bleeding over burning sands, dragged at the slaver’s stirrup, and she knew the grip of hot, 
fierce hands on her writhing flesh, the shame and agony of brutal lust. She screamed under the 
bite of the lash, and moaned on the rack; mad with terror she fought against the hands that 
forced her head inexorably down on the bloody block. 
She knew the agonies of child-birth, and the bitterness of love betrayed. She suffered all the 
woes and wrongs and brutalities that man has inflicted on woman throughout the eons; and she 
endured all the spite and malice of woman for woman. And like the flick of a fiery whip 
throughout was the consciousness she retained of her Devi-ship. She was all the women she 
had ever been, yet in her knowing she was Yasmina. This consciousness was not lost in the 
throes of reincarnation. At one and the same time she was a naked slave wench grovelling 
under the whip, and the proud Devi of Vendhya. And she suffered not only as the slave girl 
suffered, but as Yasmina, to whose pride the whip was like a white hot brand. 
Life merged into life in flying chaos, each with its burden of woe and shame and agony, until 
she dimly heard her own voice screaming unbearably, like one long-drawn cry of suffering 
echoing down the ages. 
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Then she awakened on the velvet-covered dais in the mystic room. 
In a ghostly grey light she saw again the dais and the cryptic robed figure seated upon it. The 
hooded head was bent, the high shoulders faintly etched against the uncertain dimness. She 
could make out no details clearly, but the hood, where the velvet cap had been, stirred a 
formless uneasiness in her. As she stared, there stole over her a nameless fear that froze her 
tongue to her palate – a feeling that it was not the Master who sat so silently on that black dais. 
Then the figure moved and rose upright, towering above her. It stooped over her and the long 
arms in their wide black sleeves bent about her. She fought against them in speechless fright, 
surprized by their lean hardness. The hooded head bent down toward her averted face. And she 
screamed, and screamed again in poignant fear and loathing. Bony arms gripped her lithe body, 
and from that hood looked forth a countenance of death and decay – features like rotting 
parchment on a moldering skull. She screamed again, and then, as those champing, grinning 
jaws bent toward her lips, she lost consciousness. 
IX 
THE CASTLE OF THE WIZARDS 
The sun had risen over the white Himelian peaks. At the foot of a long slope a group of 
horsemen halted and stared upward. High above them a stone tower poised on the pitch of the 
mountain side. Beyond and above that gleamed the walls of a greater keep, near the line where 
the snow began that capped Yimsha’s pinnacle. There was a touch of unreality about the whole 
– purple slopes pitching up to that fantastic castle, toy-like with distance, and above it the white 
glistening peak shouldering the cold blue. 
“We’ll leave the horses here,” grunted Conan. “That treacherous slope is safer for a man on 
foot. Besides, they’re done.” 
He swung down from the black stallion which stood with wide-braced legs and drooping head. 
They had pushed hard throughout the night, gnawing at scraps from saddle bags, and pausing 
only to give the horses the rests they had to have. 
“That first tower is held by the acolytes of the Black Seers,” said Conan. “Or so men say; 
watch dogs for their masters – lesser sorcerers. They won’t sit sucking their thumbs as we 
climb this slope.” 
Kerim Shah glanced up the mountain, then back the way they had come; they were already far 
up on Yimsha’s side, and a vast expanse of lesser peaks and crags spread out beneath them. 
Among those labyrinths the Turanian sought in vain for a movement of color that would betray 
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men. Evidently the pursuing Afghulis had lost their chief’s trail in the night. 
“Let us go, then.” They tied the weary horses in a clump of tamarisk and without further 
comment turned up the slope. There was no cover. It was a naked incline, strewn with boulders 
not big enough to conceal a man. But they did conceal something else. 
The party had not gone fifty steps when a snarling shape burst from behind a rock. It was one 
of the gaunt savage dogs that infested the hill villages, and its eyes glared redly, its jaws 
dripped foam. Conan was leading, but it did not attack him. It dashed past him and leaped at 
Kerim Shah. The Turanian leaped aside, and the great dog flung itself upon the Irakzai behind 
him. The man yelled and threw up his arm, which was torn by the brute’s fangs as it bore him 
backward, and the next instant half a dozen tulwars were hacking at the beast. Yet not until it 
was literally dismembered did the hideous creature cease its efforts to seize and rend its 
attackers. 
Kerim Shah bound up the wounded warrior’s gashed arm, looked at him narrowly, and then 
turned away without a word. He rejoined Conan and they renewed the climb in silence. 
Presently Kerim Shah said: “Strange to find a village dog in this place.” 
“There’s no offal here,” grunted Conan. Both turned their heads to glance back at the wounded 
warrior toiling after them among his companions. Sweat glistened on his dark face and his lips 
were drawn back from his teeth in a grimace of pain. Then both looked again at the stone tower 
squatting above them. 
A slumberous quiet lay over the uplands. The tower showed no sign of life, nor did the strange 
pyramidal structure beyond it. But the men who toiled upward went with the tenseness of men 
walking on the edge of a crater. Kerim Shah had unslung the powerful Turanian bow that killed 
at five hundred paces, and the Irakzai looked to their own lighter and less lethal bows. 
But they were not within bow-shot of the tower when something shot down out of the sky 
without warning. It passed so close to Conan that he felt the wind of the rushing wings, but it 
was an Irakzai who staggered and fell, blood jetting from a severed jugular. A hawk with wings 
like burnished steel shot up again, blood dripping from the scimitar-beak, to reel against the 
sky as Kerim Shah’s bow-string twanged. It dropped like a plummet, but no man saw where it 
struck the earth. 
Conan bent over the victim of the attack, but the man was already dead. No one spoke; useless 
to comment on the fact that never before had a hawk been known to swoop on a man. Red rage 
began to vie with fatalistic lethargy in the wild souls of the Irakzai. Hairy fingers nocked 
arrows and men glared vengefully at the tower whose very silence mocked them. 
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But the next attack came swiftly and direct. They all saw it – a white puff-ball of smoke that 
tumbled over the tower-rim and came drifting and rolling down the slope toward them. Others 
followed it. They seemed harmless, mere woolly globes of cloudy foam, but Conan stepped 
aside to avoid contact with the first. Behind him one of the Irakzai reached out and thrust his 
sword into the unstable mass. Instantly a sharp report shook the mountain-side. There was a 
burst of blinding flame, and then the puff-ball had vanished, and of the too-curious warrior 
remained only a heap of charred and blackened bones. The crisped hand still gripped the ivory 
sword hilt, but the blade was gone – melted and destroyed by that awful heat. Yet men standing 
almost within reach of the victim had not suffered except to be dazzled and half-blinded by the 
sudden flare. 
“Steel touches it off,” grunted Conan. “Look out – here they come!” 
The slope above them was almost covered by the billowing spheres. Kerim Shah bent his bow 
and sent a shaft into the mass, and those touched by the arrow burst like bubbles in spurting 
flame. His men followed his example and for the next few minutes it was as if a thunderstorm 
raged on the mountain slope, with bolts of lightning striking and bursting in showers of flame. 
When the barrage ceased, only a few arrows were left in the quivers of the archers. 
They pushed on grimly, over soil charred and blackened, where the naked rock had in places 
been turned to lava by the explosion of those diabolical bombs. 
Now they were within easy arrow-flight of the silent tower, and they spread their line, nerves 
taut, ready for any horror that might descend upon them. 
On the tower appeared a single figure, lifting a ten-foot bronze horn. Its strident bellow roared 
out across the echoing slopes, like the blare of trumpets on Judgment Day. And it began to be 
fearfully answered. The ground trembled under the feet of the invaders, and rumblings and 
grindings welled up from subterranean depths. 
The Irakzai screamed, reeling like drunken men on the shuddering slope, and Conan, eyes 
glaring, charged recklessly up the incline, knife in hand, straight at the door that showed in the 
tower-wall. Above him the great horn roared and bellowed in brutish mockery. And then 
Kerim Shah drew a shaft to his ear and loosed. 
Only a Turanian could have made that shot. The bellowing of the horn ceased suddenly, and a 
high, thin scream shrilled in its place. The green-robed figure on the tower staggered, clutching 
at the long shaft which quivered in its bosom, and then pitched across the parapet. The great 
horn tumbled upon the battlement and hung precariously, and another robed figure rushed to 
seize it, shrieking in horror. Again the Turanian bow twanged, and again it was answered by a 
death-howl. The second acolyte, in falling, struck the horn with his elbow and knocked it 
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clatteringly over the parapet to land shatteringly on the rocks far below. 
At such headlong speed had Conan covered the ground, that before the clattering echoes of that 
fall had died away, he was hacking at the door. Warned by his savage instinct suddenly, he 
gave back as a tide of molten lead splashed down from above. But the next instant he was back 
again, attacking the panels with redoubled fury. He was galvanized by the fact that his enemies 
had resorted to earthly weapons. The sorcery of the acolytes was limited. Their necromantic 
resources might well be exhausted. Kerim Shah was hurrying up the slope, his hillmen behind 
him in a straggling crescent. They loosed as they ran, their arrows splintering against the walls 
or arching over the parapet. 
The heavy teak portal gave way beneath the Cimmerian’s assault, and he peered inside warily, 
expecting anything. He was looking into a circular chamber from which a stair wound upward. 
On the opposite side of the chamber a door gaped open, revealing the outer slope – and the 
backs of half a dozen green-robed figures in full retreat. 
Conan yelled, took a step into the tower, and then native caution jerked him back, just as a 
great block of stone fell crashing to the floor where his foot had been an instant before. 
Shouting to his followers he raced around the tower. 
The acolytes had evacuated their first line of defense. As Conan rounded the tower he saw their 
green robes twinkling up the mountain ahead of him. He gave chase, panting with earnest 
blood-lust, and behind him Kerim Shah and the Irakzai came pelting, the latter yelling like 
wolves at the flight of their enemies, their fatalism momentarily submerged by temporary 
triumph. 
The tower stood on the lower edge of a narrow plateau whose upward slant was barely 
perceptible. A few hundred yards away this plateau ended abruptly in a chasm which had been 
invisible further down the mountain. Into this chasm the acolytes apparently leaped without 
checking their speed. Their pursuers saw the green robes flutter and disappear over the edge. 
A few moments later they themselves were standing on the brink of the mighty moat that cut 
them off from the castle of the Black Seers. It was a sheer-walled ravine that extended in either 
direction as far as they could see, apparently girdling the mountain, some four hundred yards in 
width and five hundred feet deep. And in it, from rim to rim, a strange, translucent mist 
sparkled and shimmered. 
Looking down, Conan grunted. Far below him, moving across the glimmering floor, which 
shone like burnished silver, he saw the forms of the green-robed acolytes. Their outline was 
wavering and indistinct, like figures seen under deep water. They walked single file, moving 
toward the opposite wall. 
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Kerim Shah nocked an arrow and sent it singing downward. But when it struck the mist that 
filled the chasm it seemed to lose momentum and direction, wandering widely from its course. 
“If they went down, so can we!” grunted Conan, while Kerim Shah stared after his shaft in 
amazement. “I saw them last at this spot – ” 
Squinting down he saw something shining like a golden thread across the canyon floor far 
below. The acolytes seemed to be following this thread, and there suddenly came to him 
Khemsa’s cryptic words – “Follow the golden vein!” On the brink, under his very hand as he 
crouched, he found it – a thin vein of sparkling gold running from an outcropping of ore to the 
edge and down, across the silvery floor. And he found something else, which had before been 
invisible to him, because of the peculiar refraction of the light. The gold vein followed a 
narrow ramp which slanted down into the ravine, fitted with niches for hand and foot hold. 
“Here’s where they went down,” he grunted to Kerim Shah. “They’re no adepts, to waft 
themselves through the air! We’ll follow them – ” 
It was at that instant that the man who had been bitten by the mad dog cried out horribly and 
leaped at Kerim Shah, foaming and gnashing his teeth. The Turanian, quick as a cat on his feet, 
sprang aside and the madman pitched head-first over the brink. The others rushed to the edge 
and glared after him in amazement. The maniac did not fall plummet-like. He floated slowly 
down through the rosy haze like a man sinking in deep water. His limbs moved like a man 
trying to swim, and his features were purple and convulsed beyond the contortions of his 
madness. Far down at last on the shining floor his body settled and lay still. 
“There’s death in that chasm,” muttered Kerim Shah, drawing back from the rosy mist that 
shimmered almost at his feet. “What now, Conan?” 
“On!” answered the Cimmerian grimly. “Those acolytes are human; if the mist doesn’t kill 
them, it won’t kill me.” He hitched his belt, and his hands touched the girdle Khemsa had given 
him; he scowled, then smiled bleakly. He had forgotten that girdle; yet thrice had death passed 
him by to strike another victim. 
The acolytes had reached the further wall and were moving up it like great green flies. Letting 
himself upon the ramp he descended warily. The rosy cloud lapped about his ankles, ascending 
as he lowered himself. It reached his knees, his thighs, his waist, his arm-pits. He felt it as one 
feels a thick heavy fog on a damp night. With it lapping about his chin he hesitated, and then 
ducked under. Instantly his breath ceased; all air was shut off from him and he felt his ribs 
caving in on his vitals. With a frantic effort he heaved himself up, fighting for life. His head 
rose above the surface and he drank air in great gulps. 
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Kerim Shah leaned down toward him, spoke to him, but Conan neither heard nor heeded. 
Stubbornly, his mind fixed on what the dying Khemsa had told him, the Cimmerian groped for 
the gold vein, and found that he had moved off it in his descent. Several series of hand-holds 
were niched in the ramp. Placing himself directly over the thread, he began climbing down 
once more. The rosy mist rose about him, engulfed him. Now his head was under, but he was 
still drinking pure air. Above him he saw his companions staring down at him, their features 
blurred by the haze that shimmered over his head. He gestured for them to follow, and went 
down swiftly, without waiting to see whether they complied or not. 
Kerim Shah sheathed his sword without comment and followed, and the Irakzai, more fearful 
of being left alone than of the terrors that might lurk below, scrambled after him. Each man 
clung to the golden thread as they saw the Cimmerian do. 
Down the slanting ramp they went to the ravine floor, and moved out across the shining level, 
treading the gold vein like rope walkers. It was as if they walked along an invisible tunnel 
through which air circulated freely. They felt death pressing in on them above and on either 
hand, but it did not touch them. 
The vein crawled up a similar ramp on the other wall up which the acolytes had disappeared, 
and up it they went with taut nerves, not knowing what might be waiting for them among the 
jutting spurs of rock that fanged the lip of the precipice. 
It was the green-robed acolytes who awaited them, with knives in their hands. Perhaps they had 
reached the limits to which they could retreat. Perhaps the Stygian girdle about Conan’s waist 
could have told why their necromantic spells had proven so weak and so quickly exhausted. 
Perhaps it was knowledge of death decreed for failure that sent them leaping from among the 
rocks, eyes glaring and knives glittering, resorting in their desperation to material weapons. 
There among the rocky fangs on the precipice lip was no war of wizard craft. It was a whirl of 
blades, where real steel bit and real blood spurted, where sinewy arms dealt forthright blows 
that severed quivering flesh, and men went down to be trodden under foot as the fight raged 
over them. 
One of the Irakzai bled to death among the rocks, but the acolytes were down – slashed and 
hacked asunder or hurled over the edge to float sluggishly down to the silver floor that shone so 
far below. 
Then the conquerors shook blood and sweat from their eyes, and looked at each other. Conan 
and Kerim Shah still stood upright, and four of the Irakzai. 
They stood among the rocky teeth that serrated the precipice brink and from that spot a path 
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wound up a gentle slope to a broad stair, consisting of half a dozen steps, a hundred feet across, 
cut out of a green jade-like substance. They led up to a broad stage or roofless gallery of the 
same polished stone, and above it rose, tier upon tier, the castle of the Black Seers. It seemed to 
have been carved out of the sheer stone of the mountain. The architecture was faultless, but 
unadorned. The many casements were barred and masked with curtains within. There was no 
sign of life, friendly or hostile. 
They went up the path in silence, and warily as men treading the lair of a serpent. The Irakzai 
were dumb, like men marching to a certain doom. Even Kerim Shah was silent. Only Conan 
seemed not aware what a monstrous dislocating and uprooting of accepted thought and action 
their invasion constituted, what an unprecedented violation of tradition. He was not of the East; 
and he came of a breed who fought devils and wizards as promptly and matter-of-factly as they 
battled human foes. 
He strode up the shining stairs and across the wide green gallery straight toward the great 
golden-bound teak door that opened upon it. He cast but a single glance upward at the higher 
tiers of the great pyramidal structure towering above him. He reached a hand for the bronze 
prong that jutted like a handle from the door – then checked himself, grinning hardly. The 
handle was made in the shape of a serpent, head lifted on arched neck; and Conan had a 
suspicion that that metal head would come to grisly life under his hand. 
He struck it from the door with one blow, and its bronze clink on the glassy floor did not lessen 
his caution. He flipped it aside with his knife point, and again turned to the door. Utter silence 
reigned over the towers. Far below them the mountain slopes fell away into a purple haze of 
distance. The sun glittered on snow-clad peaks on either hand. High above a vulture hung like a 
black dot in the cold blue of the sky. But for it the men before the gold-bound door were the 
only evidence of life, tiny figures on a green jade gallery poised on the dizzy height, with that 
fantastic pile of stone towering above them. 
A sharp wind off the snow slashed them, whipping their tatters about. Conan’s long knife 
splintering through the teak panels roused the startled echoes. Again and again he struck, 
hewing through polished wood and metal bands alike. Through the sundered ruins he glared 
into the interior, alert and suspicious as a wolf. He saw a broad chamber, the polished stone 
walls untapestried, the mosaic floor uncarpeted. Square, polished ebon stools and a stone dais 
formed the only furnishings. The room was empty of human life. Another door showed in the 
opposite wall. 
“Leave a man on guard outside,” grunted Conan. “I’m going in.” 
Kerim Shah designated a warrior for that duty, and the man fell back toward the middle of the 
gallery, bow in hand. Conan strode into the castle, followed by the Turanian and the three 
remaining Irakzai. The one outside spat, grumbled in his beard, and started suddenly as a low 
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mocking laugh reached his ears. 
He lifted his head and saw, on the tier above him, a tall, black-robed figure, naked head 
nodding slightly as he stared down. His whole attitude suggested mockery and malignity. 
Quick as a flash the Irakzai bent his bow and loosed, and the arrow streaked upward to strike 
full in the black-robed breast. The mocking smile did not alter. The Seer plucked out the 
missile and threw it back at the bowman, not as a weapon is hurled, but with a contemptuous 
gesture. The Irakzai dodged, instinctively throwing up his arm. His fingers closed on the 
revolving shaft. 
Then he shrieked. In his hand the wooden shaft suddenly writhed. Its rigid outline became 
pliant, melting in his grasp. He tried to throw it from him, but it was too late. He held a twisting 
serpent in his naked hand and already it had coiled about his wrist and its wicked wedgeshaped 
head darted at his muscular arm. He screamed again and his eyes became distended, his 
features purple. He went to his knees shaken by an awful convulsion, and then lay still. 
The men inside had wheeled at his first cry. Conan took a swift stride toward the open 
doorway, and then halted short, baffled. To the men behind him it seemed that he strained 
against empty air. But though he could see nothing, there was a slick, smooth, hard surface 
under his hands, and he knew that a sheet of crystal had been let down in the doorway. 
Through it he saw the Irakzai lying motionless on the glassy gallery, an ordinary arrow sticking 
in his arm. Naturally, he could not see the man on the tier below. 
Conan lifted his knife and smote, and the watchers were dumbfounded to see his blow checked 
apparently in mid-air, with the loud clang of steel that meets an unyielding substance. He 
wasted no more effort. He knew that not even the legendary tulwar of Amir Khurum could 
shatter that invisible curtain. 
In a few words he explained the matter to Kerim Shah, and the Turanian shrugged his 
shoulders. “Well, if our exit is barred, we must find another. In the meanwhile our way lies 
forward, does it not?” 
With a grunt the Cimmerian turned and strode across the chamber to the opposite door, with a 
feeling of treading on the threshold of doom. As he lifted his knife to shatter the door, it swung 
silently open as if of its own accord. He strode into a great hall, flanked with tall glassy 
columns. A hundred feet from the door began the broad jade-green steps of a stair that tapered 
toward the top like the side of a pyramid. What lay beyond that stair he could not tell. But 
between him and its shimmering foot stood a curious altar of gleaming black jade. Four great 
golden serpents twined their tails about this altar and reared their wedge-shaped heads in the 
air, facing the four quarters of the compass like the enchanted guardians of a fabled treasure. 
But on the altar, between the arching necks, stood only a crystal globe filled with a cloudy 
smoke-like substance, in which floated four golden pomegranates. 
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The sight stirred some dim recollection in his mind; then Conan heeded the altar no longer, for 
on the lower steps of the stair stood four black-robed figures. He had not seen them come. They 
were simply there, tall, gaunt, their vulture-heads nodding in unison, their feet and hands 
hidden by their flowing garments. 
One lifted his arm and the sleeve fell away revealing his hand – and it was not a hand at all. 
Conan halted in mid-stride, compelled against his will. He had encountered a force differing 
subtly from Khemsa’s mesmerism, and he could not advance, though he felt it in his power to 
retreat if he wished. His companions had likewise halted, and they seemed even more helpless 
than he, unable to move in either direction. 
The Seer whose arm was lifted beckoned to one of the Irakzai, and the man moved toward him 
like one in a trance, eyes staring and fixed, blade hanging in limp fingers. As he pushed past 
Conan, the Cimmerian threw an arm across his breast to arrest him. Conan was so much 
stronger than the Irakzai that in ordinary circumstances he could have broken his spine between 
his hands. But now the muscular arm was brushed aside like a straw and the Irakzai moved 
toward the stair, treading jerkily and mechanically. He reached the steps and knelt stiffly, 
proffering his blade and bending his head. The Seer took the sword. It flashed as he swung it 
up and down. The Irakzai’s head tumbled from his shoulders and thudded heavily on the black 
marble floor. An arch of blood jetted from the severed arteries and the body slumped over and 
lay with arms spread wide. 
Again a malformed hand lifted and beckoned, and another Irakzai stumbled stiffly to his doom. 
The ghastly drama was re-enacted and another headless form lay beside the first. 
As the third tribesman clumped his way past Conan to his death, the Cimmerian, his veins 
bulging in his temples with his efforts to break past the unseen barrier that held him, was 
suddenly aware of allied forces, unseen, but waking into life about him. This realization came 
without warning, but so powerfully he could not doubt his instinct. His left hand slid 
involuntarily under his Bakhariot belt and closed on the Stygian girdle. And as he gripped it he 
felt new strength and power flood his numbed limbs; the will to live was a pulsing white-hot 
fire, matched by the intensity of his burning rage. 
The third Irakzai was a decapitated corpse, and the hideous finger was lifting again when 
Conan felt the bursting of the invisible barrier. A fierce, involuntary cry burst from his lips as 
he leaped with the explosive suddenness of pent-up ferocity. His left hand gripped the 
sorcerer’s girdle as a drowning man grips a floating log, and the long knife was a sheen of light 
in his right. The men on the steps did not move. They watched calmly, cynically; if they felt 
surprize they did not show it. Conan did not allow himself to think what might chance when he 
came within knife-reach of them. His blood was pounding in his temples, a mist of crimson 
swam before his sight. He was afire with the urge to kill – to drive his knife deep into flesh and 
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bone, and twist the blade in blood and entrails. 
Another dozen strides would carry him to the steps where the sneering demons stood. He drew 
his breath deep, his fury rising redly as his charge gathered momentum. He was hurtling past 
the altar with its golden serpents when like a levin-flash there shot across his mind again as 
vividly as if spoken in his external ear, the cryptic words of Khemsa: “Break the crystal ball!” 
His reaction was almost without his own volition. Execution followed impulse so 
spontaneously that the greatest sorcerer of the age would not have had time to read his mind 
and prevent his action. Wheeling like a cat from his headlong charge, he brought his knife 
crashing down upon the crystal. Instantly the air vibrated with a peal of terror – whether from 
the stairs, the altar, or the crystal itself he could not tell. Hisses filled his ears as the golden 
serpents, suddenly vibrant with hideous life, writhed and smote at him. But he was fired to the 
speed of a maddened tiger. A whirl of steel sheared through the hideous trunks that waved 
toward him, and he smote the crystal sphere again and yet again. And the globe burst with a 
noise like a thunder-clap, raining fiery shards on the black marble, and the gold pomegranates, 
as if released from captivity, shot upward toward the lofty roof and were gone. 
A mad screaming, bestial and ghastly, was echoing through the great hall. On the steps writhed 
four black-robed figures, twisting in convulsions, froth dripping from their livid mouths. Then 
with one frenzied crescendo of inhuman ululation they stiffened and lay still, and Conan knew 
they were dead. He stared down at the altar and the crystal shards. Four headless golden 
serpents still coiled about the altar, but no alien life now animated the dully gleaming metal. 
Kerim Shah was rising slowly from his knees whither he had been dashed by some unseen 
force. He shook his head to clear the ringing from his ears. 
“Did you hear that crash when you struck? It was as if a thousand crystal panels shattered all 
over the castle as that globe burst. Were the souls of the wizards imprisoned in those golden 
balls? – Ha!” 
Conan wheeled as Kerim Shah drew his sword and pointed. 
Another figure stood at the head of the stair. His robe, too, was black, but of richly 
embroidered velvet, and there was a velvet cap on his head. His face was calm, and not 
unhandsome. 
“Who the devil are you?” demanded Conan, staring up at him, knife in hand. 
“I am the Master of Yimsha!” His voice was like the chime of a temple bell, but a note of cruel 
mirth ran through it. 
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“Where is Yasmina?” demanded Kerim Shah. 
The Master laughed down at him. 
“What is that to you, dead man? Have you so quickly forgotten my strength, once lent to you, 
that you come armed against me, you poor fool? I think I will take your heart, Kerim Shah!” 
He held out his hand as if to receive something, and the Turanian cried out sharply like a man 
in mortal agony. He reeled drunkenly, and then, with a splintering of bones, a rending of flesh 
and muscle and a snapping of mail-links, his breast burst outward with a shower of blood, and 
through the ghastly aperture something red and dripping shot through the air into the Master’s 
outstretched hand, as a bit of steel leaps to the magnet. The Turanian slumped to the floor and 
lay motionless, and the Master laughed and hurled the object to fall before Conan’s feet – a still 
quivering human heart. 
With a roar and a curse Conan charged the stair. From Khemsa’s girdle he felt strength and 
deathless hate flow into him to combat the terrible emanation of power that met him on the 
steps. The air filled with a shimmering steely haze through which he plunged like a swimmer 
through surf, head lowered, left arm bent about his face, knife gripped low in his right hand. 
His half-blinded eyes, glaring over the crook of his elbow, made out the hated shape of the Seer 
before and above him, the outline wavering as a reflection wavers in disturbed water. 
He was racked and torn by forces beyond his comprehension, but he felt a driving power 
outside and beyond his own lifting him inexorably upward and onward, despite the wizard’s 
strength and his own agony. 
Now he had reached the head of the stairs, and the Master’s face floated in the steely haze 
before him, and a strange fear shadowed the inscrutable eyes. Conan waded through the mist as 
through a surf, and his knife lunged upward like a live thing. The keen point ripped the 
Master’s robe as he sprang back with a low cry. Then before Conan’s gaze the wizard vanished 
– simply disappeared like a burst bubble, and something long and undulating darted up one of 
the smaller stairs that led up to left and right from the landing. 
Conan charged after it, up the left-hand stair, uncertain as to just what he had seen whip up 
those steps, but in a berserk mood that drowned the nausea and horror whispering at the back 
of his consciousness. 
He plunged out into a broad corridor whose uncarpeted floor and untapestried walls were of 
polished jade, and something long and swift whisked down the corridor ahead of him, and into 
a curtained door. From within the chamber rose a scream of urgent terror. The sound lent wings 
to Conan’s flying feet and he hurtled through the curtains and headlong into the chamber 
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within. 
A frightful scene met his glare. Yasmina cowered on the further edge of a velvet covered dais, 
screaming her loathing and horror, an arm lifted as if to ward off attack, while before her 
swayed the hideous head of a giant serpent, shining neck arching up from dark gleaming coils. 
With a choked cry Conan threw his knife. 
Instantly the monster whirled and was upon him like the rush of wind through tall grass. The 
long knife quivered in its neck, point and a foot of blade showing on one side, and the hilt and 
a hand’s breadth of steel on the other, but it only seemed to madden the giant reptile. The great 
head towered above the man who faced it, and then darted down, the venom-dripping jaws 
gaping wide. But Conan had plucked a dagger from his girdle and he stabbed upward as the 
head dipped down. The point tore through the lower jaw and transfixed the upper, pinning them 
together. The next instant the great trunk had looped itself about the Cimmerian as the snake, 
unable to use its fangs, employed its remaining form of attack. 
Conan’s left arm was pinioned among the bone-crushing folds, but his right was free. Bracing 
his feet to keep upright, he stretched forth his hand, gripped the hilt of the long knife jutting 
from the serpent’s neck, and tore it free in a shower of blood. As if divining his purpose with 
more than bestial intelligence, the snake writhed and knotted, seeking to cast its loops about his 
right arm. But with the speed of light the long knife rose and fell, shearing half-way through 
the reptile’s giant trunk. 
Before he could strike again, the great pliant loops fell from him and the monster dragged itself 
across the floor, gushing blood from its ghastly wounds. Conan sprang after it, knife lifted, but 
his vicious swipe cut empty air as the serpent writhed away from him and struck its blunt nose 
against a panelled screen of sandalwood. One of the panels gave inward and the long, bleeding 
barrel whipped through it and was gone. 
Conan instantly attacked the screen. A few blows rent it apart and he glared into the dim alcove 
beyond. No horrific shape coiled there; there was blood on the marble floor, and bloody tracks 
led to a cryptic arched door. Those tracks were of a man’s bare feet – 
“Conan!” He wheeled back into the chamber just in time to catch the Devi of Vendhya in his 
arms as she rushed across the room and threw herself upon him, catching him about the neck 
with a frantic clasp, half hysterical with terror and gratitude and relief. 
His own wild blood had been stirred to its uttermost by all that had passed. He caught her to 
him in a grasp that would have made her wince at another time, and crushed her lips with his. 
She made no resistance; the Devi was drowned in the elemental woman. She closed her eyes 
and drank in his fierce, hot, lawless kisses with all the abandon of passionate thirst. She was 
panting with his violence when he ceased for breath, and glared down at her lying limp in his 
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mighty arms. 
“I knew you’d come for me,” she murmured. “You would not leave me in this den of devils.” 
At her words recollection of their environments came to him suddenly. He lifted his head and 
listened intently. Silence reigned over the castle of Yimsha, but it was a silence impregnated 
with menace. Peril crouched in every corner, leered invisibly from every hanging. 
“We’d better go while we can,” he muttered. “Those cuts were enough to kill any common 
beast – or man – but a wizard has a dozen lives. Wound one, and he writhes away like a 
crippled snake to soak up fresh venom from some source of sorcery.” 
He picked up the girl and carrying her in his arms like a child, he strode out into the gleaming 
jade corridor and down the stairs, nerves tautly alert for any sign or sound. 
“I met the Master,” she whispered, clinging to him and shuddering. “He worked his spells on 
me to break my will. The most awful was a moldering corpse which seized me in its arms – I 
fainted then and lay as one dead, I do not know how long. Shortly after I regained 
consciousness I heard sounds of strife below, and cries, and then that snake came slithering 
through the curtains – ah!” She shook at the memory of that horror. “I knew somehow that it 
was not an illusion, but a real serpent that sought my life.” 
“It was not a shadow, at least,” answered Conan cryptically. “He knew he was beaten, and 
chose to slay you rather than let you be rescued.” 
“What do you mean, he?” she asked uneasily, and then shrank against him, crying out, and 
forgetting her question. She had seen the corpses at the foot of the stairs. Those of the Seers 
were not good to look at; as they lay twisted and contorted, their hands and feet were exposed 
to view, and at the sight Yasmina went livid and hid her face against Conan’s powerful 
shoulder. 
X
YASMINA AND CONAN 
Conan passed through the hall quickly enough, traversed the outer chamber and approached the 
door that let upon the gallery with uncertainty. Then he saw the floor sprinkled with tiny, 
glittering shards. The crystal sheet that had covered the doorway had been shivered to bits, and 
he remembered the crash that had accompanied the shattering of the crystal globe. He believed 
that every piece of crystal in the castle had broken at that instant, and some dim instinct or 
memory of esoteric lore vaguely suggested the truth of the monstrous connection between the 
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Lords of the Black Circle and the golden pomegranates. He felt the short hairs bristle chilly at 
the back of his neck and put the matter hastily out of his mind. 
He breathed a deep sigh of relief as he stepped out upon the green jade gallery. There was still 
the gorge to cross, but at least he could see the white peaks glistening in the sun, and the long 
slopes falling away into the distant blue hazes. 
The Irakzai lay where he had fallen, an ugly blotch on the glassy smoothness. As Conan strode 
down the winding path, he was surprized to note the position of the sun. It had not yet passed 
its zenith; and yet it seemed to him that hours had passed since he plunged into the castle of the 
Black Seers. 
He felt an urge to hasten, not a mere blind panic, but an instinct of peril growing behind his 
back. He said nothing to Yasmina, and she seemed content to nestle her dark head against his 
arching breast and find content in the clasp of his iron arms. He paused an instant on the brink 
of the chasm, frowning down. The haze which danced in the gorge was no longer rose-hued 
and sparkling. It was smoky, dim, ghostly, like the life-tide that flickered thinly in a wounded 
man. The thought came vaguely to Conan that the spells of magicians were more closely bound 
to their personal beings than were the actions of common men to the actors. 
But far below the floor shone like tarnished silver, and the gold thread sparkled undimmed. 
Conan shifted Yasmina across his shoulder where she lay docilely, and began the descent. 
Hurriedly he descended the ramp, and hurriedly he fled across the echoing floor. He had a 
conviction that they were racing with time; that their chance of survival depended upon 
crossing that gorge of horrors before the wounded Master of the castle should regain enough 
power to loose some other doom upon them. 
When he toiled up the further ramp and came out upon the crest, he breathed a gusty sigh of 
relief, and stood Yasmina upon her feet. 
“You walk from here,” he told her, “it’s downhill all the way.” 
She stole a glance at the gleaming pyramid across the chasm; it reared up against the snowy 
slope like the citadel of silence and immemorial evil. 
“Are you a magician, that you have conquered the Black Seers of Yimsha, Conan of Ghor?” 
she asked, as they went down the path, with his heavy arm about her supple waist. 
“It was a girdle Khemsa gave me before he died,” Conan answered. “Yes, I found him on the 
trail. It is a curious one which I’ll show you when I have time. Against some spells it was 
weak, but against others it was strong, and a good knife is always a hearty incantation.” 
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“But if the girdle aided you in conquering the Master,” she argued, “why did it not aid 
Khemsa?” 
He shook his head. “Who knows? But Khemsa had been the Master’s slave; perhaps that 
weakened its magic. He had no hold on me as he had on Khemsa. Yet I can’t say that I 
conquered him. He retreated, but I have a feeling that we haven’t seen the last of him. I want to 
put as many miles between us and his lair as we can.” 
He was further relieved to find the horses tethered among the tamarisks as he had left them. He 
loosed them swiftly and mounted the black stallion, swinging the girl up before him. The others 
followed, freshened by their rest. 
“And what now?” she asked. “To Afghulistan?” 
“Not just now!” He grinned hardly. “Somebody – maybe the governor – killed my seven 
headmen. My idiotic followers think I had something to do with it, and unless I am able to 
convince them otherwise, they’ll hunt me like a wounded jackal.” 
“Then what of me? If the headmen are dead, I am useless to you as a hostage. Will you slay 
me, to avenge them?” 
He looked down at her, with eyes fiercely aglow, and laughed at the suggestion. 
“Then let us ride to the border,” she said. “You’ll be safe from the Afghulis there – ” 
“Yes, on a Vendhyan gibbet.” 
“I am queen of Vendhya,” she reminded him with a touch of her old imperiousness. “You have 
saved my life and at least partly avenged my brother. You shall be rewarded.” 
She did not intend it as it sounded, but he growled in his throat, ill-pleased. 
“Keep your bounty for your city-bred dogs, princess! If you’re a queen of the plains, I’m a 
chief of the hills, and not one foot toward the border will I take you!” 
“But you would be safe – ” she began bewilderedly. 
“And you’d be the Devi again,” he broke in. “No, girl; I prefer you as you are now – a woman 
of flesh and blood, riding on my saddle bow.” 
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“But you can’t keep me!” she cried. “You can’t – ” 
“Watch and see!” he advised her grimly. 
“But I will pay you a vast ransom – ” 
“Devil take your ransom,” he answered roughly, his arms hardening about her supple figure. 
“The kingdom of Vendhya could give me nothing I desire half as much as I desire you. I took 
you at the risk of my neck; if your courtiers want you back, let them come up the Zhaibar and 
fight for you.” 
“But you have no followers now!” she protested. “You are hunted! How can you preserve your 
own life, much less mine?” 
“I still have friends in the hills,” he answered. “There is a chief of the Khurakzai who will keep 
you safely while I bicker with the Afghulis. If they will have none of me, by Crom I will ride 
northward with you to the steppes of the kozaki. I was a hetman among the Free Companions 
before I rode southward. I’ll make you a queen on the Zaporoska River!” 
“But I can not!” she objected. “You must not hold me – ” 
“If the idea’s so repulsive,” he demanded, “why did you yield yourself so willingly?” 
“Even a queen is human,” she answered, coloring. “But because I am a queen, I must consider 
my kingdom. Do not carry me away into some foreign country. Come back to Vendhya with 
me!” 
“Would you make me your king?” he asked sardonically. 
“Well, there are customs – ” she stammered, and he interrupted her with a hard laugh. 
“Yes, civilized customs that won’t let you do as you wish. You’ll marry some withered old 
king of the plains, and I can go my way with only the memory of a few kisses snatched from 
your lips. Ha!” 
“But I must return to my kingdom!” she repeated helplessly. 
“Why?” he demanded angrily. “To chafe your rump on gold thrones, and listen to the plaudits 
of smirking, velvet-skirted fools? Where is the gain? Listen: I was born in the Cimmerian hills 
where the people are all barbarians. I have been a mercenary soldier, a corsair, a kozak, and a 
hundred other things. What king has roamed the countries, fought the battles, loved the women, 
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and won the plunder that I have? 
“I came into Ghulistan to raise a horde and plunder the kingdoms to the south – your own 
among them. Being chief of the Afghulis was only a start. If I can conciliate them, I’ll have a 
dozen tribes following me within a year. But if I can’t I’ll ride back to the steppes and loot the 
Turanian borders with the kozaki. And you’ll go with me. To the devil with your kingdom; they 
fended for themselves before you were born.” 
She lay in his arms looking up at him, and she felt a tug at her spirit, a lawless, reckless urge 
that matched his own and was by it called into being. But a thousand generations of 
sovereignship rode heavy upon her. 
“I can’t! I can’t!” she repeated helplessly. 
“You haven’t any choice,” he assured her. “You – what the devil!” 
They had left Yimsha some miles behind them, and were riding along a high ridge that 
separated two deep valleys. They had just topped a steep crest where they could gaze down into 
the valley on their right hand. And there a running fight was in progress. A strong wind was 
blowing away from them, carrying the sound from their ears, but even so the clashing of steel 
and thunder of hoofs welled up from far below. 
They saw the glint of the sun on lance-tip and spired helmet. Three thousand mailed horsemen 
were driving before them a ragged band of turbaned riders, who fled snarling and striking like 
fleeing wolves. 
“Turanians!” muttered Conan. “Squadrons from Secunderam. What the devil are they doing 
here?” 
“Who are the men they pursue?” asked Yasmina. “And why do they fall back so stubbornly? 
They can not stand against such odds.” 
“Five hundred of my mad Afghulis,” he growled, scowling down into the vale. “They’re in a 
trap, and they know it.” 
The valley was indeed a cul-de-sac at that end. It narrowed to a high walled gorge, opening out 
further into a round bowl, completely rimmed with lofty, unscalable walls. 
The turbaned riders were being forced into this gorge, because there was nowhere else for them 
to go, and they went reluctantly, in a shower of arrows and a whirl of swords. The helmeted 
riders harried them, but did not press in too rashly. They knew the desperate fury of the hill 
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tribes, and they knew too that they had their prey in a trap from which there was no escape. 
They had recognized the hillmen as Afghulis, and they wished to hem them in and force a 
surrender. They needed hostages for the purpose they had in mind. 
Their emir was a man of decision and initiative. When he reached Gurashah valley, and found 
neither guides nor emissary waiting for him, he pushed on, trusting to his own knowledge of 
the country. All the way from Secunderam there had been fighting, and tribesmen were licking 
their wounds in many a crag-perched village. He knew there was a good chance that neither he 
nor any of his helmeted spearmen would ever ride through the gates of Secunderam again, for 
the tribes would all be up behind him now, but he was determined to carry out his orders – 
which were to take Yasmina Devi from the Afghulis at all costs, and to bring her captive to 
Secunderam, or if confronted by impossibility, to strike off her head before he himself died. 
Of all this, of course, the watchers on the ridge were not aware. But Conan fidgeted with 
nervousness. 
“Why the devil did they get themselves trapped?” he demanded of the universe at large. “I 
know what they’re doing in these parts – they were hunting me, the dogs! Poking into every 
valley – and found themselves penned in before they knew it. The damned fools! They’re 
making a stand in the gorge, but they can’t hold out for long. When the Turanians have pushed 
them back into the bowl, they’ll slaughter them at their leisure.” 
The din welling up from below increased in volume and intensity. In the strait of the narrow 
gut the Afghulis, fighting desperately, were for the time being holding their own against the 
mailed riders who could not throw their whole weight against them. 
Conan scowled darkly, moved restlessly, fingering his hilt, and finally spoke bluntly: “Devi, I 
must go down to them. I’ll find a place for you to hide until I come back to you. You spoke of 
your kingdom – well, I don’t pretend to look on those hairy devils as my children, but after all, 
such as they are, they’re my henchmen. A chief should never desert his followers, even if they 
desert him first. They think they were right in kicking me out – hell, I won’t be cast off! I’m 
still chief of the Afghulis, and I’ll prove it! I can climb down on foot into the gorge.” 
“But what of me?” she queried. “You carried me away forcibly from my people; now will you 
leave me to die in the hills alone while you go down and sacrifice yourself uselessly?” 
His veins swelled with the conflict of his emotions. 
“That’s right,” he muttered helplessly. “Crom knows what I can do.” 
She turned her head slightly, a curious expression dawning on her beautiful face. Then – 
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“Listen!” she cried. “Listen!” A distant fanfare of trumpets was borne faintly to their ears. They 
stared into the deep valley on the left, and caught a glint of steel on the further side. A long line 
of lances and polished helmets moved along the vale, gleaming in the sunlight. 
“The riders of Vendhya!” she cried exultingly. “Even at this distance I can not mistake them!” 
“There are thousands of them!” muttered Conan. “It has been long since a Kshatriya host has 
ridden this far into the hills.” 
“They are searching for me!” she exclaimed. “Give me your horse! I will ride to my warriors! 
The ridge is not so precipitous on the left, and I can reach the valley floor. Go to your men and 
make them hold out a little longer. I will lead my horsemen into the valley at the upper end and 
fall upon the Turanians! We will crush them in the vise! Quick, Conan! Will you sacrifice your 
men to your own desire?” 
The burning hunger of the steppes and the wintry forests glared out of his eyes, but he shook 
his head and swung off the stallion, placing the reins in her hands. 
“You win!” he grunted. “Ride like the devil!” 
She wheeled away down the left-hand slope and he ran swiftly along the ridge until he reached 
the long ragged cleft that was the defile in which the fight raged. Down the rugged wall he 
scrambled like an ape, clinging to projections and crevices, to fall at last, feet-first, into the 
mêlée that raged in the mouth of the gorge. Blades were whickering and clanging about him, 
horses rearing and stamping, helmet plumes nodding among turbans that were stained crimson. 
As he hit, he yelled like a wolf, caught a gold-worked rein and dodging the sweep of a scimitar, 
drove his long knife upward through the rider’s vitals. In another instant he was in the saddle, 
yelling ferocious orders to the Afghulis. They stared at him stupidly for an instant, then as they 
saw the havoc his steel was wreaking among their enemies, they fell to their work again, 
accepting him without comment. In that inferno of licking blades and spurting blood there was 
no time to ask or answer questions. 
The riders in their spired helmets and gold-worked hauberks swarmed about the gorge mouth, 
thrusting and slashing, and the narrow defile was packed and jammed with horses and men, the 
warriors crushed breast to breast, stabbing with shortened blades, slashing murderously when 
there was an instant’s room to swing a sword. When a man went down he did not get up from 
beneath the stamping, swirling hoofs. Weight and sheer strength counted heavily there, and the 
chief of the Afghulis did the work of ten. At such times accustomed habits sway men strongly, 
and the warriors who were used to seeing Conan in their vanguard, were heartened mightily, 
despite their distrust of him. 
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But superior numbers counted too. The pressure of the men behind forced the horsemen of 
Turan deeper and deeper into the gorge, in the teeth of the flickering tulwars. Foot by foot the 
Afghulis were shoved back, leaving the defile-floor carpeted with dead, on which the riders 
trampled. As he hacked and smote like a man possessed, Conan had time for some chilling 
doubts – would Yasmina keep her word? She had but to join her warriors, turn southward and 
leave him and his band to perish. 
But at last, after what seemed centuries of desperate battling, in the valley outside there rose 
another sound above the clash of steel and yells of slaughter. And then with a burst of trumpets 
that shook the walls, and rushing thunder of hoofs, five thousand riders of Vendhya smote the 
hosts of Secunderam. 
That stroke split the Turanian squadrons asunder, shattered, tore and rent them and scattered 
their fragments all over the valley. In an instant the surge had ebbed back out of the gorge; 
there was a chaotic, confused swirl of fighting, horsemen wheeling and smiting singly and in 
clusters, and then the emir went down with a Kshatriya lance through his breast, and the riders 
in their spired helmets turned their horses down the valley, spurring like mad and seeking to 
slash a way through the swarms which had come upon them from the rear. As they scattered in 
flight, the conquerors scattered in pursuit, and all across the valley floor, and up on the slopes 
near the mouth and over the crests streamed the fugitives and the pursuers. The Afghulis, those 
left to ride, rushed out of the gorge and joined in the harrying of their foes, accepting the 
unexpected alliance as unquestioningly as they had accepted the return of their repudiated 
chief. 
The sun was sinking toward the distant crags when Conan, his garments hacked to tatters and 
the mail under them reeking and clotted with blood, his knife dripping and crusted to the hilt, 
strode over the corpses to where Yasmina Devi sat her horse among her nobles on the crest of 
the ridge, near a lofty precipice. 
“You kept your word, Devi!” he roared. “By Crom, though, I had some bad seconds down in 
that gorge – look out!” 
Down from the sky swooped a vulture of tremendous size with a thunder of wings that knocked 
men sprawling from their horses. 
The scimitar-like beak was slashing for the Devi’s soft neck, but Conan was quicker – a short 
run, a tigerish leap, the savage thrust of a dripping knife, and the vulture voiced a horribly 
human cry, pitched sideways and went tumbling down the cliffs to the rocks and river a 
thousand feet below. As it fell, its black wings thrashing the air, it took on the semblance, not 
of a bird, but of a black-robed human body that fell, arms in wide black sleeves thrown abroad. 
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Conan turned to Yasmina, his red knife still in his hand, his blue eyes smoldering, blood oozing 
from wounds on his thickly-muscled arms and thighs. 
“You are the Devi again,” he said, grinning fiercely at the gold-clasped gossamer robe she had 
donned over her hill-girl attire, and awed not at all by the imposing array of chivalry all about 
him. “I have you to thank for the lives of some three hundred and fifty of my rogues, who are 
at least convinced that I didn’t betray them. You have put my hands on the reins of conquest 
again.” 
“I still owe you my ransom,” she said, her dark eyes glowing as they swept over him. “Ten 
thousand pieces of gold I will pay you – ” 
He made a savage, impatient gesture, shook the blood from his knife and thrust it back in its 
scabbard, wiping his hands on his mail. 
“I will collect your ransom in my own way, at my own time,” he said. “I will collect it in your 
palace at Ayodhya, and I will come with fifty thousand men to see that the scales are fair.” 
She laughed, gathering her reins into her hands. “And I will meet you on the shores of the 
Jhumda with a hundred thousand!” 
His eyes shone with fierce appreciation and admiration, and stepping back, he lifted his hand 
with a gesture that was like the assumption of kingship, indicating that her road was clear 
before her. 
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The Hour of the Dragon 
The Hour of the Dragon 
The Lion banner sways and falls in the horror haunted gloom; 
A scarlet Dragon rustles by, borne on winds of doom. 
In heaps the shining horsemen lie, where the thrusting lances break, 
And deep in the haunted mountains the lost, black gods awake. 
Dead hands grope in the shadows, the stars turn pale with fright, 
For this is the Dragon’s Hour, the triumph of Fear and Night. 
I
O SLEEPER, AWAKE! 
The long tapers flickered, sending the black shadows wavering along the walls, and the velvet 
tapestries rippled. Yet there was no wind in the chamber. Four men stood about the ebony table 
on which lay the green sarcophagus that gleamed like carven jade. In the upraised right hand of 
each man a curious black candle burned with a weird greenish light. Outside was night and a 
lost wind moaning among the black trees. 
Inside the chamber was tense silence, and the wavering of the shadows, while four pairs of 
eyes, burning with intensity, were fixed on the long green case across which cryptic 
hieroglyphics writhed, as if lent life and movement by the unsteady light. The man at the foot 
of the sarcophagus leaned over it and moved his candle as if he were writing with a pen, 
inscribing a mystic symbol in the air. Then he set down the candle in its black gold stick at the 
foot of the case, and, mumbling some formula unintelligible to his companions, he thrust a 
broad white hand into his fur-trimmed robe. When he brought it forth again it was as if he 
cupped in his palm a ball of living fire. 
The other three drew in their breath sharply, and the dark, powerful man who stood at the head 
of the sarcophagus whispered: “The Heart of Ahriman!” The other lifted a quick hand for 
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silence. Somewhere a dog began howling dolefully, and a stealthy step padded outside the 
barred and bolted door. But none looked aside from the mummy-case over which the man in 
the ermine-trimmed robe was now moving the great flaming jewel while he muttered an 
incantation that was old when Atlantis sank. The glare of the gem dazzled their eyes, so that 
they could not be sure of what they saw; but with a splintering crash, the carven lid of the 
sarcophagus burst outward as if from some irresistible pressure applied from within, and the 
four men, bending eagerly forward, saw the occupant – a huddled, withered, wizened shape, 
with dried brown limbs like dead wood showing through moldering bandages. 
“Bring that thing back?” muttered the small dark man who stood on the right, with a short, 
sardonic laugh. “It is ready to crumble at a touch. We are fools – ” 
“Shhh!” It was an urgent hiss of command from the large man who held the jewel. Perspiration 
stood upon his broad white forehead and his eyes were dilated. He leaned forward, and, 
without touching the thing with his hand, laid on the breast of the mummy the blazing jewel. 
Then he drew back and watched with fierce intensity, his lips moving in soundless invocation. 
It was as if a globe of living fire flickered and burned on the dead, withered bosom. And breath 
sucked in, hissing, through the clenched teeth of the watchers. For as they watched, an awful 
transmutation became apparent. The withered shape in the sarcophagus was expanding, was 
growing, lengthening. The bandages burst and fell into brown dust. The shriveled limbs 
swelled, straightened. Their dusky hue began to fade. 
“By Mitra!” whispered the tall, yellow-haired man on the left. “He was not a Stygian. That part 
at least was true.” 
Again a trembling finger warned for silence. The hound outside was no longer howling. He 
whimpered, as with an evil dream, and then that sound, too, died away in silence, in which the 
yellow-haired man plainly heard the straining of the heavy door, as if something outside 
pushed powerfully upon it. He half turned, his hand at his sword, but the man in the ermine 
robe hissed an urgent warning: “Stay! Do not break the chain! And on your life do not go to the 
door!” 
The yellow-haired man shrugged and turned back, and then he stopped short, staring. In the 
jade sarcophagus lay a living man: a tall, lusty man, naked, white of skin, and dark of hair and 
beard. He lay motionless, his eyes wide open, and blank and unknowing as a newborn babe’s. 
On his breast the great jewel smoldered and sparkled. 
The man in ermine reeled as if from some let-down of extreme tension. 
“Ishtar!” he gasped. “It is Xaltotun! – and he lives! Valerius! Tarascus! Amalric! Do you see? 
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Do you see? You doubted me – but I have not failed! We have been close to the open gates of 
hell this night, and the shapes of darkness have gathered close about us – aye, they followed 
him to the very door – but we have brought the great magician back to life.” 
“And damned our souls to purgatories everlasting, I doubt not,” muttered the small, dark man, 
Tarascus. 
The yellow-haired man, Valerius, laughed harshly. 
“What purgatory can be worse than life itself? So we are all damned together from birth. 
Besides, who would not sell his miserable soul for a throne?” 
“There is no intelligence in his stare, Orastes,” said the large man. 
“He has long been dead,” answered Orastes. “He is as one newly awakened. His mind is empty 
after the long sleep – nay, he was dead, not sleeping. We brought his spirit back over the voids 
and gulfs of night and oblivion. I will speak to him.” 
He bent over the foot of the sarcophagus, and fixing his gaze on the wide dark eyes of the man 
within, he said, slowly: “Awake, Xaltotun!” 
The lips of the man moved mechanically. “Xaltotun!” he repeated in a groping whisper. 
“You are Xaltotun!” exclaimed Orastes, like a hypnotist driving home his suggestions. “You 
are Xaltotun of Python, in Acheron.” 
A dim flame flickered in the dark eyes. 
“I was Xaltotun,” he whispered. “I am dead.” 
“You are Xaltotun!” cried Orastes. “You are not dead! You live!” 
“I am Xaltotun,” came the eery whisper. “But I am dead. In my house in Khemi, in Stygia, 
there I died.” 
“And the priests who poisoned you mummified your body with their dark arts, keeping all your 
organs intact!” exclaimed Orastes. “But now you live again! The Heart of Ahriman has 
restored your life, drawn your spirit back from space and eternity.” 
“The Heart of Ahriman!” The flame of remembrance grew stronger. “The barbarians stole it 
from me!” 
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“He remembers,” muttered Orastes. “Lift him from the case.” 
The others obeyed hesitantly, as if reluctant to touch the man they had recreated, and they 
seemed not easier in their minds when they felt firm muscular flesh, vibrant with blood and 
life, beneath their fingers. But they lifted him upon the table, and Orastes clothed him in a 
curious dark velvet robe, splashed with gold stars and crescent moons, and fastened a cloth-ofgold 
fillet about his temples, confining the black wavy locks that fell to his shoulders. He let 
them do as they would, saying nothing, not even when they set him in a carven throne-like 
chair with a high ebony back and wide silver arms, and feet like golden claws. He sat there 
motionless, and slowly intelligence grew in his dark eyes and made them deep and strange and 
luminous. It was as if long-sunken witchlights floated slowly up through midnight pools of 
darkness. 
Orastes cast a furtive glance at his companions, who stood staring in morbid fascination at their 
strange guest. Their iron nerves had withstood an ordeal that might have driven weaker men 
mad. He knew it was with no weaklings that he conspired, but men whose courage was as 
profound as their lawless ambitions and capacity for evil. He turned his attention to the figure 
in the ebon-black chair. And this one spoke at last. 
“I remember,” he said in a strong, resonant voice, speaking Nemedian with a curious, archaic 
accent. “I am Xaltotun, who was high priest of Set in Python, which was in Acheron. The Heart 
of Ahriman – I dreamed I had found it again – where is it?” 
Orastes placed it in his hand, and he drew breath deeply as he gazed into the depths of the 
terrible jewel burning in his grasp. 
“They stole it from me, long ago,” he said. “The red heart of the night it is, strong to save or to 
damn. It came from afar, and from long ago. While I held it, none could stand before me. But it 
was stolen from me, and Acheron fell, and I fled an exile into dark Stygia. Much I remember, 
but much I have forgotten. I have been in a far land, across misty voids and gulfs and unlit 
oceans. What is the year?” 
Orastes answered him. “It is the waning of the Year of the Lion, three thousand years after the 
fall of Acheron.” 
“Three thousand years!” murmured the other. “So long? Who are you?” 
“I am Orastes, once a priest of Mitra. This man is Amalric, baron of Tor, in Nemedia; this other 
is Tarascus, younger brother of the king of Nemedia; and this tall man is Valerius, rightful heir 
of the throne of Aquilonia.” 
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“Why have you given me life?” demanded Xaltotun. “What do you require of me?” 
The man was now fully alive and awake, his keen eyes reflecting the working of an unclouded 
brain. There was no hesitation or uncertainty in his manner. He came directly to the point, as 
one who knows that no man gives something for nothing. Orastes met him with equal candor. 
“We have opened the doors of hell this night to free your soul and return it to your body 
because we need your aid. We wish to place Tarascus on the throne of Nemedia, and to win for 
Valerius the crown of Aquilonia. With your necromancy you can aid us.” 
Xaltotun’s mind was devious and full of unexpected slants. 
“You must be deep in the arts yourself, Orastes, to have been able to restore my life. How is it 
that a priest of Mitra knows of the Heart of Ahriman, and the incantations of Skelos?” 
“I am no longer a priest of Mitra,” answered Orastes. “I was cast forth from my order because 
of my delving in black magic. But for Amalric there I might have been burned as a magician. 
“But that left me free to pursue my studies. I journeyed in Zamora, in Vendhya, in Stygia, and 
among the haunted jungles of Khitai. I read the iron-bound books of Skelos, and talked with 
unseen creatures in deep wells, and faceless shapes in black reeking jungles. I obtained a 
glimpse of your sarcophagus in the demon-haunted crypts below the black giant-walled temple 
of Set in the hinterlands of Stygia, and I learned of the arts that would bring back life to your 
shriveled corpse. From moldering manuscripts I learned of the Heart of Ahriman. Then for a 
year I sought its hiding-place, and at last I found it.” 
“Then why trouble to bring me back to life?” demanded Xaltotun, with his piercing gaze fixed 
on the priest. “Why did you not employ the Heart to further your own power?” 
“Because no man today knows the secrets of the Heart,” answered Orastes. “Not even in 
legends live the arts by which to loose its full powers. I knew it could restore life; of its deeper 
secrets I am ignorant. I merely used it to bring you back to life. It is the use of your knowledge 
we seek. As for the Heart, you alone know its awful secrets.” 
Xaltotun shook his head, staring broodingly into the flaming depths. 
“My necromantic knowledge is greater than the sum of all the knowledge of other men,” he 
said; “yet I do not know the full power of the jewel. I did not invoke it in the old days; I 
guarded it lest it be used against me. At last it was stolen, and in the hands of a feathered 
shaman of the barbarians it defeated all my mighty sorcery. Then it vanished, and I was 
poisoned by the jealous priests of Stygia before I could learn where it was hidden.” 
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“It was hidden in a cavern below the temple of Mitra, in Tarantia,” said Orastes. “By devious 
ways I discovered this, after I had located your remains in Set’s subterranean temple in Stygia. 
“Zamorian thieves, partly protected by spells I learned from sources better left unmentioned, 
stole your mummy-case from under the very talons of those which guarded it in the dark, and 
by camel-caravan and galley and ox-wagon it came at last to this city. 
“Those same thieves – or rather those of them who still lived after their frightful quest – stole 
the Heart of Ahriman from its haunted cavern below the temple of Mitra, and all the skill of 
men and the spells of sorcerers nearly failed. One man of them lived long enough to reach me 
and give the jewel into my hands, before he died slavering and gibbering of what he had seen 
in that accursed crypt. The thieves of Zamora are the most faithful of men to their trust. Even 
with my conjurements, none but them could have stolen the Heart from where it has lain in 
demon-guarded darkness since the fall of Acheron, three thousand years ago.” 
Xaltotun lifted his lion-like head and stared far off into space, as if plumbing the lost centuries. 
“Three thousand years!” he muttered. “Set! Tell me what has chanced in the world.” 
“The barbarians who overthrew Acheron set up new kingdoms,” quoth Orastes. “Where the 
empire had stretched now rose realms called Aquilonia, and Nemedia, and Argos, from the 
tribes that founded them. The older kingdoms of Ophir, Corinthia and western Koth, which had 
been subject to the kings of Acheron, regained their independence with the fall of the empire.” 
“And what of the people of Acheron?” demanded Orastes. “When I fled into Stygia, Python 
was in ruins, and all the great, purple-towered cities of Acheron fouled with blood and 
trampled by the sandals of the barbarians.” 
“In the hills small groups of folk still boast descent from Acheron,” answered Orastes. “For the 
rest, the tide of my barbarian ancestors rolled over them and wiped them out. They – my 
ancestors – had suffered much from the kings of Acheron.” 
A grim and terrible smile curled the Pythonian’s lips. 
“Aye! Many a barbarian, both man and woman, died screaming on the altar under this hand. I 
have seen their heads piled to make a pyramid in the great square in Python when the kings 
returned from the west with their spoils and naked captives.” 
“Aye. And when the day of reckoning came, the sword was not spared. So Acheron ceased to 
be, and purple-towered Python became a memory of forgotten days. But the younger kingdoms 
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rose on the imperial ruins and waxed great. And now we have brought you back to aid us to 
rule these kingdoms, which, if less strange and wonderful than Acheron of old, are yet rich and 
powerful, well worth fighting for. Look!” Orastes unrolled before the stranger a map drawn 
cunningly on vellum. 
Xaltotun regarded it, and then shook his head, baffled. 
“The very outlines of the land are changed. It is like some familiar thing seen in a dream, 
fantastically distorted.” 
“Howbeit,” answered Orastes, tracing with his forefinger, “here is Belverus, the capital of 
Nemedia, in which we now are. Here run the boundaries of the land of Nemedia. To the south 
and southeast are Ophir and Corinthia, to the east Brythunia, to the west Aquilonia.” 
“It is the map of a world I do not know,” said Xaltotun softly, but Orastes did not miss the lurid 
fire of hate that flickered in his dark eyes. 
“It is a map you shall help us change,” answered Orastes. “It is our desire first to set Tarascus 
on the throne of Nemedia. We wish to accomplish this without strife, and in such a way that no 
suspicion will rest on Tarascus. We do not wish the land to be torn by civil wars, but to reserve 
all our power for the conquest of Aquilonia. 
“Should King Nimed and his sons die naturally, in a plague for instance, Tarascus would 
mount the throne as the next heir, peacefully and unopposed.” 
Xaltotun nodded, without replying, and Orastes continued. 
“The other task will be more difficult. We cannot set Valerius on the Aquilonian throne 
without a war, and that kingdom is a formidable foe. Its people are a hardy, war-like race, 
toughened by continual wars with the Picts, Zingarans and Cimmerians. For five hundred years 
Aquilonia and Nemedia have intermittently waged war, and the ultimate advantage has always 
lain with the Aquilonians. 
“Their present king is the most renowned warrior among the western nations. He is an 
outlander, an adventurer who seized the crown by force during a time of civil strife, strangling 
King Namedides with his own hands, upon the very throne. His name is Conan, and no man 
can stand before him in battle. 
“Valerius is now the rightful heir of the throne. He had been driven into exile by his royal 
kinsman, Namedides, and has been away from his native realm for years, but he is of the blood 
of the old dynasty, and many of the barons would secretly hail the overthrow of Conan, who is 
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a nobody without royal or even noble blood. But the common people are loyal to him, and the 
nobility of the outlying provinces. Yet if his forces were overthrown in the battle that must first 
take place, and Conan himself slain, I think it would not be difficult to put Valerius on the 
throne. Indeed, with Conan slain, the only center of the government would be gone. He is not 
part of a dynasty, but only a lone adventurer.” 
“I wish that I might see this king,” mused Xaltotun, glancing toward a silvery mirror which 
formed one of the panels of the wall. This mirror cast no reflection, but Xaltotun’s expression 
showed that he understood its purpose, and Orastes nodded with the pride a good craftsman 
takes in the recognition of his accomplishments by a master of his craft. 
“I will try to show him to you,” he said. And seating himself before the mirror, he gazed 
hypnotically into its depths, where presently a dim shadow began to take shape. 
It was uncanny, but those watching knew it was no more than the reflected image of Orastes’ 
thought, embodied in that mirror as a wizard’s thoughts are embodied in a magic crystal. It 
floated hazily, then leaped into startling clarity – a tall man, mightily shouldered and deep of 
chest, with a massive corded neck and heavily muscled limbs. He was clad in silk and velvet, 
with the royal lions of Aquilonia worked in gold upon his rich jupon, and the crown of 
Aquilonia shone on his square-cut black mane; but the great sword at his side seemed more 
natural to him than the regal accouterments. His brow was low and broad, his eyes a volcanic 
blue that smoldered as if with some inner fire. His dark, scarred, almost sinister face was that 
of a fighting-man, and his velvet garments could not conceal the hard, dangerous lines of his 
limbs. 
“That man is no Hyborian!” exclaimed Xaltotun. 
“No; he is a Cimmerian, one of those wild tribesmen who dwell in the gray hills of the north.” 
“I fought his ancestors of old,” muttered Xaltotun. “Not even the kings of Acheron could 
conquer them.” 
“They still remain a terror to the nations of the south,” answered Orastes. “He is a true son of 
that savage race, and has proved himself, thus far, unconquerable.” 
Xaltotun did not reply; he sat staring down at the pool of living fire that shimmered in his hand. 
Outside, the hound howled again, long and shudderingly. 
II 
A BLACK WIND BLOWS 
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The year of the Dragon had birth in war and pestilence and unrest. The black plague stalked 
through the streets of Belverus, striking down the merchant in his stall, the serf in his kennel, 
the knight at his banquet board. Before it the arts of the leeches were helpless. Men said it had 
been sent from hell as punishment for the sins of pride and lust. It was swift and deadly as the 
stroke of an adder. The victim’s body turned purple and then black, and within a few minutes 
he sank down dying, and the stench of his own putrefaction was in his nostrils even before 
death wrenched his soul from his rotting body. A hot, roaring wind blew incessantly from the 
south, and the crops withered in the fields, the cattle sank and died in their tracks. 
Men cried out on Mitra, and muttered against the king; for somehow, throughout the kingdom, 
the word was whispered that the king was secretly addicted to loathsome practises and foul 
debauches in the seclusion of his nighted palace. And then in that palace death stalked grinning 
on feet about which swirled the monstrous vapors of the plague. In one night the king died with 
his three sons, and the drums that thundered their dirge drowned the grim and ominous bells 
that rang from the carts that lumbered through the streets gathering up the rotting dead. 
That night, just before dawn, the hot wind that had blown for weeks ceased to rustle evilly 
through the silken window curtains. Out of the north rose a great wind that roared among the 
towers, and there was cataclysmic thunder, and blinding sheets of lightning, and driving rain. 
But the dawn shone clean and green and clear; the scorched ground veiled itself in grass, the 
thirsty crops sprang up anew, and the plague was gone – its miasma swept clean out of the land 
by the mighty wind. 
Men said the gods were satisfied because the evil king and his spawn were slain, and when his 
young brother Tarascus was crowned in the great coronation hall, the populace cheered until 
the towers rocked, acclaiming the monarch on whom the gods smiled. 
Such a wave of enthusiasm and rejoicing as swept the land is frequently the signal for a war of 
conquest. So no one was surprized when it was announced that King Tarascus had declared the 
truce made by the late king with their western neighbors void, and was gathering his hosts to 
invade Aquilonia. His reason was candid; his motives, loudly proclaimed, gilded his actions 
with something of the glamor of a crusade. He espoused the cause of Valerius, “rightful heir to 
the throne”; he came, he proclaimed, not as an enemy of Aquilonia, but as a friend, to free the 
people from the tyranny of a usurper and a foreigner. 
If there were cynical smiles in certain quarters, and whispers concerning the king’s good friend 
Amalric, whose vast personal wealth seemed to be flowing into the rather depleted royal 
treasury, they were unheeded in the general wave of fervor and zeal of Tarascus’s popularity. If 
any shrewd individuals suspected that Amalric was the real ruler of Nemedia, behind the 
scenes, they were careful not to voice such heresy. And the war went forward with enthusiasm. 
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The king and his allies moved westward at the head of fifty thousand men – knights in shining 
armor with their pennons streaming above their helmets, pikemen in steel caps and brigandines, 
crossbowmen in leather jerkins. They crossed the border, took a frontier castle and burned 
three mountain villages, and then, in the valley of the Valkia, ten miles west of the boundary 
line, they met the hosts of Conan, king of Aquilonia – forty-five thousand knights, archers and 
men-at-arms, the flower of Aquilonian strength and chivalry. Only the knights of Poitain, under 
Prospero, had not yet arrived, for they had far to ride up from the southwestern corner of the 
kingdom. Tarascus had struck without warning. His invasion had come on the heels of his 
proclamation, without formal declaration of war. 
The two hosts confronted each other across a wide, shallow valley, with rugged cliffs, and a 
shallow stream winding through masses of reeds and willows down the middle of the vale. The 
camp-followers of both hosts came down to this stream for water, and shouted insults and 
hurled stones across at one another. The last glints of the sun shone on the golden banner of 
Nemedia with the scarlet dragon, unfurled in the breeze above the pavilion of King Tarascus on 
an eminence near the eastern cliffs. But the shadow of the western cliffs fell like a vast purple 
pall across the tents and the army of Aquilonia, and upon the black banner with its golden lion 
that floated above King Conan’s pavilion. 
All night the fires flared the length of the valley, and the wind brought the call of trumpets, the 
clangor of arms, and the sharp challenges of the sentries who paced their horses along either 
edge of the willow-grown stream. 
It was in the darkness before dawn that King Conan stirred on his couch, which was no more 
than a pile of silks and furs thrown on a dais, and awakened. He started up, crying out sharply 
and clutching at his sword. Pallantides, his commander, rushing in at the cry, saw his king 
sitting upright, his hand on his hilt, and perspiration dripping from his strangely pale face. 
“Your Majesty!” exclaimed Pallantides. “Is aught amiss?” 
“What of the camp?” demanded Conan. “Are the guards out?” 
“Five hundred horsemen patrol the stream, Your Majesty,” answered the general. “The 
Nemedians have not offered to move against us in the night. They wait for dawn, even as we.” 
“By Crom,” muttered Conan. “I awoke with a feeling that doom was creeping on me in the 
night.” 
He stared up at the great golden lamp which shed a soft glow over the velvet hangings and 
carpets of the great tent. They were alone; not even a slave or a page slept on the carpeted 
floor; but Conan’s eyes blazed as they were wont to blaze in the teeth of great peril, and the 
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sword quivered in his hand. Pallantides watched him uneasily. Conan seemed to be listening. 
“Listen!” hissed the king. “Did you hear it? A furtive step!” 
“Seven knights guard your tent, Your Majesty,” said Pallantides. “None could approach it 
unchallenged.” 
“Not outside,” growled Conan. “It seemed to sound inside the tent.” 
Pallantides cast a swift, startled look around. The velvet hangings merged with shadows in the 
corners, but if there had been anyone in the pavilion besides themselves, the general would 
have seen him. Again he shook his head. 
“There is no one here, sire. You sleep in the midst of your host.” 
“I have seen death strike a king in the midst of thousands,” muttered Conan. “Something that 
walks on invisible feet and is not seen – ” 
“Perhaps you were dreaming, Your Majesty,” said Pallantides, somewhat perturbed. 
“So I was,” grunted Conan. “A devilish strange dream it was, too. I trod again all the long, 
weary roads I traveled on my way to the kingship.” 
He fell silent, and Pallantides stared at him unspeaking. The king was an enigma to the general, 
as to most of his civilized subjects. Pallantides knew that Conan had walked many strange 
roads in his wild, eventful life, and had been many things before a twist of Fate set him on the 
throne of Aquilonia. 
“I saw again the battlefield whereon I was born,” said Conan, resting his chin moodily on a 
massive fist. “I saw myself in a pantherskin loin-clout, throwing my spear at the mountain 
beasts. I was a mercenary swordsman again, a hetman of the kozaki who dwell along the 
Zaporoska River, a corsair looting the coasts of Kush, a pirate of the Barachan Isles, a chief of 
the Himelian hillmen. All these things I’ve been, and of all these things I dreamed; all the 
shapes that have been I passed like an endless procession, and their feet beat out a dirge in the 
sounding dust. 
“But throughout my dreams moved strange, veiled figures and ghostly shadows, and a far-away 
voice mocked me. And toward the last I seemed to see myself lying on this dais in my tent, and 
a shape bent over me, robed and hooded. I lay unable to move, and then the hood fell away and 
a moldering skull grinned down at me. Then it was that I awoke.” 
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“This is an evil dream, Your Majesty,” said Pallantides, suppressing a shudder. “But no more.” 
Conan shook his head, more in doubt than in denial. He came of a barbaric race, and the 
superstitions and instincts of his heritage lurked close beneath the surface of his consciousness. 
“I’ve dreamed many evil dreams,” he said, “and most of them were meaningless. But by Crom, 
this was not like most dreams! I wish this battle were fought and won, for I’ve had a grisly 
premonition ever since King Nimed died in the black plague. Why did it cease when he died?” 
“Men say he sinned – ” 
“Men are fools, as always,” grunted Conan. “If the plague struck all who sinned, then by Crom, 
there wouldn’t be enough left to count the living! Why should the gods – who the priests tell 
me are just – slay five hundred peasants and merchants and nobles before they slew the king, if 
the whole pestilence were aimed at him? Were the gods smiting blindly, like swordsmen in a 
fog? By Mitra, if I aimed my strokes no straighter, Aquilonia would have had a new king long 
ago. 
“No! The black plague’s no common pestilence. It lurks in Stygian tombs, and is called forth 
into being only by wizards. I was a swordsman in Prince Almuric’s army that invaded Stygia, 
and of his thirty thousand, fifteen thousand perished by Stygian arrows, and the rest by the 
black plague that rolled on us like a wind out of the south. I was the only man who lived.” 
“Yet only five hundred died in Nemedia,” argued Pallantides. 
“Whoever called it into being knew how to cut it short at will,” answered Conan. “So I know 
there was something planned and diabolical about it. Someone called it forth, someone 
banished it when the work was completed – when Tarascus was safe on the throne and being 
hailed as the deliverer of the people from the wrath of the gods. By Crom, I sense a black, 
subtle brain behind all this. What of this stranger who men say gives counsel to Tarascus?” 
“He wears a veil,” answered Pallantides; “they say he is a foreigner; a stranger from Stygia.” 
“A stranger from Stygia!” repeated Conan scowling. “A stranger from hell, more like! – Ha! 
What is that?” 
“The trumpets of the Nemedians!” exclaimed Pallantides. “And hark, how our own blare upon 
their heels! Dawn is breaking, and the captains are marshaling the hosts for the onset! Mitra be 
with them, for many will not see the sun go down behind the crags.” 
“Send my squires to me!” exclaimed Conan, rising with alacrity and casting off his velvet night- 
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garment; he seemed to have forgotten his forebodings at the prospect of action. “Go to the 
captains and see that all is in readiness. I will be with you as soon as I don my armor.” 
Many of Conan’s ways were inexplicable to the civilized people he ruled, and one of them was 
his insistence on sleeping alone in his chamber or tent. Pallantides hastened from the pavilion, 
clanking in the armor he had donned at midnight after a few hours’ sleep. He cast a swift 
glance over the camp, which was beginning to swarm with activity, mail clinking and men 
moving about dimly in the uncertain light, among the long lines of tents. Stars still glimmered 
palely in the western sky, but long pink streamers stretched along the eastern horizon, and 
against them the dragon banner of Nemedia flung out its billowing silken folds. 
Pallantides turned toward a smaller tent near by, where slept the royal squires. These were 
tumbling out already, roused by the trumpets. And as Pallantides called to them to hasten, he 
was frozen speechless by a deep fierce shout and the impact of a heavy blow inside the king’s 
tent, followed by the heart-stopping crash of a falling body. There sounded a low laugh that 
turned the general’s blood to ice. 
Echoing the cry, Pallantides wheeled and rushed back into the pavilion. He cried out again as 
he saw Conan’s powerful frame stretched out on the carpet. The king’s great two-handed sword 
lay near his hand, and a shattered tent-pole seemed to show where his stroke had fallen. 
Pallantides’ sword was out, and he glared about the tent, but nothing met his gaze. Save for the 
king and himself it was empty, as it had been when he left it. 
“Your Majesty!” Pallantides threw himself on his knee beside the fallen giant. 
Conan’s eyes were open; they blazed up at him with full intelligence and recognition. His lips 
writhed, but no sound came forth. He seemed unable to move. 
Voices sounded without. Pallantides rose swiftly and stepped to the door. The royal squires and 
one of the knights who guarded the tent stood there. 
“We heard a sound within,” said the knight apologetically. “Is all well with the king?” 
Pallantides regarded him searchingly. 
“None has entered or left the pavilion this night?” 
“None save yourself, my lord,” answered the knight, and Pallantides could not doubt his 
honesty. 
“The king stumbled and dropped his sword,” said Pallantides briefly. “Return to your post.” 
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As the knight turned away, the general covertly motioned to the five royal squires, and when 
they had followed him in, he drew the flap closely. They turned pale at sight of the king 
stretched upon the carpet, but Pallantides’ quick gesture checked their exclamations. 
The general bent over him again, and again Conan made an effort to speak. The veins in his 
temples and the cords in his neck swelled with his efforts, and he lifted his head clear of the 
ground. Voice came at last, mumbling and half intelligible. 
“The thing – the thing in the corner!” 
Pallantides lifted his head and looked fearfully about him. He saw the pale faces of the squires 
in the lamplight, the velvet shadows that lurked along the walls of the pavilion. That was all. 
“There is nothing here, Your Majesty,” he said. 
“It was there, in the corner,” muttered the king, tossing his lion-maned head from side to side 
in his efforts to rise. “A man – at least he looked like a man – wrapped in rags like a mummy’s 
bandages, with a moldering cloak drawn about him, and a hood. All I could see was his eyes, 
as he crouched there in the shadows. I thought he was a shadow himself, until I saw his eyes. 
They were like black jewels. 
“I made at him and swung my sword, but I missed him clean – how, Crom knows – and 
splintered that pole instead. He caught my wrist as I staggered off balance, and his fingers 
burned like hot iron. All the strength went out of me, and the floor rose and struck me like a 
club. Then he was gone, and I was down, and – curse him! – I can’t move! I’m paralyzed!” 
Pallantides lifted the giant’s hand, and his flesh crawled. On the king’s wrist showed the blue 
marks of long, lean fingers. What hand could grip so hard as to leave its print on that thick 
wrist? Pallantides remembered that low laugh he had heard as he rushed into the tent, and cold 
perspiration beaded his skin. It had not been Conan who laughed. 
“This is a thing diabolical!” whispered a trembling squire. “Men say the children of darkness 
war for Tarascus!” 
“Be silent!” ordered Pallantides sternly. 
Outside, the dawn was dimming the stars. A light wind sprang up from the peaks, and brought 
the fanfare of a thousand trumpets. At the sound a convulsive shudder ran through the king’s 
mighty form. Again the veins in his temples knotted as he strove to break the invisible shackles 
which crushed him down. 
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“Put my harness on me and tie me into my saddle,” he whispered. “I’ll lead the charge yet!” 
Pallantides shook his head, and a squire plucked his skirt. 
“My lord, we are lost if the host learns the king has been smitten! Only he could have led us to 
victory this day.” 
“Help me lift him on the dais,” answered the general. 
They obeyed, and laid the helpless giant on the furs, and spread a silken cloak over him. 
Pallantides turned to the five squires and searched their pale faces long before he spoke. 
“Our lips must be sealed for ever as to what happens in this tent,” he said at last. “The kingdom 
of Aquilonia depends upon it. One of you go and fetch me the officer Valannus, who is a 
captain of the Pellian spearmen.” 
The squire indicated bowed and hastened from the tent, and Pallantides stood staring down at 
the stricken king, while outside trumpets blared, drums thundered, and the roar of the 
multitudes rose in the growing dawn. Presently the squire returned with the officer Pallantides 
had named – a tall man, broad and powerful, built much like the king. Like him, also, he had 
thick black hair. But his eyes were gray and he did not resemble Conan in his features. 
“The king is stricken by a strange malady,” said Pallantides briefly. “A great honor is yours; 
you are to wear his armor and ride at the head of the host today. None must know that it is not 
the king who rides.” 
“It is an honor for which a man might gladly give up his life,” stammered the captain, 
overcome by the suggestion. “Mitra grant that I do not fail of this mighty trust!” 
And while the fallen king stared with burning eyes that reflected the bitter rage and humiliation 
that ate his heart, the squires stripped Valannus of mail shirt, burganet and leg-pieces, and clad 
him in Conan’s armor of black plate-mail, with the vizored salade, and the dark plumes 
nodding over the wivern crest. Over all they put the silken surcoat with the royal lion worked 
in gold upon the breast, and they girt him with a broad gold-buckled belt which supported a 
jewel-hilted broadsword in a cloth-of-gold scabbard. While they worked, trumpets clamored 
outside, arms clanged, and across the river rose a deep-throated roar as squadron after squadron 
swung into place. 
Full-armed, Valannus dropped to his knee and bent his plumes before the figure that lay on the 
dais. 
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“Lord king, Mitra grant that I do not dishonor the harness I wear this day!” 
“Bring me Tarascus’s head and I’ll make you a baron!” In the stress of his anguish Conan’s 
veneer of civilization had fallen from him. His eyes flamed, he ground his teeth in fury and 
blood-lust, as barbaric as any tribesmen in the Cimmerian hills. 
III 
THE CLIFFS REEL 
The Aquilonian host was drawn up, long serried lines of pikemen and horsemen in gleaming 
steel, when a giant figure in black armor emerged from the royal pavilion, and as he swung up 
into the saddle of the black stallion held by four squires, a roar that shook the mountains went 
up from the host. They shook their blades and thundered forth their acclaim of their warrior 
king – knights in gold-chased armor, pikemen in mail coats and basinets, archers in their 
leather jerkins, with their longbows in their left hand. 
The host on the opposite side of the valley was in motion, trotting down the long gentle slope 
toward the river; their steel shone through the mists of morning that swirled about their horses’ 
feet. 
The Aquilonian host moved leisurely to meet them. The measured tramp of the armored horses 
made the ground tremble. Banners flung out long silken folds in the morning wind; lances 
swayed like a bristling forest, dipped and sank, their pennons fluttering about them. 
Ten men-at-arms, grim, taciturn veterans who could hold their tongues, guarded the royal 
pavilion. One squire stood in the tent, peering out through a slit in the doorway. But for the 
handful in the secret, no one else in the vast host knew that it was not Conan who rode on the 
great stallion at the head of the army. 
The Aquilonian host had assumed the customary formation: the strongest part was the center, 
composed entirely of heavily armed knights; the wings were made up of smaller bodies of 
horsemen, mounted men-at-arms, mostly, supported by pikemen and archers. The latter were 
Bossonians from the western marches, strongly built men of medium stature, in leathern jackets 
and iron head-pieces. 
The Nemedian army came on in similar formation, and the two hosts moved toward the river, 
the wings in advance of the centers. In the center of the Aquilonian host the great lion banner 
streamed its billowing black folds over the steel-clad figure on the black stallion. 
But on his dais in the royal pavilion Conan groaned in anguish of spirit, and cursed with 
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strange heathen oaths. 
“The hosts move together,” quoth the squire, watching from the door. “Hear the trumpets peal! 
Ha! The rising sun strikes fire from lance-heads and helmets until I am dazzled. It turns the 
river crimson – aye, it will be truly crimson before this day is done! 
“The foe have reached the river. Now arrows fly between the hosts like stinging clouds that 
hide the sun. Ha! Well loosed, bowmen! The Bossonians have the better of it! Hark to them 
shout!” 
Faintly in the ears of the king, above the din of trumpets and clanging steel, came the deep 
fierce shout of the Bossonians as they drew and loosed in perfect unison. 
“Their archers seek to hold ours in play while their knights ride into the river,” said the squire. 
“The banks are not steep; they slope to the water’s edge. The knights come on, they crash 
through the willows. By Mitra, the clothyard shafts find every crevice of their harness! Horses 
and men go down, struggling and thrashing in the water. It is not deep, nor is the current swift, 
but men are drowning there, dragged under by their armor, and trampled by the frantic horses. 
Now the knights of Aquilonia advance. They ride into the water and engage the knights of 
Nemedia. The water swirls about their horses’ bellies and the clang of sword against sword is 
deafening.” 
“Crom!” burst in agony from Conan’s lips. Life was coursing sluggishly back into his veins, 
but still he could not lift his mighty frame from the dais. 
“The wings close in,” said the squire. “Pikemen and swordsmen fight hand to hand in the 
stream, and behind them the bowmen ply their shafts. 
“By Mitra, the Nemedian arbalesters are sorely harried, and the Bossonians arch their arrows to 
drop amid the rear ranks. Their center gains not a foot, and their wings are pushed back up 
from the stream again.” 
“Crom, Ymir, and Mitra!” raged Conan. “Gods and devils, could I but reach the fighting, if but 
to die at the first blow!” 
Outside through the long hot day the battle stormed and thundered. The valley shook to charge 
and counter-charge, to the whistling of shafts, and the crash of rending shields and splintering 
lances. But the hosts of Aquilonia held fast. Once they were forced back from the bank, but a 
counter-charge, with the black banner flowing over the black stallion, regained the lost ground. 
And like an iron rampart they held the right bank of the stream, and at last the squire gave 
Conan the news that the Nemedians were falling back from the river. 
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“Their wings are in confusion!” he cried. “Their knights reel back from the sword-play. But 
what is this? Your banner is in motion – the center sweeps into the stream! By Mitra, Valannus 
is leading the host across the river!” 
“Fool!” groaned Conan. “It may be a trick. He should hold his position; by dawn Prospero will 
be here with the Poitanian levies.” 
“The knights ride into a hail of arrows!” cried the squire. “But they do not falter! They sweep 
on – they have crossed! They charge up the slope! Pallantides has hurled the wings across the 
river to their support! It is all he can do. The lion banner dips and staggers above the mêlée. 
“The knights of Nemedia make a stand. They are broken! They fall back! Their left wing is in 
full flight, and our pikemen cut them down as they run! I see Valannus, riding and smiting like 
a madman. He is carried beyond himself by the fighting-lust. Men no longer look to 
Pallantides. They follow Valannus, deeming him Conan, as he rides with closed vizor. 
“But look! There is method in his madness! He swings wide of the Nemedian front, with five 
thousand knights, the pick of the army. The main host of the Nemedians is in confusion – and 
look! Their flank is protected by the cliffs, but there is a defile left unguarded! It is like a great 
cleft in the wall that opens again behind the Nemedian lines. By Mitra, Valannus sees and 
seizes the opportunity! He has driven their wing before him, and he leads his knights toward 
that defile. They swing wide of the main battle; they cut through a line of spearmen, they 
charge into the defile!” 
“An ambush!” cried Conan, striving to struggle upright. 
“No!” shouted the squire exultantly. “The whole Nemedian host is in full sight! They have 
forgotten the defile! They never expected to be pushed back that far. Oh, fool, fool, Tarascus, 
to make such a blunder! Ah, I see lances and pennons pouring from the farther mouth of the 
defile, beyond the Nemedian lines. They will smite those ranks from the rear and crumple 
them. Mitra, what is this?” 
He staggered as the walls of the tent swayed drunkenly. Afar over the thunder of the fight rose 
a deep bellowing roar, indescribably ominous. 
“The cliffs reel!” shrieked the squire. “Ah, gods, what is this? The river foams out of its 
channel, and the peaks are crumbling! The ground shakes and horses and riders in armor are 
overthrown! The cliffs! The cliffs are falling!” 
With his words there came a grinding rumble and a thunderous concussion, and the ground 
trembled. Over the roar of the battle sounded screams of mad terror. 
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“The cliffs have crumbled!” cried the livid squire. “They have thundered down into the defile 
and crushed every living creature in it! I saw the lion banner wave an instant amid the dust and 
falling stones, and then it vanished! Ha, the Nemedians shout with triumph! Well may they 
shout, for the fall of the cliffs has wiped out five thousand of our bravest knights – hark!” 
To Conan’s ears came a vast torrent of sound, rising and rising in frenzy: “The king is dead! 
The king is dead! Flee! Flee! The king is dead!” 
“Liars!” panted Conan. “Dogs! Knaves! Cowards! Oh, Crom, if I could but stand – but crawl to 
the river with my sword in my teeth! How, boy, do they flee?” 
“Aye!” sobbed the squire. “They spur for the river; they are broken, hurled on like spume 
before a storm. I see Pallantides striving to stem the torrent – he is down, and the horses 
trample him! They rush into the river, knights, bowmen, pikemen, all mixed and mingled in 
one mad torrent of destruction. The Nemedians are on their heels, cutting them down like corn.” 
“But they will make a stand on this side of the river!” cried the king. With an effort that 
brought the sweat dripping from his temples, he heaved himself up on his elbows. 
“Nay!” cried the squire. “They cannot! They are broken! Routed! Oh gods, that I should live to 
see this day!” 
Then he remembered his duty and shouted to the men-at-arms who stood stolidly watching the 
flight of their comrades. “Get a horse, swiftly, and help me lift the king upon it. We dare not 
bide here.” 
But before they could do his bidding, the first drift of the storm was upon them. Knights and 
spearmen and archers fled among the tents, stumbling over ropes and baggage, and mingled 
with them were Nemedian riders, who smote right and left at all alien figures. Tent-ropes were 
cut, fire sprang up in a hundred places, and the plundering had already begun. The grim 
guardsmen about Conan’s tent died where they stood, smiting and thrusting, and over their 
mangled corpses beat the hoofs of the conquerors. 
But the squire had drawn the flap close, and in the confused madness of the slaughter none 
realized that the pavilion held an occupant. So the flight and the pursuit swept past, and roared 
away up the valley, and the squire looked out presently to see a cluster of men approaching the 
royal tent with evident purpose. 
“Here comes the king of Nemedia with four companions and his squire,” quoth he. “He will 
accept your surrender, my fair lord – ” 
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“Surrender the devil’s heart!” gritted the king. 
He had forced himself up to a sitting posture. He swung his legs painfully off the dais, and 
staggered upright, reeling drunkenly. The squire ran to assist him, but Conan pushed him away. 
“Give me that bow!” he gritted, indicating a longbow and quiver that hung from a tent-pole. 
“But Your Majesty!” cried the squire in great perturbation. “The battle is lost! It were the part 
of majesty to yield with the dignity becoming one of royal blood!” 
“I have no royal blood,” ground Conan. “I am a barbarian and the son of a blacksmith.” 
Wrenching away the bow and an arrow he staggered toward the opening of the pavilion. So 
formidable was his appearance, naked but for short leather breeks and sleeveless shirt, open to 
reveal his great, hairy chest, with his huge limbs and his blue eyes blazing under his tangled 
black mane, that the squire shrank back, more afraid of his king than of the whole Nemedian 
host. 
Reeling on wide-braced legs Conan drunkenly tore the door-flap open and staggered out under 
the canopy. The king of Nemedia and his companions had dismounted, and they halted short, 
staring in wonder at the apparition confronting them. 
“Here I am, you jackals!” roared the Cimmerian. “I am the king! Death to you, dog-brothers!” 
He jerked the arrow to its head and loosed, and the shaft feathered itself in the breast of the 
knight who stood beside Tarascus. Conan hurled the bow at the king of Nemedia. 
“Curse my shaky hand! Come in and take me if you dare!” 
Reeling backward on unsteady legs, he fell with his shoulders against a tent-pole, and propped 
upright, he lifted his great sword with both hands. 
“By Mitra, it is the king!” swore Tarascus. He cast a swift look about him, and laughed. “That 
other was a jackal in his harness! In, dogs, and take his head!” 
The three soldiers – men-at-arms wearing the emblem of the royal guards – rushed at the king, 
and one felled the squire with a blow of a mace. The other two fared less well. As the first 
rushed in, lifting his sword, Conan met him with a sweeping stroke that severed mail-links like 
cloth, and sheared the Nemedian’s arm and shoulder clean from his body. His corpse, pitching 
backward, fell across his companion’s legs. The man stumbled, and before he could recover, 
the great sword was through him. 
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Conan wrenched out his steel with a racking gasp, and staggered back against the tent-pole. His 
great limbs trembled, his chest heaved, and sweat poured down his face and neck. But his eyes 
flamed with exultant savagery and he panted: “Why do you stand afar off, dog of Belverus? I 
can’t reach you; come in and die!” 
Tarascus hesitated, glanced at the remaining man-at-arms, and his squire, a gaunt, saturnine 
man in black mail, and took a step forward. He was far inferior in size and strength to the giant 
Cimmerian, but he was in full armor, and was famed in all the western nations as a swordsman. 
But his squire caught his arm. 
“Nay, Your Majesty, do not throw away your life. I will summon archers to shoot this 
barbarian, as we shoot lions.” 
Neither of them had noticed that a chariot had approached while the fight was going on, and 
now came to a halt before them. But Conan saw, looking over their shoulders, and a queer chill 
sensation crawled along his spine. There was something vaguely unnatural about the 
appearance of the black horses that drew the vehicle, but it was the occupant of the chariot that 
arrested the king’s attention. 
He was a tall man, superbly built, clad in a long unadorned silk robe. He wore a Shemitish 
head-dress, and its lower folds hid his features, except for the dark, magnetic eyes. The hands 
that grasped the reins, pulling the rearing horses back on their haunches, were white but strong. 
Conan glared at the stranger, all his primitive instincts roused. He sensed an aura of menace 
and power that exuded from this veiled figure, a menace as definite as the windless waving of 
tall grass that marks the path of the serpent. 
“Hail, Xaltotun!” exclaimed Tarascus. “Here is the king of Aquilonia! He did not die in the 
landslide as we thought.” 
“I know,” answered the other, without bothering to say how he knew. “What is your present 
intention?” 
“I will summon the archers to slay him,” answered the Nemedian. “As long as he lives he will 
be dangerous to us.” 
“Yet even a dog has uses,” answered Xaltotun. “Take him alive.” 
Conan laughed raspingly. “Come in and try!” he challenged. “But for my treacherous legs I’d 
hew you out of that chariot like a woodman hewing a tree. But you’ll never take me alive, 
damn you!” 
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“He speaks the truth, I fear,” said Tarascus. “The man is a barbarian, with the senseless ferocity 
of a wounded tiger. Let me summon the archers.” 
“Watch me and learn wisdom,” advised Xaltotun. 
His hand dipped into his robe and came out with something shining – a glistening sphere. This 
he threw suddenly at Conan. The Cimmerian contemptuously struck it aside with his sword – at 
the instant of contact there was a sharp explosion, a flare of white, blinding flame, and Conan 
pitched senseless to the ground. 
“He is dead?” Tarascus’s tone was more assertion than inquiry. 
“No. He is but senseless. He will recover his senses in a few hours. Bid your men bind his arms 
and legs and lift him into my chariot.” 
With a gesture Tarascus did so, and they heaved the senseless king into the chariot, grunting 
with their burden. Xaltotun threw a velvet cloak over his body, completely covering him from 
any who might peer in. He gathered the reins in his hands. 
“I’m for Belverus,” he said. “Tell Amalric that I will be with him if he needs me. But with 
Conan out of the way, and his army broken, lance and sword should suffice for the rest of the 
conquest. Prospero cannot be bringing more than ten thousand men to the field, and will 
doubtless fall back to Tarantia when he hears the news of the battle. Say nothing to Amalric or 
Valerius or anyone about our capture. Let them think Conan died in the fall of the cliffs.” 
He looked at the man-at-arms for a long space, until the guardsman moved restlessly, nervous 
under the scrutiny. 
“What is that about your waist?” Xaltotun demanded. 
“Why, my girdle, may it please you, my lord!” stuttered the amazed guardsman. 
“You lie!” Xaltotun’s laugh was merciless as a sword-edge. “It is a poisonous serpent! What a 
fool you are, to wear a reptile about your waist!” 
With distended eyes the man looked down; and to his utter horror he saw the buckle of his 
girdle rear up at him. It was a snake’s head! He saw the evil eyes and the dripping fangs, heard 
the hiss and felt the loathsome contact of the thing about his body. He screamed hideously and 
struck at it with his naked hand, felt its fangs flesh themselves in that hand – and then he 
stiffened and fell heavily. Tarascus looked down at him without expression. He saw only the 
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leathern girdle and the buckle, the pointed tongue of which was stuck in the guardsman’s palm. 
Xaltotun turned his hypnotic gaze on Tarascus’s squire, and the man turned ashen and began to 
tremble, but the king interposed: “Nay, we can trust him.” 
The sorcerer tautened the reins and swung the horses around. 
“See that this piece of work remains secret. If I am needed, let Altaro, Orastes’ servant, 
summon me as I have taught him. I will be in your palace at Belverus.” 
Tarascus lifted his hand in salutation, but his expression was not pleasant to see as he looked 
after the departing mesmerist. 
“Why should he spare the Cimmerian?” whispered the frightened squire. 
“That I am wondering myself,” grunted Tarascus. 
Behind the rumbling chariot the dull roar of battle and pursuit faded in the distance; the setting 
sun rimmed the cliffs with scarlet flame, and the chariot moved into the vast blue shadows 
floating up out of the east. 
IV 
“FROM WHAT HELL HAVE YOU CRAWLED?” 
Of that long ride in the chariot of Xaltotun, Conan knew nothing. He lay like a dead man while 
the bronze wheels clashed over the stones of mountain roads and swished through the deep 
grass of fertile valleys, and finally dropping down from the rugged heights, rumbled 
rhythmically along the broad white road that winds through the rich meadowlands to the walls 
of Belverus. 
Just before dawn some faint reviving of life touched him. He heard a mumble of voices, the 
groan of ponderous hinges. Through a slit in the cloak that covered him he saw, faintly in the 
lurid glare of torches, the great black arch of a gateway, and the bearded faces of men-at-arms, 
the torches striking fire from their spear-heads and helmets. 
“How went the battle, my fair lord?” spoke an eager voice, in the Nemedian tongue. 
“Well indeed,” was the curt reply. “The king of Aquilonia lies slain and his host is broken.” 
A babble of excited voices rose, drowned the next instant by the whirling wheels of the chariot 
on the flags. Sparks flashed from under the revolving rims as Xaltotun lashed his steeds 
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through the arch. But Conan heard one of the guardsmen mutter: “From beyond the border to 
Belverus between sunset and dawn! And the horses scarcely sweating! By Mitra, they – ” Then 
silence drank the voices, and there was only the clatter of hoofs and wheels along the shadowy 
street. 
What he had heard registered itself on Conan’s brain but suggested nothing to him. He was like 
a mindless automaton that hears and sees, but does not understand. Sights and sounds flowed 
meaninglessly about him. He lapsed again into a deep lethargy, and was only dimly aware 
when the chariot halted in a deep, high-walled court, and he was lifted from it by many hands 
and borne up a winding stone stair, and down a long dim corridor. Whispers, stealthy footsteps, 
unrelated sounds surged or rustled about him, irrelevant and far away. 
Yet his ultimate awakening was abrupt and crystal-clear. He possessed full knowledge of the 
battle in the mountains and its sequences, and he had a good idea of where he was. 
He lay on a velvet couch, clad as he was the day before, but with his limbs loaded with chains 
not even he could break. The room in which he lay was furnished with somber magnificence, 
the walls covered with black velvet tapestries, the floor with heavy purple carpets. There was 
no sign of door or window, and one curiously carven gold lamp, swinging from the fretted 
ceiling, shed a lurid light over all. 
In that light the figure seated in a silver, throne-like chair before him seemed unreal and 
fantastic, with an illusiveness of outline that was heightened by a filmy silken robe. But the 
features were distinct – unnaturally so in that uncertain light. It was almost as if a weird nimbus 
played about the man’s head, casting the bearded face into bold relief, so that it was the only 
definite and distinct reality in that mystic, ghostly chamber. 
It was a magnificent face, with strongly chiseled features of classical beauty. There was, 
indeed, something disquieting about the calm tranquility of its aspect, a suggestion of more 
than human knowledge, of a profound certitude beyond human assurance. Also an uneasy 
sensation of familiarity twitched at the back of Conan’s consciousness. He had never seen this 
man’s face before, he well knew; yet those features reminded him of something or someone. It 
was like encountering in the flesh some dream-image that had haunted one in nightmares. 
“Who are you?” demanded the king belligerently, struggling to a sitting position in spite of his 
chains. 
“Men call me Xaltotun,” was the reply, in a strong, golden voice. 
“What place is this?” the Cimmerian next demanded. 
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“A chamber in the palace of King Tarascus, in Belverus.” 
Conan was not surprized. Belverus, the capital, was at the same time the largest Nemedian city 
so near the border. 
“And where’s Tarascus?” 
“With the army.” 
“Well,” growled Conan, “if you mean to murder me, why don’t you do it and get it over with?” 
“I did not save you from the king’s archers to murder you in Belverus,” answered Xaltotun. 
“What the devil did you do to me?” demanded Conan. 
“I blasted your consciousness,” answered Xaltotun. “How, you would not understand. Call it 
black magic, if you will.” 
Conan had already reached that conclusion, and was mulling over something else. 
“I think I understand why you spared my life,” he rumbled. “Amalric wants to keep me as a 
check on Valerius, in case the impossible happens and he becomes king of Aquilonia. It’s well 
known that the baron of Tor is behind this move to seat Valerius on my throne. And if I know 
Amalric, he doesn’t intend that Valerius shall be anything more than a figurehead, as Tarascus 
is now.” 
“Amalric knows nothing of your capture,” answered Xaltotun. “Neither does Valerius. Both 
think you died at Valkia.” 
Conan’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the man in silence. 
“I sensed a brain behind all this,” he muttered, “but I thought it was Amalric’s. Are Amalric, 
Tarascus and Valerius all but puppets dancing on your string? Who are you?” 
“What does it matter? If I told you, you would not believe me. What if I told you I might set 
you back on the throne of Aquilonia?” 
Conan’s eyes burned on him like a wolf. 
“What’s your price?” 
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“Obedience to me.” 
“Go to hell with your offer!” snarled Conan. “I’m no figurehead. I won my crown with my 
sword. Besides, it’s beyond your power to buy and sell the throne of Aquilonia at your will. 
The kingdom’s not conquered; one battle doesn’t decide a war.” 
“You war against more than swords,” answered Xaltotun. “Was it a mortal’s sword that felled 
you in your tent before the fight? Nay, it was a child of the dark, a waif of outer space, whose 
fingers were afire with the frozen coldness of the black gulfs, which froze the blood in your 
veins and the marrow of your thews. Coldness so cold it burned your flesh like white-hot iron! 
“Was it chance that led the man who wore your harness to lead his knights into the defile? – 
chance that brought the cliffs crashing down upon them?” 
Conan glared at him unspeaking, feeling a chill along his spine. Wizards and sorcerers 
abounded in his barbaric mythology, and any fool could tell that this was no common man. 
Conan sensed an inexplicable something about him that set him apart – an alien aura of Time 
and Space, a sense of tremendous and sinister antiquity. But his stubborn spirit refused to flinch. 
“The fall of the cliffs was chance,” he muttered truculently. “The charge into the defile was 
what any man would have done.” 
“Not so. You would not have led a charge into it. You would have suspected a trap. You would 
never have crossed the river in the first place, until you were sure the Nemedian rout was real. 
Hypnotic suggestions would not have invaded your mind, even in the madness of battle, to 
make you mad, and rush blindly into the trap laid for you, as it did the lesser man who 
masqueraded as you.” 
“Then if this was all planned,” Conan grunted skeptically, “all a plot to trap my host, why did 
not the ‘child of darkness’ kill me in my tent?” 
“Because I wished to take you alive. It took no wizardry to predict that Pallantides would send 
another man out in your harness. I wanted you alive and unhurt. You may fit into my scheme 
of things. There is a vital power about you greater than the craft and cunning of my allies. You 
are a bad enemy, but might make a fine vassal.” 
Conan spat savagely at the word, and Xaltotun, ignoring his fury, took a crystal globe from a 
near-by table and placed it before him. He did not support it in any way, nor place it on 
anything, but it hung motionless in midair, as solidly as if it rested on an iron pedestal. Conan 
snorted at this bit of necromancy, but he was nevertheless impressed. 
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“Would you know of what goes on in Aquilonia?” he asked. 
Conan did not reply, but the sudden rigidity of his form betrayed his interest. 
Xaltotun stared into the cloudy depths, and spoke: “It is now the evening of the day after the 
battle of Valkia. Last night the main body of the army camped by Valkia, while squadrons of 
knights harried the fleeing Aquilonians. At dawn the host broke camp and pushed westward 
through the mountains. Prospero, with ten thousand Poitanians, was miles from the battlefield 
when he met the fleeing survivors in the early dawn. He had pushed on all night, hoping to 
reach the field before the battle joined. Unable to rally the remnants of the broken host, he fell 
back toward Tarantia. Riding hard, replacing his wearied horses with steeds seized from the 
countryside, he approaches Tarantia. 
“I see his weary knights, their armor gray with dust, their pennons drooping as they push their 
tired horses through the plain. I see, also, the streets of Tarantia. The city is in turmoil. 
Somehow word has reached the people of the defeat and the death of King Conan. The mob is 
mad with fear, crying out that the king is dead, and there is none to lead them against the 
Nemedians. Giant shadows rush on Aquilonia from the east, and the sky is black with vultures.” 
Conan cursed deeply. 
“What are these but words? The raggedest beggar in the street might prophesy as much. If you 
say you saw all that in the glass ball, then you’re a liar as well as a knave, of which last there’s 
no doubt! Prospero will hold Tarantia, and the barons will rally to him. Count Trocero of 
Poitain commands the kingdom in my absence, and he’ll drive these Nemedian dogs howling 
back to their kennels. What are fifty thousand Nemedians? Aquilonia will swallow them up. 
They’ll never see Belverus again. It’s not Aquilonia which was conquered at Valkia; it was 
only Conan.” 
“Aquilonia is doomed,” answered Xaltotun, unmoved. “Lance and ax and torch shall conquer 
her; or if they fail, powers from the dark of ages shall march against her. As the cliffs fell at 
Valkia, so shall walled cities and mountains fall, if the need arise, and rivers roar from their 
channels to drown whole provinces. 
“Better if steel and bowstring prevail without further aid from the arts, for the constant use of 
mighty spells sometimes sets forces in motion that might rock the universe.” 
“From what hell have you crawled, you nighted dog?” muttered Conan, staring at the man. The 
Cimmerian involuntarily shivered; he sensed something incredibly ancient, incredibly evil. 
Xaltotun lifted his head, as if listening to whispers across the void. He seemed to have 
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forgotten his prisoner. Then he shook his head impatiently, and glanced impersonally at Conan. 
“What? Why, if I told you, you would not believe me. But I am wearied of conversation with 
you; it is less fatiguing to destroy a walled city than it is to frame my thoughts in words a 
brainless barbarian can understand.” 
“If my hands were free,” opined Conan, “I’d soon make a brainless corpse out of you.” 
“I do not doubt it, if I were fool enough to give you the opportunity,” answered Xaltotun, 
clapping his hands. 
His manner had changed; there was impatience in his tone, and a certain nervousness in his 
manner, though Conan did not think this attitude was in any way connected with himself. 
“Consider what I have told you, barbarian,” said Xaltotun. “You will have plenty of leisure. I 
have not yet decided what I shall do with you. It depends on circumstances yet unborn. But let 
this be impressed upon you: that if I decide to use you in my game, it will be better to submit 
without resistance than to suffer my wrath.” 
Conan spat a curse at him, just as hangings that masked a door swung apart and four giant 
negroes entered. Each was clad only in a silken breech-clout supported by a girdle, from which 
hung a great key. 
Xaltotun gestured impatiently toward the king and turned away, as if dismissing the matter 
entirely from his mind. His fingers twitched queerly. From a carven green jade box he took a 
handful of shimmering black dust, and placed it in a brazier which stood on a golden tripod at 
his elbow. The crystal globe, which he seemed to have forgotten, fell suddenly to the floor, as 
if its invisible support had been removed. 
Then the blacks had lifted Conan – for so loaded with chains was he that he could not walk – 
and carried him from the chamber. A glance back, before the heavy, gold-bound teak door was 
closed, showed him Xaltotun leaning back in his throne-like chair, his arms folded, while a thin 
wisp of smoke curled up from the brazier. Conan’s scalp prickled. In Stygia, that ancient and 
evil kingdom that lay far to the south, he had seen such black dust before. It was the pollen of 
the black lotus, which creates death-like sleep and monstrous dreams; and he knew that only 
the grisly wizards of the Black Ring, which is the nadir of evil, voluntarily seek the scarlet 
nightmares of the black lotus, to revive their necromantic powers. 
The Black Ring was a fable and a lie to most folk of the western world, but Conan knew of its 
ghastly reality, and its grim votaries who practise their abominable sorceries amid the black 
vaults of Stygia and the nighted domes of accursed Sabatea. 
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He glanced back at the cryptic, gold-bound door, shuddering at what it hid. 
Whether it was day or night the king could not tell. The palace of King Tarascus seemed a 
shadowy, nighted place, that shunned natural illumination. The spirit of darkness and shadow 
hovered over it, and that spirit, Conan felt, was embodied in the stranger Xaltotun. The negroes 
carried the king along a winding corridor so dimly lighted that they moved through it like black 
ghosts bearing a dead man, and down a stone stair that wound endlessly. A torch in the hand of 
one cast the great deformed shadows streaming along the wall; it was like the descent into hell 
of a corpse borne by dusky demons. 
At last they reached the foot of the stair, and then they traversed a long straight corridor, with a 
blank wall on one hand pierced by an occasional arched doorway with a stair leading up behind 
it, and on the other hand another wall showing heavy barred doors at regular intervals of a few 
feet. 
Halting before one of these doors, one of the blacks produced the key that hung at his girdle, 
and turned it in the lock. Then, pushing open the grille, they entered with their captive. They 
were in a small dungeon with heavy stone walls, floor and ceiling, and in the opposite wall 
there was another grilled door. What lay beyond that door Conan could not tell, but he did not 
believe it was another corridor. The glimmering light of the torch, flickering through the bars, 
hinted at shadowy spaciousness and echoing depths. 
In one corner of the dungeon, near the door through which they had entered, a cluster of rusty 
chains hung from a great iron ring set in the stone. In these chains a skeleton dangled. Conan 
glared at it with some curiosity, noticing the state of the bare bones, most of which were 
splintered and broken; the skull, which had fallen from the vertebræ, was crushed as if by some 
savage blow of tremendous force. 
Stolidly one of the blacks, not the one who had opened the door, removed the chains from the 
ring, using his key on the massive lock, and dragged the mass of rusty metal and shattered 
bones over to one side. Then they fastened Conan’s chains to that ring, and the third black 
turned his key in the lock of the farther door, grunting when he had assured himself that it was 
properly fastened. 
Then they regarded Conan cryptically, slit-eyed ebony giants, the torch striking highlights from 
their glossy skin. 
He who held the key to the nearer door was moved to remark, gutturally: “This your palace 
now, white dog-king! None but master and we know. All palace sleep. We keep secret. You 
live and die here, maybe. Like him!” He contemptuously kicked the shattered skull and sent it 
clattering across the stone floor. 
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Conan did not deign to reply to the taunt, and the black, galled perhaps by his prisoner’s 
silence, muttered a curse, stooped and spat full in the king’s face. It was an unfortunate move 
for the black. Conan was seated on the floor, the chains about his waist; ankles and wrists 
locked to the ring in the wall. He could neither rise, nor move more than a yard out from the 
wall. But there was considerable slack in the chains that shackled his wrists, and before the 
bullet-shaped head could be withdrawn out of reach, the king gathered this slack in his mighty 
hand and smote the black on the head. The man fell like a butchered ox, and his comrades 
stared to see him lying with his scalp laid open, and blood oozing from his nose and ears. 
But they attempted no reprisal, nor did they accept Conan’s urgent invitation to approach 
within reach of the bloody chain in his hand. Presently, grunting in their ape-like speech, they 
lifted the senseless black and bore him out like a sack of wheat, arms and legs dangling. They 
used his key to lock the door behind them, but did not remove it from the gold chain that 
fastened it to his girdle. They took the torch with them, and as they moved up the corridor the 
darkness slunk behind them like an animate thing. Their soft padding footsteps died away, with 
the glimmer of their torch, and darkness and silence remained unchallenged. 
V
THE HAUNTER OF THE PITS 
Conan lay still, enduring the weight of his chains and the despair of his position with the 
stoicism of the wilds that had bred him. He did not move, because the jangle of his chains, 
when he shifted his body, sounded startlingly loud in the darkness and stillness, and it was his 
instinct, born of a thousand wilderness-bred ancestors, not to betray his position in his 
helplessness. This did not result from a logical reasoning process; he did not lie quiet because 
he reasoned that the darkness hid lurking dangers that might discover him in his helplessness. 
Xaltotun had assured him that he was not to be harmed, and Conan believed that it was in the 
man’s interest to preserve him, at least for the time being. But the instincts of the wild were 
there, that had caused him in his childhood to lie hidden and silent while wild beasts prowled 
about his covert. 
Even his keen eyes could not pierce the solid darkness. Yet after a while, after a period of time 
he had no way of estimating, a faint glow became apparent, a sort of slanting gray beam, by 
which Conan could see, vaguely, the bars of the door at his elbow, and even make out the 
skeleton of the other grille. This puzzled him, until at last he realized the explanation. He was 
far below ground, in the pits below the palace; yet for some reason a shaft had been constructed 
from somewhere above. Outside, the moon had risen to a point where its light slanted dimly 
down the shaft. He reflected that in this manner he could tell the passing of the days and nights. 
Perhaps the sun, too, would shine down that shaft, though on the other hand it might be closed 
by day. Perhaps it was a subtle method of torture, allowing a prisoner but a glimpse of daylight 
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or moonlight. 
His gaze fell on the broken bones in the farther corner, glimmering dimly. He did not tax his 
brain with futile speculation as to who the wretch had been and for what reason he had been 
doomed, but he wondered at the shattered condition of the bones. They had not been broken on 
a rack. Then, as he looked, another unsavory detail made itself evident. The shin-bones were 
split lengthwise, and there was but one explanation; they had been broken in that manner in 
order to obtain the marrow. Yet what creature but man breaks bones for their marrow? Perhaps 
those remnants were mute evidence of a horrible, cannibalistic feast, of some wretch driven to 
madness by starvation. Conan wondered if his own bones would be found at some future date, 
hanging in their rusty chains. He fought down the unreasoning panic of a trapped wolf. 
The Cimmerian did not curse, scream, weep or rave as a civilized man might have done. But 
the pain and turmoil in his bosom were none the less fierce. His great limbs quivered with the 
intensity of his emotions. Somewhere, far to the westward, the Nemedian host was slashing and 
burning its way through the heart of his kingdom. The small host of the Poitanians could not 
stand before them. Prospero might be able to hold Tarantia for weeks, or months; but 
eventually, if not relieved, he must surrender to greater numbers. Surely the barons would rally 
to him against the invaders. But in the meanwhile he, Conan, must lie helpless in a darkened 
cell, while others led his spears and fought for his kingdom. The king ground his powerful 
teeth in red rage. 
Then he stiffened as outside the farther door he heard a stealthy step. Straining his eyes he 
made out a bent, indistinct figure outside the grille. There was a rasp of metal against metal, 
and he heard the clink of tumblers, as if a key had been turned in the lock. Then the figure 
moved silently out of his range of vision. Some guard, he supposed, trying the lock. After a 
while he heard the sound repeated faintly somewhere farther on, and that was followed by the 
soft opening of a door, and then a swift scurry of softly shod feet retreated in the distance. Then 
silence fell again. 
Conan listened for what seemed a long time, but which could not have been, for the moon still 
shone down the hidden shaft, but he heard no further sound. He shifted his position at last, and 
his chains clanked. Then he heard another, lighter footfall – a soft step outside the nearer door, 
the door through which he had entered the cell. An instant later a slender figure was etched 
dimly in the gray light. 
“King Conan!” a soft voice intoned urgently. “Oh, my lord, are you there?” 
“Where else?” he answered guardedly, twisting his head about to stare at the apparition. 
It was a girl who stood grasping the bars with her slender fingers. The dim glow behind her 
outlined her supple figure through the wisp of silk twisted about her loins, and shone vaguely 
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on jeweled breast-plates. Her dark eyes gleamed in the shadows, her white limbs glistened 
softly, like alabaster. Her hair was a mass of dark foam, at the burnished luster of which the 
dim light only hinted. 
“The keys to your shackles and to the farther door!” she whispered, and a slim white hand 
came through the bars and dropped three objects with a clink to the flags beside him. 
“What game is this?” he demanded. “You speak in the Nemedian tongue, and I have no friends 
in Nemedia. What deviltry is your master up to now? Has he sent you here to mock me?” 
“It is no mockery!” The girl was trembling violently. Her bracelets and breast-plates clinked 
against the bars she grasped. “I swear by Mitra! I stole the keys from the black jailers. They are 
the keepers of the pits, and each bears a key which will open only one set of locks. I made them 
drunk. The one whose head you broke was carried away to a leech, and I could not get his key. 
But the others I stole. Oh, please do not loiter! Beyond these dungeons lie the pits which are 
the doors to hell.” 
Somewhat impressed, Conan tried the keys dubiously, expecting to meet only failure and a 
burst of mocking laughter. But he was galvanized to discover that one, indeed, loosed him of 
his shackles, fitting not only the lock that held them to the ring, but the locks on his limbs as 
well. A few seconds later he stood upright, exulting fiercely in his comparative freedom. A 
quick stride carried him to the grille, and his fingers closed about a bar and the slender wrist 
that was pressed against it, imprisoning the owner, who lifted her face bravely to his fierce 
gaze. 
“Who are you, girl?” he demanded. “Why do you do this?” 
“I am only Zenobia,” she murmured, with a catch of breathlessness, as if in fright; “only a girl 
of the king’s seraglio.” 
“Unless this is some cursed trick,” muttered Conan, “I cannot see why you bring me these 
keys.” 
She bowed her dark head, and then lifted it and looked full into his suspicious eyes. Tears 
sparkled like jewels on her long dark lashes. 
“I am only a girl of the king’s seraglio,” she said, with a certain proud humility. “He has never 
glanced at me, and probably never will. I am less than one of the dogs that gnaw the bones in 
his banquet hall. 
“But I am no painted toy; I am of flesh and blood. I breathe, hate, fear, rejoice and love. And I 
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have loved you, King Conan, ever since I saw you riding at the head of your knights along the 
streets of Belverus when you visited King Nimed, years ago. My heart tugged at its strings to 
leap from my bosom and fall in the dust of the street under your horse’s hoofs.” 
Color flooded her countenance as she spoke, but her dark eyes did not waver. Conan did not at 
once reply; wild and passionate and untamed he was, yet any but the most brutish of men must 
be touched with a certain awe or wonder at the baring of a woman’s naked soul. 
She bent her head then, and pressed her red lips to the fingers that imprisoned her slim wrist. 
Then she flung up her head as if in sudden recollection of their position, and terror flared in her 
dark eyes. 
“Haste!” she whispered urgently. “It is past midnight. You must be gone.” 
“But won’t they skin you alive for stealing these keys?” 
“They’ll never know. If the black men remember in the morning who gave them the wine, they 
will not dare admit the keys were stolen from them while they were drunk. The key that I could 
not obtain is the one that unlocks this door. You must make your way to freedom through the 
pits. What awful perils lurk beyond that door I cannot even guess. But greater danger lurks for 
you if you remain in this cell. 
“King Tarascus has returned – ” 
“What? Tarascus?” 
“Aye! He has returned, in great secrecy, and not long ago he descended into the pits and then 
came out again, pale and shaking, like a man who has dared a great hazard. I heard him 
whisper to his squire, Arideus, that despite Xaltotun you should die.” 
“What of Xaltotun?” murmured Conan. 
He felt her shudder. 
“Do not speak of him!” she whispered. “Demons are often summoned by the sound of their 
names. The slaves say that he lies in his chamber, behind a bolted door, dreaming the dreams 
of the black lotus. I believe that even Tarascus secretly fears him, or he would slay you openly. 
But he has been in the pits tonight, and what he did here, only Mitra knows.” 
“I wonder if that could have been Tarascus who fumbled at my cell door awhile ago?” 
muttered Conan. 
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“Here is a dagger!” she whispered, pressing something through the bars. His eager fingers 
closed on an object familiar to their touch. “Go quickly through yonder door, turn to the left 
and make your way along the cells until you come to a stone stair. On your life do not stray 
from the line of the cells! Climb the stair and open the door at the top; one of the keys will fit 
it. If it be the will of Mitra, I will await you there.” Then she was gone, with a patter of light 
slippered feet. 
Conan shrugged his shoulders, and turned toward the farther grille. This might be some 
diabolical trap planned by Tarascus, but plunging headlong into a snare was less abhorrent to 
Conan’s temperament than sitting meekly to await his doom. He inspected the weapon the girl 
had given him, and smiled grimly. Whatever else she might be, she was proven by that dagger 
to be a person of practical intelligence. It was no slender stiletto, selected because of a jeweled 
hilt or gold guard, fitted only for dainty murder in milady’s boudoir; it was a forthright poniard, 
a warrior’s weapon, broad-bladed, fifteen inches in length, tapering to a diamond-sharp point. 
He grunted with satisfaction. The feel of the hilt cheered him and gave him a glow of 
confidence. Whatever webs of conspiracy were drawn about him, whatever trickery and 
treachery ensnared him, this knife was real. The great muscles of his right arm swelled in 
anticipation of murderous blows. 
He tried the farther door, fumbling with the keys as he did so. It was not locked. Yet he 
remembered the black man locking it. That furtive, bent figure, then, had been no jailer seeing 
that the bolts were in place. He had unlocked the door, instead. There was a sinister suggestion 
about that unlocked door. But Conan did not hesitate. He pushed open the grille and stepped 
from the dungeon into the outer darkness. 
As he had thought, the door did not open into another corridor. The flagged floor stretched 
away under his feet, and the line of cells ran away to right and left behind him, but he could not 
make out the other limits of the place into which he had come. He could see neither the roof 
nor any other wall. The moonlight filtered into that vastness only through the grilles of the 
cells, and was almost lost in the darkness. Less keen eyes than his could scarcely have 
discerned the dim gray patches that floated before each cell door. 
Turning to the left, he moved swiftly and noiselessly along the line of dungeons, his bare feet 
making no sound on the flags. He glanced briefly into each dungeon as he passed it. They were 
all empty, but locked. In some he caught the glimmer of naked white bones. These pits were a 
relic of a grimmer age, constructed long ago when Belverus was a fortress rather than a city. 
But evidently their more recent use had been more extensive than the world guessed. 
Ahead of him, presently, he saw the dim outline of a stair sloping sharply upward, and knew it 
must be the stair he sought. Then he whirled suddenly, crouching in the deep shadows at its 
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foot. 
Somewhere behind him something was moving – something bulky and stealthy that padded on 
feet which were not human feet. He was looking down the long row of cells, before each one of 
which lay a square of dim gray light that was little more than a patch of less dense darkness. 
But he saw something moving along these squares. What it was he could not tell, but it was 
heavy and huge, and yet it moved with more than human ease and swiftness. He glimpsed it as 
it moved across the squares of gray, then lost it as it merged in the expanses of shadow 
between. It was uncanny, in its stealthy advance, appearing and disappearing like a blur of the 
vision. 
He heard the bars rattle as it tried each door in turn. Now it had reached the cell he had so 
recently quitted, and the door swung open as it tugged. He saw a great bulky shape limned 
faintly and briefly in the gray doorway, and then the thing had vanished into the dungeon. 
Sweat beaded Conan’s face and hands. Now he knew why Tarascus had come so subtly to his 
door, and later had fled so swiftly. The king had unlocked his door, and, somewhere in these 
hellish pits, had opened a cell or cage that held some grim monstrosity. 
Now the thing was emerging from the cell and was again advancing up the corridor, its 
misshapen head close to the ground. It paid no more heed to the locked doors. It was smelling 
out his trail. He saw it more plainly now; the gray light limned a giant anthropomorphic body, 
but vaster of bulk and girth than any man. It went on two legs, though it stooped forward, and it 
was grayish and shaggy, its thick coat shot with silver. Its head was a grisly travesty of the 
human, its long arms hung nearly to the ground. 
Conan knew it at last – understood the meaning of those crushed and broken bones in the 
dungeon, and recognized the haunter of the pits. It was a gray ape, one of the grisly man-eaters 
from the forests that wave on the mountainous eastern shores of the Sea of Vilayet. Half 
mythical and altogether horrible, these apes were the goblins of Hyborian legendry, and were 
in reality ogres of the natural world, cannibals and murderers of the nighted forests. 
He knew it scented his presence, for it was coming swiftly now, rolling its barrel-like body 
rapidly along on its short, mighty, bowed legs. He cast a quick glance up the long stair, but 
knew that the thing would be on his back before he could mount to the distant door. He chose 
to meet it face to face. 
Conan stepped out into the nearest square of moonlight, so as to have all the advantage of 
illumination that he could; for the beast, he knew, could see better than himself in the dark. 
Instantly the brute saw him; its great yellow tusks gleamed in the shadows, but it made no 
sound. Creatures of night and the silence, the gray apes of Vilayet were voiceless. But in its 
dim, hideous features, which were a bestial travesty of a human face, showed ghastly exultation. 
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Conan stood poised, watching the oncoming monster without a quiver. He knew he must stake 
his life on one thrust; there would be no chance for another; nor would there be time to strike 
and spring away. The first blow must kill, and kill instantly, if he hoped to survive that awful 
grapple. He swept his gaze over the short, squat throat, the hairy swagbelly, and the mighty 
breast, swelling in giant arches like twin shields. It must be the heart; better to risk the blade 
being deflected by the heavy ribs than to strike in where a stroke was not instantly fatal. With 
full realization of the odds, Conan matched his speed of eye and hand and his muscular power 
against the brute might and ferocity of the man-eater. He must meet the brute breast to breast, 
strike a death-blow, and then trust to the ruggedness of his frame to survive the instant of 
manhandling that was certain to be his. 
As the ape came rolling in on him, swinging wide its terrible arms, he plunged in between them 
and struck with all his desperate power. He felt the blade sink to the hilt in the hairy breast, and 
instantly, releasing it, he ducked his head and bunched his whole body into one compact mass 
of knotted muscles, and as he did so he grasped the closing arms and drove his knee fiercely 
into the monster’s belly, bracing himself against that crushing grapple. 
For one dizzy instant he felt as if he were being dismembered in the grip of an earthquake; then 
suddenly he was free, sprawling on the floor, and the monster was gasping out its life beneath 
him, its red eyes turned upward, the hilt of the poniard quivering in its breast. His desperate 
stab had gone home. 
Conan was panting as if after long conflict, trembling in every limb. Some of his joints felt as if 
they had been dislocated, and blood dripped from scratches on his skin where the monster’s 
talons had ripped; his muscles and tendons had been savagely wrenched and twisted. If the 
beast had lived a second longer, it would surely have dismembered him. But the Cimmerian’s 
mighty strength had resisted, for the fleeting instant it had endured, the dying convulsion of the 
ape that would have torn a lesser man limb from limb. 
VI 
THE THRUST OF A KNIFE 
Conan stooped and tore the knife from the monster’s breast. Then he went swiftly up the stair. 
What other shapes of fear the darkness held he could not guess, but he had no desire to 
encounter any more. This touch-and-go sort of battling was too strenuous even for the giant 
Cimmerian. The moonlight was fading from the floor, the darkness closing in, and something 
like panic pursued him up the stair. He breathed a gusty sigh of relief when he reached the 
head, and felt the third key turn in the lock. He opened the door slightly, and craned his neck to 
peer through, half expecting an attack from some human or bestial enemy. 
He looked into a bare stone corridor, dimly lighted, and a slender, supple figure stood before 
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the door. 
“Your Majesty!” It was a low, vibrant cry, half in relief and half in fear. The girl sprang to his 
side, then hesitated as if abashed. 
“You bleed,” she said. “You have been hurt!” 
He brushed aside the implication with an impatient hand. 
“Scratches that wouldn’t hurt a baby. Your skewer came in handy, though. But for it 
Tarascus’s monkey would be cracking my shin-bones for the marrow right now. But what 
now?” 
“Follow me,” she whispered. “I will lead you outside the city wall. I have a horse concealed 
there.” 
She turned to lead the way down the corridor, but he laid a heavy hand on her naked shoulder. 
“Walk beside me,” he instructed her softly, passing his massive arm about her lithe waist. 
“You’ve played me fair so far, and I’m inclined to believe in you; but I’ve lived this long only 
because I’ve trusted no one too far, man or woman. So! Now if you play me false you won’t 
live to enjoy the jest.” 
She did not flinch at sight of the reddened poniard or the contact of his hard muscles about her 
supple body. 
“Cut me down without mercy if I play you false,” she answered. “The very feel of your arm 
about me, even in menace, is as the fulfillment of a dream.” 
The vaulted corridor ended at a door, which she opened. Outside lay another black man, a giant 
in turban and silk loin-cloth, with a curved sword lying on the flags near his hand. He did not 
move. 
“I drugged his wine,” she whispered, swerving to avoid the recumbent figure. “He is the last, 
and outer, guard of the pits. None ever escaped from them before, and none has ever wished to 
seek them; so only these black men guard them. Only these of all the servants knew it was 
King Conan that Xaltotun brought a prisoner in his chariot. I was watching, sleepless, from an 
upper casement that opened into the court, while the other girls slept; for I knew that a battle 
was being fought, or had been fought, in the west, and I feared for you.... 
“I saw the blacks carry you up the stair, and I recognized you in the torchlight. I slipped into 
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this wing of the palace tonight, in time to see them carry you to the pits. I had not dared come 
here before nightfall. You must have lain in drugged senselessness all day in Xaltotun’s 
chamber. 
“Oh, let us be wary! Strange things are afoot in the palace tonight. The slaves said that 
Xaltotun slept as he often sleeps, drugged by the lotus of Stygia, but Tarascus is in the palace. 
He entered secretly, through the postern, wrapped in his cloak which was dusty as with long 
travel, and attended only by his squire, the lean silent Arideus. I cannot understand, but I am 
afraid.” 
They came out at the foot of a narrow, winding stair, and mounting it, passed through a narrow 
panel which she slid aside. When they had passed through, she slipped it back in place, and it 
became merely a portion of the ornate wall. They were in a more spacious corridor, carpeted 
and tapestried, over which hanging lamps shed a golden glow. 
Conan listened intently, but he heard no sound throughout the palace. He did not know in what 
part of the palace he was, or in which direction lay the chamber of Xaltotun. The girl was 
trembling as she drew him along the corridor, to halt presently beside an alcove masked with 
satin tapestry. Drawing this aside, she motioned for him to step into the niche, and whispered: 
“Wait here! Beyond that door at the end of the corridor we are likely to meet slaves or eunuchs 
at any time of the day or night. I will go and see if the way is clear, before we essay it.” 
Instantly his hair-trigger suspicions were aroused. 
“Are you leading me into a trap?” 
Tears sprang into her dark eyes. She sank to her knees and seized his muscular hand. 
“Oh, my king, do not mistrust me now!” Her voice shook with desperate urgency. “If you 
doubt and hesitate, we are lost! Why should I bring you up out of the pits to betray you now?” 
“All right,” he muttered. “I’ll trust you; though, by Crom, the habits of a lifetime are not easily 
put aside. Yet I wouldn’t harm you now, if you brought all the swordsmen in Nemedia upon 
me. But for you Tarascus’s cursed ape would have come upon me in chains and unarmed. Do 
as you wish, girl.” 
Kissing his hands, she sprang lithely up and ran down the corridor, to vanish through a heavy 
double door. 
He glanced after her, wondering if he was a fool to trust her; then he shrugged his mighty 
shoulders and pulled the satin hangings together, masking his refuge. It was not strange that a 
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passionate young beauty should be risking her life to aid him; such things had happened often 
enough in his life. Many women had looked on him with favor, in the days of his wanderings, 
and in the time of his kingship. 
Yet he did not remain motionless in the alcove, waiting for her return. Following his instincts, 
he explored the niche for another exit, and presently found one – the opening of a narrow 
passage, masked by the tapestries, that ran to an ornately carved door, barely visible in the dim 
light that filtered in from the outer corridor. And as he stared into it, somewhere beyond that 
carven door he heard the sound of another door opening and shutting, and then a low mumble 
of voices. The familiar sound of one of those voices caused a sinister expression to cross his 
dark face. Without hesitation he glided down the passage, and crouched like a stalking panther 
beside the door. It was not locked, and manipulating it delicately, he pushed it open a crack, 
with a reckless disregard for possible consequences that only he could have explained or 
defended. 
It was masked on the other side by tapestries, but through a thin slit in the velvet he looked into 
a chamber lit by a candle on an ebony table. There were two men in that chamber. One was a 
scarred, sinister-looking ruffian in leather breeks and ragged cloak; the other was Tarascus, 
king of Nemedia. 
Tarascus seemed ill at ease. He was slightly pale, and he kept starting and glancing about him, 
as if expecting and fearing to hear some sound or footstep. 
“Go swiftly and at once,” he was saying. “He is deep in drugged slumber, but I know not when 
he may awaken.” 
“Strange to hear words of fear issuing from the lips of Tarascus,” rumbled the other in a harsh, 
deep voice. 
The king frowned. 
“I fear no common man, as you well know. But when I saw the cliffs fall at Valkia I knew that 
this devil we had resurrected was no charlatan. I fear his powers, because I do not know the full 
extent of them. But I know that somehow they are connected with this accursed thing which I 
have stolen from him. It brought him back to life; so it must be the source of his sorcery. 
“He had it hidden well; but following my secret order a slave spied on him and saw him place 
it in a golden chest, and saw where he hid the chest. Even so, I would not have dared steal it 
had Xaltotun himself not been sunk in lotus slumber. 
“I believe it is the secret of his power. With it Orastes brought him back to life. With it he will 
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make us all slaves, if we are not wary. So take it and cast it into the sea as I have bidden you. 
And be sure you are so far from land that neither tide nor storm can wash it up on the beach. 
You have been paid.” 
“So I have,” grunted the ruffian. “And I owe more than gold to you, king; I owe you a debt of 
gratitude. Even thieves can be grateful.” 
“Whatever debt you may feel you owe me,” answered Tarascus, “will be paid when you have 
hurled this thing into the sea.” 
“I’ll ride for Zingara and take ship from Kordava,” promised the other. “I dare not show my 
head in Argos, because of the matter of a murder or so – ” 
“I care not, so it is done. Here it is; a horse awaits you in the court. Go, and go swiftly!” 
Something passed between them, something that flamed like living fire. Conan had only a brief 
glimpse of it; and then the ruffian pulled a slouch hat over his eyes, drew his cloak about his 
shoulder, and hurried from the chamber. And as the door closed behind him, Conan moved 
with the devastating fury of unchained blood-lust. He had held himself in check as long as he 
could. The sight of his enemy so near him set his wild blood seething and swept away all 
caution and restraint. 
Tarascus was turning toward an inner door when Conan tore aside the hangings and leaped like 
a blood-mad panther into the room. Tarascus wheeled, but even before he could recognize his 
attacker, Conan’s poniard ripped into him. 
But the blow was not mortal, as Conan knew the instant he struck. His foot had caught in a fold 
of the curtains and tripped him as he leaped. The point fleshed itself in Tarascus’s shoulder and 
plowed down along his ribs, and the king of Nemedia screamed. 
The impact of the blow and Conan’s lunging body hurled him back against the table and it 
toppled and the candle went out. They were both carried to the floor by the violence of Conan’s 
rush, and the foot of the tapestry hampered them both in its folds. Conan was stabbing blindly 
in the dark, Tarascus screaming in a frenzy of panicky terror. As if fear lent him superhuman 
energy, Tarascus tore free and blundered away in the darkness, shrieking: “Help! Guards! 
Arideus! Orastes! Orastes!” 
Conan rose, kicking himself free of the tangling tapestries and the broken table, cursing with 
the bitterness of his blood-thirsty disappointment. He was confused, and ignorant of the plan of 
the palace. The yells of Tarascus were still resounding in the distance, and a wild outcry was 
bursting forth in answer. The Nemedian had escaped him in the darkness, and Conan did not 
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know which way he had gone. The Cimmerian’s rash stroke for vengeance had failed, and 
there remained only the task of saving his own hide if he could. 
Swearing luridly, Conan ran back down the passage and into the alcove, glaring out into the 
lighted corridor, just as Zenobia came running up it, her dark eyes dilated with terror. 
“Oh, what has happened?” she cried. “The palace is roused! I swear I have not betrayed you – ” 
“No, it was I who stirred up this hornet’s nest,” he grunted. “I tried to pay off a score. What’s 
the shortest way out of this?” 
She caught his wrist and ran fleetly down the corridor. But before they reached the heavy door 
at the other end, muffled shouts arose from behind it and the portals began to shake under an 
assault from the other side. Zenobia wrung her hands and whimpered. 
“We are cut off! I locked that door as I returned through it. But they will burst it in a moment. 
The way to the postern gate lies through it.” 
Conan wheeled. Up the corridor, though still out of sight, he heard a rising clamor that told him 
his foes were behind as well as before him. 
“Quick! Into this door!” the girl cried desperately, running across the corridor and throwing 
open the door of a chamber. 
Conan followed her through, and then threw the gold catch behind them. They stood in an 
ornately furnished chamber, empty but for themselves, and she drew him to a gold-barred 
window, through which he saw trees and shrubbery. 
“You are strong,” she panted. “If you can tear these bars away, you may yet escape. The garden 
is full of guards, but the shrubs are thick, and you may avoid them. The southern wall is also 
the outer wall of the city. Once over that, you have a chance to get away. A horse is hidden for 
you in a thicket beside the road that runs westward, a few hundred paces to the south of the 
fountain of Thrallos. You know where it is?” 
“Aye! But what of you? I had meant to take you with me.” 
A flood of joy lighted her beautiful face. 
“Then my cup of happiness is brimming! But I will not hamper your escape. Burdened with me 
you would fail. Nay, do not fear for me. They will never suspect that I aided you willingly. Go! 
What you have just said will glorify my life throughout the long years.” 
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He caught her up in his iron arms, crushed her slim, vibrant figure to him and kissed her 
fiercely on eyes, cheeks, throat and lips, until she lay panting in his embrace; gusty and 
tempestuous as a storm-wind, even his love-making was violent. 
“I’ll go,” he muttered. “But by Crom, I’ll come for you some day!” 
Wheeling, he gripped the gold bars and tore them from their sockets with one tremendous 
wrench; threw a leg over the sill and went down swiftly, clinging to the ornaments on the wall. 
He hit the ground running and melted like a shadow into the maze of towering rose-bushes and 
spreading trees. The one look he cast back over his shoulder showed him Zenobia leaning over 
the window-sill, her arms stretched after him in mute farewell and renunciation. 
Guards were running through the garden, all converging toward the palace, where the clamor 
momentarily grew louder – tall men, in burnished cuirasses and crested helmets of polished 
bronze. The starlight struck glints from their gleaming armor, among the trees, betraying their 
every movement; but the sound of their coming ran far before them. To Conan, wildernessbred, 
their rush through the shrubbery was like the blundering stampede of cattle. Some of 
them passed within a few feet of where he lay flat in a thick cluster of bushes, and never 
guessed his presence. With the palace as their goal, they were oblivious to all else about them. 
When they had gone shouting on, he rose and fled through the garden with no more noise than 
a panther would have made. 
So quickly he came to the southern wall, and mounted the steps that led to the parapet. The 
wall was made to keep people out, not in. No sentry patrolling the battlements was in sight. 
Crouching by an embrasure he glanced back at the great palace rearing above the cypresses 
behind him. Lights blazed from every window, and he could see figures flitting back and forth 
across them like puppets on invisible strings. He grinned hardly, shook his fist in a gesture of 
farewell and menace, and let himself over the outer rim of the parapet. 
A low tree, a few yards below the parapet, received Conan’s weight, as he dropped noiselessly 
into the branches. An instant later he was racing through the shadows with the swinging 
hillman’s stride that eats up long miles. 
Gardens and pleasure villas surrounded the walls of Belverus. Drowsy slaves, sleeping by their 
watchman’s pikes, did not see the swift and furtive figure that scaled walls, crossed alleys 
made by the arching branches of trees, and threaded a noiseless way through orchards and 
vineyards. Watch-dogs woke and lifted their deep-booming clamor at a gliding shadow, half 
scented, half sensed, and then it was gone. 
In a chamber of the palace Tarascus writhed and cursed on a blood-spattered couch, under the 
deft, quick fingers of Orastes. The palace was thronged with wide-eyed, trembling servitors, 
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but the chamber where the king lay was empty save for himself and the renegade priest. 
“Are you sure he still sleeps?” Tarascus demanded again, setting his teeth against the bite of 
the herb juices with which Orastes was bandaging the long, ragged gash in his shoulder and 
ribs. “Ishtar, Mitra and Set! That burns like the molten pitch of hell!” 
“Which you would be experiencing even now, but for your good fortune,” remarked Orastes. 
“Whoever wielded that knife struck to kill. Yes, I have told you that Xaltotun still sleeps. Why 
are you so urgent upon that point? What has he to do with this?” 
“You know nothing of what has passed in the palace tonight?” Tarascus searched the priest’s 
countenance with burning intensity. 
“Nothing. As you know, I have been employed in translating manuscripts for Xaltotun, for 
some months now, transcribing esoteric volumes written in the younger languages into script 
he can read. He was well versed in all the tongues and scripts of his day, but he has not yet 
learned all the newer languages, and to save time he has me translate these works for him, to 
learn if any new knowledge has been discovered since his time. I did not know that he had 
returned last night until he sent for me and told me of the battle. Then I returned to my studies, 
nor did I know that you had returned until the clamor in the palace brought me out of my cell.” 
“Then you do not know that Xaltotun brought the king of Aquilonia a captive to this palace?” 
Orastes shook his head, without particular surprize. 
“Xaltotun merely said that Conan would oppose us no more. I supposed that he had fallen, but 
did not ask the details.” 
“Xaltotun saved his life when I would have slain him,” snarled Tarascus. “I saw his purpose 
instantly. He would hold Conan captive to use as a club against us – against Amalric, against 
Valerius, and against myself. So long as Conan lives he is a threat, a unifying factor for 
Aquilonia, that might be used to compel us into courses we would not otherwise follow. I 
mistrust this undead Pythonian. Of late I have begun to fear him. 
“I followed him, some hours after he had departed eastward. I wished to learn what he intended 
doing with Conan. I found that he had imprisoned him in the pits. I intended to see that the 
barbarian died, in spite of Xaltotun. And I accomplished – ” 
A cautious knock sounded at the door. 
“That’s Arideus,” grunted Tarascus. “Let him in.” 
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The saturnine squire entered, his eyes blazing with suppressed excitement. 
“How, Arideus?” exclaimed Tarascus. “Have you found the man who attacked me?” 
“You did not see him, my lord?” asked Arideus, as one who would assure himself of a fact he 
already knows to exist. “You did not recognize him?” 
“No. It happened so quick, and the candle was out – all I could think of was that it was some 
devil loosed on me by Xaltotun’s magic – ” 
“The Pythonian sleeps in his barred and bolted room. But I have been in the pits.” Arideus 
twitched his lean shoulders excitedly. 
“Well, speak, man!” exclaimed Tarascus impatiently. “What did you find there?” 
“An empty dungeon,” whispered the squire. “The corpse of the great ape!” 
“What?” Tarascus started upright, and blood gushed from his opened wound. 
“Aye! The man-eater is dead – stabbed through the heart – and Conan is gone!” 
Tarascus was gray of face as he mechanically allowed Orastes to force him prostrate again and 
the priest renewed work upon his mangled flesh. 
“Conan!” he repeated. “Not a crushed corpse – escaped! Mitra! He is no man, but a devil 
himself! I thought Xaltotun was behind this wound. I see now. Gods and devils! It was Conan 
who stabbed me! Arideus!” 
“Aye, your Majesty!” 
“Search every nook in the palace. He may be skulking through the dark corridors now like a 
hungry tiger. Let no niche escape your scrutiny, and beware. It is not a civilized man you hunt, 
but a blood-mad barbarian whose strength and ferocity are those of a wild beast. Scour the 
palace-grounds and the city. Throw a cordon about the walls. If you find he has escaped from 
the city, as he may well do, take a troop of horsemen and follow him. Once past the walls it 
will be like hunting a wolf through the hills. But haste, and you may yet catch him.” 
“This is a matter which requires more than ordinary human wits,” said Orastes. “Perhaps we 
should seek Xaltotun’s advice.” 
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“No!” exclaimed Tarascus violently. “Let the troopers pursue Conan and slay him. Xaltotun 
can hold no grudge against us if we kill a prisoner to prevent his escape.” 
“Well,” said Orastes, “I am no Acheronian, but I am versed in some of the arts, and the control 
of certain spirits which have cloaked themselves in material substance. Perhaps I can aid you in 
this matter.” 
The fountain of Thrallos stood in a clustered ring of oaks beside the road a mile from the walls 
of the city. Its musical tinkle reached Conan’s ears through the silence of the starlight. He 
drank deep of its icy stream, and then hurried southward toward a small, dense thicket he saw 
there. Rounding it, he saw a great white horse tied among the bushes. Heaving a deep gusty 
sigh he reached it with one stride – a mocking laugh brought him about, glaring. 
A dully glinting, mail-clad figure moved out of the shadows into the starlight. This was no 
plumed and burnished palace guardsman. It was a tall man in morion and gray chain-mail – one 
of the Adventurers, a class of warriors peculiar to Nemedia; men who had not attained to the 
wealth and position of knighthood, or had fallen from that estate; hard-bitten fighters, 
dedicating their lives to war and adventure. They constituted a class of their own, sometimes 
commanding troops, but themselves accountable to no man but the king. Conan knew that he 
could have been discovered by no more dangerous a foeman. 
A quick glance among the shadows convinced him that the man was alone, and he expanded 
his great chest slightly, digging his toes into the turf, as his thews coiled tensely. 
“I was riding for Belverus on Amalric’s business,” said the Adventurer, advancing warily. The 
starlight was a long sheen on the great two-handed sword he bore naked in his hand. “A horse 
whinnied to mine from the thicket. I investigated and thought it strange a steed should be 
tethered here. I waited – and lo, I have caught a rare prize!” 
The Adventurers lived by their swords. 
“I know you,” muttered the Nemedian. “You are Conan, king of Aquilonia. I thought I saw you 
die in the valley of the Valkia, but – ” 
Conan sprang as a dying tiger springs. Practised fighter though the Adventurer was, he did not 
realize the desperate quickness that lurks in barbaric sinews. He was caught off guard, his 
heavy sword half lifted. Before he could either strike or parry, the king’s poniard sheathed 
itself in his throat, above the gorget, slanting downward into his heart. With a choked gurgle he 
reeled and went down, and Conan ruthlessly tore his blade free as his victim fell. The white 
horse snorted violently and shied at the sight and scent of blood on the sward. 
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Glaring down at his lifeless enemy, dripping poniard in hand, sweat glistening on his broad 
breast, Conan poised like a statue, listening intently. In the woods about there was no sound, 
save for the sleepy cheep of awakened birds. But in the city, a mile away, he heard the strident 
blare of a trumpet. 
Hastily he bent over the fallen man. A few seconds’ search convinced him that whatever 
message the man might have borne was intended to be conveyed by word of mouth. But he did 
not pause in his task. It was not many hours until dawn. A few minutes later the white horse 
was galloping westward along the white road, and the rider wore the gray mail of a Nemedian 
Adventurer. 
VII 
THE RENDING OF THE VEIL 
Conan knew his only chance of escape lay in speed. He did not even consider hiding 
somewhere near Belverus until the chase passed on; he was certain that the uncanny ally of 
Tarascus would be able to ferret him out. Besides, he was not one to skulk and hide; an open 
fight or an open chase, either suited his temperament better. He had a long start, he knew. He 
would lead them a grinding race for the border. 
Zenobia had chosen well in selecting the white horse. His speed, toughness and endurance 
were obvious. The girl knew weapons and horses, and, Conan reflected with some satisfaction, 
she knew men. He rode westward at a gait that ate up the miles. 
It was a sleeping land through which he rode, past grove-sheltered villages and white-walled 
villas amid spacious fields and orchards that grew sparser as he fared westward. As the villages 
thinned, the land grew more rugged, and the keeps that frowned from eminences told of 
centuries of border war. But none rode down from those castles to challenge or halt him. The 
lords of the keeps were following the banner of Amalric; the pennons that were wont to wave 
over these towers were now floating over the Aquilonian plains. 
When the last huddled village fell behind him, Conan left the road, which was beginning to 
bend toward the northwest, toward the distant passes. To keep to the road would mean to pass 
by border towers, still garrisoned with armed men who would not allow him to pass 
unquestioned. He knew there would be no patrols riding the border marches on either side, as 
in ordinary times, but there were those towers, and with dawn there would probably be 
cavalcades of returning soldiers with wounded men in ox-carts. 
This road from Belverus was the only road that crossed the border for fifty miles from north to 
south. It followed a series of passes through the hills, and on either hand lay a wide expanse of 
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wild, sparsely inhabited mountains. He maintained his due westerly direction, intending to 
cross the border deep in the wilds of the hills that lay to the south of the passes. It was a shorter 
route, more arduous, but safer for a hunted fugitive. One man on a horse could traverse country 
an army would find impassable. 
But at dawn he had not reached the hills; they were a long, low, blue rampart stretching along 
the horizon ahead of him. Here there were neither farms nor villages, no white-walled villas 
looming among clustering trees. The dawn wind stirred the tall stiff grass, and there was 
nothing but the long rolling swells of brown earth, covered with dry grass, and in the distance 
the gaunt walls of a stronghold on a low hill. Too many Aquilonian raiders had crossed the 
mountains in not too-distant days for the countryside to be thickly settled as it was farther to 
the east. 
Dawn ran like a prairie fire across the grasslands, and high overhead sounded a weird crying as 
a straggling wedge of wild geese winged swiftly southward. In a grassy swale Conan halted 
and unsaddled his mount. Its sides were heaving, its coat plastered with sweat. He had pushed 
it unmercifully through the hours before dawn. 
While it munched the brittle grass and rolled, he lay at the crest of the low slope, staring 
eastward. Far away to the northward he could see the road he had left, streaming like a white 
ribbon over a distant rise. No black dots moved along that glistening ribbon. There was no sign 
about the castle in the distance to indicate that the keepers had noticed the lone wayfarer. 
An hour later the land still stretched bare. The only sign of life was a glint of steel on the faroff 
battlements, a raven in the sky that wheeled backward and forth, dipping and rising as if 
seeking something. Conan saddled and rode westward at a more leisurely gait. 
As he topped the farther crest of the slope, a raucous screaming burst out over his head, and 
looking up, he saw the raven flapping high above him, cawing incessantly. As he rode on, it 
followed him, maintaining its position and making the morning hideous with its strident cries, 
heedless of his efforts to drive it away. 
This kept up for hours, until Conan’s teeth were on edge, and he felt that he would give half his 
kingdom to be allowed to wring that black neck. 
“Devils of hell!” he roared in futile rage, shaking his mailed fist at the frantic bird. “Why do 
you harry me with your squawking? Begone, you black spawn of perdition, and peck for wheat 
in the farmers’ fields!” 
He was ascending the first pitch of the hills, and he seemed to hear an echo of the bird’s clamor 
far behind him. Turning in his saddle, he presently made out another black dot hanging in the 
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blue. Beyond that again he caught the glint of the afternoon sun on steel. That could mean only 
one thing: armed men. And they were not riding along the beaten road, which was out of his 
sight beyond the horizon. They were following him. 
His face grew grim and he shivered slightly as he stared at the raven that wheeled high above 
him. 
“So it is more than the whim of a brainless beast?” he muttered. “Those riders cannot see you, 
spawn of hell; but the other bird can see you, and they can see him. You follow me, he follows 
you, and they follow him. Are you only a craftily trained feathered creature, or some devil in 
the form of a bird? Did Xaltotun set you on my trail? Are you Xaltotun?” 
Only a strident screech answered him, a screech vibrating with harsh mockery. 
Conan wasted no more breath on his dusky betrayer. Grimly he settled to the long grind of the 
hills. He dared not push the horse too hard; the rest he had allowed it had not been enough to 
freshen it. He was still far ahead of his pursuers, but they would cut down that lead steadily. It 
was almost a certainty that their horses were fresher than his, for they had undoubtedly 
changed mounts at that castle he had passed. 
The going grew rougher, the scenery more rugged, steep grassy slopes pitching up to densely 
timbered mountainsides. Here, he knew, he might elude his hunters, but for that hellish bird 
that squalled incessantly above him. He could no longer see them in this broken country, but he 
was certain that they still followed him, guided unerringly by their feathered allies. That black 
shape became like a demoniac incubus, hounding him through measureless hells. The stones he 
hurled with a curse went wide or fell harmless, though in his youth he had felled hawks on the 
wing. 
The horse was tiring fast. Conan recognized the grim finality of his position. He sensed an 
inexorable driving fate behind all this. He could not escape. He was as much a captive as he 
had been in the pits of Belverus. But he was no son of the Orient to yield passively to what 
seemed inevitable. If he could not escape, he would at least take some of his foes into eternity 
with him. He turned into a wide thicket of larches that masked a slope, looking for a place to 
turn at bay. 
Then ahead of him there rang a strange, shrill scream, human yet weirdly timbred. An instant 
later he had pushed through a screen of branches, and saw the source of that eldritch cry. In a 
small glade below him four soldiers in Nemedian chain-mail were binding a noose about the 
neck of a gaunt old woman in peasant garb. A heap of fagots, bound with cord on the ground 
near by, showed what her occupation had been when surprized by these stragglers. 
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Conan felt slow fury swell his heart as he looked silently down and saw the ruffians dragging 
her toward a tree whose low-spreading branches were obviously intended to act as a gibbet. He 
had crossed the frontier an hour ago. He was standing on his own soil, watching the murder of 
one of his own subjects. The old woman was struggling with surprizing strength and energy, 
and as he watched, she lifted her head and voiced again the strange, weird, far-carrying call he 
had heard before. It was echoed as if in mockery by the raven flapping above the trees. The 
soldiers laughed roughly, and one struck her in the mouth. 
Conan swung from his weary steed and dropped down the face of the rocks, landing with a 
clang of mail on the grass. The four men wheeled at the sound and drew their swords, gaping at 
the mailed giant who faced them, sword in hand. 
Conan laughed harshly. His eyes were bleak as flint. 
“Dogs!” he said without passion and without mercy. “Do Nemedian jackals set themselves up 
as executioners and hang my subjects at will? First you must take the head of their king. Here I 
stand, awaiting your lordly pleasure!” 
The soldiers stared at him uncertainly as he strode toward them. 
“Who is this madman?” growled a bearded ruffian. “He wears Nemedian mail, but speaks with 
an Aquilonian accent.” 
“No matter,” quoth another. “Cut him down, and then we’ll hang the old hag.” 
And so saying he ran at Conan, lifting his sword. But before he could strike, the king’s great 
blade lashed down, splitting helmet and skull. The man fell before him, but the others were 
hardy rogues. They gave tongue like wolves and surged about the lone figure in the gray mail, 
and the clamor and din of steel drowned the cries of the circling raven. 
Conan did not shout. His eyes coals of blue fire and his lips smiling bleakly, he lashed right 
and left with his two-handed sword. For all his size he was quick as a cat on his feet, and he 
was constantly in motion, presenting a moving target so that thrusts and swings cut empty air 
oftener than not. Yet when he struck he was perfectly balanced, and his blows fell with 
devastating power. Three of the four were down, dying in their own blood, and the fourth was 
bleeding from half a dozen wounds, stumbling in headlong retreat as he parried frantically, 
when Conan’s spur caught in the surcoat of one of the fallen men. 
The king stumbled, and before he could catch himself the Nemedian, with the frenzy of 
desperation, rushed him so savagely that Conan staggered and fell sprawling over the corpse. 
The Nemedian croaked in triumph and sprang forward, lifting his great sword with both hands 
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over his right shoulder, as he braced his legs wide for the stroke – and then, over the prostrate 
king, something huge and hairy shot like a thunderbolt full on the soldier’s breast, and his yelp 
of triumph changed to a shriek of death. 
Conan, scrambling up, saw the man lying dead with his throat torn out, and a great gray wolf 
stood over him, head sunk as it smelt the blood that formed a pool on the grass. 
The king turned as the old woman spoke to him. She stood straight and tall before him, and in 
spite of her ragged garb, her features, clear-cut and aquiline, and her keen black eyes, were not 
those of a common peasant woman. She called to the wolf and it trotted to her side like a great 
dog and rubbed its giant shoulder against her knee, while it gazed at Conan with great green 
lambent eyes. Absently she laid her hand upon its mighty neck, and so the two stood regarding 
the king of Aquilonia. He found their steady gaze disquieting, though there was no hostility in 
it. 
“Men say King Conan died beneath the stones and dirt when the cliffs crumbled by Valkia,” 
she said in a deep, strong, resonant voice. 
“So they say,” he growled. He was in no mood for controversy, and he thought of those 
armored riders who were pushing nearer every moment. The raven above him cawed stridently, 
and he cast an involuntary glare upward, grinding his teeth in a spasm of nervous irritation. 
Up on the ledge the white horse stood with drooping head. The old woman looked at it, and 
then at the raven; and then she lifted a strange weird cry as she had before. As if recognizing 
the call, the raven wheeled, suddenly mute, and raced eastward. But before it had got out of 
sight, the shadow of mighty wings fell across it. An eagle soared up from the tangle of trees, 
and rising above it, swooped and struck the black messenger to the earth. The strident voice of 
betrayal was stilled for ever. 
“Crom!” muttered Conan, staring at the old woman. “Are you a magician, too?” 
“I am Zelata,” she said. “The people of the valleys call me a witch. Was that child of the night 
guiding armed men on your trail?” 
“Aye.” She did not seem to think the answer fantastic. “They cannot be far behind me.” 
“Lead your horse and follow me, King Conan,” she said briefly. 
Without comment he mounted the rocks and brought his horse down to the glade by a 
circuitous path. As he came he saw the eagle reappear, dropping lazily down from the sky, and 
rest an instant on Zelata’s shoulder, spreading its great wings lightly so as not to crush her with 
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its weight. 
Without a word she led the way, the great wolf trotting at her side, the eagle soaring above her. 
Through deep thickets and along tortuous ledges poised over deep ravines she led him, and 
finally along a narrow precipice-edged path to a curious dwelling of stone, half hut, half 
cavern, beneath a cliff hidden among the gorges and crags. The eagle flew to the pinnacle of 
this cliff, and perched there like a motionless sentinel. 
Still silent, Zelata stabled the horse in a near-by cave, with leaves and grass piled high for 
provender, and a tiny spring bubbling in the dim recesses. 
In the hut she seated the king on a rude, hide-covered bench, and she herself sat upon a low 
stool before the tiny fireplace, while she made a fire of tamarisk chunks and prepared a frugal 
meal. The great wolf drowsed beside her, facing the fire, his huge head sunk on his paws, his 
ears twitching in his dreams. 
“You do not fear to sit in the hut of a witch?” she asked, breaking her silence at last. 
An impatient shrug of his gray-mailed shoulders was her guest’s only reply. She gave into his 
hands a wooden dish heaped with dried fruits, cheese and barley bread, and a great pot of the 
heady upland beer, brewed from barley grown in the high valleys. 
“I have found the brooding silence of the glens more pleasing than the babble of city streets,” 
she said. “The children of the wild are kinder than the children of men.” Her hand briefly 
stroked the ruff of the sleeping wolf. “My children were afar from me today, or I had not 
needed your sword, my king. They were coming at my call.” 
“What grudge had those Nemedian dogs against you?” Conan demanded. 
“Skulkers from the invading army straggle all over the countryside, from the frontier to 
Tarantia,” she answered. “The foolish villagers in the valleys told them that I had a store of 
gold hidden away, so as to divert their attentions from their villages. They demanded treasure 
from me, and my answers angered them. But neither skulkers nor the men who pursue you, nor 
any raven will find you here.” 
He shook his head, eating ravenously. 
“I’m for Tarantia.” 
She shook her head. 
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“You thrust your head into the dragon’s jaws. Best seek refuge abroad. The heart is gone from 
your kingdom.” 
“What do you mean?” he demanded. “Battles have been lost before, yet wars won. A kingdom 
is not lost by a single defeat.” 
“And you will go to Tarantia?” 
“Aye. Prospero will be holding it against Amalric.” 
“Are you sure?” 
“Hell’s devils, woman!” he exclaimed wrathfully. “What else?” 
She shook her head. “I feel that it is otherwise. Let us see. Not lightly is the veil rent; yet I will 
rend it a little, and show you your capital city.” 
Conan did not see what she cast upon the fire, but the wolf whimpered in his dreams, and a 
green smoke gathered and billowed up into the hut. And as he watched, the walls and ceiling of 
the hut seemed to widen, to grow remote and vanish, merging with infinite immensities; the 
smoke rolled about him, blotting out everything. And in it forms moved and faded, and stood 
out in startling clarity. 
He stared at the familiar towers and streets of Tarantia, where a mob seethed and screamed, 
and at the same time he was somehow able to see the banners of Nemedia moving inexorably 
westward through the smoke and flame of a pillaged land. In the great square of Tarantia the 
frantic throng milled and yammered, screaming that the king was dead, that the barons were 
girding themselves to divide the land between them, and that the rule of a king, even of 
Valerius, was better than anarchy. Prospero, shining in his armor, rode among them, trying to 
pacify them, bidding them trust Count Trocero, urging them to man the wall and aid his knights 
in defending the city. They turned on him, shrieking with fear and unreasoning rage, howling 
that he was Trocero’s butcher, a more evil foe than Amalric himself. Offal and stones were 
hurled at his knights. 
A slight blurring of the picture, that might have denoted a passing of time, and then Conan saw 
Prospero and his knights filing out of the gates and spurring southward. Behind him the city 
was in an uproar. 
“Fools!” muttered Conan thickly. “Fools! Why could they not trust Prospero? Zelata, if you are 
making game of me, with some trickery – ” 
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“This has passed,” answered Zelata imperturbably, though somberly. “It was the evening of the 
day that has passed when Prospero rode out of Tarantia, with the hosts of Amalric almost 
within sight. From the walls men saw the flame of their pillaging. So I read it in the smoke. At 
sunset the Nemedians rode into Tarantia, unopposed. Look! Even now, in the royal hall of 
Tarantia – ” 
Abruptly Conan was looking into the great coronation hall. Valerius stood on the regal dais, 
clad in ermine robes, and Amalric, still in his dusty, blood-stained armor, placed a rich and 
gleaming circlet on his yellow locks – the crown of Aquilonia! The people cheered; long lines 
of steel-clad Nemedian warriors looked grimly on, and nobles long in disfavor at Conan’s court 
strutted and swaggered with the emblem of Valerius on their sleeves. 
“Crom!” It was an explosive imprecation from Conan’s lips as he started up, his great fists 
clenched into hammers, his veins on his temples knotting, his features convulsed. “A 
Nemedian placing the crown of Aquilonia on that renegade – in the royal hall of Tarantia!” 
As if dispelled by his violence, the smoke faded, and he saw Zelata’s black eyes gleaming at 
him through the mist. 
“You have seen – the people of your capital have forfeited the freedom you won for them by 
sweat and blood; they have sold themselves to the slavers and the butchers. They have shown 
that they do not trust their destiny. Can you rely upon them for the winning back of your 
kingdom?” 
“They thought I was dead,” he grunted, recovering some of his poise. “I have no son. Men 
can’t be governed by a memory. What if the Nemedians have taken Tarantia? There still 
remain the provinces, the barons, and the people of the countrysides. Valerius has won an 
empty glory.” 
“You are stubborn, as befits a fighter. I cannot show you the future, I cannot show you all the 
past. Nay, I show you nothing. I merely make you see windows opened in the veil by powers 
unguessed. Would you look into the past for a clue of the present?” 
“Aye.” He seated himself abruptly. 
Again the green smoke rose and billowed. Again images unfolded before him, this time alien 
and seemingly irrelevant. He saw great towering black walls, pedestals half hidden in the 
shadows upholding images of hideous, half-bestial gods. Men moved in the shadows, dark, 
wiry men, clad in red, silken loin-cloths. They were bearing a green jade sarcophagus along a 
gigantic black corridor. But before he could tell much about what he saw, the scene shifted. He 
saw a cavern, dim, shadowy and haunted with a strange intangible horror. On an altar of black 
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stone stood a curious golden vessel, shaped like the shell of a scallop. Into this cavern came 
some of the same dark, wiry men who had borne the mummy-case. They seized the golden 
vessel, and then the shadows swirled around them and what happened he could not say. But he 
saw a glimmer in a whorl of darkness, like a ball of living fire. Then the smoke was only 
smoke, drifting up from the fire of tamarisk chunks, thinning and fading. 
“But what does this portend?” he demanded, bewildered. “What I saw in Tarantia I can 
understand. But what means this glimpse of Zamorian thieves sneaking through a subterranean 
temple of Set, in Stygia? And that cavern – I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it, in all 
my wanderings. If you can show me that much, these shreds of vision which mean nothing, 
disjointed, why can you not show me all that is to occur?” 
Zelata stirred the fire without replying. 
“These things are governed by immutable laws,” she said at last. “I cannot make you 
understand; I do not altogether understand myself, though I have sought wisdom in the silences 
of the high places for more years than I can remember. I cannot save you, though I would if I 
might. Man must, at last, work out his own salvation. Yet perhaps wisdom may come to me in 
dreams, and in the morn I may be able to give you the clue to the enigma.” 
“What enigma?” he demanded. 
“The mystery that confronts you, whereby you have lost a kingdom,” she answered. And then 
she spread a sheepskin upon the floor before the hearth. “Sleep,” she said briefly. 
Without a word he stretched himself upon it, and sank into restless but deep sleep through 
which phantoms moved silently and monstrous shapeless shadows crept. Once, limned against 
a purple sunless horizon, he saw the mighty walls and towers of a great city such as rose 
nowhere on the waking earth he knew. Its colossal pylons and purple minarets lifted toward the 
stars, and over it, floating like a giant mirage, hovered the bearded countenance of the man 
Xaltotun. 
Conan woke in the chill whiteness of early dawn, to see Zelata crouched beside the tiny fire. 
He had not awakened once in the night, and the sound of the great wolf leaving or entering 
should have roused him. Yet the wolf was there, beside the hearth, with its shaggy coat wet 
with dew, and with more than dew. Blood glistened wetly amid the thick fell, and there was a 
cut upon his shoulder. 
Zelata nodded, without looking around, as if reading the thoughts of her royal guest. 
“He has hunted before dawn, and red was the hunting. I think the man who hunted a king will 
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hunt no more, neither man nor beast.” 
Conan stared at the great beast with strange fascination as he moved to take the food Zelata 
offered him. 
“When I come to my throne again I won’t forget,” he said briefly. “You’ve befriended me – by 
Crom, I can’t remember when I’ve lain down and slept at the mercy of man or woman as I did 
last night. But what of the riddle you would read me this morn?” 
A long silence ensued, in which the crackle of the tamarisks was loud on the hearth. 
“Find the heart of your kingdom,” she said at last. “There lies your defeat and your power. You 
fight more than mortal man. You will not press the throne again unless you find the heart of 
your kingdom.” 
“Do you mean the city of Tarantia?” he asked. 
She shook her head. “I am but an oracle, through whose lips the gods speak. My lips are sealed 
by them lest I speak too much. You must find the heart of your kingdom. I can say no more. 
My lips are opened and sealed by the gods.” 
Dawn was still white on the peaks when Conan rode westward. A glance back showed him 
Zelata standing in the door of her hut, inscrutable as ever, the great wolf beside her. 
A gray sky arched overhead, and a moaning wind was chill with a promise of winter. Brown 
leaves fluttered slowly down from the bare branches, sifting upon his mailed shoulders. 
All day he pushed through the hills, avoiding roads and villages. Toward nightfall he began to 
drop down from the heights, tier by tier, and saw the broad plains of Aquilonia spread out 
beneath him. 
Villages and farms lay close to the foot of the hills on the western side of the mountains, for, 
for half a century, most of the raiding across the frontier had been done by the Aquilonians. But 
now only embers and ashes showed where farm huts and villas had stood. 
In the gathering darkness Conan rode slowly on. There was little fear of discovery, which he 
dreaded from friend as well as from foe. The Nemedians had remembered old scores on their 
westward drive, and Valerius had made no attempt to restrain his allies. He did not count on 
winning the love of the common people. A vast swath of desolation had been cut through the 
country from the foothills westward. Conan cursed as he rode over blackened expanses that had 
been rich fields, and saw the gaunt gable-ends of burned houses jutting against the sky. He 
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moved through an empty and deserted land, like a ghost out of a forgotten and outworn past. 
The speed with which the army had traversed the land showed what little resistance it had 
encountered. Yet had Conan been leading his Aquilonians the invading army would have been 
forced to buy every foot they gained with their blood. The bitter realization permeated his soul; 
he was not the representative of a dynasty. He was only a lone adventurer. Even the drop of 
dynastic blood Valerius boasted had more hold on the minds of men than the memory of Conan 
and the freedom and power he had given the kingdom. 
No pursuers followed him down out of the hills. He watched for wandering or returning 
Nemedian troops, but met none. Skulkers gave him a wide path, supposing him to be one of the 
conquerors, what of his harness. Groves and rivers were far more plentiful on the western side 
of the mountains, and coverts for concealment were not lacking. 
So he moved across the pillaged land, halting only to rest his horse, eating frugally of the food 
Zelata had given him, until, on a dawn when he lay hidden on a river bank where willows and 
oaks grew thickly, he glimpsed, afar, across the rolling plains dotted with rich groves, the blue 
and golden towers of Tarantia. 
He was no longer in a deserted land, but one teeming with varied life. His progress thenceforth 
was slow and cautious, through thick woods and unfrequented byways. It was dusk when he 
reached the plantation of Servius Galannus. 
VIII 
DYING EMBERS 
The countryside about Tarantia had escaped the fearful ravaging of the more easterly 
provinces. There were evidences of the march of a conquering army in broken hedges, 
plundered fields and looted granaries, but torch and steel had not been loosed wholesale. 
There was but one grim splotch on the landscape – a charred expanse of ashes and blackened 
stone, where, Conan knew, had once stood the stately villa of one of his staunchest supporters. 
The king dared not openly approach the Galannus farm, which lay only a few miles from the 
city. In the twilight he rode through an extensive woodland, until he sighted a keeper’s lodge 
through the trees. Dismounting and tying his horse, he approached the thick, arched door with 
the intention of sending the keeper after Servius. He did not know what enemies the manor 
house might be sheltering. He had seen no troops, but they might be quartered all over the 
countryside. But as he drew near, he saw the door open and a compact figure in silk hose and 
richly embroidered doublet stride forth and turn up a path that wound away through the woods. 
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“Servius!” 
At the low call the master of the plantation wheeled with a startled exclamation. His hand flew 
to the short hunting-sword at his hip, and he recoiled from the tall gray steel figure standing in 
the dusk before him. 
“Who are you?” he demanded. “What is your – Mitra!” 
His breath hissed inward and his ruddy face paled. “Avaunt!” he ejaculated. “Why have you 
come back from the gray lands of death to terrify me? I was always your true liegeman in your 
lifetime – ” 
“As I still expect you to be,” answered Conan. “Stop trembling, man; I’m flesh and blood.” 
Sweating with uncertainty Servius approached and stared into the face of the mail-clad giant, 
and then, convinced of the reality of what he saw, he dropped to one knee and doffed his 
plumed cap. 
“Your Majesty! Truly, this is a miracle passing belief! The great bell in the citadel has tolled 
your dirge, days agone. Men said you died at Valkia, crushed under a million tons of earth and 
broken granite.” 
“It was another in my harness,” grunted Conan. “But let us talk later. If there is such a thing as 
a joint of beef on your board – ” 
“Forgive me, my lord!” cried Servius, springing to his feet. “The dust of travel is gray on your 
mail, and I keep you standing here without rest or sup! Mitra! I see well enough now that you 
are alive, but I swear, when I turned and saw you standing all gray and dim in the twilight, the 
marrow of my knees turned to water. It is an ill thing to meet a man you thought dead in the 
woodland at dusk.” 
“Bid the keeper see to my steed which is tied behind yonder oak,” requested Conan, and 
Servius nodded, drawing the king up the path. The patrician, recovering from his supernatural 
fright, had become extremely nervous. 
“I will send a servant from the manor,” he said. “The keeper is in his lodge – but I dare not 
trust even my servants in these days. It is better that only I know of your presence.” 
Approaching the great house that glimmered dimly through the trees, he turned aside into a 
little-used path that ran between close-set oaks whose intertwining branches formed a vault 
overhead, shutting out the dim light of the gathering dusk. Servius hurried on through the 
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darkness without speaking, and with something resembling panic in his manner, and presently 
led Conan through a small side-door into a narrow, dimly illuminated corridor. They traversed 
this in haste and silence, and Servius brought the king into a spacious chamber with a high, oakbeamed 
ceiling and richly paneled walls. Logs flamed in the wide fireplace, for there was a 
frosty edge to the air, and a great meat pasty in a stone platter stood smoking on a broad 
mahogany board. Servius locked the massive door and extinguished the candles that stood in a 
silver candlestick on the table, leaving the chamber illuminated only by the fire on the hearth. 
“Your pardon, your Majesty,” he apologized. “These are perilous times; spies lurk everywhere. 
It were better that none be able to peer through the windows and recognize you. This pasty, 
however, is just from the oven, as I intended supping on my return from talk with my keeper. If 
your Majesty would deign – ” 
“The light is sufficient,” grunted Conan, seating himself with scant ceremony, and drawing his 
poniard. 
He dug ravenously into the luscious dish, and washed it down with great gulps of wine from 
grapes grown in Servius’s vineyards. He seemed oblivious to any sense of peril, but Servius 
shifted uneasily on his settle by the fire, nervously fingering the heavy gold chain about his 
neck. He glanced continually at the diamond-panes of the casement, gleaming dimly in the 
firelight, and cocked his ear toward the door, as if half expecting to hear the pad of furtive feet 
in the corridor without. 
Finishing his meal, Conan rose and seated himself on another settle before the fire. 
“I won’t jeopardize you long by my presence, Servius,” he said abruptly. “Dawn will find me 
far from your plantation.” 
“My lord – ” Servius lifted his hands in expostulation, but Conan waved his protests aside. 
“I know your loyalty and your courage. Both are above reproach. But if Valerius has usurped 
my throne, it would be death for you to shelter me, if you were discovered.” 
“I am not strong enough to defy him openly,” admitted Servius. “The fifty men-at-arms I could 
lead to battle would be but a handful of straws. You saw the ruins of Emilius Scavonus’s 
plantation?” 
Conan nodded, frowning darkly. 
“He was the strongest patrician in this province, as you know. He refused to give his allegiance 
to Valerius. The Nemedians burned him in the ruins of his own villa. After that the rest of us 
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saw the futility of resistance, especially as the people of Tarantia refused to fight. We 
submitted and Valerius spared our lives, though he levied a tax upon us that will ruin many. 
But what could we do? We thought you were dead. Many of the barons had been slain, others 
taken prisoner. The army was shattered and scattered. You have no heir to take the crown. 
There was no one to lead us – ” 
“Was there not Count Trocero of Poitain?” demanded Conan harshly. 
Servius spread his hands helplessly. 
“It is true that his general Prospero was in the field with a small army. Retreating before 
Amalric, he urged men to rally to his banner. But with your Majesty dead, men remembered 
old wars and civil brawls, and how Trocero and his Poitanians once rode through these 
provinces even as Amalric was riding now, with torch and sword. The barons were jealous of 
Trocero. Some men – spies of Valerius perhaps – shouted that the Count of Poitain intended 
seizing the crown for himself. Old sectional hates flared up again. If we had had one man with 
dynastic blood in his veins we would have crowned and followed him against Nemedia. But we 
had none. 
“The barons who followed you loyally would not follow one of their own number, each 
holding himself as good as his neighbor, each fearing the ambitions of the others. You were the 
cord that held the fagots together. When the cord was cut, the fagots fell apart. If you had had a 
son, the barons would have rallied loyally to him. But there was no point for their patriotism to 
focus upon. 
“The merchants and commoners, dreading anarchy and a return of feudal days when each 
baron was his own law, cried out that any king was better than none, even Valerius, who was at 
least of the blood of the old dynasty. There was no one to oppose him when he rode up at the 
head of his steel-clad hosts, with the scarlet dragon of Nemedia floating over him, and rang his 
lance against the gates of Tarantia. 
“Nay, the people threw open the gates and knelt in the dust before him. They had refused to aid 
Prospero in holding the city. They said they had rather be ruled by Valerius than by Trocero. 
They said – truthfully – that the barons would not rally to Trocero, but that many would accept 
Valerius. They said that by yielding to Valerius they would escape the devastation of civil war, 
and the fury of the Nemedians. Prospero rode southward with his ten thousand knights, and the 
horsemen of the Nemedians entered the city a few hours later. They did not follow him. They 
remained to see that Valerius was crowned in Tarantia.” 
“Then the old witch’s smoke showed the truth,” muttered Conan, feeling a queer chill along his 
spine. “Amalric crowned Valerius?” 
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“Aye, in the coronation hall, with the blood of slaughter scarcely dried on his hands.” 
“And do the people thrive under his benevolent rule?” asked Conan with angry irony. 
“He lives like a foreign prince in the midst of a conquered land,” answered Servius bitterly. 
“His court is filled with Nemedians, the palace troops are of the same breed, and a large 
garrison of them occupy the citadel. Aye, the hour of the Dragon has come at last. 
“Nemedians swagger like lords through the streets. Women are outraged and merchants 
plundered daily, and Valerius either can, or will, make no attempt to curb them. Nay, he is but 
their puppet, their figurehead. Men of sense knew he would be, and the people are beginning to 
find it out. 
“Amalric has ridden forth with a strong army to reduce the outlying provinces where some of 
the barons have defied him. But there is no unity among them. Their jealousy of each other is 
stronger than their fear of Amalric. He will crush them one by one. Many castles and cities, 
realizing that, have sent in their submission. Those who resist fare miserably. The Nemedians 
are glutting their long hatred. And their ranks are swelled by Aquilonians whom fear, gold, or 
necessity of occupation are forcing into their armies. It is a natural consequence.” 
Conan nodded somberly, staring at the red reflections of the firelight on the richly carved 
oaken panels. 
“Aquilonia has a king instead of the anarchy they feared,” said Servius at last. “Valerius does 
not protect his subjects against his allies. Hundreds who could not pay the ransom imposed 
upon them have been sold to the Kothic slave-traders.” 
Conan’s head jerked up and a lethal flame lit his blue eyes. He swore gustily, his mighty hands 
knotting into iron hammers. 
“Aye, white men sell white men and white women, as it was in the feudal days. In the palaces 
of Shem and of Turan they will live out the lives of slaves. Valerius is king, but the unity for 
which the people looked, even though of the sword, is not complete. 
“Gunderland in the north and Poitain in the south are yet unconquered, and there are 
unsubdued provinces in the west, where the border barons have the backing of the Bossonian 
bowmen. Yet these outlying provinces are no real menace to Valerius. They must remain on 
the defensive, and will be lucky if they are able to keep their independence. Here Valerius and 
his foreign knights are supreme.” 
“Let him make the best of it then,” said Conan grimly. “His time is short. The people will rise 
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when they learn that I’m alive. We’ll take Tarantia back before Amalric can return with his 
army. Then we’ll sweep these dogs from the kingdom.” 
Servius was silent. The crackle of the fire was loud in the stillness. 
“Well,” exclaimed Conan impatiently, “why do you sit with your head bent, staring at the 
hearth? Do you doubt what I have said?” 
Servius avoided the king’s eye. 
“What mortal man can do, you will do, your Majesty,” he answered. “I have ridden behind you 
in battle, and I know that no mortal being can stand before your sword.” 
“What, then?” 
Servius drew his fur-trimmed jupon closer about him, and shivered in spite of the flame. 
“Men say your fall was occasioned by sorcery,” he said presently. 
“What then?” 
“What mortal can fight against sorcery? Who is this veiled man who communes at midnight 
with Valerius and his allies, as men say, who appears and disappears so mysteriously? Men say 
in whispers that he is a great magician who died thousands of years ago, but has returned from 
death’s gray lands to overthrow the king of Aquilonia and restore the dynasty of which 
Valerius is heir.” 
“What matter?” exclaimed Conan angrily. “I escaped from the devil-haunted pits of Belverus, 
and from diabolism in the mountains. If the people rise – ” 
Servius shook his head. 
“Your staunchest supporters in the eastern and central provinces are dead, fled or imprisoned. 
Gunderland is far to the north, Poitain far to the south. The Bossonians have retired to their 
marches far to the west. It would take weeks to gather and concentrate these forces, and before 
that could be done, each levy would be attacked separately by Amalric and destroyed.” 
“But an uprising in the central provinces would tip the scales for us!” exclaimed Conan. “We 
could seize Tarantia and hold it against Amalric until the Gundermen and Poitanians could get 
here.” 
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Servius hesitated, and his voice sank to a whisper. 
“Men say you died accursed. Men say this veiled stranger cast a spell upon you to slay you and 
break your army. The great bell has tolled your dirge. Men believe you to be dead. And the 
central provinces would not rise, even if they knew you lived. They would not dare. Sorcery 
defeated you at Valkia. Sorcery brought the news to Tarantia, for that very night men were 
shouting of it in the streets. 
“A Nemedian priest loosed black magic again in the streets of Tarantia to slay men who still 
were loyal to your memory. I myself saw it. Armed men dropped like flies and died in the 
streets in a manner no man could understand. And the lean priest laughed and said: ‘I am only 
Altaro, only an acolyte of Orastes, who is but an acolyte of him who wears the veil; not mine is 
the power; the power but works through me.’” 
“Well,” said Conan harshly, “is it not better to die honorably than to live in infamy? Is death 
worse than oppression, slavery and ultimate destruction?” 
“When the fear of sorcery is in, reason is out,” replied Servius. “The fear of the central 
provinces is too great to allow them to rise for you. The outlying provinces would fight for you 
– but the same sorcery that smote your army at Valkia would smite you again. The Nemedians 
hold the broadest, richest and most thickly populated sections of Aquilonia, and they cannot be 
defeated by the forces which might still be at your command. You would be sacrificing your 
loyal subjects uselessly. In sorrow I say it, but it is true: King Conan, you are a king without a 
kingdom.” 
Conan stared into the fire without replying. A smoldering log crashed down among the flames 
with a bursting shower of sparks. It might have been the crashing ruin of his kingdom. 
Again Conan felt the presence of a grim reality behind the veil of material illusion. He sensed 
again the inexorable drive of a ruthless fate. A feeling of furious panic tugged at his soul, a 
sense of being trapped, and a red rage that burned to destroy and kill. 
“Where are the officials of my court?” he demanded at last. 
“Pallantides was sorely wounded at Valkia, was ransomed by his family, and now lies in his 
castle in Attalus. He will be fortunate if he ever rides again. Publius, the chancellor, has fled 
the kingdom in disguise, no man knows whither. The council has been disbanded. Some were 
imprisoned, some banished. Many of your loyal subjects have been put to death. Tonight, for 
instance, the Countess Albiona dies under the headsman’s ax.” 
Conan started and stared at Servius with such anger smoldering in his blue eyes that the 
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patrician shrank back. 
“Why?” 
“Because she would not become the mistress of Valerius. Her lands are forfeit, her henchmen 
sold into slavery, and at midnight, in the Iron Tower, her head must fall. Be advised, my king – 
to me you will ever be my king – and flee before you are discovered. In these days none is safe. 
Spies and informers creep among us, betraying the slightest deed or word of discontent as 
treason and rebellion. If you make yourself known to your subjects it will only end in your 
capture and death. 
“My horses and all the men that I can trust are at your disposal. Before dawn we can be far 
from Tarantia, and well on our way toward the border. If I cannot aid you to recover your 
kingdom, I can at least follow you into exile.” 
Conan shook his head. Servius glanced uneasily at him as he sat staring into the fire, his chin 
propped on his mighty fist. The firelight gleamed redly on his steel mail, on his baleful eyes. 
They burned in the firelight like the eyes of a wolf. Servius was again aware, as in the past, and 
now more strongly than ever, of something alien about the king. That great frame under the 
mail mesh was too hard and supple for a civilized man; the elemental fire of the primitive 
burned in those smoldering eyes. Now the barbaric suggestion about the king was more 
pronounced, as if in his extremity the outward aspects of civilization were stripped away, to 
reveal the primordial core. Conan was reverting to his pristine type. He did not act as a 
civilized man would act under the same conditions, nor did his thoughts run in the same 
channels. He was unpredictable. It was only a stride from the king of Aquilonia to the skin-clad 
slayer of the Cimmerian hills. 
“I’ll ride to Poitain, if it may be,” Conan said at last. “But I’ll ride alone. And I have one last 
duty to perform as king of Aquilonia.” 
“What do you mean, your Majesty?” asked Servius, shaken by a premonition. 
“I’m going into Tarantia after Albiona tonight,” answered the king. “I’ve failed all my other 
loyal subjects, it seems – if they take her head, they can have mine too.” 
“This is madness!” cried Servius, staggering up and clutching his throat, as if he already felt 
the noose closing about it. 
“There are secrets to the Tower which few know,” said Conan. “Anyway, I’d be a dog to leave 
Albiona to die because of her loyalty to me. I may be a king without a kingdom, but I’m not a 
man without honor.” 
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“It will ruin us all!” whispered Servius. 
“It will ruin no one but me if I fail. You’ve risked enough. I ride alone tonight. This is all I 
want you to do: procure me a patch for my eye, a staff for my hand, and garments such as 
travelers wear.” 
IX 
“IT IS THE KING OR HIS GHOST!” 
Many men passed through the great arched gates of Tarantia between sunset and midnight – 
belated travelers, merchants from afar with heavily laden mules, free workmen from the 
surrounding farms and vineyards. Now that Valerius was supreme in the central provinces, 
there was no rigid scrutiny of the folk who flowed in a steady stream through the wide gates. 
Discipline had been relaxed. The Nemedian soldiers who stood on guard were half drunk, and 
much too busy watching for handsome peasant girls and rich merchants who could be bullied 
to notice workmen or dusty travelers, even one tall wayfarer whose worn cloak could not 
conceal the hard lines of his powerful frame. 
This man carried himself with an erect, aggressive bearing that was too natural for him to 
realize it himself, much less dissemble it. A great patch covered one eye, and his leather coif, 
drawn low over his brows, shadowed his features. With a long thick staff in his muscular 
brown hand, he strode leisurely through the arch where the torches flared and guttered, and, 
ignored by the tipsy guardsmen, emerged upon the wide streets of Tarantia. 
Upon these well-lighted thoroughfares the usual throngs went about their business, and shops 
and stalls stood open, with their wares displayed. One thread ran a constant theme through the 
pattern. Nemedian soldiers, singly or in clumps, swaggered through the throngs, shouldering 
their way with studied arrogance. Women scurried from their path, and men stepped aside with 
darkened brows and clenched fists. The Aquilonians were a proud race, and these were their 
hereditary enemies. 
The knuckles of the tall traveler knotted on his staff, but, like the others, he stepped aside to let 
the men in armor have the way. Among the motley and varied crowd he did not attract much 
attention in his drab, dusty garments. But once, as he passed a sword-seller’s stall and the light 
that streamed from its wide door fell full upon him, he thought he felt an intense stare upon 
him, and turning quickly, saw a man in the brown jerkin of a free workman regarding him 
fixedly. This man turned away with undue haste, and vanished in the shifting throng. But 
Conan turned into a narrow by-street and quickened his pace. It might have been mere idle 
curiosity; but he could take no chances. 
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The grim Iron Tower stood apart from the citadel, amid a maze of narrow streets and crowding 
houses where the meaner structures, appropriating a space from which the more fastidious 
shrank, had invaded a portion of the city ordinarily alien to them. The Tower was in reality a 
castle, an ancient, formidable pile of heavy stone and black iron, which had itself served as the 
citadel in an earlier, ruder century. 
Not a long distance from it, lost in a tangle of partly deserted tenements and warehouses, stood 
an ancient watch-tower, so old and forgotten that it did not appear on the maps of the city for a 
hundred years back. Its original purpose had been forgotten, and nobody, of such as saw it at 
all, noticed that the apparently ancient lock which kept it from being appropriated as sleepingquarters 
by beggars and thieves, was in reality comparatively new and extremely powerful, 
cunningly disguised into an appearance of rusty antiquity. Not half a dozen men in the 
kingdom had ever known the secret of that tower. 
No keyhole showed in the massive, green-crusted lock. But Conan’s practised fingers, stealing 
over it, pressed here and there knobs invisible to the casual eye. The door silently opened 
inward and he entered solid blackness, pushing the door shut behind him. A light would have 
showed the tower empty, a bare, cylindrical shaft of massive stone. 
Groping in a corner with the sureness of familiarity, he found the projections for which he was 
feeling on a slab of the stone that composed the floor. Quickly he lifted it, and without 
hesitation lowered himself into the aperture beneath. His feet felt stone steps leading downward 
into what he knew was a narrow tunnel that ran straight toward the foundations of the Iron 
Tower, three streets away. 
The bell on the citadel, which tolled only at the midnight hour or for the death of a king, 
boomed suddenly. In a dimly lighted chamber in the Iron Tower a door opened and a form 
emerged into a corridor. The interior of the Tower was as forbidding as its external appearance. 
Its massive stone walls were rough, unadorned. The flags of the floor were worn deep by 
generations of faltering feet, and the vault of the ceiling was gloomy in the dim light of torches 
set in niches. 
The man who trudged down that grim corridor was in appearance in keeping with his 
surroundings. He was a tall, powerfully-built man, clad in close-fitting black silk. Over his 
head was drawn a black hood which fell about his shoulders, having two holes for his eyes. 
From his shoulders hung a loose black cloak, and over one shoulder he bore a heavy ax, the 
shape of which was that of neither tool nor weapon. 
As he went down the corridor, a figure came hobbling up it, a bent, surly old man, stooping 
under the weight of his pike and a lantern he bore in one hand. 
“You are not as prompt as your predecessor, master headsman,” he grumbled. “Midnight has 
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just struck, and masked men have gone to milady’s cell. They await you.” 
“The tones of the bell still echo among the towers,” answered the executioner. “If I am not so 
quick to leap and run at the beck of Aquilonians as was the dog who held this office before me, 
they shall find my arm no less ready. Get you to your duties, old watchman, and leave me to 
mine. I think mine is the sweeter trade, by Mitra, for you tramp cold corridors and peer at rusty 
dungeon doors, while I lop off the fairest head in Tarantia this night.” 
The watchman limped on down the corridor, still grumbling, and the headsman resumed his 
leisurely way. A few strides carried him around a turn in the corridor, and he absently noted 
that at his left a door stood partly open. If he had thought, he would have known that that door 
had been opened since the watchman passed; but thinking was not his trade. He was passing 
the unlocked door before he realized that aught was amiss, and then it was too late. 
A soft tigerish step and the rustle of a cloak warned him, but before he could turn, a heavy arm 
hooked about his throat from behind, crushing the cry before it could reach his lips. In the brief 
instant that was allowed him he realized with a surge of panic the strength of his attacker, 
against which his own brawny thews were helpless. He sensed without seeing the poised 
dagger. 
“Nemedian dog!” muttered a voice thick with passion in his ear. “You’ve cut off your last 
Aquilonian head!” 
And that was the last thing he ever heard. 
In a dank dungeon, lighted only by a guttering torch, three men stood about a young woman 
who knelt on the rush-strewn flags staring wildly up at them. She was clad only in a scanty 
shift; her golden hair fell in lustrous ripples about her white shoulders, and her wrists were 
bound behind her. Even in the uncertain torchlight, and in spite of her disheveled condition and 
pallor of fear, her beauty was striking. She knelt mutely, staring with wide eyes up at her 
tormenters. The men were closely masked and cloaked. Such a deed as this needed masks, even 
in a conquered land. She knew them all, nevertheless; but what she knew would harm no one – 
after that night. 
“Our merciful sovereign offers you one more chance, Countess,” said the tallest of the three, 
and he spoke Aquilonian without an accent. “He bids me say that if you soften your proud, 
rebellious spirit, he will still open his arms to you. If not – ” he gestured toward a grim wooden 
block in the center of the cell. It was blackly stained, and showed many deep nicks as if a keen 
edge, cutting through some yielding substance, had sunk into the wood. 
Albiona shuddered and turned pale, shrinking back. Every fiber in her vigorous young body 
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quivered with the urge of life. Valerius was young, too, and handsome. Many women loved 
him, she told herself, fighting with herself for life. But she could not speak the word that would 
ransom her soft young body from the block and the dripping ax. She could not reason the 
matter. She only knew that when she thought of the clasp of Valerius’s arms, her flesh crawled 
with an abhorrence greater than the fear of death. She shook her head helplessly, compelled by 
an impulsion more irresistible than the instinct to live. 
“Then there is no more to be said!” exclaimed one of the others impatiently, and he spoke with 
a Nemedian accent. “Where is the headsman?” 
As if summoned by the word, the dungeon door opened silently, and a great figure stood 
framed in it, like a black shadow from the underworld. 
Albiona voiced a low, involuntary cry at the sight of that grim shape, and the others stared 
silently for a moment, perhaps themselves daunted with superstitious awe at the silent, hooded 
figure. Through the coif the eyes blazed like coals of blue fire, and as these eyes rested on each 
man in turn, he felt a curious chill travel down his spine. 
Then the tall Aquilonian roughly seized the girl and dragged her to the block. She screamed 
uncontrollably and fought hopelessly against him, frantic with terror, but he ruthlessly forced 
her to her knees, and bent her yellow head down to the bloody block. 
“Why do you delay, headsman?” he exclaimed angrily. “Perform your task!” 
He was answered by a short, gusty boom of laughter that was indescribably menacing. All in 
the dungeon froze in their places, staring at the hooded shape – the two cloaked figures, the 
masked man bending over the girl, the girl herself on her knees, twisting her imprisoned head 
to look upward. 
“What means this unseemly mirth, dog?” demanded the Aquilonian uneasily. 
The man in the black garb tore his hood from his head and flung it to the ground; he set his 
back to the closed door and lifted the headsman’s ax. 
“Do you know me, dogs?” he rumbled. “Do you know me?” 
The breathless silence was broken by a scream. 
“The king!” shrieked Albiona, wrenching herself free from the slackened grasp of her captor. 
“Oh, Mitra, the king!” 
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The three men stood like statues, and then the Aquilonian started and spoke, like a man who 
doubts his own senses. 
“Conan!” he ejaculated. “It is the king, or his ghost! What devil’s work is this?” 
“Devil’s work to match devils!” mocked Conan, his lips laughing but hell flaming in his eyes. 
“Come, fall to, my gentlemen. You have your swords, and I this cleaver. Nay, I think this 
butcher’s tool fits the work at hand, my fair lords!” 
“At him!” muttered the Aquilonian, drawing his sword. “It is Conan and we must kill or be 
killed!” 
And like men waking from a trance, the Nemedians drew their blades and rushed on the king. 
The headsman’s ax was not made for such work, but the king wielded the heavy, clumsy 
weapon as lightly as a hatchet, and his quickness of foot, as he constantly shifted his position, 
defeated their purpose of engaging him all three at once. 
He caught the sword of the first man on his ax-head and crushed in the wielder’s breast with a 
murderous counter-stroke before he could step back or parry. The remaining Nemedian, 
missing a savage swipe, had his brains dashed out before he could recover his balance, and an 
instant later the Aquilonian was backed into a corner, desperately parrying the crashing strokes 
that rained about him, lacking opportunity even to scream for help. 
Suddenly Conan’s long left arm shot out and ripped the mask from the man’s head, disclosing 
the pallid features. 
“Dog!” grated the king. “I thought I knew you. Traitor! Damned renegade! Even this base steel 
is too honorable for your foul head. Nay, die as thieves die!” 
The ax fell in a devastating arc, and the Aquilonian cried out and went to his knees, grasping 
the severed stump of his right arm from which blood spouted. It had been shorn away at the 
elbow, and the ax, unchecked in its descent, had gashed deeply into his side, so that his entrails 
bulged out. 
“Lie there and bleed to death,” grunted Conan, casting the ax away disgustedly. “Come, 
Countess!” 
Stooping, he slashed the cords that bound her wrists and lifting her as if she had been a child, 
strode from the dungeon. She was sobbing hysterically, with her arms thrown about his corded 
neck in a frenzied embrace. 
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“Easy all,” he muttered. “We’re not out of this yet. If we can reach the dungeon where the 
secret door opens on stairs that lead to the tunnel – devil take it, they’ve heard that noise, even 
through these walls.” 
Down the corridor arms clanged and the tramp and shouting of men echoed under the vaulted 
roof. A bent figure came hobbling swiftly along, lantern held high, and its light shone full on 
Conan and the girl. With a curse the Cimmerian sprang toward him, but the old watchman, 
abandoning both lantern and pike, scuttled away down the corridor, screeching for help at the 
top of his cracked voice. Deeper shouts answered him. 
Conan turned swiftly and ran the other way. He was cut off from the dungeon with the secret 
lock and the hidden door through which he had entered the Tower, and by which he had hoped 
to leave, but he knew this grim building well. Before he was king he had been imprisoned in it. 
He turned off into a side passage and quickly emerged into another, broader corridor, which ran 
parallel to the one down which he had come, and which was at the moment deserted. He 
followed this only a few yards, when he again turned back, down another side passage. This 
brought him back into the corridor he had left, but at a strategic point. A few feet farther up the 
corridor there was a heavy bolted door, and before it stood a bearded Nemedian in corselet and 
helmet, his back to Conan as he peered up the corridor in the direction of the growing tumult 
and wildly waving lanterns. 
Conan did not hesitate. Slipping the girl to the ground, he ran at the guard swiftly and silently, 
sword in hand. The man turned just as the king reached him, bawled in surprize and fright and 
lifted his pike; but before he could bring the clumsy weapon into play, Conan brought down his 
sword on the fellow’s helmet with a force that would have felled an ox. Helmet and skull gave 
way together and the guard crumpled to the floor. 
In an instant Conan had drawn the massive bolt that barred the door – too heavy for one 
ordinary man to have manipulated – and called hastily to Albiona, who ran staggering to him. 
Catching her up unceremoniously with one arm, he bore her through the door and into the outer 
darkness. 
They had come into a narrow alley, black as pitch, walled by the side of the Tower on one 
hand, and the sheer stone back of a row of buildings on the other. Conan, hurrying through the 
darkness as swiftly as he dared, felt the latter wall for doors or windows, but found none. 
The great door clanged open behind them, and men poured out, with torches gleaming on 
breastplates and naked swords. They glared about, bellowing, unable to penetrate the darkness 
which their torches served to illuminate for only a few feet in any direction, and then rushed 
down the alley at random – heading in the direction opposite to that taken by Conan and 
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Albiona. 
“They’ll learn their mistake quick enough,” he muttered, increasing his pace. “If we ever find a 
crack in this infernal wall – damn! The street watch!” 
Ahead of them a faint glow became apparent, where the alley opened into a narrow street, and 
he saw dim figures looming against it with a glimmer of steel. It was indeed the street watch, 
investigating the noise they had heard echoing down the alley. 
“Who goes there?” they shouted, and Conan grit his teeth at the hated Nemedian accent. 
“Keep behind me,” he ordered the girl. “We’ve got to cut our way through before the prison 
guards come back and pin us between them.” 
And grasping his sword, he ran straight at the oncoming figures. The advantage of surprize was 
his. He could see them, limned against the distant glow, and they could not see him coming at 
them out of the black depths of the alley. He was among them before they knew it, smiting 
with the silent fury of a wounded lion. 
His one chance lay in hacking through before they could gather their wits. But there were half a 
score of them, in full mail, hard-bitten veterans of the border wars, in whom the instinct for 
battle could take the place of bemused wits. Three of them were down before they realized that 
it was only one man who was attacking them, but even so their reaction was instantaneous. The 
clangor of steel rose deafeningly, and sparks flew as Conan’s sword crashed on basinet and 
hauberk. He could see better than they, and in the dim light his swiftly moving figure was an 
uncertain mark. Flailing swords cut empty air or glanced from his blade, and when he struck, it 
was with the fury and certainty of a hurricane. 
But behind him sounded the shouts of the prison guards, returning up the alley at a run, and 
still the mailed figures before him barred his way with a bristling wall of steel. In an instant the 
guards would be on his back – in desperation he redoubled his strokes, flailing like a smith on 
an anvil, and then was suddenly aware of a diversion. Out of nowhere behind the watchmen 
rose a score of black figures and there was a sound of blows, murderously driven. Steel glinted 
in the gloom, and men cried out, struck mortally from behind. In an instant the alley was 
littered with writhing forms. A dark, cloaked shape sprang toward Conan, who heaved up his 
sword, catching a gleam of steel in the right hand. But the other was extended to him empty 
and a voice hissed urgently: “This way, your Majesty! Quickly!” 
With a muttered oath of surprize, Conan caught up Albiona in one massive arm, and followed 
his unknown befriender. He was not inclined to hesitate, with thirty prison guardsmen closing 
in behind him. 
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Surrounded by mysterious figures he hurried down the alley, carrying the countess as if she had 
been a child. He could tell nothing of his rescuers except that they wore dark cloaks and hoods. 
Doubt and suspicion crossed his mind, but at least they had struck down his enemies, and he 
saw no better course than to follow them. 
As if sensing his doubt, the leader touched his arm lightly and said: “Fear not, King Conan; we 
are your loyal subjects.” The voice was not familiar, but the accent was Aquilonian of the 
central provinces. 
Behind them the guards were yelling as they stumbled over the shambles in the mud, and they 
came pelting vengefully down the alley, seeing the vague dark mass moving between them and 
the light of the distant street. But the hooded men turned suddenly toward the seemingly blank 
wall, and Conan saw a door gape there. He muttered a curse. He had traversed that alley by 
day, in times past, and had never noticed a door there. But through it they went, and the door 
closed behind them with the click of a lock. The sound was not reassuring, but his guides were 
hurrying him on, moving with the precision of familiarity, guiding Conan with a hand at either 
elbow. It was like traversing a tunnel, and Conan felt Albiona’s lithe limbs trembling in his 
arms. Then somewhere ahead of them an opening was faintly visible, merely a somewhat less 
black arch in the blackness, and through this they filed. 
After that there was a bewildering succession of dim courts and shadowy alleys and winding 
corridors, all traversed in utter silence, until at last they emerged into a broad lighted chamber, 
the location of which Conan could not even guess, for their devious route had confused even 
his primitive sense of direction. 
X
A COIN FROM ACHERON 
Not all his guides entered the chamber. When the door closed, Conan saw only one man 
standing before him – a slim figure, masked in a black cloak with a hood. This the man threw 
back, disclosing a pale oval of a face, with calm, delicately chiseled features. 
The king set Albiona on her feet, but she still clung to him and stared apprehensively about her. 
The chamber was a large one, with marble walls partly covered with black velvet hangings and 
thick rich carpets on the mosaic floor, laved in the soft golden glow of bronze lamps. 
Conan instinctively laid a hand on his hilt. There was blood on his hand, blood clotted about 
the mouth of his scabbard, for he had sheathed his blade without cleansing it. 
“Where are we?” he demanded. 
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The stranger answered with a low, profound bow in which the suspicious king could detect no 
trace of irony. 
“In the temple of Asura, your Majesty.” 
Albiona cried out faintly and clung closer to Conan, staring fearfully at the black, arched doors, 
as if expecting the entry of some grisly shape of darkness. 
“Fear not, my lady,” said their guide. “There is nothing here to harm you, vulgar superstition to 
the contrary. If your monarch was sufficiently convinced of the innocence of our religion to 
protect us from the persecution of the ignorant, then certainly one of his subjects need have no 
apprehensions.” 
“Who are you?” demanded Conan. 
“I am Hadrathus, priest of Asura. One of my followers recognized you when you entered the 
city, and brought the word to me.” 
Conan grunted profanely. 
“Do not fear that others discovered your identity,” Hadrathus assured him. “Your disguise 
would have deceived any but a follower of Asura, whose cult it is to seek below the aspect of 
illusion. You were followed to the watch tower, and some of my people went into the tunnel to 
aid you if you returned by that route. Others, myself among them, surrounded the tower. And 
now, King Conan, it is yours to command. Here in the temple of Asura you are still king.” 
“Why should you risk your lives for me?” asked the king. 
“You were our friend when you sat upon your throne,” answered Hadrathus. “You protected us 
when the priests of Mitra sought to scourge us out of the land.” 
Conan looked about him curiously. He had never before visited the temple of Asura, had not 
certainly known that there was such a temple in Tarantia. The priests of the religion had a habit 
of hiding their temples in a remarkable fashion. The worship of Mitra was overwhelmingly 
predominant in the Hyborian nations, but the cult of Asura persisted, in spite of official ban and 
popular antagonism. Conan had been told dark tales of hidden temples where incense smoke 
drifted up incessantly from black altars where kidnaped humans were sacrificed before a great 
coiled serpent, whose fearsome head swayed for ever in the haunted shadows. 
Persecution caused the followers of Asura to hide their temples with cunning art, and to veil 
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their rituals in obscurity; and this secrecy, in turn, evoked more monstrous suspicions and tales 
of evil. 
But Conan’s was the broad tolerance of the barbarian, and he had refused to persecute the 
followers of Asura or to allow the people to do so on no better evidence than was presented 
against them, rumors and accusations that could not be proven. “If they are black magicians,” 
he had said, “how will they suffer you to harry them? If they are not, there is no evil in them. 
Crom’s devils! Let men worship what gods they will.” 
At a respectful invitation from Hadrathus he seated himself on an ivory chair, and motioned 
Albiona to another, but she preferred to sit on a golden stool at his feet, pressing close against 
his thigh, as if seeking security in the contact. Like most orthodox followers of Mitra, she had 
an intuitive horror of the followers and cult of Asura, instilled in her infancy and childhood by 
wild tales of human sacrifice and anthropomorphic gods shambling through shadowy temples. 
Hadrathus stood before them, his uncovered head bowed. 
“What is your wish, your Majesty?” 
“Food, first,” he grunted, and the priest smote a golden gong with a silver wand. 
Scarcely had the mellow notes ceased echoing when four hooded figures came through a 
curtained doorway bearing a great four-legged silver platter of smoking dishes and crystal 
vessels. This they set before Conan, bowing low, and the king wiped his hands on the damask, 
and smacked his lips with unconcealed relish. 
“Beware, your Majesty!” whispered Albiona. “These folk eat human flesh!” 
“I’ll stake my kingdom that this is nothing but honest roast beef,” answered Conan. “Come, 
lass, fall to! You must be hungry after the prison fare.” 
Thus advised, and with the example before her of one whose word was the ultimate law to her, 
the countess complied, and ate ravenously though daintily, while her liege lord tore into the 
meat joints and guzzled the wine with as much gusto as if he had not already eaten once that 
night. 
“You priests are shrewd, Hadrathus,” he said, with a great beef-bone in his hands and his 
mouth full of meat. “I’d welcome your service in my campaign to regain my kingdom.” 
Slowly Hadrathus shook his head, and Conan slammed the beef-bone down on the table in a 
gust of impatient wrath. 
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“Crom’s devils! What ails the men of Aquilonia? First Servius – now you! Can you do nothing 
but wag your idiotic heads when I speak of ousting these dogs?” 
Hadrathus sighed and answered slowly: “My lord, it is ill to say, and I fain would say 
otherwise. But the freedom of Aquilonia is at an end. Nay, the freedom of the whole world may 
be at an end! Age follows age in the history of the world, and now we enter an age of horror 
and slavery, as it was long ago.” 
“What do you mean?” demanded the king uneasily. 
Hadrathus dropped into a chair and rested his elbows on his thighs, staring at the floor. 
“It is not alone the rebellious lords of Aquilonia and the armies of Nemedia which are arrayed 
against you,” answered Hadrathus. “It is sorcery – grisly black magic from the grim youth of 
the world. An awful shape has risen out of the shades of the Past, and none can stand before it.” 
“What do you mean?” Conan repeated. 
“I speak of Xaltotun of Acheron, who died three thousand years ago, yet walks the earth today.” 
Conan was silent, while in his mind floated an image – the image of a bearded face of calm 
inhuman beauty. Again he was haunted by a sense of uneasy familiarity. Acheron – the sound 
of the word roused instinctive vibrations of memory and associations in his mind. 
“Acheron,” he repeated. “Xaltotun of Acheron – man, are you mad? Acheron has been a myth 
for more centuries than I can remember. I’ve often wondered if it ever existed at all.” 
“It was a black reality,” answered Hadrathus, “an empire of black magicians, steeped in evil 
now long forgotten. It was finally overthrown by the Hyborian tribes of the west. The wizards 
of Acheron practised foul necromancy, thaumaturgy of the most evil kind, grisly magic taught 
them by devils. And of all the sorcerers of that accursed kingdom, none was so great as 
Xaltotun of Python.” 
“Then how was he ever overthrown?” asked Conan skeptically. 
“By some means a source of cosmic power which he jealously guarded was stolen and turned 
against him. That source has been returned to him, and he is invincible.” 
Albiona, hugging the headsman’s black cloak about her, stared from the priest to the king, not 
understanding the conversation. Conan shook his head angrily. 
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“You are making game of me,” he growled. “If Xaltotun has been dead three thousand years, 
how can this man be he? It’s some rogue who’s taken the old one’s name.” 
Hadrathus leaned to an ivory table and opened a small gold chest which stood there. From it he 
took something which glinted dully in the mellow light – a broad gold coin of antique minting. 
“You have seen Xaltotun unveiled? Then look upon this. It is a coin which was stamped in 
ancient Acheron, before its fall. So pervaded with sorcery was that black empire, that even this 
coin has its uses in making magic.” 
Conan took it and scowled down at it. There was no mistaking its great antiquity. Conan had 
handled many coins in the years of his plunderings, and had a good practical knowledge of 
them. The edges were worn and the inscription almost obliterated. But the countenance 
stamped on one side was still clear-cut and distinct. And Conan’s breath sucked in between his 
clenched teeth. It was not cool in the chamber, but he felt a prickling of his scalp, an icy 
contraction of his flesh. The countenance was that of a bearded man, inscrutable, with a calm 
inhuman beauty. 
“By Crom! It’s he!” muttered Conan. He understood, now, the sense of familiarity that the 
sight of the bearded man had roused in him from the first. He had seen a coin like this once 
before, long ago in a far land. 
With a shake of his shoulders he growled: “The likeness is only a coincidence – or if he’s 
shrewd enough to assume a forgotten wizard’s name, he’s shrewd enough to assume his 
likeness.” But he spoke without conviction. The sight of that coin had shaken the foundations 
of his universe. He felt that reality and stability were crumbling into an abyss of illusion and 
sorcery. A wizard was understandable; but this was diabolism beyond sanity. 
“We cannot doubt that it is indeed Xaltotun of Python,” said Hadrathus. “He it was who shook 
down the cliffs at Valkia, by his spells that enthrall the elementals of the earth – he it was who 
sent the creature of darkness into your tent before dawn.” 
Conan scowled at him. “How did you know that?” 
“The followers of Asura have secret channels of knowledge. That does not matter. But do you 
realize the futility of sacrificing your subjects in a vain attempt to regain your crown?” 
Conan rested his chin on his fist, and stared grimly into nothing. Albiona watched him 
anxiously, her mind groping bewildered in the mazes of the problem that confronted him. 
“Is there no wizard in the world who could make magic to fight Xaltotun’s magic?” he asked at 
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last. 
Hadrathus shook his head. “If there were, we of Asura would know of him. Men say our cult is 
a survival of the ancient Stygian serpent-worship. That is a lie. Our ancestors came from 
Vendhya, beyond the Sea of Vilayet and the blue Himelian mountains. We are sons of the East, 
not the South, and we have knowledge of all the wizards of the East, who are greater than the 
wizards of the West. And not one of them but would be a straw in the wind before the black 
might of Xaltotun.” 
“But he was conquered once,” persisted Conan. 
“Aye; a cosmic source was turned against him. But now that source is again in his hands, and 
he will see that it is not stolen again.” 
“And what is this damnable source?” demanded Conan irritably. 
“It is called the Heart of Ahriman. When Acheron was overthrown, the primitive priest who 
had stolen it and turned it against Xaltotun hid it in a haunted cavern and built a small temple 
over the cavern. Thrice thereafter the temple was rebuilt, each time greater and more 
elaborately than before, but always on the site of the original shrine, though men forgot the 
reason therefor. Memory of the hidden symbol faded from the minds of common men, and was 
preserved only in priestly books and esoteric volumes. Whence it came no one knows. Some 
say it is the veritable heart of a god, others that it is a star that fell from the skies long ago. 
Until it was stolen, none had looked upon it for three thousand years. 
“When the magic of the Mitran priests failed against the magic of Xaltotun’s acolyte, Altaro, 
they remembered the ancient legend of the Heart, and the high priest and an acolyte went down 
into the dark and terrible crypt below the temple into which no priest had descended for three 
thousand years. In the ancient iron-bound volumes which speak of the Heart in their cryptic 
symbolism, it is also told of a creature of darkness left by the ancient priest to guard it. 
“Far down in a square chamber with arched doorways leading off into immeasurable blackness, 
the priest and his acolytes found a black stone altar that glowed dimly with inexplicable 
radiance. 
“On that altar lay a curious gold vessel like a double-valved sea-shell which clung to the stone 
like a barnacle. But it gaped open and empty. The Heart of Ahriman was gone. While they 
stared in horror, the keeper of the crypt, the creature of darkness, came upon them and mangled 
the high priest so that he died. But the acolyte fought off the being – a mindless, soulless waif 
of the pits brought long ago to guard the Heart – and escaped up the long black narrow stairs 
carrying the dying priest, who, before he died, gasped out the news to his followers, bade them 
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submit to a power they could not overcome, and commanded secrecy. But the word has been 
whispered about among the priests, and we of Asura learned of it.” 
“And Xaltotun draws his power from this symbol?” asked Conan, still skeptical. 
“No. His power is drawn from the black gulf. But the Heart of Ahriman came from some far 
universe of flaming light, and against it the powers of darkness cannot stand, when it is in the 
hands of an adept. It is like a sword that might smite at him, not a sword with which he can 
smite. It restores life, and can destroy life. He has stolen it, not to use it against his enemies, but 
to keep them from using it against him.” 
“A shell-shaped bowl of gold on a black altar in a deep cavern,” Conan muttered, frowning as 
he sought to capture the illusive image. “That reminds me of something I have heard or seen. 
But what, in Crom’s name, is this notable Heart?” 
“It is in the form of a great jewel, like a ruby, but pulsing with blinding fire with which no ruby 
ever burned. It glows like living flame – ” 
But Conan sprang suddenly up and smote his right fist into his left palm like a thunderclap. 
“Crom!” he roared. “What a fool I’ve been! The Heart of Ahriman! The heart of my kingdom! 
Find the heart of my kingdom, Zelata said. By Ymir, it was the jewel I saw in the green smoke, 
the jewel which Tarascus stole from Xaltotun while he lay in the sleep of the black lotus!” 
Hadrathus was also on his feet, his calm dropped from him like a garment. 
“What are you saying? The Heart stolen from Xaltotun?” 
“Aye!” Conan boomed. “Tarascus feared Xaltotun and wanted to cripple his power, which he 
thought resided in the Heart. Maybe he thought the wizard would die if the Heart was lost. By 
Crom – ahhh!” With a savage grimace of disappointment and disgust he dropped his clenched 
hand to his side. 
“I forgot. Tarascus gave it to a thief to throw into the sea. By this time the fellow must be 
almost to Kordava. Before I can follow him he’ll take ship and consign the Heart to the bottom 
of the ocean.” 
“The sea will not hold it!” exclaimed Hadrathus, quivering with excitement. “Xaltotun would 
himself have cast it into the ocean long ago, had he not known that the first storm would carry 
it ashore. But on what unknown beach might it not land!” 
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“Well,” Conan was recovering some of his resilient confidence, “there’s no assurance that the 
thief will throw it away. If I know thieves – and I should, for I was a thief in Zamora in my 
early youth – he won’t throw it away. He’ll sell it to some rich trader. By Crom!” He strode 
back and forth in his growing excitement. “It’s worth looking for! Zelata bade me find the heart 
of my kingdom, and all else she showed me proved to be truth. Can it be that the power to 
conquer Xaltotun lurks in that crimson bauble?” 
“Aye! My head upon it!” cried Hadrathus, his face lightened with fervor, his eyes blazing, his 
fists clenched. “With it in our hands we can dare the powers of Xaltotun! I swear it! If we can 
recover it, we have an even chance of recovering your crown and driving the invaders from our 
portals. It is not the swords of Nemedia that Aquilonia fears, but the black arts of Xaltotun.” 
Conan looked at him for a space, impressed by the priest’s fire. 
“It’s like a quest in a nightmare,” he said at last. “Yet your words echo the thought of Zelata, 
and all else she said was truth. I’ll seek for this jewel.” 
“It holds the destiny of Aquilonia,” said Hadrathus with conviction. “I will send men with you 
– ” 
“Nay!” exclaimed the king impatiently, not caring to be hampered by priests on his quest, 
however skilled in esoteric arts. “This is a task for a fighting-man. I go alone. First to Poitain, 
where I’ll leave Albiona with Trocero. Then to Kordava, and to the sea beyond, if necessary. It 
may be that, even if the thief intends carrying out Tarascus’s order, he’ll have some difficulty 
finding an outbound ship at this time of the year.” 
“And if you find the Heart,” cried Hadrathus, “I will prepare the way for your conquest. Before 
you return to Aquilonia I will spread the word through secret channels that you live and are 
returning with a magic stronger than Xaltotun’s. I will have men ready to rise on your return. 
They will rise, if they have assurance that they will be protected from the black arts of Xaltotun. 
“And I will aid you on your journey.” 
He rose and struck the gong. 
“A secret tunnel leads from beneath this temple to a place outside the city wall. You shall go to 
Poitain on a pilgrim’s boat. None will dare molest you.” 
“As you will.” With a definite purpose in mind Conan was afire with impatience and dynamic 
energy. “Only let it be done swiftly.” 
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In the meantime events were moving not slowly elsewhere in the city. A breathless messenger 
had burst into the palace where Valerius was amusing himself with his dancing-girls, and 
throwing himself on his knee, gasped out a garbled story of a bloody prison break and the 
escape of a lovely captive. He bore also the news that Count Thespius, to whom the execution 
of Albiona’s sentence had been entrusted, was dying and begging for a word with Valerius 
before he passed. 
Hurriedly cloaking himself, Valerius accompanied the man through various winding ways, and 
came to a chamber where Thespius lay. There was no doubt that the count was dying; bloody 
froth bubbled from his lips at each shuddering gasp. His severed arm had been bound to stop 
the flow of blood, but even without that, the gash in his side was mortal. 
Alone in the chamber with the dying man, Valerius swore softly. 
“By Mitra, I had believed that only one man ever lived who could strike such a blow.” 
“Valerius!” gasped the dying man. “He lives! Conan lives!” 
“What are you saying?” ejaculated the other. 
“I swear by Mitra!” gurgled Thespius, gagging on the blood that gushed to his lips. “It was he 
who carried off Albiona! He is not dead – no phantom come back from hell to haunt us. He is 
flesh and blood, and more terrible than ever. The alley behind the tower is full of dead men. 
Beware, Valerius – he has come back – to slay us all – ” 
A strong shudder shook the blood-smeared figure, and Count Thespius went limp. 
Valerius frowned down at the dead man, cast a swift glance about the empty chamber, and 
stepping swiftly to the door, cast it open suddenly. The messenger and a group of Nemedian 
guardsmen stood several paces down the corridor. Valerius muttered something that might 
have indicated satisfaction. 
“Have all gates been closed?” he demanded. 
“Yes, your Majesty.” 
“Triple the guards at each. Let no one enter or leave the city without strictest investigation. Set 
men scouring the streets and searching the quarters. A very valuable prisoner has escaped, with 
the aid of an Aquilonian rebel. Did any of you recognize the man?” 
“No, your Majesty. The old watchman had a glimpse of him, but could only say that he was a 
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giant, clad in the black garb of the executioner, whose naked body we found in an empty cell.” 
“He is a dangerous man,” said Valerius. “Take no chances with him. You all know the 
Countess Albiona. Search for her, and if you find her, kill her and her companion instantly. Do 
not try to take them alive.” 
Returning to his palace chamber, Valerius summoned before him four men of curious and alien 
aspect. They were tall, gaunt, of yellowish skin, and immobile countenances. They were very 
similar in appearance, clad alike in long black robes beneath which their sandaled feet were 
just visible. Their features were shadowed by their hoods. They stood before Valerius with 
their hands in their wide sleeves, their arms folded. Valerius looked at them without pleasure. 
In his far journeyings he had encountered many strange races. 
“When I found you starving in the Khitan jungles,” he said abruptly, “exiles from your 
kingdom, you swore to serve me. You have served me well enough, in your abominable way. 
One more service I require, and then I set you free of your oath. 
“Conan, the Cimmerian, king of Aquilonia, still lives, in spite of Xaltotun’s sorcery – or 
perhaps because of it. I know not. The dark mind of that resurrected devil is too devious and 
subtle for a mortal man to fathom. But while Conan lives I am not safe. The people accepted 
me as the lesser of two evils, when they thought he was dead. Let him reappear and the throne 
will be rocking under my feet in revolution before I can lift my hand. 
“Perhaps my allies mean to use him to replace me, if they decide I have served my purpose. I 
do not know. I do know that this planet is too small for two kings of Aquilonia. Seek the 
Cimmerian. Use your uncanny talents to ferret him out wherever he hides or runs. He has many 
friends in Tarantia. He had aid when he carried off Albiona. It took more than one man, even 
such a man as Conan, to wreak all that slaughter in the alley outside the tower. But no more. 
Take your staffs and strike his trail. Where that trail will lead you, I know not. But find him! 
And when you find him, slay him!” 
The four Khitans bowed together, and still unspeaking, turned and padded noiselessly from the 
chamber. 
XI 
SWORDS OF THE SOUTH 
Dawn that rose over the distant hills shone on the sails of a small craft that dropped down the 
river which curves to within a mile of the walls of Tarantia, and loops southward like a great 
shining serpent. This boat differed from the ordinary craft plying the broad Khorotas – 
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fishermen and merchant barges loaded with rich goods. It was long and slender, with a high, 
curving prow, and was black as ebony, with white skulls painted along the gunwales. 
Amidships rose a small cabin, the windows closely masked. Other craft gave the ominously 
painted boat a wide berth; for it was obviously one of those “pilgrim boats” that carried a 
lifeless follower of Asura on his last mysterious pilgrimage southward to where, far beyond the 
Poitanian mountains, a river flowed at last into the blue ocean. In that cabin undoubtedly lay 
the corpse of the departed worshipper. All men were familiar with the sight of those gloomy 
craft; and the most fanatical votary of Mitra would not dare touch or interfere with their somber 
voyages. 
Where the ultimate destination lay, men did not know. Some said Stygia; some a nameless 
island lying beyond the horizon; others said it was in the glamorous and mysterious land of 
Vendhya where the dead came home at last. But none knew certainly. They only knew that 
when a follower of Asura died, the corpse went southward down the great river, in a black boat 
rowed by a giant slave, and neither boat nor corpse nor slave was ever seen again; unless, 
indeed, certain dark tales were true, and it was always the same slave who rowed the boats 
southward. 
The man who propelled this particular boat was as huge and brown as the others, though closer 
scrutiny might have revealed the fact that the hue was the result of carefully applied pigments. 
He was clad in leather loin-clout and sandals, and he handled the long sweep and oars with 
unusual skill and power. But none approached the grim boat closely, for it was well known that 
the followers of Asura were accursed, and that these pilgrim boats were loaded with dark 
magic. So men swung their boats wide and muttered an incantation as the dark craft slid past, 
and they never dreamed that they were thus assisting in the flight of their king and the Countess 
Albiona. 
It was a strange journey, in that black, slim craft down the great river for nearly two hundred 
miles to where the Khorotas swings eastward, skirting the Poitanian mountains. Like a dream 
the ever-changing panorama glided past. During the day Albiona lay patiently in the little 
cabin, as quietly as the corpse she pretended to be. Only late at night, after the pleasure boats 
with their fair occupants lounging on silken cushions in the flare of torches held by slaves had 
left the river, before dawn brought the hurrying fisher-boats, did the girl venture out. Then she 
held the long sweep, cunningly bound in place by ropes to aid her, while Conan snatched a few 
hours of sleep. But the king needed little rest. The fire of his desire drove him relentlessly, and 
his powerful frame was equal to the grinding test. Without halt or pause they drove southward. 
So down the river they fled, through nights when the flowing current mirrored the million stars, 
and through days of golden sunlight, leaving winter behind them as they sped southward. They 
passed cities in the night, above which throbbed and pulsed the reflection of the myriad lights, 
lordly river villas and fertile groves. So at last the blue mountains of Poitain rose above them, 
tier above tier, like ramparts of the gods, and the great river, swerving from those turreted 
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cliffs, swept thunderously through the marching hills with many a rapid and foaming cataract. 
Conan scanned the shore-line closely, and finally swung the long sweep and headed inshore at 
a point where a neck of land jutted into the water, and fir trees grew in a curiously symmetrical 
ring about a gray, strangely shaped rock. 
“How these boats ride those falls we hear roaring ahead of us is more than I can see,” he 
grunted. “Hadrathus said they did – but here’s where we halt. He said a man would be waiting 
for us with horses, but I don’t see anyone. How word of our coming could have preceded us I 
don’t know anyway.” 
He drove inshore and bound the prow to an arching root in the low bank, and then, plunging 
into the water, washed the brown paint from his skin and emerged dripping, and in his natural 
color. From the cabin he brought forth a suit of Aquilonian ring-mail which Hadrathus had 
procured for him, and his sword. These he donned while Albiona put on garments suitable for 
mountain travel. And when Conan was fully armed, and turned to look toward the shore, he 
started and his hand went to his sword. For on the shore, under the trees, stood a black-cloaked 
figure holding the reins of a white palfrey and a bay war-horse. 
“Who are you?” demanded the king. 
The other bowed low. 
“A follower of Asura. A command came. I obeyed.” 
“How, ‘came’?” inquired Conan, but the other merely bowed again. 
“I have come to guide you through the mountains to the first Poitanian stronghold.” 
“I don’t need a guide,” answered Conan. “I know these hills well. I thank you for the horses, 
but the countess and I will attract less attention alone than if we were accompanied by an 
acolyte of Asura.” 
The man bowed profoundly, and giving the reins into Conan’s hands, stepped into the boat. 
Casting off, he floated down the swift current, toward the distant roar of the unseen rapids. 
With a baffled shake of his head, Conan lifted the countess into the palfrey’s saddle, and then 
mounted the war-horse and reined toward the summits that castellated the sky. 
The rolling country at the foot of the towering mountains was now a borderland, in a state of 
turmoil, where the barons reverted to feudal practises, and bands of outlaws roamed 
unhindered. Poitain had not formally declared her separation from Aquilonia, but she was now, 
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to all intents, a self-contained kingdom, ruled by her hereditary count, Trocero. The rolling 
south country had submitted nominally to Valerius, but he had not attempted to force the 
passes guarded by strongholds where the crimson leopard banner of Poitain waved defiantly. 
The king and his fair companion rode up the long blue slopes in the soft evening. As they 
mounted higher, the rolling country spread out like a vast purple mantle far beneath them, shot 
with the shine of rivers and lakes, the yellow glint of broad fields, and the white gleam of 
distant towers. Ahead of them and far above, they glimpsed the first of the Poitanian holds – a 
strong fortress dominating a narrow pass, the crimson banner streaming against the clear blue 
sky. 
Before they reached it, a band of knights in burnished armor rode from among the trees, and 
their leader sternly ordered the travelers to halt. They were tall men, with the dark eyes and 
raven locks of the south. 
“Halt, sir, and state your business, and why you ride toward Poitain.” 
“Is Poitain in revolt then,” asked Conan, watching the other closely, “that a man in Aquilonian 
harness is halted and questioned like a foreigner?” 
“Many rogues ride out of Aquilonia these days,” answered the other coldly. “As for revolt, if 
you mean the repudiation of a usurper, then Poitain is in revolt. We had rather serve the 
memory of a dead man than the scepter of a living dog.” 
Conan swept off his helmet, and shaking back his black mane, stared full at the speaker. The 
Poitanian started violently and went livid. 
“Saints of heaven!” he gasped. “It is the king – alive!” 
The others stared wildly, then a roar of wonder and joy burst from them. They swarmed about 
Conan, shouting their war-cries and brandishing their swords in their extreme emotion. The 
acclaim of Poitanian warriors was a thing to terrify a timid man. 
“Oh, but Trocero will weep tears of joy to see you, sire!” cried one. 
“Aye, and Prospero!” shouted another. “The general has been like one wrapped in a mantle of 
melancholy, and curses himself night and day that he did not reach the Valkia in time to die 
beside his king!” 
“Now we will strike for empery!” yelled another, whirling his great sword about his head. 
“Hail, Conan, king of Poitain!” 
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The clangor of bright steel about him and the thunder of their acclaim frightened the birds that 
rose in gay-hued clouds from the surrounding trees. The hot southern blood was afire, and they 
desired nothing but for their new-found sovereign to lead them to battle and pillage. 
“What is your command, sire?” they cried. “Let one of us ride ahead and bear the news of your 
coming into Poitain! Banners will wave from every tower, roses will carpet the road before 
your horse’s feet, and all the beauty and chivalry of the south will give you the honor due you – 
”
Conan shook his head. 
“Who could doubt your loyalty? But winds blow over these mountains into the countries of my 
enemies, and I would rather these didn’t know that I lived – yet. Take me to Trocero, and keep 
my identity a secret.” 
So what the knights would have made a triumphal procession was more in the nature of a secret 
flight. They traveled in haste, speaking to no one, except for a whisper to the captain on duty at 
each pass; and Conan rode among them with his vizor lowered. 
The mountains were uninhabited save by outlaws and garrisons of soldiers who guarded the 
passes. The pleasure-loving Poitanians had no need nor desire to wrest a hard and scanty living 
from their stern breasts. South of the ranges the rich and beautiful plains of Poitain stretched to 
the river Alimane; but beyond the river lay the land of Zingara. 
Even now, when winter was crisping the leaves beyond the mountains, the tall rich grass waved 
upon the plains where grazed the horses and cattle for which Poitain was famed. Palm trees and 
orange groves smiled in the sun, and the gorgeous purple and gold and crimson towers of 
castles and cities reflected the golden light. It was a land of warmth and plenty, of beautiful 
women and ferocious warriors. It is not only the hard lands that breed hard men. Poitain was 
surrounded by covetous neighbors and her sons learned hardihood in incessant wars. To the 
north the land was guarded by the mountains, but to the south only the Alimane separated the 
plains of Poitain from the plains of Zingara, and not once but a thousand times had that river 
run red. To the east lay Argos and beyond that Ophir, proud kingdoms and avaricious. The 
knights of Poitain held their lands by the weight and edge of their swords, and little of ease and 
idleness they knew. 
So Conan came presently to the castle of Count Trocero.... 
Conan sat on a silken divan in a rich chamber whose filmy curtains the warm breeze billowed. 
Trocero paced the floor like a panther, a lithe, restless man with the waist of a woman and the 
shoulders of a swordsman, who carried his years lightly. 
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“Let us proclaim you king of Poitain!” urged the count. “Let those northern pigs wear the yoke 
to which they have bent their necks. The south is still yours. Dwell here and rule us, amid the 
flowers and the palms.” 
But Conan shook his head. “There is no nobler land on earth than Poitain. But it cannot stand 
alone, bold as are its sons.” 
“It did stand alone for generations,” retorted Trocero, with the quick jealous pride of his breed. 
“We were not always a part of Aquilonia.” 
“I know. But conditions are not as they were then, when all kingdoms were broken into 
principalities which warred with each other. The days of dukedoms and free cities are past, the 
days of empires are upon us. Rulers are dreaming imperial dreams, and only in unity is there 
strength.” 
“Then let us unite Zingara with Poitain,” argued Trocero. “Half a dozen princes strive against 
each other, and the country is torn asunder by civil wars. We will conquer it, province by 
province, and add it to your dominions. Then with the aid of the Zingarans we will conquer 
Argos and Ophir. We will build an empire – ” 
Again Conan shook his head. “Let others dream imperial dreams. I but wish to hold what is 
mine. I have no desire to rule an empire welded together by blood and fire. It’s one thing to 
seize a throne with the aid of its subjects and rule them with their consent. It’s another to 
subjugate a foreign realm and rule it by fear. I don’t wish to be another Valerius. No, Trocero, 
I’ll rule all Aquilonia and no more, or I’ll rule nothing.” 
“Then lead us over the mountains and we will smite the Nemedians.” 
Conan’s fierce eyes glowed with appreciation. 
“No, Trocero. It would be a vain sacrifice. I’ve told you what I must do to regain my kingdom. 
I must find the Heart of Ahriman.” 
“But this is madness!” protested Trocero. “The maunderings of a heretical priest, the 
mumblings of a mad witch-woman.” 
“You were not in my tent before Valkia,” answered Conan grimly, involuntarily glancing at his 
right wrist, on which blue marks still showed faintly. “You didn’t see the cliffs thunder down 
to crush the flower of my army. No, Trocero, I’ve been convinced. Xaltotun’s no mortal man, 
and only with the Heart of Ahriman can I stand against him. So I’m riding to Kordava, alone.” 
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“But that is dangerous,” protested Trocero. 
“Life is dangerous,” rumbled the king. “I won’t go as king of Aquilonia, or even as a knight of 
Poitain, but as a wandering mercenary, as I rode in Zingara in the old days. Oh, I have enemies 
enough south of the Alimane, in the lands and the waters of the south. Many who won’t know 
me as king of Aquilonia will remember me as Conan of the Barachan pirates, or Amra of the 
black corsairs. But I have friends, too, and men who’ll aid me for their own private reasons.” A 
faintly reminiscent grin touched his lips. 
Trocero dropped his hands helplessly and glanced at Albiona, who sat on a near-by divan. 
“I understand your doubts, my lord,” said she. “But I too saw the coin in the temple of Asura, 
and look you, Hadrathus said it was dated five hundred years before the fall of Acheron. If 
Xaltotun, then, is the man pictured on the coin, as his Majesty swears he is, that means he was 
no common wizard, even in his other life, for the years of his life were numbered by centuries, 
not as the lives of other men are numbered.” 
Before Trocero could reply, a respectful rap was heard on the door and a voice called: “My 
lord, we have caught a man skulking about the castle, who says he wishes to speak with your 
guest. I await your orders.” 
“A spy from Aquilonia!” hissed Trocero, catching at his dagger, but Conan lifted his voice and 
called: “Open the door and let me see him.” 
The door was opened and a man was framed in it, grasped on either hand by stern-looking menat-
arms. He was a slender man, clad in a dark hooded robe. 
“Are you a follower of Asura?” asked Conan. 
The man nodded, and the stalwart men-at-arms looked shocked and glanced hesitantly at 
Trocero. 
“The word came southward,” said the man. “Beyond the Alimane we can not aid you, for our 
sect goes no farther southward, but stretches eastward with the Khorotas. But this I have 
learned: the thief who took the Heart of Ahriman from Tarascus never reached Kordava. In the 
mountains of Poitain he was slain by robbers. The jewel fell into the hands of their chief, who, 
not knowing its true nature, and being harried after the destruction of his band by Poitanian 
knights, sold it to the Kothic merchant Zorathus.” 
“Ha!” Conan was on his feet, galvanized. “And what of Zorathus?” 
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“Four days ago he crossed the Alimane, headed for Argos, with a small band of armed 
servants.” 
“He’s a fool to cross Zingara in such times,” said Trocero. 
“Aye, times are troublous across the river. But Zorathus is a bold man, and reckless in his way. 
He is in great haste to reach Messantia, where he hopes to find a buyer for the jewel. Perhaps 
he hopes to sell it finally in Stygia. Perhaps he guesses at its true nature. At any rate, instead of 
following the long road that winds along the borders of Poitain and so at last comes into Argos 
far from Messantia, he has struck straight across eastern Zingara, following the shorter and 
more direct route.” 
Conan smote the table with his clenched fist so that the great board quivered. 
“Then, by Crom, fortune has at last thrown the dice for me! A horse, Trocero, and the harness 
of a Free Companion! Zorathus has a long start, but not too long for me to overtake him, if I 
follow him to the end of the world!” 
XII 
THE FANG OF THE DRAGON 
At dawn Conan waded his horse across the shallows of the Alimane and struck the wide 
caravan trail which ran southeastward, and behind him, on the farther bank, Trocero sat his 
horse silently at the head of his steel-clad knights, with the crimson leopard of Poitain floating 
its long folds over him in the morning breeze. Silently they sat, those dark-haired men in 
shining steel, until the figure of their king had vanished in the blue of distance that whitened 
toward sunrise. 
Conan rode a great black stallion, the gift of Trocero. He no longer wore the armor of 
Aquilonia. His harness proclaimed him a veteran of the Free Companies, who were of all races. 
His head-piece was a plain morion, dented and battered. The leather and mail-mesh of his 
hauberk were worn and shiny as if by many campaigns, and the scarlet cloak flowing carelessly 
from his mailed shoulders was tattered and stained. He looked the part of the hired fightingman, 
who had known all vicissitudes of fortune, plunder and wealth one day, an empty purse 
and a close-drawn belt the next. 
And more than looking the part, he felt the part; the awakening of old memories, the resurge of 
the wild, mad, glorious days of old before his feet were set on the imperial path when he was a 
wandering mercenary, roistering, brawling, guzzling, adventuring, with no thought for the 
morrow, and no desire save sparkling ale, red lips, and a keen sword to swing on all the 
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battlefields of the world. 
Unconsciously he reverted to the old ways; a new swagger became evident in his bearing, in 
the way he sat his horse; half-forgotten oaths rose naturally to his lips, and as he rode he 
hummed old songs that he had roared in chorus with his reckless companions in many a tavern 
and on many a dusty road or bloody field. 
It was an unquiet land through which he rode. The companies of cavalry which usually 
patrolled the river, alert for raids out of Poitain, were nowhere in evidence. Internal strife had 
left the borders unguarded. The long white road stretched bare from horizon to horizon. No 
laden camel trains or rumbling wagons or lowing herds moved along it now; only occasional 
groups of horsemen in leather and steel, hawk-faced, hard-eyed men, who kept together and 
rode warily. These swept Conan with their searching gaze but rode on, for the solitary rider’s 
harness promised no plunder, but only hard strokes. 
Villages lay in ashes and deserted, the fields and meadows idle. Only the boldest would ride 
the roads these days, and the native population had been decimated in the civil wars, and by 
raids from across the river. In more peaceful times the road was thronged with merchants 
riding from Poitain to Messantia in Argos, or back. But now these found it wiser to follow the 
road that led east through Poitain, and then turned south down across Argos. It was longer, but 
safer. Only an extremely reckless man would risk his life and goods on this road through 
Zingara. 
The southern horizon was fringed with flame by night, and in the day straggling pillars of 
smoke drifted upward; in the cities and plains to the south men were dying, thrones were 
toppling and castles going up in flames. Conan felt the old tug of the professional fighting-man, 
to turn his horse and plunge into the fighting, the pillaging and the looting as in the days of old. 
Why should he toil to regain the rule of a people which had already forgotten him? – why 
chase a will-o’-the-wisp, why pursue a crown that was lost for ever? Why should he not seek 
forgetfulness, lose himself in the red tides of war and rapine that had engulfed him so often 
before? Could he not, indeed, carve out another kingdom for himself? The world was entering 
an age of iron, an age of war and imperialistic ambition; some strong man might well rise 
above the ruins of nations as a supreme conqueror. Why should it not be himself? So his 
familiar devil whispered in his ear, and the phantoms of his lawless and bloody past crowded 
upon him. But he did not turn aside; he rode onward, following a quest that grew dimmer and 
dimmer as he advanced, until sometimes it seemed that he pursued a dream that never was. 
He pushed the black stallion as hard as he dared, but the long white road lay bare before him, 
from horizon to horizon. It was a long start Zorathus had, but Conan rode steadily on, knowing 
that he was traveling faster than the burdened merchants could travel. And so he came to the 
castle of Count Valbroso, perched like a vulture’s eyrie on a bare hill overlooking the road. 
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Valbroso rode down with his men-at-arms, a lean, dark man with glittering eyes and a 
predatory beak of a nose. He wore black plate-armor and was followed by thirty spearmen, 
black-mustached hawks of the border wars, as avaricious and ruthless as himself. Of late the 
toll of the caravans had been slim, and Valbroso cursed the civil wars that stripped the roads of 
their fat traffic, even while he blessed them for the free hand they allowed him with his 
neighbors. 
He had not hoped much from the solitary rider he had glimpsed from his tower, but all was 
grist that came to his mill. With a practised eye he took in Conan’s worn mail and dark, scarred 
face, and his conclusions were the same as those of the riders who had passed the Cimmerian 
on the road – an empty purse and a ready blade. 
“Who are you, knave?” he demanded. 
“A mercenary, riding for Argos,” answered Conan. “What matter names?” 
“You are riding in the wrong direction for a Free Companion,” grunted Valbroso. “Southward 
the fighting is good and also the plundering. Join my company. You won’t go hungry. The road 
remains bare of fat merchants to strip, but I mean to take my rogues and fare southward to sell 
our swords to whichever side seems strongest.” 
Conan did not at once reply, knowing that if he refused outright, he might be instantly attacked 
by Valbroso’s men-at-arms. Before he could make up his mind, the Zingaran spoke again: 
“You rogues of the Free Companies always know tricks to make men talk. I have a prisoner – 
the last merchant I caught, by Mitra, and the only one I’ve seen for a week – and the knave is 
stubborn. He has an iron box, the secret of which defies us, and I’ve been unable to persuade 
him to open it. By Ishtar, I thought I knew all the modes of persuasion there are, but perhaps 
you, as a veteran Free Companion, know some that I do not. At any rate come with me and see 
what you may do.” 
Valbroso’s words instantly decided Conan. That sounded a great deal like Zorathus. Conan did 
not know the merchant, but any man who was stubborn enough to try to traverse the Zingaran 
road in times like these would very probably be stubborn enough to defy torture. 
He fell in beside Valbroso and rode up the straggling road to the top of the hill where the gaunt 
castle stood. As a man-at-arms he should have ridden behind the count, but force of habit made 
him careless and Valbroso paid no heed. Years of life on the border had taught the count that 
the frontier is not the royal court. He was aware of the independence of the mercenaries, behind 
whose swords many a king had trodden the throne-path. 
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There was a dry moat, half filled with debris in some places. They clattered across the 
drawbridge and through the arch of the gate. Behind them the portcullis fell with a sullen clang. 
They came into a bare courtyard, grown with straggling grass, and with a well in the middle. 
Shacks for the men-at-arms straggled about the bailey wall, and women, slatternly or decked in 
gaudy finery, looked from the doors. Fighting-men in rusty mail tossed dice on the flags under 
the arches. It was more like a bandit’s hold than the castle of a nobleman. 
Valbroso dismounted and motioned Conan to follow him. They went through a doorway and 
along a vaulted corridor, where they were met by a scarred, hard-looking man in mail 
descending a stone staircase – evidently the captain of the guard. 
“How, Beloso,” quoth Valbroso; “has he spoken?” 
“He is stubborn,” muttered Beloso, shooting a glance of suspicion at Conan. 
Valbroso ripped out an oath and stamped furiously up the winding stair, followed by Conan 
and the captain. As they mounted, the groans of a man in mortal agony became audible. 
Valbroso’s torture-room was high above the court, instead of in a dungeon below. In that 
chamber, where a gaunt, hairy beast of a man in leather breeks squatted gnawing a beef-bone 
voraciously, stood the machines of torture – racks, boots, hooks and all the implements that the 
human mind devises to tear flesh, break bones and rend and rupture veins and ligaments. 
On a rack a man was stretched naked, and a glance told Conan that he was dying. The 
unnatural elongation of his limbs and body told of unhinged joints and unnamable ruptures. He 
was a dark man, with an intelligent, aquiline face and quick dark eyes. They were glazed and 
bloodshot now with pain, and the dew of agony glistened on his face. His lips were drawn back 
from blackened gums. 
“There is the box.” Viciously Valbroso kicked a small but heavy iron chest that stood on the 
floor near by. It was intricately carved, with tiny skulls and writhing dragons curiously 
intertwined, but Conan saw no catch or hasp that might serve to unlock the lid. The marks of 
fire, of ax and sledge and chisel showed on it but as scratches. 
“This is the dog’s treasure box,” said Valbroso angrily. “All men of the south know of 
Zorathus and his iron chest. Mitra knows what is in it. But he will not give up its secret.” 
Zorathus! It was true, then; the man he sought lay before him. Conan’s heart beat suffocatingly 
as he leaned over the writhing form, though he exhibited no evidence of his painful eagerness. 
“Ease those ropes, knave!” he ordered the torturer harshly, and Valbroso and his captain stared. 
In the forgetfulness of the moment Conan had used his imperial tone, and the brute in leather 
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instinctively obeyed the knife-edge of command in that voice. He eased away gradually, for 
else the slackening of the ropes had been as great a torment to the torn joints as further 
stretching. 
Catching up a vessel of wine that stood near by, Conan placed the rim to the wretch’s lips. 
Zorathus gulped spasmodically, the liquid slopping over on his heaving breast. 
Into the bloodshot eyes came a gleam of recognition, and the froth-smeared lips parted. From 
them issued a racking whimper in the Kothic tongue. 
“Is this death, then? Is the long agony ended? For this is King Conan who died at Valkia, and I 
am among the dead.” 
“You’re not dead,” said Conan. “But you’re dying. You’ll be tortured no more. I’ll see to that. 
But I can’t help you further. Yet before you die, tell me how to open your iron box!” 
“My iron box,” mumbled Zorathus in delirious disjointed phrases. “The chest forged in unholy 
fires among the flaming mountains of Khrosha; the metal no chisel can cut. How many 
treasures has it borne, across the width and the breadth of the world! But no such treasure as it 
now holds.” 
“Tell me how to open it,” urged Conan. “It can do you no good, and it may aid me.” 
“Aye, you are Conan,” muttered the Kothian. “I have seen you sitting on your throne in the 
great public hall of Tarantia, with your crown on your head and the scepter in your hand. But 
you are dead; you died at Valkia. And so I know my own end is at hand.” 
“What does the dog say?” demanded Valbroso impatiently, not understanding Kothic. “Will he 
tell us how to open the box?” 
As if the voice roused a spark of life in the twisted breast Zorathus rolled his bloodshot eyes 
toward the speaker. 
“Only Valbroso will I tell,” he gasped in Zingaran. “Death is upon me. Lean close to me, 
Valbroso!” 
The count did so, his dark face lit with avarice; behind him his saturnine captain, Beloso, 
crowded closer. 
“Press the seven skulls on the rim, one after another,” gasped Zorathus. “Press then the head of 
the dragon that writhes across the lid. Then press the sphere in the dragon’s claws. That will 
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release the secret catch.” 
“Quick, the box!” cried Valbroso with an oath. 
Conan lifted it and set it on a dais, and Valbroso shouldered him aside. 
“Let me open it!” cried Beloso, starting forward. 
Valbroso cursed him back, his greed blazing in his black eyes. 
“None but me shall open it!” he cried. 
Conan, whose hand had instinctively gone to his hilt, glanced at Zorathus. The man’s eyes 
were glazed and bloodshot, but they were fixed on Valbroso with burning intensity; and was 
there the shadow of a grim twisted smile on the dying man’s lips? Not until the merchant knew 
he was dying had he given up the secret. Conan turned to watch Valbroso, even as the dying 
man watched him. 
Along the rim of the lid seven skulls were carved among intertwining branches of strange trees. 
An inlaid dragon writhed its way across the top of the lid, amid ornate arabesques. Valbroso 
pressed the skulls in fumbling haste, and as he jammed his thumb down on the carved head of 
the dragon he swore sharply and snatched his hand away, shaking it in irritation. 
“A sharp point on the carvings,” he snarled. “I’ve pricked my thumb.” 
He pressed the gold ball clutched in the dragon’s talons, and the lid flew abruptly open. Their 
eyes were dazzled by a golden flame. It seemed to their dazed minds that the carven box was 
full of glowing fire that spilled over the rim and dripped through the air in quivering flakes. 
Beloso cried out and Valbroso sucked in his breath. Conan stood speechless, his brain snared 
by the blaze. 
“Mitra, what a jewel!” Valbroso’s hand dived into the chest, came out with a great pulsing 
crimson sphere that filled the room with a lambent glow. In its glare Valbroso looked like a 
corpse. And the dying man on the loosened rack laughed wildly and suddenly. 
“Fool!” he screamed. “The jewel is yours! I give you death with it! The scratch on your thumb 
– look at the dragon’s head, Valbroso!” 
They all wheeled, stared. Something tiny and dully gleaming stood up from the gaping, carved 
mouth. 
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“The dragon’s fang!” shrieked Zorathus. “Steeped in the venom of the black Stygian scorpion! 
Fool, fool to open the box of Zorathus with your naked hand! Death! You are a dead man now!” 
And with bloody foam on his lips he died. 
Valbroso staggered, crying out. “Ah, Mitra, I burn!” he shrieked. “My veins race with liquid 
fire! My joints are bursting asunder! Death! Death!” And he reeled and crashed headlong. 
There was an instant of awful convulsions, in which the limbs were twisted into hideous and 
unnatural positions, and then in that posture the man froze, his glassy eyes staring sightlessly 
upward, his lips drawn back from blackened gums. 
“Dead!” muttered Conan, stooping to pick up the jewel where it rolled on the floor from 
Valbroso’s rigid hand. It lay on the floor like a quivering pool of sunset fire. 
“Dead!” muttered Beloso, with madness in his eyes. And then he moved. 
Conan was caught off guard, his eyes dazzled, his brain dazed by the blaze of the great gem. 
He did not realize Beloso’s intention until something crashed with terrible force upon his 
helmet. The glow of the jewel was splashed with redder flame, and he went to his knees under 
the blow. 
He heard a rush of feet, a bellow of ox-like agony. He was stunned but not wholly senseless, 
and realized that Beloso had caught up the iron box and crashed it down on his head as he 
stooped. Only his basinet had saved his skull. He staggered up, drawing his sword, trying to 
shake the dimness out of his eyes. The room swam to his dizzy gaze. But the door was open 
and fleet footsteps were dwindling down the winding stair. On the floor the brutish torturer was 
gasping out his life with a great gash under his breast. And the Heart of Ahriman was gone. 
Conan reeled out of the chamber, sword in hand, blood streaming down his face from under his 
burganet. He ran drunkenly down the steps, hearing a clang of steel in the courtyard below, 
shouts, then the frantic drum of hoofs. Rushing into the bailey he saw the men-at-arms milling 
about confusedly, while women screeched. The postern gate stood open and a soldier lay 
across his pike with his head split. Horses, still bridled and saddled, ran neighing about the 
court, Conan’s black stallion among them. 
“He’s mad!” howled a woman, wringing her hands as she rushed brainlessly about. “He came 
out of the castle like a mad dog, hewing right and left! Beloso’s mad! Where’s Lord Valbroso?” 
“Which way did he go?” roared Conan. 
All turned and stared at the stranger’s blood-stained face and naked sword. 
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“Through the postern!” shrilled a woman, pointing eastward, and another bawled: “Who is this 
rogue?” 
“Beloso has killed Valbroso!” yelled Conan, leaping and seizing the stallion’s mane, as the 
men-at-arms advanced uncertainly on him. A wild outcry burst forth at his news, but their 
reaction was exactly as he had anticipated. Instead of closing the gates to take him prisoner, or 
pursuing the fleeing slayer to avenge their lord, they were thrown into even greater confusion 
by his words. Wolves bound together only by fear of Valbroso, they owed no allegiance to the 
castle or to each other. 
Swords began to clash in the courtyard, and women screamed. And in the midst of it all, none 
noticed Conan as he shot through the postern gate and thundered down the hill. The wide plain 
spread before him, and beyond the hill the caravan road divided: one branch ran south, the 
other east. And on the eastern road he saw another rider, bending low and spurring hard. The 
plain swam to Conan’s gaze, the sunlight was a thick red haze and he reeled in his saddle, 
grasping the flowing mane with his hand. Blood rained on his mail, but grimly he urged the 
stallion on. 
Behind him smoke began to pour out of the castle on the hill where the count’s body lay 
forgotten and unheeded beside that of his prisoner. The sun was setting; against a lurid red sky 
the two black figures fled. 
The stallion was not fresh, but neither was the horse ridden by Beloso. But the great beast 
responded mightily, calling on deep reservoirs of reserve vitality. Why the Zingaran fled from 
one pursuer Conan did not tax his bruised brain to guess. Perhaps unreasoning panic rode 
Beloso, born of the madness that lurked in that blazing jewel. The sun was gone; the white road 
was a dim glimmer through a ghostly twilight fading into purple gloom far ahead of him. 
The stallion panted, laboring hard. The country was changing, in the gathering dusk. Bare 
plains gave way to clumps of oaks and alders. Low hills mounted up in the distance. Stars 
began to blink out. The stallion gasped and reeled in his course. But ahead rose a dense wood 
that stretched to the hills on the horizon, and between it and himself Conan glimpsed the dim 
form of the fugitive. He urged on the distressed stallion, for he saw that he was overtaking his 
prey, yard by yard. Above the pound of the hoofs a strange cry rose from the shadows, but 
neither pursuer nor pursued gave heed. 
As they swept in under the branches that overhung the road, they were almost side by side. A 
fierce cry rose from Conan’s lips as his sword went up; a pale oval of a face was turned toward 
him, a sword gleamed in a half-seen hand, and Beloso echoed the cry – and then the weary 
stallion, with a lurch and a groan, missed his footing in the shadows and went heels over head, 
hurling his dazed rider from the saddle. Conan’s throbbing head crashed against a stone, and 
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the stars were blotted out in a thicker night. 
How long Conan lay senseless he never knew. His first sensation of returning consciousness 
was that of being dragged by one arm over rough and stony ground, and through dense 
underbrush. Then he was thrown carelessly down, and perhaps the jolt brought back his senses. 
His helmet was gone, his head ached abominably, he felt a qualm of nausea, and blood was 
clotted thickly among his black locks. But with the vitality of a wild thing life and 
consciousness surged back into him, and he became aware of his surroundings. 
A broad red moon was shining through the trees, by which he knew that it was long after 
midnight. He had lain senseless for hours, long enough to have recovered from that terrible 
blow Beloso had dealt him, as well as the fall which had rendered him senseless. His brain felt 
clearer than it had felt during that mad ride after the fugitive. 
He was not lying beside the white road, he noticed with a start of surprize, as his surroundings 
began to record themselves on his perceptions. The road was nowhere in sight. He lay on the 
grassy earth, in a small glade hemmed in by a black wall of tree stems and tangled branches. 
His face and hands were scratched and lacerated as if he had been dragged through brambles. 
Shifting his body he looked about him. And then he started violently – something was 
squatting over him.... 
At first Conan doubted his consciousness, thought it was but a figment of delirium. Surely it 
could not be real, that strange, motionless gray being that squatted on its haunches and stared 
down at him with unblinking soulless eyes. 
Conan lay and stared, half expecting it to vanish like a figure of a dream, and then a chill of 
recollection crept along his spine. Half-forgotten memories surged back, of grisly tales 
whispered of the shapes that haunted these uninhabited forests at the foot of the hills that mark 
the Zingaran-Argossean border. Ghouls, men called them, eaters of human flesh, spawn of 
darkness, children of unholy matings of a lost and forgotten race with the demons of the 
underworld. Somewhere in these primitive forests were the ruins of an ancient, accursed city, 
men whispered, and among its tombs slunk gray, anthropomorphic shadows – Conan 
shuddered strongly. 
He lay staring at the malformed head that rose dimly above him, and cautiously he extended a 
hand toward the sword at his hip. With a horrible cry that the man involuntarily echoed, the 
monster was at his throat. 
Conan threw up his right arm, and the dog-like jaws closed on it, driving the mail links into the 
hard flesh. The misshapen yet man-like hands clutched for his throat, but he evaded them with 
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a heave and roll of his whole body, at the same time drawing his dagger with his left hand. 
They tumbled over and over on the grass, smiting and tearing. The muscles coiling under that 
gray corpse-like skin were stringy and hard as steel wires, exceeding the strength of a man. But 
Conan’s thews were iron too, and his mail saved him from the gnashing fangs and ripping 
claws long enough for him to drive home his dagger, again and again and again. The horrible 
vitality of the semi-human monstrosity seemed inexhaustible, and the king’s skin crawled at 
the feel of that slick, clammy flesh. He put all his loathing and savage revulsion behind the 
plunging blade, and suddenly the monster heaved up convulsively beneath him as the point 
found its grisly heart, and then lay still. 
Conan rose, shaken with nausea. He stood in the center of the glade uncertainly, sword in one 
hand and dagger in the other. He had not lost his instinctive sense of direction, as far as the 
points of the compass were concerned, but he did not know in which direction the road lay. He 
had no way of knowing in which direction the ghoul had dragged him. Conan glared at the 
silent, black, moon-dappled woods which ringed him, and felt cold moisture bead his flesh. He 
was without a horse and lost in these haunted woods, and that staring, deformed thing at his 
feet was a mute evidence of the horrors that lurked in the forest. He stood almost holding his 
breath in his painful intensity, straining his ears for some crack of twig or rustle of grass. 
When a sound did come he started violently. Suddenly out on the night air broke the scream of 
a terrified horse. His stallion! There were panthers in the wood – or – ghouls ate beasts as well 
as men. 
He broke savagely through the brush in the direction of the sound, whistling shrilly as he ran, 
his fear drowned in berserk rage. If his horse was killed, there went his last chance of following 
Beloso and recovering the jewel. Again the stallion screamed with fear and fury, somewhere 
nearer. There was a sound of lashing heels, and something that was struck heavily and gave 
way. 
Conan burst out into the wide white road without warning, and saw the stallion plunging and 
rearing in the moonlight, his ears laid back, his eyes and teeth flashing wickedly. He lashed out 
with his heels at a slinking shadow that ducked and bobbed about him – and then about Conan 
other shadows moved: gray, furtive shadows that closed in on all sides. A hideous charnelhouse 
scent reeked up in the night air. 
With a curse the king hewed right and left with his broadsword, thrust and ripped with his 
dagger. Dripping fangs flashed in the moonlight, foul paws caught at him, but he hacked his 
way through to the stallion, caught the rein, leaped into the saddle. His sword rose and fell, a 
frosty arc in the moon, showering blood as it split misshapen heads, clove shambling bodies. 
The stallion reared, biting and kicking. They burst through and thundered down the road. On 
either hand, for a short space, flitted gray abhorrent shadows. Then these fell behind, and 
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Conan, topping a wooded crest, saw a vast expanse of bare slopes sweeping up and away 
before him. 
XIII 
“A GHOST OUT OF THE PAST” 
Soon after sunrise Conan crossed the Argossean border. Of Beloso he had seen no trace. Either 
the captain had made good his escape while the king lay senseless, or had fallen prey to the 
grim man-eaters of the Zingaran forest. But Conan had seen no signs to indicate the latter 
possibility. The fact that he had lain unmolested for so long seemed to indicate that the 
monsters had been engrossed in futile pursuit of the captain. And if the man lived, Conan felt 
certain that he was riding along the road somewhere ahead of him. Unless he had intended 
going into Argos he would never have taken the eastward road in the first place. 
The helmeted guards at the frontier did not question the Cimmerian. A single wandering 
mercenary required no passport nor safe-conduct, especially when his unadorned mail showed 
him to be in the service of no lord. Through the low, grassy hills where streams murmured and 
oak groves dappled the sward with lights and shadows he rode, following the long road that 
rose and fell away ahead of him over dales and rises in the blue distance. It was an old, old 
road, this highway from Poitain to the sea. 
Argos was at peace; laden ox-wains rumbled along the road, and men with bare, brown, 
brawny arms toiled in orchards and fields that smiled away under the branches of the roadside 
trees. Old men on settles before inns under spreading oak branches called greetings to the 
wayfarer. 
From the men that worked the fields, from the garrulous old men in the inns where he slaked 
his thirst with great leathern jacks of foaming ale, from the sharp-eyed silk-clad merchants he 
met upon the road, Conan sought for news of Beloso. 
Stories were conflicting, but this much Conan learned: that a lean, wiry Zingaran with the 
dangerous black eyes and mustaches of the western folk was somewhere on the road ahead of 
him, and apparently making for Messantia. It was a logical destination; all the sea-ports of 
Argos were cosmopolitan, in strong contrast with the inland provinces, and Messantia was the 
most polyglot of all. Craft of all the maritime nations rode in its harbor, and refugees and 
fugitives from many lands gathered there. Laws were lax; for Messantia thrived on the trade of 
the sea, and her citizens found it profitable to be somewhat blind in their dealings with seamen. 
It was not only legitimate trade that flowed into Messantia; smugglers and buccaneers played 
their part. All this Conan knew well, for had he not, in the days of old when he was a Barachan 
pirate, sailed by night into the harbor of Messantia to discharge strange cargoes? Most of the 
pirates of the Barachan Isles – small islands off the southwestern coast of Zingara – were 
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Argossean sailors, and as long as they confined their attentions to the shipping of other nations, 
the authorities of Argos were not too strict in their interpretation of sea-laws. 
But Conan had not limited his activities to those of the Barachans. He had also sailed with the 
Zingaran buccaneers, and even with those wild black corsairs that swept up from the far south 
to harry the northern coasts, and this put him beyond the pale of any law. If he were recognized 
in any of the ports of Argos it would cost him his head. But without hesitation he rode on to 
Messantia, halting day or night only to rest the stallion and to snatch a few winks of sleep for 
himself. 
He entered the city unquestioned, merging himself with the throngs that poured continually in 
and out of this great commercial center. No walls surrounded Messantia. The sea and the ships 
of the sea guarded the great southern trading city. 
It was evening when Conan rode leisurely through the streets that marched down to the 
waterfront. At the ends of these streets he saw the wharves and the masts and sails of ships. He 
smelled salt water for the first time in years, heard the thrum of cordage and the creak of spars 
in the breeze that was kicking up whitecaps out beyond the headlands. Again the urge of far 
wandering tugged at his heart. 
But he did not go on to the wharves. He reined aside and rode up a steep flight of wide, worn 
stone steps, to a broad street where ornate white mansions overlooked the waterfront and the 
harbor below. Here dwelt the men who had grown rich from the hard-won fat of the seas – a 
few old sea-captains who had found treasure afar, many traders and merchants who never trod 
the naked decks nor knew the roar of tempest or sea-fight. 
Conan turned in his horse at a certain gold-worked gate, and rode into a court where a fountain 
tinkled and pigeons fluttered from marble coping to marble flagging. A page in jagged silken 
jupon and hose came forward inquiringly. The merchants of Messantia dealt with many strange 
and rough characters but most of these smacked of the sea. It was strange that a mercenary 
trooper should so freely ride into the court of a lord of commerce. 
“The merchant Publio dwells here?” It was more statement than question, and something in the 
timbre of the voice caused the page to doff his feathered chaperon as he bowed and replied: 
“Aye, so he does, my captain.” 
Conan dismounted and the page called a servitor, who came running to receive the stallion’s 
rein. 
“Your master is within?” Conan drew off his gauntlets and slapped the dust of the road from 
cloak and mail. 
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“Aye, my captain. Whom shall I announce?” 
“I’ll announce myself,” grunted Conan. “I know the way well enough. Bide you here.” 
And obeying that peremptory command the page stood still, staring after Conan as the latter 
climbed a short flight of marble steps, and wondering what connection his master might have 
with this giant fighting-man who had the aspect of a northern barbarian. 
Menials at their tasks halted and gaped open-mouthed as Conan crossed a wide, cool balcony 
overlooking the court and entered a broad corridor through which the sea-breeze swept. Halfway 
down this he heard a quill scratching, and turned into a broad room whose many wide 
casements overlooked the harbor. 
Publio sat at a carved teakwood desk writing on rich parchment with a golden quill. He was a 
short man, with a massive head and quick dark eyes. His blue robe was of the finest watered 
silk, trimmed with cloth-of-gold, and from his thick white throat hung a heavy gold chain. 
As the Cimmerian entered, the merchant looked up with a gesture of annoyance. He froze in 
the midst of his gesture. His mouth opened; he stared as at a ghost out of the past. Unbelief and 
fear glimmered in his wide eyes. 
“Well,” said Conan, “have you no word of greeting, Publio?” 
Publio moistened his lips. 
“Conan!” he whispered incredulously. “Mitra! Conan! Amra!” 
“Who else?” The Cimmerian unclasped his cloak and threw it with his gauntlets down upon the 
desk. “How, man?” he exclaimed irritably. “Can’t you at least offer me a beaker of wine? My 
throat’s caked with the dust of the highway.” 
“Aye, wine!” echoed Publio mechanically. Instinctively his hand reached for a gong, then 
recoiled as from a hot coal, and he shuddered. 
While Conan watched him with a flicker of grim amusement in his eyes, the merchant rose and 
hurriedly shut the door, first craning his neck up and down the corridor to be sure that no slave 
was loitering about. Then, returning, he took a gold vessel of wine from a near-by table and 
was about to fill a slender goblet when Conan impatiently took the vessel from him and lifting 
it with both hands, drank deep and with gusto. 
“Aye, it’s Conan, right enough,” muttered Publio. “Man, are you mad?” 
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“By Crom, Publio,” said Conan, lowering the vessel but retaining it in his hands, “you dwell in 
different quarters than of old. It takes an Argossean merchant to wring wealth out of a little 
waterfront shop that stank of rotten fish and cheap wine.” 
“The old days are past,” muttered Publio, drawing his robe about him with a slight involuntary 
shudder. “I have put off the past like a worn-out cloak.” 
“Well,” retorted Conan, “you can’t put me off like an old cloak. It isn’t much I want of you, but 
that much I do want. And you can’t refuse me. We had too many dealings in the old days. Am I 
such a fool that I’m not aware that this fine mansion was built on my sweat and blood? How 
many cargoes from my galleys passed through your shop?” 
“All merchants of Messantia have dealt with the sea-rovers at one time or another,” mumbled 
Publio nervously. 
“But not with the black corsairs,” answered Conan grimly. 
“For Mitra’s sake, be silent!” ejaculated Publio, sweat starting out on his brow. His fingers 
jerked at the gilt-worked edge of his robe. 
“Well, I only wished to recall it to your mind,” answered Conan. “Don’t be so fearful. You 
took plenty of risks in the past, when you were struggling for life and wealth in that lousy little 
shop down by the wharves, and were hand-and-glove with every buccaneer and smuggler and 
pirate from here to the Barachan Isles. Prosperity must have softened you.” 
“I am respectable,” began Publio. 
“Meaning you’re rich as hell,” snorted Conan. “Why? Why did you grow wealthy so much 
quicker than your competitors? Was it because you did a big business in ivory and ostrich 
feathers, copper and skins and pearls and hammered gold ornaments, and other things from the 
coast of Kush? And where did you get them so cheaply, while other merchants were paying 
their weight in silver to the Stygians for them? I’ll tell you, in case you’ve forgotten: you 
bought them from me, at considerably less than their value, and I took them from the tribes of 
the Black Coast, and from the ships of the Stygians – I, and the black corsairs.” 
“In Mitra’s name, cease!” begged Publio. “I have not forgotten. But what are you doing here? I 
am the only man in Argos who knew that the king of Aquilonia was once Conan the buccaneer, 
in the old days. But word has come southward of the overthrow of Aquilonia and the death of 
the king.” 
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“My enemies have killed me a hundred times by rumors,” grunted Conan. “Yet here I sit and 
guzzle wine of Kyros.” And he suited the action to the word. 
Lowering the vessel, which was now nearly empty, he said: “It’s but a small thing I ask of you, 
Publio. I know that you’re aware of everything that goes on in Messantia. I want to know if a 
Zingaran named Beloso, or he might call himself anything, is in this city. He’s tall and lean and 
dark like all his race, and it’s likely he’ll seek to sell a very rare jewel.” 
Publio shook his head. 
“I have not heard of such a man. But thousands come and go in Messantia. If he is here my 
agents will discover him.” 
“Good. Send them to look for him. And in the meantime have my horse cared for, and have 
food served me here in this room.” 
Publio assented volubly, and Conan emptied the wine vessel, tossed it carelessly into a corner, 
and strode to a near-by casement, involuntarily expanding his chest as he breathed deep of the 
salt air. He was looking down upon the meandering waterfront streets. He swept the ships in 
the harbor with an appreciative glance, then lifted his head and stared beyond the bay, far into 
the blue haze of the distance where sea met sky. And his memory sped beyond that horizon, to 
the golden seas of the south, under flaming suns, where laws were not and life ran hotly. Some 
vagrant scent of spice or palm woke clear-etched images of strange coasts where mangroves 
grew and drums thundered, of ships locked in battle and decks running blood, of smoke and 
flame and the crying of slaughter.... Lost in his thoughts he scarcely noticed when Publio stole 
from the chamber. 
Gathering up his robe, the merchant hurried along the corridors until he came to a certain 
chamber where a tall, gaunt man with a scar upon his temple wrote continually upon 
parchment. There was something about this man which made his clerkly occupation seem 
incongruous. To him Publio spoke abruptly: 
“Conan has returned!” 
“Conan?” The gaunt man started up and the quill fell from his fingers. “The corsair?” 
“Aye!” 
The gaunt man went livid. “Is he mad? If he is discovered here we are ruined! They will hang a 
man who shelters or trades with a corsair as quickly as they’ll hang the corsair himself! What if 
the governor should learn of our past connections with him?” 
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“He will not learn,” answered Publio grimly. “Send your men into the markets and wharfside 
dives and learn if one Beloso, a Zingaran, is in Messantia. Conan said he had a gem, which he 
will probably seek to dispose of. The jewel merchants should know of him, if any do. And here 
is another task for you: pick up a dozen or so desperate villains who can be trusted to do away 
with a man and hold their tongues afterward. You understand me?” 
“I understand.” The other nodded slowly and somberly. 
“I have not stolen, cheated, lied and fought my way up from the gutter to be undone now by a 
ghost out of my past,” muttered Publio, and the sinister darkness of his countenance at that 
moment would have surprized the wealthy nobles and ladies who bought their silks and pearls 
from his many stalls. But when he returned to Conan a short time later, bearing in his own 
hands a platter of fruit and meats, he presented a placid face to his unwelcome guest. 
Conan still stood at the casement, staring down into the harbor at the purple and crimson and 
vermilion and scarlet sails of galleons and carracks and galleys and dromonds. 
“There’s a Stygian galley, if I’m not blind,” he remarked, pointing to a long, low, slim black 
ship lying apart from the others, anchored off the low broad sandy beach that curved round to 
the distant headland. “Is there peace, then, between Stygia and Argos?” 
“The same sort that has existed before,” answered Publio, setting the platter on the table with a 
sigh of relief, for it was heavily laden; he knew his guest of old. “Stygian ports are temporarily 
open to our ships, as ours to theirs. But may no craft of mine meet their cursed galleys out of 
sight of land! That galley crept into the bay last night. What its masters wish I do not know. So 
far they have neither bought nor sold. I distrust those dark-skinned devils. Treachery had its 
birth in that dusky land.” 
“I’ve made them howl,” said Conan carelessly, turning from the window. “In my galley 
manned by black corsairs I crept to the very bastions of the sea-washed castles of black-walled 
Khemi by night, and burned the galleons anchored there. And speaking of treachery, mine host, 
suppose you taste these viands and sip a bit of this wine, just to show me that your heart is on 
the right side.” 
Publio complied so readily that Conan’s suspicions were lulled, and without further hesitation 
he sat down and devoured enough for three men. 
And while he ate, men moved through the markets and along the waterfront, searching for a 
Zingaran who had a jewel to sell or who sought for a ship to carry him to foreign ports. And a 
tall gaunt man with a scar on his temple sat with his elbows on a wine-stained table in a squalid 
cellar with a brass lantern hanging from a smoke-blackened beam overhead, and held converse 
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with ten desperate rogues whose sinister countenances and ragged garments proclaimed their 
profession. 
And as the first stars blinked out, they shone on a strange band spurring their mounts along the 
white road that led to Messantia from the west. They were four men, tall, gaunt, clad in black, 
hooded robes, and they did not speak. They forced their steeds mercilessly onward, and those 
steeds were gaunt as themselves, and sweat-stained and weary as if from long travel and far 
wandering. 
XIV 
THE BLACK HAND OF SET 
Conan woke from a sound sleep as quickly and instantly as a cat. And like a cat he was on his 
feet with his sword out before the man who had touched him could so much as draw back. 
“What word, Publio?” demanded Conan, recognizing his host. The gold lamp burned low, 
casting a mellow glow over the thick tapestries and the rich coverings of the couch whereon he 
had been reposing. 
Publio, recovering from the start given him by the sudden action of his awakening guest, 
replied: “The Zingaran has been located. He arrived yesterday, at dawn. Only a few hours ago 
he sought to sell a huge, strange jewel to a Shemitish merchant, but the Shemite would have 
naught to do with it. Men say he turned pale beneath his black beard at the sight of it, and 
closing his stall, fled as from a thing accursed.” 
“It must be Beloso,” muttered Conan, feeling the pulse in his temples pounding with impatient 
eagerness. “Where is he now?” 
“He sleeps in the house of Servio.” 
“I know that dive of old,” grunted Conan. “I’d better hasten before some of these waterfront 
thieves cut his throat for the jewel.” 
He took up his cloak and flung it over his shoulders, then donned a helmet Publio had procured 
for him. 
“Have my steed saddled and ready in the court,” said he. “I may return in haste. I shall not 
forget this night’s work, Publio.” 
A few moments later Publio, standing at a small outer door, watched the king’s tall figure 
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receding down the shadowy street. 
“Farewell to you, corsair,” muttered the merchant. “This must be a notable jewel, to be sought 
by a man who has just lost a kingdom. I wish I had told my knaves to let him secure it before 
they did their work. But then, something might have gone awry. Let Argos forget Amra, and let 
my dealings with him be lost in the dust of the past. In the alley behind the house of Servio – 
that is where Conan will cease to be a peril to me.” 
Servio’s house, a dingy, ill-famed den, was located close to the wharves, facing the waterfront. 
It was a shambling building of stone and heavy ship-beams, and a long narrow alley wandered 
up alongside it. Conan made his way along the alley, and as he approached the house he had an 
uneasy feeling that he was being spied upon. He stared hard into the shadows of the squalid 
buildings, but saw nothing, though once he caught the faint rasp of cloth or leather against 
flesh. But that was nothing unusual. Thieves and beggars prowled these alleys all night, and 
they were not likely to attack him, after one look at his size and harness. 
But suddenly a door opened in the wall ahead of him, and he slipped into the shadow of an 
arch. A figure emerged from the open door and moved along the alley, not furtively, but with a 
natural noiselessness like that of a jungle beast. Enough starlight filtered into the alley to 
silhouette the man’s profile dimly as he passed the doorway where Conan lurked. The stranger 
was a Stygian. There was no mistaking that hawk-faced, shaven head, even in the starlight, nor 
the mantle over the broad shoulders. He passed on down the alley in the direction of the beach, 
and once Conan thought he must be carrying a lantern among his garments, for he caught a 
flash of lambent light, just as the man vanished. 
But the Cimmerian forgot the stranger as he noticed that the door through which he had 
emerged still stood open. Conan had intended entering by the main entrance and forcing Servio 
to show him the room where the Zingaran slept. But if he could get into the house without 
attracting anyone’s attention, so much the better. 
A few long strides brought him to the door, and as his hand fell on the lock he stifled an 
involuntary grunt. His practised fingers, skilled among the thieves of Zamora long ago, told 
him that the lock had been forced, apparently by some terrific pressure from the outside that 
had twisted and bent the heavy iron bolts, tearing the very sockets loose from the jambs. How 
such damage could have been wrought so violently without awakening everyone in the 
neighborhood Conan could not imagine, but he felt sure that it had been done that night. A 
broken lock, if discovered, would not go unmended in the house of Servio, in this 
neighborhood of thieves and cutthroats. 
Conan entered stealthily, poniard in hand, wondering how he was to find the chamber of the 
Zingaran. Groping in total darkness he halted suddenly. He sensed death in that room, as a wild 
beast senses it – not as peril threatening him, but a dead thing, something freshly slain. In the 
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darkness his foot hit and recoiled from something heavy and yielding. With a sudden 
premonition he groped along the wall until he found the shelf that supported the brass lamp, 
with its flint, steel and tinder beside it. A few seconds later a flickering, uncertain light sprang 
up, and he stared narrowly about him. 
A bunk built against the rough stone wall, a bare table and a bench completed the furnishings 
of the squalid chamber. An inner door stood closed and bolted. And on the hard-beaten dirt 
floor lay Beloso. On his back he lay, with his head drawn back between his shoulders so that he 
seemed to stare with his wide glassy eyes at the sooty beams of the cobwebbed ceiling. His lips 
were drawn back from his teeth in a frozen grin of agony. His sword lay near him, still in its 
scabbard. His shirt was torn open, and on his brown, muscular breast was the print of a black 
hand, thumb and four fingers plainly distinct. 
Conan glared in silence, feeling the short hairs bristle at the back of his neck. 
“Crom!” he muttered. “The black hand of Set!” 
He had seen that mark of old, the death-mark of the black priests of Set, the grim cult that ruled 
in dark Stygia. And suddenly he remembered that curious flash he had seen emanating from the 
mysterious Stygian who had emerged from this chamber. 
“The Heart, by Crom!” he muttered. “He was carrying it under his mantle. He stole it. He burst 
that door by his magic, and slew Beloso. He was a priest of Set.” 
A quick investigation confirmed at least part of his suspicions. The jewel was not on the 
Zingaran’s body. An uneasy feeling rose in Conan that this had not happened by chance, or 
without design; a conviction that the mysterious Stygian galley had come into the harbor of 
Messantia on a definite mission. How could the priests of Set know that the Heart had come 
southward? Yet the thought was no more fantastic than the necromancy that could slay an 
armed man by the touch of an open, empty hand. 
A stealthy footfall outside the door brought him round like a great cat. With one motion he 
extinguished the lamp and drew his sword. His ears told him that men were out there in the 
darkness, were closing in on the doorway. As his eyes became accustomed to the sudden 
darkness, he could make out dim figures ringing the entrance. He could not guess their identity, 
but as always he took the initiative – leaping suddenly forth from the doorway without awaiting 
the attack. 
His unexpected movement took the skulkers by surprize. He sensed and heard men close about 
him, saw a dim masked figure in the starlight before him; then his sword crunched home, and 
he was fleeting away down the alley before the slower-thinking and slower-acting attackers 
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could intercept him. 
As he ran he heard, somewhere ahead of him, a faint creak of oar-locks, and he forgot the men 
behind him. A boat was moving out into the bay! Gritting his teeth he increased his speed, but 
before he reached the beach he heard the rasp and creak of ropes, and the grind of the great 
sweep in its socket. 
Thick clouds, rolling up from the sea, obscured the stars. In thick darkness Conan came upon 
the strand, straining his eyes out across the black restless water. Something was moving out 
there – a long, low, black shape that receded in the darkness, gathering momentum as it went. 
To his ears came the rhythmical clack of long oars. He ground his teeth in helpless fury. It was 
the Stygian galley and she was racing out to sea, bearing with her the jewel that meant to him 
the throne of Aquilonia. 
With a savage curse he took a step toward the waves that lapped against the sands, catching at 
his hauberk and intending to rip it off and swim after the vanishing ship. Then the crunch of a 
heel in the sand brought him about. He had forgotten his pursuers. 
Dark figures closed in on him with a rush of feet through the sands. The first went down 
beneath the Cimmerian’s flailing sword, but the others did not falter. Blades whickered dimly 
about him in the darkness or rasped on his mail. Blood and entrails spilled over his hand and 
someone screamed as he ripped murderously upward. A muttered voice spurred on the attack, 
and that voice sounded vaguely familiar. Conan plowed through the clinging, hacking shapes 
toward the voice. A faint light gleaming momentarily through the drifting clouds showed him a 
tall gaunt man with a great livid scar on his temple. Conan’s sword sheared through his skull as 
through a ripe melon. 
Then an ax, swung blindly in the dark, crashed on the king’s basinet, filling his eyes with 
sparks of fire. He lurched and lunged, felt his sword sink deep and heard a shriek of agony. 
Then he stumbled over a corpse, and a bludgeon knocked the dented helmet from his head; the 
next instant the club fell full on his unprotected skull. 
The king of Aquilonia crumpled into the wet sands. Over him wolfish figures panted in the 
gloom. 
“Strike off his head,” muttered one. 
“Let him lie,” grunted another. “Help me tie up my wounds before I bleed to death. The tide 
will wash him into the bay. See, he fell at the water’s edge. His skull’s split; no man could live 
after such blows.” 
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“Help me strip him,” urged another. “His harness will fetch a few pieces of silver. And haste. 
Tiberio is dead, and I hear seamen singing as they reel along the strand. Let us be gone.” 
There followed hurried activity in the darkness, and then the sound of quickly receding 
footsteps. The tipsy singing of the seamen grew louder. 
In his chamber Publio, nervously pacing back and forth before a window that overlooked the 
shadowed bay, whirled suddenly, his nerves tingling. To the best of his knowledge the door 
had been bolted from within; but now it stood open and four men filed into the chamber. At the 
sight of them his flesh crawled. Many strange beings Publio had seen in his lifetime, but none 
before like these. They were tall and gaunt, black-robed, and their faces were dim yellow ovals 
in the shadows of their coifs. He could not tell much about their features and was 
unreasoningly glad that he could not. Each bore a long, curiously mottled staff. 
“Who are you?” he demanded, and his voice sounded brittle and hollow. “What do you wish 
here?” 
“Where is Conan, he who was king of Aquilonia?” demanded the tallest of the four in a 
passionless monotone that made Publio shudder. It was like the hollow tone of a Khitan temple 
bell. 
“I do not know what you mean,” stammered the merchant, his customary poise shaken by the 
uncanny aspect of his visitors. “I know no such man.” 
“He has been here,” returned the other with no change of inflection. “His horse is in the 
courtyard. Tell us where he is before we do you an injury.” 
“Gebal!” shouted Publio frantically, recoiling until he crouched against the wall. “Gebal!” 
The four Khitans watched him without emotion or change of expression. 
“If you summon your slave he will die,” warned one of them, which only served to terrify 
Publio more than ever. 
“Gebal!” he screamed. “Where are you, curse you? Thieves are murdering your master!” 
Swift footsteps padded in the corridor outside, and Gebal burst into the chamber – a Shemite, 
of medium height and mightily muscled build, his curled blue-black beard bristling, and a short 
leaf-shaped sword in his hand. 
He stared in stupid amazement at the four invaders, unable to understand their presence; dimly 
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remembering that he had drowsed unexplainably on the stair he was guarding and up which 
they must have come. He had never slept on duty before. But his master was shrieking with a 
note of hysteria in his voice, and the Shemite drove like a bull at the strangers, his thickly 
muscled arm drawing back for the disemboweling thrust. But the stroke was never dealt. 
A black-sleeved arm shot out, extending the long staff. Its end but touched the Shemite’s 
brawny breast and was instantly withdrawn. The stroke was horribly like the dart and recovery 
of a serpent’s head. 
Gebal halted short in his headlong plunge, as if he had encountered a solid barrier. His bull 
head toppled forward on his breast, the sword slipped from his fingers, and then he melted 
slowly to the floor. It was as if all the bones of his frame had suddenly become flabby. Publio 
turned sick. 
“Do not shout again,” advised the tallest Khitan. “Your servants sleep soundly, but if you 
awaken them they will die, and you with them. Where is Conan?” 
“He is gone to the house of Servio, near the waterfront, to search for the Zingaran Beloso,” 
gasped Publio, all his power of resistance gone out of him. The merchant did not lack courage; 
but these uncanny visitants turned his marrow to water. He started convulsively at a sudden 
noise of footsteps hurrying up the stair outside, loud in the ominous stillness. 
“Your servant?” asked the Khitan. 
Publio shook his head mutely, his tongue frozen to his palate. He could not speak. 
One of the Khitans caught up a silken cover from a couch and threw it over the corpse. Then 
they melted behind the tapestry, but before the tallest man disappeared, he murmured: “Talk to 
this man who comes, and send him away quickly. If you betray us, neither he nor you will live 
to reach that door. Make no sign to show him that you are not alone.” And lifting his staff 
suggestively, the yellow man faded behind the hangings. 
Publio shuddered and choked down a desire to retch. It might have been a trick of the light, but 
it seemed to him that occasionally those staffs moved slightly of their own accord, as if 
possessed of an unspeakable life of their own. 
He pulled himself together with a mighty effort, and presented a composed aspect to the ragged 
ruffian who burst into the chamber. 
“We have done as you wished, my lord,” this man exclaimed. “The barbarian lies dead on the 
sands at the water’s edge.” 
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Publio felt a movement in the arras behind him, and almost burst from fright. The man swept 
heedlessly on. 
“Your secretary, Tiberio, is dead. The barbarian slew him, and four of my companions. We 
bore their bodies to the rendezvous. There was nothing of value on the barbarian except a few 
silver coins. Are there any further orders?” 
“None!” gasped Publio, white about the lips. “Go!” 
The desperado bowed and hurried out, with a vague feeling that Publio was both a man of 
weak stomach and few words. 
The four Khitans came from behind the arras. 
“Of whom did this man speak?” the taller demanded. 
“Of a wandering stranger who did me an injury,” panted Publio. 
“You lie,” said the Khitan calmly. “He spoke of the king of Aquilonia. I read it in your 
expression. Sit upon that divan and do not move or speak. I will remain with you while my 
three companions go search for the body.” 
So Publio sat and shook with terror of the silent, inscrutable figure which watched him, until 
the three Khitans filed back into the room, with the news that Conan’s body did not lie upon 
the sands. Publio did not know whether to be glad or sorry. 
“We found the spot where the fight was fought,” they said. “Blood was on the sand. But the 
king was gone.” 
The fourth Khitan drew imaginary symbols upon the carpet with his staff, which glistened 
scalily in the lamplight. 
“Did you read naught from the sands?” he asked. 
“Aye,” they answered. “The king lives, and he has gone southward in a ship.” 
The tall Khitan lifted his head and gazed at Publio, so that the merchant broke into a profuse 
sweat. 
“What do you wish of me?” he stuttered. 
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“A ship,” answered the Khitan. “A ship well manned for a long voyage.” 
“For how long a voyage?” stammered Publio, never thinking of refusing. 
“To the ends of the world, perhaps,” answered the Khitan, “or to the molten seas of hell that lie 
beyond the sunrise.” 
XV 
THE RETURN OF THE CORSAIR 
Conan’s first sensation of returning consciousness was that of motion; under him was no 
solidity, but a ceaseless heaving and plunging. Then he heard wind humming through cords 
and spars, and knew he was aboard a ship even before his blurred sight cleared. He heard a 
mutter of voices and then a dash of water deluged him, jerking him sharply into full animation. 
He heaved up with a sulfurous curse, braced his legs and glared about him, with a burst of 
coarse guffaws in his ears and the reek of unwashed bodies in his nostrils. 
He was standing on the poopdeck of a long galley which was running before the wind that 
whipped down from the north, her striped sail bellying against the taut sheets. The sun was just 
rising, in a dazzling blaze of gold and blue and green. To the left of the shore-line was a dim 
purple shadow. To the right stretched the open ocean. This much Conan saw at a glance that 
likewise included the ship itself. 
It was long and narrow, a typical trading-ship of the southern coasts, high of poop and stern, 
with cabins at either extremity. Conan looked down into the open waist, whence wafted that 
sickening abominable odor. He knew it of old. It was the body-scent of the oarsmen, chained to 
their benches. They were all negroes, forty men to each side, each confined by a chain locked 
about his waist, with the other end welded to a heavy ring set deep in the solid runway beam 
that ran between the benches from stem to stern. The life of a slave aboard an Argossean galley 
was a hell unfathomable. Most of these were Kushites, but some thirty of the blacks who now 
rested on their idle oars and stared up at the stranger with dull curiosity were from the far 
southern isles, the homelands of the corsairs. Conan recognized them by their straighter 
features and hair, their rangier, cleaner-limbed build. And he saw among them men who had 
followed him of old. 
But all this he saw and recognized in one swift, all-embracing glance as he rose, before he 
turned his attention to the figures about him. Reeling momentarily on braced legs, his fists 
clenched wrathfully, he glared at the figures clustered about him. The sailor who had drenched 
him stood grinning, the empty bucket still poised in his hand, and Conan cursed him with 
venom, instinctively reaching for his hilt. Then he discovered that he was weaponless and 
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naked except for his short leather breeks. 
“What lousy tub is this?” he roared. “How did I come aboard here?” 
The sailors laughed jeeringly – stocky, bearded Argosseans to a man – and one, whose richer 
dress and air of command proclaimed him captain, folded his arms and said domineeringly: 
“We found you lying on the sands. Somebody had rapped you on the pate and taken your 
clothes. Needing an extra man, we brought you aboard.” 
“What ship is this?” Conan demanded. 
“The Venturer, out of Messantia, with a cargo of mirrors, scarlet silk cloaks, shields, gilded 
helmets and swords to trade to the Shemites for copper and gold ore. I am Demetrio, captain of 
this vessel and your master henceforward.” 
“Then I’m headed in the direction I wanted to go, after all,” muttered Conan, heedless of that 
last remark. They were racing southeastward, following the long curve of the Argossean coast. 
These trading-ships never ventured far from the shore-line. Somewhere ahead of him he knew 
that low dark Stygian galley was speeding southward. 
“Have you sighted a Stygian galley – ” began Conan, but the beard of the burly, brutal-faced 
captain bristled. He was not in the least interested in any question his prisoner might wish to 
ask, and felt it high time he reduced this independent wastrel to his proper place. 
“Get for’ard!” he roared. “I’ve wasted time enough with you! I’ve done you the honor of 
having you brought to the poop to be revived, and answered enough of your infernal questions. 
Get off this poop! You’ll work your way aboard this galley – ” 
“I’ll buy your ship – ” began Conan, before he remembered that he was a penniless wanderer. 
A roar of rough mirth greeted these words, and the captain turned purple, thinking he sensed 
ridicule. 
“You mutinous swine!” he bellowed, taking a threatening step forward, while his hand closed 
on the knife at his belt. “Get for’ard before I have you flogged! You’ll keep a civil tongue in 
your jaws, or by Mitra, I’ll have you chained among the blacks to tug an oar!” 
Conan’s volcanic temper, never long at best, burst into explosion. Not in years, even before he 
was king, had a man spoken to him thus and lived. 
“Don’t lift your voice to me, you tar-breeched dog!” he roared in a voice as gusty as the sea- 
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wind, while the sailors gaped dumfounded. “Draw that toy and I’ll feed you to the fishes!” 
“Who do you think you are?” gasped the captain. 
“I’ll show you!” roared the maddened Cimmerian, and he wheeled and bounded toward the 
rail, where weapons hung in their brackets. 
The captain drew his knife and ran at him bellowing, but before he could strike, Conan gripped 
his wrist with a wrench that tore the arm clean out of the socket. The captain bellowed like an 
ox in agony, and then rolled clear across the deck as he was hurled contemptuously from his 
attacker. Conan ripped a heavy ax from the rail and wheeled cat-like to meet the rush of the 
sailors. They ran in, giving tongue like hounds, clumsy-footed and awkward in comparison to 
the pantherish Cimmerian. Before they could reach him with their knives he sprang among 
them, striking right and left too quickly for the eye to follow, and blood and brains spattered as 
two corpses struck the deck. 
Knives flailed the air wildly as Conan broke through the stumbling, gasping mob and bounded 
to the narrow bridge that spanned the waist from poop to forecastle, just out of reach of the 
slaves below. Behind him the handful of sailors on the poop were floundering after him, 
daunted by the destruction of their fellows, and the rest of the crew – some thirty in all – came 
running across the bridge toward him, with weapons in their hands. 
Conan bounded out on the bridge and stood poised above the upturned black faces, ax lifted, 
black mane blown in the wind. 
“Who am I?” he yelled. “Look, you dogs! Look, Ajonga, Yasunga, Laranga! Who am I?” 
And from the waist rose a shout that swelled to a mighty roar: “Amra! It is Amra! The Lion has 
returned!” 
The sailors who caught and understood the burden of that awesome shout paled and shrank 
back, staring in sudden fear at the wild figure on the bridge. Was this in truth that blood-thirsty 
ogre of the southern seas who had so mysteriously vanished years ago, but who still lived in 
gory legends? The blacks were frothing crazy now, shaking and tearing at their chains and 
shrieking the name of Amra like an invocation. Kushites who had never seen Conan before 
took up the yell. The slaves in the pen under the after-cabin began to batter at the walls, 
shrieking like the damned. 
Demetrio, hitching himself along the deck on one hand and his knees, livid with the agony of 
his dislocated arm, screamed: “In and kill him, dogs, before the slaves break loose!” 
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Fired to desperation by that word, the most dread to all galleymen, the sailors charged on to the 
bridge from both ends. But with a lion-like bound Conan left the bridge and hit like a cat on his 
feet on the runway between the benches. 
“Death to the masters!” he thundered, and his ax rose and fell crashingly full on a shacklechain, 
severing it like match-wood. In an instant a shrieking slave was free, splintering his oar 
for a bludgeon. Men were racing frantically along the bridge above, and all hell and bedlam 
broke loose on the Venturer. Conan’s ax rose and fell without pause, and with every stroke a 
frothing, screaming black giant broke free, mad with hate and the fury of freedom and 
vengeance. 
Sailors leaping down into the waist to grapple or smite at the naked white giant hewing like one 
possessed at the shackles, found themselves dragged down by hands of slaves yet unfreed, 
while others, their broken chains whipping and snapping about their limbs, came up out of the 
waist like a blind, black torrent, screaming like fiends, smiting with broken oars and pieces of 
iron, tearing and rending with talons and teeth. In the midst of the mêlée the slaves in the pen 
broke down the walls and came surging up on the decks, and with fifty blacks freed of their 
benches Conan abandoned his iron-hewing and bounded up on the bridge to add his notched ax 
to the bludgeons of his partizans. 
Then it was massacre. The Argosseans were strong, sturdy, fearless like all their race, trained in 
the brutal school of the sea. But they could not stand against these maddened giants, led by the 
tigerish barbarian. Blows and abuse and hellish suffering were avenged in one red gust of fury 
that raged like a typhoon from one end of the ship to the other, and when it had blown itself 
out, but one white man lived aboard the Venturer, and that was the blood-stained giant about 
whom the chanting blacks thronged to cast themselves prostrate on the bloody deck and beat 
their heads against the boards in an ecstasy of hero-worship. 
Conan, his mighty chest heaving and glistening with sweat, the red ax gripped in his bloodsmeared 
hand, glared about him as the first chief of men might have glared in some primordial 
dawn, and shook back his black mane. In that moment he was not king of Aquilonia; he was 
again lord of the black corsairs, who had hacked his way to lordship through flame and blood. 
“Amra! Amra!” chanted the delirious blacks, those who were left to chant. “The Lion has 
returned! Now will the Stygians howl like dogs in the night, and the black dogs of Kush will 
howl! Now will villages burst in flames and ships founder! Aie, there will be wailing of women 
and the thunder of the spears!” 
“Cease this yammering, dogs!” Conan roared in a voice that drowned the clap of the sail in the 
wind. “Ten of you go below and free the oarsmen who are yet chained. The rest of you man the 
sweeps and bend to oars and halyards. Crom’s devils, don’t you see we’ve drifted inshore 
during the fight? Do you want to run aground and be retaken by the Argosseans? Throw these 
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carcasses overboard. Jump to it, you rogues, or I’ll notch your hides for you!” 
With shouts and laughter and wild singing they leaped to do his commands. The corpses, white 
and black, were hurled overboard, where triangular fins were already cutting the water. 
Conan stood on the poop, frowning down at the black men who watched him expectantly. His 
heavy brown arms were folded, his black hair, grown long in his wanderings, blew in the wind. 
A wilder and more barbaric figure never trod the bridge of a ship, and in this ferocious corsair 
few of the courtiers of Aquilonia would have recognized their king. 
“There’s food in the hold!” he roared. “Weapons in plenty for you, for this ship carried blades 
and harness to the Shemites who dwell along the coast. There are enough of us to work ship, 
aye, and to fight! You rowed in chains for the Argossean dogs: will you row as free men for 
Amra?” 
“Aye!” they roared. “We are thy children! Lead us where you will!” 
“Then fall to and clean out that waist,” he commanded. “Free men don’t labor in such filth. 
Three of you come with me to break out food from the after-cabin. By Crom, I’ll pad out your 
ribs before this cruise is done!” 
Another yell of approbation answered him, as the half-starved blacks scurried to do his 
bidding. The sail bellied as the wind swept over the waves with renewed force, and the white 
crests danced along the sweep of the wind. Conan planted his feet to the heave of the deck, 
breathed deep and spread his mighty arms. King of Aquilonia he might no longer be; king of 
the blue ocean he was still. 
XVI 
BLACK-WALLED KHEMI 
The Venturer swept southward like a living thing, her oars pulled now by free and willing 
hands. She had been transformed from a peaceful trader into a war-galley, insofar as the 
transformation was possible. Men sat at the benches now with swords at their sides and gilded 
helmets on their kinky heads. Shields were hung along the rails, and sheafs of spears, bows and 
arrows adorned the mast. Even the elements seemed to work for Conan now; the broad purple 
sail bellied to a stiff breeze that held day by day, needing little aid from the oars. 
But though Conan kept a man on the masthead day and night, they did not sight a long, low, 
black galley fleeing southward ahead of them. Day by day the blue waters rolled empty to their 
view, broken only by fishing-craft which fled like frightened birds before them, at sight of the 
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shields hung along the rail. The season for trading was practically over for the year, and they 
sighted no other ships. 
When the lookout did sight a sail, it was to the north, not the south. Far on the skyline behind 
them appeared a racing-galley, with full spread of purple sail. The blacks urged Conan to turn 
and plunder it, but he shook his head. Somewhere south of him a slim black galley was racing 
toward the ports of Stygia. That night, before darkness shut down, the lookout’s last glimpse 
showed him the racing-galley on the horizon, and at dawn it was still hanging on their tail, afar 
off, tiny in the distance. Conan wondered if it was following him, though he could think of no 
logical reason for such a supposition. But he paid little heed. Each day that carried him farther 
southward filled him with fiercer impatience. Doubts never assailed him. As he believed in the 
rise and set of the sun he believed that a priest of Set had stolen the Heart of Ahriman. And 
where would a priest of Set carry it but to Stygia? The blacks sensed his eagerness, and toiled 
as they had never toiled under the lash, though ignorant of his goal. They anticipated a red 
career of pillage and plunder and were content. The men of the southern isles knew no other 
trade; and the Kushites of the crew joined whole-heartedly in the prospect of looting their own 
people, with the callousness of their race. Blood-ties meant little; a victorious chieftain and 
personal gain everything. 
Soon the character of the coastline changed. No longer they sailed past steep cliffs with blue 
hills marching behind them. Now the shore was the edge of broad meadowlands which barely 
rose above the water’s edge and swept away and away into the hazy distance. Here were few 
harbors and fewer ports, but the green plain was dotted with the cities of the Shemites; green 
sea, lapping the rim of the green plains, and the zikkurats of the cities gleaming whitely in the 
sun, some small in the distance. 
Through the grazing-lands moved the herds of cattle, and squat, broad riders with cylindrical 
helmets and curled blue-black beards, with bows in their hands. This was the shore of the lands 
of Shem, where there was no law save as each city-state could enforce its own. Far to the 
eastward, Conan knew, the meadowlands gave way to desert, where there were no cities and 
the nomadic tribes roamed unhindered. 
Still as they plied southward, past the changeless panorama of city-dotted meadowland, at last 
the scenery again began to alter. Clumps of tamarind appeared, the palm groves grew denser. 
The shore-line became more broken, a marching rampart of green fronds and trees, and behind 
them rose bare, sandy hills. Streams poured into the sea, and along their moist banks vegetation 
grew thick and of vast variety. 
So at last they passed the mouth of a broad river that mingled its flow with the ocean, and saw 
the great black walls and towers of Khemi rise against the southern horizon. 
The river was the Styx, the real border of Stygia. Khemi was Stygia’s greatest port, and at that 
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time her most important city. The king dwelt at more ancient Luxur, but in Khemi reigned the 
priest-craft; though men said the center of their dark religion lay far inland, in a mysterious, 
deserted city near the bank of the Styx. This river, springing from some nameless source far in 
the unknown lands south of Stygia, ran northward for a thousand miles before it turned and 
flowed westward for some hundreds of miles, to empty at last into the ocean. 
The Venturer, showing no lights, stole past the port in the night, and before dawn discovered 
her, anchored in a small bay a few miles south of the city. It was surrounded by marsh, a green 
tangle of mangroves, palms and lianas, swarming with crocodiles and serpents. Discovery was 
extremely unlikely. Conan knew the place of old; he had hidden there before, in his corsair 
days. 
As they slid silently past the city whose great black bastions rose on the jutting prongs of land 
which locked the harbor, torches gleamed and smoldered luridly, and to their ears came the low 
thunder of drums. The port was not crowded with ships, as were the harbors of Argos. The 
Stygians did not base their glory and power upon ships and fleets. Trading-vessels and wargalleys, 
indeed, they had, but not in proportion to their inland strength. Many of their craft 
plied up and down the great river, rather than along the sea-coasts. 
The Stygians were an ancient race, a dark, inscrutable people, powerful and merciless. Long 
ago their rule had stretched far north of the Styx, beyond the meadowlands of Shem, and into 
the fertile uplands now inhabited by the peoples of Koth and Ophir and Argos. Their borders 
had marched with those of ancient Acheron. But Acheron had fallen, and the barbaric ancestors 
of the Hyborians had swept southward in wolfskins and horned helmets, driving the ancient 
rulers of the land before them. The Stygians had not forgotten. 
All day the Venturer lay at anchor in the tiny bay, walled in with green branches and tangled 
vines through which flitted gay-plumed, harsh-voiced birds, and among which glided brightscaled, 
silent reptiles. Toward sundown a small boat crept out and down along the shore, 
seeking and finding that which Conan desired – a Stygian fisherman in his shallow, flat-prowed 
boat. 
They brought him to the deck of the Venturer – a tall, dark, rangily built man, ashy with fear of 
his captors, who were ogres of that coast. He was naked except for his silken breeks, for, like 
the Hyrkanians, even the commoners and slaves of Stygia wore silk; and in his boat was a wide 
mantle such as these fishermen flung about their shoulders against the chill of the night. 
He fell to his knees before Conan, expecting torture and death. 
“Stand on your legs, man, and quit trembling,” said the Cimmerian impatiently, who found it 
difficult to understand abject terror. “You won’t be harmed. Tell me but this: has a galley, a 
black racing-galley returning from Argos, put into Khemi within the last few days?” 
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“Aye, my lord,” answered the fisherman. “Only yesterday at dawn the priest Thutothmes 
returned from a voyage far to the north. Men say he has been to Messantia.” 
“What did he bring from Messantia?” 
“Alas, my lord, I know not.” 
“Why did he go to Messantia?” demanded Conan. 
“Nay, my lord, I am but a common man. Who am I to know the minds of the priests of Set? I 
can only speak what I have seen and what I have heard men whisper along the wharves. Men 
say that news of great import came southward, though of what none knows; and it is well 
known that the lord Thutothmes put off in his black galley in great haste. Now he is returned, 
but what he did in Argos, or what cargo he brought back, none knows, not even the seamen 
who manned his galley. Men say that he has opposed Thoth-Amon, who is the master of all 
priests of Set, and dwells in Luxur, and that Thutothmes seeks hidden power to overthrow the 
Great One. But who am I to say? When priests war with one another a common man can but lie 
on his belly and hope neither treads upon him.” 
Conan snarled in nervous exasperation at this servile philosophy, and turned to his men. “I’m 
going alone into Khemi to find this thief Thutothmes. Keep this man prisoner, but see that you 
do him no hurt. Crom’s devils, stop your yowling! Do you think we can sail into the harbor and 
take the city by storm? I must go alone.” 
Silencing the clamor of protests, he doffed his own garments and donned the prisoner’s silk 
breeches and sandals, and the band from the man’s hair, but scorned the short fisherman’s 
knife. The common men of Stygia were not allowed to wear swords, and the mantle was not 
voluminous enough to hide the Cimmerian’s long blade, but Conan buckled to his hip a 
Ghanata knife, a weapon borne by the fierce desert men who dwelt to the south of the Stygians, 
a broad, heavy, slightly curved blade of fine steel, edged like a razor and long enough to 
dismember a man. 
Then, leaving the Stygian guarded by the corsairs, Conan climbed into the fisher’s boat. 
“Wait for me until dawn,” he said. “If I haven’t come then, I’ll never come, so hasten 
southward to your own homes.” 
As he clambered over the rail, they set up a doleful wail at his going, until he thrust his head 
back into sight to curse them into silence. Then, dropping into the boat, he grasped the oars and 
sent the tiny craft shooting over the waves more swiftly than its owner had ever propelled it. 
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XVII 
“HE HAS SLAIN THE SACRED SON OF SET!” 
The harbor of Khemi lay between two great jutting points of land that ran into the ocean. He 
rounded the southern point, where the great black castles rose like a man-made hill, and entered 
the harbor just at dusk, when there was still enough light for the watchers to recognize the 
fisherman’s boat and mantle, but not enough to permit recognition of betraying details. 
Unchallenged he threaded his way among the great black war galleys lying silent and unlighted 
at anchor, and drew up to a flight of wide stone steps which mounted up from the water’s edge. 
There he made his boat fast to an iron ring set in the stone, as numerous similar craft were tied. 
There was nothing strange in a fisherman leaving his boat there. None but a fisherman could 
find a use for such a craft, and they did not steal from one another. 
No one cast him more than a casual glance as he mounted the long steps, unobtrusively 
avoiding the torches that flared at intervals above the lapping black water. He seemed but an 
ordinary, empty-handed fisherman, returning after a fruitless day along the coast. If one had 
observed him closely, it might have seemed that his step was somewhat too springy and sure, 
his carriage somewhat too erect and confident for a lowly fisherman. But he passed quickly, 
keeping in the shadows, and the commoners of Stygia were no more given to analysis than 
were the commoners of the less exotic races. 
In build he was not unlike the warrior castes of the Stygians, who were a tall, muscular race. 
Bronzed by the sun, he was nearly as dark as many of them. His black hair, square-cut and 
confined by a copper band, increased the resemblance. The characteristics which set him apart 
from them were the subtle difference in his walk, and his alien features and blue eyes. 
But the mantle was a good disguise, and he kept as much in the shadows as possible, turning 
away his head when a native passed him too closely. 
But it was a desperate game, and he knew he could not long keep up the deception. Khemi was 
not like the sea-ports of the Hyborians, where types of every race swarmed. The only aliens 
here were negro and Shemite slaves; and he resembled neither even as much as he resembled 
the Stygians themselves. Strangers were not welcome in the cities of Stygia; tolerated only 
when they came as ambassadors or licensed traders. But even then the latter were not allowed 
ashore after dark. And now there were no Hyborian ships in the harbor at all. A strange 
restlessness ran through the city, a stirring of ancient ambitions, a whispering none could 
define except those who whispered. This Conan felt rather than knew, his whetted primitive 
instincts sensing unrest about him. 
If he were discovered his fate would be ghastly. They would slay him merely for being a 
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stranger; if he were recognized as Amra, the corsair chief who had swept their coasts with steel 
and flame – an involuntary shudder twitched Conan’s broad shoulders. Human foes he did not 
fear, nor any death by steel or fire. But this was a black land of sorcery and nameless horror. 
Set the Old Serpent, men said, banished long ago from the Hyborian races, yet lurked in the 
shadows of the cryptic temples, and awful and mysterious were the deeds done in the nighted 
shrines. 
He had drawn away from the waterfront streets with their broad steps leading down to the 
water, and was entering the long shadowy streets of the main part of the city. There was no 
such scene as was offered by any Hyborian city – no blaze of lamps and cressets, with gay-clad 
people laughing and strolling along the pavements, and shops and stalls wide open and 
displaying their wares. 
Here the stalls were closed at dusk. The only lights along the streets were torches, flaring 
smokily at wide intervals. People walking the streets were comparatively few; they went 
hurriedly and unspeaking, and their numbers decreased with the lateness of the hour. Conan 
found the scene gloomy and unreal; the silence of the people, their furtive haste, the great black 
stone walls that rose on each side of the streets. There was a grim massiveness about Stygian 
architecture that was overpowering and oppressive. 
Few lights showed anywhere except in the upper parts of the buildings. Conan knew that most 
of the people lay on the flat roofs, among the palms of artificial gardens under the stars. There 
was a murmur of weird music from somewhere. Occasionally a bronze chariot rumbled along 
the flags, and there was a brief glimpse of a tall, hawk-faced noble, with a silk cloak wrapped 
about him, and a gold band with a rearing serpent-head emblem confining his black mane; of 
the ebon, naked charioteer bracing his knotty legs against the straining of the fierce Stygian 
horses. 
But the people who yet traversed the streets on foot were commoners, slaves, tradesmen, 
harlots, toilers, and they became fewer as he progressed. He was making toward the temple of 
Set, where he knew he would be likely to find the priest he sought. He believed he would know 
Thutothmes if he saw him, though his one glance had been in the semi-darkness of the 
Messantian alley. That the man he had seen there had been the priest he was certain. Only 
occultists high in the mazes of the hideous Black Ring possessed the power of the black hand 
that dealt death by its touch; and only such a man would dare defy Thoth-Amon, whom the 
western world knew only as a figure of terror and myth. 
The street broadened, and Conan was aware that he was getting into the part of the city 
dedicated to the temples. The great structures reared their black bulks against the dim stars, 
grim, indescribably menacing in the flare of the few torches. And suddenly he heard a low 
scream from a woman on the other side of the street and somewhat ahead of him – a naked 
courtezan wearing the tall plumed head-dress of her class. She was shrinking back against the 
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wall, staring across at something he could not yet see. At her cry the few people on the street 
halted suddenly as if frozen. At the same instant Conan was aware of a sinister slithering ahead 
of him. Then about the dark corner of the building he was approaching poked a hideous, wedgeshaped 
head, and after it flowed coil after coil of rippling, darkly glistening trunk. 
The Cimmerian recoiled, remembering tales he had heard – serpents were sacred to Set, god of 
Stygia, who men said was himself a serpent. Monsters such as this were kept in the temples of 
Set, and when they hungered, were allowed to crawl forth into the streets to take what prey 
they wished. Their ghastly feasts were considered a sacrifice to the scaly god. 
The Stygians within Conan’s sight fell to their knees, men and women, and passively awaited 
their fate. One the great serpent would select, would lap in scaly coils, crush to a red pulp and 
swallow as a rat-snake swallows a mouse. The others would live. That was the will of the gods. 
But it was not Conan’s will. The python glided toward him, its attention probably attracted by 
the fact that he was the only human in sight still standing erect. Gripping his great knife under 
his mantle, Conan hoped the slimy brute would pass him by. But it halted before him and 
reared up horrifically in the flickering torchlight, its forked tongue flickering in and out, its 
cold eyes glittering with the ancient cruelty of the serpent-folk. Its neck arched, but before it 
could dart, Conan whipped his knife from under his mantle and struck like a flicker of 
lightning. The broad blade split that wedge-shaped head and sheared deep into the thick neck. 
Conan wrenched his knife free and sprang clear as the great body knotted and looped and 
whipped terrifically in its death throes. In the moment that he stood staring in morbid 
fascination, the only sound was the thud and swish of the snake’s tail against the stones. 
Then from the shocked votaries burst a terrible cry: “Blasphemer! He has slain the sacred son 
of Set! Slay him! Slay! Slay!” 
Stones whizzed about him and the crazed Stygians rushed at him, shrieking hysterically, while 
from all sides others emerged from their houses and took up the cry. With a curse Conan 
wheeled and darted into the black mouth of an alley. He heard the patter of bare feet on the 
flags behind him as he ran more by feel than by sight, and the walls resounded to the vengeful 
yells of the pursuers. Then his left hand found a break in the wall, and he turned sharply into 
another, narrower alley. On both sides rose sheer black stone walls. High above him he could 
see a thin line of stars. These giant walls, he knew, were the walls of temples. He heard, behind 
him, the pack sweep past the dark mouth in full cry. Their shouts grew distant, faded away. 
They had missed the smaller alley and run straight on in the blackness. He too kept straight 
ahead, though the thought of encountering another of Set’s “sons” in the darkness brought a 
shudder from him. 
Then somewhere ahead of him he caught a moving glow, like that of a crawling glow-worm. 
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He halted, flattened himself against the wall and gripped his knife. He knew what it was: a man 
approaching with a torch. Now it was so close he could make out the dark hand that gripped it, 
and the dim oval of a dark face. A few more steps and the man would certainly see him. He 
sank into a tigerish crouch – the torch halted. A door was briefly etched in the glow, while the 
torch-bearer fumbled with it. Then it opened, the tall figure vanished through it, and darkness 
closed again on the alley. There was a sinister suggestion of furtiveness about that slinking 
figure, entering the alley-door in darkness; a priest, perhaps, returning from some dark errand. 
But Conan groped toward the door. If one man came up that alley with a torch, others might 
come at any time. To retreat the way he had come might mean to run full into the mob from 
which he was fleeing. At any moment they might return, find the narrower alley and come 
howling down it. He felt hemmed in by those sheer, unscalable walls, desirous of escape, even 
if escape meant invading some unknown building. 
The heavy bronze door was not locked. It opened under his fingers and he peered through the 
crack. He was looking into a great square chamber of massive black stone. A torch smoldered 
in a niche in the wall. The chamber was empty. He glided through the lacquered door and 
closed it behind him. 
His sandaled feet made no sound as he crossed the black marble floor. A teak door stood partly 
open, and gliding through this, knife in hand, he came out into a great, dim, shadowy place 
whose lofty ceiling was only a hint of darkness high above him, toward which the black walls 
swept upward. On all sides black-arched doorways opened into the great still hall. It was lit by 
curious bronze lamps that gave a dim weird light. On the other side of the great hall a broad 
black marble stairway, without a railing, marched upward to lose itself in gloom, and above 
him on all sides dim galleries hung like black stone ledges. 
Conan shivered; he was in a temple of some Stygian god, if not Set himself, then someone only 
less grim. And the shrine did not lack an occupant. In the midst of the great hall stood a black 
stone altar, massive, somber, without carvings or ornament, and upon it coiled one of the great 
sacred serpents, its iridescent scales shimmering in the lamplight. It did not move, and Conan 
remembered stories that the priests kept these creatures drugged part of the time. The 
Cimmerian took an uncertain step out from the door, then shrank back suddenly, not into the 
room he had just quitted, but into a velvet-curtained recess. He had heard a soft step 
somewhere near by. 
From one of the black arches emerged a tall, powerful figure in sandals and silken loin-cloth, 
with a wide mantle trailing from his shoulders. But face and head were hidden by a monstrous 
mask, a half-bestial, half-human countenance, from the crest of which floated a mass of ostrich 
plumes. 
In certain ceremonies the Stygian priests went masked. Conan hoped the man would not 
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discover him, but some instinct warned the Stygian. He turned abruptly from his destination, 
which apparently was the stair, and stepped straight to the recess. As he jerked aside the velvet 
hanging, a hand darted from the shadows, crushed the cry in his throat and jerked him headlong 
into the alcove, and the knife impaled him. 
Conan’s next move was the obvious one suggested by logic. He lifted off the grinning mask 
and drew it over his own head. The fisherman’s mantle he flung over the body of the priest, 
which he concealed behind the hangings, and drew the priestly mantle about his own brawny 
shoulders. Fate had given him a disguise. All Khemi might well be searching now for the 
blasphemer who dared defend himself against a sacred snake; but who would dream of looking 
for him under the mask of a priest? 
He strode boldly from the alcove and headed for one of the arched doorways at random; but he 
had not taken a dozen strides when he wheeled again, all his senses edged for peril. 
A band of masked figures filed down the stair, appareled exactly as he was. He hesitated, 
caught in the open, and stood still, trusting to his disguise, though cold sweat gathered on his 
forehead and the backs of his hands. No word was spoken. Like phantoms they descended into 
the great hall and moved past him toward a black arch. The leader carried an ebon staff which 
supported a grinning white skull, and Conan knew it was one of the ritualistic processions so 
inexplicable to a foreigner, but which played a strong – and often sinister – part in the Stygian 
religion. The last figure turned his head slightly toward the motionless Cimmerian, as if 
expecting him to follow. Not to do what was obviously expected of him would rouse instant 
suspicion. Conan fell in behind the last man and suited his gait to their measured pace. 
They traversed a long, dark, vaulted corridor in which, Conan noticed uneasily, the skull on the 
staff glowed phosphorescently. He felt a surge of unreasoning, wild animal panic that urged 
him to rip out his knife and slash right and left at these uncanny figures, to flee madly from this 
grim, dark temple. But he held himself in check, fighting down the dim monstrous intuitions 
that rose in the back of his mind and peopled the gloom with shadowy shapes of horror; and 
presently he barely stifled a sigh of relief as they filed through a great double-valved door 
which was three times higher than a man, and emerged into the starlight. 
Conan wondered if he dared fade into some dark alley; but hesitated, uncertain, and down the 
long dark street they padded silently, while such folk as they met turned their heads away and 
fled from them. The procession kept far out from the walls; to turn and bolt into any of the 
alleys they passed would be too conspicuous. While he mentally fumed and cursed, they came 
to a low-arched gateway in the southern wall, and through this they filed. Ahead of them and 
about them lay clusters of low, flat-topped mud houses, and palm-groves, shadowy in the 
starlight. Now if ever, thought Conan, was his time to escape his silent companions. 
But the moment the gate was left behind them those companions were no longer silent. They 
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began to mutter excitedly among themselves. The measured, ritualistic gait was abandoned, the 
staff with its skull was tucked unceremoniously under the leader’s arm, and the whole group 
broke ranks and hurried onward. And Conan hurried with them. For in the low murmur of 
speech he had caught a word that galvanized him. The word was: “Thutothmes!” 
XVIII 
“I AM THE WOMAN WHO NEVER DIED” 
Conan stared with burning interest at his masked companions. One of them was Thutothmes, or 
else the destination of the band was a rendezvous with the man he sought. And he knew what 
that destination was, when beyond the palms he glimpsed a black triangular bulk looming 
against the shadowy sky. 
They passed through the belt of huts and groves, and if any man saw them he was careful not to 
show himself. The huts were dark. Behind them the black towers of Khemi rose gloomily 
against the stars that were mirrored in the waters of the harbor; ahead of them the desert 
stretched away in dim darkness; somewhere a jackal yapped. The quick-passing sandals of the 
silent neophytes made no noise in the sand. They might have been ghosts, moving toward that 
colossal pyramid that rose out of the murk of the desert. There was no sound over all the 
sleeping land. 
Conan’s heart beat quicker as he gazed at the grim black wedge that stood etched against the 
stars, and his impatience to close with Thutothmes in whatever conflict the meeting might 
mean was not unmixed with a fear of the unknown. No man could approach one of those 
somber piles of black stone without apprehension. The very name was a symbol of repellent 
horror among the northern nations, and legends hinted that the Stygians did not build them; that 
they were in the land at whatever immeasurably ancient date the dark-skinned people came into 
the land of the great river. 
As they approached the pyramid he glimpsed a dim glow near the base which presently 
resolved itself into a doorway, on either side of which brooded stone lions with the heads of 
women, cryptic, inscrutable, nightmares crystallized in stone. The leader of the band made 
straight for the doorway, in the deep well of which Conan saw a shadowy figure. 
The leader paused an instant beside this dim figure, and then vanished into the dark interior, 
and one by one the others followed. As each masked priest passed through the gloomy portal 
he was halted briefly by the mysterious guardian and something passed between them, some 
word or gesture Conan could not make out. Seeing this, the Cimmerian purposely lagged 
behind, and stooping, pretended to be fumbling with the fastening of his sandal. Not until the 
last of the masked figures had disappeared did he straighten and approach the portal. 
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He was uneasily wondering if the guardian of the temple were human, remembering some tales 
he had heard. But his doubts were set at rest. A dim bronze cresset glowing just within the door 
lighted a long narrow corridor that ran away into blackness, and a man standing silent in the 
mouth of it, wrapped in a wide black cloak. No one else was in sight. Obviously the masked 
priests had disappeared down the corridor. 
Over the cloak that was drawn about his lower features, the Stygian’s piercing eyes regarded 
Conan sharply. With his left hand he made a curious gesture. On a venture Conan imitated it. 
But evidently another gesture was expected; the Stygian’s right hand came from under his 
cloak with a gleam of steel and his murderous stab would have pierced the heart of an ordinary 
man. 
But he was dealing with one whose thews were nerved to the quickness of a jungle cat. Even as 
the dagger flashed in the dim light, Conan caught the dusky wrist and smashed his clenched 
right fist against the Stygian’s jaw. The man’s head went back against the stone wall with a 
dull crunch that told of a fractured skull. 
Standing for an instant above him, Conan listened intently. The cresset burned low, casting 
vague shadows about the door. Nothing stirred in the blackness beyond, though far away and 
below him, as it seemed, he caught the faint, muffled note of a gong. 
He stooped and dragged the body behind the great bronze door which stood wide, opened 
inward, and then the Cimmerian went warily but swiftly down the corridor, toward what doom 
he did not even try to guess. 
He had not gone far when he halted, baffled. The corridor split in two branches, and he had no 
way of knowing which the masked priests had taken. At a venture he chose the left. The floor 
slanted slightly downward and was worn smooth as by many feet. Here and there a dim cresset 
cast a faint nightmarish twilight. Conan wondered uneasily for what purpose these colossal 
piles had been reared, in what forgotten age. This was an ancient, ancient land. No man knew 
how many ages the black temples of Stygia had looked against the stars. 
Narrow black arches opened occasionally to right and left, but he kept to the main corridor, 
although a conviction that he had taken the wrong branch was growing in him. Even with their 
start of him, he should have overtaken the priests by this time. He was growing nervous. The 
silence was like a tangible thing, and yet he had a feeling that he was not alone. More than 
once, passing a nighted arch he seemed to feel the glare of unseen eyes fixed upon him. He 
paused, half minded to turn back to where the corridor had first branched. He wheeled 
abruptly, knife lifted, every nerve tingling. 
A girl stood at the mouth of a smaller tunnel, staring fixedly at him. Her ivory skin showed her 
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to be Stygian of some ancient noble family, and like all such women she was tall, lithe, 
voluptuously figured, her hair a great pile of black foam, among which gleamed a sparkling 
ruby. But for her velvet sandals and broad jewel-crusted girdle about her supple waist she was 
quite nude. 
“What do you here?” she demanded. 
To answer would betray his alien origin. He remained motionless, a grim, somber figure in the 
hideous mask with the plumes floating over him. His alert gaze sought the shadows behind her 
and found them empty. But there might be hordes of fighting-men within her call. 
She advanced toward him, apparently without apprehension though with suspicion. 
“You are not a priest,” she said. “You are a fighting-man. Even with that mask that is plain. 
There is as much difference between you and a priest as there is between a man and a woman. 
By Set!” she exclaimed, halting suddenly, her eyes flaring wide. “I do not believe you are even 
a Stygian!” 
With a movement too quick for the eye to follow, his hand closed about her round throat, 
lightly as a caress. 
“Not a sound out of you!” he muttered. 
Her smooth ivory flesh was cold as marble, yet there was no fear in the wide, dark, marvelous 
eyes which regarded him. 
“Do not fear,” she answered calmly. “I will not betray you. But are you mad to come, a 
stranger and a foreigner, to the forbidden temple of Set?” 
“I’m looking for the priest Thutothmes,” he answered. “Is he in this temple?” 
“Why do you seek him?” she parried. 
“He has something of mine which was stolen.” 
“I will lead you to him,” she volunteered, so promptly that his suspicions were instantly roused. 
“Don’t play with me, girl,” he growled. 
“I do not play with you. I have no love for Thutothmes.” 
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He hesitated, then made up his mind; after all, he was as much in her power as she was in his. 
“Walk beside me,” he commanded, shifting his grasp from her throat to her wrist. “But walk 
with care. If you make a suspicious move – ” 
She led him down the slanting corridor, down and down, until there were no more cressets, and 
he groped his way in darkness, aware less by sight than by feel and sense of the woman at his 
side. Once when he spoke to her, she turned her head toward him and he was startled to see her 
eyes glowing like golden fire in the dark. Dim doubts and vague monstrous suspicions haunted 
his mind, but he followed her, through a labyrinthine maze of black corridors that confused 
even his primitive sense of direction. He mentally cursed himself for a fool, allowing himself to 
be led into that black abode of mystery; but it was too late to turn back now. Again he felt life 
and movement in the darkness about him, sensed peril and hunger burning impatiently in the 
blackness. Unless his ears deceived him he caught a faint sliding noise that ceased and receded 
at a muttered command from the girl. 
She led him at last into a chamber lighted by a curious seven-branched candelabrum in which 
black candles burned weirdly. He knew they were far below the earth. The chamber was 
square, with walls and ceiling of polished black marble and furnished after the manner of the 
ancient Stygians; there was a couch of ebony, covered with black velvet, and on a black stone 
dais lay a carven mummy-case. 
Conan stood waiting expectantly, staring at the various black arches which opened into the 
chamber. But the girl made no move to go farther. Stretching herself on the couch with feline 
suppleness, she intertwined her fingers behind her sleek head and regarded him from under 
long, drooping lashes. 
“Well?” he demanded impatiently. “What are you doing? Where’s Thutothmes?” 
“There is no haste,” she answered lazily. “What is an hour – or a day, or a year, or a century, 
for that matter? Take off your mask. Let me see your features.” 
With a grunt of annoyance Conan dragged off the bulky headpiece, and the girl nodded as if in 
approval as she scanned his dark scarred face and blazing eyes. 
“There is strength in you – great strength; you could strangle a bullock.” 
He moved restlessly, his suspicion growing. With his hand on his hilt he peered into the 
gloomy arches. 
“If you’ve brought me into a trap,” he said, “you won’t live to enjoy your handiwork. Are you 
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going to get off that couch and do as you promised, or do I have to – ” 
His voice trailed away. He was staring at the mummy-case, on which the countenance of the 
occupant was carved in ivory with the startling vividness of a forgotten art. There was a 
disquieting familiarity about that carven mask, and with something of a shock he realized what 
it was; there was a startling resemblance between it and the face of the girl lolling on the ebon 
couch. She might have been the model from which it was carved, but he knew the portrait was 
at least centuries old. Archaic hieroglyphics were scrawled across the lacquered lid, and, 
seeking back into his mind for tag-ends of learning, picked up here and there as incidentals of 
an adventurous life, he spelled them out, and said aloud: “Akivasha!” 
“You have heard of Princess Akivasha?” inquired the girl on the couch. 
“Who hasn’t?” he grunted. The name of that ancient, evil, beautiful princess still lived the 
world over in song and legend, though ten thousand years had rolled their cycles since the 
daughter of Tuthamon had reveled in purple feasts amid the black halls of ancient Luxur. 
“Her only sin was that she loved life and all the meanings of life,” said the Stygian girl. “To 
win life she courted death. She could not bear to think of growing old and shriveled and worn, 
and dying at last as hags die. She wooed Darkness like a lover and his gift was life – life that, 
not being life as mortals know it, can never grow old and fade. She went into the shadows to 
cheat age and death – ” 
Conan glared at her with eyes that were suddenly burning slits. And he wheeled and tore the lid 
from the sarcophagus. It was empty. Behind him the girl was laughing and the sound froze the 
blood in his veins. He whirled back to her, the short hairs on his neck bristling. 
“You are Akivasha!” he grated. 
She laughed and shook back her burnished locks, spread her arms sensuously. 
“I am Akivasha! I am the woman who never died, who never grew old! Who fools say was 
lifted from the earth by the gods, in the full bloom of her youth and beauty, to queen it for ever 
in some celestial clime! Nay, it is in the shadows that mortals find immortality! Ten thousand 
years ago I died to live for ever! Give me your lips, strong man!” 
Rising lithely she came to him, rose on tiptoe and flung her arms about his massive neck. 
Scowling down into her upturned, beautiful countenance he was aware of a fearful fascination 
and an icy fear. 
“Love me!” she whispered, her head thrown back, eyes closed and lips parted. “Give me of 
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your blood to renew my youth and perpetuate my everlasting life! I will make you, too, 
immortal! I will teach you the wisdom of all the ages, all the secrets that have lasted out the 
eons in the blackness beneath these dark temples. I will make you king of that shadowy horde 
which revel among the tombs of the ancients when night veils the desert and bats flit across the 
moon. I am weary of priests and magicians, and captive girls dragged screaming through the 
portals of death. I desire a man. Love me, barbarian!” 
She pressed her dark head down against his mighty breast, and he felt a sharp pang at the base 
of his throat. With a curse he tore her away and flung her sprawling across the couch. 
“Damned vampire!” Blood was trickling from a tiny wound in his throat. 
She reared up on the couch like a serpent poised to strike, all the golden fires of hell blazing in 
her wide eyes. Her lips drew back, revealing white pointed teeth. 
“Fool!” she shrieked. “Do you think to escape me? You will live and die in darkness! I have 
brought you far below the temple. You can never find your way out alone. You can never cut 
your way through those which guard the tunnels. But for my protection the sons of Set would 
long ago have taken you into their bellies. Fool, I shall yet drink your blood!” 
“Keep away from me or I’ll slash you asunder,” he grunted, his flesh crawling with revulsion. 
“You may be immortal, but steel will dismember you.” 
As he backed toward the arch through which he had entered, the light went out suddenly. All 
the candles were extinguished at once, though he did not know how; for Akivasha had not 
touched them. But the vampire’s laugh rose mockingly behind him, poison-sweet as the viols 
of hell, and he sweated as he groped in the darkness for the arch in a near-panic. His fingers 
encountered an opening and he plunged through it. Whether it was the arch through which he 
had entered he did not know, nor did he very much care. His one thought was to get out of the 
haunted chamber which had housed that beautiful, hideous, undead fiend for so many centuries. 
His wanderings through those black, winding tunnels were a sweating nightmare. Behind him 
and about him he heard faint slitherings and glidings, and once the echo of that sweet, hellish 
laughter he had heard in the chamber of Akivasha. He slashed ferociously at sounds and 
movements he heard or imagined he heard in the darkness near him, and once his sword cut 
through some yielding tenuous substance that might have been cobwebs. He had a desperate 
feeling that he was being played with, lured deeper and deeper into ultimate night, before being 
set upon by demoniac talon and fang. 
And through his fear ran the sickening revulsion of his discovery. The legend of Akivasha was 
so old, and among the evil tales told of her ran a thread of beauty and idealism, of everlasting 
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youth. To so many dreamers and poets and lovers she was not alone the evil princess of 
Stygian legend, but the symbol of eternal youth and beauty, shining for ever in some far realm 
of the gods. And this was the hideous reality. This foul perversion was the truth of that 
everlasting life. Through his physical revulsion ran the sense of a shattered dream of man’s 
idolatry, its glittering gold proved slime and cosmic filth. A wave of futility swept over him, a 
dim fear of the falseness of all men’s dreams and idolatries. 
And now he knew that his ears were not playing him tricks. He was being followed, and his 
pursuers were closing in on him. In the darkness sounded shufflings and slidings that were 
never made by human feet; no, nor by the feet of any normal animal. The underworld had its 
bestial life too, perhaps. They were behind him. He turned to face them, though he could see 
nothing, and slowly backed away. Then the sounds ceased, even before he turned his head and 
saw, somewhere down the long corridor, a glow of light. 
XIX 
IN THE HALL OF THE DEAD 
Conan moved cautiously in the direction of the light he had seen, his ear cocked over his 
shoulder, but there was no further sound of pursuit, though he felt the darkness pregnant with 
sentient life. 
The glow was not stationary; it moved, bobbing grotesquely along. Then he saw the source. 
The tunnel he was traversing crossed another, wider corridor some distance ahead of him. And 
along this latter tunnel filed a bizarre procession – four tall, gaunt men in black, hooded robes, 
leaning on staffs. The leader held a torch above his head – a torch that burned with a curious 
steady glow. Like phantoms they passed across his limited range of vision and vanished, with 
only a fading glow to tell of their passing. Their appearance was indescribably eldritch. They 
were not Stygians, not like anything Conan had ever seen. He doubted if they were even 
humans. They were like black ghosts, stalking ghoulishly along the haunted tunnels. 
But his position could be no more desperate than it was. Before the inhuman feet behind him 
could resume their slithering advance at the fading of the distant illumination, Conan was 
running down the corridor. He plunged into the other tunnel and saw, far down it, small in the 
distance, the weird procession moving in the glowing sphere. He stole noiselessly after them, 
then shrank suddenly back against the wall as he saw them halt and cluster together as if 
conferring on some matter. They turned as if to retrace their steps, and he slipped into the 
nearest archway. Groping in the darkness to which he had become so accustomed that he could 
all but see through it, he discovered that the tunnel did not run straight, but meandered, and he 
fell back beyond the first turn, so that the light of the strangers should not fall on him as they 
passed. 
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But as he stood there, he was aware of a low hum of sound from somewhere behind him, like 
the murmur of human voices. Moving down the corridor in that direction, he confirmed his first 
suspicion. Abandoning his original intention of following the ghoulish travelers to whatever 
destination might be theirs, he set out in the direction of the voices. 
Presently he saw a glint of light ahead of him, and turning into the corridor from which it 
issued, saw a broad arch filled with a dim glow at the other end. On his left a narrow stone stair 
went upward, and instinctive caution prompted him to turn and mount that stair. The voices he 
heard were coming from beyond that flame-filled arch. 
The sounds fell away beneath him as he climbed, and presently he came out through a low 
arched door into a vast open space glowing with a weird radiance. 
He was standing on a shadowy gallery from which he looked down into a broad dim-lit hall of 
colossal proportions. It was a hall of the dead, which few ever see but the silent priests of 
Stygia. Along the black walls rose tier above tier of carven, painted sarcophagi. Each stood in a 
niche in the dusky stone, and the tiers mounted up and up to be lost in the gloom above. 
Thousands of carven masks stared impassively down upon the group in the midst of the hall, 
rendered futile and insignificant by that vast array of the dead. 
Of this group ten were priests, and though they had discarded their masks Conan knew they 
were the priests he had accompanied to the pyramid. They stood before a tall, hawk-faced man 
beside a black altar on which lay a mummy in rotting swathings. And the altar seemed to stand 
in the heart of a living fire which pulsed and shimmered, dripping flakes of quivering golden 
flame on the black stones about it. This dazzling glow emanated from a great red jewel which 
lay upon the altar, and in the reflection of which the faces of the priests looked ashy and corpselike. 
As he looked, Conan felt the pressure of all the weary leagues and the weary nights and 
days of his long quest, and he trembled with the mad urge to rush among those silent priests, 
clear his way with mighty blows of naked steel, and grasp the red gem with passion-taut 
fingers. But he gripped himself with iron control, and crouched down in the shadow of the 
stone balustrade. A glance showed him that a stair led down into the hall from the gallery, 
hugging the wall and half hidden in the shadows. He glared into the dimness of the vast place, 
seeking other priests or votaries, but saw only the group about the altar. 
In that great emptiness the voice of the man beside the altar sounded hollow and ghostly: 
“. . . And so the word came southward. The night wind whispered it, the ravens croaked of it as 
they flew, and the grim bats told it to the owls and the serpents that lurk in hoary ruins. 
Werewolf and vampire knew, and the ebon-bodied demons that prowl by night. The sleeping 
Night of the World stirred and shook its heavy mane, and there began a throbbing of drums in 
deep darkness, and the echoes of far weird cries frightened men who walked by dusk. For the 
Heart of Ahriman had come again into the world to fulfill its cryptic destiny. 
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“Ask me not how I, Thutothmes of Khemi and the Night, heard the word before Thoth-Amon 
who calls himself prince of all wizards. There are secrets not meet for such ears even as yours, 
and Thoth-Amon is not the only lord of the Black Ring. 
“I knew, and I went to meet the Heart which came southward. It was like a magnet which drew 
me, unerringly. From death to death it came, riding on a river of human blood. Blood feeds it, 
blood draws it. Its power is greatest when there is blood on the hands that grasp it, when it is 
wrested by slaughter from its holder. Wherever it gleams, blood is spilt and kingdoms totter, 
and the forces of nature are put in turmoil. 
“And here I stand, the master of the Heart, and have summoned you to come secretly, who are 
faithful to me, to share in the black kingdom that shall be. Tonight you shall witness the 
breaking of Thoth-Amon’s chains which enslave us, and the birth of empire. 
“Who am I, even I, Thutothmes, to know what powers lurk and dream in those crimson deeps? 
It holds secrets forgotten for three thousand years. But I shall learn. These shall tell me!” 
He waved his hand toward the silent shapes that lined the hall. 
“See how they sleep, staring through their carven masks! Kings, queens, generals, priests, 
wizards, the dynasties and the nobility of Stygia for ten thousand years! The touch of the Heart 
will awaken them from their long slumber. Long, long the Heart throbbed and pulsed in ancient 
Stygia. Here was its home in the centuries before it journeyed to Acheron. The ancients knew 
its full powers, and they will tell me when by its magic I restore them to life to labor for me. 
“I will rouse them, will waken them, will learn their forgotten wisdom, the knowledge locked 
in those withered skulls. By the lore of the dead we shall enslave the living! Aye, kings and 
generals and wizards of eld shall be our helpers and our slaves. Who shall stand before us? 
“Look! This dried, shriveled thing on the altar was once Thothmekri, a high priest of Set, who 
died three thousand years ago. He was an adept of the Black Ring. He knew of the Heart. He 
will tell us of its powers.” 
Lifting the great jewel, the speaker laid it on the withered breast of the mummy, and lifted his 
hand as he began an incantation. But the incantation was never finished. With his hand lifted 
and his lips parted he froze, glaring past his acolytes, and they wheeled to stare in the direction 
in which he was looking. 
Through the black arch of a door four gaunt, black-robed shapes had filed into the great hall. 
Their faces were dim yellow ovals in the shadow of their hoods. 
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“Who are you?” ejaculated Thutothmes in a voice as pregnant with danger as the hiss of a 
cobra. “Are you mad, to invade the holy shrine of Set?” 
The tallest of the strangers spoke, and his voice was toneless as a Khitan temple bell. 
“We follow Conan of Aquilonia.” 
“He is not here,” answered Thutothmes, shaking back his mantle from his right hand with a 
curious menacing gesture, like a panther unsheathing his talons. 
“You lie. He is in this temple. We tracked him from a corpse behind the bronze door of the 
outer portal through a maze of corridors. We were following his devious trail when we became 
aware of this conclave. We go now to take it up again. But first give us the Heart of Ahriman.” 
“Death is the portion of madmen,” murmured Thutothmes, moving nearer the speaker. His 
priests closed in on cat-like feet, but the strangers did not appear to heed. 
“Who can look upon it without desire?” said the Khitan. “In Khitai we have heard of it. It will 
give us power over the people which cast us out. Glory and wonder dream in its crimson deeps. 
Give it to us, before we slay you.” 
A fierce cry rang out as a priest leaped with a flicker of steel. Before he could strike, a scaly 
staff licked out and touched his breast, and he fell as a dead man falls. In an instant the 
mummies were staring down on a scene of blood and horror. Curved knives flashed and 
crimsoned, snaky staffs licked in and out, and whenever they touched a man, that man 
screamed and died. 
At the first stroke Conan had bounded up and was racing down the stairs. He caught only 
glimpses of that brief, fiendish fight – saw men swaying, locked in battle and streaming blood; 
saw one Khitan, fairly hacked to pieces, yet still on his feet and dealing death, when 
Thutothmes smote him on the breast with his open empty hand, and he dropped dead, though 
naked steel had not been enough to destroy his uncanny vitality. 
By the time Conan’s hurtling feet left the stair, the fight was all but over. Three of the Khitans 
were down, slashed and cut to ribbons and disemboweled, but of the Stygians only Thutothmes 
remained on his feet. 
He rushed at the remaining Khitan, his empty hand lifted like a weapon, and that hand was 
black as that of a negro. But before he could strike, the staff in the tall Khitan’s hand licked 
out, seeming to elongate itself as the yellow man thrust. The point touched the bosom of 
Thutothmes and he staggered; again and yet again the staff licked out, and Thutothmes reeled 
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and fell dead, his features blotted out in a rush of blackness that made the whole of him the 
same hue as his enchanted hand. The Khitan turned toward the jewel that burned on the breast 
of the mummy, but Conan was before him. 
In a tense stillness the two faced each other, amid that shambles, with the carven mummies 
staring down upon them. 
“Far have I followed you, oh king of Aquilonia,” said the Khitan calmly. “Down the long river, 
and over the mountains, across Poitain and Zingara and through the hills of Argos and down 
the coast. Not easily did we pick up your trail from Tarantia, for the priests of Asura are crafty. 
We lost it in Zingara, but we found your helmet in the forest below the border hills, where you 
had fought with the ghouls of the forests. Almost we lost the trail again tonight among these 
labyrinths.” 
Conan reflected that he had been fortunate in returning from the vampire’s chamber by another 
route than that by which he had been led to it. Otherwise he would have run full into these 
yellow fiends instead of sighting them from afar as they smelled out his spoor like human 
bloodhounds, with whatever uncanny gift was theirs. 
The Khitan shook his head slightly, as if reading his mind. 
“That is meaningless; the long trail ends here.” 
“Why have you hounded me?” demanded Conan, poised to move in any direction with the 
celerity of a hair-trigger. 
“It was a debt to pay,” answered the Khitan. “To you who are about to die I will not withhold 
knowledge. We were vassals of the king of Aquilonia, Valerius. Long we served him, but of 
that service we are free now – my brothers by death, and I by the fulfilment of obligation. I 
shall return to Aquilonia with two hearts; for myself the Heart of Ahriman; for Valerius the 
heart of Conan. A kiss of the staff that was cut from the living Tree of Death – ” 
The staff licked out like the dart of a viper, but the slash of Conan’s knife was quicker. The 
staff fell in writhing halves, there was another flicker of the keen steel like a jet of lightning, 
and the head of the Khitan rolled to the floor. 
Conan wheeled and extended his hand toward the jewel – then he shrank back, his hair 
bristling, his blood congealing icily. 
For no longer a withered brown thing lay on the altar. The jewel shimmered on the full, arching 
breast of a naked, living man who lay among the moldering bandages. Living? Conan could not 
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decide. The eyes were like dark murky glass under which shone inhuman somber fires. 
Slowly the man rose, taking the jewel in his hand. He towered beside the altar, dusky, naked, 
with a face like a carven image. Mutely he extended his hand toward Conan, with the jewel 
throbbing like a living heart within it. Conan took it, with an eery sensation of receiving gifts 
from the hand of the dead. He somehow realized that the proper incantations had not been 
made – the conjurement had not been completed – life had not been fully restored to this corpse. 
“Who are you?” demanded the Cimmerian. 
The answer came in a toneless monotone, like the dripping of water from stalactites in 
subterranean caverns. “I was Thothmekri; I am dead.” 
“Well, lead me out of this accursed temple, will you?” Conan requested, his flesh crawling. 
With measured, mechanical steps the dead man moved toward a black arch. Conan followed 
him. A glance back showed him once again the vast, shadowy hall with its tiers of sarcophagi, 
the dead men sprawled about the altar; the head of the Khitan he had slain stared sightless up at 
the sweeping shadows. 
The glow of the jewel illuminated the black tunnels like an ensorceled lamp, dripping golden 
fire. Once Conan caught a glimpse of ivory flesh in the shadows, believed he saw the vampire 
that was Akivasha shrinking back from the glow of the jewel; and with her, other less human 
shapes scuttled or shambled into the darkness. 
The dead man strode straight on, looking neither to right nor left, his pace as changeless as the 
tramp of doom. Cold sweat gathered thick on Conan’s flesh. Icy doubts assailed him. How 
could he know that this terrible figure out of the past was leading him to freedom? But he knew 
that, left to himself, he could never untangle this bewitched maze of corridors and tunnels. He 
followed his awful guide through blackness that loomed before and behind them and was filled 
with skulking shapes of horror and lunacy that cringed from the blinding glow of the Heart. 
Then the bronze doorway was before him, and Conan felt the night wind blowing across the 
desert, and saw the stars, and the starlit desert across which streamed the great black shadow of 
the pyramid. Thothmekri pointed silently into the desert, and then turned and stalked 
soundlessly back in the darkness. Conan stared after that silent figure that receded into the 
blackness on soundless, inexorable feet as one that moves to a known and inevitable doom, or 
returns to everlasting sleep. 
With a curse the Cimmerian leaped from the doorway and fled into the desert as if pursued by 
demons. He did not look back toward the pyramid, or toward the black towers of Khemi 
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looming dimly across the sands. He headed southward toward the coast, and he ran as a man 
runs in ungovernable panic. The violent exertion shook his brain free of black cobwebs; the 
clean desert wind blew the nightmares from his soul and his revulsion changed to a wild tide of 
exultation before the desert gave way to a tangle of swampy growth through which he saw the 
black water lying before him, and the Venturer at anchor. 
He plunged through the undergrowth, hip-deep in the marshes; dived headlong into the deep 
water, heedless of sharks or crocodiles, and swam to the galley and was clambering up the 
chain on to the deck, dripping and exultant, before the watch saw him. 
“Awake, you dogs!” roared Conan, knocking aside the spear the startled lookout thrust at his 
breast. “Heave up the anchor! Lay to the doors! Give that fisherman a helmet full of gold and 
put him ashore! Dawn will soon be breaking, and before sunrise we must be racing for the 
nearest port of Zingara!” 
He whirled about his head the great jewel, which threw off splashes of light that spotted the 
deck with golden fire. 
XXI 
OUT OF THE DUST SHALL ACHERON ARISE 
Winter had passed from Aquilonia. Leaves sprang out on the limbs of trees, and the fresh grass 
smiled to the touch of the warm southern breezes. But many a field lay idle and empty, many a 
charred heap of ashes marked the spot where proud villas or prosperous towns had stood. 
Wolves prowled openly along the grass-grown highways, and bands of gaunt, masterless men 
slunk through the forests. Only in Tarantia was feasting and wealth and pageantry. 
Valerius ruled like one touched with madness. Even many of the barons who had welcomed his 
return cried out at last against him. His tax-gatherers crushed rich and poor alike; the wealth of 
a looted kingdom poured into Tarantia, which became less like the capital of a realm than the 
garrison of conquerors in a conquered land. Its merchants waxed rich, but it was a precarious 
prosperity; for none knew when he might be accused of treason on a trumped-up charge, and 
his property confiscated, himself cast into prison or brought to the bloody block. 
Valerius made no attempt to conciliate his subjects. He maintained himself by means of the 
Nemedian soldiery and by desperate mercenaries. He knew himself to be a puppet of Amalric. 
He knew that he ruled only on the sufferance of the Nemedian. He knew that he could never 
hope to unite Aquilonia under his rule and cast off the yoke of his masters, for the outland 
provinces would resist him to the last drop of blood. And for that matter the Nemedians would 
cast him from his throne if he made any attempt to consolidate his kingdom. He was caught in 
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his own vise. The gall of defeated pride corroded his soul, and he threw himself into a reign of 
debauchery, as one who lives from day to day, without thought or care for tomorrow. 
Yet there was subtlety in his madness, so deep that not even Amalric guessed it. Perhaps the 
wild, chaotic years of wandering as an exile had bred in him a bitterness beyond common 
conception. Perhaps his loathing of his present position increased this bitterness to a kind of 
madness. At any event he lived with one desire: to cause the ruin of all who associated with 
him. 
He knew that his rule would be over the instant he had served Amalric’s purpose; he knew, too, 
that so long as he continued to oppress his native kingdom the Nemedian would suffer him to 
reign, for Amalric wished to crush Aquilonia into ultimate submission, to destroy its last shred 
of independence, and then at last to seize it himself, rebuild it after his own fashion with his 
vast wealth, and use its men and natural resources to wrest the crown of Nemedia from 
Tarascus. For the throne of an emperor was Amalric’s ultimate ambition, and Valerius knew it. 
Valerius did not know whether Tarascus suspected this, but he knew that the king of Nemedia 
approved of his ruthless course. Tarascus hated Aquilonia, with a hate born of old wars. He 
desired only the destruction of the western kingdom. 
And Valerius intended to ruin the country so utterly that not even Amalric’s wealth could ever 
rebuild it. He hated the baron quite as much as he hated the Aquilonians, and hoped only to live 
to see the day when Aquilonia lay in utter ruin, and Tarascus and Amalric were locked in 
hopeless civil war that would as completely destroy Nemedia. 
He believed that the conquest of the still defiant provinces of Gunderland and Poitain and the 
Bossonian marches would mark his end as king. He would then have served Amalric’s 
purpose, and could be discarded. So he delayed the conquest of these provinces, confining his 
activities to objectless raids and forays, meeting Amalric’s urges for action with all sorts of 
plausible objections and postponements. 
His life was a series of feasts and wild debauches. He filled his palace with the fairest girls of 
the kingdom, willing or unwilling. He blasphemed the gods and sprawled drunken on the floor 
of the banquet hall wearing the golden crown, and staining his royal purple robes with the wine 
he spilled. In gusts of blood-lust he festooned the gallows in the market square with dangling 
corpses, glutted the axes of the headsmen and sent his Nemedian horsemen thundering through 
the land pillaging and burning. Driven to madness, the land was in a constant upheaval of 
frantic revolt, savagely suppressed. Valerius plundered and raped and looted and destroyed 
until even Amalric protested, warning him that he would beggar the kingdom beyond repair, 
not knowing that such was his fixed determination. 
But while in both Aquilonia and Nemedia men talked of the madness of the king, in Nemedia 
men talked much of Xaltotun, the masked one. Yet few saw him on the streets of Belverus. 
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Men said he spent much time in the hills, in curious conclaves with surviving remnants of an 
old race: dark, silent folk who claimed descent from an ancient kingdom. Men whispered of 
drums beating far up in the dreaming hills, of fires glowing in the darkness, and strange 
chantings borne on the winds, chantings and rituals forgotten centuries ago except as 
meaningless formulas mumbled beside mountain hearths in villages whose inhabitants differed 
strangely from the people of the valleys. 
The reason for these conclaves none knew, unless it was Orastes, who frequently accompanied 
the Pythonian, and on whose countenance a haggard shadow was growing. 
But in the full flood of spring a sudden whisper passed over the sinking kingdom that woke the 
land to eager life. It came like a murmurous wind drifting up from the south, waking men sunk 
in the apathy of despair. Yet how it first came none could truly say. Some spoke of a strange, 
grim old woman who came down from the mountains with her hair flowing in the wind, and a 
great gray wolf following her like a dog. Others whispered of the priests of Asura who stole 
like furtive phantoms from Gunderland to the marches of Poitain, and to the forest villages of 
the Bossonians. 
However the word came, revolt ran like a flame along the borders. Outlying Nemedian 
garrisons were stormed and put to the sword, foraging parties were cut to pieces; the west was 
up in arms, and there was a different air about the rising, a fierce resolution and inspired wrath 
rather than the frantic despair that had motivated the preceding revolts. It was not only the 
common people; barons were fortifying their castles and hurling defiance at the governors of 
the provinces. Bands of Bossonians were seen moving along the edges of the marches: stocky, 
resolute men in brigandines and steel caps, with longbows in their hands. From the inert 
stagnation of dissolution and ruin the realm was suddenly alive, vibrant and dangerous. So 
Amalric sent in haste for Tarascus, who came with an army. 
In the royal palace in Tarantia the two kings and Amalric discussed the rising. They had not 
sent for Xaltotun, immersed in his cryptic studies in the Nemedian hills. Not since that bloody 
day in the valley of the Valkia had they called upon him for aid of his magic, and he had drawn 
apart, communing but little with them, apparently indifferent to their intrigues. 
Nor had they sent for Orastes, but he came, and he was white as spume blown before the storm. 
He stood in the gold-domed chamber where the kings held conclave and they beheld in 
amazement his haggard stare, the fear they had never guessed the mind of Orastes could hold. 
“You are weary, Orastes,” said Amalric. “Sit upon this divan and I will have a slave fetch you 
wine. You have ridden hard – ” 
Orastes waved aside the invitation. 
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“I have killed three horses on the road from Belverus. I cannot drink wine, I cannot rest, until I 
have said what I have to say.” 
He paced back and forth as if some inner fire would not let him stand motionless, and halting 
before his wondering companions: 
“When we employed the Heart of Ahriman to bring a dead man back to life,” Orastes said 
abruptly, “we did not weigh the consequences of tampering in the black dust of the past. The 
fault is mine, and the sin. We thought only of our ambitions, forgetting what ambitions this 
man might himself have. And we have loosed a demon upon the earth, a fiend inexplicable to 
common humanity. I have plumbed deep in evil, but there is a limit to which I, or any man of 
my race and age, can go. My ancestors were clean men, without any demoniacal taint; it is only 
I who have sunk into the pits, and I can sin only to the extent of my personal individuality. But 
behind Xaltotun lie a thousand centuries of black magic and diabolism, an ancient tradition of 
evil. He is beyond our conception not only because he is a wizard himself, but also because he 
is the son of a race of wizards. 
“I have seen things that have blasted my soul. In the heart of the slumbering hills I have 
watched Xaltotun commune with the souls of the damned, and invoke the ancient demons of 
forgotten Acheron. I have seen the accursed descendants of that accursed empire worship him 
and hail him as their arch-priest. I have seen what he plots – and I tell you it is no less than the 
restoration of the ancient, black, grisly kingdom of Acheron!” 
“What do you mean?” demanded Amalric. “Acheron is dust. There are not enough survivals to 
make an empire. Not even Xaltotun can reshape the dust of three thousand years.” 
“You know little of his black powers,” answered Orastes grimly. “I have seen the very hills 
take on an alien and ancient aspect under the spell of his incantations. I have glimpsed, like 
shadows behind the realities, the dim shapes and outlines of valleys, forests, mountains and 
lakes that are not as they are today, but as they were in that dim yesterday – have even sensed, 
rather than glimpsed, the purple towers of forgotten Python shimmering like figures of mist in 
the dusk. 
“And in the last conclave to which I accompanied him, understanding of his sorcery came to 
me at last, while the drums beat and the beast-like worshippers howled with their heads in the 
dust. I tell you he would restore Acheron by his magic, by the sorcery of a gigantic bloodsacrifice 
such as the world has never seen. He would enslave the world, and with a deluge of 
blood wash away the present and restore the past!” 
“You are mad!” exclaimed Tarascus. 
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“Mad?” Orastes turned a haggard stare upon him. “Can any man see what I have seen and 
remain wholly sane? Yet I speak the truth. He plots the return of Acheron, with its towers and 
wizards and kings and horrors, as it was in the long ago. The descendants of Acheron will serve 
him as a nucleus upon which to build, but it is the blood and the bodies of the people of the 
world today that will furnish the mortar and the stones for the rebuilding. I cannot tell you how. 
My own brain reels when I try to understand. But I have seen! Acheron will be Acheron again, 
and even the hills, the forests and the rivers will resume their ancient aspect. Why not? If I, 
with my tiny store of knowledge, could bring to life a man dead three thousand years, why 
cannot the greatest wizard of the world bring back to life a kingdom dead three thousand years? 
Out of the dust shall Acheron arise at his bidding.” 
“How can we thwart him?” asked Tarascus, impressed. 
“There is but one way,” answered Orastes. “We must steal the Heart of Ahriman!” 
“But I – ” began Tarascus involuntarily, then closed his mouth quickly. 
None had noticed him, and Orastes was continuing. 
“It is a power that can be used against him. With it in my hands I might defy him. But how 
shall we steal it? He has it hidden in some secret place, from which not even a Zamorian thief 
might filch it. I cannot learn its hiding-place. If he would only sleep again the sleep of the black 
lotus – but the last time he slept thus was after the battle of the Valkia, when he was weary 
because of the great magic he had performed, and – ” 
The door was locked and bolted, but it swung silently open and Xaltotun stood before them, 
calm, tranquil, stroking his patriarchal beard; but the lambent lights of hell flickered in his eyes. 
“I have taught you too much,” he said calmly, pointing a finger like an index of doom at 
Orastes. And before any could move, he had cast a handful of dust on the floor near the feet of 
the priest, who stood like a man turned to marble. It flamed, smoldered; a blue serpentine of 
smoke rose and swayed upward about Orastes in a slender spiral. And when it had risen above 
his shoulders it curled about his neck with a whipping suddenness like the stroke of a snake. 
Orastes’ scream was choked to a gurgle. His hands flew to his neck, his eyes were distended, 
his tongue protruded. The smoke was like a blue rope about his neck; then it faded and was 
gone, and Orastes slumped to the floor a dead man. 
Xaltotun smote his hands together and two men entered, men often observed accompanying 
him – small, repulsively dark, with red, oblique eyes and pointed, rat-like teeth. They did not 
speak. Lifting the corpse, they bore it away. 
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Dismissing the matter with a wave of his hand, Xaltotun seated himself at the ivory table about 
which sat the pale kings. 
“Why are you in conclave?” he demanded. 
“The Aquilonians have risen in the west,” answered Amalric, recovering from the grisly jolt 
the death of Orastes had given him. “The fools believe that Conan is alive, and coming at the 
head of a Poitanian army to reclaim his kingdom. If he had reappeared immediately after 
Valkia, or if a rumor had been circulated that he lived, the central provinces would not have 
risen under him, they feared your powers so. But they have become so desperate under 
Valerius’s misrule that they are ready to follow any man who can unite them against us, and 
prefer sudden death to torture and continual misery. 
“Of course the tale has lingered stubbornly in the land that Conan was not really slain at 
Valkia, but not until recently have the masses accepted it. But Pallantides is back from exile in 
Ophir, swearing that the king was ill in his tent that day, and that a man-at-arms wore his 
harness, and a squire who but recently recovered from the stroke of a mace received at Valkia 
confirms his tale – or pretends to. 
“An old woman with a pet wolf has wandered up and down the land, proclaiming that King 
Conan yet lives, and will return some day to reclaim the crown. And of late the cursed priests 
of Asura sing the same song. They claim that word has come to them by some mysterious 
means that Conan is returning to reconquer his domain. I cannot catch either her or them. This 
is, of course, a trick of Trocero’s. My spies tell me there is indisputable evidence that the 
Poitanians are gathering to invade Aquilonia. I believe that Trocero will bring forward some 
pretender who he will claim is King Conan.” 
Tarascus laughed, but there was no conviction in his laughter. He surreptitiously felt of a scar 
beneath his jupon, and remembered ravens that cawed on the trail of a fugitive; remembered 
the body of his squire, Arideus, brought back from the border mountains horribly mangled, by 
a great gray wolf, his terrified soldiers said. But he also remembered a red jewel stolen from a 
golden chest while a wizard slept, and he said nothing. 
And Valerius remembered a dying nobleman who gasped out a tale of fear, and he remembered 
four Khitans who disappeared into the mazes of the south and never returned. But he held his 
tongue, for hatred and suspicion of his allies ate at him like a worm, and he desired nothing so 
much as to see both rebels and Nemedians go down locked in the death grip. 
But Amalric exclaimed: “It is absurd to dream that Conan lives!” 
For answer Xaltotun cast a roll of parchment on the table. 
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Amalric caught it up, glared at it. From his lips burst a furious, incoherent cry. He read: 
To Xaltotun, grand fakir of Nemedia: Dog of Acheron, I am returning to my kingdom, and I 
mean to hang your hide on a bramble. 
CONAN. 
“A forgery!” exclaimed Amalric. 
Xaltotun shook his head. 
“It is genuine. I have compared it with the signature on the royal documents on record in the 
libraries of the court. None could imitate that bold scrawl.” 
“Then if Conan lives,” muttered Amalric, “this uprising will not be like the others, for he is the 
only man living who can unite the Aquilonians. But,” he protested, “this is not like Conan. 
Why should he put us on our guard with his boasting? One would think that he would strike 
without warning, after the fashion of the barbarians.” 
“We are already warned,” pointed out Xaltotun. “Our spies have told us of preparations for war 
in Poitain. He could not cross the mountains without our knowledge; so he sends me his 
defiance in characteristic manner.” 
“Why to you?” demanded Valerius. “Why not to me, or to Tarascus?” 
Xaltotun turned his inscrutable gaze upon the king. 
“Conan is wiser than you,” he said at last. “He already knows what you kings have yet to learn 
– that it is not Tarascus, nor Valerius, no, nor Amalric, but Xaltotun who is the real master of 
the western nations.” 
They did not reply; they sat staring at him, assailed by a numbing realization of the truth of his 
assertion. 
“There is no road for me but the imperial highway,” said Xaltotun. “But first we must crush 
Conan. I do not know how he escaped me at Belverus, for knowledge of what happened while I 
lay in the slumber of the black lotus is denied me. But he is in the south, gathering an army. It 
is his last, desperate blow, made possible only by the desperation of the people who have 
suffered under Valerius. Let them rise; I hold them all in the palm of my hand. We will wait 
until he moves against us, and then we will crush him once and for all. 
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“Then we shall crush Poitain and Gunderland and the stupid Bossonians. After them Ophir, 
Argos, Zingara, Koth – all the nations of the world we shall weld into one vast empire. You 
shall rule as my satraps, and as my captains shall be greater than kings are now. I am 
unconquerable, for the Heart of Ahriman is hidden where no man can ever wield it against me 
again.” 
Tarascus averted his gaze, lest Xaltotun read his thoughts. He knew the wizard had not looked 
into the golden chest with its carven serpents that had seemed to sleep, since he laid the Heart 
therein. Strange as it seemed, Xaltotun did not know that the Heart had been stolen; the strange 
jewel was beyond or outside the ring of his dark wisdom; his uncanny talents did not warn him 
that the chest was empty. Tarascus did not believe that Xaltotun knew the full extent of 
Orastes’ revelations, for the Pythonian had not mentioned the restoration of Acheron, but only 
the building of a new, earthly empire. Tarascus did not believe that Xaltotun was yet quite sure 
of his power; if they needed his aid in their ambitions, no less he needed theirs. Magic 
depended, to a certain extent after all, on sword strokes and lance thrusts. The king read 
meaning in Amalric’s furtive glance; let the wizard use his arts to help them defeat their most 
dangerous enemy. Time enough then to turn against him. There might yet be a way to cheat 
this dark power they had raised. 
XXII 
DRUMS OF PERIL 
Confirmation of the war came when the army of Poitain, ten thousand strong, marched through 
the southern passes with waving banners and shimmer of steel. And at their head, the spies 
swore, rode a giant figure in black armor, with the royal lion of Aquilonia worked in gold upon 
the breast of his rich silken surcoat. Conan lived! The king lived! There was no doubt of it in 
men’s minds now, whether friend or foe. 
With the news of the invasion from the south there also came word, brought by hard-riding 
couriers, that a host of Gundermen was moving southward, reinforced by the barons of the 
northwest and the northern Bossonians. Tarascus marched with thirty-one thousand men to 
Galparan, on the river Shirki, which the Gundermen must cross to strike at the towns still held 
by the Nemedians. The Shirki was a swift, turbulent river rushing southwestward through 
rocky gorges and canyons, and there were few places where an army could cross at that time of 
the year, when the stream was almost bank-full with the melting of the snows. All the country 
east of the Shirki was in the hands of the Nemedians, and it was logical to assume that the 
Gundermen would attempt to cross either at Galparan, or at Tanasul, which lay to the south of 
Galparan. Reinforcements were daily expected from Nemedia, until word came that the king of 
Ophir was making hostile demonstrations on Nemedia’s southern border, and to spare any 
more troops would be to expose Nemedia to the risk of an invasion from the south. 
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Amalric and Valerius moved out from Tarantia with twenty-five thousand men, leaving as 
large a garrison as they dared to discourage revolts in the cities during their absence. They 
wished to meet and crush Conan before he could be joined by the rebellious forces of the 
kingdom. 
The king and his Poitanians had crossed the mountains, but there had been no actual clash of 
arms, no attack on towns or fortresses. Conan had appeared and disappeared. Apparently he 
had turned westward through the wild, thinly settled hill country, and entered the Bossonian 
marches, gathering recruits as he went. Amalric and Valerius with their host, Nemedians, 
Aquilonian renegades, and ferocious mercenaries, moved through the land in baffled wrath, 
looking for a foe which did not appear. 
Amalric found it impossible to obtain more than vague general tidings about Conan’s 
movements. Scouting-parties had a way of riding out and never returning, and it was not 
uncommon to find a spy crucified to an oak. The countryside was up and striking as peasants 
and country-folk strike – savagely, murderously and secretly. All that Amalric knew certainly 
was that a large force of Gundermen and northern Bossonians was somewhere to the north of 
him, beyond the Shirki, and that Conan with a smaller force of Poitanians and southern 
Bossonians was somewhere to the southwest of him. 
He began to grow fearful that if he and Valerius advanced farther into the wild country, Conan 
might elude them entirely, march around them and invade the central provinces behind them. 
Amalric fell back from the Shirki valley and camped in a plain a day’s ride from Tanasul. 
There he waited. Tarascus maintained his position at Galparan, for he feared that Conan’s 
maneuvers were intended to draw him southward, and so let the Gundermen into the kingdom 
at the northern crossing. 
To Amalric’s camp came Xaltotun in his chariot drawn by the uncanny horses that never tired, 
and he entered Amalric’s tent where the baron conferred with Valerius over a map spread on an 
ivory camp table. 
This map Xaltotun crumpled and flung aside. 
“What your scouts cannot learn for you,” quoth he, “my spies tell me, though their information 
is strangely blurred and imperfect, as if unseen forces were working against me. 
“Conan is advancing along the Shirki river with ten thousand Poitanians, three thousand 
southern Bossonians, and barons of the west and south with their retainers to the number of 
five thousand. An army of thirty thousand Gundermen and northern Bossonians is pushing 
southward to join him. They have established contact by means of secret communications used 
by the cursed priests of Asura, who seem to be opposing me, and whom I will feed to a serpent 
when the battle is over – I swear it by Set! 
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“Both armies are headed for the crossing at Tanasul, but I do not believe that the Gundermen 
will cross the river. I believe that Conan will cross, instead, and join them.” 
“Why should Conan cross the river?” demanded Amalric. 
“Because it is to his advantage to delay the battle. The longer he waits, the stronger he will 
become, the more precarious our position. The hills on the other side of the river swarm with 
people passionately loyal to his cause – broken men, refugees, fugitives from Valerius’s 
cruelty. From all over the kingdom men are hurrying to join his army, singly and by 
companies. Daily, parties from our armies are ambushed and cut to pieces by the country-folk. 
Revolt grows in the central provinces, and will soon burst into open rebellion. The garrisons we 
left there are not sufficient, and we can hope for no reinforcements from Nemedia for the time 
being. I see the hand of Pallantides in this brawling on the Ophirean frontier. He has kin in 
Ophir. 
“If we do not catch and crush Conan quickly the provinces will be in blaze of revolt behind us. 
We shall have to fall back to Tarantia to defend what we have taken; and we may have to fight 
our way through a country in rebellion, with Conan’s whole force at our heels, and then stand 
siege in the city itself, with enemies within as well as without. No, we cannot wait. We must 
crush Conan before his army grows too great, before the central provinces rise. With his head 
hanging above the gate at Tarantia you will see how quickly the rebellion will fall apart.” 
“Why do you not put a spell on his army to slay them all?” asked Valerius, half in mockery. 
Xaltotun stared at the Aquilonian as if he read the full extent of the mocking madness that 
lurked in those wayward eyes. 
“Do not worry,” he said at last. “My arts shall crush Conan finally like a lizard under the heel. 
But even sorcery is aided by pikes and swords.” 
“If he crosses the river and takes up his position in the Goralian hills he may be hard to 
dislodge,” said Amalric. “But if we catch him in the valley on this side of the river we can wipe 
him out. How far is Conan from Tanasul?” 
“At the rate he is marching he should reach the crossing sometime tomorrow night. His men 
are rugged and he is pushing them hard. He should arrive there at least a day before the 
Gundermen.” 
“Good!” Amalric smote the table with his clenched fist. “I can reach Tanasul before he can. I’ll 
send a rider to Tarascus, bidding him follow me to Tanasul. By the time he arrives I will have 
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cut Conan off from the crossing and destroyed him. Then our combined force can cross the 
river and deal with the Gundermen.” 
Xaltotun shook his head impatiently. 
“A good enough plan if you were dealing with anyone but Conan. But your twenty-five 
thousand men are not enough to destroy his eighteen thousand before the Gundermen come up. 
They will fight with the desperation of wounded panthers. And suppose the Gundermen come 
up while the hosts are locked in battle? You will be caught between two fires and destroyed 
before Tarascus can arrive. He will reach Tanasul too late to aid you.” 
“What then?” demanded Amalric. 
“Move with your whole strength against Conan,” answered the man from Acheron. “Send a 
rider bidding Tarascus join us here. We will wait his coming. Then we will march together to 
Tanasul.” 
“But while we wait,” protested Amalric, “Conan will cross the river and join the Gundermen.” 
“Conan will not cross the river,” answered Xaltotun. 
Amalric’s head jerked up and he stared into the cryptic dark eyes. 
“What do you mean?” 
“Suppose there were torrential rains far to the north, at the head of the Shirki? Suppose the 
river came down in such flood as to render the crossing at Tanasul impassable? Could we not 
then bring up our entire force at our leisure, catch Conan on this side of the river and crush 
him, and then, when the flood subsided, which I think it would do the next day, could we not 
cross the river and destroy the Gundermen? Thus we could use our full strength against each of 
these smaller forces in turn.” 
Valerius laughed as he always laughed at the prospect of the ruin of either friend or foe, and 
drew a restless hand jerkily through his unruly yellow locks. Amalric stared at the man from 
Acheron with mingled fear and admiration. 
“If we caught Conan in Shirki valley with the hill ridges to his right and the river in flood to his 
left,” he admitted, “with our whole force we could annihilate him. Do you think – are you sure 
– do you believe such rains will fall?” 
“I go to my tent,” answered Xaltotun, rising. “Necromancy is not accomplished by the waving 
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of a wand. Send a rider to Tarascus. And let none approach my tent.” 
That last command was unnecessary. No man in that host could have been bribed to approach 
that mysterious black silken pavilion, the door-flaps of which were always closely drawn. None 
but Xaltotun ever entered it, yet voices were often heard issuing from it; its walls billowed 
sometimes without a wind, and weird music came from it. Sometimes, deep in midnight, its 
silken walls were lit red by flames flickering within, limning misshapen silhouettes that passed 
to and fro. 
Lying in his own tent that night, Amalric heard the steady rumble of a drum in Xaltotun’s tent; 
through the darkness it boomed steadily, and occasionally the Nemedian could have sworn that 
a deep, croaking voice mingled with the pulse of the drum. And he shuddered, for he knew that 
voice was not the voice of Xaltotun. The drum rustled and muttered on like deep thunder, heard 
afar off, and before dawn Amalric, glancing from his tent, caught the red flicker of lightning 
afar on the northern horizon. In all other parts of the sky the great stars blazed whitely. But the 
distant lightning flickered incessantly, like the crimson glint of firelight on a tiny, turning blade. 
At sunset of the next day Tarascus came up with his host, dusty and weary from hard marching, 
the footmen straggling hours behind the horsemen. They camped in the plain near Amalric’s 
camp, and at dawn the combined army moved westward. 
Ahead of him roved a swarm of scouts, and Amalric waited impatiently for them to return and 
tell of the Poitanians trapped beside a furious flood. But when the scouts met the column it was 
with the news that Conan had crossed the river! 
“What?” exclaimed Amalric. “Did he cross before the flood?” 
“There was no flood,” answered the scouts, puzzled. “Late last night he came up to Tanasul 
and flung his army across.” 
“No flood?” exclaimed Xaltotun, taken aback for the first time in Amalric’s knowledge. 
“Impossible! There were mighty rains upon the headwaters of the Shirki last night and the 
night before that!” 
“That may be, your lordship,” answered the scout. “It is true the water was muddy, and the 
people of Tanasul said that the river rose perhaps a foot yesterday; but that was not enough to 
prevent Conan’s crossing.” 
Xaltotun’s sorcery had failed! The thought hammered in Amalric’s brain. His horror of this 
strange man out of the past had grown steadily since that night in Belverus when he had seen a 
brown, shriveled mummy swell and grow into a living man. And the death of Orastes had 
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changed lurking horror into active fear. In his heart was a grisly conviction that the man – or 
devil – was invincible. Yet now he had undeniable proof of his failure. 
Yet even the greatest of necromancers might fail occasionally, thought the baron. At any rate, 
he dared not oppose the man from Acheron – yet. Orastes was dead, writhing in Mitra only 
knew what nameless hell, and Amalric knew his sword would scarcely prevail where the black 
wisdom of the renegade priest had failed. What grisly abomination Xaltotun plotted lay in the 
unpredictable future. Conan and his host were a present menace against which Xaltotun’s 
wizardry might well be needed before the play was all played. 
They came to Tanasul, a small fortified village at the spot where a reef of rocks made a natural 
bridge across the river, passable always except in times of greatest flood. Scouts brought in the 
news that Conan had taken up his position in the Goralian hills, which began to rise a few miles 
beyond the river. And just before sundown the Gundermen had arrived in his camp. 
Amalric looked at Xaltotun, inscrutable and alien in the light of the flaring torches. Night had 
fallen. 
“What now? Your magic has failed. Conan confronts us with an army nearly as strong as our 
own, and he has the advantage of position. We have a choice of two evils: to camp here and 
await his attack, or to fall back toward Tarantia and await reinforcements.” 
“We are ruined if we wait,” answered Xaltotun. “Cross the river and camp on the plain. We 
will attack at dawn.” 
“But his position is too strong!” exclaimed Amalric. 
“Fool!” A gust of passion broke the veneer of the wizard’s calm. “Have you forgotten Valkia? 
Because some obscure elemental principle prevented the flood do you deem me helpless? I had 
intended that your spears should exterminate our enemies; but do not fear: it is my arts shall 
crush their host. Conan is in a trap. He will never see another sun set. Cross the river!” 
They crossed by the flare of torches. The hoofs of the horses clinked on the rocky bridge, 
splashed through the shallows. The glint of the torches on shields and breast-plates was 
reflected redly in the black water. The rock bridge was broad on which they crossed, but even 
so it was past midnight before the host was camped in the plain beyond. Above them they 
could see fires winking redly in the distance. Conan had turned at bay in the Goralian hills, 
which had more than once before served as the last stand of an Aquilonian king. 
Amalric left his pavilion and strode restlessly through the camp. A weird glow flickered in 
Xaltotun’s tent, and from time to time a demoniacal cry slashed the silence, and there was a 
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low sinister muttering of a drum that rustled rather than rumbled. 
Amalric, his instincts whetted by the night and the circumstances, felt that Xaltotun was 
opposed by more than physical force. Doubts of the wizard’s power assailed him. He glanced 
at the fires high above him, and his face set in grim lines. He and his army were deep in the 
midst of a hostile country. Up there among those hills lurked thousands of wolfish figures out 
of whose hearts and souls all emotion and hope had been scourged except a frenzied hate for 
their conquerors, a mad lust for vengeance. Defeat meant annihilation, retreat through a land 
swarming with blood-mad enemies. And on the morrow he must hurl his host against the 
grimmest fighter in the western nations, and his desperate horde. If Xaltotun failed them now – 
Half a dozen men-at-arms strode out of the shadows. The firelight glinted on their breast-plates 
and helmet crests. Among them they half led, half dragged a gaunt figure in tattered rags. 
Saluting, they spoke: “My lord, this man came to the outposts and said he desired word with 
King Valerius. He is an Aquilonian.” 
He looked more like a wolf – a wolf the traps had scarred. Old sores that only fetters make 
showed on his wrists and ankles. A great brand, the mark of hot iron, disfigured his face. His 
eyes glared through the tangle of his matted hair as he half crouched before the baron. 
“Who are you, you filthy dog?” demanded the Nemedian. 
“Call me Tiberias,” answered the man, and his teeth clicked in an involuntary spasm. “I have 
come to tell you how to trap Conan.” 
“A traitor, eh?” rumbled the baron. 
“Men say you have gold,” mouthed the man, shivering under his rags. “Give some to me! Give 
me gold and I will show you how to defeat the king!” His eyes glazed widely, his outstretched, 
upturned hands were spread like quivering claws. 
Amalric shrugged his shoulders in distaste. But no tool was too base for his use. 
“If you speak the truth you shall have more gold than you can carry,” he said. “If you are a liar 
and a spy I will have you crucified head-down. Bring him along.” 
In the tent of Valerius, the baron pointed to the man who crouched shivering before them, 
huddling his rags about him. 
“He says he knows a way to aid us on the morrow. We will need aid, if Xaltotun’s plan is no 
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better than it has proved so far. Speak on, dog.” 
The man’s body writhed in strange convulsions. Words came in a stumbling rush: 
“Conan camps at the head of the Valley of Lions. It is shaped like a fan, with steep hills on 
either side. If you attack him tomorrow you will have to march straight up the valley. You 
cannot climb the hills on either side. But if King Valerius will deign to accept my service, I 
will guide him through the hills and show him how he can come upon King Conan from 
behind. But if it is to be done at all, we must start soon. It is many hours’ riding, for one must 
go miles to the west, then miles to the north, then turn eastward and so come into the Valley of 
Lions from behind, as the Gundermen came.” 
Amalric hesitated, tugging his chin. In these chaotic times it was not rare to find men willing to 
sell their souls for a few gold pieces. 
“If you lead me astray you will die,” said Valerius. “You are aware of that, are you not?” 
The man shivered, but his wide eyes did not waver. 
“If I betray you, slay me!” 
“Conan will not dare divide his force,” mused Amalric. “He will need all his men to repel our 
attack. He cannot spare any to lay ambushes in the hills. Besides, this fellow knows his hide 
depends on his leading you as he promised. Would a dog like him sacrifice himself? Nonsense! 
No, Valerius, I believe the man is honest.” 
“Or a greater thief than most, for he would sell his liberator,” laughed Valerius. “Very well. I 
will follow the dog. How many men can you spare me?” 
“Five thousand should be enough,” answered Amalric. “A surprize attack on their rear will 
throw them into confusion, and that will be enough. I shall expect your attack about noon.” 
“You will know when I strike,” answered Valerius. 
As Amalric returned to his pavilion he noted with gratification that Xaltotun was still in his 
tent, to judge from the blood-freezing cries that shuddered forth into the night air from time to 
time. When presently he heard the clink of steel and the jingle of bridles in the outer darkness, 
he smiled grimly. Valerius had about served his purpose. The baron knew that Conan was like 
a wounded lion that rends and tears even in his death-throes. When Valerius struck from the 
rear, the desperate strokes of the Cimmerian might well wipe his rival out of existence before 
he himself succumbed. So much the better. Amalric felt he could well dispense with Valerius, 
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once he had paved the way for a Nemedian victory. 
The five thousand horsemen who accompanied Valerius were hard-bitten Aquilonian 
renegades for the most part. In the still starlight they moved out of the sleeping camp, 
following the westward trend of the great black masses that rose against the stars ahead of 
them. Valerius rode at their head, and beside him rode Tiberias, a leather thong about his wrist 
gripped by a man-at-arms who rode on the other side of him. Others kept close behind with 
drawn swords. 
“Play us false and you die instantly,” Valerius pointed out. “I do not know every sheep-path in 
these hills, but I know enough about the general configuration of the country to know the 
directions we must take to come in behind the Valley of Lions. See that you do not lead us 
astray.” 
The man ducked his head and his teeth chattered as he volubly assured his captor of his loyalty, 
staring up stupidly at the banner that floated over him, the golden serpent of the old dynasty. 
Skirting the extremities of the hills that locked the Valley of Lions, they swung wide to the 
west. An hour’s ride and they turned north, forging through wild and rugged hills, following 
dim trails and tortuous paths. Sunrise found them some miles northwest of Conan’s position, 
and here the guide turned eastward and led them through a maze of labyrinths and crags. 
Valerius nodded, judging their position by various peaks thrusting up above the others. He had 
kept his bearings in a general way, and he knew they were still headed in the right direction. 
But now, without warning, a gray fleecy mass came billowing down from the north, veiling the 
slopes, spreading out through the valleys. It blotted out the sun; the world became a blind gray 
void in which visibility was limited to a matter of yards. Advance became a stumbling, groping 
muddle. Valerius cursed. He could no longer see the peaks that had served him as guide-posts. 
He must depend wholly upon the traitorous guide. The golden serpent drooped in the windless 
air. 
Presently Tiberias seemed himself confused; he halted, stared about uncertainly. 
“Are you lost, dog?” demanded Valerius harshly. 
“Listen!” 
Somewhere ahead of them a faint vibration began, the rhythmic rumble of a drum. 
“Conan’s drum!” exclaimed the Aquilonian. 
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“If we are close enough to hear the drum,” said Valerius, “why do we not hear the shouts and 
the clang of arms? Surely battle has joined.” 
“The gorges and the winds play strange tricks,” answered Tiberias, his teeth chattering with the 
ague that is frequently the lot of men who have spent much time in damp underground 
dungeons. “Listen!” 
Faintly to their ears came a low muffled roar. 
“They are fighting down in the valley!” cried Tiberias. “The drum is beating on the heights. Let 
us hasten!” 
He rode straight on toward the sound of the distant drum as one who knows his ground at last. 
Valerius followed, cursing the fog. Then it occurred to him that it would mask his advance. 
Conan could not see him coming. He would be at the Cimmerian’s back before the noonday 
sun dispelled the mists. 
Just now he could not tell what lay on either hand, whether cliffs, thickets or gorges. The drum 
throbbed unceasingly, growing louder as they advanced, but they heard no more of the battle. 
Valerius had no idea toward what point of the compass they were headed. He started as he saw 
gray rock walls looming through the smoky drifts on either hand, and realized that they were 
riding through a narrow defile. But the guide showed no sign of nervousness, and Valerius 
hove a sigh of relief when the walls widened out and became invisible in the fog. They were 
through the defile; if an ambush had been planned, it would have been made in that pass. 
But now Tiberias halted again. The drum was rumbling louder, and Valerius could not 
determine from what direction the sound was coming. Now it seemed ahead of him, now 
behind, now on one hand or the other. Valerius glared about him impatiently, sitting on his warhorse 
with wisps of mist curling about him and the moisture gleaming on his armor. Behind 
him the long lines of steel-clad riders faded away and away like phantoms into the mist. 
“Why do you tarry, dog?” he demanded. 
The man seemed to be listening to the ghostly drum. Slowly he straightened in his saddle, 
turned his head and faced Valerius, and the smile on his lips was terrible to see. 
“The fog is thinning, Valerius,” he said in a new voice, pointing a bony finger. “Look!” 
The drum was silent. The fog was fading away. First the crests of cliffs came in sight above the 
gray clouds, tall and spectral. Lower and lower crawled the mists, shrinking, fading. Valerius 
started up in his stirrups with a cry that the horsemen echoed behind him. On all sides of them 
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the cliffs towered. They were not in a wide, open valley as he had supposed. They were in a 
blind gorge walled by sheer cliffs hundreds of feet high. The only entrance or exit was that 
narrow defile through which they had ridden. 
“Dog!” Valerius struck Tiberias full in the mouth with his clenched mailed hand. “What devil’s 
trick is this?” 
Tiberias spat out a mouthful of blood and shook with fearful laughter. 
“A trick that shall rid the world of a beast! Look, dog!” 
Again Valerius cried out, more in fury than in fear. 
The defile was blocked by a wild and terrible band of men who stood silent as images – ragged, 
shock-headed men with spears in their hands – hundreds of them. And up on the cliffs appeared 
other faces – thousands of faces – wild, gaunt, ferocious faces, marked by fire and steel and 
starvation. 
“A trick of Conan’s!” raged Valerius. 
“Conan knows nothing of it,” laughed Tiberias. “It was the plot of broken men, of men you 
ruined and turned to beasts. Amalric was right. Conan has not divided his army. We are the 
rabble who followed him, the wolves who skulked in these hills, the homeless men, the 
hopeless men. This was our plan, and the priests of Asura aided us with the mist. Look at them, 
Valerius! Each bears the mark of your hand, on his body or on his heart! 
“Look at me! You do not know me, do you, what of this scar your hangman burned upon me? 
Once you knew me. Once I was lord of Amilius, the man whose sons you murdered, whose 
daughter your mercenaries ravished and slew. You said I would not sacrifice myself to trap 
you? Almighty gods, if I had a thousand lives I would give them all to buy your doom! 
“And I have bought it! Look on the men you broke, dead man who once played the king! Their 
hour has come! This gorge is your tomb. Try to climb the cliffs: they are steep, they are high. 
Try to fight your way back through the defile: spears will block your path, boulders will crush 
you from above! Dog! I will be waiting for you in hell!” 
Throwing back his head he laughed until the rocks rang. Valerius leaned from his saddle and 
slashed down with his great sword, severing shoulder-bone and breast. Tiberias sank to the 
earth, still laughing ghastlily through a gurgle of gushing blood. 
The drums had begun again, encircling the gorge with guttural thunder; boulders came crashing 
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down; above the screams of dying men shrilled the arrows in blinding clouds from the cliffs. 
XXIII 
THE ROAD TO ACHERON 
Dawn was just whitening the east when Amalric drew up his hosts in the mouth of the Valley 
of Lions. This valley was flanked by low, rolling but steep hills, and the floor pitched upward 
in a series of irregular natural terraces. On the uppermost of these terraces Conan’s army held 
its position, awaiting the attack. The host that had joined him, marching down from 
Gunderland, had not been composed exclusively of spearmen. With them had come seven 
thousand Bossonian archers, and four thousand barons and their retainers of the north and west, 
swelling the ranks of his cavalry. 
The pikemen were drawn up in a compact wedge-shaped formation at the narrow head of the 
valley. There were nineteen thousand of them, mostly Gundermen, though some four thousand 
were Aquilonians of the other provinces. They were flanked on either hand by five thousand 
Bossonian archers. Behind the ranks of the pikemen the knights sat their steeds motionless, 
lances raised: ten thousand knights of Poitain, nine thousand Aquilonians, barons and their 
retainers. 
It was a strong position. His flanks could not be turned, for that would mean climbing the 
steep, wooded hills in the teeth of the arrows and swords of the Bossonians. His camp lay 
directly behind him, in a narrow, steep-walled valley which was indeed merely a continuation 
of the Valley of Lions, pitching up at a higher level. He did not fear a surprize from the rear, 
because the hills behind him were full of refugees and broken men whose loyalty to him was 
beyond question. 
But if his position was hard to shake, it was equally hard to escape from. It was a trap as well 
as a fortress for the defenders, a desperate last stand of men who did not expect to survive 
unless they were victorious. The only line of retreat possible was through the narrow valley at 
their rear. 
Xaltotun mounted a hill on the left side of the valley, near the wide mouth. This hill rose higher 
than the others, and was known as the King’s Altar, for a reason long forgotten. Only Xaltotun 
knew, and his memory dated back three thousand years. 
He was not alone. His two familiars, silent, hairy, furtive and dark, were with him, and they 
bore a young Aquilonian girl, bound hand and foot. They laid her on an ancient stone, which 
was curiously like an altar, and which crowned the summit of the hill. For long centuries it had 
stood there, worn by the elements until many doubted that it was anything but a curiously 
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shapen natural rock. But what it was, and why it stood there, Xaltotun remembered from of old. 
The familiars went away, with their bent backs like silent gnomes, and Xaltotun stood alone 
beside the stone altar, his dark beard blown in the wind, overlooking the valley. 
He could see clear back to the winding Shirki, and up into the hills beyond the head of the 
valley. He could see the gleaming wedge of steel drawn up at the head of the terraces, the 
burganets of the archers glinting among the rocks and bushes, the silent knights motionless on 
their steeds, their pennons flowing above their helmets, their lances rising in a bristling thicket. 
Looking in the other direction he could see the long serried lines of the Nemedians moving in 
ranks of shining steel into the mouth of the valley. Behind them the gay pavilions of the lords 
and knights and the drab tents of the common soldiers stretched back almost to the river. 
Like a river of molten steel the Nemedian host flowed into the valley, the great scarlet dragon 
rippling over it. First marched the bowmen, in even ranks, arbalests half raised, bolts nocked, 
fingers on triggers. After them came the pikemen, and behind them the real strength of the 
army – the mounted knights, their banners unfurled to the wind, their lances lifted, walking 
their great steeds forward as if they rode to a banquet. 
And higher up on the slopes the smaller Aquilonian host stood grimly silent. 
There were thirty thousand Nemedian knights, and, as in most Hyborian nations, it was the 
chivalry which was the sword of the army. The footmen were used only to clear the way for a 
charge of the armored knights. There were twenty-one thousand of these, pikemen and archers. 
The bowmen began loosing as they advanced, without breaking ranks, launching their quarrels 
with a whir and tang. But the bolts fell short or rattled harmlessly from the overlapping shields 
of the Gundermen. And before the arbalesters could come within killing range, the arching 
shafts of the Bossonians were wreaking havoc in their ranks. 
A little of this, a futile attempt at exchanging fire, and the Nemedian bowmen began falling 
back in disorder. Their armor was light, their weapons no match for the Bossonian longbows. 
The western archers were sheltered by bushes and rocks. Moreover, the Nemedian footmen 
lacked something of the morale of the horsemen, knowing as they did that they were being 
used merely to clear the way for the knights. 
The crossbowmen fell back, and between their opening lines the pikemen advanced. These 
were largely mercenaries, and their masters had no compunction about sacrificing them. They 
were intended to mask the advance of the knights until the latter were within smiting distance. 
So while the arbalesters plied their bolts from either flank at long range, the pikemen marched 
into the teeth of the blast from above, and behind them the knights came on. 
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When the pikemen began to falter beneath the savage hail of death that whistled down the 
slopes among them, a trumpet blew, their companies divided to right and left, and through 
them the mailed knights thundered. 
They ran full into a cloud of stinging death. The clothyard shafts found every crevice in their 
armor and the housings of the steeds. Horses scrambling up the grassy terraces reared and 
plunged backward, bearing their riders with them. Steel-clad forms littered the slopes. The 
charge wavered and ebbed back. 
Back down in the valley Amalric reformed his ranks. Tarascus was fighting with drawn sword 
under the scarlet dragon, but it was the baron of Tor who commanded that day. Amalric swore 
as he glanced at the forest of lance-tips visible above and beyond the head-pieces of the 
Gundermen. He had hoped his retirement would draw the knights out in a charge down the 
slopes after him, to be raked from either flank by his bowmen and swamped by the numbers of 
his horsemen. But they had not moved. Camp-servants brought skins of water from the river. 
Knights doffed their helmets and drenched their sweating heads. The wounded on the slopes 
screamed vainly for water. In the upper valley, springs supplied the defenders. They did not 
thirst that long, hot spring day. 
On the King’s Altar, beside the ancient, carven stone, Xaltotun watched the steel tide ebb and 
flow. On came the knights, with waving plumes and dipping lances. Through a whistling cloud 
of arrows they plowed to break like a thundering wave on the bristling wall of spears and 
shields. Axes rose and fell above the plumed helmets, spears thrust upward, bringing down 
horses and riders. The pride of the Gundermen was no less fierce than that of the knights. They 
were not spear-fodder, to be sacrificed for the glory of better men. They were the finest 
infantry in the world, with a tradition that made their morale unshakable. The kings of 
Aquilonia had long learned the worth of unbreakable infantry. They held their formation 
unshaken; over their gleaming ranks flowed the great lion banner, and at the tip of the wedge a 
giant figure in black armor roared and smote like a hurricane, with a dripping ax that split steel 
and bone alike. 
The Nemedians fought as gallantly as their traditions of high courage demanded. But they 
could not break the iron wedge, and from the wooded knolls on either hand arrows raked their 
close-packed ranks mercilessly. Their own bowmen were useless, their pikemen unable to 
climb the heights and come to grips with the Bossonians. Slowly, stubbornly, sullenly, the grim 
knights fell back, counting their empty saddles. Above them the Gundermen made no outcry of 
triumph. They closed their ranks, locking up the gaps made by the fallen. Sweat ran into their 
eyes from under their steel caps. They gripped their spears and waited, their fierce hearts 
swelling with pride that a king should fight on foot with them. Behind them the Aquilonian 
knights had not moved. They sat their steeds, grimly immobile. 
A knight spurred a sweating horse up the hill called the King’s Altar, and glared at Xaltotun 
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with bitter eyes. 
“Amalric bids me say that it is time to use your magic, wizard,” he said. “We are dying like 
flies down there in the valley. We cannot break their ranks.” 
Xaltotun seemed to expand, to grow tall and awesome and terrible. 
“Return to Amalric,” he said. “Tell him to reform his ranks for a charge, but to await my 
signal. Before that signal is given he will see a sight that he will remember until he lies dying!” 
The knight saluted as if compelled against his will, and thundered down the hill at breakneck 
pace. 
Xaltotun stood beside the dark altar-stone and stared across the valley, at the dead and 
wounded men on the terraces, at the grim, blood-stained band at the head of the slopes, at the 
dusty, steel-clad ranks reforming in the vale below. He glanced up at the sky, and he glanced 
down at the slim white figure on the dark stone. And lifting a dagger inlaid with archaic 
hieroglyphs, he intoned an immemorial invocation: 
“Set, god of darkness, scaly lord of the shadows, by the blood of a virgin and the sevenfold 
symbol I call to your sons below the black earth! Children of the deeps, below the red earth, 
under the black earth, awaken and shake your awful manes! Let the hills rock and the stones 
topple upon my enemies! Let the sky grow dark above them, the earth unstable beneath their 
feet! Let a wind from the deep black earth curl up beneath their feet, and blacken and shrivel 
them – ” 
He halted short, dagger lifted. In the tense silence the roar of the hosts rose beneath him, borne 
on the wind. 
On the other side of the altar stood a man in a black hooded robe, whose coif shadowed pale 
delicate features and dark eyes calm and meditative. 
“Dog of Asura!” whispered Xaltotun, and his voice was like the hiss of an angered serpent. 
“Are you mad, that you seek your doom? Ho, Baal! Chiron!” 
“Call again, dog of Acheron!” said the other, and laughed. “Summon them loudly. They will 
not hear, unless your shouts reverberate in hell.” 
From a thicket on the edge of the crest came a somber old woman in peasant garb, her hair 
flowing over her shoulders, a great gray wolf following at her heels. 
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“Witch, priest and wolf,” muttered Xaltotun grimly, and laughed. “Fools, to pit your 
charlatan’s mummery against my arts! With a wave of my hand I brush you from my path!” 
“Your arts are straws in the wind, dog of Python,” answered the Asurian. “Have you wondered 
why the Shirki did not come down in flood and trap Conan on the other bank? When I saw the 
lightning in the night I guessed your plan, and my spells dispersed the clouds you had 
summoned before they could empty their torrents. You did not even know that your rainmaking 
wizardry had failed.” 
“You lie!” cried Xaltotun, but the confidence in his voice was shaken. “I have felt the impact of 
a powerful sorcery against mine – but no man on earth could undo the rain-magic, once made, 
unless he possessed the very heart of sorcery.” 
“But the flood you plotted did not come to pass,” answered the priest. “Look at your allies in 
the valley, Pythonian! You have led them to the slaughter! They are caught in the fangs of the 
trap, and you cannot aid them. Look!” 
He pointed. Out of the narrow gorge of the upper valley, behind the Poitanians, a horseman 
came flying, whirling something about his head that flashed in the sun. Recklessly he hurtled 
down the slopes, through the ranks of the Gundermen, who sent up a deep-throated roar and 
clashed their spears and shields like thunder in the hills. On the terraces between the hosts the 
sweat-soaked horse reared and plunged, and his wild rider yelled and brandished the thing in 
his hands like one demented. It was the torn remnant of a scarlet banner, and the sun struck 
dazzlingly on the golden scales of a serpent that writhed thereon. 
“Valerius is dead!” cried Hadrathus ringingly. “A fog and a drum lured him to his doom! I 
gathered that fog, dog of Python, and I dispersed it! I, with my magic which is greater than 
your magic!” 
“What matters it?” roared Xaltotun, a terrible sight, his eyes blazing, his features convulsed. 
“Valerius was a fool. I do not need him. I can crush Conan without human aid!” 
“Why have you delayed?” mocked Hadrathus. “Why have you allowed so many of your allies 
to fall pierced by arrows and spitted on spears?” 
“Because blood aids great sorcery!” thundered Xaltotun, in a voice that made the rocks quiver. 
A lurid nimbus played about his awful head. “Because no wizard wastes his strength 
thoughtlessly. Because I would conserve my powers for the great days to be, rather than 
employ them in a hill-country brawl. But now, by Set, I shall loose them to the uttermost! 
Watch, dog of Asura, false priest of an outworn god, and see a sight that shall blast your reason 
for evermore!” 
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Hadrathus threw back his head and laughed, and hell was in his laughter. 
“Look, black devil of Python!” 
His hand came from under his robe holding something that flamed and burned in the sun, 
changing the light to a pulsing golden glow in which the flesh of Xaltotun looked like the flesh 
of a corpse. 
Xaltotun cried out as if he had been stabbed. 
“The Heart! The Heart of Ahriman!” 
“Aye! The one power that is greater than your power!” 
Xaltotun seemed to shrivel, to grow old. Suddenly his beard was shot with snow, his locks 
flecked with gray. 
“The Heart!” he mumbled. “You stole it! Dog! Thief!” 
“Not I! It has been on a long journey far to the southward. But now it is in my hands, and your 
black arts cannot stand against it. As it resurrected you, so shall it hurl you back into the night 
whence it drew you. You shall go down the dark road to Acheron, which is the road of silence 
and the night. The dark empire, unreborn, shall remain a legend and a black memory. Conan 
shall reign again. And the Heart of Ahriman shall go back into the cavern below the temple of 
Mitra, to burn as a symbol of the power of Aquilonia for a thousand years!” 
Xaltotun screamed inhumanly and rushed around the altar, dagger lifted; but from somewhere 
– out of the sky, perhaps, or the great jewel that blazed in the hand of Hadrathus – shot a jetting 
beam of blinding blue light. Full against the breast of Xaltotun it flashed, and the hills reechoed 
the concussion. The wizard of Acheron went down as though struck by a thunderbolt, 
and before he touched the ground he was fearfully altered. Beside the altar-stone lay no freshslain 
corpse, but a shriveled mummy, a brown, dry, unrecognizable carcass sprawling among 
moldering swathings. 
Somberly old Zelata looked down. 
“He was not a living man,” she said. “The Heart lent him a false aspect of life, that deceived 
even himself. I never saw him as other than a mummy.” 
Hadrathus bent to unbind the swooning girl on the altar, when from among the trees appeared a 
strange apparition – Xaltotun’s chariot drawn by the weird horses. Silently they advanced to 
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the altar and halted, with the chariot wheel almost touching the brown withered thing on the 
grass. Hadrathus lifted the body of the wizard and placed it in the chariot. And without 
hesitation the uncanny steeds turned and moved off southward, down the hill. And Hadrathus 
and Zelata and the gray wolf watched them go – down the long road to Acheron which is 
beyond the ken of men. 
Down in the valley Amalric had stiffened in his saddle when he saw that wild horseman 
curvetting and caracoling on the slopes while he brandished that blood-stained serpent-banner. 
Then some instinct jerked his head about, toward the hill known as the King’s Altar. And his 
lips parted. Every man in the valley saw it – an arching shaft of dazzling light that towered up 
from the summit of the hill, showering golden fire. High above the hosts it burst in a blinding 
blaze that momentarily paled the sun. 
“That’s not Xaltotun’s signal!” roared the baron. 
“No!” shouted Tarascus. “It’s a signal to the Aquilonians! Look!” 
Above them the immobile ranks were moving at last, and a deep-throated roar thundered across 
the vale. 
“Xaltotun has failed us!” bellowed Amalric furiously. “Valerius has failed us! We have been 
led into a trap! Mitra’s curse on Xaltotun who led us here! Sound the retreat!” 
“Too late!” yelled Tarascus. “Look!” 
Up on the slopes the forest of lances dipped, leveled. The ranks of the Gundermen rolled back 
to right and left like a parting curtain. And with a thunder like the rising roar of a hurricane, the 
knights of Aquilonia crashed down the slopes. 
The impetus of that charge was irresistible. Bolts driven by the demoralized arbalesters glanced 
from their shields, their bent helmets. Their plumes and pennons streaming out behind them, 
their lances lowered, they swept over the wavering lines of pikemen and roared down the 
slopes like a wave. 
Amalric yelled an order to charge, and the Nemedians with desperate courage spurred their 
horses at the slopes. They still outnumbered the attackers. 
But they were weary men on tired horses, charging uphill. The onrushing knights had not 
struck a blow that day. Their horses were fresh. They were coming downhill and they came 
like a thunderbolt. And like a thunderbolt they smote the struggling ranks of the Nemedians – 
smote them, split them apart, ripped them asunder and dashed the remnants headlong down the 
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slopes. 
After them on foot came the Gundermen, blood-mad, and the Bossonians were swarming down 
the hills, loosing as they ran at every foe that still moved. 
Down the slopes washed the tide of battle, the dazed Nemedians swept on the crest of the 
wave. Their archers had thrown down their arbalests and were fleeing. Such pikemen as had 
survived the blasting charge of the knights were cut to pieces by the ruthless Gundermen. 
In a wild confusion the battle swept through the wide mouth of the valley and into the plain 
beyond. All over the plain swarmed the warriors, fleeing and pursuing, broken into single 
combat and clumps of smiting, hacking knights on rearing, wheeling horses. But the 
Nemedians were smashed, broken, unable to re-form or make a stand. By the hundreds they 
broke away, spurring for the river. Many reached it, rushed across and rode eastward. The 
countryside was up behind them; the people hunted them like wolves. Few ever reached 
Tarantia. 
The final break did not come until the fall of Amalric. The baron, striving in vain to rally his 
men, rode straight at the clump of knights that followed the giant in black armor whose surcoat 
bore the royal lion, and over whose head floated the golden lion banner with the scarlet leopard 
of Poitain beside it. A tall warrior in gleaming armor couched his lance and charged to meet the 
lord of Tor. They met like a thunderclap. The Nemedian’s lance, striking his foe’s helmet, 
snapped bolts and rivets and tore off the casque, revealing the features of Pallantides. But the 
Aquilonian’s lance-head crashed through shield and breast-plate to transfix the baron’s heart. 
A roar went up as Amalric was hurled from his saddle, snapping the lance that impaled him, 
and the Nemedians gave way as a barrier bursts under the surging impact of a tidal wave. They 
rode for the river in a blind stampede that swept the plain like a whirlwind. The hour of the 
Dragon had passed. 
Tarascus did not flee. Amalric was dead, the color-bearer slain, and the royal Nemedian banner 
trampled in the blood and dust. Most of his knights were fleeing and the Aquilonians were 
riding them down; Tarascus knew the day was lost, but with a handful of faithful followers he 
raged through the mêlée, conscious of but one desire – to meet Conan, the Cimmerian. And at 
last he met him. 
Formations had been destroyed utterly, close-knit bands broken asunder and swept apart. The 
crest of Trocero gleamed in one part of the plain, those of Prospero and Pallantides in others. 
Conan was alone. The house-troops of Tarascus had fallen one by one. The two kings met man 
to man. 
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Even as they rode at each other, the horse of Tarascus sobbed and sank under him. Conan 
leaped from his own steed and ran at him, as the king of Nemedia disengaged himself and rose. 
Steel flashed blindingly in the sun, clashed loudly, and blue sparks flew; then a clang of armor 
as Tarascus measured his full length on the earth beneath a thunderous stroke of Conan’s 
broadsword. 
The Cimmerian placed a mail-shod foot on his enemy’s breast, and lifted his sword. His helmet 
was gone; he shook back his black mane and his blue eyes blazed with their old fire. 
“Do you yield?” 
“Will you give me quarter?” demanded the Nemedian. 
“Aye. Better than you’d have given me, you dog. Life for you and all your men who throw 
down their arms. Though I ought to split your head for an infernal thief,” the Cimmerian added. 
Tarascus twisted his neck and glared over the plain. The remnants of the Nemedian host were 
flying across the stone bridge with swarms of victorious Aquilonians at their heels, smiting 
with the fury of glutted vengeance. Bossonians and Gundermen were swarming through the 
camp of their enemies, tearing the tents to pieces in search of plunder, seizing prisoners, 
ripping open the baggage and upsetting the wagons. 
Tarascus cursed fervently, and then shrugged his shoulders, as well as he could, under the 
circumstances. 
“Very well. I have no choice. What are your demands?” 
“Surrender to me all your present holdings in Aquilonia. Order your garrisons to march out of 
the castles and towns they hold, without their arms, and get your infernal armies out of 
Aquilonia as quickly as possible. In addition you shall return all Aquilonians sold as slaves, 
and pay an indemnity to be designated later, when the damage your occupation of the country 
has caused has been properly estimated. You will remain as hostage until these terms have 
been carried out.” 
“Very well,” surrendered Tarascus. “I will surrender all the castles and towns now held by my 
garrisons without resistance, and all the other things shall be done. What ransom for my body?” 
Conan laughed and removed his foot from his foe’s steel-clad breast, grasped his shoulder and 
heaved him to his feet. He started to speak, then turned to see Hadrathus approaching him. The 
priest was as calm and self-possessed as ever, picking his way between rows of dead men and 
horses. 
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Conan wiped the sweat-smeared dust from his face with a blood-stained hand. He had fought 
all through the day, first on foot with the pikemen, then in the saddle, leading the charge. His 
surcoat was gone, his armor splashed with blood and battered with strokes of sword, mace and 
ax. He loomed gigantically against a background of blood and slaughter, like some grim pagan 
hero of mythology. 
“Well done, Hadrathus!” quoth he gustily. “By Crom, I am glad to see your signal! My knights 
were almost mad with impatience and eating their hearts out to be at sword-strokes. I could not 
have held them much longer. What of the wizard?” 
“He has gone down the dim road to Acheron,” answered Hadrathus. “And I – I am for Tarantia. 
My work is done here, and I have a task to perform at the temple of Mitra. All our work is done 
here. On this field we have saved Aquilonia – and more than Aquilonia. Your ride to your 
capital will be a triumphal procession through a kingdom mad with joy. All Aquilonia will be 
cheering the return of their king. And so, until we meet again in the great royal hall – farewell!” 
Conan stood silently watching the priest as he went. From various parts of the field knights 
were hurrying toward him. He saw Pallantides, Trocero, Prospero. Servius Galannus, their 
armor splashed with crimson. The thunder of battle was giving way to a roar of triumph and 
acclaim. All eyes, hot with strife and shining with exultation, were turned toward the great 
black figure of the king; mailed arms brandished red-stained swords. A confused torrent of 
sound rose, deep and thunderous as the sea-surf: “Hail, Conan, king of Aquilonia!” 
Tarascus spoke. 
“You have not yet named my ransom.” 
Conan laughed and slapped his sword home in its scabbard. He flexed his mighty arms, and ran 
his blood-stained fingers through his thick black locks, as if feeling there his re-won crown. 
“There is a girl in your seraglio named Zenobia.” 
“Why, yes, so there is.” 
“Very well.” The king smiled as at an exceedingly pleasant memory. “She shall be your 
ransom, and naught else. I will come to Belverus for her as I promised. She was a slave in 
Nemedia, but I will make her queen of Aquilonia!” 
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A Witch Shall Be Born 
A Witch Shall Be Born 
I
THE BLOOD-RED CRESCENT 
Taramis, Queen of Khauran, awakened from a dream-haunted slumber to a silence that seemed 
more like the stillness of nighted catacombs than the normal quiet of a sleeping palace. She lay 
staring into the darkness, wondering why the candles in their golden candelabra had gone out. 
A flecking of stars marked a gold-barred casement that lent no illumination to the interior of 
the chamber. But as Taramis lay there, she became aware of a spot of radiance glowing in the 
darkness before her. She watched, puzzled. It grew and its intensity deepened as it expanded, a 
widening disk of lurid light hovering against the dark velvet hangings of the opposite wall. 
Taramis caught her breath, starting up to a sitting position. A dark object was visible in that 
circle of light – a human head. 
In a sudden panic the queen opened her lips to cry out for her maids, then she checked herself. 
The glow was more lurid, the head more vividly limned. It was a woman’s head, small, 
delicately molded, superbly poised, with a high-piled mass of lustrous black hair. The face 
grew distinct as she stared – and it was the sight of this face which froze the cry in Taramis’s 
throat. The features were her own! She might have been looking into a mirror which subtly 
altered her reflection, lending it a tigerish gleam of eye, a vindictive curl of lip. 
“Ishtar!” gasped Taramis. “I am bewitched!” 
Appallingly, the apparition spoke, and its voice was like honeyed venom. 
“Bewitched? No, sweet sister! Here is no sorcery.” 
“Sister?” stammered the bewildered girl. “I have no sister.” 
“You never had a sister?” came the sweet, poisonously mocking voice. “Never a twin sister 
whose flesh was as soft as yours to caress or hurt?” 
“Why, once I had a sister,” answered Taramis, still convinced that she was in the grip of some 
sort of nightmare. “But she died.” 
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The beautiful face in the disk was convulsed with the aspect of a fury; so hellish became its 
expression that Taramis, cowering back, half expected to see snaky locks writhe hissing about 
the ivory brow. 
“You lie!” The accusation was spat from between the snarling red lips. “She did not die! Fool! 
Oh, enough of this mummery! Look – and let your sight be blasted!” 
Light ran suddenly along the hangings like flaming serpents, and incredibly the candles in the 
golden sticks flared up again. Taramis crouched on her velvet couch, her lithe legs flexed 
beneath her, staring wide-eyed at the pantherish figure which posed mockingly before her. It 
was as if she gazed upon another Taramis, identical with herself in every contour of feature and 
limb, yet animated by an alien and evil personality. The face of this stranger waif reflected the 
opposite of every characteristic the countenance of the queen denoted. Lust and mystery 
sparkled in her scintillant eyes, cruelty lurked in the curl of her full red lips. Each movement of 
her supple body was subtly suggestive. Her coiffure imitated that of the queen, on her feet were 
gilded sandals such as Taramis wore in her boudoir. The sleeveless, low-necked silk tunic, 
girdled at the waist with a cloth-of-gold cincture, was a duplicate of the queen’s night-garment. 
“Who are you?” gasped Taramis, an icy chill she could not explain creeping along her spine. 
“Explain your presence before I call my ladies-in-waiting to summon the guard!” 
“Scream until the roof-beams crack,” callously answered the stranger. “Your sluts will not 
wake till dawn, though the palace spring into flames about them. Your guardsmen will not hear 
your squeals; they have been sent out of this wing of the palace.” 
“What!” exclaimed Taramis, stiffening with outraged majesty. “Who dared give my guardsmen 
such a command?” 
“I did, sweet sister,” sneered the other girl. “A little while ago, before I entered. They thought it 
was their darling adored queen. Ha! How beautifully I acted the part! With what imperious 
dignity, softened by womanly sweetness, did I address the great louts who knelt in their armor 
and plumed helmets!” 
Taramis felt as if a stifling net of bewilderment were being drawn about her. 
“Who are you?” she cried desperately. “What madness is this? Why do you come here?” 
“Who am I?” There was the spite of a she-cobra’s hiss in the soft response. The girl stepped to 
the edge of the couch, grasped the queen’s white shoulders with fierce fingers, and bent to 
glare full into the startled eyes of Taramis. And under the spell of that hypnotic glare, the queen 
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forgot to resent the unprecedented outrage of violent hands laid on regal flesh. 
“Fool!” gritted the girl between her teeth. “Can you ask? Can you wonder? I am Salome!” 
“Salome!” Taramis breathed the word, and the hairs prickled on her scalp as she realized the 
incredible, numbing truth of the statement. “I thought you died within the hour of your birth,” 
she said feebly. 
“So thought many,” answered the woman who called herself Salome. “They carried me into the 
desert to die, damn them! I, a mewing, puling babe whose life was so young it was scarcely the 
flicker of a candle. And do you know why they bore me forth to die?” 
“I – I have heard the story – ” faltered Taramis. 
Salome laughed fiercely, and slapped her bosom. The low-necked tunic left the upper parts of 
her firm breasts bare, and between them there shone a curious mark – a crescent, red as blood. 
“The mark of the witch!” cried Taramis, recoiling. 
“Aye!” Salome’s laughter was dagger-edged with hate. “The curse of the kings of Khauran! 
Aye, they tell the tale in the market-places, with wagging beards and rolling eyes, the pious 
fools! They tell how the first queen of our line had traffic with a fiend of darkness and bore him 
a daughter who lives in foul legendry to this day. And thereafter in each century a girl baby 
was born into the Askhaurian dynasty, with a scarlet half-moon between her breasts, that 
signified her destiny. 
“‘Every century a witch shall be born.’ So ran the ancient curse. And so it has come to pass. 
Some were slain at birth, as they sought to slay me. Some walked the earth as witches, proud 
daughters of Khauran, with the moon of hell burning upon their ivory bosoms. Each was 
named Salome. I too am Salome. It was always Salome, the witch. It will always be Salome, 
the witch, even when the mountains of ice have roared down from the pole and ground the 
civilizations to ruin, and a new world has risen from the ashes and dust – even then there shall 
be Salomes to walk the earth, to trap men’s hearts by their sorcery, to dance before the kings of 
the world, and see the heads of the wise men fall at their pleasure!” 
“But – but you – ” stammered Taramis. 
“I?” The scintillant eyes burned like dark fires of mystery. “They carried me into the desert far 
from the city, and laid me naked on the hot sand, under the flaming sun. And then they rode 
away and left me for the jackals and the vultures and the desert wolves. 
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“But the life in me was stronger than the life in common folk, for it partakes of the essence of 
the forces that seethe in the black gulfs beyond mortal ken. The hours passed, and the sun 
slashed down like the molten flames of hell, but I did not die – aye, something of that torment I 
remember, faintly and far-away, as one remembers a dim, formless dream. Then there were 
camels, and yellow-skinned men who wore silk robes and spoke in a weird tongue. Strayed 
from the caravan road, they passed close by, and their leader saw me, and recognized the 
scarlet crescent on my bosom. He took me up and gave me life. 
“He was a magician from far Khitai, returning to his native kingdom after a journey to Stygia. 
He took me with him to purple-towered Paikang, its minarets rising amid the vine-festooned 
jungles of bamboo, and there I grew to womanhood under his teaching. Age had steeped him 
deep in black wisdom, not weakened his powers of evil. Many things he taught me – ” She 
paused, smiling enigmatically, with wicked mystery gleaming in her dark eyes. Then she 
tossed her head. 
“He drove me from him at last, saying that I was but a common witch in spite of his teachings, 
and not fit to command the mighty sorcery he would have taught me. He would have made me 
queen of the world and ruled the nations through me, he said, but I was only a harlot of 
darkness. But what of it? I could never endure to seclude myself in a golden tower, and spend 
the long hours staring into a crystal globe, mumbling over incantations written on serpent’s 
skin in the blood of virgins, poring over musty volumes in forgotten languages. 
“He said I was but an earthly sprite, knowing naught of the deeper gulfs of cosmic sorcery. 
Well, this world contains all I desire – power, and pomp, and glittering pageantry, handsome 
men and soft women for my paramours and my slaves. He had told me who I was, of the curse 
and my heritage. I have returned to take that to which I have as much right as you. Now it is 
mine by right of possession.” 
“What do you mean?” Taramis sprang up and faced her sister, stung out of her bewilderment 
and fright. “Do you imagine that by drugging a few of my maids and tricking a few of my 
guardsmen you have established a claim to the throne of Khauran? Do not forget that I am 
queen of Khauran! I shall give you a place of honor, as my sister, but – ” 
Salome laughed hatefully. 
“How generous of you, dear, sweet sister! But before you begin putting me in my place – 
perhaps you will tell me whose soldiers camp in the plain outside the city walls?” 
“They are the Shemitish mercenaries of Constantius, the Kothic voivode of the Free 
Companies.” 
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“And what do they in Khauran?” cooed Salome. Taramis felt that she was being subtly 
mocked, but she answered with an assumption of dignity which she scarcely felt. 
“Constantius asked permission to pass along the borders of Khauran on his way to Turan. He 
himself is hostage for their good behavior as long as they are within my domains.” 
“And Constantius,” pursued Salome. “Did he not ask your hand today?” 
Taramis shot her a clouded glance of suspicion. 
“How did you know that?” 
An insolent shrug of the slim naked shoulders was the only reply. 
“You refused, dear sister?” 
“Certainly I refused!” exclaimed Taramis angrily. “Do you, an Askhaurian princess yourself, 
suppose that the queen of Khauran could treat such a proposal with anything but disdain? Wed 
a bloody-handed adventurer, a man exiled from his own kingdom because of his crimes, and 
the leader of organized plunderers and hired murderers? 
“I should never have allowed him to bring his black-bearded slayers into Khauran. But he is 
virtually a prisoner in the south tower, guarded by my soldiers. Tomorrow I shall bid him order 
his troops to leave the kingdom. He himself shall be kept captive until they are over the border. 
Meantime, my soldiers man the walls of the city, and I have warned him that he will answer for 
any outrages perpetrated on the villagers or shepherds by his mercenaries.” 
“He is confined in the south tower?” asked Salome. 
“That is what I said. Why do you ask?” 
For answer Salome clapped her hands, and lifting her voice, with a gurgle of cruel mirth in it, 
called: “The queen grants you an audience, Falcon!” 
A gold-arabesqued door opened and a tall figure entered the chamber, at the sight of which 
Taramis cried out in amazement and anger. 
“Constantius! You dare enter my chamber!” 
“As you see, your majesty!” He bent his dark, hawk-like head in mock humility.
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Constantius, whom men called the Falcon, was tall, broad-shouldered, slim-waisted, lithe and 
strong as pliant steel. He was handsome in an aquiline, ruthless sort of way. His face was burnt 
dark by the sun and his hair, which grew far back from his high, narrow forehead, was black as 
a raven. His dark eyes were penetrating and alert, the hardness of his thin lips not softened by 
his thin black moustache. His boots were of Kordavan leather, his hose and doublet of plain, 
dark silk, tarnished with the wear of the camps and the stains of armor rust. 
Twisting his moustache he let his gaze travel up and down the shrinking queen with an 
effrontery that made her wince. 
“By Ishtar, Taramis,” he said silkily, “I find you more alluring in your night-tunic than in your 
queenly robes. Truly, this is an auspicious night!” 
Fear grew in the queen’s dark eyes. She was no fool; she knew that Constantius would never 
dare this outrage unless he was sure of himself. 
“You are mad,” she said. “If I am in your power in this chamber, you are no less in the power 
of my subjects who will rend you to pieces if you touch me. Go at once, if you would live.” 
Both laughed mockingly, and Salome made an impatient gesture. 
“Enough of this farce; let us on to the next act in the comedy. Listen, dear sister: it was I who 
sent Constantius here. When I decided to take the throne of Khauran, I cast about for a man to 
aid me, and chose the Falcon, because of his utter lack of all characteristics men call good.” 
“I am overwhelmed, princess,” murmured Constantius sardonically, with a profound bow. 
“I sent him to Khauran, and, once his men were camped in the plain outside, and he was in the 
palace, I entered the city by that small gate in the west wall – the fools guarding it thought it 
was you returning from some nocturnal adventure –” 
“You slut!” Taramis’s cheeks flamed and her resentment got the better of her regal reserve. She 
valued her reputation of virtue. 
Salome smiled hardly. 
“They were properly surprized and shocked, but admitted me without question. I entered the 
palace the same way, and gave the order to the surprized guards that sent them marching away, 
as well as the men who guarded Constantius in the south tower. Then I came here, attending to 
the ladies-in-waiting on the way.” 
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Taramis’s fingers clenched and she paled, as she sensed the sinister shape of a monstrous plot 
behind all this. 
“Well, what next?” she asked in a shaky voice. 
“Listen!” Salome inclined her head. Faintly through the casement there came the clank of 
marching men in armor; gruff voices shouted in an alien tongue, and cries of alarm mingled 
with the shouts. 
“The people awaken and grow fearful,” said Constantius sardonically. “You had better go and 
reassure them, Salome!” 
“Call me Taramis,” answered Salome. “We must become accustomed to it.” 
“What have you done?” cried Taramis. “What have you done?” 
“I have gone to the gates and ordered the soldiers to open them,” answered Salome. “They 
were astounded, but they obeyed. That is the Falcon’s army you hear, marching into the city.” 
“You devil!” cried Taramis. “You have betrayed my people, in my guise! You have made me 
seem a traitor! Oh, I shall go to them –” 
With a cruel laugh Salome caught her wrist and jerked her back. The magnificent suppleness of 
the queen was helpless against the vindictive strength that steeled Salome’s slender limbs. 
“You know how to reach the dungeons from the palace, Constantius?” said the witch-girl. 
“Good. Take this spit-fire and lock her into the strongest cell. The gaolers are all sound in 
drugged sleep. I saw to that. Send a man to cut their throats before they can awaken. None must 
ever know what has transpired tonight. Thenceforward I am Taramis, and Taramis is a 
nameless prisoner in an unknown dungeon.” 
Constantius smiled with a glint of strong white teeth under his thin moustache. 
“Very good; but you would not deny me a little – ah – amusement first?” 
“Not I! Tame the scornful hussy as you will.” With a wicked laugh Salome flung her sister into 
the Kothian’s arms, and turned away through the door that opened into the outer corridor. 
Fright widened Taramis’s lovely eyes, her supple figure rigid and straining against 
Constantius’s embrace. She forgot the men marching in the streets, forgot the outrage to her 
queenship, in the face of the menace to her womanhood. She forgot all sensations but terror 
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and shame as she faced the complete cynicism of Constantius’s burning, mocking eyes, felt his 
hard arms crushing her writhing body. 
Salome, hurrying along the corridor outside, smiled spitefully as a scream of despair and 
poignant agony rang shuddering through the palace. 
II 
THE TREE OF DEATH 
The young soldier’s hose and shirt were smeared with dried blood, wet with sweat and grey 
with dust. Blood oozed from the deep gash in his thigh, from the cuts on his breast and 
shoulder. Perspiration glistened on his livid face and his fingers were knotted in the cover of 
the divan on which he lay. Yet his words reflected mental suffering that outweighed physical 
pain. 
“She must be mad!” he repeated again and again, like one still stunned by some monstrous and 
incredible happening. “It’s like a nightmare! Taramis, whom all Khauran loves, betraying her 
people to that devil from Koth! Oh, Ishtar, why was I not slain? Better die than live to see our 
queen turn traitor and harlot!” 
“Lie still, Valerius,” begged the girl who was washing and bandaging his wounds with 
trembling hands. “Oh, please lie still, darling! You will make your wounds worse. I dared not 
summon a leech –” 
“No,” muttered the wounded youth. “Constantius’s blue-bearded devils will be searching the 
quarters for wounded Khaurani; they’ll hang every man who has wounds to show he fought 
against them. Oh, Taramis, how could you betray the people who worshipped you?” In his 
fierce agony he writhed, weeping in rage and shame, and the terrified girl caught him in her 
arms, straining his tossing head against her bosom, imploring him to be quiet. 
“Better death than the black shame that has come upon Khauran this day,” he groaned. “Did 
you see it, Ivga?” 
“No, Valerius.” Her soft, nimble fingers were again at work, gently cleansing and closing the 
gaping edges of his raw wounds. “I was awakened by the noise of fighting in the streets – I 
looked out a casement and saw the Shemites cutting down the people – then presently I heard 
you calling me faintly from the alley door.” 
“I had reached the limits of my strength,” he muttered. “I fell in the alley and could not rise. I 
knew they’d find me soon if I lay there – I killed three of the blue-bearded beasts, by Ishtar! 
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They’ll never swagger through Khauran’s streets, by the gods! The fiends are tearing their 
hearts in hell!” 
The trembling girl crooned soothingly to him, as to a wounded child, and closed his panting 
lips with her own cool sweet mouth. But the fire that raged in his soul would not allow him to 
lie silent. 
“I was not on the wall when the Shemites entered,” he burst out. “I was asleep in the barracks, 
with the others not on duty. It was just before dawn when our captain entered, and his face was 
pale under his helmet. ‘The Shemites are in the city,’ he said. ‘The queen came to the southern 
gate and gave orders that they should be admitted. She made the men come down from the 
walls, where they’ve been on guard since Constantius entered the kingdom. I don’t understand 
it, and neither does anyone else, but I heard her give the order, and we obeyed as we always do. 
We are ordered to assemble in the square before the palace. Form ranks outside the barracks 
and march – leave your arms and armor here. Ishtar knows what this means, but it is the 
queen’s order.’ 
“Well, when we came to the square the Shemites were drawn up on foot opposite the palace, 
ten thousand of the blue-bearded devils, fully armed, and people’s heads were thrust out of 
every window and door on the square. The streets leading into the square were thronged by 
bewildered folk. Taramis was standing on the steps of the palace, alone except for Constantius, 
who stood stroking his moustache like a great lean cat who has just devoured a sparrow. But 
fifty Shemites with bows in their hands were ranged below them. 
“That’s where the queen’s guard should have been, but they were drawn up at the foot of the 
palace stair, as puzzled as we, though they had come fully armed, in spite of the queen’s order. 
“Taramis spoke to us then, and told us that she had reconsidered the proposal made her by 
Constantius – why, only yesterday she threw it in his teeth in open court! – and that she had 
decided to make him her royal consort. She did not explain why she had brought the Shemites 
into the city so treacherously. But she said that, as Constantius had control of a body of 
professional fighting men, the army of Khauran would no longer be needed, and therefore she 
disbanded it, and ordered us to go quietly to our homes. 
“Why, obedience to our queen is second nature to us, but we were struck dumb and found no 
word to answer. We broke ranks almost before we knew what we were doing, like men in a 
daze. 
“But when the palace guard was ordered to likewise disarm and disband, the captain of the 
guard, Conan, interrupted. Men said he was off duty the night before, and drunk. But he was 
wide awake now. He shouted to the guardsmen to stand as they were until they received an 
order from him – and such is his dominance of his men, that they obeyed in spite of the queen. 
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He strode up to the palace steps and glared at Taramis – and then he roared: ‘This is not the 
queen! This isn’t Taramis! It’s some devil in masquerade!’ 
“Then hell was to pay! I don’t know just what happened. I think a Shemite struck Conan, and 
Conan killed him. The next instant the square was a battle-ground. The Shemites fell on the 
guardsmen, and their spears and arrows struck down many soldiers who had already disbanded. 
“Some of us grabbed up such weapons as we could and fought back. We hardly knew what we 
were fighting for, but it was against Constantius and his devils, I swear it. Not against Taramis, 
I swear it! Constantius shouted to cut the traitors down. We were not traitors!” Despair and 
bewilderment shook his voice. The girl murmured pityingly, not understanding it all, but 
aching in sympathy with her lover’s suffering. 
“The people did not know which side to take. It was a madhouse of confusion and 
bewilderment. We who fought didn’t have a chance, in no formation, without armor and only 
half-armed. The guards were fully armed and drawn up in a square, but there were only five 
hundred of them. They took a heavy toll before they were cut down, but there could be only 
one conclusion to such a battle. And while her people were being slaughtered before her, 
Taramis stood on the palace steps, with Constantius’s arm about her waist, and laughed like a 
heartless, beautiful fiend! Gods, it’s all mad – mad! 
“I never saw a man fight like Conan fought. He put his back to the courtyard wall and before 
they overpowered him the dead men were strewn in heaps thigh-deep about him. But at last 
they dragged him down, a hundred against one. When I saw him fall I dragged myself away 
feeling as if the world had burst under my very fingers. I heard Constantius call to his dogs to 
take the captain alive – stroking his moustache, with that hateful smile on his cursed lips!” 
That smile was on the lips of Constantius at that very moment. He sat his horse among a cluster 
of his men – thick-bodied Shemites with curled blue-black beards and hooked noses; the lowswinging 
sun struck glints from their peaked helmets and the silvered scales of their corselets. 
Nearly a mile behind, the walls and towers of Khauran rose sheer out of the meadowlands. 
By the side of the caravan road a heavy cross had been planted, and on this grim tree a man 
hung, nailed there by iron spikes through his hands and feet. Naked but for a loin-cloth, the 
man was almost a giant in stature, and his muscles stood out in thick corded ridges on limbs 
and body, which the sun had long ago burned brown. The perspiration of agony beaded his face 
and his mighty breast, but from under the tangled black mane that fell over his low, broad 
forehead, his blue eyes blazed with an unquenched fire. Blood oozed sluggishly from the 
lacerations in his hands and feet. 
Constantius saluted him mockingly. 
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“I am sorry, captain,” he said, “that I can not remain to ease your last hours, but I have duties to 
perform in yonder city – I must not keep our delicious queen waiting!” He laughed softly. “So I 
leave you to your own devices – and those beauties!” He pointed meaningly at the black 
shadows which swept incessantly back and forth, high above. 
“Were it not for them, I imagine that a powerful brute like yourself should live on the cross for 
days. Do not cherish any illusions of rescue because I am leaving you unguarded. I have had it 
proclaimed that any one seeking to take your body, living or dead, from the cross, will be 
flayed alive together with all the members of his family, in the public square. I am so firmly 
established in Khauran that my order is as good as a regiment of guardsmen. I am leaving no 
guard, because the vultures will not approach as long as anyone is near, and I do not wish them 
to feel any constraint! That is also why I brought you so far from the city. These desert vultures 
approach the walls no closer than this spot. 
“And so, brave captain, farewell! I will remember you when, in an hour, Taramis lies in my 
arms.” 
Blood started afresh from the pierced palms as the victim’s mallet-like fists clenched 
convulsively on the spike-heads. Knots and bunches of muscle started out on the massive arms, 
and Conan bent his head forward and spat savagely at Constantius’s. The voivode laughed 
coolly, wiped the saliva from his gorget and reined his horse about. 
“Remember me when the vultures are tearing at your living flesh,” he called mockingly. “The 
desert scavengers are a particularly voracious breed. I have seen men hang for hours on a cross, 
eyeless, earless, and scalpless, before the sharp beaks had eaten their way into his vitals.” 
Without a backward glance he rode toward the city, a supple, erect figure, gleaming in his 
burnished armor, his stolid bearded henchmen jogging beside him. A faint rising of dust from 
the worn trail marked their passing. 
The man hanging on the cross was the one touch of sentient life in a landscape that seemed 
desolate and deserted in the late evening. Khauran, less than a mile away, might have been on 
the other side of the world, and existing in another age. Shaking the sweat out of his eyes, 
Conan stared blankly at the familiar terrain. On either hand of the city and beyond it, stretched 
the fertile meadowlands, with cattle browsing in the distance where fields and vineyards 
checkered the plain. The western and northern horizons were dotted with villages, miniature in 
the distance. A lesser distance to the southeast a silvery gleam marked the course of a river, and 
beyond that river sandy desert began abruptly to stretch away and away beyond the horizon. 
Conan stared at that expanse of empty waste shimmering tawnily in the late sunlight as a 
trapped hawk stares at the open sky. A revulsion shook him when he glanced at the gleaming 
towers of Khauran. The city had betrayed him – trapped him into circumstances that left him 
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hanging to a wooden cross like a hare nailed to a tree. If he could but descend from this tree of 
torment and lose himself in that empty waste –turn his back for ever on the crooked streets and 
walled lairs where men plotted to betray humanity. 
A red lust for vengeance swept away the thought. Curses ebbed fitfully from the man’s lips. All 
his universe contracted, focused, became incorporated in the four iron spikes that held him 
from life and freedom. His great muscles quivered, knotting like iron cables. With the sweat 
starting out on his greying skin, he sought to gain leverage, to tear the nails from the wood. It 
was useless. They had been driven deep. Then he tried to tear his hands off the spikes, and it 
was not the knifing, abysmal agony that finally caused him to cease his effort, but the futility of 
it. The spike-heads were broad and heavy; he could not drag them through the wounds. A surge 
of helplessness shook the giant, for the first time in his life. He hung motionless, his head 
resting on his breast, shutting his eyes against the aching glare of the sun. 
A beat of wings caused him to look up, just as a feathered shadow shot down out of the sky. A 
keen beak, stabbing at his eyes, cut his cheek, and he jerked his head aside, shutting his eyes 
involuntarily. He shouted, a croaking, desperate shout of menace, and the vultures swerved 
away and retreated, frightened by the sound. They resumed their wary circling above his head. 
Blood trickled over Conan’s mouth, and he licked his lips involuntarily, spat at the salty taste. 
Thirst assailed him savagely. He had drunk deeply of wine the night before, and no water had 
touched his lips since before the battle in the square, that dawn. And killing was thirsty saltsweaty 
work. He glared at the distant river as a man in hell glares through the opened grille. He 
thought of gushing freshets of white water he had breasted, laved to the shoulders in liquid 
jade. He remembered great horns of foaming ale, jacks of sparkling wine gulped carelessly or 
spilled on the tavern floor. He bit his lip to keep from bellowing in intolerable anguish as a 
tortured animal bellows. 
The sun sank, a lurid ball in a fiery sea of blood. Against a crimson rampart that banded the 
horizon the towers of the city floated unreal as a dream. The very sky was tinged with blood to 
his misted glare. He licked his blackened lips and stared with blood-shot eyes at the distant 
river. It too seemed crimson like blood, and the shadows crawling up from the east seemed 
black as ebony. 
In his dulled ears sounded the louder beat of wings. Lifting his head he watched the shadows 
wheeling above him with the burning glare of a wolf. He knew that his shouts would frighten 
them away no longer. One dipped – dipped – lower and lower. Conan drew his head back as far 
as he could, waiting, watching with the terrible patience of the wilderness and its children. The 
vulture swept in with a swift roar of wings. Its beak flashed down, ripping the skin on Conan’s 
chin as he jerked aside his head; then before the bird could flash away, Conan’s head lunged 
forward on his mighty neck muscles and his teeth, snapping like those of a wolf, locked on the 
bare, wattled neck. 
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Instantly the vulture exploded into squawking flapping hysteria. Its thrashing wings blinded the 
man, and its talons ripped his chest. But grimly he hung on, the muscles starting out in lumps 
on his jaws. And the scavenger’s neck bones crunched between those powerful teeth. With a 
spasmodic flutter the bird hung limp. Conan let go, spat blood from his mouth. The other 
vultures, terrified by the fate of their companion, were in full flight to a distant tree where they 
perched like black demons in conclave. 
Ferocious triumph surged through Conan’s numbed brain. Life beat strongly and savagely 
through his veins. He could still deal death; he still lived. Every twinge of sensation, even of 
agony, was a negation of death. 
“By Mitra!” Either a voice spoke, or he suffered from hallucination. “In all my life I have never 
seen such a thing!” 
Shaking the sweat and blood from his eyes, Conan saw four horsemen sitting their steeds in the 
twilight and staring up at him. Three were lean, white-robed hawks, Zuagir tribesmen without a 
doubt, nomads from beyond the river. The other was dressed like them in a white, girdled 
khalat and a flowing head-dress which, banded about the temples with a triple circlet of 
braided camel-hair, fell to his shoulders. But he was not a Shemite. The dusk was not so thick, 
nor Conan’s hawk-like sight so clouded that he could not perceive the man’s facial 
characteristics. 
He was as tall as Conan, though not so heavy-limbed. His shoulders were broad and his supple 
figure was hard as steel and whalebone. A short black beard did not altogether mask the 
aggressive jut of his lean jaw, and grey eyes cold and piercing as a sword gleamed from the 
shadow of the kafieh. Quieting his restless steed with a quick sure hand, this man spoke: “By 
Mitra, I should know this man!” 
“Aye!” It was the guttural accents of a Zuagir. “It is the Cimmerian who was captain of the 
queen’s guard!” 
“She must be casting off all her old favorites,” muttered the rider. “Who’d have ever thought it 
of Queen Taramis? I’d rather have had a long, bloody war. It would have given us desert folk a 
chance to plunder. As it is we’ve come this close to the walls and found only this nag” – he 
glanced at a fine gelding led by one of the nomads – “and this dying dog.” 
Conan lifted his bloody head. 
“If I could come down from this beam I’d make a dying dog out of you, you Zaporoskan 
thief!” he rasped through blackened lips. 
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“Mitra, the knave knows me!” exclaimed the other. “How, knave, do you know me?” 
“There’s only one of your breed in these parts,” muttered Conan. “You are Olgerd Vladislav, 
the outlaw chief.” 
“Aye! And once a hetman of the kozaki of the Zaporoskan River, as you have guessed. Would 
you like to live?” 
“Only a fool would ask that question,” panted Conan. 
“I am a hard man,” said Olgerd, “and toughness is the only quality I respect in a man. I shall 
judge if you are a man, or only a dog after all, fit only to lie here and die.” 
“If we cut him down we may be seen from the walls,” objected one of the nomads. 
Olgerd shook his head. 
“The dusk is too deep. Here, take this axe, Djebal, and cut down the cross at the base.” 
“If it falls forward it will crush him,” objected Djebal. “I can cut it so it will fall backward, but 
then the shock of the fall may crack his skull and tear loose all his entrails.” 
“If he’s worthy to ride with me he’ll survive it,” answered Olgerd imperturbably. “If not, then 
he doesn’t deserve to live. Cut!” 
The first impact of the battle-axe against the wood and its accompanying vibrations sent lances 
of agony through Conan’s swollen feet and hands. Again and again the blade fell and each 
stroke reverberated on his bruised brain, setting his tortured nerves aquiver. But he set his teeth 
and made no sound. The axe cut through, the cross reeled on its splintered base and toppled 
backward. Conan made his whole body a solid knot of iron-hard muscle, jammed his head back 
hard against the wood and held it rigid there. The beam struck the ground heavily and 
rebounded slightly. The impact tore his wounds and dazed him for an instant. He fought the 
rushing tide of blackness, sick and dizzy, but realized that the iron muscles that sheathed his 
vitals had saved him from permanent injury. 
And he had made no sound, though blood oozed from his nostrils and his belly-muscles 
quivered with nausea. With a grunt of approval Djebal bent over him with a pair of pinchers 
used to draw horse-shoe nails, and gripped the head of the spike in Conan’s right hand, tearing 
the skin to get a grip on the deeply embedded head. The pinchers were small for that work. 
Djebal sweated and tugged, swearing and wrestling with the stubborn iron, working it back and 
forth – in swollen flesh as well as in wood. Blood started, oozing over the Cimmerian’s fingers. 
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He lay so still he might have been dead, except for the spasmodic rise and fall of his great 
chest. The spike gave way, and Djebal held up the blood-stained thing with a grunt of 
satisfaction, then flung it away and bent over the other. 
The process was repeated, and then Djebal turned his attention to Conan’s skewered feet. But 
the Cimmerian, struggling up to a sitting posture, wrenched the pinchers from his fingers and 
sent him staggering backward with a violent shove. Conan’s hands were swollen to almost 
twice their normal size. His fingers felt like misshapen thumbs, and closing his hands was an 
agony that brought blood streaming from under his grinding teeth. But somehow, clutching the 
pinchers clumsily with both hands, he managed to wrench out first one spike and then the 
other. They were not driven so deeply in the wood as the others had been. 
He rose stiffly and stood upright on his swollen, lacerated feet, swaying drunkenly, the icy 
sweat dripping from his face and body. Cramps assailed him and he clamped his jaws against 
the desire to retch. 
Olgerd, watching him impersonally, motioned him toward the stolen horse. Conan stumbled 
toward it and every step was a stabbing, throbbing hell that flecked his lips with bloody foam. 
One misshapen, groping hand fell clumsily on the saddle bow, a bloody foot somehow found 
the stirrup. Setting his teeth he swung up, and he almost fainted in mid-air; but he came down 
in the saddle – and as he did so, Olgerd struck the horse sharply with his whip. The startled 
beast reared, and the man in the saddle swayed and slumped like a sack of sand, almost 
unseated. Conan had wrapped a rein about each hand, holding it in place with a clamping 
thumb. Drunkenly he exerted the strength of his knotted biceps, wrenching the horse down; it 
screamed, its jaw almost dislocated. 
One of the Shemites lifted a water-flask questioningly. 
Olgerd shook his head. 
“Let him wait until we get to camp. It’s only ten miles. If he’s fit to live in the desert he’ll live 
that long without a drink.” 
The group rode like swift ghosts toward the river; among them Conan swayed like a drunken 
man in the saddle, blood-shot eyes glazed, foam drying on his blackened lips. 
III 
A Letter to Nemedia 
The savant Astreas, travelling in the east in his never-tiring search for knowledge, wrote a letter 
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to his friend and fellow-philosopher Alcemides, in his native Nemedia, which constitutes the 
entire knowledge of the western nations concerning the events of that period in the east, always 
a hazy, half-mythical region in the minds of the western folk. 
Astreas wrote, in part: “– You can scarcely conceive, my dear old friend, of the conditions now 
existing in this tiny kingdom since Queen Taramis admitted Constantius and his mercenaries, 
an event which I briefly described in my last, hurried letter. Seven months have passed since 
then, during which time it seems as though the devil himself had been loosed in this 
unfortunate realm. Taramis seems to have gone quite mad; whereas formerly she was famed for 
her virtue, justice and tranquillity, she is now notorious for qualities precisely opposite to those 
just enumerated. Her private life is a scandal – or perhaps ‘private’ is not the correct term, since 
the queen makes no attempt to conceal the debauchery of her court. She constantly indulges in 
the most infamous revelries, in which the unfortunate ladies of the court are forced to join, 
young married women as well as virgins. 
“She herself has not bothered to marry her paramour, Constantius, who sits on the throne 
beside her and reigns as her royal consort, and his officers follow his example, and do not 
hesitate to debauch any woman they desire, regardless of her rank or station. The wretched 
kingdom groans under exorbitant taxation, the farms are stripped to the bone, and the 
merchants go in rags which are all that is left them by the tax-gatherers. Nay, they are lucky if 
they escape with a whole skin. 
“I sense your incredulity, good Alcemides; you will fear that I exaggerate conditions in 
Khauran. Such conditions would be unthinkable in any of the western countries, admittedly. 
But you must realize the vast difference that exists between west and east, especially this part 
of the east. In the first place, Khauran is a kingdom of no great size, one of the many 
principalities which at one time formed the eastern part of the empire of Koth, and which later 
regained the independence which was theirs at a still earlier age. This part of the world is made 
up of these tiny realms, diminutive in comparison with the great kingdoms of the west, or the 
great sultanates of the farther east, but important in their control of the caravan routes, and in 
the wealth concentrated in them. 
“Khauran is the most southeasterly of these principalities, bordering on the very deserts of 
eastern Shem. The city of Khauran is the only city of any magnitude in the realm, and stands 
within sight of the river which separates the grasslands from the sandy desert, like a watchtower 
to guard the fertile meadows behind it. The land is so rich that it yields three and four 
crops a year, and the plains north and west of the city are dotted with villages. To one 
accustomed to the great plantations and stock-farms of the west, it is strange to see these tiny 
fields and vineyards; yet wealth in grain and fruit pours from them as from a horn of plenty. 
The villagers are agriculturists – nothing else. Of a mixed, aboriginal race, they are unwarlike, 
unable to protect themselves, and forbidden the possession of arms. Dependent wholly upon 
the soldiers of the city for protection, they are helpless under the present conditions. So the 
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savage revolt of the rural sections which would be a certainty in any western nation, is here 
impossible. 
“They toil supinely under the iron hand of Constantius, and his black-bearded Shemites ride 
incessantly through the fields, with whips in their hands, like the slave-drivers of the black 
serfs who toil in the plantations of southern Zingara. 
“Nor do the people of the city fare any better. Their wealth is stripped from them, their fairest 
daughters taken to glut the insatiable lust of Constantius and his mercenaries. These men are 
utterly without mercy or compassion, possessed of all the characteristics our armies learned to 
abhor in our wars against the Shemitish allies of Argos – inhuman cruelty, lust, and wild beast 
ferocity. The people of the city are Khauran’s ruling caste, predominantly Hyborian, and 
valorous and warlike. But the treachery of their queen delivered them into the hands of their 
oppressors. The Shemites are the only armed force in Khauran, and the most hellish 
punishment is inflicted on any Khaurani found possessing weapons. A systematic persecution 
to destroy the young Khaurani men able to bear arms has been savagely pursued. Many have 
ruthlessly been slaughtered, others sold as slaves to the Turanians. Thousands have fled the 
kingdom and either entered the service of other rulers, or become outlaws, lurking in numerous 
bands along the borders. 
“At present there is some possibility of invasion from the desert, which is inhabited by tribes of 
Shemitish nomads. The mercenaries of Constantius are men from the Shemitish cities of the 
west, Pelishtim, Anakim, Akkharim, and are ardently hated by the Zuagirs and other wandering 
tribes. As you know, good Alcemides, the countries of these barbarians are divided into the 
western meadowlands which stretch to the distant ocean, and in which rise the cities of the 
town-dwellers, and the eastern deserts, where the lean nomads hold sway; there is incessant 
warfare between the dwellers of the cities and the dwellers of the desert. 
“The Zuagirs have fought with and raided Khauran for centuries, without success, but they 
resent its conquest by their western kin. It is rumored that their natural antagonism is being 
fomented by the man who was formerly the captain of the queen’s guard, and who, somehow 
escaping the hate of Constantius, who actually had him upon the cross, fled to the nomads. He 
is called Conan, and is himself a barbarian, one of those gloomy Cimmerians whose ferocity 
our soldiers have more than once learned to their bitter cost. It is rumored that he has become 
the right-hand man of Olgerd Vladislav, the kozak adventurer who wandered down from the 
northern steppes and made himself chief of a band of Zuagirs. There are also rumors that this 
band has increased vastly in the last few months, and that Olgerd, incited no doubt by this 
Cimmerian, is even considering a raid on Khauran. 
“It can not be anything more than a raid, as the Zuagirs are without siege-machines, or the 
knowledge of investing a city, and it has been proven repeatedly in the past that the nomads in 
their loose formation, or rather lack of formation, are no match in hand-to-hand fighting for the 
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well-disciplined, fully-armed warriors of the Shemitish cities. The natives of Khauran would 
perhaps welcome this conquest, since the nomads could deal with them no more harshly than 
their present masters, and even total extermination would be preferable to the suffering they 
have to endure. But they are so cowed and helpless that they could give no aid to the invaders. 
“Their plight is most wretched. Taramis, apparently possessed of a demon, stops at nothing. 
She has abolished the worship of Ishtar, and turned the temple into a shrine of idolatry. She has 
destroyed the ivory image of the goddess which these eastern Hyborians worship (and which, 
inferior as it is to the true religion of Mitra which we western nations recognize, is still superior 
to the devil-worship of the Shemites) and filled the temple of Ishtar with obscene images of 
every imaginable sort – gods and goddesses of the night, portrayed in all the salacious and 
perverse poses and with all the revolting characteristics that a degenerate brain could conceive. 
Many of these images are to be identified as foul deities of the Shemites, the Turanians, the 
Vendhyans, and the Khitans, but others are reminiscent of a hideous and half-remembered 
antiquity, vile shapes forgotten except in the most obscure legends. Where the queen gained the 
knowledge of them I dare not even hazard a guess. 
“She has instituted human sacrifice, and since her mating with Constantius, no less than five 
hundred men, women and children have been immolated. Some of these have died on the altar 
she has set up in the temple, herself wielding the sacrificial dagger, but most have met a more 
horrible doom. 
“Taramis has placed some sort of monster in a crypt in the temple. What it is, whence it came, 
none knows. But shortly after she had crushed the desperate revolt of her soldiers against 
Constantius, she spent a night alone in the desecrated temple, alone except for a dozen bound 
captives, and the shuddering people saw thick, foul-smelling smoke curling up from the dome, 
heard all night the frenetic chanting of the queen, and the agonized cries of her tortured 
captives; and toward dawn another voice mingled with these sounds – a strident, inhuman 
croaking that froze the blood of all who heard. In the full dawn Taramis reeled drunkenly from 
the temple, her eyes blazing with demoniac triumph. The captives were never seen again, nor 
the croaking voice heard. But there is a room in the temple into which none ever goes but the 
queen, driving a human sacrifice before her. And this victim is never seen again. All know that 
in that grim chamber lurks some monster from the black night of ages, which devours the 
shrieking humans Taramis delivers up to it. 
“I can no longer think of her as a mortal woman, but as a rabid she-fiend, crouching in her 
blood-fouled lair amongst the bones and fragments of her victims, with taloned, crimsoned 
fingers. That the gods allow her to pursue her awful course unchecked almost shakes my faith 
in divine justice. 
“When I compare her present conduct with her deportment when first I came to Khauran, seven 
months ago, I am confused with bewilderment, and almost inclined to the belief held by many 
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of the people – that a demon has possessed the body of Taramis. A young soldier, Valerius, had 
another belief. He believed that a witch had assumed a form identical to that of Khauran’s 
adored ruler. He believed that Taramis had been spirited away in the night, and confined in 
some dungeon, and that this being ruling in her place was but a female sorcerer. He swore that 
he would find the real queen, if she still lived, but I greatly fear that he himself has fallen 
victim to the cruelty of Constantius. He was implicated in the revolt of the palace guards, 
escaped and remained in hiding for some time, stubbornly refusing to seek safety abroad, and it 
was during this time that I encountered him and he told me his beliefs. 
“But he has disappeared, as so many have, whose fate one dares not conjecture, and I fear he 
has been apprehended by the spies of Constantius. 
“But I must conclude this letter and slip it out of the city by means of a swift carrier-pigeon, 
which will carry it to the post whence I purchased it, on the borders of Koth. By rider and 
camel-train it will eventually come to you. I must haste, before dawn. It is late, and the stars 
gleam whitely on the gardened roofs of Khauran. A shuddering silence envelops the city, in 
which I hear the throb of a sullen drum from the distant temple. I doubt not that Taramis is 
there, concocting more deviltry.” 
But the savant was incorrect in his conjecture concerning the whereabouts of the woman he 
called Taramis. The girl whom the world knew as queen of Khauran stood in a dungeon, 
lighted only by a flickering torch which played on her features, etching the diabolical cruelty of 
her beautiful countenance. 
On the bare stone floor before her crouched a figure whose nakedness was scarcely covered by 
tattered rags. 
This figure Salome touched contemptuously with the upturned toe of her gilded sandal, and 
smiled vindictively as her victim shrank away. 
“You do not love my caresses, sweet sister?” 
Taramis was still beautiful, in spite of her rags and the imprisonment and abuse of seven weary 
months. She did not reply to her sister’s taunts, but bent her head as one grown accustomed to 
mockery. 
This resignation did not please Salome. She bit her red lip, and stood tapping the toe of her 
shoe against the flags as she frowned down at the passive figure. Salome was clad in the 
barbaric splendor of a woman of Shushan. Jewels glittered in the torchlight on her gilded 
sandals, on her gold breast-plates and the slender chains that held them in place. Gold anklets 
clashed as she moved, jeweled bracelets weighted her bare arms. Her tall coiffure was that of a 
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Shemitish woman, and jade pendants hung from gold hoops in her ears, flashing and sparkling 
with each impatient movement of her haughty head. A gem-crusted girdle supported a silk skirt 
so transparent that it was in the nature of a cynical mockery of the convention that requires that 
nakedness be concealed. 
Suspended from her shoulders and trailing down her back hung a darkly scarlet cloak, and this 
was thrown carelessly over the crook of one arm and the bundle that arm supported. 
Salome stooped suddenly and with her free hand grasped her sister’s disheveled hair and forced 
back the girl’s head to stare into her eyes. Taramis met that tigerish glare without flinching. 
“You are not so ready with your tears as formerly, sweet sister,” muttered the witch-girl. 
“You shall wring no more tears from me,” answered Taramis. “Too often you have revelled in 
the spectacle of the queen of Khauran sobbing for mercy on her knees. I know that you have 
spared me only to torment me; that is why you have limited your tortures to such torments as 
neither slay nor permanently disfigure. But I fear you no longer; you have strained out the last 
vestige of hope, fright and shame from me. Slay me and be done with it, for I have shed my last 
tear for your enjoyment, you she-devil from hell!” 
“You flatter yourself, my dear sister,” purred Salome. “So far it is only your handsome body 
that I have caused to suffer, only your pride and self-esteem that I have crushed. You forget 
that, unlike myself, you are capable of mental torment. I have observed this when I have 
regaled you with narratives concerning the comedies I have enacted with some of your stupid 
subjects. But this time I have brought more vivid proof of these farces. Did you know that 
Krallides, your faithful councillor, had come skulking back from Turan and been captured?” 
Taramis turned pale. 
“What – what have you done to him?” 
For answer Salome drew the mysterious bundle from under her cloak. She shook off the silken 
swathings and held it up – the head of a young man, the features frozen in a convulsion as if 
death had come in the midst of inhuman agony. 
Taramis cried out as if a blade had pierced her heart. 
“Oh, Ishtar! Krallides!” 
“Aye! He was seeking to stir up the people against me, poor fool. Telling them that Conan 
spoke the truth when he said I was not Taramis. How would the people rise against the 
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Falcon’s Shemites? With sticks and pebbles? Bah! Dogs are eating his headless body in the 
market-place, and this foul carrion shall be cast into the sewer to rot. 
“How, sister!” She paused, smiling down at her victim. “Have you discovered that you still 
have unshed tears? Good! I reserved the mental torment for the last. Hereafter I shall show you 
many such sights as – this!” 
Standing there in the torchlight with the severed head in her hand she did not look like anything 
ever borne by a human woman, in spite of her awful beauty. Taramis did not look up. She lay 
face down on the slimy floor, her slim body shaken in sobs of agony, beating her clenched 
hands against the stones. Salome sauntered toward the door, her anklets clashing sullenly at 
each step, her ear-pendants winking in the torch glare. 
A few moments later she emerged from a door under a sullen arch that let into a court which in 
turn opened upon a winding alley. A man standing there turned toward her – a giant Shemite, 
with somber eyes and shoulders like a bull, his great black beard falling over his mighty, silvermailed 
breast. 
“She wept?” His rumble was like that of a bull, deep, low-pitched and stormy. He was the 
general of the mercenaries, one of the few even of Constantius’s associates who knew the 
secret of the queens of Khauran. 
“Aye, Khumbanigash. There are whole sections of her sensibilities that I have not touched. 
When one sense is dulled by continual laceration, I will discover a newer, more poignant pang. 
Here, dog!” A trembling, shambling figure in rags, filth and matted hair approached, one of the 
beggars that slept in the alleys and open courts. There were many beggars now in Khauran. 
Salome tossed the head to him. “Here, deaf one; cast that in the nearest sewer. Make the sign 
with your hands, Khumbanigash. He can not hear.” 
The general complied, and the tousled head bobbed, as the man turned painfully away. 
“Why do you keep up this farce?” rumbled Khumbanigash. “You are so firmly established on 
the throne that nothing can unseat you. What if the Khaurani fools learn the truth? They can do 
nothing. Proclaim yourself in your true identity! Show them their beloved ex-queen – and cut 
off her head in the public square!” 
“Not yet, good Khumbanigash –” 
The arched door slammed on the hard accents of Salome, the stormy reverberations of 
Khumbanigash. The mute beggar crouched in the courtyard, and there was none to see that the 
hands which held the severed head were quivering strongly – brown, sinewy hands, strangely 
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incongruous with the bent body and filthy tatters. 
“I knew it!” It was a fierce, vibrant whisper, scarcely audible. “She lives! Oh, Krallides, your 
martyrdom was not in vain! They have her locked in that dungeon! Oh, Ishtar, if you love true 
men, aid me now!” 
IV 
WOLVES OF THE DESERT 
Olgerd Vladislav filled his jeweled goblet with crimson wine from a golden jug and thrust the 
vessel across the ebony table to Conan the Cimmerian. Olgerd’s apparel would have satisfied 
the vanity of any Zaporoskan hetman. 
His khalat was of white silk, with pearls sewn on the bosom. Girdled at the waist with a 
Bakhauriot belt, its skirts were drawn back to reveal his wide silken breeches, tucked into short 
boots of soft green leather, adorned with gold thread. On his head was a green silk turban, 
wound about a spired helmet chased with gold. His only weapon was a broad curved Cherkess 
knife in an ivory sheath girdled high on his left hip, kozak fashion. Throwing himself back in 
his gilded chair with its carven eagles, Olgerd spread his booted legs before him, with a gusty 
exhalation of satisfaction, and gulped down the sparkling wine noisily. 
To his splendor the huge Cimmerian opposite him offered a strong contrast, with his square-cut 
black mane, brown scarred countenance and burning blue eyes. He was clad in black meshmail, 
and the only glitter about him was the broad gold buckle of the belt which supported his 
sword in its worn leather scabbard. 
They were alone in the silk-walled tent, which was hung with gilt-worked tapestries and 
littered with rich carpets and velvet cushions, the loot of the caravans. From outside came a 
low, incessant murmur, the sound that always accompanies a great throng of men, in camp or 
otherwise. An occasional gust of desert wind rattled the palm-leaves. 
“Today in the shadow, tomorrow in the sun,” quoth Olgerd, loosening his crimson girdle a 
trifle and reaching again for the wine-jug. “That’s the way of life. Once I was a hetman on the 
Zaporoska; now I’m a desert chief. Seven months ago you were hanging on a cross outside 
Khauran. Now you’re lieutenant to the most powerful raider between Turan and the western 
meadows. You should be thankful to me!” 
“For recognizing my usefulness?” Conan laughed and lifted the jug. “When you allow the 
elevation of a man, one can be sure that you’ll profit by his advancement. I’ve earned 
everything I’ve won, with my blood and sweat.” He glanced at the scars on the insides of his 
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palms. There were scars, too, on his body, scars that had not been there seven months ago. 
“You fight like a regiment of devils,” conceded Olgerd. “But don’t get to thinking that you’ve 
had anything to do with the recruits who’ve swarmed in to join us. It was our success at 
raiding, guided by my wit, that brought them in. These nomads are always looking for a 
successful leader to follow, and they have more faith in a foreigner than in one of their own 
race. 
“There’s no limit to what we may accomplish! We have eleven thousand men now. In another 
year we may have three times that number. We’ve contented ourselves, so far, with raids on the 
Turanian outposts and the city-states to the west. With thirty or forty thousand men we’ll raid 
no longer. We’ll invade and conquer and establish ourselves as rulers. I’ll be emperor of all 
Shem yet, and you’ll be my vizier, as long as you carry out my orders unquestioningly. In the 
meantime, I think we’ll ride eastward and storm that Turanian outpost at Vezek, where the 
caravans pay toll.” 
Conan shook his head. “I think not.” 
Olgerd glared, his quick temper irritated. 
“What do you mean, you think not? I do the thinking for this army!” 
“There are enough men in this band now for my purpose,” answered the Cimmerian. “I’m sick 
of waiting. I have a score to settle.” 
“Oh!” Olgerd scowled, and gulped wine, then grinned. “Still thinking of that cross, eh? Well, I 
like a good hater. But that can wait.” 
“You told me once you’d aid me in taking Khauran,” said Conan. 
“Yes, but that was before I began to see the full possibilities of our power,” answered Olgerd. 
“I was only thinking of the loot in the city. I don’t want to waste our strength unprofitably. 
Khauran is too strong a nut for us to crack now. Maybe in a year –” 
“Within the week,” answered Conan, and the kozak stared at the certainty in his voice. 
“Listen,” said Olgerd, “even if I were willing to throw away men on such a hare-brained 
attempt – what could you expect? Do you think these wolves could besiege and take a city like 
Khauran?” 
“There’ll be no siege,” answered the Cimmerian. “I know how to draw Constantius out into the 
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plain.” 
“And what then?” cried Olgerd with an oath. “In the arrow-play our horsemen would have the 
worst of it, for the armor of the asshuri is the better, and when it came to sword-strokes their 
close-marshalled ranks of trained swordsmen would cleave through our loose lines and scatter 
our men like chaff before the wind.” 
“Not if there were three thousand desperate Hyborian horsemen fighting in a solid wedge such 
as I could teach them,” answered Conan. 
“And where would you secure three thousand Hyborians?” asked Olgerd with vast sarcasm. 
“Will you conjure them out of the air?” 
“I have them,” answered the Cimmerian imperturbably. “Three thousand men of Khauran 
camp at the oasis of Akrel awaiting my orders.” 
“What?” Olgerd glared like a startled wolf. 
“Aye. Men who had fled from the tyranny of Constantius. Most of them have been living the 
lives of outlaws in the deserts east of Khauran, and are gaunt and hard and desperate as maneating 
tigers. One of them will be a match for any three squat mercenaries. It takes oppression 
and hardship to stiffen men’s guts and put the fire of hell into their thews. They were broken up 
into small bands; all they needed was a leader. They believed the word I sent them by my 
riders, and assembled at the oasis and put themselves at my disposal.” 
“All this without my knowledge?” A feral light began to gleam in Olgerd’s eyes. He hitched at 
his weapon-girdle. 
“It was I they wished to follow, not you.” 
“And what did you tell these outcasts to gain their allegiance?” There was a dangerous ring in 
Olgerd’s voice. 
“I told them that I’d use this horde of desert wolves to help them destroy Constantius and give 
Khauran back into the hands of its citizens.” 
“You fool!” whispered Olgerd. “Do you deem yourself chief already?” 
The men were on their feet, facing one another across the ebony board, devil-lights dancing in 
Olgerd’s cold grey eyes, a grim smile on the Cimmerian’s hard lips. 
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“I’ll have you torn between four palm trees,” said the kozak calmly. 
“Call the men and bid them do it!” challenged Conan. “See if they obey you!” 
Baring his teeth in a snarl, Olgerd lifted his hand – then paused. There was something about the 
confidence in the Cimmerian’s dark face that shook him. His eyes began to burn like those of a 
wolf. 
“You scum of the western hills,” he muttered. “Have you dared seek to undermine my power?” 
“I didn’t have to,” answered Conan. “You lied when you said I had nothing to do with bringing 
in the new recruits. I had everything to do with it. They took your orders, but they fought for 
me. There is not room for two chiefs of the Zuagirs. They know I am the stronger man. I 
understand them better than you, and they, me; because I am a barbarian too.” 
“And what will they say when you ask them to fight for the Khaurani?” asked Olgerd 
sardonically. 
“They’ll follow me. I’ll promise them a camel-train of gold from the palace. Khauran will be 
willing to pay that as a guerdon for getting rid of Constantius. After that, I’ll lead them against 
the Turanians as you have planned. They want loot, and they’d as soon fight Constantius for it 
as anybody.” 
In Olgerd’s eyes grew a recognition of defeat. In his red dreams of empire he had missed what 
was going on about him. Happenings and events that had seemed meaningless before now 
flashed into his mind, with their true significance, bringing a realization that Conan spoke no 
idle boast. The giant black-mailed figure before him was the real chief of the Zuagirs. 
“Not if you die!” muttered Olgerd, and his hand flickered toward his hilt. But quick as the 
stroke of a great cat Conan’s arm shot across the table and his fingers locked on Olgerd’s 
forearm. There was a distinct snap of breaking bones, and for a tense instant the scene held: the 
men facing one another as motionless as images, perspiration starting out on Olgerd’s forehead. 
Conan laughed, never easing his grip on the broken arm. 
“Are you fit to live, Olgerd?” 
His smile did not alter as the corded muscles rippled in knotting ridges along his forearm and 
his fingers ground into the kozak’s quivering flesh. There was the sound of broken bones 
grating together and Olgerd’s face turned the color of ashes; blood oozed from his lip where his 
teeth sank, but he uttered no sound. 
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With a laugh Conan released him and drew back, and the kozak swayed, caught the table edge 
with his good hand to steady himself. 
“I give you life, Olgerd, as you gave it to me,” said Conan tranquilly. “Though it was for your 
own ends that you took me down from the cross. It was a bitter test you gave me then; you 
couldn’t have endured it; neither could any one, but a western barbarian. 
“Take your horse and go. It’s tied behind the tent, and food and water are in the saddle-bags. 
None will see your going, but go quickly. There’s no room for a fallen chief on the desert. If 
the warriors see you, maimed and deposed, they’ll never let you leave the camp alive.” 
Olgerd did not reply. Slowly, without a word, he turned and stalked across the tent, through the 
flapped opening. Unspeaking he climbed into the saddle of the great white stallion that stood 
tethered there in the shade of a spreading palm-tree; and unspeaking, with his broken arm 
thrust in the bosom of his khalat, he reined the steed about and rode eastward into the open 
desert, out of the life of the people of the Zuagir. 
Inside the tent Conan emptied the wine-jug and smacked his lips with relish. Tossing the empty 
vessel into a corner, he braced his belt and strode out through the front opening, halting for a 
moment to let his gaze sweep over the lines of camel-hair tents that stretched before him, and 
the white-robed figures that moved among them, arguing, singing, mending bridles or whetting 
tulwars. 
He lifted his voice in a thunder that carried to the farthest confines of the encampment: “Aie, 
you dogs, sharpen your ears and listen! Gather around here. I have a tale to tell you.” 
V
THE VOICE FROM THE CRYSTAL 
In a chamber in a tower near the city wall a group of men listened attentively to the words of 
one of their number. They were young men, but hard and sinewy, with the bearing that comes 
only to men rendered desperate by adversity. They were clad in mail shirts and worn leather, 
swords hung at their girdles. 
“I knew that Conan spoke the truth when he said it was not Taramis!” the speaker exclaimed. 
“For months I have haunted the outskirts of the palace, playing the part of a deaf beggar. At 
last I learned what I had believed – that our queen was a prisoner in the dungeons that adjoin 
the palace. I watched my opportunity and captured a Shemitish gaoler – knocked him senseless 
as he left the courtyard late one night – dragged him into a cellar nearby and questioned him. 
Before he died he told me what I have just told you, and what we have suspected all along – 
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that the woman ruling Khauran is a witch: Salome. Taramis, he said, is imprisoned in the 
lowest dungeon in the prison. 
“This invasion of the Zuagirs gives us the opportunity we sought. What Conan means to do, I 
can not say. Perhaps he merely wishes vengeance on Constantius. Perhaps he intends sacking 
the city and destroying it. He is a barbarian and no one can understand their minds. 
“But this is what we must do: rescue Taramis while the battle rages! Constantius will march 
out into the plain to give battle. Even now his men are mounting. He will do this because there 
is not sufficient food in the city to stand a siege. Conan burst out of the desert so suddenly that 
there was no time to bring in supplies. And the Cimmerian is equipped for a siege. Scouts have 
reported that the Zuagirs have siege engines, built, undoubtedly, according to the instructions 
of Conan, who learned all the arts of war among the western nations. 
“Constantius does not desire a long siege; so he will march with his warriors into the plain, 
where he expects to scatter Conan’s forces at one stroke. He will leave only a few hundred men 
in the city, and they will be on the walls and in the towers commanding the gates. 
“The prison will be left all but unguarded. When we have freed Taramis our next actions will 
depend upon circumstances. If Conan wins, we must show Taramis to the people and bid them 
rise – they will! Oh, they will! With their bare hands they are enough to overpower the 
Shemites left in the city and close the gates, against both the mercenaries and the nomads! 
Neither must get within the walls! Then we will parley with Conan. He was always loyal to 
Taramis. If he knows the truth, and she appeals to him, I believe he will spare the city. If, 
which is more probable, Constantius prevails, and Conan is routed, we must steal out of the 
city with the queen and seek safety in flight. 
“Is all clear?” 
They replied with one voice. 
“Then let us loosen our blades in our scabbards, commend our souls to Ishtar, and start for the 
prison, for the mercenaries are already marching through the southern gate.” 
This was true. The dawnlight glinted on peaked helmets pouring in a steady stream through the 
broad arch, on the bright housings of the chargers. This would be a battle of horsemen, such as 
is possible only in the lands of the east. The riders flowed through the gates like a river of steel 
– somber figures in black and silver mail, with their curled beards and hooked noses, and their 
inexorable eyes in which glimmered the fatality of their race – the utter lack of doubt or of 
mercy. 
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The streets and the walls were lined with throngs of people who watched silently these warriors 
of an alien race riding forth to defend their native city. There was no sound; dully, 
expressionless they watched, those gaunt people in shabby garments, their caps in their hands. 
In a tower that overlooked the broad street that led to the southern gate, Salome lolled on a 
velvet couch cynically watching Constantius as he settled his broad sword-belt about his lean 
hips and drew on his gauntlets. They were alone in the chamber. Outside, the rhythmical clank 
of harness and shuffle of horses’ hoofs welled up through the gold-barred casements. 
“Before nightfall,” quoth Constantius, giving a twirl to his thin moustache, “you’ll have some 
captives to feed to your temple-devil. Does it not grow weary of soft, city-bred flesh? Perhaps 
it would relish the harder thews of a desert man.” 
“Take care you do not fall prey to a fiercer beast than Thaug,” warned the girl. “Do not forget 
who it is that leads these desert animals.” 
“I am not likely to forget,” he answered. “That is one reason why I am advancing to meet him. 
The dog has fought in the west and knows the art of siege. My scouts had some trouble in 
approaching his columns – for his outriders have eyes like hawks – but they did get close 
enough to see the engines he is dragging on ox-cart wheels drawn by camels – catapults, rams, 
ballistas, mangonels – by Ishtar, he must have had ten thousand men working day and night for 
a month. Where he got the material for their construction is more than I can understand. 
Perhaps he has a treaty with the Turanians, and gets supplies from them. 
“Anyway, they won’t do him any good. I’ve fought these desert-wolves before – an exchange 
of arrows for awhile, in which the armor of my warriors protects them – then a charge and my 
squadrons sweep through the loose swarms of the nomads, wheel and sweep back through, 
scattering them to the four winds. I’ll ride back through the south gate before sunset, with 
hundreds of naked captives staggering at my horse’s tail. We’ll hold a fete tonight, in the great 
square. My soldiers delight in flaying their enemies alive – we will have a whole-sale skinning, 
and make these weak-kneed townsfolk watch. As for Conan, it will afford me intense pleasure, 
if we take him alive, to impale him on the palace steps.” 
“Skin as many as you like,” answered Salome indifferently. “I would like a dress made of 
human hide, carefully tanned. But at least a hundred captives you must give to me – for the 
altar, and for Thaug.” 
“It shall be done,” answered Constantius, with his gauntleted hand brushing back the thin hair 
from his high bald forehead, burned dark by the sun. “For victory and the fair honor of 
Taramis!” he said sardonically, and, taking his vizored helmet under his arm, he lifted a hand in 
salute, and strode clanking from the chamber. His voice drifted back, harshly lifted in orders to 
his officers. 
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Salome leaned back on the couch, yawned, stretched herself like a great supple cat, and called: 
“Zang!” 
A cat-footed priest, with features like yellowed parchment stretched over a skull, entered 
noiselessly. 
Salome turned to an ivory pedestal on which stood two crystal globes, and taking from it the 
smaller, she handed the glistening sphere to the priest. 
“Ride with Constantius,” she said. “Give me the news of the battle. Go!” 
The skull-faced man bowed low, with understanding, and hiding the globe under his dark 
mantle, hurried from the chamber. 
Outside in the city there was no sound, except the clank of hoofs and after awhile the clang of a 
closing gate. Salome mounted a wide marble stair that led to the flat, canopied, marblebattlemented 
roof. She was above all other buildings of the city. The streets were deserted, the 
great square in front of the palace was empty. In normal times folk shunned the grim temple 
which rose on the opposite side of that square, but now the town looked like a dead city. Only 
on the southern wall and the roofs that overlooked it was there any sign of life. There the 
people massed thickly. They made no demonstration, did not know whether to hope for the 
victory or defeat of Constantius. Victory meant further misery under his intolerable rule; defeat 
probably meant the sack of the city and red massacre. No word had come from Conan. They 
did not know what to expect at his hands. They remembered that he was a barbarian. The 
silence of those clustered masses was oppressive, almost uncanny. 
The squadrons of the mercenaries were moving out into the plain. In the distance, just this side 
of the river, other dark masses were moving, barely recognizable as men on horses. Objects 
dotted the further bank; Conan had not brought his siege engines across the river, apparently 
fearing an attack in the midst of the crossing. But he had crossed with his full force of 
horsemen. The sun rose and struck glints of fire from the dark multitudes. The squadrons from 
the city broke into a gallop; a deep roar reached the ears of the people on the wall. 
The rolling masses merged, intermingled; at that distance it was a tangled confusion in which 
no details stood out. Charge and counter-charge were not to be identified. Clouds of dust rose 
from the plains, under the stamping hoofs, veiling the action. Through these swirling clouds 
masses of riders loomed, appearing and disappearing, and spears flashed. 
Salome shrugged her shoulders and descended the stair. The palace lay silent. All the slaves 
were on the wall, gazing vainly southward with the citizens. 
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She entered the chamber where she had talked with Constantius, and approached the pedestal, 
noting that the crystal globe was clouded, shot with bloody streaks of crimson. She bent over 
the ball, swearing under her breath. 
“Zang!” she called. “Zang!” 
Mists swirled in the sphere, resolving themselves into billowing dust-clouds through which 
black figures rushed unrecognizably; steel glinted like lightning in the murk. Then the face of 
Zang leaped into startling distinctness; it was as if the wide eyes gazed up at Salome. Blood 
trickled from a gash in the skull-like head, the skin was grey with sweat-runnelled dust. The 
lips parted, writhing; to other ears than Salome’s it would have seemed that the face in the 
crystal contorted silently. But to her sound came as plainly from those ashen lips as if the priest 
had been in the same room with her, instead of miles away, shouting into the smaller crystal. 
Only the gods of darkness knew what unseen, magic filaments linked together those 
shimmering spheres. 
“Salome!” shrieked the bloody head. “Salome!” 
“I hear!” she cried. “Speak! How goes the battle?” 
“Doom is upon us!” screamed the skull-like apparition. “Khauran is lost! Aie, my horse is 
down and I can not win clear! Men are falling around me! They are dying like flies, in their 
silvered mail!” 
“Stop yammering and tell me what happened!” she cried harshly. 
“We rode at the desert-dogs and they came on to meet us!” yowled the priest. “Arrows flew in 
clouds between the hosts and the nomads wavered. Constantius ordered the charge. In even 
ranks we thundered upon them. 
“Then the masses of their horde opened to right and left, and through the cleft rushed three 
thousand Hyborian horsemen whose presence we had not even suspected. Men of Khauran, 
mad with hate! Big men in full armor on massive horses! In a solid wedge of steel they smote 
us like a thunderbolt. They split our ranks asunder before we knew what was upon us, and then 
the desert-men swarmed on us from either flank. 
“They have ripped our ranks apart, broken and scattered us! It is a trick of that devil Conan! 
The siege engines are false – mere frames of palm trunks and painted silk, that fooled our 
scouts who saw them from afar. A trick to draw us out to our doom! Our warriors flee! 
Khumbanigash is down – Conan slew him. I do not see Constantius. The Khaurani rage 
through our milling masses like blood-mad lions, and the desert-men feather us with arrows. I – 
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ahhh!” 
There was a flicker as of lightning, or trenchant steel, a burst of bright blood – then abruptly 
the image vanished, like a bursting bubble, and Salome was staring into an empty crystal ball 
that mirrored only her own furious features. 
She stood perfectly still for a few moments, erect and staring into space. Then she clapped her 
hands and another skull-like priest entered, as silent and immobile as the first. 
“Constantius is beaten,” she said swiftly. “We are doomed. Conan will be crashing at our gates 
within the hour. If he catches me, I have no illusions as to what I can expect. But first I am 
going to make sure that my cursed sister never ascends the throne again. Follow me! Come 
what may, we shall give Thaug a feast.” 
As she descended the stairs and galleries of the palace, she heard a faint rising echo from the 
distant walls. The people there had begun to realize that the battle was going against 
Constantius. Through the dust clouds masses of horsemen were visible, racing toward the city. 
Palace and prison were connected by a long closed gallery, whose vaulted roof rose on gloomy 
arches. Hurrying along this, the false queen and her slave passed through a heavy door at the 
other end that let them into the dim-lit recesses of the prison. They had emerged into a wide, 
arched corridor at a point near where a stone stair descended into the darkness. Salome recoiled 
suddenly, swearing. In the gloom of the hall lay a motionless form – a Shemitish gaoler, his 
short beard tilted toward the roof as his head hung on a half-severed neck. As panting voices 
from below reached the girl’s ears, she shrank back into the black shadow of an arch, pushing 
the priest behind her, her hand groping in her girdle. 
VI 
THE VULTURE’S WINGS 
It was the smoky light of a torch which roused Taramis, queen of Khauran, from the slumber in 
which she sought forgetfulness. Lifting herself on her hand she raked back her tangled hair and 
blinked up, expecting to meet the mocking countenance of Salome, malign with new torments. 
Instead a cry of pity and horror reached her ears. 
“Taramis! Oh, my queen!” 
The sound was so strange to her ears that she thought she was still dreaming. Behind the torch 
she could make out figures now, the glint of steel, then five countenances bent toward her, not 
swarthy and hook-nosed, but lean, aquiline faces, browned by the sun. She crouched in her 
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tatters, staring wildly. 
One of the figures sprang forward and fell on one knee before her, arms stretched appealingly 
toward her. 
“Oh, Taramis! Thank Ishtar we have found you! Do you not remember me, Valerius? Once 
with your own lips you praised me, after the battle of Korveka!” 
“Valerius!” she stammered. Suddenly tears welled into her eyes. “Oh, I dream! It is some 
magic of Salome’s, to torment me!” 
“No!” The cry rang with exultation. “It is your own true vassals come to rescue you! Yet we 
must hasten. Constantius fights in the plain against Conan, who has brought the Zuagirs across 
the river, but three hundred Shemites yet hold the city. We slew the gaoler and took his keys, 
and have seen no other guards. But we must begone. Come!” 
The queen’s legs gave way, not from weakness but from the reaction. Valerius lifted her like a 
child, and with the torch-bearer hurrying before them, they left the dungeon and went up a 
slimy stone stair. It seemed to mount endlessly, but presently they emerged into a wide corridor 
and started down it. 
They were passing a dark arch when the torch was suddenly struck out, and the bearer cried out 
in fierce, brief agony. A burst of blue fire glared in the dark corridor, in which the furious face 
of Salome was limned momentarily, with a beast-like figure crouching beside her – then the 
eyes of the watchers were blinded by that blaze. 
Valerius tried to stagger along the corridor with the queen; dazedly he heard the sound of 
murderous blows driven deep in flesh, accompanied by gasps of death and a bestial grunting. 
Then the queen was torn brutally from his arms, and a savage blow on his helmet dashed him 
to the floor. 
Grimly he crawled to his feet, shaking his head in an effort to rid himself of the blue flame 
which seemed still to dance devilishly before him. When his blinded sight cleared, he found 
himself alone in the corridor – alone except for the dead. His four companions lay in their 
blood, heads and bosoms cleft and gashed. Blinded and dazed in that hell-born glare, they had 
died without an opportunity of defending themselves. The queen was gone. 
With a bitter, poignant curse Valerius caught up his sword, tearing his cleft helmet from his 
head to clatter on the flags; blood ran down his cheek from a cut in his scalp. 
Reeling, frantic with indecision, he heard a voice calling his name in desperate urgency: 
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“Valerius! Valerius!” 
He staggered in the direction of the voice, and rounded a corner just in time to have his arms 
filled with a soft, supple figure which flung itself frantically at him. 
“Ivga! Are you mad!” 
“I had to come!” she sobbed. “I followed you – hid in an arch of the outer court. A moment ago 
I saw her emerge with a brute who carried a woman in his arms. I knew it was Taramis, and 
that you had failed! Oh, you are hurt!” 
“A scratch!” He put aside her clinging hands. “Quick, Ivga, tell me which way they went!” 
“They fled across the square toward the temple.” 
He paled. “Ishtar! Oh, the fiend! She means to give Taramis to the devil she worships! Quick, 
Ivga! Run to the south wall where the people watch the battle! Tell them that their real queen 
has been found – that the impostor has dragged her to the temple! Go!” 
Sobbing, the girl sped away, her light sandals pattering on the cobble-stones, and Valerius 
raced across the court, plunged into the street, dashed into the square upon which it debouched, 
and raced for the great structure that rose on the opposite side. 
His flying feet spurned the marble as he darted up the broad stair and through the pillared 
portico. Evidently their prisoner had given them some trouble. Taramis, sensing the doom 
intended for her, was fighting against it with all the strength of her splendid young body. Once 
she had broken away from the brutish priest, only to be dragged down again. 
The group was half way down the broad nave, at the other end of which stood the grim altar 
and beyond that the great metal door, obscenely carven, through which many had gone, but 
from which only Salome had ever emerged. Taramis’s breath came in panting gasps; her 
tattered garment had been torn from her in the struggle. She writhed in the grasp of her apish 
captor like a white, naked nymph in the arms of a satyr. Salome watched cynically, though 
impatiently, moving toward the carven door, and from the dusk that lurked along the lofty 
walls the obscene gods and gargoyles leered down, as if imbued with salacious life. 
Choking with fury Valerius rushed down the great hall sword in hand. At a sharp cry from 
Salome, the skull-faced priest looked up, then released Taramis, drew a heavy knife, already 
smeared with blood, and ran at the oncoming Khaurani. 
But cutting down men blinded by the devil’s-flame loosed by Salome was different from 
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fighting a wiry young Hyborian afire with hate and rage. 
Up went the dripping knife, but before it could fall Valerius’s long keen narrow blade slashed 
through the air, and the fist that held the knife jumped from its wrist in a shower of blood. 
Valerius, berserk, slashed again and yet again before the crumpling figure could fall. The blade 
licked through flesh and bone. The skull-like head fell one way, the half-sundered torso the 
other. 
Valerius whirled on his toes, quick and fierce as a jungle-cat, glaring about for Salome. She 
must have exhausted her fire-dust in the prison. She was bending over Taramis, grasping her 
sister’s black locks in one hand, in the other lifting a dagger. Then with a fierce cry Valerius’s 
sword was sheathed in her breast with such fury that the point sprang out between her 
shoulders. With an awful shriek the witch sank down, writhing in convulsions, grasping at the 
naked blade as it was withdrawn, smoking and dripping. Her eyes were unhuman; with a more 
than human vitality she clung to the life that ebbed through the wound that split the crimson 
crescent on her ivory bosom. She grovelled on the floor, clawing and biting at the naked stones 
in her agony. 
Sickened at the sight, Valerius stooped and lifted the half-fainting queen. Turning his back on 
the twisting figure upon the floor, he ran toward the door, stumbling in his haste. He staggered 
out upon the portico, halted at the head of the steps. The square thronged with people. Some 
had come at Ivga’s incoherent cries; others had deserted the walls in fear of the onsweeping 
hordes out of the desert, fleeing unreasoningly toward the center of the city. Dumb resignation 
had vanished. The throng seethed and milled, yelling and screaming. About the road there 
sounded somewhere the splintering of stone and timbers. 
A band of grim Shemites cleft the crowd – the guards of the northern gates, hurrying toward 
the south gate to reinforce their comrades there. They reined up short at the sight of the youth 
on the steps, holding the limp, naked figure in his arms. The heads of the throng turned toward 
the temple; the crowd gaped, a new bewilderment added to their swirling confusion. 
“Here is your queen!” yelled Valerius, straining to make himself understood above the clamor. 
The people gave back a bewildered roar. They did not understand, and Valerius sought in vain 
to lift his voice above their bedlam. The Shemites rode toward the temple steps, beating a way 
through the crowd with their spears. 
Then a new, grisly element introduced itself into the frenzy. Out of the gloom of the temple 
behind Valerius wavered a slim white figure, laced with crimson. The people screamed; there 
in the arms of Valerius hung the woman they thought their queen; yet there in the temple door 
staggered another figure, like a reflection of the other. Their brains reeled. Valerius felt his 
blood congeal as he stared at the swaying witch-girl. His sword had transfixed her, sundered 
her heart. She should be dead; by all laws of nature she should be dead. Yet there she swayed, 
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on her feet, clinging horribly to life. 
“Thaug!” she screamed, reeling in the doorway. “Thaug!” As in answer to that frightful 
invocation there boomed a thunderous croaking from within the temple, the snapping and 
cracking of wood and metal. 
“That is the queen!” roared the captain of the Shemites, lifting his bow. “Shoot down the man 
and the other woman!” 
But the roar of a roused hunting-pack rose from the people; they had guessed the truth at last, 
understood Valerius’s frenzied appeals, knew that the girl who hung limply in his arms was 
their true queen. With a soul-shaking yell they surged on the Shemites, tearing and smiting 
with tooth and nail and naked hands, with the desperation of hard-pent fury loosed at last. 
Above them Salome swayed and tumbled down the marble stair, dead at last. 
Arrows flickered about him as Valerius ran back between the pillars of the portico, shielding 
the body of the queen with his own. Shooting and slashing ruthlessly the mounted Shemites 
were holding their own with the maddened crowd. Valerius darted to the temple door – with 
one foot on the threshold he recoiled, crying out in horror and despair. 
Out of the gloom at the other end of the great hall a vast dark form heaved up – came rushing 
toward him in gigantic frog-like hops. He saw the gleam of great unearthly eyes, the shimmer 
of fangs or talons. He fell back from the door, and then the whir of a shaft past his ear warned 
him that death was also behind him. He wheeled desperately. Four or five Shemites had cut 
their way through the throng and were spurring their horses up the steps, their bows lifted to 
shoot him down. He sprang behind a pillar, on which the arrows splintered. Taramis had 
fainted. She hung like a dead woman in his arms. 
Before the Shemites could loose again, the doorway was blocked by a gigantic shape. With 
affrighted yells the mercenaries wheeled and began beating a frantic way through the throng, 
which crushed back in sudden, galvanized horror, trampling one another in their stampede. 
But the monster seemed to be watching Valerius and the girl. Squeezing its vast, unstable bulk 
through the door, it bounded toward him, as he ran down the steps. He felt it looming behind 
him, a giant shadowy thing, like a travesty of nature cut out of the heart of night, a black 
shapelessness in which only the staring eyes and gleaming fangs were distinct. 
There came a sudden thunder of hoofs; a rout of Shemites, bloody and battered, streamed 
across the square from the south, ploughing blindly through the packed throng. Behind them 
swept a horde of horsemen yelling in a familiar tongue, waving red swords – the exiles, 
returned! With them rode fifty black-bearded desert-riders, and at their head a giant figure in 
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black mail. 
“Conan!” shrieked Valerius. “Conan!” 
The giant yelled a command. Without checking their headlong pace, the desert men lifted their 
bows, drew and loosed. A cloud of arrows sang across the square, over the seething heads of 
the multitude, and sank feather-deep in the black monster. It halted, wavered, reared, a black 
blot against the marble pillars. Again the sharp cloud sang, and yet again, and the horror 
collapsed and rolled down the steps, as dead as the witch who had summoned it out of the night 
of ages. 
Conan drew rein beside the portico, leaped off. Valerius had laid the queen on the marble, 
sinking beside her in utter exhaustion. The people surged about, crowding in. The Cimmerian 
cursed them back, lifted her dark head, pillowed it against his mailed shoulder. 
“By Crom, what is this? The real Taramis! Aye, by the gods! But who is that yonder?” 
“The demon who wore her shape,” panted Valerius. 
Conan swore heartily. Ripping a cloak from the shoulders of a soldier, he wrapped it about the 
naked queen. Her long dark lashes quivered on her cheeks; her eyes opened, stared up 
unbelievingly into the Cimmerian’s scarred face. 
“Conan!” Her soft fingers caught at his rugged hands. “Do I dream? She told me you were dead 
–” 
“Scarcely!” He grinned hardly. “You do not dream. You are queen of Khauran again. I broke 
Constantius, out there by the river. Most of his dogs never lived to reach the walls, for I gave 
orders that no prisoners be taken – except Constantius. The city-guard closed the gate in our 
faces, but we burst it in with rams swung from our saddles. I left all my wolves outside, except 
this fifty. I didn’t trust them in here, and these Khaurani lads were enough for the gate-guards.” 
“It has been a nightmare!” she whimpered. “Oh, my poor people! You must help me try to 
repay them for all they have suffered, Conan, henceforth councillor as well as captain!” 
Conan laughed, but shook his head. Rising, he set the queen upon her feet, and beckoned to a 
number of his Khaurani horsemen who had not continued the pursuit of the fleeing Shemites. 
They sprang from their horses, eager to do the bidding of their new-found queen. 
“No, lass, that’s over with. I’m chief of the Zuagirs now, and must lead them to plunder the 
Turanians, as I promised. This lad, Valerius, will make you a better captain than I. I wasn’t 
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made to dwell among marble walls, anyway. But I must leave you now, and complete what 
I’ve begun. Shemites still live in Khauran.” 
As Valerius started to follow Taramis across the square toward the palace, through a lane 
opened by the wildly cheering multitude, he felt a soft hand slipped timidly into his sinewy 
fingers and turned to receive the slender body of Ivga in his arms. He crushed her to him and 
drank her kisses with the gratitude of a weary fighter who has attained rest at last through 
tribulation and storm. 
But not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the spirit of the storm in their blood, 
restless harbingers of violence and bloodshed, knowing no other path……… 
The sun was rising. The ancient caravan road was throng with white-robed horsemen, in a 
wavering line that stretched from the walls of Khauran to a spot far out in the plain. Conan the 
Cimmerian sat at the head of that column, near the jagged end of a wooden beam that stuck up 
out of the ground. Near that stump rose a heavy cross, and on that cross a man hung by spikes 
through his hands and feet. 
“Seven months ago, Constantius,” said Conan, “it was I who hung there, and you who sat here.” 
Constantius did not reply; he licked his grey lips and his eyes were glassy with pain and fear. 
Muscles writhed like cords along his lean body. 
“You are more fit to inflict torture than to endure it,” said Conan tranquilly. “I hung here on a 
cross as you are hanging, and I lived, thanks to circumstances and a stamina peculiar to 
barbarians. But you civilized men are soft; your lives are not nailed to your spines as are ours. 
Your fortitude consists mainly in inflicting torment, not in enduring it. You will be dead before 
sundown. And so, Falcon of the desert, I leave you to the companionship of another bird of the 
desert.” 
He gestured toward the vultures whose shadows swept across the sands as they wheeled 
overhead. From the lips of Constantius came an inhuman cry of despair and horror. 
Conan lifted his reins and rode toward the river that shone like silver in the morning sun. 
Behind him the white-clad riders struck into a trot; the gaze of each, as he passed a certain spot, 
turned impersonally and with the desert man’s lack of compassion toward the cross and the 
gaunt figure that hung there, black against the sunrise. Their horses’ hoofs beat out a knell in 
the dust. Lower and lower swept the wings of the hungry vultures. 
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Miscellanea 
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Untitled Synopsis 
(The People of the Black Circle) 
The king of Vendhya, Bundha Chand, died in his palace in the royal city of Ayodhya. His 
young sister, Yasmina Devi, could not understand why he should die, since he had neither been 
poisoned nor wounded. As he died he called to her with a far away voice that seemed to come 
from beyond wind-blown gulfs, and said that his soul had been trapped by wizards in a stone 
room on a high mountain in the night where the wind roared among peaks that shouldered the 
stars. They were drawing his soul into the body of a foul night-weird, and in a moment of 
lucidity, he begged her to plunge her jewel-hilted golden-guarded dagger into his heart, to send 
his soul to Asura before the wizards could draw it back to the tower on the mountain crag. 
While he was dying, temple gongs and conch shells brayed and thundered in the city, and in a 
room whose latticed balcony overlooked a long street where torches tossed luridly, a man who 
called himself Kerim Shah, a noble of Iranistan, watched the wailing thousands cryptically, and 
speaking to a man in a plain camel-hair robe, called Khemsa, asked him why the destruction of 
the young king could not have been thus accomplished months or years ago. To which Khemsa 
answered that even magic was governed by the stars. The stars were properly placed for the 
destruction of Bhunda Chand – the Serpent in the House of the King. He said that a lock of the 
king’s black hair had been obtained and sent by a camel caravan across the Jhumda River, to 
Peshkhauri which guards the Zhaibar Pass, up the Zhaibar into the hills of Ghulistan. The lock 
of hair, in a golden case crusted with jewels, had been stolen from a princess of Khosala, who 
had vainly loved Bhunda Chand, begging from him this small token. With this lock of hair 
forming a point of contact between himself and them – for discarded portions of the human 
body have invisible connections with the living body – a cult of wizards called Rakhashas, and 
by themselves the Black Seers, had performed a sorcery which robbed the young king of life, 
and almost his soul. Kerim Shah revealed in his conversation, what Khemsa already knew, that 
he was not a prince from Iranistan, but a Hyrcanian, a chief of Turan, and emissary of 
Yezdigerd, king of Turan, and the mightiest emperor of the East, reigning on the shores of the 
Sea of Vilayet. Bhunda Chand had defeated the Turanians in a great battle on the River 
Jhumda. Yezdigerd, plotting his destruction, had sent Kerim Shah to Vendhya, to try to 
conquer the Kshatriya warriors by sorcery where force had not succeeded. Meanwhile, in the 
palace, Yasmini Devi had stabbed her brother to save his soul, and then fallen prostrate on the 
reed-strown floor, while outside the priests howled and slashed themselves with copper 
daggers, and the gongs thundered with a strident clamor. Then the scene shifted to Peshkhauri 
in the shadow of the mountains of Ghulistan. The tribes of Ghulistan were kin to those of 
Iranistan, but more untamed. The armies of Turan had marched through their valleys but had 
not conquered the hill tribes. The chief cities, Hirut, Secunderam, Bhalkhan, were in the hands 
of the Turanians but Khahabhul, where dwelt the king of Ghulistan, whose rule the tribes 
seldom acknowledge, was free, and the Turanians made no attempt to tax or otherwise oppress 
the mountain tribes. The governor of Peshkhauri had captured seven Afghulis, and according to 
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instructions from Ayodhya, had sent word into the mountains that their chief, Conan, a 
wanderer from the west who had become a notable bandit in the hills, should come and himself 
bargain for their release. But Conan was wary, for the Kshatriyas had not always kept their 
bargains with the hill tribes. On a night the governor was in his chamber the wide window of 
which, open to allow the cool mountain breeze to temper the heat of the plains, was adjacent to 
a battlement. Through it he could see the blue Himelian night, dotted with great white stars. He 
was writing a letter on parchment with a golden pen dipped in the juice of crushed lotos, when 
to him came a masked woman, in filmy gossamer robes which did not conceal the rich silk vest 
and girdle and trousers beneath; her slippers were cloth-of-gold, and her head-dress, supporting 
the veil which fell below her breasts, was bound about with a gold-worked cord, adorned with 
a golden crescent. The governor recognized her as the Devi, and expostulated with her, citing 
the unrest of the hill tribes and the turbulence of their foreign chief, Conan, who had raided to 
the very walls of Peshkhauri. This indeed was not within the walls, but in the great fortress 
outside, near the foothills. She replied that she had learned that her brother’s destruction was 
accomplished by the wizards known as the Black Seers, and since it would be folly to lead a 
Kshatriya army up into the hills, she intended bringing about her vengeance through a chief of 
the tribes. She ordered the governor to demand, as a price for the lives of the seven Afghulis, 
the destruction of the Black Seers. Then she left, but she had not gotten to her apartments when 
she remembered something else she wished to tell him, and she returned. Perhaps she saw a 
stallion tied under the outer wall. Meanwhile, the governor had heard some one drop upon the 
battlement outside from a turret, and the next instant a man sprang through the window, with a 
yard-long Zhaibar knife in his hand, and bade the governor make no sound. It was Conan, the 
chief of the Afghulis; he was a tall, strongly and supply built man, clad like a hillman, which 
attire seemed incongruous, for he was not an Eastern, but a barbaric Cimmerian. He demanded 
what the governor wished with him, and when told, he was suspicious. At that instant the Devi 
entered, the governor cried out her name in his alarm, and Conan, realizing who she was, 
struck the governor down with the hilt of his knife, caught up the Devi, leaped through the 
window onto the parapet, gained his horse and rode for the mountains, shouting in his wild 
exultation. The governor ordered out a party of horsemen in full pursuit. Meanwhile, a girl who 
acted as Khemsa’s spy, took him the word. He and Kerim Shah had followed the Devi to 
Peshkhauri. She urged him to take advantage of his knowledge of the black art – knowledge 
forbidden him by his masters without their permit – and make himself rich. Her idea was that 
they should destroy the seven men in prison – for she knew that part of the ransom Conan 
would demand for the Devi would be their release – and then follow Conan into the mountains 
and take the girl away from him, and collect the ransom themselves. Her idea in destroying the 
prisoners was to gain time for themselves. So he went to the prison and destroyed them by his 
black magic, and he and the girl went into the mountains. In the meantime Kerim Shah had 
heard of the abduction – though the governor tried to keep it a secret – and he sent a rider to 
Secunderam to inform the satrap there, and bid him send a force southward strong enough to 
take the Devi away from the hillmen. He himself went into the hills with some Irakzai 
tribesmen he had bribed. Meanwhile Conan, who was making for the country of the Afghulis, 
which lay adjacent to the Zhaibar Pass, lamed his horse and was pressed so closely by the 
pursuing Kshatriyas that he was forced to take refuge among the Wazulis. The chief of the 
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Wazulis was his friend, but Khemsa, following close, destroyed the chief, and the warriors 
tried to take the Devi from him. After a savage fight Conan won clear, taking her with him, and 
encountering Khemsa, resisted his magic and saw him and the girl destroyed by greater magic. 
The Black Seers were taking notice at last. The girl was taken from him, and carried to their 
tower. He fell in with Kerim Shah, and the Turanian, hearing that the Black Seers had turned 
against him, went with his Irakzais and Conan. In storming the tower, all were destroyed 
except Conan and Kerim Shah. Then they fought for the girl, and Conan won. In the meantime 
the force had advanced from Secunderam and fallen on the Afghulis, taking them by surprize. 
A force of Kshatriyas were advancing up a valley, and the Devi won her freedom by bargaining 
with Conan, and hurling her warriors into the battle to crush and rout the Turanians. Then he 
returned her safely to her people. 
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The Story Thus Far... 
(The October and November 1934 installments of The People of the Black Circle in Weird 
Tales were headed by a short recap of the preceding chapters. Such paragraphs were usually 
written by the magazine’s staff; those for this particular Conan story were written by Howard 
himself, for reasons unknown.) 
(The People of the Black Circle) Robert E. Howard. 
THE STORY THUS FAR. 
Yasmina Devi, queen of Vendhya, sought vengeance for her brother, King Bhunda Chand, who 
had met his death through the sorcery of the Black Seers of Yimsha, magicians who dwelt on a 
mountain in Ghulistan. She did not know that his death was part of a plot of King Yezdigerd of 
Turan to conquer Vendhya. Yezdigerd had enlisted the aid of the Black Seers and sent to 
Vendhya a spy, Kerim Shah, accompanied by Khemsa, an acolyte of the Black Seers, to 
destroy the royal family. 
Yasmina wished to secure the assistance of Conan, a Cimmerian, but chief of the Afghulis of 
Ghulistan, a wild country of barbarians. At her orders the governor of Peshkhauri, a border 
city, captured seven Afghuli headmen and threatened to hang them unless Conan put his forces 
at her disposal. But Conan came to Peshkhauri by night and kidnaped the Devi herself and 
carried her into the hills, as a hostage for the release of his men. 
Gitara, Yasmina’s treacherous maid, persuaded Khemsa to rebel against his masters, the Black 
Seers, and try to capture Yasmina from Conan to wring a huge ransom from Vendhya. Khemsa 
employed his sorcery to kill the seven Afghuli captives, so they could not be used by the 
governor to obtain Yasmina’s release, and with Gitara, followed Conan and his prisoner into 
the hills. Kerim Shah, deserted by Khemsa, despatched a message to to the satrap of 
Secunderam, a Turanian outpost, ordering an army to be sent to Afghulistan to capture the Devi 
from Conan, and rode into the hills with a band of Irakzai, to meet the oncoming army and 
guide it. 
In the meantime Conan, pursued by the governor’s troops, had sought shelter with his friend 
Yar Afzal, chief of the Wazulis. Khemsa killed Yar Afzal with his magic, and tricked the 
Wazulis into attacking Conan, meaning to steal the Devi during the fight. But Conan escaped 
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from the village on Yar Afzal’s black stallion, carrying Yasmina with him, and Khemsa, 
approaching through a defile in the hills, was surprized and knocked down by the rush of the 
horse. The Wazulis, pursuing Conan, attacked Khemsa, who loosed upon them all the horrors 
of his black magic. 
(The People of the Black Circle) Robert E. Howard 
THE STORY THUS FAR. 
(First Eight Chapters.) 
Yasmina Devi, queen of Vendhya, sought vengeance for her brother, who had met his death 
through the sorcery of the Black Seers of Yimsha, magicians who dwelt on a mountain 
Ghulistan, a wild barbaric hill country. 
To secure the assistance of Conan, chief of the Afghulis of that country, she had the governor 
of Peshkhauri capture seven Afghuli headmen as hostages. But Conan kidnaped Yasmina and 
carried her into the mountains. Three others desired to secure possession of Yasmina: Kerim 
Shah, a spy of Yezdigerd, king of Turan, who plotted the conquest of Vendhya; Khemsa, a 
former acolyte of the Black Seers, and his sweetheart, Gitara, Yasmina’s treacherous maid. 
These two wished to wring a huge ransom from Vendhya. 
Khemsa employed his black magic to kill the seven Afghuli headmen so they could not be used 
to buy Yasmina’s release from Conan, and he and he and Gitara followed Conan into the hills. 
Conan, in the meantime, had sought shelter with his friend Yar Afzal, chief of the Wazulis. 
Khemsa killed Yar Afzal with his magic, and tricked the Wazulis into driving Conan from their 
village. He then sought to take Yasmina from Conan, but during a fight between the two, the 
Black Seers themselves arrived on the scene. They destroyed Gitara and Khemsa, and carried 
Yasmina away with them. Before Khemsa died he gave Conan a Stygian girdle of great magic 
powers. 
Conan, riding toward Afghulistan to gather his followers to rescue Yasmina, met five hundred 
of them seeking him. They had learned of the death of the seven headmen, and believed he had 
betrayed them. Escaping from them, he met the spy, Kerim Shah, with a band of Irakzai, riding 
to meet a Turanian army which was forcing its way through the hills to capture Yasmina, 
whom they thought a captive among the Afghulis. 
Striking a temporary truce, Conan and Kerim Shah rode together toward Yimsha. 
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In the meantime Yasmina, in the wizard castle, had met the mysterious figure called the 
Master, who told her she was to be his slave. To terrify her into subjection he forced her to 
relive all her past reincarnations, and when she awoke, she saw a hooded shape near her in the 
gloom. It clasped her in its bony arms, and she screamed to see a fleshless skull grinning from 
the shadow of the hood. 
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Untitled Synopsis 
Amalric, a son of a nobleman of the great house of Valerus, of western Aquilonia, halted at a 
palm-bordered spring in the desolate vastness of the desert that lies south of Stygia, with two 
companions, members of the bandit tribe of Ghanata, a negro race mixed with Shemitish blood. 
The Ghanatas with Amalric were named Gobir, and Saidu. Just at dusk, as they prepared to eat 
their frugal meal of dried dates, the third member of the tribe rode up – Tilutan, a black giant, 
famous for his ferocity and swordsmanship. He carried across his saddle-bow an unconscious 
white girl, whom he had found falling with exhaustion and thirst out on the desert as he hunted 
for the rare desert antelope. He cast the girl down beside the spring and began reviving her. 
Gobir and Saidu watched Amalric, expecting him to try to rescue her, but he feigned 
inidifference, and asked them which would take the girl after Tilutan wearied of her. That 
started an argument, and he cast down a pair of dice, telling them to gamble for her. As they 
crouched over the dice, he drew his sword and split Gobir’s skull. Instantly Saidu attacked him, 
and Tilutan threw down the girl and ran at him, drawing his terrible scimitar. Amalric wheeled 
about, causing Saidu to receive the thrust instead of himself, and hurling the wounded man into 
Tilutan’s arms, grappled with the giant. Tilutan bore Amalric to the earth, and was strangling 
him, and threw him down, and rose to procure his sword and cut off his head. But as he ran at 
him, his girdle became unwound and he tripped and fell over it. His sword flew from his hand 
and Amalric caught it up and slashed his head nearly off. Then he reeled and fell senseless. He 
came to life again with the girl splashing him with water. He found she spoke a language akin 
to the Kothic, and they could understand each other. She said her name was Lissa; she was a 
beautiful youngster, white soft white skin, violet eyes, and dark wavy hair. Her innocence 
shamed the wild young soldier of fortune, and he forwent his intention of raping her. She 
supposed that he had fought his companions merely to rescue her, and he did not disillusion 
her. She said that she was an inhabitant of the city of Gazal, lying not far to the southeast. She 
had run away from Gazal, on foot, her water supply had given out, and she had fainted just as 
she was discovered by Tilutan. Amalric put her on a camel, he mounted a horse – the other 
beasts having broken away and bolted into the desert during the fight – and dawn found them 
approaching Gazal. Amalric was astounded to find the city a mass of ruins, except for a tower 
in the southeastern corner. When he spoke of it, Lissa turned pale, and begged him not to talk 
of it. He found the people were a dreamy, kindly race, without practical sense, much given to 
poetry and day dreams. There were not many of them, and they were a dying race. They had 
come into the desert and built the city over an oasis long ago – a cultured, scholarly race, not 
given to war. They were never attacked by any of the fierce and brutal nomadic tribes, because 
these people looked on Gazal with superstitious awe, and worshipped the thing that lurked in 
the southeastern tower. Amalric told Lissa his story – that he had been a soldier in the army of 
Argos, under the Zingaran Prince Zapayo da Kova, which had sailed in ships down the Kushite 
coast, landed in southern Stygia, and sought to invade the kingdom from that direction, while 
the armies of Koth invaded from the north. But Koth had treacherously made peace with 
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Stygia, and the army in the south was trapped. They found their escape to the sea cut off, and 
tried to fight their way eastward, hoping to gain the lands of the Shemites. But the army was 
annihilated in the desert. Amalric had fled with his companion, Conan, a giant Cimmerian, but 
they had been attacked by a band of wild-riding brown-skinned men of strange dress and 
appearance, and Conan was cut down. Amalric escaped under cover of night, and wandered in 
the desert, suffering from hunger and thirst, until he fell in with the three vultures of the 
Ghanata. He spoke of the unreality of the city of Gazal, and Lissa told him of her childish yet 
passionate desire to break way from the stagnating environment, and see something of the 
world. She gave herself to him as naturally as a child, and as they lay together on a silkcovered 
couch in a chamber lighted only by the starlight, they heard awful cries from a 
building nearby. Amalric would have investigated, but Lissa clung to him, trembling, and told 
him the secret of the lonely tower. There dwelt a supernatural monster, which occasionally 
descended into the city and devoured one of the inhabitants. What the thing was, Lissa did not 
know. But she told of bats flying from the tower at dusk, and returning before dawn, and of 
piteous cries from victims carried up into the mysterious tower. Amalric was unnerved, and 
recognized the thing as a mysterious deity worshipped by certain cults among the negro tribes. 
He urged Lissa to flee with him before dawn – the inhabitants of Gazal had so far lost their 
initiative that they were helpless, unable to fight or flee – like men hypnotized, which the 
young Aquilonian believed to be the case. He went to prepare their mounts, and returning, 
heard Lissa give an awful scream. He rushed into the chamber and found it empty. Sure she 
had been seized by the monster, he rushed to the tower, ascended a stair, and found himself in 
an upper chamber in which he found a white man, of strange beauty. Remembering an ancient 
incantation repeated to him by an old Kushite priest of a rival cult, he repeated it, binding the 
demon into his human form. A terrific battle then ensued, in which he drove his sword through 
the being’s heart. As it died it screamed horribly for vengeance and was answered by voices 
from the air. Then it altered in a hideous manner, and Amalric fled in horror. He met Lissa at 
the foot of the stair. She had been frightened by a glimpse of the creature dragging its human 
prey through the corridors, and had run away in ungovernable panic and hidden herself. 
Realizing that her lover had gone to the tower to seek her, she had come to share his fate. He 
crushed her briefly in his arms, and led her to where he had left their mounts. It was dawn 
when they rode out of the city, she upon the camel and he upon the horse. Looking back on the 
sleeping city, in which there were no animals at all, they saw seven horsemen ride out – black 
robed men on gaunt black horses – following them. Panic assailed them, for they knew those 
were no human riders. All day they pushed their steeds mercilessly, westward, toward the 
distant coast. They found no water, and the horse became exhausted just before sundown. All 
the while the black figures had followed relentlessly, and as dusk fell they began to close in 
rapidly. Amalric knew they were ghoulish creatures summoned from the abyss by the death cry 
of the monster in the tower. As darkness gathered, the pursuers were close upon them. A batshaped 
shadow blotted out the moon, and the fugitives could smell the charnel-house reek of 
their hunters. Suddenly the camel stumbled and fell, and the fiends closed in. Lissa shrieked. 
Then there came a drum of hoofs, a gusty voice roared, and the fiends were swept away by the 
headlong charge of a band of horsemen. The leader of these dismounted and bent over the 
exhausted youth and girl, and as the moon came out, he swore in a familiar voice. It was Conan 
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the Cimmerian. Camp was made and the fugitives given food and drink. The Cimmerian’s 
companions were the wild-looking brown men who had attacked him and Amalric. They were 
the riders of Tombalku, that semi-mythical desert city whose kings had subjugated the tribes of 
the southwestern desert and the negro races of the steppes. Conan told them that he had been 
knocked senseless and carried to the distant city to be exhibited to the kings of Tombalku. 
There were always two of these kings, though one was generally merely a figure-head. Carried 
before the kings, he was doomed to die by torture, and he demanded that liquor be given him, 
and cursed the kings roundly. At that, one of them woke from his drowse with interest. He was 
a big fat negro, while the other was a lean brown-skinned man, named Zehbeh. The negro 
stared at Conan, and greeted him by the name of Amra, the Lion. The black man’s name was 
Sakumbe, and he was an adventurer from the West Coast who had been connected with Conan 
when the latter was a corsair devastating the coast. He had become one of the kings of 
Tombalku partly because of the support of the negro population, partly because of the 
machinations of a fanatical priest, Askia, who had risen to power over Zehbeh’s priest, Daura. 
He had Conan instantly freed, and raised to the high position of general of all the horsemen – 
incidentally having the present incumbent, one Kordofo, poisoned. In Tombalku were various 
factions – Zehbeh and the brown priests, Kordofo’s kin who hated both Zehbeh and Sakumbe, 
and Sakumbe and his supporters, of whom the most powerful was Conan himself. All this 
Conan told Amalric, and the next day they rode on toward Tombalku. Conan had been riding to 
drive from the land the Ghanata thieves. In three days they reached Tombalku, a strange 
fantastic city set in the sands of the desert, beside an oasis of many springs. It was a city of 
many tongues. The dominant caste, the founders of the city, were a warlike brown race, 
descendents of the Aphaki, a Shemitish tribe which pushed into the desert several hundred 
years before, and mixed with the negro races. The subject tribes included the Tibu, a desert 
race, of mixed negro and Stygian blood; and the Bagirmi, Mandingo, Dongola, Bornu, and 
other negro tribes of the grasslands to the south. They arrived in Tombalku in time to witness 
the horrible execution of Daura, the Aphaki priest, by Askia. The Aphaki were enraged, but 
helpless against the determined stand of their black subjects to whom they had taught the arts 
of war. Sakumbe, once a man of remarkable courage, vitality and statescraft, had degenerated 
into a mountainous mass of fat, caring for nothing except women and wine. Conan played dice 
with him, got drunk with him, and suggested that they eliminate Zehbeh entirely. The 
Cimmerian wished to be a king of Tombalku himself. So Askia was persuaded to denounced 
Zehbeh, and in the bloody civil war that followed, the Aphaki were defeated, and Zehbeh fled 
the city with his riders. Conan took his seat beside Sakumbe, but strive as he would, he found 
the negro the real ruler of the city, because of his ascendency over the black races. Meanwhile, 
Askia had been suspicious of Amalric, and he finally denounced him as the slayer of the god 
worshipped by the cult of which he was a priest, and demanded that he and the girl be given to 
the torture. Conan refused, and Sakumbe, completely dominated by the Cimmerian, backed 
him up. Then Askia turned on Sakumbe and destroyed him by means of an awful magic. 
Conan, realizing that with Sakumbe slain, the blacks would rend him and his friends, shouted 
to Amalric, and cut a way through the bewildered warriors. As the companions strove to reach 
the outer walls, Zehbeh and his Aphaki attacked the city, and in a wild holocaust of blood and 
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flame, Tombalku was almost destroyed, and Conan, Amalric and Lissa escaped.
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Untitled Draft 
CHAPTER 1. 
Three men squatted beside the water hole, beneath the sunset sky that painted the desert umber 
and red. One was white, and his name was Amalric; the other two were Ghanatas, their tatters 
scarcely concealing their wiry black frames. Men called them Gobir and Saidu; they looked 
like vultures as they crouched beside the water hole. 
Near by a camel ground its cud noisely, and a pair of weary horses vainly nuzzled the bare 
sand. The men munched dried dates cheerlessly, the black men intent only on the working of 
their jaws, the white man occasionally glancing at the dull red sky, or out across the level 
monotony where the shadows were gathering and deepening. He was first to see the horseman 
who rode up and drew rein with a jerk that set the steed rearing. 
The rider was a giant whose skin, blacker than that of the other two, as well as his thick lips 
and flaring nostrils, told of negro blood in vastly predominating abundance. His wide silk 
pantaloons, gathered in about his bare ankles, were supported by a broad girdle wrapped 
repeatedly about his huge belly; that girdle also supported a flaring-tipped scimitar few men 
could wield with one hand. With that scimitar the man was famed where ever the dark-skinned 
sons of the desert rode. He was Tilutan, the pride of the Ghanata. 
Across his saddle bow a limp shape lay, or rather hung. Breath hissed through the teeth of the 
Ghanatas as they caught the gleam of white limbs. It was a white girl who hung across 
Tilutan’s saddle bow, face down, her loose hair flowing over his stirrup in a rippling black 
wave. The black grinned with a glint of white teeth, and cast her casually in to the sand, where 
she lay laxly, unconscious. Instinctively Gobir and Saidu turned toward Amalric, and Tilutan 
watched him from his saddle. Three black men against one white. The entrance of a white 
woman into the scene wrought a subtle change in the atmosphere. 
Amalric was the only one who was apparently oblivious to the tenseness. He raked back his 
rebellious yellow locks absently, and glanced indifferently at the girl’s limp figure. If there was 
a momentary gleam in his grey eyes, the others did not catch it. 
Tilutan swung down from his saddle, contemptuously tossing the rein to Amalric. 
“Tend my horse,” he said. “By Jhil, I did not find a desert antelope, but I found this little filly. 
She was reeling through the sands, and she fell just as I approached. I think she fainted from 
weariness and thirst. Get away from there, you jackals, and let me give her a drink.” 
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The big black stretched her out beside the water hole, and began laving her face and wrists, and 
trickling a few drops between her parched lips. She moaned presently and stirred vaguely. 
Gobir and Saidu crouched with their hands on their knees, staring at her over Tilutan’s burly 
shoulder. Amalric stood a little apart from them, his interest seeming only casual. 
“She is coming to,” announced Gobir. 
Saidu said nothing, but he licked his thick lips involuntarily, animal-like. 
Amalric’s gaze travelled impersonally over the prostrate form, from the torn sandals to the 
loose crown of glossy black hair. Her only garment was a silk kirtle, girdled at the waist. It left 
her arms, neck and part of her bosom bare, and the skirt ended several inches above her knees. 
On the parts revealed rested the gaze of the Ghanatas with devouring intensity, taking in the 
soft contours, childish in their white tenderness, yet rounded with budding womanhood. 
Amalric shrugged his shoulders. 
“After Tilutan, who?” he asked carelessly. 
A pair of lean heads turned toward him, blood-shot eyes rolled at the question, then the black 
men turned and mutually stared at one another. Sudden rivalry crackled electrically between 
them. 
“Don’t fight,” urged Amalric. “Cast the dice.” His hand came from under his worn tunic, and 
he threw down a pair of dice before them. A claw like hand seized them. 
“Aye!” agreed Gobir. “We cast – after Tilutan, the winner!” 
Amalric cast a glance toward the giant black, who still bent above his captive, bringing life 
back into her exhausted body. As he looked, her long lashed lids parted; deep violet eyes stared 
up into the leering face of the black man, bewilderedly. An explosive exclamation of 
gratification escaped the thick lips of Tilutan. Wrenching a flask from his girdle, he put it to her 
mouth. She drank the wine mechanically. Amalric avoided her wandering gaze; one white men 
and three blacks – either of them his match. 
Gobir and Saidu bent above the dice; Saidu cupped them in his palm, breathed on them for 
luck, shook and threw. Two vulture-like heads bent over the spinning cubes in the dim light. 
And Amalric drew and struck with the same motion. The edge sliced through a thick neck, 
severing the wind-pipe, and Gobir fell across the dice, spurting blood, his head hanging by a 
shred. 
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Simultaneously Saidu, with the desperate quickness of a desert man, shot to his feet and hacked 
ferociously at the slayer’s head. Amalric barely had time to catch the stroke on his lifted sword. 
The whistling scimitar beat the straight blade down on the white man’s head, staggering him. 
Amalric released his sword and threw both arms about Saidu, dragging him into close quarters 
where his scimitar was useless. Under the desert man’s rags, the wiry frame was like steel 
cords. 
Tilutan, comprehending the matter instantly, had cast the girl down and risen with a roar. He 
rushed toward the strugglers like a charging bull his great scimitar flaming in his hand. Amalric 
saw him coming, and his flesh turned cold. Saidu was jerking and wrenching, handicapped by 
the scimitar he was still seeking futilely to turn against his antagonist. Their feet twisted and 
stamped in the sand, their bodies ground against one another. Amalric smashed his sandal heel 
down on the Ghanata’s bare instep, feeling bones give way. Saidu howled and plunged 
convulsively, and Amalric, aiding his leap with a desperate heave of his own. They lurched 
drunkenly about, just as Tilutan struck with a rolling drive of his broad shoulders. Amalric felt 
the steel rasp under part of his arm, and chug deep into Saidu’s body. The Ghanata gave an 
agonized scream, and his convulsive start tore himself free of Amalric’s grasp. Tilutan roared a 
furious oath and wrenching his steel free, hurled the dying man aside, but before he could 
strike again, Amalric, his skin crawling with the fear of that great curved blade, had grappled 
with him. 
Despair swept over him as he felt the strength of the negro. Tilutan was wiser than Saidu. He 
dropped the scimitar and with a bellow, caught Amalric’s throat with both hands. The great 
black fingers locked like iron, and Amalric, striving vainly to break their grip, was borne down, 
with the Ghanata’s great weight pinning him to the earth. The smaller man was shaken like a 
rat in the jaws of a dog. His head was smashed savagely against the sandy earth. As in a red 
mist he saw the furious face of the negro, the thick lips writhed back in a bestial grin of hate, 
the teeth glistening. A bestial snarling slavered from the thick black throat. 
“You want her, you white dog!” the Ghanata mouthed, insane with rage and lust.” Arrrrghhh! I 
break your back! I tear it out your throat! I – my scimitar! I cut off your head and make her kiss 
it!” 
A final ferocious smash of Amalric’s head against the hard packed sand, and Tilutan half lifted 
him and hurled him down in an excess of bestial passion. Rising, the black ran, stooping like an 
ape, and caught up his scimitar where it lay like a broad crescent of steel in the sand. Yelling in 
ferocious exultation, he turned and charged back, brandishing the blade on high. Amalric rose 
slowly to meet him, dazed, shaken, sick from the manhandling he had received. 
Tilutan’s girdle had become unwound in the fight, and now the end dangled about his feet. He 
tripped, stumbled, fell headlong, throwing out his arms to save himself. The scimitar flew from 
his hand. 
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Amalric, galvanized, caught up the scimitar, and took a reeling step forward. The desert swam 
darkly to his gaze. In the dusk before him he saw Tilutan’s face suddenly ashy. The wide 
mouth gaped, the whites of the eyeballs rolled up. The black froze on one knee and a hand, as 
if incapable of further motion. Then the scimitar fell, cleaving the round shaven head to the 
chin, where its downward course was checked with a sickening jerk. Amalric had a dim 
impression of a black face, divided by a widening red line, fading in the thickening shadows, 
then darkness caught him with a rush. 
Something soft and cool was touching Amalric’s face with gentle persistence. He groped 
blindly and his hand closed on something warm, firm and resilient. Then his sight cleared and 
he looked into a soft oval face, framed in lustrous black hair. As in a trance he gazed 
unspeaking, hungrily dwelling on each detail of the full red lips, dark violet eyes, and alabaster 
throat. With a start he realized the vision was speaking in a soft musical voice. The words were 
strange, yet possessed an illusive familiarity. A small white hand, holding a dripping bunch of 
silk was passed gently over his throbbing head and his face. He sat up dizzily. 
It was night, under the star-splashed skies. The camel still munched its cud, a horse whinnied 
restlessly. Not far away lay a hulking black figure with its cleft head in a horrible puddle of 
blood and brains. Amalric looked up at the girl who knelt beside him, talking in her gentle 
unknown tongue. As the mists cleared from his brain, he began to understand her. Harking 
back into half forgotten tongues he had learned and spoken in the past, he remembered a 
language used by a scholarly class in a southern province of Koth. 
“Who are you, girl?” he demanded, prisoning a small hand in his own hardened fingers. 
“I am Lissa.” The name was spoken with almost the suggestion of a lisp. It was like the 
rippling of a slender stream. “I am glad you are conscious. I feared you were not alive.” 
“A little more and I wouldn’t have been,” he muttered, glancing at the grisly sprawl that had 
been Tilutan. She paled, and refused to follow his gaze. Her hand trembled, and in their 
nearness, Amalric thought he could feel the quick throb of her heart. 
“It was horrible,” she faltered. “Like an awful dream. Anger – and blows – and blood – ” 
“It might have been worse,” he growled. 
She seemed sensitive to every changing inflection of voice or mood. Her free hand stole 
timidly to his arm. 
“I did not mean to offend you. It was very brave for you to risk your life for a stranger. You are 
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noble as the knights about which I have read.” 
He cast a quick glance at her. Her wide clear eyes met his, reflecting only the thought she had 
spoken. He started to speak, then changed his mind and said another thing. 
“What are you doing in the desert?” 
“I came from Gazal,” she answered. “I – I was running away. I could not stand it any longer. 
But it was hot and lonely and weary, and I saw only sand, sand – and the blazing blue sky. The 
sands burned my feet, and my sandals were worn out quickly. I was so thirsty, my canteen was 
soon empty. And then I wished to return to Gazal, but one direction looked like another. I did 
not know which way to go. I was terribly afraid, and started running in the direction in which I 
thought Gazal to be. I do not remember much after that; I ran until I could run no further, and I 
must have lain in the burning sand for awhile. I remember rising and staggering on, and toward 
the last, I thought I heard some one shouting, and saw a black man on a black horse riding 
toward me, and then I knew no more, until I awoke and found myself lying with my head in 
that man’s lap, while he gave me wine to drink. Then there was shouting and fighting –” she 
shuddered. “When it was all over, I crept to where you lay like a dead man, and I tried to bring 
you to – ” 
“Why?” he demanded. 
She seemed at a loss. “Why,” she floundered, “why, you were hurt – and – why, it is what 
anyone would do. Besides, I realized that you were fighting to protect me from these black 
men. The people of Gazal have always said that the black people were wicked, and would harm 
the helpless.” 
“That’s no exclusive characteristic of the blacks,” muttered Amalric. “Where is this Gazal?” 
“It can not be far,” she answered. “I walked a whole day – and then I do not know how far the 
black man carried me, after he found me. But he must have discovered me about sunset, so he 
could not have come far.” 
“In what direction?” he demanded. 
“I do not know. I travelled eastward when I left the city.” 
“City?” he muttered. “A day’s travel from this spot? I had thought there was only desert for a 
thousand miles.” 
“Gazal is in the desert,” she answered. “It is built amidst the palms of an oasis.”
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Putting her aside, he got to his feet, swearing softly as he fingered his throat, the skin of which 
was bruised and lacerated. He examined the three blacks in turn, finding no life in either. Then 
one by one he dragged them a short distance out into the desert. Somewhere the jackals began 
yelping. Returning to the water hole, where the girl squatted patiently, he cursed to find only 
the black stallion of Tilutan with the camel. The other horses had broken their tithers and 
bolted during the fight. 
Amalric went to the girl and proffered her a handful of dried dates. She nibbled at them 
eagerly, while the other sat and watched her, his chin on his fists, an increasing impatience 
throbbing in his veins. 
“Why did you run away?” he asked abruptly. “Are you a slave?” 
“We have no slaves in Gazal,” she answered. “Oh, I was weary – so weary of the eternal 
monotony. I wished to see something of the outer world. Tell me, from what land do you 
come?” 
“I was born in the western hills of Aquilonia,” he answered. 
She clapped her hands like a delighted child. 
“I know where it is! I have seen it on the maps. It is the westernmost country of the Hyborians, 
and its king is Epeus the Sword-wielder!” 
Amalric experienced a distinct shock. His head jerked up and he stared at his fair companion. 
“Epeus? Why, Epeus has been dead for nine hundred years. The king’s name is Vilerus.” 
“Oh, of course,” she said, rather embarrassedly. “I am foolish. Of course, Epeus was king nine 
centuries ago, as you say. But tell me – tell me all about the world!” 
“Why, that’s a big order,” he answered nonplussed. “You have not traveled?” 
“This is the first time I have ever been out of sight of the walls of Gazal,” she declared. 
His gaze was fixed on the curve of her white bosom. He was not interested in her adventures at 
the moment, and Gazal might have been Hell for all he cared. 
He started to speak, then changing his mind caught her roughly in his arms, his muscles tensed 
for the struggle he expected. But he encountered no restistance. Her soft yielding body lay 
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across his knees, and she looked up at him somewhat in surprize, but without fear or 
embarrassment. She might have been a child, submitting to a new kind of play. Something 
about her direct gaze confused him. If she had screamed, wept, fought, or smiled knowingly, he 
would have known how to deal with her. 
“Who in Mitra’s name are you, girl?” he asked roughly. “You are neither touched with the sun, 
nor playing a game with me. Your speech shows you to be no ignorant country lass, innocent in 
ignorance. Yet you seem to know nothing of the world and its ways.” 
“I am a daughter of Gazal,” she answered helplessly. “If you saw Gazal perhaps you would 
understand.” 
He lifted her and set down in the sand. Rising, he brought a saddle blanket and spread it out for 
her. 
“Sleep, Lissa,” he said, his voice harsh with conflicting emotions. “Tomorrow I mean to see 
Gazal.” 
At dawn they started westward. Amalric had placed Lissa on the camel, showing her how to 
maintain her balance. She clung to the seat with both hands, showing no knowledge whatever 
of camels, which again surprized the young Aquilonian. A girl raised in the desert, she had 
never before been on a camel, nor, until the preceding night, had she ever ridden or been 
carried on a horse. Amalric had manufactured a sort of cloak for her, and she wore it without 
question, not asking whence it came, accepting it as she accepted all things he did for her, 
gratefully, but blindly, without asking the reason. Amalric did not tell her that the silk that 
shielded her from the sun had once covered the black hide of her abductor. 
As they rode she again begged him to tell her something of the world, like a child asking for a 
story. 
“I know Aquilonia is far from this desert,” she said. “Stygia lies between, and the Lands of 
Shem, and other countries. How is it that you are here, so far from your home land?” 
He rode for a space in silence, his hand on the camel’s guide-rope. 
“Argos and Stygia were at war,” he said abruptly. “Koth became embroiled. The Kothians 
urged a simultaneous invasion of Stygia. Argos raised an army of mercenaries, which went into 
ships and sailed southward along the coast. At the same time, a Kothic army was to invade 
Stygia by land. I was one of that mercenary army. We met the Stygian fleet and defeated it, 
driving it back into Khemi. We should have landed and looted the city, and advanced along the 
course of the Styx – but our admiral was cautious. Our leader was Prince Zapayo da Kova, a 
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Zingaran. We cruised southward until we reached the jungle-clad coasts of Kush. There we 
landed, and the ships anchored, while the army pushed eastward, along the Stygian border, 
burning and pillaging as we went. It was our intention to turn northward at a certain point and 
strike into the heart of Stygia, to form a juncture with the Kothic host which was supposed to 
be pushing down from the north. Then word came that we were betrayed. Koth had concluded 
a separate peace with the Stygians. A Stygian army was pushing southward to intercept us, 
while another already had cut us off from the coast. 
“Prince Zapayo, in desperation, conceived the mad idea of marching eastward, hoping to skirt 
the Stygian border and eventually reach the eastern Lands of Shem. But the army from the 
north overtook us. We turned and fought. All day we fought, and drove them back in route to 
their camp. But the next day the pursuing army came up from the west, and crushed between 
the hosts, our army ceased to be. We were broken, annihilated, destroyed. There were few left 
to flee. But when night fell, I broke away with my companion, a Cimmerian named Conan, a 
brute of a man, with the strength of a bull. 
“We rode southward into the desert, because there was no other direction in which we might 
go. Conan had been in this part of the world before, and he believed we had a chance to 
survive. Far to the south we found an oasis, but Stygian riders harried us, and we fled again, 
from oasis to oasis, fleeing, starving, thirsting, until we found ourselves in a barren unknown 
land of blazing sand and empty sand. We rode until our horses were reeling, and we were half 
delirious. Then one night we saw fires, and rode up to them, taking a desperate chance that we 
might make friends with them. As soon as we came within range, a shower of arrows greeted 
us. Conan’s horse was hit, and reared, throwing its rider. His neck must have broken like a 
twig, for he never moved. I got away in the darkness, somehow, though my horse died under 
me. I had only a glance of the attackers – tall, lean, brown men, wearing strange barbaric 
garments. 
“I wandered on foot through the desert, and fell in with those three vultures you saw yesterday. 
They were jackals – Ghanatas, members of a robber tribe, of mixed blood, negro and Mitra 
knows what else. The only reason they didn’t murder me was because I had nothing they 
wished. For a month I have been wandering and thieving with them, because there was nothing 
else I could do.” 
“I do not know it was like that,” she murmured faintly. “They said there were wars and cruelty 
out in the world, but it seemed like a dream and far away. But hearing you speak of treachery 
and battle seems almost like seeing it.” 
“Do no enemies ever come against Gazal?” he demanded. 
She shook her head. “Men ride wide of Gazal. Sometimes I have seen black dots moving in 
lines along the horizons, and the old men said it was armies moving to war, but they never 
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come near Gazal.” 
Amalric felt a dim stirring of uneasiness. This desert, seemingly empty of life, never the less 
contained some of the fiercest tribes on earth – the Ghanatas, who ranged far to the east; the 
masked Tibu, whom he believed dwelt further to the south; and somewhere off to the 
southwest lay the semi-mythical empire of Tombalku, ruled by a wild and barbaric race. It was 
strange that a city in the midst of this savage land should be left so completely alone that one of 
its inhabitants did not even know the meaning of war. 
When he turned his gaze elsewhere, strange thoughts assailed him. Was the girl touched by the 
sun? Was she a demon in womanly form come out of the desert to lure him to some cryptic 
doom? A glance at her clinging childishly to the high peak of the camel saddle was sufficient to 
dispel these broodings. Then again doubt assailed him. Was he bewitched? Had she cast a spell 
on him? 
Westward they forged steadily, halting only to nibble dates and drink water at midday. Amalric 
fashioned a frail shelter out of his sword and sheath and the saddle blankets, to shield her from 
the burning sun. Weary and stiff from the tossing, bucking gait of the camel, she had to be 
lifted down in his arms. As he felt again the voluptuous sweetness of her soft body, he felt a hot 
throb of passion sear through him, and he stood momentarily motionless, intoxicated with the 
nearness of her, before he laid her down in the shade of the make-shift tent. 
He felt a touch of almost anger at the clear gaze with which she met his, at the docility with 
which she yielded her young body to his hands. It was as if she was unaware of things which 
might harm her; her innocent trust shamed him and pent a helpless wrath within him. 
As they ate, he did not taste the dates he munched; his eyes burned on her, avidly drinking in 
every detail of her lithe young figure. She seemed as unaware of his intentness as a child. 
When he lifted her to place her again on her camel, and her arms went instinctively about his 
neck, he shuddered. But he lifted her up on her mount, and they took up the journey once more. 
It was just before sundown when Lissa pointed and cried out: “Look! The towers of Gazal!” 
On the desert rim he saw them – spires and minarets, rising in a jade-green cluster against the 
blue sky. But for the girl, he would have thought it the phantom city of a mirage. He glanced at 
Lissa curiously; she showed no signs of eager joy at her home coming. She sighed, and her 
slim shoulders seemed to droop. 
As they approached the details swam more plainly into view. Sheer from the desert sands rose 
the wall which enclosed the towers. And Amalric saw that the wall was crumbling in many 
places. The towers, too, he saw, were much in disrepair. Roofs sagged, broken battlements 
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gaped, spires leaned drunkenly. Panic assailed him; was it a city of the dead to which he rode, 
guided by a vampire? A quick glance at the girl reassured him. No demon could lurk in that 
divinely molded exterior. She glanced at him with a strange wistful questioning in her deep 
eyes, turned irresolutely toward the desert, then, with a deep sigh, set her face toward the city, 
as if gripped by a subtle and fatalistic despair. 
Now through the gaps of the jade green wall, Amalric saw figures moving within the city. No 
one hailed them as they rode through a broad breach in the wall, and came out into a broad 
street. Close at hand, limned in the sinking sun, the decay was more apparent. Grass grew rank 
in the streets, pushing through shattered paving; grass grew rank in the small plazas. Streets 
and courts likewise were littered with rubbish of masonry and fallen stones. 
Domes rose, cracked and discolored. Portals gaped, vacant of doors. Every where ruin had laid 
his hand. Then Amalric saw one spire untouched; a shining red cylindrical tower which rose in 
the extreme south eastern corner of the city. It shone among the ruins. 
Amalric indicated it. 
“Why is that tower less in ruins than the others?” he asked. Lissa turned pale; she trembled, and 
caught his hand convulsively. 
“Do not speak of it!” she whispered. “Do not look toward it – do not even think of it!” 
Amalric scowled; the nameless implication of her words somehow changed the aspect of the 
mysterious tower. Now it seemed like a serpent’s head rearing among ruin and desolation. 
The young Aquilonian looked warily about him. After all, he had no assurance that the people 
of Gazal would receive him in a friendly manner. He saw people moving leisurely about the 
streets. They halted and stared at him, and for some reason his flesh crawled. They were men 
and women with kindly features, and their looks were mild. But their interest seemed so slight 
– so vague and impersonal. They made no movement to approach him or to speak to him. It 
might have been the most common thing in the world for an armed horseman to ride into their 
city from the desert; yet Amalric knew that was not the case, and the casual manner with which 
the people of Gazal received him, caused a faint uneasiness in his bosom. 
Lissa spoke to them, indicating Amalric, whose hand she lifted like an affectionate child. “This 
is Amalric of Aquilonia, who rescued me from the black people and has brought me home.” 
A polite murmur of welcome rose from the people, and several of them approached to extend 
their hands. Amalric thought he had never seen such vague, kindly faces; their eyes were soft 
and mild, without fear and without wonder. Yet they were not the eyes of stupid oxen; rather, 
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they were the eyes of people wrapped in dreams. 
Their stare gave him a feeling of unreality; he hardly knew what was said to him. His mind was 
occupied by the strangeness of it all; these quiet dreamy people, in their silken tunics and soft 
sandals, moving with aimless vagueness among the discolored ruins. A lotus paradise of 
illusion? Somehow the thought of that sinister red tower struck a discordant note. 
One of the men, his face smooth and unlined, but his hair silver, was saying: “Aquilonia? There 
was an invasion – we heard – King Bragorus of Nemedia – how went the war?” 
“He was driven back,” answered Amalric briefly, resisting a shudder. Nine hundred years had 
passed since Bragorus led his spearmen across the marches of Aquilonia. 
His questioner did not press him further; the people drifted away, and Lissa tugged at his hand. 
He turned, feasted his eyes upon her; in a realm of illusion and dream, her soft firm body 
anchored his wandering conjectures. She was no dream; she was real; her body was sweet and 
tangible as cream and honey. 
“Come, let us go to rest and eat.” 
“What of the people?” he demurred. “Will you not tell them of your experiences?” 
“They would not heed, except for a few minutes,” she answered. “They would listen a little, 
and then drift away. They hardly know I have been gone. Come!” 
Amalric led the horse and camel into an enclosed court where the grass grew high, and water 
seeped from a broken fountain into a marble trough. There he tethered them, then he followed 
Lissa. Taking his hand she led him across the court, into an arched doorway. Night had fallen. 
In the open space above the court, the stars were clustering, etching the jagged pinnacles. 
Through a series of dark chambers Lissa went, moving with the sureness of long practise. 
Amalric groped after her, guided by her little hand in his. He found it no pleasant adventure. 
The scent of dust and decay hung in the thick darkness. Under his feet sometimes were broken 
tiles, by the feel of them, sometimes worn carpets. His free hand touched the fretted arches of 
doorways. Then the stars gleamed through a broken roof, showing him a dim winding hallway, 
hung with rotting tapestries. They rustled in a faint wind and their noise was like the 
whispering of witches, causing the hair to stir next his scalp. 
Then they came into a chamber dimly lighted by the starshine streaming through open 
windows, and Lissa released his hand, fumbled an instant and produced a faint light of some 
sort. It was a glassy knob which glowed with a golden radiance. She set it on a marble table, 
and indicated that Amalric should recline on a couch thickly littered with silks. Groping into 
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some mysterious recess, she produced a gold vessel of wine, and others containing food 
unfamiliar to Amalric. There were dates; the others, pallid and insipid to his taste, he did not 
recognize. The wine was pleasant to the palate, but no more heady than dish water. 
Seated on a marble seat opposite him, Lissa nibbled daintily. 
“What sort of place is this?” he demanded. “You are like these people – yet strangely unlike.” 
“They say I am like our ancestors,” answered Lissa. “Long ago they came into the desert and 
built this city over a great oasis which was in reality only a series of springs. The stone they 
took from the ruins of a much older city – only the red tower – ” her voice dropped and she 
glanced nervously at the star-framed windows – “only the red tower stood there. It was empty – 
then. 
“Our ancestors, who were called Gazali, once dwelt in southern Koth. They were noted for 
their scholarly wisdom. But they sought to revive the worship of Mitra, which the Kothians had 
long ago abandoned, and the king drove them from his kingdom. They came southward, many 
of them, priests, scholars, teachers, scientists, with their Shemitish slaves. 
“They reared Gazal in the desert; but the slaves revolted almost as soon as the city was built, 
and fleeing, mixed with the wild tribes of the desert. They were not illy treated – word came to 
them in the night – a word which sent them fleeing madly from the city into the desert. 
“My people dwelt here, learning to manufacture their food and drink from such material as was 
at hand. Their learning was a marvel. When the slaves fled, they took with them every camel, 
horse and donkey in the city. There was no communication with the outer world. There are 
whole chambers in Gazal filled with maps and books and chronicles, but they are all nine years 
old at the lest; for it was nine hundred years ago that my people fled from Koth. Since then no 
man of the outside world has set foot in Gazal. And the people are slowly vanishing. They have 
become so dreamy and introspective that they have neither human passions nor ambitions. The 
city falls into ruins and none moves hand to repair it. Horror – ” she choked and shuddered; 
“when horror came upon them, they could neither flee nor fight.” 
“What do you mean?” he whispered, a cold wind blowing on his spine. The rustling of rotten 
hangings down nameless black corridors stirred dim fear in his soul. 
She shook her head; she rose, came around the marble table, laid hands on his shoulders. Her 
eyes were wet and they shone with horror and a desperate yearning that caught at his throat. 
Instinctively his arm went around her lithe form, and he felt her tremble. 
“Hold me!” she begged. “I am afraid! Oh, I have dreamed of such a man as you. I am not like 
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my people; they are dead men walking forgotten streets; but I am alive. I am warm and 
sentient. I hunger and thirst and yearn for life. I can not abide the silent streets and ruined halls 
and dim people of Gazal, though I have never known anything else. That is why I ran away – I 
yearned for life – ” 
She was sobbing uncontrollably in his arms. Her hair streamed over his face; her fragrance 
made him dizzy. Her firm body strained against his. She was lying across his knees, her arms 
locked about his neck. Straining her to his breast he crushed her lips with his. Eyes, lips, 
cheeks, hair, throat, breasts, he showered with hot kisses, until her sobs changed to panting 
gasps. His passion was not the violence of a ravisher. The passion that slumbered in her woke 
in one overpowering wave. The glowing gold ball, struck by his groping fingers, tumbled to the 
floor and was extinguished. Only the starshine gleamed through the windows. 
Lying in Amalric’s arms on the silk-heaped couch, Lissa opened her heart and whispered her 
dreams and hopes and aspirations, childish, pathetic, terrible. 
“I’ll take you away,” he muttered. “Tomorrow. You are right. Gazal is a city of the dead; we 
will seek life and the outer world. It is violent, rough, cruel; but better that than this living 
death – ” 
The night was broken by a shuddering cry of agony, horror and despair. Its timbre brought out 
cold sweat on Amalric’s skin. He started upright from the couch, but Lissa clung to him 
desperately. 
“No, no!” she begged in a frantic whisper. “Do not go! Stay!” 
“But murder is being done!” he exclaimed, fumbling for his sword. The cries seemed to come 
from across an outer court. Mingled with them there was an indescribable tearing, rending 
sound. They rose higher and thinner, unbearable in their hopeless agony, then sank away in a 
long shuddering sob. 
“I have heard men dying on the rack cry out like that!” muttered Amalric, shaking with horror. 
“What devil’s work is this?” 
Lissa was trembling violently in a frenzy of terror. He felt the wild pounding of her heart. 
“It is the Horror of which I spoke!” she whispered. “The Horror which dwells in the red tower. 
Long ago it came – some say it dwelt there in the lost years, and returned after the building of 
Gazal. It devours human beings. Bats fly from the tower. What it is, no one knows, since none 
have seen it and lived to tell of it. It is a god or a devil. That is why the slaves fled; why the 
desert people shun Gazal. Many of us have gone into its awful belly. Eventually all will have 
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gone, and it will rule over an empty city, as men say it ruled over the ruins from which Gazal 
was reared.” 
“Why have the people stayed to be devoured?” he demanded. 
“I do not know,” she whimpered; “they dream – ” 
“Hypnosis,” muttered Amalric; “hypnosis coupled with decay. I saw it in their eyes. This devil 
has them mesmerized. Mitra, what a foul secret!” 
Lissa pressed her face against his bosom and clung to him. 
“But what are we to do?” he asked uneasily. 
“There is nothing to do,” she whispered. “Your sword would be helpless. Perhaps It will not 
harm us. It has taken a victim tonight. We must wait like sheep for the butcher.” 
“I’ll be damned if I will!” Amalric exclaimed, galvanized. “We will not wait for morning. 
We’ll go tonight. Make a bundle of food and drink. I’ll get the horse and camel and bring them 
to the court outside. Meet me there!” 
Since the unknown monster had already struck, Amalric felt that he was safe in leaving the girl 
alone for a few minutes. But his flesh crawled as he groped his way down the winding corridor 
and through the black chambers where the swinging tapestries whispered. He found the beasts 
huddled nervously together in the court where he had left them. The stallion whinnied 
anxiously and nuzzled him, as if sensing peril in the breathless night. 
He saddled and bridled and hurriedly led them through the narrow opening onto the street. A 
few minutes later he was standing in the starlit court. And even as he reached it, he was 
electrified by an awful scream which rang shudderingly upon the air. It came from the chamber 
where he had left Lissa. 
He answered that piteous cry with a wild yell; drawing his sword he rushed across the court, 
hurled himself through the window. The golden ball was glowing again, carving out black 
shadows in the shrinking corners. Silks lay scattered on the floor. The marble seat was upset. 
But the chamber was empty. 
A sick weakness overcame Amalric and he staggered against the marble table, the dim light 
waving dizzily to his sight. Then he was swept by a mad rage. The red tower! There the fiend 
would bear his victim! 
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He darted back across the court, sought the streets and raced toward the tower which glowed 
with an unholy light under the stars. The streets did not run straight. He cut through silent black 
buildings and crossed courts whose rank grass waved in the night wind. 
Ahead of him, clustered about the crimson tower, rose a heap of ruins, where decay had eaten 
more savagely than at the rest of the city. Apparently none dwelt among them. They reeled and 
tumbled, a crumbling mass of quaking masonry, with the red tower rearing up among them like 
a poisonous red flower from charnel house ruin. 
To reach the tower he would be forced to traverse the ruins. Recklessly he plunged into the 
black mass, groping for a door. He found one and entered, thrusting his sword ahead of him. 
Then he saw such a vista as men sometimes see in fantastic dreams. Far ahead of him stretched 
a long corridor, visible in a faint unhallowed glow, its black walls hung with strange 
shuddersome tapestries. Far down it he saw a receding figure – a white, naked, stooped figure, 
lurching along, dragging something the sight of which filled him with sweating horror. Then 
the apparition vanished from his sight, and with it vanished the eery glow. Amalric stood in the 
soundless dark, seeing nothing, hearing nothing; thinking only of a stooped white figure that 
dragged a limp human down a long black corridor. 
As he groped onward, a vague memory stirred in his brain – the memory of a grisly tale 
mumbled to him over a dying fire in the skull-heaped devil-devil hut of a black witchman – a 
tale of a god which dwelt in a crimson house in a ruined city and which was worshipped by 
darksome cults in dank jungles and along sullen dusky rivers. And there stirred, too, in his 
mind, an incantation whispered in his ear in awed and shuddering tones, while the night had 
held its breath, the lions had ceased to roar along the river, and the very fronds had ceased their 
scraping one against the other. 
Ollam-onga, whispered a dark wind down the sightless corridor. Ollam-onga whispered the 
dust that ground beneath his stealthy feet. Sweat stood on his skin and the sword shook in his 
hand. He stole through the house of a god, and fear held him in its bony hand. The house of the 
god – the full horror of the phrase filled his mind. All the ancestral fears and the fears that 
reached beyond ancestry and primordial race-memory crowded upon him; horror cosmic and 
unhuman sickened him. His weak humanity crushed him in its realization as he went through 
the house of darkness that was the house of a god. 
About him shimmered a glow so faint it was scarcely discernable; he knew that he was 
approaching the tower itself. Another instant and he groped his way through an arched door 
and stumbled upon strangely spaced steps. Up them he went, and as he climbed that blind fury 
which is mankind’s last defense against diabolism and all the hostile forces of the universe, 
surged in him, and he forgot his fear. Burning with terrible eagerness, he climbed up and up 
through the thick evil darkness until he came into a chamber lit by a weird glow.
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And before him stood a white naked figure. Amalric halted, his tongue cleaving to his palate. It 
was a naked white man, to all appearances, which stood gazing at him, mighty arms folded on 
an alabaster breast. The features were classic, cleanly carven, with more than human beauty. 
But the eyes were balls of luminous fire, such as never looked from any human head. In those 
eyes Amalric glimpsed the frozen fires of the ultimate hells, touched by awful shadows. 
Then before him the form began to grow dim in outline; to waver – with a terrible effort the 
Aquilonian burst the bonds of silence and spoke a cryptic and awful incantation. And as the 
frightful words cut the silence, the white giant halted – froze – again his outlines stood out 
clear and bold against the golden background. 
“Now fall on, damn you!” cried Amalric hysterically. “I have bound you into your human 
shape! The black wizard spoke truly! It was the master word he gave me! Fall on, Ollam-onga 
– till you break the spell by feasting on my heart, you are no more than a man like me!” 
With a roar that was like the gust of a black wind, the creature charged. Amalric sprang aside 
from the clutch of those hands whose strength was more than that of the whirlwind. A single 
taloned finger, spread wide and catching in his tunic, ripped the garment from him like a rotten 
rag as the monster plunged by. But Amalric, nerved to more than human quickness by the 
horror of the fight, wheeled and drove his sword through the thing’s back, so that the point 
stood out a foot from the broad breast. 
A fiendish howl of agony shook the tower; the monster whirled and rushed at Amalric, but the 
youth sprang aside and raced up the stairs to the dais. There he wheeled and catching up a 
marble seat, hurled it down upon the horror that was lumbering up the stairs. Full in the face 
the massive missile struck, carrying the fiend back down the steps. He rose, an awful sight, 
streaming blood and again essayed the stairs. In desperation Amalric lifted a jade bench whose 
weight wrenched a groan of effort from him, and hurled it. 
Beneath the impact of the hurtling bulk Ollam-onga pitched back down the stair and lay among 
the marble shards, which were flooded with his blood. With a last desperate effort, he heaved 
himself up on his hands, eyes glazing, and throwing back his bloody head, voiced an awful cry. 
Amalric shuddered and recoiled from the abysmal horror of that scream. And it was answered. 
From somewhere in the air above the tower a faint medley of fiendish cries came back like an 
echo. Then the mangled white figure went limp among the blood-stained shards. And Amalric 
knew that one of the gods of Kush was no more. With the thought came blind, unreasoning 
horror. 
In a fog of terror he rushed down the stair, shrinking from the thing that lay staring in the floor. 
The night seemed to cry out against him, aghast at the sacrilege. Reason, exultant over his 
triumph, was submerged in a flood of cosmic fear. 
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As he put foot on the head of the steps, he halted short. Up from the darkness Lissa came to 
him, her white arms outstretched, her eyes pools of horror. 
“Amalric!” it was a haunting cry. He crushed her in his arms. 
“I saw It,” she whimpered – “dragging a dead man through the corridor. I screamed and fled; 
then when I returned, I heard you cry out, and knew you had gone to search for me in the red 
tower – ” 
“And you came to share my fate,” his voice was almost inarticulate. Then as she tried to peer in 
trembling fascination past him, he covered her eyes with his hands and turned her about. Better 
that she should not see what lay on the crimson floor. As he half led, half carried her down the 
shadowed stairs, a glance over his shoulder showed him that a naked white figure lay no longer 
lay among the broken marble. The incantation had bound Ollam-onga into his human form in 
life, but not in death. Blindness momentarily assailed Amalric, then, galvanized into frantic 
haste, he hurried Lissa down the stairs and through the dark ruins. 
He did not slacken pace until they reached the street where the camel and stallion huddled 
against one another. Quickly he mounted the girl on the camel, and he swung up on the 
stallion. Taking the lead-line, he headed straight for the broken wall. A few minutes later he 
breathed gustily. The open air of the desert cooled his blood; it was free of the scent of decay 
and hideous antiquity. 
There was a small water-pouch hanging from his saddle bow. They had no food, and his sword 
was in the chamber in the red tower. He had not dared touch it. Without food and unarmed, 
they faced the desert; but its peril seemed less grim than the horror of the city behind them. 
Without speaking they rode. Amalric headed south; somewhere in that direction there was a 
water hole. Just at dawn, as they mounted a crest of sand, he looked back toward Gazal, unreal 
in the pink light. And he stiffened and Lissa cried out. Out of a breach in the wall rode seven 
horsemen; their steeds were black, and the riders were cloaked in black from head to foot. 
There had been no horses in Gazal. Horror swept over Amalric, and turning, he urged their 
mounts on. 
The sun rose, red, and then gold, and then a ball of white beaten flame. On and on the fugitives 
pressed, reeling with heat and fatigue, blinded by the glare. They moistened their lips with 
water from time to time. And behind at an even pace, rode seven black dots. Evening began to 
fall, and the sun reddened and lurched toward the desert rim. And a cold hand clutched 
Amalric’s heart. The riders were closing in. As darkness came on, so came the black riders. 
Amalric glanced at Lissa, and a groan burst from him. His stallion stumbled and fell. The sun 
had gone down, the moon was blotted out suddenly by a bat-shaped shadow. In the utter 
darkness the stars glowed red, and behind him Amalric heard a rising rush as of an approaching 
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wind. A black speeding clump bulked against the night, in which glinted sparks of awful light. 
“Ride, girl!” he cried despairingly. “Go on – save yourself; it is me they want!” 
For answer she slid down from the camel and threw her arms about him. 
“I will die with you!” 
Seven black shapes loomed against the stars, racing like the wind. Under the hoods shone balls 
of evil fire; flesh jaw bones seemed to clack together. Then there was an interruption; a horse 
swept past Amalric and the horse, a vague bulk in the unnatural darkness. There was the sound 
of an impact as the unknown steed caromed among the oncoming shapes. A horse screamed 
frenziedly, and a bull like voice bellowed in a strange tongue. From somewhere in the night a 
clamor of yells answered. 
There was some sort of violent action taking place. Horse’s hoofs stamped and clattered, there 
was the impact of savage blows, and the same stentorian voice was cursing lustily. Then the 
moon abruptly came out and lit a fantastic scene. 
A man on a giant horse whirled, slashed and smote apparently at thin air, and from another 
direction swept a wild horde of riders, their curved swords flashing in the moon light. Away 
over the crest of a rise seven black figures were vanishing, their cloaks floating out like the 
wings of bats. 
Amalric was swamped by wild men who leaped from their horses and swarmed around him. 
Sinewy naked arms pinioned him, fierce brown hawk-like faces snarled at him. Lissa 
screamed. Then the attackers were thrust right and left as the man on the great horse reined 
through the crowd. He bent from his saddle, glared closely at Amalric. 
“The devil!” he roared; “Amalric the Aquilonian!” 
“Conan!” Amalric exclaimed bewilderedly. “Conan! Alive!” 
“More alive than you seem to be,” answered the other. “By Crom, man you look as if all the 
devils in this desert had been hunting you through the night. What things were those pursuing 
you? I was riding around the camp my men had pitched, to make sure no enemies were in 
hiding, when the moon went out like a candle, and then I heard sounds of flight. I rode toward 
the sounds, and by Crom, I was among those devils before I knew what was happening. I had 
my sword in my hand and I laid about me – by Crom, their eyes blazed like fire in the dark! I 
know my edge bit them, but when the moon came out, they were gone like a puff of wind. 
Were they men or fiends?” 
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“Ghouls sent up from Hell,” shuddered Amalric. “Ask me no more; some things are not to be 
discussed.” 
Conan did not press the matter, nor did he look incredulous. His beliefs included night fiends, 
ghosts, hobgoblins and dwarfs. 
“Trust you to find a woman, even in a desert,” he said, glancing at Lissa, who had crept to 
Amalric and was clinging close to him, glancing fearfully at the wild figures which hemmed 
them in. 
“Wine!” roared Conan. “Bring flasks! Here!” He seized a leather flask from those thrust out to 
him, and placed it in Amalric’s hand. “Give the girl a swig, and drink some yourself,” he 
advised. “Then we’ll put you on horses and take you to the camp. You need food, rest and 
sleep. I can see that.” 
A richly caparisoned horse was brought, rearing and prancing, and willing hands helped 
Amalric into the saddle; then the girl was handed up to him, and they moved off southward, 
surrounded by the wiry brown riders in their picturesque semi-nakedness. Conan rode ahead, 
humming a riding song of the mercenaries. 
“Who is he?” whispered Lissa, her arms about her lover’s neck; he was holding her on the 
saddle in front of him. 
“Conan, the Cimmerian,” muttered Amalric. “The man I wandered with in the desert after the 
defeat of the mercenaries. These are the men who struck him down. I left him lying under their 
spears, apparently dead. Now we meet him obviously in command of, and respected by them.” 
“He is a terrible man,” she whispered. 
He smiled. “You never saw a white-skinned barbarian before. He is a wanderer and a 
plunderer, and a slayer, but he has his own code of morals. I don’t think we have anything to 
fear from him.” 
In his heart he was not sure. In a way, it might be said that he had forfeited Conan’s 
comradeship when he had ridden away into the desert, leaving the Cimmerian senseless on the 
ground. But he had not known that Conan was not dead. Doubt haunted Amalric. Savagely 
loyal to his companions, the Cimmerian’s wild nature saw no reason why the rest of the world 
should not be plundered. He lived by the sword. And Amalric suppressed a shudder as he 
thought of what might chance did Conan desire Lissa. 
Later on, having eaten and drunk in the camp of the riders, Amalric sat by a small fire in front 
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of Conan’s tent; Lissa, covered with a silken cloak, slumbered with her curly head on his 
knees. And across from him the fire light played on Conan’s face, interchanging lights and 
shadows. 
“Who are these men?” asked the young Aquilonian. 
“The riders of Tombalku,” answered the Cimmerian. 
“Tombalku!” exclaimed Amalric. “Then it is no myth!” 
“Far from it!” agreed Conan. “When my accursed steed fell with me, I was knocked senseless, 
and when I recovered consciousness, the devils had me bound hand and foot. This angered me, 
so I snapped several of the cords they had me tied with, but they rebound them as fast as I 
could break them – never did I get a hand entirely free. But to them my strength seemed 
remarkable – ” 
Amalric gazed at Conan unspeaking. The man was tall and broad as Tilutan had been, without 
the black man’s surplus flesh. He could have broken the Ghanata’s neck with his naked hands. 
“They decided to carry me to their city instead of killing me out of hand,” Conan went on. 
“They thought a man like me should be a long time in dying by torture, and so give them sport. 
Well, they bound me on a horse without a saddle, and we went to Tombalku. 
“There are two kings of Tombalku. They took me before them – a lean brown-skinned devil 
named Zehbeh, and a big fat negro who dozed on his ivory-tusk throne. They spoke a dialect I 
could understand a little, it being much like that of the western Mandingo who dwell on the 
coast. Zehbeh asked a brown priest, Daura, what should be done with me, and Daura cast dice 
made of sheep bone, and said I should be flayed alive before the altar of Jhil. Every one 
cheered and that woke the negro king. 
“I spat on Daura and cursed him roundly, and the kings as well, and told them that if I was to 
be skinned, by Crom, I demanded a good bellyfull of wine before they began, and I damned 
them for thieves and cowards and sons of harlots. 
“At this the black king roused and sat up and stared at me, and then he rose and shouted: 
“Amra!’ and I knew him – Sakumbe, a Suba from the Black Coast, a fat adventurer I had 
known well in the days when I was a corsair along that coast. He trafficked in ivory, gold dust 
and slaves, and would cheat the devil out of his eye-teeth – well, when he knew me, he 
descended from his throne and embraced me for joy – the black, smelly devil – and took my 
cords off me with his own hands. Then he announced that I was Amra, the Lion, his friend, and 
that no harm should come to me. Then followed much discussion, because Zehbeh and Daura 
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wanted my hide. But Sakumbe yelled for his witch-finder, Askia, and he came, all feathers and 
bells and snake-skins – a wizard of the Black Coast, and a son of the devil if there ever was one. 
“Askia pranced and made incantations, and announced that Sakumbe was the chosen of Agujo, 
the Dark One, and all the black people of Tombalku shouted, and Zehbeh backed down. 
“For the blacks in Tombalku are the real power. Several centuries ago the Aphaki, a Shemitish 
race, pushed into the southern desert and established the kingdom of Tombalku. They mixed 
with the desert-blacks and the result was a brown straight-haired race, which is still more white 
than black. They are the dominant caste in Tombalku, but they are in the minority, and a pure 
black king always sits on the throne beside the Aphaki ruler. 
“The Aphaki conquered the nomads of the southwestern desert, and the negro tribes of the 
steppes which lie to the south of them. These riders, for instance, are Tibu, of mixed Stygian 
and negro blood. 
“Well, Sakumbe, through Askia, is the real ruler of Tombalku. The Aphaki worship Jhil, but 
the blacks worship Ajujo the Dark One, and his kin. Askia came to Tombalku with Sakumbe, 
and revived the worship of Ajujo, which was crumbling because of the Aphaki priests. Askia 
made black magic which defeated the wizardry of the Aphaki, and the blacks hailed him as a 
prophet sent by the dark gods. Sakumbe and Askia wax as Zehbeh and Daura wane. 
“Well, as I am Sakumbe’s friend, and Askia spoke for me, the blacks received me with great 
applause. Sakumbe had Kordofo, the general of the horsemen, poisoned, and gave me his 
place, which delighted the blacks and exasperated the Aphaki. 
“You will like Tombalku! It was made for men like us to loot! There are half a dozen powerful 
factions plotting and intriguing against each other – there are continual brawls in the taverns 
and streets, secret murders, mutilations, and executions. And there are women, gold, wine – all 
that a mercenary wants! And I am high in favor and power! By Crom, Amalric, you could not 
come at a better time! Why, what’s the matter? You do not seem as enthusiastic as I remember 
you having once been in such matters.” 
“I crave your pardon, Conan,” apologized Amalric. “I do not lack interest, but weariness and 
want of sleep overcomes me.” 
But it was not gold, women and intrigue that the Aquilonian was thinking, but of the girl who 
slumbered on his lap; there was no joy in the thought of taking her into such a welter of 
intrigue and blood as Conan had described. A subtle change had come over Amalric, almost 
without his knowledge. 
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Untitled Synopsis 
(The Hour of the Dragon) 
The plot began with four men in a chamber of a Nemedian castle bringing back to life a 
Stygian mummy, thousands of years old. One of the men was a powerful Nemedian baron with 
the ambitions of a king-maker. One was the younger brother of the king of Nemedia. One was 
a claimant to the throne of Aquilonia. One was a priest of Mitra who had been expelled from 
his order because of his studies of the forbidden arts of magic. The mummy was that of a 
sorcerer of long ago, an Hyborian of a kingdom which had been destroyed by the Nemedians, 
Aquilonians, and Argosseans. The name of this kingdom was Acheron, and its capital city was 
called Python. Many centuries before the people of Acheron, Hyborians more highly civilized 
than their neighbors to the east and the west, had been lords of an empire which included what 
was later southern Nemedia and Brythunia, most of Corinthia, most of Ophir, western Koth and 
the western lands of Shem, northern Argos, and eastern Aquilonia. With the overthrow and 
destruction of Acheron by its ruder western neighbors, their greatest sorcerer had fled to 
Stygia, living there until poisoned by a Stygian priest of Set the Old Serpent. Then he had been 
mummified with curious art, without removing any of his vital parts, and the mummy had been 
placed in a hidden temple. Thence, at the conspirators’ instigation, it had been stolen by thieves 
from Zamora. The Nemedian baron’s name was Amalric; the king’s brother was named 
Tarascus; the Aquilonian claimant was named Valerius; the priest’s name was Orastes; the 
sorcerer’s name was Xaltotun. Valerius was a reckless young rogue, tall, yellow-haired, 
mocking at himself and everything else, but a courageous fighter. He was distantly related to 
that Aquilonian king destroyed by Conan the Cimmerian, when the latter took the throne of 
Aquilonia. That king had exiled him, and he had been roaming the world as a soldier of fortune 
until Amalric’s plots had drawn him back. He was to aid the conspirators in placing Tarascus 
on the Nemedian throne, then they would set him on the throne of Aquilonia. Amalric was 
strongly built, dark, ruthless, with hidden designs of his own. He desired to set his puppets on 
their thrones, rule both, overthrow both, and finally place himself on the throne of the united 
countries. Tarascus was a small, darkish young man, crafty, courageous, sensual, but a puppet 
in Amalric’s hands. Orastes was a large man with soft white hands, a dabbler in the black arts. 
Xaltotun, when brought to life by strange incantations, was a tall man with quick strong hands 
and strange magnetic eyes and thick black hair. He listened to their speech, as they explained to 
him all that had occurred since his death, and agreed to aid them. But, he said, before he could 
regain his full magical power, they must steal for him the jewel called the Heart of Ahriman, 
which was kept in a secret place in the kingdom of Aquilonia. This had been taken from him 
when Python fell, and so he had been forced to flee to Stygia. In his own heart the wizard 
planned to restore the ancient kingdom of Acheron. The descendants of the people of Acheron 
were more plentiful than men supposed, dwelling in the fastness of the hills, in communities in 
the great cities, and scattered throughout the kingdom as priests, menials, secretaries, and 
scribes. The jewel was stolen; the king of Nemedia was assassinated by black magic, and 
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Tarascus was set on the throne. Then the armies of Nemedia moved against Aquilonia. In his 
tent in the night before the battle, Conan the Cimmerian dreamed a strange dream in which 
many of the past events of his life passed in review once more. He saw strange shapes and 
events, and woke in a sweat of fear to call his captains. Dawn was breaking and the hosts were 
in motion. A strange hooded figure appeared in the king’s tent and Conan was stricken with a 
curious paralysis. He could not ride to battle, so they brought a common soldier from the ranks 
who much resembled him and put the king’s armor on him, and he rode beneath the great lion 
banner. But he fell, fighting gloriously, and the Aquilonian host was broken and hurled in 
headlong defeat. Conan, lying helpless in his tent, was attacked by the Nemedian knights, his 
guard cut down. He fought with his sword, holding himself upright to the tent-pole, until 
Xaltotun overcame him by magic. He was put secretly into a chariot and secretly conveyed to 
the capital of Nemedia, for Amalric did not wish it known that it had not been the king who 
had fallen. He was thrown into the pits beneath the palace, where a giant ape attacked him. But 
a girl in the train of Tarascus gave Conan a dagger, with which he killed the beast and escaped. 
Coming into the palace of Tarascus to slay him, he saw the king give a jewel to a man and a 
bag of gold and order him to take the gem and throw it into the sea. This jewel, althought 
Conan did not know it, was the Heart of Ahriman, which Tarascus had stolen from the sorcerer 
because he feared him and had a dim inkling of what Xaltotun intended. Conan smote at 
Tarascus, but missed, and then, leaving the city, worked his way toward the Aquilonian border. 
Reaching the border, he learned that his people believed him dead, that the barons were at war 
with one another, and that Valerius, appearing on the eastern border with the Nemedian army, 
defeated a host sent against him by the barons, took the capital city and was acclaimed king by 
the mob, who feared a foreign invasion. Gunderland in the north, and Poitain in the south 
retained their independence, Gunderland partially and Poitain wholly, and southward Conan 
made his way, to join Count Trocero, his chancellor, who held the passes that lead down 
toward the plains of Zingara. But first he made his way to his capital which was in the hands of 
Valerius because an old witch, in the mountains of eastern Aquilonia, spoke cryptically to him 
of the Heart of Ahriman, and showed him visions in a crystal floating in smoke – of Zamorian 
thieves looting a Stygian temple, and stealing a flaming jewel from a subterranean cavern 
below the city. Thither Conan went and was admitted and aided by his loyal vassals, and going 
to the cavern, found the jewel gone and fought a fiendish battle with an unseen creature who 
guarded it. Escaping, he knew at last that the Heart of Ahriman was the gem Tarascus had 
given the man; but he secured horse and armor and travelled to Poitain where he found Trocero 
holding the mountain passes against Valerius. Meanwhile Xaltotun did not know of the loss of 
his jewel, because he kept it in a golden case for ever locked, and he worked his magic without 
stay. Only the greater magic needed the Heart of Ahriman. But Conan had been recognized in 
his capital and men rode after him, while others rode to Nemedia with the news. Conan fought 
a battle in the passes and with the Poitanians defeated the Nemedians. But Trocero did not have 
enough warriors to invade Aquilonia and defeat the Nemedians and the barons who espoused 
Valerius, and his people feared the magic of Xaltotun. They urged Conan to remain and rule 
them as a separate kingdom, and conquer Zingara, but he determined to follow the man who 
had taken the Heart of Ahriman. He rode toward the ports of Argos. 
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Notes on The Hour of the Dragon 
FIRST DAY. (DAY OF BATTLE.) 
Conan at Valkia. Amalric, Tarascus, Valerius and Xaltotun at Valkia. Orastes at Belverus. 
Prospero on his way to Valkia. 
That Night. 
Conan was on his way to Belverus with Xaltotun. Amalric, Tarascus and Valerius were 
encamped in Valkia, their cavalry pursuing the fleeing Aquilonians through the hills. Prospero 
was falling back toward Tarantia. Orastes was in Belverus. 
THE SECOND DAY. 
Conan was a captive in Belverus. Xaltotun and Orastes were in Belverus. Tarascus was on his 
way from Valkia to Belverus. Amalric and Valerius were marching through the hills toward 
Tarantia. Prospero was approaching Tarantia. 
That Night. 
Conan was a captive in Belverus and escaped. Orastes and Xaltotun were in Belverus, Xaltotun 
sleeping the sleep of the black lotus of Stygia. Tarascus reached Belverus. Prospero arrived in 
Tarantia and found that news of the battle had preceded him. Amalric and Valerius camped in 
the plains of Aquilonia, devastating the countryside. 
THE THIRD DAY. 
Conan crossed the border and took refuge in the hills. Tarascus, wounded, was in Belverus, 
with Xaltotun and Orastes. The king’s squire pursued Conan in the hills. That evening Prospero 
evacuated Tarantia. At sunset Amalric and Valerius entered the city, unopposed. 
That Night. 
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Conan slept in the hut of Zelata, the witch. Tarascus and Orastes set out from Belverus to 
Tarantia. Amalric crowned Valerius king of Aquilonia in the great coronation hall of Tarantia. 
Xaltotun remained in Belverus. 
THE FOURTH DAY. 
Conan made his way through the hills toward Tarantia. Xaltotun remained at Belverus. 
Tarascus and Orastes were on their way to Tarantia. Amalric and Valerius were at Tarantia, 
receiving homage. 
That Night. 
Conan made his way through the devastated plains toward Tarantia. Xaltotun remained at 
Belverus. Tarascus and Orastes were on their way to Tarantia. Amalric and Valerius remained 
at Tarantia. 
THE FIFTH DAY. 
Conan, at evening, came within sight of Tarantia. Xaltotun remained at Belverus. Amalric with 
the Nemedians was devastating surrounding provinces. Tarascus and Orastes arrived at 
Tarantia. Valerius remained at Tarantia, paying old scores and confiscating property. 
* * * 
Xaltotun left Valkia at sunset, and arrived in Belverus before dawn. He travelled faster than the 
average man could travel. That means he made the journey in about twelve hours. It would take 
the average chariot fifteen, with a change of horses. A man on a good horse might make it in 
fourteen hours. If Conan left Belverus after midnight, say he was on the road at one o’clock 
and riding like hell, he had been riding six hours when the sun came up. He would still have 
eight hours to ride. He rested an hour, which made it eight o’clock. It would be about four 
o’clock when he reached the hills. He would really be taking a shorter cut, because he had left 
the road which wound toward the passes in the hills. Belverus lay nearer the border than 
Tarantia. 
* * * 
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Conan was moving up the valley of the Shirki, a day and a night’s hard marching from 
Tanasul; Amalric could reach Tanasul in little over a day’s march. The Gundermen were 
advancing along the valley of Khor, about three days march from Tanasul; Tarascus was at 
Galparan, a day and night’s march to the Pass of Falcons, and a little over a day’s march from 
Tanasul. 
* * * 
THE FIRST DAY: 
Tarascus at Galparan; 
Amalric, Valerius and Xaltotun at the camp near Tanasul; 
Conan to the southewest advancing along the Shirki; 
The Gundermen north of the Goralian hills; 
The First Night: 
Tarascus at Galparan; 
The other in camp; Xaltotun making magic; 
Conan approaching Tanasul; 
The Gundermen moving southward toward Tanasul; 
THE SECOND DAY: 
At dawn the courier reached Tarascus, who broke camp and reached Amalric’s camp with his 
horsemen at sunset; the footmen arrived some hours later; 
Amalric and his companions lay in camp, waiting for Tarascus; 
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Conan nearing Tanasul; 
The Gundermen marching through the Goralian hills; 
The Second Night: 
Tarascus, Amalric, Valerius and Xaltotun lay in the camp in the plain; 
Late that night Conan reached Tanasul and crossed and camped on the other side. 
The Gundermen were camped further back in the hills. 
THE THIRD DAY: 
Tarascus, and the Nemedian host, marching toward Tanasul, learned that Conan had crossed; 
he pushed ahead with his horsemen, and arrived at Tanasul just at twilight; 
Conan was camped in the Goralian hills; 
The Gundermen were pushing southward swiftly; 
The Third Night: 
The Nemedians camped in the plain beside the river; 
Conan camped in the hills; 
The Gundermen reached his camp after nightfall. 
Part of two nights 
It took Conan a day and a night of marching to reach Tanasul; 
* * * 
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Conan marched all the first day until late that night; camped that first night and set out before 
dawn; marched all the second day; reached Tanasul late the second night. Time: one whole 
day’s march and part of two nights; would have taken another man two days and two nights. 
The first day and night Amalric lay in camp, waiting for Tarascus, who took a whole day in 
getting there. He could reach Tanasul in a day’s hard riding; with his host it required a day and 
part of a night. 
If he had set out when he wished to, he would have reached the Shirki first, but Xaltotun 
wished him to wait for Tarascus. 
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Untitled Synopsis 
(A Witch Shall Be Born) 
The story began with Taramis, Queen of Khauran, awaking in her chamber at the sight of a 
spot of light glowing on the velvet-tapestried wall. In that spot she saw the head of her sister, 
Salome, who had been carried into the desert shortly after her birth, to die, because she had the 
witch-mark upon her bosom – the blood-red crescent. In the conversation which followed it 
was explained that because, centuries before, a Queen of Khauran had cohabited with a pre- 
Adamite demon, every so often a witch would be born in the royal family. Salome said there 
had always been witches named Salome, and always would be. She, Taramis’ twin sister, had 
been carried into the desert, but had been discovered by a Khitan magician travelling from 
Stygia in a carvan. He had recognized the witch mark and had taken her and brought her up, 
instructing her in many black arts. Now she had returned to seize the throne. Her master had 
driven her forth, because she lacked the cosmic scope of true wizardry, was merely a harlot of 
the black arts. She had fallen in with a Kothian adventurer who commanded an army of 
professional fighting men, Shemites from the western cities of Shem. This man had come to 
Khauran and asked the hand of Queen Taramis. He was at that time camped with his hosts 
outside the city walls. The gates were carefully guarded, for Taramis did not trust the man. 
Salome told Taramis that she had entered the palace secretly, by drugging all the queen’s 
servants. She told her that she, Taramis, would be cast into a dungeon, and she, Salome, would 
reign in her place. The Kothian entered just then, and Salome cynically handed her sister over 
to be raped by him, while she went forth to give the soldiers at the gates orders to admit the 
Shemites. 
The next scene was that of a young soldier being bandaged by his terrified sweetheart, as he 
told of the treachery. Queen Taramis had apparently given orders to her dumbfounded soldiers 
that the Shemites were to be admitted into the city. This was done, and she announced that she 
would make him king to reign beside her. The soldiers and populace rose, but only her guard 
were left in the city. These were cut down by the Shemites, except the captain of the guard, 
Conan the Cimmerian, who refused to believe that Taramis was Taramis. He swore it was some 
devil in her shape, and fought ferociously before being overpowered. The boy said that the 
Kothian was having him crucified outside the city wall. This happened; Conan fought off the 
vultures with his teeth, and attracted the attention of a bandit chief who was scouting near the 
walls in hopes of plunder. This was Olgerd Vladislav, a Zaporoskan, or kozak, who had 
wandered down from the steppes and established himself among the nomadic Shemitish tribes 
of the desert. He freed Conan and took him into his band, after a savage test of the 
Cimmerian’s endurance. 
In the meantime – as a letter from a savant visiting in Khauran showed – Salome, posing as 
Taramis, had abolished the worship of Ishtar, filled the temples with obscene images, made 
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human sacrifices and placed in the shrine a hideous monster from the outer gulfs. The young 
soldier, convinced that Taramis was slain or imprisoned and a fraud reigning in her stead, 
haunted the palace and prisons disguised as a beggar, and Salome, having tortured her sister by 
showing her the head of a trusted councillor, tossed it to the beggar to dispose of, and 
unwittingly revealed the secret. He hurried to Conan with the news. Conan had in the 
meantime, wishing vengeance on the Kothian, raised a great army of nomads. Olgerd intended 
taking and sacking Khauran, but Conan deposed him, and announced his intention of rescuing 
Taramis and placing her back on the throne. 
The young soldier rescued Taramis from prison, but they were driven into the temple by 
Salome. But Conan defeated the Kothian, swept into the city, destroyed the monster. The 
Kothian was crucified, and Taramis set back upon her throne. 
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Appendices 
HYBORIAN GENESIS PART II 
Notes on the Creation of the Conan Stories 
by Patrice Louinet 
The year 1933 ended on a much more positive note than it had begun for Robert E. Howard. It 
had promised to be catastrophic. In 1932, Fiction House had ceased publication of Fight Stories 
and Action Stories, two magazines which had paid modestly but regularly, ensuring Howard of 
a meager yet regular income. The arrival of Strange Tales – a direct competitor to Weird Tales 
– which paid well, and on acceptance rather than publication, had been a compensation, but 
late in 1932 Howard had learned that this magazine was also going out of circulation. As 1933 
began, he was left with only one regular market: Farnsworth Wright’s magazines Magic Carpet 
Magazine, a fledgling quarterly, and Weird Tales. There was but one thing to do, and for a few 
weeks Howard literally deluged Weird Tales with submissions, with one clear aim: to sell as 
much as possible. Among the stories submitted were most of the inferior Conan stories, written 
with a visible need for a quick sale. It was only in the spring of 1933, with an impressive 
number of Conan stories awaiting publication in Wright’s magazine (Xuthal of the Dusk, 
Queen of the Black Coast, The Pool of the Black One, Iron Shadows in the Moon and Black 
Colossus), that Howard began to devote his attentions to building other markets. Hiring Otis 
Adelbert Kline as his agent, the Texan spent most of the next few weeks trying to sell some 
more of his boxing yarns and dabbling in genres that were new to him: detective stories and 
westerns. He also began to seriously consider the question of the rights to his stories, and 
looked into the possibility of having short-story collections published in England. 
October 1933 found Howard returning to Conan. Weird Tales had already published three of 
the five Conan stories in their backlog, as it was becoming evident that the character was a 
popular success. The Devil in Iron, completed circa October 1933, was a somewhat half-baked 
effort from a Howard who had not written a Conan story in six months, drawing heavily from 
the earlier Conan story, Iron Shadows in the Moon. Both tales showed Howard’s debt to Harold 
Lamb, a pillar of Adventure, a publication whose influence on Howard was probably greater 
than that of Weird Tales. 
If Howard was an early devotee of Weird Tales – we know he was already aware of the 
magazine’s existence less than six months after it first appeared on the newsstands – his first 
love was clearly adventure fiction, much more than the tales of the weird. The Texan’s 
discovery of Adventure was a cherished memory: “…Magazines were even more scarce than 
books. It was after I moved into ‘town’ (speaking comparatively) that I began to buy 
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magazines. I well remember the first I ever bought. I was fifteen years old. I bought it one 
summer night when a wild restlessness in me would not let me keep still, and I had exhausted 
all the reading material on the place. I’ll never forget the thrill it gave me. Somehow it had 
never occurred to me before that I could buy a magazine. It was an Adventure. I still have the 
copy. After that I bought Adventure for many years, though at times it cramped my resources 
to pay the price. It came out three times a month, then.… I skimped and saved from one 
magazine to the next; I’d buy one copy and have it charged, and when the next issue was out, 
I’d pay for the one for which I owed, and have the other one charged, and so on.” 
By 1921, when Howard discovered it, Adventure was a well-established magazine, one of the 
leading if not the leading fiction magazine of its times, hosting the talents of Talbot Mundy and 
Harold Lamb on a regular basis. Arthur D. Howden-Smith delivered tales of Viking adventures 
and Rafael Sabatini graced the magazine’s pages for the first time in that summer of 1921. 
These authors would influence Robert E. Howard much more than any of the Weird Tales 
writers. Howard’s interest in Adventure went beyond the mere reading of the stories: he had 
two letters published in the magazine in 1924 and corresponded semi-regularly with R.W. 
Gordon, who was in charge of its folk-song department. It was apparently Adventure which 
gave Howard the desire to become a writer: “I wrote my first story when I was fifteen, and sent 
it – to Adventure, I believe. Three years later I managed to break into Weird Tales. Three years 
of writing without selling a blasted line. (I never have been able to sell to Adventure; guess my 
first attempt cooked me with them for ever!)” These lines were written in the summer of 1933, 
a few weeks before the Texan was to start writing adventure fiction. Beyond the half-amused, 
half-exasperated tone Howard uses, one can feel his frustration at not having ever been 
published in the magazine. The entirety of Howard’s surviving early output from 1922 and 
1923 can be best described as a teenager’s sincere attempts at emulating what he was reading 
in Adventure: he thus began – but never completed – a dozen stories featuring Frank Gordon, 
whose adventures were derived from Talbot Mundy and whose nickname – “El Borak, the 
Swift” – was borrowed from Sabatini. 
Significantly enough, when Howard resumed writing adventure stories in October 1933, the 
process started with a resurrection as improbable as Xaltotun’s in The Hour of the Dragon: the 
protagonist of his first mature adventure stories was Francis X. Gordon, “El Borak,” a 
revamped version of his teen-age creation. He thus wasn’t exploring new ground but bridging a 
gap of ten years. In the second Gordon story, The Daughter of Erlik Khan, Gordon explores the 
city of Yolgan, niched in a mysterious Oriental mountain, where the beautiful Yasmeena is 
held prisoner. In the Texan’s next tale, the Conan story The People of the Black Circle, the 
mysterious Oriental mountain is called Yimsha and it is there that Conan rescues another 
beautiful Yasmina. As Howard had exclaimed just after reading his first Mundy novels in 
1923: “…Yasmini? She’s some character, isn’t she?” 
Much has been written about the influence of Talbot Mundy on this particular Conan tale, but 
while Howard’s source material for this story has yet to be identified, Mundy was very 
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probably not part of it. It very much seems that Howard’s background research for his “Eastern 
adventure” stories also furnished the background for the new Conan tales. In The Devil in Iron, 
for instance, Howard had changed the name of the king of Turan from Yildiz (in Iron Shadows 
in the Moon) to Yezdigerd. Much of the action of that story taking place on the isle of Xapur, it 
is quite probable that the names were derived from the historical Yezdigerd – a Persian king 
and a conqueror, just as Howard’s character – and Shapur, his father. Yezdigerd returned in 
The People of the Black Circle, and with him several new elements of geography which 
Howard added to his Hyborian world with this story, such as the Himelian Mountains, 
Afghulistan and Vendhya. 
The People of the Black Circle was Howard’s longest Conan effort to date; it is a true, and 
successful, novella and not merely a “long short story.” A tale of that length could not stand on 
Conan’s shoulders alone, and Yasmina is a welcome change from some of the earlier stories’ 
cringing women. However, it was in Khemsa that Howard created a memorable secondary 
character, torn between his loyalty to his masters and his love for Gitara, between his spiritual 
and his earthly cravings. For, as befits a story exploring the East and the West, The People of 
the Black Circle is a study on duality: a brother and a sister, one dead, the other alive; two 
antithetic couples, Conan and Yasmina versus Khemsa and Gitara (two couples in which 
rivalry for power is a significant factor in the relationship). But where the former are masters 
(hill chief and queen respectively), the latter are but servants of chiefs. The opposition between 
the primitive hillmen and the Seers of Yimsha, that is to say between the physical and the 
mental, was evidently nourished by the year-long debate on the subject which had occupied 
Howard and H. P. Lovecraft for most of the year 1933. 
If the tale at times evokes Mundy’s penchant for mysticism, Howard’s treatment is entirely his 
own. In fact, there was probably little need for the Texan to look to Mundy to find inspiration 
for mysticism: he had bathed in it for years. More: once one has scratched away the Oriental 
trappings of the tale, what is revealed is a story that strangely touches on many points on 
Howard’s family history. His father, Dr. Isaac M. Howard, was all his life interested in 
mysticism, yoga and hypnotism. He regularly practiced hypnotism on his patients, sometimes 
with a young Robert E. Howard present, and had annotated his copies of The Hindu Science of 
Breath and Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy by Yogi Ramacharaka. If Howard needed 
documentation on Eastern mysticism, he needn’t reread Mundy, as he had a much better source 
of information under his own roof. The opening scene – recounting Yasmina’s brother’s death 
at her own hands – is another striking autobiographical example. On a literary plane, it invites 
comparison with several other tales, notably Dermod’s Bane, in which a man is afflicted 
beyond reason by the death of his twin sister. In Howard’s fiction, brothers and sisters often 
have to separate, and usually in painful conditions. The reasons for such an obsession may very 
well originate from a reported (though undocumented) miscarriage suffered by Howard’s 
mother in 1908, when Howard was aged two. This would invite us to draw a parallel between 
Yasmina and Howard, both having experienced the loss of a sibling. However, and as usual in 
Howard’s fiction, these biographical elements were soon diluted and distorted in the story the 
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Texan had to tell in order to sell it to Farnsworth Wright. The People of the Black Circle is a 
particularly satisfying Conan story for all these reasons. The tale functions very well on an 
escapist level and is leagues ahead of standard pulp-fare plotting, but there is a definite depth 
and texture to all its aspects, which ranks it among the three or four best Conan stories Howard 
had written to date. 
Farnsworth Wright must have been rather impressed with it since less than five months elapsed 
between its acceptance and the publication of the first part of the serialization. He was, 
however, not so pleased with the increasing liberties Howard was taking with his dialogue and 
the explicitness of certain situations, and in several instances severely toned down some of the 
Cimmerian’s oaths and sexual allusions. 
In early January 1934, as Howard was writing The People of the Black Circle, he at last 
received news of the story collection he had submitted to Denis Archer in England in June of 
the past year. The answer wasn’t a positive one. If the editor had found the stories “exceedingly 
interesting,” it was not enough: “The difficulty that arises about publication in book form, is 
the prejudice that is very strong over here just now against collections of short stories, and I 
find myself very reluctantly forced to return the stories to you. With this suggestion, however, 
that any time you find yourself able to produce a full-length novel of about 70,000–75,000 
words along the lines of the stories, my allied company, Pawling and Ness Ltd., who deal with 
the lending libraries, and are able to sell a first edition of 5,000 copies, will be very willing to 
publish it.” 
With the exception of his partly autobiographical Post Oaks and Sand Roughs (1928), Howard 
had never completed a novel, though he was demonstrating he was learning the craft with The 
People of the Black Circle, whose final version runs 31,000 words. Many other writers would 
have stopped their efforts here, confronted with a publisher who took six months to answer, 
negatively at that, refusing a collection of stories which he had asked for in the first place. 
Later that month, however, Howard reported to August Derleth: “An English firm, after 
keeping a collection of my short stories for months, finally sent them back, saying that there 
was a prejudice over there just now against such collections – of short stories, I mean – and 
suggested that I write a full length novel for them. But I’m not overly enthusiastic about it, for 
I’ve been disappointed so much. Of course, I’ll do my best.” 
Howard probably began working on the novel in February 1934, but he was to abandon the 
story a few weeks later. 
Almuric – for this is very probably the novel Howard began to write for the British publisher – 
was abandoned midway, as he had written a first draft and the first half of the second one. This 
was to have to been Howard’s third – and last – Yasmina/Yasmeena tale, after The Daughter of 
Erlik Khan and The Devil in Iron. Like her namesakes, this Yasmeena also lived in a strange 
mount: Yuthla. Why Howard insisted that his Yasmeenas/Yasminas dwell in “y” mountains 
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will probably remain a mystery. The novel cannibalized several key scenes from the stories 
which had been initially submitted to the publisher. The winged Yagas of Almuric, for instance, 
definitely owed something to the winged creatures of the Solomon Kane story Wings in the 
Night. Howard was indeed making sure that his novel would be “along the lines of the stories” 
he had previously submitted. Nevertheless, Howard left Almuric incomplete for reasons that 
remain mysterious. (The novel would linger for several years, until it was eventually published 
in the pages of Weird Tales after Howard’s death, completed by another writer). 
After abandoning Almuric, Howard probably realized that it was only logical to make Conan 
the central character of his novel: the sale of The People of the Black Circle in late February or 
March 1934 showed him that he could write successfully at length about the character. Much 
more importantly the setting – the Hyborian Age – and the protagonist were very much in 
Howard’s mind, and little if any work was needed to build a background for the intended 
novel. Lastly, Conan tales had also been included in the first batch of stories sent to Archer: he 
would, once again, be submitting material “along the lines” of what he had already proposed to 
the British publisher. 
The surviving synopsis and 29-page draft of that first Conan effort are intriguing to say the 
least, a sharp departure from the other Conan stories. This “Tombalku” draft was begun and 
abandoned after Howard had finished The People of the Black Circle and abandoned Almuric, 
in all probability in mid-March 1934. Conan is not the protagonist of the story; that role falls to 
one Amalric (whose name evokes Almuric). Reading the synopsis and first draft, it is easy 
enough to see that there wasn’t enough good material here to make a novel; there was in fact 
scant good material at all. The connection between the first part of the story and what would 
have been the Tombalku chapters is unconvincing, and clearly the story wasn’t going 
anywhere. Howard soon realized it and abandoned this tale, too, to begin work on his third – 
final and successful – attempt at writing his novel: The Hour of the Dragon. 
There was very little to salvage from Howard’s two previous efforts. On the surface, there is 
indeed very little to show that the three stories were penned at about the same time: in The 
Hour of the Dragon, Conan briefly mentions a Ghanata knife, a tribe otherwise mentioned only 
in the unfinished Tombalku draft; in an early draft of the novel we are informed that Conan 
was once called “Iron Hand,” the same nickname given Esau Cairn on the planet Almuric. 
There is also the mention of a “Prince Almuric” in The Hour of the Dragon, but this may have 
been derived more from his namesake in Xuthal of the Dusk – another prince who met his 
doom at the hands of Stygians – than from the novel of the same title. 
One passage from the Tombalku story, however, may have inspired the Texan for the subject 
of his novel: 
One of the men, his face smooth and unlined, but his hair silver, was saying: “Aquilonia? There 
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was an invasion – we heard – King Bragorus of Nemedia – how went the war?” 
“He was driven back,” answered Amalric briefly, resisting a shudder. Nine hundred years had 
passed since Bragorus led his spearmen across the marches of Aquilonia. 
Here was the springboard for the plot of The Hour of the Dragon: an invasion of Aquilonia by 
its neighbor Nemedia. The seven mysterious horsemen were also probably transformed into 
The Hour of the Dragon’s four sorcerors from Khitai. Amra, Conan’s alias when he was a 
pirate among the black corsairs, also made the jump from the draft to the novel, and the theme 
of the rival kings is obviously an essential ingredient to the novel. Much of this material had 
already furnished the background to an early Conan story, The Scarlet Citadel, part of the 
initial lot of stories sent to England, which featured Conan as Amra and an invasion (from Koth 
and Ophir in this case). Xaltotun’s resurrection is highly reminiscent of Thugra Khotan’s, in 
Black Colossus, though this particular tale had not been among the lot sent to England in mid- 
1933. 
Howard knew what he should do with The Hour of the Dragon and how he should be doing it: 
he was at the same time recycling several elements from his past Conan stories and trying to 
conquer a new readership. He had thus to present as much as possible of his Hyborian Age and 
its possibilities to his intended new readers, and also should have no compunction about 
recycling several elements from former Conan stories, since the British market was averse to 
publishing short stories. The reader would thus have hints of Stygia, of the Hyborian Age 
equivalents to the African kingdoms, would even get a glimpse – by way of the mysterious 
sorcerors – of the countries east of Vilayet, in a tale which remained, however, centered on the 
Hyborian countries he would be familiar with: the kingdoms corresponding to modern 
occidental Europe. 
It had been a long time since Howard had written of Conan as a king and one could wonder 
why he chose to return to a theme which had long disappeared from his stories. The answer 
probably resides once again in the novel’s intended market. The British public had always been 
keenly interested in the subject of mythical kings and so had been Howard himself: hadn’t he, 
in The Phoenix on the Sword, written about a king who wins his battle aided by a magic sword 
quite similar to Excalibur? Hadn’t he, in The Scarlet Citadel, written that the king is one with 
his kingdom, and that he who slays the king cuts the cords of the kingdom? Was King Conan 
ready to acknowledge his kinship with the most famous Celtic King of all, Arthur? 
In The Scarlet Citadel, Conan’s capture was achieved through treachery and his eventual 
victory was mostly a matter of superior military strategy. In the novel, Conan’s paralysis has a 
distinctive supernatural origin and Howard insists on what has really transpired when Xaltotun 
prevented Conan from taking part in the battle. With Conan’s paralysis, an essential link has 
been broken by magic: Conan has been severed from his army and it was this which led to its 
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defeat. As Pallantides declares shortly thereafter: “Only [Conan] could have led us to victory 
this day.” With the apparent death of Conan, king of Aquilonia, the unity and strength of 
Aquilonia disappears. As a partisan will later tell Conan, in words closely echoing the proverb 
from The Scarlet Citadel: “You were the cord that held the fagots together. When the cord was 
cut, the fagots fell apart.” It is only Conan’s presumed death that enables Valerius to get on the 
throne: “So long as Conan lives, he is a threat, a unifying factor for Aquilonia” declares 
Tarascus. “Only in unity is there strength,” later echoes Conan. Valerius, in spite of his military 
victory, doesn’t succeed in restoring the lost unity of the kingdom and obtaining the allegiance 
of the people. Echoes Conan: “It’s one thing to seize a throne with the aid of its subjects and 
rule them with their consent. It’s another to subjugate a foreign realm and rule it by fear.” 
Conan appears to have been the rightful king to Aquilonia and only magic could defeat the 
unity that existed between him and his people. 
It was not the Heart of Ahriman that brought about the defeat of Conan. The Heart is not an 
instrument of evil. Hadrathus, priest of Asura, later confirms that “against it the powers of 
darkness cannot stand, when it is in the hands of an adept… It restores life, and can destroy 
life. [Xaltotun] has stolen it, not to use it against his enemies, but to keep them from using it 
against him,” and concluding with: “[The Heart] holds the destiny of Aquilonia.” Why does the 
Heart hold the destiny of Aquilonia? At the beginning of the novel, we learn that the jewel 
“was hidden in a cavern below the temple of Mitra, in Tarantia.” The symbolism is obvious: 
the Heart, as its name would suggest, was placed at the heart, in the center, of the kingdom. 
Furthermore, Mitraism is the Hyborian Age’s closest equivalent to an organized religion, the 
official religion of Aquilonia, as well as the better structured of the Hyborian cults; hence its 
“central” position. Tarantia requires some discussing. In The Scarlet Citadel, the capital of 
Aquilonia is called Tamar; it is called Tarantia in the novel. Howard’s changing of the name 
was no “egregious blunder” as certain editors would have it, but the result of a careful choice: 
Tarantia is derived from Tara, mystical and political capital of Ireland, seen as the heart of their 
kingdom by the Celts of Ireland: “You will not press the throne again unless you find the heart 
of your kingdom,” says Zelata to Conan, to which he replies: “Do you mean the city of 
Tarantia?” The Heart is thus the mystical stone that symbolizes the exact center of the country, 
the symbol of the link that unites the people and the land to the king. Once this link is severed 
“the heart is gone from [the] kingdom.” The consequences are dire and immediate for the 
people and the country: 
only embers and ashes showed where farm huts and villas had stood... A vast swath of 
desolation had been cut through the country from the foothills westward. Conan cursed as he 
rode thorough blackened expanses that had been rich fields, and saw the gaunt gable-ends of 
burned houses jutting out the sky. He moved through an empty and deserted land. 
All this is perfectly logical, for in tales of the Grail the country becomes a barren land, the 
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wasteland, from the moment the king cannot properly govern his kingdom anymore: the 
consequences of Conan’s defeat at the hand of the conspirators go far beyond the capture and 
destitution of the Cimmerian. The problem in The Hour of the Dragon is that Conan seems at 
first unaware of the mystic bond which links him to his country. His will to get the throne back 
from his enemies is doomed from the start and even his most loyal subjects refuse to follow 
him in what they consider a suicidal enterprise. Only when Conan has understood everything 
can the quest begin: “What a fool I’ve been! The Heart of Ahriman! The heart of my kingdom! 
Find the heart of my kingdom, Zelata said.” 
It is thus at about the central point of the story that Howard’s novel reveals itself as a quest, and 
more precisely as an Arthurian-like quest for the Grail. Behind the Arthurian legendry one 
finds the obsession of the Celts with the common king they historically never had, the one who 
was to unite the tribes against common foes. This king, a rex, as opposed to the Roman notion 
of imperator, permanent representative of a strong and centralized power, was most of the time 
a military leader. And what Howard is telling us is exactly that: Conan’s quest for the Heart is a 
quest for the perfect way to fulfill his duty as a rex and not as an imperator, as a tyrant. This is 
clearly demonstrated in the exchange between Conan and Trocero in the middle section of the 
book: 
“Then let us unite Zingara with Poitain,” argued Trocero. “Half a dozen princes strive against 
each other, and the country is torn asunder by civil wars. We will conquer it, province by 
province, and add it to your dominions. Then with the aid of the Zingarans we will conquer 
Argos and Ophir. We will build an empire –” 
Again Conan shook his head. “Let others dream imperial dreams. I but wish to hold what is 
mine. I have no desire to rule an empire welded together by blood and fire. It’s one thing to 
seize a throne with the aid of its subjects and rule them with their consent. It’s another to 
subjugate a foreign realm and rule it by fear. I don’t wish to be another Valerius. No, Trocero, 
I’ll rule all Aquilonia and no more, or I’ll rule nothing.” (pg. 168) 
Whoever had the idea of retitling Howard’s novel Conan the Conqueror had evidently not 
understood its theme: Conan is anything but a conqueror by nature. If Conan’s kingship has to 
be envisioned as a conclusion of sorts to his life, then the lesson is one entirely different from 
what has been suggested for years: Conan the King has much less freedom and power (to act as 
he wants) than Conan the Cimmerian. 
If Conan is an Arthur, we might wonder where his Guinevere is. The queen played a very 
special role in Celtic countries, and her absence in Howard’s novel could seem surprising, at 
least to a reader unfamiliar with the Cimmerian. Many Weird Tales readers must have 
experienced a jolt when reading that Conan vowed to marry Zenobia at the end of the novel. 
One wonders, and indeed several critics have wondered, if Conan would be true to his word. 
We have no way to answer such a question, though we can note that Zenobia’s crowning would 
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bring the novel even closer to the Arthurian myth. 
In fact each of the three women of the story – Zenobia, Zelata and Albiona – seem to embody 
part of the symbolic role assigned to the Arthurian queen. Zenobia (whose name was Sabina in 
the early drafts of the novel) is the one supposed to be married (soon) to the king. Zelata is in 
charge of the initiation aspects of the quest: she is the one who helps Conan understand the 
symbolism of the Heart of Ahriman, of the link between the king and his kingdom. Albiona 
was given a name and a rank which help us identify the three women of the novel as a 
composite picture of the Arthurian queen. She is of course a member of the nobility, but it is 
the etymology of her name which betrays her, for Albiona is derived from alba, latin for white. 
Arthur’s wife was of distinct Celtic origin: gwen, the radical behind all the variants of the name 
of King Arthur’s wife (Guinevere, Guenièvre, Gwenhwyfar, etc., Gaelic: finn) means white 
(and by extension: fair). 
The Hyborian Age’s equivalent to the quest for the Grail is then found in the ensuing chapters 
of the novel, when Conan has discovered the importance and the role of the Heart of Ahriman. 
These various picaresque episodes offer a succession of adventures and battles also found in 
most of the Arthurian texts. This is the origin for the episodes of the castle of Valbroso and the 
ghouls in the forest, of Publio, of the ship’s mutiny, of Khemi and of Akivasha, which, strictly 
speaking, don’t add anything to the story, so much that Karl Wagner could suppose that one 
chapter may have been lost here in the transition between the English publisher and the pages 
of Weird Tales, a loss that no one would have noticed. 
Conan’s return to his throne begins with his securing of the Heart of Ahriman. This is achieved 
at the end of chapter 19: “[Conan] whirled about his head the great jewel, which threw off 
splashes of light that spotted the deck with golden fire.” The next chapter opens: “Winter had 
passed from Aquilonia. Leaves sprang out on the limbs of trees, and the fresh grass smiled to 
the touch of the warm southern breezes.” With the heart once back in proper hands, life is 
restored, the wasteland once more becomes a land of plenty, of the Grail: “But in the full flood 
of spring a sudden whisper passed over the sinking kingdom that woke the land to eager life.” 
This image of the country returning to life with the riding back of the holders of the Grail 
irresistibly calls to mind a similar scene in John Boorman’s Excalibur. Xaltotun’s defeat is now 
but a matter of time. The conspirators are divided, while Conan’s forces unite again. The 
restoration of the king and the land is now inevitable. 
Howard was definitely writing his novel with his public in mind and it is probably not a 
coincidence that the story contains homages to British writers. The beginning of Sir Arthur 
Conan Doyle’s Sir Nigel very probably furnished the idea for the plague episode in Howard’s 
novel. More importantly, he was once more paying homage to one of his favorite playwrights, 
Shakespeare, whose Hamlet seems to have been very present with Howard at composition 
time: “There is method in his madness” in chapter 3 is a clear echo of the dramatist’s most 
famous play. (Howard definitely wanted this phrase to appear in his novel, as it appeared in 
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three instances in the second draft of the novel!) In fact, many of Howard’s tales dealing with 
kingship invite comparison with the play. In the case of The Hour of the Dragon, the parallels 
are evident, with both tales centering on the exploits of a king (or would-be king) deposed by 
an usurper whom he would have thought an ally! Conan, dispossessed of his throne and dead 
(or believed so) had in fact all the qualities of the Danish ghost-king. Upon seeing Conan, 
whom he believes dead, a Poitanian soldier waxes Shakespearean and we could for a space 
believe ourselves on the battlements of Elsinore: “His breath hissed inward and his ruddy face 
paled. ‘Avaunt!’ he ejaculated. ‘Why have you come back from the gray lands of death to 
terrify me? I was always your true liegeman in your lifetime –’” 
The Hour of the Dragon is by far the Howard story for which we have the greatest number of 
draft pages. In addition to the 241 pages of the published version, 620 pages of drafts survive, 
while several hundred others (a carbon of the definitive version and at least one complete draft) 
were lost over the years. Howard wrote five versions of his story, with several parts of these 
rewritten two or three times. While he would tell others that the stories came easily to him, he 
was working at it much harder than he would care to admit. The story’s synopsis provides an 
excellent sample of Howard’s working method: running three dense single-spaced pages, it 
covers the first five chapters in minute detail with only a few variations from the published 
version, while the subsequent chapters are much less detailed and the second part of the novel 
not covered at all. Howard built his first drafts from this, testing his scenes and dialogues. 
Xaltotun’s motivations for sparing Conan thus changed several times as Howard was writing 
his drafts and getting a better grasp of his characters and how they would act and interact when 
confronted with certain situations. The passage in which Tiberias sacrifices himself by leading 
Valerius and five thousand men to a deathly trap in the gorges was added in the last stages of 
writing, offering the reader some memorable moments and infusing the end of the novel with a 
sense of suspense and incertitude which it would otherwise be lacking. 
The study of the typescripts shows that Howard didn’t begin work on his Conan novel until 
after he had finished both The People of the Black Circle and a detective story received by his 
agent on March 10. Chances are that he didn’t actually begin it until after he had sent another 
story to his agent circa March 17. It was only apt that such a novel was begun at the time of 
Saint Patrick’s Day. Records show that Howard’s agent didn’t receive anything from him 
between March 19 and June 20. If we accept March 17, give or take a couple of days, as the 
beginning date of the writing of the novel, then The Hour of the Dragon was written in less 
than two months: on May 20, 1934, Howard wrote Denis Archer in England: “As you 
doubtless remember, in your letter of Jan. 9th, 1934, you suggested that I submit a full length 
novel, on the order of the weird short stories formerly submitted, to your allied company of 
Pawling & Ness Ltd. Under separate cover I am sending you a 75,000 word novel, entitled, The 
Hour of the Dragon, written according to your suggestions. Hoping it will prove acceptable…” 
During those two months, Howard apparently didn’t write any other story, concentrating all his 
efforts on his novel, with an estimated output of 5,000 words per day, seven days a week. On 
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May 20, the day he sent the novel to England, Howard wrote four short letters. The Hour of the 
Dragon had occupied almost all of his time for those two months. Edgar Hoffmann Price’s 
brief visit in April seems to have been the sole distraction during those two months. For 
someone who was not expecting much from the British market, two full months of work seems 
an awful lot. One suspects that Howard had much more faith and hope in his novel than he was 
ready to admit. He knew that if the novel was to be accepted – and published – it could be a 
major, perhaps the major, break for him. 
As could be expected, Howard took a few days off in June: “Having completed several weeks 
of steady work, I’m knocking off a few hours for relaxation and to try to catch up with my 
correspondence which I’ve allowed to stack up outrageously.” Howard took a short vacation 
and visited the Carlsbad caverns, which were to inspire him for one of his next Conan stories, 
but he soon found himself back to work and back to Conan. Only a few days had elapsed 
between the completion of The People of the Black Circle and the beginning of The Hour of the 
Dragon. The delay was very probably the same between The Hour of the Dragon and his next 
Conan story. 
A Witch Shall Be Born was written in late May or early June 1934, probably in a matter of 
days. The tale was evidently intended to replenish Farnsworth Wright’s stock of Conan stories. 
In April 1934, Wright had published Iron Shadows in the Moon, Queen of the Black Coast had 
followed in May, and Howard knew that The Devil in Iron and The People of the Black Circle 
were scheduled for the August 1934 and subsequent issues, leaving him with no new Conan 
stories awaiting publication in the pages of Weird Tales. This was a new situation for the 
Texan, since Iron Shadows in the Moon and Queen of the Black Coast had been written and 
sold in 1932. Wright was accepting Conan stories as fast as he could get them, and was now 
almost systematically granting them the privileges of the cover (Queen of the Black Coast, The 
Devil in Iron, The People of the Black Circle, and A Witch Shall Be Born, published in a sevenmonth 
span, were all cover-featured). Conan’s popularity was growing, and the character was 
very probably attracting new readers to Weird Tales. Women wrote to the magazine, asking for 
more Conan, whom they envisioned, thanks in part to Wright’s censoring hands, as a romantic 
barbarian. A Witch Shall Be Born required only two drafts before Howard was satisfied with it. 
That it matched Wright’s expectations exactly there can be no doubt. In a letter to Robert H. 
Barlow dated July 5, 1934, Howard wrote: “Here, at last, is the ms. I promised you some time 
ago. A Witch Shall Be Born. It is my latest Conan story, and Mr. Wright says my best.” 
A Witch is hardly Howard’s best, but it is a special Conan tale in the sense that it is at the same 
time a rather forgettable Conan story yet contains the most famous, or rather the most 
memorable scene of the entire series. Reading the story, one gets the impression that Howard 
was simply borrowing from that year’s production to craft the tale. The monster at the end of 
the story seems to be a cousin to that in the last chapter of Almuric. Taramis and Salome 
remind us that Howard was fascinated with brothers and sisters (with another occurrence of 
painful separation at birth) and also remind us of Howard’s interest in duality. Paranoia, a 
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theme in Howard’s work as early as the Kull story The Shadow Kingdom (1926–27), runs 
rampant through this tale, and Howard repeats that people aren’t always what they seem to be. 
It is a frequent occurrence in Howard that evil lurks behind seemingly innocent features. In A 
Witch Shall Be Born, only Conan – and Howard? – seems to have all the facts. All other 
characters are as blind as Olgerd Vladislav to what has been taking place under their very eyes. 
Conan, in A Witch Shall Be Born, is becoming a superhuman character. Howard was growing 
extremely confident with his creation as testifies the structure of the tale. We are here miles 
away from pulp formula: Conan – the protagonist – gives life to the entire story by being 
present in only two chapters. It is tempting to draw a parallel between Conan and what Howard 
thought he was achieving with the Conan series: The Texan knew he had a winner and that he 
could get away with almost everything, even not having the lead character in the story except 
in the central chapters. Conan dominates the whole story and this is made plain in the 
crucifixion scene. How can anybody kill a character – literarily or literally – who can survive 
such a scene as that one? For to write a crucifixion scene will automatically invite a Christic 
comparison. Conan probably became “immortal” with this scene and one wonders to what 
extent Howard wished it to be so. The story – average as it is – exudes Howard’s confidence in 
his creation. It was accepted with relish by Farnsworth Wright, published on the heels of four 
consecutive issues of Weird Tales starring the Cimmerian, and once again won the cover. 
Howard had every reason to be confident. 
At the beginning of 1933, Howard only had one regular market. In mid-1934, he was appearing 
in almost every issue of Weird Tales, had succeeded in making Action Stories a regular market, 
with a Howard story in each issue, thought he had another regular market in Jack Dempsey’s 
Fight Magazine, was having stories published in several new and different magazines thanks to 
his agent Otis Adelbert Kline; furthermore, he thought he had just sold a novel to the British 
market. 
It was an idyllic situation. 
It wasn’t to last long. 
NOTES ON THE CONAN TYPESCRIPTS AND THE CHRONOLOGY 
By Patrice Louinet 
LIST OF THE EXTANT CONAN TYPESCRIPTS (January–June 1934) 
The final drafts of the stories published in Weird Tales were probably destroyed after the story 
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was typeset, and thus are no longer extant. The surviving typescript for A Witch Shall Be Born 
is the exception rather than the rule, unfortunately. 
Regarding the terminology used: a draft is “incomplete” when we are missing at least one page; 
it is “unfinished” when Howard didn't finish the draft. Sometimes Howard would write a draft 
and rewrite only a portion of it; such drafts are subdivided with numerals (i.e., draft b2 recycles 
pages from draft b1). 
We are particularly indebted to Glenn Lord for furnishing copies of the typescripts mentioned 
below, and to Terence McVicker for the copy of the typescript of A Witch Shall Be Born. 
The People of the Black Circle 
– synopsis, untitled, 2 pgs. 
– draft a, untitled, 80 pgs. 
– draft b1, incomplete and unfinished (pgs. 10-92; 94-98 + 47a of 98; numbered 10-28, 30, 30- 
98 in error; missing pg. 93; pg. 47a discarded in favor of 47b; pgs. 1-9 lost, pgs. 10-90 survive 
as carbon (and were reused in draft b2); pg. 91 survives as original and carbon; pg. 47a and 
pgs. 92 and 94-98 as originals) 
– draft b2 (final Weird Tales version) was comprised of draft b1 pgs. 1-10 [lost], draft b1 pgs. 
11-91 [survive as carbon], plus draft b2 pg. 92 [lost] and pgs. 93-98 [survive as carbon] 
In addition to his drafts, Howard wrote the paragraphs which appeared before the second and 
third installment of the serialization in Weird Tales, summing up the events of the previous 
chapters. A total of ten pages survive, six as originals and four as carbons, the latter identical to 
the text appearing in Weird Tales. 
Untitled story 
– synopsis, untitled, 3 pgs. 
– draft, untitled and unfinished, 29 pgs. 
The Hour of the Dragon 
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– synopsis, untitled, 2 pgs. 
– notes, 4 pgs. 
– draft a, untitled, incomplete and unfinished (pgs. 1-7, 21-29, 31-119 of 119) 
– draft b1, untitled, diminishing to part-story, part-synopsis 160 pgs. (numbered 1-70, 72-116, 
118-162 in error) 
– draft b2, incomplete and unfinished, diminishing to a synopsis, (re-uses draft b1 pgs. 1-150 
plus part of pg. 151; pgs. 151-163, 165-169 of 169; numbered 151, 153, 153-163, 165-169 in 
error; missing pg. 164) 
– draft c, untitled, unfinished and incomplete, (pgs. 1, 3-196 of 196; missing pg. 2; numbered 1- 
65, 67-196 in error) 
– draft d1, incomplete (pgs. 210-229 of 229 pgs.; numbered 210-227, 229, 229 in error; pgs. 1- 
209 were reused for drafts d2 and d3 then later lost; pgs. 210-216 were also reused for draft d2 
and were discarded) 
– draft d2 (re-uses draft d1 pgs. 1-216; numbered 217-221, 227-237 of 237; there are no 
missing pgs. between 221 and 227 in spite of the numbering) 
– draft d3 [lost: this draft was probably 236 pgs. long, among the papers sent to Otis Adelbert 
Kline after Howard’s death and later lost; pgs. 1-209 came from draft d1; pgs. 210-236 were 
new] 
– discarded pages from final draft (draft e): pgs. 1-4, 6, 9, 15-18, 24, 38-39, 46-50, 52, 55, 61, 
70, 72 (2 different), 79-80, 85, 94, 96-99, 101, 111, 113, 117, 122, 128, 134-136, 170, 206, 211- 
213, 216-217, 221-223, 225-226, 228-229, 232-241 of 241 pgs. There is a strong possibility 
that these pages were discarded and revised when Howard prepared the novel for submission to 
Farnsworth Wright. 
– draft e (final Weird Tales version) [lost: the carbon for this was probably among the papers 
sent to Otis Adelbert Kline after Howard’s death and later lost] 
– submission sheet to Denis Archer, with verse heading, 1 pg. 
A Witch Shall Be Born 
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– synopsis, untitled, 1 pg. 
– draft a (this draft was sent to Robert H. Barlow on 5 July 1934; the typescript is now in 
private hands; unfortunately, it hasn’t been possible to examine the typescript for this edition.) 
– draft b1, incomplete, 53 pgs. (pgs. 1-4, 6-52 survive as originals, pgs. 1-53 as carbon, with 
slight differences between the two.) 
– draft b2 (final Weird Tales version: reuses draft b1, pgs. 1-52; pgs. 53-55 survive as 
originals, pgs. 54-55 as carbon [REH probably kept the wrong pg. 53 carbon in his files.]) 
NOTES ON THE ORIGINAL HOWARD TEXTS 
The texts for this edition of Volume 2 of the Complete Conan of Cimmeria were prepared by 
Patrice Louinet, Rusty Burke and Dave Gentzel, with assistance from Glenn Lord. The stories 
have been checked either against Howard’s original typescripts, copies of which were 
furnished by Glenn Lord and Terence McVicker, or the first published appearance if a 
typescript was unavailable. Drafts of Howard’s stories, when extant, have also been checked to 
ensure the greatest accuracy. Every effort has been made to present the work of Robert E. 
Howard as faithfully as possible. 
The study of the extant texts for A Witch Shall Be Born (Howard’s original typescript, the 
carbon thereof and the Weird Tales text), showed conclusively that Farnsworth Wright, the 
editor of Weird Tales, had censored several passages in the Conan stories, particularly bits of 
dialogue and descriptions that he probably found too “explicit”. Fortunately, carbons survive 
for most of the later Conan stories, often in complete or nearly-complete form. The comparison 
of the texts for which both carbon and original typescript survive shows that these are nearly 
identical. The only differences concern the titles, subtitles and chapter divisions of the stories, 
which are often – but not always – absent from the carbons. Additionally, a few typographical 
errors may have been fixed, or a word replaced by another. Unless the original typescripts ever 
surface, Howard’s carbons offer by far the purest available text for many of the Conan stories. 
Deviations from the original sources are detailed in these textual notes. In the following pages, 
page, line and word number are given as follows: 51.9.5, indicating page 51, ninth line, fifth 
word. Story titles, chapter numbers and titles, and breaks before and after chapter headings, 
titles and illustrations are not counted. The page/line number will be followed by the reading in 
the original source, or a statement indicating the type of change made. Punctuation changes are 
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indicated by giving the immediately preceding word followed by the original punctuation. 
The People of the Black Circle 
Text taken from Howard’s carbon, provided by Glenn Lord, and from the September, October 
and November 1934 issues of Weird Tales. The surviving carbon is incomplete, lacking pages 
1-9 and 92 of a 98 page typescript; the missing pages (from the beginning to “she asked” (page 
10, line 1) and from “so willingly” (74.26.13) to “repeated helplessly” (75.12.7) are taken from 
the Weird Tales appearance. Howard’s chapters are untitled on the carbon; it is not known 
whether the subtitles are Howard’s or Wright’s. Changes from the Weird Tales text: 5.37.6: 
Sap; 7.6.13: Hills; 8.28.2: Majesty; 9.19.12: Skalos. 9.24.5: Majesty. Changes from Howard’s 
carbon: 10.18.9: b; 9.30.13: “a” omitted; 11.17.13: Eastern; 12.20.12: country-side; 12.25.9: 
Then; 15.10.7: sent led; 16.6.11: train; 16.9.9: unwanted; 17.4.2: of; 17.27.14: not of one of; 
18.27.2: between; 20.10.7: excercise; 20.11.9: excercises; 21.17.6: ‘the’ absent from typescript; 
22.2.10: ‘star-light’ hyphenated at line-break; 22.5.1: no comma after ‘carelessly’; 22.22.6: 
quiesence; 22.36.3: when; 24.21.1: gripped; 25.14.10: hillsmen; 25.32.13: irrelevent; 25.35.8: 
liad; 28.9.9: into; 28.9.13: seem; 30.17.12: no comma after ‘squatted’ (typed to right edge of 
carbon); 30.23.5: Irakzai; 32.18.11: fore-finger; 33.20.1: asonished; 33.20.7: distended; 
33.34.4: ‘as’ absent from original; 37.5.7: no comma after ‘through’; 40.17.7: profferred; 
40.24.10: hit; 40.25.2: supply; 41.7.5: comma after ‘flight’; 41.26.7: ‘north west’; 42.26.12: 
‘in’ not in original; 42.28.7: what ever; 43.10.6: hypnostism; 44.34.4: hundred; 44.39.11: 
neophism; 45.1.12: excercise; 45.19.1: Raksha; 47.5.7: the top-left corner of the carbon is torn; 
‘He shook’ and the ‘l’ of ‘loose’ are missing; the missing words appear in the Weird Tales 
version and the first draft; 47.16.3: river bed; 48.3.5: river bed; 48.27.6: traffick; 48.33.11: 
‘chief’ not in original; 50.18.3: tough; 51.17.5: comma after ‘than’; 51.32.10: gald; 51.37.14: 
herslf; 51.37.15: in; 52.3.3: scrutinised; 52.9.6: every; 53.7.7: ‘to’ not in original; 53.22.8: 
loosly; 53.24.13: onlique; 54.10.4: on; 55.2.15: comma instead of semi-colon after ‘fingers’; 
56.5.14: no comma after ‘first’; 56.18.7: no comma after ‘suddenly’; 56.27.8: ‘stems’ absent 
from original; the word appears in the Weird Tales text and in the first draft; 57.4.3: ‘in’ not in 
original; 58.10.11: wide braced; 59.10.11: infest; 59.26.1: ‘did’ not in original; 60.11.2: half 
blinded; 60.16.8: thunder storm; 60.17.1: nightning; 61.12.13: green robed; 61.15.3: ‘as’ not in 
original; 61.28.16: sheer walled; 62.32.8: ‘in a’ in original; 64.1.1: unprecendented; 64.31.14: 
black robed; 64.34.9: black robed; 65.35.8: no comma after ‘mid-stride’ in original; 66.12.9: 
reinacted; 66.24.11: suddeness; 66.27.6: ‘if’ not in original; 67.1.5: ‘whether’ not in original; 
67.9.5: black robed; 67.9.9: no comma after ‘convulsions’ (typed to right edge of paper); 
67.35.7: ‘the’ not in original; 68.7.9: his; 68.14.13: stars; 68.16.7: left hand; 70.2.11: half way; 
70.8.1: sandal-wood; 72.1.1: He (there is no chapter transition at this point of Howard’s 
carbon.); 72.8.15: hair; 73.5.11: dociley; 73.14.5: to; 73.38.1: His; 74.1.1: semi-colon instead 
of comma after ‘Yes’. 77.9.6: left hand; 77.12.8: melee; 77.23.11: ‘was’ repeated; 77.29.13: 
van-guard; 78.12.2: accepting. 
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The Hour of the Dragon 
Originally appeared in Weird Tales in five installments, December 1935 and January, 
February, March and April 1936. The verse heading did not appear in the magazine; it is taken 
from Howard's submission sheet for the novel prepared for British publisher Denis Archer in 
May 1934 (document provided by Glenn Lord). It is not known if the heading was included 
when the novel was sent to Weird Tales. There is no chapter 20 in the Weird Tales text: chapter 
19 concluded the March 1936 installment, and the April installment began with chapter 21. A 
study of the drafts for the novel shows that this is a mistake in numbering rather than a missing 
chapter. 89.11.13: Zingarians; 133.22.13: not; 138.24.13: can not; 146.26.4: without; 
156.32.11: intense; (‘incense’ in all surviving drafts); 166.8.7: Conon; 167.36.8: men; 
172.13.5: ‘from’ not in original; 197.11.7: shoreline; 198.22.12: shoreline; 210.6.5: ceatures; 
213.32.10: ‘was’ not in original; 244.16.13: men; 245.5.5: Gunderman. 
A Witch Shall Be Born 
Text taken from Howard’s original typescript, provided by Terence McVicker; page 5 is absent 
from the typescript; the text for this page has been taken from Howard’s carbon, provided by 
Glenn Lord. 257.12.2: ‘herself’ not in original; 258.21.8: coifure; 258.21.13: queen’s; 
258.22.12: boudior; 260.8.1: ‘He’ underlined; 260.14.1: ‘He’ underlined; 260.16.2: ‘He’ 
underlined; 260.20.1: pouring; 260.21.1: ‘He’ underlined; 260.24.2: ‘He’ underlined; 261.23.5: 
semi-colon after ‘called’; 264.9.2: exclamation mark after ‘slain’; 266.5.11: happens; 266.31.6: 
no hyphen in ‘low-swinging’; 267.8.12: comma after ‘rescue’; 267.36.9: minature; 268.28.14: 
tavern-floor; 270.34.7: no em-dash before ‘he’; 270.35.1: comma instead of em-dash after 
‘nomads’; 272.2.5: ‘to’ not in original; 274.6.14: independance; 274.27.6: ‘the’ not in original; 
276.6.1: from whence; 277.1.5: envelopes; 277.10.5: contemptously; 277.21.7: coifure; 
277.37.11: permenently; 278.24.4: every; 278.32.7: silvered; 280.15.11: aubdible; 282.13.14: 
it; 282.14.15: it; 282.21.15: vizer; 282.28.8: ‘a’ not in original; 285.26.8: hoard; 290.10.14: 
protect; 291.2.2: thick; 291.15.4: semi-colon after ‘merged’; 296.6.2: pillard; 296.36.2: cresent; 
296.37.7: agonies; 300.5.2: there; 301.7.1: comma after ‘compassion’. 
Untitled synopsis (The People of the Black Circle) 
Text taken from Howard’s original typescript, provided by Glenn Lord. No changes have been 
made for this edition. 
The Story thus Far... (The People of the Black Circle) 
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First page taken from Howard’s carbon, provided by Glenn Lord. The second carbon was also 
in Howard’s files but was in such bad condition that Glenn Lord had to retype it, respecting the 
original document’s layout, text and eventual mistakes. The text for this edition is taken from 
Glenn Lord’s retyping. No changes have been made for this edition. 
Untitled synopsis (Amalric…) 
Text taken from Howard’s original typescript, provided by Glenn Lord. No changes have been 
made for this edition. 
Untitled draft (Three men squatted…) 
Text taken from Howard’s original typescript, provided by Glenn Lord. No changes have been 
made for this edition. 
Untitled synopsis (The Hour of the Dragon) 
Text taken from Howard’s original typescript, provided by Glenn Lord. No changes have been 
made for this edition. 
Notes for The Hour of the Dragon 
Text taken from Howard’s original typescript, provided by Glenn Lord. No changes have been 
made for this edition. 
Untitled synopsis (A Witch Shall Be Born) 
Text taken from Howard’s original typescript, provided by Glenn Lord. No changes have been 
made for this edition. 
The Bloody Crown of Conan 
338

I am grateful to Jerry Tiritilli, Rick Bernal, Scott Gustafson, Geof Darrow, Larry Majewski and 
Tom Gianni. Their enthusiasm for art and fantasy has always been an inspiration. Also for their 
suggestions and insights, I’d like to thank the Keegan family, Barry Klugerman, Rick Vitone, 
Dave Burton, Mark Schultz and Al Wyman. Applause for Barbara and Jack Baum, if not for 
them, where would we be? Lastly, thanks to Marcelo Anciano. His vision of the Robert E. 
Howard/Wandering Star library is now considered a benchmark of quality in the publishing of 
fine books. 
Gary Gianni 
My thanks to the Wandering Star team for making it happen a second time. Marcelo, Stuart and 
Rusty: we did it! Thanks to Glenn Lord for his support of this project and his continuous help. 
These books couldn’t exist without you. Thanks also to Terence McVicker for his generosity 
and his help with this volume. And very special thanks to Shelly and Valérie for letting the 
boys out of the chores when superior duty called. 
Patrice Louinet 
Many thanks to the Wandering Star team, particularly Patrice, Marcelo and Stuart, for yeoman 
effort into the wee smalls; to Glenn Lord for his years of effort on behalf of REH and for his 
hard work in assisting this project; and of course to Shelly, with much love – thanks for letting 
me out of the chores when the deadline looms! 
Rusty Burke 
I would like to thank Marcelo, Patrice and Rusty for being a pleasure to work with once again 
and Gary for revitalising my interest in Conan. Thanks also to Mandy and Emma for being 
patient and understanding, Fishburn Hedges for allowing me to use their design studio after 
hours and at weekends again (and again) and, finally, to Phil Watson with whom I used to 
exchange Howard books and Conan comics many, many years ago. Cheers, Phil! 
Stuart Williams 
When I first started these books I had no idea that I would be creating a library of illustrated 
books. I would like to thank all who have been involved in its conception and to the many 
artists who have been incredibly supportive of my endeavour: Al Williamson, Mike Mignola, 
Mark Schultz, Geof Darrow, Neil Gaiman, Bruce Timm, Frank Cho, Justin Sweet, Frank 
Frazetta, Jeff Jones and, of course, Gary Gianni. Very special thanks also to Jim Keegan, 
Stuart, Rusty and Patrice, my keystones, and not forgetting Ed Waterman, web designer 
supreme. 
The Bloody Crown of Conan 
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Marcelo Anciano 
The Bloody Crown of Conan 
340

PRAISE FOR ROBERT E. HOWARD 
“I adore these books. Howard had a gritty, vibrant style—broadsword writing that cut its way 
to the heart, with heroes who are truly larger than life. I heartily recommend them to anyone 
who loves fantasy.” 
—DAVID GEMMELL 
Author of Legend and White Wolf 
“The voice of Robert E. Howard still resonates after decades with readers—equal parts ringing 
steel, thunderous horse hooves, and spattered blood. Far from being a stereotype, his creation 
of Conan is the high heroic adventurer. His raw muscle and sinews, boiling temper, and lusty 
laughs are the gauge by which all modern heroes must be measured.” 
—ERIC NYLUND 
Author of Halo: The Fall of Reach and Signal to Noise 
“That teller of marvelous tales, Robert Howard, did indeed create a giant [Conan] in whose 
shadow other ‘hero tales’ must stand.” 
—JOHN JAKES 
New York Times bestselling author of the North and South trilogy 
“For stark, living fear . . . what other writer is even in the running with Robert E. Howard?” 
—H. P. LOVECRAFT 
“Howard . . . painted in about the broadest strokes imaginable. A mass of glimmering black for 
the menace, an ice-blue cascade for the hero, between them a swath of crimson for battle, 
passion, blood.” 
—FRITZ LIEBER 
“Forget Schwarzenegger and the movies. This is pure pulp fiction from the 1930s, before 
political corrections and focus groups dictated the direction of our art. Swords spin, entrails 
spill, and women swoon.” 
—Men’s Health 
“Howard wrote pulp adventure stories of every kind, for every market he could find, but his 
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real love was for supernatural adventure and he brought a brash, tough element to the epic 
fantasy which did as much to change the course of the American school away from precious 
writing and static imagery as Hammett, Chandler, and the Black Mask pulp writers were to 
change the course of American detective fiction.” 
—MICHAEL MOORCOCK 
Award-winning author of the Elric saga 
“In this, I think, the art of Robert E. Howard was hard to surpass: vigor, speed, vividness. And 
always there is that furious, galloping narrative pace.” 
—POUL ANDERSON 
“Howard honestly believed the basic truth of the stories he was telling. It’s as if he’d said, 
‘This is how life really was lived in those former savage times!’ ” 
—DAVID DRAKE 
Author of Grimmer Than Hell and Dogs of War 
“For headlong, nonstop adventure and for vivid, even florid, scenery, no one even comes close 
to Howard.” 
—HARRY TURTLEDOVE 
The Bloody Crown of Conan 
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THE FULLY ILLUSTRATED ROBERT E. HOWARD LIBRARY from Del Rey Books 

The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian 
The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane 
The Bloody Crown of Conan 
Bran Mak Morn: The Last King* 
The Conquering Sword of Conan* 

*forthcoming 


The Bloody Crown of Conan is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are 
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. 
A Del Rey® Book 
Published by The Random House Publishing Group 
Copyright © 2003 by Conan Properties International, LLC. 
Editor: Patrice Louinet 
Series Editor: Rusty Burke 
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in 
the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a 
division of Random House, Inc., New York. Previously published in Great Britain by 
Wandering Star, Ltd., London, in 2003. 
Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, 
Inc. 
Conan is a registered trademark of Conan Properties International, LLC. 
www.delreybooks.com 
This edition published by arrangement with Wandering Star Books, Ltd. 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2004103781 
eISBN 0-345-48078-3 
v1.0 
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