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Title: The Phoenix on the SwordAuthor: Robert E. Howard* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: 0600811h.htmlLanguage: EnglishDate first posted: May 2006Most recent update: November 2020This eBook was produced by Richard Scott and Colin Choat,and updated by Roy Glashan.Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editionswhich are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright noticeis included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particularpaper edition.Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check thecopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing thisfile.This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the termsof the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online athttp://gutenberg.net.au/licence.htmlTo contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au
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Weird Tales, December 1932
"KNOW, oh prince, that between the years whenthe oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years ofthe rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, whenshining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantlesbeneath the stars—Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea,Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-hauntedmystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on thepastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs,Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But theproudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme inthe dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired,sullen- eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, withgigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweledthrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet."—TheNemedian Chronicles
OVER shadowy spires and gleaming towers lay theghostly darkness and silence that runs before dawn. Into a dimalley, one of a veritable labyrinth of mysterious winding ways,four masked figures came hurriedly from a door which a dusky handfurtively opened. They spoke not but went swiftly into the gloom,cloaks wrapped closely about them; as silently as the ghosts ofmurdered men they disappeared in the darkness. Behind them asardonic countenance was framed in the partly opened door; a pairof evil eyes glittered malevolently in the gloom.
"Go into the night, creatures of the night," a voice mocked."Oh, fools, your doom hounds your heels like a blind dog, and youknow it not." The speaker closed the door and bolted it, thenturned and went up the corridor, candle in hand. He was a sombergiant, whose dusky skin revealed his Stygian blood. He came into aninner chamber, where a tall, lean man in worn velvet lounged like agreat lazy cat on a silken couch, sipping wine from a huge goldengoblet.
"Well, Ascalante," said the Stygian, setting down the candle,"your dupes have slunk into the streets like rats from theirburrows. You work with strange tools."
"Tools?" replied Ascalante. "Why, they consider me that. Formonths now, ever since the Rebel Four summoned me from the southerndesert, I have been living in the very heart of my enemies, hidingby day in this obscure house, skulking through dark alleys anddarker corridors at night. And I have accomplished what thoserebellious nobles could not. Working through them, and throughother agents, many of whom have never seen my face, I havehoneycombed the empire with sedition and unrest. In short I,working in the shadows, have paved the downfall of the king whosits throned in the sun. By Mitra, I was a statesman before I wasan outlaw."
"And these dupes who deem themselves your masters?"
"They will continue to think that I serve them, until ourpresent task is completed. Who are they to match wits withAscalante? Volmana, the dwarfish count of Karaban; Gromel, thegiant commander of the Black Legion; Dion, the fat baron ofAttalus; Rinaldo, the hare-brained minstrel. I am the force whichhas welded together the steel in each, and by the clay in each, Iwill crush them when the time comes. But that lies in the future;tonight the king dies."
"Days ago I saw the imperial squadrons ride from the city," saidthe Stygian. "They rode to the frontier which the heathen Pictsassail—thanks to the strong liquor which I've smuggled overthe borders to madden them. Dion's great wealth made that possible.And Volmana made it possible to dispose of the rest of the imperialtroops which remained in the city. Through his princely kin inNemedia, it was easy to persuade King Numa to request the presenceof Count Trocero of Poitain, seneschal of Aquilonia; and of course,to do him honor, he'll be accompanied by an imperial escort, aswell as his own troops, and Prospero, King Conan's right-hand man.That leaves only the king's personal bodyguard in thecity—beside the Black Legion. Through Gromel I've corrupted aspendthrift officer of that guard, and bribed him to lead his menaway from the king's door at midnight.
"Then, with sixteen desperate rogues of mine, we enter thepalace by a secret tunnel. After the deed is done, even if thepeople do not rise to welcome us, Gromel's Black Legion will besufficient to hold the city and the crown."
"And Dion thinks that crown will be given to him?"
"Yes. The fat fool claims it by reason of a trace of royalblood. Conan makes a bad mistake in letting men live who stillboast descent from the old dynasty, from which he tore the crown ofAquilonia.
"Volmana wishes to be reinstated in royal favor as he was underthe old regime, so that he may lift his poverty-ridden estates totheir former grandeur. Gromel hates Pallantides, commander of theBlack Dragons, and desires the command of the whole army, with allthe stubbornness of the Bossonian. Alone of us all, Rinaldo has nopersonal ambition. He sees in Conan a red- handed, rough-footedbarbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land. Heidealizes the king whom Conan killed to get the crown, rememberingonly that he occasionally patronized the arts, and forgetting theevils of his reign, and he is making the people forget. Alreadythey openly singThe Lament for the King in which Rinaldolauds the sainted villain and denounces Conan as 'thatblack-hearted savage from the abyss'. Conan laughs, but the peoplesnarl."
"Why does he hate Conan?"
"Poets always hate those in power. To them perfection is alwaysjust behind the last corner, or beyond the next. They escape thepresent in dreams of the past and future. Rinaldo is a flamingtorch of idealism, rising, as he thinks, to overthrow a tyrant andliberate the people. As for me—well, a few months ago I hadlost all ambition but to raid the caravans for the rest of my life;now old dreams stir. Conan will die; Dion will mount the throne.Then he, too, will die. One by one, all who oppose me willdie—by fire, or steel, or those deadly wines you know so wellhow to brew. Ascalante, king of Aquilonia! How like you the soundof it?"
The Stygian shrugged his broad shoulders.
"There was a time," he said with unconcealed bitterness, "whenI, too, had my ambitions, beside which yours seem tawdry andchildish. To what a state I have fallen! My old-time peers andrivals would stare indeed could they see Thoth-amon of the Ringserving as the slave of an outlander, and an outlaw at that; andaiding in the petty ambitions of barons and kings!"
"You laid your trust in magic and mummery," answered Ascalantecarelessly. "I trust my wits and my sword."
"Wits and swords are as straws against the wisdom of theDarkness," growled the Stygian, his dark eyes flickering withmenacing lights and shadows. "Had I not lost the Ring, ourpositions might be reversed."
"Nevertheless," answered the outlaw impatiently, "you wear thestripes of my whip on your back, and are likely to continue to wearthem."
"Be not so sure!" the fiendish hatred of the Stygian glitteredfor an instant redly in his eyes. "Some day, somehow, I will findthe Ring again, and when I do, by the serpent-fangs of Set, youshall pay—"
The hot-tempered Aquilonian started up and struck him heavilyacross the mouth. Thoth reeled back, blood starting from hislips.
"You grow over-bold, dog," growled the outlaw. "Have a care; Iam still your master who knows your dark secret. Go upon thehousetops and shout that Ascalante is in the city plotting againstthe king—if you dare."
"I dare not," muttered the Stygian, wiping the blood from hislips.
"No, you do not dare," Ascalante grinned bleakly. "For if I dieby your stealth or treachery, a hermit priest in the southerndesert will know of it, and will break the seal of a manuscript Ileft in his hands. And having read, a word will be whispered inStygia, and a wind will creep up from the south by midnight. Andwhere will you hide your head, Thoth-amon?"
The slave shuddered and his dusky face went ashen.
"Enough!" Ascalante changed his tone peremptorily. "I have workfor you. I do not trust Dion. I bade him ride to his country estateand remain there until the work tonight is done. The fat fool couldnever conceal his nervousness before the king today. Ride afterhim, and if you do not overtake him on the road, proceed to hisestate and remain with him until we send for him. Don't let him outof your sight. He is mazed with fear, and might bolt—mighteven rush to Conan in a panic, and reveal the whole plot, hopingthus to save his own hide. Go!"
The slave bowed, hiding the hate in his eyes, and did as he wasbidden. Ascalante turned again to his wine. Over the jeweled spireswas rising a dawn crimson as blood.
When I was afighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat;
The people scattered gold-dust before my horse's feet;
But now I am a great king, the people hound my track
With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back.
—The Road of Kings
THE ROOM was large and ornate, with richtapestries on the polished panelled walls, deep rugs on the ivoryfloor, and with the lofty ceiling adorned with intricate carvingsand silver scrollwork. Behind an ivory, gold- inlaid writing-tablesat a man whose broad shoulders and sun-browned skin seemed out ofplace among those luxuriant surroundings. He seemed more a part ofthe sun and winds and high places of the outlands. His slightestmovement spoke of steel-spring muscles knit to a keen brain withthe co-ordination of a born fighting-man. There was nothingdeliberate or measured about his actions. Either he was perfectlyat rest—still as a bronze statue—or else he was inmotion, not with the jerky quickness of over-tense nerves, but witha cat-like speed that blurred the sight which tried to followhim.
His garments were of rich fabric, but simply made. He wore noring or ornaments, and his square-cut black mane was confinedmerely by a cloth-of- silver band about his head.
Now he laid down the golden stylus with which he had beenlaboriously scrawling on waxed papyrus, rested his chin on hisfist, and fixed his smoldering blue eyes enviously on the man whostood before him. This person was occupied in his own affairs atthe moment, for he was taking up the laces of his gold-chasedarmor, and abstractedly whistling—a rather unconventionalperformance, considering that he was in the presence of a king.
"Prospero," said the man at the table, "these matters ofstatecraft weary me as all the fighting I have done never did."
"All part of the game, Conan," answered the dark-eyedPoitainian. "You are king—you must play the part."
"I wish I might ride with you to Nemedia," said Conan enviously."It seems ages since I had a horse between my knees—butPublius says that affairs in the city require my presence. Cursehim!
"When I overthrew the old dynasty," he continued, speaking withthe easy familiarity which existed only between the Poitainian andhimself, "it was easy enough, though it seemed bitter hard at thetime. Looking back now over the wild path I followed, all thosedays of toil, intrigue, slaughter and tribulation seem like adream.
"I did not dream far enough, Prospero. When King Numedides laydead at my feet and I tore the crown from his gory head and set iton my own, I had reached the ultimate border of my dreams. I hadprepared myself to take the crown, not to hold it. In the old freedays all I wanted was a sharp sword and a straight path to myenemies. Now no paths are straight and my sword is useless.
"When I overthrew Numedides, then I was the Liberator—nowthey spit at my shadow. They have put a statue of that swine in thetemple of Mitra, and people go and wail before it, hailing it asthe holy effigy of a saintly monarch who was done to death by ared-handed barbarian. When I led her armies to victory as amercenary, Aquilonia overlooked the fact that I was a foreigner,but now she can not forgive me.
"Now in Mitra's temple there come to burn incense to Numedides'memory, men whom his hangmen maimed and blinded, men whose sonsdied in his dungeons, whose wives and daughters were dragged intohis seraglio. The fickle fools!"
"Rinaldo is largely responsible," answered Prospero, drawing uphis sword- belt another notch. "He sings songs that make men mad.Hang him in his jester's garb to the highest tower in the city. Lethim make rimes for the vultures."
Conan shook his lion head. "No, Prospero, he's beyond my reach.A great poet is greater than any king. His songs are mightier thanmy scepter; for he has near ripped the heart from my breast when hechose to sing for me. I shall die and be forgotten, but Rinaldo'ssongs will live for ever.
"No, Prospero," the king continued, a somber look of doubtshadowing his eyes, "there is something hidden, some undercurrentof which we are not aware. I sense it as in my youth I sensed thetiger hidden in the tall grass. There is a nameless unrestthroughout the kingdom. I am like a hunter who crouches by hissmall fire amid the forest, and hears stealthy feet padding in thedarkness, and almost sees the glimmer of burning eyes. If I couldbut come to grips with something tangible, that I could cleave withmy sword! I tell you, it's not by chance that the Picts have oflate so fiercely assailed the frontiers, so that the Bossonianshave called for aid to beat them back. I should have ridden withthe troops."
"Publius feared a plot to trap and slay you beyond thefrontier," replied Prospero, smoothing his silken surcoat over hisshining mail, and admiring his tall lithe figure in a silvermirror. "That's why he urged you to remain in the city. Thesedoubts are born of your barbarian instincts. Let the people snarl!The mercenaries are ours, and the Black Dragons, and every rogue inPoitain swears by you. Your only danger is assassination, andthat's impossible, with men of the imperial troops guarding you dayand night. What are you working at there?"
"A map," Conan answered with pride. "The maps of the court showwell the countries of south, east and west, but in the north theyare vague and faulty. I am adding the northern lands myself. Hereis Cimmeria, where I was born. And—"
"Asgard and Vanaheim," Prospero scanned the map. "By Mitra, Ihad almost believed those countries to have been fabulous."
Conan grinned savagely, involuntarily touching the scars on hisdark face. "You had known otherwise, had you spent your youth onthe northern frontiers of Cimmeria! Asgard lies to the north, andVanaheim to the northwest of Cimmeria, and there is continual waralong the borders."
"What manner of men are these northern folk?" askedProspero.
"Tall and fair and blue-eyed. Their god is Ymir, thefrost-giant, and each tribe has its own king. They are wayward andfierce. They fight all day and drink ale and roar their wild songsall night."
"Then I think you are like them," laughed Prospero. "You laughgreatly, drink deep and bellow good songs; though I never sawanother Cimmerian who drank aught but water, or who ever laughed,or ever sang save to chant dismal dirges."
"Perhaps it's the land they live in," answered the king. "Agloomier land never was—all of hills, darkly wooded, underskies nearly always gray, with winds moaning drearily down thevalleys."
"Little wonder men grow moody there," quoth Prospero with ashrug of his shoulders, thinking of the smiling sun-washed plainsand blue lazy rivers of Poitain, Aquilonia's southernmostprovince.
"They have no hope here or hereafter," answered Conan. "Theirgods are Crom and his dark race, who rule over a sunless place ofeverlasting mist, which is the world of the dead. Mitra! The waysof the Aesir were more to my liking."
"Well," grinned Prospero, "the dark hills of Cimmeria are farbehind you. And now I go. I'll quaff a goblet of white Nemedianwine for you at Numa's court."
"Good," grunted the king, "but kiss Numa's dancing-girls foryourself only, lest you involve the states!"
His gusty laughter followed Prospero out of the chamber.
Under the cavernedpyramids great Set coils asleep;
Among the shadows of the tombs his dusky people creep.
I speak the Word from the hidden gulfs that never knew thesun—
Send me a servant for my hate, oh scaled and shining One.
THE SUN was setting, etching the green and hazyblue of the forest in brief gold. The waning beams glinted on thethick golden chain which Dion of Attalus twisted continually in hispudgy hand as he sat in the flaming riot of blossoms and floweringtrees which was his garden. He shifted his fat body on his marbleseat and glanced furtively about, as if in quest of a lurkingenemy. He sat within a circular grove of slender trees, whoseinterlapping branches cast a thick shade over him. Near at hand afountain tinkled silverly, and other unseen fountains in variousparts of the great garden whispered an everlasting symphony.
Dion was alone except for the great dusky figure which loungedon a marble bench close at hand, watching the baron with deepsomber eyes. Dion gave little thought to Thoth-amon. He vaguelyknew that he was a slave in whom Ascalante reposed much trust, butlike so many rich men, Dion paid scant heed to men below his ownstation in life.
"You need not be so nervous," said Thoth. "The plot can notfail."
"Ascalante can make mistakes as well as another," snapped Dion,sweating at the mere thought of failure.
"Not he," grinned the Stygian savagely, "else I had not been hisslave, but his master."
"What talk is this?" peevishly returned Dion, with only half amind on the conversation.
Thoth-amon's eyes narrowed. For all his iron self-control, hewas near bursting with long pent-up shame, hate and rage, ready totake any sort of a desperate chance. What he did not reckon on wasthe fact that Dion saw him, not as a human being with a brain and awit, but simply a slave, and as such, a creature beneathnotice.
"Listen to me," said Thoth. "You will be king. But you littleknow the mind of Ascalante. You can not trust him, once Conan isslain. I can help you. If you will protect me when you come topower, I will aid you.
"Listen, my lord. I was a great sorcerer in the south. Men spokeof Thoth-Amon as they spoke of Rammon. King Ctesphon of Stygia gaveme great honor, casting down the magicians from the high places toexalt me above them. They hated me, but they feared me, for Icontrolled beings from outside which came at my call and did mybidding. By Set, mine enemy knew not the hour when he might awakeat midnight to feel the taloned fingers of a nameless horror at histhroat! I did dark and terrible magic with the Serpent Ring of Set,which I found in a nighted tomb a league beneath the earth,forgotten before the first man crawled out of the slimy sea.
"But a thief stole the Ring and my power was broken. Themagicians rose up to slay me, and I fled. Disguised as acamel-driver, I was travelling in a caravan in the land of Koth,when Ascalante's reavers fell upon us. All in the caravan wereslain except myself; I saved my life by revealing my identity toAscalante and swearing to serve him. Bitter has been thatbondage!
"To hold me fast, he wrote of me in a manuscript, and sealed itand gave it into the hands of a hermit who dwells on the southernborders of Koth. I dare not strike a dagger into him while hesleeps, or betray him to his enemies, for then the hermit wouldopen the manuscript and read—thus Ascalante instructed him.And he would speak a word in Stygia—"
Again Thoth shuddered and an ashen hue tinged his duskyskin.
"Men knew me not in Aquilonia," he said. "But should my enemiesin Stygia learn my whereabouts, not the width of half a worldbetween us would suffice to save me from such a doom as would blastthe soul of a bronze statue. Only a king with castles and hosts ofswordsmen could protect me. So I have told you my secret, and urgethat you make a pact with me. I can aid you with my wisdom, and youcan protect me. And some day I will find the Ring—"
"Ring? Ring?" Thoth had underestimated the man's utter egoism.Dion had not even been listening to the slave's words, socompletely engrossed was he in his own thoughts, but the final wordstirred a ripple in his self- centeredness.
"Ring?" he repeated. "That makes me remember—my ring ofgood fortune. I had it from a Shemitish thief who swore he stole itfrom a wizard far to the south, and that it would bring me luck. Ipaid him enough, Mitra knows. By the gods, I need all the luck Ican have, what with Volmana and Ascalante dragging me into theirbloody plots—I'll see to the ring."
Thoth sprang up, blood mounting darkly to his face, while hiseyes flamed with the stunned fury of a man who suddenly realizesthe full depths of a fool's swinish stupidity. Dion never heededhim. Lifting a secret lid in the marble seat, he fumbled for amoment among a heap of gewgaws of various kinds—barbariccharms, bits of bones, pieces of tawdry jewelry—luck-piecesand conjures which the man's superstitious nature had prompted himto collect.
"Ah, here it is!" He triumphantly lifted a ring of curious make.It was of a metal like copper, and was made in the form of a scaledserpent, coiled in three loops, with its tail in its mouth. Itseyes were yellow gems which glittered balefully. Thoth-amon criedout as if he had been struck, and Dion wheeled and gaped, his facesuddenly bloodless. The slave's eyes were blazing, his mouth wide,his huge dusky hands outstretched like talons.
"The Ring! By Set! The Ring!" he shrieked. "My Ring—stolenfrom me—" Steel glittered in the Stygian's hand and with aheave of his great dusky shoulders he drove the dagger into thebaron's fat body. Dion's high thin squeal broke in a strangledgurgle and his whole flabby frame collapsed like melted butter. Afool to the end, he died in mad terror, not knowing why. Flingingaside the crumpled corpse, already forgetful of it, Thoth graspedthe ring in both hands, his dark eyes blazing with a fearfulavidness.
"My Ring!" he whispered in terrible exultation. "My power!"
How long he crouched over the baleful thing, motionless as astatue, drinking the evil aura of it into his dark soul, not eventhe Stygian knew. When he shook himself from his revery and drewback his mind from the nighted abysses where it had been questing,the moon was rising, casting long shadows across the smooth marbleback of the garden-seat, at the foot of which sprawled the darkershadow which had been the lord of Attalus.
"No more, Ascalante, no more!" whispered the Stygian, and hiseyes burned red as a vampire's in the gloom. Stooping, he cupped ahandful of congealing blood from the sluggish pool in which hisvictim sprawled, and rubbed it in the copper serpent's eyes untilthe yellow sparks were covered by a crimson mask.
"Blind your eyes, mystic serpent," he chanted in ablood-freezing whisper. "Blind your eyes to the moonlight and openthem on darker gulfs! What do you see, oh serpent of Set? Whom doyou call from the gulfs of the Night? Whose shadow falls on thewaning Light? Call him to me, oh serpent of Set!"
Stroking the scales with a peculiar circular motion of hisfingers, a motion which always carried the fingers back to theirstarting place, his voice sank still lower as he whispered darknames and grisly incantations forgotten the world over save in thegrim hinterlands of dark Stygia, where monstrous shapes move in thedusk of the tombs.
There was a movement in the air about him, such a swirl as ismade in water when some creature rises to the surface. A nameless,freezing wind blew on him briefly, as if from an opened Door. Thothfelt a presence at his back, but he did not look about. He kept hiseyes fixed on the moonlit space of marble, on which a tenuousshadow hovered. As he continued his whispered incantations, thisshadow grew in size and clarity, until it stood out distinct andhorrific. Its outline was not unlike that of a gigantic baboon, butno such baboon ever walked the earth, not even in Stygia. StillThoth did not look, but drawing from his girdle a sandal of hismaster—always carried in the dim hope that he might be ableto put it to such use—he cast it behind him.
"Know it well, slave of the Ring!" he exclaimed. "Find him whowore it and destroy him! Look into his eyes and blast his soul,before you tear out his throat! Kill him! Aye," in a blind burst ofpassion, "and all with him!"
Etched on the moonlit wall Thoth saw the horror lower itsmisshapen head and take the scent like some hideous hound. Then thegrisly head was thrown back and the thing wheeled and was gone likea wind through the trees. The Stygian flung up his arms in maddenedexultation, and his teeth and eyes gleamed in the moonlight.
A soldier on guard without the walls yelled in startled horroras a great loping black shadow with flaming eyes cleared the walland swept by him with a swirling rush of wind. But it was gone soswiftly that the bewildered warrior was left wondering whether ithad been a dream or a hallucination.
When the world wasyoung and men were weak, and the fiends of the night walkedfree,
I strove with Set by fire and steel and the juice of theupas-tree;
Now that I sleep in the mount's black heart, and the ages taketheir toll,
Forget ye him who fought with the Snake to save the humansoul?
ALONE in the great sleeping-chamber with its highgolden dome King Conan slumbered and dreamed. Through swirling graymists he heard a curious call, faint and far, and though he did notunderstand it, it seemed not within his power to ignore it. Swordin hand he went through the gray mist, as a man might walk throughclouds, and the voice grew more distinct as he proceeded until heunderstood the word it spoke—it was his own name that wasbeing called across the gulfs of Space or Time.
Now the mists grew lighter and he saw that he was in a greatdark corridor that seemed to be cut in solid black stone. It wasunlighted, but by some magic he could see plainly. The floor,ceiling and walls were highly polished and gleamed dull, and theywere carved with the figures of ancient heroes and half-forgottengods. He shuddered to see the vast shadowy outlines of the NamelessOld Ones, and he knew somehow that mortal feet had not traversedthe corridor for centuries.
He came upon a wide stair carved in the solid rock, and thesides of the shaft were adorned with esoteric symbols so ancientand horrific that King Conan's skin crawled. The steps were carveneach with the abhorrent figure of the Old Serpent, Set, so that ateach step he planted his heel on the head of the Snake, as it wasintended from old times. But he was none the less at ease for allthat.
But the voice called him on, and at last, in darkness that wouldhave been impenetrable to his material eyes, he came into a strangecrypt, and saw a vague white-bearded figure sitting on a tomb.Conan's hair rose up and he grasped his sword, but the figure spokein sepulchral tones.
"Oh man, do you know me?"
"Not I, by Crom!" swore the king.
"Man," said the ancient, "I am Epemitreus."
"But Epemitreus the Sage has been dead for fifteen hundredyears!" stammered Conan.
"Harken!" spoke the other commandingly. "As a pebble cast into adark lake sends ripples to the further shores, happenings in theUnseen world have broken like waves on my slumber. I have markedyou well, Conan of Cimmeria, and the stamp of mighty happenings andgreat deeds is upon you. But dooms are loose in the land, againstwhich your sword can not aid you."
"You speak in riddles," said Conan uneasily. "Let me see my foeand I'll cleave his skull to the teeth."
"Loose your barbarian fury against your foes of flesh andblood," answered the ancient. "It is not against men I must shieldyou. There are dark worlds barely guessed by man, wherein formlessmonsters stalk—fiends which may be drawn from the Outer Voidsto take material shape and rend and devour at the bidding of evilmagicians. There is a serpent in your house, oh king—an adderin your kingdom, come up from Stygia, with the dark wisdom of theshadows in his murky soul. As a sleeping man dreams of the serpentwhich crawls near him, I have felt the foul presence of Set'sneophyte. He is drunk with terrible power, and the blows he strikesat his enemy may well bring down the kingdom. I have called you tome, to give you a weapon against him and his hell-hound pack."
"But why?" bewilderedly asked Conan. "Men say you sleep in theblack heart of Golamira, whence you send forth your ghost on unseenwings to aid Aquilonia in times of need, but I—I am anoutlander and a barbarian."
"Peace!" the ghostly tones reverberated through the greatshadowy cavern. "Your destiny is one with Aquilonia. Gigantichappenings are forming in the web and the womb of Fate, and ablood-mad sorcerer shall not stand in the path of imperial destiny.Ages ago Set coiled about the world like a python about its prey.All my life, which was as the lives of three common men, I foughthim. I drove him into the shadows of the mysterious south, but indark Stygia men still worship him who to us is the arch-demon. As Ifought Set, I fight his worshippers and his votaries and hisacolytes. Hold out your sword."
Wondering, Conan did so, and on the great blade, close to theheavy silver guard, the ancient traced with a bony finger a strangesymbol that glowed like white fire in the shadows. And on theinstant crypt, tomb and ancient vanished, and Conan, bewildered,sprang from his couch in the great golden-domed chamber. And as hestood, bewildered at the strangeness of his dream, he realized thathe was gripping his sword in his hand. And his hair prickled at thenape of his neck, for on the broad blade was carven asymbol—the outline of a phoenix. And he remembered that onthe tomb in the crypt he had seen what he had thought to be asimilar figure, carven of stone. Now he wondered if it had been buta stone figure, and his skin crawled at the strangeness of itall.
Then as he stood, a stealthy sound in the corridor outsidebrought him to life, and without stopping to investigate, he beganto don his armor; again he was the barbarian, suspicious and alertas a gray wolf at bay.
What do I know ofcultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?
I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.
The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when thebroadswords sing;
Rush in and die, dogs—I was a man before I was a king.
—The Road Of Kings
THROUGH the silence which shrouded the corridor ofthe royal palace stole twenty furtive figures. Their stealthy feet,bare or cased in soft leather, made no sound either on thick carpetor bare marble tile. The torches which stood in niches along thehalls gleamed red on dagger, sword and keen-edged ax.
"Easy all!" hissed Ascalante. "Stop that cursed loud breathing,whoever it is! The officer of the night-guard has removed most ofthe sentries from these halls and made the rest drunk, but we mustbe careful, just the same. Back! Here come the guard!"
They crowded back behind a cluster of carven pillars, and almostimmediately ten giants in black armor swung by at a measured pace.Their faces showed doubt as they glanced at the officer who wasleading them away from their post of duty. This officer was ratherpale; as the guard passed the hiding-places of the conspirators, hewas seen to wipe the sweat from his brow with a shaky hand. He wasyoung, and this betrayal of a king did not come easy to him. Hementally cursed the vainglorious extravagance which had put him indebt to the money-lenders and made him a pawn of schemingpoliticians.
The guardsmen clanked by and disappeared up the corridor.
"Good!" grinned Ascalante. "Conan sleeps unguarded. Haste! Ifthey catch us killing him, we're undone—but few men willespouse the cause of a dead king."
"Aye, haste!" cried Rinaldo, his blue eyes matching the gleam ofthe sword he swung above his head. "My blade is thirsty! I hear thegathering of the vultures! On!"
They hurried down the corridor with reckless speed and stoppedbefore a gilded door which bore the royal dragon symbol ofAquilonia.
"Gromel!" snapped Ascalante. "Break me this door open!"
The giant drew a deep breath and launched his mighty frameagainst the panels, which groaned and bent at the impact. Again hecrouched and plunged. With a snapping of bolts and a rending crashof wood, the door splintered and burst inward.
"In!" roared Ascalante, on fire with the spirit of the deed.
"In!" yelled Rinaldo. "Death to the tyrant!"
They stopped short. Conan faced them, not a naked man rousedmazed and unarmed out of deep sleep to be butchered like a sheep,but a barbarian wide- awake and at bay, partly armored, and withhis long sword in his hand.
"In, rogues!" yelled the outlaw. "He is one to twenty and he hasno helmet!"
True; there had been lack of time to don the heavy plumedcasque, or to lace in place the side-plates of the cuirass, nor wasthere now time to snatch the great shield from the wall. Still,Conan was better protected than any of his foes except Volmana andGromel, who were in full armor.
The king glared, puzzled as to their identity. Ascalante he didnot know; he could not see through the closed vizors of the armoredconspirators, and Rinaldo had pulled his slouch cap down above hiseyes. But there was no time for surmise. With a yell that rang tothe roof, the killers flooded into the room, Gromel first. He camelike a charging bull, head down, sword low for the disembowellingthrust. Conan sprang to meet him, and all his tigerish strengthwent into the arm that swung the sword. In a whistling arc thegreat blade flashed through the air and crashed on the Bossonian'shelmet. Blade and casque shivered together and Gromel rolledlifeless on the floor. Conan bounded back, still gripping thebroken hilt.
"Gromel!" he spat, his eyes blazing in amazement, as theshattered helmet disclosed the shattered head; then the rest of thepack were upon him. A dagger point raked along his ribs betweenbreastplate and backplate, a sword-edge flashed before his eyes. Heflung aside the dagger-wielder with his left arm, and smashed hisbroken hilt like a cestus into the swordsman's temple. The man'sbrains spattered in his face.
"Watch the door, five of you!" screamed Ascalante, dancing aboutthe edge of the singing steel whirlpool, for he feared that Conanmight smash through their midst and escape. The rogues drew backmomentarily, as their leader seized several and thrust them towardthe single door, and in that brief respite Conan leaped to the walland tore therefrom an ancient battle-ax which, untouched by time,had hung there for half a century.
With his back to the wall he faced the closing ring for aflashing instant, then leaped into the thick of them. He was nodefensive fighter; even in the teeth of overwhelming odds he alwayscarried the war to the enemy. Any other man would have already diedthere, and Conan himself did not hope to survive, but he didferociously wish to inflict as much damage as he could before hefell. His barbaric soul was ablaze, and the chants of old heroeswere singing in his ears.
As he sprang from the wall his ax dropped an outlaw with asevered shoulder, and the terrible back-hand return crushed theskull of another. Swords whined venomously about him, but deathpassed him by breathless margins. The Cimmerian moved in, a blur ofblinding speed. He was like a tiger among baboons as he leaped,side-stepped and spun, offering an ever-moving target, while his axwove a shining wheel of death about him.
For a brief space the assassins crowded him fiercely, rainingblows blindly and hampered by their own numbers; then they gaveback suddenly—two corpses on the floor gave mute evidence ofthe king's fury, though Conan himself was bleeding from wounds onarm, neck and legs.
"Knaves!" screamed Rinaldo, dashing off his feathered cap, hiswild eyes glaring. "Do ye shrink from the combat? Shall the despotlive? Out on it!"
He rushed in, hacking madly, but Conan, recognizing him,shattered his sword with a short terrific chop and with a powerfulpush of his open hand sent him reeling to the floor. The king tookAscalante's point in his left arm, and the outlaw barely saved hislife by ducking and springing backward from the swinging ax. Againthe wolves swirled in and Conan's ax sang and crushed. A hairyrascal stooped beneath its stroke and dived at the king's legs, butafter wrestling for a brief instant at what seemed a solid irontower, glanced up in time to see the ax falling, but not in time toavoid it. In the interim one of his comrades lifted a broadswordwith both hands and hewed through the king's left shoulder-plate,wounding the shoulder beneath. In an instant Conan's cuirass wasfull of blood.
Volmana, flinging the attackers right and left in his savageimpatience, came plowing through and hacked murderously at Conan'sunprotected head. The king ducked deeply and the sword shaved off alock of his black hair as it whistled above him. Conan pivoted onhis heel and struck in from the side. The ax crunched through thesteel cuirass and Volmana crumpled with his whole left side cavedin.
"Volmana!" gasped Conan breathlessly. "I'll know that dwarf inHell!" He straightened to meet the maddened rush of Rinaldo, whocharged in wild and wide open, armed only with a dagger. Conanleaped back, lifting his ax.
"Rinaldo!" his voice was strident with desperate urgency. "Back!I would not slay you—"
"Die, tyrant!" screamed the mad minstrel, hurling himselfheadlong on the king. Conan delayed the blow he was loth todeliver, until it was too late. Only when he felt the bite of thesteel in his unprotected side did he strike, in a frenzy of blinddesperation.
Rinaldo dropped with his skull shattered, and Conan reeled backagainst the wall, blood spurting from between the fingers whichgripped his wound.
"In, now, and slay him!" yelled Ascalante.
Conan put his back against the wall and lifted his ax. He stoodlike an image of the unconquerable primordial—legs braced farapart, head thrust forward, one hand clutching the wall forsupport, the other gripping the ax on high, with the great cordedmuscles standing out in iron ridges, and his features frozen in adeath snarl of fury—his eyes blazing terribly through themist of blood which veiled them. The men faltered—wild,criminal and dissolute though they were, yet they came of a breedmen called civilized, with a civilized background; here was thebarbarian—the natural killer. They shrank back—thedying tiger could still deal death.
Conan sensed their uncertainty and grinned mirthlessly andferociously. "Who dies first?" he mumbled through smashed andbloody lips.
Ascalante leaped like a wolf, halted almost in midair withincredible quickness and fell prostrate to avoid the death whichwas hissing toward him. He frantically whirled his feet out of theway and rolled clear as Conan recovered from his missed blow andstruck again. This time the ax sank inches deep into the polishedfloor close to Ascalante's revolving legs.
Another misguided desperado chose this instant to charge,followed half-heartedly by his fellows. He intended killing Conanbefore the Cimmerian could wrench his ax from the floor, but hisjudgment was faulty. The red ax lurched up and crashed down and acrimson caricature of a man catapulted back against the legs of theattackers.
At that instant a fearful scream burst from the rogues at thedoor as a black misshapen shadow fell across the wall. All butAscalante wheeled at that cry, and then, howling like dogs, theyburst blindly through the door in a raving, blaspheming mob, andscattered through the corridors in screaming flight.
Ascalante did not look toward the door; he had eyes only for thewounded king. He supposed that the noise of the fray had at lastroused the palace, and that the loyal guards were upon him, thougheven in that moment it seemed strange that his hardened roguesshould scream so terribly in their flight. Conan did not looktoward the door because he was watching the outlaw with the burningeyes of a dying wolf. In this extremity Ascalante's cynicalphilosophy did not desert him.
"All seems to be lost, particularly honor," he murmured."However, the king is dying on his feet—and—" Whateverother cogitation might have passed through his mind is not to beknown; for, leaving the sentence uncompleted, he ran lightly atConan just as the Cimmerian was perforce employing his ax-arm towipe the blood from his blinded eyes.
But even as he began his charge, there was a strange rushing inthe air and a heavy weight struck terrifically between hisshoulders. He was dashed headlong and great talons sank agonizinglyin his flesh. Writhing desperately beneath his attacker, he twistedhis head about and stared into the face of Nightmare and lunacy.Upon him crouched a great black thing which he knew was born in nosane or human world. Its slavering black fangs were near his throatand the glare of its yellow eyes shrivelled his limbs as a killingwind shrivels young corn.
The hideousness of its face transcended mere bestiality. Itmight have been the face of an ancient, evil mummy, quickened withdemoniac life. In those abhorrent features the outlaw's dilatedeyes seemed to see, like a shadow in the madness that envelopedhim, a faint and terrible resemblance to the slave Thoth-amon. ThenAscalante's cynical and all-sufficient philosophy deserted him, andwith a ghastly cry he gave up the ghost before those slaveringfangs touched him.
Conan, shaking the blood-drops from his eyes, stared frozen. Atfirst he thought it was a great black hound which stood aboveAscalante's distorted body; then as his sight cleared he saw thatit was neither a hound nor a baboon.
With a cry that was like an echo of Ascalante's death-shriek, hereeled away from the wall and met the leaping horror with a cast ofhis ax that had behind it all the desperate power of hiselectrified nerves. The flying weapon glanced singing from theslanting skull it should have crushed, and the king was hurledhalf-way across the chamber by the impact of the giant body.
The slavering jaws closed on the arm Conan flung up to guard histhroat, but the monster made no effort to secure a death-grip. Overhis mangled arm it glared fiendishly into the king's eyes, in whichthere began to be mirrored a likeness of the horror which staredfrom the dead eyes of Ascalante. Conan felt his soul shrivel andbegin to be drawn out of his body, to drown in the yellow wells ofcosmic horror which glimmered spectrally in the formless chaos thatwas growing about him and engulfing all life and sanity. Those eyesgrew and became gigantic, and in them the Cimmerian glimpsed thereality of all the abysmal and blasphemous horrors that lurk in theouter darkness of formless voids and nighted gulfs. He opened hisbloody lips to shriek his hate and loathing, but only a dry rattleburst from his throat.
But the horror that paralyzed and destroyed Ascalante roused inthe Cimmerian a frenzied fury akin to madness. With a volcanicwrench of his whole body he plunged backward, heedless of the agonyof his torn arm, dragging the monster bodily with him. And hisoutflung hand struck something his dazed fighting-brain recognizedas the hilt of his broken sword. Instinctively he gripped it andstruck with all the power of nerve and thew, as a man stabs with adagger. The broken blade sank deep and Conan's arm was released asthe abhorrent mouth gaped as in agony. The king was hurledviolently aside, and lifting himself on one hand he saw, as onemazed, the terrible convulsions of the monster from which thickblood was gushing through the great wound his broken blade hadtorn. And as he watched, its struggles ceased and it lay jerkingspasmodically, staring upward with its grisly dead eyes. Conanblinked and shook the blood from his own eyes; it seemed to himthat the thing was melting and disintegrating into a slimy unstablemass.
Then a medley of voices reached his ears, and the room wasthronged with the finally roused people of the court—knights,peers, ladies, men-at- arms, councillors—all babbling andshouting and getting in one another's way. The Black Dragons wereon hand, wild with rage, swearing and ruffling, with their hands ontheir hilts and foreign oaths in their teeth. Of the young officerof the door-guard nothing was seen, nor was he found then or later,though earnestly sought after.
"The guard is here, you old fool!" cavalierly snappedPallantides, commander of the Black Dragons, forgetting Publius'rank in the stress of the moment. "Best stop your caterwauling andaid us to bind the king's wounds. He's like to bleed to death."
"Yes, yes!" cried Publius, who was a man of plans rather thanaction. "We must bind his wounds. Send for every leech of thecourt! Oh, my lord, what a black shame on the city! Are youentirely slain?"
"Wine!" gasped the king from the couch where they had laid him.They put a goblet to his bloody lips and he drank like a man halfdead of thirst.
"Good!" he grunted, falling back. "Slaying is cursed drywork."
They had stanched the flow of blood, and the innate vitality ofthe barbarian was asserting itself.
"See first to the dagger-wound in my side," he bade the courtphysicians.
"Rinaldo wrote me a deathly song there, and keen was thestylus."
"We should have hanged him long ago," gibbered Publius. "No goodcan come of poets—who is this?"
He nervously touched Ascalante's body with his sandalledtoe.
"By Mitra!" ejaculated the commander. "It is Ascalante, oncecount of Thune! What devil's work brought him up from his deserthaunts?"
"But why does he stare so?" whispered Publius, drawing away, hisown eyes wide and a peculiar prickling among the short hairs at theback of his fat neck. The others fell silent as they gazed at thedead outlaw.
"Had you seen what he and I saw," growled the king, sitting updespite the protests of the leeches, "you had not wondered. Blastyour own gaze by looking at—" He stopped short, his mouthgaping, his finger pointing fruitlessly. Where the monster haddied, only the bare floor met his eyes.
"Crom!" he swore. "The thing's melted back into the foulnesswhich bore it!"
"The king is delirious," whispered a noble. Conan heard andswore with barbaric oaths.
"By Badb, Morrigan, Macha and Nemain!" he concluded wrathfully."I am sane! It was like a cross between a Stygian mummy and ababoon. It came through the door, and Ascalante's rogues fledbefore it. It slew Ascalante, who was about to run me through. Thenit came upon me and I slew it—how I know not, for my axglanced from it as from a rack. But I think that the SageEpemitreus had a hand in it—"
"Hark how he names Epemitreus, dead for fifteen hundred years!"they whispered to each other.
"By Ymir!" thundered the king. "This night I talked withEpemitreus! He called to me in my dreams, and I walked down a blackstone corridor carved with old gods, to a stone stair on the stepsof which were the outlines of Set, until I came to a crypt, and atomb with a phoenix carved on it—"
"In Mitra's name, lord king, be silent!" It was the high-priestof Mitra who cried out, and his countenance was ashen.
Conan threw up his head like a lion tossing back its mane, andhis voice was thick with the growl of the angry lion.
"Am I a slave, to shut my mouth at your command?"
"Nay, nay, my lord!" The high-priest was trembling, but notthrough fear of the royal wrath. "I meant no offense." He bent hishead close to the king and spoke in a whisper that carried only toConan's ears.
"My lord, this is a matter beyond human understanding. Only theinner circle of the priestcraft know of the black stone corridorcarved in the black heart of Mount Golamira, by unknown hands, orof the phoenix-guarded tomb where Epemitreus was laid to restfifteen hundred years ago. And since that time no living man hasentered it, for his chosen priests, after placing the Sage in thecrypt, blocked up the outer entrance of the corridor so that no mancould find it, and today not even the high-priests know where itis. Only by word of mouth, handed down by the high-priests to thechosen few, and jealously guarded, does the inner circle of Mitra'sacolytes know of the resting-place of Epemitreus in the black heartof Golamira. It is one of the Mysteries, on which Mitra's cultstands."
"I can not say by what magic Epemitreus brought me to him,"answered Conan. "But I talked with him, and he made a mark on mysword. Why that mark made it deadly to demons, or what magic laybehind the mark, I know not; but though the blade broke on Gromel'shelmet, yet the fragment was long enough to kill the horror."
"Let me see your sword," whispered the high-priest from a throatgone suddenly dry.
Conan held out the broken weapon and the high-priest cried outand fell to his knees.
"Mitra guard us against the powers of darkness!" he gasped. "Theking has indeed talked with Epemitreus this night! There on thesword—it is the secret sign none might make but him—theemblem of the immortal phoenix which broods for ever over his tomb!A candle, quick! Look again at the spot where the king said thegoblin died!"
It lay in the shade of a broken screen. They threw the screenaside and bathed the floor in a flood of candle-light. And ashuddering silence fell over the people as they looked. Then somefell on their knees calling on Mitra, and some fled screaming fromthe chamber.
There on the floor where the monster had died, there lay, like atangible shadow, a broad dark stain that could not be washed out;the thing had left its outline clearly etched in its blood, andthat outline was of no being of a sane and normal world. Grim andhorrific it brooded there, like the shadow cast by one of the apishgods that squat on the shadowy altars of dim temples in the darkland of Stygia.
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