Jewels of Gwahlur
All her imperiousness had gone out of her. She was no longer a mystical
figure of antiquity, but a terrified and humiliated dancing-girl, such
as can be bought at almost any Shemitish market-place. She lifted up her
voice and wept unashamedly. Her captor glared down at her with angry
triumph.
'Goddess! Ha! So you were one of the veiled women Zargheba brought to
Keshia with him. Did you think you could fool me, you little idiot? A
year ago I saw you in Akbitana with that swine, Zargheba, and I don't
forget faces--or women's figures. I think I'll--'
Squirming about in his grasp she threw her slender arms about his
massive neck in an abandon of terror; tears coursed down her cheeks, and
her sobs quivered with a note of hysteria.
'Oh, please don't hurt me! Don't! I had to do it! Zargheba brought me
here to act as the oracle!'
'Why, you sacrilegious little hussy!' rumbled Conan. 'Do you not fear
the gods? Crom! is there no honesty anywhere?'
'Oh, please!' she begged, quivering with abject fright. 'I couldn't
disobey Zargheba. Oh, what shall I do? I shall be cursed by these
heathen gods!'
'What do you think the priests will do to you if they find out you're an
impostor?' he demanded.
At the thought her legs refused to support her, and she collapsed in a
shuddering heap, clasping Conan's knees and mingling incoherent pleas
for mercy and protection with piteous protestations of her innocence of
any malign intention. It was a vivid change from her pose as the ancient
princess, but not surprising. The fear that had nerved her then was now
her undoing.
'Where is Zargheba?' he demanded. 'Stop yammering, damn it, and answer
me.'
'Outside the palace,' she whimpered, 'watching for the priests.'
'How many men with him?'
'None. We came alone.'
'Ha!' It was much like the satisfied grunt of a hunting lion. 'You must
have left Keshia a few hours after I did. Did you climb the cliffs?'
She shook her head, too choked with tears to speak coherently. With an
impatient imprecation he seized her slim shoulders and shook her until
she gasped for breath.
'Will you quit that blubbering and answer me? How did you get into the
valley?'
'Zargheba knew the secret way,' she gasped. 'The priest Gwarunga told
him, and Thutmekri. On the south side of the valley there is a broad
pool lying at the foot of the cliffs. There is a cave-mouth under the
surface of the water that is not visible to the casual glance. We ducked
under the water and entered it. The cave slopes up out of the water
swiftly and leads through the cliffs. The opening on the side of the
valley is masked by heavy thickets.'
'I climbed the cliffs on the east side,' he muttered. 'Well, what then?'
'We came to the palace and Zargheba hid me among the trees while he went
to look for the chamber of the oracle. I do not think he fully trusted
Gwarunga. While he was gone I thought I heard a gong sound, but I was
not sure. Presently Zargheba came and took me into the palace and
brought me to this chamber, where the goddess Yelaya lay upon the dais.
He stripped the body and clothed me in the garments and ornaments. Then
he went forth to hide the body and watch for the priests. I have been
afraid. When you entered I wanted to leap up and beg you to take me away
from this place, but I feared Zargheba. When you discovered I was alive,
I thought I could frighten you away.'
'What were you to say as the oracle?' he asked.
'I was to bid the priests to take the Teeth of Gwahlur and give some of
them to Thutmekri as a pledge, as he desired, and place the rest in the
palace at Keshia. I was to tell them that an awful doom threatened
Keshan if they did not agree to Thutmekri's proposals. And, oh, yes, I
was to tell them that you were to be skinned alive immediately.'
'Thutmekri wanted the treasure where he--or the Zembabwans--could lay
hand on it easily,' muttered Conan, disregarding the remark concerning
himself. 'I'll carve his liver yet--Gorulga is a party to this swindle,
of course?'
'No. He believes in his gods, and is incorruptible. He knows nothing
about this. He will obey the oracle. It was all Thutmekri's plan.
Knowing the Keshani would consult the oracle, he had Zargheba bring me
with the embassy from Zembabwei, closely veiled and secluded.'
'Well, I'm damned!' muttered Conan. 'A priest who honestly believes in
his oracle, and can not be bribed. Crom! I wonder if it was Zargheba who
banged that gong. Did he know I was here? Could he have known about
that rotten flagging? Where is he now, girl?'
'Hiding in a thicket of lotus trees, near the ancient avenue that leads
from the south wall of the cliffs to the palace,' she answered. Then she
renewed her importunities. 'Oh, Conan, have pity on me! I am afraid of
this evil, ancient place. I know I have heard stealthy footfalls padding
about me--oh, Conan, take me away with you! Zargheba will kill me when I
have served his purpose here--I know it! The priests, too, will kill me
if they discover my deceit.
'He is a devil--he bought me from a slave-trader who stole me out of a
caravan bound through southern Koth, and has made me the tool of his
intrigues ever since. Take me away from him! You can not be as cruel as
he. Don't leave me to be slain here! Please! Please!'
She was on her knees, clutching at Conan hysterically, her beautiful
tear-stained face upturned to him, her dark silken hair flowing in
disorder over her white shoulders. Conan picked her up and set her on
his knee.
'Listen to me. I'll protect you from Zargheba. The priests shall not
know of your perfidy. But you've got to do as I tell you.'
She faltered promises of explicit obedience, clasping his corded neck as
if seeking security from the contact.
'Good. When the priests come, you'll act the part of Yelaya, as Zargheba
planned--it'll be dark, and in the torchlight they'll never know the
difference. But you'll say this to them: "It is the will of the gods
that the Stygian and his Shemitish dogs be driven from Keshan. They are
thieves and traitors who plot to rob the gods. Let the Teeth of Gwahlur
be placed in the care of the general Conan. Let him lead the armies of
Keshan. He is beloved of the gods."'
She shivered, with an expression of desperation, but acquiesced.
'But Zargheba?' she cried. 'He'll kill me!'
'Don't worry about Zargheba,' he grunted. 'I'll take care of that dog.
You do as I say. Here, put up your hair again. It's fallen all over your
shoulders. And the gem's fallen out of it.'
He replaced the great glowing gem himself, nodding approval.
'It's worth a room full of slaves, itself alone. Here, put your skirt
back on. It's torn down the side, but the priests will never notice it.
Wipe your face. A goddess doesn't cry like a whipped schoolgirl. By
Crom, you do look like Yelaya, face, hair, figure and all! If you act
the goddess with the priests as well as you did with me, you'll fool
them easily.'
'I'll try,' she shivered.
'Good; I'm going to find Zargheba.'
At that she became panicky again.
'No! Don't leave me alone! This place is haunted!'
'There's nothing here to harm you,' he assured her impatiently. 'Nothing
but Zargheba, and I'm going to look after him. I'll be back shortly.
I'll be watching from close by in case anything goes wrong during the
ceremony; but if you play your part properly, nothing will go wrong.'
And turning, he hastened out of the oracle chamber; behind him Muriela
squeaked wretchedly at his going.
Twilight had fallen. The great rooms and halls were shadowy and
indistinct; copper friezes glinted dully through the dusk. Conan strode
like a silent phantom through the great halls, with a sensation of being
stared at from the shadowed recesses by invisible ghosts of the past. No
wonder the girl was nervous amid such surroundings.
He glided down the marble steps like a slinking panther, sword in hand.
Silence reigned over the valley, and above the rim of the cliffs stars
were blinking out. If the priests of Keshia had entered the valley there
was not a sound, not a movement in the greenery to betray them. He made
out the ancient broken-paved avenue, wandering away to the south, lost
amid clustering masses of fronds and thick-leaved bushes. He followed it
warily, hugging the edge of the paving where the shrubs massed their
shadows thickly, until he saw ahead of him, dimly in the dusk, the clump
of lotus-trees, the strange growth peculiar to the black lands of Kush.
There, according to the girl, Zargheba should be lurking. Conan became
stealth personified. A velvet-footed shadow, he melted into the
thickets.
He approached the lotus grove by a circuitous movement, and scarcely the
rustle of a leaf proclaimed his passing. At the edge of the trees he
halted suddenly, crouched like a suspicious panther among the deep
shrubs. Ahead of him, among the dense leaves, showed a pallid oval, dim
in the uncertain light. It might have been one of the great white
blossoms which shone thickly among the branches. But Conan knew that it
was a man's face. And it was turned toward him. He shrank quickly deeper
into the shadows. Had Zargheba seen him? The man was looking directly
toward him. Seconds passed. That dim face had not moved. Conan could
make out the dark tuft below that was the short black beard.
And suddenly Conan was aware of something unnatural. Zargheba, he knew,
was not a tall man. Standing erect, his head would scarcely top the
Cimmerian's shoulder; yet that face was on a level with Conan's own. Was
the man standing on something? Conan bent and peered toward the ground
below the spot where the face showed, but his vision was blocked by
undergrowth and the thick boles of the trees. But he saw something else,
and he stiffened. Through a slot in the underbrush he glimpsed the stem
of the tree under which, apparently, Zargheba was standing. The face
was directly in line with that tree. He should have seen below that
face, not the tree-trunk, but Zargheba's body--but there was no body
there.
Suddenly tenser than a tiger who stalks his prey, Conan glided deeper
into the thicket, and a moment later drew aside a leafy branch and
glared at the face that had not moved. Nor would it ever move again, of
its own volition. He looked on Zargheba's severed head, suspended from
the branch of the tree by its own long black hair.
3 The Return of the Oracle
Conan wheeled supplely, sweeping the shadows with a fiercely questing
stare. There was no sign of the murdered man's body; only yonder the
tall lush grass was trampled and broken down and the sward was dabbled
darkly and wetly. Conan stood scarcely breathing as he strained his ears
into the silence. The trees and bushes with their great pallid blossoms
stood dark, still and sinister, etched against the deepening dusk.
Primitive fears whispered at the back of Conan's mind. Was this the work
of the priests of Keshan? If so, where were they? Was it Zargheba, after
all, who had struck the gong? Again there rose the memory of Bît-Yakin
and his mysterious servants. Bît-Yakin was dead, shriveled to a hulk of
wrinkled leather and bound in his hollowed crypt to greet the rising sun
for ever. But the servants of Bît-Yakin were unaccounted for. There was
no proof they had ever left the valley.
Conan thought of the girl, Muriela, alone and unguarded in that great
shadowy palace. He wheeled and ran back down the shadowed avenue, and he
ran as a suspicious panther runs, poised even in full stride to whirl
right or left and strike death blows.
The palace loomed through the trees, and he saw something else--the glow
of fire reflecting redly from the polished marble. He melted into the
bushes that lined the broken street, glided through the dense growth and