Jewels of Gwahlur
Emerging into a cavern of huge proportions, about whose upward curving
walls gallery-like ledges marched in tiers, they began their worship
anew before an altar which was larger, and a god which was more
disgusting, than any encountered thus far.
Conan crouched in the black mouth of the tunnel, staring at the walls
reflecting the lurid glow of the torches. He saw a carven stone stair
winding up from tier to tier of the galleries; the roof was lost in
darkness.
He started violently and the chanting broke off as the kneeling blacks
flung up their heads. An inhuman voice boomed out high above them. They
froze on their knees, their faces turned upward with a ghastly blue hue
in the sudden glare of a weird light that burst blindingly up near the
lofty roof and then burned with a throbbing glow. That glare lighted a
gallery and a cry went up from the high priest, echoed shudderingly by
his acolytes. In the flash there had been briefly disclosed to them a
slim white figure standing upright in a sheen of silk and a glint of
jewel-crusted gold. Then the blaze smoldered to a throbbing, pulsing
luminosity in which nothing was distinct, and that slim shape was but
a shimmering blue of ivory.
'Yelaya!' screamed Gorulga, his brown features ashen. 'Why have you
followed us? What is your pleasure?'
That weird unhuman voice rolled down from the roof, re-echoing under
that arching vault that magnified and altered it beyond recognition.
'Woe to the unbelievers! Woe to the false children of Keshia! Doom to
them which deny their deity!'
A cry of horror went up from the priests. Gorulga looked like a shocked
vulture in the glare of the torches.
'I do not understand!' he stammered. 'We are faithful. In the chamber of
the oracle you told us--'
'Do not heed what you heard in the chamber of the oracle!' rolled that
terrible voice, multiplied until it was as though a myriad voices
thundered and muttered the same warning. 'Beware of false prophets and
false gods! A demon in my guise spoke to you in the palace, giving false
prophecy. Now harken and obey, for only I am the true goddess, and I
give you one chance to save yourselves from doom!
'Take the Teeth of Gwahlur from the crypt where they were placed so long
ago. Alkmeenon is no longer holy, because it has been desecrated by
blasphemers. Give the Teeth of Gwahlur into the hands of Thutmekri, the
Stygian, to place in the sanctuary of Dragon and Derketo. Only this can
save Keshan from the doom the demons of the night have plotted. Take the
Teeth of Gwahlur and go: return instantly to Keshia; there give the
jewels to Thutmekri, and seize the foreign devil Conan and flay him
alive in the great square.'
There was no hesitation in obeying. Chattering with fear the priests
scrambled up and ran for the door that opened behind the bestial god.
Gorulga led the flight. They jammed briefly in the doorway, yelping as
wildly waving torches touched squirming black bodies; they plunged
through, and the patter of their speeding feet dwindled down the tunnel.
Conan did not follow. He was consumed with a furious desire to learn the
truth of this fantastic affair. Was that indeed Yelaya, as the cold
sweat on the backs of his hands told him, or was it that little hussy
Muriela, turned traitress after all? If it was--
Before the last torch had vanished down the black tunnel he was bounding
vengefully up the stone stair. The blue glow was dying down, but he
could still make out that the ivory figure stood motionless on the
gallery. His blood ran cold as he approached it, but he did not
hesitate. He came on with his sword lifted, and towered like a threat of
death over the inscrutable shape.
'Yelaya!' he snarled. 'Dead as she's been for a thousand years! Ha!'
From the dark mouth of a tunnel behind him a dark form lunged. But the
sudden, deadly rush of unshod feet had reached the Cimmerian's quick
ears. He whirled like a cat and dodged the blow aimed murderously at his
back. As the gleaming steel in the dark hand hissed past him, he struck
back with the fury of a roused python, and the long straight blade
impaled his assailant and stood out a foot and a half between his
shoulders.
'So!' Conan tore his sword free as the victim sagged to the floor,
gasping and gurgling. The man writhed briefly and stiffened. In the
dying light Conan saw a black body and ebon countenance, hideous in the
blue glare. He had killed Gwarunga.
Conan turned from the corpse to the goddess. Thongs about her knees and
breast held her upright against a stone pillar, and her thick hair,
fastened to the column, held her head up. At a few yards' distance these
bonds were not visible in the uncertain light.
'He must have come to after I descended into the tunnel,' muttered
Conan. 'He must have suspected I was down there. So he pulled out the
dagger'--Conan stooped and wrenched the identical weapon from the
stiffening fingers, glanced at it and replaced it in his own
girdle--'and shut the door. Then he took Yelaya to befool his brother
idiots. That was he shouting a while ago. You couldn't recognize his
voice, under this echoing roof. And that bursting blue flame--I thought
it looked familiar. It's a trick of the Stygian priests. Thutmekri must
have given some of it to Gwarunga.'
He could easily have reached this cavern ahead of his companions.
Evidently familiar with the plan of the caverns by hearsay or by maps
handed down in the priestcraft, he had entered the cave after the
others, carrying the goddess, followed a circuitous route through the
tunnels and chambers, and ensconced himself and his burden on the
balcony while Gorulga and the other acolytes were engaged in their
endless rituals.
The blue glare had faded, but now Conan was aware of another glow,
emanating from the mouth of one of the corridors that opened on the
ledge. Somewhere down that corridor there was another field of
phosphorus, for he recognized the faint steady radiance. The corridor
led in the direction the priests had taken, and he decided to follow it,
rather than descend into the darkness of the great cavern below.
Doubtless it connected with another gallery in some other chamber, which
might be the destination of the priests. He hurried down it, the
illumination growing stronger as he advanced, until he could make out
the floor and the walls of the tunnel. Ahead of him and below he could
hear the priests chanting again.
Abruptly a doorway in the left-hand wall was limned in the phosphorus
glow, and to his ears came the sound of soft, hysterical sobbing. He
wheeled, and glared through the door.
He was looking again into a chamber hewn out of solid rock, not a
natural cavern like the others. The domed roof shone with the
phosphorous light, and the walls were almost covered with arabesques of
beaten gold.
Near the farther wall on a granite throne, staring for ever toward the
arched doorway, sat the monstrous and obscene Pteor, the god of the
Pelishtim, wrought in brass, with his exaggerated attributes reflecting
the grossness of his cult. And in his lap sprawled a limp white figure.
'Well, I'll be damned!' muttered Conan. He glanced suspiciously about
the chamber, seeing no other entrance or evidence of occupation, and
then advanced noiselessly and looked down at the girl whose slim
shoulders shook with sobs of abject misery, her face sunk in her arms.
From thick bands of gold on the idol's arms slim gold chains ran to
smaller bands on her wrists. He laid a hand on her naked shoulder and
she started convulsively, shrieked, and twisted her tear-stained face
toward him.
'Conan!' She made a spasmodic effort to go into the usual clinch, but
the chains hindered her. He cut through the soft gold as close to her
wrists as he could, grunting: 'You'll have to wear these bracelets until
I can find a chisel or a file. Let go of me, damn it! You actresses are
too damned emotional. What happened to you, anyway?'
'When I went back into the oracle chamber,' she whimpered, 'I saw the
goddess lying on the dais as I'd first seen her. I called out to you and
started to run to the door--then something grabbed me from behind. It
clapped a hand over my mouth and carried me through a panel in the wall,
and down some steps and along a dark hall. I didn't see what it was that
had hold of me until we passed through a big metal door and came into a
tunnel whose roof was alight, like this chamber.
'Oh, I nearly fainted when I saw! They are not humans! They are gray,
hairy devils that walk like men and speak a gibberish no human could
understand. They stood there and seemed to be waiting, and once I
thought I heard somebody trying the door. Then one of the things pulled
a metal lever in the wall, and something crashed on the other side of
the door.
'Then they carried me on and on through winding tunnels and up stone
stairways into this chamber, where they chained me on the knees of this
abominable idol, and then they went away. Oh, Conan, what are they?'
'Servants of Bît-Yakin,' he grunted. 'I found a manuscript that told me
a number of things, and then stumbled upon some frescoes that told me
the rest. Bît-Yakin was a Pelishtim who wandered into the valley with
his servants after the people of Alkmeenon had deserted it. He found the
body of Princess Yelaya, and discovered that the priests returned from
time to time to make offerings to her, for even then she was worshipped
as a goddess.
'He made an oracle of her, and he was the voice of the oracle, speaking
from a niche he cut in the wall behind the ivory dais. The priests never
suspected, never saw him or his servants for they always hid themselves
when the men came. Bît-Yakin lived and died here without ever being
discovered by the priests. Crom knows how long he dwelt here, but it
must have been for centuries. The wise men of the Pelishtim know how to
increase the span of their lives for hundreds of years. I've seen some
of them myself. Why he lived here alone, and why he played the part of
oracle no ordinary human can guess, but I believe the oracle part was to
keep the city inviolate and sacred, so he could remain undisturbed. He
ate the food the priests brought as an offering to Yelaya, and his
servants ate other things--I've always known there was a subterranean
river flowing away from the lake where the people of the Puntish
highlands throw their dead. That river runs under this palace. They have
ladders hung over the water where they can hang and fish for the corpses
that come floating through. Bît-Yakin recorded everything on parchment
and painted walls.
'But he died at last, and his servants mummified him according to
instructions he gave them before his death, and stuck him in a cave in
the cliffs. The rest is easy to guess. His servants, who were even more
nearly immortal than he, kept on dwelling here, but the next time a high
priest came to consult the oracle, not having a master to restrain them,
they tore him to pieces. So since then--until Gorulga--nobody came to
talk to the oracle.
'It's obvious they've been renewing the garments and ornaments of the
goddess, as they'd seen Bît-Yakin do. Doubtless there's a sealed chamber
somewhere where the silks are kept from decay. They clothed the goddess
and brought her back to the oracle room after Zargheba had stolen her.
And by the way, they took off Zargheba's head and hung it in a thicket.'
She shivered, yet at the same time breathed a sigh of relief.
'He'll never whip me again.'
'Not this side of hell,' agreed Conan. 'But come on. Gwarunga ruined my
chances with his stolen goddess. I'm going to follow the priests and
take my chance of stealing the loot from them after they get it. And you
stay close to me. I can't spend all my time looking for you.'