Jewels of Gwahlur
'But the servants of Bît-Yakin!' she whispered fearfully.
'We'll have to take our chance,' he grunted. 'I don't know what's in
their minds, but so far they haven't shown any disposition to come out
and fight in the open. Come on.'
Taking her wrist he led her out of the chamber and down the corridor. As
they advanced they heard the chanting of the priests, and mingling with
the sound the low sullen rushing of waters. The light grew stronger
above them as they emerged on a high-pitched gallery of a great cavern
and looked down on a scene weird and fantastic.
Above them gleamed the phosphorescent roof; a hundred feet below them
stretched the smooth floor of the cavern. On the far side this floor was
cut by a deep, narrow stream brimming its rocky channel. Rushing out of
impenetrable gloom, it swirled across the cavern and was lost again in
darkness. The visible surface reflected the radiance above; the dark
seething waters glinted as if flecked with living jewels, frosty blue,
lurid red, shimmering green, an ever-changing iridescence.
Conan and his companion stood upon one of the gallery-like ledges that
banded the curve of the lofty wall, and from this ledge a natural bridge
of stone soared in a breath-taking arch over the vast gulf of the cavern
to join a much smaller ledge on the opposite side, across the river. Ten
feet below it another, broader arch spanned the cave. At either end a
carven stair joined the extremities of these flying arches.
Conan's gaze, following the curve of the arch that swept away from the
ledge on which they stood, caught a glint of light that was not the
lurid phosphorus of the cavern. On that small ledge opposite them there
was an opening in the cave wall through which stars were glinting.
But his full attention was drawn to the scene beneath them. The priests
had reached their destination. There in a sweeping angle of the cavern
wall stood a stone altar, but there was no idol upon it. Whether there
was one behind it, Conan could not ascertain, because some trick of the
light, or the sweep of the wall, left the space behind the altar in
total darkness.
The priests had stuck their torches into holes in the stone floor,
forming a semicircle of fire in front of the altar at a distance of
several yards. Then the priests themselves formed a semicircle inside
the crescent of torches, and Gorulga, after lifting his arms aloft in
invocation, bent to the altar and laid hands on it. It lifted and tilted
backward on its hinder edge, like the lid of a chest, revealing a small
crypt.
Extending a long arm into the recess, Gorulga brought up a small brass
chest. Lowering the altar back into place, he set the chest on it, and
threw back the lid. To the eager watchers on the high gallery it seemed
as if the action had released a blaze of living fire which throbbed and
quivered about the opened chest. Conan's heart leaped and his hand
caught at his hilt. The Teeth of Gwahlur at last! The treasure that
would make its possessor the richest man in the world! His breath came
fast between his clenched teeth.
Then he was suddenly aware that a new element had entered into the light
of the torches and of the phosphorescent roof, rendering both void.
Darkness stole around the altar, except for that glowing spot of evil
radiance cast by the teeth of Gwahlur, and that grew and grew. The
blacks froze into basaltic statues, their shadows streaming grotesquely
and gigantically out behind them.
The altar was laved in the glow now, and the astounded features of
Gorulga stood out in sharp relief. Then the mysterious space behind the
altar swam into the widening illumination. And slowly with the crawling
light, figures became visible, like shapes growing out of the night and
silence.
At first they seemed like gray stone statues, those motionless shapes,
hairy, man-like, yet hideously human; but their eyes were alive, cold
sparks of gray icy fire. And as the weird glow lit their bestial
countenances, Gorulga screamed and fell backward, throwing up his long
arms in a gesture of frenzied horror.
But a longer arm shot across the altar and a misshapen hand locked on
his throat. Screaming and fighting, the high priest was dragged back
across the altar; a hammer-like fist smashed down, and Gorulga's cries
were stilled. Limp and broken he sagged across the altar, his brains
oozing from his crushed skull. And then the servants of Bît-Yakin surged
like a bursting flood from hell on the black priests who stood like
horror-blasted images.
Then there was slaughter, grim and appalling.
Conan saw black bodies tossed like chaff in the inhuman hands of the
slayers, against whose horrible strength and agility the daggers and
swords of the priests were ineffective. He saw men lifted bodily and
their heads cracked open against the stone altar. He saw a flaming
torch, grasped in a monstrous hand, thrust inexorably down the gullet of
an agonized wretch who writhed in vain against the arms that pinioned
him. He saw a man torn in two pieces, as one might tear a chicken, and
the bloody fragments hurled clear across the cavern. The massacre was as
short and devastating as the rush of a hurricane. In a burst of red
abysmal ferocity it was over, except for one wretch who fled screaming
back the way the priests had come, pursued by a swarm of blood-dabbled
shapes of horror which reached out their red-smeared hands for him.
Fugitive and pursuers vanished down the black tunnel, and the screams of
the human came back dwindling and confused by the distance.
Muriela was on her knees clutching Conan's legs, her face pressed
against his knee and her eyes tightly shut. She was a quaking, quivering
mold of abject terror. But Conan was galvanized. A quick glance across
at the aperture where the stars shone, a glance down at the chest that
still blazed open on the blood-smeared altar, and he saw and seized the
desperate gamble.
'I'm going after that chest!' he grated. 'Stay here!'
'Oh, Mitra, no!' In an agony of fright she fell to the floor and caught
at his sandals. 'Don't! Don't! Don't leave me!'
'Lie still and keep your mouth shut!' he snapped, disengaging himself
from her frantic clasp.
He disregarded the tortuous stair. He dropped from ledge to ledge with
reckless haste. There was no sign of the monsters as his feet hit the
floor. A few of the torches still flared in their sockets, the
phosphorescent glow throbbed and quivered, and the river flowed with an
almost articulate muttering, scintillant with undreamed radiances. The
glow that had heralded the appearance of the servants had vanished with
them. Only the light of the jewels in the brass chest shimmered and
quivered.
He snatched the chest, noting its contents in one lustful
glance--strange, curiously shapen stones that burned with an icy,
non-terrestrial fire. He slammed the lid, thrust the chest under his
arm, and ran back up the steps. He had no desire to encounter the
hellish servants of Bît-Yakin. His glimpse of them in action had
dispelled any illusion concerning their fighting ability. Why they had
waited so long before striking at the invaders he was unable to say.
What human could guess the motives or thoughts of these monstrosities?
That they were possessed of craft and intelligence equal to humanity had
been demonstrated. And there on the cavern floor lay crimson proof of
their bestial ferocity.
The Corinthian girl still cowered on the gallery where he had left her.
He caught her wrist and yanked her to her feet, grunting: 'I guess it's
time to go!'
Too bemused with terror to be fully aware of what was going on, the girl
suffered herself to be led across the dizzy span. It was not until they
were poised over the rushing water that she looked down, voiced a
startled yelp and would have fallen but for Conan's massive arm about
her. Growling an objurgation in her ear, he snatched her up under his
free arm and swept her, in a flutter of limply waving arms and legs,
across the arch and into the aperture that opened at the other end.
Without bothering to set her on her feet, he hurried through the short
tunnel into which this aperture opened. An instant later they emerged
upon a narrow ledge on the outer side of the cliffs that circled the
valley. Less than a hundred feet below them the jungle waved in the
starlight.
Looking down, Conan vented a gusty sigh of relief. He believed that he
could negotiate the descent, even though burdened with the jewels and
the girl; although he doubted if even he, unburdened, could have
ascended at that spot. He set the chest, still smeared with Gorulga's
blood and clotted with his brains, on the ledge, and was about to remove
his girdle in order to tie the box to his back, when he was galvanized
by a sound behind him, a sound sinister and unmistakable.
'Stay here!' he snapped at the bewildered Corinthian girl. 'Don't move!'
And drawing his sword, he glided into the tunnel, glaring back into the
cavern.
Halfway across the upper span he saw a gray deformed shape. One of the
servants of Bît-Yakin was on his trail. There was no doubt that the
brute had seen them and was following them. Conan did not hesitate. It
might be easier to defend the mouth of the tunnel--but this fight must
be finished quickly, before the other servants could return.
He ran out on the span, straight toward the oncoming monster. It was no
ape, neither was it a man. It was some shambling horror spawned in the
mysterious, nameless jungles of the south, where strange life teemed in
the reeking rot without the dominance of man, and drums thundered in
temples that had never known the tread of a human foot. How the ancient
Pelishtim had gained lordship over them--and with it eternal exile from
humanity--was a foul riddle about which Conan did not care to speculate,
even if he had had opportunity.
Man and monster; they met at the highest arch of the span, where, a
hundred feet below, rushed the furious black water. As the monstrous
shape with its leprous gray body and the features of a carven, unhuman
idol loomed over him, Conan struck as a wounded tiger strikes, with
every ounce of thew and fury behind the blow. That stroke would have
sheared a human body asunder; but the bones of the servant of Bît-Yakin
were like tempered steel. Yet even tempered steel could not wholly have
withstood that furious stroke. Ribs and shoulder-bone parted and blood
spouted from the great gash.
There was no time for a second stroke. Before the Cimmerian could lift
his blade again or spring clear, the sweep of a giant arm knocked him
from the span as a fly is flicked from a wall. As he plunged downward
the rush of the river was like a knell in his ears, but his twisted body
fell halfway across the lower arch. He wavered there precariously for
one blood-chilling instant, then his clutching fingers hooked over the
farther edge, and he scrambled to safety, his sword still in his other
hand.
As he sprang up, he saw the monster, spurting blood hideously, rush
toward the cliff-end of the bridge, obviously intending to descend the
stair that connected the arches and renew the feud. At the very ledge
the brute paused in mid-flight--and Conan saw it too--Muriela, with the
jewel chest under her arm, stood staring wildly in the mouth of the
tunnel.
With a triumphant bellow the monster scooped her up under one arm,
snatched the jewel chest with the other hand as she dropped it, and
turning, lumbered back across the bridge. Conan cursed with passion and
ran for the other side also. He doubted if he could climb the stair to
the higher arch in time to catch the brute before it could plunge into
the labyrinth of tunnels on the other side.
But the monster was slowing, like clockwork running down. Blood gushed