The Hour of the Dragon
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be withdrawn out of reach, the king gathered this slack in his mighty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.
5
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 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 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 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
had 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 there, only Mitra knows.'
'I wonder if that could have been Tarascus who fumbled at my cell door
awhile ago?' muttered Conan.
'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.