The People of the Black Circle
was blood on the marble floor, and bloody tracks led to a cryptic arched
door. Those tracks were of a man's bare feet....
'_Conan!_' He wheeled back into the chamber just in time to catch the
Devi of Vendhya in his arms as she rushed across the room and threw
herself upon him, catching him about the neck with a frantic clasp, half
hysterical with terror and gratitude and relief.
His wild blood had been stirred to its uttermost by all that had passed.
He caught her to him in a grasp that would have made her wince at
another time, and crushed her lips with his. She made no resistance; the
Devi was drowned in the elemental woman. She closed her eyes and drank
in his fierce, hot, lawless kisses with all the abandon of passionate
thirst. She was panting with his violence when he ceased for breath, and
glared down at her lying limp in his mighty arms.
'I knew you'd come for me,' she murmured. 'You would not leave me in
this den of devils.'
At her words recollection of their environment came to him suddenly. He
lifted his head and listened intently. Silence reigned over the castle
of Yimsha, but it was a silence impregnated with menace. Peril crouched
in every corner, leered invisibly from every hanging.
'We'd better go while we can,' he muttered. 'Those cuts were enough to
kill any common beast--or _man_--but a wizard has a dozen lives. Wound
one, and he writhes away like a crippled snake to soak up fresh venom
from some source of sorcery.'
He picked up the girl and carrying her in his arms like a child, he
strode out into the gleaming jade corridor and down the stairs, nerves
tautly alert for any sign or sound.
'I met the Master,' she whispered, clinging to him and shuddering. 'He
worked his spells on me to break my will. The most awful thing was a
moldering corpse which seized me in its arms--I fainted then and lay as
one dead, I do not know how long. Shortly after I regained consciousness
I heard sounds of strife below, and cries, and then that snake came
slithering through the curtains--ah!' She shook at the memory of that
horror. 'I knew somehow that it was not an illusion, but a real serpent
that sought my life.'
'It was not a shadow, at least,' answered Conan cryptically. 'He knew he
was beaten, and chose to slay you rather than let you be rescued.'
'What do you mean, _he_?' she asked uneasily, and then shrank against
him, crying out, and forgetting her question. She had seen the corpses
at the foot of the stairs. Those of the Seers were not good to look at;
as they lay twisted and contorted, their hands and feet were exposed to
view, and at the sight Yasmina went livid and hid her face against
Conan's powerful shoulder.
10 Yasmina and Conan
Conan passed through the hall quickly enough, traversed the outer
chamber and approached the door that led upon the gallery. Then he saw
the floor sprinkled with tiny, glittering shards. The crystal sheet that
had covered the doorway had been shivered to bits, and he remembered the
crash that had accompanied the shattering of the crystal globe. He
believed that every piece of crystal in the castle had broken at that
instant, and some dim instinct or memory of esoteric lore vaguely
suggested the truth of the monstrous connection between the Lords of the
Black Circle and the golden pomegranates. He felt the short hair bristle
chilly at the back of his neck and put the matter hastily out of his
mind.
He breathed a deep sigh of relief as he stepped out upon the green jade
gallery. There was still the gorge to cross, but at least he could see
the white peaks glistening in the sun, and the long slopes falling away
into the distant blue hazes.
The Irakzai lay where he had fallen, an ugly blotch on the glassy
smoothness. As Conan strode down the winding path, he was surprised to
note the position of the sun. It had not yet passed its zenith; and yet
it seemed to him that hours had passed since he plunged into the castle
of the Black Seers.
He felt an urge to hasten, not a mere blind panic, but an instinct of
peril growing behind his back. He said nothing to Yasmina, and she
seemed content to nestle her dark head against his arching breast and
find security in the clasp of his iron arms. He paused an instant on the
brink of the chasm, frowning down. The haze which danced in the gorge
was no longer rose-hued and sparkling. It was smoky, dim, ghostly, like
the life-tide that flickered thinly in a wounded man. The thought came
vaguely to Conan that the spells of magicians were more closely bound to
their personal beings than were the actions of common men to the
actors.
But far below, the floor shone like tarnished silver, and the gold
thread sparkled undimmed. Conan shifted Yasmina across his shoulder,
where she lay docilely, and began the descent. Hurriedly he descended
the ramp, and hurriedly he fled across the echoing floor. He had a
conviction that they were racing with time, that their chances of
survival depended upon crossing that gorge of horrors before the wounded
Master of the castle should regain enough power to loose some other doom
upon them.
When he toiled up the farther ramp and came out upon the crest, he
breathed a gusty sigh of relief and stood Yasmina upon her feet.
'You walk from here,' he told her; 'it's downhill all the way.'
She stole a glance at the gleaming pyramid across the chasm; it reared
up against the snowy slope like the citadel of silence and immemorial
evil.
'Are you a magician, that you have conquered the Black Seers of Yimsha,
Conan of Ghor?' she asked, as they went down the path, with his heavy
arm about her supple waist.
'It was a girdle Khemsa gave me before he died,' Conan answered. 'Yes, I
found him on the trail. It is a curious one, which I'll show you when I
have time. Against some spells it was weak, but against others it was
strong, and a good knife is always a hearty incantation.'
'But if the girdle aided you in conquering the Master,' she argued, 'why
did it not aid Khemsa?'
He shook his head. 'Who knows? But Khemsa had been the Master's slave;
perhaps that weakened its magic. He had no hold on me as he had on
Khemsa. Yet I can't say that I conquered him. He retreated, but I have a
feeling that we haven't seen the last of him. I want to put as many
miles between us and his lair as we can.'
He was further relieved to find horses tethered among the tamarisks as
he had left them. He loosed them swiftly and mounted the black stallion,
swinging the girl up before him. The others followed, freshened by their
rest.
'And what now?' she asked. 'To Afghulistan?'
'Not just now!' He grinned hardly. 'Somebody--maybe the governor--killed
my seven headmen. My idiotic followers think I had something to do with
it, and unless I am able to convince them otherwise, they'll hunt me
like a wounded jackal.'
'Then what of me? If the headmen are dead, I am useless to you as a
hostage. Will you slay me, to avenge them?'
He looked down at her, with eyes fiercely aglow, and laughed at the
suggestion.
'Then let us ride to the border,' she said. 'You'll be safe from the
Afghulis there--'
'Yes, on a Vendhyan gibbet.'
'I am Queen of Vendhya,' she reminded him with a touch of her old
imperiousness. 'You have saved my life. You shall be rewarded.'
She did not intend it as it sounded, but he growled in his throat, ill
pleased.
'Keep your bounty for your city-bred dogs, princess! If you're a queen
of the plains, I'm a chief of the hills, and not one foot toward the
border will I take you!'
'But you would be safe--' she began bewilderedly.
'And you'd be the Devi again,' he broke in. 'No, girl; I prefer you as
you are now--a woman of flesh and blood, riding on my saddle-bow.'
'But you can't _keep_ me!' she cried. 'You can't--'
'Watch and see!' he advised grimly.
'But I will pay you a vast ransom--'
'Devil take your ransom!' he answered roughly, his arms hardening about
her supple figure. 'The kingdom of Vendhya could give me nothing I
desire half so much as I desire you. I took you at the risk of my neck;
if your courtiers want you back, let them come up the Zhaibar and fight
for you.'
'But you have no followers now!' she protested. 'You are hunted! How can
you preserve your own life, much less mine?'
'I still have friends in the hills,' he answered. 'There is a chief of
the Khurakzai who will keep you safely while I bicker with the Afghulis.
If they will have none of me, by Crom! I will ride northward with you to
the steppes of the _kozaki_. I was a hetman among the Free Companions
before I rode southward. I'll make you a queen on the Zaporoska River!'
'But I can not!' she objected. 'You must not hold me--'
'If the idea's so repulsive,' he demanded, 'why did you yield your lips
to me so willingly?'
'Even a queen is human,' she answered, coloring. 'But because I am a
queen, I must consider my kingdom. Do not carry me away into some
foreign country. Come back to Vendhya with me!'
'Would you make me your king?' he asked sardonically.
'Well, there are customs--' she stammered, and he interrupted her with a
hard laugh.
'Yes, civilized customs that won't let you do as you wish. You'll marry
some withered old king of the plains, and I can go my way with only the
memory of a few kisses snatched from your lips. Ha!'
'But I must return to my kingdom!' she repeated helplessly.
'Why?' he demanded angrily. 'To chafe your rump on gold thrones, and
listen to the plaudits of smirking, velvet-skirted fools? Where is the
gain? Listen: I was born in the Cimmerian hills where the people are
all barbarians. I have been a mercenary soldier, a corsair, a _kozak_,
and a hundred other things. What king has roamed the countries, fought
the battles, loved the women, and won the plunder that I have?
'I came into Ghulistan to raise a horde and plunder the kingdoms to the
south--your own among them. Being chief of the Afghulis was only a
start. If I can conciliate them, I'll have a dozen tribes following me
within a year. But if I can't I'll ride back to the steppes and loot the
Turanian borders with the _kozaki_. And you'll go with me. To the devil
with your kingdom; they fended for themselves before you were born.'
She lay in his arms looking up at him, and she felt a tug at her spirit,
a lawless, reckless urge that matched his own and was by it called into
being. But a thousand generations of sovereignship rode heavy upon her.
'I can't! I can't!' she repeated helplessly.
'You haven't any choice,' he assured her. 'You--what the devil!'
They had left Yimsha some miles behind them, and were riding along a
high ridge that separated two deep valleys. They had just topped a steep
crest where they could gaze down into the valley on their right hand.
And there was a running fight in progress. A strong wind was blowing
away from them, carrying the sound from their ears, but even so the
clashing of steel and thunder of hoofs welled up from far below.
They saw the glint of the sun on lance-tip and spired helmet. Three
thousand mailed horsemen were driving before them a ragged band of
turbaned riders, who fled snarling and striking like fleeing wolves.
'Turanians,' muttered Conan. 'Squadrons from Secunderam. What the devil
are they doing here?'
'Who are the men they pursue?' asked Yasmina. 'And why do they fall back
so stubbornly? They can not stand against such odds.'
'Five hundred of my mad Afghulis,' he growled, scowling down into the
vale. 'They're in a trap, and they know it.'
The valley was indeed a cul-de-sac at that end. It narrowed to a
high-walled gorge, opening out further into a round bowl, completely
rimmed with lofty, unscalable walls.
The turbaned riders were being forced into this gorge, because there was