The People of the Black Circle
did not conceal the rich garments beneath them any more than they
concealed the suppleness and beauty of her tall, slender figure. A filmy
veil fell below her breasts, supported by a flowing headdress bound
about with a triple gold braid and adorned with a golden crescent. Her
dark eyes regarded the astonished governor over the veil, and then with
an imperious gesture of her white hand, she uncovered her face.
'Devi!' The governor dropped to his knees before her, surprize and
confusion somewhat spoiling the stateliness of his obeisance. With a
gesture she motioned him to rise, and he hastened to lead her to the
ivory chair, all the while bowing level with his girdle. But his first
words were of reproof.
'Your Majesty! This was most unwise! The border is unsettled. Raids from
the hills are incessant. You came with a large attendance?'
'An ample retinue followed me to Peshkhauri,' she answered. 'I lodged my
people there and came on to the fort with my maid, Gitara.'
Chunder Shan groaned in horror.
'Devi! You do not understand the peril. An hour's ride from this spot
the hills swarm with barbarians who make a profession of murder and
rapine. Women have been stolen and men stabbed between the fort and the
city. Peshkhauri is not like your southern provinces--'
'But I am here, and unharmed,' she interrupted with a trace of
impatience. 'I showed my signet ring to the guard at the gate, and to
the one outside your door, and they admitted me unannounced, not knowing
me, but supposing me to be a secret courier from Ayodhya. Let us not now
waste time.
'You have received no word from the chief of the barbarians?'
'None save threats and curses, Devi. He is wary and suspicious. He deems
it a trap, and perhaps he is not to be blamed. The Kshatriyas have not
always kept their promises to the hill people.'
'He must be brought to terms!' broke in Yasmina, the knuckles of her
clenched hands showing white.
'I do not understand.' The governor shook his head. 'When I chanced to
capture these seven hill-men, I reported their capture to the _wazam_,
as is the custom, and then, before I could hang them, there came an
order to hold them and communicate with their chief. This I did, but the
man holds aloof, as I have said. These men are of the tribe of Afghulis,
but he is a foreigner from the west, and he is called Conan. I have
threatened to hang them tomorrow at dawn, if he does not come.'
'Good!' exclaimed the Devi. 'You have done well. And I will tell you why
I have given these orders. My brother--' she faltered, choking, and the
governor bowed his head, with the customary gesture of respect for a
departed sovereign.
'The king of Vendhya was destroyed by magic,' she said at last. 'I have
devoted my life to the destruction of his murderers. As he died he gave
me a clue, and I have followed it. I have read the _Book of Skelos_, and
talked with nameless hermits in the caves below Jhelai. I learned how,
and by whom, he was destroyed. His enemies were the Black Seers of Mount
Yimsha.'
'Asura!' whispered Chunder Shan, paling.
Her eyes knifed him through. 'Do you fear them?'
'Who does not, Your Majesty?' he replied. 'They are black devils,
haunting the uninhabited hills beyond the Zhaibar. But the sages say
that they seldom interfere in the lives of mortal men.'
'Why they slew my brother I do not know,' she answered. 'But I have
sworn on the altar of Asura to destroy them! And I need the aid of a man
beyond the border. A Kshatriya army, unaided, would never reach Yimsha.'
'Aye,' muttered Chunder Shan. 'You speak the truth there. It would be
fight every step of the way, with hairy hill-men hurling down boulders
from every height, and rushing us with their long knives in every
valley. The Turanians fought their way through the Himelians once, but
how many returned to Khurusun? Few of those who escaped the swords of
the Kshatriyas, after the king, your brother, defeated their host on the
Jhumda River, ever saw Secunderam again.'
'And so I must control men across the border,' she said, 'men who know
the way to Mount Yimsha--'
'But the tribes fear the Black Seers and shun the unholy mountain,'
broke in the governor.
'Does the chief, Conan, fear them?' she asked.
'Well, as to that,' muttered the governor, 'I doubt if there is anything
that devil fears.'
'So I have been told. Therefore he is the man I must deal with. He
wishes the release of his seven men. Very well; their ransom shall be
the heads of the Black Seers!' Her voice thrummed with hate as she
uttered the last words, and her hands clenched at her sides. She looked
an image of incarnate passion as she stood there with her head thrown
high and her bosom heaving.
Again the governor knelt, for part of his wisdom was the knowledge that
a woman in such an emotional tempest is as perilous as a blind cobra to
any about her.
'It shall be as you wish, Your Majesty.' Then as she presented a calmer
aspect, he rose and ventured to drop a word of warning. 'I can not
predict what the chief Conan's action will be. The tribesmen are always
turbulent, and I have reason to believe that emissaries from the
Turanians are stirring them up to raid our borders. As your majesty
knows, the Turanians have established themselves in Secunderam and other
northern cities, though the hill tribes remain unconquered. King
Yezdigerd has long looked southward with greedy lust and perhaps is
seeking to gain by treachery what he could not win by force of arms. I
have thought that Conan might well be one of his spies.'
'We shall see,' she answered. 'If he loves his followers, he will be at
the gates at dawn, to parley. I shall spend the night in the fortress. I
came in disguise to Peshkhauri, and lodged my retinue at an inn instead
of the palace. Besides my people, only yourself knows of my presence
here.'
'I shall escort you to your quarters, Your Majesty,' said the governor,
and as they emerged from the doorway, he beckoned the warrior on guard
there, and the man fell in behind them, spear held at salute.
The maid waited, veiled like her mistress, outside the door, and the
group traversed a wide, winding corridor, lighted by smoky torches, and
reached the quarters reserved for visiting notables--generals and
viceroys, mostly; none of the royal family had ever honored the fortress
before. Chunder Shan had a perturbed feeling that the suite was not
suitable to such an exalted personage as the Devi, and though she sought
to make him feel at ease in her presence, he was glad when she dismissed
him and he bowed himself out. All the menials of the fort had been
summoned to serve his royal guest--though he did not divulge her
identity--and he stationed a squad of spearmen before her doors, among
them the warrior who had guarded his own chamber. In his preoccupation
he forgot to replace the man.
The governor had not been long gone from her when Yasmina suddenly
remembered something else which she had wished to discuss with him, but
had forgotten until that moment. It concerned the past actions of one
Kerim Shah, a nobleman from Iranistan, who had dwelt for a while in
Peshkhauri before coming on to the court at Ayodhya. A vague suspicion
concerning the man had been stirred by a glimpse of him in Peshkhauri
that night. She wondered if he had followed her from Ayodhya. Being a
truly remarkable Devi, she did not summon the governor to her again, but
hurried out into the corridor alone, and hastened toward his chamber.
* * * * *
Chunder Shan, entering his chamber, closed the door and went to his
table. There he took the letter he had been writing and tore it to bits.
Scarcely had he finished when he heard something drop softly onto the
parapet adjacent to the window. He looked up to see a figure loom
briefly against the stars, and then a man dropped lightly into the room.
The light glinted on a long sheen of steel in his hand.
'Shhhh!' he warned. 'Don't make a noise, or I'll send the devil a
henchman!'
The governor checked his motion toward the sword on the table. He was
within reach of the yard-long Zhaibar knife that glittered in the
intruder's fist, and he knew the desperate quickness of a hillman.
The invader was a tall man, at once strong and supple. He was dressed
like a hillman, but his dark features and blazing blue eyes did not
match his garb. Chunder Shan had never seen a man like him; he was not
an Easterner, but some barbarian from the West. But his aspect was as
untamed and formidable as any of the hairy tribesmen who haunt the hills
of Ghulistan.
'You come like a thief in the night,' commented the governor, recovering
some of his composure, although he remembered that there was no guard
within call. Still, the hillman could not know that.
'I climbed a bastion,' snarled the intruder. 'A guard thrust his head
over the battlement in time for me to rap it with my knife-hilt.'
'You are Conan?'
'Who else? You sent word into the hills that you wished for me to come
and parley with you. Well, by Crom, I've come! Keep away from that table
or I'll gut you.'
'I merely wish to seat myself,' answered the governor, carefully sinking
into the ivory chair, which he wheeled away from the table. Conan moved
restlessly before him, glancing suspiciously at the door, thumbing the
razor edge of his three-foot knife. He did not walk like an Afghuli, and
was bluntly direct where the East is subtle.
'You have seven of my men,' he said abruptly. 'You refused the ransom I
offered. What the devil do you want?'
'Let us discuss terms,' answered Chunder Shan cautiously.
'Terms?' There was a timbre of dangerous anger in his voice. 'What do
you mean? Haven't I offered you gold?'
Chunder Shan laughed.
'Gold? There is more gold in Peshkhauri than you ever saw.'
'You're a liar,' retorted Conan. 'I've seen the _suk_ of the goldsmiths
in Khurusun.'
'Well, more than an Afghuli ever saw,' amended Chunder Shan. 'And it is
but a drop of all the treasure of Vendhya. Why should we desire gold? It
would be more to our advantage to hang these seven thieves.'
Conan ripped out a sulfurous oath and the long blade quivered in his
grip as the muscles rose in ridges on his brown arm.
'I'll split your head like a ripe melon!'
A wild blue flame flickered in the hillman's eyes, but Chunder Shan
shrugged his shoulders, though keeping an eye on the keen steel.
'You can kill me easily, and probably escape over the wall afterward.
But that would not save the seven tribesmen. My men would surely hang
them. And these men are headmen among the Afghulis.'
'I know it,' snarled Conan. 'The tribe is baying like wolves at my heels
because I have not procured their release. Tell me in plain words what
you want, because, by Crom! if there's no other way, I'll raise a horde
and lead it to the very gates of Peshkhauri!'
Looking at the man as he stood squarely, knife in fist and eyes glaring,
Chunder Shan did not doubt that he was capable of it. The governor did
not believe any hill-horde could take Peshkhauri, but he did not wish a
devastated countryside.
'There is a mission you must perform,' he said, choosing his words with
as much care as if they had been razors. 'There--'
Conan had sprung back, wheeling to face the door at the same instant,
lips asnarl. His barbarian ears had caught the quick tread of soft
slippers outside the door. The next instant the door was thrown open and
a slim, silk-robed form entered hastily, pulling the door shut--then
stopping short at sight of the hillman.
Chunder Shan sprang up, his heart jumping into his mouth.
'Devi!' he cried involuntarily, losing his head momentarily in his
fright.
'_Devi!_' It was like an explosive echo from the hillman's lips. Chunder