Title:Jewels of Gwahlur

Author: Robert E. Howard

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Title:Jewels of Gwahlur

Author: Robert E. Howard







Contents







1 Chapter 1. Paths of Intrigue



2 Chapter 2. A Goddess Awakens



3 Chapter 3. The Return of the Oracle



4 Chapter 4. The Teeth of Gwahlur











Chapter 1. Paths of Intrigue



The cliffs rose sheer from the jungle, towering ramparts of stone that

glinted jade-blue and dull crimson in the rising sun, and curved away

and away to east and west above the waving emerald ocean of fronds and

leaves. It looked insurmountable, that giant palisade with its sheer

curtains of solid rock in which bits of quartz winked dazzlingly in

the sunlight. But the man who was working his tedious way upward was

already halfway to the top.



He came from a race of hillmen, accustomed to scaling forbidding

crags, and he was a man of unusual strength and agility. His only

garment was a pair of short red silk breeks, and his sandals were

slung to his back, out of his way, as were his sword and dagger.



The man was powerfully built, supple as a panther. His skin was

bronzed by the sun, his square-cut black mane confined by a silver

band about his temples. His iron muscles, quick eyes and sure feet

served him well here, for it was a climb to test these qualities to

the utmost. A hundred and fifty feet below him waved the jungle. An

equal distance above him the rim of the cliffs was etched against the

morning sky.



He labored like one driven by the necessity of haste; yet he was

forced to move at a snail's pace, clinging like a fly on a wall. His

groping hands and feet found niches and knobs, precarious holds at

best, and sometimes he virtually hung by his finger nails. Yet upward

he went, clawing, squirming, fighting for every foot. At times he

paused to rest his aching muscles, and, shaking the sweat out of his

eyes, twisted his head to stare searchingly out over the jungle,

combing the green expanse for any trace of human life or motion.



Now the summit was not far above him, and he observed, only a few feet

above his head, a break in the sheer stone of the cliff. An instant

later he had reached it--a small cavern, just below the edge of the

rim. As his head rose above the lip of its floor, he grunted. He clung

there, his elbows hooked over the lip. The cave was so tiny that it

was little more than a niche cut in the stone, but it held an

occupant. A shriveled brown mummy, cross-legged, arms folded on the

withered breast upon which the shrunken head was sunk, sat in the

little cavern. The limbs were bound in place with rawhide thongs which

had become mere rotted wisps. If the form had ever been clothed, the

ravages of time had long ago reduced the garments to dust. But thrust

between the crossed arms and the shrunken breast there was a roll of

parchment, yellowed with age to the color of old ivory.



The climber stretched forth a long arm and wrenched away this

cylinder. Without investigation, he thrust it into his girdle and

hauled himself up until he was standing in the opening of the niche. A

spring upward and he caught the rim of the cliffs and pulled himself

up and over almost with the same motion.



There he halted, panting, and stared downward.



It was like looking into the interior of a vast bowl, rimmed by a

circular stone wall. The floor of the bowl was covered with trees and

denser vegetation, though nowhere did the growth duplicate the jungle

denseness of the outer forest. The cliffs marched around it without a

break and of uniform height. It was a freak of nature, not to be

paralleled, perhaps, in the whole world: a vast natural amphitheater,

a circular bit of forested plain, three or four miles in diameter, cut

off from the rest of the world, and confined within the ring of those

palisaded cliffs.



But the man on the cliffs did not devote his thoughts to marveling at

the topographical phenomenon. With tense eagerness he searched the

tree-tops below him, and exhaled a gusty sigh when he caught the glint

of marble domes amidst the twinkling green. It was no myth, then;

below him lay the fabulous and deserted palace of Alkmeenon.



Conan the Cimmerian, late of the Baracha Isles, of the Black Coast,

and of many other climes where life ran wild, had come to the kingdom

of Keshan following the lure of a fabled treasure that outshone the

hoard of the Turanian kings.



Keshan was a barbaric kingdom lying in the eastern hinterlands of Kush

where the broad grasslands merge with the forests that roll up from

the south. The people were a mixed race, a dusky nobility ruling a

population that was largely pure Negro. The rulers--princes and high

priests--claimed descent from a white race which, in a mythical age,

had ruled a kingdom whose capital city was Alkmeenon. Conflicting

legends sought to explain the reason for that race's eventual

downfall, and the abandonment of the city by the survivors. Equally

nebulous were the tales of the Teeth of Gwahlur, the treasure of

Alkmeenon. But these misty legends had been enough to bring Conan to

Keshan, over vast distances of plain, riverlaced jungle, and

mountains.



He had found Keshan, which in itself was considered mythical by many

northern and western nations, and he had heard enough to confirm the

rumors of the treasure that men called the Teeth of Gwahlur. But its

hiding place he could not learn, and he was confronted with the

necessity of explaining his presence in Keshan. Unattached strangers

were not welcome there.



But he was not nonplussed. With cool assurance he made his offer to

the stately, plumed, suspicious grandees of the barbarically

magnificent court. He was a professional fighting man. In search of

employment (he said) he had come to Keshan. For a price he would train

the armies of Keshan and lead them against Punt, their hereditary

enemy, whose recent successes in the field had aroused the fury of

Keshan's irascible king.



The proposition was not so audacious as it might seem. Conan's fame

had preceded him, even into distant Keshan; his exploits as a chief of

the black corsairs, those wolves of the southern coasts, had made his

name known, admired and feared throughout the black kingdoms. He did

not refuse tests devised by the dusky lords. Skirmishes along the

borders were incessant, affording the Cimmerian plenty of

opportunities to demonstrate his ability at hand-to-hand fighting. His

reckless ferocity impressed the lords of Keshan, already aware of his

reputation as a leader of men, and the prospects seemed favorable. All

Conan secretly desired was employment to give him legitimate excuse

for remaining in Keshan long enough to locate the hiding place of the

Teeth of Gwahlur. Then there came an interruption. Thutmekri came to

Keshan at the head of an embassy from Zembabwei.



Thutmekri was a Stygian, an adventurer and a rogue whose wits had

recommended him to the twin kings of the great hybrid trading kingdom

which lay many days' march to the east. He and the Cimmerian knew each

other of old, and without love. Thutmekri likewise had a proposition

to make to the king of Keshan, and it also concerned the conquest of

Punt--which kingdom, incidentally, lying east of Keshan, had recently

expelled the Zembabwan traders and burned their fortresses.



His offer outweighed even the prestige of Conan. He pledged himself to

invade Punt from the east with a host of black spearmen, Shemitish

archers, and mercenary swordsmen, and to aid the king of Keshan to

annex the hostile kingdom. The benevolent kings of Zembabwei desired

only a monopoly of the trade of Keshan and her tributaries--and, as a

pledge of good faith, some of the Teeth of Gwahlur. These would be put

to no base usage, Thutmekri hastened to explain to the suspicious

chieftains; they would be placed in the temple of Zembabwei beside the

squat gold idols of Dagon and Derketo, sacred guests in the holy

shrine of the kingdom, to seal the covenant between Keshan and

Zembabwei. This statement brought a savage grin to Conan's hard lips.



The Cimmerian made no attempt to match wits and intrigue with

Thutmekri and his Shemitish partner, Zargheba. He knew that if

Thutmekri won his point, he would insist on the instant banishment of

his rival. There was but one thing for Conan to do: find the jewels

before the king of Keshan made up his mind, and flee with them. But by

this time he was certain that they were not hidden in Keshia, the

royal city, which was a swarm of thatched huts crowding about a mud

wall that enclosed a palace of stone and mud and bamboo.



While he fumed with nervous impatience, the high priest Gorulga

announced that before any decision could be reached, the will of the

gods must be ascertained concerning the proposed alliance with

Zembabwei and the pledge of objects long held holy and inviolate. The

oracle of Alkmeenon must be consulted.



This was an awesome thing, and it caused tongues to wag excitedly in

palace and beehive hut. Not for a century had the priests visited the

silent city. The oracle, men said, was the Princess Yelaya, the last

ruler of Alkmeenon, who had died in the full bloom of her youth and

beauty, and whose body had miraculously remained unblemished

throughout the ages. Of old, priests had made their way into the

haunted city, and she had taught them wisdom. The last priest to seek

the oracle had been a wicked man, who had sought to steal for himself

the curiously cut jewels that men called the Teeth of Gwahlur. But

some doom had come upon him in the deserted palace, from which his

acolytes, fleeing, had told tales of horror that had for a hundred

years frightened the priests from the city and the oracle.



But Gorulga, the present high priest, as one confident in his

knowledge of his own integrity, announced that he would go with a

handful of followers to revive the ancient custom. And in the

excitement tongues buzzed indiscreetly, and Conan caught the clue for

which he had sought for weeks--the overheard whisper of a lesser

priest that sent the Cimmerian stealing out of Keshia the night before

the dawn when the priests were to start.



Riding as hard as he dared for a night and a day and a night, he came

in the early dawn to the cliffs of Alkmeenon, which stood in the

southwestern corner of the kingdom, amidst uninhabited jungle which

was taboo to the common men. None but the priests dared approach the

haunted vale within a distance of many mailes. And not even a priest

had entered Alkmeenon for a hundred years.



No man had ever climbed these cliffs, legends said, and none but the

priests knew the secret entrance into the valley. Conan did not waste

time looking for it. Steeps that balked these black people, horsemen

and dwellers of plain and level forest, were not impossible for a man

born in the rugged hills of Cimmeria.



Now on the summit of the cliffs he looked down into the circular

valley and wondered what plague, war, or superstition had driven the

members of that ancient white race forth from their stronghold to

mingle with and be absorbed by the black tribes that hemmed them in.



This valley had been their citadel. There the palace stood, and there

only the royal family and their court dwelt. The real city stood

outside the cliffs. Those waving masses of green jungle vegetation hid

its ruins. But the domes that glistened in the leaves below him were

the unbroken pinnacles of the royal palace of Alkmeenon which had

defied the corroding ages.



Swinging a leg over the rim he went down swiftly. The inner side of

the cliffs was more broken, not quite so sheer. In less than half the

time it had taken him to ascend the outer side, he dropped to the

swarded valley floor.



With one hand on his sword, he looked alertly about him. There was no

reason to suppose men lied when they said that Alkmeenon was empty and

deserted, haunted only by the ghosts of the dead past. But it was

Conan's nature to be suspicious and wary. The silence was primodial;

not even a leaf quivered on a branch. When he bent to peer under the

trees, he saw nothing but the marching rows of trunks, receding and

receding into the blue gloom of the deep woods.



Nevertheless he went warily, sword in hand, his restless eyes combing

the shadows from side to side, his springy tread making no sound on

the sward. All about him he saw signs of an ancient civilization;

marble fountains, voiceless and crumbling, stood in circles of slender

trees whose patterns were too symmetrical to have been a chance of

nature. Forest-growth and underbrush had invaded the evenly planned

groves, but their outlines were still visible. Broad pavements ran

away under the trees, broken, and with grass growing through the wide

cracks. He glimpsed walls with ornamental copings, lattices of carven

stone that might once have served as the walls of pleasure pavilions.



Ahead of him, through the trees, the domes gleamed and the bulk of the

structure supporting them became more apparent as he advanced.

Presently, pushing through a screen of vine-tangled branches, he came

into a comparatively open space where the trees straggled,

unencumbered by undergrowth, and saw before him the wide, pillared

portico of the palace.



As he mounted the broad marble steps, he noted that the building was

in far better state of preservation than the lesser structures he had

glimpsed. The thick walls and massive pillars seemed too powerful to

crumble before the assault of time and the elements. The same

enchanted quiet brooded over all. The cat-like pad of his sandaled

feet seemed startingly loud in the stillness.



Somewhere in this palace lay the effigy or image which had in times

past served as oracle for the priests of Keshan. And somewhere in the

palace, unless that indiscreet priest had babbled a lie, was hidden

the treasure of the forgotten kings of Alkmeenon.



Conan passed into a broad, lofty hall, lined with tall columns,

between which arches gaped, their doors long rotted away. He traversed

this in a twilight dimness, and at the other end passed through great

double-valved bronze doors which stood partly open, as they might have

stood for centuries. He emerged into a vast domed chamber which must

have served as audience hall for the kings of Alkmeenon.



It was octagonal in shape, and the great dome up in which the lofty

ceiling curved obviously was cunningly pierced, for the chamber was

much better lighted than the hall which led to it. At the farther side

of the great room there rose a dais with broad lapis-lazuli steps

leading up to it, and on that dais there stood a massive chair with

ornate arms and a high back which once doubtless supported a cloth-of-

gold canopy. Conan grunted explosively and his eyes lit. The golden

throne of Alkmeenon, named in immemorial legendry! He weighed it with

a practised eye. It represented a fortune in itself, if he were but

able to bear it away. Its richness fired his imagination concerning

the treasure itself, and made him burn with eagerness. His fingers

itched to plunge among the gems he had heard described by story-

tellers in the market squares of Keshia, who repeated tales handed

down from mouth to mouth through the centuries--jewels not to be

duplicated in the world, rubies, emeralds, diamonds, bloodstones,

opals, sapphires, the loot of the ancient world.



He had expected to find the oracle-effigy seated on the throne, but

since it was not, it was probably placed in some other part of the

palace, if, indeed, such a thing really existed. But since he had

turned his face toward Keshan, so many myths had proved to be

realities that he did not doubt that the would find some kind of image

or god.



Behind the throne there was a narrow arched doorway which doubtless

had been masked by hangings in the days of Alkmeenon's life. He

glanced through it and saw that it let into an alcove, empty, and with

a narrow corridor leading off from it at right angles. Turning away

from it, he spied another arch to the left of the dais, and it, unlike

the others, was furnished with a door. Nor was it any common door. The

portal was of the same rich metal as the throne, and carved with many

curious arabesques.



At his touch it swung open so readily that its hinges might recently

have been oiled. Inside he halted, staring.



He was in a square chamber of no great dimensions, whose marble walls

rose to an ornate ceiling, inlaid with gold. Gold friezes ran about

the base and the top of the walls, and there was no door other than

the one though which he had entered. But he noted these details

mechanically. His whole attention was centered on the shape which lay

on an ivory dais before him.



He had expected an image, probably carved with the skill of a

forgotten art. But no art could mimic the perfection of the figure

that lay before him.



It was no effigy of stone or metal or ivory. It was the actual body of

a woman, and by what dark art the ancients had preserved that form

unblemished for so many ages Conan could not even guess. The very

garments she wore were intact--and Conan scowled at that, a vague

uneasiness stirring at the back of his mind. The arts that preserved

the body should not have affected the garments. Yet there they were--

gold breast-plates set with concentric circles of small gems, gilded

sandals, and a short silken skirt upheld by a jeweled girdle. Neither

cloth nor metal showed any signs of decay.



Yelaya was coldly beautiful, even in death. Her body was like

alabaster, slender yet voluptuous; a great crimson jewel gleamed

against the darkly piled foam of her hair.



Conan stood frowning down at her, and then tapped the dais with his

sword. Possibilities of a hollow containing the treasure occurred to

him, but the dais rang solid. He turned and paced the chamber in some

indecision. Where should he search first, in the limited time at his

disposal? The priest he had overheard babbling to a courtesan had said

the treasure was hidden in the palace. But that included a space of

considerable vastness. He wondered if he should hide himself until the

priests had come and gone, and then renew the search. But there was a

strong chance that they might take the jewels with them when they

returned to Keshia. For he was convinced that Thutmekri had corrupted

Gorulga.



Conan could predict Thutmekri's plans, from his knowledge of the man.

He knew that it had been Thutmekri who had proposed the conquest of

Punt to the kings of Zembabwei, which conquest was but one move toward

their real goal--the capture of the Teeth of Gwahlur. Those wary kings

would demand proof that the treasure really existed before they made

any move. The jewels Thutmekri asked as a pledge would furnish that

proof.



With positive evidence of the treasure's reality, the kings of

Zimbabwei would move. Punt would be invaded simultaneously from the

east and the west, but the Zembabwans would see to it that the Keshani

did most of the fighting, and then, when both Punt and Keshan were

exhausted from the struggle, the Zembabwans would crush both races,

loot Keshan and take the treasure by force, if they had to destroy

every building and torture every living human in the kingdom.



But there was always another possibility: if Thutmekri could get his

hands on the hoard, it would be characteristic of the man to cheat his

employers, steal the jewels for himself and decamp, leaving the

Zembabwan emissaries holding the sack.



Conan believed that this consulting of the oracle was but a ruse to

persuade the king of Keshan to accede to Thutmekri's wishes--for he

never for a moment doubted that Gorulga was as subtle and devious as

all the rest mixed up in this grand swindle. Conan had not approached

the high priest himself, because in the game of bribery he would have

no chance against Thutmekri, and to attempt it would be to play

directly into the Stygian's hands. Gorulga could denounce the

Cimmerian to the people, establish a reputation for integrity, and rid

Thutmekri of his rival at one stroke. He wondered how Thutmekri had

corrupted the high priest, and just what could be offered as a bribe

to a man who had the greatest treasure in the world under his fingers.



At any rate he was sure that the oracle would be made to say that the

gods willed it that Keshan whould follow Thutmekri's wishes, and he

was sure, too, that it would drop a few pointed remarks concerning

himself. After that Keshia would be too hot for the Cimmerian, nor had

Conan had any intention of returning when he rode way in the night.



The oracle chamber held no clue for him. He went forth into the great

throne room and laid his hands on the throne. It was heavy, but he

could tilt it up. The floor beneath, a thick marble dais, was solid.

Again he sought the alcove. His mind clung to a secret crypt near the

oracle. Painstakingly he began to tap along the walls, and presently

his taps rang hollow at a spot opposite the mouth of the narrow

corridor. Looking more closely he saw that the crack between the

marble panel at that point and the next was wider than usual. He

inserted a dagger point and pried.



Silently the panel swung open, revealing a niche in the wall, but

nothing else. He swore feelingly. The aperture was empty, and it did

not look as if it had ever served as a crypt for treasure. Leaning

into the niche he saw a system of tiny holes in the wall, about on a

level with a man's mouth. He peered through, and grunted

understandingly. That was the wall that formed the partition between

the alcove and the oracle chamber. Those holes had not been visible in

the chamber. Conan grinned. This explained the mystery of the oracle,

but it was a bit cruder than he had expected. Gorulga would plant

either himself or some trusted minion in that niche, to talk through

the holes, the credulous acolytes, black men all, would accept it as

the veritable voice of Yelaya.



Remembering something, the Cimmerian drew forth the roll of parchment

he had taken from the mummy and unrolled it carefully, as it seemed

ready to fall to pieces with age. He scowled over the dim characters

with which it was covered. In his roaming about the world the giant

adventurer had picked up a wide smattering of knowledge, particularly

including the speaking and reading of many alien tongues. Many a

sheltered scholar would have been astonished at the Cimmerian's

linguistic abilities, for he had experienced many adventures where

knowledge of a strange language had meant the difference between life

and death.



The characters were puzzling, at once familiar and unintelligible, and

presently he discovered the reason. They were the characters of

archaic Pelishtic, which possessed many points of difference from the

modern script, with which he was familiar, and which, three centuries

ago, had been modified by conquest by a nomad tribe. This older, purer

script baffled him. He made out a recurrent phrase, however, which he

recognized as a proper name: Bit-Yakin. He gathered that it was the

name of the writer.



Scowling, his lips unconsciously moving as he struggled with the task,

he blundered through the manuscript, finding much of it untranslatable

and most of the rest of it obscure.



He gathered that the writer, the mysterious Bit-Yakin, had come from

afar with his servants, and entered the valley of Alkmeenon. Much that

followed was meaningless, interspersed as it was with unfamiliar

phrases and characters. Such as he could translate seemed to indicate

the passing of a very long period of time. The name of Yelaya was

repeated frequently, and toward the last part of the manuscript it

became apparent that Bit-Yakin knew that death was upon him. With a

slight start Conan realized that the mummy in the cavern must be the

remains of the writer of the manuscript, the mysterious Pelishti, Bit-

Yakin. The man had died, as he had prophesied, and his servants,

obviously, had placed him in that open crypt, high up on the cliffs,

according to his instructions before his death.



It was strange that Bit-Yakin was not mentioned in any of the legends

of Alkmeenon. Obviously he had come to the valley after it had been

deserted by the original inhabitants--the manuscript indicated as

much--but it seemed peculiar that the priests who came in the old days

to consult the oracle had not seen the man or his servants. Conan felt

sure that the mummy and this parchment was more than a hundred years

old. Bit-Yakin had dwelt in the valley when the priests came of old to

bow before dead Yelaya. Yet concerning him the legends were silent,

telling only of a deserted city, haunted only by the dead.



Why had the man dwelt in this desolate spot, and to what unknown

destination had his servants departed after disposing of their

master's corpse?



Conan shrugged his shoulders and thrust the parchment back into his

girdle--he started violently, the skin on the backs of his hands

tingling. Startingly, shockingly in the slumberous stillness, there

had boomed the deep strident clangor of a great gong!



He wheeled, crouching like a great cat, sword in hand, glaring down

the narrow corridor from which the sound had seemed to come. Had the

priests of Keshia arrived? This was improbable, he knew; they would

not have had time to reach the valley. But that gong was indisputable

evidence of human presence.



Conan was basically a direct-actionist. Such subtlety as he possessed

had been acquired through contact with the more devious races. When

taken off guard by some unexpected occurrence, he reverted

instinctively to type. So now, instead of hiding or slipping away in

the opposite direction as the average man might have done, he ran

straight down the corridor in the direction of the sound. His sandals

made no more sound than the pads of a panther would have made; his

eyes were slits, his lips unconsciously asnarl. Panic had momentarily

touched his soul at the shock of that unexpected reverberation, and

the red rage of the primitive that is wakened by threat of peril,

always lurked close to the surface of the Cimmerian.



He emerged presently from the winding corridor into a small open

court. Something glinting in the sun caught his eye. It was the gong,

a great gold disk, hanging from a gold arm extending from the

crumbling wall. A brass mallet lay near, but there was no sound or

sight of humanity. The surrounding arches gaped emptily. Conan

crouched inside the doorway for what seemed a long time. There was no

sound or movement throughout the great palace. His patience exhausted

at last, he glided around the curve of the court, peering into the

arches, ready to leap either way like a flash of light, or to strike

right or left as a cobra strikes.



He reached the gong, started into the arch nearest it. He saw only a

dim chamber, littered with the debris of decay. Beneath the gong the

polished marble flags showed no footprint, but there was a scent in

the air--a faintly fetid odor he could not classify; his nostrils

dilated like those of a wild beast as he sought in vain to identify

it.



He turned toward the arch--with appalling suddenness the seemingly

solid flags splintered and gave way under his feet. Even as he fell he

spread wide his arms and caught the edges of the aperture that gaped

beneath him. The edges crumbled off under his clutching fingers. Down

into utter blackness he shot, into black icy water that gripped him

and whirled him away with breathless speed.







Chapter 2. A Goddess Awakens



The Cimmerian at first made no attempt to fight the current that was

sweeping him through lightless night. He kept himself afloat, gripping

between his teeth the sword, which he had not relinquished, even in

his fall, and did not seek to guess to what doom he was being borne.

But suddenly a beam of light lanced the darkness ahead of him. He saw

the surging, seething black surface of the water, in turmoil as if

disturbed by some monster of the deep, and he saw the sheer stone

walls of the channel curved up to a vault overhead. On each side ran a

narrow ledge, just below the arching roof, but they were far out of

his reach. At one point this roof had been broken, probably fallen in,

and the light was streaming through the aperture. Beyond that shaft of

light was utter blackness, and panic assailed the Cimmerian as he saw

he would be swept on past that spot of light, and into the unknown

blackness again.



Then he saw something else: bronze ladders extending from the ledges

to the water's surface at regular intervals, and there was one just

ahead of him. Instantly he struck out for it, fighting the current

that would have held him to the middle of the stream. It dragged at

him as with tangible, animate, slimy hands, but he buffeted the

rushing surge with the strength of desperation and drew closer and

closer inshore, fighting furiously for every inch. Now he was even

with the laddeer and with a fierce, gasping plunge he gripped the

bottom rung and hung on, breathless.



A few seconds later he struggled up out of the seething water,

trusting his weight dubiously to the corroded rungs. They sagged and

bent, but they held, and he clambered up onto the narrow ledge which

ran along the wall scarcely a man's length below the curving roof. The

tall Cimmerian was forced to bend his head as he stood up. A heavy

bronze door showed in the stone at a point even with the head of the

ladder, but it did not give to Conan's efforts. He transferred his

sword from his teeth to its scabbard, spitting blood--for the edge had

cut his lips in that fierce fight with the river--and turned his

attention to the broken roof.



He could reach his arms up through the crevice and grip the edge, and

careful testing told him it would bear his weight. An instant later he

had drawn himself up through the hole, and found himself in a wide

chamber, in a state of extreme disrepair. Most of the roof had fallen

in, as well as a great section of the floor, which was laid over the

vault of a subterranean river. Broken arches opened into other

chambers and corridors, and Conan believed he was still in the great

palace. He wondered uneasily how many chambers in that palace had

underground water directly under them, and when the ancient flags or

tiles might give way again and precipitate him back into the current

from which he had just crawled.



And he wondered just how much of an accident that fall had been. Had

those rotten flags simply chanced to give way beneath his weight, or

was there a more sinister explanation? One thing at least was obvious:

he was not the only living thing in that palace. That gong had not

sounded of its own accord, whether the noise had been meant to lure

him to his death, or not. The silence of the palace became suddenly

sinister, fraught with crawling menace.



Could it be someone on the same mission as himself? A sudden thought

occurred to him, at the memory of the mysterious Bit-Yakin. Was it not

possible that this man had found the Teeth of Gwahlur in his long

residence in Alkmeenon--that his servants had taken them with them

when they departed? The possibility that he might be following a will-

o'-the-wisp infuriated the Cimmerian.



Choosing a corridor which he believed led back toward the part of the

palace he had first entered, he hurried along it, stepping gingerly as

he thought of that black river that seethed and foamed somewhere below

his feet.



His speculations recurrently revolved about the oracle chamber and its

cryptic occupant. Somewhere in that vicinity must be the clue to the

mystery of the treasure, if indeed it still remained in its immemorial

hiding place.



The great palace lay silent as ever, disturbed only by the swift

passing of his sandaled feet. The chambers and halls he traversed were

crumbling into ruin, but as he advanced the ravages of decay became

less apparent. He wondered briefly for what purpose the ladders had

been suspended from the ledges over the subterranean river, but

dismissed the matter with a shrug. He was little interested in

speculating over unremunerative problems of antiquity.



He was not sure just where the oracle chamber lay, from where he was,

but presently he emerged into a corridor which led back into the great

throne room under one of the arches. He had reached a decision; it was

useless for him to wander aimlessly about the palace, seeking the

hoard. He would conceal himself somewhere here, wait until the Keshani

priests came, and then, after they had gone through the farce of

consulting the oracle, he would follow them to the hiding place of the

gems, to which he was certain they would go. Perhaps they would take

only a few of the jewels with them. He would content himself with the

rest.



Drawn by a morbid fascination, he re-entered the oracle chamber and

stared down again at the motionless figure of the princess who was

worshipped as a goddess, entranced by her frigid beauty. What cryptic

secret was locked in that marvelously molded form?



He started violently. The breath sucked through his teeth, the short

hairs prickled at the back of his scalp. The body still lay as he had

first seen it, silent, motionless, in breast-plates of jeweled gold,

gilded sandals and silken skirt. But now there was a subtle

difference. The lissom limbs were not rigid, a peach-bloom touched the

cheeks, the lips were red--



With a panicky curse Conan ripped out his sword.



"Crom! She's alive!"



At his words the long dark lashes lifted; the eyes opened and gazed up

at him inscrutably, dark, lustrous, mystical. He glared in frozen

speechlessness.



She sat up with a supple ease, still holding his ensorcelled stare.



He licked his dry lips and found voice.



"You--are--are you Yelaya?" he stammered.



"I am Yelaya!" The voice was rich and musical, and he stared with new

wonder. "Do not fear. I will not harm you if you do my bidding."



"How can a dead woman come to life after all these centuries?" he

demanded, as if skeptical of what his senses told him. A curious gleam

was beginning to smolder in his eyes.



She lifted her arms in a mystical gesture.



"I am a goddess. A thousand years ago there descended upon me the

curse of the greater gods, the gods of darkness beyond the borders of

light. The mortal in me died; the goddess in me could never die. Here

I have lain for so many centuries, to awaken each night at sunset and

hold my court as of yore, with specters drawn from the shadows of the

past. Man, if you would not view that which will blast your soul for

ever, ge hence quickly! I command you! Go!" The voice became

imperious, and her slender arm lifted and pointed.



Conan, his eyes burning slits, slowly sheathed his sword, but he did

not obey her order. He stepped closer, as if impelled by a powerful

fascination--without the slightest warning he grabbed her up in a

bear-like grasp. She screamed a very ungoddess-like scream, and there

was a sound of ripping silk, as with one ruthless wrench he tore off

her skirt.



"Goddess! Ha!" His bark was full of angry contempt. He ignored the

frantic writhings of his captive. "I thought it was strange that a

princess of Alkmeenon would speak with a Corinthian accent! As soon as

I'd gathered my wits I knew I'd seen you somewhere. You're Muriela,

Zargheba's Corinthian dancing girl. This crescent-shaped birthmark on

your hip proves it. I saw it once when Zargheba was whipping you.

Goddess! Bah!" He smacked the betraying hip contemptuously and

resoundingly with his open hand, and the girl yelped piteously.



All her imperiousness had gone out of her. She was no longer a

mystical figure of antiquity, but a terrified and humiliated dancing

girl, such as can be bought at almost any Shemitish market place. She

lifted up her voice and wept unashamedly. Her captor glared down at

her with angry triumph.



"Goddess! Ha! So you were one of the veiled women Zargheba brought to

Keshia with him. Did you think you could fool me, you little idiot? A

year ago I saw you in Akbitana with that swine, Zargheba, and I don't

forget faces--or women's figures. I think I'll--"



Squirming about in his grasp she threw her slender arms about his

massive neck in an abandon of terror; tears coursed down her cheeks,

and her sobs quivered with a note of hysteria.



"Oh, please don't hurt me! Don't! I had to do it! Zargheba brought me

here to act as the oracle!"



"Why, you sacrilegious little hussy!" rumbled Conan. "Do you not fear

the gods? Crom! Is there no honesty anywhere?"



"Oh, please!" she begged, quivering with abject fright. "I couldn't

disobey Zargheba. Oh, what shall I do? I shall be cursed by these

heathen gods!"



"What do you think the priests will do to you if they find out you're

an imposter?" he demanded.



At the thought her legs refused to support her, and she collapsed in a

shuddering heap, clasping Conan's knees and mingling incoherent pleas

for mercy and protection with piteous protestations of her innocence

of any malign intention. It was a vivid change from her pose as the

ancient princess, but not surprising. The fear that had nerved her

then was now her undoing.



"Where is Zargheba?" he demanded. "Stop yammering, damn it, and answer

me."



"Outside the palace," she whimpered, "watching for the priests."



"How many men with him?"



"None. We came alone."



"Ha!" It was much like the satisfied grunt of a hunting lion. "You

must have left Keshia a few hours after I did. Did you climb the

cliffs?"



She shook her head, too choked with tears to speak coherently. With an

impatient imprecation he seized her slim shoulders and shook her until

she gasped for breath.



"Will you quit that blubbering and answer me? How did you get into the

valley?"



"Zargheba knew the secret way," she gasped. "The priest Gwarunga told

him, and Thutmekri. On the south side of the valley there is a broad

pool lying at the foot of the cliffs. There is a cave-mouth under the

surface of the water that is not visible to the casual glance. We

ducked under the water and entered it. The cave slopes up out of the

water swiftly and leads through the cliffs. The opening on the side of

the valley is masked by heavy thickets."



"I climbed the cliffs on the east side," he muttered. "Well, what

then?"



"We came to the palace and Zargheba hid me among the trees while he

went to look for the chamber of the oracle. I do not think he fully

trusted Gwarunga. While he was gone I thought I heard a gong sound,

but I was not sure. Presently Zargheba came and took me into the

palace and brought me to this chamber, where the goddess Yelaya lay

upon the dais. He stripped the body and clothed me in the garments and

ornaments. Then he went forth to hide the body and watch for the

priests. I have been afraid. When you entered I wanted to leap up and

beg you to take me away from this place, but I feared Zargheba. When

you discovered I was alive, I thought I could frighten you away."



"What were you to say as the oracle?" he asked.



"I was to bid the priests to take the Teeth of Gwahlur and give some

of them to Thutmekri as a pledge, as he desired, and place the rest in

the palace at Keshia. I was to tell them that an awful doom threatened

Keshan if they did not agree to Thutmekri's proposals. And, oh, yes, I

was to tell them that you were to be skinned alive immediately."



"Thutmekri wanted the treasure where he--or the Zembabwans--could lay

hand on it easily," muttered Conan, disregarding the remark concerning

himself. "I'll carve his liver yet--Gorulga is a party to this

swindle, of course?"



"No. He believes in his gods, and is incorruptible. He knows nothing

about this. He will obey the oracle. It was all Thutmekri's plan.

Knowing the Keshani would consult the oracle, he had Zargheba bring me

with the embassy from Zembabwei, closely veiled and secluded."



"Well, I'm damned!" muttered Conan. "A priest who honestly believes in

his oracle, and can not be bribed. Crom! I wonder if it was Zargheba

who banged that gong. Did he know I was here? Could he have known

about that rotten flagging? Where is he now, girl?"



"Hiding in a thicket of lotus trees, near the ancient avenue that

leads from the south wall of the cliffs to the palace," she answered.

Then she renewed her importunities. "Oh, Conan, have pity on me! I am

afraid of this evil, ancient place. I know I have heard stealthy

footfalls padding about me--oh, Conan, take me away with you! Zargheba

will kill me when I have served his purpose here--I know it! The

priests, too, will kill me if they discover my deceit.



"He is a devil--he bought me from a slave-trader who stole me out of a

caravan bound through southern Koth, and has made me the tool of his

intrigues ever since. Take me away from him! You can not be as cruel

as he. Don't leave me to be slain here! Please! Please!"



She was on her knees, clutching at Conan hysterically, her beautiful

tear-stained face upturned to him, her dark silken hair flowing in

disorder over her white shoulders. Conan picked her up and set her on

his knee.



"Listen to me. I'll protect you from Zargheba. The priests shall not

know of your perfidy. But you've got to do as I tell you."



She faltered promises of explicit obedience, clasping his corded neck

as if seeking security from the contact.



"Good. When the priests come, you'll act the part of Yelaya, as

Zargheba planned--it'll be dark, and in the torchlight they'll never

know the difference. But you'll say this to them: 'It is the will of

the gods that the Stygian and his Shemitish dogs be driven from

Keshan. They are thieves and tratiors who plot to rob the gods. Let

the Teeth of Gwahlur be placed in the care of the general Conan. Let

him lead the armies of Keshan. He is beloved of the gods.'"



She shivered, with an expression of desperation, but acquiesced.



"But Zargheba?" she cried. "He'll kill me!"



"Don't worry about Zargheba," he grunted. "I'll take care of that dog.

You do as I say. Here, put up your hair again. It's fallen all over

your shoulders. And the gem's fallen out of it."



He replaced the great glowing gem himself, nodding approval.



"It's worth a roomful of slaves, itself alone. Here, put your skirt

back on. It's torn down the side, but the priests will never notice

it. Wipe your face. A goddess doesn't cry like a whipped schoolgirl.

By Crom, you do look like Yelaya, face hair, figure, and all! If you

act the goddess with the priests as well as you did with me, you'll

fool them easily."



"I'll try," she shivered.



"Good; I'm going to find Zargheba."



At that she became panicky again.



"No! Don't leave me alone! This place is haunted!"



"There's nothing here to harm you," he assured her impatiently.

"Nothing but Zargheba, and I'm going to look after him. I'll be back

shortly. I'll be watching from close by in case anything goes wrong

during the ceremony; but if you play your part properly, nothing will

go wrong."



And turning, he hastened out of the oracle chamber; behind him Muriela

squeaked wretchedly at his going.



Twilight had fallen. The great rooms and halls were shadowy and

indistinct; copper friezes glinted dully through the dusk. Conan

strode like a silent phantom through the great halls, with a sensation

of being stared at from the shadowed recesses by invisible ghosts of

the past. No wonder the girl was nervous amid such surroundings.



He glided down the marble steps like a slinking panther, sword in

hand. Silence reigned over the valley, and above the rim of the

cliffs, stars were blinking out. If the priests of Keshia had entered

the valley there was not a sound, not a movement in the greenery to

betray them. He made out the ancient broken-paved avenue, wandering

away to the south, lost amid clustering masses of fronds and thick-

leaved bushes. He followed it warily, hugging the edge of the paving

where the shrubs massed their shadows thickly, until he saw ahead of

him, dimly in the dusk, the clump of lotus-trees, the strange growth

peculiar to the black lands of Kush. There, according to the girl,

Zargheba should be lurking. Conan became stealth personified. A

velvet-footed shadow, he melted into the thickets.



He approached the lotus grove by a circuitous movement, and scarcely

the rustle of a leaf proclaimed his passing. At the edge of the trees

he halted suddenly, crouched like a suspicious panther among the deep

shrubs. Ahead of him, among the dense leaves, showed a pallid oval,

dim in the uncertain light. It might have been one of the great white

blossoms which shone thickly among the branches. But Conan knew that

it was a man's face. And it was turned toward him. He shrank quickly

deeper into the shadows. Had Zargheba seen him? The man was looking

directly toward him. Seconds passed. The dim face had not moved. Conan

could make out the dark tuft below that was the short black beard.



And suddenly Conan was aware of something unnatural. Zargheba, he

knew, was not a tall man. Standing erect, he head would scarcely top

the Cimmerians shoulders; yet that face was on a level with Conan's

own. Was the man standing on something? Conan bent and peered toward

the ground below the spot where the face showed, but his vision was

blocked by undergrowth and the thick boles of the trees. But he saw

something else, and he stiffened. Through a slot in the underbrush he

glimpsed the stem of the tree under which, apparently, Zargheba was

standing. The face was directly in line with that tree. He should have

seen below that face, not the tree-trunk, but Zargheba's body--but

there was no body there.



Suddenly tenser than a tiger who stalks his prey, Conan glided deeper

into the thicket, and a moment later drew aside a leafy branch and

glared at the face that had not moved. Nor would it ever move again,

of its own volition. He looked on Zargheba's severed head, suspended

from the branch of the tree by its own long black hair.







Chapter 3. The Return of the Oracle



Conan wheeled supplely, sweeping the shadows with a fiercely questing

stare. There was no sign of the murdered man's body; only yonder the

tall lush grass was trampled and broken down and the sward was dabbled

darkly and wetly. Conan stood scarcely breathing as he strained his

ears into the silence. The trees and bushes with their great pallid

blossoms stood dark, still, and sinister, etched against the deepening

dusk.



Primitive fears whispered at the back of Conan's mind. Was this the

work of the priests of Keshan? If so, where were they? Was it

Zargheba, after all, who had struck the gong? Again there rose the

memory of Bit-Yakin and his mysterious servants. Bit-Yakin was dead,

shriveled to a hulk of wrinkled leather and bound in his hollowed

crypt to greet the rising sun for ever. But the servants of Bit-Yakin

were unaccounted for. There was no proof they had ever left the

valley.



Conan thought of the girl, Muriela, alone and unguarded in that great

shadowy palace. He wheeled and ran back down the shadowed avenue, and

he ran as a suspicious panther runs, poised even in full stride to

whirl right or left and strike death blows.



The palace loomed through the trees, and he saw something else--the

glow of fire reflecting redly from the polished marble. He melted into

the bushes that lined the broken street, glided through the dense

growth and reached the edge of the open space before the portico.

Voices reached him; torches bobbed and their flare shone on glossy

ebon shoulders. The priests of Keshan had come.



They had not advanced up the wide, overgrown avenue as Zargheba had

expected them to do. Obviously there was more than one secret way into

the valley of Alkmeenon.



They were filing up the broad marble steps, holding their torches

high. He saw Gorulga at the head of the parade, a profile chiseled out

of copper, etched in the torch glare. The rest were acolytes, giant

black men from whose skins the torches struck highlights. At the end

of the procession there stalked a huge Negro with an unusually wicked

cast of countenance, at the sight of whom Conan scowled. That was

Gwarunga, whom Muriela had named as the man who had revealed the

secret of the pool-entrance to Zargheba. Conan wondered how deeply the

man was in the intrigues of the Stygian.



He hurried toward the portico, circling the open space to keep in the

fringing shadows. They left no one to guard the entrance. The torches

streamed steadily down the long dark hall. Before they reached the

double-valved door at the other end, Conan had mounted the outer steps

and was in the hall behind them. Slinking swiftly along the column-

lined wall, he reached the great door as they crossed the huge throne

room, their torches driving back the shadows. They did not look back.

In single file, their ostrich plumes nodding, their leopardskin tunics

contrasting curiously with the marble and arabesqued metal of the

ancient palace, they moved across the wide room and halted momentarily

at the golden door to the left of the throne-dais.



Gorluga's voice boomed eerily and hollowly in the great empty space,

framed in sonorous phrases unintelligible to the lurking listener;

then the high priest thrust open the golden door and entered, bowing

repeatedly from the waist and behind him the torches sank and rose,

showering flakes of flame, as the worshippers imitated their master.

The gold door closed behind them, shutting out sound and sight, and

Conan darted across the throne-chamber and into the alcove behind the

throne. He made less sound than a wind blowing across the chamber.



Tiny beams of light streamed through the apertures in the wall, as he

pried open the secret panel. Gliding into the niche, he peered

through. Muriela sat upright on the dais, her arms folded, her head

leaning back against the wall, within a few inches of his eyes. The

delicate perfume of her foamy hair was in his nostrils. He could not

see her face, of course, but her attitude was as if she gazed

tranquilly into some far gulf of space, over and beyond the shaven

heads of the black giants who knelt before her. Conan grinned with

appreciation. "The little slut's an actress," he told himself. He knew

she was shriveling with terror, but she showed no sign. In the

uncertain flare of the torches she looked exactly like the goddess he

had seen lying on that same dais, if one could imagine that goddess

imbued with vibrant life.



Gorulga was booming forth some kind of a chant in an accent unfamiliar

to Conan, and which was probably some invocation in the ancient tongue

of Alkmeenon, handed down from generation to generation of high

priests. It seemed interminable. Conan grew restless. The longer the

thing lasted, the more terrific would be the strain on Muriela. If she

snapped--he hitched his sword and dagger forward. He could not see the

little trollop tortured and slain by black men.



But the chant--deep, low-pitched, and indescribably ominous--came to a

conclusion at last, and a shouted acclaim from the acolytes marked its

period. Lifting his head and raising his arms toward the silent form

on the dais, Gorulga cried in the deep, rich resonance that was the

natural attribute of the Keshani priest: "O great goddess, dweller

with the great one of darkness, let thy heart be melted, thy lips

opened for the ears of thy slave whose head is in the dust beneath thy

feet! Speak, great goddess of the holy valley! Thou knowest the paths

before us; the darkness that vexes us is as the light of the midday

sun to thee. Shed the radiance of thy wisdom on the paths of thy

servants! Tell us, O mouthpiece of the gods: what is their will

concerning Thutmekri the Stygian?"



The high-piled burnished mass of hair that caught the torchlight in

dull bronze gleams quivered slightly. A gusty sigh rose from the

blacks, half in awe, half in fear. Muriela's voice came plainly to

Conan's ears in the breathless silence, and it seemed cold, detached,

impresonal, though he winced at the Corinthian accent.



"It is the will of the gods that the Stygian and his Shemitish dogs be

driven from Keshan!" She was repeating his exact words. "They are

thieves and traitors who plot to rob the gods. Let the Teeth of

Gwahlur be placed in the care of the general Conan. Let him lead the

armies of Keshan. He is beloved of the gods!"



There was a quiver in her voice as she ended, and Conan began to

sweat, believing she was on the point of an hysterical collapse. But

the blacks did not notice, any more than they identified the

Corinthian accent, of which they knew nothing. They smote their palms

softly together and a murmur of wonder and awe rose from them.

Gorulga's eyes glittered fanatically in the torchlight.



"Yelaya has spoken!" he cried in an exalted voice. "It is the will of

the gods! Long ago, in the days of our ancestors, they were made taboo

and hidden at the command of the gods, who wrenched them from the

awful jaws of Gwahlur the king of darkness, in the birth of the world.

At the command of the gods the Teeth of Gwahlur were hidden; at their

command they shall be brought forth again. O star-born goddess, give

us your leave to go to the secret hiding-place of the Teeth to secure

them for him whom the gods love!"



"You have my leave to go!" answered the false goddess, with an

imperious gesture of dismissal that set Conan grinning again, and the

priests backed out, ostrich plumes and torches rising and falling with

the rhythm of their genuflexions.



The gold door closed and with a moan, the goddess fell back limply on

the dais. "Conan!" she whimpered faintly. "Conan!"



"Shhh!" he hissed through the apertures, and turning, glided from the

niche and closed the panel. A glimpse past the jamb of the carven door

showed him the torches receding across the great throne room, but he

was at the same time aware of a radiance that did not emanate from the

torches. He was startled, but the solution presented itself instantly.

An early moon had risen and its light slanted through the pierced dome

which by some curious workmanship intensified the light. The shining

dome of Alkmeenon was no fable, then. Perhaps its interior was of the

curious whitely flaming crystal found only in the hills of the black

countries. The light flooded the throne room and seeped into the

chambers immediately adjoining.



But as Conan made toward the door that led into the throne room, he

was brought around suddenly by a noise that seemed to emanate from the

passage that led off from the alcove. He crouched at the mouth,

staring into it, remembering the clangor of the gong that had echoed

from it to lure him into a snare. The light from the dome filtered

only a little way into that narrow corridor, and showed him only empty

space. Yet he could have sworn that he had heard the furtive pad of a

foot somewhere down it.



While he hesitated, he was electrified by a woman's strangled cry from

behind him. Bounding through the door behind the throne, he saw an

unexpected spectacle, in the crystal light.



The torches of the priests had vanished from the great hall outside--

but one priest was still in the palace: Gwarunga. His wicked features

were convulsed with fury, and he grasped the terrified Muriela by the

throat, choking her efforts to scream and plead, shaking her brutally.



"Traitress!" Between his thick red lips his voice hissed like a cobra.

"What game are you playing? Did not Zargheba tell you what to say?

Aye, Thutmekri told me! Are you betraying your master, or is he

betraying his friends through you? Slut! I'll twist off your false

head--but first I'll--"



A widening of his captive's lovely eyes as she stared over his

shoulder warned the huge black. He released her and wheeled, just as

Conan's sword lashed down. The impact of the stroke knocked him

headlong backward to the marble floor, where he lay twitching, blood

oozing from a ragged gash in his scalp.



Conan started toward him to finish the job--for he knew that the

black's sudden movement had caused the blade to strike flat--but

Muriela threw her arms convulsively about him.



"I've done as you ordered!" she gasped hysterically. "Take me away!

Oh, please take me away!"



"We can't go yet," he grunted. "I want to follow the priests and see

where they get the jewels. There may be more loot hidden there. But

you can go with me. Where's that gem you wore in your hair?"



"It must have fallen out on the dais," she stammered, feeling for it.

"I was so frightened--when the priests left I ran out to find you, and

this big brute had stayed behind, and he grabbed me--"



"Well, go get it while I dispose of this carcass," he commanded. "Go

on! That gem is worth a fortune itself."



She hesitated, as if loth to return to that cryptic chamber; then, as

he grasped Gwarunga's girdle and dragged him into the alcove, she

turned and entered the oracle room.



Conan dumped the senseless black on the floor, and lifted his sword.

The Cimmerian had lived too long in the wild places of the world to

have any illusions about mercy. The only safe enemy was a headless

enemy. But before he could strike, a startling scream checked the

lifted blade. It came from the oracle chamber.



"Conan! Conan! She's come back!" The shriek ended in a gurgle and a

scraping shuffle.



With an oath Conan dashed out of the alcove, across the throne dais

and into the oracle chamber, almost before the sound had ceased. There

he halted, glaring bewilderedly. To all appearances Muriela lay

placidly on the dais, eyes closed as if in slumber.



"What in thunder are you doing?" he demanded acidly. "Is this any time

to be playing jokes--"



His voice trailed away. His gaze ran along the ivory thigh molded in

the close-fitting silk skirt. That skirt should gape from girdle to

hem. He knew, because it had been his own hand that tore it, as he

ruthlessly stripped the garment from the dancer's writhing body. But

the skirt showed no rent. A single stride brought him to the dais and

he laid his hand on the ivory body--snatched it away as if it had

encountered hot iron instead of the cold immobility of death.



"Crom!" he muttered, his eyes suddenly slits of balefire. "It's not

Muriela! It's Yelaya!"



He understood now that frantic scream that had burst from Muriela's

lips when she entered the chamber. The goddess had returned. The body

had been stripped by Zargheba to furnish the accouterments for the

pretender. Yet now it was clad in silk and jewels as Conan had first

seen it. A peculiar prickling made itself manifest among the sort

hairs at the base of Conan's scalp.



"Muriela!" he shouted suddenly. "Muriela! Where the devil are you?"



The walls threw back his voice mockingly. There was no entrance that

he could see except the golden door, and none could have entered or

departed through that without his knowledge. This much was

indisputable: Yelaya had been replaced on the dais within the few

minutes that had elapsed since Muriela had first left the chamber to

be seized by Gwarunga; his ears were still tingling with the echoes of

Muriela's scream, yet the Corinthian girl had vanished as if into thin

air. There was but one explanation, if he rejected the darker

speculation that suggested the supernatural--somewhere in the chamber

there was a secret door. And even as the thought crossed his mind, he

saw it.



In what had seemed a curtain of solid marble, a thin perpendicular

crack showed and in the crack hung a wisp of silk. In an instant he

was bending over it. That shred was from Muriela's torn skirt. The

implication was unmistakable. It had been caught in the closing door

and torn off as she was borne through the opening by whatever grim

beings were her captors. The bit of clothing had prevented the door

from fitting perfectly into its frame.



Thrusting his dagger-point into the crack, Conan exerted leverage with

a corded forearm. The blade bent, but it was of unbreakable Akbitanan

steel. The marble door opened. Conan's sword was lifted as he peered

into the aperture beyond, but he saw no shape of menace. Light

filtering into the oracle chamber revealed a short flight of steps cut

out of marble. Pulling the door back to its fullest extent, he drove

his dagger into a crack in the floor, proping it open. Then he went

down the steps without hesitation. He saw nothing, heard nothing. A

dozen steps down, the stair ended in a narrow corridor which ran

straight away into gloom.



He halted suddenly, posed like a statue at the foot of the stair,

staring at the paintings which frescoed the walls, half visible in the

dim light which filtered down from above. The art was unmistakably

Pelishti; he had seen frescoes of identical characteristics on the

walls of Asgalun. But the scenes depicted had no connection with

anything Pelishti, except for one human figure, frequently recurrent:

a lean, white-bearded old man whose racial characteristics were

unmistakable. They seemed to represent various sections of the palace

above. Several scenes showed a chamber he recognized as the oracle

chamber with the figure of Yelaya stretched upon the ivory dais and

huge black men kneeling before it. And there behind the wall, in the

niche, lurked the ancient Pelishti. And there were other figures,

too--figures that moved through the deserted palace, did the bidding

of the Pelishti, and dragged unnamable things out of the subterranean

river. In the few seconds Conan stood frozen, hitherto unintelligible

phrases in the parchment manuscript blazed in his brain with chilling

clarity. The loose bits of the patern clicked into place. The mystery

of Bit-Yakin was a mystery no longer, nor the riddle of Bit-Yakin's

servants.



Conan turned and peered into the darkness, an icy finger crawling

along his spine. Then he went along the corridor, cat-footed, and

without hesitation, moving deeper and deeper into the darkness as he

drew farther away from the stair. The air hung heavy with the odor he

had scented in the court of the gong.



Now in utter blackness he heard a sound ahead of him--the shuffle of

bare feet, or the swish of loose garments against stone, he could not

tell which. But an instant later his outstretched hand encountered a

barrier which he identified as a massive door of carved metal. He

pushed against it fruitlessly, and his sword-point sought vainly for a

crack. It fitted into the sill and jambs as if molded there. He

exerted all his strength, his feet straining against the floor, the

veins knotting in his temples. It was useless; a charge of elephants

would scarcely have shaken that titanic portal.



As he leaned there he caught a sound on the other side that his ears

instantly identified--it was the creak of rusty iron, like a lever

scraping in its slot. Instinctively action followed recognition so

spontaneously that sound, impulse and action were practically

simultaneous. And as his prodigious bound carried him backward, there

was the rush of a great bulk from above, and a thunderous crash filled

the tunnel with deafening vibrations. Bits of flying splinters struck

him--a huge block of stone, he knew from the sound, dropped on the

spot he had just quitted. An instant's slower thought or action and it

would have crushed him like an ant.



Conan fell back. Somewhere on the other side of that metal door

Muriela was a captive, if she still lived. But he could not pass that

door, and if he remained in the tunnel another block might fall, and

he might not be so lucky. It would do the girl no good for him to be

crushed into a purple pulp. He could not continue his search in that

direction. He must get above ground and look for some other avenue of

approach.



He turned and hurried toward the stair, sighing as he emerged into

comparative radiance. And as he set foot on the first step, the light

was blotted out, and above him the marble door rushed shut with a

resounding reverberation.



Something like panic seized the Cimmerian then, trapped in that black

tunnel, and he wheeled on the stair, lifting his sword and glaring

murderously into the darkness behind him, expecting a rush of ghoulish

assailants. But there was no sound or movement down the tunnel. Did

the men beyond the door--if they were men--believe that he had been

disposed of by the fall of the stone from the roof, which had

undoubtedly been released by some sort of machinery?



Then why had the door been shut above him? Abandoning speculation,

Conan groped his way up the steps, his skin crawling in anticipation

of a knife in his back at every stride, yearning to drown his semi-

panic in a barbarous burst of bloodletting.



He thrust against the door at the top, and cursed soulfully to find

that it did not give to his efforts. Then as he lifted his sword with

his right hand to hew at the marble, his groping left encountered a

metal bolt that evidently slipped into place at the closing of the

door. In an instant he had drawn this bolt, and then the door gave to

his shove. He bounded into the chamber like a slit-eyed, snarling

incarnation of fury, ferociously desirous to come to grips with

whatever enemy was hounding him.



The dagger was gone from the floor. The chamber was empty, and so was

the dais. Yelaya had again vanished.



"By Crom!" muttered the Cimmerian. "Is she alive, after all?"



He strode out into the throne room, baffled, and then, struck by a

sudden thought, stepped behind the throne and peered into the alcove.

There was blood on the smooth marble where he had cast down the

senseless body of Gwarunga--that was all. The black man had vanished

as completely as Yelaya.







Chapter 4. The Teeth of Gwahlur



Baffled wrath confused the brain of Conan the Cimmerian. He knew no

more how to go about searching for Muriela than he had known how to go

about searching for the Teeth of Gwahlur. Only one thought occurred to

him--to follow the priests. Perhaps at the hiding-place of the

treasure some clue would be revealed to him. It was a slim chance, but

better than wandering about aimlessly.



As he hurried through the great shadowy hall that led to the portico

he half expected the lurking shadows to come to life behind him with

rending fangs and talons. But only the beat of his own rapid heart

accompanied him into the moonlight that dappled the shimmering marble.



At the foot of the wide steps he cast about in the bright moonlight

for some sight to show him the direction he must go. And he found it--

petals scattered on the sward told where an arm or garment had brushed

against a blossom-laden branch. Grass had been pressed down under

heavy feet. Conan, who had tracked wolves in his native hills, found

no insurmountable difficulty in following the trail of the Keshani

priests.



It led away from the palace, through masses of exotic-scented

shrubbery where great pale blossoms spread their shimmering petals,

through verdant, tangled bushes that showered blooms at the touch,

until he came at last to a great mass of rock that jutted like a

titan's castle out from the cliffs at a point closest to the palace,

which, however, was almost hidden from view by vine-interlaced trees.

Evidently that babbling priest in Keshia had been mistaken when he

said the Teeth were hidden in the palace. This trail had led him away

from the place where Muriela had disappeared, but a belief was growing

in Conan that each part of the valley was connected with that palace

by subterranean passages.



Crouching in the deep, velvet-black shadows of the bushes, he

scrutinized the great jut of rock which stood out in bold relief in

the moonlight. It was covered with strange, grotesque carvings,

depicting men and animals, and half-bestial creatures that might have

been gods or devils. The style of art differed so strikingly from that

of the rest of the valley, that Conan wondered if it did not represent

a different era and race, and was itself a relic of an age lost and

forgotten at whatever immeasurably distant date the people of

Alkmeenon had found and entered the haunted valley.



A great door stood open in the sheer curtain of the cliff, and a

gigantic dragon's head was carved about it so that the open door was

like the dragon's gaping mouth. The door itself was of carven bronze

and looked to weigh several tons. There was no lock that he could see,

but a series of bolts showing along the edge of the massive portal, as

it stood open, told him that there was some system of locking and

unlocking--a system doubtless known only to the priests of Keshan.



The trail showed that Gorulga and his henchemen had gone through that

door. But Conan hesitated. To wait until they emerged would probably

mean to see the door locked in his face, and he might not be able to

solve the mystery of its unlocking. On the other hand, if he followed

them in, they might emerge and lock him in the cavern.



Throwing caution to the winds, he glided through the great portal.

Somewhere in the cavern were the priests, the Teeth of Gwahlur, and

perhaps a clue to the fate of Muriela. Personal risks had never yet

deterred him from any purpose.



Moonlight illumined, for a few yards, the wide tunnel in which he

found himself. Somewhere ahead of him he saw a faint glow and heard

the echo of a weird chanting. The priests were not so far ahead of him

as he had thought. The tunnel debouched into a wide room before the

moonlight played out, an empty cavern of no great dimensions, but with

a lofty, vaulted roof, glowing with a phosphorescent encrustation,

which, as Conan knew, was a common phenomenon in that part of the

world. It made a ghostly half-light, in which he was able to see a

bestial image squatting on a shrine, and the black mouths of six or

seven tunnels leading off from the chamber. Down the widest of these--

the one directly behind the squat image which looked toward the outer

opening--he caught the gleam of torches wavering, whereas the

phosphorescent glow was fixed, and heard the chanting increase in

volume.



Down it he went recklessly, and was presently peering into a larger

cavern than the one he had just left. There was no phosphorus here,

but the light of the torches fell on a larger altar and a more obscene

and repulsive god squatting toad-like upon it. Before this repugnant

deity Gorulga and his ten acolytes knelt and beat their heads upon the

ground, while chanting monotonously. Conan realized why their progress

had been so slow. Evidently approaching the secret crypt of the Teeth

was a complicated and elaborate ritual.



He was fidgeting in nervous impatience before the chanting and bowing

were over, but presently they rose and passed into the tunnel which

opened behind the idol. Their torches bobbed away into the nighted

vault, and he followed swiftly. Not much danger of being discovered.

He glided along the shadows like a creature of the night, and the

black priests were completely engrossed in their ceremonial mummery.

Apparently they had not even noticed the absence of Gwarunga.



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 blur 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, reechoing 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 Dagon 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 tha stone pillar, and her thick

hair, fastented 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."



The man 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 phosphorous

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

Pelishti, 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 Bit-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. Bit-Yakin was a Pelishti 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. Bit-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

Pelishti 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. Bit-

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 therm, 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 Bit-Yakin do. Doubtless there's a sealed

chamber somewhere were the silks are kept from decay. They clothed the

goddess and brought her back to the oracle room after Zargheba had

stolen her. And, oh, by the way, they took off Zargheba's head and

hung it up 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."



"But the servants of Bit-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, and 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 carved 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 cound 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 cross the altar; his brains

oozing from his crushed skull. And then the servants of Bit-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 Bit-Yakin. His glimpse of them in action had dispelled any

ilusion 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 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.



Half-way across the upper span he saw a gray deformed shape. One of

the servants of Bit-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 Pelishti 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 it 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 Bit-

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 twisting

body fell half-way 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 wilding 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 labyrinths of tunnels on the other side.



But the monster was slowing, like clockwork running down. Blood gushed

from that terrible gash in his breast, and he lurched drunkenly from

side to side. Suddenly he stumbled, reeled and toppled sidewise--

pitched headlong from the arch and hurtled downward. Girl and jewel

chest fell from his nerveless hands and Muriela's scream rang terribly

above the snarl of the water below.



Conan was almost under the spot from which the creature had fallen.

The monster struck the lower arch glancingly and shot off, but the

writhing figure of the girl struck and clung, and the chest hit the

edge of the span near her. One falling object struck on one side of

Conan and one on the other. Either was within arm's length; for the

fraction of a split second the chest teetered ont he edge of the

bridge, and Muriela clung by one arm, her face turned desperately

toward Conan, her eyes dilated with the fear of death and her lips

parted in a haunting cry of despair.



Conan did not hesitate, nor did he even glance toward the chest that

held the wealth of an epoch. With a quickness that would have shamed

the spring of a hungry jaguar, he swooped, grasped the girl's arm just

as her fingers slipped from the smooth stone, and snatched her up on

the span with one explosive heave. The chest toppled on over and

struck the water ninety feet below, where the body of the servant of

Bit-Yakin had already vanished. A splash, a jetting flash of foam

marked where the Teeth of Gwahlur disappeared for ever from the sight

of man.



Conan scarcely wasted a downward glance. He darted across the span and

ran up the cliff stair like a cat, carrying the limp girl as if she

had been an infant. A hideous ululation caused him to glance over his

shoulder as he reached the higher arch, to see the other servants

streaming back into the cavern below, blood dripping from their bared

fangs. They raced up the stair that wound up from tier to tier,

roaring vengefully; but he slung the girl unceremoniously over his

shoulder, dashed through the tunnel and went down the cliffs like an

ape himself, dropping and springing from hold to hold with breakneck

recklessness. When the fierce countenances looked over the ledge of

the aperture, it was to see the Cimmerian and the girl disappearing

into the forest that surrounded the cliffs.



"Well," said Conan, setting the girl on her feet within the sheltering

screen of branches, "we can take our time now. I don't think those

brutes will follow us outside the valley. Anyway, I've got a horse

tied at a water-hole close by, if the lions haven't eaten him. Crom's

devils! What are you crying about now?"



She covered her tear-stained face with her hands, and her slim

shoulders shook with sobs.



"I lost the jewels for you," she wailed miserably. "It was my fault.

If I'd obeyed you and stayed out on the ledge, that brute would never

have seen me. You should have caught the gems and let me drown!"



"Yes, I suppose I should," he agreed. "But forget it. Never worry

about what's past. And stop crying, will you? That's better. Come on."



"You mean you're going to keep me? Take me with you?" she asked

hopefully.



"What else do you suppose I'd do with you?" He ran an approving glance

over her figure and grinned at the torn skirt which revealed a

generous expanse of tempting ivory-tinted curves. "I can use an

actress like you. There's no use going back to Keshia. There's nothing

in Keshan now that I want. We'll go to Punt. The people of Punt

worship an ivory woman, and they wash gold out of the rivers in wicker

baskets. I'll tell them that Keshan is intriguing with Thutmekri to

enslave them--which is true--and that the gods have sent me to protect

them--for about a houseful of gold. If I can manage to smuggle you

into their temple to exchange places with their ivory goddess, we'll

skin them out of their jaw teeth before we get through with them!"







THE END

