Howard, Robert E - Conan - The People of the Black Circle

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THE PEOPLE OF THE BLACK CIRCLE
A Conan Story
by Robert E. Howard
1 DEATH STRIKES A KING
The king of Vendhya was dying. Through the hot, stifling night the temple gongs boomed and
the conchs roared. Their clamor was a faint echo in the gold-domed chamber where Bunda Chand
struggled on the velvet-cushioned dais. Beads of sweat glistened on his dark skin; his fingers
twisted the gold-worked fabric beneath him. He was young; no spear had touched him, no poison
lurked in his wine. But his veins stood out like blue cords on his temples, and his eyes dilated
with the nearness of death. Trembling slave-girls knelt at the foot of the dais, and leaning down
to him, watching him with passionate intensity, was his sister, the Devi Yasmina. With her was the
wazam, a noble grown old in the royal court.
She threw up her head in a gusty gesture of wrath and despair as the thunder of the distant
drums reached her ears.
"The priests and their clamor!" she exclaimed. "They are no wiser than the leeches who are
helpless! Nay, he dies and none can say why. He is dying now - and I stand here helpless, who
would burn the whole city and spill the blood of thousands to save him."
"Not a man of Ayodhya but would die in his place, if it might be, Devi," answered the wazam.
"This poison--"
"I tell you it is not poison!" she cried. "Since his birth he has been guarded so closely
that the cleverest poisoners of the East could not reach him. Five skulls bleaching on the Tower
of the Kites can testify to attempts which were made - and which failed. As you well know, there
are ten men and ten women whose sole duty is to taste his food and wine, and fifty armed warriors
guard his chamber as they guard it now. No, it is not poison; it is sorcery - black, ghastly magic-
-"
She ceased as the king spoke; his livid lips did not move, and there was no recognition in
his glassy eyes. But his voice rose in an eery call, indistinct and far away, as if called to her
from beyond vast, wind-blown gulfs.
"Yasmina! Yasmina! My sister, where are you? I can not find you. All is darkness, and the
roaring of great winds!"
"Brother!" cried Yasmina, catching his limp hand in a convulsive grasp. "I am here! Do you
not know me--"
Her voice died at the utter vacancy of his face. A low confused moan waned from his mouth.
The slave-girls at the foot of the dais whimpered with fear, and Yasmina beat her breast in
anguish.
In another part of the city a maii stood in a latticed balcony overlooking a long street in
which torches tossed luridly, smokily revealing upturned dark faces and the whites of gleaming
eyes. A long-drawn wailing rose from the multitude.
The man shrugged his broad shoulders and turned back into the arabesque chamber. He was a
tall man, compactly built, and richly clad.
"The king is not yet dead, but the dirge is sounded," he said to another man who sat cross-
legged on a mat in a corner. This man was clad in a brown camel-hair robe and sandals, and a green
turban was on his head. His expression was tranquil, his gaze impersonal.
"The people know he will never see another dawn," this man answered.
The first speaker favored him with a long, searching stare.
"What I can not understand," he said, "is why I have had to wait so long for your masters to
strike. If they have slain the king now, why could they not have slain him months ago?"
"Even the arts you call sorcery are governed by cosmic laws," answered the man in the green
turban. "The stars direct these actions, as in other affairs. Not even -my masters can alter the
stars. Not until the heavens were in the proper order could they perform this necromancy." With a
long, stained fingernail he mapped the constellations on the marble-tiled floor. "The slant of the
moon presaged evil for the king of Vendhya; the stars are in turmoil, the Serpent in the House of
the Elephant. During such juxtaposition, the invisible guardians are removed from the spirit of
Bhunda Chand. A path is opened in the unseen realms, and once a point of contact was established,
mighty powers were put in play along that path."
"Point of contact?" inquired the other. "Do you mean that lock of Bhunda Chand's hair?"
"Yes. All discarded portions of the human body still remain part of it, attached to it by
intangible connections. The priests of Asura have a dim inkling of this truth, and so all nail
trimmings, hair and other waste products of the persons of the royal family are carefully reduced
to ashes and the ashes hidden. But at the urgent entreaty of the princess of Khosala, who loved
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Bhunda Chand vainly, he gave her a lock of his long black hair as a token of remembrance. When my
masters decided upon his doom, the lock, in its golden, jewel-encrusted case, was stolen from
under her pillow while she slept, and another substituted, so like the first that she never knew
the difference. Then the genuine lock travelled by camel-caravan up the long, long road to
Peshkhauri, thence up the Zhaibar Pass, until it reached the hands of those for whom it was
intended."
"Only a lock of hair," murmured the nobleman.
"By which a soul is drawn from its body and across gulfs of echoing space," returned the man
on the mat.
The nobleman studied him curiusly.
"I do not know if you are a man or a demon, Khemsa," he said at last. "Few of us are what we
seem. I, whom the Kshatriyas know as Kerim Shah, a prince from Iranistan, am no greater a
masquerader than most men. They are all traitors in one way or another, and half of them know not
whom they serve. There at least I have no doubts; for I serve King Yezdigerd of Turan."
"And I the Black Seers of Yimsha," said Khemsa; "and my masters are greater than yours, for
they have accomplished by their arts what Yezdigerd could not with a hundred thousand swords."
Outside, the moan of the tortured thousands shuddered up to the stars which crusted the
sweating Vendhyan night, and the conchs bellowed like oxen in pain.
In the gardens of the palace the torches glinted on polished helmets and curved swords and
gold-chased corselets. All the noble-born fighting-men of Ayodhya were gathered in the great
palace or about it, and at each broad-arched gate and door fifty archers stood on guard, with bows
in their hands. But Death stalked through the royal palace and none could stay his ghostly tread.
On the dais under the golden dome the king cried out again, racked by awful paroxysms. Again
his voice came faintly and far away, and again the Devi bent to him, trembling with a fear that
was darker than the terror of death.
"Yasmina!" Again that far, weirdly dreeing cry, from realms immeasurable. "Aid me! I am far
from my mortal house! Wizards have drawn my soul through the wind-blown darkness. They seek to
snap the silver cord that binds me to my dying body. They cluster around me; their hands are
taloned, their eyes are red like flame burning in darkness. Ate, save me, my sister! Their fingers
sear me like fire! They would slay my body and damn my soul! What is this they bring before me?--
Aie!--"
At the terror in his hopeless cry Yasmina screamed uncontrollably and threw herself bodily
upon him in the abandon of her anguish. He was torn by a terrible convulsion; foam flew from his
contorted lips and his writhing fingers left their marks on the girl's shoulders. But the glassy
blankness passed from his eyes like smoke blown from a fire, and he looked up at his sister with
recognition.
"Brother!" she sobbed. "Brother--"
"Swift!" he gasped, and his weakening voice was rational. "I know now what brings me to the
pyre. I have been on a far journey and I understand. I have been ensorcelled by the wizards of the
Himelians. They drew my soul out of my body and far away, into a stone room. There they strove to
break the silver cord of life, and thrust my soul into the body of a foul night-weird their
sorcery summoned up from hell. Ah! I feel their pull upon me now! Your cry and the grip of your
fingers brought me back, but I am going fast. My soul clings to my body, but its hold weakens.
Quick - kill me, before they can trap my soul for ever!
"I cannot!" she wailed, smiting her naked breasts.
"Swiftly, I command you!" There was the old imperious note in his failing whisper. "You have
never disobeyed me --"obey my last command! Send my soul clean to Asura! Haste, lest you damn me
to spend eternity as a filthy gaunt of darkness. Strike, I command you! Strike!"
Sobbing wildly, Yasmina plucked a jeweled dagger from her girdle and plunged it to the hilt
in his breast. He stiffened and then went limp, a grim smile curving his dead lips. Yasmina hurled
herself face-down on the rush-covered floor, beating the reeds with her clenched hands. Outside,
the gongs and conchs brayed and thundered and the priests gashed themselves with copper knives.
2 A BARBARIAN FROM THE HILLS
Chunder Shan, governor of Peshkhauri, laid down his golden pen and carefully scanned that
which he had written on parchment that bore his official seal. He had ruled Peshkhauri so long
only because he weighed his every word, spoken or written. Danger breeds caution, and only a wary
man lives long in that wild country where the hot Vendhyan plains meet the crags of the Himelians.
An hour's ride westward or northward and one crossed the border and was among the Hills where men
lived by the law of the knife.
The governor was alone in his chamber, seated at his ornately carven table of inlaid ebony.
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Through the wide window, open for the coolness, he could see a square of the blue Himelian night,
dotted with great white stars. An adjacent parapet was a shadowy line, and further crenelles and
embrasures were barely hinted at in the dim starlight. The governor's fortress was strong, and
situated outside the walls of the city it guarded. The breeze that stirred the tapestries on the
wall brought faint noises from the streets of Peshkhauri - occasional snatches of wailing song, or
the thrum of a cithern.
The governor read what he had written, slowly, with his open hand shading his eyes from the
bronze butterlamp, his lips moving. Absently, as he read, he heard the drum of horses" hoofs
outside the barbican, the sharp staccato of the guards" challenge. He did not heed, intent upon
his letter. It was addressed to the wazam of Vendhya, at the royal court of Ayodhya, and it
stated, after the customary salutations:
"Let it be known to your excellency that I have faithfully carried out your excellency's
instructions. The seven tribesmen are well guarded in their prison, and I have repeatedly sent
word into the hills that their chief come in person to bargain for their release. But he has made
no move, except to send word that unless they are freed he will burn Peshkhauri and cover his
saddle with my hide, begging your excellency's indulgence. This he is quite capable of attempting,
and I have tripled the numbers of the lance guards. The man is not a native of Ghulistan. I cannot
with certainty predict his next move. But since it is the wish of the Devi--"
He was out of his ivory chair and on his feet facing the arched door, all in one instant. He
snatched at the curved sword lying in its ornate scabbard on the table, and then checked the
movement.
It was a woman who had entered unannounced, a woman whose gossamer robes did not conceal the
rich garments beneath them any more than they concealed the suppleness and beauty of her tall,
slender figure. A filmy veil fell below her breasts, supported by a flowing head-dress bound about
with a triple gold braid and adorned with a golden crescent. Her dark eyes regarded the astonished
governor over the veil, and then with an imperious gesture of her white hand, she uncovered her
face.
"Devil" The governor dropped to his knees before her, surorize and confusion somewhat
spoiling the stateliness of his obeisance- With a gesture she motioned him to rise, and he
hastened to lead her to the ivory chair, all the while bowing level with his girdle. But his first
words were of reproof.
"Your Majesty! This was most unwise! The border is unsettled. Raids from the hills are
incessant. You came with a large attendance?"
"An ample retinue followed me to Peshkhauri," she answered. "I lodged my people there and
came on to the fort with my maid, Gitara."
Chunder Shan groaned in horror.
"Devi! You do not understand the peril. An hour's ride from this spot the hills swarm with
barbarians who make a profession of murder and rapine. Women have been stolen and men stabbed
between the fort and the city. Peshkhauri is not like your southern provinces--"
"But I am here, and unharmed," she interrupted with a trace of impatience. "I showed my
signet ring to the guard at the gate, and to the one outside your door, and they admitted me
unannounced, not knowing me, but supposing me to be a secret courier from Ayodhya. Let us not now
waste time.
"You have received no word from the chief of the barbarians?" "None save threats and curses,
Devi. He is wary and suspicious. He deems it a trap, and perhaps he is not to be blamed. The
Kshatriyas have not always kept their promises to the hill people."
"He must be brought to terms!" broke in Yasmina, the knuckles of her clenched hands showing
white.
"I do not understand." The governor shook his head. "When I chanced to capture these seven
hillmen, I reported their capture to the wazam, as is the custom, and then, before I could hang
them, there came an order to hold them and communicate with their chief. This I did, but the man
holds aloof, as I have said. These men are of the tribe of Afghulis, but he is a foreigner from
the west, and he is called Conan. I have threatened to hang them tomorrow at dawn, if he does not
come."
"Good!" exclaimed the Devi. "You have done well. And I will tell you why I have given these
orders. My brother--" she faltered, choking, and the governor bowed his head, with the customary
gesture of respect for a departed sovereign.
"The king of Vendhya was destroyed by magic," she said at last. "I have devoted my life to
the destruction of his murderers. As he died he gave me a clue, and I have followed it. I have
read the Book ofSkelos, and talked with nameless hermits in the caves below Jhelai. I learned how,
and by whom, he was destroyed. His enemies were the Black Seers of Mount Yimsha."
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"Asura!" whispered Chunder Shan, paling.
Her/eyes knifed him through. "Do you fear them?"
"Who does not, Your Majesty?" he replied. "They are black devils, haunting the uninhabited
hills beyond the Zhaibar. But the sages say that they seldom interfere in the lives of mortal
men."
"Why they slew my brother I do not know," she answered. "But I have sworn on the altar of
Asura to destroy them! And I need the aid of a man beyond the border. A Kshatriya army, unaided,
would never reach Yimsha."
"Aye," muttered Chunder Shan. "You speak the truth there. It would be fight every step of the
way, with hairy hillmen hurling down boulders from every height, and rushing us with their long
knives in every valley. The Turanians fought their way through the Himelians once, but how many
returned to Khurusun? Few of those who escaped the swords of the Kshatriyas, after the king, your
brother, defeated their host on the Jhumda River, ever saw Secunderam again."
"And so I must control men across the border," she said, "men who know the way to Mount
Yimsha--"
"But the tribes fear the Black Seers and shun the unholy mountain," broke in the governor.
"Does the chief, Conan, fear them?" she asked.
"Well, as to that," muttered the governor, "I doubt if there is anything that devil fears."
"So I have been told. Therefore he is the man I must deal with. He wishes the release of his
seven men. Very well; their ransom shall be the heads of the Black Seers!" Her voice thrummed with
hate as she uttered the last words, and her hands clenched at her sides. She looked an image of
incarnate passion as she stood there with her head thrown high and her bosom heaving.
Again the governor knelt, for part of his wisdom was the knowledge that a woman in such an
emotional tempest is as perilous as a blind cobra to any about her.
"It shall be as you wish, Your Majesty." Then as she presented a calmer aspect, he rose and
ventured to drop a word of warning. "I can not predict what the chief Conan's action will be. The
tribesmen are always turbulent, and I have reason to believe that emissaries from the Turanians
are stirring them up to raid our borders. As your majesty knows, the Turanians have established
themselves in Secunderam and other northern cities, though the hill tribes remain unconquered.
King Yezdigerd has long looked southward with greedy lust and perhaps is seeking to gain by
treachery what he could not win by force of arms. I have thought that Conan might well be one of
his spies."
"We shall see," she answered. "If he loves his followers, he will be at the gates at dawn, to
parley. I shall spend the night in the fortress. I came in disguise to Peshkhauri, and lodged my
retinue at an inn instead of the palace. Besides my people, only yourself knows of my presence
here."
"I shall escort you to your quarters, Your Majesty," said the governor, and as they emerged
from the doorway, he beckoned the warrior on guard there, and the man fell in behind them, spear
held at salute.
The maid waited, veiled like her mistress, outside the door, and the group traversed a wide,
winding corridor, lighted by smoky torches, and reached the quarters reserved for visiting
notables - generals and viceroys, mostly; none of the royal family had ever honored the fortress
before. Chunder Shan had a perturbed feeling that the suite was not suitable to such an exalted
personage as the Devi, and though she sought to make him feel at ease in her presence, he was glad
when she dismissed him and he bowed himself out. All the menials of the fort had been summoned to
serve his royal guest - though he did not divulge her identity - and he stationed a squad of
spearmen before her doors, among them the warrior who had guarded his own chamber. In his
preoccupation he forgot to replace the man.
The governor had not been long gone from her when Yasmina suddenly remembered something else
which she had wished to discuss with him, but had forgotten until that moment. It concerned the
past actions of one Kerim Shah, a nobleman from Iranistan, who had dwelt for a while in Peshkhauri
before coming on to the court at Ayodhya. A vague suspicion concerning the man had been stirred by
a glimpse of him in Peshkhauri tha^ night. She wondered if he had followed her from Ayodhya. Being
a truly remarkable Devi, she did not summon the governor to her again, but hurried out into the
corridor alone, and hastened toward his chamber.
Chunder Shan, entering his chamber, closed the door and went to his table. There he took the
letter he had been writing and tore it to bits. Scarcely had he finished when he heard something
drop softly onto the parapet adjacent to the window. He looked up to see a figure loom briefly
against the stars, and then a man dropped lightly into the room. The light glinted on a long sheen
of steel in his hand.
"Shhhh!" he warned. "Don't make a noise, or I'll send the devil a henchman!"
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The governor checked his motion toward the sword on the table. He was within reach of the
yard-long Zhaibar knife that glittered in the intruder's fist, and he knew the desperate quickness
of a hillman.
The invader was a tall man, at once strong and supple. He was dressed like a hillman, but his
dark features and blazing blue eyes did not match his garb. Chunder Shan had never seen a man like
him; he was not an Easterner, but some barbarian from the West. But his aspect was as untamed and
formidable as any of the hairy tribesmen who haunt the hills of Ghulistan.
"You come like a thief in the night," commented the governor, recovering some of his
composure, although he remembered that there was no guard within call. Still, the hillman could
not know that.
"I climbed a bastion," snarled the intruder. "A guard thrust his bead over the battlement in
time for me to rap it with my knife-hilt."
"You are Conan?"
"Who else? You sent word into the hills that you wished for me to come and parley with you.
Well, by Crom, I've come! Keep away from that table or I'll gut you."
"I merely wish to seat myself," answered the governor, carefully sinking into the ivory
chair, which he wheeled away from the table. Conan moved restlessly before him, glancing
suspiciously at the door, thumbing the razor edge of his three-foot knife. He did not walk like an
Afghuli, and was bluntly direct where the East is subtle.
"You have seven of my men," he said abruptly. "You refused the ransom I offered. What the
devil do you want?"
"Let us discuss terms," answered Chunder Shan cautiously. "Terms?" There was a timbre of
dangerous anger in his voice. "What do you mean? Haven't I offered you gold?" Chunder Shan
laughed.
"Gold? There is more gold in Peshkhauri than you ever saw." "You're a liar," retorted Conan.
"I've seen the suk of the goldsmiths in Khurusun."
"Well, more than an Afghuli ever saw," amended Chunder Shan. "And it is but a drop of all the
treasure of Vendhya. Why should we desire gold? It would be more to our advantage to hang these
seven thieves."
Conan ripped out a sulmrous oath and the long blade quivered in his grip as the muscles rose
in ridges on his brown arm. "I'll split your head like a ripe melon!"
A wild blue flame flickered in the hillman's eyes, but Chunder Shan shrugged his shoulders,
though keeping an eye on the keen steel.
"You can kill me easily, and probably escape over the wall afterward. But that would not save
the seven tribesmen. My men would surely hang them. And these men are headmen among the Afghulis."
"I know it," snarled Conan. "The tribe is baying like wolves at my heels because I have not
procured their release. Tell me in plain words what you want, because, by Crom! if there's no
other way, I'll raise a horde and lead it to the very gates of Peshkhauri!"
Looking at the man as he stood squarely, knife in fist and eyes glaring, Chunder Shan did not
doubt that he was capable of it. The governor did not believe any hill-horde could take
Peshkhauri, but he did not wish a devastated countryside.
"There is a mission you must perform," he said, choosing his words with as much care as if
they had been razors. "There--"
Conan had sprung back, wheeling to face the door at the same instant, lips asnarl. His
barbarian ears had caught the quick tread of soft slippers outside the door. The next instant the
door was thrown open and a slim, silk-robed form entered hastily, pulling the door shut - then
stopping short at sight of the hillman.
Chunder Shan sprang up, his heart jumping into his mouth.
"Devi!" he cried involuntarily, losing his head momentarily in his fright.
"Devi? It was like an explosive echo from the hillman's lips. Chunder Shan saw recognition
and intent flame up in the fierce blue eyes.
The governor shouted desperately and caught at his sword, but the hillman moved with the
devastating speed of a hurricane. He sprang, knocked the governor sprawling with a savage blow of
his knife-hilt, swept up the astounded Devi in one brawny arm and leaped for the window. Chunder
Shan, struggling frantically to his feet, saw the man poise an instant on the sill in a flutter of
silken skirts and white limbs that was his royal captive, and heard his fierce, exultant snarl:
"Now dare to hang my men!" and then Conan leaped to the parapet and was gone. A wild scream
floated back to the governor's ears.
"Guard! Guard? screamed the governor, struggling up and running drunkenly to the door. He
tore it open and reeled into the hall. His shouts re-echoed along the corridors, and warriors came
running, gaping to see the governor holding his broken head, from which the blood streamed.
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"Turn out the lancers!" he roared. "There has been an abduction!" Even in his frenzy he had
enough sense left to withhold the full truth. He stopped short as he heard a sudden drum of hoofs
outside, a frantic scream and a wild yell of barbaric exultation.
--"Followed by the bewildered guardsmen, the governor raced for the stair. In the courtyard
of the fort a force of lancers stood by saddled steeds, ready to ride at an instant's notice.
Chunder Shan led his squadron flying after the fugitive, though his head swam so he had to hold
with both hands to the saddle. He did not divulge the identity of the victim, but said merely that
the noblewoman who had borne the royal signet-ring had been carried away by the chief of the
Afghulis. The abductor was out of sight and hearing, but they knew the path he would strike -the
road that runs straight to the mouth of the Zhaibar. There was no moon; peasant huts rose dimly in
the starlight. Behind them fell away the grim bastion of the fort, and the towers of Peshkhauri.
Ahead of them loomed the black walls of the Himelians.
3 KHEMSA USES MAGIC
IN the confusion that reigned in the fortress while the guard was being turned out, no one
noticed that the girl who had accompanied the Devi slipped out the great arched gate and vanished
in the darkness. She ran straight for the city, her garments tucked high. She did not follow the
open road, but cut straight through fields and over slopes, avoiding fences and leaping irrigation
ditches as sufely as if it were broad daylight, and as easily as if she were a trained masculine
runner. The hoof-drum of the guardsmen had faded away up the hill before she reached the city
wall. She did not go to the great gate, beneath whose arch men leaned on spears and craned their
necks into the darkness, discussing the unwonted activity about the fortress. She skirted the wall
until she reached a certain point where the spire of the tower was visible above the battlements.
Then she placed her hands to her mouth and voiced a low weird call that carried strangely.
Almost instantly a head appeared at an embrasure and a rope came wriggling down the wall. She
seized it, placed a foot in the loop at the end, and waved her arm. Then quickly and smoothly she
was drawn up the sheer stone curtain. An instant later she scrambled over the merlons and stood up
on a flat roof which covered a house that was built against the wall. There was an open trap
there, and a man in a camel-hair robe who silently coiled the rope, not showing in any way the
strain of hauling a full-grown woman up a forty-foot wall.
"Where is Kerim Shah?" she gasped, panting after her long run.
"Asleep in the house below. You have news?"
"Conan has stolen the Devi out of the fortress and carried her away into the hills!" She
blurted out her news in a rush, the words stumbling over one another.
Khemsa showed no emotion, but merely nodded his turbaned head. "Kerim Shah will be glad to
hear that," he said.
"Wait!" The girl threw her supple arms about his neck. She was panting hard, but not only
from exertion. Her eyes blazed like black jewels in the starlight. Her upturned face was close to
Khemsa's, but though he submitted to her embrace, he did not return it.
"Do not tell the Hyrkanian!" she panted. "Let us use this knowledge ourselves! The governor
has gone into the hills with his riders, but he might as well chase a ghost. He has not told
anyone that it was the Devi who was kidnapped. None in Peshkhauri or the fort knows it except us."
"But what good does it do us?" the man expostulated. "My masters sent me with Kerim Shah to
aid him in every way--"
"Aid yourself!" she cried fiercely. "Shake off your yoke!"
"You mean - disobey my masters?" he gasped, and she felt his whole body turn cold under her
arms.
"Aye!" she shook him in the fury of her emotion. "You too are a magician! Why will you be a
slave, using your powers only to elevate others? Use your arts for yourself."
"That is forbidden!" He was shaking as if with an ague. "I am not one of the Black Circle.
Only by the command of the masters do I dare to use the knowledge they have taught me."
"But you can use it!" she argued passionately. "Do as I beg you! Of course Conan has taken
the Devi to hold as hostage against the seven tribesmen in the governor's prison. Destroy them, so
Chunder Shan can not use them to buy back the Devi. Then let us go into the mountains and take her
from the Afghulis. They can not stand against your sorcery with their knives. The treasure of the
Vendhyan kings will be ours as ransom - and then when we have it in our hands, we can trick them,
and sell her to the king of Turan. We shall have wealth beyond our maddest dreams. With it we can
buy warriors. We will take Khorbhul, oust the Turanians from the hills, and send our hosts
southward; become king and queen of an empire!"
Khemsa too was panting, shaking like a leaf in her grasp; his face showed gray in the
starlight, beaded with great drops of perspiration.
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file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Robert%20E.%20Howard%20-%20Conan%20-%20The%20People%20of%20the%20Black%20Circle.txt
"I love you!" she cried fiercely, writhing her body against his, almost strangling him in her
wild embrace, shaking him in her abandon. "I will make a king of you! For love of you I betrayed
my mistress; for love of me betray your masters! Why fear the Black Seers? By your love for me you
have broken one of their laws already! Break the rest! You are as strong as they!"
A man of ice could not have withstood the searing heat of her passion and fury. With an
inarticulate cry he crushed her to him, bending her backward and showering gasping kisses on her
eyes, face and lips.
"I'll do it!" His voice was thick with laboring emotions. He staggered like a drunken man.
"The arts they have taught me shall work for me, not for my masters. We shall be rulers of the
world - of the world--"
"Come then!" Twisting lithely out of his embrace, she seized his hand and led him toward the
trap-door. "First we must make sure that the governor does not exchange those seven Afghulis for
the Devi."
He moved like a man in a daze, until they had descended a ladder and she paused in the
chamber below. Kerim Shah lay on a couch motionless, an arm across his face as though to shield
his sleeping eyes from the soft light of a brass lamp. She plucked Khemsa's arm and made a quick
gesture across her own throat. Khemsa lifted his hand; then his expression changed and he drew
away.
"I have eaten his salt," he muttered. "Besides, he can not interfere with us."
He led the girl through a door that opened on a winding stair. After their soft tread had
faded into silence, the man on the couch sat up. Kerim Shah wiped the sweat from his face. A knife-
thrust he did not dread, but he feared Khemsa as a man fears a poisonous reptile.
"People who plot on roofs should remember to lower their voices," he muttered. "But as Khemsa
has turned against his masters, and as he was my only contact between them, I can count on their
aid no longer. From now on I play the game in my own way."
Rising to his feet he went quickly to a table, drew pen and parchment from his girdle and
scribbled a few succinct lines.
"To Khosru Khan, governor of Secunderam: the Cimmerian Conan has carried the Devi Yasmina to
the villages of the Afghulis. It is an opportunity to get the Devi into our hands, as the king has
so long desired. Send three thousand horsemen at once. I will meet them in the valley of Gurashah
with native guides."
And he signed it with a name that was not in the least like Kerim Shah.
Then from a golden cage he drew forth a carrier pigeon, to whose leg he made fast the
parchment, rolled into a tiny cylinder and secured with gold wire. Then he went quickly to a
casement and tossed the bird into the night. It wavered on fluttering wings, balanced, and was
gone like a flitting shadow. Catching up helmet, sword and cloak, Kerim Shah hurried out of the
chamber and down the winding stair.
The prison quarters of Peshkhauri were separated from the rest of the city by a massive wall,
in which was set a single iron-bound door under an arch. Over the arch burned a lurid red cresset,
and beside the door squatted a warrior with spear and shield.
This warrior, leaning on his spear, and yawning from time to time, started suddenly to his
feet. He had not thought he had dozed, but a man was standing before him, a man he had not heard
approach. The man wore a camel-hair robe and a green turban. In the flickering light of the
cresset his features were shadowy, but a pair of lambent eyes shone surprizingly in the lurid
glow.
"Who comes?" demanded the warrior, presenting his spear. "Who are you?"
The stranger did not seem perturbed, though the spear-point touched his bosom. His eyes held
the warrior's with strange intensity.
"What are you obliged to do?" he asked, strangely.
"To guard the gate!" The warrior spoke thickly and mechanically; he stood rigid as a statue,
his eyes slowly glazing.
"You lie! You are obliged to obey me! You have looked into my eyes, and your soul is no
longer your own. Open that door!"
Stiffly, with the wooden features of an image, the guard wheeled about, drew a great key from
his girdle, turned it in the massive lock and swung open the door. Then he stood at attention, his
unseeing stare straight ahead of him.
A woman glided from the shadows and laid an eager hand on the mesmerist's arm.
"Bid him fetch us horses, Khemsa," she whispered.
"No need of that," answered the Rakhsha. Lifting his voice slightly he spoke to the
guardsman. "I have no more use for you. Kill yourself!"
Like a man in a trance the warrior thrust the butt of his spear against the base of the wall,
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file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Robert%20E.%20Howard%20-%20Conan%20-%20The%20People%20of%20the%20Black%20Circle.txtTHEPEOPLEOFTHEBLACKCIRCLEAConanStorybyRobertE.Howard1DEATHSTRIKESAKINGThekingofVendhyawasdying.Throughthehot,stiflingnightthe emplegongsboomedandtheconchsroared.Theirclamorw...

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