L. Sprague De Camp - Conan - The Curse of the Monolith

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The Curse of the Monolith

By L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter

The sheer cliffs of dark stone closed about Conan the Cimmerian

like the sides of a trap. HE did not like the way their jagged

peaks loomed against the few faint stars, which glittered like

the eyes of spiders down upon the small camp on the flat floor of

the valley. Neither did he like the chill, uneasy wind that

whistled across the stony heights and prowled about the campfire.

It caused the flames to lean and flicker, sending monstrous black

shadows writhing across the rough stone walls of the nearer

valley side.

On the other side of the camp, colossal redwoods, which had been

old when Atlantis sank beneath the waves eight thousand years

before, rose amid thickets of bamboo and clumps of rhododendron.

A small stream meandered out of the woods, murmured past the

camp, and wandered off into the forest again. Overhead, a layer

of haze or high fog drifted across the tops of the cliffs,

drowning the light of the fainter stars and making the brighter

ones seem to weep.

Something about this place, thought Conan, stank of fear and of

death. HE could almost smell the acrid odor of terror on the

breeze. The horses felt it too. They nickered plaintively,

pawed the earth, and rolled white eyeballs at the dark beyond the

circle of the fire. So was Conan, the barbarian warrior from the

bleak hills of Cimmeria. Like his, their senses were more

delicately turned to the aura of evil than were the senses of

city-bred men like the Turanian troopers he had led into this

deserted vale.

The soldiers sat about the fire, sharing the last of this night's

ration of wine from goatskin bags. Some laughed and boasted of

the amorous feats they would do in the silken bagnios of Aghrapur

upon their return. Others, weary from a long day's hard ride,

sat silently, staring at the fire and yawning. Soon they would

settle down for the night, rolled in their heavy cloaks. With

their heads pillowed on saddlebags, they would lie in a loose

circle about the hissing fire, while two of their number stood

guard with their powerful Hyrkanian bows strung and ready. They

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sensed nothing of the sinister force that hovered about the

valley.

Standing with his back to the nearest of the giant redwoods,

Conan wrapped his cloak more closely about him against the dank

breeze from the heights. Although his troopers were well-built

men of good size, he towered half a head over the tallest of

them, while his enormous breadth of shoulder made them seem puny

by comparison. His square-cut black mane escaped from below the

edges of his spired, turban-wound helmet, and the deepset blue

eyes in his dark, scarred face caught glints of red from the

firelight.

Sunk in one of his fits of melancholy gloom, Conan silently

cursed King Yildiz, the well-meaning but weak Turanian monarch

who had sent him on this ill-omened mission. Over a year had

passed since he had taken the oath of allegiance to the king of

Turan. Six months before, he had been lucky enough to earn this

king's favor; with the help of a fellow-mercenary, Juma the

Kushite, he had rescued Yildiz's daughter Zosara from the mad

god-king of Meru. HE had brought the princess, more or less

intact, to her affianced bridegroom, Khan Kujala of the nomadic

Kuigar horde.

When Conan returned to Yildiz's glittering capital of Aghrapur,

he had found the monarch generous enough in his gratitude. Both

he and Juma had been raised to captain. But, whereas Juma had

obtained a coveted post in the Royal Guard, Conan had been

rewarded with yet another arduous, perilous mission. Now, as he

recalled these events, he sourly contemplated the fruits of

success.

Yildiz had entrusted the Cimmerian giant with a letter to King

Shu of Kusan, a minor kingdom in western Khitai. At the head of

forty veterans, Conan had accomplished the immense journey. He

had traversed hundreds of leagues of bleak Hyrkanian steppe and

skirted the foothills of the towering Talakma Mountains. He had

threaded his way through the windy deserts and swampy jungles

bordering the mysterious realm of Khitai, the easternmost land of

which the men of the West had heard.

Arrived in Kusan at last, Conan had found the venerable and

philosophical King Shu a splendid host. While Conan and his

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L. Sprague De Camp - Conan - The Curse of the Monolith

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