Part 1 (2/2)

At his best

Patrice Louinet 2005

The Servants of Bit-Yakin

I

PATHS OF INTRIGUE

The cliffs rose sheer frolinted jade blue and dull cri sun, and curved away and away to east and west above the waving emerald ocean of fronds and leaves It looked insuriant palisade with its sheer curtains of solid rock in which bits of quartz winked dazzlingly in the sunlight But thehis tedious way upas already half way to the top

He cas, and he was a arment 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

He was a powerfully built man, supple as a panther His skin was brown, bronzed by the sun, his square-cut black mane confined by a silver band about his temples His iron muscles, quick eye and sure foot served him well here, for it was a climb to test these qualities to the utle An equal distance above hiainst thesky

He labored like one driven by the necessity of haste, yet he was forced to roping hands and feet found niches and knobs, precarious holds at best, and soer nails Yet upward he went, clawing, squir for every foot At ti the sweat out of his eyes, twisted his head to stare searchingly out over the jungle, coreen 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 se of the rirunted 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 shrivelled brown ed, arms folded on the withered breast upon which the shrunken head was sunk, sat in the little cavern The lis which had become mere rotted wisps If the 13

for reduced the garments to dust But thrust between the crossed arms and the shrunken breast there was a roll of parche to the color of old ivory

The cli aration he thrust it into his girdle and hauled hi of the niche A spring upward and he caught the rim of the cliffs and pulled himself up and over al, and stared doard

It was like looking into the interior of a vast bowl, rimmed by a circular stone wall The floor of the boas covered with trees and denser vegetation, though nowhere did the growth duplicate the jungle denseness of the outer forest The cliffs ht 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 fro of those palisaded cliffs

But theat the topographical phenoerness he searched the tree-tops below hilint of reen It was no myth, then; below him lay the fabulous and deserted palace of Alkmeenon

Conan the Cimmerian, late of the Barachan Isles, of the Black Coast, and of do the lure of a fabled treasure that outshone the hoard of the Turanian kings

Keshan was a barbaric kingdorass lands e with the forests that roll up from the south The people were aa population that was largely pure negro The rulers princes and high priests claie, had ruled a kingdoht 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 Alk Conan to Keshan, over vast distances of plain, river-laced jungle, and mountains

He had found Keshan, which in itself was considered mythical by h to confirm the rumors of the treasure thatplace he could not learn, and he was confronted with the necessity of explaining his presence in Keshan Unattached strangers were not welcome there

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But he was not nonplused With cool assurance he randees of the barbaricallyman

In search of employment (he said) he had come to Keshan For a price he would train the arainst Punt, their hereditary enemy, whose recent successes in the field had roused the fury of Keshan's irascible king

This proposition was not as audacious as it ht 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 hout the black kingdoms He did not refuse tests devised by the dusky lords Skir the Cimmerian plenty of opportunities to de His reckless ferocity impressed the lords of Keshan, already aware of his reputation as a leader of men, and the prospects seeive hih to locate the hiding place of the Teeth of Gwahlur Then there came an interruption Thutmekri came to Keshan at the head of an eian, an adventurer and a rogue whose wits had recodom which lay many days' march to the east He and the Cimmerian knew one another of old, and without love Thut of Keshan, and it also concerned the conquest of Punt which kingdo 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, She of Keshan to annex the hostile kingdos of Zembabwei desired only the monopoly of the trade of Keshan and her tributaries and, as a pledge of good faith, soe, Thutmekri hastened to explain to the suspicious chieftains; they would be placed in the teon and Derketo, sacred guests in the holy shrine of the kingdom, to seal the covenant between Keshan and Zerin to Conan's hard lips

The Ciue with Thutheba He knew that if Thutmekri won his point, he would insist on the instant banish 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 Keshi+a, the royal city, which was a swar about a mud wall that enclosed a palace of stone and mud and bah priest Gorulga announced that before any 15

decision could be reached, the will of the Godsthe proposed alliance with Ze held holy and inviolate The oracle of Alk, that caused tongues to wag excitedly in palace and bee-hive 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 es Of old priests had ht them wisdom The last priest to seek the oracle had been a wicked ht to steal for himself the curiously-cut jewels that men called the Teeth of Gwahlur But some doom had come upon hi, had told tales of horror that had for a hundred years frightened the priests froh 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 custoues buzzed indiscreetly, and Conan caught the clue for which he had sought for weeks the overheard whisper of a lesser priest that sent the Ciht before the dahen the priests were to start

Riding hard as he dared for a night and a day and a night, he came in the early dawn to the cliffs of Alkdole which was taboo to common men None but the priests dared approach the haunted city within a distance of many miles And not even a priest had entered Alkmeenon for a hundred years

No ends said, and none but the priests knew the secret entrance into the valley Conan did not waste ti for it Steeps that balked these black people, horsemen and dwellers of plain and level forest, were not ied 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 hold to le 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 etation hid its ruins But the dolistened in the leaves below him were the unbroken pinnacles of the royal palace of Alk a leg over the rim he went doiftly 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, 16

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 Alkhosts of the dead past But it was Conan's nature to be suspicious and wary The silence was primordial; not even a leaf quivered on a branch When he bent to peer under the trees, he saw nothing but the loom of the deep woods

Nevertheless he arily, sword in hand, his restless eyes co no sound on the sward All about hins of an ancient civilization; , stood in circles of slender trees whose patterns were too syrowth and underbrush had invaded the evenly-planned groves, but their outlines were still visible Broad paverowing through the wide cracks

He glis, lattices of carven stone that ht once have served as the walls of pleasure pavilions

Ahead of hilea the through a screen of vine- tangled branches, he caled, unencurowth, and saw before him the wide, pillared portico of the palace

As hewas 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 catlike pad of his sandalled feet seely loud in the stillness

Soe 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 colu rotted away He traversed this in a twilight direat double-valved bronze doors which stood partly open, as they ed into a vast domed chas of Alkreat doly pierced, for the chahted than the hall which led to it