Part 1 (2/2)
”Will you rated the barbarian, his quick rage leaping up; and he returned the push with an open-handed blow that knocked his torainst the rude-hewn table Ale splashed over the jack's lip, and the Kothian roared in fury, dragging at his sword
”Heathen dog!” he bellowed ”I'll have your heart for that!”
Steel flashed and the throng surged wildly back out of the way In their flight they knocked over the single candle and the den was plunged in darkness, broken by the crash of upset benches, dru over one another, and a single strident yell of agony that cut the din like a knife When a candle was relighted, one out by doors and broken s, and the rest huddled behind stacks of wine kegs and under tables The barbarian was gone; the center of the rooashed body of the Kothian The Ci instinct of the barbarian, had killed his man in the darkness and confusion
2
The lurid lights and drunken revelry fell away behind the Cih the night naked except for a loincloth and his high-strapped sandals He er, his steelyunder his brown skin
He had entered the part of the city reserved for the teht -- snowy olden doe Gods He did not trouble his head about thes of a civilized, long-settled people, was intricate and complex and had lost most of the pristine essence in a maze of formulas and rituals He had squatted for hours in the courtyards of the philosophers, listening to the arguians and teachers, and co, and that, that they were all touched in the head
His Gods were simple and understandable; Croreat mountain, whence he sent forth dooms and death It was useless to call on Croe God, and he hated weaklings But he gave a ht to kill his enemies, which, in the Cimmerian's mind, was all any God should be expected to do
His sandaled feetpave No watchmen passed, for even the thieves of the Maul shunned the tee dooms had been known to fall on violators Ahead of hiainst the sky, The Tower of the Elephant Hewhy it was so named No one seeuely understood that it was a monstrous ani She that he had seen such beasts by the thousands in the country of the Hyrkanians; but all men knehat liars were the men of Shem At any rate, there were no elephants in Za shaft of the tower rose frostily in the stars In the sunlight it shone so dazzlingly that few could bear its glare, and men said it was built of silver It was round, a sliht, and its rireat jehich crusted it The tower stood ah above the general level of the city A high wall enclosed this garden, and outside the as a lower level, likewise enclosed by a wall No lights shone forth; there seemed to be no s in the tower -- at least not above the level of the inner wall Only the geht
Shubbery grew thick outside the lower, or outer wall The Ci it with his eye It was high, but he could leap and catch the coping with his fingers Then it would be child's play to swing himself up and over, and he did not doubt that he could pass the inner wall in the sae perils which were said to aithin These people were strange and mysterious to him; they were not of his kind -- not even of the same blood as the more westerly Brythunians, Nemedians, Kothians, and Aquilonians, he had heard of whose civilized mysteries in times past The people of Zamora were very ancient and, froht of Yara, the high priest, orked strange dooms from this jeweled tower, and the Cimmerian's hair prickled as he ree of the court -- how Yara had laughed in the face of a hostile prince, and held up a glealy from that unholy jewel, to envelop the prince, who screamed and fell down, and shrank to a withered blackened lued to a black spider which scampered wildly about the chamber until Yara set his heel upon it
Yara caic, and always to work evil on so of Zamora feared him more than he feared death, and kept himself drunk all the time because that fear was more than he could endure sober Yara was very old -- centuries old, men said, and added that he would live forever because of the em, which men called the Heart of the Elephant; for no better reason than this they narossed in these thoughts, shrank quickly against the wall Within the garden so, alked with a measured stride The listener heard the clink of steel So, after all, a guard did pace those gardens The Ciain on the next round; but silence rested over the ardens
At last curiosity overca hi flat on the broad coping, he looked down into the wide space between the walls No shrubbery grew near hih he saw soht fell on the even sward, and somewhere a fountain tinkled
The Cimmerian cautiously lowered hi about hi thus unprotected in the naked starlight, and heits shadow, until he was even with the shrubbery he had noticed Then he ran quickly toward it, crouching low, and ales of the bushes
A quick look to the right and left showed hiate His keen eyes, even in the dily-built man in the silvered aruard A shi+eld and a spear lay near him, and it took but an instant's exalanced about uneasily He knew that thisplace by the wall Only a short time had passed, yet in that interval nameless hands had reached out of the dark and choked out the soldier's life
Straining his eyes in the glooh the shrubs near the wall Thither he glided, gripping his sword He ht, yet the lie bulk close to the wall, felt relief that it was at least huasp that sounded like panic, , then recoiled as the Ciht For a tense instant neither spoke, standing ready for anything
”You are no soldier,” hissed the stranger at last ”You are a thief like myself”
”And who are you?” asked the Cimmerian in a suspicious whisper
”Taurus of Nemedia”
The Cimmerian lowered his sword
”I've heard of you Men call you a prince of thieves”
A low laugh answered hi-bellied and fat, but his every netislinted vitally, even in the starlight He was barefooted and carried a coil of what looked like a thin, strong rope, knotted at regular intervals
”Who are you?” he whispered
”Conan, a Ci a way to steal Yara's jewel, that men call the Elephant's Heart”